2nd SSD as main boot disk, what do I do with old filesystem?

If you want to put your most-used files on the SSD and the less-frequently-used files on the HDD, you could make your own Fusion Drive. I'm paraphrasing the instructions here:

Take a Time Machine backup of everything. THE FUSION DRIVE-MAKING PROCESS WILL WIPE BOTH DRIVES!
Make a bootable OS X USB drive. If you can't, that's fine, but doing so will let Recovery HD live on the SSD. If you don't care about that, you can skip this step.
Boot into your brand-new bootable drive (or Recovery HD, if you don't care if Recovery HD lives on the SSD or the HDD).
Open Terminal and run diskutil list
Take note of the identifiers (the "disk#s#" designations) of the drives you want to use as part of the Fusion Drive. If you're in a bootable drive, you can use the entire HHD, but if you're in Recovery HD, you'll have to only use the partition that is neither EFI nor Recovery HD.
Enter the command diskutil coreStorage create [arbitrary name that you won't have to look at anywhere but in Terminal] [the disk identifiers, separated by a space]
When that process is done, one of the last lines of the output should be Core Storage LVG UUID: [long string of letters and numbers]. That long string is your Logical Volume Group's UUID, and you'll need it for the next step.
Now run the command diskutil coreStorage createVolume [the UUID from the last step] jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%
Once that's done, your computer will officially have a single "volume" named Macintosh HD! Now you can reinstall OS X on it and restore it from your Time Machine backup, and it'll automatically migrate files between the SSD and the HDD based on the frequency of their use.

Good luck!


Google Chrome uses 3.8 GB of memory with 1 tab opened

If you go to Window->Task Manager in Chrome, it will pull up an activity monitor just for Chrome. Then, you can see if any extensions or sites you installed and are active are causing memory usage.

You can also go to chrome://memory-redirect/ (or click the "Stats for Nerds" link in the Task Manager) to see this information partitioned in the following way (quoted from the page) for each extension/tab/process of Chrome:

"                  Resident:
                  Amount of memory that is present in physical RAM.
                  This is the best indicator of browser memory resource usage.

                  Shared:
                  Amount of memory that is present in physical RAM and can
                  be shared with another process.

                  Private:
                  Amount of memory that is present in physical RAM and can not
                  be shared with another process.

                  Virtual:
                  Amount of address space allocated in virtual memory."


iTunes could not back up the iPhone because the backup could not be saved on the computer

Had the same issue with my 4S, and it was fine before.  Found the solution here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2529?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Basically had to copy my last backup to my homepage (drag/drop), delete the old backups (drag to trash), and then Sync and backup worked fine in iTunes.


Opened iPhone SE wrong - screen with lines and no video

Unfortunately you have damaged the LCD screen which wont allow you to see any visual output until replaced with a new/working screen.

I'm not sure about your location but iPhone repair shops/stalls are common place all over UK (hopefully USA too).

If you feel confident simply a replacement via  ebay or amazon following a step by step video guide like ' Jerry RIG ' on Youtube who has excellent tutorials.

Alternatively you can opt for a local vendor to fit a new screen, inadvertently checking everything else is ok and not damaged without you having to pay for a potentially unusable LCD screen!


How to add file(s) to an iPad in offline mode and read it in an app

Do you mean something like this?
If you are talking about iBook and reading pdf files, this new OS X version use iCloud to sync your files on all devices and after syncing you can read them offline.


Microphone to use with OS X's Speech features

I am not sure the iPhone headphones with the built-in microphone will work on older MacBooks, since I believe they do require a headphone jack capable of sending the microphone input. Headphone jacks on MacBooks shipped after the iPhone was introduced all have that capability.

As fas as microphone recommendations, the following two seem to be regarded as very good by different sources I trust, such as the Equipment Guide that 5by5's Dan Benjamin writes every year:

For beginners: Plantronics .Audio 655 USB Multimedia Headset
For pros:  Heil PR40 Dynamic Microphone

Hope this helps.


Is there a canonical guide to replacing the hard drive in a MacBook Pro?

Here, courtesy of iFixit, is your step by step guide to replacing your HDD, photos included at each step.

Also, see this ASC user tip if you plan to upgrade with a SSD/need advice on how to go about backing up the data on the existing drive before replacing it.


How do I save files on Macbook with crashed OS?

One option would be to used your other Macbook Pro to create a Linux boot CD or USB drive, then boot your Macbook from that. By default Ubuntu has read access to HFS+ formatted drives so that should allow you to read your files. Assuming the drive responds.

Some resources:

How to burn a DVD on OS X
How to create a bootable USB stick on OS X
How do I boot the live CD on a Macbook Pro?


I can't access the Mac App Store, iTunes, or Software Update on Lion

Are you running an actual Mac or are you running a Hackintosh?

This is a known Hackintosh issue
http://tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=135&t=23153&start=120


Setup your windows the way you like them.  When set right click on the application icon in the dock and go to Options-->Open at Login and This Desktop.  This will open that application on that desktop at login.  I have found that some applications just don't work properly but most that I've tested work as expected and open to that desktop at login or when opened.


The key to your diagnostics is this statement:

  I think my access point is at fault, as this also happens to other
  devices.

When you have multiple devices exhibiting the same behavior, the best course of action is look for the common thread - in this case your WAP (Wireless Access Point)

You never mentioned what wireless router you are using, but it's probably a safe bet is a consumer grade unit.  I experienced the same issues until I finally ditched that gear and went for more commercial grade equipment.

In your case, even if you didn't want to replace the router itself, you could disable the WiFi functionality and add in "proper" WAPs as described in the linked answer.


OSX 10.14 Mojave SMB locking files and not releasing them

I have this same issue. It seems to only be with Microsoft Office files. PDFs don't seem to have "permanent lock" issue. I don't know if it's a problem with the MacOS "dual fork" file structure fighting with the Microsoft temporary lock file.

I've re-pushed NTFS permissions down from the parent folder to see if that would resolve the creation/destruction of the temporary files. It works for a bit then the problem comes right back.

We have even had one file where all permissions were removed and even the SYSTEM user was unable to recover the permissions. I couldn't seize ownership with the GUI or any cmd commands. I had to restore the file from a backup.

Have you had any luck with this issue?

I've tested the glitch with a laptop that is running the same versions of MacOS and Office but have been unable to trigger the lock file issue.


Lost internet access after installing Find My iPhone

Did you actually purchase "Find my iPhone"? If you did you can delete the purchase.

You must have a computer around you with iTunes. Sign into your account then, Right click on the App in iTunes, select delete.


How can I undo nvram recovery-boot-mode=unused if I don't know firmware password?

This depends on your hardware. Best bet is web chat with Apple to rule out any self rescue options as they will know exactly what to do for any sort of hardware. Also, they will be needed if you have to provide proof of purchase to get vendor unlock code.

https://locate.apple.com


Does latest ios version gets updated on all the iphones

iOS 11–12 are supported on all iPhones since iPhone 5s (2013)
iOS 13 is supported on all iPhones since iPhone 6s (2015)

Generally support is for n-1 from the latest major release of iOS. If you support iOS 12, you'll include every device since iPhone 5s. It's assumed people will be running the latest or n-1 version of iOS on their device.


What does the plus sign next to the price of an app in the App Store mean?

It means that it is a universal app, able to run on the iPad and iPhone.


My son's user account and my user account on my iMac are linked/synced through iCloud. How do I unlink them?

On your sons account you should be able to open up System Preferences, choose iCloud (you should see your account logged in here). From there just click sign out. It will ask if you want to keep synced bookmarks, contacts, notes, etc you can then choose to delete them or keep them on that account.

Edit: Short answer: When you remove iCloud Drive from your sons account, your files will still remain on your account.
Longer answer: I tested out the iCloud Drive problem by creating a new user account managed by parental controls on my Mac. After I created this account, it asked me to sign into my Apple ID, which I did. I then went to sign myself out of the managed user account. I had the same thing occur, it said that my iCloud Drive documents will be deleted from this computer. I clicked delete, and removed them, as well as contacts, bookmarks, etc. When I logged back into my main (administrator) account all of my iCloud Drive files were still there, it is safe to delete iCloud Drive from that account.


signpost_notificationd is flooding error log with błąd "0 is not a valid connection ID"

MacBookPro 2017 / MacBookPro14,3

I was getting this issue on reboot along with the high kernal_task usage. I went through the console killing of the noisiest processes and sure enough, signpost was one of them. Soon as I did, my kernal_task process dropped back to normal. It has been running at > 600%.

sudo ps aux | grep -E '^root.*signpost_notificationd' | awk '{system("sudo kill -9 " $2)}'


The only thing that I can think of is using Assistive Touch, which allows you to lock your device without ever actually touching the lock button.  Other than that, I would say just get the button replaced or buy a new phone - sorry!


Request for Comment - late 2008 MacBook as starter Mac

From your description, this is a MacBook4,1 or MacBook4,2. They both have the same compatibility, and are essentially the same machine for considering the future:

That MacBook will run Lion once the RAM is upgraded. It will not run Mountain Lion. Today's Mac mini would. The MacBook4,1 and 4,2 have less than a month before it becomes unsupported by the next OS. The Mac Mini probably has several years.
Macs are not generally user maintainable. (Edit: To be clear, I mean to the degree that you're used to.) The RAM in that model is user upgradable. I believe it's just three screws in the battery compartment.
You will need Lion for the current version of Xcode. In a month or two, you'll probably need Mountain Lion for the latest Xcode. Apple may ship the next Xcode with compatibility with Lion (say, 40% odds), but certainly next+1 won't be compatible.

Sources:

OS X Mountain Lion (Wikipedia)
MacBook Model Specifications (Wikipedia)


Add feature to SelfControl software : choose network interface to block

Have you tried contacting Charlie Stigler or Steve Lambert, the creators of SelfControl? An offer to fund the feature would also likely help.

I expect you will get a better response from your enhancement request on the SelfControl issues page. More potential developers will see requests there and others will be able to back the issue to highlight its potential.


