Newbie Questions Needed! :)

[sean.ferguson]

I had THPS WorldBook AppleWorks and a few other stuff, but it wasnt as large as that. Mines is the older 800MHz iBook tho, before iLife etc. so i didnt have garageband 😛

 

[strangeless]

Well I can answer that question myself, now, and I'm wondering what the deal is.. My iBook came in and as soon as I turned it on I looked in the finder and it said I had (drumroll here) 17.5 gigabytes free.

So that means about 13 of my 30 is used up! I don't get it, since nothing really looked like it was that big when I was going through the files. Can anyone shed some light?

I have another question, tho. I have a mouse plugged in, and it works fine, but I don't like how slow it gets when you only move it a little. I'm going to be working on a school desk, and I don't want to have to keep moving my mouse all over the place. How can I turn down the acceleration, but still have the cursor move nice and fast?

 

[strangeless]

er... make that 10 gigabytes used, the size is actually 27 in total

 

[Scooter]

For the amount of space taken up. I'm not sure. It all depends on what packages were installed and what extra applications might have also been added in. I believe some of the developer applications that are installed when you install Mac OS X are quite large.

As for the mouse query, its as easy as 1-2-3 (i hope).
Open

System Preferences --> Keyboard and Mouse (under Hardware) --> Mouse tab

and there you go... I also made a pretty picture to illustrate 😀 ... I was bored

Hope this helps 🙂

 

[X-Istence]

er... make that 10 gigabytes used, the size is actually 27 in total

Macintosh HD:Applications:Installers is 600 MB for me, that is all the X-Code stuff, and they are just installers, so once installed they can be safely removed, or if you do not want em, you can remove them.

THPS and World Book == 1.81 GB space used

Standard install Applications and Utilities is 500 MB

 

[strangeless]

thanks scooter, but that's the first thing I tried. All that seems to do is increase the contrast between acceleratied mousing and "low speed" mousing. So now instead of getting aggrivated because the mouse doesn't seem to be moving enough, I'm overshooting because I move the mouse how I am accustomed, then more, since that's not enough to move it where I want, so I end up overshooting. I guess its just a matter of getting used to it.

So I guess I'll just have to use my mac more often so I get used to it faster!

BTW, any of you guys want a gmail invite?

 

[SPeedY_B]

got plenty... unfortunately. They're proving a pain in the ass to get rid of 😛

 

[X-Istence]

got plenty... unfortunately. They're proving a pain in the ass to get rid of 😛

agreed.

 

[Andy]

how do you do all the 'right mouse click' stuff if you have a one button mouse? holding down sometimes brings up a menu, but not always.

would it be worth my while investing in a 2-button mouse instead?

 

[SPeedY_B]

It's rare you'll need to Right-click a lot, the whole O/S is designed with efficiency in mind.

If you wish to right-click though, hold CTRL and click (seems a farse, but you get used to it) or alternatively, as you've noticed, some applications and the dock icons will let you simply hold the mouse button down, but this isn't universally adapted across all apps (god knows why 😀). Personally I absolutely love the one button mouse and hate using 2/3/4/5 button mice now, but some people just can't get used to it, the advantage you have is you can quite easily plug in a multi-button mouse and the buttons/functions are recognised by OS X.

I have a Microsoft 5-button mouse which I used on my PowerMac when I first got it, just plugged it in and voilla, it worked.

 

[X-Istence]

Personally am bastardizing my iBook with an external mouse, Microsoft one with simple 3 buttons (2 clicks, and a scrool wheel), makes browsing just that much easier. I also like to highlight, and right click to hit the goto address, but that is off topic.

I love the way it works with one button, and can be just as efficient without the second mouse plugged in, but nothing beats a normal mouse when moving between a lot of windows. Or to quickly jump down to the bottom right corner to have the expose function kick in (all windows for the current app line up, not all the apps i have running)

I love.

 

[Andy]

I forgot buying a new mouse would require money. Little chance of that happening.

Using Ctrl is working out fine, though. 95% of tasks require left-click operations anyways, a new shiney mouse can wait.

 

[Andy]

Me again. Just a few things.

- Is there a mod to make the DVD Player region-free? That'd be handy.
- Is there a way to rename the systems name for my iPod. In iTunes, its 'Andy's iPod', but in Finder and on the desktop, its 'ANDY'S IPOD' - I'm a caps-lock freak, and would prefer it if it was the same everywhere else as it is in iTunes.
- How do you make the Apple icon silver? I've seen it done before.
- I'm also curious as to good apple websites. News, tips, tweaks, downloads, just as many interesting mac-based websites as possible. I already read Slashdot and AppleInsider.

Thanks guys, mightly enjoying the iBook, excellent purchase.

 

[X-Istence]

Uhm, the icon that shows up on your desktop, can't you just click it it once, apple key + i, then edit the name that shows up there in the info dialog?

if not, deal with it 😛

 

[SPeedY_B]

1. Yes... no... yes... well, maybe. Depending on the drive, and the availability of the firmware and tools to flash it, you can make your DVD drive region0. However, there are VERY few firmwares and flash utilities available for the Mac, you can take the drive out and flash it on a PC no problem though, just not so much with the iBook. Once you've done that though, "DVD Player" is still software region encoded, and to my knowledge, no one has bothered to work around it.

The absolute short of it? Go get VideoLAN from http://videolan.org/vlc/ , as it completely and utterly ignores region encoding and is an absolute god send 🙂

2. Click the icon on your desktop, hit enter, type the new name, hit enter again. Bam.

3. System Preferences (In /Applications/ if you removed the dock icon for any reason 🙂) click 'Appearance' then simply change the top option from 'Blue' to 'Graphite'.

4. As you've already mentioned, Slashdot and AI. There's also http://macrumors.com/ http://macbytes.com/ (good as a homepage) http://apple-x.net/ http://macosxhints.com/ and probably some more, I actually don't frequent that many Apple only sites, maybe I should 🙂

 

[Andy]

1. Thanks.
2. That works until you disconnect it, and reconnect it. It reverts back to caps. Maybe i'll just have to live with it.
3. Thanks.
4. Excellent!

Overall judgement: Fantastic reply, rep all round.

 

[SPeedY_B]

Give it a try via iTunes, just double click the iPod on the left then re-name.

Step1.

Step2.

Step3.

 

[Andy]

No, I'd already tried that. Doesnt matter, I can easily tolerate 😛

 

[SPeedY_B]

heh, ok. It just seems a bit odd, seems that you're not alone though, quick search via google reveals that others are suffering from the caps problem, however I wasn't able to find a solution, or even possible solution to the problem. :/

 

[Andy]

Still enjoying the iBook - only using my PC for Studio MX and Photoshop while I await the arrival of my mac editions of the software.

What are good FTP programs for Mac OS? Dave has RBrowserLite (http://www.rbrowser.com/RBrowserLite/) on his links page, but i'd like to take a look at a few. I use SmartFTP on my PC.

I'll be back with more questions later, I'm sure.