Ye Macce Threade

[luvdunhill]

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/08/01/apple-expands-build-to-order-configuration-options-on-retina-macbook-pro/

[Salt Peanuts]

There wouldn't be any speed bonus connecting fw800 device via Thunderbolt if you already have a fw800 port, correct?

[grawk]

nope, but there's definitely a connectivity bonus if you don't have a fw port without it

[Currawong]

I ended up getting an 11" Air 8GB/256GB as it fits in the Gator. Kickass little machine.

Annoyingly OWC had their drive cases on back order, so I had to wait for a replacement for my 17" MBP. Now (with Mountain Lion) I'm getting random beachballs locking everything up for 1-2 minutes at a time. Removed everything possible installed and the problem persists and the Console isn't enlightening except with error messages as a result of the freeze. I hope it isn't another dead drive or some other hardware issue. Regrettably I think a completely clean install without migration is in order.

I need a 30" retina cinema display.

Ditto. That was my first thought when I saw the iPhone 4 display for the first time.

Edited August 2, 2012 by Currawong

[HeadphoneAddict]

http://store.apple.c...oduct/MD464ZM/A

Supposedly the link to buy the Thunderbolt to FW800 adapter... but it's not showing up for me at the moment. I hear it was working earlier, so stay tuned. Figure someone will need it for some audio gear on the new rig soon enough...

**BRENT**

Thanks, that worked for me.

[Torpedo]

I [no longer] need help from Mac power users.

Patience with machines which refuse to work as they should isn't one of my virtues. After struggling with the HDD trying to install Mountain Lion on my 2 year old MBP, the only solution I found has been formatting the HDD and installing from the OSX 10.6.3 DVD which came with the machine.

This has worked and now I've got the install from a SD Card progressing well.

Looks like I was right and the HDD has 0 problems. I don't know what could have gone wrong with the first install. Fortunately I didn't have any irreplaceable information in that computer

Edited August 4, 2012 by Torpedo

[blessingx]

Can't help on the above...

... but for the earlier 8GB v. 16GB rMBP discussions, this video may be of limited use. Probably not, but possibly.

[Knuckledragger]

My Macintop is now running on a 256GB Crucial M4 SSD. So far, so good. /me knocks on wood

Having been through this process once before, the second time was relatively painless. I had to use the Trim Enabler app in order to get Trim support working, but other than that there were no hiccups.

I'm sticking with OS 10.6.8 for now. I'm still concerned about 10.7 running too slowly on my geriatric laptop. I've read quite a few reports of 10.8 being significantly more responsive and efficient on older machines. Of course, 10.8 doesn't support my machine, so...

[Knuckledragger]

To follow up on my previous post, I have a question. Head-Case has [has a lot|is mostly made up] of Mac users. Many of you have older machines still in use. I'm curious about your experiences running Lion on an older model Mac. My main concern is not legacy app compatibility, but overall system performance. This machine is limited to 4GB of RAM, and has a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo CPU. It also has a horrific Intel graphics chipset with shared RAM. The new SDD makes load times super speedy, but there is not a lot of horsepower in this machine by today's standards.

At any given time, I run FFX (say, 10 tabs), and one of the following: Chrome (1-2 tabs, but often playing a YouTube video which gobbles up CPU cycles), Photoshop CS5 (bloated pig), Traktor (DJ software, efficient, but fairly hungry). I also run a bunch of small footprint apps: Transmission (torrent client), Twitter, Adium, Mail, etc.

To be honest, the main reason I'm considering upgrading to Lion is so I can use $%#&* 1Password. Also, 10.6.8 is kind of long in the tooth these days.

[Salt Peanuts]

I have a similarly spec'd Macbook, though with 8gb of RAM, that I run exclusively through an external monitor since the LCD is busted. It's got Lion on it and it is noticeably slower than it was with Snow Leopard. If it was my machine/used it with any regularity, I'd have gone back to SL.

[blessingx]

A lesson in there somewhere...

http://www.emptyage.com/post/28679875595/yes-i-was-hacked-hard

[HeadphoneAddict]

To follow up on my previous post, I have a question. Head-Case has [has a lot|is mostly made up] of Mac users. Many of you have older machines still in use. I'm curious about your experiences running Lion on an older model Mac. My main concern is not legacy app compatibility, but overall system performance. This machine is limited to 4GB of RAM, and has a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo CPU. It also has a horrific Intel graphics chipset with shared RAM. The new SDD makes load times super speedy, but there is not a lot of horsepower in this machine by today's standards.

