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Mac OSX Noob thread of OSX noobs

S

Sean

Banned
_leech_ said:
What the fuck's wrong with Flash for OSX? Why does the tiniest video shoot my CPU usage past 100%? I need alternatives to this shit.
Click to expand...

Adobe sucks and just doesn't give a shit about optimizing it on OSX. Not only does it suck up a ton of CPU but it crashes a whole lot too (which used to bring down the entire browser pre-Snow Leopard). Probably the reason Apple aren't allowing Flash on the iPhone. That's why I can't wait for HTML5 <video> standard so we don't have to deal with Adobe's proprietary crap. Even Microsoft's Silverlight is already far better IMO.

Like many others here I use Click2Flash, it not only works in Safari but any WebKit view (so things like NetNewsWire RSS client too).
 
J

Jasoco

Banned
I don't mind SilverLight, but it just isn't widespread yet. No one uses it. Like at all.

If Flash Video sites started switching to it, YouTube/Google first, it might catch on for web video leaving Flash to the ad makers and silly Flash animutations, but hell, if ads are all that's left using Flash, goodbye Flash!

Even Cyanide and Happiness is starting to put their flash animations on YouTube. So once YouTube's HTML5 player is a full usable option for all the major browsers, we're set.
 
M

Mecha_Infantry

Banned
Any good pre-iTunes namers/labellers?

I fucked up and put 2 albums which were mixtapes and it's fucked up my whole iTunes organisation :(

This is probably a n00b thing. But damn iTunes is pissing me the fuck off. If I import one album with different artists, it splits it up, even if they are all part of one album, and the compilation selection is selected in Get Info..

This is annoying
 
L

LCfiner

Member
Mecha_Infantry said:
Any good pre-iTunes namers/labellers?

I fucked up and put 2 albums which were mixtapes and it's fucked up my whole iTunes organisation :(

This is probably a n00b thing. But damn iTunes is pissing me the fuck off. If I import one album with different artists, it splits it up, even if they are all part of one album, and the compilation selection is selected in Get Info..

This is annoying
Click to expand...


try the preferences. go to advanced and check if “group compilations while browsing” is checked.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Juice said:
This isn't quite accurate. First, Flash does not reside neatly in a real industry. Second, the only "consumers" of Flash are developers who pay Adobe licensing fees for one of many competing authoring tools (both of SWF and equivalent formats).

Technicality aside, if the iPhone has taught me one thing, it's that I don't miss Flash content one bit. I have click to flash installed on my Mac and I virtually never enable Flash anywhere. It's more relaxing, enjoyable, and a great way to stay in shape.
Click to expand...


all well and good, and I have a flash blocker too - mainly to stop my nads from boiling and giving me better battery life on my MBP. But then what do you do with youtube vids? Still need to use it for those. Any plugins/extensions that can access the iphone versions?
 
M

Mecha_Infantry

Banned
Hey guys,

Having a keychain issue with my CEO's macbook Pro...yes the guy who owns the company I work for :eek:!

Anyways, if he has forgotten his keychain, is there anything I can do? Maybe I add that he brought it down to me personally :(..so I might get a bonus if I fix it!!
 
S

SnakeXs

about the same metal capacity as a cucumber
Mecha_Infantry said:
Hey guys,

Having a keychain issue with my CEO's macbook Pro...yes the guy who owns the company I work for :eek:!

Anyways, if he has forgotten his keychain, is there anything I can do? Maybe I add that he brought it down to me personally :(..so I might get a bonus if I fix it!!
Click to expand...

My best guess would be to reset the admin password via an OS disc (booting up with C held down). Hmm.
 
M

Mecha_Infantry

Banned
SnakeXs said:
My best guess would be to reset the admin password via an OS disc (booting up with C held down). Hmm.
Click to expand...

Hi Snake

I was thinking of doing that, but it said it will just reset the log in password and not the keychain password

Regards.
 
K

kahni

Member
If he has forgot his keychain password, there is no way of getting it back. I had this happen to me and it is purposely designed to be impossible to retrieve.

Sorry to say, but you are going to have to ask him to keep on trying different passwords and hope that he gets it. Otherwise, there isn't anything anyone can do, unless you want to try to find some hacking tool that attempts to break passwords.
 
