Tag: iMac

Time Machine

Apple’s disc backup system is the best.  Really.

I’d been using a nice iMac for quite a while.  I had a big external hard drive plugged into it that I used for Time Machine backups.  Once and hour or so it would back up my entire machine.  Totally awesome.  Last night I took over use of my wife’s Mac Pro which she tried to sell on ebay twice without getting any bids (ebay can kiss my pasty white ass).  She really had to twist my arm on this deal.  I mean, can you see how fast the type is getting into the window?  Can you?  No, actually you can’t.  But let’s just take it as written that the Mac Pro is freakin’ fast.

As I’ve done every time I’ve set up a new Apple computer I plugged in that trusty Time Machine drive, hit command-R when the new computer booted up, and went to restore from a back up.  This time it didn’t work.  The hard drive on my iMac is actually bigger than the hard drive on this Mac Pro.  So over to the Migration Assistant I go!  I restored all of my preferences and settings and all of my applications, but none of my data and documents.  That fit easily.  I may go back again and see if I can cherry pic specific folders of data to bring in as well, but for now I have my former system back, just on a significantly swankier machine.

All thanks to Time Machine.

Time Machine rules.

Very Short OS X Mavericks Review

I updated both of my Apple computers to OS X Mavericks. I haven’t really done much on the iMac since upgrading. I’ve been using the MacBook Pro while watching the two World Series games. I have two things to note about Mavericks:

1. The Good. I used to get about two hours, maybe a little less, worth of battery time. Since upgrading, I’ve gone from 99% down to 93% in about 30 minutes. That seems like a really good start as far as the battery life improvements go. Granted, I haven’t done anything more involved than posting to Twitter, reading Facebook, and posting this update to WordPress. Nothing major, but still a good start.

2. The Bad. I don’t know if this is related or not, but the time to boot up is insane. It’s like Windows bad. Really bad. I didn’t time it, but it took a seriously long time. I was very disappointed.

That’s all I have for a Mavericks review. I hope it helps you, loyal readers.

And in case you were wondering, David Ortiz just hit a two run home run to give the Red Sox the lead in the sixth inning of game two.

Go Red Sox!

Consolidation

I consolidated every GarageBand file I’ve ever created onto one machine tonight. Some came from my iPad 2, others from my New iPad, a few from my iPhone, many from my Mac mini, and many more from my MacBook Pro. My MacBook Pro now contains a folder for finished songs, including sub folders for the last two RPMs, a folder for songs I would like to finish within the next month or so, and a folder for song ideas that I don’t know what to do with. I was especially looking for two ancient songs that I know I have unfinished recordings of somewhere, but after coming up empty across all of my various Apple devices, I think I know where they are. On SVHS tapes in ADAT format. Yup, definitely going to start those over again. My 8-track days are over.

I am king nerd. Bow before my uber nerdliness.

iOS Question, Answered

A little lunch time Googling told me that I was right in my assumption that you cannot change the default browser on an iOS device.  It is possible if you jail break your device, but I have no interest in doing that.

I guess I will just have to copy links out of emails and other apps.  Not too big a deal, but I do want to use Chrome instead of Safari for now.  I really don’t know why.

I was a die hard Firefox user until I got my iMac.  For some reason when I set up the new computer I installed Chrome right away.  I don’t think I installed Firefox at all.  I actually use both at work as I have my own Google account and we use Gmail for work and I prefer to keep them separate.  I want both accounts open so I use two browsers.  Chrome for work, Firefox for personal.

Since getting the iMac I had rarely used my MacBook Pro.  During the February music goofiness I used it quite a bit and without really thinking about it I was using Chrome for all of my browsing.  Given that I kept all of the song arrangements and lyrics on a Google Document, and that every single idea I had got uploaded to the ‘net somewhere, I did a lot of browsing during the music making.

I guess Chrome just quietly won me over.  I don’t think the browsing experience is any better or worse in iOS, at least as far as rendering the pages is concerned.  I do prefer the tabbed functions in Chrome to the multi-page functions in Safari.  Maybe I’m just a nerd.

