Apple and Macs: New products, iMacs, iWork, iLife

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 7:09 pm

I have a new nano...I don't use it much because I've got my iPhone, but it's by far the best iPod to date. The size and sound quality are it's best traits. Some may not like the "oval" shape of it, but I love it. It makes it feel even smaller in your hand/pocket.

10spro · Post by **10spro** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 7:21 pm

Right, thank goodness I have an iphone as well, but for gym purposes, outdoors and what not, using a nano would be much more practical and convenient.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 7:29 pm

You're seeing no display at all on the screen?

Or is it that the backlight doesn't turn on?

If you don't see anything, then it might be a hardware problem.

I have a second-gen Nano with the aluminum body. It's about 2-years old now. Been using it every day but lately, it's been real sluggish, especially navigating the Podcasts directory.

So I restored to original, which meant it wiped the drive and I had to sync everything back, including playlists.

Now it's snappy like it was before.

But the new one are tempting, with the ability to view video and greater capacity.

10spro · Post by **10spro** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 7:35 pm

Wco, I just spoke to an Apple rep and indeed it sounds like a hardware issue. I see nothing in the screen and to have it fixed, I am looking at $100 bucks minimum he says. So the choice is obvious, I am getting a new nano.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 8:02 pm

I think also, they give you something like a $30 credit if you recycle it at their stores.

Or at least, they used to.

It's a good upgrade at least. I paid $250 two years ago for my 8 GB which doesn't do video.

Now you can get 16 GB for $200 with a bigger screen good enough for video. Of course the larger screen may reduce battery life a bit.

I don't really try to collect video but I ended up with a lot of video podcasts in my iTunes.

James_E · Post by **James_E** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 8:02 pm

dbdynsty25 wrote:I didn't get the pro. I bought the new Aluminum MacBook that came out a few weeks ago. 2.4ghz, 4gb ram, 250gb HD and a 9400M graphics chip.

Finally took the plunge to get a mac. Got the same machine today.

I am impressed. I have a lot to figure out, but it sure is a nice, polished machine.

Which browser do you guys use?

How do you have the trackpad configured?

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 8:33 pm

Most people use Safari, which is already installed, or download FireFox.

Safari has a RSS reader built-in but Firefox has more plugin support.

Two fingers lets you scroll up/down or left/right. Not sure if it's enabled by default.

Two-finger click is also a right-click (or you can use control-click to bring up right-click menus).

But I'm not sure how they do it with the whole trackpad as a button.

Not sure how the 3 and 4 finger gestures work. You may have to enable in System Preferences (under the Apple Menu on the left or the gray icon with gears).

Also from the Help menu in Finder, you can search for "multitouch."

I think the pinch thing to zoom in and out is supported in iPhoto but I'm not sure what else.

They do make Macs with ATI cards too BTW, but in this case, I think they're using the whole nVidia chipset.

10spro · Post by **10spro** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 8:42 pm

James_E wrote: Which browser do you guys use?

How do you have the trackpad configured?

Safari does the job for me. I just use the default trackpad, and by using the control key and pad combined.

James_E · Post by **James_E** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 12:18 am

Safari is working well so far.

I love the multi-touch controls. 3 fingers swipe left for back, right for front. 4 fingers for task switching.

I might want something to protect this thing. I have laptop bags, but sometimes I want to pack my laptop in my carry-on luggage (I like to travel with ONE bag... a backpack, if my business trip is short.) Any of you use a sleeve or the incase hard shell thing?

James_E · Post by **James_E** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 11:30 am

Well, it is certainly not 100% crash proof (didn't really expect it to be)

Machine hung today. I was using my guitarport with gearbox software, had sound OUTPUT routed to the guitarport, so that I could load up youtube videos and play bass along with them through the guitarport.

Played a couple tunes, then went to start another one, and had a machine hang. Had to hold the power button down and do a reboot. It rebooted fine, and gathered some data and I let it send a report to apple.

Do any of you have Applecare? Is it worth it?

What are your favourite apps for mac?

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 12:04 pm

Expose is okay but I like Spaces more and you can use keyboard shortcuts to switch applications quickly.

I haven't messed around with things like Garage Band or iWeb.

But use iTunes and iPhoto all the time.

Good site for downloading shareware and freeware is versiontracker.com.

iChat is popular for people who like to video chat.

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 12:47 pm

James_E wrote:
Do any of you have Applecare? Is it worth it?

Definitely. Three years of complete coverage for just about anything, except maybe water damage. If something really breaks down, like a hard drive failure, it will pay for itself with one repair. Turnaround is super quick, too, if you have to send it away. And then there's phone tech support as well if you want. The phone support used to be free way back when in the old days, but those days are long gone.

