Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with windows and mac

Back to the basics

jfricke — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:36:15 -0800

I really like the idea of text-based programs like WriteRoom (Mac) or DarkRoom (Windows). Are there similar applications for other purposes? I am looking for any software that is more or less text-based, is not a game and runs with Microsoft Windows or Mac OS. Examples would be a text based email-client, text based to-do list or a text based diary.

Can't watch a specific channel on my computer!

mhz — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:17:06 -0800

Why can't my USB TV tuner find channel 11? I have a Hauppauge USB TV tuber (950Q, I think), and I can't get WPIX in New York. I have no idea if it's ever worked, as I've never tried it before. I've scanned repeatedly, but still nothing. This is using EyeTV, on the Mac, and I'm in Brooklyn. All other over-the-air networks work perfectly.

A couple of notes:

It's not an antenna issue; the same antenna finds 11 just fine when connected to the cheap DTV converter I have.

I tried adding it manually with the frequencies I found online, and nothing.

I've tried using a file I downloaded from TitanTV with the frequency, and nothing.

My brother just called me, and he's using Windows (Vista or 7, I'm not sure) with Media Center, and an ATI USB TV Wonder, and he's having the same problem. Neither of us ever noticed this before, because the Giants weren't on WPIX before.

Any suggestions? Again, this issue does not appear to be the antenna, and it's appearing with two different brands of USB tuners, on two different operating systems.

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?

How to let the MBP see the SBS2003 based files!

Fuzzy Dog — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:56:55 -0800

[Mac - Windows Filter] What is the best way to access files on a Windows Small Business Server 2003 from my MPB? So I landed an awesome gig in my field with a great organization. They need me, I want to be here. Win, win, right? Well, they keep all their materials on a MS Windows Small Business Server 2003 - and are all windows users, I am a mac user. I need to get to the files on the SBS2003 from my MBP. What is the best way?

I have a network log in. Should I mount the SBS directory in finder? If so how? Should I install Parallels and connect that way? If I go the Parallels route can I open the files I need access to (mostly word, excel and some graphics files) on the Mac side with all the associated Mac-Awesomeness?

Please keep in mind that I know nothing about SBS! (But have full access if I need it.)

Help hive mind, I need your technical expertise and experience. Thanks in advance!

Details: New this summer Unibody MBP 10.5.8

Heads Up for both Mac and Windows?

rokusan — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:11:08 -0800

Is there a way to make one universal desktop/dashboard for both Mac and Windows? Is there a way to package and deliver desktop gadgets or widgets for Windows and OS X all in the same bundle, or some other combination that can provide for a single universal download?

I've already made a few for myself, but only for OSX, and that's the end of my experience with them. But now I'd like to wrap a few up, polish them a bit, and let clients use them to monitor things too, because I find that a meaningful amount of my time is spent just checking one of them and reporting back to a client question with the result. So I would like to give them a freebie timesaver that will allow them to monitor the info themselves via a desktop doodad.

If they were all OSX users I'd be done now, but these clients aren't all very tech savvy, and they use a mixture of Macs and PCs. I don't want a support nightmare, and I'd prefer not maintaining two different thingies.

The complexity of the gizmos I am interested in would be pretty low: just HTML/Javascript doodads that display info easily sucked from web servers that I can control. (That is, HTTP requests are made for info from mydomain.com, not from Yahoo's stock quotes or anything foreign, so the HTML or RSS or whatever that is served back will always be trusted, reliable and constant.)

The UI needed is nothing fancier than what one gets from Safari's existing "Web Clipping", in fact (just an up to date or 'live' view of some info), but it needs to work as Vista/Win7 desktop gadgets too, and Safari's clips don't do that in Windows.

I know that most such gadgety things are just HTML and JS, so there's no Windows or Mac native code there, so is there any way to avoid making and maintaining two different packages, here?

Also, are there third options that need addressing? Does Konfabulator/or Yahoo Widgets have much of a user base, or can that be ignored in favor of the built-in widgets in recent Windows?

Help me connect Mac-at-home to Windows-at-work?

OlivesAndTurkishCoffee — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:40:00 -0800

What could happen to my mac if I connect remotely to my windows computer at work. Is there a viciously secure way of doing this? I need to connect my home mac to my office's windows computer remotely. So far, this has stumped the tech guy so I've been using a small windows netbook and connecting via vpn. But opening files on the company network takes forever and we need a better solution.

He is currently working on a solution that allows me to connect to the small business server using my mac via the windows Remote Desktop Connection Client 1.0.3 for Mac.

