Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

My MacBook has suddenly decided to stop booting. I power it on, get the booting music then it just displays a blank white screen, with no Apple logo.

Any tips as to how I diagnose what's wrong?

Thanks.

You are asking this on here?

This Nokia buyout has really thrown you, hasn't it? :)

I would like an 11" Mac Book Air- which model should I get, and from where?

What do you want to use it for?

I would think that upgrading the SSD from 128Gb to 256Gb is probably not worth it but doubling the RAM most definitely is.

The £849 model w/ 8Gb of RAM is what I would go for. You'd need to order it from Apple as it's a custom configuration.

As a general use laptop for when travelling to meetings and so forth- the portability is king here, along with the ability to write copy for a presentation on the train.

Yeah I like the idea of a MB Air for that reason too. Still tempted by a Chromebook though.

As a general use laptop for when travelling to meetings and so forth- the portability is king here, along with the ability to write copy for a presentation on the train.

You might get away with not upgrading the RAM then but I would do it just to future proof it a bit more.... it's only £80.

Def worth £80, it'll buy you another year or two of use

I had an Ipod Classic 80G and a couple of different shuffles and certain tracks they would all skip partway through. Some of them had been ripped ten years or so ago so I assumed things had moved on.

I've now got everything as Flacs and converted them all to mp3. I still have tracks (different ones to before) that skip partway through but play fine on other mp3 players. It's also a new Ipod (160G classic).

Is there some specific codec/quality sweetspot you need to have with Ipods? They're just mp3 Lame encoded at the moment.

I always use Lame unless it's already encoded, can't remember ever having a problem.

Just put a new battery and doubled the RAM of my macbook pro 2010.
Will see how that affects life.
Was tempted to put a solid state in, but decided that I don't need it.

def get an SSD. Seriously makes an amazing difference and you'll wonder how you lived without it

This^

My MacBook has suddenly decided to stop booting. I power it on, get the booting music then it just displays a blank white screen, with no Apple logo.

Any tips as to how I diagnose what's wrong?

Thanks.

If the apple chime sounds then POST has passed successfully. Simply reboot and hold down the option key/alt. then choose your recovery partition. Run disk utility repair disk. Then repair disk permissions. Quit disk utility and choose your startup disk again. Done.

If that doesn't resolve let me know and another solution will be necessary which isn't hard to do either.

I had an Ipod Classic 80G and a couple of different shuffles and certain tracks they would all skip partway through. Some of them had been ripped ten years or so ago so I assumed things had moved on.

I've now got everything as Flacs and converted them all to mp3. I still have tracks (different ones to before) that skip partway through but play fine on other mp3 players. It's also a new Ipod (160G classic).

Is there some specific codec/quality sweetspot you need to have with Ipods? They're just mp3 Lame encoded at the moment.

iPods work well on AAC compression. Your problem is your encoder. Try another one there are loads to choose from some work better than others.

Had a further look at this and it appears that although it's the same symptoms it's different problems.

The earlier issue I still blame on Apple being shit. The current issue seems to be a problem in encoding from FLAC to MP3, some tracks have been cut short. Stupidly I assumed it was a re-occurrence of the old problem rather than investigating fully. Surprising as I'm using DBPowerAmp which, by reputation, is one of the better converters.

Can anyone recommend someone who can recover data of what seems to be two knackered ex-HD's?

I've recovered hdd's on my own before, though the data came back jumbled. Have you tried yourself? Dunno if it could further damage the drives if it doesn't work?

Data recovery if its valuable to you can be recovered by http://www.krollontrack.co.uk/data-recovery/ They charge a lot but Apple use to recommend business customers to use them. 

If you want to recover it yourself there is a lot of software out there you can try for a trial period/certain amount of data and see how efficient it is for you.

For FLAC to mp3 converter on the mac try ALL2MP3

Tunesify is also good... Very simple and quick for flac to apple lossless as well

Now running iOS7 on iPhone 5, despite the immediate shock of having such a different software, I'm enjoying some of the new features it has, such as the background menu and the ability to stream songs in ipod alongside what you have downloaded.

Now running iOS7 on iPhone 5, despite the immediate shock of having such a different software, I'm enjoying some of the new features it has, such as the background menu and the ability to stream songs in ipod alongside what you have downloaded.

Developer Preview. The real thing should be coming out tomorrow.

def get an SSD. Seriously makes an amazing difference and you'll wonder how you lived without it

This^

Currently an SSD would be a luxury thats not really required.
Just been deleting caches, and resetting SMC/ PRAM settings, as my computer likes to hibernate.
Also transferred all my data to external HD, so now it's like lightning around here.

Anyone on here knows how to open 21" iMac Dual Core and swap the HDD?
Will pay for your time in beers and cash (Apple charges £70, but I'm broke and Don't really want to send it off anywhere).

I've done it a couple of times and it's pretty easy if you have the patience...

Just follow the iFixit guide: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2308+Hard+Drive+Replacement/1766/1