Mini CDs and Slot-loading Drives
From Ed Hurtley
The slot-load "gumdrop" iMac G3's optical drives support mini (8
cm) CDs just fine. I wouldn't put any funny shape (business card,)
discs in, but I put standard 8 cm mini CDs in one regularly.
And, yes, any tray load drive should support 8 cm discs. (And
most support odd shaped discs as well, as long as they stay put in
the 8cm dent.)
Hi Ed,
Thanks for the empirical observations. I don't
disbelieve you, but you're braver than I.
I do have a good old slot-load QueFire! FireWire
CD-burner that reads mini-disks just fine.
Charles
From Ed Hurtley
It's interesting, Apple has two views on it.
Probably for simplicity, they have an article that basically
says "tray-load only for funny discs" (https://web.archive.org/web/20071025025918/http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58641)
but they also have an article specifically for the slot-load iMac
G3s that says 8 cm discs (they call them 77 mm) are fine (https://web.archive.org/web/20080423101220/http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58465
the note at the bottom.)
The Cube manual (http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/PowerMacG4_CubeAbout.PDF,
page 76) also states compatibility with 8 cm discs, as does the
Gigabit TiBook's manual (
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/PowerBookG4_15inchGigEthernetGettingStarted.PDF,
page 58) but on the TiBook, only the DVD-ROM drive supports it, not
the CD-RW drive. (The later Combo and SuperDrives also do not
support it.)
So, in general, it appears that slot-load CD-ROM and DVD-ROM
drives work, but not CD or DVD writers. (The slot load iMac article
specifically refers only to the original generation of
slot-loaders, before CD-RW drives.)
74 Minute Discs Solution to CD-R Reading
Problems
From Thierry Raoul in response to Clamshell iBook Unable to Read Some
CD-Rs.
Hello Charles,
The CD-R problem with my old iBook was what I suspected: burning
74' CD-R, I can read on my iBook what I could not read when burnt
on 80' CD-R.
I think it's an interesting experience to share, but I don't
know what is the best location to share it.
Now another question: Do you have any idea of where I can find
the specifications of the iBook motherboard?
I'd like to know if I can install a faster CPU, a faster [hard
drive]?
Best Regards,
Thierry Raoul
Hello Thierry,
No vendor has ever offered a CPU upgrade for any
iBook. While I assume it would be technically possible, as it is
with the Titanium and Aluminum PowerBooks (which also have their
CPU soldered to the logic board), the inherent low cash value of
used iBooks makes the economics unpromising.
With a clamshell, it might be possible to swap in
a logic board from a 466 MHz iBook
SE. WeLoveMacs
offers them at just under $400.
But in my estimation that would be the outer limit
of what is practical, and it would probably be better to just look
for a good used SE.
You can find the Apple Developer Note on the
Clamshell here:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/Developer_Notes/ Macintosh_CPUs-G3/iBook30Sept00/iBook.pdf
A faster hard drive is no problem, other than the
major hassle of installing it, which involves a major teardown,
which is not easy with the Clamshell. You can check out what you
would be in for on
iFixIt.
You might find my column on upgrading the
Clamshell helpful: Getting the Most
Out of the Clamshell iBook.
Charles
From Thierry Raoul
Hello Charles,
Thanks a lot for the advice and the wonderful links. Now that I
know that iBook CPU are soldered . . . There is still
room for an HDD upgrade, and even I may try the optical drive
upgrade.
Best Regards,
Thierry
How Reliable is the iBook G4?
From Tom Gabriel
Hey Charles,
Did you see the new problem with iBooks, this time with the
G4?
Check it out at Better Late than
Never: Danes Find iBook Design Flaw.
First the G3s, now these - I was thinking of getting an iBook G4
and am now reconsidering.
What do you think?
God Bless,
Tom Gabriel
Hi Tom,
Well, don't hold it against me if you do buy a G4
iBook and have trouble, but here's what I think.
