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Macintosh miscellany

 
  

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Smoothly
13:58 / 05.03.07
I've got a 20" too but slightly regret not stretching my budget to the two-footer. I suppose it comes down to how valuable the extra real-estate is to you and what you're using it for. But as Fridge says, it is substantially bigger and I'd recommend that any prospective buyer first compare the 20" and 24" side-by-side, then get the tape-measure out at home. These things tend to look heftier in the home than they do in the cavernous Apple Store. I've read about people who bought the 24" iMac only to discover that they physically can't fit it where they wanted to put it.

I've heard people argue that the 20" model is the sweet-spot, and it probably is better value for money, but I doubt many people would choose the smaller one if money were no object. Also, I think the 24" has better, brighter screen technology (it supports HD, for instance) and comes with other superior components as standard.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:38 / 07.03.07
Thanks, guys.

Now, one for me - my 60GB Powerbook is telling me that it has only 12.7MB left in its hard drive. This is odd because it had quite a lot more space fairly recently. It is also odd because I deleted about a 3 gigabytes of stuff in response, and I am still being told that there are 12.7MB of space left on the hard drive.

Any suggestions to cure my claustrophobic drive?
 
 
petunia
11:35 / 07.03.07
At risk of asking the over-obvious; did you empty your trash?

Other than that, i don't have many ideas. You could try the more heavy-duty 'secure empty trash' and see if that cleans anything up. Or try repairing disk/permissions in disk utility - this will often clean up little mac bugs like this. A disk defragmentation tool might help somewhat. I've never used one on a mac, but they can often do wonders on windows boxes. This one has a demo...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:54 / 07.03.07
I did delete the trash - I'll have another go at restoring permissions. I might have to reinstall Tiger, which will be a pain, but at least there hasn't been that much done to the drive since I last reinstalled.. it'll just be a pain to reinstall the applications afterwards.
 
 
petunia
12:54 / 07.03.07
Have you tried the 'archive and install' option on your Tiger disk? It keeps the User files intact and, if i remember correctly, keeps most of your applications safe. There might be the odd preference or two that vanishes in the new install, but i think most of it stays. Worth checking out anyway...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:13 / 07.03.07
I'll back up and give that a go - thanks.
 
 
semioticrobotic
16:29 / 09.03.07
Just wondering how that worked out for you, Haus, since a friend seems to be experiencing (from what I've heard, anyway) a similar issue.
 
 
grant
16:36 / 09.03.07
My understanding is that things like this often happen on Powerbooks when your HD is nearly full -- something to do with the way it uses the disk to store temp files. You're supposed to keep at least 10% of the total disk capacity free for temp files. I never do, but find either logging some accounts off or restarting the computer makes the missing disk space reappear. Temporarily.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:07 / 09.03.07
If my HD had been nearly full, I would not have been surprised to find that it was telling me that my HD was nearly full, though, unless I am missing something... I had about a third of it free.

I haven't actually had a chance to do anything yet, and the thing is still working fine... maybe over the weekend.
 
 
grant
19:51 / 11.03.07
If my HD had been nearly full, I would not have been surprised to find that it was telling me that my HD was nearly full, though, unless I am missing something

Ah. Well, if you'd had, say, 4 gigs free and it suddenly became 12 megs, that temp file thing'd be why. A third of the HD? That's something different.

It must be... alive!
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:25 / 11.03.07
Fortunately, the threat of reinstallation sorted it out. I reclaimed space from the encrypted hard drive, and it went back to registering 30+ gigs of free space. Which makes me mildly annoyed about clearing my iTunes out, but since I always have my iPod with me, it was a bit redundant.
 
 
Lea-side
13:24 / 12.04.07
let's say i have just bought a shiney new macbook and i have an ancient old I-mac (the one that looks like a portable tv) and i want to move all my important files/mp3/stuff over, how would i do it?
 
 
petunia
19:52 / 12.04.07
The help files in my mac say:

"Using Migration Assistant to transfer files
If you need to transfer all your files and important settings from an older Mac to a new one, and both computers are using Mac OS X, you can use Migration Assistant.

