To to stop Skype on iPhone & Mac competing for AirPods' connection?

Go to System Preferences → Bluetooth and for your AirPods choose Options and set ‘Connect to This Mac’ to ‘When Last Connected to This Mac’.

Now your AirPods won't automatically switch away from your iPhone to your Mac. Make the equivalent change on your iPhone to stop the other way round.
Then your AirPods will always connect to the last device and you can manually select your AirPods from the Bluetooth or Sound menu to connect them to your desired device.


How to image USB drives without having OS X mount them afterwards

Download, install and start Disk-Arbitrator. Activate it in "block mount" mode.

Now execute sudo dd if=/path/to/file of=/dev/diskN [operands]. The resulting volume won't be mounted and no file will be created nor a folder will be changed:

sh-3.2# ls -laO
total 0
drwxrwxr-x  7 user      staff  -      306 17 Jan 22:21 .
drwxrwxrwt@ 8 root      admin  hidden 272 17 Jan 23:11 ..
drwx------  5 root      wheel  -      170 17 Jan 22:21 .Spotlight-V100
d-wx-wx-wt@ 2 root      wheel  hidden  68 17 Jan 22:21 .Trashes
drwx------  5 root      staff  -      170 17 Jan 22:21 .fseventsd

Original image content:

drwxrwxr-x  7 user      staff  -      306 17 Jan 22:21 .
drwxrwxrwt@ 9 root      admin  hidden 306 17 Jan 23:23 ..
drwx------  5 root      wheel  -      170 17 Jan 22:21 .Spotlight-V100
d-wx-wx-wt  2 root      wheel  hidden  68 17 Jan 22:21 .Trashes
drwx------  5 root      staff  -      170 17 Jan 22:21 .fseventsd

Don't forget to deactivate Disk Arbitrator after finishing the cloning.

My first proposal below modifies at least some metadata of the folders /Volumes/VolumeName/.Trashes and /Volumes/VolumeName/.fseventsd

Simply appending && diskutil eject /dev/diskN after dd'ing should work:

sudo dd if=/path/to/file of=/dev/diskN [operands] && diskutil eject /dev/diskN

Upon completion of the dd command this should immediately eject the thumb drive.


Logging in at https://www.icloud.com
Go to Calendar -> (Cog) -> Preference -> Advanced
Beside "Invitations" select "Email To  (Use this option if your primary calendar is not iCloud)".

This may solve your problem if:

Someone with an iDevice is sending you the invite.
You have an iCloud account.


What security settings should one use with Keychain?

Maximum security if you’re that worried. Otherwise, just enable Lock when sleeping.

I’m not that worried because to view the password in Keychain Items requires your account password.


Can I run two 4k (3840x2160) displays at 60hz on a Macbook Pro 13" 2015

Assuming that you are using an Early 2015 MacBook Pro 13", it uses the Intel Iris 6100 chip.

From the review of the Intel Iris 6100 by NotebookCheck:

  All Broadwell GPUs support OpenCL 2.0 and DirectX 12 (FL 11_1). The video engine can now decode H.265 using both fixed function hardware as well as available GPU shaders. Up to three displays can be connected via DP 1.2/eDP 1.3 (max. 3840 x 2160 @ 60 Hz) or HDMI 1.4a (max. 3840 x 2160 @ 24 Hz). HDMI 2.0, however, is not supported.

The capability is there to support up to 3 displays with a max resolution of 3840x2160 @ 60Hz.

You connect it via mDP (mini Display Port) through the Thunderbolt 2 port.


Downloading unofficial applications with developer ID signature

I doubt if we support installing such (cracked) software, but I can at least give you the facts as I'm not explaining how to download or modify it to crack it.

If you're talking about an .app which is originally downloaded from the Mac AppStore in this case, I can explain you the following details:

Apps like this have their own sandbox (this is the same on iOS) and they cannot perform any action outside it. (Without a jailbreak for example on iOS or installer on OS X) - this counts for all apps in the App Stores since 2012.
If the .plist file or some relevant information in the View Package Contents is edited, so the sandbox thinks you're the original owner - you can run it.

The application cannot get out of the sandbox as explained, thus cannot ruin your Mac - unless you have to give it administrator privileges by a prompt.


Automator throws an error when trying to quit Mail.app

I had the same problem.  Checking the 'ask to save changes' seems to resolve the issue.


Number pad produces strange output in certain commands in Terminal

Go to Terminal -> Preferences -> Profile -> Advanced, and uncheck 'Allow VT100 application keypad mode'.


Limiting a standard user to use 50 GB of the hard drive

This should work for you:

Create a root shell session in Terminal with sudo -s, providing your admin password when asked.
Create an empty quota options file with touch /.quota.ops.user
Run quotacheck -a to generate a list of drive space used by user
Run repquota -a to list the drive space used by each user
Enable quotas by typing quotaon / (You can turn them off again with quotaoff / )
Set quota limits for a given use by typing edquota -u username
This will put you in a vi editing session, where you can set both hard and soft limits on drive space and inodes (files).
Note: vi is a text editor and can be a bit of a handful to use if you're not used to it, try searching for a basic tutorial on the net if you've never used it before.

You'll get a file that looks like this:

Quotas for user fakeuser:
/: 1K blocks in use: 14968, limits (soft = 0, hard = 0)
        inodes in use: 224, limits (soft = 0, hard = 0)

The soft limit can be exceeded for one file, allowing users to save a file which puts them over their limit but not allow them to save any more until they get back under their limit.  Hard limits cannot be exceeded though.


NO LOGINS: System going down ... stuck and won't shutdown

Go to Finder. In the menu bar click Go, select Go to folder, type /etc/ and press Enter. In the opened window find the "nologin" file and delete it. It's fixed.


Icon export @x ratio from iPhone 5 to 6+?

Ricardo is correct in his answer of @3x, but I'll take a shot at answering your question as well.

If you're working from Retina resolution assets already, the upscale factor would be an additional 1.5x for the iPhone 6 Plus.

For example, your 88px by 88px Retina icon would have to be up-scaled to a resolution one and a half times that amount for the iPhone Six Plus: 88*1.5=132 .


Create an automator script to create folder + move files into created folder

Here is an alternate solution.

Not sure if you're aware of this but there's already a keyboard shortcut in Finder, (control + command + N) which creates a new folder containing the selected finder items.  This can also be accessed through the contextual menu when right clicking on selected Finder items.

This AppleScript code works for me using the latest version of macOS Mojave.


MacBook not recognising internal drives (HD and SSD)

It's very likely that some internal hardware is down.

Since you said it yourself, the drive works using other interfaces and using another drive inside it doesn't.

Since on a MacBook there is just one mainboard I don't thing you can do something.


MacOS will try to use as much memory as it can. Having more RAM will improve performance, but using most of what you have is not in itself a bad thing. MacOS will make room, if it needs to.

This Apple support document tells you what the various attributes mean:

Wired Memory: Memory that can’t be compressed or paged out to your
startup drive, so it must stay in RAM. The wired memory used by a
process can’t be borrowed by other processes.
Compressed: The amount of memory in RAM that is compressed to make
more RAM memory available to other processes. Look in the Compressed
Mem column to see the amount of memory compressed for each process.

"Active" is not a term that Apple uses anymore, but it's 'general' memory used by applications. Wired tends to be system memory, which can't be removed because it's critical; and compressed tends to be stuff that's not being used right now, and so can be compressed to save space.

Memory management is: a) more complicated than "water filling a bottle"; b) something the OS is good at, c) something the OS is doing constantly.


Cannot sync digital copy movie to iPad via itunes

After a few hours with Apple Tech Support, we discovered that we needed to restart iTunes in 32-bit mode and then the movies would sync to my iPad and could be played in iTunes. To set 32-bit mode, Do a Get Info on the iTunes Application and check the "Open in 32-bit mode" checkbox.


Macbook Pro 16 Failed to boot after Big Sur update now I'm unable to mount the disk even in recovery mode

The 16 MacBook Pro is Intel based and has the T2 chip. This means all the data is well encrypted and the keys are stored on the T2 and the system will unlock all of the system data in target mode and other pass phrases may also be able to decrypt the data with FileVault enabled.
I would revive the firmware if you can’t use your known passwords to try and transfer (but not run first aid) to a second Mac.

https://support.apple.com/en-om/guide/apple-configurator-2/apdebea5be51/mac

Do not restore - the steps are very similar and the words sound too close for comfort. Restore intentionally deletes and destroys all data.
Revive leaves your data intact. Now, if your data is already gone, you won’t know until after the revive  is done. It’s unlikely revive will make it harder or more expensive to do data recovery, but I would stop immediately with any fsck since that deletes files and restores the system to a previous state to make the filesystem correct. It’s the opposite of what you want to get files backed up.
For that you want these:

https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/
https://www.prosofteng.com/mac-data-recovery and two external drives, one about 16 GB or larger to install a rescue OS from recovery and a second the same size or bigger than your SSD to copy off files. (If you have or can borrow a second Mac, install this there and boot yours in target disk mode.)

Then once you have the files backed up, use Internet Recovery to try reinstalling macOS on top of your existing data (this also doesn’t intentionally erase the data, just layers a working system on top of whatever system was there). With luck, you’ll get a backup and a working system without having to do an erase install or the full restore operation.


Cannot ping a single website when I am logged into my account

Check if you have an entry for sample.com in /etc/hosts.

Entries in /etc/hosts take precedence over DNS. In your case, DNS is properly configured (nslookup returns the correct IP), but ping will use the information in /etc/hosts instead. This is also true for any CLI command like curl or wget and most apps (some apps don't appear to honor /etc/hosts.)

Note that the host name specified in the command must match an entry in /etc/hosts exactly, for example:

192.168.16.3   myserver.mydomain.com

will direct ping myserver.mydomain.com to try to reach 192.168.16.3, but ping myserver will query DNS with whatever default domain is configured in /etc/resolv.conf.

For more information on /etc/hosts, see man hosts and this Wikipedia article on /etc/hosts. For more information on /etc/resolv.conf, see this Wikipedia article on resolv.conf.


Listen to all voice mails on iPhone continuously

Visual Voicemail—where you can select which message you want to listen to instead of being forced to listen to them in a specific order—doesn't seem to allow continuous playback. Also, is suspect that the delay in retrieving a message is because it's contacting the carrier.

It may be possible to find an app that allows playback as you want, but beware of buying a an older app that may not work with more recent iOS versions or one that won't work with your carrier.

