What are the requirements to use iMac screen as a second monitor - Target Display Mode? I have a Surface Pro 4 and an iMac (late 2019). I would like to connect my Surface Pro to the iMac to use the iMac screen as a second monitor.  Is that possible?

What are the requirements to use an iMac as a second screen?

No.  You cannot do this.  The 2019 iMac is not supported for Target Display Mode.
This is an attempt to write a canonical QA for this issue, as per the Meta post:  Where is the list of canonical questions stored for Ask Different? I expect it to be periodically edited with the goal of becoming a comprehensive information resource.

Which iMac Models Support Target Display Mode?

General Rule of Thumb:  If it's after 2014, Target Display Mode isn't supported.

27 inch iMacs from 2009 - 2010 support TDM via Thunderbolt or mini DisplayPort (mDP)

All iMacs (21 inch and 27 inch) from 2011 through mid 2014 support TDM via Thunderbolt only.

Retina iMacs from late 2014 and on do not support TDM at all.

Which Mac models can you use as a source?
All Mac models through 2019 that meet the above requirements can use Target Display Mode.  Currently, 2020 Macs will not connect (i.e. 2020 MacBook Pro running Catalina), but a 2019 MacBook Pro also running Catalina works fine.
What version of macOS is required?

On the Target iMac, it must be running High Sierra or earlier.
TDM is not supported on any iMac running Mojave or later.
It doesn't matter what version of macOS you're using on your source computer

Can I use my iMac as a Target Display for a PC?
Yes! As long as the target Mac meets the above requirements and the PC has the proper port;  Thunderbolt or mDP.  The OS on the source computer doesn't matter at all.
Can I use a "bricked" or broken iMac as a Target Display?
No.  Your iMac must be a fully functional iMac running High Sierra or later.

Sources & Further Reading:

Use your iMac as a display with target display mode

iMac and connected external displays, all as monitors for MacBook Pro?

Using iMac late 2013 as external monitor to HP EliteBook 820 G3 on Windows 10

How could i use an iMac as secondary monitor for a Windows 7 laptop

Using an iMac as a display for PC laptop in dual mointor configuration


How to get macOS High Sierra file vault encryption to continue/How to cancel encryption and decrypt drive? On my MacBook Pro Mid 2015 running macOS High Sierra I was trying to encrypt it using FileVault.

I can’t tell if progress is stuck or just moving very, very, very slowly

What are ways I can get the encryption to continue, or just cancel the encryption and decrypt the drive?

You can check the status from the terminal with diskutil cs info /Volumes/<name> and look for Conversion State and LV Conversion Progress. If you want to cancel the encryption with diskutil cs revert /Volumes/<name>

srv:~ onik$ diskutil cs info /Volumes/OSX
Core Storage Properties:
   Role:                       Logical Volume (LV)
   UUID:                       00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
   Parent LVF UUID:            00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
   Parent LVG UUID:            00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
   Device Identifier:          disk1
   LV Status:                  Online
   Conversion State:           NoConversion
   LV Conversion Progress:     100%
   Content Hint:               Apple_HFS
   LV Name:                    OSX
   Volume Name:                OSX
   LV Size:                    126804688896 B

Oh, and if you're using APFS (new in High Sierra), the commands are diskutil apfs list and diskutil apfs decryptVolume /Volumes/<name>

Then you can wait  15 minutes and check again. The conversion should continue and might go faster if you log out or just restart your machine and don’t log back in.

There’s no need to reinstall the operating system in almost all cases. You may need to leave the machine running for a day or two if for some reason it’s not progressing at a good rate. There also is no cancel. It needs to proceed or you could wipe the entire disk and reinstall everything.


El Capitan Safari can't open http://localhost/ after starting Apache In the Terminal window, I started the web server with sudo apachect1 start, supplied the password and then got:

  /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.httpd.plist: service already loaded

Then, in the Safari Smart Search field I entered:

  http://localhost/

Then I got:

In Terminal https -v is reported:

  Server version: Apache/2.4.16 (Unix)
  Server built:   Jul 31 2015 15:53:26

How can we fix this please? Thanks.

Turns out that there is evidence that upgrading from Snow Leopard to El Capitan upgrades the apache2 binaries, but not its configuration. Please get the original apache2 config from a El Capitan clean-install and replace yours with it. It's located at /private/etc/apache2/original. Replace your httpd.conf and the folder extra with those you got from the clean install. Restart apache2 afterwards.


How do I prevent search terms from being copied between applications? If I have a search field open in Xcode and Safari at the same time, switching between the apps will copy the search term from one app to the other.

To reproduce this:

Open a webpage in Safari, and press Cmd-F to search the page, but don't type anything
Go to the Find Navigator in Xcode, and type "xcodesearch"
Use the app switcher to go to Safari

"xcodesearch" ends up in Safari's Find search field. Is there a setting that controls this? I don't want this to happen.

OS X 10.8.4, MacBook Air

To give you an answer the best I can with the research I've done. This is a relatively new addition in the OS. If I am not mistaken since 10.8 and what happened is Apple changed the Helper daemon.

I do not know of a way to configure the helperd parameters. My recommendation is to give Apple feedback via http://apple.com/feedback/ and ask that they give the ability to toggle it or remove it all together.

Additionally ask the mad scientists here to include the functionality
http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html


Prevent a specific app from accessing the Internet I use Microsoft OneNote on my Mac.

How can I can turn off the Internet access to Microsoft OneNote on my Mac?

What you're looking for is called an application firewall. One free/open source program that does this job is called LuLu --  https://objective-see.com/products/lulu.html -- with code on github here.


Is there a Notification Center icon cache? Trying to change Apple app icons but they change to default app icon I have tried unsuccessfully to change the Apple system app icons (Mail, Messages, Reminders, etc) in LiteIcon on macOS Sierra 10.12. After applying the new icon, the Dock icon and the main icon seems to change, but the icon shown in Notifications does not (see images below).

When I finish changing the icon in Liteicon, I select the menu item: 'Clear Icon Cache and Log Out.' Also, I have tried these commands in Terminal:

sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.dock.iconcache -exec rm {} \;
sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.iconservices -exec rm -rf {} \;
sudo mv /Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store com.apple.ic

…and I have tried copying image content into 'Get Info' and I have tried replacing the app icon in 'APP.app'/Contents/Resources. Neither of these have worked.

Any suggestions for clearing Notification Center icon cache, or what I may do so notifications display the correct icon?

I found an answer to my issue using this AskDifferent post: Apps Icons not appearing.

I think what finally solved the issue was:

deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist and then
Enter this command killall -KILL Dock
Restart Mac

I hope this helps anyone who is having this or a similar issue. Thanks!


Android Studio - location for SDK and Project Files in SSD I have a SSD and a HDD, wherein the SSD is a bootable drive. I have moved the /userfolder to a partition on HDD wherein it is working perfectly. The Android SDK and projects are also on Hard disk at the moment.

I want to move the SDK and projects to SSD too, since I will get better execution times. But I don't know where to place the files now since the /user folder is now residing on HDD. I tried moving the SDK and projects to / but then Android Studio was not able to open the files due to permission issues. Any idea what permissions to give the folders or where to store the files on SSD?

Update :-

Running on Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.2

Permission for folder on SSD root(/)

drwxrwxrwx+ 14 RohanKandwal  wheel   448 Dec 27 12:53 Android Projects
drwxrwxrwx+ 19 RohanKandwal  admin   608 Dec 27 15:16 SDK

Permission for folder on HDD

drwxr-xr-x   17 RohanKandwal  admin        578 Dec  1 11:20 Android Projects
drwxr-xr-x@  20 RohanKandwal  admin        680 Dec 27 15:46 SDK

I needed following settings on my mac -

The Users folder, which usually contains documents, videos, audios, etc are not to be stored on SSD but on HDD.
The Android folder, which contains the Android SDK and Android Projects, to be contained on SSD since it will improve Android studio performance.

Since I was not able to do it by just changing the permissions on my mac, here's what I did -

Create a new APFS Volume on SSD from Disk Utility.
Move the Android Folder on the new APFS Volume.

Above fit perfectly to my needs and does not require any further change, so I am marking this as my answer.


how to change ifconfig lo0 my ifconfig lo0 looks like this:

lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
options=1203<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,TXSTATUS,SW_TIMESTAMP>
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
inet 192.168.10.11 netmask 0xffffff00
nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>

I need to add inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000. How can I do it ?

Run this command in the Terminal:

ifconfig lo0 127.0.0.1/8

Or if you want to keep your current (odd) address for the lo0 interface, then add 127.0.0.1 as an additional (alias) address with:

ifconfig lo0 alias 127.0.0.1


Remove 'Tags' section from macOS Finder right-click context menu When I right-click an item in Finder, the context menu has a Tags section containing colored tags:

  Tags...

In previous versions of macOS / OS X, the section was called "Labels".

I don't use Tags in Finder, so the Tags section adds 3 vertical menu items of wasted space. The colored tag dots also stretch small menus pretty far to the right.

Is there any way to hide the Tags section when right-clicking files and folders in Finder?

Finder > Preferences > Tags
you'll see the text:

Drag your favorite tags to the area below to make them available for quick use in Finder menus.

Drag the tag dots out of the bottom "Favorite Tags" section.
If you remove all of the Favorite Tags, the Tags menu will be hidden from Finder right-click context menus.

Add a tag to the shortcut menu: Select the tag in the list, then drag it over the tag you want to replace in the favorites section at the bottom of the window. There can be up to seven tags in the shortcut menu that appears when you Control-click a file.
Remove a tag from the shortcut menu: Drag the tag out of the Favorite Tags section until you see the remove sign (X).
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/tag-files-and-folders-mchlp15236/mac


Waking closed lid macbooks using wireless We have carts of MacBooks and MacBook Pros that students use and close the lid and put them back in cart when they are done.  They use wireless networking and don't have USB or displays connected.  I am wondering if there is any way we can wake the MacBook remotely using wireless (WoWLAN?).  We don't want to have the setting where MacBook doesn't sleep when lid is closed.  Is there any way we can wake them on and have them connect to our wireless when their lid is closed?  The remote management software we use couldn't work when they are in the cart overnight.

