Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with apple

Where can I find attractive powered speakers?

bryanlacksfocus — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:13:21 -0800

Does anyone know of any attractive powered speakers? Ones that look like they belong on a bookshelf and not next to a PC? I'm looking for speakers to put in my living room that I would beam music to through an Airport Express. It could be one speaker or a pair, but they should be powered and stand-alone—I don't have room for a "system" with a separate amplifier. I don't need a radio, CD player, or iPod dock—just a power switch, a volume knob, and one audio input jack. The only powered speakers I'm finding are designed for use with a computer and are, in my opinion, unforgivably ugly—at least for use outside a computer workstation. I'm hoping to find something simple and modern with straight, clean lines—possibly a cousin to this Tivoli or this GenevaSound radio or the wooden-cased (non-powered) speakers our parents had in the 70s.

With everyone doing so much from their computers these days, it seems like these ought to exist! Have you come across any? Any ideas are appreciated!

TOSLINK USB surround sound adapter + Mac OS X?

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:57:24 -0800

What is a good, working surround sound USB adapter for a Mac mini in a home theatre setup, which uses a TOSLINK connector? (I would be using this with DVD Player, iTunes, VLC, QuickTime Player, etc. if that matters for software support.)

Second time's the charm?

The Winsome Parker Lewis — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:58:36 -0800

Please help me rearchitect my Apple-specific wireless home network and iTunes library! Eleven paragraphs of geeky details within (sorry!). I have a big (~100GB) iTunes library I've been accumulating over at least a decade of ripping all my CDs and, in more recent days, my DVDs as well. That project is still ongoing and may never end. I've invested a lot of hours in encoding and cataloging my physical media, and I want to keep it safe for, well, forever. I'm motivated by a teeny bit of paranoia that my discs will scratch and I'll lose something. I keep a tidy house but I guess you could call me a data hoarder. ;-)

This summer I decided to free up room on my MacBook (occupying that much disk space just for iTunes was pretty ridiculous). I bought a WD My Book Mirror Edition and moved the library to it. I configured RAID mirroring for the dual drives so I'd have a backup in case one failed. Before the move, I regularly backed up the library onto my Time Capsule (using Time Machine) along with all my other non-iTunes stuff; the RAID mirroring made that seem redundant so I deleted the backup and excluded it from all future backups. Also, instead of connecting the MyBook straight to my computer, I plugged it into the Time Capsule USB port so I could carry the laptop around the house and still use iTunes wirelessly.

I was really proud of this setup until a couple issues reared their heads:

Latency. Playing music in iTunes over this network works mostly fine apart from the occasional stutter. There's also often a very long delay (30 seconds or more) between when I tell a new song to play and the audio actually begins. Similar delays between when I "get info" on a file and the info window appears. iTunes beachballs frequently now, completely unresponsive while it does... stuff. If I wait, it eventually takes care of whatever it was doing and becomes usable again. So annoying.

Latency's an even bigger issue when watching movies. By default, the Time Capsule was configured for 802.11b/g/n compatibility and movies were unwatchably laggy. I found that forcing pure 802.11n improved performance a lot and movies ran almost as smoothly as music, with only occasional, forgivable hiccups and long delays for play/pause, scrubbing, etc. The downside of killing 802.11b/g compatibility is that my iPhone 3G can no longer use the network, as it only goes up to g. I really miss that functionality, for things like Airfoil Speakers and iTunes Remote.

Another issue is the unfamiliarity of maintaining a network drive that's out of sight, out of mind. Whenever I want to use iTunes I have to mount the drive (I run a script to do it automatically at logon). Whenever I leave the house I have to unmount it. I've forgotten a couple times and disconnected improperly. There were also a couple times when I had trouble getting online and reset the Time Capsule, forgetting that the disk was mounted. Which leads us to the next sad, sad paragraph...

This past weekend, tragedy struck. I think it was related to an improper disconnect while data was being written. Suddenly iTunes refused to read the drive at all. Time Capsule reported a "problem" with the drive. I plugged it into the MacBook and ran Disk Utility. It failed to verify or repair the disk and said I would have to format it. What's worse, the mirrored drive was identically corrupted too. I lost my whole library and the supposed "failsafe!" Crap! I really botched this one up.

I'm investigating data recovery options. I should be able to restore my files. Not sure how this is going to play out but it makes my heart ache. Any suggestions for cheap-as-in-free ways to get my library back in working condition would be appreciated.

