What actions can be taken with lost and locked phone?

If your missing device is off or offline, you can still put it in Lost Mode, lock it, or remotely erase it.

The next time your device is online, these actions will take effect. If you remove the device from your account while it's offline, any pending actions for the device will be cancelled.

Once it's in Lost Mode, no-one can do anything with it, it's a brick to all but you, so long as you don't erase it or remove it from Find my iPhone.

Ref: Apple KB - If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is lost or stolen


MacBook Pro fuzzy screen and freezes on startup at the Apple logo with half progress bar

How about start in safe mode?

Try safe mode if your Mac doesn‘t finish starting up

Follow these steps to start up into safe mode:

Start or restart your Mac.
Immediately after you hear the startup sound, press and hold the
Shift key.
Release the Shift key when you see the Apple logo appear on the
screen.


Can Macbook be serviced by Apple Care with FileVault enabled?

Firstly, I think this would be better handled by calling Apple Support directly. I do not see mention of this in any of the repair terms and conditions documents on apple.com.

Secondly, regardless of whether Apple requires FileVault 2 to be disabled or not, I would recommend that you follow the same process you did before - backup all the data, reformat it and install OS X afresh before giving it for repair. This would protect your privacy and also reduce (or prevent) wasting time with support if/when they inform you that they would have to format the drive and install OS X because it's encrypted with File Vault 2.


Why do I have to re-pair my Apple Magic Wireless Keyboard (A1314) every morning?

The issue was caused by an old machine (MacBook Air 2012) in the office that used to be paired with keyboard. The person using the old machine would arrive into the office earlier than me so by the time I had arrived the keyboard had connected to their machine.

Solved by removing the device from the bluetooth devices of the old machine.


LDAP users in Catalina cannot log in - CRAM-MD5 error in opendirectoryd

Does it work for you if you try to edit the plist file indirectly with odutil, as follows:

odutil set configuration /LDAPv3/foo.example.com module ldap option "Denied SASL Methods" CRAM-MD5 DIGEST-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN NTLM


How can I add extra groups to Finder's recognised kinds

I would recommend creating several saved searches, each for a specific file extension within a given folder, and then add each saved search to the Finder sidebar. For example:

In Finder, go to your working folder, then type something (e.g., xxx) in the Search field.
This reveals the Search row; click the '+' at the far right.
Change Kind to File extension, and type one of the extensions you need.
Remove the "xxx" or whatever you had originally typed.
Click the Save button.
Type a meaningful name for your search (e.g., Documents - PDF), and tick the Add To Sidebar checkbox.

Now that you have a saved search in the Finder sidebar, you can make duplicates of it.

In the Finder, right-click the Documents - PDF (that you just created), and choose Show in Enclosing Folder.
Duplicate your saved search, and rename it to something like Documents - DOC (i.e., for whatever you intend it to represent).
Select the duplicate search, and choose File menu >> Add To Sidebar.
In the Finder sidebar, click the Documents - DOC shortcut you just created.
Then right-click the shortcut and choose Show Search Criteria.
At this point, change PDF to DOC. Optionally, you could click '+' and add DOCX here, as well.

Unfortunately, you can't modify the folder location that a saved search points to; this seems like an oversight, but there you go.


Will storage space be lost when I update to iOS 10?

Compared to iOS 8, iOS 10 seems to need about 300MB to 900MB of additional space. On the other hand, if your iPhone has automatically downloaded the iOS 10 installer, installing it will free up the space it is taking up. On my own iPhone, the installer is about 1.1GB. You may or may not have manually removed the installer (which is possible on iOS 9, I don’t remember whether it was on iOS 8). Depending on that, you will either gain some free space, or might lose quite some of it.

The Ars Technica review article on iOS 9 said:

  With just a handful of exceptions, iOS 9 isn't going to give you space back, but, even when it does consume more space than iOS 8.4, its impact is negligible. You rarely lose more than 100 or 200MB.

And, in comparing with iOS 9, the Ars Technica review article on iOS 10 says:

  Once you convert the numbers to reflect the way iOS 10 reports storage capacity, what looked like an increase in available space is revealed to be a slight decrease. Usually it's somewhere between 200 and 700 megabytes, a drop in the bucket on a 64GB-and-up phone or tablet but a more significant fraction of a 16GB device's precious free space.

So combined, and with some exceptions, iOS 10 needs about 100MB+200MB to 200B+700MB of additional space compared to its two predecessors.

Note that the iOS 10 review article mentions storage is now reported in base 10 rather than base 2, the article explains the details and how this was taken into account when comparing iOS 10 to iOS 9. (I’m afraid the above is mixing and adding base 2 and base 10 numbers, but the numbers are small enough for this not to matter much.)


Use iTunes to Sync Your iPad With Your Outlook Calendar.

Update iTunes in the computer to the recent version: click "Help" --> "Check for Updates."
Use the cable which comes with your iPad to connect it directly to new computer.
iTunes will launch in the PC automatically.
In the iTunes source list, select your ipad and click on "Info" tab -> the "Sync Outlook calendars" option.
In the lower right-hand corner of your screen, you can find the "Apply" button. Click it on.
Then your computer will sync with your iPad.


Looking for a simple file manager for Mac

I never came across a file manager that adjust the grid for long names. However if you want to go further than the Finder you can give a try at Transmit, Forklift or Commander, they're all great file management tools.


Sending and receiving text messages (SMS) over iPhone 5 with Bluetooth from Win7

The iPhone doesn't support sending text messages over bluetooth (for security purposes according to apple).


Prezi.com has an iPad app, not quite what your looking for but I imagine it is the closest that exists at the moment, you could always use any drawing program (adobe has a few) and I imagine it would have zoom capabilities.


Incorrect synchronized time – how do iPhones know what time is it?

The phone receives the current time in UTC from the carrier (or from NTP server) and applies current timezone adjustment based on your settings. I assume that the timezone data in your phone is probably outdated and reflects the old rules of applying DST, that's why you have 1 hour difference.


iTunes USB sync deleted all playlists from my iPhone

I synced my iPhone with iTunes again this morning and all my playlists came back! Go figure.


Can I use AppleScript to delete files on NAS listed in a file?

As an alternative to using AppleScript, it is so much easier just to do it in Terminal using bash, e.g.:

while IFS= read -r line; do echo rm "$line"; done < /path/to/untitled.txt

Run it as is with the echo command to have a look1  at its output, and if it look okay, then run the command again without echo in it.

Note that when run without the echo command, the path file names will be quoted, so while with echo command will show as e.g.:

rm /Volumes/Multimedia/Music/ITunes Media/Kiko/Come On Up/Come On Up.mp3

However, without the echo command, the rm command with the path file names will execute as e.g.:

rm "/Volumes/Multimedia/Music/ITunes Media/Kiko/Come On Up/Come On Up.mp3"

Thus handling path file names that contains spaces.

1Hint: Enlarge the window in Terminal so you see the full line without it wrapping on the screen as this will make it easier to see any anomalies, if any.


Can I backup a Time Capsule to a HDD drive connected to its USB port?

Time Machine does not include external drives by default —but this can be changed if the external drives are formatted for Mac: click the Options button on the Time Machine preferences and remove the desired external disk from the Exclude this items from backup list so it will be backed up.

Time Machine does not backup network resources.
You could move the contents from your Time Capsule to a local or external HFS USB disk to back them up.


With ifconfig on OS X you can find netmask :

inet 192.168.1.2 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255

netmask 0xffffff00 means 255.255.255.0

And for finding gateway address use arp -a or as geekosaur said use netstat -nr | grep '^default'.


The MBA comes with a recovery partition already installed. Reboot and keep CmdR pressed during boot until the Apple icon is displayed in screen. This boots into Recovery Mode allowing you to repair and/or reinstall the MBA from scratch.

See OS X Lion: About Lion Recovery (HT4718) for details.


The issue seems to be caused by the z command (found here) being sourced in ~/.bash_profile

I will be reporting the bug asap.


My Google Contacts are not being imported into my iPhone

Google provides instructions (for IOS 7) and some troubleshooting.

Sync your contacts

Open the Settings app on your device.
Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
Select Add Account.
Select Google.
Fill out your account information in the following fields:
    Name: Enter your name
    User Name: Enter your full Google Account or Google Apps email address.
    Password: Your Google Account or Google Apps password. (If you’ve enabled 2 Step verification, you’ll need to generate and enter an application specific password.)
    Description: Enter a description of the account (e.g. Personal Contacts).
Select Next at the top of your screen.
Make sure that the "Contacts" option is turned ON. The switch should be green.
Select Save at the top of your screen.

After you've completed setup, open the Contacts app on your device, and syncing will automatically begin.

If you have set up iCloud, are syncing contacts from another account, or already have contacts stored on the device, you will need to select a Default Account.

Some basic Troubleshooting

If the Account is ON, then open Account > Advanced and make sure Use SSL is turned to ON.


You don't specify how old your MBP is, but some MBPs built a few years ago shipped with graphics cards that fatally crashed after a few years of years. That's what happened to mine and it was a warranty fix because a recall was done.

My understanding of the chime is that it is hard-coded into the motherboard. If it is not playing with the chime, then you probably have something wrong down to that level. It may be a simple fix, it may not, but only Apple will be able to tell you definitively.

(Answer edited per comments)


Disk Utility stuck at exit code 0 during partition restore (in Recovery Mode)

In theory, exit code 0 means "No errors found, or successfully repaired" - though I don't know why it has then failed to complete & light the Done button.

Exit code 8 was "A corrupt filesystem was found during a check, or repairs did not succeed." which would not really be surprising if you were trying to work on the partition you were booted from.

Disk Utility is actually running a process called fsck_hfs which has published exit codes on the OS X developer pages

EXIT VALUES
     fsck_hfs indicates some status by exit value.  The current list of exit status results is:
           0       No errors found, or successfully repaired.
           3       A quick-check (the -n option) found a dirty filesystem; no repairs were made.
           4       During boot, the root filesystem was found to be dirty; repairs were made, and the
                   filesystem was remounted.  The system should be rebooted.
           8       A corrupt filesystem was found during a check, or repairs did not succeed.
           47      A major error was found with -E.

If you cannot normally Quit Disk Utility, force Quit it with  Cmd ⌘   Opt ⌥   Esc  , or persuade the Mac to restart or shut down normally, then you may have no option but to hold the power key until it shuts down.


