Mac windows moved mostly off-screen when switching displays

Strange new behavior (to me anyway) since upgrading to macOS Sierra (10.12):

When I move between using my MacBook with a Thunderbolt display (only), and using it on with only the built-in display, it frequently leaves windows almost entirely off the side of the display. :/

(If it matters, this is with a sleep, between mode switches - like when moving between home and office.)

At no time was I using an extended desktop (multiple displays at once) - though it looks as if it somehow thinks it's in that mode. Though a trip to the Displays preference pane, shows that it is indeed using only only display.

(More than once, I've also seen this: Upon wake, I see the Desktop - but no menubar. Perhaps another indication that it's confused and thinks there's another display - which has the menubar.)

I found some interesting suggestions on this SuperUser thread though none of those worked for me, and I just created a new account there (coulda sworn I had one, but whatever), so couldn't post there yet :/ - hopefully this link helps.

What _did_ work for me: Simply "Hide" (in the app menu, just to the right of the Apple menu) any app with windows off-screen; when the app was shown again, the windows were moved back onto the current (only) screen.

In the process I also discovered the missing "Detect Displays" button, which was removed from the Displays preference pane at some point - press (and hold) the Option key. It had no effect on this issue, though maybe handy to know.

(I have heard of folks seeing this issue on other releases like "El Capitan" (10.11) - hope this helps!)

SEO (search engine optimization) musings

i just did a web search for a topic where i don't have very much context to judge how relevant / reliable the results are

of course i reflexively ignored the paid results

for the "organic" results, if it's a topic i am familiar with, i may glance briefly at the top results - mostly for entertainment value, at the ridiculous junk that manipulated its way to the top

however, with something unfamiliar, i hovered briefly over the top "organic" result, wondering if it was worth the effort to click through to see how useful it might be

given the rampant manipulation behind high ranking, i wonder how many of us also reflexively ignore the top N organic results

recover outlook smart folders

got some really cool "smart folders" in outlook?

but outlook is crashing and even a rebuild didn't fix it?

so you just created an entirely fresh identity, which fixed the crashing (finally) - but you really don't want to have to try to remember how all those smart folders were built?

try this:

• outlook stuff is stored here: ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 Identities/
• within that, there's: Main Identity/Data Records/Saved Searches/
• yep; smart folders are in there
• move the "Office 2011 Identities" dir/folder somewhere for safe-keeping
• fire up outlook again, enter your account info & let it start downloading stuff
• it may help to quit here; the rebuild below may take less time
• it may help to run "Microsoft Database Utility" & let it kill the daemon (then cancel the rebuild)
• copy the "Saved Searches" dir from your saved copy, over the fresh copy
• run "Microsoft Database Utility", do a rebuild, and let it complete (this appears required)

after i did this, the next time i opened outlook, my smart folders were there; hope this works for you

(now i just have to wait for spotlight to finish indexing the rebuild :/ to confirm that they actually work - though at least the definitions are visible now)

notes:

• geez; a whole lot of mail showed up in different places; lots of cleanup needed :/
• i copied my own smart folders; might also work for copying to other identities
• i'm on outlook 2011, on os x 10.10 (yosemite); may or may not apply to others
• i've got the common config of a single "identity"; this procedure resets _all_ idenities

iOS fast-forwards through all tracks & doesn't play any

Strange to hear / watch this happen:

Hit "Play" and nothing comes through the headphones (or speakers) at all; check the display and it's just zooming through all the tracks, spending less than a second before going to the next, over and over.

Mucked about for awhile and then came up with a theory:

It's due to the "Sound Check" feature, which I had just turned back on - and it now has to scan every single track to know what to do before it plays any.

Great background here: http://productionadvice.co.uk/sound-check-album-mode/

Sure enough, as soon as I let it go through all of them, it was able to play.

And then I turned "Sound Check" back off. :)

Has anyone seen some connection instability with the GlobalProtect VPN client (v1.2.2-14), on OS X 10.9 (Mavericks)?

Strangely, I see frequents drops of my entire WiFi connection (to an AirPort base station that's been solid before now) including to local (non-VPN'd) nodes as soon as I initiate the VPN connection (which also has been very solid before now).

Any clues?

FileVault2 (FDE) trvia

Interesting...

I configured my Mac to require me to enter the boot volume's FileVault2 passphrase before login; no automatic retrieval using an account's (less secure) login password.

