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Slow progress of Time machine backup
I am backing up my hdd with the Time machine. Even small incremental backups take several hours. For an hour or so I am in the state "50.3 MB of 496.3MB", while in Activity Monitor I notice that mds_stores has accumulated already over 116 GB data read, and it increases by about 50 MB/s.   My Hdd is this new pcie-sdd type, so it should be efficient with this sort of backup.
Moreover in Console it is written that about 2300 files constitute this 0.5 GB of backup.
I am backing up to external usb Toshiba drive.
Am I missing something obvious? This is not normal, is it? Can I see which of these 2300 files the Time machine is currently backing up? The "preparing" phase was not so long - took about 30 minutes.

Mine was a very similar question, with no solution, yet. http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/244117/time-machine-backup-time

Indeed. I am consufed as number of files to copy is low, and these are small files. I do not see any regularities- sometimes backups are slow, sometimes they are quick, and this is not just a function of data size.  I have restarted Spotlight, but ultimately leaving the computer for whole day and night was the only solution.

My OS drive (I have a MacPro with multiple drives) only has 50GB used. I just left for a few hours, after turning off Dropbox and PogoPlug. The current backup shows 1.17GB. No idea why this much data think it changed.

@Lacek How did you achieve reducing it to .5 GB? I am excluding almost every folder including hidden one yet it shows 15 GB.

I mean incremental backup, when the computer is untouched. Then the backup size is approx 460MB in my case. I did nothing to achieve that, it just is. At the same time I have lots of apps installed, but if they are not actively used I suppose their files are unchanged.

I was having the same problem pretty regularly. I tried the usual tricks (stop backup, eject, mount, delete .inProgress files, stopping spotlight, changing the throttle priority (sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0). Sometimes, this works. Other times it doesn't and it keeps crawling along at a few MB per hour.
One additional trick, that works more frequently, is to force quit the backupd process directly from the Disk tab of Activity Monitor. Then tell it to start backup. This usually works for me. Heads up: this may be a terrible idea in other ways (e.g. maybe it could damage existing backups). In my experience, it hasn't so far.

In addition to setting sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0, I've found Sophos can make backups really slow. I expect other virus scanners may have similar issues.
I found if I turn Sophos off I can make a backup complete in a reasonable time. Unfortunately we are required to use a virus scanner where I work as part of company policy, so I can't turn it off completely or remove it, only suspend it for 4 hours at a time.


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Apple Magic Keyboard connected in Wired mode - turn Bluetooth off
Is it possible to turn Bluetooth off when connecting Apple Magic Keyboard over Lightning cable? I would like to use it in wired mode and don't want to empty and charge the battery all the time. Furthermore it would reduce electric smog.
Does the keyboard keep broadcasting Bluetooth when wired, or does it disable the keyboard's Bluetooth?

Yes, it works well when connected via Lightning cable only with Bluetooth disabled or enabled. I just tested it.
By the way, the keyboard charge lasts about 3-4months with everyday typing. 5min charge can last you hours. The Magic keyboard's battery last much, much longer than previous editions.

Tested this on an M1 machine and does not seem to be working (or working anymore)

@MariusPop weird, still works for me every time. Is it an original Apple cable or aftermarket? Not sure why it wouldn't work except a faulty cable or keyboard. :(

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Upgraded Yosemite version and it keeps showing busy cursor
As Apple suggests I updated my OS and after restart it seems to get slow as it keeps showing busy cursor. Caps lock working properly. I just can't use cursor to select anything. How can I sort this out or how do I revert to old version? My old version was 10.10.2 and now .5

Spotlight indexing will be very busy for a while. If it hasn't settled down after a day or two, have a look at http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/243290/troubleshooting-mac-issues

So it will keep being like that for a day or two!! Can you suggest t should I do ATM? Is there anyway to see activities going on in the beginning?

Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor - Spotlight shows in there as mds, mds_store or mdworker If any of those look to be very busy, best thing to do is wait it out. Leave the machine awake overnight & see if it's finished by tomorrow

What's actually happens, I restarted and cursor looks OK. As soon as I move it starts showing busy cursor. Is it normal? Also my memory is 4 gb

@Tetsujin I just tried to run in safe mode by holding shift key in start now it shows apple logo in start and then seems to get shutdown

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How can you cancel a mail send message failure when the menu is too large to fit on the screen?
Note: This is a problem I have never had before and I am not sure how to describe it in the title or here. Anyone may edit this to make it more clear.

I use Apple Mail on the latest OS X. This time, I sent a email to hundreds of people at once (these addresses are publicly known), just to have one of them fail and now I can't exit this menu, as seen here:

I force quit mail and opened it back up, just for it to happen again. I tried using tab to select "edit message," which would make this message disappear, but it didn't work. Do I have to factory reset Mail since I would need a ~4600p (34 megapixel) screen to select an option?][6

I kept pressing more random keys and I think ESC worked to solve this issue

Usually the "return" key, which corresponds to the blue button at the bottom of the message, would work.

The problem is that the default is "try again" so you will keep getting the error

Using "ALT" + the first letter of the other buttons will click the other buttons for you in most native apps- you can also use the setting "All controls" in Shortcuts in Keyboard in System Preferences. See: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/7263/how-can-i-activate-buttons-with-just-the-keyboard


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How can I cd to an alias directory in the Mac OSX terminal without creating symbolic link
I used to be able to cd into aliases with my Mac. Today I was messing around with ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile to make PostgreSQL work. After I restarted my computer it stopped cd'ing to aliases and after some research I figured I was not supposed to be able to do that from the beginning.
So I do not know how I was able to cd into aliases before or how I broke it (maybe a system update became valid after restart, I wasn't restarting for a while). I have only found the following answer on couple places How to go to alias from terminal?.
I am looking for an explanation to what happened and a simple way of fixing it rather than modifying cd function itself. I do not prefer creating a symbolic link because it would be broken when I make a change in the actual file & I have many aliases to replace so it seems like a redundant work.
Note: Im still not able to cd into aliases when I undo the changes I made in ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile, so this seems to be caused by something else or my changes triggered something once and it was enough for a permanent change.

The link indeed provided me an insight, its almost the same question. But that still does not explain the mystery here. I am curious why I used to be able to do cd into aliases and how I lost it... Maybe OS X somehow created hard links instead of aliases and remembered to correct this somehow, Idk...

They may have been hard links to begin with or they got converted. You shouldn't have been able to cd into an alias within Terminal.

I am pretty sure I created them by "right click > create alias", but lets say that created an hard link instead due to a system error. Then how I accidentally converted them into aliases, or can a restart have such an effect? If we understand the cause, maybe it could be possible to convert all aliases back to hard links?

I don't know how you could have traversed into an alias from Terminal to begin with because this behavior is by design.  Aliases are files as are hard links.  You can't cd into an alias, but you can cd into a hard link.  Maybe they were hard links to begin with?


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Downloading the Current EFI for the 2015 MacBook8,1 Model?
I checked the Mac product download pages and found no new firmware updates for the new 2015 MacBooks. I found many for the MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, iMacs, and even the XServers, but the closest thing I found to "MacBook" firmware updates were for the older models. I looked at the release dates and they are relatively current. I would assume since Apple came out with the MacBook9,1 this year, they would have had EFI firmware download support for this newer model Mac.
Can someone give me a hand?

What exactly are you looking for? And why do you think there should be a new version available?

I assume you are looking for EFI firmware updates for your MacBook. Apparently, there are no updates you can manually download and install. If there were, then such updates would appear at the Apple web site: About EFI and SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Mac computers

@DavidAnderson But then why are the current versions not available? Has there just never been an efi or smc update since the first release for both the 2015 and 2016 macbooks?

EFI updates are available from the command line:
softwareupdate -la

This is the same information as the App Store app shows. The tools check apple's entire catalog and then calculate locally if any updates are required. You likely are up to date, but this is how to check.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201518

Agreed. As stated in that article "Most firmware updates are automatically installed when you update or upgrade OS X." Not all firmware updaters are available separately anymore.

I would assume there are no updates for the 2015 and 2016 models. If there were, then such updates would appear at the Apple web site: About EFI and SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Mac computers. I also assume that when an older model Mac is missing from the list, then this model has had no updates. For example, the MacBook6,1 (Late 2009) is missing. One issue with updates is that there is no software way to go backwards. So if you apply an update and wish to return to the original firmware, you would have to replace the logic board. Therefore, there is no reason for Apple to post a download of the original firmware.
For example, say your Mac was shipped with Version A of the firmware stored on the logic board. Assume Version B was installed and everything worked correctly. Now say Version C is released and appears on the Apple web site I referenced. If after applying Version C, you are not satisfied and wish to return to Version B. You would have to replace and logic board and apply the Version B update. There would be no reason for Apple to have ever posted for download Version A of the firmware.

But from what I understand, if there was ever more than one version created then it should be updated or am I wrong?


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Wacom tablet. Endless error messages in OS X systemlog
I am running a Wacom intuos tablet with the latest software driver v6.3.16-12 on OS X El Capitan. I have noticed endless error messages in the OS X console e.g
27.07.16 16:00:59,520 WacomTabletDriver[416]: handleNotification:Wacom ToolID Message
27.07.16 16:01:04,596 WacomTabletDriver[416]: handleNotification:Wacom ToolID Message
27.07.16 16:01:04,684 WacomTabletDriver[416]: handleNotification:Wacom ToolID Message
27.07.16 16:01:22,624 WacomTabletDriver[416]: handleNotification:Wacom ToolID Message
27.07.16 16:01:51,127 WacomTabletDriver[416]: handleNotification:Wacom ToolID Message
27.07.16 16:02:22,511 WacomTabletDriver[416]: handleNotification:Wacom ToolID Message

Here’s what I tried

I’ve reinstalled the Wacom Driver 2 times.
Repaired OS X system permissions
It also happening on another Mac running OS X Yosemite

The tablet seems to be working correctly. Who else is seeing these messages? What else can I do?

