How to switch Preview's full screen default setting from "two-pages" to "continuous scroll"?

As you know, per your question, the preferences in the Preview app only apply to documents when first opened. It seems that OS X has a built in default view for full screen documents. I tried a couple things...

I opened a PDF to Full Screen and set the view to Continuous to see if this would stick and that view would be chosen next time I went full screen. Not the case.
I searched every preference file related to Preview (also using 10.9.2) and found no setting even indirectly related to a view setting specifically when in full screen.

I'd say, doing what you want is either not possible at all or at best it'd require getting into a preference setting somewhere you wouldn't want to poke around with. My guess would be it's a setting inside Preview.app's package contents. Fooling around in there can get hairy

As an alternative to setting a new default, the keyboard shortcut to switch to Continuous view is:

CMD+1

So you can just quickly hit that each time you go full screen and the view changes immediately. It's not exactly what you wanted, but it's a very fast alternative.

Hope that helps!


How to create a read-only shadow for existing RAM disk on macOS?

Start by finding the device node for your RAM disk by running the following in the Terminal:

diskutil list

You'll find that the ram disk is probably listed as something like disk3, disk4 or similar.

Then mount the RAM disk as read-only:

mkdir ~/MyReadOnlyMountPoint
mount -o ro /dev/disk3 ~/MyReadOnlyMountPoint

I assume that you have formatted the whole RAM-disk with your file system. If you have created instead an APFS container with an APFS volume inside, you'll want to use the volume device node instead (suck as disk3s1 or similar).

Note that you'll only want to mount the RAM-disk once at a time. macOS does not natively support the bind mounting feature of Linux that you mention in your question.

If you need to have the RAM-disk mounted twice (i.e. you cannot use symlinks, file permissions or other means to achieve what you need) - you could look into non-native options such as bindfs or osxfs to be able to mount the RAM-disk into two places at the same time. Performance will be different though.

For example with bindfs, you can easily provide an extra read-only mount point for you RAM-disk like this:

bindfs --perms=a-w MyMountPoint MyReadOnlyMountPoint.


Does deleting a Facebook account in my iPhone Settings delete the actual Facebook account?

It only deletes from the phone. It will not delete the Facebook account from Facebook.


This may also be an issue with the ICH8-M AHCI SATA interface chip. I have a late 2008 MBP that came with a 250 GB HD. I upgraded to a 640 GB and had endless beach balls. Turns out the models with a ICH8-M AHCI and a PATA superdrive interface cannot be upgraded higher than a 320 GB 7200rpm HD. Anything faster or larger will stall out as the FW for the ICH8-M AHCI cannot be upgraded beyond SATA I speed without killing the PATA interface.
Some models with a ICH8-M AHCI and a SATA superdrive interface can be upgraded with a FW update released by Apple.
Check for updates.


The latest version of iOS that can be installed on iPhone 4 is iOS 7.1.2. It is not possible to upgrade it to run iOS 9.

iPhone is pretty old now as per iOS release schedule. It was discontinued in 2013 with support being stopped by Apple in 2014. To run iOS 9, you need at least an iPhone 4s which can run iOS 9.3.5.


Try HootSuite. If you want it to become a desktop app, use this.

Otherwise, you can use the official Twitter client and configure the Twitter Facebook App to post your twitter updates on facebook.

You can also use Google Chrome and Mozilla's Prism (as a extension in the browser or as a standalone) to do the same thing.


"I'd say just try using the android phone as a Wi-fi hotspot" -  Matthieu Riegler

Unfortunately tethering makes no difference, the iPad uses known Wi-fi locations in its database to locate you. your tethering location won't be recorded or used.

Source: 2 days of trying different techniques and looking up workarounds. If tethered to a phone with GPS, but otherwise in a Wi-fi black spot, location will not be detected.

Apple has specifically disabled the GPS part of the Bluetooth stack for their non-GPS enabled machines, and then licence special GPS systems that can pass the information.

a standard bluetooth GPS is about $20, an apple enabled one begins at around $120, at which point it is cheaper to get a wifi enabled ipad.

Jailbreaking allows you to fix the disabled Bluetooth stack.

I'm still hoping to find a work around, but I haven't found one so far for their proprietary air print. people who have tried are removed from the app store.


Lower Geekbench scores for 15" MacBook Pro late-2016 versus the 15" MacBook Pro mid-2014

The scores does not seem to indicate a problem with the specific MacBook Pro in question. Nor does it imply potential for a class action suit, as you indicate in the comments.

If you look at Apple's marketing for the MacBook Pro they stress that it has:

Up to 130% faster graphics
Up to 100% faster flash storage

None of these things are measured by Geekbench.

Note that Apple's marketing site does not say that CPU is a specific amount faster than previous MacBook Pro models. Therefore I do not see anything that should elicit a class action lawsuit.

Also the CPU choices are not exactly a secret. You can look up the CPU models and confirm third party benchmarks before making a purchasing decision on a MacBook Pro.

Now that has been said - please remember that Geekbench is just an artificial benchmark. The performance you experience in using the Mac is not always reflected in such an artificial benchmark.

When comparing the two setups remember that:

A) The 2014 MacBook Pro you mention is not the base model - it is a build-to-order model with a better than standard CPU. The 2016 MacBook Pro in your question is the base model.

B) The 6820HQ CPU has considerably larger memory bandwidth.

C) The 6820HQ CPU has 8 MB of cache compared to 6 MB on the 4870HQ. This doesn't really make a difference for artificial benchmarks testing integer or floating point performance - but it can make a huge difference in real life situations.

D) The 6820HQ CPU uses less power for the same workload as compared to the 4870HQ. Consuming less power allows for less battery weight (lighter laptop).

E) The integrated graphics on the 6820HQ CPU is considerably faster than the integrated graphics on the 4870HQ.


How to migrate to a new Mac, including SSH keys and dotfiles?

Yea, macOS Migration Assistant ignores configuration files.


Euro sign with "US International - PC" keyboard layout on Mac OSX


Why can't I install OS X 10.6.6 combined updates?

Sounds like some sort of silently corrupted download (I had an old router that did this occasionally).  Try a different connection using completely different modems, routers and access points.  Maybe even a different internet provider at a friend's house or office.


Which type of storage between HDD and SSD should I use in MacBook Pro for app development job?

It depends on your project size, but an SSD is unlikely to make a huge difference in compilation speeds - it's almost entirely a CPU-bound task. However an SSD can still make a big difference in your productivity with Xcode, and OS X in general. It particularly helps when you're indexing files in a project, or searching the documentation.

You'll also notice a big improvement whenever you're swapping to disk (e.g. if you're doing another task while a big compile is happening).

Unless money is very tight, I strongly recommend getting an SSD. You can save a lot of money buying a 3rd party SSD and installing it yourself (which is pretty easy in a MacBook Pro) - prices have been dropping sharply lately, I'd estimate about 50% from where they were at the start of the year.


How to rollback macOS Sierra Developer Beta back to El Capitan (without time machine)

macOS is not designed to be downgradable, and as such you cannot downgrade it through an installer like this. You will need to create a bootable install disk (Apple support), e.g. by running

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app

to install on a drive called MyVolume. Running this will lose you all your content, so you will need to have a backup if you want to retain your files. Otherwise, wait Sierra out…


In short, yes, it is quite possible for ransomware to encrypt the contents of your iCloud Drive. It is possible for the ransomware to encrypt the data of your iCloud Drive, and then your computer would sync the changes to Apple's cloud, requiring decryption to access the data again.

To answer your questions:

Probably. The iCloud Drive folder is stored locally on your computer in /YourUserName/Library/Mobile Documents. It would be getting backed up unless you have specifically told Time Machine to not back up this directory.
No. Apple does not make backups of a user's iCloud Drive accessible. It is unclear if Apple even keeps copies of user's iCloud Drive, but they are most certainly not accessible to the users.
Yes. If ransomware encrypts the files in the directory /YourUserName/Library/Mobile Documents then the changes would be applied to your iCloud Drive, rendering the information useless without decrypting the data.


Is mac sierra protecting me from erasing my hard drive and my sd card

Only the super user can normally perform this action, except when using the diskutil command, which incorrectly allows it. The full command you should use would be sudo newfs_msdos -F 16 /dev/disk2s1. You will have to enter your password to continue. Although, I would suggest using FAT32, because FAT16 is likely inappropriate for your SD card assuming you bought it sometime in the past decade. An even better option would be exFAT, assuming all the devices you'll be using this SD card in support it.


How to do raw device access with VirtualBox?

I had a need to do this today and I saw your question, so here is a protocol of the steps I took.
Find the Device Number
diskutil list
e.g. 2, as in /dev/disk2
Assuming 2 for the rest of the instructions.
Create the Virtual Machine VMDK
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "$HOME/dev-disk2.vmdk" -rawdisk /dev/disk2
Eject the device before this step, otherwise you will get an error: VERR_RESOURCE_BUSY. You may want to add an entry in fstab with the added parameters noauto to prevent the OS from remounting the drive.
I use rdisk-disk2.vmdk for the name, because this virtual machine is just a pointer to this device. After reboot, the situation could change e.g. a device might be assigned a different number especially if you unplug things and move things around.
Start Virtual Box Manager with Root Privileges
sudo /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VirtualBox
Because devices are all owned by root, you need to start VirtualBox with root privileges. This has consequences. Your home context (home folder and preferences) will be changed to root. Your other virtual machines will not be visible. If you open a file browser, you will see the root's home folder by default.
Another option is to change the permissions of the device (not recommended) as you have done.
To confirm permissions of devices, you can run ls -l /dev/disk*

Add New Machine, provide name: /dev/disk2, type: linux, version: arch linux (64-bit)
Give it some memory (whatever you can)
Select existing drive using VMDK created above. (IMPORTANT ensure the drive has not been remounted, otherwise you will get VERR_RESOURCE_BUSY, NS_ERROR_FAILURE)

Install a Fresh System
Add an optical disk file (e.g. a bootable linux ISO of your liking) and turn on the Live CD/DVD optional so that you boot from it.
Make System Bootable in VirtualBox
This is not so obvious, especially if you use an EFI setup. If using grub-mkconfig, the name of the efi file is grubx64.efi (assuming 64 bits). VirtualBox is finicky about where it looks for a boot file. The default will not do.
Rename grubx64.efi to bootx64.efi
/boot/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi

Notes

tip: get yourself iterm 2
This is super useful for Macbooks when installing Arch Linux, because the default ISO does not load the wlan card drivers.


