Your MacBook isn't the weak link in the chain, it's your external hard disk. The 2011 machines don't support USB 3.0 so you're either using Firewire 800 or USB 2.0 - the fastest throughput you're going to see on FW800 is around 95MB/s for RAID 0 HDDs and SSD devices.

More RAM will help with overall speed, 16GB is supported, but fitting an SSD and using it to store the video files you're working on will give you a much more responsive system. I don't do video but I regularly work with 500MB+ still images and working from an SSD is a breeze, archived images stored on a couple of LaCie 2Big Quadras take an eternity to load in comparison (over FW800, USB 2.0 really is painfully slow).

As for your OS, I still have a lot of love for 10.6. It may not feature the latest, greatest technologies but it is lean, solid and fast. I've tried 10.8, 10.9 and 10.10 on my photo machine and not found any performance improvements/benefits over 10.6, certainly nothing to offset the compatibility with older software offered by the Rosetta functionality. I'd advise you upgrade when the applications you rely on require you to do so, upgrading isn't otherwise going to offer any significant improvements for your current setup and workflow.

*Forgot to mention using storage attached to the Thunderbolt port - this is pretty much the only way of leveraging the full available speed of an external RAID 0 HDD or SSD. It's an expensive route, depending on budget, but it may suit your purposes. I'd still consider the internal SSD idea though, seeing 15 second boot times and applications opening in one or two bounces makes you realise how much of a bottleneck an HDD is...


Does the iPhone 6 "CPU-throttling" feature stop after the battery is replaced?

It seems that the CPU throttling will stop once device's battery is replaced.
In a statment to TechCrunch, Apple says they will throttle devices "only when needed."

  Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions.

As this happens "only when needed," replacing the battery should stop CPU throttling from happening. Explaining his experience with the same issue, Forbes contributor Antony Leather says that performance did increase on his iPhone 6 after replacing the battery.

  My iPhone 6 was a prime candidate - I had actually replaced the
  battery myself a couple of years ago, but I'm a heavy user and already
  noticed its longevity had started to decrease again...

  Finally, I replaced the battery with a new one from Amazon, charged it
  to be well away from the low power mode level and re-ran the test. The
  difference was incredible. The single core score rose from 1038 to
  1562 - an increase of precisely 50%.

Check out Forbes' Boost Your iPhone Speed By 50%: How To Replace The Battery And Stop Apple Degrading Performance

Check out this excerpt from How-To Geek's You can Speed Up You Slow iPhone by Replacing the Battery, which suggests that replacing the battery will improve performance.

  If your phone is indeed slowing down as a result of poor battery health, replacing the battery will give your phone new life. Not only will you get a longer-lasting battery by replacing an old one, but your phone should jump back up to its top speed.


MacBook Pro 2012, HDD speed 80MB read/write normal?

Those kinds of speeds are to be expected from a MacBook HDD. For much higher speeds, consider upgrading the HDD to an SSD. (See Macbook Pro Hard drive speed)


Sites blocked in /etc/hosts often doesn't work

I solved my problem. It seems I need to block both the domain website.com and the address www.website.com. I didn't know that was necessary. I edited them in there and now the blocking is consistently working everywhere.


Syncing photos to iCloud and managing them with Lightroom

I have a solution:

create a symbolic link to your iCloud folder from the terminal window
ln -s ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs iCloudDrive
This creates a link from your home folder to your iCloud documents
Now open up Lightroom and you should be able to navigate to the linked folder and import directly from there.


Trimforce on third party SSD disables keyboard and touchpad

a. Trim is not really necessary on modern SSD's. GarbageCollection works pefectly fast when there is enough free space, say 20% or more.
b. Do not use Trim when the SSD has not a modern Marvel controller (never install trim on a SSD with Sandforce controller.
The new Sandisk SSDs have a Marvel controller, I do not know what controller is in the Sandisk Plus.


Can I copy the PDFs I have on my Mac to the iPad?

There are 3 main routes to get PDF to your iPad:

Drag them into iTunes and have iTunes sync them in the iBooks tab. Other apps will allow management of PDF as files at the bottom of the apps tab in iTunes.
Use another program like PhoneView to drop them directly to the iPad via USB.
Move them within iOS - mobile mail, mobile safari and other apps will detect that iBooks (and other apps) can read PDF's and offer to move them for you. There are truly hundreds of apps that will receive PDF just like iBooks will. Just a few that are mature, widely adopted and well designed are iDisk, Dropbox, AirSharing but I'll keep this focused on your transport question and leave the comparison of which app on iOS is best for it's own thread.

Which one is best depends on your workflow, but knowing all three may help you be more nimble.


Do a software update.

Go to  Apple menu → System Preferences... → Software Update (on macOS Mojave) or Apple menu → App Store... → Updates (on earlier). Be sure to update Xcode. Then go back to Terminal and run

xcode-select --install


Go to Settings > iTunes & App Store, click on the Apple ID at the top and you will be presented with the option to sign out of the currently logged-in account. Sign in with your account and you will then be able to add your own apps, music etc.


How safe is it to replace the magsafe 2 connector with another one by simply connecting the wires?

This is the low voltage side of the transformer, so the risk is far less than working on the AC side. I haven’t heard of anything worse than scorch marks and safely melted plastic on the low voltage side when people shut these cables in a door or roll chairs over them, so I’d say you’re pretty safe if you make sure it works and doesn’t heat up and protect it electrically. The low voltage side has enough power and current to start a fire, that is certain so I’d say you are risking safety if you don’t do it well or there is hidden damage you don’t catch and fix.

Why doesn't a stripped/cracked MagSafe power cable shock?
Will the "cracked" wire of a MacBook charger eletrocute me
Out of warranty MBP ,Burned Magsafe port and frayed charger cable - repair option and cost?

So, if you know this and try a repair, worst case is you pay for new part or someone skilled at electrical work to do a repair if you’re not comfortable with your safety and whatever house you leave this plugged into going forward once you have learned if you can do the repair. The chances of breaking your Mac is low with this since it’s designed to not charge from damaged cords anyhow.

Since you probably should try this for science:

Are the silver wires inside the MagSafe cable necessary?
What are specs of this MagSafe wire, and what is its purpose?
What voltage readings should i get from my 60 watt magsafe
Specification of MagSafe power adapter coaxial cable?


Why is Options button for Photos app missing in iCloud settings?

You can manage these settings by opening the Photos app, and opening Photos > Preferences. Select the iCloud tab.
Here is a screenshot of the settings in Mojave – it's similar in later versions of macOS:


Microsoft Wireless 900 Desktop and iMac running 10.11.6

It "should" work.  From the technical specifications page:

Computer
Requires a PC that meets the requirements for and has installed one of
these operating systems:

Windows 10 / 8 / 7
Mac OS X v10.4 – 10.7

It's just an USB HID (Human Interface Device).  Now, there may be certain keyboard/mouse functions that are not available due to the limited availability.


How can you access Apple Mail from Apple script?

To start with, you can try this Applescript:

set interval to 7
set target to (current date) - interval
set oldCount to 0
tell application "Mail"
    set box to mailbox named "INBOX" of account named "Your_mailbox_here"
    set maxMessages to count of messages in box
    repeat with index from 1 to maxMessages
        set currentMessage to message index in box
        set msgDate to date received of currentMessage
        if msgDate is greater than target then
            set oldCount to oldCount + 1
            # do something here
        end if
    end repeat
end tell

Enter the above script in Script Editor, play with it till it does what you want, then save it as a script file (.scpt). run it with osascript(1).

Look at Applescript Resources and the Applescript Language Guide for more useful info. Also look at the scripting dictionary of Mail.app using the "Open Dictionary..." command in Script Editor to see what sort of things you can script in mail.


By default, ulimits on OS X have a soft limit of 0 and a hard limit of unlimited.

You can verify this by opening a Terminal and running ulimit -S -c and ulimit -H -c.


MacBookPro 2011 GPU failure. Csrutil command will not work at all

Just incase anyone had this same issue.

I had to use a new external HD (backed up everything onto it) and booted with that using option button.

Then erased the internal disk using disk utility and it then allowed me to do a fresh MacOS which then updated the recover software to 10.12.6 Sierra.

Which then therefore allowed me to disable csrutil in Recovery mode.


Font Suitcases can potentially hold 2 different kinds of fonts: bitmap fonts and TrueType fonts. Normally, font suitcases that hold bitmap font data are only one half of the font; to be usable you need to have the additional PostScript Outline font files (these will have an LWFN icon).

Otherwise, the font suitcase can represent a TrueType font, which compared to a "PostScript Type 1 Font Suitcase", is truly self-contained.

I'm not aware of command-line font converters for the Mac. The only type of conversion I could imagine using command line tools would be converting from a resource-fork-based Font Suitcase to a Datafork TrueType font (.dfont), and possibly from a Mac TrueType to a Windows TrueType font (basically you'd need to extract the 'sfnt' resource entries).

To try to figure out if the Mac Font Suitcase is a TrueType font, you can use the following command:

grep -c sfnt /Library/Fonts/BankGothic/..namedfork/rsrc

What this does is return the number of times 'sfnt' is found in the resource fork of the file in question. If this returns 0, the file is most likely not a TrueType font.

Note that by default, terminal command will only act on the data fork part of files. For example:

ls -la /Library/Fonts/BankGothic
-rw-rw-r--@ 1 root  admin  0 Mar  7  2007 /Library/Fonts/BankGothic

This shows that the file is empty (has a file size of 0). To specifically target the resource fork, you append /..namedfork/rsrc to the filename as in the following example:

ls -la /Library/Fonts/BankGothic/..namedfork/rsrc
-rw-rw-r--  1 root  admin  346937 Mar  7  2007 /Library/Fonts/BankGothic/..namedfork/rsrc

EDIT:
If it is a Mac TrueType font, I can convert it to one or more Windows TrueType fonts (.ttf) for you. (For this particular type of conversion, there's no need to use font software; a simple Mac resource editor (and knowledge of this process) should be sufficient. If I do convert it in this manner, I'll provide screenshots of what I'm doing for the record).

EDIT 2: See my answer on StackOverflow for "Using OS 9 resource fork fonts with CSS" for a tool I wrote that would allow drag and drop extracting of sfnt resource entries to individual ttf font files.


