Sweet Cucumber

Comment from Fraze
Time: April 22, 2008, 11:35 pm

Jeez Guy, well done!
I remember biting the desk, steering wheel and head off of anyone who asked how I was getting on with ’stopping’ around the 10 day mark!
It ain’t bloody easy and you’ll wait for the rest of your existence for any health benefits you think you might get for your present torture.
After four years of being nicotine free there are still times I could murder a fag! (please don’t fear my American gay friends, not quite what you think over here.)
Damn! I wish you well.
Hey, you will notice the BIG increase in cash in your hip though!
Typing this on my bloody macbook and it still won’t auto correct my speeling (sic)! Getting a bit more used to Leopard being shit though, native instruments guitar interface problems, Nikon software problems etc, sigh.

Fraze

Comment from guy
Time: April 23, 2008, 12:14 am

Hey Fraze !
Yea, I stopped dead cold turkey last week, ‘cuz I was getting too much hindrance of it.
I must say it has been going relatively easy so far — expected much much worse. I’m a bit nervous, and I have the tendency to stick stuff in my mouth (sweet sticks, salty sticks, etc… but mostly healthy stuff), and even worse: I now talk out loud to myself (luckily I sit alone in my office all day), and curse myself for having picked up smoking about 30 years ago… but in general, I’m doing well, I think.

I am fully aware of the fact that the craving will last for a very very long time (most probably beyond my grave), but I’m quite happy right now that I’m already feeling serious benefits even after only less than two weeks. It’s the generally-feeling-better thing that keeps me going (erm, stopping).

Since I smoked 3 packs a day on average, at €4.50/pack, my savings so far are indeed substantial.

As for your Leopard shit… weird. I’m having virtually no problems whatsoever with anything. My Native Instrument softs work just fine, my Canon (!) software works properly, etc… Don’t understand why the spelling auto-correct doesn’t work. Where ? When ?

Comment from Fraze
Time: April 23, 2008, 6:51 pm

Hi Guy,
I actually like my macbook but it doesn’t like me. Probably just me expecting it to behave in certain ways that windows does and it doesn’t!
As I would type (say a reply on here) it would let me know there was a spelling error with the little red dotted line under the word in question. Windows does the same and either auto-corrects or you can right click for spelling options. On my mac it just does nuthin until you type in the correct spelling yourself.
I know its all simple stuff but I just want it to work! Grrrr…
I’ve been nice to it and gave it the 4gb full ram upgrade and a new 250gb HD and it still hates me!
The main reason I got the thing was for photos and music and I’ve not had much bloody success with either as of yet.
The native instruments guitar interface I bought didn’t work and a search soon brought up this kinda stuff.
“Important notice regarding Pro Tools compatibility under Mac OS X 10.5
Native Instruments has identified a major compatibility issue with its products in Pro Tools hosts under Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. This issue can result in intermittent freezes when running RTAS versions of NI instruments or effects with Pro Tools under the latest Macintosh operating system.

Native Instruments is working closely with Digidesign to resolve these compatibility issues and will release RTAS updates for its products as soon as possible. In the meantime, Native Instruments does not recommend using the RTAS versions of its products under Mac OS X 10.5 in conjunction with Pro Tools.”

The patches offered were also a pain in the ass to install and didn’t work either.
Damn!

Hey!, good news on the Camera side though!
I got a full version of Capture NX when I bought my Nikon D300 (yeah, never as good as CS but great for free.) but there was an issue (again) with Leopard. But!.. I have just discovered this new update on the Nikon site so I’m gonna give it a whirl tonight!

“Mac OS X version 10.3.9 - 10.4.11.
The software corrects an important data corruption issue when using Mac OS X 10.5 however is has not passed as fully compatible with this operating system.”

Apart from that everything’s great.

Stay off those ciggies now ;0)

Fraze.

Comment from guy
Time: April 24, 2008, 2:19 am

Fraze,

OS X has a built-in dictionary/spelling-checker/thesaurus, which is/are available system-wide.
Indeed, in contrast to WinOS, OS X will not auto-correct your spelling mistakes (unless it is set that way in specific programs), however it will let you correct a possible mistake in a very simple way: right-click (or ctlr-click) on the miss-spelled word, and a contextual menu will pop up, giving you access to either the correct version of that word (or several close-by suggestions), plus it will allow you to look up the word in the OS X Dictionary, *and* it will allow you to look up the word in Google and/or Spotlight. Not only that, the menu will also give you access to other word spelling related programs and items in the OS…

It really helps to go through OS X’s help menus at least once, Fraze !
It’ll advance you to the next step of using OS X, which is: “wow, I didn’t know it could do this !?”, and also “sheesh, it’s *that* simple?!”

As for the music and photo stuff, I dunno… I’ve been doing this (on Macs) for a very, very, very long time, and it always worked for me. Not because I’ve been doing it for a very, very, very long time, but because these machines and their accompanying software are simply made to do this. Maybe you should give it a bit more time and exercise to get the most out of it ?

As for Pro Tools… well, what can I say ? I didn’t know you use that, and now I feel sorry for you. I’m not really for proprietary software which ties you to the manufacturer’s hardware (although Apple does the same thing, more or less). In this case Avid is to blame, and not Native Instruments. Just buy Logic Studio and get it over with. You’ll never look back.

-g

Comment from Fraze
Time: April 24, 2008, 10:45 am

“It really helps to go through OS X’s help menus at least once, Fraze ! ”

I know, I know…I know.
It was a kinda impulse buy when I was out looking for a pc laptop.
I thought ‘how different can an os be’? not as if were going back to CLI stuff is it?
Sadly, with hindsight, I should have just stuck to original plan. Ho-hum, live and learn.
No wonder there are all these little ‘workshops’ set up in Apple stores. I’m only glad I didn’t change my main machine on a similar whim!
So, I’m left with two real choices, either I get my ass into gear and make a concerted effort to learn osX or just take a hit on what I paid for it and flog it on ebay with a view to getting a new pc lappy.

Jeez!…it’s almost enough to make me start smoking again!
Cheers for the info mate.

Fraze