Choosing a New Mac

I currently use a dual processor 533 that is several years old. Even with only 1 MB of RAM running OS 10.3.9, I feel like it is a very fast computer.
Lately I've run into several bugs that I can tell are going to take a lot of time to diagnose. Possibly even need to replace the hard drive again. So I think it's time to buy NEW!
I use my mac mostly to run Photoshop and Flash, and I'm on the internet and using email all the time. My girlfriend recently purchased a new G5 tower but was surprised to find that it wasn't much faster than the 533. (I'm sure this is different if you work with video and audio frequently.) She frequently get's the colorwheel, and it's not as snappy as whe expected it would be.
So I need to make a choice: Do I buy a Tower (which would probably cost me $2700 after adding RAM), or a Mac Mini for $1100 (with 2 GB RAM)?
What would you do? I'm not looking to make a fashion statement, just looking to get my work done.
cheers!
jenny

Hi, jenny.
You wrote: "I currently use a dual processor 533 that is several years old. Even with only 1 MB of RAM running OS 10.3.9"I suspect you meant to write 1 GB of RAM.
You wrote: "I've run into several bugs that I can tell are going to take a lot of time to diagnose. Possibly even need to replace the hard drive again."That said, it may still be far less expensive to sort out the problems and replace the hard drive than buy a new Mac.
Your PM G4 D533 is not unlike my former workhorse machine: a PM G4 D500 with 1 GB RAM that I replaced with a PM G5 Dual 2.3 GHz with 4.5 GB of RAM after the G4's logic board died last August. I plan to replace the G4's logic board and use it as a server.
Re: the G5:
• It's perceptibly faster in all respects, but where you really notice the vastly improved performance is in high-intensity tasks. For example, generating the index for a large, complex book in Adobe InDesign CS would take 8-10 minutes on the PM G4 and was done in 1-2 minutes on the PM G5. Complex Photoshop operations are a snap: its the kind of machine that makes you want to always work with images in RAW format.
• Adding GBs of RAM makes a big difference, but the G5 with its faster processors, faster bus, and faster SATA drives also help. When the G5 first arrived, it had 512 MB of RAM: I purchased the additional 4 GB from Crucial, but had to wait a couple of weeks as the RAM was on backorder. High-load tasks were still considerably faster on the G5 even without the added RAM, but adding the RAM was clearly a noticeable improvement.
• The G5 also shipped with a 250 GB SATA drive and I added a second.
• G5 was also ordered with AirPort Extreme card, Bluetooth, the ATI Radeon 9650 XT w/256MB VRAM, 16x SD DL(DVD-R/CD-RW), and AppleCare.
• I picked up an additional 250 GB FireWire hard drive, as well as a couple of FireWire enclosures to use the drives from the G4.
I'm very happy with the new G5. A Mac Mini was never a consideration: for my desktop workhorse, I want maximum expandability.
Hope this helps.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

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Advice on choosing a new mac pro model

Hi. I'm looking to buy a new Mac Pro for use mainly with AE, Premiere, Photoshop plus Element 3d and trapcode. Should I spend most $$ on the CPU or the GPU? For just under $6.5K I can get the 3.7 quad+dualD700's or the 3.5 6core +dual D500's (Plus 32 GB of Ram). Any advice would be appreciated. BTW, I'm looking to do hi rez 4K renders in Element 3d (I know this uses GPU but am unsure as to whether I can get away with the lower spec'd GPU's. Does anyone use this with lots of vram for hi rez renders and how much vram seems adequate? Thanks!

You're not saying which model of MacPro you are considering, but if you go with the Quad, you will NOT be able to run all 11GBs of ram. You have 4 slots, and slots 3 & 4 are shared. So you can put the 2x4 for the 8, but then you will only be able to run the 2x1 for another 2, giving you a total of 10GBs.

Help me choose a new Mac! PLEASE....

I switched to the Macintosh back on Jan. 2nd, 2005 with the original iMac G5. Then I moved to Mac OS X Tiger when it came out and have been obsessed with the Mac operating system ever since. I am one of those people who run Quicksilver and have 15 icons next to there clock.
Currently I have the Intel Core Duo mac mini (1.66GHz) and am happy except... I need hard drive space and dedicated graphics! I do film and fell in love with Motion a few months back but am unable to run it. I want to know if I should stay with the mini, save for a Mac Pro, move to the PowerMac G5, or what ever.
My only objective of moving back to PowerPC is speed and old, and well I use Parallels. What is everyone's opinions?
PS: I have a 20 inch cinema display so any iMac is out of the option. WHY WON'T APPLE MAKE A MAC PRO FOR $1,499!!!!!

