Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mac and macintosh

Writer meets arthritis

grumblebee — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:18:40 -0800

Mac voice-recognition software for a writer with arthritis. My father's arthritis is making it more and more difficult for him to type. This is hard for him, because he's been a writer for decades (over 25 books and countless articles). He is considering switching to voice-recognition software.

Here are some things to note:

- He is originally from England but has lived in the US since the 1950s. He is a very clear speaker, but his accent is a mix of British (cockney originally) and American.

- He owns a Mac.

- He is not highly computer literate, but he lives in a university town and could find people to help him set things up if necessary. He probably will have trouble if the voice-recognition software itself is overly complicated to use.

I am looking for any advice and experiences with this. What is the state of the art these days? What's available for the Mac? What is the experience like for people who are heavy users?

Need help setting up AirPort on my Mac

Joseppi — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:52:14 -0800

I'm trying to set up an AirPort on my Mac and I'm having some issues. It's asking for OS X 10.4 and I'm running 10.5 but it still doesn't work. Any clue as to why this is happening? I'm trying to set up an AirPort on my Mac and I'm having some issues. When I try and install the software I get a message that says, "You cannot install AirPort on this volume. The version of Mac OS X on this volume is not supported." It's asking for volume 10.4 and I'm on 10.5. This is beyond frustrating as this is supposed to be such a simple process. Does anyone know what my issue might be?

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.

Options for a small & cheap Mac laptop?

attercoppe — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:01:07 -0800

What are my options for a cheap, small Mac laptop? I'm on a tight budget, but would love to get a laptop. I've been looking at netbooks because I love the light weight and small size. However, I may be about to get a job at my school, which basically is an Apple campus, so now I'm considering a Mac instead. I'd still like to find something cheap, small and light, and with some serious battery life. Of course one option is to buy a used or refurbed Mac (maybe an Air?). Could I also buy a netbook and install OS X? Or install some *nix - how compatible (not look and feel but interoperability) would this be?

P.S. I could probably do some research and get some good info, but I thought I'd see what ya'll can tell me first. I've read other questions here, and they seem to be either out of date or about desktops (or both).

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!

Little deaths 4kb at a time

arniec — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:27:59 -0800

Is my data gone? Convoluted data storage question involving two Macs, a Drobo, and some file permission errors... Question on possible recovery options, and questions on how to stop it from happening again. I have recently switched to a mostly Mac household, with one Windows XP machine and one Windows laptop still around.

For data storage I picked up a Drobo and put in 3 1TB disks on it. I have it hooked to a Mac Mini on the network so it can be used for data storage. I have been moving files off my primary machine (a Macbook Pro) to the Drobo when space was needed on my hard drive.

I have gone back to get some of that data and I cannot get to it. I get the error message:

Item "itemName" is used by Mac OS X and cannot be opened.

I have tried opening these files from my Macbook Pro, from the Mac Mini where the Drobo is directly connected, I've tried moving the files to a new location, opening the files, etc. and I keep getting that same message.

I have checked and even reset all the file permissions to ensure my account does have rights but still the file won't open.

Now it appears many of the files are only 4k or 8k making me think that something went wrong. I'm guessing these files are names only taking up the minimum possible space on the disk and that my data is gone...is that right?

But I don't know if something went wrong when moving the data to the Drobo, when just being stored on the Drobo, or something else. Has anyone encountered anything like this at all?

Help keep my old Powerbook G4 on WiFi. (Technical Mac Question.)

Mid — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:57:25 -0800

Help keep my old Powerbook G4 on WiFi. (Technical Mac Question.) I have an older Powerbook G4 that has seen better days. At some point, the internal Airport card stopped working (I think because the internal antenna broke after a fall). I then popped an external wireless card into the PC slot (the Morotola WN825G) and it worked like a charm for 2+ years. Suddenly, however, the external card is dead. None of the LEDs light up and the computer does not detect it in any program or profiler. I bought a new card (they're only $20) and got the same result. I have done about every kind of reset there is -- battery and power out overnight, reset-nvram in the firmware, control-apple-PR, etc and there is no change. When I look at "Console," nothing happens when I put the card in and pull it out -- i.e., the computer is not registering that a card is in the slot as far as I can tell.

Here are my questions:

1. I have not done any software re-installs. Is it worth it to start re-installing the OS? This seems more like a hardware problem, no? If I re-install, do I need to wipe the drive and start over? Or can I just re-install the system on existing drive?