How to get Safari Intelligent Tracking Prevention

Is it dependent on my Safari version, my macOS version, or both? If so, which versions?

Intelligent Tracking Prevention was first introduced in Safari 11 in macOS High Sierra 10.13 along with iOS 11 both of which were released in September 2017. It is available in macOS 10.13, iOS 11 and later.

The same can be configured by going to Safari Preferences → Privacy → Website tracking: Prevent cross site tracking.

To configure the same in iOS, go to Settings app → Safari → Prevent Cross-Site Tracking.

ITP2 went into affect in iOS 12/Safari 12 during an update release. This update to ITP includes workarounds that marketers created.

You can upgrade to Safari 12 while running macOS 10.12 Sierra. Safari 12 release notes can be referred to here:

Safari version history


iPhone does not sync events to Google Calendar

It often takes a few minutes for the cloud to sync, that's normal.

I'd suggest double checking your phone to ensure your push settings are all set the way they ought to be. Since it's working on iPad, but not iPhone, it's my assumption something got funky in the settings and it's simply not being pushed to the cloud.

easiest fix, delete your gmail and redo it, or compare each item on your phone to your iPad.

Also, a restart my help as they get silly sometimes.


I installed a library for programming. How do I remove it?

First off, there's likely no harm in leaving the library installed on your system. It doesn't consume any processor or memory resources by itself (though it does take up some small amount of disk storage space).

My assumption is that you've installed the g2 library into default locations. According to the g2 website, the following files were installed:

libg2.a (may be called libg2.so or libg2.dylib on your particular flavor of OS)
g2.h
g2_X11.h
g2_GIF.h
g2_PS.h

The first file, the executable code, should've been installed into /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib. The rest — header files for development — should've been installed into /usr/include or /usr/local/include. To 'uninstall' the library, just delete the files in the above list from these paths.


How to make custom footer section stick to bottom of page in Pages 5?

This is currently not possible.

You can have it at page 1 and page 2 using a normal footer as you're probably aware, but not automatically move to the last page of a document. You can do it manually as you're also probably aware by using the section inspector, but that's still not automatic and would require you to delete it from page 1 and then add it back to page 2.

You can notify Apple that you would like this feature implemented using their Pages feedback page:

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


To install tesserocr's dependencies on macOS, you can use a package manager like Homebrew or macports. These install the C/C++ libraries and executables that are needed.

For either of them you need to install the base package manager the install tesseract

For Homebrew brew install tesseract

For Macports sudo port install teseract

After that you will be able to install you tesserocr wrapper using pip install without errors:

pip install tesserocr


Terminal ~/.profile does not contain `source ~/.bashrc` in OS X 10.9.1

Just add source ~/.bashrc to the end of your ~/.profile file, save it and restart terminal.

Do you have a ~/.bash_profile file? Note that if you have both ~/.profile and ~/.bash_profile then the ~/.profile will not be sourced when Terminal.app starts.


Switch windows of an application across desktops

Unfortunately I don't know a keyboard shortcut for that.

But using the mouse or trackpad, just click of the already active application icon in the dock. If that application has windows in various desktops, each click will cycle to the next desktop having some windows of that application.


Unable to enter safe mode. Gets stuck at progress bar (100%) while trying to log in

The "solution" was just to wait much much longer (longer than any other boot you have seen), patiently and not assume it was broken :).


How to upcycle a 10-year old iMac (display)?

There is an I Fix It Guide which describes the steps and hardware necessary. @Allan is right, though, in that it may not be worth it except for the fun of fixing stuff. This first Intel iMac can also be ugraded to a 64bit CPU with 4 GB of RAM and a SSD without a lot of efforts or costs.


Unfortunately, if you asking for this kind of request to Siri directly Siri gives you full name , even you have their nickname.
Shortcuts on iOS and iPadOS able to do that. Just create a new shortcut: add Map app -> add address... Name this short cuts as "directions to someone’s address".
After saving, ask Siri "directions to someone’s address",that's it.
Hope this helps, stay safe.


ITunes resets syncing of books to "Selected books" instead of "All books"

I got the idea to compare the settings for the iPhone and the iPad. The only difference was that I'm syncing all my audiobooks to the phone, but not to the iPad.

So, I turned on the setting "Sync audiobooks" and "All audiobooks". And now the system no longer resets to syncing only selected ebooks.


Disk encryption utility that works with both macOS and Linux

There are quite a few tools available on Linux that can be integrated into the system. On macOS there is only Filevault in the system.
If you are willing to install osxfuse then macOS gains a lot more possibilities.
Some solutions currently available:
Ciphershed

CipherShed is free (as in free-of-charge and free-speech) encryption software for keeping your data secure and private. It started as a fork of the now-discontinued TrueCrypt Project. Learn more about how CipherShed works and the project behind it.
CipherShed is cross-platform; It is available for Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux. Although, as packages for OS X and Linux do not exist, yet, users of those platforms will need to compile CipherShed.

BestCrypt Container Encryption
Advertised as:

Lock up your private data - Use BestCrypt Container Encryption to encrypt files and folders on Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

SecurStick

The SecurStick program for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux has been developed as part of the c't article Encryption Service (c't 6/2010 p.170) and allows the encryption of data on USB sticks and others media.

And an alternative fork of truecrypt (that seems to have lost momentum): Gostcrypt
After listing these options there is the difficulty of integration to consider.
In my opinion veracrypt gives the least trouble when working cross platform. It's free, apparently well supported, actively developed and audited. They even have a canary online.
EncFS seems currently not such a good option. But at least it was audited and the problems may have been rectified by now. EncFS works easy on Mac and Linux and restarted development this year. The wikipedia page about EncFS lists the features and Prism-Break recommends it now for both: Linux and macOS. Install EncfS via e.g. homebrew. A GUI-Wrapper increases the comfort (but the provided binary is unstable on 10.12+). For Nautilus integration have a look at EncFS easy, fast and reliable.
If integration into Finder is most important then you might stick with Filevault on the macOS side and try to teach your Ubuntu some new tricks regarding decrypting Filevault with libfvde. That should be available in your standard package repositories and is not that non standard in usage.
libfvde's support status is officially:

libfvde is a library to access FileVault Drive Encryption (FVDE) (or FileVault2) encrypted volumes.
The FVDE format is used by Mac OS X, as of Lion, to encrypt data on a storage media volume.
Project information:
Status: experimental
Licence: LGPLv3+
Supported FileVault2 implementations:
Mac OS X Lion (10.7)
Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)
Mac OS X Mavericks (10.9)
Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10)
Mac OS X El Capitan (10.11)

But that information might be outdated by now since there was a release just 4 days ago.
Further options might exit here: "What are current cross-platform disk encryption options?" Or just using encrypted archives like zip files.


How can I add a personalized symbol to Calendar entries?

There are several possibilities to add symbols to iCal/Calendar.app:

Use Emojis. Emojis are Unicode characters and will be displayed without special software. Use Cmd + Ctrl + Space to insert emojis or any other special character.
Use the find function. Use a unique name for your event ("Exercise"), go to month view (Cmd + 3) and search for your event (Cmd + F)
Use a separate calendar to hide your other calendar temporarily. You will only see your exercise events.

You cannot add graphics to a events' title so it stands out easily. But I think using emojis as the first character for the title could work in your case.

Happy exercising!


iPod Shuffle 4th generation - red light and not charging

Assuming the battery is still able to hold a usable charge, restart your iPod Shuffle. The red light typically means less than 25% charge.

  How to force restart your iPod shuffle

  Unplug your iPod shuffle from its charger and from your computer.
  Use the power switch to turn off your iPod shuffle. If you see green by the switch, your device is on. (Can't find the power switch?)
  Wait for ten seconds. Then turn on your iPod shuffle again.

If this does not work, it is likely the internal battery has failed.


If you want to stop the item for this boot simply issue an unload command to launchd via launchctl. For a permanent fix add a disabled key into the plist with value true or delete/move the file to a folder where launchd will not scan it automatically.

launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.AppStoreUpdateAgent.plist

The man page for launchctl has nice documentation for controlling jobs. As for the general defeating of CS majors, you might also consider that they edited the existing apple plists to make them do something you don't expect, so it will prove to be far easier to just reinstall the OS and migrate the user data back from a backup (paying particular note to note re-install any plist files in the /System/Library, /Library space (and perhaps also audit the ~/Library of admin users). Losing admin / root against someone that knows how to change the system is basically game over and the defense (finding and disabling) the changes is very time consuming as opposed to offense (reinstalling the system from a known good source and use configuration management tools to ensure changed files are detected).


No menu items in Itunes's Account menu work. Can't sign into account

Downloading and reinstalling iTunes fixed the issue.


Hotkey to switch to Google Chrome and go to the omnibox (location bar)

I think your task is ill-defined & what you have found so far overkill - (that this is because you are new to Mac means that's nothing to be ashamed of, we all start somewhere;) If all you need is to bring an app to the front & enable the location area you can do it in Applescript in 2 lines.
tell application "Google Chrome" to activate
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "l" using command down

perhaps with an optional delay 0.5 in between those lines in case it's a bit slow to come to the front.
The only difficulty is to make this key-commandable.
If you set this up as a Script event in Automator, then in previous OSes [I think up to Mojave, I haven't used anything newer] you could just define it as a Service. Once defined & saved, you can then call the Service using
System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services
I think this has changed since Catalina, but someone else would need to detail precisely how.
So long as you give it a shortcut that doesn't conflict with anything else, then simply hitting that shortcut will bring Chrome to the front [or launch it if it's not already running] & set the cursor into the search/location bar. It will do this on the current tab if one is already open, or make a new window if nothing was open.


Can I use an iPad Air (iPad 5) screen protector on my iPad Air 2 (iPad 6)

Yes, they are the same width and height. You can check the measurements on Apple's website. They're the same aside from the depth which has nothing to do with the screen protector.

          iPad Air 2              iPad Air
Height    9.4 inches (240 mm)     9.4 inches (240 mm)
Width     6.6 inches (169.5 mm)   6.6 inches (169.5 mm)
Depth     0.24 inch (6.1 mm)      0.29 inch (7.5 mm)


This might possibly be not the best long-term solution - I can't fully test as I don't actually have active IPv6 from my ISP yet, only on my local network.