Finder "Arrange by date" splits into Today, Previous 7 Days, Previous 30 Days, etc

Right Click → Show View Options. In the small window that opens, set Arrange By and Sort By to "None". Close the small window.

Right Click Again → Clean Up By → Date Modified or Date Created.

Unfortunately, there is no equivalent option for "Last Opened" or "Added", as far as I'm aware.


Changing default app to open a certain extension, but keeping the previous icon?

The behavior you want is what happens when using Xcode as the default application.

The behavior you want is not possible with TextWrangler for the following reason:
Textwrangler does not distinguish the icons for *.php *.ccs... like Xcode. Therefore it does not store different icons for different filetypes (PHP.icns, CCS.icns...).

Instead TextWrangler only stores one icon for all filetypes: TextWranglerTextDoc.icns

This icon is located at:

right-click on TextWrangler -> show package contents
navigate to .../Contents/Resources/TextWranglerTextDoc.icns


How can I type a § in a Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection window?

Here is the easiest  way to do this. You can copy and paste characters and text between the Mac and the remote Windows session.

On the Mac, open a word processor and type Option-6 to get the "§" character.

Copy this character.

Click on the Microsoft Remote Desktop Client window, click in a word processor on the Windows computer you are connecting to, and Paste. The "§" character will be pasted into your word processor document.

If on the other hand you want to learn how to type various special characters on Windows while using Microsoft Remote Desktop Client on a Mac, here is what you must do.

If you don't want to memorize Windows character codes (such as Alt-0167 as @OghmaOsiris explained above) you can select an alternate software keyboard layout on the Windows computer. On the Windows computer, select the United States-International keyboard. Then you can type Ctrl-Alt-Shift S to produce the "§" symbol.

To set  this up on Windows 7, go to Control Panel and select Region and Language. Under the Keyboards and Languages tab, click the Change Keyboards button. Click the Add button and you can select the United States-International option among many others.

If you select more than one keyboard layout, you can switch between them on the fly by enabling the Language Bar, either floating on the screen or docked in the taskbar.

To look at all the character options in each keyboard layout, use the On-Screen Keyboard app in Windows 7.


Date Taken changed to Import date in iPhoto

The problem is most likely, that your original photos didn't include timestamps. So iPhoto changed the date to the day you imported it. You have to use ExifTool or Lightroom or any tool that can edit EXIF metadata correctly and then import the files again.


skin for iPod touch 4G that works with universal dock

rather than find a skin that fits into the universal dock, you should find a skin you like and then change the piece of plasic that changes the size of teh dock connecton to one suitable for your iPod Touch and teh skin/case.


Locking my machine causes my network Connection to sleep

If your MacBook is plugged in I would try the following.

Change the Engery Prefs to not spin down the disk or sleep the computer when it's plugged in.
Activate the Screen Saver to turn on at a hot corner.
Set the Screen Saver prefs to require password to log back in.

Now see if activating the Screen Saver causes you to loose your assigned IP.

The alternate method is to manually assign an IP to your MacBook while you're at work.


Try to ping the website as an example
 ping engweb.eng.company.com,
and get the IP of it.

Then from "Connect to Server", put the network path as IP/bugs/files , and try to connect it as smb://IP/bugs/files .

It could be an FTP network path so, worth to try ftp://IP/bugs/files, also you can try with cifs://IP.bugs/files if the above-mentioned option didn't work.


Secure delete an erased file using same file

There is no way to guarantee to put the data in the 'same place', no matter where in the filesystem you put it.

Hard drives just don't work that way. They will put specific data anywhere they like [or to an algorithm unfathomable to mere users]

To be reasonably certain of overwriting the data [with as much certainty as you can have without destroying the drive] you would use Erase Free Space - which you will have noticed you cannot do on an SSD - though the way SSDs use their storage is completely unlike a HD; they try to allocate writes all across their memory-space to even out the wear. This makes recovery of a deleted file a much more difficult task than with an HD, but not impossible.

As far as I'm aware [& nothing ever seems certain in these things] the best way to 'erase free space' on an SSD is to fill the drive with random data - anything, a movie file copied over & over til the disk is full, then delete it all again.

That will have written over the previous data at least.
Repeat ad nauseum for multiple pass erase [if that even really has any meaning for an SSD.


You can tap on the Emergency button on the iPhone lock screen to access Medical ID. If a user has set Medical ID and has enabled it's display on the lock screen, the owner information can be obtained.

Here's how you can access it as well as set it up.

Suppose you found a random iPhone and attempt to unlock it. After failing to authenticate via Touch ID/Face ID, the iPhone would present you with the lock screen. It would look somewhat similar to this:

Tap on Emergency and it would take you to the Emergency Call screen. If the owner has already setup Medical ID, it would be shown in the bottom left corner.

You can tap on the Medical ID button to view the owner info. Important identifying information such as owner name, photo, height etc. along with Emergency contact numbers can be accessed if set.

If you wish to set the Medical ID information for your own iPhone and want the same to be accessible via the lock screen, go to Settings app → Health → Medical ID and tap Edit to provide your information. Once done, enable Show When Locked under Emergency Access.


Get page number from Metadata instead of Index

Below is an AppleScript that declares a handler to obtain a list of pages from a PDF document, to which you supply the file path.  When the handler is called, if the file path is valid, it should return an AppleScript list that contains the page label of every page, ordered by page index.  However, bear in mind that PDF pages are indexed from zero, while AppleScript lists are indexed from one.  Therefore, item n from the returned list gives you the page label for the page at index n - 1.

use framework "Foundation"
use framework "PDFKit"
use scripting additions

property this : a reference to the current application
property PDFDocument : a reference to PDFDocument of this

on PDFPagesInDocument at filepath
        local filepath

        try -- test file exists
                set fileURL to filepath as text ¬
                        as {alias, POSIX file} ¬
                        as «class fsrf»
        on error
                return false
        end try

        script pages
                property list : {}
        end script

        tell PDFDocument to tell alloc()
                initWithURL_(fileURL)
                repeat with i from 0 to pageCount() - 1
                        tell pageAtIndex_(i) to set the end of the ¬
                                list of pages to its label() as text
                end repeat
        end tell

        return the list of pages
end PDFPagesInDocument

After pasting the above code into the top of your own script, you could then use it like this:

choose file of type "com.adobe.pdf" with prompt "Select PDF File"
set PDFpath to the result

PDFPagesInDocument at PDFpath

This would allow the user to select a PDF file themselves whenever the script runs.  However, you can specify your own, hard-coded file path, as I do here:

PDFPagesInDocument at "/Users/CK/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/Documents/Sun Tzu - The Art of War trans Giles Pax Librorum 2009.pdf"
set pageList to the result

--> {"Cover", "i", "ii", "iii", "iv", "v", "vi", "vii", "viii", "1", "2", "3", ¬
    "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9", "10", "11", "12", "13", "14", "15", "16", ¬
    "17", "18", "19", "20", "21", "22", "23", "24", "25", "26", "27", "28", ¬
    "29", "30", "31", "32", "33", "34", "35", "36", "37", "38", "39", "40", ¬
    "41", "42", "43", "44", "45", "46", "47", "48", "49", "50", "51", "52", ¬
    "53", "54", "55", "56"}

As you can see, this particular PDF copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War has 65 pages, where the page that a reader traditionally thinks of as being page 1, i.e. the first page one would flick to in order to begin reading a book's narrative, is the tenth page in the PDF file.

Other Questions:

  Is there a way to access the metadata page number instead of the regular page index?

Solution above.

  I would also like to know why Accessibility Inspector failed to indicate any information about the text field?

The software developer who codes an application gets to choose what information gets exposed for accessibility hooks.  There are guidelines that Apple lays out for developers to follow, and thankfully, most are conscientious and make sure their software reports information about the main UI elements, which, at a minimum, is meant to include the elements' name, description, object class, its purpose (or role), its position in the hierarchy, and a few other basic bits.

Besides being nice for those who script the UI to death, they actually serve a greater purpose, in aiding users with special needs to be able to interface with software that they otherwise wouldn't be able to use (for example, a blind person cannot see the value displayed for a page index, but voice over software would use accessibility hooks to retrieve the information and read it aloud to the user...provided the information has been exposed).

It appears Skim developers are just lazy or don't wish blind people to be using their software.

I've found out that the text field can be accessed with:

text field "Page" of group 2 of toolbar 1 of window "程元敏 - 2013 - 尚書學史.pdf (page 1150 of 1696)" of application process "Skim" of application "System Events"

Hence, the following attempt to get its value:

tell application "Skim"
    activate
    set theDoc to front document
    get value of text field "Page" of group 2 of toolbar 1 of theDoc
end tell

The above script resulted in this syntax error:

Expected end of line, etc. but found “"”

The information you gleaned from the first snippet are class objects that all belong to the application System Events.  So when you then try to get application Skim to reference these objects, it can't: it's never heard of a text field.  It does, however, recognise text as the name of a class object (the class of all AppleScript strings), and then tentatively assumes that field is an identifier for a variable that it will need to look up and read the value from.  That's where it would ordinarily then complain that you never declared a variable with that identifier, but the word "Page" that immediately follows is a bigger concern, as this makes no sense to it in any context.

That's when the compiler categorises this as being a syntax error, reports the double quote as the definitively-illegal character that makes the entire expression impossible to evaluate.

That said, even if it wasn't a syntactical error, it would have led to a runtime error because your reference stops at toolbar 1, having completely omitted the parent object of toolbar 1, which is window "程元敏 - 2013 - 尚書學史.pdf (page 1150 of 1696)" (which you could also refer to as window 1 for convenience), and its parent object, which is process "Skim", and its parent object, which is application "System Events".

What you needed to do is to take the snippet you were given, and use that with one tiny adjustment: the topmost object--which is the one at the end of the reference--is always going to be an application object, which in this case is "System Events".  This is the object that owns all of the other objects that the reference contains, and is therefore the thing you need to be tell-ing:

tell application "System Events"
    value of text field "Page" of ¬
        group 2 of toolbar 1 of ¬
        window 1 of process "Skim"
end tell

However, do not--as you have done--put your tell application "System Events" block inside a tell application "Skim" block.  Although you don't see it, AppleScript bitches about this, generates an error (quietly), figures out what you do mean, then thankfully gets on with it.  But it slows things down, which is the best case scenario, but in other situations, it can cause overlapping object classes or terminology to clash.  If you're lucky, it'll just cause the script to terminate in a runtime error.  If you're unlucky, things get overwritten and data gets lost.

