Andy's Un-Official Unsolicited Mac Advice Thread

[DavidTO]

I run Photoshop CS5, Lightroom3 on my 11" Macbook Air and it screams. Go do it, no worries :)

My 1st gen MacPro is showing its age, and I need to upgrade my photo storage. I was thinking about an iMac and a Thunderbolt RAID, but I think that I'm going to start out by simply hooking my MBA up to the monitors and RAID with this (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/29222207/landingzone-the-docking-station-for-the-macbook-ai/posts/153328?ref=email&show_token=36641b63028870bf) and see how I get by. The biggest drawback at that point will be the 4GB RAM limitation.

[DoctorIt]

Now that iCloud is free, and inextricably linked to so many things on an iPhone... what do families do? By that I mean, up until now, we've both used my one AppleID for iTunes purchases (via phone) so that we could share one library. My wife is finally starting to use the calendar and contacts more, so this morning I went to turn on iCloud for her (free, why not), but hesitated because there's my AppleID at the top of the iCloud settings.

So I guess my question: is it possible, on an iPhone, to run iCloud with one ID and iTunes with another? I feel like the answer is "no way".

[DavidTO]

Yeah, no. But you can use iTunes match to free your DRM music.

[DoctorIt]

Apple must be an only child; they suck at sharing. How hard would it be to enable some family options for all this cloud stuff?

[cmason]

Hmm, well I have the same issue, with one Apple ID for iTunes across all my wife and kids devices. So, iTunes is logged in as my Apple ID, but for iCloud, I set my wife up with her own Apple ID, and that works fine. So for iCloud, she has her own ID, but for music purchases, and iTunes she uses mine. Works fine.

In any case, I really find little use for iCloud: I use Gmail and Google Calendar, as does my wife. Gmail IMAP manages email everywhere, and GCalendar syncs with iCal on phone and Mac. Also sync contacts with GMail, and they stay in sync on the iPhone as well. About the only thing iCloud is useful for is docs and photos. I use a free Dropbox account for docs, so thats useless, and so, we use iCloud to sync the photo stream only. At least it keeps iPhoto from popping up all the freaking time.

[DavidTO]

Oh!

[BradfordBenn]

I am doing a similiar thing as CMason. The key is to put in the iTunes Store info separately. The easiest way I found to do it, and I have done it four times now... Sign up and configure iCloud, then launch iTunes go to the Store Menu and select sign out. Then sign in with the account you want to use on that computer.

The thing that has me wary of iCloud is the way it handles iPhoto integration. It was questionable enough I actually went to the class at the local store... Your pictures are up in the cloud. Period. You delete from your computer and they are still in the cloud. I understand that with the Internet that things are never really truly gone. However when I issue a delete command it should come off the server

[ian408]

My 1st gen MacPro is showing its age, and I need to upgrade my photo storage. I was thinking about an iMac and a Thunderbolt RAID, but I think that I'm going to start out by simply hooking my MBA up to the monitors and RAID with this (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/29222207/landingzone-the-docking-station-for-the-macbook-ai/posts/153328?ref=email&show_token=36641b63028870bf) and see how I get by. The biggest drawback at that point will be the 4GB RAM limitation.

The LandingZone looks pretty amazing.

Anxious to hear how you like it.

[cmason]

You delete from your computer and they are still in the cloud. I understand that with the Internet that things are never really truly gone. However when I issue a delete command it should come off the server

I have read that a iOS update coming soon will allow deleting from the photo stream

[DavidTO]

I have read that a iOS update coming soon will allow deleting from the photo stream

You can also delete the entire stream, once you've got it in iPhoto.

[DoctorIt]

Hmm, well I have the same issue, with one Apple ID for iTunes across all my wife and kids devices. So, iTunes is logged in as my Apple ID, but for iCloud, I set my wife up with her own Apple ID, and that works fine. So for iCloud, she has her own ID, but for music purchases, and iTunes she uses mine. Works fine.Really? Good, I'll cross my fingers and try it, I was afraid of my stuff vanishing in a "sync"


In any case, I really find little use for iCloud: I use Gmail and Google Calendar, as does my wife. Gmail IMAP manages email everywhere, and GCalendar syncs with iCal on phone and Mac. Also sync contacts with GMail, and they stay in sync on the iPhone as well. I was just looking into that as well - although I'd heard iOS5 actually made syncing with Google harder? There used to be an easy button to "sync with Google"

[RogersDA]

Crud.

Time to replace. Maybe get a new MacBook and sell this one after swapping. :D

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-eETN6NXDIMQ/TvaSLF6rpsI/AAAAAAAAB0w/gPTlTJBnmRE/s800/coconut.jpg

[cmason]

Really? Good, I'll cross my fingers and try it, I was afraid of my stuff vanishing in a "sync"

I was just looking into that as well - although I'd heard iOS5 actually made syncing with Google harder? There used to be an easy button to "sync with Google"

Well, not iOS5, but iCloud did. If you use Gmail and its 'sync' capability, don't have iCloud sync your email and calendar...it makes a mess. If you use Apple exclusively, it works well, but introduce any other vendor in the mix and it really screws up. I had to turn iCloud off for everything but photos.

