2020 macbook air ethernet disconnection problem

I am having a similar issue with the Thunderbolt 3 Dock from Belkin, when i am using it, then it is ok, but when i send my laptop to sleep, or turn it off then the whole network collapses. i opted for disconnecting the cable from the dock every time i send the laptop to sleep or turn it off. i know it is not the best solution, but probably in the meantime you find a solution you don't have to suffer the interruption of your home network.


What actually happen if we click the power button in iPhone?

When you press the sleep/wake button, you simply turn off the screen (and lock the device). Audio will still play when the screen is off, but video will stop. Everything else that the phone does will largely be unaffected. Background processes like navigation, audio playback, alarms, etc. will function like normal. Calls, text messages, and notifications will still come in.

Source
https://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/51/20120908/manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1565/en_US/iphone_user_guide.pdf


Dropbox to continue backing up images until it completes

This happens because of a restriction put on all apps performing background tasks, specifically those fetching data. For example, this happens with the Spotify-app as well when it downloads songs for Offline Mode.

There isn't really any way to bypass these restrictions, at least not on a non-jailbroken device. It might be impractical, but the only option is opening the app every time it has to pause/terminate it's background tasks. You can of course also keep the app open – that will allow for the tasks to be completed with no practical time limit.

If you have jailbroken your device, you can download an app enabling what's commonly called "true" multitasking enabling apps, such as InfinityTask, which disables many of Apple's multitasking-restrictions.


Will Reset > Delete Data and Settings, prevent recovering my Data? if I am planning to sell my iPhone?

Any determined hacker can get an awful lot of data off of just about any data storage device. The catch here is, does Apple make it just difficult enough for the average, non-government, hacker to spend more time and money getting the data off your iPhone or SSD than it is worth?
Generally speaking that unless you are carrying information worth tens of thousands of dollars in your iPhone then it is unlikely that it is worth the time, effort and money to recover the data.
Is is POSSIBLE? The answer will (almost) always be yes, unless you want to feed your old iPhone through a metal shredder.
Is it at all LIKELY? The answer will (almost) always be no.
It is a decision only you can make but if the information is only valuable to you then the likelihood of anyone getting any usable information off your iPhone is slim at best. And the built-in wipe feature is sufficient to protect your personal data.


Make sure that you have the correct gateway and netmask, and after setting your IP address information you click OK, then click Apply on the original network screen.


Use Time Machine via AirPort Disk without using sparse bundle?

It's not been shown (yet) how to hack apart the Time Machine process on Lion sufficient to do what you ask (skip the sparse storage format).

I too was bitten by early network based sparse bundles. Since mid 10.6 (maybe 10.6.5) - I've been unable to break Time Capsule based despite repeated tests to be really mean. This includes pulling the power of the capsule in the middle of backups repeatedly to regain confidence. This isn't something I'd do on my main backup, but the Snow Leopard implementation is now rock solid in my eyes.

Realize that by having a less reliable network, this sparse format is actually more reliable overall and has checks and balances to make sure you get a good backup even when bad things happen.


How can I turn an iPod touch into a functional mobile telephone?

There are three steps that would need to be completed to enable an iPod Touch to act as a mobile telephone.

First, it would need to make phone calls. The answers to this question document how to place phone calls using an iPod Touch and VOIP. I personally have used Talkatone, and find that it does work, but has some substantial lags, particularly at the beginning of the conversation.

Second, it would need to receive phone calls. (Note that this is a key difference between using an iPod Touch as a mobile telephone, as asked in your title, and a calling device, as asked in the body of the first version of your question!) This is a much more difficult prospect, as presumably you would want the device to be able to receive calls at any time, and not just when a particular app is running. It would appear that the program Skype is available for the iPod Touch and could be used to make and receive phone calls.

Finally, unlike the iPhone, the iPod Touch can only communicate with the rest of the world when it is connected to a WiFi network. A mobile hotspot like the MiFi carried with you could give the iPod Touch steady access to a WiFi network.

All that said, you'll end up paying for Skype in and out on top of paying for the data plan for the MiFi. It might be simpler and not a whole lot more expensive to just go with an actual iPhone.

In other words, it can be done to make an iPod Touch more like an iPhone, but that doesn't mean you'd want to, besides as a proof of concept.


Changing the default contact group when using Exchange ActiveSync

In iOS 5.1, you can define a "Default Account" for Contacts in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Scroll down until you see a Contacts heading; Default Account is at the bottom of that section. This setting will affect where new Contacts created on the iPhone are placed.


How can I dynamically choose smart or non-smart quotes?

iWork '09 apps don't seem to have an Edit > Substitutions menu, but in ones that do you can set up a custom shortcut for toggling the Smart Quotes item:


How do I print a single page document to multiple copies, double sided?

You can’t print a single-sided document double-sided. There is no second side.

Here’s what you can do.

Use the “Print” function in your app and choose “Save as PDF”.

Name the file something like “TwoSided.pdf”

Then open “TwoSided.pdf” in Preview.app.

In Preview.app, choose View » Thumbnails.

The top of the document will say “TwoSided.pdf (1 page)”

Then go back to Finder.app and drag “TwoSided.pdf” from finder to the Thumbnail column on the left hand side. Drop it when you are over the “Thumbnails” sidebar column.

Now it should say “TwoSided.pdf (page 1 of 2)”. (or “page 2 of 2”… it’s the “of 2” that is important.)

Go to File » Save

Now go to File » Print and choose “Two-sided”.


Beta Command Line Tools offered as update—why?

Apple has also now fixed the same issue which occurred with macOS 10.14 Mojave offering CLTools for macOS 10.15 Catalina. For a short time, the 10.14 catalog included 10.15's tools, but this has since been removed from this catalog and only included in the beta catalog.

https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-10.14-10.13-10.12-10.11-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog.gz

A removal package has not been provided for removing the 10.15 tools specifically this year. You can try removing the tools using the removal package for 10.14 or removing them completely, then reinstall them:

http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/11/13/041-71563/s1da971g95kch5ljsghwjufij12crr2o5b/CLTools_macOS_DevSDK_Remove_1014.pkg
How do I uninstall the command line tools for Xcode?

Apple fixed the issue for macOS 10.13 High Sierra. Refresh the updates with ⌘R and the update should disappear.

This was a bug on Apple's part. Apple has incorrectly released this update to everyone, not just those on a beta upgrade path.

If the update is still shown, you can hide it by right-clicking and choosing Hide Update.

If you've installed the update and realised your tools are broken, you can remove these tools using CLTools_macOS_SDK_Remove_1014.pkg from Apple:

http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/01/53/091-65367/h0b7b20hoylsqj7pih1htv5b9oa9y4z4gq/CLTools_macOS_SDK_Remove_1014.pkg

The update was incorrectly provided in the default software update catalog on High Sierra: https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-10.13-10.12-10.11-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog.gz.

The update is provided for beta and developers in their associated catalogs:

https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-10.13beta-10.13-10.12-10.11-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog.gz
https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-10.13seed-10.13-10.12-10.11-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog.gz

<dict>
    <key>Digest</key>
    <string>82bddd90f3152da26424d8c6fb7264763a3eee78</string>
    <key>Size</key>
    <integer>26082625</integer>
    <key>MetadataURL</key>
    <string>https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/01/53/091-65367/h0b7b20hoylsqj7pih1htv5b9oa9y4z4gq/CLTools_SDK_macOS1014.pkm</string>
    <key>URL</key>
    <string>http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/01/53/091-65367/h0b7b20hoylsqj7pih1htv5b9oa9y4z4gq/CLTools_SDK_macOS1014.pkg</string>
</dict>


How do I open a file with an extension of .accdb?

.accdb are most likely Access 2007/2010 database files. You can try to open them with Openoffice or Neoffice (free open source office suites).


Why does running the App Store push email to my iPad?

At an educated guess, I would say the following is happening:

Exchange is designed to push - and the exchange server is no doubt pushing to Apple servers - regardless of whether you have push enabled on the iPad or not, it's just how it works.

When you connect to the Apple store, you connect to the Apple notification server (or renew your connection to it) and in doing so pick up any mail that hasn't been collected from the exchange server yet. I would imagine the same would happen with other push notifications as they pass to the Apple server whether they are enabled on your iPad or not.

What would be interesting to test is whether this happens with a conventionally configured Gmail account - which would probably shed more light on what is happening.


"Search in Google" always open Safari instead of default browser

I believe "Search in Google" is a Mac OS X service provided by Apple. Maybe since they don't know how to pass a webpage in parameter for every browser in the wild, I suppose they limited it to Safari.
What you might try, is to develop your own Service, then go to

System Parameters > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services

Disable the "Search in Google" by Apple and replace it with your own.
You could also try to edit Apple's Service and replace Safari with the browser you want.
Since I'm not on my Mac right now, I can't search for them or look if you can edit them.


How do you change the keys inserted while holding the Option key?

You can remap keys with Ukelele or Karabiner.

http://scripts.sil.org/ukelele

https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/


For things you've bought already, not easily. You can look online for PDF versions of the book which aren't strictly legal, but apart from that you don't have a huge number of options.

However, I've definitely seen books that come with their digital copies - although the last one I bought, which was a Wrox book, required me to install Adobe Digital Editions.

Another option, if you have developer books, might be Safari Books Online, which allows you to save up tokens to download full copies of books.


Dropbox public link video - downloading onto an iPad

I'd recommend using the app called Documents (https://readdle.com/products/documents). You can save all kinds of documents on it and it's easy to use and organize files on.


Does homebrew usually put lots of files in the /usr/local folder itself?

Yes. That's how homebrew does.

You can usually trust

brew doctor

to tell if things are correct - it is pretty good about flagging anything amiss in /usr/local.

But to confirm your main question, the normal for homebrew it that it's noted for being "chatty" in that directory with many files and folders.


iMac freezing with graphical artifacts, what to do?

Turned out to be a faulty graphics card. I replaced it with a new, and problems went away.


Custom keyboard layout: Command+V doesn't paste in Safari and Mail

I'm not surprised you may be experiencing this issue with Apple Software. Basically the Command-. keyboard shortcut has been used by Mac OS for decades as a universal "halt operations" keyboard shortcut.

