Is it a risk to keep ios 6 on iPhone 4? After recently found risk for ios 7 device and releasing an update to resolve it, is it a risk to keep ios 6 on iPhone 4?

Yes, there is a risk because you're using unsupported software which is never recommended. That's the reason why Apple gave out iOS 6.1.6

One of them is the SSL leak which is fixed in iOS 7.0.6 and iOS 6.1.6

However, you can also install the SSL-fix by Jailbreaking your device (if you did not do this yet). You can use this guide.

Sidenote: If you have an iPhone 4 and not a 4s, as stated in your question I'd use the Jailbreak Fix. iOS 7 killed my iPhone 4. It's too slow.


MacBook charging extremely slowly, after using 3rd party USB-C charger I have a 16" 2019 MacBook Pro.
A few days ago, I didn't have my MacBook charger on hand. After a quick internet research of whether or not it works, I borrowed my wife's DELL XPS charger (USB-C, 130W I believe). My MacBook charged fine with it.
A few days later, I noticed that my MacBook is charging very slowly (with my Apple 96W charger). I reset the SMC, rebooted, tried a different wall outlet, installed all system upgrades. No luck. Charge speed is around 1% point every 20 minutes with all apps closed. When I run a computing intense task (having a lot of Google Chrome tabs open, or compiling code), the battery discharges.
I checked the battery status with coconutBattery, but things seem to look normal. The only thing that seems off is that charging wattage. I'd expect that to be somewhat close to my 96 watt maximum.
See the attached screen shot. Note that this is with all apps closed.
Are my issues due to my charger experiment a few days ago? Is this just coincidence and my Apple charger went bad?

I doubt it's just a coincidence.  There's more to the Apple chargers than just "give juice to the battery", but I couldn't tell you what another charger may have done to your system.
It could be as simple as an SMC reset (The SMC manages low-level settings such as battery management).
From howtogeek.com:

Unplug the power, then shut down your Mac.
Hold the left Shift+Control+Option keys down, then press and hold the power button down. Keep all four buttons pressed down for ten seconds, then let go.
Plug the power cable back in, then turn on your Mac.

Here's the official SMC reset page from apple:  T2,  Intel chip


Focus most recent window of pid without requiring accessibility approval I currently use this AppleScript to try to set focus to the most recent window of a PID, in example here my pid is 450.

tell application "System Events"
  set frontmost of the first process whose unix id is 450 to true
end tell

This works wonderfully in that it doesn't ask for accessibility approval. The quirks though are:

It ignores minimized windows, thus if all windows are minimized, nothing is focused
If you have windows across multiple spaces, and last accessed window was in space X. If you are in space Y and have windows of that app in space Y, it will focus the most recently used in space Y.
I haven't encountered it yet, but apparently people say if a window of other applications are on top of the window, it won't come to top.

I know of perform action AXRaise however this needs accessibility api approval. My users of my addon are asking to remove this as many of them struggle with allowing the single app access, especially if the miss granting it on the first popup.

So this was done in applescript, if you know how to do it in carbon (core-foundation, core-graphics) or cocoa I can use that to.

In osx 10.9 the AXMakeProcessTrusted was deprecated otherwise I could have used that to grant my app access without bothering users and then use AXUIElementSetAttributeValue to bring a window to the front.

Please help
Thanks

This fixes the first quirk but not the second one:

tell application "System Events"
    bundle identifier of process 1 whose id is 1234
end tell
tell application id result
    reopen
    activate
end tell

The same applies to open:

open -a "$(ps -p 1234 -o comm=)"

If there are no open windows, reopen opens a new default window, and if all windows are minimized, reopen unminimizes one window. activate makes the application frontmost.

activate and setting frontmost to true raise all windows but open -a only raises one window.

I thought

lsappinfo launch ASN="$(lsappinfo find pid=1234)"

might also work, but I'm getting a segfault when trying to launch an already running application.


How to turn off the iSight indicator when I'm using the Camera? How to turn off the iSight indicator of my Mac's camera (without putting black tape on it)?

No, you cant.
Fortunately (or in your case unfortunately) there is no way to simply hit a switch that turns off the light. The problem is that the iSight camera's light is set to come on whenever an application uses it.
It's partly a security feature built-in for your own convenience. Think if it like the "On Air" sign in a way.
Depending on your model of mac (you didn't mention one specifically) it may be possible to physically disconnect the LED light from the controller, rendering it offline until plugged in again. However, for the majority of new Macs this may prove a challenge.
If your bezel doesn't happen to be white metal (think MacBook Air), you could go over it with a black permanent marker. Something that greatly reduces the light emitted from the iSight indicator.

At this time, there is no software to disable it. You would either:

Quit the Application using the camera.
Inhibit the physical connection to the indicator.

Hopefully that shed some light on the situation in 2018 as similar questions have attracted a lot of attention over the years. Even I have searched for a solution many years ago but have learnt since to ignore it.

Let me know what model you have and I might be able to be a little more specific in my reasoning (much has changed in the physical layout of the bezel). Let me know how you make out or if you come up with a better solution, I'd be very interested myself.


Create a symbolic link for sublime text in Mac OS X I have the newest Mac OS 10.12.3. With the new rootless system Apple has implemented, I can't create a symbolic link using ln under /usr/bin. My goal is so that I can use subl in terminal. How can I do this?

The default directory for third-party executables in macOS is /usr/local/bin. Since this directory already is in the PATH you don't have to modify anything except sudo linking the executable to this dir.

If the directory doesn't exist, create it with sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin. If you plan to install brew later, it's recommended to change the owner of the bin folder to your user.


iTerm2 shortcut for deleting selected I've set some shortcuts in iTerm2, but I cannot find how to set MS Windows style cut functionality. I want to select some text (which I am able to) and then cut/past it somewhere else. I want also to delete selected text without copying it.

Simply, I want to set Command + x and Command + backspace shortcuts in iTerm2.

By default Command + x is only copying selected text without removing it.

Remove characters on the left, until the beginning of the word: Ctrl+W
Clean up the line: You can use Ctrl+U to clear up to the beginning.
Recall the deleted command: Ctrl+Y
Cancel the current command/line: Ctrl+C


Backup Methods for iPhone I have a iPhone 7 and I want to transfer all the images and videos to my laptop however I don't have an Apple Laptop only my windows laptop. I have tried using many methods but none worked well. Directly connecting the phone to my laptop and then manually copying files from the DCIM folder results in missing out most of the stuff. Importing also doesn't work as it seems to have copied files but is saved in some unknown location which I cannot find. I also downloaded the ICloud App for my laptop but it didn't help either.
I'm using IOS 13.6 on my iPhone and my Laptop runs on Windows 10 Home Edition.

You need to install iTunes for this, see https://support.apple.com/HT210612 for details.


What happen if I uninstall macOS sierra installer? Can you tell me what happens if I delete the macOS Sierra installer which take nearly 5 gigabytes on my Mac?

It is safe to delete, you will just be unable to install macOS Sierra until you re-download the installer from the Mac AppStore.


How do I perform a standard erase on MacBook Pro Retina SSD? An archived Apple article says: "Note: With an SSD drive, Secure Erase and Erasing Free Space are not available in Disk Utility. These options are not needed for an SSD drive because a standard erase makes it difficult to recover data from an SSD. For more security, consider turning on FileVault encryption when you start using your SSD drive."

Now the question is what is standard erase and how do I perform it?

If it is the Erase button shown at the top of Disk Utility, then that button is greyed out and not clickable. If the Erase button is greyed out because the FileVault is currently turned ON, how do I go about deactivating it and doing a standard erase on my SSD?

I just want to make sure that the data is non-recoverable before I give my Mac for repair.

You can't perform an erase because you have booted from the SSD.  Hovering over the icon, will tell you why

To erase your SSD, boot from recovery or from a bootable USB then erase.  If you are sending it for repair, just create another admin account and delete your user profile.  It's much easier and just as secure.  The moment you finish deleting your files, they will become unrecoverable


Is it possible to make Mail require a password on startup? Possible Duplicate:
  Is there a way to password protect individual apps?

I want to know if I can make Mail require a password to actually do anything, see messages, etc. so no one can just go into my Mail and send messages or see my received messages.

To keep email secure in an unsecured account, webmail may be a good option to use instead of Mail.app, which isn't designed to be secured separately from the account it's being used in.


How to use sshfs on Apple Silicon (M1) I'm trying to get sshfs working on Apple Silicon (M1) and am hitting a brick wall. I installed the latest macFUSE already. I also tried building the latest but the instructions on the github pages don't seem to be correct...
From https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/issues/751 it sounds like it should already be possible, but I'm unable to get it working. I'm of course willing to build it myself since it hasn't yet been released...
Anyone have a step-by-step out there to build and install?
Thanks!

As of MacFuse 4.0.5, you need to

reboot info recovery mode and go to the terminal
disable SIP with csrutil
reboot
install macfuse
link the extension
reboot into recovery mode and re-enable SIP

related details here


How do get the text in Messages to display while I’m typing? At one time my Messages app showed text and the text field where I would type my messages but suddenly it has disappeared. How do I correct this? I've tried changing the contrast and the display settings and nothing has helped. Also it is hard to see fields where I might enter names or info. In other windows as I use the computer (although the problem has just recently occurred I did change the monitor recently as well).

Try to reset to the defaults the colors in System Preferences -> General -> Color Scheme, also the highlight color above. I had troubles myself with this settings before.


How much RAM can a 2007 iMac hold? The box says I can add up to 3 GB (for a total of 4GB), but is this restriction hardware based, or because of the operating system?

If I upgrade to OS X 10.6 or higher, can I increase the RAM to 8 GB like the newer models?

According to MacTracker, it looks like Apple officially supports a 4GB configuration, but it can hold up to 6GB. (This is for model "iMac8,1").


Can't create a partition I'm trying to create a new partition for installing linux, but OSX won't let me.

I saw this question: Unable to Resize Partitions, but my HD is not a CoreStorage Volume, so it didn't really help.

checking for corestorage in the terminal:

$diskutil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

Edit: extra info - http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=Fj9KvcRx

I realize you have posted your own answer, but others may want to know what was wrong.

