What is the correct way to set up a new Mac

A friend of mine recently migrated from Windows and bought himself an iMac. He got the local Apple store to set up his iMac and migrate his data from his Windows to his iMac. I was recently helping him set up a few a additional things on his iMac and was supprised to see how the Apple store had set up the machine.
There was only one account set up on the iMac and all of the user data had been loaded into this admin account. Now I've only been a Mac user for about 5 years, but I was always taught create an admin account with no data on it and then set up a separate user account(s) which contain all the user data and these are used by the users to log in.
Now my question is who is right the Apple shop or me? I would e intertested to hear any experts views on the correct way to set up an OSX machine.

Both of you. Either way is acceptable. However, for a single user machine there's really no need to have more than the admin account.

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What is the best way to set up my new Mac Pro?

Not wanting to screw up in a process I've not done with a brand new machine before, I'm looking for feedback on my plan for setting my new Mac Pro next week...
The physical plan is this:
For RAM, I have four 2GB SDRAM's plus the supplied six 1GB modules. My plan here is to install the 2GB rams into the first four slots and install four of the 1GB modules into the remaining four slots for a total of 12GB's.
When the cost for 4GB modules gets down to reasonable, I'll buy four of them and bump the current rams down the line which will then give me a total of 24 gigs where I'll stay.
For my hard drives, I'm installing a 160GB Intel X25-M into the first drive bay
http://www.intel.com/design/flash/nand/mainstream/index.htm
using one of MaxUpgrades' 'MaxConnects' kits. I will use this drive for the operating system software and my applications and their libraries.
Next, into the remaining three drive bays, I am installing three 300GB WD Velociraptors. Mine are the pre-'backplane ready' versions:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=459
so I have bought these sleds for them...
http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_i d=180
I own one of Sonnet's Tempo SATA E4P cards
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/temposatae4p.html
which, thanks to this forum, I now understand, with the correct firmware installed, function well so I will install it and be able to establish hardware RAID. I will create a RAID 0 set with the three Velociraptors and use it to store all of my data files.
Backup will happen on a 1TB WD 'Caviar Black' external drive connected through one of the Sonnet card's external eSATA ports and using the OS 'Time Machine' software.
And that's the physical plan. My question is about setting things up. The physical installation part is straight forward and I don't expect any difficulties but I'm wondering what is the best way to install the operating system.
Do I take a first step keeping the supplied hard drive installed, install the solid state drive into the next drive bay and then transfer the contents from the supplied drive onto the SSD or do I do the complete physical installation process and do a 'C' drive start up and install the OS that way?
And, do you have any tips/suggestions on setting up the RAID 0 set?
thanks for the help. I want to do this right.
JQ

oh mighty Hatter, I knew you'd have helpful guidance to offer! And thank you. You've confirmed my anxieties about the Sonnet card; kind of a 'too much, too quickly' sort of thing. And it's not that Sonnet's not a good company. Just everything to do with new technologies and the growth curve we all, manufacturers and users, go through when they come out. And, for sure, the new Mac Pro's are new technology; the single biggest forward leap in Apple's top-of-the-line machines for some time far as I can tell. Just reading at Intel's website about the Nehalem's is a joy!
So, I will proceed now with everything except for the controller card, leaving that 'til later. In the meantime, I think I'll just happily run with the four hard drives all running independently. No software RAID. I know just those, the SSD boot drive plus Velociraptor trio's going inside of a 2.66ghz 8-core Nehalem Mac Pro is going to be a working pleasure. Heck, this way, I'll get settled in and used to the machine's speed, have a great time doing so and then, in however many months, I can jump into spending another chunk of money on an excellent RAID card, RAID card's dear Barefeats will have tested and reviewed for us, set up my RAID 0 set and head of to those new races watching my computer leap for joy! Could be that, by then, the cost of Intel 160GB X25-M's will have dropped enough that I can afford to go for a second and have a two SSD RAID 0 boot drive... Yummy!
Thanks for the help. Like I say, I knew there was useful guidance hanging on some limb within your personal kit, (otherwise referred to as your mind)!
Interesting to read about the problems people have had with Sonnet's 2.17 update in PPC's... In this computer, my PowerMac G5 dual 2.7ghz, I have a Sonnet 'Tempo Sata X4P' controller card. I downloaded and installed 2.17 and got the same troubles; no cut, no paste, no 'drag and drop' etc. It was miserable.
Mine, fortunately, magically corrected after running the 'permissions verify and correct' process in Disc Utility and, after a restart, all was back to almost normal but for one exception; the Sonnet card was no longer present or functioning including the four eSATA ports out the back. (I ran Tech Tools Pro 5's repair suites first but, and who knows why, it didn't correct the problem...) This one was absolutely in the 'who knows what the f_'s going on and why it disappeared but did' class.
Oh, the other remnant is that, when the computer goes into sleep, after about five minutes, the fans rev up, and up, and the computer's frozen; only access is to do a forced shutdown pressing and holding the power button, so I've had to adopt a 'shut down whenever leaving it for more than fifteen minutes' approach to this dear friend. Once I've fully moved into and established my new one (which should arrive today, by the way... Yippeee!!! Can't wait!), I'll do a complete restoration on this one including taking out the Sonnet card. Usually, I sell my old Pro's but, this time, I'm going to keep this one as a back up and just general second computer for times I might need it. It has been such a great and dependable machine. Keeping it seems the right thing to do.
thanks Hatter. I'll let you know how things go, including what happens with the SSD. I don't have speed test software so I won't be able to track it's performance like that guy in the post you gave me did...
JQ
ps- Gotta love that ILLogic fellow eh? Talk about not getting the essence!

