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What About Leopard?

BOB'S MAC USER TECH TIPS

Any part in RED means you should "Read and Heed" these Mac Tips. Do this or else type topics are covered. Purple highlights important tips.

I do apologize in advance since the tips page continues to grow like a fungus. It is not the best organized to say the least. You can use your browsers find command and type in a keyword of interest. Command F and type in the keyword should find what you need if the index links at the top of the page don't get you where you want to go. Just because you have looked at this once you may want to reread it again. I frequently add new material as I learn new things or get reminded that not everyone knows something that I do. I hope you find the answers you need here. If not use the form to Contact Us and we will be happy to help.

MAC TIPS PHONE TECH SUPPORT

We now have dedicated lines for technical support for your Mac. We love this business and live, breath and eat Macs. We thank you in advance for using the tech support line for out of warranty or systems and equipment you have bought elsewhere, or if you just need some purchasing advice. 901-591-1548 9-6 Central Time Monday through Friday is our tech support line. Thanks for paying for the call. We need you to help us with this as our toll free lines expenses are rising far faster than our sales are. We are always happy to help and we pay for the calls on in warranty products. Use our email form anytime you don't need immediate response or after hours. Make sure you identify the system you are on, the OS you are using and any other pertinent hardware facts. We can help you identify your system if you don't know what it is but prefer you find that out before calling or emailing. There is generally a tag on the back or bottom of the machine with specifications of your system as it came from the factory. Apple System Profiler under the Apple Menu in 8.6 up through X will also tell you about how fast your machine is, how much ram, how large the hard drive is currently. Imagine calling an Automotive Repair Center with a problem and all you can tell them is that it is a white car, or going to a Camera store and asking for film and all you know if your camera is black and about this big. We are happy to help but please do what you can to help us get you the information and materials you need.

Toll Free ORDER line 877-639-1543 9-6 CST, M-F (901-759-1543)
New TECH SUPPORT Line 901-591-1548
FAX 615-523-1360

UPGRADING THE OFFICE? We buy quantities of Mac systems & components. Email your list: cheryn or use the online form.

OSX notes Beige G3 Systems! | OSX Notes B&W G3 Systems | OSX Notes G4 Systems

USING MAC OS9 & PROGRAMS FROM A LEOPARD MACHINE (Even an INTEL) Cheryn recently decided she needed to run Leopard OSX 10.5 since the new version book keeping software she uses is Leopard only (QuickBooks). Of course I could set her up a dual boot system that would allow her to change back to TIGER10.4 so she could use classic mode for the older OS9 apps she still uses. LEOPARD HAS NO CLASSIC MODE if you didn't know. Rebooting to a different OS is a bit inconvenient since she frequently accesses QuickBooks in our day to day operation. I set up one of our bench G4 machines with OS9.2.2 and the Applications she uses on our internal network. I installed a free program called Vine Server (OS9 Kitchen Sink Internet Folder) that allows itself to be run remotely using VNC. On our current 10/100 network (soon to be Gigabit once I can find some cheaper switches). Leopard has the built in ability to access a machine since it has VNC client technology built in. She can now access OS9 applications from her Leopard desktop. Perhaps not quite as fast as before but it certainly works well and costs nothing if you have an older machine you can run OS9 on. I did reduce the colors to 256 to speed up access, but with the Gigabit Switch I think you could easily run full color without too noticeable lag in performance. You do have to use File Sharing to move files around. We can help you do the same. We sell Gigagit Ethernet Cards even for older Beige G3 machines and many of the other items you may need to add an OS9 server to your network.

GOOD NEWS?

I got an email this morning that says I can be twice the size in two weeks. That would make me over 11 feet tall and my feet would hang off the bed ;-) I mentioned this to Cheryn, and she said what makes you think they were talking about height they may have been talking about girth. That would make me over 6 feet around. I may be already working on that.

THE FIRST REALLY USEFUL WIDGET?

I know a lot of folks who really were excited when OSX Tiger added Widgets. Now you can have all these goodies installed again like years ago. Most of the Widgets I have seen though were really not that useful and you had to leave your desktop for the Widget environment. The other problem is that once installed most Widgets continue to run and tie up your processor even when you aren't using them. Some are pretty hoggish. Well on the SuperSink is a Widget called Dashit. Because of the name it doesn't show up one many shareware sites. It shuts down your Widgets when you our not in Dashboard. While you have to wait a second for your Widgets to update when you enter Dashboard having your processor back the other 99% of the time you are using your computer is worth it.

The second Widget I want to mention still continues to surprise me when I install it on systems. Maintidget 151 tells the date of the last time your daily, weekly and monthly maintenance was run. Many systems that come in to us have not had all of the maintenance run for years. You can run the maintenance right from the Widget.

Pioneer SuperDrive - 20X DVD Burn Speeds! (A08, A09, A10, A12, A15, A16, Now the A17) NOW SHIPPING!

SOMETHING THAT MAKES ME HAPPY WITH THIS NEW MODEL! Apple renumbered the DVR-108 and named it 117 back several years ago (for what reason no one can guess). What this means is that in Panther and Tiger the patches are no longer necessary for this model since Apple listed the 17 way back when. This drive shows up as Apple shipped/supported from Profiler. You still have to use the Patch in 9.2 or 10.2 though. Do disregard what you find one the net about this drive in Apple machines. They are all referring to the 108 that Apple renamed. This new model is one better than the 16 we have been using a long while. While the improvements are not real obvious, generally Pioneer makes things a bit better when they name a new model.

What is the difference between the A16 and the A17? A01 of course! The only major change seems to be the 12X burning speed for DVD-/+R DL media. I just finished testing the new Pioneer A17 and it is available for order in the store. UPDATE: Toast 6 and later for OSX does support these features now! But for the few dollars more one of these units cost I think you might want to spend it now. It works fine in both 9 and X and I have already written an OS9 iTunes patch for it. You can use all your existing software just like it is a regular Apple SuperDrive including iDVD. We of course include all needed patches and demo versions of DVD writing software. Of course Apple's iDVD software is available in the popular iLife upgrades.

I had someone else call and said they bought an a SuperDrive (not from us) and installed it with the patches on a G4 and could not get the DVD to play movies back in OSX. My guess is that they installed the mechanism and didn't have the DVD Player installed since the OSX install doesn't put the player on the system if a DVD player is not present during the install. If you just copy the DVD Player from someone else's system and add it to your system it will not work. You need to use a program called Pacifist (on the X Kitchen Sink/Diagnostics folder), This will allow you to install parts of the OSX software (much like Tome Viewer does in OS9). Use it to locate the DVD player on the original CD and let it install it with all the parts and pieces. Run the disk utility and repair permissions always before and after installing software. Out of the dozens of A09's (now A16's) I have installed in both 9, Jaguar and Panther and Tiger, I have never had a problem. Of course we sell brand new drives with our 30 day warranty and the full 1 year factory warranty from Pioneer, beside including the 9 and X patches so that all Apple software sees the device as a fully recognized drive. I wrote the new OS9 drivers and they are included on the install CD we include with the drive.

The Pioneer SuperDrive will read DVD-RAM disks that are out of the cartridge but will not write to them.

We also have a patched DVD player that allows you to playback DVD Movies on Beige or Blue and White G3's. You just need an ATI Rage Pro Video Card 16 MB or better installed. No special DVD decoder required. See troubleshooting and more infoon using your CDRW or DVD

IDE HARD DRIVES GOING THE WAY OF THE DODO?

It seems that Seagate is stopping production on some sizes of IDE hard drives. We can't get some sizes right now. Since most all new computers have moved to the SATA standard it may not be too long before your only choice will be to install a SATA card and run the larger faster cheaper SATA drives. Some of you don't have that choice if you or on machines like the iMacs that don't have a PCI slot to put a SATA card in. Hopefully some of the adapters out there will allow you to keep those older machines running. If you have been thinking about upgrading your hard drive in your older machine now would be the time while you still have some good choices. I keep testing SATA to IDE adapters but so far none seem to work reliably. Let me know if you have any luck.

ODD SYSTEM FREEZES?

I have had several times over a period of years, had folks send me systems that had odd freezes. Some describe it as the mouse locking up and not moving. In every case it was caused by the energy saver settings. If you install a USB2 card and many other types of accessories you need to disable sleep. You can keep your screen saver active, just don't let the CPU sleep or the hard drive spin down. If you come back to your machine after a while and find it locked up you may need to trying turning off the energy saver.

HAVE YOU BEEN THINKING ABOUT UPGRADING YOUR G4's PROCESSOR? UPDATE - TOO LATE??

The Sonnet 1 Ghz Single Processors are now sold out and they aren't being made any more. We are now out of the Mercury 1.5 ghz Singles. Freescale (was Motorola) is the manufacturer of these chips. Once they are gone they will not likely run the production line again. We have found a few more Sonnet units. Call and ask, this is likely your last chance to buy new. We do get a few processor upgrades in trade and may have a used one at a good price.