This worries me because I don't want windows stuff touching my mac! But my worry is based on mere suspicious distrust of windows rather than any actual knowledge of how these things work.

Those of you who do know about these things: Will using this client application make my mac vulnerable to windows risks; and, if so, is there a better more secure solution? (or a better solution with the netbook?)

iPhone's DRM - let my music go!

DandyRandy — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:46:10 -0800

Does the DRM on iPhone work differently than the DRM on, say, the iPod Classic? I've got an iPhone 3G as well as a 160 GB iPod Classic, both synced to my home computer (PowerMac G5), which also houses my >26k-track iTunes library. Both devices are set to allow me to manually manage music.

When I take those devices to work and connect them to iTunes on my Windows machine (also authorized by the iTunes Music Store), they work differently. I can play the music on the iPod using iTunes, but I cannot play the music on my iPhone - all the songs are grayed out in iTunes.

Is iPhone different in that regard?

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.

A network between two adjacent buildings

eustacescrubb — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:44:19 -0800

I need advice on the best and least expensive way to have a network between two adjacent buildings. I'm part of a writer's residency, and the organization owns two houses next door to each other. We want to have one network, with one internet connection, between the two houses. One house has the only desktop there will be, and at least one WiFi-capable laptop. The other house has nothing but WiFi-capable laptops. There is a mixture of people running Windows XP and Mac OSX (nothing older than Leopard).

Ideally, I would like to have a blazing fast internet connection, and one router, to which the desktop is connected, and then maybe have some kind of powerful antenna to boost the WiFi signal over to the other house. It would be awesome if I could also get printer sharing, Bonjour (or whatever they're calling it this week) for Windows and Mac set up, file sharing, etc -- basically the ideal would be to have an honest-to-god network set up. I can do all that once I know how to share the network between the two buildings. Our org doesn't have a lot of extra money so I would like to keep the cost as low as possible.

How to find out Mac creator / type info on a PC?

jzed — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:24:03 -0800

Is there a windows utility to read the creator / type information of old (pre OSX) mac files? I've inherited a lot of old mac files (probably .eps or old .ai's or something but I'm not really sure at this point) and I'm trying to get them open on my windows machine. I think I probably have the most likely applications I'll need to open them, but brute force guessing what program to try is time consuming. Is there a straightforwards (preferably freeware) utility to help automate this process? My googling has revealed this util which looks... a bit unwieldy; and this mac app which would do the job if it ran on windows!

Are there any programs like Tofu for Windows?

timetoevolve — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:16:58 -0800

Are there any programs like Tofu for Windows? I use the wonderful reader Tofu at home, but when I'm catching up on my news reading during worktime breaks, I am sadly Tofu-less. I'm not the most savvy Windows user, but thus far my Googling for an equivalent has been fruitless. (Ideally, such a program would also be lightweight and free.)

Hope me, MeFites! My aching eyes thank you.

Pimp My Sync

rmd1023 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:18:06 -0800

How can I synchronize calendar/contact data among an iPhone, 1 Mac, and (1 or 2) Windows boxes? I got an iPhone a while back. I'm pleased with it, for the most part. However, I'm not happy with the way it handles information syncing. I'm more used to the way my palm did syncronizing of information -- I could have palm desktop (or, on the mac, some kind of isync software) and all the address and calendar information would be shared between all my computers and my PDA. And a change made on one would be propagated through the rest as the PDA synced with them.

I would like to be able to do the same with my iPhone. In particular, I want to be able to have the iPhone sync with my work calendar and with ical at home.

Here's my setup:
at home, I have a windows box and a mac. the mac has ical and address book and such. the windows box has previously stored address/calendar info in palm desktop. I'm fine with migrating to whatever, there, and might be okay without calendar/address info on it if needed.
at work, I've got a windows box that uses outlook to talk to the local exchange server. itunes can't get to that data, so i assume I need something else to talk to both the iphone and the exchange server. I can't link the iphone directly with an exchange account as my employer doesn't support that.

I don't care if notes get synced among all the devices, and I don't care about to-do stuff or tasks in outlook. I do want my local outlook address book on my work PC to be synced with the address book on my mac, and my exchange work calendar to be synced with ical. And both of those to be synced with my iphone.

The missing sync web page talks about syncing to-do items and notes, not address and calendar data.

Will mobileme do this? Although even at Amazon prices, mobileme is above my price point for annual fees. (And I particularly dislike the fact that mobileme nukes all data it got from the cloud if you drop mobileme, which would add a future de-synchronization of doom).

