[dre@ms]

Originally Posted by Tejas@perioimpl

Yes. I cannot stress enough how important it is.

Understood the importance of it, thanks.

[mayankjha1806]

Originally Posted by ampere

Handbrake rips video DVDs to mp4 which you can import to Itunes.
Not sure what to use to FLAC. I never used Flac/Ogg Vorbis.

Thank you, the new version of handbrake rips not only in MP4 but mkv as well and quality is good (although size is on the higher side, depending on quality you choose).

Not sure if this helps, but for FLAC ripping of Audio CD's i found xAct to be good enough and the quality of RIP to be good as well.

Finally i am not a big fan of iTunes and was glad to find Winamp release for MAC (Although it does not support some features but is good enough for now).

[ampere]

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

Finally i am not a big fan of iTunes and was glad to find Winamp release for MAC (Although it does not support some features but is good enough for now).

@Mayank,
I find the Apple loseless to fine for my needs. Also I depend heavily on iTunes because it helps manage by music collection (>100GB)
which includes, podcasts, audio books and lots of music (categorized by albums, artists, genres). Once the tag on the song is updated,
the album/song/entry is automatically placed accordingly. That auto management is helpful for me in that sense.

I also listen to encrypted audio books (audible books purchased online) which is also supported by iTunes. Single solution for all problems.

[Samurai]

My 27 inch iMac is acting a little weird these days. It sometimes hangs when I run any CPU intensive operation. When I boot into Mac OS, I get stuck in the following screen sometimes. Has anyone seen this before?

[ampere]

Originally Posted by Samurai

When I boot into Mac OS, I get stuck in the following screen sometimes. Has anyone seen this before?

This happens only when Booted though MAC OS ?
Assume you have windows on a different partition and that boot does not give a problem? If yes, surely not an issue with display.

Else you should connect to a display out another monitor and see if its fine.

[Samurai]

It happens in windows too, but not while booting. Sometimes I get blank screen or half screen. It is highly unpredictable, I can't duplicate it on purpose. Since it happens in both OS, I am suspecting some hardware issue. May be memory...

I posted the above pic because it was so unique. May be that will give some clue.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by Samurai

May be memory...

- It may be a faulty RAM, since it shows up at different stages.
If its out of warranty do you want to try opening it up and change the memory card to see it works?

- Another thing can be graphics card. Do you use on-board memory or for GFX card?
A faulty GFX can also be another issue.

My first suspect however is a faulty RAM.

[adroit_91]

Originally Posted by Samurai

My 27 inch iMac is acting a little weird these days. It sometimes hangs when I run any CPU intensive operation. When I boot into Mac OS, I get stuck in the following screen sometimes. Has anyone seen this before?

Attachment 908526

Reminds me of my faulty NVIDIA GPU! Have you run the Apple Hardware Diagnostics through the DVD that came with your iMac?

[shajufx]

Originally Posted by Samurai

My 27 inch iMac is acting a little weird these days..... Has anyone seen this before?

Yes, I have seen the same things on Braille books

Originally Posted by ampere

.....Assume you have windows on a different partition .....

Can you partition the mac hard drive ? I wanted to partition my 750 GB Macbook Pro hard drive to 3 parts but I am informed it can not be done.

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by shajufx

Yes, I have seen the same things on Braille books


Can you partition the mac hard drive ? I wanted to partition my 750 GB Macbook Pro hard drive to 3 parts but I am informed it can not be done.

Yes you can. It's just that Apple hasn't provided a tool to do it easily. One way is to use Boot camp assistant, but that can only partition the drive in 2.

[shajufx]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

Yes you can. It's just that Apple hasn't provided a tool to do it easily. One way is to use Boot camp assistant, but that can only partition the drive in 2.

Could you elaborate bit more, as I am very new to Mac products. What should I do to partition my HD right now, and is there any advantage or disadvantage doing it ?

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by shajufx

Could you elaborate bit more, as I am very new to Mac products. What should I do to partition my HD right now, and is there any advantage or disadvantage doing it ?

Mac comes with a tool called "Boot Camp Assistant" which can be used to install Windows along side Mac in a different partition. The first step in this process is to partition the drive in two. So if we stop at the first step itself, we have the HDD partitioned in two .

And about the advantage or disadvantage of paritioning, there is none. I've haven't felt the need to partition the HDD unless when I wanted to install Linux along side Mac.

[shajufx]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

Mac comes with a tool called "Boot Camp Assistant" which can be used to install Windows along side Mac in a different partition. The first step in this process is to partition the drive in two. So if we stop at the first step itself, we have the HDD partitioned in two ....

I am typing here only for the advantage of someone else too seeking similar clarifications, otherwise I could talk to you through skype

Now, tell me, what happens to the existing files when we do this partitioning process ? Should I back up and do it ? Any precautions as I dont have any back up CDs given by Apple ? Please tolerate me if my questions are more 'windows' based, because everyone comes from there !!

I prefer drive in parts, because my photo files are huge right now. I shoot in RAW, 14 bit uncompressed, so each file is ranging between 15 to 25 MB. Right now I have to back up everything in an external HD which is going to be tough at a later stage as I will keep buying and preserving them. If anything goes wrong with the MBP with 2 or 3 partitions, I believe 1 will be lost. Correct me if my understanding is poor. Thanks.

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by shajufx

I am typing here only for the advantage of someone else too seeking similar clarifications, otherwise I could talk to you through skype

Sure, no problems.

Originally Posted by shajufx

Now, tell me, what happens to the existing files when we do this partitioning process ? Should I back up and do it ? Any precautions as I dont have any back up CDs given by Apple ? Please tolerate me if my questions are more 'windows' based, because everyone comes from there !!

First thing is, there should be enough space on the drive to do the partitioning. When you partition say 100gb HDD into 2 50gb partitions, it moves all the present files to the first half and then partitions the disk (similat to what a defragmentation software would do).

You don't need to worry about taking back up of existing files. Boot camp wouldn't touch your existing files.

Originally Posted by shajufx

I prefer drive in parts, because my photo files are huge right now. I shoot in RAW, 14 bit uncompressed, so each file is ranging between 15 to 25 MB. Right now I have to back up everything in an external HD which is going to be tough at a later stage as I will keep buying and preserving them. If anything goes wrong with the MBP with 2 or 3 partitions, I believe 1 will be lost. Correct me if my understanding is poor. Thanks.

Dividing the drive in parts is just a custom that everyone has followed since early windows days. I don't see any benefit in doing that. And the filesystems these days are very much capable of recovering data and much less prone to software failures (hardware failure will anyway affect the entire drive).

If you want to setup a backup mechanism, use Time Machine.

[shajufx]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

......should be enough space on the drive to do the partitioning. ......drive in parts is just a custom that everyone has followed since early windows days. I don't see any benefit in doing that. .....

Your reply puts 2 things into my mind: Do the partition, Dont do the partition

Time Machine is displayed in the launchpad, that requires an external drive right ?