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Mac OSX Noob thread of OSX noobs

mrkgoo

Member
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
I'm getting a new harrd drive on monday and just wanted to check something. Can I just restore my backup to where I was from time machine or do I install snow leopard and then do my backup?

I think you have to format it and install MAc OS X. I'm not sure if it has to be SL, but I would suggest doing that if possible.

During start up, it will ask if you want to restore from a previous machine, and you can choose to use a Time Machine backup.
 

SnakeXs

about the same metal capacity as a cucumber
Saya said:
Yeah, thats what I was afraid of. Do you guys just have 1 backup location?

Yes. Why would you realistically need more? The odds of both things failing at the same time are preeeetty slim.
 

Mutagenic

Permanent Junior Member
I think I'm going to reformat my MBP today. Rather than attempt to have a Windows-only machine, I'll reinstall OSX and create a large partition for Win7. Is Win7 beta still available? I really haven't been keeping up.

Also, how much extra space does installing Snow Leopard require?
 

SnakeXs

about the same metal capacity as a cucumber
You had a MBP as a Windows-only machine?

bfe30
 

mrkgoo

Member
SnakeXs said:
Yes. Why would you realistically need more? The odds of both things failing at the same time are preeeetty slim.

I would say they are fairly slim, but not unheard of. Even though I don't really have two backups, I would prefer two over one.
 

SnakeXs

about the same metal capacity as a cucumber
mrkgoo said:
I would say they are fairly slim, but not unheard of. Even though I don't really have two backups, I would prefer two over one.

Well obviously but if you care that much about your data you should have off-site backups and/or a RAID setup for redundancy.
 

kennah

Member
mrkgoo said:
I would say they are fairly slim, but not unheard of. Even though I don't really have two backups, I would prefer two over one.
My only problem with Time Machine is that it deletes all of my really old backups. What if there was something from the distant past that I want to get at!
 

mrkgoo

Member
SnakeXs said:
iStat, Deliveries. Both sync with accompanying iPhone apps, too.

I don't think the iState widget itself will sync to the iPhone app, but you do need a server application installed for the iPhone app to function. The widget is self contained.
 

mrkgoo

Member
kennah said:
My only problem with Time Machine is that it deletes all of my really old backups. What if there was something from the distant past that I want to get at!

Yeah, time machine is not ideal for that. Time Machine is not for archiving - it's just for backing up. It's not a perfect solution for everyone, but for the general user who just needs a backup, it's simple enough that people will use it.
 

SnakeXs

about the same metal capacity as a cucumber
mrkgoo said:
I don't think the iState widget itself will sync to the iPhone app, but you do need a server application installed for the iPhone app to function. The widget is self contained.
Shit, you're right. I totally forgot the server app.
 
I got my Macbook at the store today with my student discount. Also got the Applecare and MobileMe. Sucks that I got work right now. The wait is killing me. Picked up a little book on Snow Leopard since we didn't have anything that has just keyboard shortcuts.

Few questions;
How does the dualboot thing work? Which is the preferred software to use?
How does Windows 7 work for games? Namely Steam stuff.
Someone mentioned in OT about a media center type of thing for Mac. Is it any good? Are there better ones?
Finally, what's the name of that game collection software? I think it was about $20.

One last non-Mac question, what's a cheap way to migrate files from my Windows PC if it doesn't turn on? The vid card is fried and don't want to replace it since Im gonna build a new one this Christmas.
 

Jasoco

Banned
Jet Grind Radio! said:
Someone mentioned in OT about a media center type of thing for Mac. Is it any good? Are there better ones?
You're probably talking about Plex which is an OS X specific port of XBMC. It's pretty good as long as your computer is nice and fast.
 

