Mac OS X Lion includes a awesome new way to check the free space on a disc. I stumbled across this feature by accident. Besides showing the size of the disk and how much free space it has, this method shows graphically how much space is being used for different types of files.
The new way to check free disk space on OS X Lion
Get the Size and Free Space of the Mac’s Hard Disk on Lion
Here’s how you show your disk’s free space on OSX 10.7, step-by-step:
Go to the Apple menu. Click the Apple icon at the top-left of the screen.
Click About This Mac at the top of the menu.
The About This Mac window will appear.
Click the More Info… button.
A new About This Mac window will appear with a picture of your Mac.
Click the word Storage towards the top left of the window.
An attractive window showing your free disk space will appear.
The display includes how much disk space is used for each of your music, movies, photos, apps, and backup files.
This feature works with your main Mac hard disc, usually called “Macintosh HD“. It does not work with removable hard drives. It might work with other permanently connected hard disks installed in your Mac – I haven’t tested this yet.
Get the Size of a Removable Hard Disk with Mac OS X Lion
The method above doesn’t work for removable hard drives on Lion. The Snow Leopard method I use doesn’t work either – in Lion, disks aren’t listed on the side of a Finder window as they are in Snow Leopard.
Get a disk's size and free space using "Get Info" on Mac OS X Lion
Here’s an alternative method to find a disk’s size and free space on Lion that that works for removable disks and network drives:
Go to Finder: Click the smiley blue Mac face at the left end of the Dock. The dock is the bar of icons, usually at the bottom of the screen, used to start programs.
Click Go at the top of the screen to open the Go menu. Click the menu item “Computer“.
A list of disks connected to your computer will appear in a window, with some other items like “Network“.
Click the diskonce whose size or free space you want to find out. Just click it once, not a double click.
Click the File menu at the top left of the screen. Click the Get Info menu item.
A window will appear with information about the disk. Look at the “Capacity” field for the disk’s size, and the “Available” field for how much free space the disk has.
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This article compares the current MacBook Air 11 vs 13 inch 2011 / 2012 models. Read on for facts and experience to help you choose between the MacBook Air 13 and 11 inch models.
The new mid-2011 MacBook Air bottom case can get warm towards the back, particularly when the Air is under load.
Flash, the most common web technology for video and annoying animated ads, can use a lot of CPU. (This is probably why the new MacBook Air ships without Flash installed.) So Flash can cause your Mac to get hot.
The highest case temperature I’ve seen reported is 103 F / 39.5 C.
As the 13 inch Air has a larger vent to expel hot air, and has a larger aluminium case which heat can disperse over, it should get less hot than an 11 inch MBA.
The 11-inch MacBook Air already gets noticeably warmer than the 13″.
– Anand Lai Shimpi, AnandTech
If you intend to use the MacBook Air on your lap, and you don’t like warmth, you might enjoy the MacBook Air 13 inch more.
“The simple life” – If you are just doing basic tasks – web, Skype, playing music and word processing, the 11 inch screen is big enough.
“I love small” –If you want an ultraportable computer, get the 11 inch Air. I barely notice its weight in my backpack. It’s so unobtrusive and light, it’s easy to use anywhere – on the couch, in bed, playing DJ in the kitchen.
“Calling creatives & techies” – If you want to do a lot of activities that benefit from more screen space – spreadsheets, illustration, PhotoShop, page layout, music production, video editing, web design, CAD, get the 13 inch.
“Creatives & techies II” – If you’re happy to use an external screen for “serious work” then get the 11 inch, and stay ultra portable.
“For the photo mad” – If you really want a built in SD card reader – handy for digital cameras – get the 13 inch model. (You could always get a $25 USB SD card reader for the 11 inch.)
Conclusions
The MacBook Air is the best laptop in the history of the planet. I really mean that. Both the 11 inch or 13 inch model are exceptionally beautiful and well engineered. If you’re about to buy your first “MBA” – be excited!
I love my 11 inch MacBook Air. I’ve done most of the web development and writing for my personal web sites on it, without an external screen. It’s so small and light, it’s no hassle to take it anywhere. I’ve been very, very surprised that I usually don’t feel cramped by the small screen. Especially when I’m used to using three large screens at work!
The new MacBook Airs come with Apple’s latest operating system, OS X Lion. All of Apple’s apps – Safari, iPhoto, Mail and more – have been updated with a full screen mode and hiding scrollbars. These features give as much of the screen as possible to what’s important – the content you’re looking at. Lion makes the small screen on the 11 inch MBA even more usable.
My personal perfect MacBook Air system is the 11 inch with a large-ish external monitor for serious creative work. That way I get the ultra portability and super lightness, but if I doing something that needs more screen space, I can just plug a monitor in. Monitors are cheap: I picked up a light and thin 23″ AOC full HD screen for $170, and it’s great! If you have the cash, Apple’s new ThunderBolt display is perfect.
If you are using the MacBook Air as your main computer, and you won’t be using an external screen, almostdefinitely get the 13 inch MacBook Air. The 11 inch screen is too small for most people to use for all their computer work. I’ve seen a comment from someone who bought the 11 inch, and wished they got the 13 inch.
