New switcher - few questions

[vinyl conflict]

Firstly hello,

New to this forum although I have been a lurker for a while.

I have recently purchased a used iMac as my first Macintosh computer.
It's a 1.8Ghz iMac Core Duo - This to me is an ideal starter computer to enable me to learn OS X and to be fair seems plenty powerful for my needs.

So far I have installed a 1Gb stick of Kingston ram (OS X seems really lively now), performed a fresh install of snow leopard, transferred my iTunes library from PC to Mac and generally been self teaching myself around OS X.

I'm loving the experience so far and i'm impressed with this computers capabilities considering its age

Anyway my questions.

1) I have a 160gb internal HDD in the iMac and I would like some assistance in relation to backing this up with time machine. I have a 320Gb external HDD currently formatted using FAT32. Can I create a 160Gb partition on this drive for use with time machine (to match the internal HDD's size) and leave the remaining space formatted as FAT32 so I can use it to swap data between my PC and MAC? - If this is possible how do I go about doing this? and if I can how do I go about this? and will I lose the data already stored on it during the partitioning?
In relation to time machine, is that how it works? ie I have to have a partition at least the same size as my internal HDD? are there any benefits to having a larger partition or will it be wasted space?

2) Having moved my iTunes library over to my iMac I have a come across a situation where my style of working/managing this differs on Mac. On my PC iTunes was not my default player (I used it solely to manage music I wanted to keep and for my iPod) - an example of this would be I would download some music/import some music from CD and listen to it, if I wanted to keep it I would open iTunes and drag it into my library.

On Mac every time I even play an mp3 it immediately imports into my iTunes library. I have changed the setting in preferences where it does not do this but the mp3 still stays in iTunes only it has not been copied into my library so if i delete the mp3 from my desktop or external drive I have to manually remove it from iTunes as the path no longer exists (this situation is effectively the same as having iTunes add it to my library every time it plays something and then deleting the songs I no longer want)

Sorry for the lengthily post but I have tried to explain the situation as well as I can, hope someone can help.

 

[IvanLasston]

1) Do you have data you care about on the drive? You can use disk utility to partition the drive cmd-space and type in disk utility -> select the disk and go to partition. The reason I ask about data is I tend not to like to mess with disks with data on it so I tend to do my partitioning on blank disks. I am not sure if data gets erased when resizing with a mac but as with any disk utility - back up anything before messing with the disk.

2) I've found a lot of stuff is hidden with the alt button. To choose a different default mp3 player - select an mp3 in finder (any mp3) and right click with the alt button held down. You should see open with change to always open with -> then select your music player of choice. Also hidden is the always arrange icons by if you right click with the alt button.

 

[vinyl conflict]

Thanks for the reply,

in relation to question 1) - I have had a move about of data and and freed up pretty much the whole drive, most of it was photo's, movies and mp3's. These have now been imported or are in the process of being imported into the iMac now and will be backed up via TimeMachine anyway so there was no need to have them on the FAT32 drive. I have partitioned the external drive into 2 equal partitions, 1 for time machine and 1 for data that does not need to be preserved. Both partitions have been formatted using Mac OS Extended (journaled).

Question 2) thank you so much for this, I don't know why I didn't think of this in the first place - doh! Quick Time is now my default player for mp3's this gives me a quick way to preview and listen to mp3's before deciding if they are worthy of being included in my iTunes library, effectively the same process I have become used to.

 

[DarkestRitual]

You couldn't use quicklook to do this? What version of OS X are you running? You should just be able to hilight the song and hit space bar to play the song natively in OS X if you're running leopard or snow leopard.

 

[vinyl conflict]

You couldn't use quicklook to do this? What version of OS X are you running? You should just be able to hilight the song and hit space bar to play the song natively in OS X if you're running leopard or snow leopard.

I said i was using QuickTime not Quicklook - I think you have read my post incorrectly. I don't know what Quicklook is so I'm guessing its a app that lets you preview files?

Anyway thanks for the spacebar tip, didm't know that

I'm on snow leopard 10.6.2

 

[IvanLasston]

Good tip but preview with spacebar suffers from the fact that you need to keep focus on the finder window. I did find a tip that solves this - if you switch to column view in finder and hit play on the preview icon in column view the song will keep playing. I am currently listening to XX - The Intro (the song from Apolo Ohno's commercial) while typing this using this method. Note there is no control over the song though - so basically every time you switch songs - the song starts from the beginning.

Also don't forget you can just drag any song to the quicktime icon in the dock and open it that way too.

The other reason you might not want itunes to open as a default is my case - I have a laptop with an external hard drive that holds my music. I don't like itunes opening up randomly with my library disconnected so I do have my default player set to quicktime.

 

[vinyl conflict]

ok now i am confused. If i right click an mp3 and open with. I choose quickTime and then tick the box to use always use this program. It only works for that mp3 I've done the above process on.

How do i set quickTime to be my default mp3 player system wide?

other wise i'm back to square one where the mp3 is imported into itunes and i have to delete it if i don't want it in my library.

 

[Chef_eam]

Right click an mp3 and choose get info from the menu. In the get info window pick the app you want to use from the drop down list in the Open With: section, and click the change all button. All of your mp3 files will open in the new app then.

 

[vinyl conflict]

quick reply - thanks. that did the trick.

I was expecting it to change for all the 1st way I did it. doing it through get info gace me that extra option like you said. thanks.

 

[Chef_eam]

Glad I could help