Jasoco

Banned
Jet Grind Radio! said:
I got 2.66 GHz with 4GBs RAM. Would that be enough?
Heh. Oh, that would be more than enough. It runs fine even on an AppleTV with only 1GHz and 256MB RAM. (Which is a dedicated device but still)
 
My friend brought an external hard-drive by Coolmax. He's trying to use it on his Mac Mini but whenever he drags his files to the external hard-drive it says he can't do it. And when he goes to "Sharing and Permissions" it says "ready only" and it won't give you options to change it.
 

Enzom21

Member
Flying_Phoenix said:
My friend brought an external hard-drive by Coolmax. He's trying to use it on his Mac Mini but whenever he drags his files to the external hard-drive it says he can't do it. And when he goes to "Sharing and Permissions" it says "ready only" and it won't give you options to change it.
Is the drive formatted in NTFS?
EDIT: He can use this if it is http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/
 
I tried installing my new hard drive on my macbook pro but when I use the snow leopard disk to install on the new hard drive it doesn't show anything in the box for what hard drive to install snow leopard to. Is there something else I have to do or is my hard drive doa?
 
Hey guys --

What's the current best DVD Ripping software right now for the mac?

I used to use Handbrake, but it looks like it hasn't been updated since 2008.

I just got an iPhone and I want to get some of my movies onto it.
 

mrkgoo

Member
Micromegas said:
Hey guys --

What's the current best DVD Ripping software right now for the mac?

I used to use Handbrake, but it looks like it hasn't been updated since 2008.

I just got an iPhone and I want to get some of my movies onto it.

Has Handbrake stopped working?

What makes it bad because it hasn't been updated?
 
Micromegas said:
Hey guys --

What's the current best DVD Ripping software right now for the mac?

I used to use Handbrake, but it looks like it hasn't been updated since 2008.

I just got an iPhone and I want to get some of my movies onto it.
What the hell? Not being updated for 10 months is cause to abandon something?
 

pjberri

Crotchety Old Man
I don't know if this is more of a Windows or OSX question, but I'll shoot:

I've got a G3 tower networked that I keep a bunch of media on, and I can connect to that easily, but can only view my OS X user folder. I'd like to be able to view the second hard drive that's in the tower, but don't know how to do this, and haven't had any luck with Google. Anyone know?
 

SnakeXs

about the same metal capacity as a cucumber
pjberri said:
I don't know if this is more of a Windows or OSX question, but I'll shoot:

I've got a G3 tower networked that I keep a bunch of media on, and I can connect to that easily, but can only view my OS X user folder. I'd like to be able to view the second hard drive that's in the tower, but don't know how to do this, and haven't had any luck with Google. Anyone know?

fa8ac
 

pjberri

Crotchety Old Man
I phrased that incorrectly, I think. Sharing works, and I can see and use the user folder and its contents (like the iTunes Music folder I use with WMP and iTunes in 7), but I don't know how to access all the mounted drives like I can in OS X.
 

Ashhong

Member
i just got Windows 7 Pro iso from MS and want to install it on my bootcamp partition that currently has the beta. is there anyway i can do a complete install using a USB HDD?

enzom21 said:
Is the drive formatted in NTFS?
EDIT: He can use this if it is http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/

cant he just use Disk Utility? i just formatted mine from NTFS to FAT32 a second ago with it
 

hirokazu

Member
Ashhong said:
i just got Windows 7 Pro iso from MS and want to install it on my bootcamp partition that currently has the beta. is there anyway i can do a complete install using a USB HDD?



cant he just use Disk Utility? i just formatted mine from NTFS to FAT32 a second ago with it
This is instructions for installing the RC over the beta. No reason it wouldn't work for the RTM.
http://www.blogsdna.com/3083/how-to-upgrade-windows-7-beta-build-7000-to-windows-7-rc-build-7100.htm

I couldn't get the Mac to boot off the USB HDD that contained Windows 7 installer though, so I had to launch setup from within Windows when I attempted to install RC over beta.
 
