Usage advice needed

Looking to maybe buy a Mac Mini (would prefer the Mac Pro but the wife won't let me!). I can stretch to the Dual Core, with 120Gb disk and can probably stretch to 2Gb memory. Basically would like to hear from anyone as to whether I'll be able to do the following:
- Use my old Apple 23" Cinema display (the old plastic one, not the metal finish, ADC connector)
- Edit videos with iMovie at a decent performance and burn using iDVD
- Use Photoshop CS2
- Run Windows XP under Parallels
- Use my Logitech Fusion webcam
That's all I need to do, which is maybe a lot for a small box. My last Mac was an old PowerMac G4 Dual 1Ghz so I'm not sure how the performance has improved.

I just purchased a Core Duo model and it is decently quicker than my previous system, a Power Mac G4 Dual 1.42Ghz model. The high end Mac mini is a HE*L of a lot of computer in such a small space. A year ago you would have had to spend around $2k for a decent G5 to get this level of performance.
You can use your old display but you will need an adapter, available on the 'net if you search a bit.
Everything else you mention should run fine. Photoshop may be a tad slow to start up but unless you're doing professional level tasks all day long then it should be quite acceptable with the amount of memory you're talking about.

Similar Messages

SharePoint 2013 Snippets usage advice and help

SharePoint 2013 Snippets usage advice and help
I am new to SharePoint Site development. I am creating a simple public website to look similar to their old one.
I have created a masterpage that looks OK using the design manager, and also a page layout. I have got the website looking half OK.
I seem to have difficulties all the time when it comes to snippets - and finding specific help on how to use each individual one.
So the main question - where would you advise I go to get help?
The current snippet issue is:
> regarding to top navigation menu
> I have inserted one into the masterpage - and got it working
> However it will not let me do submenus when I go into Edit Links
> But I then went to site settings and did the edit links from there
> It let me there - but it's a different menu !! (I now have two)
> I can't see this second menu from within the snippets - it defaults to one that does not allow sub menus
> So how do I change the snippet to look at the menu I was able to edit
But more generally - when I get this kind of issue, where to I look for the solution?
Thanks in anticipation

Hi Mike,
Go through the links for SharePoint 2013 Snippets. It'll help you in a better way.
SharePoint 2013 Design Manager snippets
Indul Hassan
Microsoft Community Contributor
http://www.indulhassan.com
You Snooze.. You Lose !!

Advice needed on buying iphone as gift

I went to apple store, they do not want to sell iphone to me unless I sign AT&T 2 years plan. I thought AT&T has locked the phone and users must subscribe in order to use it. Why Apple store still not allow me to buy?
Please advice, if I want to buy online iphone for my brother, do I or my brother have obligation to sign out AT&T plan?
One more advice needed, I found the shipment takes weeks, do I have option to arrange for self-collection?
My brother birthday is coming soon, I need above advice urgently.
Thank you very much

Tamara wrote:
I'm guessing English is not your first language. It's possible that you misunderstood them. Apple Store employees won't refuse to sell you an iPhone and you don't have to sign up for service in the store.
Well that's not entirely true.
Apple Stores have been instructed not to sell you an iPhone if any of the following is true:
You state that you will not be signing up with AT&T.
You do not have an ID from a US state, also indicating you will not be activating with AT&T
You do not have a credit card
For example, I've seen US Apple Store managers refuse to sell iPhones to European residents because of the AT&T lock-in.

Video intensive work on Mac Pro? Advice Needed

Hi everyone,
I've been originally saving up for a while now for an iMac 24" as it offers the best specification price wise. But now I leaning on the Mac Pro and therefore need some advice.
I know that there are alot of posts on advice - need to buy mac etc. so therfore I would really appreciate if I am afforded some help.
I am mostly going to do ALOT of video encoding (via handbrake) and I am looking for the best configuration available to achieve lowest waiting time.