In the MacInTouchiBook and
PowerBook Reliability survey (which is not scientific since
respondents are self-selected, but with more than 10,000 readers
reporting on 41 models is more than broad enough to give a fairly
reliable statistical indication of relative reliability), the G4
iBook scores from middle-of-the-road to better than average - doing
roughly as well as the PowerBook G3
Series, which is widely lauded for reliability, and
substantially better than the PowerBook
G4 Titanium models. If there was an extraordinary defect issue
with the G4 iBook, it's difficult to fathom why it did not show up
in this survey, which conversely showed that these computers were
significantly better than average in repair incidence in their
second and third year of service.
In terms of logic board defects, the area of focus
in the Danish report, MacInTouch survey respondents who reported on
the eight respective iBook G4 models referenced (four 12" variants
and four 14" variants) logged repairs in this category at rates of
10%, 6%, 3%, 2%, 12%, 7%, 6%, and 4% respectively, which is as good
as or better than any other Apple laptop during the period of the
survey's scope save for the ultra-reliable original G3 Clamshell iBooks. Aside from
the white G3 iBooks, which required logic board replacements at
rates of 30-55%. No other model showed particular problems in that
category; most ranging from 6-12% needing replacement.
But then, the G3 iBook was statistically the least
reliable Apple laptop of the 1999-2005 era, with the absolute nadir
being the 2003 models, one of which I happen to own, and which has
given essentially flawless service now for more than four
years.
Charles
Re: Another iBook Internal Problem, This Time the G4
From Tom Gabriel
Hi Charles,
Quite the opposite from holding anything against you, I
appreciate this "second opinion" and in fact had hoped with this
communication to gain a different perspective from a trusted
source, as indeed I now have. Your documented evidence here gives
me good reason to take a hard second look at the whole question,
which is a service I regard as valuable.
One of the things I like and respect about your columns is that
I get information that in some cases mirrors my own experience, and
in others adds knowledge that I didn't have and can readily make
use of.
Thanks and God Bless,
Tom Gabriel
Installing OS X on Pismo Using Target Disk
Mode
From Shawn Moore:
Mr. Moore,
I attempted to install OS X 10.3.5 to my G3/400 MHz Pismo using my G3/500 MHz iBook to do the work. Everything
went smoothly, restarted smoothly, and I can access the Pismo just
fine in Target Disk Mode, but when I fire up the Pismo on its own,
I get a kernel panic "you must restart your computer screen". I
have tried forcing it and doing all of the steps to overcome the
panic, but to no avail. Any thoughts, or do I just need to go back
to OS X 10.2? I appreciate any help or direction you can
offer.
Thank you,
Shawn Moore
Hi Shawn,
This is peculiar. I infer that you ran the
Installer CD from a DVD drive in the iBook with the Pismo mounted
as an external volume in Target Disk Mode, which is the way I did
my own Tiger install on my CD-ROM only
G3 iBook running from my Pismo, as described in Installing OS X 10.4 'Tiger' on DVD-Challenged
Macs Using FireWire Target Disk Mode.
Worked fine for me, however, some suggest that the
better way to proceed is to run the install from the destination
machine, and just use Target Disk Mode to access the DVD-ROM drive
on the second machine for mounting the installer disk, and that's
the way I indent to go if I ever need to reinstall Tiger on my
iBook.
More on this in Using
FireWire Target Disk Mode to Install OS X on Macs without DVD
Drives.
It might be worth a shot trying a second install
using the alternate method to see if that would prove the
charm.
Charles
From Shawn Moore
Charles,
Your assumptions about my install were correct. In doing a
little more research, I think that I failed to unmount the Pismo's
disk from my iBook while it was in target mode. Could this be the
source of the problem? I'm thinking that I should try another
install and make sure that I unmount the disk before turning of the
computer.
Shawn
Hi Shawn,
Improper disconnection of a FireWire device can
definitely cause problems or even data loss.
