Low Cost Source for OS X CDs
From John Black
Charles,
I just read your response on Low End Mac to an iMac user's question
about upgrading to OS X. You had a link to <http://www.wegenermedia.com/osxj.htm>.
I noticed that they have Jaguar for $65. If you're not aware of it, OWC
has much better prices on that software: $28 for Jaguar on CD. Here's
the link: <http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/osx-center/software-and-more/>.
Thanks as always for your interesting articles and letters of
response.
John Black
"Thanks for the link, John. That's the best price I've seen I
think.
"Charles
PowerBook 3400c - Solid
From Brian Gray
Charles,
I always say this, but thank you for all your help! Anyway, I wanted
to pass along a recent experience. Due to a recent accident that hit me
financially, I decided to sell my Pismo. I wanted something cheap
and still powerful, and decided on the 3400c. An
eBay auction later I was the proud owner of a 3400c 180 MHz, with
48 megs of RAM and OS 9.1, all for $50!
This great laptop seems overlooked as a low end alternative. I think
the low RAM in mine really hurts, but otherwise I think it's awesome.
Just to test it out (since I got it so cheap), I've been pushing it's
limits. I carry it around loose, toss it in my car, take it to the
beach; it passes every test. It's just a rugged laptop, and I'm quite
happy with it.
Anyway, I thought I'd pass my experience on if anyone was looking
for a rugged, inexpensive PowerBook.
Thanks,
Brian
"Hi Brian,
"Thanks for the report, which squares with the 3400's reputation for
ruggedness. One of the great PowerBooks.
"You got a great deal! The 3400 is still a very capable platform for
email, word processing and Web surfing.
"Charles
Adjustment on Apple Optical Mouse
From Randall Venturini
Hey Charles
Just wanted to let you know in case you didn't know. The Apple
Optical Pro Mouse has a "stiffness" adjustment on the underside of the
mouse. You can turn the ring that is around the laser - it has three
settings.
Randy
"Hi Randy,
"Thanks for the tip. I haven't had one of those mice since I sold my
Cube in 2001, but I'll
keep it in mind.
"Charles
BootCD Review
Charles,
You wrote [in Make a Bootable OS X Emergency CD
with BootCD]: "However, my mode of choice for alternate system
booting is to have another bootable system on another partition of the
hard drive."
BootCD looks incredibly clever and interesting, but after some
thought it seemed I wouldn't really have any use for it. As mentioned,
booting from a CD is veerry slow. I have a special 2 GB partition
on my Pismo with a basic OS X installation on it for
troubleshooting, etc. But for client's Macs, I just use a FireWire
drive. Most OS X capable Macs have FireWire ports, and you can
boot from an external FireWire drive even more easily than you used to
be able to do from a SCSI disk. DayStar sells what looks like a very
nice little FireWire case for $35 (gonna get one when I do my Pismo
upgrade); put a spare 2.5" HD (4 GB or larger) in it and install a
basic OS X on it and you're ready to go. So far it'll run any
FireWire-equipped Mac.
Andrew
"Hi Andrew,
"Yes, booting from CDs is definitely second- or third-class travel. I
have the original 20 GB hard drive from my Pismo in a FireWire case.
Works great.
"Charles
Editor's note: Two FireWire-equipped Macs that cannot boot from
FireWire drives are the clamshell iBook (366 & 466 MHz) and blue
& white Power Mac G3. [Correction: The FireWire-equipped clamshell
iBooks can boot from a FireWire drive. The blue & white Power Mac
G3 is the only Mac with FireWire that can't. dk]
Wallstreet I 13.3" Screen and Color w/ Mac OS X
10.3
From Eric
[Quoting from WallStreet
Video - Finally, A Fix!, The Road Warrior, Mac Opinion,
2003.12.08]
"I restarted in OS 9.2.2, opened the Jaguar system library and
removed the following extensions:
"ATIRadeon, ATIRadeon8500, ATIRadeon8500DVDDriver, ATIRageProGA,
ATIRage128, ATIRage128GA, ATIRage128DVDDriver, ATIRadeon8500GA,
ATIRadeon8500GLDriver, ATIRadeon9700, ATIRagePro, ATIRage128GLDriver,
ATIRadeon9700DVDDriver, ATIRadeon9700GA, ATIRadeon9700GLDriver,
ATIRadeonGA, ATIRadeonGLDriver, and ATIRadeonDVDDriver.
"Since removing these extensions, I've been able to repair permissions
for the first time, import folders of photos into iPhoto, create a
Movie and render it for 14 hours in Toast 6, and burn a DVD without a
lock-up, color vertical lines, or a black screen - Hooray!"
A billion thank you's to Linda B. Miller and yourself for posting
this info! I had color problems as well under Mac-on-Linux with my
250 MHz WallStreet I
w/13.3 inch screen, and left the issue at Mac-on-Linux not being able to
do 16-bit colors with the Wallstreet I video chipset.
