A Sad Tale

Does anybody know of a UK Apple authorised repair centre that is also capable of 'data recovery' from damaged drives?
This is a long story, bear with me
I bought a Macbook at the end of May, my first Mac since an original iMac from 1999?
I was delighted with it especially as I was able to install bootcamp and now had a single laptop on which I could develop and test software for multiple environments.
However within days it began to exhibit the occasional 'random shutdown issue'. At first it was once a day but over time it became progressively worse until I might have to start each day with 6 or more restarts before getting a stable environment for a few hours.
I researched the issue, saw it was a 'known' problem that Apple at first refused to acknowledge then, once the complaints had reached 1 in 5 users and that '00s of Macbooks were being repaired/replaced conceded that there was a design fault.
I bought and used my Macbook for a specific project which I completed in October and intended to return it for repair this month. Imagine my delight when I am made aware of the firmware update released Oct 26, I log on to the Apple update , find that I am advised to upgrade OS/X before updating the firmware. I perform the updates, restart, everything works and I look forward to a trouble free future.
Sadly I decide, before backing up the drive, to also update all the Apple application software, during the update the screen freezes with the desktop visible. I reboot, flashing Apple icon, manual tells me no OS visible.
It's 10:30pm, the end of a long day, I'm tired so I turn everything off and go to bed.
The next day I boot OS/X from CD, run disk utilites which can't see the hard drive. I research the net, remove the hard drive, and connect it to a desktop which has a SATA interface, no drive, in fact no motor noise or vibration. The disk is dead! It dawns on me that I did not back up the drive before beginning the firmware upgrade.
OK, I might have lost a few days work so I check my backup external USB drive, it fires up but my weekly Macbook image is corrupt, the most recent readable is the end of September!
Now I am in panic mode. I call Apple support, they explain that the drive will be replaced under warranty by an authorised repair centre but the drive must be returned. I repeat that the work lost will cost way more than a new Mac, I must get the data off the drive. I ring repair centres, all agree that they will replace the drive but their contract with Apple requires them to return the removed drive.
In summary, I bought an Apple product with a major design fault. Apple's repair policy prevents me from seeking redress under warranty when a major issue results in potential significant financial loss.
I acknowledge that I should of backed up (and verified) the drive before the update but I had a backup from a few days earlier didn't I, apparently not.
I have to pay to replace the drive and pay to recover the data, does anyone think this is all my fault?
Should I put this down to life experience? Is my sad tale likely to encourage me to recommend Apple to my clients?
Does anybody know of a UK Apple authorised repair centre that is also capable of 'data recovery' from damaged drives?
Macbook Mac OS X (10.4.8) And XP

I have removed the drive in order to test it on another SATA interface, that's how I know the drive is dead!
I bought another identical drive, after days or searching since Seagate have ceased manufacturing the 60gb Momentus SATA, I swapped the logic boards in the hope that is was a component failure, again I'm disappointed
On the bright side, the new drive works fine but re-installing all the Apple and Windows OS & application software is close to purgatory
Meanwhile, it looks like the platters will need to be removed from the drive in a clean environment etc etc. It will likely cost more than the Macbook to get the data back
Like I said, a sad tale (of stupidity)

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The (sad) tales of a 5th Gen 80Gb iPod classic

