09-28-2009, 09:24 PM

Hi all! Bought a 13" macbook pro with 2gb of ram and immediately upgraded to 4gb. I am totally new to OS X and think i've adapted to it fairly well. There is definitely a learning curve to it tho. It has been about 3 weeks now and I can easily navigate through it.

Pros:

-Beautiful screen
-nice design
-the os does really guide you along
-iphoto with face recognition is awesome :p
-easy to upgrade components
-has features included that you have to install 3rd party apps on windows

cons(for me):

-it is way way slower on boot up than any windows machine i have (including an old single core athlon 2.0ghz with a 1gb of ram)
-it has been crashing programs or "beachballing" a lot
-needs 1 more usb and a hdmi port
-as I am disabled, i need an onscreen keyboard; windows has os x blown away on this front

09-28-2009, 09:38 PM

Congrats on your new purchase!

Originally Posted by cheezeweezle

cons(for me):

-it is way way slower on boot up than any windows machine i have (including an old single core athlon 2.0ghz with a 1gb of ram)

Personally I don't find it booting slower then XP or Vista. I see it taking a bit longer to get through POST, but after that, it seems the same speed to me.

-it has been crashing programs or "beachballing" a lot

This is not normal and should be looked into. Check this thread here for basic troubleshooting:

Basic OS X/Mac Troubleshooting

assuming you are using snow leopard, make sure the software you are using is compatible with it (including any additional startup programs you might have that might be causing problems)

-needs 1 more usb and a hdmi port

I agree more USB ports would be nice - 2 for me just isn't enough - once I hook my external keyboard/mouse in I'm left with one - so I either need to then put a hub in or choose carefully what I want to connect. This was a hard adjustment for me as I came from using a laptop with 4 usb ports on it, which was more convenient for me (also I have to admit, I hate the usb hub that I bought thinking I would like it)

HDMI isn't as big a deal for me. I have a DVI -> HDMI cable, but I never use it as I never hook my laptop up to my TV - I use a Mac Mini for that.

-as I am disabled, i need an onscreen keyboard; windows has os x blown away on this front

I'm not sure why - OSX has an onscreen keyboard available. If you don't have the option to see it (there would be a little square up near the clock on the top bar that looks kind of like a calendar), open preferences, go into Keyboard, on the Keyboard tab, there is an option to Show Keyboard & Character Viewer in menu bar - select that, then turn on the Keyboard viewer from the drop down. if it's too small, drag the enlarge tab in the lower left corner of the window to make the onscreen keyboard as big as you want

09-28-2009, 09:52 PM

Originally Posted by cheezeweezle

Pros:
-it is way way slower on boot up than any windows machine i have (including an old single core athlon 2.0ghz with a 1gb of ram)

Hmmm.

How long does it take to boot up?
It should be pretty fast to boot up.

You also shouldn't be freezing (the beach ball).
I have only frozen a couple of times in over two months.

You may want to take it to the Apple Genius's if your problems consist, they likely have a solution to your problem.

09-28-2009, 09:58 PM

Thanks for the info. I found the onscreen keyboard included with with os x, windows 7 has word prediction, os x doesn't . I found a 3rd party party app called KeyStrokes. It seems to work well.

i'll look into the link you posted. It's not with any one program which is weird. Sometimes it's firefox, iweb, ipreview, chicken of the vnc ect. Normally a reboot fixes everything but gets annoying. It is snow leopard btw. The the last couple of days it hasn't been acting up. Actually not at all thinking about it.

Originally Posted by alexsd123

Hmmm.

How long does it take to boot up?
It should be pretty fast to boot up.

You also shouldn't be freezing (the beach ball).
I have only frozen a couple of times in over two months.

You may want to take it to the Apple Genius's if your problems consist, they likely have a solution to your problem.

it takes over a minute from power button push to desktop. ****, my dell mini 9 boots win7 in 30sec.

the freezing seems to have stopped for now. Maybe it's learning my bad habits

09-28-2009, 10:19 PM

My MacBook 2GHz unibody with 2GB RAM boots in 35 seconds flat from hitting power button to full functionality. That is with iCal, iTunes, and Quicksilver all as start up apps and all loaded. Running 10.6.1 and that's also counting the time before the OS actually starts to load (spinner begins spinning).

09-28-2009, 10:35 PM

Originally Posted by DarkestRitual

My MacBook 2GHz unibody with 2GB RAM boots in 35 seconds flat from hitting power button to full functionality. That is with iCal, iTunes, and Quicksilver all as start up apps and all loaded. Running 10.6.1 and that's also counting the time before the OS actually starts to load (spinner begins spinning).

dear god i wish lol. I have KeyStrokes and caffeine starting, that's it and that's with 4gb of memory

09-28-2009, 10:39 PM

Your booting is a bit long, but it won't be necessarily be as fast as a mini9, especially if you have a relatively fast SSD drive in it (since the mini9s only came with SSD drives, I used to have one with a 64g SSD, and it was a REALLY fast boot).

I'd probably boot your OS DVD and have it check the drive and verify/repair permissions - it may be that something just isn't toggled right and causing you grief.