I think you should go back and look at the other threads with advice, your budget. There is "ideal" and "affordable."
Will it pay for itself in 24 months so you can afford the next revision at that time?
Start with an 8-Core 3GHz.
Add a Port Multiplier controller and two drive cases, 5 drives each, nearly 400MB/sec RAID.
Throw in 8GB RAM.
Add in costs for software upgrades, two sets of backups, four internal 500GB drives.
Seagate has 750GB, as does WD. Hitachi has their $450 1000GB monster.
Give yourself time to build, test, and optimize your setup, and expect to change it over time as you learn more.
Can't afford that? then trim the 8-core. But Apple has shown how efficient next generation applications already are for video when it comes to 3GHz 8-core Mac Pro.

Had to have a rebuild of my laptop....advice needed!

Had to have a rebuild of my laptop....have now lost all my music from my itunes, but I can't transfer back on from my ipod. Also had to register my laptop (same) as another computers, so now no music showing as purchased, though I have. Also have hours of uploaded music from my own purchased, legitimate CDs, but won't transfer from ipod...it says it will erase. So very frustrated....thanks mr technician! PLEASE ....help, advice needed!

I believe that if you do a clean reinstall from your HD's recovery sector (D) or Recovery disks, the hard drive sector C is wiped clean. Everything goes, apps, data, address books, music, pix, viruses
Is that what you did?

I am using InDesign CS5. I have a body of text which is ranged left with tabbed indents. My client now wants the copy to be justifed, keeping the tabbed indents. Help and advice needed please!

I am using InDesign CS5. I have a body of text which is ranged left with tabbed indents. My client now wants the copy to be justifed, keeping the tabbed indents. Help and advice needed please!

Hi
That screen grab helps a lot. There’s a much easier way of doing what you’re doing.
Remove all your tabs and set the text in justified paragraphs.
I’ve typed in dummy text in the example I made below, but after “19.1” put in a space and put your blinking cursor after the space and before the ’N’ of ‘Notices'.
Then hold down the Command key and hit Backspace (on Mac at least - it’s the key between the Inverted commas/ apostrophe key and the return key).
The text will jump into place the way you want it to.
Hope that helps
Paul
PS You can set a tab, instead of using a space, in the description I gave above. So, after 19.1 or 19.2 or 19.185 etc etc insert a tab, then hit the Command Backspace after every paragraph number and they'll all line up exactly together. You'll find that editing text within the paragraphs
after you've set it will be LOADS easier this way.
You can put the tab anywhere you want it to be using 'Command-ShiftT' and putting a 'left align' tab just after the number. Just type the Command Backspace after the paragraph number and it'll work

MOVED: Various advice needed to overclock cpu using my MSI k8n platinum sli

This topic has been moved to Overclockers & Modding Corner.
Various advice needed to overclock cpu using my MSI k8n platinum sli

what HSF for cpu/ cooling for the case do you use? And also, where are the flashing lights?

Multiple device syncing advice needed and appreciated.

Hey everyone, happy holidays to everyone
I need some advice from you Apple lovers out there if you can spend some time replying. Thanks alot in advanced
My devices and current status
13" Macbook Pro with 8gig RAM with lion OS - Mosty used for word processing, DJing, low Internet usage now that i have Ipad, photo management, DVD ripping etc etc - i use this as my main device to organise emails and i purchase most apps, music and films on this device too
Ipad2 - Mostly for media content, web browsing, Youtube, playing games, FB, watching films. I use this device for fun not functionality or work related things
Iphone 4 - Usual phone usage, I use my phone as my main device for iCal, contacts, checking emails/messages on the move
2GB time capsule - brand new in the box as yet unused
Generally speaking i get confused or change my mind frequently about what to sync to which device, i started off using icloud but then things got confusing and i had things real messed up, multiple same contacts, apps on differnet device, differnet music on all 3 devices so now for the moment i think of my Macbook as the main device with both my iphone and ipad backed up to the Macbook. I then back up all of this on a regular 500g external Hard Drive.
So my questions are as follows
1. Can and should i use icloud to back up my devices and if so how should i do this effectivly
2. What syncing procedure would suit me best
3. How should i integrate Timecapsule to my devices
Any other suggestions would really be apreciated
Thanks again