2. I have not done anything with drivers. I'm pretty sure the Mac does not need a driver to operate this card because the card uses the same chipset as the orginal Airport card.

3. Assuming this is a hardware issue, should I just junk the machine? I feel like anything over $250 is wasted in a machine that is already pretty beat up.

Thanks for your thoughts and guesses.

What software should I organize my pictures with, when I need seperation into 3 topics?

jakobmunster — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:45:41 -0800

Can anyone recommend me software for a mac, that can help improving my workflow and organization of images, while I keep the images separated into 3 topics? It's possible to categorize my photography this way: 50% hobby photography (or you could call it experimenting and improving my skills), 40% pro photography for costumers while the last 10% goes to "niche photography".

I'd like a piece (or pieces) of software for a mac, that would help me keep my images organized. I've tried programs like Lightroom and Aperture, but it ends up beeing a mess, as I'd like to keep the 3 topics of my photography seperated.

My workflow:
- Import RAW images
- Convert to DNG
- Sort the pictures in keepers and delete the rest
- Rate the pictures. I prefer to use a star rating
- Process the pictures with photo-editing software
- Archive all the pictures and export the ones I would like to display immediately

Suggestions to improving my workflow, is also very welcome.

Can anyone recommend me a combination of software, that will let me do my workflow and still keep my images organized and seperated into the 3 main topics?

Looking for a printer without the problems of finicky ink.

blueberry — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:36:09 -0800

[MomFilter] Looking for a reasonably cheap, reliable printer (for printing text) for an iMac. Leaning towards laser as the experiences with inkjets have been that bouts of little use lead to still full, yet dry and thus worthless ink cartridges. Looking for a printer for my Mom's iMac. She is wanting to print up a bunch of stories she has written, so the printer will only be used for text.
(No need for color, an attached scanner, or anything else)

She's had two cheap inkjets in the past where they were cheap to buy, but then you got gouged on the ink cartridges. These printers would up being a bit like "disposables" or white elephants—either getting gummed up after a while, or she'd not print anything for a month or two by which time the ink would have dried up or otherwise stopped working.

Fellow MeFites, do you own or know of any reasonably cheap (both pre- and post-sale), reliable b/w laser printers that you can recommend out there? Also, am I correct in guessing that laser toner has a longer "shelf life"?

Or, if lasers are too spendy, do you own or can you otherwise recommend an über-reliable inkjet that, say, you can just buy black ink for, and you've never had gum up or dry up on you?

Thanks all!

If the Amish used computers...

Sys Rq — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:58:12 -0800

How do I get files from my modern PC onto an ancient Macintosh? I have come into some ancient MIDI gear, and I would like to put it to work. I have a vintage 68K Mac SE running System 7, loaded with all the MIDI stuff (OMS, Mirage), hooked up to all the necessary external doodads. All that's missing is an actual MIDI sequencing program like Opcode Vision or MOTU Performer or whatever.

Aside from constantly scouring eBay, the only way to get such software is to download it. Sounds easy enough (I've found it), except that the Mac has its original 800KB floppy drive. Fun.

Question: How do I get the files from my PC (Windows XP; floppy drive: yes) onto a disk that can be read by the Mac? I'd rather not upgrade the drive (it requires upgrading the motherboard), and I'd rather not curb the SE for a sexy young SE FDHD. I just want to get the files from A to B in the simplest way possible (is it possible?) given what I have.

Any help greatly appreciated.

P.S. I don't need to be told how stupid and unnecessary this is. Really.

On the spinning wheel ride

otolith — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 12:33:30 -0800

The Gray Screen of Death: another hanging Mac question. A friend of mine generously gave me her older iBook G4 that she didn't need any more. However, the other day when I tried to turn it on it got to the gray screen with the apple logo and the spinning wheel and hung there. That's as far as I've been able to go since then. Neither my friend nor I are 100% positive what OS it's running, but I'm pretty sure it's 10.4.1. Now, bearing in mind that I'm not terribly competent at fixing computer problems, I've tried what seem to be the standard quick fix ideas and here's what happens:

-Starting in safe mode: it gets to the gray screen, stays there for a minute, then shuts itself down again.

-Resetting the PRAM and NVRAM: no change.

