The OFFICIAL Mac User Support Thread - Part 2

[BAH HUMBBUG!]

Originally Posted by Anita18

An SSD failing is probably the reason why I wouldn't spring for one without considering a backup plan. From what my cousin (a computerphile) say, the lifespan of an SSD is actually about the same as a regular hard drive.

BUT, when/if it fails, it fails spectacularly and there is no recovering your files like with a regular hard drive. (If a regular hard drive fails, you can often recover your files if you get someone who knows what they're doing.) This just means you have to be pretty diligent about backing up your files onto an external drive or the cloud on a regular basis.

1. From everything I've read, this is absolutely true, the failure rate appears to be just about dead even with a spinning HDD.

2. I'd be interested in seeing some numbers, because from what I know, they are actually incredibly easy to recover data from. Where as spinning HDD can require clean room status to recover data, and that is not even close to cheap.

[wiegeabo]

Yeah, I've heard recovery from SSD is much easier.

[Golgo-13]

Will MacKeeper actually help my old Power Mac G4 run better?

[wiegeabo]

MacKeeper is a scam.

There's freeware that will do what MacKeeper claims it does. And most users I've read consider it malware.

Hell, I've never installed it, but every time I open Chrome on my Mac, it pops up the MacKeeper website in a new tab! I've picked up some kind of nasty from their website or something that I just can't find.

Although, I bet if I installed it, it would find it

[Golgo-13]

^Thanks. Names on the freeware? I know i could google search it, but i'd rather use something that ppl on here have used and works.

[wiegeabo]

No idea. I don't use anything.

Mac does a pretty good job of taking care of itself. And I don't install a ton of stuff on it anyway.

I just wish stuff built for Apple had better uninstallers.

[Golgo-13]

So my G4 is basically screwed then?

[wiegeabo]

Depends what's wrong with it

[Golgo-13]

Alot of things, especially on the internet, are slow. Youtube vids or even SHH pages that have gifs on them are slow at loading. I get the spinning 'beach ball' alot.

[BAH HUMBBUG!]

Originally Posted by Golgo-13

Will MacKeeper actually help my old Power Mac G4 run better?

Mackeep is a POS, trust me. I've toyed with it just to see what it does. Just some moronic examples of it "helping clean" your system.

1. It deletes files, any files that have not been opened in X amount of time. Any, documents, photos, mp3s and most files that have not been opened in that amount of time.

2. It deletes actual system files that actually keep the machine running properly.

Originally Posted by Golgo-13

Alot of things, especially on the internet, are slow. Youtube vids or even SHH pages that have gifs on them are slow at loading. I get the spinning 'beach ball' alot.

1. Do you live anywhere near an Apple store? The genius bar will look at it for free.

2. Is all of your data backed up?

3. Do you know what Disk Utility is, or how to use it?

4. Could you be more specific about the internet connectivity issues? Wireless or over Ethernet? How long are wait periods? Does this happen more with Flash based items, video or other?

5. How full is your HD? Do you know how to check this?

6. What OS X are you running?

7. How much RAM do you have? Do you know what Activity Monitor is, and how to use it?

8. How many "things" are you doing at once? Or how many applications do you have open at once? How many tabs, or windows, do you have open in your browser?

9. Is the beach ball exclusive to online, internet activity, or do you also experience it using any non-internet based applications? If so, how often do you experience it and how long does it last?

Let's start there.

Also, as weig stated, a person using a mac generally doesn't need any applications that claim to clean up or improve the performance of your mac. If you would like, I can explain why.

[Golgo-13]

Originally Posted by BAH HUMBBUG!

1. Do you live anywhere near an Apple store? The genius bar will look at it for free.

Yes. I just assume my comp is outdated as to why i'm having all the issues. I have a MacBokk Pro also, and it's like lightning compared to my G4.

2. Is all of your data backed up?

Yes.

3. Do you know what Disk Utility is, or how to use it?

Yes. I do routine 'repair permission on all 4 of the hard drives i have installed in it.

4. Could you be more specific about the internet connectivity issues? Wireless or over Ethernet? How long are wait periods? Does this happen more with Flash based items, video or other?

Ethernet, and the wait periods are several mintues for youtube vids. My MacPro plays them as soon as i click on them, so the difference is like night and day.

5. How full is your HD? Do you know how to check this?

Got over 20 GB of free space on start up disk. Plenty on other 3 disks

6. What OS X are you running?

10.5.8

7. How much RAM do you have? Do you know what Activity Monitor is, and how to use it?

8. How many "things" are you doing at once? Or how many applications do you have open at once? How many tabs, or windows, do you have open in your browser?

2, 3 at most. Mainly Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop coupled with Safari and Itunes.

