6691
iMac question
iBook G3 12" Worth Fixing?
External Hard Drives And Mac Backup
Spell Checkers
Re: Yes; Running System Maintenance Routines Really Can Help - OS X Odyssey 857
Re: Glucose Builds Doppler Radar into WeatherPop Advance 2.5
Safari Tabs

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iMac question

From FAD

I have a iMac with a 1.25 GHz G4 processor and 1.25 GB memory currently with "Panther" 10.3.9 and have purchased "Tiger" 10.4.2 software. Why won't it install? Turbotax requires 10.4.....

HELP

Thanks
FAD

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Hi FAD

Could be any of several things. The most likely would be:

First, is your 10.4 disk a standard installer disk or a software restore disk from another Mac. Your reference to it being "10.4.2" software suggests that it might be the latter, perhaps purchased on eBay? The standard generic Apple Tiger install disk is just OS 10.4 and you have to download and install the fractional updates or use Software Restore to bring it up to version 10.4.11.

Software restore disks will usually not work for installations on any but the specific model and version of machine they are bundled with.

If it's not that, it could be that you have a RAM upgrade installed that the installer is turning up its nose at.

Charles






iBook G3 12" Worth Fixing?

Froim Jim

Charles:

I came across your name and company on an iBook discussion board. I have an iBook G3 12" which will not start. It has had episodes in the past where I had started after several days of not being able to start but it appears now that it just won't start. I brought it to a local Apple Store in NJ and they seem to think the motherboard is the problem but will not service it due to it's age. I use the laptop infrequently primarily for pictures and music and have other computers at my disposal. Ideally, I would like to repair this unit economically or at the very least, remove the HD and transfer my data to another computer.

I found a company that claims to reball the logic board but it is not local and have read some not so favorable comments on the internet.

Does your company provide such services or would you have any suggestions where I can get this unit serviced in northern NJ or is there equipment that is available to read the HD.

Look forward to your comments and appreciate your help.

Jim

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Hi Jim;

I also have an iBook that will not start. You can read about its recent demise here:
http://theappleblog.com/2009/03/11/rip-ibook-december-31-2002-march-7-2009/

I too suspect the motherboard, as it is a known and not uncommon issue with dual USB iBooks - both G3 and G4 models - especially as they get older. Apple at one time had an extended service program in place for some of the particularly afflicted G3 models, but it las long since expired.

I would counsel you to not consider spending serious money attempting to repair this machine, which in good running condition would still have a street value of roughly $150 - $300 depending on model and cosmetic condition.

They are not a fun job to tear down, but if all you want to salvage is the hard drive to retrieve your data from and are not concerned with putting it back together, it's doable. YOu can find a free, illustrated step-by-step guide to disassembly at:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide

Applelinks is a news portal site and we don't do computer repairs, but ifixit.com or http://www.techrestore.com are examples of a couple of places where you could get a second opinion.

Hope this helps.
Charles






External Hard Drives And Mac Backup

From Dolna

Hi Charles,

I realize this isn't your area of expertise but will ask anyway:

I have a question about the external hard drive that I bought, or external hard drives in general.

According to the box of the one I purchased, it's a My Book Office Edition, made by made by Western Digital.

Apparently this one:
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=361

But I'm not sure if that's the correct link because the Model # on the website is WDH1B10000 while the Model # on the actual hard drive is P/N: WD1000H1B-00. When I feed the model number on the website into Google, I am taken to Western Digital's website, but not when I feed the model number on the unit into Google.

My son helped me set it up so to copy the contents of my computer which it's now doing. My longer term goal was to set it up so that it does automatic backups daily, but it now looks like after the first 30 days I will need to purchase special software to continue the automatic daily backups, because the one that came with the drive is only a Trial Edition, which expires in 30 days.

Is this standard for all of these hard drives, or should I have purchased a different one?

Thanks,

Dolna

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HI Dolna;

Forget about the proprietary backup software and just use Time Machine which is built in to OS X 10.5 on your new iMac. TM can be configured to run backups every half hour if you wish (or less often) and it's all transparently automatic working in the background.

Look up Time Machine in your owner's Quick Start Guide or Apple Help.

It will work with any external USB or FireWire hard drive.

