It's Finally Here! But now I have questions :)

[bgirlkat]

Okay so my MBP is finally here after waiting for 3 weeks..(high res screen took forever)...

And I have been told to first get Memory....someone before told me to get Newegg? Is this the best one?

Also, I tried connecting to a Linksys network that we have for the PC's in the house but it never would connect we tried several different things. Are these not compatible with Macs?

I finally got to sit down and play for a few hours on it last night. The sound is amazing and the screen is so beautiful!!! I had a long day yesterday though and didn't get much time on it. So today that is all I plan on doing....

I have a MMouse that I ordered originally, it seems to be working fine so far...any word on what the problems have been with these in the past?

YEAH! So excited now I just have to order my Final Cut Studio2 and I will be set (oh...and I have to get an external drive...any suggestions on that?)

Kat

 

[RandiC]

Okay so my MBP is finally here after waiting for 3 weeks..(high res screen took forever)...

And I have been told to first get Memory....someone before told me to get Newegg? Is this the best one?

Also, I tried connecting to a Linksys network that we have for the PC's in the house but it never would connect we tried several different things. Are these not compatible with Macs?

I finally got to sit down and play for a few hours on it last night. The sound is amazing and the screen is so beautiful!!! I had a long day yesterday though and didn't get much time on it. So today that is all I plan on doing....

I have a MMouse that I ordered originally, it seems to be working fine so far...any word on what the problems have been with these in the past?

YEAH! So excited now I just have to order my Final Cut Studio2 and I will be set (oh...and I have to get an external drive...any suggestions on that?)

Kat

Are you using wireless or ethernet?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Regarding memory - there are guides for this. Hope they help.
http://guides.macrumors.com/Buying_RAM
http://guides.macrumors.com/Understanding_Intel_Mac_RAM

Regarding Linksys - it should work just fine. I use a Linksys router for my home network, and all the computers (Macs and Windows PCs) connect through it just fine. Could you share what steps you tried? This would help me isolate the cause.

Regarding Mighty Mouse: Sometimes, the Mighty Mouse will get "stuck", and refuse to scroll down when you roll the ball. To fix this, turn the MM upside-down and roll the ball on a hard surface back and forth several times. Also, the MM takes some getting used to, if you have large hands like I do. You may find yourself accidentally pressing buttons on the mouse.

 

[Blubbert]

Okay so my MBP is finally here after waiting for 3 weeks..(high res screen took forever)...

And I have been told to first get Memory....someone before told me to get Newegg? Is this the best one?

Also, I tried connecting to a Linksys network that we have for the PC's in the house but it never would connect we tried several different things. Are these not compatible with Macs?

I finally got to sit down and play for a few hours on it last night. The sound is amazing and the screen is so beautiful!!! I had a long day yesterday though and didn't get much time on it. So today that is all I plan on doing....

I have a MMouse that I ordered originally, it seems to be working fine so far...any word on what the problems have been with these in the past?

YEAH! So excited now I just have to order my Final Cut Studio2 and I will be set (oh...and I have to get an external drive...any suggestions on that?)

Kat

I just got 2x2gb from OWC for about $100. It is a great deal for memory. The delivery was fast too.

Also, the MightyMouse has a problem with the small ball on top, or atleast it did when i used it. That ball tends to get dirty, and does require cleaning. But even with all the cleaning, eventually i had to open the mouse up and clean it out cause it stopped registering scrolling down...

 

[design-is]

I've read on here that many people have had to update their router's firmware to get reasonable performance/make it work at all. Try that. There were other solutions mentioned, but I don't recall. Do a search on this forum and you will come up with a lot of information.

 

[dimonay]

Well since everyone else answered most of your questions, I'll give you a suggestion on external hard drives.

To me, the most cost-effective solution to external hard drives is to build your own. You can pick your own enclosure (your own look, ports to plug in) and hard drive (if you find one brand more reliable than the other). However the prices of external hard drives to me has decreased so if you want to skip the work of putting it together you'll still be fine purchasing one.

As for recommendations, if you choose to build your own I use the ThermalTake Max 4 Active Cooling enclosure and Western Digital 500GB drives.

If you choose to get one already put together I'd take a look at those G Drives. They just look awesome.

Hope this helps any.

 

[bgirlkat]

Oh...

Great guys!!! Thanks for the info!!! I am going to check out the guides on Memory..so just the 2x2 is all I need right? I can't fit anymore in it can I?

Regarding the Linksys...we thought it was the password.so we changed that because we weren't sure that we were entering it in correctly (have had it set up for a while and we haven't used the password since our others automatically connect)..but then I selected assist me and the mac took me through it and ended up saying it wasn't able to connect. Even after we took the password off....something else has got to be preventing it....

