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OS X 10.3 Troubleshooting Counsel Posted By MacAttorney

MacAttorney's Randy B. Singer has posted a collection of Panther troubleshooting hints, tips, and advice, covering:

1. Can't Install OS X 10.3 Panther
2. External Hard Drive Corrupted On Restart
3. FileVault Causes Data Corruption
4. Utility Software Doesn't Work Or Causes Unusual Problems/No Applications Will Launch
5. Abnormal Behavior After Updating to Panther or After Installing New Software
6. Kernel Panics Caused By Out Of Spec RAM
7. Video Card Problems
8. Can't Install Panther/Processor Upgrade Card Installed
9. AppleTalk Devices Don't Show Up in Panther
10.External Devices Don't Show Up On The Desktop
11.Faxing Doesn't Work
12.Memory Full Error Message
13.Can't Run "fsck -y" In Single User Mode
14.Macintosh/Palm Syncronization Won't Work
15.Printing Broken/Printer Unsupported In Jaguar
16.Firewall Can't Be Enabled
17.Sleep Problems

Singer notes:

"When Macintosh OS X 10.3 (Panther) was first released, I wasn't sure that a page such as this would even be necessary. The earliest reports indicated that Apple had gone through a lot of trouble to eliminate the problems associated with OS X 10.2 (Jaguar). But as with any sophistocated operating system, the reports of some bugs in Jaguar began to trickle in.

If you don't find a solution to the problem that you are experiencing on this page, you may be able to find the solution on my older OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) page:
http://www.macattorney.com/tutorial.html
Jaguar and Panther are similar enough that many of the utilities and work-arounds that helped under Jaguar will also be effective under Panther. So my Jaguar page should be considered complementary to this page."

There is a ton of helpful information on these pages.

You can check it out at:
Http://Www.macattorney.com/Panther.html

ComputerWorld - Apple Spokesman Addresses 15-in. PowerBook White Spots, Apple's Portable Present And Future

ComputerWorld's Ken Mingis reports that:

"Apple Computer Inc. is looking into complaints about blemishes on the screens of some of its new 15-in. PowerBooks, but it hasn't yet determined what's causing the whitish marks to appear.

"Dave Russell, director of product marketing for portables and wireless at Apple, said late last week that the company is aware of the white blemishes on some new 15-in. screens, but hasn't yet 'captured' enough of the computers to figure out why the spots are appearing. He also noted that any flawed machines would either be fixed and sent back to owners or kept by Apple for study. In that case, PowerBook owners would be sent new laptops."

Russell did not speculate on how long it might take for Apple to come up with a fix.

In a wide-ranging interview with Computerworld, Russell also said Apple 'would like' to fit one of its powerful new G5 processors in a PowerBook -- if it can figure out how to keep the machine cool enough to operate reliably.... adding: "But it's going to be a while. We think the G4 has a very long life in the PowerBook."

Russell also revealed that the upgraded 12" PowerBooks announced at Macworld Expo Paris were not merely speed-bumped, but "completely rearchitected to address heat management issues, with even a thermo-coupler added to the hard drive.

As for the new G4 iBooks, Russell is quoted commenting: "What we've really done here is brought a high-performance machine down to the consumer level...", and explained that adoption of slot-loading Combo drives across the board was in response to "'the No. 1 request asked for [by schools],' (The previous-generation iBook had a slide-out tray that could be easily broken if not handled carefully.)"

When queried by Mingis about the possibility of the faster iBooks cannibalizing sales of PowerBooks, Russell said he didn't think so, noting that: "While both use a G4, the PowerBook is faster, has twice as much Level 2 cache and can be upgraded to two to four times as much RAM. The iBook goes to 640[MB of RAM], but the PowerBook can go to 1.25GB or 2GB [of memory]...." PowerBooks also have digital video interactive (DVI) video out, and unlike the iBook offer monitor spanning insteads of jsut video mirroring.

