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Day off quickie: Mac questions.

By nightflameblue (Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 10:50:53 AM EST) (all tags)

Questions for the Mac Elite inside.

So, I'm looking around for things of interest on my new iMac (set to arrive Friday now). Someone that I've chatted with briefly points me in the direction of MacSales.com and says they have awesome prices on memory. I see four gigs for $99.97 and begin to get curious. Memory is always good, and you can never have enough, but the price difference between them ($99.97 for 4 GB) and Apple ($150 for 1 GB) seems a little wonky. So, I ask the question, anyone here used that stuff? Good, bad, recommended to keep that shit out of the house lest it infect the entire network?

They also have what seems like pretty reasonable prices on hard drives that fit the iMac body. 1 TB for $299 seems pretty affordable, and would save me having to offload songs as I build up my recording directory over the next few months. Though I must say I'm not as tempted on the hard drive front as I'm already looking at double the space I had previously.

And as long as I'm tossing out questions, anybody got any other recommendations for me? I'm getting a 20" Aluminum iMac. Gonna get the MINI-DVI to VGA adapter so I can use my "old" 19" flat panel as a side-by-side and use it mostly for recording and picture editing. Any hard-core Mac users with suggestions, chime in. It's the first time I'll have a Mac that's even a little bit above baseline, so I'm a little excited to push it beyond what I ever pushed my two previous Macs.

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Day off quickie: Mac questions. | 33 comments (33 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

Apple memory is overpriced by wiredog (4.00 / 1) #1 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 11:06:56 AM EST

If you want to upgrade, go with Kingston or some other, but far cheaper, quality brand. THere's instructions that come with the iMac that tell you how to do it. Jerry Pournelle has an iMac and upgraded it with Kingston ram.

Oddly enough, their prices on HDMI and TOSlink cables are the lowest around by far.

Get a Real Two Button Mouse. Mine is a Logitech. The Mighty Mouse is (IMHO) a POS. I have no opinion on the keyboard, except that it reminds me of the disastrous chiclet keyboard that came with the IBM PS/2. Oh, I hear the glass screen has Glare and Fingerprint Issues.

Don't bother upgrading the internal drive. Buy an external drive that does Firewire 800. They're not too expensive, and Time Machine and other backup software will want it.

On the OSX disk, optional installs include Xcode, an ide, and X windows. Install X windows so that you can run OpenOfficeand the Gimp.

Take a look at HandBrake. It's a DVD ripper for the Mac. A very nice one. You can rip DVDs, and then import the rips to iTunes, or just put them in your Video folder, where FrontRow can get at it.

Earth First!
_{(We can strip mine the rest later.)}

+1 by miker2 (2.00 / 0) #5 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 11:44:32 AM EST

I went to a third party (memorytogo.com??) to get RAM for both my old iBook and my current macbook pro. I did get a bad SODIMM, but they gave me a new one and covered the shipping.

The mouse is also a must replace. My mighty mouse is in a box somewhere. I use the microsoft wireless laser mouse.

Ah, sociopathy. How warm, how comforting, thy sweet embrace. - MNS
[ Parent ]

Funnily enough. by nightflameblue (2.00 / 0) #13 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 03:53:41 PM EST

This comment covers all the things I already did on my Mac Mini save the memory talk. Handbrake, X Windows for the GIMP and OpenOffice, and XCode for some minor coding here and there. And my Logitech wireless mouse gets taken away the day it dies and gets replaced by another one. Though I'm tempted to try the keyboard. Anything that takes up less room than the giant, monster that Logitech packed in with the wireless mouse. This things has buttons for functions that don't even exist on it.

[ Parent ]

forget open office by StackyMcRacky (2.00 / 0) #17 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 08:30:15 PM EST

just get iWork. it's niiiice, and not kludgy like OpenOffice.

[ Parent ]

MS Office still rules the roost on OS X by lm (2.00 / 0) #21 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 11:31:48 PM EST

But Google docs does about 85% of what I need it to. My biggest complaint is that the word processor doesn't preserve tabs as tabs.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

MS Office on Mac is teh suXX0rz. by nightflameblue (2.00 / 0) #23 Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 12:16:26 PM EST

Slow and clunky enough to make a guy miss Open Office. And I say that from experience with both of Mac OS X.

