Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with osx and macbook

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.

Do I need a new computer or do I have unreasonable expectations?

tehgeekmeister — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:27:20 -0800

Do I need a new macbook or am I expecting too much from my current one? I have a first edition macbook pro, (1,1), with the processor and ram upgrades, so 2gb ram and a 2.16ghz dual core processor. I've recently been having it hang irrecoverably as a result of running out of ram, and apparently I can't upgrade the ram any more on this model. As an example of what I'm doing when this happens, I was: 1) downloading stuff on itunes 2) syncing my ipod 3) backing up my system on mozy 4) downloading some torrents 5) browsing the web with too many tabs open in firefox (very possibly the culprit, I do try to avoid doing that) and 6) had a few other apps open in the background, but completely idle. I realize this is a lot to have going at once, but if a newer system can handle all that at once, it'd be worth it for me. My question is really, can a newer system with more ram manage that, or is this beyond the limits of osx or something like that?

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

OS-X-like touchpad acceleration under Linux?

korpios — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:05:56 -0800

Is there any way to get the standard OS X touchpad acceleration curve working under Linux? I've tried messing with the "synaptics" driver settings many different ways, but nothing yielded anything close to what I was looking for. In the latest round of my seemingly annual experiment of running Ubuntu on my MacBook (rev 2,1), I was pleased to get most of the way towards a usable experience. I managed to get all of the important hardware bits working reasonably well; only two things kept me from considering a permanent switch this time: my iPhone (a subject for another discussion), and the touchpad.

I love my MacBook's touchpad under OS X. I haven't used a mouse in ages; the acceleration curve is perfect, IMHO. Under Linux, however, you get three settings: minimum speed, maximum speed, and acceleration factor. No combination of these yields a smooth-feeling touchpad experience; movements inevitably end up feeling either jumpy or ridiculously slow. It would appear that OS X is using a proper curve, whereas Linux is using a simple acceleration cutoff.

That said: has anyone had better luck with getting the touchpad to behave under Linux as it does under OS X?

Video killed my audio stars

larsks — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:43:45 -0800

Plugging in an external monitor to my Macbook Pro kills the audio. What's up with that? And is there a solution that does not involve an expensive USB audio product? My Macbook Pro is attached to a stereo system, which has worked just fine and dandy...until I plugged in a DVI cable and suddenly the audio was almost overwhelmed by static and "machine noise" (e.g., there are changes in the sound when I press keys or scroll windows). I usually associate this with poor shielding on cheap sound cards...what's up with my Macbook?

More importantly, is there anything I can do to fix this? I'd really like to be able to use an external monitor. One solution is some sort of external USB-connected audio device, but I'm not entirely sure what my options are...the only things I've found are (a) headphones, when what I really want is 1/8" stereo out, or (b) audio input devices like the M-Audio FastTrack (which also support audio out). I don't want just headphones, and I don't need anything as fancy as the USB connected devices I've found.

Thanks for your suggestions!

How to best procedurally backup and reformat a Macbook with Leopard?

rbf1138 — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:16:48 -0800

How to best procedurally backup and reformat a Macbook with Leopard? My 2 year old Macbook has started giving me issues such as really sluggish/bad framerates while watching any type of video, complete system crashes, etc. I can't really attribute the issues to any specific application or plugin, and while I see spikes in Activity Monitor when Quicktime, Firefox, etc. are open, they shouldn't be hitting the levels and rendering the system as slow as it is becoming. I have 2 gigs of ram, so that's not really an issue.

In any case, I'm going to go ahead and do a refresh, by backing up and then reformatting. I'm wondering what the smoothest, cleanest way to do this is. I have a drive dedicated to Time Machine, and I know of things like SuperDuper, etc. However, I want to ensure my new install is as clean as possible and wont come with whatever issues may be giving me trouble right now. What install/format type do I want to do with my Leopard disc? How can I best backup my Firefox bookmarks/settings/plugins, etc.? How can I be sure not to lose any media in my Library folders? How can I best load all of my files and settings back onto the clean install?

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.

Noooo! Your trypical Macbook Pro crash story.

drpynchon — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:57:43 -0800

OS X crisis.. Please help with a system that won't boot Mac gurus. So I finally got around to installing the last security update to OS X 10.4.11 on my MBP (C2D) and after reboot my system hangs. It sits there on the grey apple screen and spinning thingy. The interweb reports that this is not uncommon so I followed the typical advice of loading Disk Utility off install DVD. Ran, found some glitches in the permissions and disk and repaired them successfully. It can see and mount the drive as well as report the free space and all that. Still a no go -- again hanging on the boot screen as my fan starts to whirl.

