Filed under: Features, Ask TUAW
Ask TUAW: Charging batteries, searching for recent files, matching RAM and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly Q&A series where you ask the questions and we make up the answers. (Mat Lu is on special assignment.) This week's topics: charging a second battery, using your Mac while burning discs, watching for recently created files, and more. Everyone's welcome to post questions for Ask TUAW; we're happy to help. Please submit your questions for next week by commenting on this post; you might find an answer from a friend before we come around again!Topslakr asks:
If one has two or more batteries for their laptop and needs to charge them while on trips how could they do that? I've seen the newertech device that offers to condition batteries, etc. but it's quitebulky and at $150 not a bargain by anyone's definition. I would just like a small device that I could tuck into a carry on that will charge my spare battery while I'm using the current one. Any leads for me? I can't seem to find anything...
You're in a tough spot, dude: according to NewerTech marketing and several independent sources, the new battery conditioner is the only game in town for charging MacBook or MacBook Pro batteries outside the laptop itself (there are other options for the older gear, but I'm guessing you have a new machine). It's definitely a market opportunity, but in the meantime you can do what I do: swap batteries out while you have the laptop plugged in, and charge them sequentially. You can even swap batteries mid-flight if needed by putting your machine into 'hibernation' with the Deep Sleep widget.
Another option to consider: an external laptop battery from Batterygeek, which is self-charging (but NOT light and compact, nor cheap).
Tai wants to know:
Is it safe to operate your Mac while burning discs? When I bought my first cd burner in 1999, the common wisdom was you had to close all other applications while burning a disc. If you didn't you risked disrupting the flow of data, and creating an unusable coaster. Burning a disc effectively meant your computer was out of commission. Is this still the case? Is it safe to continue operating your Mac while burning discs? What about on a PC?Things have changed somewhat since '99 as far as disc burning is concerned. Most modern Macs are capable of handling reasonable side tasks while Toast, Burnz, iTunes or Disco crank out the platters; the things to avoid are
disk-intensive applications that might contend with the burn app for data transfer (don't try to capture video at the same time, for instance). As burn speeds get higher (52x CD or 8x DVD) the demand on system I/O goes up, but in most cases the applications will cooperate to get the job done. Note: Jon reminds us in the comments that one of the major improvements in burn performance was the introduction of Buffer Underrun Prevention-capable drives, which pause the burn if the data stream drops.Toast even allows you to burn to remote drives over your LAN; in that case I'd make sure any big downloads are cleared before you start. As far as PCs are concerned, ComputerWorld has a good piece on avoiding common burning mistakes; using common sense with other running apps is one of the suggestions, and following the manufacturer's instructions for your burner and software would be good too.Mitch is ready to shop:
Any good websites that sell used Macs? I'm aware of PowerBook Guy, but thats really about it. I'm hoping to stock up on some minis (G4) and a few iBooks....
Oh, there's a bunch, thanks to our commenters for pointing them out -- smalldog.com, macofalltrades.com, lowendmac.com, powermax.com, macattic.com, macpac.com and more. You also may have Craigslist for your town, which often means dealing with a neighbor; generally a good idea to stay away from any eBay auctions that require prepayment or suggest "use MY escrow service." Another option is to visit the clearance/refurb area on the Apple Store; look for the blue "SALE" tag.Ahmad is looking for the latest:
I was wondering if there was a way to check recently created files. I often want to check what files have been created in say the last day, hour, or even in the past few minutes... but I don't know how. I wanted to know if there was a simple solution to this.The quickest way to start collecting recent files is via a Smart Folder in Tiger; just choose New Smart Folder from the File menu, select your source folders and selection criteria, and save your choices. Smart Folders can be thought of as 'frozen' Spotlight searches, immediately updating as soon as a new file or folder meets the preset criteria. You'll get your list of recent files, updated dynamically, and even a handy slideshow button. Unfortunately the basic Smart Folder settings aren't granular enough to get you down to hours or minutes, but with some Spotlight hackery and Apple's query documentation it's possible to get around that. The screen shot below shows a Raw Query smart folder set to show files on the Desktop that are newer than 20 minutes (1200 seconds) old -- nifty! You can also dig into some interesting Terminal tools, as discussed in this Rob Griffiths article. If you want to lay down a few bucks, for $20 HoudahSpot gives you access to a lot of the recent-file goodness of Spotlight with a smoother UI.
