Mac forum - General chit chat/idle banter

calum · 20-09-2019 9:32am

The Black Oil wrote: »

Safari 13 is out.

Reminder: don't install if you don't want all your legacy extensions (i.e. those acquired from the Extensions Gallery rather than the App Store) to disappear.

Type 17 · 20-09-2019 8:34pm

calum wrote: »

Reminder: don't install if you don't want all your legacy extensions (i.e. those acquired from the Extensions Gallery rather than the App Store) to disappear.

Now you tell me :rolleyes:

The Black Oil · 22-09-2019 7:33pm

Too often I've hit command + Q, when I meant command + W. Just lost a long post.

Type 17 · 22-09-2019 7:36pm

CMD + W would have lost you the post anyway (?)

calum · 22-09-2019 7:37pm

The Black Oil wrote: »

Too often I've hit command + Q, when I meant command + W. Just lost a long post.

I suppose that's why Chrome has switched to "long press Cmd-Q to quit" by default. Annoys the heck out of me on the odd occasions I use Chrome, though...

calum · 22-09-2019 7:40pm

Type 17 wrote: »

CMD + W would have lost you the post anyway (?)

Not if it was in a different tab...

Sad Professor · 22-09-2019 7:42pm

calum wrote: »

I suppose that's why Chrome has switched to "long press Cmd-Q to quit" by default. Annoys the heck out of me on the odd occasions I use Chrome, though...

It’s stupid and usually results in me accidentally quitting several other apps. Thankfully you can disable it.

Type 17 · 22-09-2019 7:56pm

calum wrote: »

Not if it was in a different tab...

Fair enough

Obskure · 11-10-2019 4:24pm

Folks, has anyone here had the 2015 Pro Retina recalled? My unit is due in and I'm wondering what exactly gets fixed before I send it off. Read reports stating that because the battery is glued, that new keyboards, and bottom covers, were being retrofitted as well as the new battery.
Just wondering of any other experiences.

speedfreak · 12-10-2019 9:34am

Hi all,

have any of you sold your old iMacs privately? I have a late 2013 model I’m looking to move on but not a whole lot of uptake on adverts.ie. Just wondering where people have had success in selling. Prices are a bit all over the place on adverts but it’s keenly priced and in perfect nick. Cheers.

speedfreak · 12-10-2019 5:26pm

Mr.S wrote: »

Ebay should do better. Adverts is full of people who just take the piss and offer you a swap of a bicycle for your iMac.

haha! true.

The Black Oil · 29-11-2019 12:13pm

Decluttering - a lot of old cables, but a spare lightning one you had forgotten about.

The Black Oil · 14-03-2020 10:56am

WWDC is going online only.

The Black Oil · 16-03-2020 11:19am

Managed to spill tonic water on my keyboard last night. OK ish, so far.

Spocker · 16-03-2020 11:27am

The Black Oil wrote: »

Managed to spill tonic water on my keyboard last night. OK ish, so far.

You'll be fine, once there wasn't any gin in it :P

eeloe · 24-03-2020 3:10pm

Said i'd treat myself to some stuff from amazon while the exchange rate was nice.

Got a 1tb Crucial SSD and 16gb of ram, installed it last night in my mid 2012 macbook, and lads it's like ferrari right now.

The difference is legitimately night and day.

What an upgrade for under 150

The Black Oil · 24-03-2020 10:38pm

Should have known Crucial's stuff is on Amazon. :P

IamMetaldave · 02-04-2020 10:10pm

eeloe wrote: »

Said i'd treat myself to some stuff from amazon while the exchange rate was nice.

Got a 1tb Crucial SSD and 16gb of ram, installed it last night in my mid 2012 macbook, and lads it's like ferrari right now.

The difference is legitimately night and day.

What an upgrade for under 150

I swapped the hard drive out of my iMac 2013 (I
Think it’s that old anyway) and put a 1TB SSD in and I got the same result, crazy speed difference!

The Black Oil · 03-04-2020 1:06pm

I find Safari to be an arse at times. Won't show tweets properly, or Youtube comments. Force quit and reopen, same thing.

eeloe · 07-04-2020 2:05pm

IamMetaldave wrote: »

I swapped the hard drive out of my iMac 2013 (I
Think it’s that old anyway) and put a 1TB SSD in and I got the same result, crazy speed difference!

I kinda wish i done the ram and SSD at different times, so i'd be able to appreciate the improvements from both individually, but as it stands now, this is better than buying a new machine!

