Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mac and X

The processor cost of upgrading

WhackyparseThis — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:21:49 -0800

Upgrading from OS X 10.4 to 10.6: Does it use more CPU? I have a Mac Mini 1.66GHz that suffers from overheating problems when placed under stress. I'm looking at upgrading for the extra utilities such as Time Machine and Quicktime Pro, but i am concerned that a newer OS may place more pressure on my weakened computer. Does 10.6 run the computer harder than 10.4?

Buggy finder OS x 10.5.8

cg2 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:43:43 -0800

Buggy finder in OX 10.5.8 Recently my finder has gotten really buggy - even though I have disabled spaces and expose they will spontaneously launch. Also when I open folders in the finder they will flash repeatedly before stopping and letting me click into them. I also have a hard time renaming files by clicking into the file name on the finder. Does anyone have any ideas??? Thanks!!

Really weird Snow Leopard font problem

ferdinandcc — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:51:19 -0800

I just upgraded to Snow Leopard, and since then, some of my fonts are MAJORLY screwed up in iWork '09 (Pages, Keynote and Numbers). Specifically, my entire extended family of Hoefler Text.

Here's a screenshot of what my Hoefler Text fonts look like inside Pages:
http://www.ferdinandcc.org/hoefler1.png

(The menu should read as follows: Engraved, Engraved 2, Roman, Roman Alt, Roman SC, Regular, Italic, Alt, Italic SC, Italic Swash SC, etc.)

And here's Hoefler Text in action (Hoefler Text Regular appears fine, but Italic looks screwed up):
http://www.ferdinandcc.org/hoefler2.png

The fonts worked just fine under Leopard, and also work fine in my other apps I've tested them in (TextEdit, Pagehand, Scrivener), and they also show up just fine in Font Book and Fontcase.

Here's what I've tried so far to repair the issue:

1. I reinstalled the fonts. Didn't work.
2. I used AppZapper to get rid of all traces of iWork, then reinstalled iWork off the disc. Didn't work.
3. I repaired disk permissions. Didn't work.
4. I entirely deleted ALL Hoefler Text font files out of both my user/library and my /library. This is where things got really weird. When I deleted Hoefler Text, it quit appearing in Font Book, TextEdit, etc. but in Pages, et. al it was still there!
5. I purchased FontDoctor and scanned my font folders. No problems there. However, when I copied all my Hoefler Text fonts to a folder on my desktop and then scanned that folder alone, it said the fonts were incompatible with this system (but if that's the case, then why do they work in every other application on my Mac, including Font Book?)

Note: the file type is PostScript Type 1 outline font.

These fonts are very important to me, as they're part of my organization's corporate branding guidelines and are used in all our documents and publications!

jumpy mouse disease

krautland — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:47:01 -0800

my logitech mouse is jumping around frantically on os x. it's behaving completely normally one second and then it's off somewhere entirely different the other. lots of details inside. I purchased a logitech RX720 mouse a while back without realizing it was meant for windows only. being the hackjob that it is logitech's own control center refused to accept it accordingly and the site didn't provide any drivers. not to worry, macs still let you use such mice, they just don't have customizable a right button. alas, I wanted that right button, so I installed steer mouse, which I was assured was much better. fast forward a week of perfect behavior and my mouse is back to jumping around.

here's what I've tried thus far:

- I have changed batteries.
- I have uninstalled steer mouse and just used 10.4.11 to run the mouse.
- I have changed the surface below the mouse (it's an optical mouse. I tried a black mousepad, a yellow folder, a white piece of paper).
- I've tried to look for obvious smudges though I avoided looking into the laser hole for obvious reasons. or am I being overly cautious?

I'm ready to throw this dreck into the can and accept that this mouse (which sadly I can no longer return) needs to be replaced. other mice previously worked well with my mac book pro. I don't know what the issue is.

you are this little logitech mouse last hope. share ideas of suggest a painless death for it because I am ready to go postal on it.

How much is "some" in C programming?

joshrholloway — Sun, 31 May 2009 06:45:51 -0800

How much of C do I need to learn before moving on to Cocoa, and what's the best resource for learning it? I'm very interested in programming for the Mac and iPhone, but I have no real prior programming experience. On the recommendation of an AskMeFi answer, I bought the latest edition of the Hillegass book. However, it states something like "this book was written for those who already know some C programming and something about objects." So how much is "some"? What resources will best help me learn the parts of C I need to know before moving on to Cocoa? I want to hit the ground running, so if there is a good crash course out there, what is it?Are there any video resources?