In a sense it works in a similar way to the ESC key. So I am thinking this is why you are experiencing problems with this keyboard shortcut. It used to be that software developers had to respect this Command-. keyboard shortcut for any software they developed for the Mac platform, but this is no longer the case, hence why your keyboard shortcut may be working with some software but not others. You may want to read the Keyboard Shortcuts page in the macOS Human Interface Guidelines.

Extra Info

Apple first introduced the Command key in 1980 with the Apple III computer.

The purpose of the Command key was to allow users to enter keyboard commands in applications and within the operating system. The Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines have always recommended that developers use the Command key (and not the Control or Option keys) for this purpose.

A small set of keyboard commands (such as cut and paste, open and save) are standard across all applications. If an application needs more shortcuts than can be obtained with the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet, double modifiers such as Command+Option are used.

The Macintosh keyboard's other unusual modifier key, the Option key, serves as a modifier both for entering keyboard shortcuts and for typing text — it is used to enter foreign characters, typographical symbols, and other special characters.

As mentioned previously, the Command-. shortcut was once a universal recommended shortcut, but this is no longer reserved by macOS. In fact, Table 67-3 of the macOS Human Interface Guidelines now only lists one keyboard shortcut with a period (.) in it. This is the Control-Option-Command-. keyboard shortcut for increasing screen contrast. You can read more about this in Accessibility Programming Guide for OS X.


Are their drivers for the Apple Keyboard in Windows 7 64bit?(Bonus point: Where's Print Screen?)

I use a Apple Keyboard on W7 Daily.

The key thing is to use a utility that lets you remap the keys.

Personally, I use a little utility called KeyTweak (It's Free!), but there are lots of other alternatives.

This lets you set unused keys to whatever you want - I have F13 set as print-screen, and F14-F19 set as media playback keys (play, pause, etc).
It can also let you fix the windows/alt keys so they are in the correct place, if that bothers you.

There are a couple of caveats, namely I have yet to find anything that lets you make use of the "fn" and eject keys. However, the additional (unused) F13-F19 keys compensate for that.


Xcode 5.1.1 cannot run on device with iOS 8.0 version

You need to gather symbols from device before connecting it to Xcode 5. Download and install Xcode 6 side by side with older Xcode. Connect iOS8 device to Xcode 6. Wait for it to collect symbols and see if device is ready for development. From now on Xcode 5 is able to "see" the device properly.


iPad/iPhone on iOS 5 - images don't always load in Safari, just on my network

Tough one.  Definitely need to see more troubleshooting.  Some places to start:

Find an image that the iPads are having difficulty loading, then open just that image in a separate page in Safari.  Any problem loading and reloading the image on a page by itself?
How many WiFi devices are being served by one base station?  At some point it gets overloaded with sheer volume of requests, even if the data transfer is small.
Is the WiFi base station doing NAT, possibly leading to a double-NAT setup that will clog the local network with failed connections?  You would still be able to browse the web, but overall network performance would suffer.


My Developer Account cannot be activated because I used a relative's credit card

From the iOS Developer Program Support:

  If I enroll as an Individual in the Standard program can I use someone else’s credit card to purchase the Program?

  The billing information provided for
  the purchase must exactly match the
  Program enrollment information. If
  this information does not match your
  enrollment will be delayed and you
  will be asked to provide a notarized
  copy of a government issued
  identification.

I would contact support and ask them what to do next.


Disable automatic iTunes launch when iPhone is plugged in via USB

iTunes

Open iTunes, select your device, go to the Summary tab and unselect either Open iTunes when this iPhone is connected, or Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected depending on your version of iTunes.

Also, you might wish to disable iTunes Helper. Go to System Preferences → Users & Groups → Login Items and delete iTunes Helper from the list.
iPhoto

Open iPhoto, open Preferences (iPhoto → Preferences or ⌘,). Select General tab and set Connecting camera opens to No application.
Photos (new version of iPhoto)

Let Photos open when you connect your device, select the "Import" tab and untick the box for "Open Photos for this device"


How can I boot my dual-booted Mac back to OS X?

Hold ⌥ on boot and select your OS X partition. This changes your boot partition once for that time you boot.

If you want to change it permanently, boot to OS X, open System Preferences → Startup Disk and select your OS X partition, or boot to Windows, open the Boot Camp Control Panel and select the OS X partition as the boot partition. Then, you will need to ⌥-boot to boot to Windows.


Final Cut Pro 7 does work on OS X Yosemite.

Check out ProVideoCoalition's post that detailing the installation of FCP7 on OS X 10.10; Installing and editing with Final Cut Pro 7 on a new Macbook Pro with Yosemite

  Overall the edit went very well. Not a crash, not a peep from Final
  Cut Pro 7.0.3.

  Oh, and that was running Yosemite version 10.10 so we know Final Cut
  Pro Classic is still working on Apple’s latest operating system.

Multiple users on Apple Support Communities have said the same;

  cameradude2

  Does anyone know if Final Cut Pro 7 work in the new Yosemite upgrade?

  Mer the Dog

  It does on my system...


How to show passwords in Keychain Access?

Okay, I figured out why this is happening, after reading this article and this answer.

If you have access to a WiFi network because at one point or another you or someone else explicitly shared the password with you using the "Share Password" feature on iOS 11+ and macOS High Sierra+, then you never actually received the true plaintext password and so it is not saved in your keychain.

Instead, you get a kind of alphanumeric hash that was based on that password. Your device can use that hash to connect to the WiFi, but it's not feasible to reconstruct the original password from it.

So:

I am seeing these alphanumeric hashes for certain WiFi networks because I must have entered the true password on iOS and then explicitly shared it to my Mac (instead of relying on iCloud Keychain sync, to sync the true passwords across devices).
since that hash is all that's saved in my keychain, I have no way to recover the true password
whenever you use the "Share Password" feature to share a WiFi password to nearby devices, you're not actually sharing the password but only access to the network.


Time Machine backup .sparsebundle file inaccessible on new computer

Have a look here and try doing what he does (I know the problem is different).

The key came from a comment buried down near the bottom of the page. Running fsck kept getting clobbered with a "Disk In Use" error, but this solved it:

FWIW, I found that even with -noautofsck, snow leopard would auto-fsck, meaning I would get ‘resource busy’ or whatever. I have no idea why it is ignoring my no-auto-fsck request. Whatever.To allow the process to go, I ‘ps auxwww | grep fsck’ to find the PID, then ‘sudo kill (PID)’ to kill this fsck so I can run my own.

Killing the auto-fsck allowed me to run it myself. Not sure how long it took, I started it at 2am and it was done by the time I got up 6 hours later, but it was on a 500+ GB .sparsebundle, so I'm assuming it took a while.


What does Apple want for the WWDC Scholarship application uploads?

I think Apple wants the people that apply to know how the Xcode tool chain works and have invested enough time to be able to submit a real app for review rather than being people that can fill out a web form to apply for a ticket.

Now, since you've found us and asked for help with lots of detail, I think you are very close to qualifying for a chance to win a ticket, but you might need to ask a second question staking out one specific step that you don't quite get.

That will entice someone who is an expert to help you over the one item you have identified as the single biggest obstacle. At that point, you are free to ask again with your next biggest obstacle, but as you have surmised, asking too much of an answerer by submitting a "wall of question" is generally frowned upon on Q&A sites. Your nice pictures do help ameliorate the large amount of text, but it still seems like a three part question (or more) to me as written.

Lots of detail does not imply lots of thinking. We can't do your thinking for you, but we can attempt to help if you've shown clearly what you think and what specifically you need help with.


Apple will support it natively in Safari from El Capitan!! (only with HTML5+)
http://www.apple.com/osx/elcapitan-preview/


mis-positioning of favicon dragged-and-dropped on desktop 10.8.5

This problem disappeared when I installed MacOS 10.9.


How to ensure that Mac in network always remains connected to local Mac?

Alternatively you can drag the items to your desktop to create Alias' that when you click will prompt for usernames and passwords.

Users can choose to remember the password in their keychain and they won't be asked for it again.

I use this solution for my server at home, dragged all the Alias' into a folder, put that folder in my Home Directory and then dragged it to the right side of the dock, I not have a nice stack full of the server shares I use regularly.


script copy sender(s) email address only to the clipboard

Yes, AppleScript makes it easily possible !

Here is an AppleScript which can do that :

tell application "Mail"
    set theSenderList to {}
    set theMessages to the selected messages of message viewer 0
    repeat with aMessage in theMessages
        set end of theSenderList to sender of aMessage
    end repeat
    set the clipboard to (theSenderList as rich text)
    beep
end tell

It will cop the mail senders to the clipboard as following: John Doe <John.Doe@gmail.com>

The same script without the names :

tell application "Mail"
    set theSenderList to {}
    set theMessages to the selected messages of message viewer 0
    repeat with aMessage in theMessages
        set end of theSenderList to (extract address from sender of aMessage)
    end repeat
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "
    set the clipboard to (theSenderList as string)
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
    beep
end tell

It outputs only the addresses with a space delimiter : john.doe@gmail.com jane.doe@gmail.com

For the beep, just add beep before the end tell (as I already did above).


Viewing previous processes/application activity on Mac

Not really - and the more you try to prove with technical details, you might be sabotaging yourself. It’s easier for you to tamper with the process list than it is to cheat on an online test, so I wouldn’t go down that path at all.
I would just ask the accuser or referee how you can demonstrate mastery of the material and remedy the situation. It’s awful when your character is accused and it’s awful when you get caught cheating, so either way, you are in a bad situation and grasping for a technicality isn’t going to help you. This is a social problem, not one that can be dismissed without two conditions:

Referee has to be agreeable to a technical summary and adjudication.
You can in no way be involved in the preparation of any exculpatory data. A forensic investigator has to handle the preservation, preparation, analysis and evaluation of any technical evidence.


Check the version of Mac OS X - Microsoft has dropped support for Mac OS X 10.7 and 10.8.

See this tech-net link for more info OSX 10.7 Remote Desktop crash at startup.

I believe that an Mac OS X update to 10.10 (El Capitan) is available free in the App Store.


