Yet ANOTHER person looking for an answer to a dreaded Time Machine Error

"Unable to complete backup..." I have a dedicated 2Tb Lacie "Bigger" disk that Time Machine has been effectively backing up to since April 2008. In the last two weeks I've started getting this error. "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup directory."
After reading the very convoluted and differing solutions to this problem, some that seemed to work for only a few, and some that don't seem to work for anyone, here's what I've done so far with NO results.
I'm running Leopard (with the most recent update - 10.5.6) on a 24" imac.
Step 1. Run Disk Utility to scan the disk for errors - No problems detected.
Step 2. Run Disk Utility to verify the disk - No problems detected.
Step 3. Trash the preferences, both in the system library and the user library, where I found them.
Step 4. Disk Utility - Zero the drive (10 hours btw) and reformatted with Journaling enabled, and a Re-name of the drive.
Step 5. Restart iMac, and upon prompting by the launcher, confirmed that Yes, I would like to use "new name" for Time Machine backups.
Step 6. Wait patiently for 116 seconds for Time Machine to start the first backup.
Step 7. Proceed to slam forehead (repeatedly) into desk when I got the error again after this 20 hour process.
I then proceeded to repeat this process thinking that maybe I'd forgetten a step.
I thought it may be a cable or port issue, so I changed the port that I was using on my drive...NO - the cable is fine, since we tested it on my husbands machine. No connectivity problems.
I thought it may be that I was missing an update, Nope.
I turned off the sleep mode, thinking that it was not able to access the drive effectively. No.
Then I started thinking that maybe there was a corrupted file. Who knows?
Does ANYONE have a suggestion? I am currently without a backup, since I erased my drive. I can do a manual back up, but I don't want to erase the drive again..since it takes forever.

I did not say anything about changing a drive name. What I referred to was the Computer Name as set in Sharing preferences. This is how TM identifies the machine with the backup contained in the Backups.backupd folder.
I would start looking at your console log entries to see what information it provides on the backup when it produces the error. This could be a permissions related problem for all one knows, although it's odd that the problem occurs immediately after you erase the backup drive and start anew.
When you prepared the external drives were they partitioned using APM and formatted Mac OS X Extended (Journaled?) I would also check the drive permissions. Select the drive and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. In the Ownership and Sharing section at the bottom be sure the box labeled "Ignore permissions on this ..." is UNchecked. Standard permissions should be:
Owner=system with r/w privileges
Group=admin with r/w privileges
Everyone is read-only
If these aren't the same, then click on the lock icon, authenticate with your admin password, then change them accordingly. If you don't have a system or admin entry then click on the [+] button. You should be able to select Administrators and add it to the Group list. However, a system user will not exist when you try to add it, so click on the option for a new user. Enter system as the username (all lowercase) then enter and confirm your admin password. You can then add system as a user. Then set the privileges as above. Remove all other users by selecting them and clicking on the [-] button. You cannot delete yourself, but you can change your privileges to read-only.

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Looking for iPod/iPhone app data in Time Machine

For some reason, when my iPod Touch upgraded to IOS 4.3.1, iTunes told me something went wrong and I had to restore to default settings.
After that was taken care of, iTunes asked me if I wanted to restore from the most recent backup of my iPod Touch, and I said yes.
But when I checked afterwards, all data from my apps had been lost. Before I did further research, I first tried to sync AGAIN ... thus overwriting any chance of finding my data.
SO ... Now I would like to go back in Time Machine and find the iPod Touch app data from last night's sync, before this all happened.
Where can I find this data on my hard drive so that I can recover it from a Time Machine backup?
Thanks for any help.
mlb

from this support article: [_*About backups*_|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766]
( *click on image to enlarge* )

YAIS - Yet Another Installation Script for Archlinux

I wrote this script today and placed it in AUR. It can show you the way and make it easier to install an archlinux system.

orschiro wrote:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/yais/
Can you provide some more information?
Your README is not very extensive:
yais
Yet another installation script (for archlinux)
I updated the README, and added a TODO to the git repo. I also rewrote the PKGBUILD. It will be OK now.

I'm trying to make a time sheet and include a grid, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to print a full grid on my spreadsheet. There are options for shaded grids but I want a defined grid, and I have spent the last 2 hours looking for the answer

I'm trying to make a time sheet and include a grid, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to print a full grid on my spreadsheet. There are options for shaded grids but I want a defined grid, and I have spent the last 2 hours looking for the answer. Any ideas?

