Solid State Drive Experiences, OS 9 Browsers, Tiger Install Problems, and More

• Solid State Drives in Notebooks
• OS 9 Browsers
• FireWire Target Disk Mode Tiger Install Problems
• Tiger Install Woes
• Odysseus May Best Replace Eudora
• Partial Install of MS Office 2008?

Solid State Drives in Notebooks

From Matt:

Hi there Charles,

I'm a regular reader of LEM and thought you (and the readers!) might be interested in my take on Solid State Drives. I've just posted an update on my site about it which I intend to follow up with some more in depth info later, but basically I've been using SSDs in one form or another, be it CF cards or modern SSDs, for a few years now in both desktops and laptops, primarily for reasons of noise, so as you can imagine I have a slightly different perspective on them!

I've been quietly giggling to myself reading about all the people who have their undies in a knot over having to squeeze on to a 64 GB drive when I've been comfortable coping with 2 or 4 GB drives, when I swapped to using a 16 GB SSD in my PowerBook I found it positively roomy!

Anyway, more random ramblings about it on my site, feel free to post any extract or the whole thing if you like, but I'd be interested in chatting to other longtime (and new) users of SSDs to see how they're getting on!

Thanks
Matt Atkinson
http://www.rabidwombat.co.uk

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the note and link. Feeling distinctly cramped these days on my 80 GB drive, I congratulate you on your being able to operate on such low-capacity media. What version of the Mac OS are you using?

Charles

Thanks for replying Charles,

Believe it or not, I'm actually using Leopard on the PowerBook. A basic Leopard install without all the extra language translations and unneeded printer drivers only comes out at about 4 GB.

I run Microsoft Office 2004 (not a fan of 2008 yet) and Photoshop CS3 and LightRoom. With a few other choice programs for mail and Web and software to run my GPRS/3G card, it leaves me with about 4 GB free on the 16 GB drive. I tend to disable Spotlight as well, which speeds the machine up a bit (it's only a 1 GHz G4), and it saves about 500 MB of space if you don't have the index file.

I only use my PowerBook as a mobile machine, I don't keep my whole life on it and find a couple of 4 GB CF cards and a 8 GB USB key gives me plenty of storage for whatever I'm working on when I'm out and about.

I did have a MacBook for a while, and although it was quicker, I prefer the silence and solidity of my PowerBook - and the lack of a CardBus slot really bothered me, I couldn't use my 3G card when I was away from wireless and had to use a USB adaptor to use my CF cards instead of the CardBus adaptor I use on the PB.

It all depends on your needs, I suppose. I'm very strict about what I have on my laptop, and with a bit of housekeeping and good synch habits with your desktop, it's surprising how little you need. I still use my Windows laptop sometimes, as its a 11inch ultra portable that is currently running XP and Office on a 2 GB CF card in an adaptor in the HD bay.

Happy computing

Matt

Hi Matt,

Leopard on a 16 GB drive. Whoda' thunk it? ;-)

Not an option for me, as I do keep, if not my whole life, at least my Mac computing history going back 16 years, on my laptop, although I'm getting along satisfactorily with an 80 GB drive these days.

Interesting that you would go back to a G4 PowerBook after living the Macintel life for a while. Until recently I hadn't felt any compelling reason to switch up from my 1.33 GHz PowerBook G4, but there is now software that I want to use (notably MacSpeech's Intel-only Dictate) that requires Macintel, so I'm back in the system upgrade hunt.

Charles

OS 9 Browsers

From Mathias Wittau:

Dear Charles Moore!

Today I read your column at Low End Mac about Mac OS 9 in the year 07. "The State of Mac OS 9 Compatibility". You are right, with your analysis, that the "browser-problem" is one of the biggest of us Mac OS 9 users. I for myself won't ever switch to X!

First I'll ask why nobody is talking of Netscape 7.02? I for myself find it much more stable than Mozilla WaMCom 1.3.1 Netscape is in many cases much more compatible with modern web pages for example with the new phpBB release than Mozilla or IE. And it's really faster than iCab! And Netscape is the latest browser with localized versions in German, French, and Japanese.

The other Interesting thing is that some people think it's possible to port Firefox back to Mac OS 9 like Carl MacDonald (aka Scotsman) at Low End Mac, with whom I had contact and who believes that he could do it - if he had enough time left. Maybe we should start an initiative to show our interest, or at least an donation-pot for the porting of Firefox.

My last point is that Apple seemed to force Opera stopping the development of their browser for OS 9 like it's said at their site. Thanks to Apple - the company which offers new software beside OS X for Windows 98 but not for Mac OS 9 (like QuickTime).

greetings from Austria

Mat

Hi Mat,

I agree with you about Netscape 7.02, which is in my opinion the best available solution in a Web browser for OS 9, much better than the WaMCom version of Mozilla.

My wife just finally switched up from our old WallStreet PowerBook running OS 9.2.2 to a G3 iBook running Tiger a couple of months ago because she needed to use an OS X only program for training, but she had been quite happily using Netscape 7.02 for browsing up until then. It worked just great with Gmail, for example/

Charles

FireWire Target Disk Mode Tiger Install Problems

From Phillip:

Charles,

I attempted to install 10.4 from my iMac/Intel to my 700 MHz eMac with no success . . . when I got to the install portion the eMac had a exclamation "!" mark noting OS X can not be installed on this drive.