Apple now says yes: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204032

  If your Mac supports Power Nap, these activities can occur while your Mac is asleep:
  [...]
  Mobile Device Management can remotely lock and wipe your Mac.

  And these activities can occur while your Mac is asleep and plugged in to an AC power outlet:

Software updates download.
Mac App Store items (including software updates), download in the background.
Time Machine performs backups.
Spotlight performs indexing.
Help Center content updates.
Wireless base stations can wake your Mac using Wake on Wireless.

Assuming Power Nap is on AND the laptop cart is a powered one AND is actually plugged into the wall (yes, that one's from experience), you should be able to reach them remotely. Apple Remote Desktop does with 10.11 and 10.12.


Ping respects hosts overrides - but browsers don't, in spite of DNS cache flushes I have a baffling problem. Browsers on my system (10.10.3 Yosemite) don't respect overrides included in my hosts file. This includes Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. I have tried rebooting, clearing history, clearing Chrome's DNS cache with

chrome://net-internals/#dns

and OSX/Safari's with

sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache

Chrome sometimes respect it for about 5 minutes at a time after clearing its DNS cache, but then miraculously stops again! And this is not reliable.

Ping through the terminal always respects the changes as it should.

I am completely out of ideas. Anyone?

There are similar problems (i.e. https://superuser.com/questions/648133/why-is-chrome-ignoring-etc-hosts-on-os-x) here on the network.

One answer is to follow this bug which must be solved eventually.

People also mention the plugin HostAdmin to workaround this issue.


How to change Open/Save dialog speed Open/Save dialogs on my Mac (macOS 10.14.1) delay about 0.5 to 1 seconds.

How do I change this delay to zero seconds?

You can change the speed of the Save/Open dialogs with Terminal. Enter this into Terminal to change the speed to the default:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSWindowResizeTime 0.2

Change the number at the end to speed up or slow down the animation. The following is practically instant:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSWindowResizeTime 0.001

This is not specific to the open/save dialog however, it reduces the time of all animations on the system that read this value.

How to turn off all animations on OS X


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

Starting with macOS Sierra 10.12.3, Apple has added a Live Photos Smart Album to Photos. It may be accessed from the Sidebar (View → Show Sidebar) or in Albums view (View → Albums).

It is still not possible to setup a custom Smart Album with Live Photo as a criterion.


How to disable file associations to an app before/after installing? I found this app that I needed to disable from association to music and video files that it's capable of opening, and the app doesn't have an option to disassociate filetypes.

It's a media player, and after installation, it tends to become the default app for both music and video filetypes.

Is there any terminal command to dissociate the apps from any filetype it's defaulted to?

If not, any way to disable it from associating files as a default player for those filetypes?

Thanks!

lsregister is the command to deal with Launch Services. To unregister an app use the -u option and the path to the app bundle. lsregister is not in the PATH - you have to use the full path to the executable:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -u /Applications/MediaPlayer.app


How to return back to the default view of pages in Pages? I've screwed something up with a settings and I cannot go back to the defaults. How to return back to the default view of displaying pages (page under page) instead of having them diagonally or page next to another page ? That's how it looks like rn

Welcome to Ask Different!

1) Untick the "Facing Pages" option on the right sidebar in the "Document" tab (the open tab in the picture you have shared). This should remove the diagonals.

2) Click on the "Zoom" pull-down menu on the left on the toolbar at the top and select "One Page". This should bring a next page below the previous one.

I highlighted these in red boxes in the screenshot below.

Hope these help.


Is there a terminal command to open applications in a specific Desktop? For example when I run open -a Kodi I'd like to be able to specify which Desktop I'd want the application to launch in.

Trying to avoid dragging/dropping to the desired workspace.

You can permanently assign an app to a Space by right-clicking the app in the dock > Options > Assign to... This Desktop.

A faster way to move it to any given Space is to grab the window's title bar, then use your regular shortcut to switch to the desired Space. By default that would be  Ctrl ⌃   [number]
See System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Mission Control if you've never set that up. [Note that it differentiates between the numbers above  qwerty & numbers on a 10-key pad & considers them different keys]


How To Make my Binary Translator Process Multiple Binary Numbers I'm currently building a binary translator (binary to text) in the AppleScript editor. The code I wrote only lets you input one binary number at a time. I want to enter in multiple binary numbers at a time and still have the code translate it. I've been thinking of lots of different ways to have the code translate multiple numbers (binary), but everything I try doesn't seem to work. I'm relatively new to AppleScript, and I'm pretty stumped. Here's the code:

set binaryString to text returned of (display dialog "Binary Goes Here:" default answer "" with icon note buttons {"Cancel", "Translator"} default button 2 with title "Binary Translator") as string
set n8 to character 1 of binaryString
set n7 to character 2 of binaryString
set n6 to character 3 of binaryString
set n5 to character 4 of binaryString
set n4 to character 5 of binaryString
set n3 to character 6 of binaryString
set n2 to character 7 of binaryString
set n1 to character 8 of binaryString
if n8 = "0" then
    set d8 to 0
else if n8 = "1" then
    set d8 to 128
end if
if n7 = "0" then
    set d7 to 0
else if n7 = "1" then
    set d7 to 64
end if
if n6 = "0" then
    set d6 to 0
else if n6 = "1" then
    set d6 to 32
end if
if n5 = "0" then
    set d5 to 0
else if n5 = "1" then
    set d5 to 16
end if
if n4 = "0" then
    set d4 to 0
else if n4 = "1" then
    set d4 to 8
end if
if n3 = "0" then
    set d3 to 0
else if n3 = "1" then
    set d3 to 4
end if
if n2 = "0" then
    set d2 to 0
else if n2 = "1" then
    set d2 to 2
end if
if n1 = "0" then
    set d1 to 0
else if n1 = "1" then
    set d1 to 1
end if
set decimalString to (d1 + d2 + d3 + d4 + d5 + d6 + d7 + d8)
set asciiString to (ASCII character (decimalString))
return asciiString

Your script can be heavily simplified.  What it looks like you're doing is converting a binary number into base 10 (denary), and then from there into a character code.  (Side-note: It's always helpful to try and be explicit in describing what your code does--or is intending to do.)

set bits to every character in the text returned of ¬
    (display dialog "Binary Input:" with icon note ¬
    buttons {"Cancel", "Convert"} default button 2 ¬
    with title "Binary to Text Conversion")

set |2ⁿ| to 1 -- powers of 2, i.e. 2⁰, 2¹, 2², 2³,..., 2⁷
set d to 0    -- the base 10 value (replaces your decimalString)

repeat with bit in the reverse of the bits
    set d to d + bit * |2ⁿ|
    set |2ⁿ| to 2 * |2ⁿ|
end repeat

set char to character id d
return char

You wish to repeat this process multiple times to convert as many binary numbers as the user supplies.  There aren't a great many options for easily allowing multiple values to be obtained from a user.  But it looks like you're experimenting with binary/text encoding of data, and that these binary numbers likely represent 8 bits of a single byte of data, therefore it seems reasonable to let a user supply as many bytes of data he wishes in a single input dialog, simply separating each binary value by a space, e.g.

"1011010 11010011 01011000 ..."

which would represent three bytes of data in binary form that are easy to split into individual items and converted one-by-one.

To this end, it makes sense to put the chunk of code that does the base conversion inside a handler (function) that can be re-used again and again to perform as many conversions as one needs without having to write out identical code again and again.

Here's a draft of a script that does all of this:

set bytes to every word in the text returned of ¬
    (display dialog "Binary Input:" with icon note ¬
    buttons {"Cancel", "Convert"} default button 2 ¬
    with title "Binary to Text Conversion")

set chars to {} -- this will fill with each decimal conversion

repeat with bits in bytes
     -- call the handler below
    set end of chars to the decimal from bits
end repeat

-- Now convert the decimal numbers to text
return character id chars

# A handler that takes a binary number and returns its decimal
# representation.  The binary value can be passed in any of the
# following ways:
#        1. a list of characters of numbers
#             e.g. {0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0}, or
#                  {"0", "1", "0", "1", "1", "0", "1", "0"}
#        2. a string, e.g. "01011010"
#        3. a number, e.g. 1011010
to decimal from binary as {list, text, integer}
    local binary

    set |2ⁿ| to 1
    set d to 0

    tell a reference to binary to if its class ≠ list then ¬
        set the contents to the characters of (it as text)

    repeat with bit in the reverse of the binary
        set d to d + bit * |2ⁿ|
        set |2ⁿ| to 2 * |2ⁿ|
    end repeat

    return d
end decimal


MacOS uses virtual-memory / swap a lot I have a MacBook Pro at work and I think it uses too much swap instead of RAM.

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier:   MacBookPro13,1
Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed:    2 GHz
Number of Processors:   1
Total Number of Cores:  2
L2 Cache (per Core):    256 KB
L3 Cache:   4 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Boot ROM Version:   MBP131.0205.B22
SMC Version (system):   2.36f97
Serial Number (system): C02TL0KGGVC8
Hardware UUID:  09325653-7FB0-52CC-A599-063539D1010A

I am used to monitoring UNIX system activity using htop. I notice that my OS X never uses more than half of the RAM, but uses more swap instead. Usually 7 GB of swap, but it can be more.

My question is, should not my OS use more RAM before swap ? I read about how OS X handles the swap and I feel like it is a loss of computational power. Writing pages in and out is really time consuming and is not as fast as using RAM

I try to compare with my Ubuntu 16.04 distribution at home which doesn't swap unless the memory is full. But maybe the 2 OS have different behaviors, though they are both UNIX based.

I also printed out the output of the vm_stat command to check if there were any difference, because maybe htop is not reporting it accurately. I noticed that htop reports a varying maximum swap capacity, from 3 to 16. Why is it not a fixed size partition as in Ubuntu?