09-28-2009, 11:13 PM

I agree with Nethfel. I mean, if I popped an SSD into this thing it'd probably be a ridiculously fast boot time. As it is, I'm pleased as can be. Anything over 40 seconds to me seems unacceptable...

09-28-2009, 11:54 PM

Originally Posted by cheezeweezle

Thanks for the info. I found the onscreen keyboard included with with os x, windows 7 has word prediction, os x doesn't . I found a 3rd party party app called KeyStrokes. It seems to work well.

i'll look into the link you posted. It's not with any one program which is weird. Sometimes it's firefox, iweb, ipreview, chicken of the vnc ect. Normally a reboot fixes everything but gets annoying. It is snow leopard btw. The the last couple of days it hasn't been acting up. Actually not at all thinking about it.

Firefox is alot slower in macos x i've found then using safari. I don't know what version of the MBP you have but mine boots in about 15 seconds flat to a usable desktop.

09-29-2009, 12:47 AM

Originally Posted by rippingviper

Firefox is alot slower in macos x i've found then using safari. I don't know what version of the MBP you have but mine boots in about 15 seconds flat to a usable desktop.

holy crap! 15sec?!? I have the newest revision with the sd card slot, 2.26 c2d. I'd be happy with 40sec. I mean it's not the end all be all of my computer experience, but I don't think it's acceptable either. I'll keep tweaking and reading.

i'm not to worried about the firefox crashes, they do it on my windows laptops too . the crashes are random. And like i said, it hasn't acted up for a couple days now.

i've been reading threads here and around the net, any programs you guys and gals really like? I use use chicken of the vnc to use veency on my iphone, cyberduck to ftp/ssh into it, utorrent, vlc, firefox, senuti. I don't use chat clients really, so not a big deal. Anything i'm missing?

oh, is there a easy way to use a network drive for time machine?

thanks everyone for the help!

09-29-2009, 12:01 PM

Extra tools / software I use a lot include:

Handbrake (video conversion/ripping from non-copyprotected DVDs)
MPEGStreamclip (video conversion tool)
CrossoverGames (play many windows games on osx, costs money for subscription)
Burn (burn dvds, cds, etc. not quite as capable as Toast, but for free, it's really nice)
7zX (decompression utility)
AppCleaner (removes applications and associate files like plists from your hard drive - useful for playing with apps and if you decide you don't want it and want to remove it)
Plex (media center application)
iStats (allows you to monitor various stats on your top bar including cpu usage, network usage, temps, etc.)

There are a few others I use on my Mac Pro at home (I'm at work atm using my unibody Macbook).

09-29-2009, 01:43 PM

Originally Posted by Nethfel

Extra tools / software I use a lot include:

Handbrake (video conversion/ripping from non-copyprotected DVDs)
MPEGStreamclip (video conversion tool)
CrossoverGames (play many windows games on osx, costs money for subscription)
Burn (burn dvds, cds, etc. not quite as capable as Toast, but for free, it's really nice)
7zX (decompression utility)
AppCleaner (removes applications and associate files like plists from your hard drive - useful for playing with apps and if you decide you don't want it and want to remove it)
Plex (media center application)
iStats (allows you to monitor various stats on your top bar including cpu usage, network usage, temps, etc.)

There are a few others I use on my Mac Pro at home (I'm at work atm using my unibody Macbook).

VLC will allow handbrake to rip protected DVDs also... (obviously since we're all huge on the law here, only do this to DVDs you own and are um, making back ups of...)

09-29-2009, 02:29 PM

Originally Posted by cheezeweezle

holy crap! 15sec?!?!

Yup. i'm not sure how I got so lucky , I don't even have a SSD on this thing, but I found it booted in about 35 seconds before I upgraded the ram then I upgraded to 4 gigs and the thing fly's and boots in 15 seconds! I have an uptime of 18 days right now no crashed and I game on here, listen to music, download anime and what have you , chat and it still goes , My windows machine is lucky to stay running a day without crashing lol and its got twice the specs of my mac!

My uptime would be better but I had to do a system update and it required me to reboot

09-29-2009, 05:48 PM

Originally Posted by Nethfel

Extra tools / software I use a lot include:

Handbrake (video conversion/ripping from non-copyprotected DVDs)
MPEGStreamclip (video conversion tool)
CrossoverGames (play many windows games on osx, costs money for subscription)
Burn (burn dvds, cds, etc. not quite as capable as Toast, but for free, it's really nice)
7zX (decompression utility)
AppCleaner (removes applications and associate files like plists from your hard drive - useful for playing with apps and if you decide you don't want it and want to remove it)
Plex (media center application)
iStats (allows you to monitor various stats on your top bar including cpu usage, network usage, temps, etc.)

There are a few others I use on my Mac Pro at home (I'm at work atm using my unibody Macbook).

istats was exactly something I have been looking for. Thanks! I forgot to add smc fancontrol. That is a must have for any of us with a macbook or macbook pro. Its dropped my temps 30-40 degrees depending on what programs are running and temperature of my room. I saw it at 108 f last night.

i did some tinkering and file clean up and have my boot times between 40-50 sec. Definite improvement but I think I can do better