11 posts tagged “apple”

After some weeks, I'm finally at my new flat ! No more in France but in Switzerland... Country of Gruyère cheese and chocolate. But this is not the point of the move here today. I'm planning to build a "multimedia corner" in my living room. Many questions are arriving, and honeslty I don't know yet exactly what to choose.

First : TV.

• My building is not cabled, so no cable TV possible,
• My building has no antenna on the roof,
• My flat is in an old area where satellite dishes are prohibited,
• I may subscribe to ADSL TV to get around 120 channels.
  

• I don't watch TV that much, I'm used to do other things at the same time (mostly surfing the web),
• the cost of ADSL TV is 19 CHF/month (that's 19 USD too),
• the federal tax for watching TV is 23 CHF/month (23 USD)
  

Second : Media Center
For the moment I'm using my macbook to watch videos, listen to online radios. Now... A perfect solution to avoid my laptop to be connected/disconnected all the time, is to use a medai center... but which one ?

• I looked at multimedia disks. But they are firstly a way to store files via USB. This means that you need to plug the disk to your computer, copy files, then go back to you living room and plug the disk to the TV set... How easy ! I only find 2 multimedia disks that connects through ethernet. But they need to be filed by a computer.
• So I was looking to standalone multimedia solutions. The only one I see for the moment is the Apple TV. It can synchronize podcast, can listen to music... without having to start my linux box. But the odwn side of it is the poor size of the hard drive.... (60 GB for the higher model)
• Aftersome research  I find that a lot of people have used their Mac mini as a media center. This seem a nice solution as it's a computer, ok more expensive than a multimeda disk, but can do all want I need (and even more). Possible downside : how to use the remote control with Miro of other software ?

Any suggestion is welcome !

Apple System 1

When I lean about the Macs when I was young, The System 1 and the followers had one particularity. It was challenging the use of memory, for a graphical improvement. By the time, memory was expensive,and the use of less memory as possible was a rule. but Apple decided to  get beyond this, and make whar the GUI was.

Surprisingly, with the arrival of MacOS 10.5 (Leopard), this feature was removed silently, and I really surprised, nobody cared about this ! A side of Apple's history is gone without any comment. I'am sad about this change.

Do you know what's changed in Leopard ?

I'm one of the "new switchers"... even if I don't consider myself as a switcher.... I'm primarily using Ubuntu as desktop and server. Now for several years Do I switch to use a OS X ? I don't think so. OS X is replacing Windows as it has the same applications (iTunes, Lightroom, Photoshop)

Now a lot of people are asking why should they buy a mac. I explain my reasons as Ben asked yesterday on Pownce. Here is my answers :

I bought a macbook in December 2007 for 2 reasons :

1 - the former PC laptop (an Acer) was 3.5 Kg weight (7 pounds ?). It just broke my shoulder last summer... I wanted a lightweight laptop.

2 - I didn't want to give too much money, and get a too powerful laptop. Power that I would not use.

Result : the macbook is (in December) the cheapest 13" laptop. The Sony Vaios were 500 Euro more expensive. the macbook is 2.5kg (5 pounds ?) is ok. I didn't want a ultraportable.

I bought it in Switzerland for 1800 CHF (1300 Euro), instead of France (1445 Euro).

OS X is simple but you can go deeper in the system if you want to get more of it. Of course you need sometimes to think differently than with Windows, but that's because OS X is not Windows, nor Linux :)

The features that allows you to remotely access a hard drive is not only a OS X feature.... Or I misunderstood your sentence.

I've a macbook but still have my Ubuntus as desktop computers and both (OS X and Ubuntu) are talking to each other in harmony.

Apple iMac G3 Bondi Blue

Guess, what, a friend of mine "found" a dying Apple iMac G3, somewhere to be thrown in any bin. He got it back home, and just gave me for some days, I could try to look at it and update it. This Mac is for his 11 years old daughter.

