How to execute an equivalent function of Xcode's Instruments > "File Activity" in shell?

Have you tried fs_usage with -f filesys or diskio options?

  The fs_usage utility presents an ongoing display of system call usage information pertaining to filesystem activity.  It requires root privileges due to the kernel tracing facility it uses to operate.  By default, the activity monitored includes all system processes except the running fs_usage process, Terminal, telnetd, telnet, sshd, rlogind, tcsh, csh, sh, and zsh.  These defaults can be overridden such that output is limited to include or exclude a list of processes specified by the user.


Disable 'find cursor' shortcut in iTerm2

If you want to define the key sequence in another app, then make iTerm2 ignore it:

Go to iTerm2 Preferences... --> Keys
Click on + under the grid
Press ⌘+/ with cursor in the Keyboard Shortcut field
Leave the Action field value set to Ignore

If you want to use different action in iTerm2, assign the appropriate action in step 4.


.packproj-files were files used by developers in the process of application development for OS X 10.2. They contain xml-strings – try editing the file in TextEdit or TextWrangler, you should see an XML-structure, or see this example.

It can't really be run alone, it's used to tell packaging applications how to pack the application into a real application.

To put it short, it can be used with the application Iceberg:

  (.packproj): Creates a project file for use with Iceberg. This allows you to use Iceberg to edit package options before creating the actual package.

Do note that this is ancient code, and may not work (supposed to work from OS X 10.2 and up).


How to set up new iPhone without deleting its data?

Firstly you have to configure iTunes not to auto-sync.

Then, you plug your iPhone, and back it up.


Can I add custom pronunciations to "Speech"?

Yes all you need to do is Go to System Preferences/Accessibility/VoiceOver.  Then click the open voiceover utility button.  Once that utility opens, select speech on the left and open the pronunciation tab.  From there, you can add any abbreviations with substitutions.

I also added the substitutions here:


It is possible to rename spaces using an app called Spaces Renamer. It is available on GitHub for free.

  The compressed view after pressing F3

  The expanded view after hovering

  The interface for renaming the spaces

Image sources: the GitHub page
Please note that to use it you have to disable System Integrity Protection to use this tool. You'll need to download MacForge to use it. All of the installation instructions are on the GitHub page.
It does not work for the time being on macOS macOS Big Sur due to increased system protections there. Only time will tell if it will be supported there. However, it works perfectly fine on macOS Catalina.


How much time compression does the Camera app's time lapse mode apply?

According to this blogpost from 2014, when the feature was released with iOS 8, the speed adjusts based on the length of the recording:

<10 minutes -- 2 frames every second -- 15x

10 minutes to 20 minutes -- 1 frame every second -- 30x

20 minutes to 40 minutes -- 1 frame every 2 seconds -- 60x

40 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes -- 1 frame every 4 seconds -- 120x

1 hour 20 minutes to 2 hours 40 minutes -- 1 frame every 8 seconds -- 240x

Every time the recording length doubles, the frame capture time and playback speed doubles as well. The author tested up to 8 hours and mentions that Apple referred to a 30 hour time-lapse...


You can make the menu bar of an application hide automatically by adding this to the Info.plist:

<key>LSUIPresentationMode</key>
<integer>4</integer>

Windows can't be moved over the freed up space though.

If the application is signed, modifying the Info.plist invalidates the code signature. It also makes sandboxed applications like TextEdit and Chess crash on launch.


When waking up my MacBook Pro, the external monitor unpredictably displays "snow flakes"

I have had the same problem with Maverick (in clamshell mode) / external monitor (Samsung SyncMaster 2443) when I lock my screen and use my bluetooth mouse or keyboard to wake up the computer.

I was able to fix the problem in 2 ways:

open the lid, login and unplu, replug the external monitor (pretty annoying)
when the multicolor static shows, press CTRL+SHIFT+Eject as if to lock the computer again, then wake up the computer again and I now have the normal login screen as normal (not ideal but less disruptive solution).

I hope this helps !


How to get iMessages from receiver on OS X Mavericks?

I couldn't figure out how to see only messages sent by other people, but you can see the text of all messages (and some other strings) by running:

for f in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Messages/Archive/*/*.ichat;do plutil -convert xml1 "$f" -o -|ruby -rplist -e 'puts Plist.parse_xml(STDIN.read)["$objects"].select{|x|x.is_a?(Hash)&&x["NS.string"]}.map{|x|x["NS.string"]}';done

sudo gem install plist installs the plist gem.


Typing the tilde '~' character on a PC keyboard

On U.S. International - PC layout, press Alt-N and then Space

How to find keys in General

Go to Preferences->Keyboard Preferences
Input Sources
Check "Show input menu in menu bar"
Click on the flag in the top menu bar
Show keyboard viewer
Look for "~"
Press Shift, look for ~
Press Alt, look for ~
Press Shift+Alt, look for ~


Will iMessages sent to my iPhone number also be shown on other iPhones sharing the same Apple ID?

The answer to this depends on the settings of your mother's iPhone.

More specifically, on your mother's iPhone:

Go to Settings > Messages
Scroll down to and tap on Send & Receive
Check to see what phone numbers and addresses are listed under You can be reached by iMessage at and ensure that anything you don't want ticked (e.g. Your iPhone number) is ticked
It's probably also a good idea to see what's listed and ticked under Start new conversations from

In this way you can share the same Apple ID and control what is received on individual devices.

You also have two other options:

Stop sharing the same Apple ID or,
Stop sharing the same Apple ID and use Family Sharing instead to share apps, music etc.

More details about Family Sharing is available here.


MacBook Pro wireless speed slow after OS update

I would first try resetting your PRAM, then create a new network location.
From Apple:

Resetting PRAM and NVRAM

Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

Once you've done so, delete your network locations in System Preferences and create a new, fresh location.


Alfred and Spotlight don't detect VSCode even though I've it on shortcuts

I had the same problem and just managed to fix it.

I went to System Preferences > Spotlight > Search Results and then unchecked "Applications", then re-checked "Applications" and it instantly fixed the problem.


Why do my earbuds keep changing the volume up and down whenever I move the wire?

My guess would be that you are in a noisy environment, using your earphones, as you say, plugged into your phone.

This happened to my while riding my motorbike with earphones on. The built-in microphone is being hit by a lot of noise, and then the signal is sent and your phone OS tries to protect you by lowering the volume.

Try the same earphones with some tape on the microphone (a tiny hole somewhere on the earphones), or try them in any situation without a lot of outside noise.

If they work ok, your problem is what I'm telling you about.

There is a few choices you can take to fix your problem. I'll state them so the first options are the cheapest or more reasonable ones.

1. Search for a setting on you IOS, or an app to make volume not depend on outside noise. There is some apps that lock the volume level I think.

2 Put some tape or whatever you consider to make your microphone deaf.

3 Change earphones to ones without built-in mic.


my macbook battery drains within 1 to 2 hours

To save some juice disable the Adobe Flash player, and only use it for stuff you actually want to see.  From now on it will ask you to confirm and will not play all the garbage automatically.

In case you want to do this:
Chrome > Settings > Privacy > Content Settings, scroll down and click on the Plug ins Click to Play.


Selecting different letters like "ä" and "õ" on IPhone SE

There is no way to make the Character Picker stay up.

The alternative is to use a keyboard which has the letters you need already directly on it.  Apple's Estonian doesn't do that, so have a look at the Keyman app or other 3rd party keyboards from the App Store for this language.


Modifying Notification center pop up would be near impossible task, to add the "Mark as Read" option to the mail pop up.

It would require some heavy duty programing, but someone might prove me wrong and just do it.

But it is a good suggestion so send it to Apple, so they might do it in next release.


iMac G5 works very loudly. How to fix it?

If you think that the fans are running at a higher speed that they should, you could try reseting the SMU.

If the issue is just with the sound being too loud, then the best option would be to open the computer and clean the dust, mainly from the fans and the ventilation-related. Even more, overheat could have caused the fans to slightly bend, making some annoying noises. If that is the case, the only option would be to replace it with a new one. Replacing the thermal grease could be helpful too, if you've got overheating issues.


Remove any numbers at the front of a file name or remove the first two numbers for Mac

This answer recommends you install rename via brew.


Application created with Script Editor ignores the selected item on the 'tell current application' popup menu

You cannot create an AppleScript application that only contains the single line of code make new document as it will not execute within the same context it does in Script Editor having made a selection from the "tell" application menu.

As an AppleScript application you need to explicitly tell the appropriate application to make new document.

Example: tell application TextEdit to make new document

If you only code make new document and save it as, e.g. Code Test.app then make new document executes as tell current application to make new document or more literally in this case, tell application "Code Test" to make new document and the Code Test.app lacks the ability to create a new document and therefore errors out.

While in Script Editor, the "tell" application menu is a handy shortcut to avoid fully typing out tell application ... and is only for testing code. It is not translated to the literal code that you must be fully type so as to be fully functional within proper context to save as an application (or script for that matter).


Create a default folder structure & insert current Date in Terminal by single command?

Something like

mkdir -p "`date "+%Y%m%d"` Project_Name"/_layout/_screens

should do the trick.  It is plain vanilla unix.


Backing up individual files with encryption

This question is a subset of: Tools to compress and encrypt files

See answer here:  https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/32732/43002 for built-in command line utilities which (with some scripting) will do what you want. (Such as zip -P and open-ssl)


Command-line tool to check if current user has the desktop?

You can check who has the "console" with command:

ps aux | grep console | grep -v grep | awk '{ print $1 }'


Late 2008 Unibody Mac Book - SSD Integral SATA lll Install

The Command-R reinstalls macOS from a built-in Recovery partition your new SSD does not contain.

To update over the Internet, use Option-Command-R.

More information about using the recovery system at this Apple Support Page


When and how I will be paid in iTunes Connect Developer account?

This is the direct response from Apple to me:

Payments are made within 45 days of the last day of the fiscal month. To receive payment, you must have completed all documentation, including any required banking and tax information, as well as meeting the minimum payment threshold.
If your bank and bank account currency is listed in the table provided in the iTunes Connect Payments and Financial Reports FAQ's labeled WHEN WILL I BE PAID, you must exceed a minimum payment threshold of $10 USD.
All other bank countries and bank account currencies must exceed a minimum payment threshold of $150 USD. Earnings that do not meet the minimum payment threshold will be carried over month-to-month until the minimum is met.


