Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mac and macbook

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:-)

Why is my Macbook Pro so slow to load applications?

shivohum — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 06:28:52 -0800

My 2.4 Ghz Macbook Pro running OS 10.6 seems awfully slow to load applications. Any advice? I have a 2.4 Ghz Macbook Pro with 4 GB of RAM, and compared to a lot of other Macs - like the 2.6 Ghz/2 GB iMac I'm typing this on - it seems awfully slow to load applications. I'm running Snow Leopard, and the problem has not gotten any different or better.

For example, if I quit Word, after opening it, and then start it again, it takes 8 seconds. On this iMac, it takes 2 seconds. They're both running Word 2008.

Firefox 3.6 often takes 6 seconds to open, compared to more or less instantaneously on the iMac. It's true that if I open Firefox, close it, and then open it again on my MBP, it sometimes then loads instantaneously, but if I wait 30 seconds, it might take 6 seconds again. Similarly, it often takes 4-6 seconds for system preferences to open up. And on and on.

I have my graphics card set to "high performance," so it should be using the nVidia card rather than the integrated card, and I have the 7200 rpm hard drive.

What's the deal? I can't think of any exceptional CPU/memory-hogging application that I'm running in the background, and activity monitor shows 85-90% capacity idle. I do run Carbonite and Growl in the background, but they don't seem to take up any CPU power normally.

I have 170 GB of hard disk space free, too, if that matters.

I have installed all software and firmware updates.

Any idea what the deal is? 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

no noise

theyexpectresults — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:04:32 -0800

Macbook pro sound problem. Some sounds only heard through headphones. On my macbook pro (early 2008 model), the sound generally works fine, both through the built in speakers and through headphones. However, when I tried to run certain programs, I can only hear their sound output if I have headphones plugged in (while other sounds still function normally).

The programs were the white/pink noise generators noise and noisy. I was just mucking about with them, but now I am curious as to what is going on.

Can anyone help to explain what could be causing this? The likely candidate is that I did have a trial of Audio Hijack Pro installed, but I removed it when it screwed up Skype. I am using the latest version of Leopard.

Which MacBook?

joshuaconner — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:10:07 -0800

Which MacBook should I get? I've saved up a bit of money working so far this summer and I'd like to buy a new Apple laptop. Right now I pretty much use my current computer (a 2002 Dell) for basic stuff - internet, word processing, DVD's, Hulu, etc. - and I don't really see that changing.

But I feel like I made a mistake when I bought the Dell of not getting enough computer; I went for a pretty basic model, and it started to feel pretty slow after just a year of having it. As the internet got more complex and you could do more stuff with a computer, using my computer became more and more of an exercise in patience.

So one of my primary objectives is to buy something that's still going to feel relatively snappy for basic computing in 2-3 years.

Looking at probably a 13" (though I might be able to be talked into the 15") and I really like the look of the unibody design, so I've kind of narrowed it down to the two models of the new 13" MacBook, a refurb 15" of the last gen MacBooks, or (splurge!) a new 15" Macbook.

Does this sound about right? And if it does, which do you think will fit my needs best?

Diagnosing Graphics Card Failure on MacBook Pro

potch — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:45:02 -0800

This evening, I've begun noticing intermittent graphics glitches and flakiness on my MacBook Pro. I'm well familiar with the slow and painful graphics card death that can plague Macs, and I'm wondering- What's the best to diagnose whether that's truly the issue? The details:

15" Macbook Pro, 2.4 GHz Intel processor (pre-unibody)
OS X 10.5.7

Began noticing screen re-painting glitches, and minor artifacting this evening, thought maybe just needed a restart, but now Photo Booth reports "The graphics card installed in this computer does not support Photo Booth".

Has suffered cosmetic damage from a drop in the past, but has shown no symptoms of any internal damage until now.

I'm quite diligent with backups, so that's all squared away.

The machine was issued my my company's IT dept, so I'm not cost-liable, but I want to be able to go to them fairly certain of the problem to minimize time lost at work.

Thanks much!

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.

Why would Macbook randomly delete applications?

gtr — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:04:52 -0800

Macbook randomly deleting Applications. Is it haunted? A friend has a macbook that one morning was running hot (latest OS). The fan was going full blast despite the macbook not being open. She opened it and it froze. She restarted it and it restarted about 3 times before finishing.

Long story short, random applications have vanished. No iPhoto, no iTunes, no iChat, no Preview. System preferences won't open. Safari, iCal, Address Book still all there. She gave it to me to check out. But I don't know all that much.

It seems to be running now, minus the applications. Data (pictures, music, etc. is still there). I ran diagnostics and checked the HD with the installation disk. Everything came out ok.

I thought of a virus, but she doesn't download anything sketchy.

