Internet/General questions from a Mac newbie

Hey there. Well, after spending my whole life on a PC, I've decided to switch over to Mac. I'll be going off to college in the fall, and so I went with the Macbook Pro.
Alright, to the questions. I've always only had ONE computer in my house. And so, I have one cable modem attached to it, no router. I want to get on the net on my MBP just in the upcoming months before I'm off to college, where they'll have plenty of net connection options.
So my question is: should I go with wireless? If I do this, would I need to get a wireless router? How exactly does it work, i.e. do I plug just any cable cord into it, and bang, wireless throughout my house? I was looking into the Linksys WRT54G for this, but I hear mentions of Airport Extreme. I guess I'm just pretty confused by routers in general.
Now, my main computer is downstairs, but I'll want to use the laptop upstairs. There's a cable cord up there...can I somehow use that to connect to a box or anything to connect as an ethernet plug? Will that be much faster than wireless?
I have an EVDO phone with DUN that I plan on using if none of those options work out. Will the previous methods be much faster than using the phone via bluetooth or USB?
I'm obsessed with speed.
That's it for the internet portion...but I'm going to throw in a few extra questions instead of starting a whole different thread; they're pretty miscellaneous.
If I want to transfer files from my old computer to this one, what's the best way to do that? Could I (or should I) just access them remotely? You can point me to a thread where this is located if that's easier and already answered.
Last one. I want to use boot camp. I have a Windows XP Home CD...but I've heard you NEED the CD to have SP2 on it. Mine does not. Could I just use the one I have, and install sp2 once windows is installed? If not, I'd need to get a brand new copy of Windows Home or Pro? Are there advantages to Pro over Home, if I go that route (I hear talk of dual-core...)?
Thank you so much, these are very important (yet way too plentiful) questions.

This is really very simple despite the fact that the others dragged the thread off in some direction.
So my question is: should I go with wireless? If I do
this, would I need to get a wireless router? How
exactly does it work, i.e. do I plug just any cable
cord into it, and bang, wireless throughout my house?
I was looking into the Linksys WRT54G for this, but I
hear mentions of Airport Extreme. I guess I'm just
pretty confused by routers in general.
Apple sometimes makes up their own cutesy names that are confusingly different than what everybody else calls something. AirPort Extreme is merely Apple's brand of 802.11g, which is a standard all new wireless routers support, including Linksys.
If you have a cable modem, you can use an Ethernet cable to plug in a wireless router, which will take your cable modem signal and blast it all over the house. At that point, you are like an internet cafe. Your Mac or PC laptop should recognize the signal and you're off and running (subject to the limitations of wireless, which you should know about since you're obsessed with speed).
I very much doubt that a second cable modem is a practical option. You will probably have to pay for a second cable account. The router is the standard solution, because it takes one connection and routes it to multiple computers.
Now, my main computer is downstairs, but I'll want to
use the laptop upstairs. There's a cable cord up
there...can I somehow use that to connect to a box or
anything to connect as an ethernet plug? Will that be
much faster than wireless?
A good wireless router like the Linksys WRT54G also has wired Ethernet ports. You can plug your desktop into that. Your desktop and cable modem are downstairs, so it will make sense to plug the wireless router into the cable modem and connect the desktop to the router. That way, the router will do the job it's designed for: routing the cable modem signal to both the desktop and the wireless transmitter.
You could possibly plug and play, but it will be best for you to read the router manual to learn how to open the router's internal home page in your Mac or PC web browser and look through the router settings. If you are concerned about network security, then you will also want to turn on the password for the wireless portion of your network.
I'm sure you could use that EVDO phone...but wouldn't the Internet airtime cost a lot of money? The speed depends on your phone connection. I hear it varies. The cable modem is almost certainly faster, though.
If I want to transfer files from my old computer to
this one, what's the best way to do that? Could I (or
should I) just access them remotely? You can point me
to a thread where this is located if that's easier
and already answered.
You can use the network wizard in Windows to set up a share and then get to it from the Mac, or turn on file sharing on the Mac and get to it from the PC. My Macs and PC can all share files when needed.
Last one. I want to use boot camp. I have a Windows
XP Home CD...but I've heard you NEED the CD to have
SP2 on it. Mine does not. Could I just use the one I
have, and install sp2 once windows is installed?
This is not official word but I hear you MUST have SP2 on the CD.
not, I'd need to get a brand new copy of Windows Home
or Pro? Are there advantages to Pro over Home, if I
go that route (I hear talk of dual-core...)?
Try this comparison.

