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[Fuchsdh]

Thanks for the explanation. I didn't know that. It makes sense that Apple wouldn't want to make a separate logic board for the high end quad-core if it may not sell as much. Too bad.

Yeah, hopefully it returns, but that seems to be out of Apple's hands from a practical standpoint. It hurts not only from the multiprocessing standpoint but also because the dual-core i7 doesn't have Iris Pro.

The RAM stuff meanwhile seems pretty indefensible, although given that the mini has always broadly been a desktop version of the 13" MBP I wonder how much of it is supply and scale stuff as well. On the other hand, replacing the easy access with pentalobe screws speaks against that more charitable explanation.

 

[Deku Tree]

Yeah, hopefully it returns, but that seems to be out of Apple's hands from a practical standpoint. It hurts not only from the multiprocessing standpoint but also because the dual-core i7 doesn't have Iris Pro.

The RAM stuff meanwhile seems pretty indefensible, although given that the mini has always broadly been a desktop version of the 13" MBP I wonder how much of it is supply and scale stuff as well. On the other hand, replacing the easy access with pentalobe screws speaks against that more charitable explanation.

Yup those pentalobe screws really scream "do not enter" and "we don't want you up in here".

 

[Fuchsdh]

Yup those pentalobe screws really scream "do not enter" and "we don't want you up in here".

And yet they're really not hard to bypass, courtesy of a $20 screwdriver set. I've been performing a bunch of SSD and PCIe upgrades on the the Macbook Airs the producers in my office have.

Which is really what gets me about the whole lockdown movement—I can't imagine that people upgrading or repairing their machines was really costing Apple that much money, given how small a market segment it must be. So what's the point in annoying the few people that do take advantage of it? Seems like a case where your "customer sat", as Cook would say, trumps extracting a few more dollars per consumer.

 

[kennah]

After two years of the antiglare.... How the hell does anyone do anything on the glossy screen.

 

[Deku Tree]

And yet they're really not hard to bypass, courtesy of a $20 screwdriver set. I've been performing a bunch of SSD and PCIe upgrades on the the Macbook Airs the producers in my office have.

Which is really what gets me about the whole lockdown movement—I can't imagine that people upgrading or repairing their machines was really costing Apple that much money, given how small a market segment it must be. So what's the point in annoying the few people that do take advantage of it? Seems like a case where your "customer sat", as Cook would say, trumps extracting a few more dollars per consumer.

I would guess it has more to do with AppleCare. They probably think they save a lot of money on warranty repair costs when the machine is essentially sealed for most people. Computers are turning into devices that you buy and use and eventually replace. The whole concept of opening them up and upgrading them is dying.

 

[serversurfer]

I would guess it has more to do with AppleCare. They probably think they save a lot of money on warranty repair costs when the machine is essentially sealed for most people. Computers are turning into devices that you buy and use and eventually replace. The whole concept of opening them up and upgrading them is dying.

That's kind of what I was thinking. They may actually have more people taking them apart and breaking them than upgrading them. If you're the type that actually upgrades, you probably secretly kinda dig the special tools required too. lol

 

[Blackhead]

I would guess it has more to do with AppleCare. They probably think they save a lot of money on warranty repair costs when the machine is essentially sealed for most people. Computers are turning into devices that you buy and use and eventually replace. The whole concept of opening them up and upgrading them is dying.

That's kind of what I was thinking. They may actually have more people taking them apart and breaking them than upgrading them. If you're the type that actually upgrades, you probably secretly kinda dig the special tools required too. lol

They already disqualified you from AppleCare coverage if you made any modification to the machine. Apple wasn't losing any money there. If Apple were that concerned about people taking apart their computer and breaking it, Apple could always offer an in-store hardware upgrade service.

 

[Deku Tree]

They already disqualified you from AppleCare coverage if you made any modification to the machine. Apple wasn't losing any money there. If Apple were that concerned about people taking apart their computer and breaking it, Apple could always offer an in-store hardware upgrade service.