WIRELESS N - Back In Stock! Lower Prices!

Or should I really say Draft N? I thought it would be a long while before I upgraded my Wireless G components to N. Cost keeps me from running out and adopting new technology quickly and I am certain that many of you are like me when it comes to parting with cash. I have had my eyes out for a low cost alternative that would enable me to install the much faster and longer range N. Well I finally located some market PCI cards that we could get drivers for. I replaced our trusty LinkSys Wireless G Router with a refurb N unit and have started using these new cards. You get more bars at even marginal locations with these cards and the transfer rates are astounding. I can now see how video can easily be shared. Perhaps shortly I will have a Mac permanently attached to the TV. Makes it better to watch those shows I missed from online and all without stringing CAT 5E across the floor. Whether you choose the PCI card (best if you have a PCI slot open) or the USB Lan Adapter we include the drivers on our latest SuperSink DVD which is also chock full of updates and the best freeware and shareware available (a $14.77 value all by itself) included with your purchase. Oh yes if you need a Wireless N Router just watch the sale papers for Best Buy, Office Depot etc for the LinkSys Wireless N. They sell them so cheap we simply don't bother to stock them.

Make your G4 Wireless!  $34.77 Shipped! Hi Speed Wireless N

Mac compatible Wireless N PCI Card Special $34.77 shipped Add low cost high speed Wireless N to your PCI Mac System! Panther, Tiger & Leopard Tested! Leave it to Headgap to bring a low cost Mac OSX compatible Wireless N PCI card to the market! OSX Panther, Tiger & Leopard Drivers supplied on CD by us. This 802.11N Wireless Draft N PCI Adapter is based on the RALink chipset and is compatible with 802.11b, 802.11g and fast 802.11 Draft N standards that delivers up to 540 Mbps data transfers (10 Times Wireless G)! Your wireless communications are protected with up to 128-bit WEP encryption. It fits easily in your desktop's PCI card slot so you can start networking and get online fast. Simply plug into an open PCI slot, and install the drivers from the Headgap supplied DVD. FEATURES: Bus Type: 32-bit PCI V2.2/2.1. Works in Blue and White, G4 Towers all, early G5's with standard PCI slots. REQUIRES: Open PCI Slot and OSX 10.3, 10.4, & 10.5 and the ability to install a PCI card and to configure the included software for your system. DOES NOT WORK WITH OS VERSIONS EARLIER THAN 10.3. Our LOW $34.77 Price includes domestic shipping. Wireless N USB Adapters also available! See the Wireless section of the store.

Make any Mac with USB Wireless! Wireless N Speeds!  $34.77 Shipped! Requires OSX 10.3 up

Wireless USB 2.0 802.11 N LAN Adapter Special $34.77 shipped Provides Faster Wireless N networking on iMacs, Mini's, iBooks, Powerbooks, and MacBooks or any Mac with a USB 2 Port! Leopard Tested! Finally a reasonable cost USB Wireless solution for the Mac! Mac OSX 10.3 to 10.5 compatible! Extend your wireless coverage and experience greater speed with this Wireless N USB 2.0 Adapter! Based on the 802.11n draft 2.0 standard, this Wireless N USB Adapter delivers the highest wireless data rate so you can enjoy uninterrupted data streaming. This Wireless N USB Adapter features integrated antenna and is backwards compatible with 802.11b/g networks! With WPA2, WPA, 802.1x and WEP security encryption, the Wireless N USB Adapter helps keep your wireless connection secure from intruders. Short USB cable included. Transmit: Up to 150 Mbps, Receive: Up to 300 Mbps. Size 3x1x0.5-inches (HxWxD, approximate). Frequency Band: 2.4 - 2.5 GHz. REQUIRES: USB2 Port, OSX10.3, 10.4 or 10.5 & a compatible wireless network. Includes our OSX Super Sink DVD ($14.77 value) with drivers from us DOES NOT WORK WITH OS VERSIONS EARLIER THAN 10.3. Our $34.77 price includes domestic shipping. See the Wireless section of the store.

QuickSilver Dual 1 Ghz shutting down by itself

One of our customers sent in his QuickSilver Dual 1 Ghz G4 systems for us to repair and upgrade a bit. He was having all kinds of odd problems and could not get his Leopard install to work. His graphic card was bad (if you see artifacts in the screen and your monitor is plugged in solidly it is the card) and he had a Crucial Memory 133 Stick of RAM that reported itself as PC100 in profiler (I have seen this a lot) and so I replaced both. With those fixes Leopard installed just fine.

The worst of the problems was the machine would run about 3 hours from sitting cold and then it would shut itself down. I just knew one of the processors was not getting cooled or going bad. I swapped processors with a known good dual and it would still shut down. I installed a bit more thermal paste and a full time high velocity 60MM processor fan in place of the stock unit. I got about the same. I finally put my original dual back together and let it run all night with Leopard installed under load. It ran fine.

I finally replaced the power supply on his unit and that fixed it. Oh yes I did all the usual things, like deep level resetting the system, installing known good ram, checking all the fans etc. There was nothing wrong save the power supply would get warmed up good and shut down. I probably will install a high speed fan in the "bad" 3 hour power supply and put it in one of our units we use around here to see if a better fan was all it needed but I bet some of the capacitors are going bad. I Googled the problem but only got a hint at the power supply. I have seen many systems that run only a few minutes and shut down and know to replace the power supply right off. Never one that runs for hours.

I like to have tore my hair out on this one. With the 3 hours lapses between shutdowns in took several days to finally nail this problem. I hope my notes save you some time.

REPAIR SCAMS

So you go to the yellow pages and pick out a company to come repair XYZ appliance. They send a guy out in a truck. He comes in and gives you an estimate about $100 more than the appliance cost. So you pay them the $75 service fee. These guys never really do any work. They just go around collecting $75 from the chumps. I suspect if you told them to fix the appliance at the jacked up price they either wouldn't or couldn't do it. DON'T PAY THEM. Better yet find a name of a reputable dealer to start with. If you don't know who to ask try a local Realtor, especially one who has rental properties.

I GOT BIT! APPLE SECURITY UPDATE KILLED ME

Last night I ran the Maintenance 3.7 routine on my personal Tiger system in preparation for the latest round of Apple Updates. The routine repairs permissions (as well as a lot of other things) which I always do before I install software. The updates I needed for my system were the Security update 2009 - 001 and the Java Release 8. I never got to the Java Release as the Security update killed my system. After rebooting the system just sat with a blue screen and the little watch dial. After waiting 20 minutes I rebooted trying Safe Boot Mode by holding the shift key down. Still blue screen. I then started in Single User Mode by holding down the command and s keys and ran AppleJack (you do have AppleJack installed don't you?). I expecting this to get me back on track since it validates the drive, repairs permissions and prefs and dumps caches. Still no luck. I ended up booting from my backup (hold down the option key at startup) and using Carbon Copy Cloner to copy over the System and Library Folders only. I am back up and running this morning thanks to the backup. I checked to see where my backup was and it had everything except the security and java updates and the quicktime 7.6 update which for now I am leaving off. I checked MacFixit.com by the way and they had some reports of users having this problem but no real advice for a fix. You may not have a problem and I probably will take a run at the updates again this weekend when I have time. My point in sharing this with you is that you need to have a sound backup of your system period. If you don't plan on a lengthy reinstall process and perhaps losing lots of data. Since I only had to replace my Library and System files none of my Applications or User files were affected. I have since went back and updated my system with no problems. I am glad I keep that backup though.

DON'T LET SOME IDIOT WORK ON YOUR APPLE LAPTOP - THIS MAY INCLUDE YOU

It upsets me to see equipment come in for repair that has been damaged by some "expert" upgrading a hard drive or installing an optical. We have had many of these over the years and more recently. The correct size screws must be put back in the proper positions. Certain screws are grounding screws and if not put back in place then the unit will not work. Using the wrong tools causes screws to be stripped and jamming a flatblade in a hex screw is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Heavy handed nitwits also break frames, damage cases and otherwise cause the unit to be expensive to repair properly. Anyone using both hands to tighten up these tiny screws should be shot. The teenager at the discount store may be a genious on full size hardware, but he may not have the tools or the training for laptops. I personally know my limitations and do not work on laptops except for the ancillary things like RAM upgrades and Wireless Card installs. We have people that have the training and the tools to do proper repair work. For board level repair we send the units out. Oh yes. Leaving screws out is bad. You can't imagine what the replacement screws cost and how hard they are to find, but I guess leaving them out rather than forcing them into the wrong size hole or through a cable is better. As Dirty Harry says "A man has got to know his limitations".

