Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mac and computers

It's like a tech question and a bad sitcom plot in one!

Navelgazer — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:51:47 -0800

How do I either recover my Mac OS X password or else get around needing it? Several years ago, my then-girlfriend's father bought a family pack of OS_X Leopard, and gave one of them to me. A year later, she and I were broken up. About six months after that, my computer crashed, and the genius bar had to replace the hard drive and reinstall everything. This means that the update password was lost from memory, and I never knew it and can't easily find out what it might have been (ex's dad installed Leopard himself).

So now I've gone a year without updating and it's starting to drive me crazy. Not only can I not update OS_X, but I can't install any number of things I'd like to either.

Does anyone know how I can either recover what this password might have been, or work around it so that I don't need a password to update?

Much Thanks, and Happy Christmas/Hannuka/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Festivus/Holidays to you.

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.

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:-)

I used to be a PC, now becoming a Mac.

te1contar — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:30:14 -0800

Switching from PC to a Mac. For those who have done it: What do you wish you had known then that you know now? I know this type question has been asked before, but it looks like it's been a while. So, give me your advice warnings, horror stories, revelations, etc.

Apple Airport Extreme or Express?

invisible ink — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 22:13:34 -0800

What is the difference between an Apple Airport Express Base Station, and an Airport Extreme Base Station? I have a tiny 500-square foot apartment. All I want is to be able to surf the web wirelessly. Can I go with the cheaper Express Base Station? Why is one cheaper than the other (in other words, what can the Extreme do that the Express cannot)?

Help me connect!

scarylarry — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:02:01 -0800

Help me connect to my girlfriend's wireless network! My lovely girlfriend has a closed wireless network set up at her house (it requires a WPA2 Personal password to access and it's hidden from Airport's network scan). I have the network name and the password, and I've joined through Airport. I get full bars, but no actual internet connectivity whatsoever.

Neither my girlfriend nor I are particularly computer-savvy. We're not sure if maybe she needs to give my computer special permission from hers, or what. I don't know if this matters, but we both use Macbook Pros--she's running Leopard and I'm running Tiger.

Thanks so much.

What fonts does Adobe install on my Mac, and how can I separate them out?

yesno — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:22:03 -0800

What fonts does Adobe install on my Mac, and how can I separate them out? Adobe's fonts are wonderful but I've never appreciated the way that Adobe just installs files willy-nilly all over my Mac. Even Microsoft installs its fonts in /Library/Fonts/Microsoft rather than /Library/Fonts, the way Adobe does.

Basically, I would like /Library/Fonts to just be the fonts that are standard on the Mac. I'd like to put all other fonts into ~/Library/Fonts/subdirectory. I don't see that any third party has business putting anything in /Library unless it's absolutely necessary.

So, can I get a list of what fonts are what? (Adobe doesn't bother separating out its fonts in Font Book either.) Then, if I move all the Adobe fonts out of /Library/Fonts and into ~/Library/Fonts/Adobe, will anything break?

Why do Windows machines get sluggish over time but Macs don't seem to?

colinmarshall — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:14:46 -0800

What is the specific technical reason Windows machines get gradually more sluggish over time (and without a reformat and reinstall) whereas Macs don't seem to? I don't mean to start some kind of Windows-versus-Mac debate or anything, but this is a question that's burned in my mind for some time. I use both Windows XP (on a Dell Inspiron 700m laptop) and Mac OS X (on a dual-core Mac Mini) and the Windows machine slowly becomes unusably sluggish over the course of every 1.5 years or so, whereas the Mac appears to be performing just as it did on day one. What's the actual, objective difference in the operating system architecture that accounts for this?

Facebook, delicious and flickr not loading!

carofowler — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:30:12 -0800

My facebook, delicious and flickr aren't working, but all other sites are fine. What's wrong and how do I fix it? I have been trying for over a week to use my facebook account unsuccessfully.

I use Firefox 3.0.5 on a MacBook although I have also tried on Safari 3.1.2.