You didn't disqualify yourself from coverage for properly upgrading ram or a HDD on an upgradable computer. Besides you could just take out the new ram or HDD and put the old one back in before bringing the computer to Apple.

Maybe it's just easier to make the computer non-upgradable and the segment of of people who want to go under the hood is quite small as far as apple is concerned. They certainly make a nice profit on forcing you to buy ram from them vs from someone else. And I have the impression Apple will give you good ram.

 

[Fuchsdh]

You didn't disqualify yourself from coverage for properly upgrading ram or a HDD on an upgradable computer. Besides you could just take out the new ram or HDD and put the old one back in before bringing the computer to Apple.

Maybe it's just easier to make the computer non-upgradable and the segment of of people who want to go under the hood is quite small as far as apple is concerned. They certainly make a nice profit on forcing you to buy ram from them vs from someone else. And I have the impression Apple will give you good ram.

Well the plus side of soldered RAM is Apple's markup on the upgrade prices plummeted to reasonable levels. Now they just stiff you on the SSD upgrades (which at least you can upgrade later.)

Just finished setting up my refurb MBPr. How much the quality holds up when switching to higher than best for retina resolutions is pretty impressive.

 

[tr4656]

Just finished setting up my refurb MBPr. How much the quality holds up when switching to higher than best for retina resolutions is pretty impressive.

Yeah, its impressive considering they scale it up from the native resolution and the shrink that.

 

[Mailenstein]

Not sure if this is the right place, but I thought to share this one with you guys in case someone encounters the same situation someday.

Problem: Got a NTFS formatted ext. HDD from a customer handed to me some minutes ago and I needed to copy some files over from my local drive, but since NTFS disks are read only on Macs , I couldn't do that. I remember using an application years ago to gain write access on these things and didn't touch an NTFS drive since then ever again.

Solution:

- get this file: http://sourceforge.net/projects/native-ntfs-osx/files/?source=navbar

- open terminal

- navigate to the folder with the downloaded file

- make the file executable

chmod +x ntfs.sh

or

sudo chmod +x ntfs.sh

- run the script

./ntfs.sh

or

sudo ./ntfs.sh

- choose your NTFS drive (see example)

___________________________________
RubeniumTB. 2013 --ruben80(at)gmail.com--

Initialize a NTFS Hard Disk on this system to read and write
Next time you won't need to initialize it again. Just plug and open but
take into account that:

* Configured disks will not be auto-opened!!
* You will need to open /Volumes and click on your disk!!

* Although it should not happen anything wrong, use at your own risk

* IMPORTANT!!. Be sure that the NTFS device has been safely removed or it won't
be mounted in write mode. In this case you can connect it again to any windows PC,
remove safely, and then connect to your MAC

* Also IMPORTANT!!. To avoid problems use SHORT names for the Volume names, 
NO SPACES, and preferably only letters/numbers. Of course no special characters!!

Now you are ready....
SELECT a NTFS Disk to initialize on this system
Write quit to exit

1) /Volumes/Macintosh HD
2) /Volumes/PGY6
3) /Volumes/PHDD01
#? 3
You picked /Volumes/PHDD01 
Checking if already existing device on file...
Volume PHDD01 on disk1s1 unmounted
Volume PHDD01 on /dev/disk1s1 mounted

Done, enjoy.

Dunno if there are easier solutions, but I like this one .

 

[Deku Tree]

Well the plus side of soldered RAM is Apple's markup on the upgrade prices plummeted to reasonable levels. Now they just stiff you on the SSD upgrades (which at least you can upgrade later.)

Just finished setting up my refurb MBPr. How much the quality holds up when switching to higher than best for retina resolutions is pretty impressive.

Can you buy a PCIe SSD that fits in a Mac Mini for a lot less than apple charges?

 

[Fuchsdh]

Can you buy a PCIe SSD that fits in a Mac Mini for a lot less than apple charges?

OWC sells PCIe flash around 10-40% cheaper than Apple's upgrades. Right now they don't have an actual Mac Mini 2014 offering, although from pictures I can't tell what's the actual difference between all the various PCIe flash modules Apple puts in their computers.

