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You certainly can have that work done. MCE Technologies makes a variety of Mac optical drive upgrades. The replacement Superdrive drive costs around $150 but there is the additional cost of labor to install it. PowerMax charges $90 an hour for that kind of labor and it will take a full hour. Most mechanically skilled people can upgrade an optical drive in a PowerBook, but with iBooks you need to know what you are doing. Many iBook screws are different sizes and it has to be reassembled in the right order for everything to fit.Upgrades are available but seek the help of a professional.

This is a common question as hard drives get bigger and cheaper. The size limit problem is caused by hardware. The chip on the logic board that controls the ATA drive bus does not know how to see more than 128 GB. This is simply because 120 GB used to be the biggest ATA drive conceivable at the time the G3 B&W was made. Because it is a limit of the hardware, and the hardware has no updatable firmware, your only option is to change the hardware. The cheapest way to do this is by getting an ATA controller card that fits in an open PCI slot. Instead of the hard drive connecting to the original ribbon cable, a new cable included with the ATA Controller card will connect up to the hard drive. Then the drive will have to be reformatted to use all 200 GB of drive space. Sorry it is not as easy as a software download, but you will get an extra 80 GB and much better performance from that hard drive with a ATA controller card.

I had trouble recreating this here on my system. Even when I used “Save As” instead of “Save” it retained the original creation date. There is a possibility that this problem could be caused by saving to a PC formatted drive. Both NTFS and FAT32 drives have problems with Mac file dates. To check the format of the drive, click on it once and push the Apple key and “I” key at the same time. Under the “General” section you want to look for the “Format” entry. That will tell you what its format is. Mac OS Extended is what you want to see for Mac only drives. If you see something without “Mac OS Extended” in it, you will want to backup the data and reformat from Disk Utility. However, only reformat if this is just used for Mac-only data, sharing the drive with Windows PCs requires different formatting. Hope that gets you a little further, let me know how it works out.

I have never been a big fan of synchronization software. Not because it is useless, the opposite is true, but because it has let me down in the past. The result of being burned once when your precious data is involved is an irrational hesitation to try anything like it ever again. The last time I used anything like it was the old pre-OS X file synchronization utility Apple had. As it turns out some engineering people took that tool and turned it into an OS X application that is now Universal. Nemesys Software sells the shareware “File Synchronization” (http://nemesys.dyndns.org/FileSynchronization_EN.html) application for $15. There is a 30-day trial, so try it out and let me know what you think. Remember to back up your data first; forgetting that step is what soured me on the synchronization process.

There are several options for extending an Apple display’s cable. I like the Dr. Bott cables best. You have either the ADC 23″ or the DVI 23″ Apple display and the extension cable you want to use will depend on which display you have. The ADC display is housed in clear plastic and the DVI has an all-metal finish.If yours is an ADC display, then you should look at the Dr Bott ADC Extension Pro (PN 0113-ADCP). It will extend the reach of your display by 15 feet without loss of signal clarity. For DVI displays you will want to look at the Dr Bott DVI Extension Pro (PN 0126-DVEP). This cable will give you 15 feet of extra cord for both the DVI cable and USB 2.0. The only drawback is that it will not extend the FireWire 400 to the display. Both of the Dr Bott cables will work as a daisy-chain for a total of four extensions, so you can in effect move your display an additional 60 feet from the computer.I hope that gets the display far enough away for your liking. If you need to go any further you may just want to get a laptop.

