Ahhh... didn't know about that, but mainstream consumer wise, I recall there being a little chatter about SB. I'm pretty happy with SB, and I just have an i3.

**BRENT**

There appear to be some reasonably attractive refurbs in the Apple store right now. Any time you can get more than 15% off you're doing pretty well with Apple.

dinny: http://www.expercom.com/product_detail.html?p=751318&o=1631,1637,1642,1646,1908,1912

Interesting. Are they reliable.

Then there's this : http://store.apple.com/us/product/G0M73LL/A

I think they probably are, they're huge.

That said, the delta is probably in favor of the apple refurb.

IMJO, Apple Refurbs >>> the third party market. From what I've observed, strike while the iron is hot on those things. They don't tend to linger.

I do refurb the majority of the time unless I really want a new release and don't have patience to wait.

I like the idea of getting a refurb, but I don't like the prospect of actually getting a refurb. I like my stuff new. I should probably just get over that. All that said, the one I linked to is pretty tempting, but I kind of want the SSD+internal HD. And I don't want to install it myself. Opening up the iMac is not fun.

Then go with the other deal, and add the ssd. Plus, it includes 16gb of ram.

Dan, do you think the processor bump and graphics card of the higher spec'd model would give a noticeable performance increase for everyday tasks? I do relatively little gaming/processor intensive stuff.

I really don't think the video card would make a noticeable difference, even with aperture. The SSD will make most of the difference.

For that kind of money the pr0n had better fly, too.

I use aperture on my macbook air. But the delta between the two imacs he's talking about is really small.

i didn't even notice a lower end model. high end or nothing.

Yeah, I lost my head for a little bit. I'm back.

Listening to the This American Life Apple/FoxConn/Daisey retraction episode. If you haven't heard it already it's pretty fascinating.

Show page

MP3

Just did a Safari update on a first gen BlackBook and now in boot load spinning death. Any suggestions?

Just did a Safari update on a first gen BlackBook and now in boot load spinning death. Any suggestions?

Try rebooting while holding down the shift key, to disable all the extras that load at the start (kinda like safe-mode). Another thing to try is re-setting the PRAM by booting while holding the cmd-opt-p-r keys till you hear the mac chime again and the screen goes black again.

If that doesn't help, boot from a start up/install DVD by holding down the "c" key when you boot, and then try running a disk repair and fix permissions with disk utility. (or boot while holding option, and choose the boot up disk from the list)

PS: if you are running OS 10.7.3 you may have an emergency restore partition installed that you can boot from, but I've never done that. If you have it can boot from it, you can run disk utility from that.

Edited March 19, 201214 yr by HeadphoneAddict

Thanks much Larry. Tried step 3 earlier without success, but step 1 was all that was necessary.

This is an April Fools joke, right?

Ashton Kutcher to play Steve Jobs - Variety http://ow.ly/1JIm3i

Something for all you playa's

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/04/condom_carrying_iphone_case/

So I installed a SSD on my MBP and I'm wondering why I hadn't done this sooner.

Yep, and finally getting around to switching my main external to FW800 from FW400 has been nice as well. Now, if they would start making affordable Thunderbolt external drives, that would be great.

Edited April 13, 201214 yr by Salt Peanuts

Anyone else her using a hybrid hard drive (like Momentus XT) with Sophos antivirus for Mac?

I'm using a 750GB hybrid drive now, which has the increased 8GB SSD portion (twice that of the 500GB hybrid). I was happy with the hybrid until I installed Sophos Antivirus software, and that might be messing with the algorythmns used to store the most accessed files in the SSD portion. I think that after a full scan is completed that my most frequently used apps have to be opened and closed several times in order to get them to launch as fast as usual again. It could also be an effect of it scanning every file for infection when I access them.

The only viruses it found were a couple of PC viruses as attachments in emails which were sent from spammers a few years ago but not deleted yet, and in a couple of PC jail breaking tools downloaded as a bit torrent which I never tried. An SSD is probably still the best way to go, but I'm just not willing to spend $800 for a 512GB SSD yet - I could almost buy my daughter a new Macbook for college with that.

As for external Thunderbolt drives - Seagate is selling a $99 Thunderbolt adapter (without cable) for the GoFlex portable drives that makes the drives 40% faster than FW800 when writing, but reads are only 13% faster. I think I may already be getting those speeds with my USB 3.0 GoFlex drive with USB 3.0 express card. http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/01/seagate-starts-selling-goflex-portable-thunderbolt-adapter/. To get the true Thunderbolt speed improvements the drive likely needs to be an SSD, but something like that is $450 for a 120Gb external (Elgato)!

Unless you're specifically looking for Intel SSDs, ones in 480-512GB range can be had for $560 to $680 (e.g., Crucial m4 SSD, OWC 6G).

Edited April 15, 201214 yr by Salt Peanuts

get rid of Sophos. worthless to have installed, problem solved.

Would you recommend anything for anti-virus? I've been using Mac since 1986 and never bought an anti-virus app in all these years. It just seems that in the past year there have been 3 different outbreaks (one was from a security flaw in MS word, and this newest one due to Java, plus Macdefender that required you to allow the trojan to install).