OS X 10.5.6 Dock remains hidden

the_binary_blues — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:20:33 -0800

I have OS X 10.5.6 and Logitech V470 bluetooth mouse. 1. When I hide the dock it stays hidden and there is no way for me to get the dock to reappear without turning off autohide 2. My courser works sporadically a. sometimes it will only work on some area's of the screen b. sometimes it won't recognize clicks Are these related? and can I fix this? will the plist file removal work?

my computer is:
I have a macbook 2.16GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo
with 2GB of SDRAM
running OS X 10.5.6

Free de-duper for mac?

catatethebird — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:37:56 -0800

What is a good FREEWARE duplicate file remover for mac os x? I just switched from windows to a new macbook pro, and I've got a lot of dupes - music, pics, and other documents and files. I only want to delete exact duplicates, not different versions of songs or pics that were edited and left under the same name.
I used Doublekiller in windows because it compared checksums, and allowed you to see the location of each dupe and choose which to delete. I haven't been able to find anything similar for mac.
If there are no freeware programs that do this can anyone reccomend a (cheap) paid app with those capabilities?
Searches don't lead to anything that seems to do quite what I want.

rockin' remote desktop style

crapples — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:02:13 -0800

My friend and I want to be able to work on the same Garageband file on a server somehow. Is there a way to set up one of our machines as a server that both of us can access? We are not on the same network (in fact we are a thousand miles away from each other). We are both using OS X Leopard.

Software for .gpx files on a Mac

jcdill — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:50:32 -0800

Software to process and display (map, etc.) .gpx files on a Mac I don't have a GPS yet, although a friend is sending me her old unit. Today I went on a mountain bike ride with a group, and someone else had a GPS with him and recorded our ride. After the ride, I downloaded the .gpx file from his GPS to my MacBook Pro (OS X 10.5.5). I uploaded the file to a site (mapmyride.com) to map the ride, which was cool. I'd like to map the ride on my Mac, and also map the altitude changes, etc. It would be super to find software that was open source or freeware.

How to make finder display a previously ejected usb deivce

alitorbati — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:05:57 -0800

How do I make my mac recognize an already plugged in usb device? If I attach a usb device to my mac, it automatically shows up in my finder sidebar and when I am finished using it, I can simply click the eject button next to it.
If I don't disconnect the device, is there any way to make finder refresh the 'Places' heading? Is there any way to make the device show up besides unplugging it and plugging it back in?

Where does mac store thumbnails of photos and videos?

guptaxpn — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 09:33:01 -0800

Where does mac store thumbnails of photos and videos? e.g. Finder thumbnails an SD disk I have plugged in that I pulled out of my digital camera. (where are those thumbnails?) e.g. A folder of movies are thumbnailed.

Ugly bittorrent ratio needs a facelift

alitorbati — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:03:31 -0800

Is there any software of Mac OS X that will protect my bittorrent seed/leech ratio? I'm looking for something like GreedyTorrent, but for mac. Obviously, freeware is preferred but I'm willing to hear any suggestions. Please don't use this post to encourage me to seed more. I seed as much as I can on one of my computers but my mac just won't do it.

Also, can anyone suggest any reasons that my mac is extremely finicky about seeding any torrents I get from what.cd? I'm using Transmission, if it matters.

Thanks!

MacFilter

bad grammar — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:00:22 -0800

Why can't I pick up and drag my Mac's desktop folders smoothly? Often they don't move at all, or they snap back as if on rubber bands when I move and drop them. Specifics: I have a MacBook from 2006 with Mac OS X 10.4.8. I am using a 1024 x 640 setting for the display.

The problem is minor but it makes tidying up the desktop (manually) rather difficult.

Can any Mac Project Planing Software export to Microsoft Project?

UMDirector — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:40:32 -0800

Is there anyway to export something from OmniPlan or similar Mac Project planner and get it to open in Microsoft Project? Omniplan and other SAY they open in Project but in reality they export an XML that Project etc doesn't really like. I need something that will actually open, not say that it will. I tried a number of products but they all gave me the faux export.