Eleven inches is a small screen size. The 11 inch MacBook Air is a specialised ultra-portable machine for people who are prepared to compromise on screen size. Buyers of the 11 inch probably have another computer or laptop, or they will plug their MacBook Air into a big screen at work or home. I’ll quite happily work off the 11 inch for seven hours, and never want a larger screen. But then, I also get lots of time on big screen systems as well. If you buy the 11 inch MacBook Air, make sure you’re really happy to use a screen that size. Go in and try it! If it really suits you, you will love it.
If in any doubt, get the 13 inch MacBook Air. You don’t want to always be wishing you had a bigger screen. The 13 inch is a better size for general use.
Even with all the information above, there’s no substitute for actually physically trying out the different sizes to see which one feels right. I recommend going to an Apple store, and trying both the 11″ and 13″ models. Browse the web, close the lid, pick them up, heft them. Get a feel for them. (Just don’t juggle…) Which one feels right for you? Only you know.
Are you planning to buy a MacBook Air? It’s worth checking Amazon.com’s current MacBook Air prices. Follow these links to get the current MacBook Air prices at Amazon:
All the MacBook Airs above come with free shipping at the time of writing.
If you do choose to buy your MacBook Air from Amazon: (a) you may get your new MacBook Air a bit cheaper, and (b) Amazon will pay me a commission (if you go to Amazon through the links above). This supports me to keep writing good Mac articles – thanks!
I really recommend buying a sleeve to protect your MacBook Air when you buy it. If you hit the case, the aluminium will dent.
You may be wondering whether the $100 to $150 to upgrade the standard i5 processor to the i7 is worth it. If you are see this MacBook Air i5 vs i7 article.
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Both the MacBook Air 11 inch and 13 inch models come standard with an Intel Core i5 processor. For $100 (13″ model) or $150 (11″ model), there’s an option to upgrade to a faster Intel Core i7 processor.
People are asking “Is the upgrade to a MacBook Air i7 worth it? What’s the i5 vs i7 performance difference?”. This MacBook Air i5 i7 comparison reviews the information needed to decide whether to buy the i5 or i7 MacBook Air.
MacBook Air i5 vs i7 – The Short Answer
The short answer on MacBook Air i7 vs i5 is:
The Core i5 processor is already plenty fast enough for most people.
i7 upgrade for MacBook Air 13″: The performance gains from upgrading the 13 inch MacBook Air to an i7 be hard to notice – around a 10% speedup. Probably not worth it.
i7 upgrade for MacBook Air 11″: The i7 upgrade will make a bigger difference for the 11 inch MacBook Air – around 25% faster than the i5. Worth it for some.
People who would find the upgrade to the i7 worthwhile would be those doing heavy media work, particularly video encoding, or people who are very speed-sensitive.
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All the Latest MacBook Air Models are Fast
MacBook Air i7 or i5 – that is the question
By way of comparison, I want to explain that all the latest MacBook Air models are fast and responsive. I have a late-2010 MacBook Air 11″ which uses a Core 2 Duo processor. This CPU is old technology – it’s at least two generations behind current CPUs. Despite the slow processor and my “performance sensitivity”, my late-2010 Air is still a pleasure to use. The fast response of the solid state disk (SSD) and the basic hardware graphics acceleration make the older Air quite responsive.
The place where I most notice the slower processor in my late-2010 MacBook Air is web browsing. Complex web pages would pop straight up on my 2010 MacBook Pro i7 (also with an SSD). The same web pages could take perhaps two seconds longer on my late-2010 MacBook Air and I can watch the page assemble in the browser.
So the late-2010 MacBook Air model, even though it uses slow two year old processor technology is already very enjoyable to use, even for a performance nut like me. Now consider that the 2011/2012 MacBook Airs can be twice as fast.
The New MacBook Airs are Twice as Fast as the Last Model
The 2011/2012 MacBook Air laptops use cutting edge CPUs, using Intel’s Sandy Bridge design. While these are low power CPUs running at 1.6 to 1.8 GHz speeds, they can burst up to 2.9 GHz, depending on the model.
The MacBook Air i5 11-inch model works at 1.6 to 2.3 GHz
Apple’s marketing, which we could expect is best case, puts the 2011 / 2012 MacBook Air at up to 2.5 times faster than the late-2010 model. Benchmarks performed by CNETput the new MacBook Air at 1.9 to 3 times faster. Wow!
The other surprising result from CNET’s benchmark numbers is that the new MacBook Air 13″ i5 seems to be the equal of the current MacBook Pro 13″ in terms of media processing. This is very impressive, given the Pro’s CPU runs at a base speed of 2.3 GHz, while the Air’s CPU runs at a base speed of 1.7 GHz. Note that the MacBook Pro (MBP) in this comparison was using a hard disk, not a solid state disk like the Air.
The MacBook Air also beats some old MacBook Pros. Here’s a video showing a MacBook Air i5 beating a 2010 MacBook Pro 15″ Core 2 Duo 2.66 GHz:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iS7pBOFz8A
(Source: BlackPrince310 on YouTube. Thanks BlackPrince!)
The excellent results of the MacBook Air against MacBook Pros led me to look up the GeekBench numbers for my MacBook Pro 15″ i7 2.66GHz dual core, purchased August 2010. It’s the last model MacBook Pro, before the quad core models were released.
Horror. The these tiny little MacBook Air i7 models are benchmarking on par with my top of the line last-model MacBook Pro i7. These new Sandy Bridge ultra low voltage chips have incredible performance. The MacBook Air i7 completely obsoletes my ten month old MacBook Pro – it’s lighter, smaller, cheaper and – 3D graphics aside – just as fast.