There is no option available natively in macOS to record a FaceTime audio call.

However this can be accomplished easily with the help of a 3rd party software.

You can use Audio Hijack for macOS to record an audio call in progress. The instructions for same are outlined by the developer in this blog post.

As outlined in the blog post, you can record both a FaceTime audio as well as a regular phone call. However, make sure about the legality of the act. You may be required to inform the other party about the recording.

No affiliation whatsoever with the developer, they are very well known for the quality software they make.


The Mac comes with the server part of the software built-in for "Apple Remote Desktop"; They can be viewed and managed remotely if you have the client software. For most of us that's too expensive a solution, so an alternate is to use VNC. Check out JollysFastVNC and Chicken of the VNC.

Also, iChat, which comes with the Macs, can do screen sharing, which might be all you need. Check out "Share and share alike." from Apple's iChat site and "Sharing your screen with a buddy".


Although one cannot style individual characters in a formula, one feature of Apple Numbers is the canvas.  One can take advantage of this by adding tables and text objects anywhere.

The above screen shot uses a static (as the OP's "Invoice terms" text is hard coded in their formula example, it is assumed static) text field placed next to the table (a single cell table with no border, in this case) containing the cell with the formula.

The OP's use of the CONCATENATE function is unneeded as the ampersands do the same job.  To use CONCATENATE in this case:

=CONCATENATE(Terms,", please pay by...")

Where Terms is the reference to the cell containing the Terms text.

Detailed screenshot:

By using a number for the days, this can be used in a calculation against the Invoice date to determine the date payment is due.  But that is a topic for another question. ;)


User input assigned to variable in AppleScript then passed to "do shell script" command

This assigns the name entered to the variable answer.

display dialog "What's your name?" default answer ""
set answer to text returned of result
display dialog "Your name is " & answer


Check if you enabled trackpad smart zoom in System Preferences

Got to system Preferences Apple Icon > System Preferences > Trackpad
Click Scroll & Zoom tab
Check the zoom options and uncheck Smart Zoom


Can I turn pages in ebook with single touch?

Yes it is. At least in the iBooks app (the one from Apple). I don't know about the Kindle app, but I'm pretty sure it's possible as well.

You can make a single touch in the right or left part of the screen to go to the next or previous page in your eBook.


My workaround (which might not be suitable for everyone) was to copy the data onto a Windows PC, and then onto the destination drive.


Macbook freezes every few seconds when monitor input is switched

This happens on just about every computer when you are adding or subtracting output monitors. I suppose it has to do with how the(in this case internal) GPU processes the new output. 2 extra monitors is also a big feat for a Macbook's GPU!

The only way I am aware of achieving what you want would be through remote desktop. However that has it's own caveats as I'm sure you already know.


Get cell value by address string in Numbers

There's the INDIRECT function, which returns the contents of a cell or range referenced by an address specified as a string.

example:

INDIRECT("B2")

Here's Apple documentation about Numbers.app functions.


Downloaded apps do not start, error -10658

This seems to be a problem with permissions in the bundle itself. Usually the execution flag doesn't get carried over from the DMG image.

Try, for the sake of curiosity to set the execution flag like this:

chmod +x /Applications/RubyMine.app/Contents/MacOS/<name of the app>

Note: replace <name of the app> with the name of the app (it will probably be "rubymine", but I don't have that app to confirm the exact name of the binary.

If you're in doubt, right click on RubyMine.app, do a "Show Package Contents" and navigate to Contents/MacOS/ folder and see what's in there. Perform the above command (chmod +x) on that file and try again.

I think it should be:

chmod +x /Applications/RubyMine.app/Contents/MacOS/rubymine

update: I've downloaded RubyMine and the above command will work, however, for what is worth, I've got to say that mine had the execution flag so I didn't have any problem with it. Have you checked?


Can't disable fonts in Font Book after fresh Mojave install

It turns out that (as far as I know), Font Book in Mojave just does not allow disabling of the default fonts.

There are two main locations where fonts are stored under Mojave:

/Library/Fonts/

/Library/Fonts/ contains all the general use fonts, available to all users. These are the fonts I wanted to disable.

/System/Library/Fonts/

/System/Library/Fonts/ contains fonts that are necessary for the system.

I simply moved all the fonts from /Library/Fonts/ to /Library/Fonts (disabled)/

It went fine and the system has not complained so far.

I did leave copies of the standard web fonts: Verdana, Times New Roman etc.


See this link

Basically what you have to do is to use one of the Mono tools (mkbundle is a generic one while macpack is designed to work on Mac OS X) to link all your application executables, resources and dll in a single executable file that can be later run as a single app.

From the macpack doc:

macpack is a tool that must be used to bundle Cocoa# applications into Double-Clickable, Finder friendly, bundles on Mac OS X. It bundles static libraries and resources, as well as generates a basic info.plist into the .app bundle.

For example the following commands are used to build the CurrencyConverter.exe into an application bundle:

$ mcs -g -debug+ CurrencyConverter.cs -out:CurrencyConverter.exe -pkg:cocoa-sharp
$ rm -rf CurrencyConverter.app
$ macpack -m:2 -o:.  -r:/Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/Current/lib/
  libCocoaSharpGlue.dylib -r:CurrencyConverter.nib -n:CurrencyConverter
  -a:CurrencyConverter.exe

The resulting CurrencyConverter.app is just another Mac OS X application as far as the Finder is concerned, and can be opened from Finder, or launched from Terminal using the open -a CurrencyConverter command.


Is audio and video slightly out of sync when iPhone is used with a Bluetooth earphone?

A quick Web search reveals this article, which claims to have done quite some good research on the topic:

AirPods Latency

  Disappointingly, and contrary to what I had hoped, AirPods have the worst latency of everything I've tested so far. For context, a wired connection achieved latencies of 61ms playing Tapt, and 106ms using the iOS keyboard. The AirPods had latencies of 251ms and 296ms respectively, in the same tests.

  Even the worst offender in my previous test, the JBL Flip 2, achieved significantly shorter latencies (218ms and 258ms, respectively). In contrast, my £30 Brainwavz Bluetooth eabuds achieved respective latencies of 199ms and 249ms in the same two tests.

  I would theorise that perhaps the need to ensure both AirPods play sounds in sync necessitates some small amount of additional communication, and thus latency. Hopefully it's something that could be improved with software updates in future. Of course any wireless technology is going to be slower than a contemporary wired solution, and I didn't expect the AirPods' latency to be on par with wired audio, but their failure to beat the latency of much cheaper Bluetooth earbuds is a downer.

However, it could be taken with some grain of salt as it an almost 2 year old article and software updates may indeed have fixed the noted latency issue. As is a general trend, the performance and bug fixes are rolled out over period of time, subsequent to release of any new hardware by Apple. The article was written about time the AirPods were newly released.


How do I use the `security` command-line tool to add a keychain?

For some reason, the feature is hidden in the form of the -s argument to list-keychains. The other gotcha is that you need to simultaneously re-add all existing keychains. This should take care of it:

security list-keychains -s `security list-keychains | xargs` [path to keychain you want to add]


Adding a google account without gmail on iPhone

It is supported. This is what it looks like under settings -> calendar:

Try adding the account as a mail account and then turning off mail and turning on calendars. This is what it looks like in the calendars app:


There is no work around. I spent hours attempting to find one. If I were you, I would just wait until Lion, which will certainly have a work around, because there is no install disk.


If i sign out of the find my iphone app will the sound still go off?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: The app is an interface for the FindMyiPhone service. This service is controlled in the iCloud menu of settings. So unless you disable Find My iPhone in the phone's settings, the sound will play.


The first thing you need to check is your Finder preferences.

In the Finder, go to Finder > Preferences
Select the Sidebar tab
Now check to make sure that both the Hard Disks and External Disks option are selected
Close the Finder Preferences window


macOS File Vault 2 full disk encryption does not seem to work

It looks like this is a misunderstanding. In the later versions of macOS it is difficult to distinguish the pre-boot unlock screen (where one unlocks the partition and is automatically logged in after the boot process) from the login screen (where the system partition is already unlocked and the user has to log into the system).

Furthermore, FileVault2 can grant multiple passwords the right to unlock the partition and grants this permission to individual accounts. You can manage what accounts can unlock the system disk in System Preferences>Security & Privacy>Enable Users.... That means your account password also becomes the password to unlock the partition. In any case you can use the recovery password, which is provided when encrypting the disk, to unlock the partition.

This answer provides a method to use a unlock key that differs from your account password.


Is it a bad idea for a file name to contain space and capital letters?

Certain characters and special words aren't allowed and can make a file name or folder name invalid and unacceptable to OneDrive:

Certain characters have special meaning and thus aren't allowed - " * : < > ? / \

On OneDrive with Sharepoint, these aren't allowed - ~ " # % & * : < > ? / \ { | }.

Leading (before the filename) and trailing (after the filename) spaces in file or folder names also aren't allowed. If you're using Office 2010, you can't use "&" in file and folder names.

These names aren't allowed for files or folders: .lock, CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM0 - COM9, LPT0 - LPT9, _vti_, desktop.ini; filenames also cannot start with ~$.

"_vti_" cannot appear anywhere in a file name.

Source: Invalid file names and file types in OneDrive and SharePoint.
So, while spaces are certainly allowed in the name, you have to be careful there is no space before or after the name. Both hyphen and underscore are also allowed.
While spaces aren't likely to cause any issues, as others have pointed out, it is easier to type hypens or underscore in a Terminal command. Many advanced users thus tend to avoid spaces and use hyphens or underscores in general. In general though, spaces in names should not cause any issue with MS Office or OneNote.


Creating wrapper script for Mail.app to send mail from Terminal

Do you need to use Mail.app, or is your goal just to send an email message? If it's just to send an email message from the Terminal, you can use the sendemail command-line utility.

/usr/local/bin/sendemail
 -f from@my.email.com
 -t my.recipient@their.email.com
 -s your.smtp.server:port
 -xu smtp.username.here
 -xp smtp.password.here
 -m message.body.goes.here

Obviously in Terminal all of that will need to go on a single line, with appropriate escapes and string quoting. You can look at the man page for sendemail for more options.


