NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:

jeez i just glanced at the ram reqs

 miamizsun wrote:

I've been using it for years. Just make sure you max your RAM as you are basically running two systems at the same time.

 rgio wrote:

Oh, sorry, didn't scroll down enough.

 rgio wrote:
wow 
possible game changer
will look into that
thx

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:

that's a beautiful drive
i love the small form factor equipment!
use the hp mini workstation now at the office
good processor and smaller ssd
however, it is getting a little long in the tooth
the powers that be with work are suggesting i upgrade from windows 10 pro to 11 pro
processor is shade below the required to do that
so there's that

really like the apple design and efficiency
feel like our work eco system is on the edge of accommodating mac ios all the way around
which is practically true except for the one niche program our office uses for gov't employees

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
Jinx!

 miamizsun wrote:
Don't know anything about the ripping issue, but you do know you can run Parallels on MacOS right.. works a charm, just like another window open and you can drag and drop between the Windows environment and the MacOS environment. So you can run all your Windows-based software on the Mac. I normally open all my email in MacOS but use Outlook for client-related encrypted mails and it works fine. 

I'm toying up with upgrading to the M2 chip where the emulation is burdened (naturally) by the need to emulate the old architecture, but apparently performance in Parallels is still on a par with a fairly standard Windows machine. 

 miamizsun wrote:
Have you considered Parallels.... or for the more adventurous VirtualBox?

You can run all of your windows stuff on the Mac...in parallel (thus the name). 

Parallels works really well...but it's a bit of a hard drive hog... it uses a lot of storage, as you have full windows inside.

 westslope wrote:
yes, i have installed ubuntu and mint on several old machines to breathe some life back into them
not to mention wipe the drive
the challenge i have is compliance for my professional life
i have to install certain software on any machine that i use for accessing anything work related
practically all of it is MS Windows based
some progress is being  and i could use Mac OS ofr all of my programs save one
and it is an important program in my niche

options would be to install my niche program on a windows laptop and use it for that only

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:
LOL!   It was a question, not a comment.  

But if you are comparing Linux and other UNIX-based operating systems to dumpster diving, that is an interesting comment.

Miamizsun, I googled "is there an iOS app for ripping CDs" and got a buncha hits.

This 2019 Macworld article was the first result:

Best alternatives to iTunes for ripping CDs to MP3

https://www.macworld.com/artic...

I'm pretty sure that Apple Music (the new name for iTunes, I believe) can rip the audio on the CD to other audio file formats like FLAC. But if you want to look at alternatives to Apple Music, check out the Google results.

There's an app called Toast that's been on the Mac platform forever. It's now called Roxio Toast Pro. It's fully compatibles with M1 Macs and the latest MacOS. I don't know if it's turned into bloatware over the years but Toast was a big deal when ripping CDs was what all the cool kids were doing. These days the cool kids would stare in confusion or snicker at you if you mentioned CDs.

https://www.roxio.com/en/produ...

There's a series called Take Control Books that offers general overviews and detailed instructions on MacOS, iOS, Apple apps and 3rd party apps. I think there's one about "Apple Media" that might help you.

I've read reports that disagree with GeneP59's prediction that Apple will merge iOS and MacOS. I'm pretty sure that Apple will continue to make it easier to work with the two OSes, though.

You might find it helpful to scheduler an appointment with a "media specialist" at your nearest Apple Store. I haven't been to one in a long time but when I asked a question about Macs for a friend with vision impairment, I was introduced to an in-store specialist who focused on such issues. 

Good luck!

 westslope wrote:

Always the #1 least-helpful comment, always offered whenever someone asks something Apple-related. Please stop. 


Customer: "I'm going to buy this car. Will the glovebox hold my gloves"
Helpful friend: "You should really to to Detroit and scavenge the parts from dumpsters. I did that and now I'm legendary hitmaker, Johnny Cash."

miamizsun,  Did you consider moving to a Linux or other Unix-based operating system?   

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:
other half has been mac os for a decade
i'm truly in awe of the m1 chip efficiency on the mac mini
bench testing confirms that it literally crushes the competition 
m2 is here and m3 chips are in the works

microsoft has been working on similar chip architecture, volterra
it may take a couple of years to catch up tho


 

 miamizsun wrote:

The only part of this I would be able to contribute to is the CD ripping. No Apple devices have CD burners anymore, but a SuperDrive is $79. iTunes (now "Music") will rip the CDs just fine and once you do, you can upload the CD info to CDDB and when someone inserts your burnt CD into their machine, it will "know" what the songs are. Sweet deal.

 miamizsun wrote:

Well I’m taking it that you are dipping your toes into Apples operating systems? 
iOS, iPhones and iPad then adding Mac OSX desktop computing as you go along. FYI Apple is on the verge of releasing an operating system that will combine them both into one OS to make it easier between the hardware types.

There are many software App types for Apple to make it easier to work in conjunction with MS & Linux operating systems to create readable cross platforms disks. Apple has always been a friendly way to create and read from most platforms.