Basically, you had journaling turned off. To turn journaling on, you need to highlight the partition and click on the "Enable Journaling" button. To see the change, you may have to quit and reopen the Disk Utility application.

To turn journaling off, do the following using the Disk Utility application.

Highlight the partition.
Press and hold the "alt/option" key.
From the menu bar select "File->Disable Journaling"
Release the "alt/option" key.
Quit and reopen the Disk Utility

You should alway have journaling enabled for "Mac OS Extended" formatted partitions, but there can be cases where you may want to turn it off. Especially if you are going to be using Linux.  Many linux distributions (like Ubuntu) can read "Mac OS Extended" formatted partitions, but they can only write to them if journaling is turn off. So enabling and disabling journaling may be useful if you need to transfer data from Linux to OS X.


How to download OpenGL versions later than 2.1 on MacBook Pro Sierra? I am trying to run a game called Space Engine using WineSkin on Sierra.  However, the game gives an error saying that the OpenGL version is 2.1, which is below the requirements to run the game.  The minimum to run the game is 3.3.  How can I download OpenGL 3.3 onto my MacBook Pro?

The Mac's native OpenGL version will depend on its age; but Apple stopped supporting native OpenGL years ago & many games can only use legacy OGL, which is 2.1.
Unless the game developers themselves support Apple's native OGL, then 2.1 is all you can have, Running a Windows game through an interpreter is unlikely to be able to do that.


What's the startup/reboot time for iPad (3rd generation) compared to other iOS devices? I'd like to know, in people's personal experience so far, about how long the new iPad takes to start up (in seconds), especially when compared with other devices running iOS.

For the purposes of uniformity, I'll define "startup time" as the time between the depression of the lock switch and the moment the lock screen appears.

iOS device boot times (timed using a second hand):

iPad   (3rd gen.)   iOS5    32 seconds
iPad 2 (2nd gen.)           No Results
iPad   (1st gen.)   iOS5    50 seconds

iPhone 4S           iOS5    42 seconds
iPhone 4            iOS5    49 seconds
iPhone 4 (GSM)      iOS5    46 seconds
iPhone 3GS          iOS5    85 seconds
iPhone 3G           iOS4.3  87 seconds
iPhone (2G)                 No Results

iPod touch 4G               No Results
iPod touch 3G               No Results
iPod touch 2G               No Results
iPod touch 1G               No Results

Feel free to edit this answer and add your own times.


How to use gcc or git without installing xcode? I am a newbie of Mac user. I can see there are gcc, git, etc in the "/usr/bin" folder. But when I want to use them,  it prompts like this:

MacBook-Pro:~ nan$ git
xcode-select: note: no developer tools were found at '/Applications/Xcode.app', requesting install. Choose an option in the dialog to download the command   line developer tools.
MacBook-Pro:~ nan$ gcc
xcode-select: note: no developer tools were found at '/Applications/Xcode.app', requesting install. Choose an option in the dialog to download the command line developer tools.

Does it mean I must install xcode to use gcc or git, thanks very much in advance!

No you don't, at least not anymore. The possibility mentioned by @jherran involves installing yet another piece of software. If that's ok with you, you can use Hombrew or Macports. Its controversial which one is 'better', so take which one you like.

But, since OSX Yosemite (or maybe earlier, not sure), the Command Line Tools can be installed separately, which is great since it allowed me to ditch the huge useless XCode app sitting idly on my hard drive.
The most straightforward way might be to simply download the right package from Apple here.

When issuing the commands you mentioned, does a window pop up prompting you to install the Command Line Tools? It is outlined here that this is what should happen.

Or, just try to run

xcode-select --install

Which should do what you want. They can be updated via the App store, at least on Yosemite.

Note that if the executables are present in /usr/bin, you should be able to call them with their full name, e.g. /usr/bin/git.


iPad boot loop only when powered - brief flash loop when connected to USB - jailbreak gone awry? Received an iPad from a customer in an unknown state. Report was "does not power on". Device is out of warranty. It's the 1st generation iPad with a 3G chip.

Symptoms:

when connected to power only, device turns on and shows apple logo, then shuts down, this proceeds in a loop that lasts about 4 seconds
when connected to an Apple machine's USB port, a faint flash can be observed on the device screen every 7 seconds or so but the apple logo is never seen, device does not respond to any key presses
when connected to power only, holding the power button will put device into recovery mode, but it shuts off when disconnected, so it can't actually be restored

If this rings a bell with anyone, please let me know what you think the issue is. My guess is that the battery is dead, but am not sure why it would not behave the same when connected to a computer USB port or the charger.I have tried multiple computers, cables and ports.

Is it possible a jailbreak gone awry would leave a device in this condition, and if so, what , if anything, can be done? I do have various Apple machines and OSs available, and PCs as well.

Jailbreaking only affects the operating system level of an iPad; it can't damage a device more than can be fixed by putting it into DFU mode and restoring it with iTunes.

In other words, it sounds like this device has a hardware problem of some kind.


Can an iPhone stream to multiple Airplay devices at the same time? I really love AirPlay so I thought about buying a second AirPort Express for another amplifier in the apartment. But will my iPhone5/iPad2 be able to stream to both AirPlay devices simultaneously?

No, you want be able to stream music to two airport express units simultaneously from an iOS device such as an iPad or iPhone.

However, you can stream simultaneously from iTunes running on a Mac or PC.

For example, you can't have speakers playing in the kitchen and speakers playing in the dining room at the same time unless they are connected to the same airport express.  If you have them connected to two airport expresses, you can choose kitchen or dining room but not both.

You can play to both if you stream from a Mac or PC using itunes.  However, there are apps that will let you control the Mac or PC from your iOS device but you can't do it natively.


Can a WiFi-only Kindle connect to the internet through an iPhone? I'm considering getting a Kindle, but am still doubting as to whether the 3G model is worth the extra expense. As I'm also considering getting an iPhone later: on the off chance that I'd ever want to buy a book without a WiFi hotspot nearby, wouldn't it be possible to share an iPhone's 3G connection with the Kindle through WiFi and hence buy a book and read it on the WiFi-only Kindle?

For information about the full article “iOS 4.3 lets iPhone 4 host wifi over 3G”
http://devicegadget.com/apple/ios-4-3-lets-iphone-4-host-wifi-3g/1320/
Thx.. ;)


Visible Hidden Folder Disappears After Renaming it to [Dot Underscore] I was temporarily changing the name of a folder before moving it. The name I randomly chose was "._". The folder immediately disappeared and Finder would not allow me to undo the operation. (I know; bad convention, but it was going to be temporary, so didn't think it would be an issue.)

*** NOTE: Viewing invisible files/folders was already turned on before this incident. *** (I can still see hidden files except THIS one.)

Looking through Finder, the folder was no longer visible. It was also not indexable (of course) by Spotlight Search.

So, two questions...

Primarily, "How do I get it back?"
Why did this happen? Is "._" a reserved system name? Is this repeatable?

UPDATE: Language addressing $ cd into the wrong working directory was removed from OP to reduce ambiguity and verbosity. Corrected solution moved to answer section.

All files and directories starting with . are Finder hidden files. System reserved dot directories are . for current directory and .. for parent directory. This is carried on from OS X Unix heritage.

For your file, there is a chance that you have an extra space after the _ or some unprintable character. Try mv ._ then hit TAB to find out if it will perform a completion on the name. If it does then continue typing the new name you desire. Note that you might need to hit TAB twice or more until you get that particular file name displayed in case you had other files that start with ._ in that directory.

Note that files and directories starting with . can be viewed in Finder upon desire and that you can search for on ASK DIFFERENT. They are called hidden files.


Notification when user opens a certain folder in Finder I am really in need of a way to find out what window Finder is looking at so for example, if the user opens a certain folder I can get a notification. Is this possible?

Create an AppleScript file with the content

on opening folder theAttachedFolder

    do shell script "echo 'The folder \"folder name\" has been opened' | mail -s 'folder opened' 'name@sld.tld'"

end opening folder

replace folder name in  \"folder name\" with the real folder name, enter a proper email address in the .scpt file and save it to /Library/Scripts/Folder\ Action\ Scripts.

Then configure a folder action with this script by attaching it to the monitored folder. If mail ... doesn't work in your environment you have to use another CLI mail client. With a working OS X/macOS Server and its configured and running mail server and respective user accounts it works right out of the box.

More advanced version which requires to insert an email address only:

on opening folder theAttachedFolder

    set theFolder to quoted form of POSIX path of theAttachedFolder
    set Username to quoted form of short user name of (system info)

    do shell script "echo 'The folder " & theFolder & " has been opened by " & Username & "!' | mail -s 'Monitored folder opened' 'name@sld.tld'"

end opening folder


Is it possible to decrypt external hard drive without losing data? I have a USB 3 external hard drive that I use for video media, it's HFS Journaled Encrypted. I have about 1 TB of data on it, but I no longer need it encrypted because I need the faster speed.

Is is possible to remove the encryption on the drive while still retaining all the data?

Yes it is possible to decrypt a disk. This option is directly accessible from the Finder popup menu.
Simply make a ⌃ ctrlclic on the disk icon on the Desktop:

and select the entry starting with Decrypt…. Then enter the encryption key (or password as you prefer to name it) and confirm.
This function will of course take care of conserving all the data by performing it step by step (because you never have half of a disk free to use for this operation).
Take care the alimentation and the connection cable to your disk are
protected against any break during this operation which may take a few hours.


Can I detach the QuickLook window from the Finder? I use QuickLook a lot to quickly open PDF files. I like the speed and clutter-free presentation more than using Preview.

But unfortunately, it is tied to the Finder and disappears when I change to another app, so that I cannot see it side-by-side with another application. Is there a way to detach the QuickLook window so that it can exist on its own?

Yes Thilo, there is a way. It will require a bit of command line wizardry though. As long as you're not allergic you can do the following:

Open Terminal.app
Change directories to the location of the file you want to view using QuickLook.

For example, if the file you want to view using QuickLook is on your desktop you would type: "cd ~/Desktop" (no quotes, caps matter, and ~ is a shortcut to your home directory).

Now type: "qlmanage -p filename.pdf" (replacing filename with the name of your file and pdf with the extension of your file).

