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Mac OSX Noob thread of OSX noobs

Jasoco

Banned
Dreams-Visions said:
they can be a chore to maintain. every time an OS update comes out, you have to wait and worry. other than that, it'll perform fine. I dual-boot my Dell into OS X sometimes. Everything works as expected.
The same reason I am reluctant to Jailbreak. I like being up to date. But Jailbreaking would require me to wait sometimes weeks for an update to come out in order to upgrade. Fuck that. Not worth it.

Besides, I use Macs for the OS, and the hardware. No PC company will ever be able to match Apple's trackpad as good as Apple does it. And they just look really nice. I like not having stickers all over my machine and extra distracting LED's in terrible places. (Sometimes right under the screen) The only way I'd build a Hackintosh is if Apple went out of business and OS X's source was somehow released to the public and I needed to buy a PC because there was no more Apple hardware. At which point I'd probably get a Sony or something that looks close enough. Hopefully with Intel and Windows stickers that I can easily remove. Because that's the first thing I'd do the second it came out of the box.
 

Blackhead

Redarse
Jasoco said:
The same reason I am reluctant to Jailbreak. I like being up to date. But Jailbreaking would require me to wait sometimes weeks for an update to come out in order to upgrade. Fuck that. Not worth it..
That's a poor comparison between running a jailbreak iOS device and running a hackintosh device. Actually it's not just a poor comparison, it's wrong.

(First you're assuming that it's worth it always being up to date. Sometimes the upgrades aren't even useful at all. At other times the upgrade provides a feature or bug fix that was already available for jailbroken devices. Occasionally an upgrade is horrible and breaks things—in which case you might not be able to downgrade if the device wasn't previously jailbroken).

You are required to wait for a hackintosh update because the hardware might not be supported by the upgrade. That isn't so with a jailbroken device as the hardware is always supported by the upgrade and you are not required to wait for an update—but you may choose to wait for an update first.

The only conclusion I can reach when I read that someone doesn't want to jailbreak because it'll mean lagging behind for upgrades, is that the person thinks jailbreaking is so awesome that s/he'll never want to give it up. *shrug*

Jasoco said:
Besides, I use Macs for the OS, and the hardware. No PC company will ever be able to match Apple's trackpad as good as Apple does it. And they just look really nice. I like not having stickers all over my machine and extra distracting LED's in terrible places. (Sometimes right under the screen) The only way I'd build a Hackintosh is if Apple went out of business and OS X's source was somehow released to the public and I needed to buy a PC because there was no more Apple hardware. At which point I'd probably get a Sony or something that looks close enough. Hopefully with Intel and Windows stickers that I can easily remove. Because that's the first thing I'd do the second it came out of the box.
Get an Apple Keyboard and a Magic Trackpad?
 
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. It's something I'll consider, but I guess it depends on what Apple is offering in the 13-inch Macbook Pro next year. I just can't justify upgrading my old MBP yet because it's hardly better. My laptop generally remains stationary, so I wouldn't just building a PC and still use OSX, but it may end up being more trouble/space than it's worth.
 

Fatalah

Member
My girlfriend's Macbook is acting strange. Whenever the USB port is used, the machine goes mad! It starts thinking extensively, and performance take a huge slowdown. The processor and hard drive go into overdrive -- the fan kick it into high gear too.

What the heck is going on? This happens when she plugs in her USB thumb drive, or her Kindle.
 
Fatalah said:
My girlfriend's Macbook is acting strange. Whenever the USB port is used, the machine goes mad! It starts thinking extensively, and performance take a huge slowdown. The processor and hard drive go into overdrive -- the fan kick it into high gear too.

What the heck is going on? This happens when she plugs in her USB thumb drive, or her Kindle.

What system process is it that's going crazy?
 

Jasoco

Banned
Charred Greyface said:
Get an Apple Keyboard and a Magic Trackpad?
No need to. Apple's still in business. And if they weren't, there would be no Apple trackpad to buy. Unlike some people, I like Apples hardware. It truly is designed well. Even if they sometimes keep it's internals a bit behind the times.
 
Cant wait for Final Cut Pro X! So pumped. Think the naming is nonsense. is it Ex or Ten? You cant skip 8 and 9 can you? Seems silly, if it's Ex then it goes against Mac OS X"ten" people will start to say Oh Es Ex.

Annoying, but looks amazing. Cant wait, my render times finally wont lock me out of editing.
 

Jasoco

Banned
The real question is are they simply naming all their apps X now to match the OS as if to say "It's finally ready and worthy of actually being an OS X app so we're naming it X"? Because why skip numbers indeed.
 

