Ask Jacob

The B&W 350Mhz PowerMac had a G3 processor. There were a limited number of G4 350Mhz computers, but they had graphite and clear plastic. Regardless of whether it is a PowerMac G3 B&W or G4 tower, you should not invest any more money in that computer. It is still good for web browsing or word processing, but not iLife ‘06. Just get the free software updates for it from Apple. It will update to Mac OS 9.2.2 without any further expense.

To get the most out of iLife ‘06 you need at least a 1Ghz G4 Processor and Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. PowerMax has a large variety of previously owned Macs that you can add Tiger and iLife ‘06 to. A G4 Mac mini may be a good option, but keep in mind that both Tiger and iLife will come with a new Mac. So remember to calculate the added $200 software cost into the purchase price of a previously owned system. That may incent you to buy a newer system.

I hope that helps. My daughter loves her iBook G4, and she is always surprising me with the things she makes in the iLife applications. I’m sure given the opportunity you’ll have the same experience with your son.

Being that this is your first Mac, let me give you some general info about Macs. All G3 and newer Macs will come with built-in Ethernet. The first generation iMacs that have tray-loading CD drives will not have FireWire. Most of the later iMacs with slot loading CD or DVD drives will have FireWire built in. Every iMac will have at least two USB ports. To be sure that you get an iMac with all the ports you want, I would recommend that you buy a G3 500MHz or faster iMac.

Buying a G3 iMac for your first Mac will not be a true introduction to Macintosh computers. The Mac OS and the computer world in general have advanced far beyond the first few generations of iMac. A G3 iMac is still appropriate for Internet research and word processing, but for media-heavy projects it is not going to cut it. Look at the G4 iMacs or eMacs instead.

Hope that helps narrow your choices and feel free to call a PowerMax sales person to help walk you through your options.

Mac-compatible USB Wi-Fi adapters will work with Apple’s Airport products. The only problem comes when you use WEP encryption on your network. Although Apple adhered to the 802.11b and 802.11g Wi-Fi standards, they implemented it using a slightly different method for encrypting the network. The Apple way was easier when using all Apple hardware, but it can become difficult when mixing hardware. It is only WEP that has a problem; WPA works the same on all hardware. Probably the biggest concern is that the USB options stick out of the computer and can snag on things. The Airport card is the cleanest solution, fitting completely inside the computer. You can still find original Airport cards used. Whichever way you go, just remember not to use WEP with the USB adapters.

I am writing to you now using MS Word (I paste into email later) and I have used Word for years. Like many Word users I have become increasingly dissatisfied by how Microsoft hides features and options in a maze of menus. The feature you turned off is called “AutoCorrect.” It’s controlled through an “AutoCorrect…” selection under the “Tools” menu. In the AutoCorrect window click on the “AutoCorrect” tab. Check the checkbox next to the line that reads “Capitalize first letter of sentence.” Click the OK button at the bottom of the window and then restart Word for good measure. It should now capitalize your first words again.

Glad to help with any problem, even Microsoft ones.

Installing OS 9 can happen a few different ways depending on what version of OS your computer came with. If your computer originally had Mac OS X 10.2 or later on it, then you can Install OS 9 Classic the same as installing an application. It should be included on one of the restore/install DVDs that came with your iMac. Most often it is part of the second DVD or on a CD of its own. Someplace on the disc it will say that it includes Classic or OS 9. You do not need to boot-up the computer from the disc, just put it in and look for the installer. It is often best to install OS 9 after OS X, so you are on the right track. You will have to find the specific version of OS 9 that came with your computer because most retail versions of OS 9 will not install properly on an iMac 17″.

Hope that gets your classic running.

