Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
My 2011 MBA is 3 years old and still looks and feels like a new machine.

Yes, you can, provide the TC is the tall one. If you only want to read from NTFS drive I guess it should be no problem.


Good to now - mind telling me how much RAM do you have and how many apps can you run at the same time?

Yes, the TC is the tall one.
 
Good to now - mind telling me how much RAM do you have and how many apps can you run at the same time?

I have 4 GB. of RAM and I open around 6-8 apps at once. (Safari, Mail, Calendar, Notes, Firefox, Screen Sharing, VLC, iTunes etc..)
 
I have 4 GB. of RAM and I open around 6-8 apps at once. (Safari, Mail, Calendar, Notes, Firefox, Screen Sharing, VLC, iTunes etc..)

Sounds great. My current daily usage is at the same time: browser with between 5-7 to 20-30 tabs open (it depends if I'm simply web surfing or doing extensive reasearch for a topic or a paper/thesis), word processor, media file playing (music or video), torrent downloading (not always though), dropbox active and mail open, and some pdfs open.

With your experience can 4GB keep it up smoothly even for years or after some time (hours, days) of work it gets "sluggish" and you have to close some?
 
The thing is - I've taken a good look around and saw controversial opinions - there are those stating that 4GB are enough even to use the most part of mac applications at the same time without any problem, those who say that you can use some together, but maybe three or four, and those saying that 4GB feel "sluggish" and 8GB is way better.
That's why I detailed my "daily app usage", to see which one would be preferable with a general use like that one.
with only the apps you are useing there are no controversial opinions.
Got to an :apple:store and open all these apps there and work around for a while.
Monitor the activity monitor --> memory pressure. If it is in the green you are fine.
This way you can also have a good look at the mba and see how you like it.

And if you still feel so anxious about ram then just order 8gb for your peace of mind.
 
Sounds great. My current daily usage is at the same time: browser with between 5-7 to 20-30 tabs open (it depends if I'm simply web surfing or doing extensive reasearch for a topic or a paper/thesis), word processor, media file playing (music or video), torrent downloading (not always though), dropbox active and mail open, and some pdfs open.

With your experience can 4GB keep it up smoothly even for years or after some time (hours, days) of work it gets "sluggish" and you have to close some?

My experience is strange. The 3rd year, this year, is the best because of Mavericks (everything flows, the machine's cool and the battery's great). And the first year (Lion) is the worst. Looks like it's up to the OS it runs more than how old it is. I guess my machine didn't quite reach the point where it's old enough yet.
 
Last edited:
I'm a business/economics major - so I will be using pages and number almost every day. I saw a discussion in a forum not too long ago regarding the lack of an option to add a graph or a formula in pages - is it still valid? And if so, is there any other - possibly free - app which I can use to add formulas to a pages file?


About what I said earlier - is it possible to wirelessly access and view files from a HDD connected to Time Capsule? I had different answers to that

Another option is Office 365 for mac. I would bet your school offers it for free.
 
So - I'm ordering my Mac next week. For budget reasons I don't think I'll buy the Time Capsule - I wanted to ask if it was possible to obtain the same functions of the TC with an Airport Extreme. I was thinking about connecting my printer and external HD on that and they both should be work wirelessly.

I wanted to know if I could set up a wireless backup with the Extreme - connect the HD and set up Time Machine to back up on that drive. Is it possibe?
 
So - I'm ordering my Mac next week. For budget reasons I don't think I'll buy the Time Capsule - I wanted to ask if it was possible to obtain the same functions of the TC with an Airport Extreme. I was thinking about connecting my printer and external HD on that and they both should be work wirelessly.

I wanted to know if I could set up a wireless backup with the Extreme - connect the HD and set up Time Machine to back up on that drive. Is it possibe?

Yes, as long as you get the new tower shaped Extreme you can do a TM backup to a USB disk attached to it. You can also run the printer off there, but you will need a USB hub since there is only one USB port on the Extreme.
 
So basically I can do everything I can with a TC (wireless backup, play files from a connected HD, print wirelessly) with an Extreme? I'm asking because I have had differents opinions on that - including one of those Apple telephone operators saying that "oh I'm sorry, you can't do that".

Another thing - to access files (media, pages, etc) from a wirelessly connected HDD it needs to be formatted as HFS+ just like for the TC, right?
 
Check out the instructions on pcclassesonline.com. Join this free site and there is a video on how to do it, including a printer set up. I have it running now with my MacBook Pro.
 
So basically I can do everything I can with a TC (wireless backup, play files from a connected HD, print wirelessly) with an Extreme? I'm asking because I have had differents opinions on that - including one of those Apple telephone operators saying that "oh I'm sorry, you can't do that".

Another thing - to access files (media, pages, etc) from a wirelessly connected HDD it needs to be formatted as HFS+ just like for the TC, right?

The Apple tech. is confused. On the older pancake shaped Extreme, TM backups to a USB attached disk is not supported. But it IS supported on the newer tower shaped 802.11ac model. It is mentioned in this Apple support page.

You can format the external to OS X HFS+ format or FAT16 or FAT32, but it will need to be HFS+ if you want to use the disk for TM backup.

By the way, I found this - http://basilsalad.com/how-to/time-machine-wireless-backup/ - is it still a valid concern regarding wifi Time Machine backup?

I'm going to say it is still an issue, but that article is making it look more common than it is. I only say it is still an issue because just last week a friend of mine called and had this problem on Mavericks 10.9.4 with his couple year old Time Capsule. He has never had the problem before in over two years using the TC. I have backed up to lterally every Time Capsule model there is since the very first one came out in 2008 and never once had this happen to me.

