Domain: macosxhints.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to macosxhints.com.
Comments · 495
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Re:VNC on Mac OS X
How to enable the Apple Remote Desktop client as a VNC server
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20041 013050458686&query=vnc
Really nice, use it all the time -
WowReminds me a lot of Mac OS X Hints, but extended to include non-computing hardware.
Any hints on how to hack the model D83 Swedish sure-grip suck machine yet?
/naked gun 2 1/2 -
Mac OS X vs HDTV...
This doesn't answer the poster's question but Mac users can checkout this article at macosxhints.com. The software is not built into Mac OS X but it is a free download from ADC.
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Mac OS X vs HDTV...
This doesn't answer the poster's question but Mac users can checkout this article at macosxhints.com. The software is not built into Mac OS X but it is a free download from ADC.
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Re:And this is why Linux is not mainstream
For example, good luck using a Mac to record a digital HDTV broadcast to Xvid with a mu-law soundtrack and subtitles in Farsi, storing it to a network file server attached via IP-over-1394.
Hmmm...This article seems to have nearly what you're asking for. And it's nearly six months old. As for storing it to a network file server attached via IP over Firewire, you don't think the company that invented Firewire knows how to make that work? Think again buddy. And I'll second what somebody else already said about yer 2-1337-4U attitude -- there's a reason why the computer dweeb is typically looked down upon in society... -
Emacs keybindings
Cocoa apps also use emacs keybindings in all text input areas. Ctrl-a to go to the start of a line, ctrl-e to go to the end. Ctrl-k cuts from the cursor to eol. Ctrl-y pastes back what you cut, etc.
This is actually customizable. You can use other schemes if you want or invent your own. You can probably find instructions at macosxhints.com
Don't forget that you can also turn on full keyboard access to navigate menus w/out the mouse. -
For help, go to MacOSX.com
If you should have any questions or problems with your new Macintosh, goto to
http://www.macosx.com/
to get FREE assistance from experienced Mac users. You will find warm and friendly responses to your questions.
For totally geeking out with Mac OS X, go to:
http://www.macosxhints.com/
to learn all the under-the-hood BSD/UNIX stuff you would ever want to know about Mac OS X.
Best regards,
A sincere and hard core Macintosh geek spreading the Jobsian gospel of Apple. -
Re:Learning/Unlearning goes both ways!
I'm going through similar 'growing pains' as I've added a powerbook recently. I've been plotting on how to move over the Itunes library, but maintain the playcounts and ratings.
At this point, after scouring the usual Ipod/Itunes sites (ipodlounge, ipoding, etc), I've resigned myself to manually updating the filename paths in the Itunes Library XML file.
Some things I've found along the way include these links that may be helpful:
Moving a nonstandard Itunes library
Moving a mac library to a new machine-this got me thinking about changing the filename paths
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Re:simpleI agree getting a multi-button mouse is a good idea. However, if you don't, or if you're using a laptop and don't want to carry a mouse around with you, get used to keyboard shortcuts.
On windows, I've been more of a "right-click, copy, right-click, paste" sort of guy, whereas, on the mac, with no right click, I go for the command-c, command-v stuff.
I know, it sounds trivial, but there are a lot of useful key-combos on a mac. For all the complaints of a one-button mouse, I find with the key-combos, the lack of extra buttons doesn't slow me down. In fact, one benefit is that the key-combos are much more consistant in OS X than windows. Command-Q always quits. Always. Every program. Command-S always saves. Windows has this sort of thing, but there are quite a bit of programs that don't cohere to the convention in Windows.
Otherwise, this is the advice I can think to muster (yes, I'm thread-hijacking):
- OS X and Windows have a lot of the same applications. MS Office, Macromedia/Adobe suites, stuff like that. So, if you used these apps, get the OSX version of the same apps, and you'll feel at home. In many cases, there's little difference.
- Watch out for resource forks. If you aren't familiar with resource forks, it's some extra metadata that tells the OS what kind of file it is and how to deal with it. If you want to use unix commands, be careful when moving, copying, or compressing files, because you can lose the resource fork, which makes the file useless unless you can repair the resource fork. It's a pain. There are ways around this, but you may have to do some research and experiment (Helios Xtar comes to mind for tar).