DRIVE FAILURE PREVENTION

I have been fixing a lot of hard drives for folks lately. I think I need to repeat a few things. If you don't know, buying an external hard drive at the discount store is okay if you don't use the drive all the time, and format the drive for the Mac OS. If you send me a DOS formatted drive I will send it back untouched and wish you luck getting someone to fix it. I have good tools but they are Mac Tools and repair Mac formatted and partitioned drives. I will not work on LaCie External drives at all. I am not happy about working on the new Maxtor housings since many have to be destroyed to get at the mechanisms. If I sold crap like this I don't think I would want people seeing it either and I guess gluing the housings together keeps people from seeing the cheap hardware inside. I was able to recover all the drives sent to me recently and move the data to better quality hardware.

ALWAYS buy good quality drive mechanisms with FAN COOLED housing if you care about your data and run the drives all the time. The OXFORD chipsets for Firewire are a must since that is the only chipset guaranteed to be daisy chainable. (See if the kid at the discount store can tell you what chipset is used in the hard drive you are buying). You also won't have the mounting problems and less drive errors with Oxford chips. Do shut down your external drives when they are not in use. Every so often run the disk utility and run repair on the hard drive. That insures your directories are healthy and will fix small problems before they become big ones. You should also unmount external drives before turning them off but your computer probably has told you that.

New 2nd Quarter 2009 Edition! SUPER Kitchen Sink on DVD! I am very proud to be able to offer you the new Super Kitchen Sink DVD! One of the things that killed me was each time I updated the Kitchen Sink CD assortment for X is that it required me to remove a few programs. It seems like every time the programs were updated it never got smaller, so I would have to remove a few to make room. I also kept away from any large programs since I would have to sacrifice so many good smaller programs to make room. Well with DVD's space is no longer a problem. I added all the goodies I always wanted (over 4 Gigabytes of compressed files). Now you can simply load them from the DVD. Categorized, Indexed and Described and most all include links to the authors web site so you can read more about them. We were also able to include Intel versions of the updates where needed. ORDER NOW! Software section of the online store.

OSX DVD 2nd Qtr UPDATE $14.77 Shipped!

OSX SUPER Sink DVD 2009! NEW just updated DVD Version! 2nd Quarter 2009 Edition! Over 4 Gigabytes of compressed files! This must have for any OSX user! OSX SUPER Kitchen Sink 2009 features the latest software updates for your Mac. Each section is categorized and a nice description is included for each program. I carry this one in my toolbox. This is one of the best Mac software collections. 17 Categories featuring the best shareware and freeware utilities, games, Internet goodies, music, graphics and multimedia, updates, system files, diagnostics, hard to find drivers, and more, all for OSX (everthing but the Kitchen Sink). This one has all the goodies you need when setting up a new system or simply updating your old one. Something for everyone. All programs were checked for current version and updated! REQUIRES: OSX 10.2 through 10.5.x, DVD Player - Still only $14.77 shipped! SOFTWARE section of the store. OS8 or 9 2009 Kitchen Sink (1 CD) - $9.99

 

LIPSTICK ON MY MAC MAIL

I had a tech support call. The guy said he wanted to know why his email had lipstick covered lips on his emails (Tiger Mac Mail) and wondered if it was a virus. I did a Google search for lipstick mac mail and a few other variations without success. I finally got to thinking and remembered a pair of lips was a user icon. Whoever set him up as a user initially had chosen the smack.tif from the user icons and they were appearing on his mail. A quick click of the Accounts system preference and a user picture change fixed him up.

The small user pictures are in the Library/User Pictures. In this case the one chosen was smack.tif. You can easily add your own using the graphics program of your choice. Make an image 48x48 pixels and save it out as a .tif file type and add it to one of the category folders. You can then choose it as your user picture.

TROJAN INCLUDED IN THE BOOTLEG VERSION OF iWork 09

If you downloaded the bootleg copy of iWork 09 and installed it you have also installed a Trojan. Download and run the free repair utility. http://smokingapples.com/software/security-software/free-iwork-trojan-removal-tool-released/ Next time wait and purchase a legitimate copy from Apple. If you frequent the pirate sites and otherwise download indiscriminately you might want to visit http://www.securemac.com and read about the latest in trojans and other attempts to cause problems by the malware community.

NO MORE OS 10.4 TIGER? MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR INSTALL DVD

I am sometimes frustrated by the fact that Apple quits producing older software versions. Generally after a new version of the OS is released their is enough old software in the pipeline to keep folks happy for a good while who are using older equipment. Not in the case of Tiger. Since there are more than a few folks who either are still using G3 or other slower G4 equipment, or still need classic mode from running older software. I personally will be running Tiger for a long time since I still have several unreplacable pieces of software that need classic mode to run.

You can't buy a genuine Tiger DVD install these days. Ebay is filled with overpriced used and or possibly bootleg disks selling for far more than the software did originally. We have been selling legit copies of Panther with legit Tiger Upgrade disks for a price much higher than I would like at a margin that is too low. This will not work for some models of G5 for example and we have no alternatives. I guess many folks are left to either buy bootleg copies or borrow someones copy. It is a shame that Apple doesn't make a small production run to supply the pent up demand instead of forcing folks to break the law. By the way if you are not using your old original Mac OS Install CD's or DVD's (NOT machine specific) and they are in good condition check with cheryn as we buy good working copies of 7.6, 8.1, 8.5, 8.6, and 9.1 as well as OS 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4.

I think it is a good idea to make a backup of your Tiger DVD and use the backup to reinstall or run repair. Keep your original in a safe place. You need a DVD burner for this to work as well as some good DVD-R blank media.

Making a DVD Image

1. Insert the retail Mac OS X Install DVD into your drive.
2. Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).
3. In Disk Utility, you will notice a white pane on the left hand side. In the pane, select the Mac OS X Install DVD by clicking on it once.
4. Click New Image on the Disk Utility toolbar.
5. A dialog box will appear. Give the new image a name. I used 'Mac OS X Install DVD'. Select the destination where you wish to save it. Leave Image Format at Compressed (default) and Encryption at None (default).
6. Click Save to begin creating the image.
7. Once your image has been created DO NOT mount it. Leave the image alone and proceed to the next section.

Burning the Image

1. Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).
2. Click Burn on the Disk Utility toolbar (upper left).
3. Navigate to where you saved the DVD image created in the previous section. Click on the image file, then click the Burn button. Do not drag and drop the image file into Disk Utility during this step.
4. Insert a DVD when prompted and proceed to Burn it. (use good quality media)

 This procedure also works for bootable backup CD's if you bought the CD version to start with. There is a program called Clone X 3.2 that will build you a bootable copy on CD or DVD of your system. I have not used this program personally but if it works as advertised some of you may find it useful. http://mac.softpedia.com/get/System-Utilities/Clone-X.shtml is one of many places you can find it if you want to learn more about it or download it. Let me know how you do.

McColo Shut Down! There goes half the spam traffic!

You may have seen an article or two but I am here to tell you my spam traffic is less than 1/2 now. Praise to Hurricane Electric and Global Crossing for cutting McColo Corporation down. I am sure both companies took a financial hit from cutting off this company and probably some legit businesses may be suffering, I can't help but rechoice from the relief. Sorry if you are missing your influx of Viagra ads, but you probably won't have to wait too long. These guys are like cockroaches, you kill one but there are still myriads left in the crawl spaces. For now the Orkin man has been here.

One side effect seems to be that now that the spam is down to a dull roar the ISP's are now able to respond to complaints quickly and the spam percentage at least for now is continuing to decrease.

EBAY IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES, YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO GET

Every so often someone writes to me asking how I can charge $39.77 for an item they found on Ebay for $20. Most of you already know this so I may be singing to the choir so to speak. The person offering that price has one good used one. If you get this one and it works, good for you.

We generally buy the items new wholesale except for systems. We include shipping in our prices and you can buy that same item in quantity from us. We warranty the product and the manufacturer may offer even longer warranty. That isn't the case if you buy from Ebay most times. Don't get me wrong there are good buys to be had, and I too sometimes pick up an item or two especially if the item is no longer made.

On the downside, I can't tell you how many folks have called me trying to get parts or repairs to what they just bought. Well it only had 64 MB or ram, or it had the original hard drive that is worn out, or the optical doesn't read CD's well, and they really need a DVD anyway. By the time you buy the replacements or upgrades you end up spending sometimes more than a warranted system from us sells for. Oh yes how much shipping did you pay. Our units include domestic shipping in the price. Yes there are bargains to be had. Ebay works if everyone is honest. I guess you know that everyone isn't. Keep in mind the used system or item you are buying may be cleaned up a bit but it is not usually professionally tested and has no warranty on the majority of items you buy. Many overcharge for shipping. Many don't pack properly so your merchandise arrives damaged. Try getting a refund from PayPal. Ebay owns them you know. Sometimes penny-wise is pound foolish, to coin an old English phrase.

