Macbook Pro or Macbook HELP

Which sould I buy?

The macbook I see is 2.5 gigs of ram while the Pro is 4 gigs of ram.
Apart from price what is the diffrence between the two?

I like the macbook (white) but the Pro just looks like a HP or Acer
What will I get more if I buy the PRO?
Both are new units and come with the same version of the OS.

I am in music production, graphic design and photography and soon film; I wish to switch from windows.
I am really intrigued by the macbook but not impressed by the look of the Pro - it just looks like a windows notebook.
I was told by the dealer that the macbook + an upgrade to 4 gig will still be a lot cheaper than the PRO.
Tell me which one to buy today?

 

I'm assuming you're looking at the base 13" Macbook pro vs the macbook.

For the extra $200 for the pro you get:

4 GB RAM vs. 2 GB (you can upgrade yourself very easily for less than $100)
SD card slot
Firewire 800 port
backlit keyboard
aluminum unibody


So, if you don't care about the SD card reader, firewire port and backlit keyboard (and you already stated you like the look of the macbook vs. pro) then your decision is easy.

Look here:

Apple - Why You?ll Love a Mac - Compare Mac notebook computers.

 

call that a sledgehammer to head of the nail. BAM! couldnt have said it better. isn't there a compare section on apples website?

 

Yep! That's where the hyperlink goes.... I didn't realize the macbook doesn't appear to have an expresscard slot either, I guess you just get the 2 USBs?

 

The Macbook Pro 13 doesn't have an express card either.

 

The Macbook Pro of course.
Things are quite a bit different but I love it - sorry it is a
13 screen and not a 15 inc
I installed windows 7 via boot camp only because I use photo impact which is not Mac Compatible.
Which software do you suggest for graphic, web designs and photography for the Mac OS?
Photoshop is a No No.

By the way, how do you show desktop if you have several windows opened?

In windows you just right click in an empty area of the task bar.

 

Expose for show desktop.... quickest way is slide 4 fingers up on the trackpad, but you can set shortcut keys and such too in system preferences.

 

macbook = waste of money

 

And, how does your post relate to the question? I must have missed it.....

I like how the Macbook 13, but I needed the backlit keyboard, and SD card reader of the Pro 13.

 

why not consider the 13" air?

 

look at the OP's needs, the Air maxes at 4 GB ram, and RAM can never be upgraded, also the OP would need alot more storage then the current mPCIE SSD units available in the Air. For them using an Air would be like using a Honda Civic to haul around a 50 foot travel trailer. its not built for it

 

I have been going through this dilema myself. I was going to go pro, however, I still need a card reader for my sony DSLR so I will probaby go with the macbook and just upgrade the ram myslef.

 

I am having a bit of challenge making my way around the Mac Os.
The OS seems at first, a bit ackward compared to windows. But I am determind to master the Apple OS and get
The most of it.
I learn a new Mac trick everyday which makes it simpler and easy than windows
I just need to learn a lot more as time goes by.

It is pretty fast and a joy to look at- that's why I stick around with it.
Can anyone tell me how to save an image from a webpage in safari?

 

Like you would do it in Windows or any other OS... right-click on the image and select Save Image As... To do a right click on your trackpad, keep two fingers on the pad and click. Or depending on how you have set it up, tap the tackpad with two fingers.

 

Thanks for the reply, I have 3 more questions:

1. How do I see running programs using mouse or track pad?

2. How do I close all running programs at once using mouse or trackpad?

3. The picture viewer, is there a way to view all pictures in a folder using the arrow keys? It just does not seem possible.

 

1. any app running is in your dock with a light on under it. You an also use four fingers down to see all open windows and select one... or 4 fingers left and right to see a menu of running apps by icon you can select.

2. Close every running app at the same time? from the track pad? why would you want to? I know of no way to do that, or why they'd even want to add it.

3. What picture viewer? do you mean Preview.app, or quick look? If you highlight all files in a folder and open them in preview, preview will handle them all... if you just want to quickly look at a picture or whatever, its easier to just use quick look. Select the top picture in your folder, and hit the space bar to do a quick look of it, then you can hit your down arrow over and over to go down through the files in that folder and it'll continue to change.... hitting space bar again will close it.

 

I use a MB in the office an anMBA as a personal machine. I like the MB fine. The MBP has more and cost more, but they are all fine choices.

 

Exactly 7.....

 

the most pretentious coffee in the world. it automatically makes you an asshat...ha ha!

 

Thanks for the advise, they really help and they are really timely.

