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Mac OSX Noob thread of OSX noobs

Treefingers said:
From what I've read native write support was disabled by default because it can be very unstable and can destroy your data, so I'd be careful with that.
I don't know if this is true or not, but if it is...Paragon NTFS = awesomesauce.
 

kaskade

Member
Alright so I think I want to set up time machine on a network, that way I won't need to keep plugging it into my MB when I want to backup, and it'll just happen automatically. I'm just wondering what the compatibility is with external drives hooked up to routers.

I'm pretty much in need of a new router anyway. Right now I have a old school linksys G. The time capsule is nice but it's not exactly cost effective. http://reviews.cnet.com/routers/asus-rt-n56u-dual/4505-3319_7-34200558.html?tag=mncol;lst

I was looking at this one, then just hooking up a 1tb drive. I'm just wondering if this should work, or if any of you guys have done something similar?
 
giga said:

Nice. Here is one I found

ocKC+


tumblr_lhn7hgVboy1qarbgx.png
 

Jasoco

Banned
Meus Renaissance said:
Loving Growl. Experimenting with some styles and settings. Any recommendations? If so, take a screenshot
I just use Music Video for most stuff. Music Video is nice for at-a-glance notifications that you don't need to confirm. Like Bowtie when the song changes.

Also, if you have an iPhone, iPod or iPad and you sign up for BoxCar, you can use a Growl plugin that will send notifications to your iDevice as well as your Mac and PC with the BoxCar app installed. Pretty cool. I wouldn't use it for everything, but certain things you might leave running on your computer you might want to know about when they finish. I have it set up to tell me when Transmission finishes downloading and seeding and when a .torrent file is automatically added. I also have Hazel watch the desktop for .torrent files which then moves them to the DropBox folder, and on the Mac mini, Transmission watches my DropBox for .torrent files and adds them. Plus with iCab on my iPad, I can also upload the .torrent right to my DropBox which Hazel watches and moves the file from my "iCab Mobile" folder to the root of my DropBox after which Transmission takes over.

Not to mention that just having a mobile browser that can upload to my DropBox cloud drive which then gets downloaded to both of my computers for later access is just damn cool. I even have my Minecraft worlds and texture packs in my DropBox as well as my custom Chrome extensions.

Technology today is wonderful. Automation is even better. What a wonderful world.

I am totally buying Hazel when the trial is over. I gotta think of other things to use it for. Especially keeping my desktop (Which is where I download files to) clean by moving files into my Downloads folder. (Which is where I put files I download after a while)
 
I installed GrowlTunes and enabled it, but not getting any notifications when iTunes tracks change. I don't understand what the following on their website is suggesting though.

Once you have installed GrowlTunes, double click it. This will put the headphones in the menubar at the top of your screen. From here you can control GrowlTunes.

(Done this)

For users of iTunes 4.7 and later, that is all you have to do to get GrowlTunes working. Note: GrowlTunes does not poll for its information with iTunes 4.7 and later.

(Huh?)

 

blanky

Member
Fascinating turn of events with my battered Macbook. I was watching the downloaded HD video of whiskeymedia's happy hour and at the end of the video I exited fullscreen to click on something else, decided not to and tried to reenter fullscreen but thats when the screen glitched. Looked like a fried graphicscard, couldn't do anything but reboot. Now the temperatures are up again and it smells like overdone toast.

beautiful.

I wonder, if i take out the drive and put it in a windows 7 machine, hook up the sata and power will I be able to read and copy off of it? Would save me some back up hassle.
 

tigerin

Member
is iwork a good program to replace microsoft word? anyone has experience with writing resume for applying at apple store to be a specialist? i'm kinda inexperience when it comes to writing resume. lol

also, what's the right way to reinstall the macbook pro and start everything over again? oneo f my sister's friend came down here and messed around with my macbook. i don't know wht i he download on it. so i just want to make sure by reinstalling it.

thanks.
 

mrkgoo

Member
tigerin said:
is iwork a good program to replace microsoft word? anyone has experience with writing resume for applying at apple store to be a specialist? i'm kinda inexperience when it comes to writing resume. lol

also, what's the right way to reinstall the macbook pro and start everything over again? oneo f my sister's friend came down here and messed around with my macbook. i don't know wht i he download on it. so i just want to make sure by reinstalling it.

thanks.
You're applying for a job with apple as a specialist? Specialist in what? Hopefully not macs or mac software!

