Total Mac noob questions

First, I have been a PC fan since the 8086. I have never owned anything but PCs. I build my own PCs and rarely ever have a problem. I keep my PC updated, secure, and virus protected, always...BUT I am getting REAL sick of Microsoft and I need some advice/help to get off of their platform.
The main reason I am sticking to a PC right now (outside of my familiarity) is because I love PC games. If Linux or Macs (or any other OS for that matter) had the support that the PC does, I would switch in a second. I know that Macs do support SOME games but not nearly as many as the PC. Additionally, I am a power hog. I love the pure power of the PCs. I am afraid that a Mac couldn't touch the performance of one of my custom built machines but since I have never owned one, I don't know. So here are my questions:
1) Can I install OSX on my existing Intel hardware? I know there are Hacks out there but does Apple support installing it on stand alone machines?
2) How do the new Macs handle games? Has anyone compared performance of a Mac game to its PC game counterpart?
3) Is there a way to custom build a Mac-like computer and install OSX?
4) Are there any other options for my gaming habit that will get me away from Microsoft?
Assume I know nothing about Macs and feel free to get into as much detail as you want.

Hi BMCD;
May I welcome you to the Apple Discussion Forums.
I concur with what the other responders said so I will not repeat their comments.
What I would like to add is that while I attempt to avoid games because I have found them to be much too addictive for me in the past, I did download a demo copy of WOW and Halo on my G4 prior to my upgrade to my Quad as a test for the 7800 GT in my Quad. What I noticed on my old G4 was that all of the video in both games was totally not smooth. Everything that moved did so with a very jerky motion to it. Whereas on the other hand when I ran the games on my Quad it appear more like a movie.
In addition, on my G4 I had a difficult time understanding the speak of the characters. On the Quad this was not so. I was able to understand them much better.
So if you want a Mac for gaming I would recommend the Quad with a 7800 GT graphic card. It is certainly a vast improvement over m y old G4.
Allan

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Going from Dual boot to total Mac OS Question

I'm reformatting my Dual boot system to a total mac OS. Should I install my music programs on my main Mac HD, ( I already have mainly art programs on my Mac HD), Or, should I install them on the reformatted HD?
Logic Pro 9 is already installed on my Mac HD.

arrays are only to be done with identical drives - make/model and revision
something else may be wrong for them to take so long, assuming you turn off the energy saver setting to spin down drives when not in use which you would cause 20 seconds or more for a drive to spin back up
40GB is about average for Mac OS, so it fits on a SSD and instant response
if they are more than two years old consider using for backup and archive only and see if you can invest in any such as one for timemachine, use the 700 for clone and 1TB for data
Windows on its own drive too or split an SSD - Samsung 840 240GB $170 would hold both nicely, 100GB each OS
Samsung MZ-7TD250BW 840 Series Solid State Drive (SSD) 250 GB Sata 2.5-Inch
WD Black Desktop 1TB SATA 6.0 GB/s 7200 RPM 3.5-Inch Internal Desktop Hard Drive Retail Kit

Total mac noob needs a little help!

Hi everyone, Just got an imac and just a few things are bugging me, i installed firefox and msn messeger, and underneath my Mac HD icon, there are white disk box thingys that wont go away, why is this? is it because the programs havent been installed properly and are running off the exe's or something? (i hope that made sense) so yea thats annoying, and also it wont let me delete my trash can msn file cause it says it is being used, but i dont think it is? maybe im not installing my programs properly i'm unsure, if someone could help me this would be great, there is probably a thread about this somewhere else but i had a little look and didn't find anything, thanks!

http://www.imamac.com/2006/10/01/basics-installing-dmg-files/

Probably a daft Mac NOOB question but...

Is there a way to allocate more RAM/CPU to audio apps?
I'm running Logic Pro & I can quite easily overload my system as I use a tonne of plugins in realtime so I can keep them open to edit and automate.. I sort-of design my sound as Im working & i like to keep quite a few parts heavily automated (eg. filters, delay times, pitch glides, lfo, filt lfo, osc detune, reverse reverb time & amount are all on one ES2 & Need to automate quite a bit).
I may have 2/3 leads/pads, Drums Buss, and a bass buss all using similar editing styles & it really kills my workflow to freeze, then unfreeze to re-edit.
The reason I ask is that when Logic is running, Activity monitor reports I have around 500meg of Inactive RAM and Logic may only be using 130% processor.
I understand the internal node can reduce the cpu a little but is there a way to re-assign processor scheduling & RAM allocation to Logic??
Thanks for any help in advance..

