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Mac OSX Noob thread of OSX noobs

Bboy AJ

Bboy AJ

My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
Growl is now on the Mac App Store for $2.
 
T

Treefingers

Member
cooljeanius said:
Any reason to get this version if you already have the previous version installed? Besides supporting the devs of course.
Click to expand...
Not really at the moment unless you care about the notification history and the Rollup thing. Oh and it's in the menu bar now (and unfortunately you can't take it out of there).

But it's $2 :p. I think a large part of the work went into re-writing the code which could possibly allow them to do some cool things in future updates.
 
B

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
Well Growl is only useful for me in the now. I really don't see a need for me to see past notifications, especially since most of them are just from iTunes. Also I prefer it being hidden in preferences rather than in the menubar. Guess I'll stick with the free version.
 
H

hirokazu

Member
BGBW said:
Well Growl is only useful for me in the now. I really don't see a need for me to see past notifications, especially since most of them are just from iTunes. Also I prefer it being hidden in preferences rather than in the menubar. Guess I'll stick with the free version.
Click to expand...
Yeah, not too excited for a menubar icon, I'm trying to minimise the icons up there. I guess I'll upgrade when they roll out amazing features or something.
 
C

cooljeanius

Member
hirokazu said:
Yeah, not too excited for a menubar icon, I'm trying to minimise the icons up there. I guess I'll upgrade when they roll out amazing features or something.
Click to expand...
I'm running into the same problem. Wish my screen had a wider horizontal resolution; 1200 just isn't enough for all my menu bar items. That actually gives me an idea for an application: A menu bar icon that when you click on it, expands into a sub-menu bar with all the rest of your menu bar applications on it. It would be a way to save space while using more menu bar applications. Does something like this already exist?
 
B

Blackhead

Redarse
cooljeanius said:
I'm running into the same problem. Wish my screen had a wider horizontal resolution; 1200 just isn't enough for all my menu bar items. That actually gives me an idea for an application: A menu bar icon that when you click on it, expands into a sub-menu bar with all the rest of your menu bar applications on it. It would be a way to save space while using more menu bar applications. Does something like this already exist?
Click to expand...
It's been a standing request for a couple of years now :/
A menubar item that displays a list of more menubar items in a drop-down menu. (In the meantime, there’s NoMenuBar.)
Click to expand...
I couldn't get NoMenuBar to work on Lion but I didn't try too hard as I have a big monitor now :)
Edit: The most recent version works

BGBW said:
Well Growl is only useful for me in the now. I really don't see a need for me to see past notifications, especially since most of them are just from iTunes. Also I prefer it being hidden in preferences rather than in the menubar. Guess I'll stick with the free version.
Click to expand...
If most of your notifications are from iTunes then you're doing it wrong :|

Nice to see Growl finally get a searchable history. This complicates things for me a bit as one of the main reasons I was looking forward to the new iPhone was so I could shift all my notifications there via Howl/Prowl.
 
B

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
Greyface said:
If most of your notifications are from iTunes then you're doing it wrong :|
Click to expand...
Really? It's going to be the most common notification since it happens about every four minutes.
 
M

MDJCM

Member
I wouldn't mind upgrading to Lion as long as I can keep Snow Leopard's multi-touch trackpad gestures.

I don't like the way Lion does it, reveal desktop is ridiculous, four finger swipe up is much better.

Anyone know if it's easy to set the gestures back?
 
J

Jasoco

Banned
Greyface said:
If most of your notifications are from iTunes then you're doing it wrong :|
Click to expand...
No you're not. If you use something like iTunes, you're going to get a notification (In my case, Music Video style) of the new song playing every, as was said, four minutes or so. Other notifications I get are FaceBook updates every once in a while, backup has started and ended once an hour, when Hardware Growler is working I get ones for every hardware change. But I still get more iTunes messages when I'm in a music playing mood.

It should have an option for each app to log them or not so you can disable certain apps.
 
