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Andy's Un-Official Unsolicited Mac Advice Thread

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    blalorblalor Registered Users Posts: 94 Big grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    Guess it really means it's time for an ext mic rolleyes1.gif
    Or a call to Apple... :D
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    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    Yes. The internal mic is not something to rely on for that kind of stuff. It's good for chat, but as far as anything that you'll be scrutinizing more than that, external is the way to go. thumb.gif
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    gusgus Registered Users Posts: 16,209 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    SloYerRoll wrote:
    So how do you explain Gus's issues?

    Its slowly getting better...yeah i know that isnt how things work but its not doing it as often & when it does freeze, its not for as long...maybe 20-30 sec now.

    I thought these were supposed to be the ultimate no hassle machine ? Funny how it can just start doing that when i have not downloaded ANY programmes or changed any settings. It just decided to start doing it out of the blue.
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    SloYerRollSloYerRoll Registered Users Posts: 2,788 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    Sorry you've had a tough time w/ your machine Gus. It always sucks when you have such high hopes and it turns out to feel like junk. No matter what the product. Especially when this forum creates such a mystical aura of goodness around Macs.

    I think Ian's suggestion is your best course at this point. Force run your updates to make sure it's not a bug that's been fixed by adobe.
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    gusgus Registered Users Posts: 16,209 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    SloYerRoll wrote:
    I think Ian's suggestion is your best course at this point. Force run your updates to make sure it's not a bug that's been fixed by adobe.
    Yeah...the rainbows & glitter falling into the candyland world only have a warranty for 60 days...then its back to reality.

    Im trying ians update suggestion today actually.
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    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    Gus, when is the last time you restarted the iMac?

    Also, have you checked your PS Performance prefs?
    20080101-xun38hqxcpfr4rqwanb812tycq.jpg
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    gusgus Registered Users Posts: 16,209 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:
    Gus, when is the last time you restarted the iMac?
    About 30 mins ago...then maybe 5 or 6 times yesterday & then maybe twice a day ..everyday. Im a eletrician with a 90 year old timber home...not much that gets as hot as this Imac stays on in this joint thats for sure. Its only on if im about the place.
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    gusgus Registered Users Posts: 16,209 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:

    Also, have you checked your PS Performance prefs?
    No...how do i find that ?

    Also do i need to clear my cache like i did on my PC & if so where do i find it ?
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    SloYerRollSloYerRoll Registered Users Posts: 2,788 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    Doesn't answer your previous post.
    But you may want to also try optimizing Ps on your machine.
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    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    gus wrote:
    No...how do i find that ?

    Also do i need to clear my cache like i did on my PC & if so where do i find it ?


    Photoshop>Preferences>Performance
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    patch29patch29 Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 2,928 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:
    Yes, but my problem is strictly monetary. I can't find a cable long enough to reach from my computer to B&H, where my 5D sits, waiting for me. umph.gif

    I waited a long time to buy one and then bought used. deal.gif

    I have already started planning the purchase strategy for the 5D replacement. :D
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    gusgus Registered Users Posts: 16,209 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:
    Photoshop>Preferences>Performance
    ok..its got 70% of 2 gig avail to it & 240 gig hard drive also avail. The other settings are same as your ('cept my vid card kicks your vid cards arse)

    So how do i clean up Leopards cache then ?

    Ive googled it but dont really get a straight answer for leopard.
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    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    gus wrote:
    ok..its got 70% of 2 gig avail to it & 240 gig hard drive also avail. The other settings are same as your ('cept my vid card kicks your vid cards arse)

    So how do i clean up Leopards cache then ?

    Ive googled it but dont really get a straight answer for leopard.


    Try OnyX. You can do that and much more.
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    RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,937 moderator
    edited January 1, 2008
    gus wrote:

    BTW...its random...it can run full speed then choke without warning. I only have a dot beside email & finder so i assume they are running in the background.

    Hey Gus,

    I've been following this thread and am curious about what's causing your problem. Your machine is powerful enough that you shouldn't have hangs unless something is pushing it to its limits. Have you noticed any pattern to what you are doing in CS3 when the problem occurs? Also, do you regularly receive large attachments in email?

