Help me get a PC, I don't know shit.

[rutabowa]

OK I think I have it figured out now but it's going to take up to four weeks for my box thing to arrive. Bummer.

I tuned on my mac the other day to and did some sort of set up thing, can I change all that later or am I stuck with it now?

you can change it later.
also yuo can scan for other peoples wirelesses straight away, and if they don't have a password you can steal it.

 

[stdPikachu]

Virgin are shit.

Truth.

Wireless is fine as long as a) you secure it properly (this means using WPA/WPA2 encryption with a decently long key) and b) you don't need stellar network speeds, which you probably don't.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

you can change it later.
also yuo can scan for other peoples wirelesses straight away, and if they don't have a password you can steal it.

I did. They had a password.

 

[Crispy]

Curse them!

Here's a funky thing to try with your new mac. Hold down Ctrl and scroll the wheel up and down on the mouse. Wheeee!

 

[Meltingpot]

No.

Why not? I'm not saying I disagree, I just haven't seen a modern one.

As for broadband, I've heard good things about Tiscali (from a relative).

 

[rutabowa]

Curse them!

Here's a funky thing to try with your new mac. Hold down Ctrl and scroll the wheel up and down on the mouse. Wheeee!

Press F11 a couple of times... then hold down shift and press it! it's like time slowing down.

 

[stdPikachu]

As for broadband, I've heard good things about Tiscali (from a relative).

Is your relative on crack?

Firms under the Tiscali umbrella are renowned through the country for providing shitty, slow service if you want anything besides email and web browsing. And I can speak from experience that their tech support is stultifyingly appalling.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Curse them!

Here's a funky thing to try with your new mac. Hold down Ctrl and scroll the wheel up and down on the mouse. Wheeee!

No mouse wheel.

What happens?

 

[Bob_the_lost]

Why not? I'm not saying I disagree, I just haven't seen a modern one.

As for broadband, I've heard good things about Tiscali (from a relative).

They're expensive and once you've made the effort of learning windows in the first place the nicer OS isn't all that impressive. (imo obviously )

 

[Crispy]

No mouse wheel.

What happens?

You can zoom in and out on any part of the screen.

It's more fiddly with the keyboard. First you have to enable it with alt-apple-8 then zoom in and out with alt-apple- + or -

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

That sounds like fun. I do have a mouse with a wheel but when I plugged it into my keyboard it didn't work, whereas the mac mouse (more basic) did.

I had a quick go at the video thing last night. As an AVID editor by trade I found it a bit basic but a nice smooth bit of fun for family videos. Well done mac.

I think the layout in general of the mini mac looks a bit like toyland though, all those daft icons on the bottom of the screen piss me off a bit. Loads of other things I can't figure out but I'm sure all will become clear later. (why doesn't it bother asking me for a profile password anymore?)

 

[Crispy]

You only need to put the password in when doing things that affect the system - eg. changing some settings, installing programs, applying updates.

Go to system settings (lightswitch icon) and find the Dock settings - you can turn off the 'growing and shrinking' dock icons here.

It would be a good idea to drag your Applications folder onto the dock, just to the left of the Trash, so you can get to it easily.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

My first I video.


Oh, and how do I disable the bloody itunes? When I set it up I thought it would be a good Idea to send everything there regardless, but everytime i clicked on my video it made a new copy in I tunes. I think I would rather just keep my stuff in folders and send them to I tunes when I want. It seems to be making an actual copy and not just linking media, this can't be right can it? I expect I am wrong.

 

[tarannau]

My first I video.


Oh, and how do I disable the bloody itunes? When I set it up I thought it would be a good Idea to send everything there regardless, but everytime i clicked on my video it made a new copy in I tunes. I think I would rather just keep my stuff in folders and send them to I tunes when I want. It seems to be making an actual copy and not just linking media, this can't be right can it? I expect I am wrong.

There's a tick in the preferences somewhere that stores all itunes files in the same place by default. You can uncheck this and Bob's your uncle.