The second part puzzles me - excuse me (but i honestly don't know) do both units give off a wifi signal of roughly equal 'amounts'?
Yes. Since both are connected by "Ethernet" each base station is its own wireless network and you have a few options on how best to configure them.
One of those options is to give both wireless networks the same Network Name (or SSID) so that you can, for example, "walk" a laptop from one to the other and stay connected. This is known as a roaming network.
If this is something that you don't desire or have a requirement for, then leaving them as two separate wireless networks would work just as well.
So what i am asking - i guess - is can i increase the distance the wifi signal reaches of the second unit (the time capsule - that is wired to the airport extreme)
To extend the wireless range of the Time Capsule (TC) you would need another 802.11n AirPort, like the AirPort Express Base Station (AXn). This should get a stronger signal out to the garden. Of course, it would really depend on the distance from the TC to where you would like to place the AXn to get the best results.
Let me know if you need help configuring the base stations.

Advice needed regarding Database design practice

OK, here is my situation. I've started working for a company about 6 months ago. I'm a .NET developer with 12+ years of experience. Most of my experience with databases is with SQL Server. Recently I've discovered an design change with our Oracle database that our DBA made that I completely disagree with.
We had a single Event table that holds records that pertain to all HTTP traffic on a network as HTTP Usage Event. There are multiple hardware units called 'Sensors' that monitor the network and report these HTTP events to the database. At some point not long ago, the table was holding just over a million records. Performance was suffering so the DBA decided to make a change to the database to accommodate. The change she made was to create a separate Event table for each sensor. Each sensor has an integer value as a unique identifier, so our database went from having a single Event table to now having Event_100, Event_101, Event_102, etc...
So, we now have over 200 Event tables in our database. Anytime a sensor is added to the system, we need to add another table (actually two as there is a 2nd table that was duplicated in this same fashion).
How do I present this to my boss and to the DBA in a way that I don't embarrass my boss (he approved the change) and without pissing off the DBA? I can't imagine that the table couldn't have been optimized as it was to take care of the issues with performance without so dramatic a change.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Edited by: jreddy on Dec 15, 2010 6:51 AM

There is a job to purge old data. Events are kept for 3 months. These jobs were actually part of the problem, as well as removing sensors from the system. In either of these cases, the deletion of the data (more so with the removal of a Sensor i.e. DELETE FROM EVENT WHERE SENSORID = X, was taking too long).
I'm surprised that there have been people agreeing to this design. So, now we have 208 sensors, so 208 Event tables and another table named DATA_HASH duplicated 208 times. There may be a time when our database will be handling data from over 1,000 sensor units. Maybe even double that. Can anyone argue that having 2,000 event tables is the way to go? What if we need to add a new field to the table? Do that 2000 times?
I've been looking at bit more at the data today. I found some event tables haven't got any data (0 rows) while others range in row counts of 2 million up to as much as 30 million? I've talked to SQL DBA's and they all think that Oracle should be able to handle billions of rows in a table.
Also, just out of curiosity, I looked up the max size for a table in Oracle 10. I know the number of rows isn't the determining factor for this, but size of the data. I was astounded to find out the max size for data storage for a single table. 127 TB (yeah, tera bytes). Based on this size, it seems our data could be handled by 1 table, but then maybe I'm wrong.

Advice needed - .vob file conversion for playing on itouch

help needed and advice on best application for dvd/movie file conversion.
i want to convert .vob file so i can transfer to ipod.
seems like there are several free & pay for app's out there - any guidance as to which is the best would be appreciated.
thanks in advance

chriswalsh wrote:
.. i want to convert .vob file so i can transfer to ipod.
haven't tried for vob, but a nice lil' tool:
http://thelittleappfactory.com/evom/
another well-known converter, esp for DVD>>Apple-toys-usage is
http://handbrake.fr/ (don't worry, english spoken)
note to Mods: the latest version is NO ripper (=DRM-override), but a converter..
both free, no additional installs needed..

