Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW
Ask TUAW: DJ software, concatenated RAIDs, Migration Assistant, Remote Desktop Connection and more
This time in Ask TUAW we're looking at DJ software, catenated RAIDs, Spaces, Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection Client, tab options in Safari, Spaces, and more.As always, your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X, as certain answers will vary between different Macs and Tiger vs. Leopard, etc. (we'll assume you're running Leopard if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!
Howard asks.
is there any way to mimic turntables with my mackbook without buying cd turntables or the like? I would just like to control most everything through my mac but have the full functionality to make my own mixes and to beat match. What would be good to get for this?
howiegroove adds
Is there a program that would work with an external piece of hardware for crossfading and pitch adjustment?
This is one area in which I have no personal experience. Looking around a bit, however, I found quite a few applications for DJ-ing on a Mac. It's a couple of years old, but you might start with this overview at Ars Technica. His recommendation was TRAKTOR DJ Studio which just happens to be 50% off right now for $119. TRAKTOR does support external controllers. However, there are many other DJ applications out there, some of which don't appear in the review. If you don't want to pay for TRAKTOR I would have a look at MacUpdate, though I can't really offer any concrete recommendations.
Michael asks
I am running 10.5.3 on a latest gen mac mini. I have my iTunes library sitting on an external firewire 750GB Western Digital Mybook. The external hard drive seems to getting filled up quite fast. I would like to be able to purchase another firewire drive and combine the storage with my existing drive, without losing the data. A RAID0 configuration would not be ideal, as I don't want to stripe the data, just combine the storage. If I go with the Concatenated RAID, will the data be lost during the build? Also, if one drive fails, will I lose all of the data? I would think not, since the data is not striped amongst the drives, but my research has lead me to believe otherwise.
From what I can tell it would probably be a bad idea to set up a concatenated RAID. If you use Disk Utility it will erase the disk contents. There may be a way to do it with the command line diskutil. However, to answer your other question, yes, a concatenated set will completely fail even if only one of the drive fails. My recommendation is not to do it. Your best bet would probably be something like a Drobo; unfortunately they're not cheap (though, the first gen Drobo is on clearance right now for $350).
smartfather muses
I would love to switch to Safari if I could get an easy, free way to sync my bookmarks. Hmm, maybe someday.
If you have access to a FTP server you might have a look at SafariDepot as a free Safari sync tool.
Alan asks
I'm finally gonna switch over to Leopard pretty soon. I've got a 500GB external USB drive, which has a clone of my Macbook's drive on it, courtesy of Carbon Copy Cloner. I plan on doing a wipe and install for Leopard, as I've installed a lot of junk on here. My question is, do you have any tips on what applications I should export my data from, to make the clean install easier? I understand that Migration Assistant does not work on external USB drives, only Firewire.
Migration Assistant can read user accounts off of USB drives on Intel Macs. I think that might have been a limitation at one time, but I have successfully used Migration Assistant on a USB drive (containing a SuperDuper! clone).
Caitlin asks
Anyone know a good tool to get Spaces to loop through the first space with the last space? I have three spaces in one column.
The best way to do this is put the three spaces in one row. Then it will loop back if you use the arrow keys.
Stephen asks
Will purchased apps from the App Store be licensed for a single iPhone or for a single iTunes account? My family has 2 phones running on 1 iTunes account, and I was wondering if both of us could use a copy of the same app without having to pay for it twice.
While I have no means for testing this for myself, several folks have reported that applications purchased from the App Store are licensed for the iTunes account and not the individual device. So you can download applications to multiple iPhones linked to the same iTunes account.
Adam asks
Is there a simple program that lets me on my MacBook Pro connect to my Grandfathers Windows XP machine across the country like you can do with iChat Screen Sharing when you have two Macs connected?
Yes, Microsoft offers a free Remote Desktop Connection Client. You can also run VNC, but there's not really much reason to do that.
David asks
How do I set Safari to open new pages in new tabs? That is, where is the equivalent to this feature from Firefox?