D

Dreams-Visions

Member
Treefingers said:
Not really at the moment unless you care about the notification history and the Rollup thing. Oh and it's in the menu bar now (and unfortunately you can't take it out of there).

But it's $2 :p. I think a large part of the work went into re-writing the code which could possibly allow them to do some cool things in future updates.
Click to expand...
I'll buy it. Growl is one of my very favorite OS X apps. I'm happy to show some support.

edit: uh oh, I'm reading some of the 1-star reviews. Apparently a lot of apps that work with Growl 1.2 don't yet work with 1.3. I'll wait. But I'll buy it at some point.
 
B

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
Meus Renaissance said:
Also, is there a way to quickly set an image as a desktop background without having to go into Sys Preferences?
Click to expand...
Right click an image in the Finder and choose the bottom option:
PL9fq.png
 
F

fierrotlepou

Member
I have a problem.

Every time I restart my mac or it comes out of snooze, my mouse sensitivity is reset. I have to adjust the settings every time. It's making me mad.

Google tells me that some people have the same problem, but I can't seem to find a solution... Can anyone help me out?
 
C

CrudeDiatribe

Member
eravulgaris said:
Google tells me that some people have the same problem, but I can't seem to find a solution... Can anyone help me out?
Click to expand...

Maybe nuke the mouse preference file and set them again?

It'll be com.apple.something in ~/Library/Preferences/
 
C

cooljeanius

Member
So after seeing the iPhone 4S presentation, does anyone have any hopes for Siri coming to OS X some day? Personally I'd like to see someone write a natural-language command-line shell that could be used with Siri. I also think Siri could be a great way to keep the filesystem around while still keeping things simple for new users. It'd be a lot easier to say, "Siri, move that TF2 map I just downloaded into my TF2 maps folder" instead of the current filesystem navigation that's required. Heck, it could even make scripting easier. Continuing with the previous example, I could say, "Siri, whenever I download a TF2 map, move it to my TF2 maps folder," and that would be a lot easier than any scripts one might set up to do that currently.
 
M

Mairu

Member
I picked up a MacBook Air after being OSX-free for over a year. I totally forgot a majority of what I used to use! :(

Considering the age of the OP, is there any essentials list of software I can look at? I don't have any specific quests at the moment, but I'm sure I'll be back later for some
 
H

hirokazu

Member
eravulgaris said:
I have a problem.

Every time I restart my mac or it comes out of snooze, my mouse sensitivity is reset. I have to adjust the settings every time. It's making me mad.

Google tells me that some people have the same problem, but I can't seem to find a solution... Can anyone help me out?
Click to expand...
Do you have Parallels 6 installed or some software that may play with mouse settings like BTT?
 
H

hirokazu

Member
cooljeanius said:
So after seeing the iPhone 4S presentation, does anyone have any hopes for Siri coming to OS X some day? Personally I'd like to see someone write a natural-language command-line shell that could be used with Siri. I also think Siri could be a great way to keep the filesystem around while still keeping things simple for new users. It'd be a lot easier to say, "Siri, move that TF2 map I just downloaded into my TF2 maps folder" instead of the current filesystem navigation that's required. Heck, it could even make scripting easier. Continuing with the previous example, I could say, "Siri, whenever I download a TF2 map, move it to my TF2 maps folder," and that would be a lot easier than any scripts one might set up to do that currently.
Click to expand...
I think this is part of the future of computing, so it'll move onto desktops eventually. It benefits mobile devices most and is easiest to implement there, where there is a more compact feature set. Not as a replacement for CLI, but for scripting and other common tasks, definitely.
 
