Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with MacBookPro

Does a 3 mm height difference matter for Macbook pro hard drives?

Phire — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:45:10 -0800

Will the 15" Macbook Pro 4.1 (early 2008) be compatible with a 2.5" Form Factor internal hard drive that's 12.5mm rather than the standard 9.5mm? I can't find this information anywhere and I'm asking for a friend. He ordered this hard drive not realizing at first that it was thicker than normal, and now he wants to know if he should go through the rather arduous process of cancelling the order and getting a new one or if the Macbook chassis will accommodate the extra height. Thanks in advance!

Is 64-bit Win7/BootCamp worth some effort?

Zonker — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:25:04 -0800

Is 64-bit Win7 possible/worth the hassle on a somewhat elderly Macbook Pro? My late '06 Macbook Pro (version 2,2) won't boot the 64-bit Windows 7 installer (it hangs at "Select CD-Rom Boot Type"), but the 32-bit version installs fine through Boot Camp. It looks like there's a hack (here) that would allow me to boot the 64-bit version by burning it to DVD in a slightly different way.

Is the 64-bit version worth the effort? Is there a significant difference in compatibility with Parallels Desktop between the 32- and 64-bit versions? Any other considerations I should have in mind?

Pick the Perfect Mac Laptop

misha — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:52:16 -0800

Which Mac laptop should I buy? Needs and specs inside. So I need a new laptop, and serendipity is on my side, as the Apple store has just updated! Well and good. Which model should I get, though, that's the question.

I am replacing this:

Model Name: MacBook Pro 15"
Model Identifier: MacBookPro1,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 1.83 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 2 MB
Memory: 512 MB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz

What I use it for: blogging, word processing, some photoshop creation (illustrations for the blog, mostly), saving pics from the digital camera, social media, lots and lots of email, light gaming of the Flo's Diner and Tower Defense variety.

What I liked: speed, powerhouse of a laptop.
What I didn't like: heavy, bulky, heats up fast.

I'm thinking that I could go down to the 13", but are the new 15" versions significantly lighter than my version?

Is the Macbook Air a bad buy (meaning not cost-effective) because of the one-piece construction? In other words, does pretty much any repair mean the whole thing has to be taken apart, thus costing more in the end?

Is it significantly slower or less powerful than the Macbook Pro that I would notice it with my modest needs?

I DO want Apple Care, right?

Thanks in advance, hive mind!

Is my next computer purchase "future-proof"?

jaimev — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:27:14 -0800

Can a 13" MacBook Pro comfortably edit 1080p AVCHD video from a Canon Vixia HF series camcorder? I'm considering a 13" MacBook Pro as a replacement for an aging iMac G5. Eventually I'll add an external keyboard, mouse, and widescreen display to make it a true desktop replacement.

The most cpu intensive thing I can see myself doing in the next few years is editing HD video (with iMovie or Final Cut Express) from a flash-based camcorder, like the Canon HF series. Can this notebook handle that task without issues?

Help Me Learn More About the MacBook Pro 17"

Effigy2000 — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:38:00 -0800

MacBook Pro owners... tell me all about owning a MacBook Pro 17". Pros, cons and people suffering from buyers remorse all welcome. A bunch of questions are inside. I am seriously considering buying a MacBook Pro. I've decided that if I get one I'll want the 17" screen and the 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU. I'll also get the anti-glare screen, which I understand is pretty much a necessity.

I won't bother getting 8GB of RAM (the extra 4GB from Apple costs far too much), and I wont bother with the solid state drive (again, far too expensive), opting to go with the 500GB SATA 7200RPM drive instead. I'll also get the AppleCare plan at the same time.

I plan on using it for drawing, writing, surfing the net and playing some games that my current PC is too slow to run (Neverwinter Nights 2, I'm looking at you).