Man Attempting to Move Leopard

indiewizard — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:41:38 -0800

Great MeFites, I come bearing but a humble request. I bought a MacBook Pro about six months before Leopard was released. When it finally came out, I installed it on a partition on an external drive, which I would boot from (because OS X is awesome like that, amirite?) so I could test out all my apps. Now I'm ready to commit to Leopard full-time - what's the best way to go about transplanting my Leopard partition? In my head, I would copy everything precious to the external drive, and then go into Disk Utility and select "Restore" (I'm not in front of my Mac right now, so I don't know the exact option, but it's a tab that comes up in the main pane when you select the root drive in the left-hand pane), where I would select Leopard as the source, and my internal drive as the destination. However, the internal drive is just slightly bigger than the Leopard partition - would this present a problem?

Also, what are my other options? Specifially, Carbon Copy Cloner comes to mind - is this what I need?

Also also, I would like to merge my Adium chat logs - any programs available? If this isn't possible, I'll settle for simply copying them to my Documents folder, and using Spotlight.

A thousand thank-yous in advance.

Connect Canon HG10 video to Mac os X

willep — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:02:20 -0800

Mac osx/canon hg10 cannot get stills off camera. Video yes, stills no. We're supposed to have a baby any day now and this sucker ain't behaving (the camera-mac connection). I haven't had this kind of problem with a mac in 10 years. I can get iMovie to find my Canon HG10 thru USB cable but not Final Cut Pro of iPhoto or Image Capture. That would be fine except that iMovie does not download images from still mode.

I have everything Canon has for download, I have iPhoto, etc. I have another Canon still camera that works fine in all programs.

I saw this thread was closed.

I've looked: no one else seems to have this problem and Canon isn't aware of it... thank you.

StupidExcelQuestionFilter: Adding x and y axis labels

peacheater — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:59:36 -0800

How do I add x and y axis labels to a chart in Excel 2008 for Macs? I've been trying to do this for about an hour and am just about ready to tear my hair out. The whole thing should be ridiculously simple but I'm just not seeing it. So I have two columns of data which I want to plot against each other. So I did that. Now I want to add an x axis label and a y axis label (e.g. 'Voltage' and 'Time'). I just can't figure out how to do it. No matter where I click on the chart the box for adding these labels doesn't open up. There doesn't seem to be any way to do this from the menus on top either. I'm sure I'm just missing something obvious, so would really appreciate it if you could help me out.

Setting up subdomains for a LAN?

unSane — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 07:37:22 -0800

How do I give my computers subdomain names on my local network? For example, mylaptop.mynetwork.com, mydesktop.mynetwork.com, momslaptop.mynetwork.com, kids.mynetwork.com and so on? Do I have to set up some kind of local DNS or is there an easier way to do it in the router? I am not concerned at this point about being able to access the subdomains from the WAN although that would be handy later. It's the LAN I'm interested in. (Obviously I am using Bonjour right now but for I want to use the subdomains too). I own mynetwork.com and it points to a static IP. My LAN router is firewalled behind that. It's a WRT54G running DD-WRT. I have a spare computer I could run DNS on but I'd rather not have to do that. Everything is Macs running OS X, mostly Leopard.

OS 10.5: Why can I hear my headset's microphone now?

anonymoose — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 22:55:33 -0800

Mac OS X 10.5 dumps the microphone feed of my headset into my ears; can I shut it off? I use a Koss SD-35 headset and a "SPEED-LINK UltraPortable" USB Soundcard to Skype and what-not on my Aluminum 15" Powerbook G4 (1.25GHz).

This worked just fine in 10.4, but when I upgraded to Leopard, suddenly I can hear myself breathe, even when I'm not Skyping (and suddenly I get a low hum whenever I'm not touching the metal case of my powerbook - what's THAT about?). I realize that monitoring my mic input is a nice feature to have, but can I turn it off?

OSXFilter: Software to edit fonts

frijole — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 10:58:11 -0800

I need to change the name of a font that is embedded in the font itself. Any suggestions for free or cheap, basic font editing software? I don't need something over the top like Fontographer, just something with the ability to change the name.

Convince me to buy Leopard

InsanePenguin — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:23:22 -0800

Why should I buy Leopard? For the most part I'm more than happy with my MacBook Pro's current setup (10.4.1) Should I buy Leopard? Yes, yes, we all know about the Vista-esque graphical changes, but how many of the touted 300 features will actually improve functionality? An example would be a replacement of Preview (ugh,) which they seem to have with the new Quick Look, but I'm not entirely convinced.