:p

To reinstall, just put in the OS install disc and it will give you options to reinstall, I would think. Next time, don't let strangers access your computer.
 

tigerin

Member
mrkgoo said:
You're applying for a job with apple as a specialist? Specialist in what? Hopefully not macs or mac software!

:p

To reinstall, just put in the OS install disc and it will give you options to reinstall, I would think. Next time, don't let strangers access your computer.

specialist in convincing people how complicate mac is.......lol.



wait, i don't have to hold a option button? see, i know a little bit. haha

and yea, i'm a nice guy. what can i say. :/
 

mrkgoo

Member
tigerin said:
specialist in convincing people how complicate mac is.......lol.



wait, i don't have to hold a option button? see, i know a little bit. haha

and yea, i'm a nice guy. what can i say. :/

I'm not sure, as I don't think i've ever reinstalled. Just put the disc in, and double click the mac OSS icon.

If you want to boot from the disc, you have to boot holding C, but I don't think that's what you want.

Also, as always, make sure you have backups of your data! See if, you had time machine, you could just restore to a state before your computer was messed with.
 

tigerin

Member
mrkgoo said:
I'm not sure, as I don't think i've ever reinstalled. Just put the disc in, and double click the mac OSS icon.

If you want to boot from the disc, you have to boot holding C, but I don't think that's what you want.

Also, as always, make sure you have backups of your data! See if, you had time machine, you could just restore to a state before your computer was messed with.

i just got my macbook pro, so i have nothing to save.

and thanks for the time machine, i'll check it out next time someone mess with my stuffs again.

edit: okay, i just checked out the time machine and it said the airport device is not present. does it mean an external hard drive?
 

hirokazu

Member
Treefingers said:
From what I've read native write support was disabled by default because it can be very unstable and can destroy your data, so I'd be careful with that.
Well I use it to copy non-critical data - just media to an external to play on a TV connected media player. And it's been a solid experience so far.

I can't, of course, guarantee it will always work without destroying your data, but the same applies for third party solutions.
 

wolfmat

Confirmed Asshole
I, on the other and, can guarantee it will not always work. I've had unreadable files, randomly garbled filenames, nonsense folders and broken file properties so far. If you copy often enough, you'll run into issues. Checksum stuff.
 

Killthee

helped a brotha out on multiple separate occasions!
blanky said:
Fascinating turn of events with my battered Macbook. I was watching the downloaded HD video of whiskeymedia's happy hour and at the end of the video I exited fullscreen to click on something else, decided not to and tried to reenter fullscreen but thats when the screen glitched. Looked like a fried graphicscard, couldn't do anything but reboot. Now the temperatures are up again and it smells like overdone toast.

beautiful.

I wonder, if i take out the drive and put it in a windows 7 machine, hook up the sata and power will I be able to read and copy off of it? Would save me some back up hassle.
Probably not without installing some drivers first, Windows lacks HFS+ support by default. I think the Boot Camp drivers on the Snow Leopard disk include a read only HFS+ driver. There's also MacDrive($) which offers a free trial.
 

Pachimari

Member
Couldn't find a MacBook Air specific thread and the search doesn't seem to function right now on my iPad. So here goes, does the keyboard tear and wear easily? Is it like all other keyboards? Because the letters on my Samsung Nc10 netbook are gone, the same can be said of my Logitech keyboard.
 

LCfiner

Member
Anastacio said:
Couldn't find a MacBook Air specific thread and the search doesn't seem to function right now on my iPad. So here goes, does the keyboard tear and wear easily? Is it like all other keyboards? Because the letters on my Samsung Nc10 netbook are gone, the same can be said of my Logitech keyboard.

