Ask Jacob

There is a little command you can type into the Terminal that will restart your dock. Anything that is minimized on it will be kicked off. First, open the Terminal application, it is in your Utilities folder that is in the Applications folder. When Terminal is open, type this text: “killall Dock” without the quotation marks. Press the return key and your Dock should disappear for a moment. When it comes back up you should have nothing on it except saved shortcuts, the trash, and applications.

Uninstalling a program on a Mac can be as simple as dragging an application to the trash, but it’s not always the case. One of the great advancements of OS X was in how it compacted the Applications into one location. This is done by a little user interface trickery. An application, in the Applications folder, is really a folder not a file. If you right click on an application, you can select “Show Package Contents.” This will reveal a secret folder listing of the files that make up the application. When you double click on the application’s icon, it sends a shortcut call the the executable file inside the folder that then starts the application running in the OS. So when you drag an application to the Trash, you are actually dragging a folder of files to the trash.

Now most every application will also have a preference file each user that starts the program. This is not a part of the application but it is created by the application to track the individual changes you make to the application. These are not removed when you delete an program from your Mac. They are small harmless text files, and do not need to removed.

Just because an application contains most of its internal resources in the hidden folder, does not mean that that is all that gets installed. Some applications need to install drivers or helper programs. These programs are much harder to install and a good software engineer will include an uninstaller script to run. This is often part of the disk image or included on the Install disc. If an uninstaller is not included, then you can often find all the pieces by searching in the Finder for the program’s name and the company name that released it. Then you can drag those found files to the trash, but be carful and wait a week before you empty the Trash.

A good way to figure out what you need to do when removing a program is remember how you installed it. If you just dragged a file from a disc to the Applications folder to install it, then dragging that same application to the Trash will delete. If you used an Installer, you will want to look for additional installed pieces of that application.

This is a common problem for Aperture users. Almost every aspect of this program depends on a good graphics card. Unfortunately because of the shift to Intel-based systems, with their PCI-e Graphics, the PowerMac G5 owners are being shorted on upgrade options. Video card Makers are just not focusing on AGP video cards. You still have an option though. The ATI 9600 Pro 256MB is on the Aperture recommendation list and is still available for your AGP based computer.

http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/h79810

http://www.apple.com/aperture/specs/

You might also think about upgrading to Aperture 2.0— a much snappier program. A worthwhile upgrade.

My only though has to do with how Western Digital pins their drives. When a WD drive is set as a Master drive with no slave drive present, there are no jumpers. When you add a Slave drive to the ribbon cable, you need to change the Master drive’s settings by placing a jumper on the center row of pins. For the Slave drive, the jumper setting is placed on the next row over. One step closer to the power plug. Refer to Figure four in the PDF at this link:

http://www.wdc..com/en/library/eide/2579-001037.pdf

Also note that the drive on the bottom of the Hard Drive stack, in a Quicksilver, is the Master drive.

I have fond memories of both beige systems. In theory, the G3 Desktop should be faster than the 7300/200 Power Mac. It’s possible that the 7300 had a processor upgrade over the years. That could easily make it faster than an un-upgraded G3 Desktop. Look at the System Profiler under the Apple menu to see what processor speed you have.

The 7300 could support 1GB of RAM via 8 128MB chips. It is probably OK to aim instead for 512MB via 8 64MB chips.
http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/r-d-64

This RAM for the 7300 is different than the RAM in the G3 Desktop. The beige G3 Power Macs used PC66 SDRAM and would only support 768MB total RAM via 3 256MB chips.
http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/r-g3-256

Macs can be modded and many people are passionate about redesigning their Mac. We have a few of those people on staff here. The nice thing about the B&W G3 towers and the PowerMac G4 towers is that the plastic shells come off. Underneath is a metal case, in a mostly rectangle form. That metal can be died, painted or polished to meet your tastes. For many years my work computer had no plastics on it. That was not a style issue though, I took them off because we needed the plastic pieces to fix a customer’s computer.

The MDD G4s do not look as smooth on the outside if you remove the plastic, but they do have some cool metal structures that protrude. Also, you can remove all the internals and place them in a different case altogether. Unfortunately, you will have to move standoffs and cut new port openings to get a Mac Logic board to fit in a PC case. It is better to start with the bare Mac case and add to it.