Blackhead

Redarse
Jasoco said:
No need to. Apple's still in business. And if they weren't, there would be no Apple trackpad to buy. Unlike some people, I like Apples hardware. It truly is designed well. Even if they sometimes keep it's internals a bit behind the times.
I'm just pointing out that a hackintosh can also be made up mostly of Apple hardware. If you get an Apple Bluetooth keyboard, Magic Trackpad and Cinema Display then the only part that isn't Apple's is the internals.
 

XMonkey

lacks enthusiasm.
HenryGale said:
Cant wait for Final Cut Pro X! So pumped. Think the naming is nonsense. is it Ex or Ten? You cant skip 8 and 9 can you? Seems silly, if it's Ex then it goes against Mac OS X"ten" people will start to say Oh Es Ex.
Quicktime went from 7 -> X so I guess they're just keeping it consistent. In Final Cut's case, it's a large enough jump that if they want to justify skipping 2 numbers then they can go ahead.
 

Jasoco

Banned
Charred Greyface said:
I'm just pointing out that a hackintosh can also be made up mostly of Apple hardware. If you get an Apple Bluetooth keyboard, Magic Trackpad and Cinema Display then the only part that isn't Apple's is the internals.
You see though I'm a laptop owner... which would pretty much mean I'd have to use the crap built into the device. And no laptop creator has a trackpad as elegant as Apple's. No one. There are imitators, but no one that I've seen coms close.
 

crispyben

Member
GAF, here's what my speedtest looks like:



I know it sucks, but it still should allow me to stream a 360p Youtube video without any hiccups, right? Wrong. Which makes me wonder if somebody's leeching off my WPA2 Wifi network... Can you point in the direction of the appropriate software to monitor this kind of things? Thanks.
 
When do MBPs typically refresh? I know they just have one, but I'm waiting to upgrade my 2.5-3 year old MBP once they start offering quad-core processors in the 13-inch model. By next January, perhaps?
 

Xyphie

Member
Jimmy Stav said:
By next January, perhaps?

Yup. The next major CPU upgrade will be in Q1/early Q2 2012 with the Ivy Bridge series, that's the first series that will offer quad cores in the lower TDP processors so the 13" should get those.
 
crispyben said:
GAF, here's what my speedtest looks like:



I know it sucks, but it still should allow me to stream a 360p Youtube video without any hiccups, right? Wrong. Which makes me wonder if somebody's leeching off my WPA2 Wifi network... Can you point in the direction of the appropriate software to monitor this kind of things? Thanks.

Have you gone to your router's status webpage (i.e. 192.168.1.1) and looked for anything there? If you have DD-WRT or Tomato firmware installed there's a lot more details available to you, but even the factory firmware should have an area you can view connected devices or monitor other important stats.

It's possible you have a shitty network route to YouTube. Twice in the past few years I've had an issue where I would get full bandwidth from just about anything I accessed, but YouTube would be unusable. It would eventually resolve itself, but it would take days or weeks. Try watching a video on Vimeo.com and see if you have the same issue.


Xyphie said:
Yup. The next major CPU upgrade will be in Q1/early Q2 2012 with the Ivy Bridge series, that's the first series that will offer quad cores in the lower TDP processors so the 13" should get those.

That should also see the introduction of the next Macbook form factor and possibly this "liquid metal" material.
 

Jme

Member
crispyben said:
GAF, here's what my speedtest looks like:



I know it sucks, but it still should allow me to stream a 360p Youtube video without any hiccups, right? Wrong. Which makes me wonder if somebody's leeching off my WPA2 Wifi network... Can you point in the direction of the appropriate software to monitor this kind of things? Thanks.

What kind of router do you have? Typically with router software you can http into the device (let's say your router is giving you a "192.168.1.X" ip address... point your browser to 192.168.1.1 and admin login to your router (Typically Admin/Pass or Admin (nopassword) - check your router manual if you aren't sure and haven't set this yet.)

From there you should be able to see what devices are connected to it - if you can't account for everything you know somebody is leeching. If you DON'T see anything, and you suspect that maybe the leech just isn't present - you can always set a hard limit to how many connections your wifi will offer, or you can even go as strict as MAC address restriction.

Of course the easiest test would be to change your wifi key to something else and see if there's an immediate improvement.
 

Ulairi

Banned
Is there any purpose for me to upgrade to an iMac if I already own a MacBook Pro and a 27" Cinema Display? I am debating if I want to upgrade to the new iMacs when they launch with Thunderbolt or if I should just use my current MacBook Pro (Mid 2010) with the 2.53 Ghz Intel Core i5 and 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Ram?

