• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Mac OSX Noob thread of OSX noobs

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
I bought some RAM for my MacBook (model 6,1) but the screw don't seem to want to come out. Are they really meant to be super stiff or have they been screwed in too hard? Only managed to get out three easily out of the eight. Tempted to go to the Genius Bar and ask them to open it as I have a feeling when I last handed in my Macbook, to re-align the screen, they may have opened the bottom and thus the stiff screws are due to whoever re-screwed them in. Complete speculation on my behalf but it is rather peculiar that five screws are impossible to remove.
 

Kimosabae

Banned
Really? No one that posts in this thread has ever had to change the battery in their Macbook, or knows anything about battery replacements?
 
yc5Wk.png


I can't believe Safari and Chrome are managing to eat through 8 GB of RAM...
 

Jasoco

Banned
Chuck said:
No, but I'd rather not have page outs to the hard drive.
Or the SSD for that matter. It's like still using cache files in an OS on an SSD. It's useless because it doesn't save any time and just wears down the SSD faster. Can't believe OS X can't turn them off somehow. (Note: I don't mean internet cache which can be useful to load webpages you've already been to faster. I mean other caches. System caches.)
 

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
You know Chuck, if you press the spacebar after pressing command+shift+4 you can take screenshots of just a window rather than the whole screen. Saves you from having to pixellate the contents of your desktop.
 

FerranMG

Member
Hi there!
A couple of noob questions, a no better place to ask! Hope someone can help me out. :p

- When I open a Finder window, I know I can choose between different views: icons, list, columns, coverflow. I'm finding the columns view the most useful one. Is there a way to make this view the default one? Right now, every time I open a Finder window, I have to click on the icon to set the view I want.

- Is there a way to make an app the default one given a file extension? I'd like all my videos to open with VLC instead of Quicktime, but the only thing I know I can do is right click the video I want to see -> open with -> others -> and then check "open always with this app" (or something similar), but this means only the file I'm opening is associated with the app I've chosen, instead of all files with that extension.

Oh, and a few more!

- Is there a quick way to change a file's name? Like F2 did in Windows.

- Speaking about F2, do the F1, ..., F12 keys have any kind of secondary use? I know that (at least in my 2011 macbook air) they are use to control brightness, launch the launchpad, control music/video player and so on. But is that it?
 
Hey, does anyone know if it would be possible to write some sort of script on my Mac to automatically create a Facebook event for my student org whenever I get an email notifying me about one? Also, if so, what would be the best tool to do this with: Automator, AppleScript, Shell Scripting, iMacros, or some combination of those?
 

moduli

Neo Member
FerranMG said:
Hi there!
A couple of noob questions, a no better place to ask! Hope someone can help me out. :p

- When I open a Finder window, I know I can choose between different views: icons, list, columns, coverflow. I'm finding the columns view the most useful one. Is there a way to make this view the default one? Right now, every time I open a Finder window, I have to click on the icon to set the view I want.

- Is there a way to make an app the default one given a file extension? I'd like all my videos to open with VLC instead of Quicktime, but the only thing I know I can do is right click the video I want to see -> open with -> others -> and then check "open always with this app" (or something similar), but this means only the file I'm opening is associated with the app I've chosen, instead of all files with that extension.

Oh, and a few more!

- Is there a quick way to change a file's name? Like F2 did in Windows.

- Speaking about F2, do the F1, ..., F12 keys have any kind of secondary use? I know that (at least in my 2011 macbook air) they are use to control brightness, launch the launchpad, control music/video player and so on. But is that it?

1. In the Finder Menu Bar, select View -> Show View Options. There should be an option for "Always open in column view"

2. When you right click a file and select Get Info, there should be a section labeled Open with. You can select the program you want to use and select the change all button to apply the setting to those file types.

3. Not sure what F2 did in windows... but if you highlight a file and hit RETURN/ENTER on the keyboard, it should allow you to edit the filename.

4. Not sure if this is what you meant, but hitting fn+F# key should trigger the F# shortcut if any program uses them.
 

FerranMG

Member
moduli said:
1. In the Finder Menu Bar, select View -> Show View Options. There should be an option for "Always open in column view"

2. When you right click a file and select Get Info, there should be a section labeled Open with. You can select the program you want to use and select the change all button to apply the setting to those file types.

