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It is certainly possible for Safari, or its preferences, to become corrupted over time. The first bit of troubleshooting would be to trash the preference files for Safari. The file is located at:
Macintosh HD/Users/[Your User Name]/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist. Quit Safari and drag the preference file to the trash. Then open Safari and see if you still get the spinning beach ball. If you are still having issues, try downloading a new copy of Safari.

If you are still getting issues after reinstalling Safari, you can try another browser, FireFox is a good second browser.

If the problem occurs in FireFox as well, then it is probably a network configuration error on your system. That will take some troubleshooting with your ISP and router. If the problem does not occur in FireFox, you may want to consider an Archive and Install of the Mac OS to replace the failing components of the Operating System that Safari relies on.

Target Disk Mode should work for this process and you only need one 6 Pin FireWire cable. From “Big Red” you will want to download Carbon Copy Cloner 2.3 and install it.

Then boot up one of the other iMacs in Target Disk Mode by holding down the [T] key during startup. Let go of the key after you see a FireWire symbol on the screen and connect the TDM computer to “Big Red” via the FireWire cable. The hard drive of the TDM iMac will appear on Big Red’s Desktop. Format the drive as you want it to look with Disk Utility. Then use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy both the OS X and OS 9 volumes from Big Red to the other iMac’s partitions.

When done, eject the TDM iMac’s drives and restart it. It should boot up exactly as Big Red would and if it does, repeat the process on all the other iMacs you want to look like Big Red.

The 15″ vs. 17″ MacBook Pro debate is an interesting one and it is similar to the SUV Vs. sedan debate. In each case it boils down to space verses mobility. Just like the automotive analogy, both laptops can go the same places but the bigger units are harder to maneuver in tight spaces. It takes more energy to move the 17″ around and operate it than the 15″ MacBook Pro. The main advantage to the 17″ MacBook Pro was the screen size, until recently. Now it has screen size and the availability of an Antiglare (AKA matte) screen.

If you want the larger screen real estate, and do not care about hauling around a few extra pounds and inches of computer, the 17″ MacBook is a good choice. If you want a new MacBook Pro with an Antiglare screen, then the 17″ is your only choice.

I have a 15″ system at work and at home, my lap is just not big enough for the 17″ Mac laptops. For my money I think the Unibody MacBook Pro is better than all previous models of MacBook.

The cheapest fix is to get a USB Ethernet adapter and use that for your network connection.

This Belkin Gigabit network adapter is for people with USB 2.0 and 10/100 USB 1.1 computers.

Drivers for OS 10.2 and up are found at the Belkin gigabit USB product support page.

The LCII came with a 40MB or 80MB hard drive and many of those older drives just do not hold up well over time. Fifteen years is a long time to keep spinning the same steel platter. You could be lucky and just need to reinstall the Mac OS. It will take Mac OS 7.0.1 to 7.5.5 and you can find system updates for that computer at Apple’s Older Software Downloads page.

If you do not have a copy of the Mac OS for your system, you can download system 7.5.3 from Apple’s Index Of Older Systems and put them on Floppy disks. Here are some good instructions on making boot floppies from OS X.

Hope this helps, If the drive is dead you will have some issues finding a suitable replacement, but it can be done.

I like Leopard for many geeky reasons. It makes it easier to manage my teenager’s computer through Parental Controls. The Leopard Time Machine backup is great data insurance, which gives me peace of mind. The ease of screen sharing makes having a house of Mac computers work cooperatively.

That being said, it is not essential to your overall productivity. It will not change your speed or quality of work, nor will it revolutionize your computer experience. If you want to upgrade, I would recommend doing all your systems together. If you are updating many computers, the Family pack is the best way to go. Apple has its users on the honor system, so you can install the same copy of the single user OS on every Mac you own. However, the OS X Leopard Family Pack is not much more money than the single user version, so it is easy to “do the right thing” when it comes to software licensing.

You can absolutely get that G3 iMac online. Once you get the connection taken care of, setup is easy and documented in the users guide. The easiest way to get physically online is via the Ethernet port. That is the larger of the two “phone jacks” you saw on the side of the Mac. The smaller one is the modem and the larger one can connect directly to your router via an Ethernet cable.

If you want to go wireless with Apple branded equipment then you need two parts. You need the original G3 Airport Card and a G3 iMac adapter card called an InterPoser.

If you are running Mac OS X 10.3 or higher, you can use a USB Wireless adapter.

I recommend Elgato equipment and specifically the EyeTV 250 Plus tuner.

This will handle all the unencrypted Digital signals coming from your Cable company. It will not work with all channels however, as some channels are encrypted by your cable company to protect the content. This tuner will also work with the analog signals on your cable system as long as they continue to provide analog signals.