How to add apps or files to the Finder toolbar in 10.9 Mavericks?

cmd + drag does the job! This got me trying for a while.


Authentication Server could not be contacted

I had the same problem. We have MACs on El Capitan to High Sierra and Win 2012 R2 as Domain controller. After a lot of trial and error, I found out that the AD user has to belong to  "Account Operator" security group, even if the user is Domain Admin or Enterprise Admin. We found this out after a lot of struggle.

Hope this solution helps you.


Taptic Engine stopped working on my iPhone 6s

I got the device inspected at an Apple authorized service provider. Post inspection, I was told that the Taptic Engine motor has failed. The only available resolution when the Taptic Engine motor fails is a replacement with a new one.

I got the same replaced and the device is working normally after that.


Bootcamp stuck at: Please wait while boot camp assistant is removing the partitions it created

I've just encountered the same issue as you and have resolved it.

The issue for me was caused because I am using a windows ISO that contains x86 and x64 versions which is too big for the small reserve space bootcamp sets aside for the install ISO. Get a version that is specific to what you need x64 OR x86

anyway, you need to make a backup of your mac on a hard drive, using Time Machine is fine and the easiest way. Or simple remove your critical files and set up from fresh.

REBOOT
HOLD COMMAND+R
ENTER DISK UTILITY

You need to find the master drive for the hard drive that has the issue. (you can select view all drives/volumes on the top left if you don't see it straight away.

My drive was something like "APPLE SSD0256R DRIVE"

click ERASE and name it exactly as you see the name written before . (It should be MAC OS JOURNALED from the drop down menu too) Now click ERASE again to confirm.

You will now have restored the drive to a single partition.

QUIT DISK UTILITY

Now proceed to use time machine to restore or reinstall Mac OS from the previous menu.

That will put you back in the state before attempting to install windows.

P.S. I did try to use the command line options as mentioned elsewhere but they just would not work for me so this was the only way.
Hope you get it all sorted!
_/_


8 A Letters in Boxes next to OS X Logo in Overview Panel

This looks like some sort of typeface issue, have you changed any system fonts around? If you have, restoring the fonts, then rebooting should fix the problem.

Open Font Book, go to File > Restore Standard Fonts. Read the warning carefully, then click Proceed.


What does the with-bindings option do in brew?

Bindings is a term used for the API to access a library or tool through a particular programming language. In this case, it's saying that the Graphviz package has bindings for Perl, Python, Ruby, etc. programs to be able to generate graphs.

If all you want to do is use Graphviz on its own, you don't need to install the bindings.


Erase app data on iOS simulator or real devices

On iOS, erase all content and settings is how you wipe everything and then push your app again.

xcrun whatever....

The above xcrun is just useful to install and run an app as opposed to what you want which is to manage settings. See this developer article - at the very end it explains your settings persist even with app removal - so you’d need to clean on the simulator or write your app to reset settings with specific code.

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/UserDefaults/Preferences/Preferences.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/10000059i-CH6-SW5

How effective these three options is really depends on your specific code, however. Erase all content always works.


From the terminal curl http://localhost || echo $? might be a good place to start to determine if this is a resource issue, routing issue or apache issue.

You'll either get back a valid http response or an error that may lead the way to knowing why your other web clients are not connecting to localhost on port 80.


Mount "Windows" part of hybrid ISO in OS X (10.9.5)

This worked for me to mount the Windows files in a hybrid CDROM. You should be able to do something similar for an ISO.

Run mount to list the currently mounted disks. Find the one for the disk you are interested in. E.g. /dev/disk2s1s2
Create a new directory under /Volumes, e.g. /Volumes/win
Mount to the new directory with sudo mount_cd9660 -er /dev/disk2s1 /Volumes/win. 9660 is the windows CD format, ISO 9660. Pay close attention to the device name, it is not the same as what is listed for mount. There is only one s, you truncate the extra s. So instead of /dev/disk2s1s2, you just use /dev/disk2s1.
Now when you go to /Volumes/win, it should have the Windows files, not the Mac files.


This works just like other IM apps which do this. Skype and WhatsApp come to mind. If you have the option to send these notifications turned on, and you start typing, your iOS device sends a message to the device on the other end that you're currently typing a message, which gets displayed as "typing..." or "..." to the user.

This is possible because the Messages app on iOS works on both the phone's SMS network and Apple's proprietary iMessage IM network. The app automatically figures out whether to use the iMessage IM network or SMS, based on who you're sending the message to.

If the person is using iMessage, it defaults to that, saving both of you money. If all you have for the person in Address Book is a phone number that isn't an iPhone with iMessage set up, it uses plain old SMS. Pretty smart. BTW iMessage messages are blue, SMS are green.

Messages sent over iMessage move over the internet, rather than the cellphone's SMS network, so it'll use either your cell phone's data plan, or Wi-Fi, and maintain a relatively persistent connection to the user on the other end.

Because of this, it's trivial for your iOS device to periodically ping the device on the other end, and show the user that message, while you're entering text. This wouldn't be easy over the SMS network. AFAIK, the "..." shows up as long as you're entering text at the keyboard. If you stop typing, even if there's text already entered, it'll disappear, then reappear when you start typing again.


Anyone know about /private/var/keybags/backup_keys_cache.db

After examining syslog in my iPad, I found 2 rows that contain the word key

Feb 28 22:25:21 AbiFathirs-iPad backupd[50473] <Warning>: INFO: Refreshed cache in 4.852 s

Feb 28 22:25:21 AbiFathirs-iPad backupd[50473] <Warning>: INFO: Exporting keychain

I check backupd executable in the process list and found it here:

# ps A|grep backupd
50803   ??  Ss     0:00.43 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileBackup.framework/backupd

After examining the executable file content using strings in my ubuntu laptop, I found out that this might be an iCloud backup application.

So I try to disable iCloud in control panel, and new the file /private/var/keybags/backup_keys_cache.db no longer appear.

I don't know why the cache file could get to 4GB size last week. But at least now I knew which application that cause it.


File has different name in terminal and Finder

One possible reason for a different name is if the package has a localized name. This allows the name displayed in the Finder to vary depending on the language of the user, and it also can be different than the "actual" name of the file, as displayed in Terminal.


Did you try http://www.securitylearn.net/2012/05/03/decrypting-the-iphone-keychain-from-backups/#comments
see my post (Dick) of September 22, 2015 at 5:56 pm how I succeeded.


How do I prevent iTunes from playing the next track in an album or playlist

I can confirm this works. It will be a bit hard to hear my screen reader. (Oh by the way I'm visually impaired) but I will have it turned way up in my ears through another sound card.  Oh fun. It's kind of odd I have to tab to that clear button though. Oh well. Thanks thanks for such a quick answer. To reiterate what that link said if you need to see it at a glance do the following

start a track playing.
hit command option u to get to the next up window
tab to clear and either click it or hit space.

I hope this also helps someone.


Try the following steps:

Completely uninstall all the versions of Opera from your Mac.
Reinstall your preferred version of Opera.
Disconnect from Internet connection.
Launch and Quit Opera.
Launch Terminal.
Type this code and hit enter.

defaults write com.operasoftware.Opera OPDisableAutoUpdate true

Reconnect Internet, launch Opera, and select About Opera.
The screen will display if auto update has been disabled. It should look something like this:

Version information

Version:    49.0.2725.64 - Update checker is disabled

Update stream:  Stable

System: Mac OS X 10.9.5 64-bit


What speed is the SATA controller in a July 2012 macbook pro?

OWC has tested it and confirms that..

  ...the MacBook Pro 15” (2012) has two drive bays, each capable of running an OWC 6G SSD at full 6Gb/s speeds.

which is the SATA Revision 3.0 speed.

They've also setup a striped RAID which benchmarked at "over 1000MB/s read speeds and write speeds that nearly hit 900MB/s".

Regarding the Macbook Pro 13" (2012), OWC recommends using a 6Gb/s SSD only in the main bay, as the 6Gb/s performance of the optical bay is very poor. 3Gb/s models however work without problems in the optical bay.


Mac shuts down when trying to download software update

Since your Mac doesn't start up anymore, try if you can do an upgrade install from an installation disk. See http://support.apple.com/kb/PH6606. It should keep user files and settings in place, but it often resolves issues like this. If you don't have backups, you can use Disk Utility to save a disk image of the drive to an external drive. See http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1553.

10.6 doesn't have a recovery partition, so you will need to use the older tools for booting and fixing your startup problem.


Why is my Applications window different in OS 10.7

I re-installed Lion and that restored normal windows.


My iPhone keeps telling me my cellular data is off?

Apple has some information up at:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201673

It basically points you to contact the vendor (i.e. your cellular carrier) to troubleshoot problems with cellular data. Apple would help you locate the cellular data on/off switch in settings, but once you've done that - you could back up your phone and erase it / restore a known good OS and re-test cellular data.

That would let you know it's not software or settings. Then you would need to determine if your phone needed a hardware repair (less likely but possible) or if your carrier can tell why the coverage is spotty or not continuos. They have the cell tower logs and know how your account is set up (as opposed to Apple that designed the device to work with hundreds of carriers).


I was having the same issue. For me I found a "refresh" button in the title of the podcast, then the episodes were visible again and I could right-click/highlight and select 'mark as unplayed' It seems to be working for me :)


How to create input language (e.g. english) with different input keyboard (e.g. Danish)

Use Ukelele to make a custom keyboard layout which has US as the name but uses the key mapping for Danish.  Hopefully OneNote will switch to English proofing when you use this.

httpL//scripts.sil.org/ukelele


It handles the API and SDK calls for developers to check user tracking entitlements and transparently request access to private data and set these preferences on a per-app and per-device basis.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apptrackingtransparency

Since 2010, Apple publicly has maintained that all privacy and tracking should be after we consent to what / how and when out data is accessed.

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/12/18/steve-jobs-on-privacy

There’s a lot of public angst now that the code has shipped and is being enforced - not everyone is a fan of informed consent and opting in to tracking or “transparency”.