Hey folks,
So here's my story: for years, I had a 10 Gb iPod. I bought it when the model had just come out, so you can do the math of how long ago that was. Over all years of using that iPod, I never ever had a single problem with it. I always used it on my Windows PC, no problems at all.
The story sadly changed when I bought my new 80Gb 5th Gen. iPod (which was bought a couple months before the touch models came out, so it's now a Classic - sorry, that part always entertains me).
Since buying that one, I've had a few problems I never experienced before. Songs that always played perfectly on my old iPod seemed to freeze the new one (I kept a copy of most songs on an external HD, so I could listen to them at work and so on, which made it easier to upload them to the new one). 99.9% of the songs came from CDs I own, and ripped through iTunes, mind you.
For that and other reasons, I had to learn quickly how to reboot my new iPod, something I'd never done on the old one.
And now, the greatest problem of all is here: since I installed iTunes 7.5 on my PC, it crashed a couple times while managing my iPod. Earlier today, after it happened for the last time, I recalled iTunes to notice that many of my songs on my iPod - HUNDRED, mind you - are now missing. As I go through the list of songs in my iPod, I get the "white exclamation mark inside the grey circle" next to the name of the songs. As I try to play them on iTunes, they don't play. As I try to play them on the iPod, it automatically skips to the next song.
No, I do not automatically sync my songs, which means there's no reason it should look for them again. They simply "disappeared" physically from my iPod apparently.
I called Apple about it. The first tech person was, with all due respect, useless. His suggestions were simply "reformat my computer" (???) and "reformat my iPod," but he gave me no explanation whatsoever for why (does "because my sheet says so" sound familiar?).
I finally got to talk to a supervisor, who did sound extremely more proficient and knowledgeable about what she was saying. In her opinion, for one reason or another (again, ???), my iPod lost the path to those songs. So, although they are physically in there, the iPod doesn't know anymore how to actually find them to play. Her suggestion, unfortunately, is also to reformat my iPod, and reupload all the songs. This, however, would not save any of the Playlists that took me forever to fine tune, as there is no way of saving Playlists from iPod they know.
I am officially scared right now that I will spend hours reformatting the iPod and reuploading the songs, just to have the iPod do the same thing again, to the same or other songs. The other option I can think of is to reupload just these "hundreds" of songs manually, but, again, what's to say it won't happen again?
In some ways, I do miss my trouble free older iPod.
Hope this helps someone who may be considering a change, or may be experiencing something similar. If you are, I'd appreciate some input on the matter!
Have a good one, folks,
D.

Just wanted to give you guys an update: my iPod now works again fully, without having reformatted it, as Apple suggested.
I was reading some other posts around here, and decided to try something before going for the ultimate/decimating solution: redownloaded iTunes and reinstalled it. Install of checking for updates, I just went to Apple's site, and downloaded the whole thing. Plugged in my iPod, and now it all works! All the songs that wouldn't play before are now working just fine, as before.
Seems to me there's something funky on iTunes 7.5 for Windows or the upgrade process, which wasn't there in previous versions.
Hope this helps!

ASIO NUENDO & KX - Another sad tale about Creati

Really im making this post in order to some of the people thats being paid by the money i spent on my board told me something that makes me a little bit happier about creative.
Creative was known for their poor soft implementation in their li've line, i expect they change with that xperience.
Now with my Audigy 2 im experiencing the same soft malfunctionality, lack of features, slow function and so.
Will you will learn how to make good drivers?.
Im must move to KX drivers to achieve some nuendo stability. It doesnt stop crashing at the deadline just when i need them to finish some music production, that cant happen.
Anyway i thrusted creative, but i will buy some decent pro card in a short.
Just if you are smart enough i will leave some tips about your soft.
- Poor ASIO performance, not real ASIO CPU FREE
- Slow as the HELL and poorly designed mixer and config tools.
- Lack of modular design on config.
- Lack of Independet output set up for every chan on hardware.
- Poor Routing capabilities.
PLEASE ENLIGHT ME and TELL ME SOMETHING THAT SHOWS ME THAT IM WRONG.

Rosetta Install 10.6.3 - Does anyone have a link for me for installation?

I recently had my hard drive replaced at the apple store and they reinstalled my mac with 10.6.3 as it was before, however, I have noticed that Rosetta was not installed, and I am having a difficult time locating a download link from Apple to install this software.
Firstly, I already know that I could install this through the OSX Installation Disc, however it is not available to me (dog chewed it ). Secondly, when I select a PowerPC application to open, it tells me that i need to install rosetta for it work properly. I get that. However, unlike what I keep seeing in forums, I do not have an option on that window to install rosetta or a link directed to download the rosetta installer. It just gives me the options of Network Diagnostics (my internet connection is fine as I am writing this right now without any problems) and OK to close the window.
Can anyone help me resolve this problem?

