A few Mac newbie questions...

Well, a few things I took for granted on a PC just don't work the same on a Mac. I am sure some of you have experienced the same frustration...feel free to leave a question unanswered if it's too stupid...

1. Say I customize resume often, I'd like to send one version of resume to a particular employer but another version to another...does the version feature do it for me? Will it work on MS Word & Excel? I don't have a time machine, What additional stuff can time machine do for me?

2. I used to save iTune library on an external drive while I was on a PC. so every time I run iTune, it asks to locate an iTune library, that was easy for me. But now I have a MBA and it has a iTune library on its hard drive, it doesn't ask to locate a library, so how do I tell it that I want the one on external drive?

3. Is there a way to prevent wireless from disconnecting when the lid is closed? I set it up as to never sleep while on power adapter, but for some reason once the lid is closed, i had to re-enter password and the wireless has to be reconnected...this is annjoying.

4. I imported a picture from android phone, then i moved it to trash thinking the file is deleted, but when I open iPhoto it still shows, why?

5. Is there a way to slow-mo play a video file? QuickTime doesn't do it. iMovie is nice, but can't find such feature. VLC is great but doesn't work the same way as on a PC.

I will think of more, but this is probably enough for now.

 

versions is for you... so you can easily revert back and not lose things that might have been a mistake. The main file you save and send to people does NOT store the versions, only the final save... so you'd need to keep separate copies of your resume to do that. Office 2011 doesn't support these Lion features yet anyways.

Time Machine is to backup your drive... you can easily recover older files and such that have been backed up, or restore your whole computer, or use it to migrate to a new computer.

iTunes Preferences... Advanced, and set the library location where you want it.

the sleep you disabled is about a timer to sleep... closing the display puts the machine to sleep no matter what setting you put. There are some 3rd party programs out there that prevent that, but I don't recall any of their names.

I don't use iPhoto, so I cannot give you specifics. By default when you opened the picture in it, it imported a copy of the picture into its own library... check preferences to where it has the library and you can change if you want it to import or not. Its probably in the Pictures folder in your home folder.

VLC might not work the same, but it does work... Quicktime slow motion and fast is kind of stupid.. you can do it with scrolling up and down on the trackpad, but its hard to make it stop at a set amount... its not really useful if you want to watch something in slow or fast motion.

 

2. In addition to the correct response already stated, you will need to consolidate your library onto the external hard drive as well. Click on File, go down to Library, click on Organize, put a checkmark next to Consolidate Files, and then click on OK. This will then copy your file (using the "official" iTunes method) to your external hard drive. After that, you can delete them off of your MBA's internal SSD.

4. doh was right in that once a photo is imported into iPhoto, it is now located in iPhoto's physical directory. You have to delete the photo in iPhoto and then empty its own specific trash can in the actual program. iPhoto physically stores pictures in some strange directory that is somewhat difficult to get to. You have to open a new Finder window, go to your username, go into the Pictures folder, right-click on iPhoto Library, and then click on Show Package Contents. Just double-clicking the iPhoto Library icon will open up iPhoto. You can manually manage your photos that way but iPhoto will get a little freaked out if you manually delete a photo. That is why I recommend just deleting the picture from within iPhoto and then emptying iPhoto's trash.

5. The controls for slowing down and speeding up playback in VLC are command- and command+ respectively. Just know that I have experienced some issues mainly revolving around playing back HD mpeg-4 AVC content in the MKV container. The program/decoder has freaked out on my quite a bit and caused a pixelated mess. I haven't had any issues with HD mpeg-4 AVC videos in actual mpeg-4 containers or with SD content (Divx, Xvid, mpeg-4, mpeg-4 AVC) in any common container (AVI, mpeg-4, mkv).

 

No no, you misunderstand my question. The MP3 files and the iTune library are on the external drive, the internal SSD has an iTune library as well but no MP3 whatsoever. I want to import MP3s and iTune library from the external drive into the internal SSD and replace the iTune library already on the internal SSD. Know any easy way to do this? ( I hate having two iTune library to deal with)

My experience with "library", primarily the iTune library, has been terrible. I have no idea what it's doing. If i just use apple products that would have been fine, but I have an android phone and a PC as well, I just want to make sure when I need to move files to other devices, it can be done easily.