IBook and external HDD - Advice needed

Hi all,
I am using an old G3 white dual USB iBook with OS X 10.2.8. The backlight cable broke a year ago, and I finally worked up the nerve to replace it myself...and while I'm in there, I'd like to drop in a new 120GB Seagate hard drive to replace the practically full 30GB in there now. Now before I do all this, I really want to back everything up to an external hard disk.
I have an old Western Digital Caviar 60GB disk that I put into an external enclosure (an AcomData 509), but so far I've had no luck getting Disk Utility to reformat it. Disk Utility sees the hardware and reports it as "0,00 Bytes DMI" and gives the correct model number for the disk, however DU simply won't reformat.
When I tried to put an Apple Extended partition on there, it popped up a progress window saying "Setting up partition map" with a blue candy cane progress bar and then just sits there doing nothing. CPU usage doesn't go up, the drive light never flickers, and right clicking DU in the Dock never reports that the app isn't responding. If I try to quit, it just beeps and won't quit. The console has the following lines:
May 19 13:00:18 c<edited IP address out> kextd[507]: a link/load error occured for kernel extension (null)
/System/Library/Filesystems/msdos.fs/msdos.util: device safe_read error @ 0, Device not configured
The same thing happens even if the option to zero the disk is selected. In either case, DU must be force quit.
So, with no success there, I decided to try to format it as an MS-DOS File System. Clicking Erase makes a progress window with the candy cane bar very quickly pop up and then disappear with no indication that anything happened at all. The console had the following lines after that:
/System/Library/Filesystems/msdos.fs/msdos.util: device safe_read error @ 0, Device not configured
/sbin/newfs_msdos: warning: /dev/disk2 is not a character device
/sbin/newfs_msdos: meta data exceeds file system size
If I select the zero disk option, the progress window pops up flashing "Remounting Volume" then "Writing zeros" and then DU abruptly crashes. If anyone needs the crashdump log, I'll be happy to post it, but it is very long.
Typing "diskutil list" in the terminal shows:
/dev/disk2
#: type name size identifier
0: *0.0 B disk2
1: 0.0 B disk2
Typing "diskutil info /dev/disk2" reports
Device Node: /dev/disk2
Device Identifier: disk2
Mount Point:
Volume Name:
can't open: /dev/disk2 (Permission denied)
File System:
Partition Type:
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: USB
Total Size: 0.0 B
Free Space: 0.0 B
Read Only: No
Ejectable: No
I thought it might be interesting to try the eraseDisk for diskutil, but here's what happened:
sudo diskutil eraseDisk HFS+ BackupDisk /dev/disk2
Password:
error -5344 making new partition
Unmount old disk
Erasing disk2
/sbin/newfs_hfs: write (sector 0, 45568 bytes): Device not configured
Remounting volume
Could not mount disk
I'm not very familiar with using fdisk, but when I tried to run it with "sudo fdisk" it told me it must be run as root...ok?
This drive originally had Redhat Linux 7 with one large ext2 partition if I remember right. Clearly something happened to it, but I don't know what.
Since I really need this data backed up, I tried using my 3rd gen 20GB iPod, but unfortunately, when I try to copy over my home directory I routinely get an error -50. This happens on specific files, but even when I try to copy one at a time, I still get a message that certain files or folders couldn't be copied. The iPod is formatted FAT32, if that makes any difference.
So, I need some advice. Should I go buy a new had drive to put in the enclosure and hope this one works? Would it be better to find a NAS, and if so, what's a good model? Should I get a 2.5" external enclosure and put the old iBook hard drive in there and try to mount that once I've installed Tiger on the new Seagate? (I know there are bound to be permission issues with getting into my home directory like that...)
Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance.
iBook dual USB, 600MHz G3, 30GB HD Mac OS X (10.2.x)