As soon as I rebooted my Mac, the problem fixed itself.

Now my keyboard preference pane looks like it should and I’m able to modify the Touch Bar.


What will happen if I will copy the information from encrypted hard drive? Will it be store decrypted?

It will be stored as plain files; FileVault encryption only protects files when thy're on your startup volume. You can encrypt the external drive if you want. You can also create an encrypted disk image, store the image on the external disk, and then store files inside the encrypted image. But unless you do something to encrypt the files, they'll be freely readable from the external disk.

BTW, the same is true of Apple's Time Machine backup system -- backing up a FileVault-protected Mac results in an unencrypted backup unless you choose the option to encrypt the backup.


Does not work on Mavericks and Yosemite
There is no way to legitimately get the file without having access to a Mac, and a licensed copy of the OS via a purchase (unless you are a member of the Developer Program, for which you can expect to pay far more than the cost of the OS, what with it being free).
But if you can blag some access time on a Mac, then you can download the OS from the Mac App Store (You may need to Option+Click the Purchased section to force it to reshow them if you have downloaded them at least once already).  Once you have the installer downloaded and sat in your dock, you can simply pick it apart and get to  the image file that is inside it.
This is the official way to get the file direct from Apple, but there is still work to do to make it into an ISO:

Once you’ve downloaded Mavericks, find the installer on your Mac. It’s called Install OS X Mavericks.app and it should have been downloaded to your main Applications folder or be sat in your Dock.

Right-click (or Control+click) the installer, and choose Show Package Contents from the resulting contextual menu.

In the folder that appears, open Contents > Shared Support; you’ll see a disk image file called InstallESD.dmg
This dmg file is in essence an ISO file in s slightly different format.  We'll need to convert it.  Open up Disk Utility and:

From the menu bar, select Images > Convert and point it to your .dmg file

In the Save As dialog that follows, select DVD/CD master. Disk Utility will insist on saving the new ISO as a .cdr file, but it is really an ISO.

When complete, you can rename it to .iso in Finder.

Use an external HD or thumb drive which is in ExFAT format (Compared to FAT format, this allows for single files larger than 4GB). Copy the .iso file and access it on the other system.

For clarity, you can do the above on any version of OS X from 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) onwards, so you can use an old image to get hold of a new image for example, if you have access to a different OS version than Mavericks.


Is there a way of getting a list of photos not in an album?

As of iOS 10.2.1, you can only do this in Photos for macOS.

Open File → New Smart Album.
Name your Smart Album whatever you like, eg. Uncategorized.
Simply specify the condition: Album is not Any.

Starting with Photos 2.0, Smart Albums do not refresh instantly with every change. This means that you can drag an uncategorized photo from the Smart Album into multiple folders.


macOS Big Sur Dictionary.app doesn't use system proxy

This phenomenon is not unique to Big Sur—it likely dates back to when the Dictionary application was first introduced in Tiger. @1110101001 did some reverse engineering to figure out what's going on.
DictionaryServices.framework makes network connections via the now-deprecated CFHTTPStream. According to an Apple engineer and Apple's own code, any software which uses CFHTTPStream will ignore the system's proxy settings, unless the developer goes out of their way to add a few extra lines of code.
To fix this problem, we'll need to inject some code which does what the original developers did not—tell the app to apply the system's proxy settings before running CFHTTPStream.
First, compile the following code (e.g. clang -framework AppKit -framework Foundation -o ProxyFix.dylib -dynamiclib /path/to/code.m) to create a library we can inject. This was also mostly written by 1110101001; I tweaked it to work with apps that use two-level namespaces.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <objc/runtime.h>
#include <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#include <dlfcn.h>
#include <AppKit/AppKit.h>

#define DYLD_INTERPOSE(_replacement,_replacee) \
    __attribute__((used)) static struct{ const void* replacement; const void* replacee; } _interpose_##_replacee \
                __attribute__ ((section ("__DATA,__interpose"))) = { (const void*)(unsigned long)&_replacement, (const void*)(unsigned long)&_replacee };

CFReadStreamRef myCFReadStreamCreateForHTTPRequest(CFAllocatorRef alloc, CFHTTPMessageRef request) {
    printf("Injected ProxyFix!\n");
    CFReadStreamRef ref = CFReadStreamCreateForHTTPRequest(alloc, request);
    CFDictionaryRef systemProxyDict = CFNetworkCopySystemProxySettings();
    CFReadStreamSetProperty(ref, kCFStreamPropertyHTTPProxy, systemProxyDict);
    return ref;
}

DYLD_INTERPOSE(myCFReadStreamCreateForHTTPRequest, CFReadStreamCreateForHTTPRequest);

We now need to insert this library into the Dictionary application. Luckily, macOS comes with a built-in mechanism for injecting code in the form of DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES. If you, like me, are running an ancient and lovably-hackable version of macOS such as 10.9, all you need to do is run your app after setting this environmental variable. For example, run in Terminal:
DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=/path/to/ProxyFix.dylib /Applications/Dictionary.app/Contents/MacOS/Dictionary

If you're running macOS 10.6 or below, or if the application isn't code signed (possibly because you removed the code signature via optool or similar), you can also add this environment variable to the app's Info.plist, so that the library is injected automatically.
defaults write /Applications/Dictionary.app/Contents/Info LSEnvironment -dict DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES @executable_path/../Frameworks/ProxyFix.dylib

Unfortunately, newer versions of macOS have additional security features to prevent code injection. Starting with 10.11, you will need to disable System Integrity Protection in order to use DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES. On the newest OS's such as Big Sur, you may (or may not) need to take further steps as well, such as disabling AMFI—I'm not entirely familiar with all of the new security checks Apple has layered on in recent years.

P.S. If you're running 10.6 – 10.9, I wrapped this up into a little installer which helps you set up a proxy, and then applies the above patch to the Dictionary app. Without the aid of a proxy, the Dictionary app's Wikipedia functionality no longer works at all on these systems. https://jonathanalland.com/downloads/wowfunhappy-https-proxy.dmg


Will Apple offer a discounted replacement for a water damaged iPhone 4S outside of warranty?

They will.  I believe, but don't quote me, replacement cost will be $99.  Apple will only deny service if there is catastrophic damage (imagine a phone in 3 pieces), is a counterfeit device or if it is missing parts.  If it is only liquid damage then they will likely offer replacement at that discounted cost.


Why does someone else's notifications come up on my Twitter account for iPhone?

In a nutshell - your phone asked to be notified and never cleaned up that request (or the clean up request didn't get processed correctly.)

If you simply uninstall the application and wait (perhaps using a different iOS twitter app in the meantime), the system will remove your device from that notification queue once it misses enough deliveries of a notification. This takes a variable amount of time, so you might want to force the issue by logging back in as your friend and removing the request to send notifications to your iPhone.

According to this thread on the Apple support forums, here’s that fix:

Log in with the previous account in Twitter settings.
Go to the Twitter apps’s “accounts” page.
Click “Settings” (bottom left).
Edit the notifications of the previous account by switching to “off” for “mentions and replies” and “message”.
Finally, delete the account again.


Script to acknowledge if task already done then update text file/list

According to your comment, then you would add this line in the condition that "serialize"'s the file if it doesn't exist.

printf '%s - %s\n' "$(scutil --get ComputerName)" "$(date)" >> /share/adobeupdate.txt


Listing RealNames of all the users of an Open Directory group in MAC OS X

There's probably something wrong with this or an easier way to do the same thing, but could you just run dscl . -read /Search/Users/username RealName for all usernames?

g=admin; dscl . -list /Users | while read l; do printf %s "$l "; dsmemberutil checkmembership -U $l -G $g; done | grep 'is a member' | cut -d' ' -f1 | while read l; do echo "$l $(dscl . -read /Users/$l RealName | tail -n1 | cut -c2-)"; done


How to increase / decrease a priority of a macOS process?

Possible duplicate to this superuser question.

However, you may want to read this article.

Here is the gist you really need to do:

Make sure that no malware is running / slowing down your mac.
In Terminal, identify running processes: ps -ef
Make sure to close any unneeded resource intensive applications and processes, e.g. check the CPU, Memory, Disk usage at least with Activity Monitor.
nice (if just launching) or renice (if already running) the desired app, e.g. 'photoanalysisd' to maximum. In Terminal: renice -n "-20" -p (put PID of 'photoanalysisd' here)
renice everything else you still need to be running to minimum. In Terminal: renice -n "20" -p (put PID of process you need to de-prioritize here)

NOTE that the:

Max (Requested) Priority = -20 (Minimal value)
Min (Requested) Priority = +20 (Maximal value)

that may be a bit confusing.

If all of above fails to produce enough improvement, the following upgrades may be a cost effective solution, if available for your mac:

1) Switch your HDD or slower SSD to an SSD with the the maximum Link Speed that your mac system supports. (Prior to this, if possible, add a fastest available interface to your system.) The current numbers can be viewed in the System Information app's Hardware > PCI | SATA/SATA Express tabs, as well as other tabs relevant interfaces your system actually has installed. The supported speeds may be available on your system's Apple support page, although they may be lower than the factual, since Apple may not update support pages when, for example, a firmware update adds support for a faster interface that was not supported by the original.

2) Max out your RAM. Again, the supported RAM amount may be available on your system's Apple System's support page, although it may be lower than the factual, since Apple is known to me to not update these when for example a larger single RAM unit becomes available than at inception. For example a 2010 Mac Mini supports 16 GB of RAM (2 x 8 GB), while according to the Apple support page it only supports 8 GB total. I would suggest you research this further on user forums for your system.

Apple systems, other than notebooks, tend to be sold with a big upgrade-ability. So if you max out the above two factors, you may increase the responsiveness of your system from crawl to excellent easily. (e.g.: RAM 2 GB -> 16 GB + SATA HDD -> SATA 2 SSD = 2nd life)

(For the few Apple systems that allow GPU upgrades, proceed similar to item 1) above)


Replacing optical drive in macbook with SSD: does it matter where the SSD drive is installed?

Yes this does matter depending on the sata speed of your hdd, ssd and the laptop.

