Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mac and pc

How to drive 12 interactives with one machine?

MrBobaFett — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 06:51:52 -0800

What do I use to drive a multi head (12 displays) interactive display wall? I want to use one machine to run 12 discrete slide shows. Each show is only 2 slides. Mac/PC? Software? The details. Looking to have 12 displays running. Currently looking at the ELO 1537L ACCUTOUCH with VGA in and USB out for the touch screen.

My boss is drawn to using a MacMini for it's very small form factor since it will be installed in the display wall as well. It looks like I can use an EVGA USB VGA Adapter to drive the video for the displays. This solution would probably also work if we switched to a Shuttle PC.

The big question I think is what software will let me run 12 discrete full screen interactive? The interactive is very simple, each display has a default image it displays constantly, until someone touches the touch screen, then it flips to a second slide with info on the graphic. After an amount of time flips back.

Is there something that will let me do that with one machine? I'm pretty sure PowerPoint would be fine if I used 12 different machines.

Is mac really better than pc? Help me buy a decent student computer.

Miss Mitz — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:27:51 -0800

I've been a happy Pc-er for the last couple years. That is, until a few months ago when my AVG failed me and my pavilion got all virused up... Twice. Ultimately I had to d-ban the poor thing. Since I was only 'mostly sure' I still had the original operating system disks, I have since been using my mom's mac. While I've been slowly getting used to the system (on a casual basis, no work yet, just internet) I still miss the windows format. My old tower is past it's prime, even with a new system. I'm about to become a student in English and am highly discouraged by previous Windows failings. Should I release the ghost and go with the more 'secure' mac? Or stick with my roots? I would like some advice on my next computer purchase. I'm looking for a laptop that can handle a students workload for the next... lets face it, many years, with minimal extras. The only thing it needs, is to be fast. I break things that go slow. I'm not looking to game (much) or download + store music (at all), I just need to research crap at high speed. All suggestions are greatly appreciated. Cheers!

Which video game classics did I miss the last three years?

wolfr — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:05:31 -0800

I intend to make this weekend a gaming weekend. I haven't played video games in a long time. At least not as seriously as I used to. Do you have any suggestions? I have a brand new iMac and an Xbox 360. I do not have a copy of Windows on my Mac yet but could theoretically use Boot Camp to install Windows XP on a partition of the hard drive. So don't feel limited to Mac only games svp.

In the past my favorite games have been Baldurs Gate II, Arcanum, Battlefield 1942, Deus Ex and Tony Hawk II.

I was addicted to World of a Warcraft for a while. I like stories and character progression. I like games with original themes (e.g. Psychonauts).

It seems like the only games I've played the last year or two years have been: Grand Theft Auto IV, Bioshock, Fallout 3, Skate, Soul Calibur IV. All on the Xbox. All of them very casually, although I did end up finishing all except Bioshock (which was good, but not relaxing, with all the dark rooms and scary things).

I am downloading the free 2 week trial of Eve Online right now, but I'd rather not get crazy about an MMORPG anymore. While my time in the World of Warcraft was wonderful, the whole game remains a slot machine with a nice interface.

No racing and sports please with the exception of snowboard/skateboard.

Who has suggestions for me?

Formatting Differences in MS Word on Windows vs Mac

spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:35:47 -0800

How consistent is MS Office between Windows and OSX? Will using MS Office on my Mac solve this formatting problem I'm having? I'm have a MacBook Pro running Leopard,and I've been using Open Office to write my papers. It's great. I love Open Office (and love that it's free). When I need to turn something in, I just save it in PDF format, e-mail it to myself, then go to a computer lab, check my e-mail, and print off the PDF document. Perfect.

The problem is that I have a professor who needs some documents turned in via e-mail, and they use MS Word. I can save an Open Office document as a Word file (.doc or .docx), and for plain text formatting that's fine, but as soon as an outline or numbered list is created, things look crazy. It seems fine when I save it in Open Office, and it's fine when I then open that document using Open Office, but if the document is opened with MS Word, the formatting is horrible.

I can buy the MS Office suite for Mac at school using my student discount (it's around $35 I think). If I install that, and use Word to create these documents, will they appear the same when my professor opens them using Word, on her Windows computer?

If there will still be differences then I'll skip the $35 and just keep going to the computer lab to tweak things.

If I save a document in MS Word on a Mac and send it to a person using MS Word on a PC, are there formatting differences?

