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Mac OSX Noob thread of OSX noobs

th3dude

Member
dmshaposv said:
Unlike most people, I actually also prefer the silver bezel to the black bezel.

However, since I'm mostly going to use my laptop in-doors I don't think the reflectivity issue is gonna bug me too much. I honestly just wanted hi-res for more screen real estate doing graphic design/video work.

That's another good point. I actually prefer it as well. At first I thought it was ugly, but it has grown on me (and isn't a fingerprint magnet like the black one).
 

numble

Member
MacUpdate bundle is ending either tomorrow or midnight tonight, $50 gets you Parallels Desktop 6, 1Password 3, and eight other great apps: MacUpdate Desktop, DVDRemaster Pro 7, Mac DVDRipper 2, Hands Off, App Tamer, TechTool Pro 5, A Better Finder Rename, and Civilization IV.

http://www.mupromo.com/

I really only jumped on this for 1Password and Parallels.
 

tigerin

Member
which one is better? the latest macbook pro 13 inches base model vs. the macbook air 13 inches that came out a few months ago. i'm thinking of returning my pro for the air. is that a good idea?
 
tigerin said:
which one is better? the latest macbook pro 13 inches base model vs. the macbook air 13 inches that came out a few months ago. i'm thinking of returning my pro for the air. is that a good idea?
Uh, what would make one better than the other? Why are you wanting one over the other? Come on.
 

tigerin

Member
i just like it for the thin look......doesnt the air have a better graphic card. i'm fine with the macbook pro. but this one dude kept trying to convince me tht the macbook air is superior.
 

Vormund

Member
Just bought a imac woo.

Yeah I havent touched one in years. (used to do video editing on one a long time ago) Was going to buy a MBP, but it wasn't much more for the 21.5 inch imac and I already have an ipad for my portable needs.
 

NeoForte

Member
My mom has been experiencing some weird wi-fi connection issues with her Mac Book Air. When the thing is online with wi-fi it seems to periodically knock down the connection on my ATT 2wire modem. It literally knocks out the DSL so I can't use it as well for a few until it can find the connection and reconnect. Has anyone experienced anything like this as well? Any solutions?
 

Xyphie

Member
tigerin said:
i just like it for the thin look......doesnt the air have a better graphic card. i'm fine with the macbook pro. but this one dude kept trying to convince me tht the macbook air is superior.

Better graphics, yes. Like a third of the CPU power compared to the Pro 13" too. The Air has a turdy 3 years old CPU, if you want one you should wait for a refresh.
 

jts

...hate me...
Just a heads up as the Mac update promo deal will expire in 5 hours. Just got it, 10 apps plus 2 freebies, most of them great. Awesome.

Also, 50USD sounded like a bit too much for what I wanted, but in euromoney it's just around 35 currency units so it's ok :p
 

Jasoco

Banned
jts said:
Just a heads up as the Mac update promo deal will expire in 5 hours. Just got it, 10 apps plus 2 freebies, most of them great. Awesome.

Also, 50USD sounded like a bit too much for what I wanted, but in euromoney it's just around 35 currency units so it's ok :p
I'm still deciding whether I NEED all that. But damn it is tempting. The problem is I will probably NEVER use DVDRemaster Pro (HandBrake is better and all I need AFAICT), Civ 4 (Not my kind of game. If I wanted to play a game like that I'd rather have it on my iPad.), maybe 1Password. But still, Parallels at $50 plus a bunch of other freebies is damn tempting....
 

blanky

Member
I need some advice my Macbook from 2007 is having some problems I think, its a Core2Duo 2.0 Ghz with 2 gbs of memory. I was watching the giantbomb tnt stream, justin.tv flash, and browsing some other regular pages meanwhile in chrome. It was getting hot as usual, 75/78 celsius and the video sometimes glitched but that might be the internet connection.

Then when it lagged again it crashed gave me the restart message and I did, took a while I even got a status bar on the boot screen and put me in safe mode. After that my CPU temperature does not go down to 45/48 on idle anymore. Am I fucked?
 

Jasoco

Banned
blanky said:
I need some advice my Macbook from 2007 is having some problems I think, its a Core2Duo 2.0 Ghz with 2 gbs of memory. I was watching the giantbomb tnt stream, justin.tv flash, and browsing some other regular pages meanwhile in chrome. It was getting hot as usual, 75/78 celsius and the video sometimes glitched but that might be the internet connection.

Then when it lagged again it crashed gave me the restart message and I did, took a while I even got a status bar on the boot screen and put me in safe mode. After that my CPU temperature does not go down to 45/48 on idle anymore. Am I fucked?
Yes. My 2007 MB died a slow painful death. (Exact same model) It started 2.5 years after I bought it and I squeezed as much time out of it as I could before finally buying a 2010 model. Now it lies in a box in pieces because I thought I could do something with it. But now I can't even resell it. Save your pennies. You're gonna need a new one.