But what I'm really asking for in this question is the best way to prevent this from happening again and in a way that works better than my first attempt. Assuming the drive is not mechanically broken and I'll be able to get my files back, how can I redesign my network to do all of the following:

Access my iTunes library wirelessly
Minimize latency
Keep a backup of the library that's actually safe and won't give me any more headaches
Use my iPhone on the network
Require no additional hardware purchases if at all possible

I can't think of a single way to fulfill all of those requirements. Maybe it's impossible. But you are smarter than me, I trust. If it makes a difference, the MacBook is a late 2007 Santa Rosa model, 2.2 GHz, running Snow Leopard. Let me know if I've left out any other details that could be helpful. Thanks!

Warm, Freshly-baked, Luscious, Delicious Apple Pie

jabberjaw — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:50:05 -0800

Home-cooked apple pie: What kinds of apples do you use? Or combination thereof? The last one I made was a 40-60 Granny Smith / Fuji mix, but I'd like to know what the experienced Mefi baker recommends for my next holiday apple pie. I do not want an overly-tart pie. Braeburns? Red Delicious? Gala? Thanks!

Help me bring back my wifi!

COBRA! — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:15:02 -0800

I'm having wifi troubles with my MacBook, and the lack of connectivity for the weekend gave me the shakes. Help me before the withdrawal gets worse! The gist: WPA2 Personal network, running on a Netgear router. Been up for a while, played nice with my MacBook (running Snow Leopard) and my wife's XP laptop. Over the weekend, the router rebooted during the setup of a new Roku, and my MacBook abruptly dropped the network; since then, I haven't been able to reconnect, just getting the standard "There was an error trying to join the network [SSID]. Please try again later."

My wife's XP machine still connects with no trouble.

As nearly as I can tell, it seems like my laptop sees the network, but can't recognize it as WPA2 Personal; when I try to connect, the SSID shows up in my saved networks as WPA2 Enterprise. Editing one of the Enterprise instances to Personal with the correct login information doesn't help, nor does manually adding a new Personal instance.

Other things I have tried:

- rebooting the router (multiple times)
- deleting the keychain storing network passwords
- deleting the plist storing network prefs
- deleting and re-adding the entire Airport connection in my network prefs
- reinstalling and updating Snow Leopard (update done with the MacBook connected by ethernet)

Any thoughts/suggestions/ideas?

What to do with a broken iMac G5?

crios — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 09:36:47 -0800

My mom has an iMac G5, 1.8 Ghz w/ superdrive and 2GB of RAM (I think). It's been a problem since they first got it with a logic board replacement and multiple power supply replacements (all free thankfully). Recently it started giving kernel panics on start up with the fans sounding like jet engines. It's a little over 4 years old and even though it's given us hardware problems, it has been a good computer and my mom likes it. What should we do with it now? I've tried all the troubelshooting suggestions (rest PRAM, remove peripherals, startup off of disk, etc...) and nothing is working. She's ready to throw in the towel with this one and get a new one. I'm thinking a mac mini, all we'll need to buy is a monitor.

My question is, what do we do with this iMac. I've tried rebooting off of the install disk and it's still panicking so it seems to be pretty broken. Should we try to sell it on ebay? Does anybody know any organizations in the Chicagoland area that would be interested in it? My other question is, what should we do about the hard drive. Since I can't even start up off of a disk I can't even format the HD. I don't think there is anything really sensitive on it but still I think it's probably a good idea to erase it before giving it away.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated.

Sending mail...psyche!

Bobby Bittman — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:09:56 -0800

Why won't my iPod Touch send mail? Everything about my new iPod Touch (2G, 32GB) works great - except replying to or sending e-mail. At first it was sporadic, and then after I did the 3.1 software update it stopped altogether.

Receiving mail is perfect. Replying, forwarding and composing email always seems to go fine, it says "sending", there's a little progress bar to show that it's leaving...and then it just never arrives, and never appears in "Sent Mail", presumably because it wasn't really sent.

I suspect it has something to do with the Outgoing Mail Server, which is the Yahoo! SMTP Server, but beyond that I don't have a clue what to do.

One other possibly relevant detail: I also use Microsoft Exchange to sync my Google Calendar with the Touch's Calendar app, and I have a gmail account under "Mail, Contacts, Calendars" to make that happen. Could that cause a conflict?

What do you think?

Quark Problems

aburd — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:58:21 -0800

My mom is a graphic designer and uses Quark. She just switched from a PowerPC based Macbook Pro to an Intel based MacBook Pro. Using the new Macbook Pro, she can't seem to open the Quark files she created using the old MacBook pro. It produces an error saying something about the processor. Is there a nice program for converting such files? I don't know much about Quark or design software but please let me know if I am skipping some obvious detail. I want to get her this software for Christmas so I can't be too obvious but I can probably get some details out of her without being too obvious.