I picked up the cinema display because it is easier for me to do photography with but thunderbolt is super sexy.
 

mrkgoo

Member
Ulairi said:
Is there any purpose for me to upgrade to an iMac if I already own a MacBook Pro and a 27" Cinema Display? I am debating if I want to upgrade to the new iMacs when they launch with Thunderbolt or if I should just use my current MacBook Pro (Mid 2010) with the 2.53 Ghz Intel Core i5 and 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Ram?

I picked up the cinema display because it is easier for me to do photography with but thunderbolt is super sexy.

When you think about it, no-one can really answer the question for you, as people are in different situations, and have different priorities.

From my view point, your computer is less than a year old, so I wouldn't upgrade, but then I don't have such a pressing need for thunderbolt.

That said, i'm still using my MacBook pro non-unibody,
 

X-Frame

Member
Does anyone backup their backup harddrive?

I have an OWC 1TB HDD that I've had for about 2 years I think, and it's still running great with no issues. I have A LOT of stuff on here though, and it would be horrible to loose what's on here.

If I buy another HDD, preferably another OWC one (since I hear they're one of the better ones), how do I copy what's on my current External HDD to the new one?


Just to be sure, I'd like to have 2 copies of my files. Do people do that?
 

luoapp

Member
X-Frame said:
Does anyone backup their backup harddrive?

I have an OWC 1TB HDD that I've had for about 2 years I think, and it's still running great with no issues. I have A LOT of stuff on here though, and it would be horrible to loose what's on here.

If I buy another HDD, preferably another OWC one (since I hear they're one of the better ones), how do I copy what's on my current External HDD to the new one?


Just to be sure, I'd like to have 2 copies of my files. Do people do that?

All the time. Just the peace of your mind may be worth the price.
 
What's the best desktop twitter aap?

Currently using the official app but the annoying thing is I can't start typing someones name and it will autofil, so that means I need to know everyones name

I need it to be nice and sexy too! Lemme know what you got! Cheers

Why did Lious Kang get banned?
 
crispyben said:
GAF, here's what my speedtest looks like:



I know it sucks, but it still should allow me to stream a 360p Youtube video without any hiccups, right? Wrong. Which makes me wonder if somebody's leeching off my WPA2 Wifi network... Can you point in the direction of the appropriate software to monitor this kind of things? Thanks.

Download a large file from the Microsoft website and make a note of the transfer rate. It should be around 600KB-800KB/sec. Also do a traceroute of youtube.com. Make sure, btw, you;re not viewing HTML5 YouTube -- that thing loaded slow for me
 

luoapp

Member
X-Frame said:
So how do I go about transferring the data between both the HDD's?

There are plenty backup softwares on the net. Or, you can just manually copy them over.



crispyben said:
GAF, here's what my speedtest looks like:



I know it sucks, but it still should allow me to stream a 360p Youtube video without any hiccups, right? Wrong. Which makes me wonder if somebody's leeching off my WPA2 Wifi network... Can you point in the direction of the appropriate software to monitor this kind of things? Thanks.

Right click on a youtube video, there is a "speed test" option, you can see the speed of your location/isp/city...

KbPMi.png
 
Jimmy Stav said:
Can anyone speak to the pros and cons of building a "Hackintosh?"

http://lifehacker.com/#!5672051/how-to-build-a-hackintosh-mac-and-install-os-x-in-eight-easy-steps

I'm intrigued.
I built Lifehacker's second build that they link to in the beginning of that article, and it was easy as pie. I've had it for almost 2 years, and I've gotten each and every software update without any worries (but, yes, I did wait for Adam Pash to say it's ok to download them. Fortunately, OS X updates are much rarer than Windows ones). It's been my first (and only, so far) Mac, and I love it. It's blazing fast.
 

KtSlime

Member
XMonkey said:
Quicktime went from 7 -> X so I guess they're just keeping it consistent. In Final Cut's case, it's a large enough jump that if they want to justify skipping 2 numbers then they can go ahead.

X in Apple-ese means complete new start from a new code base, it has nothing to do with skipping numbers. Had they made it to 10 without a rewrite I highly doubt it would have been labeled using an X. I'd be willing to bet that whenever iTunes finally gets its rewrite, even though they are on version 10 right now, it will be branded as iTunes X.
 

X-Frame

Member
luoapp said:
There are plenty backup softwares on the net. Or, you can just manually copy them over.

If I was going to go the manual route -- how do I "physically" set it up to do that?

Do I need to connect BOTH HDD's to my computer and then drag from one HDD to the new one? I have a MBP so I have a FW 800 and USB ports.
 

crispyben

Member
Valkyr Junkie said:
Have you gone to your router's status webpage (i.e. 192.168.1.1) and looked for anything there? If you have DD-WRT or Tomato firmware installed there's a lot more details available to you, but even the factory firmware should have an area you can view connected devices or monitor other important stats.
handofg0d said:
What kind of router do you have? Typically with router software you can http into the device (let's say your router is giving you a "192.168.1.X" ip address... point your browser to 192.168.1.1 and admin login to your router (Typically Admin/Pass or Admin (nopassword) - check your router manual if you aren't sure and haven't set this yet.)