Hi Cynthia,
Are you planning to have this table do any of the calculation, or is is to be used as the electronic equivalent of a sheet of paper with a grid printed on it—a place to record the data.
For your seven column table:
Are you using one or more rows at the top of the table to label the data below? If so, you might want this row (or these rows) to be set as Header Rows.
Are you using the leftmost column to label the rows? If so, you may want this column to be a Header column.
The default table supplied on the "Blank" templates contains one header row and one header column. If you need more (or fewer) Header rows or columns, select the table, then go Table (menu) > Header Rows > (choose the number you need). Repeat to set the number of Header Columns.
To make a seven column table from the table supplied by default, click on any cell in column H (The eighth column), and drag right to add more cells to the selection, until you get to the last column of the table. With these cells selected, Go Table > Delete Columns.
To make the remaining seven columns fit across a single page:
Go View > Show Print View to show the table as it would appear when printed to paper.
Select the table by clicking its icon in the Sheets List to the left (easy method), OR by carefully clicking on the outside boundary of the table itself (fiddley method).
With the table selected, you will see square white handles at each corner and at the middle of each side (including the top and bottom).
With the mouse, grab the handle in the middle of the right side of the table and drag right (or left) until the table just fits onto the width of the defined page.
With the table still selected, set the thickness and colour of the cell boundaries using the Gaphics Inspector (as described by Jerry), or using the Stroke, Thickness and Color Well controls in the Format bar above the working portion of the Window.
Regards,
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If I add another profile, will that person's content automatically be saved to my Time Machine hard drive or do I need to take further action to ensure that this is saved?

If I add another profile, will that person's content automatically be saved to my Time Machine hard drive or do I need to take further action to ensure that this content is saved? Thanks for any and all help with this.
Dave N.
Holliston, MA

Time Machine creates a back up of the entire Hard Drive, with the exception of Boot Camp or exceptions you have created. So in other words after you create the profile run Time Machine, and a backup of the other user profile will be added to your Time Machine backups.

Im completely new to Mac. Im swapping my windows laptop for macbook pro and looking for network storage solution which the Time Capsule seems to do. Is it possible to use this as NAS for my desktop Windows PC - windows 7

Im completely new to Mac. Im swapping my windows laptop for macbook pro and looking for network storage solution which the Time Capsule seems to do. Is it possible to use this as NAS for my desktop Windows PC - windows 7

Broadly speaking I want some sort of network storage( wireless or through my existing wifi router) that I can access files for both my windows PC and Macbook and also to access files to my iPad/ iPhone. Some sort of backup and sychronisation so that I can access certain files remotely.
Buy a real NAS.. synology or QNAP are the standard... although companies like Netgear and Western Digital and Seagate make them as well.
There is no problem sharing between Mac and PC now.. you do not even need a NAS to do that.. you simply share the hard disk directly. Mac talk SMB.. everything talks SMB nowadays.. so it is easy.
ipad and iphone are not designed to use NAS.. they are designed to backup only to the cloud or itunes.. but you can load an app like file browser if you want.
http://www.stratospherix.com/products/filebrowser/
Remote access to the Apple TC is somewhere between difficult, to impossible from a PC.. Apple use BTMM and iCloud but the service is not offered to PC.
A real NAS will offer HTTPS or SFTP or several other methods.. that both Mac and PC can use.
You simply plug it into the current wireless router.. it is a network device and assessable over the network. It is not necessary to buy another router.. in fact that is a waste.

Oracle Personal Edition for Windows 98 onto a Windows ME machine

After downloading Oracle Personal Edition for Windows 98 onto a Windows ME machine I had to alter the win.ini file to get a valid stage. After instatlation when I go to start database I get a warning cannot open registry
\SID_LIST and then a "cannot attach to oracle 8i" error maessage. Anyone got any ideas- my oracle home is the C:\ drive

hi
can you help me?
you installed oracle 9i personal edition win98 into windows me?
i try it but i have error.
in security properties.
thanks

I keep getting a 'Looking for backup disc' message from my Time Capsule.

I keep getting a 'Looking for backup disc' message from my Time Capsule. I have set it up several times without any apparent problems (I have even done a Hard and Factory reset). Everything seems fine until I ask Timemachine to 'back up', and then the problems start.
Any ideas?

