Please stop writing to your hard drive this instant. That means turning it off if your system is running from said hard drive. The more you write on the HD, the more likely you are to write over the data you want to recover. And a running OS is writing on the HD.

Once you’ve done that, I can’t think of any reason why there would be any difference between files you’ve erased by emptying the Trash and files you’ve rmed1.

So the best solution you have is:

Boot from another disk.
Run a recovery utility such as Data Rescue.

1. By the way, why rm the Trash?


How to find purchased history from AppStore on Catalina OS?

On the lower left hand corner of the App Store window, click the Sign In button.

Once signed in, click on your name in the lower left hand corner of the App Store window, as shown by the red arrow in the image below.


Macbook air screen is too bright even on the lowest setting

I use and recommend Shades (free), which can darken the screen beyond the built-in brightness control.  If you really want to get it darker, use the built-in shortcut Cmd+Opt+Ctrl+8 to invert the screen colors (same command reverses the effect).

Nocturne (free) allows you to tweak some of the inversion settings.


Black Screen With Cursor on Logout in Yosemite

Just returned here, although old question, to leave the solution I have found  after long suffering this problem in High Sierra after trying to upgrade from version 10.13.5 to 10.13.6. I deleted these files through terminal, then rebooted.

You may need to enter your admin password when asked:

sudo rm -f /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist
sudo rm -f /private/var/db/.AppleUpgrade
sudo rm -f /private/var/db/.SoftwareUpdateAtLogout
sudo reboot


If you go to Notifications in System Preferences you can access the notification settings. Each individual app can have the style of notification changed, as well as some other settings. You can also set the Do Not Disturb hours and settings, which will prevent notifications from displaying.


How do I change iPhone language to Lithuanian?

My understanding is that Lithuanian is not one of the 31 languages supported natively by iOS. However, since iOS 8, iOS apps can be in any language, even if Apple hasn't localised it yet.

In iOS 8 and above you can do this as follows:

Go to Settings
Tap on General
Tap on Language & Region
Near the top, tap on the blue Other languages... option
In the search field just enter 'lit' to filter the list down to Lithuanian
Select the language

You may also find these links useful with what you're doing:

iOS Supported Language Codes (ISO-639)
Build Apps for the World


How to prevent "smart searching" in Safari?

Proper way out:

open the search engine page (e.g.:google.com) and paste the string into the search field.

Easiest way out:

paste the above into the URL bar (which is increasingly abused as a search field as well.)

To indicate that you are cleverer than Safari, jump to the first position and insert a space character. (e.g. Ctrl+a, followed by Space)

That indicates to the browser that you are searching for a string and not trying to insert a botched URL. The leading space will be ignored by your search engine. This works in almost all cases when you want to make sure that Safari parses the contents of the URL bar not as an address but as a search string.

Now some strings seem to be more equal than others. Input "/etc/inetd.conf" and indeed Safari also ignores the first space for that. Then there are other examples like:
 /private/etc searches directly, /private searches directly, /private/ opens a Finder window… Some paths seem to be hardcoded.

In the example above / etc/inetd.conf should take you to a desired result.


You could try Lucidchart. I think it's pretty close to what you're looking for. Free, not a huge selection of shapes when it comes to floor plans, but very easy to use for making an office desk plan or something like that.


Auto Unlock not working on MBP Early 2013 - iOS 10 - watchOS 3.0 - macOS Sierra GM

As mentioned in other answers, the auto unlock feature is officially supported only on Macs that were introduced after mid 2013, and include both Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11ac. As an owner of a 2012 retina MacBookPro, I was disappointed to find that the feature did't work.

However, it is pretty easy to replace the older Airport chip with a newer one that is used on mid 2013 models (model number of the chip: BCM94360CSAX, can be found on eBay etc for around $10 or so). After replacing the chip, the option for auto unlock appears on the preferences and you should be good to go (for me, required also nvram reset and logout from iCloud). Obviously the operation voids warranty, and some have reported it to cause issues on OS X recovery install over wifi. Still, it seems to be currently the only option for enabling the feature, and as an added bonus you get also the better transfer speeds of an 802.11ac chip.


How do I connect my Mac to Wi-Fi automatically?

Mac OS X should automatically join any known networks, as reported in the network applet.
After you select the Airport service in the list of the network connection, you can click on the Advanced button, which will show a dialog that allows you to select your preferred networks, and to sort them.

The Mac will not automatically connect if it doesn't find any of the preferred networks, or if the preferred network requires a "password" that is unknown to the Mac.


Can i plug a usb keyboard to my iphone while it's connected to my mac?

Not a USB keyboard afaik, but this lightning keyboard has been reported to work with iPhones.

There's a thread on the apple discussion board by someone in the same situation as you that used the keyboard linked above as part of their backup process.


Apple has a walk-through for importing pictures and videos to Windows Vista and Windows 7, here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083.


Try with "share internet connection from tap0 to computers using en0", which is actually what you want, tap0 being the vpn and en0 being wifi.


Include files from secondary hard drive in spotlight searches

All hard drives (both internal and external) can be searched though Spotlight. It's possible that it may need to be re-indexed.

To do this, go to System Preferences > Spotlight, then click on "Privacy". Click on the "+" button and select the hard drive that you wish to re-index. After that, select the hard drive within the Privacy list, and select the "-" button.

It should start to re-index the hard drive in question (you should see a progress bar in Spotlight when you click on it).


Erratic iOS battery meter and usage from Music app randomly playing on mute

According to the battery meter, your battery appears fine. However, the symptoms you describe are typical of a bad or dying battery. Ideally, you would want to replace the battery with a known-good battery (from another device, for example) to see if the problem persists or not.

In the absence of a known-good battery, one purchased from a reputable supplier can do.


You can do it with Activator. After installing it in the Cydia you can assign Actions to the Events. For example you can assign this workflow:

Anywhere > Build > Scheduled > Sun,Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu,Fri,Sat 12:00 AM > Save > Done

Now select:

12:00 AM > Lock Device

Although this workflow just locked your device and does not restrict the usage after the 12:00AM, it acts like an alarm.

The other tweaks that can do the restriction are: AppCap, Parental Controls.


How can I disable the Option+click hiding behaviour?

One option would be to remap Option+Left Click to something else using KeyRemap4MacBook.  It might not have exactly what you want, but I think it's not hard to add new shortcuts (or ask the author to add them for you).  One option that I saw was Option+Left Click -> Middle Click.  You could then (assumedly) set middle click to do what you want in Zoom2, and retain the Option+Click shortcut.

Of course, if you do this, it will change Option+Click everywhere, even if you aren't clicking on another window.


How can I type "\" (backslash) via remote desktop with a Norwegian, Danish or Swedish keyboard?

The problem was actually a bug in Remote Desktop for OS X, and has been fixed in 8.0.15, which was released a few days ago. Now the keyboard works completely as expected with both my Mac and the Windows computer configured with Norwegian keyboard layout.


How to get iPhoto to resume recognizing already imported pictures after Mavericks upgrade

For some reason, the update to Mavericks caused iPhoto to forget the location of my iPhoto library, which was on an external drive.  I held down the option key while loading iPhoto and confirm that the default library was a newly created library on the local drive and that my external drive library was present but not selected it.  When I selected it, I was informed that I had to upgrade it to the most current version.  After this was complete, plugging in my SD card resulting in iPhoto recognizing the existing photos as duplicates.  Unfortunately, unlike the old version it no longer gives any progress as it reads the card and processes it, but at least the issue is resolved.


Detect when an application goes fullscreen?

I am not sure if this solves your issue or not but the easiest way to detect whether or not a window is full screen would be to compare it's window dimensions to the window dimensions of your "desktop window". See below:

tell application "Finder" to set screenSize to bounds of window of desktop

tell application "Safari" to set windowBounds to bounds of front window

if windowBounds is equal to screenSize then
    return "It's Full Screen"
else
    return "Not Full Screen"
end if


That's either a disk on it's way out or something has been corrupted and the OS is having problems mounting the drive.

Do you have your system disk?  If so, you could try booting into is by holding the C key while booting and run Disk Utility, then do a permissions repair and a disk repair if you can.

What fsck command did you enter?  fsck -f ?  If not then you should try that too.

If you can get into single-user mode then you can run the following command to repair permissions:

sudo diskutil repairPermissions /


Boot Camp wants to create a media with Windows drivers for installation later in the process (where you may not be able to reach Windows Update for drivers), and the images you show is where to store them.  Not where to install Windows.

This is described in the Boot Camp instructions that you were urged to print out and follow carefully very early in the process.  You may want to restart the process and do this.


How do I copy the text content of a dialog box on OS X?

The most generic way may be to use the Accessibility Inspector and copy the text form its window.

  In Mac OS X v10.4 and later, Apple provides the Accessibility Inspector testing tool...

  Accessibility Inspector presents a utility window that displays the attributes (and values), actions, and position in the accessibility hierarchy of the object currently under the mouse pointer. To use Accessibility Inspector, be sure to enable assistive applications in the Universal Access Preferences.

Here is an example for Trim Enabler, where you can't select and copy the text of the "About" tab:

And the window displayed by Accessibility Inspector:

This is with the mouse pointer hovering over the long text, which can then be found in AXValue.

Edit 2014-10-18:

The next example shows step-by-step how to copy text that is not selectable using Accessibility Inspector 4.0:

Open the window from where the information shall be extracted and open Accessibility Inspector, then hover the mouse pointer over the element of interest:

Press Command ⌘ + 7 to lock Accessibility Inspector, then click on the line you want to copy (e.g. AXValue) and press Command ⌘ + C to copy it to the clipboard:

Paste the copied text where needed:


First, contact the new owner, and ask him/her to enable Airplane mode. Once that's done, visit https://www.icloud.com/#find, and select the device. You should now have the ability to click "Remove from Account".


After the image has been saved, can I still edit text-boxes & shapes in Preview.app?

If you convert the image to a PDF, and then edit the PDF, you can edit the additions in Preview.app, even after saving.

