[Mac 101] Ask your questions here!

[neubie]

Hi guy,

I just ordered a mac air but have yet to open it. I am wondering if I could use it because I am waiting for the upcoming event to see if the new mac air would be released. And if it does, I wanna do a return haha.

Anyway, if there any failure test I should do to ensure my mac is fine and is it possible to just put my cs6 prog from my window desktop and transfer it into the mac?

Thanks!

Tuff luck, no new MBA refresh

 

[Geforce3]

works great so far, no issues with apps

 

[littleredboy]

tabs for the new safari seems to be very light leg, can't really tell the active tab using my old eyes zz

 

[aamaterasu]

Hi guys,

I am using a mac air 2014 and it sometimes shut itself randomly. I have to close the lid and reopen it to rewake it. Any idea what is wrong?

Model Name: MacBook Air
Model Identifier: MacBookAir6,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 1.4 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 8 GB
Boot ROM Version: MBA61.0099.B16
SMC Version (system): 2.13f15
Serial Number (system):
Hardware UUID: F89921B2-61F8-5D75-A7C9-951E49BE82D8

Is it a known problem?

 

[asriznet]

Hi guys,

I am using a mac air 2014 and it sometimes shut itself randomly. I have to close the lid and reopen it to rewake it. Any idea what is wrong?

Model Name: MacBook Air
Model Identifier: MacBookAir6,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 1.4 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 8 GB
Boot ROM Version: MBA61.0099.B16
SMC Version (system): 2.13f15
Serial Number (system):
Hardware UUID: F89921B2-61F8-5D75-A7C9-951E49BE82D8

Is it a known problem?

Have you tried Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) ?
While you're at that, do this as well - OS X Mavericks: Reset your computer

Also make sure that your software is up to date, especially if there are any SMC firmware updates available.

power/sleep/wake issues are usually fixed after an SMC reset.

 

[Bryson]

I'm having the late 2013, 13" retina model running on 4gb of ram, 128gb, is it possible for me to go to stores to upgrade my ram?
I'm thinking of running windows applications on my mac too but I'm confused if i should try boot camp or parallels software..

 

[EldonChew]

I'm having the late 2013, 13" retina model running on 4gb of ram, 128gb, is it possible for me to go to stores to upgrade my ram?

Retina MacBook Pro's RAM is soldered on and cannot be upgraded

 

[twosix]

Can the latest macbook pro play 4K videos smoothly?

 

[aamaterasu]

would anyone recommend buying applecare for mac air? I can still buy it within 1 year of warranty right?

Does it cover stuff like theft / cosmetic dmg etc?

Thanks!

 

[B772ER]

would anyone recommend buying applecare for mac air? I can still buy it within 1 year of warranty right?

Does it cover stuff like theft / cosmetic dmg etc?

Thanks!

AppleCare Protection Plan covers hardware issues for up to 3 years from the date of purchase of the unit. Theft, cosmetic (such as dents and cracked screens) and accidental damage (eg. liquid spills) are not covered by it.

 

[littleredboy]

how to stop safari from pushing my tabs and squeezing them to the left ah? i prefer all tabs to be shown clearly, albeit a smaller spacing tab.

 

[Mfacegm]

hi guys one quick question - is it easily possible to break the 4 characters password on ipad and on macbook?

 

[asriznet]

hi guys one quick question - is it easily possible to break the 4 characters password on ipad and on macbook?

Don't understand what you mean by "break" the 4 digit passcode on ipad.

You can restore the ipad however if "Find my iPhone" is switched on, you need to bypass the activation lock.

https://www.icloud.com/activationlock/

You're required to sign in with the apple id that was used to activate "find my iphone" on the device.

Macbook uses 4 digit passcode?
If you forgot the admin account password, refer to the following guide to reset it(will not work if filevault is enabled)

Recovery partition or installation DVD - Reset Forgotten Admin & Standard User Password OSX 10.10 Yosemite
Single user mode if no recovery or DVD available - Change the Admin Password with Mac OS X Single User Mode | OSXDaily

 

[Mfacegm]

I see.. the thing was I've lost my ipad and macbook a few weeks ago.. so basically the person who stole it can bypass the macbook while on ipad need little more work is it?

