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Jenko

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 17, 2009
134
0
Hi guys. I am emigrating to Darwin in Australia i have a 15" MBP mid 2010 High Res glossy screen and I think the best thing to do would be to sell it and buy one of the newer MBP's when they are released in Australia. My reasons for selling are if anything goes wrong with my current MBP in Australis it might be a hassle to fix it from there, plus there is the issue of heat with my current MBP which can run pretty hot at times and moving to Darwin which has a year round temperature of 35 degrees celsius and is very humid, I believe the next MBP's should run at a lower temp due to the new processors from intel. I really like the 15" screen and would consider buying a 13" but would miss the size. I have considered an ipad but I want an all rounded piece of tech so it would probably have to be a laptop, I have considered the Mac book Air but although I don't use it that often when I have needed it the optical drive has come in handy in the past.

Another issue I have is this if I find someone to buy my MBP off me what would be the procedure with regard to downloading all my own files and programs onto a portable HDD. I have never done this before so am not sure what to do, would I need to do to remove all my own files and info so as to restore the computer ready for the next owner so I can remove all traces of my own self, e.g. remove sensitive info such as passwords, financial info, I would also like to remove my Adobe package so I can keep it fro my next MBP. Any help or info would be grateful, there will probably be a gap of two or three months before I get my next MBP as I will wait for the release of the newer version.
Also one other thing how would I go about then transferring all my info onto the new MBP when I get it.
Will I be able to transfer all my synced info from my iphone as well.
Thanks again guys, sorry for the huge ask but I have never done anything like this before so many thanks in advance.
 

RedCroissant

Suspended
Aug 13, 2011
2,268
96
KEEP YOURS! sorry, didn't mean to yell.

First of all, you have a great machine and the temperature and humidity shouldn't pose that much of a problem for you. You also don't know what the operating temperature of the new MBP would be and basing your decision now on a hypothetical might come back to haunt you.

Also, the cost of MBPs in Australia average about $300 per machine. So selling yours here and then buying one there would end up costing you more in the long run.

If you are set on selling your current one: transferring all your information to an EHDD is fairly simple and straightforward, but I would recommend buying one that has enough space to do a time machine backup and also for all your media(iTunes, iPhoto, and such) All you would have to do before hand is move your media libraries to the HDD and then open iTunes and reassign the main library directory. After that, all that should be left is your documents. Moving this over is also fairly straightforward. If you purchased Lion after you got the Mac, be sure to resort it to its original state and that should be it. Just be sure that when you get your new Mac to open iTunes and iPhoto preferences and make sure it knows where to find your libraries. You can either leave them on the external to save space on your MBP HDD, or you can then move everything back and then reassign again.

Just holding onto yours would help you avoid the hassle of finding someone that would pay a reasonable price for yours, having to deal with restoring your laptop and moving all your information to a portable storage solution and not being able to do anything with it until you replace it. And there is also no retail store in the Northern Territory as far as I know.

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I have never done this before so am not sure what to do, would I need to do to remove all my own files and info so as to restore the computer ready for the next owner so I can remove all traces of my own self, e.g. remove sensitive info such as passwords, financial info, I would also like to remove my Adobe package so I can keep it fro my next MBP. Any help or info would be grateful, there will probably be a gap of two or three months before I get my next MBP as I will wait for the release of the newer version.
Also one other thing how would I go about then transferring all my info onto the new MBP when I get it.
Will I be able to transfer all my synced info from my iphone as well.
Thanks again guys, sorry for the huge ask but I have never done anything like this before so many thanks in advance.

Onc you begin the restore process(if that's what you choose), it's all very simple and the Mac will be your guide. And as long as you have an iCloud account, all your productivity stuff should be synced automagically when you set up your new computer.

AND, you are allowed to change the region of your drive 5 times, which means you should have no problem using your MBP to run region 4 discs and then changing it back to the region you want if and when you move back.

----------

Before deciding, check DVD region and power supply compatibility.

He can change the region on his drive(as long as he hasn't already done so) 5 times, and a simple purchase of the world traveler kit or a single adapter would be more than adequate. I have a pretty good one that I bought in London a few years ago that works everywhere. I miss traveling.
 

Jenko

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 17, 2009
134
0
First of all, you have a great machine and the temperature and humidity shouldn't pose that much of a problem for you. You also don't know what the operating temperature of the new MBP would be and basing your decision now on a hypothetical might come back to haunt you.