Mac to PC help from far away

amethysts — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:29:33 -0800

I bought a used iMac G5 and I'm getting ready to send it to my mom as a gift. She hasn't used a mac since like 1995.What is a good program to install on here so that I can help her remotely? I'm on a PC. Free would be the best. I don't have a lot of money for this project. I'm thinking she might need a little help getting used to the whole OS X experience, and I may need to install things for her later on.

The computer is a G5 with OS X 10.4 with a PowerPC chip. I've found that this combination is nearly impossible to find software for. Neither of us has a webcam.

Any other suggestions for free software would be great. I've got iLife and iWorks 08 already.

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.

Switching BACK from a Mac to a PC: I know, I'm not cool. Help me anyway?

scody — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:38:42 -0800

About 5 years ago, I switched from PC to Mac. Now I'm most likely switching back. I have a couple of specific questions (about iTunes and viruses) and a few general questions. I am hoping everyone will play nice in keeping this this from devolving into a grand Mac vs. PC debate. I have nothing against Macs or Mac users, and if I didn't use a PC at work every day I am guessing I would have had an easier time adapting to my Mac over the years. (a/k/a: It's not you, it's me.)

My iBook is dead, dead, dead (I've checked into replacing the hard drive, and it's more time and money than it's worth). I had originally thought I'd just get a new Mac Mini, but on further reflection I realized that the only thing I like better about Macs, besides their admittedly superior aesthetics, is the fact that I don't have to worry about viruses. Nothing else about the system ever felt fully intuitive for me (again, no doubt because I'm on a PC all day).

My primary daily needs are email, web, music, and word processing. My gaming, such as it is, consists of playing Farmville on Facebook. I don't watch movies or TV shows on the computer, though if I had a system that could support it, I probably would. I don't do any graphic design, video editing, or suchlike.

With that in mind...

1. If I get a PC, does it matter that all of my music (which is all on my external hard drive, not on my dead iBook) is in iTunes for Mac? In other words, is there some big conversion from iTunes for Mac --> iTunes for PC that I'll have to go through?

2. I am assuming that Norton still sucks for virus/malware/etc. protection (at least it did back when I had my PC). If so, what are the kids using these days to keep the nasty stuff at bay?

3. A netbook (e.g., Acer or Dell) seems perfectly sufficient for my needs in terms of capacity. CAVEAT: I anticipate disliking the small screen and keyboard of a netbook when I'm not on the go (which is about 95% of the time), so intend to plug in my nice shiny flatscreen monitor and a regular keyboard/mouse to use most of the time instead. With that in mind, are there any particularly good reasons I should consider one of the ultra-small desktop PCs instead? Or does a netbook still make the most sense?

4. Entire investment must be under $500.

5. Anything else I am missing/overlooking? (Please note that in terms of tech savvy, it may help to think of me as your sort-of-cool aunt: clever enough to use Firefox instead of IE, but not clever enough to have figured out how to use Greasemonkey.)

Thanks!

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).

Transitioning from Mac to PC: Is there an expose-like feature? Your tips for coping with the transition?

NikitaNikita — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:00:29 -0800

Transitioning from Mac to PC: Is there an expose-like feature? Your tips for coping with the transition? There are a lot of Mac-specific (i think?) functions which greatly enhanced my ability to navigate through open windows and navigate my folders and desktop... namely, Expose. Any tricks to make my life easier at work now that I am on a PC? I'm even missing my mac shortcuts for locking my computer/turning it to screen saver with a macro or mouse movement.

I found a few good ones in this thread, like Windows+D, but any other tips would be helpful. I also use Outlook a lot if you've got tips related to that.

Thanks!

CD manufacturer identification on the Mac?

ignignokt — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:18:38 -0800

Is there a Mac equivalent to CDR Media Code Identifier. This could be run in Parallels, but I'm not sure it'll be able to get what it needs out of the DVD drive. And of course, it'd be nice to not have to run Parallels.

New midrange desktop computer in Canada?

Monday, stony Monday — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:41:41 -0800

Buying a new desktop computer for gaming, programming and photography, in Canada. My old (2001) computer isn't cutting it anymore; it only has USB 1.1, so transferring photos to it is a pain, and RAW processing is almost right out. It only has integrated graphics, so modern gaming is right out. It does okay for programming, but even simple IDEs (e.g.: DrScheme) are slow.