The 9200 video card put into that computer probably is a PCI graphics card and it would not replace the original video card. You can do a few things to test if the video card is the problem. You can first remove the original AGP video card by opening the computer and locating the card that is closest to the center of the computer. Remove the screw on the topside of the card and lift the card up out of its slot. There will be a plastic tab on the expansion slot that will need to be shifted to the side to release the AGP card. With the original card removed, you can power on the computer. Try starting the game again and see if it gives you the same errors. If it does then turn off the computer, reinstall the original graphics card, and remove the other card. Hook up your display to the old card. You may have to use an adapter. Restart and try the game. I suspect it will not work either time, but it’s good to eliminate the cards as a possible cause.

I believe the heart of the matter is more likely with the Flash player used to create the game. First, get the latest Flash player here and see if it solves the problem. Next make sure the game is installed on your hard drive so that it is not too deep in the file system. For a test, install the game in the main section of your hard drive, not in any folders. Also try updating your version of QuickTime and use it to check the sound output of your computer. The error message indicates a sound problem. I tested the demo on a few systems without being able to recreate the problem. You may also want to use this as an opportunity to upgrade to Mac OS 10.4. When you upgrade to 10.4, do an “Archive and Install,” which will replace any corrupted system files.

Sorry I do not have a silver bullet that will fix this but I hope this will get you gaming soon.

I would like to say first that iBooks are notoriously difficult to take apart. Near every screw is a different size and putting the wrong screw in certain places will destroy your iBook. It will be better to take it to an authorized Apple repair center. RAM is far easier to install. Flip open the keyboard by sliding the two spring loaded latches toward the front of the iBook. The latches are between the keys on the keyboard’s top row. The latches have ridges in the centers. The keyboard should flip open to cover the track pad. The RAM is installed below the Airport card, so remove the Airport card if you have one installed. Now remove the bottom plate of the Airport slot by removing the two screws in the center. You will then be able to see the one and only RAM expansion slot. Make sure the RAM is fully seated in the slot and that the plastic clips are holding it firmly on both sides.

If you are feeling up to the hard drive challenge, here are some links to step-by-step guides.

http://lnxg.ca/apple_orig/ibook_hd/1.php
http://repair4laptop.org/disassembly_apple.html

When you say the “battery reads 3.6 VDC,” do you mean that that is what a Volt Meter registers when you check the battery outside the computer? A dead PRAM battery or even one that just has low voltage can cause a problem like this. PRAM batteries do not recharge and will die after time, even if the computer is always plugged in. If the battery is not the problem, zapping the PRAM five times in a row at startup can clear bad settings. I suspect, however, that you may need to unplug the computer from all power and remove the PRAM battery. Then press the “PMU” reset button next to the battery housing. It looks like a silver square with a dark grey or black dot in the center. Reinstall the PRAM battery and plug the computer back in. Also check to see if the firmware is up-to-date. It should be Power Mac G4 Firmware 4.2.8, so update if needed.

This is a common complaint among FM transmitter owners. Particularly those who live in the city or near broadcast towers. The hum that you hear is caused by the iPods FM transmitter competing with static noise and signal bleed from other stations. Modern stereos use a static damper to reduce the static you hear when tuning your radio. The static is still there but just muted so you don’t blow out your speakers when scanning for stations. You still hear some static but not all of it like when we tuned radios with an analog knob. This dampening feature is great for tuning an FCC regulated station, but hard when trying to find an interference-free station. Car radios further complicate this problem by moving into and out off radio tower range. As a test, find a place you can park for a time. Try to find a place halfway between your most common destinations. Start playing the iPod and slowly change the transmitter frequency. Tune your radio to that station then pause the music and see if it hums. Keep working your way through the available frequencies, making note of the ones with the least hum. When you are done, you just need to choose the best of the best. In my experience, lower frequencies work best.

I hope that works to find an open channel in our over-packed airwaves.