Similar Messages

  • Yet Another Hard Drive Question from a Mac Newbie

    I apologize in advance for the length of this post -- as I state in the subject line, I am a complete Mac newbie.
    I just took delivery yesterday on a new (early 2008) Mac Pro. I purchased and installed an additional 8GB RAM, and ordered it with a 500GB HD (Seagate, it looks like) and purchased two 750GB Hitachi HDs for bays 2 and 3. I will be doing a fair amount of photo editing, and also plan to partition the OS drive to run XP using bootcamp, but also plan to use VM Fusion.
    I am thinking of partitioning the boot drive with 250GB for OS X and apps, 150 GB for XP and apps, and ~66 remaining possibly to be used as scratch memory for CS3, though it sounds like this may not be enough. The bay 2 Hitachi would be used for all my user data (photos, music, docs, etc.) bay 3 would be for backup initially, possibly using Time Machine? (other recommendations welcomed). As space becomes an issue in the future, I will invest in a fourth internal HD, and at least 2TB external HDs for backup.
    Does this seem like a reasonable plan? If so, how do I go about formatting the drives and installing boot camp, Fusion, etc., and in what order? Also, how best do I organize my existing files from my current Windows machine as I copy them to the new user data HD, so they can be accessed as needed by both OS X and XP?
    Thanks for your help.

    I like the boot volume to never get beyond 50% used. Enough room for burning dual-layer DVDs can be 50GB for best results. And to force the system to use the first outer tracks.
    I hope you are concurrently zeroing both drives. SoftRAID is my choice for driver for RAIDs and you can cancel safely at any time. There are also excellent tools for checking sectors and mapping out bad blocks.
    I put Vista on its own 10K Raptor. I had it on the boot drive but I am always changing my mind, my drives and setup. Vista needs at least 40GB and that is with all my major documents and files on another drive which holds 150GB out of 450GB.
    You set the preference for what drive to use as scratch in CS3 or other programs. And you want to disable Spotlight indexing on any scratch or editing partition. Scratch can be a drive, a volume, a stripped array. Any 'normal' partition though don't use the default (journaling) feature is all.
    How large? I'd have to see and know how large files, work flow, and how long you work between projects. The nice thing, erase the scratch volume between projects but it is possible to use 300GB when you work on 1.5GB files and above.
    One early Mac Pro owner wasn't able to work as they wanted until they had 10-12GB RAM, boot RAID0, and RAIDs for scratch and data (saving 2GB files and not having to wait forever, which even a minute can feel like forever).
    Disk Utility: Partition. You can even partition 2+ drives, just make them the same, and first create 2 partitions (100GB on each?) and then stripe the first "Untitled 1" of each into 100GB x n array. Stripe or mirror the "Untitled 2" or leave those are two unique non-RAID volumes. Sounds harder than it is.
    Scratch = temp space and designed to not be saved, to be erased as needed.
    SoftRAID.com 3.6.6 makes it easy to create, delete, erase volumes and arrays as needed. Leopard has improved on non-RAID but not with RAIDs (for those that change their minds).

  • Some basic questions from a mac newbie

    hi,
    i have been using linux and windows all this while, and recently began using an apple too. have some simple questions here that i hope to get some answers for.
    1. is there something similar to /etc/hosts in linux where i can add the IP address of a server? this is for me to use the 'ssh' command in the terminal
    2. when i open up an application, say safari or chrome, i want the window to fill the entire screen automatically, instead of having to drag the bottom right of the window to fill the screen. how to configure that?
    3. when i close an application by clicking on the 'x' at the top left, why is it that it still appears in the list when i press command+tab? to remove the application from the list, i have to right click on its icon on the dock, then click 'quit'. this is rather troublesome.
    appreciate any help!