Usually, I am able to sign in and arrive at the home page successfully. Then, when I try to go into any other page, the page won't load and I get a "failed to open page" error or "page load error - connection interrupted" or something of the sort.

Clicking on links in my email to posted pictures or messages also doesn't work and the page will not load. I have tried deleting all facebook cookies, all cookies, restarting Firefox, restarting the computer and nothing has worked.

My account is working fine on other computers, but since it doesn't happen with any other site, this must be an issue with Facebook AND my computer.

Also, my delicious account won't load either. I tired on Safari and the home page loaded but none of the other pages and I get "connection interrupted" as well.

When I try logging into flickr (through the Yahoo! sign in page, which is where flickr redirects you when you click to sign in) i get sent to a blank page: https://login.yahoo.com/config/login_verify2?

These sites work fine when I sign in through other computers and all other sites and the internet in general are working fine on my computer. I have also tried deleting cookies for these. For delicious it works and allows me to enter the home page, but then I still can't access any of the other pages.

Does anyone know what is going on and how I can fix it?

Thanks!

Is there a way to create folders or otherwise organize my email inbox?

iamkimiam — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:24:08 -0800

Is there an app/script/somethin'-sweet I can install on my Mac(s) that will allow me to organize my email INBOX? I'd like to be able to group, folder, or rearrange the items in my email inbox so that I can deal with them more efficiently. Viewing by subject/date/time/etc. will not solve my organization problem. I do NOT want to take them out of my inbox in any way (my rule is that I can't do that until I've dealt with it). I'm currently using Apple Mail, and would like to continue to do so. Thanks!

Learning about firewalls and general computing

dicetumbler — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 09:09:46 -0800

I allowed perl access past my firewall (Am I even saying that right?). Should I be worried? And how do I learn more about the subject so I'm not so clueless in the future? I got a popup message on my Macbook about allowing perl access past my firewall (I think). I was downloading and installing Gnucash through Macports at the time, and I figured, must have something to do with the perl program that fetches finance quotes and prices, and I clicked "Allow." Immediately after I wondered if I'd made a mistake, and so I went to the firewall log and saw this:

Jan 8 00:27:40 ***** Firewall[39]: perl is listening from 0.0.0.0:62703 uid = 0 proto=6

(Computer name ***ed out.) I shouldn't be worried, should I?

And now that I'm on the subject, I feel like I need to know more about the basics of computer technology. I get the suspicion that to many people, my above question must sound like one of those questions you come across on lists of ridiculous tech support questions, like where the "any key" is or whether the program "Linux" is supported on XP.

I know perl is a program that people use (usually for network communications? right? right?) and that the 0.0.0.0 ip address probably tells someone who knows better that I have nothing to worry about. (Uh ... right?)

I'm not totally computer-illiterate, and I'm not particularly timid when it comes to messing around (for better or for worse). I've run Ubuntu in the past, and I spent a few days getting wireless to work with my old USB wirless adaptor using ndiswrapper, to give you some background. But ask me what a "driver" is and I couldn't really tell you the details, beyond the fact the fact that you need it to make hardware work. Same with "firewall," "ip address," "perl," "ssh," and so forth.

Like they say, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. I want to learn more about the fundamentals of networking security and computing in general. But how do I go about it? Where do I even start? The superficial approach has got me so far, and at the same time I'm assuming that learning assembly language won't really help me here.

How can I tile windows in OS X

creeront — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:42:11 -0800

How can I easily tile my windows in OS X like I do in MS Windows? I want to easily and quickly tile my windows in OS X (especially word documents so I can read them side by side) like I do in MS Windows. In Windows, I use Winsplit Revolution and right clicking on the taskbar and hitting 'tile vertically'. Is there any way to do this?

Make this Mac interesting to kids!

amanda — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:04:46 -0800

My husband lucked in to a free iMac and we'd like to set it up for our neice who is 11. Can you help us trick it out? We haven't done much investigating into what is currently on the machine but we're pretty sure that if it has any software on it that it'll be office related which would be really boring for an 11-year-old!