Thank you for the suggestions.
I tried the repartitioning, but DU stalled out with the message "Preparing drives ... unmounting old volumes." It still didn't report any higher cpu usage, the drive light never flashed, and DU wouldn't quit normally. I tried using diskutil partitionDisk at the command line, and that returned an "error -5344 making new partition" and "You have specified partition sizes which will not fit on the device." I tried 60G as the size, and when that didn't work, I tried all the way down to 30G, still with the same result. (Interestingly, DU no longer says the disk is a WD600 as before - it just says "DMI" under the description.) What could I be doing wrong?
Oh, with the iPod I was trying to copy only a few folders, like a "School" folder, from my home directory, not the whole thing at once. It copied fine for a while, then it returned the error -50 and stopped. The message dialog with the error -50 stayed up there and would never go away, and if I tried to log out or restart, I'd be told the Finder couldn't quit because some operation was still in progress.
If I tried to copy a different folder, or copy smaller batches of files, I'd either still get that error, or the Finder would say that it couldn't copy a file, and ask if I wanted to stop or continue. Whichever choice I made, the message dialog wouldn't go away, even if the rest of the copy completed successfully. Trying to log out or restart would again tell me the Finder couldn't quit as before.
I should mention that the exact same thing happens when I try to copy some things out to my USB drive (a SanDisk Cruzer Micro). A few years ago, when I tried to copy some school files from the iBook onto a Windows 2000 (NTFS) machine over a network, I had a similar problem with the error -50. I got around that by going to the Win machine and using it to do the copy. Copying onto the iBook from either machine worked just fine, though.
Anywho, those other drive enclosures are very nice, but they're so expensive, and if I had to get a new drive, too, I might have to not eat for the rest of the month, lol. And I doubt I could get one shipped and get this little machine all fixed up before school starts next week (and I'll definitely be needing it for school, unfortunately).
So barring a good enclosure, do you think I'd have better luck with a MyBook external or something similar? Or a NAS? What worries me is that if I'm already having trouble copying onto the iPod and the USB drive, what are the chances it'll be any better with one of those? Could it just be some issue with FAT32?
Would it be possible for me to get a 2.5" enclosure and put the iBook's current disk in there, do my repairs, install Tiger on the new Seagate, and then mount the old disk over Firewire and move my files to the new disk that way? How would I make my files public so the new install will let me read them? In Windows, making the folder shared was enough...any suggestions for something equivalent in OS X (Jaguar)?
Again, thanks for your help, very much appreciated. ~:o)
iBook dual USB, 600MHz G3, 30GB HD Mac OS X (10.2.x)
iBook dual USB, 600MHz G3, 30GB HD Mac OS X (10.2.x)

Is it possible to actually remove files from a hard drive? advice needed pl

Hey guys and gals. i have a G5 Dual 2GHz Power PC with a problem. I recently had to do an archive and install (my second one). after getting thru with this and trying to get back what had been lost i realized that i only had about 90GBs left on my System Hard Drive. I have two drives on my Mac, one for the system, programs and such and one for recording audio and saving Logic and GB songs. The one that is the boot drive and has all the programs on it is the one that is seriously depleted. It seems that i will have to replace a lot of programs to get them to work again after the A&I and i just don't have the room to do so.
So my first question is that if i move files off that drive do i get that space back? Does it actually "get rid' of those files or does it just make them unaccessible? My second and related question is that if i erase the drive does this actually "get rid' of the files and do i get that space back? The reason i ask is that i have heard that you can't actually completely get rid of files on a hard drive. That when you erase a hard drive it it doesn't really erase the drive it just makes them (somewhat) inaccessible.
If i can't get that space back am i correct that i will need to replace the drive to get more space? Is replacing the hard drive a difficult process? I know that i can by an external hard drive but i am uncomfortable with using one for other than back-up or storage space.
any opinions or advice would be appreciated-thanx-gospel

If you did archive and install, your old system files are most likely still in a directory called Previous Systems at the root of the hard drive - IF you don't need anything from there (i.e., your system is working fine), you can delete that folder - it has many files, so it will take a while to delete. Whenever you delete files, you get the space back. What you heard about data not being deleted is somewhat true (see next para), but you'll need special utilities to reclaim the deleted data, so from a normal usage perspective, you DO get the space back when you delete, so you can reuse that space for other files. Archive and Install of Leopard creates about 11 GB worth of files in the Previous System folder, so there is a lot of space you can reclaim on your system drive.
* Here's an over-simplified view of file storage. Normally a hard disk contains random 1s and 0s anyway. Storing a file organizes some of them (a file size worth) to the proper sequence of 1s and 0s. Think of the hard drive as made of many 'slates' on which file data is written. A master slate keeps track of which files use which slates. When you delete a file, the operating system (OS) normally 'deletes' the name off the master slate only and marks the space as free and available (even though the data may still be there on the slates the old file used - that is, the 1s and 0s belonging to that old file - it is marked as free/available). So the OS can reuse the space - this is what was meant by "you get the space freed up when you delete the file." The special data-recovery utilities know the method the OS uses, so they CAN reclaim the data if that space wasn't overwritten by storing other newer files. So really, erasing the whole disk means marking all space as available/free on the master slate. The disk elements always contains 1s and 0s - even when "empty" - just in a disordered way and known to the master slate. Storing a file just puts order into the sequence of the 1s and 0s.
Obviously I took too long typing all that!
Message was edited by: BobZune

Advice needed on suitability and hardware requirements...