Considered Archive and Install but after selecting my hard drive volume and the Options button, it reports that it can't perform A&I and must erase the contents of the drive. GAH!

This sucker has some seriously important work that was recently completed on not yet backed up. Help me restore and I will be indebted to you forever.

only connect

grumblebee — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:37:58 -0800

Two Macbook Pros, same model, same room, one gets a lot of bars and a strong connection via airport; the other gets just a couple of bars and a low connection. I recently acquired a slightly-used (as in used for one day) Macbook Pro (15" -- not one of the models Apple just released).

I tried it in my apartment next to my old Macbook Pro (also 15", about a year older than my new-used one).

My older one got a good wireless signal. My newer one got a crappy wireless signal. They were both equidistant from my
Linksys router.

I thought maybe the older one was somehow interfering with the newer one, but I tried the newer one by itself, in a different location. In this new location, everyone else (some on similar macs) got a good signal. I still got a crappy one.

The previous owner told me that he had the same problem with it, and he took it into the Apple Store. They ran some kind of diagnostic program on it and insisted that nothing was wrong. The previous owner concluded that the signal was just weak where he was trying to use it. But unlike me, he didn't test it next to another computer.

I can sometimes get a good signal by turning airport off and on or by going into Network Preferences and hitting Renew DHCP Lease. But the boost in connectivity only lasts a few minutes. (This also might be my imagination. The signal waxes and wanes, so maybe I'm seeing a cause/effect where there isn't one.)

I have also been able to get a strong signal by placing my Macbook right next to the router. If I move even a few feet away, the signal degrades.

Vitals:
- Mac OS X Version 10.5.4
- Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
- Memory 4GB 667 NHz DDR2 SDRAM

How do I tell my Mac that I'm me?

grumblebee — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 07:17:27 -0800

Question about changing my terminal prompt (and other matters) in an OS X Bash shell. I'm not the most experienced Unix guy, but I can usually figure things out. But this one has me stumped: I just got a slightly-used Macbook Pro. The previous ower -- Michael -- gave me his admin password. So I went into System Preferences, Accounts and created a new admin, grumblebee. Then I deleted Michael.

All went well until I opened terminal, where I saw that the prompt looked like this:

michaels-mackbook-pro: ~Grumblebee

(I know that ~Grumblebee isn't part of the prompt. I just wanted to show you that I'm logged in as me and it's finding my home directory. It's just the prompt that's wrong.)

I tried to edit etc/baschrc, but it said I didn't have permission.

How can I change the prompt and is it likely I'll encounter any other problems connected to changing users?

Maybe-too-technical-filter: Change system prefs from command line?

range — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:48:26 -0800

I want a button to toggle my MacBook function keys (much technical info inside) MacBooks have a row of dual function keys at the top of the keyboard (F1-12, doing double duty as louder/softer, brighter/dimmer, etc). You can change their "normal" behavior from one to the other via the System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys" checkbox.

What I want is an icon I can put on my dock and click to toggle this preference. At first, you'd think that this shell script like this would do it:



#!/bin/bash                                                                     

curState=`defaults read "Apple Global Domain" com.apple.keyboard.fnState`

if [ $curState = "1" ]; then

    defaults write "Apple Global Domain" com.apple.keyboard.fnState	0

fi

{etc.}

... because it toggles the actual bit that is toggled by the checkbox in System Preferences. Unfortunately, it looks like the OS doesn't notice the change (when done this way) until you reboot. All the online discussion of this I could find typically ends at exactly this point.

So: I'm not picky about methods. If there's a way to force a re-load of the preferences from the command line, that's great. If there's a good Apple-scripty way to do it that's not crazy slow (e.g., bouncing script icon on dock, script load, bouncing system prefs icon, system prefs window open for 1ms, exit -- I already wrote that script), that'd be cool too. Does Quicksilver have a hook into this pref? That'd be great.

Why won't my MBP wake up?

jon_kill — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:39:55 -0800

Whenever my Macbook Pro goes to sleep, it won't wake up. Here are the relevant details:

-Whether it goes to sleep by being closed, or by being idle too long, the result is the same: black screen, hard boot being the only recourse.
-Runing OS X 10.4.11.
-I've verified the disk, and it is fine.
-I've verified the disk permissions, and they are fine.
-I've wiped the PRAM (by holding command-option-p-r on reboot) and the problem persists.
-The battery appears to be charging and draining at the same rates as always.
-I've recently installed: demo version of ableton 6, protools 7.1.1 (upgrade from website), the latest Software Update recommendations.