9. Is the beach ball exclusive to online, internet activity, or do you also experience it using any non-internet based applications? If so, how often do you experience it and how long does it last?

Mainly online, although i periodically get it when running the Adobe software.

[BAH HUMBBUG!]

Originally Posted by Golgo-13

Yes. I just assume my comp is outdated as to why i'm having all the issues. I have a MacBokk Pro also, and it's like lightning compared to my G4.

Fair.

Yes.

Yes. I do routine 'repair permission on all 4 of the hard drives i have installed in it.

Have you tried verify disk? See if it passes or fails.

Ethernet, and the wait periods are several mintues for youtube vids. My MacPro plays them as soon as i click on them, so the difference is like night and day.

You also have a MacPro, in addition to your MBP?

Got over 20 GB of free space on start up disk. Plenty on other 3 disks

20GB free out of a total of?

10.5.8

That should be fine.

RAM, 1GB, 2GB? You can see it in a few places. 1.  icon in the top left corner. 2. About this mac. 3. See how much RAM you have aka Memory.
Activity monitor is also in your utilities folder. It will also tell you how much RAM/Memory you have available, and how much of it you are using. This is important.

2, 3 at most. Mainly Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop coupled with Safari and Itunes.

Hmm....interesting. Do you know how to reset Safari? If yes, how often do you do this? And do you reset everything?

Mainly online, although i periodically get it when running the Adobe software.

Most likely is not your HD then.

[Golgo-13]

Originally Posted by BAH HUMBBUG!

Have you tried verify disk? See if it passes or fails.

I'll try it.

You also have a MacPro, in addition to your MBP?

Just a MacBook Pro 17

20GB free out of a total of?

..out of 55.89

RAM, 1GB, 2GB? You can see it in a few places. 1.  icon in the top left corner. 2. About this mac. 3. See how much RAM you have aka Memory.
Activity monitor is also in your utilities folder. It will also tell you how much RAM/Memory you have available, and how much of it you are using. This is important.

Memory 2 GB DDR SDRAM.

First time i've even looked at Activity monitor. Have no clue what i'm looking at!

Hmm....interesting. Do you know how to reset Safari? If yes, how often do you do this? And do you reset everything?

Yes, i reset everything except or te username and passwords; maybe once every two months or so.

[Anita18]

Originally Posted by Golgo-13

2, 3 at most. Mainly Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop coupled with Safari and Itunes.

I have a 2008 Macbook Pro and Photoshop KILLS my RAM. So bad. I use Fireworks if I can help it.

Safari kills my RAM too, and it's especially bad when there are Flash components on a page. I use Chrome, it's a whole lot better. Safari takes like, 5 minutes to even boot up. Same as iTunes. I only use iTunes to download/listen to my podcasts, and syncing music to my iPod. Otherwise I don't have it open. It eats too much RAM.

Originally Posted by Golgo-13

First time i've even looked at Activity monitor. Have no clue what i'm looking at!

I always have Activity Monitor open on my desktop, so I can check how fast my computer is running. I have the "System Memory" page visible at all times. If you lock it to your dock, you can look at the pie chart every time the dock is visible. You want the pie chart to have some green, basically. It's fine if it's not green as long as your computer's fan isn't whirring like woh, because the Mac doles out RAM differently (and supposedly more efficiently) than other computers. But if the fan is whirring and there's no green, it's time to kill some programs.

You can DEFINITELY see the RAM usage difference between Photoshop and Fireworks if you watch the Activity Monitor as you use them.

[Golgo-13]

^Thanks! I'm going to try that! The problem you have with your Macbook is the same issues i have with my G4. Flash components, etc kills it.

My MacBook Pro17 however seems fine at the moment...

[BAH HUMBBUG!]

Originally Posted by Golgo-13

1. I'll try it.

2.Just a MacBook Pro 17

3..out of 55.89

4.Memory 2 GB DDR SDRAM.

5. First time i've even looked at Activity monitor. Have no clue what i'm looking at!

6. Yes, i reset everything except or te username and passwords; maybe once every two months or so.

Bare with me. Numbering helps me keep better track.

1. Results from verify disk?

2. Gotcha, when you say MacPro, I think of the...MacPro. Your 17" MBP should be perfectly capable of handling what you're doing, with the exception of Flash, heavy video/graphic rendering and multiple items running at once, meaning 10 or more programs/applications all up and running.

3.Okay, good. That's more than enough, with smaller/older HDs, typically the minimum space needed is no less than 10% free space.