I don't know what version of iOS you're running, but more recent versions (I'm looking at 10.2) have an improved interface for playback as well as transcription of the message.


How to set a wallpaper for apps in full screen (in Yosemite and higher)

It doesn't look like there's a safe way of doing this; looking at this Apple Support Discussion answer, I can still find the referenced background image in my Yosemite install at:

/System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C/Resources/NSTexturedFullScreenBackgroundColor.png

Since this is buried in /System, it's highly unlikely there's .plist file/attribute you could change to point to an alternative background – so you would need to replace this image file with another to change the background. As you may or may not know, editing anything within the /System directory is tempting super-bad juju and very, very, very strongly discouraged by Apple and any IT people worth their salt.

Personally, I would recommend that if you really want a window background image in these apps that you instead configure each app to use the background image and dispense with the transparency (or submit a feature request to Apple and embrace the restriction in the meantime).


Edit: to answer your actual question, you can't do it from anywhere except Recovery Mode, so anything you do must be done from there.

Tested on a similar 4,1 upgraded to 5,1 [but I have a flashed graphics card so I could see what I was doing]

Reboot & at the chimes hold  Cmd ⌘   R  for about 10s.
Wait until you get to Recovery Mode, which for me took approx 45s from the chimes [I'm on SSD but I think it may have chosen a Recovery on another HD to actually boot from] Give it a minute or so just to be safe.

 Fn   Ctrl ⌃   F2  will switch focus to the menu bar, specifically the Apple logo, top left.

It appears that whatever you have set in System Prefs > Keyboard for "Use all F1, F2 keys as standard function keys" that this option is disabled in Recovery, so even though just  Ctrl ⌃   F2  works for me in a running OS, in Recovery I needed the added  Fn  key.

From there, you can navigate using the arrow keys

Pic from https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/254167/85275

From that you can see that Terminal is 4 to the right, then 4 down.
It's 4 not 3 because the first down arrow opens the menu.

Hit Enter & Terminal will launch.
Type csrutil disable & hit Enter
Type reboot & hit Enter.

If it reboots, you got it right - otherwise you'll have to have another guess.

BTW, golden rule, as you have discovered, is keep your crappy old stock Apple card somewhere safe, for occasions such as this ;-)

Additional note:  Fn   Ctrl ⌃   F2  is a toggle. First will select the menu bar, second will deselect, so make sure to only do it once.


How do you pronounce the clover-like key (⌘)?

This is usually called the "command" key. Others just call it the "apple" key...


How do I make messages on iPad stop interrupting my music

You do this by turning the iPad onto silent in a similar manner to iPhone. The difference is the side switch is configurable on iPad.

If you have the side switch set to "Lock Rotation" then:

Double tap the home button.
Swipe right.
Tap the sound icon to mute the device.

If you have the side switch set to "Mute" then:

Toggle the side switch like you do on iPhone.

You can change the side switch configuration in Settings.app -> General.


How can I get mail.app to go to the item below a deleted item in my inbox?

This behavior can be changed via a hidden preference. Open up the Terminal app and type this:

defaults write com.apple.mail IgnoreSortOrderWhenSelectingAfterDelete 1

Then, restart Mail.app.


"netstat -p tcp" on my mac displays an unknown connection to stackoverflow.co.http

I have following

tcp4       0      0  192.168.1.3.54402      stackoverflow.co.https ESTABLISHED

But when I turn off my Browser (Quit) that is no longer there.

To see who is using what run

lsof -i -P


Is it possible to know if Mac system activity was done in this mac or in another mac?

You can use the command line tool last to list sessions of specified users.

I cannot find an online manual that Apple hosts so I found the closest thing I could.

https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=last&sektion=1

For example in the terminal.app you could type

last "name of user"

That command get a list of logins (among other data for the said user - see above link for specifics)  However should be able to get a sense of when the user was on the computer or not. Therefore determining if the user was on a computer at a given time. This won't tell you what files the user transferred or accessed. But, you might be able to narrow that down if you know what machine a give person was on at a given time.


Yes, that is the port you'll use. If you use one of the other ports, Internet access will sometimes work but the device will think it won't.

Use the WAN port for your apartment's inbound Internet (whether an Ethernet cable or from an ADSL or cable modem), and the other three ports for outbound to your local machines that aren't on wireless.


You can execute shell script directly on OS X, so there's generally no good reason to do that. However, if you really feel like it, you can use do shell script "script" to execute a shell script in AppleScript.


Disable the file extension change prompt

In Finder go to the "Finder" menu and select Preferences.
Click on the "Advanced" tab.
Either Check or Uncheck "Show warning before changing an extension" depending on the behavior you want.
Note that it is not possible to change what the default action is (EG press Enter for [respectively] "Remote" , "Don't Add" , "Keep .png"). That is baked in to macOS as a default action. This is always going to be the action that will potentially NOT make a change that could cause a potential issue.


Can anyone recommend a programmers' editor?

TextMate

Doesn't address all of your needs but I think it's pretty snaz.


How to prevent OSX Mail PDF export to split sentences (horizontally) at the end of the page?

This is still an issue with Mail.app 8.2 in OSX 10.10.4.

The only solution I have found so far is to save the email as a rich text document, then open the text document in TextEdit and save as PDF.


Can I back up my iPhone 5S to more than one MBP?

No, your iPhone can only be associated with a single iTunes Library. You can, however, copy the backup folder from you MBP to somewhere else. It will be in

~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup/


iPad stuck with "iCloud Backup" message -- can't use it!

Ah!!! Resetting the iPad by holding down the button on the top and on the front did.

Phew!


The battery cycle is exactly what it says, a cycle. This means that it will count charge and discharge cycles as a whole.

An couple of apple genius guys I talk to recommend at least 2 charge cycles per month, and trying not to leave it plugged in at all times will keep it relatively healthy.

You don't need to completely drain a battery before you charge it either, but the more complete the cycles are, the better accuracy will be on the battery meter.

It's a hotly debated subject, but apple do have information on their website.

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


Can I backup my new iPhone 6s from my 5s that has an older ios installed?

Yes. Restoring from a backup from an iPhone with a previous iOS version installed will work just fine - only data and settings will transfer. Other than using iCloud, using iTunes is Apple's recommended way to transfer data and settings.

iTunes can only install the latest available iOS version (and updates) from the update servers for the type and vintage of device that requests it. This means, for example, that early iOS devices, such as the iPad1, cannot be upgraded past iOS 5.1.1.


You can use lpadmin

lpadmin -E -p "PrinterName" -v "PrinterURL" -P "PPD" -o printer-is-shared=false

-E Enables the printer
"PrinterName" can be anything that describes your printer
"PrinterURL" is the URL or IP address of the printer
-P "PPD" is the PPD file you wish to use  (including the path)
-o printer-is-shared=false turns off printer sharing

The PPD files are usually located in the /etc/cups/ppd directory.  If the printer you want to use is not listed, you can download the PPD from the OpenPrinting site.


How can I keep restore for apps in Lion without having session restore when I log in?

You can simply uncheck Reopen windows when logging back in when rebooting ( -> Restart):

Sadly there doesn't seem to be a preference to make this change permanent. The best solution found so far are a few AppleScripts that let you restart with the option unchecked.


How much RAM do the different models of iPad have?

A very nice visual layout is kept current at: iOS Support Matrix

The top row has RAM size below the horizontal line showing the late 2016 and early 2017 models have 2, 3, or 4 GB of RAM across the board.

From Wikipedia:

1st generation: 256 MB
iPad 2 and iPad Mini: 512 MB
3rd generation, 4th generation, iPad Air, iPad Mini 2 and iPad Mini 3: 1 GB
iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 4: 2 GB
iPad Pro 10.5 and 12.9-inch: 4 GB
iPad Pro 9.7-inch: 2 GB


Is there a way to save a macro in word, not inside the document?

In MS Word for the mac when you go to Tools > Macro > record Macro there is a pop-up menu called "Store macro in:" and then "All Documents (Normal.dotm)" is selected.

This will store the Macro in the file that Word checks at startup for macros and will be available to all documents.

In fact all Macro menu selections will have an option for looking in the "Normal.dotm" or saving to "Normal." which is usually the default save location for saved macros.


why does holding 'd' on startup initiate internet recovery rather than hardware test?

Just because you hold d doesn’t mean the signal is correct. Also, I wouldn’t put any effort into running home diagnostics. That only tests for things like “One of the four tires on your car is missing.”
My move for this symptom is to call Apple or chat with them online. Ask for them to send you a link to test your battery remotely while the OS is running. That will tell you far more. Also, if you can’t get the os running or erase, reinstall it from recovery, then you have larger issues than even getting diagnostics to run.
They will either fix your issue or offer a flat rate repair so you know how much worst case a repair will be.
In the end, you’re in the correct screen you need to decide how to move forward despite your wanting a quick diagnostic. You need to get to system information and have the battery specific diagnostics run by Apple at this point.


Does the Sport Loop have two lengths like the Sport Bands?

The Sport Loop is just a single band with no parts to be replaced/exchanged.

It works the same as the milanese loop.


This is caused by having FileVault enabled in the security settings. The disk won't decrypt until someone logs in, so services like remote desktop and sshd won't start until then.


How do I prevent the Fn key from showing the Character Viewer in MacOS Big Sur?

Settings -> Keyboard -> Keyboard (Tab)
Middle of the panel is this setting: Press [GLOBE_ICON] to
Pull down the drop select and choose "Do Nothing"


This SSD looks like it should work fine with a Mac Mini that has a SATA connection (which your Mac Mini does). It also claims to be compatible with Mac OS X.


Developer Account Renewal - what happens if you don't renew?

Once your contract is over, the apps are removed from the App Store.

When you decide to renew the account, the apps are ready to be in the App Store, though probably you'll need to re-accept the contracts. So, after you accepted the contracts again, your apps are in the App Store again.


Is there a way to start speaking a word using macOS text to speech by hovering over it and pressing a shortcut?

You can use the following Keyboard Maestro macro:

Add a double click at current mouse location action.
Add a press ⌥⎋ action.
⌥⎋ the default shortcut for ‘Speak selected text’, set in System Preferences → Accessibility → Speech. Change this to match the preference at that location.
Set the macro to be triggered on a hot key.


When you open a template or a common keynote file, you can use the option File → Save theme...
This puts your file in the necessary directory automatically and adds information about your theme to the welcome screen.