Solution: I have completely uninstalled Wacom's tablet software 6.3.16-12 and switched back to 6.3.15-3. Also, be sure to remove all preferences files including the following leftovers:
/Volumes/MacBook/Library/Internet/Plug-Ins/WacomTabletPlugin.plugin
/Volumes/MacBook/Library/PreferencePanes/WacomTablet.prefpane
/Volumes/MacBook/Library/Frameworks/WacomMultiTouch.framework
/Volumes/MacBook/System/Library/Extensions/Wacom/Tablet.kext
/Volumes/MacBook/Library/Receipts/Wacom/Tablet/Docs.txt
/Volumes/MacBook/Users/yourusername/Desktop/Preferences.wacomprefs
/Volumes/MacBook/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.wacom.wacomtouch.prefs
/Volumes/MacBook/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.wacom.wacomtablet.prefs
/Volumes/MacBook/Library/LaunchAgents/com.wacom.wacomtablet.plist
/Volumes/MacBook/private/var/db/receipts/com.wacom.TabletInstaller.plist
/Volumes/MacBook/private/var/db/receipts/com.wacom.TabletInstaller.bom
/Volumes/MacBook/Users/yourusername/Library/Application/Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/com.apple.LSSharedFileList.ApplicationRecentDocuments/com.wacom.removewacomtablet.sfl
/Volumes/MacBook/Users/yourusername/Library/Saved/Application/State/com.wacom.RemoveWacomTablet.savedState
/Volumes/MacBook/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.wacom.RemoveWacomTablet.plist

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


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Do Macs Have Custom Models of Intel Processors?
Do Apple Computers use the same-exact Intel processors available to PC builders or are they custom models made just for Apple? For example, if a Mac is marketed as having an Intel i7 3.3 GHz x-generation processor and there is a matching processor listed on Ark for that chipset "generation," is it safe to assume that same-exact processor is in the Mac? Or does Apple get custom models within the chipset families just for their computers?
Also, is there a website where I can see the processor model numbers available in Macs so I don't have to spend time trying to match Apple's marketing to Intel's specs?

They are identical. Don't know if we are allowed to talk about it, but all I can say is to search osx86project or tonymacx86, you will see the hardware.
List of iMac and Macbook hardware and history.
If you search the Intel chips the Macs are using (eg. i7-4770HQ), you will see Windows laptops are using them as well.
Mactracker is an OSX App and an iOS App that has all the details from the first Mac to the last Mac.

The original MacBook Air had a customized package for its CPU.  http://www.anandtech.com/show/2422 I think otherwise, they've been completely standard parts.


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iTunes Store Doesn't Recognize iTunes Library
About two weeks ago, iTunes stopped recognizing my iTunes library. I get this message when I go to either File → Library → Update iCloud Music Library or Update Genius:

There is no such option under File → Library. I tried disabling Genius Recommendations under my account, then turning them back on, but with no success. What is causing this and how can I fix it?
I have iTunes Match, but not Apple Music, if that matters.

Logging out of my iTunes account and logging back in did the trick.

Account → Sign Out
iTunes → Quit iTunes
Wait a bit, relaunch iTunes
Account → Sign In
iTunes → Preferences → General → uncheck iCloud Music Library
Click OK, wait a bit
iTunes → Preferences → General → check iCloud Music Library

iTunes should immediately start updating your iCloud Music Library. Once that’s done, everything should be working correctly.

Steps 1-3 aren't always necessary (and are very, very slow and painful if you have a large library).  You can just 1. Uncheck "iCloud Music Library", 2. File > Library > Turn off Genius, 3. wait a few minutes, 4. turn Genius back on, 5. turn iCloud Library back on.  Took me <5min for a 250gb library.

@NickSweeting thank you, your suggestion of turning on Genius separately before turning on iCloud is the only thing that worked for me.


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com.apple.xpc.launchd Report crash process constantly shows up with high CPU
There is a process »Crash Report« in the Activity Monitor which uses 10-25% and constantly disappears and shows up again. When I quit it from the activity monitor it comes back right away. Also, the MacBook fan is going crazy. In the systemlog I see this entry several times per second:
com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (secagntd) Service only ran for 1 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 9 seconds.
com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (secagntd) Service only ran for 1 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 9 seconds.

There are lot of Crash Reports in the OS X Console. The Crashlog looks like this:
Process:               secagntd [1030]
Path:                  /usr/local/bin/secagntd/secagntd
Identifier:            secagntd
Version:               ???
Code Type:             X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:        launchd [1]
Responsible:           secagntd [1030]
User ID:               0

Date/Time:             2016-07-31 19:15:25.985 +0200
OS Version:            Mac OS X 10.10.5 (14F1909)
Report Version:        11
Anonymous UUID:        75C82E52-67A5-8A7F-56CA-FB9B99BB5C0E

Time Awake Since Boot: 2900 seconds

Crashed Thread:        0

Exception Type:        EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes:       0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000

Application Specific Information:
dyld: launch, loading dependent libraries

Dyld Error Message:
  Symbol not found: _wlScanBSSID
  Referenced from: /usr/local/bin/secagntd/libwpsapi.dylib
  Expected in: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Apple80211
 in /usr/local/bin/secagntd/libwpsapi.dylib

Which application uses the secagntd process? How do I get rid of these Crash reports?

It turned out that »CleanMyMac« hasn’t completely removed all leftovers. We’ve got rid of »CleanMyMac« and manually removed the »secagntd« directory in /usr/local/bin/secagntd. Usually I don’t recommend to do any modification in /usr/local/bin, however in our case it solved the issue. CPU dropped and the constantly Crash Reports disappeared.


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What ways are there to edit corrections for Gboard for iOS?
I'm using Gboard for iOS. Often when I enter a word using the swiping technique it comes up with the wrong word and no suggestion for the word I actually want. The word I want is often only 1 or 2 characters different so my instinct is to press backspace to correct the word but backspace deletes the entire word forcing me to re-enter the entire word again. Usually I end up doing this twice before I realize I have to enter the word by tapping instead of swiping to get what I want.
Are there other methods of correcting/editing a word using Gboard?

You can move the cursor by sliding your finger on the spacebar. Using this technique I can move the cursor back and fix a letter although fixing the last letter is a little problematic. AFAICT to edit the last letter move cursor left then right and pressing backspace won't delete the entire word just the last letter.


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Prevent OS X 10.11 to display "can't read disk" message
I always have connected to my MBPr a Transcend JetDrive Lite 330.
JetDrive Web
I have installed Ubuntu on that SD Card, so it has EXT4 file system. I installed  some packages on the Mac for being able to mount that SD Card in case I need it. The packages are:

FUSE for OS X
fuse-ext2

I'm completely able to mount the SD Card volume to a mountpoint which I created for this purpose:
sudo mount -t fuse-ext2 /dev/disk2s1 ~/.linux/

Now you know the antecedents.
Every time I turn on the Mac, the system shows this message.

Is there any way to avoid this message? I don't want to auto mount the SD Card, I have created an alias for that. I need to avoid this message. It's very annoying.
diskutil list shows the following:

/dev/disk2s1 is ubuntu
/dev/disk2s2 is, obviously, the swap
/dev/disk2s3 has no format. I didn't use it. I plan to install there some other things or use as more space. I didn't decided yet.

Hi klanomath, I download the .dmg from SourceForge and execute the .pkg . I install fuse-ext2 v0.0.7

In my opinion this is either related to the FileVault encryption of your main drive or one/two of the 3 partitions of the SD card is/are formatted with an other file system than ext4.

disk2s2 is a swap. disk2s3 hasn't be formatted yet. I think is the swap partition.

I finally delete the swap partition and format the disk (except linux partition) in exfat. All goes good now. Thanks klanomath

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internal SSD and HDD together speed
Hi I was thinking about adding an SSD drive inside my iMac mid 2011. I found that you can have both two drives in the iMac as long as you remove the dvd drive.
I want to color correct a short film. The footage is Apple ProRes HQ (data rate around 300mb/s) and the total size 45GB (i found this using tha aja datacalc application).
Would this be a good idea? Or should I buy an external SSD thunderbolt instead? Which set up would be faster?
Also if I buy an external SSD, would a size of 256GB be suitable for the job?
Thank you all in advance,
Rafael.

The DVD drive is connected via SATA rev. 2.0 / 3Gbit/s. That means the SSD is gonna run at a max. of 300 MB/s approximately.
This link seems to indicate that there's at least a second drive bay (excluding the optical bay) inside the iMac, which runs at SATA rev. 3.0 / 6Gbit/s speed. It would be wiser to use either the second bay or upgrade your primary system SSD.
Since the above link mentions the need to upgrade the EFI firmware, one should be aware the latest firmware updates can be found at the Apple web site "About EFI and SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Mac computers".
If you want to add an internal SSD, you can take a look at the ifixit guides, they can be used as a very good indicator as to how difficult the procedure would be.
I would not recommend an external SSD. They are extremely expensive and don't really give you a plus. Thunderbolt SSDs are even more expensive because of their rarity. If I were you I'd consider the internal upgrade first.

Do you know if it is possible to replace the optical drive with the the HDD shipped with the Mac? This HDD drive has a SATA rev. 2.0 interface. If so, then would it be possible to put a SDD with SATA rev 3.0 interface in the bay where the HDD originated?

I doubt that the 3.5" HDD fits into the optical bay, so thats not really an option. And even if it did you would have to use an adapter cause the 3.5" SATA+power cables are different from the 2.5" ones.
The easiest way to just add an SSD would be following this instruction. However, you need a power adapter which you can get with this kit.

Thanks to klanomath for adding the link to the dual HDD kit.
Just to add to what I just said: Neither the kit description nor the official iMac site ever mentions if the spare connector is a 3Gb/s or 6Gb/s, but it seems like it is a 6Gb/s one, but don't cite me on that.
For the SSD I would suggest an 850 EVO 256GB/ 512GB. They come with 5 years of warranty and they are pretty fast, maxing out the SATA port.

This web site shows the availability of an internal SDD SATA 6Gb/s cable for 21.5" iMac 2011 models. Similarly, this web site shows the availability of an internal SDD SATA 6Gb/s cable for 27" iMac 2011 models.

The mere fact that the cable is a SATA 3 one doesn't mean that the signal, transfered over it is too. You can use a SATA 3 cable for SATA 2 no problem.

Yes, but if the SSD has a SATA 3 interface and the logic board is capable of  SATA 3, then would it not be important to make sure the cable has a SATA 3     rating?