My questions are;

1) In doing my research, I've read a lot of really good reviews for the MacBook Pro but I've really not read anything negative at all. What are the bad things about the MacBook Pro that no-one seems to be talking about? I want to know if there's any potential deal breakers for me here.
2) 4GB vs. 8G of RAM. Does the extra 4GB make a big difference in performance on the MacBook Pro, especially given I plan on using Windows 7 through Bootcamp?
3) Does using Windows 7 (or even XP) pose any issues on a MacBook? By that I mean is there any MacBook specific features that are only usable under MacOS?
4) Are there any potential problems migrating my PC files (documents etc) to the MacBook Pro, even if I use Windows 7? What about my PC games?
5) I'm thinking I may just end up getting third party RAM and a third party hard drive for more space. I assume doing so is frowned on by Apple. Is this something that could affect the AppleCare Plan I'm planning on getting? Can I get around this if I have an authorised Apple repairer put the drive and RAM in?
6) Portability; how cumbersome is it using a 17" MacBook while on the go? Much, or not at all?
7) My experience with Apple when my iPod broke down was quite positive. Will I experience a similar level of good service if my MacBook Pro breaks down, or am I in for a whole new level of hell?

Anything else you MacBook Pro owners feel is worth knowing, let me know. And also, if you bought one and regretted it, tell me why (but let's try and keep the Mac vs. PC fights out of it, if we can).

Thanks in advance!

MacBook Unibody Floppy-Hinge Hacks?

lonefrontranger — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 07:50:26 -0800

The hinge on my partner's new unibody MacBook Pro is just-loose-enough to make using it in bed annoying. Solutions, cases or a hack welcomed. O hive mind, please help us comfortably enjoy our weekend morning lazy-surfing, emailing bliss with a new unibody MBP!

So, after searching Google and finding this as the first hit, and this as the second, I'm not feeling very optimistic.

The new unibody MBP that mr. lfr. just bought is amazing. Really amazing. Photo processing has taken on new life, the screen is gorgeous, it doesn't get scaryhot when running video for extended periods of time, and last but not least, he's now able to run his heavy duty protein modelling software for work seamlessly on it now.

The only glitch is that he can't comfortably lie down in bed (or on the couch) with the laptop above his head because the new unibody has a seemingly "looser" hinge design than both his and my first-gen intel MBP did/do. The challenge with this is that we both tend to do a fair bit of lying around being creative (or lazy, your pick) either on the sofa or in bed, with the laptops above our heads, and the fact that he can't do that with his new one is actually fairly annoying. In fact, I am typing this question from a supine position right now on my older MBP. Also, I had planned to replace my own MBP with a new unibody soon, and this (seemingly quite minor) issue has suddenly become very important to me. Yes, I'm that lazy.

Has anyone here found a solution to this "floppy screen" issue on their new unibody? Since he already mentioned that he would like to find a case, is there potentially a (light, slim) case out on the market there that adds a little more tension/stability to the open clamshell design, to allow the screen to stay up/open when gravity takes over?

um, also please note: "get out of bed" is not really a helpful answer. He's already discovered that piling pillows to sit up and look at/down at the screen (rather than up at it) is much less comfortable and seems to put more strain on his neck.

Sleep that's too deep

umbú — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 12:50:00 -0800

Why can't my Macbook Pro wake from a coma? I have a Macbook Pro 2.4 ghz pre-unibody 17” with 4 gb of RAM running Leopard (10.5.2 I think? 10.5.something). I’m having trouble getting my computer to start up from a sleep-like mode, and I’m not sure what has caused the problem, so here are the possible factors:

1. Since I bought the computer a year and a month ago, the graphics card had been malfunctioning intermittently. Sometimes when I would scroll, the screen would stutter, leaving a trail of whatever I was scrolling. Other times, when I played a video, squares of video would flicker, missing.

So I sent it in (I have Applecare, luckily), and 5 days later, they had replaced both the logic board, and some connector for the battery, which I hadn’t asked them to do. Ever since, there have been moments that the computer doesn’t recognize that there is a battery in it, which is odd, because even when the little battery with an x icon was present, the computer didn’t immediately shut down when I unplugged the AC adaptor.

2. A was doing a video editing project recently that took up way more hard disk space than I expected. There was one point when I received the warning “Your startup disk is almost full.” When I got this warning, I immediately shut down, booted up again, and transferred 30 gb to an external hard drive.