    1. is there something similar to /etc/hosts in linux where i can add the IP address of a server? this is for me to use the 'ssh' command in the terminal
    The /etc/hosts file is there, but the /etc/ folder is hidden. You can use the Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities/) to access it via Unix, or could enter "open /etc" in the Terminal to open that folder in the Finder.
    However, I'm not sure how this relates to ssh... I have not needed to modify that file, yet I can ssh all I need to. Are you trying to connect to your new Mac via ssh, or connect to other machines from the Mac via ssh?
    2. when i open up an application, say safari or chrome, i want the window to fill the entire screen automatically, instead of having to drag the bottom right of the window to fill the screen. how to configure that?
    Just drag the window out to full-screen and the browser should remember and open new windows at that size in the future. There are also some utilities (one called "Right Zoom" IIRC?) that will make the zoom button (green + button) behave more like the Windows zoom button.
    3. when i close an application by clicking on the 'x' at the top left, why is it that it still appears in the list when i press command+tab?
    Applications shouldn't quit just because you close their last window, unless the application's entire user interface is contained within that window. That is the case with ALL Windows apps, since there's no global menu bar, but only in some Mac apps. This is something that always ticked me off big-time with Windows... there have been times when I carelessly closed a window I didn't need anymore, but wanted to keep using the app, and then had to wait for it to load again. That won't happen on the Mac.
    If this bothers you, just use the key combination command-Q to quit apps.

  • A few questions from a Mac newbie

    1. What kind of maintainence should I be doing on the mac? Do I need to defrag or run system cleaners (like ccleaner for windows)?
    2. Will it eventually get messed up like Windows, or should be running as good as new years from now without reformatting?
    3. Am I correct in assuming Software Update only updates the System and the official mac applications (iChat, iMovie etc.)?
    4. I know viruses aren't as much of a threat, but should I install antivirus just to be on the safe side?
    5. When I install new software, I'm assuming settings are saved somewhere else besides the Applications folder. Do these remove themselves when I delete the software?
    6. If I eventually update to Leopard, will that do a clean install over Tiger, not corrupting anything? On Windows I know that upgrading Windows basically screwed over everything and messed up the registry permanently, and I'm hoping this isn't an issue with Mac OS.
    7. Lastly, I've noticed that the longer the system is running for, the more memory is used (according to iStat at least), regardless of how many programs I'm running. Is this normal behavior, and is it slowing down the system?
    Thanks, and I'm loving Mac OS, my only regret is that I didn't switch years ago.
    Macbook (2 GHz Core 2 Duo, 1 GB RAM)   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

    1. What kind of maintainence should I be doing on the mac? Do I need to defrag or run system cleaners (like ccleaner for windows)?
    After any system update or security update, use DiskUtility to repair permissions. Maybe/maybe not necessary in all instances, but a good plan. You may also boot from an installer disk and run DiskUtility to repair the disk, maybe twice a year. You can also run fsck with the same frequency
    http://macs.about.com/od/osx/a/running_fsck.htm
    I follow the repair permissions rule, but seldom run fsck unless I notice problems. Opinions may vary.
    2. Will it eventually get messed up like Windows, or should be running as good as new years from now without reformatting?
    I lost my crystal ball
    Seriously, disk corruption is a cross platform issue. If you're not the type to install every shareware app you can find, and don't mess around with stuff unnecessarily, or fool around with files you aren't familiar with, you should be OK.
    3. Am I correct in assuming Software Update only updates the System and the official mac applications (iChat, iMovie etc.)?
    Yes.
    4. I know viruses aren't as much of a threat, but should I install antivirus just to be on the safe side?
    Again, with the crystal ball
    At this point, it's probably not necessary. However, you may wish to consider some course of action if you swap files with Windows users on a regular basis. Your Mac will be happy to host malware through infected emails, flash drives, web sites, etc...
    Many folks recommend ClamAV
    http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/24449
    There are commercial apps available, but IMHO, they're not the most polished apps, possibly because there's no real demand for a reliable av app for OS X at this point.
    5. When I install new software, I'm assuming settings are saved somewhere else besides the Applications folder. Do these remove themselves when I delete the software?
    Yes, no, and sort of. Most of apps are contained in a package. Control-click on an application's icon, and you can view the stuff in the package. Deleting the app's icon form the Application folder will get rid of most of it. There will be preference files, mostly in youruserfolder/Library/Preferences. There may be scattered files elsewhere, but generally, none of them are big files, nor should they hurt performance if they stick around.
    6. If I eventually update to Leopard, will that do a clean install over Tiger, not corrupting anything? On Windows I know that upgrading Windows basically screwed over everything and messed up the registry permanently, and I'm hoping this isn't an issue with Mac OS.
    In the past, OS X has allowed you to perform a simple upgrade when going from 10.x to 10.y
    I usually perform an archive and install, but that's just me.
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120
    7. Lastly, I've noticed that the longer the system is running for, the more memory is used (according to iStat at least), regardless of how many programs I'm running. Is this normal behavior, and is it slowing down the system?
    Yes, and maybe. OS X likes memory. I recommend 1 GB for 10.4. 10.3 seemed pretty good with 512 MB. Apple Discussions policy says I shouldn't speculate about memory requirements here for Leopard, so I won't, but you can think about the possibilities. More is better. If you fire up activity monitor and notice that you're down to 10 MB of free memory, I'd consider adding more.
    hth
    Jeff