Another reason to thank oneself for using a Mac.

Charles






Spell Checkers

From FD

Dear Mr. Moore,

I read you assessment of spell checkers with great interest. Would you know if any of these systems would also work for non-English languages in particular Spanish, French and German?

Regards,
FD

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Hello FD

Spell Catcher is a powerful, all-in-one spell checking and writing software solution that is available with many dofferent languagge dictionaries, including the three you are particularly interested in.

More information here:
http://www.rainmakerinc.com/

Dictionaries here:
http://www.rainmakerinc.com/products/languages/

cocoAspell is a Mac OS X interface for Aspell, and the Aspell Dictionaries FTP site contains dictionaries for 74 languages

For more information, visit:
http://people.ict.usc.edu/~leuski/cocoaspell/

ObjectFarmSpell is a spell checker for German, Spanish, Italian, French that plugs into Mac OS X's spell checking architecture. For most Cocoa apps.

For more information, visit:
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Word-Processing/ObjectFarmSpell.shtml

Charles






Re: Yes; Running System Maintenance Routines Really Can Help - OS X Odyssey 857

From Gary Coyne

Hi Charles,

Gary Coyne here. Let me add to your comments in that I totally agree with everything you've said.

As far as running permissions being voodoo, that's bull. I have witnessed far too many "strange" symptoms disappear after running Permissions repair. That doesn't mean that running Permissions will solve everything, of course not. But changing the oil on our car will not fix the timing - and I do not hear anyone saying we shouldn't change the oil on our car.

I also have two partitions on my computers, one is used mostly just to hold a system and any repair software I have. That way, when I feel I need to run general repair on my computer, I reboot into the 2nd partition, run the repairs on my main partition, and then go on my merry way.

I NEVER run a system update without first running DiskWarrior, and general repair on each partition (DiskWarrior must be run on a system separate from the system being repaired). I have NEVER had any of the strange glitches that are often reported on Versiontracker.com when updates are released. The 10-15 minutes of maintenance are more than worth the hours of trying to resolve some of the strange problems that can occur when an update is expecting to see one code but finds another (and therefore cannot update what it cannot find).

[Note: Diskwarrior and Apple's Disk Utility both require running repair operations on a separate partition, hard drive, or DVD. Onyx, Leopard Cache Cleaner, and other Cron running applications do not need to be on separate partitions. Some applications, such as Prosoft's Drive II need to be on a different hard drive or DVD, not just a different partition.]

FWIW, I'm a fan of Leopard Cache Cleaner. I can't say it's any better than Onyx (it does have a token shareware fee) and want to mention it as yet one more alternative. Just yesterday an office mate couldn't save out of Word - just couldn't be done. We ran the Cache and Cron (and permissions) repairs and when completed, his problems were gone.

Best,

Gary Coyne

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Hi Gary;

Thanks for the report, which reinforces my convictions about system maintenance.

For my most recent advantures, check out this column:
http://lowendmac.com/misc/09mr/overheating-powerbook.html

Roughly three months later, OS 10.5.6 is still behaving well and the PowerBook running in a normal temperature range.

Charles






Re: Glucose Builds Doppler Radar into WeatherPop Advance 2.5

From JJ

Somewhere between 2001 and 2006 I paid the $8 for a WeatherPop application. My IBook crashed a couple of weeks ago, & my machine had to be re-imaged. Is there any way you might be able to retieve my "ownership"? I love my WeatherPop, you see.

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Hi JJ;

My suggestion would be to contact Glucose Support, the contact page for which is here:
http://www.glulabs.com/products/weatherpop/contact.html






Safari Tabs

From fragmore

I use Opera on all my computers, but on occasion I need to use Safari.
It drives me crazy because I am used to having links and bookmarks open in a new tab. Is there a way to make Safari do this?

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Hi Fragmore;

Safari's Tabs options, which you can find in the Preferences, are:

Command-Click: Opens a link in a new Tab
Command-Shift-Click: Opens a link in a new tab and selects it
Command-Option-Click: Opens a link in a new window behind the current one
Command-Option-Shift-Click: Opens a link in a new window and selects it.

I hope that helps.

Charles



Moore's MailBag
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Charles W. Moore


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