Another iBook repair

2 years ago I wrote about repairing a 2004 iBook with a bad hard drive. My lovely daughter wasn't quite as careful as she could be and in about a year she had the same problem. After a lot of questions it turned out the computer had been knocked off the bed to the floor while playing a movie, yeah just lovely.

At first I didn't want to do that job again and talked her into getting an Asus eeePC with a solid state drive that is the ultimate in impact resistance. Only problem is there is no optical drive but she is happy with it anyway and loves it's light weight and small size when going to school. The keyboard is fine for her tiny hands so the only complaint I was aware of wouldn't be a problem for her. She loves Ubuntu and has been happy for the last year. Though her husband is in need now too.

But that old iBook kept nagging at me and I finally broke down and invested in yet another drive. I am glad that I made notes before, as no place online tells you to reboot after initializing a new drive. Thankfully I had that tiny bit of info in my notes from the 2007 repair. Now I am awaiting a fresh install of Mac OS 10.3. I doubt it will run Leopard very well and Snow Leopard is out of the question.

eMac software

I am also looking at installing several freeware on the eMacs that will not be in the Studio. The list is as follows:

iAntivirus (free version)
NeoOffice
GIMP
Inkscape and Wacom Drivers
Scratch
Possibly also Alice
Audacity (and LAME)
TuxPaint
KomPoZer
HandBrake

I am also looking at 2 astronomy software, Stellarium and Celestia. If any of my readers is aware of issues with either or why I might want one over the other feel free to give me a comment.

eMac Upgrades

We have a Multimedia Studio with of the last run of eMacs for Music Creation. These stations have become the most popular in the Studio so it was decided to purchase a new iMac to replace one and upgrade the other so we could have the same software on both.

I began by upgrading the memory to 1 GB from the original 512MB. This brought us up to a workable amount of RAM and everything else was compatible with Leopard. After a frustrating day trying to do software updates, I finally got past that and began the install of iLife. The only real glitch then was that the installed video card was not compatible with iMovie. Thankfully that was not a primary need for these stations. Because one of our staff heard of issues with iDVD we are also holding off on that upgrade as well.

We additionally have iWork 09 and will probably install it on at least 3 of the eMacs and perhaps one iMac (we have another as well.

MacPro corrupted RAID

Probably due to using a RAID as a boot drive. The suggested fix was to add a third drive to hold the software and just use the RAID as a Scratch Disk for Final Cut Pro. An added extra 2 GB of Memory didn't hurt either.

Leopard upgrade woes

Okay, I finally decided to upgrade to Leopard and also picked up a Time Capsule so I could have a more stable and faster router for internet access. It also has the added bonus of allowing me wireless printing, a file server, and hopefully automatic backups. All this sounds great but there have been a few bumps on the way.

First of all I neglected to backup my bookmarks. I only have myself to blame on this one so I am not too upset, after all I do know better, I just got lazy there. I will be more careful to make sure I do occasional bookmark backups in future. Perhaps I should have done some weeding there anyway? I get to start over

Next, my beloved GIMP didn't work anymore. I was devastated over that. Tonight I finally found out how to get GIMP going again though. I hadn't put Inkscape back on either and in going for that, I found a tip to upgrade my X11 to XQuartz. I picked up XQuartz version 2.2.3 and happily GIMP is back in service! I do recommend also tweaking a bit here by opening a Terminal window and typing:
mkdir ~/. fontconfig

followed by an Enter. This will fix a bug in Inkscape that prevents it from loading at all and also allows you to run X11 without having the annoying XTerm window opening all the time. Finding this pair of fixes made my life much happier. Now you may say that I could have avoided all this frustration by just buying Adobe Creative Suite but hey, by tracking fixes I got software that does the same thing for no cost at all. Yes, it was a bit frustrating but I did prevail. I have Leopard and my favorite apps.