Microsoft Teams Camera Shows Black Screen

The problem can be seen in Teams device settings.

Make a test call. This gives us a big clue as it highlights the video camera is unavailable due to permissions.

Fix by enabling in System Preferences under Security & Privacy as follows.


Are there any apps or tools that allow visualizing multitouch finger positions for iOS screencast/recording?

I needed the same and searched a lot. In my opinion there are three solutions:

Live capture of the gestures one does on your iPad (not professional)
Using a PNG of a pointing arm (hand) in ScreenFlow (or Camtasia).

This works quite well. One can tweak the png a bit (X,Y,Z-coordinates) and with adding video actions it comes to live. It is elaborate though, but with some patience and expertise quite professional.
Buying a M4A or MOV of finger gestures.

Have a look at VideoHive's Touch Screen Finger Gestures for example.

You can purchase them with an alpha channel to incorporate in the screencast. Didn't try that one, but seems the most professional to me. Some costs involved though.


MacBook Pro - How to resume APFS decryption process?

The process is totally automatic in High Sierra and there is no command to resume the decryption process other than connecting the Mac to power if it's a portable Mac.

The Apples new file system APFS works differently then older file systems HFS+. The detailed guideline along with new feature detail can be found here.

Now, whenever you'll unlock volume the pending/paused encryption/decryption process will start automatically. But there is a condition, the machine (in my case, MacBook Pro) must should be plugged in. So, whenever you'll unplug the decryption process will stop immediately even if the battery is fully charged since this is presumably a maintenance task that shouldn't deplete the battery energy at any time.


Mac HDD still losing space after deleting files

it could be just used a swap space that should be cleared up by a reboot (probably some terminal command too).

Could also be you are on a laptop with time machine and have mobile backups enabled (aka local snapshots).


How long will the Spring 2010 MacBook Pros be available?

They will be available until they run out.

As you are looking at a refurbished product, availability is limited and highly variable. Apple tends to have a continuous supply of refurbished products, however they may not have the specific model you are looking for next month.


WOW I finally figured this out.

Tampering with the audio jack will cause this to happen. I have headphones with the play/pause/skip control button, so the issue might not show up with standard headphones. If I tap (or double tap) the headphones where it is connected to the jack, the effect is the same as if I clicked the remote button that was designed to control playback.

What's happening is my movement is jarring the headphones and even a very slight tug will open iTunes and start playing music. Very frustrating when I'm using my headset for a phone call!


Magic keyboard and trackpad via wired connection but internal transmitter is always on and a question

The new Apple "Magic" peripherals (mouse, keyboard, track pad) are Bluetooth 4.2 or LE (low energy) devices which, unlike regular Bluetooth devices, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) doesn't broadcast all the time.

Basically, the device will only listen for connection requests and respond accordingly.  So, when they say it's always on, it only means it's on and listening; not broadcasting.


It's the current user's home directory. It should correspond to the currently logged in user (shown in System Preferences > System > Accounts). The name xue is the short name for the currently logged-in user.

If it's on your Mac and it isn't you and you don't recognise it, then you'd have to wonder who has an account on your Mac that you don't know about. Did you buy it secondhand maybe?

You can rename user accounts - see Apple's support website for more info.


Uploading a minor new build must wait for review every time?

Yes.  Apple requires that every new build, regardless of how small, go thru the App Review processes.  If you have a bad bug and need to get a fix out there quickly, you can request an expedited review.


Can I fix this problem backing up Time Machine to an external HD via Airport Extreme?

The sparsebundle is how a backup looks when it's a network backup. This isn't supported by Apple when you connect to an Airport which is why there is a minus symbol.

You can connect the drive over USB and start backing up normally but you won't have one place where all the backups exist (and worst case - you'll have two copies of each file - one in the sparse bundle and the other in /Volumes/whatever/Backup.backupdb as a flat directory backup instead of a sparse bundle format).

In practice, this isn't really a bad option since you only will lose a file when the drive fills and you could archive the sparse bundle or mount it to see if you can just delete those old backups. If you need to recover files, you can mount the sparse bundle and do the recovery by hand (or hand copy that one snapshot in time into the new format and recover things).

Lastly, you could move that sparsebundle to a supported destination like OS X server, Time Capsule or a NAS drive that works with Time Machine and continue backing up to the sparse image. These all would let you continue backing up, but cost time and/or money. I wouldn't recommend hacking OS X or Airport to make it appear as a Time Capsule, since it doesn't check the sparse bundle which will become corrupt sooner without some process tending it.


Add Novel Groupwise Account via Exchange ActiveSync to Mail

OS X only supports Microsoft Exchange, not Exchange ActiveSync. ActiveSync is only supported on iOS/Android  This is why Mail will not connect but your iPhone and iPad will.


How can I view the original (or "master") version of a photo in Photos without reverting all edits?

While in Edit mode, hold down the Control and M keys.

This will show you the original version of your photo, with no edits applied. If you want to temporarily undo the effect of the color adjustments but keep the cropping and rotation the same, hold down M by itself.

Unlike Aperture:

It doesn’t work in “view mode”; you have to be in edit mode. (To get into edit mode via the keyboard, press Return.)
It’s a hold, not a toggle, so you only see the original photo for as long as you have the keys held down.


Save and upload PDF files with browser with iPad Pro

When you view the PDF on the website in Safari, press the "share" icon and then select "Save to Files". Now store the PDF document, for example on iCloud Drive.

Then browse the second website and click the button to upload a file. You will be asked then if you want to take a photo, access your photo library or "Browse". Choose "Browse" and you'll be able to select the PDF document, you've saved earlier.


Can the iOS 6 setup assistant be re-run a second time without erasing my iPhone?

If I recall correctly - perhaps others can help flesh out any missing details - the setup wizard primarily lets you sign in with / sign up for an Apple ID to use for iCloud, it asks you to agree to the iCloud Terms of Service, and it asks about setting up Location Services.

All of these can be accessed directly through the Settings app at any time. I don't believe you will miss any important functionality by missing the wizard, especially if you were previously using your iPhone with iCloud in iOS5.


I know this is an old post, but the above command does not work. "tell application "System Events" to set volume input volume 0".  Sure, the slider moves all the way to the left, but if you make noise you can see the mic picking up input.  If you manually move the slider then it mutes.  Further analysis using the apple midi audio app indicates setting input volume to 0 via applescript actually sets it to 4.  I've tried putting in -4 and other negative values hoping it would work.  it does not.

I'm not sure why apple chose this behavior.  It has been the result of setting input to 0 via applescript that it is not really 0 for years now.  Very frustrating.


Generally speaking to "mirror" a hard drive often means setting up a RAID where one drive mirrors the other. This is done using either the RAID software built into Disk Utility or 3rd party RAID software.

The benefits of that is that each drive is a duplicate of the other and if one fails the other disk has all your valuable data. The "problem" is that you generally cant set up RAID across a USB or Thunderbolt bus (that I am aware of). So if you have a Mac with one internal drive you can't set up a RAID between the internal and an external drive.

You can also use a utility like SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner (and others) to make a bootable duplicate of your HD, essentially making a mirror copy of the drive, just not done in real time like a RAID mirror would.

Both of those applications can be scheduled to run on a regular basis (hourly, daily, weekly, etc.) and copy only the changed files to the backup drive.

I use SuperDuper to do just this and it is scheduled to run every other day automatically. It connects to another Mac that is always on, mounts a disk image and backs up the changed files.


My Iphone 6 is damaged because of pressure

Usually if it's just the screen Apple has a screen replacement program where they would either replace the screen or the entire phone for $79 with the AppleCare coverages or $109 without it.

You could start the process at Apple's Support Page


How to change volume of "say" in AppleScript?

Since you are piping the output of the pbpaste command directly to say command, then e.g. [[volm 0.35]] would need to be a part of what's on the clipboard as e.g. [[volm 0.35]] must precede the content of what was actually going to be said.

I'd try using the following in place of what you are using:

set howLoudAndWhatToSay to "[[volm 0.35]] \"" & (get the clipboard as string) & "\""

set this_say_Pid to do shell script "say " & howLoudAndWhatToSay & " > /dev/null 2>&1 & echo $!"

Update: If you want to stick with using pbpaste, then this example command should work:

set this_say_Pid to (do shell script "echo \"[[volm 0.35]] $(LANG=en_US.UTF-8 pbpaste -Prefer txt)\" | say > /dev/null 2>&1 & echo $!")

Note the primary differences between the command within the do shell script "..." command in your question and my answer.

echo \"[[volm 0.35]] is added in front of LANG=... and note the space after ]].
The LANG=en_US.UTF-8 pbpaste -Prefer txt is now enclosed in $(...) which is using Command Substitution to, in essence, concatenate what gets echoed to the pipe ahead of the say command.
As well as a matching closing literal double-quote \", before the pipe to say,  to go with the one in echo \"[[volm 0.35]].  It did work in limited testing without the use of the opening and closing double-quotes however it's probably better to encase it in the double-quotes to account for something the shell might try to unnecessarily expand.

That said, on my system using 0.35 for the value in [[volm 0.35]] didn't work well in that is was difficult to perceive the difference in volume from my normal setting. However using 0.3 in [[volm 0.3]] the difference was notable. (This is one of the reasons why I used "e.g. [[volm 0.35]]" in my opening sentence.)


Make sure that the option "Play sounds for other mail actions" is checked in Mail preferences under the General tab. When activated, you should hear the "swoosh" sound when sending an email.


Disable expanding scroll bars in Mountain Lion

In "System Preferences > General" There are three options for "Showing scroll bars". From your description, it sounds like you have the default settings of "Automatically based on mouse or trackpad"

You may find "When Scrolling" or "Always" more to your liking. I'm an old school Mac user, so I have it set to always. That setting solves this problem and other scrolling problems.

If scroll bars were meant to be hidden, then Andy Hertzfeld would have written them that way in the first place.