3. I started to have trouble waking the computer from sleep, but I could always hard boot by shutting the computer down holding the power key for a few seconds, and then rebooting. I wondered whether something was wrong with the sleepimage, so I turned off safesleep (hibernation) mode through the console using the instructions in this link.

4. That fix worked for a couple of weeks. Then, the other day, I took my computer out of my bag, and to my horror, it had been turned on with the lid closed for what I assume was an hour or two. Either it never went to sleep, even though I closed the lid, or it spontaneously woke up with the lid closed in my bag. The fan was going full throttle, and the screen was still on. I turned the computer off, let it cool down, and then later when I started it up again, it seemed fine.

5. Then, by accident, with safesleep still disabled, I let the battery on the computer completely drain. After that, even though I recharged the battery completely, when I try to boot up, I hear the beginnings of the process (the optical drive engaging, for one) and the sleep light goes on, but the screen never does anything. I’ve tried to use a flashlight on the screen to see if there was any activity, but as far as I can tell, nothing is happening. Target disk mode, safe boot, external hard drive boot, zapping the pram don’t change anything.

6. Another thing that I feel I should mention is the fact that I’ve been using the Freedom freeware program, which I assume affects the network preferences temporarily to block all internet connections while you’re using it. I include this because, based on what I’ve read on-line, a couple possible causes of this problem could be this one—that waking from sleep gets messed up if a certain system program isn’t present—or this one, in which somehow ethernet preferences being messed up causes the problem.

What do those of you who know about these things think? What should I do?

What will Apple replace my computer with?

pianohands — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:29:25 -0800

Will Apple be replacing my 2 yr old Macbook Pro with a totally new machine? I've had my Macbook Pro for two years at college and had nothing but problems with it. It was fine for a year, and then had a string of hardware problems that resulted in me bringing it in five times to the apple store for various different reasons. The sixth time must've been the charm, because the folks at the Apple store said they would replace my computer with a new one. I won't be getting it for a week because I bought it through school, so I'm getting one configured by school. Does anyone know if Apple will be giving me a new model Macbook or if it'll be a refurbished two year old model?

misbehaving macbook using windows

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:57:51 -0800

My recently purchased 13'' Macbook Pro has been behaving strangely. I recently got a 13'' Macbook Pro, with a 2.53GHz duo processor and 4gb of RAM. I use some software which only runs on Windows, so I installed windows using bootcamp and the drivers provided by mac. After about a week and a half, windows would no longer boot, aside from in safe mode. I would turn on the computer and the splash screen would appear, but then the screen would remain a very dark gray color.

I reinstalled both OSes (OSX and Windows), and everything was fine until a week later when the very same problem happened. Both times, I had VMware installed on OSX , and the second time I was able to boot up windows and shut it down using VMware. OSX appeared to be fine both times. I was running the Bootcamp partition using VMware.

I ran all checks that I could on the Mac after the first incident, and the second time I brought into Mac where they did a thorough check of everything, and reinstalled OSX. They and I found no hardware issues. I had not installed anything, or made an system changes before this problem occurred.

Has anyone else experienced this? Any suggestions about what could be going wrong?

I am ok using VMware, but I would prefer to certain that I can use Windows natively.

Thanks.

I really WANT to love it...

StrikeTheViol — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:00:03 -0800

Macbook Pro display woes from a recent switcher: hardware or software? Will I be happy with Boot Camp? I'm starting to feel afraid... I bought my first Mac and find the display giving me terrible eyestrain out of the box, and unusual blurriness at any other resolution. I found some evidence my trouble is an artifact of the way OSX handles fonts, and so was resigned to waiting for my educational copy of Windows and then using Boot Camp. However, I read recently that some people run into similar problems using Windows on a Mac, pointing to a driver problem. How can I test if something is defective? Will my issues go away if I switch the OS? The universal access options all function like awkward kludges. Is there anything else I can do to get this display usable for me? (I'm willing to consider almost anything at this point

How can I get to about.com on my computer?

rtha — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:41:50 -0800

I can't get to about.com or ehow.com on my macbook pro. Please help me figure out why. They're not sites that I go to often, but over the last few weeks I've noticed that neither site will load for me.

