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Keeping more than one Tiger in your cage

To protect yourself from a bad CD/DVD drive scratching your $120 Tiger installer disk (and possibly rendering it unreadable) you should consider making a copy of it before using it.

There are two ways we have confirmed that you can do this:

(1) Toast 6.0.9 Titanuim ($55-$99)
Even with 1 DVD drive you can choose the "Copy" option. It will make a copy onto your computer, then spit out your installer and ask for a blank disk. Insert a DVD-R and it will continue by burning, verifying, and leaving you with a bootable copy of Tiger.

(2) Apple Disk Utility (free)
Despite what many 'boards are reporting, you can also create a copy of your Tiger installer with Disk Utility. Here is how you do it:
(a) Open Disk Utility and choose File/New/Disk Image from folder... and choose your installer DVD
(b) Select Image Format: "DVD/CD Master", Encryption: None
(c) Disk Utility will then create a .cdr from your disc.
(d) In the left menu you will see your new image. **Do NOT mount this image**. Simply select it and click "Burn" from the menu. It will burn, verify and leave you with your backup.

Here are the systems used to test and verify these two methods:

BURNING COMPUTER: PowerMac G4 "QuickSilver" with PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-104 (Superdrive) running OS 10.4.1 with Disk Utility 10.5 (198) and Toast Titanium 6.0.9.

BOOTING/INSTALLING COMPUTER: PowerBook Pismo with Mashitsa DVD-ROM SR-8174 (OEM)

Due to the drives in these machines DVD+R was *NOT* an option for burning so we can not confirm that this option will work with G5's that have DVD+R capability.

We used Sony DVD-R disks. We do not recommend cheaper disks like Memorex, Staples, etc.

Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on May 29, 2005 | Comments (0)

OS Wishlist; Two Small Conceptual Steps Forward

There were some who were disappointed with the new OS X when it was released saying it wasn't revolutionary enough - that it was time for the 3-D interface and a completely new way to navigate our files. Unfortunately these people are probably gamers -- and wrong.

Average (and most professional) people still use computers to do things like write emails and documents, listen to music, surf the internet, and play with some interactive media. Things like spotlight are actually useful to that end, as well as many other minor refinements that really add polish to features that we are all accustomed to and even quite good at using by this point.

I think 10.4 brings the current concept of a computer UI near full realization and now there are only a few items to add to make it nearly perfect for what it claims to be and do:

• Address Book History: It would be great to be able to take a vCard and click "archive" and have a dated copy made before changing an address, last name, or phone number. I was recently applying for something and could not, for the life of me, remember my previous address and with my paper address book gone I would have had to dig into my taxes from 4 years ago.
• System-wide decible control: You've got it in iTunes; that fun little feature that smooths out the volume on all of your different songs so they play at the same level. Now apply that system wide so that you don't get blasted out by web Flash videos, or have to tweak 3 or more volume controls to get a consistent user experience (speaker knob, keyboard controls, application controls if they exist).

Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on May 25, 2005 | Comments (0)

Decimal Points of one-tenth = work

Online note to self: A few things to update if planning to install 10.4 "Tiger" and "Migrate" your user files back:

• If you like fish, Serene Screen will require you to re-enter your SN


• HTTPMail needs update or mail.app will be unusable. Actually, it still may not work. If it doesn't you'll have to remove it from /home/Library/Mail/Bundles manually.


• WindowShade and Unsanity Application Enhancer need update


• Audio Hijack Pro requires update


• Need to be on newest version of Transmit


• Chronosync needs update


• Replace Fire with Adium, finally as it's sexier and works with all it's advertised services. (Jabber crashes Fire all of a sudden - wondering if it's due to Apple's iChat adding Jabber support somehow...)


• CarbonCopyCloner only works with a hack (sudo open /path/to/ccc.app) -- waiting for update to GUI


• May 11: Need to reinstall AlchemyTVDVR (public beta)


• May 11: Need to reinstall 3rd party root certificates for mail

Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on May 9, 2005 | Comments (0)