Unless there's a specific reason to, and you know precisely what you're doing when doing it, don't ever put one application tell block (or clause) inside another.  Generally speaking, since most languages only carry out one operation at a time anyway (this isn't true, but pretend it is, because it is for AppleScript), you will only ever be getting AppleScript to talk to one application at any particularly point in your script, so try and make sure that this is the case when you review what you've written.


How do you download new songs when "Show All Songs" is off?

I have noticed this and sadly, I haven't found a way to enable it, I don't want to see every song on my iPhone either, just the ones I have downloaded.

If I want to listen to something not listed I have to change the setting back and then download, then change it back after downloading.

Alternatively you could (but at risk of wasting 1) Time and 2) Money) try these.

Plug the device into iTunes, or sync over a network
you can enable automatically download purchases to the iPhone


What parts can you scavenge from a nearly 3 year old MacBook Pro?

The memory and the hard drive are probably the easiest to remove and reuse. But there are plenty of parts that could be re-used including the keyboard, the display, optical drive and airport.

The site ifixit has a great guide to disassembling MacBook Pro machines.

If you do not have a need for the parts yourself, you may be able to sell them on eBay or elsewhere. I am not sure what the market is like for individual parts, but another option is to sell the machine as a whole on eBay stating that it is non-functioning and for parts. It would save you the trouble of disassembling it yourself.


Are there any car chargers that will turn my iPod off when the car is turned off?

You may want to look in the direction of Bluetooth audio.  I recently used a loaner 328i while my BMW was being worked on.  The car had BMW's iDrive setup with Nav and Bluetooth for phone and audio.

After pairing my iPhone with the car, it worked just as you're asking (with the added perk of not requiring a cable).  On returning to the car, without removing the iPhone from my pocket, my music picked right up where it left off.  Nice.

It was hard to go back to the "line-in" cable from the headphone jack when my car repairs were finished.

On review, I realize you were asking about car chargers as opposed to a more significant car audio change.  I have a Monster FM adapter for iPod that provides the feature you are talking about.  It is an older model, not compatible for charging iPhone 4, but it works well with my iPod touch 4th generation.

Here's a link to the current model on Amazon

An excerpt from one reviewer indicates:

  As a final detail, I'll point out a feature that may be unique to the
  iCarPlay. When you turn off the car, the device stops charging the
  iPod. What I was delighted to discover is that when this happens, the
  iCarPlay sends a signal to the iPod to pause itself. This is simply
  good, smart, considerate design - it takes the onus off the user to
  remember to pause the iPod to avoid having the iPod battery run down
  for no reason.


Can iPhone USB Hotspot be shared through a MacBook Pro?

This is possible using System Preferences > Sharing > Internet Sharing.

Cell Network > iPhone > USB > MacBook Pro > Wi-Fi > other devices

In fact, you have to do it this way as the Wi-Fi on your MBP can either join or create a Wi-Fi network, it cannot do both at the same time.

Also, you should check usage terms of your mobile data provider to see if they allow sharing of personal hotspot in this way - some do not.


If only one number key is working, it sounds like a hardware issue. My brother had a wireless keyboard that flaked out and only certain keys functioned (although in his case it was from a liquid spill).

Do you have any other Bluetooth-capable device to test with? Any iOS device can pair with the keyboard to test it.


is there a Cydia tweak that will make Google Maps the default map app?

There is a Cydia tweak available now called MapsOpener which should accomplish just that. http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/972329


It's probably a bug, but there's a strange workaround. After highlighting the Eyedropper icon, click and drag on the color next to it on the left.


How can I play chess over Game Center in Mountain Lion?

First of all, make sure you have added your systems knows about your Apple ID (go to System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Your User -> Apple ID).

Then launch Chess; obviously you'll need to have an internet connection.

After a short wait (a second or two in my case, might depend on your internet connection), a badge like the following should appear in the Chess window:

After it appears, you should simply be able to go to Game -> New... and select GameCenter Match in Players.


Using AppleScript to toggle Internet Sharing not working

You can use this code to activate sharing with settings which were already there:

tell application "System Preferences"
    activate
    set current pane to pane "com.apple.preferences.sharing"
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences"

    --find lock and click it if it is not unlocked
    repeat with x in buttons of window "Sharing"
        try
            if (value of attribute "AXTitle" of x) is equal to "Click the lock to make changes." then
                click x
            end if
        end try
    end repeat
    delay 5

    --find the checkbox for Internet Sharing and select the row so script can enable sharing through ethernet
    repeat with r in rows of table 1 of scroll area 1 of group 1 of window "Sharing"
        if (value of static text of r as text) starts with "Internet" then
            select r
        end if
    end repeat
    delay 2

    --enable Internet Sharing
    repeat with r in rows of table 1 of scroll area 1 of group 1 of window "Sharing"
        if (value of static text of r as text) starts with "Internet" then
            set sharingBool to value of checkbox of r as boolean
            select r
            if sharingBool is false then click checkbox of r
        end if
    end repeat
    delay 2

    if (exists sheet 1 of window "Sharing") then
        click button "Start" of sheet 1 of window "Sharing"
    end if
    delay 2

end tell
ignoring application responses
    tell application "System Preferences" to quit
end ignoring

Hope this helps!


Adding an airport extreme base station so I can connect an aftermarket backup disk to the network to be used by Time Machine.

From what I understand uverse needs their router used instead of any other. So I think you will have to put the AEBS into bridge mode and not have it working as a router. It should still serve up the hard drive as a time capsule, it just won't be doing the DHCP or DNS work for your network. The uverse router will be fulfilling that role.


Does showing a flashing time separator slow down a Mac?

No.
The menubar is controlled by the process SystemUIServer. It requires little performance with "flash the time separators" enabled.
There are other processes which are more significant for the CPU performance.

This screenshot is taken with flashing time separators and show seconds enabled.
You can easily verify this by resetting the menubar using:
killall -KILL SystemUIServer


How to delete all photos in the camera roll in iOS 8.x?

If you have a Mac, connect your iPhone to it.

There is a build in app (from Apple) called Image Capture in your Applications folder.

Use it to bulk delete Photos on iPhone.


OS X Yosemite - cannot remember Keychain access password

No. You cannot recover the contents of the keychain without the password. There is no way to reset the password retaining the keychain data.

If you want to access a login keychain after changing user's password, the keychain will still be accessible using the old password.

If the problem is reappearing password prompt after a login password change, you can delete and recreate the keychain, but the original data is non-recoverable.


Returning my borrowed iPad to work: how to clear of all personal apps/data

It depends on the MDM (Mobile Device Management) but you can wipe the iPad by following these steps:

Go to Setting
Go to General and (for iPads on the right) swipe down, tap on Reset.
Then tap on Reset all content and settings.

Your Apple ID will save all app's and when you log in your new iPad it will migrate some stuff. Again, depending on MDM your iCloud might have been turned off.


Unable to open some apps from iOS 12 Shortcuts

You could try using the "Open URL" action to open the app using URL schemes.

You can find some URL schemes by doing a Google search for it(here's a good list).

If you can't find it online, you can get it manually(you need a computer):

Download the .ipa of the app you want to get the URL schemes of(you can use iTunes)
Rename it from .ipa to .zip and extract it
Open the Payload folder
Right click on the application inside and chose "Show Package Contents"(or just open the .app folder if you're not on Mac)
Open the Info.plist file and look for "URL Schemes".


Messages to another iphone sometimes green, sometimes green with 'sent as text message'

'Send as test message' will appear when :

The other person is able to received an iMessage by a network connection but she turned off the feature.
When you want to send an in iMessage and the other person is able to received it, but you haven't a network connection.


If I didn't activate my find my iPhone is it possible for the thief to reset factory settings?

If you haven't enabled Find My iPhone, then you haven't enabled Activation Lock, which means the device can be reset simply by placing it in Recovery Mode and clicking Restore in iTunes. Setting a passcode protects the information on the device but won't prevent against restoring the OS.


You can see developers from the Google Chrome team discussing the issue here.

If I'm reading correctly, something triggers a change in the way things are drawn to the screen. The WindowServer process, which is responsible for drawing everything to the screen, issues a notification announcing that change to every process with a GUI and expects an acknowledgement of the notification. These Chrome processes don't respond, so the operating system flags the processes as "Not responding".

Long story short is that they think this is just a cosmetic problem that will be fixed shortly. It doesn't actually seem to affect performance.

They've found and fixed similar issues in the past, for example 304860. I think this is a side-effect of the multi-process architecture that they use for Chrome.


Something changed my Time Machine drives to APFS (Case-sensitive)

Thanks you two for replying.  I continued to research the subject and now realize that Apple automatically changes your external HDDs to an APFS format without a "by your leave".
That said, what I find odd is that instead of just changing them to APFS, Apple changed them to APFS (Case-sensitive).  Truly strange, that.


gptsync showing blank GPT and MBR partition table

I boot Fedora 13 Live CD and use terminal to do the following

su
gptsync /dev/sda

and my HDD has GPT and MBR synced!!

Now I can use parallel with existing (boot camp installed) Windows in my Mac mini.


Removing randomwhere, malware(leadingsignsearch) from [Security & Privacy] - [Full Disk Access]

Try Apple's command line tool tccutil! The general usage is:

tccutil command service bundleIdentifier

Only one command (reset) is implemented right now. The service is the protected item (e.g. Microphone or Photos). The bundleIdentifier is the bundle identifier of the app given access to protected services.

Open Terminal
Get the bundleIdentifier of the apps to remove:

mdls -name kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier -r /Applications/Some.app #Some.app is just an example.app

Real example:

host:~ user$ mdls -name kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier -r /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app
com.apple.Terminal

More methods to get the bundleIdentifier: Getting the bundle identifier of an OS X application in a shell script. The app to remove is not necessarily in /Applications or /Applications/Utilities/.
Remove all permissions for the app:

tccutil reset All bad.axisofevil.randomwhere #bad.axisofevil.randomwhere is just an examplary bundleIdentifier

RansomWhere?'s exec has a (null) bundleIdentifier. The associated launch daemon plist contains a com.objective-see.ransomwhere though, which looks like a typical  bundleIdentifier. I would try this one first.