A new icon will appear in your Dock called "qlmanage". This is the helper application that is usually launched headlessly by the Finder. By launching it from the command line it becomes accessible via the Dock, Command-Tab etc.

Just for the record (and the curios) this little application is stored deep in the OS where mortals are not meant to tread at this location:

/System/Library/Frameworks/QuickLook.framework/Versions/A/Resources/quicklookd.app/Contents/MacOS


Can I wirelessly download videos from my iPhone camera roll to my Mac? I have an iPhone4, upgraded to iOS5, and a Mac running the latest Lion updates as well.  The new Wireless Sync feature keeps everything up to date with iTunes, and the iCloud Photostream takes care of getting my photos into iPhoto.

However, there doesn't seem to be any way to wirelessly transfer videos taken on the phone from my camera roll to the Mac. Will I still need to plug the phone in via USB and import my videos into iPhoto?

It seems that an USB cable is still required.

The article in Apple Support that shows how to import videos into iPhoto has not been updated recently. Either Apple is still behind in updating these support articles (not likely) or there is nothing to update--in other words, you still need USB.

The release notes for iPhoto 9.2 list the major updates to the app. It mentions that iCloud support is now included, but nothing specific about importing videos wirelessly. Hope this helps.


Trying to add cronjob results in ""LICENSE":0: bad minute" I am trying to set up a cronjob to run every minute with the following command:

crontab * * * * * sh /Users/username/Downloads/reddit-notifications-master/notifyer.sh

notifyer.sh has the following contents:

#!/bin/zsh

python3 /Users/yogesh/Downloads/reddit-notifications-master/reddit_notifications.py

When I run the command it says:

"LICENSE":0: bad minute
crontab: errors in crontab file, can't install

Has anyone seen this before? Tried googling but can't find anything on the LICENSE: 0 error.

You can't add a crontab entry by just running crontab <entry details>. In your case the shell expands the * with whatever filenames it finds in the current directory (which seems to be a file called LICENSE, replace crontab by echo to see what happened to the other *'s).

To add new entries to the crontab file run

export EDITOR=nano
crontab -e

add the line

* * * * * /Users/username/Downloads/reddit-notifications-master/notifyer.sh

directly to the file and save it, then exit the editor again. You can verify that it got added by running crontab -l.

Some additional things to consider:

Run chmod +x /Users/username/Downloads/reddit-notifications-master/notifyer.sh to make sure the script is executable
Run type python3 in your shell and use the full path you get within notifyer.sh to avoid issues with python3 not being in PATH
If notifyer.sh is only used to launch the Python script you don't need the script at all, you can just add

* * * * * /path/to/python3 Users/yogesh/Downloads/reddit-notifications-master/reddit_notifications.py

to your Crontab instead.


Does the iPad Air support Wi-Fi Direct? I'd like to use my Seagate Wireless hard drive with my iPad or even my iPhone 5.

Whilst the device hardware does support Wi-Fi Direct, the limitation in this case is software.

There is currently no software on iOS that connects to a wireless hard drive through Wi-Fi Direct, but that hasn't stopped apps being developed to take advantage of this — Seagate has an app that connects to wireless hard drives:

http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/services-software/apps/seagate-media-app/


Re-install Mac mini Server My friend gave me Mac mini Server saying its Mavericks. When I switch it on I see 2 hard drives only and no operating system. I tried to use my Apple ID but it doesn't work. In disk utility I saw 1st hard drive has partition named "os" which I am not able to delete. How do I completely format both the hard drives and re-install Mavericks on that. I have a very slow internet and I don't have another mac, of course I have Linux and Windows dual boot machine.

In disk utility via safe mode, you should be able to format it completely by wiping the disk.

Then after wiping the disk, boot into a DVD or USB of OS X and reformat from there.


Why do I have to type in my Apple ID password over and over again for free apps or reviews in App Store when I have a touch ID? I'm just curious about something. So I have my iPad with a touch ID and I thought I set it up not to ask me for my Apple ID password in the settings:

So today I was trying to write a review for an app in the App Store:

and what do you know, it wants my Apple ID password and the fingerprint reader does not work for it.

Am I not setting something right? I thought the whole premise of selling us this touch ID thing is so that we won't have to type our passwords ever again. What am I missing here?

PS. For whoever wants to know what's so difficult about typing in my Apple password, I'd tell you that since not so long ago, after Apple had the "Fappening" breach of celebrity pictures over iCloud, I changed my password to something like this "ih1!G832R5a1t2WlDLxt*eeFV" to prevent it from happening to my account. So as you can imagine, it's not easy to type it at a whim... especially for something as trivial as leaving an app review.

All indications are that Touch ID can only be used for purchases. The grey message below the toggle in Settings indicates that as well.

You may not have much choice but to remember and type your password when writing reviews.


Where is iOS downloaded files in Catalina Mac? My brother-in-law asks me to update his iPhone 6s by using my MacBook Pro. And my MacBook Pro has Catalina OS. So there is no iTunes, I use Finder to connect iPhone to my laptop and then I saw below picture:

So I press update and after some next, yes, continue, I saw below picture:

This is so weird because we don't see any progress bar, and we don't know when this update will end! - BIG ISSUE - so after one hour we decide to stop this damn update way and my MacBook Pro has 250GB hard disk. before download, I had 200 GB free and now I have 198.5GB free capacity.
Question: where is the iOS download directory? I wanna delete them.

Actually, I find the right answer, all updates are at:

~/Library/iTunes/iPhone\ Software\ Updates

For seeing on Finder enter below command on Terminal:

open ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone\ Software\ Updates


How to solve the issue of "%" on Calculator giving different results on iPhone vs Mac? To see the result of

2000 × 19% / 12

I used both the Mac's Calculator app (with El Capitan or Mavericks), vs on the iPhone with iOS 9.1.

On the Mac, when I press 2000, ×, 19, %, it gives me 380, but when I press the division button ÷, then it gives 760000 right away, and finishing with pressing 12, = gives 63333.33333333.

On the iPhone, I do get the expected result:  31.6666.  So how can this be understood and how can it be done on the Mac?

Here's a short article that does a good job of describing the behaviour you're observing with OS X's in-built Calculator app: How does the calculator percent key work?

What's going on?

When performing an operation involving two values followed by the percent key, the product is first calculated (i.e. 2000 x 19 % = 380) and this then replaces the second value in the ongoing calculation, which becomes 2000 x 380. When you then press the division key ÷ the product of the ongoing operation is calculated (2000 x 380 = 760,000), as you described, before you input the divisor to perform another operation.

Working with percentages using OS X's in-built Calculator

To work with percentages in this instance you should express them in decimal form:

2000 × 0.19 ÷ 12
= 31.6666

This works with both iOS's and OS X's Calculator. I would advise against using the percent key in favour of working with decimals. The same can be said when using physical calculators, where the behaviour can differ between models.


Google Apps – Mail couldn't discover the account settings for the Mail server Ever since Apple introduced the Internet Accounts way of setting up email on Apple Mail a few years ago I have been unable to setup my Google Apps account, I've tried looking for similar issues but just can't find a solution anywhere.

The first thing I do is select Google from the list in System Preferences > Internet Accounts. Then enter my username and password into the google login form. Then enter my 2-step Verification code and accept the permissions request.

Then OS X asks what apps I would like to use with my account. I leave all ticked. Then almost immediately I get this error:

Then I get this the same error for my Notes which also uses IMAP.

I have tried multiple computers and have no issue with iOS setup. Just OS X. I've setup other Google Apps accounts with the exact same DNS settings and don't have this issue with them.

It appears that you may be in the United Kingdom, and it appears that there is an issue with how you need to set up email accounts within Apple Mail for .co.uk domains.

Apple provides this web app to allow you to enter your email account and returns a page such as this:

As I am trying this from the States, it is likely that the web app senses my location so it will likely be different settings for you. I am not sure if this will give you something different than what you have already entered, however there may be some weird Server Port that you need to set in order for Apple Mail to work with a UK based Mac and your @unknowndomain.co.uk Google Apps account.

You will need to go under Mail>Preferences>Accounts, then select the gmail account and click on the Advanced tab to enter in the port that the web app returns.

Apple also has Mail Connection Doctor; which can help to diagnose if you still have no joy.

It may also be that you have not enabled IMAP on your Google Apps account. Follow these instructions on how you do that in gmail. This support page for Google Apps administrators may also have additional information that you need to follow.

It appears that you do not want to go the Application Specific Password route for a specific reason. I still think that the problem is likely something to do with the ports that you need to enter or enabling IMAP on your Google Apps account.

I hope you find an answer.

Update

Maybe this will help, or at least explain why it may not be working for you?...

Autodiscover for Google Apps


Add printer via lpadmin with custom queue Is there a way to add a printer via the command line that has a custom queue that has two words separated by a space?

My command so far is below but does not set the custom queue. Without the queue, jobs won't print.

lpadmin -p Printer_Name -D "Printer Name" -L "Office" -E -v lpd://X.X.X.X/ -P /Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/RICOH\ Aficio\ MP\ C3501

The CUPS webinterface page lists the example: lpd://hostname/queue

I have tried user a \, %20 and putting the entire lpd address in quotes but no luck.

Hopefully someone can help me out.

You do use %20 if you need the space between two words. I had had made a mistake in the spelling which caused me to think it didn't work.

Also, in case anyone needs it in the future, if you access the CUPS webinterface and select Manage Printers it will give you the correct lpd address syntax.


Problem installing cover version I tried installing the visualizer plugin Cover Version with my new mac with OS Sierra. I followed the instructions and put the file in the itunes plugin folder, but it doesn't show up in iTunes among the Visualizer options. I restarted iTunes (and my Mac) but that didn't help.

Any ideas?

It was a stupid mistake on my part; I put the .dmg file in the plugin folder instead of the actual CoverVersion.bundle file. Now it works perfectly


Port Forwarding From a Shared Connection Say I have a local network on which my computer's IP address is 192.168.0.2, and I've setup my router to forward port 80 to that IP.

I also have another device connected through my computer via internet sharing, and it has an IP of 192.168.1.2. Is it possible to forward port 80 from my computer to this other device, if so, how?

