How to speed up Time Machine so it backs up your data faster – macOS

If you are a constant-on Time Machine user, you won’t even notice when a scheduled backup is taking place. That’s because Time Machine is designed to work quietly and slowly in the background. Most of your regular backups are incremental and therefore don’t need much power. If you only back up your Mac once per week (or longer), Time Machine has a lot more work to do, but still runs quietly and slowly in the background. Using this Terminal command, you will disable the disk operation throttling so Time Machine will run faster.

sudo sysctl debug.lowpri\_throttle_enabled=0

Restore default setup:

sudo sysctl debug.lowpri\_throttle_enabled=1

Which Synology NAS models does Migration Assistant support?

The below table lists Synology NAS models which are supported by Migration Assistant to work as either source or target server. The source server refers to the original Synology NAS from which data is moved, and the target server refers to the new Synology NAS.
Series Models
19-series RS1619xs+, RS1219+, DS2419+, DS1819+, DS1019+
18-series FS1018, RS3618xs, RS2818RP+, RS2418+/RS2418RP+, RS818+/RS818RP+, DS3018xs, DS1618+, DS918+, DS718+, DS418play, DS218+
17-series FS3017, FS2017, RS18017xs+, RS4017xs+, RS3617xs+, RS3617RPxs, RS3617xs, DS3167xs, DS1817+, DS1517+
16-series RS18016xs+, RS2416+/RS2416RP+, DS916+, DS716+II, DS716+, DS416play, DS216+II, DS216+
15-series RS815+/RS815RP+, RC18015xs+, DS3615xs, DS2415+, DS1815+, DS1515+, DS415+
14-series RS3614xs+, RS3614xs/RS3614RPxs, RS2414+/RS2414RP+, RS814+/RS814RP+
13-series RS10613xs+, RS3413xs+, DS2413+, DS1813+, DS1513+, DS713+
12-series RS3412xs/RS3412RPxs, RS2212+/RS2212RP+, RS812+/RS812RP+, DS3612xs, DS1812+, DS1512+, DS412+
11-series RS3411xs/RS3411RPxs, DS3611xs
The models in below table are also supported by Migration Assistant as either source or target server. However, please note that they cannot be used as target servers for the models mentioned in above table.
Series Models
17-series DS1817, DS1517
15-series DS2015xs, DS1515, DS715
Note:
Neither source nor target server can be VDSM or DDSM.
We recommend migrating to a Synology NAS with better hardware specification to ensure all packages and services will work properly after migration. Please visit Synology Download Center to find your product’s datasheet for more information.

install SMIME Certificates

obtain free SMIME Certificates

Free certificates usable for S/MIME are available from:

Some of them are free only for personal use. It can also cost money to revoke a free certificate.

Let’s Encrypt does not currently offer S/MIME certificates. See https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/s-mime-certificates/153 for a thread explaining why you can’t use their SSL/TLS certificates for S/MIME.[edit]

To obtain certificate from an authority

Safari, Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer contain cryptotools capable of generating public/private keypairs. When signing up for a certificate with an authority, their website triggers your browser to create a keypair and transmit to them the public key, which is then certified. For this reason, when you return to pick up your completed certificate (typically a few minutes later), it is mandatory that you do so with the same browser on the same computer . You will otherwise not possess the private key necessary for pickup.

Be thoughtful about whether to select to “digitally sign all messages by default”. Institutional firewalls may protect their own security protocols and break your cryptographic signature, leaving your recipient with all kinds of warnings about the message being invalidly signed. As S/MIME usage is still not widespread, most people still don’t know how to interpret this. A broken signature will probably seem worse to them than receiving a message with no crypto signature at all, even though the contents are identical in both cases.

Webmail users will see an unreadable attachment which can raise similar questions.

Youtube-dl – tips

Youtube-dl is a python based command line video downloader that just works. Despite its name would suggest, youtube-dl downloads more than just youtube videos, it currently supports more than 800 online video and audio sites. If you are using a desktop app or web app to download videos now, chances are it’s using youtube-dl in the back-end. You are better off using youtube-dl instead considering you get so much more power and options with it. Here are some simple tips to get you started.

Install from the source

There are multiple options to get started with installing youtube-dl, I personally recommend installing from the source simply because how frequently its database gets updated and most OS package managers are a bit late when keeping up with the updates. The best thing about youtube-dl is that it runs on all major OS as long as you have python installed.

Windows users can download latest exe file. For Linux, MacOS users:

sudo curl -L https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

Download using cURL to the proper application directory.
Apply proper access permission to run youtube-dl.
Always update to the latest version

Online video players are updated frequently which can often break how youtube-dl download video files from your favorite site. So, just like browser video downloading extensions, it’s a good idea to keep it up-to-date. You could make a cronjob, but I prefer to do it manually.

Updating youtube-dl is as simple as typing:

youtube-dl -U

Read moreYoutube-dl – tips

Centos 7.1 – error repository

Uncomment baseurl in this file: /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo

#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/$releasever/os/$basearch/

In this block:

name=CentOS-$releasever - Base
mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=os&infra=$infra
#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/$releasever/os/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-7

By uncomment, I mean change this:

#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/$releasever/os/$basearch/, to this: 
baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/$releasever/os/$basearch/ (remove the #).

VMware Fusion Export VM to OVA

Command line method for exporting to the Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) format from VMware Fusion. Use the OVF tool. The following provides a command line synopsis.

# VMware Fusion Export VM to OVA
# Zilli 20180730

$ cd /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/VMware\ OVF\ Tool
$ ./ovftool --acceptAllEulas \

> /Users/Me/Documents/Virtual\ Machines.localized/theVM.vmwarevm/TheVM.vmx \
> ~/Desktop/TheVM.ova

Opening VMX source: [...]
Opening OVA target: [...]
Writing OVA package: /Users/me/Desktop/TheVM.ova
Transfer Completed                    
Completed successfully