Let me not be the Weakest Link. Goodbye.

lodev — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:02:56 -0800

Mac: How can I share a screen, including video, without lag? Help me be a game host on a budget. My friends and I are playing a quiz this weekend. We want a setup like you'd see on a TV game show: two teams facing each other, each looking at a screen that shows questions and video clips.

I'm looking for a solution to show the same content on the two screens. Because it's for a game, there can be no delay between the two screens.

I've got two 23" Apple Cinema Displays, and two MacBooks. I do not have a screen splitter (if such a thing even exists for DVI?), so I'm looking for a software solution.

The easiest would be to use one laptop as a primary machine, and share the screen via a network connection to the other. They can be directly connected, so bandwidth shouldn't be a problem. The problem is that every screen sharing solution I've tried introduces a lag, which I want to avoid.

I've tried Apple Screen Sharing / VNC, Vine server, VLC streaming (via screen://) and iChat over Bonjour. Is there any solution I've forgotten? If I can't get it to work I'll just run the Keynote presentation on the two laptops simultaneously, but I'm afraid there might be some hiccups with embedded video, leading to an unfair advantage for one of the two teams. Is this achievable? How do I do this?

What do you mean I can't watch Dora the Explorer on a brand new iTouch?

fourcheesemac — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:09:12 -0800

Brand new iPod Touch 3G 32GB running 3.12 software and synched to the latest version of iTunes. Getting a "This movie could not be played" error notice when attempting to play an iTunes-purchased commercial video from a major television network (and for Youtube videos as well). Why? Asking this up for a non-techie friend . . . and I'm stumped.

I've googled this problem and, to my amazement, it's apparently widespread but there's no mention of it on Apple support forums and no canonical solution. This is a fresh out of the box 3G iTouch, connected to the latest version of iTunes running on Windows XP. Music and photos transferred and work fine. Email set up and working fine. But both Youtube videos AND a commercial television program (if you must know, it's an episode of "Dora The Explorer," and a sweet little girl is very sad tonight) bought and downloaded from iTunes give me a "This movie could not be played" error. I've re-synched; rebooted the iPod. Removed the offending video and reloaded it. No luck.

A few forums suggest a full software restore of the iPod, as does Apple as a last resort for this problem, but specifically (and only) for inability to play YouTube videos.

I can restore it, but it's damn annoying to have to do this on a brand new iPod that's already been set up, plus my friend has slow DSL, so the 300MB download is taking all night. And I have my doubts it will work.

WTF, Apple? Anyone have this problem and solve it? Any ideas?

PowerMac life extension

omnidrew — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:08:59 -0800

Squeezing a bit more out of a PowerMac G5... I'm seeing the spinning beachball more these days... wondering if spending $85 on 2 more gigs of RAM (from 4GB to 6GB) will make it show up a little less often.

I know I'm not going to be able to move over to Snow Leopard with this machine, but hoping to get a few more years out of this hard-working box.

specs = PPC dual 2gHz / OS x 10.5 Leopard / 4GB RAM currently installed / model came out in June 2003 / upgraded video card

Thanks, hive mind!

How much money does Apple receive for every iPhone sold?

ejfox — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:36:45 -0800

How much money is Apple actually making per iPhone? I know for a 16GB iPhone 3G S it costs the user $199 with a 2-year-contract with AT&T. I know that AT&T pays a subsidy to Apple for every iPhone sold.

However, I can't seem to find information (however flaky) on how much AT&T is actually paying, or how much Apple is actually making.

I'm trying to compare the manufacture costs for the iPhone with the number apple is selling the iPhones for to figure out what Apple's profit is. Any information that could help me with that would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Apple is rejecting me

bricoleur — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:16:07 -0800

For the past few days (maybe longer, I'm not sure), I have not been able to connect to apple.com or the iTunes store, nor update software with Software Update, on my 10.4.11 iMac, although I can connect to the rest of the 'net. Apple.com just hangs; iTunes and Software Update tell me that there is something wrong with my network connection. I've had my firewall on, but turning it off has had no effect.

I'd scour the Apple forums but I can't get to them.

How to use an iPhone in Spain without running up a ridiculous bill?

scooterdman — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:03:14 -0800

How can I use my iPhone in Spain without running up a ridiculous bill? I talked to AT&T, and, not surprisingly, their plan is nonsense. You pay an extra nominal fee and get (a whopping!) 25 megabytes of data before they start issuing major fees.