IamMetaldave · 07-04-2020 3:30pm

eeloe wrote: »

I kinda wish i done the ram and SSD at different times, so i'd be able to appreciate the improvements from both individually, but as it stands now, this is better than buying a new machine!

Honestly, I'm 100% certain SSD drive make the biggest difference to the normal stuff like boot time (when i actually shut it down), app opening.. file opening.. It's like a new machine for 100 euro in Argos. Adding RAM doesn't make the same impact in my opinion, maybe after an is openned, it's a little snappier to hop between stuff. SSD for the absolute win!

Shn99 · 17-04-2020 1:28am

Has anyone purchased a 2020 Macbook air with scissor keyboard? Is the keyboard reliable? Got a 2019 MBA in Feb and the butterfly keyboard is an absolute nightmare to say the least...

IamMetaldave · 17-04-2020 12:09pm

Shn99 wrote: »

Has anyone purchased a 2020 Macbook air with scissor keyboard? Is the keyboard reliable? Got a 2019 MBA in Feb and the butterfly keyboard is an absolute nightmare to say the least...

Yep. Mine delivered on Wednesday. It's awesome. It's a little monster of a machine.

Steak · 27-04-2020 1:46pm

Hi guys, I’m considering upgrading my MacBook, but first I have a few questions and would really appreciate general advice and feedback on my current thoughts.

I currently have a late 2011 13” MacBook Pro. It’s running macOS Sierra (can’t uprade to Catalina), has a 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 16GB of DDR3 RAM (upgraded from 4GB) and a 500GB SSD.

I’m considering the new 2020 MacBook Air. The particular model I’m considering is the i7 quad core, 8GB RAM, 256 SSD. I was looking at the i5 processor but for the extra €80, it’s probably worth upgrading to the i7?

Am I correct in saying that it’s not possible to remove the 8GB of RAM and upgrade to 16GB at a later date? I did this with my MBP but from what I’ve seen online it looks as though this might not be possible?

If I go down the path of getting a new MacBook Air, I have a couple of questions that I hope some of you might be able to help me with.

I currently back up my MBP using Time Machine with an external hard drive. As I’m currently running Sierra, I presume I should easily be able to set up a new machine from my latest Time Machine backup? There shouldn’t be any problems if the new machine is running macOS Catalina? I presume it will simply remove Catalina, replace with Sierra and then I can go about updating to Catalina on the new machine?
I have Microsoft Office Home & Student 2011 on my MBP. If I restore my Time Machine backup to a new machine will this bring over Office too so I won’t need to worry about getting Office or 365?

Anyway, I’d be really grateful if someone could provide any support on the above. I’m willing to consider other options so please don’t be shy with feedback.

Type 17 · 27-04-2020 1:57pm

You can't change RAM on new Mac laptops (or on the 21" iMac), so probably choose 16GB, as 8GB will get tight in the future.

If it's only €80 extra for the i7, I'd go for it (especially if you keep your Macs for a long time), but if financial limits mean a choice between i7 or more RAM than 8GB, go for the RAM.

Time Machine - If your old Mac was on a much earlier version of the OS, there might be problems, but Sierra > Catalina should be fine.

MS Office 2011 won't work with Catalina. If, like me, you don't want to pay an ongoing subscription for Office 365, you can buy a licence for Office Home & Student 2019 on the MS website (choose One-Time Purchase on the right-hand side).

Steak · 27-04-2020 3:55pm

Type 17 wrote: »

You can't change RAM on new Mac laptops (or on the 21" iMac), so probably choose 16GB, as 8GB will get tight in the future.

If it's only €80 extra for the i7, I'd go for it (especially if you keep your Macs for a long time), but if financial limits mean a choice between i7 or more RAM than 8GB, go for the RAM.

Time Machine - If your old Mac was on a much earlier version of the OS, there might be problems, but Sierra > Catalina should be fine.

MS Office 2011 won't work with Catalina. If, like me, you don't want to pay an ongoing subscription for Office 365, you can buy a licence for Office Home & Student 2019 on the MS website (choose One-Time Purchase on the right-hand side).

Hi Type 17, thank you very much for this.

My current MBP is coming up on 8.5 years old so I would be planning on keeping a new Mac for quite a while too, therefore I probably would go with the i7. Although, since I'm not a particularly heavy user I'm not sure if I'd actually need the 16GB of RAM vs 8GB? Do you really think it's worth the extra €250? Is it the case that having the extra RAM could see the life of the Mac extended by a few years?

Also thanks for the heads up on Time Machine and Office. I would be similar to yourself in just paying for the application and not paying a subscription. Is €149 the best price for a one-time payment?