Hi L-Fire, Thanks for that. Looks like yr right!
Browsing around, it seems that OS X doesn't have/need a Memory or CPU scheduling editor. Apparently the OS automatically assigns appropriately for performance.
I have Macbook 2.0, 2gig of (Apple) RAM installed, along with an 80g USB2 external HDD to store my audio work. It doesnt seem to make much difference whether I work from the Local disk or external.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's a problem with the Macbook.
It just seems strange that Activity monitor shows lots of available resources & yet Logic will overload & sometimes even crash through (What I presume is) lack of it!?

Noob questions...windows emulation on mac OS 10.4

getting my ibook later this week and was wondering about windows emulation. i don't have an intel processor in my ibook (obviously), so what's your recommendation for a product that runs windows on a mac? and, total noob question, do i have to buy a copy of windows? i already have windows on my dell laptop.
thanks in advance for your help.

Hello,
so, do the new macbooks have some kind of software
pre-installed that runs windows? my friends who just
got a macbook tells me he can run windows programs if
he needs to.
The MacBooks have Intel processors in them. So, no emulation is necessary. They can directly install and run Windows if they want.
The reason you need a program like Virtual PC on an iBook is because it uses a PowerPC processor which Windows cannot communicate with. And, the PowerPC Mac's architecture is completely different.
So, that means you need a program like Virtual PC to completely emulate an entire PC computer. Basically, it is a program that simulates a real computer and then translates those Intel instructions into PowerPC instructions that your iBook can understand.
There is a severe performance penalty for all this translation. The iBook G4 will not perform like a regular Windows PC. It will be much slower, and you will need to be more patient. With a G4 iBook, you could reasonably expect your performance to be comparable to a 300 MHz PC running Windows XP.
With a 1.8 GHz iMac G5 and 2 GB of RAM, I was experiencing performance comparable to a 1.3 GHz Intel Celeron system with 256 MB of RAM (which I happened to have around for comparison).
But, for more intensive tasks, the performance was more comparable to a 500 MHz system.
Anyway, back to the Intel Macs. Those machine's only need a free Apple Utility "Boot Camp" to provide the drivers and create a Windows compatible boot partition:
http://www.apple.com/bootcamp/
And, then they need Windows XP Home or Pro. That's it.
With programs like Parallels, they can run Windows inside the Mac OS (or along side it) much like you would with Virtual PC:
http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/
i am trying to figure out where this might be useful
in the first place.
It is useful if you need to be able to run Windows software, but don't want to buy a PC. It's more convenient to have one machine that can do everything than it is to have a Mac and a separate PC.
Feel free to ask additional questions if you have them. Or, if you like, hit solved on the post if you feel everything is answered.
But, do let me know if I can answer any additional questions or need to re-state something clearer.

Openbox noob question on menus.

I really do apologize about this insanely noob question but this is driving me up a wall.
I've read several several different resources on openbox (particularly trying to find information on the root menu)
i'm either looking in the wrong place - or I totally saw it and didn't put 2 and 2 together. *shrugs*
so, here is the dealio -
I'm trying to edit the root menu (or as I like to call it right clicky drop down thingy)
I'm running LXDE and from everything I've gathered over the last couple of days trying to tackle this
with lxde you edit the lxde-rc.xml instead of the menu or rc.xml
although after reading through it a plethora of times I noticed that it pulls off of the menu.xml as well...
*basically*
Which file do I actually edit to add stuff to the root menu?
and i've seen dozens of actual templates for editing the menu.xml and lxde-rc.xml but whenever *I* try to follow that I get a syntax error on openbox --reconfigure
and insight or even a swift kick in the ass that will land me on a site that has info that actually works would be ever so appreciated (even if its a search term - I think my problem now is that i've spent so much time looking for this one thing that I might actually be insanely over complicating this and not picking out the right information )

stlarch wrote:An easy way is to install obmenu
I can agree with that even though I'm not sure how to use that program very well. I'd rather learn how to manually edit the stuff, and not have to rely on another program
the main reason I got away from ubuntu was to be semi/forced to learn everything.
JackH79 wrote:Have you read this here as well?
I did glance at that but didn't think that was referring to the root menus...I can decifer through the xml those menu files to some extent...the stuff on freedesktop is straight crypic to me atm...but at least now I know I need to take a much closer look hehe.

