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PC 10 year veteran, with new macbook struggling with stuff i need to work.help?

T

tozol

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 14, 2009
54
0
Leabrooks Derbyshire UK
Hi guys, be gentle, your my first stop after 2 days of toil, trying to get this thing working how I want, on my own.

I think the best way for me to hopefully get help off you guys, is tell you what I used to do on my PC, and what I now need to do on my mac. but really can not get even close, after 2 days of pulling my hair out.

Anyway, I run a successful gaming website that has a weekly podcast, it has been running for 2 years and has a 9k subscription base on itunes.

OK, the things I used my old pc for, were the following....

Skype..with the essential "MXskyperecorder", to record the 2 sometimes 3 man podcast show.

"Audacity" to then edit the MP3 file, and insert additional jingles , again in MP3 form to finish and finalise the show.


NOW what I'm really struggling with on my new mac book, that quite simply must work for me to have made the right decision in moving to a MAC...

OK, I have Skype working nicely...
However I cannot find a working recorder that will work with sky and let me record in MP3 format.(does mxskyperecorder even do a Mac version?)

More importantly, I have just this evening using your forums here, found something out that has caused a bigger problem for me now, and that is, my 3.5 jack mic/headset I see, criminally doesn't work on my Mac, this is a major problem for me, but one could be rectified with a USB headset (I think, please advise on this idea, can I use a standard 2x3.5 jack headset, 1 for headset, 1 for mic on the mac book??).


Some minor things I cant get to work either, are my Printer, which is actually connected to my pc, and my wireless network.(this was just hard to get anything done at all, and I gave up)

Ipod touch, again synced and used fully on my PC, now just throws up messages on my mac saying its registered to another pc, and the choices are either erase and sync, or check for purchased items, both of which are not what I want, I wanted the stuff that's on there now, 8gigs worth, to literally sync to the mac, and I can then use my mac as its main syncing machine.(is that even possible?)

So guys, a lot I know, but I hopefully you guys are going to try and make me feel I haven't wasted a hell of a lot of money...which right now, after 2 days of, nothing but struggling, starting to think like I have......restore my faith guys...lol

Thanks in advance for any help.
 
Hi and welcome. :)

I'll try to answer a couple... for the iPod touch problem, the best strategy is to port the iTunes library from computer to computer -- Apple has instructions, and there are other guides like this one:

http://www.tunequest.org/migrating-your-itunes-library-from-windows-to-mac/20061105/

But if that doesn't work, there are also programs like senuTi that do exactly this:

http://www.fadingred.com/senuti/

I don't know anything about the Skype issues, but if this is a Mac with just one audio jack, then you need one with the three "rung" mic/headphone jack, I think, like the ones iPhones use, or otherwise a USB one, as you say.

If you can record the content in a format other than MP3, then you can certainly easily change into MP3, with Audacity or with Max.

http://sbooth.org/Max/
 
1st Welcome to Mac, I will attempt to answer your questions.

The Skype recording utility you are talking about may not in-and-of-itself exist on Mac, but a simple Google search for "Skype recording Mac MP3" brings up a nice list.

Second, of course Audacity exists and works great on OS X, however, I would suggest not recording in MP3 if you want to use Audacity, and instead record in WAV or AIFF, as Audacity has to convert the files to use the MP3 versions.

Which Mac Book do you have? The "mic" jack is actually a "Line-In" jack, so you would simply need a powered mic to get it to work, or one of the myriad converters to USB, like the Griffin iMic to solve the issue, or any USB Headset.

There is no option to use the iPod to migrate your music to the Mac from the PC. You instead need to copy it over in the traditional fashion, load it into iTunes, then do an Erase and Sync.

The printer thing should be simple via the Printers Preference Pane, or the drivers/software from the manufacturer.

TEG
 
tozol said:
However I cannot find a working recorder that will work with sky and let me record in MP3 format.(does mxskyperecorder even do a Mac version?)
Click to expand...

I'll do you one better. Audio Hijack Pro can record from any application and to just about any audio format.

tozol said:
Some minor things I cant get to work either, are my Printer, which is actually connected to my pc, and my wireless network.(this was just hard to get anything done at all, and I gave up)
Click to expand...

From what I've heard, it's a lot easier to share a printer from a Mac to a Windows PC than a PC to a Mac because most of the tinkering has to be on the Windows end. For that reason, I can't really help you, but I'm sure you can find a tutorial somewhere.

tozol said:
Ipod touch, again synced and used fully on my PC, now just throws up messages on my mac saying its registered to another pc, and the choices are either erase and sync, or check for purchased items, both of which are not what I want, I wanted the stuff that's on there now, 8gigs worth, to literally sync to the mac, and I can then use my mac as its main syncing machine.(is that even possible?)
Click to expand...