The other thing is that flash is only going to get cheaper over time, and it's likely upgrades down the line will be less than Apple's prices from the get-go.

 

[tr4656]

OWC sells PCIe flash around 10-40% cheaper than Apple's upgrades. Right now they don't have an actual Mac Mini 2014 offering, although from pictures I can't tell what's the actual difference between all the various PCIe flash modules Apple puts in their computers.

The other thing is that flash is only going to get cheaper over time, and it's likely upgrades down the line will be less than Apple's prices from the get-go.

What flash does OWC use though? I would rather have Apple's flash modules if they are more reliable.

 

[SeanR1221]

Something thats been bothering me for awhile.

Lately (and by that I mean since around Mavericks came out) my computer takes SO long to boot up from sleep. This is a mid 2012 MacBook Pro. My hard drive is barely full (like a quarter of 500GB) and I have 4GB of memory.

Any tips?

 

[tr4656]

Something thats been bothering me for awhile.

Lately (and by that I mean since around Mavericks came out) my computer takes SO long to boot up from sleep. This is a mid 2012 MacBook Pro. My hard drive is barely full (like a quarter of 500GB) and I have 4GB of memory.

Any tips?

Might be time for an reinstall.

 

[SeanR1221]

Might be time for an reinstall.

That's what I was thinking

 

[kubus]

I need help asap so I'm hoping one of you can help me out real quick

I'm selling my Macbook Pro and a guy is coming in 2 hours to pick it up. So I just formatted the hard drive to install a clean version of OS X Maverick (I never upgraded and thought I'd let the new owner decide what to do with it).

Problem is, apparently you can't do that anymore through the OS X Recovery tool. When I start the "Reinstall OS X" option, it makes me accept some terms and conditions and then I have to sign in to my Apple ID. I do this, and then tells me the product is not available.

So I started searching and apparently I can only install the OS if I have a bootable USB drive or the original install disc. I never had a disc, and I can't make a bootable USB because I don't have any other Macs and the bootable USB can't be created on Windows.

I already informed the buyer and fortunately he didn't mind much, said his nephew could fix this. But I'm afraid my information is still on there as it knew my Wi-Fi and even auto filled in my email address when the log in prompt appeared. I really don't hope my data is still in tact and he will be able to access it when he takes my Macbook home

 

[Fuchsdh]

I need help asap so I'm hoping one of you can help me out real quick

I'm selling my Macbook Pro and a guy is coming in 2 hours to pick it up. So I just formatted the hard drive to install a clean version of OS X Maverick (I never upgraded and thought I'd let the new owner decide what to do with it).

Problem is, apparently you can't do that anymore through the OS X Recovery tool. When I start the "Reinstall OS X" option, it makes me accept some terms and conditions and then I have to sign in to my Apple ID. I do this, and then tells me the product is not available.

So I started searching and apparently I can only install the OS if I have a bootable USB drive or the original install disc. I never had a disc, and I can't make a bootable USB because I don't have any other Macs and the bootable USB can't be created on Windows.

I already informed the buyer and fortunately he didn't mind much, said his nephew could fix this. But I'm afraid my information is still on there as it knew my Wi-Fi and even auto filled in my email address when the log in prompt appeared. I really don't hope my data is still in tact and he will be able to access it when he takes my Macbook home

You can still wipe the hard drive and zero out the data via booting into the recovery partition.

You can create a bootable USB installer using Diskmaker X.

 

[kubus]

You can still wipe the hard drive and zero out the data via booting into the recovery partition.

You can create a bootable USB installer using Diskmaker X.

Cheers. I managed to wipe the hard drive.

I think Diskmaker X only works on Mac? Either way the dude will be here in 10 minutes so I guess I'll leave it at this and hope everything will turn out fine

Thanks for your help

edit: Ok they're gone. I hope that erasing the hard drive through the OS X recovery mode was enough. Kinda scary not knowing what's on the system and then giving it to a stranger. Maybe change my passwords just to be safe

 

[dark_chris]

Hows using the Retina Macbook Pros outside on a sunny day? Anyone with experience with that?

