[Mac 101] Ask your questions here!

[negativzero]

Have not started the course related yet, i went to the helpdesk and I asked him. He said 80GB minimum for windows, I don't know what crap hes talking about.

I know right, but is there a way to actually allows me to view my files in Windows from the MacOS itself?

You absolutely don't need 80gb to bootcamp or virtualise windows. You need to ask ur faculty what programs you need which justifies the 80gb you need. As far as I am concerned, unless you're in media or architecture, there is no need for those big sized programs. And even then, the Mac equivalent softwares are better.

 

[Farisworld]

Yeah. In OSX, click on finder (the top left hand corner)--> preferences --> check the show hard disk box. This will show your drives (including boot camp partition) on your desktop. You can then click on the icon and view the files in that folder.

If you need so much space, may as well go 13" macbook pro. That's $1500 after edu discount, then maybe see if you want to replace the ODD with a small SSD (but together with parallels and windows, expect the final cost to reach around $2k).

If this is the case, then may want to consider just going for a cheap windows laptop that comes bundled with office.

I'm getting a macbook air to replace my 2 years bulky acer laptop weighing around 2.2 kg. It's so heavy bringing to school. I don't really need to purchase parallels as my school will configure my laptop to their requirements and install bootcamp. Thanks for the tut gonna do that if I'm getting this.

But till now, I still can't decide Macbook Air or Asus UX31 though. Both looks tempting

You absolutely don't need 80gb to bootcamp or virtualise windows. You need to ask ur faculty what programs you need which justifies the 80gb you need. As far as I am concerned, unless you're in media or architecture, there is no need for those big sized programs. And even then, the Mac equivalent softwares are better.

Thats what my friend said! I'm going to go down and call the helpdesk to confirm why he said windows requires at least 80GB minimum. Well, neither do my course requires such stuff. Mainly what we do is presentation, programming and html coding only. All MAC users in my school requires to use windows OS though for daily usage.

 

[limpe84]

Windows 7 shouldn't need more than 16-20gb of space. You may want to set aside some spare space for temp files while working, and maybe for some other programs in windows, but overall, should not take up more than 40gb.

I am curious - what is the win7 for exactly? Internet explorer? Be sure to let us know.

 

[zitseng]

Hi all,

will macbook pro with corei5 be good enough for work/school etc?? or need core i7? what is the main different actually>

thx all

The best "upgrade" is going to be getting the SSD. I strongly recommend that first before you consider a processor upgrade.

 

[bockscar]

Does anyone know if MS Office for Mac is offered for free download in the NUS Dreamspark?

A few Apple retailers offering a bundle of MS Office for Mac. If it's offered for free download in Dreamspark then dont need get the bundle.

 

[zitseng]

Does anyone know if MS Office for Mac is offered for free download in the NUS Dreamspark?

A few Apple retailers offering a bundle of MS Office for Mac. If it's offered for free download in Dreamspark then dont need get the bundle.

I don't think it's offered. Btw, you can get the Office for Mac 2011 from Amazon for much cheaper than the retail in Singapore. I got mine on a promo for US$80 (usually it is around US$100).

 

[Modd-36]

Hey guys...

I've got a macbook air and this mini displayport to VGA adapter and also a HP External monitor with DVI output.

I've tried connecting this mini displayport to VGA > VGA - DVI converter > External monitor but there's no display showing on the monitor. The macbook can detect the HP external monitor though.

Is there any settings I need to do?

Please help.

Appreciate it a lot.

Thanks

 

[zitseng]

Hey guys...

I've got a macbook air and this mini displayport to VGA adapter and also a HP External monitor with DVI output.

I've tried connecting this mini displayport to VGA > VGA - DVI converter > External monitor but there's no display showing on the monitor. The macbook can detect the HP external monitor though.

Is there any settings I need to do?

Please help.

Appreciate it a lot.

Thanks

Is it possible that your external monitor has multiple inputs and it is trying to use an input other than the DVI that your MBA is connected to? You didn't mention any cable, but supposing you had a DVI cable in there, realize that not all DVI cables are the same. Some are designed to carry digital signals only, and analog outputs may be dropped (though in this case I'm not sure if the MBA would have detected the external monitor anyway).

 

[Modd-36]

Ahh... I see... So I guess the best choice is still to get a MBA DVI display port?

I've tried using the MBA VGA displayport to an external VGA Monitor and it works.

What I was trying was...

MBA VGA Display port > VGA-DVI converter (the $3 converter from PC shops) < DVI Monitor , which sadly did not work.

 

[zitseng]

Ahh... I see... So I guess the best choice is still to get a MBA DVI display port?

I've tried using the MBA VGA displayport to an external VGA Monitor and it works.

What I was trying was...

MBA VGA Display port > VGA-DVI converter (the $3 converter from PC shops) < DVI Monitor , which sadly did not work.

Lol, you still didn't say where/what the cable is in the chain

About DP-DVI dongle: I think it may depend on your needs. For me, if I want to connect to a projector for presentation, usually there's only VGA cable provided in most places. So a DP-VGA dongle is more useful for me. But if you only want to connect to your DVI monitor, then a DP-DVI would be more useful. OTOH, you could buy these for so little money on eBay, perhaps you could just buy both!

 

[xmartin86x]

could someone enlighten me on the difference between speed, performance etc between i7 dual core 2.9ghz and i7 quad-core 2.3 macbook pro?