Hiya folks...
I'm after a bit of advice...regarding whether or not Aperture will be suitable for me, considering my current Apple hardware and my current "workflow".
I'm fairly new to digital SLR photography (hobbyist only)...but have had a variety of non-SLR digital cameras over the years.
I shoot in raw and jpeg, maybe about 100 shots when I go out (landscape and general outdoor shots mainly, some wildlife). After I have deleted the stinkers, I'm usually left with 30-50 decent shots that I keep...my iPhoto library has about 1000 images that I like, and I'm assuming that Aperture wouldn't have performance issues with a library of that size, on my hardware.
From the library, I create web galleries, print out to A3 (max...usually 8"x6", some A4) and create photo slideshows on DVD/CD media.
I've been using a mixture of iPhoto, Photoshop Elements 3, and Photoshop CS.
iPhoto for photo import and organisation ; Photoshop Elements 3 for raw image manipulation, and minor tweaks ; Photoshop CS for the bulk of image processing. (The raw images produced by my camera, a Nikon D50, are not supported with the Camera raw plugin for Photoshop CS.)
Having to utilise 3 separate programs does grate after a while...and ideally, I would like to use a single program.
Aperture sounded ideal, but the £350 price is a little steep for a program that I may end up using as "iPhoto-on-steroids".
An alternative would be to upgrade to Adobe Photoshop CS2...although I'm not sure whether my software would meet the upgrade criteria...my copy of Photoshop CS was purchased via eBay (authentic CD, box and manuals), but the serial number, I later found out after purchase, has been distributed on P2P networks.
The combination of Adobe Bridge, the raw manipulation and editing features would mean, similar to Aperture, potentially a single program to cover all my needs.
So my options are...
1.Purchase Aperture for £350, which may be unsuitable (overkill) for my use (although I'm sure that over time I would use its features more and more)
2. Risk paying £150 for a Photoshop CS2 upgrade that may baulk at my dubious serial number for the "original" Photoshop CS.
3. Keep with my current software workflow...but dropping Photoshop CS, as my conscience is shouting fairly loudly. I'd miss the curves feature, and be out of pocket to the tune of £125...but that's my fault for not assuming the eBay offer was too good to be true...
4. Any other alternatives...?
So...knowing my "workflow", usage and requirements...can anyone offer any advice?
Thanks for your time.
iMac G5 (20" Rev B) Mac OS X (10.4.3) 2GB RAM