4. Good amount, and probably the max your machine can take.

5. I can help with that. Activity monitor shows you all of the processes and tasks and the hardware that they are using in your machine in order to run. Make sense? So for example Safari requires X amount of power from the CPU, this will be shown under, CPU with a % number. It is generally pretty low. Although the more windows you have open, the more tabs you have open, the longer of a time span it has been since the user has quit Safari, or reset it, or just restarted their machine. As for the rest of the tabs at the bottom, they are all pretty self explanatory. System Memory shows the user how much RAM/Memory is being used, or you can use the menu and organize from which processes is using the most RAM and so on. The menu bar next to search and just above show has All Processes selected, I prefer this to just any one user account, as you can see everything running on your machine. Most of which is required by OS X, so only concern yourself with those applications you are using. Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by Anita18

1. I have a 2008 Macbook Pro and Photoshop KILLS my RAM. So bad. I use Fireworks if I can help it.

2. Safari kills my RAM too, and it's especially bad when there are Flash components on a page. I use Chrome, it's a whole lot better. Safari takes like, 5 minutes to even boot up. Same as iTunes. I only use iTunes to download/listen to my podcasts, and syncing music to my iPod. Otherwise I don't have it open. It eats too much RAM.


3. I always have Activity Monitor open on my desktop, so I can check how fast my computer is running. I have the "System Memory" page visible at all times. If you lock it to your dock, you can look at the pie chart every time the dock is visible. You want the pie chart to have some green, basically. It's fine if it's not green as long as your computer's fan isn't whirring like woh, because the Mac doles out RAM differently (and supposedly more efficiently) than other computers. But if the fan is whirring and there's no green, it's time to kill some programs.

4. You can DEFINITELY see the RAM usage difference between Photoshop and Fireworks if you watch the Activity Monitor as you use them.

1. Not unusual, mind if I ask what Fireworks is? I guess I could use the internets.

2. Safari is actually pretty light, but most browsers are. The difference between any of the major ones, when we are discussing RAM usage, Safari, Firefox, Chrome, or Opera. Is negligible, we're really splitting hairs here. They all launch, with approximately 60MB or RAM usage. More important than any of the apps individually, is what you're doing with/in them. Flash is a RAM hog, which is why Jobs took the stance that he did against Adobe Flash. It's not very lightweight, in any web browser. Also depending on the above factors mentioned, resetting any of them, quitting versus closing, multiple windows and tabs, and so on. Is a much bigger factor in how much RAM they are allocating, instead of the web browser themselves. Imho, choosing a web browser is all a personal preference, unless the user has specific needs.

3. Fans come on for different reasons, not just because all RAM is allocated/in use.

4. I assume Fireworks is a Photoshop alternative. And I wouldn't be surprised, most Adobe products are not RAM friendly, but with an application where the user usually works for hours on end with dozens if not hundreds of changes and layers, it is what it is.

Originally Posted by Golgo-13

1.^Thanks! I'm going to try that! The problem you have with your Macbook is the same issues i have with my G4. Flash components, etc kills it.

2. My MacBook Pro17 however seems fine at the moment...

1. As mentioned above, Adobe Flash is just a resource hog in general. It's not just you.

2. I have the last silver key, or non-unibody 17" MBP and it does just fine, but the two things that more often than not, eat up my RAM or cause my fans to kick on, generally involve either video rendering of some type, and Flash in use for a decently long period of time. Ten to thirty minutes.

[Anita18]

Originally Posted by BAH HUMBBUG!

1. Not unusual, mind if I ask what Fireworks is? I guess I could use the internets.

2. Safari is actually pretty light, but most browsers are. The difference between any of the major ones, when we are discussing RAM usage, Safari, Firefox, Chrome, or Opera. Is negligible, we're really splitting hairs here. They all launch, with approximately 60MB or RAM usage. More important than any of the apps individually, is what you're doing with/in them. Flash is a RAM hog, which is why Jobs took the stance that he did against Adobe Flash. It's not very lightweight, in any web browser. Also depending on the above factors mentioned, resetting any of them, quitting versus closing, multiple windows and tabs, and so on. Is a much bigger factor in how much RAM they are allocating, instead of the web browser themselves. Imho, choosing a web browser is all a personal preference, unless the user has specific needs.

3. Fans come on for different reasons, not just because all RAM is allocated/in use.

4. I assume Fireworks is a Photoshop alternative. And I wouldn't be surprised, most Adobe products are not RAM friendly, but with an application where the user usually works for hours on end with dozens if not hundreds of changes and layers, it is what it is.




1. As mentioned above, Adobe Flash is just a resource hog in general. It's not just you.

2. I have the last silver key, or non-unibody 17" MBP and it does just fine, but the two things that more often than not, eat up my RAM or cause my fans to kick on, generally involve either video rendering of some type, and Flash in use for a decently long period of time. Ten to thirty minutes.