After a quick tour of the beast, it's a "Bondi blue" iMac G3. Here are some characteristics of it :

• Translucent blue-green plastic
• CD ROM has a drawer (no slot-in)
• 96 MB of RAM
• OS 8.5
• Motherboard revision A
• PPC G3 @ 266MHz

I installed with no problem, OS 9.2.1 from CD, then update it to 9.2.2 by downloading from the Apple website. Now, it has only 96 MB of RAM, I would not even try to install OS X on it. Though I trid to booth the OS X CDs, it took 30 min to get the starting screen. There's definitively not enough RAM.
I check on website which says that Revision A iMac cant handle more than 256 MB of RAM. The same site is also telling that these iMac are using laptop's type of RAM, and only one slot is available (SO-DIMM PC266). I don't think we will add some more ram, as it's an old computer and the ram will be rather expensive for it....

Now the big question is :

What can be done with this computer today ?

• Windows Media Player 7
• Text-Edit Plus
• MSN Messenger 7.5
• Adion (MP3 player)
  

Powermac G3

3 comments

For now 2 weeks, I'm switching on regularly the powermac to see if everythin is running fine. I start iPhoto and add lots of photos, add lots of music into itunes library, and yes it seems to go well :)

Last monday (12th), I was giving one more chance (I'm really too good) to my 2 PC133 RAM (128 and 256 MB). I really find that 448 MB of RAM is not enough to run Panther smoothly, and adding 384 MB of RAM couldn't be that bad, even if my experience showed my that these RAM didn't work.

(note to myself : I really need to build simpler sentences).

Well.. I opened the powermac removed one 64 MB PC100 RAM and insert the 256 MB PC133 one. And switched on the mac... it booted perfectly !!! I was amazed (and still am). The faulty supposed RAM seemed to worked perfectly.

I play with the mac one long day to see if nothing wrong is happening (So I know the fult is coming from that particular RAM). Nothing bad happened.

Today, I decided to add the second PC133 RAM : the 128 MB. Switched on the Mac... it gave me a nice console error (displayed on the white background where you have the grey apple logo). Looked like a kernel panic, with no mention of the it.

I tried to reboot one more time (yeah, sometimes, rebooting helps).

I don't know why, I had a (bright) idea : switching 2 RAM from their slots.... So did I and replace the 128 MB RAM with the Apple 64 MB RAM. I switched the Mac on again... and it booted normally !!!! Yiipeee :)

The Powermac is running fine for now one full day, running Adium, Skype, Colloquy, iTunes or iPhoto. VLC is runing fine also without telling me the computer is slow. I can look at In Digital, Ask a ninja and Diggnation podcasts without failure :)

Looks like the whole problem at the beginning was only because of the hard disk, and maybe the SCSI Card.

Powermac G3

3 comments

Okay... I spend the last days, since my ladt post to install, and install and reinstall the Power Mac G3. but this time I decided to think a little more of what should be really changed. The previous day were the place for lots of tries to discover and find out the possible part which may stick... The result is pretty simple actually :
- either a RAM problem,
- or a hard disk issue.

I found in a Apple.com discussion forum, that MacOS 10.3 and 10.4 are very sensitive to SCSI cards. Honestly, I had to read a lot of webpages and forum to read this sentence.... So I removed the buit-in SCSI card from the blue&white tower. I'm not using it. It's one less potential issue.

Thursday, I "found" 45 euro to buy a new hard disk. I test the Power Mac with 3 different disks. the original 6 GB harddisk, a semi broken 20 GB disk, and another 6 GB old but clean disk. That all are 6-7 year old. Why did I bought a new disk, when I wanted to buy nothing for this computer (I consider it as a game with no end price.. I mean, if I could repair it, that's cool, if not, I wouldn't loose anything). But, well, I could always use this hard disk in another computer or as external disk for backups.... A hard disk has always a use ;)

I Installed the brand new 80 GB hard disk inside the tower, replacing the Apple Disk. And tried one more time the installation of Tiger.... with no success..... I tried I guess 3 times, even with the Zero writing option. The issue wasn't coming from the hard disk, nor the SCSI card.

In the same Apple.com discussion board, you could read that these OS are very keen on the kind of RAM you're using.... And the last days confirmed this. This was the last and only known potential issue that could be resolved.
When I got the Power Mac, there were 3 RAM slots full out of 4. 1 Apple 64 MB + 1 unknown 64 MB + 1 unknown 128 MB RAM. I got these number from one installation try, and the "about this Mac" dialog. Nothing was written on the RAM.
From older PC boxes, I got other RAM : 2 unkown 256 MB PC133 RAM, and 1 unknown 64MB PC100 RAM.