Noob Question Re: Encoding to DVD

This is my first post in the adobe forums , so hello all!
I've been trolling this, and numerous other sites, hoping to understand the basic process of editing -> CD creation.
So here it begins...I am working on "work-out" video tape. The footage was shot using a Canon H10 to removable memory card. All files are .MTS, which don't pose too many challenges for my computer (i7 processor w/ 6MB memory) after the most recent PP update. Editing, adding AE, titles, graphics, or using Sound Booth is relatively painless. I have a total of (4) timelines that comprise the total video (Trailer, Intro, Instructions, and Workout). As I edited the video I'd often render what I had testing formats such as avi, MPEG2, FLV/4, Blu-Ray H.264, etc. I was amazed with the clarity and sharpness as I stayed with in the confines of 1980x1020. So I have no problems there. Once the editing, I first created a blank timeline and pulled into it the other timelines to make on timeline called "Video Complete". I dynamic linked that timeline to Encore and found out that amount of data, in that format, created a very unstable Encore - it screamed and hollered about running out of memory, etc. I watched several tutorials and found that dynamic linking the indvidual timelines gave me a much more stable Encore.
So I had the untranscoded .MTS files in Encore. I created my menu, linking the timelines, etc and built my project using the standard 720x480 (I believe) format. To say the least, I wasn't at all happy with the final product when watched on the television. Very pixalated/jagged around letters, etc.
I don't mind shopping around for the correct answer or putting my time in on research, I'd just like to know if I am on the right playing field and/or headed in the right direction.
So basically my questions are:
1) Is dynamic linking .MTS files to Encore the correct approach as opposed to rendering the .MTS files in PPro to avi or MPEG2 before bringing them into the Encore project? (Based on wanting the best DVD quality possible)
2) Transcoding settings for individual timelines should remain on automatic or should I adjust them and transcode before clicking on build project?
3) Since I was able to see MPGE2 renderings (from PPro) on my computer screen as sharp and clear, should I expect the same quality from a DVD product?
Any information would be helpful - thanks so much.
Joe

Re: Noob Question Re: Encoding to DVD
Hi, great questions:
I think this is a sound approach. MTS is short for MPEG-2 Transport Stream, so it's already MPEG-2 but will of course have to be re-transcoded for DVD to standard definition. If you want to experiment with high definition, you could try stripping the streams out of the MTS using a third party tool such as what you might find at videohelp.com - or not. Less transcoding is always better, but may not be practical. There's probably little advantage to doing this on the DVD side, but it might be worthwhile for Blu-ray? Or not.
First, try using Interpret Footage on the asset (the MTS file itself) - set it to SD Widescreen. You may need to Revert to Original if it's already transcoded. Try building another DVD and check the footage.
For the most part, yes. Of course, they will be standard definition on DVD.
Message was edited by: jbowden
Jbowden,
Thanks for the response. I will check out "Interpret Footage" on the asset of the MTS file and toggle to SD Widescreen. Will do that tonight so I can compare the two for quality.
Joe

How to get a question in the course placed anywhere in the course and does not appear in the quiz result or total number of questions. Pretest would work except it can't go anywhere in the course (at least for me it can't)

How to get a question in the course placed anywhere in the course and does not appear in the quiz result or total number of questions. Pretest would work except it can't go anywhere in the course (at least for me it can't)

Use a normal question, and do not add the score to the total score. That will give you a correct score at the end. But the total number of questions, that system variable will still take into account all questions. You'll need a user variable, and calculate its value by subtracting 1 from the system variable cpQuizInfoTotalQuestionsPerProject. Same for the progress indicator if you want to show it?
Customized Progress Indicator - Captivate blog
If you want to allow Review, you'll have to tweak as well. You didn't specify the version, and all those questions I now mentioned.
And my approach, since you talk about only one question: create a custom question, because you'll have total control then.

New Hard Drive: Mac Face/Question Mark on boot

I installed a new hard drive in my fathers iBook G4 1.33 GHz and installed Leopard. I instantly had problems after the installation was complete and the computer restarted. I got the Mac Face/Question Mark for a second and then it booted to the installation CD.
I used disk utilities to verify and repair the disk and permissions which both finished successfully. I tried to reboot with the same result: Mac Face/Question Mark for a second and then it booted to the installation CD. I decided to erase and reinstall Leopard. Installation complete - Restart - Mac Face/Question Mark. I decided to turn if off for the night.
I powered up in the morning with short-lived success, as I got the Leopard Welcome video. I set up the system and did some software updates, which eventually required a restart. Boom. Mac Face/Question Mark. I decided to hold the option key on my next restart to see if I could select the hard drive installation over the install CD. I was able to do so, and it booted fine to the hard drive. I continued my software updating, installed some more software like iLife '08, Firefox, Open Office, Stuffit Expander, etc. After all my installation and updating, the system operates great, except when I have to start up. I still have the Mac Face/Question Mark.
I have a theory that the hard drive jumper is set incorrectly, but I don't want to waste 45 mins. cracking the thing open to find out. Can anyone confirm? I'm open to all other theories, of course.