Rob, I'll take a quick shot at this for you.
I'm fairly new to digital SLR photography (hobbyist
only)...but have had a variety of non-SLR digital
cameras over the years.
First, welcome to digital SLR photography.
I shoot in raw and jpeg, maybe about 100 shots when I
go out (landscape and general outdoor shots mainly,
some wildlife). After I have deleted the stinkers,
I'm usually left with 30-50 decent shots that I
keep...my iPhoto library has about 1000 images that I
like, and I'm assuming that Aperture wouldn't have
performance issues with a library of that size, on my
hardware.
You shouldn't have any performance problems with a library this size.
From the library, I create web galleries, print out
to A3 (max...usually 8"x6", some A4) and create photo
slideshows on DVD/CD media.
I've been using a mixture of iPhoto, Photoshop
Elements 3, and Photoshop CS.
Sounds pretty standard so far (except for using both Elements and CS).
iPhoto for photo import and organisation ; Photoshop
Elements 3 for raw image manipulation, and minor
tweaks ; Photoshop CS for the bulk of image
processing. (The raw images produced by my camera, a
Nikon D50, are not supported with the Camera raw
plugin for Photoshop CS.)
Pretty much the same thing I have done (only I use PS CS2 for everything). One note. If you are considering Aperture, I would strongly suggest that you put some samples of your images on a flash card and take them down to somewhere that has Aperture loaded and available for evaluation. Judge for yourself how Aperture handles your images. This is what I did with my D2X images and was happy with the results.
Having to utilise 3 separate programs does grate
after a while...and ideally, I would like to use a
single program.
Keeping in mind that Aperture was never meant to be a replacement for either Elements or Photoshop. It does offer some correction capabilities, but more along the lines of Adobe Camera Raw (though not as full featured.) Also, there have been a number of posts here where people have noted that the adjustments that they are making in Aperture aren't as good as with ACR. I can't see any difference on my system using my D2X files.
Aperture sounded ideal, but the £350 price is a
little steep for a program that I may end up using as
"iPhoto-on-steroids".
Again, I HIGHLY recommend you go somewhere where Aperture is loaded and you have the chance to use it yourself to see if it is indeed "ideal", before you buy.
An alternative would be to upgrade to Adobe Photoshop
CS2...although I'm not sure whether my software would
meet the upgrade criteria...my copy of Photoshop CS
was purchased via eBay (authentic CD, box and
manuals), but the serial number, I later found out
after purchase, has been distributed on P2P
networks.
This, I can't help you with.
The combination of Adobe Bridge, the raw manipulation
and editing features would mean, similar to Aperture,
potentially a single program to cover all my needs.
As I noted, I have CS2. I still use Bridge and ACR. In fact, prior to getting Aperture, Bridge was the answer to my organizational prayers, letting me easily sort through shots from a shoot to get the few I really wanted to keep. To me, adding Bridge and upgrading ACR in CS2 was worth the upgrade cost of the program.
So my options are...
1.Purchase Aperture for £350, which may be unsuitable
(overkill) for my use (although I'm sure that over
time I would use its features more and more)
True. But, you need to determine if it is for you now.
2. Risk paying £150 for a Photoshop CS2 upgrade that
may baulk at my dubious serial number for the
"original" Photoshop CS.
Again, I can't help you here.
3. Keep with my current software workflow...but
dropping Photoshop CS, as my conscience is shouting
fairly loudly. I'd miss the curves feature, and be
out of pocket to the tune of £125...but that's my
fault for not assuming the eBay offer was too good to
be true...
Your call.
4. Any other alternatives...?
Maybe someone else has one to offer.
Good luck.
Jeff Weinberg

Aperture Library Issues on NAS - Advice Needed

List-
Need some practical advice here. I've got a 90GB Aperture library that resides on a NAS (QNAP 419P II) that is experiencing major issues. Understood that having the library live on a non-HFS+, non-local drive is not advised by Apple, but it's been there for two years with no issues to speak of.
I had a power failure occur that seems to have done some damage to the library in some way. Upon opening the library, I got an error that said that there were inconsistencies with the file and that it needed to be repaired. I repaired it, and noticed something strange. In almost all files, the picture resolution was poor and both the camera and lens information was gone--in addition to the fact that the Adjustments capability was disabled.
I ran the Aperture first aid and ran all three processes--concluding with the full library rebuild. It looked to be successful and resolution, previews, and picture info returned--but halfway through the preview reprocessing the process just stopped and the beach ball of death ensued. I let it run overnight and it never recovered. I had to force quit and now if I reopen the file it say that there are inconsistencies and that the library needs to be repaired, which won't help.
I also tried to move the library off of the NAS an onto the local drive, but encountered an Error - 50 message--something that apparently is well known in the NAS world where Mac permissions get screwy when dealing with non HFS+ drives.
I have a backup of the original library, but it is sitting in a cloud repository (CrashPlan) that will take time and money to restore.
All of the masters are intact in the Aperture directory, and I have very few major adjustments made to any photos. Aperture is really just a repository for me.
So any practical advice would be appreciated as to how I can create a new local Aperture library and get all of the existing photo files there. I am pretty much giving up on the idea of getting the existing NAS-based library to work properly, so this is more of a real-world question on how to create a new library and eliminate whatever issues there are with the other Aperture files. It looks like everything in the Aperture package is in place, but the library itself is just malfunctioning.
I am also considering moving everything into iPhoto as well, as Aperture may simply be more than I need for my usage. If is is faster and a but simpler to manage, that could be the right answer as well.
Thanks in advance for any ideas or guidance.