How to move image to particular time in iMovie?

Click on 1 of your highlighted images and drag it into the clip editing/viewing timeline screen to the left diagonal of the photo display screen. You can drag these images anywhere in the timeline. Hope it helps.


Turn off "Approve with Apple Watch" macOS security alerts

Go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General. Then disable the checkbox in the image below:


How do I hide names from incoming messages on whatsapp on my iphone5

Basically, when it comes to WhatsApp there are two sets of Settings that can affect what, if anything, is previewed from your WhatsApp messages.

WhatsApp has its own settings:

Tap on WhatsApp
At bottom right tap on Settings
Tap on Notifications
Configure your settings to your liking.

Your iPhone also has settings for Notifications. To access these, go back to your Home screen and go to Settings > Notifications. Here you can configure settings as a whole and also by individual apps.

What you're wanting to do is essentially the opposite of this question, so it may be useful for you to read that as well.


How can I tell which Apple ID has signed/purchased specific apps on iOS?

I had found a script that can list iTunes apps by purchase here (author: Walt Stoneburner). The link is now broken, but I had archived that page 3 years ago. This is the script:

for f in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Media/Mobile\ Applications/*.ipa; \
 do (echo "$f" ; unzip -p "$f" "iTunesMetadata.plist" | \
 plutil -p - | egrep -i "\"(itemName|artistName|AppleID)\"" ) | \
 perl -e 'while (<>) { if (m!^/!) { chop; $fqn=$_; } if (m/"(.+)" => (".+")/) { $e{lc($1)}=$2; } } print "\"${fqn}\",$e{\"itemname\"},$e{\"artistname\"},$e{\"appleid\"}\n";'; \
done

The script shoud be run in the terminal and the output will be printed into the standard output. If you want to redirect it to a file, add these parameters at the end of script (after done):

1>~/Desktop/purchase_export_output.csv 2>~/Desktop/purchase_export_error.log

Now you can open purchase_export_output.csv from your desktop. Its schema is like this:

"file.ipa","Name","Seller","purchased_by"

If any error occurs one line will be added to the purchase_export_error.log.


Unable to remove Windows Boot Camp partition

The proper commands, to remove Windows and add the free space back to macOS, are given below. The commands should work unless there is a problem with APFS.

sudo  diskutil  eraseVolume  free  none  disk0s4
sudo  diskutil  eraseVolume  free  none  disk0s3
sudo  diskutil  apfs  resizeContainer  disk0s2  0

The next sequence of commands removes any Windows boot code that may exist in the hidden EFI partition.

diskutil  mount  disk0s1
cd  /Volumes/EFI
rm  -fr  EFI/Windows
rm  -fr  EFI/Boot
cd  /
diskutil  unmount  disk0s1


Can brew find / manage packages installed by manually binary download + install?

Assuming what you downloaded manually was with brew, just do brew list, you can see what you've installed using brew. Then just do brew uninstall packageNameHere to get rid of what you don't want.


Go to Settings > iTunes and App Store and click the email address at the top of the page.  You will get a popup with an options to signout.  Choose that, then you will be able to change it.


Add vibration to incoming Signal messages (iOS)

On IPhone SE the only options under Signal->Notifications are enabling/disabling Sounds and Badges. Not even the default ding/bell sound is modifiable.


MacBook Pro 2016 Touch Bar usage in Windows 10 Boot Camp

I personally haven't had the chance to try so.
But this video from 9to5 mac shows the functionality of the touchbar in windows via bootcamp.
tips and tricks for the touchbar
Windows is mentioned at 6:50

As you can see, the brightness and volume keys are available.
And here is a picture of my new macbook in bootcamp showing the functionality of the fn button:


Is there a way to export my highlighted bookmarks in iBooks?

yes there is, if you have a mac.

Get iExplorer here
http://www.macroplant.com/iexplorer/

plug in your iOS device and use iExplorer to
look in the books file and drag the following files to your desktop.
iBooks.plist  and iBooksData2.plist

and this app
https://github.com/lgoss007/BookmarkExtractor

put the files in the appropriate spot and you can get your highlights


High Sierra 10.13 : Keychain Access Menubar Item Missing?

"Lock Screen" is now available via the Apple menu.


Is the code already setup as an XCode project? If yes, this question has already been answered: Where is there a good tutorial on how to use Xcode's debugger properly? Admitted, most links are dead by now. But google comes up with a lot of useful links, even video.


How can I make the OS print dialog default to a particular preset?

There is a much easier way.

Create a Print Preset, with the settings as you want them. Select it.
Press the Print button while holding down Alt (Option).

That will force your current settings to be the default for the printer.


Successful jailbroken iPhone ran out of battery and stuck in constant reboot with worn sleep/wake button

You say that your "display off button is numbed from excess use".  Apple calls this the "Sleep/Wake Button"

One of the functions of the Sleep/Wake button is to power off the device.  Another is to hard reset the device.  A hard reset is performed by holding down the Sleep/Wake Button and the Home button until the device shuts off.

It seems likely based on what you've told me that the numbed Sleep/Wake Button has started intermittently being activated.  This, along with a stuck Home button is probably activating the hard reset function.

I say this because you said that the voice control was starting on its own (stuck Home button) and that the "when the phone shut down, the rotating circle did not appear."
This is exactly how a hard reset works.

This would also explain why you didn't see the 10% battery life warning and why, if the hard reset keeps getting activated, your phone wouldn't finish booting.  You can activate the hard reset while the phone is in the process of booting.


Right click the Toolbar.

Select Icon Only or Icon & Text.


How to fix not working ⌘ ⎋ shortcut in Lion 10.7

Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> and assign and enable the shortcuts you want.


How can I disable the tweet sound when using Click to Tweet in Notification Center?

The "tweet sent" sound file is located at

/System/Library/SocialServices/Twitter.socialplugin/Contents/Resources/TwitterSent.caf

If you remove or change that file, then the sound should change accordingly.


How can I use a different Apple ID to upload Apps

Yes - this is covered in the iTunes Connect guide under setting up user accounts:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/iTunesConnect_Guide/Chapters/SettingUpUserAccounts.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40011225-CH25-SW1


How to view public Exchange calendars from iCal?

The above doesnt' REALLY work for people, especially not with Outlook 365. Here's the way that worked for me:

With iCal open go to the menu bar at the top of the screen and select iCal, it's to the right of the Apple Symbol in the upper left corner.
Select Preferences
Once the Preferences window comes up select the Accounts section then select the Exchange account to bring up its information.
Now select the Delegation tab.
Under the list is a + sign. Click this to add a calendar.
Begin typing the user's name as above and the auto-completion will begin. Once you've found the correct user's name select it to add it under the Users column.
Under Accounts I can access: you will now see that user's name. You can enable or disable their calendar from displaying by checking or unchecking the boxes under the Show header.

I found these instructions from the USC website.


Ouch!

It was indeed something in my .bashrc -- a call to xfontpath.  It got put in there when fink was installed, a mod to call all scripts in /sw/etc/profile.d  There, hidden in there, was the call.

Thanks for pushing me to find it.


Can I have color ls output automatically if my TERM is "xterm-256color"?

If you are using bash, you could add export CLICOLOR="YES" to your ~/.bashrc.


An apple script for google dictionary pronunciation

In bash, it's very easy:

cd ~/Desktop; curl --remote-name-all --silent --url \
http://ssl.gstatic.com/dictionary/static/sounds/20160317/\
{wrought,drought,rough,thorough}--_us_1.mp3

That will download the files for wrought, drought, rough, and thorough, and save them on the desktop.

If you want to put it in an AppleScript:

    set word_list to {"wrought", "drought", "rough", "thorough"}

    set my text item delimiters to ","
    set my text item delimiters to {word_list as text, "{word-list}"}

    set curl to "cd ~/Desktop; curl --remote-name-all --silent --url " & ¬
        "http://ssl.gstatic.com/dictionary/static/sounds/20160317/" & ¬
        "{{word-list}}--_us_1.mp3"

    text items of curl as text

    do shell script the result

To obtain user input to allow a user to supply a word to feed into the URL, replace the first line with these two:

    display dialog "Enter a word:" default answer "pronunciation"
    set word_list to {text returned} of the result


Just hold down the Command key (Cmd) while double clicking the folder and it will open in a new Finder Tab.

In Finder Preferences, you can specify to open in a new window instead of a tab.


How do I move pictures,music,contacts etc from 5c to a 6s

Assuming you have a paid iCloud subscription that allowed you enough storage space to backup everything, yes, you can just login to your iCloud on the 6s and restore the backup. If you do not have a paid iCloud account, chances are you don't have enough space (free plan is 5GB) and you will need to do a local backup to a computer using iTunes, then restore also using iTunes.

Contacts are not typically stored on the SIM anymore. It's more so just for cell provider activation and service.


Should I upgrade Mac OS 10.6.8 to El Capitan on Macbook Air 2010?

I'm posting this answer from a late 2010 11" MacBook Air running El Capitan, and I have no performance issues. It runs very well. But this machine has 4GB of RAM, not 2GB, and that might make a difference.

Remember that 10.6.8 has not received security updates for years now, and will be full of unpatched vulnerabilities. It is a risk to keep running it.


I use hazel to set up rules for a folder.  The rules include delete after a time, move to a  dated folder.


How do i send a message from my MacBook Air to a Non-iPhone user?

You could use a third party messenger(which would be preferable to SMS):

Telegram (open source)
Signal (open source)
Discord
Hangouts by Google
WhatsApp by Facebook
Messenger by Facebook

Update: I don't recommend using WhatsApp or Messenger due to security/privacy concerns


These values come from the Spotlight index. So you could try rebuilding the Spotlight index to fix these values.

There are simple instructions from Apple here on how to rebuild the Spotlight index.

You can also do it from the command line using the mdutil command. You'll be prompted for your password to run this command.

sudo mdutil -E /

Please note, whichever way you perform this task, it will take a while to run.


Facebook app shuts down itself on iPhone 4

Try uninstalling the app, restarting your phone, and reinstalling it from the App Store. This should resolve the issue.


