Greg In The Desert

My 6+ year old PowerBook G4 Ti 1Ghz is having occasional video problems. This old computer is happily being used by a student, except for this very annoying video glitch which can be seen in a picture I posted to flickr.

Here are some of the things I can note about video issues:

• I can take a screen capture of the image.
• The image appears through screen sharing apps (VNC)
• Comes and goes without warning.
• Sometimes it will appear on start up when the Apple logo appears.
• New windows from an app will not have the effect, but the background will will still have the effect.
• You can “erase” it by moving windows around.
• The cursor/pointer will appear over the top of the glitch and not be affected by it.

Some of these symptoms makes me think it’s a software issue rather than a hardware issue, however the problem has occurred in Tiger an Leopard and through multiple re-installs of the operating system.

I have searched the Apple message boards but I didn’t turn this up. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything posted, just means I may not have used the correct search terms.

If you view subscribe to this site’s RSS feed and click on a link to one of my pages only to find a “not found” page, its all thanks to idisk. The problems first start with RapidWeaver, which still insists to publish the whole site instead of just new pages. During the course of publishing 1200+ pages my idisk will disconnect for no apparent reason.

Tiger had some problems like this but Leopard is a whole lot worse. Since the rss feed page is one of the first files to get uploaded, it shows up right away. The rest of the pages can take hours or days to be uploaded. If there’s something you want to read, come back in a day or so and see if it finally was uploaded.

CompUSA is going out of business. I’m not sure what it is, too much competition, high prices, they can’t figure out what it is they sell? Back in the day (early 1990’s), they were one of the few places one could find Apple computers and accessories. My second Mac, a Centris 610, was purchased from a CompUSA in Arizona. I recall writing on a AMUG BBS about this computer’s 20MHz 68LC040 being “blazing fast”.

The actual purchase of the computer was not so blazing fast. I went to the salesman and said I want to buy that computer. The salesman goes to his little WYSE dumb terminal type machine and comes back with paperwork for me to fill out. I fill out the rather long form then wait like an hour to actually get the computer brought to me. Then i take it up front to pay for it.

Once in New Mexico, CompUSA was the only computer store to sell Apple products. Despite it being on the other side of town, sometimes taking a hour to get there, I used to visit frequently. I actually bought Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger” there when it came out since there was no Apple store in town at the time. It’s probably been a good year since I’ve been there, prices are too high and their selection was poor.

I have absolutely no inside knowledge, this is just a theory of mine. I believe Apple is waiting to update everything and It’s all hinging on Leopard.

I think iLife’08 was suppose to come out earlier, but since Leopard was delayed, they had to fix it to work on Tiger.

A massive update to the iPhone is coming. The iPhone update will have 3rd party application support, better syncing, a notes application, etc. They will all require technologies in Leopard that Apple doesn’t want to give away.

The AppleTV will also have some major updates. Once such update could be Safari and the ability to browse the web on your TV (good by WebTV). One such feature will eliminate the need for a keyboard since you will manage and sync bookmarks from Safari on your computer. It also illustrates the need to have Safari on Windows

Apple is scrambling trying to get band-aid fixes in place so people don’t loose interest for the next few months. What do you think, am I way of base?

iTunes 7.3.1 is suppose to fix this issue.

I would not recommend downloading iTunes 7.3 unless you absolutely need to. I was greeted to this error: “The iTunes Library file cannot be saved. An unknown error occurred (-50)” after iTunes attempts to upgrade the library. It seems every version of iTunes has some problem or another after install, but this is the first time I’ve had some such error.

Apple’s message board indicates that many people on Mac OS X and Windows are having the problem. I see a few people who have a large library and have the library on a external hard drive as I do, but it’s not clear that this is the cause. What seems to be the cause is some sort of permissions issue. Possibly. Hopefully Apple gets this one fixed soon.

Update 07/01/07 10:54 AM: There’s suggestions to use this Apple tech note to recreate your library. The only problem with this tech note is it will delete any customizations in the library, like ratings and playcounts. I’m going to revert my install to iTunes 7.2 until Apple comes out a fix.

