OP
Thinking about a Mac and MacDive
- Thread starter dmoore19
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OP
I would recommend the Seagate GoFlex drives - you can get up to 1.5TB in a bus-powered drive, no power cords, etc. You can also buy a new little plugin for the back (maybe $30?) that will convert it to a thunderbolt drive. I use my 1TB version to drag around all of my movies on really long trips.
Also, you do have left & right clicks on your trackpad -- just click on the right-half of the trackpad and you should get the context menus / normal right-click type of behaviour.
I'm seriously considering getting MacDive and just doing everything by hand. Or reverse engineer the Galileo data stream over iRDA so I can still download. Or just buy a couple of new dive computers that it DOES support.
I saw the 1T but I thought the 1.5 needed a separate power supply. I will check into it. Thanks.
OP
Get Aperture through the App Store. It's cheaper, and updates are a lot easier and you can install on another Mac when you get. Trust me, this won't be your only Mac you ever purchase
I was going to do it from the app store. Gotta get those pesky apple terms down. (I did know what thunderbolt is thought)
Bubbletrubble
Contributor
The trackpad can be configured to activate a right-click by a two-finger tap. That's how I've set up my Macbook Pro. Simply enter "System Preferences," navigate to "Trackpad," and make the appropriate selection.
I've been using MacDive for years now. It works great.
I also use Aperture for tweaking my camera photos. It works well...probably works just as well as Adobe LightRoom. LightRoom is cross-platform, whereas Aperture is Mac-specific. Before purchasing Aperture, I'd recommend seeing whether you can get by with just iPhoto first. iPhoto is free, comes automatically installed on every new Mac, and has the ability to read/import/manipulate RAW images. A very useful "Swiss army knife" for graphics manipulation and batch conversion is GraphicConverter. The combination of iPhoto with GraphicConverter is pretty powerful.
If you are planning on purchasing a large external drive to store your photos, you might want to consider buying a second one to serve as a backup. Perhaps you could use the second drive to backup your Mac hard drive as well. At least, that's what I'd do. I wouldn't rely on having a single copy of anything. Hard drives fail all the time.
Enjoy the new computer.
OP
My next upgrade will be a camera that shoots RAW. My current camera is a Sealife DC800 and isn't capable of it. I am planning on using the external drive to store my photos. One of the reasons I like the AirBook is because it has a solid state drive, no moving parts, I was thinking it may not be as prone to failure. As cheap as the SD cards are I may just leave them on the card and back up on the external drive.
drrich2
Contributor
Another option is to hold down Control when you click on something; that gives you a 'Right Click' on the Mac.
Quick comment on Mac Dive. When I first started using it, I couldn't figure out how to keep logs for more than one person (such as my wife), since unlike the Oceanic software where I'd open somebody's logbook & download into it, Mac Dive just downloaded dives into what I guess you could call 'the' log. Well, once they're downloaded, I can change the diver name on each dive, then at the bottom of the left-hand listing I can click for what diver I want to see. That shows me just my dives, just my wife's, etc...
Unless anything's changed since I last used it. Been a couple of months plus.
Richard.
Quick comment on Mac Dive. When I first started using it, I couldn't figure out how to keep logs for more than one person (such as my wife), since unlike the Oceanic software where I'd open somebody's logbook & download into it, Mac Dive just downloaded dives into what I guess you could call 'the' log. Well, once they're downloaded, I can change the diver name on each dive, then at the bottom of the left-hand listing I can click for what diver I want to see. That shows me just my dives, just my wife's, etc...
Unless anything's changed since I last used it. Been a couple of months plus.
Richard.
OP
drrich2, your post made me rethink my approach. Thanks I think I get it now.
drrich2
Contributor
Okay, I'm not home right now, but do this. Pull up a listing of the 'Oceanic Diver' dives. It'll probably list the on the left, and some data fields across, like a spreadsheet. Now, where it says 'Oceanic Diver,' click on that. If it opens the field, type in the diver name that you want (say, 'Waldo Smith' or whatever). You'll find this is a way to assign your dives to the right diver.
I'm going from memory. Let me know if this works. Might not be the only way to work this, but I think it's 'a way.'
Richard.
OP
Thanks again. It may not be the best way, but in the dives that are listed as downloaded, I clicked in the column that says diver and was able to change to my name. Once the dives were listed as being mine. Oceanic diver just disappeared. Same thing with country and location. Once I put that in, it was added to the list and things are going much better, all it takes is a little different way of thinking about it. Not convinced it makes sense but I think I may have a handle on it.......Maybe.
Just a different approach. Thanks for the info. I may need more ideas of how to approach.
I am still in a PC state of mind.
Bubbletrubble
Contributor
@drrich2: I share one desktop Mac computer with my significant other. We both use one copy of MacDive with our respective dive computers and have no issues. We've employed a different strategy: creation of a distinct user account for each person (System Preferences/Accounts). There are other benefits to doing it this way. Each user can set up his/her own desktop environment, alter privacy/security options, etc.
@dmoore19: Most casual (amateur) UW photographers don't need to shoot in RAW. I realize that some hardcore photographers will disagree with me on this point. With proper exposure (namely the use of one or more strobes) and attention to composition, a decent camera shooting in JPG will yield a pleasing result. Although RAW does have more starting data than JPG and would probably yield slightly better results following white-balancing and other post-processing, either file format can be white-balanced and touched up with various filters. With my setup, I routinely white-balance JPGs using Aperture.
In real world usage, I don't believe that SSDs are any more reliable than conventional hard drives made by a reliable manufacturer. Tom's Hardware published a nice article on this. Essentially, SSD technology is newer and still prone to failure due to write cycle exhaustion, firmware problems, and electronics-related issues.
I'd still recommend keeping at least two copies of all essential files. When it comes to backup strategies, I'm an advocate of saving essential files in an encrypted form online and complementing that backup with on- and off-site drive "clones." SuperDuper! by Shirt Pocket Software is a great Mac program that can make incremental cloned copies of a drive. I've also used Carbon Copy Cloner with success.
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