That's iTunes' problem, not your Mac's. You can't sync an iPod with more than one install of iTunes. It stinks, but that's the way it is.

You should be able to copy your entire music folder from C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Music on your Windows PC to /Users/username/Music. When you start iTunes, your entire library should appear just as you left it. I vaguely remember seeing a tutorial in the Apple support docs, but I can't find it at the moment. It's straightforward, anyway.

If it still won't let you sync, there are several applications which allow you to copy music from an iPod.


I did find some relevant Apple support docs on the subject:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1329
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1202
 
Wow guys,

what can I say, really appreciate the answers so quick to, and certainly gives me plenty to go over tomorrow.

Just a bit of a comeback,
I was going to try the basic transfer of files with my ipod problem.

the recording problem, I had seen this audio hijack and tried the demo version, but again struggling somewhat, as every time I tried to record, it just wouldn't start, or threw up an error, saying Skype was already running.

anyway , like I say plenty to get my teeth into.

Really appreciate it thanks.
 
Audio Hijack Pro can only "hijack" an application if it launches the program itself. You'd have to quit Skype, then launch it from within Audio Hijack Pro. Alternatively, you can go to Audio Hijack Pro -> Install Extras and install the Instant Hijack plugin. This will allow you to hijack running applications.

I'm sure you've already thought of it, but GarageBand is a great app for putting together podcasts.
 
tozol said:
Ipod touch, again synced and used fully on my PC, now just throws up messages on my mac saying its registered to another pc, and the choices are either erase and sync, or check for purchased items, both of which are not what I want, I wanted the stuff that's on there now, 8gigs worth, to literally sync to the mac, and I can then use my mac as its main syncing machine.(is that even possible?)
Click to expand...
A fairly quick and painless way to get all of your stuff in your old iTunes moved over to iTunes on your new Mac is to use the "Home Sharing" feature (in verison 9). iTunes will basically just copy the stuff over your network...
 
aristobrat said:
A fairly quick and painless way to get all of your stuff in your old iTunes moved over to iTunes on your new Mac is to use the "Home Sharing" feature (in verison 9). iTunes will basically just copy the stuff over your network...
Click to expand...


funnily enough I tried this late last night, and it did indeed show up on my macs itunes as a shared shared section, although it still comes up with the erase and sync message, so I'm guessing thats the way to go.?

thanks again guys, really great help.
 
tozol said:
funnily enough I tried this late last night, and it did indeed show up on my macs itunes as a shared shared section, although it still comes up with the erase and sync message, so I'm guessing thats the way to go.?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately without allot of faf, the erase an sync is the way to go, following the tutorials posted on apples site (see earlier posts)

The reason being, that if you didn't have to do this, you could go around to any of your mates houses and sync all of your music and content to their Mac's PC's etc... so breaching copyright :( . Hence your Ipod etc can only sync to one computer.

I left my old PC out in the rain back in march, and so far its been great :). My biggest upset is that my tracker ball wont work, but its an oldie PS2, pre USB/PS2 mice etc so doesn't work. Other than that, and file management issues, its all been good!
 
Hopefully the info below can help for your printing problem - you're talking about printing from your macbook over a wireless network to a printer installed and connected to a PC, right?
This is the info i posted at mac-forums - hope it helps :-

I have 2 possible solutions for you.....

My printer/scanner/copier was usb'd to my desktop XP PC, and then have XP laptop and now a new Macbook Pro ... and a time capsule.

Could and did setup the time capsule as the print server - connect printer to time capsule and install Bonjour to the windows pc's and very quickly and easily had a working networked printer (without need for any desktop PC to be running to use the printer). However, scanners don't work over network like this so..... took a step back to use it connected to desktop as before - which is what you're trying to do.... So :-

First one to try:-
MacBook Hacker: Printing from the MacBook to a Canon MP 800 over an XP Network
http://hackthemac.blogspot.com/2009/07/printing-from-macbook-to-canon-mp-800.html

Note to use not the actual printer driver, but a 'Guten' print driver.... give this option a try. Looks like many found happiness with this... but not me, sadly. Will try it again... but was not too upset as i'd already found this other gem :-

How to Use a Printer Attached to a Windows XP Computer in Mac OS X
http://iharder.net/current/macosx/winmacprinter/

This is a bit more longwinded, but not 'difficult' and WORKS..... was surprised. But for sure, if the first one abpve is giving trouble then just do this second option to get a printer working - and you can go back to the more 'elegant' way later.

Don't you love how Apple hid the advanced option in the printers window?


Coops
 
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