It would overheat and shut off. It would make a grinding sound from the fan. The palmrest was cracking. The screen was yellowing. It was falling apart slowly.

Had I had AppleCare when it started giving the problems, I could have replaced it. Sadly I think even AC is out of your reach now as it's now 4 years old instead of 3.

Sorry. Hope you're ready to upgrade. Because it's reaching the end of its life.

Might be best to sell it for parts now while you can and scrounge up money for a shiny new 2011 model Pro or 2010 white MB.
 

blanky

Member
Jasoco said:
Yes. My 2007 MB died a slow painful death. (Exact same model) It started 2.5 years after I bought it and I squeezed as much time out of it as I could before finally buying a 2010 model. Now it lies in a box in pieces because I thought I could do something with it. But now I can't even resell it. Save your pennies. You're gonna need a new one.

It would overheat and shut off. It would make a grinding sound from the fan. The palmrest was cracking. The screen was yellowing. It was falling apart slowly.

Had I had AppleCare when it started giving the problems, I could have replaced it. Sadly I think even AC is out of your reach now as it's now 4 years old instead of 3.

Sorry. Hope you're ready to upgrade. Because it's reaching the end of its life.

Might be best to sell it for parts now while you can and scrounge up money for a shiny new 2011 model Pro or 2010 white MB.

I figured as much, but I was really hoping other wise. I can't get anything new for atleast 3 months. :|

Don't have the grinding noise yet, but the yellowing and cracking of the plastic has been around for a while.

I wonder why Apple does not tackle the heat issue more, I mean these things are hot out of the box. Oh well..
 

Jasoco

Banned
blanky said:
I figured as much, but I was really hoping other wise. I can't get anything new for atleast 3 months. :|

Don't have the grinding noise yet, but the yellowing and cracking of the plastic has been around for a while.

I wonder why Apple does not tackle the heat issue more, I mean these things are hot out of the box. Oh well..
You probably have time. When mine was going I was unable to watch any kind of high-quality video (H.264) without overheating and shutting off. And even after that started, I got another whole 6 months out of it.

I say wait those 3 months then buy when you can. Just make sure you have backups! KEEP BACKUPS! Not that it matters since the HD is probably fine and even if the machine dies, you can easily get a case and transfer the files from the old HD to your new machine without problems.


Anyway, I bought the bundle. I don't like the MacUpdate app. It sucks. It marks all my apps as unupdated and I do not trust it. Plus I won't pay $20 a year for something I can do by launching the app and waiting for it to check for updates itself. Fuck it, it's useless.

Mac DVDRipper Pro will come in handy once Lion is out and MacTheRipper no longer works. Glad to have it.

Won't need DVDRemaster though as HandBrake is better. (Even though I haven't tried Remaster yet, HandBrake does soooo much more anyway so I don't need this.)

I'll probably burn a DVD of TechTool for future use I guess.

I don't see myself ever playing Civilization IV. It's not my kind of game. I'd play it once and never go back. I wish I had someone to gift it to. But I don't know if I can now that I already purchased.

Not sure how much I'll use 1Password though.

Hands Off could be useful. I guess. But I dunno. I'll keep it for now. So far all its done is ask me for confirmation for every app I have running.

AppTamer I haven't figured out yet. It made Chrome go dark which means I guess it was frozen. I have to play around with it.

A Better Finder Rename will replace the old pre-registration-required version of Renamer I have. I used Renamer4Mac but a few versions ago it went to "Haha! You can no longer use it for FREE! Now you have to PAY FOR IT!" mode so I reverted to the older version and never updated. Now I have something else to play around with.

I also got Super Monkey Island for subscribing. My GOD. This game is 1.8GB? WTF? It's not even 3D! Shit man.

Anyway, now to try out the one reason I got the bundle... Parallels. Better be worth it! ;)
 

blanky

Member
Jasoco said:
You probably have time. When mine was going I was unable to watch any kind of high-quality video (H.264) without overheating and shutting off. And even after that started, I got another whole 6 months out of it.

I say wait those 3 months then buy when you can. Just make sure you have backups! KEEP BACKUPS! Not that it matters since the HD is probably fine and even if the machine dies, you can easily get a case and transfer the files from the old HD to your new machine without problems.

Temps have gone down now to 46/47 but with the fan at 4026rpm, maybe it recovered but this thing is probably not going to last it already took too much. I was already planning on getting a new pc come summer. And thanks about the back up tip, ill keep an eye on that. I have a back up of some essential stuff but not all.

