Macking 127

Your Drive Is Getting Full
Bet you don't even know it, either. Now that most drives are at least 40GB it's a lot harder to notice, but there is a sneaky folder that can rob you of HD space to the point of serious problems.
It's a cache folder called Downloads and you can find it here: Users/yourname/Library/Caches/Quicktime. This is where temporary files are stored when you view QuickTime movies on web pages.
If you don't have one of the 3rd-party utilities designed to clear these out, they can expand to gigabyte sizes. I confronted a G3 iMac recently that the user had problems with. It could not open Word files, delete files in iPhoto or print. I opened the hard drive window and it said Zero K available! It was full, absolutely full.
This iMac had only a 10 (actually 9.5) gig hard drive. Combine that with lots of RAM so it could run without a swapfile (Unix's virtual memory) and a high speed Internet connection and their watching lots of QT movies on different sites all allowed the drive to fill completely.
Back in the OS9 days you could fill a hard drive to 95% of its capacity and still use it. There was room for temporary print-spool files, temporary Web-cache files and the like, even when there were only a few dozen megs remaining.
But OSX is more demanding. The swapfile needs to be about a gig in size and sometimes grows larger. One should consider a drive that reaches 75% full as filled up and in need of cleanup.
It's a testament to how robust the MacOS is that something like this could happen and still start up and even run some programs. I was amazed.
The utility I used to clear out all the dross (after discovering and manually tossing all the QT cache files) is called AppleJack. It's freeware available off of Version Tracker's site and other Mac sites. You need to have a working Mac to install it, but it's small. To use it, you reboot into single-user mode (the command line) by holding down Command-S at startup. You see the startup text and then it tells you to type applejack at the prompt. For a shortcut, type applejack auto reboot and hit return. It goes through its steps and cleans out a lot of garbage, fixes permissions and other stuff. There is a readme file you get with the installer that tells you in better detail how to use it. It runs under all versions of OSX from 10.2.8 onwards.

AppleCare Agony
I have in the past detailed how to call AppleCare and not be transferred to India: When the robot answers and you punch 1 for tech support, an unctuous robot will ask you what kind of Mac you have. If you say iBook or iMac, you get sent to India. Tell it "G4 PowerBook" and say nothing else. It will ask if it belongs to a school. "No."
However, just because you wind up at a help center on THIS side of the planet does not necessarily mean you will get competent help. This is where you really have to listen to your intuition. If at any time while you are talking to the person you get the idea that they may not really be all that sharp - for instance they can't get your name right and it's pretty simple - hang up. Just hang up in the middle of your sentence. Then call back and try again. You will almost always get a different tech because the previous one is off taking another call.
There is a script that most of the techs are required to use, a process to follow to debug your particular problem. How well you can go around that depends on how savvy YOU are - if you are experienced and have run a bunch of tests about your problem, tell them right off the bat. For instance, "I did a Repair Permissions and also ran Disk Utility from the Installer CD." If you have no clue what that means, read my earlier columns for the details. You should repair permissions fairly frequently.
If the tech goes straight to telling you to reinstall your operating system without going through a lot of tests first, you should get away from him. That is dead last on the list of things you should do. If he has you take your Users folder and put it on the desktop, absolutely do not do that. Hang up immediately. The last two items happened to a recent client and a real mess was made. When he called back the next day the competent tech was groaning in agony at the incompetent advice from the day before.
It is possible to get satisfactory help from AppleCare. Most of the time they know what they are doing. You also have a duty to learn the correct terms for things so you can speak a common language. If you don't know what he means by "desktop" then get clear on it and write it down. When he says "Go to the hard drive," he means "Double-click on that icon of a hard drive, usually named Macintosh HD, in the upper right corner of your desktop." If you have a messy desktop with a lot of files and folders on it, you will have to look around to find your hard drive. It's there.
Also be sure you are completely understanding of the difference between Files and Folders. Never say one when you mean the other. This seems obvious but a lot of people buy their Mac, learn how to use a couple of programs and never talk to anyone else who uses Macs so they never learn these important details. This is why I am always hammering away at people to join their local Mac User Group. You will learn what you need to know and it won't cost you an arm and a leg while doing it. Plus, you might make some new friends!
Getting help via phone can be a nightmare, especially if you wind up in India. Be careful out there and trust your instincts. If things go completely awry, well, fixing that is how I make my living.