At any given time, I run FFX (say, 10 tabs), and one of the following: Chrome (1-2 tabs, but often playing a YouTube video which gobbles up CPU cycles), Photoshop CS5 (bloated pig), Traktor (DJ software, efficient, but fairly hungry). I also run a bunch of small footprint apps: Transmission (torrent client), Twitter, Adium, Mail, etc.

To be honest, the main reason I'm considering upgrading to Lion is so I can use $%#&* 1Password. Also, 10.6.8 is kind of long in the tooth these days.

We have owned 5 old Macs with Lion and they were all useable, as long as we were not trying to run multiple users at one time with background tasks. One was a 3GB 2006 iMac, and a 3GB 2006 Macbook Pro, a 4GB 2007 Macbook, a 4GB 2009 Macbook (now 6GB), and a 8GB 2008 Macbook Pro. All with 2.0 to 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo.

With a hybrid HD and 4GB of RAM our early 2009 Macbook was not too bad with Lion (2Ghz Core 2 Duo), but it's better with 6GB. The older 3-4GB Macs are definitely slower with Lion vs Snow Leopard, but the 8GB Macbook Pro didn't seem to slow down at all. In fact, the Hyrbid drive makes the 2008 Macbook Pro 15" feel almost as quick as a 2012 Macbook Pro 13" which have a slow 5400 rpm drive. So your SSD should make things respond faster, especially since you'll be using virtual memory more often with 4GB.

There seems to be about 750MB - 1GB LESS free RAM with Lion, and I think that's where the slowdown comes from (since the 8GB Mac wasn't affected much). We found out from OWC that our 2009 Macbook could take 6GB, even though apple only supports 4GB with it. Apple only supports 6GB with the Macbook Pro, but with the latest firmware it could take 8GB. More RAM does help. You should see if it can actually take more than what Apple says it will.

If you can clone the HD or do a time machine backup, and then upgrade to Lion, if you don't like the drop in speed you can wipe the HD and restore the backup. (I always have 2 backups, with one off-site) I'm happy with the iCloud support in Lion, so I wouldn't go back. However, I think there is no reason why apple couldn't add iCloud to Snow Leopard other than forcing an OS or a hardware upgrade on those who don't buy new Macs often enough.

[Knuckledragger]

Thanks for the info, Salty and Larry. I'm really curious about the RAM upgrade. I bought my machine in the summer of 2008 with 2GB, and in the spring of 2011 I upgraded it to 4GB with an order from Memory X. I then had some terrible instability issues that ended with me re-installing OSX. After much back and forth with Memory X, they replaced the RAM ...in October. IIRC, they sent me a slightly different RAM type. I've had [knock on wood] a fairly stable OSX experience since then. This is the MemoryX page for my machine, which states 4GB is the max it can use. Conversely, OWC lists this (6GB) RAM pair as being compatible with my Machine (early 2008). I am of two minds on this. One, I don't want to go through another bout of RAM-induced instability. The number of kernel panics I had with the bad 4GB was insane. There's nothing like having one's laptop grind to a complete halt in the middle of a live DJ mix. That said, boy would another 2GB extend the life of this machine. It is my goal to keep this wheezy old lappy going as long as possible, so if and when AAPL finally does a proper refresh of the Mac Pro, I'll have sufficient funds necessary to buy one. There is no Mac Tax like the Mac Pro Tax. ...and if they don't refresh the sodding Mac Pro in 2013, I'm going to piss on Jobbsie's grave. >.<

WRT backups, I have an exhaustive assortment. I use Time Machine, I rsync to an external 1TB drive regularly, and mirror that drive 2x as well. I also have two images of my pre-SSD machine (the original 2.5" HDD, and a 3.5" clone). Based on what Larry said, I think I'm going to investigate the 6GB upgrade option first, and see (A) if my machine even runs with that combination and ( if so, how stable it is. If 6GB works out, I'll consider upgrading to Lion. I now have a 10.6-compatible version of 1Password, and (as I said before) I've got TRIM support enabled, so my need to upgrade to Lion is not as significant as it was previously.

