text:
How to recover all stored text message data on old iPhone (A1241) to external drive?
I managed to import all the photos off an old iPhone 3G I recently rediscovered while going through my junk drawer. I used Image Capture, but now I’d like to get all the texts.
I'd like to use only the terminal, ie. no downloads of third-party software, and I'd like to NOT use iTunes or iCloud. My Mac is running Sierra. Would like to get the notes off too if possible. Is this doable?

Notes and Messages are encrypted to that device. Only 3rd party would be able to attempt to recover some of that data. That unfortunately is a very heavy case you present.

For anyone not bound by the strict “no third party” requirement - go get a copy of Phone View.

http://www.ecamm.com/mac/phoneview/

It does everything asked for and you can use it on all devices for one license. The free trial let’s you install and be sure it will work before paying for the software.
If I discover a way to get started or accomplish this using only Apple terminal and free Mac App Store apps, I’ll edit that in here as well. I would start with Apple Configurator and the command line tools it installs since that can read log files and get past the “trust” steps that iTunes and iCloud typically perform when getting data from iOS to macOS.


text:
Configuring XAMPP on macOS Sierra (version 10.12.6)
On a fresh installation of macOS, I decided to use XAMPP (I have previously used MAMP (free ver.)) but I have encountered some simple issues.

The general tab shows IP address 192.168.64.2 but my system IP is 192.168.1.100. Why is the IP different by default? And how can this be changed to use the same? The "go to application page" loads dashboard on 192.168.64.2 but I'd like to use the localhost on some port like localhost:8888 / 127.0.0.1:8888.
Trying to open phpmyadmin returned an access forbidden page ("... New XAMPP security concept: ..."). I looked up about it in google which showed results suggesting to edit the configuration file to allow external access. I'd like to keep it to localhost, so I guess the IP has to be changed to localhost. How can that be achieved?
Unlike MAMP, there is no option to set the port within the application, so I tried to look for the httpd file in `Applications->XAMPP->(show package contents)->contents->... but did not find the file. So where are the configuration files?

P.S. Do not suggest to turn off the system provided apache server
  (sudo apachectl stop)

I think the problem is that you installed the XAMPP VM version that executes a virtual machine on macOS. Check on the XAMPP website and download the normal version.
Hope this is the case and that this info helps.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


text:
What is the added benefit of the vendor provided FTDI USB to Serial driver?
Future Technology Devices International Ltd. provides a driver for their USB-to-Serial chips specific for MacOS 10.9 and above.
When I first connect a device with such a chip, I can see the additional devices in /dev, for example tty.usbserial-A92XHN3R and cu.usbserial-A92XHN3R. Apparently, MacOS (10.12.6 in my case) provides a driver out of the box.
After installing the vendor provided driver (and rebooting), nothing changes on first sight. I still see the two additional devices when I connect an FTDI adapter to a USB port.
But there is at least one change: libusb works with a PN532 breakout board connected to the Mac via an FTDI adapter. Before installing the driver, I got an error, even though the adapter seemed to work fine.
After this long preamble comes the question: What exactly are the benefits of the vendor provided driver? Does it have additional functionality over the Apple provided driver? Less bugs?

Are there release notes or a link on what the “vendor provided driver” is specifically? I have no idea what you are using and what version of that other driver you wish to compare and contrast. You’ll likely get no answer or less good answer without nailing down what you are using.

My apologies, I found an installation guide http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Documents/AppNotes/AN_134_FTDI_Drivers_Installation_Guide_for_MAC_OSX.pdf. It claims in chapter 3.2 that "Starting with 10.11 (El Capitan), Apple’s own driver seems to be sufficiently comprehensive that many customers will not need to install FTDI’s own VCP unless they wish to use its advanced features such as baud-rate aliasing and configurable latency times."

Why libusb works with the driver installed (but not active, as I did not disable the apple driver first) is an entirely different question. This question would be even more "opinion-based" or speculative, so I am not going to ask it.

Perfect. I’ve reopened this for an answer to be added.

would you like me to answer with the baud rate information from your comment?

Sorry, I missed your comment! Yes, this might help shedding some light to the mystery. Do you know libusb? Does it use one of the advanced features that are mentioned in the installation guide? From the outside it looks like libusb uses a simple serial connection, and yet it doesn't work with the Apple provided driver.

@Martin Something seems to be off with the information you have given. The FTDI and macOS drivers communicate via USB with the device to give you a serial port. Libusb is used so that user-space programs can communicate with a USB device without using a driver (such as the FTDI and macOS built-in drivers). Therefore something seems to be missing from your explanation as you wouldn't be needing both. Perhaps you're not talking about libusb, but rather libnfc?

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Why are ssh and git push not working?
So recently, I have noticed that commands like ssh, git push, and git pull sometimes stop working. They only start working after I restart my computer. The interesting thing is that I can still browse the web, use other apps that require internet access perfectly fine.
I cannot SSH or make a VNC connection to a computer at my home, or pull/push on repos. Anybody have any idea what seems to be the issue? I am on macOS Siera 10.12.5 on an Apple MacBook Pro 2015.

I used to have a similar issue back in Yosemite. Here is how I fixed it:
System Preferences -> Security or Security & Privacy. -> Firewall Tab -> Click the Lock and enter your password -> Toggle Firewall on and off -> Restart your computer

Thanks so much, I actually managed to figure this out myself a little while ago


text:
*macOS 10.13 High Sierra Beta* Cannot Resize APFS Volumes on External Hard Drive
I have impatiently updated my Mac to the High Sierra Public Beta and I noticed something strange when I was trying to mess with my external hard drive. I have a 4TB WD MyPassport for Mac and I was planning on partitioning it so I could have half of it to use as a Time Machine and the other half for storage. So, I naturally thought I would reformat the drive as APFS and then partition it so everything is in the same format as my internal hard drive. However, once it was in the APFS format and in the partition drop-down, everything was grayed out from the plus/minus buttons to the resize text box. Down below where they normally display the errors it only said that "This volume cannot be resized." I did also run into the issue where I thought that I would just reformat it back to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) (AKA: JHFS+). In the drop-down for the Erase menu, I was only given the four APFS options as the format. So, being the hard-head I am, I went into terminal and used the "diskutil eraseDisk" option to reformat it to JHFS+, which worked. From there I was able to partition it off and reformat one volume to APFS for Time Machine and use the other for extra storage. What I learned after setting up Time Machine, is that it actually needs to be in the JHFS+ format to work. TL;DR So, I guess my question ends up being: does anyone know why I can't partition a drive that is in APFS format? And why does Time Machine use JHFS+ format if the new native format is APFS? As far as the first question, is it just me or maybe because High Sierra is in Beta and it's just something that hasn't been fixed? And for the second, also maybe because it's in Beta and it's just something that hasn't been updated?
Thank you for everyone's time reading this, I know it was kind of a long one.

I haven't figured out why it wouldn't let me partition my drive formatted as APFS, but I am assuming it is because of beta bugs. I am able to do it now so that's the only logical answer. As far as Time Machine goes, I noticed that it was requiring me to format the drive as OS X Journaled even though the original is APFS... It doesn't really make sense to me but I'm not an expert. So, for Time Machine, it still needs to be OS X Journaled; and for partitioning it appears to be fixed. Thanks for everyone's time on this question.

I'm no APFS expert but my understanding is that once the whole HD is formatted as APFS it becomes a "container" that can hold multiple volumes.  You can add volumes (partitions) to the container but they all share the entire space of the container and resize themselves dynamically.  Therefore there is no option to resize a partition or volume in disk utility. The file system takes care of it automatically.

Damn... if that's the case I wouldn't be able to use only part of my external hard drive for Time Machine and another for extra storage space.. Can anyone else confirm or deny this?

No, you can attach both a “reserve” (guaranteed minimum size) and a “quota” (maximum size) on an APFS volume — but only at volume creation time.


text:
How can I reduce the heat produced when running resource heavy applications for a long time?
As a software developer I often have to run resource heavy applications for a long period of time. As such my system is able to run the workload without too many issues (uses between 60-70% of CPU max) though my system can get a bit warm (Intel Power Gadget confirms 80 degrees celsius) are there any tactics I can use to reduce the amount of heat generated?

I do not run VMs - and macOS uses all available cores. The only way to reduce resource use would be to run less tasks. I asked because I want suggestions for reducing the total power usage - I keep my system on my desk so heat can easily move around (I.e. fabric isn't below system). Generally after a few minutes the fan kicks in and temp drops down to 60C again. Though was wondering if there are any hidden tricks to keep the heat down (it's also summer and that probably contributes somewhat, house AC only helps so much!)

Even if I ran everything in a VM, the system would still have both cores activated. The VM simply wouldn't use one of them and the system would use the other one.

That's not the point the system would still run both cores continuing to generate heat (an entire core won't remain idle)

I give up. Deleting suggestion.

You did not say what model Mac you have or which Processor however 80℃ is probably well below the maximum temperature allowed at the processor die, e.g. 105℃ for my Early 2013 MBP,  so I don't see it as an issue unless the system is locking up because of overheating.

Firstly, probably worth checking that kind of temperature isn't going to damage your machine. This might be helpful at working that out: http://www.buildcomputers.net/cpu-temperature.html
As you'd likely know, processors and GPUs have an optimal temperature they run at which is regularly around 50 degrees C. Yours is well over that.
It'd be easier to suggest things if we had an idea of the spec and model but these a few general things
Few things to try:

Ventilate - ensure that the air vents are clear - this includes dust and things on your desk - it goes without saying that while a laptop has the word lap in it, it doesn't mean use it on your lap. Lots of laptops I've seen with heat damage are from doing things in bed with the sheets blocking the vents.
Ensure your fans are operating currently - if they don't sound like they are running at full speed when the CPU is at 80, then your fans or sensors aren't working. To that end, if you are good with physical tools, take the machine apart and clean the fans out with compressed air

If the issue persists take it to an authorised repairer. There could an issue with the thermal paste, and that kind of thing should be fixed by a professional.
If this still doesn't resolve the issue it's likely that you have a machine that is under powered to your needs and you are working it too hard. In other words, it might be time to upgrade to an iMac Pro later this year


text:
Confused about USB-C transfer speeds of latest MacBook Pros
I was reading this
article about the next iteration to USB-C ports. It says that the new standard will double speeds from 5 Gbps to 10 Gbps.
It also says:

if you just bought a brand new computer with USB-C port,
like, for example, the 2016 MacBook Pro that I'm using to write this
article, you're pretty much screwed.

But according to Apple’s website their USB-C ports
support up to 40 Gbps data transfer speeds. So this is 4 x faster
than what the above article is saying about the new USB standard.
Can someone explain this to me? I am confused.