I bought my oldest daughter an iPod when she was 10 years old, and by her account I was a little bit late in doing so. I think 1GB would be OK for some children as it holds about 240 songs. If your child owns much more music than that, a larger iPod would probably be a good investment. I think 4 GBs is a great size for music use because 1000 songs offers more than enough choice of music in one day.

Be careful about buying the clip-on iPod Shuffle for kids. It is so small that it will often stay clipped to the clothing and go through the wash. Also, sending a kid to school with an iPod can make them a target for theft. Consider buying non-Apple headphones so it is not obvious as to what they have.

The New 13 Inch MacBook

You will need to use a program called Keychain Access to do this and it is found on your Mac computer hard drive in the Utilities folder that is contained in the Applications folder. When you open that application, use the Search box in the upper right hand corner to search for “mail” and all your stored passwords for mail accounts should be shown.

What you do next depends on the problem you are having.

If you are trying to check mail but Mail is always sending the wrong password you can just delete the password item in Keychain Access by highlighting the item and pressing the [delete] key. Now Mail will ask you to reenter your password and you can then enter the correct one.

If you want to look at a saved password Keychain is using, you just need to double click on the password item. Then mark the checkbox for “Show password:”, enter your computer’s login password, and then click the “Allow” button. You will then have the ability to see your password and edit it. After you like your edits you can click the Save Changes button.

Adobe CS3 Box

Running Adobe CS on a G4 400 is a “could / should” question. You “could” run CS 3 on a G4 400 MHz computer with over 512 MB of RAM but you probably “should” not. According to the minimum required hardware specifications all you need is a 512 RAM, the latest version of 10.4 Tiger and enough hard drive space to install everything. Those three things plus a G4, G5 or Intel processor will be enough to let you install the CS suite of software. However, being that low on the requirement scale, CS applications would probably open on your Mac computer but soon after that everything would slow to molasses speed.

If you need to start using CS 3 applications, it would save you a ton of time and headache to get a newer system. Something in the GHz processor range, not the MHz range.

The White MacBook

You can replace the MacBook’s drive yourself but it would be better to have an Apple Authorized Service center do it for you. The replacement part will likely cost you $200 to $300 but should only take a half of an hour to replace it. Using a Service center will also give the tech a chance to see if the drop did more damage than just the Optical Drive.

If price is overly concerning to you, Searching Google by the drive model number will bring up some budget options. You can also go with an external USB Super drive until you want to fully replace the drive you have. Eventually there could be a Blu-Ray drive upgrade for your MacBook. That way you will get more for your upgrade dollars.

The alternating “?” and Folder Icon indicates that your computer cannot find a bootable Operating system. Not all B&W G3 towers could handle bigger drives, so that may be what is causing the problem. The Rev A G3 Logic board couldn’t handle large drives but the Rev B logic boards can take up to 120 GB drives. Look for the Apple copyright information printed on the logic board and below it will be a string of characters in one of the following two configurations XXX-09XX-A or XXX-10XX-A. The “X” is used in place of unimportant information. 09 indicates that it is a rev A logic board and the 10 means that it is a rev B.

If you have a Rev B Blue and White G3 logic board, then you need to make sure that the drive is set to Master and is the only drive in the computer. It may also be that a more advanced version of the Mac OS is on the drive than what the G3 can handle. You should also download any G3 Firmware updates needed to run OS X.

Macally Storage Cabinet

If you have a Beige G3, and not a Blue & White one, then you are running into the 7 GB boot volume limit. OS X has to be installed on a partition of less than 7.4 GB and that partition must also be on the Master drive on the IDE cable.

Your best option would be to reformat the drive and then reinstall a copy of the Mac OS. To move over your old data you will need to put that 6 GB drive into an external enclosure, like this Macally Storage Cabinet, and use Firewire to bring it over to the B&W G3 or put the 6 GB drive into the Beige G3 as a second drive to copy over the data.

It is nearly impossible for a virus to be the cause of your problem, that is why we love Mac computers. It is far more likely that you are suffering from “bit rot” of your system. This term is often used in to describe failing digital media due to age, but it can also be a less accurate way of describing how, over time, a Mac computers operating system will start to corrupt. It is always a good idea to perform regular maintenance on your computer’s OS every few years. Make sure that your Back up plan is working, or if you do not back up, this is a good time to do it. Then you need to dig out your OS X install media and startup your computer off that disc. From the OS X install disc, you are going to do an Archive and Install. That will replace your current Operating System with a new one, but it will leave your personal data intact. Here is a link to Apple’s instructions on Archive and Installing the Mac OS.