- Some good sites for technical info: Mike's Mac OS X...Tips (home of Carbon Copy Cloner) and mac OS X hints (really helpful)
- A lot of things are similar. When you'd normally go looking for Winzip, use Stuffit. When looking for Firefox, adjust, and realize you want Camino. Explorer and Finder work similarly. If you're looking for Outlook, the Mail, Addressbook, iCal combo will probably meet your needs. The Control Panel in Windows is "System Preferences". It's not going to be hard to figure out, and the Mac alternatives are usually going to be at least as good as Windows.
- The dock may take some getting used to. Closing a window does not mean you've exited the application. If you want to know if an application is running, look at the dock. If the icon for the application has a little black triangle underneath it, it's running. To quit an application, make sure you have it running as the top-most application (it's name will be on the top bar, right next to the Apple icon) and press command-Q. (there are a couple of other ways to do this, but like I said, get used to keyboard shortcuts)
- Don't spend very long trying to quit out of that little blue smiley face at the end of your dock. That's the finder. It's always running.
- The "command" key is the one that has an apple on it (next to "alt" and the spacebar).
- When you look in menus for keyboard shortcuts, you'll see funny symbols. What I mean is, if you click on "File", one of the options will be "Save" and next to "Save" will be a funny clover-leaf symbol, and then an "S". This means "command S"The little clover-leaf is the command key. (usually, the command key has both a clover-leaf-looking symbol and the Apple logo on the keyboard, so this one shouldn't be too hard). An up arrow isn't up, it's shift. The third symbol, which I can't even figure out how to explain what it looks like, that means "alt".
- All data goes in your home folder. Your program preferences are in the Library folder, which goes in your home folder. It's kinda unix-like, easy to deal with, a lot better than Windows.
- In fact, as a user, you can pretty much ignore the Library and System Fold
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harpa, I was there too
Although I started off my desktop career in the late 80's with PC's using DOS and Windows 2.11, I've used Macs in DTP and grpahics jobs and Windows in programming jobs and in my last job was a Windows admin. At home I use both, but chiefly Macs with OSX.
The things I think you'll need to know:
1.As many others have stated, get a 3rd party multi button mouse. Right button works just as it does in Windows.
2.The GUI will probably seem easier after a while. It is definitely cleaner than Windows. You'll get used to the menu always at the top in no time as it's like a maximised app in windows.
3.The dock will be one of those things on the Mac that shows you a profound difference between Windows and OSX. Just drag apps that you want to have permanently there to it and others that you don't just drag off the dock. Drag 'n drop is a fundamental feature of the Mac.
4.Since there is no start menu, you might miss having your applications available at a click. Just drag the applications folder to the right side of the dock separator and you can then right click on the folder there to access your apps. This works with all folders.
5.You'll probably be using Expose extensively soon. Try the keys F9, F10 and F11 to get a fell for what it does. It's a great way of grabbing a file you need in an application.
6.Cmd-Tab is the way of switching applications. Both here and in Expose, drag and drop make it very useful.
7.OSX uses a lot of meta keys and combinations. Cmd, alt, ctrl, shift and the space bar in various combinations work in various ways, but usually consistantly in various apps, such as alt-drag in the finder to copy a file or cmd-click to select various non consecutive files in the finder.
8.The finder has a columns view that is not available in windows. Some prefer it, some don't. I do. try alt dragging the little area below the scroll bars.
9.The finder lets you place favourites in the area to the left. In order to navigate the finder by keyboard, use cmd-up arrow to move up the folder hierarchy.
10.Minimising places windows on the right side of the dock. alt-double click will place all that applications windows in the dock.
11.Cmd-h will hide an application from view, including its minimised windows form the dock.
12.What are control panels in windows are the system preferences in osx. The app with a light swtich icon. It is considerably simpler to use than Windows contorl panels.
13.The firewall is on by default, and networking services and file sharing are configured here and are fairly simple to do compared to windows. You'll be able to set up a windows share to get data from your windows computer.
14.Printer setup is also easy. Just plug it in usually.
15.You'll need a root account on rare occasions. This can be set up using the Netinfo manager utility in Applications->Utilities.
16.The terminal is a full fledged unix commandline environment and is extremely useful for power users. Bash is the default shell.
17.There are many many sites out there that offer advice and troubleshooting. One that springs to mind is osxhints. The MacNN forums also offer really good help for newcomers.
Lastly, good luck. -
hard core nerd stuff
Once you've gotten through Mac OS X GUI boot camp and are ready to delve into the guts of OS X, the best site around is macosxhints.com.
