macOS and Mac Software: We still exist!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > macOS and Mac Software: We still exist!

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Until the App Store stops freaking out, I feel the need to ask a potentially stupid question; Will it allow me to straight up upgrade to Lion from SL without removing things like documents, installed non-Apple apps/settings etc.? This is my first upgrade and I want to be sure I won't lose anything important.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 14:12

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 21:54

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Gold and a Pager posted:

Yes

Dandy. Thank you.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 14:19

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Well, Spotlight is loving with my external HDD something fierce. It's trying to index it but Lion keeps giving me the warning you get when you unplug the drive incorrectly (even though the drive never disappears from my desktop). Guess I'll just add it to the Privacy list and never be able to search the thing.

The bigger issue is that the display on my MBP won't shut down now. I normally use a Cinema HD monitor and turn the MBP display off by closing the lid, then opening it up (for ventilation), but now when I open the lid, the display turns on again. I have no use for the MBP display when I have the big monitor on, and I hate it when my mouse cursor slips over to the MBP display. :argh:

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 17:54

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Small thing but it seems they fixed the iTunes mini player moving up slightly when you minimize/maximize it or open new apps when the player is at the lower part of the screen next to the Dock. With that, and if Lion won't randomly log me out every once in a while, they've fixed everything I didn't like in Snow Leopard!

Edit: Hey my weather widget ain't working, what is this bullshit. :mad:

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 18:16

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Ghumbs posted:

That works fine in Safari but not in full screen Chrome. I've no idea how to exit full screen in Chrome.

e:f,b

Shift-Cmd-F

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 18:49

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Am I imagining things or did they tweak iTunes somehow? My music seems to sound a lot clearer and beefier now.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 09:39

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Anyone else having issues with Lion unmounting an external HDD without any visible reason? It gives the error afterwards that the drive wasn't removed correctly etc. I had an issue with Spotlight trying to index the HDD and it constantly gave the error until I made the HDD private. But the message keeps popping up every once in a while.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 13:24

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

deej posted:

Mine aren't unmounting, but they're disappearing from the desktop. They're still connected, and show up in Finder. If I just yank the drive out, it complains at me :/ Happened a couple of times now, at first I thought it was because Spotlight was indexing the hell out of 3 drives like you said, but it's happened again since.

I remember having a similar issue when I first got SL, but I think it stopped on its own and worked fine ever since. It sucks not being able to search the external drive but Spotlight assfucks it so hard it apparently keeps unmounting (even though the icon stays on the desktop and the music on the drive keeps playing just fine). Did they change spotlight in some way? It worked fine in SL with the external drive.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 14:08

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Space Racist posted:

What happens when you point an Apple remote at a Mac now?

The Menu button does nothing but the other buttons still control media players you have.

I kind of liked Front Row, though, it had a nice interface. v :shobon:

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 18:18

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Is there any way to change the crummy looking grey cloth texture background that appears with the login screen or when you use MC?

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 19:01

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

A friend of mine just did a fresh install of Lion on his MacBook Air, and I was disappointed to see there was no intro video.

I always liked that about Snow Leopard, and the first time it happened was a nice surprise, I hadn't seen an OS do that since Windows 98 (it played a pixellated, fullscreen music video of Phil Collins' "Dance Into The Light" :laugh:

)

# ¿ Jul 29, 2011 12:03

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

As nice as some additions Lion brought are, I'm having some pretty serious issues. Most notably not being able to turn the display off on my MBP. It was possible in SL by jumping through a couple of hoops (but listed as a 'feature' on Apple's site) but not in Lion. Having both my MBP's monitor and my external Cinema HD on, especially when doing something graphics intensive like playing a game, is causing some heat issues and graphical corruption I never saw in SL.

Also Mail 5 is asking for my Gmail account password on a daily basis even though I've saved it in the keychain. What the poo poo is that?

Is there any speculation yet as to when 10.7.1 is supposed to hit? 10.6.1 came pretty quickly after SL was released, right? I'm really hoping for some fixes.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2011 13:03

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

echobucket posted:

Close the lid and wake up the macbook pro with the mouse?

This was the exact method I used with SL to make it happen, but with Lion it works up until I reopen the lid, the MBP monitor wakes up instantly.

I just found a thread about it on Apple's forums, seems like I'm not the only one having problems with this. So I guess I can just file a complaint/bug report/whatever and hope they do something. v :saddowns:

# ¿ Aug 3, 2011 15:45

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

echobucket posted:

Um, maybe I'm missing something but why don't you just leave the lid closed?

