Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with tiger

Switching to & consolidating verything on a new external HD

amillionbillion — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:38:39 -0800

I'm switching to a new external hard drive. How can I consolidate all my files onto it? My current external HD is a Sony bootleg I got in China. It's been solid but I'm nervous. I want to switch over to a 500GB WD Passport.

8 months ago, I cloned my internal HD with Carbon Copy Cloner onto a partition on the "Sony" and have never updated it. I also backed up all my media files onto a separate (not bootable) partition. I then deleted a lot of my files from my internal HD (which is only 60GB). Since then, I frequently move (not copy) new files from the internal to the external's backup partition to free up space.

In short, I haven't been as systematic as I should've been and am not sure anymore what files are on the external HD's backup partition and not on the clone, which are on the clone and not on the internal, which are on all 3, etc etc. It's a mess.

Is there some app/program (or relatively efficient process) that can recognize "the difference," help me merge and consolidate everything, and transfer it all onto my new drive? Ideally, it would all be on a new clone on the new drive (so that I can boot from it when I get a new computer), as well as on a separate new backup partition for easy access.

(With CCC, you can opt to add to your clone without deleting anything from it. However, even if I were to update the clone using my current internal HD, it would be missing a whole chunk from the past 8 months (the stuff I added just to the backup partition, then deleted without cloning). And I don't have enough internal HD space to add *everything* back on, then move it onto the new drive, and am too broke to expand my internal HD for now.)

Also clearly I have been going up the cloning and backup process all wrong to create such confusion, but am not sure how I should do it from now on.

Thoughts and suggestions? (I hope my question makes sense!)

PS - tangentially related: When I do get a new computer and boot from the clone, could I access all my old apps without needing the original registration/serial #s?

Mac problems with password resetting and broken screens

wile e — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:37:07 -0800

Calling all Mac experts out there. I have a tricky one. This is a long one, but if you do have the time I would appreciate taking a look. There is a summary on the bottom for those that are less inclined to read through.

Ok, I have in my possession a Powerbook G4 in my possession. Original owner ran it over with a car. Laptop survived, screen did not. Original owner left it for dead. About a year later, I took it off his hands to work with on an external display. Works great, no irregular functionality.

The catch. I have to use the guest account as the original owner doesn't remember the admin password. So I borrowed a copy of Leopard from a friend and tried to reset the password from there. However since the install disk won't recognize the second monitor, I have to get lucky to pick the correct option to get to the Mac OSX Installer screen. From here I chose the password reset popup, reset the password for the admin account I wanted, and I restarted.

Now heres the fun part, when it rebooted, there no longer is any admin accounts. Only the guest account is available. I go back to the installer page and in the reset passwords dialog, no more accounts show for me to reset the password.

So my only option now is to do a complete reinstall of the OS. Except I do not see how from the installer page, and I without being able to use the external as the primary display I am stuck.

So as a summary:

Powerbook G4 with tiger and a broken screen that has no admin accounts anymore.

Need to either be able to make the external monitor as the primary not in the OS, but permanently.

or

To be able to do a complete clean install of Leopard on the system, with the catch of being done from an external monitor.

Now as a bonus question, if I were to disconnect the laptop screen, unplug it, would the computer default to the external display?

80s meow

you're a kitty! — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:25:16 -0800

I love this tiger bathing suit. Unfortunately, nothing similar seems to exist on the internet. Help me find one! That's a vintage suit, but I'm amazed that no modern companies seem to be making anything remotely similar (panthers, cats, anything!). I tried Googling "cat swimsuit," "tiger bathing suit," etc., but no luck.

I had a purple tiger swimsuit when I was a little kid that I adored; clearly my nostalgia must be shared by some of my generation! Any ideas as to where I could find such a thing would be much appreciated.

stream music via bluetooth?

dhruva — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:17:11 -0800

Can I stream music via bluetooth from an iBook G4 with Tiger 10.4.11 to the Sony Ericsson Bluetooth ball speaker? Is it even possible to stream music via bluetooth on tiger?

control-clicky wiki

artdrectr — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:00:56 -0800

OSX (Tiger): Using Control-Click > Quick Search, I want to add Wikipedia to the list. How?

Looking for a Countdown Timer That'll Go Higher Than 99 Hours

interrobang — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:55:41 -0800

I'm looking for an OSX application, widget, or menubar item that will display a countdown to a date. Ideally, I'd be able to set it for, say, May 14th, and it'll show me how many months, days, hours, and seconds are left until the date. It'd be even better if I could run more than one of these timers at a time. I need this to work on Tiger, but Leopard stuff could be useful, too. Thank you!

What to do with an inherited tiger's head?

omnigut — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 13:26:09 -0800

We inherited a tiger's head from our dead grandfather, which was hunted around 1940. We'd like to know how much it is likely to cost, and what people think we should do with it; donate it to a museum? to an art college? to an insane asylum? Any suggestions appreciated. Photos are here, here, and here. You can see photos of it here, here, and here.

OSX upgrade to OSX Server: Headache free?

chillmost — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:55:11 -0800

I will be upgrading a MacPro running 10.4.11 to 10.4.11 Server. What, if anything, could go wrong? My company has a MacPro file server with a client version of Tiger running. As the number of employees has grown that need to get and place files, we often run into the 10 user limit imposed by Apple's client OS, hence the update to Server. There are some other advantages to this as well, but the unlimited clients and connections is the main plus for us. I have a few questions about this, the answers to which I could not find out in the tubes. This either means that it is a relatively painless process, or I'm not using the right search terms.

1. Will the user accounts remain untouched? The accounts themselves will probably remain okay, but what about user preferences? Finder? Other Apps?

