I've had my Mac for a few weeks, but encountering some issues.

[onilawliet]

I've had my black MacBook for a few weeks now (and have been loving it) but I am encountering some small issues.

1.) Whenever I enable a screen saver (say, iTunes album art for example) the screen saver never actually engages. I set my timer for 10 minutes, after which the screen saver is supposed to come on. But it never does! My screen just goes black and sleeps, at which point I have to press a button or move the mouse in order to get the screen back. But I want to use my screen saver!

2.) My internet downloads have suddenly stopped appearing in my dock. I can't view them in stack format anymore. I now have to actually go to Finder to view my downloads. What happened? How can I fix this?

3.) Is there a place where I can download WMP 9 for Mac? Whenever I try and download it from the Windows site, it always appears as ".sitx" file which can only be opened with TextEdit. It's not an actual install file? And I already have Flip4Mac. I need the actual player. Help please?

 

[skaheadpunk]

1) If you click on the battery icon on the menu bar or go to System Preferences> Energy saver, you can check that your display isn't sleeping before your screen saver kicks in - sounds like that's what's happening.

2) Do you mean it doesn't show anything at all in the stack or it doesn't show all of them? I think after a certain point it just says 'x more in finder'.

3) You might want to try out VLC Media Player - I love it to bits and it'll play most things. A .sitx file is compressed like a WinZip file - you can open it with Stuffit Expander, which is free.

 

[Horness]

1) Could this be your Energy Saver settings kicking in before your screensaver does? Check the time-outs in System Preferences, Energy Saver (under Hardware).

2) Open Finder, browse to your folder (Mac HD, Users, Your name) and look for the Downloads folder. Click+Drag it back to your Dock.

3) .sitx is a Stuffit file (like a zip file) by SmithMicro. You have to sign up to a life of spam, sorry I mean "periodic email updates" to get the free download.
I've never seen the need for Windows Media player since discovering VideoLAN, even on a Windows based computer. Is there a specific reason why you need WMP ?

Hope some of that helps.

Horness

EDIT - looks like there is an echo in here!

 

[onilawliet]

if i click on energy savings, it opens up a window with a "Setting for: Power Adapter/Battery" and "Optimization: Normal," etc. Below that is a "put the computer to sleep when it is inactive for: *time bar*" and a similar thing below that that says "put the display to sleep when the computer is inactive for: *time bar*" Both are set to 10 minutes. Do I need to let the display never go to sleep and then activate screen saver?

And I need WMP because my school's film and art department has a website that streams things only in real player and windows media player format. even with flip4mac installed in quicktime, i cant stream very well from the site. and i have and love vlc,but again, i really need wmp for mac.

ill may try the stuffit thing, but that spam thing doesnt sound very fun...

 

[MacFanBoy]

if i click on energy savings, it opens up a window with a "Setting for: Power Adapter/Battery" and "Optimization: Normal," etc. Below that is a "put the computer to sleep when it is inactive for: *time bar*" and a similar thing below that that says "put the display to sleep when the computer is inactive for: *time bar*" Both are set to 10 minutes. Do I need to let the display never go to sleep and then activate screen saver?

And I need WMP because my school's film and art department has a website that streams things only in real player and windows media player format. even with flip4mac installed in quicktime, i cant stream very well from the site. and i have and love vlc,but again, i really need wmp for mac.

ill may try the stuffit thing, but that spam thing doesnt sound very fun...

Create Gmail account and use that for your email for stuffit.
Seriously I have never had any spam from Stuffit, maybe because i downloaded from a 3rd party.....

 

[skaheadpunk]

Yeah, if your display goes to sleep at 10 minutes, and that's when your screensaver comes on you're not going to see the screensaver unless you push the display sleep back further, say to 20 minutes.

Re. Stuffit, I've not had any spam, and you kinda need it to 'unzip' that WMP file.

 

[NPuter]

Actually, when you are dragging the sliders in energy saver, it should let you know when your display sleeps before the screen saver activates. Just set it to something above that threshold...

 

[Horness]

Get Stuffit 10.0.2 from here without the need to sign up. (16Mb download)



Horness

 

[Glenners]

yeah if your screen turns off the same time your screen saver turns on then you're not going to see it lol.

 

[onilawliet]

Then let's say I set the screen saver to activate at 10 minutes, and the display to sleep at 20. Will the screen saver only run for 10 minutes?

 

[skaheadpunk]

Yup. The further apart they are the longer it will run for.