mac help

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
The only issues I have experienced is that when entering time machine over a network its a bit of a dog.

Too right Gary! After much messing about, including having to write code in Unix (not really what I was expecting from the Easy-to-use Apple...) I have finally got Time Machine to backup to my NAS.

I confess this was only achieved with lots of help from folks on the "Qnap" Forum, and I still can't understand why this should be so difficult.

I've still got issues with getting the NAS mounted - I ended up buying a third-party program just so this would work reasonably reliably but things still go wonky from time to time, and for no reason; a real pain because I've got my music and photos on the NAS.

The whole networking issue is very geeksville, stuffed with acronyms and lean on simple "How to do it" information.

Just got it all set up.

Took as long as connecting the cables, switch on, disk utility, select drive, partition, format using GUID for intel macs, name the drive, turn on time machine, first back up complete, very impressed.

Although;

When first viewed the drive in disk utility it showed it as 495gb available, it now shows 465.8gb after a 25gb back up. My mac drive shows 232.9gb. When looking in the bottom of the finder window it shows 206.75gb.

Harddrives have certain amounts set aside that you cannot access, and this is proportional to the size of a disk, so for instance a 500gig harddrive has about 490 gigs available. (a figure I plucked out the air there)

Also time machine sets up a mountable volumes for the backup, if you look on your drive it will be a single file, double clicking it opens it. The folder structure gets very complicated over time,. Consequently the file itself uses a bit of space as well as the contents that go in it(If you get me) so a 35 gig back up might well weigh 38 gigs (for instance)

cheers garyi,

I was a little worried on the setup side but got it all to work in a blink of an eye.

It has made loads of back ups since yesterday and all in all Time Machine is pretty impressive in the way it looks and works when you click on it but I suppose its now TIME to forget its there

Just an observation;

For marketing and sales purposes manufacturers use a different measuring system for sales;

100,030,242,816 Bytes = 100 marketing gigabytes but is actually 93.2GB.

This explains why my mac is supposed to be a 250gb version but registers 232.9gb in disk utility with a figure of 250,059,350,016 bytes = 250 marketing gigabytes.

No doubt you all new that and there are loads of Pythagorans out there that can do the maths logically and understand it. I got 465.8GB = 500 marketing GB for £55 delivered - can't complain ( as long as it keeps working).

Reading through the David Pogue manual it says to leave the mac in sleep mode when not in use and shut down when it will be not used for more than a couple of days.

I come from a school of turn on when you want to use and switch off when finished BUT I am willing to change if leaving it to auto sleep is beneficial to the computers life span as I have heard that the switching on and off is what reduces the lifespan of the drive.

What do most of you do?

This will also answer whether I turn off the external drive when shutting down or leave it continuously running with the mac.

The reason for this is that your Mac will run faster after you have it switched on for a while because all programs are loaded in your RAM memory. When you switch off your mac and turn it on later it has to load the programs in the RAM memory again.

I switch off everything when I don't use my computer even my external hard drive (and unplug it from the mains).

So far I switch on when I get home from work, surf a few hours then shut down till next day.

When it moves next week it will get more use during the day by all the family. It will be switched on in the morning and switched off between 10 and midnight every day.

I did read somewhere that the start up and shut downs are what tax the hard drives more to failure.

I suppose I'm getting paranoid and trying to find all optimal settings and proceedures as there are no Apple technicians on Corfu that I know of.

I've been switching on and off at work with no probs for the last 6 years but you know 'sods law'

Well I wasn't going to let them put the computer in with the luggage for fear they might break something. Waited ages in the que to check in then waited ages to go through x-ray. I spotted HER a mile away she had the longest face ever. She waited 30mins for me to get to her then made me take my shoes off to tell me my box was too big and to go back and check it in with the baggage. SHE spoke very nastily as if it were my fault that the world was so wrong and I knew that whatever I was going to try it would cause a big hoohah so I turned back - I nearly came out with the horse in the bar joke but I bit my lip.

Turning round and looking at the ques I thought stuff that and did something naughty. I joined the adjacent que and tried my chances. I got through this time but was asked why I turned back and joined this que? I thought that was very observant and assuring at the airport and scored them full marks. I explained that if they could guarantee no damage they were very welcome to take the mac into cargo otherwise it was staying with me. They let me go.

Boarding the plane there was no way it was going to fit in the overhead storage as the box it was originally shipped in was too big. The air steward put in in with the fragiles. I knew on the Greek side that it would get knocked by the time I receieve it.

It arrived without a scratch - phew! Setting up the mac in its new home all went well, all systems go BUT after my first session the top of the imac felt very hot. This may be normal as in its old home I had never touched the top of the mac so I was quite surprised at how hot it had got. Also I swear that the exhaust fan blew air with a bit more oomph so that you could definitely feel it against your hand. I can just about feel the airblow. I'm thinking that it may have damaged the fan in transit.

A few posts back there's mention of islayer so I just downloaded the istat menus;

temperature = 38c
fan speed = 1200rpm constant

Does it look normal? Any comparisons would be most helpful.

thanx

Sorry all, I asked for comparisons assuming that you all had istat or similar program. I only downloaded it myself as I was worried about the heat from the imac.

If you google 'mac average temperature' you will get quite a few informative results including a database that shows my mac's temperatures to be within the average which is most reassuring.

ps. I've also swapped openoffice for neooffice which looks and feels better for me

Its running fine, and of course the top of the mac is the exhust vent so no bother.

A macbook core can reach 86oC, so 30 is nothing.

FWIW I have a couple of macs that have not been shut down in months, 1 which has not been asleep since I purchased it 4 months ago.

Thanks, I was quite worried. Unbelievable the sort of temperatures that they can get to.

Cheers for the istat tip it looks a useful tool that I will be keeping.

I only use istats for network info, I too used to fret over the temp and realised with it sat there telling me all the time, this was not helping!

I've been searching for weeks to find a safari add on to enable me to stream the local internet radio stations but to no avail.

All I found was to install flip4mac which I tried last night but it did not work for me so I uninstalled it and deleted all traces of it - typically microsoft in its application and not to work.

The radio portal url I would like to stream;

http://www.e-radio.gr/

Any tips?
Thanks

Well flip for mac is what you need. Try installing again. Give it a restart for safety.

Cheers, I did a fresh install and it seems to be working now although it doesn't play all the streams in the url above as my pc did which also happen to be the ones I wanted.

No worries, in my searches I stumbled across a little app called Greek Radio. It needs flip4mac to work and it gives me 200 stations.

The Mrs is happy which means I'm real happy as it scores points for the Nait XS.

Soon baby,soon