Mach Virtual Memory Statistics: (page size of 4096 bytes)
Pages free:                                6743.
Pages active:                           1005803.
Pages inactive:                          903490.
Pages speculative:                          361.
Pages throttled:                              0.
Pages wired down:                        837598.
Pages purgeable:                           9241.
"Translation faults":                6115698117.
Pages copy-on-write:                  107293117.
Pages zero filled:                   2540298644.
Pages reactivated:                   1039487337.
Pages purged:                          52550607.
File-backed pages:                       482299.
Anonymous pages:                        1427355.
Pages stored in compressor:             5968822.
Pages occupied by compressor:           1439832.
Decompressions:                      1456775259.
Compressions:                        1606172332.
Pageins:                             1393246141.
Pageouts:                              25235109.
Swapins:                              562867577.
Swapouts:                             582845342.

First - yes, the OS in general will use RAM before swap. There's no loss of computational power involved in that.

You seem to have jumped to the conclusion that macOS is using swap, when it could as well be using free memory based on the htop screenshot. You cannot make that conclusion from a simple sample of the memory usage.

In reality, you could have been running programs that were using a lot of RAM forcing macOS to swap memory to disk. Then you quit some of those programs (or they deallocated a chunk of RAM). Then if you take a htop sample now, you'll see that RAM usage is low (lots of free RAM), but you're also using lots of swap.

But that is not a problem - in fact it is intended to be this way!
It wouldn't be wise for macOS to start swapping in those pages that have been placed on disk. It will do this when they're required (i.e. used by programs), but until that happens, it could be that those pages would never be used - and thus time spent swapping them in will be lost.

You write that in comparison to your Ubuntu PC you observe a different behaviour. You should know that you can actually change that behaviour. On Linux you can use sysctl to set the vm.swappiness variable. It will change how aggressive the OS is in swapping things out to disk.

You also ask why your macOS system does not use fixed size swap as Ubuntu does. In fact, Ubuntu also supports dynamic sized swap using the "swapspace" command. You can set minimum and maximum sizes, and it will dynamically add/remove swap space as needs change.


accepting Xcode license without having whole Xcode I have installed XCL(Xcode command line) through xcode-select --install therefore, not whole Xcode installed.

and I can see the path

xcode-select -print-path
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools

However, I need to accept the license, but it complains that the Xcode is not installed

sudo xcodebuild -license
xcode-select: error: tool 'xcodebuild' requires Xcode, but active developer directory '/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools' is a command line tools instance

If you recommend me to install whole Xcode first ? should I uninstall XCT first ? and if so how !

Running xcodebuild requires you to have the whole Xcode (GUI) package installed.

Instead run this command:

 sudo xcrun cc

It will allow you to accept the license from the CLI.


iTunes sync does not delete songs My wife's iPhone 4 has some albums synced on her iPhone that are not selected to be synced in iTunes.

She has "Selected playlists, artists, albums and genres" selected.

She is using a wired sync and Wireless Sync is disabled.

/edit
All her content in iTunes, and that synced to the iPhone, is ripped from the original CD.
/endedit

No playlist contains this album
the artist is not selected
the album is not selected
no genres are ticked at all

How is the album still there after sync?

Please note, I told her about the ability to remove the album from within Music on the iPhone, this question is purely about why the album is still there after a sync with iTunes.

/edit
All her content in iTunes, and that synced to the iPhone, is ripped from the original CD.  She is not using iTunes Match.
/endedit

"Sync only checked songs and videos" was un-ticked.

When an iOS device is connected to iTunes, under the device's Summary tab, the Options section has a checkbox Named "Sync only checked songs and videos"; this option enforces the removal of music that is not set to sync if it has been synced to the device in the past.

Ticking the box and then syncing removed the offending album.


How do I save data from old 2 old iPhones then transfer data from one to the other? My wife has an iPhone 3, 8GB, that is slowly dying. My mother (who is dead) left me her iPhone, a 16GB 3GS.

How do I:

Keep all the information from the phones. My mother's phone especially has sentimental value?
Wipe the 3GS?
Transfer everything from the 3 to the 3GS?

We don't care if the phone is jail-broken or not (they are not at the moment). Both phones are on the same provider.

iTunes can back up everything except for data that came from a computer.

That means apps not authorized on your iTunes, music from a computer and pictures not taken on the device (stored in the camera roll) are not backed up. Assuming you don't need to recover that information, just back up the devices and archive the iTunes backup folders so you can re-load those backups on another comparable device from a PC or a Mac.

Read up on the details here:

iPhone and iPod touch: About backups

Once you've got a sure backup (I'd get a loaner phone from a friend to check the restore to see that you are happy before erasing any of the devices), you can then restore the "wife" backup onto the "mom" phone.


Are there any directories of the official icons used in macOS? Things like the share sheet, the forwards and backwards glyphs, the magnifying glass, etc. are standard across macOS.

Is there any official repository of these glyphs? It would seem to be extremely useful.

Most of the icons are in the System folder. Just enter the System Folder, hit Cmd+F, click +, select Kind in the first dropdown box and Image in the second. This should get most of the icons.

Others are in the Apple Symbols font, as Tom pointed out.

A few more can be found here: /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources.


In Search/Spotlight, can you exclude files within $HOME/Library? I am trying to make some Smart Folders to compensate for the woefully useless Recents folder but I am having some problems trying to filter out things I don't want to appear.

One of them is excluding anything that is anywhere within the $HOME/Library directory or some approximation of that. I looked into the additional file attributes that are usable as search criteria that can be used in making a Smart Folder (in other words, the list that comes up when you click "other" in the search criteria menu) for things like "path", "has parent directory", or anything similar which would indicate the file/folder is buried in $HOME/Library somewhere. "Name" only pertains to actual file name and "Document Container" only pertains to the immediate parent directory. I cannot find any attribute whatsoever which might have the full path shown.

Is there a work-around for this, or perhaps, is there a file attribute that has this info that I am simply not seeing that is available?

Anyone know iff

Spotlight does not index file paths as a property of a file. Thus you can't search for files by path. You also can't ask it to find or exclude files by their parent folder.

You thus need to resort to a two-step process:

Run a search against the Spotlight index. You can do so at the
command line using the mdfind command Filter the results to hide
those in your Library folder.
You could use the  grep command. Alternatively, you can paste the results from mdfind in a spreadsheet and use that to filter the list.

You can get the results you want using the HoudahSpot application. This has the option to specify more than one search location and to exclude locations. HoudahSpot also has an option to filter search results by path. Here you can apply regular expressions.

HoudahSpot can save searches as Finder "Smart Folders".  Since the feature you are after is not supported by Finder, the restriction on locations and filters will however be lost in the process.

HoudahSpot has a concept of "Templates" that you can use to much of the same effect as "Smart Folders".

Full disclosure: HoudahSpot is a commercial product of which I am the developer.


How does Time Machine work for a photographer I am a photographer and I use photos that are about 15Mb each. I take hundreds of these per month and edit, let's say, about 500 per month. And sometimes I'll go back a week later and tweak a batch some more.

Could someone explain, in detail, how the back-up process works? I'd like to be able to figure out how large of a back up drive I should get.

Is it backing up/creating a new image file after every tweak of every knob I make in LightRoom?

Actually, somewhat related, is this how lightroom works? It comes with a "history" feature and I wonder how it is I can revert a photo on lightroom if it was to not create a copy over and over while I'm editing.

Could someone explain, in detail, how the back-up process works?

Yes. Nobody better than the late Pondini, however: How Time Machine Works its Magic. Essentially, the first time you backup a machine, a full clone of the internal drive (with the exception of a few unneeded directories) occurs. Thereafter, every hour an incremental backup occurs, where all changes to the drive are backed up. For everything that hasn't changed, hard links are created to the full version . After 24 hours, hourly backups are pruned and consolidated into a daily backup. The same process extends to daily backups after a week (all daily backups from that week are consolidated to one week).

  I'd like to be able to figure out how large of a back up drive I should get.

It is recommended to purchase a drive at least twice the size of the drive (or cumulative size of drives) you are backing up.

  Is it backing up/creating a new image file after every tweak of every knob I make in LightRoom?

No, not Time Machine at least. Only hourly. Every hour, time machine reads changes from the file system events store and backs up any folder in which file changes within it have occurred.

  is this how lightroom works? It comes with a "history" feature and I
  wonder how it is I can revert a photo on lightroom if it was to not
  create a copy over and over while I'm editing.

I can't speak to exactly how lightroom works, but in doing so it's taking advantage of the same features Time Machine is taking advantage of: an HFS+ (journaled) file system in which changes are routinely catalogued by OS X itself. This allows programs to retain previous versions of files in their cache. Even TextEdit, for example, allows one to revert to previous versions without Time machine even enabled.


Using locate.updatedb doesn't work in Lion A week ago I upgraded to Lion from Snow Leopard. I want to use the locate command, but the locate database has not been built yet. So I tried running

sudo launchctl -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.locate.plist

The plist file only points to /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb and I keep getting the following error in syslog su: pam_acct_mgmt: error in service module
When I try running locate.updatedb directly I get the same error in syslog.

I could handle not using locate, but what bugs me the most is that I don't know what's causing the issue.

Debugging pam can be tricky.

Have you tried making a real root shell with sudo -s and running the /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb command.

Alternatively, you could try making a new admin account to be sure your admin account has correct privelages/authentication. Any odd things like server or OpenLDAP that we should know of?


Extend "Hey Siri" Timeout? If I breathe or pause longer than half a nanosecond, Siri decides I'm done talking and ends the command there.

"Hey Siri remind me tonight at 11 to update vmware tools on---" I couldn't even get the server name out. I hadn't paused for even a fraction of a second.

How do I extend this on the iPhone Xs Max?

P.S. I've noticed Google has this same problem on Gboard.

You can extend the time out limit by pressing the Home Button until you stop speaking. This way Siri won’t stop till you release the home button.

As you have no home button try holding down the right side button while you speak.


How to disconnect from wifi on Mac OS X How does one disconnect from a wifi hotspot on Mac OS X?

The only way I found how is to Turn Wi-Fi off then back on and finally select a different access point...