The problem is most likely with the library itself being located on the NAS.
But you can have a hybrid solution where the library is located on your internal drive while the actual image files are located externally, eg on your NAS. Image files stored within the Apeture library are called "managed" while image files stored externally are called "referenced". Whichever approach you take, the process is the same:
If you try to make a new Library from your masters, you will lose your project structure. The resulting mess will be in accordance to how you created your projects. Basically, if you look at your Masters folder, that's what you'll end up with when you import your masters. If that isn't a problem, the process is simple
Step 1: Prep.
Move or copy your masters out of the library bundle to a folder (to make them more accesible in finder).
Step 2: Create new library.
Within Aperture, from the File menu "Switch to Library -> Other/New..." to create a new Library on your internal drive.
Set the preferences to indicate previews/faces etc. I'd turn these off for now as they will slow you down.
Step 3: Import your images.
Within your new library, File -> Import - Folders as Projects. This gives you a dialog where you specifiy what and where to import.
If you choose "Import folders as: Folders and Projects" you will get a folder structure that matches the Masters folder, with projects at the end of the chain with names like 20120213-200100.
If you choose "Import folders as: Projects and Albums" you will get a single Project called "Masters" with a folder and Album structure that matches the Masters folder.
Neither of these will look particularly great. If you want to avoid this mess, here's what I'd try.
Fix your library again like you did before. After the rebuild, go to the Aperture activity window (SHIFT + CMD + 0) and cancel the preview generation process before it has chance to hang. This should give you a sem-functional library, hopefully functional enough for the next step:
Select all images and use File -> Relocate Original to move your original files out of the library. During this process you can specify that the originals are stored in sub-folders that match the project name, within a parent folder if required.
This gives you a much neater structure for importing into your new library where the projects will get the folder names (which will be your existing project names). It may not be perfect, for example if you have the same project name in different folders and don't/can't segregate them, but it's a lot cleaner than just importing your masters folder.
Andy

User Profiles - MVP Advice Needed

Hi
I'm looking for some guidance around how to/best practice to complete full-cycle synchronization of user profile properties.
Oracle HR is the source of truth for people related data. We run a synchronization to Active Directory of the people data from Oracle every 3 hours.
SharePoint imports the user profile properties from the AD attributes using the User Profile Synchronization service (not AD Import), including some usage of the extensionAttributeN. User profiles properties are setup to use both OOTB and custom
properties.
It is now a requirement to allow SharePoint users to edit/manage a number of their profile properties through the profile edit feature in My Sites along with SharePoint only profile properties. The edited properties would be both OOTB SharePoint and some
custom properties The edited properties that originated in Oracle would need to be synchronized back to Oracle in some manner.
So my question is, what options do I have? We're trying to force configurable solutions where possible over custom coding, though it's highly unlikely this is configurable, though I honestly do not know.
All the back end processes outside of SharePoint for persisting data into Oracle are catered for via WCF, it's the how and what's the best practice at the SharePoint end got me stumped. A queue of some description - database preferably maybe.
How would you approach this requirement?
I'd appreciate any advice or pointers you can give me.
Kind regards,
Lee

Hi Pavel
I greatly appreciate your guidance and taking the time to respond.
I do have an understanding of what is proposed.
As all properties are imported from AD, I cannot update these to be used to export to Oracle any changes the user makes. I can add new properties specific for allowing the updates to be persisted to Oracle, these would not be displayed except in edit profile.
With this scenario, there is an obvious disconnect between the imported and exported property values and is really just a form for updating Oracle, blank for initial load and holding the updated values if previous used. I was hoping the properties for exporting
could be populated with the values of the corresponding imported properties when loading in the edit profile, otherwise null values or incorrect values could be persisted when not expected, though a null/empty value would be valid if a user wanted to clear
a specific property - remove a phone number for example.
Do you have any thoughts on how to handle this disconnect?
Kind regards,
Lee

Usage advice needed

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for