What is the best way to set up my new mac?

My old mac has parallels installed and boot camp. How can I transfer that set up to my new Mac?

WinClone 3 can clone the BootCamp partition to a external drive where you set it back up again can clone Windows/BootCamp back onto the new machine, however Windows will know it will be on new hardware and you will have to validate with Redmond or it won't eventually work.
Carbon Copy Cloner can clone the OS X boot partition to a extenral drive, then you can use Migration Assistant in the Utilities folder to migrate the user account to the new machine from the clone, which would include the virtual machine files of other operating systems.
Since the hardware drivers and OS X operating system is different between models of Mac's, you can't use the clone of OS X on the newer machine.
So since Parallels has a at boot kernel extension file that needs to be installed, you have to install Parallels on the new machine before you can use it.
Migration Assistant might not transfer it, or that version of Parallels might not work properly on a different OS X version or hardware.
Most commonly used backup methods
Also Windows might know it's on new hardware in the virtual machine as well, so it's going to cry about requiring validation being performed.

What's the correct way to set up an external style playing keyboard

Hi
what's the correct way to set up an external style playing keyboard?
i want the keyboard to use the Logic's voices, and also to record the midi that is being inputed.
I can do it on One Channel, but when I selct multiple channels, all the channels seem to play all of the input data!!!
anybody??

Check the formatting. It need to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled). This is also known as HFS+.
FAT32 and NTFS formatting will not work with iMovie.
If necessary, you can reformat using Disk Utility.
Make one large partition. No need for multiple partitions.
Do moves or copies to the external drive through iMovie as detailed in iMovie Help. If you move Events in the Finder, they may become unlinked from the projects that use them.

What's the easiest way to transfer files to new mac?

My first mac was a Macbook (purchased in August 2010) and I'm upgrading to the new 13" Macbook Pro with retina display. What is the easiest way to:
1) transfer files to the new laptop
2) delete files off my old macbook to share with a family member--possibly thinking of return to factory settings.
I have a 1TB external hard drive and I use the cloud on all of my devices (also have iPhone and iPad synched to the cloud).

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
1. The best way to transfer files from another computer is by using Migration Assistant > http://pondini.org/OSX/SetupLion.html Your new MacBook Pro will ask you to restore from another computer during its initial setup.
2. If you haven't got a lot of apps you installed, you can just create a new user and delete the old one, so you won't have to reinstall Mac OS X.
To do it, open System Preferences > Users and Groups (or Accounts), press the + button and create an admin user. Then, log in this user, go to System Preferences > Users & Groups, and remove the old account

What is the correct way to set a web application to use HTTP or HTTPS?

In the past I've always created an HTTP web application as the default zone. Then extended the web app, creating a new IIS website on port 443 and enabled SSL. This seems to have worked fine, but I recently read an article stating that it is not good to
extend a web app unless absolutely necessary. So can someone tell me what the proper way is to configure a single web application to work with HTTP and HTTPS?