Characters do not echo in OS X terminal unless I hit the delete key

Your prompt is messed up, specifically PS1:

PS1=$[\033]0;37m]

that's missing a lot of escape characters (\e[) needed for the colors (and most useful parameters for a PS1). That's also why you get the 37m in the terminal window title. Try setting it to something different by running:

export PS1="\e[0;31m[\h:\W \u]\$\e[m "

and see if that works. It should give a red (thats \e[0;31m) prompt showing hostname (\h), current working directory (\W) and logged in user (\u) inside brackets [] and the bash exit status of the previous command (\$). Note that at the end the color is reset to the default of the session with \e[m .

If the above worked, you only have to find out from which configuration file your "bad" PS1 comes from: look for an "export PS1=" line in ~/.profile, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bashrc, (as M K already suggested in his answer) and put in the above version.

There are a lot of answers around here with helpful colors codes and inputs for configuring the PS1, like this one for example.


2008 Mac Pro w/o Hard Drive - How do I install a new one?

Someone may come up with a better solution than this, but I've never found one in 9 years of owning an 08 Mac Pro...

Though, first of all, it cannot run Sierra, so you'll need El Capitan or older.

Your choices are:-

Get a boot image onto a spare hard drive in the same way you got it onto a USB stick & boot from that.
Get a bootable CD/DVD of Lion & work from there.

or I suppose a late 3

Take it to an Apple Store & they'll do it for you.

I have never been able to get an 08 to boot from a USB stick, no matter what I've tried. The 09's will, but not the 08's.

It's also too old to boot to Internet Recovery.


how to execute mkdir in /home/ directory

/home is used as a mount point for the automounter (see /etc/auto_master and /etc/auto_home), you can't create your own directories in there.

If you are looking for a place to store common administrator stuff shared between different administrators, create a directory in either /Users/(any admin account) or /usr/local/share and make it accessible to all members of the admin group.


There are plug-ins available for Apple Mail.  Some are plug-ins, some are AppleScripts.

You could easily accomplish this via AppleScript.  For example, here's a set of AppleScripts for Apple Mail that includes a delay send one, although the author of those scripts notes that they haven't been updated recently and might not work with more current versions of OS X.  You'll have to try it and see.  Since it's an AppleScript, if you're willing to get your hands dirty, you can edit it to better meet your needs.

Another option is Mail Scheduler, which includes delayed send as well as several other related items.


I know this seems a bit stupid. I think it was because I was a bit impatient. My upload speed is 0.71Mb/s (that means it will take 3 hours 43 minutes to upload!). It has only uploaded 170MB/1.1GB. I have however had my computer asleep for a few hours though.

Even though I have posted this I would still like to know how to force upload incase I need to in the future.


Want to Install Windows 10 onto MacBookPro (15", Early 2011) running Sierra 10.12.6

In 2011, Windows was still being installed to BIOS boot on Macs. The drivers provided by Apple assume you will be installing for a BIOS booting Windows. You can not directly install a BIOS booting Windows on any model Mac using a flash drive. The easiest solution would be to burn a Windows 10 iso file to a DVD-R DL.

Creating a burnable iso image from Windows 10 USB flash drive installer.

According to the instructions provided by Apple, you are suppose to download the ISO from Microsoft. Read Step 2 in the document I have linked to.

However, you may be able to burn the ISO file from the USB flash drive Windows 10 installer you purchased to the DVD by using the command given below.

Using a machine running Windows 10, I created a Windows 10 USB flash drive installer. After inserting the flash drive in a 2011 iMac running High Sierra, I was able to enter the following command to create a bootable Windows 10 ISO file. You will need to burn the image stored in the windows10.iso file to a DVD. The image was only 4.15 GB in size so I was able to use a DVD-RW.

hdiutil makehybrid -o windows10.iso /Volumes/ESD-USB -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 8 -eltorito-boot /Volumes/ESD-USB/boot/etfsboot.com

The name of the flash drive shown in the finder was ESD-USB. The -boot-load-size was set to 8 sectors, because the size of the etfsboot.com file was 4096 bytes and the sector size is 512 bytes. ( 8 * 512 = 4096 )

To boot from the DVD, do the following.

Insert the DVD
Restart
Immediately hold down the option key until the Startup Manager icons appears.
Select the DVD icon labeled Windows.


As long as you're on wifi network it will actually show your approximate location. Or are you interested in using it outdoors?


What gesture is triggered by wiggling your finger on the home button?

You're triggering "reachability" by double tapping a Touch ID enabled home button on iPhone 6 and later. It's designed to allow you to more easily reach the top of the screen when using a larger iPhone one-handed.

http://www.tekrevue.com/tip/reachability-iphone-6/


Photos sync from iTunes mac osx to iOS/iPhone location unknown?

The places to check would be:

Photos app (Camera Roll)
Movies/Videos app (if you're on iOS 9 or earlier; this app is gone in iOS 10)
Cloud Photo Library


The source is the combination of Netflix and Safari, which disables screenshots and screencasts of its content to prevent piracy.

You should be able to take screenshots if you use Google Chrome:


Prevent Windows 7 from activating twice on Vmware Fusion

These are likely two separate issues. First, VMWare keeps an identifier for each VM, and can tell when you have moved or copied one over. Whether you change or keep the UUID is more to make sure that particular instance of VMWare doesn't get confused. You definitely don't want more than one with the same UUID. Since this is also stored in the SMBIOS and readable by the virtual OS, keeping it might help.

As far as Windows Activation, VMs do virtualize most of the hardware, but they will for example report the actual CPU in the box. For example, even if you allocate only one virtual processor, it will still say "i7 Quad Core" in the System properties. Is the CPU for your MacBook and iMac different?


Application switcher not cycling anymore on hold

It looks this is a duplicate of this question.

I have the same situation - no cycling beyond endpoints (cycling backwards you can do via Ctrl + Shift + Tab).


Does the iPad 2 HDMI out adapter work with the new iPad?

Based on comments on the new adapter on Apple's online store, the iPad 2 HDMI adapter is not fully supported with the new iPad:

Is this a new HDMI AV Adapter ?
It is exactly a new product with the compatibility for the new iPad.
If you try to use the previous adapter on the new iPad it will tell you "This accessory is not supported"

My guess is that the new screen resolution of the new iPad has led to this incompatibility. Besides, with the old adapter the best you could get was 720p, with the new one it's boosted to 1080p.


In Finder, select View → Preview options. This displays a dialog.

Turning off all options except the couple that I want means I now have the view I want.


Install Windows 10 via Bootcamp Assistant on MacBook Pro from mid 2010

The instructions, you have linked to, install Windows to EFI boot. The Boot Camp drivers provide by Apple were designed for a BIOS booting Windows. In other words, you need to hybrid partition the drive and the instructions explicitly insure the drive is using a fully protected MBR. If you can select EFI Boot of the Windows 10 installation flash drive from the Mac Startup Manager and successfully boot from the flash drive, then you can install a BIOS booting Windows 7, 8, 8.1 or 10 to your Mac. However, you will have to use the command line (CLI) to install. In your case, the graphical user interface (GUI) provided by Microsoft will only allow EFI booting installations.
The are many examples on the web of how to use the CLI to install Windows. For example, these instructions install for a dual boot. Perhaps you could adapt the instructions for your use.


The .encfs6.xml file contains metadata that describes the encryption of the user's files. This is the one file that shouldn't be deleted and the short answer is to say that encryption is impossible without it.

Encfs works by using a passphrase to make a key (potentially low entropy because it's derived from user input) that is used to encrypt another machine-generated (high entropy) key that is used for file encryption. That key is stored encrypted inside .encfs6.xml as <encodedKeyData> like this:

<encodedKeyData>
AVE9837475fv...VoE93845ee
</encodedKeyData>

In theory, if you have that data and you know the passphrase used to encrypt it and you know all the ciper parameters used than you could decrypt using another tool such as OpenSSL. You'd need to look at the source code for encfs to work out exactly what it does and in what order but it would be possible to decrypt using another tool.

But you really need the parameters contained in the .encfs6.xml file to be able to decrypt, even if you plan to do so without the encfs software. So it's kind-of pointless because, if if you had that information you could reconstruct the xml file by hand and use encfs anyway.


Why is the photo quality terrible in Automator?

I don't know why, but it seems to save the image as a 201x201 pixel tiff file.

You could also install imagesnap with brew install imagesnap and then use something like /usr/local/bin/imagesnap ~/Desktop/$(date +%y%m%d%H%M%S).png in a Run Shell Script action.


How to remove something I have downloaded via curl

I wrote a shell script, crater (determine the impact crater of an install on a Unix filesystem) to deal with such poorly documented installation process:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/253217/31707


In the Wacom settings panel System Preferences - Wacom you can adjust the pressure sensitivity  by clicking the pen in the Tool panel. and test it by applying pressure anywhere in the tip feel box.  For the Bamboo there is no sensitivity indicator.
###The status bar will indicate the pressure.
Page 42:  Bamboo User Manual

In Photoshop (CS 4 and above) you have to set your brush sizing to pen pressure:

***Note:
The screenshots from above are for an Intuos 4 but they should be very similar for the Bamboo Pen.
If your not getting any sensitivity send an email to Wacom support.  They are very helpful and responded quickly with instructions on how to fix a problem I was having with Illustrator crashes.


AirPods 2nd Gen. with firmware 2A364 dropped volume level in non-iOS Devices

I have the same issue and considering its an apple device, there isn't really any way to downgrade them. You're probably going to have to wait until apple fixes the bug.


Why does 128GB iPhone have 113GB capacity?

The other 6 GB are OS itself. The given capacity is a value for the physical storage that the phone has, not the amount that can be used by the owner. iOS is about 6 GB in size on its own.

Also, the formatted capacity is less than the size of the chips that are manufactured into the device. It's in a very small footnote at the bottom of the tech specs for each iOS device. Typically note #1

As you can see on the following link, each OS differs between versions, device type and device size so the gap in specs to usable space isn't a fixed constant.

How large is iOS?


Unable to toggle natural scrolling direction

Use defaults write -g com.apple.swipescrolldirection -bool NO

If it's automatically checking itself in the GUI it's because you have a invalid value set, IE: -int 0/1 using the BOOL value will restore functionality.


If you use a small piece of tape to block the middle (signal) pin on your MagSafe charger, your Mac will not charge because it can't identify the charger.