PS - welcome to family. -
dos and don'ts on a Mac
do...- use Drop Drawers as a Dock supplement or replacement
- use MPlayer as your media player
- read macosxhints when you need advice
don't...- use anti-virus software - it's not necessary
- use Internet Explorer - it's crap
- use Windows Media Player - not even your worst enemy deserves this crap
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macosxhints
This site isn't directly for Windows-switchers, but it will give you lots of great ideas on how to get your Mac working well:
http://www.macosxhints.com/
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Switcher linksI've probably switched about a dozen people by now. so here's some of the things i show them when they first start.
Important URLs:- Mac Rumors - Good rumors website
- Mac Slash - Slashdot like mac news site
- Mac News Bytes - Good quick links to mac related articles
- Version Tracker - Software update website. Kind of like download.com for mac.
- Mac Update - Similar to versiontracker.com
- Mac OS X Hints - Good tips site for beginners and experienced people alike.
- Think Secret - Another good rumors site. Very accurate, most of the time.
- Emulation.net - Links to game emulation for mac
Important Apps:- Adium - Multi-protocol IM client
- Byte Controller - Good itunes hotkey/menu pager applet
- Camino - Nice mac based gecko browser.
- Colloquy - Webkit based IRC client. not too newbish.
- Cyberduck - SFTP/FTP client for os x
- Desktop Manager - Multi desktop app for os x
- Apple X11 Server - Apple's integrated X11 server. you'd want this for the next two items
- Fink - UNIX software for your mac
- Gimp.app - decent free photo editor
- Handbrake - DVD to mpeg4 ripper
- iTerm - Multi tabbed terminal
- Logorrhea - iChat log viewer/searcher/indexer
- Meteorologist - Weather applet for the menu bar
- Menu Meters - Menu applet for cpu usage, net usage, and more.
- Mplayer OS X - This app will play just about any media format in existance
- Poisoned - GiFT (Kazaa) and mldonkey based P2P mac client.
- Quicksilver - Very cool file/application/url/itunes/etc/etc/etc indexing program. It's like spotlight, only here TODAY and free!
- VLC - Another good video playing app. Nice to have a backup sometimes if mplayer doesn't play a file (which is very very rare).
That's the jist of things i give them. Besides that. play with expose. it is godlike. i recommend setting the screen corners for maximum efficiency. Besides that, the best thing you can do is to just play around with the apps and system until you're comfortable -
As a switcher myself...
I'd say that if you're somewhat familiar with Linux/BSD you'll be very comfortable in OS X. Just start in the Terminal and work your way out. If you want your traditional UNIXy tools, install the Fink project (which often leaves much to be desired, especially when installing fink itself, but it'll get the job done)
For me, other essentials include Adium (a multi-protocol instant messenger), Firefox (sorry Safari) USB Overdrive (I find USB mice to move much too slowly even at max system settings), and Meteorologist (little weather-sensing menubar app).
macosxhints also has a good number of tips and tricks that you might want to through.
Other than that, I can't think of any real problems I had migrating over. It takes a few days to get used to, but it really is fairly intuitive. Try to experiment a bit, particularly with your normal 'window' habits. You may find you like to do things a different way. I used to run everything maximized, now I don't ever run something maximized anymore, despite having a smaller screen. I couldn't tell you why, it just feels more comfortable to do things this way for me. If you have any question, just remember there's a 'help' command in every application, the help docs are usually very nice. -
Re:new imac
A recent FCC regulation requires all cable companies to provide a Firewire-enabled cable box to any customer who asks. Macosxhints and avsforum have some pages on this and how to hook your Mac up to record TV (and even HDTV) with nothing but a Firewire cable, the set top box (or TV with firewire) and some free software.
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Re:iTerm (International Terminal Emulator) for OS
MacOSXHints has a new hint about ANSI colours in Terminal.
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Quick SearchI don't use OS X (although I intend to soon when I buy a new PC), so I can't offer much. A quick Google search didn't turn up much, here are the only two things I found. If you dig deeper or try harder, you might have more success. I don't know where Mac software likes to hide
;).- MacWise - Claims to do it, and there is a demo. But if you like it it's $95 which is NOT cheap.
- From Mac OS X Hints - How to add ANSI color to Terminal.app (I like how programs end in ".app"
:)). It is from '02 and mentions that the default shell on OS X is csh which (IIRC) means it's talking about 10.1 or 10.2 (since it was changed to bash in 10.3, right?).
My last suggestion is PuTTY. I've always found it to be an excelent program in the Windows world, and they have source for a Unix version which should work on OS X (this is based on the the Unix underpinnings, not anything written anywhere I saw). Download page, look under "Unix source" or something like that.