Surely there must be a better way.

Hold down the option key when you click on the WiFi menu. Then next to the currently active network there will be a "Disconnect from" option. I'm on Yosemite, and so I'm not sure whether this was present on earlier versions of OS X.


Frequently get "The backup disk image “/Volumes/TimeMachine/MyMBPro.sparsebundle” is already in use" message I have been plagued with this problem for well over a year, and am hoping someone can shed some light on what is going on.

My setup is that I have a Macbook Pro that I use with a monitor while I'm at home, but I take it out of the house on a daily basis. While I'm at home, I backup the machine to a Western Digital MyBookLive network drive, using Time Machine. This arrangement worked just fine for the longest time. But about last year (sometime in Mountain Lion), I started having this issue where every time I'd come home and connect to my local WiFi, TimeMachine would kick in but soon gives me this message:

  The backup disk image “/Volumes/TimeMachine/MyMBPro.sparsebundle” is
  already in use

I've looked far and wide for a proper solution to how to resolve this issue, but not found one.

The temporary solution (recommended by various websites) is always to restart the MyBookLive, either by disconnecting it's power or using it's website to restart, both of which are annoying and time-consuming options, especially on a daily basis. The Pondi website seems to suggest some network drive has been left connected, but that's not the case either.

There has to be a better way. Should I be disconnecting my machine before leaving the house to prevent this message when I reconnect? I've tried sleeping the computer before leaving, but that doesn't help. Neither does trying to "Skip this backup", which takes forever to finish up.

If someone has a good work-around or a suggestion I could try out, I'd really appreciate it.

Do you have access to you Western Digital MyBookLive via ssh ?
Can you change some config files from it?

I believe Western Digital MyBookLive use netatalk for allow connect to it via afp protocol from mac os x.
If it is true, when you abnormally disconnect from you MyBookLive netatalk wait by default 24 hours before dropping you connection see disconnect time parameter.

If you have access via ssh to you MyBookLive you can add "disconnect time = 1" parameter (one hour before dropping you connection) to the afp.conf file

And you can set "sleep time = 1" (Keep sleeping AFP sessions for number hours before disconnecting clients in sleep mode. Default is 10 hours.)

If you don't have access via ssh. I don't now. Maybe need check new firmware for you device, contact WD technical support on this issue.


How can I edit the original Myst app so that it no longer requires the CD to play? I just discovered SheepShaver and I'm mindblowingly excited!

I got all my old Mac games out of storage and began to install all of them.

A trick that I learned awhile ago for making playing games on OS X is to simply make a disk image of the CD and then mount that when I want to play.

I read about a 'technique' for making Riven play without the Disks which is essentially to edit the riven.cfg file that comes with the install to no longer point to the CDs but instead to point to local directories. I figured something like this should be possible with Myst.

Turns the Myst app looks to be some sort of Hypercard script. I made what I felt was a logical edit to it which was removing all Myst: prefixes that I could find in the file but that makes the app inoperable. I figured someone else would know how to do this better than me.

Thoughts?

You could make a disk image of the Myst CD and mount that for sheepshaver.

The original Myst for Mac was indeed an enormous Hypercard script. The Myst: prefixes you refer to are the program referencing the Myst CD. Classic Mac OS used colons as directory delimiters, so the file paths would appear as Myst:Images:Clocktower.jpg in Classic Mac OS or /Volumes/Myst/Images/Clocktower.jpg in OS X. You'll need to rewrite the paths to point to some local file directory.

Say you installed the Myst app in an Applications folder at the root of the system disk. (This is the OS X location and is not correct or typical for Classic Mac OS, but I have no idea where Classic users stuck apps, so I'll use OS X conventions as a fallback.) This would be /Applications in OS X, so it's Macintosh HD:Applications in Classic (assuming, of course, that you haven't renamed the boot disk). Drag the contents of the Myst CD to a Myst folder on the root level of the boot disk (Macintosh HD:Myst:). Then you can re-point all the file paths in Myst to that directory.

Programming note: I'm on Windows at work at the moment, so I've no way to test this immediately. Caveat emptor, but this ought to work.


Installation Software DVDs on Macbook Pro MC721ZA/A I bought MacBook Pro today, when I reached home, I unboxed its contents, but I didn't find any Software DVD for Mac OS Lion installation. I called the seller, he told me that there are no Software DVDs included since Mac OS Lion installed Macbook Pros. He said there is a process by which you can re-install the OS without using DVD. He will let me know of which by Monday.

I like to make sure that what he said is that true?

Thanks

If it has Lion pre-installed then you have no DVD's.  If you hold option while booting up, it will allow you to boot into a recovery HD to reinstall the OS.


iMac screen fogging up I leave my iMac (24') next to the sliding door in the lounge at night. The door remains open, so the air gets very cold at night. When I turn my computer on in the morning the screen fogs up inside, presumable because of the cold air inside warming up quite suddenly from the heat of the LCD.

Is there an easy fix, or a way to avoid this happening?

Consider the operating temperatures of the iMac and see if you’re not going beyond the limits. Electronics cannot (and shouldn’t) be operated beyond temperature limits. As much as heat is bad, extreme cold is not good either.

As already suggested, do not expose your iMac to “very cold air at night”.


More information on Instagram having access to my person photos on my phones camera roll. If I give Instagram access to my iPhone 6 camera roll, does that mean my followers and people on Instagram, have access to it too? Can everyone see my camera roll photos on my phone?

It's not Instagram as a whole which needs access to your camera roll but the Instagram app. Without the access right, the app will not be able to access the camera roll if you want to publish a photo taken outside of the Instagram app.

But even with this access right granted, you still are in control of the photos you share with your Instagram friends. They will not be able to access photos in your camera roll.


How do I get my address to appear at the top of contacts? The scenario is that I've moved six times in the last six years, and can never remember my home number. (Let alone the postcode of my PO Box.) So I have to look it up all the time.

In one of the iOS updates (9.0.1?) - my address was displayed at the top of the Contacts - so I could jump straight to it. Then it went away again.

I'd like this feature back. I'm sure there must be a setting.

My question is: How do I get my address to appear at the top of contacts?

You'll need to create a contact for yourself with the home address, phone number, etc. To do this, create a contact with your information like any other contact. Then, go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, & Calendars. Scroll down to "My Info," and select the contact you just created.

Then, your contact card will appear at the top of the Contacts list every time.


How to mount a hard drive to AirPort Extreme? I have the new AirPort Extreme 802.11ac. I plugged in my 2TB Western Digital external hard drive into the AirPort Extreme USB port. I tried to find the mounted hard drive in my networks on Windows and the AirPort app on iPad and nothing comes up.

Make sure the hard drive is formatted correctly and working properly. Do this by plugging it into your computer first. If you plug it into a PC because you don't have a Mac and it works, then it's probably formatted NTFS. This is bad because Airport Extreme can't read NTFS, and PC's can't format HFS+. You could reformat it as FAT32 but you will waste a lot of space depending on the size of your files. Your best option would be to find a friend with a Mac or just go to the Apple store and format your hard drive as HFS+.

In simple words, if a Mac can copy files to the drive, then it should work fine with the Airport Extreme. If the hard drive is formatted factory default and the box doesn't say "Mac" somewhere on it, then it probably will not work with the Airport Extreme without being formatted by a Mac.


Problem with sending pictures to icloud I have icloud which is almost empty, because my phone does not send pictures to icloud. It has sent only 88 pictures and rest of them are in the phone, and I cannot take pictures anymore because I dont have place. Why?

on your iPhone go to settings and tap the top button with your name. On the screen that comes up tap icloud. On next screen tap Photos. On that screen make sure 'iCloud Photo library' is on and make sure 'Optimize iPhone Storage' is checked. Then wait awhile as photos are moved to icloud.


Cannot log in on Youtube iPad app I get an Authentication failed error when I try to log in to the Youtube iPad app. But the same username and password work on Youtube Safari and other browsers.

Do you have two-factor authentication enabled on your Google account? If so, you may have to create an application-specific password for the YouTube login.

http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=184968


VoiceOver Rotor on Mac… why is called "Rotor?" I was giving a presentation on accessibility tools for the Mac and launched the VoiceOver Rotor utility. Someone in the audience asked why it was called "Rotor?" I had no answer for them. In doing some Googling around, I saw that on iOS, the Rotor is like a virtual knob that allows you to toggle through various functions:

It being called "Rotor" makes sense if it's a knob-like thing, I guess. But it's just a series of lists on the Mac.

Did the rotor come to iOS first and now that it's on the Mac it has just inherited the name? Or is there some other origin to its name that I'm not seeing?

I think its as simple as the two-fingered turning gesture is analogous to turning a rotor/knob/dial. There isn’t a secret meaning.


How to restart using an app without it accessing older data? An app that I tried out a couple years ago somehow keeps identifying my old trial data (it required a signup with email, but now I'm trying to signup using a different email), even if I delete the app, reset the advertising identifier, and reinstall the app. The app did not require connecting with any third party data, such as signing in with a google account.

Is there any way that I can "anonymize" my device without having to completely reset it?

It depends on how the app was made. The way you describe it, it sounds like the app uses Apple's DeviceCheck to ensure that it can only be trialed once.

If that is the case, then you cannot as a user reset the data - not even by completely resetting your phone.


Does High Sierra erase FileVault key on hibernate? Before today, with 10.12, and now (High Sierra 10.13), I had DestroyFVKeyOnStandby 1. With 10.12, I would open the lid to my laptop after it had been hibernating for a bit, hit the power button, and I would be prompted for 2 passwords (identical). I would enter the first password, a status bar would progress, and then I would be prompted for the second password.

With 10.13, everything is the same, but the first password prompt is missing. I always figured the status bar (in 10.12) meant it was decrypting the disk (or part of it). If that is the case, now it's decrypting before it even asks me for the one password to let me in. That is to say, there is the status bar, then the password prompt.

Any clarity on why this might be different and if there is anything we should know would be appreciated.

