Need help from Mac users.

[RYCeT]

Hi guys, I've finally got my Macbook 062LL/B. I'm still learning here and it's annoying some times. I've upgraded the memory to 2Gb rams & change the HD to 200Gb 72k rpm.
Apple networking setup is so easy, I'm impressed that all I need is to put my router password and voila it detect the internet connection & my windows network. Safari is fast however I prefer Firefox. Battery life is quite good.

I have several complaints though,
I prefer to use control instead of command.
I want double tapping, is it possible?

I have several mac related questions here.

What's the alternative software for EAC & Lame transcoding?

Which music player do you use on your Mac?

Which Mac movie player able to play MKV & OGM?

What's a good JPG viewer to read manga scanlations? I'm using Acdsee v3.1 on my pc. I tried mac preview, it open each file separately and unable to jump on the next file.

Is there a way for iChat, iSight & Photobooth to work with MSN messenger, Yahoo messenger & Google Talk?

Is there a way to put date on status bar (the bar on top, it shows day & time, however I can't find a way to put date visible on that bar)?

Which plug-in will I need for Internet browsing? What I'm trying to ask here, when I use pc, I've to download Adobe reader, Real, Windows Media Player, Quicktime, Flash, SWF, Divx, Java to be able to see some website. Do I need to download all of them in Mac?

Is there a way to connect my macbook to my tv. My tv got composite, svideo, component & hdmi. Is it possible for my macbook to connect via component or hdmi? Which cable will I need? What connection should I use for the audio?

 

[ph0rk]

download vlc for video, and mplayer for the rare file vlc dislikes. itunes works well for music, though no flac (vlc will play flacs). safari or preview work great for images. adium over ichat, lets you merge other protocols, though ichat will work ok.
there are tons of menubar addons out there, I'm sure you can get the date up there with some searching. (or drag ical to the dock, its icon will be the date)


But basically - read the manual, man

macrumors.com has several help forums


edit: and itunes+lame will let you do lame encoding direct from itunes: Blacktree

 

[fabool]

There's not too many image viewers for mac that are as usable as their counterparts on PC. FFView is probably your best bet from the free alternatives for manga reading.

 

[Quaddy]

i used acdsee for mac as i used it on windows

PM me if you want me to email it you, its only 1.6mb file.

HTH

 

[roastpuff]

If you select all the files, and double-click on them to open them in Preview, Preview opens all of them in one viewer and you can use the drawer on the side to scroll through the pictures (or use the arrow keys, whichever works).

I like Adium for chatting usage, though it doesn't have voice or video, and the "Send File" function is rather borked. Can't beat running AIM, Yahoo, GTalk, MSN and ICQ on the same client, though.

EDIT:

For the ctrl vs cmd issue... you can swap them in Keyboard preferences, I think. But the best thing is just to get used to it - soon enough it'll be second nature, and you'll think "Why wasn't this in Windows? It's so simple!" You can do a lot more with OSX keyboard shortcuts than you can with Windows keyboard shortcuts...

Your Macbook can't output component or HDMI without an external TV tuner, I think. It will put out S-Video and composite using the external dongle that you can buy at your local Apple Store. If you have a HT receiver with optical, get an optical cable (with mini-adaptor on one end) and connect straight out of the headphone out to the optical in for best SQ. Macs have bit-perfect out of the box, which is nice.

 

[discord]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RYCeT /img/forum/go_quote.gif 1)Which music player do you use on your Mac? 2)What's a good JPG viewer to read manga scanlations? I'm using Acdsee v3.1 on my pc. I tried mac preview, it open each file separately and unable to jump on the next file.

1) Itunes...just better integrated with OSX to me than others.

2) Quicklook ( press spacebar)

 

[frozenice]

I use Max to change flac files to alac (apple lossless). Or I use Play to listen to flac without changing them.

Max from sbooth.org

I haven't done any checking to verify the accuracy of the transcoding or any of that stuff.

 

[Woofy]

> What's the alternative software for EAC & Lame transcoding?

For full, true accurate/secure audio-CD ripping, EAC-style, there is no Mac alternative. No Mac rippers offer many of the advanced features of EAC, such as disabling drive cache; and none can use offset corrections, a requirement for AccurateRip. However, EAC runs perfectly under Windows virtualization on a Mac (via Parallels or VMware). (Virtualization eats up >= 1GB of RAM; but, there's always BootCamp.)

Enthusiasts may also want to get themselves a good-for-DAE drive, such as a Plextor, in an external enclosure (ATAPI to USB).


For the less fanatic, the free Mac app called Max v0.7.1 (sbooth.org) will a do a comparison rip followed by a LAME encode.