Extending the web application to support both HTTP and HTTPS is a perfectly good method and in fact is the only way to have a web application support both so what you've done is fine.
If the web application will only use HTTPS, you can set this up when you first create the web application. Specify port 443 and the SSL option (and ensure the URL has an https://) when creating the web application. You'll need to install the certificate
in IIS once the web application has been created.
Jason Warren
Infrastructure Architect
Habanero Consulting Group
habaneroconsulting.com/blog

What is the correct way to set up artwork for a Billboard?

I need to set up photoshop artwork (which consists of about 5 layers) for a 6m x 3m billboard. I set up my whole billboard in Illustrator (at 3m x 1,5m - half of actual size) and placed the psd image in. I set up my photoshop artwork at a third of actual size (3m x 1m at 300dpi). However, this made my file VERY slow to work with (result was about 700mb!!!!). Someone suggested that I downscale the image to 500mm wide and choose resample image > Bicubic Sharper (best for reduction). This scaled my psd file to about 32mb, which worked much faster. Then I saved the psd file as a Tiff with LZW compression without layers and placed into my illustrator file. However, when I export for print as PDFX1a- 2001 my file size was only 17mb!!!! Did I do the whole process correctly?! Will the print quality still be fine for such a big billboard? Is there a better / standard way to set up photoshop graphics for a billboard?

You can use this test to check ppi resolution.
On your desktop printer print a few tiles from the image in real size at different ppi resolutions like 10, 20, 30, 40. Find a wall where you can mark 6 meters, and tape the tiles on it. Now step back to whichever is longer distance - from where you can see comfortably the whole size of the eventual billboard without turning your head or to the distance that will be possible to see the actual mounted billboard, . Choose the ppi resolution on which you can't see pixelation on the printed test tiles.

What is the correct way to set up your email accounts in your desktop computer?

In an effort to resolve all sorts of strange behavior taking place with my email, I've been looking into the settings for icloud and Mail, the app. Is there a difference between the "mail, contacts &calendars" settings in system preferences of your desktop computer and the actual account settings in Mail, the app?
More specifically, do I only enter my individual email accounts in the account settings for Mail, and only the icloud settings for my me account in the system preferences section?
I hope I'm making sense because I need help desperately.
Thanks in advance

To answer the OP's original question.
Both the System Preferences -> Mail, Contacts and Calendars AND the Mail.app -> Accounts route both take you to the system preferences pane.
Just so you can confirm it, try both methods to get to the accounts list, and at the top left of the particular window you'll see 'Show All' which takes you back to System Prefs.
I think it's just apples way of getting everyone to the right place i.e. those who are use to using system prefs and those who are used to setting up accounts in their mail apps
That's good old apple and their user friendly interfaces for you

What's the best way to set up new imac for logic etc?

In brief:
Getting new imac (27", 3.4 i7, 8-16GB ram, 1TB HD). Will be using it mainly to run Logic Studio (loads of plugins) and Final Cut Express. I also have 2 external Hard drives one 500G one 1TB.
The last imac I bought was my first and just went ahead and threw everything at it not really knowing where things should go. This time I want to set things up correctly.
Basically, with what I've got, what is the best way to set things up. I.e where do I put logic files, samples, BFD2, Amplitube etc. Where do I put videos for use in FCE. Storing projects and backups for use with Time Machine.
Also noticed the new imac will only have 1 firewire port. I will need to plug in the Hard drives (daisy chained), camera and RME Fireface 800. Was thinking of getting a Thunderbolt Hard drive but they are expensive and hard to find.
Would really appreciate any help before I get the new machine and start messing things up again.
Thanks.

Adding to babowa, enable the system firewall in System Preferences>Security>Firewall tab. Click Advanced and check Stealth Mode.
Lion is a pretty steady and secure operating system, and as there really aren't MANY Mac viruses, there ARE viruses out there still. OS X is pretty good about letting you know if you do accidently download a virus, and it will help you throw it away if it detects one, such as the MACDefender virus. OS X has built in security features such as sandboxing that doesn't allow viruses in as easily as a Windows PC. As for hackers, as long as you have the firewall enabled and a secure password (for your computer and email accounts), then you should be fine.
It's the user that lets the virus in, not the computer (unless there's some untold serious vulnerability in OS X, which is highly unlikely). Keep your apps up to date, don't download pirated software, and be street smart on the internet. Don't download things or visit websites that you don't think are real. Safari includes a Phishing feature that automatically detects known phishing sites, protecting you from that big problem. Keep your passwords secure and you should be fine.
There are antivirus solutions out there, one notable one available in the AppStore is Intego's VirusBarrier (free and plus versions), if you feel you still need one.
I wouldn't worry about it. Windows users who switch to Mac are always asking these questions.
Here's some good reading as well
http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is/security.html
Enjoy OS X Lion

What is the correct way to add styling to drag-and-drop created calendars?