I have a 13" MBP running 10.5.8. When trying to load either site, I get "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at [about.com] [ehow.com]"

This happens in Firefox, even with Adblock Plus disabled. It also happens in Safari. It happens on my wireless network at home as well as my wireless network at work (different providers).

I can get to both sites in both places on my ipod touch. I can get to both sites on the macbook if I access IE by connecting via RDC to my (Windows) work computer.

Pinging both shows "no route to host"; running traceroot shows the same.

So what's going on? I'm not desperate to get to either site - I have askme, after all! - but I'm wondering if it's symptomatic of something else, and it's weirding me out.

Low Audio on Bootcamp Windows XP

strangememes — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:03:06 -0800

I have a few Macbook Pro systems at work that we've installed Windows XP via Bootcamp on. We've done this with previous Macbook models in the past. This time, however, there is an audio problem: the audio on the XP side is so low it's close to non-existent. Is anyone familiar with this problem? Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix it? I've been googling this and checking the Microsoft help but have come up short.

Some pertinent information:

Macbook Pro
Windows XP
Audio Hardware: Cirrus Logic 4206
Current Audio Driver: Cirrus Logic HD Audio

Time to Decide: New MBP or Not?

rubah — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:02:41 -0800

My current macbook pro has decided to take a leave of battery. That is, I have to run it off the power adapter. *headdesk* Also it's getting a little old, and I have a scholarship that will pay $2500 towards a new computer, soooooooooooooooooooooooo. I was going to wait a year and vest in an iMac, but maybe now would be a good time also? background info:
specs
• 15" widescreen
• 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
• 500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm
• SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• MacBook Pro 15-inch Glossy Widescreen Display
• Backlit Keyboard (English) / User's Guide
• AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enroll

Also, Snow Leopard comes out in september, and I am very excited about that. Right now, it'll cost me $30 to upgrade, but if I get this computer, it will only be $10 to upgrade. If I wait until september to buy, it won't cost me anything, but I will lose two months of AWESOME COMPUTING.

Some cons: I have my software pretty much like I like it. Also I just upgraded the ram and hdd (myself) and have sunk a lot of time trying to resolve this whole battery thing (unsuccessfully). My current mbp is a [refurb] 2006 2.16ghz core duo, with 2gb of ram and a 320gb hdd.

(also no, I dont want a windows laptop. thanks for suggesting it, though!)

Cookies and Apple Juice

trueluk — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:47:58 -0800

I've been debating with myself for the last week or so about which Mac I should buy and when I should buy it. My brain could use a break from the back and forth, and that's why I'm asking for help. I recently sold my Asus laptop (offer was too good to refuse), and I've been computer-less now for about two weeks. I bought the Asus in December 2008, and during the six months I owned it, I rarely took it out of the house. This is partly due to the fact that I'm a programmer, work on a computer all day at work, and often have free time while there to do my 'browsing.' I don't have a current desktop computer, so anything I buy will be my main computer.

I like the idea of portability, but with a $2500 laptop I can't imagine I'd let myself take it out of the house during the first 6-12 months out of fear of breaking it.

I mention the MacBook Pro for $2,500 because the RAM is upgradable to 8gb in that model, and not in the $2,000 2.4ghz model. However, besides that fact, there is no other reason that I can think of for me to buy the $2,500 model (the extra vram is useless, minimal upgrade in processor speed, starts with 4gb RAM but I can upgrade the 2.4ghz model cheaply).

I've done a lot of thinking and have concluded that I could buy a 24" iMac (2.93ghz, 4gb ram, 512mb vram in the ATI card) for just over $1,800. And then also buy the smaller, 13" MacBook for just over a grand in a month or two if I feel like I need the portability. Or, I could buy a MacBook Pro now, and then buy an external display for that down the road if I feel like I need the screen space and am using the computer mostly at home. Those two options are practically identical in price when buying both components, however, in the first I'd have two computers, and in the second I'd have only one. I've also thought about buying a cheap netbook instead of a MacBook with the iMac, and that seems to make more sense financially.