The USB-C ports on your MacBook support USB 3.1 (gen 2) AND Thunderbolt 3.
USB 3.1 gives you a transfer speed of 10 Gbit/s and Thunderbolt 3 is capable of up to 40 Gbit/s.
Note however that just because a device has an USB-C connector that doesn't imply that it supports USB 3.1 gen 2 and thus 10 Gbit/s. It can also be USB 3.1 gen 1, which is basically USB 3.0, which is 5 Gbit/s.

And people thought a single connector would simplify everything.

It is worse, a Type-C connector can be designed into devices that might support only USB 2.0 rates (HS, FS, LS), and it still will be a Type-C connector. So there are Type-C USB 2.0-only C-C cables, all within official specifications.


text:
Can't remove ACE from directory
My applications folder has an ACE entry which prevents me from deleting its contents (not even as root, with sip disabled).
My problem is, that the command
sudo chmod -N /Applications
tells me, that I have no permission to do this.
I couldn't believe it and tried it in both single user and recovery mode, to no avail.
Output of ls -leO:
drwxrwxr-x+ 148 root    admin  uappnd,nodump,opaque  4.9K Jul 31 08:55 Applications/
0: group:everyone deny delete

Is there any other possibility to fix this except from reinstalling the OS?

You're probably removing the wrong ACL - the /Applications one prevents you from deleting the entire directory - shouldn't you be looking at an ACL on a folder inside Applications?

The contents of the folder are, as far as I can tell not the culprit, they just have 777, 755, etc. with no ACL.

The proper command to remove the ACE from the folder in SIP-disabled mode is:
sudo chmod -a "everyone deny delete" /Applications

You can also remove (or add) ACL entries by number/index:
sudo chmod -a# 0 /Applications

Yes, and the one I provided just removes all. My problem is not the command, but rather that I cant run it because of permission problems (ironically).

@redxef While you're sorting things out sudo -s might be easier to be sure you're root in the shell. Also - what does ls -leO / with the capital O show and spctl --status? You might need to add those to the body of your question or ask a follow on question - the answer above works to remove ACL for me.

@redxef BTW for me your command works properly even after adding arbitrary additional ACEs (in ElCap though)

spctl --status returned enabled, I disabled it with --master-disable, which still doesn't solve the problem. I added the output of ls -leO, as you suggested.

Roman-Mac-Mini-M1.local ➜  ~  sudo chmod -a# 0 Pictures
chmod: No ACL present 'Pictures'
Roman-Mac-Mini-M1.local ➜  ~  sudo rm -R Pictures
rm: Pictures: Operation not permitted
Roman-Mac-Mini-M1.local ➜  ~  sudo chmod -a "everyone deny delete"  Pictures
chmod: No ACL present 'Pictures'
Roman-Mac-Mini-M1.local ➜  ~  sudo rm -R Pictures
rm: Pictures: Operation not permitted
Any ideas?


text:
Does secure erase through Terminal affect old user accounts?
I had some problems with an old user account on a Macbook Pro with SSD, and I wanted to start fresh. I am not sure if I deleted the account, but I think I did reinstall the OS through I think internet recovery mode. The old account is not present in Users & Groups.
I did
My-MacBook-Pro-2:Desktop accoutname$ sudo diskutil secureErase
freespace 0 /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD

and the following is the response I got from Terminal:
Started erase on disk1 Macintosh HD
Creating a temporary file
Securely erasing a file
Creating a secondary temporary file
Mounting disk
Finished erase on disk1 Macintosh HD

In Disk Utility there are two Macintosh HD's shown, the top one with '0 Bytes Available' and the bottom indented one with 180 GB available. Did both of these HD's with the same name get erased by my Terminal command?
FileVault is enabled on the current account but not sure if it was on the old account. Either way I know FileVault isn't totally foolproof (https://www.blackbagtech.com/blog/2017/07/13/macquisition-best-just-got-better/), and since I'm not 100% sure how the old account was deleted, I just wanted to ask if my current method through Terminal makes the data on the old account non recoverable? Any other steps I should take?

The macquisition link implies it needs the password or key to get at FileVault 2. I'm not sure you wouldn't be safe just cycling the file vault keys. Are you looking to protect an unlocked / compromised FV2 mac?

Per-user FileVault hasn't been a thing for a while now so hopefully you're using FileVault 2 with full disk encryption (FDE). I suspect Disk Utility didn't refresh properly, check "diskutil list" output to be sure. bmike is correct, secureErase doesn't work with SSDs. If you weren't using some sort of encryption for that data before it was written to an SSD then I'd assume it could be recovered.

'If you weren't using some sort of encryption for that data before it was written to an SSD then I'd assume it could be recovered.'
Wouldn't enabling File Vault 2 after the data was written to the SSD still encrypt the data, because it encrypts the whole drive? And therefore when the drive is erased, the data can't be recovered?

Everything you describe seems to be just fine. To be totally sure I would re-enable FileVault and then cycle the keys (boot to recovery HD and erase the FV volume.) That ensures that each "block" is cryptographically scrubbed before you then re-introduce a new OS and then turn on FileVault2.
The main lesson to keep in mind is with SSD - be sure to enable FileVault before you put anything secure on the drive. That way when SSD swaps in new "excess capacity" blocks to replace others - you don't get old plain text data restored or have plain text data taken "offline" only to be possibly be put into service after you do the "wipe".
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH22241
The key phrase is:

Note: With a solid-state drive (SSD), secure erase options are not available in Disk Utility. For more security, consider turning on FileVault encryption when you start using your SSD drive.

If FileVault 2 is enabled then you can just change the recovery key using the fdesetup command. Don't need to erase the disk.

So I guess the only potential problem is that I didn't enable File Vault 2 when I first put the sensitive data on in the first place.
Since then, however, I have enabled File Vault 2, used Terminal to Secure Erase Free Space, booted in Internet Recovery Mode, erased both Macintosh HD's, reinstalled the OS, and enabled File Vault 2 on the new OS.
Could that still not be sufficient, due to the fact that File Vault 2 was not enabled before the data went on the drive? If so, would it be worth to use something like Parted Magic (https://partedmagic.com/)?

@itstoocold The longer you use the drive with FileVault on, the more likely you overwrite and encrypt the potential data leakage. I don’t think any tool other than an oem wipe would matter at this point. Probably easier to just fill the drive with YouTube videos than worry about free space reclamation and excess capacity.

Do you mind me asking what an OEM wipe is? I couldn't find any information about it on the internet.
I could fill the drive with Youtube videos, but since I plan to still use the computer, I thought the secure erase of free space triggered through Terminal, along with the erasing both Macintosh HD's in Internet Recovery mode, would suffice instead. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Finally, would doing a secure erase through a software such as Parted Magic help? How about an encryption alternative to File Vault 2, because it's not very hard to reset/find out ...

... someone's login password (https://www.cnet.com/how-to/reset-bypass-password-mac-macbook/).
And last thing, you don't see a problem with Disk Utility showing two Macintosh HD's, the outer HD with 0 bytes available and the inner HD with a normal amount of bytes available? Thanks for the help.

@itstoocold Secure OEM wipe would be a great question to ask on super user. It's usually needing a windows tool and depends on which vendor drive you use. Apple doesn't go in for any of that and puts custom firmware on the drives / generally makes the drives non-removable.


text:
Smart pills reminder that considers meals as well?
I have 5-6 pills that I have to take during the day. I am amazed how bad iOS apps for pills are! For example, there is no app that:
reminds me to take pill sometime before and after a meal!
I do not want only to set the time to eg 7am and then to 8am, hoping I will eat at 7:30am. If I eat at 8:30am, I still want to use the app, and to remind me that e.g. 30min from taking the pill has passed and that I can eat now.
I tried 30+ apps, and they all are just simple schedulers, that I could make in google calendar by myself.
Any suggestions?
UPDATE
Lets say I have 2 pills: 1 is taken 30 min before meal and second is taken 30 min after the meal.
The app would send first notification at e.g. 7am. Lets say I have to postpone until 8am, so I take the first pill at 8am. The app timer starts, and it will notify me at 8:30am to eat and then at e.g. 9:15am to take the second pill (assuming i eat for 15 min).
Apps found so far that considers meal somehow

RX2 - not updated for years, just a list, no checkins.

How do you expect the app to know when you finally decide to eat?

@SolarMike from the time I take the first pill. It's ok to have notifications for the first pill before, but timer starts from the moment when I take the first pill

@SolarMike see update for example

So, you need to enter your start time then enter subsequent times... an automator script may work if it triggers from your first pill entry time.

@SolarMike I know I can code that, but I have 6 different pills/times (plus different scheme in 14 days) and I would really love to save time and get an app for that that is already tested and working...

Why not using Siri and reminders? When you're done eating say: "Hey Siri, remind me to take a pill in 30 minutes"

Does Siri work if there is no network?

@MateuszSzlosek because i have to remember also the name of the pill etc. Also, my front microphone is not working, so Siri is useless for me :(

@SolarMike No, Siri requires an Internet connection.


text:
MacOS keychain encryption strength
On a Mac not using hard drive encryption, I wonder how difficult would it be for an attacker with physical access to a machine to break into the keychain This document answers the question for iOS 10 (the keychain uses AES 128 in Galois/Counter Mode). But I can't find a document for MacOS that’s current in 2017.
What technical implementation is on macOS High Sierra?

iCloud keychain uses AES 256 ( https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 ) and local keychains use Triple DES for passwords and keys in a keychain, but I can't find a valid link to an official document that proves it.

Thanks for your comment. That would make sense as AES is much less CPU-hungry than 3DES, which is a very important consideration on iOS, but probably less so on MacOS. Although with the current generation of both hardware, I'm not sure…

Keychain formatted files use PBKDF2-SHA1 3DES to encrypt the key:

Keychain uses PBKDF2 with salt and pass, using 1000 iteration and an output size of 24 (for the 3DES key)
Keychain then decrypts the data with 3DES-CBC but only the last block is used
Keychain checks if the password was valid by doing a padding attack (checking for 4 consecutive 0x04 bytes at the very end)

See hashcat issue #2457 for a technical discussion about supporting Keychain password recovery.
A variety of tools exist to work with Keychain files on multiple platforms, so an attacker could brute force copied files off site.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
What is touristd?
In macOS Sierra there is a new daemon touristd.
What is touristd and what is it used for?

What is touristd responsible for?
touristd is responsible for displaying a New to Mac? notification roughly after 5-10 minutes using macOS Sierra for the first time.

After you click on Show it will open the What's New in macOS page in Safari.
There is a preference file that gets created/modified after dismissing or activating the notification.
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.touristd.plist.