What does this all mean? It means all the current MacBook Air models are fast and responsive, including the base models with the i5 processor. Most people will be very pleased with the performance of any of the new MacBook Air models.
The Difference Between the i5 vs i7
The i5 & i7 CPUs in the 2011/2012 MacBook Airs are dual core processors. They can literally perform two separate tasks at the same time, independently and at full speed. It’s like having two people working on two jobs at once – twice as much work can get done.
The i7 processor used to have a unique advantage over the i5 in that it had hyperthreading. Hyperthreading lets a CPU core do some work in parallel. It’s kind of like getting one person to do two jobs at one. Like using one hand to agitate a stir fry, while using the other hand to stir a stew – it’s a limited kind of doing two things at once. When one task gets complex, the parallelism breaks down. Hyperthreading can increase performance up to 30%, but typically the gain is less.
The MacBook Air i5 13-inch model works at 1.7 to 2.5 GHz
Intel has bequeathed the hyperthreading technology to the i5 processor in the new MacBook Air. With the inclusion of hyperthreading in the i5 CPU, the i7’s historical speed advantage is substantially reduced.
One place where the i7 still trumps the i5 is that the i7 has a larger on-chip cache than the i5 – 4 MB instead of 3 MB. A larger cache can speed up intensive operations like video encoding.
The i7 is also said to have better power management than the i5, but I don’t have this information from a confirmed source. I’d be pleasantly surprised if uses less power than an i5 running at a lower clock speed.
Both the i5 and i7 Include a Graphics Processor on Chip
Did you know that both the i5 and i7 processors have a graphics processor built onto the chip? It’s called Intel HD Graphics 3000. It’s fine for 2D graphics, and basic 3D graphics. It will happily drive a very high resolution external display (greater than full HD).
The 3D graphics are only good enough for basic games. If you want fast 3D graphics, for example to play modern games, get a MacBook Pro.
i5 vs i7 Speed in the MacBook Air
The table below details the base and maximum speeds of the i5 & i7 CPUs used in each of the 2011/2012 MacBook Air models. Cache size is also included.
Notice that the same i7 processor is used for the CPU upgrade in both the 11 and 13 inch models.
As mentioned earlier, the table clearly shows the i5’s have 3MB cache in the processor, while the i7 has 4MB. The larger cache in the i7 can confer a processing speed advantage for certain types of work, e.g. music production, video post-production and large image editing.
Comparing i7 vs i5 Performance
If we compare the maximum GHz, in the MacBook Air 11 inch there’s a big gap between the i5 and i7 processors. The gap is 2.3 GHz to 2.9 GHz; the i7 is 26% faster just in terms of raw clock cycles. That’s before we factor in the advantage of a bigger cache and any superiority in the i7’s processing architecture.
Benchmarks comparing the 11″ MacBook Air i7 vs i5 in the wild confirm the difference. Matt Pakes writes:
We have both models of the 2011 11″ MBA here at the office, and early benchmarks (XBench, Geekbench) show that the 1.8 GHz i7 is roughly 25% faster than the 1.6 GHz i5. I haven’t tested the 1.7 GHz i5 from the 13″ MBA.
I can’t speak to the battery life yet, but the increased performance looks like a good value if you’re using it for CPU-intensive tasks.
The gap between the i5 in the 13 inch Air and the i7 upgrade is less pronounced. From the 13 inch i5’s 2.7 GHz max clock speed to the i7’s 2.9 GHz is just a 7.4% difference in raw clock cycles. The i7 architecture and cache would have to deliver big gains to expand this difference enough to make it noticeable. I’m still looking for a benchmark to confirm this in the wild. If you see one, please leave a comment below.
It’s possible that the i7, given its larger cache and potential internal architectural advantages over the i5, could perform significantly better than the i5 for media processing tasks. I haven’t seen any media benchmarks yet showing the i7 streaking ahead of the i5 with the comparable max clock speed.
Note that if you look on i5 or i7 benchmark results on the web to help make your decision, make sure the benchmark specifically compares the Sandy Bridge Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) Intel Core i5 and i7 processors used in the MacBook Airs. Other i5 & i7 models, especially older generations, have different characteristics, so benchmarks comparing them probably won’t tell you much.
Performance Difference between 11 inch and 13 inch MacBook Air i7
Is there any difference in performance between the 13″ MacBook Air i7 and the 11″ MacBook Air i7? Yes, but hard to notice.AnandTech found the 13 inch i7 Mac Air to be about 5% faster than the 11 inch i7 Mac Air for Cinebench.
Cinebench is written to take advantage of multiple processor coresthrough multithreading of its code. There’s very almost no difference in performance between the 11 or 13 inch Mac Air i7 for single threaded apps. Very few people would notice this small performance difference, which shows only under heavy processing in multithreaded apps.
The 13″ Air is a little faster under heavy multicore load probably because with its larger size it can disperse more heat. The i7 would need to slow down less often to stop from overheating. The difference could be more pronounced between the 11 and 13 inch MacBook Air if you use your Air in warm climates without airconditioning.