Any other suggestions? Thanks.

Could the fact that iTunes skipping be a sign that I need a new hard drive?

phr4gmonk3y — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:22:50 -0800

I just got my Macbook back from the Apple Store today after they replaced the logic board on the unit. I've noticed that every song I play in iTunes seems to skip. Finding this odd, I opened up the Activity Monitor and looked at disk usage. It seems like whenever a read to the disk is made, iTunes seems to begin skipping. Furthermore, I have the same problem after trying to play mp3's via mpg123. I'm worried that the skipping could be a sign my hard drive might be failing. I recently installed a brand new 250 GB hard drive from Newegg about a month and a half ago, so I'm somewhat skeptical. Is it a reasonable concern?

Magical unticking ticky boxes in Leopard

badmoonrising — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:24:40 -0800

I'm running OS X Leopard on my beloved shiny Macbook and there's one thing that I find irritating. I love using F9, F10, F11 etc to bring up Exposé, Dashboard and the Desktop, but every now and again they suddenly stop functioning. It's normally when the computer's been on for a few days - I hit the keys and nothing happens. So I check in Keyboard Shortcuts of the System Prefs, and all the boxes in the "Dock, Exposé and Dashboard" are magically unticked. I can tick them again, and everything's fine and dandy for a few days. Alternatively, I can reboot and it's back to how it should be. (For a while...) Why is this happening, and how can I stop it? I'm running 10.5.2, although I have a vague feeling it used to do this in Tiger as well. I've tried googling to no avail. So I'll be left with egg on my face if it's something really obvious, but barring nefarious computer-use whilst sleepwalking, or me regularly hitting a certain evil combination of keys without noticing, I can't work out why this is happening.

Please, O Marvellous Hive Mind. Enlighten me!

Secure thumbdrive hacks

roofus — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:41:27 -0800

I have been given a Kingston Data Traveller Secure Privacy Edition thumbdrive for use at work. Is there any way of hacking it for use with OSX? Our IT department claim that only these secure thumbdrives will be mountable on our work PCs from some unspecified date in the near future. Trouble is I have a MacBook, and need to transfer files back and forward to our work computers. Is there any way of hacking this thumbdrive to achieve this? I do not want to have to run XP on my MacBook.

Folding@Home and nowhere else

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

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

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

Help me rock out some automation on my spankin' new MacBook!

drgonzo2k2 — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 08:11:31 -0800

Help me rock out some automation on my spankin' new MacBook! Ok, so I just got my first MacBook, and this is the first time I've had a Mac portable. One of the first things I ran into was needing to setup different network locations for home and work. Then I though, "gee, it'd be great if it would just switch automatically for you." I found MarcoPolo and that's pretty cool. Now I'd like to do some other automatic things, and from what I'm reading it seems like it should work, but I can't make it happen. Here's what I'd like to do:

1. I would like to sync the documents between my "documents" folder and my thumb drive every time I plug the drive in. I take my documents with me on my thumb drive to meetings, and sometime we edit them when I'm there. Other times I edit them on my Mac, and then plug the thumb drive in to copy them over to take to meetings. It'd be great if the MacBook could just figure out which is the newest version and copy what's needed as needed. Also, there is a "personal" folder in my documents folder, and I'd like to exclude this from my sync.

2. I have a BlackBerry 8830 w/ Bluetooth, and I'd like the phone and the MacBook to work together. I don't really want to use it to make phone calls or send SMS from the MacBook (the latter would be cool though), but I'd like it to detect that the BlackBerry is in proximity and then do certain things. First, when it leaves the area, I'd like it to turn on the screensaver and the screensaver password. When I return to the area I'd like it to enter the password and disable the screensaver.

3. I've read stories of people's MacBooks getting stolen and they were able to recover them due to the MB sending them the IP address the next time it looged on to the net and also taking pictures with the iSight and sending them to an FTP site. What's up with this, and how do I make it happen?

This is the latest model MacBook running 10.5.2. Thanks for your help!

Custom client-side CSS to change background colours.

pompomtom — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:38:44 -0800

CSS, greasemonkey, sunglasses? Is there a way to stop white web pages hurting my eyes (firefox, osx). Even on the lowest brightness setting, I find, of an evening, that white-backgrounded web pages are too bright on my macbook. I suspect there's some way for me to have a local CSS file or something that I can turn on and off at will, to just swap white backgrounds for a more muted grey. Or something. Everything I see on google seems to be about blogs, but I want this on the client side. I suppose there could also be a greasemonkey way to do this, but greasemonkey scares me more than CSS. Corey Hart scares me more than both.