3. Not sure what F2 did in windows... but if you highlight a file and hit RETURN/ENTER on the keyboard, it should allow you to edit the filename.

4. Not sure if this is what you meant, but hitting fn+F# key should trigger the F# shortcut if any program uses them.

Thanks a lot!
Everything worked alright, except for number 1. I can't seem to find this option. :/
 
I was given a new desk, and I unplugged my computer (after a proper shutdown) for about an hour while I moved out my old desk and moved in the new one. When I got everything set up, I plugged in my computer and my iTunes library was wiped out. I poked around for a bit and recovered my music, but I've got a ton of duplicates.

I had gone through the arduous process of deleting duplicates before, but it's a huge pain in the ass. I realize I'm going to have to do it again, but I'm wondering what I can do to clean up my harddrive and prevent this in the future. A few years ago I seem to have read that when you import music into itunes the original files are copied into the itunes music folder so that your computer essentially has copies of the songs in two separate locations. Is there a simple process for deleting extra files from the computer so that they aren't constantly being duplicated in iTunes?

Really, this is my only complaint with iTunes. I know it has a lot of detractors, but in general I've found it to be pretty user friendly.
 
Hi guys

My MBP would normally startup pretty fast but over the course of the months I've installed many-a-things. On my Menu Bar, we have Dropbox, CloudApp, iStat, Growl and MenuMatters. The startup is now considerably slower. Any tips for helping with this?

Another issue I have is that despite predominantly using the machine for web browsing, often with 5 or 6 tabs, I get the rainbow loading icon. Sometimes creating another tab freezes the browser momentarily. Shockwave can at times be seen using over 1GB of RAM despite no longer watching any flash videos, and the Chrome Renderer can be seen using around 40% of the CPU for a few seconds at a time

Thank you
 

Sapiens

Member
Simple, 3D modeller that I can use to export meshes for OpenGL development? I don't need anything more than something that will allow me to make simple objects so I don't have to do it by hand in C++

Free, preferably.

Thank you.
 

wolfmat

Confirmed Asshole
Sapiens said:
Simple, 3D modeller that I can use to export meshes for OpenGL development? I don't need anything more than something that will allow me to make simple objects so I don't have to do it by hand in C++

Free, preferably.

Thank you.
There is no native format for OpenGL. You'd have to parse a format in your application. I would recommend COLLADA. It is an XML-based format, which means that you can deserialize data into objects by using its schema.
Or you can just use code that already does this. For instance, there's FCollada (Edit: Seems that's not maintained well, or I just don't know where to look; anyway, go through this directory and find a lib that does this instead of coding it yourself)
Edit: Probably this

Settle on a format and I can recommend a 3D mesh editing application. Chances are I'll recommend Blender. It's free, has plugins for this kind of thing and is easy to tackle and extend.
 

moduli

Neo Member
FerranMG said:
Thanks a lot!
Everything worked alright, except for number 1. I can't seem to find this option. :/
Hm... do you have column view selected when you open "Show View Options"? Didn't realize the options changed depending on what view you have selected.
 

noah111

Still Alive
Ok I just discovered something pretty awesome. I'm using a 3G USB dongle and it usually picks up a signal on my desk, but between certain hours I have to place my MacBook Pro on its side (so the dongle sticks straight up into the air. Problem with this is my screen is still in landscape so I need to keep my neck at this ridiculous angle to read on the screen. Been a real pain in the ass... No more!

I found out that if you go into the settings, and then hold control, option, command and then click on the display preference, an option will show up that allows you to rotate the display orientation!

Also found an app MacFlip which does this for you automatically using the internal sensors of the MB. It has been awesome to use, especially with a Magic Mouse and bluetooth keyboard.

TYvZG.png
b4ScP.png
 
Sentry said:
Ok I just discovered something pretty awesome. I'm using a 3G USB dongle and it usually picks up a signal on my desk, but between certain hours I have to place my MacBook Pro on its side (so the dongle sticks straight up into the air. Problem with this is my screen is still in landscape so I need to keep my neck at this ridiculous angle to read on the screen. Been a real pain in the ass... No more!

Why not buy a USB extension cable?
 
I downloaded some safari file that turned the address bar into a google search bar like on google chrome. I want to now get rid of it but I have no idea how to. I don't know what the program was called and it's not listed under the extension list. What do I do?
 