Given the performance for the i7 processor is indistinguishable between the 13 inch and 11 inch MacBook Air, people can choose between the two MacBook Air sizes for reasons other than performance. (By the way, there’s some differences between the MacBook Air 11 inch and 13 inch models that aren’t obvious. If you’re interested, see my comparison guide to choose between a MacBook Air 13 or 11 inch.)
i5 vs i7 Battery Life
Battery tests show similar battery life for the MacBook Air between the Core i5 and i7 processors. In a battery benchmark at AnandTech, looping playing a video in fullscreen, the:
11 inch i5 MacBook Air got 1% more battery time (3 minutes)
than the 11 inch i7 MacBook Air, and the
13 inch i5 MacBook Air got 9% more battery time (27 minutes)
than the 13 inch i7 MacBook Air.
Jason Snell at Macworld has similar findings on MacBook Air i5 vs i7 battery life as AnandTech. Jason writes:
The increased speed of the build-to-order Core i7 processor option didn’t have a major impact on battery life, either.
There’s at least one case where that the battery life may not be so close. If you’re burning one or two of the CPU cores at 100%, you could use battery more quickly on the i7. This could happen with a badly written Flash banner on a website, for example. It would also happen while encoding video, but your video encode would complete more quickly.
For more info on the Air’s battery life, tips how to double your battery, and keep your MacBook Air cool and quiet, see my article on MacBook Air Battery Life.
Should I Upgrade to the i7?
If you’re just doing normal tasks like web browsing & word processing, and are not hyper-sensitive to speed I would not buy the i7 upgrade. Stick with the i5.
If you’re buying an 11 inch MacBook Air and you’re doing regular processor intensive work, such as video editing, editing large images with Photoshop or complex music production or you notice & appreciate subtle improvements in speed, pay the $150 to upgrade to the i7. You’ll get a 25%+ speed boost for processor-intensive work.
If you’re buying a 13 inch MacBook Air you’ll probably only see around a 10% speed improvement for processor-intensive work from buying the $100 i7 upgrade. Most people will never notice the difference from the i7, so the upgrade for the 13″ model is probably not worth it. This small performance gain might still be worth it people doing lots of work with media or people who are hypersensitive to speed.
Save Money on a New MacBook Air
If you’d like to save a bit off your new MacBook Air, but you still want to buy from a trustworthy source, it’s worth checking Amazon’s current prices. Amazon have a lot of buying power, so they can often afford to give a discount. Here are direct links to MacBook Air models & prices at Amazon:
Why are no i7 MacBook Air links included above? This is because Amazon sell the i5 models above themselves, and I trust Amazon. There are i7 models listed on Amazon, but these are offered by third party sellers.
Note that if you click a link above and choose to buy your MacBook Air from Amazon: (a) you may save money off your new MacBook Air, and (b) Amazon will pay me a commission. This enables me write more good Mac articles. I hope this is a win for both of us.
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After installing Mac OS X Lion, I found the PHP site I use for development stopped working. I’d just get an empty webpage when I went to the website. It’s a WordPress site, using both PHP and MySQL. Lion ships with PHP 5.3.6, the latest production release of PHP.
It turns out WordPress / PHP could not connect to the MySQL database on my Mac running Lion:
Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: [2002]
No such file or directory
(trying to connect via unix:///var/mysql/mysql.sock)
in /Users/taz/Sites/smartwebdeveloper/wp-includes/wp-db.php
on line 1036
I checked my Apache config. The Lion upgrade process left my Apache config alone, so my virtual host was still intact and working. It put a new httpd.conf.default in place in case I Apache wanted to use an more up to date Apache configuration. Happily it had left my configuration that enabled the PHP 5 module in place.
I remembered that Mac OS X Server’s MySQL install puts the socket for communicating with MySQL at /var/mysql/mysql.sock. The install of MySQL I’m using, from mysql.com, in order to not conflict with Apple’s MySQL, puts the socket at /tmp/mysql.sock. I’d configured PHP back when I was using Snow Leopard to talk to the MySQL socket in /tmp.
I created a quick PHP file calling the phpinfo() function in my website’s home directory to check the PHP configuration:
<?php phpinfo();
I went to that webpage through the web and found, sure enough that all three PHP MySQL extensions – MySQL, MySQLi and PDO MySQL were all expecting the MySQL socket to be in /var/mysql.
I checked the PHP configuration directory /etc/php. The reason why PHP wasn’t working properly (i.e. connecting to MySQL) was OS X Lion install had moved my PHP configuration file – php.ini – out of the way:
Lion renamed my php.ini file to /etc/php.ini-5.2-previous, and put a new sample PHP configuration file, /etc/php.ini.default. It makes sense to do this: Lion uses PHP 5.3 which has new options and defaults, compared to PHP 5.2 used on Snow Leopard.
I copied the example PHP configuration into place:
sudo cp /etc/php.ini.default /etc/php.ini
I edited the new PHP configuration to update all references to /var/mysql/mysql.sock to /tmp/mysql.sock. Before editing php.ini:
I also enabled two of the three MySQL extensions, which were configured off in the default php.ini in the Lion install. WordPress perhaps only needed one of three MySQL extensions:
tazair:~ taz$ grep mysql /etc/php.ini|grep ext
extension=php_mysql.dll
extension=php_mysqli.dll
;extension=php_pdo_mysql.dll
I needed to restart Apache for it to pickup the new configuration:
tazair:~ taz$ sudo apachectl restart
Happy days! PHP could talk to MySQL, and my WordPress site was working on OSX Lion.
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Apple released their new MacBook Air models on 20 July 2011, available in 11 inch and 13 inch screen sizes. The big news about these models is that they include a much faster processor (or CPU) than the previous MacBook Airs, which for some operations are twice as fast.
