Ask Jacob

The problem with the dimming screen could be caused by a few “features” of the Apple laptop design. The first possible cause would be the brightness keys being inadvertently pressed. On all the G4 PowerBooks and later laptops, Apple has included brightness keys as a sub-feature of the F1-F12 keys The icons for raising the brightness is a big sun image and to lower the brightness is a key with a little sun image. The function keys that these are associated with the icons vary from model to model. Depending on the settings your apple computer has, you may need to hold down the Function shift key [FN] to activate the special function of those Brightness keys. It is possible that when hitting a nearby key your finger is also connecting with the brightness keys. I reverse the special function of those keys In the Keyboard & Mouse System Preferences to avoid those kind of accidental changes.

The second possibility you have already ruled out but it is often the problem for other users. For others the dimming could be due to Ambient Light sensors. Many newer Apple computers with built-in displays have sensors in them that detect when the room is dark. The computer can then dim the screen when the lights are lowered, so that the user’s eyes are not blinded by the screen. You can turn off this feature in the Display System Preferences. This feature is set by a checkbox, labeled “Automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes.”

The third culprit affects desktop Macs more than Apple laptops. Desktop Macs have a small battery to retain sound and brightness settings, among other things. A failing battery in a desktop could cause these settings to reset to defaults, perhaps a failing battery in you laptop or other power system problem could cause a similar effect. Try resetting the PMU and PRAM via these instructions and see if your settings are retained after restart. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431

The issue with Apple Mail changing column listings is a bit trickier. I have personally experienced this problem but not as frequently as you have. It has yet to occur in OS X 10.5 Mail. This seems to be an issue with the 10.4 Apple Mail plist file, and the way it writes those column changes during operation. To my knowledge there is not a fix, other than moving to 10.5, but you can always try some general disk maintenance, like repair disk permissions, to see if that fixes it.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

In my experience, most Mac antivirus programs cause more problems than they prevent. Removing your recent installation of Symantec would be a good first step in troubleshooting this problem. You may also have to do an Archive and Install of the Mac OS after you remove Symantec Antivirus. If the problem continues after you do these two repairs, then I would next look at your PRAM battery. A low voltage PRAM battery will cause many sleep and waking issues. Also you could notice other problems starting up but that is not always a symptom.

In some rare instances, a Power Mac G5 can have problems with SATA drives. I have seen some Seagate drives cause booting and other issues in G5s. These drives were of the Barracuda 7200.10 family. This has not been a problem for many years but it is worth a look if all else fails to solve your problem.

I honestly recommend running a Mac without any Antivirus software. Most times placing a Mac behind a NAT Router is sufficient to protect you from attack. It is a good idea to have a router in between your ISP’s modem and your computer, even if you are the only user of the connection. A NAT Router will take one public IP address and translate that into another internal group of secret IP addresses. This translation makes it very difficult for malicious people to see your computer on the internet and that makes you more safe than having protective software on your system.

You may consider having Antivirus Software installed in your Windows XP virtual machine to protect it from attack but as long as you only use it for a select group of websites you trust and non-networked software, it will probably be safe.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

There are a few plist files that you can try deleting to remove that failed Burn from your sidebar. From your User account’s Home folder look in the /Library/Preferences/ folder for com.apple.finder.plist and com.apple.sidebarlists.plist. Move both files to the trash and then restart your Apple computer. If that fails to work, you should boot up off your OS Install DVD and open Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Select your hard drive and then use the Disk permissions repair function of the First Aid Tab.

The best solution for Apple computers that can’t use an internal modem, like your Intel iMac, is to use the Apple V.92 Data/Fax USB Modem.

The only requirement is that you have Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later, and a free USB port. As the name implies, this will work for faxing as well as Dial-up internet access.

Hope that helps,

Jacob

Only the new Unibody MacBooks have had a FireWire port omitted from the design. The new MacBook Pros have a FireWire 800 port that supports FireWire 400 via an adapter. The MacBook Pro can be booted into Target Disk Mode, just as with previous models. However, the MacBook’s lack of FireWire signals a shift in how Apple expects Macs to migrate, post-Leopard. Time Machine is the new migration and backup tool of choice. Fresh Leopard installs let you restore from a Time Machine backup, regardless of what system that backup was created from. So assuming you have a system that you have been backing up with Time Machine, you just connect your new Mac to the USB Time Machine drive, migrate, and you are running again.

