I now own a MacBook Pro 17". And now I have some questions relating to MacOS and Windows 7, hardware upgrades and getting Applecare-on-the-cheap. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 on Nov 11, 2009 - 19 answers

Is there a way to reduce the margins between pages when printing two pages per sheet in Leopard / OSX? [more inside]
posted by phyrewerx on Jun 21, 2009 - 5 answers

Do Civilization IV mods such as Fall From Heaven and Fall From Heaven 2 work in the Mac OSX version of Civ IV? [more inside]
posted by ChrisR on Mar 13, 2009 - 3 answers

What's the best software for automated online backups for OSX? [more inside]
posted by c:\awesome on Dec 25, 2008 - 13 answers

Mac users who write LaTeX documents in Emacs (with or without AucTeX), please tell me about your workflow. [more inside]
posted by gleuschk on Oct 4, 2008 - 10 answers

Mac OS 10.5: why can't I disable root login? [more inside]
posted by neuron on Sep 11, 2008 - 4 answers

Great MeFites, I come bearing but a humble request. I bought a MacBook Pro about six months before Leopard was released. When it finally came out, I installed it on a partition on an external drive, which I would boot from (because OS X is awesome like that, amirite?) so I could test out all my apps. Now I'm ready to commit to Leopard full-time - what's the best way to go about transplanting my Leopard partition? [more inside]
posted by indiewizard on Aug 18, 2008 - 6 answers

Please recommend good entertainment console emulators for Mac OS X Intel. [more inside]
posted by NucleophilicAttack on Mar 11, 2008 - 8 answers

I would basically like to rip off, wholesale, some command-line script which will provide me a countdown -- only in days. No years, months, minutes, or seconds. Unfortunately, adapting an existing script is beyond my ken. [more inside]
posted by WCityMike on Sep 27, 2007 - 5 answers

.chm to PDF conversion, Mac OS X. There seems to be no easy way to do it. Does anyone have an effective and trustworthy workflow they can recommend? (more inside) [more inside]
posted by Señor Pantalones on Sep 23, 2007 - 11 answers

Some sound design questions to follow up on this golden moldy oldie... [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Sep 17, 2007 - 14 answers

When I use the magnifying glass in the Mac OS X colour picker, I get a colour value darker than what I clicked on. Why? [more inside]
posted by Mikey-San on Jun 21, 2007 - 1 answer

Can Mac OS X Mail be configured to autonomously process email, and based on specific From: and Subject: lines, save the attachment(s) of that email into a specific folder? [more inside]
posted by jaimev on Jun 19, 2007 - 6 answers

Is it possible to selectively mirror windows to a second screen (projector) on Mac OS X? [more inside]
posted by rbs on Apr 9, 2007 - 7 answers

Burning DVDs: I want to get clips from (commercial and locked) DVDs and into a new DVD for class, with a menu system. I've seen this explanation, but I have a Mac (OS X, I could be convinced to upgrade to 10.4 if necessary). What's the easiest and/or best way to do this? [more inside]
posted by barnone on Jan 18, 2006 - 11 answers

Sharing hard-drives between Linux and Mac OSX (tiger). Which filesystem? [more inside]
posted by odinsdream on Aug 24, 2005 - 18 answers

Looking for: OS X MP3 player with good ability to scroll through long files easily and accurately. [more inside]
posted by odinsdream on Aug 6, 2005 - 7 answers

MacFilter: How do you make the screen fonts bigger in OS X? I've just upgraded my grandmother from a virus-infested WinME box to a 17" iMac G5. Unfortunately, the text is much too small for her to read clearly, and she wants her WinMe box back. I've changed the resolution down to 1024x768. Other than seriously degrading the image quality, it doesn't make the fonts much larger.

I'm comfortable working with the command line and editing plists, so don't hold anything back.
posted by b1tr0t on Jan 26, 2005 - 15 answers

Macmini alternatives. I was considering purchasing a Mac Mini to make it a relatively inexpensive home media center, but after upgrading the hard drive to 80GB, adding Bluetooth for a wireless keyboard & mouse, buying the wireless keyboard & mouse, adding 802.11g for home networking, etc the $499 price tag was closer to $850 or more. Can anyone recommend a Windows box manufacturer who makes small form factor PCs for this kind of application?
posted by jonson on Jan 20, 2005 - 26 answers

Problems with Windows Media and OS X. (more inside) [more inside]
posted by Cryptical Envelopment on Dec 11, 2004 - 7 answers