  • Question from a Mac Newbie Regarding Managing Photos

    Hi all,
    I just moved to Mac so I moved all my pictures from my external HD to iPhoto. Now, after I have done that I realized that iPhoto doesn't give you the option to easily access your pictures and make changes or delete like when using Windows, unless it's thru iPhoto. Im serious photography hobbyist and im between buying Lightroom or Aperture. I like iPhoto and its ease of use but Id like to edit my pictures on a serious software so I setup iPhoto to edit pictures on a trial version I have for LIghtroom. I guess my question is, would it be easier to manage my pictures on iphoto and aperture instead of lightroom? Also, which software (lightroom or aperture) will allow me to have a backup of my pictures in the way they were on my Windows PC?
    Thank you in advance for all your help

    Yes, if you do "referenced" files in Aperture, and are using the latest versions of Aperture (3.3+) and iPhoto (9.3+) then they'll all be visible in the Finder.
    They're not all in one big folder in the Finder.  Aperture has lots of options (and I mean LOTS of options) for how and where it stores the files on disk.  You can choose the folder naming structure, all sorts of subfolder options, etc.  Honestly, there can be an overwhelming number of options.  Easiest for your sanity is to choose Finder folder names that  match your project names in Aperture.  I have mine organized in subfolders by year/month/date, but that's Aperture 201 and I'm offering 101 advice because you're a new user and it can be complex.  Aperture makes it trivially easy to move from one naming structure to another in Finder whenever you want... the only issue with that is if you're pointing Lightroom at the same files on disk, if you move them in Aperture, Lightroom will totally freak out.
    Basically you NEVER want to change the folder structure on disk via Finder... EVER, if your're using iPhoto, Aperture, or Lightroom.  You should always use the application to do that.  And if you're using Aperture and Lightroom, and use one to change the folder structure, it will break the other.  So be careful with that.

  • Time Capsule question from a Mac Newbie

    Hi,
    I have a weird question. I plan on buying a new laptop for my switch to OSX. I was planning on getting a time capsule so I can use time machine, get N wireless and use it as a network storage device (store video files so it's accessible between my desktop pc and laptop).
    2 questions:
    1) I saw PC's and non-leopard users can use the TC as a external HDD, just wanted to confirm leopard users can do the same. I assumed it would be possible, but assumptions are the mother of all you know what.
    2) I saw some people stating they are using a TC and a external HDD connected to it. The only reasons I could come up with is the TC does not provide enough space or my assumption of being able to use the TC as a time machine backup device and networked external hdd is incorrect. Just wanted to ask if there are any other benefits / reasons one may choose a setup like that?

    Mikeyhp wrote:
    2 questions:
    1) I saw PC's and non-leopard users can use the TC as a external HDD, just wanted to confirm leopard users can do the same. I assumed it would be possible, but assumptions are the mother of all you know what.
    Leopard can absolutely use the TC HDD.
    2) I saw some people stating they are using a TC and a external HDD connected to it. The only reasons I could come up with is the TC does not provide enough space or my assumption of being able to use the TC as a time machine backup device and networked external hdd is incorrect. Just wanted to ask if there are any other benefits / reasons one may choose a setup like that?
    Firstly, TC isn't readily partitionable, which is a major drawback. If you are planning on using TC as the TM destination, you shouldn't stick your PC stuff on it, in case you ever need to erase the HDD. However, you could simply plug a USB HDD into the USB port and Viola! you have another NAS! Also, there is an Archive feature on TC that allows the entire TC HDD to be quickly backed up for Archive purposes.