My 2011 MacBook Pro supports 6 Gb/s to the original hdd and 3 to the Optical drive.

My ssd supports 6 Gb/s and my original hdd supports 3 gb/s.

Obviously, I did not put the ssd in the optical bay caddy (which would have been less work). Instead, I moved the original hdd to the caddy an placed the ssd where the hdd originally used to be.

This way, my ssd runs at 6gb/s and my hdd (still) at 3 Gb/s.

Good luck!


How can I set up a private virtual LAN for my laptop and its guest VMs

I haven't tried it on an OS X host but "Host-only networking" does what you want. See: http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch06.html


possible to enable "gumdrop" buttons (close/minimize/zoom) in all windows (disable auto-hide of these buttons for non active window)?

No, what you're asking for is not possible.  There's no "tweak" to remove the "auto hide feature" because it's not a feature; it's a design element of macOS.
Apple provides very specific guidance when working with the Title Bar within the Frame in their guidelines in Window Anatomy of their Human Interface Guidelines for macOS:

This is how users interact with the system and specifically, this is how they know what window is active or not.  Apple goes out of their way to document how users should interact with every element; their not going to supply a way to circumvent it.  For context, this can't be done in any OS GUI that I can think of ranging from Windows to GNOME, KDE, XFCE, etc.  There's no reason for Apple to deviate from this standard.


Out of disk space when restoring iPhone backup from iTunes

You may want to consider using a utility like OmniDiskSweeper (free) or Daisy Disk ($20) to see if there aren't some unusually large files hiding somewhere, eating up disk space. You can find more apps like these in the answers to How can I free up some disk space?

If your disk is that full and you really can't remove anything else from the startup disk, I would definitely advise upgrading to a larger hard drive. It's generally recommended to keep about 15% of your disk free, and I would certainly advise against getting below 10 GB of free space on your startup disk.

Not having enough disk space on your startup disk can easily cause severe performance problems and more frequent crashing — especially if you completely run out of space.

Other than upgrading your hard drive, you could consider temporarily moving some larger files to another drive until you have enough room for the restore, then, after the restore has completed successfully, you could copy them back to the startup disk.

Depending on what's taking up disk space, it may be worth looking into permanently moving some files to other drives. For example, iTunes and iPhoto libraries, which can often take up a lot of space, can be moved to other drives fairly easily.


Print Job scheduling was removed in OS X 10.7 Lion. As a workaround, you can pause the printer, print what you want then continue the printer.

You can provide feedback to Apple regarding this on the following page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html


Why does Chrome have much better performance in rendering 3D graphics than Safari?

Overall, the Etrecheck report looks pretty good. I would suggest that you remove the adware it found, as that can sometimes affect performance. You could click the red "remove" button next to items that are labeled as adware.

An alternative way to remove adware is by downloading Malwarebytes for Mac. After you do that, I would also suggest you update Flash Player just to protect against malware that may reduce browsing performance, among other things.

I would suggest that after this you also boot your Mac in Safe Mode. Once your system boots and displays a red "Safe Mode" label at the top right of the login screen, you can shut down and power on the machine. After that, hopefully things run a bit better. You can learn more about safe mode here: Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac


At symbol is in the wrong place on an Apple keyboard on Windows 7

Use shift + '.   At is in in quote. See onscreen keyboard. The symbols are swapped.


In this case, it was caused by Spotify. It may have something to do with the ads that refresh every 10 seconds, but it started happening immediately after I opened it a minute ago, the 3-month hiatus ended the day I reinstalled it, and it usually happens in about hour-long increments, about how long I usually have Spotify open. I'm now 100% sure of this, it directly correlates with when the app is open or closed. It's strange, though, the window I'm in doesn't appear to lose focus, and this even happens when clicking on something in Spotify, but Spotify is what's causing it beyond a doubt.


A shortcut for copying an X into a Column B based on data in Column A

Put a formula into column B (e.g. in cell B1)

=if(a1="red";"X";"")

You can also stack the ifs for different values

=if(a1="red";"X";if(a1="blue";"Y";"")


Can I list donors' names in my app to thank them for donations made externally?

Yes, it turned out you can do this.  I submitted by app to the App Store and it was approved.  Apps cannot have a link to donate, but they can list donors' names.

If you are a registered non-profit, you can put a link to your site to donate in your app.


Has the step counter been recalibrated with iPhone 7 or iOS 10?

The motion coprocessor is a different version in the iPhone 7.

Embedded within the A10 chip, there is another chip, called the motion coprocessor, M10. The new version of the coprocessor is likely to account for these errors in step counting.

In addition, this step counting is really only supposed to be an estimate. If you want an actually somewhat accurate step tracking solution, you should go for a dedicated wearable device, like a FitBit or Apple Watch.

The motion coprocessor is simply a gimmick to match competitors' phones.


Is it possible to view two Apple IDs at the same time on the Find iPhone app?

If you add the second Apple ID as a family member on Family Sharing, you can see all your Family devices on Find my iPhone.

Or you can enter the credentials of the second Apple ID on any phone on the Find my iPhone app -or iCloud- and look for it.

If you’re willing to let some functionality out (no remotely playing sound, or locking and changing passcode), you can use Apple’s Find Friends and invite any Apple ID. You can then see the user on a map, set geofences and get informed on that user movements, but they can remove you at any time.


Why did my iPhone's GPS tracking get so bad?

I regularly experienced similar problems with RunKeeper on my iPhone 4S where distance was over-measured. When reviewing the plotted map of my run I could see the coordinates jumping a bit erratically from one point to the other, accounting for the extra distance, and this for entire outdoor runs, not just sporadicly on spots with bad GPS reception.

Normal run:

Bugged run:

While I cannot give a definitive answer as to why this problem occurs, and why the iPhone seems to get stuck in this bugged state when it does, completely rebooting the iPhone (and possibly additionally toggling Flight Mode to reboot the antennas as well) seemed to always resolve it for a few days or even weeks.

On a sidenote, since I upgraded to my iPhone5 (with iOS 6 ofcourse), the problem has not presented itself again so far. Perhaps the problem was fixed in either iOS or in the hardware meanwhile.


Remove special characters and replace space with _ from files and directories Recursively in Bash

Untested

find . -depth -print0 |
while IFS= read -d '' -r file; do
    dir=$(dirname "$file")
    base=$(basename "$file")
    base=${base//[[:space:]]/_}         # change whitespace to underscores
    base=${base//[^[:alnum:]_.]/}       # delete any chars not alphanumeric _ .
    newname="$dir/$base"
    if [[ -e $newname ]]; then
        echo "'$newname' exists, not renaming '$file'"
    else
        echo mv "$file" "$newname"
    fi
done

If it looks OK, remove the "echo"

The key here is the "-depth" option to find. It will emit "./sub dir/file name" before "./sub dir".  Otherwise if "./sub dir" is renamed to "./subdir", then you'll get a 'file not found' error when the while loops gets to "./sub dir/file name". Also, it means you don't need different logic for directories.

The "-print0" option to find and the busy-ness around the read command are to ensure filenames with spaces are handled properly.


How to grant a Mac app permission to read the whole filesystem

The app is sandboxed. This means the application has been code signed with a set of entitlements. These entitlements are being enforced by Mac OS X. Apple's developer documentation on sandboxing provides more detail.

You can view Xee's sandbox entitlements using the following Terminal.app command:

codesign --display --entitlements - /Applications/Xee.app

Ole Begemann's article, Checking Code Signing and Sandboxing Status in Code, explains more.

Resign or Strip Entitlements

To remove the entitlements, you need to re-code sign the application without entitlements - using codesign - or entirely strip the code signing from the application.

Ask Xee's Developers

Modifying a Mac application is not recommended. Ask Xee's developers for help on how to work around this behaviour; only they have the appropriate knowledge to solve this problem.

Xee's developers do appear to be aware of the issue:

  (Note that the App Store version is sandboxed, while the non-App Store trial and full versions are not sandboxed. If you prefer the safety of the OS X sandbox, you should get the App Store version. However, the sandboxed version needs to ask you for permission for certain operations, and if you find this annoying, you should get the non-App Store version.)

Tell Apple

Consider providing feedback to Apple about this limitation and how it limits your workflow. Customer feedback will help shape what Mac App Store apps can and can not do in the future. For now, apps bought through the Apple Mac App Store are limited.


How to create the app icon on current screen?

New apps are never installed to the first screen.  Instead, they are put in the first open space available from the second screen onward.  If there is no open space for the app, then a new screen is created.

This does seem like something that could easily be turned into a preference; and, there may be a jailbreak setting already.  But there is currently no way to override this behavior that is supported by Apple.


The first thing to check is whether Photos Library.photoslibrary (the 53.31GB one) is Catalina- or Mojave-compatible (Or neither - i.e. it's somehow got corrupted).
If you have access to two Macs - one running Catalina and the other Mojave, try to open the library on both and see which one can open it. Do make sure you're opening the correct library (Since you have more than one):

In Mojave, open Photos > Preferences > Library location > Click on the current library, navigate to where your desired library is located, and select it.

In Catalina, open Photos > Preferences > System library. Navigate to where this library is located, and set it as the system library.

If you don't have two Macs, try this: Right-click on the Photos library > select Show package contents > If there's a folder named Masters, it's Mojave. If there's a folder named Originals, it's Catalina (Be very careful not to make any changes to any of the folders or files, otherwise it'll corrupt the library).
If you open Masters or Originals, the unmodified versions of all your photos will be in there. Latest edited versions (for Catalina) will be in Resources > Derivatives. An easier way to extract the photos along with metadata is with a Mac app named Photos Takeout, but that will only work if your library isn't corrupted.


Cron has be deprecated on modern versions of OS X. Apple's suggestion is to use launchd instead. You will find Lingon to be a useful tool for creating launchd daemons.

If you would prefer to use iCal to launch the script, you can create a separate calendar for scripted event(s), and hide it from view. It will function, but your calendar view will not be cluttered.


Is installing Mavericks on Hackintosh legal?