Okay, if I understand you correctly you want to force Safari to open all links to open a new tab and not a new window. Check out this hidden feature we posted on a while back.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
jason mark said 8:43AM on 7-16-2008
QUESTION: Spotlight vs. Quicksilver
I've used Quicksilver forever, but according to the developer it's reached it's end of life. I'm sort of expecting it to up and die after some patch or another from Apple in the next year or so, and so I want to have a backup plan for the office in place. Our first thought of course is spotlight, but there are two things it doesn't appear to be able to do. Do you know of ways to do the following in Spotlight?
- Trigger a new email from address book
- Open folders on remote servers. Currently I have aliases of servers in my "favorites" folder, and I have instructed Quicksilver to scan them
Thanks,
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Daniel Schlaug said 9:20AM on 7-16-2008
Give LaunchBar a go whenever Quicksilver fails you. As it's a payed app it's better supported... Quicksilver will always remain in a league of it's own though.
jason mark said 9:47AM on 7-16-2008
Actually I started with Launchbar, and paid for it for a while, but it got really slow at a time when Quicksilver was lightning fast, so I shifted over. There were also some features that Launchbar didn't have... :(
BUT, good point. It's probably a smart backup if Quicksilver ever "ups and dies".
Gizmo said 8:33AM on 7-16-2008
DJ Software, especially for Mac is my area of expertise. And if you're looking for a very Mac like experience, check out djay (http://www.djay-software.com/). It's written by a former Apple employee and is starting to work with an increasing number of controllers, but Vestax seems to be the current favourite right now.
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Brandon Martinez said 1:15PM on 7-16-2008
I love this software! I'm using my iMac as a DJ station for my wedding (my fiance's brother will be doing the actual "DJ'ing"); the interface is great and is really easy to use (automix is really good, you almost wouldn't even need an actual "DJ"), and it's affordable.
Props to this software for sure!
Jake Zerrer said 6:10PM on 7-16-2008
Another interesting DJing solution is Ableton Live (http://www.ableton.com/). Though by no means turntable-based, it does do incredible things with beatmatching, mixing, composing and such. I use Ableton Live Rewired to Propellerhead's Reason (http://www.propellerheads.se) to do all sorts of live music trickery. Just a thought.
Jason said 4:38PM on 7-16-2008
I've played with D-Jay, but Traktor is way way WAY more powerful. It's also way more complex. But for $119, it's a steal. I DJ with it live (using my Vestax controller) all the time. I do miss my vinyl though.
deemery said 8:36AM on 7-16-2008
Re: Concatenated RAID. I recommend against RAID Concatenated (JBOD). The problem is that the failure of one disk can take out the whole set. I know that's a problem with RAID Striped (RAID 0) (don't ask how I know this... But I'm a huge fan of RAID Mirrored...)
For your particular situation with iTunes, here's what I'd do: Consider you have 2 external drives, A and B, and your iTunes library is located on A. First in iTunes preferences UNcheck the 'copy to iTunes library' box. Next, add -aliases- from the files on Drive B to the iTunes library on Drive A. Finally, import the new links into iTunes. Make sure you have enough room on Drive A for the iTunes library file to expand.
Also USB is much inferior to FW400 in actual throughput rates. If your machine can support FW800, that's a substantially better choice. With all those iTunes files, I'd suggest you consider an external RAID Mirrored enclosure. You don't want to have to go back and re-rip them when you have a drive failure. I found some Venus DS3R cases (2xIDE drives, switch selectable RAID 0, RAID 1 Mirrored, JBOD and separate drives; FW400 and FW800 interfaces) on clearance for $40 (and bought all 4 they had at that price!).
dave
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Drarok Ithaqua said 8:40AM on 7-16-2008
STAY AWAY from catenated software RAID.
I concatted 3 of my drives together, then one day after a reboot, KAPOW! One of the drives decided it didn't want to be part of the set anymore. All the drives were fine, working perfectly, but one wasn't in the RAID Set anymore. And I couldn't add it back in, because I got an error saying it was already part of the set. I couldn't remove it, because it wasn't part of the set! WTF?!