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/12/18/swisher-facebook-apple
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/facebooks-laughable-campaign-against-apple-really-against-users-and-small

But to address your question, it’s the mechanism by which an application receives access to photos, contacts, files and other things by requesting that access from the operating system.


Unable to change desktop background in Macbook Air

To change Desktop go to System Preferences and select Desktop and Screen Saver. When that panel opens select the Desktop Tab. This will bring up many options for a Desktop. You can scroll down on the left and goto Folders. You can select an image file to use as your desktop. Or is you go to the Apple selection there are many images to choose from.

The internet is also quite littered with images sized for mac desktop. A google search on mac desktop images will give you plenty oh hits.


What are some good screencapturing applications?

I'm partial to Screenflow. It works well, it's easy to use, and it's good for both capturing the screen, capturing audio (or even video via FaceTime camera) of you narrating the screencast, and can handle mixing the different sources of input. At $99, it isn't cheap, but it does work well. I use it for demo videos for my students.


pinch to zoom with magic mouse in Mountain Lion

Maybe this app called MagicPrefs could help: http://magicprefs.com

It's expand standard capabilities of Magic Mouse.


For iMessage for MacOS, where do the face images come from?

I don't know of a solution where you can prioritize where the contact information is pulled from, but I would imagine your default is your locally saved contact.

I recommend you to save all of your contacts into one place, possibly create a new gmail account, and pull all of your locally saved contacts, facebook contacts, and other gmail contacts into this new account.

After that I would remove all of your other contacts from your device by going to
Settings > Contacts > Accounts
and then removing all of the accounts.

After that I would add your new source of all of your contacts and only use one, to ensure that's where it is coming from.

Please reply to this if it is confusing.

Source: Happened to me before.


Change Mac Keyboard Identifier after keyboard replacement

I can't find way how do without side app. But i solved with "Karabiner"


Most apps like that do the registration server side and you would need To erase the device entirely and not use the same Game Center account.

Deleting the app does delete all data unless it’s designed specially and in that case, you need to know exactly what bundle and delete the data from iCloud on a mac, not from iOS.

In general, deleting the app deletes all data. Especially if you don’t enable iCloud.


How do I make band names appear on iTunes/Music?

Select the songs in iTunes, then Get Info (⌘I) and add the name of the band to the Artist field.

If you want different tracks to be by different artists, you can unify the album under a single artist using the Album Artist tag.


iTunes Could not contact the iPad software update server because you are not connected to the internet

Did this happen on March 11?
Many of Apple's login services went off line for several hours.
If it happened because of that, they might fix it for you for free.


How to set a Reminder on iOS5 for a location AND date?

This is not currently possible. The Location and Time conditions are applied in a disjunctive manner.


Late 2009 Macbook - Has Anyone Tried 16GB of Ram?

The chipset and processor may not support more RAM, even though you can physically put it in. You can always try. Weird behaviour and instability result from that.


MacBook not able to connect to IRC server over Airport

When you network the Mac directly into the novuscom device (bypassing the Aiport) are you able to connect to your IRC?

Is the Airport Express acting as a DHCP server?  Is the novuscom device also acting as a DHCP server?  Problem might be the double NAT.

If so does putting the Airport Express into bridge mode fix the problem?

This discussion also looks promising:

Apple's routers do not use UPnP.

They do offer a similar type of feature, which is called NAT-PMP, or NAT Port Mapping Protocol

Open AirPort Utility - Click Manual Setup
Click the Internet icon
Click the NAT tab below the icons
Insure that there is a check mark next to Enable NAT Port Mapping Protocol

Click the Configure Port Mappings button if you need to specify specific ports to use and set them up on the next window that appears


Send very large files through Ethernet between two Mac computers

Yes, you can use an ethernet cable to quickly transfer files from one computer to the other.

It's really quite simple.

Plug in the cable
Go to System Preferences, and make sure that Ethernet is enabled. (it should be in the "Network" list.)
Unlock the "Network" preference pane, and click on "Ethernet"
Click on Advanced, and select "Manually" from the "Configure IP v4" dropdown.
Type in an IP address that's not commonly used, so you don't have conflicts: i.e. 10.2.0.1
Subnet Mask should be: 255.255.255.0
Router should be: 10.2.0.1
Repeat these steps on your friend's computer, but in step 5, enter: 10.2.0.2 (the difference is the last digit)

Make sure "File Sharing" is enabled in the "Sharing" preference pane on the computer you are connecting to, so your friend's computer, in this case.

Now, in Finder on your machine, click on the "Go" menu at the top of the screen, and select "Connect to server."

Type in 10.2.0.2, and click connect.  You may have to authenticate (this will be her login name and password) and then you should be able to drag the file from her computer to yours.

To reverse these steps, just put both "Ethernet" connections back to DHCP.


Is it safe to disable System Integrity Protection?

If you disable SIP you'll get the same level of protection as you had with OS X versions before El Capitan. Whether this is enough for your needs it something only you can decide.

OTOH it's not that much trouble to disable SIP briefly to chance a protected part of the system. If you want to be on the safe side, disconnect from any networks while you do this.


Is there an app such as GoodReads for movies?

Yes, there is, Rinema.com

Check out: Rinema Features

Feature Details

Movies: Add, Rate, Review, tag, link...

These little buttons, pretty much everywhere on the site, should come in handy to rate, review or mark a movie as "watched" or "to watch". And, while you review the movies you can also tag them (using the good old #tags) and link them to other movies by taggin them as done in the review below.
Review

To tag a movie, write the movie name in square brackets. So, [[The Shawshank Redemption]] will show as The Shawshank Redemption

Discuss...

Apart from using these little buttons to vote up/down and adding comments. You can also post updates through the homepage. And, you can tag movies, add #tags or tag your friends in them.

Oh! and you can see all conversations about a movie on the conversations tab on every movie page

Lists...

Hop over to the lists page & check out some of the lists that others have created. Or better yet, create you own. It's easy peasy.

Search...

Use the search box on the top nav to search for any movie (by name), Celebrity or user.

If you are looking for a particular movie, but are unsure of the title or wish to search by cast/crew names or just want more options, hop over to the advanced search page (second last option in the dropdown menu)

Discover...

The Movies link in top nav will take you to our movie suggestions page where we show you some movies that you might want to check out. You can also refine suggestions by a particular genre and/or language.

The best suggestions though are always from people whose tastes you share. So, use the cinephiles link on the top nav to find interesting people to follow. Or invite your friends.

You can also toggle your updates feed on home page to show updates from all users or reviews(from all users). And, use that to find interesting people & movies.

Collections...

You can add movies to various collections via this dropdown accessible from mymovies, individual and review modals.

we've have given three: Must Watch, Favourites, Guilty Pleasure to get you started with but, you can add as many new ones as you want. Just type the new name in the textbox and press Add. You can also delete collections using the [edit collections] link given in the collections list on the my movies page (towards the top).


How can I delete duplicate albums from my photo library?

Camera Roll, Photo Stream and Photo Library are system albums and cannot be deleted. (Photo Library is a smart album and displays all your photos, regardless of where they actually are).

Your photos are probably only in the iPhone album, if you delete it, they're probably gone. However to delete it hit the "Edit" button, then the little red minus in front of the album you want to delete.

If you added the album to your phone by syncing it from your computer, you won't be able to remove it from the phone. In that case connect your phone to iTunes select the photos tab and uncheck the album you want to remove.


Updating to 10.14.6 giving internet connection error

I'd download the full combo updater from a web browser - that way you should be OK through retries & you know that you have the entire file safely on your Mac before committing to the actual update.

Google can always find these easily, using 'combo update 10.14.6' & it will always be first hit.

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2010


2009 Mac Pro running with fans at full speed after CPU tray upgrade

You must use the original tray from the 4,1.  Cannot put 4,1 tray in 5,1 or vice versa.   If you do, you cannot control the fans.

The firmware upgrade changes the Model from 4,1 to 5,1 but does not change the SMC System Version or the SMC Processor Tray version.  These must match. These should both be 1.39f5 with an original 4,1 or 1.39f11 with an
original 5,1.


How to get a list of application windows only from the current desktop with applescript?

System Events only includes windows in the current space / desktop:

tell application "System Events" to windows of process "Safari"

I don't know any way to convert a System Events window object to a Safari window object though, apart from hacks like this:

tell application "System Events" to tell window 1 of process "Safari"
    set {x, y} to position
    set {w, h} to size
    set b to {x, y, x + w, y + h}
    set t to title
end tell
tell application "Safari"
    set found to missing value
    repeat with w in windows
        if bounds of w is b and name of w is t then
            set found to w
            exit repeat
        end if
    end repeat
    found
end tell

tell application "System Events" to value of attribute "AXIdentifier" of window 1 of process "Safari" does not correspond to tell application "Safari" to id of window 1.


Missing space on GPT drive sharing FAT and APFS volumes

Note: I assume disk2 has a protective MBR which means the drive is not using a GPT/MBR hybrid partitioning scheme. The gdisk command displays the type of partitioning when first invoked, but in your question you choose to omit this output.

Question: How can I get macOs to actually acknowledge there's 20GB free space?

The Disk Utility application assumes there is never any significant free space on any drive. All successful operations performed using this application always leave the drive with no significant free space.

Of course, drives often have free space. In fact, you can create free space using the diskutil command. Therefore, the Disk Utility application can/should only be used under ideal conditions.

The diskutil list command has never shown free space. There is a limits option for diskutil resizeVolume and diskutil apfs resizeContainer that will display the amount of space that a partition can be expanded into. One can assume this is free space below the said partition.

One command included with macOS, that will show free space, is the gpt command. In your case, you would enter the command given below.

sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk2

The output from gdisk, shown in your question, produced basically the same information the above command would produce.

I used the math below to compute the free space.

629,409,785 - 588,881,912 - 1 = 40,527,872 sectors
40,527,872 sectors * 512 bytes/sector = 20,750,270,464 bytes = 20.8 GB
20.8 GB * 0.931323 GiB/GB = 22.3 GiB

I used the math below to compute the size of the NTFS partition.

588,881,912 - 264,192 + 1 = 588,617,721 sectors
588,617,721 * 512 bytes/sector = 301,372,273,152 bytes = 301.4 GB
301.4 GB * 0.931323 GiB/GB = 280.7 GiB

  Note: This is the same result the output from diskutil and gdisk show in your question. There is no error here. The problem may be in the way Windows 7 is labeling the partition sizes. Windows 7 may have mislabeled GB for GiB or vice versa.