If the custom keyboard layout is in ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts/, have you tried moving it to /Library/Keyboard Layouts/? That would normally prevent it from being switched to a default layout in password dialogs.

If you don't need the Belgian layout, there's also a hacky way to disable the default layouts.


It is required to have a mac to build iphone application or we can use VirtualBox to emulate the MAC OS X platform?

It is required that you be running OS X and you can't virtualize OS X on non-Apple hardware (by terms in the EULA, not for any technical reasons). Therefore it follows that you need a Mac computer to build iPhone software.

See this question and answer for a discussion on virtualizing OS X: Is there a way to evaluate OS X without purchasing Macintosh hardware?


Installed Apache 2.4 (httpd) using Home Brew, can I get it to use macOS' php7?

Just install php with brew (and leave Apple's PHP alone):

brew install php (requires a lot of additional packets)
Modify /usr/local/etc/httpd/httpd.conf at the end of the LoadModule section (~ line 182) and add

LoadModule php7_module /usr/local/opt/php/lib/httpd/modules/libphp7.so

<FilesMatch \.php$>
    SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
</FilesMatch>

Check that DirectoryIndex (~line 286) includes index.php

DirectoryIndex index.php index.html

Start php:

brew services start php

Restart apache


How can I fix my iPhone not showing up in Screen Time on my other devices?

Sorry, Richard, but I don’t think Apple has patched the glitch. You can try updating iOS to the latest on all of your devices.


Can I have different audio come out of my computer and monitor?

HDMI (unlike VGA) combines audio and visual in a single cable — VGA just does visual.

Your monitor was using the audio jack as an input, and playing sound from the source connected there (music player, etc.). Your computer was using its audio jack as an output, playing music to your headphones.

Now that you have an HDMI cable, your monitor most likely uses its audio jack as output, because it already has an input for sound — the HDMI cable. My guess would be that if you plugged in headphones to your monitor, you would hear the sound coming from your computer.

There is a way to have the monitor and computer speakers play the same output (Audio MIDI Setup), but I don't think you have have two different outputs.


that is a trick you may tried it out, it's work for me for now.

1) use air dryer heat up your phone at the top part(you can aim on the headphone jack) until you iphone shown up the temperature screen.

2) When the temperature screen show up , turn off you phone (caution! the phone is very HOT).

3)After it is off pit it into a zip lock bag.

4)Let it rest for 1-2min and then put into the freezer for 30Min

5)When you take it out let it remain in zip lock bag and turn on the phone ( it may show battery low screen. If it's happen wait for a while and try turn it on again)

6) You are done!! you fix your wifi.

It will grayed out again whenever you update to a newer version of ios, so if that happen redo this proccess. So far it work for me, you may give it a try..


Unable to boot Windows 10 from Bootcamp external HDD

When using the Winclone product to install Windows on a external USB drive, it is extremely important that you first read all the instructions provided by Winclone.

Winclone provides the Web page: Running Windows from an External Drive. This page provides links to two videos. The first link is the same as given in your question. The second link provides the answer to your posted question.


Macbook pro 13 - Sound comes from speakers instead of headphones

The problem was fixed by itself. Mac froze for some reason, I forced it to reboot, the problem was fixed.


Can I keep apple appstore revenue with apple for longer time?

Yes, you will not lose the revenue from not withdrawing it. It will stay against your account as long as your account remains active.


Why aren't iTunes Store links opening from Chrome and Edge?

This is a problem with Apple's website assuming you don't have iTunes installed, when it should really just try and open it anyway.
You can fix this in Chrome by spoofing your user agent to Chrome for OS X, or any other OS X browser.
I've been using this extension to do this. Once you've installed it, go to its options and add a new user agent for Chrome on OS X. The one in particular I'm using is:
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_11_1) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/47.0.2526.73 Safari/537.36

Once you've added that to the list of user agents, you can go to "Permanent Spoof List" on the left side panel in the options, and add a new rule for apple.com using the user agent you just added.
This will make the Apple website think you're running OS X, causing iTunes URLs to correctly open.


List recent non-recurring calendar events

Currently it is not possible to check wether calendar events are recurring or not.
Therefore the only way to implement this is by checking for duplicate event-titles.

To implement this, you first have to create a list of all calendar events. Now you have to check for every event-title how often it appears in this list.
In the end you can add every title that only appears once to a separate list.

Now you should have a list of everything you achieved (only the non-recurring events).


How to enable option to save credentials in Viscosity VPN?

While Viscosity support refused to answer the question and stated that reinstallation is needed, I was able to find this trick after a bit of digging:

defaults write com.viscosityvpn.Viscosity KeyChainSupport YES


Will Parallels be safe while upgrading to El Capitan?

If you haven't set Time Machine to exclude any files from the backup, you should be fine.

If you want to be really cautious, you can find the Parallels virtual machine file and manually copy it onto your external hard drive, free space permitting. Put it at the top level of the drive, not in the Backups.backupdb folder.

This will keep your files safe on your external hard drive no matter what happens on your computer. To make sure you can keep actually using Parallels, though, you'll need to make sure you're on Parallels version 10 or 11. Version 9 will not be supported in El Capitan.


For some reason I don't have an 'Automatically Add to iTunes' folder. Is that normal?

It’s in the iTunes Media folder, no?

iTunes Media % pwd
/Users/paul/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media
iTunes Media % ls -la                                                                                total 8
drwxr-xr-x   6 paul  staff  204 31 Oct 10:37 .
drwxr-xr-x  11 paul  staff  374 19 Dec 16:37 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 paul  staff  305 20 Aug  2010 .iTunes Preferences.plist
drwxr-xr-x   2 paul  staff   68 20 Aug  2010 Automatically Add to iTunes
drwxr-xr-x   7 paul  staff  238 31 Oct 11:21 Mobile Applications
drwxr-xr-x   4 paul  staff  136  5 Jan  2012 Music


MacBook Pro mid-2012 turning on only without battery connected

It’s almost certain the battery is the failure here, but if you had access to a replacement part or didn’t mind spending money on a new MagSafe connector, you could try replacing that first.

The battery is almost certainly the cause dragging the voltage and/or current too low for the system to start. The chance the sensors that check the voltage and current are correct and it’s actually a low current and/or low voltage situation and swapping the battery with a good one would remedy that fault.


Found out that the MEMORY is broken.

To troubleshoot this kind of problem, running the Apple Hardware Test
by pressing D or Command-D after restart the Mac OSX.


Reassociating QuickLook file associations

It appears this is a Dropbox issue.  While I had raised a question on Twitter, thanks to @szabolcs for creating a forum post, where others have chimed into.

Remove the /Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/Library/QuickLook/DropboxQL.qlgenerator file.

@user1155120 was spot on; the beta version should be unchecked on the dropbox.com site, to prevent getting unstable updates. Download a new copy (v3.14.7 as of the time of this writing in 2016-03-02) and reinstall.


iMessages split between different devices.

In Settings -> Messages -> Send & Receive, check which addresses/numbers under You can be reached by iMessage at are checked and that the same ones are checked on all your devices. If there are differences that can explain what you're seeing as depending on which address the sender is using will then determine which device(s) you'll receive it on.

Remember that you don't necessarily know how the sender is choosing to contact you.  Are they starting a fresh conversation and choosing from one of your iMessage registered addresses?  Are they replying to one of your messages which may have been started by a different contact address etc?  It can get really confusing, but the key is to go through all your devices and ensure that they are listening to and sending from the most appropriate address.


Headphone symbol when headphones not in use

The headphone symbol is shown when you are connected to Bluetooth headphones/speakers, which would be true if you have a Bluetooth device auto-connecting (which would not be used when you plug in headphones). Go to Settings → Bluetooth and see which device you are connected to, and disconnect if you wish. Sound notifications will be routed to this device so that is why you do not hear them.

If you no longer want to use Bluetooth to connect to these particular headphones/speakers (i.e. you only want to use a cable) you can also forget the device in the same settings by tapping on the info symbol  and selecting Forget this Device. This will stop your iPhone from auto connecting to them. If you decide in the future you'd like to use Bluetooth again, you can pair your headphones to your iPhone again later.


You need to make sure the mp4 file is within the specs needed by your iPad.  Chances are it's either the wrong resolution, bitrate, or codec.

If you're on a mac, Handbrake is awesome for converting files for iPhone or iPad, and has presets built in.


How to find out frame rate (FPS) of an AVI video on OS X?

With a recent version of VLC, go to the "Window" menu and choose "Media Information" (or press ⌘ I). If you have more than one video in your playlist, make sure the desired one is selected.

Switch to the "Codec Details" tab, then click to expand the details for each stream until you find the video stream. The frame rate is listed there.

The screenshot below comes from VLC 2.0:


How do I install the VLC Web Browser Plugin in Firefox?

After posting the question, I went ahead and tried it in Firefox 3.6.17 and it worked. So apparently the VLC Web Browser Plugin does not work in Firefox 3.6.17. The best solution at this point is to just feed the stream directly into VLC instead. It seems to work in my case.


Go to the Safari menu "History" and click on "Show all history"
Find the lines you're interested in and highlight them
Drag these lines into the tab bar and they will all open in separate tabs


shutdown multiple Macs after a runtime of 24 hours?

You can do this with a simple bash script, the uptime command and launchd.  If you execute the command by itself, it will tell you how long the machine has been up:

$ uptime
6:08  up 20 days, 21:09, 4 users, load averages: 1.09 1.29 1.36

So, the number that we are interested is the "20" which we will evaluate against our condition of "1 day"

#!/bin/bash

#Maximum number of days to be up
max=1

#Get the uptime days and assign it to a variable
uptime_days=`uptime | cut -d " " -f 5`

if [ $uptime_days -ge $max ]
  then
  shutdown -h now
fi

exit 0

Make sure you set the script as executable or it won't run:

chmod +x shutdown24.sh

Now, here's the most important part.  When do you want to evaluate this?  Technically, your could have this script run every hour (or even ever minute) to evaluate if the computer has been up for 24 hours.

This is not recommended because if for some reason the computer was turned on at 10:00am (because the person was late, for example) you don't want it shutting down at 10:00am the next morning when they are in the middle of their work.