Russell also pointed out that OS X 10.3's new FileVault feature is especially valuable to portable users who take their machines road warrioring.

For the full report, visit here.

eWeek: Mac OS X 10.3 Dazzles Developers

"We've just started exploring Xcode's AppleScript development capabilities, as well as its facilities for importing Metrowerks Inc.'s CodeWarrior projects. But what we've seen already is a developer's suite that holds its own, running in a dazzling environment that we suspect will soon feel like second nature."

Read more at:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,,1368227,00.asp

eWeek: Will Mac OS X 'Panther' Help or Hobble Developers?

"Do the 150-plus new features in Apple Computer Inc.'s "Panther" Mac OS X 10.3 upgrade elbow small developers aside or offer them new opportunities? The response depends on which small developer you ask.

In the former camp: Sam Caughron, co-founder and president of Proteron LLC, who posted an open memo on Proteron's Web site. The memo characterized Panther's new application-switching feature as a "near-pixel duplication of a Proteron product, LiteSwitch X."

Caughron told eWEEK.com his memo was "misunderstood by a lot of people, but it was understood by a lot of people."

Read more at:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1370393,00.asp

Partitions No Longer Sacred in Mac OS X?

PowerPage's Trey A. says:

"Before the release of Mac OS 10.3 (Panther) I was testing early builds of the new OS on a second partition on my PowerBook 15-inch's hard drive. Recently I was dismayed to find out that partitions are no longer sacred under Mac OS X."

You can check it out here.

Spammers Countherattack Spam-Fighters

The Washington Post'sDavid McGuire reports: that spammers are launching denial-of service attacks on anti-spam activists.

"By waging an under-funded battle against a group with little regard for the law, the spam fighters have offered themselves up as some of the first casualties to the growing problem of DDoS attacks.">

During a 10-day period in August, one spam -fighter's network was slammed by traffic from 4,000 computers around the world in a DDoS attack that dwarfed anything he'd seen before. Just as Guilmette was picking up the pieces, a second attack took him down a month later.

For the full report, visit here.

Apple blames Oxford for Firewire Data Loss Bug

The Register's Tony Smith says:

"Apple and 1394 chip maker Oxford Semiconductor are each blaming others for data lost when some Mac users upgraded to Mac OS X 10.3, aka Panther, in the week following its release on 24 October. ...

"The Mac maker laid the blame at Oxford's door: "Apple has identified an issue with external Firewire hard drives using the Oxford 922 bridge chip-set with firmware version 1.02 that can result in the loss of data stored on the disk drive. Apple is working with Oxford Semiconductor and affected drive manufacturers to resolve this issue, which resides in the Oxford 922 chipset," the company statement said.

"However, Oxford issued a statement of its own, effectively passing the buck back on to hard drive manufacturers."

For the full report, visit:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/33725.html

Mac Night Owl: The Panther Report: Is it Time to Talk About 10.4?

It's never too early.

Here's the URL for today's commentary:

http://www.macnightowl.com/index.htm#time

'Greatest OS ever invented'

the barrow's David Frith says:

"No doubt about it, Panther is the coolest yet, and many Mac fans will find its new features well worth the asking price. — this operating system is (mostly) terrific.

"But whether it goes far enough to attract the OS 9 recalcitrants remains to be seen."

You can check it out here.

GPL Unconstitutional?

MacMegaSite notes:

"In yet another ridiculous legal saga, Utah's SCO Group has asked a federal judge to declare that the general public license of the Linux computer operating system is unconstitutional and unenforceable."

Yeah, right. What is it they say about patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel?

For more: http://www.macmegasite.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1134

eWeek: 'Longhorn':Huge Jump From XP

"eWEEK Labs' tests show that Longhorn does represent a huge jump from XP, but it is, by conservative estimates, two years from release. And with so many new subsystems, Microsoft will likely require every bit of that time to thoroughly chew all that it's bitten off."

Read more at:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,,1370489,00.asp

Charles W. Moore

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