I've been using the Apple chiclet keyboards for years and years. the letters don't come off on either the white or black models. you'll be fine
 
Killthee said:
Probably not without installing some drivers first, Windows lacks HFS+ support by default. I think the Boot Camp drivers on the Snow Leopard disk include a read only HFS+ driver. There's also MacDrive($) which offers a free trial.
Paragon >>>> MacDrive.
 
Treefingers said:
You and your Paragon :p
You know why I like their 2 apps (Paragon NTFS, Paragon HFS+) so much?

Because I don't even know they're there. Sometimes Tuxtera and the NFTS program that company makes would push my CPU up to 90% when making copies. The speed was mediocre and I swear my computer start-up speed took a hit too. You could tell it was an add-on, you know? But Paragon has never been a burden on my CPU. its speeds are where you'd expect them to be when transferring large or small files. I've never had a corrupted file in the year I've been using it. I think the best compliment I can give is that it seems native.

As for HFS+, I've only recently switched to that. I had been using MacDrive for a year or so. It was sometimes moody and inconsistent. Sometimes copies would hang (transfer window unable to close and no longer copying anything). Sometimes the HFS-formatted drives would not show up. Other times, they'd show up whenever they felt like it (sometimes 5 minutes after start up; sometimes an hour after startup). Very inconvenient in all cases. And with applications like Zune, sometimes music would be added...and sometimes it wouldn't. It was like the automated searching for music on the HFS-formatted drive still had bugs.

But with HFS+? Again, everything seems native. The drives don't have any special symbols attached to them like we see in MacDrive. The drives are there when the computer boots every time. Transfer speeds are normal. Software that acted flaky with MacDrive had no such problems with HFS+.

My only frustration is that it took me a solid year to realize Paragon sold a Windows app for HFS+ read/write.

So yea, out of 3 or 4 NTFS programs for OS X that I've tried, Paragon's has been the most stable and consistent. And between HFS+ and MacDrive, the advantage goes with HFS+...though I've only been using it for a couple of months. Who knows...maybe HFS+ has some issues I haven't encountered yet. But so far so good.
 

Jasoco

Banned
blanky said:
Fascinating turn of events with my battered Macbook. I was watching the downloaded HD video of whiskeymedia's happy hour and at the end of the video I exited fullscreen to click on something else, decided not to and tried to reenter fullscreen but thats when the screen glitched. Looked like a fried graphicscard, couldn't do anything but reboot. Now the temperatures are up again and it smells like overdone toast.

beautiful.

I wonder, if i take out the drive and put it in a windows 7 machine, hook up the sata and power will I be able to read and copy off of it? Would save me some back up hassle.
The way I knew my machine was going out was when the computer would either A) shut off abruptly when I tried to play a QuickTime video fullscreen, or it would B) Kernel Panic. The KP happened less though. Most of the time it was an abrupt shutoff of the machine. And when I would feel it, it was HOT. And I mean super HOT. Hotter than it should be. So that's when I knew something was wrong with temperature control. Eventually the fans started making horrible noises and Knew the fans were on the way out. Even later down the road I couldn't keep it from overheating even by removing the topcase and exposing it to an air current. I was so glad when my tax return came and Apple FINALLY updated the MBP's last year. This time I'm getting AppleCare.
 

Kuran

Banned
I don't want to start a new thread, and the Search function sucks.

So I'll post it here... I'm looking to order a new Macbook Pro 15"model on Monday, my only need is that I get the best speeds in Photoshop.

Is it worth it to get the 2.3Ghz model with faster graphics card? Or won't Photoshop make any use of the increased graphics memory and should going to 8GB on the standard processor be enough?

I know SSD should also be a huge difference, but that is a bit too expensive of an upgrade for the 500GB model.

I was getting the optional 2.3Ghz processor with 7200RPM HD, Higher resolution matte screen and 8GB ram expansion.
 

