Fan Noise after upgrading to OS X 10.4.7
Every so often, I show up in the office to see that my year-old G5 tower has decided to emulate a jet engine. Overnight, the fans rev up to the maximum, and stay that way
Continue readingCategory: Hardware
Wacom tablet jittery after moving to new machine
I recently moved my Wacom tablet to my new G5. I installed the very latest driver, which is compatible with Tiger. When I tried to move the pen around the tablet, it was so jumpy
Continue readingiPod Freeze
If your iPod freezes up, as mine did several times before dying completely, follow these instructions:
To reset iPod mini, iPod mini (Second Generation), iPod photo, and iPod (Click Wheel)
Toggle the Hold switch on and off. (Slide it to Hold, then turn it off again.)
Press and hold the Menu and Select buttons until the Apple logo appears, about 6 to 10 seconds. You may need to repeat this step.
Tip: If you are having difficulty resetting your iPod, set it on a flat surface. Make sure the finger pressing the Select button is not touching any part of the click wheel. Also make sure that you are pressing the Menu button toward the outside of the click wheel, and not near the center.
[note: this is the tip that got it unfrozen for me]
If the above steps did not work, try connecting iPod to a power adapter and plug the power adapter into an electrical outlet, or connect iPod to your computer. Make sure the computer is turned on and isn’t set to go to sleep.
Continue readingWacom tablet stops functioning
On my Windows 2000 workstation, occasionally, the tablet just stops working. It seems that this usually happens when the mouse (which is also still connected) has been moved accidentally. However sometimes it seems to just
Continue readingNorton Ghost will not backup unless a non-USB mouse is attached
I’ve found that Norton Ghost will not go into DOS mode to perform a disk backup unless a non-USB mouse is attached to the machine. Probably you could also get around this by fiddling with
Continue readingPowerbook G4 will not turn on
I was given an old Powerbook 15″ aluminum version, which I used a few times, then left idle for several months. When I got it out again, I plugged in the power cord, which did
Continue readingThe MacMini
Well they’ve finally done it – made a computer I can afford to buy my parents, who need one even if they don’t know it! One weird thing – I could have sworn that on
Continue readingCan’t install OS X on a newly partitioned firewire drive
Since upgrading to 10.3.5 and Final Cut Pro 4.5 HD I have been having no end of problems with Final Cut crashing on launch (solved that one here) and with “log and capture” freezing toward the end of a tape.
I decided to revert to using OS X 10.3.4, and attempted to install it on a new 200 GB Firewire drive I had laying around.
I started up using the Panther install disk, then opened Disk Utility, and partitioned the drive. Then I opened the installer and attempted to install OS X onto it. However the three partition icons for that drive all had the little red “stop” sign over them, and selecting any of those icons got me this message:
“You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. You cannot startup your computer using this volume.”
Quitting the installer and then restarting it made it recognize the partitions as bootable, and the problem was solved.
Continue readingAvoiding serious hand problems from using the mouse
Many of my graphic designer and computer geek friends have some form of carpal tunnel syndrome. Several have had operations, and some are nearly crippled. Women seem to be the most frequent sufferers, but I
Continue readingScroll wheel changes selection in drop-down menus
In some of the Questionmark quizzes I’ve made there are “selection” questions, which are simply pull down menus with several possible answers to a question. I started getting emails from scroll wheel users complaining that Questionmark was changing their answers.
It turned out users would make a selection, then immediately start scrolling the wheel without deselecting the menu, so the scroll wheel would scroll within the menu. I didn’t want to disable the scroll wheel or something like that, so I looked for a way to jump the cursor out of the menu when something is selected.
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