I used the math below to compute the size of the APFS partition

976773128 - 629409785 + 1 = 347,363,344 sectors
347,363,344 sectors * 512 bytes/sector =  177,850,032,128 bytes = 177.9 GB
177.9 GB * 0.931323 GiB/GB = 165.7 GiB

  Note: 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes and 1 GiB = 1,073,741,824 bytes.

Question: How can I get macOs to add the 20 GB of free space to the APFS partition?

You don't. You can add free space immediately after a APFS partition but not free space immediately before. In your case, the free space is before the APFS partition.

Technically, you could first move the APFS partition to the start of the free space, causing the free space to be below the APFS partition. This would allow you to use the diskutil apfs resizeContainer command to add the free space.

Third party software exists that claims to be able move a partition.  I tried using a bootable USB flash drive containing GParted to move a APFS partition, only to discover GParted does not recognize the APFS format and therefore will not move this type of partition. (To create a bootable USB flash drive containing GParted, I used UNetbootin to transfer the GParted ISO to the flash drive.)

Another option would require another drive with enough free space. The steps are given below.

Backup the APFS partition to another drive.
Delete the APFS partition. You can do this with with diskutil, gpt or gdisk.
Create a new APFS partition to include the free space. You can do this with with gpt or gdisk.

  Note: Make sure the sector values you enter are divisible by 8.

Format the new partition. You can do this with with the Disk Utility applications, diskutil, or newfs_apfs.
Restore from the backup drive.


How do I fix "Your Disk Could Not Be Partitioned" isssue with BootCamp Assistant?

The following post (see hyperlink) was useful, especially the bit about how you have to create a New partition when you're in the Windows installer.  My previous answer was downvoted and I deleted it, but this actually solved the issue for me.  https://fgimian.github.io/blog/2016/03/12/installing-windows-10-on-a-mac-without-bootcamp/


How to hear/view files with extensions .VOB, .IFO, and .BUP on a Mac

I'm fairly sure these are files from a DVD movie disc.

Open the default DVD player app, choice, File > Open DVD Media and select the folder in which the files are located (not the file itself, the app will combine them all and if all goes well, play the movie).


If you end up with option 3. Screw extractors, then your 'cheap choice' to put it back together is just make a saw cut in the top of the screw [remains] & treat it as a standard flat-blade screw-head from then on in.

I presume you have one of those, but didn't procure the necessary Torx before starting out ;-)

Don't try saw-cutting it first... you really don't want metal filings in your puter.
That also precludes trying to drill the screw-head off.

Try 1 & 2 first, you might get lucky.


How to delete imported photos and videos from my iPhone 5c

I'm not a PC guy but usually your photos live in iTunes Media Library.
Whatever method you can use to find it, you delete your photos from there.
Usually just use your search function on your PC to find the iTunes folder, open it until you find the iTunes Media Folder and delete whatever files you don't need to have synced.

After you delete your photos (Or just move them to another location if you're afraid you may loose them), you must sync your phone to iTunes again and this will refresh your iPhone's list of songs and photos, revealing more space.
After this is done, find the option on iTunes to not sync your iPhone when connected and either manage your files manually or resync when your storage problem is fixed (a new phone with larger storage, for example).
Your original photos are still in your PC, unless you deleted the originals.


macOS Big Sur Terminal command 'open' behaviour changed and I don't know how to get back to how it was in Catalina

For now it seems that open -n someapp.app was the solution. I'm not sure if I will run into issues later down the line where I'm not able to use this command but it works at the moment.
Thank you @nohillside for the idea.
UPDATE: What I've done is alias open="open -n" and it seems so far that this is now working same as it was working pre-Big Sur :)


DB Browser for SQLite

  DB Browser for SQLite is a light GUI
  editor for SQLite databases, built on
  top of Qt. The main goal of the
  project is to allow non-technical
  users to create, modify and edit
  SQLite databases using a set of
  wizards and a spreadsheet-like
  interface.


What Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 cables/adapters exist for OS X and Mac hardware?

As a matter of fact "Kanex" the only company I know of that offers "true" adapters put their Thunderbolt to eSATA + USB 3.0 adapter on the market 18 hours ago, at a price point of 69.95$


To repair permissions for Lion, is it safe to use Disk Utility in Recovery OS for Mountain Lion?

The diskutil repairpermissions /Volumes/whatever reads the BOM and receipts from /Volumes/whatever and not /. You can validate this with fs_usage and installing OS X on an external volume and running the check while snooping the IO.

It's always preferable to have the OS doing the repairing match the OS on the volume being repaired, but I've never been bitten with a problem by mixing things where a newer OS repairs an older OS. I've gone the other way in a pinch and not had it blow up, but I did make plans to run a proper repair when time was available soon thereafter.

Also - this is a very rare tool and like antiboitics, often gets prescribed erroneously. Repairing permissions only twiddles with Apple software and rarely is a problem due to incorrect permissions on a log file or an Application bundle.


Safe Mode red sign disappears after login

I noticed the Safe Mode sign in Red color, displayed towards the top right corner on the login screen, however, after login, the sign disappeared.

  I thought that once you are in Safe Mode, this will last until you restart your machine normally.

The Safe Mode text in Red color is shown towards the top right corner only on the login screen and disappears once you login. This is by design. This doesn't mean that your computer has exited the Safe Mode. It's still running in Safe Mode.

  I wonder why my Mac automatically exited from the Safe Mode (or not)?

This is not the case. Your computer is still running in Safe Mode after you login from the screen indicating Safe Mode boot.

To further verify if your computer is running in Safe Mode (or not), go to Apple Menu → About This Mac → System Report..., and in the left sidebar, click on Software. In the right pane under System Software Overview, look for Boot Mode item and check its value.

A value Safe would indicate that the computer is running in Safe Mode.

Whereas a value of Normal would indicate that the computer is running in Normal Mode.


How do I temporarily hide the Picture in Picture window?

Drag the video off the screen to hide it. The video will mostly move off screen with a portion still visible, but blurred. Audio from the video will continue playing.

You can drag or click it to replace the videos position on screen.

Video
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/TatteredOccasionalIaerismetalmark-mobile.mp4


After (exactly) 5-months, my cellular data usage logs reset to zero. What happened?

Go to Settings > Cellular and keep swiping up until you get to the very bottom of the page. You'll notice a blue Reset Statistics option. Below this check the Last Reset date to see if it coincides with when your data went to zero.

If it does, you have your answer. It's likely you've accidentally tapped on Reset Statistics, or that perhaps someone else did.
If it doesn't, then it's impossible for anyone here to give you a definitive answer as to what happened.

As for how it's supposed to work, there's no time limit as such. One of my devices shows it was last reset on 19 September 2013!


Syncing my iPhone with iTunes restores music I previously deleted from the device

You will need to use the manually manage music and videos option - otherwise, as you've already experienced, a sync will restore the deleted music to your device.

Steps for doing this are available at this Apple Support KB:

  Connect the device to your computer.
  Open iTunes.
  Select iPhone, iPad, or iPod in the Devices list.
  Click the Summary tab and select "Manually manage music and videos".
  Click Apply.
  Even when you have enabled manual management, you can still sync some content automatically. Select any content tab, such as Video, to enable automatic syncing for that type of content.

Another KB shows how to use this option to sync music for an iDevice with multiple computers. It also shows a picture of the screen that you'd see:


How do I enable a standard account to SSH in?

Most likely you have not enabled ssh for all users in the sharing preference pane.

Either go add the user you created or tick "Allow access for: All Users"


How can I remove a song from options for creating an alarm?

You can’t clear this list or remove a song, unfortunately, but the list is limited to 5 songs, so adding new songs will clear previous ones.

I noticed this so I said, dammit, I might as well set one song for each workday. :)


why my phone is slow and stop working suddenly?

This likely has to do with your carrier settings. Have you gone to settings > general > about to check for a carrier update?

If you don't see "new carrier settings available" after visiting general, plug your iPhone into iTunes, and manually check for carrier settings.

The next thing would be to go to general > reset and reset your network settings.

If that does not work, back up your phone to iTunes and preform a full restore. This takes a while, but should eliminate most if not all stubborn freeze/slowdown issues.

If it does not, go to settings > general > reset and reset all settings. You won't lose data, but will have to set up your preferences again.


Can a Thunderbolt iMac be used in target display mode while booted into Windows 7?

Target Display Mode is not supported from Boot Camp

Ref: Apple KB - Use your iMac as a display with Target Display Mode

  If your iMac is currently started up in Windows, it won't enter Target
  Display Mode. Target Display Mode isn't supported in Boot Camp.


The symptom of powering off suddenly at various charge states (sometimes 25% left, sometimes 75% left) is almost always a battery that can’t keep up with the designed current.

Some times it’s physical damage from a drop, sometimes chemical damage from being in a car trunk, sometimes just an out of spec battery.

Any service technician with Apple diagnostics can diagnose and repair that for you. Be sure your firmware and software is up to date before paying for service, though.  Also, try once a SMC reset.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/297277/5472
MacBook Pro randomly shutting down
Fully charged MacBook Air turns off when power cord removed

DIY repair is possible, especially if you are patient and aware an improper battery swap is a fire hazard and can afford a do over if you damage the battery when it’s out or don’t get the adhesive properly handled.

Is it possible to replace a whole keyboard on a MacBook?


How do you access the user library on a time machine backup

Go to the Finder. In the menu bar, select Go, then hold down Option. Select the "Library" option which appears.

Then enter Time Machine as per normal.


How to free disk space consumed by incompletely downloaded apps?

Have you tried with a cleaning application like "Checker"? Those kind of applications are used to delete useless data. If you can´t delete it with that kind of applications, try to make a backup on itunes, erase it and restore the iphone.


Unlikely as lightning cables have circuitry in them.

If you are just replacing the USB end of the cable it MIGHT work, but it would depend on what kind of circuitry is in the cable and where it is located.

If there is anything beyond a bog-standard USB on one end then probably not, if one end IS just USB then this might work.