PC133 RAM are backward compatible with PC100 one. You know this when you get a PC. And this has been confirmed in the Apple.com discussion. However, I experienced the opposite. You should know that the more memory you have the better the computer will run. It's obvious that I wanted to use all the 128 MB and 256 MB RAM in the 4 Power Mac slots. And I always get "writing" errors during the installation. So I tried using only P100 RAM. And guess what ? I got errors in the Essential installtion. So I tried Panther this time and : I got no spam (hmmm..., wrong... this is a quote from Twit ;) ). I got no problem to install Panther ! (this happened today morning). Yeeeepeee !

Happy, I prepare myself a nice omelette with vegetable for lunch !

After that, I began the updates session : updating Panther up to 10.3.9 goes in a charm ! Quicktime, iTunes, Java installed themselves easily... But not the Java update where I got a message from the Installer like 'outdated codec'.

I have finally a stable Power Mac G3 (White & Blue), with 448 MB of RAM, 80 GB IDE harddisk, running Panther (10.3.9).

I installed some little free applications, like
- Transmission for bittorrent download,
- AdiumX for Instant Messenging
- Colloquy for IRC

I'll see in the future what I'll do with this computer. I think I will use it to learn more the BSD system, and particularly Darwin and the specific path of files and directories. (I already learned a lot, when I followed a technical paper from Apple.com, that uses the console to find out issues and repair the OS...).

My main task (repairing the computer) is done. I cost about 2 month in all, and 45 euro (for the harddisk).

Powermac G3

3 comments

Last Sunday, I get a copy of Mac OS X.3 (Panther) on CD, from a friend, to test if this version could be installed on the Power Mac. As, I didn't success to install Mac OS X.4 (Tiger) on it, may be a previous version could help. So during the last 3 days I tried to install, and install, and install, and even install the CDs... but nothing helped out. I always got the same error at the end of the CD 1 installation : "There were errors during the installation".

Last evening, I decided again to get a chance to my new old Power Mac G3 (white & blue)... I switched it on, and put the brand old CD 1 into the DVD player.... and the first CDs did install ! The Mac rebooted, and asked me for the second CD ( where are stored iLife, language packs and printer drivers)... My happiness lasted 3 minutes. I got again the famous sentence.

However the base system is still installed correctly, I quit the installer, and hopefully, I can install dmg and pkg files directly from the CD, from the Finder. Just double click on the icons. So did I, and re-install itunes, iphoto, imovie, ical, isync, epson drivers, and french language pack.

I was really happy ! I got a functional Mac \o/

Now, the harder part is to come : updating the brand new OS to 10.3.9. And this is were the picture really began to fade out, but not that long...

Using the Software Update from the Apple menu, I could update some packages, but the most important was the 10.3.9 update Combo Pack. 117 MB length. And... it failed to install ! I tried 3 or 4 times, and always got the same dialog at the end : Check if you have permission to write in /tmp/501/TemporaryFile/com.....

Of course, being a linux guy, I thought : there're wrong permissions in the directory... I fired up the Terminal and chmod 777 /tmp/501/TemporaryFile directory. I know these temp files aren't very important, so 777 wouldn't damage anything. But this change didn't move the dialog out of the way.

I used then plan B ! That is, installing every updated from 10.3 to 10.3.9 : ie 10.3.1, 10.3.2, 10.3.3, 10.3.4, 10.3.5, 10.3.6, 10.3.7, 10.3.8 and 10.3.9. so I downloaded all these .dmg files on my computer and took my time to install, optimise, reboot, install, optimise, reboot (repeat this up to 10.3.5).

When 10.3.5 came to the end, the installer told me there were errors (argh, nooooo)... So I reinstalled this version again (thanks, I downloaded it on my desktop). But here were still errors....
It was about 1am. I rebooted the Power Mac... and come back on the desktop. I look at the "About this Mac"dialog (from the Apple menu) which told me I was using OS 10.3.5 !!!!

Ok, good :) ready for next update.. I double clicked on the 10.3.6 update... which returned error -5360820 or so. I cried and go to bed (after switching off the mac, of course).