That MacBook Pro disk burning error message can cover a few problems. The “Failed to calibrate laser power level” message was meant to indicate that your CD/DVD burner was unable to find the right settings for the blank media you are using. So the first thing to try is different blank media. Do not test with other disks from the same group or spindle, but instead try different brands of CD-R banks. Borrow or trade some blank discs with friends for a good crosscheck of media. See if your blank discs work in your friends’ computers and see if theirs work in your MacBook Pro. If you fail to burn any CDs in your MacBook Pro, regardless of how many different brand discs you use, it is probably is a drive or driver issue.

Some people who upgraded to Leopard have reported burning issues like yours. Also, some people just upgrading to 10.4.11 from another version of Tiger have had an unsolved problem where they get the error message “Failed to calibrate laser power level.” It is not a common occurrence so I would not jump to the conclusion that this is an Apple update problem. Just consider it as a possibility. To see if this your problem, you should try an Archive and Install from your original gray OS X install discs. If it is a driver issue, then Archive and Install should fix it.

The last possibility is that the hardware has failed and the optical drive may need to be replaced. If you determine that the two possible culprits above are not to blame, take your MacBook Pro to a local Apple Authorized Service Center.

I have a similar setup to what you want at my home. I use an Intel iMac as my main system in the office. It houses all the family pictures and music. I also use an Elgato EyeTV system to record TV and share it via iTunes. As long as you have a modern version of iTunes running on every computer, you should be able to share it via a single source iTunes library. I would recommend using an Airport Extreme base station as your router.

http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/a-mb053ll__a

Also, you will want to have Leopard installed on all the computers that can handle it. This will allow you to use Front Row on all your Macs, not just the ones that came with an Apple Remote Control.

http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/s-mb022z__a

Also, having Leopard will enable you use the AGP G4 as a headless computer (ie no display) . An AGP 450 G4 will not run Leopard well, so Tiger is the best OS you will want on it. Don’t worry, Tiger is fine for what you are doing. You will have to use a monitor at first to set up the Media server computer. As soon as it’s running Tiger, go to the Sharing section of System Preferences. Under the Services tab, enable the “Apple Remote Desktop” service and set the Access Privileges to allow the main user to do everything. Leave the Guest and VNC sections uncheck-marked.

You can now remove the display from the AGP G4 and connect the computer to the Airport base station via an ethernet cable. Also connect your Office computer via ethernet to the base station. With Leopard running on the Office computer, you can see the AGP G4 as available for screen sharing. Click on the Screen Sharing button and enter the Username and Password for the Administrator account on the AGP G4. You will have full control over the AGP G4 from your office Mac. You then can turn on File Sharing and setup the iTunes on the AGP G4 to be the master library for your home.

On the AGP G4, make sure that you have Sharing turned on in the iTunes preferences. All the other Macs just need to have the preference enabled to “look for shared music.” When you set up your Apple TV, you will have to pair it with the iTunes running on the AGP G4. You will also need to enable photo sharing in iPhoto if you want to share pictures.

Once the server has all the files sharing that you plan on serving, you can then test the connection on your other Macs. Using the new Front Row application that comes with Leopard, just change the source to the AGP G4. You should be able to browse the Apple TV-like menu system to find the media you want. You can also use iTunes and iPhoto to browse the remote media. I think you will find it very responsive on a home network.

This is a common problem between switching from one OS to another. The problem stems from how Windows XP uses the computer’s internal clock. OS X always stores the time as the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in the Mac’s internal clock. Adjustments to the time displayed in the Mac OS are made based on location and Daylight Savings Time settings. With the Windows OS, time is stored as local time. People who live in the GMT zone are the only ones unaffected by this difference in time storage.

Really the best way to compensate for the time difference, is for each OS to manage its time over internet. Both the Mac OS and the Windows OS can manage time based on network time servers. There will be occasional delays between clock updates, because the OS only checks the time server a few times a day. If you can stand to have the Windows OS displaying GMT, then I would disable network time synchronization in Windows and let the Mac OS have the correct time.

When calculating Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) wattage, I often drop by the APC website to use their calculators. APC is a Mac-friendly, quality company.

http://www.apc.com/tools/ups_selector/index.cfm

Assuming that you don’t need too much runtime during a power outage, just enough to shutdown, then this unit would work for you:
http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/f18782

When your old UPS needs to be recycled, you need to contact the county or city hazardous waste department to find out where you can dispose of batteries. A UPS often uses a battery comparable to the one found in some motorcycles, so you might want to find out where those batteries end up.