Also, the cost of MBPs in Australia average about $300 per machine. So selling yours here and then buying one there would end up costing you more in the long run.

If you are set on selling your current one: transferring all your information to an EHDD is fairly simple and straightforward, but I would recommend buying one that has enough space to do a time machine backup and also for all your media(iTunes, iPhoto, and such) All you would have to do before hand is move your media libraries to the HDD and then open iTunes and reassign the main library directory. After that, all that should be left is your documents. Moving this over is also fairly straightforward. If you purchased Lion after you got the Mac, be sure to resort it to its original state and that should be it. Just be sure that when you get your new Mac to open iTunes and iPhoto preferences and make sure it knows where to find your libraries. You can either leave them on the external to save space on your MBP HDD, or you can then move everything back and then reassign again.

Just holding onto yours would help you avoid the hassle of finding someone that would pay a reasonable price for yours, having to deal with restoring your laptop and moving all your information to a portable storage solution and not being able to do anything with it until you replace it. And there is also no retail store in the Northern Territory as far as I know.

----------



Onc you begin the restore process(if that's what you choose), it's all very simple and the Mac will be your guide. And as long as you have an iCloud account, all your productivity stuff should be synced automagically when you set up your new computer.

AND, you are allowed to change the region of your drive 5 times, which means you should have no problem using your MBP to run region 4 discs and then changing it back to the region you want if and when you move back.

----------



He can change the region on his drive(as long as he hasn't already done so) 5 times, and a simple purchase of the world traveler kit or a single adapter would be more than adequate. I have a pretty good one that I bought in London a few years ago that works everywhere. I miss traveling.


Thanks for the great advice. I think I will keep this MBP and take it with me. What external hard drive would you recommend and what size, Internal hard drive is a 500gb serial ATA 7200rpm. Would you buy one with a usb 3.0 connection or firewire and usb 2.0, thunderbolt would be no good. My MBP 15" has a dual core i7 and intel graphic card and Nvidia Geforce GT 330m. A Lacie rugged or Gtech was recommended to me or even a WD studio or passport, any suggestions would be appreciated.
Can you also recommend a good dvd burning program as simple as possible, I would like to burn my daughters favorite programs and films so I can leave the actual dvd's in Ireland when we leave, but I would be worried about being caught with them on my laptop when going through customs.
 

RedCroissant

Suspended
Aug 13, 2011
2,268
96
Thanks for the great advice. I think I will keep this MBP and take it with me. What external hard drive would you recommend and what size, Internal hard drive is a 500gb serial ATA 7200rpm. Would you buy one with a usb 3.0 connection or firewire and usb 2.0, thunderbolt would be no good. My MBP 15" has a dual core i7 and intel graphic card and Nvidia Geforce GT 330m. A Lacie rugged or Gtech was recommended to me or even a WD studio or passport, any suggestions would be appreciated.
Can you also recommend a good dvd burning program as simple as possible, I would like to burn my daughters favorite programs and films so I can leave the actual dvd's in Ireland when we leave, but I would be worried about being caught with them on my laptop when going through customs.

You're very welcome for the advice and I'm glad that you had the foresight to ask before leaving. Australia was one of my possible destinations, so I did a lot of research just in case we ended up there. We didn't though but maybe one day I too can experience the glory of the huntsman spiders!

As far as an external goes, I would always recommend firewire over usb and my favorite brand is WD. I have had 5 of theirs(ended giving two of them as gifts) and still have the other three(1TB, 1TB, 500GB). I don't know what kind of work you do with your MBP so the EHD that you would need would also depend on that. I have a 1TB WD firewire that requires its own power supply hooked up to my iMac that sits on my desk to stream my iTunes library to my AppleTV. So for you, I would try and find a HD with at least 1.5TB(for storage capacity matching your current configuration, for a complete backup of your system, and with room to spare for a little bit of expansion). Stay away from Maxtor/Seagate. I can't tell you how many headaches that brand gave me and how many times I was forced to reformat it since for some reason it couldn't recognize itself and wanted to constantly update the firmware/software and then require a reformat.

Handbrake is by far my favorite dvd ripping/burning app. I burned all 336 of the movies I have in iTunes using that and it works great. I don't try to mess with too many settings either. I pick one format to encode the video so that I have the best possible range of quality regardless of the device I play it on. For my favorite movies that I wanted really good quality, I would use H.264 and for the majority of the others I would use the basic .mp4. Just be sure that the setting you choose doesn't automatically change the resolution, because if it does, you will need to manually change it back before burning. I don't know how old your daughter is, but if she's the age for Disney movies/cartoons, you might not be able to burn all the Disney movies with Handbrake. I don't know why, but I was only able to rip/burn about 80% of them.