We don't know her super well as she's the stepdaughter of my sister-in-law and fairly new to our family. She seems in to the typical tween girl stuff -- princesses, magical stuff, Disney -- but is also pretty smart and inquisitive.

We have a small budget to put into it but, of course, great resources for free games -- fun and/or educational -- would be ideal.

Mac Mini Magically Misplaced Music

chrisalbon — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:32:49 -0800

Mac Mini Sound Stops Working When I Push The Top of the Case Last week my Mac Mini (less than 6 months old) broke when I was restarting it. I took it to the SF Apple Store and got the logic board replaced. However, when I took the Mac Mini home there was no sound output device detected. I took it back to the SF Apple Store and they replaced the sound card. I picked it up from the Apple store Friday night.

However, when I got home I sound was only working sometimes. After some testing I can replicate the problem 100%:

The Mac Mini works fine, until you put even the lightest weight on the back right corner of the top of the case. When that part of the case is touched the sound stops working entirely and the only way I can get the sound to start working again is to restart the Mac Mini.

What could the problem be? Should I take it back to the Apple Store for a 3rd time? Can I fix it myself without voiding the Apple Care warranty?

Any help would be appreciated.

Re-setting a mac for a new user.

Soulbee — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 06:12:53 -0800

How do I talk a new Mac user through the process of deleting/optimizing a new-to-her computer over the phone? I got a new mac, and had the opportunity to give my Ibook G4 to an old friend. However, it wasn't really "ready to go" when I had my one opportunity to give it to her personally, rather than ship it expensively. So I handed it off without really wiping the hard drive down or anything. Now, she's a good friend, AND she's pretty un-savvy when it comes to computers, so I don't feel like I'm at risk for her breaking into my bank accounts or racking up charges on my Itunes or anything, but I do need to talk her through the process of making it hers rather than mine, over the phone.
Despite using macs for a few years now, I've never had to do anything like this. These are the things that, off the top of my head, I'd like to have her do:
1) Deauthorize my Itunes
2) Delete my Lightroom catalog (if I just have her delete the Catalog file, will that be sufficient? Will Lightroom make a new catalog file for her if she wants to use it?)
3) Delete my bookmarklets from Firefox.
4) I'd like to empty the Keychain as well, but I don't really know how to go about that?
5) She's going to keep the music, but I'd like to make sure any videos are gone.

Is there an easy way to achieve all this? I was assuming that she would just continue to use my name and a password for the administrator but is there a way to switch that over completely without deleting all the programs and music? I'd like for her to have access to Photoshop, Lightroom, and the other programs I have on there, just...make it hers and not mine. Advice? Things I'm not thinking about? I feel like macs probably have a super easy way to deal with this but I don't know what it is. The easier, the better, for both of us, because she's a new user, and I don't really know about this stuff anyway. And it will be over the phone. So any step by step advice on how to talk her through things will be of use. One point of note is that my file structure and whatnot was ported over to my new computer, so I should be able to look at my computer and sort of guide her through, without pulling the trigger myself on my computer.

Thanks in advance

Can a Mac use a PC's internet connection without wireless?

lionelhutz5 — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:49:24 -0800

Mac/PC Internet Sharing: My work PC (running XP) has an internet connect, but no wireless. Is there a way to connect my MacBook Air to my PC via USB so that my Mac can use my PC's internet connection? I don't think there's much to add, except that I have full administrative control over the PC, but not over the network. I suppose I could pick up a cheap wireless access point for the PC, but I'm really looking for something that I can do right away.

Mac-specific IT guy in a Windows world?

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:50:08 -0800

In the current and near-future markets, are there viable opportunities for a Mac-specific IT guy, and are Apple certifications worth it? I have been a Windows user most of my life until a few years ago when I switched to a Mac. Since then, I have entered the IT world doing mostly Windows administration, with some low-level Mac and UNIX stuff mixed in there. On my own time, I have become engrossed with the Mac platform, and have spent a large majority of my free time learning more about the inner workings of OS X and its core. Right now, I feel extremely confident in my Mac support, troubleshooting, diagnostics, and repair skills. This has really become my passion, and I am just not excited about Windows administration anymore.