NO MORE USB 1.1 CARDS

You may not care, but if you run an older PowerPC system or Rev A. G3 Desktop or Tower the readily available and inexpensive USB2.0 cards will not work in them. We have searched the entire world looking for a source for the 1.1 USB cards that work in the older PCI based Power Macs. There are none. What we offer these days is an extremely limited quantity of used tested pulls. If you are scrapping an old Mac make sure you pull the USB 1.1 card. We pay $15 each for working units. Please let us know if you locate a dealer with quantity.

NICELY CONFIGURED

You may notice the term " nicely configured" in the description of systems we sell. Well what does that mean really and why don't you send me a list of all the stuff you put on it? If I did I would never have time to build your system. We update our Kitchen Sink Quarterly but when I am working on your system other updates may have come out. I try to always have the latest versions of our installs on each of our systems and we frequently make improvements.

I put many freeware, shareware and open source programs on each system we sell to make it easy for you. I don't know of any other dealer out there who does this. Most install an old version of the basic OS if they even do that. I have bought "configured" machines from many of our competitors over the years, to be totally unimpressed. I am impressed by how much time I would have to spend to get a machine into a useable state. They mostly are clean but have the original battery, tired old hard drive, nearly worn out optical and some odd group of RAM. Okay it does work okay but not good enough for me. You could have to spend hours just locating and updating the OS components alone. Not one system had the scuffs and scratches buffed down and none were waxed.

Even older systems that we install older OS versions on have improvements in the OS. I use the USB components from the Apple SDK for example to update it past the 9.2.2 install and use them even on the older OS8.6, 9.1 systems. I also use the later Firewire components, networking parts and pieces, etc. This allows the system you purchased to work properly with most modern USB and Firewire devices and allows you to use even an older system on your modern cable or dsl network. I also try to make sure you have a good assortment of the basic Applications and Utilities you need. All of our systems have de-archiving softwore preinstalled for example. That way you can open most attachments and files that you may download over the net. I also make sure you have a couple of web browser choices in case one doesn't work properly with the site you are accessing. We also include our Kitchen Sink CD's appropriate for the OS you have installed with our systems. That allows you to easily locate and install many other Apps and Utils for your specific needs without having to spend time searching the net and downloading files.

APPLEJACK PREINSTALLED? IF YOU DON'T HAVE APPLEJACK INSTALLED FOR OSX YOU SHOULD!

There is now a version of AppleJack for Leopard. Version 1.5 is now on the new version of the OSX Kitchen Sink. We preinstall AppleJack on all OSX systems. This little utility (Kitchen Sink OSX Diagnostics Folder or downloadable from http://applejack.sourceforge.net/) allows you to repair your disk, repair permissions, validate the system's preference files, and get rid of possibly corrupted cache files. In most cases, these operations can help get your machine back on track. The important thing is that you don't need another startup disk with you. All you need to do is restart in Single User Mode (SUM), by holding down the command and s keys at startup, and then typing applejack, or applejack auto (which will run through all the tasks automatically), or applejack auto restart (which will also restart the computer automatically at the end of the process).

The only gotcha I have found so far is on Beige G3 systems. If you had to borrow someone's monitor to install X, then your other adapted monitor probably will show you a black screen at startup. Since you simply need to type applejack auto restart, I do just that blindly and then leave the system alone. It runs through the cycles and then restarts usually getting you back up and running. There are some other warnings in the documentation so read through them thoroughly before using on your system. This is an emergency repair program and I really would not run it all the time, but it has saved me more than a few times from the hours of reinstallation.

ALWAYS RUN A BACKUP WITH OSX! Lots of words here but worth reading I think.

If there is one thing I could convince folks of when they buy a system and plan to run OSX it would be this: Run a second drive or external drive with a cloned backup of your OSX install. We can do this for you with your purchase, and certainly help you install a second or external reliable hard drive. While I find OSX generally very reliable and hardly ever have to use our backups I am glad I do when it does happen.

 OSX had been out a good while before I started using it. Why you ask? I will not run an operating system I can't make a bootable backup from. Until Carbon Copy Cloner became available running OSX was a crap shoot. After 10.2 came out it finally was a stable and reliable operating system, that I could run a backup for.

 We operate our business with 6 systems and 4 servers and most of them have X on them these days. On each OSX system I either run a second drive or an attached Firewire Drive. I keep a cloned copy of the OS on that second or attached drive. If and when we have a system go down, we simply boot from the second drive by holding down the option key at startup and choosing the alternative drive. We are back up and operational in the time it takes to boot. I think all Mac OSX users should do the same. While I have ran for years on my personal systems with little or no problems (OSX Tiger is indeed stable), things do happen and being prepared keeps you from going through the grief many of you do when something does happen to your system.

 You can then take the time to troubleshoot and repair the problem or simply replace the original install using Carbon Copy Cloner (or send it to us). I also use a program called RSYNCX to do any periodic updates to those backups, since it only updates the files that have changed. We all run weekly maintenance on our systems either using an old program called System Optimizer for Jaguar and Panther machines, and Maintenance 3.7 or 3.8 for Tiger and Leopard (all are on the Kitchen Sink for OSX). While OSX is supposed to take care of these chores automatically I find that you will do better if you use these programs to do this at your command.

 Oh yes, don't forget to boot from your backup every once in a while to make sure it is indeed bootable and in good condition. The time to find out it isn't working is not when your main hard drive just died. You can then run the disk utility from your backup and run a full repair on your main drive.

 I recommend to anyone running a Mac system that you replace your main work hard drive every 3 to 4 years (more often if your are a heavy user or run servers). They are not expensive these days, but having one fail with all your hard work, music, video, and photographs, can be. I relegate the old hard drive to back up duties then. We will preformat the drives if you ask so all you have to do is pop it in along with your old main hard drive and clone it to your new drive. I store my old backup drives in my underwear drawer (sealed airtight), just in case.

 You may also want to start thinking about off site storage. Not too many years ago we had a break in and thieves stole some of our systems. Fortunately they left the drives in my underwear drawer alone so I was back up and running quickly albeit from dated data. I now store another copy of our important data off the premises in case of breakins, fire, tornadoes, or other disasters. It usually is a month or so old and we have started using "thumb" drives. With sizes from 1GB up to 8GB commonly available it isn't expensive to keep a copy of your really important stuff. While not bootable it is fairly simple to restore your data from these units. Periodically I will retreive them and run update the data. I don't trust online storage at all having been on the web longer than most of these outfits. I see them come and go with no warning far too often and no one really knows if they are secure or not. 

Some people say well I have the software on DVD or CD so if something happens I will just reinstall. Well I personally don't have that kind of free time. An OSX install takes several hours when you consider all the updates that also have to be ran. Keeping a cloned backup is a much better use of your time in my book. A clone will usually finish while you are at lunch and RsyncX finished generally in the time it takes to pour yourself another cup of coffee.

Looking for a Good List of Open Source Software for Mac OSX?

One nicely done web site has a good list of open source software for Mac OSX is http://opensourcemac.org Of course a good bit of the programs appear on our Kitchen Sink for OSX but a few are a bit large and more special interest. This is simply a list of what is available but a good one. Most programs are Freeware or Shareware. I like and use NeoOffice these days in place of Microsoft Office and have recently added Seashore which gives you Photoshop type editing for free. I also like and use the program Unarchiver which adds itself at to finder and extends the types of files you can compress and uncompress in place of Stuffit or the built in. Before you go spending big bucks to add a program to your system, I would give some of the open source programs a try. We preinstall some of these programs when you have us configure your system with OSX and include many on the Kitchen Sink CD OSX version.

New Headgap.com System - Was Beige Minitower, Now G4 Yikes Tower - 7/6/2008

I recently retired our last Beige G3 Minitower Server. There was no real big reason and I still use my trusty G3DT for a main bench machine. The old Beige Tower I had set up is sturdy and reasonably fast with the upgrades we made. It had a G4/800 Sonnet Processor, and a 10/100 card so it was fast enough for the traffic we have on the box. I still need 8.6 (which keeps me out of the more modern G4's) to run TeleFinder Server efficiently and TeleFinder still has features not available to any OSX Server. I have moved my graphics and much of my business traffic to the new OSX Tiger Server G4 DA running 1.467 Ghz which is now handling the bulk of our traffic. When I retired a special G4 Yikes System (running 8.6) recently I had set it aside. I had used it as our business server running TeleFinder but now it was sitting dormant. I had installed one of the new IBM G3 GX 1.1 Ghz ZIF Processors in it. This one has a full megabyte of backside cache running the full processor speed. This made it lightning fast and unlike the Sonnet processors the 100 mhz bus speed of the Yikes box stays 100 mhz. TeleFinder doesn't take advantage of the Altivech processor a G4 chip offers so there was no disadvantage to the G3 chip. I added one of our Gigabit Ethernet Cards and it is plugged into our LinkSys Gigabit Hub attached to our T1 via the ADTRANS Router. I had trouble until I notices the old cable was CAT3. I replaced it with a CAT5E and will soon have everything replaced with the 5E cables. 512MB of RAM has always been enough for the TF Suite. We did install a new 80GB 7200 Seagate Drive and I left the Hitachi 80GB that was in the Beige Headgap in as a backup. I had installed one of our 120MM cooling fans in place of the stock one to help keep the system which runs 24/7 as cool as possible. It also has an ATI7000 32MB Video Card plugged in the shared LCD. I am very pleased with the new server that has now been up a few days. When you go the headgap.com and any of the BBS features, you are on this system. Not that the system was ever slouchy the new system does appear much snappier and the unit has been extremely stable. You can read a bit more about what hardware and software I run at http://headgap.com/features.spml I still have a few things to fix like automatting the backups via Retrospect again and automatting the Newsgroups downloads.