I basically want to use my phone while there to check email, use Google Maps, access Wikipedia, etc. Nothing fancy.

What should I do? Is there a reasonable way to go about using an iPhone in Spain? Or am I out of luck?

FYI: I also have an old iPhone that I would be open to hacking/jailbreaking if that would be of any use, as well. Would rather not mess around with my new 3GS.

AppleWatchers: Mainstreaming the Hackintosh?

ZenMasterThis — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:54:20 -0800

AppleWatchers: Mainstreaming the Hackintosh? What does the hive mind know about Apple's history, culture, marketing, business models, people, etc. which would confirm or refute the hypothesis "Apple will fully embrace the use of Apple OS and applications on non-Apple hardware in the next 3 - 5 years"?

Should apple require my hard drive to fix my graphic card?

manduca — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:26:24 -0800

The graphics card in my macbook pro failed, which happens at a "higher than normal" rate. Apple agrees that's the problem. Still, they want me to leave my hard drive in the computer when I give it to them for repairs. How diligent are they about protecting your data from theft and ill-use? If data on your hard drive somehow gets set free while visiting apple-land, it doesn't violate the Applecare terms of service (pdf). "[apple is not liable for...] the failure to maintain the confidentiality of data" (section 4). In section 7f, "You agree that any information or data disclosed to Apple under this Plan is not confidential." My hard drive is backed up, but I don't want to risk someone having access to all my personal info. Should I put up a fight? Here's the background; feel free to skip it.

I'm a former IT person, and the diagnosis of graphic card failure seems pretty straightforward to me. All symptoms match. My hard drive is backed up, but I'm worried about my personal info being in the hands of others, especially after stories like this of hard drives full of data going MIA during service. How should I handle my upcoming interaction with the techs in the apple store?

The computer is still under applecare. When I talked with Applecare telephone support, they confirmed the diagnosis but said I needed to send the hard drive in with the system. After reading the terms of service, I was pretty reluctant. I didn't push very hard for them to make an exception. Thinking that I might have more luck in person, and with in-person contact with a geek, I made a genius bar appointment.

My position is that apple should be willing to fix my computer without my hard drive in it, since the problem is clear and isn't related to the hard drive. Every computer repair service has spare hard drives used for troubleshooting. The macbook pro hard drive is end-user replaceable, so I'm not violating any warranty by removing it. Sure, if I screw up the removal, it's my problem, but I'm ok with that.

What I'm not ok with is this: for my data to be relatively secure in this case, I must take the time to securely wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS, and then restore all my data when I get the computer back. In fairness to apple, I imagine that asking for the hard drive generally makes sense since a problem is often not clearly defined before the system is received. And we users aren't always the most reliable or knowledgeable reporters.

Nevertheless, my current plan is to take the hard drive out before I go to the Apple Store. I expect my approach will be in the self-deprecating vein to begin: I'll admit that I'm being a bit of a curmudgeon and ask them to indulge me. I've had terrific interactions with the Genius boys (are they all male in every store?) in the past, and I'm hopeful that they would at least by sympathetic to my position.

Is my request reasonable? Is there a better approach?

How difficult is it to become a Certified Mac Tech?

sammich — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:13:45 -0800

Any Apple Certified Macintosh Technicians in the house? How difficult was it for you to get certified? This question has been asked before but I want to expand on it.

I manage all the Macintosh computers at my work. I also setup my office location as a Apple Self Servicing center, which means, among other things, I am allowed to access Apple service resources (order parts, look up service manuals, etc) just like a regular Apple repair store can. But the difference between me and a real repair place is that I can't do official warranty repairs, because no one on my staff has been certified by Apple to do them. Fortunately one of the perks of being a self servicing center is free access to on-line training to become certified.

My primary duties at work are managing software installs and servers. I deal with about 150 Macs at work, almost half of them are laptops, and I guesstimate no more than 10% of those need some kind of warranty repair during the 3 years of Applecare. I'll do the occasional repair but only if it's out of warranty. I've always tinkered with taking apart computers but only for the occasional hobby.

Looking over the course topics, the software side is pretty elementary to me, but the hardware topics seems (naturally) extensive and complicated. The training courses cover the ins and outs of the guts of every Mac of the past 4-5 years. In my job I've typically only work on Mac towers (G5/Mac Pros) and PowerBooks and MacBook Pros (when I mean work on, I mean things like power supply removals, cracked LCD replacements, etc). I don't have much hands on experience with lower end hardware such as Minis and iMacs.

