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Mac OSX Noob thread of OSX noobs

wmat said:
You sync your library. That's what it does. It copies music from your MacBook to your iPod and music from your iPod to your MacBook.
but this is a new computer. his iPod won't be sync'd to his new computer and he'll be promted that in order to sync, he'll have to erase his iPod. unless he opts to manually manage his iPod. that's why these iPod ripping apps exist in the first place.
 

wolfmat

Confirmed Asshole
Dreams-Visions said:
but this is a new computer. his iPod won't be sync'd to his new computer and he'll be promted that in order to sync, he'll have to erase his iPod. unless he opts to manually manage his iPod. that's why these iPod ripping apps exist in the first place.
Hmm, are you sure? I have to admit I never had this scenario. Didn't think of it. Sorry if true!
 
wmat said:
Hmm, are you sure? I have to admit I never had this scenario. Didn't think of it. Sorry if true!
yep, sure. that's how iDevices have always operated, in order to make "giving people your music" difficult.

there are some other ways, but they can get involved.
 
Dreams-Visions said:
I've used Pod2Mac for sure, but I can't remember the others. It's listed among the below:

http://www.fadingred.com/senuti/

http://www.macroplant.com/podtomac/

http://thelittleappfactory.com/irip/

all will do the job. I can vouch for Pod2Mac, as it kept good organization (albums/artists/songs).

edit: I'm personally not familiar with the iTunes route. I assumed it would erase his iPod.


thanks, so all the playlists will transfer also to itunes right? that's my main concern
 
Ken Masters said:
thanks again
as of right now, I'm not sure if it will import the playlist itself or just the files ON the playlist. but it will certainly do the later. pictures of the options below

screenshot20101217at745.png

screenshot20101217at745.png

screenshot20101217at745.png

screenshot20101217at745.png

screenshot20101217at745.png

screenshot20101217at745.png
 

giga

Member
Charred Greyface said:
Would you be down with Cydia on the Mac?

iPhone jailbreaker set to bring Cydia to Mac OS X



I like Cydia on iOS. There isn't anything comparable on other platforms, besides Preware on webOS which isn't quite to the same standard. My little experience with the Android market, where apps and system mods are lumped together, suggests to me that having two separate stores is the way to go.
It’s already an open platform, so I don’t really see the need. But I guess it would be nice to have an open package manager GUI for OS X.
 

Koodo

Banned
Is there a way of updating the system wide color profile in Snow Leopard? I had somehow done this years ago on 10.5, but I just recently upgraded to 10.6 and that just went kaput. Even though the calibrated profile remained for the user account, everything outside of the account reverted to the factory setting (which I must stress is TERRIBLE, as in barely-functional terrible). The login screen looks like a mess right now and that severely ticks me off. :c
 
Just one last question for the year, two actually:

I have a 1TB HDD that I want to back up, and it's connected to my time capsule. Can I buy another 1TB HDD and then use a USB hub in the back of my time capsule and connect the two HDDs then just use something like SuperDuper or Carbon Clone Copy to replicated the HDD every few days?

Secondly, I want to use an intel based Mac Mini as my media centre, do any of them have severe logic board issues? As I could just buy a shitty £100 media player box but it'll be so much easier for me to control and integrate the Mac Mini into my current setup

Cheers
 

Wanace

Member
I have several GBs of photos on my Macbook Pro that I want to give to a friend via her windows-formatted usb hard drive. How can I do so? I can't move the files when I plug her drive into my computer, it won't let me. I assume this is due to the drive format or something. Help?
 

MCX

Banned
Install MacFUSE and NTFS-3G, then your Mac will be able to copypasta files to an NTFS formatted hard drive.
 

Ulairi

Banned
Is there a reason why when I watch a movie through iTunes (downloaded or digital copy) the sound is lower than when I watch it from a DVD? I'm trying to get the sound to be louder but I have no idea how.
 