To save an image as a PDF, you can use:

File → Export As PDF...
File → Export...
File → Print → PDF → Save As PDF...


Downgrading OS X from Yosemite to Mavericks

Honestly I would make a clone of your current drive onto an external HD. Then boot from it to make sure it works.

Once that is done I would boot from your Mavericks install key (unplug your backup drive!), reformat the drive and install Mavericks. Once that is done boot to the fresh install and do all of your updates so you have the latest version of 10.9.

I would recommend doing all of this from a username/account that is different from the one you normally use. Migration Assistant will re-create your old user account later.

Re-install your applications (I would do this as there may have been Yosemite-specific) updates that were applied to your apps that Mavericks might not like).

Then use Migration assistant, point it to your backup drive and have it migrate your documents and settings to the fresh install of Mavericks. I would avoid migrating the apps for the reason above.

Now, hang onto that backup drive and make another clone before you do any point (10.10 to 10.10.1) or major upgrade (10.9 to 10.10) to your OS, so you can revert more easily in the future. I always do it, yeah it slows down the upgrade, but speeds up fixing the upgrade if it breaks your software.


System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Screenshots

You can set them to anything you like, so long as it doesn't conflict with any existing command.


Macbook Pro Retina Not Working on Battery, but fully charged and cycle count is low

I can not repair your battery, but try to provide you with information to decide if the battery is EOL.

There are 3 conditions reported.

  Replace Soon: The battery is functioning normally but holds less
  charge than it did when it was new.

  Replace Now: The battery is functioning normally but holds
  significantly less charge than it did when it was new. You can
  continue to use the battery until you replace it without harming your
  computer.

  Service Battery: The battery isn’t functioning normally, and you may
  or may not notice a change in its behavior or the amount of charge it
  holds. Take your computer in for service. You can continue to use your
  battery before it’s checked without harming your computer.

In About This Mac-- more info look for battery information such as:

Charge Information:

Charge Remaining (mAh):  2147   (it shows this at 40% remaining based on current consumption)
Fully Charged:   No
Charging:    No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh):  4829 (this indicates the age, or the capacity of the Battery)---> on a new and healthy battery for my MBA that should be in the range of 7500 mAh, so I lost some over 2 Years of use.

Health Information:

Cycle Count: 480   (this is my battery on MBA 2012)
Condition:   Service Battery :(
Battery Installed:   Yes
Amperage (mA):   -1458   (this is your current consumption)
Voltage (mV):    7612 (this is also a indicator of your battery health in how well can it keep the Voltage at load)

There is a circuit mounted on/in the battery, not part of your computer but part of battery, that reports battery information to your computer. That information is then used to present you with the battery conditions. If that circuit is faulty, you have to replace the battery, even if the battery it self is still in a good condition. There is no way to reset or repair that circuit.


You can view all the music on your iPhone in iTunes, and can then sort by size of the each individual song. I don't think there's a way to sort by the size of the artist.

Note, you can only delete items from this list is you are using "manually manage music".


Failed to mount partition of Mac OS Extended (HFS+)

Got it back when giving even the hfs+ partition a drive letter in Windows drive-management, did a chkdsk there.
(It was an external usb-drive 3Tb)


Can I delete my iphone voice memos from the Mac desktop with or without using mouse?

Voice Memos are synced through iTunes.

First you have to turn on music syncing. You don't have to actually sync any music, but that's where the option for Voice Memos is.

When your device is plugged in, click on its icon in iTunes then click on Music on the left-hand sidebar. Check the box next to Sync Music, then ensure Include Voice Memos is also checked.

If you don't want to actually put any music on the device, click the "Selected playlists ..." radio button and then don't check anything in the Playlists, Genres, Artists or Albums areas.

Click on Apply (or Sync) toward the bottom right. Your voice memos will transfer to your computer.

Once on your computer, they'll be in your iTunes Media folder (usually at ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media) under Voice Memos. Copy them from that location into a safe place.

Then go back into iTunes, select all on the automatically-created Voice Memos playlist (under Music), and press and hold Option while you right-click and choose Delete. You will be prompted to confirm you want to delete the items, and then to move them to the Trash. I would suggest you do this, since you made a copy of them above.

Sync again and they will be removed from the device as well.


Is GitHub working for you right now or is it an OS X 10.7 Firefox browser issue?

It is an issue with OS X 10.7 in the sense that this operating system is very old and (most importantly) unsupported.

As it is unsupported, Mozilla have decided not to support recent versions of Firefox on this OS. This is similar to decisions taken by Google and Apple and other browser vendors.

As GitHub requires newer Firefox, and newer Firefox requires newer OS X - you're basically stuck. You should update OS X to continue - or if you cannot do that, then upgrade the hardware or use a different operating system.

You never want to be using an operating system that went out of support years ago (in this case October 2014). The security risk is very high, and logging in to usually sensitive sites such as GitHub should not be done from an unsupported environment.

In regards to your edit, GitHub works fine if you use it with a modern system. It is NOT because GitHub’s join page is broken or down.


Why is my keyboard is not responding to touch when using Whats App?

I would try removing the Whats App application first and re-downloading it. Also try using the original iOS keyboard if you are using a 3rd party keyboard


Force airdrop images to be JPEG not HEIC

I have had this issue for a while, and this week I decided I was going to find a solution. I work in a firm that is an all Mac environment and we are constantly snapping a pic on our iphone and then airdropping to my Mac desktop or ipad to send/upload to something.

I found a tutorial online using the Automator application that came out in the last OS update. (I kind of forgot about this feature, and was initially excited about it when they made the announcement.)

Here is a link to the tutorial.

https://www.howtogeek.com/398927/how-to-convert-heic-images-to-jpg-on-a-mac-the-easy-way/

I did not use to function to "copy finder item" as I did not want to keep a copy, but this is awesome. Now when I Airdrop a photo in the finder I have a widget shortcut that will convert this image in the finder and replace the HEIC version with a JPG. Hope this helps some of you, as it has been awesome for me!

Here is a screenshot of the end result for the shortcut:

There is a lot of really cool things you can do with the Automator tool so check it out!


How can I change iOS “me” setting permanently?

I found a work around:

Signed out of iCloud on my iPhone
Signed into iCloud.com with Safari on a Mac.
Deleted my and my wife’s contact information
re-entered our two contacts via keyboard.
signed back into iCloud on my iPhone and let it merge.

So far it looks like the designation of my contact entry as “me” is solid. Time will tell but at this point it has not reverted to my wife’s contact entry.


macOS Sierra: Why can’t I bookmark to the “Bookmarks” folder anymore?

One potential workaround:

Open the bookmarks sidebar using the "Sidebar" icon in the toolbar or the "Show Bookmarks" menu item in the "Bookmarks" menu. Highlight the URL in the menu bar and drag it into the bookmarks sidebar.


How do I look up the Unicode # for a given character on Lion?

The code points should be shown in the right sidebar if you've enabled the Unicode category from the Customize List… sheet.


using automator/applescript to upload files to a web form?

I followed @drevickos very good instructions. Didn't manage it with Safari, but Firefox works perfectly.
Below the downloads for the Service file UploadFilesWebForm and the Automator file UploadFirefox3.

With these files, I managed to upload multiple files to SAS on AWS.
For any other website, you should adjust:

Watch me do procedure to fit your web form in the UploadFirefox3 file
The delay needed for upload specified in the UploadFirefox3 file

UploadFilesWebForm.workflow.zip
http://www45.zippyshare.com/v/QQm0SKJ5/file.html
UploadFirefox3.workflow.zip
http://www45.zippyshare.com/v/bHyKGi2g/file.html


What differences are there between a new and a refurbished iPhone?

If you get a refurb from Apple then it will come with the same warranty as a new phone. It is not a scratch n dent type phone, but will look and feel new.

Not 100% about getting one from a provider like AT&T or Verizon, but I think they will also provide a full warranty.


What is the oldest model iPod Touch to support Airplay in browser

The 5th generation iPod touch is the oldest device that is capable of AirPlay Mirroring.

The 4th generation can be jailbroken and can have AirPlay Mirroring enabled, but the hardware will mean that it may be laggy.


Is there an iPhone App for reading PDF files?

GoodReader is very handy.  You can wirelessly transfer files and you can even add any web content to the GoodReader library simply by  placing a "g" in front of the URL in mobile Safari.


iPhone4 has no picture. However, responds to touch and has sound. How can i test logic board failure?

My phone was also overheating, experiencing reception problems. It looks like a bunch of dirt and grime got trapped all over the inside from the previous cracked screen.

The solution: I cleaned off all the dirt and grime off of all the parts with alcohol 70%, used rubber gloves to make sure no oil from my skin transferred to the parts, and I used a blow dryer to blow off any dust. Fixed everything. The overheating stopped and phone reception is a lot better!


2018 Mac book pro doesn't go to sleep sleep after being idle

I'm taking a wild swing at this - it's a bit of an educated guess, as I don't own a Mac laptop.

The top version is for desktops, where power management is not so critical.
The bottom version is for laptops.

"Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when display is off" is what is keeping it awake.


Swap data, profiles, app on two Mac with Migration Assistant

Migration Assistant works best on a cleanly erased Mac.

borrow/buy a drive large enough to back up Mac A
Time Machine Mac A onto drive and then disconnect the drive
Erase Mac A and install new OS
Migrate everything from B to A - connect the two to the same network or use Target Disk Mode
Erase Mac B and instal new OS
Migrate data from the backup drive to Mac B

Swap complete.


Dell laptop with DisplayPort (but NOT mini) to Thunderbolt monitor

According to Apple's spec page, the Thunderbolt Display requires a Thunderbolt-equipped Mac. So, I don't think there is any way to get it to work. Although Thunderbolt allows for video steams and you can connect a DisplayPort monitor to a Thunderbolt port, the reverse is not true.

If you can get your hands on the older Apple Cinema Display with a mini-DisplayPort, that should work with something like this.


Do a chmod on the symlink to give you the rights.

do shell script "chmod 755 /usr/bin/ant" with administrator privileges


Manage login items from terminal in 10.11 El Capitan

Well, it seems there's no cleaner way than Applescript - at least my searches have turned up nothing.