It is not in accordance with Apple's license to run OS X on a non-Apple hardware as per Apple's license agreement for OS X Mavericks. Since this question is not about a preinstalled version of OS X (which is only on new Macs), the Mac App Store License section is applicable, along with the Other Use Restrictions section that is common for both kinds of installations. The license agreement states (emphasis mine):

  2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.
  B. Mac App Store License. If you obtained a license for the Apple Software from the Mac App Store, then subject to the terms and conditions of this License and as permitted by the Mac App Store Usage Rules set forth in the App Store Terms and Conditions (http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/ww/) (“Usage Rules”), you are granted a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive license:
  (i) to download, install, use and run for personal, non-commercial use, one (1) copy of the Apple Software directly on each Apple-branded computer running OS X Mountain Lion, OS X Lion or OS X Snow Leopard (“Mac Computer”) that you own or control;

  ...
  H. Other Use Restrictions. The grants set forth in this License do not permit you to, and you agree not to, install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-branded computer, or to enable others to do so.

See the SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR OS X MAVERICKS PDF for more details. You can also get to this agreement by going to the Software License Agreements page, then navigating to Operating System Software Tools and Server, and choosing OS X (Mavericks).
As an additional point, even though OS X Mavericks is free for Apple Mac users, it's only because Apple has changed how it accrues revenue from Mac hardware sales by adopting the subscription model (which has been in use for iOS devices for longer), wherein Apple defers accruing a portion of the revenue from Mac sales for providing software updates in the future (including free apps and such). Apple has defined this deferral as two years for iOS devices and four years for Macs. This is the only way for Apple to adhere to accounting laws in the U.S. Searching for "apple subscription accounting" on the web would yield many results on this topic.

Whether using Apple's software in violation of Apple's license is illegal is a question with potentially different answers in different legal jurisdictions.


Quicktime now reopens last video. How to avoid?

The shortcut CmdOptQ is for "Quit and Discard Windows" which will quit the app 'the old way', and not reopen the windows the next time it's launched. So if you only need to suppress this functionality some of the time, this is a good shortcut to know.


Got it, it was an outdated TotalFinder plugin. Installed the newest and context menu is OK now.


I believe your best option is to use SuperDuper! to make a backup image of each machine with a clean instal of the OS and any software you know will be needed for testing every time. Once you have created the backup image it will make reinstalls much faster and easier.

I have not tried copying the Xcode.app before, but I think you would be missing a lot of preferences and command line tools if all you copied was the app.

EDIT:
If you download Xcode from the App Store and copy that Xcode.app package to another machine without ever launching it, it should work fine. There should be no preference files or app support until after the first time Xcode is launched. From my point of view though, this is not a very useful way of putting test/development machines together though because when I use Xcode I have it set-up a certain way with command line tools installed which would need to be done on each machine when you copy the Xcode.app.


From the main page:

The analyzer is 100% open source and is part of the Clang project. Like the rest of Clang, the analyzer is implemented as a C++ library that can be used by other tools and applications.

Emphasis mine
Download the Clang project and the analyzer will be included.


I only asked this question because it was bothering me all day and couldn't find an acceptable answer, so here it is:

Hold the Left/Back button and the Menu button (on the aluminum remote) for 6+ seconds.

That's it!


the 169.254.x.x address space is known as Link-Local addressing & by definition does not leave the building.

  In a computer network, a link-local address is a network address that is valid only for communications within the network segment (link) or the broadcast domain that the host is connected to.

  Link-local addresses are usually not guaranteed to be unique beyond a single network segment. Routers therefore do not forward packets with link-local addresses.

Source : Wikipedia - Link-local address

A link-local address is usually self-generated by a computer if it cannot find a DHCP server.
If your network has no DHCP server [your router ought to contain one] then you need to use manually-assigned addresses in the same subnet as your router/gateway. Nominally, for a home or small business, these would be in the 192.168.x.x space.


This is currently not possible solely with OS X and Mail.

However, third-party apps such as Mail Unread Menu can add an icon to the menu bar.


Is it normal for 2018 Mac Mini to make screetchy noises?

If it's a "screechy" noise as you describe the it's very possible it could be either "capacitor squeal or coil whine."

In the audio recording, the fan itself was generating a good deal of (normal) noise so it was difficult to separate the two.  One way to determine if  it is the fan or not is to remove the back cover and stop the fan with your finger while listening for the noise.  If it goes away, it's the fan, if not, it's the logic board or power supply.

However, given that this is basically a brand new Mac mini, I would take it in for service even if it's just to get the problem logged.


Activity indicator in status bar continues after app download is complete

Some apps will continue the download verification and the unpacking and Installation process after the download shows to be done, leading to the wheel continuing to spin till the process is completed.


Pure Genius Or Pure Stupidity: Does An Old Mac G5 Make A Great BBQ?

Personally, I would lean against this for several reasons:

The aluminum used in the Mac Pro cases isn't food grade metal.
Some of the adhesives in the case were potentially noxious.

I realize it's tongue in cheek, but keep safe, people. :)

Edit:

The frame of the Mac Pro(s) are basically aluminum. So you can take it to your local metal recycler and have it scraped for aluminum in exchange for money.

You can also refer to Apple's recycling policies.

Ebay/Craigslist are other options, as there are system rebuilders who would love to make use of an old Mac Pro case.


How to connect Surface Pro 6 to Apple Thunderbolt Display 27"

Unfortunately, you can't connect Surface Pro to Apple Thunderbolt Display as @jksoegaard suggested because Thunderbolt Display can be connected to thunderbolt port only. Trust me, I have both, I've tried, it's not working and it makes sense it doesn't. When Surface Pro comes equipped with thunderbolt port instead of miniDisplay Port, it should be possible, but right now, it is not.


QuarkXPress crashes when opening one project

QuarkXPress has a built-in process for validating project files that you can use to try and repair any file inconsistencies. To do this follow these steps:

Launch QuarkXPress
Go to File > Open (or press commandO)
Navigate to and select the project file you’re having a problem with, but do not click on Open yet
Now press and hold controlshiftoptioncommand
While still holding these keys down, click on the Open button

You should find that the project opens successfully without crashing QXP, but you may also find that your content has reflowed differently to how you had it originally. Now you should create a new version of the project by dragging the thumbnails from this one to a new one. See below for how to do this:

Still in QXP, create a new project
Make sure the new project has the same layout and setup (such as facing pages or not) and also has the same number of pages
In each of the projects, go to View > Thumbnails
In each of the projects, go to Window > Tile and select either horizontal or vertical
Now, in your original project click the first page and hold down the shift key while you also click on the last page
Now drag the pages to your new project
Save your new project using a different name
Close both projects
Now try to reopen the new project you saved at Step 7

At this point, the best case scenario is that your new project opens without crashing QXP. If so, make a backup of it before working to get your design back to how you wanted.

If you can’t open the new project, then it’s likely the problem was a particular image, font, etc. If this is the case, follow Steps 1 to 9 again except at Steps 5 and 6 only drag one page across to the new project. If that works, then you know that page was fine, so repeat the steps to copy one page at a time and, as you do that, save your file using a different name each time. This way you’ll hopefully identify the page (or pages) that was causing the problem.

I know there’s quite a bit in this answer to follow, so if you have any problems or I’ve not been very clear, let me know and I’ll try to help you further.


Can't get the app icons to stop displaying "waiting"

I've had this happen before too. Usually restarting the iPhone/iPad fixes the issue. There's a great set of instructions on how to fix this located here..

http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/971489

  Reboot your iPhone normally. See this link for instructions on how to restart your iPhone.
  If the apps are still stuck on the home screen, try logging out of the App Store temporarily. Navigate to Settings -> Store -> Apple ID
  -> Sign Out. Now open the App Store and Navigate to the Featured section. Scroll to the bottom of the page and touch the Sign In -> Use
  Existing Apple ID. Log in and the stuck apps should reset.
  Still have strange icons on the screen or frozen downloading apps? Connect your iPhone to the computer and open iTunes. Navigate to the
  app store. Install the apps you are having a problem with on the
  computer then sync your iPhone.


The default keyboard shortcut for Define is⇧⌘D. This isn't a Google Chrome feature—rather, it's an OS X and iOS feature using Dictionary.app.


Answering my own question: this worked.

Reboot the Mac into Single User Mode by holding Command+S during boot
At command prompt type /sbin/fsck -fy
When fsck is complete, type “exit” or “reboot” to reboot
Boot the Mac as usual, verify the disk again in Disk Utility, and partition as usual


I found the CULPRIT, my SSD needed a firmware update.
Crucial Offers Firmware Update For Crucial m4 SSD BSOD


Use different memory capacity RAMs in mac mini

You need to find out what RAM your computer is capable of handling before you just start putting RAM into it, even if the speeds are the same, it's never to much trouble to be careful and do a bit of research to make sure things go smoothly.

Thankfully there are a lot of websites that have already tested these things for you so that you don't make any mistakes.  I usually go to:

http://www.crucial.com/store/drammemory.aspx

They have a system scanner service that will scan your system and check your settings, it will redirect you to a page where you can buy RAM, you don't have to obviously, but it will show you all the RAM configurations that your system supports.  It will let you know the max RAM capacity, if you don't see 4GB as an option, then it doesn't support it.

If you don't want to use the scanner you can also just input your make model year and cpu to get the same results, though the scanner is usually more accurate if you aren't sure which machine is yours. They do tests to make sure the RAM is compatible and list all the speeds and configurations for the RAM so you know which ones to get.  Make sure everything matches up before hand.

Knowing these things will help you find out if the RAM you have or are about to purchase will work so that you don't waste your time.  I hope this information helps you out.


Cannot cmd-click or option-click code in Xcode and other applications with non-Apple keyboard

I finally found the solution to the problem. Basically when using the external keyboard, I installed a tool called CKB which helps with re-mapping keys. I originally believed this was required. However, from macOS Sierra and above this remapping of modifier keys like Ctrl,Cmd and Shift is now available in the System Preferences under Keyboard > Modifier Keys.

So the solution was to uninstall CKB reboot and set the custom mapping in the System Preferences

For more info I've included the link where I found the answer: https://github.com/ccMSC/ckb/issues/473


Why does iMovie change QuickTime Video's size

iMovie only generates video at specific resolutions. It's intended for simple use-cases, and so has a really cut-down feature set for video editing to make it harder for novice users to make mistakes. Unfortunately this means it often doesn't do what you want.