I simply set my hosts file to

127.0.0.1   localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             127.0.0.1
fe80::1%lo0     127.0.0.1

which has so far given no noticeable issues.


How to start SQL Developer with the correct Java Version?

As @ruffin pointed out in the comment above I had to edit the package itself! It includes a sqldeveloper.sh script that changes my currently set JAVA_HOME. Just had to comment it out!


How can I enter Greek numerals based on obsolete letters {Ϛ΄, Ϟ΄, Ϡ΄}?

Have you checked the Greek Polytonic input source provided by Apple on the option and option-shift levels?

Otherwise the usual way to enter archaic characters is via the character viewer.

If you need them often, you can make a text replacement entry in system preferences > keyboard > text > replace with.

If Greek Polytonic doesn't have everything you need, you can make a custom layout with Ukelele.


Install X11 version of Firefox on OSX 10.8.2

It doesn't matter.  X11 is no longer available, it was completely removed from the Mac OS after Snow Leopard.

Best bet is to run an older version under a virtual machine.


Yes, you can get external iPhone batteries.

Amazon will have very many products.


macbook air begining 2015 stuck after change SSD

I had to reinstall macOs. I could reinstall Catalina after deleting the content of my new disk. Then, I did Application/Utility/migration assistant and reload the content of my external disk.


Always open a file in a specific program

If you don't mind specifying InDesign 5.5 every time, then this command line should work:

  open -a 'InDesign 5.5' myfile.indd

If you're going to do this often, you can wrap it in a shell script or bash function like

  function indd() { open -a 'InDesign 5.5' "$@" ; }

Then you'll be able to simply say

  indd myfile.indd


Is there a way to use Google Sheets filter views on IOS?

Google docs currently list this as not supported on iOS:

  Note: Filter views are only available on a computer. See the FILTER article for info about the function.

Source:
https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3540681?co=GENIE.Platform%3DiOS&hl=en&oco=2


Summary:

The simple way to configure a client to point to your Software Update server is using the following Terminal command on your client:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL http://su.domain_name.com:8088/index.sucatalog

Replace su.domain_name.com with your server's fully qualified domain name as specified in Server.app. You can find your FQDM by going to Server.app → [server name] → Access: Host Name:

You can change your FQDM by clicking the Edit… button on the right.

More detail:

Set a host name by going to Server.app → [server name] → Access: Host Name → Edit…. If you wish to access your server over the internet without VPN, choose Domain Name. Otherwise, choose one of the Local Network options.

Switch on the Software Update service.

Once the service has started, you can find the FQDM in the Access section.

Using this FQDM, you can find your CatalogURL by substituting this into the following URL:

http://[FQDM]:8088/index.sucatalog

For example, if my FQDM is reported under the Access section as server.example.private, my Software Update catalog would be located at http://server.example.private:8088/index.sucatalog.
On your clients, you can configure them by running the following Terminal command:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL [your-catalogURL]

Replace [your-catalogURL] with the URL that you got from step 4.

You can revert your settings by running the following Terminal command:

sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL

Alternatively, you can use Profile Manger to provide OTA configuration using the Custom Settings section of your configuration profile.


Can't play an Online game that requires Java

Apple is automatically disabling old versions of Java for security reasons. If you re-install Java you do certainly run a slight risk of exposing your computer to known "in-the-wild" exploits. This is a decision you are best suited to make. Are the games worth installing Java for? Are there alternate places to play the same games without using Java?

If you need to install Java, follow this link to get the latest version.


I struggled with the problem for months without any luck; the computer was unable to sleep, the sleep option on the apple menu was greyed out, pmset -g assertions (the most popular suggested solution to find ongoing processes) didn't return any result, and resetting the SMC didn't work. Today I finally found the solution that worked for mine

sudo pmset -a disablesleep 0

Hope this works for others too!


What is the difference between a 32 and a 64 bit installation on a 64 bit machine?

The main difference between 32-bit processors and 64-bit processors is the speed they operate. 64-bit processors can come in dual core, quad core, and six core versions for home computing (with eight core versions coming soon). Multiple cores allow for increase processing power and faster computer operation. Thus, software programs that require many calculations to function operate faster on the multi-core 64-bit processors.

Another big difference between 32-bit processors and 64-bit processors is the maximum amount of memory (RAM) that is supported. 32-bit computers support a maximum of 3-4GB of memory, whereas a 64-bit computer can support memory amounts over 4 GB.

More bits means that data can be processed more accurately and in larger chunks.
More bits means our system can point to or address a larger number of locations in physical memory.

Sources / more info: here and here.


Why does Safari no longer save flash game progress?

I just found a solution!

Go to Safari->Preferences->Privacy. For cookies and website data, check "Always allow". Refresh the page and the games save correctly. But you need to risk your privacy doing so.

Edit: It could be Kongregate changing locations of Flash game file recently causing this issue.

Edit 2: I think I found the cause of the issue. I have compared the source code of some webpages on Kongregate. On the pages where the games do not save correctly (such as Anti-Idle: The Game and Amorphous+), there is a string "konggames" in the source code. In the previous states as on Web Archive, there is no such string in the source code. To show that this is indeed the cause and not just the same string appearing everywhere on Kongregate, I checked the game Solarmax 2 and found that the game saves correctly and of now, and there is no string "konggames" in the source code.

This means that Kongregate has recently changed the host of some games to this "konggames" thing. By choosing "allow cookies from websites I visit"  or stronger settings in the preference, you effectively caused Safari and Flash unable to load save correctly because you have not visited the site "konggames".


Apple Xserve (Early 2009): Has anyone installed PCIe SSD in PCI-E slot?

I'm running a 2009 Xserve on a Plextor M6e 256GB (PX-AG256M6e) and it works great. I also just installed 10.11.6 on a Samsung SM951, AHCI version (PN MZHPV256HDGL). As far as I can tell, it must be the AHCI version and not the NVMe version to work. I put it on a StarTech PEX4M2E1 M.2 PCIe adapter. Both of these put the original SSD to shame in terms of performance.


Does MacBook Air laptop is enough for Automation Testing

Sure. It’s a fabulous CPU, blazing fast storage and faster than most Macs a year old in terms of all the benchmarks you’ll need for getting started developing.

Great value and it holds resale value much better than more pricey Macs. Unless you have a great value used Mac, get this and work the heck out of it. Assuming you ever find it’s slowing you down, you’ll know what you need and can sell this and roll the resale into whatever new tool you chose.

I do what you mention on a 2105 MacBook with 1.1 GHz m3 CPU. The Air won’t be the reason you’re held back from getting real work done.


As far as I know OS X does not support 10 bits channels.

Here is a blog article which talks about it : Nope.
Another site says they thought Mavericks would bring 10bits channels, but nope.
4 month later, same site, still nope.


Lost one side of AirPods, buy another side to complete the pair

TLDR: Yes it's quite possible a used AirPod (only risk is incompatibility) can be paired to your current AirPod by following these directions (quoted below).

Apple's If your AirPods are lost article is a good starting point (originally linked by IconDaemon).

Before seeking a replacement, make sure you've attempted to find the missing AirPod using Find My iPhone.

If you need to replace it, Apple recommends you "get the serial number and then contact Apple Support for a replacement" - presumably to make sure their versions are compatible.

Regarding setup, you can check out Set up your replacement AirPods or charging case:

  Put both AirPods in your charging case.
  Open the lid and check the status light. It should flash amber.
  Press and hold the setup button on the back of the case for 5 seconds. The status light should flash white. If it still flashes
  amber, connect the case to power, close the lid, and wait 10 minutes.
  On your iPhone, go to the Home screen.
  Open the case—with your AirPods inside—and hold it next to your iPhone. A setup animation appears on your iPhone.
  Tap Connect, then tap Done.

If you're interested in buying a replacement directly from Apple, you can find more information under AirPods Repair (note that this is US specific, you can find the locale specific page here), where they list a replacement of a lost AirPod as costing $69 + tax + $6.95 shipping fee.

I personally would not want to use somebody's used AirPod, but if necessary I would clean out the earwax and wipe it down with a tissue soaked in hand sanitizer.


Select a video file, press ⌘I, change the application under Open with, and select Change All.

You can also use duti to configure default applications in a text file.


Karabiner ( KeyRemap4MacBook) Ctrl to Command, preserve Ctrl+Tab and Command+Tab

Since both right and left ⌘ are identical in functionality (I hope this is the case in your setup), we first map left Ctrl to the right ⌘:

<autogen>
  __KeyToKey__
  KeyCode::CONTROL_L,
  KeyCode::COMMAND_R
</autogen>

Then map right ⌘+Tab to Ctrl+Tab:

<autogen>
  __KeyToKey__
  KeyCode::TAB, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_R,
  KeyCode::TAB, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L
</autogen>


iTerm2 can set itself as the default SSH handler. In its preferences, go to “Profiles”. Create a profile to handle SSH sessions, or select an existing one. In the “General” section, bottom right, you can select which URL scheme this profile should handle:

Select SSH. iTerm2 will ask if it is to set itself up as the default SSH handler:

Confirm and you are done. Happy remoting.


$ for f in `brew cask list`; do brew cask info $f | grep -e [^B]\)$ | sed -e s/^/"$f":/g; done
emacs:Emacs.app (App)
emacs:/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs -> emacs (Binary)
emacs:/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin/ebrowse (Binary)
emacs:/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin/emacsclient (Binary)
emacs:/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin/etags (Binary)
macvim:macvim: 8.1.950,155 (auto_updates)
macvim:MacVim.app (App)
macvim:/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim -> gview (Binary)
macvim:/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim -> gvim (Binary)
macvim:/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim -> gvimdiff (Binary)
macvim:/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim -> mview (Binary)
macvim:/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim -> mvimdiff (Binary)
macvim:/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim -> view (Binary)
macvim:/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim -> vim (Binary)
macvim:/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim -> vimdiff (Binary)
macvim:/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim -> mvim (Binary)
minikube:minikube-darwin-amd64 -> minikube (Binary)
osxfuse:osxfuse: 3.8.3 (auto_updates)
osxfuse:Extras/FUSE for macOS 3.8.3.pkg (Pkg)
virtualbox:VirtualBox.pkg (Pkg)
wireshark:Wireshark 3.0.1 Intel 64.pkg (Pkg)
xmind:XMind.app (App)


I have several iPhones / iPads, and when I say "Hey Siri what's the weather tomorrow", only my main phone will respond, how is it designed?