I have only enabled the first four of these, but here are all hidden preferences for disabling animations I have found.

# opening and closing windows and popovers
defaults write -g NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false

# smooth scrolling
defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool false

# showing and hiding sheets, resizing preference windows, zooming windows
# float 0 doesn't work
defaults write -g NSWindowResizeTime -float 0.001

# opening and closing Quick Look windows
defaults write -g QLPanelAnimationDuration -float 0

# rubberband scrolling (doesn't affect web views)
defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -bool false

# resizing windows before and after showing the version browser
# also disabled by NSWindowResizeTime -float 0.001
defaults write -g NSDocumentRevisionsWindowTransformAnimation -bool false

# showing a toolbar or menu bar in full screen
defaults write -g NSToolbarFullScreenAnimationDuration -float 0

# scrolling column views
defaults write -g NSBrowserColumnAnimationSpeedMultiplier -float 0

# showing the Dock
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 0

# showing and hiding Mission Control, command+numbers
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0

# showing and hiding Launchpad
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration -float 0
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration -float 0

# changing pages in Launchpad
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-page-duration -float 0

# at least AnimateInfoPanes
defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool true

# sending messages and opening windows for replies
defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableSendAnimations -bool true
defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableReplyAnimations -bool true


I definitely feel your pain when dealing with managing podcasts with iTunes on iOS devices. With the challenges of either creating a smart playlist that I can't then order (at least I've generally found this to be impossible) or the idea of having to micromanage my podcasts through a standard playlist as well as the oddities of what podcasts get synced and why I've generally given up.

What I recommend is a specific podcasting app. There are a few out there. I started with Instacast, but it became a little unstable for me recently. I've since gone to Podcaster, and aside from the initial learning curve, I like it more. The nice thing about either of them is that you never have to use iTunes to sync your podcasts either, as they'll download them over wifi or 3G.

Sorry that I can't provide a solution directly related to your iTunes challenge, but I've been happier going this route and maybe you would be as well.


How do I restore a Mojave Time machine backup on Catalina?

Time Machine doesn’t operate differently when restoring.

If you restore a backup interval made on an older or same OS - it works.
If you attempt to restore a backup interval made from a newer OS than what is attempting the restore it will fail.

Since we don’t know what’s failing - you can either attach the Time Machine and indicate before you create the first user account you want to migrate. If you are past that, erase the Mac and then watch carefully in the setup steps where you are asked to choose to restore from backup.
If you don’t want to erase Catalina - open Migration Assistant and choose the data you want to restore from your Time Machine.
If you like steps and guides - here is a great one on moving your data to a new Mac.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204350


Will a MacBook with its lid closed (asleep) restart at the scheduled time?

Per this Apple KB article, the Mac must be awake for Energy Saver's settings to take effect:

  Your computer must be awake and you must be logged in for it to shut down at the scheduled time. If you are not logged in or the computer is in sleep, your computer will not shut down at the scheduled time

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH3954


Is it possible to have more waypoints in Maps.app on OSX?

No, so far! Hopefully, apple will add that option to the next update?


My iPhone no longer mounts in Windows. Tries to install "MTP USB Device" .. which fails

In the mist of giving you an extra idea, and to be frank I have no idea what your problem might be, let me share what I'd do to find the cause and -eventually- fix it.

You seem to have done your Windows homework well, yet results haven't been what you expected. Something I remember doing with Windows when things didn't work (in the Windows95 era this was very common!) was rebooting in Safe Mode and see if anything looked unfamiliar.

In any case, if you still can't manage to make Windows work, before anything else, it would be interesting to make sure that the problem is not in the iPhone itself (probably nothing that an iPhone restore wouldn't fix if that's the case).

First rule of diagnosing a problem: try it on another system. The result of this simple test is going to rule out 50% of the possibilities.

If it works, the problem is in your Windows machine and you might get better luck at Super User (since our userbase here has less Windows experience, tho we have a few geeks around).

If it doesn't work, then the problem is not your Windows (stop removing stuff or it will go coo-coo!).

In that case, you might want to perform a full Restore of your iPhone. I am not familiar with Windows+iPhone combo, but don't you have to Check some preference in iTunes for that "mounts on the desktop for me to transfer pictures and videos" thing to happen? I think it was called "Enable Disk's use" on iPods, but I haven't seen that option in iPhones, but then again, Maybe on Windows this is common. Forgive my ignorance in the subject.

Anyway, just make sure your iPhone mounts on another computer's desktop (with Windows) before destroying your own Windows. For what is worth, I'm not aware of any iPhone mounting on a Mac's desktop, this has got to be a Windows thing, and this is why Super User may be better suited.


How can I easily specify an or-search in Finder?

Operands must be written in capitals, so they are understood as such. Therefore, using OR instead of or, will do exactly what you want.


You should try to find the model.  The only Mac Pro not capable of running the latest OS is the MacPro1,1.  I think they were from 2006-7.

Older computers which existed before 'free' OSX upgrades had to purchase them via the App Store.  It's possibly trying to verify an Apple ID that was used for this.

If you have access to another Mac, you can build a bootable USB with an OSX installer.  First you need to obtain the Install OS X app. As per Apple:

  Use these steps to download the version of OS X you want to install.
  From the Apple menu, choose App Store.  Hold the Option key and click
  the Purchases tab. You should see the versions of OS X you've
  previously purchased. If you don't see your purchases, log in to the
  App Store with the ID you previously used to install OS X.  Click the
  Install button next to the version of OS X you want to download. The
  Mac App Store normally displays OS X as being "Installed" in the
  purchases pane. This prevents you from downloading it when your Mac
  already has the same version of OS X installed. When you hold the
  Option key as you click the Purchases tab, the button to the right of
  the item you want to download should change to say "Install". If it
  doesn't, use Spotlight to search for "Install OS X" on your computer.
  It's likely you already have a copy of the same OS X installer in the
  Applications folder, or on a connected drive.

(I'll just quickly summarize the rest; if you get this far, and have questions, just respond and we'll try our best.)  Once you have the installer, you'll also need at least an 8 GB flash drive.  Wipe it and format as GUID and HFS.  Then follow these instructions to create a bootable installer.  Once done, plug it into the Mac, hold option while booting, and select the USB drive. The rest is self explanatory.


How to import photos from new iPad 5 Mini to old 2015 MacBook Air, OSX 10.9.5

Apple say that this iPad requires OS X 10.11.6 or later and iTunes 12.8 or later to sync with a Mac, so I'm going to guess that you're out of luck trying to use it with iPhoto.

You could try:

Seeing if you can download the photos using the Image Capture app on the Mac (Launchpad > Other, or find it in the Applications folder)
Transferring the photos via a service such as Dropbox
Upgrading the Mac to a more recent version of macOS - it should be easily capable of running the latest version and give you a better experience all round. 10.9.5 is pretty old now and is no longer supported with security updates etc, so it's a good idea to upgrade. If you really don't want to go straight to 10.14 for some reason, this Apple Support page has links under Learn More from which you can get the previous three versions.


Trigger 'Gather Windows' programmatically (or other quick way)

Use AppleScript Editor to save the following as script or application:

tell application "System Preferences"
    set current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.displays"
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences" to tell first window to click button "Gather Windows"
    quit
end tell

Make sure you have enabled support for assistive devices in System Preferences » Universal Access.


Your Mac does not officially support Windows 10. However, this does not mean Windows 10 can not be installed on your model Mac. Here are some points to be aware of.

With the newer versions of macOS, you can download the Windows Support Software for your Mac by using the Boot Camp Assistant application. This may be the same as the Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5621.
Make sure the Windows Support Software have beed copied to the Windows 10 installer flash drive before installing Windows 10.
You want to have first installed the latest version of High Sierra. This will insure you have the latest firmware updates. (Firmware updates are included in the latest versions of macOS.)
You would be better off installing Windows 10 to BIOS boot. Most likely the Windows Support Software for you model Mac was designed for BIOS booting and may not work properly if you install Windows to EFI boot.
The Windows Support Software for your Mac may contain a BootCamp.msi file that is to old to be used with the latest versions of Windows 10. See the question WDF VIOLATION Blue Screen after Upgrading Mac to Windows 10 May 2019 Update (1903) Edition.

If you do not want or need macOS installed on your Mac, then you can just have Windows 10 installed. However, you would be better off first installing Windows 10 for a dual boot with macOS. One possible procedure which might work with your Mac is given as the answer to the question How to install Windows 10 into a 2011 iMac without using the Boot Camp Assistant, an optical (DVD) drive or third party tools?. Once you have booted to a working Windows 10, you can use the Windows 10 flash drive installer to reinstall Windows 10. This time you will need to erase all partitions to remove macOS before installing.


How does one take complete control of the MacBook built-in webcam?

I have used Webcam Settings which you can get from the Apple App Store for US$8.  It directly adjusts the webcam (don't ask me how!) and so works with all webcam apps.  I have had no issues with Big Sur upgrade.
You will not be able to adjust everything in your list and what can be adjusted varies by webcam.  For example, it can adjust more on my Logitech webcam than the built-in webcam.
Here is the main settings panel for my built-in camera:

The Hue and White Balance settings will likely be enough to make a significant improvement.
But no app will magically make a relatively poor web cam into a great looking one. If you find the built-in FaceTime webcam is not good enough for your usage, you should invest in a better one.  I use a rather old Logitech C920 which is better than the built-in and you can easily find a webcam that is better again.


How do I stop my Mac OS X from going to sleep?

Go to sys pref -Energy

Slide the Computer and display sliders all the way to the right (to the never position)

If you prefer you can use the build in (by Apple) Terminal command "Caffeinate" to set specific non sleep modes.

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/Manpages/man8/caffeinate.8.html


Convert HTML hyperlink code to Markdown (MD) in pure AppleScript?

Here is one example:
set htmlString to "This is a link: link"

set mdString to do shell script "/usr/bin/sed -E -e 's|link|)|g' <<< " & htmlString's quoted form

Result:
"This is a link: [link](https://duck.com)"

This can also be down without the use of the do shell script command, as in this example:
set htmlString to "This is a link: link"

set htmlString to findAndReplaceInText(htmlString, "link", ")")

on findAndReplaceInText(theText, theSearchString, theReplacementString)
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theSearchString
    set theTextItems to every text item of theText
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theReplacementString
    set theText to theTextItems as string
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
    return theText
end findAndReplaceInText

Result:
"This is a link: [link](https://duck.com)"

If This is a link: link is in a file or on the clipboard, the escaping is done automatically when assigning it to a variable.  You then only need to escape the " in the sed command as shown in the example above.

