How do you with a Mac book hellllllp
I have just bought a Mac book pro I didn't realize that it did't have a cd rom on it until I got it home You can tell how muCh research I had done . A friend recomended it for phot's and muSic . What I would like to know is how do you access information on bit rate mp3 or lossless I have been playing around with it for about an hour many thank for your help with one 
... I didn't realize that it did't have a cd rom on it until I got it home You can tell how much research I had done ...
Bravo, well played! Award yourself 1000 man points, sir 
Another 100 man-points if you tore up the start-up guide / documentation* and just 'winged it' like a true man.
*not sure you get much documentation these days....
Another 100 man-points if you tore up the start-up guide / documentation* and just 'winged it' like a true man.
*not sure you get much documentation these days....
Indeed...there are a few things I prefer Windows for but on the whole I don't regret 'going Mac' as my main computer.
I have just bought a Mac book pro I didn't realize that it did't have a cd rom on it until I got it home You can tell how much research I had done . A friend recomended it for phot's and muSic . What I would like to know is how do you access information on bit rate mp3 or lossless I have been playing around with it for about an hour many thank for your help with one
Open iTunes, select 'Songs' pane in iTunes. Click 'View' in taskbar then select 'View Options'.
Open up the 'File' tab and select 'Bit Rate' or whatever info you wish to view.
You can also select the visiblity of columns by right clicking on the columns bar when in 'Songs' view.
I too come from a Windows background and to regurgitate a much-used phrase, I feel your pain.
In Windows (certainly Vista, the mst recent I tried) you can right-click on a file, pick 'Properties' and view and change the tag info. This is not so easy on a Mac. If you right-click on a file and pick 'get info' this will open up a window which gives you some of the info you could get from Windows' "Properties" but not all, and you can't change much either. Holding option (alt) when you right-click changes 'get info' to 'show inspector', which sometimes shows you more info. Basically for file handing, OSX is pants compared to Windows, even compared to Windows XP. The main advantages of OSX is that it just seems to run smoother with less crashes and some of the apps seem more polished, particularly for music and video.
has apple been working very hard to make all of there sytems hard to understand or am I a bit thick dont get me wrong I love my new mack it just drives
me crazy trying to do the simple things like adding artwork to itunes . very easy on windows Thanks to all for advice 
Highlight an entire album in 'Songs' view (left click on first track and then shift/left click on last to select all tracks), then right click and select 'Get Album Artwork'.
Well. you could play your music using VLC, rightclick the track playing, choose Media Information > Codec and you will get a screen showing you all you need to know.
It'll give you something like this:
And FWIW having just acquired a MacBook Air, again without an optical drive, I bought a USB Samsung DVD writer for the rare occasions I need a drive – such as when at shows and the only press information comes on a CD-ROM – for the princely sum of £25 from that well-known South American river-related online retailer.
Oh alright then, Amazon.
Or, if you have another computer at home with an optical drive, you can do drive sharing – though this only works for tasks such as software loading, etc, and not for playing CDs or DVDs.
Consulting Editor, What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision/whathifi.com Audio Editor, Gramophone