Top Mac Tips Please

iviv

Right then, go in search of ... a 22" DVI monitor to let it show you just how brilliant is the little MacBook you've bought and how marvellously well its software works.

You'll forgive me if I throw in a quick :rolleyes:, right?

lee634

Leopard

Your point 9 (partitions)

will this make a great deal of difference to speed ie programs starting, The reason i say this is since i installed leopard over the top of tiger, my MBP does seem a little slower at starting progs, also its about time i had a decent clean out so thinking about a fresh install so may as well have a bit of protection with the partition at the same time

nomoneytoday

My tip is to go to on the free training courses at your local mac store
They teach OSX, iLife, Final cut and more - did I mention that they are all free. 1-2-1 tuition is also available for $99 a year

Leopard

Lee,

I don't really know how much partitioning the drive speeds it up - although it does to some extent because each volume has its own directory, which thus has to look through a much lesser amount of data in the partition to find something.

The reason that I do it is to keep my data separate from everything else. Note that I also keep my iPhoto Library, my Aperture Library, my iMovie Library and my iTunes Music Folder in my data partition and not in my system & applications partition.

It's second nature to me now; I've been doing it for years - since System 7 days.

It's really handy to be able to completely erase the system partition and then put a clean install of the next OS straight into it. If you've also attached a Firewire drive with your old system on it, then, when you run the new system for the first time, it will ask you if you want to import your settings from another Mac; you then just navigate it to the old system and it pulls in all your preferences and such - leaving you with the new system completely personalised.

By the same token you can just drag and drop your data folders from one drive to another in a simple move, by Firewire or by Ethernet, leaving your system intact in its own partition.

It's handy to have more than one Firewire drive, too: not least because of the ease with which you can daisy-chain them. I seldom run the OS X DVD (as outlined): I keep a disk image of it on an old laptop drive now housed in a Firewire enclosure and run that, instead. It's a lot faster than the DVD.

Partitioning gives you so much more flexibility.

Remember, though, that some of your data (e.g your email) does reside in your system partition.

Key to it all is having several external Firewire drives and keeping plenty of backups. I renew my laptop drives routinely after about 18 months or two years, as a precaution against failure and because larger capacity ones have become cheaper, so I've got quite a few in active semi-retirement, housed in Firewire enclosures.


NoMoTo,

I agree with you entirely; it's really great if you can. But you have to remember that many people live a long way from their nearest Apple Retail Store.


iViv,

iviv wrote: »

You'll forgive me if I throw in a quick :rolleyes:, right?

I'm sure you'll forgive me if I don't give a toss what you do.

patflanel

try these sites
http://www.mactips.org/
http://www.mactipsandtricks.com/
http://mactips.info/tips/

Also as said before the official Apple site has loads of tutorials and tips.
Enjoy your Mac

lee634

Leopard
Since you seem to be the font of all OS x Knowledge need to pick you brains,

ok so I have done a clean reload, and partitioned drive,

how do i put all personal data (music) etc in the data partition and have my so that when i click on my home directory in finder the folders contained in my home dir are actually on the data partition,

Hope that made some sense??

Leopard

lee634 wrote: »

Leopard

Since you seem to be the font of all OS x Knowledge need to pick you brains,

ok so I have done a clean reload, and partitioned drive,

how do i put all personal data (music) etc in the data partition and have my so that when i click on my home directory in finder the folders contained in my home dir are actually on the data partition,

Hope that made some sense??

:eek: Please tell me you backed everything up first! :eek:

Alright, don't panic. It's just that you haven't fully explained what kit you are using and what you've done.

MacBook Pro, right?

Which model?

How big is the hard drive in it?

To where, and how, did you "restore" (i.e. copy) the data that was on it before you partitioned it?

How many partitions have you created and what size are they?

What steps have you taken to put a new system into the first partition?

Is your ProBook booting off it alright?



How did you store your data previously?

(By "data" I mean folders of Word documents, folders of Excel documents, folders of photographs, JPEGs, and stuff like that.)

You should be able just to drag and drop these folders to their new partition and then delete the old ones.

As I wrote before, you can't put ALL your data into to your new partition. You shouldn't move your Home folder (the one with the little house icon on it) out of your system partition - and it doesn't like you just moving its folders to another partition and only leaving it with an Alias where they were before.

Aperture and all the iLife 08 applications except iTunes are happy to let you store their Libraries in your data partition, though; but you have to tell each application where to find them.

However, iTunes is different: it's Apple's cash cow and Apple is very protective about what it will let you do with it.

That's not a problem, however. Whereas the other apps keep the title of Library, for iTunes you create a folder called "iTunes Music Folder" in your data partition.

So, then, to start with iTunes. Create (manually) a folder called "iTunes Music Folder" in your data partition.

Then follow THESE instructions.


For Aperture and the other iLife 08 applications, open each application, one at a time, and you'll find the instructions in their "Help".

In other words, fire up, say, iPhoto. In the drop-down menu from "Help" (on the toolbar) select "iPhoto Help". On the page that then appears type "Library move" in to the search window. This will give you (it takes a few seconds, so wait patiently) a list of topics. The second one on the list should be "Moving your iPhoto Library folder to a new location."

It's the same procedure for the other apps.

In each case, follow the instructions. Once you are sure that the apps are now finding their Libraries (and everything that is in them) in your data partition, you can then - if you wish to - erase their original Libraries (but not the iTunes one) in the Home folder on your system partition. Alternatively, you can keep them as a backup for a while.

Tell me the answers to the questions I posed at the beginning of this posting and let me know how it goes.

There should be no danger to your data in doing this (unless you failed to copy it off before you erased your hard drive by partitioning it). I can think of a certain dimwit currently in Turkey who might have been dumb enough to do that but I very much doubt that you were!

lee634

ok point 1 I'm not THAT dumb :rotfl::rotfl:

copied all data to external 250Mb WD USB2 HD
(don't worry IT literate but not quite osx)
Macbook pro 17" 2.33Ghz 2Gb Ram

fresh load of leopard
created 2nd partition
System is 85Gb
Data is 63GB

understand about creating folders in data partition and how the libraries work but did read about moving home dir to another partition Here thought that's what you meant didn't really understand it and was confused with netinfo manager so didn't start. think all is going well just need to sort itunes and iphoto libraries out then all sorted i think

lee634

The machine is a beautiful work of art, the only problem in my case is that being of the aluminum design, it does tend to get a bit grubby with sweaty hands,

unfortunatley it is 2 x 1GB ram, but having just taken a look at your link the extra 1GB does make quite a huge difference as opposed to adding an extra 2 with doesn't make a great difference as you would think,

With regards the link to the charger that does seem quite and ingenious idea,
I like the fact that it will run cooler, once again prolonging its life.

shall have to have a think about the extra RAM and the charger, still trying to persuade the OH to let me get the IPhone ;-)

Idiophreak

Leopard wrote: »

3. Find and befriend your local/nearest Apple dealer and Apple Retail Store.

...because you'll be taking things back there a lot...

Can't believe I didn't mention that myself...;)