Anyone in this situation really needs to consider not just what their needs are at the present time, but also what interests may develop in the period of time the system being bought is likely to remain in active service.
For most people, the question wouldn't be all that critical - web browsing is web browsing, and a bit of Word, email, a library of music in iTunes, a few amateur video projects maybe in iMovie.... those are not really demanding on systems and any Mac capable of supporting those uses is likely to be fine for a few years.
But for users with an interest in the pro-level applications, the chances are that they will be pushing their systems quite hard, and be looking at new versions of the applications and new software titles for specialist uses over time, so unless these potential additional demands are taken into account at the time a purchasing decision is being made, there's a real risk that the system bought will run out of steam rather faster than it runs out of viable life.
In this particular example, it makes no sense at all to buy a G5 system, even though in themselves the G5 power macs are very powerful. Pro-level software into the future will be increasingly designed to make more and more effective use of Intel hardware, so G5 technology will be a limiting factor into the future. That makes the Mac pro the only real option and even if the 20" cinema display wasn't already owned, the expansion options in the Mac Pro make it the obvious choice over and above an iMac or MacBook Pro.
And to the OP.... wait long enough and the first generation of Mac Pros will eventually reach $1,499 in the refurb store. Might take a while though!

Help choosing a new mac

I am in the process of getting rid of my MBP 17" due to size constraints (and I just want a unibody model), so I am looking for some advice. Let me tell you what I do, then please advise me as to which Mac would work best.
1) I want a 15 inch screen
2) Price is not a huge issue
3) I use iLife apps
4) I am a hobbyist photographer who shoots in RAW with a Nikon D90. I like to manipulate my pics in Photoshop Elements
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6) I like using iWeb and publishing to an outside source. I have no interest now in web design farther than that.
7) I would like to begin to use Aperture.
8) I have more than 4000 pics (of varying sizes) and the same amount of songs.
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10) I must have a laptop.
Obviously, I am in between several MBP models, but hundreds of dollars separate the models. What do I need and what is not necessary for my like and needs.
Thanks, Nick

I'd recommend the version of the MBP that at least has the seperate graphics solution. This will be useful for Aperture, Snow Leopard and versions of 64 bit Photoshop that will eventually be available for the mac. I believe on the new systems that will be the 2.66 model. It will come with 4GB already. In the future, you can add ram to 8GB when the software is there to take advantage of it. You can get your own hard drive and replace the one that comes with the computer. This can be a 7200 RPM 500 GB drive or even one of the new SSD's. This will save some mony too and you can use the original H.D. as an external drive for storage of images by buying a cabinet etc. Just some thoughts.

New mac pro (2014) specs for production company help

Hey guys new to the forum!
I work for a production company that makes mainly online corporate video and motion graphics, lots of character animation, typography pieces and bits and pieces of 3D work with cinema 4d r14. We currently work on 2009 mac workstations which have the following specs:
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Model Identifier:          MacPro3,1
Processor Name:          Quad-Core Intel Xeon
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I've been asked to get some specs because we plan on buying the new mac pro and I have been reading some articles regarding performance with After Effects but in all honesty i really don't understand what sort of specs i need because i'm good at designing and animating but it when it comes to CPU, GPU talk it's all very confusing!
My boss wants faster previews, faster render times and an all round better performance than what we have now, and with the possibility of outputting 4K in the near future i have to bear that in mind as well.
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The new Mac Pros are, without a doubt, amazing machines. But are they value for money?
A significant cost in these machines is the high end AMD GPUs, which is utilised very well by Apple in their own software like Final Cut Pro X, Compressor and Motion. If you use those a lot, it's a no brainer. Place your order.
Premiere Pro CC has support for the GPUs (one GPU during playback, but can utilise both during renders.)
There has been no pledge from Adobe for After Effects support. AE's ray-traced 3D render engine has been virtually abandoned by Adobe, so there will never be support for AMD CPUs for it. They are now more focussed on integration with Maxxon's Cinema 4D as a 3D alternative, but Cinema 4D exclusively renders with the CPU – no GPU benefit.
The AE team are hinting about substantial multi-processing enhancements in the next major update, so it seems After Effects users will continue to be better off with faster multi-core CPUs, rather than expensive GPUs. With more CPU cores comes the need for more RAM.
Some third party vendors of AE plugins, like VideoCopilot's Element 3D and Optical Flares, have pledged support for the Mac Pro GPUs. But the problem with intertwining CPU-dependent software with GPU-dependent plugins is you need to turn off multi-processing to get the best results, negating the value of your powerful Mac Pro CPU.
Photoshop and Indesign rarely need the balls of a machine like the new Mac Pro. The new high-speed SSDs will certainly make them run faster than your average iMac, but it's not a HUGE leap for the cost difference.
The benchmarks I've seen on media encoding for the new Mac Pros are a little underwhelming, to be honest. They're fast, yes, but not twice as fast as a $4000 iMac, despite a high-end machine being twice (or more) expensive.
So, as a primarily Adobe user, I'm a bit torn. Personally, I think my money will be better spent buying a high-spec iMac for now. I can always on-sell it in 6 months if Adobe prove they are really coming to the party with Mac Pro support. But right now I'm not seeing proof of the benefits (from Adobe) in buying a $6K+ machine.
If you are determined to buy the new Mac Pro, and After Effects and C4D are your primary tools, get the most powerful CPU you can afford, make sure you have at least 3-4GB of RAM for each CPU, and keep the lowest-specced GPUs.