The Electronic Paperback Book?

I ran across a program called Stanza for OSX recently. It allows you to download and read books. Granted you could just use a text reader for most of the books but bookmarking and other functions are not there. This program lets you bookmark and even change fonts or the size of the text. Cheryn my wife has a bit of tendonitus and loves to read so much but gets pains in her hands from holding the paperbacks. This reader takes away all of that allowing you to move to the next page withthe touch of a button. She can now read books from her laptop or computer. How do you get the books. Well there are tons of free ones we were happy to find. Try the Baen Library for starters. Then try the Gutenburg organization. There is also an Ebook Wiki for more information. While it will be a while before I give up my paperbacks I anxiously await a really great solution for a portable reader and sorry Amazon the Kindle is not it. I do imagine books one day being purchased and downloaded much like music is and used on devices like iPhones and iPod Shuffles. The iPod Touch is awful close to a reader and I understand there are book reading apps available.

There are still no active viruses or spyware for OSX

There are only rumors of possible ones. If you must send $50 to someone send it to me instead of these virus software producers. Sure the programs find viruses in your email but they are PC viruses and none effect the Mac. I personally don't worry about PC users since they are already infected anyway. There is an average of 3 new PC viruses/spyware/Trojans a day. No matter how up to date the PC virus software is, they are already infected. Not too long ago CBL.ABUSEAT.ORG reported a bot army of over 300,000 infected machines sending out alarming numbers of pump&dump and pharmaceutical spam. You can thank your PC brethren for the majority of crap in your mailbox. Do keep up the Apple updates on your system, but as I always say, run repair permissions before and after installing any software. Check http://www.securemac.com/ the next time you start worrying about it.

Recently June 2008 a couple of Trojans have cropped up. MacUser reports an AppleScript called ASthtv05 and another cleverly called PokerGame are around. They require you download and install them before they perform their nasty bag of tricks. NONE OF THE REGULAR VIRUS SOFTWARE for Macs will stop these since it is an AppleScript you have to give permission to install and so far there are ZERO VIRUSES. Please note that the only place I have ever heard about these trojans from were in the same sentence with the antivirus software manufacturers that were also selling the fix for $50, which is a bit fishy if you ask me.

Okay so you work in a mixed office and your techs insist you run virus software on your Mac. Download the FREE ClamXav software or copy it from the Kitchen Sink for OSX Utilities folder. They regularly update the definitions so your Mac can kill the PC virus attachments. There is no better virus software in my book and the price is right.

iMac G4 Neck Fix?

Many of you that own the 1/2 Basketball iMac G4 with the screen on a swiveling neck, may have experienced the droops after using the machine a few years. I heard rumor that there was a special neck tool but could never find anyone who owned up to having one. I mentioned this to one of our customers and he shared his home grown solution.

Jim Sulanowski writes: over the weekend I discovered a great Tim Allen solution. I took a small C-clamp and put it on both sides of the loose joint and tightened it down a bit. Viola! It now stays where I put it.

AppleWorks 6

Many of you have AppleWorks 6 installed on your 9 or OSX System. Apple put it on many of their systems and I still like its simplicity and speed for basic word processing. It does much more and many folks don't realize that the built in draw program is really an advance copy of the old MacDraw program but it will not open your old files. It will allow you to recreate them and will open any saved out in .pict format though not editable. It will also run on systems with X installed in native mode without having to have OS9 emulation running. This means it will even run on the newer Intel based systems (although they are slow since they run in a PPC emulation). This gives you a bridge for your older ClarisWorks files as well as the even older MacWrite, MacDraw and MacPaint files.

If your AppleWorks SpellChecker isn't working, choose the dictionaries from the AppleWorks Essentials Library!

Some of you have complained that the built in spellchecker doesn't work on your system. Some of you have a nasty habit of dragging the Application from its folder rather than using an alias (stop it). You simply need to take the time to link the dictionaries. For some reason under OSX it does not automatically link those and you do have a choice of what dictionary you want. In Word Processing mode select the Edit Menu and Writing Tools. Use the Choose Dictionaries to locate AppleWorks Essentials/Dictionaries and select the appropriate files. Continue this with the user, hyphenation and thesaurus files. It even highlights which choices you have and most of you will want to select the English versions. Once done it will remain linked until you change it.

It is unfortunate that Apple discontinued this program and its support. They have come up with replacement programs that in my opinion are excellent but beyond the scope of many users and their needs. For Microsoft compatibility I still like and use the FREE NeoOffice in OSX. It opens and saves in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint file types and that allows me to open those file types on my system.

G4 7455 PROCESSOR SHORTAGE - Oh No! No more FastMac Processors!

One of my favorite upgrades and processor choices for me was the FastMac 1.467 Ghz Single Processor Upgrade. We have sold hundreds of these units over the time they have been available. I use them on our Servers and anywhere someone needs fast compatible processing. This same series processor was used by Apple in production and it works with ALL versions of the OS from 9.2.2 up, and that is something the 7447 series processors can't claim since they don't work at all in Jaguar and require Panther 10.3.5 or later to boot. FastMac notified us that they could no longer get the chips and that production from Freescale (was Motorola) was unlikely since the runs have to be so large. We will be substituting the same chip made by a different manufacturer who still has a small stash of these chips. They carry the same 3 year warranty. If you are planning this upgrade on your own G4 do it soon as they have a limited supply as well.

PS. I don't like the Newer Tech Processors since their firmware updates are wiped when you zap the pram. This is a deal breaker gotcha in my book, and I won't install them.

POWERMAC G5 AND SCSI

If you are moving up to a G5 and think you can still use your old SCSI Scanner or drives you may be in for a surprise. The PCI-X bus requires a 3.3V SCSI Card keyed properly for the slot with the proper ROM. I have boxes of SCSI cards we have pulled from systems we have bought over the years and none of them will work. There is no such thing as a cheap one and prices are around $300 and up. The ATTO ExpressPCI UL4S seems to be the card of choice for the G5's. We carry the adapters if you aren't using ultrawide devices. You are on your own though in finding the card. It probably will be cheaper for you to replace whatever it was you were going to run or to keep an old G4 around with a SCSI card just to use the device. If you must though the new cards that do work are lightning fast.

G4 MIRROR DRIVE DOOR FAILURES - Keep your vent clean! If you are on a G4 Mirror Door system (G4MDD) the one with the Mirror Front and 4 Buick Roadmaster Vent Ports, shut down your system and look up under the front foot (you will have to pick the unit up). This is where your machine draws cooler air and it probably is packed with dust. Every unit I have checked had more lint on it than a dryer screen after drying a load of new cotton towels. No air flow means parts heat up and the fans run all the time. Eventually your processor will fail and it is even worse on the dual processor units since one is not cooled as the other. Keep it clean or suffer the consequences. Failed power supply, processors and ram are what happens. I use a dampened rag and brush all the lint and dust out and then a can of air to blow out the dust. Thanks to reader David Joern who writes: ....thank you Bob for that article detail....good god, no wonder the fan was so loud earlier today....Real quiet now.

MAKING INCREMENTAL BACKUPS OF OSX

For my servers I use a small program called RsynchX 2.1. It has a decent and fairly uncomplicated interface. The scripting is a bit daunting but you can automate your jobs. I simply just do it each evening. You simply drag your source and destination to the graphic interface and select what you want to do from the buttons. They can even be a network drive you are connected with. It is free to use but I think they take donations. You can choose to make the drive or partition you are backing up to bootable and it even handles the older OS9 files if you have them on your system. It has proven reliable to me. It requires OSX 10.1.5 or later and I have used it personally all the way up through Tiger. I haven't tried it with Leopard but suspect it will work as well since it calls to the built in rsync that normally is only available to terminal users. It is on the OSX Kitchen Sink in the utilities folder, but can be downloaded from the link above or your favorite Mac Shareware site.