Yeah, I’m probably just a nerd.

Two Days, Nine Hours, and 54 Minutes

Two days, nine hours, and 54 minutes to go until the start of the 2013 RPM Challenge.  I have done nothing to prepare.  Here is an off the top of my head to-do list to prepare for my sixth attempt at completing the challenge:

Practice my guitar.  I have no calluses on my finger tips.  Pain is inevitable.

Decide on the platform I want to focus on.  Last year I ended up doing the whole thing on my iPad.  I think I want to go back and forth between the iPad and the Mac this time.  I expect the bulk of the writing and rhythm section tracking to be done on the iPad, but I also think I want to expand a little in an attempt to make the drum tracks sound a little more adventurous.  On the Mac I can move stray notes around so that they sound in time without messing with the quantize settings.  I want drum fills that are faster than just 16th notes.

Put the MacMini in the cellar back together.  I had moved a lot of computer equipment around a few months ago and the MacMini was taken apart.  I plan on using that to record vocals at least.  I still want to run my mic through my Mackie board so that I can EQ my crappy voice.  I’m not able to do that if I plug directly into the iPad.  I went through the board into the iPad last time and it worked, but I would like the added flexibility of working on a full GarageBand for vocals.  In Theory at least.

Clean the workspace in the cellar.  It’s a mess down there.  Really.

Test the lightning cable adapter on my New iPad.  Wouldn’t it suck if the adapter didn’t work and I couldn’t plug external sources into the New iPad?  Yes, it would suck.

If I plug into the JamUp app, can I record into GarageBand?  I’m 99.999% sure I cannot, but it is still worth looking into.

Sign up for FAWM.  Really.  I signed up for RPM last week, but the FAWM website is not going to open until tomorrow.  It’s going through a complete redesign.  While I’m on the topic, the website is fawm.org.  NOT fawm.com.  You don’t want to go to fawm.com.  Trust me.

Find some inspiration.  I was thinking about using the founders of the towns of Methuen, MA and Salem, NH as characters somehow.  I doubt I will though.  I’ll probably just write another 10 songs about my cat.

I’m sure I’ll think of 100 things to add to this list between now and the start of February, but for now this is enough.  And by enough I mean enough to make me start musically panicking.

Wouldn’t it be Nice?

I’ve been sitting at my computer tonight more or less since I got home.  My beautiful, wonderful, gorgeous, brilliant, amazing wife is next to me.  She built a PC today and is jumping through hoops trying to get all of her software installed and all of her settings the way she wants them.  I’m helping with the heavy lifting here and there.

I’ve also being a bootleg music nerd.  My goal to get a copy of every show on the Rush Clockwork Angels tour is more than likely never going to be achieved, but I’m now up to 17 shows (18 if you count the DVD of the first set of the Brooklyn show, which I don’t).  I’m fighting with the new iTunes and with iTunes match.  Apparently we no longer have the ability to open a playlist in a separate window?  Gee… thanks iTunes.  I never made use of that function ever (and by never I mean I used it constantly).  Now when I drag a new folder full of music into a playlist and have it upload to iTunes Match, it does not add the music to the playlist.  You know, the playlist that I just added it to?  I then have to go into albums and right click and select add to playlist.  It gives me a drop down of all my playlists.  I have about a hundred and eighty thousand of them.  Yeah, that’s easier than having two windows.

Anyway, the real inspiration for this particular waste of server memory is Monday Night Football.  I don’t have the television on, but I keep seeing Facebook and Twitter notifications popping up with posts about the Patriots game.  I live in New England.  I suppose I identify myself as a Patriots fan.  I just don’t live and die by football the way 95% of my fellow New Englanders do.  I want my home team to win, but I am not going to get upset if they don’t.

However, all of this football buzz is making me think…

I could really go for some NHL hockey right now.  A Bruins game would sure be a lot more interesting than a Patriots game.  Hell, a Columbus vs Florida game would be more interesting to me.  I’d park my largess down on the coach and watch the shit out of a game like that tonight.

Thanks a ton, NHL.