The name “MacBook Air” are sometimes abbreviated to “MBA” on the Net. The new models are referred to “mid-2011 MacBook Air” or “July 2011 MacBook Air”, “Summer 2011 MacBook Air” or simply “2011 MacBook Air”. The previous model is known as the “late-2010 MacBook Air” by Apple.
The previous processors were two year old technology, so the MacBook Air sometimes felt slow compared to modern, full size laptops. For example, web pages could be seen coming together on the screen, rather than just springing up suddenly as they would on a MacBook Pro.
The new CPUs are modern Intel i5 or i7 dual core CPUs. The fastest CPU, the i7 is only only available through the Apple online store. (Apple’s marketing literature shows the i7 as only being available for the 13 inch model, but the i7 can be ordered as an option at the online Apple Store for the 11 inch model.) For information on the new MacBook Air’s performance versus the last model, and whether the i7 upgrade is worth the $100 to $150 cost, see MacBook Air 2011 i5 vs i7.
The battery life for the 11″ model is about 5 hours, and for the 13″ model about 7 hours.
There are other upgrades too. The backlit keyboard is great for typing in low light. The Thunderbolt I/O port will be great for connecting next generation peripherals, like high speeds disks and perhaps video cameras (if they do support it).
There’s also a new graphics processor that does video encoding and decoding on chip. Using the graphics chip to handle video uses less power than using the CPU. For applications that take advantages of the chip, like iTunes playing movies or FaceTime calling, will use less battery life.
Mac OSX 10.7 Lion is available now. It was released 20 July 2011. There were reports, for example from the OS X Daily website, that Lion will be available as early as 14 July.
Lion is only be available from the Mac App Store. The cost in the U.S.A. is USD$29.99. In Australia the cost is AUD$31.99.
To upgrade, you need:
Mac OS X Snow Leopard installed – at least version 10.6.6. (The current Snow Leopard release is 10.6.8).
An Intel Core 2 Duo or later CPU in your Mac – note the ‘2’. Macs with Core Duo, G3, G4 or G5 chips can’t be upgraded. Intel i3, i5, i7 or Xeon chips will be fine.
2GB+ of memory.
4GB of free hard disk space. (The Apple App Store says the download is 3.49GB.)
AirDrop is one of the features that I’m really looking forward to. It let’s MacBooks running Lion very easily and securely share files – without having to join the same wireless network, and all the usual messing ’round.
Updated January 2012: What’s the best MacBook for making music? Is it the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air? What size is best? 11 inch, 13 inch, 15 inch or 17 inch?
If your planning to buy a Mac laptop for music, there’s some links at the end of the article where you can save some money.
Which MacBook for Making Music? Things to Consider
Here are questions to consider to see which would be the best MacBook music rig:
Do you want a new or secondhand Mac Book?
Do you want the “best possible setup” (you’re happy to spend a lot) or a “good enough setup” (spend just enough money to get the job done)?
Do you know what music software you’ll use? (e.g. Logic, ProTools, Cubase, Live, GarageBand, Reaktor, Kontakt, Traktor, Reason, Sibelius, Vienna Symphonic Library)
Do you have any existing instrument or sample libraries?
If so, how big are they?
Will the Mac always be used in a portable music setup, or mostly in one place?
To set the scene for your purchase, you may want consider the different ways you might use your Mac to create music, and in what settings:
Will you be recording real instruments? Does you sound interface use USB or Firewire? (MacBook Pro models all have Firewire. MacBook Air models don’t have Firewire.)
Will you be using the Mac at home, in a studio or at gigs? (If you’re moving around, smaller MacBooks are more convenient.)
Will you be using pre-recorded samples or loops? Will you be loading sampled instruments, e.g. Galaxy Steinway piano? (MacBook’s hard disks will generally be big enough to swallow lots of sample and instrument libraries. MacBook Airs have faster but smaller capacity flash storage – a consideration if you have a large amount of music tracks, software and samples.
Will you be using any special hardware, e.g. the Guitar Rig pedal. (Is your hardware compatible with Mac OS X Lion on new Macs?)
Will you be scoring music? Will you need to print sheet music? (Is your software compatible with Mac OS X Lion?)
Will you be using the Mac to play live? Might you do some live DJ’ing, mixing and beat matching (e.g. using Acid)? (Is your MacBook big enough for the screen to be useable, but small enough to be easy to carry around?)
Will you be making soundtracks? (If so, you’ll probably want a bigger screen to make room for the video track.)
My friend’s answer to these questions were:
I’m looking to use Ableton, with a portable set up and about 30GB worth of sounds/synths. I guess I would like bang for buck as opposed to spending for no reason, but if it’s worth it I will get it. Something that I would use live but I also travel a lot, so portability is important.
Here’s the good news. All Macs are great for music.
All the MacBooks are Good
All the current model MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models are good for making music.
So, really it’s a choice between:
MacBook Air – 11 inch
MacBook Air – 13 inch
MacBook Pro – 13 inch
MacBook Pro – 15 inch
MacBook Pro – 17 inch
Let’s look at choosing between MacBook sizes first of all.
Choosing Between MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Sizes
In choosing between the sizes, there’s a trade off between three factors.
No. 1: How Big a Screen Do You Need for Making Music with Your Mac “On the Road”?