Where can you find it?
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Tourist.framework/Versions/A/Resources/touristd

I just noticed that touristd was downloading something on my Mac long after macOS Sierra has been activated. (using 10.3.3 at the moment). Also it has 1:17,53 of CPU-time. There must be more jobs for this daemon than just the New to Mac? notification.

Yes, it can display different Apple tours depending on OS and device.  You can try to run touristd --help (with full path) to get some hint. This is also discussed in this blog post.

I was looking at my recent Time Machine contents, and noticed that yesterday all the files (mostly icon files) in ~admin/Library/Application Support/com.apple.touristd were updated. I'm running High Sierra.


text:
Can you whitelist certain words from being auto-corrected?
I'm aware you can turn off autocorrect entirely. However I feel like Rick & Morty is popular enough to warrant its exclusion from being autocorrected to Marty.
Is there any way to override/prevent auto-correct for specific words?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic.
Who are "Rick and Morty", anyway?

Why are autocorrect issues being deemed "off-topic" - it's part of the supplied OS no? And Rick and Morty is a Sci Fi cartoon...

The question as originally phrased was probably off-topic. However it reflected a valid use-case with a clear solution that could help many users. So I edited it to steer it back on topic.

I find autocorrect annoying and leave it off, but as many find it useful and I like your answers.

@SolarMike, John Mayer said it best.

Generally, you can tap the little × in the autocorrect bubble to block the autocorrect (or pick the left-most choice if using Predictive). Do this enough times and iOS will learn your typing habits and stop trying to correct that word.
For a more permanent solution, you can also add that word into your systemwide custom dictionary.
On iOS, open Settings → Keyboard → Text Replacement → +
Under Phrase enter Morty. Then either leave the Shortcut field blank, or enter morty in lowercase so the name gets capitalized automatically.
Note that these text replacements synchronize across your iOS and macOS devices over iCloud. However if you also want to add a word on macOS, it’s under  → System Preferences → Keyboard → Text.

That works for now, but it'd be nice if it was native.

@uwnojpjm See my edit. I've added a more permanent solution.


text:
How to start playing first song in playlist after all songs are over?
I listen to music on my Mac every day. However after a playlist ends, playback stops and I have to hit Play manually to start playing the playlist again from the beginning.
Is there anyway to restart a playlist automatically after it has finished playing the last song?

Simply enable Repeat → All. Right-click iTunes on your Dock, and the option will appear.

There are several other locations, such as the menu bar item Controls → Repeat → All, or this icon at the top of your iTunes window, opposite the album art:

Make sure that Shuffle is not checked on if you want to play from the very first song in the playlist. Otherwise random song will be played.


text:
Does just 'rm -rf' delete any files?
I recently ran rm -rf, not rm  -rf /, but nothing happened. I just get a result like this:

I was scared because I am worried that it could've deleted some files, but it didn't. Just be sure, could this have deleted any files from my directory?

If you are not sure (certain 100%) then don't run a command.

ya, running unknown terminal commands is a great way to see how you can destroy your environment.

Never type commands you do not understand.  All you needed was a . or a / and you're gonna be deleting a LOT of stuff.

If you want to experiment with potentially dangerous commands, consider installing a virtual machine.

@Nelson rm doesn't work on . (if I read the specs correctly - can't try it right now). The rest is correct, but I edited out the swear word if you don't mind.

Experiment all you want (as long as your data is safely backed up). It's only software and you can always reinstall it if anything goes wrong. Don't let anyone train you to be afraid of the computer.

Absolutely do run a command if you're not certain 100%. There are only so many ways to learn, and actually running them is one of them. Caveat emptor and do have backups, obviously, and do use VMs and all that. But not running anything out of fear will do little to help you grow. It should be obvious when to be extra careful (i.e., rm), but for many/most other commands, e.g. all pipe-based text manipulation commands, just trying them often is the easiest/simplest you can do. Together with studying the man page, obviously.

@SolarMike why? life would be so boring otherwise and the learning experience is the best.

@inf as part of an answer to another similar question I mentioned that at Uni (this was before GUI...) the students passed around the name of a "new" chat program - it was well done with instructions for user name and password and the name to enter at the command line was "rm -rf /". It caught many... :)

@AnoE You suggest running the command even if you don't know what it does just for the learning experience - so, in your experience, do ALL users keep up to date current backups if it is their home machine? Most sensible companies have a backup outside the control of the user. The best part of your answer : "Caveat Emptor" .....

@SolarMike do all users keep up-to-date backups? No. Should they? Hell yes! Hard-drive failure or accidental overwrites can happen at any time, no need to type any commands for that (no matter if you know them 100% or not).

-f flag is crucial here. Should you run rm whithout any arguments, it would print usage information.

@SolarMike, check my comment again. "Absolutely do run a comman dif you're not certain 100%" is something else than "if you don't know what it does". And I have plenty of qualifications in the comment. Amongst others "Together with studying the man page, obviously." and "...when to be extra careful". I just object to the very blatant "If you are not sure (certain 100%) then don't run a command.".

@AnoE It seems the 29 people who agreed with my comment outweigh yours with 1 so I leave it to the judges...

You win, yes, @SolarMike.

@AnoE I agree with the sentiment, but what if the command actually downloaded and installed a keylogger to steal all your passwords and credit card numbers? Or something else nasty and malicious?

No, rm -rf will not delete any files because you did not supply an argument to the command.

And because of -f, it's not an error to run it with no args.  rm -r will complain about "missing operand", but -f suppresses that, and also suppresses errors for files that don't exist.  (So for example a script could use rm -rf /foo/bar/* to empty a directory that might already be empty, without having to 2>/dev/null to squash errors.)

From the manual page:

rm removes each specified file.

This means you can use it to remove a list of files at once, e.g. with
rm -rf test1.txt test2.txt

Fortunately, all you did was pass an empty list of files, so it deleted nothing. Also, what @SolarMike says: if you don't know what a command does, don't run it. macOS is designed to 'hide' all dangerous (but potentially powerful) Unix operations from the end user.

FYI the -r flag is unnecessary unless you are deleting directories recursively. If it's just files, rm is sufficient -- the -f is for force do it doesn't ask you "are you sure" for every file.

Also, the -f leads to the usage message not being displayed when you use it wrongly. This is why there was no output at all when the OP ran rm -rf. Had they run 'rm -r' without specified files/directories, they would have gotten this usage message:
JanNash ~ $ usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...        unlink file

Interestingly, rm -rf / xyz* won't remove anything if there's no file matching "xyz*", because the shell will yield the error /bin/rm: No match. preventing rm from running at all.

@barrycarter That is entirely not true - it will still attempt to delete /, it will just skip the nonexistent file xyz* (which will simply not expand because of the lack of a match).

@fluffy When I do touch a b; rm -f a b c*; ls (in a new directory), I get /bin/rm: No match. followed by a b, showing the files aren't deleted. Try it yourself (in a safe environment) to confirm. This isn't a bug per se, but a case of the shell not even running a command.

@barrycarter That behavior depends on your shell's globbing configuration. At least in bash's default on macOS, it does in fact delete a and b for me - even without specifying -f. Do the same commands with echo rm -f a b c* instead to see the actual behavior.

In tcsh, echo rm -f a b c* yields echo: No match.

@barrycarter and fluffy: What happens depends on if the shell variable nonomatch is set or not.

For the layman/Linux/Unix newbie:
rm alone doesn't do anything because you haven't told it what to get rid of.
man rm can explain most of this, if you understand it.
-r means recursive, as in "include everything in subfolders"
-f means force, "don't ask me to confirm" mode
rm -rf(DON'T DO THIS)/ would say delete everything under / (the root folder) without checking (on recent macOS versions SIP will prevent you from removing macOS itself by this, but a lot of other stuff will get deleted)
rm [some file name] would just delete that file.
rm -rf /home/myuser/books would delete everything in myuser's books folder, as well as the folder.

Nowadays you need to do rm -rf / --no-preserve-root to shoot your leg correctly.

@Gallifreyan Is there ever a way to shoot your leg correctly?

This one is said to work well. I know no other :)

@Gallifreyan on macOS? https://pastebin.com/aVAsNcKC indicates otherwise

@Gallifreyan: find / -delete should "work" (i.e. actually delete things, so don't run it.)

No but if you want to delete Here's an example:
After you launch Terminal (in your /Applications/Utilities folder) type cd ~/Desktop to navigate to the Desktop directory. If you had a file here named MyFile.rtf that you never, ever wanted to see again, you could run this command:
rm MyFile.rtf

When you press Return, the file will go poof! It will be gone, toast, history. You can’t get it back.

Actually rm removes all reference of the file, doesn't scrub the hard drive of the file by overwriting each byte, if I'm understanding the documentation correctly.

@NoBugs But in fairness this is how all modern 'deletes' work, Windows included. If the delete feature is overwriting each byte then it'll be advertised as such (mainly because it takes longer and is unnecessary most of the time).


text:
Deleting Terminal app using App cleaner
I was experimenting how strong SIP is on Sierra. So I tried To delete Terminal.app using app cleaner but I can remove the contents then when I empty the trash it empties it. Then I open terminal App it works Fine.So is SIP that strong that you can't remove an OS X app using third Party apps?Is the only way to remove SIP protected apps using rm command?

Third party tools and rm can not delete System Integrity Protection (SIP) protected files.
To remove Terminal.app from your Mac, you would first need to disable SIP.
System Integrity Protection on your Mac means you can not delete or modify a range of important files and applications. See About System Integrity Protection on your Mac for what and how SIP protects you.

Very clear answer, especially for explaining what SIP meant, which OP should have done.


text:
How do I export a single frame from iMovie 10.0.3?
I might end up resorting to a screenshot, but I do not know

the movie's resolution, and would like an image at actual size.

I have tried lots of methods that came up when I searched online.

The only one that worked for me was a screenshot, but that runs into the size issue.

Some sources suggested various options under the "Share" button, but none of those options come up when I click that button.        The options that actually show up for me are

Theater  and  Email  and  iTunes  and  YouTube  and

Facebook  and  Vimeo  and  CNN Report  and  File .
Some sources suggested a "right-click", or showed a menu being brought up looks

exactly like those that come up from right clicks.        However, I have tried button+click

for each button from among  fn , control , option , command , shift  ,    both on the

normal display and the full-screen display, and none of those brought up any such menu.
Some sources suggested starting by copying a small segment of the movie into a new project.

However, I cannot figure out any way of creating a new project, and although I can easily

create a new event, I can't figure out any way of getting a significant part of the window to

correspond to the new event, whereas the sources I mentioned in my previous sentence

show that having been done for the projects.  If I instead drag the segment over

the name of the new event and let go, then it moves the entire movie to the new event.