Any suggestions....??

thx Phil

Hi Phil,

A couple of thoughts.

First, are you using a generic OS X 10.4 install disk, or is it a System Restore disk from a different model machine? Apple puts software blocks in Software Restore disks to limit them to use with the model they ship with.

That is a common problem people encounter. An System Restore disk for an Intel Mac definitely will not work with a Power PC Mac.

For current sources and prices on generic installer disks, see Low End Mac's Best Online Mac OS X 'Tiger' Deals.

If you do have a generic install disk, try mounting the iMac as an external disk from the eMac using FireWire Target Disk mode, and using its DVD drive to mount the installer disk.

Charles

Tiger Install Woes

From Meg:

I am tearing my hair out. Read your article on installing Tiger in Target Disk Mode and have read numerous other "hints" etc. on doing this.

I have an iMac 17" G4 1.25 MHz, 149 gig hard drive (90 gigs available), 256 memory, and a defunct SuperDrive. It has Panther installed currently, and I would like to install Tiger so I can run my Turbo Tax program.

I have an external DVD reader/writer attached to the iMac 17". Had it connected with a USB cable and had tried to boot from the installation disk - didn't work. Read somewhere maybe a FireWire cable would work so changed that. Put my Tiger disk in it, came up on the desktop. Went into the installer from the external drive and got a kernel attack. Repeatably. On to Plan B.

Plan B: Have a 15" Aluminum PowerBook with Leopard installed, so put the Tiger disk in the PowerBook and the iMac in target disk mode. Tried to boot off the Tiger disk and kernel attack.

Plan C: So then put the PowerBook in Target mode with the Tiger disk in its drive. The Tiger disk showed up on the iMac. Double clicked Tiger disk and kernel attack.

Plan D: Dragged the iMac 17" into my living room where the iMac 24" resides which runs on Tiger. Put my trusty little Tiger install disk in it and the iMac 17" in target mode and went at it again. Thought I was really making progress this time. Actually got to the point in the installer I could see both computers, however there was an exclamation point over the iMac 17". When I double clicked on it the message was "You cannot install Mac OS on this volume. Mac OS cannot start up from this volume."

Out of Plans: I will add I used Apples' Disk Utility to repair permissions and verify the hard drive on the iMac 17" Were no problems.

Can you tell me, am I making some stupid mistake here. Could the installation disk be bad? It has been used before on my PowerBook. I'm pretty sure I got the family pack, since I knew I'd be doing the iMac 17" at some point.

Please help.

Thanks,
Meg

Hi Meg,

I have to say I'm stumped by the problem you're having. It sounds like you're using a proper Tiger install disk rather than the very common problems people run into attempting to install from a software restore disk that shipped with another model Mac. Family Pack or not, the generic Tiger install disk should work.

PowerPC Macs can't boot from USB drives, but can from FireWire external drives, so you're on the right track there. With a bootable external drive available, that's the method I would recommend over using Target Disk Mode.

However, kernel panics are often associated with peripheral connections, and maybe your iMac doesn't like something about your external drive.

Other things you might try would be to download the Panther version of OnyX and run the full slate of permissions repair, maintenance scripts, cache dumps, and system optimization, and try again.

OnyX is free. Make sure you get the right version, as there are separate ones for Panther, Tiger, Leopard.

Next step might be to run the OS X 10.3.9 Combo updater (free download from Apple's support site) on the Panther machine to see if that cheers things up, or even a clean system install of Panther from the iMac's software restore CD.

It is remotely possible, I suppose, that there is some issue with the Tiger install Disk, but I'm doubtful.

Charles

Odysseus May Best Replace Eudora

From hr:

I think Odysseus may hold more promise as a replacement for Eudora.

Anyway, I'm still waiting.

hr

Hi hr,

I agree, and me too waiting. I hope Odysseus will eventually materialize. In the meantime, I'm hanging in with Eudora 6.2.4.

Charles

Partial Install of MS Office 2008?

From William:

Hi

I teach school. I don't know who to ask about this, so I thought of you.

Our school is switching from a mix of Macs and PCs to all "Rent-a-Clones". (Win XP) AppleWorks 6 files go to RTF, and all else to Word. I've been using Office 2004 for Mac at school. I need Word and PowerPoint, but not the other stuff in MS Office for Home and Students 2008.

I have a new MacBook Pro on order.

Is it possible to just load the two programs I want and not the ones I don't need? Just buying the two I need would cost a lot more than buying the set.

Bye
Bill

Hi Bill,

My ignorance of MS Office programs is fairly encyclopedic, since I don't use them, but the Office Home & Student version, which includes Office Excel 2007, Office PowerPoint 2007, Office Word 2007, sells for a suggested retail price of $149.95. Freestanding Word alone sells for $229, so in context, that's not a bad deal.

Apple iWork is a bit more than half that, and supports Word and PowerPoint documents.

Some folks swear by NeoOffice and OpenOffice, both free.

Charles

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