Hello, I just got a mac and I have a few questions.
1) My internet seems to be a little messed up. When i go to a website it loads forever then says it failed but when i refresh it loads in about 1 second.
Insufficient data, but I suspect this is not, in sooth, a Mac question at all. Internet connectivity rarely is--I suspect this is a principal reason why so many people become Mac lovers. My typical approach is to start at the bottom layer of the OSI model* and work my way up to the top (with the OS being at Layer 7). So--let's start with physical layout. Are you on a home network? Wifi or hardwired? If so, do you have any issues loading websites on another computer? On a network, do you have an IP address starting with 192.168? If not on a network, you should have an IP address that domaintools.com confirms belongs to your ISP. Though this is a bit harder to clarify, do you have issues only with applications using TCP (web browsers, email clients) or with UDP (streaming music/video) as well? Do you have a third-party firewall? (Note this doesn't count MacOS's built-in firewall or the firewalling effect of NAT on a router) Does the issue exist in multiple browsers? (Try both Safari and Firefox). Do you have connectivity issues with any other applications, such as Mail?
I've tried to make that wall-of-text as comprehensive as possible, but I may have left something out.
*you don't need to know what that is, but if you do, it might help you understand why I've asked the questions I have and in what order.
2) How do I make it so that my external hard drive can read and write files on both mac and windows. I currently have it set up as my time machine.
I don't think there's any filesystem out there that MacOS can't read and write to. More knowledgeable people: Is NTFS support stable or nay?
It will definitely
work on both machines if you format the external disk with FAT32, but FAT32 does not support filesystem permissions, so all of your Mac files will become bereft of them as soon as you move them over. I've never had an issue with NTFS-formatted volumes moving files back and forth between my co-workers' Windows systems and my own Linux box, but again, NTFS support may be a bit more mature in Linux.
A better option is available if you have administrative permissions on every Windows system you want to transfer files back and forth from -- you can
install MacDrive on the Windows machines to make them understand HFS, the filesystem used by Mac. Problem is, MacDrive is commercial software and there's no free alternative which supports both reading and writing to HFS drives on Windows. There is, fortunately also a
Windows driver for ext2, which MacOS can understand out of the box and supports Mac's filesystem permissions. ext2 is a Linux filesystem, but Linux and Mac both use exactly the same (UNIX) filesystem permissions; I'm not aware of any issues with Macs accessing ext2.
Also, MacDrive conflicts with DaemonTools and Alcohol 120%, so if you need to use either program on your Windows box, that option is out.
Typically you're going to want to bounce the occasional file back and forth between a Windows-based work computer and your Mac, though, and most people don't have admin privileges on their employers' Windows boxes.
Criminy I talk a lot