Other than just taking a screen-shot without knowing whether-or-not

the screenshot is at the actual resolution, is there any way to

extract a single frame from iMovie 10.0.3 that actually works?
(In particular, a way of playing it at actual size that lets me advance frame-by-frame would suffice.

However, bear in mind that I do not know the actual size.)

In my copy of iMovie (v10.1.6) you can do this easily:
File > Share > Image...

And it will prompt you to save a jpeg of the current frame.
Alternatively export a high quality video ("Theatre" ?) go to the frame you want to capture and select Copy from the Edit menu. Open Preview.app and select File > new From Clipboard and you have your screen capture.

note I don't have access to that particular version of iMovie. It may be different.

When I go to File > Share, the options that come up for me are the same as those that come up for me when I click the "Share" button.  (In particular, no "Image" option comes up for me.)

Then the export JPEG function of "Share..." has been changed with the version I have. Can you update to the latest version?


text:
What is "hidd"?
I tried to find some details about the daemon hidd but only found information about a Linux daemon where it is the human interface device daemon.
Is this the same function in macOS?

What is hidd responsible for?
hidd is indeed an abbreviation for Human Interface Device Daemon. It is responsible for the operation of any human input devices, such as your mouse, trackpad, drawing tablet or keyboard.
High CPU or memory utilisation?
If you are experiencing high CPU or memory utilization from hidd, you may want to restart your computer.
Can I kill the process?
No, if the hidd process is killed, it will restart immediately.

Can you elaborate on why it is restarted with high CPU as well? Or whether there is another solution than to restart your computer? (There has to be!)


text:
Transfer music from iPad's iTunes to MacBook's, devices have different iTunes accounts
My Dad has an iPad with a lot of songs downloaded onto its iTunes library. Is it possible for me to put the songs onto my MacBook?
The iPad uses my Dad's iTunes account and the MacBook mine.

The only way I know of to share iTunes content between multiple Apple IDs is their family sharing plan. My father and I use it to share movies and TV shows with each other. Apple gives instructions for setting up family sharing. While it is nice to share content, it definitely has drawbacks. The biggest is that there can only be one credit card registered to all accounts under a family plan. Hope this helps.

No, it's generally not possible to transfer the synced music from the iPad to your MacBook using conventional (i.e. Apple supplied) means.
You would need to copy over the songs from your Dad's Mac (or where it originated from).

My dad downloaded the songs from the iTunes store on his iPad.

Then he needs to download them on your iPad too using his Apple-ID. If you enable family sharing, you can then open up access for you yourself to do that also.

I'd like them on my MacBook. Does he have to sign in onto that?

Yes, if he wants to access songs he paid for on iTunes Store, he needs to be logged in to be able to use the account.


text:
Mac Mini 2011 freezes and reboots
My Mac Mini (mid 2011) frequently freezes under medium to heavy graphics load (e.g., while using Citrix RDP or playing games). Until today I used to think this was caused by overheating but after a thorough cleaning at the genius bar the overheating is gone for sure but the random freeze remains. Here is a photo of the display when my computer froze.

Any clues as to what may be the issue here?
Edit: I am thinking this is to with overheating because when I place an ice pack on the mini then I can play as much as I want. If I remove the ice pack then it crashes within 15-20 minutes.
Edit2: Shutdown cause is -128 but memory checks out fine in Apple Diagnostics Test.

The image you showed are symptoms of the graphics chip on the logic board failing.
This requires a hardware repair (replacing the logic board) unless you find a place that would do component level repairs.
Given it's a 2011 the Apple Store will still be able to help but the cost of the logic board is (last I recall) usually $157.99 Plus tax plus $79 labor. You get 90 days of warranty on the replacement logic board.

I ran hardware test on my mac and it says "No trouble found". Any way I can confirm this diagnosis?

If you can hook up a second display you will most likely reproduce this issue on it. Combine that with booting up to another operating system: if the issue persists it's clearly a hardware issue and you would need the repair I mentioned. The included hardware test on Macs doesn't help all that much, don't depend on it to be absolute.

I tested further this weekend. It reboots on both the USB-C as well as the HDMI port. The connected display does not matter --be it a TV or a monitor. Furthermore, the reboot happens only when the mini gets hot. I can play a whole session of Chopper2 when I place an ice pack on it. But if I remove the pack then it crashes within 15 mins (air temp: 29 C).


text:
Environment variable for Apple Shake 4.1
Where is Shake's environment variable located in macOS allowing to launch Shake.app via Terminal session in High Sierra?
There's no Shake's variables in ~/.bash_profile, /etc/profile and /etc/bashrc.

You're able to access the shake command line tool because it's in a directory that's listed in the PATH environment variable in your environment.
If you want to know the precise location of the shake executable you can type:
which shake

Which will list the first place it finds the shake executable when it searches all the directories in the PATH environment variable.
If you want to see all the places shake exists you can type:
which -a shake

And that will list all of the places where a command called shake can be found. I don't have shake on my machine, but here's an example using bash. The first occurence of the bash executable for me:
IanCsiMac:~
> which bash
/usr/local/bin/bash

And all the places I can find a bash executable in my PATH:
IanCsiMac:~
> which -a bash
/usr/local/bin/bash
/usr/local/bin/bash
/bin/bash

And my PATH variable looks like this:
IanCsiMac:~
> perl -e 'print join("\n", split(/:/,$ENV{"PATH"}))'
/Users/ian/.gem/ruby/2.3.1/bin
/Users/ian/.rubies/ruby-2.3.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/bin
/Users/ian/.rubies/ruby-2.3.1/bin
/usr/local/sbin
/usr/local/bin
/Users/ian/google-cloud-sdk/bin
/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin
/Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/bin
/Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin
/usr/local/MacGPG2/bin
/usr/local/mysql/bin
/Users/ian/bin
/opt/nginx/sbin
/opt/local/bin
/opt/local/sbin
/Users/ian/Development/go/bin

Bash command which shake gives me the following result:
/usr/bin/shake

And the content of the shake file in /usr/bin/ contains a script like this:
# set env var, NR_SHAKE_LOCATION if not set

if ${?NR_SHAKE_LOCATION} == 0 then
    pushd `dirname $0` >& /dev/null
    setenv NR_SHAKE_LOCATION /Applications/Shake
    popd >& /dev/null
endif

# launch shake

exec ${NR_SHAKE_LOCATION}/shake.app/Contents/MacOS/shake $argv:q


text:
Can running `yes > /dev/null` harm a Mac?
I recently ran yes > /dev/null for a 3 minutes to drain my Mac's battery. During that time, the temperature rose to 72 °C and fans spun up to 4000 RPM. I immediately quit the process.
Should I fear that has this damaged hardware or the logic board?

Do you think that Macs are designed to be damaged by playing 3D games, compiling big software projects, or so on?

Would like to add here that a friend of mine managed to melt the keyboard of his small apple notebook (don't ask me for the exact model) by compiling some large projects. Afterwards the A key was slightly deformed. Still functional, but you could see the difference.

You will wear out the bore on the /dev/null port eventually so you will need oversized pistons, but wait until you see smoke from the exhaust before rushing to a mechanic.

@EJP - That's definitely true, but injecting a good synthetic lubricant directly into the port can help extend the life.  I've also heard that Seafoaming a pseudo tty has significant benefits.

What do you mean by your comment?@EJP

I typed 'yes > /dev/null' in Terminal and nothing happened...?

Certainly as others have said: the CPU and kernel both have their own self-preservation strategies.
I'll add some flavour concerning how yes uses computer resources.
It's worth distinguishing between the behaviour of BSD yes and GNU yes.
macOS is a BSD, so will use an (old) distribution of BSD yes.

macOS (Darwin) yes source code
BSD yes source code
GNU yes source code

A good discussion of the differences exists at How is GNU yes so fast?
And a discussion of that discussion exists on the Hacker News thread of the same name.
BSD/macOS yes really does just run puts("y"); in a tight loop.
GNU yes is… somewhat more serious. It has optimizations far beyond mere buffering of I/O.

The instructions for yes have this little gem from the man page :

Using yes results in 100% processor usage, for this reason it is
  rarely used other than for testing e.g. to max out a computer's CPU.

Which means, no, you will not have damaged your hardware. Using the yes command is a way of using all (i.e. 100%) of your CPU. The symptoms you experienced (i.e. a rise in temperature and the resulting increase in fan RPM) are to be expected under these circumstances.  Additionally, your CPU will "throttle back" and ultimately shut down if its thermal threshold is exceeded to prevent damage.

Totally agree. The machines can run at 100 degrees CPU for hours and have many safeguards to lower cpu scheduling if cooling isn’t keeping up.

But I've heard that while running loop while execution can melt some parts.And how much time should have I left the yes command running so that my Mac reaches 105 C?

It's always best to go with documented, empirical data rather than hearsay.  For example, see: Intel - How does the shutdown on overheating work?  As for the time required, 1) it depends on your  physical operating environment, and 2) what are you trying to accomplish?  That, however is a different question that what was originally posited.

Thanks for the reply @Allan. I only did a documented command that is the yes command.

That's quite a surprising statement from the manpage! While running it on its own is, I agree, pretty useless, piping it into another command can be quite useful from time to time.

Trivia: Old computers had an instruction called "Halt", and this was implemented as a goto to itself, but in some machines it was also known as "Halt and Catch fire"

The yes command simply repeatedly writes a string to stdout, the character y by default. Redirecting (>) it to /dev/null simply causes for the stream data to be forgotten. In other words this has no lasting effect on the persistent state of your computer, it is not a harmful command through this lens.
Since the yes command writes a string to stdout without any constraint on the output speed, this will cause for the CPU to reach maximal utilization on one core. This is the cause of the processor temperature increase and associated fan speed increase.
In a modern machine, particularly a well designed one like an Apple laptop, the hardware will protect its self from overheating damage. First by increasing fan speed, then by decreasing processor clock speed, and ultimately by halting the processor. Without intentionally circumventing these features, your hardware did not overheat. The machine is fine.
You mentioned a temperature of 72 °C specifically. This is not a very high temperature for a CPU die. A modest mobile cpu, the i5-7260U, specifies a maximum permissible temperature of 100 °C. You can see the specification as T_Junction in the package specifications section of this page: http://ark.intel.com/products/97539/Intel-Core-i5-7260U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_40-GHz

The sad truth is: this can "Harm a Mac".
The actual example given in the body for the question: this very likely did not harm the device. Granted.
But as a general answer to the question in the title:
It depends on which type of Mac we are talking about. The advice and reasoning given so far on this question or in the comments is not universally true and can be quite dangerous! There is too much trust and faith put into the mere belief that Apple hardware is just the best there is.
It is simply not true that Apple designs now or designed in the past all its systems to really not harm themselves through overheating. While it is true that this should not happen it is also true that it does happen. And did:
The prime example for this are the MacBook Pros, especially those from 2010-2012.
While the Intel chip that is primarily stressed with yes on all threads for a prolonged time will throttle down, will handle high temperatures quite well and even the OS will kick in and ramp up kernel_task to do nothing useful except help cool down the machine, the discrete chip on the same heatpipe is the vulnerable counterpart there.
Stressing these systems needlessly, like with yes, hastens the RadeonGate graphics chip failure. There are numerous examples of questions to the most heavily effected 2011 8,2 on this very web-site.
This GPU failure is a thermal issue. There are even guides out there on how to kill the machine by simply running heavy 3D rendering or benchmarks for a time. These systems were advertised for but not suited for e.g. rendering or gaming. Class action lawsuits (only threatened) and Repair Extension Programs speak for themselves.