Cannot select a music into slideshow and book slideshow presentations. In the older Mac this was easy. With new Mac OS X 10.6.8 it should work as I can stop the slideshow with cursor but pop up window for choosing music is dead. I cannot drag music into i

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I am talking about iPhoto. In my old Mac even in Books choosing slideshow gives a pop up where you can select a music from I tunes library. In this new one I can stop the slideshow with cursor and it shows music option but it is, as I said dead. Does not response at all to commands.

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(How) Can I use Existing Time Machine On New Mac Without Erasing Original TM Backups?

I just got through doing a clean install from Mavericks to Yosemite and now I'm trying to attach and recognize the original Time Machine Drive (TMD)
I chose to install as a new computer and did not choose a Time Machine backup option because the original TMD was not attached at the time of installation.
Upon arriving at the desktop and connecting my original TMD, I was able to see it in finder but Time Machine did not automatically accept it.
I am able to see the disk in Time Machine but it doesn't tell me that its got data on it .
HERE'S THE ANXIOUS MOMENT: If I select TMD, which is the original, will it overwrite all that orignal information, or will it continue adding to it?
I've read under different parts of the forum that if you go through this process during the original setup and the Time Machine drive is attached to the computer then you will be prompted to inherit the old Time Machine. Since I didn't have the drive attached, I didn't see that.
Now back to desktop and into the Time Machine utility: This option to inherit doesn't seem to exist or is obvious. The only option after selecting the drive in Time Machine is "Use Disk". If I click this, will it erase my original data or will it ask to inherit the drive? It's not very clear what will happen after I click "Use Disk".
Thanks so much to anyone who can help, Jeff

Thanks for the link. I went there but didn't find any information on how to inherit the backup history. The link says "If you’re replacing an old Mac and want the new Mac to use the backups from the old one, click Inherit Backup." At what point in the migration process does it ask "to specify whether you (I) want a new Mac to inherit a backup"? It seems like I got quite a few levels into Migration assistant and the last click that I did not click seemed like it was good to start the process without telling me anything about inheriting anything.
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From Apple Website below
OS X Yosemite: If you want a new Mac to “inherit” your backup history
You can move the backup history from one Mac to another, but after the new Mac “inherits” the backup history, you can’t use the backup history on the original Mac.
You’re asked to specify whether you want a new Mac to inherit a backup if you do any of the following:
Use Migration Assistant to transfer your settings from an old Mac to a new one.
Use Migration Assistant to transfer your settings from a Time Machine backup of an old Mac to a new one.
Clone the disk you use to start your Mac, or physically move it from an old Mac to a new Mac.
Replace your computer’s main board.
If you’re replacing an old Mac and want the new Mac to use the backups from the old one, click Inherit Backup.
If you plan to continue to use your old Mac, click Create New Backup to preserve the backup history and start separate backups for the new Mac.
Connect a new backup disk to your Mac
Transfer your info from a PC
Last Modified: Nov 18, 2014

Firefox won't open on new Mac OS - profile cannot be found

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I removed Firefox from my computer entirely, reinstalled, restarted the computer - everything. I still get this message.
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Restoring a previous version of the profiles.ini file won't help because this is about the profile folder that is registered in profiles.ini is missing on that hard drive,
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*Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/
*Linux: ~/.mozilla/firefox/
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*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager
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How do I import an iPhoto Library (V.7.1.5) created on my old MacBook (10. 6.8) into my new Macbook pro (10.9.1) running iPhoto 9.5.1? I tried copying onto memory stick and moving to new mac, but new iPhoto doesn't recognise the library.

How do I import an iPhoto Library (V.7.1.5) created on my old MacBook (10. 6.8) into my new Macbook pro (10.9.1) running iPhoto 9.5.1? I tried copying onto memory stick and moving to new mac, but new iPhoto doesn't recognise the library.

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Regards
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How do I get my iTunes library off old PC & on my new Mac

Brand new Mac user--this is my second day. Have had an iPod Nano for about 8 months and want to move my iTunes Library to the new Mac and de-authorize (is that the right word?) the iTunes library on old PC once I pull everything off of it--it's going to be wiped and given to a charity!
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You basically just have to transfer the iTunes folder from the PC to the Mac.
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1329?viewlocale=en_US
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http://www.tunequest.org/migrating-your-itunes-library-from-windows-to-mac/20061 105/
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Message was edited by: deh2k

How to move my external HD iTunes library to my new Mac?

Hi, sorry for a noob question.
I have an older Mac and it's iTunes library location is point to an external HD, now I got a new Mac and I would like to use the same external HD for my iTunes library, so basically the contents in the external HD doesn't need to be move, is there an easy way to have my new Mac recognize my old library? I did temporary try to move my external HD to my new Mac and use the "Choose Library" option on iTunes but it show me an error message "The iTunes library file could not be found in the folder".
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I was cleaning up the icons on the left side of the screen under the bar. My Rheta/Home icon was not there, nor was the Desktop, even the Computer icon was gone. In moving Pictures, Movies, Documents, Desktop and Rheta/Home back in the order I thought they should be I found Iphoto6 in the column and thought...this is an alias not needed here. Rather to access my Pictures I should choose the Pictures Icon. I had moved it also.
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Startup Fails
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