Jasoco

Banned
Memory and SSD will be a big plus for PhotoShop. SSD should be purchased separately however. Don't get the horrible Apple priced ones. Processor rarely makes a difference these days. Though if you can't get an SSD right now, a 7200 HD should work good enough for now. But yeah, a faster graphics card will probably benefit PhotoShop a lot I would think. If you can, get as best you can. It'll be your computer for a few years. Go all out if you have the moneys.
 
go with:

2.2GHz
4GB ram
cheapest HDD they offer.

-then-

buy 8GB ram from Newegg or Amazon for <$80.

-and-

buy SSD from Newegg or Amazon of whatever size you want/can afford.


If you don't expect to use the optical drive constantly, take it out and sub in another HDD. In this configuration, you can put your apps and OS on the SSD and big files & storage on your 2nd HDD.

whatever you do, don't buy your upgrades from Apple. their cheaper elsewhere. and the more powerful CPU will only be a meaningful upgrade if you spend most of your computing time transcoding audio/video.
 

dmshaposv

Member
Dreams-Visions said:
Paragon >>>> MacDrive.

Thanks for the recommendation bud. Paragon is working flawlessly so far for me. :)

Also, what would be the best program to keep tabs on battery life and battery cycles? I'm using istat pro and so far its pretty good but i feel that my battery charge finishes faster than it should (obviously i know this depends on what you are doing, brightness, keybord lights, e.t.c)

Last question, haven't switched off my mac since I got it last week (just put it to sleep and resume when needed). Would this tax the battery life? when should the occasional "shut down" be?
 
1.) I use iStat Menus or Coconut Battery. Also, these programs don't effect the battery charging (ie, stopping charging before it's charged); it just observe and reports what's happening to you. battery charging is moderated by the OS.

2.) Sleeping uses more battery life than shutting down, assuming you're not plugged into A/C during this time. However, sleep doesn't use much battery life in the first place, so I wouldn't worry about your battery losing capacity over time due to using sleep mode.
 

dmshaposv

Member
Yeah the sleep mode, by far, is the thing that has impressed me the most. I lose like 1%-2% charge overnight after use and can resume almost instantly.

If it doesn't tax the capacity, i don't even see the point of shutting down unless you don't plan on using your machine for a day or two.
 
dmshaposv said:
Yeah the sleep mode, by far, is the thing that has impressed me the most. I lose like 1%-2% charge overnight after use and can resume almost instantly.

If it doesn't tax the capacity, i don't even see the point of shutting down unless you don't plan on using your machine for a day or two.
I never shut down.

In fact, I never shut down my 2010 MBP and after a year, the battery capacity was still above 90%. So yea, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Synth_floyd said:
I want to get a mac and right now I'm using Media Monkey for all my music but a lot of it is in FLAC. iTunes is not FLAC compatable, right? So what should I use when I switch to mac?
I'd recommend:

Audrivana (free)
Decibel ($)
Fidelia ($)
 
I want to get a mac and right now I'm using Media Monkey for all my music but a lot of it is in FLAC. iTunes is not FLAC compatable, right? So what should I use when I switch to mac?
 
Treefingers said:
You can use this:

http://code.google.com/p/flukeformac/

to allow iTunes to play FLAC.
Fluke sucks. It's laggy and does not integrate well.

Treefingers said:
Not a whole lot of good audio players for OS X other than iTunes unfortunately.
1.) iTunes audio quality in general is mediocre, especially the recent releases which have actually added audio quality issues it never had before.

2.) it's just not true. There ARE a lot of better audio players for OSX.

Audrivana

Fidelia

Decibel

Amarra

All of these provide far superior music playback to iTunes. depending on which you're using, they offer features like 64-bit floating point precision, audio plug-in support, audio hog mode, better upscaling software than Core Audio, etc.
 
Haha yeah sorry, I'm not much of an audiophile so I wasn't aware of iTunes audio quality issues and stuff.

Ooh Decibel is actually a damn nice lightweight player. Thank you for proving me wrong!
 

Ashhong

Member
Dreams-Visions said:
I never shut down.