[ Parent ]

Either you had a piss poor amount of RAM or ... by lm (2.00 / 0) #26 Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 12:27:08 PM EST

... you're on crack. I've been running Office on OS X since 2003. Runs fine.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

: My experience was with Office 2008 by nightflameblue (2.00 / 0) #27 Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 12:36:59 PM EST

Perhaps the new one sucks worse than the old one. All I know is no application should require more than a GB of ram with a blank document loaded unless it's a really, really heavy graphics program. A Word processor? Not so much.

[ Parent ]

isn't there by StackyMcRacky (2.00 / 0) #30 Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 01:34:56 PM EST

a pure mac port of open office? i think i remember somebody telling me about it at a party....NuOffice? something like that?

[ Parent ]

: NeoOffice. by nightflameblue (2.00 / 0) #32 Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 02:07:04 PM EST

I've used it. So long as you don't mind waiting three minutes for the application to launch and thirty seconds every time it needs to access the hard-drive, it's OK. It's really not very peppy at all.

[ Parent ]

IAWTP by wiredog (2.00 / 0) #22 Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 08:34:19 AM EST

I got iWork a couple weeks ago. Numbers is great.

Earth First!
_{(We can strip mine the rest later.)}
[ Parent ]

Is iWork the new AppleWorks? by nightflameblue (2.00 / 0) #24 Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 12:18:10 PM EST

That'd be sort of messed up. I used AppleWorks as my first office software way back in the late eighties on the old Apple IIgs.

My refurb is coming with a bunch of software pre-loaded. I'm gonna have to check and see if that's not already on the list.

[ Parent ]

: i have no idea about AppleWorks by StackyMcRacky (2.00 / 0) #31 Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 01:36:28 PM EST

but we're really happy with iWork. They open all MS Office stuff seamlessly, and they're not kludgy like OpenOffice.
$99 for the family pack is pretty cheap, too!

[ Parent ]

Apple holds their RAM suppliers to higher QA by lm (2.00 / 0) #2 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 11:13:53 AM EST

If you get extra memory from Apple, it will be good memory. Period.

Is that worth the amount of premium they charge? Probably not. IMO, its only worth it when the RAM they're replacing is non-user accessible like in some of the old iMacs. In this case, using Apple is the only way to upgrade that doesn't technically void your warranty.

I bought an aftermarket chip for my iBook a few years ago. When I put it in, the iBook segfaulted all over itself. I sent it back to the manufacturer for a replacement. The replacement stick worked fine.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic

Terabyte drives by Gedvondur (2.00 / 0) #3 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 11:18:10 AM EST

I would also caution about terabyte drives.

Not that there is anything wrong with them, but that if you don't buy two and put the second on into an external case you are asking for trouble.

Backing up that much data really requires a second drive of the same nature, preferably ESATA, USB or FireWire.

If the argument is "I don't have that much data"....then don't buy a terabyte drive. :-)

If you want help selecting an enclosure or such for a second drive let me know, I would be happy to help.

Gedvondur
"...I almost puked like a pregnant StackyMcRacky." --MillMan

2 terabyte drives? by muchagecko (2.00 / 0) #6 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 01:09:42 PM EST

How about just 1 external?

"It means more if you have to earn it, even if it's by doing something as simple as eating a meal." Kellnerin
[ Parent ]

C'mon! Do you REALLY have that much pr0n? by greyrat (4.00 / 2) #7 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 01:18:20 PM EST

~
There is absolutely no correlation or causation amongst intelligence, power, talent and wealth.
Kha-Nyou
[ Parent ]

I wish it was so easy. by muchagecko (4.00 / 1) #8 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 01:31:57 PM EST

Sometimes I feel like burning a few backup copies of BSG or equivalent that I sometimes loan to friends.

It doesn't take many movies to fill up a drive.

"It means more if you have to earn it, even if it's by doing something as simple as eating a meal." Kellnerin
[ Parent ]

: That's it! I'm calling the MPAA! [nt] by greyrat (4.00 / 2) #10 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 01:43:47 PM EST

[nt] == hush 'money' accepted.
~
There is absolutely no correlation or causation amongst intelligence, power, talent and wealth.
Kha-Nyou
[ Parent ]

um what? n/t by Gedvondur (2.00 / 0) #11 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 02:24:45 PM EST

"...I almost puked like a pregnant StackyMcRacky." --MillMan
[ Parent ]

it all boils down to by StackyMcRacky (2.00 / 0) #18 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 08:37:17 PM EST

what is your data worth to you?