Did an install of OS X without Linux, still had color problems, and
found Linda's posting as I was about to give up. Deleted the
extensions, and we're good.
Now lets see if I can get Mac-on-Linux going :)
Thank you - thank you - thank you - thank you!
Eric
Office 98 on Panther
From Tim Larson
Hello, gents,
You may remember some months ago I
wrote asking how to get Office 98 (or even older* versions) to
install under Panther (or maybe you saw me asking in online forums for
comparisons between various free/OSS alternatives) so that I didn't
have to buy the Office suite for a third time.** I wanted to let you
know that I couldn't solve this problem, but I did manage to bypass
it.
The problem is that while the software installs fine under Panther
(you just drag it from the CD), the "first run" program does not run in
Classic. When you try to launch an Office app, it starts up and
immediately dies. To work around this, install Office 98 on a Mac
running OS 8 or 9 - preferably a fresh install or at least one
that Office hasn't been on before. Launch one of the programs so that
"first run" executes. Quit the app.
Expand everything in the System Folder and look for newly created
files. These need to be copied to the appropriate places in the System
Folder on your Panther machine. (You'll need to be on a network and
turn on sharing in the control panels and then enable sharing of the
System Folder, unless you have removable media like a USB key or
FireWire drive.)
If you still can't run the Office apps, also look for files with
"Word", "Office", "MS", etc. in the name and copy those over - they
might have the date the CD was created instead of when they were
written to your drive. I suspect the lynch pin might be "Office
Registration Cache" but didn't test this theory. I copied everything
that seemed relevant simultaneously, so I couldn't identify the
critical file touched by "first run" with certainty. I'd be interested
if anyone else narrows it down.
Hope this can help anyone in a similar situation. A friend,
Daniel,*** had told me that he's seen Office 98 working just fine under
OS X and suggested the idea of just copying the system files
across. This is confirmation that the approach works.
Thanks,
Tim
* In my limited experience so far, Word 5.1a works pretty well in
Classic. Excel 4.0, however, doesn't. (I haven't tried my ancient
version of PowerPoint.) The problem is that I couldn't get documents to
launch Word properly when opening them. Having to launch the app and
open the document from within it isn't terrible if you're using it as a
conversion step, but is a nuisance if you intend to use it for
day-to-day work.
** It's always seemed silly to me to pay more money to get back to
the functionality I'd already paid for. [This bothered me immensely in
earlier versions of OS X and is why I didn't upgrade until 10.2
solved most of the issues.] I like to maximize the return on my
investments.
While I generally consider NeoOffice/Abiword/OpenOffice to be "good
enough" for the word processing I do, my wife (a switcher from Win98
and Word 97) needs the familiarity and layout/formatting features of
Word. Recognizing this as a valid concern (while still being, ahem, a
tightwad) was sufficient reason to explore using an older office
package. If MS were to carbonize Word 5/Excel 4, I'd be thrilled.
:)
*** Daniel is selling a copy of Office v.X on LEM-Swap if you don't want to bother with MS
Office in Classic.
"Hi Tim,
"Thanks for the tutorial. I'm sure others will find it helpful.
"Charles
PowerBook G5 Skeptic
From Eugene
My next laptop will likely be a new PowerBook, preferably a G5.
However, I must point out that the
post about the 970GX seems like a rehash of what's already been
written by the rumour sites, especially Think Secret. The only piece
of "new" information is the bit about the 13" widescreen, but that has
been a desired feature for the PowerBook for just about forever.
Furthermore, DigiTimes often is incorrect.
For example, they predicted that the AluBooks would have a 15.4" 1280 x
800 screen.
Let's just say I'm skeptical this person has any real inside
information.
Eugene
About Your iceKey
From: "M. R. Wilson"
Hello Charles,
I, like you, have become quite attached to my ailing iceKey keyboard. I was glad to find your
article on resurrection.
My iceKey works fine for a few days, and then the keys start to
press themselves, most notably the volume keys. The other keys are
usually unresponsive once this starts happening, and I begrudgingly go
back to using my stock keyboard.
Does this sound similar your keyboard's demise?
There may have been things dripped on it in the past, like
condensation from glassware, but I don't recall any major spills. I had
considered the nothing-to-lose approach of showering it to see if it
would remove any gunk.
Is your keyboard still operational?
Thanks so much for any input you may have,
MR
"Hi MR,
"Unfortunately, the repair of my iceKey was short-lived, and the problem
returned. In my case several of the keys would go dead. In the end, I
gave the 'board to my son. I'm not sure whether he got it working again
or not.
"With mine, the problem was definitely spill-related - two in a
row.
"Charles
Letters sent may be published at our discretion. Email addresses
will not be published unless requested. If you prefer that your message
not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited
for length, context, and to match house style.
Go to Charles Moore's Mailbag index.