Hope one of those works, have fun.
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Re:Of course!
I found something funny today on macosxhints.com:
Use a Linksys NSLU2 NAS appliance on 10.3.
It was posted half an hour before NSLU2 Now More Useful.
What a coincidence! -
ill choice
I must say, this seems like a bad example. First of all, the books are all about Mac software. Why would I want to read that on a PDA? If we're talking about downloading to a computer, why would I want to pay money when a few minutes of Google will help me out? Sure, it's convenient. But it's not even guaranteed. And $10 seems like a high price for an electronic document covering basic material. I suppose neophyte Macaddicts may spring for it but there are plenty of free resources. All in all, I think Baen books are a much better example.
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Re:The best one...
You may want to check on MacOS X Hints on extra views that are available for OSX Calculator.app. You can get hex/bin/oct calculator (and those you can use with RPN), as well as somewhat basic graphing calculator.
Check here, to save yourself the search.
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I work for a library too
I'm the systems administrator for a university library. To provide computing for our patrons we use a mixture of Dells running Windows 2000, iMacs with OS X, and Linux machines running LTSP.
Windows can be made very secure, but it takes a lot of time to learn how to set it up properly. Over time i've accumulated lots of small utilities to aid in the task, as well as written several scripts of my own. Besides locking the system down as much as possible, i have a script that runs weekly which uses Norton Ghost to re-image the hard drive.
Macs can also be made very secure. Again, over time i've written scripts to do much of the work on new installs. Here's some URLs to get you started: macosxlabs macosxhints bombich Finally, there is Linux. These are my favorite machines because the administration time required is almost 0. We are running Linux Terminal Server Project with hardware purchased from DisklessWorkstations.com. The machines do not have write access to the server that they boot from, so nothing can get screwed up. If anything happens to a machine, we just have to reset it and a minute later it is back to normal. Setting up the first terminal took some work because i was not familiar with network booting or running an operating system from read-only media (a read-only nfs share in this case), but once the first one is set up, adding additional units is trivial. In our setup the applications actually run on the diskless station, but it is more common to run applications on the server and have them display on the diskless station. If you wanted to go that route, you'd want to spend some money on a nice server, but it should work well. I've actually been thinking of buying a better server and trying to run applications on it and eventually trying to move all computing to Linux.
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Re:Ogg QuestionAh... I found it by searching the OS X section of versiontracker.com. Someone has the darn thing filed in the wrong category.
:^(I recall hearing something somewhere about how to get Ogg support in iTunes, but I don't recall where. I did a quick search and found a discussion on macosxhints.com that might give you a lead or two:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2002
1 103065300430I'll check out the petition too.
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Re:Some common answers to Tiger questions
The reason it might work for some and not for others is because Tiger doesn't install all the certificates from all the CAs that Panther does. You can transfer the certificates from Tiger to Panther by copy them from your "/System/Library/Keychains" of one install to the other. You can also add your own.
Unlike in the current versions of Safari, there appears to be no UI for adding certificates to sites as your browse them and the debug menu for doing lax checking is disabled. Methinks this is because the whole keychain system was rewritten with most of the changes appearing to make things much easier to use certificates in Tiger Server
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Re:No Remote?
If roommate A has iTunes running under his account connected to his AE, and roommate B has iTunes running under his account connected to his AE, haven't we just accomplished what you wish?
Of course the problem is, does multiple copies of iTunes run with FUS?
Yes it does.
Then the next problem: Will multiple copies of iTunes recognize different AE units?
This indicates that multiple copies of iTunes WILL play different songs simultaneously... so the possibility definitely exists that multiple AE units can be supported on one machine. -
Re:Pleeeeze...
If anyone has spent any time on MacOSXhints, you might disagree with Chuck.
Many people who are long time mac users are mac power users. While many might be intimidated by the CLI and the Unix underpinings, once they find a site like MacOSXhints those fears can be alleviated and they learn that they can control their computers in far more powerful ways than before, without sacrificing any of the ease of use of normal operations. -
Re:If you have cable - just use firewire
Here's a working link. HDTV to a Mac
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Another alternative for Mac users...
A few months ago, I stumbled upon this page which explains how to record and play back HDTV signals using free tools and a cable box.
Regarding playback, VLC can *just* manage to play back HD 1080i recordings on my 1GHz TiBook (using the OpenGL playback option), so it sounds like it does not require the gargantuan system specs stated in the above article.