It's worth a try doing a reinstall and them
properly dismounting the target computer before restarting.
Charles
Partitioning and Hard Drive Maintenance
From Lee Shartau
Hello Charles
I have read your thoughts on partitioning. I find I have as many
questions as answers. Now you state that you have two operating
systems on your (main?) drive.
This makes much sense to me, as it seems that during the
optimizing process following running updates your "Boot"? volume
may become corrupted. I'm guessing that if the system startup
cannot find the OS that you have chosen as "startup disk" it will
seek another?
Do you have an external drive running full time while working so
you can dump corrupted volume and replace on the fly so to
speak?
I had purchased a larger [hard drive] to install in Lombard. The Lombard drive died before I
had [the] new drive, so I had [the] larger capacity drive put in an
external case.
Lombard will not recognize any of three I tried to put in. All
work fine in WallStreet 233
MainStreet. - ATA 5? So I assume that there is something wrong
with ROM in RAM. Motherboard or Daughtercard? Seems both are for
sale on eBay.
On External.
Like your thoughts:
I split a 40 GB drive into 5 pieces. All Mac OS Extended (
Journalized )
- OS 10.3.9 Base volume prior to updates (archived )
- Current up to date up graded with all current packages ?
- OS 9.2.2
- Work 1
- Work 2
Question on Carbon Copy
Cloner
Don't know if this is a bug, but, I transferred a folder from
one Mac to another using CCC. Now to put something into that
folder, I have to type in my password. This is acceptable in OS
only partition but not so great with a folder/file that is ongoing.
Any way to defeat this "feature" ?
Does the same thing occur with
SuperDuper?
I tried Dantz
Retrospect Express once. Found that I could not access
folders/files from backups, so it was useless to me.
I would like to have two Macs, in my case G3 PowerBooks running
and synchronized as much as possible. One never knows....
(Desktop acting up!)
It seems to me that having a small drive in your
PowerBook/iBook/MacBook and a larger back-up drive to archive
to/from would in effect force one to backup regularly?
P.S. factorydirect.ca has
refurbished Targus ChillHubs available for C$24.99. I hope this
does not discharge towards me. Don't tolerate drafts well. Fibromyalgia
is a B--ch.
Thanks
Lee
Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do, or do without.
Hi Lee,
I have multiple operating systems on various
partitions on the hard drives of all my computers, as well as on an
external FireWire drive. For example, on my G4 PowerBook I have both OS X 10.4.8
and OS X 10.4.9 installed (plus OS 9.2.2 for running Classic
Mode). You can have OS X and OS 9 happily cohabiting on
the same partition, but not two copies of OS X.
On my Pismo PowerBook, I have four partitions: OS
X 10.4.8 on one and separate copies of OS 9.2.2 on two of the
others. The Pismo will of course boot from OS 9.
In 15 years of Mac computing, I've never had a
corrupted volume and very rarely have done system reinstalls
between version upgrades. I don't keep an external drive running
routinely, although I have three of them (one FireWire and two USB
2.0). I do frequent backups, but not daily, and as often as not to
one of the other computers, which I like to keep synchronized. I do
manual backups mostly and global automated backups to a 500 GB USB
2.0 drive less frequently. The best backup strategy is the one that
works best for you. The important thing is to do it.
Sounds like there's an issue with your Lombard.
Could be either the daughtercard or the logic board. The
daughtercard is the likelier suspect - and the easiest to
replace.
Your partition map looks logical.
The Targus ChillHub and ChillMat are good
products. I have a ChillMat. The discharge is toward the back of
the computer, away from you, and it's not a high-volume blast
anyway. My full ChillMat review is on PBCentral: PowerBook
Mystique Review - Targus Notebook Chill Mat (and Notebook
ChillHub)
Fibromyalgia sucks big-time. I'm having a rough
spring with it myself.