BTW: RansomWhere? is no ransomware but a sec tool available here: RansomWhere?

Alternative approach:

Download tccutil (v1.2.5) from github. It's not related to Apple's command line tool though having the same name. It's also available via brew but apparently outdated there (v1.2.2) and won't work with Catalina.

Disable SIP
Download tccutil from github.com/jacobsalmela/tccutil (direct link: tccutil)
Unzip the downloaded tccutil-master.zip
tccutil is a Python script.
In the command line enter (in the example below I d/led the zip to Downloads and unzipped it there - apply the path below to your environment respectively):

-h to get a short help text

sudo python $USER/Downloads/tccutil-master/tccutil.py -h

-l to list all items in the accessibility database

sudo python $USER/Downloads/tccutil-master/tccutil.py -l

-r to remove an app/entry

sudo python $USER/Downloads/tccutil-master/tccutil.py -r /path/to/example.app|bundleIdentifier

Enable SIP


Is FileVault distinct from Finder's "Encrypt ..." command?

Filevault's use the XTS-AES 128 encryption. As Finder's contextual menu encryptation option and the Erase with the Encrypted format use Filevault's system, the encryption is the same.

Disk Utility's, in the other hand, when creating an new image, lets you choose between a 128 or 256 bits AES Encryption.

These two methods are, therefore, different. The latter just creates a folder which requires a password to be opened, while Filevault is a lot more complex.

And for the Logical Partition, here is explained in detail.

  How Does FileVault 2 Work?
  Compared to the bare file system, or even FileVault 1, FileVault 2 seems like magic. How does it work? The first thing to know is that Apple has included a Logical Volume Manager (LVM) with OS X Lion. This is what FileVault 2 gets to ride on top of. ￼

  Physical media still exists—we really can’t get away from that, as the data need to be stored somewhere. CoreStorage doesn’t really care what the media is, though: traditional spinning-plater drives, SSD, USB storage or even a disk image. Represented above in green, we have three volumes that reside on some physical disks. These three volumes are converted into CoreStorage volumes and imported into a Logical Volume Group (LVG). This sets up a “pool” of storage. Volumes can be added to and removed from the pool after creation. A LVG is represented with a UUID. This LVG is then brought into a Logical Volume Family (LVF). An LVF maintains properties about the volumes in a LVG and presents these Logical Volumes (LV) to the system. CoreStorage creates new device nodes for each LV. As shown in the visualization above, the LVs, in blue, have a device node (disk1, disk2, disk3). The ‘key’ icon associated with the LVF shows that encryption is one of the properties maintained about the LVG. This is the layer at which the encryption key resides.

  When you “Turn On FileVault…”, one of the steps converts your disk to a CoreStorage volume. Of course, when you “Turn On FileVault…”, only your boot disk is encrypted. Naturally, this fits Apple’s 99% case and is the right fit for the bulk of Mac users on the planet. That said, FileVault cannot and will not encrypt any other drives you may have attached to your system. That’s up to you.


Would an iPhone delete text messages by itself?

Are you able to see the SMS in spotlight? Worst case would be that the phone was unlocked while in your pocket and somehow (through the miracle of entropy) messages got deleted.

Otherwise the phone might be running out of space as to my knowledge there is a limit to 250,000 messages that can be stored on the phone (regardless of which GB model you have), what would supersede that message limit is if you have very little space left on your phone. By default the iPhone OS will make sure that it has space for temporary data and caches over SMS messages.


Is there any multiple terminal emulator for Mac OS?

iTerm 2 claims to be able to do this.

Edit: I just downloaded it, and it seems to work well enough that I think I'll switch from iTerm 1:

I'm not sure what's going on with you and macports, but I just installed tmux using macports. it took about 30 seconds, and was completely painless.

FWIW, I've subsequently spent enough time with GNU screen that I basically just use it for everything at this point. iTerm is nice if you want a local, mouse-driven multiplexer, but almost everything I do is server-side at this point, and doing it all over one SSH connection is much better anyways.


What is a typical transfer rate for a Time Machine backup over FireWire?

Turns out that the problem was that the disk wasn't empty. Formatting the disk and starting again solved the problem.


What are the consequences of running the 13" Retina MBP in higher native resolutions

From personal experience, the resolution has little impact of the 5 aspects listed. However, for me, there's a 6th and this seems to be affected quite a lot. Namely myself. I find that tiny fonts will make my eyes squint and I need to use more brainpower to read StackExchange questions, leaving a little less available to understand some of the remarkable comments left below the question (especially since the font is even smaller for those). My own battery life is severely degraded and I think I'll need to hit the sack in an hour or so. Damn it, that's it, I'll switch to 'Best for Retina', can't even see where the submit button is!


Trying to make an Attachment reminder using a RegEx, but the filter doesn't work

Mail rules are only applied to new messages in the inbox, not outgoing messages. I don't believe it is possible to have such functionality in Mail natively; you would need to create or install a plugin to do this. After some searching, it looks like there is a Mail plugin which does what you're looking for called Send Companion (free, with other paid features).

If you're running an older version of macOS (Tiger through Snow Leopard), Attachment Scanner (free) looks like it would do the trick.


Lost iPhone, if "Lost Mode" is on would someone still be able to access messages etc?

No, notifications like messages won't be displayed in the lock screen.

I have just tested it with iOS 10.3.2 with an iPhone 6s. After disabling 'Lost Mode' you will see the messages your phone received in the meantime.


Random Kernel Panics with Shutdown Cause: -64

From the details you provided. It sounds as if the kernel panic is due to to an issue in the firmware of your device. There are two things you can do:

(before doing any of the solutions, always have a backup of your files, especially the important ones)

Use the App Store to see if there is an update for your firmware. Just and fyi, you should update your system to the most recent version available.
Do a quick Google search on the firmware updates for your model. Download and install.

Worst case scenario: the motherboard could be failing. The apple diagnostic does not always give an accurate test if the hardware. The more in depth apple test is available to Apple Care repair services.

Best case scenario: all you have to do is SMC reset and a NVRAM reset.

Follow instructions for these resets here:

NVRAM reset
SMC reset

If none of these options work, I would write down the panic error that is displayed in the text, and do a quick Google search for anything related to the panic error, i.e. why does (put panic error here) occur....


Can you install two versions of an app on the same iOS device?

It's not so much the name -- at least not the visible one, as an upgrade can change the visible name -- but it's the bundle identifier inside the app that identifies it and allows the OS to know it's supposed to perform an upgrade. The developer has to keep the bundle identifier the same in order to actually provide an upgrade and not a new app, so no, you're out of luck.*

*Note that there may well be some way to do such a thing if you jailbreak your device, but I have no firsthand knowledge of such.


iMessage has stopped working on MacBook Pro

Try to use one address (for example e-mail) on all your devises, it worked for me.


How do I automatically connect to a VPN when using Wi-Fi in OS X?

I created a script and launch agent that will automatically connect to a VPN connection when it cannot ping a specific address. It could probably be modified in a way that looks at wifi network whitelist and connects to the VPN if the current wifi is not in that list. As it is right now the vpn will always try to connect if it cannot hit an address that is on the vpn network.

The agent calls a shell script every 30 seconds and tries to ping an IP address that is static on the vpn network. If it cannot ping that IP it enables your vpn connection.

If you did this through an Apple Script App, the app icon will always be in your dock. I prefer to have this running automatically in the background.

Clone the project below and follow the directions in the readme. The end result is an installer package that will place a launch agent plist file in /Library/LaunchAgents/ and a shell script in /Library/Application Support/melonsmasher/.

Be sure to edit the shell script(auto-vpn) with your VPN connection name and an IP address that is on the VPN network. You can change the run interval in the plist file(com.melonsmasher.autovpn.plist).

https://github.com/MelonSmasher/OSX-AutoVPN


Terminal.app magically changing color values

In order to get the right color scheme the background needs to be explicitly declared inside LSCOLOR (gnu) or LS_COLOR (linux) and match the non-ANSI one set in your Terminal.app (i.e. Window > Background > Color and Effects).

So, something like LSCOLORS=eadafafacafafacacaeaea would work while something like LSCOLORS=exdxfxfxcxfxfxcxcxexex wouldn't.


I'm the creator of gif text, an update is in review right now, there are about 20+ new gifs, and I'm constantly making more.

Another option is that you can create a folder in your photo album, and email yourself the gifs you want that aren't in my app, then you have access to as many as you want.


Mac not working correctly after using Wine

Issue was that F1, F2 etc were checked as standard function keys under keyboard in system preferences. Unchecked these and now everything is working OK.


Not able to extract any .gz or .tar file (Mac OS X 10.5.8)

Does it work from a terminal for tgz files? Open a terminal and cd to the folder that has the files and try something like this:

tar xvzf file.tar.gz

Or for plain tar files:

tar xvf file.tar


declare -x messages appear in my terminal. How can I get rid of it?

There are many different Bash script files that get executed before and after your .bash_profile file is executed. This Bash Reference Manual page explains all the various Bash script files that get executed upon starting up a Bash shell.

p.s. Keep in mind that any one of those files could include commands to load/execute yet another file.


iCloud password prompt on OS X Yosemite startup

If you have another Apple device, such as an iPad or iPhone, and you deleted iCloud off of it, it can disrupt every device you have, and you will just need to log in again, possibly generating App-Specific Passwords for your Mac. This happened to me around the same time, but I can't remember if it was the result of the upgrade to OS X 10.10.4 that broke the connection of it was when I deleted iCloud from my iPad (I was lending it to someone).

You may need to log iCloud in with your Apple ID password, or if that does not work, log in to your Apple ID and generate an App-Specific Password for iCloud.

The same problem cropped up for iMessage/Facetime as well. There you definitely need to generate an App-Specific Password, however I think I resolved the issue with iCloud by entering my Apple ID password. Once it sets in your Keychain, you shouldn't see the pop up again.


No: the dictionary files OS X’ Dictionary app uses are read-only, and Dictionary.app does not support annotations. You can create new dictionaries (though that is not a trivial task), but not modify the existing ones.


Is there a 5-second rewind button on iTunes?

For macOS users, hold down Command + Option, then press left/right arrow to skip backward/forward five seconds.