An iSight / iBook / EvoCam question concerning non-refreshing images and possibly firewire power inside ... [more inside]
posted by terrapin on Dec 7, 2004 - 2 answers

I have a Treo 600. I was using Mac OSX Palm HotSync to sync the phone, and started to have some problems here and there. Went ahead and set up Apple's Isync to handle the task, and now my Palm "To Do" list does not sync in the process. Anyone know what gives or how to get my "To Do" to sync via Isync?
posted by sharksandwich on Dec 1, 2004 - 2 answers

Best way to play the latest Windows Media movies under OS X? [more inside]
posted by inksyndicate on Nov 30, 2004 - 11 answers

Death of an iBook. A couple hours ago, in the exact instant that I pushed the button to turn off my iBook G4, the iBook made a weird sound, its power was cut out immediately and abruptly went dead in a split-second (instead of the usual, slower process). It doesn't restart. It doesn't. Batteries are OK, by the way. Two questions: how bad is it, is it just electrical or the hard disk has been damaged as well? Also, I have put a lot of expensive software (Photoshop CS, Toast Titanium, Office, etc) in it. I still have the cd's and serial numbers, will I be able to reinstall them when the iBook's been fixed? It is still under guarantee, it's 7 months old. (more inside) [more inside]
posted by matteo on Nov 1, 2004 - 11 answers

I've got a network in my home - one PC, connected by wire to the router, and one Apple, connected by an Airport card (which I believe is 802.11G). The fastest speed I can get transferring files from one to the other is 2.5MB/s, which seems slow. Am I right, or is this standard?
posted by ascullion on Oct 21, 2004 - 4 answers

Can I use the OSX CDs that came with my iBook to upgrade a desktop G4 from OS9? [more inside]
posted by kmel on Oct 12, 2004 - 10 answers

ColorFilter
When I create a background color is MS Word, and then print it out, the yellow on the screen takes on a green cast, and after a bit of fiddling, I can't seem to compensate for this effect. Is this inevitable, or, is this a function of working on a 5 year-old iMac, whose screen is losing it's phosphors? Any suggestions on how to efficiently match the screen color to the paper color? (I've adjusted the screen options in the OS already)
posted by ParisParamus on Oct 3, 2004 - 4 answers

My own blue thread makes me want to know how I can record these concerts (Real media streams) to my hard drive and then convert to MP3 and then break them up into individual tracks. I'm on OS X Panther and prefer iTunes but will download whatever.
posted by dobbs on Sep 19, 2004 - 9 answers

How can I browse a .rar file using OS X? I've tried UnRarX, I've tried StuffIt Deluxe 8.0.2, and I've tried searching google for anything else that might work, with no luck. I need this feature because I want to access one small file in the archive, but don't have enough room on my hard drive to unrar the whole thing.
posted by teem on Sep 19, 2004 - 6 answers

I have a dozen iMacs that I just upgraded to Panther. I want to set up the superuser account and then a limited rights login that can run only specific programs etc. I find all the configuration stuff nice and easy, but a fairly long process. In OS9 I couple copy the multiuser settings to CD and drag and drog the settings in the system folder. I can do a similar thing in OSX, can't I? If so, how?
posted by spartacusroosevelt on Aug 7, 2004 - 1 answer

datascrubbing: I'm using rm -R */*.gif (for example) to get rid of unnecessary files in a directory. There is stuff that's nested about five directories deep that I can't get to using the above command. I'm using the Bash terminal in OS X. specifically, there is a redundant file called "popup" nested in there that I want to get rid of, among others.

Second related problem: is there a way to recursively delete (full) directories, say ones that end in .blob using wildcards? And would I use rmdir or rm -R to do this?

I'm working on a copy of the original, so its ok to experiment a little
posted by mecran01 on Jul 16, 2004 - 18 answers

Ok in iChat you can "show your status in the menubar". While I really like this, it only shows my buddys who are available and not the idle or away buddies. Is there a way to change this? Also is there an equivalent thing for MSN messenger? I really like the ability to see who is on without having to switch to the application unless I have to. I am working on a 12inch iBook so screen space is very limited and thus switching from one app to another, and then rehiding them is not what I am looking for.
posted by thebwit on Jul 15, 2004 - 1 answer