Yeah Fireworks is a semi-Photoshop alternative. It's made for screen design. You can do pretty much the same thing design-wise on Fireworks as you can in Photoshop, it's just A LOT lighter. Of course Photoshop is better for actual photos, but it depends on what you're doing. If you just want to make a button with a gradient on it or a mockup of a website, Fireworks is better.

For some reason Safari opens up super-slow on me. I don't have that many extensions associated with it (it's still a good number), but Chrome opens up very quickly with all the extensions I want so that's what I use now. It also doesn't slow down as badly with video rendering, although yeah, it still slows down some.

[BAH HUMBBUG!]

Originally Posted by Anita18

1. Yeah Fireworks is a semi-Photoshop alternative. It's made for screen design. You can do pretty much the same thing design-wise on Fireworks as you can in Photoshop, it's just A LOT lighter. Of course Photoshop is better for actual photos, but it depends on what you're doing. If you just want to make a button with a gradient on it or a mockup of a website, Fireworks is better.

2. For some reason Safari opens up super-slow on me. I don't have that many extensions associated with it (it's still a good number), but Chrome opens up very quickly with all the extensions I want so that's what I use now. It also doesn't slow down as badly with video rendering, although yeah, it still slows down some.

1. Ah, that makes sense. I'll keep that in mind.

2. Hmm...something is wrong. A. Do you know how to create a new user account? If not I can walk you through it. B. Do you know how to delete Safari and re-install it?

[Golgo-13]

Originally Posted by BAH HUMBBUG!

Bare with me. Numbering helps me keep better track.

1. Results from verify disk?

Just ran it on all 4 of my HD. All say "[drive name] seems to be o.k''

5. I can help with that. Activity monitor shows you all of the processes and tasks and the hardware that they are using in your machine in order to run. Make sense? So for example Safari requires X amount of power from the CPU, this will be shown under, CPU with a % number. It is generally pretty low. Although the more windows you have open, the more tabs you have open, the longer of a time span it has been since the user has quit Safari, or reset it, or just restarted their machine. As for the rest of the tabs at the bottom, they are all pretty self explanatory. System Memory shows the user how much RAM/Memory is being used, or you can use the menu and organize from which processes is using the most RAM and so on. The menu bar next to search and just above show has All Processes selected, I prefer this to just any one user account, as you can see everything running on your machine. Most of which is required by OS X, so only concern yourself with those applications you are using. Hope that helps.

^This is going to take some getting used to.

Two programs i run that really slow my G4 down are 'Roxio Toast' as i burn a lot of dvd, etc and 'Disc label' which i use to Light scribe my dvd's. When i run either of these programs, i shut everything else off, as everything slows down to a crawl while they're running.

[BAH HUMBBUG!]

Originally Posted by Golgo-13

1. Just ran it on all 4 of my HD. All say "[drive name] seems to be o.k''



2. ^This is going to take some getting used to.

Two programs i run that really slow my G4 down are 'Roxio Toast' as i burn a lot of dvd, etc and 'Disc label' which i use to Light scribe my dvd's. When i run either of these programs, i shut everything else off, as everything slows down to a crawl while they're running.

1. Okay, they most likely are, but just keep in mind, that DU only runs a surface scan of the HD, not a full threaded scan.

2. I can help with that, once it makes sense, it's pretty easy to read an understand. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

[Golgo-13]

Anyone else having issue with Safari 6.0? I keep setting my home page in preferences but it doesn't open up on that page when i open up safari..is does this on my MacBook btw..?

Not to mention i just finally figured out how to get rid of that god awful reading list feature..

[BAH HUMBBUG!]

Originally Posted by Golgo-13

Anyone else having issue with Safari 6.0? I keep setting my home page in preferences but it doesn't open up on that page when i open up safari..is does this on my MacBook btw..?

Not to mention i just finally figured out how to get rid of that god awful reading list feature..

lol.

Do you know where the safari.plist file is for your user account?
Have you tried to delete safari then re-install (make sure you download first or download another web browser before you do this.)
Do you know how to create a new user account?

[wiegeabo]

What's wrong with Reading List?

[Golgo-13]

Originally Posted by BAH HUMBBUG!

lol.

Do you know where the safari.plist file is for your user account?
Have you tried to delete safari then re-install (make sure you download first or download another web browser before you do this.)
Do you know how to create a new user account?

No, no and no..lol! It was fine a week ago, then just started mis-behaving. It's not a big issue, i was just wandering if i had something set wrong.

[BAH HUMBBUG!]

1. You need to get to the user library. Are you running SL, Lion or ML?
2. Try deleting Safari.
3. System Preferences: Accounts or Users & Groups: Unlock Padlock, Create new Admin User Account, call it test, no password. Log in over there, see what happens.
4. Report back findings.