UPDATE
After toggling DestroyFVKeyOnStandby and restarting a few times (ultimately, I changed nothing), the situation is as follows:

After hibernating, I press power key, Apple logo appears, enter FileVault/Login PW, progress bar, finally desktop. This is the opposite of my previous situation [progress bar -> PW prompt]. Good, but still only one PW prompt. Why? My guess is the machine knows they are the same (set them at the same time)?

I can now recreate my previous situation by setting DestroyFVKeyOnStandby  0(it wasn't 0 before). This is what 0 should do.

Additionally if I set DestroyFVKeyOnStandby 1 and turn off sleep-screen-lock, I am still prompted for a PW. This leads me to believe my machine is asking for my FileVault PW, the intended outcome.

I guess my final advice would be to fiddle with your DestroyFVKeyOnStandby a bit and restart a few times. I know that's not very scientific, but it shouldn't hurt.

Apparently removing /Library/Preferences/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist, and then running an pmset -a DestroyFVKeyOnStandby 1 as Root has gotten things working reliably again.

I have no idea what is causing this file to take precedence over the com.apple.PowerManagement.<UUID>.plist file again on every update, but it is rather annoying to have to remember to remove the non-UUID config file every time.


Can't update OS from 10.7.3 to Mavericks I have created a Mavericks OS bootable SD card that I am trying to get onto my Macbook pro 2011 model.

Every time I try to boot from that card using 'Option' or by selecting to use it as t the startup disk. It just brings me back to the same old Lion 10.7 installer.

On top of that I can't get that to install either because when I try to install it I get the error message 'This item is temporarily unavailable, try again later'

What do I do?

Sorry, don't yet have the reputation to comment...

Have you tried simply copying or downloading the entire Install OS X Mavericks.app to the drive you need to update & running it from there? That's the prime update method.


How do I create a Folder Action Script to tar items dropped in folder? I would like to drop/copy files/folders and have them compressed then copied to my desktop. This is what I know so far... and it isn't much so any help would be appreciated.

on adding folder items to theFolder after receiving theAddedItems
repeat with x in theAddedItems

This will create my list of files dropped into the folder. Now my compression command...

tar cvf - *variableForFileListHere* | gzip -9 - > files.tar.gz

Somehow I know I have to feed the list "theAddedItems" created in the first part of the script to the tar command. But I'm clueless as to how this might be done. Reading now about tar and it's options as I'm sure there is an "include" function for pointing to a list of items to add to the archive.

Rather than spending your time with Folder Actions (which I, and many others, have found to be unreliable), might I suggest that you give Hazel a try?

http://www.noodlesoft.com

Disclaimers: I'm going to start off by telling you it isn't free (it's US$28), but if you like automation, this is the place to start. There is a free 14-day trial. I am completely unrelated to the company except as an extremely happy user.

Hazel allows you to create 'folder actions' very easily using a nice GUI which is similar to creating Mail.app rules. You can take action depending on filename, extension, kind (i.e. "images, documents, movies") and many other.

Here is the rule I use for any file/folder added to ~/Action/ZipIt/

Hazel looks for any file which is not already an archive (I could have told it to act on any files at all, but I want to avoid compressing files which are already compressed). I could add other criteria (which could be options or requirements, like boolean "AND" or "OR" statements).

Whatever it is will be archived, then moved to the Desktop, then it will be shown to me in the Finder.

See the little "Options" button next to the 'Move to Desktop'? Click on that and you can tell Hazel what to do if it detects that the file you are going to move is a duplicate.

There is also an option to have Finder brought to the front or not.

There are lots of other actions Hazel can do besides archive:

(Note: iPhoto and Aperture are greyed out because I don't have them installed.)

The options to run AppleScript/Automator/shell scripts means that you have the power to do pretty much anything you can imagine.

I could go on and on, but here's one more example: I have Hazel watch ~/Downloads/ for .zip files. When it finds them, it unzips them to ~/Action/Unzipped/ (you can do this either by telling Archive Utility to use that folder, or use The Unarchiver). Hazel then looks in ~/Action/Unzipped/ for new files which end with .app and, if found, moves them to /Applications/ and opens them. Voilà! Instant installation of apps.

In the world of 99¢ apps, $28 probably sounds like a huge expense, but to me Hazel is one of those tools which takes something Apple did, but not very well (Folder Actions), and replaces it with something that will make you wonder why Apple didn't do it. You get a 2 week trial, and a dedicated developer who has worked on this app for years, and who is very good at answering support questions.

Sorry to sound like a fanboi, but when it comes to Hazel and a few other Mac apps, I really am.


Third party SSD optimization Yosemite Unaware of the current issues with Third-Party SSD support on Yosemite I went ahead and bought a 128 GB Crucial MX100 SSD.

I hear a lot of problems about enabling Trim on Yosemite etc.

I recently download Chameleon SSD Optimizer. Using this software I enabled Trim and smart optimization.

Question 1:

What is all the commotion about Trim? Chameleon seemed to have no problem enabling Trim.

Question 2:

What options should I set with Chameleon SSD Optimizer (i.e - Sudden Motion Sensor, NOATIME, Time Machine, Sleep Mode/Image)?

Basically, what is it that Chameleon does to optimize SSD performance and where does Trim come into this, and why are people giving out, this is my main curiosity? Everything seems OK to me...

I would like as much info as possible but assume no prior knowledge

The TRIM command was introduced to facilitate “garbage collection” of deleted data, allowing the SSD to reset those “unused” blocks back to an “empty” state. This allows for better performance for many SSDs.

All Chameleon does is hack your SSD to enable TRIM. What the hack does is basically tell the OS that the non-Apple SSDs in the system are Apple drives so TRIM can be engaged with them.

Some people have not been able to boot up with Yosemite because it doesn't support TRIM but programs such as Chameleon have created a work around. The real issue is that the TRIM hack needed to be applied every time you upgraded to a new OS version, which was a real pain. But now that is not a issue. Hope this helps.


iPhone graph of - Average sleep per week or month I am trying to track my sleep, currently using Pillow.  But there is a lot of variation in my sleep per night. I’m looking for an app that displays a graph of the average hours of sleep per night for a week so I can more easily see how the average is changing over weeks and months.

Something like a weeklong rolling avg as a  smoothing function on top of what Pillow and the Apple Health apps give you out of the box.

Does anyone know of an app with a graph like this?

Autosleep works for me really well the last 6 months.

AutoSleep Tracker for Watch by Tantsissa https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/autosleep-tracker-for-watch/id1164801111?mt=8

I’m much more inclined to get the best data wearing my watch at night, but it does work well if you use charging your phone as proxy for when you lie down and when you get up. Of course you can manually start and stop your rest periods, but for me that is the last hint I want to do before and after resting.


iTunesConnect sign in trouble I have trouble with iTunesConnect.

Since yesterday my Apple developer account is activated.
When I sign in the Dev Centers it's working fine.
But on iTunesConnect, when I try to sign in, I'm connecting to an account where I'm admin AND NOT legal (it's the same apple id, I'm connecting to an account where i'm just a user not the owner).

How to sign in my own dev account ?

If your Apple ID works to log you into iTunes Connect and you lack some authorities on your primary Apple ID - here are the things I would do in order:

Log out and then open a private browsing / incognito window and then log back in without any pesky cookies or other history.
Go to Agreements, Tax, and Banking and verify that you have two valid Master Agreements that are both effective and not expired and then click done.
Go to Users and Roles and click on the AppleID you are using.
Go to Roles and verify that the Legal and Admin check boxes are grey and selected.
Repeat the above step for any additional AppleID that are associated with your account to verify the proper roles for each (if you have secondary accounts).
If all else fails, go to Resources and Help and click the Contact Us to request one-on-one help with your specific account since you will be unlikely to fix whatever is wrong at that point yourself on iTunes Connect since it would be a server side data issue and/or that you haven't accepted the required legal agreements during the sign up and activation process.


spotlight math calculation precision 0 = 1E-29? Any idea why if typed into spotlight search, the first formula results in 1E-29, while second formula result in 0?

Can a step-by-step explanation be had as to why this bug exists?

It's clear this calculation is performed with floating-point arithmetic, though I believe as there is no "floating-point" per-se in this calculation, the inequality is a bug, and not a result of floating-point arithmetic limitations.  My intuition tells me this could be done with only integer arithmetic as there is no negative value and no decimal point.

To be clear, I don't rely on my intuition, and I'm happy to be told that it is wrong, if that is indeed the case.  I'm just interested in the specific anomaly that leads to this inaccuracy.

(1024*64) - (2^16) = 1E-29

(1024*128) - (2^17) = 0

Clearly it’s a bug if you believe the exact math should match. It’s probably also a feature since the math library chosen was likely chosen to be fast and small for the math it needs to do and not scientific accuracy for calculating a moon landing.

This sort of rounding errors happens all the time, especially if you’re sloppy or don’t implement a guard digit for “small numbers” like 65k. All math libraries make approximations when they encode values, so the bits sometimes matter when you are checking for something that’s very close to zero. In your example the two large numbers aren’t perfectly represented and you get a very insignificant rounding error that doesn’t cancel perfectly when the subtraction happens in one case but not the other. The 1e-29 should be rounded to zero IMO unless the goal is to introduce people to this concept.

When you need to be precise, use PCalc or another calculator that handles precision and rounding properly.

Also, if you take 1E-29 of the weight of the earth, that’s just under 60 mg. If you were estimating the mass of the earth, you’d be of by more than a snowflake and less than a grain of sand. This quite literally is the proverbial “making a mountain out of a mole hill”.

http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1e-29+*+weight+of+earth

That being said, if you like math or computers, this is very cool, since it exposes the internal representation of a number and you see how an approximation can cause rounding errors for not that very large numbers in this case. There are legendary (to engineers and programmers at least) books devoted to numerical recipes and tricks to do quick and accurate calculations when you don’t bring along a perfect math library.


How to add multiple phone numbers to iMessage? Is there a way to add more than one number to iMessage?

Yes, there is a way to add more than one number to iMessage. Just establish cellular service and SMS capability from any carrier you choose for each phone number you wish to have for iMessage. On each iPhone that has that service, sign in to iMessage.