-Starting in verbose mode gets me to this message:

Checking disk
Mounting local filesystems
/dev/diskOs3 on / (local)
kern.sysv.shmmax: -1 -> 4194304
kern.sysv.shmin: -1 -> 1
kern.sysv.shmmni: -1 -> 32
kern.sysv.shmseg: -1 -> 8
kern.sysv.shmall: -1 -> 1024
Resetting files and devices
mkdir: /private/tmp: No such file or directory

and it stops there.

Further complication: the computer originally came with OS 10.3.5 and I have the disks for that. However, as I said before, I'm pretty positive that it is now running something above 10.4 (my friend must have upgraded at some point, but she doesn't remember how or when). The tip sheets that I've seen online all say NOT to use disks with an older OS to attempt fixes. My friend also offered to lend me the disks for her current Mac, which are OS 10.5.2 but I'm not sure if that will help me. My question(s) are, can I potentially use any of these disks to do some sort of diagnosis or fix on the computer? If so, which ones and how (again bearing in mind that I'm pretty clueless about this stuff)? Based on the information given, can you think of any other ideas that might fix this problem? Thanks, folks.

Baby got too much back

lukemeister — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:53:41 -0800

How can I consolidate all my pictures, music, pdf files, etc. from multiple drives? I have about 10 external drives containing photos and so forth. Different drives contain some duplicates, but the individual drives do not. Say I want to copy the files from DRIVE1, DRIVE2, etc. to UBERDRIVE, which has room for everything. My first thought was

cd /Volumes/DRIVE1; find . -name "*.jpg" -exec cp {} /Volumes/UBERDRIVE/Pictures/ \;

and then repeating the process for DRIVE2 and so on.

I tried this for DRIVE1, and it seems to be really slow. (It's taken 10 hours thus far to find 100,000 jpgs on a new MacBook Pro.) Also, I think my current procedure will overwrite files with the same name, even if they're different files.

Does anyone have a better approach? Thanks!

I'm running Leopard, but I also have machines running Vista, XP, and Fedora 10.

Quicksilver loses track of moved files. Why no?

middleclasstool — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:48:12 -0800

How can I get Quicksilver to keep track of files that have moved? I'm running QS B54 on OS X Leopard, and love the heck out of it, but I have only one problem with it (beyond some minor buggy lack of functionality since a1c0r stopped supporting it, anyway). The problem is that I'm also running Hazel, and I have a rule set up that scans for anything in my Documents folder that's been untouched for more than n weeks and moves it to a subfolder labeled "Archive." Keeps only new and relevant stuff in Documents, so it's easier to browse.

However, I've noticed that after Hazel moves a file, QS can't see it anymore. If I go browsing for a file in my archive folder and manually open it, then QS again has it indexed, but I'd rather (if this is possible) somehow configure QS so it keeps track of the file or folder even after it's been archived. Is there a way to do this?

This has been bugging me since I first forgot about it..

mediocre — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:45:01 -0800

So there was this crazy, inappropriate, at-the-time-considered-pornographic Mac game I used to play in 6th grade when I would nab it from unsecured Rutgers FTP servers. My middle school was lucky enough to be wired into the internet, considering this was 1991 that is pretty cool. Even if all it amounted to was a lot of kids being frustrated trying to use Gopher to find anything and spending 10 minutes trying to keep the teacher from looking while you downloaded a Christina Applegate lookalike spread eagle GIF image.

But there was this game that we found, and once it was on a disk it spead like wildfire and eventually was banned and all students who had a copy were suspended. I don't remember what it was called, but it was a sort of point and click adventure game.

It resembled a Point And Click adventure game, but it was not.

The beginning may or may not have involved Mr. Rogers trolley that led to imaginationland.

If you typed "Shit." then a pile of shit would appear on the screen and would fight you. You would always lose against your own shit, effectively losing the game for you.

If you ran into a woman, you could rape her by typing Rape Woman. She would get naked, scream, and I think you ended up in jail. Game Over.

This is all I can really remember. It may have been called "Psychotic", but I honestly have no clue.

Hive mind help?

It was a MAC game, played on Mac Classics. The rooms were single cards with no animations to speak of. It resembled a Hypercard stack, but probably wasn't.