I should mention that my router isn't capable of port forwarding to 192.168.1.X, even though it otherwise happily routes the traffic from devices on that network.

valid until 10.7, natd is deprecated in 10.8 and above but should still work

A solution found here:

First use "ifconfig" to see how the wireless and ethernet interfaces are called.
Probably the wireless interface is "en1" and the (shared) ethernet interface is "bridge0".

IP-settings of the "other device":

  IP address: 192.168.1.x (x ≠ 0,1,2,other used last octets in the 192.168.1- network),255)
  IP netmask: 255.255.255.0
  IP gateway: 192.168.1.2
  IP DNS server: 192.168.1.2

Mac OS X has no direct GUI option to configure port forwarding. However, you can create a shell script as follows (open terminal and create a script called osx_fw.sh):

#!/bin/bash
# http port forwarding with mac os x
killall -9 natd
sleep 5
# The following will forward 80 port to desktop computer located at 192.168.1.x
# 192.168.0.2 => airport IP
# 192.168.1.x => Desktop client ip
#  natd provides a Network Address Translation facility for use with divert(4) sockets under FreeBSD.
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/usr/sbin/natd -alias_address 192.168.0.2 -interface en1 -use_sockets -same_ports -unregistered_only -dynamic -clamp_mss -enable_natportmap -natportmap_interface bridge0 -redirect_port tcp 192.168.1.x:80 80 -l

Make the script executable:

chmod +x osx_fw.sh

Simply run this script whenever you need to forward ports:

sudo ./osx_fw.sh

Depending on your system you probably have to setup or modify some firewall rules.

since 10.8

check this answer


Internet connection in Germany for iPad 2nd gen I have to say first, I am clueless about it all, including the jargon. I have just spent phone time with ATT, and I have learned I will not be able to tether (that means create a hot spot from my iPhone 3GS, right?). I have the lowest data plan now, but am willing to change to the highest limit for the trip. but, apparently that won't make a difference in the ability to tether.

I have to be able to tether with my iPad. I can't even understand if I will be able to use my cell at all, muchless live stream or upload. I just don't know enough about any of this stuff. A numbered list of exactly what to do as well as some definitions would be so helpful. Tech jargon related to this subject will not make sense to me, keep in mind. I'm not stupid, I just haven't been exposed to it all.

Forget AT&T in Germany!
Go to any local store (in Germany) and buy Prepaid Internet service SIM card. For that your device has to be UNLOCKED. That means the AT&T is not longer the sole provider (ask them). If you do not understand the Unlocking stuf, just ask.


Activity monitor stops updating or intermittently updates Since I upgraded to High Sierra, the Activity Monitor has been relatively unusable for me. When I launch it, it updates for a while, but after a while (especially after a time of high CPU load), it plainly stops updating. I can interact with the application, but its displayed information doesn't update anymore.

Switching tabs sometimes seems to trigger one or two updates, but I still can't see current information.

Does anyone know why this happens and more importantly how I can solve it.

Note: I compile a lot of C++, run some graphics intensive programs, sometimes with debugger attached, while having a VM standby in Parallels. I don't think this VM causes the issue as I've observed this behaviour without it being active. I did not see this type of behaviour before upgrading to High Sierra.

I know of 2 options to help you. The first is to open Activity Monitor and click on View menu. The 3rd option on the menu is "Update Frequency". Clicking on "Update Frequency" gives you several options for how fast the screen is updating. Change that to a smaller number and see if that helps.

The second option is to use top or htop from the command. See how it looks. Activity Monitor is just a user interface for UNIX command top. By typing top on the command line, you are bypassing the user interface part.


Is it normal for bluetooth devices to stop responding when CPU is too busy? I have MacBook Pro 13" mid 2012 with 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD, Mojave 10.14.1. my Magic Trackpad 1 and AirPods get slow when CPU is too busy, especially when cpu percentage is above 70%. My USB-wired keyboard and mouse seamlessly work even if it is too busy. I wanted to try Apple Hardware Test for more details, but it says the error code DEC400 so I can't do that. I have an appointment at Genius Bar to check for my Airport card this Friday. I am worried they refused to fix it just because my mac is too slow.

EDIT: When executing Java programs from IntelliJ IDEA, sometimes Bluetooth devices get slow but sometimes work well. Maybe some other factors makes them slow. I had the same problem when I worked on Sierra.

I've checked out from event logs from Bluetooth Explorer. I think it tells me a lot. I am not sure exactly what they indicate, though.

What I found out from Bluetooth Explorer

Mac drops the connection to the AirPods from some reasons. logs says the reason is 0x08. I think Google and Apple official user guide are both silent on what the reason code indicate. Some other factors somehow affect my AirPods, as well as a busy CPU.
When the CPU is too busy, the Throughput graph goes down dramatically.

Since I can not pinpoint your BT problem ...
I suggest you try this great tool provided by Apple.

You have to download Bluetooth Explorer as part of the 'Additional Tools for Xcode' package that's available (registration required) at https://developer.apple.com/download/more/.

Go to that link, then search for 'Additional', and find the Additional Tools package for the latest version of Xcode (you don't actually need Xcode installed to use the Bluetooth Explorer app!).

Among other tools available, Open the Hardware Folder and select the BT Explorer.

Use it to determine your BT performance while you are running the IntelliJ IDEA.


How to send "delayed" sms? Instead of sending an SMS right now, I would like to send a "delayed" SMS. For example, delay it by 45 minutes, or 60 minutes, etc.

Is there any way to do it?

I have tried the apps txtot, FutureText, and SMS Scheduler, but they don't work. The default iPhone "Messages" app cannot receive SMSes sent by these apps.

Without jailbreak what you ask isn't possible. Third party Apps from the App Store can't access the SMS service.

With a jailbreak there seems to be apps on the Cydia Store that have this function. Like Future SMS.


How to clear calendar cache? I'm trying to clear the cache of my calendar, since I'm having trouble with calendar notifications after connecting to a Google Calendar.

One of the recommended solutions is to clear the Calendar cache as described here
http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-the-iCal-Cache

However, within my Library folder I cannot find the suggested subfolders

~/Library/Calendars/
~/Library/Caches/

in which I would find

~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iCal

Are such folders now in a different location? Or are they hidden somehow? (I'm using OS X Maverics 10.9.4.)

Any hints would greatly be appreciated.

Just learned that the Library files are hidden in the most recent versions of OSX.  To see them, open Finder, then click simultaneously on the Go tab and the Option key.  As long as they are held down, a new item (Library) will appear.  Go down to it and you will find your file.  Or you can open Finder, select the Go tab, then the Go to Folder item, and insert ~/Library.  Not exactly user intuitive.  Unfortunately, Apple is becoming more like Microsoft in terms of usability.


Mac OS X Snow Leopard cannot install python 2.7 readline When I try

pip install readline

or

easy_install readline

I get the following error

Running readline-6.1.0/setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir /var/folders/uX/uXgzCdzXEfSGJugKNxAMx++++TI/-Tmp-/easy_install-XhqAku/readline-6.1.0/egg-dist-tmp-I7rsWF
/usr/libexec/gcc/powerpc-apple-darwin10/4.2.1/as: assembler (/usr/bin/../libexec/gcc/darwin/ppc/as or /usr/bin/../local/libexec/gcc/darwin/ppc/as) for architecture ppc not installed
Installed assemblers are:
/usr/bin/../libexec/gcc/darwin/x86_64/as for architecture x86_64
/usr/bin/../libexec/gcc/darwin/i386/as for architecture i386
lipo: can't open input file: /var/folders/uX/uXgzCdzXEfSGJugKNxAMx++++TI/-Tmp-//cc3nFYj0.out (No such file or directory)
error: Setup script exited with error: command 'gcc-4.2' failed with exit status 1

Altho for python 2.6.1 it finds readline-6.1.0-py2.6-macosx-10.6-universal.egg and works fine, fixing readline for ipython for 2.6.1. No joy for 2.7 however.

How do I stop setup.py from trying to include -arch ppc on MacOSX builds?


Bash not recognizing packages installed using pip-3.6 I installed pip-3.6 using Mac Ports:

sudo port install py36-pip

Then, using this version of pip, I installed virtualenv:

sudo pip-3.6 install virtualenv

Now when I tried using virtualenv, bash isn't recognizing it.

PS: I didn't want to select pip-3.6 as pip because I have pip working with OS X's version of Python 2.7.

MacPorts may not have put things where you think, see here. Did the pip-3.6 command work? What do you get when you which pip-3.6?

Have you considered Homebrew over MacPorts? pip3 comes automagically with python3.x with Homebrew. It also has a virtualenv package that is easy enough to uninstall if needed.


My iPod will not work, trying disk utility but now stuck I went to use my iPod yesterday after putting some new music on it and it said there was no music on it.   When looking at my iPod it said it was full. I tried to restore it on iTunes and it said it was corrupt and I got error 1430.

When I tried to take care of it with DiskUtility I may have worsened the problem.  I attempted to erase it, because it would not let me select repair.  That did not go through, but then it did let me try to repair it.  I tried, but that would not go through either.  I then looked at it in iTunes and it said it was empty.  I tried DiskUtility one more time and it now is giving me this:

What can I do now to get my iPod back? I don't care if I loose everything on my iPod.

To restore the files did you back up your iPod, or possibly do you have iCloud? This  program might help


Kali Linux MAC address changing on MacBook Pro Retina Apparently this could be due to my hardware said one stack exchanger.

Anyway, for your information:

root@kali:~# lspci | grep Wireless
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 03)

That is my wlan0 and for some reason if I try to change it I get these errors:

root@kali:~# macchanger -a wlan0
Current MAC:   XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX (Apple)
Permanent MAC: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX (Apple)
[ERROR] Could not change MAC: interface up or insufficient permissions: Too many open files in system

or

root@kali:~# ifconfig wlan0 down
root@kali:~# ifconfig wlan0 hw ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
SIOCSIFHWADDR: Too many open files in system

Does it mean that I have got to blacklist/remove the additional drivers that I downloaded but aren't using?

Have you tried taking the interface down, then running 'macchanger' and see if it takes?