I have a working instance of a rich client calendar. I generated the view with the required fields (start, stop, provider, ...), put it into the App Module, and dragged it onto a JSF page to create a calendar.
Next I created an activityScope object in a class called CalendarBean (no inheritance)
Class CalendarBean()
private HashMap<Set<String>, InstanceStyles> activityColorMap;
+..+
+public CalendarBean() {+
super();
activityColorMap = new HashMap<Set<String>, InstanceStyles>();
HashSet setEd = new HashSet<String>();
HashSet setLen = new HashSet<String>();
setEd.add("Work");
setLen.add("Home");
activityColorMap.put(setEd, CalendarActivityRamp.getActivityRamp(CalendarActivityRamp.RampKey.ORANGE));
activityColorMap.put(setLen, CalendarActivityRamp.getActivityRamp(CalendarActivityRamp.RampKey.RED));
+}+
+}+
Next, I linked this up as a backing bean and associated the ActivityStyles of CalendarBean to it:
+#{backingBeanScope.calendarBean.activityColorMap}+
I populated some records in the database with properties "Work" and "Ed', but they show default blue.
As I understand it, I need to do something with the getTags() method of the underlying CalendarActivity class, but I'm not quite sure how to do that.
Took a stab at creating a class, CalendarActivityBean, that extended CalendarActivity, and pointed all the CalendarActivity references I had to the new class, but it didn't seem to fire (in debug), and I got into trouble, when inserting records, with
public void calendarActivityListener(CalendarActivityEvent calendarActivityEvent) {
currActivity = (CalendarActivityBean) calendarActivityEvent.getCalendarActivity();
being an illegal cast
What is the correct way to add provider-based styling to drag-and-drop create calendars?
Ed Schechter

A colleague of mine was kind enough to solve this:
The calendar has ActivityStyles property = #{calendarBean.activityStyles}
CalendarBean looks something like this:
package com.hub.appointmentscheduler.ui.schedule;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;
import oracle.adf.view.rich.util.CalendarActivityRamp;
import oracle.adf.view.rich.util.InstanceStyles;
+public class CalendarBean {+
private HashMap activityStyles;
private String dummy;
+public CalendarBean() {+
+// Define colors+
activityStyles = new HashMap<Set<String>, InstanceStyles>();
HashSet setPending = new HashSet<String>();
HashSet setArrived = new HashSet<String>();
HashSet setApproved = new HashSet<String>();
HashSet setCompleted = new HashSet<String>();
setApproved.add("APPROVED");
setPending.add("PENDING");
setArrived.add("ARRIVED");
setCompleted.add("COMPLETED");
activityStyles.put(setApproved, CalendarActivityRamp.getActivityRamp(CalendarActivityRamp.RampKey.GREEN));
activityStyles.put(setPending, CalendarActivityRamp.getActivityRamp(CalendarActivityRamp.RampKey.ORANGE));
activityStyles.put(setArrived, CalendarActivityRamp.getActivityRamp(CalendarActivityRamp.RampKey.PLUM));
activityStyles.put(setCompleted, CalendarActivityRamp.getActivityRamp(CalendarActivityRamp.RampKey.LAVENDAR));
+}+
+public void setactivityStyles(HashMap activityStyles) {+
this.activityStyles = activityStyles;
+}+
+public HashMap getactivityStyles() {+
return activityStyles;
+}+
+}+
Now, go into the Bindings tab on the calendar page, double click the calendar binding, and specify the column you've defined as the calendar's Provider in the Tags dropdown.
Should show colors.

Sapinst - what is the correct way to startup sapinst

I am starting install of NW04 on unix. The install manual states that once env paramters are set then do the following:
cd /SAP_MASTER_DVD/IM2/SAPINST/UNIX/SUN...
then run ./sapinst
however run I run it it just waits.....
I then go back in another session and run startInstGui.sh
and the sapinst install screen successfully appears?
Is this the correct way to run the install?
What is the correct way to run sapinst?
Thank
John Ryan

Figured it out...
sudo su root not - root
and it works

What is the correct way to destory a Thread?