I've had three numbers with one Apple ID in the past, so it wasn't a problem other than the obvious one of having three phones.


iTerm2: Notice about PHP7.1 Every time I open a new iTerm2 window is shown the following warning:

Warning: Use php@7.1 instead of deprecated homebrew/php/php71

Anyone can help me out please?

I've uninstalled PHP, and installed again, and the problem remains.

I've also checked this HomeBrew PHP issue but after I run:

brew untap homebrew/php

I get the following:

Error: No available formula with the name "homebrew/php/php71"
Please tap it and then try again: brew tap homebrew/php

After I run the last command recommended I get again the initial warning.

I have macOS High Sierra 10.13.3.

Thanks in advance.

Check your shell config files (i.e. .bashrc, .zshrc, etc.) Chances are, somewhere in there you're calling $(brew --prefix homebrew/php/php71), probably as part of a PATH setting. When you installed php via brew, it provided instructions for setting the path that would have included the above line.

I was seeing the exact same message, and changing this line solved the issue for me. You can change it to $(brew --prefix php@7.1) if you still need it.


Is there a way for me to open a .xdi file? I have on my computer a file that as been compress with the .xdi extension.

Is there a way for me on my Mac OS X to open it?

If you absolutely have to use a Mac to open the xdi file, and you have Parallels or some other virtual environment that can run Windows, you can install WinArchiver and open the file that way.

As far as I know there is no utility for Mac that can open xdi files because they are created using WinArchiver which is a Windows only app.


iPad app for collecting door-to-door survey information? I need to be able to develop a custom form so I can have workers go door to door and collect survey information.  Think census workers, but geared towards the upcoming election.

While I could develop a custom app, I expect to have to customize it heavily for each area, and make changes to the forms throughout the process.

In order to control costs we're not going with 3G service, so all the form data has to be collected on the device and saved until it's uploaded via wifi network (or any other method) later.

Are there any apps that let me design my own custom fields for form entry, and save the data on the device?
Simple database apps with custom forms or similar?

If I had my wishlist, it would also:

Automatically download the latest collected data when in range of a network.
Update a standard database server directly (MS SQL, Oracle, MySQL, other?).
Track the location the info was collected (difficult and imprecise, probably, since it's a wifi tablet only)
Allow hundreds of tablets to check in and upload to the central server at any time, including simultaneously
Prompts the survey recorder with a script - not just a form, but gives them what to say, what to ask, and leads them through a configurable tree of questions, some of which depend on previous questions answered.  For instance once they indicate their political affiliation, it might skip questions not appropriate to save time.

You could use Bento for iPad. It allows you to create custom databases with great looking entry screens. It will also store information on the device until you sync it again.


Is there an official list for iTunes / iOS version compatibility? I've found answers on this site stating that iOS 10 is not compatible with iTunes 12.2 (the latest iTunes version available for macOS 10.7). This helped with a problem I have.

Is there an official document from Apple that shows which iOS versions are compatible with which iTunes versions?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_iTunes#Devices

This is not an official apple document but it works.

Also, since you don't have any query about any other iOS or iTunes version, answer is link-only.


why is my snow leopard mac speaking 'welcome to rmit' when i join a network? I did a class at a university - RMIT.
Their network required a complex set up, which their tech support did for me.
I also set up Locomatic to switch locations when I went home and used my home network.

Every now and then, when I join my home network, my laptop says in a synthesised voice 'welcome to rmit'

Locomatic is now disabled, and I have deleted all the RMIT network and location details.

I've called rmit tech support but they claim to have no idea whats going on.
I've given up on RMIT tech support being part of a solution.

Any suggestions where I could look to solve this?

I have growl installed, the only other non apple sys prefs are mysql, flip4mac and Tex distribution. It could be a script using the say command, but as the voice is quiet and happens unexpectedly, I've never managed to listed to it carefully enough to confirm it is one of the apple voices and not an audio file.

Something is running a process when you connect to your home network. You said "Locomatic is now disabled" - have you actually uninstalled it?  Probably worth a try.  Here's the Manual.

You might also lay a trap for say by temporarily renaming /usr/bin/say to sayx, writing a wrapper script in /usr/bin called say that calls sayx and passes its arguments to it, but which doesn't exit when sayx returns.  The next time your system speaks up, you can look at the process list with ps -f or Activity Monitor and trace through the Parent Process IDs to find out who launched what, leading to the announcement.  In fact, I'd probably do this first to make sure I know about everything that might need cleaning up.


Midi in browser on Mountain Lion I recently moved on Mountain Lion. It seems that the OS does not allow midi playback in browser anymore. I can't find more informations but this threads: 1 ; 2

Can you help me to find a solution to get back my good old midi files in web pages?

Chrome still allows this, Safari doesn't. It is a per-browser configuration. To my knowledge, Safari does not currently have an option to re-enable this.


Deleting Desktop Background Images I want to free up some space on my hard drive by deleting things and I found that 2GB were being used just on desktop backgrounds. I don't particularly care what my desktop background is so I'd like to delete these files.

Unfortunately, no matter what I try, I can't seem to delete these files.

Things I've tried:

sudo rm ./*
deleting them through finder
chflags nouchg location/nameoffile.extension - i.e. unlocking the file
giving Terminal Full Disk Access

How can I delete these files?

Thanks,

Update: My version of macOS is 10.15.3

Okay I think I've figured it out. This was the recipe that worked:

Delete the Files

Reboot into recovery mode
Open the Terminal from the "Utilities" menu
csrutil disable as suggested by da4 (thanks!)
Reboot
mount -uw / i.e. mount the filesystem as writable
sudo rm -r "/System/Library/Desktop Pictures"/*

Restore System Integrity Protection

Reboot into recovery mode again
Open the Terminal from the "Utilities" menu
csrutil enable
Reboot


How can I prevent Music app from starting automatically randomly? The Music app which was introduced in Catalina continuously starts automatically on my Mac. It launches suddenly while I use the mac. The system doesn’t launch the app at the time of the startup.

I tried the followings:

Shutdown and restart the system.
SMC and PRAM reset.

The Music app cannot be deleted so it is very frustrating to see the app start automatically and play the music.

Is there any way to stop it from launching automatically? This question is not about the app being launched when you plug your iPhone to your Mac either.

UPDATED

I found out that Siri is also launched from time to time.

UPDATED 2

For Siri, I disabled it from System Preferences and it stopped popping up. However, the Music app keeps popping up and there is no solution yet.

I have had this experience and I discovered that my finger was lightly brushing the "Play" button on the MacBook Pro's Touchbar. If the current app has no hook for that button, it seems that macOS now choses to launch the Music app.

The solution should be to run launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.rcd.plist. See this howtogeek for details.


Where does Photos store iCloud photos shared with me? What is the location where Apple Photos stores Shared photos? I'm looking for the photos that appear under the Shared tab, to view them in the Finder.

My particular reason is that I'd like to enable these photos to be backed up by Google Photos Desktop Uploader. All of my own photos are being synced to Google, but not the ones that are shared with me. If I can find the local copy, I can turn it on in the uploader preferences.

I found the local storage location for iCloud shared images.

cd "/Users/simon/Library/Containers/com.apple.cloudphotosd/Data/Library/Application Support/com.apple.cloudphotosd/services/com.apple.photo.icloud.sharedstreams/assets"

Replace simon with your username.

Of course, the ridiculous obscurity of this path means they'll probably change it again, but this is what it is as of OS X 10.12.5 and Photos Version 2.0 (3150.4.120).


Airport Express Base Stations as Bridge I have two Apple A1264 Airport Express Base Stations. I acquired them from a client I did some work for awhile back who gave me some Apple hardware that he wasn't using anymore as payment since they were struggling. I don't have a huge Apple knowledge base...

Is there a way I can link these two base stations together to create a bridge to connect a wired device to my network across my house? The wall I need to go through doesn't have a good way to run a cable so I'm looking for alternative solutions, I basically want to connect a CAT6 cable from my device to one of the Airport Express stations and then I want to connect a CAT6 cable from my router to the other Airport Express station and have the device be reaching the router.

I searched for a couple of articles and from what I read you can create a WiFi to ethernet bridge using just one of these devices since my router isn't an Apple router. I was hoping someone here may have a creative solution on how I can use both of these devices to accomplish my task.

Thanks!

You may be able to do this with the "Extend a wireless network" option within the Airport Extreme, but a better solution may be to use power adapters to extend your network.


Is it safe for Mac not to sleep for over a month My 17 Inch, Late 2011 MacbookPro has a problem with its discrete graphic card it boots with vertical pink stripes screen then switches to a gray screen where it remains stuck for a while and then automatically reboots.

I googled the problem and figured a workaround. I just need to wait for the gray screen where my mac gets stuck, close the lid and wrap my mac with a blanket until it overheats and auto-shutdowns. I immediately then turn-on the overheated mac which will make it boot with the integrated card, and problem solved! After I login I use gfxCardStatus to set the graphics to integrated only.

The problem is if I close the lid to sleep my mac at some point, it will never open again unless I redo the entire overheating process. I'm aware Apple recognized the problem recently and is now offering free fixes to it but where I'm living right now there's only Apple recognized providers but no official Apple store. The Apple service provider representative told me that they will have to send my Mac abroad to fix it and that can take over a month which is too long for me... I have a project going on and I have to wrap it up before mid May.

My Mac works perfectly with the integrated card, and I'm thinking to keep it awake for about month until I finish my project then schedule a proper repair with AppleCare, which sounds safer than overheating my Mac every time I boot or wake my mac. My question is: is it too bad for my Mac to stay awake for over a month?

Won't fix your issue, but, anecdotally…

My Mac has been running 24/7 since 2008, never sleeping & only ever rebooting/shutting down for OS updates/hardware clean etc.

No issues so far.

So I'd say, yes, it's perfectly safe to leave it awake, so long as it has adequate cooling.