Charles
'Two Reasons to Go OS X: Browsers and
Email'
From Christopher Laspa in response to The State of Mac OS 9 Compatibility, Upgrades,
Resources, and Hacks in 2007:
Hello Charles,
In reading this page, I find it a rather sad statement about our
"age of technology" that perfectly good hardware & software -
which at one time cost a small fortune - can get completely
sidelined by a couple of bits of free software.
Browser, email, Flash plugin.
Regards,
Christopher M. Laspa
Hi Christopher,
Philosophically, I agree, and I'm anything but an
early adopter.
However, the laws of supply and demand and the
economies of scale do inevitably apply, and we're starting with a
minority platform from the get-go.
I just hope that software, especially
mission-critical Internet stuff like browsers and email clients,
will remain adequately supported for a few more years.
Charles
Google Tool for Simplifying Web Pages
From Andrew Main
Charles,
A
post from today's MacInTouch might be of interest to OS 9
(and earlier) users frustrated by the complexity of today's
Web:
[from Gordon Hawley]
For those of us still using Mac OS 9, the biggest
problem I have is Web browsing. I am currently using Internet
Explorer 5.1.7. For me it is the best browser, although it does
have problems with many sites. I recently found a great Google tool
online which is designed to make Web pages viewable on mobile phone
browsers.
http://www.google.com/gwt/n
Enter the URL you would like to view and you will
quickly see that most of the page formatting has been stripped out,
leaving a very simple, single-column page. This is a great resource
for viewing pages which cause Internet Explorer to crash. And the
best part is, it strips out all the online ads from the sites I
want to read.
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the tip and useful link.
My wife is using Netscape 7.x (forget which exact
version) with OS 9.2.2 and finds it good. IE is still there too in
a pinch, but she rarely runs across anything Netscape can't handle,
and wouldn't want to put up with no tabs for day to day
browsing.
Charles
'OS X Likes 1 GB Per Core'
From Ed Hurtley in response to Intel Core CPUs 'Really Open Up' with 1 GB
per Core:
It's not so much that OS X likes 1 GB per core as much as it
likes 2 GB of RAM, regardless of how many cores you have. (It
also really likes "at least" two cores.) OS X generally
"feels" the same on my 2.0 GHz (dual-core) MacBook Pro with
2 GB RAM as it does on my brother-in-law's 2.66 GHz (four
core) Mac Pro with 4 GB RAM.
Obviously, if you are going to be doing heavy-duty data
processing that wants more than 512 MB of RAM per core, then you
want to make sure you have that. (For example, I run a "distributed
computing" program on my MacBook Pro, and each thread really
wants 768 MB of RAM. If I were to run the same program on an
eight-core Mac Pro, I would need at least 6 GB of RAM to run
all 8 threads decently.)
Ed Hurtley
Thanks for the comment, Ed.
Charles
Which WiFi Card for WallStreet?
From Alan Lance Andersen in response to AirPort Card for WallStreet:
Uhm - I thought we were talking about Buffalo and PCMCIA. This
is the first I've heard of Netgear. Which one is that?
LA
Hi Alan,
The AirPort Super G speed PCMCIA card is made by
Netgear.
Charles
From Alan Lance Andersen
Of the two, which would you recommend? And which link do I use
to order that one? Thanks.
Alan
Hi Alan,
I have no firsthand experience with either card,
but I would probably lean toward the Buffalo, as it's 10 bucks
cheaper and requires no drivers or software for AirPort
support.
Ordering info here:
http://www.wegenermedia.com/buffwls.htm
One caveat would be if you're running OS X 10.2.2
on your WallStreet, OS X 10.2 is compatible, but requires
minor scripting. Wegeners include instructions for 10.2, but don't
offer technical support for 10.2 with this card. It's completely
compatible with OS X 10.3 & 10.4.
The NetGear (AirPort Super G) card supports all
OS X versions, but requires driver installation.
Or just call David Wegener or one of his staff at
803.926.1555, fax 212.857.4931, or email
support@wegenermedia.com
Charles
AirPort Card for WallStreet
From Alan Lance Andersen
Do any of these support OS 9.x?
