Ask Jacob

What you need is a wireless to Ethernet bridge, I like the Linksys G Wireless Bridge. If you add a small Netgear Ethernet switch to the setup you can have many devices connected to the one Ethernet bridge.

Because you are using an Apple base station, you have the option of using an Airport Express in place of the Linksys bridge. This would be a much better solution. You will set up the Express a WDS extension to your wireless network. Then you will share the Ethernet connection with the switch from above. The Express will also allow you the share your audio over the network, through the AirTunes port.

Hope that helps,

Jacob

Both the Mac Pro and iMac allow you to upgrade the processor, however, the Mac Pro is far easier to work on. The real benefit is that you can now buy generic PC processors to do the upgrade. I have known a few people who have done that upgrade with success.

Mac desktops have only gotten easier to upgrade in the switch to Intel processors.

I hope this helps
Jacob

If you cannot get a CD or DVD to eject by the regular methods, PowerPC-based Mac users can use an Open Firmware emergency eject command. Here is a link to Apple’s instructions on how to eject a disc when other options don’t work. The important steps are below:

– Restart the computer.
– Immediately after the startup sound, press and hold the key combination Command-Option-O-F. Note: The Command key has the Apple and () icons on it.
– Release the keys when you see a white screen that says “Welcome to Open Firmware.”
– At the prompt, type: eject cd
– Press Return, then wait a few seconds. The disc drive should eject any disc that is present, and “ok” appears behind your command when the action is complete.
– Type: Mac-boot
– Press Return

If this fails to eject, you will have to open the case of the G4 iMac to gain access to the manual eject pinhole on the face of the optical drive. You may want to seek the help of a professional for that process.

Hope this helps,
Jacob

You have started with some good first step by replacing the PRAM battery and resetting the PMU in your Apple computer. You will now need to look at your RAM. If you have multiple sticks of RAM in your G4 iMac you should turn off your computer and remove one RAM stick. Use your computer without that one stick for a while. If it locks up on you again, you should remove another stick of RAM and put the one you pulled first, back in. Start up the computer and use it, each time it locks up, swap out another stick of RAM until you have cycled thorough all the RAM. If it locks up with every RAM configuration then you will need to look at another cause.

The next step would be to do an Archive and install of your Mac OS X. An Archive and install will replace your System folder with a clean copy of the Mac OS while leaving your software and personal files intact. You can do an Archive and install of any OS X install DVD. If the Archive and Install fails to change anything it will most likely need to be taken into an Apple Authorized service center for further diagnostics.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

A new or used Mac mini will not be an overly compelling upgrade to your used G5 tower. It should be fast in terms of processor power, but it will be a little wimpy on graphics power. The Intel Mac Mini uses an integrated graphics processor, which is OK in most applications, but can be short on power for games and some design programs. The G5 has dedicated graphics card that will outperform the integrated graphics of the Mac Mini.

The included Rosetta emulator in OS X works well, and you will likely not even notice it is active. It works seamlessly in the background. The Rosetta emulation does have a performance hit but it will not be visible to you due to the speed improvements of the Intel Processor. Just do not be surprised if it is not significantly faster at running your application.

Also the 2.5″ hard drive in the Mac Mini is slower than the 3.5″ drive in the G5, which will cause some latency writing large files. For your work you probably will not notice the difference but it could be an issue for video work.

All the negatives in mind you will still probably want to go for the Mac Mini. It is small, portable, and your performance will improve as you upgrade your software to Intel native applications.

I hope this helps with the buying process.
Jacob

This is erroneous disk full message has occurred for a few Word users. It is basically attributed to a Disk Permissions problem. If you boot your used Mac off the OS X install DVD that came with the computer, you can use Disk Utility from the Utilities menu to repair Disk Permissions on your hard drive. After that Word saving abilities should be fixed, at least according to others that have experienced the same Disk is Full errors you received.

Hope this helps
Jacob

Any Mirrored Drive Door G4 will support OS X 10.5 Leopard, as long as it has more than 512MB of RAM. I would encourage you to buy extra RAM to achieve 1GB of RAM for good operation. Other than that it should be a good entry level Leopard Mac.