So, I'm going to assume you want it run at midnight so you don't inadvertently shutdown the machine while people are working.  What you need is to utilize lauchd and create a .plist that defines the job (similar to Task Scheduler) in Windows.

Let's assume that we called the bash script shutdown24.sh so we will call our .plsit com.user.shutdown24.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
  "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.user.shutdown24</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/USERNAME/Path_to_Scripts/shutdown24.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <array>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>00</integer>
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>00</integer>
    </dict>

</dict>
</plist>

Copy this file to /Library/LaunchDaemons and then load it to launchd:

sudo launchctl load com.user.shutdown24.plist

The job will be run as root and at 12:00am every morning, it will check if the system uptime and will shutdown if it's greater than 24 hours.


iTunes doesn't open and give a blank message

Exploratory troubleshooting: try holding the Option (or Alt) key down while you launch iTunes. Hold it until you see the following:

Now press "Create Library…" and see if you have any more success.

As a second option, try creating a new user on your system and see if iTunes works any different/better there.

These are steps to help you determine if the problem is the iTunes application or if it's something specific to your user account and its data.


Leopard Backup downgrades Snow Leopard installation upon recovery

The best way to avoid this is to do an upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard rather than an erase and install. Snow Leopard shouldn't give you the option to erase and install, it should automatically upgrade. Are you erasing your hard drive before installing Snow Leopard?
By default, Time Machine backups retain all system software, including your OS. If you want to disable this, try this:

Open System Preferences
Click on the Time Machine Preference pane
Click on Options...
Click the + button
Navigate to /System
When you get the following message, click "Exclude All System Files"

In the future, this will prevent Time Machine from backing up system data, but it will still back up your personal data and applications.
For your current predicament, you'll need to do a standard install of Snow Leopard instead of erasing the hard drive first.
Good luck.


Why does my terminal show a string like this?

That's based on the PS1 variable set in Bash's initialization. Yours appears to be the default, which is your computer's name, followed by a colon, then the current directory (in your example, that'd be the home directory for your computer [~]), then your username (david).

Here is an article about customizing your PS1, and there are plenty of questions both here and over at Super User about changing and fixing it.


Changing the Keyboard Layout for Single User Mode

English is the default language because it is what is compiled in the kernel.

For example:  In *BSD, we can change the language by adding those specific options to the make.conf file when compiling a custom kernel:

options         ATKBD_DFLT_KEYMAP
makeoptions     ATKBD_DFLT_KEYMAP="german.iso"

In the above example, the Single User Mode  will be in German.

What you are asking for is not feasible because in Single User Mode, nothing is mounted.  Even the boot volume isn't fully mounted.  There are no dameons, no services, nothing.  It's about as minimal an environment you can possibly get and what gets mounted will depend strictly on what you want to do.

The keyboard mappings don't occur until well into the boot process - after drivers have been loaded for the various devices (like the keyboard)

Is it possible (likely) that Apple has compiled different kernels for different regions?  Sure, but since I don't have access to those at the moment, I can't verify.  We have many users from around the world and I am sure they can weigh in here.


How to undo "sudo rm -rf /etc/apache2/other/+php-osx.conf"

You can't undo what you did, unless you can recover the files from a Time Machine backup. PHP probably stopped running because you removed files it needs.


What hard drive is used for the 500 GB Macbook Pro option from Apple?

I have been using a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB in my June 2009 MBP without any problems. I have tried the Seagate 7200 rpm 2.5" 500 GB as well, but that did warm up and vibrate more than I liked, so moved it to my Mac Mini at home, where it behaves OK.


Fresh Install OSX on new hard drive without the .dmg (iso) file

To re-install Lion (10.7) or later versions of OS X (including Mavericks), you can use Internet Recovery. Just boot your MacBook Pro while holding down ⌘R, until the Apple logo appears. You'll see an option for internet recovery (you may need to connect to your Wi-Fi first). Click that and follow the instructions and you'll have a fresh install in a while (it may take some time as it downloads the full installer).


TestFlight: Why isn't individual tester getting notifications when new TestFlight builds are pushed to store?

When you add an individual tester to a specific build, they're not automatically added to new builds you push to TestFlight. You need to do that manually - or add the user to a group.
Note that even if the individual tester is added to a specific build, it doesn't mean that it is available to them yet. You do need to ensure that you have entered the required encryption export compliance information, as well as having sent in the app for beta app review and received an approval.


The previous owner should "Un-link" his/her icloud account from the device so you would be able to use it.

To erase all content and settings by choosing Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings. OR from the icloud account online.... Then his/her Apple ID and password needed. After the device is erased, you will be able to proceed with the setup process.


Separate everyone's phones & our Mac from receiving everyone's texts while sharing the same account?

The apple ID is the user.  At some point you'll need to bite the bullet and create new apple IDs for each user if you want separate texts/email accounts etc.

My wife and I use a multitude of applications that can share data across accounts, like

Anylist for reminders/grocery lists, etc (this can be integrated with the Reminders app
Photostream for photos
Google Docs for notes

Also, since iOS 8 you've been able to share applications purchased on any apple ID as long as they have the same credit card on file - so if my wife buys an application, I can download it for free, and vice versa.  It's unfortunate that they still don't support sharing app data, but maybe that's in the works.  Regardless, you will continue to run into problems down the road if you don't separate out your accounts with new Apple IDs.


Alternative approach

While you can use NTFS-3G for accessing NTFS drives, it should be noted that recent versions of macOS support writing to NTFS drives natively. This option however is hidden from the GUI and you'd normally need the terminal to do it:

sudo mount -t ntfs -o rw,auto,nobrowse /dev/disk3s1 ~/ntfs-volume

Uwe Hollatz created Mounty, which is a nifty tool to automate this process. It sits in your taskbar waiting for NTFS drives to be detected.

If you use Homebrew, install it with the following command:

brew cask install mounty

Otherwise, download the DMG from its website.


Should I expect restoring Yosemite from a Time Machine backup to take forever?

First things first, make sure you backup before all of this:

When you restore from a backup you are not restoring to a previous version of OS X, you'll need to backup, erase the disk, reinstall with Yosemite and apply your backup. If you need help with this please comment this answer, I'll give all the detail needed

Tiferrei


How do I uninstall the macOS Sierra Installer?

There’s no uninstallation procedure. Despite the .app extension, Install macOS Sierra.app is essentially just a disk image waiting to be installed…no system modifications were made by merely downloading it, so deleting it is all that’s needed for removal.

That said, as Avery Chan mentioned, you still need sufficient privileges in order to remove it.

The command rm -r /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app won’t execute without prepending it with sudo. But using sudo requires an administrative, master, or root password...

The advisable solution is to ask the system administrator to remove it. That said, if this isn’t possible, a few workarounds exist:

Reset The Admin Password (note that if Filevault is enabled, this won’t work):

Boot into your Recovery Partition holding down command + R at the startup chime
Select Terminal from your Utilities Menu Bar
Enter resetpassword in the prompt.
From the window that appears, select your boot volume and the administrative account.
Type in a new password for the account. Confirm the new password.
Click Save, close this pane and quit Utilities
Select your boot volume when presented with "choose startup disk" and then reboot your machine.

That’ll allow you to access the admin account and subsequently delete the Installer.

Use Single User mode (if Filevault is enabled or a firmware password is set, this won’t work either). While using this method will allow you to remove the file without resetting the admin’s password, it’s not advisable to make filesystem modifications at all in this manner, so proceed at your own risk.

Hold down command + S at the startup chime. After each of the following commands, hit enter.
Always run a disk check first in SU mode by typing in /sbin/fsck -fy. Don’t be alarmed by output such as “FILESYSTEM WAS MODIFIED”, that’s normal. It just means the filesystem was repaired.
Now, mount the boot volume with user write permissions. /sbin/mount -uw /
cd /Applications to migrate to the relevant directory.
Type in echo $(rm -rf Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app) before directly running it. Using actual backticks to nest the rm command is preferable to $(), I just can’t format it properly here.
Now proceed to remove the installer rm -rf Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app
Type in reboot


My External Hard Drive's format changed to FAT16 without any reason

It seems somehow the partition table (and possibly more) was corrupted on your hard drive, as you indicate that the drive is not readable anymore in macOS or from Windows.

The next step is to stop touching the drive at all before you have made a bit-for-bit image copy of everything on it to secondary storage. After that you can work on copies of that image in order to try to rescue your data.

It might be that you accidentally overwrote the partition table unknowingly. Then data recovery is probably fairly easy. It might be that your drive is starting to fail and various errors pop up sporadically - this is usually much, much harder to recover data from.

In order to create a bit-for-bit copy of the drive, you'll need to find the disk number from Disk Utility. In your screenshot it is currently listed as "disk2", please ensure that you double check this before proceeding.

When you have the disk number, open Terminal and run the following command:

dd if=/dev/rdisk2 of=my_image_file.img bs=512 conv=noerror,sync

The command probably takes a long while to complete - creating a new file named "my_image_file.img" containing a complete copy of your drive. Make sure that you have space enough to store the file. If you haven't got room on your internal drive, you can plug in another external drive and store the file there.

The "noerror" and "sync" options to dd makes sure that if there are drive read errors (i.e. the drive is actually physically failing) then dd will try to skip the errors, replacing those with bytes containing zeros. This won't get you the data back ofcourse, but it makes a lot easier to recover the rest of the data.

When you have the image copy, you can use any data extraction / data recovery software to work on the image to try to find your partitions, file systems, or even single files that you want to extract.


Screen overlay when using hotkey to switch keyboard input

In the Keyboard system preferences panel, select the Shortcuts tab then the Input Sources entry on the left.  Enable the "Select the previous input source" checkbox and assign it to the keyboard shortcut you wish.

The input source switcher window ONLY works with this shortcut.  It will not show if you use the "Select next source in Input menu" shortcut.

I'm guessing that the 2nd shortcut was added later by another developer.  Besides the lack of this secret switcher feature, notice the wording of the shortcut description.  If the same person did both, they probably would have called it "Select the next input source".


Using AppleScript to click radio buttons

You can click the radio buttons in more then one way.