Is there something else that won't demand an annual fee that will do this? I mean, besides keeping an old palm device around as a sync conduit. (this is actually my current workaround hack for the problem.) It looks like there are several ways to keep the iphone and my mac in sync, but not so much for the iphone/windows-exchange side of things.

I don't care about having a mac.com email address, or sharing and storing pictures/files/websites.

Syncing passwords between Windows, Mac and iPhone

snarfois — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 15:15:49 -0800

Help me synchronise my passwords across Windows, Mac and iPhone. Preferably without having to re-enter all my existing passwords. I use Passwordsafe on Windows, and I sync my password.dat file to my Macs using Dropbox, where I use Password Gorilla to open it, as described by Joel Spolsky.

Two problems with this:
(1) Password Gorilla is terribly shoddy, and is probably responsible for some data scrambling (fortunately non-destructive)
(2) I'd also like to sync my passwords to my iPhone

I'm prepared to spend money on software that'll do the trick. What I cannot see myself doing, however, is manually transferring the 100s of passwords in Passwordsafe to the new package. So it'll have to use or import Passwordsafe .dat files.

There are some other threads on AskMeFi related to this, but they don't have an answer.

Networking Mac and Windows via ethernet

snarfois — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 08:18:55 -0800

Please help me troubleshoot my (cross-platform) home network. Networking already works via wi-fi, but not via ethernet cable. I'm networking a Windows XP PC to a Mac Mini running OS X Leopard. I have already succeeded in setting it up so that I can browse the Mini from Windows in "My Network Places" or via a mapped drive letter, but this is slow (802.11g) and I want to transfer large files.

I have bought a 20 meter cat5 cable (crossover) and connected the two computers, and disconnected the wi-fi adapter. Can I expect the network to work straight away without further configuration? Anyway, it doesn't. Please help!

(Irrelevant background: I only need to do this because the Mac Mini's DVD burner is useless -- I keep getting the "failed to calibrate the laser power level" error. So I'm forced to use the PC for burning.)

iTunes library sharing

anonaccount — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:50:42 -0800

I'm having a party at the weekend and planned on playing some music in the garden using iTunes - I need some help setting this up! My main music library is in my room on a beastly desktop. I planned to hook up my old iBook G4 to some speakers in the garden to play from the shared music library on my desktop machine.

This works - however it plays all music, not just the "checked" songs. I also can't use the iTunes DJ on a shared library (which would be ideal, as I want people at the party to cue up music rather than interrupting the flow).

1) Can I share only "checked" songs? (I know i can do single playlists - but I have a huge library and I really don't want to have to go through selecting just the checked songs to make the new playlist)
2) Can I hack iTunes DJ into working with a shared playlist?

I have an iPod too - if that helps!

Cross-Platform Crashing on a Macbook Pro

N2O1138 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:04:43 -0800

I have Leopard and Windows 7 (7057) installed on my Late 2007 (possibly older, I got it refurbished) Macbook Pro 15". My problem is, every time I boot into either OS, I get a kernel panic or BSOD respectively. The fact that it happens in 2 different operating systems makes me almost positive that it's a hardware problem. Unfortunately, I don't know very much about computer hardware, so I don't really know what to troubleshoot first, and I don't want to void the warranty by opening the case (I plan to take it to the Apple Store if nobody here can solve the problem). Specifically, either operating system will crash about a minute into booting up. I don't think the problem can be too serious because everything graphically looks fine and all my files are intact. This leads me to think that maybe it's a RAM problem, and that it runs out of memory and crashes during bootup. Safe Mode in Windows works fine (I'm using it now), and still reports the correct 2gb of RAM. I haven't done safe boot to OS X yet.

The Blue Screen says
"Uncorrectable Hardware Error" and below it gives the code
*** STOP: 0x00000124 (0x00000000,0x85BAE024,0xF2000000,0x00060151)

If it were just what I'm experiencing on Windows, I might think it was something to do with drivers, but it's on both operating systems.

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.

OSX can't see my XP drive

middleclasstool — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:50:15 -0800

Suddenly my Mac can't see my Windows PC, and I'm stumped. So I have a Windows PC (XP, latest service pack) and a new Macbook Pro (latest up-to-date version of Leopard). When I first got the Mac I was able to connect to my XP drive over wifi just fine by going to Finder and choosing "Connect to server" and typing in smb://bill (Bill's the XP PC's name, natch).

But suddenly it's not working anymore and I'm stumped. When I try to connect, using either that PC's name or IP address, it says it can't connect. When I ping that IP address, it sees it just fine.