[bike21]

Anyone here ever reinstall Mac OS to improve performance? I used to do this about twice a year with Windows but after 3 years of Mac ownership I have yet to do it. Not sure if I really need to at the moment because performance is still pretty strong and I use Onyx to keep things firing on all cylinders. I also keep my photos & media on a secondary hard drive I installed (in place of CD drive) to keep my root drive mostly free of clutter.


Thoughts? I think there is probably room for improvement but wanted to get some feedback. I use SuperDuper for backups so restoring everything should be a snap.

[Andy]

Anyone here ever reinstall Mac OS to improve performance? I used to do this about twice a year with Windows but after 3 years of Mac ownership I have yet to do it. Not sure if I really need to at the moment because performance is still pretty strong and I use Onyx to keep things firing on all cylinders. I also keep my photos & media on a secondary hard drive I installed (in place of CD drive) to keep my root drive mostly free of clutter.


Thoughts? I think there is probably room for improvement but wanted to get some feedback. I use SuperDuper for backups so restoring everything should be a snap.

Not in 7 years have I ever even contemplated this. Can't imagine that an OS reinstall would do anything for you. Keep SW update on, keep updating, and you'll be fine.

[Pupator]

The reason why that worked to improve Windows for you was that you (as most users tend to do) lost control of how many applications were installed and how many were starting up (or starting some process) at boot. The Windows reinstall trick was just an easy way to clear all of that out and afterwards you'd (likely) only install the programs you actually use. It wasn't necessary in Windows and it's not necessary in OSX either. Just keep tabs on what's running in the background all the time.

[BradfordBenn]

I have just done a complete reinstall on my MacBook Pro. The reason, it went from Tiger to Leopard to Snow Leopard to Lion over the five years. When I got the new machine and was retasking the laptop, I wanted a fresh clean start from a house keeping stand point not from performance. I wanted to get rid of all the legacy stuff and free up drive space. Performance wise I can tell you that it made not a difference. Operationally the way the computer is being used, it was a good move. No legacy stuff of having something unexpected on there.

[DoctorIt]

... Keep SW update on, keep updating, and you'll be fine.Speaking of updates, I have one that is "stuck" now - it seems to be a major one that requires a restart and does its installing of packages after logout. However, it just hangs there.I've even tried leaving it overnight with no luck. I have to do a hard shutdown by holding down the power button. Everything seems fine when I restart.

Anyone ever experience this? Or have advice on somehow manually getting this one update off the queue (there's another update now stuck in line behind it)?

[eoren1]

Do you know what the update is? If a major OS one, you can download the 'combo' update that includes all changes and usually works better if the 'delta' update fails/stalls

Also, when in doubt, can always run 'repair permissions' in disk utility.

[DavidTO]

Speaking of updates, I have one that is "stuck" now - it seems to be a major one that requires a restart and does its installing of packages after logout. However, it just hangs there.I've even tried leaving it overnight with no luck. I have to do a hard shutdown by holding down the power button. Everything seems fine when I restart.

Anyone ever experience this? Or have advice on somehow manually getting this one update off the queue (there's another update now stuck in line behind it)?

You can always ingore the update (http://www.macosxtips.co.uk/index_files/ignore-software-updates.php).

[ian408]

You can always ingore the update (http://www.macosxtips.co.uk/index_files/ignore-software-updates.php).

I'd have to say it sounds like the update is half way installed or something. Would you still ignore that? I probably wouldn't--just because you don't know how much is installed (or not).

Can you look through the log file and see what's happening? /var/log/install.log is the first place to look. Fixing the on-disk permissions is a good idea. Could be the install cannot write something it needs to in order to finish a task--it should be in the log file.

[DoctorIt]

I'd have to say it sounds like the update is half way installed or something. Would you still ignore that? I probably wouldn't--just because you don't know how much is installed (or not).

Can you look through the log file and see what's happening? /var/log/install.log is the first place to look. Fixing the on-disk permissions is a good idea. Could be the install cannot write something it needs to in order to finish a task--it should be in the log file.Thanks, Ian. It turned out to be the Safari update, so I took Eyal's suggestion and just downloaded the whole package. All better now, no more software updates.
:thumb

[ian408]

Thanks, Ian. It turned out to be the Safari update, so I took Eyal's suggestion and just downloaded the whole package. All better now, no more software updates.
:thumb

Maybe it just me but I've always wondered why Safari updates require a reboot. It's almost the same as the old IE complaints back when Firefox users were trying to make FF the default browser.

[BikerK]

I run Photoshop CS5, Lightroom3 on my 11" Macbook Air and it screams. Go do it, no worries :)


I'm a new mugger, but my "day job" is computers. Don't let the size of the Air fool you. Blast anything you got at it!

