Alright, so I already destroyed my laptop I got a few months ago...I mean, it met an unfortunate end, it's not important how. LOL

I got a Macbook Pro this time. I wanted a backlit keyboard and I wanted the mouse pad to be in the middle again, since that was what started my hatred of the last laptop. It also helps that this Macbook is encased in aluminum. It would be better if it were steel, but at least this way it will only dent and not break like plastic lol. Actually, I spent WAY more than I wanted to on this thing, but hopefully it will last me long enough it will make up for it.

I love it so far, at least as far as navigating online. I love being able to scroll pages so quickly up and down or sideways with just swiping two fingers on the mousepad, and I LOVE being able to navigate to the previous page just by swiping three fingers to the right on the mousepad, or back to the next page by swiping three fingers to the left. SO quick and awesome. Plus it has the i7 core processor which is INSANE fast.

However, I already have a couple little things that are quickly making me want to destroy this thing, haha, but after doing some reading I am seeing a reason for at least one of the problems.

1. I want to play some of the movies/tv shows or whatever on here, which would play just fine on my old PCs, but it won't play on here. I downloaded what it suggested, which was Flip4Mac, and it's supposed to play the video. It STILL doesn't, and it's really pissing me off.

2. I can't copy anything to my external HD, and as I've recently read it's because my HD is formatted NTFS, which Mac can pull from but cannot add to. So now I have to reformat my HD, if that's even possible. I don't want to do it unless I can use it with PC still, and from what I've read there are a few things I can download to make that possible.

Anyone have any input? Dave, are you there? LOL

Fix for #1 VLC for Mac
Fix for #2 Reformat hard drive for mac here is a vid
http://youtu.be/8te1bg07MsQ

speedjunkie wrote:Alright, so I already destroyed my laptop I got a few months ago...I mean, it met an unfortunate end, it's not important how. LOL

i knew this was gonna happen sooner or later LOL

+1 on Mac. It's why i love mine so much.

VLC is the way to go.

Also the link posted above, does it work? I had a external I purchased from new egg stricly for the Mac tried to format it and it crashed my Mac lol.

Also, Eric... I still want to know what you did :P lol

I don't have a Mac but VLC is awesome. If VLC won't play it, it's unlikely anything will, heh.

+1 for VLC its an amazing program. good news for games. steam is now availible for mac so get it and game away!

as for your other issues...sell it and buy a pc?

im sorry i have an inane hatred for fruit powered computers. every time I TRY to use a mac i remember just why. thought maybe now since almost everything is done in a browser and the internals are the same as a pc.. but no its still horrid.
core i7 is availible for pc. my mouse does all your wierd finger swipes. with 7 buttons. my keyboard is backlit. and use google chrome and you have an instant scroll all the way back to the top button. and pc costs significantly less.

Glad you're liking it man, and that I could talk you into one.

A few more quick tips:

4 finger swipe down to switch between programs. So if you have multiple programs running, you can seamlessly switch between them.

4 finger swipe up to minimize anything you're doing...it will force any program into the background.

OK I'll give VLC a shot. And as long as I can format the HD to still be used with PC, I'll do that too. I was reading a bit on that as well and remember reading something about Fat32 can only do up to 4MB or something like that. But that there are others that can do bigger files, which would be good since it's mostly movies and music I want to move.

I won't have to sell this if I don't like it, I still have over a week to take it back to Best Buy if I don't like it. And I'm not really sold on this Mac for its program, but I do like the computer quite a bit. I might go ahead and partition the HD and install Windows on it anyway.

Thanks for the tips guys.

And Ian...shut yo' mouf!! LOL

Just remember, if you format it you'll lose anything that's on there already, so make sure you back up your stuff if you have anything important on there.

You're talking about the HD right? Yeah I'm going to get a huge external and store everything from my other HDs on it I think.

For some reason when I download VLC and try to install it, it says it cannot be run in DOS mode. This is really pissing me off.

Had a client that needed to read/write dvd size files (4GB+) to a flash drive between a Mac and PC (video presentation that needed to play at a conference, so couldn't use his LAN) so FAT wasn't an option due to file sizes in excess of what FAT suppors.

A couple options I recall trying without success:
Tuxera http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/2010/10/ntfs-3g-for-mac-os-x-2010102.html
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090913140023382

I'm pretty sure I re-formatted the flash drive on the Mac using exFAT (read/write support on MAC and Win 7/Vista, huge file size support) to solve the problem.

Thanks! I'll check that out.

I had downloaded Flip4Mac last week and it worked for the WMV movies but not the AVI movies, so I downloaded DiVX last night and it works for the AVI movies. This is ridiculous haha.

I decided to conquer the HD problem next, so I went to Best Buy earlier and they told me the Seagates work with Mac AND PC, so I bought two 2TB HDs for $90 each, which is nice because they were selling a 3TB for $239. Um, yeah. Anyway, I just tried doing some stuff with it and it says it needs to be reformatted too. ARGH!!! I was told I wouldn't have to reformat. This is getting on my nerves. "But it's SO much easier than using a PC!" Yeah I don't think so, not so far anyway. I never had this much trouble and financial hit with a PC. But I WILL conquer this!

This is what happens when you try to play your pirated movies haha

So basically, you pay a lot more for the same hardware as a PC. Then you spend all your time and money trying to make it become a PC and work like a PC. You don't ever see a PC having a MAC emulator. But MAC has multiple Windows emulators. If MAC is so much better like they say they are, why do they try to be like PC? LOL.