Is flash any more manageable on the new macbooks? What about using the webcam, that seemed to kickstart the fans pretty good as well. Not too mention skype, piece of shit software.
 

Jasoco

Banned
Ew... TechTool 5 feels like a legacy application. It has pinstripes, bad images and the installer uses VISE! WHO USES VISE ANYMORE? Shit! Plus it said "On reboot, we are going to put an icon in your Dock, and we won't give you the option to not do it!" Fucking hell! Now I'm going to have to unlock my fucking Dock to remove it. Why are they giving you 5? 6 is the current version. Glad I'm rarely going to use this piece of shit.

I wish they'd included Hazel as one of the apps. I'd have preferred it over Civilization IV. I'm probably going to end up buying that anyway.

Edit: I'm uninstalling this crap. It feels like it's from 2004 and it thinks my machine was made in 2000.
 

mrkgoo

Member
Jasoco said:
Ew... TechTool 5 feels like a legacy application. It has pinstripes, bad images and the installer uses VISE! WHO USES VISE ANYMORE? Shit! Plus it said "On reboot, we are going to put an icon in your Dock, and we won't give you the option to not do it!" Fucking hell! Now I'm going to have to unlock my fucking Dock to remove it. Why are they giving you 5? 6 is the current version. Glad I'm rarely going to use this piece of shit.

I wish they'd included Hazel as one of the apps. I'd have preferred it over Civilization IV. I'm probably going to end up buying that anyway.

Edit: I'm uninstalling this crap. It feels like it's from 2004 and it thinks my machine was made in 2000.

Those bundles are hardly ever really 'worth' it. You THINK you're going to use a bunch of the stuff, but you only really ever only briefly use a couple. You can say it's worth it just for the two you do use, but if it were just those two in the bundle, you know you wouldn't buy it.

Still, this does seem like the better bundle in a while.

And I totally agree on TechTool 5. I thought I would have a use for that, but after seeing the screens, I went, nope, not getting it.
 

_Bro

Banned
Serious question, not OS related but you all have macs, how bad is a cracked screen? It's not like a big crack but.. you know, I've got a computer hidden behind the screen.

Something I should get looked at or am I good?

edit: i'm on an imac
 

Jasoco

Banned
mrkgoo said:
Those bundles are hardly ever really 'worth' it. You THINK you're going to use a bunch of the stuff, but you only really ever only briefly use a couple. You can say it's worth it just for the two you do use, but if it were just those two in the bundle, you know you wouldn't buy it.

Still, this does seem like the better bundle in a while.

And I totally agree on TechTool 5. I thought I would have a use for that, but after seeing the screens, I went, nope, not getting it.
It was worth it for Parallels though. Works so much better than the free VirtualBox, and I'm sure I'll get some use out of the DVDRipper app. Most of the stuff however is just fluff. Even that Humble Indie Bundle had some games in it I didn't really care about, but most of that bundle was gold. This is mostly garbage, but still totally worth it for Parallels. And the nice thing is unlike TechTool, Parallels is the current version. Not some older version.

Now to find something to test out the graphical capabilities and download some Windows only Indie games to test out. See if I got my money's worth.

I really like coherence mode. I can have the apps run side by side as if they're part of OS X. So much better than having to fuck with Windows' full GUI. And the Dock icon shows the start menu and if I want I can have the system tray icons in the menubar. (Though I wish it could change them to black. They're white and totally stand out against my 100% black iconed menubar.
2Ryh7.png

Heh.. must be April Fools day. Imgur has a "Catify" option for uploading images.



_Bro said:
Serious question, not OS related but you all have macs, how bad is a cracked screen? It's not like a big crack but.. you know, I've got a computer hidden behind the screen.

Something I should get looked at or am I good?

edit: i'm on an imac
Is it the iMac with the removable glass? It can be replaced. But question is, is it noticeable? And is it still under warranty? I'd Google for replacement glass for your model and see what they go for if you can't have it replaced for free.
 

_Bro

Banned
Jasoco said:
Is it the iMac with the removable glass? It can be replaced. But question is, is it noticeable? And is it still under warranty? I'd Google for replacement glass for your model and see what they go for if you can't have it replaced for free.
It's a 2007. Pretty sure that means I'm fucked.
 

Jasoco

Banned
_Bro said:
It's a 2007. Pretty sure that means I'm fucked.
The 2007 was the first one with the removable glass screen. You need suction cups or something. The glass is kept on via magnets I believe. Either way, it's an easy replace. What size is it? Take it to an Apple Store and see what they say cost wise. Then Google for a better price. May be about $150 or so for the glass itself.

Again, if it's not really bothersome forget about it. If it bothers you, just have it replaced. Take it to the closest Apple Store and see what they think.
 