Update 07/02/07 12:29 PM: MaxFixIt is covering the iTunes error now. They have several suggestions including checking for iTunes add ons, Disabling APE for iTunes and restarting in safe mode. I tired all the suggestions and none of them worked. I’m going to play with Tiger Cache Cleaner and see if it will clean up anything.

Update 08/02/07 5:55 PM: Fixed! I removed most of my podcasts, most of them were video podcasts. Once of them must have been screwed up in the iTunes database.

Update 07/06/07 3:49 PM: I re subscribed to some of the podcasts, video and audio, since deleting them all. So far there’s been no problem with any of them. They are syncing with my AppleTV and my iPod. I didn’t add them all though. There maybe some that I didn’t add that maybe causing the problem.

If you don’t like the idea of deleting all of your podcasts, try deleting a few at a time. Starting with the video podcasts. Be sure you delete the whole podcast, not just the individual episodes.

Maple Desk – I love this desk and a absolute bargain at $149. I wouldn’t be able to fit it down my hallway.

• Antique Dining Room Set in Santa Fe Looks nice but not cheap at $800 (but still may be a bargain)
• Sectional Couch – This freaked me out, my ex-girlfriend and I had an identical couch and spent way more than $700.
• Antique Sofa – Nice looking antique for a $100.
• Maple Chest of Drawers – Antique, not bad for $280.
• lawyers table – I love this, it comes apart! $129.
• Tiger Oak Dresser – A little rough and a perhaps a bit pricey at $169.

Safari 2.0.1 for Mac OS X 10.4 is available for download and has this super, incredible description of what’s new.

Safari version 2.0.1 for Mac OS X Tiger improves website compatibility, application stability and support for 3rd party web applications.

Thanks Apple!

You can get the same update for older versions of Safari too.

Crufty: “Poorly built, possibly over-complex.”

Since upgrading to Tiger, I have been unimpressed with the performance of the Mac OS. I had more problems then I want to count with just getting installed and I’ve had these exact same problems.

With Safari blowing up on me every time my web server squirts some funny Ajax on it, iPhoto exiting when I rotate a photo and Mail.app taking ages to even acknowledge that I have switched to another folder, I guess it’s time to take a hard look at how things are going.

Now, Mail.app has “lost” some of my mail, some in a specific folder that is from the important people. I cannot add things to that folder in mail and the finder gives me a “error -51″ when I try to delete it there. It is also amazingly slow at updating the folder displays, sometimes it doesn’t do it at all.

In Mac OS 9 I always used the blinking time separators in the menu bar clock to determine if my system is “thinking”. When Mac OS X came out this was no long a indicator because it would always blink even when the system got bogged down. Now I again are relying on this indicator because my system will become so bogged down that even those stop blinking. This happens much too often, and never happened prior to 10.4. Nothing is more annoying then having to sit there waiting for the computer to finish doing whatever it’s doing, sometimes for as long as 5 minutes.

It’s still better than my shiny new T-42 running Windows they give me at work, but Apple needs work on the quality side to prevent things from getting any worse.

This came out of no where. Apple quietly introduced a new mouse today. “Yawn” you say, everyone has a multi-button mouse. Being Apple and all, they have some innovative features.

Innovative Scroll Ball and Button

Perfectly positioned to roll smoothly under just one finger, Mighty Mouse’s Scroll Ball offers full 360-degree scrolling capability — up/down, left/right and diagonally. You can scroll long web pages, pan full-size images, maneuver around large spreadsheets, control a video timeline and more. And you can even click the Scroll Ball to access your favorite Tiger features such as Dashboard, Spotlight or Exposé.

I’m buying one, and I will buy a bluetooth one when it comes out.

Update 08/02/05 07:00PM: The first review that I’ve seen is out. Looks like you can get them right now at the Apple Store. I suck because there is no Apple Store in New Mexico so I have to wait 5 days for shipping. I could have driven the nearest store and picked one up myself quicker than the shipping.

The links on the right bar come from a javascript file, which mirrors my Safari bookmarks. I have a Applescript that generates this javascript by parsing the Bookmarks.plist XML file.

It no longer works in Tiger since it’s binary file, and using the plutil command line to convert it to text isn’t working on that file for some reason (could be just me). I’ve posted the script up on MacScripters for some suggestions. Take a look if your interested.