When making music, it’s great to have a big screen, so you can see and get straight to all your tracks and virtual instruments.
You’ll probably find the smaller screen MacBooks (MacBook Air 11″, MacBook Air 13″, MacBook Pro 13″) cramped for making music. They’ll be lots of scrolling and shuffling windows around.
You might be okay with a smaller screen if you’ve just recording a few live instruments or if your patient.
The 15 inch MacBook Pro screen is workable, and 17 inch MacBook Pro screen is good.
You don’t necessarily need a big screen on the laptop. If you’re mostly making music in one place, I’d recommend buy a 23 inch external thin HD screen for $170 that’s great to work off. (I have one! – cheap HD display for MacBook Air.)
No. 2: How Much Weight are You Prepared to Lug Around?
The 17 inch is a lot to lug around. I would not recommend travelling with it unless you really, really want a big screen.
I’ve travelled with a 15 inch every day for a year. I’m over it! It’s just big enough to be awkward.
If you can cope with the smaller screen, and you can get to a big screen when you want to work quickly, the 13 inch will be by far the best to travel with. It won’t take over your entire backpack!
No. 3: Do You Need the Power of a Quad Core CPU Versus a Dual Core CPU for Making Music?
The 13 inch MacBook Pro has two CPU cores. The 15 and 17 inch models have four CPU cores. This means that a 15 inch or 17 inch can handle roughly twice as many tracks as the 13 inch, before you need tricks like “freezing” or “bouncing” tracks to disk.
Still the 13 inch will handle a bunch of tracks. It will handle a bunch of virtual instruments, samples and recorded vocals and live instruments.
If you’re doing massive arrangements with 60 tracks and giant orchestral libraries with heaps of effects like convolution reverb, you’d really appreciate the quad core models (15 and 17 inch). Otherwise, you may not even notice the difference in power between a dual core and quad core.
No. 4: The Current MacBook Pro Models, and the Larger Screen MacBook Models May Be Quieter
Macs get hot from thinking hard, for example when playing back a 20 track music project with lots of virtual instruments and effects. When this happens, the fan runs to keep the processor from overheating. The harder the Mac works, the hotter it gets, and the faster the fan runs to compensate. The faster the fan runs the more noise the fan makes.
Since the heat also passively dissipates to the MacBook Air’s case, larger Macs may be able to sink more heat into the metal shell before the fan is seriously needed.
The current MacBook Air (the model released mid-2011) has a reputation of being a bit of a hot head. This may be because its the first generation of a processor technology from Intel that combines a Core i5 or i7 processor, with a graphics processor (HD3000 graphics) on one silicon chip. In the Pro, the processors are still on two separate chips, which may spread out the heat. Reports are the MacBook Air can get hot fast, even under moderate load. That means fan noise.
There is a fair bit of conjecture here: it hasn’t been measured, tested and proven that the Pro stays quieter longer than the Air. It hasn’t been proven that the smaller MacBooks need to fan earlier. I could be wrong.
The “safe bet” for a MacBook Pro for easily-portable music production is a 15 inch MacBook Pro. The screen will be big enough, if not roomy, to work with. It’s okay to carry around. It’s got a quad core processor, so the technology is never likely to slow down your creativity – with a quad core you can have music projects with many, many tracks, virtual instruments and effects.
If you want really portable, and (i) if you can work off a big screen where you mainly create music, and (ii) if an 11 inch or 13 inch isn’t too small for you to create you’re out and about, and (iii) if you don’t have massively complicated music projects, you will probably fall in love with a MacBook Air 11″, MacBook Air 13″, or MacBook Pro 13″.
The MacBook Air is thinner, lighter, more portable than the MacBook Pro and has flash storage instead of hard disk. The flash storage (or solid state disk – SSD) is much faster than a hard disk, which is great for loading virtual instruments and music projects quickly. The downsize is flash storage is relatively expensive, so typical flash storage capacities are much less than hard disks. MacBook Air’s don’t have a built in DVD drive. If your music software comes on DVD, you’ll need to buy an external DVD drive from Apple ($79). You can read more about choosing a MacBook Air 11 vs 13.
If you want a big work space, don’t want to ever use an external monitor, and don’t care about lugging around a giant laptop, the MacBook Pro 17 inch is a amazing laptop for creativity. (It’s so wide, you can see your music tracks really well. It’s also great for doing video in the field, but that’s another story…)
The base models for all MacBook Pro sizes would serve your requirements well. For the MacBook Air’s, don’t buy the entry level model with 2GB of RAM and 64GB of flash storage. This will not be enough RAM or storage for most people making music with their Mac. All the other MacBook Air models have 4GB of RAM (good), with 128GB or 256GB of flash storage. If you don’t have a lot of music libraries you could get away with 128GB. If you’re a heavy user with lots of software, samples and virtual instruments, go for the 256GB. The cheaper i5 MacBook Air models have plenty of power for music; you can compare i7 vs i5 MacBook Air models here.
MacBook Air for a Music Production Setup?
You can use a MacBook Air for music. This is incredibly sexy, because the MacBook Air 11 inch weighs only one kilo. I throw a music keyboard, the Air and some portable speakers in a courier bag, and the Air handles a sample Fender Rhodes piano and a high-end sampled piano (Galaxy Steinway) in its stride.
