Bad fan design is the bane of the iMac G5

iMac G5

A Mac user reverse engineers the iMac G5 fans. He identifies yet another flaw: lateral play in the bearings.

Bottom line, for many Mac users a major appeal of the G5 iMac is quiet operation. It doesn't deliver. In fact, it often generates more irritating noise than a typical desktop machine. (During the winter my homebuilt XP, with several thermally controlled fans, is almost silent.)

I'm already holding off on my iMac purchases because of the problems with iPhoto 5. If Apple doesn't fix the iMac I'll be looking at either a Mac Mini or a refurbished PowerMac.

iPhoto 5 is a turkey

Apple - Discussions - iPhoto 5

I've been following the Apple discussions for a while. Even with the 5.01 patch this iPhto release smells like week old fish. This is particularly disappointing since iPhoto 4 was clearly a performance and bug fix update, we thought iPhoto 5 would be a big improvement.

iPhoto 5 is so bad I'm holding off on buying a new Mac -- because that machine would ship with iPhoto 5 and it hard to switch back to iPhoto 4.

Things to do if your Mac doesn't boot

Apple - Discussions - List of things to do if your Mac doesn't boot

Modified from a post to Apple Discussions

Safe mode:
hold Shift while power on
use Disk utility to repair permission and Onyx to delete caches

Single user mode:
hold Command + S while power on
at the Unix command type fsck -fy
type again to make sure there is no error
type reboot and press Enter to get out of Single user mode

PRAM:
hold Command + Option + P + R while power on

OpenFirmware: hold Command + Option + O + F while power on
While in open firmware you can reset your video and pram settings with these commands
0 > reset-nvram
Press Return
0 > reset-all
Press Return

Installation disk one:
Put in Installation disk one
hold C while power on
Use Disk Utility to repair permission and repair disk

Target Disk mode:
user a Firewire cable to connect to another Mac that's on
hold T while power on, this will make the unbootable Mac act as an external hard drive
Back up files from there
Use Installation disk one to re-install OSX

Re-install OSX if you don't have access to another Mac:
Put in Installation disk one
hold C while power on
While selection target drive, go to Options and select Archive and install
The installation will keep all your files and settings
After installation is complete delete the Previous System on the hard drive.

Mac OS X Update troubleshooting

Macintouch Mac OS X 10.3.8

A set of useful troubleshooting tips. None of these should be needed of course.

Andreas Junghans In response to David Whitehead's network problems after the 10.3.8 update:

I've had network problems in the past after some OS X and security updates. Apple's Mail and Safari would not be able to connect to servers while Mozilla would continue to work just fine. What solved the problem every time was rebooting the machine (a second time after the mandatory reboot when the install is finished).

Regarding Tim Wojtyniak's question about the applications in the 'Open with ...' menu:

Each OS X application contains information about the file types it can work with. Whenever an application is launched or simply clicked on in the Finder, OS X updates the so-called 'LaunchServices database' with the new information. Among other things, this database is used for providing the 'Open With ...' entries (similar to the Windows registry, but only used for file associations).

As detailed here, you can completely rebuild the LaunchServices database using the following command in a Terminal:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/
LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local
-domain system -domain user

This command first flushes all entries and then rescans the usual folders that contain applications. For each application found, the corresponding file associations are added to the database. After this procedure, deleted apps should no longer appear in the 'Open With ...' menu. In case you have some applications stored in custom locations (e.g. '/Productivity Apps'), you have to launch them once to restore their file associations.

Panther Cache Cleaner Update

MacInTouch Home Page: "Panther Cache Cleaner 2.4.7 provides easy access to numerous Mac OS X maintenance and utility options through a graphical interface. This release has been updated for Mac OS X 10.3.8 and adds a screenshot helper and an option to remove unneeded language localizations. Panther Cache Cleaner is $8.95 for Mac OS X 10.1 and up."

I've avoided PCC since I removed it and seemed to resolve some serious stability issues. It used to install something deep in the OS.

Pogue tests KVM switches: mini-Mac and PC integration

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > Pogue > Basics: Mac Meets PC and Both Learn to Share

See also an earlier post on the Belkin OmniView KVM switch. I'd wondered if Belkin launched that analog VGA switch in anticipation of the Mac Mini, but its switching doesn't respond to Mac keystrokes. Switches that work with a digital LCD display may be harder to find.