Other examples:
If This is a link: link in in a file:
set htmlFile to "/path/to/filename/ext"
set htmlString to read htmlFile
set mdString to do shell script "/usr/bin/sed -E -e 's|link|)|g' <<< " & htmlString's quoted form

Or, processing the file directly:
set htmlFile to "/path/to/filename.ext"
set mdString to do shell script "/usr/bin/sed -E -e 's|link|)|g'" & space & htmlFile's quoted form

If This is a link: link is on the clipboard:
set htmlString to (the clipboard as text)
set mdString to do shell script "/usr/bin/sed -E -e 's|link|)|g' <<< " & htmlString's quoted form

Note: The use of the findAndReplaceInText() handler can also be used in place of the do shell script command in these other examples.

See also, Manipulating Text in the Mac Automation Scripting Guide.


Need to know how to have my own iCloud account?

The only way to do this is for all of you to have your own iCloud accounts.  As long as you share the same iCloud account with your kids, or anyone, they'll be able to view and edit your documents.

You didn't mention the ages of your kids, but Apple allows you to create iCloud accounts for minors so you can have parental controls over various aspects of their accounts.  FWW, I had the same problem and created accounts for my kids and wife.  Doing that solved the problem for me.


I want to triple-boot Lion, El Capitan, and WIndows. Howto?

iPartition used to be the go-to tool for this kind of task, but it cannot handle Core Storage volumes, which makes it a bit limited these days.

Paragon have just brought out a new Hard Disk Manager which I have yet to try out for myself, but looks like it's the long-awaited successor to iPartition. Personally, I don't think the interface looks as good, but you can't have everything ;-)

Both apps require you to boot from an external device to work on the boot drive, of course. Paragon has a built-in boot drive creator, I can't remember whether iPartition does [it had a CD maker, back in the day, but I've not used it in quite a while]

For your particular scenario - I'd clone off one of the Mac partitions, re-partition as a single Mac volume [plus EFI/Recovery of course] then let Bootcamp do its regular setup. Afterwards, resize then add a new partition to clone your 2nd OS X back to.


I'm getting lots of Samba "too many open files" errors. How can I troubleshoot?

Now I'm no kernel expert, but I think that you might be running into the fact that the default value for the maxflies kernel parameter is 256.  You can show your current value for this parameter like this:

[dwayne | ~] $ launchctl limit maxfiles
    maxfiles    256            unlimited

I think if you put a line similar to this in a file /etc/launchd.conf (you might have to create the file if it doesn't already exist):

limit maxfiles 2048 unlimited

and reboot, you will see the new value, and hopefully avoid the situation you're running into.

Dwayne


Do I need Lion on a MacBook to use iCloud?

1. Can I use iCloud to back up all the files on my MacBook?

iCloud is used to store the data that an iCloud enabled application has saved.  It is not a backup mechanism for your Mac, however in principle it can form part of a backup system.  iCloud doesn't show up as one simple folder on the mac that syncs (the DropBox model of cloud storage) but instead has a fairly well hidden folder in ~/Library for ad-hoc syncing/backup and instead requires each application to tell the mac which documents should be cached locally and "stored in the cloud".

For example, if your system is modern enough to support internet recovery, then you effectively have the OS not exactly backed up as such, but available for a restore withut the need for having copies of the physical media.  Of course, you lose your system preferences, user accounts and indeed everything else, but you can recover an OS installation to a default level easily.  On top of tis, if you then login to your Apple ID on the App Store, you can then download all your apps that you have purchased.  Of course again there is no guarantee that this will be all of your apps, but for some it may well be.  Once you have recovered your OS and your Apps, any Apps that use iCloud will then have their data available for use.

So, in certain scenarios it's the final pin in the recovery of your data, but it's by no means by itself a full backup solution, and you will need to cater (preferable via Time Machine) for a better solution unless you never change your prefs, and only use app store apps. Think of iCloud as storing just a few critical documents from just a few critical apps, and not currently a viable total backup solution.

2. To use iCloud, do I need Lion installed (as opposed to older Mac OS)?

Lion (OS X 10.7) is the minimum OS version required to use iCloud, You can gain access to the App Store from 10.6.6 onwards which is the only place where you can download iCloud enabled applications anyway, but be aware that just because you can buy an iCloud Enabled App Store app pre-Lion, you may not be able to use it.

3. After I've bought Lion, is there a fee to use iCloud with my mac?

There is no seperate iCloud fee, accounts are free in perpetuity, although obviously the apps that use it may have a cost associated with them. Additionally, the free account includes 5 GB of cloud storage, so you may run into fees should you need to store more data off site than the free allotment. Yearly storage costs begin at $20 (USD) to add another 10 GB (so 15 total storage).


Server balks at reading the web settings

I finally have had the chance to blow away this pesky server and no amount of digging yielded a clue how to avoid a reset of www - so that's what I did. I had since updated it to 10.7.5 Build 11G63 and the errors persisted on managing the web service.

I shut down all services except for File Sharing, DNS and Open Directory and did the following steps to force down apache and force a reset. Even trying to stop the web service using sudo serveradmin stop web kept failing with the errors above about xswebconfig and undefined methods of nil classes.

sudo apachectl stop
sudo serveradmin command web:command=restoreFactorySettings
sudo serveradmin start web

At this point refreshing the Server app corrected the errors reading the settings. Thanks to this hint on cleaning up apache to get me most of the way to my solution.


Any usb-c hub with power delivery should do the job, eg. Anker Premium USB-C Hub with Power Delivery


How do I use Mac Mail as a searchable archive of past emails and delete emails on Gmail?

You could create local folders inside the Mail App and transfer the mails from your inbox into these folders. To do so, open the Mail App and select inbox (at the top menu bar), then navigate to new inbox. You will get a new pop-up window asking you where to create the new inbox/folder (here you want to make sure it is set to local). You can also set a name, e.g. for your use case 2019 for all emails from 2019.


usualy mail applications all lay around the same in preformance and memory depending on size of inbox, file sizes, nr of RSS's there are many variables, but the general thing is they only use enough to have an impact on performance, whenever they are grabbing new information! (not even then) but in order to minimize CPU usage you should set "grab mail" too manual

as far as tip on good mail client.. check out sparrow!


What Apple iPhone have that iPod Touch doesn't?

Well, some of the costs come from the GSM components that the iPhone has, others come from the production process, which is different.

Then there is the amount of RAM is 512 MB for iPhone and 256 MB for the iPod Touch. Also, the iPhone has a compass. The rear cameras are different - 5 Megapixel camera for the iPhone and 0,7 Megapixel for the iPod.


Apple Watch pairing prompts for old Apple ID password

Login with your Apple ID at Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > Apple ID


How do I sync Gmail contacts with my iMac's address book and my iPhone?

When I had Snow Leopard I had the Google address book sync enabled and I somehow managed to put a 'sync' icon in the menu bar.

If I remember correctly I added it from the "old" iSync application (unsuccessfully trying to sync with a Samsung phone).

Now in Lion I still have it and it allows me to manually force the update of my Google address book, but I can't find how to obtain it as the iSync app seems to have disappeared.

This article here describes the situation of iSync in more details


Where is documentation for CJK input methods (Its)?

Years ago (for OS 9 I think) Apple produced manuals for these IM's, which you can sometimes still find online, but I don't know how useful they are now.

For OS X, for each IM, when it is active, you should find a Help item further down in the "Flag" menu.  Below is what comes up for Korean.  Otherwise you have to rely on google to find explanations provided by individuals, such as

http://www.koreanfromzero.com/install_korean/mac_osx/

for the 2-Set IM.  Below are also cheat sheets for the two Romaja IM's I found (first Gongjincheong and then HNC).


Mac Mail.app accounts offline after working hours

Couldn't you just set Mail.app to check only specific accounts, then re-enable them when you want to check them? In the Advanced options under Accounts, you can uncheck the box to Include when automatically checking for new messages. If this box is unchecked, this account will be ignored when Mail.app checks for new email.

The checking/unchecking of this box can be scripted using AppleScript.

tell application "Mail"
   set enabled of account "NameOfAccount" to false
end tell

This script can then be tied to a macro in an application such as Keyboard Maestro.


You can't really do this in iMovie as it is limited to 2 video tracks. You can do it in Final Cut or Premiere Pro if you're willing to spend the money, or HitFilm Express if you want don't want to spend a penny.


Do music playlists do live updating on iOS 13

While I don't have a smart playlist with a limit of hours, I do have lots of smart playlists with various criteria. In my experience, all of my smart playlists update automatically on my iPhone and iPad.
Performing an action like playing a song which would add the song to the smart playlist makes the song appear in the smart playlist immediately for me as it would on macOS, even though the criteria can't be viewed or modified on iOS.


How can I install Adobe Flash manually or without giving root access?

Download the dmg from Adobe's website. Mount it and right click on the Install Adobe Flash Player.app and select "Show Package Contents."

Drill down into Contents > Resources:

Launch the Adobe Flash Player.pkg:

When the plugin installer launches, go to File > Show Files (or CMD + I).

There you will see a list of the files it installs and where. You'll need to use something like Pacifist to extract the contents, but once you do, you can install the files manually. And yes, the install would be just as clean if you used the pkg to install the plugin. It's not any safer, it's just an alternate route that doesn't have the Adobe wrapper (so it doesn't use Adobe's proprietary installer).


Why does airdrop work with my Macbook, but not iMac?

I beliieve I've managed to answer this for myself.  All my previous research only turned up issues around Airdrop not working with laptops, but I think the issue is the same.

Found this thread on the Apple discussion forums that says that you need a 2012 or later iMac to use Aiirdrop.  Missed it by that much!

  AirDrop system requirements To send items to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod
  touch, or to receive items from those devices, you need a 2012 or
  later Mac model with OS X Yosemite or later, excluding the Mac Pro
  (Mid 2012).

  To send items to another Mac, you need:

  MacBook Pro (Late 2008) or later, excluding the MacBook Pro (17-inch, Late 2008)
  MacBook Air (Late 2010) or later
  MacBook (Late 2008) or later, excluding the white MacBook (Late 2008)
  iMac (Early 2009) or later
  Mac Mini (Mid 2010) or later
  Mac Pro (Early 2009 with AirPort Extreme card, or Mid 2010)

The good news is inexpensive and very small USB adapters can add BTLE and AirDrop to older Mac with macOS versions that otherwise support AirDrop.

