Month: November 2009

Repair Mac G4 Powersupply

Most old G4s PowerPCs have Problems with the Elkos of their Powersupply.
If you're a bit into Soldering, you can quite easily exchange these and get it working again.
Sadly, it didn't work out for me, maybe something different wrong...

BUT - for the sake of helping you out, I made a Picture with the Specs of the Elkos that normally "fail".
Red are the ones which actually were really dead as I measured the old ones (i.e. the 25V 100microF had only 68microF left),
Green were the ones that "still worked" / were in quite good condition.

But thats only from one Powersupply, on yours it might look different.

But anyway, good luck!

Mac OS X Install Problems

Last time I wanted to install Mac OS X Leopard on an Mac and had the problem of an DVD that was always reported as "defect" - It could boot but not install.
So, I came around an quite easy solution:
Installing Mac OS X Tiger - and then Updating!
Seemd that my DVD is somehow only scratched where the "Complete Reinstall" Files are.

Ah, and by the way:
I had for ages the Problem of Warcraft 3 etc which didn't wanted to run under Mac OS X (both Tiger and Leopard) in the latest Version.
It always crashed as I choose "Option" in Game.
Solution is quite easy:
Go to ~/Library/Preferences and erase the com.blizzard.WarcraftIII.24 and Warcraft III Preferences Files.
Thats it!

UnStuck CD and the Blessing called Firewire Mode

Hi there.
So know that I started to life in the more recent Mac World (through an donated G4, thanks a lot! ^.^), I also feel the need to get a bit more to grips with this little fella.
The most basic stuff I did need in recent time:

Eject CD / DVD if "stuck":
1. Through Open Firmware
Press ALT + Apple + O + F after the beep as you turned the Mac on.
A white command line will apear. Enter eject cd and press enter.
You can do this again to close the drive.
( And mac-boot if you want to boot or shutdown )

2. Through Comamnd Line \ Terminal
drutil list shows the installed CD Drives.
drutil eject NUMBER does eject the CD from the numbered drive.

Target Disk Mode \ Firewire:
If you got two Macs, the most impressive thing is the Target Mode.
In Target Mode, you connect two Macs via Firewire Cable, start your Target Mac and press T as long as some nice Firewire Logo appears, and start the second One, with, for example, ALT Key pressed. This will give you an possibility to choose your Bootvolume. So, as Target Mode is active and the Macs are connected, also the DVD Drive and Harddisk from the Target Mac does show up! You can even boot his Mac OS! Cool. Ain't it? Thats useful in cases of Harddrive Crash or for example, If you want to use the other Macs DVD Drive if your other Macs is dead or not existing (Mac Book Air?).
Also you could set the "to be installed" Mac in Target Mode, boot into Mac OS install and install on the Target Macs Harddrive. So, you got some options, use them! ^^

Ah.. by the way, as this site figures out ( http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/unsupported.html ) you can also install Mac OS X 10.5.1 Leopard on an old 400 MhZ G4 by starting it in Target Mode and install Mac OS X onto its Harddrive! Cool!

Firefox and Thunderbird Addons Special

Some little Special about my most beloved and used Addons for Firefox and Thunderbird!

Firefox:

Adblock:
Adblock is one of the most well known and widely used tools. It does what it says: Blocking Ads, Popups and such.

Bugmenot:
Bugmenot is an integration of the Website www.bugmenot.com into the Firefox.
Bugmenot is an service on which you can add own login data to Forums and Websites which everyone else can use to login.
So, you don't need to register on every website to gain access.

Compact Menu 2:
Duplicates the menubar on the toolbar as a menu of menus.
Great for Eee PCs!

Download Statusbar:
Shows up a little bar in the statusbar instead of the big and unhandy "Downloads" thingy popping up. Really nice and better looking.

deviantAnywhere:
Does check up your Deviantart Account regularly.

Fireftp:
An fully fledged FTP Client. This saves you from installin another WSFTP or CuteFTP or whatelse.

LiveHTTPHeaders:
Useful if you develop shell scripts which use curl to login.

ProxyButton:
Does quckly turn proxy on and off.
Hints:
To install you need to turn check security off.
Enter about:config and add an Boolean Key "extensions.checkUpdateSecurity" with 0
Then install: http://downloads.mozdev.org/proxybutton/proxybutton-0.3.1.xpi
To use the proxy tool on startup, create a link to firefox.exe and end it with
-proxy 1 (to enable proxy) or -proxy 0 (to disable proxy)
http://proxybutton.mozdev.org/

TabMixPlus:
Does improve TabBrowsing with Firefox.

WOT:
The Web of Trust. Now thats important!
This cool tool checks up the website you're visting wheter theres some "un-nice" entry about it in its database.
Entries to this Database can be submitted after registration at WOT.
So you can acctually warn other Users from Phising and untrusthworthly shops and so on.
Should be installed on every Firefox and can also be configured as child-protection.

Xmarks:
Formerly Foxmarks is an Tool which can synchronize all of your Firefox Bookmarks from Home, Work, Laptop - etc.
You'll never ever come to the point of "Damn, I only saved this favorite at Work..".
It can also be configured that for example your Work PC does only get an special "Work" Folder, while the rest of the clients are getting the full data.
Additionally, Xmarks can synchronize the Password Database of Firefox.
Well, thats I thing I haven't tried and won't. Use KeePass to store and carry your Passwords securely!

Thunderbird

ContactsSidebar:
Does add some sidebar to your Thunderbird which contains the contacts like in Outlook Express.

Lightning:
An huge Calendar Application. Powerful!

MoreFunctionsforAdressbook:
Does add fields for things like Birthdate into the Adressbook.
https://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/morecols-en.html

Provider for Googlecalender:
Does include your Calender at your Googleaccount. Very useful if used with Lightning

Thunderbirthday:
Does create an Calendar from the Birthday Entries from your MoreFunctionsforAdressbook enabled Adressbook - for Lightning.