When you say "Hey Siri", the devices that could possibly react to it will communicate with each other using Bluetooth to determine which device will respond: The device that heard you best, or the device that was most recently raised or used will respond to the "Hey Siri" request.

Apple has detailed the method here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208472


macOS: Can another user recover files I've deleted?

There are various ways how this can be done:

They may simply have a background job running which regularly copies all your files (whether in Trash or still in Documents etc) into a folder they control
They may use the backups created by Time Machine or any other backup software used
They can use data recovery software to recover deleted files

However, this doesn't necessarily mean that the other person is reading your files.

If you are concerned about the sensitivity of data/files, you are advised to take measures such as using an encrypted volume, not creating files locally, using an external drive to store and view files and additionally, using Private browsing mode in Web browsers etc.


How do I change settings in QuickTime 10?

For that website you need the legacy version of QuickTime player. It is called QuickTime player 7 and is located in your /Applications/Utility folder.

If it is not there get it from Apple.


I believe the minimum requirements are iOS 5 iTunes 10.5 and Snow Leapard 10.6.8. I have Leapard 10.5.8 (and the other requirements) I can't use wifi sync. The option isn't in iTunes. I saw someone say somewhere that they had 10.6.7 and they did have the option until they updated snow leapard to 10.6.8.


from Terminal.app v2.6.1 (OS X 10.11), under Preferences/Profiles/Window, there is highlighted text "Escape sequence..." which says:

  The working directory and location of the current document may be set
  using the Operating System Command (OSC) escape sequence:

  ESC ] Ps ; Pt BEL

  The parameter Ps is either 6 (document) or 7 (working directory) and
  Pt is a “file:” URL. The URL should include a hostname to disambiguate
  local and remote paths, and characters must be percent-encoded as
  appropriate.

  When both the working directory and document are set only the document
  is displayed.

also, from Preferences/Profiles/Tab:

  Window and tab titles may be set using the Operating System Command
  (OSC) escape sequence:

  ESC ] Ps ; Pt BEL

  The parameter Ps is either 1 (tab title—aka “icon title”) or 2 (window
  title) and Pt is the title text.

  A custom window title will be displayed within the tab title (along
  with the other selected items) if there is no custom tab title.

  The following example bash command sets the tab title to “My Tab”:

  printf '\e]1;%s\a' 'My Tab'


Is there any way to enable microsoft silverlight in IOS?

No. Silverlight is not supported on iOS devices.


iPhoto opens with spinning beach ball and won't stop

Try holding the ⌥+⌘ key when launching iPhoto and rebuild your library.


Is it possible to use a Verizon CDMA iPhone 4 with any other carrier or Pay-Per-Use carrier?

Not likely unless Verizon agrees to release that phone for another carrier. Have a look at this guide on identifying iPhone models:

Identifying iPhone models

The iPhone 4 you have is model A1349 (that should be printed on the back of the device), and if so, it is a pure CDMA phone so you cannot connect it to a GSM carrier due to differing radio technology.

Even if you were to jailbreak it or get Verizon to unlock it, it's only going to work with another CDMA carrier.

So in the USA - you need to find a carrier with coverage in CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1900 MHz) and that's primarily Sprint and Verizon. Since there is no SIM card in this device, you might not need to get it unlocked, but that will be a dialog between you and your potential carrier if they can provide coverage to it at the same time as Verizon may have it registered as "their locked device"

Due to bilateral roaming agreements - each CDMA tower in the US can and does serve multiple carrier devices - so it's likely that Verizon could prevent you from using your device on a competing carrier until you fulfilled your contract or convinced them to release that device's status in the common database for cell phones.

There are well over 50 regional and national carriers providing CDMA coverage according to this wikipedia article so you might have considerable options in some regions of the US.

Nore some of the information is old due to consolidation. Your main bets are C Spire, Sprint and Verizon.


Netflix app on AppleTV crashes and restarts after beginning to play

Try reducing the playback setting for Netflix to Medium. This needs to be done through the Netflix web site. Netflix warns this may take up to 8 hours to take effect. Also note it is supposedly profile specific. So make sure you are using the same profile on your Apple TV and for adjusting the setting. Seems to have helped for my frequent crashes.


How to reinstall OS X when Recovery isn't working?

My recommendation would be to completely wipe the existing OS so that the OS X installer does not give you any errors about "upgrades".

As mentioned by Apple, I would boot the Mac while holding Command (⌘)-R. Once you are in OS X Utilities, select the Disk Utility option. In Disk Utility, select the drive containing the existing Macintosh HD partition, and then click the Erase button. Format the drive as OS X Extended (Journaled) with the GUID Partition Map. Once the drive has been erased and reformatted, exit Disk Utility.

Back in OS X Utilities, you should now be able to select Reinstall OS X which will guide you through reinstalling OS X Mountain Lion on the freshly reformatted disk without giving an error about any existing OS.


It depends on how you trashed the file. Unfortunately there is no simple restore to original place.  It only works if you trashed the file by using Finder or if the app used the correct API call (although reading the github issues for various command line utilities which try to use this, Apple have broken that API). Just moving the file to trash is not enough which is what a lot of programs do. I suspect this Finder behaviour was added in some version of OSX so old ones won't have it - or else I never trashed anything correctly.)
If you used the Finder to trash it see this other answer
If not :
What you do is copy the file from trash (Copy is on the pop up menu you show) and then navigate in Finder to where you want it to go and then paste it. If you have two Finder windows open you can drag and drop the file from Trash to where you want it.


iOS - how to "save as a copy" for annotated photos

You can create a copy from the Share Sheet before you start to annotate the photo.

Navigate to photo in question
Activiate Share Sheet
Scroll down a bit (depending on screen size) and tap on "Duplicate"

Afterwards select "Edit" on one of the photos.


Trying to use launchd to make my iMac running 10.7.5 to email me it´s IP address not working

I don't know why I missed these the first time, but upon reviewing your problem just now, I noticed a few inconsistencies in the plist file which might well be the problem.  I think this will fix your problem.

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
                    <dict>
                            <key>Label</key>
                                <string>com.fer.ip</string>
                            <key>Program</key>
                                <string>/usr/local/bin/IPSend.sh</string>
                            <key>RunAtLoad</key>
                                <true/>
                            <key>KeepAlive</key>
                                <false/>
                   </dict>
</plist>

Hope that this helps!

F.


Process not running but app shown in dock

I seemed to have at last found a way to get over this. It's rather crude, but worked for me.

if errorno = -600 then
                    tell application "System Events"
                        tell process "Dock"
                            click UI element "Contacts" of list 1
                        end tell
                    end tell
                    delay 10 -- allow sometime for the process to appear in the process list
                    tell application "System Events"
                        tell process "Contacts" to set visible to false -- run hidden
                    end tell
                end if

By forcing a click in the dock, the process re-appears in the process list and then the app can be quit, or restarted, or whatever. Weird.


How to put a custom launcher in the Dock (Mavericks)

You can write it as a shell script within the Run Shell Script action in Automator:

Save it with the type Application (instead of Workflow) and place it in your Applications folder.  It can now be placed in the Dock.


Finding all files that contain a string in Finder

From the Library folder, a simple search (CMD+F) for Name starting with com.microsoft will recursively find all files and folders in every Library subfolder.


The Application folder inside your home folder is for apps which are restricted to your user. So some applications choose to "install"
  or copy their application in this folder. It's based on the decision
  of the app creator. But most of the apps are installed in the
  /Applications folder.
  Apple decided to hide the /Users folder. That's it.

With this command:

sudo chflags nohidden /Users

unhides it.


Running Application From External Hardrive on a mac

Have you considered moving the copy of the application from your /Applications folder to maybe a temporary folder (or delete it, if you have a copy of that application already on your external HD) to see if that resolves the issue?

Also, can I ask what application it is and what version of Mac OS you're running?


My battery cycle count surpassed 1000 (MacBook Pro Retina Late 2012)

Lithium batteries lose capacity over time, as you recharge them. Your MacBook can sustain 1000 recharge cycles and still retain 80% of its original capacity (more or less).

What this means is that if your battery originally held 10000 mAh, then in its current state of wear and tear it now holds 8000 mAh (80% of original). When you charge it up to 100%, you're now only charging it to 8000 mAh. Your battery has shrunk by 20%, so to speak.

What this means is your battery drains a little faster than before. But unless the lowered capacity truly bothers you, you've still got some time to go before you need to replace it. If you were okay with it at 81% of original capacity, I doubt you’ll notice a difference at 79% or 75% of original capacity.

Replace your battery when your laptop can no longer operate long enough to accommodate your needs without having to plug in, or when System Information advises you to replace it. If you always use your MacBook while plugged in, you likely won't need to replace its battery before you want to buy a new laptop entirely.

1000 cycles isn't a "limit," only a reference. You can go through many more cycles than that.


Unable to directly paste a link from Twitter into web forms in Mobile Safari

I had the same problem. I closed Twitter out and re-opened, then I was able to paste again.


I recently went through a similar proof of concept corporate iPad deployment and had the same questions walking in. The direction we went might not be the best solution, but it worked for us and maybe it will give you a hand with your deployment.

Know your Audience

Early in our deployment it became glaringly obvious that this would have to be a simple solution. Apple devices are designed to be simple, that's the draw in the corporate world. Our main audience was managers, VPs, and CXX level executives. A good number of these folks either aren't technically savvy enough to deal with a complicated configuration, or simply don't have the time to fuss with a device.