So my question is, how hard core should I brush up on Macs i'm unfamiliar with? If I replaced a drive in a Macbook Pro would it be safe to say that the MacBook Air would be just as easy if i just glanced over the instructions? During test time, will they quiz me on every model? Will they do something like give me an iMac and tell me to take it apart and reassemble? Do you think it's worth it for an IT guy like me to get certified? I don't plan to be a technician.It's more of a job convenience for me than anything else.

Feel free to PM me if you feel that you're bound by an Apple NDA or whatever.

iPhone not syncing calendars, photos, and triplicated my notes. Help?

scazza — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:02:40 -0800

iPhone not syncing calendars, photos, and triplicated my notes. Help? I am looking for help with this issue AND/OR great resources to help. There are tons of forums, its difficult to find my answer.

It started with my photos. First iTunes would not sync my selected album. I would sync over and over, and it would say it synced but on my phone it would say "no photos or videos." Then it stopped showing any options or albums under "Selected albums."

Then I noticed that it triplicated my notes.

Most importantly, since I really only got this phone years ago for the calendar and never had problems until now, it has stopped syning my calendar. Like iPhoto it has stopped showing any options under "Selected calendars." I am afraid to restore because I don't want to lose the information on my phone. It says it's backed it up, but obviously it's lied to me in the past.

It looks like there's a communication breakdown between iTunes & these other programs; like iTunes can't see my calendars, photo albums, & notes. Do I downgrade my software? I never had problems before. I upgraded to the latest Mac OS as well and that has made a lot of programs crash that never crashed before, my computer crashed 3x yesterday. My calendar is the most important, vital part of having this phone at all. I am starting to panic. My phone is 3G and I'm wondering if Apple is just dropping the ball on supporting not the latest model of their products.

How can I tell if someone is trying to hop onto my wireless signal?

invisible ink — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:46:16 -0800

I have a MacBook Pro running OS 10.6.1, and an Airport Extreme Base Station. Is there a user-friendly way to see if someone is trying to use my internet connection or hack into my network? I live in a large apartment building, and am curious to see if anyone has tried to hop onto my wireless signal. Thanks in advance:-)

Help! Electric kettle conundrum!

faeuboulanger — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:08:22 -0800

Is it ok/safe to heat non-water beverages (apple cider, namely) in my Krups electric kettle? I'd really like to both preserve the integrity of my tasty apple cider and my expensive electric kettle, but I'm going to need to heat moderate quantities in a location without a stovetop or microwave. Any insights would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

iPhones in the UK

Megami — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:46:25 -0800

Yet another series of questions about iPhones in the UK: A lot of information has just come out about the potential limitations with the new Orange plans, but I have some questions before I finally give in and perhaps get a miraculous iPhone - When I originally spoke to Apple when the 3GS I was told that I would not be able to access Skype with O2 if I was within their 3G network area. Is this true? If true, would I still be able to use it in wi-fi areas in the UK and overseas?
- I don't really understand the concept of unlocking (sorry for ignorance). I was told that if I bought new 3GS upfront I would still have to use it with O2 for as long as I had it, even if someone else came out with a better deal. Is it possible to have it unlocked if one day I want to use a different provider?
- Have you travelled to other countries with your iPhone? If so, did you find enough wi-fi (and where were you) or did you have to use some kind of global roaming.
Again, sorry for the ignorance, I am relying on the greater knowledge of the mighty Meta to reveal all for me.

How do I start using OS X Mail?

Junior687 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:46:45 -0800

How can I start using OS X .Mail App when I'm so in love with Gmail on the web? I recently purchased a Mac and I'm really interested in using OS X's Mail program. The only problem is Gmail is my bread and butter. It has a lot of different features and I love the labeling system. Is there a way to integrate labels, IMAP, and some other Gmail features with Mail? Will it hurt my current setup on the iPhone? What are the pros and cons? Thanks!

Stubborn MBP Display Problems

one_bean — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:42:23 -0800

I bring my MacBook Pro to school, and hook it up to an external monitor (with higher resolution) in clamshell mode. I come home and use it as a laptop. Often when I switch from clamshell to laptop, the desktop still thinks it's in the higher resolution, and all my icons are off the screen. Logging out fixes it. Is there an quicker way to fix this? This is a new problem in Snow Leopard.

Help me keep track of iPhone app price changes.

ellighi — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:57:18 -0800

I'd like to keep track of iPhone/iPod app prices. Are there any websites that display price info, such as whether an app has gone up or down in price?