The only difference between SATA3 and SATA2 cables is their connector, which in the newer revision has some kind of safety pin, saving it from slipping off too easily. Apart from that you can use any SATA1/2/3 Cable for any one of the drives, they are mechanically interchangeable and will work with full speed.

I would disagree. If the transfer speed was 6 Gb/s (SATA III) and you used a cable only rated for a transfer speed of 3 Gb/s (SATA II), then you should expect problems with the hardware.

There is no difference, Period.
What you just said is a myth. Look it
up.
This might be common sense, but it's in fact not true. Next time inform yourself before you disagree.

Actually it is not fact. The reference you cite misinterpreted the specification. While the specification states you can interchange SATA I, II and III cables, it does not state they are the same. There is no requirement that a SATA I or II cable must be capable of transferring data at 6 Gb/s. If it happens to, then great. If not, then the cable will still allow data to be transferred, just not at a rate of 6 Gb/s. The reference you cite only tested 4 cables, the results are not conclusive.

Ok, what about this: Go find a SINGLE credible source on the web which supports your point, cause I couldn't find one. Every single test I found which tested different SATA1/2/3 Cables, partly from 9 years ago with todays cables came to the conclusion that they are interchangeable and the speed stays the same, i.e SATA3 speeds.
It is common wisdom that the cables are physically the same apart from fancy clipping mechanisms which came into being with SATA3.
Right now you are just claiming without any support to your claim.
But whatever, this is a complete sidetrack.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

After reviewing  the revision 1.0 and 3.0 SATA specification documents, I can report that @sblasher is correct. There is no different in the specifications between SATA 1, 2 or 3 internal single lane cables. If a cable is not marked as SATA 3 compliant, the cable was probably just was manufactured before the SATA 3 standard was released. The documents can be found at the Revision 1 Site and Revision 3 Site

Thanks for the research David, I could't find these documents and it is interesting that even the specifications don't differentiate between any of the cable standards. However, in reality there is no difference in the actual performance anyways.

There are basically 4 options available to you. I will go through each one. I happen to have access to a 21.5 inch 2011 iMac. So, I am able to look up some of the specifications by viewing the System Report.

Replace the optical drive with a SSD. The current optical drive has a transfer rate of only 1.5 Gb/s while the logic board is capable
of 3 Gb/s. Therefore, this option would lead to a transfer rate of no
more that 3 Gb/s. This is usually far slower than the internal
transfer rate of a typical SSD. Therefore, this is probably your worst option.
Replace you HDD with a SSD. With the proper firmware upgrade, the logical board will be able to transfer data to a SSD at a theoretical
rate of 6GB/s. The problem here is the your Mac was not designed for
this situation. The power cable connection to your HDD has additional
signals that determine the temperature of your HDD. Replacing with
SSD will require inserting a aftermarket conversion cable between the
existing power cable and the SSD. This cable will also have a temperature
sensor you will need to attach to the outside of the SSD. This option
may not be desirable, because you will loose your existing internal
HDD. You will also need to purchase a kit, with conversion cable and
3.5" drive converter bracket, to install this drive.
Add a SSD without replacing the HDD. This option will be far harder to install than the previous two options. Again, with the proper
firmware upgrade, the logical board will be able to transfer data to
a SSD at a theoretical rate of 6GB/s. You will also need to purchase
a mounting kit with cables to install this drive.
Purchase an external Thunderbolt drive. The Thunderbolt interface operates a 10Gb/s which exceeds the internal transfer speeds of a
SSD. So this option would not be slower that any of the previous
options. Most of these types of drives also come with a USB 3
interface. This may come in useful, if you need to use the drive with
the latest PC models.

As for the size of the SSD. Sorry, I can not help you there.


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Mac giving random flashes
I have a mid 2012 non-retina mac with El Captain. It is starting to get slower, especially due to the absence of the SSD, but it never gave me any problems.
It has been a couple of days now that seemingly at random, the screen flashes for just a moment. I mean that I can see the flash of the screen, usually white or blue, and then everything goes back to normal.
This happened 4 times already; what could be the cause? Should I be worried about a virus? Or maybe a hardware failure?
Thank you in advance!

Make sure you don't have 'Flash screen for Alerts' set in system prefs [search 'flash' top right]

@Tetsujin Maybe it's because my system is in Italian, but if I search for flash in the setting screen it only turns up Adobe Flash Player. Where should I navigate in the panel setting to go to the correct setting?

Ah... I hadn't thought about translations, sorry. Long path... System Prefs > Accessibility > Audio > & it's the top pref. There's also a test button so you can see for sure if it compares to what you're seeing.

@Tetsujin Thanks! Unfortunately the setting was not on, and the "flash test" it's way smoother than what I see, which is much faster with a higher intensity, and seems to affect mostly the upper part of the screen (though I can't be sure about that since it's too fast)

OK, might be hardware then - was worth a look anyway, just in case. I'd try running the hardware tests, see if anything comes up - https://support.apple.com/HT201257

@Tetsujin I ran the test (the short one) and there were no issues. Also the screen didn't blink while it was in the AHT screen, so I'm thinking maybe this could be a software problem? How to troubleshoot that now? :-)

Check to see if you're covered by this first - https://www.apple.com/uk/support/macbookpro-videoissues/ Software test would include 1) making a new clean admin account, 2) starting in safe mode or even 3) a total wipe & reinstall, depending on where in the software it is.

@Tetsujin No, I don't display any of those symptoms. So I guess I need to start a clean admin account and see if the problem recurs? If it doesn't, what  to do?

Try running some GPU intensive test like Unigine Heaven and see if the artifacts appear.


text:
Macbook (8,1) Drivers for other Operating Systems
I'm wanting to install a couple drivers like the keyboard, trackpad, airport card, etc to another operating system (Ubuntu 16.04 LTS). I saw some stuff about drivers for other models on the Ubuntu website but this model was never listed. Am I missing something?

Personally I found it to be less of a hassle to use a virtual machine over installing Linux physically on my MBP. For me, Linux runs much better virtualized and doesn't have any of the issues it did when trying to run in natively on Apple-branded hardware.

But the driver issues would probably remain and then graphical drivers/processing would be dramatically decreased. I know virtualising is safer but its also clunky and usually has the same problems as when not virtualised. I'll check it out though just incase it is a solution. Do you have a recommendation for a virtual machine?

Depending on exactly why and for what you need a different OS then OS X running on Apple-branded hardware, there may/may not be trade offs, may/may not be benefits to running natively/virtually. All I can tell you is that for how I use Linux, the VM outperforms a native install without any of the issues I had with the native install. YMMV! I use VMware Fusion most of the time but I do have Parallels Desktop and VirtualBox installed too.

The driver issues would not entirely remain. When running virtualized, most of the drivers needed inside the guest (Linux) would be for the virtualisation system - and not for the actual Apple hardware. So drivers for the disk, network interface, graphics, etc. would be for example VMware, VirtualBox or similar drivers.

I don't think you're missing anything, no. The Retina MacBook 8,1 is not listed as a compatible hardware model for Ubuntu 16.04.
Indeed the Ubuntu bug tracker has open bugs for support for stuff like keyboard, touchpad and others:
TouchPad doesn't work
Keyboard doesn't work
The same issues exists in the Linux kernel bug tracker, so they might be generic Linux issues and not Ubuntu specific.
I have seen reports from others that sound is not supported and that the SSD is hard to get working.
So all in all, unless you're willing to put in effort to fix these issues yourself - it is probably not going to be a good experience running Ubuntu natively on the MacBook.
Instead you could look at virtualized options.


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Mac not re-waking networked PC
I have a simple home network with 2 Macs, a Windows 7 PC, and an OpenELEC PC.
I sometimes watch media using VLC from the OpenELEC machine. It is set in such a way that it goes to sleep when possible which is perfect and as it should be.
When I turn on my Windows 7 PC, I browse the network and select the OpenELEC box. It tells me it can't connect, but after 5 or so seconds it starts working. This is because it has woken up and started being available on the network.
When I connect to an already-woken OpenELEC box from my Mac (one Mavericks / one El Cap) it connects right away and can start working with files on the network.
But if the OpenELEC machine goes to sleep even if the Mac is busy using its files, it stays asleep. I've had VLC die horribly because the underlying network suddenly isn't there anymore.
No amount of mucking about on the Mac seems to be able to get it to wake from a Mac. Windows > Linux will do it; Linux > Linux will do it; Mac > Linux won't do a thing.
How do I get a Mac to tell a remote network machine that has an active data stream not to go to sleep in the middle of using it?

Have you tried asking on the OpenELEC forum? Ask Different is the best place for your Apple questions but I suspect few here can help with OpenELEC specific problems.

The problem is the Mac won't wake network devices. It won't wake my Windows 7 PC (which has WOL set properly and wakes from other devices).

What are you using to send the WOL packet from your Mac? Have you tried wakeonlan?