For Windows users, hold down Control + Alt, then press left/right arrow to skip backward/forward five seconds. The shortcut also works for VLC.

I also have KMPlayer and 5KPlayer installed as alternative players, and the shortcut is easy to remember:left/right arrow for 5 second rewind/forward.


User Richard Wick posted an answer which explains that the command has to call the setuid function in order to elevate the privileges of the command.
So changing command ownership to root and adding the s bit to the command's file mode is not enough. The command itself must also be written to ask the operating system for root privileges.


It might your keyboard issue which is just a random guess. However before going on hardware, why not you try to reset SMC.

The System Management Controller — or SMC — is responsible for various pieces of hardware inside your machines such as the battery, fans, logic board and more.

The SMC is even responsible for recognizing when certain buttons are
pressed.

You can take the guidance from https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

It doesn't hamper anything so I think it is worth to try.


I had this issue. Turned out it was OpenPGP. Went to their website, upgraded to the beta. Issue stopped.

Also, you might want to check for other Mail plugins.


iPad PDF reader that supports multi-page viewing?

That’s not a problem with GoodReader
  for iPad – one of the only apps to
  offer a special double-page mode for
  viewing the entire spread!

GoodReader


LaunchBar/Quicksilver as a replacement of Spotlight?

QuickSliver has Spotlight plugin and Dictionary (which can fetch definition from dict.org plugin.

The spotlight plugin allows you to search for a string in either Finder, Window or a command window.


Battery percentage on iPod touch 5G iOS 8

The iPod Touch does not allow you to view battery percentage. Only the iPhone and iPad.

"You can see what percent the battery is at on your iPhone or iPad, but not your iPod touch." -- http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201102


I am able to successfully type "état" into Chrome on Mavericks by typing the sequence option-e, e.

In other words, hold down the option key and press the letter 'e'. Then press the letter 'e' again. The accented letter only appears once.


Do root actions as non root in Mavericks?

Permissions to remove a file from a directory are not related to the file, but to the directory the file is in.  Your group, or everyone, has write permissions on the directory where you are able to delete the file.

In the example below, there is a file which only root can read/write; but, user "administrator" owns the directory, and has rwx permissions.  Another user ("my_user") is unable to remove the file, but "administrator" can.

sh-3.2# ls -lFa
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   3 administrator  wheel  102 Jan 28 11:12 ./
drwxrwxrwt  18 root           wheel  612 Jan 28 11:12 ../
-rw-------   1 root           wheel    0 Jan 28 11:12 a.txt
sh-3.2# su my_user
bash-3.2$ rm a.txt
override rw-------  root/wheel for a.txt? y
rm: a.txt: Permission denied
bash-3.2$ exit
exit
sh-3.2# su administrator
bash-3.2$ rm a.txt
override rw-------  root/wheel for a.txt? y
bash-3.2$


How can I text using my Mac without having an iPhone to Android devices?

Why not go with Skype?

It has clients for Mac, PC, iPhone, and Android.  It even has the option to send native SMS (text) messages but there really is no need if both parties have a Skype client.

Best of all, she can message, voice and video chat.


OS X Mail: Search within message (including header)

After months of assuming there was no solution to my inquiry, I stumbled on a way to search the entire contents of an individual OS X Mail Message, including headers.

First open the email message you want to search in it's own window. Before initiating your search, select the menu item View > Message > Raw Source or alternately Option-Command-U from the keyboard. This will bring forward a new menu with the entire plain-text content of your message, including extraneous information such as headers.

If you search this Raw Source version of your message using Command-F or Edit > Find > Find… from the menu, the search will include everything in the message, including the headers.

  Note: Although I'm currently using OS X Mail version 6.5, I verified that this technique also works at least back to version 5.3.


Can you change MacBook Bluetooth ID so two os can be seen as different hardware?

Automatically pair the same set of Bluetooth Devices, while booting MACOS from 2 independent partitions:

(Each partition contains the whole MACOS)

Use identical Bluetooth.plist file on multiple partitions:

I presume that your partitions both contain the entire MACOS, and they do not share any system storage space. I recommend simply to:

Setup all the Bluetooth devices after booting with partition 1.
Copy the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist file to a USB drive.
Boot from partition 2.
Replace the partition 2 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist with the file from the USB drive.

Let me know if this worked out for you.


The battery on that MacBook Pro is dead. You could:

Have Apple replace the battery for you. However, since your laptop is most likely out of warranty after 6 years, this will cost you a pretty penny.
Buy a replacement battery and replace it yourself using these instructions from iFixit. The procedure is rated as easy and the page includes a video guide.
Use that laptop as a desktop replacement (permanently plugged-in). You’ll need to be extra careful to avoid data loss, considering the MagSafe connector will come unplugged very easily. You may consider duct-taping it in place.


How can I view finder file comments on iOS?

While it appears that iCloud Drive does actually sync file comments, the Files app unfortunately has no built-in way to read these. Instead, you'll need to use a third-party app to achieve this. The following is a free, fairly straightforward (but limited—see below) approach using Scriptable:

Install Scriptable from the App Store

Launch Scriptable and press the + button in the top right to create a new script

Paste the following:

const file = args.fileURLs[0]
const fm = FileManager.iCloud()
if (!fm.fileExists(file)) {
    QuickLook.present('Invalid file')
    return
}
fm.downloadFileFromiCloud(file)
const comment = fm.readExtendedAttribute(file, 'com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment')
if (comment === null) {
    QuickLook.present('Comment not found or failed to parse.')
    return
}
trailer = comment.slice(comment.length - 32, comment.length)
String.prototype.hexSlice = function (start, end) {
  return parseInt(this.slice(start, end).split('').map(c => ('0' + c.charCodeAt(0).toString(16)).slice(-2)).join(''), 16)
}
offsetTableStart = trailer.hexSlice(24, 32)
offsetTableOffsetSize = trailer.hexSlice(6, 7)
topObjectStart = comment.hexSlice(offsetTableStart, offsetTableStart + offsetTableOffsetSize)
topObjectLength = comment.hexSlice(topObjectStart, topObjectStart + 1) & 0x0F
if (topObjectLength === 0x0F) {
  lengthPower = comment.hexSlice(topObjectStart + 1, topObjectStart + 2) & 0x0F
  charsStart = topObjectStart + 2 + Math.pow(2, lengthPower)
  topObjectLength = comment.hexSlice(topObjectStart + 2, charsStart)
} else {
  charsStart = topObjectStart + 1
}
topObject = comment.slice(charsStart, charsStart + topObjectLength)
QuickLook.present(topObject)

Tap the settings/"toggle switches" icon , tap "Name," and give the script a name (e.g., "File Comments")

Tap "Share Sheet Inputs" and select "File URLs" (then navigate back out by pressing Back > Done)

Now, whenever you want to view the comment for a file in the Files app, you can:

Select the file and hit the Share icon

Choose the "Run Script" action and tap the script you just created (the file comment should appear in an overlay)

Unfortunately, you'll probably find that the script fails for certain comments. This is because Scriptable can't handle certain characters, and unfortunately there's no way to work around this. (The (brief) technical explanation is that Scriptable attempts to read all extended attributes as strings, but since the comment is actually binary data, it seems to stumble on certain bytes. I don't fully understand why it fails when it does—it's not just on Unicode strings—but the whole approach is a bit hacky to begin with.)
An alternative, much more robust approach would be to use Pythonista ($9.99) to directly access the extended attributes and avoid Scriptable's problematic string conversions. Here's a Python script that does what you want (create the script in Pythonista, then press the settings cog and add it under Share Extension Shortcuts):
import appex
import console
import plistlib
import ui

from objc_util import *

def main():
    fp = appex.get_file_path()
    if not fp:
        console.hud_alert('Error: Invalid file', 'error')
        return
    extd_attrs = ObjCClass('NSFileManager').defaultManager().attributesOfItemAtPath_error_(fp, None)['NSFileExtendedAttributes']
    if extd_attrs is None:
        console.hud_alert('No extended attributes found', 'error')
        return
    attr_data = extd_attrs['com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment']
    if attr_data is None:
        console.hud_alert('No comment found', 'error')
        return
    attr_bytes = nsdata_to_bytes(attr_data)
    comment = plistlib.readPlistFromBytes(attr_bytes)
    tv = ui.TextView()
    tv.text = comment
    tv.editable = False
    tv.present()

main()

(Note that os.getxattr is broken in Pythonista, hence the Objective-C workaround.)
For those who are interested, here are some references for the (very, very rough) manual bplist parsing I implemented in JavaScript:

https://medium.com/@karaiskc/understanding-apples-binary-property-list-format-281e6da00dbd
https://github.com/joeferner/node-bplist-parser/blob/master/bplistParser.js


I need a high quality web cam - what specs should I look for on the box?

Three things are important when choosing a webcam.

Resolution (number of pixels)
Framerate
Low-light quality

I noticed from your previous question that you have a 13" MacBook Pro.  This is capable of displaying 720p resolution but someone on the other end of your video call may be capable of displaying 1080p or more.  So the resolution you need depends on how you're going to use it.  If you're making videos of yourself to be edited later you might like to choose a camera that's capable of 1080p.

You would need a camera with a minimum framerate of 30 frames per second (FPS) to get smooth video.  Higher would be even better.  However, be aware that some webcams will lower their resolution to obtain higher framerates so if keeping a high resolution is important you need to check what framerate the camera can sustain at each resolution.

Low-light quality is something that a lot of webcams are bad at.  Manufacturers may make claims about their webcams which are not true so it's best to read reviews and try any webcams you're considering before you purchase.


Is there software to mirror a Windows PC via AirPlay?

I use a program called AirParrot to mirror my Windows PC to my Apple TV (third generation). There is also a version that works on Macs.

Note that the ability to mirror a Mac to an AppleTV is a new feature of OS X Mountain Lion.


In OS X 10.9 and later:

pmset displaysleepnow

By itself, this command only causes the display to sleep, resulting in a black screen. By configuring your computer to require a password immediately after sleep, this one-liner works as a "lock computer" command. The preference is available at System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General.

Source: How to lock screen on MacBook Air?


Browsing web page stored on local machine

Enable the web server on your Mac via System Preferences:

You can then save the file in your Personal Website folder, as described in System Preferences. Use the supplied URL on both your Mac and on your iOS devices. The System Preferences panel will walk you through it fairly well.