After the tell application "System Preferences" block use a tell application "System Events" block, e.g.:

tell application "System Preferences"
    set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.dock"
    activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"
   click radio button 1 of radio group 1 of window 1 of process "System Preferences"
end tell

In this first usage, radio button 1 is Left, radio button 2 is Bottom and radio button 3 is Right.

Or:

tell application "System Preferences"
    set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.dock"
    activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"
   click radio button "Left" of radio group 1 of window "Dock" of process "System Preferences"
end tell

In this second usage, use Left, Bottom or Right directly and you can also use Dock in place of window 1. (The latter of which you could do in any of these examples.)

Or:

tell application "System Preferences"
    set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.dock"
    activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"
    click (every radio button whose value of attribute "AXTitle" is "Left") of radio group 1 of window 1 of process "System Preferences"
end tell

In this third usage, use Left, Bottom or Right for the value of (every radio button whose value of attribute "AXTitle" is "?") where the ? is one of these values.

Note: These examples have been tested under OS X 10.11.6 and work as now edited. I added of radio group 1 between radio button and window. For use in OS X 10.8.5 remove of radio group 1 from the code.


Bootcamp Mojave and Windows 10 now all Mac OS startup keys don't work

It sounds like you updated the firmware on the video card. The drive selection screen and other startup keystrokes work from the original EFI. This likely happened when updating W10. You may have accidentally also updated a video driver that included a VC firmware update. Been there, done that. Getting the card re-flashed to the Apple VC EFI is likely to be difficult and/or expensive. This is especially true since this is an iMac. The video card is integrated into the logic board. My solution won't work for you, unfortunately.

Perhaps an Authorized Service Provider can flash it. If you're not sure where to go, try Apple first. Call (800-275-2273) or go to the support site and when you get through all the repair prompts, it will show a map of the services near you. Perhaps the Genius Bar can flash it, too. Don't let 2013 deter you from calling. They may be able to help on the phone (doubt it), but they can at least help you find a place to get it done.

If you have not been able to start the Mac OS, as a Hail Mary, try holding 'x' during startup to see if you can get the MacOS to start (which you may have already). Or use Target Disk Mode to remove the Windows partition. When the Mac can't find an OS on the selected startup disk, it looks for a new one and it may startup from the Mac OS. Then you can use Sys Prefs to change your startup disk back to the Mac OS.

However, if you no longer have a Mac OS (deleted partition maybe?), then it will start in Internet Recovery. If you have a Time Machine backup, you can restore the your original Mac OS and content using your backup. Otherwise, you will have to reinstall the OS.

Let me say this. My experience with the issue (update Windows, flash card, no startup keystrokes) does not fit your scenario exactly so I could be totally wrong. If you don't have a backup and have data to retrieve, try Target Disk Mode before making any changes. You can save important data (assuming it still on the hard drive) to an external hard drive.

Good luck.


The ridiculous answer to your question is: buy the Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Ethernet adapter AND the Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter and daisy chain them.

As far as I can tell, that is currently the only way to get your ethernet to show up as Thunderbolt on the newer MacBook Pros.


Virtual Host directives on Server - should I change the .config files?

I am battling with this issue as well. The Apple way of doing this is to create a web app and a plist file. The documentation is scarce, but you can type "man webapp.plist" at the terminal for an explanation. There is also an example app in "/Library/Server/Web/Config/apache2/webapps/com.example.mywebapp.plist" BTW,
I am looking at "Mountain Lion Server" and not the Mavericks version, so I am not sure if they are the same.

edit to add: I was able to get mine working by following the example at http://webapps.itcs.umich.edu/cosign/index.php/Mountain_lion_server_install

example app:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"          "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>includeFiles</key>
<array>
             <string>/Library/Server/Web/Config/apache2/webapp_scripts/httpd_myinclude.conf</    string>
</array>
<key>launchKeys</key>
<array>
    <string>com.example.mywebapp</string>
</array>
<key>name</key>
<string>com.example.mywebapp</string>
<key>displayName</key>
<string>MyWebApp</string>
<key>proxies</key>
<dict>
    <key>/mywebapp</key>
    <dict>
        <key>keysAndValues</key>
        <string></string>
        <key>path</key>
        <string>/mywebapp</string>
        <key>urls</key>
        <array>
            <string>http://localhost:3000</string>
            <string>http://localhost:3001</string>
        </array>
    </dict>
</dict>
<key>requiredModuleNames</key>
<array>
    <string>mod_mystuff.so</string>
</array>
<key>requiredWebAppNames</key>
<array>
    <string>com.example.webapp.myotherwebapp</string>
</array>
<key>preflightCommand</key>
<string>/usr/local/bin/preflightmywebapp</string>
<key>startCommand</key>
<string>/usr/local/bin/startmywebapp</string>
<key>stopCommand</key>
<string>/usr/local/bin/stopmywebapp</string>
<key>installationIndicatorFilePath</key>
<string>/usr/local/bin/mywebapp</string>
<key>sslPolicy</key>
<integer>0</integer>

Looks like you would put your .conf file in "/Library/Server/Web/Config/apache2/webapp_scripts/httpd_myinclude.conf"


How can I stop Spaces from taking me to an app's Space when I open a new file?

Found an answer on Macworld.com

  You can achieve the same thing in QuickSilver with and some basic
  AppleScript:

tell application "Safari"
   make new document
   tell application
   "Safari" to activate
end tell

  Simply save this AppleScript somewhere that QuickSilver will find it.

  The good thing about the above AppleScript is that it doesn't mess
  around with focus (which can inadvertently switch Spaces).
  Unfortunately not all applications have a similar AppleScript command
  for making a new window (for example, Terminal does not).

  I saved mine in my home directory, and called it "New Safari Window".
  I also changed it so that it had the Safari icon (by dragging the
  Safari icon from the "Get Info" window of Safari.app, to the icon in
  the "Get Info" window of the new script file).


Does iphone have an activity/ diagnostic log

Yes, but it's just a crash log...

Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & Usage > Diagnostic & Usage Data

However, my experience is that it's more likely that your headphones have a fault in the cable or inline remote or dirt in your headphone jack or dock connector (pre-iPhone 5) which is causing it to pause randomly.

This is very common, especially if the headphones don't sit fully into the jack because of lint at the bottom.


What is the best way to clone a disk between two Macs?

You can use the dd command to make a bit-perfect clone of a drive. It's a command line tool that ships with OS X. In order to make the clone perfect you'll need to ensure the source and the destination aren't actively in use.
To prepare for the clone I recommend creating a secondary boot disk that you can boot from. Your source for the clone should be an offline volume, not in use, when you're making the copy. Otherwise you risk copying things that are in incomplete states on disk.
With your machine booted to your secondary boot disk, log in and fire up a Terminal or iTerm window.
Run diskutil to get a list of your available drives. One of them will be your target drive you're trying to clone. The other will be your source drive. For example:
> diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *320.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            319.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Backup                  499.8 GB   disk1s2
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk2
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Clone                   499.8 GB   disk2s2

Let's say that Macintosh HD (disk0) is the source and Clone (disk2) is the target for our dd operation. Start the clone with:
> sudo dd if=/dev/rdisk0 of=/dev/rdisk2 bs=1m conv=noerror,sync

When dd finishes you may see an error like this:
dd: /dev/rdisk2: short write on character device
dd: /dev/rdisk2: Input/output error
3726+1 records in
3726+1 records out
500107862016 bytes transferred in 14584.393113 secs (34290619 bytes/sec)

That last error message is actually okay. The last block written was a short block because there wasn't a full 1MB block to copy. No worries.
Now you've got a bit-wise perfect clone of your Macintosh HD drive. Reboot your system using the Macintosh HD drive and enjoy your clone!


Boot Camp files available from finder but unavailable from Startup Manager

An "Missing operating system" error is issued when the code stored in the MBR executes, reads the first 512 bytes of the boot volume and determines the read bytes do not end in 0xAA55. The assumption here is the code stored in the MBR came from a Windows installation. If the source for code came from another product (such as rEFInd), the message could be sightly different. The signature of 0xAA55 is present when a volume contains bootable Microsoft software.

Normally, when Windows is installed for a BIOS boot, the MBR partition table has the Windows partition flagged as the boot volume. If some other partition is flagged and is not bootable, the "Missing operating system" message is issued and the computer halts. This will occur even if Windows appears in "Startup Disk" pane in the System Preferences application.

The sudo fdisk /dev/disk0 command prints the contents of the MBR partition table. The partition flagged as bootable is marked with an * character. Below is the output from this command, when issue on my 2011 iMac. (The Boot Camp Assistant was not used to install Windows on this Mac.)

  Note: With High Sierra (and many other older macOS versions), System Integrity Protection (SIP) must be disabled before entering the sudo fdisk /dev/disk0 command.

Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 60801/255/63 [976773168 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
*2: 07 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -  195312500] HPFS/QNX/AUX
 3: 07 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 195722140 -   95441064] HPFS/QNX/AUX
 4: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 291163208 -  294176536] HFS+

In my case, Windows 10 is installed in the second partition. In your case, the third partition should be marked.

  Note: I assume the 2rd, 3rd and 4th partitions in your GUID Partition Table (GPT) correspond to the 2rd, 3rd and 4th partitions in your MBR partition table. Normally, for a BIOS boot of Windows on a Mac, this usually is the case.

You can flag the third partition by entering the interactive command sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk0 with SIP disabled. Below is an example of the output from executing this command.

fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory
Enter 'help' for information
fdisk: 1> f 3
Partition 3 marked active.
fdisk:*1> q
Writing current MBR to disk.
Device could not be accessed exclusively.
A reboot will be needed for changes to take effect. OK? [n] y

The interactive input, shown above, is given below.

f 3
q
y

If the event your third partition is correctly flagged, there is an place later in the BIOS boot sequence where the message "An operating system wasn't found" can appear. If this occurs, then post a comment.

Appendix

What is shown in this appendix can be skipped by the OP. I just wanted to document the resources used to answer this question.