You seem to be implying is that Mac's, unlike most other operating systems, don't just send a wake on lan packet by default requesting network access? How would I do this during existing network access? I'll give the perl file a go in the interim


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Unsupported Macbook 4,1 (2008) on 10.10.5 (Supplementary) - No Audio After Update - What Next?
NOTE: If you are not interested in how I got to this point, skip to the last paragraph.
As it currently stands, I have Mac OS X Yosemite running on my black Macbook 4,1. With the following kexts (in addition to the defaults provided by MacPostFactor), I was able to get OS X 10.10.2 running fully, with little-to-no issues:

Intel GMA X3100 kexts (provided via an installer)
IOAudioFamily.kext
AppleHDA.kext
Apple_iSight.kext

I also installed the NoSleep extension, the Software Update Patcher (not before learning the hard way), the AirDrop Enabler, and the System Font extension (which changes the system font to the one used by the Apple Watch). In order to enable the kexts, I had to pull up KextDropper and enter this in the Terminal:

sudo nvram boot-args= kext-dev-mode=1

Everything (including Time Machine :) worked fine without modification after the update to 10.10.2 - except for the fact that I can't change the screen brightness (battery killer status confirmed).
However, I did mention: "not before learning the hard way"...
In order to get to this version number, I had to update from 10.10.0, and when I did that update, I did it without the Software Update patcher. So, I ended up going into the Recovery Image, and deleting 'PlatformSupport.plist' from the Terminal (fun times?). Then, I rebooted into the fully-functioning 10.10.5 (Revision 1) OS X desktop. This, of course, was the easy part. I have now encountered the difficult part.
What I am here to ask about is something that occurred after my update to 10.10.5, Revision 2. When I updated to 10.10.5 (Revision 2 - Recovery Update), everything continued to work, except for one thing - the Macbook is now back to having no audio support. I checked the boot arguments, and that revealed nothing. The kexts I installed are still in '/System/Library/Extensions'. I don't know what happened.
The main question(s):
1) How can I get audio capabilities back for this version of OS X?
2) Should I simply update to El Capitan (from App Store update) instead?
Possibly related (but not identical in nature):

"Apple Stack Xchange | Installing Yosemite on Unsupported Macbook 4,1"
"MacRumors | Post by AtVusr, on Installing Yosemite on Unsupported Macbooks"
"MacRumors | Post by a02, on Installing Yosemite on Unsupported Macbooks"

The last link was one of the first solutions I tested - Voodoo audio kext(s) weren't able to fix this :(

Hello I've the solution.
Download this audio kext.
Drag the two files AppleHDA.kext and IOAudioFamily.kext into the kext utility.app
After all is ok you can reboot and it works :-)
Link : https://mega.nz/#!9hcgFKRK

From where do the kexts originate? I did a similar kext-replacement operation to get the audio working for 10.10.3.

From Mavericks I think

What version number are the kexts ("Get Info" - Finder)?

Hey - I made it back to 10.10.5 - the Combo Update. Besides being unable to play Minecraft anymore (OpenGL?), everything else works. Still can't change the screen brightness, but that's minor. Are your kexts version 2.1.3, from OS X 10.9 Mavericks for the Mac Pro/XServe?

I updated my kexts again, using a download from a MacPro/XServ system. They work pretty well, but I'm still on the fence about attempting the Recovery Update...

Sorry to bother you, but I'm attempting the Recovery/Security update again today, to see if I can get Audio working for 10.10.5 latest. Could you allow access to the kexts please?

The link is broken :(

I have the same computer, there is no hw acceleration for the gma x3100 drivers you are using. Check the console, you’ll find OpenGL is being turned off. Chrome won’t work, launchpad is terribly slow, youtube doesn’t work etc.
Re audio try applehda patcher by mirone

We were discussing the lack of audio - not graphics acceleration. This answer is unrelated to the original issue. Please re-read the OP and edit your answer to address the issue.


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Does a MacBook run differently if the HD is seen as a external drive by the OS?
I had to reinstall a new internal HD and now my computer works but the HD is seen as an external drive. Does this matter? Will performance, any apps or my VM be affected by this?

This question, as written, makes no sense.  Are you saying that you replaced an internal MacBook HDD with another, but it is now seeing it as an external drive?  If this is the case, can you post a screenshot that depicts your problem?  As for performance Apple (or any computer for the matter) doesn't care if it's internal or external, what will affect performance is the actual performance of the connection

Yes that's what I'm saying. How could this connection vary? Isn't there only one way to connect an internal HD? I don't know because a repair shop did the work.

USB 3.0 is 5Gb/s  SATA III is 6Gb/s;  that's how the connections vary.  OS X is not going to slow anything down because it thinks it's external; that not how this works.

Buts it's not an USB. It should be a SATA but is perceived as a USB?

No.  You are confusing connection type with device location.  According to your description, it's perceived as external.  USB has nothing to do whether the device is internal or external.  Example:  your touchpad is off the USB bus and it's an "internal device."  Look in your System Profiler and see if your drive show up as USB.

@Alla why have you mentioned USB?

@Mark - USB is most easily perceived as external....no other reason than that.

What exactly says it is an external drive - we need screenshots of actual error messages

Please give me until later this afternoon to provide screenshots (6hrs or so)


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Change spotlight's calculator to degrees?
I use spotlight to perform calculations constantly, but at the moment the type of project I'm working on measures all angles in degrees.
Is there a way I can make spotlight's trigonometric functions default to degrees instead of radians?

Simply add a d to the trigonometric function and it should work.
Example: sin(x) > sind(x). sin(1)=0.8414... sind(1)=0.0174...

Thank you, perfect; I was completely unaware that this existed.


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How to make a slideshow with audio tutorial in macbook
I joined National social service's online learning initiative program of my college. I have to make videos which uses a slideshow presentation with audio. Something like khan academy videos but instead of writing, I need to use slides.
What all softwares should I install on my macbook?

What file output format are you looking for, .mp4? Slides would be easy to do in iMovie.

Mp4 is allowed.


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Deleted Partitions and Wasted Storage
After doing diskutil list:
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            140.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

and sudo gpt -r show disk0:
    start       size  index  contents
        0          1         PMBR
        1          1         Pri GPT header
        2          4         Pri GPT table
        6      76800      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    76806   34169245      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
 34246051     158692      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
 34404743   87733384
122138127          4         Sec GPT table
122138131          1         Sec GPT header

I deleted some partitions I was using for a dual boot with Ubuntu using gdisk, but now Disk Utility nor diskutil will show empty space from deleting the volumes. Although my GUID_partition_scheme shows I have 500 gigs on the disk, the space is just gone and no longer able to be expanded to the "Macintosh HD" partition. I tried rebooting but nothing seems to work. Any ideas?

@user3439894 It says, "No CoreStorage logical volume groups found" and Disk Utility wouldn't let me delete them, so its not like I had any other choice.

@Midi, Did you try using diskutil from Terminal vs the Disk Utility app to remove what you deleted with gdisk before resorting to it?

@user3439894 Yes, I tried both.

@klanomath So any ideas?

@klanomath If you add it to the answers, then I'll select it if you want. Thanks.

@klanomath indeed

Under these circumstances - only one main volume - the proper command to expand it to its full size is:
diskutil resizeVolume /dev/disk0s2 R

This command will not work if your main volume is part of a CoreStorage Volume Group.


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How can I troubleshoot keyboard shortcuts that are not working?
Within system preferences --> keyboard --> shortcuts --> mission control I have the following shortcut set:

I record the shortcut by hitting Control5, but when I play the shortcut back, I am not able to actually move to that space.
When showing my desktops I see that I have Desktops 1-5 as well.
How can I troubleshoot why this specific shortcut is not working? I have a similar shortcut for Control4 to move to Desktop 4, which does work.
This feels like a trivial problem but I do not know how to actually investigate much. I have used an application called Karabiner to verify the OS is processing the keystrokes correctly:

But the shortcut does not move me to Desktop 5.

Does anything happen when you use Control+5? It's probably conflicting with another shortcut somewhere, though it's usually pretty good about notifying you to conflicts.

Do you have a 10-key [num-pad] or a 'short' keyboard? 10-key's numbers  are recognised differently to the ones above qwerty. By default, the shortcuts assigned to Spaces are the qwerty ones.

No and no. Interestingly, my system helpfully restarted for other reasons and the issue went away... :\


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Can't move one folder from external HD to internal HD
So there is one folder that can't move from my external HD to my internal HD. There are many other folders that I have successfully moved, but this one is stubborn.
Every time I try to move it, I get this error: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "Microsoft Windows XP.pvm" can't be read or written
I have tried using terminal to move the folder with no success. sudo cp -R /Volumes/320\ GO\ Backup/backup\ 2015/Parallels /Users/Max/Desktop gives me: cp /Volumes/320 GO Backup/backup 2015/Parallels/Microsoft Windows XP.pvm/winxp.hdd/winxp.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds: Input/output error
Other things I have tried with no success:

The dot_clean command in terminal.
Reparing with the disk utility
Used Carbon Copy Cloner
Did all those operations in Safe mode

I'm really stuck!! Any help is appreciated :).

If you haven't already done so, you must fully shut down the Windows XP virtual machine before you can move its .pvm package. If the virtual machine is running, it will have a "file busy" flag attached which prevents copying.

@DocG. Right, already done.

Have you tried running cp in Single User mode?

Tried using Parallels to either Clone or Reclaim disk space?

@DocG. Just tried cp in Single User mode. No success :(. Thanks for the help though.

@Tetsujin I just tried your suggestion. Using the "clone" function fails and "reclaim disk space" seems to have no effect at all (a.k.a. the disk space isn't reclaimed).

This unfortunately indicates a disk error...
I suggest digging up snapshots of previous virtual machines and seeing if you can restore the .pvm to one of those previous, working, versions.  Back up the VM somewhere first and maybe even fire it up to back up the data inside.
I would also look through the Console (Applications/Utilities/Console.app) to see if more disk I/O errors are being logged, because this is typically in my experience the first sign of a failing hard-drive.


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Configure iTunes 12 behavior of writing metadata back to file?
I notice that iTunes 12 automatically writes metadata changes back to the file. Unfortunately, if you are using TimeMachine to backup your music library, this is a huge waste, since it means that every time a file is played (or any other metadata change is made) a new copy of the file is included in the next backup.
I understand that the file metadata is stored in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.itl. Even with nearly 10k songs, this file is less than 5MB. If a file is already in the iTunes library, I believe iTunes no longer considers the metadata in the file.
I remember in previous versions of iTunes, it did not automatically write metadata changes to the file, but this had to be triggered manually. Since I am not likely to migrate the files out of my iTunes library any time soon, but am more concerned with avoiding file churn, how do I stop this?

Time Machine does incremental backups, it shouldn't be much of a problems if all it changed was the metadata. Check this question: http://superuser.com/questions/33503/are-time-machine-backups-incremental-and-is-time-machine-any-better-on-snow-leo

@JaimeSantaCruz No. Incremental means that when a file's contents change, a copy of the new file is saved. The ID3 metadata is saved in the audio file. Audio file metadata and filesystem metadata are not the same thing.

"An incremental backup is one that provides a backup of files that have changed or are new since the last backup; it is one that backs up only the data that have changed since the last backup — be it a full or incremental backup." Wikipedia


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How can I check what permissions an app store app will be granted?
Before I download an app from the Mac App Store I'd like to know if what if any permissions it gets. Is there a way to check? My understanding is that certain apps can ask Apple to grant permissions beyond the default. If true how I can check what those permissions are?
Also, while we're at it what are the default permissions? Ideally I'd like Mac App Store apps to have no permissions. In other words, can read file out of their standbox, can't read my contacts, can't send notifications, can't look at my photos, etc etc etc.