Can anyone recommend a TV tuner for a Mac? I have an iBook, so it has to be either a firewire or USB model (not a PC card), and i'm hoping to spend under a hundred bucks. I have no real interest in any TVR functions, as my hard drive is maxed out already and I have a TiVo at home. I'm at Dartmouth for a month - which is in the middle of nowhere - so it must be available online to be shipped immediately, preferably with expedited shipping.
posted by rorycberger on Jun 14, 2004 - 4 answers

I am looking for a way, on Mac OS X, to create libraries of digital video clips, and arrange them in various ways into movies which can be burned to DVD. I'm thinking iMovie+iDVD does everything I want, but I'm looking for something that can handle many (hundreds?) large, full resolution files. Anyone have experience with this kind of video cataloging and editing? Is iMovie enough, or do I need a high-end product? It will be used by a relative non-techie (not me).
posted by icetaco on Jun 2, 2004 - 6 answers

On Mac OS9 I could quit the Finder to get an extra little performance boost when I played games (first person shooters mostly). Will this trick still work for OSX, or has all the new fangled technology made it obsolete?
posted by ssmith on May 18, 2004 - 5 answers

I've got a Mac with OS X 10.2.8 that used to run OS 9. I have this one job I do for a friend that required me to use Print2Pict with this one app in order to generate a PICT file that I could then cut pieces out of. Just this week, the app (Finale Notepad) was updated to run on OS X. I still need the ability to generate an editable PICT file, but Print2Pict is not available. Is there anything equivalent to Print2Pict for OS X?
posted by tommasz on Apr 27, 2004 - 10 answers

Photoshop CS (OSX) books for almost-beginners: I'm hearing good things on "Photoshop CS Bible" by Deke McClelland.
Photoshop CS (OSX, too) for professional photographers: I'm hearing good things on "Adobe Photoshop CS for Photographers: Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative Use of Photoshop" by Martin Evening.
Any other suggestions? thanks
posted by matteo on Apr 27, 2004 - 6 answers

This can't be that hard. I have thousands of digital images taken with high resolution cameras. I'd like to e-mail about 100 of them to various folks so I'm trying to convert them to an e-mail friendly size/resolution that doesn't assume everyone has high speed connections. I'd like to do this in some sort of batch mode - select a bunch of images and do this all at once. I've tried Graphic Converter and iView Media Pro - neither of which can do the trick. Oh they make an effort all right, but they don't really work. I'm still running on Mac OS 9 so I'm looking for something that works there or - can iPhoto do this and will it be the thing that finally forces that new purchase on me?
posted by dhacker on Apr 14, 2004 - 20 answers

VCD Player for Mac - Is there a freeware or shareware program that y'all recommend for playing VCDs on a mac running OS X? As a Windows user, I was shocked to find that my VCD wasn't even recognized by any of the applications on the mac.
posted by turbanhead on Apr 3, 2004 - 6 answers

Stupid Mac question - I have an AirPort card, but no base station. I was just visiting my cousin for the weekend, and they have one, and they did something to my computer to get it to connect to their wireless network (they have all sorts of security on it) and now I cannot have my AirPort card turned on without it automatically connecting to my neighbors' networks. I use an ethernet cable here at home, and I have my configuration set to look for the ethernet connection before a wireless one. I am at a total loss as to what to do to tell it to not automatically connect, short of leaving the card turned off unless I'm using it (and Apple's website is no help, because they assume that you do want to use it). Any ideas?
posted by eilatan on Feb 29, 2004 - 12 answers

If several friendly, nosy and very tech-savvy, code-breaking sort of people have access to your computer and you wouldn't wish to hinder their access, but still need to hide, beyond all chance of detection, a folder where you keep your works in progress; innermost thoughts and tentative, early drafts (the kind that could easily be misinterpreted, specially if you write fiction); is there any John Le Carré-approved way of guaranteeing a private patch? I.e. So that they would think it's all open to anyone, but not really? [Mac OSX, if it's relevant.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Feb 4, 2004 - 37 answers

I'm new to Mac OS X's command line and a little nervous about using it to install Mysql. After doing some research on the net I found what might be an alternative: installing Apache2, PHP4 and Mysql from Server Logistics . The post claims that by also installing one of the Barebones text editors and Tinkertool I could avoid having to use the command line altogether. It was also suggested that the Server Logistics Complete Packages are more powerful versions of Apache and Php than apple ships (I'm on Panther). Has anyone done an install this way? Any other suggestions? Should I just get over it and use the damn command line?
posted by btwillig on Dec 16, 2003 - 13 answers