I use:

Windows apps:
for audio CD rip & encode: EAC / FLAC (via Parallels)


Macintosh apps:

for .flac, .ogg, .ape tagging:
Tag v0.4.1 (free; a little buggy)
Media Rage ($30; a little iffy with these file types)

for .flac, .ogg, .ape playing:
Play v0.2 (free; a little buggy)
Cog v0.06 (free; a little buggy)

for .mp3, .aac, .m4a (alac) tagging:
Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes (free)
Media Rage ($30)

for .mp3, .aac, .m4a (alac) playing:
iTunes

for transcoding: Max v0.7.1 (free; excellent)




Some good Mac sites:

Shareware: macupdate.com , versiontracker.com
Forums: discussions.apple.com
News: macintouch.com , xlr8yourmac.com

 

[ljs]

Hi there,
Congrats on your purchase, this is evolution

Quote:

Originally Posted by RYCeT /img/forum/go_quote.gif Apple networking setup is so easy, I'm impressed that all I need is to put my router password and voila it detect the internet connection & my windows network. Safari is fast however I prefer Firefox. Battery life is quite good.

You should take a look at Camino (a real mac browser, better than firefox imo)

Quote:

Originally Posted by RYCeT /img/forum/go_quote.gif I want double tapping, is it possible?

Hum, I dont think so.


Quote:

Originally Posted by RYCeT /img/forum/go_quote.gif What's the alternative software for EAC & Lame transcoding?

I use Max (even if it is not as powerful as EAC/Lame).

Quote:

Originally Posted by RYCeT /img/forum/go_quote.gif Which music player do you use on your Mac?

Cog (for lossless and all) and iTunes (for my iPhone)

Quote:

Originally Posted by RYCeT /img/forum/go_quote.gif Which Mac movie player able to play MKV & OGM?

mplayer (better than VLC)

Quote:

Originally Posted by RYCeT /img/forum/go_quote.gif What's a good JPG viewer to read manga scanlations?

Comicbooklover (best app for comics/manga scans)

Quote:

Originally Posted by RYCeT /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is there a way for iChat, iSight & Photobooth to work with MSN messenger, Yahoo messenger & Google Talk?

I use adium (multi account IM software) but it doesnt support iSight.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RYCeT /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is there a way to put date on status bar (the bar on top, it shows day & time, however I can't find a way to put date visible on that bar)?

I used MenuCalendarClock.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RYCeT /img/forum/go_quote.gif Which plug-in will I need for Internet browsing? What I'm trying to ask here, when I use pc, I've to download Adobe reader, Real, Windows Media Player, Quicktime, Flash, SWF, Divx, Java to be able to see some website. Do I need to download all of them in Mac?

Hum, camino, quick time and Flip4mac (qt plugin)

Quote:

Originally Posted by RYCeT /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is there a way to connect my macbook to my tv. My tv got composite, svideo, component & hdmi. Is it possible for my macbook to connect via component or hdmi? Which cable will I need? What connection should I use for the audio?

I know you can but dont know how

Edit: a great piece of software: XLD (stands for X Lossless Decoder). It allows you to rip pretty much any lossless format in another (flac - > alac)

 

[roastpuff]

RYCet, what do you mean by double-tapping? i.e. Tapping twice to double-click? If, so enable clicking in "Keyboard and Mouse preferences" and tap twice to double-click.

 

[SoFlaChris]

Take a look at NMP3 Ripper. Uses LAME engine.

 

[ozz]

you can use a dvi to hdmi cable to connect to the tv and a fiber optic
cable for audio both can be had cheap at monoprice.

 

[poo]

For connection to TV get a DVI - HDMI cable. HDMI for the TV or amp end, and DVI for the macbook end. Obviously make sure your devices have these connections frist - just google a picture of what the connections look like and you should be right.

To connect audio use an optical cable...

 

[roastpuff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ozz /img/forum/go_quote.gif you can use a dvi to hdmi cable to connect to the tv and a fiber optic cable for audio both can be had cheap at monoprice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by poo /img/forum/go_quote.gif For connection to TV get a DVI - HDMI cable. HDMI for the TV or amp end, and DVI for the macbook end. Obviously make sure your devices have these connections frist - just google a picture of what the connections look like and you should be right. To connect audio use an optical cable...

Guys - he has a Macbook, he's going to need to go mini-DVI to DVI then DVI to HDMI, and I'd be kind of iffy about the picture quality if you have to go through so many conversions.

 

[RYCeT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by roastpuff /img/forum/go_quote.gif RYCet, what do you mean by double-tapping? i.e. Tapping twice to double-click? If, so enable clicking in "Keyboard and Mouse preferences" and tap twice to double-click.

Thank's, I really need that. Btw thank's for your help so far guys. I have another questions here.

Coming from Windows, I always partition my Hard Drive and separate my personal files (mp3, doc, pics, etc) from my windows/program files. Since I'm going to install Xp pro on my macbook, I'm going to separate my hd to 4 partition.
1. for OSX system
2. for OSX personal files
3. for Windows system
4. for Windows personal files
so what do you think guys? Is it necessary to do that?

Re-organizing Applications.
I read that Apple suggest putting all programs under applications folder. My application folder looks messy right now, I prefer to re-organize them under sub-folder on applications. Will it cause problems?

Un-installing programs.
I just want to make sure here, all I need to do is dragging the program to the trash can, isn't it? Is there anything I should do?

System Maintenance
Should I do system maintenance on Mac (Defrag, disk Scan, etc)?

Antivirus & Firewall
Well, I learn that you don't need antivirus on mac, how about Firewall?