 

[anonymous_abc]

The trackpad on my MPRr has become somewhat unreliable at times.

Just now I could not scroll in Safari until I quit and restarted it.
Now I cannot three finger swipe between desktops. Accessing Launchpad or Mission control won't work right now either. Scrolling though does interestingly enough. The problem will probably be gone once I restart the computer.
Fells like a software issue but I don't know.
Anyone got any ideas?

 

[tr4656]

Hows using the Retina Macbook Pros outside on a sunny day? Anyone with experience with that?

Turn up brightness and it looks good.

 

[Futureman]

this started fairly recently...

on my late 2013 rMBP when I close the lid at night and open the next monring, sometimes the computer will have shut down unexpectedely overnight.

I have to power back up and after I log in it says that there was an unexpected error and it asks if I want to open the programs I had open.

I did the diagnostics test where you hold down "D" during boot up and it found no problems.

I'm wondering if it would be recommended to back up my HD and do a clean install of Yosemite? I was in the Yosemite beta if that matters.

 

[mrkgoo]

this started fairly recently...

on my late 2013 rMBP when I close the lid at night and open the next monring, sometimes the computer will have shut down unexpectedely overnight.

I have to power back up and after I log in it says that there was an unexpected error and it asks if I want to open the programs I had open.

I did the diagnostics test where you hold down "D" during boot up and it found no problems.

I'm wondering if it would be recommended to back up my HD and do a clean install of Yosemite? I was in the Yosemite beta if that matters.

Have you tried an SMC reset? Also check your battery level after it shuts down. Try to ascertain if it's an error in the power/charging system.

 

[mrkgoo]

The trackpad on my MPRr has become somewhat unreliable at times.

Just now I could not scroll in Safari until I quit and restarted it.
Now I cannot three finger swipe between desktops. Accessing Launchpad or Mission control won't work right now either. Scrolling though does interestingly enough. The problem will probably be gone once I restart the computer.
Fells like a software issue but I don't know.
Anyone got any ideas?

When I first got my iMac, it used to do something like that. I would lose gesture control. I even called apple up about it but it was intermittent so not much could be done.

But when it happened to me doing a kill Dock process (usually in terminal) would actually get it going again, leading me to believe it was software. Haven't seen the issue in a couple years now.
Next time you get it try killing the dock.

 

[weekend_warrior]

Finally upgraded my 2010 MPB to an SSD and 8gb RAM. Fells so fresh and new.

 

[dark_chris]

Finally upgraded my 2010 MPB to an SSD and 8gb RAM. Fells so fresh and new.

Thats what i did on my 2010 as well.
Feelsgoodman.jpg

 

[anonymous_abc]

When I first got my iMac, it used to do something like that. I would lose gesture control. I even called apple up about it but it was intermittent so not much could be done.

But when it happened to me doing a kill Dock process (usually in terminal) would actually get it going again, leading me to believe it was software. Haven't seen the issue in a couple years now.
Next time you get it try killing the dock.

I'll keep that in mind. Thanks.

 

[Futureman]

Have you tried an SMC reset? Also check your battery level after it shuts down. Try to ascertain if it's an error in the power/charging system.

I'll look into SMC reset.

Power is not the issue. Usually happens when I'm plugged in.

 

[mrkgoo]

I'll look into SMC reset.

Power is not the issue. Usually happens when I'm plugged in.

Yeah I know, but what is the charge of the battery when you start back up after this occurs? If it's at zero ten it may be a charging issue (for example the system isn't charging this it shuts down without power). If the battery is still full then it may be something else.

Computer troubleshooting starts with eliminating the obvious answers first.

 

[Futureman]

I don't think it's a charging issue. I've closed the lid when on power at night, in the morning the power light is green indicating full charge, throw it in my laptop bag without ever opening the lid, and when I get on my lunch later in the day I open the lid and the computer is turned off.