Sentry said:
............................. FUCK, that's genius. Thanks!

And a stand/clamp of some sort to get it to the right elevation.

I just wired a $10000 USB hardware key inside a server at work with an extension cable so they're on the brain.
 

Blackhead

Redarse
Sentry said:
.............................










FUCK, that's genius.
lol.gif
Thanks!
hahah. I used one of those flip programs often when i had the 11" MBA. I might get around to rotating my monitor one of these days...

Ken Masters said:
I downloaded some safari file that turned the address bar into a google search bar like on google chrome. I want to now get rid of it but I have no idea how to. I don't know what the program was called and it's not listed under the extension list. What do I do?
http://hackemist.com/SafariOmnibar/#faq
 
Question with Mail on Lion, without attachment tamer installed i cannot send attachments to outlook users, they never get them for some reason. Also attachment tamer always puts the attachments at the very bottom of the email and when it's in reply to a long email thread the image or attachments get buried at the bottom. Any Ideas?
 

Tr4nce

Member
I love how sometimes you find out a little something about OSX, that you didn't know before.

Awesome!

34qtd8w.png


(Thanks to DanRodney.com)
 

Jasoco

Banned
Apple sells one for $79. It's guaranteed to work so I'd probably go with it. Unless you need a Blu-Ray drive or something.

If you order it online, it's the third customizable option on the page.
 

jcutner

Member
Is my GPU dying? nVidia 9400 in this I believe
I want to say it's a mid-09 MacBook Pro
It was the first 13" Unibody that said MacBook Pro, instead of MacBook

When I output to the TV on occasion, or just now when I checked the widgets/dashboard page - it looks like this

CbKNLl.png


http://i.imgur.com/CbKNL.png
 

njean777

Member
DJ Crimson said:
So I'm getting a new Mac Mini next month. I've read that there are a couple of USB Optical Drives available since the Mac Mini no longer has it. Which brand or model would you recommend? Does Apple even have one of their own?

You can get a cheaper acer or asus one I beleive. Dont wast 80$ on apples when cheapers ones work just as well.
 

Kimosabae

Banned
Does anyone know if having a dead battery effects browser video playback performance? I have a new battery otw, but in the passed week, youtube videos and streams have been playing extremely poorly. It's just choppy as hell. I've tried clearing browser and Adobe caches to no avail. It makes no sense, because videos saved to my disk still play fine.

I have a black Intel Core 2 Duo. Anyone ever have this issue or have any ideas?
 

Jasoco

Banned
Booo. My ongoing attempt to rid OS X of useless Cache files that only hurt an SSD more than they help the user once again failed.

Apparently apps don't like it if I replace the Cache folder with a Symlink to /dev/null. Chrome refused to start up, and that's the worst offender. Leaving a gigabyte of cache in my Cache folder sucks and there's no easy way to make Chrome turn its cache off.

So the RAM Disk option doesn't work because OS X likes to unmount them when the system sleeps for some reason which is bad. And the Null option just doesn't work.

Bah. I hate all the wear and tear on my SSD. Not that it's terrible, but still. It's 2011 and this is an SSD.
 
So my Macbook Pro is currently dead again, for what is like the 3rd time this year. This time I was trying to compile the Asepsis Kext (the one that used to come with Total Finder, until it got broken off in the move to Lion) from source, and then when I put it in my Extensions folder, my computer started freaking out, so I restarted, and now it won't boot up. I'm not seeing anything unusual in the verbose bootup output... it gets stuck at a line that it normally passes without problem in a normal bootup. So far I've tried zapping the PRAM, repairing the disk and its permissions from the installer disk, re-installing OS X from my install disk (which is 10.6.3 - my computer had been on 10.6.8 before that), and rm-ing some of the files I thought might be guilty from single-user bootup. I haven't tried doing a complete wipe-and-reinstall yet though, as my backup(s) on my external hard drive aren't exactly current (my Time Machine partition is full and I gave up on keeping my bootable backup partition update ever since it stopped being bootable). Any other things I could try? Also, should I bring it to my campus's IT department, or my local Apple Store?

Jasoco said:
Apparently apps don't like it if I replace the Cache folder with a Symlink to /dev/null.
I was already lol-ing by the time I got to here.
 