BURNING ELECTRONICS SMELL

Cheryn said something is not right as we were about to retire last night. She noticed an odd smell in the server area. I noticed the black screen on our FileMaker server and noticed that same aroma. We quickly unplugged the unit. For some reason the power supply thought it was a good time to die. I pulled the machine down to the test bench and noticed that the power supply was extremely hot. Other components in the system were quite warm as well. I pulled another G4 DA and moved my old components over one at a time. I was back up and running in about 1/2 hour and hope it was just the power supply. Since we were on a good quality UPS I am fairly certain a power fluctuation was not the reason it decided to die. I always tell folks replacing a power supply to make sure their other components are responsible. I have been doing this long enough to have learned that sometimes dual processor systems sometimes have one processor starting to go out and they take the power supply out. Putting a new power supply in will only fix it for a while and the same problem will occur again if you don't fix the problem. I hope the processor on my unit was not responsible and it was just a fluke. In all these years this is the first time I have ever had a power supply go out. I added an upper level fan to our server rack. It has started to warm up here and perhaps that may have contributed.

SLEEPLESS - NODDING OFF AND NOT ABLE TO WAKE UP

A couple of times now I have had folks describe their machines as shutting down or locking up (freezing). I eventually figured out that they had USB2 cards installed and had turned the sleep feature back on. What happens is the machine goes to sleep and cannot wake up. You sit there with a black screen and have to force a power down by holding in the button before the machine will restart. If you are running OS9 you can't just turn off or discard the Energy Manager parts it leaves the preferences that were already set. You need to go into the energy manager and swing the slider to the off position. In OSX the same holds true. Turn off the sleep totally. You can use the screen saver mode on most units but do pick something simple. The more complex the screen saver the more likely you are to have trouble. A few of you may not have trouble with sleep mode in X. Apple did fix a few problems with the later software. Do be aware though that a USB2 card or even perhaps a device you have plugged in can cause sleep related issues. I choose to turn mine off totally and shut down the machines when they are not in use, since I will not do without the device or USB2 card.

DON'T GET RIPPED OFF - WIRELESS RANGE EXTENDER SCAMS

Do you remember the little stickers they use to sell to extend the range of your cell phone? Those people should have been put in jail but nothing ever happened. I have talked with what I thought were intelligent people who though the little stickers actually worked. Well now there are companies selling gizmo's to extend your wireless computing range. Be wary of anyone making outrageous claims. Adding a higher gain antenna is sound science. Adding another wireless access point is also sound science. People who make networking equipment like LinkSys, Netgear and Dlink would be in this business if real improvements could be had and do make products that work. If you travel look for a directional antenna (like a cantenna) that will hook to your existing setup and enable you to point directly at the wireless source where you are at. Like anything else on this earth though look for the misdirection, there is no real magic.

OSX Tip - Stool Softener For Your Constipated OSX System?

Personally I handle all the maintenance on my system with an Automater App called Maintenance (10.4 and later, you can find it in the Automator Actions Section). OSX is supposed to perform maintenance automatically. They improved it in Tiger so that it supposedly runs even if your computer was off or asleep when it was scheduled but it doesn't always. You certainly want to do this if you are on Panther or Jaguar, but folks on Tiger or Leopard systems may benefit from running it regularly.

• Open terminal from the utilities folder on your system.
• Type the following in the command line and then leave the computer alone until it finishes.
• sudo periodic daily weekly monthly (you may get a warning and indeed you do not want to play around with the sudo command).
• Press return and it will prompt you to type in your password before it runs.
• Once complete you can type in exit and logout and or just simply quit the Terminal program and RESTART YOUR SYSTEM.

This forces the daily, weekly and monthly maintenance to run on your system. Do this about once a month or get system optimizer off the Kitchen Sink CD (Tiger and below) which does more and run it weekly. NOTE THIS MAY TAKE SOME TIME IF YOU HAVE NEVER RAN IT, BE PATIENT. Prepare to be amazed on how much better your system runs if the maintenance hasn't been running!

Apple does have an Automator Script that will do this for you without terminal. It is called Maintenance. The version is for both Tiger and Leopard. It works well and should be safe to use since it only runs the built in maintenance. Of course it is also on the Kitchen Sink for OSX.

It's hard for me to think that way?

It sometimes helps if you understand how things work. This sometimes surprises me, but I guess it really shouldn't. I had a customer call recently and say they were disappointed with their purchase and that many of the applications were not working. After a bit I finally figured out they were using the recent applications folder from the OS9 menu bar. Of course when I configure a system I load various test applications from attached hard drives as well as a few applications from the actual hard drive but not very many. I hope they understood but am not sure they really got it. The recent application folder (from the OS9 Apple Menu) is up to the last 10 applications loaded on the machine. I guess I should clear this folder out but in all these years this is the only time it was ever a problem. Most people have been taught to open an application you open up the hard drive and then the applications folder. Of course it is a shortcut once you have recently loaded an application and that is what makes the Mac OS great. They give you easy ways to do repetitive work. The correct way though to open an application though is to find it in the actual applications folder and open it from there. I guess the last computer they had someone had used it a bit and luckily the recent application folder was fairly populated. Unfortunately for them they may have missed dozens or more programs that may have resided on their hard drive simply by looking in the applications folder on the hard drive.

Since I use dozens of programs regularly I never go into the habit of looking for them in the recent applications folder. I do use it though when I know I was just in the application recently and it saves a step.

I also see folks pull the application out of its install folder and move it to the desktop. Then they wonder why the plugins stopped working or they lose their bookmarks or the dictionary breaks, etc. You must leave the applications in the install folder, there may be other parts that load and when you move the actual app you change the path to the accessories breaking them. You can make an alias and drag it to the desktop or in the case of OSX and the dock you can drag the app to the dock and it will automatically make an alias in the dock. Oh yes, the ? mark symbols in OS9 stand for the help files and are not a motherboard problem.

Bad News for us Mac G3-G4 users - no more new 120 GB Hard Drives

I had a hunch that this day would come. Most of you know that the largest hard drive you can install on a G4 prior to the 2002 QuickSilver was 132GB's. Practically that means that the largest drive you can install on the stock bus of the G3 or G4 is 120 GB's. We have sold many hundreds of this size drive over the past years. It seems that everyone has stopped producing them moving up to the 160 GB and larger. These of course do not format properly. We can still get 80 GB drives and a pair of them will do most people nicely but if you really needed that extra space, then your affordable option is to go to the SATA card and drives that do not have the limit problems. We are working on a lower cost solution. Watch our feature pages and store. In the meanwhile we were able to find a small supply of 120 GB Refurbished Hitachi Drives. I would use these as data drives and put in a new 80 as my main drive. Oh yes, let me add that formatting a 160 or larger to the 128 GB it ends up is a bad idea. The drives don't last long set up that way. I am not sure why.

Drive Formatting Safety

We recently added a gizmo to our small arsenal of tools that allows us to automatically format drives to Department of Defense level security. If you format lots of drives like we do then you might want to look into one. It is called the Drive eRazer and is available from Wiebtech.com. It really doesn't do anything you can't do on your computer using the Mac disk utilities, except that it doesn't tie up a computer to do it. If you ever trade in equipment you don't have to worry if it comes here. Every hard drive we receive gets the once over from this gear, assuring complete erasure as well as the great job it does checking the drives hardware. If you buy a used drive from us it has been formatted and tested on this device.

Psst, Hey Buddy, want to buy a watch?

I still have an unfiltered E-mailbox I set up many years ago. It lets me see how much spam is being produced and see what viruses and other crap PC users are getting sent. The account averages around 430 messages a day and none are to me. I haven't advertised this email address in over 10 years which is long in Net Years. What astounds me is that these guys keep doing this because idiots evidently are still clicking on the links so they are still getting paid. I am not sure about you but I wouldn't buy a Rolex from a guy in an alley, or ED medication from Russia or China, or refinance from someone who can't spell it from Zaire. If you must try the Hoodia diet aids, go to Walgreens. If you get crap like this in your email box, don't open it. It probably has an image linked that lets the sender know you are looking at the mail. Delete it without opening, and have a talk with your friends who are probably still clicking. I am not sure who would buy from someone who starts out their message your Farmacy order is in, but evidently they are still out there. I guess they take the PE pills and then go gambling at the online casino's with the money they saved from lowering the Morttggage, wearing their new Raolex, and sporting their new broadsword.

Got the TurboTax Blues?

The latest version of TurboTax for Mac requires a G3 or better processor, 256 MB of ram, and Mac OSX 10.4 Tiger. Let me first say that 256 MB or ram is not enough really to run the operating system by itself. 384 would get you by but 512 MB or more is what you really need. We carry the ram and the OSX Tiger software (see our Memory or Software section of our store) and can help you upgrade your machine or if needed sell you an affordable qualifying system. We are here to help!