If you do it post back to this question with your results.


Run a script to log in to WiFi upon connect

There’s nothing that allows you to kick off a script when you attach to a particular network, so you’ll have to use two tools

launchctl  You’ll have to start the job based on network availability.  Unfortunately, this only checks to see if you’re connected to any network, not a specific one.
networksetup that gets the current SSID you’re attached to.  The command you will need is

networksetup -listpreferredwirelessnetworks en1 | grep ${SSID} | cut -f2

Then in a bash script, compare the output of that command and if it matches the SSID you want, run the curl command.


Use a Type C DisplayPort cable.

The ports on your MacBook Pro are Thunderbolt 3 which is a multiplexing of multiple signals:

PCIe
USB 3.1
DispayPort
Power

Since it natively supports DisplayPort, you want a cable, not an adapter.

Difference between cable and adapter

A cable is just an interconnect between a source and an end device using the same signaling
An adapter creates a signal from one to another (from USB to DVI or HDMI)

In this case, a cable is "better" because it's not converting any signals.  Less conversion means better reliability.


Does An External Solid State Drive (SSD) Increase Performance In The Same Manner That An Internal One Would ?

It's definitely worth going internal. Someone asked the question some time ago here and the conclusion was, that even with USB3 (which only the newest Macs have), the internal version is more than 50% faster.

USB3 external will probably still be faster than a regular 2.5" MacBook drive (assuming that you have a MacBook), maybe even with USB2, but with older hardware (and thus older connectors, e.g. just USB2) the margins will get slimmer.

It may depend on your machine (e.g. if you still have warranty or if it is one that is hard to take apart, like the the very new superslim iMacs), but having retrofitted an SSD into a 2009 iMac I can say the benefit does outweigh efforts IMO.

Also given the SSD you linked there, you can get a current Samsung of the same size less expensive and spend the rest of the money for someone skilled to put it into your machine.


Experience surviving a change of file ownership on time machine

I've not done this personally but chown is pretty non-destructive spa recursive chown to make you the owner again is a perfectly valid and safe thing to do. In fact, it's what you are supposed to do when ownership is wrong.

You can always change it back to different ownership later with no loss or risk to file data but given that it is inaccessible right now due to ownership issues, I can't see why you would want to.

Just be very sure you are doing it to the time machine backup only.


My volume icon disappeared after I updated to Yosemite.

Go to System Preferences then Sound, then put a check on "Show volume in menu bar".


Using The Terminal Command and Emacs To Play The Video Game "Tetris"?

To start emacs just type emacs↩
This tells the shell to look for an executable file emacs in a directory listed in the PATH environment variable.

When in emacs run the command tetris that is escxtetris

The controls are the arrow keys

Note that something seems to be wrong with the score file e.g. it won't save high scores etc.


I cannot sign into the App store. Any time I attempt to I get the same error

I am sorry to tell you, that is normal.

In times of new product release (OSX Mojave), they servers just get flooded with requests.

You are connected to App Store, but ca not pass the Log-In server.

It says, an Unexpected Error ?,

if anything is wrong with you profile or your log-in information it would tell you that.

The problem is not on your side !

Just have to keep trying.


Wacom tablet. Endless error messages in OS X systemlog

Solution: I have completely uninstalled Wacom's tablet software 6.3.16-12 and switched back to 6.3.15-3. Also, be sure to remove all preferences files including the following leftovers:

/Volumes/MacBook/Library/Internet/Plug-Ins/WacomTabletPlugin.plugin
/Volumes/MacBook/Library/PreferencePanes/WacomTablet.prefpane
/Volumes/MacBook/Library/Frameworks/WacomMultiTouch.framework
/Volumes/MacBook/System/Library/Extensions/Wacom/Tablet.kext
/Volumes/MacBook/Library/Receipts/Wacom/Tablet/Docs.txt
/Volumes/MacBook/Users/yourusername/Desktop/Preferences.wacomprefs
/Volumes/MacBook/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.wacom.wacomtouch.prefs
/Volumes/MacBook/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.wacom.wacomtablet.prefs
/Volumes/MacBook/Library/LaunchAgents/com.wacom.wacomtablet.plist
/Volumes/MacBook/private/var/db/receipts/com.wacom.TabletInstaller.plist
/Volumes/MacBook/private/var/db/receipts/com.wacom.TabletInstaller.bom
/Volumes/MacBook/Users/yourusername/Library/Application/Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/com.apple.LSSharedFileList.ApplicationRecentDocuments/com.wacom.removewacomtablet.sfl
/Volumes/MacBook/Users/yourusername/Library/Saved/Application/State/com.wacom.RemoveWacomTablet.savedState
/Volumes/MacBook/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.wacom.RemoveWacomTablet.plist

I have spent hours on debugging. These error messages are definitely related to the Wacom Tablet Software update 6.3.16-12. Morever it’s related to random system crashes and strange command click behaviors!


Safe Mode working means that it is likely that something you installed is preventing the OS from booting. Specifically programs you have added to start at login in your user account or other things you may have installed that adds kexts to the system.

Look in System Preferences > Users &Groups > Login Items

Remove them all and reboot. If it boots one of them is the problem, add them back till you find which one it was.

Look in /Library/StartupItems

Drag everything out of there (desktop or a folder somewhere) and reboot. As above if it boots fine one of those was the problem.

It is also possible that something went wrong with the OS and something OS related was damaged. you could try applying the latest combo updater for your current OS to see if that helps.

If nothing there helps, either I missed a location for startup items or you may need to reinstall the base OS. But before you do that, boot in safe mode and backup your drive.


Macbook Pro (Mid 2009) will not turn on without power cord [new battery installed]

There could be a couple of things going on.

The first, and easiest, solution is to reset the SMC. Apple has a KB article on that:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Failing that I would then look at the battery as the cause. Remove it and replace the old one. If it then boots (assuming the old one has ANY charge on it) call the seller and get another battery.

Am I missing anything here?


How to tell open file dialogs to hide invalid file types?

Spoke to the Apple Geniuses today. They said it wasn't possible. Best I could come up with was to group the files by type.


When using dual monitors, is it possible to get the screenshots to appear on the desktop of the screen it captured?

Files sent to Desktop will always land on the right side of the primary display - under your disk drives if you have them showing.

You can change which screen is primary, & though I can't test as I don't have a laptop, the primary is very likely to reset to internal every time the external is unplugged.

Change primary by dragging the white menu bar segment as shown below


OS X Color Picker: Removing a Colour Swatch

You can actually just drag & drop them to your desktop trashcan.

This works in High Sierra, I'm not sure if it does for previous versions.


Can the Growl update message be stopped without removing Growl?

From the Growl FAQ page:

  How do I disable the update checker in 1.2.2 and below?

  The update checker in Growl 1.2.2 and below will run automatically every 24 hours. The update checker in 1.2.2 admittedly is not great, and is one of the reasons that Growl is now in the App Store.

  For those who wish to continue to run Growl 1.2.2, you can do so but will likely benefit from disabling the update checker.

  To disable the update checker, follow these steps:
  - Open System Preferences
  - Click on Growl
  - Click on the About tab at the top
  - Please make sure that you are using 1.2.2. If you are not, please update to 1.2.2 available here
  - Uncheck "Check for updates automatically"
  - Close System Preferences, you are done

Since the older version is going to become less compatible over time I would honestly suggest just paying the $4 and upgrading to the latest version that integrates all Growl notifications into message centre, even for apps that don't support message centre.


Quickly change host for bluetooth keyboard

Do you mean type2phone? It allows you to use the keyboard of your Mac on your iDevice...


Is it possible to add a song on my iTunes Library on the Mac, and sync it to my iPhone through iCloud?

iCloud does not handle music at this time, and likely never will since that content is handled by iTunes, although only for purchased content:

Because purchased content runs through Apple's servers, it's easy on them to just push the newly purchased song to any device connected to the respective Apple ID yet still retain control of the media, so to speak.

As for iCloud on OS X, it only includes a few more features over the Windows version, but none of them deal with music:

I don't doubt they could add the functionality, but it might ruffle feathers (RIAA) and certainly put considerable load on their data centers.


Can I listen to just the audio of a movie on an iPhone?

Since you can do it with headphones, you can output it to an AUX.


Cmd-N in Lion Finder shows "All My Files" not home?

You can set the default under Finder -> Preferences.

Look for New Finder Window Shows


Switching from Windows shows all files in git as modified

Seems like a duplicate here.
Resolved the issue hard reseting the staged files: https://stackoverflow.com/a/41041699/12034488


Can't Set Desktop Background in Fullscreen App

I'm late to the party, but this should work for you:

-- Set user_project_path to the folder that contains this AppleScript
set user_project_path to POSIX path of ((path to me as string) & "::")

-- Assuming your images are contained in user_project_path directory inside an images folder
set images_directory to user_project_path & "images/" as string

tell application "System Events"
  set desktopCount to count of desktops
  repeat with desktopNumber from 1 to desktopCount
    tell desktop desktopNumber
        -- Change my-desktop-image.png below to the name with extension of your desired image
        set picture to images_directory & "my-desktop-image.png"
    end tell
  end repeat
end tell

If you have questions, let me know


Applescript - opening file inside app bundle

You can use path to resource to get the pathname of the  file that's in an App's Resource folder.

Example AppleScript code:

set resourceName to "Exolon.tzx"

set filePathName to quoted form of POSIX path of (path to resource resourceName) as text

tell application "Fuse"
        open POSIX file filePathName
end tell

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors.


Use an External USB SSD before logon (daemon)

Seems that MacOS has an option to do exactly what I need:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin -bool YES
Afterwards my external SSD is directly accessible by the daemon (if I wait some seconds because the daemon starts before the external SSD has been mounted). Additionally the external SSD is not accessible at all (independent of the user permissions). To finally get access I had to add my daemon (in this case the java executable) Full Disk Access in the MacOS security settings.


How to remove Landesk Core's proxy setting completely in OS X?

This is not a network setting, there are still likely components left behind. Probably the best place to ask this question would be landesk.com. For example

http://community.landesk.com/support/thread/16347


iPod 5 stuck on voice over and is locked

You can use voiceover to tap and enter your passcode or you can connect it to iTunes where you synced the iPhone previously and disable the "assistance" that VoiceOver is "providing"

Can I enter my pass code when in voice over mode?
How do i enter my numeric password in iPhone 4 in VoiceOver mode?