No jumper means Cable Select (CS). This would mean that the cable from the motherboard to the drive has a blue connector at the motherboard and a black connector on the end where the drive plugs in. The gray connector in the middle is the Slave position. Master/Slave relationship is determined by where on the cable the device is plugged in.
The CS cables and the setting was not used very often until around 2004 or 2005. Until that time all of the connectors on the cable were the same color and the Master/Slave setting was determined by the jumper on the drive.
It's very possible that you are trying to use a drive that's been setup for the newer systems as Cable Select, when actually you should force the drive to be a Master by installing a jumper on the proper pins.
Are there two deviced on the cable besides the motherboard, and are all of the connectors the same color? Or is the connector that plugs into the motherboard black? Then you are probably not looking at a CS buss.

Syncing & Streaming from the same Library? - Noob question

Good Evening - I have a silly noob question that I can't believe I can't find the answer to on my own: I have been trying to determine if it is possible to sync and stream from the same library simultaneously.
I purchased the 40GB aTV and it has been syncing just fine with my Windows iTunes. I told it not to sync a few albums I never listen to so I wouldn't have issues with other songs or movies. I am upgrading to a new iMac and I am am going to re-rip many of my existing CD's to get them into a consistent audio quality of 192 AAC or above. This is going to push my library size to well over the 40GB limit in just music, not including any movies or TV shows I choose to pull in.
The manual does not make it obvious (or I am not reading clearly) what happens to items that don't sync over - I assume they are still playable but will have to stream. Is there anyway to mark "preferred" albums or artists that should get synced and not streamed in case the iTunes library is unavailable for whatever reason?
Also, when I change libraries is the aTV going to completely re-sync even though the music is must going to be migrated?
Thanks for taking the time to answer these silly questions.

That's not quite what I was looking for.
My question remains, what happens to the items that can't be synced from my main library to my aTV? My library is just a smidge bigger than the available space on the aTV and not everything syncs over. Does that mean I won't be able to play those items not synced from my main library...
As my library grows I don't want to have to choose what does and doesn't get synced from my library by mood. For example, every year my wife buys new christmas music - right now I could exclude it and everything else gets copied over, but come thanksgiving that stuff better be there for her and I don't want to choose other music or movies to remove.
I guess I will just have to play to try it out.

Another Noobie question - readLine()

Hi all
This is another one of the extreme noob questions. I wrote a small program to read form a text file
    String NetworkLine = new String();
    try{
        FileReader inputFile = new FileReader("Test.txt"); //
        BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(inputFile);
       try{
           while (in.readLine() != null){
            NetworkLine = in.readLine();
            System.out.println(NetworkLine);
       }catch (IOException e){
            System.err.println("Error in reading the file");
    }catch (FileNotFoundException e){
        e.printStackTrace();
    }My Test.txt is
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
without the *
The output I get is
Two
Four
Six
I cannot figure out why only even no. lines are being read. I inserted a breakpoint at the line
          System.out.println(NetworkLine);This shows me that only even no. lines are being read by readLine(). Any help will be appreaciated.
Thanks
Ayesha

    String NetworkLine = new String();
    try{
        FileReader inputFile = new FileReader("Test.txt"); //
        BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(inputFile);
       try{
           while (in.readLine() != null){ // <-- This reads a line, checks it for null ,and drops it
            NetworkLine = in.readLine(); // <-- this reads the next line
            System.out.println(NetworkLine);
       }catch (IOException e){
            System.err.println("Error in reading the file");
    }catch (FileNotFoundException e){
        e.printStackTrace();
    }So the upshot is that you print every other line.
Corrected:
    String networkLine = new String();
    try{
        FileReader inputFile = new FileReader("Test.txt"); //
        BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(inputFile);
       try{
           while ((networkLine = in.readLine()) != null){
            System.out.println(networkLine);
       }catch (IOException e){
            System.err.println("Error in reading the file");
    }catch (FileNotFoundException e){
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

Noob question use dng converter or let LR convert to dng

Sorry for the noob question but I'm transitioning over to LR from aperture and I believe DNG is a good move for me. Now then, is there any advantage to using the converter over letting LR do it?