My iTunes is, for some reasons, is splitting randoms albums into two:

2nqbc6p.png


But there's only the first song in the splitted album... Every information is the same between the two but they just won't merge !

Bug ? Something I do wrong ?
 

glaurung

Member
UnluckyKate said:
My iTunes is, for some reasons, is splitting randoms albums into two:

2nqbc6p.png


But there's only the first song in the splitted album... Every information is the same between the two but they just won't merge !

Bug ? Something I do wrong ?
This is a known issue, it has been cropping up for a while now.

The simplest workaround:
  1. Make sure you have the same meta information on all tracks of the album.
  2. If one or more tracks are still displayed as a separate album - even though they have the exact same meta data - select them and rename the album name by adding a single symbol either at the beginning or end of the album name.
  3. Save.
  4. Now, rename the bogus album name back to what it is supposed to be.
  5. Save.
  6. If the problem persists, there must be something else nicht in ordnung.
 

Jostifer

Member
UnluckyKate said:
Double post sorry, but how do I get rid of this MobileMe Sync icon that I never used ?

Hold down the Command-button [cmd], then leftclick and hold on the icon and drag it off the bar. It'll disappear in a puff of smoke.
 
UnluckyKate said:
Checked: yes.

But it let me fixed my problem. I just filled the " artist on this album " and suddenly they all merged.

iTunes sorts by Album and Artist. You'll see the same album multiple times if you've got different tracks by different artists.

The way to fix this is to go into iTunes, pick the album, highlight all the songs, hit Command-I, go to "Options" then pick "Part of a Compilation" and set it to Yes. This will tell iTunes to not sort by artist for that set of songs.

By blanking out the artist you made them all match so they grouped together.
 

NekoFever

Member
UnluckyKate said:
My iTunes is, for some reasons, is splitting randoms albums into two:

http://i55.tinypic.com/2nqbc6p.png

But there's only the first song in the splitted album... Every information is the same between the two but they just won't merge !

Bug ? Something I do wrong ?
It's always some incredibly stupid minor error when it's happened to me. Manually re-entering the metadata as a last resort has always fixed it.
 

dmshaposv

Member
so any proper way i can write on NTFS formatted hard-drives on my mbp?

I've tried NTFS-3G/Macfuse and while it successfully installs it gives me an error and doesn't mount my HDD. Googling around showed some solutions (safely eject from windows) but the problem persists.


Anyone know a workaround or alternative?
 

hirokazu

Member
dmshaposv said:
so any proper way i can write on NTFS formatted hard-drives on my mbp?

I've tried NTFS-3G/Macfuse and while it successfully installs it gives me an error and doesn't mount my HDD. Googling around showed some solutions (safely eject from windows) but the problem persists.


Anyone know a workaround or alternative?
Use the built-in driver from Apple? http://ntfsmounter.com/
 
dmshaposv said:
so any proper way i can write on NTFS formatted hard-drives on my mbp?

I've tried NTFS-3G/Macfuse and while it successfully installs it gives me an error and doesn't mount my HDD. Googling around showed some solutions (safely eject from windows) but the problem persists.


Anyone know a workaround or alternative?
Paragon NTFS is fantastic.
 

KtSlime

Member
mrkgoo said:
I really liked the apple. I remember open-apple vs. Closed-apple.

I wonder why they decided to remove apple? Just for text font ease reasons?

No, it's probably due to branding - The Apple was too everywhere, it is an attempt for Apple to reclaim the logo so that it has more power. I also expect them to remove the Apple menu eventually for the same reason.

I believe the idea is that the Apple should only appear in one place on any given Apple product.

iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone - on back; iOS - on boot, in Settings:General:About:Legal
Mac - on back; Mac OS X - on boot, Apple menu, About this Mac, Mail icon
iTunes - on display 'screen'
iBooks - hidden on shelf
Apple.com - in corner of navigation-bar
MobileMe - bottom of sign in page
iWork/iLife/ProApps - at top of About window of each app

I think it is pretty smart.

My guess is Mail will get a new Apple-less icon by the release of Lion.
 

hirokazu

Member
ivedoneyourmom said:
No, it's probably due to branding - The Apple was too everywhere, it is an attempt for Apple to reclaim the logo so that it has more power. I also expect them to remove the Apple menu eventually for the same reason.
Pretty much. I read something about it around the time they removed the Apple logo, but I don't remember where I read it.

From Wikipedia:
The ⌘ came into the Macintosh project at a late stage. The development team originally went for their old Apple key, but Steve Jobs found it frustrating when "apples" filled up the Mac's menus next to the key commands, because he felt that this was an over-use of the company logo.
Before the Apple logo was removed from the Command key, it just had the ⌘ symbol and the Apple logo, which may be confusing for people who have no idea it's supposed to be the Command key.
 
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