Why is my iPhone 3GS proximity detector not working?

I don't remember ever reading about a problem with proximity sensors in iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.x. The well-known problem was with iPhone 4, and it was fixed in iOS 4.2.1.

I guess you will have to restore your iPhone, either to verify that your problem was caused by some rogue app you installed via jailbreak or to take the phone to an Apple Store.


Why are all of my windows tiny when I plug in an external monitor?

I don't have the correct solution, but I use the Moom app from the App Store configured with some shortcuts to maximize, shrink and or move my windows around.

So in my case it only takes around .5 seconds for me to resize the screen.


How to export Reminders task to Todoist?

This is not possible within the App itself.
Although you can download an App called IFTTT, it connects the Apps you use and make them work together.

Sync Reminders

When you connect two Apps in IFTTT you create a Recipe, turns out there's a recipe right for what you're looking for!
You can find one here and here, after you've downloaded the IFTTT App.

Hope this helped you out!


How can I find what process is starting apps in the background?

CIJScannerRegister is of no use if you don't have an old Canon Inkjet, but Mavericks really wants to have it running all the time.

It's in /Library/Image Capture/Support/LegacyDeviceDiscoveryHelpers, but if you remove it it will appear again in the form of a "Canon Inkjet Printer Software Update" in the App Store.

The only solution I found was to delete the executable inside the app bundle so the OS thinks it's still installed but it can't run.

In Terminal:

killall CIJScannerRegister
cd /Library/Image\ Capture/Support/LegacyDeviceDiscoveryHelpers/CIJScannerRegister.app/Contents/MacOS/
sudo rm CIJScannerRegister


Comparing Time Machine backups with Beyond Compare?

Beyond Compare would not corrupt your Time Machine backups so long as you just compare files and folders, but it would certainly corrupt the backups if you use any features which alter your data.
And, from what is on the Beyond Compare web site there is nothing to suggest that it is aware of the specifics of how TM writes to the destination disk.
So between lack of awareness of TM formats and risk of modifying/corrupting the backup, I recommend you not use Beyond Compare.
For functionality and safety, it is much better to use a tool designed for Time Machine.  That means BackupLoupe, as @mmmmmm has suggested. BackupLoupe reads the TM destination and builds its own database of the content.  Under no circumstances can it modify your TM backup.
As well as making it easy to find significant changes, BackupLoupe includes a search capability to assist when finding files to recover.


Some texts automatically underlined in iPhone 5 with iOS 7.1

This is a change to show which button labels are pressable.

You should go to Settings > General > Accessibility and turn on/off Button Shapes and then revisit the app in question. You should only see underlines and shapes when this control is on, and this is to indicate what buttons that look like text are actually tappable for those with accessibility needs.


Purpleair.com map doesn't display on iPhone

The solution was to enable Java Script. In Settings > Safari > Advanced > Enable Java Script, move the switch to the right. The map loaded immediately.


new windows laptop or upgrade to 15inch macbook?

I'd go for the monitor. You'll then have dual displays when you're at your desk, and a smaller, lighter portable when you're not. Best of both worlds, and the cheapest solution. :-)


After trying everything i could find on the web, i figured out that it was a page in the (HP) printer queue that was keeping my Mac from sleeping for days. Turned on the printer, forced the page to print and my Mac is now FINALLY going back to sleep.

There was no indication of this in the Activity Monitor nor the "pmset -g assertions" command that pointed to anything printer related. Hope this helps someone !


Move file with specific extension from a directory hierarchy to a destination

If you are looking for a command-line solution, use the following:

find /source_root_directory_path -name '*.jpg' -exec mv {} /target_directory_path \;


Two persons simultaneously using one MacBook Pro (working in two apps simultaneous )

Two people using the same graphical user session, with different input devices, is not possible on macOS.

Remote Session - VNC

However, you can remote log into a Mac and share the computer's performance. Remote log in will give you two graphical user sessions running on one Mac.

You could use an inexpensive computer, such as a Raspberry Pi, and have it remotely connect to your MacBook Pro. One user could then use the Mac directly and the other via the remote connection and a monitor.


Unfortunately, it's seems not possible to create account from Lion Recovery.

It's a long shot but if you have enough space on your disk, you can create a new partition and use it to install another Mac OS Lion and get back your data (with mounting the "old" partition to do so).

After that you can get rid of the first partition or reset it with your TM Backup and add your "new" data.


Deleting all photos from iCloud immediately 2018

On a Mac you can open System Preferences -> iCloud
Click the "Manage..." button in the bottom right corner and then disable and delete the iCloud Photo Library.


What is the largest hard drive a Mac Pro 3,1 (early 2008) will support?

I don't know any upper limit, but after checking more carefully, in mine I have

1 x 3TB
3 x 2TB
1 x 1TB [SSD in the spare optical bay, wired down into the 'secret' extra SATA slots]

Late addition
It appears that there is not necessarily a data limit but a physical limit.
New 6TB+ drives have the screw-holes in a different place & will not physically fit the HD sleds in a 3,1.
So it turns out that the limit is 4TB - the largest with the old screw-placement.

You can get replacement sleds for a 4,1 or 5,1 from OWC, but not for the 3,1


How do I restore the tab to Increase Indent Level in Keynote '13?

After a great deal of testing, I have come to the conclusion that tab works to increase indent, but ONLY if your master slide is configured to have bullets. My solution (since I did not really want bullets on my slides) was to turn on bullets and set the color opacity to 0.


This is a temporary issue in that running the script from an OS older than 10.9 seems to error out.

Can you take your image to a Machine that's already updated to run the script? You'd need two USB drives unless you're OK erasing the one holding the download before you know the script works.


As of a few weeks ago there is a Mac OS X version of Notability.

You might also be interested what Gingerlabs says about it (FAQ).


It's not loading for me either on my Mac in the US. However, if you request directly to https

https://identity.apple.com/pushcert/ - works for me
http://identity.apple.com/pushcert/ - fails without much of an error message

If you need the non-https link to work or both are failing for you, I would perhaps try on a mobile network just to make sure it's not a routing issue between your ISP and Apple. Mobile safari should work to test the connection and it gives a more friendly user error message IMO.

https://developer.apple.com/system-status/
https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/

Since you have an issue that's not covered, I would open an actual ticket with main support and ask them if you need to contact developer support instead for the push cert renewal.


Same app version but different size on iPhones on TestFlight

Apple servers are able to re-pack your application. For each device Apple determines which resources will be actually used. They prepare package for the given device (for example only images with correct scale for given device will be included in package). Also, if bitcode option is enabled, they are able to re-compile your app in order to provide optimized binary for each device. All of the above might change the size of your application.

A universal .ipa is a compressed app bundle that contains all of the resources to run the app on any device. Bitcode has been recompiled, and additional resources needed by the App Store, such as .dSYM files and On Demand Resources, are removed. For App Store apps, this .ipa is downloaded to devices running iOS 8 or earlier.
A thinned .ipa is a compressed app bundle that contains only the resources needed to run the app on a specific device. Bitcode has been recompiled, and additional resources needed by the App Store, such as .dSYM files and On Demand Resources, are removed. For App Store apps, this .ipa is downloaded to devices running iOS 9 or later.
source

You can check the size of the executable for each build in app section of iTunesConnect. Just enter Activity-> Click your most recent build ->App Store File Sizes.


Replace iSight camera on MacBook Air late 2010 (A1369)

The problem with this is that in order to get to the iSight camera, you have to detach the display assembly from the body and then get the casing off, which probably means removing the display gasket and the display itself (non-trivial) because the iSight cable is routed behind the display.

You can find guides at iFixit on how to detach the display assembly (seems to be harder with an Air, it was simpler for my MBP), which appears to involve taking everything out of the bottom casing. And then you need to take apart the display. They don't even have a guide for this, you must look elsewhere (Youtube or so, but this should give you the idea that it's difficult).

Long story short: The replacement part may be cheap, but the procedure isn't, and is probably best left to a professional, unless you know what you are doing.


Assuming your case is not the cause of the rattling issue (in other words take it off for a while and see) then this is an issue that should be brought to the attention of an Apple Store Genius near you.

The days of computers, especially laptops, making any kind of noise (barring the occasional optical drive seek noise...) is long over.

The Mac is still (essentially) brand new and under warranty and Apple needs to have a look at it.

Be advised that if they need to send it off for work they will not guarantee data on your HD stays in place. So make sure you have (at a minimum) an up-to-date Time Machine backup. Me, I'd image it (SuperDuper or CCC) just before heading out the door to my Apple Store appointment.


How do I set the creation time of a file?

SetFile can also be used to set the creation date before the modification date or in the future.

-d date    Sets the creation date, where date is a string of the
           form: "mm/dd/[yy]yy [hh:mm:[:ss] [AM | PM]]" Notes:
           Enclose the string in quotation marks if it contains spa-
           ces. The date must be in the Unix epoch, that is, between
           1/1/1970 and 1/18/2038. If the year is provided as a two-
           digit year, it is assumed to be in the 21st century and
           must be from 00 (2000) through 38 (2038).

This would set the creation date to the modification date:

SetFile -d "$(GetFileInfo -m test.txt)" test.txt

SetFile and GetFileInfo are part of the command line tools package, which can be downloaded from developer.apple.com/downloads or from Xcode's preferences after installing it from the App Store.


I personally love 1Password, it is a great solution for iOS and Mac, they have an really good and fast syncing option (you can choose if you want to use iCloud, Dropbox or you can sync with the Mac app via wifi), the Developer just updated the app for iOS 7.

The only disadvantage per your requirements is that it is not open-source.


MacBook Air doesn't recognize headphone anymore

Restarting the OS X audio subsystem might fix the problem, without the need to do a full reboot. You could try running the following commands in Terminal

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext
sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext
sudo killall coreaudiod


A file viewer like in Total Commander / Krusader

I found that the closest match is DoubleCommander. With some Mac quirks, as Mac lacks keys like Insert, PgUp/PgDn so it's impossible to map the actions to shortcuts I am used to. But still, it's a decent (cross-platform) two-panel manager.


If you assume a malware infection, by all means reinstall the OS by rebooting into the Recovery Partition with Cmd-R and reinstall from there. This should not affect your existing users (or their files).

