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My First MacBook

24

Posts

  • KalTorakKalTorak Registered User regular
    Speaking of Spaces (well, maybe this isn't a problem with Spaces, but i use Spaces to get around it), I've got a somewhat silly problem.

    I have my laptop connected to my HDTV as a second monitor, so when I want to watch Netflix or a DVD I can just mirror the displays, lower the backlight all the way on the laptop screen and watch it on my HDTV. So far, so good. When I un-mirror the displays, however, all my windows that I had open on my laptop screen (Firefox, iTunes, whathaveyou) migrate over to the HDTV screen. If the TV is still on I can just drag them back over, but if it isn't then I pop into Spaces and drag them over that way. My question is, is there any way to make the windows default back onto the laptop screen instead of the HDTV screen? At first I thought they defaulted to the left-most screen (my TV is to the left of the laptop), but when I switched the positions in the Displays preference screen, the windows still migrate over to the TV when I un-mirror.

  • RBachRBach Registered User regular
    What happens if you just disconnect the HDTV without unmirroring the displays first?

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • KalTorakKalTorak Registered User regular
    I haven't tried that yet - now that you mention it, it is a bit odd. The computer sees the TV there even when the TV is switched off (I guess "standby") - for the computer to just have one monitor again I'd have to either unplug the DVI-HDMI cable or unplug the TV from the wall.

  • LewishamLewisham Registered User regular
    Good job on getting the unibody. It's an awesome piece of kit.

    *looks sadly at my MBP that I bought a month before the unibodies came out*

  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    RBach wrote: »
    What happens if you just disconnect the HDTV without unmirroring the displays first?

    Sometimes, all the still-connected screens go blue for a second, the orphaned windows auto-gather on the primary display, and the extended display disappears. This is the desired behavior.

    Other times it acts like noting has happened and windows end up offscreen. There's a "Gather Windows" button in the display control panel for such times. You can deal with it through the control panel or, alternately, shut the top and re-open it. The sleep cycle will manually refresh displays.

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  • xWonderboyxxWonderboyx Registered User
    Lewisham wrote: »
    Good job on getting the unibody. It's an awesome piece of kit.

    *looks sadly at my MBP that I bought a month before the unibodies came out*

    You feel bad? My wife and I got our white macbooks about two months before the unibodies came out. I figured an update was coming, but I didn't know it would be such an awesome update. I thought it would just be something like faster processors and a better screen or more memory or something. That shows me.

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  • wasted pixelswasted pixels Registered User
    Lewisham wrote: »
    Good job on getting the unibody. It's an awesome piece of kit.

    *looks sadly at my MBP that I bought a month before the unibodies came out*

    You feel bad? My wife and I got our white macbooks about two months before the unibodies came out. I figured an update was coming, but I didn't know it would be such an awesome update. I thought it would just be something like faster processors and a better screen or more memory or something. That shows me.

    I got an iBook G4 in April 2006. Try to top that.
    Spoiler:

    BTW, I got a message from Obs that equated installing OS X on a PC with car theft, murder and rape. Is he normally like that?
  • xWonderboyxxWonderboyx Registered User
    Lewisham wrote: »
    Good job on getting the unibody. It's an awesome piece of kit.

    *looks sadly at my MBP that I bought a month before the unibodies came out*

    You feel bad? My wife and I got our white macbooks about two months before the unibodies came out. I figured an update was coming, but I didn't know it would be such an awesome update. I thought it would just be something like faster processors and a better screen or more memory or something. That shows me.

    I got an iBook G4 in April 2006. Try to top that.
    Spoiler:

    The reason we got the two macbooks in such a hurry was our old powerbook g4's hard drive ate shit so we just treated ourselves to two new laptops. Now I'm in the process of reviving the old computer and replacing the hard drive and all, and if my old apartment deposit gets refunded in full (about 900 dollars) I will probably get a unibody just because. But I'll probably wait till snow leopard, though.

    I can't stop buying apple products...

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  • ObsObs __BANNED USERS regular
    Zeromus wrote: »
    Oh God

    My new MacBook is beautiful.

    Got the fancy new aluminum one and it's all I can do to not rub myself all over the sumptuous LED screen. I'm still getting used to all of this (even iChat is a pretty big transition from AIM for me), but I'm glad I took the plunge. Could someone help me understand "Spaces," though? And are there any neat things I should do with my dashboard?