Pseudo_Sam

Survives without air, food, or water
Ulairi said:
Is there a reason why when I watch a movie through iTunes (downloaded or digital copy) the sound is lower than when I watch it from a DVD? I'm trying to get the sound to be louder but I have no idea how.

Right-click - get info - options - volume adjustment
 

Blackhead

Redarse
Ulairi said:
Is there a reason why when I watch a movie through iTunes (downloaded or digital copy) the sound is lower than when I watch it from a DVD? I'm trying to get the sound to be louder but I have no idea how.
VLC, MPlayer OSX Extended, NicePlayer and pretty much every other video player let you increase the volume beyond Apple's maximum.
 
So my parents have a black Macbook from 2007 or 2008, and they got a cable to hook it up to our TV. I looked at the symbol on the cable, and thought, "hm, I have a port in my laptop (a mid-2009 Macbook Pro) with that symbol, so it should work with my laptop, right?" Unfortunately not. Apparently theirs is Mini-DVI and mine is Mini DisplayPort. You'd think they could've used a different symbol for them...
 

Quote

Member
cooljeanius said:
So my parents have a black Macbook from 2007 or 2008, and they got a cable to hook it up to our TV. I looked at the symbol on the cable, and thought, "hm, I have a port in my laptop (a mid-2009 Macbook Pro) with that symbol, so it should work with my laptop, right?" Unfortunately not. Apparently theirs is Mini-DVI and mine is Mini DisplayPort. You'd think they could've used a different symbol for them...
The icon means video out. It's used on DVI, Mini DVI, Mini DisplayPort, VGA, Mini VGA ect.
 

Jasoco

Banned
Charred Greyface said:
VLC, MPlayer OSX Extended, NicePlayer and pretty much every other video player let you increase the volume beyond Apple's maximum.
Movist. My player of choice. The best one of them all if a little feature light. (Doesn't have deinterlacing of all things.) I like it because it lets you choose between FFMPEG and QuickTime to open any file. I use FFMPEG for most because it is faster than QuickTime even on QuickTime/MPEG-4 files.

I don't like MPlayer Extended because it seems every fucking time I launch it it takes 2 minutes to update the fucking FONT CACHE which I don't use anyway because I rarely ever use subtitles unless they're forced. Plus it has the controls in a separate window. I hate that. And doesn't have the same choice between FFMPEG and QuickTime like Movist.

I don't like VLC because it's not an all-in-one window like Movist and even the hacks that make it AIO don't work well and break with each update. And doesn't have the same choice between FFMPEG and QuickTime like Movist.

I don't like Niceplayer because it's ugly as hell and I'm on OS X, not Windows, so it shouldn't look like a Windows program. And doesn't have the same choice between FFMPEG and QuickTime like Movist. Ugh it's so ugly. It actually insults my eyes.

Therefore I'm left with Movist which hasn't failed me for the past few years. I just wish the blog wasn't in Japanese and the last update hadn't been a year or so ago.


I wish Plex did too. Eventually it's going to be the main way I watch videos when I get my mini in a few weeks/months. (Hoping for an update first.)

In the end it'll come down to Plex/Nine for movies and TV and Movist for everything else.

This turned into a rant. Oops.
 

Particle Physicist

between a quark and a baryon
This is a somewhat off topic question, but my sister is looking to buy a macbook pro. Macrumors buyer's guide says to not buy right now, that updates will be released soon. Does anyone have an idea as to when the updates are expected? If it is too long, she might just buy one right now.
 
quadriplegicjon said:
This is a somewhat off topic question, but my sister is looking to buy a macbook pro. Macrumors buyer's guide says to not buy right now, that updates will be released soon. Does anyone have an idea as to when the updates are expected? If it is too long, she might just buy one right now.
February at the earliest.