So I've written a simple script to add/remove/list login items:

% loginitems -a Caffeine -p "/Applications/Caffeine.app"
% loginitems -l
Caffeine
% loginitems -d Caffeine
% loginitems -l
%


Can't open an afp network share (but other machines can)

OK, it looks like I have found the answer. It's a problem in Finder.

Finder apparently doesn't understand that 192.168.1.1/Data and 192.168.1.1/TimeMachine, despite they are advertised separately under AFP that require different credentials, are two different shares.

If I connect to 192.168.1.1/Data, provide correct username and password, and browse that share, everything works. If I then connect to 192.168.1.1/TimeMachine, instead of asking for the credentials to access that share, it tries to reuse the credentials from the previous share. That obviously fails.

Unfortunately the KeyChain is also not able to distinguish between the two so you can't just save both sets of credentials there.

The solution is to create a mount script that logs in to 192.168.1.1/TimeMachine and mounts it directly after a reboot (before much else is done on the machine). Then reboot, go to the Time Machine settings, and point to this share as a network volume for TimeMachine. TimeMachine network drives do get their own key in KeyChain so you can have TM settings store the correct credentials in the KeyChain.


Have you made sure that these selections are checked? Having the incorrect option selected can produce the very symptoms you're describing.


How does /etc/hosts or /private/etc/hosts work on 10.11?

The /etc/hosts file on UNIX systems is for local DNS resolving.

As such, it doesn't take into account ports - it links hostnames with IP addresses, like the Domain Name Service.

Adding the following line:

127.0.0.1 foo

to your /etc/hosts file tells the internal DNS responder to send requests for foo to 127.0.0.1.

It will allow you to do the following:

# curl foo:3000


How to check installed OS X version from the command-line on each partition?

The following command will give you the OS X version installed on  volumeName:

defaults read /Volumes/volumeName/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion ProductVersion

To get a list of each volume's OS version, you need a simple script that will get a list of volumes, search each one for the SystemVersion.plist, and report any that are found.

I found a script on on Mac OS X Hints, by Hal Itosis, that does just that (reposted below for convenience).

#!/bin/bash -
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin
export PATH
IFS=$'\n'

vList=$(df -l | sed '1d;s:^.*%[[:space:]]*::')
sPath=$(find -x /Volumes -maxdepth 1 -type l -not -inum 2)
pFile=/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion

SysVers ()
{
   if [ -e "${1}${pFile}.plist" ]; then
      n="$1"; if [ "$1" = '/' ]; then n="$sPath"; fi
      x=`defaults read ${1}${pFile} ProductVersion`
      b=`defaults read ${1}${pFile} ProductBuildVersion`
      printf '%-16s %-8s %-8s\n' "${n##/*/}" "$x" "($b)"
   fi
}

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then for v in $vList; do SysVers "$v"; done
else while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do SysVers "$1"; shift; done; fi
exit


How do I dismiss the iOS11 horizontal keyboard on the iPhone

Swipe confidently just above the message input bar, and the keyboard will hide. To make it show again, tap the message input.


Stop Mavericks from relaunching applications

There are three official places I know of that unwanted items on startup are controlled:

1) Login preferences: if you want to delete an item, make sure you highlight it and then click "-" instead of just unchecking it. If it is unchecked, it will still start, it will just have a hidden windows.

2) "General" - make sure "Close windows when quitting an application" is checked. This shouldn't control which applications actually open, but I've seen some people confuse unwanted windows with unwanted apps.

3) The "Reopen programs when logging back in" dialog on logout – this should be unchecked.

In addition, there are some unofficial tricks you can try:

Disable ApplePersistence:

defaults write -g ApplePersistence -bool no

Note that this will also disable Versions (autosave)

Set "System preference>General>Recent items" to NONE (default is 10)

ref:

The first three tips have worked for me; the last two are from https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5538748?start=0&tstart=0


USB 3.1 Type C Adapter MacBook Pro Retina

Yes, there's adapters all over the place.  Look at Amazon (I found this one for about $7 US) and Monoprice.


Getting errors when trying to send something using Gmail and Mail 5

It took me a minute to find what he was talking about but near the right corner of the message toolbar you will see an icon that looks like a burst with a checkmark. Click this and it will turn to a burst with an x. Here is a screen shot.


Keyboard extremely sluggish on iOS7 with iPhone 4s

Try Settings > General > Reset all settings.  I was having the same problem and that fixed it on my 4s.


AppleScript – Pages export to PDF fails due to Sandbox permissions

You are very close. Edit your export line to look like this:

export front document to file _location as PDF

It's the word "file" that you were missing.

Note: I tried the script again and it did not work, even with the word "file" added. However, while experimenting I found that if I changed this line:

set _location to (_directory as string) & _PDFName

to

set _location to (_directory as string)

then the script would of course error. But then, if I undid the change, so the line again looked like this:

set _location to (_directory as string) & _PDFName

the script began to work! I am using Pages 6.0.5, macOS 10.12.2.

I can't say what is causing this behavior.


Will moving my photos to photostreams save my iCloud storage space?

According to the Apple Support Article My Photo Stream, "The photos you upload to My Photo Stream don't count against your iCloud storage."

The 1000 photos limit is applied towards the My Photo Stream album, which stores the most recent photos for 30 days.


How to upgrade my MacBook Air from 10.6 to 10.9?

Open the Mac App Store (/Applications/App Store.app)
Download the OS X Mavericks app.
Run it from the /Applications folder if it doesn't automatically run.
Follow the instructions.


If you mean the native Notes App, you can access your notes on icloud.com, unless you don't have them backed up. Then you have to log in. If you have two-factor authentication turned on, you'll have to use another Apple device you own.

If you've successfully logged in, you now should be able to access your notes from the "Notes" app on the website.


Hide all notifications when screen sharing

You didn't mention the OS you're using so for this answer I'm using 10.12.5.
Source.

You can option+click on the 3 lines for Notification Center in the menu bar:

This will silence any notifications that use the Apple system for notifications.  To put notifications back to normal, option+click again.

This doesn't silence any notifications that don't use Apple's system.  To silence those, you'll need to turn them off at the application-level.


How would I get rid of ios app offloading?

Settings > App Store and iTunes > Offload unused apps. Turn it off.


Remap Mavericks alt key without external tools

DefaultKeyBinding.dict

Create ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict and enter

{ "~l" = (insertText:, "@"); }

This rebinds ⌥L to insert @
~ = ⌥

Quit and reopen applications for the change to take effect


OpenSSL encryption method doesn't work on El Capitan

You likely have a shell quoting problem. The command works just fine for me in 10.11.4:

> which openssl
/usr/bin/openssl

> openssl version
OpenSSL 0.9.8zh 14 Jan 2016

> openssl enc -aes-256-cbc -salt -in file.zip -out file.zip.enc; echo $?
enter aes-256-cbc encryption password:
Verifying - enter aes-256-cbc encryption password:
0

> openssl enc -aes-256-cbc -d -in file.zip.enc -out file.zip; echo $?
enter aes-256-cbc decryption password:
0

Check to make sure that your calling program is treating -aes-256-cbc as a single option and isn't quoting it when sending it in to the shell. It looks like it's calling the program with option cluster "-aes-256-cbc -in file.enc" which actually isn't a valid, single option for openssl.

If you can provide more details about how you're calling openssl I can give you more specific guidance.


Windows installed on 17" MacBook shows bad resolution.

It sounds like the BootCamp drivers haven't been installed within Windows as those are the default software resolutions for graphics cards without drivers.

The BootCamp drivers can be found on the original set of DVDs that came with the machine, which will be updated to the latest versions once installed in Windows.

You can download BootCamp 3.2 for Windows, and the 3.3 update here, although 3.2 should update once you're online anyway. http://support.apple.com/downloads/#macoscomponents


In addition to System Preferences, this feature can be turned on and off in each app via Edit > Substitutions.  Make sure you check that setting as well.


Recent versions of iTunes seem to hang on to the list of podcasts etc, though they're not actually on the machine. Try setting up an iTunes Smart Playlist for 'Local Only' to see which are actually still on the machine.


According to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, the screen after the Launch screen is called the first screen.  Not very exciting, huh.  I've also heard/seen it as home screen.

  A launch screen appears the moment your app starts, giving the impression that your app is fast and responsive, while allowing initial content to load. This screen is quickly replaced by the first screen of your app...


AirPods: Extremely poor mic quality on Mac

OP here – I'd just like to add to the answer below, that I've been in contact with Apple Support.
Explanation
Apple claims that the poor Mono 8kHz quality which affects recording and indeed simultaneously playback on Mac when the AirPod microphones are activated, is because the SCO codec then gets employed over the entire Mac audio system. This is supposedly "expected behaviour" when trying to use the AirPods and other Bluetooth headsets together with a computer, according to Apple.
The AAC codec is normally used when just listening to playback on the AirPods. It's just very unfortunate that SCO – low-quality as it may be – upon AirPod microphone activation is not only limited to doing recording, but also displaces AAC and audio playback.
Apple Support claims that Apple is looking at this issue, and that improvements might be coming in future firmware updates, but I did not interpret that as a promise to be honest. But for the time being, I'd say that the benefits of making calls and so forth with AirPods on Macs are quite limited.
Current best practice
Current best practice is to use the Internal Microphone for Recording, and the AirPods for playback when conducting calls. Input and Output devices can be selected in System Settings > Sound or by ⌥-clicking the Volume icon in the macOS Menu Bar, and selecting devices there.
See the screenshots below:


MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012) built in keyboard problem

This sounds like a hardware failure since all the keys that are not working are around one area. You may have to consider using a USB or Bluetooth keyboard with your MacBook Air. Repairing the keyboard may be expensive.


How to assign latitude & longitude to a photo "Location" in Photos 6?