  • Stupid question from a Mac newbie: multiple users for webbased email

    This problem has infuriated me over the last 4 hours---likely a keychain/cookie issue--- but help has been hard to find. New computer Latest OS X.
    I use safari (or firefox) to log into a web based email account (happens to be an exchange server). initial screen comes up. Click on 'log in'. Up pops a username/password screen. Type in user name, password, don't click on "save password", get into my email account--- no problem. Check email, happy.
    My wife, wants to log into her account.
    I quit safari or firefox. She clicks on the icon. initial screen comes up. Click on 'log in' and up comes MY EMAIL. She did not log on.
    Not sure what to do. Want to set up the web-based email to not automatically log someone into another persons' email as I want to use this computer basically as one account, with multiple people logging into muliple web based email.
    Can this be done easily?

    Hi,
    I quit safari or firefox. ...
    Just to be devils advocate, mind if I ask how you quit the applications? If you just closed the window by clicking the red circle at the top left corner, then both Safari and Firefox would still be running with your login session details still active.
    Try pressing command+q to really quit the application (or click and hold the Dock icon and select Quit). Alternatively, select 'Logout' (or the equivalent option) on your web email account to close your active session.

  • IMac 21.5" performance on COD4 and few other general questions from a newbi

    I'm a current and long time PC owner who is sick of messing with registry problems, performance issues and viruses.
    I am strongly considering the purchase of a 21.5" iMac, but have some reservations as to whether I may have performance issues playing Call of Duty 4 using Parallels or Boot Camp. Will the 21.5" machine with the upgraded 256K video card handle this and other games OK? Other than that, I am a light user who mainly surfs the web, sends email and tracks finances with quicken. Games and some video are about the heaviest applications I use.
    Currently on a 3 year old Pentium Duo Dell with 2GB ram, 512mb Nvidia video card.

    I'm just extremely concerned that the 21.5" iMac won't have enough juice for multi-tasking such as playing COD4 while surfing the net. Even my hopped up gaming PC (older dual core with 512K video card) struggles at times. I'm wanting to make the jump to Mac, just afraid of spending almost $1500+ and winding up with worse performance than I already have.
    Unfortunately, the nearest Mac retailer is over an hour away from me so there isn't a real chance to put one through it's paces in person.

  • Airport Question for a Mac Newbie

    I just got a Macbook Pro and I also bought the Airport Extreme. When I click on the Airport Icon I can see about 15 or so different networks at any given time. I have a 2 part question. First how do I know which network/router is mine? How can I rename the network that is listed? I am very new to Mac's and wireless networking. I just want to make sure that I have protected my network properly. I set up a password for WAP is that all I need to do? One last thing, is there anyway I can make sure that I am protected properly? Thanks Much!!!
    MacBook Pro 2GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

    A question eh? My counting must be off I see at least 4 question marks...
    You know which router is yours because you set it up and named it. If you still can't figure it out you should pick a better name. When you click on your network and type in your password you should be able to connect.
    To rename a network you will need to connect to it and run the AirPort Admin Utility which is location in the "Utilities" folder in your "Applications" folder.
    If by WAP you mean WPA then you are off to a great start. When you picked the password I hope you didn't make it too easy to guess. Try putting numbers, letters and symbols in it and you should make it at least 16 charaters long to be sure that you are safe (I use 24 characters).
    I would suggest looking at this tutorial from Apple - it might help answer some questions and should give you a better understanding:
    http://www.apple.com/support/panther/tutorials/internet/index.html