Just wondering what is the correct way to destroy a thread? I am currently using the stop() method, but i noticed that it has been depreciated (along with other methods used to destroy a thread) when i looked at the thread documentation. Since this is so, then how can one correctly destroy a thread? Thanks in advance for the help.

There is an awful lot of bad advice in this thread about what null does. Please in future check on your own with working code before offering up misguided and very wrong advice. Particularly when your advice contradicts that previously given.
Please compile and run the following
public class Test implements Runnable{
public static void main(String args[])throws Exception{
    Test test = new Test();
    Thread t= new Thread(test);
    t.start();
    // have delay wait a few seconds to demonstrate
    Thread.sleep(3000);
    System.out.println("Setting reference to thread to null");
    t = null; // what does this do?
    // jack all
    System.out.println("Exiting main");
public void run(){
    while(true){
      System.out.println("Hello from test thread!");
      try{ Thread.sleep(750); }catch(InterruptedException iDontCareAboutThis){}
}This will output the following
C:\>java Test
Hello from test thread!
Hello from test thread!
Hello from test thread!
Hello from test thread!
Setting reference to thread to null
Exiting main
Hello from test thread!
Hello from test thread!
Hello from test thread!
Hello from test thread!
Hello from test thread!
Hello from test thread!And continues on endlessly. Setting the reference to null is NOT an answer to this problem.

HT3819 what is the best way to set up my childs iphone with apple id and as part of home sharing?

what is the best way to set up my childs iphone with apple id and as part of home sharing?

So do I have to hook up an Ethernet cable to both the Uverse AND my computer from the Time Capsule?
I'm not sure that I understand everything that you want to do and where devices will be located.
The Time Capsule must connect to the "main" Uverse router using a permanent, wired Ethernet cable connection. An Ethernet cable can be run up to 300+ feet with virtually no loss, so you should be able to locate the Time Capsule wherever you want.....unless you have a very large estate.
If you want the Time Capsule to strengthen the wireless signal provided by the Uverse router, then the Time Capsule must be located in the area where you need that additional signal strength.
If I understand your post correctly, you plan to install the Time Capsule in the office? When you do this, you can configure the Time Capsule to create a wireless signal that uses the exact same wireless network name and password as the Uverse wireless network.
That will provide a much stronger signal for your Uverse wireless network in the office area. Hopefully, the bedroom that you mention is close to the office, so it will pick up the stronger wireless signal from the Time Capsule.
The iMac in the office can connect to the Time Capsule using another short Ethernet cable connection, or the iMac can connect using wireless. A wired connection is always preferred, if possible.
At this point, I guess the first question would be.......
Do you have a location for the Time Capsule that will be close to the office....and...the bedroom where you want a stronger wireless signal?

What is the best way to set up iTunes on our home network so all family members have access to all of our itunes library, even music we don't have on the cloud?

I have five different people using 10 different apple devices on one itunes account in our family. We have had trouble sharing. What is the best way to set up itunes on our home network? We have purchased music that sits on icloud, but we also have music we have imported from our previous cd library. Our itunes program keeps crashing and dumping everyone's playlists. So far we have all been using just the one desktop computer to sync to because we can't figure out how to share the same librarly and playlists on multiple computers in our home so devices can be synced at any location as well as playlists and purchases be made.

What is the best way to set up itunes on our home network?
One iTunes library per person. One iTunes account per person.
If people wish to share songs, they can make copies.
When the inevitable day comes when the kids get older, you will not have to come back here and post asking how all that stuff can get separated!

What Is The Best Way To Set Up Kids iTouch To My iTunes?

I have an iTouch set up with my iTunes music, movies and apps, but now I gave my kids each an iTouch.
What is the best way to set up there account, should it be a unique account for each of them or should I put them under my account?
They will be using my same iMac when they sync or update there iTouch, so will they need to log in under their name every time?
Not sure what is the best way to set this up, they are both minors, i.e. no credit card.
Thanks

Better just your account for multiple devices. The only drawback is that the music will have to managed manually.
Connect one of the iPods to your computer then launch iTunes. You should see the iPod under Devices on the left side of the iTunes window. Double click then you can name each iPod to keep them separate but only syncs to your iTunes account.
Without knowing your Apple ID user name and password they would not be able to make purchases ergo no downloads you aren't aware of.
How to use multiple iPods, iPads, or iPhones with one computer
The kids are minors.. if they are under 13 years of age, according to Apple, they can't have their own accounts regardless.
http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html#GIFTS

What is the correct way to set up a new Mac

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