If she wants a 13", it'd be best to wait. Those machines are dated as fuck.
 

noah111

Still Alive
Jasoco said:
Movist. My player of choice. The best one of them all if a little feature light. (Doesn't have deinterlacing of all things.) I like it because it lets you choose between FFMPEG and QuickTime to open any file. I use FFMPEG for most because it is faster than QuickTime even on QuickTime/MPEG-4 files.

I don't like MPlayer Extended because it seems every fucking time I launch it it takes 2 minutes to update the fucking FONT CACHE which I don't use anyway because I rarely ever use subtitles unless they're forced. Plus it has the controls in a separate window. I hate that. And doesn't have the same choice between FFMPEG and QuickTime like Movist.

I don't like VLC because it's not an all-in-one window like Movist and even the hacks that make it AIO don't work well and break with each update. And doesn't have the same choice between FFMPEG and QuickTime like Movist.

I don't like Niceplayer because it's ugly as hell and I'm on OS X, not Windows, so it shouldn't look like a Windows program. And doesn't have the same choice between FFMPEG and QuickTime like Movist. Ugh it's so ugly. It actually insults my eyes.

Therefore I'm left with Movist which hasn't failed me for the past few years. I just wish the blog wasn't in Japanese and the last update hadn't been a year or so ago.


I wish Plex did too. Eventually it's going to be the main way I watch videos when I get my mini in a few weeks/months. (Hoping for an update first.)

In the end it'll come down to Plex/Nine for movies and TV and Movist for everything else.

This turned into a rant. Oops.
One thing I gotta agree with is the windowed controller in VLC. Though I usually watch things in fullscreen so it isn't too big of an issue. However, VLC was so ugly imo (not sure how nice Movist looks), so I re-skinned it personally, as well as the fullscreen controller.

2i9s1m1.jpg


ae5gn7.jpg


Is Movist as pretty as that? If so I may try it out. Oh, plus it needs to have some good subtitle options so I can run arabic subs, which was a pain to figure out in VLC settings.
 

Jasoco

Banned
Sentry said:
One thing I gotta agree with is the windowed controller in VLC. Though I usually watch things in fullscreen so it isn't too big of an issue. However, VLC was so ugly imo (not sure how nice Movist looks), so I re-skinned it personally, as well as the fullscreen controller.

http://i55.tinypic.com/2i9s1m1.jpg[IMG]

[IMG]http://i53.tinypic.com/ae5gn7.jpg[IMG]

Is Movist as pretty as that? If so I may try it out. Oh, plus it needs to have some good subtitle options so I can run arabic subs, which was a pain to figure out in VLC settings.[/QUOTE]
Prettier IMHO
[IMG]http://i56.tinypic.com/29ojscj.jpg

qpq8tv.jpg

Turn off whatever audio tracks you want to.

Subtitles work, but I believe only integrated ones. Doesn't seem to work with .SRT files. (Maybe I just can't figure it out.) But I only have one file with an SRT, and that's only for the two scenes with foreign language. And eventually I'll just use MKVMerge to make it part of the file so I won't even need it.

The little icon in the window corner is for switching between FFMPEG and QuickTime playback. FFMPEG is faster in every instance. QuickTime is a dog on the same files.

Volume goes up to 400% like VLC.

Audio can be delayed or set ahead in case the file has badly synced audio tracks.

Playback speed.

But as I mentioned, it doesn't seem to be updated anymore. It's like it no longer exists. The sites are just stuck in time. But it's my favorite video player outside of Plex which I will use when I get a mini. But for local video, Movist is my player of choice.

VLC would simply need to add all the stuff Movist has and I wouldn't be opposed to switching back. By which I mean single-window application, controls for fine-tuning, the ability to use either QuickTime or FFMPEG...
 

AcciDante

Member
Hey dudes, I just upgraded to Snow Leopard, and everything seems to work as expected, except my Spotlight in top right is now gone! Originally all the menu bar items on the top right, like the clock, weren't there, but I found some suggestions online and got all those back, but my spotlight is still missing. Any help? I use spotlight for everything!
 

Jasoco

Banned
That's not normal!