There's hardly any ventilation with the lid closed, and it screws with wi-fi. This is an older MBP by the way, I don't know if the ones post 2008 or so have a different method of ventilation.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2011 17:39

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

I never used Spaces in SL but Mission Control's version of it is amazing in Lion. I'm relatively new to Mac and all but goddamn it's handy to have basically an unlimited amound of desktops - on two monitors to boot - and different wallpapers for each one to signify which one I'm using at the moment. And I can switch between them by nudging my mousewheel. Loving this.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2011 04:12

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

I've had my issues with Lion but whenever I learn to deal or accept something new, it throws something unexpected at me. And now it's crashing, hard. From the looks of it, Lion likes violating my MBP 3,1's graphics card something fierce. I don't know if it's just WoW (L4D seems to play fine), but Lion doesn't want me playing it for more than 30 minutes before it locks the whole thing up (sound plays but that's about it) and after a few minutes of waiting I get artifacting. I couldn't get a screenshot since the whole machine was locked up and I've had to power down manually about six times today and it's getting pretty annoying.

I've heard Lion has some issues with certain Nvidia chipsets (but mostly 2010 MBP is mentioned). I had no problems with WoW and SL. The only other reason I can think of for this is that I play on an external monitor (Apple Cinema HD), and as some genius at Apple disabled the option to shut down my MBP's display when using an external monitor, and thus the graphics card is forced to render what's happening on two screens, thus overheating it. Possible?

Goddamn I hope 10.7.1 fixes this. Whenever it comes. :negative:

# ¿ Aug 13, 2011 03:16

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Is there any third party app or some voodoo I can do to turn off the MacBook Pro display when I have an external monitor plugged in? And I mean literally turn off, not just turn down the brightness. I don't want my system to have the faintest clue there are other displays around other than my Cinema HD.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2011 02:47

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

Can you just close the lid with InsomniaX installed or do you still need to use the keyboard and trackpad?

I have a usb keyboard and mouse I use, and in SL I used to be able to shut down the MBP display by closing the lid, then moving the mouse/pressing a key until the external monitor turned on, then opening the MBP lid. But in Lion, doing this instantly wakes up the MBP display. Normally this wouldn't be a problem since, hey, two monitors but the thing is that it makes the graphics card work overtime having to draw two displays at once. In games there's a massive performance loss; I get half the framerate I normally do, and some games such as WoW overheat the graphics card and that causes a complete lockup of the system.

I tried playing the games on the MacBook Pro itself, with no external monitor attached and the games ran perfectly fine. I'd put the MBP in permanent clamshell mode but it messes with WiFi and basically blocks the vents, again causing overheating. :bang:

I've googled the hell out of this and posted on Apple's forums and sent bug reports, so the only hope I have right now is some 3rd party app that would allow me to kill the MBP display when the lid is up. Also, some people on Apple's forums have resorted to using magnets in order to 'fool' the MBP to think the lid is closed but I don't feel all that comfortable doing that. Yet.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2011 03:03

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Doctor Zero posted:

The MBP doesn't have vents on the inside of the clamshell, does it?

Sorry, I should've mentioned that it's a 2007 unibody MBP, where the vents are basically where the speakers are, and they get covered up when the lid is closed.

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

He's gaming, so he might be afraid of it overheating.

In fact, I can confirm that having the lid closed while playing ramps up the temperatures pretty significantly. And it makes my WiFi very choppy as well.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2011 03:14

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Mu Zeta posted:

Is your 2007 model the one where they put a shitload of thermal paste on it, causing it to overheat?

It's the 3,1 Core 2 Duo model. I don't know anything about the thermal paste stuff, but I do know that this model was shipped with a faulty Nvidia chipset (which they fixed for free at my local third party Apple retailer and it's been fine ever since). But it does get hot, even with the lid open, so much so that I'm almost sure it would start melting or cause some kind of damage in heavy use with the lid closed.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2011 03:22

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

So is the Logitech Control Center just a turd or is there a reason why my Back/Forward thumb buttons don't work in Finder? If I set them to the cmd-right/cmd-left keypress, they work but they constantly reset back to back/forward and stop working in Finder. Back/forward work fine in Chrome, for instance.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2011 11:56

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Mu Zeta posted:

I've never had trouble with LCC in the past 6-7 years on Macs. This is how I set it up, just assign the back button to "back" and forward to "forward." Not those key combos. Maybe you have to get a new version of LCC after a Lion upgrade? A new version came out July 20 http://www.logitech.com/en-us/584/3129

I have the newest version, and when my thumb buttons are set up like you have in the picture (they default to that even when I change them), pressing them in Finder does nothing and plays the default sound of 'pressing that does nothing here, stupid'

# ¿ Aug 20, 2011 18:43

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Zenostein posted:

Did Apple (or you) actually change back/forward in Finder with Lion? Because it's always been cmd+[ and cmd+] to go back/forward in Finder.

That said, if LCC is just saying back/forward, it should work regardless, unless it's actually just sending cmd left/right and assuming that's a universal command.

It's cmd+left arrow and cmd+right arrow to go back and forward in my Finder menu at least. I haven't changed it in the keyboard settings. The thumb buttons on the mouse are cmd+[ and cmd+] according to LCC, but changing the keyboard shortcut to those won't work either. It only works if I go to LCC and change the thumb buttons to be keystrokes, cmd+arrow keys, but they revert to cmd+[ and so on after a while.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2011 09:11

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Why won't Lion let me delete certain video files? It claims that they're being used... but they're not. There's not a single video player on. I don't remember having this issue in SL, which was nice because I hated it when it constantly happened with Windows, and now it's happening with Lion. :mad:

Edit: Nevermind, turns out it was MplayerX making GBS threads itself for a change. Had to kill it in the processes but at least I got an empty trash bin now.

Stare-Out fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Aug 21, 2011

# ¿ Aug 21, 2011 15:08

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Lazyhound posted:

This is a Lion feature. Closing the program no longer necessarily kills the process, because iOS.

That's probably it, but in this case MplayerX really did crash though. And for some reason Quicktime X made me download Quicktime 7 when I tried to watch an .avi file on it. :confused:

# ¿ Aug 21, 2011 21:17

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

This might be a long shot, but I've been searching everywhere for a keyboard piano app similar to AnalogX's Virtual Piano and I'm beginning to think no such thing exists. I know there's a keyboard piano thing in Garageband but it's not quite as versatile nor is it as light. There are a myriad of these things but none of the Mac ones that I've found are all that great (of free).

Using the AnalogX one in Parallels doesn't work as the midi drivers are crap and there's an insane lag between key presses and hearing the sound, so that's out.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2011 13:34

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

I'm running my MBP in clamshell mode with an external (main) monitor, and after playing any fullscreen game, I lose all hot corners. I can only get them back by activating the MBP's internal monitor for a moment by lifting the lid then closing it again. With both monitors on, they both have working hot corners. Is this a bug or am I missing something?

Edit: Apparently I can also fix it by killing Dock.app and forcing it to restart. But how about having hot corners work all the time. That'd be swell.

Stare-Out fucked around with this message at 13:19 on Aug 25, 2011

# ¿ Aug 25, 2011 13:15

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Martytoof posted:

Chrome has AdBlock Plus, but it's not very functional compared to what I hear the FireFox one is. There is extensive work being done on the relevant Chrome APIs so they'll soon be as functional, I assume. That being said, AdBlock Plus blocks just about every ad I come across so "less functional" doesn't mean "waste of time".

There is no search bar in Chrome, just the omnibar which is both URL and search. The keyboard command is Cmd-L.

I'm not going to sell Chrome to anyone because to each their own, but I use it and it's very snappy.

I've been using Chrome ever since it came out and it's easily my favorite browser. It's not perfect, but it does everything I need it to do and does it well. I use AdBlock Plus and I can't even remember the last time I saw an ad. That combined with flashblock cleans every single page usually riddled with ads. Love it.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2011 10:12

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

GobiasIndustries posted:

Is anyone interested buying a $100 gift card for the Apple app/iTunes store? I've got all the software I need at the moment since I only use my laptop for taking notes and music. I figure I'd ask here before going to SA mart with it. Picture of the card attached.

Does this offer come off the table at midnight?

# ¿ Aug 31, 2011 19:09

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

It combines two previously separate window management utilities (Expose and Spaces) into one, which makes my life a hell of a whole lot easier on a laptop.

But for some reason it completely ignores anything that minimized, and sometimes hides small pop-ups almost completely behind the main window of whatever app they're a part of. Those are really the only problems I have with MC.