I own a MacBook early 2015 with Retina display not a MacBook 2011 for the info.Nice video though.

This answer is fundamentally incorrect. yes does not in anyway interact with a GPU.  The source for yes only calls the most basic libraries; none of them being the math libraries (at min. required to access GPU).  Secondly, the video you linked does not in any way link yes to failed GPUs.  Rossman links failed GPU with poor manufacturing.

It is not fundamentally incorrect on the devices given.My answer is about differentiating among devices. And it is about poor manufacturing and inherently poor design. yes stresses the CPU. A stressed CPU gets warm. Temperature is then increased on the heat sink and that same heat sink has to cool vulnerable GPUs. That heat sink/thermal design fails to do so regularly on most 8.2 MBP.

@LangLangC - That heat sink/thermal design fails. That's a logical fallacy.  There is zero evidence that a warm(er) CPU hinders the energy dissipation properties of the heat sink causing the GPU to fail and you supply evidence to support the claim. The video you linked (all 17 mins of it) makes no mention to higher CPU temps or stressing the CPU.

The evidence is in the rate of failure in these units. Have you looked at these heatsinks? It's simple physics.

@LangLangC - I invite you to read the comment in my answer re: empirical data then the comment re: halt and catch fire.


text:
Writing bash scripts for changing Mac OS / OSX settings?
I am not sure if I am asking this question properly, but I am trying write a script to change some settings on Mac OS Sierra, similar to this script which sets the clock in the menubar to appear as analog:
killall Dock;
defauls write com.apple.menuextra.clock IsAnalog -bool true;
killall SystemUIServer;

Instead, I would like to select a different keyboard layout which I have created using Karabiner elements, which also appears in the menubar, and I can change it using the mouse.
My question is basically, how can I figure out what commands to put in my script to make changes like this? Is there a way to record commands that are run when making mouse actions, and then simply paste those commands into a script and alias it to some shortcut? Any help on how to become proficient writing scripts like this would be helpful.

For scripting that interacts directly with macOS, you're much better off writing AppleScript over shell. AppleScript is Apple's proprietary scripting language that contains many ways to interact with the operating system. In addition, AppleScript was designed to be a very human readable language.
Plenty of documentation and tutorials for AppleScript can be found through a quick google search. Here are some Apple webpages to get you started:
Introduction to AppleScript
AppleScript fundamentals
To write AppleScripts, open up Script Editor, located in Applications > Utilities.
An example script to toggle macOS Sierra's dark mode, would be:
tell application "System Events"
tell appearance preferences
    if dark mode is false then
        set dark mode to true
    else
        set dark mode to false
    end if
end tell
end tell


text:
How secure is File Vault 2 on Mac, given the fact that resetting/finding out someone's login password is not impossible?
There are ways to break File Vault 2 encryption: https://www.blackbagtech.com/blog/2017/07/13/macquisition-best-just-got-better/
Since you can reset a password when it's locked, I wonder in practice how secure is FileVault in the real world.
Furthermore, even if someone like the aforementioned Macquisition isn't used, can't someone just login to your user account?

FileVault doesn't protect against someone that can guess or get your password. "how secure is" really depends on you specifying your threat model.

Disk encryption doesn't protect against people knowing your password

Understood, obviously if you told someone your password, having File Vault wouldn't protect your data. What I meant to ask mainly instead was does File Vault protect from methods to obtain your password other than someone finding out from you personally, such as resetting the password on your computer and then logging in, doing some stuff in Terminal to disable the password, making a new user account and then disabling File Vault, etc.

@bmike you mentioned 'trivial surreptitious attacks' below which is basically what I was referring to, would there be any surreptitious attacks that you didn't mention, other than an individual giving up their password personally, that File Vault wouldn't protect against?

See my edit to list more clearly what FileVault does for you security wise.

File Vault won't protect you from someone with the means to grab your laptop when you have it unlocked and image it. Neither will it prevent someone from coercing your password from you or just snooping it from reuse / yellow post it notes, etc... https://xkcd.com/538/

FileVault is designed to prevent trivial surreptitious attacks:

booting to single user mode to add a new admin account
looking at your data (or copying unencrypted files) by booting to another OS that someone brings to your Mac

Filevault is good protection from people that can't or won't steal your password to unlock your drive. In a nutshell, it enforces authorization to decrypt your data, apps and OS with a password of your choosing.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204837

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Can I tell Photos I never want to use it with iCloud?
I have both iPhoto and Photos installed on my Mac and use both independently of each other. However, whenever I launch the Photos app I get the following prompt:

Is there a way for me to permanently tell Photos that I never want to use iCloud with Photos? I only want to use iCloud with iPhoto and worry that one day I will accidentally pick the wrong option when the above message appears.
—UPDATE—
Yes, I know that iPhoto is old software replaced with Photos.
I have a particular library I use with iPhoto because of a number of shared albums via iCloud and because one of my Macs cannot use Photos.
I do use Photos, but only with another library I never ever ever want to use iCloud with.
I am happy to only have one library connected with iCloud and that is my iPhoto library.
I am not familiar with Terminal (quite frankly it scares me) but if I can do this with terminal, please provide very clear instructions. That’s what my bounty is for. Any answer that can achieve what I want.
Thank you!

Why do you insist on using deprecated software?

@Rob Please see my updated question. It now has a bounty. Can you help?

Not an answer, but a possible path forward - after both watching people and  personally pulling hair out over the continual changes of the Photos/iPhotos/Aperture  apps, I went over to
Adobe Lightroom.  Consequently, I am still running Lightroom 4 (technically obsolete) on an iMac and it's catalog is fully compatible with LR6.  It will take some time to migrate, but it pays dividends in the long term.

Try Option-Clicking Not Now. Sometime this can set a default.

@Allan Interesting. I will give this some thought for future.

I'm going to take a step back and redefine the problem:

You have an iPhoto library with active shared albums.
You have a Photos library that you don't want to use iCloud with.

This is not difficult, but you need to work with the system, not go against the grain, which is what you're asking. Even if you found a command-line "solution", it would not be guaranteed to work in the future and would likely be undone with the next Photos update.
Here's what you do:
On the Mac that doesn't support Photos, you leave iPhoto. You leave your iPhoto Library intact and use as normal.
On all other Macs, use only Photos. Create a new Photos library (hold Option as you launch Photos and click "Create New") and designate that library to be the Photos System Library. This means that all Shared Albums, PhotoStream, etc. will be synced to this library, and this library only. See https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21363?locale=en_US for more information.
Other Photos libraries, which are not the Photos System Library, will show you the following when you look at Photos > Preferences > iCloud:

Now you can update your Shared Albums from any of your Macs, the one with only iPhoto or the one with Photos.
On the Mac with Photos, the only change is holding Option when you launch Photos to choose which library to use each session.
This will accomplish what you want without needing to 'hack' the system.
==== earlier answer mostly trying to understand the problem better ===
iPhoto and Photos are iCloud enabled, but only one library can be the primary iCloud-connected library. As iPhoto is deprecated, Apple is trying to nudge you along to only use Photos and get rid of iPhoto.
Photos is the replacement for iPhoto. They were never intended to both be used. In fact, in some cases, Apple would invalidate the iPhoto application to force users to only use Photos.
Since both iPhoto and Photos use things like PhotoStream and other services through iCloud, I imagine that the two programs are getting confused and they can't behave properly. Frankly, I'm surprised you're not experiencing sync'ing or other problems since you are using both.
The first time Photos appeared, it went through the process of migrating your old iPhoto library to a new Photos library, but it left the old one intact. This allows the user to double-check that the migration was successful before deleting the iPhoto library, to free up space if not for minimizing risk of confusion ("why are my photos appearing there and not here?")
So, if I may ask, are the photos in both your iPhoto Library and your Photos library more or less the same, or do you have two distinct libraries?
If the former, then I think you should move to Photos and ditch iPhoto completely, as it's no longer supported and will likely only cause further problems/confusion.
If the latter, then I suggest that you upgrade that new, distinct iPhoto Library to a Photos library for the same reason as above and use the Option-key modifier while starting Photos to choose which library you want to use each time you launch Photos. And ditch iPhoto.
The short version is that as iPhoto is deprecated, unsupported software, the longer you continue to use it, the more likely you will have problems.

Please see my updated question. It now has a bounty. Can you help?

I only can give you this "work around":
Make a second useraccount to work with Photo's or iPhoto.
This way they'll never get mixed up.

Would be my first thought as well. But this way you will need more harddrive space for 2 libraries (In my experience, on same user account the iPhoto library and the Photos library will hardlink to the same file on the drive)

You can set up a sim-link to the same library if you know how to.
You have to start granting rights from the one user to the other to start that process.

it might works, but it smells like desaster

@CousinCocaine It only smells like disaster if you're unsure what you're doing or opening the same library without logging out.
However, if you back-up regularly there's hardly anything to lose.


text:
Using video recorded by iPad how can I calculate the exact time duration between 2 frames?
I shot a video with an iPad recently for a school project.
My teacher told me the iPad shoots at 30 fps, but opening the video afterwards VLC tells me the frame rate is 29.970030.
By watching the video and stepping through the frames, how can I calculate the exact time duration between 2 frames?
E.g. what's the time difference between frame 100 and frame 130? Is it 1 second (assuming 30 fps) or slightly more/less?

@oa- why did you add the iPhone tag?

The frame rates apply to the camera of iPads and iPhones to the same degree since Apple uses the same camera modules for both devices with the same software.