Jacob

I would be interested in seeing that article, because to my knowledge there is no way to have two processors on an Apple laptop. Apple solders their processor directly to the logic board of the MacBook (Pro)s, which prevent replacement or exchange. I know some brave souls have removed soldered-on processors and reattached faster processors in the past, but it takes specialized soldering equipment. Modern Mac portables do not contain a socketed processor that a home tech could work on.

Perhaps the article was not about an Apple laptop but upgrading the processors on a Mac Pro. I once corresponded with a Intel employee who upgraded his Mac Pro with Quad Core processors before Apple offered the option.

Please send me the link to the article if I am completely wrong. Thanks!
Jacob

There is no real reason that Parallels must be installed to share your Mac computer system with Windows. I use an iMac that has Vista installed Via Boot Camp without Parallels, but in the past I had used Parallels to Run XP on the same system before I uninstalled it. You can run Windows on your Mac via Boot Camp, Parallels, or VMware. You can even mix and match Parallels and Boot Camp, allowing you to use the same installation of Windows two different ways. That said, for the best experience I would recommend Parallels alone. Repartitioning your hard drive is risky business and locks you into a particular configuration. Parallels lets you experiment with different configurations and a variety of x86 operating systems. It is also easier to uninstall Parallels from your system when you are done with Windows.

If you want to use Boot Camp for the maximum system performance (i.e. gaming), then don’t limit your self to 32GB. You can have larger Boot Camp partitions but it will need to be formatted as a NTFS disk from the Windows installer. The only draw back to a NTFS formatted disk is that the Mac OS will not be able to write to it, only read items from it.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

Well this is a new one for me, but I suspect that it has something to do with how OS X identified your keyboard. You can try to reset your keyboard’s identification by deleting the file that stores information about your keyboard. The file is called “com.apple.keyboardtype.plist” and it is located in the Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/ Folder. Find the file and drag it to the trash. Restart your computer and see if that fixes your “H” problem. If the keyboard assistant opens, just close it with the little red button on the upper left hand corner of the window.

If you are still having issues typing “H,” then try switching fonts. It could be a problem with the default font you are using. Open the Text Edit Application and use the [Command] + [T] key combination to open the Fonts window and try typing H in different fonts. If you find H to be working in other Fonts, then you may need to reinstall your default System fonts.

If the “H” is persistently displayed incorrectly regardless of font, I would next recommend you try using a different USB keyboard. It does not need to be a Mac keyboard, you can use a Windows USB keyboard to test with. See if the problem is identical on the other keyboard, if it isn’t, you may want a new keyboard.

I hope one of these things will work for you.
Jacob

Photoshop and iPhoto are not directly comparable applications, although they share some features in common. First and foremost iPhoto (which comes standard with Apple’s excellent iLife package) is a photo organizer. It lets you sift through your thousands of photos and organize, print, and adjust them. You can do some basic color correction and cropping with iPhoto, and you can also retouch small blemishes and red-eye, but that’s your limit.

Photoshop, on the other hand, is focus on manipulation of your images. You can composite multiple images together or transform the image far beyond its original elements. Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are for people who need to create new images form their photos. If you’re just interested in sprucing up your photos, then the built in iPhoto editing tools will work well. The best part of the two application’s differences is that you can use them together. Instead of using iPhoto’s built-in photo editing tools you can designate Photoshop to be your editor of choice. Import photos into iPhoto, edit the photo in Photoshop, and send it back to iPhoto to store and print it. The best of both worlds.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

Despite Apple’s most recent cut of FireWire as an included port in the Unibody MacBook line, FireWire is still considered a standard port on iMacs. The new iMacs even have a FireWire 800 port in addition to the FireWire 400 port. Currently it is only the MacBook and MacBook Air that are missing FireWire ports of any speed.

The ports look like this:

The back of an iMac is where you'll find the ports.

Hope that helps,
Jacob

You can absolutely buy your refurbished MacBook first and trade in later, just make sure you tell your sales person about the trade first. That way it can be logged into your account. You will just have to pay the full price for the new system and then the refund will be credited to your card or through another payment option. You are not alone with not wanting to wait, so this is actually a very common way we process trades.