    <3

    The next time some dude comes around and says "Bah you don't need a unibody Macbook just get the white plastic one" can we count on your opinion to be there?

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  • Mike DangerMike Danger "Diane..." a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered User regular
    Spaces is just different desktops. For example, I have Firefox in Space 1, iTunes in Space 2, Adium in Space 3, and a bunch of random things in Space 4. It keeps things organized.

    As far as dashboard widgets, the only ones I recommend looking for are Countdown and Delivery Status. All the other ones I use are pack-ins (iCal, Calculator, Address Book, Weather, Movies, Calculator).

  • RichardAstleyRichardAstley Registered User
    DeathPrawn wrote: »
    Expandrive costs money but allows you to mount your FTP drives as hard drives easily. Worth every penny.

    It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it's incredibly simple to mount a FTP server in Leopard without 3rd party software. In Finder, you just click Go -> Connect To Server and input your server information (including the [url]ftp://)[/url].

    This is horribly buggy and, more importantly, is read-only.
    DeathPrawn wrote:

    On a similar note, MacFUSE is great for mounting all sorts of file systems. I use sshfs a lot to access my home folder on my school's Linux server.

    Expandrive is based on MacFUSE, and is fully supported. MacFUSE by itself is kind of buggy on OS X I've found.

    Or you could just use Macfusion which gives you a nice GUI for mounting FTP/SSH, and it's free. Also, I'd recommend using a beta build of MacFUSE as they've improved performance considerably over the stable release.

  • KrisKris Edmonton, ABRegistered User regular
    I usually use Spaces as different work zones. Space 1 is all my personal, fun things, like iTunes, Adium, Safari with the forums open. Space 2 is then made my work area, with stuff like XCode, Textmate, Safari open to API references and google for finding answers to problems.

    I find it really helps keep my distractions at a minimum when all I can see while in Space 2 is work-related things.

    XBL: Zephyrall || PS3: Zephyrall_KN || Battle.Net: Zephyrall.398
  • Evil_ReaverEvil_Reaver Registered User regular
    You guys with less than 4 spaces... I have six spaces set up. SIX!

    3DS FC: 2363-7048-2527 | Pokémon White 2 FC: 4127-4106-4861 | Backloggery | Steam
    RandomEngy wrote: »
    I would just like to inform you all that Evil_Reaver is the winner of the thread.
  • OrganichuOrganichu Registered User regular
    I've never made use of spaces.

  • KalTorakKalTorak Registered User regular
    RBach wrote: »
    What happens if you just disconnect the HDTV without unmirroring the displays first?

    Sometimes, all the still-connected screens go blue for a second, the orphaned windows auto-gather on the primary display, and the extended display disappears. This is the desired behavior.

    Other times it acts like noting has happened and windows end up offscreen. There's a "Gather Windows" button in the display control panel for such times. You can deal with it through the control panel or, alternately, shut the top and re-open it. The sleep cycle will manually refresh displays.

    I tried the "Gather Windows" button and it does... nothing. All it does is bring the "Display" preferences window for both monitors to the active screen, leaves everything else where it is. Looks like other people have this problem too: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8463391

    Seems like a pretty worthless button if that's all it does.

  • RBachRBach Registered User regular
    Well, that's not all it's supposed to do...

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • TheRealCJTheRealCJ Registered User
    Get one if you want. Personally, I can't stand them. Here in Australia, the 'Apple Tax' is particularly pronounced, and I really don't like OSX.

    You see, I'm forced to use them at Uni (my course being out-and-out Audio Engineering - Mac's seedy headquarters), and I personally hate the OS, it's clunky, unintuitive, requires the memorisation of EVERY single program you have open. Do you know how annoying it is, when you open photoshop, and it has no background window? If you have firefox or Protools open underneath, you can't tell what's firefox and what's photoshop. Even when you alt-tab or use expose, the windows underneath still remain up, because it's all on the desktop.

    Anyway, enough ranting. My point is that when you factor out OSX, Macbooks (the only Apple laptop I can afford) are really just fancy metal computers that are horrendously overpriced.