The thing is though, money isn't an issue. But I am extremely cheap, and have a hard time making myself spend money in excess. And I have a history of being incredibly indecisive. Can anyone help me out here?

Oh, and should I wait until after the WWDC? What's the chance of Snow Leopard being released and for its distribution to start immediately? I don't want to buy a new computer and then have to upgrade the OS if I can help it.

Cross-Platform Crashing on a Macbook Pro

N2O1138 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:04:43 -0800

I have Leopard and Windows 7 (7057) installed on my Late 2007 (possibly older, I got it refurbished) Macbook Pro 15". My problem is, every time I boot into either OS, I get a kernel panic or BSOD respectively. The fact that it happens in 2 different operating systems makes me almost positive that it's a hardware problem. Unfortunately, I don't know very much about computer hardware, so I don't really know what to troubleshoot first, and I don't want to void the warranty by opening the case (I plan to take it to the Apple Store if nobody here can solve the problem). Specifically, either operating system will crash about a minute into booting up. I don't think the problem can be too serious because everything graphically looks fine and all my files are intact. This leads me to think that maybe it's a RAM problem, and that it runs out of memory and crashes during bootup. Safe Mode in Windows works fine (I'm using it now), and still reports the correct 2gb of RAM. I haven't done safe boot to OS X yet.

The Blue Screen says
"Uncorrectable Hardware Error" and below it gives the code
*** STOP: 0x00000124 (0x00000000,0x85BAE024,0xF2000000,0x00060151)

If it were just what I'm experiencing on Windows, I might think it was something to do with drivers, but it's on both operating systems.

iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, what's a designer to do?

Bunglegirl — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:48:33 -0800

Time to replace the Mac. Should a graphic designer go for the economical iMac or is splurging for a MacBook Pro and external screen worth it? I desperately need a new computer and have been putting it off until the new Mac models came out. I have a G4 tower that's probably from 2002 or so and a cheap 17" screen. This is my work computer (I'm a print & web graphic designer —self-employed) but, since this is my only computer, it's my personal computer too.

I miss my old 12" iBook which died a few years ago. Ideally I would have a desktop with a big screen for work and a small laptop for personal use but I really can't afford two computers (and wouldn't want to deal with syncing). My screen is way too small when working in CS3. Please don't suggest any non-Apple solutions. I just keep going back on forth on a desktop vs a laptop. I'll be using Adobe CS4 most of the time and usually need to quickly switch between Illustrator, Photoshop & InDesign and also have mail, Firefox, iTunes running at once—sometimes Acrobat or another small program will be running as well.

The way I see it I have two options:

1. 24" iMac. This gives me a huge screen and a powerful computer and seems like the best value for my money. I don't work with video and don't use millions of layers in Photoshop so a Mac Pro tower is overkill. The only drawbacks to the iMac is portability and the glossy screen. It would be nice to have the option to bring it to client meetings (although this would probably be a rare occurrence), work on invoices etc. in a coffeehouse or hook it up to my TV.

iMac 24"
2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRam
640 GB Serial ATA Drive
ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB
iWork & Applecare
$2,217

Pros: economical, powerful, good value
Cons: portability, glossy screen

2. MacBook or MacBook Pro and an external screen. This gives me the portability I like but is significantly more expensive. Its also less powerful and just seems like an extravagance. Most of the reasons I really want a laptop are for personal use (hooking up to my TV, working away from home). I can certainly get around not having a laptop and I'm seduced by the huge iMac screens with isight built in. I haven't figured out if I can use iSight on the laptop with an external (non-Apple) screen.

Buying an external screen would probably be a good idea because I've heard all of the complaints about the glossy iMac screens. I don't sit in front of a window but 50% of my work is print and color calibration is already a mess without adding in a glossy screen. I've really been leaning toward an iMac but I keep going back and forth about the screen and the convenience of a laptop. I have looked at the screens in the store but I can't know how the glossy screen will work for me until I get it in my house and work with it a bit. It also seems that any non-Apple screen that's 24" and decent quality is going to be pricey. If Apple just made a non-glossy screen I would happily get it so everything works well together and isight is built in.