Maybe the location is stored but not displayed.  You can open Photos and click on the photo of interest. Then from the menu bar click on View and about halfway down the menu the is a metadata line. Click on metadata and at the bottom of the displayed list is location. Make sure the location is checked.  Then go to the Window menu and click on info.  The location should be shown.


App that allows to paste text snippets in any applicaton?

Take a look at CodeBox http://www.shpakovski.com/codebox/

or Dash http://kapeli.com/dash

or Clipmenu http://www.clipmenu.com


1: Try this before we proceed:

Unplug your Time Machine backup device
Open Disk Utility (Open Finder > Click Go at Top Menu Bar > Utilities > Disk Utility.app)
Click on your main HDD at the left
Click Repair Disk Permissions
Enter an Administrator Username/Password and Click OK
Once complete, plug in your Time Machine backup device and retry

If this doesn't work, then we need to checkout your logs files (instructions below).

2: How to view your Time Machine log files:
Time Machine keeps a log specific to each backup in the root directory of the backup.
To access its logs, do the following:

Open Terminal (Open Finder > Click Go at Top Menu Bar > Utilities > Terminal.app)
Type cd /Volumes/[Time Machine disk name]/Backups.backupdb/[Machine name]/Latest
Type sudo nano .Backup.log to view the log file

Note: To view the "in progress" logs go into inProgress directories via Terminal you can also see the hidden log files if you type 'ls -al'.
Let us know what these log files say and we can better assist you with your issue.

3: Lets check the system log for the Time Machine's backup process.
I'm certain your issue lies with a single or a couple files that are not behaving nicely.

Open Terminal (Open Finder > Click Go at Top Menu Bar > Utilities > Terminal.app)
Type sudo grep backupd /var/log/system.log
Report your results to your original post above


How to view certificates from my keychain on iOS?

You can find certificates installed on your device in Settings → General → About → Certificate Trust Settings. Here you can switch root certificates on and off as you please.

As shown by the small words in the screenshot, certificates enforced by a profile can't be modified here. Profiles are installed in Settings → General → Profiles. You can't turn such certificates on/off — instead you have to uninstall and reinstall the profile.


iOS Updates Using a Downloaded IPSW File

Note that .ipsw files are specific to the device (i.e. the iPhone 4 GSM is distinct from the iPhone 4 CDMA). Make sure you download the correct one.

Plug your iPhone into your computer with the USB cable (Wi-Fi won't work for this).
Open the iPhone device page in iTunes (either from the sidebar in iTunes 10, or the Devices button in iTunes 11).
While holding down option (or shift in Windows), click the Restore button. You should get an open file dialog.
Select the .ipsw file you downloaded, and click OK. Your iPhone should start to update normally.


Can iPhone 4 use GPS when out of cell tower range?

This summer I took some photos out of cell range and they were all geotagged so it's definitely possible to use GPS out of cell range, but some apps (like the Maps app) use a data connection to get map tiles and routing data, so those features wouldn't work if you're not in range of either cellular data or wifi.


Will iOS 9 reject an iOS 10 backup restoration attempt to the same model phone?

You won't be able to select an iCloud backup that contains data, settings and apps from a newer build. In the past, there wasn't helpful information explaining you need to update the iOS - now generally you get an explanation.

On iTunes with a USB backup (or Apple Configurator), you get similar experience - you don't get to attempt the restore as code to check prevents the operation from starting.

What you can do is sync data using iCloud and possibly computer / cable / third party apps. Most of what you'd want to replicate is easily done without needing to restore a whole backup.


Install SublimeHighlight plugin on Sublime Text 3

I found the answer in another post:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/39432069/3511695

  Install Package Control inside sublime text 3. If you don't know how, follow this link here
  Open the Sublime Command Pallette by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+P on Windows and ⌘⇧P on Mac
  Type "Add Repository", and press enter or return

  Then paste this link
  https://github.com/n1k0/SublimeHighlight/tree/python3 [and press
  enter]

  Press CTRL+SHIFT+P on Windows and ⌘⇧P on Mac again and type "Install package" and press enter or return
  Type "Sublime highlight" and press enter to install the plugin
  Restart your Sublime


How to download bought apps without old credit card?

Once you purchased an app, you can always re-download that app free of charge, given that the following criteria are true:

The app is still offered on the App Store
The app is available in your country

If you moved countries and all the above is true for you, apps purchased elsewhere will be hidden, but can still be obtained by regularly searching for them.

They will state a price and you will need to go through the purchase process again, but once you entered the Apple ID you used to purchase the app originally, you WILL receive a message saying that you already own it and that the download will be free of charge.

I know that this sounds scary and I always shiver until I receive that message myself, but having moved countries myself, I can confirm that behavior and never had any problems re-downloading an app (except for sometimes finding them among the many other search results when looking for it).

One thing, however, since you mentioned Aperture and iPhoto.  Since Apple is discontinuing those apps, if you want to keep them, re-download them very soon and make a copy (e.g. compress them) to store somewhere on your computer.


Is 2017 MacBook Air SSD compatible with mid 2013 MacBook Air 11"?

I'm the author of the Apple SSD article that klanomath linked to in their comment and I wanted to clarify some things that seem to have been misinterpreted.

First of all, the Mid 2013 release of the MacBook Air 11" absolutely can use the faster PCIe 3.0 x4 drives from the 2015-2017 MacBook Air 13", which I refer to in the article as the Gen. 4A SSDs.

Allan's answer mentions that the 2015-2017 MacBook Air 13" drives are PCIe 2.0 x4, but they're in fact PCIe 3.0 x4 drives. It's the PCIe interface of the MacBook Airs logic board that is limited to PCIe 2.0 x4.

And the quirky firmware changes that prevent compatibility with earlier MacBook Airs were only present in the 128GB and 256GB PCIe 2.0 x2 drives (referred to as Gen. 4C in the article) found in the Early 2015 release of the MacBook Air 11". All of the drives found in Early 2015 and later MacBook Air 13" laptops are 100% compatible with earlier Mid 2013 and Early 2014 MacBook Airs, as is the 512GB drive from the Early 2015 release of the MacBook Air 11".

Everyone in this discussion missed this paragraph from the article:

  Despite the two channel drive, the 11″ MacBook Air actually supports
  four channel PCIe connections, and they can be upgraded with the Gen.
  4A drives found in other devices. In fact, if the 11″ MacBook Air was
  configured with a 512GB SSD from the factory, it already included the
  same Gen. 4A drive found in the other Apple computers of the era.

Despite all the good info in that article, it's a bit dense to read in places and I think much of the information could have been conveyed in a better way. I've recently started working on some improvements that should make it easier to quickly grasp the most important details and should be publishing those changes in the next couple weeks.


Is there a way to auto "put back" everything in Trash?

If "Put Back" is disabled for a multiple-item selection it means that (at least) one of the items selected doesn't have its original location information stored in the Trash directory's .DS_Store file.

Though it's less than ideal, try multi-selecting subsets of the files looking for groups that you can "Put Back" en masse before resorting to manual filing for the remaining files.


Firewall on. I blocked IP 93.184.220.29 with PF but it still popsup in netstat -n

I made a mistake:

Blocking in the IP is archieved via:

Inserting

block drop inet from any to 93.184.220.29
block drop inet from any to 93.184.220.70

In

 sudo nano /etc/pf.conf


Mac OS X Mountain Lion cannot share internet connection because of 802.1X protection

I agree with Gordon. The 802.1X security measures are in place for a reason. You should contact your IT team to see if they have other options for you or if they can set up a guest network. In the absence of that, I would recommend getting a MiFi from your carrier or turning your smartphone into a wireless hotspot. If you have access to LTE, it may be faster than your office WiFi.


iPhone mail using 700Mb with no accounts

It seems like I have answered a number of questions with this particular solution, but let's go for it again.

Often times a backup, wipe, restore process will clear out the cruft still sitting around in the rather opaque IOS filesystem. I don't know why but it works:

Backup: Connect the iPhone to your computer and do a manual backup to that computer. Password protect the backup so you don't have to re-enter passwords.
Wipe: Once you have a good backup go into the iPhone > Settings > General > reset > Erase all content and settings. And let it do its thing.
Restore: Once the phone reboots and is waiting on it's welcome screen plug it back into your computer and restore it from the backup you just made.

9 times out of 10 all the inexplicable space usage on the phone goes away and you have got your space back.


Use Textmate (or any arbitrary application) with Lion's "Versions" feature?

Scouring the TextMate community and community plugins doesn't show that this feature is currently available in TextMate. This blog post states that they're "holding back with 'lionizing' TextMate till we feel confident we can fully drop backwards compatibility".

You're not alone though, the community seems to be very interested in this feature.

I don't have experience with this plugin, but the community seems to enjoy the ProjectPlus plugin.


How do I make iClip Lite work in newer versions of Mac OS X?

I figured out how to fix the preview!

Right click iClip lite.wdgt in Finder and select Show Package Contents, then open js/scripts.js in a text editor.

Go to line 49, which reads:

node.setAttribute("style", "position: absolute; left: 1.5em; top: 1.5em; width: 7.2em; height: 7.2em;")

Change and height to 300px and 150px, respectively. Your new line 49 should read:

node.setAttribute("style", "position: absolute; left: 1.5em; top: 1.5em; width: 300px; height: 150px;");

Save your changes, close the file, and reload the widget (in the Dashboard, click the Widget and enter ⌘R). Everything should work now.

I tested this on Mavericks and High Sierra, so I assume it will work on the full gamut of Snow Leopard through Mojave.


Use Burn. It will convert your MP4 into a MPG and write it to the DVD as playable. (And yes, you can make the DVD loop automatically. See below.)


Can't see bootcamp anymore after OS X install

Is the Boot Camp disk readable from OS X?  That's the first step. After making sure that your Mac can actually read the disk,

Hold down Option while booting to show a boot menu, or
Install rEFIt


MBP on TB3-Dock ignores USB-Devices until reconnect

To my knowledge, there's no such security feature in macOS.

On my system I can easily connect the MacBook Pro with a closed lid to my dock (OWC Dock) and USB devices automatically reconnect.

