How do you like them Apples?

[Philip Roberts]

Tomorrow at "The Great MacBook Giveaway!" I'll be offering to show some of what I know about using OS X Leopard. I anticipate that as we bring this platform into our classrooms and offices, there will be many opportunities for sharing experience.
I'd like to open up this thread as a starting point for those of you knew to OS X as well as providing an opportunity for others with Mac experience to share their wisdom with us.

[Sam Liberto]

My MAcbook has developed a serious issue already. After traveling to the US last week and taking the Macbok along, I returned to QA to find that the Macbook powered up but did not charge battery at all. So I can't use it unless it's plugged in. Looking up problem on the web, I found it is not uncommon for Macs.I brought it to Mahmoud and we'll see how long it takes our service team to respond.

[Philip Roberts]

That's disappointing. I haven't heard of Mac notebook battery problems before (certainly not anything that didn't also apply to every other manufacturer - rare cases of overheating, etc). My first Mac was a G3 iBook and that's still going strong after 6 years. Don't get me started on the battery performance of my previous (QA) Dell notebook!
Regardless, your problems needs to be fixed - these machines should still be under warranty from the vendor. The same vendor promised me 3 years after sales service support for the iMacs I ordered, so whether or not Mahmoud can resolve the problem there should be a solution.

[Lauralynn Stefureak]

Is there any "fix" for that little quirk that only allows 5 changes of dvd-region formatting? Our department has dvd's from several regions so this could be a bit inconvenient! Does my little Apple friend really lock up after the 5th switch?

[Philip Roberts]

Ho ho! I'm afraid you'll find that nasty limitation applies to DVD drives in ALL laptops / notebooks, not just those that are made by Apple. Blame the DVD distributors / licencees.
One way around this problem (which is only partially illegal) would be to copy the content of a DVD (which of course you own) using an application like the open-source Mac The Ripper. Other apps like the excellent Visual Hub (not freeware), and I'm sure other (possibly freeware) alternatives, will then convert the 'ripped' content into whatever video file format you desire. All of that happens regardless of the Region Code of the original DVD (or what region your drive is set to). You would only do this for 'personal use', of course ;)
That ripping and converting could be time-consuming but would probably only take a couple of hours for a feature length movie, for example....