I finally did it - bought a Mac

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EGGO

Diamond Member
Jul 29, 2004
5,504
1
0
Originally posted by: bearxor
Skip Firefox. If you have to have another browser download Camino. Firefox on the Mac kind of... sucks.

Then again, I'm perfectly happy with Safari in OS X and IE 7 in Vista, so what do I know?

If you're using it for just basic tasks and such, a 2GB upgrade really isn't necessary. If you do a lot of higher end video work, graphics/rendering work, gaming or want to dabble in virtualization I would go to at least two. I mean, let's face it, 2GB of RAM is only $48 bucks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820148086

Hell, 4GB of RAM is only $88.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820227247

If only it was that cheap for Mac Pros...
 

intogamer

Lifer
Dec 5, 2004
19,219
1
76
Originally posted by: fisher
firefox 3 beta 3 is quite nice. been using it for a few days. rocks faces. i've never been impressed with camino.

and you can export your bookmarks from firefox and move them into any browser.

I second this
 

budda

Member
Feb 17, 2008
31
0
0
another program you might be interested in is macjanitor. If you do not leave your book on 24/7 it can't do the nightly cleanings
 

Megatomic

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
20,127
6
81
Originally posted by: EGGO
Originally posted by: bearxor
Skip Firefox. If you have to have another browser download Camino. Firefox on the Mac kind of... sucks.

Then again, I'm perfectly happy with Safari in OS X and IE 7 in Vista, so what do I know?

If you're using it for just basic tasks and such, a 2GB upgrade really isn't necessary. If you do a lot of higher end video work, graphics/rendering work, gaming or want to dabble in virtualization I would go to at least two. I mean, let's face it, 2GB of RAM is only $48 bucks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820148086

Hell, 4GB of RAM is only $88.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820227247

If only it was that cheap for Mac Pros...
Wow, $50 shipped with rush processing for 2GB of laptop memory, that's damn cheap. I hope I get it before the weekend.

Regarding x slimmer, should I uninstall thunderbird and run x slimmer on it? Will it make a difference in that program, it already seems to open very quickly.

I may try camino if FF3 doesn't work out. I'm used to FF and I'd like to keep what I can familiar so that the things that are going to be different aren't overwhelming.
 

Kmax82

Diamond Member
Feb 23, 2002
3,008
0
0
www.kennonbickhart.com
FF3 has been a mixed bag for me.

One, I don't care for the UI. Two, it takes AGES to load on my MBP. I mean, if I do a cold boot, and load Safari and FF3 side by side. It takes FF3 almost 10x longer than Safari to open. That isn't the case with FF2, so I'm wondering if there aren't other issues involved there.

Anyway, give it a shot. I use Safari for pretty much everything and I'm very pleased with it.

I haven't tried XSlimmer, but I want to. I mean it's only $11, that's not bad at all! I would like to see some benchmarks, though, to see how much of an improvement you see on the x86 side.
 

Dean

Platinum Member
Oct 10, 1999
2,757
0
76
Originally posted by: Megatomic
camino is another mozilla project isn't it? is it seamonkey for os x?

i just learned how to scroll - drag two fingers on the trackpad. easy. :)

You know I just discovered that you could do that yesterday also. My old Ibook would not do it. I discovered it by accident when playing around in Google Earth.
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
12,089
45
91
Originally posted by: Megatomic
I can't even remember how I figured it out myself. Sheer genius or blind luck....

I am trying to remember how I first found out about 2 finger right clicking. I already knew about 2 finger scrolling when I got my MacBook (I had been doing a lot of research before I got it), but somehow didn't know about 2 finger right clicking (2 fingers on the pad, click the button, or tap them if you have tap clicking turned on) until I just did it one day. Made life soooo much easier... no more Ctrl+Click
 

erikistired

Diamond Member
Sep 27, 2000
9,739
0
0
Originally posted by: TheStu
What issues were you having with Safari? I have been running it as my browser of choice for over a year now, and don't really have any complaints.

XSlimmer is a great app, I agree, I have been using it since I got my mac, liked it so much, I bought 3 licenses for it (1 for me, and 1 each for my 2 mac using friends)

it won't let me selectively block popups (my school site uses them) and it won't let me open links in a new tab without running another program or holding down a key. it's also incompatible with a few sites (like my school email).

edit:

regarding xslimmer, you don't have to uninstall anything, it works after the fact. it's biggest attraction is space saved over performance. i got back almost 2gb of space on my first run. for me it made ff2/3 load faster as well, but that was more of a side perk as i tend to use up hdd space quickly.
 

Megatomic

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
20,127
6
81
So I tried camino, and I like it a lot. Does it need the same speed tweaks that I use on firefox? For example, open about:config and enable pipelining.
 