This is very easy:

Get some text to search for. You can use "Ask for text". Or something like the following:

display dialog "What do you want to search for?" default answer ""

Make a Google search URL. I used this snippet:

on run {input, parameters}
    return "https://www.google.com/search?q=" & input
end run

Get the contents from the webpage. I used "Get text from webpage", which is the easiest way by far. It's also possible to simply get the source of the page and use regexes to extract the data from there.
Decide how to display the data. A quick and dirty way to do this is:

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "System Events" to display alert "result:" & input
    return input
end run


Plug your iPhone into your PC
Open Cydia Impactor
Drag the .ipa file onto Cydia Impactor
When prompted, enter your Apple-ID email address and password


Why is my hostname resolution taking so long?

I was able to fix this issue by explicitly setting the HostName using scutil to be the same value as LocalHostName:

$ scutil --set HostName $(scutil --get LocalHostName)

Now:

$ sudo scutil --set HostName MacBook-Pro
$ time python -c 'import socket; print(socket.getfqdn())'
MacBook-Pro
python -c 'import socket; print(socket.getfqdn())'  0.01s user 0.00s system 86% cpu 0.016 total

I was confused before because of the following:

$ scutil --get LocalHostName
MacBook-Pro

$ hostname
MacBook-Pro.local

But:

$ scutil --get HostName
HostName: not set


In general - drops will not find the sensitive places and unless you live in an area with salt spray saturating the air - it won't gather much salt and be corrosive before it dries.

Statistically, there are only a few places where water will get wedged into a small crack (capillary action also can move a drop quite some distance from where it lands) and cause corrosion before it evaporates.

You did well to power it off. The only other thing would be to flip it upside down after closing a cloth between the keys and the screen.

You can edit your question to specify exactly where the liquid landed and what model (year and size) and I'll see if you need any more details in the answer.

In short - don't worry. Let the water dry, and use the Mac. Take it in to a genius bar or someone well used to repairing that mac. They will be able to educate you on the risks of using it (not much - and back up your data anyhow - something will eventually fail spills, accidents or perfect maintenance nonetheless).


Can the name under the Bank Account be different from Account holder?

Per the iTunes Connect Developer Guide (emphasis mine):

Specify the bank account.
Identify the bank account by the following:
...
Account Holder Name. Be sure that the Account Holder Name exactly matches the name expected by the bank; it doesn't have to match the Legal Entity Name for the iTunes Connect organization.


Create bootable USB drive from Linux ISO

Open Disk Utility (you can find it in the Utilities folder). Insert your USB drive, and select it in the left pane. Choose the tab "Restore" on the right side of the window, drag the image file into the "Source" field and the USB drive into the "Destination" field. Click the "Restore" button.

That should do it.


Way to select HTML tables by column and add them to the pasteboard?

As far as I know, there's no way to do that in Safari or Chrome, but in Firefox you can select ranges of cells by holding option and command.

You could also copy the whole table and paste it to a spreadsheet application or use something like pbpaste | cut -d $'\t' -f3. But it might not work if there are cells that contain br elements or rows that start with empty cells.

I've had to use something like this with a few tables that contained br elements:

ruby -e '`pbpaste`.scan(/<tr>.*?<\/tr>/m).each { |r| puts r.scan(/<td>(.*?)<\/td>/m)[2] }'


For bad and/or marginal blocks on hard disks, can anything be more effective than a single pass of zeros?

Thanks – that's the first write, which is reportedly not enough. In an edition to your answer, can you explain why in alternative advice, there's emphasis on the first re-write
  Blockquote

I'm not sure I'm following your question.

When a drive detects an unwritable, or bad sector, it's supposed to mark the unwritable block as bad, then re-map the bad sector to a spare sector. It makes no difference what type of data is contained in the data to be written to the drive. This will happen until the amount of spare sectors are used up. After they are, then with most drives, the bad sector is simply left in place and the drive should be considered bad.

From the post from your Apple link, I would tend to agree more with Martin Joseph than some of the others. If the number of bad sectors is increasing with any degree of regularity, then it likely means bearings are failing in either the actuator or the drive motor. This allows too much play in the mechanisms and results in more and more head crashes as the problem gets worse, which causes more and more bad sectors. Either the drive will fail from mechanical problem (bad bearings,) the heads will eventually become damaged, or the platters will become so damaged no more spare sectors will be available and they'll just be left on the drive platters to cause more and more problems.

If the bad sector problem is due to a one time head crash (impact or a small particle entering the drive chamber) it's quite possible that the drive may be corrected by "zeroing" and may last years.

The only time a multi-pass overwrite would be needed that I could think of would be to "clear" weak sectors. The amount of time it takes to read a weak sector should raise a flag to the controller, but if the amount of time never exceeds the drive's threshold it won't be re-mapped. With weak sectors, the amount of time to read it may vary enough that at one point it might actually, finally flag the sector as failed and re-map it.

The process of "zeroing" the drive is really something of a misnomer. You could fill the blocks with "Hello, World!" data and it should still remap the bad sectors if spares are available. The reason people suggest using the "zeroing" technique is because it's built into Disk Utility, not as a drive repair procedure but as a security procedure. It just incidentally happens to force the controller to remap bad sectors when it encounters them.

I would suggest the term "re-write" refers to the fact that the sector once held data and now, in the zeroing or overwriting process it's being re-written.


I would do the restore and get the memo (or sync them all to iTunes or another program like PhoneView)

That might take 10 seconds of your brain time to get going and some waiting. I've not found a speedy way to dig amongst the backup files to locate specific memos.

The backup files are stored plainly in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/ but there might be 8,000 files with names friendly to the backup process and not to you and I.

Perhaps if you knew the size of the file, you could narrow down the audio file or drag a few hundred of the closest sized files into iTunes to see which of them are actual sound / movie files. Scripting the file command to determine which are sound files might narrow the search.


Well, chalk this one up to pilot error.  It turned out that what I had thought was a single drive in two partitions, wasn't.  I was right that my TM drive was 5TB, but what I had forgotten was that my Media drive, was a completely separate, older 3TB drive that was just somewhat hidden in my media cabinet.  It looks like the TM drive had disappeared due to a cabling issue of some sort.  Unplugging and then plugging back in its USB, caused it to suddenly reappear as expected.

Oh well, I'm now also the proud owner of a new 8TB drive (which was cheaper than the 5TB drive was 18 months ago!) so I guess I'll look at this as the universe's way of telling me once and for all that I need to stop running out of space on my Media drive.  LOL


The Satechi Bluetooth Smart Pointer is actually a pretty good choice. I have a number of teachers at this school who use it for their classes all the time. It works a lot like the Apple Remote that has been (essentially) discontinued for Macs. It has some additional features, like a laser pointer. To make it work with Plex, you can just use it in Accessibility Mode (this makes it behave more like a keyboard than a remote).

On a slightly unrelated note, it can also be used to control iOS devices, which I thought would be useless; but, it turns out to have some very convenient implementations around campus that I hadn't imagined.

Certainly worth $50, from my perspective.


Windows 10 on 2011 Macbook: is audio fixable?

I have the solution for audio to work UEFI windows 10

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/350469/319791

This took 4 years to figure out


Yea it's very inaccurate sometimes, believe me I got mad at my daughter because she told me she was at my sisters house but the gps was saying otherwise so I got upset at her but she was actually at her house.My sister confirm that, I had to apologize!


Is there a way to get macos to recognize my external hard drive without rebooting the operating system?

There is a 3rd party app named Mountain that lets you manage your volumes. The app sells from the developers for $6 but you can download it and try it out. I've been using it for years and I love it. it creates a menu app that lists all volume mounted or not.


Finder Tags not working for any SMB files


Tap on the existing (mixed) person. Tap Select at the upper-right, then tap on each photo that is not the person whose name is at the top of the screen. Tap on the Share icon at the lower-left, then tap "Not this person" on the bottom row of options. You may need to scroll to see it.

This will remove them from the current person. Where they go from there is a separate issue. I haven't found a way to manually tag a photo as being a particular person, but it's likely they should reappear in the Add People section. You may need to do further work to get all photos of a particular person back together at that point (i.e. merging and using "not this person" as needed).


Can a thunderbolt 3 cable be used on MacBook 12inch for data transfer?

I am answering my own question. Short answer: NO.

I received my Belkin Thunderbolt 3 cable today (https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-USB-IF-Certified-Thunderbolt-Compatible/dp/B0725DW6D3/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1511766135&sr=8-4&keywords=belkin%2Bthunderbolt%2B3&th=1 the 1.6 foot one). By directly connecting my new MacBook Pro and MacBook 12inch, the new MacBook Pro still couldn’t recognize that 12inch MacBook. I did some more research just now, and on this page(https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201462 scroll down to the bottom), it seems that a USB-C 3.1 cable is the only way that does the work. The shop assistant was right.

I am not sure if it could work with other situations, but unfortunately it doesn’t work with target disk mode. Btw, the cable doesn’t have any problem since my 12inch MacBook was charging when connecting to the new MacBook Pro.


How to create new folder using contextual menu in MAC OS?

I know some people prefer the mouse, but as an alternative for completeness sake...

Of if you prefer SHIFT-COMMAND-N in any window (including right on the desktop) will create a new folder right there.


Backing up a MacBook Pro without a screen?

If you have another Mac and a Thunderbolt cable, you can use Target Disk Mode. When starting up the problematic Mac press and hold T. Then connect the cable to the other Mac. It should mount and you can pull the files off like any other disk, provided its not encrypted.

Since you also mentioned you using NetBoot, consider booting into that image and copy the files as needed.


You can use the -p option to choose a different port. So:

ssh -p 222 root@ipaddress

You can also look up help using the man (manual) command, like man ssh, to show help information, including usage, command line options, errors, etc. While in the man page, you can type / (the slash character) followed by any text (and Enter) to search for that within the manual.


Incorrect name keeps appearing in Mail.app account info

From http://kb.mit.edu/confluence/display/mitcontrib/Apple+Mail+shows+incorrect+name+for+email+address:

  Question(s)

  How come Apple Mail shows the wrong name when I type my email address in the To or CC field?

  Context

  AppleMail
  Apple Mail
  Mail.app
  Address Book

  The name that shows up in the TO: or CC: field when typing an email address is incorrect.
  (Ex. Joe User  instead of Joseph User )

  Solution

  Apple Mail pulls the name information from cards in the address book. If there is a card with the email address typed, it will try to use the name on that card. This can be changed by:

  Open the address book
  Search for the email address
  Click Edit
  Click the name in the card to change it.
  Click Edit again to stop editing

  Test by trying to create a new message to the email address in question.