It really is the same integrated tool, yes. All the same preferences are there.
The only thing I am not aware if Lightroom can do is Extract Embedded Originals. But that's not something I'd ever do to my own RAW files.
Cheers

Noob Question: Flowing Input Dataset Row/Record IDs Through to the Score Model Output

I've got a noob question that I'm having difficulty finding the answer to: if my input dataset contains row/record IDs and I want to flow these through to the Score Model module output but *don't* want to include this column in model training (because
it's just an arbitrary row tag), how do I go about accomplishing this?
I am able to Project Columns and eliminate the IDs entirely early in the process but then can't really determine which input row a prediction is associated with because I've lost the IDs. I'm not quite sure how to accomplish what I'm trying to do via
the Metadata Editor, either.
Surely somebody else has dealt with this same question. If the solution is implemented somewhere in a Gallery experiment that you'd like to point me at, too, that would also be just as good as a written explanation.
Thanks in advance,
Kevin

Hey Kevin!
Sorry for making this process unclear :( Azure ML has a notion of Feature Columns
(by default everything is a Feature), that is columns/variables that are intended to be treated as part of the observation vector. You can use the Metadata Editor
and (after selecting the column(s) you want), mark the column as
Fields -> Clear Feature. This will have the semantics you desire - data attached to the input data while not being used for training.
Regards,
AK

2 noob questions about speaker settin

. What if I don't sync the Creative speaker settings with windows control panel speaker settings?
2. What if I the speaker settings(both Creative and windows) don't match my speaker type?For example, I have only headphone connected to my Audigy 2 ZS but I set the speaker setting to 5. or whatever else. Will this improve my sound quality in games such as Battlefield 2? Am I?supposed to get the virtual 5. surround sound effect? Because I've heard that cmss upmixes stereo sound in?games to virtual 5. or 7. surround sound for headphones.
Thanks.
Message Edited by jermin on 06-24-2008 02:09 PM

Re: 2 noob questions about speaker settings?slightlys I have a slightly different set up.
I have 5. speakers that I use for movies and some games. For BF242 I use headphones because they give you an advantage as you can hear people creeping up behind. The virtual surround sound is really good with my XFi xtremeMusic.
First I don't think it matters what you select under Windows Control Panel as the Creative Console Launcher updates speaker settings in Windows. Second if you want virtual 3d with CMSS on headphones just select headphones and enable CMSS3D. Then click the 'headphone' button on the CMSS3D tab and you can test the sound - a helicopter pans around in 360 degrees.
Then in games set the software to output 5. - AFAIK. Battlefield seems to do this automatically but I can't speak for other games. I'm assuming the Audigy has the same CMSS3D tech that the XFi has.

.mac mail question:I have an old emac without an intel chip...

.mac mail question:I have an old emac without an intel chip...I have a .mac email account, I would like to be able to have my emails automatically forwarded to a gmail account. I cannot access icloud with this old machine, any ideas? thanks! and aloha!

Hello,
But you can setup iCloud email on you old Mac!
Do not delete the old account yet. sign up for an iCloud account if you haven't.
I understand .mac mail will still come through. Do not delete the old account yet.
You cannot use .mac or MobileMe as type of Account, you have to choose IMAP when setting up, otherwise Mail is hard coded to change imap.mail.me.com to mail.me.com & smtp.mail.me.com to smtp.me.com, no matter what you try to enter.
iCloud Mail setup, do not choose .mac or MobileMe as type, but choose IMAP...
On second step where it asks "Description", it has to be a unique name, but you can still use your email address.
IMAP (Incoming Mail Server) information:
• Server name: imap.mail.me.com
• SSL Required: Yes
• Port: 993
• Username: [email protected] (use your @me.com address from your iCloud account)
• Password: Your iCloud password
SMTP (outgoing mail server) information:
• Server name: smtp.mail.me.com
• SSL Required: Yes
• Port: 587
• SMTP Authentication Required: Yes
• Username: [email protected] (use your @me.com address from your iCloud account)
• Password: Your iCloud password
Also, you must upgrade your password to meet the new criteria: 8 characters, including upper and lower case and numbers. If you have an older password that does not meet these criteria, when you try to setup mail on your mac, using all of the IMAP criteria listed above, it will still give a server error message. Go to http://appleid.apple.com then follow directions to change your password, then go back to setting up your mail using the IMAP instructions above.
Thanks to dpepper...
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3867171?tstart=0

Total Mac noob questions

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