 

[shawn_sboi]

could someone enlighten me on the difference between speed, performance etc between i7 dual core 2.9ghz and i7 quad-core 2.3 macbook pro?

Quad core =4 core

Dual core =2 core.

The difference between speed and performance. Is easy. Quad core is better in rendering/processing.

 

[xmartin86x]

is it really a true fact that always quad core better performance in everything compared ti dual core?

the dual core has 2.9ghz could perform slightly better than the quad core 2.3ghz?

 

[zitseng]

is it really a true fact that always quad core better performance in everything compared ti dual core?

the dual core has 2.9ghz could perform slightly better than the quad core 2.3ghz?

Of course it depends on work load. That's why it is never easy to compare.

 

[xboxseller]

hi all,

I got a macbook pro from my friend which came in without a hard disk. Question is, i have one spare 2.5 hard disk in my house.

Can i just plug it in and install? or do i need to format it?

Also my friend didn't provide me his installer disc, can i just head down to apple store to buy one or i can just buy resale disc from other hwz bros?

 

[bockscar]

The 13" Air has the option to upgrade to i7 2.0Ghz processor. Will the extra processor speed be important when running virtualization?

Cos if processor speed is important in determining the performance during virtualization, I might as well get the 13" Pro which has a i7 2.9Ghz.

I can do without the fast boot up & application load times of an SSD.

The 13" Air with 8GB RAM itself will cost more than the high-end 13" Pro. If I upgrade the Air to i7 it will cost about $300 more than the high-end 13" Pro. That money can be used to buy Windows 7, Parallels and MS Office for Mac.

Afterall, if I do get a 13" Pro I can still later on upgrade to an SSD while retaining the 2.9Ghz processor. In a year's time the SSD price will also drop as well.

So it all boils down to whether the extra processor speed will be a vital factor in virtualization performance?

Thanks in advanced.

 

[starqwerty]

Hey my current 13 macbook pro system Processor- 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Memory -4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Graphics-NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256.. is it possible to go up to 8GB Ram?

 

[zitseng]

The 13" Air has the option to upgrade to i7 2.0Ghz processor. Will the extra processor speed be important when running virtualization?

Cos if processor speed is important in determining the performance during virtualization, I might as well get the 13" Pro which has a i7 2.9Ghz.

I can do without the fast boot up & application load times of an SSD.

The 13" Air with 8GB RAM itself will cost more than the high-end 13" Pro. If I upgrade the Air to i7 it will cost about $300 more than the high-end 13" Pro. That money can be used to buy Windows 7, Parallels and MS Office for Mac.

Afterall, if I do get a 13" Pro I can still later on upgrade to an SSD while retaining the 2.9Ghz processor. In a year's time the SSD price will also drop as well.

So it all boils down to whether the extra processor speed will be a vital factor in virtualization performance?

Thanks in advanced.

Whether an i7 helps or not also will depend on what you want to do in your virtual machine. With virtualization software getting better, their overheads are not that significant nowadays. Imho, flash storage helps a lot more, overall, than a fast CPU. If you decide that your flash storage can wait, then perhaps consider other factors. E.g. portability.

Btw, the benchmarks show the MBA's 2.0 GHz i7 doesn't make a whole lot of difference.

 

[negativzero]

Whether an i7 helps or not also will depend on what you want to do in your virtual machine. With virtualization software getting better, their overheads are not that significant nowadays. Imho, flash storage helps a lot more, overall, than a fast CPU. If you decide that your flash storage can wait, then perhaps consider other factors. E.g. portability.

Btw, the benchmarks show the MBA's 2.0 GHz i7 doesn't make a whole lot of difference.

Errr, no. With virtualization, you can select and delegate the amount of resources to the virtual OS. If you have more CPU power, you can give your virtual OS more performance and speed while at the same time making sure your main OS does not suffer performance drop.

When running a single OS, that few mhz won't make a difference, but it will when you're doing virtualization.

 

[bockscar]

Whether an i7 helps or not also will depend on what you want to do in your virtual machine. With virtualization software getting better, their overheads are not that significant nowadays. Imho, flash storage helps a lot more, overall, than a fast CPU. If you decide that your flash storage can wait, then perhaps consider other factors. E.g. portability.

Btw, the benchmarks show the MBA's 2.0 GHz i7 doesn't make a whole lot of difference.

Errr, no. With virtualization, you can select and delegate the amount of resources to the virtual OS. If you have more CPU power, you can give your virtual OS more performance and speed while at the same time making sure your main OS does not suffer performance drop.

When running a single OS, that few mhz won't make a difference, but it will when you're doing virtualization.

Thanks for both your input.

While I understand that SSD helps overall in terms of booting up and application load times, those are not so important while doing my work. I can wait an extra 30 secs to start up my computer but while doing my work (switching between virtualization etc) it seems like CPU will be more important; based on what negativezero said.

And yeah, I think SSD can wait. Maybe in a year's time when 512GB is reasonably priced like the price of a 256GB now. I find that 256GB is quite tight especially with visualization taking up a considerable space.

With regards to portability mentioned by zitseng, I definitely wish for portability but I'd have to pay more for that. I'm trying to keep costs low because my parents will only fund part of it and I will have to top up the remaining amount. That money saved can pay for Windows 7, Parallels and Office 2011.

I still have some time to think through if I wanna break the bank and get an Air 13" with i7/8GB/256GB which will cost total of $2518 incl. of Applecare. The high end Pro 13" will cost only $2226 incl. of Applecare.

Appreciate both your input!