All of this leads me to be looking into taking Apple's certification exams. I would ideally like to take all that are applicable to a general-purpose Mac IT dude, which looks to be about seven exams. The total cost on these exams and the materials I would need to brush up on specifics would be near $2000, which my current job would very likely pay for. Again, I feel very good about my skills, and would likely be able to pass all the tests with little trouble.

So that leads me to two main questions that are somewhat pivotal to my future career decisions:

1. Are these exams worthwhile, and will they be at all impressive to a potential employer, or are they the Mac equivalent of an A+? (As an aside, I am very young, even for the tech industry, so all of my potential employers have been very skeptical about my skills, so maybe these would help?)

2. What does the job market look like for an all-around Mac IT guru that would be competent enough to hold all of those certifications? Are there many places that would hire a Mac-only IT guy, or would I be better off working for myself? Is it a viable career move to go Mac-only with IT? Of course, knowing the Mac means knowing UNIX, which I do, but specifically the OS X platform is what I'm talking about here. Am I going to be out of luck on this unless I move somewhere very tech-centric, such as California?

Answers to either or both of these questions would be hugely appreciated. If you want to get in touch with me... macitdude AT gmail DOT com. (NOTE: This is anonymous because I don't want my current employers to get freaked out and think I'm trying to leave. I love my job right now, so I don't want that to change simply based on information gathering.)

Mac Powermac G4 AGP will not boot, can I take the drive and boot using a firewire enclosure on another G5?

safepants — Mon, 26 May 2008 09:38:14 -0800

Mac Powermac G4 AGP will not boot, can I take the drive and boot using a firewire enclosure on another G5? I've tried replacing the CMOS battery and resetting the PMU which didn't work. I really need to boot from this drive to use the files immediately, then take the data off afterwards.

Can I boot with this drive in a firewire enclosure using a G5, or does it have to be another similar G4 system? would a powerbook g4 work too?

Virtualized Network Problems

nivekraz — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:31:05 -0800

I'm having network problems with virtualized systems. I have Macs runnig OsX 10.4 with Parallels running XP. At random times, the network fails...kinda The network will stop working (cant get to Internet, internal hosts, email, pings, DHCP) but the network link never goes down. Link lights are on, switch says port is active and in proper vlan. Snoops on the interface and switch port the show computers trying to get a DHCP address. If someone has music streaming from the Internet, it will continue to function. Any new sessions will fail. I can fix it by pulling the network cable and plugging it back in. This only happens on systems with Parallels w/ XP but it can happen even when Parallels/XP is NOT running.

What can be causing this? What can I look at?

Folding@Home and nowhere else

mccarty.tim — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:39:04 -0800

I want to run Folding@Home on my MacBook Pro, but I want it to only fold while plugged in. Is there a way I can do this? I like to run Folding@Home on my MacBook Pro, version 6.10 beta 2. I remember when I ran F@H on my old PC, it had an option in the console version to stop the program when the computer was running on battery power. Presumably, it would start it back up when the computer was plugged back in. My old PC was a desktop, so I never really knew how well that option worked. Now, on my Mac, I want to conserve battery power when I'm on the go, but I'd like to run F@H when I'm at my desk. I can't find any option to do this in the pref pane or on F@H's site. Is there any script or program I could do to automate this? Also, could I possibly have F@H stop at a certain time of night so that I can sleep without having to hear my fans running full blast (Sometimes, I keep my laptop on to download stuff at night, but that's a fairly quiet procedure.).

Thanks for your help, guys. I really want to contribute to F@H and I feel like I'm always wasting my dual core processor in Mac mode. And if I should be running a different version, let me know and I'll change it.