  • gneGnegneGne Registered User
    Windows is starting to function more and more like OS X though.

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  • DBReedDBReed Registered User regular
    What do you mean by memorization? Like you have to memorize what the program looks like? Are you saying you have a hard time figuring out which program you're currently in?

  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    When I work on Windows XP, I feel like the OS is trying to put blinders on me. Everything wants to be maximized all the time and working with more than one or two non-maximized windows is a chore. Vista is slightly better and Windows 7 is a full step in the direction of Mac OS X.

    What I'm trying to say here, CJ, is that you might want to get used to the Mac OS X multi-window style because it's starting to invade other operating systems. You might think that it drives you crazy now, but come a few years, you'll look back at XP and think: wow, that was really annoying to multitask on.

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  • NackmatholnNackmatholn Registered User
    You guys with less than 4 spaces... I have six spaces set up. SIX!

    I too rock the 6 spaces setup. I blame ubuntu for my muti-desk space obsession. I've got 2 rows of 3 setup like so:

    Top Left: iTunes Top Middle: Adium Top Right: Virtualboxed WinXP
    Bottom Left: Mail Bottom Middle: Vuze/Handbrake Bottom Right: Safari,Firefox or Camino, depending on how jaunty I feel...

    And the only Dashboard Widget I suggest that I haven't seen mentioned yet is CryptBoard, an Encrypted and password protected notepad, great for holding passwords that you tend to forget... that or your 20+ digit WPA-2- passkey......... :D

    Oh and I take offense to you aluminum obsessed folk downing us 'Whiteys'. I for one enjoy my early '09 White-shelled MacBook. 2ghz core2duo, 4gb ddr2 goodness, 500gb aftermarket HDD and a Geforce 9400m, for almost 350 less with my evil corporate discount. (Though I'll likely look at a metal pro at somepoint. Lottery, I'm looking at you:winky:)

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  • KrisKris Edmonton, ABRegistered User regular
    Not trying to judge anyone here, but I'm honestly curious, why spread your programs out to so many spaces like that? For instance, why do you feel the need to put iTunes and Adium in their own space instead of together? You have so much screen real estate that a lot of it gets wasted by one tiny program in a space. Does it help to have them separated in your mind? Is it more efficient even though you have to switch spaces more often?

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  • ObsObs __BANNED USERS regular
    Kris wrote: »
    Not trying to judge anyone here, but I'm honestly curious, why spread your programs out to so many spaces like that? For instance, why do you feel the need to put iTunes and Adium in their own space instead of together? You have so much screen real estate that a lot of it gets wasted by one tiny program in a space. Does it help to have them separated in your mind? Is it more efficient even though you have to switch spaces more often?

    because real estate is cheap and free

    and it's not like your killing the planet or whatever by putting one little program in it's own tiny space


    I personally have 9 spaces. It's like having a 30 inch monitor, but bigger.

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  • dodosdodos Registered User
    My Macbook Pro ate shit recently, and I don't have AppleCare. By eating shit I mean the battery died, the display is somewhat fucked (needs a small binder clip to work) and the onboard keyboard + trackpad are dead. Yes, I've tried the sticky note in the battery solution. No-go. So, I'm trying to sell it and looking at a white Macbook as a replacement.

    I'm not really in any position to order the unibody, and the specs that are different for the unibody are:
    1 less Firewire port
    Multitouch trackpad (w/o a button).
    Battery status on the side
    Faster Ram (DDR3 vs DDR2, but you can upgrade the white to 800MHz)
    160GB HD (vs 120GB, but you can upgrade to 7200RPM)

    So...I know it's sexy, and I know it's a work of art, but $300?

    My only regret is that this must happen 4 weeks before WWDC.

  • NackmatholnNackmatholn Registered User
    Kris wrote: »
    Not trying to judge anyone here, but I'm honestly curious, why spread your programs out to so many spaces like that? For instance, why do you feel the need to put iTunes and Adium in their own space instead of together? You have so much screen real estate that a lot of it gets wasted by one tiny program in a space. Does it help to have them separated in your mind? Is it more efficient even though you have to switch spaces more often?

