SweetMacTips

You can go a couple ways with this one:

1. Play the files in a different player. I use VLC - it’s your swiss army knife of media players on the Mac.
2. Give QuickTime the codecs it needs to play the files. In this case, I’d use Perian. This will expand the file types that QuickTime can play. It’s a little old, but it does seem to still work in Snow Leopard.

Either solution works :)

You may want to reset the SMC. The System Management Controller is in charge of a lot of low-level stuff including power management. It also controls your fans, for instance.

Resetting the SMC may solve the external monitor issue, but if not, I’d definitely get that looked at. Totally not normal.

Good luck!

If you select your hard drive on the desktop and from the File menu select Get Info you’ll see a couple of key number: Capacity and Available. Self explanatory what each one is. 

Ok, that’s all well and good, but how do you figure out what’s taking up so much space? I use a little utility called Disk Inventory X. It’s quite simple. It scans your hard drive and creates a visual representation of your files and folder so you can see what to clean up.

You’ve actually described some actions that could cause it to heat up normally. Things like Photoshop and watching DVDs can cause your machine to heat up and as a result, your fan to come on.

What I’d be worried about is your Mac getting too hot. Your Mac has an operating temperature range and your local Genius Bar can certainly tell you if it’s getting out of that range, indicating a problem (perhaps with a fan or heatsink).

4 hours of battery actually isn’t bad depending on what you’re doing. If you’re watching DVDs or doing other CPU-heavy things, your battery life will be shorter than if you were just surfing Tumblr.

It almost sounds like a permissions problem to me. If permissions in your home folder are squirreled up, you’ll actually be using a default set of permissions that you can make temporary changes. Those changes get flushed when you reboot.

Try doing a repair permissions and see how that goes. I’d also be curious to see if it’s a problem just with your user account. Try making another account and see if it has the same problem. If not, the issue lies somewhere in your user folder (e.g. permissions). If the issue remains, it’s an OS-wide issue that may be a bit trickier to figure out. Let me know how it goes.

Your local Genius Bar should be able to handle that for you. Way back when I was doing that, it would probably fall under an $85 charge to restore it back to factory software but it’s been a long time since I’ve done that. Worst comes to worst, take it in and they can tell you how much. You can always decline.

Happy Mac-ing

Apple recommends exercising your battery at least once a month by draining it down to where it warns you to plug it in. Since that’s what Apple recommends, it should be enough, but I’d be more likely to do it more than that.

Glad to hear XCode set you right.

Regarding a new computer buy, I guess the thing to think of is if your current MacBook fits your needs. If it does, or you can limp through, I’d say stick with it. If your MacBook is the very first MacBook and it’s approaching 4 years, then yeah, it may be time to pony up. If it’s only 2 years old now, I’d be likely to stick it out.

Also, why not just go for a 15” MacBook Pro now? I’m assuming starving-college-student thing… :)

Yep, that’ll do it :)

Well, there are varying degrees of black screen of death. You sure it’s not just off?  ;)

You can try booting up holding the T key. This will put the Mac Pro into target disk mode and basically turn it into a giant external hard drive. If you plug the Mac Pro into another Mac via a FireWire cable, (if successful) you’ll see the hard drives on the Mac and can pull off your data.

Alternatively, you can just remove your hard drive and plug it into an external drive enclosure. Then, plug it into a functioning Mac and pull your stuff off it.

Good luck!

I don’t know if anything is necessarily wrong, it really depends on the make up of your machine’s software load.

Some software is well written and plays well, others, not so much. Sometimes you’ll have a piece of software that takes up a lot of memory and doesn’t give it back properly *cough* Firefox *cough* (though I think that was fixed) and that can lead to stalls and freeze-ups that require a reboot.

My wife’s MacBook usually goes about a week between reboots and everything’s fine. My MacBook Pro for work typically goes months before I reboot it (usually from a software update).

It’s really all in how you’re running.

No problem. I’m sure me answering two of your questions in a rather quick fashion is really going to bug the crap out of that anonymous jackass.

At any rate, now that that’s out of my system, screws askew should be pointed out when you bring your baby in for service. It’s important to note because if they were cross-threaded, there may be damage to the frame that they need to take care of in order to properly repair it.

Sounds to me like someone was in a rush when they were doing your machine.

I generally recommend going with the latest OS that your hardware can handle. In the case of Snow Leopard, it’s a no-brainer at $30. You’ll probably notice your Mac become a bit more nimble and you may gain a little bit of hard drive space (as it sheds all of that PowerPC supported code).

Some of the nice polish that Apple threw on the OS is nice to have as well.

Depends.

The MacBook (white design before they went to the new unibody design) has a few known case defects that Apple will cover. The top case is a primary part that Apple often replaces on the MacBook. As far as I know, Apple’s gone through a few re-designs on that part in attempts to improve the reliability of it. Pieces “flaking” off of the front edge of the top case are pretty common.

Figuring out what Apple’s going to do involves all sorts of voodoo. If I had to guess, and well, I do, there’s something up their sleeves. The current iPod Touch was released in Sept 2009, so it’s getting to about a year old. Even in that case, the update wasn’t terribly significant.

Apple’s Back-To-School rebate just started back up where they throw in an iPod with a Mac purchase for students/staff/faculty so they may be trying to clear out the inventory getting ready for a refresh.

Maybe this time they’ll throw a camera on it.

Holy crap someone needs some attention.  Ready for this?

You’re the reason I just switched off anonymous ask.

Happy?

Douchebag.

Sounds to me like your keyboard needs to be swapped out.