I have also been somewhat disappointed with the performance of the FM transmitters. I live in the city and that impacts the performance of the FM transmitters some, but even at their best it’s not necessarily a quality sound solution. The fact of the matter is for many people FM transmitters are the most viable or easiest/cheapest solution, and as such, they are workable but sometimes problematic. As a Prius owner you have many other options. You can use the Sat1 or Stat2 channels with an AUX input adapter cable. That cable will get you a basic 1/8-inch audio jack that the iPod can plug into. You also have the ability to use the DICE icelink iPod car integration kit. The icelink is a CD changer replacement and that may not work for your needs if you already have a CD changer. A slightly more expensive but a better integration device is the SLI from Vais Tech. This will work with the Prius without disabling any other features already installed. All these options require getting under the dashboard so you may want to seek the help of a professional.

This sometimes happens to computers and it is never easy to fix when it is an all-in-one system like the eMac. What you heard about the video card being part of the logic board is accurate. Just like iBooks and PowerBooks, an eMac has most of it components, including the video card, on the main logic board. You can have the logic board replaced but that can be very expensive. Also I do not believe that your graphics card, and by association your logic board, needs to be replaced. My guess is that the CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) is the weak point that failed in your eMac. The best way to test and potentially bypass your problem is to use an external monitor on your eMac. Often this is what laptop owners do when the LCD in their computers burns out. You will have to buy a $19.00 cable to connect a VGA display to your eMac. The “Apple VGA Display Adapter” (PN M8639G/A) will plug into the Mini VGA port on the side of your eMac. Then you can attach any VGA display to the cable and start up your eMac. If all goes well you should see your old desktop on the external monitor. Ask around to some of your friends and see if they have an old CRT monitor in the basement. You would be surprised how many people are looking to get rid of old CRT displays.

See if that helps and start saving for a new system, If this works, your eMac should last you a few more years.

This is not an uncommon problem for power iPhoto users. With every version of iPhoto, Apple has had to increase the capacity for photos. You are reaching the practical limit of iPhoto 5, which is around 10,000 photos. In iPhoto 6, Apple is claiming support for 250,000 photos but I have yet to talk to anyone who has tested that limit. Everything you have described indicates that you’re bumping into the library size limit of iPhoto.

You can test this for sure by archiving half of your iPhoto library to another location on your hard drive and see if iPhoto starts behaving properly. You certainly should be concerned about your occasional loss of photos as you may end up corrupting those files. So try sliming down that library or make a leap to iLife ‘06… and as always remember to backup often!

Splitting your VGA monitor connection across two displays is possible. You can also split a DVI connection but it is more difficult and, because of that, is more expensive. A better alternative is to look into buying a PCMCIA video card. VillageTronic has the VTBook graphics card that will give you a second display port. This will allow you to have three displays (including the PowerBook display) without impacting your video performance.

The VTBook provides a DVI port that can support Apple’s 20″ and 23″ displays, along with a large variety of generic PC displays. If you are trying to connect a VGA display, you’ll have to pick up a cheap DVI to VGA adapter. Once you have the PCMCIA video card you should be able to use the built in display-spanning feature to add desktop space.

I hope this gets you the screen real estate you wanted.

The interesting thing about iMacs, Mac minis, and laptops is that the graphics chip in them use same protocols for connecting to the computer as Power Macs. This is surprising because we often think of AGP or PCI Express as slots for graphics cards, but iMacs and the like have no removable graphics cards. But the only difference between the AGP on a G5 tower and AGP on a PowerBook is that the PowerBook’s graphics card is integrated with the logic board.

As you might know, there is more to AGP and PCI-e than the size of the slot they use. The difference between the two is similar to the difference between USB and FireWire. Even if you could make a USB cable fit into a FireWire drive, it wouldn’t work because the languages they speak are different. The same is true of AGP and PCI-e.