Hypercard stack to Mac Address Book?

woot — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:59:09 -0800

How can I move all 1200 of my dad's Hypercard addresses to Mac Address Book? Fifteen years ago my dad started using Hypercard's Address Book stack. It's time to convert all 1200 cards of it to Mac's Address Book format. I've done some research into this and while I've found apps that will *open* a Hypercard stack, I can't find something that will either export the stack into a text format or convert it right over to Address Book. Please help me, hive mind, you're my only hope.

Turn John Hodgman into Justin Long

lukemeister — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:39:51 -0800

What are the Mac equivalents of great Windows software? This was a great question about what a Mac person should install on a Windows box. I'm going the other way, as my office kindly bought me a new MacBook Pro. I'm a scientist and haven't used a Mac since OS 7.5. For the past decade my machines have been Windows, Linux, or dual-boot. Freeware/shareware programs I use a lot under Windows: Cygwin, Essential PIM, FLVplayer, IrfanView, Maxima, Openoffice.org, Scilab, Winamp, Xemacs, Xplorer2 pro. Commercial software: Mathematica, IDL, occasionally Microsoft Office. I'm mostly interested in freeware or shareware such as great text and image editors, tex/latex, and other nerdware. Thanks! Naturally, the new laptop runs Leopard.

La Cie external drive failure

gen — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 17:27:01 -0800

Mac, Leopard, La Cie external hard disk drive spins but does not mount. What's my best option for getting data off this drive? I've got an external La Cie drive that won't mount. I've tried 3 of the 4 interfaces (USB 2.0, FW400, FW800) but cannot get this disk to mount. What are my best options for getting this data before retiring this drive?

Waiting for Migration Assistant

pzarquon — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:28:38 -0800

I started migration assistant before I knew how long it would take. Am I screwed? So we finally got the new MacBook Pros in Honolulu, and I took my lunch break to get one. (Yes, after this question, I decided to wait and go new.) Got back to my desk, connected the MBP to my old MacBook via FireWire 400-to-800 cable, and started Migration Assistant.

Except it says it will take 6 hours, and I need to unplug in three, and there ain't no cancel button.

Yes, I know, I should've waited 'til I got home. (Could you? Don't answer that.) Yes, I know, I should've just selected my apps (which is what I most wanted migrated, I could get my giant documents and other folders later). But the button was pushed and now I'm wondering:

1. If I unplug the MacBook and MBP and run on battery, will the Migration Assistant continue? Or is it something that will only function on AC power?

2. If for whatever reason the Migration Assistant dies, does it recover gracefully?

3. How accurate is the time estimate? It actually went up from six hours to six hours and 40 minutes (making me panic even more), then seems to now be dropping faster than realtime. Though I've also read elsewhere that last one percent actually takes a big chunk of time.

I'm confident in Migration Assistant after reading positive comments here. But all the tutorial videos I've found conveniently skip the long wait part of this process!

how to post myspace comments to multiple friends on a mac?

binocularfight — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:57:40 -0800

is there an application that works on a mac that will allow me to post comments to multiple myspace friends at once? myspace is such a pain in my ass. i'm managing a page for this all girls bicycle gang in milwaukee, and we need to send out comment postings to our members pretty regularly. we have about 175 friends, so it takes me FOREVER. i know there are programs that work on a pc that will allow you to post comments to multiple people at a time. the problem is i have a mac (specifically, a powerbook g4 running os x 10.4.11). is there anything i can use on a mac that will allow me to post comments to all my myspace members at once? or at least a bunch of my members at once? i'm hoping i don't have to install virtual pc to do this. but if that's the only way, what kind of experience have you had with virtual pc? can i trust it?

It's better to burn out then to fade away

spicynuts — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:23:18 -0800

MacBook Pro screen weirdness - feature or bug? I just bought a MacBook Pro two weeks ago. Haven't used a Mac since college (I think I mentioned this in my last question about Macs). When I am on battery power, the screen will modulate in brightness - fading in and out occassionally. It never really goes dark, but about every 3 minutes it will fade briefly then flare back up to normal brightness. Is this a setting I don't know about - some kind of power saving thing? Or is there something wrong and I should be concerned?