If you're only clipping the start/end of your video, you can just use Quicktime alone to achieve this. If you need to add titles or otherwise do some editing on your video, you can:

use iMovie, export to the maximum resolution available, then down-sample to your desired resolution; or
use some video editing software that actually supports custom output resolutions (Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, Lightworks, etc).


How do I properly change the MAC address of my MacBook Pro?

Your command is correct, once you've prepared the network to be changed. Temporarily power down the WiFi before changing the address.
Doesn’t work on newer macbooks (2018 and later)
networksetup -setairportpower en0 off

Modify the mac address with the desired value:
sudo ifconfig en0 ether 88:63:11:11:11:11

Finally, turn on the WiFi
networksetup -setairportpower en0 on

I verified  with Catalina 10.15.4 and 10.15.5
uname -a
Darwin iMac.local 19.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 19.4.0: Wed Mar  4 22:28:40 PST 2020; root:xnu-6153.101.6~15/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.15.5
BuildVersion:   19F101


From the link I can only find the interface used is DisplayPort (not Mini Display Port or DVI) which to my knowledge are different standards which means item 1) would not work

For item 2) what is the purpose of having multiple displays? Are you repurposing extra displays or actually have an alternate need?

For item 3) I use a USB display monitor which allows me to connect multiple additional screens trough different USB ports in addition to my standard display out.


Receiving notification from Mail and Messages, but no snippets

There is a setting in Settings, Notifications, Messages at the very bottom: "Show Previews".

Toggling it would disable previews for Messages. Such a setting, however, is not available for Mail.


Creating a new desktop on one monitor creates a desktop on all monitors

Try System Prefs > Mission Control > Displays have separate spaces.


How secure are files on an unencrypted hard disc?

If the hard drive is not encrypted, then it's not at all secure!

Basically anybody can take the hard disk, put it into an external enclosure and connect it to another Mac to read all files on the disk.


How to download an MP3 to an iPod Touch?

You answered your self. You must download the file on your Mac and then you must sync it to your iPod Touch!


Revert or reset permissions of extensions

System Preferences → Security & Privacy → Privacy, Location services tab.


Powerpoint changes mission control desktops every time I focus on a window

If you're willing to add a third party app to your Mac, use TotalSpaces to assign apps to specific spaces. For example...


According to Apple you should use following EFI versions.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011)   MacBookPro8,1   MBP81.0047.B27 (EFI 2.7)    1.68f99 (SMC 1.6)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)   MacBookPro8,2   MBP81.0047.B27 (EFI 2.7)    1.69f4 (SMC 1.7)


Cisco IPsec VPN Negotiation Fails After Network Disconnect

The problem is that racoon, Apple's proprietary Cisco VPN client doesn't close itself gracefully on disconnect, this actually makes all Cisco VPNs stop working if one was connected when the network failure occurred.

To fix this, simply stop racoon:

Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal)
Type sudo killall racoon (you will be asked for your password)

You may now quit Terminal and reconnect the VPN as normal.


In Finder, you can just Control - click (hold down Control on the keyboard, then click the mouse / trackpad), and from the menu that pops up, select Cleanup By -> Name, or however you'd like to sort the items.


Can you still create an Apple ID with a name that's not an e-mail address?

It a not possible to create a non-email address Apple ID any longer.

As a matter of fact, they are becoming more and more inconvenient, as various Apple services begin to assume that your Apple ID is an email. If you have not started to notice it yet, trust me, you will, soon.

I recently changed my non-email Apple ID to the linked email address. You can change the username of an Apple ID without starting a new account.


Time machine backup fails on Mac OS X 10.13.5 & Airport Time Capsule 7.7.9

I also have some issues at times when backing up my 2015 MBP to a 2G Airport Time Capsule (ATC). Here are some things to verify:

Can you find your ATC from the AirPort utility on your Mac? Are all lights green (no firmware update pending, no fault)? Note: you can't see your ATC if Wi-Fi is disabled and you're only connecting with an Ethernet cable.
Can you see your ATC in the Time Machine preferences?
Can you mount your ATC disk on your MBP? If not, then the ATC may be defective (I had this happen after a couple weeks of use - my ATC was replaced for free in an Apple store).
Did your network topology change since your last successful backup? E.g., new network name, access through different wireless network, access through wired network instead of wirelessly. I've seen Time Machine being rather picky about backing up wired or wirelessly. I believe that Time Machine sometimes gets confused you access the Time Capsule over different networks (wired, wireless, different Wi-Fi networks...).
Is there still sufficient free space on your MBP and on your ATC? Time Machine requires storage on your MBP to preserve the hourly/daily/weekly/monthly snapshots prior to syncing them to the Time Capsule. And your ATC must still have sufficient room for integrating the backup.
Did you recently switch to your MBP from another Apple computer, while porting the TC backup? This may confuse Time Machine.
Did you exchange your ATC since last successful backup? This will definitely confuse Time Machine as it sees a new device.

Some tips are also given at the following locations (including tips for checking the file system):

https://www.any-data-recovery.com/mac-data-recovery/how-to-fix-time-machine-backup-failure-and-errors.html
https://support.apple.com/HT204157
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/time-machine-troubleshooting-mh15653


 iCloud

— What it does do —

synchronize (only over iTunes bought!) music if specified
synchronize pictures (photo stream)
keeping track of your device-location
backups of your device

— What it doesn't do —

synchronizing application data UNLESS specifically implemented by the app
keeping applications in-sync — this is due to different device classes have different preferred applications. For instance, you usually use different apps on an iPad as you would on an iPhone


That depends what app are you using.

For example iTunes, you can set that up in preferences.

For example VLC player, you can set that up in Audio Effects.

It all depends what app are you using.


Trying to do an un-bootable image disk backup on a re-formatted 1TB WD Passport external hard drive

If it fails on creating a disk image, then there may be one (damaged) file causing the problem.

Why not open the user folder and copy each sub-folder in turn and when you find the folder that fails copy the contents inside individually until you find the errant file...

Of course, it may not be a personal file causing the issue...


Is it possible to copy Firefox bookmarks with iOS Safari?

Export the Firefox Bookmarks

  On the menu bar, click Bookmarks and select Show All Bookmarks to    open the Library window.
  From the toolbar on the Library window, click Import and Backup    and choose Export Bookmarks to HTML....
  In the Export Bookmarks File window that opens, choose a location    to save the file, which is named bookmarks.html by default. The
  desktop is usually a good spot, but any place that is easy to
  remember will work.
  Click the Save button. The Export Bookmarks File window will       close. Close the Library window.

  Import the bookmarks.html file into Safari on the Mac by navigating
  to the File menu within Safari, choosing Import Bookmarks…, then
  selecting the file you saved.You may want to delete or archive the
  existing Safari bookmarks first.

You can now sync Safari on the Mac with Safari on your iOS devices. iCloud syncing will make this two-way and happen over the network, but you can also sync using USB and connecting to iTunes if the bookmarks will change rarely.


Is there a shortcut / an app to center the mouse on the current window?

Keyboard Maestro can be setup to do this. I know this is a heavy weight solution for a simple task. However, if your already have KM or if you find value in it for automating other tasks,  it is a great option.

Here is how to set it up:

Note: this is centered. The (0,0) is relative to the center of the window.


How to save or share slideshow in iOS 9.3.2?

It is currently not possible to save or share a slideshow. The only output is to the device screen itself or over AirPlay.


Macpro two drives Triple UEFI Boot move from Grub2 to "headless" bootmanager rEFInd issues

The original assumption was rEFInd would be installed in a small FAT formatted partition. This had the advantage that macOS, Windows and Linux could read and write to the volume. Recently, I added the option for rEFInd to reside in an EFI partition. This required modifying the Startup application to include an option for mounting and unmounting volumes.

One can define menuentry options in the refind.conf file. The default menuentry to boot can be selected by using the default_selection option. The refind.conf file can also contain a include option to read options from another file. For example, the option given below would read options from the default_os.conf file in the rEFInd tools folder.

include \EFI\tools\default_os.conf

The Startup application assumes the default_os.conf file contains default_selection options where zero to one option is not comment out. For example, the file could contain the following lines.

#default_selection "macOS High Sierra"
default_selection "Windows 10"
#default_selection "Ubuntu 18"
#default_selection "High Sierra on USB3"
#xdefault_selection "Fedora 18"

Here "Windows 10" would be the operating system that rEFInd would boot by default. The Startup application can change which default_selection options are commented out.

If you were to select High Sierra on USB3 as shown below, the the default_os.conf file  would change to what is shown below.

#default_selection "macOS High Sierra"
#default_selection "Windows 10"
#default_selection "Ubuntu 18"
default_selection "High Sierra on USB3"
#xdefault_selection "Fedora 18"

If you were to select Use Previous as shown below, then the default_os.conf file  would change to what is shown below. Basically, rEFInd would now boot to which ever operating system was chosen last from rEFInd's menu. In your case, you probably would configure the Startup application to omit this choice.

#default_selection "macOS High Sierra"
#default_selection "Windows 10"
#default_selection "Ubuntu 18"
#default_selection "High Sierra on USB3"
#xdefault_selection "Fedora 18"

Startup Application User Configurable Options

Being that you have the source, you can actually make any changes you like. However, the top of the script contains a few common items one would wish to configure.

Path an name of the file containing the default_selection options.

set inputFile to "/Volumes/REFIND/EFI/tools/default_os.conf"

An optional device to mount. If you do not need to mount any volumes, then leave the string empty. For example, to mount the default EFI partition, you would make the following change.

set deviceToMount to "/dev/disk0s1"

If you need to enter a password before mounting a volume, then make the following change.

set mountAsSuperuser to true

To omit Use Previous from the list of choices, you would need to make the change shown below.

set allowPrevious to false

Downloading the Startup Application

The Startup Application can be obtained by downloading the Startup.app.zip file. Basically, click on the green Download button on this webpage. This application was creating using macOS 10.13.16 (High Sierra) and the Script Editor application Version 2.10 (194) for AppleScript 2.7. You will need to enter the following command to remove the quarantine. Here I assume you download to your Downloads folder.