Hope you love your new system,
Jacob

There are two ways to find the original email file on your system there is an easy way and a hard way. The hard way would be to first find an identifier in the email that will make it easy to find in Spotlight. An easy way to do that is to copy a large chunk of text from the body of the email. Then go to the Spotlight search next to the clock in your menu bar. Search for that text you have copied. Hopefully just one item will be returned in the results. Select “Show All” to get the search results into a separate window. Click once on the email item in the list and select “Get Info” from the File menu. Two pieces of info will be important to you. In the General section will be the “Where:” location of where all your email from that account is stored. Then in the Name & Extension section of the Info window will be the real name of the email, for instance 740892.emlx is the name of your email to me. You can then got to folder where your email is kept and find the message.

OK now the easy way; I had to put it at the end or nobody would read through the hard way. Find the email in Apple Mail and drag it to your desktop. A copy of the email message will be placed on your desktop so you can do with it as you please.

Hope that helps,

Jacob

Until recently we used a 2100TN as a primary printer here at PowerMax. We still have a 2200DN in use in our returns department. It is hard to kill those HP Laser Jets and if speed is not an determining factor, the old units can still hold their own. The main thing is to make sure to have the printers connected to your network via Ethernet and then add them as AppleTalk printers. You can also add them as a LPR printer if you assign them fixed IP addresses on your network. The nice thing about the JetDirect internal print servers is they have had their firmware kept up-to-date by HP and they have a nice web interface. HP still sells legacy parts if your printers are missing the JetDirect module (J3111-69001).

Here’s Apple’s support page on adding a printer to your printer list in OSX.

One potential problem could be with the router you are using. Some routers will block AppleTalk traffic. You should check your router’s website to see if AppleTalk is a supported protocol. If it is not supported then you may need to setup the printers as LPR printers.

Hope this helps,
Jacob

I have long felt that the iMac was a good alternative to the full-blown Mac Pro workstation. I do believe this still to be the case, but I do not want to mislead you into thinking it will be a limitless computer. The iMac will constrain some of your capabilities. It would not be an ideal computer for HD Video or After Effects work on the production level. The iMac will certainly handle most graphic design work but so to would your G5. The new CS4 requires an Intel chip due to only half the software included in the bundle. Photoshop and Illustrator, for example, will work on a dual G5 processor system.

If you are looking to focus on 2D still graphics, with some light instructional video demonstrations, then the iMac should work well for you. Bump up the RAM and hard drive on the 24″ iMac and you should have decent machine. You should also pick up a DVI to mini-DVI adapter to use your current DVI display as a second monitor on the iMac.

Hope that helps,

Jacob

When you are in Apple warranty it is probably a bad idea to upgrade the internal hard drive in an Apple laptop because you will have to put the original Apple drive back into it before you can mail it in for service. Swapping out the drive in MacBooks and new 15″ MacBook Pros are fairly fast, so warranty is less of an issue there. It takes a considerable amount of work to swap out your drive in the 17″ MacBook Pro.

Outside of warranty, replacing the drive is a great upgrade option. Often you can get better speed out of a new drive, in addition to the increased storage space. The 320GB drive will cost you about $200, and a 250GB should be around $50 less. Both of those should be 5400RPM drives, the same drive speed as you already have from the Apple drive. Priced in between the two drives is the faster, and smaller, 200GB 7200RPM drive. The faster drives are better for reading and writing large files but there is a concern with heat. A 7200RPM drive can generate more heat than the 17″ MacBook Pro was designed to handle. If you go to the faster drive you will get better system performance, but you will constantly need to monitor the heat of the unit and not let it overheat.

If increased drive space is what you are after, I think the 250GB drive should be a good fit for you. I was born and raised in Seattle, so consequently I know those Seattle Mac Store people well and send my family there for service. They should treat you well.

Hope that helps,

Jacob

There are a few surfaces that can cause this kind of pointer-jump effect with optical mice on any Apple computer. This happens because the light that illuminates the surface under the mouse refracts the light beam and confuses the optical sensor. The sensor needs to have a steady image change to track the mouse movements. The main surfaces to avoid are, glass, fake wood, and glossy plastic. All these surfaces can bend the light and trick the mouse into thinking you are moving it around. Found in practically every office, the best neutral surface that is a white piece of paper. You can use the paper as a mouse pad to test whether it is surface substance alone that is causing your mouse issues. If it is a surface issue, try using a dark colored cloth-topped mouse pad.

If it continues to jump on the paper, it is probably a dirty optical lens on the bottom of the mouse. Use some compressed air to blow out any dust or debris from the sensor hole on the bottom of the mouse. This will often do the trick.

Hope this helps,

Jacob