I will have to go home at 3 and try it again and list the steps I took to do it.

It seemed like we were getting close with it everytime and it recognized the network but we never could connect it.

Hopefully today we can get it going. Anybody have a good site I can order a case from reasonably priced?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

and does anyone know a pretty reasonable place on the net to order a nice case for a 17"??

I got mine from my local Apple Retail Store, since that's where I bought my MacBook Pro. It's an incase brand, and it works perfectly for my needs (Primarily, protecting the computer while allowing it to fit inside a backpack).

 

[Achiever]

FWIW, I buy my external drives & extra RAM at OWC (Other World Computing). They guarantee their products, their prices are fair and they know the Mac backwards and forwards. Most importantly to me, their customer service is second to none. If you have any questions (or want to order) just call them and they will walk you through what you need.

And 4 gb of RAM is the max for your computer.

 

[dimonay]

Great guys!!! Thanks for the info!!! I am going to check out the guides on Memory..so just the 2x2 is all I need right? I can't fit anymore in it can I?

Regarding the Linksys...we thought it was the password.so we changed that because we weren't sure that we were entering it in correctly (have had it set up for a while and we haven't used the password since our others automatically connect)..but then I selected assist me and the mac took me through it and ended up saying it wasn't able to connect. Even after we took the password off....something else has got to be preventing it....

I will have to go home at 3 and try it again and list the steps I took to do it.

It seemed like we were getting close with it everytime and it recognized the network but we never could connect it.

Hopefully today we can get it going. Anybody have a good site I can order a case from reasonably priced?

Nope, 4 gigs of RAM is all you can put in any notebook at the moment.

What model Linksys router do you have?

I have an incase sleeve and my bags I lug it around in depends on what else I have to carry. If you just bring your MBP around then go for the incase bag as well, if you bring a lot of stuff around you might have to look elsewhere.

 

[WHM]

Okay so my MBP is finally here after waiting for 3 weeks..(high res screen took forever)...

And I have been told to first get Memory....someone before told me to get Newegg? Is this the best one?

Also, I tried connecting to a Linksys network that we have for the PC's in the house but it never would connect we tried several different things. Are these not compatible with Macs?

I finally got to sit down and play for a few hours on it last night. The sound is amazing and the screen is so beautiful!!! I had a long day yesterday though and didn't get much time on it. So today that is all I plan on doing....

I have a MMouse that I ordered originally, it seems to be working fine so far...any word on what the problems have been with these in the past?

YEAH! So excited now I just have to order my Final Cut Studio2 and I will be set (oh...and I have to get an external drive...any suggestions on that?)

Kat

Another good way is to go to www.crucial.com/ and hit the scan my computer and they will show you exactly what to order. Write the numbers down and then shop around and compare prices.

 

[bgirlkat]

ooohhh...I just looked up the incase

I love the bright green one!!! Loud.

thanks for the advice. I will probably get a black protective case along with the sleeve.

Kat

 

[Macchino]

Regarding the hard drives: i Would recomend Lacie. They are very reliable, wich is more important to me, than price. I have two Lacie D2 Quadra 320 GB harddrives connected via FW 800 and they work great, a little noisy, but great. A good thing is that you can have as many of them as you want, and still only use one FW port (it has 2 FW800 ports, 1 FW 400, 1 USB 2.0 and 1 e-Sata, so you can even connect a camera to the computer trugh the last HD in the chain).

Enjoy you new baby

 

[NamisloC]

Regarding the hard drives: i Would recomend Lacie. They are very reliable, which is more important to me, than price.

I disagree. I had a Lacie drive (250gb) that died on me after minimal use (~1 month) and when I called Lacie they were happy to provide me with a replacement which didn't work from the beginning. It would mount find but without any warning un-mount and potentially lose information. I was so infuriated with the drive that I called newegg and demanded a refund. Their customer service left a terrible impression of the company and they told me they do not refund drives without the original packaging (which was sent with the old drive back to Lacie and I was stuck with a broken drive. Er go the reason I will never purchase from newegg and I will not buy Lacie products regardless of store. I'm glad you enjoy your lacie product but as a former lacie owner, I would NOT recommend their drives.

To follow up, I cut my losses with the $150 drive and purchased a Maxtor One touch 320 and subsequently, two WD drives (500gb & 250gb). The Maxtor worked well but I ended up giving it to a friend for 1/3 what I payed for it. I hope this story helps you in your quest for an external drive!


-Chris