I would test if this happens with all USB devices, or just with the audio interface.

In case it is generic, contact Kensington support to report the problem. I have checked their web site, and it seems they have no firmware updates or the like available for the product.

In case it is specific to the audio device, contact RME to report the problem, and check if they have firmware updates, driver updates or similar available.


It is possible. Here’s how to do it in Logic Pro X (where it’s different from earlier versions):

record an audio clip to an audio track
double-click the clip to view it in the Editor panel
click the Show/Hide Flex button near the top left of the editor window, to the right of the menus

You will be asked ‘Do you want to turn on Flex for track “Audio 1”?’. Confirm “Turn on Flex”.
change the Flex pop-up menu at the top of the Editor from “Flex Time – Automatic (Slicing)” to “Flex Pitch”
right-click the audio area and choose “Set all to Perfect Pitch”

from the Edit menu of the Editor area, choose “Create MIDI Track from Flex Pitch Data”, at the bottom

This will generate a MIDI region with the notes Logic can detect from your audio. You can delete your audio track now.

You will probably want to quantize your notes too, which makes notes start on the beat. You can do this by viewing the generated MIDI region in the Editor panel, selecting all of the notes, and choosing a beat size in Time Quantize at the left. Or you could do it earlier in the process, with the Time Quantize section next to the Flex Pitch editor.


What's the purpose of the adhesive under iPhone 6s screen? (which doesn't exist in iPhone 6)

The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus were actually designed to be more water resistant (although not officially so). I've seen inside these and the difference compared to earlier models is obvious (the adhesive you refer to is one example).

You can read more about this here.

However, do not mistaken this to mean the iPhone 6s has any sort of official IP rating. It does not. You may also be interested in my answer to this question.


Little Snitch: Does restricting address/port for an application disable future connection prompts?

If you click Deny on the picture you posted, then no further notifications will be shown [& the connection will be denied] for gamed trying to connect to (static.gc.apple.com AND port 443), not for (static.gc.apple.com OR port 443).

Any & all other connection attempts will be flagged - e.g. a connection to static.gc.apple.com on port 442 would be flagged, or a connection to notstatic.gc.apple.com on post 443 would be flagged.

The next time gamed was launched, your previous deny would again be flagged for your attention, as you only denied it until Quit.

Note:
If you click on the static.gc.apple.com in the line above, you can broaden the domain you wish to block - though it must be said that blocking Apple devices & services [gamed is an Apple service] from connecting to Apple is not really going to be a good move, long-term.
In general terms, Little Snitch can be used to block any or all connections for any app or service -  as either a precision tool or a sledgehammer!
It should be used with care.


Can't scan but can print with Canon PIXMA MG5500

The packaging for the Pixma printers is misleading. It's a wireless printer, but for scanning, you need to either tether to your computer, or plug a USB drive into the printer. When conducting the scan, you'll be prompted to choose the USB drive, and after scans are complete, you can walk the USB to your computer.


Copy all the text of an entire `man` page from Terminal.app

You can push plain text to the clipboard by piping to pbcopy, to paste anywhere as usual.

man ssh | col -b | pbcopy

or equivalent

man -P "col -b | pbcopy" ssh

the latter of which is nicer if you want to use it as an alias, like mancp ssh, given:

alias mancp='man -P "col -b | pbcopy"'

There are methods to go to HTML/PDF: Can man pages be converted to html and/or pdf format?

If it's just the nicer reading experience you're after, you can right-click on a selection of a command and open its man page as a separate window/tab, with normal scrolling and ⌘F find.

You can customise what this looks like in Terminal Preferences → Profiles, under the Man Page profile which is one of the default profiles to exist.
This includes font family and size (also see View menu) and background/foreground colours.


Reliable 3rd-party source for downloading softwares for Macbook?

The most reliable place for downloads for Mac is the App Store.

It is already installed on your Mac (just click on the top left Apple icon)

Also, you do not have to go to http://www.filehippo.com/mac to get Firefox or Chrome.

If not available at App Store, I usually go directly to the Developer web site to get the download.


OS X - how to check if installer is signed

You can use pkgutil --check-signature YOUR.pkg. Sample output:

Package "Silverlight.pkg":
   Status: signed by a certificate trusted by Mac OS X
   Certificate Chain:
    1. Developer ID Installer: Microsoft Corporation
   SHA1 fingerprint: AE D0 A7 C5 31 01 2B 70 D7 FB 49 5A 23 30 3A 67 05 36 5A 11
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2. Developer ID Certification Authority
   SHA1 fingerprint: 3B 16 6C 3B 7D C4 B7 51 C9 FE 2A FA B9 13 56 41 E3 88 E1 86
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    3. Apple Root CA
   SHA1 fingerprint: 61 1E 5B 66 2C 59 3A 08 FF 58 D1 4A E2 24 52 D1 98 DF 6C 60

Exits with 0 on success.


How to use Xcode 4 mergetool in a standalone fashion?

opendiff takes two filename arguments, and an --ancestor parameter with a third filename, to produce a three-way diff, and a --merge parameter to say the output file to use for the conflict resolution.

So go:

[mergetool "opendiff"]
    cmd = "opendiff \"$LOCAL\"  \"$REMOTE\" \"$(if test -f \"$BASE\"; then echo \"--ancestor $BASE\"; else echo \"--ancestor $LOCAL\"; fi)\" --merge=\"$MERGED\" "
[merge]
    tool = opendiff

That should make git use opendiff as its merge tool, when there are merge conflicts.

That said, I VERY much prefer DiffMerge from SourceGear, which is a free diff and three-way-merge tool that does much better, word-oriented, conflict resolution. And in DiffMerge's documentation there's what to tell git to make it the default diffing and merging tool.


You can setup the permissions of the Delegate so they can not see private items. Here's a KB article about granting permission to them:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249324

The trick is now finding a way to get your iPhone to add the "Private" flag to your message. I don't have an iPhone so I can't help you there. Just edit the properties of your message and see what you can change.


On High Sierra the path is: ~/Library/Safari/History.db

I believe it's a SQLite database. The timestamps are stored in native Core Data format so you'll need to convert to something human readable (e.g. http://andrewbranch.github.io/coretime/).


FaceTime call from Mac to iPhone 4S over 3G doesn't connect

I have the same problem. I assume that your brother's iPhone is on iOS 6 (which officially comes with the cellular FaceTime feature) and uses AT&T (which blocks this feature). I've heard someone say AT&T might start letting all iPhones use cellular FaceTime, but I believe the official word is that cellular FaceTime only works with AT&T if you have a Mobile Share plan or if you have an iPhone 5. Meanwhile you'll have to call him with Skype or Google Hangout, or he'll have to go to WiFi.


Drag the icon off the dock (not into the trash) and hold it for a second until it says "Remove". Then drop the item and it should go away.


ChatSecure works now:

Just enter Username and password and leave the other settings default:

In chat you can activate OTR at the top right corner


Is it possible to record a 4K time-lapse on iPhone?

No, the default camera app does not record time lapse in 4K unfortunately. I believe that there are third-party apps that will work. Alternatively you can just record a 4K video (set it to the lowest frame rate in settings) and then speed it up in iMovie on your phone. You might have to speed up>export>import>speed up a couple times to get it to be quick enough.


The best bet is to take it into an Apple Store and have them run diagnostics on the device. This won't take long to do, and there'll also be a record of it on their systems.

If an Apple Store (or authorised repairer) is not convenient to you, Apple can also run diagnostics while you're on the phone to them.

Regardless, the diagnostics will identify any hardware related issues on your iPhone and that's really the best way to troubleshoot it.


How do I transfer data and settings from one Apple Watch to another?

iMore provides a step-by-step set of instructions to restore an old backup onto a new watch that I have summarized below.

The first step is to unpair the old watch from your phone. As part of that, a backup of your watch's information and settings will be created on the phone.

Next, pair your new watch following the normal procedures - launch the Apple Watch app, tap Start Pairing, and align the watch in the viewfinder.

On the following screen it will state "Your Apple Watch Is Paired." From here, tap on Restore from Backup, and you should be given the option of the backup you made when unpairing the old watch. Tap on that.

You will then need to agree with the terms and conditions, as well as enter your Apple ID username and password. Tap through the remaining screens of setting options, including a passcode, and finally it will begin the process of restoring your backup, which may take several minutes.

Once the restore is complete, you will have your new watch set up with all your settings and data.


Mavericks Mail.app Text Re-formating Driving Me Bonkers

Found the answer to my own question. For some reason, simply asking the question tends to provide me more clues from which to solve it myself. Weird how that works.

Apparently there are substitutions within Mail for Smart Quote and Smart Dashes, which is what was giving me fits. You'll find it under "Edit \ Substitutions \ "


How can I find dictation commands in French?

You can find the list of the default voice commands here: http://support.apple.com/fr-fr/HT6482

You can find the list of the advanced voice commands here: System > Accessibility > Dictation:


Though I have not actually done this it should be possible to redirect your desktop folder to a different location. Since the Dropbox folder is just a folder in your user profile (that the Dropbox app then knows what to do with).

I would avoid using the dropbox folder itself as the desktop folder just to avoid any difficulties or conflicts between macOS and the Dropbox app. Rather I would put a folder called "Desktop" in the Dropbox folder and create a symlink in place of your ~/[username]/Desktop folder that points to ~/[username]/Dropbox/Desktop.

If you are not familiar with symlinks (the Unix version of an Alias but works with system processes) this link from GigaOm should be helpful.

The only question that remains is will macOS allow you to do this as the default folder structure in your user folder may be protected by the recently introduced "SIP" or System Integrity Protection system.


Cmd+Option+Esc not working in macOS Mojave 10.14.5

This is same as the shortcut you're trying. Apple logo in the menu bar in top left corner-> Force Quit. This should be done from an app whose menu bar is not in the hang(spin-ball) state. To achieve this, I normally click on desktop to get Finder.
A different approach, type Activity Monitor.app in spotlight(cmd+space) or via launchpad or via Applications folder. As your question seems like you're not talking about any application, the first method is not so useful.


iCloud says Password is Wrong Even Though I Know It's Right

Not a solution just a verification.
Since you can not see the password, that you pasted or typed I sugest to verify what is in the password field.