This worked great, then at some point later, I added a second "Standard" account (for my Grandmother's iPad :) and the next time I booted (it's not that often; thanks for making a really stable OS, Apple) I noticed that this account was able to log in directly.

Hmm; somehow when the account was created, it glommed on to the FileVault2 passphrase - not nice.

System Preferences gave me no way to turn this off; interesting-er. Neither "Users & Groups" nor "Security" was any help; "Security" didn't even have this account listed via the "Enable Users..." button (toward the bottom).

To the Intertubes!

Here's an interesting article from IACR (International Association for Cryptologic Research) with lots of background: Infiltrate the Vault: Security Analysis and Decryption of Lion Full Disk Encryption. It didn't help solve this problem, though it was a useful read; thanks, IACR.

And the jackpot, at Krypted.com: Encrypting Volumes in OS X Mountain Lion is how I found out about the "fdesetup" command. (That's "fde" as in "full disk encryption".)

(BTW: After disabling this new account (with "fdesetup remove"), I opened the "Security" preference pane and it is now listed (as disabled) where it previously wasn't shown at all.)

[2015/03/20 update: If the output of "fdesetup list" is empty, no users have the capability, and it's required (as desired) to enter the disk password before login.]

DuckDuckGo Action for QuickSilver

A quick & dirty Applescript for a QuickSilver Action, to quickly do a web search with DuckDuckGo (AKA DDG), in the default browser:

using terms from application "Quicksilver"
 on process text ThisClipping
  tell application "Finder" to open location "http://duckduckgo.com/?q=" & ThisClipping
 end process text
end using terms from

Save the above as something like DDG.scpt, into "~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions"; to make it your default, drag it above other Actions - such as "Search with Google".

Now:

• Fire up QuickSilver as you normally would (ex: command-space).
• Type a dot (if required) for free-form text entry.
• Enter your query & press Return; done.

Any suggestions for improvement are most welcome!

(I miss Searchling, however this is pretty close!)

Quick Look should display Spotlight comments as "alt text"

A modest suggestion for Apple's OS X:

When hovering over a "Quick Look" display, Spotlight comments should be displayed just like "alt text" in a browser window.

Lion: Hardware Growler crashes

For anyone using Lion and Hardware Growler (part of the excellent Growl package), you may have noticed that it crashes under some circumstances. (For example, see )

And if you're using it faceless, you may not even notice for awhile - say, til you realize you're waiting for a Growl that'll never come.

Fortunately, this is easy to slap a bandage over, with a simple bash script (all on one line):

while true; do if [ $(ps jaxwwww|grep [H]ardwareGrowler|wc -l) = 0 ] ; then open /Applications/Growl-1.2.2/Extras/HardwareGrowler/HardwareGrowler.app; echo "$(date): launched one"; fi; sleep 1; done

(I know; a hard-coded path - you'll have to fix it if your path differs - if you know a better way, feel free post in the comments.)

I tried using a longer sleep, though the resource utilization was indistinguishable, so I left it at "1", which means it recovers almost instantly.

This can be "automated" even further: Into a text document, paste this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>WindowSettings</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>ExecutionString</key>
<string>while true; do if [ $(ps jaxwwww|grep [H]ardwareGrowler|wc -l) = 0 ] ; then open /Applications/Growl-1.2.2/Extras/HardwareGrowler/HardwareGrowler.app; echo "$(date): launched one"; fi; sleep 1; done</string>
<key>Columns</key>
<string>44</string>
<key>Rows</key>
<string>15</string>
<key>WinLocULY</key>
<string>678</string>
<key>WinLocX</key>
<string>611</string>
<key>WinLocY</key>
<string>0</string>
</dict>
</array>
</dict>
</plist>


Save it as "something.term".

Double-click / launch the document and it opens Terminal.app for you. Add it to your Login Items, in the Users & Groups (nee Account) preference pane, and it's automatic.

(I believe the "WinLoc" keys are ignored in favor of an offset from the most recent Terminal window; pity - I'd like to place this at the same location on the screen each time. Though of course, Lion's "Auto Resume" handles this nicely too. :)

Lion: Use spacebar to scroll or page

In Lion, using the space bar to scroll doesn't work very well - or, sometimes, at all. Even if it just worked a moment ago, in the same page.

Here are a few workarounds I've discovered:

1) Click in the area you want to scroll (ex: within a web page) and then press space.

2) Press the down or up arrows and then press space.

3) This is weird: Press a shift key and then press space!