Megatomic

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
20,127
6
81
All right, I did the pipelining tweaks, but I couldn't add any keys to the about:config file for some reason... :confused: Right clicking inside the file produced no popup menu with the option to add new integers. What am I missing?
 

Kmax82

Diamond Member
Feb 23, 2002
3,008
0
0
www.kennonbickhart.com
I just started using Camino and it's actually pretty good. I'm not sure if it'll be my one main browser, but I'm going to give it a chance.

I will say that so far it combines some of my loves of Firefox with that of Safari, so it's very promising!
 

Megatomic

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
20,127
6
81
Ok, how do I click and select multiple items in a folder in OS X? For example, in windows, if there are 20 items and I want to select 4 of them for deletion, I can hold down CTL and left click on the 4 items one at a time to select those 4 items only. I can't seem to find the way to do that in OS X....

Also, is there a way to arrange items in a folder by type? For example, in windows in a folder with dozens of items with various file extensions, you can right click on the empty space in the folder and select arrange items by file type. I haven't found a way to do this in OS X yet.

TIA for the help guys.
 

erikistired

Diamond Member
Sep 27, 2000
9,739
0
0
use the apple key instead of control in most cases.

go to your directory, hit the button up top that looks like a gear. go to show view options. you can change it in there. dunno if it's global or if there's a way to make it global, because i've gotten used to having everything by name.

edit: seems to be global, but different folders behave differently. my docs folder puts folders at the top, applications does not.
 

Megatomic

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
20,127
6
81
Well, I've just about mastered my new macbook. I've got all the goodies installed and I'm completely unlimited in what I can do with it. Some programs that I'm surprised to find for OS X are:

Joost
Windows Media
Divx
Second Life

Camino is working out great, the only question I have on it is can I add any extensions and themes for it? It looks great as is but themes can be interesting. And Thunderbird is as good as ever.

So, I'm loving my mac and wish I'd done this sooner.
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
12,089
45
91
Well, with VLC there is basically no need for DivX and honestly, it feels like such a half-assed effort on their part. I don't think I have ever had any videos actually able to play in the DivX player (and that includes .divx files) and when it finally does open, it doesn't respect the UI choices I have made (no stoplight for me, graphite buttons instead).

And also, you don't need Windows Media... get Flip4Mac, a free plugin for Quicktime that lets you play back non-DRMed Media Player files. That is what Microsoft recommends even since they stopped dev-ing Media Player about 3-4 years ago.

So, get Perian and Flip4Mac and Quicktime will be nigh unstoppable.

Then get VLC to round out the package.

Also, be sure to turn on Better Deinterlacing under the View Menu in DVD Player, that actually gives it upsampling of sorts (or so I have heard) but only on 1.6GHz or faster systems... so all the computers Apple sells right now.
 

Megatomic

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
20,127
6
81
It was actually Flip4Mac that I installed, not a microsoft program for wm. I'll check out Perian next and also turn on better deinterlacing when I watch my next movie. Guess what else I found... Kodak EasyShare software for os x. I was stunned to find that.
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Sep 15, 2004
12,089
45
91
Originally posted by: Megatomic
It was actually Flip4Mac that I installed, not a microsoft program for wm. I'll check out Perian next and also turn on better deinterlacing when I watch my next movie. Guess what else I found... Kodak EasyShare software for os x. I was stunned to find that.

I had Kodak's EasyShare on my system for about a day, LittleSnitch had made iPhoto unable to import from my camera. But honestly, I would much rather use iPhoto... but to each their own.
 

Megatomic

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
20,127
6
81
I haven't put it on yet, but I downloaded as I own an EasyShare camera. I may or may not need it, only time will tell. I wish my blackbook came with a card reader built in, I wouldn't even consider EasyShare if I had one.
 

randomlinh

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
20,846
2
0
linh.wordpress.com
Originally posted by: Megatomic
I haven't put it on yet, but I downloaded as I own an EasyShare camera. I may or may not need it, only time will tell. I wish my blackbook came with a card reader built in, I wouldn't even consider EasyShare if I had one.

The EasyShare camera's should plug right in and be detected, so no need for the software. Unless Kodak has decided to do some proprietary crap with it, but I doubt that.

And I'd say iPhoto 08 is useful, but I found previous iterations to get far too messy IMO. Does anyone know if iPhoto 08 supports some IPTC data at least?
 

Pabster

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
16,986
1
0
Originally posted by: TheStu
So, get Perian and Flip4Mac and Quicktime will be nigh unstoppable.

Then get VLC to round out the package.

:thumbsup:

That sums it up quite nicely.