Maybe take a look at /System/Library/Sandbox/Profiles/application.sb

Apps are not granted any permissions by default. The first time an app requests access to each of Location, Contacts, Calendars, and other such data, an OS dialog will show prompting you to allow or deny access. Once you've allowed or denied access, this access is maintained and can be changed in System Preferences Security & Privacy. All Mac App Store apps are sandboxed.


text:
Is it normal to have the home directory under git?
I've just found out that my home directory is under the supervision of Git, i.e. there's a .git folder in my home directory.
My questions are:

Is it normal that my home directory is under Git?
If it is not normal:

what's your advisable way of removing it from the supervision of Git? Should I just remove the .git folder?
What could have caused it to become a git repository?

Is it a good idea to have it under Git?

It was basically Intellij who made me notice this, because it tells me:

18:10 Unregistered VCS root detected
              The directory /Users/cell is under Git, but is not registered in the > Settings.

where clearly /Users/cell is my home directory.
It also tells me "Unregistered VCS root" and is doing some work in the background...
I've just Intellij because I wanted to start learning Scala, so the only thing I installed before creating a new project was to install the Scala plugin.

No, it is not normal for your home directory to be under git.
To remove just rm -rf .git
It is not a good idea to have it all under git as there are files like caches, trash that you do not want under a version control.
Theoretically, you could exclude them in .gitignore but I don't think this is practical and it makes it difficult for you to put other git projects in your home directory.
As to how it happened, we can't say. Something or someone made a git repo on your home directory.
For keeping configuration files under git look at the various git repos of dotfiles.


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Apple Developer Program enrolment outside of Apple listed regions
I’m new to iOS development also and want to enrol in Apple developer program. My question is how can I purchase ADP from Bangladesh?
Anyone purchase ADP by Payoneer master card outside of USA?
Also have Visa Card from Standard Chartered (can't charge in USD).
Some people advice me to get a bank account in other country like UK, USA (don't know how they suggest me to do that while I'm not in that country!). However if I manage to get a physical address and bank account in any of these countries am I able to purchase ADP? What about tax or it is possible literally while you’re not in that country?
Anyone experienced purchasing ADP outside of Apple’s listed regions like Bangladesh?
Really appreciate if you've any solution.

I'm a developer in South Africa and I don't have a bank in USA.
You enroll with your Apple ID, and the $99 will deduct from the card you have added to it. If you don't have an Apple ID, you can create one and add your card details there.
It doesn't need to be a credit card, you can pay with a debit card as well, as long as it can do online payments (usually cheque accounts). If you don't have a credit card or a cheque card, you can buy a pre-paid MasterCard/VISA card and just recharge it with money (might have problems with the cardholder name, see below). I don't have a credit card but I do have a chipped VISA debit card (from South Africa) which works for online payments and works for Apple Developer Program.
And anyone can register from any country. :)

What payment methods can I use?
You can pay for your items with a Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or American Express.
Can I use a credit card other than my own to complete my purchase?
The payment information you provide must match exactly with your enrollment information. If this information does not match, your enrollment will be delayed and you may be asked to provide a copy of a government issued identification.

Thanks! So you think Payoneer will work?

I dont know what that is but if the cardholder name is your name, then yes I would say it will work! :)

@Asha, care to share your experience about opening the Paid Apple Developer program? Did you succeed with your payment method?

Sure you can enroll in ADP from a different country, all you'll have to do is that you'll have to have the ability to pay Apple $99/year.
However, the main issue will be submitting your app in the app store and then getting paid for them.
Stripe Atlas may be the only reasonable option for that IMHO. I haven't tested it though.


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Can't launch Mac OS 9
Need to launch Mac OS 9 but it says it is no longer supported, is there a way around that? I am trying to put it and an old version of QuarkXpress on an old 40 GB external hard drive.  I need access to both to open up some old important files.
What are my options?

What model of Mac are you using? 10.4 was the last version of OS X that was capable of booting into Classic.

Option 1: Run OS9 Emulator and install QuarkXpress:
Found here for free: emaculation.com
Option 2: Change filename to work on current QuarkXpress:
Assuming you have QuarkXpress on your new mac all you have to do is add the .qxp filename extension at the end of your old filenames and it will open on new versions.


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Force apps to be opened everytime in a new desktop
Is it possible to force an app that is being opened to be actually opened every time in a different desktop, so that the current desktop is not polluted with layered or stacked windows?

You can set any app to launch in a specific Space.
It will open in the same one every time after that.
To get it there the first time

Switch to that Space then launch it,

or if it's already running

Right click it in the Dock > Options.
Set to 'All Desktops'.
Switch to your preferred Space - it will move with you.

Right click it in the Dock > Options. Set the Option to 'This Desktop'.

This method, of course, is not an automatic process & requires setting up by hand. One advantage is that you quickly learn which Space belongs to which app & can then use shortcut keys -  Ctrl ⌃   [number]  by default.
Setting System Prefs > Mission Control to disable 'Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use' will make the assigned Space numbers stick.

This method will only work correctly if you don't manually move any app window to a different Space. Spaces cannot correctly handle apps split over more than one Space.

It should remember your choice if you change it to fullscreen before quitting. Another option is to use the Single Application Mode:
defaults write com.apple.dock single-app -bool true
killall Dock

Which may not be exactly what you want. I just tried on macOS Sierra and it's a little clunky- but still works.


text:
Deactivate 'Nike+' exclusive features form AppleWatch 2 - Nike+ edition
For whatever reason* you decide that you want your Apple Watch Nike Plus to function just like a standard Apple Watch:

no more running notifications,
no ugly watch faces,
etc.

which are exclusive to the Nike Plus.
Is it possible to disable all NikePlus-exclusive features?

you really liked the Nike Plus band and can't get it any other way,
you broke your leg and no more running for you,
some other excuse

You're naming almost all reasons why I would buy the nike+ version without the nike+ stuff =)

Because the AppleWatch Nike+ edition isn't available yet this information is not available .. BUT I do can tell your able to turn off the notifications, just like the 'breath' / 'you need to stand for 1 minute' (while driving your car) notifications. You can change your watchfases to normal version but won't be able to remove the nike+ app from your watch as it's bound to the exclusive Watchface.


text:
Is there a way to delete related but undeleted files of removed applications?
It's been like 2 years I've used Mac OS X, but I really don't like the way applications are managed, especially when we have to delete them, or when we update the operating system, XCode, or any vital program for making my Mac OS function properly.
I've deleted ignorantly many applications by just trashing them, but I've discovered that these applications could create other folders and files somewhere else, which I probably didn't delete.
My question are:

Is there a way to delete all the related but undeleted files of removed applications? Like cached, configuration, etc, files.
Are there any folders where these applications usually store these files?

Note: in many cases I would not know anymore which applications I've deleted, so don't tell me to look in the official website of the application for a solution or a script that does it automatically. I'm looking for a more general solution.

I use a nice little free app called App Cleaner for the same reason/purpose. (I am not affiliated with AppCleaner. Note: I was asked by Dan to insert a disclaimer when suggesting a product I am not affiliated with.)
It has been very effective in finding and deleting all associated files and gives you the option to view and deselect certain files, if needed, prior to deletion.
The App Cleaner is available on the App Store.
From the developer:

Main Advantage: App Cleaner deletes Remains (or leftovers) - files of
  previously removed apps. Thus, you uninstall applications completely.
Main Features:

Scan the system and preview installed applications
Remove all types of service files
Remove remains of previously uninstalled apps
Reset application to a first-launch state
Easy-to-use shortcuts
Any file or app quick preview
Specific app-associated file formats preview
In-app help assistance
Show unused applications
Skip list option

How to Uninstall an application using App Cleaner:

Launch App Cleaner.
Scan all applications for service files.
Choose unneeded application (left view). In-app purchase required.
Select all its service files on right view.
Click Remove.
If some apps were not removed, due to access rights, switch to Finder and move them manually to Trash.


text:
What's a good solution for a couple extra hours on an 11" MacBook Air?
My son has a MacBook Air which was required for school (a).
However, it sometimes comes dangerously close to running out of power near the end of the school day despite the fact that we've (I think) set it up correctly for low power consumption.
I have suggested taking the power adapter to school, or even getting a second one to carry in his backpack) but apparently many of the classrooms don't provide enough wall sockets, or don't have them handy to the desks.
The local Apple store was spectacularly unhelpful given that they only sell such devices for non-laptops.
What's a good solution for him to plug into his laptop during recess/lunch to get the battery levels up to a point where he'll easily see out the day? Something that would give an extra one to three hours would be ideal.
Additionally, if anyone has some really good tips for lowering power consumption, I'd be happy to hear them though, of course, my question is really about a suitable power device.

(a) I asked if a Linux laptop would be okay and they said yes, but my son would likely get beaten up in the playground :-)

Can you share with us what version of macOS is installed and what his energy saver settings are?

It's up to date El Capitan, I know  the screen dims and bluetooth and wifi are both turned off while on battery.

The school requires a laptop but doesn't provide enough outlets for you to plug into?  This is inviting a deluge of the digital version of "my dog ate my homework" as all a student has to do is claim they can't boot their computer when work is due.  I would address with the school before trying to jerry-rig a tech solution to a (perceived) operational one.

I am able to actively use my MacBook Air for around 7-8 hours. It is just a basic advice but it works fine for me:

Lower the screen brightness - it's relatively easy to control brightness on MacBook (F1 or F2).
Lower the backlit of the keyboard or, as your son is using his laptop in school during the day, it even makes sense to fully turn off the backlit (F5 or F6).
When the battery is getting to 25-30% I would quit all the cloud based apps like DropBox, OneDrive or iCloud. In Dropbox you can just pause syncing, which is a really handy feature.
Quit all the unnecessary apps. For example if in the class kids had a need to use MS Word and in the next class they don't need to use it, then show your son how to quit programs what he's not using.