Hi manuden711;
If you tell your sad tale of woe about your dog chewing your install DVD for your Mac, they will for a nominal fee send you a new one.
I suggest you do this because there are numerous reason you may need it in the future.
Allan

How do I use the HP dvd1040 burner with my iBook?

I am going to Italy tomorrow and want to bring my iBook but need to have the external dvd burner to load all of the pictures I will take because my hard drive is almost completely full. I am using Roxio Toast to try and burn the dvds and the iBook is not even recognizing the burner.

If the hard drive is almost full, less that 5 GB free space on the hard drive, you won't be able to burn a DVD. Both Apple's built-in burner and Roxio Toast require enough disk space to create a temporary burn file that mimics the data being burned, so to burn a 4.7 GB DVD you'd need at least 4.7 GB free space, plus space for the OS's scratch files and caches.
Try to delete as much unnecessary stuff as possible from your hard drive to free up at least 5 GB. You might want to move smaller chunks of data onto CD-R first (that would need as little as 1 GB free space), than delete those files after they're archived onto CD-R.
If the hard drive on any Unix-based computer fills up completely, the computer will stop booting except in single-user mode, and freeing enough disk space to continue normally while in the single-user Unix command line interface is a non-trivial process indeed.
BTW, what model iBook are you taking to Italy? Considering Voltage Specifications by Country, and checking against Apple Power Supplies: Changing voltage settings, the iBook's power supply is auto-switching (this being the eMac forum, there have been sad tales of those who ddin't realize that the eMac's power supply is preset and not readily changed, and subsequently had their eMac's fried when plugged into 220v power outlets). You should just need a plug adapter for the iBook in Italy.
p.s. Welcome to the Apple Discussions!

Another iMac Freezing Issue - pls help a newbie out

I understand this problem is not uncommon - I've been trying to read the many threads I see on the issue. However, most posts outline problems, suggestions are made, but then reported to not work. Also, many threads are 2 years old.
Could someone please suggest a step-by-step troubleshooting solution?
Here are my pertinent facts:
* Bought 20" iMac in July 07.
* Processor: 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* Memory: 3GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
* Hubs installed the second memory stick a while ago (over a year and i don't remember this problem correlating with the new memory).
* Video: ATI Radeon X1600
* OS: Mac OS X 10.6.2
* HD: 250GB capacity, 31GB available
* I am using an external harddrive to back up my stuff (LaCie, connected by firewire)
* Frequently used apps: Firefox, iPhoto, Photoshop Elements, Parallels (Quicken for PC), MS Office for Mac, etc.
The problem starting occurring several months ago, while I was still running Tiger. Have since upgraded to Snow Leopard, with no improvement, in fact, things are getting worse.
I get display distortion ("artifacts"?) - horizontal lines, blocks of the screen distort, usually clearing after dragging that part of the app off the screen of view and then back.
Typically, if I start seeing display issues, a freeze up is imminent.
Sometimes I get a sense it's coming soon - things run more slowly. Other times, it seems without provocation. I click on a window and nothing happens.
Sometimes it's the wheel of death other times screen completely locks up with no spinning wheel. No option to force quit. Mouse is unresponsive. Keyboard appears to be, although I can toggle the Caps lock button on and off (light toggles). If I am streaming video, the screen will lock up, but the audio continues. If I wait (have gone to bed and come back in the am) it is still frozen.
If I am streaming video (i.e Hulu on Firefox) or working in memory intensive applications (Windows, Parallels, Photoshop Elements, etc.) Problem is more frequent.
I can go a day or so without problems, but if I am doing anything slightly involved, it happens much more frequently, as often as every 10 minutes or half hour or so.
Steps I have taken:
I always have to do a hard reboot. I have run disk utility multiple times, occasionally it finds and corrects stuff, but no fix seems to be permanent.
I have seen suggestions of resetting PRAM as well as doing a clean re-install, but also seen that those fixes haven't endured.
I don't have Apple Care and I'm not sure what steps I should be taking to fix this. Is there hope? I mostly see lots of problems reported, but not successful resolution.
It's aggravating because I can't use the system for the stuff I bought it for (ex: digital scrapbooking) without worrying about losing my data. I switched to a Mac because I heard they ran so great and were "cool" to boot. While there have been many features of the Mac i enjoy, *if this kind of performance is typical after 2 yrs of use, I will not remain loyal to Apple.*
If you have been successful in resolving the issue with Apple, what did you tell them and what did they do?
I am competent system "user", but not as good when it gets into the weeds. Would appreciate any advice, feel free to spell it out as tho I were an idiot.
I would appreciate a "try this, then try this" approach, especially if you have tried it and it has worked for you.
Thanks for the help,
Kendra