Asus BT400, IOGEAR GBU521 and GMYLE all seem to do the trick in several articles


MacBook Pro sometimes freezes after waking from sleep

This is an often reported problem (with Yosemite) that has been fixed recently.

As of OS X 10.10.4, released yesterday, Apple reinstated mDNSResponder to handle DNS processes previously assigned to discoveryd since the debut of OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

For more information see: http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/26/latest-os-x-beta-ditches-buggy-discoveryd-dns-service-replaced-with-mdnsresponder

The best way to fix this problem is to update to 10.10.4.


How can I turn off the photo preview when I plugin in my iPhone on my PC?

Connect your phone to the computer.
In Windows, click Start > Settings > Control Panel > Scanners and Cameras.
Right-click on "Apple iPhone" > Properties.
Click the tab "Events".
Click the radio button "Take no action". Then OK.

Now when you connect the phone, nothing should happen.


Initialize Time Machine backup without clicking the menu bar icon

tmutil is a command line utility for "controlling and interacting with Time Machine." Try man tmutil. (I'm on OS X 10.10.4).

You can also control/right click on a Time Machine drive in a Finder window or sidebar. If a backup is running you can stop it, if not you can "Back Up Now."


To let a Mac automatically use Wifi and Ethernet to double the connection speed?

From Super User: If I have two internet connections on osx, how can I use both to increase my bandwidth?:

  Short answer: no. With 2 links, you have 2 IP addresses. It can be done with some specific higher end NICs (e.g. Intel quad cards), but they will appear to the rest of the network as a single IP address in that mode. If the assumption is that you have 2 distinct IP addresses, it cannot be done


How can I update an iOS device using iTunes on Mac without backing it up?

You can update your device using Mobile Data by creating a WiFi Hotspot, while your data is on and update your device using the WiFi Hotspot.

Try this:

  Quit iTunes.

  Open a Terminal (Applications >  Utilities > Terminal)

  Type or copy the following  command:defaults write  com.apple.iTunes
  AutomaticDeviceBackupsDisabled - bool true

  Open iTunes.

  Connect the iPhone.

  Make Sync without backing up.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7640010?answerId=32668610022#32668610022


AppleScript - echo into openssl AES encryption - is there a way to crack/snoop thru logs?

I overcome the password issue in my bash scripts by sourcing (including) another file with a predetermined variable already set.

For example.  Say you have a "config" file  ~/config.conf and in it you assign some variables:

# Config file for MyScript.sh

$user = Me
$pass = S3cr3t5!

In your script you source the file so you can use the variables you defined:

#!/bin/bash

source /Path/to/config.conf

stuff= "thisismydatastring and my saltbits"

echo  $stuff | openssl aes-256-cbc -k $pass -base64

Personally, I like to keep the line that executes the command as clean as possible using variables (like stuff in the example above) so that it's easier to see what the command is doing and consequently easier to debug.

Is this safe from prying eyes?  Yes, for the most part.  You can set the permissions so that only the user can read and write the file and deny it to everyone else:

chmod 600 config.conf

Anyone snooping through logs (which is your question) won't be able to see the plain text passwords.


Where are my "exchange" reminders in mac OS?

When the account is removed on iOS or macOS - the data is not deleted and only the local cache of it goes away. This is true for any sort of exchange or iCloud or google data lives in the cloud. Thus, the best way to find missing items would be to open the web client and look at the data store directly.

Once you verify that the data exists in the cloud - go ahead and add back that account on your Mac and enable the data classes you want (tasks map to reminders).


No - the native OS X and iOS apps do not understand delegate calendars. Microsoft implemented them as a non-standard calendar extending the basic CalDAV format, so you would need to wait for Apple to code to Microsoft's standard or use another app to view those. (I can't recommend any apps, but you might start with Microsoft's ones if you are OK using native calendars for all but the delegate ones).


I struggled with the same problem and just now finally solved it. The issue was for me that I didn't earlier "Trusted my iPad" on my mac, and "Trusted my Mac" on my iPad.
Here's a how to:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202778

After doing this, it finally connects via cable and is hopyfully less buggy. x'3


Lets try to narrow it down.

Start in Safe mode (hold shift) to exclude the GPU and 3d party
Use Apple Hardware Test (hold D) to check for problems
Reset your NVRAM
last not least reinstall osx


Mapping Home and End of Apple keyboard in VMWare fusion

KeyMap4MacBook can actually do this. As I told in the question, the problem is Windows and Mac OSX interpret Home and End differently. So what I needed was an app that allowed me to have different mappings for different apps (Windows is in VM Ware or Parallels, which are apps)

KeyMap4MacBook allows to have different key mappings for the Mac and different ones for VMs / Remote Desktops:


There's an answer to this over on StackOverflow: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1837889/authorize-a-non-admin-developer-in-xcode-mac-os

You need to add your OS X user name to the _developer group. See the posts in this thread* for more information. The following command should do the trick:
sudo dscl . append /Groups/_developer GroupMembership <username>

It looks like you'll still need the admin account for this part but after that you should be able to run Xcode on your account.
*This isn't the link from the original answer. That page is actually gone. I've added a new link ot a thread in the Apple Support Communities.
Hat tip to Ned Deily.


Unless you've disabled SIP and installed your own binaries in /usr/bin it's safe to assume that everything in /usr/bin (and /bin, /sbin, /usr/sbin) is pre-installed.


Terminal: Path to Network Drive in Applescript

The correct syntax would be smb://[<user>@]<workgroup>[:<port>][/]

To answer your second question:

do shell script "mv ~/Desktop/file.txt smb://user:password@netDrive/MyShare/Folder/file.txt"


Mac mini fan replacement: amperage rating

A Fan with 0.5Amp will do, since it will not overload the circuit, and only draw 0.5A while 0.66A is available.

It might not have enough power to provide sufficient air flow, thus it might run more, but that is only important if you run constantly at elevated Temperatures.

Check your mac mini model number to make sure it fits, since the one you are showing is for Mac Mini A1347 2010 2011 922-9953 610-0164 610-0069.


Missing iOS iMessage showing in OSX Messages

It can happen if your phone is outside good reception area for iMessage - carrier signal dropped to GPRS/Edge etc.

The Mac picks it up, the system considers it delivered.
There is no further attempt to send it to your phone.

It used to happen to me a lot when I was working in a low-reception area.

It won't re-synchronise.

See How to tell Messages "I'm not at home"? for a similar experience.

It doesn't happen if your phone is set to airplane mode, or off altogether. For some reason, that will trigger a delivery of missed messages when you switch back on again.

[All of this may be mobile-operator influenced - I've never been able to figure that part out - whether it happens to everyone or just certain carriers.]


Will my device's location be shown in Find My iPhone if it is connected to iTunes?

Set it to Lost Mode on https://www.icloud.com/#find

If anyone ever tries to reset the phone it will have to go online to activate.
At that point, Lost Mode will kick in [possibly with a location]

The phone is a brick to anyone else, without your login details.

Don't erase it remotely, send a message to it, perhaps informing the current "holder" that it's locked & how to contact you or the police to report they "found" it.

Thieves are finally getting the message that stealing an iPhone is pointless. Thefts are down 40% from last year.


Will Mac Mini work with Dell Inspiron Laptop

VNC

You can use VNC on your Mac to show the screen on your Windows or Linux laptop:

  VNC is an abbreviation of Virtual Network Computing. VNC is a common protocol that allows computers to both share and to offer control over the network. Using VNC you can connect to and see your computer remotely; great for remote working or helping a relative perform tricky tasks without needing to be in the same location.

  Mac OS X includes a built-in free VNC server. You can set up and use VNC on your Mac without needing additional or third party software.

There are numerous Windows and Linux VNC clients you can use on your Dell laptop.

Also see answers to these related questions:

Is it possible to use a Mac Mini with a laptop monitor?
Use Dell Inspiron laptop monitor as only monitor for mac mini


How to hide Dock on non-fullscreen desktop

You can hide/show the Dock by pressing optioncommandD which checks/un-checks the Automatically hide and show the Dock checkbox under System Preferences > Dock, and then application windows can occupy the space normally used by the Dock.

When hidden, you can have the Dock temporarily reappear by moving the mouse to the bottom of the screen (that's assuming you have it in its default location).


Automatically change settings of Terminal when in full screen

You could try AppleScript to do something like

tell application "Terminal"
    set zoomed of window 0 to true
    set font size of window 0 to 24
end tell

but I haven't found a way to activate fullscreen mode this way yet


Can you go into your files and see what the general date of "Modification" for disk util, bluetooth, bootcamp, etc. All the SIP protected applications should all be roughly one date.

I ask because if you didn't get updated properly, disk util got left behind and you need the combo updater I believe.

10.11.3 if you didn't want to update: 10.11.3 Combo Updater
10.11.4: 10.11.4 Combo Updater

Ensure they're "combo" updaters. Even if you're at 10.11.3 or 10.11.4, download and run it anyway, it won't do any harm at all. It'll replace all those programs and files to be correct.

Disk Utility is either having issues with conflicting permissions, or its a bad flash drive. (Also check your FileVault certificate after you encrypt it, if it gives you one.) May not since it isn't internal disk encryption.


How do I assign a Razer DeathAdder Black Edition key to Mission Control?

I've got my Razer Naga configured to work with Mission Control.

I've used the Razer drivers to set up the button I want to use to trigger Mission Control to trigger Mouse Button 3 (you can bind any button to this):

Then, I've set up System Preferences to use Mouse Button 3 to trigger Mission Control:

That's been working fine for me; no extra software required.


Try killall pboard. That should kill it. I'm not sure it restarts by itself, though.


22.7GB for storing "org.mozilla.pluginContainer" even after deleting Mozilla Firefox

You can safely delete the contents of the fsCachedData folder.

If you're still worried, don't delete the data immediately but copy it to a different folder. You can then delete it after a few days if you haven't experienced any problems.


As a rough idea - your speed must be somewhere between 47 and 100 Mbps. Must probably it is 100 Mbps.

If you want to test, get a second computer and take the connection out of the router and plug it into that. Then you can start a transfer from one to the other and measure the speed.

One of the most common tools for making such a transfer and measuring its speed is called "iperf". You can install it via HomeBrew (if you have that), or you can download the Mac binary from their webpage.