So please, Hivemind, give me examples (bonus for documentation that I can read about and drool over!) of improved functionality, something nerds like me are happy to hear about rather than new iChat images and Mail stationary (woopie! /sarcasm)

Help Me Morbidly Count Down the Remaining Days of My Life!

WCityMike — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:16:04 -0800

I would basically like to rip off, wholesale, some command-line script which will provide me a countdown -- only in days. No years, months, minutes, or seconds. Unfortunately, adapting an existing script is beyond my ken. This idea of Kevin Kelly's inspired me to perhaps try something similar to motivate me towards working more diligently towards long-term personal goals, but I'm not an iGoogle user. I'd like to instead set it up as the result of a shell script which I can then pipe through GeekTool onto my Mac OS X desktop.

The only problem is that there is a lot of Googlenoise out there clogging up the results, and I can't seem to find the kind of script I'm looking for. I did find a countdown script that would tell it to me in years, months, days, horus minutes, and seconds -- but I really would prefer a days-only readout, similar to that depicted on the page. And I see various Javascript to include on webpages -- but I'm looking for something to be done locally, and I can't use the Javascript and then pipe it through lynx or links, since when I bring up such a page using either, the Javascript result doesn't seem to show. (I doubt lynx or links has Javascript support, do they?)

Anyway, can anyone point me towards a shell script that will take the present date, subtract it from a future date, and tell me the number of days between then and now?

I should add that I'm an idiot savante when it comes to shell scripting and Perl ... more of a splicer than anything resembling a programmer. I can sometimes look at code and grok a little of what it's saying, but telling me to embed the Doohickie:Flippa library into the Perl output by piping it through the black hole matrix into my Bananaphone is going to make me look at you blankly.

Thanks!

Move a mailbox out of Earthlink Total Access?

spitbull — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 07:04:08 -0800

(Geekfilter) Can I convert Earthlink TotalAccess (WinXP PC) Email (.dat or .csv) mailboxes to Apple Mail (.mbox) mailboxes on a Mac? (AKA: How can Earthlink be this stupid?) OK, so here's the situation, and I'm sorry it's a bit detailed, but the one person who knows the answer to this will need all the facts:

1) Person I am helping has an old Windows PC running XP. She uses Earthlink, and had their "TotalAccess" suite installed (nightmarish).

2) She's moving to a new iMac (10.4). She will continue to use Earthlink (also her DSL provider). So we installed the Mac version of TA on her iMac, and it uses Apple's Mail.app as its default email application. Thank Jobs. (And this question would still apply even if we didn't use Mac TotalAccess, but just wanted to use Mail.app as a standalone app.)

3) Oh shit. The PC version of TA uses a proprietary email client that is capable of exporting its mailboxes in two formats: .csv or .dat (which Google tells me is a "proprietary" earthlink email mailbox format, and may or not be the same thing as the contacts .dat format in Outlook/OExpress -- and I was able to move her addressbook into the Apple Address Book without a problem). The onscreen help says to use the .dat export if you plan to reimport into another version of TA, and .csv to import into other mail applications.

4) Apple Mail.app cannot import .csv mailbox files into its native .mbox format, as far as I can tell. Nor can I find an OS X (or PC) email application that does. Nor can I find a standalone format conversion utility that does, for which I would be willing to pay a modest fee.

5) I want to be able, possibly via an intermediary mail application, possibly via a standalone conversion app, to convert either the .dat or the .csv mailboxes (all in one file in either case) into a standard .mbox file. I am stymied.

Or is there another workaround short of resending (to herself) all the email from the original TA mailboxes on the old PC?

Also, I know the CSV file is not corrupted. I can open it and see everything in Excel.

please help, Mac issue

cg2 — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:40:57 -0800

Need help bypassing password protection I have an iMac G5 OS X that was never password protected, until last weekend when I left it unattended with my roommates at my apartment. When I turn on my computer, it asks for a user name and password (both fields are empty) and I don't have any clue what either field are. Is there any way that I can bypass these fields or is it hopeless?

RAR Joining for the Mac?

WCityMike — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 19:26:19 -0800

What Mac OS X application (or command-line utility) will join RAR files that come in the form filename.r01, filename.r02, etc.? My understanding is that the method is a pretty old way of dealing with RAR archives nowadays, but there's still got to be some way to do it.