I had a friend a while back who was way into Kali, she'd actually used Backtrack for a while but she was definitely on the "ethical hacking" bent. It was sort of mind-boggling watching her pull open drawer after drawer of tightly choreographed penetration testing kits, all sorted by app type & conveniently available for rapid deployment.

I scripted 'macchanger' & related wifi maintenence commands into a single monolithic shell file & helped her install it under /usr/local/sbin/mace - I think we called it 'mace' as in "MAC-Eraser", but she was in charge from then on for resetting the damned router, so eventually we ended up joking that "...oh, Katelynne? Yeah, uh... she's outside right now macing the Comcast guy.

( My friends & I are easily amused. )


How to enable Subscribed Calendar to be in read/write mode? As today, any Subscribed Calendar is added as Read Only to the iCal Application

to confirm that. just double click in a day with the subscribed calendar selected and you will get this annoying popup message

What should I do to enable read/write mode into the subscribed calendar, as it supports both ways (I created the URL and works great with Thunderbird w/Lightning)

Problem also comes that in iPad/iX happens the same situation, and all I wanted was to be able to create and edit events to by calendar

The owner grants & controls read / write access. You'd have to ask who owns the calendar.


Why must I source .bashrc every time I open terminal for aliases to work? I added this line into my ~/.bashrc file.

alias myserver='ssh davidfaux@davidfaux.com'

However, when I open terminal and run myserver, terminal complains that

-bash: myserver: command not found

When I source my .bashrc file, however, (. .bashrc), the alias works.

Nonetheless, I do not want to source the file every time I open terminal for the alias to work. How do I make that happen?

In short, you are putting your aliases in the wrong file .bashrc, that is why you need to keep running source to get the aliases working in any new login terminal instances.

From Chris Johnsen's comment at Why doesn't .bashrc run automatically?

    By default, Terminal starts the shell via /usr/bin/login, which makes the shell a login shell. On every platform (not just Mac OS X) bash does not use .bashrc for login shells (only /etc/profile and the first of .bash_profile, .bash_login, .profile that exists and is readable). This is why “put source ~/.bashrc in your .bash_profile” is standard advice.

For more information, see the manual page for bash:

man bash

Then look under the INVOCATION section.


How user's name can be displayed before disk is decrypted, when FileVault is turned on? As far as I understood, FileVault provides full disk encryption functionality. What gets me puzzled though, is that once computer (with disk encrypted using FileVault) is turned on - username is displayed, before disk is decrypted. Thus, it has to be stored somewhere (and wherever it is stored - this storage is not encrypted). So I am wondering:

Where exactly the username is stored?
What else is stored there (and thus left unencrypted)?
It seems to me that (no matter what the answers to two previous questions are) FileVault encryption can not be called "full disk". To illustrate the point: if Android device is encrypted and then restarted - the process of loading OS won't start, until password is provided (which feels 'fuller' to me). Am I missing anything?

In older pre T2 macs the disk is not fully encrypted and the users name is stored in an unencrypted volume called Preboot.  This volume is readable by the firmware which calls boot.efi within it.  This displays the unlock screen and once the password is entered unlocks the OS volume and the OS loads.

The term Full disk encryption is generally used to describe something other than File level encryption rather than implying that there is nothing unencrypted on the disk. Probably Full volume encryption would be clearer.

This is much the same as Windows Bitlocker or Linux LUKS encryption except they tend to simply demand a valid password/key/fingerprint etc to unlock etc without storing the username outside the encrypted volume.

In T2 macs the structure is the same but the whole disk is encrypted so Preboot is not accessible until the disk is unlocked by the T2 chip.

  Mac computers that have the Apple T2 Security Chip integrate security into both software and hardware to provide encrypted-storage capabilities. Data on the built-in, solid-state drive (SSD) is encrypted using a hardware-accelerated AES engine built into the T2 chip. This encryption is performed with 256-bit keys tied to a unique identifier within the T2 chip

There are various unencrypted locations on the pre T2 startup disk. First of all the EFI partition is not encrypted.  This partition may contain nothing or may contain firmware updates in a directory EFI/APPLE.  This is not private or unique data.  It may also contain bootloaders for Windows or other OSs, if you have installed them, as they also need an unencrypted partition to boot from.

Next not all the volumes in the partition which holds the APFS container containing macOS are encrypted. In Mojave it looks like this (Catalina has an extra encrypted volume Macintosh HD - Data).

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +21.5 GB    disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s8
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            17.0 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 27.6 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                510.5 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      20.5 KB    disk1s4

Recovery is not encrypted (you can get into recovery without unlocking) but doesn't appear to contain unique data.
Preboot is not encrypted (so the system can find the bootloader boot.efi, display users, wallpapers etc) before unlocking the OS volume. It has at least some data that is not generic.

You can mount Preboot and have a look what it contains.  Taking the Mojave example from above...

sudo mkdir /Volumes/Preboot
sudo mount -t APFS /dev/disk1s2 /Volumes/Preboot

Inside you'll find one directory named with the GUID returned from diskutil info disk1s1|grep 'Volume UUID'.

You can then drill down into this directory - there is the bootloader boot.efi which the firmware calls to start macOS and lots of (to judge by their names) efi resource files which  contain fonts, graphics resources, etc.  For example:

[admin@macOS] / $ls /Volumes/Preboot/DD3856E8-5866-4F7E-8DDC-692FB7EB1C9F/usr/standalone/i386/EfiLoginUI
Lucida13.efires         battery.efires          guest_userUI.efires     recovery_user.efires
Lucida13White.efires    disk_passwordUI.efires  loginui.efires          sound.efires
appleLogo.efires        flag_picker.efires      recoveryUI.efires       unknown_userUI.efires

What all the things in this volume are isn't particularly clear but you'll find your username in plaintext at least in these files.

.../System/Library/Caches/com.apple.corestorage/EncryptedRoot.plist.wipekey

</data>
            <key>UserFullName</key>
            <string>hali</string>

.../var/db/AdminUserRecoveryInfo.plist

        <key>RealName</key>
        <string>admin</string>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

.../var/db/CryptoUserInfo.plist - also appears to contain users icon data

        FABQAUAFABQAUAFABQAUAFAH/9k=
        </data>
        <key>PictureFormat</key>
        <string>JPEG</string>
        <key>ShortName</key>
        <string>hali</string>


How do I mirror my iPhone screen to my MacBook Pro for free? I am using a 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro with Yosemite and an iPhone 4s with iOS 9.

I want to record game tutorials.
I've tried to use the QuickTime Player to screen record but the little arrow on the right side of the record button doesn't show my iPhone video, only the microphone.

Is there any good, free way to do it?

QuickTime Player can only mirror iOS devices with Lightning connectors.  If you want to mirror an iPhone 4s, you'll need to purchase one of the AirPlay Mirroring apps like AirServer.

According to this support article (emphasis added):

  Movie recording works with your built-in camera and many external cameras. If you're using OS X Yosemite or later, you can also record the screen of any iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) with a Lightning port and iOS 8 or later.


Keyboard Shortcut to manipulate window position I'm looking for a 'Bring all to back' command.

In fact, I'm using Magnet and I have many superposed windows, and I would like to put the front window A to back in order to see the window B just below the window A.

Actually, I'm using Mission Control (http://imgur.com/Or1bi5e) to select the window B but I'm sure that is not the fastest way and I would like to create a Keyboard Shortcut to put the window A to back.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Edit:

I can resumed by: "How to put a window back of the screen" instead of the feature "Bring to front"

Edit 2:

Screen aspect:

[Back A B C D E F G Front]

Screen content:

[] is screen
A B C D E F G are windows
A & C are from Finder
B D F are from Safari
E is from Notes
G is from Reminder

Then:

G is active
Put G to back
Get F on front

So:

If I put successively G F E D C B A to back I will retrieve G on front

How to navigate macOS application windows like a boss

Cmd Tab : switch to the next app (icon to the right)

Cmd Tab, followed by Cmd `~ : switch to the previous app (icon to the left)

Cmd `~ : cycle through all open windows of the app in focus. (Minimized windows are skipped.)

Below is an animation demonstrating what it looks like when windows are cycled.

This is a much faster way to navigate than Mission Control. And if you use Cmd H to Hide applications you're not using, you can keep your workspace free of clutter. Hidden apps are revealed again when tabbed to.

This answer assumes the use of an English keyboard, where the back-tick key's shifted character is the tilde. On non-English keyboard layouts, the back-tick key may have a different shifted character.

Precision control

For those looking for a solution similar to Magnet, but free, you can customize the AppleScript below, place it inside of an Automator Service, and trigger it with a keyboard shortcut.

tell application "System Events"
    set activeApp to name of first application process whose frontmost is true
end tell

set theApp to activeApp
(* These dimensions are for a 27-inch iMac. Customize as necessary. *)
set appWidth to 1280
set appHeight to 1440

tell application "Finder"
    set screenResolution to bounds of window of desktop
end tell

set screenWidth to item 3 of screenResolution
set screenHeight to item 4 of screenResolution

tell application theApp
    activate
    reopen
    set xAxis to (screenWidth - appWidth) / 2 as integer
    (*
    FOR LEFT PLACEMENT:   set xAxis to 0
    FOR CENTER PLACEMENT: set xAxis to (screenWidth - appWidth) / 2 as integer
    FOR RIGHT PLACEMENT:  set xAxis to (screenWidth - appWidth) as integer
    *)
    set yAxis to (screenHeight - appHeight) / 2 as integer
    set the bounds of the first window to {xAxis, yAxis, appWidth + xAxis, appHeight + yAxis}
end tell

Code originally written by Amit Agarwal and Tetsujin. Combined and modified by me.

How to create a simple keyboard macro with Automator?

After triggering the Service, you may see the message: "AppName.app" wants access to control "SystemEvents.app". Allowing control will provide access to documents and data in "SystemEvents.app", and to perform actions within that app. You must click "OK" to use the Service.


How do I remove drafts from the iOS Notification Center? When I pull down the Notification center on either my iPad or iPhone, it displays 5 emails (I have it set to that), but they are not the unread emails at the top of my inbox. They all appear to be drafts! When I click on them they take me to that particular draft, and I can't seem to find a way to locate and delete that draft. I have looked through all of my accounts and mostly cleared out all the drafts that are listed, but none of them have been the five that show up in my Notification center. It has me stumped as to how that is happening on both of my iDevices. Note that it isn't the same drafts, but only the ones that were created on those devices. Also, when new email comes in, it does display on top of the others.