I have the previous model MacBook Air, a late 2010 model, which has a more sluggish processor than the current model (a Core 2 Duo vs a Core i5 or i7), which has the advantage that it doesn’t get hot easily, so I haven’t gotten fan noise from just playing live. You may not want to use a late-2010 MacBook Air for serious multi-track music; it could struggle with a lot of tracks and effects. (Still you could freeze tracks to disk pretty easily.)
The MacBook Air 2011 / 2012 models (released 20 July 2011) have Intel Core i5 or i7 processors, making them up to 2.5 times faster than the previous models. A MacBook Pro 13 and a MacBook Air 13 have about the same music processing power. The MacBook Pro 15 & 17 have about double the music processing power of the 13 inch Air & Pro.
The i5 and i7 processors in the new MacBook Airs make them amazing for portable music! I never want to carry a MacBook Pro again. I can barely feel the weight of the MacBook Air in my backpack.
The MacBook Air has only two USB slots, so it can run an external music audio interface and a USB music keyboard at the same time.
If you won’t use an external monitor, the 13 inch Air would generally be a better choice than the 11 inch so you have enough “screen real estate” to work on your music.
Remember the caveat: Some people are complaining about fan noise from the current model MacBook Air.
Back to the MacBook Pro
All MacBook Pros come with at least 4GB of memory, which is great for music production. Typically only complex music projects, for example projects with many sampled instruments, would benefit from upgrading to 8GB of memory.
Most professional music producers end up with a lot of virtual instruments and sample libraries, as well as a big iTunes library of music. If this could be you, you may want to get the hard disk upgraded to the biggest size.
If you’re a speed freak (like me), and you love your music projects and virtual instruments to load very quickly, a solid state disk (SSD) is wonderful. As SSDs have no moving parts, they can get to samples in virtual instruments much faster, so an SSD can support more sampled instruments. SSDs are still quite expensive, particularly if you buy them as a factory option from Apple, instead of aftermarket. They also typically have lower storage capacities than hard disks. Think of an SSD as a high-end or luxury option for a music rig.
Is Your Music Software OS X Lion Compatible?
New Macs all come with OSX Lion, which is relatively new. Not all music software has been updated to be fully compatible with Lion yet. Check the music software’s website or Google for up-to-date information on compatible. For example, you can Google “propellerheads reason lion compatible” to find a webpage to answer if Reason is compatible with Lion.
If you’re buying a new Mac, make sure your music software runs properly on OS X Lion.
For travel get a small and light external two channel audio interface to connect mics or instruments. (Or four channel, if you need it.)
High end audio interfaces tend to use Firewire instead of USB. I’ve found Firewire interfaces to be more reliable and responsive than USB. There are posts on the net to back this up like this one. Apparently USB has been getting better over the years. If you buy a MacBook Pro, you’re in luck, because the MacBook Pro has both USB ports and a Firewire port, so you’ve got the option if you need it. (The MacBook Air doesn’t have a Firewire port built in. There’s plans for a 3rd party Firewire interface using the Thunderbolt port.) Firewire sound interfaces will typically only be relevant if you want to record 8+ tracks at once, or if you want super high quality recording or if you’ve got concert pianist like sensitivity to how quickly sounds play when you press keys.
I love Presonus audio interfaces. I have one of their eight channel interfaces. They’re famous for having great mic preamps. Not cheap, but great quality.
Rode Mic are an Australian microphone company who make very good quality mics at a great price. Registered mics get a ten year guarantee. I’ve had two of their mics. Highly recommended.
M-Audio make good, cheap, light music keyboards with great feel. They plug straight into the Macs USB port. I have one. You can buy them in three sizes (49, 61 and 88 keys). Avoid the eKeys models – they’re not velocity sensitive (i.e. you can’t play softer by just press the keys more lightly).
I recommending avoiding Behringer keyboards – the graduation between soft notes and loud notes is very sudden and natural.
If you shop around on the Internet, you can find much better prices on audio interfaces, mics and keyboards than list price.
Hope this helps you get a great MacBook for making music!
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This article shows how to Force Quit any Mac application using only keyboard shortcuts. Any application can be quit – not just the front-most app. This is the fastest way to select any Mac app to terminate it immediately.
These instructions work for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and – I’ve just tested – I can confirm it works on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion as well.
Keyboard shortcuts can be necessary to force an app to exit, as a hung app may prevent access to the force quit function through the Apple menu.
Here’s the process to force quit a frozen app on OSX using only keyboard shortcuts:
Press the force quit keyboard shortcut Command-Option-Esc: Hold down the Command and Option keys and press the Esc (escape) key. Release all the keys. A window titled Force Quit Applicationsshould appear, like this:
The Force Quit Applications Window on Mac OS X 10.6
Select the app: Use the up and down arrow keys to select (highlight) the frozen app you want to exit. Here we select VLC:
The Force Quit window with VLC now selected
Press Return:This will choose the highlighted app to kill. A confirmation window will appear:
Do you want to force VLC to quit?
Press Return again: This is equivalent to pressing the Force Quit button. The kills the app, in our case VLC. All being well, your unresponsive Mac app has now been terminated. Notice VLC is no longer in the list of apps that can be quit:
The window after VLC has been Force Quit
Press Esc: Pressing the escape key will cause the Force Quit Applications to close.
This article shows how to Force Quit the front-most Mac application immediately with a single keyboard shortcut. This little-known keyboard shortcut is the easiest, fastest and best way to force a Mac application to quit. Yes – it works on Lion.