Thanks it works!

 

But isn't that what Auto-Save and Version do? Recover older files? I do understand it doesn't backup the entire drive though. Sorry I am still a bit rough understanding what Time Machine offers.

Say I want to backup to my USB external HD (not a Time Machine), what format does the drive needs to be and how do I go about doing it?

I jut find it annoying to have to wait for reconnection. But thanks for explaining it.

 

Personally.. I'd just manually copy the iTunes library in to place, and then launch iTunes and let it use it. There is also an import command in iTunes on one of the drop down menus.

then change the settings... tell it to not keep your stuff organized, do it yourself in folders manually, and then just have iPhoto use them in place. Its all in the preferences

auto save and versions are nice to a degree. There is some overlap with Time machine, but Time Machine has existed for many years before these newer features in Lion. Time Machine stores all your info on a different hard drive. If you try to rely on a backup on the same drive, then the hard drive dies, or has a format/partition/corruption issue, you can lose everything. You need a real backup, meaning in multiple locations, not all on the same drive. Versions just keeps differences, so it can recreate older versions, knwoing what oyu changed. Time Machine keeps actual copies of files, from every backup, over months or more depending how big your backup drive is and how much data you are backing up. It also keeps everything, apps, and whatever... if you move to a new Mac you can migrate from Time Machine and its just like it was on the old machine, all apps, settings, bookmarks, everything. If you buy a bigger hard drive.. if you have a hard drive failure.. whatever, you can restore from Time Machine and have a full working system. Versions is not even close, and only works in apps that support it. Autosave just means its saved to the file without having to remember to press save.

just copying files won't be that good of a backup... but Mac OS X likes "Mac OS Extended" format, which is really HFS+. If you want to have the drive configured for both Windows and Mac OS X to read/write to easy, its best to format it with exFAT, but it has to be HFS+ if your making it a Time Machine drive.

 

e.g InsommiaX
Download InsomniaX for Mac - Disable sleep mode on an Apple Laptop. MacUpdate.com

Greetings
Julian

 

you shouldnt have to re-enter your network password while using your computer with the lid closed. this shouldnt happen. make sure you click the wireless network icon in your top bar and choose open preferences then on the next dialog choose advanced then make sure you have remember network connections you have joined is checked.

other then that i dont know why that would happen. i use my air with the lid closed with an external monitor surfing the web and it has never asked me for a wep key after it had already been set up

 

OK, reverse that then. Consolidate your library onto the SSD. The procedure is still the same, you are just changing where the library is located. When using the consolidate feature, iTunes will copy files over to wherever your iTunes library directory is located. So change your iTunes library location and then go from there (just make sure you use Time Machine so you have a backup of your iTunes library somewhere not stored on your Mac). I would still use the consolidate feature simply because iTunes will make sure that everything is moved over. I have manually moved my iTunes libraries in the past and it sucks to get everything moved over only to find out I am missing 11 out of 15k+ songs that I missed.

 

So versions is a Lion feature which shows multiple versions of each file? I heard something about it but don't know what it really is.

 

I believe the program has to specifically support this features as well (I believe iWork 09 was updated to support it). Essentially Lion will save a "database" file that will let you backtrack through every change you have made. You can make a document and write a paragraph, it will then be saved. Insert a picture and that new version will be saved but not on top of the older one. Change the picture and that will be saved while not erasing any of the two previous versions. It keeps going on and on like that and can come in handy if you make a change that didn't turn out very well. Instead of going back and re-writing (or re-doing) what you previously did, you can just pull up an older version.

Personally, I can't use it until MS adds support in Word 2011 simply because everything I do must be through Word.

 

Versions basically uses a file that records changes. It doesn't save the whole older file, that would waste space, it just records the changes that have been made so they can be undone.

But yes, the software has to support it. MS said they will eventually get it in Office 2011, but they didn't even start on it until after Lion was released even though they had like a year before.