How to rebuild my Font Book database I was having trouble with my font cache in Photoshop, so per Adobe's instructions I reset the font cache with:

sudo atsutil databases –remove

Now, while most applications will show my fonts, Font Book comes up completely empty:

Is there something I need to do in order to restore my Font Book database?


Why won't Launchpad create a .db file? Restarts reset Launchpad Launchpad will not create a .db file in ~/Library/Application Support/Dock to save the state of Launchpad.

It always resets to default upon restart. I have tried many terminal commands, the most recent being:

rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db ; killall Dock

defaults write com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool true; killall Dock

How can I force Launchpad to create this file?

Check the permissions of the /Dock folder. If that's all good, try this issue out in a new administrator user over in System Preferences > Users & Groups.


In iPhoto, convert MJPEG videos to H.264? In iPhoto, I've got some old MJPEG videos that don't transfer to my iPod Touch. I've got new videos that I took with my iPod Touch that are in the H.264 format, so they transfer fine, of course.

How can I convert my MJPEG videos so that I can transfer them to my iPod? I assume I'd need to convert them to H.264 somehow. Is it possible to convert them, and keep the metadata associated with them as well, especially the date that the videos were taken?

Probably need to use QuickTime for this (or maybe iMovie if you prefer) -- as far as built-in solutions go. There's a built-in setting in qt to export for iPod touch (as well as settings for other devices) using h.264.


iTunes keeps opening on its own I'm using OS X 10.10 and my iTunes (version 12.1.2.x) keeps opening. the only behavior pattern I could observe seemed really bizarre - It would open when I would click in my Firefox window. I retested many times, but I couldn't reproduce this after I removed my headphones.

I checked for anything suspicious in /private/var/log/system.log. I didn't see any odd interactions between Spotify and iTunes (i.e. an event in one that led to an immediate event in the other when looking at timestamps). The only thing sort of suspicious were these logs (there were many of these entries) from iTunes when I wasn't using it at all:

/private/var/log/system.log:Apr 24 11:12:06 ITADMINs-MacBook-Pro-4.local iTunes[8626]: ### PlayQueue::StartPlayingNextInternal: played off the end of the queue
/private/var/log/system.log:Apr 24 11:18:37 ITADMINs-MacBook-Pro-4.local iTunes[8680]: ### PlayQueue::StartPlayingNextInternal: played off the end of the queue

What could be happening?

WOW I finally figured this out.

Tampering with the audio jack will cause this to happen. I have headphones with the play/pause/skip control button, so the issue might not show up with standard headphones. If I tap (or double tap) the headphones where it is connected to the jack, the effect is the same as if I clicked the remote button that was designed to control playback.

What's happening is my movement is jarring the headphones and even a very slight tug will open iTunes and start playing music. Very frustrating when I'm using my headset for a phone call!


How to install wifi in Macbook Pro Currently I am using a MacBook Pro with OS X 10.8.5 and I just noticed that there is no Wi-Fi option on this machine.

To try to add Wi-Fi to the menu bar, I went to System Preferences → Network and clicked the "+" button from the left list, and in the interfaces section I found nothing named Wi-Fi!

I also tried to search for "wifi" in Spotlight, but there is nothing named like that.

I'm wondering if somehow the software is not installed in this machine. I don't know whether this software comes with the OS X installation or not.

I had the same issue and finally found a fix!!

Not only did I NOT have wifi, but I didn't even have an option for "wifi" under network preferences.  When clicking the (+) under network preferences I only got options for Firewire, Ethernet, Bluetooth DUN, VPN PPPoE, and 6 to 4.

I tried a number of "fixes" including terminal commands to manually turn the airport power off and on again, deleting the existing wifi option (the one that wouldn't turn On) using the (-) button, and restarting my mac numerous times both in Mac OS and my bootcamp Windows OS.

Finally, i fixed this issue doing the following:

Restart your Mac.
upon start-up, hold down the Opt key until you see your drives.
click on the recovery drive (note: this will not affect or delete any files you currently have).
login if needed.
in the top right hand corner you will see the Wi-Fi icon (hopefully). Click the icon and then click "turn wifi Off" and then again click "turn wifi ON"
restart your Mac again and start it up normally.
recover from your near-heart attack

Please let me know if this worked.


Is there an OS X app to route keyboard via bluetooth? I want an app on my desktop that lets me route my keyboard to my iPhone via bluetooth.

The main goal is to type with the keyboard when I get a text. I don't mind having to click a button on an app.  It would be nice if I can share it via bluetooth? So i can register it as a keyboard on my iPhone. Is this possible?

Type2Phone

This app does pretty much exactly what you're looking for. It turns your Mac into a Bluetooth keyboard that you can pair your iOS device to. When you type into the app, that text gets sent to the device as if you were using a directly connected keyboard.

It's available on the Mac App Store for $4.99.


Adding a Second IP Address to an Existing Network Adapter On linux boxes it is possible to add multiple ip addresses to the same network interface.

It's achived with the following command:

ip addr add 128.133.123.83/24 dev eth0

Is there any way to to the same with OS X ?

I've tried to put multiple ip addresses (comma separated like the dns) in System Preferences / Network with no luck...

Yeah, it's pretty easy. Open System Preferences, go to Networking, then click the Plus sign under the left bar. Choose the interface, give a name to the adapter configuration you're creating, then press OK. You will have to provide manual configuration of IP address and DNS for the second entry -- DHCP won't work for it, because it shares the same MAC address as the original entry, so the router won't issue it another address. Click Apply when you're done, and enjoy. Your adapter now has two IP addresses.


MacMini 2018 is slow to wake after sleep I have Mac mini 2018 with Mojave 10.14.3 and external display LG 27UK600 connected via hdmi 2.0 cable. When i put my mac to sleep, then wake it after  5 minutes, it takes like 60 seconds to wake it up. When i press any key on the keyboard monitor is kinda wakes up, but then goes black again, only after this it actually wakes up, but mac itself is awaken very quick.

What might be a culprit here?

The problem was on MM's hdmi port, i switched to usb-c > DP and no more issues. Though it takes like 5 seconds to show up the picture, but it's acceptable, it's not 60 seconds.

I have no idea if Apple gonna fix this soon. But i have no purpose to use HDMI at all.


Is shutting down an iMac or Mac mini really necessary? In today's age with low power standby modes & the advanced OS X that is Mountain Lion, it is simpler than ever to go for long periods (perhaps months) without shutting down your iMac (and possibly Mac mini too).

Is it really necessary to perform a complete shut down of your Mac (and what considerations if any need to be taken account of)?

The benefits of shutting down vs. sleeping is an oft-asked question. Over time, reasons to prefer shutting down have either been resolved or significantly ameliorated.

For instance:

It used to be that shutting down early macOS (then OS X) machines caused issues with timed log clean-up routines. This has been resolved with the OS recognizing when routines haven't run and rescheduling them.
Similarly, long-running systems used to exhibit instability relating to memory issues. Shutting down the computer cleared the memory, temporarily resetting things. However, memory management has subsequently improved in later versions of macOS and this is no longer a significant issue.
A shut down system used to be significantly cheaper. However, advances in hardware and software have improved the ability of Macs to sleep efficiently. In 2020, a 27" iMac with Retina 5K draws 0.27W when shutdown and 1.25W when asleep (compared to 40W when idle) (source). Apple prepares environmental reports on all its devices extending back several years that you can check. Copies are available from the Environment section of Apple's website.

In addition to these changes, features like Power Nap improve the utility of sleeping Macs.

For me, I set automated sleep and wake times and almost never reboot.


Prevent switching workspaces when clicking on dock icon I am constantly running multiple applications on multiple workspaces. I want to remain on the same workspace, and only switch workspaces when I explicitly ask for it (e.g. with a magic mouse gesture).

Currently when I click on the app icon in the dock, osx switches to the next workspace that has a window of the active application.

I know there is an option in System Preferences -> Misson Control, called "When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application". What it does: When clicking on the icon of an inactive application, don't switch to a workspace that has the application window. But this option does not affect the behaviour of clicking on an active application.

The question: How do I prevent OSX from ever switching to another wokspace when clicking on an app icon in the dock, regardless of whether the app is active of inactive?

Open Terminal.app, then run the following commands.

Change the default workspace preference:

  defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool NO

Next, restart the Dock with this command:

  killall Dock

References:
How can I disable auto-switching desktops?
Disable Space switching on Command-Tab


Why are files in the Shared folder automatically copied to other Macs? I have an iMac and I'm trying to use the folder /Users/Shared to share files between different users of that iMac. When I copy something large to that folder two things happen

The iMac slows down a lot
On a macbook that I also own (same network, logged into same iCloud account, ...) there is a popup "pasting X items from iMac" and it seems to initiate a copy over the network

What is this?  Why is copying to the /Users/Shared folder initiating a network copy, and to where?

File Sharing (and all other sharing options) are disabled on both the iMac and the Macbook.

This isn't anything specific to the Shared folder, but rather because you're using the clipboard to copy files there.

When you copy something such that it is placed on the clipboard, Universal Clipboard allows those files to be pasted anywhere across any of your devices logged into the same iCloud account, including iOS devices and Macs.

To disable this functionality, disable Handoff in System Preferences → General → Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices.

macOS Sierra: Copy and paste across devices


i phone 4s as a gift 3rd party owner I received a second hand I phone 4s as a gift it has not been reported stolen or lost. being the 3 party owner how can I delete the account attached to this phone to activate it

Go to Settings / General / Reset / Reset All Content and Settings.
This will wipe the device and restore it to a factory-settings state.

If you do this, nothing will be left on the device (data, settings, accounts, etc) and you'll have a fresh start with the phone.


Does Pages support LaTeX extensions? Is there a location where I can install LaTeX plugins so that I can use the commands in the plugins which are not native to LaTeX in the equation editor in Pages? Or does Pages not support that?

Specifically, I have the mhchem package which I'd like to install to write out chemical formulae – a feature not supported natively and is added by the mhchem package.

(Yes, I'm aware that I can just write the documents in LaTeX directly, but I'd prefer writing it in Pages if at all possible.)