Depending on whether you have trusted a computer, you might need to learn the basics of voice over or bring your phone to someone that can tap and listen to the audio prompts to get the setting changed or the device paired/trusted to a computer running iTunes.


Safari redirecting occasionally to sponsor.adverstitial.com

I left Charles (web proxy debugger) running and waited for the re-direct again.  I found the site that is originating the request to sponsor.adverstitial.com, it is ad.cpmaxads.com.

A request to that site goes out, then it brings back a lot of shady looking javascript/HTML mix with this in the middle:

{var v=Math.floor((Math.random()*100000));setTimeout(function(){try{window.top.location.href="http://sponsor.adverstitial.com/view/advertisement?loc="+v+"&adv="+p+"&camp="+o+"&w="+t+"&h="+B+"&rnd=4878995824626992114"}catch(d){}},2000)}}

The request to ad.cpmaxads.com from the web page was:

GET /audience/campaign?adid=2832800&cpid=657304&w=728&h=90&rn=1397433511&ct=http://clk.specificclick.net/click/v=5%3Bm=3%3Bl=12679%3Bc=657304%3Bb=2832800%3Bts=20140413195831%3Bui=9BHmMkGDmpd5VsqEQpYbPNeNVqvOhgeY_JYZTk4np7i31BriQpt2BAVz7vpcD5rKAI1kfLriLvqflWaNGuBRQA%3Bdct=

And the referring page was from Slashdot.org.

I'm pretty sure now this is specifically an advertisement that manages to force the whole page to load a new URL, as you can kind of make out from the Javascript - so at least it's not malware.  I'm going to try setting a /etc/hosts entry as follows to block the origin of the offending Javascript:

0.0.0.0 sponsor.adverstitial.com
0.0.0.0 ad.cpmaxads.com

As it comes from advertising, this probably occurs for any other sites using that advertiser.  If people are not comfortable editing /etc/hosts, you could also try installing an ad-blocker, and just blacklisting ad.cpmaxads.com if you didn't want the whole ad-block experience (I don't like how it slows things down and I do want to support sites I like with advertising revenue - as long as ads do not infuriate me be repaving the whole page...)

For those interested in the whole HTML/javascript block that comes back from ad.cpmaxads.com, it is:

<!DOCTYPE html>

    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" />
    <meta http-equiv="expires" content="0"><meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache"><meta http-equiv="cache-control" content="no-cache">


Change the font size of Safari's Web Inspector

Thanks for the answers above. As an update, in Mavericks 10.9, the file is still Main.css and can now be found at the following path:
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/WebInspectorUI.framework/Versions/A/Resources

You may also find the file using following terminal command:
find /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks -name Main.css


Trusting my computer with my iPhone no longer unlocks it for access (iPhone 5 w/iOS10, and Mac OSX 10.7.5)

It appears the contents of

/var/db/lockdown

a folder on your mac, are corrupt.

First, unplug your iPhone or iPad.

Quit any apps that try to communicate with the iDevice e.g. Photos, Image Capture, iTunes, PhoneView, iMazing, iFunbox or Dropbox.

Delete the files within /var/db/lockdown/ (not the folder).

Plug your iDevice back in.

The “Trust this computer?” dialog box should appear. Tap Trust on your iDevice.

The operating system should create new .plist files in the lockdown folder. Try reopening one of the apps that had the error.


How to see if MacBook Air is "talking to" USB to Ethernet adaptor (without an Ethernet device at the other end)?

You can check if the Mac sees the Ethernet adapter by doing [Apple menu] / About this Mac, clicking System Report, and then looking at USB in the Hardware section.


It looks like you disabled Spotlight indexing via Terminal commands, then tried to restore the default behaviour via graphical user tools (System Preferences).

That may fail as some guides for the Terminal are really 'thorough'.

In the screenshot above you have the commands:

Prevent indexing:

sudo touch /Volumes/YourVolumeHere/.metadata_never_index

Disable indexing and searching:

sudo mdutil -i off -d  /Volumes/YourVolumeHere/

Delete existing index:

sudo rm -rfv /.Spotlight-V100

To reverse these steps

sudo rm -i /.metadata_never_index
sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/YourVolumeHere/

To remove the file that tells Spotlight to 'never index here' and turn on again the indexing and search on the drive.

The Spotlight folder should be recreated as needed. It may take a while and a reboot won't hurt.


You can choose to record using the quicktime player if you also have sound flower installed, this will record any application audio (you would have to test to see if if captures both the incoming and outgoing sounds via Skype)

You can find Soundflower here.

When installed start a screen recording in quicktime then click on the down arrow as seen below and choose Soundflower

There are a number of paid applications that will do sound and screen recording if you want more control :-

iShowu -- http://www.shinywhitebox.com/ishowu

Camptasia  -- http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html

Voila -- http://www.globaldelight.com/voila/


The information you are looking for is contained in each Quick Look plug-in's Info.plist file. This file is embedded in the Quick Look plug-in bundle: Contents/Info.plist

The number in the parentheses is the bundle version (CFBundleShortVersionString). This should be a unique identifier for the developer to determine the exact build of the plug-in; compare this to a marketing version of 1.1.

The qlmanage manual details how to see associations and the expanded help shows more options:

qlmanage -h

For details on how to add or change associated files, see Apple's Quick Look developer documentation. The associations are set out in the Info.plist file's CFBundleDocumentTypes section.

The MultiMarkdown Quick Look plug-in provides a useful example of the Info.plist settings.


SIP would only be a problem if you wanted to install rEFInd to your macOS boot volume. This was the preferred way to install rEFInd and its predecessor rEFIt. Currently, rEFInd is usually installed ether in a FAT32 formatted EFI partition or a ~200 MB JHFS+ (Macintosh OS Extended) formatted partition. Choosing either of these types of partitions has the following advantages.

You do not have to disable SIP to install rEFInd.
You can use the Startup Manager to set your Mac to default boot to rEFInd.

Installing to an EFI partition has the following pros and cons.

Pro: Since the partition is FAT32 formatted, you can manipulate the rEFInd files from Ubuntu.
Con: If Windows is installed and uses the EFI boot method, then you have to create a new ~200 MB partition just for rEFInd.

Installing to an JHFS+ partition has the following pros and cons.

Pro: You can add a label to the Startup Manager menu instead of the generic "EFI Boot" label.
Con: You can manipulate the rEFInd files from Ubuntu if you turn off journalling, but this still is not recommended.

I should add that you do not need rEFInd to boot Ubuntu on your Mac. Your Mac can boot Ubuntu from the Startup Manager. This has the following pros and cons.

Pro: You do not need to install rEFInd.
Con: You have to manually copy some Grub/Ubuntu files to a location compatible with the Startup Manager. If an Ubuntu update changes these files, then you would be responsible for updating the copied files.

You also can use the bless command to set your Mac to boot Ubuntu as the default. You would have to execute this command from macOS Recovery or disable SIP.

Some the questions, with an accepted answer, you might consider viewing are given below.

Triple boot macOS High Sierra, Ubuntu, and Windows without rEFInd
Dual-Booting OS X or macOS with Linux without rEFInd


Test iPhone 4s hardware without battery. Possible?

Yes. Even with the battery disconnected you will be able to test the iPhone as long as it's plugged into the wall. I repair Apple products professionally and I am positive that it is possible, having tested an iPhone 4s this way just last week.

Using a mirror, that's about as good as I can get proving this with a photo.

Test the old screen like this


How to download macports packages separately?

You can use port fetch rdepof:$pkgname and not installed to trigger only downloading source code. Given that you want to use download accelerators, that probably doesn't do what you want.

If you just want to get the URLs for downloading, see port distfiles rdepof:$pkgname and not installed and parse its output. Note that you may have to deal with ports fetching source code from Git/Subversion/etc.

You can use a script I wrote a while ago as a starting point; it already parses the output correctly and initiates the download (using curl), however it downloads every URL in the mirror list, not only one of them. The script is at https://trac.macports.org/browser/contrib/port-checkmirrors/port-checkmirrors.


Finding the file that's modified when you run a terminal command?

In general, you can use ‘opensnoop’ which will list files being accessed in realtime. You'll need to disable SIP to use this command.

sudo opensnoop

To use opensnoop on a specific process such as osascript, use

sudo opensnoop -n osascript

For that specific command, no file is modified. It's setting the current volume, that's all.


Is there a way to force US keyboard layout in Safari address bar?

If you are using exactly two keyboard layouts, you can toggle between them with Command-Space if it is activated in the Language & Text System Preference. With that enabled, perhaps you could write a macro or Applescript to invoke that command along with Command-L.


External monitor goes black for short periods on MBP mid 2010 but not on same machine running Windows

I did have this with my Mac Air and it was a bad cable.

I replaced it and then it would crash, if that happens try this:

  system prefs > security > advanced > uncheck logout after xx minutes of inactivity

Someone on this site suggested it for display crashes and it worked beautifully for me.


Why can't I create a directory on a mounted USB drive after mkdir, but finder new directory works?

mount without any options gives an overview of the mounted file systems with information such as the type of file systems, location, and mount options. In your case, you have one file system mounted in /Volumes called MiniPro 2 which is a HFS file system mounted noowners (ignore permissions). Your list (ls) command reveals that you also have a directory named MiniPro\ 2 in /Volumes. Once you have determined that the directory MiniPro\ 2 does not contain any files that are not backed up and you can safely remove the directory MiniPro\ 2 then remove the directory. Do this without MiniPro 2 mounted.


Show videos, animations or text in Mac's touchbar

This little snippet from Developer HIG indicates that animations are possible in the Touch Bar:

Avoid animation. The Touch Bar is an extension of the keyboard, and people don’t expect animation in their keyboard. In addition, excessive or gratuitous animation can distract people from their work.

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/touch-bar/touch-bar-visual-design/


App Privacy: Why does the railroad company need my steps made and other health data? How-To revoke?

This is required for the EasyRide functionality. The first time you activate it within the app you are asked to grant access by iOS.