#@$%!!! Flash!!

serazin — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:17:21 -0800

Annoyingly specific question about a failed Flash installation on a Mac: 1. Some website told me to update flash. In retrospect, I think I already had version 9, but I went to the Adobe sight and downloaded the installer for power PC Macs anyway.
2. The installer opens fine and then gets to "Items remaining to be installed: 4" and just stops. Nothing happens from there even if left all night.
3. So I go download the UNinstaller. Downloads fine, but when I open it, my computer freezes - every time.
4. Have tried restarting computer several times.
5. Opened Terminal and put in:
cd "/Volumes/Adobe Flash Player 9/Install Flash Player 9 UB/Contents/MacOS"
It says: No such file or directory

sudo "./Install Flash Player 9 UB"
It says: command not found

6: For the hell of it, I also used Disk Utility to Repair Disk Permissions.

Computer Specs: iBook G4, Power PC, OS 10.4.8. I mostly use Firefox 2 but also have Safari and Explorer.

Flash does not work at all on my computer now, which is a problem. Any suggestions would be appreciated! I also welcome you to tell me a better forum for this question! Thank you! !!

Where should an aspiring indie Mac developer and his family move: SF Bay Area or Seattle (or Other)?

mboszko — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:34:56 -0800

My wife and two kids and I are not able to renew the lease on the house we're renting in a Maryland suburb of DC (the landlord is selling his other house and moving back into this one), so we're looking to move at the end of August. I've also been contemplating a career change for a while, and as this "opportunity" has dropped in our lap, we're thinking about making a city change as well, that would benefit my intended Mac development career, possibly to the SF Bay Area or Seattle. (more inside) Currently, I am a video post-production professional (doing mostly offline/online editing for History/Discovery cable TV series, but with some simpler motion graphics, some small video engineering work), but I'm working toward my goal of becoming an independent Mac software developer. Of course, with my current workload, I've been finding it very hard to ramp up on the coding, and also could really use the support and inspiration of a weekly coder meeting like NSCoder or something akin to that.

So, my big goal is to find somewhere where I can:
A.) Continue doing video work on a freelance or employed basis, while I
B.) Meet regularly with a like-minded community of independent Mac developers,
C.) Find a reasonably priced rental with 3 bedrooms within a 45-60m drive from the city, and
D.) My wife can continue to homeschool the kids, assuming living expenses are reasonable enough, or a place that has phenomenal public schooling, if expenses are high enough to require her to go back to work.
E.) Optional and ideal would be finding an indie Mac software house that needs video work, and would be willing to entertain programming questions from a budding Mac dev. ;-)

Right now, I'm considering the Bay Area (maybe living north in Petaluma or such), Seattle, and taking a glance at Portland and Chicago. I suspect the Bay Area would be best for me professionally, since there's a decent amount of video production and incredible Mac developer resources, but I'm afraid the housing situation may preclude that.

Sell me on your city - any advice or recommendations are welcome. Thanks!

Good emulators for OS X Intel?

NucleophilicAttack — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:54:20 -0800

Please recommend good entertainment console emulators for Mac OS X Intel. I used to use zsnes, nesticle, ultraHLE, Bleem, etc. a few years ago under DOS and Wintel, but I'm no longer sure what the applications of choice are under OS X Intel.

Please suggest whatever is best from the free/open, and payware sides.

Thanks!

Dead Macbook: how do I get the data off?

jeffmshaw — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:47:51 -0800

My MacBook (mid-2007) just crapped out. I can't afford a pro data extraction fix. Is there any other option? The hard drive is dead and Apple says they've had luck extracting the applications but nothing from the user file.

Also, if I want my bad hard drive, Apple says they have to reverse their repairs and put the old drive in. I can;t have the fixed laptop AND the old hard drive. I've heard people fighting about this at the Genius Bar before. Is there any way around this?

Not So Mighty Mouse

Doctor Suarez — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:35:18 -0800

Help me find a (non-Mighty) mouse for my Mac that can be programmed to function with Exposé and Spaces. I've been using my Mac Pro for a few years now, and the Mighty Mouse is starting to drive me crazy. The scroll ball jams up every few days and has to be thoroughly cleaned and smacked around just to work again.

I also have a Logitech gaming mouse from my previous PC, but it doesn't have the ability to assign buttons to Exposé and Spaces, which is something I really, really enjoy.

Is there a 3rd party mouse that can be programmed to take on these functions, but doesn't have that horrible little scroll ball of the Mighty Mouse?

If not, can I either clean the scroll ball so that it STAYS clean, or get software to make my Logitech (MX 5000, I think) work properly?

It doesn't have to be cordless, and it doesn't have to be too gamer-friendly, since I switch to my Logitech for WoW, etc. anyway.

Thanks.