From there you should be able to see what devices are connected to it - if you can't account for everything you know somebody is leeching. If you DON'T see anything, and you suspect that maybe the leech just isn't present - you can always set a hard limit to how many connections your wifi will offer, or you can even go as strict as MAC address restriction.
Thanks, I just did this and was able to account for all devices showing up as connected. I'll keep those options in mind.
Meus Renaissance said:
Download a large file from the Microsoft website and make a note of the transfer rate. It should be around 600KB-800KB/sec. Also do a traceroute of youtube.com. Make sure, btw, you;re not viewing HTML5 YouTube -- that thing loaded slow for me
Thanks, I will look into that.
luoapp said:
Right click on a youtube video, there is a "speed test" option, you can see the speed of your location/isp/city...
Thanks, the graphics show wild variations over time, maybe that was one the valleys...
 

bionic77

Member
I was told that my 2006 Core Duo MBP could not take advantage of an SSD, so what HD should I get? It is using a 5400 80gb that came with it and I need more space for my music. Even a 200 gig HD would suffice.
 

Blackhead

Redarse
Meus Renaissance said:
Thanks. Anyone here experience Shockwave using a significant amount of the CPU? The only time my machine gets loud or hot is when I'm watching these flash videos
:) you have now officially graduated from a newb mac user. Be warned, in a few months you'll be complaining about flash like Gruber
 

Ashhong

Member
Meus Renaissance said:
Thanks. Anyone here experience Shockwave using a significant amount of the CPU? The only time my machine gets loud or hot is when I'm watching these flash videos

KuGsj.gif


Indeed. Welcome to macs :p
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
I love how easy it is to remote administer another OSX machine just by screen sharing from Finder. But is there a way to do the same from a windows 7 machine? I want to access my mac mini for updating minecraft server stuff etc
 

fabprems

Member
crispyben said:
GAF, here's what my speedtest looks like:



I know it sucks, but it still should allow me to stream a 360p Youtube video without any hiccups, right? Wrong. Which makes me wonder if somebody's leeching off my WPA2 Wifi network... Can you point in the direction of the appropriate software to monitor this kind of things? Thanks.

It's a problem between your ISP and youtube. Neuf-Sfr and Free both have this well-known problem...
 

KtSlime

Member
mrklaw said:
I love how easy it is to remote administer another OSX machine just by screen sharing from Finder. But is there a way to do the same from a windows 7 machine? I want to access my mac mini for updating minecraft server stuff etc

If you know the IP you can point a VNC client at it, however I don't think the win 7 RDC program supports the protocol, so you will have to go 3rd party.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
ivedoneyourmom said:
If you know the IP you can point a VNC client at it, however I don't think the win 7 RDC program supports the protocol, so you will have to go 3rd party.

thanks. any recommendations? free would be good, otherwise I'd just use my ipad alongside me.
 

Chris R

Member
"Upgraded" to Firefox 4 today and I've been having nothing but trouble. Flash video wouldn't play in fullscreen (audio would though) but upgrading to the latest Flash beta fixed that... but now my dock and status bar in osx disappear when Firefox has focus :/ time to roll back to 3.X I guess.
 

KtSlime

Member
mrklaw said:
thanks. any recommendations? free would be good, otherwise I'd just use my ipad alongside me.

I don't particularly use Windows all that often, but in the past I have used RealVNC and it has gotten the job done, they should have a free version, however I am not sure what kind of limits are on it because it has been a few years since I used it last.
 

jts

...hate me...
Dudes, my Google Chrome icon is jumping back and forth between original and the new one. Is that happening to you too?

I don't know which one I like best though, so I don't mind. The tridimensional old one fits the dock and matches the other icons better, methinks.
 

Alucrid

Banned
I have a 15" macbook pro that I bought in summer 2009. My brother is looking for a mac and I'm thinking of selling it to him. How much is it worth and how much better would the newest revision be than it?
 

th3dude

Member
Alucrid said:
I have a 15" macbook pro that I bought in summer 2009. My brother is looking for a mac and I'm thinking of selling it to him. How much is it worth and how much better would the newest revision be than it?

Can't give you an exact estimate, but I like to check eBay's completed listings for that type of info. You should be able to get a huge sample set to take an average from. You should be able to find your exact model/specs, then if you have any aftermarket addons (more RAM, bigger HDD, etc) you can adjust price accordingly.
 
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