Will customs check your computer for burned DVDs? If they do, that would be insane. And if you're going to maintain a residence in Ireland or at least a storage compartment for some of your things, you could always leave the DVDs there and say that you made legal backups of your movies and are going to keep the actual discs. Done and done.

I wish you the best and I hope you enjoy Australia.
 

Jenko

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 17, 2009
134
0
You're very welcome for the advice and I'm glad that you had the foresight to ask before leaving. Australia was one of my possible destinations, so I did a lot of research just in case we ended up there. We didn't though but maybe one day I too can experience the glory of the huntsman spiders!

As far as an external goes, I would always recommend firewire over usb and my favorite brand is WD. I have had 5 of theirs(ended giving two of them as gifts) and still have the other three(1TB, 1TB, 500GB). I don't know what kind of work you do with your MBP so the EHD that you would need would also depend on that. I have a 1TB WD firewire that requires its own power supply hooked up to my iMac that sits on my desk to stream my iTunes library to my AppleTV. So for you, I would try and find a HD with at least 1.5TB(for storage capacity matching your current configuration, for a complete backup of your system, and with room to spare for a little bit of expansion). Stay away from Maxtor/Seagate. I can't tell you how many headaches that brand gave me and how many times I was forced to reformat it since for some reason it couldn't recognize itself and wanted to constantly update the firmware/software and then require a reformat.

Handbrake is by far my favorite dvd ripping/burning app. I burned all 336 of the movies I have in iTunes using that and it works great. I don't try to mess with too many settings either. I pick one format to encode the video so that I have the best possible range of quality regardless of the device I play it on. For my favorite movies that I wanted really good quality, I would use H.264 and for the majority of the others I would use the basic .mp4. Just be sure that the setting you choose doesn't automatically change the resolution, because if it does, you will need to manually change it back before burning. I don't know how old your daughter is, but if she's the age for Disney movies/cartoons, you might not be able to burn all the Disney movies with Handbrake. I don't know why, but I was only able to rip/burn about 80% of them.

Will customs check your computer for burned DVDs? If they do, that would be insane. And if you're going to maintain a residence in Ireland or at least a storage compartment for some of your things, you could always leave the DVDs there and say that you made legal backups of your movies and are going to keep the actual discs. Done and done.

I wish you the best and I hope you enjoy Australia.


Thanks again awesome advice. With regards to work I use my MBP for researching, browsing the internet, emails, admin work, watching movies, listening to music and using photoshop so I do not use it for anything to taxing.
Its great to be heading to Australia all right, but I will have to get over my arachnophobia pretty damn quick.

Once again really appreciate the sound advice, good luck with your own future projects.
Best Wishes
Jenko
 

OLDCODGER

macrumors 6502a
Jul 27, 2011
959
399
Lucky Country
He can change the region on his drive(as long as he hasn't already done so) 5 times, and a simple purchase of the world traveler kit or a single adapter would be more than adequate. I have a pretty good one that I bought in London a few years ago that works everywhere. I miss traveling.

Thank you, also, for your info - one is never too old to learn something new.
 

RedCroissant

Suspended
Aug 13, 2011
2,268
96
Thank you, also, for your info - one is never too old to learn something new.

Yeah, that one I learned when my sister-in-law sent us a couple of DVDs for our kids and they are region 4. So since it was the first time I inserted a DVD it was going to let me choose. I was not going to waste one of the chances to change it just to burn a couple of Australian DVDs.

----------

Thanks again awesome advice. With regards to work I use my MBP for researching, browsing the internet, emails, admin work, watching movies, listening to music and using photoshop so I do not use it for anything to taxing.
Its great to be heading to Australia all right, but I will have to get over my arachnophobia pretty damn quick.

Once again really appreciate the sound advice, good luck with your own future projects.
Best Wishes
Jenko

Then in that case, I would go with a combined firewire/usb WD 2 TB drive. And since you're in Ireland, the exchange rate will be in your favor so I guess it doesn't really matter where you buy it.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of spiders either but I can normally deal with them. The Huntsmans though, well...let's just say I wouldn't mind going my whole life without seeing one in my house. At least they're not poisonous and are relatively harmless. Have a nice trip/move/life down there.
 
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