So yes, I think it is still an issue but a very very infrequent one.
 
Thanks for all the help :) I should have my new MBA by the end of the week (yay!) and now I'm thinking about ways to manage my lecture notes.
I'm a business/econ major, notes from textbooks, slides and the like I'll take directly on pages without problems. There are notes though, that I have to take on paper - either because the lecturer doesn't like laptops or because there are tons of equations that I can't properly write on the mac.

Given the fact that I'll scan my daily notes, is there an app to manage them?
I wouldn't want to be forced to group them as images in folders, I'd like a software (not necessarily evernote because I have a love/hate relationship with it) where I could group my notes by class and semester, and maybe add my .pages files with extra notes. Is there any way I can do this?
 
Thanks for all the help :) I should have my new MBA by the end of the week (yay!) and now I'm thinking about ways to manage my lecture notes.
I'm a business/econ major, notes from textbooks, slides and the like I'll take directly on pages without problems. There are notes though, that I have to take on paper - either because the lecturer doesn't like laptops or because there are tons of equations that I can't properly write on the mac.

Given the fact that I'll scan my daily notes, is there an app to manage them?
I wouldn't want to be forced to group them as images in folders, I'd like a software (not necessarily evernote because I have a love/hate relationship with it) where I could group my notes by class and semester, and maybe add my .pages files with extra notes. Is there any way I can do this?

As I was reading I was thinking Evernote.... then full stop. :)

If your needs are not too complex you could just scan all the notes in as PDFs then tag them in Finder. I would just dump all the PDFs in a Notes folder under Documents then tag them and Finder can easily narrow down what you want by searching tags. You could even setup saved smart searches.

pyulJyw.png
 
As I was reading I was thinking Evernote.... then full stop. :)

If your needs are not too complex you could just scan all the notes in as PDFs then tag them in Finder. I would just dump all the PDFs in a Notes folder under Documents then tag them and Finder can easily narrow down what you want by searching tags. You could even setup saved smart searches.

Image


Lol - there are days when I love Evernote, and then I can hate it without problems.

Could I scan my daily notes in pdf and then put them together at the end of the semester?

I just want to scan my notes, and then put them together in a pdf file - maybe adding notes from textbooks or slides, so I have a complete overview of the subject and can revise for the exam
 
Lol - there are days when I love Evernote, and then I can hate it without problems.

Could I scan my daily notes in pdf and then put them together at the end of the semester?

I just want to scan my notes, and then put them together in a pdf file - maybe adding notes from textbooks or slides, so I have a complete overview of the subject and can revise for the exam

Yep... you can do that with Preview app. Just open the first PDF then drag subsequent ones into the left column and drag them around in the order you want then save. That will give you one PDF will all the notes if that is what you like.
 
Yep... you can do that with Preview app. Just open the first PDF then drag subsequent ones into the left column and drag them around in the order you want then save. That will give you one PDF will all the notes if that is what you like.

Perfect! Yeah, I tend to want to have a single file with notes, not a fan of clutter in folders.
If I wanted to add a pages file to Preview, I'd have to convert it to PDF first, right?

Thanks so much for the help :)
 
Perfect! Yeah, I tend to want to have a single file with notes, not a fan of clutter in folders.
If I wanted to add a pages file to Preview, I'd have to convert it to PDF first, right?

Thanks so much for the help :)

Yes... you would not be able to combine a Pages doc with a PDF.
 
Cool, thanks :)

I'm starting using my MBA to keep up with classes and notes and it's amazing. Definitely another world :)

A question in regards of youtube or general website video download.
I've done a quick search on the matter but nothing recent turned up, or maybe I just did it wrong. Until now I used Freemake Video Converter with Windows, but sadly there is no Mac version available.

I tried looking on google but there are few discussions with app comparisons and tons of "immediate download" links.

I wanted to know which free video downloader (and if possible, converter as well) is the best in your opinion. For downloading either short or long videos (going up to 1h, I saw some video software with Windows stopping at a 20min limit or something).

On another matter, got any "essential" mac app, even for college student-type?
 
Cool, thanks :)

I'm starting using my MBA to keep up with classes and notes and it's amazing. Definitely another world :)

A question in regards of youtube or general website video download.
I've done a quick search on the matter but nothing recent turned up, or maybe I just did it wrong. Until now I used Freemake Video Converter with Windows, but sadly there is no Mac version available.

I tried looking on google but there are few discussions with app comparisons and tons of "immediate download" links.

I wanted to know which free video downloader (and if possible, converter as well) is the best in your opinion. For downloading either short or long videos (going up to 1h, I saw some video software with Windows stopping at a 20min limit or something).

On another matter, got any "essential" mac app, even for college student-type?

I like the Youtube5 Safari extension for Youtube. Follow this to DL Youtube vids with the extension.

For general app... Dropbox is great to keep and your documents synced and Evernote for class notes and such.
 
I have a situation - I have a 2TB Seagate Expansion drive, which hosts all my media files, movies, music, photos, other than general files.
Due to the fact that I used it with Windows it's NTFS formatted and I can't format it to any other type because I have no other drive that could hold the amount of files.
I am stuck between Paragon, which would allow me to write on NTFS formatted drives without a problem, and a driver for OS I found on Seagate: http://www.seagate.com/support/exte...ives/goflex/ntfs-driver-for-mac-os-master-dl/

Which one would you suggest is the best?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.