I'm not sure if this will give MacBook Air battery two extra hours of life, but I would say from an hour to hour and a half.
One more thing would be somewhat reasonable usage of the battery. Meaning not leaving laptop to charge for hours when the battery is full and vice versa draining the battery all the way to 0% and then start charging it. Li-ion batteries don't like to be fully drained. Charging the battery with the mentioned above mindset could help it live longer.

As a start, I would suggest your son does the following:

Ensure his Energy Saver settings (System Preferences > Energy Saver) are such that they reduce his power usage
Adjust screen brightness (System Preferences > Display) or via the F1 and F2 keys.
If he doesn't already, get in the habit of not booting the MacBook until he first needs it at school.
Reset the SMC (see instructions below)

Reset the SMC
Your computer's System Management Controller (SMC) can also be reset. The instructions for resetting the SMC depend on three things:

Does your device run from a built-in battery? (In your case, yes)
Does your device run from a removable battery?
Does your device just run off power from the wall?

The MacBook Air fits into the first group above. Follow these steps for resetting your SMC:

Shut down your computer
Keep the MagSafe adapter (power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

Hope this helps. Please report back and let us know.

You don't mention the model of the Air so I'm not sure of its specs but there are two apps that can help prolong battery life and I use both:
Turbo Boost Switcher deactivates the CPU's turbo boost mode, which it's estimated can save 10-20% of battery life.
GFXCardStatus can stop the Mac switching to the discrete (i.e. non-integrated) graphics, and also save power.
I know you're looking for a gadget to do the job here but really just a little common sense and a few apps will do equally well.

Discrete uses more power than integrated. Also, no MacBook Airs have a discrete and integrated GPUs, only MacBook Pros do.


text:
How to export my mac terminal theme?
I've customized my terminal theme but I'd like to be able to share it with people. I know I've been able to download ".terminal" files, in the past. Where are these files located on a Mac?

Here's how to export a Terminal theme (profile settings) from Terminal->Help->Terminal Help, search for "exporting".
To export a theme (profile settings file):

Export profile settings

Choose Terminal->Preferences, then click Profiles
Drag a profile from the Profiles list to the Finder

Terminal creates a settings file in the Finder that can be used on
  another computer.

To import a profile setting:

Import a settings file
If you want to use the settings from another computer, you can import
  a Terminal settings file from that other computer.
The file name of the Terminal settings file usually ends with a
  “.terminal” extension.
Before you can import the settings file, it must be exported from the other system and placed in a location where you can access it.

Choose Terminal > Preferences, then click Profiles.
In the Finder, locate the settings file, then drag it to the Profiles list.

Whats wrong with Shell→Export Settings? This also keeps the theme, I use this all the time.

@Maximus Nothing is wrong with Shell->Export Settings. It exports the profile of the current session. However, the Help instructions are available and they show how to export any profile and how to import them as well, so I decided to answer the question that way.


text:
Lockscreen widgets are unresponsive for several seconds
I often use the Siri suggested apps widget to start an app. After upgrade to iOS 10, I have noticed that I have to press several times on the app icon before it responds. If I wait a couple of seconds before pressing it the first time, it will respond. It feels like all the other widgets has to load their content before I can start the app.
This lag kind of defeats the main purpose of quick access to an app as I have used it for in the past.
Is this a known issue? Is it possible to do something to fix it?

I'm not sure this is actually an 'issue' that needs 'fixing'.  These widgets, most likely, have to make some kind of internet query to get their data and refresh the interface.  That can take several seconds depending on the speed of your internet connection.  It's best to wait a second or two for the widgets to get their data.

The specific "issue" I feel is a bug is it displays a set of app icons, then it "recalculates" and might change to a different set of app icons. Before the upgrade to iOS 10 it also changed after some seconds, but it was possible to click on it before it changed, but now it does not respond.


text:
Can't opt out of Beta downloads
I opted out of beta downloads under System Preferences > App Store, but I still see macOS beta downloads in the Mac App Store.
How can I fix this? Caching issue?

From:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/30929430#30929430
Once you've unenrolled, run this command in the terminal:
sudo softwareupdate --clear-catalog

This worked for me!

31415927:~ williamcerniuk$ sudo softwareupdate --clear-catalog
Password:
Catalog management is no longer supported.
31415927:~ williamcerniuk$

Once you unenroll in System Preferences, beta updates will still appear until the next commercial release of the software that you opted-in for (macOS or iOS). At that time, you can upgrade to the stable commercial release and you will no longer receive beta notifications.
If you further wish to leave the beta program entirely, after unenrolling in System Preferences go to the Apple Beta unenroll page and click the link at the very bottom of the page.

I have the same issue as OP. I Opted out on system preferences & unenrolled on Apple Beta website. However even with Sierra Alpha, App Store still reminds me for the beta update and actually tries to restart itself to update resulting in a kernel panic/shutdown. Reinstalled OS twice and reset NVRAM/PRAM yet the issue remains.

I hope this holds true in macOS 11. It keeps on pestering me to update to macOS 11.1 beta. And while the only difference between "release" and "beta" these days is the calendar date, I still would rather wait until it is more than half baked.


text:
iPhone password problem
I have a really weird problem. My girlfriend recently changed her iPhone  password. The problem is that the iPhone says that the password is incorrect, but she had to repeat the code twice when she changed it and I do not think that she could have made it wrong twice.
Another weird thing is that it accepted  the password few times but now it keeps locking for "5" , "10" , "15" etc minutes (right now we are on 15 minutes) and event finger did not work very well since she installed iOS 10. Is is possible that there is some error or something like that?
Note: She has 64GB iPhone 6
Thank you very much.. :D

Sounds like she forgot her password, or there's some really bad bug.

I guess so, but It is supposed to be her phone number which I do not think she would forget, but...

If you don't think she has forgotten her passcode, talk to Apple right away. Go to https://getsupport.apple.com


text:
Locking cells in numbers
Is there an easy way to lock individual cells or a group of cells in Numbers to prevent the data in the cell from being changed?

The short answer is, no, however you can lock a table.

To lock a Table, select it and then, from the Menu bar, click: Arrange > Lock

The longer answer is, if you want to protect* a cell or concurrent group of cells, do the following:

Overlay the target cell or concurrent group of cells with a rectangular shape.
Open the Inspector, click the Graphic tab, move the Opacity slider all the way to the left (0%).
Lock the shape in place, from the Menu bar, click: Arrange > Lock

This allows the contents of the cell or concurrent group of cells to be seen but not able to be modified unless the graphic shape is unlocked and either moved out of the way manually, set it to the back from the Arrange menu or remove it.
To relock the cell or concurrent group of cells bring the graphic shape back to the front from the Arrange menu or manually move it back, if it was moved, and then lock it again the Arrange menu.
Note: * While the method proposed herein keeps one from directly mouse clicking a cell under the translucent shape, it does not stop one from clicking into an adjacent cell that is not under the translucent shape and tabbing to a cell underneath, then modifying it. This method is meant as a workaround to keep one from using the mouse directly on a cell underneath and as a reminder the cell(s) in question is(are) meant not to be modified as easily as any wide open cell.


text:
Mail encoding issue
I have a problem with Mail. My name is Oğuz and there is a Turkish character in my name. I set up a 'live' email address in Mail. When I send an email from a web browser my name appears as "Oğuz", but when I send one from Mail my name appears as "O?uz". Also, other Turkish characters in my last name do not appear correctly. How do I fix this issue?

I have solved this issue.
1-) Create a new contact using name which you want to use as e-mail sender name.
2-) Add email account that contact.


text:
How to find "file-release" in OS X El Capitan 10.11.6?
I can not find file-release through command line on OS X El Capitan Version 10.11.6. On my virtual machine in Ubuntu I can do "ls /etc/*release" and it shows me two files with all needed information:
$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.0 (Maipo)

$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server"
VERSION="7.0 (Maipo)"
ID="rhel"
ID_LIKE="fedora"
VERSION_ID="7.0"
PRETTY_NAME="Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 7.0 (Maipo)"

No idea how to find the file with release information on Mac. Please give me a hint or a hint how to search it?

The file(s) /etc/*release contain OS specific informations like distribution name and version mainly in Linux distributions.
One of the purpose of the file(s) is to help software to detect the distribution type.
A file which contains similar informations doesn't really exist in OS X/macOS but can be mimicked with the following shell script:
#!/bin/sh

OS=`uname -s`
REV=`uname -r`
MACH=`uname -m`
if [ "${OS}" = "Darwin" ]; then
    OIFS="$IFS"
    IFS=$'\n'
    set `sw_vers` > /dev/null
    DIST=`echo $1 | tr "\n" ' ' | sed 's/ProductName:[ ]*//'`
    VERSION=`echo $2 | tr "\n" ' ' | sed 's/ProductVersion:[ ]*//'`
    BUILD=`echo $3 | tr "\n" ' ' | sed 's/BuildVersion:[ ]*//'`
    OSSTR="${OS} ${DIST} ${REV}(SORRY_NO_PSEUDONAME ${BUILD} ${MACH})"
    IFS="$OIFS"
fi
echo ${OSSTR}

Executing the script in my system will yield:
Darwin Mac OS X 13.4.0(SORRY_NO_PSEUDONAME 13F1911 x86_64)

In OS X/macOS the file is not needed because the requirements of a software package are determined by other means:

Info.plist in an installer app (e.g. Install macOS Sierra.app requires LSArchitecturePriority=x86_64 or LSMinimumSystemVersion=10.7)
preflight scripts in an installer packages which use sw_vers or similar commands to determine the OS version.

Setting aside that linux has a different release structure than macOS - you can use the native tool and files to catalog macOS versions for all OS X prior to 10.12 as well:
 /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

And the manual page for sw_vers documents the above as the source for build and OS naming.
$ sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.12
BuildVersion:   16A323

Also, the javascript documentation seems a little more detailed if you don't need a bash / shell / command tool: https://developer.apple.com/reference/installerjs/system

Yeah, the unix core of the macOS is derived from the FreeBSD OS, not Linux. Hence the different directory structure and command. Also, uname -mrs will give information about the macOS kernel.