Rich is ready for RAM:
I have a Mac Book Pro Core 2 Duo with one gig of ram (single chip). I want to upgrade to a total of 2 gigs, but the Apple Store is charing an arm and a leg for that extra stick. I've heard that if I don't use matched memory, I'm going to suffer a performance hit. Does "matched memory" mean I need to use the ram Apple has for sale, or could I shop around for third party manufacturers. If I can shop around, is there any manufacturer that would be recommended?The 'matched memory' performance hit is real but not that substantial; however, in your case, you're not stuck with Apple memory to achieve a match. As long as the same memory spec/part is in both slots, you should get the boost of interleaved access and be good to go. Check the 'Memory' pane in Apple System Profiler to verify what's installed before you buy the second, matching DIMM (DDR2 667MHz). As far as the quality and performance of third-party memory, there are certainly better and worse vendors (xlr8yourmac & Macintouch are good places to check for reports), but in my personal experience the best available is found at Crucial. In over a decade of dealings with Crucial I can count the returns or bad chips on the fingers of one hand.
That's all for this week! We'll see how Mat's doing when he gets back from detached duty.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
BigDawgKris said 8:10AM on 6-13-2007
1st question for Ask TUAW: If I want to watch my TV shows which are in *.avi format) in CoverFlow, I have to import them into iTunes, so do I have to change the format (re-encode) first? Or is there anyway to make iTunes accept *.avi files?
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BigDawgKris said 8:11AM on 6-13-2007
2nd AskTUAW question: I love my bluetooth Mighty Mouse, I really do, but the tracking on it is a little lacking. I've got the sensitivity all the way up but it's still sluggish compared to my wired USB optical Logitech mouse. Is there any other way to increase the sensitivity of Apple's Wireless MightyMouse other than what's already available?
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Jon said 8:29AM on 6-13-2007
I always buy my RAM from memorytogo.com. You just select your Mac (e.g. Macbook), which model you have (e.g. Black 2.0 GHz Core Duo) and it will what's available for your machine. You then select one (really cheap too) and it's sent out instantly and will arrive in the next 1-2 days. Easy.
RE: Disc burning - I believe the problem went away when they invented BURN-proof (Buffer Under-Run Proof) drives. They stop burning when the buffer gets too low (e.g. due to other usage) and start again when it fills up, thus not ruining the disc. At least, that was my understanding of how it worked.
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Colin said 8:46AM on 6-13-2007
I need to convert a few albums of music from OGG to MP3 so that I can import them into iTunes. Does anyone know a nice tool that will do it for free?
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Ryan said 9:24AM on 6-13-2007
Colin,
Try VLC. IT plays just about every file type, and can transcode most of them.
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Fuzz Martin said 9:26AM on 6-13-2007
Colin,
I use YAAC. Google it. It's free and works great.
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aptenergy said 9:37AM on 6-13-2007
I would really suggest checking out slickdeals.net. Usually about once a week or two weeks, they have a killer deal on RAM (I saw 2x 1 GB sticks going for $50 total).
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Geoff said 9:50AM on 6-13-2007
I'll suggest RamJet.com for Apple RAM, as I've ordered memory for my past 3 Macs from them. Always much cheaper than Apple (which isn't that hard).
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Sam said 10:33AM on 6-13-2007
You can get Ogg Vorbis into iTunes using the Xiph QuickTime Components (XiphQT) [*]. This way, iTunes can play the Ogg files themselves - but more importantly it's easy to convert them by selecting the files, right/control-clicking and selecting "Convert Selection to MP3".
iTunes will read and preserve most of the important ogg tags, such as Track Name, Artist and Album when converting, but annoyingly won't read the track number. I strongly recommend that you make and corrections/additions to the tags *BEFORE* converting to MP3, as then they will be reflected in the folder and file names of the new MP3 files.