Another consideration is that most modern Macs have Gigabit Ethernet. Two Macs connected via a Gigabit network can transfer data faster than two Macs connected via FireWire 800. I think we will start to see more Ethernet-based solutions from Apple as Gigabit becomes the modern standard.

There are a few technical reasons why you would want to install and then Migrate 10.5, apposed to just cloning, but you can still use the cloning method. All Intel Macs support USB 2.0 booting so you can just start cloning to a USB hard drive instead of a FireWire one. It should be procedurally the same.

Both new and used Mac minis supports two video connection types called DVI and VGA. VGA uses a D-sub 15 pin connection, so your old PC monitor should work fine. The Mac Mini has a DVI port on the back of the unit but it will allow your VGA monitor to connect to it via a DVI to VGA adapter. New Mac Minis come with that adapter but not all used systems ship with adapters. If you find that your Mac Mini came without an adapter, then you will need this DVI to VGA adapter.

It is best to use Mac-specific PCI hard drive controllers, although some generic PC cards will work. These days I recommend that you but a PCI SATA controller card for drive expansion. Not only are these available with Mac support, but your investment in hard drives will be transferable to your future Apple computers. I am fond of Sonnet Tech adapter cards for older Macs and I think this SATA card would work well for you.

When ordering a hard drive for this configuration, make sure it has both Legacy and Serial ATA power. Otherwise consider getting the Sonnet Serial ATA Cable Kit.

Low End Mac has a great G4 Power Mac Upgrade Guide with loads of information specs relating to G4 Power Mac Upgrades.

Any time you want to print a picture of exactly what you see on screen you should take a screen shot first. Use the Grab application in the Utilities folder. From the Capture menu select “Window.” You will then have the option to get the Web browser window to look just as you want it to when printed. Then go back to the Grab application and click on the Choose Window button. The pointer will turn into a camera and the next window you click on will be captured as an image. You can print that image and also save it in digital form.

You can also use Apple (Command) Key + Shift+3, which will allow you to capture the entire screen.

Apple (Command) Key + Shift+4 gives you a cross hair with which you can capture a select portion of your screen by dragging the cross hair over the image you’re interested in capturing.

To switch windows while in capture mode press the spacebar.

The “Trash” is a terrible place to keep any important files, but I assume you know this and it was an accident. Also, this would be a perfect rescue job for Time Machine coupled with an Apple Time Capsule. If you had been using Leopard’s Time Machine you could have gone back in time to when the data was not in the trash and then recovered just those files to your current system. If you are desperate to undelete, then you will need a program like Data Rescue.

With this software you can reboot your system off the CD and then use the undelete scan function to recover as much data as possible from the drive. The main thing is stop using your Apple computer. Every file you get, including this email, could be overwriting your deleted files. Even leaving your computer on could allow those files to be overwritten by system temp files.

That G4 iMac should be able to take any PATA (AKA ATA or IDE) hard drive even this 750GB Seagate hard drive.

Here is a take apart for that G4 iMac.

Consider also replacing the optical drive with a newer MCE Internal Super drive, if you have it taken apart it is a natural upgrade in addition to the hard drive.

Data protection is essential to everyone, not just professionals, but as a professional videographer your data is your money. Mean time between failures (MTBF) is a poor choice for considering data protection. It’s far better to assume a drive will fail at any time, and put yourself in the position that drive loss will not hurt you. We lose drives from our XServe RAIDs here, from time to time, but powermax.com stays up and running as we cycle a new drive in its place. There are many ways to configure a system to have protection.

The simplest date protection setup is to have two drives in a RAID 1 configuration. Essentially you have two identical drives in your Mac Pro getting duplicate information. Disk Utility in your Utilities folder will let you partition two drives together in RAID 1, after that initial setup they will stay in sync until one fails. Any drive will work for this purpose, you just want to use identical drives when creating the RAID.

The costlier and more complicated way would be to use an external RAID 5. This would let you have a portable and secure “Data Piggy Bank” for your video files and projects.

Check out the great LaCie 4big RAID backup and be sure to consult with one of our sales people for the best fitting RAID.

I believe this is a preference setting for Finder. It is often overlooked, but the “Finder” is an application running on your Apple Computer. The Finder application is brought to the active foreground when you click on the Desktop or the Finder icon on the Dock. Although it is an integral part of the Operating System, it is still just an application and therefore has its own preferences. The System Preferences under the Apple Menu are specific to the computer in general, the Finder preferences are found under the “Finder” menu. Under the General tab, there are four checkboxes in the “Show these items on the Desktop:” section. I would recommend marking all four checkboxes. Take a look around at the other settings in there; I think you will be surprised at all the options.

