Heat depends on model, as you mentioned, but I’ve seen tests where 5200RPM versus 7200RPM made no difference to battery life. A faster drive spins for shorter bursts than a slower drive, right? They should be about even. If you can find a proper hardware test proving otherwise, it would help people decide.
I’m not struggling with battery life on my MacBook, though. I have calculated that it will do its 1000th cycle in 31 years with my usage pattern :)
As others have mentioned, Time Machine will keep your stuff safe. Also, there is imaging right there in Disk Utility so that you can boot from the OS X install DVD and make a compressed DMG if you like. Disk partitions and images can also be resized. Snow Leopard is supposedly even going to let you boot from such images.
Is that what people do, use their cursor finger to click also? Seems pretty rough as a click-and-drag method. Can you really slide your finger around comfortably while applying enough pressure to depress the button? Besides, if you run out of trackpad space, you can’t do a lift-and-reposition while holding the button.
When I tried one of the new track pads in the store, I just kept using my thumb on the bottom of the track pad as though the button were still there.
Actually that’s how I’m mostly still doing it. And in fact it’s easier to just hold down the pad (clicked) with your thumb or index finger and drag with another finger. The problem is if I don’t push down quick or hard enough and move a little it jumps my pointer down and to the left instead of clicking. I’ve only had it for one night so it’s going to take some time to get the hang of it. I tried the tap to click option too. Not sure which I like better yet.
What I do dig so far are some of the gestures like two finger scroll and all the 4 finger task switching, expose, view desktop stuff.
So is the three finger swipe to the left suppose to be like the “back” button on a mouse? It doesn’t seem to work for all apps. Like I don’t think it worked on firefox when I tried it.
Use MultiClutch to get swipe working in FF3
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/27016/multiclutch
It’s supported natively in FF3.5.
Cool, I’ll check it out.
After reading this article, it looks like the WD 5200 RPM drive outperforms the Seagate 7200 in most tests anyway. (And WD doesn’t have their 7200 RPM model in 500GB size yet.)
I don’t really need that quantity of storage on the Mac, but it’ll give me plenty of room for Boot Camp, VMs, and to play with iMovie to see if it’s any good.
I use free download manager on the pc. Is there something similar for osx?
I paid $9.95 for Leech
Peter Maurer is a great Mac shareware developer.
http://www.screencastsonline.com/index_files/SCO0156-leech.php
Coupon code from end of that screencast worked a while back for me, not sure if it still does. Yep. 20% still works.
Looks like just what I need. I’ll check it out tonight.
So my adventures in mac land continue:
- I gave silverkeeper a try. It did pretty much exactly what I needed. It’s sort of like synctoy but for mac. It’s a bit more simplified but it got the job done.
- Got firefox working just the way I want with all my plugins installed. MultiClutch works great for getting the swipe back/forward gestures working in firefox. Thanks rei
- Messed around with spaces. Pretty neat implementation of linux like virtual desktops. I’ll have to mess with it more to see how I can best utilize it.
- Stacks: I just stick folders there and load them up with shortcuts…errr I mean aliases.
- Yeah discovered about aliases the hard way. There were a few cases where when I thought I was creating an alias I was instead actually moving the entire app. Then when I deleted it (and emptied the trash) I accidentally deleted the app. No big deal on re-installing the app (I love how easy it is to install/uninstall apps in osx) and nice that settings are stored elsewhere (in the Library?).
- I’m looking for an equivalent to locknote
http://www.steganos.com/us/products/for-free/locknote/overview/
What I did was create an encrypted disk image (10mb) with aes 128bit encryption and makes sure you don’t save the password in the keychain. Then I guess I could just save a text file in that disk image. It’s not quite the same so I’m still looking for a good locknote replacement if anybody knows of one. I thought about using maybe a keychain and storing sensitive data in the notes section but I think I’ve read that only the password field is encrypted. I really like how osx has really good native support for the concept of disk images (.dmg). - Connected to vista with the built in vnc and it worked just fine though yeah it was a bit slow. I might look into vine or chicken. But it works in a pinch.
- I’m now trying the touchpad with tap to click, single finger drag, and drag lock all on. I think I’m liking it much better this way. It feels very iphoney to me which I’m use to.
- Why does safari maximize doesn’t actually fill up my whole screen like every other app?