MacBook 13" (if I have a laptop I prefer a 13" or smaller but MacBook Pros don't come that small, arg!)
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRam
320 GB Serial ATA Drive @5400
iWork & Applecare & adapter
$2,130 + screen (24" Apple cinema screen = $899)

--

MacBook Pro 15" (this is pretty big to be portable in my eyes)
2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (-$300 for a 2.66GHz)
4 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRam
320 GB Serial ATA Drive @5400
iWork & Applecare & adapter
$3,255 ! + screen

Pros: portability, pick any screen I want
Cons: expensive, more money for less power

I tend to keep my computers for a long time so I want something that can grow with the next Adobe CS update. My friends seem to think the iMac is the obvious choice, but I'm not so sure. Obviously this is tax deductible (I'm in the US) but money is money. Please help me with my indecisiveness and give me some solid arguments for either option. I also welcome any comments on the specs I've chosen.

Naughty mouse won't do what its told!

nitsuj — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:20:41 -0800

Is there a way to, um, calibrate this Logitech mouse? I have this Logitech wireless mouse. I'm using a Macbook Pro with a second 24" Dell monitor.

Sometimes when I click to close a window on the second monitor, it minumizes it instead. Thing is... I know for a fact that I had the cursor on the close button. It's like sometimes, regardless of the cursors position, the actual location of my clicks are a few pixels off. What gives?

Another issue: Sometimes I have to click two and three times to get the click to actually register. But it's not like I'm not pressing down hard enough, or the mechanics of the mouse aren't firing, because when I click, I see the visual evedence of the click happening in the proper place each time. Like, when I click to close a tab in Firefox, I see the X change color and depress, but it sometimes won't actually close until I click it two or three times. Or sometimes I have to actually click the tab to make it on top, then click close, and it works.

Also: I'm 99% sure this is an issue with this mouse specifically, not a monitor/computer/OS/software issue, because clicking is 100% accurate when I use the trackpad. Or when I had a different mouse.

I've looked in my system preferences, under both the mouse settings and the Logitech Control Center, and can't find anything that would allow me to calibrate this mouse.

Is there anything I can do to make this mouse work properly, or should I just cut my losses and buy a different one?

A Momentus Hard Drive Decision

alms — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 10:21:37 -0800

Do any retailers have the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 hard drive in stock? If not, should I just give up and buy a 5400.6? I need a larger hard drive for my MacBook Pro. Thinking to get the best, I decided to wait for the 500GB 7200 RPM drive from Seagate, the Momentus 7200.4. Unfortunately, I've been waiting for about two months now, and there's still no indication of when I might be able to get a drive.

Does anyone know where I can get one of these? Has anyone heard any rumors about upcoming availability? Seagate did ship some, and people seem to love them. Why aren't they producing any more?

I really need more hard drive in my laptop. At this point I'm considering just giving up and getting the 5400.6. Any thoughts on the tradeoffs? Will I regret settling for second best?

Buyamac.

furnace.heart — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:47:35 -0800

Where to buy used mac? After years of purposefuly not paying attention to avoid being tempted, i'm in the market for a used, last generation macbook pro...Does anyone have a great place to find a used one? I'm trying to avoid craigslist due to the in-freaking-credibly high rate of scammers on there (6 for 6 so far...) I've checked out local retailers, but so far no real luck.

Are there any really good online retailers out there? Maybe with limited warrantees? Mac certified refurbished books?

Details: I've got a budget of about 1200, but can go a little bit either direction from there. Ram and HD don't concern me, they can be bare bones, and i'll upgrade them as i need, but i'd like to get a decent video card in there.

But this WAS my backup!