After the Archive and Install, run Software update to get your system back to the most recent OS version possible and reinstall your non-Apple applications. This will replace the failing files causing these problems and it should also improve the performance of your Mac.

I am not sure your Quicksilver problems are entirely related to the Apple computer Logic board. It could also be a power-supply issue or a PMU/PRAM battery issue. Check out Apple’s info on resetting the PMU and also remove the PRAM battery and check its voltage. It must be 3.6 Volts or higher.

Another possible cause could be a faulty power button on the front of Apple computers or the display. Try using a different display on the computer and test whether it happens again.

Installing Leopard onto a 1 GHz DP Quicksilver should be an easy process as long as you also have 9 GB of available drive space and at least 512MB of RAM. Make sure you are using a black-labeled version of Leopard. Gray labeled versions will only work on the specific model of Macs it shipped with.

This is a new problem that is unique to the iPod Touch and iPhone. Because it is really more of a mobile Apple computer than an iPod, you have the ability to buy music, video, and applications without ever having connected it to a Apple computer. Then you run into a problem because it will still want to sync with Apple computers just like a regular iPod, and that process assumes that your library on your computer is the single source of content for your iPod.

Apple knew this was a problem so the added the “Transfer Purchases” option to iTunes for iPod Touches and iPhones. To access this feature connect your iPod touch to the computer and open iTunes. Right Click or [control] Click on the iPod Touch’s icon in the Devices section. Select “Transfer Purchases” from the popup menu and then your purchases will be added to the iTunes library.

I think you will have to rely on the open source community to find a suitable print driver for your Apple computers OS X. Here is a link to the Linux Foundation’s OpenPrinting for MacOSX downloads.

If that does not work or you are still looking for a new printer, I love the monochrome HP laser printers. The little HP LJ P1005 is the perfect desktop sized laser printer that still has the HP quality print engine.

The flashing question mark of horror… it is not always a day-ending event, it really just means your Apple Mac has tested all the equipment and is ready for the next step. The “horror” comes from the next step being “start loading the OS from this disk,” which is not happening. It could be that your hard drive has died or the OS is corrupted but it can be as simple as the computer forgot what drive the OS is on.

Try restarting the Mac computer by holding down the [option] key, which will take you to a boot loader. After a few minutes all available boot devices will show up. If your Apple computers hard drive is not listed, then you should put in an OS X install or Restore DVD. See if you can see the internal drive from the Disk Utility included on that Install disc, when booted from it. There are some diagnostic tools under the “First Aid” tab in Disk Utilities that may help.

If you are lucky, and can see your drive from the boot loader, then you should select your drive and boot up off of it. After you boot up, use the Startup Disk section of System Preferences to permanently select your hard drive as the boot drive.

If your drive is there but has damage to it, Disk Warrior is the best home drive repair tool for Apple computers.

I asked someone more experienced with Video Production needs to contact you but the basic answer to you question is that yes an Apple laptop
is fine to use for editing video, but having a powerful tower, probably new or used Mac Pro, would be best for importing off of high-end video equipment. You need PCI-e expansion and higher bandwidth, as well as fast scratch drives. If you are just dealing with FireWire sources, then the newest MacBook Pro is perfect for your needs on the editing and importing front.

That is an unfortunate history with that PowerBook 17″ computer. I never saw an epidemic of problems from the 17″ PowerBook line, but I do remember some issues with USB / Display backlight problems. I think you would probably be at a risk buying any used parts. If you have the work done at an Apple Computer Authorized Service Center, there is often a 90-day warranty on the replacement parts. That would be the safest repair process for you.

For your money, investing that repair money in a newer Apple computer system would be a good idea. I like the design changes made to the MacBook Pros, so if you can stand a 15″ screen I would steer you to that computer as a replacement. It is the most substantial change to the Apple laptop design since the retirement of the Titanium PowerBook.

The previous used MacBook Pros are well designed on the inside and I think you could get one without the fears of a repeat of your PowerBook experience.

I am unsure exactly what system you have because the used MacBooks range from 1.83GHz to 2.4GHz processor speeds. Whatever MacBook or used MacBook pro you own will be fine for audio recording. More RAM is always a good upgrade; 2GB is the new entry level for serious work these days. You will want to get a USB or FireWire audio interface to connect the instruments to Garageband. The M-Audio Fast Track Pro is a popular choice.

All transfers to the Apple iPod come via iTunes, which is where the music was purchased from. If set up properly, your iPod should be showing up inside of the left hand side of your iTunes application. You then just need to Synchronize your iPod to your iTunes library. Synchronization will happen as soon as you configure your iPod with personal settings.

If the iPod does not show up in iTunes, then follow the Apple’s instructions for initiating an iPod connection in Windows.