- Finder really should allow multiple instances by default. Yeah I know you can right click and start a new finder but that should be allowed by default. I guess clicking on the mac hd icon on the desktop kind of does the same thing too.
- I have this bluetooth 5 button dell mouse that paired up just fine with the mac. But it seems I can’t get the forward/back buttons to work in firefox. Any ideas?
So last night I finally started feeling comfortable enough around osx to give the wife a quick tutorial. Her first reaction was where are all the buttons? I said apple hates buttons. She seemed to adjust fairly quickly. Eh besides it’s good training for her since I already ordered a iphone 3gs to replace her htc windows mobile phone.
- Why does safari maximize doesn’t actually fill up my whole screen like every other app?
Maximize in OSX doesn’t mean the same thing as it does in Windows. It’s up to the app to decide what to do. Most apps interpret it as “take up all the screen space I need to display my data, but no more”.
OK that seems a bit silly, confusing, and inconsistent. Just like “closing” is inconsistent between apps. I find myself using command Q quite often.
Hi I’m a PC, and I just don’t get you mac people! :-)
Glad you’re enjoying the experience. To answer some of your questions:
1Password may have the functionality that you’re looking for from Locknote. A way to securely store and encrypt notes and passwords. Plus it integrates nicely with your browsers, and there’s an iPhone version that will sync with the desktop application.
Safari not “maximizing” to fill the screen is actually default Mac behaviour for the little green plus. Firefox seems to break the rules and maximizes to fill up space. The little green plus isn’t truly “maximize to fill the desktop”, it’s “maximize to a window size as big as you need to be”. The merits, and downsides, to this have been extensively debated. If you want a workaround, google “SizeUp”, a nifty utility.
I’m confused as to why you need 2 instances of Finder running. Why isn’t opening a second Finder window (Command-N shortcut) sufficient?
I have the same problem with the buttons on my Logitech MX-1000 mouse. There is no free workaround, but there is a paid solution. It’s shareware, so you can play around first, the name of the utility is SteerMouse.
Thanks ephraim for the tips and suggestions. Ok I didn’t know about command-N shortcut!!! (I keep browsing the keyboard shortcuts and finding new ones). So yeah I’ll do that! I guess I’m still adjusting to their version of MDI. I guess that’s multiple documents for a given instance of an app but not contained in some sort of parent frame?
I forgot about 1Password which I actually have on my iphone. I’ll go check out the desktop app and all those other suggestions.
Yeah osx is definitely growing on me. This old grizzled pc veteran is starting to warm up to it.
Just like “closing” is inconsistent between apps. I find myself using command Q quite often.
Well, it’s consistent from a certain point of view. If it’s a single window app, it closes the app. If it’s a document based app, it closes the document but leaves the main app running. It could be clearer but I’m not sure how, really. That’s basically how Windows works as well to be fair.
CMD+W = CTRL+F4
CMD+Q = ALT+F4
I guess that’s multiple documents for a given instance of an app but not contained in some sort of parent frame?
Yeah, Mac apps don’t have a primary frame like in Windows. The documents just float on the desktop.
I gladly paid for SteerMouse. ControllerMate is a requirement for configuring game controllers etc and other more esoteric USB devices.
Anybody try time machine over a samba share before?
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=141960
Here’s how I do it:
1.Click icon.
2.Drag until you reach the edge of the pad.
3.Put down another finger, keeping pressure with it.
4.Lift the finger at the edge.
The second finger takes over for the first finger when you do this. Wonders of multitouch.
But I recommend a mouse. Far easier when using Xcode to move a lot of assets into a program, or making said assets in graphics/sound programs.
I found another article, incidentally the same site:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/15079/7
That pits Black versus Blue and the competition, so it gives an idea of how much of a difference there is between the two models in smaller capacities. Seems to range from “a little” to “yeah, I’d shell out the extra cash for a Black”.
Black isn’t available in 500GB, so it was an easy decision for me. Up and running with 4GB and the Scorpio Blue and all’s peachy. (Though I had to use pliers to carefully remove those dang Torx “lock in place” screws, since the teardown site initially LIED about not needing a Torx anymore, and then edited their response before I went back to bitch.)
We tried to warn you! :)
It’s amazing how much more relaxed I am with 500GB in my MacBook.
Ripping DVDs to iTunes with Handbrake? Sure! Why not?!