So I recently installed Snow Leopard, don't like a few changes they made but the biggest one that I'm hoping can be changed is the brightness settings. Every time I turn on my iMac, the brightness is always at the brightest setting. Is there anyway for it to turn on to whatever brightness I had before I turned it off?
 

Phobophile

A scientist and gentleman in the manner of Batman.
VGChampion said:
So I recently installed Snow Leopard, don't like a few changes they made but the biggest one that I'm hoping can be changed is the brightness settings. Every time I turn on my iMac, the brightness is always at the brightest setting. Is there anyway for it to turn on to whatever brightness I had before I turned it off?

03ab0


Under "Display" in System Preferences.

Or, if you have one of the older, white keyboards, you can use F14 and F15 to dim and brighten, respectively. I think it's different on the newer chiclet keyboards, though.
 

mrkgoo

Member
Phobophile said:
03ab0


Under "Display" in System Preferences.

Or, if you have one of the older, white keyboards, you can use F14 and F15 to dim and brighten, respectively. I think it's different on the newer chiclet keyboards, though.

I think he wants it to default to a certain brightness on log in. I think the system preferences just reflects what you were on last, but doesn't necessarily change the default brightness.
 

Ashhong

Member
hirokazu said:
This is instructions for installing the RC over the beta. No reason it wouldn't work for the RTM.
http://www.blogsdna.com/3083/how-to-upgrade-windows-7-beta-build-7000-to-windows-7-rc-build-7100.htm

I couldn't get the Mac to boot off the USB HDD that contained Windows 7 installer though, so I had to launch setup from within Windows when I attempted to install RC over beta.

thanks. when i tried to run the setup file from inside Windows 7 though it would tell me "could not create install directory" or something. im not looking to upgrade, i want to do a full install. maybe this lil edit will fix that.
 

giga

Member
VGChampion said:
So I recently installed Snow Leopard, don't like a few changes they made but the biggest one that I'm hoping can be changed is the brightness settings. Every time I turn on my iMac, the brightness is always at the brightest setting. Is there anyway for it to turn on to whatever brightness I had before I turned it off?
Stop turning it off.
 

Phobophile

A scientist and gentleman in the manner of Batman.
mrkgoo said:
I think he wants it to default to a certain brightness on log in. I think the system preferences just reflects what you were on last, but doesn't necessarily change the default brightness.
Well if he dims it, it SHOULDN'T be back on max brightness the next time he boots up, unless other users brighten it behind his back.
 

mrkgoo

Member
Phobophile said:
Well if he dims it, it SHOULDN'T be back on max brightness the next time he boots up, unless other users brighten it behind his back.

Anecdotally speaking, I had a slight hunch feeling that mine was doing the same thing, except a couple notches down. Still, it never bugs me, because: 1), the brightness settings/controls are not so difficult to press; and 2), I hardly ever turn off my computer anyway.
 

Phobophile

A scientist and gentleman in the manner of Batman.
mrkgoo said:
Anecdotally speaking, I had a slight hunch feeling that mine was doing the same thing, except a couple notches down. Still, it never bugs me, because: 1), the brightness settings/controls are not so difficult to press; and 2), I hardly ever turn off my computer anyway.
Yeah, the last time I remember adjusting my brightness setting was right after installing Snow Leopard, that's about it.
 

Ashhong

Member
Ashhong said:
thanks. when i tried to run the setup file from inside Windows 7 though it would tell me "could not create install directory" or something. im not looking to upgrade, i want to do a full install. maybe this lil edit will fix that.

bahhhhh fucking windows. that hack worked but then it said i needed 8 gigs free to do a fresh install. i did that, and then it said i needed 14! gigs because it needed to back up some files. it was a bootcamp partition that was only like 23 gigs in the first place so no go. guess ill have to make a dvd..
 
preview has gotten worst over the years for reading manga

right now its not opening all the files I selected opens 8 of 30 selected wtf?

anyone know a good manga reader for OSX ??
 