My final frustration is that I still don't have Time Machine working. I do have the Time Capsule up and I am able to network through it quite easily. I can move files to it and even wirelessly print through it. My only problem is that I can't seem to use Time Machine. I have since upgraded to the latest version of Leopard, the disc is 10.5.3 and 10.5.4 is out now. The other possible issue is that when I loaded Time Machine the first time it told me I should do a firmware update. After I did that I found several dozen posts on the Apple Discussion Forums complaining about Time Machine no longer working after the firmware update so I'm thinking that might be the issue. I haven't figured out how to undo the update yet, nor have I found a new update to fix the issue. So not all is well yet but I am feeling better about it all. I suspect it's just a matter of time before I get it all going flawlessly.

I will say that many people posting on the forums complain a lot and even sound ready to return the hardware or software since it didn't work they way they thought it should. I'm not one to do that, though I did have to return the first disc of Leopard, as it had a flaw in the disc that prevented my computer from reading it at all. That was a genuine flaw that no amount of care could fix. The second worked great.


Credits for all this go to:
www.inkscape.org for the suggestion
Macosforge.org for xquartz
and for the Inkscape tweak:
http://bloggy.kuneri.net/2008/05/14/how-to-run-inkscape-on-mac-leopard
I had forgotten that, though I did it way back when I was using Open Office before I found NeoOffice.

I appreciate the other people's work and posting but wanted a place where all this was together so I can do my daughter's upgrade soon. We got a Family pack and she also uses these apps.

GIMP for gimps

In real life I've been rather gimpy after a foot surgery that is taking a while to heal. So in keeping with my mobility I have been trying to learn GIMP.

Now I like Open Source despite, or perhaps because, it can be a bit tougher to learn sometimes. GIMP I think is an exception. Now I admit to being a frequent user of Photoshop CS2 and other similar software. However, despite those caveats I found GIMP exceedingly easy to use and learn. There are a few old Photoshop tools missing but I didn't miss them as there are other ways to do the same thing, extract was a good example, I prefer to do that with paths anyway as they are easier to control. As Open Source the one thing missing is a library of brushes Photoshop offers. However, it is amazingly easy to create your own brushes or add new ones you find online(there are lots) or borrow from Photoshop, you do need administrator rights for adding but not to create in the software. Also there are tons of online tutorials so if you are unsure about something check for a tutorial about it.

Are Mac users arrogant and smug?

Okay this topic has gotten a lot of attention, including on NPR's Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me. According to MindSet Media, and Internet ad network, Apple users are arrogant, control freaks, and too smug and that the I'm a Mac/I'm a PC ads are a prime example. First of all I feel the ad looks the other way, the PC guy is arrogant and a control freak, though rather silly. I admit the Mac guy is smug but he really isn't arrogant, he just doesn't understand why the PC guy is having so much trouble with his computer. Now I suppose you could say that Apple Inc is a bit arrogant by creating the ad but the Mac guy himself isn't.

If you want a good example of arrogant and control freak, check out the IT department of any company running a Windows network. They generally have everything so locked down you can hardly do your job. Now don't get me wrong, I don't blame them. If they open any doors Windows the whole system can come crashing down in a minute. I know I've worked in a public library computer lab and even with the controls our IT guys set up, people can still cause all kinds of havoc.

I've also heard that Steve Jobs is a bit of a control freak and perhaps he is but by being a control freak about new products before they are released, Apple is able to release new products with far less issues than Microsoft has managed recently. Look at the Zune, how often you see people clamoring for one verses the lines of people to get a new iPhone. Or look at all the people asking to be able to get their new computer with Windows XP instead of Vista. Although Vista is supposed to run fine on my Intel Mac, I don't really want it, though I do plan to upgrade to Leopard this summer, when I get my new Time Capsule from Apple.

Okay, I happily admit to being smug now I have a Mac. I jokingly accuse my husband of Apple envy, though he doesn't understand computers to begin with he seems comfortable enough the few times I've had him look something up on the MacBook. I did cure my oldest daughter of Apple envy for Christmas by repairing an iBook with upgraded hard drive and memory. So I am smug and proud of it. I am only a control freak when dealing with managing a Windows computer, because if I'm not I will likely get a virus or have some other issue to have to fix sometime. I'm a lot less of a control freak with my Mac. Okay, I am careful of other people handling it because I would loose a good friend if it ever got stolen, but I'm not a control freak about it. Perhaps you could say I'm as careful of my MacBook as I would be about a new baby.