OK, Mean, I mean Meanest, we have the same system (mine was purchased late 2006), and I can say we have identical symptoms. I agree with Paul_31 regarding disk space, but in addition, from all the posts on various Apple forums, it seems clear that the problem is due to the Radeon X1600 graphics card AND heat. These elegantly-designed Macs that we all love have a lot of stuff packed into a small package. Consequently they run hot, and over time the result is components bake and deteriorate. In our case, the weak link seems to be the Radeon card and since it’s not easily replaced, repair costs are nearly as much as the cost of a new iMac. A contributing factor is that over time dust will build up inside your Mac, and this serves as insulation, retarding heat transfer, and causing components to run hotter still.
OK, so that’s the sad tale, but what can you do? Assuming your system is not too far gone due to the ravages of heat over time, there are things you can do to help prolong it’s life, and hopefully get it to behave itself better until the time it finally fails completely.
In my case, the steps I’ve taken have resulted in a system that now “generally” runs for days at a time without locking up/crashing. A caveat: these are bandaids, not true fixes. I’m convinced the Radeon card will eventually fail and I’ll be faced with shopping for a new Mac – I’m only hoping the steps taken will give me a few more years of use before that happens. So, here’s my suggestions (basically they all have to do with getting your Mac to run cooler and being able to monitor temps so you know just how hot things are getting):
1. First of all, if you don’t already have one, get one of the free programs available to monitor your Mac’s internal temperatures. One of the most popular ones is a widget, iStat Pro. As I type this iStat Pro is showing my temps are as follows:
Hard Drive 92 deg. F
CPU 85 F
Ambient Air 69 F
GPU Diode (graphics card) 92 F
Hard Drive Bay 95 F
Memory Controller 90 F
Optical Drive 81 F
If you have iStat Pro and see that your temps are about the same as these, I would say don’t bother to read further – you may have a different set of problems. If your temps are 10-20 F (or more) higher, keep reading.
2. Try to clean out the internals of your Mac with compressed air. After 3+ years of use, I used an air compressor with an air gun attachment and blew through the vents at the back and bottom of my Mac with 60-80psi and actually saw a cloud of dust come out of my Mac. A more effective approach would entail cracking open the case of the Mac so you could really blow directly on the different boards/components. I haven’t done that, but I’m tempted to give it a try. Note: Some have suggested vacuuming and/or using a can of compressed air. I don’t think that approach is all that effective. You need a really strong flow of air to get that dust out of the inards.
3. Download the free program SMC Fan Control (v 2.2.2). It will allow you to adjust the fan speeds higher for each of the 3 internal fans. The Mac has firmware that ramps up the speeds of these fans as internal temps rise, but the general consensus is the Mac firmware is “too little, too late”. With the standard Mac firmware, the fans will run at their default settings well beyond the point where the components are already way too hot. SMC Fan Control allows you to set the minimum fan speeds higher than the Mac default.
Once you've done these steps, I'd suggest doing a SMC reset, then re-boot while keeping your fingers crossed.
This is getting too long so I’ll stop for now. Good luck...