Launchpad on the other hand is completely useless, and making App Store apps go there instead of the Dock was a pretty dumb choice if you ask me.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2011 17:29

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Mex posted:

Launchpad stuff

Yeah, I guess I didn't think about people who install loads of apps or have a crowded Dock. v :shobon:

v I still prefer having the Applications folder on the Dock, though.

Also whenever I get something from the App Store, it automatically goes to the second page of Launchpad, even if there's room on the first page, which is annoying. Is there any way to move more than one app at a time to another page in Launcpad? I don't see any way to select more than one app at a time.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2011 14:30

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Is there any point to using iCloud if I don't have an iPhone, iPad or an iPod Touch (I have a Nano)? Also is my Apple ID the same as my iTunes account? :confused:

# ¿ Oct 14, 2011 16:21

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Is there any kind of small piece of software that automatically switches desktop wallpapers at certain times of day? I know OSX has this sort of thing in it by default, but I'd like to set the time when the wallpaper changes myself (ie. switch from a brighter wallpaper to something darker when it's 6pm and back at 6am or something).

# ¿ Oct 17, 2011 14:40

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Yeah I use f.lux and love it, but I'm using dual monitors and it'd be nice to have a day/night wallpaper cycle at appropriate times.

It's a shame the built-in wallpaper rotation in OSX doesn't let you do this.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2011 15:53

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Hopewell posted:

This is kind of a silly workaround, but you could set up a folder of wallpapers and set OS X to cycle through them. Since OS X has options for "Change Wallpaper Every Hour" and "Every Day", but not "Every 12 Hours", you could make 12 copies of your brighter wallpaper and 12 copies of your darker wallpaper. Then make sure the "random order" box is unselected, and the wallpapers should appear to change twice a day.

That's... actually pretty clever. I'll do just that until I find an app that does it for me. Thanks.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2011 17:17

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

I have a strange little issue with Lion; whenever I use quicklook for something, I usually can resize the window at leisure. But for some reason after a while the window locks up to a random size and cannot be resized from any edge. So far the only solution I've found is either relogging or rebooting. What's up with this? :confused:

# ¿ Nov 3, 2011 20:06

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

japtor posted:

Next time it happens open up Console and see if anything useful pops up there. How long does it take to manifest?

Nothing in the Console that I can decipher, and it's hard to say when how why it happens. A few days ago I was looking through old photos and the window resized itself according to each picture just fine. Earlier today I added some new photos which were smaller, and when I used Quicklook the window was still huge even though the pictures were small and I couldn't resize it manually. The arrows pop up and I can still move the window just fine. It works normally apart from the odd size issue.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2011 01:16

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

The problem I've been having with Airport is that whenever I wake up my MacBook Pro from sleep, it shows a huge list of available WiFi networks instead of auto-connecting to my preferred one. It's the only connection I have on the list of connections it should automatically connect to after sleep but the list pops up every time regardless, and it's a pain in the rear end to scroll to 20-30 connections to find mine.

I've had Lion since it was released and I'm pretty sure it didn't do this before.

Edit: I should point out that I have every update they've released.

Stare-Out fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Nov 11, 2011

# ¿ Nov 11, 2011 11:48

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

~Coxy posted:

Just wanted to point out that image retention on LCDs is still a thing, so yes there's definitely a use for screensavers even now. Otherwise you end up with your menubar burned into the top of the screen like me.

Yeah, I have this on my Cinema HD, a shadowy image of the address bar of my browser is visible when there's a flat color on top of the screen. Apparently there are ways of clearing LCD displays though. Reading up on it, leaving a blank white picture fullscreened overnight has a pretty good chance of clearing up image retention from LCDs.

That, or you can try LCD Scrub (I just downloaded it so I can't say if it works or not but some people have had good results) and even supposedly OS X's Flurry screensaver helps with image retention.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2011 06:14

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 21:54

Stare-Out: Mar 11, 2010

Is there an app of some kind to adjust the master volume levels for a MacBook Pro? I use external (active) speakers with mine, but adjusting the master volume is a bit annoying as the max I can use during the daytime is three bars/blocks, whereas in the evenings I have to lower it to one bar, and even that can be a bit loud. Being able to have the volume adjusted around halfway up the bar for medium volume would be great. I just want some wiggle room. :shobon:

The default Lion audio settings aren't helping at all.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2011 14:45

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