It should just work, out of the box, like it was designed.

Just Say NO to Multiple Accounts

Firstly I can see one big problem with your initial plan. By stating that you have an account created with a secret password I'm assuming that you're having a helpdesk configure the devices and install the software before they're handed over to your end users. What happens when an application is updated in the AppStore? Your helpdesk will have to enter the password to have the application updated. Depending on the size of your company this could eat up a ton of time, and most of your end users most likely won't ever bother to go through the process to upgrade.

Additionally, when John Doe leaves the company, the software purchased for jdoe@acme.com will be assigned to John's replacement Fred Flinstone and his iPhone. You now have fflinstone@acme.com using the account jdoe@acme.com. It might not be a big problem at first, but this will easily get difficult to manage down the road.

Mobile Device Management

Depending on the size of your deployment you might eventually start looking at one of the many Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions out there. We did. It's likely that things will change in the future, but as of this posting we didn't find much that an MDM solution would bring to the table that our Exchange environment wouldn't already provide.

MDM offers a simplistic way to deploy VPN, Wi-Fi, and user profiles. If you're not using Exchange or aren't comfortable with rolling your own solution you might gain more from one then we were able. Other benefits would be device tracking, and enabling your helpdesk to do basic device troubleshooting, device wiping, remote locking, etc. Read the link to Wikipedia above for more information and a decent list of the bigger vendors in the field.

Application Purchasing

We first identified a list of applications that we would recommend for different tasks, and published the list and relevant links on our company intranet. Initially we installed a few applications when we initially configured the device, but ran in to the time problem above. We calculated a total estimated dollar figure of all applications that an average user would purchase and bought gift cards for that amount + an additional X% for growth. This was more convenient for how we do purchases then gifting would have been.

Apple recently announced their Volume Purchase Program (VPP), and you might want to look in to that if the solution above isn't any help.

Further Reading

iPhone in Business
Gartner Magic Quadrant for MDM
iPhone Business Profiles

Best of luck to you, we learned that smart devices in the enterprise is a rapidly growing environment and there's no "right way" to do things yet. Apple is constantly improving their tools to make the transition better, but they're not quite there yet.


App to change pitch of the sound coming out from the mac

I am not aware of anything that will do this task in real time as it requires some math to do the pitch shift. It is possible to take the alert sounds and process them to a different pitch like you said using an audio editor and then assign custom sounds, but an ongoing pitch shift would take some processing and I do not believe that there is a solution for that currently.

I have experimented with changing sample rates and the system adjusts for that and plays the proper pitch so it is not a simple task.


What is the keystroke to switch between windows in a guest os (Ubuntu) in VirtualBox?

You have to hit the Left COMMAND key once and the mouse switches to finder and other apps. If you click inside of virtualbox it activates the virtual machine which in this case is ubuntu. (This assumes that you are running in the default mode which captures on click). It's confusing because it's displayed with a left arrow, but what they really mean is the left COMMAND key. (The one that looks like it has a four leaf clover on it).

The key looks like this: ⌘ It's also known as the Apple key.
This key is on either side of the space bar. Each works the same. So for example if you wanted to print a document in Windows you could use the keyboard shortcut CONTROL + "P" (Press the control key, continue to hold it while pressing the "P" key), on a Mac they use a different key - it's the COMMAND Key not the CONTROL key so you need to press ⌘ and the letter "P" to print. So if you know several keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Windows, just try them on the Mac but instead of using the CONTROL key substitute the COMMAND key.

The CONTROL key, SHIFT key, OPTION key, and COMMAND key (or Apple key as some like to call it), are all what's called modifier keys. You press them to modify the function of other keys on your computer.

However in Virtual Box they have mapped the left one, to the left of the spacebar to allow you to leave the virtual host's screen and return to Apple's Finder or any other program that's currently running.


Youtube full screen doesn't work properly on yosemite

Just to confirm your observation on current version 38.01 of Firefox.

There are 2 types of full screen mode.

One is the Firefox it self in full screen mode. It will stay like that till you turn it off.

It does not look the same as the Video full screen. You can still see the Tabs. It is not correct that it will open the videos in full screen automatically, you still have to do that on the video it self.

The second mode is the Video full screen mode. It is controlled by the video player. In this mode the video takes truly the full screen and you do not see the tabs any more.

In full screen "video mode" all browser functions are disabled (not visible) thus you can not browse anyway.

Granted in your situation:

Firefox full screen -> Video full screen, when exiting video full screen also the Firefox it self will exit the full screen is what Firefox does currently.

That is (was) a known bug in Firefox.

One way it works better is to choose the Video player for YouTube.

Switch from the HTML5 player to the Flash Player.


That's classic symptoms of a working iPad, working charge circuitry and a rechargeable Lithium based battery that can no longer take a charge.

Depending on your budget this might be worth paying for a repair or paying for parts and learning about the process to replace a battery. Keep in mind - lithium cells can be fire hazards and if you modify your iPad - it could present a fire hazard if both the old and new battery aren't handled carefully and all safety features aren't correctly reconnected or present in the replacement parts.


Are retina graphics a burden all Macs (including non-retina) must carry?

Yes, retina optimized apps will typically ship with both versions of graphics.

You can easily have a look at the retina graphic files yourself by viewing the package contents of the app. They should be located in AppName.app/Contents/Resources. At least for the Apple ones, the retina versions seem to have '@2x' appended to their base name, for example badge-info-N@2x.tiff is the retina version of badge-info-N.tiff.

While you probably could delete these files, it probably isn't a good idea as it will break the code signing, which in it's turns makes KeyChain access impossible without signing the code again, for example.

As to how much overhead or 'burden' the retina graphics are, I had a quick look at iPhoto.app (I don't have iMovie installed). In total, the retina graphics seems to add about 10% to the total app size (or in iPhoto's case, about 124MB). I think for a typical user, when most apps are retina-optimized (not sure when/if that will happen), this will not amount to more than 1GB in total.


Comfortable mouse tracking speed not available in system preferences

You can adjust the tracking speed on the command line through the Terminal:

defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling x.x

Where x.x is the tracking speed, 5 being the high and 1 being low, e.g.:

defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling 3.5

To reset it to defaults, use:

defaults delete -g com.apple.mouse.scaling

And it should reset back to the default tracking speed. Play around with the increments and see if that's fine-grained enough to find the tracking speed you want.


How can I get the list of all active network interfaces programmatically?

There may be several different ways to accomplish what you're asking, however, I'll just throw this out there.

I have a MacBook Pro that doesn't have a built-in Ethernet Port so in my examples I'll use Hardware Port: Wi-Fi since I tested this in both examples below and it worked, however you can change it to Hardware Port: Ethernet if that is what the output of networksetup -listallhardwareports shows for you.

If you just want to output the target device's IP Address to stdout, use the following example:

$ ipconfig getifaddr $(networksetup -listallhardwareports | awk '/Hardware Port: Wi-Fi/{getline; print $2}')
$ 192.168.1.100

If you want to assign it to a variable in a script, use the following example:

ipAddress="$(ipconfig getifaddr $(networksetup -listallhardwareports | awk '/Hardware Port: Wi-Fi/{getline; print $2}'))"

Explanation:

The relevant output of networksetup -listallhardwareports for my system is:

Hardware Port: Wi-Fi
Device: en0
Ethernet Address: 28:cf:e3:10:a4:cd

(Note: That is not my real MAC Address)

Using $(...) command substitution in order to have something to pass to ipconfig getifaddr <args> I determine the Hardware Port's Device Name with the output of networksetup -listallhardwareports and pipe | it through awk which is looking for Hardware Port: Wi-Fi and uses the get line function, which reads the next line after the match and is passed to print $2, which in essence prints the second part of the line following the match, which in the case is en0 and that gets passed to ipconfig getifaddr as its argument in the first example, e.g ipconfig getifaddr en0. The output of which is the IP Address.

In the second example a second $(...) command substitution is used around the complex command line used for the stdout example to assign it to the ipAddress variable when used in a script.

Note:  This is really meant to be an example as I've not coded it to account for the device being down.  In other words if the device doesn't have and IP Address there will be no output to stdout and nothing assigned to the ipAddress variable in the script.  Although in the script it can be coded to test whether or not the ipAddress variable is empty and act accordingly.


Press ⌘ cmd + ⌥ alt/option + S to show the sidebar (or select View > Show Sidebar from the Finder menubar).


From another user's experience on the Apple Support Community Forum:

Try this:

Go to Settings > General Reset
Tap Reset All Settings

Although this won't erase content on your device, you'll have to reset WiFi settings and sign in to iCloud again along with other custom settings.

Quote:

  I was able to get the camera to work again!
  go to Settings, General, Reset and tap Reset All Settings.
  This won't erase everything but you'll have to set up your WiFi and sign in to iCloud again.

EDIT If the above suggestions along with resetting the phone etc. doesn't help, one would be advised to take the phone back to Apple or an Authorized Apple Service center for testing.  Depending on the age of the device, they may cover repairs under warranty.


How do I use an Apple Card to pay for iTunes and App Store?

Source:

These instructions are for iOS 13.  It should be the same for versions going forward in the immediate future.

Open the Wallet app.
Tap your Apple Card.
Tap the ••• button in the upper-right corner.
Scroll down and tap Make Default at Apple.

These steps make your Apple Card the default payment method for all of your transactions with Apple, including app purchases from the App Store, Apple TV subscriptions, iCloud storage, your Apple Music plan, and even AppleCare if you choose to pay per month.

You can double-check that Apple Card is your default by going to "Settings -> Your Name -> Payment & Shipping". Your Apple Card should be listed as the first payment method.

If you have an Apple Watch, you can check to see if the Apple Card is its default payment method by opening the Watch app and tapping "My Watch -> Wallet & Apple Pay -> Default Card".


How to build a simple app that turns text to m4a files

Simple Automator Application :

Create a new Application
Add a Ask for text action
Add a Run a sheel script action
Select Pass input as Arguments
Copy the following script (Assuming ~/Desktop/Test exists)

=>

cd ~/Desktop/Test
say -o "$@.m4a" $@

Save your application. It's ready to use.