P

panda21

Member
is the keychain password the same as the root password?

on nix you can mount the drive via a boot disc, and then delete the password in /etc/passwd (it will be masked out as a* but you can still just delete that) and then its just empty. no idea if that works on OS X but i'd try that as a last resort
 
M

Mecha_Infantry

Banned
panda21 said:
is the keychain password the same as the root password?

on nix you can mount the drive via a boot disc, and then delete the password in /etc/passwd (it will be masked out as a* but you can still just delete that) and then its just empty. no idea if that works on OS X but i'd try that as a last resort
Click to expand...

I don't think so. The root password/SU is defaulted at not being in use normally (I believe).

The account password might be the same as the key chain, but I'll ask him when he's out of his meeting
 
M

Mercury Fred

Banned
Is there a way to block specific sites in Safari? I have a couple that I want to prevent myself from going to for a bit. I remember someone posting something about these a while back, but I did a search and couldn't find anything.
 
M

Mecha_Infantry

Banned
I'm so going to buy

Mac OSX: The hidden Handbook

I need to know the deeper parts of the OSX system as I know diddly squat. Or can anyone else recommend any other good books?
 
G

giga

Member
Books? Where we’re going, we don’t need…books.

Mac OS X DP2, December 14, 1999
Mac OS X Update: Quartz & Aqua, January 17, 2000
Mac OS X DP3: Trial by Water, February 28, 2000
Mac OS X DP4, May 24, 2000
Mac OS X Q & A, June 20, 2000
Mac OS X Public Beta, October 3, 2000

Mac OS X 10.0 (Cheetah), April 2, 2001
Mac OS X 10.1 (Puma), October 15, 2001
Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar, September 5, 2002
Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, November 9, 2003
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, April 28, 2005
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, October 28, 2007
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, August 31, 2009

Mac OS X Technology Overview
 
P

PhoncipleBone

Banned
Anyone have an answer to my printer sharing question I posted a day ago or so?

I am trying to share my printer, which is hooked to my iMac, with a Vista machine. I have the printer set to sharing, and I have printer sharing checked in Vista as well. The printer is recognized by both machines, but when I try to print from the Vista machine, it says "could not communicate" with the iMac. What am I missing? The spotlight help says to turn on "postscript" on vista, but where the hell is that? And is there anything else I need to turn on on the iMac?
 
T

Tony Rocky Horror

Member
What do you guys think they'll anounce at the iPod event..?

- new iPod
- new version of iTunes? (64 bit)

Also, wouldn't a release of all The Beatles albums in iTunes be fucking rad? Especially since it's on 9/9/9, they day of the release of The Beatles: Rock Band?
 
G

Gary Whitta

Member
The Beatles catalog on iTunes would seem kinda silly on the same day as the remastered CDs unless iTunes can promise and deliver the same audio quality. I know they upgraded the quality of their music files recently but is it actually CD quality yet? I am interested in the remasters but would only consider the digital verson if the quality was the same. Plus while I have generally quit buying physical music the Beatles set is definitely an exception where you'd want the actual box and all the physical goodies. Digital booklet my ass.
 
M

mrkgoo

Member
Gary Whitta said:
The Beatles catalog on iTunes would seem kinda silly on the same day as the remastered CDs unless iTunes can promise and deliver the same audio quality. I know they upgraded the quality of their music files recently but is it actually CD quality yet? I am interested in the remasters but would only consider the digital verson if the quality was the same. Plus while I have generally quit buying physical music the Beatles set is definitely an exception where you'd want the actual box and all the physical goodies. Digital booklet my ass.
Click to expand...

You're perhaps a more hardcore fan. Chances are you've already got the Beatles collections in some form or another on your iPhone.

An iTunes release will cater to the more casual. Of course, you could argue that they are all young'uns who don't care for the Beatles.
 
L

LCfiner

Member
I’ve been considering the same Beatles issue as gary. I can get the stereo boxed set for around 200 with all the goodies but I’m just gonna rip them to iTunes immediately and put the CDs away. Might look at the liner notes once in a blue moon.

If the beatles remasters get released on iTunes and it’s possible to get all the main albums for, say 150 bucks or less, I’d forego the physical copy and just get the iTunes plus versions.

basically, as soon as the press event is over on Wednesday afternoon, I’m either going to pick up the CDs or use VNC on my iPhone to download all the tracks on iTunes back on my Mac at home.
 
M

Mr. Wonderful

Member
Banzaiaap said:
What do you guys think they'll anounce at the iPod event..?