For that
Open iCloud in Chrome
In the log in paste your password- But DO NOT try to log in.

Now to make it visible do following:
Right click on the password field and select "Inspect Element"

That will open a new window that looks like this

Move the cursor on the password field:
there will be a highlighted line in the bottom window as you can see:

Right click on the highlighted line and select
Edit Attribute

Now it will highlight the word "type", now you write "show" instead "type"

Magic, now it will show what is in you password field.


How do you change your UID in OS X Mountain Lion

First, I have to say that doing this is using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut but here it is.

You will want to change your userid then you will want to change the owner of all your files. You don't want to be logged on as yourself when you do this.

sudo dscl . -change /Users/YourUserName UniqueID 501 1001

is indeed the correct way to do it.

Then :-

sudo find / -uid 501 -exec chown 1001 {} \;

To change the ownership of all your files. This should stop almost all of the breakages inherent in doing this.

I assume there is some perfectly good reason for you not to be using ITs Active Directory or LDAP server to log on to your Mac and avoid all of this problem. This is the accepted way of getting around all these problems, not to mention you will then already be authenticated making mounting the NFS shares easier. Once you've done a network login you can shift your documents from the old local account to the new network account and life is hunky dory.


Search a folder that is excluded from Spotlight

If you're happy with the terminal you can use the find command.

Something like opening Terminal in Utilities.

cd <folder name>
find . -name <whatever you're searching for>

Once found you can open it up with open

So, I can do something like:

alex@smiley:~|⇒  cd Desktop
alex@smiley:~/Desktop|⇒  find . -name Mac*
./Mac Pro.spx
alex@smiley:~/Desktop|⇒  open Mac\ Pro.spx

Notice that I used the * as a wildcard to match all files starting with Mac


How can I set a scaled display resolution from the command-line in macOS Catalina?

I’m not aware of any way to do this via defaults write (although it seems like it should be possible). I even checked MacPilot which is usually my go-to for hidden defaults.

My suggestion would be to use display_manager.py which is the best command-line tool that I know of which is being actively developed. It is free, but will require you to figure out the proper settings for your computer.

There’s also SwitchResX which is a commercial app ($16, I think) but if all you want it for is the initial setup, that might be overkill.

Last but not least, there’s Display Menu which is free, but with a $2 in-app purchase will add AppleScript support, which means you can use it from the command line.


/opt/local/bin/compare is not a OS X Mavericks supplied program.

Try to retrace your steps. The simplest is to reinstall MacPorts. Follow the entire installation guide! (i.e. reinstall Xcode and the Xcode command line tools and then MacPorts itself).


Is there a way to completely disable Spaces in El Capitan?

I've found that if head to mission control and uncheck 'displays have different spaces', then logout/login you should be sweet. Worked for me anyways.


How can I use Audio Midi Setup utility to create a multi-output device with multiple AirPlay speakers?

The only way to do this without a third party app is directly from iTunes. In the top area of the iTunes windows you'll see the AirPlay icon. Click on that and then select Multiple to select multiple AirPlay targets to stream the audio (and/or video) to at the same time:

To stream to multiple AirPlay devices from outside iTunes you'll need to invest in some third party applications. The best approach I know of uses Airfoil for Mac from Rogue Amoeba. Airfoil allows you to send audio to many destinations from your Mac. From their page:

  Multiple Outputs At Once
  You can send audio to multiple outputs around your house, all in sync.

It's an excellent app from an excellent Mac-centric development company and for $25 you get an excellent solution to your problem.


Whats that percentage mean in iTunes Connect?

This shows the change in units since the prior range of data. In the screenshot, 31 units is an increase of 343% over the previous data range.


It sounds like your machine thinks you have an ISO keyboard (which has an extra key to the left of z for grave/tilde) instead of ANSI. Some possible fixes are at

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2009/12/fixing-keyboard-type-problems.html


I see 2 alternatives, if it won't boot…

Take the drive out, mount it in an external USB case, then you can back it up from any other machine that can read the drive.
If you have another Mac, mount it in Target Disk Mode

  If you have two Mac computers with FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, you can connect them so that one of them appears as an external hard disk on the other. This is called “target disk mode.”

  Connect the two computers with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable.
  Start up the computer to be used as a disk in target disk mode:

  If the computer is off, start it up while holding down the T key.
  If the computer is on, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Startup Disk, and then click Target Disk Mode.

  When the computer has started up, a disk icon appears on the desktop of the other computer.
  Transfer files by dragging them to and from the disk.
  Eject the disk by dragging its icon to the Trash.
  While you drag, the Trash icon changes to an Eject icon.
  On the computer you used as a disk, push the power button to shut it down, and then disconnect the cable.


I can confirm that this site does not work in Safari, Safari Technical Preview, or the latest WebKit nightly, as of the 5th of March 2017.

The issue is not with your specific hardware (r460), this runs in Chrome on far older hardware. I tested it on a 2009 iMac w/ Nvidia GeForce 9400, it worked in Chrome but ran very slowly, it did not work in Safari. I saw the same behaviour on the 13" 2016 MacBook Pro with 2 thunderbolt ports.

The root cause of the issue seems to be Safari being more picky than Chrome or Firefox. I don't know if this is an issue with the page author's code, or with Safari, but if you open up the Web Inspector's Console tab you'll see that there are a couple of logged errors; an IndexSizeError, and a TypeError. Either way I expect this issue is limited to this site unless you can find additional examples of this.

Your options for solving this are probably quite limited. You could raise an issue on GitHub on the linked repo, or submit a pull request if you can work out how to fix the issue manually.

If you try out other WebGL (v1) examples you shouldn't see this issue, check out a few at this link: http://webglsamples.org

Edit: I have raised this as an issue on the GitHub repo, I'll update this answer accordingly.

Edit 2: It's been fixed, although the performance in Safari is quite poor compared to Chrome.

Edit 3: Safari doesn't support hardware acceleration with WebGL according to the OP's comment from a phone call with Apple Support. This is also demonstrable when comparing the example website mentioned in the question, https://wizgrav.github.io/clubber/index.html , in Chrome and Safari.


Login - Screen Flashes and Returns to Login Screen - Tried Everything Possible

There is one troubleshooting step that OS X shares with the classic Mac OS, removing preference files. But on OS X there are TWO folders:

/Library/Preferences and ~/Library/Preferences

--The latter being in your user/home folder--

Since the issue doesn't exist under another logon it is specific to that user folder. SO there is something specific to that user that is causing the problem. This takes the /Library/Preferences folder out of consideration for troubleshooting preferences. The first thing I would do is use a utility like Onyx to verify and clean the system. This includes verifying preferences files. After that rename the ~/Library/Preferences folder to something like

~/Library/Preferences-old

You'll probably have to do that in Terminal and use sudo as those files are owned by another user on the system. then create a new ~/Library/Preferences folder and reboot.

If you can now log into that account it is a simple (HAH!) matter of putting preferences files in the new Preferences folder and rebooting till you find which one it is.

No guarantee, though, that it is a preference file, it could be a startup item. So do the same thing with the ~/Library/LaunchAgents folder.

The other thing to consider is that it might be easier to just create a new user folder. Copy the things you need out of the old user folder and delete the old user. That could save you a lot of troubleshooting time. It would be my preferred way of doing it (after running Onyx) as I care less about what happened than just finding a fix that gets me up and running more quickly.


Yes, TimeMachine is Apple's way of doing backups (both user, and whole system, as long as you aren't excluding system files).

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427


Unfortunately, you've discovered the perils of having a single password for multiple devices/accounts. This would be no different than if it were an IT Manager who used the same firmware PIN and admin credentials across all school computers (I say that, because I inherited that exact problem).
Apple ID doesn't haven anything to manage this and "corporate" style solutions like network authentication or mobile device management is simply overkill for what you need to do.  So, the solution is to use a different password for the admin account for each Mac and store them in a good password manager.
I use KeepassXC for this purpose.  My personal stuff (like bank accounts and website logins) is stored on a different service, but passwords for my "infrastructure" is stored here.  All my routers, switches, servers, etc. are stored in KeePass.  KeePass is secure.  If you lose the master password, you're not getting into to it - ask me how I know.
By having a tool to manage your passwords and using different credentials for each device, any "breach" is contained and you don't compromise the rest.


How do I install command line tools without installing Xcode?

Go to Apple Developer, login with a valid Apple ID, search for "command line tools", download an appropriate version, open the dmg and finally install the tools.

Here is a direct link (which still requires an Apple ID!) to the latest non-beta version: Command Line Tools OS X 10.11 for Xcode 7.1


Connecting an iPhone to the internet Only with a Stand Apple USB Cable Without Jailbreak

I found some (complex) instructions here.

But since you have some complex situation with your iPhone, no SIM, no data, and NO WiFi !!, this might work for you.

It describes how to use PC Internet over IPhone via USB Cable.

Important to know is:

First and for most we need a jailbreak iPhone with Cydia installed.

In PC you have to download the latest version of IFunbox v1.9.
Download and install Privoxy v3.0.19.
Download and extract Bitvise Tunnelier

and so on... (to long to copy in here)

I could not verify for you since I do not have your setup.


Why there is no cancelling mechanism for filevault?

It is not impossible in theory to create a "Cancel" button for FileVault.

Technically it is quite involved to create a "Cancel"-button. It is much more complex than for example creating a "Cancel"-button when you're copying a file.

Usually "Cancel"-buttons gets the computer to stop doing what it is doing. These are generally fairly easy to create. In the case of FileVault, it is not enough for the computer to stop doing what it is doing - it also has to undo everything it has done during the encryption process. That can be very time consuming and would need to be able to "survive" shutdowns of the computer.