Dual Core G5 using only one CPU

Anyone has an idea about what happened to me last week? Here is what happened:
I let my dual 2.3 GHz Power Mac G5 run over night to run a certain task. When I came back the following morning, the fans were running like crazy and the computer was frozen. I had to reset it. After that it started up, but from then on only used one CPU. In System Profiler as well as in Activity Monitor, only one CPU is shown. After some more days, it would not turn on anymore, not even with one CPU.
What to do now? Thanks for helping me out...

It is insurance. It keeps a system running so you can do a safe shutdown. It protects the boot drive from directory corruption. Protects wired ethernet port from getting fried (someone last week's sad tale).
"Nice idea." Well, yes. Can you drive a car without insurance? I'll take UPS and help protect my systems.
If you want to leave a system running unattended and not come back to a dead or dying system... I have read enough tales of woe that "but it was working yesterday" and "we've had some storms but lights stayed on" that I don't take chances. And I often give advice that isn't 1:1 correlation. Like "backup daily" and "run disk repairs before there is a problem."
maybe it over-heated, too.

After automatic update of the latest beta version, I cannot download email messages from my email server, CalPoly. CAUSED by ESET?

When I booted I was asked a question whether I should allow connections to my network. It seemed strange, but I fell for it and allowed. Upon reflection, it was probably a phishing expedition that wrecked my ability to download messages and possibly inserted a trojan horse. I am running a MacPro with Mountain Lion OSX. I have very good protection software.
I can obtain messages on my iPhone, so it is not a provider problem.
Help!!

<blockquote>
My days of hacking around are over.</blockquote>
In that case your days of email clients are also probably coming to a close.
Less and Less are the ports and protocols being considered by AV companies and others as everyone uses web mail. Like you, I use ESET and have had no problems with the NOD32 anti virus product. But I have heard some rather sad tales about the Suite being overly protective. In this day of ubiquitous firewalls in AV products (In my opinion a very bad thing) Only Microsoft products can be expected to work out of the box as the market leading office software vendor. The anti virus vendors firewalls +Anti virus products generally account for about 95% of mail collection issues. With incorrect settings making up about 2 or 3 percent of the remainder. Real Thunderbird bugs do exist, but are only a very tiny part of the total.

I am unable to open a Zip file I downloaded.

I play an online golf game at www.wgt.com and to help my playng I downloaded an app from www.wgt.4fan.cz it is WGT Caddy PRO. I am unable to open the file. From reading the answers to other questions concerning opening Zip files, I downloaded Unarchiver and Stuffit Expander. Neither will open the files. There is a file WGTCaddy.exe, I get a box stating "We can't open application"WGTCaddy.exe" because Microsoft windows apps are not supported on OSX. The WGTCaddy.ini file brings the message 'A failure has occurred. The Stuffit Engine was unable to determine the file format. As for the Microsoft message, I bought my iMac from a 3rd party and it has Office 2008 and other Microsoft programs, I am able to open them all. There is a video on YouTube demonstratin how to download WGTCaddy PRO and install it. The person on the video says it is a ZIP file, I am a computer dunce, so I am taking what he says, that it is a ZIPfile, at face value. That is my sad tale, any suggestions? Might the app not be compatible with OSX? Could it be another type of file? I 'll appreciate any suggestions. Thank you all.

Exe files are Microsoft Windows executables and will not work on Macs. Your Office 2008 is Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac. That's why it works.