J

Jasoco

Banned
Mairu said:
I picked up a MacBook Air after being OSX-free for over a year. I totally forgot a majority of what I used to use! :(

Considering the age of the OP, is there any essentials list of software I can look at? I don't have any specific quests at the moment, but I'm sure I'll be back later for some
Click to expand...
http://osx.iusethis.com/
 
B

blahblah...blah

Member
Guys, does anyone know why the clock on my iMac is always an hour fast (I manually set it back but every time I restart or anything like that it resets to one hour ahead of what the actual time is)? Even when it correctly locates me on a map it gets my local time wrong.
 
C

cooljeanius

Member
blahblah...blah said:
Guys, does anyone know why the clock on my iMac is always an hour fast (I manually set it back but every time I restart or anything like that it resets to one hour ahead of what the actual time is)? Even when it correctly locates me on a map it gets my local time wrong.
Click to expand...
Daylight Savings Time, perhaps?
 
S

Splash Wave

Member
Is there any way to create a shared (across the network) folder without upgrading to Lion Server? My MBP is too old for Air Dop, unfortunately.
 
J

Jasoco

Banned
I just use DropBox. AirDrop is a great idea poorly executed. It requires both Macs to be on Lion, with WiFi (Have to turn on a hidden option to allow Ethernet), both Macs have to have the AirDrop folder open and the receiving end needs to approve the copy before it does it.

For one thing, there should be an option to allow trusted Macs to just drop files onto the machine. Second, there's no reason to require the folder to be open. What is it, an application? It's a folder with a special use. Just let the copy happen without it being open. Third, why only WiFi? I get it, you like wireless, but my network is only G, so I have my Mac mini connected via Ethernet to cut down on the traffic use. Why make us turn on Ethernet ability? The Lion thing I get of course. But the rest is just silly. I pictured AirDrop much differently. DropBox works much better if I need to copy a file to my other machine without worry.
 
S

Splash Wave

Member
Jasoco said:
I just use DropBox. AirDrop is a great idea poorly executed. It requires both Macs to be on Lion, with WiFi (Have to turn on a hidden option to allow Ethernet), both Macs have to have the AirDrop folder open and the receiving end needs to approve the copy before it does it.

For one thing, there should be an option to allow trusted Macs to just drop files onto the machine. Second, there's no reason to require the folder to be open. What is it, an application? It's a folder with a special use. Just let the copy happen without it being open. Third, why only WiFi? I get it, you like wireless, but my network is only G, so I have my Mac mini connected via Ethernet to cut down on the traffic use. Why make us turn on Ethernet ability? The Lion thing I get of course. But the rest is just silly. I pictured AirDrop much differently. DropBox works much better if I need to copy a file to my other machine without worry.
Click to expand...

I did end up just using Dropbox, but it would have been nice to have a faster solution; the files weren't small.
 
wolfmat

wolfmat

Confirmed Asshole
For future reference:

If it is a local network, you can just share your $HOME/Public folder by going into System Preferences -> Sharing and checking "File Sharing". Make sure your Public folder is in the list of shared folders, and that the access rights suffice for whoever wants to grab those files ("Everyone -> Read" should do the trick).

If it is the internet, you can just share your $HOME/Websites folder by going into System Preferences -> Sharing and checking "Web Sharing". Routers would have to route somehow to your computer, obviously; I won't go into that in detail because I don't know your network; you might want to port-forward incoming requests on port 49441 on the router to your computer on port 80 for TCP and UDP, for instance. Anyway, after you've done that, you can put your files to be shared directly into the Websites folder, and others will see them in a listing when they go to the URL the "Web Sharing" dialogue indicates / your router port-forwards to, provided the rights are appropriate (chmod a+r FILENAME on a Terminal gives reading rights to everyone for the file with the name FILENAME; so you'd probably want to do chmod -R a+r ~/Websites/* to recursively allow access for all files in $HOME/Websites/ (this doesn't follow symbolic links)).

I would strongly recommend deactivating sharing after it's all transferred. If you've made custom routes, you really want to deactivate or delete them once you're done.
 