I had the exact same problem. I bought the Time Capsule this past July and it worked fine for about a month then it told me it hadn't backed up in 10 days and was stuck looking for the backup drive. I called Apple and they said the reason was that the Time Capsule was in Bridge mode. I launched Airport Utility and sure enough, it was. I changed it to DCHP and NAT (Airport Utility -> Network tab -> Router Mode). After updating the Time Capsule, I couldn't even get on the Internet, let alone do a backup. A logged into the software for my cable modem and discovered that it too was in Bridge mode.
It turned out (for me) that neither should be in Bridge mode (which is for connecting two networks). Your cable modem only has one IP address. Your Time Capsule should be doing the NAT (Network Address Translation) which translates the internal IP addresses on your network to the one IP address your cable modem has. When I switched my Time Capsule to DHCP and NAT, it conflicted with the fact that the cable modem was also trying to do this. The answer was to turn this off on the modem (allowing all the packets to just go through the modem to the Time Capsule and let IT do the NAT). I did that last week and since then, my Time Capsule has been working perfectly.
1) Go to your cable modem (via a browser, enter "http://192.168.100.1"). Log-in and find the setting that indicates NAT. If you're uncomfortable doing this or can't find it, call your cable company and ask Tech Support to do it for you. They can do it remotely.
2) Launch Airport Utilty. Go to the Network Tab and change the router mode to "DHCP and NAT".
3) You may need to restart your modem and Time Capsule. I can't remember if I had to or not.
I hope this helps. I tried many things but this is the only solution that fixed it for me. And it makes sense. Only one device, the cable modem or the Time Capsule, can be doing the NAT.

HI everyone. Im looking for some help. Im getting the Itunes error 50 and No network connection error. I have a perfect connection. My iphone will download and my ipad but nothing from my computer. any help would be great.

HI everyone. Im looking for some help. Im getting the Itunes error 50 and No network connection error. I have a perfect connection. My iphod will not download and my ipad any help would be great.

A lot of people are experiencing it, which suggests that Apple is having issues. If that is the case all people can do is wait it out.

Is there a solution for Time Machine error?

I got an error in Time Machine saying backup had failed, a couple of days ago. Spent the next day or two trawling the web and found thousands of postings from people with the same error, but no solution.
(At least, some people had a solution - they were using PC-formatted hard drives.)
I've been using Time Machine for a few weeks, and it has only now taken a dislike to my external hard drive, which is connected by FireWire.
Is there a solution to this problem, or should I revert to using SuperDuper, which I was using successfully before?
I haven't put in lots of information about the apps I'm running, because this is a general query rather than a specific one. If there's a solution, I'll use it; otherwise I'll wipe the drive and go back to using SuperDuper.

OisinOg wrote:
Pondini - Thank you for your slightly hostile reply.
On the contrary. The statement was: +"found thousands of postings from people with the same error, but no solution."+ I don't know where you found thousands of posts -- there are many here, but certainly not thousands. If you're talking about, say, a Google search, if you actually look at them, many are duplicates, unrelated to your problem, or unrelated to Macs at all -- and there are a number of solutions that seem to have fixed many of the real ones.
The error message was the standard one: "Time Machine Error - Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup directory."
There's most likely another, better message in your logs. Thus the suggestion about Time Machine Buddy. You can also use the Console app (in your Applications/Utilities folder). Click on Show Log List, then navigate in the sidebar to your system.log (or system.log.0.bz2, etc. for previous ones). You can filter for backupd to get the same TM messages as the widget, but I prefer to view the full log at the date/time in question, as messages from other concurrent processes may have a clue.
I've gone through the suggestions in some of the helpful replies to those thousands of postings, by wiping my drive, erasing it and reformatting it, first in two partitions using the GUID method in Disk Utility, then in a single partition. But Time Machine still doesn't want to back up to it.
Sounds a bit like a problem communicating with the drive. The logs may clarify that.
The hard drive of my computer is 250GB; the external drive is 300GB. Both are SATA drives; the external is connected by FireWire.
How full are they?
Thanks for your suggestion of downloading the Time Machine Buddy widget; I'll give it a last try tonight.
What is the difference between a SuperDuper clone and a Time Machine backup?
The initial backup of both copies almost everything on your HD, excluding only some caches, temp files, etc., although you can exclude other things. This takes quite a while, of course. Thereafter, only the items that changed are backed-up.
SuperDuper (and CarbonCopyCloner, which I use, and other, similar apps) are most often used to make bootable "clones" identical copies of your HD -- if your HD fails, you can boot and run from them immediately. With TM, once your HD is repaired/replaced, you restore your system to it from your TM backup.
Score one for the clones, but TM has it's advantages, too (which is why many of us run both).
First is, CCC and SD look at every file and folder on your HD to see what changed. This is quite time-consuming and CPU-intensive, so most of us run it once a day (or less often), usually automatically at, say, 3 am. TM, however, runs hourly, but uses an internal File System Event Log of changes, so it is far quicker and less intrusive. There are exceptions, but most users rarely even notice the backups unless they see the icon revolving. On my small system, for example, TM rarely runs over 30 seconds; CCC is at least 15 minutes.
Second, not only does TM keep previous versions of changed files, but it manages the space and backups for you. It keeps those hourly backups for 24 hours; except the first of the day becomes a daily backup which is kept for a month; one per week becomes a weekly backup that is kept for as long as there's space (it will fill the drive/partition). But it's smart enough, as it deletes the old weeklies, that it won't delete it's copy of anything that still exists on your HD.
There isn't room to have two 250GB sections on a 300GB drive. I suppose I could get another 250GB drive - I have an IDE enclosure somewhere - but I don't fancy the expense right now.
Your CCC or SD partition only needs to be as large as your HD, although in a pinch it only needs to be somewhat larger than what's actually used on your HD. If you don't have room for both on the one drive, an even better solution might be to get a pair of smaller portable HDs for CCC/SD. Use one daily for, say, a week, then take it to your safe deposit box, workplace, relative's house, etc. and start with the other. Now you're also protected against fire, flood, theft, direct lightning strike on your power lines, etc.