Thanks
Hi Alan,
As far as I've been able to discern, no. You need
OS X.
Charles
Canadian Copyright Law
From Andrew Bobyn in response to Is
Canada a 'Haven for Pirates' or a Sovereign Nation with It's Own
Copyright Laws?
Charles,
Thanks for taking the time to write that intelligent response.
Keep up the good work.
Sincerely,
Andrew Bobyn
Vancouver, BC
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the comment. Glad you liked the
article.
The Media Rights Technologies (MRT) / BlueBeat.com
"cease and desist" letter to Apple, Microsoft, and others last week
is an emblematic example of why Canada should not go near anything
as perversely against the common good as the DMCA.
An issue that merits a letter to the Heritage
Minister. You can email the minister at oda.b@parl.gc.ca
Charles
Copyright Must Expire
From Steve Gordon
Thanks for the good article.
I think it is really important that copyrights be allowed to
expire. Many times you hear of royalties going to the grandchildren
and even great grandchildren of an artist; I find that just wrong,
I don't take issue with anyone inheriting some cash, but to pass
down intellectual property is just morally wrong.
Many community theaters and not for profit theaters perform
Shakespeare because the price is right; imagine if they had to cut
a check to the estate of Wm. Shakespeare, would we be really better
as a people?
Hi Steve,
Thanks for picking up my central point in this
discussion, which is that today's excessive copyright restrictions
are culture-chillers, even culture-killers.
The lopsidedly commercialism-oriented copyright
regime of the past century or so is unprecedented in human history,
and not to the advantage of culture building.
Charles
Canadian Piracy
From Steven Hunter
If Canada is such a den of thieves and rampant with copyright
infringement, why don't the member companies of the IIPA just stop
selling their products there? Clearly they're not making any
money under the current system and are merely being charitable to
the three or four Canadians who buy music and movies
legitimately.
Steven Hunter
Hi Steven,
Actually, last week, Warner Brothers announced
that it is canceling all "preview screenings" of its summer film
releases in Canada.
This is just sabre-rattling. Warners and the rest
of big movie biz will huff and puff, but they're not going to stop
screening of their films in a market as large as Canada, whatever.
I'm not defending illicit camcording and commercial bootlegging.
I've never bought a bootleg movie and have no interest in crummy
camcorded dubs at any price, but the "cure" will be worse than the
disease if reactionary legislation from Ottawa comes in the form of
a Canuck DMCA clone law.
Charles
Non-Microsoft Word Processing on a
PC
From Marc Orlando
I am looking for a basic word processing program I can download
free as an alternative to Microsoft. The program
should be easy to use, intuitive, with a tutorial included.
Thank you
Hi Marc,
You say "for PC," so I'm assuming that you're
running Windows.
I'm not terribly (actually at all) familiar with
the Windows shareware/freeware scene, but one logical possibility
would be OpenOffice, which is free,
powerful, and supports MS Office file formats.
OpenOffice.org is free to download, and includes
the following modules:
- Writer - a word processor you can use for anything from writing
a quick letter to producing an entire book.
- Calc - a powerful spreadsheet with all the tools you need to
calculate, analyse, and present your data in numerical reports or
sizzling graphics.
- Impress - the fastest, most powerful way to create effective
multimedia presentations.
- Draw - lets you produce everything from simple diagrams to
dynamic 3D illustrations.
- Base - lets you manipulate databases seamlessly. Create and
modify tables, forms, queries, and reports, all from within
OpenOffice.org
- Math - lets you create mathematical equations with a graphic
user interface or by directly typing your formulas into the
equation editor.
Operating systems currently supported include
Microsoft Windows (98 - Vista), GNU/Linux ("Linux"), Sun Solaris,
Mac OS X (under X11), and FreeBSD.
User documentation can be downloaded from the
OpenOffice Website.
Charles
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