  • Quick question from future mac user

    Hi there.
    Just a quick question about the Intel iMacs.
    Total noob with Macs so please forgive me, I'm looking to get away from Windows and PC's but not sure what I would need exactly.
    Would the 24":3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac with 4GBs of RAM and 1TB hdd be more than enough to handle video/audio editing with Final Cut Pro Studio, some gaming (such as newer MMO games or RPG/FPS games) and maybe running VMware Fusion for running Windows apps and games that I have/use that are either not available or not yet supported by Apple?
    Or would I be looking at goin with the Mac Pro?
    I'd rather shoot for the iMac because I'm SO tired of PC's and boxes and would like my computer to actually look nice as well as kick butt. But I'm just worried that if I got with the iMac I won't be able to perform those functions well or at all.
    I love the look and feel of the iMac although I don't think you can get more than 4GBs of RAM or more than ONE hard drive inside (which isn't a big concern as I can always use external drives) so I'm just wondering if upgrading to the extra ram and hdd space from the get go would be a great help without having to worry about adding more later.
    I'd like to be able to just use the iMac than the Mac Pro because the price difference seems to jump up quite a bit between iMac and Mac Pro. I'm just worried if that type of iMac setup wouldn't be enough for what I need.
    Any suggestions or information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
    Janin

    The iMac in general is more than enough to perform those tasks well however the Mac Pro still has it's advantages. Lenn already went over those so take a look at these speed scores as they may help you to make your decision.
    http://www.marketingtactics.com/Speedmark/
    Either way I recommend getting the base RAM configuration from Apple and purchase RAM from OWC.
    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/6400DDR2S4MP/
    http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgrades.cfm?sort=pop&model=284&type=Memory&TI=0 655&shoupgrds=Show+Upgrades
    George

  • Late 2013 iMac 27".  Used boot camp and installed windows 7 pro.  While in Windows 7, in my pc the mac os does not show.  Is there anyway to fix this outside of restoring entire computer and trying again.  Thank you from a mac newbie

    Hello.  I bought a new iMac 27" with the following specs:
    3.5GHz Intel Core i7 Quad-Core (Haswell)
    32GB of 1600MHz DDR3 RAM
    3TB Fusion Drive
    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M Graphics (4GB)
    27" LED-Backlit IPS Display
    2560 x 1440 Native Resolution
    802.11ac/a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
    Thunderbolt, USB 3.0, SDXC Card Reader
    720p FaceTime HD Camera, Dual Mics
    Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion (64-bit)
    After installing all Mac update, used Bootcamp to create a Windows 7 drive.  Everything went fine to a point.  While in my Mac OS i can see the windows partition just fine and see/edit documents.  However, when in the Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, I cannot see the mac os in my computer at all. 
    Can someone please help this mac owner newbie?  This process worked fine on my mac mini and i have no troubles.  It is just on my new iMac that it wont work/show the highlighted paragraph above
    Any ideas and/or help would be greatly appreciated.

    I understand that much.  On my MAC Mini, if you look above at original post, I CAN see both OS while in the Windows 7 partition or the MAC OS.  This is NOT the case on my iMac.  Again, when in the MAC OS I can see the windows partion and move information between the two that way.  When in the WINDOWS partition, the only one that shows is the Windows OS from my computer or network.  The only way you can tell its even a MAC is the bootcamp icon in the bottom right corner of toolbar.  Both have same version of MAC OS so both should work same way..  When i double click on my computer, it should show both the Windows drive AND the MAC (as does my mini and another iMac 21.5 that i have).  This iMac does not do that - only shows windows.

  • Some dumb questions from a MAC Virgin

    Firstly let me thank you for help you are going to give me.
    I have thought for many years about switching to a MAC from my PC.
    At the moment I a wireless network comprising my desktop (which is the one I would like to replace with a MAC system) and downstairs a Sony Vaio laptop. I use a Netgear Router and for the upstairs computer a usb wireless dongle to connect to my network.
    First question.
    1. If I buy a mac desktop and set it up upstairs how do I connect it to my wireless network? Is it possible? Is it easy? Will it just find it as my PC does and allow me to gain access via my WEP key?
    Second Question.
    I maintain daily two websites. I know the FTP access won't be an issue as far as I can see but what software is available for web design and maintenance - doesn't need to be fancy I can code HTML by hand.
    Third Question.
    My printer is connected to my desktop upstairs assuming I can access and maintain a wireless connection will my printer work with the laptop?