What is the best USB powered portable 1TB hard drive for a macbook pro that allows Time machine to work, windows (thru Parallels software) and mac storage and is available in Australia?

What is the best USB powered portable 1TB hard drive for a macbook pro that allows Time machine to work, windows (thru Parallels software) and mac storage and is available in Australia?

I agree with teh OWC sggestion above, but why must it be USB powered? I find that far more unreliable, and the low power devices slow.
I'd frankly get a good external enclosure and buy a bare drive. But the OWC stuff is quite good - vastly better than some of the majors (WD being aprime example of stuff that's boderline quality and often not compatible)
Grant

Time Machine Error. Backup is too large for the backup disk. Backup requires 289.28 GB but only 177.01 GB are available.

My Mac has not been backing up for some time. Tried Apple Support, but couldn't figure out problem.
Receive the following error...
Time Machine Error
This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 289.28 GB but only 177.03 GB are available.

See #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If that doesn't clarify the situation, post back with:
How much data is on your internal HD (and any others being backed-up)?
How large is your Time Capsule?
Is there anything else on the TC besides these backups? If so, what and how large?

Time Machine Error This backup is too large for the backup disk

Hi, I have a 1TB Time Capsule which backs up my Mac. I was having some issues with my mac so I decided to perform an erase and install and then use Migration Assistant to transfer everything back to my Mac.
After I reinstalled Snow Leopard and restored my Mac using Migration Assistant, Time Machine says that the backup has failed. It says " Time Machine Error This backup is too large for the backup disk. The Backup requires 663 GB but only 255 GB are available.
What do I do? Is my only option to erase my Time Capsule and have it back everything up from scratch?

Hi, thanks for the help. I erased everything off of the Time Capsule and it's backing up my Mac from scratch. It's almost finished backing up my whole mac. It's now at 641.86gb of 646.54gb but it's now backing up very slowly. It's backing up .1 every few minutes. Is this normal?
Here's the log from Time Machine Buddy:
Starting standard backup
Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://Stuart%[email protected]/Time%20Capsule
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://Stuart%[email protected]/Time%20Capsule
Creating disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule/StuartsMacPro.sparsebundle
QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
Disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule/StuartsMacPro.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
Detected system migration from: /Volumes/My Book
Backup content size: 850.0 GB excluded items size: 606.5 GB for volume Stuart's Drive
Backup content size: 425.9 GB excluded items size: 67.3 GB for volume Macintosh HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 722.56 GB requested (including padding), 928.68 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Copied 28.3 GB of 602.1 GB, 29340 of 1478089 items
Copied 55.0 GB of 602.1 GB, 41596 of 1478089 items
Copied 82.9 GB of 602.1 GB, 55899 of 1478089 items
Copied 110.7 GB of 602.1 GB, 63347 of 1478089 items
Copied 138.8 GB of 602.1 GB, 83831 of 1478089 items
Copied 166.8 GB of 602.1 GB, 94574 of 1478089 items
Copied 194.7 GB of 602.1 GB, 102854 of 1478089 items
Copied 222.8 GB of 602.1 GB, 114388 of 1478089 items
Copied 129159 files (242.5 GB) from volume Stuart's Drive.
Copied 248.4 GB of 602.1 GB, 130414 of 1478089 items
Copied 265.5 GB of 602.1 GB, 355699 of 1478089 items
Copied 293.6 GB of 602.1 GB, 382912 of 1478089 items
Copied 322.1 GB of 602.1 GB, 387974 of 1478089 items
Copied 349.8 GB of 602.1 GB, 399204 of 1478089 items
Copied 378.3 GB of 602.1 GB, 399358 of 1478089 items
Copied 406.9 GB of 602.1 GB, 399441 of 1478089 items
Copied 434.5 GB of 602.1 GB, 415817 of 1478089 items
Copied 461.5 GB of 602.1 GB, 471528 of 1478089 items
Copied 488.2 GB of 602.1 GB, 537277 of 1478089 items
Copied 515.1 GB of 602.1 GB, 580446 of 1478089 items
Copied 541.3 GB of 602.1 GB, 590386 of 1478089 items
Copied 566.8 GB of 602.1 GB, 602496 of 1478089 items
Copied 593.3 GB of 602.1 GB, 649575 of 1
Message was edited by: Stuart Lawrence
Message was edited by: Stuart Lawrence