The code shown below was create with the help from the website Online Assembler and Disassembler and verified using the Microsoft Macro Assembler 8.0 (MASM). This is the contents of the MBR (sector 0) on my 2011 iMac.

cseg segment
        assume cs:cseg, ds:cseg, ss:cseg
        org 7C00h
        .386
_start:
                xor         ax, ax;             7C00 33 C0
                mov         ss, ax;             7C02 8E D0
                mov         sp, 7C00h;          7C04 BC 00 7C
                mov         es,ax;              7C07 8E C0
                mov         ds,ax;              7C09 8E D8
                mov         si,7C00h;           7C0B BE 00 7C
                mov         di,0600h;           7C0E BF 00 06
                mov         cx, 0200h;          7C11 B9 00 02
                cld;                            7C14 FC
    rep movs    byte ptr es:[di],byte ptr [si]; 7C15 F3 A4
                push        ax;                 7C17 50
                push        061Ch;              7C18 68 1C 06
                retf;                           7C1B CB
        org 061Ch
                sti;                            061C FB
                mov         cx,0004h;           061D B9 0004
                mov         bp,07BEh;           0620 BD BE 07
Q210:           cmp         byte ptr [bp],0;    0623 80 7E 00 00
                jl          Q220;               0627 7C 0B
                jne         Q330;               0629 0F 85 0E 01        InvalTbl
                add         bp,10h;             062D 83 C5 10
                loop Q210;                      0630 E2 F1
                int 18h;                        0632 CD 18      No boot disk
Q220:           mov byte ptr [bp], dl;          0634 88 56 00
                push bp;                        0637 55
                mov byte ptr [bp + 11h], 5;     0638 C6 46 11 05
                mov byte ptr [bp + 10h], 0;     063C C6 46 10 00
                mov ah, 41h;                    0640 B4 41
                mov bx, 55aah;                  0642 BB 55AA
                int 13h;                        0645 CD 13      Check
                pop bp;                         0647 5D
                jb Q230;                        0648 72 0F
                cmp bx, 0aa55h;                 064A 81 FB AA55
                jne Q230;                       064E 75 09
                test cx, 1;                     0650 F7 C1 01 00
                je Q230;                        0654 74 03
                inc byte ptr [bp + 10h];        0656 FE 46 10
Q230:           pushad;                         0659 66 60
                cmp byte ptr [bp + 10h], 0;     065B 80 7E 10 00
                je Q250;                        065F 74 26
                push dword ptr 0;               0661 66 68 00 00 00 00
                push dword ptr [bp + 8];        0667 66 FF 76 08
                push word ptr 0;                066B 68 00 00
                push word ptr 7c00h;            066E 68 00 7C
                push word ptr 1;                0671 68 01 00
                push word ptr 10h;              0674 68 10 00
                mov ah, 42h;                    0677 B4 42
                mov dl, byte ptr [bp];          0679 8A 56 00
                mov si, sp;                     067C 8B F4
                int 13h;                        067E CD 13      Read sectors extended
                lahf;                           0680 9F
                add sp, 10h;                    0681 83 C4 10
                sahf;                           0684 9E
                jmp Q240;                       0685 EB 14
Q250:           mov ax, 201h;                   0687 B8 0201
                mov bx, 7c00h;                  068A BB 7C00
                mov dl, byte ptr [bp];          068D 8A 56 00
                mov dh, byte ptr [bp + 1];      0690 8A 76 01
                mov cl, byte ptr [bp + 2];      0693 8A 4E 02
                mov ch, byte ptr [bp + 3];      0696 8A 6E 03
                int 13h;                        0699 CD 13      Read sectors
Q240:           popad;                          069B 66 61
                jae Q280;                       069D 73 1C
                dec byte ptr [bp + 11h];        069F FE 4E 11
                jne Q270;                       06A2 75 0C
                cmp byte ptr [bp], 80h;         06A4 80 7E 00 80
                je Q320;                        06A8 0F 84 8A 00        ErrLoad
                mov dl, 80h;                    06AC B2 80
                jmp Q220;                       06AE EB 84
Q270:           push bp;                        06B0 55
                xor ah, ah;                     06B1 32 E4
                mov dl, byte ptr [bp];          06B3 8A 56 00
                int 13h;                        06B6 CD 13      Reset
                pop bp;                         06B8 5D
                jmp Q230;                       06B9 EB 9E
Q280:           cmp word ptr ds:[7dfeh], 0aa55h;06BB 81 3E FE 7D 55 AA
                jne Q310;                       06C1 75 6E      MissOS
                push word ptr [bp];             06C3 FF 76 00
                call Q360;                      06C6 E8 8D 00
                jne Q290;                       06C9 75 17
                cli;                            06CB FA
                mov al, 0d1h;                   06CC B0 D1
                out 64h, al;                    06CE E6 64
                call Q360;                      06D0 E8 83 00
                mov al, 0dfh;                   06D3 B0 DF
                out 60h, al;                    06D5 E6 60
                call Q360;                      06D7 E8 7C 00
                mov al, 0ffh;                   06DA B0 FF
                out 64h, al;                    06DC E6 64
                call Q360;                      06DE E8 75 00
                sti;                            06E1 FB
Q290:           mov ax, 0bb00h;                 06E2 B8 00 BB
                int 1ah;                        06E5 CD 1A      Read system clock counter
                and eax, eax;                   06E7 66 23 C0
                jne Q300;                       06EA 75 3B
                cmp ebx, 41504354h;             06EC 66 81 FB 54 43 50 41
                jne Q300;                       06F3 75 32
                cmp cx, 102h;                   06F5 81 F9 02 01
                jb Q300;                        06F9 72 2C
                push dword ptr 0bb07h;          06FB 66 68 07 BB 00 00
                push dword ptr 200h;            0701 66 68 00 02 00 00
                push dword ptr 8;               0707 66 68 08 00 00 00
                push ebx;                       070D 66 53
                push ebx;                       070F 66 53
                push ebp;                       0711 66 55
                push dword ptr 0;               0713 66 68 00 00 00 00
                push dword ptr 7c00h;           0719 66 68 00 7C 00 00
                popad;                          071F 66 61
                push word ptr 0;                0721 68 00 00
                pop es;                         0724 07
                int 1ah;                        0725 CD 1A      Read system clock counter
Q300:           pop dx;                         0727 5A
                xor dh, dh;                     0728 32 F6
;               jmp far ptr _start              072A EA 00 7C 00 00
                db 0EAh,00,7Ch,00,00
                int 18h;                        072F CD 18      No boot disk
Q310:           mov al, byte ptr ds:[07b7h];    0731 A0 B7 07   MissOS
                jmp Q340;                       0734 EB 08
Q320:           mov al, byte ptr ds:[07b6h];    0736 A0 B6 07   ErrLoad
                jmp Q340;                       0739 EB 03
Q330:           mov al, byte ptr ds:[07b5h];    073B A0 B5 07   InvalTbl
Q340:           xor ah, ah;                     073E 32 E4
                add ax, 700h;                   0740 05 00 07
                mov si, ax;                     0743 8B F0
Q370:           lodsb byte ptr [si];            0745 AC
                cmp al, 0;                      0746 3C 00
                je Q350;                        0748 74 09
                mov bx, 7;                      074A BB 07 00
                mov ah, 0eh;                    074D B4 0E
                int 10h;                        074F CD 10      Write text in teletype mode
                jmp Q370;                       0751 EB F2
Q350:           hlt;                            0753 F4
                jmp Q350;                       0754 EB FD
Q360:           sub cx, cx;                     0756 2B C9
Q390:           in al, 64h;                     0758 E4 64
                jmp Q380;                       075A EB 00
Q380:           and al, 2;                      075C 24 02
                loopne Q390;                    075E E0 F8
                and al, 2;                      0760 24 02
                ret;                            0762 C3

InvalTbl        db "Invalid partition table",0;         0763
ErrLoad         db "Error loading operating system",0;  077B
MissOS          db "Missing operating system",0;        079A
Offsets         db 00h, 00h, 63h, 7Bh, 9Ah;             07B3
DiskSignature   dword  028A47A7h;                       07B8
CopyProtect     dw 0;                                   07BC

Status1         db 00;                  07BE
FirstCHS1       db 0FEh, 0FFh, 0FFh;    07BF
Type1           db 0EEh;                07C2
LastCHS1        db 0FEh, 0FFh, 0FFh;    07C3
FirstLBA1       dword 1;                07C6
Count1          dword 409639;           07CA

Status2         db 80h;                 07CE
FirstCHS2       db 0FEh, 0FFh, 0FFh;    07CF
Type2           db 07h;                 07D2
LastCHS2        db 0FEh, 0FFh, 0FFh;    07D3
FirstLBA2       dword 409640;           07D6
Count2          dword 195312500;        07DA

Status3         db 00;                  07DE
FirstCHS3       db 0FEh, 0FFh, 0FFh;    07DF
Type3           db 07h;                 07E2
LastCHS3        db 0FEh, 0FFh, 0FFh;    07E3
FirstLBA3       dword 195722140;        07E6
Count3          dword 95441064;         07EA

Status4         db 00;                  07EE
FirstCHS14      db 0FEh, 0FFh, 0FFh;    07EF
Type4           db 0AFh;                07F2
LastCHS4        db 0FEh, 0FFh, 0FFh;    07F3
FirstLBA4       dword 291163208;        07F6
Count4          dword 294176536;        07FA

BootSignature   dw 0AA55h;              07FE

cseg ends
        end _start


All Apple's hardware & software product agreements can be found at: http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/
Here's straight link to Lion's agreement.

Answers to your particular interests can both be found under § 2. B:

[…] you are granted a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive license:
(i) to download, install, use and run for personal, non-commercial use, one (1) copy of the Apple Software directly on each Apple-branded computer running Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server (“Mac Computer”) that you own or control;
[…]
(iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software.


Hacked Gmail-reset pass-fowarding to Icloud

iCloud (or iCloud Mail) itself can't access mail accounts on other providers via IMAP (or any other means). But I see at least two options how somebody with temporary access to your Gmail account can try to put a tap on your emails:

By adding your Gmail account as an additional account to whatever mail application he uses. This only works while your Gmail password doesn't get changed (so you should be safe here)
By setting up a mail forwarding rule in Gmail which forwards (copies) all your incoming mail to another email address. To verify and disable, please look inside Gmail (don't know the details and we are not a Gmail support site)


Empirically, the answer is 'Yes'.

I have a very similar machine - 4,1 -> 5,1, dual 3.46GHZ Xeons, 64GB RAM & also an older 3,1.