29.97* is a Standard... an odd standard but a standard nevertheless.
It is commonly known as drop-frame
You can read the entire wikipedia article, but basically it was a kludge to make analog 30fps broadcasts not display odd interference patterning based on the frequency of the picture sub-code & sound sub-code. [You really don't need to know all this ;)
The 'drop frame' is really not dropping frames; it's dropping time code so that it doesn't eventually go out of sync.
The picture should actually still be running at 30fps, in "real" time.
The formula, btw is 30/1.001 - though being a kludge in the first place it doesn't quite work like that...

That is, drop frame TC drops 18/18000 frame numbers, equivalent to
  1/1000, achieving 30×0.999 = 29.97 frame/s. This is very slightly
  slower than the true NTSC frame rate of 30/1.001 = 29.97002997
  frame/s, which is equivalent to dropping 1/1001 frame numbers. The
  difference is one additional NTSC frame per 1,000,000 drop frame TC
  values, which is negligible.

This one you can truly blame the Americans & the NTSC** television standard for - the rest of the world went with a far more sensible 25fps which never needed this workaround.
*or more precisely, depending which way you calculate it, 29.97002997
**NTSC stands for Never Twice the Same Colour ;-)

Do you know how I can calculate the exact time duration between 2 frames?

https://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/usermanual/index.html#chapter=D%26section=6%26tasks=true 1 Frame = 1/29.97s = 1.001s

According to oa- though the frame rate is variable. Is that documentation specifically about iPad footage because from my brief scan it seems to be just general about drop frame recordings.

iOS' native camera app (iPhone/iPad) does not have a fixed frame rate.
I attached the details for a short clip I recorded. It varies between 28.571 fps and 30.000 fps

VLC displays a frame rate of 29.973708 fps for the same clip.

What about "how can I calculate the exact time duration between 2 frames?"


text:
Does the Mac "Do Not Disturb" function affect Skype calls?
If I use Notification Center's "Do Not Disturb" toggle, will I still receive Skype phone/video calls?
I know this toggle will temporarily disable banners/alerts, as those notifications are actually routed through Notification Center, but calls have a popup dialog of their own.
If not, how can I temporarily disable Skype calls? Do I need to log out?

Skype has a "Do Not Disturb" function.  If you click on the lower right hand corner of your avatar, you can select your status.

When you select "Do Not Disturb" you will not receive any notifications from Skype.

Interesting. So then do Skype calls go to voicemail, if set up?

Yes.  It will go to voicemail.

This answer does not address the main question about the macOS “do not disturb” toggle affecting Skype.

@YoYo the question says "If not how can I ...."  It inherently answers the question.

so answer with “macOS feature cannot suppress ... instead ...”?


text:
AppleScript to check if fn key is depressed?
How can I return 1 when the fn is depressed and 0 otherwise?
I found this page that claims it has a solution but it relies on an external shell script file (I'd rather have a pure AppleScript solution if that's possible) which I can't download because it redirects me through some weird dutch scam sites.
The aim of this is actually to have a way of checking for function key + fn key combinations in ControllerMate, which doesn't seem to have a way to check if fn is pressed or not.

Straight from the post by Oscar...
property vers : "1.0"
my isModifierKeyPressed("function") // the only addition to his raw script

on isModifierKeyPressed(checkKey)
    set modiferKeysDOWN to {command_down:false, option_down:false, control_down:false, shift_down:false, caps_down:false, numlock_down:false, function_down:false}

    if checkKey = "" or checkKey = "option" or checkKey = "alt" then
        if (do shell script "/usr/bin/python -c 'import Cocoa; print Cocoa.NSEvent.modifierFlags() & Cocoa.NSAlternateKeyMask '") > 1 then
            set option_down of modiferKeysDOWN to true
        end if
    end if

    if checkKey = "" or checkKey = "command" then
        if (do shell script "/usr/bin/python -c 'import Cocoa; print Cocoa.NSEvent.modifierFlags() & Cocoa.NSCommandKeyMask '") > 1 then
            set command_down of modiferKeysDOWN to true
        end if
    end if

    if checkKey = "" or checkKey = "shift" then
        if (do shell script "/usr/bin/python -c 'import Cocoa; print Cocoa.NSEvent.modifierFlags() & Cocoa.NSShiftKeyMask '") > 1 then
            set shift_down of modiferKeysDOWN to true
        end if
    end if

    if checkKey = "" or checkKey = "control" then
        if (do shell script "/usr/bin/python -c 'import Cocoa; print Cocoa.NSEvent.modifierFlags() & Cocoa.NSControlKeyMask '") > 1 then
            set control_down of modiferKeysDOWN to true
        end if
    end if

    if checkKey = "" or checkKey = "caps" or checkKey = "capslock" then
        if (do shell script "/usr/bin/python -c 'import Cocoa; print Cocoa.NSEvent.modifierFlags() & Cocoa.NSAlphaShiftKeyMask '") > 1 then
            set caps_down of modiferKeysDOWN to true
        end if
    end if

    if checkKey = "" or checkKey = "numlock" then
        if (do shell script "/usr/bin/python -c 'import Cocoa; print Cocoa.NSEvent.modifierFlags() & Cocoa.NSNumericPadKeyMask'") > 1 then
            set numlock_down of modiferKeysDOWN to true
        end if
    end if
    --Set if any key in the numeric keypad is pressed. The numeric keypad is generally on the right side of the keyboard. This is also set if any of the arrow keys are pressed

    if checkKey = "" or checkKey = "function" or checkKey = "func" or checkKey = "fn" then
        if (do shell script "/usr/bin/python -c 'import Cocoa; print Cocoa.NSEvent.modifierFlags() & Cocoa.NSFunctionKeyMask'") > 1 then
            set function_down of modiferKeysDOWN to true
        end if
    end if
    --Set if any function key is pressed. The function keys include the F keys at the top of most keyboards (F1, F2, and so on) and the navigation keys in the center of most keyboards (Help, Forward Delete, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, and the arrow keys)

    return modiferKeysDOWN
end isModifierKeyPressed

if Fn is down
Result:
{command_down:false, option_down:false, control_down:false, shift_down:false, caps_down:false, numlock_down:false, function_down:true}

else
Result:
{command_down:false, option_down:false, control_down:false, shift_down:false, caps_down:false, numlock_down:false, function_down:false}

That doesn't work for me b/c if the user is holding down the F1 key for example it still reports true.

Just an update to say that lower in the same thread there is a version of the same routine that does not use php. This is important as macOS 12 has now depreciated php.


text:
Detect fn and function key simultaneously pressed
I am using ControllerMate to try to change what my volume buttons do.
Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how I can detect that the F11 or F12 keys are being pressed at the same time as the fn key.
Originally I'd planned to combine an F11 keypress detector and an AppleScript that checks for the fn key.

I haven't been able to find a way in AppleScript to detect the fn key. Research led me to possible solutions, such as
do shell script "/usr/bin/python -c 'import Cocoa; print Cocoa.NSEvent.modifierFlags()'"

But this can't distinguish between the different function keys or fn.
After almost a week trying to figure this out myself I ask you; is there a way to detect in ControllerMate a simultaneous fn and function key press?

If I remember correctly, Fn is not a typical modifier key - it's not captured by the OS; it's "local" to the keyboard so to speak.  As such, there's nothing to capture.  One way to test, is to "sniff" the packets - look at this program on GitHub.  Try running it and pressing the Fn key.  If it's not recognized, then you can't capture it with anything.

@allan karabiner elements manages to do it, so it must be possible somehow. I'll have a look over that link.

I found a way to do this that uses the awesome Karabiner-Elements. This has been so useful for me in many situations, and it works here too.
Karabiner can detect function keys being pressed, and tell whether it's with or without the fn key modifier.
We can make our own "Complex modification" that takes advantage of this:

Complex modifications are stored in ~/.config/karabiner/assets/complex_modifications as json files. Create a file in here with your favourite text editor:
vim ~/.config/karabiner/assets/complex_modifications/detect_fn.json

You need to fill the file with your own rules, here's what mine looks like now:
{
  "title": "The fn keys can control volume of built-in output even when a multi-output device is being used.",
  "rules": [
    {
      "description": "Map fn volume keys to execute applescript which changes volume of built-in output.",
      "manipulators": [
        {
          "type": "basic",
          "from": {
            "key_code": "f10",
            "modifiers": {
              "mandatory": [
                "fn"
              ]
            }
          },
          "to": [
            {
              "shell_command": "osascript -e 'set volume alert volume 0' && osascript -e 'set volume (alert volume of (get volume settings))*7/100'"
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "type": "basic",
          "from": {
            "key_code": "f11",
            "modifiers": {
              "mandatory": [
                "fn"
              ]
            }
          },
          "to": [
            {
              "shell_command": "osascript -e 'set volume alert volume ((alert volume of (get volume settings)) - 100/16)' && osascript -e 'set volume (alert volume of (get volume settings))*7/100'"
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "type": "basic",
          "from": {
            "key_code": "f12",
            "modifiers": {
              "mandatory": [
                "fn"
              ]
            }
          },
          "to": [
            {
              "shell_command": "osascript -e 'set volume alert volume ((alert volume of (get volume settings)) + 100/16)' && osascript -e 'set volume (alert volume of (get volume settings))*7/100'"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

It should be obvious how you can replace the keys with whichever ones you want, and you can also replace the shell command with any shell command.
Add the rule into karabiner-elements by

Starting it up
Choosing "Complex Modifications" from the top
Clicking "(+) Add rule"
Enabling the rule you just defined


text:
MacBook Pro Early 2015 freezes and crashes when viewing a presentation at PowerPoint 2016
I'm running El Capitan 10.11.6
I believe this happened for 3 times already. When I view a presentation (Slide Show Mode) at PowerPoint 2016 for Mac, there are times when it lags and freezes; I would be unable to move to the next slide or see my cursor. Consequently, the Mac restarted on its own and told me my it "restarted because of a problem."
I got this report afterwards:
Mon Aug 21 18:10:51 2017

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff8013dcedd3): Kernel trap at 0xffffff7f9623b208, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x000000008001003b, CR2: 0x0000000000000000, CR3: 0x0000000016f7c000, CR4: 0x00000000003627e0
RAX: 0x0000000000000000, RBX: 0x0000000000000000, RCX: 0x0000000000000001, RDX: 0x00000000ffffffff
RSP: 0xffffff802065bc30, RBP: 0xffffff802065bca0, RSI: 0xffffff80f8995100, RDI: 0x0000000000000000
R8:  0x00000000ffffffff, R9:  0x0000000000000002, R10: 0xffffff8028008000, R11: 0x0000133b802ad11c
R12: 0x0000000000000000, R13: 0x0000000000000100, R14: 0x0000000000000000, R15: 0x0000000000000005
RFL: 0x0000000000010206, RIP: 0xffffff7f9623b208, CS:  0x0000000000000008, SS:  0x0000000000000000
Fault CR2: 0x0000000000000000, Error code: 0x0000000000000000, Fault CPU: 0x2, PL: 0