Black Screen Problem SOLVED

I thought I would relate my sad tale, as maybe some of you may benefit from my painful experience.
Trying to instal XP Pro under boot camp on a 2007 Mini
I recently did this on another identical machine, and that went without a hitch, so I know it can work.
What happened on this ooccasion was that at various stages in the installation process I would get a black screen. Sometimes it would be right at the time the computer booted off the CD, sometimes not until I had completeted the install. But I must have gone through the whole format the disc / install OS X / use boot camp assistant / install XP cycle maybe 20 times, with a black screen every time, and was getting SICK of it!
Then it dawned one...try a different monitor....and it worked.
What was happeing was that Windoze was mis-identifying my monitor and setting the display resolution too high, so the monitor couldn't display the image. Shame there wasn't an "out of range" signal, but nevertheless it's window's fault for setting the resolution stupidly high.
So I used the other monitor to tinker with the display settings in windows, to get it right for the monitor that i really wanted to use.
So - sorted, easy if you know what's going on, total pain if you don't...........
HTH

Jackgu1988,
Please follow the following directions of a French Ubuntu forum.
I appear to have some issues with the vmmon/vmsock module. A small patch have to be applied.
See: http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?pid=3864312
If you cannot understand french Google Translate will do it for you
Cheers!

Pavilion223 All in One-Can't dowload my boarding pass.

Can't download my boarding pass. Note says Adobe Flash not installed "click here to install" (which I did). Further note said Adobe Flash already installed in Widows 8. Now what??? This is a sudden problem - only 2 wks ago I got a boarding pass with no problem.

Dunidar, Thanks for your response and, hopefully, your help. However, if you are responding on behalf of HP Customer Service, you should know I was told by HPCS that my computer is out of warranty (by a couple of months) and I would have to pay for tech support . I can't afford the tech charges for the next year nor the cancellation fee if I discontinue service before the year is up. That's my sad tale.
If you can help, the product no is 23b034; running on Windows 8 -64 bits. Thank you.

May I share my complete & utter dis-satisfaction with Verizon Customer Service!!!!!!

Sit back, cause this is a long tale, a tale of misery and frustration by a long-standing customer...
I am a subscriber to Verizon's DSL service for my internet access and wi-fi in the house. Monday evening, I get home after a really long and frustrating week and just want to check email. The laptop is not connecting to the internet however, so I check my other devices. No luck. I then go check my desktop pc and notice that the router light is blinking, so I do the ole unplug, and wait thing. Do that a couple of times. Still no luck.
After a while of figuring out what number to call for customer service, I go through the Voice prompt system (and start over due to 2 dropped calls - thanks Verizon Wireless). Finally get an agent who I can barely understand. Long story short, 90 minutes later, he tells me he needs to send a technician to my house and the soonest he can do it is thursday between 8 and noon. I request evening hours or weekend because I don't want to take time away from work and be totally unproductive because I have no internet connection. He says he can't do that, but I can call the dispatcher (huh???). He gives me a number, and I call...after 40 minutes of being on hold, I hang up (I only stayed that long just to see how ridiculous it would get, but finally gave up).
The next morning, I unplug and re-plug. Lo and behold it's working again. So, wanted to do the courteous thing and cancel the appointment. Tried calling again, thinking that during business hours it would be easier to get through. Nope, another 20 minutes of being on hold til I hung up.
So, thought I'd go to the site and try to contact someone that way. OMG, trying to find a way to contact is just crazy, so finally resorted to the live chat. Well, then I get through all the questions, etc, just to say I want to cancel my appointment. He tells me that the technician will call and just let them know then. Really, a global service can't do better than that. Oh well.
So, today, I get the call, but of course I'm tied up, so can't answer. I check voice mail, it's an automated call telling me that they are still scheduled to come tomorrow morning and if I need to call or cancel, I was told to call 1-800-VERIZON. I roll my eyes, call the number. After 6 minutes of being on hold, the agent picks up and of course has to know my number, my name, my address...probably would have requested my birthplace, what I had for dinner, my favorite book, if I hadn't stopped him and told him I JUST WANTED TO CANCEL AN APPOINTMENT.
Guess what he told me...yep, he can't do it, I need to call that original number I'd already tried. Wow, is this totally f'ed up!!!! So, thought, just for grins, I'll call it...and of course I get the hold message, gave up after 6 minutes and was ready to wash my hands of the whole situation. Let the technician waste his time...I did all I could.
By now, though, I just had to vent, so thought I'd look on the website for some kind of way to contact someone. Nope, nothing, so thought Okay, I'll add a message to the Forum and hope that someone with some kind of authority will read this. I sign up and wait (almost 5 minutes) for my automated email. I enter the code to verify and of course it doesn't work. I get an error message that says "Error in Activating : update the eCRM details to SSO db". Wow, of course, that makes sense to me as a consumer. I tried again and finally got in here to tell my sad tale of woe.
Verizon, are YOU reading this? Are YOU listening??? Do YOU care? This was a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE experience, and I've already shared the tale with more than a dozen co-workers this afternoon in a meeting.