Both now have an SATA III 840 EVO 1TB as boot drive [best available at the time of purchase] in the first optical drive bay [leaving room for your usual 4 HDs in the regular bays. Adapter bracket a few quid/dollars/shekels from eBay.
On the 4,1 it connects directly to the cabling in the bay, the 3,1 needs a longer SATA cable down into the main body, under the cooling fans, where the two 'secret' SATA ports are.

No, they don't run at SATA III speeds, but boy do they make the entire machine more responsive. Boot time down from a couple of minutes to 15 seconds. iTunes [the slowest to launch that I know of] now launches in about 5 seconds. Finder is zippy & responsive, no more waiting for it to fill a window.

You get so used to the speed you don't notice it until you have to use a machine with a spinning HD again.

Speed test - SSD

Speed test - HD


What to do when having I/O (kernel panic) errors with Samsung 830 SSD on a mid 2009 MacBook Pro?

This is my 2 cents worth. I have no specific experience for Samsung SSDs but I do have a fair amount of experience with Mac Laptops and MacMinis with SSDs.

I am post specifically because I have been fighting with an apparently "similar issue" and have come to the conclusion that SSDs are more tricky than hard drives fro a troubleshooting point of view. I have had to return a few SSDs to the manufacturer ( distributors ). In fact, I returned one to OWC just today that has resisted attempts to update it's firmware - twice over several months and began exhibiting poor performance and I was having kernal crashes that I believe were SSD related. I use a utility called "Trim Enabler" for two reasons: 1) I like to watch metrics that perhaps give insight on storage health - the observable health parameters of the SSD and a second Harddisk on my 2012 MacBook Pro and 2) because it turns on the Trim functionality which SOME SSDs like ( need ) or something....

While OWC ( macsales.com ) is a Mac specialty supplier and appear to be experts and have been good to me over the years, but in this case of SSDs, they have failed to come up with a way that I have access to test my own SSDs or a surefire efficient way to identity if the SSD is the issue or if firmware update will help and thus I returned the SSD today and replaced it with a Crucial SSD which uses different firmware - Sandforce firmware. I have experience with the Crucial SSDs for almost 4 years on Mac's and they seem to work well. It was Crucial who told me to used the 3rd party software called Trim Enabler to "enable trim" after I experienced significant performance issues that Crucial tech support believed was because the SSD was not doing necessary maintenance on itself - i.e. Trim.

Now with all that said, I believe there is still a bit of black magic going on - perhaps it is just marketing and/or marketing secrecy so that SSD makers secret sauce does leak out. Personally, I don't like the effects of the secret sauce on the end user's ability to get genuine information and tech support so they can make informed decision on their purchases of SSD.

Even so, I might recommend you try a OWC or Crucial SSDs based on those companies recommendations and warrenty policies. I no long expect trouble free saling or perfect performance or zero maintenance for a busy SSD. I have never done firmware updates on hard disks but SSDs appear to need these firmware tweeks.

I would love some genuine information at the global statistics level, so that I can better gauge my experience against what the global pool experience is showing.


In macOS Terminal, you can use traceroute for similar functionality.

There's also a nice GUI tool called Network Utility that you can use to trace a path of your network traffic (in this example I've traced www.apple.com):

In OS X Mavericks (10.9) and later, Network Utility is in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications.

In OS X Mountain Lion (10.8), Lion (10.7), and Snow Leopard (10.6), Network Utility is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.


Getting used to either US or EN International keyboard layout

US Standard.

For one, Apple only offer the option of US Standard in some territories now. US International exists for its close resemblance to UK version. Secondly, US Standard is the pervalant QWERTY across countries regardless of the manufacturer. Plus, symmetry. I guess if you need to re-learn where all the symbol keys are anyways, why not use the keyboard that doesn't have a symbol key left of "Z"? It's just better.

If you want you can install Karabiner, and remap "\" into "return" key, and map option+"\" back to "\". This way no worries about that annoyance.


There's no built-in functionality like this, but you could try something like Afloat, which adds this and some other window management options. However it does require SIMBL, which is a bit hacky, and can result in bugginess, especially on newly released OSes, where the developers may not have had as much time to test.


Display problem after installing Win 7 on Macbook Pro 15 (2011)

Refer to this question:MacBook Pro 15" 2011 display problem at loading


Is there a way to disable data detectors from Mail?

No, Mountain Lion data detectors can not be disabled with a hidden preference (or the preference is so well hidden that nobody has published the details).

Once you know the name, you can search for articles on how to do this in case someone discovers a solution. Sadly, you used to be able to disable these at the terminal on 10.7, but I don't know of a way to disable them on Mountain Lion.

If you are on Lion or earlier, try this...

Turn off those annoying data detectors in Apple’s Mail by Jacqui Cheng is one such article with the following prescription to clear up the feature.

quit Mail.app
start up Terminal.app
enter the following text exactly

  defaults write com.apple.mail DisableDataDetectors YES

press return
quit Terminal
open Mail


Original owner refers to the first person that payed for the phone, and in this case —although not very clear from your explanation— the person whose Apple ID is tied to the Activation Lock. If on contract, and not unlocked, usually the contract subscriber.


When you have the new HDD installed in the computer you should be holding down the option key when you boot the machine.  This will bring you to the startup manager and allow you to choose to boot from any drive connected that has a bootable OS installed.  Select the internal HDD.  Once you get to the desktop open System Preferences > Startup Disk  and permanently choose that drive to boot from.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204417

If the drive does not show up in the Startup Manager, then you have a problem.


I can't find a list of all apps I've ever purchased ( paid $ free). From my iPhone

If you are running at least 4.3, you can use the iCloud beta to see every app you ever purchased. If you open the Updates tab of the app store, there should be a Purchased button at the top. Tapping on this will give you a list of every app you purchased on your current account. I would suggest choosing the "Not on this iPhone" tab so you don't have to look through as long of a list. Once you find the app, tap the cloud icon to download it.


Is there any command I can use to disable brightness adjustments?

You might also run

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/serverhorror/brightness/master/brightness.c>brightness.c;gcc -std=c99 -o /usr/local/bin/brightness brightness.c -framework IOKit -framework ApplicationServices

and then add

* * * * * /usr/local/bin/brightness -v 0.5

to crontab to reset the brightness to 50% every minute.

You can disable the brightness keys with KeyRemap4MacBook:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>custom</name>
    <identifier>custom</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::BRIGHTNESS_DOWN, KeyCode::VK_NONE</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::BRIGHTNESS_UP, KeyCode::VK_NONE</autogen>
  </item>
</root>


Install OS X recovery mode. Can't log in

The version of the operating system of the recovery partition is probably lower than 10.11.0.

According to Apple you have to append the auth code to the password then:

  What if I use two-factor authentication on a device running older software?
  If you use two-factor authentication with devices running older OS versions, you might be asked to add your six-digit verification code to the end of your password when signing in. Get your verification code from a trusted device running iOS 9 and later or OS X El Capitan and later, or have it sent to your trusted phone number. Then type your password followed by the six-digit verification code directly into the password field.


In apple mail, with contact photos enabled next to mail subjects, one person in my contact doesn't have his picture show up

This happens when you have the contact's email address duplicated in another contact.


Selectively restore data to iPhone from iTunes backup

If you are signed into icloud on a iphone go to general, storage & Backup Usage, then you will see icloud /Manage Storage with a arrow to open it. You can see and set all you applications to be included or not in your cloud. You can set what you want to back up or erase backups. If you sign out of Icloud you will only see the storage options. The Health app is the only one that seems to be sneaky. I don't think you can delete it.


A reasonable explanation would be that the battery of your iPhone has come of age. Try to access the battery health (completed charge cycles, charge holding capacity etc.) using a popular battery assessment tool called coconutBattery.

Batteries has a fixed number of charge cycles and post consuming them, the charge holding capacity deteriorates.

It is also advisable to keep the iOS software up-to-date. Having it up-to-date alleviates any software related glitches that may be causing trouble with the hardware/battery.

Post analysis, if you feel that the battery is showing signs of going kaput, you can choose to go for a replacement.


What is the difference between iOS Developer Program and iOS Developer Enterprise Program?

As a single person you are eligible to sell apps when enrolled in "iOS Developer Program - Individual".

  For an individual developer who will be creating free and commercial iOS apps for distribution on the App Store.

If you want to enroll in the Enterprise Program, you must be company with a DUNS number.


Unzipping an archive, the folder icon appears under the archive

You could change the "view" of the ~/Downloads folder to something other than "as icons" from the Finder menu "View". In "list" or "column" mode, they would not be on top of each other.

Alternatively, under the "View"->"Show View Options" you could set it to "Sort By" -> "Snap to Grid" and all new icons would be nicely arranged it a grid. Additionally "Arrange by" -> "Name" would put things in alphabetical order, and not all on top of each other.


I'll quote two answers from Stack Overflow with the hope that it will help you figure out what you're trying to do.

There's a small iOS library named ios-ntp. I have used it in one project in the past and it seemed to work reasonably well.

As of mid 2013 the original ios-ntp project has a few missing pieces, so I have mirrored the original svn repository to github. You can checkout out a working version of the code here: https://github.com/jessedc/iOS-ntp

Source

If you're not developing a commercial application, peek at the linux source.

http://packages.ubuntu.com/source/lucid/ntp

Source

Thread source


My apps are using 3.7GB of storage on my iPad, how can I check which app is using what amount?

On iTunes itself, on the App section of your Library (top section in the left side navigation bar) you can see how big Apps are by switching to List view (iTunes menu bar -> View -> As List).


How fix MacOS Mail so Gmail labels appear?

This label (Inbox-Account) is only visible when you have more than one e-mail account enabled in Mail app (at least on Catalina 10.15.4).


VMware Fusion 6.0.3: "reclaimable" stays zero for Windows 7 VM

For Windows 8.x, this works:

Defrag the C: drive with these commands to defrag the files, then the free space:

defrag /v /h /u C:
defrag /x /v /h /u C:
Reclaim the disk space in VMware Fusion 6.0.4:

Shut down the virtual machine.
Go to Virtual Machine > Settings > General.
Select Clean Up Virtual Machine.

Somehow this does not work for my Windows 7 VM. I even tried MyDefrag free space optimization without success.