AppleCare for Displays
At long bloody last, Apple is offering AppleCare for their TFT displays. Cost is $99, or free when a display is purchased along with any new Mac that has its own AppleCare policy. Used to be that was the ONLY way you could protect your display; now it's standalone. If your display is less than a year old, hie thee to the nearest Apple Store or Apple itself with credit card in hand.

Avoid MacMall
There is a spate of letters on Macintouch warning people away from buying at MacMall. Misdirected customer support, telephone shuffle, lying about rebates, reselling previously registered machines, etc. This many negative reports usually means the place is trouble. Instead, buy locally, use PowerMax, or Amazon for your Mac purchases.
Others report good experiences with MacConnection and MacZone, but not CDW, or MacWarehouse since takeover by CDW.

AntiVirus for Macs
Sophos and Intego have both announced antivirus products for the new Intel Macs as well as existing PPC products. Now that we are finally starting to get Mac malware I'm glad these guys planned to be ready. This is good because Norton AV is pretty terrible. Symantec can't do much of anything right, and I hear the same talk from many PC users. Just be sure you set ANY anti-virus program you use NOT TO QUARANTINE INFECTED FILES. One false positive can make your system unbootable or destroy your entire mail database.

Get More RAM
According to MacFixIt, the new Intel Macs require 2 to 3.5 times more memory to run an application under Rosetta (the older programs not optimized for the new chip) than native mode. This means that if you plan to buy one of them, order it with as much RAM as possible and definitely do NOT settle for the stock 512Mb that comes in the box. As programs get updated they will run faster and more efficiently but now is when you need the extra memory the most.
Adobe has no plans to release updates with Universal Binary for any of their current applications, so you will have to wait for CS3 to get an Intel-native version of Photoshop and your other Adobe applications.

New Browser for OSX
Shiira 1.2.2 is a new open-source browser developed in Japan. It makes use of your Safari or FireFox bookmarks, and incorporates a few new features of its own. It requires 10.3.9 or later. The developers are creating this as an example/test application using Web Kit. It is distributed under the revised BSD license, with no cost or restrictions on its use.
I like it for the Tab Exposé feature, which gives you mini-window views of all your loaded tabs. Plus I need alternatives for when a page refuses to work in Safari. It seems a little unstable and the ad-blocking program PithHelmet does not work with it, but I am letting them know. Everyone should keep more than one browser around just for those web pages that don't play nice with Safari. Firefox, Opera and the long-abandoned MS Explorer are part of my collection. All are free.

Apple Cuts G5 iMac Prices
Was $1699, now $1499. This is probably to reduce backlogged stock in the switch to Intel processors. Since Wall Street Journal rated the G5 iMac as the "gold standard of desktop PCs," you might want to go for the gold and put off updating to Intel for a couple of more years. The 17" iMac G5 has disappeared off of Apple's store so they are probably already out of stock.

Classic May Be Possible on Intel Macs
There are some experiments being done that show that it may be possible for the Intel Macs to install and run OS 9.0.4 or earlier and run the applications compatible with that using early emulator experiments. You would need to somehow acquire a MacOS ROM file. More on this will be forthcoming, but it is nice to know that Classic isn't quite nailed to the perch just yet. The first emulator is called SheepShaver and can be found here along with instructions.

Letters
Thanks for another good Macking issue. Don't know if I told you that I found a solution to the iTunes music store purchasing problem I was having.
I couldn't buy music at all because I kept getting a message during the buy process that said I didn't have a valid US address. Nothing had changed with any of that info but there was no way to alleviate the problem; I couldn't even set up a new account with a different credit card.
So on your suggestion, I went up to the Apple Forums, posted the complaint and got back a response from someone named Dave Sawyer who told me to go to the County window and try selecting another county than the one I had been using. So I went up there and changed Washington county (where we actually live) to Multnomah county and the problem was alleviated. I can now buy all the music I want just like I used to before Apple became geographically challenged.
I don't know how many others of us with a Portland address who live in Washington or Clackamas counties are having a similar problem, but as far as Apple's concerned, we all live in Multnomah county now. May want to pass this one along to your readers for grins.
Thanks, DW, Blackthorn Group, Inc.

No Microsoft products were used in the production of this column.

email mp at moonmac dot com. (I took out the mailto link because that's how the spammers find me.)