Mac Newbie looking for short answers to multiple questions...

My computer experience started with the Commodore 64 in the 1980's and progressed to building my own Core Duo PC with 4 GIG RAM running 64 bit Vista Ultimate and several flavors of Linux. My only Mac experiences happened when I visited my elderly parents, who insisted on only using Mac's, generally ancient Mac's that they bought on eBay.
I was not interested at all in Macs and found the GUI very confusing to use. All that changed when my dad showed me the Mac Mini he bought. Instead of the hulking, slow, underpowered behemoths he usually used, this little machine was amazing. I had to have one, and yesterday bought a Mac Mini with superdrive and 512 MB of RAM, along with Bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse. This was amazingly easy to set up, just starting with all of the PC stuff I have lying around.
Now, I need some one-line opinions from people who use Mac's, nothing complicated, just opinions. I don't need help configuring this machine, I just want to know what I can do with it. I find most people enjoy giving opinions!
--Is it worth it to upgrade the RAM to 2 GB? I wanted to do that at the store yesterday, but the salesman said that the procedure was too complicated in a Mac Mini to do myself, and I wanted to take the computer home right way.
--I use Photoshop Elements 5. Is it worth it to get Photoshop Elements 4 for Mac, or does my machine come with imaging editing software that does the same thing, just as well?
--I use Quicken 2007. I read a couple of reviews of Quicken for Mac from unhappy customers. Any comments?
--Can I use my existing external USB 2 or Firewire drives with my Mac Mini, even though they are partitioned as FAT32 and have many backup files from PC's on them? Do Mac Mini's write to FAT32 like Linux does, or do I have to reformat the drives?
--I use Acronis True Image to backup & image my hard drives so I can restore them if disaster occurs (as it seems to, rather often). How do you image a hard drive with a Mac, and is it worth doing?
--Is it worth it to use antivirus software on a Mac?
--Does anyone have any experience using open source software like Open Office or GIMP on a Mac?
--Are there any decent flight simulators that work on a Mac?
Please don't flame me or tell me to read the manual. I am looking for opinions, not instructions. I am also not interested in running Windows software on my Mac - I have had mixed results trying to do this under Linux, and I also have plenty of Windows machines to operate Windows software. Remember, the more people like me who are interested in switching over to Mac's, the better and cheaper the platform should become. Thanks in advance!