One more question... how do we cut a file (instead of copy)?
Let's say we want to cut some files and paste them to a new location or folder. How do we do that?

 

PC
Copy - Control + c
Cut - Control + x
Paste - Control + v

Mac
Copy - Command + c
Cut - Command + x
Paste - Command + v

 

everything works except comand x

It just does not work
Even if I go to Finder>File - the cut command is greyed out.

What could be the problem?

 

Finder has no Cut option... if you want to move, you need to drag and drop. Its not really that hard with 2 windows, or with using the spring loaded folders...

Drag and drop to the same volume is default a move operation (same as cut and paste).. hold down Alt option when doing this to copy instead.

Drag and drop to a different volume is default copy... hold down CMD when doing this to move instead.

Remember that you can hold without dropping over a folder and it'll open that folder.. and you can dig down through and drop it where ever you like.

Cut and Paste would actually be nice though, I'm not sure why they haven't ever put it in.

 

A bit off topic, but I'm bored at work so I'm going to post.

My wife has been a tab miffed about the performance of her Sony Vaio (SR290) and loves the way her friend's MB performs. Until I followed theseadragon's link to the Apple site I was going to push her to the MBP, but now I'm thinking the MB is much more appropriate for her (and our wallets). She doesn't much care about the backlit keyboard, doesn't need the Firewire port or the SD slot, and I can upgrade the RAM later on for cheaper than the MB/MBP price difference.

 

Where I live there is a plethora of Dell,HP, Acers , Leveno and maybe one or two macbooks-white.
No one has ever seen the Macbook Pro. Everybody is like WOW can I this please.
The females in particular love the lights in the keyboard and aluminum case.
A female just walked over and offered me a phone number and said she would like to learn more about MACs.
This dude who claims he is a laptop expert offered me a hand shake and congrats on your Macbook Air"
I guess it is a real attention grabber around here. I guess it would be wise to be careful with my macbook pro.

 

guess ur macbook pro is ur new wing man . All you need now is a genius t-shirt and ur good to go .

 

at my school macbook pro is the most popular laptop by far, followed by HP/Dell.

 

Meh/bah This happens whenever I walk into a room full of chicks

 

Get the mac book pro if your going into video editing/ production

a lot of there devices and inputs revolve around firewire.

 

A couple of tips that I learned from my own n00bness:
- install BetterTouchTool (BTT) to take advantage of the amazing touchpad. It will also enable a solid imitation of Windows 7's Window Snap feature.
- don't fill up the dock with any unnecessary programs since it becomes difficult to find what you need. Use Spotlight (Cmd+Space) to launch programs quickly
- use Onyx (look it up) to create spaces between dock icons so that you can sort them
- Fn+delete functions as the delete key on a PC.
- there is no cut (ctrl+x) function in Finder, only drag and drop. Its stupid, I know.
- learn the hotkeys. Mac OS becomes more powerful with hotkeys, and it is well integrated with them
- Cmd+Esc to quit a rogue application (I rarely need it)
- You can use Safari to pull parts of web pages and put them into your Dashboard to function as Widgets

 

Thanks for the tips Bog
I will definatly give them a try

 

There is software that is dear to me hoto Impact
I need a good free software to let me run it in on my mac.
I don't wanna have to boot in windows. I tried wineskin but it just seems so complicated

On the issue of Graphic and web design software which would you recommend for Mac
I am not a fan of Photoshop.

 

what version of PhotoImpact? a few of the older ones work decently though not perfect with Wine (this is typical of graphics editing software)... worst case you can use Windows in a virtual machine and not have to reboot.

Photoshop Elements (not full Photoshop) is a very nice program though if you haven't ever tried it.

 

I own photo impact 10,11, and 12.

Could you give me the link to the softwares that will make windows apps.

work on my mac?

 

VMFusion or Parallels to stick with PImpact, but you'll still need a windows license. Other options include Pixelmator or GIMP. Google

And the new PSElements 9 Mac is indeed a pretty powerful package.

 

I think getting 12 ported over using Wineskin shouldn't be too tough, but some things may not work in it, especially if you need direct device access to like a scanner.

I do not have a copy, and there seems to be no free trial, so I cannot test it myself.

If you want to attempt to make your own port of it with Wineskin, I can help you some if your having trouble figuring out what to do... but I'd suggest going with Wineskin 2.0 beta, and not 1.2... but remember it'll never be super easy, as its designed to make a Mac app that looks and works like a Mac app but is running Windows software, its not just something used to run Windows software directly. If you do get it installed and working, then it would look and act like a Mac app, just double click it in Finder and use it.