I am sorry to hear about the troubles you had regarding this appointment. If you have any questions or need assistance in the future, please make a post here so we can be of assistance.
Anthony_VZ
**If someones post has helped you, please acknowledge their assistance by clicking the red thumbs up button to give them Kudos. If you are the original poster and any response gave you your answer, please mark the post that had the answer as the solution**
Notice: Content posted by Verizon employees is meant to be informational and does not supersede or change the Verizon Forums User Guidelines or Terms or Service, or your Customer Agreement Terms and Conditions or plan

C2D MacBook -- the CPU whine is GONE!

So, my black C2D MacBook has been up and running for the past three hours, and there is absolutely no hint of CPU whine!
That's my happy ending to a very sad tale of one bad rev. A MacBook after another...
This is the FOURTH MacBook I've had in the past six months. The first one was damaged right out of the box (misaligned case, and screwdriver scratches all over the bottom), so Apple replaced it. The replacement machine developed a really loud, grindy noise coming from the fan, and after two trips to the Apple repair center with no improvement, Apple finally agreed to replace that machine last week. The replacement had a nice, quiet fan, but plenty of CPU whine. Still not ideal, but I was resigned to live with it.
This morning, I learned of the C2D update. Fortunately, every time the Apple Store in Ginza, Tokyo, issued me a replacement machine, they also issued me a new sales receipt. So, I took the replacement MacBook I got last week to the Apple Store today, showed them my receipt for the latest replacement (indicating that I was within the 14-day return period), and asked for an exchange. I had to pay the restocking fee, which amounted to about $150. The way I look at it, I paid Apple about a dollar a day for the last five months to "rent" their rev. A MacBooks until the rev. B's were released!
Needless to say, I'm a very satisfied customer right now.
Whisper-quiet, super-quick and brand-spankin' new!
Black Macbook; Mini 1.5GHz (Late 2005); PB Lombard: PB 2400; PowerMac G3; Mac OS X (10.4.8) Blueberry iMac; iPod nano 4GB; and a Bill King bobblehead doll--Holy Toledo!

i would like congratulate you and to share your jubilation!
i have also had three macbooks since they came out after my very reliable ibook was stolen. no end of problems with my macbooks and just send the last one back a couple of days ago. only to log on today and find they have 2 core duo's now. So ordered one straight away. now i cant wait to recieve it :o) but am scared of what problems these may come with

What to use to create a picture and video slideshow/presentation?