See OS X: About OS X Recovery for details about the procedure.


How to move photos from an old eMac to an iPad?

I wound up giving PhotoSync a try. This had better (compared to GoodReader), if not entirely satisfying, results: I was able to transfer the photos (after exporting the photos from iPhoto on the eMac and copying them to an intermediate, newer Mac), and found that most had the correct date. But about 150 did not, these appeared as if taken today. I deleted them again for now. I suspect these failed because they don't have any EXIF dates set.

Next time I meet up with the eMac/iPad owner, I will try transferring the remaining 150 photos again after forcibly setting their EXIF date to the same date as the file's modification date. There's an answer on the Photography SE which details how to do that using the command line utility “exiftool”. I'll try to remember to report back here on whether this works. I’d still appreciate any answer explaining a more straightforward approach.

Edit: transferring the remaining 150 photos after forcing their EXIF dates was succesful. I'll summarize my approach for anyone wanting to follow it:

On the iPad, get PhotoSync from the App Store.
On an intermediate Mac, get the PhotoSync companion app from the Mac App Store.
On the intermediate Mac, install “exiftool” (I used MacPorts to do this).
In iPhoto on the eMac, use the “Export” option in the menu. Make sure to set the options to “Original”. Transfer the exported files to the intermediate Mac. Make sure to use a means of transfer that preserves the file modification dates.
Use the following Terminal command on the intermediate Mac to fix files without any EXIF dates by setting the EXIF “ModifyDate” to the file modification date:

exiftool -overwrite_original_in_place -preserve '-FileModifyDate>ModifyDate' -if 'not $DateTimeOriginal' -if 'not $ModifyDate' -if 'not $CreateDate' *
Open PhotoSync on the iPad, and use the PhotoSync companion app on the intermediate Mac to transfer the files using the “Send” command in the menu.

Note that a drawback of this approach is that it doesn't preserve the organization of the photos into albums that was done on the eMac, but that was not an issue in my case.

Instead of PhotoSync, you may be able to use AirDrop to transfer the files, but I was not able to try this as I didn’t have access to a Mac which supports AirDrop to iOS devices.

Before fixing any files with exiftool, you may want to move the ones that need fixing to a separate subdirectory: exiftool -Directory=needs_fixing -if 'not $DateTimeOriginal' -if 'not $ModifyDate' -if 'not $CreateDate' *


Next time I'll remember to set my POP3 server to keep mails for a month before I ever upgrade again :/

Simplest solution seems to have been to re-clone back from my two-week-old El Capitan clone - the one I made right before the upgrade.
That successfully took me back to El Capitan - but from 2 weeks ago.

That left me with having to remember/pick through what had been changed in the past two weeks.

Carbon Copy Cloner makes a Safety Net folder containing older versions - though in this case it was more useful for finding newer versions of apps I'd updated in the meantime.
Mainly what it had dumped in there was "Sierra".

My most important stuff was my photography folder, so I simply copied that in its entirety from a safety copy [yesterday's Sierra clone].

A Parallels VM I knew I had been working on I did the same.

Because Mail had changed its library structure I lost two weeks of relatively unimportant emails - I can live with that.  If I remember anything hugely important I can boot to my Sierra clone & forward it to myself.
Time Machine proved to be completely useless in that respect. It claimed to be able to restore missing emails, but as everything in the past two weeks was in a newer format, it couldn't actually find anything.

So, job done. It actually took about 45 mins in all; once I'd figured out the structure & the potential sacrifice.

The moral of the story... sometimes two clones & two complete backups still isn't enough to get back all data.

I'm still open to alternative suggestions.
I'm in a position to simply repeat the process, as I still have copies of all the 'originals'.


Is it ok to mix 2 GB and 4 GB DIMMS in an iMac (mid 2011)?

Yes - it's OK to mix. The more RAM you have, the more files can be cached over time and the more processes can sit resident in RAM for faster switching between tasks running at the same time.

I haven't read the tech note on the latest iMacs, but in general I have never seen a benchmark that shows any mac ever ran slower with more memory. (even the initial intel GMA integrated MacBooks where having non matched RAM where there were only two slots did noticeably slow the graphics performance). The iMacs of the past several years all need high quality ram that matches their specifications fairly exactly - but run well with whatever lineup of good ram is installed.

If it makes a difference, the tech note and consumer installation guide will tell you in which order to install RAM and will call out when matching pairs will make sense due to the architecture of that machine. Again, more ram is always faster.

Also - when you are buying a new mac - often the seller will credit the value of the pre-installed RAM as new memory if you want to buy up to have larger chips (2x4GB) and then you can add the second later as needed.


Create bootable USB of Windows 8.1 on Mavericks 10.9.4

You have to have a version of Bootcamp AND Mac that explicitly supports Windows 8.1. Apple has a knowledge-base article that shows what O/S and Mac supports what version of Windows:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5634

Unfortunately there are some Mac models that just won't support certain versions of Windows. Interestingly (or oddly..) enough the new MacPro and most (many?) of the new Macs only support windows 8.


Can MacFusion be used under Mountain Lion?

Unfortunately Macfusion no longer works, it hasn't been maintained in a long time. Newer versions were around for a while but as near as I can tell, none of them work anymore either. Your best bet is a commercial product which can mount FTP or WebDAV disks such as Transmit. For mounting disks via SSH, I believe we're out of luck.

Such is progress.


Why do I have a "HD" in my bootcamp screen and not macOS or similar

The icon label is stored in the APFS volume Preboot in the same container as Big Sur.
The steps to change the icon label for Big Sur (macOS 11.1) is given below. Some of the steps are unique to Big Sur. Therefore, the steps may need to be adapted before being applied to previous versions of macOS.

While booted to Big Sur, get the name of the startup disk. From the menu bar, select →About This Mac. A popup similar to the one shown below will appear. In this example, the name of the startup disk is MyBigSur.

Next, you will need to boot to built-in macOS Recovery for Big Sur.

For Mac computers with an Intel processor:
From the menu bar, select →Restart….
Press and hold the option key immediately after your Mac begins to restart.
Keep holding until the Mac Startup Manager icons appear.
If your Mac is using a firmware password, you're prompted to enter the password.
Press the ⌘+R key combination.
If requested, enter the password for an administrator account.

For Mac computers with Apple silicon:
From the menu bar, select →Shut Down….
Press and hold the power button on your Mac until you see “Loading startup options.”
Select Options, then select Continue.
If requested, enter the password for an administrator account.

From the menu bar select Utilities→Terminal. A Terminal application window will appear.

Enter a command whose output can be used to determine the APFS container identifier and the APFS volume group UUID for the startup disk. Below is the command used in this example.

Note: Replace name MyBigSur with your own value.

diskutil info MyBigSur | grep -e Group -e "APFS Container"

Below is the example output. From the output, the identifier and UUID can be determined to be disk1 and 99740195-F728-458E-85A4-2E42A7932CB4, respectively.
   APFS Container:            disk1
   APFS Volume Group:         99740195-F728-458E-85A4-2E42A7932CB4

Enter a command whose output can be used to determine the identifier for APFS volume with the name Preboot. Below is the command used in this example.

Note: Replace identifier disk1 with your own value.

diskutil list disk1 | grep Preboot

Below is the example output. From the output, the identifier can be determined to be disk1s2.
           2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 297.6 MB   disk1s2

Enter a command to mount the APFS volume with the name Preboot. Below is the command used in this example.

Note: Replace identifier disk1s2 with your own value.

diskutil mount disk1s2

Below is example output.
Volume Preboot on disk1s2 mounted

Enter the commands that will change the icon label. Below are the commands used in this example to change the icon label to macOS 11.1.

Note: Replace directory 99740195-F728-458E-85A4-2E42A7932CB4 and icon label macOS 11.1 with your APFS volume group UUID and desired icon label, respectively.

cd /Volumes/Preboot/99740195-F728-458E-85A4-2E42A7932CB4/System/Libary/CoreServices/
bless --folder . --label "macOS 11.1"
echo -n "macOS 11.1" > .disk_label.contentDetails
chown :wheel .disk_label*

From the menu bar, select →Restart to restart the Mac.

References
Mac computers with Apple silicon
Mac startup key combinations
Use macOS Recovery on an Intel-based Mac
Use macOS Recovery on a Mac with Apple silicon


iPad Retrieve a passcode to activate IOS 9

The passcode is either an activation locked device or can be restored from iTunes. If you don't need to make a backup or get the data, connect to iTunes and erase and restore.

If you do need the data, be organized trying pass codes until you give up and erase the device.


Short Answer: yes.

Long Answer: Yes, but…a full answer to this question includes a technical answer and a practical concern.

First, the technical answer

You can install a .pkg or .mpkg using this syntax:

sudo installer -verboseR -pkg "/path/to/pkg/foo.mpkg"

If the installer isn't 'signed' properly, you'll need to add -allowUntrusted

sudo installer -allowUntrusted -verboseR -pkg "/path/to/pkg/foo.mpkg"

You may also need to specify where you want it installed, using -target / (I'm not 100% certain this is required, but it's a good idea):

sudo installer -allowUntrusted -verboseR -pkg "/path/to/pkg/foo.mpkg" -target /

Now, the problem is that sudo is going to ask you for your administrator password when you try to run installer. If you want to automate this, you need to tell your Mac not to require your sudo password when running the installer. To do that, you can add this line to your /etc/sudoers file:

%admin ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/installer

See man visudo for instructions on editing that file.

Second, the practical concern

If you are the only person who uses your Mac, adding the above line to /etc/sudoers is not a big deal.

However, if this is a shared Mac, then other people who are in the 'admin' group will be able to run /usr/sbin/installer without being prompted for their password.

Also, obviously if someone gets into your 'admin' account, they too could, theoretically, cause mischief with /usr/sbin/installer. Although I am at a loss to think of exactly what they would do, it's a trade-off of security versus convenience.

Third, a github script

I wrote pkginstall.sh to do some nice things like log the process, as well as tell you whether or not you are supposed to reboot after installing the package.

Last but not least: Automate "how?"

As far as how you want to automate the installation, that depends on more specifics of what you are trying to do. You could, for example, make a folder such as ~/Action/AutoInstallPKG/ and tell launchd to install any .pkg or .mpkg files that are added to that folder, and then move it aside afterwards.