I need a new Desktop computer that will, ideally, allow me to run Fallout 3 at moderate detail, allow me to do some RAW processing on my photos, and allow me to run DrScheme relatively fast.

I'm live in Gatineau, right next to Ottawa, in Canada.

My options, as I see them:

1) Get a "name brand" computer, such as this Dell. Pros: I get a lot of computer for little money, and a warranty (no DOA parts, I hope). Problem: the affordable Dells (<1000$) have utterly basic graphic cards; I would have to get a new card or run games in low detail & resolution. I'm not completely sure putting a new card in one of those cheap computers is a good idea (heat, power supply). Other brands: I have a prejudice against Compaq/HP (bad experiences of friends). Are Acers any good?

2) Buy parts online (tigerdirect, ncix, newegg), build something myself from one of the online guides (djb, ars technica, techreport). Pros: I can get all the parts I want. Cons: it seems that I would get slightly less performance for my money; I have to assemble it myself, and may have to deal with some problems (DOA parts, incompabilities), which I'd rather not.

3) Buy a custom computer from a local shop. Pros: as with 2), I get to choose exactly what I want. The shop deals with assembly. Cons: probably more expensive than either 1) or 2). I don't know which local shops are reputable.

4) Go all out and buy a Mac (Fuck everything, we're doing 5 blades). Pros: Hell yeah, a Mac. Cons: the Mini seems to not have the power I need, so that's out. The desktops in my price range have integrated screens; I want something large, to that's going to cost me.

My budget: strictly online (credit card limit): $1400, taxes included, max, for the box. Brick and mortar: add $600 (it has to be worth it). I will be buying a screen, possibly separately.

Laptops are right out. If I'm building, I'm probably looking at the better price/performance ratio possible, which seems to mean AMD or maybe the new "mainstream Intel i5/i7". If you know of a good shop in Ottawa or Gatineau, please tell me!

Looking for old 90's mac/pc game involving a green haunted house...

frankie_stubbs — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:38:36 -0800

Looking for old 90's mac/pc game involving a green haunted house... The cover had a greenish haunted mansion on it and the object of the game was to go through the house and find clues to escape. You open random doors, talk to random creepy people, and play "educational" puzzle games. I remember beating it only once and I think the way out was through a fire escape type thing? I know if I see the title I will recognize it...I recall it being fairly long (meaning about 4 words or more), may have had a name in it, and for some reason, the word "spooky" and "mansion" comes to mind. And, I believe it was an educational game...

However, I looked up many other games and know that it isn't any of the following:

Spooky Mansion
Haunted Hotel
7th Guest
Transylvania
11th Hour
Phantasmagoria
Haunted House Quest

Choose Details in OS X

reenum — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:43:43 -0800

Mac OSX Filter: How can I change the details displayed for files in a directory while in list view? This may be a really easy question, but Google has failed me thus far.

When I used XP and viewed directories as lists, I could go to View and then click on 'Choose Details' to pick which file info I wanted displayed.

I can't seem to figure out how to do this on Mac OSX.

The reason I want to do this is because I listen to a lot of podcasts, and the title in the file info is often more instructive than the filename.

Is there any way to 'Choose Details' on Mac OSX?

How do I transfer these fonts?

kbanas — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:45:26 -0800

Fonts, fonts, fonts. I'm trying to move some fonts between platforms for a client and it is an absolute nightmare. I need some help understanding OS X font "suitcases" and what do with them! So, where I work, I've got two people collaborating on an InDesign project. One person is on a Mac. The other is on a PC.

Mac person is trying to send her work to PC person. She uses the "Package" function of InDesign to create a nice little bundle of work and all the necessary fonts and whiz-bang. I don't use InDesign, or have access to it, but I'm familiar in principle with what's happening at this stage.

I've got a copy of the fonts right here in front of me that she's trying to package up.

Several of them are "Postscript Type 1" fonts, and while I had some issues with resource forks and such, I managed to get these copied over onto a test Windows XP box without much trouble. I found a program called "MacDisk" that dispatched all the forking issues and gave me nice usable fonts I could directly import into Windows.

The trouble comes with the rest of the fonts, which are "Font Suitcase" bundles. Windows obviously has no idea what to do with these things. A lot of Googling introduced me to an app called fondu, which I ran on these suitcases and which promised to extract the font files.

On a couple of the suitcase packages, I got lovely True Type font files on the other side, and that's great and I am happy. However, for many of the suitcase files fondu simply produced dozens of BDF files.