[ Parent ]

Apple has a really slick backup option by lm (4.00 / 1) #12 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 03:04:15 PM EST

Tis called Time Capsule

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

fucking TIMECAPSULE by StackyMcRacky (2.00 / 0) #19 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 08:38:18 PM EST

fucking fucks at apple!

in December we bought a new airport extreme AND an external HD.

and then in Jan they come out with time capsule.

grrrr

[ Parent ]

when we upgrade the other computers ... by lm (2.00 / 0) #20 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 11:29:11 PM EST

Once the Leo Tard gets stable enough to upgrade my wife's machine, I'm going to seriously consider a Time Capsule. The very idea rocks the house down.

But the Leo Tard has a ways to go. If it keeps acting flaky on me, I think I'm going to downgrade.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

You've had problems with Leopard? by nightflameblue (2.00 / 0) #25 Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 12:20:31 PM EST

I'd be curious to hear about them. The only problem I had with Leopard on the Mini was in third party support on one app.

[ Parent ]

My last machine was running Panther by lm (2.00 / 0) #28 Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 12:44:58 PM EST

It'd need a reboot every two or three months. The Leo Tard needs it more like every week or so. I think the big culprit is the wireless drivers. About once a week or so it starts having trouble getting through to certain classes of IP addresses. Rebooting fixes the problem. At first I suspected it was our ISP but the other Internet connected machine (running Tiger) does fine.

For context, I'm running the Leo Tard on a 12" G4 Powerbook. It is noticeably faster than my G4 iBook that died. (Same proc speed, but the Powerbook has 80MB more of RAM and a faster bus.)

Also, the parental controls are wonky. The option to not block anything but to log everything does block some things and doesn't work at all when Apple's web site is down or experiencing heavy traffic. The release of the Mac Air (and thre resulting performance drop as gajillions of fanboys went to Apple.com) killed my internet until I turned parental controls off for the account I was using.

Your experience on newer kit may not be the same.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

Odd. by nightflameblue (2.00 / 0) #29 Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 12:55:54 PM EST

I've seen no real networking issues in Leopard, but saw all sorts of networking problems in Tiger on an Intel based Mini. If you'd try to download something of any size, it'd lock up the network and either rebooting or resetting network settings would be the only solution. Strangely enough, it was rolling back to Tiger and trying to download my old profile back on the machine that finally killed it dead. During the download it locked up, and couldn't do anything to the drive. New drive? Same issue. Though I suspect what actually happened is I finally fried the poor motherboard's hard drive controller, part of me will always blame the shoddy networking stack in Tiger for it.

I ran wired network though. I always kept the wireless network turned off on the machine.

[ Parent ]

: I skipped Tiger by lm (2.00 / 0) #33 Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 03:45:34 PM EST

My wife's box is one of those first gen Intel minis with Tiger installed. I do my best to ignore it all together.
There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

Any drive I get will be getting backed up. . . by nightflameblue (4.00 / 1) #14 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 03:55:34 PM EST

Either by an equivalent or larger sized drive. The Time Capsule is looking tempting to me, but may fall outside my backup budget.

[ Parent ]

"Mac elite"? by yicky yacky (4.00 / 2) #4 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 11:29:23 AM EST

SEGFAULT
----
17 days left ...

: It's based purely on expenditure. by Rogerborg (4.00 / 2) #9 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 01:36:51 PM EST

[not aptitude]

-
Metus amatores matrum compescit, non clementia.
[ Parent ]
: Mac Elite: A definition. by nightflameblue (4.00 / 1) #15 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 03:58:21 PM EST

1. Anyone aware that the Mac is capable of recognizing and utilizing a two or three button mouse.
2. Anyone whose panties don't immediately turn into a binder upon seeing or hearing the words, "I use a Mac."
3. People who actually use Macs in a professional capacity.

[ Parent ]

Apple RAM by joh3n (2.00 / 0) #16 Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 06:48:22 PM EST

is where they get some of their huge margins on computers. Go to crucial.com and get yourself some RAM on the cheap.

----
I just ate about 7 pounds of meat
-theantix

Day off quickie: Mac questions. | 33 comments (33 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback