Made the switch! Few questions...

[al3000]

Well I finally made the switch and I am typing this on my brand new 15" PB..I love it

Just a few questions though...

1. It seems as though dashboard can't connect to the internet. I am using a wireless adsl router and I can access it using safari no problem but in DB widgets such as the bbc weather, and the flight tracker do not work, ie. When I search for flights it just continually searches.

2. I have imported and authorised all my music from iTunes windows, but was wondering if there was any way to get all the music that I have purchased into the "Purchased" section?

3. I have about 4000 photos that I want to import into iPhoto. On my iPod (that I am using for a hard disk), the photos are all in folders. Is there anyway to take them into iPhoto like this..or will it automatically sort them into one big folder? I would like to keep the individual folders as it is easier to sort between them.

4. My PB is supposed to be 80GB, but when I first started it and the finder window opened, it said there was only 62GB free..is this right?

5. (Last one!) Whenever I am installing something at the dvd/cd drive is in use..the fan is so loud!! Should it be like this?


Thanks for your help!

EDIT: One more thing, what is interference robustness in airport? thanks

 

[emw]

Well, I'll take a stab at a couple of these.

4. The 80GB would be the completely empty, unformatted size. Formatted, and with all of the system stuff on there, you're going to lose a lot right off the bat. 18GB sounds like a lot, so perhaps there's some pre-installed stuff you can get rid of, such as localization files.

5. It could be a combination of the fan and the CD/DVD spinning. I will hopefully have my PB in a few days, so I'll know more, but that's my guess.

Welcome to your new Mac!

 

[al3000]

Well, I'll take a stab at a couple of these.

4. The 80GB would be the completely empty, unformatted size. Formatted, and with all of the system stuff on there, you're going to lose a lot right off the bat. 18GB sounds like a lot, so perhaps there's some pre-installed stuff you can get rid of, such as localization files.

5. It could be a combination of the fan and the CD/DVD spinning. I will hopefully have my PB in a few days, so I'll know more, but that's my guess.

Welcome to your new Mac!

Thanks!

One more thing I have thought of..does mail have to be open to receive new emails?

 

[Project]

I think the way computers are marketed, the ACTUAL real space of your hard drive is around 75gb or something. I know my BTO 80gb iBook was.

I reinstalled Tiger, selectively installing the stuff id need and getting rid of printer drivers, languages, world book, garageband etc and I had an install size of around 4gb... I recommend you do the same.

 

[freeny]

As to your fan, yes mine does the same. Dont worry, Its a good thing. think of the alternative

 

[yellow]

One more thing I have thought of..does mail have to be open to receive new emails?

Err.. your ISP's SMTP server recieves all your emails. When you open your email client, it connects to your ISP's SMTP server and downloads all your unread emails. If Mail isn't running, there's no downloading of your emails for you to read locally. So.. the answer to your question is yes and no.

Basically, no, Mail doesn't have to be open to get new emails to the mail server. However, Mail does have to be open (and have a valid network connection) in order for you to get those new emails to read at your Mac.

Make sense?

 

[yellow]

when I first started it and the finder window opened, it said there was only 62GB free..is this right?

80GBs is 80,000,000,000 bytes. That's how they market it. But in reality size on a computer is based on 1024, not 1000. So 80 billion bytes actually comes out to be 74.5GB of "real space". On top of that, you add the OS installation (which is at least 4-5 GBs of space), plus all the bundled Applications (which probably accounts for another couple of GBs), and you said you moved all your music, which ALSO accounts for some space, I'd say 62GBs of free space is about right.

 

[Project]

Well I finally made the switch and I am typing this on my brand new 15" PB..I love it

Just a few questions though...

1. It seems as though dashboard can't connect to the internet. I am using a wireless adsl router and I can access it using safari no problem but in DB widgets such as the bbc weather, and the flight tracker do not work, ie. When I search for flights it just continually searches.

2. I have imported and authorised all my music from iTunes windows, but was wondering if there was any way to get all the music that I have purchased into the "Purchased" section?

3. I have about 4000 photos that I want to import into iPhoto. On my iPod (that I am using for a hard disk), the photos are all in folders. Is there anyway to take them into iPhoto like this..or will it automatically sort them into one big folder? I would like to keep the individual folders as it is easier to sort between them.

4. My PB is supposed to be 80GB, but when I first started it and the finder window opened, it said there was only 62GB free..is this right?

5. (Last one!) Whenever I am installing something at the dvd/cd drive is in use..the fan is so loud!! Should it be like this?


Thanks for your help!

EDIT: One more thing, what is interference robustness in airport? thanks

3. As far as I know, iPhoto organises your photos by DATE.... ie you will have folders like 2003 > 10 > 22 in the iPhoto file structure, indicating that pictures within the 22 were taken on 22 October 2003.. There isnt a work around this like there is in iTunes... I just went with the flow and imported them all into iPhoto and let it do its business. But then I didnt have 4,000 photos, just a few hundred.

the slot loading drives in Power and iBooks are quite loud...

Interference robustness is meant to be a way of getting around interference from phones and microwave ovens and the like, which can mess with your Airport signal.

 

[emw]

I reinstalled Tiger, selectively installing the stuff id need and getting rid of printer drivers, languages, world book, garageband etc and I had an install size of around 4gb... I recommend you do the same.

De-localizer will remove language versions.

 

[revisionA]

Fan noise and drive noise

The drives will produce the most heat and in turn cause the fans to run. Since those are the moving parts, they generate a lot of heat.

There are several stands for the powerbook to be at an angle, so that natural heat dissipation of the aluminum case is utilized as well...

Fan noise on a powerbook is minimal compared to most laptops of this performance tier... some of them sound like they should take off shortly.

(My g5 needs a runway!)

Perhaps the iTunes song you purchased before are being treated as being on their second machine, see the DRM info (IIRC). Newly purchased music from just your powerbook will probably go into the purchased section. I still buy CDs, handy prearchived little discs at about 2 bucks more than on itunes if you shop around (cheaper at best buy and circuit city!).

The widget question seems like a good one for Apple's support boards.

$

 

[m-dogg]

Regarding #2, I don't think you can get songs purchased on another computer to show there in iTunes for your new Powerbook.

However, you could acomplish the same end result by making a smart playlist where kind = protected aac.

 

[generik]

The drives will produce the most heat and in turn cause the fans to run. Since those are the moving parts, they generate a lot of heat.$

Nope.. the CPU is the main culprit

 

[balamw]

Regarding #2, I don't think you can get songs purchased on another computer to show there in iTunes for your new Powerbook.

I'm not on my Mac, but I just tried dragging some files I had purchased on another computer to "Purchased" and it worked in iTunes 6 on XP.

In fact I even dragged over some MP3s purchased from AudioLunchbox and it happily placed them there.

B

 

[Nikore]

With regard to your iPhoto question, it does organize the photos by date they where taken. You can sell up rolls of film (kinda like playlists in itunes), but I found the organization lacking in iPhoto untill I found this, iPhoto Buddy. It allows you to create several libarys out of folders and such, really a handy tool if you wish to further organize your photos.

 

[Will Cheyney]

Well I finally made the switch and I am typing this on my brand new 15" PB..I love it

Just a few questions though...

1. It seems as though dashboard can't connect to the internet. I am using a wireless adsl router and I can access it using safari no problem but in DB widgets such as the bbc weather, and the flight tracker do not work, ie. When I search for flights it just continually searches.

2. I have imported and authorised all my music from iTunes windows, but was wondering if there was any way to get all the music that I have purchased into the "Purchased" section?

3. I have about 4000 photos that I want to import into iPhoto. On my iPod (that I am using for a hard disk), the photos are all in folders. Is there anyway to take them into iPhoto like this..or will it automatically sort them into one big folder? I would like to keep the individual folders as it is easier to sort between them.

4. My PB is supposed to be 80GB, but when I first started it and the finder window opened, it said there was only 62GB free..is this right?

5. (Last one!) Whenever I am installing something at the dvd/cd drive is in use..the fan is so loud!! Should it be like this?


Thanks for your help!

EDIT: One more thing, what is interference robustness in airport? thanks

1. Some widgets can be a bit iffy sometimes. Often if you restart or come back later they will function perfectly. The problem may also not be your end. The sever they talk to could be overloaded/down etc. If could also be a crumby widget

2. I'm guessing songs that are downloaded through iTunes on a machine go into the 'Purchased' playlist, but seeing as I've never bought a song from the iTunes music store, I can't say. Perhaps because your copying them from another computer it isn't seeing them as bought... Honestly can't help!

3. When you import your photos into iPhoto it will resort them (much like iTunes does with music). It will sort them into a YEAR > MONTH > DATE directory system. They will all be contained within the 'iPhoto' folder in your users 'Pictures' directory.
It will ignore the folder organisation you created, but you can then just create various albums within iPhoto to sort them how you wish (Albums work just like playlists in iTunes). Like iTunes, iPhoto copies your photos, so the backup of your organised photos wont be effected.

4. The actual capacity may be advertised as 80GB but the formatted capacity is less. As with all disks, computers interprets the size of a kilobyte differently than we do. The official size of a kilobyte is 1024 bits. However, a computer only interprets 1000. Therefore 24 bytes are lost every kilobyte. As these kilobytes mount up into the gigabytes, obviously, the 'lost' bits start to add up.
Also, a factory formatted Mac always has lots of (possibly) unnecessary files installed such as an array to language packs/fonts, developer tools etc. etc.
Whenever I get a new Mac I start a-fresh and format the disk completely and then customise the install settings. I suggest that you do this. You'll end up with only a couple of GB's tied up with system files and default apps instead of tens.

5. When a DVD/CD is spinning in a drive it makes noise! This is perfectly normal, and as long as there isn't any worrying 'scraping', 'buzzing', 'clicking' or obscenely loud noises everything is fine. You sound like me though. When I first got my G5 I was worrying about all these little things...

 

[Makosuke]

On used hard disk space: Aside from the 5GB that never existed to begin with due to numbering systems, and all the languages and printer drivers installed by default, remember that if your Mac came with iLife preinstalled that Garageband and iDVD are very large--each is a GB or two. Depending on whether you ever intend to use them, or need the space, you might chuck one or the both.

And just drag the music into the "Purchased" playlist--you'll get a warning when you do it, but it works just fine and you only have to do it once.