Sam
[*] http://www.xiph.org/quicktime/
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Sam said 10:49AM on 6-13-2007
@Fuzz: YAAC seems to no longer be available. According to MAcUpdate, it hasn't been updated since early 2004, so wouldn't be Universal, and anyway the site's domain has lapsed and been taken over by one of those awful parking pages.
XiphQT, by the way, is Universal and was last updated in March of this year. It works perfectly on my MacBook, apart from the aformentioned track number issue. Now I think about it, those tracks were all ripped with CDex on Windows - the bug might be in that as the track numbers used to appear oddly in Amarok.
Sam
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Steven said 11:11AM on 6-13-2007
When I backup, what should I not bother to backup? Do I need to backup anything in the Applications folder? Or are all my settings kept elsewhere? Are there other folders that I can omit from the backup routine?
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Ahmad said 11:21AM on 6-13-2007
thanks for the answer. it was just what I was looking for.
but I still had a question about playing native FLAC files in iTunes or converting them to AAC. how would I do it? I tried XiphQT, but that doesn't work for FLAC files (it did work for my OGG files however)
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JeffDM said 11:36AM on 6-13-2007
Steven, I would suggest making a backup of what is in your applications folder, at least the non-Apple stuff and the stuff that's not included as a standard part of the OS X install. That makes it easy to re-copy rather than having to go through all your CDs and downloads to reinstall them.
I would still put them at a lower backup priority than your user accounts, because that's where most of your personal files go, because any files you create will be harder to replace than reinstalling programs. For example, by default, the home folder is where your iTunes purchases are kept. While Apple has at times allowed people to redownload lost files, it isn't standard policy that I hear. Apple doesn't always replace people's songs if they are lost.
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Sam said 12:30PM on 6-13-2007
Hmm, FLAC should work in iTunes with XiphQT, from what I've read (Google flac itunes), but I'm unable to try it because I don't have any FLAC files - I've never had the drive space for lossless audio :-P.
Do the files play in QuickTime Player? According to this[*], iTunes has trouble adding them to the library.
Sam
[*] http://barelyfocused.net/blog/2006/10/12/native-flac-in-itunesquicktime/
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Shuzuluza said 12:49PM on 6-13-2007
I have a question for Ask TUAW. Is there a way to change the time stamp on a set of photos in iPhoto to add a certain amount of time to each selected photo? I often have a need to adjust the times of sets of photos in iPhoto. Typically, I travel to the east coast to visit family and don't adjust the clock on my camera, then I return and try to integrate my photos along with other family members' photos and they are out of sequence. Then I have to go through each photo, adding 3 hours to every photo I took.
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Jeffrey Bergier said 1:21PM on 6-13-2007
you don't need to put a laptop into safe sleep to change the battery. The onboard PRAM battery is capable of handling regular sleep for 3 or 4 minutes before it dies. So you have about that much time to swap batteries and open the lid again.
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mikeb said 2:00PM on 6-13-2007
Question - I have a shared SMB drive (Samba from a FreeBSD machine) that I mount in Finder. It works great, however since this is an iBook it unmounts the drive when I close the lid and it goes to sleep. How do I get it to auto-reconnect when the laptop wakes back up?
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fr_tuaw said 3:14PM on 6-13-2007
Shuzuluza:
I used PhotoInfo to clear up hundreds of my photos when we forgot to reset the date after charging. It will let you preview the changes before committing. Unfortunately, it won't work inside iPhoto-- I ended up pulling those files out of the Originals subfolder in the iPhoto library, adjusting, then reimporting.. losing my modifications, but not the originals.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12156
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Daniel said 4:11PM on 6-13-2007
I want to buy a MacBook, but it only comes with 2x512MB of RAM, and I want to upgrade it to 2x1GB without having to pay for an overpriced Apple upgrade. Are there services where I can trade in my Apple memory for credit so I'm not left with two 512MB sticks that I can't use?
I seem to remember that there used to be a BTO option for getting only 1x1GB stick, but I don't see it anywhere.
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Brandon said 6:28PM on 6-13-2007
I just hooked a powermac g5 up to a tv via hdmi. Looks great but one problem, the menu bar and a majority of the dock are getting cut off and I can't figure out how to get it to fit as nothing in the display preferences seems to fix the problem....
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