If your headphone jack cannot go in, there are only three reasons why this will occur:

The port is obstructed
The headphone jack is the wrong size
There's a manufacturing defect of the MacBook port

You can't remove dust or dirt if there's no dust or dirt to remove.  Also, you don't want to use a tooth pick as that will push objects in further and can even damage the port.  Compressed air is a better option and if you can do it from the back of the connector (requires opening the case), that would be the most effective method.
Forcing a connector is highly discouraged; if you can't make the connection with the reasonable amount of force that's required, stressing it could break things.  If it doesn't go in, something is wrong and excessive force will make it worse.
Verify that the headphone jack can be inserted into other devices and that you are indeed using a 3.5mm jack.  Finaly, try other headphones.  If  none can fit, then it's very likely you have a Mac with a manufacturing defect.  If that's the case, try contacting Apple Support. You may have some luck with them swapping out the case even if you're outside the warranty period.


Why can macOS have two files with same name?

You cannot have two files with the same name in the same folder.
If you look closely at the "Get Info" screenshots you've posted - there seems to be a much larger gap between the filename and "Info" on the left-most screenshot compared to the right-most screenshot.
This seems to indicate that you've probably have a space at the end of the name of one of the files. You can just rename the file in Finder to give it a separate name and remove the space.


iTunes Connect Users & Roles for limited app access

There are four roles you can grant to the users for them to access all the data about specific apps:

  App Manager: The App Managers can edit all aspects of the apps they have access to, and can add users to those apps. These users can be granted limited app access.

  Developer: The Developer user has access to My Apps and Resources and Help. They can upload binaries to iTunes Connect and manage internal TestFlight users. These users can be granted limited app access.

  Marketer: The Marketer role is for users who manage marketing materials and promotional artwork. Users with the Marketing role will be contacted by the App Store team if an app is chosen to be featured on the App Store. They can update app metadata and request promo codes from My Apps. These users can be granted limited app access.

  Sales: The Sales role has access to Sales and Trends, and iTunes Connect for iOS. They can only download the full sales reports if they also have the Reports role. Sales users can be granted limited app access.

https://itunespartner.apple.com/en/apps/faq/Users%20and%20Roles_Overview

All of these roles support limited app access, which is the ability to restrict accounts to only view certain apps. Granting Admin or Finance automatically provides the ability to see every app associated with the developer program membership.

You can configure limited app access…

when creating a new app

  If you choose to limit access to the app, users whose roles can be limited and who are not selected will not be able to see the app in iTunes Connect. Users with the Admin, Technical, Finance or Reports role cannot have limited app access, so they will see all apps. If you do not select any users in the Limit User Access section, everyone will have access to the app.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/iTunesConnect_Guide/Chapters/CreatingiTunesConnectRecord.html
from iTunes Connect Users & Roles

  To limit a user’s access to certain apps:

  In the Users and Roles pane, select the user you want to edit by clicking on their Apple ID.
  Select the Roles pane.
  Under the Apps dropdown select the apps to which this user should be limited.
  Click Save.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/iTunesConnect_Guide/Chapters/SettingUpUserAccounts.html


Remove downloads or remove from library for duplicate playlist?

Remove Downloads will leave the playlist in your library, but remove the music files associated with the songs in that playlist from your phone, thus freeing up storage. It's a quick method to bulk-remove songs from your phone.

Delete from Library will remove the playlist itself from your media library (including iCloud Music Library if you use iTunes Match or MUSIC). However whatever music files you've already downloaded will remain on your phone.

In your case, you should Delete from Library if you are certain the playlist is a duplicate.


When you set "LSUIElement" to true, it makes the application in question a semi GUI-less application.  While calling up the application in this state, it still shows up windows, but it does neither show its Dock icon nor its menu bar.

As to alternatives: The only real alternative is to have the application support this on its own (e.g. inside its own GUI).

Keep in mind that enabling "LSUIElement" (a.k.a. setting it to true) is not telling the application to hide its Dock icon, but rather tells the Dock not to show the application's icon while it is running.  Also GUI-wise there are two main processes running for the user: Finder and the Dock.  The first is merely an application on its own and will allow you to browse and alter the files on your computer and the latter besides showing and controlling the Dock icons controls the menu bar itself (not the menu items of each application, mind you) as well as the Dashboard and Launchpad among others. You can see its effect when running Terminal and type in "killall Dock".  It will effectively restart Dock and its depending items.


Use Retina resolution in Microsoft Remote Desktop

Click the Pencil [edit] Icon at the top of the main RDC window & set a higher remote screen resolution.
'Native' might be as good as it will let you have.

Scale content might not be good on a Retina screen - but it might appear quite small without it checked.

I have a feeling, which I'm unable to test, that it may be related to the maximum resolution of the remote machine's graphics, not the local - as you can always set the local machine to scale the remote's resolution to fit the local screen - e.g. for dual monitor remote, single monitor local.


How to access Pages document when I forgot the password for it?

No. What would be the purpose of a password if you didn't need it to open the document.

Next time, write down the password if you forget easily.


Deleted Messages still take space on iCloud

You might have a backup from one of your old devices still saved in your iCloud account. From an iOS device, try to check by going to Settings>iCloud>Manage Storage>Backups. This page will list the backups and associated device with the backup. On my account, the total size matches the total size of the Backups listed in Safari.


What happens if you run "open /Applications/*"

This command opens all apps in the /Applications folder. The * means everything in there. For example, to open all apps in /Applications that starts with S you would type open /Applications/s*. Since the * is by itself that means everything.


iPod Touch Connected To WiFi But Bars Don’t Appear In Status Bar

Have you already turned off the iPod (by pressing the topmost button for several seconds)? The iPod asks you if you really want to turn off. Wait until ist is off, then switch it back on and see what happens with the status symbol.


Where can I find the source image files for the browser checkboxes in Safari?

Download ArtTools. It helps you decode the UI elements file.
Go here: System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUIFramework/Versions/A/Resources.
Copy the *.bin files to a folder on your desktop.
Copy the *.jar files of ArtTools to the same folder.
Run the following command: java -jar artDecoder.jar SArtFile.bin SArtFile.bin/.
Do this for all the *.bin files.
Browse through the extracted files and you will find the checkbox there.


How can I display the format bar above the document in Pages 5.0?

This is not possible in Pages 5.0.

If your wish for a format bar above the document outweighs any benefit from Pages 5.0, you can continue to use iWork '09.

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

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


Installing Windows On SDXC (not like source of ISO)

Can you do this?

With Windows?  No.  Technically, it's possible to boot an OS (like Linux for FreeBSD) off a SD card - you simply point your bootloader to the bootable partition of the SDXC card and away you go  But...

Why would you want to do this?  It would be horribly slow.
(and by slow, I mean slow as molasses in winter slow)

Microsoft doesn't like people booting from removable drives and since the SD card reader is off your USB bus, it shows up as a removable device.  Linux doesn't have this limitation, however.

This doesn't, however, prevent you from putting a virtual HDD on the SD card and booting Windows in a virtualized environment like Parallels or VirtualBox.

Why you don't want to do this

Your SATA drive on your Mac transfers at 6Gb/s.  A USB 3.0 drive goes 5Gb/s.  Your SD card (assuming class 10) will go at most .5Gb/s (yes, only half a gigabit per second).

*Basically,  you will be trying to install Windows on a disk that's 12x slower than the drive built in to your Mac. And that's at the highest speed possible that an SD card can go.

I give more detail in an answer here

By trying to boot off the SDXC card, you would bring your MBP down to a crawl; to the point it would be torturous to us.  The best thing to do is to keep that SDXC card for pictures, or whatever file storage you need.


How to add a confirmation prompt window to warn before closing a window for any application?

You clearly know what you want, and that is great, but you might have a hard time convincing other people to make it for you to your exact specifications.

Safari on macOS does not have any scripting hooks you can use to prevent closing any Safari window with the red button, so it won't be trivial to make Safari do what you want.

One possible avenue to consider is writing a webpage that intercepts the window close event to install a custom behaviour. This might be satisfactory, depending on exactly what problem you're trying to solve.

If you're not totally set on using Safari, you could try developing an extension for Firefox that implements the behaviour you want. I don't actually know for sure if that is possible.

You could try visiting the Mozilla Forums and submitting a feature request to have your feature added to Firefox core, but it is extremely unlikely that anybody will listen and add your feature.

If you want this badly enough that you're willing to pay money for it, you could try putting out an offer on a marketplace for freelance programmers (like Fiverr) and maybe somebody can help you create this feature that is very important to you.


System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Input Sources > [√] Select next source in Input menu > [double click on far right side and press Cmd ⌘ Space. It should be as simple as that. If it's still not binding, check all the other shortcuts and make sure nothing else has been bound to it. If it still does not work, it might help to use an external application to unbind the key and rebind it. I use Spark 3personally because it's free and it works for the few rebinds I need.


Is it safe to buy 3rd party plug adapters for the MacBook Pro?

Yes it is Safe.

That adapter does noting to Mac, it just redirects the socket power in different way.

No changes are made to the Power.


iPhone asks to trust computer each time when tethering hotspot is on

In the past when the trust store became corrupt, I would see this. Have you followed the reset location process listed by Apple?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202778

Once you do that, I would connect the phone without tethering enabled to just get a plain connect and make sure the computer and device are copacetic with reconnects that don’t prompt.

Once you’re past that, then try the tethering again.


Can I change sensitivity of line input level? (as opposed to setting the volume)

Have you tried using LineIn by Rogue Amoeba?


In itunes 10, where is the " Store Full Resolution Photos" option?

Apparently it has been removed according to a discussion on Apple's forums


I/O Error usually means your disk has hardware failure. I would backup everything ASAP and change the disk. Disk Warrior will probably not solve the issue as it's only repairing a corrupted filesystem.

If you can mount it at some point (try repeatedly), use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup your important data on a new drive. If you can't, try some recovery software like Data Rescue.


No, this wont work. This is one of the advantages of macOS, it does not execute stuff that is found on a USB drive.

I consider this a great deal when we talk about security.

