MacBook Saturday

Hey everyone!
First, I'd like to say, thank you! Everyone here has helped me so much in so many ways that I couldn't possibly thank you enough.

Now, I'm getting a macbook on saturday and I'd like to know some of the things I should do besides calibrate the battery. I also have some questions:

1) Which is faster Firewire 400 or USB 2.0?

2) Can I put the macbook when I calibrate the battery or does that screw up the calibration?

3) What's the easiest way to transfer music without using a flash drive?

What are some headphones that are really good that are <$200?
I really like the Sennheiser PCX 250's, does anyone have them? Are they good?

 

1. USB 2.0 has a higher maximum transfer rate but Firewire 400 is higher over an extended period

2. What?

3. External hard drives are the best for that.

I really like Behringer headphones. I use them when I record my guitar tracks, and I hear a lot more with them then some of the more expensive units I've tried. The sennheisers are good, but there are better ones out there for that price.

 

ok I think I might get the Bose Triport OE's not sure (I mean, they are $170).
Number 2 is supposed to say

2) Can I put the notebook to sleep when I calibrate the battery or will that screw up the calibration?

 

The point of calibrating a battery is to run it down, wait 5+ hours and then charge it back up. I guess you could put it to Sleep but it would be barely draining the battery.

 

Ok.

Well, when you calibrate the battery you should run the computer on battery power until it shuts off on its own. This is sleep mode. Now, plug it in and let it charge fully and undisturbed. Once it's charged you can use it again, but it should stay on the charger for at least another 2 hours.

 

A direct Ethernet connection: How to Move to Mac: Use Your Network & Switch 101: Migrate Your Files.

 

I second the Bose Triport OE's They are light foldable come with a case and do sound very good. They filter the static from the sound card very very well.

 

You know, fully draining is horrible for lithium ion batteries, it will cause damage. Luckily most every laptop will prevent it from being drained fully, but it's still best to not drain the thing more than necessary. These aren't nickel cadmium, they really don't need maintenance.

I'd suggest some good Beyers, Bose are horribly overpriced for what you get. The DT 250-80 would fit well in your range, and the 80 ohms resistance should minimize any static very well.

 

Yes, but calibrating the battery requires "draining" the battery until the MacBook/MacBook Pro sleeps by itself because of low power. I didn't mean draining the battery until it seriously went to 0%, I meant to drain it until it fell asleep by itself.

 

I just calibrated my battery after not having done it for like 2 months and gained back about 30 minutes of life.

 

Uh, you are in a Mac forum.

 

umm can you sync gmail with mail on Mac OS X?

 

Yes you can, SamsungFTW.

 

Just a word of warning... batteries on macbooks / macbook pros have been acting strangely from time to time... if you don't believe me, check out the reviews on Apple's online store...

Personally, I have issues of battery losing its designed capacity quicker than usual.

 

If that does then its considered defective. Most defective batteries will have problems arise within the first year, so that's covered by the one-year warranty.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think that even if you get a replacement battery, and found out that the replacement battery is also defective, its warranty is basically the remaining days of the warranty of the first battery.

 

OK, um I'm buying the Mini-DVI to Video Adapter cable from the apple store and I'm also buying a 12ft s-video cable from newegg. Do you think Warcraft III will look pretty good on my TV? What about movies? Here's the cord from newegg right here...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812196088

 

it probably wont look too good unless you have an hdtv.

 

I just wanted to point out that only the video will play on the TV, audio will still play through the MacBook's speakers. Some people don't realize this and are disappointedly surprised.

 

well I have the cable that I can hook up to my macbook's headphone jack and then to the tv's speakers.

 

i get 4 hours of battery life.

 

That's good, you're way ahead of the learning curve !

 

sometimes 5

 

so far, in my extremely limited usage of the MBP (4 days ) I have gotten roughly 4 hours when in Mac OSX. I use Fusion, so that plays a large role in the battery drainage. Now I've trained myself to boot straight to Windows rather than go through Fusion when on battery power.

Edit: OT, but in iStat Pro there is a field named "Nice" under the processor section. Whats this?

 

the guy from the apple store said that s-video would look good enough on a crt tv for movies...what do you guys think?

 

iStat's CPU Section:

Link to more information about nice (Wikipedia).

 

Nice! Wonder if Windows has something like this... thanks eternal!

 

I've found that to be true on my laptop. I just hook it up to my TV via S-Video to watch DVDs and stuff on my 20" tube TV. DVDs just don't look very good on my screen for some reason, maybe because it's matte.

 

Unless you're as lucky as me and your battery all of sudden loses over an hour of battery life (pretty much overnight... I still don't understand it) just a month after your 1 year warranty is up. Dell won't replace it, so now I'm barely pushing 1 hour of battery life with wireless on and the screen as dark as it will get.

 

I see, well what do you think Warcraft III would look like?

 

Games usually don't look too good. I used to play games on my old Latitude C640 through the TV so I could use 640x480 resolution without it looking like absolute junk. But for most games, you just can't read text and stuff as they're meant to be seen on higher resolution screens.

 

well what if I were looking on the screen but my friends were just following along on the screen? I mean as a little gamer (I don't game much beyond WC3) I like my text to be crisp and my sword sharp lol but I mean wc3 is a RTS so it shouldn't be hard for my friends to watch right?