Ye Macce Threade

[shellylh]

FYI, if you are having or have had video problems with your MBP purchased between May 2007 and Sep 2008, there is a pending class action lawsuit likely to be settled by NVIDIA on Dec 20, 2010. There is an issue regarding overheating and related video card (GPU) failures. You may be entitled to reimbursement or replacement. I recently got Dell to replace my D630 for ongoing problems likely related to this.

The NVIDIA GPU Litigation - Home Page

That's me! Bought in April 2008, I have had trouble with mine from the beginning.

[jvlgato]

You may be in luck then. Check out the web site, there are certain dates and procedures to file a claim properly. In my case, I argued for an hour with Dell that I didn't want a third D630 replacement, esp w/ my warranty about to expire, unless I could get a different video card. I explained the overheating problem that was about to be settled. Since that card was integrated with the motherboard somehow, they couldn't replace that card. I offered to negotiate for a different computer and after a lot of 'talking with my manager', they replaced it with a current model, unbelievably. I have to think this settlement is somehow related - they'll probably get reimbursed by NVIDIA. I think I may have gotten around the actual settlement, with Dell acting as my agent!

[The Monkey]

Tell me about the fastness.

[The Monkey]

You're a ninja. Was the installation difficult?

[The Monkey]

I want SSD.

[luvdunhill]

I want SSD.

I've heard they sound better too!

[Knuckledragger]

Trim control?

[luvdunhill]

Trim control?

Yeah, it hates fat partitions.

[episiarch]

For anybody who's fairly technical but not into spending the cash for an SSD quite yet:

A couple weeks ago I followed the advice in dropsafe : Addressing The Outmoded Swapping And Paging Strategy in OSX? to adjust some paging parameters and move paging to a separate (non-journaled) partitioned volume. The results have been extremely satisfying. In no way am I getting SSD-level results, but beachballs are now rare*, and things like quitting Firefox after a long session no longer take acres of forever while swap space is reclaimed.

In other words I can now use my (non-unibody, maxed-out-at-4GB RAM) MacBook Pro all day (in my usual mode of lots of apps running and lots of tabs open) without wanting to punch something. Rage-free (and free) is nice, even if it's not SSD-nice.

A few caveats:

1. This is a bit of work (and depending on your skillz, maybe a little risk) so it's not worth doing unless you need it or love tinkering. My wife has an 8GB unibody MBP and it runs so smoothly it's really not worth doing this on hers.

2. Really should not be attempted unless you are unixy enough to understand the entire article and infer the (very slight) missing pieces, or have ready access to someone who is.

3. Although Disk Utility seems to offer live repartitioning, it did not actually work the first time I tried it -- it crashed my Mac (hard, but completely harmlessly) when I was trying to shrink the main partition. In my case the path of least resistance was to boot off my nightly SuperDuper clone and do the partitioning from there while I got some work done, so I didn't pursue the live-partitioning thing further. (If live repartitioning doesn't work for you and you don't have a bootable external, you can always boot off your OS installation or upgrade DVD and go to the utilities from there -- assuming you still have that DVD.)

4. After you make your scratch volume, remember to exclude it from Time Machine and Spotlight explicitly so you don't get pointless extra activity on it. OS X doesn't automatically know to do this for you.

Also, a tip: I made my scratch partition a little bigger than I expected to need, so that I could move some additional application-specific caches onto it. That was a good call. A few days later I moved the caches for Firefox and one of my video games onto the scratch drive, making an incremental but welcome difference in the general smoothness and non-spasticness of both apps.

If I haven't made you afraid/reluctant/bored by now, then it's a good tweak that you might want to try.

*Well, rare except when I do anything in Safari, which just seems ridiculously prone to them, but even in Safari they're not nearly as long or plentiful as before.

[jvlgato]

Anyone know how to back up iCal (or iPad calendar) automatically so that I can view my calendar as it looked every day for the last several months?

Something weird happened in my update for the iPad iOS4 and MobileMe control panel for the Mac Mini, and none of the appointments I set up in the last two weeks are there any more. Today I had to call every patient I saw and spoke to by phone for the last two weeks and ask them if we set up an appointment. Very embarrassing and a huge, time consuming PITA. Plus who knows who I missed, I expect some people to show up unexpectedly in the next few weeks and it will be my fault. I only figured it out last night when someone called to say she was running late, and she wasn't even in my calendar. (She is very reliable, and when I checked my voicemail log, I saw that she had requested that exact date/time two weeks ago.)