However there are devices that look like an USB thumb drive, but when plugged in expose themselves as a HID (Human Interface Device) and then execute keyboard shortcuts to run their exploits.

For example the USB Rubber Ducky Deluxe is such a device.


Use Image Capture to access the photos on your iPhone, move them to your laptop, then delete them. You can even delete the photos from the iPhone from within Image Capture itself.


How to make an executable .py available everywhere on OS X?

You need to add /foo/bar to your $PATH environment variable. Navigate to your home directory by typing cd at the prompt, then type nano .profile. Inside this file, add the following line:

export PATH=$PATH:/foo/bar

then save and quit. Exit Terminal.app (or whichever term program you're using) and restart it. /foo/bar should now be in your search path, to make sure type echo $PATH and see if it's at the end. You should now be able to run myfile.py from anywhere.


Can folders in Family Shared iCloud be protected?

My understanding is that each AppleID cannot see the other files and the only thing shared is the total capacity of each item that is stored in each siloed storage.

If you are giving the children access to the Mac or iPad where you are storing these files, you’ll need to encrypt them separately (Disk Utility allows encrypted disk images - kind of like a secure USB drive that only mounts when you put in the proper passphrase) or set those devices to lock and not allow the children in unsupervised.

Then you can explicitly share only the files you want with the several AppleID that belong to “the Parents” on a one-off basis.


The answer is going to be more complex than you want, and someone else is going to recommend a service or web application that hides the complexity from you. The reason you are unable to reach your work computers from another network is because when on your internal network you have network access to the internal network. As long as you can reach the Internet from inside the internal network, you have a gateway to other networks. When outside your internal network, you'd need to know the external address of that gateway, and that gateway would need to be configured to port forward any ports your remote desktop client needs to serve your work desktop remotely to you. Your question is really simplistic and any answer that provides you a solution is going to need more information from you, such as do you have an IT department? Have you asked for remote access to your work terminal? That's kind of their job, so I'd make them do it.


Does Safari have an image Cache storing images from frequently visited webpages locally? If so where is it located

It does, but the location moved to the ~/Library/Containers folder:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/WebKitCache/...

and there:

./Version\ 16/Blobs/
./Version\ 16/Records/[randomized_folder_names]/


Ensure emptying 'Recently Deleted' succeeds?

Here's what I did
Go into Photos -> Recently Deleted
Click 'Select' (top right)
Slide your finger from the photo at the very bottom of the screen up to the top of screen (without lifting your finger), this should select everything on the screen, and now hold your finger at the top of the screen until all the photos in Recently Deleted have been selected, then press 'Delete'
Tip: if you have a lot of photos to delete, before doing the above, press on the three dots (...) on the top right and zoom out, that will allow you to select more photos per minute.
Note: for 25000 items, this took approximately 9 minutes.


You are right that the AirPort Express would work for the iPod and Macs. It won't, however, work with the Xbox. For that, I recommend getting a little RCA switch and RCA-minijack adapter. Using the adapter, plug the AirPort's audio out into one of the input ports of the switch. Plug the Xbox another input port. Plug the speakers into the switch's output end.

When the switch is set to the AirPort's input, you can AirPlay music. When the switch is set to the Xbox's input, you'll hear sound from your Xbox.


Can stolen iPhone still be tracked using Find My iPhone after restoring?

You can't restore an iPhone which has active Find My iPhone using iTunes.
If the iPhone is restored outside of iTunes, then Activation Lock will be enabled and you can still track the device providing a SIM card is inserted or the device is connected to Wi-Fi.


Why is my *first* time machine backup much larger than my disk space used?

"there's only been a few GB of disk changes since the backup started."

Were you using the VMs? Time Machine is somewhat inefficient in that it will copy an entire file if a single modification is made. So if your VM file is 100 GB in size, and it gets modified, then that's another 100 GB that gets copied.

If the first backup goes on for longer than an hour, then it will included deltas.

Some people prefer to exclude VMs from TM and manage backups for them using some other method. You seem to have c. 300 GB of VM data, so if you're using those regularly, you will add 300 GB to your TM volume every day.


Why is pressing = repeatedly on iPhone calculator useful?

It's an auto-constant
Whether or not you find it useful depends on what you want to do.

Your method of just hitting = over & over just repeats the last calculation, so
 2 * 2 = 4 = 8 = 16 = 32 etc

But, say you needed to calculate tax on a set of payments at 15%

If you want just the tax, type
100 * 0.15 =
then your amounts
87.20 =  13.08
43.57 = 6.55
12.50 = 1.88 etc..
If you wanted the amount including tax, you'd start with
100 * 1.15 = & off you go with your amounts, as above...

From comments - this function has been on calculators [in slightly different ways] since at least the mid-70s. It's not a new feature.
On the early ones, 2*=======... would quickly just ERR. Since then they've got somewhat more flexible & move to scientific notation.


You can restart finder by holding Command+Option while right-clicking the Finder dock icon, and then selecting Relaunch from the menu.


Search for emails from not a particular user or subject in Apple Mail

Mail can perform Boolean searches, but only in message contents, not in headers (such as Subject, From, or Date).

When using Boolean operators, always use uppercase — AND, OR, and NOT — so Mail doesn’t search for the actual words and, or, and not. You can use a minus sign (-) as a shortcut for AND NOT, so, if you type Jack -Jill in the Search field, you’ll see a list of all the messages that contain “Jack” but not “Jill.”

UPD. I've tried with my own mails and it looks like Mail DOES sort headers too. So try to enter into search field: abc NOT whatever-you-want-to-exclude. Shall work.

More info here: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH22310?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US


How to get rid of booby-trapped pop ups to update flash player?

When weird things happen on my clients' Macs, the first thing I do is run the free Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (MBAM, formerly AdwareMedic software to see if any of the known "bad guys" is active on the system. As often as not, they are.

Also, have a look at your /etc/hosts file through Terminal:

Open Utilities > Terminal (or use Spotlight)
more /etc/hosts (press space bar to scroll a screen at a time)

See if fplayer.adobe.com is listed there. If so, we'll discuss how to remove it.

Try that and report back. Then we'll try step two.


I guess it'd be quite outdated answer, but maybe it will save some time for others

AirDrop temp files hidden under this path /private/var/folders/, you need to look for folder called exactly like this "(A Document Being Saved By sharingd)" in subfolders.

In my case it was /private/var/folders/fq/51d9_5dn7hg445wwp5n7kyqm0000gn/T/TemporaryItems/(A Document Being Saved By sharingd)


How do I change the name on my @me.com email.com?

Assuming that you're trying to change your full name (and not the email address itself), you can follow the directions in this Cnet article:

  First log into iCloud.com, then click the Mail icon to open the
  Webmail application. In the Webmail application, click the gear at the
  top right and choose "Preferences" from the menu that appears, and you
  should see a window that appears with settings specific to your e-mail
  account. Click the Accounts section and you should see editable fields
  for Description and Full Name. Fill in your desired full name to
  display, and save the settings.

  Note: Image courtesy of Cnet

Your updated full name should then be used by the @me.com email address. The article also discusses how to change the displayed full name in the OS X mail client, but this example is a bit more generic.


The instructions use the same formatting for commands you need to enter and for output, which is confusing. Just use mkdir to create any missing directories.

PS: It seems as if the directory structure within webpack-demo is created automatically by the various commands you run (or are supposed to run), so you may not even need to create additional directories yourself.


Why does Automator get stuck in a loop when processing a large number of files?

I resolved this by getting the Finder Automator Action pack from Ben Waldie. Check it out here:

http://www.automatedworkflows.com

I use the following automator action successfully:

You should get it, as this works for me.

Phil


Hum...
Even though I think your question is actually not a real one - you seems to know that Apple tried to implement a Facebook-like feature and made it impossible (or really hard) to disable, a piece of answer is that Photos is not designed (in my opinion) for a professional use.

Photos is intended to store photos of your family, your friends, your trips and holidays or other annoying every day's stuff like that. Every feature is design in this purpose: moments, collections, faces, locations as well as shared albums and ... memories!

I'm afraid you only have few solutions available including turning of memories notifications you mentioned (and never tap the memories album again). If you don't want [your] professional environment besmirched by 'social media'-type actions you may have to choose a different photo app to separated your professional and private life.

Concerning the algorithms behind memories, it is obviously based on similarly between groups of photos (location, date, people...). From my personal experience 2 différents types of memories are highlighted by the App:

Regular memories that gather photos from a recent event (a trip, a week-end, a party). They are usually pushed froward few weeks after the event ends.
Special memories that are usually highlighted many month (sometimes years) after the event ends. Such memories could contain only photos of a specific person (the memory titles "[Person X] over the years", "[Person X] birthday", [Person X]'s Home) or photos taken a specific amount of time ago (a have a "5 years ago" one, here are some other examples: "last Winter", "On this Day", "Chrismas day", "Halloween" and even "Best of Last Week/Mounth/Year").

I guess that you dislike this second category. This is quite intrusive I reckon but Photos App IS a social App since Apple designed to encourage photo sharing and viewing between family and friends rather than for professional use.


Is there a way to look at photos by date taken in iPhoto?

Using the search functionality is usually the best way to find unknown options.

First select Photos from the sidebar. Then sort by date.


Available RAM less than what my Macbook is supposed to have

If you're using a Mac with an integrated graphics card (all 13 inch models) then some of the RAM is used for this and obviously some for the OS, so this seems normal. As a rule of thumb you wouldn't want to give Photoshop more than 70/75% of what is remaining. If you assign too much to it the system won't have anything left for any other processes and we have to do a lot of work creating swap files to move temporary files about. This could be a cause of crashing. On the subject of crashing, if you're copy of Photoshop is not official (not suggesting it is) and not updated then its to be expected.


As @Hippo noted, you're probably talking about the OS X Lion feature where programs that are open at shutdown are automatically re-opened at startup unless you uncheck a checkbox when shutting down. Currently, there's no way to unselect that choice via the default UI.

However, a few posters in an Apple Discussion forum have provided some Terminal commands and created AppleScript scripts that can perform this task.

Terminal Solution

Scott Nash wrote:

  Open up your ~/Library/Preferencese/ByHost folder and delete
  the com.apple.loginwindow.<long alpha-numeric string>
  Copy and
  paste this command into Terminal:

  defaults write com.apple.loginwindow TALLogoutSavesState 0

  The file you deleted is the one that stores
  which apps and windows are open. The command directly writes the
  preference for saving the logout state.