We just got a better buy on both 256 and 512 MB Mac compatible SDRAM. Check out our lower prices.

Do you need the CD version of Tiger?

Give us a call when you are ready to order and we will supply the CD version of OSX Tiger at your request.

OSX - To Journal or not to Journal

I had someone ask about Journaling. If you run a server you already probably know about this and have it on your server since it gives you a bit of extra protection and reliability. If you hadn't noticed it became an option for your Mac Extended Hard Drive starting in Panther. Next time you repair permissions using the disk utility in Tiger look at the screen and you may noticing the Journaling option button. I have a rule of thumb about Journaling. I turn it on my boot drive and off on my data drives. What it does is keep additional information as you use your hard drive. In the event of a power dip or crash when you power back up it uses this info to restore the drive. Some folks think that everything should have it turned on but it costs speed. If you use your data drive for video project work for example it slows down the drive access enough it may cause you problems. Burning large amounts of data to an optical may be slowed down enough you may have a failure is another reason you may want to turn it off. Since the drive utility makes it easy to turn on an off you may want to use this to your advantage. Turn it off when you need max performance and on the rest of the time for safety.

Leopard OSX Update 10.5.1, 10.5.2, 10.5.3, 10.5.4, 10.5.5, 10.5.6, and now 10.5.7

As usual I recommend you review the MacFixit.com Website about the trouble folks are having with the update before installing. The link to Apple's download page is here. I have downloaded and installed with no adverse reactions. As usual I ran repair permissions before and after my install. Some may say this really isn't necessary but it doesn't take long and a botched permission can keep software from installing and I never take pleasure in reinstalling from scratch. Better safe than sorry. If you have good bandwidth it is always better to manually download the COMBO UPDATE. This one is a whopper.

I can make any Sawtooth or later G4 Leopard Compatible

I sometimes hear of a computer sales person telling a customer to forget that old machine it can't run the latest operating system. Granted these days the little $599 Mini looks real attractive. Of course you have to add a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, to the price plus tax and shipping. But it is still a good buy for many folks. For some though that need to run the odd older Mac app or already have investment in their old G4 tower like lots of ram and larger hard drive or processor upgrade. I still like to boot into OS9 to run an application or two, and that is something none of the new Macs can do at any price. REMEMBER NO CLASSIC MODE ON THE INTEL PROCESSOR MACS. ALSO REMEMBER LEOPARD DOES NOT HAVE A CLASSIC MODE. If you are on a dual bootable machine you can still boot into OS9 if you have it installed.

What Leopard needs that most don't have is an 867 mhz or faster G4 processor. The Sonnet 1 Ghz G4 Processor upgrade meets that need and at less than $175 shipped it makes short work of not having fast enough processor and of course for a bit more you can go even faster. The second thing is a Quartz Extreme support Graphics Card. Most all early G4's have the 16 MB ATI AGP Graphics Card. Our NVIDIA 5200 128 MB Graphics Card not only supports Quartz Extreme, its 5200 GPU also supports core video and is only $99.77 shipped. Of course you may need to add a bit more ram, perhaps a DVD burner, USB2 Card, Wireless Card etc. You can easily extend the life of your old trusty G4 for less money than buying new and run the latest operating system if you choose. You can do this yourself but if you would rather you can ship your unit here and have us install the upgrades for only a few dollars more, plus get your machine thoroughly cleaned and tested.

Do you have less than an 867 MHz G4 and want to run Leopard?

I recently added a program to our OSX Kitchen Sink called Leopard Assist. It allows you to install Leopard on some earlier G4 systems. I know that Leopard would run okay on a iMac G4 700 or 800 for example with enough ram. Click on the link to go to the web site and download it yourself. Personally I am still running Tiger and will for the immediate future.

DO NOTE THAT LEOPARD REQUIRES A G4 PROCESSOR and will not run on an iBook G3, or iMac G3 no matter what you do. If you are on one of these systems plan to run Tiger OS10.4.11, which is still currently supported by Apple and a better OS in my book for the older machines.

Why I don't run Leopard on my personal machine

I think many of the new features Leopard offers are wonderful and now that it is up to the 10.5.4 level it is a fairly stable and reliable operating system. The gotcha for me though is there is no classic mode. I still use a few older software programs that use the OS9 emulation mode and booting into 9 takes too long. I rarely boot into 9 these days unless I am going to be using a classic app like Pagemaker for a large job. Tiger OSX 10.4.11 is very stable, and leaner that Leopard. Tiger is still currently supported by Apple which is a good thing for us folks that still use older software. It also runs on older slower machines including systems with G3 processors.

Leopard OSX - Testing in Progress! Apple's Leopard requirements

I got my copy of Leopard OS10.5 Saturday morning and installed and began testing it on our equipment. My first surprise was that it wouldn't install on a QuickSilver 800 I had on the bench (yeah I read the requirements but I thought it still would let me install). The installer refused. I installed a FastMac 1.5Ghz and tried again. It installed perfectly from our Pioneer A15 SuperDrive unit we sell which recognizes it straight up with no patches. I installed it on the Seagate 120 GB drives we sell. I tested our NVIDIA 5200 AGP card and it reports Hardware Accelerated and Quartz Extreme. Our USB 2 5 port card also reports as a USB 2 High Speed Bus and gives good transfer rates. I have since ran Leopard on a 533 MHz Digital Audio w/768mb of ram. It ran okay but was sluggish.

Leopard actually runs okay on processors slower than 867 MHz as long as you have sufficient ram. Apple put a gotcha in the installer. Get someone with a qualifying system to connect your system in Firewire Target mode and install that way, or use Carbon Copy Cloner from a Firewire drive with an installation on it.

"Do know that Leopard is a new version of Mac OSX and it will likely not be as stable as Tiger, nor quite as fast on older equipment." Do weigh the benefits and consider some of the disadvantages before upgrading! Since we run older software we will not be upgrading for a long while.

I put back the 800 MHz Processor after some initial testing and once installed Leopard runs just fine on it. Apple put a gotcha in it that really is unnecessary in my opinion. Someone will come out with a hack soon enough (Leopard Assist) to let you install it on older slower machines. Performance wasn't bad with 1 GB of memory. I guess they want to force us to buy new hardware. The Sonnet 1 Ghz and above or the FastMac processor is a great upgrade and it works okay with the installer. They set the minimum processor install at 867 mhz and I guess it looks for that speed of processor. Do note the problem with DVD playback noted below on systems with 16 MB video cards.

Password and Keychain Grief?

Download the Login and Keychain Update from the Apple web site. This has been superseded by the 10.5.1 update.

What No Classic Mode in Leopard? Keep Tiger if you have older software you need.

One other major gotcha for many folks is that Leopard does NOT HAVE A CLASSIC MODE. If you must run an older program you can boot back into 9.2 on dual bootable machines and use your program. If your computer is not 9 bootable then you had best keep Tiger around a while longer. I think some folks will probably keep a second drive with Tiger and classic installed if they must run a classic application and they have a system that only boots in X. Of course if you are on one of the systems with the Intel Processors you have no classic mode either.

No DVD PlayBack?

Unless you have a 32 MB Quartz Extreme qualified Video Card, the DVD Player refuses to work. I tested a 16 MB stock ADC ATI Radeon Card and the DVD player failed. It works fine with our NVIDIA 5200 Upgrade Cards or a stock 32 MB NVIDIA or RADEON Card as long as they qualify for Quartz Extreme. It is kinda cool with visual image chapter markers. There are alternative DVD players if you choose not to upgrade your graphics card right now so you can work around this.

I will not list the G4 Sawtooth, Gigabit Ethernet, or Digital Audio systems on our web site as Leopard compatible though many of them will run it just fine if they have faster than 867 MHz processors. The DVD playback will not work on these models without a graphics card upgrade. Any of the models with the faster processors will run Leopard and with the addition of the NVIDIA 128 MB Upgrade Card will run great and allow DVD playback with the newer player.

No Modem?

I have been told by one of our customers that Leopard disabled his ability to use his modem on several of his systems he has installed on.

Leopard's Time Machine requires a high capacity second drive or an External

I tested our Silver Bullet Hard Drives during the install and successfully cloned the install using the more advanced version 3.0 of the Carbon Copy Cloner program. The Time Machine recognizes the drive straight up. We do recommend you reformat the drive using Leopard's disk utility. A large internal hard drive would also work but the early G4's have the 120 GB limit. You are better off with a large capacity external Firewire Drive like our FAN COOLED Silver Bullets, or consider adding a SATA Card and one or two drive up to 1 Terabyte in capacity.

Can I use Leopard's Time Machine with my non-Apple network drive?

One of our customers gave us this tip.