Horrible, horrible stuff. Lost all the data on the set, too. It wasn't important, but I mourned its loss all the same.
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Harbinger said 8:43AM on 7-16-2008
For Remote Desktop action with Windows I prefer CoRD. http://cord.sourceforge.net/
I've always had better performance with it over the MS client.
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gldfsh419 said 10:25AM on 7-16-2008
I think it's worth noting that Remote Desktop only works with Windows XP Professional (not the Home version). [Unless, of course, there's been a change that I'm not aware of. I had to upgrade my PC that I use for work in order to use RDC from my Mac at home.]
jorn said 9:04AM on 7-16-2008
DJs: Please give MegaSeg a good look. http://megaseg.com
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Kevin Causey said 10:27AM on 7-16-2008
I've used megaseg for a couple of years and have always been impressed with its rock solid performance. I run it on a MacBook Pro (2.4 Intel Core Duo with 4 GB RAM) as a mobile DJ doing mostly weddings. It supports controllers (although I've never needed that functionality). Great guys to work with, too...
Zeromaru said 8:55AM on 7-16-2008
Are there any free alternatives to MobileMe? I'm open to all suggestions, including running my own server (I run a dynamic DNS so connecting isn't a problem). I'm trying to sync my iMac, Ubuntu laptop, and (when I get it) iPhone. A free Exchange solution would be (almost) preferable, since I could use it with my Windows Mobile phone, but Exchange Calendar sync doesn't work with iCal (to my knowledge). I've tried Mail2Web and had problems. Any suggestions?
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jopari said 9:12AM on 7-16-2008
Lifehacker made a post yesterday about this; they couldn't figure out a way to sync calendars, but they did get email and contacts working with Mail2Web. Here's a link:
http://lifehacker.com/398526/set-up-push-email-contacts-and-calendar-on-your-iphone-for-free
Zeromaru said 9:23AM on 7-16-2008
I quote myself "I've tried Mail2Web and had problems." and "Exchange Calendar sync doesn't work with iCal" :P
Dan Oblak - MacBigot.com said 12:03PM on 7-16-2008
Remote Desktop Connection Client and/or VNC are only one half of the equation -- the second (and more difficult, for some) part is simply reaching from one computer to another (through routers, perhaps DHCP addresses that ISPs change every couple of days, etc.)
What has worked well for me is a free service found at http://YuuGuu.com -- it includes both screen-sharing software (very light footprint) and lets you use a (free) online account with a PIN to direct users (through chat or email) to connect to your screen, or to ask them to share theirs with you.
I have had great success with this between a MacBook and my wife's Vista Home Edition PC.
For the long-term -- remember that the features that show up in iChat (MacOS-only) eventually show up in the commercial AOL chat client; so we hope to see AIM include this within a couple of years.
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alberto Azevedo said 10:05AM on 7-16-2008
id like to suggest to ADAM the software called Teamviewer...
It works on macs and pcs and does the same as iChat without voice... Its amazing, and has brought joy to my IT life ! :)
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Der Golem said 5:02PM on 7-16-2008
Second that.
Teamviewer.
Found it on TUAW. Of course.
Simple, elegant, secure.
jespes said 10:05AM on 7-16-2008
query for next time: I have an iPhone 3g. The company I work for doesnt support using iPhone for corporate email, so I'd like to set up a thing where I forward my corporate email to another account (say gmail or yahoo or another), which i can then read using the iPhone mail app. That's easy enough. But here's the big question: Is there a way to set up a "reply to" address in the iPhone so emails sent from the iPhone appear to be coming from my work email address?
Gmail offers this in its regular interface but not in its mobile interface. Nor does this Gmail feature work in the iPhone mail app. And the mail app itself doesn't allow for the setting of a different "reply to" address, near as I can tell.
(apols, i also posted this question last nite on the previous "ask tuaw" ...but didnt want it to get lost)
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