I'm guessing I'll just reinstall the OS now, but I wish I knew what caused everything to happen, and if I'm wasting my time. Any thoughts on what could have happened? Could the hard drive be slowly going?

Thanks for any help.

Why does my Airport connection drop every evening at the same time?

meerkatty — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:41:43 -0800

Every night this week my Macbook has stopped connecting to my Airport. Why? How can I fix this? Original Airport base station, circa 2002. Macbook.

Never had a problem with this equipment and have been using this same Airport in this same apartment for seven years. Now this week my connection to the Airport stops working around the same time every evening but resumes working a few hours later. Not an internet problem as I can connect via cable.

What's going on? And you should talk to me like I'm complete idiot. I can work computers by plugging them in and that's about it.

Unibody Mac - 15" - How well does it run other O/S?

tcv — Sat, 02 May 2009 20:07:02 -0800

So, I am in the market for a new laptop and am looking at all kinds of options. I'd like something that's going to allow me to continue to support my Windows clients, and one that's also going to allow me to virtualize other operating systems. I am considering many options, including Macs. I am curious: For those of you who have a 15" Macbook Unibody that run virtual guest O/S via VMWare Fusion, how does it perform? How much RAM did you need? How is the Mac performance when running a virtual O/S? How does the short 900 pixel resolution affect your ability to run Windows apps? What about Ubuntu or Fedora with VMWare Fusion? What about Vista or even Windows 7? Any and all stories are welcome, including stories about the last generation MacBooks.

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.

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.

I haz a Macbook, now what?

nmaster64 — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 09:56:36 -0800

Got a new Macbook, but not sure where to go from here... So I just purchased a new Macbook, as I'm planning to go into iPhone application development soon. However, I am completely new to Macs. It's really strange, because for years I've always had a sort of filter on my brain to ignore any stories and articles I see about Mac stuff (and jeez is there a ton of it), and now all of a sudden I start to care. So after years of blocking out all of the Mac stuff on Digg, Lifehacker, and other tech sites and whatnot, I feel I'm kind of behind. I was wondering if anybody had some suggestions for things to look at for helping me get started with it, learn some of the helpful tips and tricks, and point me to some of the great free software available for it. Thanks for any help.

(Also, if it's helpful for any reason, I own a XP desktop and Vista laptop as well. I'm just finishing up my degree in Computer Science, so I'm pretty tech-savvy, just not-so-much with Macs.)

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

How can I best spray paint my white Macbook's exterior?

ilumos — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 07:51:01 -0800

How can I best spray paint my white Macbook's exterior? I'd like to (durably) paint the outside of my white macbook. I've got experience with spray paints and stencils, but as the outside of my mac is glossy plastic, I wouldn't know how to best make the paint adhere. Is this possible, or will I just have to sticker the hell outta it instead?

Thanks in advance

Help connecting a MacBook to a TV

alitorbati — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:33:00 -0800

How do I connect my white MacBook to my TV? My intention is to be able to watch movies I have on my computer on my TV, or just use my TV as a monitor. I have these cables:
Mini DVI to VGA
VGA to RCA (yellow)
3.5mm headphone jack to RCA (red and white)

Audio works fine, but I cannot get my MacBook to display anything on my Sony Bravia. I have no idea what the issue could be. I've used the Mini DVI to VGA cable to connect to a projector before and that worked fine. Please help me sort this out. I've tried this with two tvs, still no success.

Mac busted?

djgh — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 07:12:21 -0800

Is my Macbook's HD broken? Unable to boot, more details inside. I can't get my Macbook (black, OSX Tiger) to boot. I got the flashing question mark. Booted from the install disk, and Disk Utility and Startup Diak apps were unable to see my internal drive. Reset PRAM, following Apple's online troubleshooting guide, then went back to Disk Utility, which was still unable to see my drive. HD is making funny noises - am I right to assume that this is a hardware failure?

Other relevant info - I recently installed a new battery.

Using Garmin GPS II Plus with Mac OS X

jcdill — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:07:18 -0800

It is possible to transfer waypoint data from an old Garmin GPS II Plus model to a MacBook Pro running Mac OS X 10.5? I was given this old GPS. I don't have the data cable. I want to be sure I can transfer data to my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.5 before I go in search of the data cable. The specs say the cable only works with a Windows PC with an open Comm Port. See: http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Plus-MultiTrac8-Personal-Navigator/dp/B00000DM9D

But a lot of products *say* that but work just fine on a Mac - they just aren't "supported" on the Mac. If the Mac sees the Garmin as a drive device and can copy the .gpx file I'm good to go. Does anyone know if this is possible?

Also, the Garmin cable has a serial port connection - what connector/adapter will I need to connect it with a MacBook Pro?
Serial-to-USB?