That means that Final Cut Express did not work on the iSight iMac G5s with PCI-e graphics when Apple first shipped the iMac. That all changed with the Final Cut Express HD 3.0.1 update. It adds PCI-e support for Final Cut Express HD 3 users. Final Cut Express 2 users have had to hack the program a bit to work with PCI-e. The simplest bypass to the PCI-e graphics warning is to escape past it. If hitting the “esc” key does not work, the more complicated method of editing your program files can be used. This is from the Apple forums:

1. Right click on the FCE icon and select “Show Package Contents”.
2. Open the “Contents” folder and double click the “info .plist”. It should open automatically in TextEdit - if it doesn’t, choose TextEdit manually.
3. Around 15 or so lines down you will see AGP. Delete it and put in PCI.
4. Close the window and when asked if you want to save the changes, say yes. Make sure you are saving the file as TEXT.

I have not tried this myself but the people who have attempted it say it solved their problems.

Some iPods need more power than others to charge. The third generation iPods (3G iPods have four buttons at the bottom of the screen) can only charge via FireWire. All iPods have trouble charging on USB 1.1 ports. If your computer doesn’t have a USB 2.0 or a FireWire 400 port you will need to buy a wall charger. The wall charger will have a FireWire or USB port on it and it will allow you to plug in your iPod’s data cable to charge.

If you have this iPod connected to a properly powered port on your computer and it still won’t charge, you will most likely need a new battery. The good news is that replacement batteries are better than the Apple original batteries. The charge lasts longer and will have a longer lifespan. If your battery is truly dead, I would recommend that you buy a battery replacement kit. Many kits will have instructions and tools to help you do it yourself… just take your time.

If I understand correctly, you have a USB flash memory storage drive. These USB drives work similar to floppy drives but can hold much more data and are extremely reliable. Just like floppy disk drives, once the data is copied onto them it will stay there until you drag it off the USB drive and directly onto the trash. You must also empty the trash to fully remove the files from the USB drive. After you drag the files onto the desktop or hard drive you can edit them and as long as the name has not changed when you copy them back over they will replace the old version on the USB drive.

If at any point you think your drive is not working properly you can reformat it and start new. Use Disk Utility found in the Utilities folder, which is inside the Applications folder. Select the drive name in the left hand side of the window and click on the Erase tab. Once you click on the Erase button, all information will be deleted forever and you can copy the files you want back onto it.

You have a few options and really any wireless router with a built in switch would work for you. However, for ease of use and set up, Apple equipment is the best. I would recommend the AirPort Base Station with a modem, as opposed to the Express. The benefit of the AirPort Base Station over the AirPort Express is its ability to have wired and wireless connections. It will have one broadband port and one standard Ethernet port which allows the Base Station to sit in between the cable modem and your PowerMac 8100. With just a few configuration changes to the Base Station, you will be connected wirelessly to the network as well. The one item of caution is that the new laptop will need to run Mac OS X in order to configure the Base Station. This Apple option is going to be more expensive than others but the Apple AirPort Admin Utility is the best I have ever seen.

You most certainly can connect both those computers together with Ethernet. You can connect the two systems in a variety of ways. If you are connecting to the Internet via a dialup modem then you probably will just want to get a “crossover” ethernet cable. This is a special kind of cable that is meant primarily for computer-to-computer network connections. One end will plug into the G3 and the other end plugs into your eMac. Another way to connect the two computers is with regular ethernet cables and a hub, switch, or router. This is particularly helpful if you have a DSL/Cable high-speed connection. A router with a built in switch would be the best solution. Both computers will connect with a standard ethernet cable to the switched side of the router and the cable/DSL box will connect to the “Broadband” port. This would also work without anything connected to the Broadband port, so if you plan on getting a high-speed Internet connection in the future you will already have the equipment.

Now that the physical connection is established, you will have to set up both computers to see each other. On the eMac you need to go to System Preferences and click on “Network”. Double click on Built-in Ethernet and click on the “AppleTalk” tab. Check the checkbox next to “Make AppleTalk Active.” Now go back to the main System Preference window and select “Sharing.” Under the Services tab is a listing of services your computer can do. Check the checkboxes next to “Personal File Sharing” and “Printer Sharing.” If your eMac connects to the Internet via a dialup modem connection, click on the “Internet” tab. From the pull down menu select Modem and click on the checkbox next to “Built-in Ethernet” to allow users on ethernet use your eMac’s modem connection.

