A Mac “application” is a bundle of files. These files include a signature to confirm that an application hasn’t been altered, executables, and a number of other files and folders. These are all stored in a directory called Contents. To see these, Control-Click on an application and click “Show Package Contents.” The Contents directory includes: _CodeSignature: All applications should be signed and contain a CodeResources file in this folder. If that doesn’t match the app will not open. _MASReceipt: Contains a certificate from the App Store. info.plist: Configuration information for the application, including  MacOS: The Mach-O executable code file (Mach-O), which is a binary with an entry point and constantly…

iOS Apps are .ipa files, which are compiled bundles of files that comprise an App on a device. By default, most web servers do have a handler that tells them what to do in the event that a call attempts to access one of these files. Therefore, in order to support downloading those files properly, you need to teach the server how to handle them. First, let’s grab the MIME type from the Mac file command. To do so, run file with the, big surprise, –mime-type option and then the path to the file: file --mime-type /Users/ce/Downloads/enrollmentProfile.mobileconfig The output would be as follows, indicating that a file with the .mobileconfig…

Here we go. The Disk Mount Conditioner “is a kernel provided service that can degrade the disk I/O being issued to specific mount points, providing the illusion that the I/O is executing on a slower device.” You won’t often find that the system decides to slow throughput to a device very often. But it happens, and equally as useful you can spoof a different type of device, quite helpful when troubleshooting.  It’s like that. You can run the dmc command to control and view the status of the dmc service, at /usr/bin/dmc. To see how to use dmc, simply run dmc with the help verb: /usr/bin/dmc help Sucker M.C.s can…

Originally started at the request of a publisher to support the first book I wrote, I guess I just never stopped… 14 years and 3,662 posts later I’m now writing my 21st book and constantly grateful for the opportunity the Apple Community has given me. Thank you so much for visiting and staying with me all this time (or just landing here on Google here and there). You’re the best community. So a Happy New Year to all, and thanks for the thousands of comments to keep me busy!

There’s a gem called iStats. It shows you fan speeds, cpu temp, battery cycle stats, and battery temp. Reason this came up for me is that I was asked a question on what the highs and lows were for computers to stay healthy in a remote sensor capacity. I typically try to keep computers above 25 (around -5 Celcius) and while the computer will shit itself off at 212 Fahrenheit (actually between 85 and 100 Celcius), it’s a good idea to keep it below 95 degrees (see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201640 for more information on preferred operating temperatures). So you can use iStats to pull a few temperatures and then automatically send yourself…