Backtrace (CPU 2), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff802065b8c0 : 0xffffff8013cdab52
0xffffff802065b940 : 0xffffff8013dcedd3
0xffffff802065bb20 : 0xffffff8013decca3
0xffffff802065bb40 : 0xffffff7f9623b208
0xffffff802065bca0 : 0xffffff7f9611b6ba
0xffffff802065bcc0 : 0xffffff7f9611b639
0xffffff802065bcf0 : 0xffffff7f96129317
0xffffff802065bd40 : 0xffffff7f9612939c
0xffffff802065bd80 : 0xffffff7f962257c2
0xffffff802065bdb0 : 0xffffff7f9622a2f6
0xffffff802065bdf0 : 0xffffff7f9622ad37
0xffffff802065be40 : 0xffffff7f961b993d
0xffffff802065be80 : 0xffffff7f961999f5
0xffffff802065bea0 : 0xffffff80142ba1a3
0xffffff802065bf00 : 0xffffff8013d0f2da
0xffffff802065bfb0 : 0xffffff8013dc9507
      Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
         com.apple.iokit.IOAcceleratorFamily2(205.11)[569DA297-BC38-35C0-B909-6E8686BE0928]@0xffffff7f96111000->0xffffff7f9617cfff
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[CD762868-D3F5-3463-A60E-E3B41C9CC0D1]@0xffffff7f9452c000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.4.1)[A360453D-2050-3C49-A549-AC0DD5E87917]@0xffffff7f94fd9000
         com.apple.driver.AppleIntelBDWGraphicsFramebuffer(10.1.4)[F8289D9F-6EFA-36E6-B86B-8758C6026494]@0xffffff7f96192000->0xffffff7f961e7fff
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[CD762868-D3F5-3463-A60E-E3B41C9CC0D1]@0xffffff7f9452c000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.4)[5D7574C3-8E90-3873-BAEB-D979FC215A7D]@0xffffff7f94bed000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOAcceleratorFamily2(205.11)[569DA297-BC38-35C0-B909-6E8686BE0928]@0xffffff7f96111000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOReportFamily(31)[C89107EE-2DF2-3BC3-9F6D-3133D43ED7EF]@0xffffff7f94f2b000
            dependency: com.apple.AppleGraphicsDeviceControl(3.12.9)[21580824-E82E-371E-8FEE-B213B71B5C58]@0xffffff7f9618b000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.4.1)[A360453D-2050-3C49-A549-AC0DD5E87917]@0xffffff7f94fd9000
         com.apple.driver.AppleIntelBDWGraphics(10.1.4)[6E4B3931-9881-3715-AB7F-305802F44B9A]@0xffffff7f96207000->0xffffff7f96294fff
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOSurface(108.2.4)[A522B81B-A590-3EBB-A10D-4BFE642C7BEC]@0xffffff7f94ea2000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[CD762868-D3F5-3463-A60E-E3B41C9CC0D1]@0xffffff7f9452c000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.4.1)[A360453D-2050-3C49-A549-AC0DD5E87917]@0xffffff7f94fd9000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOAcceleratorFamily2(205.11)[569DA297-BC38-35C0-B909-6E8686BE0928]@0xffffff7f96111000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task

Mac OS version:
15G1611

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 15.6.0: Sun Jun  4 21:43:07 PDT 2017; root:xnu-3248.70.3~1/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: B370DB23-7244-3441-B95D-384442442565
Kernel slide:     0x0000000013a00000
Kernel text base: 0xffffff8013c00000
__HIB  text base: 0xffffff8013b00000
System model name: MacBookPro12,1 (Mac-E43C1C25D4880AD6)

System uptime in nanoseconds: 21146274453702
last loaded kext at 16996291451682: com.apple.driver.usb.cdc    5.0.0 (addr 0xffffff7f967fa000, size 28672)
last unloaded kext at 17394086554813: com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBHostCompositeDevice  1.0.1 (addr 0xffffff7f967f3000, size 28672)
loaded kexts:
com.apple.filesystems.smbfs 3.0.1
com.apple.driver.AudioAUUC  1.70
com.apple.driver.AGPM   110.22.0
com.apple.driver.ApplePlatformEnabler   2.6.0d0
com.apple.driver.X86PlatformShim    1.0.0
com.apple.filesystems.autofs    3.0
com.apple.driver.AppleOSXWatchdog   1
com.apple.driver.AppleGraphicsDevicePolicy  3.12.7
com.apple.driver.AppleUpstreamUserClient    3.6.1
com.apple.driver.AppleHDA   274.12
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelBDWGraphics  10.1.4
com.apple.driver.pmtelemetry    1
com.apple.iokit.IOUserEthernet  1.0.1
com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport 4.4.6f1
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager    4.4.6f1
com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X   7.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleHV    1
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltIP 3.0.8
com.apple.driver.AppleLPC   3.1
com.apple.driver.AppleSMCLMU    208
com.apple.driver.AppleCameraInterface   5.46.0
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelBDWGraphicsFramebuffer   10.1.4
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelSlowAdaptiveClocking 4.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleBacklight 170.8.9
com.apple.driver.AppleMCCSControl   1.2.13
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader 3.7.1
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeDataless 1.0.0d1
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib 1.0.0
com.apple.BootCache 38
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage  2.8.5
com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort  3.1.8
com.apple.driver.AppleTopCaseHIDEventDriver 86
com.apple.driver.AirPort.Brcm4360   1040.1.1a6
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIButtons   4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleSmartBatteryManager   161.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleRTC   2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleHPET  1.8
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBIOS    2.1
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIEC    4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC  1.7
com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall   163
com.apple.security.quarantine   3
com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet  8
com.apple.kext.triggers 1.0
com.apple.driver.DspFuncLib 274.12
com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib    525
com.apple.iokit.IOSurface   108.2.4
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport   4.4.6f1
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily   4.4.6f1
com.apple.driver.CoreCaptureResponder   1
com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController 274.12
com.apple.iokit.IOHDAFamily 274.12
com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily   204.4
com.apple.vecLib.kext   1.2.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily  11
com.apple.driver.X86PlatformPlugin  1.0.0
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily 6.0.0d7
com.apple.AppleGraphicsDeviceControl    3.12.9
com.apple.iokit.IOAcceleratorFamily2    205.11
com.apple.iokit.IOSlowAdaptiveClockingFamily    1.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleGraphicsControl   3.12.9
com.apple.driver.AppleBacklightExpert   1.1.0
com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport   2.4.1
com.apple.driver.AppleSMC   3.1.9
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusController   1.0.14d1
com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily    2.4.1
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIBlockCommandsDevice   3.7.7
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageDriver  1.0.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIArchitectureModelFamily   3.7.7
com.apple.driver.usb.networking 5.0.0
com.apple.driver.CoreStorage    517.50.1
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltDPInAdapter    4.1.3
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltDPAdapterFamily    4.1.3
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltPCIDownAdapter 2.0.2
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily    2.8.1
com.apple.driver.AppleHIDKeyboard   181
com.apple.driver.AppleMultitouchDriver  304.12
com.apple.driver.AppleHIDTransport  5
com.apple.driver.AppleHSSPIHIDDriver    43
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltNHI    4.0.4
com.apple.iokit.IOThunderboltFamily 6.0.2
com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family   1110.26
com.apple.driver.mDNSOffloadUserClient  1.0.1b8
com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily  3.2
com.apple.driver.corecapture    1.0.4
com.apple.driver.AppleHSSPISupport  43
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelLpssSpiController    2.0.60
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelLpssGspi 2.0.60
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelLpssDmac 2.0.60
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBXHCIPCI    1.0.1
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBXHCI   1.0.1
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily 900.4.1
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHostFamily 1.0.1
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHostMergeProperties    1.0.1
com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM  2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleEFIRuntime    2.0
com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily 2.0.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSMBusFamily   1.1
com.apple.security.sandbox  300.0
com.apple.kext.AppleMatch   1.0.0d1
com.apple.driver.AppleKeyStore  2
com.apple.driver.AppleMobileFileIntegrity   1.0.5
com.apple.driver.AppleCredentialManager 1.0
com.apple.driver.DiskImages 417.4
com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily 2.1
com.apple.iokit.IOReportFamily  31
com.apple.driver.AppleFDEKeyStore   28.30
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform  4.0
com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily 2.9
com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily    1.4
com.apple.kec.Libm  1
com.apple.kec.pthread   1
com.apple.kec.corecrypto    1.0
Model: MacBookPro12,1, BootROM MBP121.0167.B24, 2 processors, Intel Core i5, 2.7 GHz, 8 GB, SMC 2.28f7
Graphics: Intel Iris Graphics 6100, Intel Iris Graphics 6100, Built-In
Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 4 GB, DDR3, 1867 MHz, 0x02FE, 0x4544464132333241324D412D4A442D460000
Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 4 GB, DDR3, 1867 MHz, 0x02FE, 0x4544464132333241324D412D4A442D460000
AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0x133), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.21.95.175.1a6)
Bluetooth: Version 4.4.6f1 17910, 3 services, 18 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Wi-Fi, AirPort, en0
Serial ATA Device: APPLE SSD SM0128G, 121.33 GB
USB Device: USB 3.0 Bus
USB Device: Card Reader
USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller
Thunderbolt Bus: MacBook Pro, Apple Inc., 27.1

This doesn't happen every time. In fact, there are instances when PowerPoint is fast and snappy. This is the only problem I've had with my Mac since switching from Windows last year.
Could anyone tell me what happened and what I could do to avoid this?

A couple of quick questions: Is this only happening with one particular PowerPoint presentation, or is it something you've noticed can happen with any PowerPoint presentation? If it happens with multiple presentations, is there one in particular that almost always causes a freeze/crash? Oh, and what exact version of PowerPoint?

I can happen with any PowerPoint presentation. I didn't notice a particular presentation that always causes a crash but I noticed that this often happens with presentations that have animations. I'm using PowerPoint 2016 for Mac Version 15.28 (161115).

Have you tried opening one of the PP presentations containing animations in Keynote to see if it also crashes?  At first, the slides may look different but just for testing it may help to troubleshoot the offending slides.  Keynote is free from the App Store if you need to download it and it opens PP files.


text:
All SD Cards mount as Internal
I don't know why but recently all SD cards mount as Internal on my Mac

How do I solve this problem?
PS. Only SD cards mount as Internal all pen drives mount as external.