(EasyRide wants to access your Fitness data to optimally support you, e.g. if you forget to sign-off after a trip)
If you decline you can't use the EasyRide functionality

You can check in System Preferences -> Health whether the SBB app has access to its data or not. Access can also be revoked from there.


On a MacOS machine, is there any risk or trouble I'll encounter if I put some of my documents into a path that's not under my home ~ directory

Yes, very much so. You break the convention that the files belonging to a user are located in his or her home directory.

If you „retire“ a user, only files and folders in their home directory are saved.

Catalina, for example, plainly forbids creating folders in the root directory (/).

To make a long story short: There are reasons for the home directory. Do not fight those. I for my part enjoy the peace of mind this gives me. And the fact that I do not have to search all over the OS. Let alone Time Machine Backups.


How to disable the most recently used items in App Exposé on Lion?

Apparently setting the Number of recent items to None in general preferences does the trick.

Unfortunately it also disables the Open Recent submenu, but I honestly care less: having an uncluttered minimized windows list in Exposé is much more important.


Is there any way to disable the iPhone 5's passcode functionality while connected to Xcode?

No, there's no way to disable the passcode lock solely when you're connected to your system and using Xcode.

  I know i can disable it during development etc... but it defeats the
  purpose of phone security when you need to rush out quickly for work
  etc.....

As much as it defeats the purpose of security to disable the passcode, having functionality to selectively disable it when using Xcode would be an even bigger security issue.


If you iPad is currently spinning trying to boot and you don’t have access to the power button there isn’t much you can do at the moment. Hopefully allowing you Device to continue to try to boot will drain the batteries. This will allow your device to shut down, then start charging and hopefully it will boot up. Start charging with your computer so you can tell if your computer is recognizing the device while it’s booting. Going to About my Mac > System Profile > USB will show you if your device is registering with your computer.

If not, and you are comfortable following an ifixit tear down, you could take it apart to see if you can either clean up the power button (it’s probably dirty) or manually press the power-button if the little lever is broken on the button, which you could use for DFU or Recovery.

Search for your models water sensors, usually in the headphone and charging jack to see if there is water damage.


iTunes song selection goes to top after clearing search box

I had the same problem (with a similar number of songs -10742) after clearing the search box. What worked for me was clicking the curved arrow button on the right hand side of the little box, at the top of the iTunes screen, that shows the currently playing song, and its progress. This button returns the screen to the library location of the currently playing song. I'm currently running iTunes 10.5.3 on a 64-bit MacBook Pro. Hope this helps.


Mac 10.11 (El Capitan) - Repeating system.log error: airportd[57]: SecTaskLoadEntitlements failed error=22

To answer your question, here's an introduction to what SecTaskLoadEntitlements really is/does:

An application (.app) in OS X is really a folder containing a number of files, including the actual program, resources (graphics, sounds, etc) as well as system files such as plist files.

One of these plist files contains a descriptions of the application's entitlements. An entitlement is either that the application "can do" a certain thing, or that it has permission to do a certain thing.

Examples on OS X would be for an app to have the permission to get read-only access to your Music folder, or that it is allowed to interact with Bluetooth devices, record from your microphone, etc.

Application on the OS X App Store are required to use entitlements in so that that they're required to be sandboxed, which is an entitlement in itself.

In order to make sure that entitlements cannot be changed or unrightfully gained, the entitlements are "signed". This means that the developer of the application uses a specific cryptographic key to "sign" the entitlements.

OS X checks the signature when loading in new applications, and only if it is signed correctly will it load the entitlements and apply them to the program.

Your error message means that the "airportd" program tried to load in the entitlements for an application, but it failed with error number 22. The number 22 means that an invalid argument (parameter) was given.

Airportd manages the wireless interfaces (WiFi) on your Mac.

So to sum up: The source process is "airportd", and the issue is an invalid argument given for loading entitlements.

However, this does not mean that you'll experience any user-facing errors. If you're not having any problems with the WiFi interfaces, then you can just ignore the log messages.


Restore delted messages from macbook to phone

Set up iCloud messages to sync them from your Mac or restore your phone from a backup. If you set up iCloud messages then if you delete by accident them in the future, they will be gone on all of your devices.


Copy files of specific type from parent to child folder

The find command is not necessary for this operation. Use:

cp *.pdf access/.

This copies all PDF files to the access subfolder and is much prettier and simpler than the equivalent find command.


How do I choose a dialog option with keyboard, but without TAB?

Try  Cmd ⌘   A  or  Cmd ⌘    Shift ⇧   A

They're a bit hit & miss as to which works in any given circumstance, but [key/keys] + [first letter] will usually do it.

btw, you can toggle the Tab behaviour on & off at will with  Ctrl ⌃    F7  even whilst the dialog is open.


How to insert a "pop-out image thumbnail" into a cell in Numbers?

After a lot of back and forth, trial and error, I have come to the conclusion that this is not yet possible in Numbers, and that Excel is still superior in this regard.


Turn on and off MacBook Pro Retina connected to a Thunderbolt Display monitor

You can bring up the power menu by pressing Control-Eject. You can also directly sleep (Command-Option-Eject), shut down (Command-Option-Control-Eject), restart (Command-Control-Eject), or turn off the display (Shift-Control-Eject) using the keyboard. You can also press any key to wake a sleeping mac.

There is no known way of turning on recent Macbooks via keyboard except for the power button.


Can I use an HFS+ usb disk with encryption enabled with a Time Capsule (2TB is mine)

As far as I can tell from reading Apple documentation and other users' experience (I don't own a Time Capsule myself) you can't use encrypted HFS+ drives.

According to http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2426 Time Capsule only supports HFS+, HFS+ with journaling, FAT16 and FAT32, which would rule out encrypted HFS+:

  The AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule support USB storage
  devices that are formatted as Mac OS Extended (HFS-plus), FAT16, or
  FAT32. Formatting a storage device as Mac OS Extended with journaling
  is recommended, as it may provide some more resilience if the device
  is removed or powered down while in use.
  Note: ExFAT and NTFS formats aren't supported.

If encrypted HFS+ were supported Airport Utility would provide some means for entering the password to decrypt the attached harddrive. The password would then be used by NetBSD, which is the underlying OS that exports the disks contents over the network, to mount the drive. This doesn't seem to be implemente yet.

Maybe someone actually owning a Time Capsule can test it and chime in.


How can I warp the border between two different sized monitors, so the mouse doesn't get stuck in the larger one?

It's just not possible, I'm afraid.

Even with this setup, though I can move the mouse freely between the two screens, if I have a window tight to the top of the right hand screen, I must drop it far enough to clear the menu bar before it will drag to the left screen.


Why is (Yosemite) Mac Mail hitting my internet so hard?

How about using opensnoop to try to work out what Mail is doing? opensnoop is one of the tools that make up the Dtrace toolkit. It is part of the OS.

sudo opensnoop | grep Mail

That command should show you what files Mail is opening. That might point you in the right direction to what it is doing.


What's a good Mac equivalent of WinMerge?

You can use FileMerge, Apple's diff solution. It's free and it comes with every Mac OS X install.
The only downside is that you have to install the Developer Tools. You can find them on your DVD install that came when you bought your Mac (Snow Leopard or earlier). You can also get the developer tools from the App Store if your version of the OS supports that.

Then, you can find it at /Developer/Applications/Utilities/FileMerge.app


If you can get access to a Mac or a PC, you should try the iMazing application.

It allows you to selectively copy data from your iPad. You should be able to get all photos from the Photos app. I believe iMazing can also copy individual apps and their data from one device to another.

The iMazing application can also create backups and lets you browse those backups. Make a backup. Save it to a USB pen drive. Whatever method you use to transfer photos from your old iPad to the new iPad, that USB stick will be your safety net. Keep it around until you are sure the new iPad has all the photos.


OS X does not include c++ compilers.

You need to install Xcode and/or its command line tools to get clang (note not gcc)

The C++ standard libraries (which do not need to be actual files  but are in libc++ which is the Xcode default library) The include files are in /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/include/c++/v1/


How do I uninstall the command line tools for Xcode?

Delete this one folder:

 /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools

This uninstall process is documented officially by Apple.

If you have installed these tools another way or have prompts to upgrade them, consider searching for files named like /System/Library/Receipts/com.apple.pkg.CLTools.bom since that may be a receipt for a past installation of the tools that needs to be removed. I have never seen one of these files, but wanted to link to this other answer in case it helps others. Note, these files do not remove the tools, they may govern the prompt that dev tools are in need of an update.

Removing uninstalled Command Line Tools from AppStore updates


The charger works and can charge the 9.7" iPad Pro. However, it won't do it any faster than the standard 12W charger.

To take advantage of the fast charging, you'll need the 12.9" iPad Pro.


Can you Access the Versions menu while in fullscreen apps?

Oddly, and in my opinion, not a great solution by Apple from the user interface consistency standpoint, the answer is both Yes and No.

There are a limited number of fullscreen-enabled apps available at this time, but with the ones I tried (Pages, Keynote, and Preview), you cannot directly access the standard Versions interface while in fullscreen for the reason you mention: no access to the title bar. When the title bar is available, to get to Versions, you would normally click the arrow next to the document title and choose Browse All Versions.

However, in fullscreen mode, once you have saved a version (File > Save a Version), choosing File > Revert to Saved drops the app out of fullscreen, then invokes the Versions interface. It's the functional equivalent to choosing Browse All Versions from the title bar. Once you click the Done button in the Versions interface, the app returns you into fullscreen mode.


Time machine: network hard drive vs Time Capsule

I had my Buffallo NAS configurated as Time Machine Backup NAS. From one to the other TimeMachine told me that the Backup Volume was corrupt and could not be recovered.
Possible Reason for the corruption is the filesystem, which had not the full capability of ntfs or mac os extended.

Right now I try to use a Synology NAS which has a build in TimeMachine support.

But if you want to be on the save side with your backup I would advice you to buy a TimeCapsule which has the best compatability with the TimeMachine.


Install Windows 10 on VMWare Fusion 8.5.3

I ended up downloading the ISO from Microsoft and installing it from the ISO.  I try not to accept my own answers so if someone wants to post this as the definitive answer explaining why the USB drive is not suitable for installation I will delete this answer and accept yours.