As for hardware products there are a lot of good refurbished previous version products through Apple store and other 2nd party providers that can cut your costs. Look up a guy on YouTube named Luke Miani who does a lot of useful comparison of Mac products and cheaper ways to buy.

Personally I never buy current hardware products, outside of my iPad Air 4, to cut costs. I’ve got an iPhone XR and will probably do an upgrade to an iPhone 13  in December since the 14’s have no real difference between them outside of a slight speed boost which isn’t worth the extra $100 for me and I don’t really have the need for the Pro versions. 

Good luck in the transition.

 miamizsun wrote:


VERY hard to tell from the info you provided in your post.
Depending on your future Mac hw-setup, you could still be using all Windows related, urgently needed M$-things in a VM, such as VirtualBox (Oracle). That said, go for as much RAM as possilble, coupled with CPU & GPU power, preferably AMD when it comes to graphics...
When it comes to ripping CDs and your personal music library, I've been using MacOS over ten years now without a single regret. The former iTunes app, now named as Music allows for all of that.
Coming from Windows it may take some re-learning how to do things there, but I can say it generally 'just works' on MacOS, and forget all your pains of endless waiting times during updates you got used to, as a Windows user. - Etc., etc.

If you have any specific questions to ask, you're more than welcome to PM me.

legit inquiry and responses welcome

i'm considering moving over to IOS for personal use to start
one concern i have here is my cd ripping/burning/cd cover production ability
currently i use nero, however they don't seem to have an IOS version
practically all of my work stuff is asp-stateful/cloud/web-based (or going there)
got an iphone now and i'd probably start with a mac mini

fwiw, i use industrial/pro windows and MS365 at the office (for security and encryption)
i noticed the powers that be are allowing and working with IOS too
so eventually i might be open to using a mac at work

pros? cons?

thanks 

Just sharing my recent experience and discoveries as I recover from the crash of my 10 year old Dell Windows 7 puter.

So I went and got a new Dell XPS 8940 with Windows 11 pro with an optical drive. The choices are very few when an optical drive is needed.  And when you are desperate to replace something quickly and you are not up to date on changes and advances you can make poor decisions.  One thing I learned by accident after I bought it is that the power supplies are bigger when you get one with an HDD instead of a SSD.  Fortunately I picked one with an HDD because Dell's are evidently just powered enough for their initial setups and should you add another HDD to an underpowered Dell, you end up with failures and continuous restarts which I have heard about over time but not knowing why, cuz I didn't have to until now.

Anyway, long ago someone gave me a hard drive dock, without a power supply and I could never find one for it, so meh.  I've gone through external cases for old drives and what not back when a 100 GB drive was a big deal.  They worked at the time and I have about 4 laying around taking up space.  So with this crash I figured that it was time to get a working one to help recover data and move it to the new puter.  Fortunately I have a brick and mortar Microcenter about a half an hour away and went looking around at their website and found a dock that also clones SATA drives with just the push of one button.  Hello !!!!  Going into the store at the front where the repair service is I saw that they charged $149 for cloning.  This puppy is $70.

As we all know, you no longer get discs to reload for reimaging purpose and you have to do a rinky dink download on a USB flash drive and hope number one it works and number two, you can find it when you need it.  The wife's Windows 10 went down and the flash drive back up did not work.  Fortunately with partitioning, the data was recoverable, so I took it in to a local place and had them put a new copy of 10 in and all the drivers on a SSD and got her back up and running with mostly just inconvenience. 

Long ago with my old XP Sony Vaio which still sits between the new one and my XP music puter, I went and made a preloaded HDD with the OS on it  for backup to toss in in the event of a failure which I did have to a couple of times.  OK, so with a dock that clones, I got a new SSD to clone the original HDD with the OS on it and have the original HDD sitting in a bay inside the computer disconnected as my "backup copy".  The clone worked first time I tried it, making sure that I had it plugged into the motherboard in the same place as the original OS C drive.    This changes everything !!!   

I tossed in a 4 TB drive in the main 3.5 inch bay for everything else leaving the OS disc with just that on it so I won't loose anything the next time I have a failure.  This will also be a transfer point from my music puter to the NAS that has been sitting unused because it doesn't work with XP very well.  Now I can program things for auto back up and actually use the damn thing rather than just taking up space and collecting dust.  Another win / win.

I started replacing the drives in the music puter about a month or so ago that were getting nearly 10 years old and was also thinking that it was time to make a new copy of the OS drive which has been an SSD for almost as long.  This just makes everything so much easier now.  Now I can just clone it myself rather than pulling out all of the discs and going through that process.

So this is the puppy that changed everything and the cost is nothing in the big picture ...

Vantec NexStar Standalone Hard Drive Duplicator

When I get caught up I think I'll yank the OS drive out of the Vaio, clone it to SSD and fire it up and see what happens.

Cheers!

 westslope wrote:

Sure, but my laptop ist kaput and so I was working with an old iMac that's slow and doesn't have all the software. It has iMovie but meh, wasn't worth the trouble. This website adds titles and music and lets you snip segments and was really just what I needed. Except for adjusting the speed of the clip...