I couldn't find a formal release file but there are a few utilities that allow you to query the operating system for version information.
sw_vers prints macOS version information and but has command line options to print just the version item you are interested in. From the man page:
 sw_vers
 sw_vers -productName
 sw_vers -productVersion
 sw_vers -buildVersion

You can use the output from the sysctl command to get specific version info. You can put this together to build the relevant version information that you need for your application. To get the version of macOS for your system:
% sysctl kern.osproductversion
kern.osproductversion: 12.3.1

sysctl -a prints all output: have a look through this for specific items you might be interested in to build a custom version print-out


text:
repair_packages: command not found
I've been having problems with WebRoot internet security ever since upgrading to Sierra.  I was told to run the following command from Terminal
sudo /usr/libexec/repair_packages --verify --standard-pkgs /

When I did so, I got the following message
sudo: /usr/libexec/repair_packages: command not found

WebRoot said they couldn't help me.  They said I should contact Apple ... which I did.  Still no help.
Any suggestions as to why I'm getting this message and how to fix it?  I've already reinstalled Sierra once ... which should have fixed the problem, but didn't.

Related: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/354432/the-command-line-would-not-let-me-repair-my-disk-permission-on-mac-mojave/354434#354434

You're getting that message because the repair_packages command no longer exists in Sierra. Repairing permissions, which is what they're trying to get your system to do, is automatically handled during software updates now. I'm not sure what the underlying issue they're trying to fix is, but repairing permissions on system files probably is not the issue anyway, especially on a clean install.
Apple's not going to be able to help you because Sierra doesn't have that utility. You'll need to go back to WebRoot and ask them how to resolve your issue on Sierra.
(For a company that claims to be selling internet security software, you'd think they'd be a little more versed in the OS for that software, especially before asking a user to run a command in Terminal!)

For an unrelated issue faced by many users on a helpline I help to run for an online gaming system; we actually just tell people to uninstall Webroot & get a proper antivirus instead :/


text:
How to batch rename files to random characters?
I have a lot of photos with me that I want to rename. I want them to be 10 random characters. Is there a way to do it?
I am running macOS Sierra.
I didn't try anything yet.
I would prefer a free solution to this problem.

The following script assumes that the photos to be renamed are in your Pictures folder. This will rename every file in your Pictures folder to a 10 character random string of letters and numbers while keeping the file extensions intact.
#!/bin/bash

chars=({a..z} {A..Z} {0..9})

function random_string {
  local count=$1
  local output=
  while ((count--)); do
    output+=${chars[$((RANDOM % ${#chars[@]}))]}
  done
  printf '%s\n' "$output"
}

for file in ~/Pictures/*; do
  ext=$(echo ${file} | sed 's,^.*\(\.[^\.]*$\),\1,')
  mv "$file" ~/Pictures/"$(random_string 10)"${ext}
done

If the files to be renamed are not in your Pictures folder then edit ~/Pictures accordingly. The ~ is simply a shortcut for the users home directory. So ~/Pictures = /Users/YourUsername/Pictures. Note that the * tells the script to match any file found in ~/Pictures. Also note that you can change the number of characters generated by changing the number 10 of (rand_string 10)to any number you like.

Copy and paste this into a plain text file and name it something like: rename_pics.sh

Open your Terminal (use spotlight to find it if you don't know it's location)

In your Terminal type chmod 755 rename_pics.sh and press Enter

Then type ./rename_pics.sh in your terminal and press Enter to run the script.

By the way, is there a way I can rename without changing the extension? I mean right now I have three different scripts to rename the jpg, png and mp4 files. First, I'll place only jpg files on the Desktop then run the jpg script on the desktop and then move the files to another folder. I'll do the same process for png and mp4 files. It would be better if the script renamed all the files without changing it's extension.

@danielAzuelos Thanks for the sed magic. I have incorporated this into the answer.

What does local c=$1 do?

@samurai_jane local c=$1 is setting a local variable c to the first positional parameter $1 passed into the function. What that means is when you invoke the function like this rand_string 10, the 10 is set to the variable c which determines the length of the generated random string. rand_string 34 would generate a random string with 34 characters. I should probably use better variable names :)

Copy and paste this into a text file:
#!/bin/bash

cd "$1"
for i in ./*; do
    mv "$i" $((RANDOM * 32768 + RANDOM))
done

Run the following command to make the file executable (assuming you've saved the file as randomlyrename):
chmod 755 randomlyrename

And run the file:
./randomlyrename /path/to/folder/containing/things-to-rename

Bear in mind that it'll rename everything in the directory it's provided to a string of random numbers ten digits long.

@perhapsmaybeharry your script removed all the file extensions. Anyway, I've already found my answer from another user and I've accepted it. Thank you so much for taking the time out to help me :) I really appreciate it :)


text:
Editing iPhone 7 Photos on sRGB iMac
Photos taken on an iPhone 7 are encoded with the DCI-P3 color profile. Would editing those photos in the Photos app on a 2013 (non-Retina) iMac result in loss of quality?

From doing my own testing, it does appear to be the case. I edited a photo on my iPhone 7+ to soften some highlights. When viewed on my iMac, the highlights were still blown out. I further lowered the highlights on my iMac. Now the photo viewed on my iPhone had blown out highlights once again. Trying to edit it on my iPhone showed all the color controls at 0, even though it was clear it had been edited.


text:
is iTunes connection a reliable method to check an iPhone is dead or alive?
I guess a turned on iPhone will always show up in iTunes when you plug it to a mac or PC (even if you need to unlock the passcode).  I sometimes need to known if an iPhone is dead inside or it's just the screen not showing image.

Theoretically, yes. Also, if you know the phone number associated with the phone, you could try calling it and see if it vibrates/rings.

Also, if you have an Apple Store nearby, make a Genius Bar appointment, take it in, and see if they can help you.


text:
Mac physical failure during OS upgrade
My Mac suffered a physical failure at the very beginning of the upgrade from El Capitan to Sierra. The physical failure has been fixed. I can get to the screen with Disk Utility, Reinstall OS and Time Machine options. But I don't have a Time Machine backup.
One option is to reinstall the OS. Would that wipe out my data? If so, what options are there for recovery?
The most important data are saved in a version control system, but there is always this and that around the edges that one would still want.

"Physical failure" is pretty vague: if your hdd/ssd broke your data is probably lost but if the wi-fi chip fused your data should still be there. Mount and check the file system on the main volume. If the previous system and your user data exist you should be able to simply upgrade to Sierra. Just don't wipe your main volume. If you've booted to Internet Recovery Mode an "upgrade" will probably fail, because it tries to install the original system your Mac was delivered with. So please add some additional details.

The failure was due to the motherboard being somewhat out of shape, likely because I dropped the macbook (inside its case) a couple of times. After that, it sometimes stopped working, depending on changes in its temperature, then finally had the final failure, which has now been repaired. The disk appears to be in working order, but without an OS, we can't get at the files.

You can get the files or verify the system by booting to (Internet) Recovery Mode or simply attaching the Mac in Target Mode to a second Mac. Depending on the age you need either a Thunderbolt or a Firewire cable for the latter. It's not unlikely that the disk was erased by Apple or the Apple Authorized Service Provider before repairing you Mac. Then your data would be lost - at least parts of it.


text:
Macbook Pro - install operating system on SD card?
I read that you can expand you Macbook's storage with SD card. Is it possible to install an operating system (OSX to be precise) on that SD card and switch between the operating systems?

Short answer: Yes, but it will not be ideal
Long answer:
Yes, it is possible to install macOS onto a SD card, but SD card have low read/write speed (unless you get one of the SDXC II card which can get 280MB/s which is still pretty slow for daily use, and they are expensive, cheap ones won't do anything in speed) my SSD can get around 465MB a second, and that is not the best SSD. So make sure you don't care about being slow with installing OS into them. Also by the way you can't really make large amount of writing into it or else it will break: they are not designed to have a system installed onto it.


text:
How do I get javaws to recognize and use alternate JREs that I have installed?
I have multiple JDKs installed. For one particular JNLP I need to make sure it is run with some older JRE. The Java Control Panel only recognises the latest version. How do I make it see the others and use them?
ls /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/
1.6.0.jdk       jdk1.7.0_80.jdk     jdk1.8.0_102.jdk    jdk1.8.0_71.jdk     jdk1.8.0_92.jdk

Related: Starting Java Webstart App with older installed JRE Version. Try this answer. If it doesn't work please report back.

No, the problem is that javaws does not find the java executable. It turns out that if I use the java 1.6 macaws it works, but there is no way to specify a java 1.7 JRE still.

Is the jnlp available? Or is it some commercial/internal app?

It's commercial/internal, yes, unfortunately. But It seems to me that the problem is more on the client side of things.


text:
How to change folder view in Finder
Is it possible to change the way folder content is organised to show in vertical columns?
When viewing content by icon macOS Sierra seems to automatically sort in vertical rows from left to right. There don't seem to any options to change this in 'View Options'. Organising content vertically seems particularly confusing when viewing larger number of files.
current:
desired:

I don't have Sierra to test - but Cmd/1, 2, 3, 4 should change from Icon to list to column to coverflow views. Or View menu. Cmd/J should give you settings you can then save as defaults.

To clarify, this is to change the way content is organised in Icon view instead of switching the view altogether.

ah, OK - sorry, I've no idea. I actually never use icon view, I had assumed you meant column, but afaik, Mac has always sorted icons left to right.

The only way I currently know how to do this is to change the icons so that they are bigger. You will not, however, get the files in two columns.

Press ⌘J
Set the "icon size"" setting to use large icons


text:
Really confused about how to reset SMC and PRAM and NVRAM on my Macs and iPad and iPhone?
Sometimes I find from searching Google that I can reset the SMC, PRAM and NVRAM. But different sources provide different instructions on how to do this.  I have a MacBook Pro and iMac. I also have an iPad Mini and an iPhone 5c and wonder how these can also be reset if needed.
Can someone please clear this up for me, or send me links to some info I can trust.

Don't see a need to look for a problem behind the problem. The OP asks for instructions on how to reset the SMC etc. This is (and already has been) answerable easily.

Just wanted to let you know I've just updated my answer to include the new process for resetting NVRAM on Late-2016 MacBook Pro models.

Sorry to hear you’re having problems. I hope the following clarifies things for you, but if these instructions do not help, you can always post specific questions about any problems you’re having.
SMC
The reason for your confusion is that the instructions for resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) will differ depending on whether your device:

runs from a built-in battery?
runs from a removable battery?
can only run from power off a wall socket?