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 2:15 pm

The good thing about Apple Care is that you have a year to buy it from the point of purchase. So as long as you buy it within 364 days of purchase, you're covered. Also, there is a site online you can buy it for 180 bucks rather than the 250 which Apple charges. I'll have find and link that again.

James_E · Post by **James_E** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 3:58 pm

Do you guys use openOffice or did you purchase MS office. $99 for Home and Student edition right now if I purchase it with the laptop (have 14 days to do so.) I figure Open Office is free... which is good enough for me.

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 4:02 pm

James_E wrote:Do you guys use openOffice or did you purchase MS office. $99 for Home and Student edition right now if I purchase it with the laptop (have 14 days to do so.) I figure Open Office is free... which is good enough for me.

MS Office...got it for 20 bucks with the Cisco discount my buddy gets.

10spro · Post by **10spro** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 4:50 pm

I use MS Office including entourage for emails. If you have another buddy in the same situation as you, buy the student edition (it's good enough for basic use) and you can split the cost of the software as it allows more than one user.

As for warranty, I bought Apple care for three years, it's costly but I have yet to call them (knocks on wood).

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 5:22 pm

Never tried it myself but free 30-day trial of iWork:

http://www.apple.com/iwork/trial/

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 9:07 pm

James_E wrote:Do you guys use openOffice or did you purchase MS office. $99 for Home and Student edition right now if I purchase it with the laptop (have 14 days to do so.) I figure Open Office is free... which is good enough for me.

If you only use basic functions of Office applications like Word and Excel, then OpenOffice is more than sufficient. If you're using more advanced functions of Office apps, then it's best to stick with Office.

We've used OpenOffice on our family computer for the last 1 1/2 years, and it has worked beautifully. All of the features that we sought in Office apps also are in OpenOffice.

And, as if this is a shock, if it's free, it's for me.

Take care,
PK

JRod · Post by **JRod** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 9:59 pm

wco81 wrote:Never tried it myself but free 30-day trial of iWork:

http://www.apple.com/iwork/trial/

I only use iWork. I like it but because it takes a while to get used to it because the world has been on the MS office addiction for years.

Reason I want with iWork is because I wanted a word processor that could make documents look professional. I wasn't going to spend dough on the adobe products so this was the next step.

Word is not but a word processor. iWork gives you a great document creator. Plus I like keynote and numbers.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 10:06 pm

If I recall iwork doesn't really have a full fledged spreadsheet program or have they changed that?

Sport73 · Post by **Sport73** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 10:30 pm

Rodster wrote:If I recall iwork doesn't really have a full fledged spreadsheet program or have they changed that?

iWork includes an excellent spreadsheet application called "Numbers"; unless you really need Macro functions, it's infinitely easier and more attractive than Excel.

Personally, I couldn't live without Pages (the 'word processor' component of iWork). It's stunningly intuitive and lets me make superb looking documents AND great graphic mockups without having to go into Photoshop.

I'm happy to provide tips to anyone interested, but suffice it to say I couldn't recommend iWork with any greater enthusiasm.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:20 am

For those who use Open Office what file format does it use for it's spreadsheet and word documents? Is it compatible with Excel and MS Word?

snate · Post by **snate** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:36 am

Neo Office is better than Open Office on a Mac. Here is the link:

http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

bdunn13 · Post by **bdunn13** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 8:39 pm

Just ordered a MB470LL the 1999 pro model.

Not sure if anyone has ever posted this here but IMO ITS a hulluva deal. I have been wanting a macbook for a while but even though I save a good bit of money, I feel guilty now when I buy crap like this now that I am a daddy.... well this was too good to pass up..

I did get it off ebay so I will feel better when I get it.. Price was 1850 but I had a 100 coupon off of ebay.. So my initial charge is 1750 BUT, I did a search for it on live.com and found an ebay link. I used that ebay link to find the model I wanted.. I then paid for the product through paypal(discover card 1% cashback).

By buying from a live.com link, Microsoft is going to credit my paypal account 25% or up to 200 bucks...

So my total price paid should be $1533!!!!!!

I could not pass that up!

10spro · Post by **10spro** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 9:20 pm

This is itunes related. I purchased a couple of apps online for my iphone and I just recently had a new rig built. Installed the latest itunes on the new computer and those purchased apps won't sync with the new computer. And when I choose the option to sync, it would erase all the apps that I had on the older computer. Is there any way where I can transfer my previous purchases to the new computer?