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ~/Downloads/Startup.app

If you are using an older version of macOS, then you may need to build the application. The steps are outlined in the next section.

Steps to Build the Startup Application

Download Startup.applescript and rEFInd.icns from this SourceForge website.
Open Startup.applescript in Script Editor application.
From the Script Editor menu bar select File->New.
Copy the entire contents of Startup.applescript to the new window.
From the Script Editor menu bar, select File->Save. Choose the Application file format, then set save as to Startup.app.
From the Finder application, right click on Startup.app and select Get Info.
Drag the icon representing rEFInd.icns onto the icon in the upper left corner of the Startup.app Info window, as shown below.

The result should be the Startup.app icon be changed to the image shown below.

Finally Note

There also is a GUI PowerShell version for Windows and a GUI Python 3 version for Ubuntu (and perhaps other versions of Linux). A CLI version written in Bash 3 exists for operating systems with no graphical interface.


What does this icon showing corners of a rectangle with a star on some of my photos mean?

This icon means iPhone took an additional photo from the wider angle camera than the one you selected to give you the option to include more photograph beyond the edges of the original.
To include parts of this extra photograph beyond what’s visible, choose Edit, select Crop and drag the crop handles out to include this extra data in the picture.
If you don’t edit the picture within 30 days, the extra data is discarded to save space. You can disable this option in Settings → Camera → Photos Capture Outside the Frame.
For more information, see the Apple support article on this topic: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph8692d3298/ios


Is there a "global" setting for Do Not Disturb on iOS devices?

There is no one setting that applies to all devices.
Each device has its own Do Not Disturb feature, as explained here for iOS devices and here for macOS devices.


I'm pretty sure Snow Leopard does not provide native support for USB 3.0.

This is probably the main cause of your issue.  You would need to make sure you have installed the proper drivers for your PCI card in order for the kernel to recognize and allow this new functionality.

Other possibilities:

USB 3.0 is inherently designed to draw way more power than USB 2.0.  It's possible that when you plugged the device in, that's when the machine actually recognized the PCI card itself (or at least realized the necessary power consumption for running such a card and the fact that it was trying to draw more power than it was able to support).

Also:

Are you running any other PCI cards in your slots?  The specific hardware you mentioned has a 300W max for all 3 PCI slots combined, so if you are sucking power from any other slots, this could definitely cause the issue you are seeing.


Why does the Apple Watch health reminders pop up at 50 minutes past the hour?

The Apple Watch wants you to stand each hour to complete your stand goal. So if you haven't stood during all the hour, it will remind you to do it 10 minutes before the next hour to give the the time to stand a little and add an hour to your stand goal !

It's anyway what apple says on their website :

  Even if you’re active part of the day, sitting too long has its own health risks. So Apple Watch senses when you stand and move just a bit and gives you credit. And if you’ve been sitting for almost an hour, it reminds you to get up. You close the Stand ring when you’ve stood and moved for at least one minute in 12 different hours during the day. It may sound like a small thing, but sitting less can improve your health in significant ways.


Deleting symbolic link - operation not permitted

It seems you are either trying to remove your original file /bin/tcsh or another tcsh copied to a different path. You can't link /bin/tcsh to tcsh if you are in the /bin folder because that's forbidden.

A soft link of tcsh usually isn't protected by SIP and you have to search for it and delete it. If you somehow managed to copy tcsh to another path, which then prevents a software you are using from working, you may have to delete it there.

To remove a protected tcsh copy, boot to Recovery Mode, disable SIP, reboot to your main volume and remove the link.

Reboot your Mac into Recovery Mode by restarting your computer and holding down Command+R until the Apple logo appears on your screen.
Click Utilities > Terminal.
In the Terminal window, type in csrutil disable and press Enter.
Restart your Mac.
Remove the tcsh copy
Reboot your Mac into Recovery Mode
Click Utilities > Terminal.
In the Terminal window, type in csrutil enable and press Enter.
Restart your Mac.

Link: How do I disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) AKA “rootless” on OS X 10.11, El Capitan? This is also valid for macOS Sierra!


How to completely turn off spell check in macOS Big Sur

It seems to be limited to the Messages app (so likely a bug) and after a few times of quitting and restarting (interestingly one restart was not enough) it too seems to finally have learned the lesson.
So my recommendation to others with similar issue:

Set the settings as you prefer
Don't forget about System Prefs / Keyboard / Text / Correct spelling automatically -  this is either new in Big Sur (not sure) or it was toggled on again after update
Patiently restart your apps a few times (or perhaps a full system restart) and this should resolve the issue


How to have a cropped video on top of another video in imovie?

This is known as Picture in Picture.

The following instructions are for versions of iMovie 10.1+

Open a project and add a movie to timeline
Select and drag a second clip above the main clip based on where in the video timeline you would like for it to show.
Select Picture in Picture from the Overlay drop down menu.
Drag the movie clip to where you want it placed on video preview screen and resize if needed.

That's it. Enjoy!

Note: You can use the same method for text and photos as well.


Unknown profiles icon in System Preferences

Your MacBook is probably infected with the OSX/Shlayer/Crossrider malware.

It's a so-called dropper which may install/already has installed additional malware.

Searching for a reliable removal method I came across a lot of dubious websites offering tools pretending to remove this malware. Don't download and install them!

Malwarebytes' Malwarebytes 4.0 or other decent AntiVirus software should be able to detect and remove this malware and subsequently loaded malware/adware.

Analysis: Mitigating OSX/Shlayer


Mid 2014 Macbook Pro Retina - Black screen on boot, no chime

It’s the I/o, disconnect it and it will work again. Or change the I/o board. Tried it and it worked! Good luck


Text-To-Speech to read websites in Chrome?

OS X's built in screen reader, VoiceOver, works in Chrome.

To enable it, go to System Preferences-> Universal Access-> Seeing and toggle the VoiceOver: radio group to On. You will also be able to check the shortcut key for easily enabing/disabling VoiceOver.

I recommend you take some time and familiarize yourself with VoiceOver; it's very powerful but takes some getting used to.

Click the VoiceOver Utility button to configure VoiceOver. This lets you change, among many other options, the voice and speaking speed.


I too have this issue.  If you stop scrolling for 5 seconds because your reading, then go to start scrolling again, there is a freeze or delay of about 1 second.  its noticeable, and very annoying.  There are no viruses, and its not a plugin.  (I don't use chrome extensions or plugins.)  Safari doesn't have the issue, and its machine specific.  The identical Chrome on an older iMac, identical OS, doesn't have the issue.

My guess is that chrome has "frozen" the page, to save on CPU cycles, and has to release that and start live rendering it again when it sees you start scrolling.  Or maybe its a delay of swapping between graphics mode on the hardware...?

Some interesting extra notes...if a text editor panel is open, such as the one you comment on here, the issue does not exist.  If an active video such as on youtube is playing in the window, then there is no lag scrolling either.

If you are scrolling up, there is never a delay, its only scrolling down that has the delay.

You see the mouse pointer change for the items that would be scrolling under it before you see the page even move.  So this indicates its some lower level thing that is going on, and most likely graphics related.


On iOS 5 you should expect to have about 13.75 GB for items you choose to store on any 16 GB iOS device. On iOS 4 it was slightly higher - slightly over 14 GB.


How to get everything from terminal mail(1) sent to my email address?

I assume you are referring to the notice that comes up in Terminal "You've got mail"

Create a file .forward in your home directory.  (that's a period and the word forward with no space.  In it write the address you want the mail forwarded to.
This file has to be owned and readable by your userid.
Jobs run by cron by default mail their output to the owner of the crontab file.  This can be overridden by specifying the option MAILTO=userid@somewhere.com at the top of the file.  See man crontab for details.

The second only forwards the details of jobs run from that particular crontab. If you have sandboxed services that have individual crontabs on a user basis (E.g. You have a database service that runs a consitency check on the database at 2:30 every morning, and runs that service as user mysql, then you have to add the line to mysql's crontab.

General best practice for email that goes to non-real users is to forward it to a role first.  E.g. All the machines in your network send their system email to sysadmin@mydomain.com  Then on a central server you forward sysadmin's mail to a real person.  This makes it much easier at vacation time to temporarily forward email to your temp sysadmin.


How to restrict the level of privileges of applications on jailbroken devices?

Someone would have to write a sandbox for jailbroken programs, which would be extremely ironic, because the point of jailbreaking was to escape the sandbox. Normal apps still run under the mobile user when you're jailbroken, though, so there's nothing to worry about there. All jailbreak packages have full access to anything, and there's currently nothing you can do about that. Just play it safe, and only install trusted packages from reputable developers/repositories. A related question that I answered on the same subject can be found here.


Creating a quick event in iCal using LaunchBar & AppleScript

Here's a script that lets you restore the clipboard:

set oldClip to the clipboard as string --save the old clipboard
set the clipboard to "hello world" --put your stuff in the clipboard
log (the clipboard) --do your stuff here
set the clipboard to oldClip as string --restore the old clipboard


How to permit running an application only within a predefined time

SelfControl is free and lets you lock access to a url for a period of time... It would require you to switch to an online RSS reader like Feedly though.


Do programs keep running on macos when user switches account?

Yes, the applications will continue to run in the background. This happens with Fast User Switching and when Locking then logging in.

Monitoring

You can see the other users' applications are running through the Activity Monitor application:

Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor.app

To see other users' applications, select the menu item:

Activity Monitor.app > View (menu) > Other User Processes


the only thing left no removed  - try removing RAM modules one at a time ( try each sodimm individually in either slot - do not forget to power unit off ( fans not spinning) as you meddle inside the unit ;) ...
also - did you disconnect the dvd drive and did you inspect the logic board for possible water damage?

by the look - the unit does not pass POST  either due to dGPU or RAM/northbridge


Why would 2 sticks of 2GB RAM not work together, but work individually in my Macbook?