[DoctorIt]

Maybe it just me but I've always wondered why Safari updates require a reboot. It's almost the same as the old IE complaints back when Firefox users were trying to make FF the default browser.Probably because Safari is tied into everything... after the update, I opened a new tab and navigated to gmail, and the browser immediately asked me if I wanted to setup gmail to work with Contacts, iCal, and Mail. So, clearly, it's got hooks into system settings and other apps.

After all the trouble, I figured I'd give it a go last night, and I have to say, I really enjoyed the fullscreen browsing. I may just ditch FF for that reason alone - everything else is pretty much a wash.

[RogersDA]

Wife's Macbook - no Timemachine :rolleyes

We changed hosting companies, and the email pop servers changed as well.

Set-up the new mail account just fine. She hightlighted all of the old messages from her old account's inbox, and copied them to the the inbox of the new account.

She then deleted the old mail account.

Well, she forgot to copy all of the sent mail messages from the old account.

Going to ~Library/Mail I can still see (and import) the old mailbox, but that is just the inbox. There is no sent mail!

Anyone with ideas?

[ian408]

Depending on the settings you're using to retrieve mail, it's possible it removed the folder contents because the messages don't exist on the server.

Did you look in ~/Library/Mail/V2/? Do you see two directories there? Mailboxes usually contains the various directories, etc.

[RogersDA]

Depending on the settings you're using to retrieve mail, it's possible it removed the folder contents because the messages don't exist on the server.

Did you look in ~/Library/Mail/V2/? Do you see two directories there? Mailboxes usually contains the various directories, etc.

Checking the /Mail folder and all subfolders did not give any help.

Lost mail is lost.

[RogersDA]

O.k. - anyone having issues with iCloud and iCal?

All calendars are on iCloud.

The MacPro and iPad are configured to use iCloud, and obtain all calendars from iCloud.

For some reasons the iCloud calendars will not sync sometimes. They were there, and now all the calendar entries are gone even though the calendars are listed ont he Mac and iPad.

Resyncing is not helping, and turning off/on iCloud on the devices is not helping.

At wit's end on this.

Contacts are no problem. It is just iCal with iCloud that is straining my iPatience.

Any ideas? :scratch :dunno

[DavidTO]

Are you sure there isn't a gmail calendar account on your iPad? I had entries go to that on my phone.

[RogersDA]

Are you sure there isn't a gmail calendar account on your iPad? I had entries go to that on my phone.
Thanks for the suggestion, David.

I never use Gmail's calendar. But, I deleted Gmail just as a check. That did not work.

Then, while using the iPad, I changed from month view to day view in the calendar. Low and behold all the events were there! i went back to month view and everything reappeared as if by magic.

Seems a bit buggy to me and to others (based on the posts I have seen on the internet).

[David_S85]

Mountain Lion OS X 10.8.x Preview Video
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TyXKZJl238I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[BradfordBenn]

Like I said on Twitter, I am still getting used to Lion. I am waiting for Thunder Cat. (For those not of the same age - Thundercats was a child's cartoon show http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThunderCats)

[eoren1]

That made me a little sad that you had to explain what Thundercats was...

[David_S85]

Like I said on Twitter, I am still getting used to Lion. I am waiting for Thunder Cat. (For those not of the same age - Thundercats was a child's cartoon show



:D TC 10.9.x might only take them another 8 months to get around to announcing. Get your Thunderbolt 2.0 devices ready.

[BradfordBenn]

That made me a little sad that you had to explain what Thundercats was...

International crowd, just in case...

[W.W. Webster]

That made me a little sad that you had to explain what Thundercats was...Not to be confused with Thunderbirds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_(TV_series))! :D

[eoren1]

Not to be confused with Thunderbirds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_(TV_series))! :D

Well, for that one, I'm glad for the wikipedia reference :wink

[W.W. Webster]

Well, for that one, I'm glad for the wikipedia reference :wink... and a taster here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfIAKj3Gl1E)!

[DavidTO]

Fantastic resource of Lion tips (http://www.maclife.com/article/gallery/80_os_x_lion_features_you_may_have_overlooked). I learned a ton.

[dlplumer]

I use Aperture with Snow Leopard and I am finally considering upgrading to Lion. Any advice from those of you that use Aperture and plugins with Lion would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dan :D

[michswiss]

My MBA came with Lion and my old MBP is still on SL. I run Aperture on both, but other than Pixelmator, I don't use many plug-ins or external editors. There are some small behavioural differences in Aperture between the installations e.g. handling full-screen modal dialogue boxes, but otherwise I haven't run into anything that's substantially different. I've decided to keep the MBP on SL as it's coming up on four years old and it might be due for a replacement this year. I'd rather have it in it's current shape for potential resell in case someone needs Rosetta, etc...

[Pupator]

Fantastic resource of Lion tips (http://www.maclife.com/article/gallery/80_os_x_lion_features_you_may_have_overlooked). I learned a ton.

I bet the tips are helpful, but putting them in a sideshow so he can display 80 ads along the way is really obnoxious.