This is a somewhat recent problem, and both devices have worked as expected before.

So my questions are:

How do I access a list (and delete) of drafts that have been created
on the iPhone, or iPad itself?
How do I fix the notification center? I suppose if I can delete the drafts, that the problem might go away.

Apple does hide the settings for the drafts folder pretty well, but in general you have a choice of saving drafts on the device or on your mail server.  It seems you have set them to be on the device.  I suggest moving them to the server.

Here's how I get to the setting for my account.  Your path might be slightly different as I think it is different for different kinds of servers:

Settings
Mail, Contacts, Calendars
Under "Accounts", click on the mail account to bring up a popup with settings for that account
Select "Account" again
Select "Advanced"
Under "Mailbox Behaviors" select "Drafts Mailbox"
Under "On the Server" select the "Drafts" mailbox

I like having them on the server as then they are synced everywhere.


Toggle Apple Mail "Classic Layout" with shortcut? Can anyone figure out a way to switch Apple Mail (v5.2) to/from "Classic Layout" mode with a hotkey? Maybe via Applescript?

Here's the applescript for it. Set this up as an app or something but this should get you started.

tell application "Mail" to activate
tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "," using command down
end tell

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Mail"
        click button 5 of tool bar 1 of window 1
        delay 0.1
        click checkbox "Use classic layout" of group 1 of group 1 of window "Viewing"
    end tell
end tell


What happens if I delete used cache I've read this Mac OS X daily article, and now in finder I can see all the cache folder/files sorted by size:

The problem is that I don't which cache is still in use from my applications, for example I don't know what is com.apple.helpd used for. So the question is: can I safely delete any folder? Or instead I risk that an application goes to search from these folders and maybe it crashes?

Nothing at all. Any caches that are required will be recreated at next reboot. I clean my caches once in a while as an OCD thing, but it's not needed. A cache is just a temporary file. If you delete it, the apps will recreate them when needed.

Caches were needed back in the HDD days to speed up loading in applications. On SSD's they're not as important, but they're legacy and probably won't go away anytime soon. You can keep deleting them, but they'll always come back. Don't worry about anything going wrong. A properly written app is smart enough to not actually save any settings in a cache so you won't have to worry about losing information.

Delete them all if you want. The ones your apps need will just be recreated. If you're on a HDD you'll notice slowdown for a while as apps recreate the cache. But on an SSD you won't notice a thing.


How to write AND condition in Numbers I have a dataset where I want to write a COUNTIFstatement in Numbers (Mavericks). Specifically I want to count if a number is between 16 and 30.

So far I have tried: COUNTIF(test-array, ">15 AND >= 30") with no luck.

Reading from the documentation:

  condition: An expression that results in a boolean value of TRUE or FALSE. A condition can contain anything as long as the result from comparing it to a value in test-values can be expressed as TRUE or FALSE.

But I cannot find the correct logical and operator for the condition (tried &&).

If you don't mind a separate column/table for this, you can check if each cell is between 16 and 31 like this:

Table 2, A1:

IF(x::A1>15,IF(x::A1<31,TRUE,FALSE))

Table 2, A9:

COUNTIF(A,"=TRUE")


Apple TV control external HiFi - difference between direct control or Airplay I have my TV connected to my Apple TV 4K over HDMI. I've connected my HiFi over a toslink (optical)connection.

Now there is a difference in controlling the volume if I use an Airplay device or the Apple TV itself.

If I play music from my iPhone via Airplay to the Apple TV, I can control the volume via my phone. That is, the volume of my TV-speakers and the HiFi is changed.
If I play music directly on my Apple TV and control the volume over the remote, just the volume of my TV is changed. That is, the TV-speakers are controlled, but the HiFi remains at the set volume. So I cannot change the volume of both speakers. (Additionally I see also the volume bar of the TV)

Can I change the behavior of the remote/Apple TV/Audio, so that it behaves the same as the first case?

In order to control the volume of your HiFi, you will need to use HDMI-CEC between your AppleTv and your Receiver/HiFi. Data (audio) transmitted over optical is sent at a fixed volume, and relies on the receiver of the signal to control the volume.

If your receiver does not have HDMI with ARC, you may be able to get around this in the following way:

Connect AppleTv to TV via HDMI
Connect TV Audio Out to your Receiver.
Configure HDMI-CEC to control the volume on your TV from the AppleTV remote.
Configure TV Audio Out to be "variable", not "fixed" or "line level". This step will vary wildly depending on your TV.

There will be tradeoffs depending on your TV & Receiver's input/output options.


Use MacBook Pro as second monitor for iMac? Is it possible to use a MacBook Pro as a second monitor for my iMac? Both of them have a Thunderbolt port.

If not, is there any other way?

You can not use your MacBook Pro as a second monitor for your iMac without additional software.

ScreenRecycler claims to allow you to expand your desktop across multiple computers.

As an alternative approach, Synergy (previously open source at synergy-foss.org) claims to lets you combine multiple computers into one. It will let you use both computers from a single keyboard and mouse.


rebuild itunes library after crash I had a hard drive crash and lost the system files, but recovered all my iTunes folders and files e.g. Books, Downloads, iTunes U, Mobile Applications, etc.  The iTunes library file "iTunes Library.itl" went down with the crash.  What's the best way to rebuild my iTunes library now that I have a new HDD?

You have two options:

restore the library from a backup copy (previous libraries folder in the iTunes folder, Time Machine, other backups)
re-import the songs by dragging the media into the library section and allowing it to add the tracks back to the library - optionally you can import any playlists or library xml documents that saved the playlists, ratings and data relating to the tracks and not embedded into the media files on the drive

If you have enabled iTunes Match, you will also be safe from most data loss since all playlists are stored in the cloud unless it contains exclusively tracks that were not matched to the cloud like podcasts and other oddities like voice memos and low bit-rate recordings.


MacBook Pro later 2011 - HandOff and AirDrop not enabled I've checked my MacBook Pro (later 2011) and my version of bluetooth is 4.3.0f10.
I know that HandOff needs at least bluetooth 4.0 to work and BT LE. I have my bluetooth superior to 4.0 but my LE is not suported and so HandOff and some features of Continuity.

I've read that some guys can make this work in a MacBook Air (mid 2011) and iMac following this tutorial: http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=20015070&postcount=609

My question is:

This tutorial will work in my MacBook Pro?
If dont. Theres a way to make it work?

Thanks!

The MacBook Pro late 2011 has BT 2.1EDR, not 4.0. The version 4.3.0f10 is just a software version number. The bluetooth 4.0 was included in 2012 MBPs. The MacBook Air, Mac Mini and iMac got those in 2011. So, the answer is No, you can't use the tutorial to make HandOff work on your Mac.

It might work if the newer MBP bluetooth card is compatible with Late 2011 MBP. Check the Apple Support Forum thread below.

2012 Bluetooth LE card on 2011 MBP


Ethernet is connected but no internet access in MacOS I am working on iMac Retina 4K 2017 with macOS Big Sur v.11.2.1.
The Ethernet is connected to the iMac but unfortunately no internet access.
I've tried these approaches:

I've created new location and add Ethernet with Configure IPv4 is Using DHCP.
I've tried Renew DHCP Lease.
I've tried to Configure IPv4 Manually and add Google DNS Server as my DNS Server.
I've re-plugged in the ethernet cable.
I've restart the iMac either before or after above configuration.
I've unchecked all Proxies.
Router has been restarted.
Etc. (i don't remember the others).

All the above approaches doesn't work at all.

I plugged in my cable on Windows PC and it worked beautifully! But unfortunately doesn't works in this iMac.
How to solve this ?

The Ethernet service is shown as Connected, so the physical ethernet link was successfully established.
An IP address was received by the DHCP server, as well as a valid configuration for subnet, gateway and DNS servers, so communication from your Mac to the DHCP server (in this case your router) was successful. This rules out any problem with the ethernet connection itself.
You have already verified that changing the IP address does not have any effect, so we can also rule out firewall rules that block on that basis.
You have also disabled any proxy settings in the service's "Advanced" settings.
Therefore either
A) it's a configuration issue on your Mac or
B) your router blocks connections from/to the MAC address of your Mac's ethernet adapter.

To rule out any possible service misconfiguration, remove the Ethernet service (with the button - below the list of services) and add it again. Don't forget to click Apply when done.

Make sure you have disabled all apps that reconfigure your routing (e.g. VPN) or filter your traffic (e.g. firewalls).

Try doing a traceroute. This helps determine where packets stop. Open Terminal.app and run the following command to trace a route to your ISP's DNS server (which I've taken from the screenshot):
traceroute 103.109.124.52

If this doesn't provide answers, take a look at the router configuration and logs.


Stop Safari developer program membership Does anyone know how to stop Safari developer program membership?

A couple of years ago I enrolled into the program as I was interested in development of Safari extensions. But now I have a really big problem because of this enrollment. Currently I am also a member of iOS development team and EVERYTIME when I try to login or just access ANY of the sections in the Member Center I need to choose my team

me as safari developer
me as member of iOS development team

This is really annoying considering that the Apple's development portal seems buggy because it doesn't remember my choice and keeps asking me to select the team after every single click and redirects me back to the portal home page so I am not able to proceed further.

If anyone knows how to cancel a membership of a certain developer program of Apple, please help me.

You can simply let the Safari membership term run out, as it doesn't look like Apple has given people an easy way to do this. Your best bet at cancelling it immediately though is to call Apple directly at 1-800-633-2152 and ask for them to cancel it.


Can you give me buying advice of a 6970 card in a 27" iMac for just Photoshop, Lightroom, no video or games? Thinking of buying the 27" iMac---I've given up waiting for the new desktop.  Only to be used for my images, files up to 1GB, no gaming, no video production.

Will the 6970 card be worth the extra money?