Now if only we could recieve HDTV in the UK. :/ -
Recording Digital Video off of Cable
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Re:Perceived speed vs throughput
There's an article about this on macosxhints.com here:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2004
0 51208143172&query=sheet+speedI'm off to try this myself now...
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DIY HDTV on your Mac
check it out....not for the meek - all you need is a Comcast HD box w/FireWire and a smattering of developer apps...oh, and considerable hard drive space wouldn't be a bad idea either
:) -
Apple provides free HDTV recording tools at ADC
...as outlined in this excellent hint right here from MacOSXHints.com.
This presupposes you can get the hardware HDTV box from your cable company, but that's usually only a nominal fee (+$10 a month).
~jeff -
Re:I will also be switching from Telus
Apple's Mail.app is fully scriptable. Just create an applescript that says something along the lines of:
tell application "Mail"
set smtp server of account "My Account" to smtp server "smtp.blah.com"
end tell
*googles*.... ...ah :)
Here's a macosxhints.com article about this. One of the comments includes a script that will link your SMTP server to your Network Location (see Apple Menu -> Locations). You can then set up network settings for your two locations, and have Mail automatically adjust itself when you switch between the locations.
Hope that's some use! -
Used Rendezvous on Linux before
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Re:THey just don't get it...
Well, all you need is a Mac running OS X and the Firewire SDK from Apple's Developer site. HDTV boxes do come with Firewire connections. Read more here
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Mac users can do it with a cheap firewire cable...
...no other expensive software required. Another reason why I love my Mac.
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Re:correction
$ uname -a Linux aragorn 2.4.25-gentoo-r2 #2 Mon May 31 12:54:31 EDT 2004 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
I dunno. This is a "PC". I don't have any spy-ware either.
Hmm, let's see...% uname -mpsrv
Yep, I have a "PC" also. Look it says it right there at the end. In fact, it is a p-p-p- power pc!
Darwin 7.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 7.4.0: Wed May 12 16:58:24 PDT 2004; root:xnu/xnu-517.7.7.obj~7/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc
No spyware either - unless you count Microsoft Word which sends out packets to your LAN, trying to see if you are running a copy on another computer. I quickly blocked that piece of spyware from being so noisy... -
Re:Hard to be a Mac user?
Well what about the one that pretended to be a preview of Word 2004. It might have only been a simple shell script but it is still a trojan, it did exist in the wild and it did cause damage to a few idiot's computers (wiping their home folder). What about it makes it "not a trojan"?
macosxhints
slashdot -
No CD no problem for mac usersJust create a disk image of the CD and mount it whenever you want to play WC3 (or any other game). You can combine the steps in a simple AS or bash too.
Here's a how-to guide - though it's written for 10.2, you can use Disk Utility just the same as the article describes using "Disk Copy". You may want to turn off "verify" too, so that the image mounts quicker.
I've done this for quite a few games so when I travel with my PB I don't have to tote the CDs along.
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Re:Resume Play from Last Location
see more info/discussion at macosxhints.com
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Re:Three OS X options...
Personally, I love Safari, other than the problem with a handful of sites, such as Citibank's online banking, that only work with Camino.
Have you tried faking the user agent string to make Safari identify itself as Internet Explorer? You can do it by enabling the 'Debug' menu.
My father uses the European Citibank's online banking with Konqueror itself - it needed the user agent thing doing, and (I think) popup windows enabling, but I don't think he's had any problems with it since. -
Re:You response was half right and half assed
Fine - but just remember, you made me do it:
http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=2797
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&thre adid=61377
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=152 73
I believe that is what you were talking about...
Power supply fan affecting sound card issues here
http://www.osxaudio.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=797 69
Finally, read the first sentence of this:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showpost.php?p=12272 0&postcount=16
And there it is - it can be loud or quiet, depending on use - so when you called my comment half right and half assed, you were completely wrong. I was very informed on this topic, and I have no bias towards either PC or Mac as anyone who knows me could tell you. 8 to 9 fans in a system like this? That's insane. My PC has half that, and I run it under full load consistently (SETI, DNET, Movie Rendering, etc) in Colorado, where temps are in the high 80's to 90's all summer long, and I didn't build a machine that needs 8 to 9 freaking fans. I have a high performance graphics card, high performance memory, and a fast AMD cpu - and I'm willing to bet my life that my machine is quieter than any Apple G5 on the market. And, then there's your comment:
"Do not confuse the G5 with some of the homebuilt Athlon abominations that have poor layout, poor airflow, and require multiple screaming fans."