It sounds like for whatever reason the OS update failed during the installation and that has corrupted your operating system. From what you are telling me I suspect you may be able to recover this OS without massive reinstalling. You should only have a keyboard mouse and power cord plugged into the eMac for this. Try booting up your eMac with the “Shift” key held down. This will boot your computer into a safe mode. Then, if it does not crash, you will have to reinstall that OS update. You are probably going to need to download the update on another computer and burn it to a CD. You will want the “Combo” update for your version of Mac OS X. Right now it is 10.4.7 but if you have an older OS it may be 10.3.9. By installing the Combo Update it should hopefully fix the file that broke during the first install.If that does not fix your problem you will need to get a copy of the Mac OS X install discs. They can be the ones you got with the eMac or a store-bought version. Boot up off the install disk and start going through the install process. When you come to the section that asks you to choose a volume to install to, you will be given an opportunity to change your install options. You are going to want to chose an Archive and Install with a checked checkbox for preserving user data and network settings. Then you can install. All your data will be safe, it will just install a new OS. That should fix your problems.Hope all goes well and let me know how it turns out.

I ran into a similar problem with my wedding video. A family member recorded the movie with a Sony DVD camcorder, and working with it was a painful process. I could not import the video files or edit the recorded files in any way. I ended up recording the video from the analog video ports on to a DV camcorder. Interestingly enough, your hard drive camcorder works almost identically to the DVD camcorder. The largest problem with both these camcorders is that they only have USB 2.0 for importing video. Although that works for copying data, it prevents real time capture from the camera onto a Mac like you get with FireWire. The other drawback is that it records video into MPEG-2 files. MPEG-2 is what DVDs use and is great for storing compressed video, but is lousy to edit with. If you copy your video files over to the computer you will have to re-encode them before you can edit them. There are several shareware programs that will convert your files in a DV video file, which is what you need to edit in iMove. One I have heard recommended was DropDV (http://www.dropdv.com). You can alternatively purchase QuickTime Pro and do the conversion directly from iMovie, but QuickTime Pro costs a little more. Whichever way you go, it will take you some extra steps to edit. The good new is that you can do it. I would not have recommended this camera to Mac user looking to buy one but because you already own it you should be able to make it work.Good luck and test the importing first before you go out and shoot important footage.

I have found that Apple almost always supports external LaCie FireWire drives. That would be your best bet for an external drive, although Fantom drives are also compatible. For an internally installed drive, you can buy a MCE drive to replace the old optical drive. MCE has an 8 x Superdrive (PN IMACSLDVDR2) that fits all slot loading iMacs and works with Mac OS 9 and up. Remember to use caution when working on an iMac because the CRT can hold an electrical charge long after being unplugged. Other than that cautionary note, it is an easy job.That should get those pictures burned.

Marathon Computer used to make desk-mounting arms for those ADC displays that could also wall mount, but Marathon has gone out of business. Now that the Apple ADC displays are discontinued I have not found any company picking up the torch from Marathon Computer. You could try to find a used Marathon display arm, but I have another idea. If you don’t need to move the display around, you can secure it to the wall with an L bracket. The back foot will detach from the display and leave a small metal tongue with three holes in it. Take a trip to the hardware store to get an L bracket that can be modified to connect to the tongue on the back of the display. It may take some time to find the right thing, but a hinge may even work. When you attach the bracket to the wall it needs to be connected to a wall stud in order to hold the weight of the display. After you get the display hanging on the wall you will need to use spacers behind the display to get it at the proper angle. It is some serious work to do, but you will have a truly unique setup at the end of it all.

Not only can you move files from your Mac to a PC with a USB flash drive, it’s the recommended way to do it. The main thing to remember is that your Mac can do more than the PC when it comes to drives. Before you start moving files, make sure that the Dell PC can read the USB flash drive. You will probably need to install some drivers, but if it’s Windows XP on the Dell, it should auto install. If you formatted the USB flash drive on the Mac, you will need to reformat the USB flash drive on the PC. Only reformat if the PC cannot read it. Most times the drive will work fine after the driver is installed because they come PC formatted from the factory. Once you can see the flash drive on the PC, eject it and move it over to the Mac. An icon for the drive will show up on the Mac desktop. Then copy the files to the USB flash drive and drag the drive icon to the trash. Move the drive back to the PC and you should see those files.That should get your data moving.