Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

Anyone got a recommendation for headphones with a button for music control on iPhone (think it works on iPod too), in ear, not noise cancelling?

I like the Etymotic Research earbuds. They're well-isolated, but don't do active noise cancellation.

Our mac mini server is being a fuck. Can access files on there from connected macs, but on the server itself nearly everything has little red 'no way' icons on them, and says I don't have permission to access them.

Repaired permissions 5x times, still no joy.

Any ideas? or is it a trip to see the geniuses?

Just incase anyone else runs into the same problem, the server profile (user) wasn't added to the group that was set up with access to those files.

I would have thought the server profile would have super permissions or something, but apparently not.

The genius bar guy just apologised a lot. They don't get training on server stuff, and he didn't really know. Nice guy, but frustrating situation to be in. So, I asked him if it could be that (took a guess) and he said yeah probably. Wen't back to work, plugged everything in and tried it. Bingo.

Could have saved myself a trip with a bit more thought.

is it worth extending my MBP's one year warranty? I keep getting the fan go on for ages, and it gets really hot - last time it was (according to the...ahem...'Genius') some incomplete uninstall of an M Audio pro tools interface, and something was sending out hundreds and hundreds of packets of data (or flags whatever) and the system was getting bogged down and the processor working really hard

This time, dunno - but I have no end of problems with a mini DVI to display port adaptor - sometimes external monitor comes on no problem - sometimes it comes on and I've lost my desktop - sometimes it refuses to come on

Anyway, worth extending?

If you can afford it, yeah. Having another 2 years of free repairs etc is a good piece of mind.

Something always fucks up after a year when you don't have it ;)

true true. Pricey though.....

Not as pricey as a new logic board, or screen, or laptop ;)

How much is it, £200? That's 27p a day to sleep well at night.

Bargain.

Or a chocolate bar in old money.

Probably wouldn't even cover a 2 years supply of horlicks...

Hello mac folk.

My laptop is slowly dying, and I have decided to switch over to a macbook.
Apple has the black friday sale on today, so was planning on getting something either online, or in the store after work.

The macbook air 13" 128gb and the macbook pro 13" are the same price.
Which should I choose?... It's only going to be used for day to day stuff. Maybe a bit of photoshopping every now and then.... So I dont really need the extra power of the pro, but it seems silly not to get it if its the same price as the air?

I'm new to macs, so any advice would be appreciated!

Also, I would still like to keep using my old laptop for a few things, so would like a portable hard drive I can use easily with both operating systems.... any reccomendations? 500/750GB.

If you travel a lot with your laptop, go macbook air, otherwise the 13

I'd get the smallest Air and a Cinema Display, can't work on those titchy screens

Not too keen on the student discount, as I hear it can be a pain in the ass if you have problems down the line. The Black Friday sale today is 10% off.

Dont really need to cart the HD around, but dont really want one that requires a seperate power supply. Just a normal 2.5 inch jobby.

I'd get the smallest Air and a Cinema Display, can't work on those titchy screens

This is what I thought. I dont need to travel with it a huge amount, but if I had something more portable like the air, I probably would.
I think i need to go into the store and play around with both to decide!

if you go air + display then the thunderbolt displays are a waste of money as you can only use it with that machine, if you're going that route buy a dell monitor or one of the cheap ips screens for 1/3rd of the money and you can hook all your other devices up to it as well (dvd, xbox, ps3, windows laptops, anything else with hdmi output).

Not buying a display.
I have a giganto HDTV I can use if I require larger screen.

Good set up, add a wireless keyboard and mouse and you're in flavour-country. However the wireless mouse is properly uncomfortable IMO, maybe I've just got stupid hands (copyright: Futurama)

With an Apple TV you can connect to your TV wirelessly. This could be bollocks.

as far as HDD's go I like the western digital 'my passport' drives for portable bus powered storage.

With an Apple TV you can connect to your TV wirelessly. This could be bollocks.

I looked at apple TV, but you can only stream video via iTunes. Which is shit.... It doesnt actually stream what you see on you laptop screen, it just streams the files to apple tv unit, if you know what I mean.

if you're planning on plugging your new mac into your tv just download and install plex. it's fapping brilliant and would remove the need for an apple tv for movies/music/tv/catchup tv.

www.plexapp.com

doesn't do screen sharing though would have to be physically plugged in to telly still.

So if I install that on my MBP I can access my iTunes library from my iPad?

The genius bar guy just apologised a lot. They don't get training on server stuff, and he didn't really know.