Yes the iPod nano has a wonderful screen that will give you many ways to interact visually with your music. The iPod Shuffle is an anomaly in the iPod family. It is the only iPod introduced that had less features than the original iPod. The ability to scroll, and now flip, through your music and video collections is one of the trademark advantages of an iPod over other MP3 players. The Shuffle is Apple’s low-cost alternative to the iPod, or as a second iPod for strenuous activities.

The Nano is a great choice, we have a few in my house, but an older generation used iPod will also work for you, as long as they are not Shuffles.

You should have no fear about plugging that monitor into Apple computers, except the fear it may fall over. A well-placed, heavy lamp can hold the display upright when the rear foot is missing. This is a common failure of the clear plastic Apple LCD display. That is not to say that it happened all the time, but the displays are so solid everywhere else that the foot became the only weak point in the display. Many displays have suffered the same fate as yours and have gone on with productive lives. Images on the display will still look just as good as they did before, after you get it in the proper position, and stable.

There are relatively few choices for upgrading your video card on a first generation used Mac Pro but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get a great card. The NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT is a spectacular upgrade card and quite the improvement over the 7300 GT card. There is also the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT card, but users complain of noise and relatively low performance on high-end applications compared to the 8800GT card.

WPA is the best security to use for your mixed Wireless network because it will often work identically for both Apple Computers and Windows PCs. There are some options in setting up the wireless router that may not work well with your Mac. One of the primary issues stems from “Speed Boosting” technology promoted by some routers. These feature will work well if you use the same manufacturer for a wireless router and a computers wireless network card. Matching card and router works with “Speed Boosting” because both understand each other, but that feature doesn’t adhere to industry standards for wireless communication. With Mac computers, they have built-in wireless cards that expect standard wireless communication and the Airport card fails to understand the “Speed Boosting” communication from the router. Make sure that any boosting technology is turned off on your router.

It is also important that you have a modern version of the Mac OS to connect to the WPA network. Use Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher if you can. There are several WPA configuration options that may also be causing problems. On your router you will want to select Pre-Shared Key w/TKIP, or something similar, to connect your Mac via WPA/WPA2 Personal option.

I would agree that it sounds like a USB problem. There are several things to try to resolve the problem. The first would be to see if there are updated USB drivers for your laptop. Most PC manufacturers will have Support section containing a list of drivers for your particular computer, and any available updates. This is separate from the Windows Update mechanism, so you should probably start there because I would bet there is at least one update you will need. After you have the drives updated, then see if the iPods are working again. If not, the next step is to uninstall iTunes completely and then reinstall. This is a common fix for Windows versions of iTunes with iPod connection issues.

If all the above fails you should look at the USB port. It could be that there is an intermittent short in the USB port. You can try a different plug or get a USB 2.0 expansion card for your laptop. Depending on what options your laptop came with, you could use PCMCIA (AKA a PC Card) or an Express Card to USB 2.0 adapter. This may provide a more stable connection to the iPod than the built-in USB port.

Some late-model, used PowerBooks have FireWire on them and those units could be booted into Target Disk Mode (TDM). You do this by holding down the [T] key on startup of the PowerBook. Then you can connect your two Apple computers together with a FireWire cable. The PowerBook’s hard drive should appear on the Desktop of your iMac. You then can use Disk Utility to repair the drive. Also, make sure that your PowerBook drive is not full; it sounds as if you may have a full hard drive and that may be causing your boot-up issues.

If you do not have FireWire or the above does not work, you can try booting up your Apple computer with the [Shift] Key held down. This will boot OS 9 in a limited mode that should help you diagnose the problem. There is a good chance it will also fail, but holding down the [Shift] key turns off extensions and those can often be a cause of a failed OS 9 boot. If that works then you need to sort through your extensions folder to find the culprit.

If everything above fails, then you will need to find a retail copy of OS 9 to boot up the computer and repair or replace the installed OS on the drive. It would probably be best to backup the data off the PowerBook and erase the drive. Then you can reinstall a clean copy of the Mac OS.

If you are using Lotus Notes 6 or newer, then you can export those files as vCards. The Export option should be under the File menu. Once you have the vCards you just need to transfer them over to the Mac and select Import vCard from the File menu of the Mac Address Book application. Address Book will also import from a text file if that is your only export option within Lotus Notes. That option is in the same pop-out menu as the vCard import.