Best practises for battery/charging MBPr

Apple provides a number of recommendations for MacBook batteries at their battery information page.

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

There are a number of tips that Apple provides for maximising the lifespan of your battery on this page, summarised below.

Make sure you plug in your battery and let it charge fully for the first time.

  Be sure to fully charge your portable when you plug it in for the first time, and then run Software Update to ensure you have the latest software. Apple periodically releases updates that may improve battery performance.

If possible, don't leave your battery on charge all the time.

  For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time.

Charge/discharge at least once a month.

  Apple recommends charging and discharging its battery at least once per month. Need a reminder? Add an event to your desktop’s iCal.

Don't store a flat battery for a long period of time.

  If you don’t plan on using your notebook for more than six months, Apple recommends that you store the battery with a 50% charge. If you store a battery when it’s fully discharged, it could fall into a deep discharge state, which renders it incapable of holding any charge.

Don't store a fully-charged battery for a long period of time.

  Conversely, if you store it fully charged for an extended period of time, the battery may experience some loss of battery capacity, meaning it will have a shorter life.


using windows 8, message says problem with this drive

This problem occurs is most frequently because you didn't safe eject the device (in this case, your iPod) from your computer. The message will continue to appear every time you plug in your iPod until you click it (the message), and then click "Scan and fix". Windows will run a program called CHKDSK in the background, which will fix any problems with your iPod's storage. It's very unlikely that you will lose data when you do this as CHKDSK is specifically designed to find and fix problems with data.

To prevent the message occurring in future, you should safely eject the device. This basically lets the device know that you want to unplug it, so it can finish communicating with Windows and save any data to its storage. If you just pull the cable out without first telling the iPod what you're about to do, it might still be half-way through transferring some data. To safely eject the iPod, refer to this Apple Support article: http://support.apple.com/en-is/HT201646

Note: Even if you weren't actually transferring data when you unplugged it, if you don't safely eject it, the device will know it wasn't correctly unmounted from the computer before being removed and will tell Windows next time you plug it in, causing that message to pop up. Also, unlike what angus batkin said, it's definitely not a bug in Windows.


There's no way to get what you're looking for other than what you're already doing.

Bedtime is made-up of two parts: Bedtime and Wake Up.

These are very easy to use but also very limited.  It's not really designed, unfortunately, for one-off changes to the schedule.

I would recommend looking for a custom Shortcut that you can run to turn off the alarm when you wake up early.  You can try Routine Hub and the Reddit Shortcuts sub.


Crontab stopped running after upgrading to mac os 10.8.5

I'm running OS X 10.8.5 and use CronniX to setup my cron job, it works just fine in OS X 10.8.5.


How do I change containers from Matroska to MP4 without modifying the stream data?

MP4Tools works for this. It does pass-thru of h.264 and audio streams, or you can convert as you see fit. It's free, but $5 to remove the nag screen that pops up any time you open a file, and to get batch operations. I haven't tested it with chapters and subs, but I think it can deal with them fine.

One word of caution: if you have files with AC3 audio that you want to leave in as a 2nd channel, it has an option to do pass-thru of that, and add a stereo AAC track, but it doesn't re-order them, which can cause issues with QuickTime X/iPad/AppleTV.

MP4Tools doesn't work for anything below 10.6, so MKVtools is a good alternative for 10.5. Same developer and basic functionality, it should work for your purposes fine.

The other option is doing it manually using command line tools, mkvtoolnix to extract the streams from the mkv, and MP4Box to repackage in an MP4. If you need to convert audio to AAC, ffmpeg is the a good starting point, but there are other options. Unless you need a degree of control that MP4Tools doesn't provide, I'd say stay away from the command line stuff. It's useful, but more hassle than it's worth if MP4Tools does what you need.

Another good tool is Subler, which is a nice tagging program. Unfortunately lacking a batch mode, but it's otherwise very good - much faster at writing the tags than other programs I've tried. And as long as the files have season & episode numbers, the tag auto-lookup works great.


usb drive very slow on mac, works fine on windows

I usually run Linux, but recently got a 2018 MacBook Air and ran into this problem. I have a directory of just over 100 MB in around 200 files that I frequently backup and move between computers using USB-A flash drives. Using USB 3.0 on Linux it transfers in a few seconds, and the drive ejects immediately, in all cases.

When I first did this on my Mac, however, the same transfer was ridiculously slow (i.e. minutes) and I had trouble ejecting the drive, even when the computer was offline and nothing else was running. Every flash drive I tried did the same thing. Oddly, I also noticed that the flash drives seemed to work fine if they were already plugged in when I started or restarted the computer, but were slow when I plugged them in after the computer was booted up. There are a lot of other people online complaining about the same issues, so it's not just our particular computers.

After some research, though, I think I've solved the problem. The speed and ejecting issues seem to be mainly the result of two things:

(1) The USB-A to C adapter you use. Make sure you get a USB 3.0 compatible adapter or hub (blue inside). I originally bought the Apple adapter, which is 2.0, and it took something like ten times longer to transfer that 100MB than with the 3.0 adapters I got later. (I don't understand why Apple wouldn't be selling a 3.0 adapter at this point.)

(2) The Spotlighting feature in MacOS. I think this is the big culprit. Watching the Activity Monitor, it's clear a LOT of resources get eaten up trying to index the files on the flash when you do a large transfer, even after the files are all copied, and the drive won't eject until it's finished. The transfers are a LOT faster and the drive ejects right away if you turn off Spotlighting for the flash drive. Just go to: System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy, and click + to add the drive to the opt-out list. (The drive will disappear from this list when you eject it, but the system remembers it by name and it will reappear there as an opt-out when you mount it again, so you only have to do this once for each flash drive. You might want to give each of your drives a unique name to track this.)

By using a 3.0 adapter and turning off Spotlighting, I'm now getting flash transfers that are more like the speeds I'd expect, and I'm not having problems ejecting the drive. (With Spotlighting on, starting or restarting the Mac with the drive plugged in seems to give the proper performance, as well, which probably means the indexing is taken care of during boot-up initialization.)

Good luck!

UPDATE: I also tried reformatting my flash drives to APFS format, and it sped up transfers even more - quite a bit more on larger drives.  If you don't need to use non-Apple systems, it's probably worth changing them over to the new Apple file format. (Note - you have to change to GUID partitioning first, if it's not already setup that way.)  Still keep the Spotlighting off - I think that's the bigger issue.


Which running/biking apps (Strava, Runtastic, Endomondo, ...) use barometer for proper elevation gain?

iSmoothRun records elevation data using the iPhone's barometric altimeter. This app can sync with various storage and tracking services, such as Dropbox, RunKeeper, Strava, etc.

The barometric data is preserved when syncing or exporting GPX/TCX files from iSmoothRun (although I currently have to tweak the header of the GPX file and manually upload to Strava in order for Strava to respect the barometric data recorded by iSmoothRun instead of discarding it in favor of its own measurements based on topographic data).


Desktop backgrounds keep switching position

Try to do these things.

Check that you have this option unchecked. I am sure you have it unchecked, but just in case :) It may be set to 'Change picture: When logging in'. So let's make sure that this is not the reason.

Then you may try to enter following command in terminal:

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Desktop.plist

After this, set your desktop pictures again, reboot and see if it helped.
This may be strange, but try to uncheck this option:

It's not actually resetting your backgrounds but creating a new desktop   space on every boot. Check your spaces by pressing the mission control button (F3 on mac keyboard), it should show a bunch of desktops.

Anyway, let me know the result (via comment). Question is interesting.


4K HDMI output from MacMini (late 2018) to LG C8 (OLED55C8PLA)

Here's what I had to do to make it work:

Upgrade WebOS to latest version
Switch to appropriate HDMI input (HDMI2 in my case)
Turn ON "ULTRA HD Deep Colour" for HDMI2 (pictured below)


I have got small trick: uncheck "Synchronize with Google" and recheck it.

Or


I've read in many user comments that yes it did improve the UX on iPad 2. It's more fluid than before.

Edit : This french site confirms it.


How do I navigate the ribbon in Office for Mac 2016 with the keyboard?

As of Office 2016, Microsoft has not implemented the Alt-shortcuts for the ribbon.  However, there are several dozen other shortcuts that can be used on the Mac.

You didn't ask for any specific shortcut so I won't list any here.  Also, there are so many that it would be impracticle to list them out.  I know we try to avoid 'link-only' answers but in this case there's no way around it.  Here are a few very comprehensive lists of all the Office shortcuts for Mac, including where you can use the excellent Accessibility features on the Mac:

Alt key shortcuts on Office for Mac
Keyboard shortcuts in Excel for Mac.  These are very similar shortcuts for all Office apps, too.
Accessibility shortcuts in Excel for Mac
Select menu items, like Alt+letter for Word


This ought to do it...

tell application "Mail"
    set nAccounts to every account
    log "Number of accounts: " & (get count of nAccounts)
end tell


Why do some Unicode text messages crash the iPhone OS?

If you need a fix for this, use Siri or a Mac using iMessage to send yourself a new message. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204897

It's a three step procedure to recover and a future software update will patch this bug.

Ask Siri to "read unread messages."
Use Siri to reply to the malicious message. After you reply, you'll be able to open Messages again.
If the issue continues, tap and hold the malicious message, tap More, and delete the message from the thread.

As to why it happens, it's a specific bug in the way Notification Center renders the Unicode content of this message. The code performs an "unsafe" operation (something akin to 5 divided by 0 and then doesn't check for an unexpected results) that causes an unhandled error.

Then since Notification Center can not render the block of text and ultimately crashes the Springboard which didn't have code to handle this failure gracefully.
When no specific error handler is present, most operations have a fail safe "reboot yourself" to try and remedy the error.

Unicode is a way of encoding characters used to handle languages that have a greater character count than English. Programmers can have problems with it because they learned to program using ASCII text and they neglect to write their software with full Unicode support.