This is down to a limitation in some memory controllers and how they handle memory sticks with different memory characteristics (also add into the fact that you have no control over these settings in EFI as you might have in a non-EFI BIOS)

When you put both new sticks in, the memory controller is trying to set up the memory according to the specs advised by the PNY SODIMMs, however it is having problems with that configuration and fails to initialise the memory.

When you put in a stick of the older RAM, it changes the configuration to use the slower RAM's settings and the second stick of RAM is actually running at the slower speeds and timings of the old RAM and these are invariably "slower" and more conservative than those the PNY sticks can run at.

The other posters are correct, the only solution is to get different RAM and try those. I would also advise to use a more reputable brand, the cost differences are minimal and the warranties are better.


How can I determine what kept my macbook pro awake until the battery drained?

Run the following in Terminal:

pmset -g log

You'll be able to check if there was some activity during the night.


What is "ss_conn_service " running on OS X?

I delete it from /Library/LaunchAgents. Now, everything is going well. I don't encountered any problem right now. Thanks for answers.


Here are some things to keep in mind for your streaming event.

If the CPU gets too hot, the MacBook will throttle and reduce clock speed. That could result in dropped frames. Most of the time you will hardly notice the difference.
iStat Menu has a utility to override fan speeds. In your case I would consider cranking up the fan to full speed during the streaming event, unless the noise is an issue.
During the event put something underneath your MacBook so air can circulate below it. That doesn't do miracles but results in 1-2 degrees less and therefore less risk of throttling / dropped frames.

Macs have pretty sophisticated cooling design and CPU temperature is not the only aspect taken into account for controlling fan speed. I would suggest you do another dry run for 2-3 hours. If you don't have issues during that time 12 hours should work as well.


Why are my iPhone notes being emailed to me?

iOS uses mail to store notes similar to other office type software.

You can disable that by going to settings and turning off notes for any mail account where you are being creeped out.


Macbook Pro: Two displays - two different full screen applications

At the moment this isn't possible.

You can only have one full screen application running at a time when using full screen mode, irrelevant of how many monitors you have. With Lion you could only have the full screen application on the primary display and with Mountain Lion it was changed to allow the full screen up on any of the monitors connected to your machine.

I suspect this feature might be introduced in the next version of OSX.


PDF only readable with Acrobat on macOS and iOS

iOS

Using the example PDF in the comment below I was able to confirm that some images do not display correctly on my iPad:

Compare the "sidebar" images on page 12-14 for some that are either missing entirely or display incorrectly.

Compare this:

To this:

However, they were able to be viewed using PDF Viewer Pro by PSPDFKit

(Note: I tested using the free version of the app. There are additional features available as an in-app purchase but they are not needed to view these images.)

Unfortunately I was not able to get PDF Viewer Pro to export the PDF into a more 'universal' PDF.

Mac

When I opened the same PDF in Preview on my Mac (running High Sierra), it appeared to show the images just fine, even the ones that did not appear correctly in iOS, so I'm not sure why you're having issues viewing it on macOS, unless you are using an earlier version?


Is using 10.8 (over 10.9) a security risk?

Not particularly at any grave security risk since Apple is supporting and releasing security updates to OS X for n-3 generations of the OS as of August 2014:

Mavericks (10.9)
Mountain Lion (10.8)
Lion (10.7)
Snow Leopard (10.6)

This is documented on the main support page at http://www.apple.com/support/osx/

I haven't seen any time when n-2 were not supported on OS X so unless you depend on enhancements to Gatekeeper or the more advanced security features that are new on 10.9 such ad Application Layer VPN, Sandboxed Plug-ins, Additional sandboxed Apple Apps, OTA certificate revocation to make up your definition of risky to stay on 10.8 then you should be equivalently secured on 10.8 for the foreseeable near future.


For some situations running Chrome in headless mode may be a workaround. In this mode, you don't see the Chrome window at all. See
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/04/headless-chrome for details


You only get to choose none when you set up a new account. If it wants verification, you will need to enter payment or contact support and have them somehow waive that on the back end.

See:

Can I download a free app from the App Store without a credit card?
Do I need a credit card on file to get free apps?

Now - once you've added a card and verified, you might be able to go back to none, but your account was somehow flagged as needing verification so Apple Support would need to weigh in if that was intentional or can be waived.


In Terminal, the default setting for handling closed sessions is to leave the window open.

In Preferences > Profiles:

In iTerm2, the default is to close the window

If you disable that option in iTerm2, it should give you the behavior you're looking for.


Using Command-backtick (⌘-`) to toggle between windows

In MacOS 10.13 (High Sierra) I cannot get the Cmd-` to work at all unless the application itself has a menu command to cycle through windows.  If it does, it probably uses that key code; if it doesn't have a key code but has a menu item, it's easy to add the key code in System->Keyboard->Shortcuts.  If it does not have a menu for that, e.g. Safari, then I've found no way to cycle through windows. it does have a Next Tab command.


I can offer you 3 options:

Option 1.

I think the most popular alternative to Finder is Path Finder and it has the "new file" feature.

Option 2.

If you search the App Store with "New file", you'll find quite a few Finder extensions that do this.

I'd maybe suggest:

New File Menu Free

You'd probably want to set the template to be Blank Document

New File Menu (~$2)

I believe the key difference is that the free one only allows one new file item to be added at a time and the paid one allows you to add multiple.

I haven't really tested many of these so I don't know if this is the best one or not.

Option 3.

I've made myself this applescript:

This could be triggered using Alfred or pretty much anything that supports applescripts.

A dialog window will open up asking for filename and when you press enter, new file will be put in the current Finder or Path Finder folder. It is restricted to only proceed if Path Finder or Finder is the active application.

This is the icon I use in the script (not that it's important or anything...)
If it was unclear, in the code the path to the icon is the root of the user folder: ~/new-file.icns and it is defined in the iconfile variable.

if application "Path Finder" is frontmost then

    tell application "Path Finder"
        set currentPath to the path of the target of the front finder window
    end tell

    makeNewFile( currentPath )

else if application "Finder" is frontmost then

    tell application "Finder"
        set currentPath to (folder of the front window) as alias
    end tell

    makeNewFile( currentPath )

end if

on makeNewFile( currentPath )

    set userPath to POSIX path of (path to home folder)
    set iconfile to POSIX file (userPath & "new-file.icns") as alias

    display dialog "For instance:
My File.txt, index.html, Markdown file.md" with title "Create a new file..." default answer "" with icon iconfile
    set fileName to text returned of result

    tell application "Finder"
        make file at currentPath with properties {name:fileName}
    end tell

end makeNewFile


Uninstall the driver then try again, correctly

This has instructions, but I can't copy/paste them to here.

http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en//softwarelibrary/man-lan95xx/lan9500_lan9500a_lan951x%20software%20user%20manual%20rev.%201.2%20(05-01-09).pdf

Cmd/F to search, then search in the 'extra' box inside the page, not Safari's usual search box - for 'uninstall'
It will take you straight to the Mac uninstall page.

I got it… but I really hope you're not doing this on Yosemite… unless you have unsigned kexts switched off

  MAC OSX Driver Uninstallation

  Note: The device must be safely removed from the computer before beginning the uninstallation.

  To begin the uninstallation process, open up a command terminal and enter the removal command sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/LAN9500.kext/
  This causes the device driver to be removed from the operating system.

  The final step is to remove the network entry that was created during the installation process. Click the systray network icon (top right corner of the screen) and select “Open Network Preferences...”


As others have suggested in comments, it could possibly a network/Internet configuration issue. You can try the following in addition to tweaking network settings or switching to a different one.
If you have Homebrew installed on your Mac, try downloading and installing it using the following command:
brew cask install android-studio

If you do not have it installed, you can follow the instructions on Homebrew homepage to install and set it up and then you can run the above command.
If you do not wish to install Homebrew, you can use the following link to download the Android Studio DMG:

https://dl.google.com/dl/android/studio/install/4.0.1.0/android-studio-ide-193.6626763-mac.dmg

You can either download the link using a web browser or a download manager of your choice. You can also use the macOS built in curl command to download the DMG by running the following in Terminal:
curl -O https://dl.google.com/dl/android/studio/install/4.0.1.0/android-studio-ide-193.6626763-mac.dmg

P.S.: The hyperlink in this answer is different from the one used when downloading directly from the website. Both the links are from official source and should lead you to download the exact same version of Android Studio at any given point of time.


It may well be that your iPad simply needs to be restarted in order to clean up the system memory.
Optional App Report
You can force the app to quit (which may result in losing information about your last trip or pin drop) and send a crash report to Apple by forcing it to quit in a specific way:

Press and hold the power button on the top until "Slide to Power Off" appears
Don't slide to power off.
While "Slide..." is showing, press and hold the Home button.

This will force a "crash" to let Apple know exactly where the Maps app caused you to feel it needed a "force quit" and might help the engineers fix a bug if that's the cause.
Restarting the iPad

Press and hold the power button on the top until "Slide to Power Off" appears.
Slide to power off.
Turn the iPad back on by pressing and holding the power button until the Apple logo appears.

The iPad 2 needs a power off less often due to the extra memory it has, but both devices occasionally need the user to force quit a problematic app as well as a clean reboot.
If these don't solve the problem then I'd go with the other suggestions here, but a clean restart may well fix things.


Completely Disable Safari Only Mode in Lion

Figured it out today!

Here's what I did.

I downloaded and installed Lion from the Mac App Store.
I then used the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant to put the recovery partition on a USB flash drive. You can test it by restarting your machine while the flash drive is plugged in, holding option and selecting the USB drive on the boot menu. This should take you to the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant on the flash drive.
Since Safari Only Mode uses the built in recovery partition, removing it resolves this issue. This guide shows you how to delete the recovery partition.

And voila! Everything should boot up nice and pretty.


My MacBook Pro has a flashing question mark in a folder against a grey background

Either the Mac OS X installation is corrupt and won't startup the computer or your hard drive is faulty, physically.

You could try to connect another Mac to your mac via Firewire or Thunderbolt in Target Disk mode to actually see something.
That's what the Target disk mode is made for.

You could also try booting from the original DVD/USB, then run Disk Utility. If you can see the hard drive in the list, try repairing the disk.