N2O1138 — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:02:37 -0800

How can I repair any broken files resulting from power loss during defragmentation? It seems that most file recovery applications want to move everything to a new disk, but this is not a good option for me because I don't have any other drives large enough. I was using iDefrag on my terabyte (My Book) external hard drive. It had gotten almost 21 hours in, and somehow the power cable got unplugged and the battery died. To make a long story short, iDefrag can't see the disk at all, Disk Utility sees the hard drive but not any of the data or the partition itself, and verify and repair are not selectable. So this is
Mac OS 10.5.6, Macbook Pro, My Book 1tb external hard drive, iDefrag.

Why would you defrag an HFS+ external hard drive, you ask? I'm about to set up Boot Camp, and I want some extra space for Windows-compatible storage, but it won't make an NTFS partition because the free space isn't consecutive.

I have a feeling that there isn't much to repair, and all the data (including backups of every computer in the house, including some long since reformatted, as well as my 30gb+ iTunes library that I just moved there) should still be there, I just don't know how to make anything see the hard drive in the first place.

I do have access to another My Book 1tb (this one is NTFS), but I don't know if it would have enough free space either (and it's my dad's)

Wacom Display Toggle Advanced Options?

Señor Pantalones — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:28:22 -0800

[wacomfilter] quicksilver (or system hotkey) + wacom screen switching integration? I use the ExpressKey on my wacom to toggle display focus (preferences->expresskeys->display toggle). My primary is a 30", secondary is the built-in screen on my MBP.

There are two reasons this is annoying:
1. The expresskey only functions when pen movement is detected, meaning I have to move the pen while pressing the button to switch screens. This makes single-handed screen-switching difficult.
2. It's just not in a convenient place for me since the wacom is my primary mousing input located to the right of my keyboard. The expresskeys are on the left or right and require more cognitive load than usual mousing behavior.

I'm looking for help in a few possible ways:
1. assigning display toggle to the secondary button on the stylus. The prefpane won't let me.
2. assigning display toggle to a quicksilver command
3. assigning display toggle to a system hotkey

Can anyone recommend a way to implement one of the above three?

Thanks!

Why can't iTunes 8.02 find my songs?

Lillitatiana — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:35:09 -0800

Why can't iTunes 8.02 find my songs? I have a brand-new MacBook Pro (10.5.6), to which I copied over all my files from the Time Machine backup of my previous computer. Everything is working fine except for iTunes. I need to manually locate each and every one of my songs. A Google search yield nothing but this. It's helpful knowing others are having the same issue, but not so helpful in that the issue has yet to be resolved. Any tips, tricks, and suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

Mac screen artifacts causing a headache

tanc — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:49:33 -0800

I'm getting some weird artifacts/corruptions appearing on my macbookpro screen. Any explanations? I've tried googling this, but as my description of what's happening is quite vague I haven't had any success...

It's been happening for a while. Here are two screenshots I took of different artifacts that are happening. 1 2

Generally the artifacting occurs within a specific window, although sometimes it occurs across windows.

I have an external monitor plugged in and it occurs on both my laptop screen and the external monitor.

I thought maybe it was due to how long I leave my computer on - it's often a week or two between reboots, but it's happening now and my uptime is less than 2 days...

It seems to start on video windows (quicktime) or tetris (Quinn) the most, but that may be due to those being my most common activities...

It doesn't happen constantly, but will come and go. At the moment it seems to be appearing for a few seconds and then going again, but sometimes it won't go unless I close a windows or somehow force a screen refresh. (I was typing this the screen became obscured by a large yellow block)

Any suggestions of how I can prevent it without the pain of a reboot/trip to an apple store?

Mic level vs. Line level FIGHT!

knowles — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 07:50:00 -0800

How do I build a microphone preamp for a Macbook Pro? Oh hai. I just recently learned that the 3.5mm input on my MBP (core duo, 2.16ghz, 17in) is not actually a 3.5mm mic in, but a 3.5mm stereo line-in. What's the simplest circuit I can build to remedy this? What about more complex ones?

I bought a Zalman ZM-MIC1 and assumed that it would work out of box, not knowing that I would need some kind of preamp. I have soldering skills and a decent understanding of what electronic components do, how do I get the mic output up to line level for like six bucks at Radio Shack?

If you're so inclined, explain what is making the loudness happen and suggest cool modifications for this circuit as well.