One good article on this explains "if you're still programming that way, you're not much better than a medical doctor who doesn't believe in germs".

This other article explains this specific situation well.

Apple could either do tighter code reviews, have specific unit tests or let end users fuzz test their code like in this and similar cases.


Is there a way to automatically delete old boarding passes in Passbook?

In this article, it says:

  "I'm surprised old boarding passes don't automatically delete from
  Passbook post departure. You have to manually delete them."

It doesn't look like it is possible yet.

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

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


If you can get your MacBook back on make sure it's completely up to date, so that there are no more updates in Software Update.

Specifically make sure your Firmware is up to date, Software Update should catch this. If Software Update doesn't show a Firmware Update, then you can try downloading this Firmware Update directly from the Apple website: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1098 If it's already installed or doesn't apply to your system it will tell you this and prevent you from installing it.

If that fails you can try reinstalling Lion. This is not as big of a job as it sounds. Turn off the Macbook and turn it back on, as it starts hold (before you get to the white screen) the alt key, and choose to boot into the Recovery Partition.
When you reinstall Lion it will download the latest copy of Lion (this can take a while depending on your Internet Connection*), and install it without deleting your files (the equivelant of Repairing Windows), though to be on the safest side you might want to backup at least your most important files, however I have reinstalled Lion in this way quite a few times without any loss of data. The actual instalation will take about 1/2 hour.

*If your connection is too slow, then go to an Apple shop, connect to their WiFi and do the reinstall there. They have local copies of the latest Lion OSX, so the download should be very fast.

Otherwise, the best thing you can do is to take it to an Apple shop, you can just go there with the MacBook and tell them and show them whats wrong (don't worry if it suddenly starts working as you walk in the shop, they will still believe you). They will do their best to help you.

You will receive the best service if you don't go in accusing them and hassling. Also try to avoid the busiest times of day if you can.

Even if you're out of warranty, they will help you, although you may have to pay for repairs if it's extensive and not a problem with the model, but sometimes you can get them to do it for free.


Short Answer:

This is a known issue with users complaining about Spotlight AFTER moving to Catalina. So was working correctly PRE-Catalina, WASN'T working correctly POST-Catalina upgrade.  Apple Software Engineers made some material change to the operation of Spotlight in Catalina which introduced the fault, which must be resolved by those same engineers by way of a future patch.

Longer Answer:

Unlike mdfind which directly queries the metadata store, a query made in Spotlight is proxied through the "Spotlight Engine" which appears to be the corespotlightd I see in Activity Monitor.

Indeed, Spotlight does things mdfind doesn't, such as calculations and searching on the web- which means Spotlight can have a dependency on your Internet connection!  mdfind only queries the local metadata store directly and returns the results through stdin.

You're far from the only one suffering from slow performance in Spotlight.  Loads of Catalina users are screaming for Apple to fix the problem. First complaint reported 15 Oct 2019 (week after Catalina release) and most recent complaint in link is 08 Jan 2020. The link reveals users complaining of high CPU (amongst other things) when using Spotlight which strongly indicates a bug in the process(es) responsible for proxying the query & returning results.

Therefore, the Spotlight performance issue appears to be a fault software engineers at Apple will ultimately have to resolve.  This analysis is bolstered by the observation of these users who noted the fault was first observed after the Catalina upgrade.

Diagnostics

I'm not suffering this issue on my Macbook (2018 w/ 32GB RAM & 4TB Storage),  but offer some useful tips for investigating it by those who are.  This is not to say you'll be able to resolve the fault, but at least understand where/how things are breaking and (hopefully) tell Apple!:

Disable Internet Searches & Location Services in Spotlight to unhook the Internet dependency which could be affecting speed when testing:
Use Activity Monitor Diagnostics to analyze Spotlight process corespotlightd:

The following granular diagnostic output is produced: PLEASE NOTE: The file md_stores.txt is just where my cursor was resting when I took the screenshot. Review all the diagnostic files.

Repeat process for and process Spotlight and review output for clues...

If you find how it's broken, TELL APPLE!! ;-)


Using Time Capsule to extend over ethernet

Yes, when you're setting up your Time Capsule, you're able to configure it so that it connects to an existing wireless access point, thus making use of any of the router's abilities (e.g., VPN, DMZ, etc.) while maintaining the backup capability of the Time Capsule itself.


How do I transfer video to iPad and password protect it?

There are a lot of applications doing this job: VideoVault (1$), FolderLock (4$), and a free LockDown, but it requires your iPad to be jailbroken. Sorry, didn't found anything that would be free and, ehm, completely legal.


How do I stop my AirPods from automatically switching between devices when using iOS 14?

To turn off automatic switching, go to Settings > Bluetooth, tap the ⓘ button next to the name of your AirPods, tap Connect to This iPad, then tap When Last Connected to This iPad.

https://support.apple.com/guide/ipad/ipada7cde3c3/ipados


Migrating old Xcode project to version 4.3

The problem is that Xcode 4.3 ignores the schema you had selected in older versions, and automatically sets it to run on device for iOS projects. Since you don't have an eligible device attached to your computer, you get this error. The fix is simple. In the toolbar, click on the menu which says iOS Device and choose one of the simulator options instead.


I just talked to German Apple telephone support. They fixed the problem for me! With fresh  installs of 10.7.5 the problem is that two files are missing that are needed for the mouse. In my case I could get them from another computer I own that ran Lion and did have the files. To get to the files you need do this:

Go to
/System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin

control-click that file and choose "show contents"
now in the finder window navigate to
Contents/PlugIns/

In this folder should be two files named
AppleBluetoothHIDMouse.plist
and
AppleHIDMouse.plist

If you don't find these files, you need to get them and put them in.


How do you send mail to Undisclosed Recipients?

That's the way to do it, yes. You can even leave the To: part empty which then will result in Undisclosed recipients:.


Other data taking up to much space on mac, can't figure out what this other data is

I suggest that you get OmniDiskSweeper.app and run it on your main drive. it will list the items and their size on the disk sorted by size. You can look for items that take up a lot of disk space and go down the directory tree from there to find the large memory users. Its a free app.


Disable Photos auto-import when connecting memory card

You can disable the auto pop box in iPhotos , In the preference you can turn it off the auto import option. Link


Reverse Tether - Share OSX Yosemite Wifi Connection Over Bluetooth

In order to do this in Yosemite, you'll need to go back to the main screen of System Preferences and click on the Sharing preference pane. In the sidebar, there will be an Internet Sharing option. Click on this to view its settings.

Now set the "Share your connection from" drop down to Wi-Fi and then check the Bluetooth PAN checkbox in the menu below. Next just make sure to check the box next Internet Sharing in the sidebar.

Once this is done your Mac should be sharing its Wi-Fi connection to devices in your Bluetooth PAN.


Monitor remains grey after Apple logo during boot on Mac Pro

This happened earlier this year to a friend. The cause was disk
    directory damage. Upon start (during the Gray Screen of Doom) the
    Mac was trying to repair the damage automatically, but failing.
    Here's how I talked her through it.

Power down the Mac.
Boot in Safe Mode (press Power button, listen for startup
tone, immediately press and hold Shift, release Shift when you see
Apple logo).
Let the computer boot in Safe Mode. It may take longer  than
normal.
If the computer eventually reaches the desktop, simply reboot
    normally and see if that fixed your problem. This is the point at which this procedure worked out for my friend.
If the computer is still having problems, boot from a Mac OS X
    Install DVD (insert DVD, power down, restart hiding down C key).
When you reach the Installer screen, use the Utilities menu to
run
    Disk Utility, then choose Repair Disk under the First Aid tab (if the hard disk doesn't show up in the sidebar in Disk Utility, the disk is likely irretrievably broken).

If these steps don't work, I'd suggest that you either a) Wipe the disk and do a full restore from your most recent backup; b) invest in a heavy-duty disk utility like Disk Warrior; c) take the computer to the nearest Apple Store for support help.


Is there a way to import stopwatch data into Numbers?

Down load BEST STOPWATCH and there is a copy option. This can then be transferred to an email or text. Then the data can be copied into a spread sheet.


You need to install the Xcode command-line developer tools. Open Xcode and go to Xcode → Preferences → Downloads, select the Components tab, and click the button next to “Command Line Tools”.

See Is the installation of Xcode from App Store enough for having the developer tools?.


I'm not 100% clear what you're asking to do since you haven't posted any of the contents of the sheet, but you can use the INDEX, ROWS and COLUMNS formulas to get what you want. INDEX() will return the contents of a cell within a certain range of cells, and you can use rows() to count the number of rows and columns() to count the number of columns, depending on exactly what you need. Without knowing how ranges are defined and things are labelled it's hard to be more specific, but I think that will get you started in the right direction.

If that doesn't help, maybe you could post what you've tried and give us some example data & formulas.


Disk structure error reported in Onyx but not fixable via the Disk Utility in Recovery Mode

Disk Utility will not fix every conceivable disk corruption issue. For that you need third-party apps. I use Diskwarrior and have also had success with Drive Genius.

However there is one way to do this without buying a disk repair utility. Back up your hard drive, partition/reformat it, reinstall the OS and restore your backup. Yeah it's more complicated and a bit of a PITA but will save you money.


The bindfs process has to be started with root privileges. Launching it as agent would prevent this.

So sudo launchctl unload ... and sudo launchctl remove ... (the subcommand remove removes the agent from the launchd database - the file won't get deleted!) the plist, move the plist to /Library/LaunchDaemons/ and reload it with sudo launchctl load ....

A properly named and composed org.user.bindfs.sftpjail.plist would look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>org.user.bindfs.sftpjail</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/opt/local/bin/bindfs</string>
                <string>/Volumes/BRIGHTRED/ServedDocuments</string>
                <string>/sftpjail/Documents</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
        <string>/tmp/org.user.bindfs.sftpjail.err</string>
        <key>StandardOutPath</key>
        <string>/tmp/org.user.bindfs.sftpjail.out</string>
        <key>WatchPaths</key>
        <array>
                <string>/Volumes/BRIGHTRED</string>
        </array>
</dict>
</plist>

The WatchPath key is often required (it was in my case) to avoid timing problems. You may remove the keys StandardErrorPath/StandardOutPath and its strings after ensuring that everything works properly.