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.

there's got to be a way to save me money somewhere

kidsleepy — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:14:40 -0800

What's the best way to buy a Mac? I want to purchase a $1,500 refurbished MacBook Pro. I have $450 in Apple gift cards, and a credit card with a 9.99% APR. Other options for payment are using the Bill Me Later system, or getting a Juniper Visa Card. I could pay off the remaining $1,000 over about three months - which way of paying is going to be the best deal? Any promotions or penalties I need to be aware of?

How should I go about using an external hard drive for Time Machine and other things?

MadamM — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:34:59 -0800

I have a Macbook and a new external hard drive. I'd like to set up Time Machine, but I don't want to devote my entire new hard drive to back ups. I'm new to this, but I think I want to partition my drive- how do I go about doing that? And how large of a partition do I need for Time Machine? My Macbook has a 160GB hard drive, of which 84GB are used. The new hard drive is 640GB, so using the entire thing for Time Machine seems like a bit of a waste. I'd like to also use the hard drive to store large video files, which are eating up my laptop's drive at an alarming rate. My questions:

-What is the minimum amount of space I should allot on the new hard drive to Time Machine? My impulse is to divide it in half, which would leave Time Machine 2X my laptop's storage to work with, but I have no idea if this is far too much or far too little.

-I understand OSX has a built in drive formatting utility. Is this the best way to partition my drive? If so, um, how do I actually use it?

A few notes: I am not set on partitioning my drive, but from what I've seen on Apple's site, they intend you to devote an entire hard drive to Time Machine. If you can use a hard drive for Time Machine and also store other stuff on it, well, yay! I just don't want to do my first back up to discover that I'm wrong, and have to start from scratch.

I'm not really looking for other backup programs. I like that Time Machine is easy to use, built in to the OS, and automatic.

Anyone have personal experience with this? My googling and time on Apple's site have not been terribly helpful.

Longtime Thinkpad-using IT professional about to make the switch to MacBook.

Roach — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:38:43 -0800

Longtime Thinkpad-using IT professional about to make the switch to MacBook. Could use help navigating options. I've read the most recent few AskMe questions debating the pros and cons of the various generational MacBook flavors (here, here).

I've been an IT manager at various levels for the past 15 years, and have used and supported nothing but Thinkpads for the past 10. I love them, and have no complaints.

By anyone's definition, I am a power-user. In addition to all of the business and development applications I use on a daily basis, I've recently begun to delve more deeply into fairly lengthy video-editing projects.

In two weeks, I am starting graduate school in a non-IT discipline. I have in the neighborhood of $2,000 to spend on a new laptop that will serve as my one-stop shop for (primarily web-based) school, IT consulting, and video editing. I have pretty much made my decision that I'm going to get one of the aluminum-cased MacBooks or MacBook Pros..

My question for you Mac expertss is, given a budget of $1,800 - $2,200, what configuration would you opt for? I'm a little lost as to the revision history of the Macs since the first aluminum-cased machines were released, and it is making following the discussions on relative value difficult.

A couple of additional questions: Is it possible to get a matte screen on the newest 15.4 Macbook Pro? Is AppleCare as solid an investment as the equivalent (excellent) Lenovo warranty?

Thanks for your help!

What takes up space on my computer?

howgenerica — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 06:10:51 -0800

The memory on my Macbook is apparently completely full, but I don't know what could be taking up so much space. What can I do or download to find out?

Why can't I copy and paste in OS X 10.5.5?

milkman — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 09:34:27 -0800

Why won't my new Macbook let me copy and paste text in X 10.5.5?? Actually my girlfriend's computer. A Macbook 2.4GHz 4 GB. Just purchased it and installed the newest version of Leopard that came with the machine. The Copy and Paste function doesn't work.

In Firefox, pasting gives us a long line of what looks like some kind of hypertext code. In word, pasting yields nothing at all. It doesn't matter whether we use keypad shortcuts or the pull down menus to copy/paste.

I found this discussion on the apple help forums, but there doesn't seem to be any clear idea of what is happening. Is it possible that this has been going on for a couple of months and Apple hasn't addressed it? Do I just need to reinstall?

thanks

HDCP on DVDs?

middleclasstool — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:32:02 -0800

What is the future of HDCP -- are DVDs likely to adopt it, and is it going to mess me up? I'm going to buy a laptop, quite possibly as soon as Black Friday, and the new Macbook appears to be the big winner. My only concern now is the new revelation that Apple put HDCP in the new Macbooks, limiting your options on playing protected content on external screens.

This blows but is normally is not an issue for me, because I try like all hell to avoid downloading DRMed content and never shop iTMS, but what's the likelihood that future DVD releases could start putting HDCP protection on them? I anticipate using this as a DVD player while traveling, and I'd hate not to be able to hook it up to a TV or external monitor to watch a movie while on the road.