What you need, besides the two machines, is a K.V.M. switch, a device that permits you to use a single keyboard, monitor and mouse with two or more machines. K.V.M. stands for "keyboard, video and mouse," but some K.V.M. switches also let you control your speakers and microphone. Using a switch not only saves money and desk space but adds to the capabilities of both machines by creating a system whereby the Mac and PC work together. At the risk of offending some Apple enthusiasts, Windows users could think of the Mini as a PC peripheral...

... The hybrid system I tested used a Dell 8400 PC running Windows XP Home Edition and a basic $499 Mac Mini upgraded to 512 megabytes of memory from 256 (Apple charges $75 for this). I also connected the Mini to an I.B.M. ThinkPad laptop that runs Windows XP Professional Edition.

K.V.M. switches have different sets of cables, plugs and jacks. The keyboard, mouse and monitor plug into ports on the switch (usually labeled Console). Then two sets of cabled plugs (in a two-computer switch) hook up to the keyboard, mouse and video ports on the computers. The cables are often included with the switch, but with some models they are sold separately.

Computers can have different types of inputs, so you need to buy a switch that matches your configuration.

If your keyboard and mouse have universal serial bus plugs, for example, then the Console ports on the switch you buy must be U.S.B. If those two peripherals have the round PS/2 connectors, then the ports must be PS/2. As for the output cables to the two computers, since the Mac Mini has only U.S.B. ports for both its keyboard and mouse, the switch must have U.S.B. plugs, which will also work with the PC. (But the switch need have only one U.S.B. plug for each computer; it can handle both keyboard and mouse.)

You also need to check your monitor cable. Most use a standard 15-pin V.G.A. connector, but some use a digital video interface, or D.V.I., link. (Some monitors support both.) So you will need to make sure your K.V.M. switch has the appropriate jack.

I tested four inexpensive K.V.M. switches that work with V.G.A. monitors. Belkin's 2-Port K.V.M. Switch with Built-In Cabling, U.S.B. (about $50) works with the Mac Mini and any PC with a V.G.A. monitor and U.S.B. keyboard and mouse, as does Iogear's Miniview Micro U.S.B. Plus (about $60).

If you have a PS/2 mouse and keyboard, Hawking Technology's 2-Port K.V.M. Switch with Audio and Microphone will do the trick for about $40. Hawking's 2-Port U.S.B., PS/2, K.V.M. Switch with Audio and Microphone (about $80) gives you a choice between U.S.B. and PS/2.

As for the actual switching between machines, the Hawking units give you a choice of pressing a switch on the unit or using your keyboard. The Belkin has a switch (its keyboard controls don't work on Macs). Iogear's Miniview Micro doesn't have a switch; to shift between the PC and Mac, you press the scroll lock button twice. The advantage of being able to switch between machines from the keyboard is that you can place the K.V.M. units anywhere, but there is something reassuring about a physical switch.

When switching between machines, there can be a short delay as the machine recognizes the mouse and keyboard, but it's generally just a couple of seconds.

I used KVM switches eons ago with an OS 7 PowerBook and a 386 PC. Back then switching was hard on the monitors; they'd make audible popping noises when they switched sync input. It clearly shortened CRT monitor lifespan in the early 90s. I suspect this is not an issue with LCD displays.

iMac G5 fan noise: another cause

MacInTouch Home Page: "As a side note, when I opened up one of these computers, I found that the loud fan noise was being caused by the plastic tab (under the fan cover at the top, used to pull the midplane out of the rest of the computer) rubbing against the topmost fan blades. Simply tucking the tab up and out of the way when replacing the fan cover solved the fan noise problem. This may explain why the fan noise on other computers is inconsistent and not always. If you have a fan noise problem on your iMac G5, you may want to simply check to make sure the tab is not rubbing on the upper fan.
"

Saft: full screen browsing with Safari

MacInTouch Home Page: "Saft 7.5.1 is a Safari plug-in that adds features such as full-screen browsing, searchable bookmarks and history, one-page PDF export, placement of source URLs in Finder comments of downloaded files, and more. This release adds detection of the recently discovered IDN spoofing exploit. Saft is $12 for Mac OS X"

Fixing iPhoto lockups

From Macintouch. This matches my experience w/ OS X debugging. Deleting prefs and caches is much more useful than the usual recommendation to "repair permissions".