Well, it appears that some features of Photoshop CS5 may perform better with a good graphics card. One of these features that is particularly obvious is the new 3D functionality added to Photoshop. Also, there's an Adobe TV episode titled "Photoshop's Graphics Card Power Helps You Save Time". Here's a description of the episode:

  Use the power of your graphics card to navigate to any area of an image with new, ultra-smooth zooming and panning. Edit at the highest magnification and use the new Rotate View tool to smoothly turn your canvas for distortion-free viewing at any angle.

If you check out this Adobe Forums thread, they talk about the features that use the GPU (which can benefit from a better graphics card). Here are some of these features:

Mercury Graphics Engine: "The Mercury Graphics Engine (MGE) represents features that use video card, or GPU, acceleration. In Photoshop CS6, this new engine delivers near-instant results when editing with key tools such as Liquify, Warp, Lighting Effects and the Oil Paint filter. The new MGE delivers unprecedented responsiveness for a fluid feel as you work."
Adapative Wide Angle Filter
Liquify
Oil Paint
Warp and Puppet Warp
Field Blur, Iris Blur, and Tilt/Shift
Lighting Effects Gallery

Also, Adobe posted a blog entry titled "How to tune Photoshop CS5 for Peak Performance", and in it they say this:

  Photoshop is taking advantage of the powerful processor contained on these cards (called the graphics processing unit or GPU) to help speed up performance and activate a set of special GPU-accelerated features such as canvas rotation, panning and zooming, Adobe Repoussé, and Adobe Pixel Bender® filters.

So to sum it up, a better graphics card would greatly improve performance when doing 3D work with Repoussé and also with 2D work to an extent, but I guess you would have to determine for yourself if you're going to use Repoussé or the various filters that benefit from a better graphics card. In my opinion, if you can spare the money, then I would go for it, because you never know what you'll do in the future, but it's definitely not necessary to buy one.


How do you turn on "Dark Mode" in OS X Yosemite? Has anyone figured out how to enable Dark Mode yet? I've been looking around for a while and haven't been able to find it anywhere.

System Preferences > General > Use dark menu bar and Dock


How should I interpret the full charge capacity (mAh) for a macbook battery? in System Information it shows: "Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 7860".  How should I interpret this figure?

According to Apple:

  Full charge capacity: Measured in mAH (milliampere-hours), this refers to the amount of power the battery is capable of containing, less the energy required to shut down the device. This number lowers as the battery becomes depleted with usage and age.

You didn't indicate your device details so I can't tell you if that number is good or not.  See the Apple Support page for more details.


Why would files show zero size in Terminal by multiple KB in Finder? I have a folder of font files that are ~30KB in size each. Finder shows this information correctly, but when I go to Terminal, it shows the files as each having a size of 0KB.

ls -ltarh
total 1008
-rwx------@  1 danrumney  staff     0B Jun  4  2002 GothaBol
-rwx------@  1 danrumney  staff     0B Jun  4  2002 GothaLigIta
-rwx------@  1 danrumney  staff     0B Jun  4  2002 GothaLig
-rwx------@  1 danrumney  staff     0B Jun  5  2002 GothaMedIta
-rwx------@  1 danrumney  staff     0B Jun  5  2002 GothaMed
-rwx------@  1 danrumney  staff     0B Mar 31  2003 HTF Gotham™
-rwx------@  1 danrumney  staff     0B Feb  5  2006 Gotham-Bold
-rwx------@  1 danrumney  staff     0B Feb  5  2006 Gotham-Medium
-rwx------@  1 danrumney  staff     0B Jun 17  2009 Gotham-Ultra
-rwx------@  1 danrumney  staff     0B Jun 17  2009 Gotham-Book
-rwx------@  1 danrumney  staff     0B Jun 17  2009 GothaUlt
-rwx------@  1 danrumney  staff     0B Jun 17  2009 GothaBoo
-rw-r--r--@  1 danrumney  staff   6.0K Mar 14 12:24 .DS_Store
drwxr-xr-x@ 12 danrumney  staff   384B Mar 17 09:50 ..
drwxr-xr-x@ 15 danrumney  staff   480B Mar 17 09:50 .

There are plenty of questions and answers around Finder showing different sizes to the Terminal, but in those, the Terminal tends to be the correct one - this appears to be the opposite.

Why the discrepancy here?

My guess would be that the content of those files are hidden away in the resource fork, and that ls only shows the size of what’s visible to standard Unix API:s.

If this is the case, you should be able to see the “hidden” bytes by doing

ls -l *filename*/..namedfork/rsrc


Why are my app settings not appearing in the Settings app? I cannot seem to find my app settings in the setting app after updating my iphone to iOS 10.3 beta 4 (14E5260b).

The issue is still present even after waiting a night, so it's not an issue about apps taking a long time to load.

Were they moved or removed? If they were moved, can you tell me where I could now find them?

I experienced this issue for the first time this morning, on iOS 10.3. To fix, I simply opened multitasking view (double-click Home), and ejected the Settings app. Upon reopening it, app settings returned beneath TV Provider.

I’m quite surprised at the number of bugs with the Settings app since iOS 10 (another would be the disappearing navigation arrow in the upper-left).


Pair magic keyboard with iPad I cannot pair my new Magic keyboard with my iPad. It shows up in the Bluetooth devices list as "Bluetooth Keyboard", but when I click to connect it I get the message:

  Connection Unsuccessful Make sure "Bluetooth Keyboard" is turned on and in range.

How can I pair the devices?

I went to the Genius Bar to solve this. They did the standard procedure and the device paired.

The explanation for why it was not working for me was that a Magic Keyboard will not pair while it is charging. I had the keyboard plugged into a USB port for charging at the time. To use or pair the keyboard, make sure it is unplugged.


Smart folder filter "does not contain" Smart Folder Exclude Folder

Ultimately I want the result of this find command to be a smart folder.

The criteria aren't that complicated:

name should be "README.md"
type should be file
path should not contain "node_modules"

find /Users/me/Documents -type f -name README.md -not -path "*/node_modules/*"

The problem is that the smart folders criteria operator list seems to be lacking a does not contain option.

The available options are:

matches
contains
begins with
ends with
is
is not

Is it possible to accomplish this and if so then how?

Edit 1

I found that by holding the option key I am able to add a negation clause to the smart folder search criteria but I cannot seem to successfully exclude the node_modules folder. It is unclear which criteria to use but none of the ones I have tried seem to work:

Document Container
Containing Folder Names
Folder Name

I have tried combining these with the following operators:

contains
matches

and with the following terms:

node_modules
node_modules

in case it supports wildcard searches.

I have tried all combinations of the above filters, operators and terms.

The documentation is so poor on the subject.

It looks like kMDItemPath can't do what you need:

no-results-in-spotlight-in-searches-against-kmditempath

Some potential alternatives are discussed here:

how-to-locate-a-file-in-spotlight-using-folder-and-file-name


Can I identify all iTunes purchases bought with a particular ID Account? Having restored back-up from iCloud I am being repeatedly asked for the password for a work-related email address. I was made redundant from that company about 10 years ago and cannot retrieve that password.
I'm willing to bite the bullet and erase all the relevant tracks from iTunes in an attempt to solve this problem.
My question is, can I identify them all in one go using Purchase History (or whatever) without the password for that particular account, or will I have to trawl through the tracks/albums individually?

One way to do this is by opening Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/) and entering the following command:

grep -rl username@example.com ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Music

…where username@example.com is the email of the account you purchased the iTunes content with. This will look for references to that name in all of the downloaded files in your iTunes directory. I don't buy a lot of music through the ITMS but this seems to identify the ones that I purchased through a specific account.

There is also this Track Down Purchases application. I have not tried it, but it looks like it would also do what you want.


Creating desktops and opening programs on those desktops using applescript I'm new to applescript and I'd like some help with something I'd like to create. I've searched around on the internet and found a few pages, here and here, that describe pretty much what I would like to do, but I don't completely understand it.
I'd like to make an application that closes everything on the computer (not required), opens 4 desktops, first one with google chrome open, third with iMovie open, and fourth with textedit open.
Could anyone help with my coding? I here's what I have so far. I'm not using full code, just dragging launch applications to places in the application
I believe that the only things that I need to add would be code in between the launch applications that opens a new desktop and switches to it(2 times to create the empty space in desktop 2). I'm not entirely sure how to do this though.

We figured out in comments that although this isn't a solution to the actual problem posted, it did help the OP to achieve the underlying requirement.

First job is to create sufficient Spaces. You can do this in Mission Control, by default  Ctrl ⌃   ↑  or three-finger swipe up.
Use the + on the right to create the required number - I have 7 here...

Then set up some key commands - long-term these are the best way to get around.
This is set in System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Mission Control [You can only see as many 'Switch' shortcuts as you have Spaces.]
It will remember which app you last had frontmost when you switch Spaces in this way.

Note - if you have an extended keyboard with a 10-key, by default the Ctrl/num shortcuts are set to the 'qwerty' numbers, not the 10-key numbers & you will have to change the shortcuts manually if you prefer the 10-key.
[The shortcuts are visually identical, but the number keys are recognised as distinct entities in this control panel.]

Then it's a case of populating your Spaces with specific Apps.
If you've never done this before then any app will launch on whichever Space you're on right now; so switch to Space 3 & launch Chrome.
Then right click it in the Dock & set to This Desktop.
[btw, Apple seem to use the terms Space & Desktop interchangeably. I've never figured out the pattern.]

Now just rinse & repeat for each app you want to assign to a given Space, after which you can flit between them all with a simple key command.

Pro Tips
If I ever need, for instance, to add an email attachment from Finder (Space 1) to an email (Space 4) then simply grabbing the header bar of the email & hitting  Ctrl ⌃   1  will move that single email to Space 1, where I can drop in the attachment from Finder.

If you ever need an app to 'follow' you around - sometimes I keep Activity Monitor tucked in a convenient corner - then assigning to All Desktops will make it always appear, whichever Space you're in.

Two things to watch out for... Mission Control prefs

Automatically rearrange Spaces - no no no. This will lose your carefully placed numbering & shift things around seemingly at random.

Displays have separate Spaces - If you have more than one physical monitor, then this one is a choice.
Personally, I avoid this one as I like my Spaces to move around in pairs, left & right always the same 'set'. If you want each monitor to be independent, then many people find this a useful way to be able to work in 2 different Spaces simultaneously. To do this you must have more Spaces than monitors.