As to why it was decided not to dedicate resources to creating the "Cancel"-button, there can be only speculation, as there's no official statement from Apple on the matter (which is not surprising).


iPad: Login with two Apple ID like Windows users

Can I log into iPad using two separate Apple IDs like a Windows user? Like you lock one user and log into other user, so both can access others data, apps, folders, etc.

No. iOS, the operating system running on iPad doesn't support multi-user login and switching mechanism (a feature commonly available in desktop operating systems).

  My intention is to hide certain installed apps. Is there another way to hide game apps?

An installed app cannot be hidden from view from the users of iOS/iPad.


How to navigate between screens on the Mac

If you're asking what I think you're asking, cmd+` will usually cycle between application windows within a single application.

It's also possible you have no application windows open, and you're just getting a menu bar.

Also, this should probably be in the superuser stackexchange.


How can I recover photos from a damaged MacBook?

Go to an Apple store (or ask a friend with tech skills) to remove the hard drive from the MacBook.  Most likely the hard drive will be unharmed and putting it into an external USB case will let you access it (not necesarily directly via the iPad but through some other way, e.g. iCloud or USB stick or something).

Btw, quite likely the MacBook is not beyond repair also.  Ask an Apple tech.


This Applescript code sets the zoom level globally:

tell application "System Events"
    tell application process "Safari"
        set frontmost to true
        keystroke "," using command down
        delay 0.5
        tell window 1
            click button "Advanced" of toolbar 1 of it
            click pop up button 3 of group 1 of group 1 of it
            click menu item 4 of menu 1 of pop up button 3 of group 1 of group 1 of it
            keystroke "w" using command down
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

change menu item 4 to 5 for a 115% or 6 for 125% zoom level.

Using an Applescript is better than using cmd + / cmd + - because it sets the default zoom for all pages.


How to fix an unusable iMac G4 monitor plagued by static?

Sounds like some part of the display sub-system (video card or display driver circuitry) has gone bad.

All the iMac G4 "lampshade" models have mini-VGA out ports, get an adapter and try connecting it to an external display.

Caveat -- if it's the display logic circuitry itself (as opposed to the LCD panel driver circuitry), you may get exactly the same static on an external display.


What should I do with my original RAM after an upgrade?

Several threads on MacRumors say to keep it for troubleshooting and/or if you need to send it in for warranty service:

Upgraded from 2gb to 4gb - what to do with old Memory?
"2x1GB is worth so little so you're better off keeping it for troubleshooting purposes."
What to do with the old memory on the macbook
"I would hold on to the memory; if you ever need to take it in for service, it's better to have the original memory in it."
"Keep them for warranty"
what can i do with old ram?
"Apple guidelines are that if you do have 3rd party hardware installed, they won't service it."


Is Monitoring Apps drastically impact battery life?

Battery is affected with power consuming operations; cpu, hdd, bluetooth, wireless, etc.

So, yes. Amount of the cpu usage may drastically impact battery. Battery life is proportional to the frequency of charges/discharges.

Please consult to apple page


There is no built-in Apple way to do this. Your only option would be to use third party software such as Air Display. However, I cannot vouch for how well it will work in your scenario.


The short answer is you recover this file in the same way you'd recover any other file, but this assumes you're only wanting to recover the final movie you produced and not all of the raw footage and project files? It also assumes you exported the video in a playable format (i.e. not just to DVD, but also as a single video file such as a .mov or .mp4 file)?

If so, any good data recovery package will provide filtering options that make it easier for you to isolate and recover what you want. In your case, if you know you saved it as an .mp4 for example, and that the file size was about 4GB, you should be able to select .mp4 as a file type and select any matching files within the vicinity of 4GB in size.

If you're not 100% sure of the file type, any good data recovery package will also group files into categories such as Pictures, Movies, etc. In this case you could select any video or movie files that are around the 4GB size.

Another option some packages will give you is the ability to see the original path of the files. If so you can look for files in your user's Movies folder in which there should be a number of iMovie folders and files. This may allow you to browse and find what you're looking for.

Did you create a disk image instead?

Many standard definition videos of about 1hr duration compress to about 4GB in size when saved as a disk image, so it is possible that you've done just that. Of course, if it was a high definition video then it's duration would be a lot less if it resulted in a 4GB file.

Regardless, the fact is iMovie provides the option of saving it's projects as disk images. In this case you would be looking for a .img file to recover. These files do not play in Quicktime by default as they're not movie files, they're disk images.

You will need to mount the disk image first before you can access the data. Typically you can just double-click on them and this will mount the disk just like any other drive (i.e. it will appear just like you plugged a USB stick into your computer).

Once the disk image is mounted, you can access the files. If what you see is a movie file you should be able to play it in QuickTime. However, if what you find is two folders labelled AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS then what you have is a DVD disk image. You can play this in the DVD Player app, or you can choose to create a physical DVD from it using an app such as Burn or Toast to copy the disk image to DVD.

NOTE

You should be aware that recovering data is not perfect. You may be able to recover the file and all is good, or you may find that it's also corrupted in some way (e.g. the video data is there, but the audio data is missing, etc). Also, it may be that the data isn't all located in a single file any more, or that some of it is missing, so if you have no luck finding it by recovering files around the 4GB size, you may need to recover files well below that in the hope of some success.


How does my phone tell me my elevation even though I'm nowhere near a cell tower?

This is determined by satellites in the horizon mapping out where your phone is (according to multiple posts on Stack Overflow, including https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13329714/how-does-my-iphone-get-its-altitude). Note that the accuracy from this method is not usually precise, but it is a rough estimate of your elevation.


My iPhone could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (4014)

The why is a quality check where the Apple software tests for a response from your phone and that response wasn’t measured.

If I can assume you want a process to narrow this down, here is a guide.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201252

At the end, errors have some general fixes like restart and update. I would do all of them, they really fix many errors.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201210

At the end of all updates is a list of more errors, but I would do all the easy items first before getting to the page that lists specific error codes. Yours is quite involved and wants you to choose update or restore based on previous steps and really wants updates and restarts of the device before contacting Apple if you can’t get past the check.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201444


How to find out which cipher suites an iOS application uses?

You could install a web proxy on your router or a computer and there are even web proxies on iOS like Charles Proxy.

https://www.charlesproxy.com/

There are great tutorials on the site above using the Mac / Linux / Windows version of this to debug and investigate ios / iPhone traffic. The iOS app to run this on the device itself is here: Charles Proxy by XK72


How to set label color for "Utilities" folder in Lion?

Lion disables most of the customizations that were once available in versions prior to 10.7. As to why that is I can only speculate, however, it can't be done like before. I personally do not recommend any type of SIMBL plug-in either, for it can cause more grief than happiness. I usually try and find the most sensible work-around for such things without having to go to extremes.

Here's what I do:

Highlight the Utilities folder
Press ⌘ L (Make alias)
Rename the [Utilites alias] to [Utilities ] ↙ leaving and extra space behind the 's'
Open Terminal and type the following:

sudo chflags hidden /Applications/Utilities

This will hide the original Utilities folder, leaving your new alias ready to label with your color of choice.

If you want to un-hide the original Utilities folder type nohidden instead of hidden. I hide it, since there's no point to having the Utilities alias and the original Utilities folder sitting there.


Can Apple collect my used Mac's serial number and other hardware information if I use my Apple ID on it?

Can they, yes.

Do they any/every time you sign in to the App Store, I think not.

Apple would probably be able to collate your device's anonymous and unique ID with your Apple ID if you opt in or agree explicitly to a question that informs you that the serial number will be checked to verify eligibility for a specific product.

You might capture the serial number to iCloud if you are opting into trusted devices, two-factor authentication or find my iPhone / find my Mac. It's debatable whether Apple actually links that serial number to your account though, since they could stored in the way that let's you retrieve your serial number from all the possible ones as opposed to just storing it directly in the database.

Also, your question is extremely broad due to the fact that Apple ID can be used windows, on web browser sessions, on iOS devices, Mac devices, on airport devices, and on AppleTV space (currently). Furthermore, AppleID can be used with far more services than just the App Store so as you see with iCloud, it can get more complicated than yes/no.

On operating systems, Apple provides a security and privacy preference that allows you to opt in to sharing diagnostic information which could under some circumstances include serial number. More recent OS include a randomly generated GUID to help anonymize reports. You also can regenerate that ID on-demand on IOS to further enhance your privacy.

Apple has clearly stated many times on the record that they wish to collect as little customer data as possible, and retain that data for short periods only. Apple  appears to minimize even further personally identifying information and that the consumer should clearly opt into these collections.

From where I sit, Apple has delivered on those promises in the software they design and ship. I also think your question is an extremely valid one, we all should be thinking so clearly as you are about the information we routinely provide to large corporations and how it either allows them or prevents them from invading our privacy and selling us out to the highest bidder.


Successful brew install iftop still shows "sudo iftop: command not found"

I had to add /usr/local/sbin to /etc/paths. But that add does nothing if you do not close and reopen terminal. Terminal apparently loads paths when it opens, but does not see new changes while open.

sudo nano /etc/paths
Then add the path /usr/local/sbin, Ctrl-O to save, Ctrl-X to close
Restart Terminal (or just open a new tab), then run sudo iftop


Can I schedule Do Not Disturb for specific days?

Sadly, on a non jailbroken phone you can only set Do Not Disturb to set hours, regardless of which day.  Therefore, every day gets the same hours.

What would be nice, would be a system like the alarms where you can set multiple ones and have them repeat on choosable days, then you could set 2 DND period, one to cover weekdays, and one for weekends etc.

I would recommend making a feature request at this link.


How can I upgrade my PHP 5.3.1 to 5.3.2 on XAMPP Mac OS X?

Not to lead you in a different direction, but if you were using MAMP (free version) on OS X, that comes with the most up-to-date version of PHP and allows to you switch between 5.2.17 & 5.4.3.

I find that MAMP is less messy than XAMPP.


How to scrobble to last.fm from YouTube played via Apple TV?

If you're using an app this won't help, but if you're just using a web browser I recently released ScrobYou. It lets you search for and watch music videos from YouTube and scrobbles what you watch all in one simple webpage


I don't get group texts with cellular data off

A one-to-one text message uses SMS. A group message uses MMS and this requires data. You would likely have the same issue if someone texts you a picture directly as this also uses MMS.