Of course iPhoto should manage problems with cache or prefs far more gracefully that it does. That's another story.iPhoto (Part 12)iPhoto 4 Freeze

Markus Hänchen

My copy of iPhoto 4 got completely stuck yesterday, just out of the blue. I had last used it a few days (and quit) without any problems. Now, the spinning disk came up a few seconds after start-up and I had to force-quit the app. This was absolutely reproducible. Trashing the preferences caused iPhoto to open with the default settings (window size, size of left bar) but again the spinning disk appeared after a few seconds.

What fixed it was cleaning the font caches (AKA user caches) with Cocktail.

New York Times Perma Link Generator

New York Times Link Generator

This web service accepts a NY Times article link as input and outputs an alternative link that bypasses the NYT registration service. The alternative link can be embedded in blogs that refer to NYT articles.

They also provide a handy bookmarklet.

Blogger tip: finding open blockquotes

Blogger: Dashboard

My blogs are authored in Blogger and hosted by Blogspot. The service works better than it used and the editing tools are improving (on Firefox anyway, Safari is not well supported), but there's one longstanding defect. The BlogThis! bookmarklet tool, which is fundamental to Blogger workflow, doesn't support the blockquote tag.

Since much of Blogging consists of quotes and response, this is a curious omission. Holy missing semantic markup Batman! (sorry, our kids just watched the 1970s movie). So I have to type the blockquote myself.

Of course I occasionally miss a letter or a tag or a closing quote. This effects the summary page that contains the quote. Depending on the underlying template, the page may render correctly in IE or Firefox, but it always renders oddly in Safari. The right column drops to the bottom of the page.

There's nothing in the post display, however, to tell one which post is "bad". Trying to find the missing tag in the Blogger editor is fruitless. (Worst of all with Firefox compose, it fixes the missing tag so there's nothing to see -- but it doesn't save the fix)

I finally figured out a reasonable approach. Open the flawed display in Safari and choose "view source". Then I just search on blockquote. It takes only a few minutes to spot the missing tag and identify what post needs fixing in the Blogger editor. Opening the page in an HTML editor (even old FrontPage) might do the trick too, but the editor might also fix the defect automatically -- which wouldn't help.

A source for high quality CD and DVD

Diversified Systems Group, Inc. - Media & Services - CD-R/DVD-R - Bulk CD-R/DVD-R

Referred via Slashdot. This duplication service company sells CD-R media with a reputation for longevity, particularly Taiyo Yuden and MAM-A.

A bigger Safari display: Cmd-| and Cmd-\

Apple - Safari

My primary Mac is an iBook (12" PB is starting to tempt me!). The 1024x768 display is pretty small. I'd use the Full Screen view of Firefox or IE if Safari supported it, but it doesn't. Alas, even Firefox on the Mac is lacking -- the F11 key is used by the MacOS and thus there's no keyboard shortcut for Firefox Full Screen mode.

The next best thing is to hide the address bar. There is a shortcut key for that: Cmd-|. It's conveniently located above the enter key, but to get it you need to type the shift key (the default is \).

The oddity occurs if you have Safari debugging turned on. Then Cmd-\ (same key but without the shift) brings up an interesting page debug menu. I don't actually use the Debug menu much, so I may disable it and see what Cmd-| does then.

Cheap DVDs don't have macrovision?

Dan's Data letters #140

Macrovision is why you can't tape from a DVD to a videotape. Try it and you get signal distortion generated by the receiving system. Dan's Data claims cheap DVDs, by which I assume he means the $40 models often sold in hardware stores, may not have Macrovision support:

Macrovision is turned on by most commercial DVDs, but you can disable it on many cheap DVD players these days, one way or another. The better cheapo players come with Macrovision (and region coding) turned off.

Dan's in Australia, I don't know if this is true in the US. It's illegal in the US to describe how to defeat Macrovision, so Dan can't give details. Heck, maybe it's illegal even to mention that some devices don't have it enabled. Free speech is so 20th century.

PS. Amazon sells some devices that claim to filter out the signal that recording systems rely on to trigger their video distortion mechanism.

OS X VNC

VNC 1.5

I tried an earlier version of this, it was too slow to use. I'll try again!