[The Monkey]

Has anyone used the new Outlook for Mac? If so, how is it? Outlook is the only Windows application I miss.

[The Monkey]

I hate MobileMe, Calendar, and Mail.

[Salt Peanuts]

i made the mistake of thinking that the Finder was up to some heavy duty file transfers to my new RAID. *sigh* should have known i'd end up using rsync. Fix the Fucking Finder, Apple.

What happened?

Has anyone used the new Outlook for Mac? If so, how is it? Outlook is the only Windows application I miss.

Didn't realize MS had finally killed off Entourage. I remember liking Outlook when used to have a PC as well.

[VPI]

I just use Google Calendar and it syncs across all my devices and stays online in case I lost them.

I have Outlook 2011 and like it a lot more than the old Entourage I was using previously.

[Sherwood]

I'll set up outlook tonight, Dinny and report back. I just remembered that I, too, hate mail.

[jvlgato]

if you are running Exchange at work, i very much suggest using Exchange calendars instead of MobileMe/iCal.

I do not use Exchange. It is my pvt office.

I hate MobileMe, Calendar, and Mail.

I'm getting there quickly. I may already be there.

I just use Google Calendar and it syncs across all my devices and stays online in case I lost them.

My wife and I use that for our personal calendar. I looked into Google for my office a year or two ago, but when I use it for personal use, it is not on a secure site, and in researching Google business or enterprise or whatever, I couldn't get a clear answer about security. I don't need an iron clad guarantee, but I need to show that I've done due diligence for security/privacy due to dealing with health care information. Might be time to look into that again.

[The Monkey]

Google Calendar, Mail, and MobileMe don't play nicely together in my experience. Well, they do until they really, really don't.

[jvlgato]

*Sigh*

Online chatted w/ Apple for MobileMe, it's just getting worse. I'm going to bed.

[The Monkey]

reksy, or anyone else, I have an early 2006 iMac. Is it possible to jam an SSD in there? And if so, would an idiot like me be able to do it?

[blessingx]

Ex. G5 iMac SSD Upgrade : 3.5" Solid State Drive Conversion : MacGizmoGuy on Yahoo! Video

I can't view the video I'm linking to (Flash), but seems possible for even older models. Course I guess size was what you were asking about. So errr...

Edited December 9, 2010 by blessingx

[aardvark baguette]

Gmail, fools.

[The Monkey]

Ex. G5 iMac SSD Upgrade : 3.5" Solid State Drive Conversion : MacGizmoGuy on Yahoo! Video

I can't view the video I'm linking to (Flash), but seems possible for even older models. Course I guess size was what you were asking about. So errr...

Awesome, thanks Ric. That vid appears to confirm that it would work in my iMac. I viewed the ifixit HDD upgrade tutorial and I have to admit that the teardown looks like a major pain in the neck, especially with all the EMI shielding. It would be a nice way to squeeze another year or so out of the iMac though...

[episiarch]

You should be able to stick an SSD in any iMac new enough to use SATA internally, which the 2006 iMacs do. I am not sure whether there is space to mount your old hard disk internally or whether you will have to shift it to an external enclosure.

You should be able to do it without terribly specialized skills or tools.

A good way to start is to open up the iMac (unplug it, lay it on its face, and I think there are just a couple of Phillips screws to undo to remove the back cover) and take a look inside. If you're able to look and say "well that chunky thing there is obviously the disk drive, and all I'll need to do is detach those two cable harnesses and physically unmount it," then yeah, you'll be fine.

While you have it open, glance around to see if any of the electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard are visibly bulging or leaking. I think that problem was specific to the iMacs before yours, but it would be good to check.

[jvlgato]

*Sigh*

Online chatted w/ Apple for MobileMe, it's just getting worse. I'm going to bed.

Ok, I've seen the light. I was on and off with MobileMe support most of the day until I think he realized he couldn't resolve my problem, and abruptly abandoned me.

I said fuck it (literally), and migrated my whole calendar and contact list to Google, then set up an Exchange sync to my iPad and Mini. Maybe I can get some music and sleep now!

[The Monkey]

How does one set up an Exchange sync?