On the OS 9 G3, you should update to the most recent version of OS you can. It should be OS 9.2.1 and is available free from Apple. From the OS 9 Control Panels menu, found under the Apple Menu, select TCP/IP. Change the Connection pull down menu to “Ethernet” and set the Configure pull down menu to “DHCP.” Close the window and save the settings. Again from the Control Panels menu go to “AppleTalk” and make sure it’s active on Ethernet. Now you can go to the “Chooser” under the Apple menu and select AppleTalk. In the window you should see your eMac and clicking on it will prompt you enter a username and password. Use the username and password set when you first setup your eMac. Now you should be able to share files and an Internet connection.

Most HP inkjet printers have the same method of printing to envelopes or 4X6 (postcard) paper, even the all-in-one printers. On the top of the paper tray is a plastic cover the printed pages land on after the printer kicks them out. In that plastic tray is a small slit on the back right corner. There is often an envelope icon next to it. Insert your envelope or 4X6 into the slot with the print side facing down. The left side of the slot will have a spring guide that will push the paper to the right side of the slit. Keep inserting the paper until it stops firmly, about four inches in. Now you are ready to print. I would recommend finding the latest driver from HP for your printer and installing it. The driver on the CD is most likely old and due for an update. After installing the driver you should re-link to your printer. Click on desktop once and then click on the “Go” menu. In the Go menu click on “Utilities.” In the Utilities folder double click on “Printer Setup Utility.” From Printer Setup Utility click once on your printer and click the “Delete” button. Next click on the Add button and re-add your printer. Deleting and adding your printer after a driver update will ensure you are using the new print driver. You should be ready to print now. Select print from iPhoto for a test and change the “Paper:” to 4×6 Postcard. You may have additional options under 4×6 Postcard for borderless or perforated tab printing. It may take a few attempts to find the right settings.

I would recommend moving to the Radeon 9800PRO 256MB AGP 2X/4X MAC Edition (ATI PN100-435058). This card is the fastest card ever made for your Mac; in speed, RAM, and features. It is the best 4x AGP card to date and probably will be the all-time best video card. This is because Apple and other computer makers are moving away from AGP video connections. PCI Express, the new standard, is faster and eventually is going to be cheaper for computer makers to use for all computer expansion, including video. So PCI-e is going to receive most of the attention from graphic card makers. AGP development will still continue but not at a cutting edge pace. So a video card upgrade now will most likely be the last for your Quicksilver, but it’s still a good upgrade. You will also need to buy an Apple DVI to ADC converter because the 9800Pro card does not have ADC built in, just DVI.

That may break the bank to buy the adapter and card but if you are keeping the Quicksilver it’s your best option.

The iBook is the only current Mac computer that will not support an Apple display. Apple displays use a DVI connection, and because the iBook only has VGA-out support, you will have to use a non-Apple display. The good news is that VGA displays are common and often cheaper than the Apple displays, just not as sharp. You will need an adapter to connect a VGA display to your iBook. The iBook uses a Mini VGA connection so if your iBook did not come with one you will need to buy an Apple “Mini VGA to VGA Adapter” (PN M8639G/A) as well. I would also recommend that you buy a USB keyboard and mouse to place in front of the new display. The iBook, by default, will only allow you to run a display at 1024 x 768 resolution, which is no bigger than the iBook’s screen. Also, the iBook only supports mirroring mode, so both displays will show the same images.

There is a free tool that will let you change this limitation on your iBook, but it is NOT supported by Apple in any way. Found here, Screen Spanning Doctor (SSD) will allow you to run a display up to a 1920 X 1200 resolution. Also you can run in spanning mode, which will split your desktop between the external display and the iBook’s display. Please use caution when using SSD and read through the support documentation found on the site.