Below I will provide the instructions for all three possibilities.
For MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, and MacBooks where you can’t remove the battery on your own (i.e. it's a built-in battery), here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Keep the MagSafe adapter (or power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

For MacBook Pros, MacBooks etc that you can remove the battery from, here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Disconnect the MagSafe plug (power cable) from the computer
Remove the battery
Press the power button for 5 seconds and release
Put the battery back in
Reconnect the MagSafe cord (or power cable)
Turn your computer back on with the power button

For iMacs, Mac Pros, Mac Minis, etc that only run from a power point in the wall

Shut down your computer
Unplug it from power
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds
Plug it back in and turn it on.

PRAM/NVRAM
Now, the reason for your confusion about PRAM and NVRAM is that older Macs had what's called Parameter RAM (PRAM), newer Macs use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM).
Until recently, the instructions for resetting this were the same regardless of your Mac model. However, the Late-2016 MacBook Pro models use a different process. Below are the steps for both scenarios.
Resetting the PRAM/NVRAM on all models EXCEPT for Late-2016 MacBook Pro models

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).
Resetting the NVRAM on Late-2016 MacBook Pro models
For all Late-2016 MacBook Pro models (with and without Touch Bar) follow these steps:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then immediately press the commandoptionpr keys.
Keep these keys pressed down for at least 20 seconds!
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).
iPods, iPhones, iPads
Devices running iOS do not have an SMC or PRAM/NVRAM that you can reset like you do on Apple Macs.
However, most random issues can be resolved by rebooting your device. To do this, hold down the Power button and Home button simultaneously for about 10 seconds until you see the Apple logo appear. After your device reboots you may need to enter your passcode.
In more serious cases, you can also access a range of reset options from Settings > General > Reset. Be careful though when deciding if/which option to select.

Thank you! This really helps. thank you for also including how to reset my iPad and iPhone.

From Apple KB: Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac

Reset the SMC on Mac notebook computers
First determine whether the battery is removable. Mac notebook
  computers that have a nonremovable battery include MacBook Pro (Early
  2009) and later, all models of MacBook Air, MacBook (Late 2009), and
  MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2015). Learn more about Mac notebook
  batteries.
If the battery is nonremovable

Shut down the Mac.
Plug in the MagSafe or USB-C power adapter to a power source and to your Mac.
Using the built-in keyboard, press Shift-Control-Option on the left side of the keyboard, then press the power button at the same time.
Release all keys, then press the power button again to turn on your Mac

If the battery is removable

Shut down the Mac.
Disconnect the MagSafe power adapter from the Mac.
Remove the battery. (Learn about removing the battery in MacBook and MacBook Pro computers.)
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Reconnect the battery and MagSafe power adapter.
Press the power button to turn on the Mac.

The LED on MagSafe power adapters might change states or temporarily
  turn off when you reset the SMC.
Reset the SMC on Mac desktop computers
Follow these steps for iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro, and Xserve.

Shut down the Mac.
Unplug the power cord.
  1.Wait 15 seconds.
Plug the power cord back in.
Wait 5 seconds, then press the power button to turn on the Mac.

For Intel-based Xserve computers that aren't responding, you can shut
  down locally or by using remote commands. You can also shut down by
  pressing and holding the power button for 5 seconds.

iOS devices don't have an SMC.


text:
Is there a keyboard shortcut to move between Google Chrome screens in OS X?
command +  ` (left of the 1) works for other apps, but it doesn't work most of the time for Google Chrome.  Anyone knows of another keyboard shortcut?

Do you mean between windows, or between tabs? Command + ` is the correct shortcut for switching windows. I don't have any problems with it.

The trackpad? If you full screen and separate each window.


text:
Filtering Live Photos
Is it possible to setup a Smart Album in the Photos app that would group all Live Photos? Neither app seems to provide a quick way to find all your Live Photos.

Starting with macOS Sierra 10.12.3, Apple has added a Live Photos Smart Album to Photos. It may be accessed from the Sidebar (View → Show Sidebar) or in Albums view (View → Albums).
It is still not possible to setup a custom Smart Album with Live Photo as a criterion.


text:
Changing New Mail Sound in macOS Sierra
As of macOS Sierra, assigning a custom sound file in Mail no longer appears possible. All I get is “New Messages Sound” in addition to the old options:

Is there a way to assign a custom Mail sound in macOS Sierra, possibly via editing a plist?
The interesting thing is, I’ve logged into the Guest account, and even though the same option is selected, the sound that plays when a new mail comes in is the sound I had previously under MY user account. But I can’t seem to find where that sound file is assigned.

Add your custom mail sounds to ~/Library/Sounds. Then they’ll show up in the Mail preference pane.

Awesome. Thanks! Now if only those sounds would show up in Messages and FaceTime too…


text:
List of Apple Watch Workouts and Metrics
According to Apple, there are 12 different workouts:

The screenshot only shows 4. What are all 12 workouts?
Also, Apple says you can select up to 5 metrics.
What are all the different metrics?

The 12 workout types are:

Cycling (Indoor & Outdoor)
Run (Indoor & Outdoor)
Walk (Indoor & Outdoor)
Swim (Pool & Open Water)
Elliptical
Rower
Stair-Stepper
Other (these can be labeled as various activities like Strength Training, but the label is purely cosmetic—it has no incidence on calorie computations)

The various metrics are:

Duration
Current Pace & Speed
Average Pace & Speed
Distance
Laps
Active Calories
Total Calories
Heart Rate

They are not all available for every workout type. For instance, Pace is available for Run/Walk, while Cycling may show your Speed.
Swims cannot display Current Pace, only Average Pace.
Laps are only available during Pool Swims, whereas stationary machine workouts (such as Elliptical and Indoor Cycling) cannot display Distance-related metrics (eg. Speed).
Pace and Distance calculations for Indoor Walks/Runs are dependent on how well you’ve calibrated your WATCH, and require that you swing your arms throughout the workout. Holding onto the handlebars will cause WATCH to think you are not exercising.
Duration, Active/Total Calories and Heart Rate are available for all workout types.
Calorie computations are calibrated over time, as you wear and use your WATCH. They factor in both your heart rate and the weight you’ve recorded in the Health app.

As of watchOS version 3.1, there are twelve workout types.
Each workout type has a default sequence of metrics that the watch displays when using the "multiple metric" workout view. One can edit this sequence, adding or removing metrics and rearranging their order. Note, though, that once you edit the metrics sequence for a workout type, there's no easy way to revert to the default sequence. In the interest of allowing safer customization, let's document the default sequences here, by workout type.

Outdoor Walk

Duration
Active Calories
Heart Rate
Distance

Outdoor Run

Duration
Current Pace
Heart Rate
Distance

Outdoor Cycle

Duration
Current Speed
Heart Rate
Distance

Indoor Walk

Active Calories
Total Calories
Hear Rate
Distance

Indoor Run

Active Calories
Total Calories
Hear Rate
Distance

Indoor Cycle

Duration
Active Calories
Total Calories
Heart Rate

Elliptical

Duration
Active Calories
Total Calories
Heart Rate

Rower

Duration
Active Calories
Total Calories
Heart Rate

Stair Stepper

Duration
Active Calories
Total Calories
Heart Rate

Pool Swim

Duration
Active Calories
Laps
Distance

Open Water Swim

Duration
Active Calories
Average Pace
Distance

Other

Duration
Active Calories
Total Calories
Heart Rate


text:
What happens to the music I downloaded from Apple music if I can't make a payment?
I've downloaded lots of music from the Apple Music trial, what happens if after say 4 months I stop paying? Does all my music get deleted or do I get to keep it.

Not totally. I am only using the trial as an example, got an answer or just want to complain?

It's the same answer — "songs are accessible only during your Apple Music membership"


text:
How to get macOS Sierra to stop asking me to enable Siri
macOS Sierra is constantly displaying an "Enable Siri?" dialog. If I pick cancel it just pops up again 5 seconds later.

How do I tell macOS Sierra to stop asking?

Have you tried enabling it, then going into System Preferences and turning it off?

that seems to have done it .. crossing my fingers

Please ask a new question for the earpod problem as the answer may likely be different and it is kind of confusing of having both topics mingled into one.

Or check https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/252259/prevent-earpod-play-pause-button-from-activating-siri-on-macos-sierra first which seems to cover that already.

This is almost a duplicate https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/258816/how-to-completely-disable-siri-on-sierra

did you try this on work laptop? i seem to get this issue on my work laptop and unable to enable Siri. Might be some company policy.

If you've been mistakenly triggering the Siri pop-up when your finger mistakenly hits the top right area on the Control Strip, you can remove the Siri icon.
Go to:  → System Preferences → Keyboard, then click the "Customize Control Strip" button on the bottom, or on newer OS X, "Touch Bar Settings" then "Customize Control Strip"
Move your cursor to the Control Strip (which will now be in Edit Mode), and click and Drag the Siri Icon back onto your screen into the area with all the unused Control Strip widgets.

This is correct.  Nice one.

Thanks, this did not only solve my problem, but also brought to my attention that there's useful stuff I can add to the touch bar.

would not let me drag items off the little taskbar in that dialog, instead the entire bar worth of default items was moving around..  but I could drag them around on the taskbar itself when in that mode, so dragged the siri icon to the far left to get it away from the fingerprint reader
.... that is the least user friendly config screen I've seen in a while.

Awesome. That's a really useful feature. Wish Apple had put half as much effort into making that discoverable as they put into making Siri available in Mac OS. I replaced her with a button to pull up the launch pad.

@ChuckvanderLinden that's what I had to do... to be more specific, I dragged it into the trash can.

This was useful... I did not know you can customise the touchbar. I've added the volume control which only gives you access to volume and then the close button for it if you press it by mistake which it happens extremely often.

Slightly different steps for Ventura: System Settings -> Keyboard -> Touch Bar Settings -> Customize Control Strip

Accept by clicking Enable Siri, then go into  → System Preferences → Siri to uncheck Enable Siri. That should take care of it.

This does NOT end it.
Pressing the Mic button accidentally, will trigger the whole cycle over again.

THIS DOES NOT WORK

This worked nicely and addressed 2 different things that were triggering the prompt.