After installation, start Terminal.app on both computers and run:

iperf -s

on one, and:

iperf -c 1.2.3.4

on the other. Replace 1.2.3.4 with the IP address of the first computer.

After a short while it will tell you the bandwidth in Mbits/sec.


This technique works for me.

Here are some other relevant answers from around Stack Exchange:

Where does Mac OS X store file association information?
How do I configure custom URL handlers on OS X?
How can I manually change default applications in OS X?
How does Mountain Lion set the default text editor for the “open -t” terminal command?
Is it possible to query the launch services database for applications that will open an arbitrary file or UTI type?
How to remove an URL protocol default handler

A couple of relevant utilities are RCDefaultApp and duti.


syncing favorites from computer to iphone

Do you have the iCloud control panel for Windows installed ? It looks like :

To use this control panel with iCloud bookmark syncing you must have at least :

Windows Vista Service Pack 2 or Windows 7
"Safari 5.1.1 or Internet Explorer 8 or later is required for accessing bookmarks"

You can find an illustrated set-up guide here.


This is how you fix this particular problem

  A common problem in the iPhone 4S, sometimes the Wi-Fi button will be
  grayed out and unclickable. This problem seems to be related to
  thermal shock — the problem may be temporarily fixed by simply putting
  the phone in the refrigerator for 15 minutes, or under a lamp for 30
  minutes.

  If this is the case, then the necessary permanent solution is to
  reflow the Murata SW SS1830010 Wi-Fi chip on the logic board.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+Fix+iPhone+4S+Wi-Fi+Grayed+Out/22167

Make sure you take it to a professional repair shop. Not a kiosk in a mall that does simple screen swaps. Not every repair shop is going to want to attempt this repair and some may try to rip you off and say that they can do it when they really can't and just take your money. Good luck!


Model number of iPhone 4S Officially Unlocked

The model number doesn't have anything to do with whether the phone is locked or not. The model number is tied to the unit's hardware components. All current black and white iPhone 4S' have the model number: A1387

The only time you'll see a different model number during the same production line is when Apple makes a hardware change (such as the iPhone 4 GSM and CDMA versions, or the 3GS "old" and "new" bootroms).

More details found over at Apple.


Purchases and updates after changing AppleID & Primary Email Address

Worked as expected/hoped.

The main stumbling block that I hit was that my new AppleID address was already in use as my emergency email address (I deleted this to allow me to make it my primary email address).

The actual change went smoothly and without issue, afterwards all I needed to do was to log back into iTunes and my phone using my new AppleID.


Why can't I run my MacBook Pro in clamshell mode?

The only time I have seen this model fail to work reliably is when there was a problem with the AC power (and it then was continually, but momentarily on battery and sleep is the correct answer) or when the lid isn't securely closed (a drop has bent things inside, or the lid doesn't close firmly, or the stand allows the lid to wiggle open/closed a touch.

Have you poked around a bit to see if any of the things can be isolated (lid movement, power supply, connecting a USB device just to avoid a bluetooth drop from making it think it should sleep now).

You don't need these changes permanently, but just to isolate why it might work sometimes and not another. If it fails all the time, you might need it serviced since Lion has worked out most of the sleep/wake screen issues associated with clamshell mode. (and there sure were a lot on 10.6 when we didn't know the VRAM was being allocated, but not reallocated on lid opening events as described in the support article you mentioned)


Perhaps you have "Automatically adjust brightness" turned on in the Display preference panel?


How can I access my Photostream on Windows?

On a Windows system you can access Photo Stream by installing iCloud Control Panel for Windows.

Based on the description it allows you to access all the features within iCloud. Though this is only supported in Vista and Windows 7.

  The iCloud Control Panel is required to use Photo Stream, Mail,
  Contacts and Calendars (Microsoft Outlook 2007 or later required) and
  Bookmarks (Safari 5.1.1 or Internet Explorer 8 or later required).


Triggers on specifc applications in Keyboard Maestro

Create a Macro Group (File → New Macro Group or ⌘⇧N).
Set the Macro Group to only be available in certain applications:

Drag macros to the macro group.


How can I keep Mail.app's archive from becoming too big?

Go ahead and delete that "recovered" folder, and there is also going to be an .OfflineCache folder that needs to be removed.  Note the period at the beginning of the file name; you will either need to show invisible files or use Terminal to delete that folder.

This most often happens when an unsuitable large file is attached to a message.  With GMail for example, any attachment over 20MB will be rejected.  Mail sees the rejection by the mail server and tries to recover from it by sending the message again.  Over time, these half-attempts to send mail stack up and start using all your drive space.

If you want a quick and easy way around the problem, remove the account in Mail's preferences, then re-add it. This will discard the offline cache for the account and free up your mangled space, at the expense of having to re-download the real messages.

And in the future, don't sent huge attachments.  Use a specialized service like Dropbox instead.


Update a software that has been downloaded with an apple ID associated with a deleted email address

As long as you don't have any user data stored within the xCode.app file structure, just delete the xCode app.  Then re-download it from the AppStore using your new AppleID.


Don't waste even a second because your HDD is for sure suffering from a few bad sectors. I had the same problem, after two days of dealing with a very slow Mac, it failed to boot and I had to regenerate bad sectors of HDD using software available on the market. Really time consuming and risky procedure in case your data on HDD is important.


If your looking for recommendations for anything FTP and SFTP, I would recommend either Fetch, or Transmit.  I don't know if there's a workaround to getting MacFUSION to work on Mavericks, sorry.


Where to find 3.5mm (male) to 3.5mm (male) cable that can control iPhone/iPod volume

If you'd also want to skip the cable itself, I would suggest taking a look at the Jabra BT3030 Bluetooth "Headset", which you could connect with any male-to-male cable.


How to turn off "Your SIM played a tone" message on iPhone 4?

To disable the feature do the following:

Open Settings > Phone > SIM Applications then turn off the CallerXChange Service or anything similiar to that.


Why can't I go back with backspace in Safari 8?

Not sure if you are asking what they are in Safari.

CMD + [ Go back (or cmd+alt+5)

CMD + ] Go forward (or cmd+alt+6)

But you can make it work using Terminal with following (Thanks to @Tetsujin research)

Terminal command to re-enable Backspace/Delete as "Back-Button":

defaults write com.apple.Safari com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2BackspaceKeyNavigationEnabled -bool YES

Quit Safari, then copy & paste the command in a Terminal window (Applications → Utilities) and hit enter. Quit Terminal and restart Safari.

Terminal command to undo the set preference:

defaults write com.apple.Safari com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2BackspaceKeyNavigationEnabled -bool NO


My first thought is that permissions on the NAS have the group "Testers" using the group ID from the Lion machine and that the group has a different ID on the second box.

When you look at permission with the drive connected to the Mountain Lion box does it say group "Tester" has the right privileges or does it give either a different group name or just a number?


The only thing I can find in the App store review guidelines is this:
2.25

Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion
in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be
rejected, unless designed for a specific approved need (e.g. health
management, aviation, accessibility, etc.) or which provide
significant added value for a specific group of customers.

But you can't make it look like the standard i-ad banner because that means you are replicating an existing apple product.
8.3

Apps that appear confusingly similar to an existing Apple product or
advertising theme will be rejected

And you must keep in mind that the ads can't be too annoying:
2.13

Apps that are primarily marketing materials or advertisements will be
rejected

If you follow these rules I would say go for it, it sounds to me like it is perfectly within apples rules what you are trying to do.

For the full apple app-store review guidelines go here


macOS Cannot Create Valid Symlink From Terminal Using Relative Paths

This is not related to fish nor macOS in general, the resulting symlink is just broken
$ mkdir a b
$ touch a/foo.txt
$ ln -s a/foo.txt b/
$ cd b
$ cat foo.txt
cat: foo.txt: No such file or directory
$ ll foo.txt
lrwxr-xr-x  1 pse  staff  9 Feb  1 13:14 foo.txt@ -> a/foo.txt

Basically you need to think ahead when creating symlinks in a directory which is different from the current one. I find it easier to run
$ cd b
$ ln -s ../a/foo.txt .

or just avoid relative symlinks in general.


Typing macron using the Kotoeri Romaji mode

While reading your question, I happened to stumble upon the (imho) easiest option:

Simply uncheck the "Romaji" checkbox under Input modes in your Japanese/Kotoeri pane in the System Preferences. Then you can choose an easy keyboard shortcut for switching exclusively between U.S.Extended (with the āēīōū capability) and the Hiragana Japanese mode.

Since I use a Japanese Apple Keyboard which includes the 英数 (Romaji) and かな (Kana) keys next to the space bar, this is ideal for me, but you could just use any other shortcut as well.


How to make Siri available when I open my MacBook?

I think you can't.
But, if what you want is just to open Chrome at login, just left-clic the Chrome icon in the dock, then Options > open at login


Resizing Mac OS partition - macOS High Sierra

Your Recovery HD is a leftover of a previous system version and probably unwanted.

High Sierra's recovery partition is inside the container:

3:                APFS Volume Recovery                506.6 MB   disk1s3

The command diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 1g jhfs+ Media 0b tries to resize disk0s2 containing all subsequent APFS Volumes to 1 GB and reclaim all freed-up space (150.4 GB - 1 GB = 149.4 GB) for another HFS+ partition Media).

This will fail because the basic operating system (disk1s1) alone has a size of at least ~10 GB.

You probably want to do the following:

Remove the old Recovery HD

diskutil eraseVolume "Free Space" %noformat% /dev/disk0s3

Reclaim all available space for disk0s2:

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0


It seems the sheet is missing in the element hierarchy in your AppleScript.

click button "No" of sheet 1 of window "Logitech Camera Settings" of application process "Logitech Camera Settings"


How to split a movie into many movie files, split by chapters?

I solved this by using Handbrake.

Select the movie as the source file.
Near the upper right of the Handbrake window, there's an option to select a range of chapters. Tell it to go from 1 to 1.
Name the destination file 1.mp4, so that it can be distinguished from the other files that are soon to be created.
Start the encoding.
Repeat this process for every chapter of the movie, clicking Add to Queue so that the files will be lined up to be created immediately after 1 is finished.

Sure enough, now I've got 18 movie files that together make up an entire film!

To my knowledge, no one has asked this question online before, so I figured I'd share my answer with the world. Hope it helps someone!


How can I get rid of duplicate TV shows in my iPad’s list of Home Sharing shows on my Mac?