But really your best bet with that type of software is to find a native one that you like to use instead... and new Photoshop Elements is VERY good.

 

I tried VM fusion, but still prefer to use bootcamp. However, I just don't want to carry windows with me; I only want to bring over photo impact, hence I attempted to use wineskin again.
Well Photo impact and its contents installed perfectly, but I just can't get them to run. I do not know what to click or where to go to make it run.
I created a wrapper which is located in FINDER/MY MACBOOK NAME/WINESKIN/MY WRAPPER and click the C:\ PROGRAM FILES\ULEAD PHOTO IMPACT12\ICO EDIT which normally starts photo impact but it does not work.

I notice that from the wineskin control, some EXE stuff is missing

 

in WineskinSettings.app (Wineskin 1.x, or its just called Wineskin.app in 2.0) you have to set the .exe that is supposed to be run. Then you just double click the app in Finder to run it like any other Mac app.

It is possible to make a general use wrapper and associate .exe files to it so you can just double click them, but that doesn't really follow the "port" concept to make it a Mac app.

 

Thanks for the reply but explain in a bit more detail about ".exe"

Sorry about the troubles.
Hanging around this forum lets me know a whole lot about the MAC Concept.

 

a .exe file is a Windows executable file... the program file you double click to run the program.

When you double click the Wineskin wrapper, it knows what Windows .exe file to use by what you have entered in the config app... WineskinSettings.app in Wineskin 1.x and Wineskin.app in Wineskin 2.0. These are the programs just inside the wrapper (right click the wrapper and select "show package contents" to see inside).

In that program, you should see 4 buttons on the main menu... One of them is "Advanced" where you can set the Windows EXE file. You just click the browse button and choose the exe file from where it installed it in the wrapper, and it'll fill in the blank correctly for you.

This is what it looks like in the current Wineskin 2.0 beta


That would run the notepad.exe file in the windows folder... when you double click the app in finder just like a normal Mac application (which it actually is a normal Mac application ) Typically if you use the "Install Windows SOftware" button to install the program, it will prompt and let you select the right exe at the end of installation as well, but you can always change it in the Advanced Menu.

now just because you select the right exe (or .bat or .msi, other executable files on Windows) does not mean it will actually work correctly, there is a lot of configuring and troubleshooting to get things to work correctly of the piece of software your trying to get to work... same as with basically anything that uses Wine.

 

Well I downloaded the 2.0 beta and it worked much easier.
Now Photo Impact Works but not all the features.

When I try to type Text the program freezes
I can't save in any format
Most of the path tools are not working
The program looks kinda dated and uninspiring using wineskin.

Well I guess I will just install the demo version of pixelmator (which I learnt of in this forum). It seems kinda cool, I hope I get to learn it quickly, and I hope it does the stuff I am used to in Photo Impact.

 

not surprising. More complicated programs like this are much harder to get working correctly, and might even take some Wine source code modifications rather than a standard engine.

By default the window probably looks like an old Win95 window... thats Wine for you. If you go into Wineskin Screen Settings you can select to have the windows decorate with a checkmark. This will make them look more like a normal Mac window, with the top bar and shadowing and such... and it'll work fine that way as long as you don't have a program thats going to try to switch to fullscreen mode. Sometimes getting a game to work is much easier than something like this which is tied into the OS a lot more in many ways.

 

What is the correct way to delete a software from a MAC you no longer need?

Also, my trash bin only seems to give me the option to secure delete files.
This takes a long time as it seems to be overwriting the trash bin several times. Is there a way to just simply empty the trash bin without deleting securely?

 

if the software came with an uninstall tool (or has one available on their website or whatever...)... use that, otherwise throw the app in the trash

to get rid of secure delete, go to Finder the click the Finder menu on the top menu bar and go to Preferences. On the Advanced Tab you uncheck the option to secure empty trash.

 

Hi all,
Happy holidays, I was looking thru iweb - is there a way to insert and resize flash files in the webpages you make?

 

Is there a way to rotate more than one photo at a time on MAC?
I have taken quite a few pics and need to rotate a lot of them 90 degrees.

 

Picasa 3 batch edit

 

To rotate pics, click on a thumbnail to select, then command+A to select all, then click command+R to rotate.
If you want to select random images to be rotated together hold the command key down while clicking on the thumbnails you desire.

 

COOL - how then would you rename multiple images/files in a folder?