  You can read the setting by
  using this command, although it should reflect the setting in the
  General System Prefs, now.
  defaults read com.apple.loginwindow
  Look
  for the line with TALLogoutSavesState. It should be 0, now.

  The
  checkbox in the shutdown dialog will remain checked, but you won't
  need to change it. It should ignore that since the main preference is
  set to not save state.

Script Solution

Vic07 wrote:

  By using a simple AppleScript application, you can achieve this in a
  consistent way.

  I've compiled an application that after clicking its
  icon, it will shut down your Mac with "save state" disabled. You can
  use this app on a daily basis instead of turning the Mac off in the
  traditional way.   A good idea could be putting it on your Dock so you
  always have it handy.

  You can download the app from here

Later in the discussion, he posts updated versions:

  CleanReboot and CleanShutDown have been updated to 2.0.

  This new
  version is /MUCH/ cleaner than the previous one, since instead of
  modifying the defaults it makes Finder act like if the user unchecked
  the save state checkbox and then clicked the Shut Down or Restart
  button.

  CleanShutDown 2.0
  CleanReboot 2.0

You may want to check out those scripts to see if they address your issue.

One of these two methods may address your issue - I'll have to test it on my Mac after I head home.


MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) Thunderbolt 2 port for small second display (ASUS MB169C+ Portable USB Monitor for eg)

No.  This will not work.  You will need to get a display with its own power supply.

Thunderbolt 1/2 doesn’t support power delivery.  Even though Thunderbolt 3 does, connecting an adapter doesn’t magically make power appear.

The (up-to) 9W of power is bus power - you can’t  assume that because it’s there, it can be utilized, especially to power a device.  Remember, Thunderbolt can support up to 6 devices, so it wouldn’t make sense that a single device allocate most or all of the bus power.


Installed Snow Leopard on VirtualBox but can't install guest additions

From Virtualbox Manual : Chapter 14:

  14.2. Known Issues
  Mac OS X guests:
  VirtualBox does not provide Guest Additions for Mac OS X at this time

What you are trying to run is the script for Linux distributions. That does not work on OS X due to numerous differences in the system, despite a similar-ish base.

From the content of this, I wouldn't hold out for such support in VirtualBox any time soon.


/Applications is, like you said, global.  Apps run from that folder have no different permissions or privileges if they were in any other folder.  It's the same as running an app in the ~/Downloads folder, it's just neater to have the global /Applications folder.

Having said that, apps in the ~/Applications folder are limited to being run by that user since the ~/Applications folder will have permissions on the folder for the user they're contained in.

In my hunting around, the ~/Applications folder has global read-only access, but that can vary if a user decides to modify the ACLs (Access Control List) aka permissions.

Hope that clears it up for you!


No iOS device has native ANT+ communication support built in. For the iPhone 4 & 4s, Wahoo makes a 30 pin ANT+ dongle. Newer devices can also utilize this dongle with a 30 pin to Lightning adapter.

http://www.wahoofitness.com/devices/wahoo-key-16.html

Once your setup with the ANT+ dongle, you'll need a 3rd party app to read the data. Some, like Strava, can push data to the iOS Health app:

https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216917527-Health-App-Integration-iPhone


Panther Point has 6GBit/s ports. There is zero reason for Apple not to utilize them. I know this is not a perfect answer but this is all I can help.

SSD is much faster on USB 3.0 than a HDD. I would recommend reading this -- disregard the UASP part, it still gives you lot of benchmarks of running an SSD over USB 3.0. You can clearly see speeds well above 200 MB/s. There is no mechanical (notebook) drive that can do much more than 100 MB/s. Not the Savvio, not the Spinpoint M8, nothing. It simply doesn't and cannot happen.

Edit: StorageReview mentions this Hitachi DeskStar being the fastest mechanical drive of all and it barely clears 150 MB/s.


iOS7 why won't the time show up in texts

Swipe right to left to reveal the timestamps.


Any way to get the displays menu in the menubar?

You could use a third-party utility named Display Menu. It's available in the App Store for free. I've been using it for quite a while and it has work just fine.

By the way, when I open /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Displays.menu it puts the same menu as the [] Show mirroring options in the menu bar when available check box in System Preferences > Displays > Display, does when checked, but does check the box.


The VPN applies only to those apps, not all the traffic from the device. See Per app VPN (enterpriseios.com)

  Apps can phone home through a VPN tunnel as soon as they are launched, and send all their network traffic (and only their network traffic) through it. This is controlled by the MDM admin, not the app developer.
  It will use it for all domains. The SafariDomains key specifies only those domains that trigger the VPN connection.

  Additional reference - Configuration Profile Reference sections:
  Per-App VPN Payload
  VPN Payload


not optimum mode message on samsung monitor when I close the lid

Normally if you look in the About this Mac, then look how is it identifying the monitor. What does it say about it.

Usually that information will tell you that something is wrong (mostly the cable).


Root User Cannot Reset Another Users Password

Don’t use root user on Mac in the GUI. Use any admin account and credentials for the easiest time to make changes like this.

This is a fundamental design decision - Apple is even going towards a read only system volume, system integrity protection and all manner of things to make root and admin users go through security layers and barriers and API to secure the experience and user data.


Why does fan increase slowly its speed at boot and system is so slow?

Go to iFixit and look up the guide for your Air. You will need to do two things. First is disconnect the battery, second is remove/clean the CPU heatsink before reapplying thermal paste and refitting it. When you've done that you can reconnect the battery and see what happens.

SMC resets using key combos don't always work - disconnecting the battery does. It might seem drastic but removing the power source is what's needed. If you've an SMC issue (which sounds very likely) this should clear it and cleaning up the CPU cooler will give you something useful to do while any residual voltage is discharging.


ShellShock: Do I need to be worried about this on OS X Mavericks?

I would err on the side of caution and wipe any server that you see odd behavior on that was exposed to the public internet in general without a logging firewall and/or some sort of tripwire or security scan set up to compare what changed since installation.

I think one of my OS X servers was compromised for the first time ever during this bash scripting vulnerability window. The time it would take me to search for a root kit is far longer than the time it took me to make one last backup and then wipe it from an external drive and start over.

In my case, I had a new user named A Lo created as a standard user. Pretty odd and very un-subtle of someone that manages to gain control of a server with a fixed IP address.

Basically, the more sophisticated black hat that has compromised your computer - the less likely you will notice it so from a reliability standpoint - if you notice instability it's likely cause the people that have compromised your server are inept or sloppy and will cause you to eventually have to reinstall.

Just to be clear, any server that's hidden behind a router with NAT is far less vulnerable than a server running live services 24/7 with a real, static IPv4 and no firewall whatsoever. People that just run OS X should have no concerns at all unless they have other reasons to think they are compromised.


5th gen ipod touch mic only works when headphones are plugged in

Following your hint on Headphone jack.

When using headphones only (no microphone) (the ones with the 2 black ring plug) the system activates the built in microphone.

When not plugged in, the system now thinks you plugged in an external microphone and it will not activate the built in one. The reason for that would be a STUCK contact pin in the jack.

It is possible that the pin for the microphone got stuck.

Strip down a Johnson & Johnson Q-tip & dip it in alcohol. Insert damp Q-tip in earphone jack and twist.
Use a compressed air can (computer store) and blow in it few times.

Do not use metal object inside the plug.

If the stuck contact pin does not get loose you have 2 choices:

use headset with microphone
open iPhone and repair the plug. (that is rather a complicated process!)


popout a mac mail window from full screen / split view

I asked Apple support about this one. The representative didn't seem to think that this was a supported feature in current OS X (El Capitan) and passed it along as a feature request.

The only other workaround I can think of is right-clicking Mail in the Dock to open a new viewer or new message on your primary display. This works for me when I have Mail in full-screen in an off-screen space. I haven't tried it on a dual-monitor setup yet.


Reconnect an external HDD after proper ejection

Yes, you can!

If you eject the USB HDD by selecting this option:

Then all you need to do is open Disk Utility and check the following:

Your hard drive will be mounted again!


Apple App Store submission review time vs update time

Updates are generally processed faster than the first submission of an app for review, but not drastically faster. It's usually around a day shorter (5 days) compared with the average 6 or 7 days for a first submission.

Note that iOS 8 has caused an increase in submissions and a consequential increase in review times; Apple may be prioritising updates more to make apps compatible with iOS 8.


Can only use custom keyboard layout in certain apps?

@Tom Gewecke suggested in the comments that I place the layout into /Library/Keyboard Layouts. I did this and restarted, then it worked as expected!

Disabling Siri and having its keyboard shortcut set to NONE (and restarting) did not seem to change it. And I did not have Chinese, Japanese, or Korean keyboards active.


Other than user error, what types of attacks would SIP prevent?

From Apple's page About System Integrity Protection on your Mac

  Before System Integrity Protection, the root user had no permission
  restrictions, so it could access any system folder or app on your Mac.
  Software obtained root-level access when you entered your
  administrator name and password to install the software. That allowed
  the software to modify or overwrite any system file or app.

So, based on the premise of your question, a good sys admin would have used strong passwords, admin permissions to only users/apps that you trust and only using sudo when necessary.

Ok...let's look at a hypothetical, but entirely plausible scenario:  Installing VirtualBox.

Assume for a moment, that the VirtalBox site got hacked and a malicious version of VB was uploaded and made available as genuine.  Since to install VB it requires root privileges, you would invariably use sudo to install it (this is why it asks you for your password).

Without SIP, it could write to any of the protected areas as root installing itself with full admin privileges to do whatever nefarious things it wanted to do.  It's important to note that the security practices you enumerated in your question never came into play.

It's just another layer of protection.

A Mac with SIP is no more or less safe than a Windows 10 machine with System Protection enabled.  "Linux" is too broad a topic to make a statement.  However, there is Oracle "Hardened" Linux (version of RedHat Enterprise) that has these features.


How to assign per-song EQ for music on iPhones?

This can't be done on an iPhone alone with the stock Music app.