The only thing I can think was awhile back I attempted directly connecting a Linux box to the Win PC to try to share its wifi connection. I did some tweaking of local network settings, but it never worked quite right, so I reverted changes. It could well be that something is still configured incorrectly on the Windows box, but damned if I can see what.

Any ideas?

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.

64-bit Vista on Mac Pro?

richg — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:24:02 -0800

I'm thinking of getting one of the new desktop Mac Pros recently announced. I'd like to both run Apple's OS X and also use Boot Camp to run 64-bit Windows Vista on it. The question is: will I be able to use the Mac Pro's keyboard and mouse with Vista? Will I be able to use an Apple Cinema Display with Vista? If I have to plug in a PC keyboard and mouse, and use a PC display, that doesn't appeal. I'd like to use the 64-bit version of Windows Vista to access more 6 or 8GB of memory. I'm worried about the lack of 64-bit device drivers, esp. for the Apple keyboard, mouse and display.

I'd appreciate advice from anyone with experience or insight into this.

still a pc.

jak68 — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:08:17 -0800

Is there any way today to run a mac application on windows? (without the whole mac OS, preferably, though I'd consider that too). I figure since both are using intels now, and windows runs successfully on macs, and universal binaries for many mac apps are out now, and there's rosetta and other ways to bridge ppc and intel worlds for apps, if there was some way that you could run (within I guess an emulator or virtual machine) a single mac app (via a universal binary maybe) on windows (either xp or vista).
If the ansewr to that is a resounding no, then I'd ask, well is there any way to run mac os on windows the way they've been running windows on intel-based macs?
Thanks!

Installing Windows 7 on a MBP with a non-working DVD drive

N2O1138 — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:22:32 -0800

How can I install Windows 7 (via Boot Camp or rEFIt) from an ISO? I think the Superdrive on my Macbook Pro (10.5.6) is on its last legs, because it ejects almost anything I put in it. (Meaning blank DVDs, and the DVD I burned of the ISO on my Windows XP desktop with ImgBurn). It's not extremely old (I got it refurbished on Christmas 2007), but still old enough to be out of warranty (at least I would think so). What I have available: 1tb My Book Firewire External Hard Drive 4gb 1st gen iPod Nano, that isn't even formatted as an iPod right now, so it's basically just a 4gb USB flash drive. I know I can boot from it if it's set up right, because I've been using it with this What I've tried so far:
I can't restore the iPod to the ISO in Disk Utility, so I tried to convert the ISO to a DMG (in Disk Utility and using a program called Converso), getting errors both times.

I tried mounting the ISO, erasing everything on the iPod, and copying everything straight out of the ISO to the iPod, but it doesn't appear as anything bootable.

Please help if you can

How do I automatically backup a website (files and database) to a Mac?

HC Foo — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:31:21 -0800

What is the best way to automatically backup a website (files and database) to a Mac? Suggestions for Windows? I build websites, and I have a client who pretty much only has Macs. They want a solution where they can automatically backup an entire website (files and database) to their machines. I have access to the admin area of the hosting account. If I'm unable to find an easy to install/use solution for the Mac, a Windows solution would also work.

Why do Windows machines get sluggish over time but Macs don't seem to?

colinmarshall — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:14:46 -0800

What is the specific technical reason Windows machines get gradually more sluggish over time (and without a reformat and reinstall) whereas Macs don't seem to? I don't mean to start some kind of Windows-versus-Mac debate or anything, but this is a question that's burned in my mind for some time. I use both Windows XP (on a Dell Inspiron 700m laptop) and Mac OS X (on a dual-core Mac Mini) and the Windows machine slowly becomes unusably sluggish over the course of every 1.5 years or so, whereas the Mac appears to be performing just as it did on day one. What's the actual, objective difference in the operating system architecture that accounts for this?

Mac/Windows file copying through RDC: FAIL

curagea — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:07:08 -0800

Copy-pasting isn't working between my Mac and a remote Windows machine through RDC. Help? So I have RDC on my Mac Leopard, connecting to a remote Windows XP Pro machine. I've followed the instructions here to enable copy-pasting files from my Mac to the Windows machine, choosing my Documents folder.

All said and done, I connected to the Windows machine, and.... I don't see my Documents folder. Not anywhere in Windows Explorer.

Am I missing something? Google is returning results on how to enable file sharing, which is NOT what I'm looking for. Supposedly RDC can do copy-pasting of files without going through the whole file-sharing setup