Pages does not support loading LaTeX packages (they're not called plugins, but packages in LaTeX terminology). So you cannot just load up for example chemfig from CTAN that you mention.

Apple provides the following page describing the commands that are supported:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202501

Pages does not include a full LaTeX environment, and is only able to render a subset of LaTeX commands.

For my own purposes I have used ordinary LaTeX rendered to PDF that I can drag-n-drop to Pages. As it is PDF it can be resized inside Pages without loosing quality.

In order to do that you need LaTeX installed. An easy way to get it installed is to install MacTex, which includes LaTeX.

You can download MacTeX from here:

http://tug.org/mactex/mactex-download.html

Or if you have HomeBrew, you can use that to first install HomeBrew Cask and then install MacTeX using the following commands:

brew tap caskroom/cask

brew cask install mactex

For rendering to PDF you can use the pdflatex command or a GUI tool such as texpad.


Two-fingered swiping is in wrong direction for webpages I have just bought a new Macbook Pro with the Sierra OS. What I have found is that using the trackpad to move "back" and "forwards" between webpages, goes in the opposite direction to what I would expect.

For example, let's say I visit webpage A, then webpage B, and then webpage C. I now want to navigate back to A, and so my natural instinct would be to swipe two fingers on the trackpad from right to left. However, it seems that doing this actually moves the webpages forwards. So, in order to navigate back to A, I actually need to swipe my two fingers from left to right.

This seems odd that it would be the default, because it feels much more natural that swiping to the right is forwards, and swiping to the left is backwards.

Is this really the default setting? And if so, is there any way I can change it to the opposite?

Thanks.

That's the default and it actually makes sense if you consider the visual metaphor of moving between pages in a book, magazine, or newspaper.  To back from C --> A in a book you swipe the pages from left to right.  If you grab a page and move it from the right to the left, you're moving forward thru the book.

It's the same with the trackpad.  You can change this in Settings --> Trackpad.  If you use any other Apple product, they all use the same direction for moving between pages.


How do I uninstall the macOS Sierra Installer? My macOS Sierra Installer isn't working, so I'd like to uninstall it in order to reinstall it later. The only problem is that I can't delete it directly because I don't have admin privileges on this computer. (I've also tried rm -r filename in Terminal.) How could I uninstall the installer without directly deleting it?

There’s no uninstallation procedure. Despite the .app extension, Install macOS Sierra.app is essentially just a disk image waiting to be installed…no system modifications were made by merely downloading it, so deleting it is all that’s needed for removal.

That said, as Avery Chan mentioned, you still need sufficient privileges in order to remove it.

The command rm -r /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app won’t execute without prepending it with sudo. But using sudo requires an administrative, master, or root password...

The advisable solution is to ask the system administrator to remove it. That said, if this isn’t possible, a few workarounds exist:

Reset The Admin Password (note that if Filevault is enabled, this won’t work):

Boot into your Recovery Partition holding down command + R at the startup chime
Select Terminal from your Utilities Menu Bar
Enter resetpassword in the prompt.
From the window that appears, select your boot volume and the administrative account.
Type in a new password for the account. Confirm the new password.
Click Save, close this pane and quit Utilities
Select your boot volume when presented with "choose startup disk" and then reboot your machine.

That’ll allow you to access the admin account and subsequently delete the Installer.

Use Single User mode (if Filevault is enabled or a firmware password is set, this won’t work either). While using this method will allow you to remove the file without resetting the admin’s password, it’s not advisable to make filesystem modifications at all in this manner, so proceed at your own risk.

Hold down command + S at the startup chime. After each of the following commands, hit enter.
Always run a disk check first in SU mode by typing in /sbin/fsck -fy. Don’t be alarmed by output such as “FILESYSTEM WAS MODIFIED”, that’s normal. It just means the filesystem was repaired.
Now, mount the boot volume with user write permissions. /sbin/mount -uw /
cd /Applications to migrate to the relevant directory.
Type in echo $(rm -rf Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app) before directly running it. Using actual backticks to nest the rm command is preferable to $(), I just can’t format it properly here.
Now proceed to remove the installer rm -rf Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app
Type in reboot


i5 vs. i7 MBP Refurb Realistically, besides processing speed, what is the difference between the i5 and i7? Can you really tell a difference? I may be developing apps with it (I haven't tried yet, nor have I ever owned a Mac), so I'd also like to hear from a developer if there is a major difference or preference between the two.

i7 processors differ
I assume - since you are comparing the i5 to the i7 - that you are thinking of the 13'' MBP models. The 15''-17'' MBP models offer only i7 processors.
The i7 processors of the 15''17'' MBP are quad core, while both the i7 and i5 in the 13'' MBP are dual core.
2 important things to notice

Due to hyper-threading one can also talk of 2 physical cores (4 logical cores) and 4 physical cores (8 logical cores).
The clock speed you usually see is just the base frequency. The introduced Intel Turbo Boost technology allows the cores to dynamically clock at higher speeds. However, not all cores at once.

Comparison chart
An offical Intel documentation including all features of all 4 processors can be found here. The two processors offered in the 13'' MBP are on the right. Differences are highlighted yellow.


How to alias/redefine rm command in Mac terminal to do rm -v I need to see what files are removed. So I want to redefine rm to rm -v. Could you please help?

If your shell is sh, ksh, zsh, or bash then add

 alias rm='rm -v'

to the appropriate shell start up file.

If your shell is csh or tcsh then add

alias rm rm -v

to the appropriate shell start up file.


Upgrade path for CouchDB 1.x to 2.x on macOS? I recently downloaded Apache CouchDB 2.1 installer for macOS from the official website. I already had CouchDB 1.7 installed via Homebrew Cask.

After installing CouchDB 2.1, I started observing some problems, like Local CouchDB on Mac Opens New Browser Tab Every 5 Seconds.

Other issues include inconsistent environment variables and ports in use. It appears that the macOS is unsure about the version of CouchDB installed and both the versions are running concurrently.

I figured, that a probable reason could be that CouchDB 1.7 was installed via Homebrew Cask, while Apache CouchDB was installed from the downloaded installer as it is not yet available via Homebrew Cask. They have your database migration covered, but not an 1.x-to-2.x upgrade path for the application itself on macOS.

I uninstalled Apache CouchDB 2.1 and killed the daemon that it left running. CouchDB 1.7 works fine after that.

How do I perform an upgrade in this scenario?

As of now, Apache CouchDB 2.1 is available via Homebrew Cask.

Executing:

brew cask info apache-couchdb

lists the following output:

apache-couchdb: 2.1.1
https://couchdb.apache.org/
Not installed
From: https://github.com/caskroom/homebrew-cask/blob/master/Casks/apache-couchdb.rb
==> Name
Apache CouchDB
==> Artifacts
Apache CouchDB.app (App)


Booting from a previously cloned Windows 10 installation I have a cloned drive as a backup and my computer is stolen.
This computer was probably MacBookPro 11,2.

Now i have an old MacBookPro 6,2, i installed my backup drive as an internal drive to this one.

I can boot to my old OSX Sierra and happy about it.

The second partition has a Windows 10 installation in it.
I can't see this partition in option-boot screen.
I can reach my Windows 10 partition from OSX.

How can i install or modify the necessary software to make this partition bootable again?
I know i need the drivers for this particular computer and i have downloaded them from boot camp.
If i can boot to my partition i install them and continue using my old operating windows, am i right?

Thank you.

Note: There is no guarantee that if successful, Windows 10 will remain activated on the Mac. In other words, you may need to purchase a Windows 10 license for your Mac.

The Windows 10 install you wish to restore to your Mac used the EFI boot method (as used by most Macs since 2012). Since the drivers you have downloaded require a BIOS boot method (the legacy method), you will need to convert the restored Windows from an EFI boot method to a BIOS boot method.
You will need to make sure your internal drive is using a Hybrid GPT+MBR partition scheme. See this answer for details.
You will need to boot the computer using a Windows 10 DVD or bootable USB, select the option to repair the installation, open a Command Prompt window and enter the following commands. A bootable USB may require High Sierra (macOS 10.13).

Note: You can also open a Command Prompt window, by pressing the shift+F10 key combination after booting from the DVD or USB.

bootsect  /nt60  c:  /mbr
attrib  -r  -h  -s  c:\boot\bcd
del  c:\boot\bcd
bcdboot  c:\windows  /s  c:  /f  BIOS

This will repair the files used to boot Windows.

Note: You can ignore any error messages produced by the attrib and del commands.

After booting to Windows 10, you should install the Windows Support Software that you downloaded from Apple.


What format does Xcode use to display 'data' types in plist files? If I open a .plist file in TextEdit, all the properties with type "data" are displayed in Base64 encoding, for example
<data>SGFja2ludG9zaA==</data>.

Xcode shows these values in some other format, like
<54657374 56616c75 65>.  What is this format called, and how can I convert it to ASCII?

The data is just a hex dump of the decoded base64 encoding. To convert to ASCII, look the hex values up in the ASCII table. For your example:

54657374 56616c75 65

is

TestValue

A convenient way to get the table is man ascii from a terminal prompt.


How to make a script which runs on login? My ISP requires me to login to their server and keep the login page up so I can use the Internet, which makes me uncomfortable while I download some big files. After some research i found a script which is supposed to run on Linux environment, which you can find here.
Can I make this script run on my Mac while I log-in?
Also the script provides some keep-alive functions, can I make them work in my Mac?
Can I add these features with script?
Features

Automatically connect to Asianet Dataline without having to sign in via the
browser.
In startup and free mode the script will keep the connection alive.
The script will automatically reconnect if connection breaks because of a
power failure or a line problem.

I am using a Macbook 5,2 running Lion 10.7
Please let me know if you need any more info.

Yes that script should run on OS X. It is a .sh file and it's using the bash shell, so I'd assume that it would run, unless it requires programs that aren't installed on OS X by default.
To have it run on login:
Just go to System Preferences > Users & Groups and click on the user that you want the script to load. Click the + button to add a login item and navigate to your script. The script will load automatically on login.