Dupy

"it is in giving that we receive"
As long as I've got the ear of the Apple/tech heads I'll throw my question out there.

Right now I've got a NAS that houses my entire iTunes music library. I use my iMac as the "home base", meaning the iTunes library is just a mirror of the NAS files and whenever I add new music it dumps it onto the media server instead of the iMac.

So I just bought a 15" Macbook Pro and I now want to make that my primary "home base" for my music instead of the iMac. Not a problem unless I want to take my MBP away from the NAS and the mirror becomes useless. I can easily house all my music on the MBP but what if I edit or add new music? Is there a way to easily sync the MBP and NAS iTunes libraries?

Or is there some other way to keep the libraries synced that I'm not considering?
 
so, im interested in customizing the look of my new mac, anybody out there have suggestions?

i saw a very nice more transparent look awhile ago not sure where I saw it at
 

Jasoco

Banned
Smiles and Cries said:
preview has gotten worst over the years for reading manga

right now its not opening all the files I selected opens 8 of 30 selected wtf?
I have the same problem with PhotoShop. (Not with Manga though. Just images) I drag like 10 files from the Finder into the icon, but PS only opens one. Drag them all again, it opens another. Drag again, one more. Ad infinum until they're all opened. I think it might actually be a Snow Leopard problem though.
 

mrkgoo

Member
White Man said:
I'm definitely going to give Acorn and Pixelmator tries. I'm fairly sure that Acorn would meet most of my needs, but Pixelmator's webpage does a fine fine job of selling it. Looks very slick.

If there's a demo available, I'll probably give Photoshop Elements a shot, too, mainly because I've never tried it. I definitely don't want to have to use Adobe software if there are other acceptable options, though.

re: Safari. I never had problems with it on my other Macs, although I think I only used it very often on my G3 iBook and maybe my (Intel Core Duo) iMac.


Calling out White Man.

Did you take a look at Acorn and Pixelmator? Any opinions on either?
 

White Man

Member
mrkgoo said:
Calling out White Man.

Did you take a look at Acorn and Pixelmator? Any opinions on either?

I haven't made a purchase yet. I don't know which I want. Pixelmator has a nice and classic look, but lacks a considerable amount of features in comparison to Acorn

Acorn is the exact oposite. Clunky UI, but feature rich.

I guess the logical choice is Pixelmator because it watermarks the images made in trial mode. Acorn, aside from a nag screen, let's you use or save you images without a watermark. So I'm kinda leaning towards keeping them both, but only paying for pixelator,
 
Ha. I have my iPhone headphones plugged into the laptop, and it looks like the button on the mic controls music playback. I'm sure people already know about that, but I thought it was kinda neat.:lol

Also, how do you take screenshots of just the window. I know how to take full screenshots, and screenshots within a selected area, but not of a window.
 

mrkgoo

Member
White Man said:
I haven't made a purchase yet. I don't know which I want. Pixelmator has a nice and classic look, but lacks a considerable amount of features in comparison to Acorn

Acorn is the exact oposite. Clunky UI, but feature rich.

I guess the logical choice is Pixelmator because it watermarks the images made in trial mode. Acorn, aside from a nag screen, let's you use or save you images without a watermark. So I'm kinda leaning towards keeping them both, but only paying for pixelator,

Neat, thanks for the comments. What features do you find are missing from Pixelmator? Acorn disables more when not paid for - there's a list of features disabled on their website, but it includes the clone tool.
 

mrkgoo

Member
Jet Grind Radio! said:
Ha. I have my iPhone headphones plugged into the laptop, and it looks like the button on the mic controls music playback. I'm sure people already know about that, but I thought it was kinda neat.:lol

Also, how do you take screenshots of just the window. I know how to take full screenshots, and screenshots within a selected area, but not of a window.

cmd+shift+4, then space.

Also, if you use ctrl as well, it copies to the clipboard.
 
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