Before using Migration Assistant, make sure that both computers have Mac OS X installed and that you have a FireWire cable to connect the two computers.

To transfer files using Migration Assistant:
From the Finder on your new computer, open Migration Assistant, located in the Utilities folder in your Applications folder.
Follow the onscreen instructions to connect a FireWire cable and choose the files you want to transfer."

This is assuming that you:
a. Have a firewire port on your old mac.
b. Have a handy firewire cable.

In case of a 'no' to [b.], i reckon a firewire cable shouldn't be too hard to find, and should be pretty cheap.

Failing [a.], or in the case that the firewire cable is hard to track, or you just can't be botherd with that route, you can just use an ethernet cable to connect the two pooters and make them talky through that.

If using the ethernet cable (the cable you use for wired networks like LAN or broadband internet), you just plug it into the ehternet socket in each computer, then click on the 'network' icon in finder int he new computer.

If you haven't already, you will need to set the old comp to allow personal file sharing - this can be done in the 'sharing' panel in System Preferences.

In the new computer's finder window, you should see the old computer come up as [computer name]. Click on the 'connect' button and, when it asks for username and password, just enter the username and pass you use(d) on the old computer. This will give you access to all the files that you have under your username in the old box.

From here, you can just drag and drop the files into your new computer.

Bingo!
 
 
Kirin? Who the heck?
23:37 / 12.04.07
If the iMac uses Mac OS 9 (click Apple Menu > About this Mac if you aren't sure) then just finding a FireWire cable, connecting the two 'puters and holding down the 'T' key on the old iMac's keyboard while turning it on (puts it into Target Disk Mode) is probably easiest (the old Mac's hard disk will appear as a disk on the new one's desktop), as I seem to recall networking, and AppleShare in particular, as being a little, well, irritating on OS 9.
 
 
Shrug
07:50 / 16.04.07
Terribly easy question, I'm sure, but if I was, let's say, downloading an mp3 from fluxblog, clicking on the click, going into a screen wherein it is played by quicktime, clicking file and then save etc, why wouldn't I be able to play this link via iTunes?

The saved item resides on my desktop, clicking it brings up iTunes, I've attempted to add it to my iTunes library yet none of these things work??

Err...
 
 
Kirin? Who the heck?
09:26 / 16.04.07
Will it play in QuickTime (select the file, then choose File > Open With > QuickTime Player)? If it doesn't, then it's more likely to be a problem with the file. Rather than clicking on the link to the MP3 on the web, try holding down the option key and clicking on the link, thus instructing Safari (assuming you're using Safari, if not try ctrl-clicking the link and choosing something along the lines of 'Save file as...' or 'Download linked file') to save the file directly to your computer.
 
 
Shrug
09:51 / 16.04.07
Cheers, Kirin. Mmyeah, I had been clicking on the link and then save file as. Although now I'm pretty sure that it hadn't been downloading in mp3 format.. as the size is only 4kb.
Options button?
 
 
Kirin? Who the heck?
15:00 / 16.04.07
The option key should be marked with the option symbol, which looks like railway points: ⌥ (that should show up if you look at it on a Mac). It's in between ctrl (⌃ ) and command (⌘, also marked with , the Apple logo) on the left of the keyboard, bottom row. If you're not using an Apple keyboard, it may well be marked 'alt'.
 
 
Shrug
17:57 / 16.04.07
Yeppers, all working now.

Cheers Big Ears.
 
 
Shrug
19:19 / 16.04.07
Ah, and now I think of it, I've been pondering this one for a while.
1)A have a macbook.
2)It has a dvd burner
3)I don't seem to be able to copy dvds??
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
19:44 / 16.04.07
What software are you using Shrug?

You will need a burning program that will crack any security on the original DVD, the out of the box Mac burning program will not do this to my knowledge.
 
 
Shrug
19:49 / 16.04.07
Yer, software recommendations welcome, Elijah. I think I may be the epitomy of the summary mentioned mac-doofus. :P
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
20:21 / 16.04.07
I haven't used any of these (I recently inherited an old iBook with no DVD burning) but this is free, so might be worth a shot
 
 
Shrug
08:06 / 17.04.07
*Does happy dance*



Yay!