To be fair, it's actually quite helpful at consolidating your files in one place.

 

[Crispy]

itunes shouldn't be playing your videos or mp3s by default - this is an option you can choose in itunes. otherwise, the library copying thing is useful, because it makes sure everything is stored in one place. it means once itunes has something, you can delete the version you downloaded.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

itunes shouldn't be playing your videos or mp3s by default - this is an option you can choose in itunes. otherwise, the library copying thing is useful, because it makes sure everything is stored in one place. it means once itunes has something, you can delete the version you downloaded.

Humm, I will give it some thought. It's a new way of thinking.

 

[Crispy]

It is in a way. Stop thinking about files and folders and just think about 'my music'

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Hold on though. What if I want a separate drive running my music? I only have 160 gig on the mini. If I put all my CDs on that there won't be much space for anything else.

 

[Crispy]

Go into preferences and change the itunes music folder location.

 

[Xanadu]

It is in a way. Stop thinking about files and folders and just think about 'my music'

That's great until you want to use another player to play or organise your music.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

How do I stop things being auto sent to itunes? I can't find it anywhere.

 

[Crispy]

And when you do, you'll find all your music, sensibly organised in folders, ready to use. Nothing prevents you from doing so.

 

[Crispy]

How do I stop things being auto sent to itunes? I can't find it anywhere.

In preferences, advanced, find "copy music to my itunes library" - turn this off.

Bear in mind that this will mean that music you haven't ripped directly with itunes will live wherever you first play the file from. move it, and itunes won't find it again.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Firstly, for some reason I could not find "copy music to my itunes library " int he advanced prefrences" (I'm not at my computer right now so I can assume I was being a idiot though).

Secondly, are all these files being copied twice if they go to itunes, or is that only if I try to save them somewhere else?

Thirdly, (and I think we have been though this before) I can still take the files ripped on itunes and dump them on my MP3 player right?

Thanks for all this Crispy, I can imagine its a bit annoying.

 

[Crispy]

It's the "Copy files to iTunes Music Folder" option.

This will mean that you have to look after the location of your music files yourself. If you have some music files on the desktop and you dragndrop them onto iTunes, then those files on the desktop are the only copy of that music you have. If you move those files, iTunes will think they've been deleted. If you delete them, they won't be in iTunes anymore.

It also means that, if you're not careful, you'll end up with your music files all over the place - some in /music/iTunes music library/, some in desktop/new music/downloaded/, some in /documents/album of my mate scott/ and so on. When it comes to backing up, or transferring to a new computer, or using different playing software, this will be a PAIN. I can almost guarantee you'll lose music this way.

If you're going to keep your music on a different drive, follow the steps on this page to move your library to another location:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748

While you're in preferences, go to advanced, importing and set it to MP3, instead of AAC. I do 160kbps VBR, but you can do whatever you like.

Videos should open by default in Quicktime, not iTunes - I'm not sure why it should be any other way round


When you've got things working the way you want, btw, you should download this: http://itunes.pluginsworld.com/plugins/apple/930/badfruit/badapple.html which will let you use iTunes to manage your MP3 players.

 

[tarannau]

That's great until you want to use another player to play or organise your music.

I don't really get this reservation. What'swrong with having all your music in one location, automatically sorted into artist and album folders for you?

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Videos should open by default in Quicktime, not iTunes - I'm not sure why it should be any other way round


.

It did but, if I clicked on the video that I saved in 'videos' it made a copy to itunes, I ended up with 8 copies.

 

[Crispy]

That's very odd - I have no idea what's going on there

 

[Xanadu]

I don't really get this reservation. What'swrong with having all your music in one location, automatically sorted into artist and album folders for you?

Windows Media Player used to do the same thing and it got slated to fuck.

I thought iTunes organised music like an iPod - one directory with weird names

 

[Crispy]

Nope, it goes Artist/Album/01 - Trackname.mp3

nice and sensible like