Best computer buying/selling strategy?

moedym — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:59:33 -0800

What's the best strategy for buying new laptops and selling old ones? I usually buy a new computer once every five years or so and then sell my old one. Say I spend $3000 for a new one and sell the old one for $300. Would I be better off buying a new one every year and selling the old one each year? In other words, would I get more for the old one that it would make up for the depreciation in waiting five years? For my purposes, I'm talking about MacBook Pros probably.

I'm guessing that I wouldn't come out ahead, but what would the premium be per year to always have a (relatively) new laptop vs an old one most of the time.

To fully explain: which is better and why:

1: Buy new laptop for $3000ish and sell five-year old laptop for $300ish
2: Buy new laptop for $3000ish and sell it a year later for $??? Repeat every year or so. Would I be selling it for $1500? $2000? Less?

2.2Ghz vs. 2.4 Ghz. Can it possibly be worth an extra $500?

jeff-o-matic — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:54:55 -0800

Macbook Pro question: 2.2Ghz vs. 2.4 Ghz. Can it possibly be worth an extra $500? I'm an art director/graphic designer who is about to purchase a 15" Macbook Pro, for personal and professional use.

I'm familiar with Macs. I want to max out the thing with 4 gigs of RAM for Photoshop and various other Adobe CS3 apps. But now that I go to the Apple store online, I'm presented with a choice of a 2.2 Ghz model and a 2.4Ghz model.

I don't want to cheap out on this, but it's a major purchase for me. There's a $500 price difference. I remember hearing years back that the processor speed wasn't that important for graphic design apps, but wanted to check with the AskMeFi minds before I hit 'buy.' Again, I heard this years back before the Intel processors.

Also, eventually I want to buy a 20" display to use with this machine when I'm at home. Will the processor speed help out/hinder this?

Thanks for your help. I'll be making the purchase tomorrow with a 10% off deal through my office... But the .2Ghz difference is my last question.

Should I put Leopard on my G4s?

Phatty Lumpkin — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 12:06:34 -0800

I'm concerned about making my computers sluggish by "upgrading" them. Should I install Leopard on older G4 Macs? I understand that Leopard runs faster than previous versions of OS X on the newer Intel Macs, but my family has three G4s and I'm wondering if I should upgrade them. This question is purely about performance--we already bought the disc for another computer--so it's not a question of price. I've seen the system requirements and I'm nervous about the transition because these computers fall on the low end of the scale. Here are the setups for the G4 computers:

Dual 867 MHz Power Mac with 2 GB of RAM
1.33 GHz Powerbook with 512 MB of RAM
1 GHz iBook with 1 GB of RAM

We don't really tax the first two with heavy gaming or graphic editing, though I use Photoshop occasionally on the iBook. I know that new programs often come out that aren't compatible with older versions of OS X and I'd like to avoid that happening. Complicating the situation is that I'll be doing this over one week while I visit home; long-term observation of the systems' performance isn't an option. What do you think? Should I upgrade?

How do I get files off my PC when all I have is a MAc laptop?

TwilightKid — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 17:53:14 -0800

I have a Mac laptop, which replaced my PC which I used for many years.....I recently found out that there is some files and such on my PC that I need to take of my computer and store onto my new external hard drive....Yes, I should of did this before hand.... I saved my computer, but got rid of the monitor and most of the cables...

My question: Is there a way to hook up my PC to my mac laptop and access the files from it? Any special hardware or wires I would need?
Or are there any kind of computer specialty stores that would let me hook up my computer to a monitor (per hour I guess) to do my data transfer?

I'm in Verona, NJ if i can narrow down my travel time....

Question about shipping a computer

Ndwright — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 11:36:34 -0800

Help me get my iMac across the Atlantic ocean On the Apple website under the new iMac's tech specs it gives a maximum altitude of 10,000 feet. I'll soon be traveling over to Europe for a prolonged period of time and intend to take my iMac with me, but because of the altitude restriction, I'm hesitant to just put it in my checked baggage. It's too large to put in my carry-on bag, so I was wondering, does anyone know of a way to safely ship the computer?