Like so many others it seems, I really want to like the Mac... but the simplest things are just so well hidden!
I gave up on trying to make the mini productive in my office some time ago, and just finaly got around to re-birthing it in the Lounge room to let it focus on its forte with digital media and the like...
I've bought a genuine Apple adaptor to provide a composite video signal (shocking quality I know, but the best my aged TV can cope with ) On first run, the video was simply aweful - grey smudges on a jumping grey background. I found that the system defaulted to a 60hz NTSC signal, while my TV required a 50hz PAL signal. Changed thak OK, and got some semblance of color back, but still had to set resolution to 640x480, and enlarge fonts to about 16point and play about with some other settings to make the screen readable. All these settings were saved into a new profile for my "display".
Now the problems start...
1) Not ALL of the fonts pay attention to the size setting. Some remain indecipherabley small.
2) Not ALL the windows respect the fact that the screen resolution is only 640x480. Many even of the basic MacOS functions become unusable because about a third of the window hangs off the bottom of the screen, and there is no scroll bar to get at it. ("Mac HD" gets the height correct, but displays too wide for the screen so anything past the second column is unreachable)
3) Some applications ignore the settings altogether, and switch the screen back to NTSC while they are running. (Should software be able to override hardware settings?)
4) Finally, after a reboot, everything is right back where it started again with the grey fuzzies...
Why won't this jolly machine simply do what it's told? Even the simplest change is just a nightmare!
Please someone, show me that there is an "expert mode" or something, in which the mini can assume I do actually know what I want, and stop behaving like a precocious child...
I gave up on trying to make the mini productive in my office some time ago, and just finaly got around to re-birthing it in the Lounge room to let it focus on its forte with digital media and the like...
I've bought a genuine Apple adaptor to provide a composite video signal (shocking quality I know, but the best my aged TV can cope with ) On first run, the video was simply aweful - grey smudges on a jumping grey background. I found that the system defaulted to a 60hz NTSC signal, while my TV required a 50hz PAL signal. Changed thak OK, and got some semblance of color back, but still had to set resolution to 640x480, and enlarge fonts to about 16point and play about with some other settings to make the screen readable. All these settings were saved into a new profile for my "display".
Now the problems start...
1) Not ALL of the fonts pay attention to the size setting. Some remain indecipherabley small.
2) Not ALL the windows respect the fact that the screen resolution is only 640x480. Many even of the basic MacOS functions become unusable because about a third of the window hangs off the bottom of the screen, and there is no scroll bar to get at it. ("Mac HD" gets the height correct, but displays too wide for the screen so anything past the second column is unreachable)
3) Some applications ignore the settings altogether, and switch the screen back to NTSC while they are running. (Should software be able to override hardware settings?)
4) Finally, after a reboot, everything is right back where it started again with the grey fuzzies...
Why won't this jolly machine simply do what it's told? Even the simplest change is just a nightmare!
Please someone, show me that there is an "expert mode" or something, in which the mini can assume I do actually know what I want, and stop behaving like a precocious child...