If it was at 0% it wouldn't turn back on when off the power adapter. It's def happened to me at lunch during work as described above so I've turned it back on when on battery.

I'll try the SMC reset right now and see if it pops back up at all.

 

[mrkgoo]

I don't think it's a charging issue. I've closed the lid when on power at night, in the morning the power light is green indicating full charge, throw it in my laptop bag without ever opening the lid, and when I get on my lunch later in the day I open the lid and the computer is turned off.

If it was at 0% it wouldn't turn back on when off the power adapter. It's def happened to me at lunch during work as described above so I've turned it back on when on battery.

I'll try the SMC reset right now and see if it pops back up at all.

I would agree. But you know gotta try the basics. I doubt SMC reset would fix your issue.

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

I have a co-worker with the final 13" non-retina MBP doing what you describe (or similar). Haven't had a chance to dive into the panic logs yet, but basically it kernel panics 'every time it wakes from sleep'. My MacBook Air has done the reboot on wake a few times (but absolutely not every time), but I haven't seen the multi-lingual KP screen.

 

[Autumn Wind]

I currently have a 2011 2.3 GHz i5 Mac mini with 8 GB of memory and I saw on Crucial that 16 GB of memory is $130. I am curious if I should just save that money towards a new Haswell Mac mini or is it possible that Apple releases a Broadwell version towards the end of the year?

So...

A. Get the 16 GB memory upgrade for my current Mac mini
B. Put the $130 towards a 2014 Mac mini (I'd be getting 16 GB of memory and the 256 GB PCIe SSD)
C. Wait until Broadwell (may not happen)

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

I am curious if I should just save that money towards a new Haswell Mac mini or is it possible that Apple releases a Broadwell version towards the end of the year?

Anything is possible, but waiting for an awesome new Mini just resulted in disappointment over the past few years.

Is your Mini swapping now with 8GB? If not, don't do anything.

 

[Autumn Wind]

Anything is possible, but waiting for an awesome new Mini just resulted in disappointment over the past few years.

Is your Mini swapping now with 8GB? If not, don't do anything.

At times there will be a very minor amount of swap if I have a lot of Chrome tabs open but generally I usually have 2 GB or so free. I have a 128 GB Samsung 470 SSD (SATA II) so swapping is never noticeable. I also just learned of the purge command in terminal which helps a lot and clears inactive memory.

About three years ago or so when I bought the mini, Chrome never took as much memory as it does now hence the consideration for the upgrade.

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

I have a 128 GB Samsung 470 SSD (SATA II) so swapping is never noticeable.

Hahah, I notice it on my Mac Mini with 8GB of RAM and 120GB SSD, but it's a poor old C2D. I also have a metric shitton of things open— I never run out of memory on my 4GB MBA.

I also just learned of the purge command in terminal which helps a lot and clears inactive memory.

Don't use purge, you're not smarter than the OS's memory management (that goes for Windows and Linux, too)— the memory it frees would have been freed if it had been needed by an active process; instead you've just nuked it before it might have been useful— e.g. applications still in memory when they're relaunched open much, much faster.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Hahah, I notice it on my Mac Mini with 8GB of RAM and 120GB SSD, but it's a poor old C2D. I also have a metric shitton of things open— I never run out of memory on my 4GB MBA.



Don't use purge, you're not smarter than the OS's memory management (that goes for Windows and Linux, too)— the memory it frees would have been freed if it had been needed by an active process; instead you've just nuked it before it might have been useful— e.g. applications still in memory when they're relaunched open much, much faster.

I'd agree in general, but the purge command saves me a lot of time when I'm rendering out of AE—it won't properly utilize all available memory otherwise.

 

[tr4656]

At times there will be a very minor amount of swap if I have a lot of Chrome tabs open but generally I usually have 2 GB or so free. I have a 128 GB Samsung 470 SSD (SATA II) so swapping is never noticeable. I also just learned of the purge command in terminal which helps a lot and clears inactive memory.

About three years ago or so when I bought the mini, Chrome never took as much memory as it does now hence the consideration for the upgrade.