I understand BDF files are "Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format", and Windows should be able to install them (according to the internets). However, when I attempt to drag these BDF files into the WINDOWS\FONTS directory, I get the message that Windows is "unable to install the font. The file is either invalid or damaged!"

Well, shit.

So, I guess what I'm asking, knowing relatively little about fonts, is how would one go about getting a "Font Suitcase" package from an OS X environment onto a Windows environment?

Phew.

How to make the Mac play nice with my Sansa?

reenum — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:44:49 -0800

How to sync Macbook with a non-iPod MP3 player? I have a Sansa e250, and I love it. I also love my new Mac. However, I've been having a small issue with syncing music onto the Sansa.

On my old Windows machine, I used to have a Sansa folder on my hard drive and then would just sync both folders each week using a program called Allway Sync, which removed listened to MP3's and added on the new stuff I'd downloaded that week.

With the Mac, I can't find a similar program, possibly due to the dominance of iTunes.

So, Hive Mind, is there a program or method I can use to get this functionality on my Mac?

Simple Mac/PC Network

rossination — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:57:06 -0800

I have an old iBook G4 (Tiger) that I would like to use as a low-budget "media server". I'd like to set it up with an external hard drive so that our other two computers (laptop running Vista and netbook running XP) can access its files over our wireless network. I'm pretty clueless with networking stuff, but I'm able to set up a workgroup so that I can view the iBook's files from the PCs. I'm not able to get to the external hard drives, though. I thought I'd be able to put aliases to these drives in the iBook's home directory and navigate over to it, but that didn't work.

The hard drive is currently formatted for Mac OS, which I understand isn't readable by a PC without a program like MacDrive. If I reformatted the drive as FAT32 (or bought a copy of MacDrive), would I be able to access files from one of the Windows computers?

Also (less importantly), I'm not able to get to the Windows computers from the Mac. I've gone through some online tutorials but they seem mainly focused on PC/PC networks or Mac/Mac networks, and/or they assume that I'm running Leopard.

I thought that this would be pretty easy to Google a solution to, but so far I'm stuck.

Does Not Compute

misha — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:17:42 -0800

Please help me find the best laptops for our teens! Specifics inside. We have decided to get new computers for our teens--the younger is entering high school and needs it for school, while the older is really into animation and we want to encourage that interest.

I was originally looking at the Mac mini. We decided on laptops because we like portability and assume they will as well, they want webcams AND their high school prefers the Windows setup to Mac.

I'd still be up for Macs, because I feel they are more secure against viruses and the like, if we could get below $1000 each. The basic white 13" Macbooks at the Apple store are $999 and we're hoping to get under that price. I know we can run Windows programs on them with the right software.

Here's what we want:

Memory--lots of it. Can't get too much of this. Would rather have more than the 4GB the Macbook starts with.

Graphics-- Is the NVIDIA Ge Force 9400M the best choice for animation and gaming? Could we do better?

Preferably under $999 each!

Here's what they want:

High-speed--both love to chat on Google and have complained about speeds with the ancient models we have now (an old desktop and a G3 iBook).

Webcam--yes, we know all about internet safety, thanks!

Incredible sound--the oldest is really into music and his friends are in a band, so he wants the best audio he can get, even if this means peripheral speakers. Would love recommendations for these as well!

Software

If we got a Mac, we'd need to be able to run Windows programs on it as well--what software would we need, and how much is that going to cost?

We do not qualify (damn it) for educational discounts from Apple for the free iPod Touch promotion, as kids have to be accepted into college OR a parent needs to be a full-time teacher.

Thanks so much for your help!

What do I need to look at when buying a new laptop?

reenum — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:28:05 -0800

I'm in the market for a new laptop. Should I get a PC or Mac? What specs are important for me to look at when making a decision? My Toshiba Satellite A65 seems to be on its last legs, so I think I'm getting a new laptop.

In researching, I've become confused as to which specs really matter when looking at a computer.

Here's what I would use it for:
- E-mail, IM, and Web
- Watching DVDs
- BitTorrent
- Word processing and spreadsheets
- Tracking my finances
- Some music creation (mostly breakbeats)

I've seen some places say that I need as much RAM as possible, others stress the importance of a large hard drive, yet others say I need the fastest processor.

Also, any recommendations as to brands that are more reliable than others?

Please help!