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Glad you found your way to the Mac in the present incarnation of MacOS. Earlier flavors of it were perhaps somewhat less elegant, though I have always had a liking for the relative simplicity and the integration of features which tend to make some work more easily accomplished than on the PCs I have also used.
--Is it worth it to upgrade the RAM to 2 GB? I wanted to do that at the store yesterday, but the salesman said that the procedure was too complicated in a Mac Mini to do myself, and I wanted to take the computer home right way.
Yes, the memory upgrade is very worthwhile. A stock mac mini runs perfectly well, but when taking into account the RAM used by the on board video, and the possibility of using Rosetta if you're using any non-native software, 512Mb is really not enough for smooth operation. Indeed, you'll tend to get pauses which can become annoying, particularly if you want to run multiple applications.
The salesman really should have pointed out that while the procedure to upgrade RAM isn't really all that difficult, the mini is not intended to be opened by the user at all because there are no user serviceable parts inside. However, RAM is readily available from third party suppliers and with a little on-line research, is a fairly simple job to undertake. Two things to watch for: 1) that the memory comes from a supplier who will swap it without question, because Macs are rather more fussy about RAM than PCs tend to be, and 2), when completing the memory upgrade, ensure you reconnect the tiny fan control cable - failing to do so will leave the fan running at full blast all the time. It's an easy omission, and even the experts forget it sometimes!
--I use Photoshop Elements 5. Is it worth it to get Photoshop Elements 4 for Mac, or does my machine come with imaging editing software that does the same thing, just as well?
Depends on what kind of editing and image adjustment you generally do. The mini comes with iLife, which includes iPhoto, which has all the usual array of adjustment tools for brightness, contrast, color balance etc, plus a useful one for tilting images to straighten them if taken at an angle, but it doesn't include the filters and effects of a true image editing application. Photoshop Elements on the other hand is feature rich and easy to use, though at a cost. Personally, I don't like iPhoto much and use Photoshop Elements, though there is also a truly excellent shareware application called GraphicConverter, which started life as a tool to convert images from one format to another (hence the name) but is now a very feature-rich image processor in it's own right. Worth a look and can be tried out for free. Have a look at http://www.lemkesoft.com/xd/public/content/index.cGlkPTE5Mw.html
--I use Quicken 2007. I read a couple of reviews of Quicken for Mac from unhappy customers. Any comments?
No experience of this personally, but I'd check those reviews and any others you can find to see what it is the writers liked or didn't like about using the software, and see if that helps you. There are always unhappy customers though, so reviews in magazines may be more objective.
--Can I use my existing external USB 2 or Firewire drives with my Mac Mini, even though they are partitioned as FAT32 and have many backup files from PC's on them? Do Mac Mini's write to FAT32 like Linux does, or do I have to reformat the drives?
You can use your FAT32 formatted drives with the Mac though you are limited to files of 4Gb maximum.
--I use Acronis True Image to backup & image my hard drives so I can restore them if disaster occurs (as it seems to, rather often). How do you image a hard drive with a Mac, and is it worth doing?
It IS worth doing, yes. I use SuperDuper! which is first rate and free for making complete duplicates of a drive, or $29 for the paid/registered version to allow incremental backups. Works like a charm. If you use a drive partitioned in the GUID scheme (as the mini's internal is) you can even then set that drive, and the cloned copy of your system to boot the mini.
--Is it worth it to use antivirus software on a Mac?
Personally I'd say yes. ClamXav is open source (thus free) and reliable, has a marginal hit on CPU load and helps ensure you don't inadvertently pass on infections (it can also spot types of malware such as phishing scames). As yet, however, there are no known viruses/worms/trojans that affect MacOS, so it isn't critical at this time. However at some point it is likely there will be - in my view it's better to be prepared than to be left to react at the time.
--Does anyone have any experience using open source software like Open Office or GIMP on a Mac?
Yes. Like all open source projects, there are some good and some bad, but by and large the open source community for MacOS based systems is active and effective. Both Open Office and Gimp work well for example.
--Are there any decent flight simulators that work on a Mac?
X-Plane springs to mind.
There really are very few people you'll find in Apple Discussions who would flame you for asking such questions. Indeed, answering such things is one of the prime reasons we're here, and while there's always value in reading the manuals, it must also be said that in many ways getting useful information out of them means you have to know enough already to be able to work out what information you need from all the stuff available. Questions are easier to ask and pertinent information easier to give as a result!

Thanks for helping me look for an answer. HD Codec for Quick Time?

Thanks everybody who sent me ideas on how to play a .mov Quick Time Movie Codec HDV 720p50, 1280x720. It's for playing on TV, as well as Mac and PC. Someone suggested H264, but I thought this is for the Internet, not for HD quality 1280x720?
Could it be that the Mac and PC people who can't play it don't have a strong enough video card in their computer? I'm looking at various answers.
I appreciate any help gratefully.
PS: I didn't see Helpful above the window, only Yes question answered and No.

if you can't play an HDV file on your computer, it most likely means you don't have the HDV codec on your computer.
It's a free download - google it and you can find it. You will have to drop the codec into your Quicktime library - it's all explained in the download. I've installed it for several people and it solves that problem right away.
pJ

Yet ANOTHER person looking for an answer to a dreaded Time Machine Error

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