Post a screenshot!

I use it for everything too. Eventually I may even replace DragThing when Lion comes out as a lot of the time I just hit Command+Space and type the apps name.
 

CRS

Member
That's really strange. If you can't find a solution, you could also use Quicksilver. It's not exactly the same as Spotlight but just as useful for me, sometimes more. It's completely changed the way I've used my Mac and I always feel strange whenever I'm using someone else's that doesn't have it installed.

http://quicksilver.en.softonic.com/
 

Echoes

Member
I'm buying an iMac (27") today. I need a definite answer before doing so:

Can I buy an external SSD and let it be my bootable drive? Will that be good? I can't order from Apple so I can't add the extra 265GB SSD. I found a good price for the i5 27", but it only has one drive, which is 1TB. Can I plug in an external SSD and expect greatness or does this assumptions fails?
 

Rei_Toei

Fclvat sbe Pnanqn, ru?
GAF, question: one of my colleagues wants to use Outlook at home (Mac) and at work (PC with Windows - XP I think, might be Vista, have to check). I know there's Outlook in the Office for Mac release from Microsoft, but is it possible to 'sync' Outlook between mac and pc? I don't know if 'sync' is the right word - basically she want the same configuration/folders on both systems. Google yields no recent results - but I might nog be looking at the right places.

(tried talking him into Thunderbird but that didn't work out)
 
Echoes said:
I'm buying an iMac (27") today. I need a definite answer before doing so:

Can I buy an external SSD and let it be my bootable drive? Will that be good? I can't order from Apple so I can't add the extra 265GB SSD. I found a good price for the i5 27", but it only has one drive, which is 1TB. Can I plug in an external SSD and expect greatness or does this assumptions fails?
It would not run close to full speed over USB. Firewire 800, a little closer, but still nowhere near.

It begins:

Mac OS X 10.6.6 Mac App Store search

Apple plans to include some rudimentary integration between its upcoming Mac App Store and the next maintenance release of Mac OS X 10.6, according to discoveries made a MacGeneration forum member.

Mac OS X 10.6.6, due for release in the next few weeks, will offer users the option of searching the Mac App Store for applications when it runs into an unsupported file type for which no application has previously been assigned.

macappstore-122410.jpg


As can be seen in the French-language screenshot above, attempting to open a file with an ".mkv" extension in build 10J537 of Mac OS X 10.6.6 displays a dialog box which says, "There's no application set to open the document [filename].mkv. Search the App Store for an application that can open this document, or choose an existing application on your computer."

In this case, the ".mkv" extension stands for a Matroska Video File and searching the Mac App Store -- due to launch on January 6th -- would return applications capable of opening the file, such as VLC player for Mac.
It's going to be really hard NOT to buy from the Mac App Store. I'm just worried that soon we're going to have to pay for all the current free apps, or else have to download the iAd supported free versions.

Also, aren't full screen apps in a lot of ways getting away from a standard UI?
 

mollipen

Member
Jasoco said:
I don't like MPlayer Extended because it seems every fucking time I launch it it takes 2 minutes to update the fucking FONT CACHE which I don't use anyway because I rarely ever use subtitles unless they're forced. Plus it has the controls in a separate window. I hate that. And doesn't have the same choice between FFMPEG and QuickTime like Movist.

Since when? My copy doesn't, unless you're talking about something other than the basic controls.
 

Jasoco

Banned
shidoshi said:
Since when? My copy doesn't, unless you're talking about something other than the basic controls.
I got it mixed up with VLC. Sorry. Doesn't fix the other complaints I have with it.
 

Liquidus

Aggressively Stupid
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
February at the earliest.

If she wants a 13", it'd be best to wait. Those machines are dated as fuck.

Sure the processor will be better but the GPU in the new 13" MBP will be of the Intel Integrated variety. Just can't win:(
 

Phoenix

Member
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:

Lots of people are afraid that with the easy of iAd integration there is little reason for a developer to offer a truly FREE app when they can at least offer an ad-supported one with limited pain on their part.
 