If you have a lot of tabs, Safari and Firefox are much better for memory.

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

I'd agree in general, but the purge command saves me a lot of time when I'm rendering out of AE—it won't properly utilize all available memory otherwise.

Weird! Most applications will just allocate the memory they need, damn everything else.
Wonder if AE is trying to be nice and seeing how much RAM is ostensibly free before trying to grab whatever is available?

 

[Fuchsdh]

Weird! Most applications will just allocate the memory they need, damn everything else.
Wonder if AE is trying to be nice and seeing how much RAM is ostensibly free before trying to grab whatever is available?

AE is a pretty horribly-optimized program, so I could imagine it's any number of things. If you want to speed up performance you often have to delete the caches that are there to speed up performance, et al...

 

[Windu]

Is there anywhere to buy SSDs for the new 2014 Macbook Pro Retina models?

 

[kennah]

Is there anywhere to buy SSDs for the new 2014 Macbook Pro Retina models?

Owc

 

[Fuchsdh]

Owc

Can't buy SSDs for the 2013 or 2014 models (PCIe-flash based) from OWC.

However, theoretically you could buy a used or replacement 2013 Mac Pro PCIe module in and get even better performance.

 

[Dr. Feel Good]

Not sure if this is best place to ask but what the hell.

Can someone explain a few things to me?

- When I buy a movie on iTunes it becomes available on all my devices, and allows for streaming, so I don't even have to download it. Does this not impact my iCloud capacity? How am i am able to stream this from anywhere any not impact Cloud storage?

- If movies isn't a part of iCloud what's the point of storage? It has my iPhone backup on it but that's about it. Why do people need terabytes of data? What could theybe filling it up with?

- How does iTunes Match work? I have a ton of music from my early 2000 days I want to convert over to be iTunes compatible. I really don't want to pay an annual fee though as all of my music is now purchased via iTunes. Can I buy iTunes Match once wand convert all my music and then just discontinue it? Will it match music that I downloaded way back in the Napster days? What happens to music it can't find?

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

Does this not impact my iCloud capacity? How am i am able to stream this from anywhere any not impact Cloud storage?

Apple already has it on their servers for everyone who owns it, so it doesn't have to come out of your quota.

What could theybe filling it up with?

Backups of multiple devices? It's arbitrary storage so I am not sure why you are perplexed people might use it more than you. People pay for Dropbox and OneDrive et al.

What happens to music it can't find?

It uploads it.

Can't answer you other questions as it isn't a service I use.

 

[Dr. Feel Good]

Thanks for your help. I understand people have other uses for devices, i just am not very knowledgeable as to what people use cloud data for.

heres a question I hope someone can help answer on iTunes Match. So say I downloaded a song a long time ago from Napster. It has the title "Thriller" and the artist Michael Jackson. But nothing else. No genre. No album art. No year. Nothing. Would getting iTunes Match replace my generic shitty version with the real and complete iTunes version?

 

[The Real Abed]

I'm also curious about how Match works. Does it go only on file metadata like title and stuff, or does it actually scan the song as well to see if it sounds like what it wants to match with just to make sure? And does it, if it finds conflicts, let you resolve mismatched items easily?

And what about music that doesn't exist on the store like the rare non-iTunes available song or something from Overclocked?

 

[Got the Shakes]

I'm also curious about how Match works. Does it go only on file metadata like title and stuff, or does it actually scan the song as well to see if it sounds like what it wants to match with just to make sure? And does it, if it finds conflicts, let you resolve mismatched items easily?

And what about music that doesn't exist on the store like the rare non-iTunes available song or something from Overclocked?

I've used match since it launched, and as far as I can tell it scans at least a portion of the song to try and identify it. It displays the song with the info you tagged it with though so proper tagging seems to be important if you want song info to display correctly on your devices that use Match.

Music that doesn't exist (or songs that do, but it doesn't match, which does happen sometimes) get uploaded and stored in your Match "locker". I believe the limit is 200 mb per song and 25,000 songs total.