Hard Drive wipeout

mike_bling — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:57:06 -0800

Hard drive recovery: my external USB hard drive is mounting fine on both my mac and PC, however, all the files are showing up as garbage characters. It's also reporting that the drive is 95% full, when it definitely wasn't anywhere near that. I've already used Data Rescue II to get copies a few of my most important files, I'm just wondering if there is anything more I should try before I format the drive and start over. It seems like the index was corrupted, but there is nothing physically wrong with the drive.

PC won't recognize my HD.

reenum — Mon, 04 May 2009 07:14:21 -0800

My computer is having problems with recognizing capacity of hard drives or recognizing the drives at all. I have an old Dell desktop tower. It has a 1.8 Ghz processor and 384 MB of RAM. I use it mostly to store my music and surf the web, so it doesn't need to be top of the line. It has a 40GB drive, and a second hard drive my dad installed.

On Friday, I tried to replace the existing second HD with a 250GB drive. When I started up the unit after replacing drives, the computer wouldn't boot. It kept asking for a boot disk.

So, I swapped the original drive back in. As I was putting that drive back in, I noticed that it has a listed capacity of 120GB. However, when installed, the computer shows it as being a 40GB HD.

I'd like to have more storage on my computer. So, is there a way for me to get this PC to recognize the full capacity of the 120GB HD or to boot up with the 250GB HD?

How to get my old Pro Tools Mac projects to work with my new Pro Tools for PC?

Flitcraft — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:26:14 -0800

Pro Tools Mac to Pro Tools PC. How can I successfully transfer Pro Tools LE 5.1.1 sessions kept on Lacie Pocket HDs like this, formatted for use with old Macs (OS 9.2) for use with my Pro Tools Mbox2 Micro (which I think is running LE 7.4) on my laptop PC (Windows XP)? I've looked at the digidesign pages but I'm not very technical at all, and I don't even know where to start. I suspect that the hard drives with FireWire are formatted to work with Macs not PCs (I've heard something called FAT 32 mentioned?).

I'd be equally happy if people could point me to where I could find someone who I could pay to do it for me, so long as it wasn't fiendishly expensive. I'm in Edinburgh Scotland, but also I'm often in London. What might really help is being able to find a Pro Tools specialist who could advise me on the best way forward, as the organisation I work for has developed an IT policy which is hostile to Pro Tools but I need to keep my archive projects viable and accessible and want to keep editing on it at home for some projects where it is the best answer. Thanks!

Two fingers are better than one.

Nonce — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 23:06:13 -0800

Tell me how to make this laptop, running Vista 64, do the Mac two-finger scroll.

Adobe Audacity vs Logic Express

treepour — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:04:40 -0800

Switched to Mac, looking for Adobe Audacity replacement. Should I go for Logic Express? I used Audacity primarily for two things (in order priority):

1) Splicing existing recordings together as seamlessly as possible. Here I used the "Echo Chamber" effects quite extensively. These helped create the sense that the musicians stopped playing and then started playing something else -- the ambient echo of the previous section carried on into the next.

2) Severely warping recorded sounds via a variety of filters/effects, combining them together via the multitrack interface, mixing the multiple tracks down to single tracks then continuing the process.

Can I do these kinds of things with Logic Express? Or would I be better off using Audacity via Windows vmware? Learning a new piece of software isn't a problem, I just want to make sure that the software will enable the kinds of things I want to do. Also, any other similarly-priced Mac recommendations for this sort of thing besides Logic Express would be appreciated.

Why won't my PC read my SD card?

reenum — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:47:55 -0800

My PC can't read my SD card. What gives? I have a 4 GB SD card in my digital camera. Last night, I tried to download the pics from the card using one of those 9-in-1 card readers.

My PC had trouble reading the card and when I finally double clicked to try and access the drive assigned to the SD card, it said that it was inaccessible due to an I/O error. This same error occurred on my laptop and work computer as well. All these computers run XP.

Any ideas on how I fix this and get at my pics?

I need a handheld trackball

reenum — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:51:12 -0800

I'm looking for a handheld trackball mouse. Recommendations? I've recently had pain in my wrist and forearms, so I think it's time to move away from the traditional mouse.

To this end, I've been looking at trackballs. I had one of these Fellowes Micro Tracs back in college and don't like that sort of trackball where you place the trackball between the thumb and forefinger.

Rather, I'm looking for a trackball like the one pictured here. However, I've never heard of the brand that is in the previous link and want to make sure I get something that works well and won't have to be sent back after a day.

Any suggestions?