    Question for Mac experts: Does OS-X do background file indexing from time to time? My parents' OS-9 iMac comes to a crawl whenever that kicks in, though IIRC, it does show a dialog that lets you cancel it. headscratch.gif
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    gusgus Registered Users Posts: 16,209 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    Tks richard...no i dont get any emails really. Im not into it.


    The machine crashes daily..sometimes 3 times a day...it hangs in just normal use & then crashes & wants to report home to mum with what ever is wrong with it so dont anyone tell me macs dont crash. My old XP clanker beside has a better track record than this thing. This is a clean new machine with up to date software...not some refurb job either. At least the mac recovers from the crash much faster than my PC.

    As for the Photoshop 'hanging' , nothing else is running. At the most i may have one or 2 web pages open. No pattern just usually always with saving a normal sized jpeg (about 2-4 meg) from PS to pictures.
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    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    gus wrote:
    Tks richard...no i dont get any emails really. Im not into it.


    The machine crashes daily..sometimes 3 times a day...it hangs in just normal use & then crashes & wants to report home to mum with what ever is wrong with it so dont anyone tell me macs dont crash. My old XP clanker beside has a better track record than this thing. This is a clean new machine with up to date software...not some refurb job either. At least the mac recovers from the crash much faster than my PC.

    As for the Photoshop 'hanging' , nothing else is running. At the most i may have one or 2 web pages open. No pattern just usually always with saving a normal sized jpeg (about 2-4 meg) from PS to pictures.


    There is something wrong. This is not expected or normal behavior. May not help you much, that statement, but you absolutely should not be having these problems. It's just not normal. Ask Doc to go over your system. He should know what to do.

    Those crashes are not the Mac crashing, but the application. There's a difference. The Mac is still up and running fine, just not the application. For the Mac to crash, that's a kernel panic, and is pretty darn rare. Also, KPs are almost always hardware related.

    So, which apps are crashing? Is it always PS, or are there others? If it's always PS, then there's an issue with your application install, or your preference files, or something along those lines.
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    gusgus Registered Users Posts: 16,209 Major grins
    edited January 1, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:
    There is something wrong. This is not expected or normal behavior. May not help you much, that statement, but you absolutely should not be having these problems. It's just not normal. Ask Doc to go over your system. He should know what to do.

    Those crashes are not the Mac crashing, but the application. There's a difference. The Mac is still up and running fine, just not the application. For the Mac to crash, that's a kernel panic, and is pretty darn rare. Also, KPs are almost always hardware related.

    So, which apps are crashing? Is it always PS, or are there others? If it's always PS, then there's an issue with your application install, or your preference files, or something along those lines.

    It crashes just surfing the net...i will look deeper into it later. Out the door to work now. Tks.
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    RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,937 moderator
    edited January 1, 2008
    gus wrote:
    It crashes just surfing the net...i will look deeper into it later. Out the door to work now. Tks.

    It's sounding like a hardware issue to me. You should run hardware diagnostics (I forget what Apple calls them) and let us know what you find.
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    cabbeycabbey Registered Users Posts: 1,053 Major grins
    edited January 3, 2008
    rsinmadrid wrote:
    Question for Mac experts: Does OS-X do background file indexing from time to time? My parents' OS-9 iMac comes to a crawl whenever that kicks in, though IIRC, it does show a dialog that lets you cancel it. headscratch.gif

    Yes, there are some cron jobs that fire off nightly at between 2 and 4 am localtime, or abotu 10 to 15 minutes after you boot up if they haven't run yet today. They'll grind the disk pretty hard, but that's about it. They're also niced down almost as low as they can go by default, so everything else on the box should have a higher run priority. I've had them kick off during a big recompile and they barely dent the recompile time... doing little bits in the background as they can until the compile is done, then coming out to play and finishing their work while I'm testing the fix and/or swearing at the build logs.
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    colourboxcolourbox Registered Users Posts: 2,095 Major grins
    edited January 3, 2008
    rsinmadrid wrote:
    Question for Mac experts: Does OS-X do background file indexing from time to time? My parents' OS-9 iMac comes to a crawl whenever that kicks in, though IIRC, it does show a dialog that lets you cancel it. headscratch.gif

    In OS 9, I think there was a Find by Content Indexing feature that showed those symptoms and had a cancel button. It can't be cron jobs, because OS 9 doesn't have them, only OS X. You might look around for Find by Content Indexing preference. I can't remember how it worked.