    It makes things easy for me as switching spaces involves quick keystrokes, and with programs like Virtual Box, iTunes, and Vuze, you really benefit from having the full screen dedicated to a single program. With iTunes you can see more albums, Vuze nets more space to search for the perfect ubuntu distro torrent (that would be 9.04 32 bit dvd, for those who are curious), and Virtual Box needs it's own home unless you run it interated. or you like windows in a tiny... window...

    Adium on the otherhand doesn't need it's own home, in a pinch I could put it with mail... but 5 spaces is just wierd...

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  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    dodos wrote: »
    My Macbook Pro ate shit recently, and I don't have AppleCare. By eating shit I mean the battery died, the display is somewhat fucked (needs a small binder clip to work) and the onboard keyboard + trackpad are dead. Yes, I've tried the sticky note in the battery solution. No-go. So, I'm trying to sell it and looking at a white Macbook as a replacement.

    I'm not really in any position to order the unibody, and the specs that are different for the unibody are:
    1 less Firewire port
    Multitouch trackpad (w/o a button).
    Battery status on the side
    Faster Ram (DDR3 vs DDR2, but you can upgrade the white to 800MHz)
    160GB HD (vs 120GB, but you can upgrade to 7200RPM)

    So...I know it's sexy, and I know it's a work of art, but $300?

    My only regret is that this must happen 4 weeks before WWDC.

    Wow, it really died. I assume it fell or something else fell on it?

    Also, don't buy the white macbook unless you enjoy regretting purchases. Just read the last 2 pages.

    ghost-robot.jpg
  • ObsObs __BANNED USERS regular
    Wait until after WWDC.

    There may be a $300 on the new Macbooks as the white macbooks are discontinued.

    What will the heathens say then

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  • RBachRBach Registered User regular
    We'll say we want our damn Firewire ports back, that's what! :P

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • ObsObs __BANNED USERS regular
    $300 dollar price drop


    fucking jail sucks ass man
    I don't understand the retardedness behind being unable to edit your fucking posts
    we may be in jail but we are still human beings
    god damn

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  • dodosdodos Registered User
    Wow, it really died. I assume it fell or something else fell on it?

    Also, don't buy the white macbook unless you enjoy regretting purchases. Just read the last 2 pages.

    No, never dropped. Just wear/tear from taking it to classes every day of the week I guess. It was always in a case. The display just started to die slowly...it's been a problem for about 4-5 months now.

    The battery died about 3 weeks ago. Just lost 80% of it's charge capacity within about a 3 day span. I guess a cell died.

    The keyboard and trackpad have been going out whenever I used it with my external monitor for about a month now. Now they just never work as of 3 days ago.

    Can you elaborate on "the last 2 pages"? I mean, I did read stories of people buying laptops just before the laptop event, but that's it. I've yet to hear anything about notebooks being released at WWDC (or just haven't looked that up) and I really don't have the time to wait until WWDC to get a new computer.

    If the regret you mentioned is about White Macbooks, I'll have AppleCare. Apple recently acknowledged that the cracks in the plastic are from normal use and they do replace that.

  • AzioAzio Registered User regular
    Shit, how long have you had that Pro? Mine is a couple years old now and it's been through a few semesters of daily use. I had to get the screen, battery and motherboard replaced at different times during the warranty, and now it's not covered anymore. It's in excellent condition so I really hope it doesn't just suddenly kick the bucket like that.

  • VulpineVulpine Registered User
    My MBP has, just recently, decided to freeze completely after a couple of days' uptime. The first time, the most obvious thing running was iTunes; the latter two occasions, Warcraft III (legitimate copy, downloaded through Blizzard). It's not a kernel panic - the screen doesn't go grey with the multiple languages notification, nor is anything written to panic.log.

    From a swift google, this is apparently an issue with unibody MBPs with 4GB of RAM - a condition mine meets. Does anybody else have any information about this rather irksome problem? I must add that this has only happened recently, as it'd been flawlessly stable with many days of uptime on many occasions since I'd bought it. The most recent, significant change which I can attribute to before these problems is my configuring Boot Camp.

    (I'd take it into the Apple Store, but at the moment I can't justify being without my machine, spontaneous freezes or not)

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • ZeromusZeromus Registered User regular
    TheRealCJ wrote: »
    Get one if you want. Personally, I can't stand them. Here in Australia, the 'Apple Tax' is particularly pronounced, and I really don't like OSX.