Unfortunately Home Sharing videos on iOS has had some issues for a while now - TV shows out of order and in some cases duplicates. To my knowledge there isn't a proper fix, but some people have suggested that signing out of Home Sharing then back in again on the iPad (i.e. removing your username and password) can fix it some of the time.


Try downloading the update from Apple's website rather than through the App Store, and installing from that package.


How to get rid of the “Do Not Disturb” Menu Bar icon?

Uncheck the Show in Menu Bar option located in System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar > Do Not Disturb

Note that you can also show the icon only when Do Not Disturb is active by checking the option and select when active option.


What are the performance impacts of blocking a contact with 10,000 numbers in it?

There's no impact in performance. TrueCaller uses CallKit, the iOS provided method of blocking spam calls, and behind the scenes they are all loaded into one contact.

The only issue would be if you wanted to manage that contact manually rather than using an app that is designed to do it. Swiping to delete hundreds of contacts is a pain!

Anyway, there's an app called WideProtect that uses the CallKit to do the blocking and will let you set ranges of numbers to block.


How can I send a tweet without taking my hands off the keyboard?

I didn't intend for this to become a self-answered question, but I think I found the answer:

⌘⇧D

The send mail shortcut works to send a Tweet also. Yay for discoverability.


How to fix when I can nslookup and dig an internal hostname, but I cannot ping or ssh to the internal machine?

Starting from Lion (except Yosemite between 10.10 and 10.10.3), the command for flushing the DNS cache is:

$ sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

There is a solution at https://superuser.com/questions/326848/strange-ns-behavior-on-os-x-cant-connect-to-ssh-server.


Did you migrate an account from an old machine? It doesn't look like a hardware problem, but it could be corrupt preferences. Bad video cards will corrupt the whole screen, not have it confined to a single window like your screen shot shows.

Try moving the preferences for Messages.app from your ~/Library/Preferences folder to the desktop. You will have to re-configure messages, but you can always put your old prefs file back.  If that works then you probably have a corrupt Messages prefs file. Try that for each app to see if it helps.


Remove blur "effect" in Preview when changing pages

In short: Preview cannot be changed. The problem is not one at the application level, but in the way that MacOS's Quartz engines renders images. For some reason, the OS 'sharpens the focus' of the image over half a second or so.

It may be possible to change the parameters of such animated effects for a given application, but it will only be possible in Preview if Apple's developers have included a mechanism to do so within the app. None is documented and it seems unlikely that Apple would go to such trouble.

If you don't like the effect, then leave Feedback for Apple. You may prefer to use another viewing app, but it will have to use different image rendering libraries from those present in MacOS.

(Apropos of nothing, I'm currently writing a replacement app to make up for Preview's shortcomings, and I haven't found any method of changing this animation. Yet.)


How to publish the Places map from Aperture with geotagged pictures?

One solution that I used before is to publish it on Flickr and use their map feature. I think I can directly share the link to the map with my friends. One needs to make sure to include geolocation data when uploading.

As an aside, not crazy about Flickr anymore, my subscription is about to expire and I would like to find something else, hence the question !

EDIT: A better solution seems to be picasa, with an upload to picasa web and options to get a google map online or a Google Earth kml file.


A Blu-Ray drive to add to the MacBook 7,1?

Already answered here:

Which internal Blu-ray drives are compatible with a unibody Macbook Pro?

Be aware that the OS itself won't play back BluRay movies; Steve Jobs was on the record as saying that BluRay's DRM were "a bag of hurt". The linked question has among its answers a link to a supposed workaround for this, but that link no longer works.


RAM upgrade for an iMac 27" 2017 used for video-editing, compression and audio recording

I'm a big believer in having more RAM generally, but of course in many situations having more RAM isn't warranted. In your case, however, having more RAM is going to be useful because of the type of tasks you're using your iMac for.

The key spec missing from your question, however, is the type of storage you have. If your iMac has one of the Fusion drives, then you'll get more out of your extra RAM than you will if you have an internal SSD. This is because macOS will use your storage device for virtual memory when it doesn't have enough RAM available.

In summary, if your internal drive:

is a Hybrid/Fusion drive, then definitely upgrade your RAM.
is an SSD, then strongly consider upgrading your RAM


Does Apple Watch Cellular clone the SIM card?

I just checked the SIM ID on my iPhone and paired AppleWatch, and they are different.

I'm not sure why you are assuming that sharing a phone number implies cloning a SIM card. Carriers can design their networks to handle multiple SIM IDs associated with the same account. It's basically the same as two license plates being registered to the same person.


computer slow to load web pages after uploading from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion

In my experience, since your upgrade from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion, your system does not have enough RAM and this is causing it to run more slowly. Upgrading to more RAM should speed things up substantially.

Snow Leopard, when booted up to the Finder, takes approximately 2GB of RAM to run (that is if no apps are loaded and running). Mountain Lion, however, takes approximately 3.5GB of RAM in the same situation. When you start running apps, including Safari or any web browser, the amount of memory needed by the system goes considerably above these amounts. If your Mac has less than 4GB of physical RAM, then Mountain Lion is going to use the "swap file" to constantly write pages in and out of RAM and to the hard drive, which is going to slow down your system operation considerably.

If your system will support it, it will run much faster if you can upgrade with more RAM. According to this chart, your model of Mac can accommodate 8GB, 12GB or 16GB of RAM (confirm the exact model number to be sure), so you should consider upgrading.


You may be able to configure the router to only allow WiFi access to the iPhone during certain times of day.  This isn't a connection timeout so much as a parental control over the time of day WiFi is allowed.  The setting is located in your routers admin interface.


nslookup works with /etc/resolv.conf, ping and ssh don't

I had the same problem.  The solution I used was to create an /etc/resolver directory.  Inside that directory, create a file named for each domain you wish to resolve for.  Inside each file there should be two lines

nameserver 10.0.100.2
domain  home.cainmanor.com

The file above would be named /etc/resolver/home.  It may need to be named home.cainmanor.com, but I can't test it right now.

Good luck!


Option 1 - Build your own mount
The only way I could see getting either a new stand or a VESA mount is having a custom VESA mount built for this unit.
It's actually not too difficult to build the mount, you just need a flat piece of aluminum or stainless thick enough to attach to the mounting plate of the hinge (area circled) in pic below and long enough that comes out the back of the iMac and either welded or screwed onto a flat plate with the proper VESA mounting holes so you could attach any arm or 3rd party stand.

Making the bracket wouldn't be all that difficult.  Any welding shop or machine shop could fabricate it for you.   All you really needs is an "L" or "T" shaped bracket (instead of the articulating head in the pic below) for the VESA mounting holes.  But you would want the mount to come out of the back of the case in a similar fashion.

Normally, I would recommend this product because it's elegant and German made (German engineering is top rate), but after researching their site, they don't make anything for iMacs after 2011.
The toughest part of this custom build would actually be the complete teardown of the iMac to install your new mounting bracket.
So, it's not impossible, it's just a very involved process.
Option 2 - An Ikea Hack
bmike got me thinking...  How to do this cleanly, but very inexpensively...
You could get a shelf from Ikea like the  EKBY JÄRPEN and mount it to the wall at a height below your desk that lowers the screen to your comfortable viewing height.  Sort of like in the picture below.  It's hard to see, but the iMac is sitting on a support on the lower shelf (lighting is horrible)


Back up iCloud Notes to Time Machine or Optimise Mac Storage

Time Machine does not guarantee to back up iCloud notes.
Optimise Mac Storage makes no difference to this.

Optimise Mac Storage doesn't remove the data from iCloud, so your data is still synchronised to iCloud regardless of whether you choose to always store a copy of iCloud Drive content locally for Time Machine to back up. It's not one or the other, it's ‘only iCloud’ or ‘iCloud and locally’.
However, the premise that Optimise Mac Storage controls the storage of notes locally is false. That setting controls iCloud Drive, which Notes does not participate in. Notes has its own category of iCloud storage and there is no way to guarantee all notes are stored locally.
Notes stores a cache of recently used iCloud notes in
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Caches/CloudKit

This destination is excluded from Time Machine by default.
$ tmutil isexcluded ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/D*/L*/Cac*/C*
[Excluded] …

Therefore Time Machine will not back up this folder even if it did contain all your notes.


Make /usr/bin/security ask for Touch ID verification

Yes, you can modify your command line to look like this when adding the password:

security add-generic-password -a $USER -s my-password-entry -T "" -U -w

This will ensure that no application is trusted to access the data without warning.


Weird characters appear when pressing command-A,C,V

It looks like you have accidentally configured your control key to be your alt key. Case in point: when I press alt+a, I get å. alt+v returns √, and alt+c gives us ç. Go into your settings and check again. They are located in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Modifier Keys. Note: alt is also option.

Edit: I cannot duplicate this phenomena (see comments on this answer), so I will guess that the non-Apple keyboard is messing up the process somehow.


Apple Watch 6 blood oxygen measurement said I had hypoxia when I in reality was fine. How to know if reading is taken in optimal conditions?

As much as I understand your frustration, Apple mentions the limits in the small print at the bottom of https://www.apple.com/watch/:

Blood Oxygen app measurements are not intended for medical use, including self-diagnosis or consultation with a doctor, and are only designed for general fitness and wellness purposes.


Try creating a new admin user (follow the steps below) and see if this new user can login without this problem. If the new account also experiences the problem I suggest using Recovery Mode to install a new copy of macOS/OS X as it could be a problem with a preference file or other system resource.

Start up the Mac whilst holding down ⌘-S. After a few moments, you'll see the Mac boot to the command line.
The following command will check the filesystem to ensure there are no problems. Enter:

/sbin/fsck -fy

The next command will then mount the filesystem for it to be accessible:

/sbin/mount -uw /

With the filesystem mounted and accessible, it's time to remove the file so OS X will re-run Setup Assistant:

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

After that, simply enter reboot and your Mac will restart and boot normally. Only this time, Setup Assistant will launch.

Create the new admin user and continue through the setup process then sign in as this user.

To re-install macOS/OS X follow these steps:

Restart your Mac whilst holding down Command (⌘)-R to startup in OS X Recovery
Select Reinstall macOS (or OS X, if your using an older OS) from the options displayed and follow the steps presented

This process does not delete the original System nor does it delete your user accounts or personal data. All existing user accounts will continue to work as before and all personal data will be left intact. Some applications may require reinstallation if using this process as they sometimes install elements of their resources in the /Library folder.