But if you're syncing music from a Mac with iTunes, you can apply EQ settings to songs in iTunes and those will sync onto the phone. https://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/specify-equalizer-settings-per-song-in-itunes/

Be warned, this only works with EQ presets.

  In the Equalizer Preset pop-up menu, pick the setting you’d like for that song and click OK. Not only will the song always play with that EQ preset on your Mac, but the preset will carry over when you sync that song to an iOS device. If you create a custom preset in iTunes through the Equalizer window, however,  those changes won’t carry over to your iOS device. Also, if the EQ on your iOS device is set to Off, the device will not play the preset you’ve selected for any song.
  https://www.macworld.com/article/2090554/tweak-your-ios-audio-with-eq-settings.html


What does this black bar represent in my iPod's Storage Capacity Indicator?

To my belief, that indeed is actually just a drop shadow. Since you're actually not on the newest version of iTunes, I can't verify that, since it looks different now, but here are a few photos:

iTunes 12 (latest version)

Version that looks the same as yours also showing shadow

Older version also displaying drop shadow

With that said, I could still be wrong. Check and make sure it isn't any of these categories:

Audio: Songs, audio podcasts, audiobooks, voice memos, and ringtones
Video: Movies, music videos, and TV shows
Photos: Camera Roll content, Photo Stream, and Photo Library
Apps: Installed apps
Books: iBooks books and PDF files
Documents & Data: Safari Offline Reading List, files created within apps, and app content like contacts, calendars, messages, and emails (and their attachments)
Other:
Settings, Siri voices, system data, and cached files


You are trying to check the file system on disk0s2 with the wrong tool. fsck_hfs targets HFS file systems. Your main drive is formatted to APFS though.

The output of sudo fsck_hfs -fy /dev/disk0s2 in your screenshot shows the first block of the/an APFS container. This is indicated by the NXSB magic string in the third line.

The proper tool to check APFS containers or volumes is fsck_apfs!

Check man fsck_apfs for further details.

Since diskutil verifyDisk|verifyVolume|repairDisk|repairVolume [device] also calls fsck_apfs or another appropriate fsck_* tool with the proper flags I'd prefer this command instead:

diskutil list # to get the device identifiers
diskutil verifyDisk disk0
diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2
diskutil verifyVolume disk1s1

If required, repair the container/volume with:

diskutil repairDisk disk0s
diskutil repairVolume disk0s2
diskutil repairVolume disk1s1


Can I copy app data from an old iPhone backup to a new, set-up iPhone?

After iOS 8, according to this document by Apple, app contents are no longer backed up by iTunes. I suggest using iMazing to backup your old phone, and restore it on your new phone to get the app content.


Can't download previous purchases in iTunes

You could rule out the possibility of a local problem by attempting to download purchases on another authorised device, and refine the diagnosis by trying it both on and off that same wireless network.

Or you could head straight for iTunes support - when I got corrupted characters in my pre-purchased copy of the Steve Jobs biography last year they had a fix to me within two hours. Based on the Q&A so far I think you're going to need to get Apple to look at your account.


I may be jumping the gun here with my answer, but I'm going to assume that one of your Macs is running macOS Mojave and the other is running an earlier version of macOS.

macOS Mojave dropped support for the Back to My Mac feature. Instead, users are encouraged to use iCloud Drive, screen sharing, and Apple Remote Desktop for the various features you may have been using Back to My Mac for.

For more info on this change, refer to Prepare for changes to Back to My Mac on Apple's website.


You can boot your system from a system installed on an external drive. If your internal drive isn't damaged it will mount and you can copy files off of it.

If you have a Lion recovery partition you can use Disk Utility to "image" the main partition of your drive onto an external device before you format and reinstall. You will have to restore this image onto another device before you can pull files off of it.

It is arguably eqsier reinstall Lion directly on top of the existing OS which should create a bootable system without overwriting your files–but to be safe, make a backup image before doing this.

Insert mandatory lecture about the importance of a good backup strategy which should make emergency measures like this largely unnecessary.


How to Delete Drive That is Missing From a RAID

The answer is, that you have to add the path to the Mounted volume at the end instead of the disk number. For example:

diskutil AppleRAID remove 11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555 /Volumes/MYMOUNTEDDISK/


How to make auto-complete work for AWS on ZSH?

OK - completions need a bit of help to get going - brew includes the definitions, but you have to prime the completions mechanism if you haven't enabled one yet.

brew install zsh-completions
autoload -Uz compinit
compinit

Press y when asked to ignore insecure directories

Then to test things out run the initialization:

autoload bashcompinit && bashcompinit
source /usr/local/bin/aws_zsh_completer.sh

I know - it says bash and you use zsh - you can type aws followed by a space and gla and tab and it should pause a bit and complete to the glacier command instead of file completion:

aws gla

Once that's set, you have to set up your .zshrc and likely fix the insecure compinit error by removing write permissions on some directories.


How do I sync my Outlook calendar with my iPhone 4

Use the iCloud Control Panel for Windows

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1455


How to print onto virtual letter paper which exists as PDF?

The following python script will Merge one 'template' PDF onto the pages of any PDF file created in the Print dialog. You will need to supply the filepath to the template PDF in the script, then save it in your user Library, inside a folder called "PDF Services" e.g. ~/Library/PDF Services. (This may need to be created, if not already there.)

The script can then be called from the PDF button of the print dialog.

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: UTF-8 -*-
#
# Merge v. 0.1
# Merges two PDFs

import sys
import os
import Quartz as Quartz
from Foundation import NSURL, kCFAllocatorDefault
from AppKit import NSSavePanel, NSApp

# OPTIONS
watermark = os.path.expanduser("~/Desktop/myTemplate.pdf")
destination = os.path.expanduser("~/Desktop") # Default destination
suffix = " wm.pdf" # Use ".pdf" if no actual suffix required.

# FUNCTIONS

def save_dialog(directory, filename):
    panel = NSSavePanel.savePanel()
    panel.setTitle_("Save PDF booklet")
    myUrl = NSURL.fileURLWithPath_isDirectory_(directory, True)
    panel.setDirectoryURL_(myUrl)
    panel.setNameFieldStringValue_(filename)
    NSApp.activateIgnoringOtherApps_(True)
    ret_value = panel.runModal()
    if ret_value:
        return panel.filename()
    else:
        return ''

# Loads in PDF document
def createPDFDocumentWithPath(path):
    return Quartz.CGPDFDocumentCreateWithURL(Quartz.CFURLCreateFromFileSystemRepresentation(kCFAllocatorDefault, path, len(path), False))

# Creates a Context for drawing
def createOutputContextWithPath(path, dictarray):
    return Quartz.CGPDFContextCreateWithURL(Quartz.CFURLCreateFromFileSystemRepresentation(kCFAllocatorDefault, path, len(path), False), None, dictarray)

# Gets DocInfo from input file to pass to output.
# PyObjC returns Keywords in an NSArray; they must be tupled.
def getDocInfo(file):
    file = file.decode('utf-8')
    pdfURL = NSURL.fileURLWithPath_(file)
    pdfDoc = Quartz.PDFDocument.alloc().initWithURL_(pdfURL)
    if pdfDoc:
        metadata = pdfDoc.documentAttributes()
        if "Keywords" in metadata:
            keys = metadata["Keywords"]
            mutableMetadata = metadata.mutableCopy()
            mutableMetadata["Keywords"] = tuple(keys)
            return mutableMetadata
        else:
            return metadata

def main(argv):
    (title, options, pathToFile) = argv[:]
    shortName = os.path.splitext(title)[0]
    # If you want to save to a consistent location, use:
    # writeFilename = os.path.join(destination, shortName + suffix)
    writeFilename = save_dialog(destination, shortName + suffix)
    writeFilename = writeFilename.encode('utf-8')
    shortName = os.path.splitext(pathToFile)[0]
    metaDict = getDocInfo(pathToFile)
    writeContext = createOutputContextWithPath(writeFilename, metaDict)
    readPDF = createPDFDocumentWithPath(pathToFile)
    mergePDF = createPDFDocumentWithPath(watermark)

    if writeContext != None and readPDF != None:
        numPages = Quartz.CGPDFDocumentGetNumberOfPages(readPDF)
        for pageNum in xrange(1, numPages + 1):
            page = Quartz.CGPDFDocumentGetPage(readPDF, pageNum)
            mergepage = Quartz.CGPDFDocumentGetPage(mergePDF, 1)
            if page:
                mediaBox = Quartz.CGPDFPageGetBoxRect(page, Quartz.kCGPDFMediaBox)
                if Quartz.CGRectIsEmpty(mediaBox):
                    mediaBox = None
                Quartz.CGContextBeginPage(writeContext, mediaBox)
                Quartz.CGContextSetBlendMode(writeContext, Quartz.kCGBlendModeOverlay)
                Quartz.CGContextDrawPDFPage(writeContext, page)
                Quartz.CGContextDrawPDFPage(writeContext, mergepage)
                Quartz.CGContextEndPage(writeContext)
        Quartz.CGPDFContextClose(writeContext)
        del writeContext

    else:
        print "A valid input file and output file must be supplied."
        sys.exit(1)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main(sys.argv[1:])

Currently, this uses the first page of the template PDF file and puts it on all pages of the output PDF.


Macbook Pro (Late 2011) Bootcamp and USB boot questions

Look here:

How can I install boot camp off a Windows 7 USB flash drive?

and  here:

Install Bootcamp Windows7 off external USB optical drive on Lion system

Maybe rEFIt will work for you too, but be aware of this:

Installed reFIT on Lion and now I can't login


Try starting your Mac in Safe Mode, and see if that fixes your issue. To start in Safe Mode, hold the Shift during startup.

If that doesn't work, start the Mac in single-user mode by holding Command + s keys, and see if you can have the updates installed there.

Apple Support Document, Mac startup key combinations lists various startup modes and required key combinations.


the following solution does not properly fit the original question, as it does not provide a solution to use symlinks in the host as symlinks within guests. nevertheless it can be useful in certain situations, specially for windows guests:

Adding ...

sharedFolderX.followSymlinks = "TRUE"

to your .vmx file, where X stands for any given shared folder in question, makes the symlink transparent to the guest. so the symlinks now show as a regular file or folder within the guest. the mapping take place in the host.

this works for the following versions and above

VMware ACE 2.0.x
VMware Fusion 2.x
VMware Player 2.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 6.x (Linux)

as of Dec 24, 2013.

please refer to the VMware KB article Symbolic Links Do Not Work in Folders Shared Between Linux/Mac Hosts and Windows Guests (1007277) for more details and affected/supported versions.