James Buttle writes: Time Machine
Here is the full how to and why it can work on this link http://www.macinstruct.com/node/234

To make a long story short you simply open terminal and type or copy and paste in the following:
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

As you can see it simply shows the "unsupported" Network Volumes. You can even use a FAT32 volume for Time Machine using this command. Thanks James!

Leopard Precautions - archive and install when upgrading!

Make sure you read MacFixit.com notes before installing. They recommend strongly new install or archive and install rather than upgrade. Also remember to backup any crucial data (or better yet keep a cloned copy of your old install). Run drive repair and repair permissions before starting the install.

Leopard INCOMPATIBLE PROGRAMS - You best check first if you work on your Mac

Before you jump out there and install Leopard, if you use your system for work, you might want to note that more than a couple of programs will not run under Leopard until the software manufacturer releases an upgrade. Adobe CS3 problems may put a cramp in a lot of peoples ability to work, as may QuickBooks Pro 2007, or Adobe Acrobat 7 users not being able to print. MacRumors.com has thoughtfully put up a list of incompatible programs as well as listed some programs that just have certain issues. They also include links for many of the software manufacturers statements page. You probably will find this page helpful and you may want to hold off updating to Leopard if you are a heavy user of these incompatible programs until the companies release an update.

Bob's Prediction: LEOPARD OSX 10.5 REQUIREMENTS? Will your old machine make the grade?

How did I do? Apple posted the Leopard requirements today 10-16-07. The G4 867 MHz requirements did surprise me a bit. Everything else is as expected. My bet though is that it will install on a slower G4, but perhaps not run so sprightly and of course lots of ram helps OSX a lot. Processor upgrade time for a few of you if you expect to run Leopard. We will have tested and qualified our upgrade parts as soon as we can.

THIS WAS MY PREDICTION: Are you concerned your old system won't meet the specifications to run the new Leopard 10.5 OS? Keep in mind this is my speculation but go back and read this after the release. Today's date is 9-26-07. Anything you read anywhere at this point is speculation since Apple is keeping this under wraps for now. I will go on the record saying that it will require a bit faster G4 processor (probably in the 700 MHz range or better). G3's probably won't qualify and have been left out of in version 6 or later iLife packages already for some pieces. They will probably require a Quartz Extreme capable (32 MB or more) video card. RAM will probably be 384 or 512 MB but you will need at least double that since you already really do to run Tiger well. How can I guess what the requirements will be with any confidence. I look at the currently supported machines. The QuickSilver 2002 model is listed at that is the hardware installed on that model from the factory as well as the iMac G4, eMac, PowerBook G4 DVI. It stands to reason that current Apple supported hardware will meet the requirements. One thing I am not sure about though is the iBooks. Any of the iBooks that have 16 MB of VRAM or more are listed as currently supported and many of these had G3 processors and of course had less than Quartz Extreme video cards in them. If my logic is correct that currently supported machines will run Leopard may not apply to these or Apple may indeed have much lower requirements than I am speculating.

"Even if the processor requirements are higher the Upgrade Processors for your G4 AGP machine will likely far exceed those requirements." Remember the new Intel based Macs do not offer classic or the ability to boot into OS9.

One thing we already know of sure is that while some of these models only had a CD, we already know Apple has went to DVD install disks. I will guarantee that a DVD will be required to install the new software and that Apple will not likely release a CD version.

Can your old G4 make the grade. Yes is my quick answer. You may have to install and upgraded processor, more ram, perhaps a larger hard drive, and likely a better video card, as well as a DVD drive if you don't already have one. Most of you need that now if you want to run the new iLife packages. We have the items you need to upgrade. They will be compatible and we will test them thoroughly when Leopard comes out. Anything that has any gotcha's we will list in the product description.

Some of you will own older systems that can not be upgraded sufficiently to meet the new specifications. If your machine is still meeting your needs with the older OS versions I wouldn't worry about it and suggest you continue to use it until it doesn't. I still use hardware and software daily that the latest OS it will run is OS8.6. It serves my needs and if not I install faster hardware so that it can. Let us know if we can be of assistance.

Sonnet's new Encore/MDX G4 Duet 1.8 Ghz Dual Processors in a Mirror Door G4

I finally got around to installing one of Sonnet's new Encore/MDX G4 Duet 1.8 Ghz Dual Processors in a Mirror Door (G4MDD). The unit in question had a dual 1 Ghz processor originally and it would work about 10 minutes before the fans would start roaring and about 5 minutes later would shut down. The guy was working by leaving the door open and laying a small 6 or 8" desk fan on the processor. The new processor went in easily with the detailed pictured instructions that Sonnet is famous for. I like to not got the firmware updated since the stock processor kept shutting down until I used his fan trick. That is definitely one gotcha in this unit. Since they use a cooler faster 7447 series processor the firmware must be updated before the Sonnet processor can be installed. Once installed the cooler and faster running Sonnet is a joy. No more roaring fans!! The fellow has been back working several weeks now and is very happy. Worth every penny he says. This may be a fix for your noisy Mirror Door and will substantially improve performance for you as well. You can order them online from the accelerator/G4 AGP section of our online store.

WORTH REPEATING - HAVING TROUBLE GETTING A USB ITEM TO SHOW UP? Large size thumbdrives, cameras etc. not working?

Some cameras, scanners and newer printers (and even some of the larger thumb drives) seem to draw more power than can be supplies via the PCI USB Card or even the built in port on some models. Some even say they will not work with a card and require "native USB". Most times it is because the device tries to draw more power than the bus can supply. The card keeps itself from damage by shutting down. Unplugging the device and restarting the machine usually fixes it but sometimes zapping the pram is required to restore a shut down port. The solution is a GOOD POWERED HUB. The hub we carry is good for both USB 1.1 and 2.0 devices and supplies 2.+ AMPs of additional power. This makes many problems go away. Don't be suckered into buying a lower powered hub at a bargain price. 450 milliamps is not enough for many high demand items.

If a device doesn't work with one of our USB2 cards and you have tried a high powered hub, most likely the problem is software related or device related. If your iPod isn't mounting make sure you have the latest iPod software installed before looking for other problems. It is amazing how well things work when the proper software is installed. See the Firewire/USB area for more tips.

WHY DON'T YOU CARRY WIRELESS KEYBOARDS AND MICE?

They don't work. Okay well they don't work well enough to suit me anyway. I don't like things that skip and delay. They are probably okay for the net browsing etc. but if you use your system for work, I don't think you will like them either. If you find one that doesn't hiccup let me know. I would like it if they worked as well as wired. Also remember that wireless drivers have to load so if you want to start in SAFE BOOT MODE by holding the shift key down at startup, or if you need to ZAP THE PRAM, or startup in Single User Mode for any reason, you must first reattach your wired keyboard.

StanStodden writes: I have been using the Microsoft Wireless 4000 set/system for about 2 months. The keyboard shortcuts and all work with a Mac and flawless I might add. The set sells at Sam's Wholesale for about $70. You should have someone test it out. It really works great!!

Bob: Unfortunately we don't have a deal with Microsoft so I don't carry their products, but most folks can probably buy them at the local discounter. I take it Stan is using them in OSX. I wonder if they work at all in 9 or if you can hold the shift key down and use Safeboot mode etc. Thanks for the tip, Stan we appreciate it.

NEW ADOBE CS3 REQUIREMENTS

Adobe has raised the requirements to run CS3 applications. The biggest change that effects most people is the 64 MB VRAM. We now stock 3 different Video Cards for your G4 system so that you can meet or exceed the requirements. Our new best selling 128 MB card features the NVIDIA 5200 Graphics Engine and supports CORE imaging and both DVI and VGA out. At a delivered price of less than $100 it makes it quite the buy. Of course your system will probably exceed the processor and memory requirements but from practical experience I can tell you that you will also want as much ram and you can afford and as fast a processor as you can get. These are all easy upgrades for you to perform. We generally send pictured instructions but you can always call our tech support line and we will walk you through any problems that may arise.

OSX RESTORE TIP

I assume all of you are running with a second drive or external bootable and have a cloned copy of your install. Lets say you just updated to 10.4.15 and stuff stopped working or the system is munged up period. A fast fix that won't interfere with your current files in the User or Applications folders is simply to boot from your backup and use Carbon Copy Cloner to ONLY REPLACE the Library and System Folders. You will be back up with the older working version of the OS in short order and you won't lose any changes. Make sure you run repair permissions after you complete the clone.

OSX Tiger 10.4.1x Update (or any major version update for that matter) WAIT!

I just downloaded the COMBO UPDATE and will be installing it in a few systems. Remember about my rule of running the disk utility and repairing permissions before and after a major install! Also download the COMBO UPDATE rather than let the system update itself, when you decide to attempt this install or any major update. This looks like a fairly major install after reviewing the changes. I will be watching