Thanks.
 
 
Shrug
11:41 / 26.04.07
Yet another question, if anybody would be so kind...

If I want to take a snapshot of a dvd scene (and as grab the macintosh facility doesn't allow me this facility) what should I do?
 
 
Disco is My Class War
03:10 / 12.05.07
I just borrowed a G4 ibook from my uni for a month, and the virus software is out of date. It's got Virex installed, but the last time it automatically updated was in September 2006. It won't let me update, either -- something about a .Mac login and password, which I don't have. Supposedly the IT desk in my department hate Macs and avoid looking after them if possible. Plus it's the weekend. Also, some of my documents have viruses -- which this machine didn't register.

So, freeware antivirus software for Mac! I'm all up with the freeware anti-virus software for PCs, but I have no idea which programs are reliable for Mac. I'm probably looking for something with anti spyware and antispam as well. Can someone assist?
 
 
pureflook
09:25 / 12.05.07
Ok, here is my problem..

I downloaded "Gimpshop" (freeware alternative to Photoshop). For it to work it says that i need to install X11 from my startup disc. I can't find my disc so I downloaded X11 from the mac website. Which It won't let me install because " a newer version is already installed"!...grrr

and round and round it seems to go...

any suggestions?
 
 
sleazenation
10:38 / 12.05.07
Mister Disco -

Two Questions

1 - How do you know your files have viruses?
2 - Were they created on a PC?

I ask because if they are infected by a PC virus then they are unlikely to effect the mac.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:35 / 12.05.07
Yeah, there still aren't really any effective viruses in the wild for Macs, because the setup allows the avenues used by viruses to be closed by software updates.

So, if you want a free Mac virus scanner, try ClamAV for OSX - link. I use it, when I remember. However, it will mainly find viruses that would not affect your Mac at all.
 
 
Bamba
12:18 / 12.05.07
The same can be said for spyware as well as far as I know. It's designed for, and exploits vulnerabilities in, Windows alone so if there even is such a thing as a Mac compatible spyware scanner it's likely to be a waste of time installing and running it.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
12:22 / 12.05.07
sleaze -- I transferred a Word for Mac doc from the laptop onto an eMac at work, and the eMac wouldn't open the file because it was infected with a virus. Virex deleted the file. I'd created the document on the laptop, and it never went near a PC. So, this is defintely a Mac virus.

And thanks Haus, I'll check it out.
 
 
Kirin? Who the heck?
18:28 / 12.05.07
pureflook — first, are you sure it’s not installed anyway? If it is, there’ll be an application called ‘X11’ in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder. If there isn’t anything there, take a look inside /Library/Receipts/ (choose Go to Folder… from the Finder’s Go menu and copy and paste the path; it’ll take you right there). If there are a few files beginning with ‘X11’ there, you could try moving them somewhere else, like your Desktop (you’ll need an administrator username and password) and running the installer again. The worst that’ll happen is that X11 will continue not to run.
 
 
Kirin? Who the heck?
18:30 / 12.05.07
Eep, scratch that. I took a look and the version of X11 on Apple's website is only for OS 10.3, which is why that (not very helpful) message is coming up. You have to install it from the Tiger DVD, I'm afraid.
 
 
pureflook
19:01 / 13.05.07
thanks for the suggestions

there is no X11 in applictions/utilities.
I found a package in the folder you suggested..it seemed to be installing fine until the last moment..then I got an error message, and a "please try installing again"

I guess I'll need the disc after all.

Thanks anyway
 
 
admiral sausage
17:34 / 31.05.07
Hello,

Right, I have a wired router, attached to my old G4 (which doesnt have a wifi card) and to various consoles.

Recently when changing my ISP i was sent an Orange livebox. Is it possible to add this to my existing set up (thus adding wifi to my network for my laptop) without having to scrap the wired router, and buy a wifi card for my desktop mac (and other bits for the consoles)?

Please keep it kind of simple as im a bit thick with this kind of thing, any suggestions would be greatfully recieved !
 
  

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