    1. Yes, yes and yes.
    2. Lots can be found at versiontracker.com and macupdate.com
    3. If there are Mac drivers for your printer, yes it will work. To setup, see this page:
    http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/3015.html

  • 2 questions from new mac owner

    Hello all,
    I've found some good information on these forums and there seems to be a good community here, I'm glad I finally bought a mac. I have two questions:
    1- When I copied many digital photographs from dvd's to my hard drive, all of the directories and files are read only. How do I change permissions to many files at once? Right now I am using 'get info' and changing pulldown to read & write. There has to be an easier way.
    2- I use photoshop, dreramweaver, flashpro, blender, etc. Since these are demanding graphics programs, what should I do on a regular basis to keep things running at the best possible speed. I've read about setting up a few things to do automatically each month, but haven't found details. I'm an EX-windows user so I'm used to having to defrag, and do reinstalls from time to time, etc. Thank you and hello everybody.
    Matt

    1- When I copied many digital photographs from dvd's
    to my hard drive, all of the directories and files
    are read only. How do I change permissions to many
    files at once? Right now I am using 'get info' and
    changing pulldown to read & write. There has to be an
    easier way.
    You can use "Get Info" on the enclosing folder and change the permissions on the folder and all enclosed items in one shot. With the "Get Info" panel open, click the little disclosure triangle next to "Details" under "Ownership & Permissions". Select the desired permissions and then click the "Apply to enclosed items..." button.
    2- I use photoshop, dreramweaver, flashpro, blender,
    etc. Since these are demanding graphics programs,
    what should I do on a regular basis to keep things
    running at the best possible speed. I've read about
    setting up a few things to do automatically each
    month, but haven't found details. I'm an EX-windows
    user so I'm used to having to defrag, and do
    reinstalls from time to time, etc. Thank you and
    hello everybody.
    The only thing you normally have to worry about is keeping a few GB of free space on the boot volume for swap files, etc. Mac OS X maintains its filesystems in such a way as to minimize fragmentation, so defragging is not normally needed.

  • A bundle of questions from an iPhone newb...

    Ok so me and my wife recently both got the iPhone 4, and so far we love it. We haven't had any issues, except a tricky time getting the phones to hook up to the wifi here at our house but that was resolved pretty quickly. So here we are, two iPhone rookies and we had a few questions that we didn't get around to asking the sales guy because we didn't want to hold up the 50 other people behind us in line... waiting in the rain... at 6a.m. So here's a short list of questions I was hoping to get answered. I tried searching the message boards but couldn't quite find the answers I needed.
    1) What all exactly constitutes data usage? Sounds simple, but we just came from another carrier with an unlimited data plan and we never thought about how much we used, until we got stuck with the 2gig cap imposed by AT&T.
    2) Does the data usage covered by my plan get drained even when I'm on my home wifi connection? In relation to that, is it better to stay connected to wifi or the 3G cell network?
    3) Is the 2gig cap on data usage per phone or shared between us?
    4) Which apps use the most the data? Please don't say Facebook or the news... those are the two apps I use most....
    Thanks for any answers!

    Hi Josh,
    You live in a populated area, so you probably have WiFi most places. Thus, if you are at Starbucks and hop on their WiFi, there is no data usage from ATT's standpoint. If you are in Starbucks and don't hop on their WiFi and surf the net, then you'll get data usage.
    Go to Settings -> General -> Usage and then scroll down to Cellular Network Data and it will tell you how much you used. Keep an eye on it for a few months (you can reset it whenever you like) and you'll have a good idea of how much data you are using.
    Enjoy your phones!

  • Question from a Server newbie please...

    Sorry to ask such a silly question, but I have the need for a server, but want to run basic apps, and before I purchase I need to understand please....
    Does OSx server give you all the same function and application ability as a "normal" OSx platform like 10.4 plus the server side as well.
    thanks for putting up with this one.
    Best,
    Tom

    Server will generally do most of what client will do, but not all.
    So far, the server install image has generally been smaller than the client install image. So while most of the same stuff is there, don't assume that everything will be.
    Also, I have found that some applications will refuse to install on server. I found this to be true of some of Apple's iLife applications. In some cases you may be able to get around this by installing client first with all your favorite applications, then upgrading it to server.
    Client also has much of what is in server. For example, client comes with BIND for DNS serving and Apache for web serving. However, you don't get a nice GUI to configure it or turn it on and you may need to manually edit the configuration files with something like BBEdit or TextWrangler. But if you search the Internet, you can probably find the needed info.
    But if you need to use Safari to download an update, etc. you will find that server will have no problem with most of these things.

Maybe you are looking for