Hans Salvisberg's blog

[2008-11: New installation on 10.3/8.6.0]
[2007-04: Implementing SMTP Authorization with qpsmtpd running under SuSE 10.0 and Plesk 8.0
[2014-01: Here's an update to these instructions.]
[2018-09: Update #2 on Installing qpsmtpd on Xenial, completely replaces 2014-01]

This is an addendum to my series on on Getting Rid of My MacBook — essential information that's hard to find!

If you're on the receiving end of a transfer of ownership of a Mac, here's what you should do:

This is the final part 4 in my series on Getting Rid of My MacBook — essential information that's hard to find!

After securely erasing the SSD and resetting the Firmware Password you're ready to put the final touch on your Mac: reset it to factory state by loading the operating system:

This is part 2 in my series on Getting Rid of My MacBook — essential information that's hard to find!

There are lots of how-to's out there on the net, and many of them tell you to turn off FileVault before erasing your disk. That is completely wrong! DON'T DO IT!

Follow the outlined procedure:

I've bought about a dozen (DOS and Windows) PCs and one Mac in the past 40 years, and I still have all of them, but now I want to get rid of one of them: the MacBook. It's a very nice machine, a MacBook Pro 2017 with Retina Display, Touch Bar, 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD, but I just can't come to terms with its random key combinations, its lack of Esc/Insert/etc. keys, and its instability when pushing it with MAMP Pro and a Windows 10 virtual machine running under Parallels Desktop in Coherence Mode. Even trying to give away the Mac is a challenge!

[2008-11: New installation on 10.3/8.6.0]
[2007-04: Implementing SMTP Authorization with qpsmtpd running under SuSE 10.0 and Plesk 8.0
[2014-01: Here's an update to these instructions.]
[2018-09: Update #2 on Installing qpsmtpd on Xenial, completely replaces 2014-01, replaced by the following]

Good reading:

I’m harvesting credit card numbers and passwords from your site. Here’s how.
Part 2: How to stop me harvesting credit card numbers and passwords from your site

Note: This site does not use any scripts on public pages.

The Less CSS Preprocessor Drupal module requires installing a LESS engine, but the instructions are confusing.

The LESS Engines documentation page is a little more helpful, except for a missing little twist... Here's how to do it:

Note: If you need LESS just for Drupal, see Install the LESS CSS Preprocessor for Drupal.

Some posts, like Ubuntu installation directions for fresh web-server recommend something like


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install nodejs
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node
sudo apt-get install npm
sudo npm install -g less
node –v
npm -v