This shortcut works for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. The shortcut also works for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion – I’ve tested it! This key combination does not work for Mac OSX 10.4 and earlier, which probably explains why it’s not well known.
What is Force Quit?
The normal ways to quit a Mac application are to choose Quit from the menu named for the application (e.g. Word, Chrome, VLC, Mail) or to press the keyboard shortcut to Quit, which is Command-Q. Force Quit is a Mac feature to force a Mac program to exit when it won’t respond to these normal ways to quit.
Why is Force Quit Useful?
Force quitting a hung application is useful to restart the app in order to be able to use it again. For example, if Mac Mail locks up while retrieving mail, you can terminate it, and start it again.
Force quit is even more useful when a frozen app stops access to the Finder and other applications, so that you can’t use your Mac. In the situation, that Mac seems frozen. Force quitting the hung app can be necessary to be able to use your Mac again.
An unresponsive app can prevent access to the Apple manu, so that knowing the keyboard shortcut to force quit an app is sometimes the only way to be regain control of your Mac.
Warnings for Force Quit
If you force quit an application, you will probably lose any changes you’ve made in that app that you haven’t saved. (With Microsoft Office, you might get an autosave.) Try quitting with the Command-Q key combination first.
What is the Key Combination to Force Quit a Mac App?
This keyboard shortcut will kill the front-most Mac app, which is usually the app you want to stop. If you want to stop an application which is not at the front, see Force Any Mac App to Quit using Only Keyboard Shortcuts.
The keyboard shortcut to force quit the front-most Mac app is to press and hold Command-Option-Shift-Escape until the app exits. There is around a three second delay until the Mac kills the app, to prevent this feature being applied accidentally.
How to Use the Force Quit Keyboard Shortcut, Step by Step
If you’re unused to complex key combinations, here’s how to do it in steps:
Hold down the Command key.
Add holding the Option key with another finger on the same hand.
Add holding the Shift key with another finger on the same hand.
With these keys held down with one hand, use your other hand hold the Escape (Esc) key until the foreground app exits. This should take about three seconds.
Looking for httpd.conf on Mac? Httpd.conf is the main Apache web server configuration file. This article covers where to find httpd.conf on OS X.
On Mac, httpd.conf is located in the directory /etc/apache2. This location was checked on Mac OS X Lion 10.7, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (10.6.7, 10.6.8).
Here’s is the full path to the httpd.conf file:
/etc/apache2/httpd.conf
If you open httpd.conf with TextEdit, you won’t be able to save the file. Httpd.conf is protected from editing by OSX, so that people don’t inadvertently damage or delete their web server config, or open up security holes. See Easily Edit Httpd.conf on Mac for how to bypass this security.
Httpd.conf is normally protected from editing by Mac OS X. This article shows the easiest way to overcome this security and edit httpd.conf.
Theses editing methods have been tested on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (10.6.7, 10.6.8) and Mac OS X Lion 10.7.
Edit Httpd.conf on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
If you’re running Snow Leopard, you’ve got it easy! You can edit httpd.conf using the TextEdit app. This method does not work for Lion. If you’re using Lion, go on to the next section.
If you open the httpd.conf file with TextEdit normally, you won’t be able to save. You can’t save httpd.conf because Mac OS X protects httpd.conf, so that people don’t accidentally damage or delete their web server config, or open up security holes.
To edit httpd.conf, you will need superuser or root privileges.
To edit httpd.conf:
Open the Terminal application.
It’s in the Utilities folder, inside the Applications folder.
Type in the command below.
It will prompt you with “Password:” on the next line.
Enter your Mac password.
The TextEdit application will start with httpd.conf loaded.
Edit httpd.conf.
Save httpd.conf.
The command to enter is:
sudo open /Applications/TextEdit.app \
--args /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
This method doesn’t work on Lion. Lion has increased security over Snow Leopard. On Lion, opening TextEdit with sudo doesn’t confer enough privileges to TextEdit to open httpd.conf. If I find a workaround to edit httpd.conf in TextEdit on Lion, I’ll post it here. If you know a workaround for Lion, please comment below.
Edit Httpd.conf on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion
Since we can’t edit httpd.conf with TextEdit or other apps on Lion due to tighter security, our next best bet is the simple terminal-based text editor that ships with OS X, pico.
Here’s how to edit httpd.conf with pico:
sudo pico /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
To make life easy, Pico displays a list of keyboard commands at the bottom of the screen, such as ^X Exit. It’s important to know that the hat character “^” means the control key. So ^X is the same as Control-X, which means hold down the control key and press and release the X key.
If your familiar with the vi text editor, you could use that instead.
Here is how to change your Mac’s name. This method works on both OS X Lion and Snow Leopard.
Your Mac’s computer name is used to identify it on the network. By default, other computers will see your Mac as something like “Tasman Hayes’s MacBook Air“. I like to change it to something simple like “tazair“.
To change the Mac’s name:
Click the Apple menu at the top and choose System Preferences…
Click the Sharing icon. (It’s in the Internet & Wireless section, third row down.)
In the Computer Name field, type your Mac’s new name.
Click the red cross in the top left corner of the window. This will close the Sharing preferences window and apply your Mac name change.
Did you know in geek speak the Mac computer name is called a host name, or hostname?This is because Mac OSX’s was developed in part from Unix, which uses this term.
Tested on Mac OS X Lion 10.7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 (10.6.7, 10.6.8).