- new iPod
- new version of iTunes? (64 bit)

Also, wouldn't a release of all The Beatles albums in iTunes be fucking rad? Especially since it's on 9/9/9, they day of the release of The Beatles: Rock Band?
Click to expand...
I'm going to knock over an Apple Store magazine rack if they don't announce 64-bit iTunes.
 
M

Massa

Member
Jasoco said:
I don't mind SilverLight, but it just isn't widespread yet. No one uses it. Like at all.

If Flash Video sites started switching to it, YouTube/Google first, it might catch on for web video leaving Flash to the ad makers and silly Flash animutations, but hell, if ads are all that's left using Flash, goodbye Flash!

Even Cyanide and Happiness is starting to put their flash animations on YouTube. So once YouTube's HTML5 player is a full usable option for all the major browsers, we're set.
Click to expand...

Google will never switch to Silverlight, you can count on that.

And besides, Silverlight is just another proprietary plugin so there's no point in replacing Flash with it.
 
Y

Yami

Member
Just bought a 13" Macbook Pro, the 2.53GHz 250GB model and I am loving it to pieces so far.

Not sure what apps I want to install onto it now haha.
 
Z

Zaraki_Kenpachi

Member
I had a quick question again, I'm using my apple keyboard on my windows pc and I was wondering if there is any way to map the fn key so it works like it does in os x? Like if I have F5 refresh but also program it where Fn+F5 is say open a new tab or some other function? Sharp keys seems good but unless I'm missing something I can't set up where the second set of function keys work.
 
M

Mecha_Infantry

Banned
Yami said:
Just bought a 13" Macbook Pro, the 2.53GHz 250GB model and I am loving it to pieces so far.

Not sure what apps I want to install onto it now haha.
Click to expand...

Initially there are a tonnes, but then it whittles down to just a few. Find out what your needs are first, then it will be easier recommending you apps
 
J

Jasoco

Banned
Massa said:
Google will never switch to Silverlight, you can count on that.

And besides, Silverlight is just another proprietary plugin so there's no point in replacing Flash with it.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but it sucks less than Flash.
 
S

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
10.6 has a native NTFS read-write driver that Apple disabled, meaning you can ditch ntfs-3g. you can bring it back for select drives by doing the following

create a file named 'fstab' in etc and put the following in it -

Code: 
LABEL=mylabel none ntfs rw
with mylabel being the name of the drive/partition you want to use. this does not work in 10.5.x
 
J

Jasoco

Banned
You know what's nice? Pretty much everything I use now has automatic session restoring. Everything. If my computer or the app crashes for any reason. If my MacBook shuts itself off because of overheating due to its broken fan. Whatever. All I do is start it back up and everything's back to before.

Firefox is obvious. It has the option to remember everything. And I mean everything. Including tabs, each tabs history, stuff entered in form fields...

The Finder in Snow Leopard now remembers opened folders when it crashes or is force quit. Before it only saved folders when it was quit normally. i.e. at shutdown, or via the hidden Quit menu. NOW it remembers the folders right away. It saves them as you open and close them, so if the Finder crashes, or is otherwise interrupted, it opens them all back up for you. About time!

Mail has been good at this too. It saves drafts in real time, and all mail is preserved as it is downloaded. Never had to worry about losing anything.

iTunes also does the same. Saves stuff as it goes.

But the one I noticed just now, is TextWrangler, by BareBones Software. TW now has a session saving feature. It not only remembers all open files, but even SAVES DOCUMENTS THAT ARE CHANGED! So if TW is interrupted before I have a chance to save the file changes, it will load a backed up copy and mark it as unsaved at next launch. Sadly it doesn't remember the Undo history, but this is good enough!

YMMV per app, but it's really nice to have this technology in this day and age. Crashes are no longer a fear, although with a Mac they weren't anyway, but shit happens, and it's nice to have security that you will never lose anything ever again. Hopefully other apps will follow in time. And I'm sure there are others too.

Now if only the Finder didn't suck with packages. It refuses to remember anything about packages. i.e. folders with extensions that make them act like files. For instance, apps are packages, the iPhoto Library is just a folder that has an extension so when you open it with a double-click it just opens iPhoto, but you can view its contents. Unfortunately OS X doesn't seem to remember settings about them or whether they were opened or not. I guess maybe OS X doesn't place .DS_Store files inside them or something.
 
L

LCfiner

Member
In contrast to jasoco’s comments about pervasive session restore for today’s software, at work I use pro/e cad software from PTC on windows and that’s a complete 180 from this situation

it does not restore sessions
it does not have an undo feature
it crashes constantly without dialog boxes or any explanation
it sometime, just for shits and giggles, crashes upon saving


each license costs several thousand dollars.

the best example I’ve seen for how enterprise software (or other high end software) is not paid for by the people who actually use it.
 