So, in question form: what is the simplest way to have a switchable setting to darken white backgrounds? (and/or: is there a good client-side CSS tutorial site which could teach me to work this out myself?)

Application windows disappear when switching or opening applications

djgh — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 09:04:38 -0800

OSX troubles - whenever I open or switch applications, all other open application windows disappear. How do I fix this? I'm on OSX 10.4.11, and an Intel MacBook.

Whenever I have applications running, whenever I switch applications (either through cmd-tab, clicking on the dock or through Quicksilver) all currently open application windows disappear, rather than moving behind the application in focus. cmd-H (hide) has also stopped working - I can no longer hide applications by choice (it just happens whenever I open or switch). Also, the menu that pops up when I cmd-tab occasionally fails to register an app - e.g., I'll have Mail, Safari and Terminal open. I'll cmd-tab and Mail won't show up. Or occasionally Finder.

The only change I can recall making recently is installing Visor. However, I've since removed Visor (and SIMBL), and the problem persists. I've run Onyx and Cocktail (restoring permissions and cleaning caches etc.), to no avail.

Can anyone help? I just want my regular OSX back...

Should I trade my PC Laptop for a Macbook?

monkeyagent — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:32:21 -0800

I was talking with a friend who owns a Macbook. She was talking about how she doesn't really use it for much and is looking for something newer. I mentioned that I just got my laptop but that I didn't like Vista and have been interested in Macs. Long story short, we came to the conclusion that we might each like to trade out laptops. I'm wondering if this sounds like a fair trade: My computer:
Acer Aspire 5050
AMD Turion 64 Processor MK-38 (2.2GHz, 512KB L2)
14.1" LCD
80GB HDD
DVD Burner
1 GB DDR2 RAM
ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 Integrated graphics (variable GRAM depending on how much of it you assign from system general system RAM)
Has Vista Home Basic
It has internal wifi and is in more or less perfect condition.

Her computer:
Macbook
Intel Core Duo 1.8 Ghz processor [L2 Cache (per processor): 2MB]
LCD slightly smaller, though I don't mind that
34.22 GB HDD (? I couldn't figure out how to determine the full capacity - this amount reflects how much is "free")
DVD (i assume) burner? (not important, as I use my desktop for such tasks)
512 MB 667Mhz DDR2 SDRAM
OSX Version: 10.4.10
Also, while the case is scuffed up a bit on the outside, it seems to work fine and would clean up well. The speakers don't work, but the headphone jack work fine.

My only needs for my laptop are Internet accessibility, word processing, and basic multimedia playing functions. Everything else I do on my self-built PC. I know very little about Macs, but have been wanting to learn about them. Does this trade make sense? Are there any other things I should consider?

Where have all the Dashboard stickies gone?

dereisbaer — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:09:48 -0800

Where have all the Dashboard stickies gone? Dashboard is misbehaving on my wife's MacBook (OSX 10.4.10). She went into Dashboard with F12 and all of the widgets were missing. I did the following:

Ran Preferential Treatment -- No problems reported
Examined ~/Library/Preferences/widget-com.apple.widget.stickies.plist with Property List Editor -- The contents of the stickies seem to still be there
Ran Disk Utility off the install DVD to repair permissions and check the file system -- A few permissions were fixed and FS came up clean
Renamed ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dashboard*.plist -- Logged out and logged back in to find Dashboard reset to default widgets, but the contents of Stickies are still missing even if I add the widget.

Is there a way we can fix the Stickies widget at this point without manually re-entering everything?

Can I use my Razr to surf the web on my Macbook with only the mobile web plan on my service?

Mark — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:14:06 -0800

I have mobile web on my cell phone plan. Can I use bluetooth and my Mac Book to connect to the Razr and surf the web on my computer? I have Alltel service and a Motorola V3m Razr. I suscribe to the mobile web feature on my phone (the condensed version of the Internet, bascially only useful for sports scores) and it allows me to put in URLs and view any website in it's mobile version.

Is there a way to use this to browse the web on my Mac Book?

vconvert.net hates my macbook

pompomtom — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:53:06 -0800

vconvert.net hates my macbook. Is it just me? Attempting to download a converted video from the otherwise-cool vconvert.net gives me this error if I do it with my macbook. It doesn't matter where I try to save the file, and the filename it gives me is not the filename which would be used had it worked (ordinarily 'vconvert.mp4', iirc). On WinXP or Ubuntu Studio I have no such problem. Is this just me? Does anyone know a fix?