Jasoco

Banned
AcciDante said:
"1. Go to System/Library/Core Services, and find Spotlight. Double click it. Does it show up, now?"

I don't even have spotlight in there...What the hell?
Hmm you're right. I don't either. They must have moved it in 10.6. Are you on Snow Leopard? I don't know where they hid the app now.
 

Jasoco

Banned
The only thing I found was a search.bundle package in CoreServices that appears to be the replacement for Spotlight.app. But it can't be launched like an app. I'm pretty sure it's the Spotlight app though because it has all the parts inside of it.

Here's a more relevant page:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2137731

You just upgraded and it disappeared, right?

They say to just reinstall Snow Leopard. With SL it's much easier to get back up. It might be your only choice.
 

AcciDante

Member
Jasoco said:
The only thing I found was a search.bundle package in CoreServices that appears to be the replacement for Spotlight.app. But it can't be launched like an app. I'm pretty sure it's the Spotlight app though because it has all the parts inside of it.

Here's a more relevant page:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2137731

You just upgraded and it disappeared, right?

They say to just reinstall Snow Leopard. With SL it's much easier to get back up. It might be your only choice.

I don't have much experience with installing/reinstalling OS's, but if I reinstall will I be able to keep all my files like I did when I upgraded? I don't have anything to back up on at the moment.
 

Jasoco

Banned
AcciDante said:
I don't have much experience with installing/reinstalling OS's, but if I reinstall will I be able to keep all my files like I did when I upgraded? I don't have anything to back up on at the moment.
Snow Leopard is smart. Trust the Snow Leopard. Do it.

Step 1: Install SL normally

Step 2: Immediately update software and reboot until it no longer has updates

Step 3: There is no step three... there's no step three!
 

AcciDante

Member
Jasoco said:
Snow Leopard is smart. Trust the Snow Leopard. Do it.

Step 1: Install SL normally

Step 2: Immediately update software and reboot until it no longer has updates

Step 3: There is no step three... there's no step three!

Then here I go!
 

AcciDante

Member
Jasoco said:
Snow Leopard is smart. Trust the Snow Leopard. Do it.

Step 1: Install SL normally

Step 2: Immediately update software and reboot until it no longer has updates

Step 3: There is no step three... there's no step three!

Well, I reinstalled and it went back to the worse state it started at. Everything in the top right of the menu bar was gone again. No time, battery, spotlight, etc. I just ended up backing up what I needed and completely restored. Everything is there now.
 
COt damn

WTF is up with the new Mac Mini?! I got a hold of one for a 32" TV and it's struggling to display videos that play just fine on my MBP. Fuck, is the late 2008 MBP more powerful than the new Mac Mini?!
 

jts

...hate me...
Mecha_Infantry said:
COt damn

WTF is up with the new Mac Mini?! I got a hold of one for a 32" TV and it's struggling to display videos that play just fine on my MBP. Fuck, is the late 2008 MBP more powerful than the new Mac Mini?!
No. Well, there was a 2.53GHz 2008 MBP, which is more powerful than the current 2.4GHz Mac mini, but just barely. That can't possibly be the reason.

Also, I own a 2.0GHz (9400M) Mac mini on a similar setup (32 incher too) and it plays everything just fine.

Something's very wrong there. Are you playing your videos locally or from a network? What application are you using and did you test that on any other ones?

edit: while on the HTPC subject, I always have to remote into my Mac mini upon a fresh boot because the mouse cursor location doesn't let PLEX go into full screen, it keeps showing the topbar and the dock. I just have to move the mouse cursor a few pixels downwards and click anywhere on PLEX. Any automatic solution for this?
 

Echoes

Member
579f5


Got it. Transferred all my stuff from my MacBook using Migration Assistant. All went smoothly.

Jumping from 13- to 27-inch display is... uh. Fricken awesome.
 
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