[HeadphoneAddict]

Thanks for the info, Salty and Larry. I'm really curious about the RAM upgrade. I bought my machine in the summer of 2008 with 2GB, and in the spring of 2011 I upgraded it to 4GB with an order from Memory X. I then had some terrible instability issues that ended with me re-installing OSX. After much back and forth with Memory X, they replaced the RAM ...in October. IIRC, they sent me a slightly different RAM type. I've had [knock on wood] a fairly stable OSX experience since then. This is the MemoryX page for my machine, which states 4GB is the max it can use. Conversely, OWC lists this (6GB) RAM pair as being compatible with my Machine (early 2008). I am of two minds on this. One, I don't want to go through another bout of RAM-induced instability. The number of kernel panics I had with the bad 4GB was insane. There's nothing like having one's laptop grind to a complete halt in the middle of a live DJ mix. That said, boy would another 2GB extend the life of this machine. It is my goal to keep this wheezy old lappy going as long as possible, so if and when AAPL finally does a proper refresh of the Mac Pro, I'll have sufficient funds necessary to buy one. There is no Mac Tax like the Mac Pro Tax. ...and if they don't refresh the sodding Mac Pro in 2013, I'm going to piss on Jobbsie's grave. >.<

WRT backups, I have an exhaustive assortment. I use Time Machine, I rsync to an external 1TB drive regularly, and mirror that drive 2x as well. I also have two images of my pre-SSD machine (the original 2.5" HDD, and a 3.5" clone). Based on what Larry said, I think I'm going to investigate the 6GB upgrade option first, and see (A) if my machine even runs with that combination and ( if so, how stable it is. If 6GB works out, I'll consider upgrading to Lion. I now have a 10.6-compatible version of 1Password, and (as I said before) I've got TRIM support enabled, so my need to upgrade to Lion is not as significant as it was previously.

We know you have 2GB x 2, and both are good. So all you need is a good 4GB. I bought 4GB for $70 on Amazon, to replace one of the 2GB sticks, and it works great for 6GB total. I believe the early 2009 uses the same ram as yours.

http://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Memory-Signature-677MHz-PSD24G6672S/dp/tech-data/B004CVSV2W/ref=de_a_smtd

[909]

Just got my wife the new iPad for her birthday and she is thinking about getting a case, any recommendations? We've yet to do any research, so any reliable sources for reviews would be appreciated as well.

[grawk]

http://www.grovemade.com is what I have. It has a few minor quirks, but it is VERY nice.

[909]

thanks, Dan, i'll pass on the link to her. it's really neat that it's made out of real bamboo.

[n_maher]

I use a spec shell in conjunction with the apple smart cover. It's simple, but effective, and doens't cost too much.

[VPI]

I have been using the Apple Smart Case for a while now. I like it, kind of like the Smart Cover but protects all surfaces when closed instead of just the screen.

[cutestory]

For da iPads I like the Joy Factory Smartsuit 3. It's sturdy, secure, and the magnets in the cover secure themselves to the *back* of the case as well when it's open.

[909]

checking out the recommendations -- thank you.

[recstar24]

I have been using the Apple Smart Case for a while now. I like it, kind of like the Smart Cover but protects all surfaces when closed instead of just the screen.

I concur. I haz blue.

[Bigguy]

Tried the Apple Smart case and returned it. Hated the sharp edges. Tried a Speck case, plastic to stiff. Finally settled on a Belkin case I got at Costco. Works great.

[crappyjones123]

Fresh install of mountain lion 2 days ago. Running mighty nice on my 2011 MBA

[HeadphoneAddict]

i just noticed that ML allows system wide AirPlay, so AirFoil is now pretty well redundant. i got good use out of my AirFoil license, so it's not a big deal.

You still need airfoil if you want to send audio to your iPhone or iPad/Touch. For a while Airfoil Speakers Touch app on the iPhone/iPad would let you turn them into an airplay device for an extra in-app purchase, and you didn't need airfoil on the Mac. But Apple made them take it out of the iPhone app, and so now you need the companion app on the Mac. I missed the window of opportunity for that, but I pretty much use several airport expresses and Apple TV's around the house for that anyway.