I was curious as to what someone would use in order to create a picture and video presentation/slideshow?
I think that iPhoto does a good job with getting all your pictures in order, and then using the templates and choosing your music to create a slideshow. However, if one wanted to include some video and narration into the slideshow, I imagine that they would need to use iMovie as well.
I know that you can drop images into iMovie as well, and I think they are automatically given Ken Burns effect, but if you have a lot of images, I think it gets pretty tedious working with all those photos, when iPhoto will already do all of that for you.
So, long story short. I would like to make a presentation with video and images. I would like to use multiple songs, and possible trim the amount of each particular song down, so there is some sort of mix/flow from one song to the other. I would also like to be able to record a narration and include it in the slideshow. I know that iMovie does a lot of that...I saw the narration feature, and the ability to trim the songs back some, and include more than one song. It also has the ability to choose only the portion of video that I want. So would you pre-create the photo portion of your slideshow in iPhoto, convert it to a movie, and dump it into iMovie? That seems clunky.
What process would you use? In my mind, I picture using a program that had some sort of timeline in order to be able to fine tune the audio and video, and iMovie has a timeline of sorts.
Currently running iLife '09.
Ian

Ian
I've been working for the last three weeks on a project like the one you describe. It turns out to be far beyond my limited competence, but I'm committed and have to trudge on.
Mine may be a little different from yours in that it has the equivalent of 106 "slides." There are twenty video. The "stills" are either text I've made in Word and saved to iPhoto as a pdf doc or photos. I've engaged actors to read the text that goes with most of still-slides. I thought I could create individual slides with the sound 'attached,' string them together and then make a movie out of the Power Point or Keynote slide show.
Nothing has worked so far.
iMovie has been a special heartbreaker. I've had at least a half-dozen chats with Apple Care and a couple of trips to an Apple Store to solve one challenge after another.
I can help with Ken Burns. Tedious is not a strong enough word, and the 'help' menu is not helpful, because it is Wrong., The controls are NOT the least bit intuitive. In fact, they make no sense - at least to me.
[I gave up on iMovie the first time because of Ken and the absence of intelligible instructions to make him leave.]
(1) Not finding the control. "Help" says to click on the crop icon on the tool bar (between mic and i) or to type "C". All I get is the crop function - Ken is nowhere to be seen.
(2) Finding it. The crop icon that should have been designated is accessible when you select a still photo. The hand icon appears; on the left side there is column of three icons. On top is Crop; the middle is the duration for the still - the default default is "4 s" // the bottom icon is the gear. Click the gear; there are four rows of choices; click the one at the bottom "cropping, Ken Burns & Rotation". At the top left corner there are three boxes "fit | crop | Ken Burns"// select "Fit" and Ken Burns is turned off. Why is "fit" is the opposite of "Ken Burns"? I don't know.
Here's a warning and a sad tale. I spent about three days getting the first 64 still/videos/transitions and audio clips assembled the way I wanted them.The audio for 65 went in okay and it looked okay, but nothing would make it play. 66 was okay but not 67 or any subsequent attempt - although the videos after 67 were okay.
During my final Apple Care conversation the diagnosis was: "corruption." Start over again with a new project!
I could select, copy and paste the visuals in those three moves, but the audios had to go over one at a time. Since you can't have two projects going at the same time, I'd have to copy one audio clip from the old project, select the new project and wait for it to come up, make the paste, and then wait for the old project to come up.
So watch out. I gave up on iMovie because the recreation of a new project would be so agonizing and with such a big project, I don't know how to avoid "corruption" for sure, and neither did the guy at Applecare. I switched to iPhoto, but after a day I realize that it's audio capability requires a process as tedious as trying to redo the iMovie.
Final Cut Pro is probably the right program but that's a whole other thing.
bhb

RE: My story -Sadly NOT a fairy tale

can you confirm that you have recieved an email from me entitled the above.
It is about my 3 year fight with BT to have my account in My own Name rather than that of my ex-husband
and a request for the refund of cancellation charges which I feel were charged wrongly as the error was BT's
not mine!

Hi Jayne_W
Its sounds like you have sent an email through to our customer service team in which case you should have received confirmation that the email was received and an expected timescale for a reply.
I apologise if there has been a delay but we will get back to you as quickly as we can.
cheers
Craig
BTCare Community Mod
If we have asked you to email us with your details, please make sure you are logged in to the forum, otherwise you will not be able to see our ‘Contact Us’ link within our profiles.
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A Sad Tale

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