---- edit by Martin (as comments not yet allowed).
---- credits also to Mike as he provided the link to the VMware KB in his answer.


Is there a comprehensive recurring Notifications / Tasks app for iPhone?

Remember the milk is a popular one. They can do weekly reminders (set for last day of week) and after a week (due 7 days after you complete it).


iMovie still will not download, despite having no other apps, and ~2 GB of storage available?

According to the App Store, iMovie would require 641 MB of storage to download on my iPhone 5S (it should be about the same for a 5C), so yes, you have more than enough storage available. I'd try restarting the iPhone, accomplished by holding the power button and home button down together until you see the Apple logo appear. It is completely safe, I do it to my iPhone all the time, it will not delete anything off of your iPhone, nor change any settings, but it may fix little issues like this.

If that doesn't work, try downloading the app through iTunes on your MacBook (or PC) and then sync iMovie to iPhone, that requires less storage, anyway.


Ipad, using safari went to a porn site and now same flashing message keeps jumping up and down and cannot close out

It's probably just a popup that appears every time you launch a page. Here's how you can get rid of it:

Force close Safari.
Turn off Wi-Fi (and cell service, if you have it).
Reopen Safari and, since the page can't load, you won't get the popup.
Close the tab that gave you the popup.
Turn Wi-Fi (and cell service) back on.

Good luck!


iMac won't restart for Security Update 2016-001 10.11.6

Your problem is in no way related to Security Update 2016-001.

When your Mac want to terminate a system update, it should go through
a normal Restart... as the one you see in  > Restart....
And to achieve this restart it must terminate correctly all the
processes actually running.

Your actual problem is caused by one process which refuse to exit correctly.

The first and easiest way to diagnose which process is the culprit
consists of using the combination to force quit any ill behaving
application:

command ⌘option ⌥esc

If my hypothesis is correct you might see a typical application
flagged as not responding. This mean that this process became deaf
stupid and won't hear the signal sent by the system to tell it to exit.
In this case, just kill it with the Force Quit button.


Performance hit to gaming using Parallels Desktop for Mac

No, your computer will be fine, and performance will be fine, but there's a little fun involved.

Parallels uses a technology called virtualization to run another OS–in this case, Windows–using a combination of hardware and software to create a "virtual machine" that acts like a computer. Due to a variety of technologies that exist, virtual machines offer quite good performance when compared to their actual physical counterparts, and can be used for gaming with relatively hit to performance. And no, your computer won't explode, heat management and all that is the same.

Unfortunately, there's a catch with Parallels: GPUs. Modern games (such as those you want to play) rely heavily on GPUs to provide good performance. Games such as these rely on APIs to handle many functions related to GPUs. Currently there are two primary APIs used for games: Microsoft's DirectX and OpenGL. Unfortunately, DirectX is exclusive to Windows–thus, games utilizing DirectX are generally Windows exclusive (ignoring consoles.) The games you described use DirectX: thus, they are Windows exclusive. This presents a problem when using Parallels: because it runs a virtual machine, it can't normally perform the low-level calls needed by APIs like DirectX to the GPU. To get around this, Parallels translates DirectX calls to OpenGL calls (which do work on Mac) before they are executed. This can result in a somewhat significant decrease in performance, though it may be tolerable.

However, recent Intel processors have started shipping with a technology called Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) that allows these low-level calls to be passed through a virtual machine, eliminated the performance hit described earlier. Your Haswell processor is just new enough that it does ship with this technology onboard! Following these instructions for Parallels, you can leverage VT-d within Parallels to run Windows games with very little performance hit. It's quite lengthy, references a few other pages, and generally wouldn't work well if I posted it here like I normally would, so I recommend you read it there.

In conclusion, you'll be able to play your games using Parallels just fine with a little bit of work.


How to edit 'iTunes Movie' to be visible on iPhone's iMovie

Yes. You will need to use iTunes to sync the intro video over to your iPhone.

Connect your iPhone to iTunes and select it.
Click the "Apps" tab, and scroll down to "File Sharing".
Select iMovie from the list.
Select "Add..." from the lower right corner.
Browse your documents to find the intro video and open it.
Sync it over to your iPhone.
iMovie should recognize is as soon as the sync is completed and you should be able to use it normally.


Jumping between full screens in Yosemite?

Yes, you can certainly do so.

Go to Settings > Keyboard
From there select Shortcuts
Mission Control
Tick the boxes for the Desktops you want.

EDIT: One quick way to to move is to ⌘+tab to switch between open applications.  Otherwise, you can submit feedback to Apple.

OS X 10.11 El Capitan will feature having a Split View which may be more convenient when rolled out.


How can I use NTFS-3G installed using MacPorts?

NTFS-3G from macports works perfectly fine. Check this detailed and well-written instruction: http://fernandofig.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/ntfs-write-support-on-osx-lion-with-ntfs-3g-f/


Blank dock, command+tab menu icon for application - RubyMine 7.0

I recover from all sort of temporary dock corruption by killing the dock after saving work and getting ready to restart the Mac.

killall Dock from terminal app
log out and back in
restart the Mac

Barring that, you've got more serious corruption, but let's start with the quick triage first.

The next steps would be to make a new user account and repeat installing your app on that user’s desktop and drag it into the dock.


Parental Controls preventing access to legit sites

It's not a perfect system because there's no way for any filter to know exactly what the content of a site is or whether it's an "adult" site or not.  This is from Apple's site explaining the filtering:

  When "Allow unrestricted access to websites" is selected, the Internet content filter logs websites that the account visits but does not restrict Web browsing. Visited websites are still logged and can be examined in the Logs tab of Parental Controls preferences.

  When "Try to limit access to adult websites automatically" is selected, the Internet content filter does its best to block websites with inappropriate content. To do this, the Internet content filter uses the same technology that the Mail application uses to identify "junk" mail. The Internet content filter can identify, with a high degree of accuracy, whether a Web page is safe or not by examining various properties of the website including text and structure.
  Additionally, the Internet content filter will block a website if the website identifies itself as adult-oriented using RTA (http://www.rtalabel.org/) or SafeSurf (http://www.safesurf.com/ssplan.htm) rating systems, as well as forcing "safe" searches with some search engines.

  In this mode, the Internet content filter logs all visited and blocked websites, and flags them as such in the Logs tab of Parental Controls preferences.
  In certain situations, the automatic Internet content filter may mistakenly block a safe website or allow an adult-oriented website. For example, if the website uses an uncommon language or if there is very little text on the page. These websites can be identified in the Log tab of the Parental Controls preference pane and added to the "Always Allow" or the "Never Allow" lists. These lists can also be accessed by clicking the Customize… button in the Content tab of Parental Controls preferences. Websites that are mistakenly blocked can also be allowed by clicking the "Allow…" button on the blocked web page and authenticating as an administrator user.

So there's no way you're going to be able to do perfect filtering.


The most frequent pages are chosen from your recent browser history. Visiting sites frequently will cause them to repopulate on the new tab page. There is no manual way to add sites.

Instead you could install an extension which allows you to choose a different new tab page, perhaps set it to chrome://bookmarks for example.


How do I disable voiceover when I cannot log into my iPhone?

If this ever happens to you, you have to hit the Home button on an iPhone 8 about three times and voiceover is disabled.


Can an iPad be charged faster with a third party power adapter?

The standard iPad charger is 2.1Amp at 5V. The 1amp is for iPhone and charges slowly, or not at all if you're using it at the same time.

The 2Amp one will charge it much faster. Works very well with iPhones too.

http://gizmodo.com/5535631/the-fastest-and-slowest-way-to-charge-an-ipad


What is the best way to consolidate two iPhoto libraries into one library?

There's a third party application named iPhoto Library Manager which seems to have a good reputation for merging, splitting and generally managing your iPhoto Library:


Today I installed Security Upgrade 2018-001 and then App Store offered Safari 11.0.3, which I installed with no problems. This solution is mentioned here.


Cannot connect iPhone to my machine as "the host is no longer paired with the device"

I really, really, really hate to say this; but, in my experience, it works for this kind of thing: Restart your iPhone (home+sleep for a few seconds) and try again.


If you use VLC for playback, it has two options to black the other screen during fullscreen playback.
Use native fullscreen mode,  or
Black screens in Fullscreen mode

They are mutually exclusive, enabling native fullscreen disables the other.
Native requires a restart of the app, 'black screens' can be switched on & off at will.
I haven't tested, but one may work better than the other depending on whether you have Spaces set to move in pairs or separately, in Mission Control prefs.


How to use machine name of iOS devices on network?

I use a Time Capsule as my Wifi router, and all my devices are registered in the domain (e.g. "lan") once a device has a lease and each device receives the "lan" domain as the search domain as part of the DHCP config.

Pinging 192.168.0.xxx, iPhone4.lan, just iPhone gets me to my device.

If you can ping the devices by IP address and not by name, then the answer lies more in your home network than in the devices themselves, and how the DHCP server registers device names once a DHCP lease has been obtained.

If your Windows machine has a static IP address, then its quite possible all you need to do is add the Wifi Lan name into the DNS Search config on the Windows PC, but more information is needed on how you are configured.


From this other question regarding excel encoding:


In addition to the Unix file permissions, there are old HFS file bits. To unlock your folder try:

Terminal > SetFile -a l ~/sites/lockedfolder

OR

Terminal > chflags nouchg ~/sites/lockedfolder

Alternatively, you could do a Get Info in the Finder, and uncheck the "Locked" checkbox from that window.


You can do 4-up printing from most macOS applications in the standard print dialog.

Choose File menu > Print (Command-P)
If there's a Show Details button, click it. (If there's a Hide Details button instead, you're already in the right mode.)
Find the printer options pop-up menu somewhere in the print dialog. It's not labelled, but will generally have "Layout" or the current app's name selected. From that pop-up menu, choose Layout.
Underneath that, there'll be a "Pages per Sheet" pop-up menu. Choose "4" from that. It should look something like this:

Click Print.