Trust me, I won't, and didn't. I compared a G5 to a machine I would build, or anybody could these days for that matter using very common cases, fans, and power supplies. My machine is not an abomination that requires screaming fans, I use Panflo low rpm fans, and my case is more than sufficently cool. Everything else in my system requires passive heatsinks and runs quit well thank you.
While you may have a quiet G5, many people don't - so you should check yourself before calling me half right and half assed buddy. -
Re:You response was half right and half assed
Fine - but just remember, you made me do it:
http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=2797
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&thre adid=61377
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=152 73
I believe that is what you were talking about...
Power supply fan affecting sound card issues here
http://www.osxaudio.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=797 69
Finally, read the first sentence of this:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showpost.php?p=12272 0&postcount=16
And there it is - it can be loud or quiet, depending on use - so when you called my comment half right and half assed, you were completely wrong. I was very informed on this topic, and I have no bias towards either PC or Mac as anyone who knows me could tell you. 8 to 9 fans in a system like this? That's insane. My PC has half that, and I run it under full load consistently (SETI, DNET, Movie Rendering, etc) in Colorado, where temps are in the high 80's to 90's all summer long, and I didn't build a machine that needs 8 to 9 freaking fans. I have a high performance graphics card, high performance memory, and a fast AMD cpu - and I'm willing to bet my life that my machine is quieter than any Apple G5 on the market. And, then there's your comment:
"Do not confuse the G5 with some of the homebuilt Athlon abominations that have poor layout, poor airflow, and require multiple screaming fans."
Trust me, I won't, and didn't. I compared a G5 to a machine I would build, or anybody could these days for that matter using very common cases, fans, and power supplies. My machine is not an abomination that requires screaming fans, I use Panflo low rpm fans, and my case is more than sufficently cool. Everything else in my system requires passive heatsinks and runs quit well thank you.
While you may have a quiet G5, many people don't - so you should check yourself before calling me half right and half assed buddy. -
Re:Safari
Speaking of tabs, keyboard shortcuts, and comparison between Safari and Firefox --- going to the next tab is Ctrl+PgDn for Firefox and Mozilla, while Cmd+Shift+RightArrow for Safari.
Given iBook's keyboard layout, Safari's keyboard shortcut is less cumbersome. (e.g. I can do Cmd+Shift+RightArrow with one hand.) Just a little gripe I have with Firefox + Mozilla on OS X. Ever since I did a hack on Safari to support custom keyword searches (aka "quick searches"), with the help of a tip on macosxhints.com, I have been mostly a Safari user. -
Re:Control the multiple streams
Linky Linky, Clicky Clicky
All in all, it's not so tricky. -
Re:PVR with digital cable
All cable companies in the US are now required to provide HDTV customers with a firewire-equipped cable box, on request. You can use this to make an HDTV PVR system from a Mac.
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Re:Mac OS X - quality which Microsoft can never ma
...when I click or right-click, or mouse over something in Gnome, I seem to get a lot more choices that I want to pick than in other desktops -- *generally speaking*
Mac's design has long had a standard menu bar intended for most actions that would always be available. They were 'late' in adding a right button and contextual menu options mainly because there was a standard venue for supplying menus for any object that might be selected. Once contextual menus became ubiquitous in other windowed operating systems (MS, Sun, X-Windows, whatever) they had to add them to help with cross over users and appearances.
As far as I can tell, the general direction of Mac's design for contextual menus is to have the most useful/used options, and everything on the standard menus. FWIW, there is a Contextual menu Plugin. I've never used it, but here is more info. -
Mac OS X Hints
http://www.macosxhints.com/ is a great place to start looking for the misc answers you may need.
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Firewire Target Disk Mode
I realize you may only have one Mac to work with, but if you have two, you may want to try out Firewire target disk mode. It allows you to connect one Mac to another and use the first as an external disk. This is much more flexible than booting from the install CD.
Has anyone tried connecting a Mac in target disk mode to a PC with a Firewire card? Was the PC able to mount the Mac as an external disk? If you don't have another Mac, that may also work assuming the PC knows what to do with HFS filesystem.
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Re:Let's hear more details about your break-in
You have a couple of GUI-less options:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030 603190314390
http://cocoa.mamasam.com/MACOSXDEV/2002/12/1/51614 .php
But I always use the GUI. I'm less likely to break things that way.