Check with your service provider though, as some include picture messaging (i.e. MMS) for "free" and don't count it as data. In which case you could leave iMessage enabled for data. YMMV.


How can I use hyper-V in windows 7 on a Macbook pro using Bootcamp?

Hyper-V isn't available for Windows 7. You have to install at least Windows 8 Pro/Enterprise or Windows Server 2008/2012. (Source)

You might install Hyper-V Manager (probably you did already) though. This application allows to manage Hyper-V hypervisors installed on other computers meeting the above mentioned Operating System requirements.


What are current cross-platform disk encryption options?

I've done the Linux VM solution like yours for years on multiple platforms. But different, and depending on the specific use case, much better. (I've tried your method as well. Too many problems, particularly with USB passthrough.)

Here's what I do, roughly, using VirtualBox (not a step-by-step guide but should be enough to get you going):

I don't attach the external volume via USB intercept; I create a raw VMDK of the external drive first. This requires some script magic: You have to 1) Make sure VM is powered off. 2) Delete the VMDK metadata file. 3) Detach the virtual storage controller dedicated to the USB drive. 4) Create a new raw VMDK file for the USB drive [this part is challenging since the physical location changes; I use a script parameter to pass it in to the script]. 5) Create a new virtual storage controller for the VM. 6) Attach the raw VMDK to the new storage controller. 7) Start the VM. The drawback to this approach of course, is that the USB drive and the VM are tied together for the entire session of the VM. If you unplug the USB drive while the VM is running, it will never be valid again (until you shut the VM down and run the script again). But the benefits are huge: A) It works flawlessly, unlike buggy USB intercept. And B) The performance is near-native [since the host is handling the low-level device I/O], which you can't get with USB intercept.
I set the VM up with two network adapters: 1) NAT with DHCP for regular internet access from within the VM, and 2) Host-only with static IP for host-to-VM access. You could also just have one bridged adapter, but I've found that this approach is more ideal, as VM internet access is not tied to any one adapter.
I set the VM up to share folders via SMB. In my case, these are encfs mounted folders.
I then mount folders on the host, mapped via SMB to the guest.

The performance is pretty decent. SMB over gigabit ethernet between real hardware has a theoretical maximum of something like 120 MB/s (there is a specific number max but that's close enough for this discussion). You probably won't get that high in host-to-vm SMB traffic, even using virtio adapter with no bandwidth limit. On my fastest hardware, I've seen at best around 70 MB/s sustained. But my hardware isn't super fast, you might do better. (Although the USB and spinning disk in your solution will be the limiting factors.)

I would not bother with sshfs. The overhead is severe and throughput terrible. The only benefit to sshfs is when mounting over an unsecured network. Host-to-vm exists completely within your own computer and is therefore as secure as it gets, you don't need encryption, and the lightest-weight network protocol you can get is ideal. (SMB isn't exactly lightweight but it and virtually all hosts support all the remote file actions you could need.)

The solution I've outlined seems complex - and is. But if you document the successful process, it's trivially easy the second time. I have all this scripted in both the host and VM, so it's nearly automagic for every session, and easily set up for new hosts and/or VMs. And it's a very nice and seamless solution for daily use.

Hope this helps.


How do you completely disable the space-switching animations in OS X Yosemite?

You can't.

You can change the speed of switching into Mission Control. To do that in terminal Run:

defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -int 0; killall Dock

To switch back to defaults run:

defaults delete com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration; killall Dock


I think Synology works very well as a Time Machine solution. It works as any other, and the Mac doesn't really know that its a Synology. You simply enable the Time Machine function of Synology, set up a Time Machine Folder, and then connect Time Machine on your Mac to that folder.

I have had issues with my Mac losing connection to the Synology from time to time, and there seems to be no particular reason for this, but disabling the power saving features on the Synology seemed to help. (keep it from sleeping)

You can migrate your data: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202380

Set up Synology: https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Backup/How_to_back_up_files_from_Mac_to_Synology_NAS_with_Time_Machine

While the Synology is good, I found, it, just like nearly all such solutions seem to eventually get lost, especially with wifi-based backups. This often corrupts the backup. For systems that are always on and connected via ethernet, I have never had any issues with any device, but laptops, which get abruptly disconnected, seem to cause Time Machine issues over time.

Opinion: Cloud-based backups seem to handle these interruptions in stride and therefore I have migrated fully to a cloud solution. More expensive? yes, in the long run, but stable and dependable. Never a corruption in now 3 years of cloud backups.


Sleeping screen (Cinema Display) keeps waking up. How can I make it sleep until mouse is moved?

I have discovered that 100% of the times that this happened to me, it was because I either had:

A USB (or Firewire) peripheral connected that was pooling the bus and for some mysterious reason caused your behavior.
I accidentally moved the mouse (or the table where both mouse/key lie); small vibrations caused the mouse to register movement and that was enough to wake the box.

I don’t know if this is your case, but whenever you’re in the “it wakes up!” cycle, try to disconnect everything and use the keyboard shortcut with surgeon precision and softness and see if it changes.

Additionally you might want con check the Console Output of the logs to see if there’s an error going on while your invoke your sleep screen shortcut.


How can I make macOS respect HOSTALIASES environment variable?

The man page that you referenced is very old (ancient) - it's from 1995.  Looking at the man page for gethostbyname on a machine running El Capitan (2006), that reference is no longer there meaning it's a very good indication that what you are looking for has been deprecated.


Moving iPhoto to external drive on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014) with 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

iPhoto was built with this sort of flexibility in mind: it is possible and in fact iPhoto makes it quite easy.

Find your iPhoto library. You'll most likely find it in your Pictures folder. If it's not there, open iPhoto while holding the option key, and you should get a window similar to the one below. The path to your library is displayed under the library selection box.

Move your library to the external hard drive.
Open iPhoto with the option key pressed to open the library selection window I talked about in Step 1. Hit the Other Library... button, and find the library on your external hard drive. Pretty easy!

Protips:

The last library you opened becomes your "default" library. That's the one iPhoto opens automatically when you don't press option. If that library isn't available, say your external HDD is not connected, the library selection window will open automatically and list the libraries it can find.
I keep a library in my computer, but every year or so, when it gets
too full, I move it to an external hard disk. You can have as many libraries as you want! Pretty useful if you don't feel like having a single massive package.
iPhoto supports Apperture libraries, as you can see from my screenshot. d:

Let me know if you have any further questions!


You can set which account is automatically logged in under the "Login Options" section of the "Users & Groups" pane of System Preferences:


How did a photo magically appear in the iphone contacts?

Did you enable iOS 6's Facebook Integration? It will grab updated contact information and pictures from anyone in your contacts you have on Facebook if you enable the Contacts syncing.


How to open a serial connection on High Sierra?

You need a specific driver for the USB-Serial device. MacOS support for these - especially in recent versions of the OS - is spotty, at best. You need to check even ones that claim MacOS support because their support might have worked up until about 10.6, when Apple started getting serious about kernel and driver security, sandboxing, etc.

FWIW, USB-Serial devices based on the Prolific chipset seem to have most luck.

Serial.app works because it uses its own driver, not the /dev device. For most uses, I'd say this app is required if you want to maintain sanity.


How would one go about getting Apple to adjust the standard kerning table for a small obscure part of unicode

You could try the Apple Bug Reporter - it's really the only way to get their attention.


It will save your info and redownload your apps for you, but it will also bring back any software issues you were trying to get rid of. What info were you most concerned with?


Accessing files on external drive through USB

This is as close as I can get to an answer.

It would appear the transfer rate for the bridge is 150 MBps (1.5 Gbps). This would indicate conformance to the SATA I standard. The drive has a transfer rate of 300 MBps (3 Gbps). This would indicate conformance to the SATA II standard. Even though the connectors appear to be the same, these two standards are incompatible.

Some drives have a jumper you can insert to force a SATA II drive to emulate the SATA I standard. The installation instructions for your drive do not indicate this to be true. You may want to examine the drive for possible jumpers or other instructions.

For other readers, I will mention that the SATA III standard of 600 MBps (6 Gbps) is compatible with the SATA II standard. The hardware will transfer data at the lesser of the two speeds.

It also does not help that I can not find a web site that states the bridge is Mac compatible. All sites only mention Windows compatibility.


How often does iCloud sync bookmarks, between iPhone 4 and iPad 2

It seems that it may be tied to the Fetch New Data setting in Mail, Contacts, Calendars.

When I change that setting to Push, the bookmarks are sent out straight away.

What I don't understand is why the Photo Stream pushes out changes immediately, even if 'Fetch New Data' is set to 'Every 15 Minutes', but the Bookmarks (which appear to have nothing to do with 'Mail, Contacts, Calendars', are not.

Later:

I've just seen the "Advanced" setting in "Fetch New Data". This seems to have a manual override

With Fetch New Data set to "15 min", (and Push is Off), and iCloud set to "Push", I expected to have the bookmark pushed out straight away.

But this doesn't happen: I also have to turn the main "Fetch New Data" setting to Push, in order to have the bookmarks updated immediately.


Your browser does not currently recognize any of the video formats available

Don’t worry about it.

The snippets of text you see in search results are what the webpage responded when the webcrawler was indexing it. Most of the time those error messages aren’t relevant to you at all.

In this case it’s not saying your browser isn’t recognized, but rather that the GoogleBot couldn’t play that YouTube video.

In other words, you’re fine. If you can play that video, then that’s all you need to worry about.


Sharing itunes music between two computers

The feature you're looking for is now called Home Sharing. It's essentially the same as the original sharing feature, but it ties into your Apple ID to ensure that you can only share between your own computers.

In iTunes, just go to File > Home Sharing > Turn On Home Sharing and enter your Apple ID and password. Repeat the same steps on any computers you want to share with (up to 5) using the same Apple ID. Once you do so, all enabled computers will "see" each other and let you stream or copy music between them.