How to export Safari history to either Firefox or Chrome?

Quick script:
https://github.com/Roman2K/hist_safari2chrome

Move Safari's history database at a convenient place.
Create a database for Chrome using this script and replace the Chrome's under ~/Library with the new one.
Increase  Firefox limits of import using https://superuser.com/questions/1635171/firefox-doesnt-import-all-history-from-chrome/1635172#1635172
Import history from Chrome in Firefox.

Edge can import Safari history. Give it Full Disk Access, and then import history, bookmarks etc. Remove FDA now.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/import-browser-data-from-safari-to-microsoft-edge-in-macos-mojave-6e39ccd9-7d8a-8d79-1574-87083b316bb4

Then Firefox can import Edge history: create a new profile (or not, if it's a new download), import data from the appropriate Edge profile.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/import-data-another-browser

Then Chrome/Brave can import from Firefox profile in the same manner.

https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019782291-How-do-I-import-or-export-browsing-data-

Delete the bookmarks folder and history items added by Firefox though.


Can I reference a hundreds value of a number from a cell in Apple Numbers?

You can use the module function for this. In A2 enter

=MOD(A1;1000)


Check the Finder Preferences to see if you have anything selected under Favorites.

From the Finder Menu

Select Finder > Preferences...
Select the Sidebar tab
Tick the boxes under Favorites that you wish to see in the Sidebar.

The Sidebar is the area on the left side.


Sometimes key "B" doesn't work on my preinstalled keyboard

Back up your data and take it to the Genius Bar. Since it's less than a month old, it will certainly still have the warranty, so they will either fix or replace for nothing.


macOS Sierra. Safari 10.0. App is hanging while loading site or switching tabs

Seems like this an issue with digicert's OCSP and Роскомнадзор. macOS tries to check certificate revocation every time when you change Safari tab with digicert certificate, but IP address is blocked by provider. Same issue with App Store downloads.

I've added different IP address to the /etc/hosts:

72.21.91.29 ocsp.digicert.com

and everything works fine for me now.

Also you can try other solutions or check details from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39899002/github-is-painfully-slow-on-safari-macos-sierra-10-12


Apple Automator: where does it store a new filename?

If you've set up an Automator  workflow as a Folder Action and have added a Run Shell Script action, you'd set Shell: [/bin/bash] and Pass input: [as arguments] and use the following example shell script code:
for f in "$@"
do
    xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine "$f"
done

Note: You should not need to use sudo as you've shown in your OP.

Update to address comment:
If the target of the watched folder is /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components, as in the root of the Macintosh HD, then you'll need to take a different approach.
Set up an Automator  workflow as a Folder Action adding a Run AppleScript action, replacing the default code with the example AppleScript code shown below.
Testing under macOS Catalina 10.15.6 the Automator workflow Folder Action, described immediately above, worked for me when adding file(s)/folder(s) to /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components, as in the root of the Macintosh HD.

Note: Upon manually placing file(s)/folder(s) into the target watched folder and authenticating that action, I was then prompted to re-enter my credentials so the do shell script command would run as if using sudo on the command line in Terminal on the xattr command
.

Example AppleScript code:
on run {input}
    set itemList to {}
    repeat with aItem in input
        set end of itemList to quoted form of (POSIX path of aItem) & space
    end repeat
    set shellCMD to "xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine " & itemList as string
    do shell script shellCMD with administrator privileges
end run


If you follow those instructions, the package will install everything to /usr/local. This is a recommended place to install user-compiled software because it's already in your PATH, doesn't need elevated permissions, and a lot of stuff breaks if it's not in either /usr or /usr/local . If you open the DEST directory that's created before the pkgutil step, you'll see where everything gets installed. It's the --PREFIX=/usr/local in the configure step that decides the path relative to which things get installed.

Incidentally, both those packages can be found in homebrew which, in my opinion, is a better way to manage these things and you may find more straightforward. After you install homebrew:

brew install szip hdf5


How do I delete these movies from my iPhone 4?

You can connect it to iTunes and remove the sync option under movies and sync your iPhone 4. This should remove the existing content from the iPhone and clear up space.


You could put the phone into Airplane mode, which will work until she figures out how to turn it off. (If she needs Internet access, you can re-enable wifi after putting it into Airplane mode.)


When I tried that a while back the app would open on the Mac instead of the Linux machine. Then I remember reading a while back:

  X forwarding only works for X Windows System-based applications. To do remote work on an OS X system, it’s better to use Apple Remote Desktop. With Remote Desktop, you log into the remote GUI and do all your work remotely rather than pulling the app and visualizing it on your own desktop with your X server.

Source: Apple OS X: Install X Window System XQuartz For SSH X11 Forwarding On a Mavericks or Yosemite


Why I cannot use the expose and launchpad from the touch bar?

Something similar happened with me yesterday, I started using a brand new MBP, opened the App Store and my Touch Bar showed me five tabs - Featured, Top Charts, Categories, Purchased, Updates - out of which the first tab was ofcourse, highlighted but when I clicked on any of the other 4 tabs, it just wouldn't make the switch. I even tried shutting the app and restarting but it didn't work.

Few minutes later, I tried again and it worked so maybe it was just a software glitch and Apple probably still needs to fix some bugs. Who knows if it's the same with your Touch Bar? I just tried and my Expose & Launchpad are working fine, so maybe if you give your machine a reboot or just try again after sometime it might work.

Hope this helps.


Can I use my Mac to re-create an inverted audio noise cancellation effect?

Audacity can do this as far as I know. There is a White Noise generator, and under the Effects menu there is a "Noise Removal" option.

I don't know if you can do it in realtime, but you could make a short recording of the ambient noise, run the Noise Removal, figure out what got removed (subtract before and after), and then play that part but inverted. Maybe....


Does encrypting Time Machine backups require auth on restore?

When Time Machine encrypts a drive, you will have to enter the passphrase to get macOS to decrypt the drive. The drive will mount and all contents are garbled until the key to unscramble the data is provided to the driver that attached the drive to the desktop.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/choose-a-backup-disk-set-encryption-options-mh11421/mac

iCloud entanglement is for rescuing a user account, not full drive encryption. Your account password can sometimes get a drive decrypted if your keychain contains the secret for a drive.


Not a valid identifier upon terminal startup

Solution (original in comments): remove eval from the first line. The problem could also have been in either of the scripts that're sourced (in the third and last lines), but that turned out not to be the case.

Explanation: eval makes the shell parse that command twice. Technically, it goes through all the usual steps when the shell parses a command line -- interpreting and removing quotes and escape characters, expanding variables, etc -- then passes the result to the eval command as arguments. The eval command (which is built into bash, not a separate executable) sticks those arguments back together as though that was a command, runs through all that parsing stuff again, and executes the result.

This is almost always a bad idea. Shell parsing is complicated and messy, and doing more of it just makes for more complication and mess. Unfortunately, people sometimes use it as a sort of "hit it with a bigger hammer" solution, and it works about as well as you'd expect beating things with a bigger hammer to work.

In this particular case, I think what's happening is that before this script runs, PATH is set to something like "/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/Applications/Something Workbooks.app/Contents/SharedSupport/path-bin" (where "Something" is a different word, but I don't know the specific app name). The shell takes this:

eval export PATH="/Users/rachelromine/.rbenv/shims:${PATH}"

Removes the quotes and expands ${PATH}, passes the result to eval, which executes:

export PATH=/Users/rachelromine/.rbenv/shims:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/Applications/Something Workbooks.app/Contents/SharedSupport/path-bin

Since the quotes got removed in the first parsing pass, that space in the middle of the app name is treated as a separator between arguments (rather than as part of a filename), so the export command sets PATH to "/Users/rachelromine/.rbenv/shims:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/Applications/Something", then in a totally unrelated operation tries to export a variable named "Workbooks.app/Contents/SharedSupport/path-bin"... which is not a valid variable name ("identifier").

Now, as for what that eval is doing there in the first place: I don't know. I can't see how it could possibly do any good here (though if it weren't for the space, it wouldn't have done any harm). I assume it was in some instructions you followed (or a prototype .bash_profile) for installing rbenv. What it was doing there, I have no idea.


Why doesn't my iPhone 5c support Night Shift?

From Apple site:

Night Shift is available on iPhone 5s or later, iPad Pro, iPad Air or later, iPad mini 2 or later, and iPod touch (6th generation).

So I think It's related to 64bit processor architecture.


Yes, this is possible with multiple methods. The easiest is simply right-clicking the script, opening the Get Info window and changing Open With to Python Launcher (x.x.x).


Set up 2 FW800 JBOD units as a RAID 1(mirror)

A RAID setup is not a backup. A RAID is a way of mitigating hardware failure, its value is that despite a piece of hardware failing you can keep working with no down time. In your case, the issue you had a (a failed drive) would have been handled just fine by a RAID, but the following would not:

Accidentally deleting a file (the RAID will happily delete it on both of the mirrored drives.
Data corruption due to bugs in any programs you are using (again, the RAID will dutifully store the bad data the apps send to it).

The above are software and user failures. If you are confident you (or an app) will never make a mistake where you need to rollback to an older version then you simply don't need a backup, and going to a RAID to mitigate potential HW failure is fine. If you are like the rest of us an make mistakes then you probably want actual backups, and to add a RAID in addition to that if down time is very costly for you.


Will this MagSafe power adapter work on my MacBook Air?

No.

Wattage is not an issue. Lower-powered macbooks are be paired with higher-powered power source. A 85W power adapter is basically universal to all macbooks.

2011 MBA still has MagSafe 1/original port. Visually, plug on MagSafe adapter is L-shaped, while plug on MagSafe 2 is T-shaped. Apple sell a tiny addon that makes MagSafe adapters work with newer MagSafe 2 macbooks, but the other way around doesn't work.