In fact, I never shut down my 2010 MBP and after a year, the battery capacity was still above 90%. So yea, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Just to give my own experience, my 2009 model is almost always on, even overnight, and my battery capacity is still at like 87 or so. Had it for like a year and 9 months or so now. I only turn it off when the battery dies. Otherwise its either on or sleeping because its traveling.
 
Which of those itunes alternatives has a really good itunes/media monkey style organization for the music? I wouldn't mind paying for it either. Just downloaded audirvana on my dad's mac and it seemed really barebones for my relatively large music collection. I also thought it was funny that it had a "power" button on the UI to mimic an old style music receiver. What a waste of space. LOL.
 

Kuran

Banned
Thanks for the advice everyone!


Dreams-Visions said:
go with:

2.2GHz
4GB ram
cheapest HDD they offer.

-then-

buy 8GB ram from Newegg or Amazon for <$80.

-and-

buy SSD from Newegg or Amazon of whatever size you want/can afford.


If you don't expect to use the optical drive constantly, take it out and sub in another HDD. In this configuration, you can put your apps and OS on the SSD and big files & storage on your 2nd HDD.

whatever you do, don't buy your upgrades from Apple. their cheaper elsewhere. and the more powerful CPU will only be a meaningful upgrade if you spend most of your computing time transcoding audio/video.


It seems a bit risky to swap out my optical drive.. won't that void my warranty?

I never use my SuperDrive though, so it would be incredible if I could install a second SSD drive there.
 

Blackhead

Redarse
Synth_floyd said:
Which of those itunes alternatives has a really good itunes/media monkey style organization for the music? I wouldn't mind paying for it either. Just downloaded audirvana on my dad's mac and it seemed really barebones for my relatively large music collection. I also thought it was funny that it had a "power" button on the UI to mimic an old style music receiver. What a waste of space. LOL.
Songbird perhaps? The music organization software category on the Mac is completely dominated by iTunes; there are few alternatives. A lot of people store their music in iTunes then use other players to access and play that library.

Dreams-Visions said:
Treefingers said:
Not a whole lot of good audio players for OS X other than iTunes unfortunately.
1.) iTunes audio quality in general is mediocre, especially the recent releases which have actually added audio quality issues it never had before.

2.) it's just not true. There ARE a lot of better audio players for OSX.

Audrivana

Fidelia

Decibel

Amarra

All of these provide far superior music playback to iTunes. depending on which you're using, they offer features like 64-bit floating point precision, audio plug-in support, audio hog mode, better upscaling software than Core Audio, etc.
I don't know about all those audiophile requirements but interface-wise I'd say Vox is the best Mac standalone audio player.
 

Mobius 1

Member
I want to install an SSD on my 27' iMac. It's the first model (late 2009), and it has only one SATA port so I will be removing the stock hard drive.

Problem is... the computer is under warranty until the end of 2012. I don't want to void it. The info I found around is ambiguous about Apple's stance on this.

Did anyone here do the upgrade? And recommendations about what SSD I should choose would be welcome too.
 

panda21

Member
i have this weird problem with os x, it keeps putting random files from my desktop in the favourites list in the finder for no reason, when i didnt put them there. its only files that are on my desktop, and they just appear there after a while for no apparent reason.
 

Jasoco

Banned
Favorites list? Do you mean Favorites Folder? Well, the only way files go there is if you press Control+Command+T in the Finder. The item is under the File menu and is called "Add to Sidebar" until you hold down Control then it changes to Favorites.

Make sure nothing is sending that key combination to the system.

Frankly, I thought Favorites had gone away with OS 9.
 
Does anybody here DJ or play/practice the piano on their Macs with either GarageBand or Logic?

Basically, I haven't played the piano in a few years since moving away for college, but I'd like to pick it up again. The GarageBand artist lessons sparked my interest. Can a GAFer recommend me a good but affordable (read: cheap) keyboard that can connect to my MBP? I haven't the slightest idea what to look for. Thanks.
 
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