    OS X has Spotlight, but that is completely different than the OS 9 indexing. Spotlight may churn if you mount a new volume full of files and it hasn't been indexed, but it shouldn't just happen otherwise and there is no cancel button.
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    DavidTODavidTO Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 19,160 Major grins
    edited January 3, 2008
    Looks like Apple may make a laptop dock after all.
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    zweiblumenzweiblumen Registered Users Posts: 369 Major grins
    edited January 3, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:
    Looks like Apple may make a laptop dock after all.

    Bugger. I'm planning on getting a new mac soon. But I don't think I'm going to wait for this. Seems like they may take a while to get that out the door. But I have to say, having a laptop that I could bring home and turn into a 24" iMac would be perfect.
    Travis
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    gusgus Registered Users Posts: 16,209 Major grins
    edited January 3, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:
    Looks like Apple may make a laptop dock after all.
    That would be one way of cooking your dinner if the kitchen stove was on the blink.
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    ChrisJChrisJ Registered Users Posts: 2,164 Major grins
    edited January 3, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:
    Looks like Apple may make a laptop dock after all.
    Hmm... interesting... but I'd rather be able to use the laptop display AND an external monitor.
    Chris
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    DoctorItDoctorIt Administrators Posts: 11,951 moderator
    edited January 3, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:
    Looks like Apple may make a laptop dock after all.
    Hype, 100% hype. Do you know how many napkin scribbled patents a company like Apple must file on an almost daily basis, "just in case"?
    Erik
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    ian408ian408 Administrators Posts: 21,914 moderator
    edited January 3, 2008
    DoctorIt wrote:
    Hype, 100% hype. Do you know how many napkin scribbled patents a company like Apple must file on an almost daily basis, "just in case"?

    Not many. Patents aren't all that easy to file. But I bet they teach engineers to
    write stuff like that down.

    Too bad the laptop is closed when it gets stuffed in the doc. Makes it a tad
    bit unusable without a monitor.
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    bwgbwg Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 2,119 SmugMug Employee
    edited January 3, 2008
    but what if...just if...the dock IS the monitor

    creepy

    ooooh.

    :s85
    Pedal faster
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    zweiblumenzweiblumen Registered Users Posts: 369 Major grins
    edited January 3, 2008
    ian408 wrote:
    Not many. Patents aren't all that easy to file. But I bet they teach engineers to
    write stuff like that down.

    Too bad the laptop is closed when it gets stuffed in the doc. Makes it a tad
    bit unusable without a monitor.


    Looks like the front *IS* the monitor and it plugs into the DVI to display. Either that or you end up looking at the closed laptop through a hole in the front of it rolleyes1.gif
    Travis
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    cmasoncmason Registered Users Posts: 2,506 Major grins
    edited January 3, 2008
    ian408 wrote:
    Not many. Patents aren't all that easy to file. But I bet they teach engineers to write stuff like that down.

    in the corporate environment, patents are dirt simple to apply for. Most companies have it down to a formula, with staff, legal and otherwise to make it effortless for the technical staff to file any idea, crazy or otherwise as a patent. The cost is tiny compared to the potential revenue, or better yet, legal leverage.
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    BradfordBennBradfordBenn Registered Users Posts: 2,506 Major grins
    edited January 3, 2008
    DavidTO wrote:
    Looks like Apple may make a laptop dock after all.

    About time.

    Now regarding two monitors, my nice Lenovo work laptop has a VGA and DVI output on the dock, so with the laptop closed I have two monitors. And they are positioned and sized to match :)
    -=Bradford

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