I have been meaning to do something like this for a long time, and so I finally put it together. You can find it at https://github.com/tjluoma/autopkginstall. Installation instructions are included at Github, so I won't repeat them here.


How to get the watch face that's on the Apple Watch box?

Edit 2: watchOS 5.1 does allow you to do fullscreen color watch faces, but the hands do not match the color on the box.

Original: After doing some looking, this watch face simply does not appear to actually exist as an option in watchOS 5.0.

Edit 1: It looks like a similar full screen color watch face exists in iOS 12’s watch face gallery, but it doesn’t work properly on the Apple Watch; it simply shows as a standard numberless dial.


iPhone X Face ID while on Enter Passcode screen

I have found that tipping the phone away from you (i.e. bring it down to horizontal), and then bringing it back to face you again will cause Face ID to be tried again.


How to tell if it is Wireless-G or Wireless-N that the iMac is using?

Option + click your menu bar's status icon.


You should worry if it happens to you periodically. If it happened only once, my guess is one of the background process Mac OS X runs from time to time got stuck for a moment.

BTW, when you say "crash", did you have to reboot your computer? Or did it just got stuck for a period of time?

Anyway, if it crashed, the best you could do is send the crash report to Apple when prompted and check the Usual Suspects:

Background processes => System Preferences > Account > Login Items (remove the one you don't need.
Check how much free space you have left and start removing the files you don't need
Maybe try to reindex your hard drive


How do I import my OSX Keyboard Shortcuts?

See Where are keyboard shortcuts stored (for backup and sync purposes)? which mentions some relevant files in ~/Library.

(Also helpful: Globally edit all keyboard shortcut settings  – which talks about manually adding/editing shortcuts.)

Copying ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist from my old account worked, however, I had to log out and do it from a separate account, otherwise OSX will undo any changes to the file.


Is my iPad not accurate enough or is it the stylus?

This is a limitation of the iPad screen. No stylus will feel like a real pen. Future versions will likely have more sensitive screens. The best you can do is think of it as a giant index card and a fat marker.

The Wacom software improves the situation a tiny bit by having the zoom mode when writing. You can find other software that allows more zoom, which would make the final product look like a normal page of text, but the act of writing will not be improved.


How can i get Apple HealthKit data if iphone is crashed or permanently dead?

As with any computer: If you want to be sure your data survives crashes, device losses etc, make a backup (or ideally several).


Xcode 10.2 does not open after installation from Mac App Store

Xcode 10.2 requires a minimum macOS of 10.14.3.

It would appear that the App Store doesn't check the minor OS version number before allowing download, leading to this potential for confusion.


The Apple Mighty Mouse, is still available, it's often used by Schools, Colleges and Universities where they want to tie the mouse down from being pinched.

Apple now called it the Apple Mouse.

You can find it here: http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MB112ZM/C/apple-mouse


Installing windows on late 2009 iMac 27"

This is what helped me. via http://ww3.tbreak.com/forums/topic/65304-boot-camp-repair-win7-partition-which-cant-boot-anymore/

  Posting this because it was a huge problem that has basically slowed
  down my work schedule by two days...

  Here's the scenario: You've created a new Boot Camp partition, or
  created a new NTFS partition on your hard disk using a third party app
  such as TUXERA NTFS-3G for use with your Boot Camp windows install.
  You restart your Mac and... BAM! No Windows anymore!

  What happened??

  Basically whatever normal operation you did before in creating a new
  partition has resulted in the MBR (Master Boot Record, which handles
  Windows booting) being corrupted. So how do you fix something related
  to PC when you're on a Mac?

  Before you start: First, make sure you can boot properly into Mac OS
  X. In Mac OS X, in System Preferences, select Startup Disks option.
  Choose your Mac OS X drive as the startup drive. You can press the
  restart button to test and see that the setting is saved. Second,
  uninstall rEFIt if you have it installed as it overrides Single User
  mode which is required for this fix. Third, if you have TUXERA NTFS-3G
  installed, disable it. Once you have disabled it, unmount and then
  remount your Boot Camp partition. This is so that the Boot Camp
  partition loads with Apple's native drivers rather than Tuxera's weird
  drivers (which are only useful within Mac OS X). Fourth, keep your
  Windows 7 install disc handy, you will need it. Don't look at your
  easy and convenient Windows 7 install USB flash drive, that won't work
  with a Mac.

  Shut down your Mac
  While holding down the "Command" and "S" keys, power on the Mac
  Keep holding down these keys till you see a black DOS-like screen with
  white text
  wait till you get a # mark allowing you to type commands
  type in fdisk -u /dev/rdisk0 and press enter
  If asked to create a new
  MBR, press y
  once the operation is complete type exit
  Wait till it
  boots to Mac OS X
  Insert your Windows 7 Installation DVD and restart
  your Mac
  After the Mac booting chime, pres and hold the Option key
  You
  should get options to select Mac OSX, another hard disk or the Windows
  DVD
  Select the Windows DVD
  Now you're in Windows land. Wait till it's
  done loading.
  On the Setup screen where it shows options for language
  etc. press the Next button
  In the second screen click the "Repair Your
  Computer" button
  This brings you to a dialog where you are to select
  your windows install. If you don't see anything listed, don't worry.
  Select the radio button related to recovery tools and pres next.
  You
  will get a window with links to several tools. Select "Startup Repair"
  If the operation completes and asks you to restart, click Finish
  Keep
  the Windows 7 DVD in the drive, boot into Windows 7 setup again.
  Navigate to the Recovery Tools section again, This time click on the
  Command Prompt option.
  Type in bootrec.exe /fixmbr, hit Enter.
  Type in
  bootrec.exe /fixboot, hit Enter.
  Restart your Mac.

  Pulled this off after 13 hours of browsing through Terminal commands
  and Mac minutea. There goes the weekend!


Can I allow Mac using Internet Sharing via Thunderbolt to talk to other devices on network?

Enabling Inter Sharing on your iMac makes it a NAT router. Its main purpose is to connect the downstream networks (192.168.2.0/24) to other networks (like your main router connects your internal network(s) to the internet).

Your MacBook will connect to either other devices in the upstream network (192.168.1.0/24) or the Internet.

If you want to share a service on your MacBook (e.g. an Apache server) to the upstream network (192.168.1.0/24), you would have to forward the respective port on the iMac and add routes to the networks 192.168.2.0/24 on all other devices in the network 192.168.1.0/24.

Assigning an IP address of the 192.168.1.0/24 to the MacBook isn't possible.


Can a Time Machine drive have several partitions, or does Time Machine need the whole HDD to itself?

Time machine doesn't care what else is on the destination drive as long as the volume (partition) you choose meets the minimum requirements. If the volume you select isn't formatted properly, Time Machine will offer to erase and reformat the part of the drive that will contain your backups.

You might want to try resizing partitions using whatever tool you want before you start accumulating a lot of Time Machine data in case you want to be able to adjust the size of the partitions down the road, but that's more of a problem with partitioning and not something that Time Machine causes.


Take a look at this page on Apple's site.

Relevant portion is repeated here:

  You can't redeem or return iTunes or Apple Music Gift Cards or unused
  store credit balances for cash, except as required by law. If your
  jurisdiction allows for refund of redeemed gift balances, you can
  request a refund by contacting iTunes Store Support, selecting a
  support category and topic, and including the following information in
  your request detail:

  Your Apple ID.
  The store credit refund amount.
  Your current shipping address.


Is there something similar to RemoteApp for MacOS

You could say that the X11 system for macOS supports something similar to RemoteApp - i.e. allows you to run an app on a distant server and it shows up on your desktop like any other app in its own window - without a full desktop environment like VNC.
However you cannot run the Messages app this way.
The only solution I can think of that comes near to what you want is to run macOS in a virtual machine on your Windows computer, and then use features in the virtualisation software to show each guest application in its own host window. In VMWare this is known as "Unity mode", however VMware currently only supports that mode for Windows guests. In the theoretical case that a later VMware version supports this, remember to check that your for macOS at that time allows you to run the operating system on Windows.


MacOS: unable to resize partitions after bootcamp failed

I somehow managed to do it. First, I reformatted all small hidden partitions from disk0s4 to disk0s8 using this command:

diskutil erasevolume JHFS+ data5 disk0s4

Then I merged all those partitions using this command:

diskutil mergePartitions JHFS+ BOOTCAMP disk0s4 disk0s8

Finally I used the visual disk utility app to remove the newly created BOOTCAMP partition, which then gave all the empty space to my MacOS partition.


Having 2 Application folders in macOS Catalina

Can I delete the old Application folder?

No, you should not.

I looks like one (/Application) is virtual folder for another (/System/Volumes/Data/Applications).

To fix duplication in Alfred, just type reload in it.

More context:

https://superuser.com/questions/1454743
https://www.alfredforum.com/topic/13121-duplicate-apps-in-results-1015-and-v4
https://www.alfredforum.com/topic/13760-after-upgraded-to-catalina-applications-show-from-systemvolumesdataapplications-instead-of-applications


Repurposing "menu" button on Windows keyboards used in OS X

It has neither purpose nor name in OS X.

Maybe Karabiner could do it, if you can figure out what key code it sends - try Key Codes to see if it generates anything usable.


What is the difference between Intel and PPC?

Hardware-wise: PowerPC is a microprocessor developed mainly by the three developing companies Apple, IBM, and Motorola. It is built with reduced instruction-set computer (RISC) which speeds-up the operation of MIPS (million instructions per second). PowerPC is mainly based on IBM’s earlier Power architecture because it has a similar RISC instruction set for microprocessors.

Intel and AMD CPU's are based on CISC architectures. Typically CISC chips have a large amount of different and complex instructions. The philosophy behind it is that hardware is always faster than software, therefore one should make a powerful instructionset, which provides programmers with assembly instructions to do a lot with short programs.
In common CISC chips are relatively slow (compared to RISC chips) per instruction, but use little (less than RISC) instruction


Cannot enroll in Apple Developer program

I imagine that during WWDC the demand for dev accounts is higher than usual, and also that most of the people at Apple who would normally look into any problems with the developer program are likely to be at WWDC themselves.

Try again next week?


No, single processor Mac Pros ship with a single socket motherboard, and use Xeon 3000 series processors, not the more expensive Xeon 5000 series needed for dual socket support.