C

cooljeanius

Member
IonicSnake said:
Yes that one, how do you make it on mac? :p
Click to expand...
Well, the way I just did it was to go to the input menu (it should look like a flag, if you don't see it, check your System Preferences and enable it), then selected the Character Viewer, and under categories, it's under Symbols - Numbers and Number Symbols. Of course programs like Word will auto-format your fractions to look like that.
 
I

IonicSnake

Banned
cooljeanius said:
Well, the way I just did it was to go to the input menu (it should look like a flag, if you don't see it, check your System Preferences and enable it), then selected the Character Viewer, and under categories, it's under Symbols - Numbers and Number Symbols. Of course programs like Word will auto-format your fractions to look like that.
Click to expand...

Thanks.
 
Meus Renaissance

Meus Renaissance

Member
There must be some way to have the Exif data available in Finder without having to individually open each file to check.

I need this

200704251552.jpg


On the right, in place of 'More Info'

jbajzryeaNT9UB.png
[/QUOTE]

There must be a way surely?
 
N

noah111

Still Alive
Meus Renaissance said:
There must be some way to have the Exif data available in Finder without having to individually open each file to check.

There must be a way surely?
Click to expand...
I believe what you want is the inspector, right click and then hold alt, you will see the 'Get Info' become 'Show Inspector' (or press alt+cmd+I). It's basically like the info pane but for whatever you click.

IonicSnake said:
Yes that one, how do you make it on mac? :p
Click to expand...
You can also go into Language & Text settings and access/create custom shortcuts so when you type something like (dot) in text edit, • shows up;

DSVjj.png


Doesn't work across all applications though, for example it doesn't work right now as I type this on GAF in Chrome.
 
T

Treefingers

Member
Meus Renaissance said:
There must be some way to have the Exif data available in Finder without having to individually open each file to check.

I need this

http://meanderingpassage.com//images//2007/04/200704251552.jpg

On the right, in place of 'More Info'

http://k.minus.com/jbajzryeaNT9UB.png

There must be a way surely?
Click to expand...
As far as I know, no. But if you're dealing with digital photography surely you would be using something like Aperture or Lightroom, or even iPhoto to work with them?
 
T

TurboLibre

Member
I got a new Mac about a month ago and just realized that I can't install Microsoft Word on it anymore. Something about Power PC no longer being supported. Any way to get around that, or is there another word processor I can use?
 
jts

jts

...hate me...
Tkawsome said:
I got a new Mac about a month ago and just realized that I can't install Microsoft Word on it anymore. Something about Power PC no longer being supported. Any way to get around that, or is there another word processor I can use?
Click to expand...
You got a Power PC Mac? What Mac is it?

You should get an older version of Word that's an Universal binary. Office 2008 is, AFAIK.
 
L

LCfiner

Member
Tkawsome said:
I got a new Mac about a month ago and just realized that I can't install Microsoft Word on it anymore. Something about Power PC no longer being supported. Any way to get around that, or is there another word processor I can use?
Click to expand...

No way around that with the latest version of Word. you bought a Mac that’s around 6 years old and uses a different and unsupported chip architecture. (I hope it was cheap)

you can get a old of office 2004. or an old version of iWork that supports power PC
 
C

cooljeanius

Member
Wait, I think you guys have it the wrong way around. I think he got a new, Intel Mac, and is trying to install Word 2004 on it. If he has Word 2004, he'll need to upgrade to a newer version of it.
 
L

LCfiner

Member
cooljeanius said:
Wait, I think you guys have it the wrong way around. I think he got a new, Intel Mac, and is trying to install Word 2004 on it. If he has Word 2004, he'll need to upgrade to a newer version of it.
Click to expand...

oh jeesh! you’re totally right. I goofed up.

yeah, no Power PC apps can run on Lion.

he could wipe the Mac and run Snow Leopard (which has rosetta and can run PPC apps) but I wouldn’t recommend that.

I’d say either get the latest version of Word or try checking out iWork and see if that fits the bill.
 
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