    You see, I'm forced to use them at Uni (my course being out-and-out Audio Engineering - Mac's seedy headquarters), and I personally hate the OS, it's clunky, unintuitive, requires the memorisation of EVERY single program you have open. Do you know how annoying it is, when you open photoshop, and it has no background window? If you have firefox or Protools open underneath, you can't tell what's firefox and what's photoshop. Even when you alt-tab or use expose, the windows underneath still remain up, because it's all on the desktop.

    Anyway, enough ranting. My point is that when you factor out OSX, Macbooks (the only Apple laptop I can afford) are really just fancy metal computers that are horrendously overpriced.

    Pfft, I have been a Windows user for most of my life and this shit is intuitive as fuck, son

    Programs all flyin' around with Exposé, things bouncing around in my Dock

    I love it, personally. My biggest fear with the OS X interface was that it would be clunkier and slower to navigate than Windows, but it's so, so much faster to use, in my opinion. Don't know exactly where a file is? Just navigate to the upper right and search for it. Want to brush things aside to look at your desktop? Mouse over a different corner. Very nice.

    pygsig.png
  • LewishamLewisham Registered User regular
    TheRealCJ wrote: »
    Get one if you want. Personally, I can't stand them. Here in Australia, the 'Apple Tax' is particularly pronounced, and I really don't like OSX.

    You see, I'm forced to use them at Uni (my course being out-and-out Audio Engineering - Mac's seedy headquarters), and I personally hate the OS, it's clunky, unintuitive, requires the memorisation of EVERY single program you have open. Do you know how annoying it is, when you open photoshop, and it has no background window? If you have firefox or Protools open underneath, you can't tell what's firefox and what's photoshop. Even when you alt-tab or use expose, the windows underneath still remain up, because it's all on the desktop.

    If one was hellbent on a one-application only view (we won't get into the insanity of this) then you could:
    a) put Photoshop into a new space all of it's own
    b) Get used to using Command-Option-H "Hide others", as listed in the program menu.

  • dodosdodos Registered User
    Azio wrote: »
    Shit, how long have you had that Pro? Mine is a couple years old now and it's been through a few semesters of daily use. I had to get the screen, battery and motherboard replaced at different times during the warranty, and now it's not covered anymore. It's in excellent condition so I really hope it doesn't just suddenly kick the bucket like that.

    Year and 10 months. It's sad, really. The battery was not a retail replacement (manufacturer replacement?) since the first one I received was prone to overheating and had it replaced under my 1-year warranty.

    Still deliberating buying a white macbook 4 weeks before WWDC. Any input is appreciated, critical or opinionated.

  • LewishamLewisham Registered User regular
    Zeromus wrote: »
    I love it, personally. My biggest fear with the OS X interface was that it would be clunkier and slower to navigate than Windows, but it's so, so much faster to use, in my opinion. Don't know exactly where a file is? Just navigate to the upper right and search for it. Want to brush things aside to look at your desktop? Mouse over a different corner. Very nice.

    The Google Quick Search Box is good for launching programs. It's the spiritual successor to QuickSilver, and is only marginally more broken (it's still very beta).

  • xWonderboyxxWonderboyx Registered User
    Lewisham wrote: »
    Zeromus wrote: »
    I love it, personally. My biggest fear with the OS X interface was that it would be clunkier and slower to navigate than Windows, but it's so, so much faster to use, in my opinion. Don't know exactly where a file is? Just navigate to the upper right and search for it. Want to brush things aside to look at your desktop? Mouse over a different corner. Very nice.

    The Google Quick Search Box is good for launching programs. It's the spiritual successor to QuickSilver, and is only marginally more broken (it's still very beta).

    Also, the guy that made quicksilver was hired by google to make the google version, which is why quicksilver has no updates anymore.

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  • dodosdodos Registered User
    False. Quicksilver went open source a couple of years ago. It's still being worked on, although development for plugins have somewhat ceased (yet still work).

    Quicksilver @ Google Code

  • ZeromusZeromus Registered User regular
    Is there an OS X equivalent to SpaceMonger? I'd like to be able to keep track of where my space is going.

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  • RBachRBach Registered User regular
    I use jDiskReport personally.

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
This discussion has been closed.