Jasoco

Banned
cooljeanius said:
I was already lol-ing by the time I got to here.
The thing is RAM disks work perfectly as long as they're mounted. But for some reason OS X unmounts them when the system sleeps and doesn't recreate them so it makes the method useless.

Guess I should just give up.
 

Krelian

Member
cooljeanius said:
Any other things I could try? Also, should I bring it to my campus's IT department, or my local Apple Store?
You said you removed "some of the files". Have you tried to remove them all? If that doesn't work I'd probably just wipe and reinstall if I were you, but I guess you could try your IT department and/or Apple Store. It would be interesting to know if they can solve your problem.
 
I've posted this in the Lion thread aswell:

I'm having some issues with my Macbook Pro. It's a 2011 macbook (15", 6750M, 2.2Ghz, 4GB ram), three months old. I started noticing that it was slowing down a bit, so I decided to do a clean install. (So I formatted, and I put Lion 10.7.2 on it).

Now, my HD's are barely full. But seriously, it's not as fast as I got it. How come? After a format everything should be like it was in the beginning. Now I get random beachballs while browsing, or opening a picture in photoshop takes way too long.

Any help?
 
it's an iTunes question so I guess I'll post it here. I converted an .m4a (256kbps) iTunes track to .mp3. It converted it to 320kbps .mp3 file. So is 256kbps .m4a = 320kbps .mp3 in quality?
 
Ken Masters said:
it's an iTunes question so I guess I'll post it here. I converted an .m4a (256kbps) iTunes track to .mp3. It converted it to 320kbps .mp3 file. So is 256kbps .m4a = 320kbps .mp3 in quality?
No.

You just killed the actual audio quality of that file, btw.
 
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
No.

You just killed the actual audio quality of that file for no good reason.


how? I converted the .m4a files because I needed to burn an mp3 cd


and what's the difference between .m4a and .mp3
 
So annoyed with my Macbook Air's trackpad. I have "tap to click" disabled, but since a few days ago, when I gently apply pressure to the trackpad (not clicking), it acts as if I'm clicking. So when I scroll, all of a sudden it's interrupted by a "right click", and moving the cursor around makes everything get highlighted.

GAHH, I can't tell if it's a physical problem with the trackpad or maybe I can fix it via software somehow. Is there a way to reinstall the trackpad drivers?
 

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
Ken Masters said:
it's an iTunes question so I guess I'll post it here. I converted an .m4a (256kbps) iTunes track to .mp3. It converted it to 320kbps .mp3 file. So is 256kbps .m4a = 320kbps .mp3 in quality?
The conversion is based on whatever you've selected in the Import Settings under General Preferences. Just because I've chosen Apple Lossless here it doesn't magically make a 128kbps MP3 file lossless even though iTunes will give me the option of converting it into one.

IH25Y.png
 
eravulgaris said:
I've posted this in the Lion thread aswell:

I'm having some issues with my Macbook Pro. It's a 2011 macbook (15", 6750M, 2.2Ghz, 4GB ram), three months old. I started noticing that it was slowing down a bit, so I decided to do a clean install. (So I formatted, and I put Lion 10.7.2 on it).

Now, my HD's are barely full. But seriously, it's not as fast as I got it. How come? After a format everything should be like it was in the beginning. Now I get random beachballs while browsing, or opening a picture in photoshop takes way too long.

Any help?
Same sluggishness on my MBP as well. I didn't have this with SL. Lion has some really good features that I don't want to lose, but unfortunately it is a shitty OS.
 
H_Prestige said:
Same sluggishness on my MBP as well. I didn't have this with SL. Lion has some really good features that I don't want to lose, but unfortunately it is a shitty OS.

Yeah, I guess I'll roll back to SL.
 
BGBW said:
The conversion is based on whatever you've selected in the Import Settings under General Preferences. Just because I've chosen Apple Lossless here it doesn't magically make a 128kbps MP3 file lossless even though iTunes will give me the option of converting it into one.

IH25Y.png


I guess all I'm asking is this, which is better? the 256kbps .m4a music file from iTunes or ripping a CD at 320kbps .mp3?
 
Ken Masters said:
I guess all I'm asking is this, which is better? the 256kbps .m4a music file from iTunes or ripping a CD at 320kbps .mp3?
Consider them equivalent.

I'd recommend V0 (256kb VBR) MP3 over 320CBR. MP3 > m4a simply because it's universal. Will work on all players.
 
Top Bottom