Type 17 · 27-04-2020 4:41pm

Steak wrote: »

Hi Type 17, thank you very much for this.

My current MBP is coming up on 8.5 years old so I would be planning on keeping a new Mac for quite a while too, therefore I probably would go with the i7. Although, since I'm not a particularly heavy user I'm not sure if I'd actually need the 16GB of RAM vs 8GB? Do you really think it's worth the extra €250? Is it the case that having the extra RAM could see the life of the Mac extended by a few years?

Also thanks for the heads up on Time Machine and Office. I would be similar to yourself in just paying for the application and not paying a subscription. Is €149 the best price for a one-time payment?

I would pay the €250 for the RAM if you're keeping the Mac for a long time - each MacOS version / generation of App gets a little more complex / hungry for RAM and, because you can't increase it yourself any longer, you have to consider the future more carefully.
For example, I'm using a late 2013 27" iMac (3.5GHz i7) with 24GB of RAM and a 3TB fusion drive. In 2013, I was a professional photographer, so it was a decent spec for that, but now, seven years later, it's still flying along at full speed on Catalina, even though these days I'm usually just running Safari/email/MS Office and sometimes a bit of 3D layout stuff.
However, after just looking, I can confirm that it is currently using 12.6GB of RAM with just Mail and Safari open. That is after uptime of 12 days (sleep when not in use), but even after a reboot, it uses about 8-9GB with those two apps running. It would probably run on 8GB, but it would be slower and not future-proofed.

That's the cheapest legit version of MS Office (and it was new in 2019, so will be compatible/useful for a long time), but if you can claim the VAT back, it comes in around €121.

IamMetaldave · 28-04-2020 12:28pm

Steak wrote: »

Hi Type 17, thank you very much for this.

My current MBP is coming up on 8.5 years old so I would be planning on keeping a new Mac for quite a while too, therefore I probably would go with the i7. Although, since I'm not a particularly heavy user I'm not sure if I'd actually need the 16GB of RAM vs 8GB? Do you really think it's worth the extra €250? Is it the case that having the extra RAM could see the life of the Mac extended by a few years?

I have the 2020 MBA i5 and 16GB of RAM and I am much happier I went with the RAM upgrade over the i7. The i5 is ample, particularly if you are not a heavy user. The extra RAM will stand to you more so than the power between the i5 and i7. There's a bunch of folks on the MacRumors forums saying the wished they had done the RAM upgrade over the processor one.

Steak · 28-04-2020 3:48pm

Type 17 wrote: »

I would pay the €250 for the RAM if you're keeping the Mac for a long time - each MacOS version / generation of App gets a little more complex / hungry for RAM and, because you can't increase it yourself any longer, you have to consider the future more carefully.
For example, I'm using a late 2013 27" iMac (3.5GHz i7) with 24GB of RAM and a 3TB fusion drive. In 2013, I was a professional photographer, so it was a decent spec for that, but now, seven years later, it's still flying along at full speed on Catalina, even though these days I'm usually just running Safari/email/MS Office and sometimes a bit of 3D layout stuff.
However, after just looking, I can confirm that it is currently using 12.6GB of RAM with just Mail and Safari open. That is after uptime of 12 days (sleep when not in use), but even after a reboot, it uses about 8-9GB with those two apps running. It would probably run on 8GB, but it would be slower and not future-proofed.

That's the cheapest legit version of MS Office (and it was new in 2019, so will be compatible/useful for a long time), but if you can claim the VAT back, it comes in around €121.

IamMetaldave wrote: »

I have the 2020 MBA i5 and 16GB of RAM and I am much happier I went with the RAM upgrade over the i7. The i5 is ample, particularly if you are not a heavy user. The extra RAM will stand to you more so than the power between the i5 and i7. There's a bunch of folks on the MacRumors forums saying the wished they had done the RAM upgrade over the processor one.

Thanks folks.

With the i5, 16GB RAM and 256GB I'm looking at €1,529. Obviously I want any machine I purchase to be as future-proofed as possible but find it hard to justify spending €1,529. I know Macs hold there value so maybe that can somehow justify it.

The 13" MacBook Pro with the i5, 8GB RAM and 128GB comes in at €1,549, €20 more than the above MBA. If I do decide to pull the trigger on this should I consider a MBP? It looks a much lesser machine on paper?

whiterebel · 28-04-2020 4:03pm

I wouldn't go for the MBP with those specs. If you don't need the horsepower, get the Air.

Mac forum - General chit chat/idle banter

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