 

[asriznet]

I see.. the thing was I've lost my ipad and macbook a few weeks ago.. so basically the person who stole it can bypass the macbook while on ipad need little more work is it?

Did you check the status of the activation lock on https://www.icloud.com/activationlock/ ?

If it's activated then the ipad is useless to the person.

for the mac, best you can do is remote wipe it but it won't stop the person from using it after a clean installation.

I subscribed to Orbicule | Undercover - Anti Theft solution for Mac OS X: Recover your Stolen Apple Computer

Has better features that iCloud Find My Mac.

The moment you activated lost mode, locations are tracked, factime camera will periodically take photo and if you're lucky the culprit face will appear.

All these information can be retrieved @ https://www.undercoverhq.com/

Makes police investigation much of a breeze.

 

[aamaterasu]

Hi guys, my activity monitor has always been showing that my mac is always hogging 6-7gb of ram. I did not really open a lot of stuffs...maybe some word/ppt/spotify and ard 10 tabs. nothing intensive like powerpoint. Is that the case for the rest of the user?

Why would people say that 4gb is enough?

 

[asriznet]

Hi guys, my activity monitor has always been showing that my mac is always hogging 6-7gb of ram. I did not really open a lot of stuffs...maybe some word/ppt/spotify and ard 10 tabs. nothing intensive like powerpoint. Is that the case for the rest of the user?

Why would people say that 4gb is enough?

I have 8GB memory on my MBP and it's at 7GB used at this point and I don't even have much opened.

If you refer to - OS X Mavericks: About Activity Monitor - Apple Support

I believe File Cache is what consuming the memory.

My file cache is showing 3GB

File Cache: The space in RAM marked as available for apps to use that contains recently used files.
As an example of how File Cache works, if you've been using Mail and then close it, the RAM that Mail was using is marked as File Cache. This RAM is now available for use by another app. If you open Mail again before its File Cache is used (overwritten) by a different app, Mail opens more quickly because its File Cache memory is converted back to App memory instead of loading all of its contents from your drive.

 

[davidktw]

Hi guys, my activity monitor has always been showing that my mac is always hogging 6-7gb of ram. I did not really open a lot of stuffs...maybe some word/ppt/spotify and ard 10 tabs. nothing intensive like powerpoint. Is that the case for the rest of the user?

Why would people say that 4gb is enough?

Look at the Memory Pressure in your Memory tab of the Activity Monitor. If the value here is low, you are fine.

Unix system uses extra memory to cache filesystem, known as file buffer. Some parts of the kernel is also loaded into the memory and cached. If you spend X dollar bought Y amount of memory, why do you want it to be lowly utilised ? Using 100% is the idea, the ideal is have some headroom just enough for the agility of the Virtual Memory Manager to evict the cached and give way to applications required for more memory. Memory Pressure goes up when swapping is happening all the time. That is when you should realise you have insufficient memory for what you want to do.

The freaking old way of reading free memory is legacy and no longer applicable in modern operating system.

Rant: Damn I hate to always have to explain this part here. Hate it when I need to explain this to IT professionals some more. Btw this is just a simplistic view of how to perceive system memory. There are a lot more depth into the matter, but normally only concern developers that really keen on understanding how memory are used, such as file mapped memory, heap, instruction/data/text segments, pages and so forth. But for layman, the above explanation should be "comforting" since it means you didn't buy a white elephant worth 4/8GB of memory for fun.

 

[[[ForeverAlone]]]

guys who using 2011 iMac or 2012 ?

I noticed ....everytime will see the famous colour spinning wheel...

is it due to aging that why?

actually I use before this app call Oyx ..I feel like no much different...still can once a while see spinning wheel...

 

[davidktw]

guys who using 2011 iMac or 2012 ?

I noticed ....everytime will see the famous colour spinning wheel...

is it due to aging that why?

actually I use before this app call Oyx ..I feel like no much different...still can once a while see spinning wheel...

I'm using a 2009 MBP, no spinning wheel. 2 possible reasons to look into. One is your DNS server, sometimes applications require DNS resolution and it takes too long.

Another is your hard disk is having issue keeping up either it's faulty with bad sectors and too much retry.