Access and control home office network, iMacs, and XServes I have a home office network comprised of:

1   Time Capsule
2   27" iMacs with dual cores running Mac OS X 10.6.8
2   XServes each with 2 quad cores running Max OS X Server 10.6.8

I use the XServes to run parallel calculations from Mathematica.  As the calculations only take about 5 minutes each day and the XServes run hot and loud as well as use a considerable amount of power, I shut them down when I don't need to actually run the calculations (I do run the XServes much more when we do R&D so they do get used).

As my work requires me run the above parallel calculations everyday at a specific time and then personally notify someone about the results -- they don't want an automated message:( -- the process has tied me to my desk.  In time I hope to automate the entire process, but probably won't get to that until the fall.

Well its summer and I want to go to a beach for a few days.

So, I need a solution to:

Access this network from a remote location.
Start the XServes or wake them from sleep.
Log on to the XServes.
Access and log on to my main desktop machine to:

launch my Mathematica application;
launch the remote parallel kernels on the XServes (I can do this from Mathematica);
run my Mathematica application; and

Shutdown the XServes or put them to sleep.

Ideally, I'd like to this from an iPad, but I have the use of a MacBook Pro if I need it.

We do have an old license for Apple Remote desktop if that would help.

While I could leave the XServes powered up while I go to the beach, I'd then have to run air conditioning and that seems like a waste of money and not particularly good for the environment.

Can I set the XServes to go to sleep if they don't have anything to do?  If I do, can I wake them up remotely?

Any suggestions on the best way to do all of this, much appreciated.

A couple of clarifications moved up from comments below.

I typically access the Xservers by physically turning them on, seeing them come up on Finder, then doing a screen share. Maybe I just need to get them to wake-on-LAN or just wake up when I want to access them. Then I wouldn't need to actually access them via ARD or a VPN. If I can wake them up somehow from my desktop I only need to get to the desktop.

Also, the Xserves only serve as parallel processing nodes. My iMac runs Mathematica and my application distributes processing jobs to the computing kernels on the XServes.

The main thing to tackle is booting up the xServes. Luckily, Intel xServes (which yours should be if they're running 10.6) have Lights-out-Management (LOM) that should support this sort of thing (all Macs support Wake-on-LAN, but that only works on a local network).

Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) has support for this. It looks like you'll need to forward a few ports (looks like 623 for the LOM, and then a bunch for ARD - do a search), unless you have some sort of VPN access to your home network.

The basic method will be, use ARD to power up your xServes, then remotely connect via ARD or a VNC client, build your Mathematica app and run it. Then shut down the xServes.

If you have a Mac with you, all this can be done via ARD, but if you want to do it with an iPad, you'll need your desktop Mac running whenever you want to remotely access it. The process there would be to enable Screen Sharing (in the Sharing panel of System Prefs), forward the appropriate ports, then use an app like Screens to connect to your desktop Mac, run ARD and Mathematica remotely on it, and do the above.

If you don't have your desktop Mac running all the time, you could in theory use Wake-on-LAN to turn it on, then access it with Screens, but that requires some other device to be always on, remotely accessible and capable of sending the WoL packet to the Mac (some routers are capable of this, typically with 3rd party firmware).


Problem with kextunload SD card remount So I got one of those SD card flush mounts, but it occasionally self ejects. I'm trying to solve that via kextunload given on this page

Entering:

sudo kextunload -b /System/Library/Extensions/AppleSDXC.kext

Returns:

(kernel) Kext /System/Library/Extensions/AppleSDXC.kext not found for unload request.
Failed to unload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleSDXC.kext - (libkern/kext) not found.

You need to specify the bundle identifier when using the -b argument.
In this case, the bundle identifier is com.apple.driver.AppleSDXC

sudo kextunload -b com.apple.driver.AppleSDXC

If the same error message is returned, then the kernel extension was not loaded to begin with.

You can check this information using kextstat | grep -e SDXC

Regardless, to find the Bundle ID:

/System/Library/Extensions/AppleSDXC.kext/Contents/Info.plist the bundle identifier is stored under the BundleID key:

<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
<string>com.apple.driver.AppleSDXC</string>


How to get rid of the circular speech commands thing? This thing has appeared, hovering obtrusively over my desktop (Mountain Lion):

I don't know how it got there. Presumably I pressed some key combination by accident. But I can't for the life of me figure out how to get rid of it again. It has "Esc" written on it, but pressing the escape key doesn't do anything. The arrow at the bottom takes me to "Open Speech Commands window" and "Speech Preferences...", but neither has any obvious option to turn this blue thing off.

In several online forums, the advice is to go to Speech Preferences -> Speakable Items and turn it off. But as you can see in the screenshot below it's already off, and the blue thing is still there.

Turning Speakable Items on and off again doesn't help. The blue thing just becomes grayed out (the state it's in in the screenshot above) but doesn't go away.

How can I get rid of this thing so that I can watch a movie without it hovering over the top?

I was also met with this speech popup a few weeks ago. It can be turned on or off system-wide, but is sometimes app-specific for when it appears. For me, it was because I was using the Chess app, which uses "Speakable Items" so that the player can speak moves.

I had to uncheck "Allow Player to Speak Moves" in the Chess preferences pane. Depending on the application, you may or may not be able to disable this option.

You can disable "Speakable Items" system-wide through System Preferences by opening the Accessibility pane and scrolling down to "Speakable Items" and ticking the Off radio button.

Sources:

eHow Source for disabling Speakable Items

Apple Discussion


MacBook Pro Touch Bar won't respond The Touch Bar on my MacBook Pro is actually reflecting changes depending on the software context and showing the right buttons. However, it won't respond to my inputs.

I've tried to reset it via Terminal and all the potential solutions that I found on the Internet, but unfortunately none of them worked.

Could you please help me out to make it operational again?

I am running macOS Mojave 10.14.1.

You can check there is any issue with the hardware components which are connected to the touch bar by using fn key. Soon after you hit the key that should display in the touch bar. In that case you can decide this issue is either software or hardware issue.


List number of files in multiple zip files How can I get the total number of files in multiple zip files at the same time? I have around 1000 zipfiles in one folder and would like to know the total amount of files inside them all combined. How can I do this? I've tried

zipinfo -t file.zip

But that only gives me the number from that archive, I've also tried

zipinfo -t *zip/?.zip

and gets

caution: filename not matched:  Jo Coo-Day-Sun.zip
caution: filename not matched:  Micke Mouse-Stare-Well-Pt1.zip
caution: filename not matched:  Micke Mouse Cooley-Stare-Well-Pt2.zip

Any suggestions?

There is certainly more then one way to do this and what I'm presenting is not necessarily the best way, however it is a way that works.  Create a bash script using the following code.

#!/bin/bash
c=0
for f in *.zip; do
    x="$(zipinfo -t "$f" | awk '{print $1}')"
    c=$(( $c + $x ))
done
echo "The total file count is:" $c

Then you'd cd to the directory containing the zip archive files and execute the bash script by its name if it's in the $PATH or its pathname if it's not in the $PATH.

Say you save it as getfilecount in your $HOME directory, which normally is not in your $PATH you'd cd to the directory containing the zip archive files and then use:

~/getfilecount

To make the bash script create an empty text file, e.g. touch getfilecount and then open the file, e.g. open getfilecount add the code above via copy and paste and save it.  Now make the file executable, e.g chmod +x getfilecount and now you can use it as is or place it in a directory that's in the $PATH, then all you'd need to type once changing to the directory containing the zip archive files is: getfilecount

Below is sample output to show the difference between using single commands method and a bash script.

Issuing commands, one at a time:

$ cd zipfiles
$ ls
codetest.zip    destination.zip helloworld.zip  source.zip
$ zipinfo -t "*.zip"
1 file, 820 bytes uncompressed, 437 bytes compressed:  46.7%

1 file, 0 bytes uncompressed, 0 bytes compressed:  0.0%

6 files, 12385 bytes uncompressed, 895 bytes compressed:  92.8%

101 files, 0 bytes uncompressed, 0 bytes compressed:  0.0%

4 archives were successfully processed.
$

Using getfilecount (when the bash script is in the $PATH):

$ cd zipfiles
$ getfilecount

The total file count is: 109
$


'Update' volume appeared after High Sierra install This is a spin off from another question. I recently got a 2018 15 MBP with Big Sur on it. I erased the disk and installed High Sierra as I need to run some old software. The install seemed to go fine but a curious extra volume appeared on the Desktop after the install called 'Update' which seems to contain NVRAM and firmware related files.
The volume is mounted normally and not hidden.
I can find virtually no reference to this happening online anywhere.
My guess is it is created as some sort of temporary volume to do with the installation and it should not be there afterwards?
I followed Apple's instructions about erasing an APFS disk prior to installing High Sierra, but these instructions seemed incomplete in hindsight as they suggest just erasing Macintosh HD if other partitions are not available. As I was new to APFS and its partition scheme, it seemed later a better thing to have done was 'Show devices and then erase the device at the top of the hierarchy and I wonder if what I did helped created this mysterious Update volume ?
Anyway what is this volume and can it be safely deleted ?

Note: This answer assumes the reader does not have a Fusion drive.

When selecting the Erase button on the top of the Disk Utility window, you should see a popup window similar to the one shown below.

If instead you see a popup window is similar to the one shown below, then you are not erasing the entire drive. If the drive is not visible on the left side of the Disk Utility window, then press the key combination ⌘2 to show all devices.

When erasing the entire drive, you should select APFS for the format and GUID Partition Map as the scheme, as shown below. (Although, if you chose Mac OS Extended (Journaled), then the macOS installer would automatically convert to APFS.)

From the way I read your question, I do not think you erased the entire drive. You would probably be better off starting over and erasing the entire drive. This should eliminate the Update volume.
Also, consider this: Big Sur uses a newer version of APFS than is known to previous versions of macOS. So if the APFS container was created or updated by Big Sur and all you did is erase a volume before installing High Sierra, then the verify and repair software included with High Sierra may not function properly. So if you need to verify or repair APFS, you should first boot to a Big Sur version of macOS recovery. This is why you would be better off starting over and use the Disk Utility that came with the High Sierra installer to erase the entire drive.