What you are seeing is expected behavior and how all Macs with built-in SD card readers are treated by the OS.
If you want to split hairs it is indeed "internal" as the card itself is inserted into the Mac, even though a bit of it still stacks out.
Regardless of that it is still expected behavior and not a problem. As to why? well only Apple hardware and software engineers can give you a definitive answer on that and they aren't allowed to say


text:
Is it safe to quit kernel_task?
I recently quit kernel_task because it was taking a lot of cpu time, when I was about to force quit it it says you will be logged out but I did not care but then after I force quit it I thought does it disrupt the system?
PS. Is quitting the kernel_task same as logging out?

don't do that. Kernel Task is the core of the os and without it you don't have a usable operating system.

And yes totally agree, but I had done it twice or thrice but I had encountered not problem.

Killing kernel_task is "killing" your entire system.
It's not the same as logging out; it's asking you to log out because everything will be going down.
From What Is kernel_task, and Why Is It Running on My Mac?

A “kernel,” if you didn’t know, is at the core of any operating
  system, sitting between your CPU, memory, and other hardware and the
  software that you run. When your turn on your Mac, the kernel is the
  first thing that starts, and basically everything you do on your
  computer flows through the kernel at some point. Activity Monitor puts
  all of this varied activity under one banner: kernel_task.

So should I worry about any software damage? And does reinstall of OS fix it.Because after I force quit kernel_task I decided to reinstall OS. PS. I did a reinstall because in my internet speed it only takes 6 minutes.

Realistically, the only damage would be to open files.  You don't need to resinstall macOS after you do something; there's no point in doing so unless there's a bonafide reason.

Can't agree that kernel_task is the "entire system". My understanding is it's a process that protects the CPU from overheating by putting fake load on it until it's back to normal. In any case, force quitting is probably not a good idea either. What is kernel_task? From Apple: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207359

@DavidJames - Re-read the support document you linked to.  It doesn't say, "its function is," but instead is says "one of the functions" meaning there is more to kernel_task than implementing dummy loads to thermally throttle a CPU.

Got it. Thanks for the clarification.


text:
Use applications as video sources for apps like Skype?
Is there a solution out there that can screen record 1 application and "stream" it through a fake virtual camera, so the video can be sent live through apps like Skype?
Just wondering if it's possible to, for example, stream a video playing in VLC/QuickTime through Skype, and be able to keep that video going through Skype even when I am doing other things on the computer.

CamTwist works perfectly for this.

Take a look at webcamoid, manycam, and Magic Camera and the corresponding VLC plugin.
Be aware the Magic Camera download seems to be bundled with malware and the VLC plugin is very outdated.
softwarerecs.stackexchange.com is also a good place to ask.


text:
Quick Time player records screen very quickly?
I use Screen Recording feature in Quick Time player for some purposes, but when I record my screen it records the screen actions very fast.Is there any way to chnge this to normal?
Eg.
If I move my cursor normally also while recording my screen it records it as if I am moving it in lightning speed.

Is the whole video playing back faster? Or is the framerate just very low and thus creating the illusion of a fast "jumping" cursor?

No when I just click cl mormally on new screen record then click record, then if I even move my hand on the track pad slowly it gets records it very fast like if I miss be it slowly up in the video it seems like it is moving fast up


text:
Combine two input sources to one input source?
Can I use soundflower and my microphone together at the same time?
Example usage: stream desktop audio through Skype, while still being able to talk to the person simultaneously.
I wonder if aggregate sound devices may be able to accomplish this, but I haven't found a way.

I've tried making an aggregate device, and simply checking the 2 devices:

However, it only "broadcasts" the first device I checked; if I click the microphone first, then I can only hear the microphone through this device, and if I click soundflower first, I can only hear soundflower.

@Allan I've already tried this, "but I haven't found a way." I can edit into my question more specifically what I've already tried.

The go-to app for anything like this is Audio Hijack [£$€ 50 ish]  see https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/274103/85275 https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/271194/85275 and https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/203009/85275 for some example routings. There really is nothing at all to touch it.


text:
Why does music keep getting erased from my iPhone?
I keep all of my music stored offline on my iPhone 6s (iOS 10.3.3). iCloud is entirely turned off. My iPhone's drive is also nowhere close to being full.
I just recently bought an album, and I'm experiencing this weird issue where the songs in this album keep getting removed and I have to re-download them.
Something that might be noteworthy to mention is that since I bought this album from the U.S. store, the titles were originally in English. I then converted them to their original given names by the Japanese artist (iTunes/Music app has never complained about this in the past).

How do I get the Music app to stop deleting songs from my album?

Well, I'm not having the issue anymore for whatever reason. It just went away on its own. As a computer scientist, I have no clue how this makes sense. But, it's gone...so, yeah.


text:
Virtual MIDI input device?
Can I create a virtual MIDI keyboard that plays a .mid file?
I have the Piano VST Addictive Keys, and would like to be able to play .mid files using the sounds that this VST provides.
I thought I could use a virtual midi device as the input device for Addictive Keys.

What host are you using the VST in?

@CL. I don't know what that means

How are you currently using the VST? (Are you using it at all?)

@CL. plugged my keyboard into my macbook

There are drivers that create virtual MIDI ports, but you could use a VST MIDI player instead.

@CL. what's that?

VST

@CL. you're being very unhelpful

Are you asking about the VST architecture, or what a VST MIDI player is, or what a virtual MIDI port is?

@CL. How can I create a virtual MIDI instrument on my MacBook, so I can play .mid files through it and then use the instrument as input to Addictive Keys to get the Addictive Keys sounds?

The easiest way to play a MIDI file with a VST plugin is to load it in some VST host (see here for a random list).
If you want to use a virtual MIDI port, you can create one with the IAC driver.

Nice, I was after the IAC driver. Now I can send synthesia output to IAC, and use IAC as Addictive Key's input.


text:
Terminal: What does intermittent "cp: .: Invalid argument" mean?
Very often I get an error message on the terminal "cp: .: Invalid argument". It also happens with other commands than "cp". For example:
me@iMac:/Volumes/boot$ cp ~/Documents/wpa_supplicant.conf .
cp: .: Invalid argument
me@iMac:/Volumes/boot$ cp ~/Documents/wpa_supplicant.conf .
me@iMac:/Volumes/boot$

Note that I did not re-type the command on line three, I just hit up-arrow and enter. Does anyone know what the problem could be, or have an idea how to debug?
Thanks, Martin

In general it had a problem reading '.', or that directory no longer exists (e.g. it got deleted by another terminal/process)

Set your hard disks to never sleep in System Preferences and see if the issue still persists.

Your answer put me into the right direction. The path '/Volumes/boot' is an SD card. Apparently two things combine to produce the error: First, the SD card is not ready to be written, and second, 'cp' produces an error message 'Invalid argument' if the file can't be written, even though the argument as such is correct. Thanks!

Why not use the absolute path for the destination?
cp ~/Documents/wpa_supplicant.conf /Volumes/boot

Hope it helped,

Thanks, see my comment above: Your proposal would change the error message a bit, but not solve the issue. But it helped to diagnose the problem!


text:
Third Party keyboard behaving strangely
I have a late 2013 iMac running macOS Sierra. I use a Coolermaster Storm Quickfire TK mechanical keyboard with this computer. It has worked perfectly until last night.
I was writing some code in the Atom text editor (using the Vim plugin, of course), and suddenly the "Your keyboard cannot be identified and will not be usable..." box popped up. I went through the steps of pressing the keys it wanted me to press, selecting my keyboard layout, then clicking Done. After that, my keyboard started acting up. I opened Keyboard Viewer so I could investigate.
The space bar, backspace, and esc keys do not even register. When I type 'e', macOS thinks I'm typing 'e' and space bar at the same time. When I type 'd', it thinks I'm typing 'd' and tab. When I type 'c', it sees 'c' and the left arrow. Once again, I'm just typing the one letter key, but both keys light up in Keyboard Viewer. There are several more keys that do the same thing. When I'm not pressing any keys on the keyboard, no modifier keys are registering in Keyboard Viewer.
I plugged a spare keyboard into my mac, and it works fine. It is also a third-party, non-Apple keyboard. I plugged the problematic keyboard into a Windows computer, and it worked fine there. I tested all the keys that were giving me trouble on my mac.
I've googled my problem, but I haven't found any help at all. Any support articles are about Apple keyboards and they do not cover the problem I am having. I have already tried deleting any user preferences files related to the keyboard, and I have confirmed that the Mouse Keys setting is turned off.
I'm using the ANSI layout, and the only Input Source is U.S.
I would really like to continue using this keyboard as I paid good money for it and I really like the sound and feel of the mechanical switches. Obviously, the keyboard is working, and the problem appears to be with how macOS is interpreting the input. I'm hoping someone will recognize the symptoms I am having and can tell me that I accidentally turned on some obscure setting or something like that. Any help is appreciated, but I will say up front, I'm not buying an official Apple keyboard as an easy fix.

Welcome to Ask Different. :) You mentioned this keyboard worked perfectly until last night, so I'm wondering whether this change coincided with anything else? Did you install/update any software? Did you add any new hardware? Anything else you've changed recently in terms of your setup? Also, how long have you been using this keyboard with your iMac?

There are many 3rd party keyboards for Macs and for someone asking for help, your ultimatum about Apple keyboards seems a little out of place.

I have not recently installed/updated any software. I bought this iMac about 6 weeks ago, and my setup has not changed at all in that time.

Found the problem. While I was typing in Vim, I must have accidentally hit the N and ESC keys at the same time, and that put my keyboard in NKRO mode. I was not aware that NKRO mode is not supported by macOS, so I didn't even think about that while I was investigating.

For future reference, here is another forum thread where someone ran into the same problem I did: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=54011.0  To return to 6KRO mode on a CM Storm Quickfire, your keyboard needs to be Fn locked (hold down Fn key until the backlight stays on) and then you need to press 6 + ESC.


text:
What happens if you run "open /Applications/*"
I recently read in a blog post don't run open "/Applications/*" otherwise many tabs will reopen, But I ran it in Terminal and then suddenly all my apps in my Applications started to open my Mac started to heat up to 60 C and fans 1460 RPM I immediately force quit all the apps.What does "open Applications/*" do? and what is the meaning of *?

This command opens all apps in the /Applications folder. The * means everything in there. For example, to open all apps in /Applications that starts with S you would type open /Applications/s*. Since the * is by itself that means everything.

But then why does the temperature of the Mac have to increase for opening 40 applications?

@Geek Because it requires a lot of power to run 40 apps at once