Connecting Dell U2715H to 13" MacBook Pro (mid 2012)

Try using an HDMI to HDMI cable (or other) to check that the combination cable you are using isn't broken in some way.

I have a new (mid-2017) MacBook Pro 13" with touchbar and found that certain combinations just don't work when I connect to the same version Dell monitor. For example I bought a USB C to HDMI cable link here, and it will not work. I'm not technical either but believe it or not, there are different USB C settings! The website now says their new cable doesn't work with MacBook 2017 models, after I informed them. They said that they will now produce one that will.

Therefore, if changing the cable  (borrow one from a friend for an hour) doesn't cure your problem then you may be experiencing similar issues to mine.

Additionally, you now have information to avoid my mistake if you buy a new MBP and use your Dell monitor :-)

Hope this helps.


After Security Update 2019-003, OpenLDAP is corrupted. How can I recover?

I have been able to repair this. It may have been luck. What I did:

Copy all private/var/db/openldap/authdata from all Time Machine
backups to a working directory (for i in 2019*; do ditto $i/DumbledoreRoot/private/var/db/openldap/authdata/ /tmp/$i/authdata; done). My boot volume is called DumbledoreRoot.
Run crash recovery on all the authdata copies, to see which one are
recoverable (for i in 2019-0*; do echo $i; db_recover -cv -h $i/authdata/; done)
Most would report an error. This is not strange, Time Machine cannot
really backup this data as backing up a live database mostly gets
incorrect results in the backup. I do wonder how restore from a Time
Machine does this, though. There must be a better way.
Replace /private/var/db/authdata with what is in that backup. I
probably should have copied openldap-data as well, given what
happened next
Ran slapd -T test and noticed there still was some corruption (though different):

Output:

bash-3.2# /usr/libexec/slapd -T test
5cdff90d bdb_db_open: database "dc=Dumbledore,dc=local": unclean shutdown detected; attempting recovery.
5cdff90d bdb_db_open: database "dc=Dumbledore,dc=local": recovery skipped in read-only mode. Run manual recovery if errors are encountered.
5cdff90d bdb_monitor_db_open: monitoring disabled; configure monitor database to enable
5cdff90d bdb_db_open: database "cn=authdata": unclean shutdown detected; attempting recovery.
5cdff90d bdb_db_open: database "cn=authdata": recovery skipped in read-only mode. Run manual recovery if errors are encountered.
config file testing succeeded

Despaired. Then on a whim, started Open Directory from Server.app and to my surprise, it started and my network user accounts were back.

So, I'm probably just lucky and better answers may help future problems.


Android Studio emulator not launching on macOS (Big Sur)

You can find the logs from the option in the Help menu, which opens
~/Library/Logs/AndroidStudio/idea.log


Automatically delete photo from Photo Stream when deleted in iPhoto or Aperture

Deleting the picture from My Photo Stream instead of the imported versions in your computer should do the trick. To do so just:

Open the My Photo Stream view in either iPhoto or Aperture.
Select the pictures to delete.
Press the Delete key and click Delete.


Can't download updates because "This update is not available for this Apple ID"

Try going to the "purchases" section in the App Store. Accept the free apps like iMovie and Garageband there.


Most scripting languages should be able to do this e.g. python, perl, tcl,

Python does this with

AN odbc pachkage - see Python wiki
csv package in the
standard library


Thunderbolt Target Display Mode, iMac still running?

Yes the iMac does stay on, I have the 2010 model. CMD + F2, (on your iMac), will allow you to swap back and forth between the two computers.


Space switching keyboard shortcut behaviour on multiple displays

Disclaimer: For me on MAC OS Mojave 10.14.6 on macbook pro 2018, using Control + Left/Right, switching spaces by default works on the monitor that has focus. When I move the mouse pointer from screen1 to screen 2 even without clicking on any app on screen 2, i'm able to switch workspace on the screen where mouse pointer is located using Control + Left/Right keys.
But, if by anyhow it's not working for you. You can set shortcut for screen switch across screens using System Preferences - > Keyboard -> Short Cuts and select checkbox for "Switch to Desktop 1","Switch to Desktop 2", "Switch to Desktop 3". Then using control + 1/2/3 you can switch to one of the desktop. The limitation is you can only create shortcut for 3 default desktops.


how can i get iPhoto pictures back after factory reset on MacBook Pro

If we assume that you do not have a Time Machine backup, you cannot. If you can enter Time Machine, you may be able to restore your iPhoto library in ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library.


Does iOS slow download speed when downloading torrents?

I don't know of any traffic shapping or bandwidth throttling capabilities of iOS.  Technically, you would need stateful packet inspection to be able to detect Torrents and then slow them down (traffic shaping); this is found on many advanced routers and most definately not in iOS.

Most likely, it's your ISP that's doing the throttling.

  Hundreds of larger and smaller ISPs all over the world try to limit
  BitTorrent traffic on their networks. Unfortunately, most companies
  are not very open about their network management solutions, with
  Comcast as the prime example.

Read the full article here.

What you want to do is Test to see if your carrier is blocking/slowing down your traffic.

Test if your ISP is blocking Bittorrent

This is a Java applet and does not require a Bittorrent client.  It will compare the download speed of a small test file seeded through Bittorrent with the download speed of the same file through normal file transfer.  If the difference is significant it will indicate that your ISP is throttling your file transfer.


Does the iPhone 7 Plus camera really "zoom"?

Apple states the iPhone 7 Plus has "optical zoom at 2x" and digital zoom up to 10x (versus the iPhone 7 having digital zoom only, and up to 5x).
From developer notes:

These two cameras [can operate as] as a single virtual camera that automatically switches between physical cameras for zoom — in effect turning two prime lens cameras into a single zoom lens camera.
The Dual camera's defining feature is its ability to smoothly transition between wide and tele cameras, acting like a single lens camera with optical zoom at 2x.
The point at which the cross over from wide-angle to telephoto happens depends on a variety of factors including current focus position, current zoom factor, and current exposure.

From a developer's point of view, when accessing the cameras, they can choose to target one of the two cameras specifically or can access a hybrid "virtual" camera that automatically switches as the user zooms.
Apple is not necessarily incorrect when it states that 2x is optical zoom, since at that point the image is entirely "zoomed" through physical lenses and not in software. That said, there is no lens on the device that is independently capable of optical zoom, so the term is also not really being used in its traditional meaning.
Beyond 2x, zoom is entirely digital.


Product name and actual software version are not always logically linked.

iMovie people are specialist in confusing the customers.

For some reason unknown to man kind they call they 10.0.5 software version the iMovie 11.

I have the latest as of August 2014 and it is actually software version 10.0.5 and nowhere it says 11. (and it is a 2.95 Gig file)


Yosemite: Change keyboard layout of an input source

Just switch your keyboard to the US layout before you switch to Telex.  It takes the layout of the last keyboard used.


Terminal name changed to 'Name@dhcp-xx-x'

It is not a virus, nor did you actually change it yourself.

The prompt by default begins with the hostname of your computer. The host name is found by doing a so called "reverse lookup" in DNS of the IP address of your computer.

Every time you connect to a network, you'll get an IP address. The provider of that IP usually determines what the reverse lookup will say. Usually it is your internet provider.

Your ISP has thus chosen "dhcp-xx-x" as the hostname. It probably has some internal meaning to them.

DHCP is the name of a protocol used on networks to automatically deliver IP-addresses (and other configurations) to computers. Seeing this in your hostname typically means that your ISP used DHCP to deliver the IP and accompanying configuration to your computer.


Any idea what the "Calibration Assistant.app" useful for?

It's designed for projectors/beamers (depending on the version of English used). It's not as correct as the one for normal displays, and designed for rather rough calibration of large uneven screens.


The disk "Flash Player" is still attached to the filesystem. Go into /Volumes, and you should see it there. There are two ways to proceed, the GUI method, or the command line method. Use whichever you are most comfortable with.

GUI: Navigate to /Volumes and press ⌘ Command+E. This will eject the volume.

CLI: diskutil eject /dev/diskx, in this case disk35. This will also eject the volume.

The difference between diskutil unmountDisk and diskutil eject is that unmountDisk only ceases disk-IO between the disk and the filesystem, but keeps it attached so that it can be mounted later. However, eject effectively 'removes' it from the filesystem, and remounting it may involve physically reconnecting the disk. Think of them as "stand by" and "shutdown" respectively on a computer.

From man diskutil:

  diskutil eject

  Eject a disk.  Media will become offline for the purposes of being a data store for file systems or being a member of constructs such as software RAID or direct data.  Additionally, removable media will become eligible for safe manual removal; automatically-removable media will begin its physical (motorized) eject sequence.

whereas

  diskutil unmountDisk

  Unmount an entire disk (all volumes).  Force will force-unmount the volumes (less kind to any open files; see also umount (8)).  You should specify a whole disk, but all volumes of the whole disk are attempted to be unmounted even if you specify a partition.


What charging mechanism to be used to maximise the battery life?

The batteries on all 2012 models self regulate, self calibrate and don't care when you charge them.

You might reduce their total lifespan if you never ever ever take it off charge. Ideally drain it past 20% remaining (better to run it all the way down) once every few months.

These days, portable batteries are like sealed car batteries. Maybe go in to the shop once a year to have it checked, but otherwise you can forget "caring" for it other than avoiding excessive heat (90 degrees F and up).

Any time you want, Apple can run extensive diagnostics on your battery (for free at the Genius Bar and also complimentary if you pay for AppleCare.)


Installed Mojave, then my mac couldn't start the next day, now it asks to install Mojave again

What should I do?

If it were me, and my machine was running at this point, I'd backup the disk, then separately backup my home folder, and put those media aside. Then I'd redo the upgrade.


MacBook Pro Input/Output audio not found

I just experienced a similar problem.  I discovered that when I plugged in my external speakers (in the radio plug port), my System Preferences defaulted to a lower volume output setting (presumably to prevent blasting out too much volume in small speakers).  Try opening System Preferences and resetting the output volume to a higher setting.


Is there a way to have my macbook set its brightness based on it running from battery or from line power?

While macOS does not support the exact behavior you are looking for (setting custom brightness when switching between power states), you can configure your Mac portable to slightly dim the brightness automatically when on battery power.
To do that, go to System Preferences → Energy Saver and enable Slightly dim the display while on battery power.