G

giga

Member
scorcho said:
10.6 has a native NTFS read-write driver that Apple disabled, meaning you can ditch ntfs-3g. you can bring it back for select drives by doing the following

create a file named 'fstab' in etc and put the following in it -

Code: 
LABEL=mylabel none ntfs rw
with mylabel being the name of the drive/partition you want to use. this does not work in 10.5.x
Click to expand...
How’s the performance compared to say Paragon NTFS? ntfs-3g was always slow.
 
M

Mr. Wonderful

Member
Yami said:
Just bought a 13" Macbook Pro, the 2.53GHz 250GB model and I am loving it to pieces so far.

Not sure what apps I want to install onto it now haha.
Click to expand...
What are you looking to do? VLC is a better all around media player than Quicktime X (unfortunately). TubeTV is a program I use to download Youtube videos. Handbrake is great for ripping DVDs. MPEG Streamclip is a good simple video editing software that has way more functionality than iMovie. Otherwise, besides Photoshop, that's all I have installed on my computer. I'm sure you have Snow Leopard so you don't NEED Firefox, IMO.
 
L

Liu Kang Baking A Pie

Member
BrandNew said:
Did they turn off the double-tap CMD action to minimize the current window? I can't get it to work and don't know where to enable it.
Click to expand...
Do you mean just double clicking on the title bar?

But, not knowing what you were talking about, I tried Command clicking on Dock items, and it actually opens a Finder window of the folder the application is in. Awesome.
 
D

DeathbyVolcano

Banned
Well yeah, in Leopard I remember being able to double type the CMD key which would do the same thing as clicking the title bar twice. Now it doesn't do that.
 
L

linkboy

Member
scorcho said:
10.6 has a native NTFS read-write driver that Apple disabled, meaning you can ditch ntfs-3g. you can bring it back for select drives by doing the following

create a file named 'fstab' in etc and put the following in it -

Code: 
LABEL=mylabel none ntfs rw
with mylabel being the name of the drive/partition you want to use. this does not work in 10.5.x
Click to expand...

Do you have any more detailed instructions to enable this. I'm a bit confused. I used Paragon NTFS in the past to write to NTFS, but if Apple included it in SL, I'm up for it.
 
A

Ashhong

Member
BrandNew said:
Well yeah, in Leopard I remember being able to double type the CMD key which would do the same thing as clicking the title bar twice. Now it doesn't do that.
Click to expand...

wahhh? man so many new things i still dont know
 
M

mrkgoo

Member
Anyone else experience option+command as their default on scrolling zoom? (Sys-pref -> Trackpad -> Scroll zoom -> options)

Or know about which preference list it's hiding in?

Edit: Nevermind, I found it - universalaccess.plist. I see a bunch of numbers change when I change the modifiers.
 
D

Duderz

Banned
Does anyone know how to set Safari up so that whenever I click a link it opens up a new tab instead of a new window? I've looked in Preferences, but nothing fits what I'm trying to do, and I'm sure I'm just missing something very basic. :/
 
L

LCfiner

Member
Duderz said:
Does anyone know how to set Safari up so that whenever I click a link it opens up a new tab instead of a new window? I've looked in Preferences, but nothing fits what I'm trying to do, and I'm sure I'm just missing something very basic. :/
Click to expand...


can’t do it. you can middle click with a mouse or CMD-click with a trackpad.

glims is an add-on that it being updated to work with safari in Snow Leopard and has the ability to add that functionality.

if you don’t want to wait… firefox is around.
 
Z

Zaraki_Kenpachi

Member
Duderz said:
Does anyone know how to set Safari up so that whenever I click a link it opens up a new tab instead of a new window? I've looked in Preferences, but nothing fits what I'm trying to do, and I'm sure I'm just missing something very basic. :/
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure cmd+click does but I dunno if there's another way.

Edit: ARGH! LCfiner again!
 
D

Duderz

Banned
LCfiner said:
can’t do it. you can middle click with a mouse or CMD-click with a trackpad.

glims is an add-on that it being updated to work with safari in Snow Leopard and has the ability to add that functionality.

if you don’t want to wait… firefox is around.
Click to expand...

Are you serious? Jeez, that's pretty ridiculous. Thanks for the info.
 
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