2. Will people that connect to the server have to recreate the aliases they use to do so? Not much of a big deal but it'll be nice to know what to expect on Monday morning when my phone's ringing and people are complaining that they can't connect to the server.

3. Are there any other changes that I'm not thinking of that might cause a headache after I update?

Note: we are staying with Tiger because of a change in the way Leopard handles text encoding in applescript which would cause all of our scripts to break. The time it would take to rewrite them all would be huge.

Thriller Centerfold Tiger

Stylus Happenstance — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:41:25 -0800

I'm looking for the picture from the centerfold of the Thriller LP. It's the one where MJ has a baby tiger on his leg, not the one where he's hugging the tiger. I'm amazed that I haven't been able to find this, especially since I recently easily found a picture of a skeleton holding a condom and a picture of Cookie Monster holding a gun, but I feel like I've tried every combination of michael jackson thriller tiger LP centerfold jacket sleeve fold cover and art. I found this on ebay, but while I don't need anything high-res, I'd like something better than that.

Low-end laptop

mccarty.tim — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:48:08 -0800

What's a good netbook or netbook-like computer for my mom and sister? 4 years ago, I built an Athlon XP 2500+ computer for my family. Back then, it was a $550 gaming machine (All in Wonder 9400+, which died a few months ago and was replaced by a $30 cheapie card), but after 4 years of use, it's beginning to be slow and cumbersome. I don't have the time to do a full system reinstall, and I'm not sure it's what the system needs. It's loud, slow to boot, slow to run, and takes up a lot of space, and the hardware is starting to show some quirks which flashes won't fix (BIOS does not always boot, needs a hard reset by flipping the back switch, network card drops connections, computer turns itself on when shut off). Being at home with my laptop makes me realize how much my mom and sister hate it, because they're always asking me to look stuff up on my MacBook Pro.

Lately, netbooks have entered the market and look like a good option, because about 90% of what they do is web browsing and basic text editing. The other 10% can be satisfied by the old Windows machine. However, for what they are, they seem expensive compared to the older Apple laptops on sale on Ebay. They don't really need a sub-10 inch laptop. What they really need is just something less cumbersome than the old desktop I built.

I think an old Apple laptop may be better for them, since I'm familiar with OSX and I think they would have an easier time with it than Windows or a Linux derivative.

Our house has an 802.11G network running from a hacked WRT54G router, which reaches pretty much every room. I'd be okay with the computer running 802.11B, but if the difference were $20 between G and B, I'd go for it. As for the laptop, I'd like one that is fairly user-serviceable (IE, RAM and hard drive are easy to replace/upgrade, CD drive replaceable would be nice, but not crucial), since these would be fairly old machines. I know that Boot Camp and Parallels are impossible on that setup, but they don't need that, so it's moot. If the machine could run Leopard decently, that would be useful, but just Tiger is acceptable. Also, are replacement batteries hard to find for old machines?

Is there any model that satisfies or comes close to what I said, or would I be better off getting them a netbook or certain model of old PC laptop? My budget would probably be from $200-300, so it would have to expand for a netbook. I'd expect the machine to be sturdy, but not very. I wouldn't expect them to take it out of the house much. Would they really benefit from the added speed/build quality of a Powerbook over an iBook for what I described?

Man Attempting to Move Leopard

indiewizard — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:41:38 -0800

Great MeFites, I come bearing but a humble request. I bought a MacBook Pro about six months before Leopard was released. When it finally came out, I installed it on a partition on an external drive, which I would boot from (because OS X is awesome like that, amirite?) so I could test out all my apps. Now I'm ready to commit to Leopard full-time - what's the best way to go about transplanting my Leopard partition? In my head, I would copy everything precious to the external drive, and then go into Disk Utility and select "Restore" (I'm not in front of my Mac right now, so I don't know the exact option, but it's a tab that comes up in the main pane when you select the root drive in the left-hand pane), where I would select Leopard as the source, and my internal drive as the destination. However, the internal drive is just slightly bigger than the Leopard partition - would this present a problem?

Also, what are my other options? Specifially, Carbon Copy Cloner comes to mind - is this what I need?

Also also, I would like to merge my Adium chat logs - any programs available? If this isn't possible, I'll settle for simply copying them to my Documents folder, and using Spotlight.

A thousand thank-yous in advance.

Like Paint for Mac?

bluefly — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:58:48 -0800

Can you suggest a simple 2d drawing program for Mac OS X (Tiger)? I'd like something with the simplicity of MS Paint. I'm trying to draw some very simple line diagrams. If it's free (or cheap) that would be good. I've tried Pixen, but it really seems geared toward drawing small things. Inkscape would be best, but it always crashes on my machine. I've tried Seashore, but it doesn't really seem to be a drawing program.

Major crashes with OS X 10.4 (on a G5 iMac). Bad hardware?

AmbroseChapel — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:49:18 -0800

Major crashes with OS X 10.4 (on a G5 iMac). Bad hardware? It looks like I'll have to take it in for repairs, but maybe there's a software fix? My iMac G5 crashes: not the nice multilingual Mac Screen Of Death but really serious crashes -- the screen turns into regular patterns of noise and I have to reboot. When this began happening it would boot up, run for five minutes and then it would happen again. Then it got worse.

I looked into the system.log and the panic.log and there were messages there about Graphics Card errors, mentions of Frames, and the messages were coming from kernel level (I wish I could post them here but it won't even boot any more).

I did all the obvious things I could think of, zapped the PRAM, fixed permissions, verified the disk, and I even reinstalled the whole OS.

I'm assuming that I have some hardware problem, i.e. a bad graphics card.

But one thing's nagging at me. During the reinstall of the OS, which took a good twenty minutes to half an hour, the computer stayed up and running just fine, when it was working off the kernel/drivers on the DVD.

So, is that a clue that there could still be a software fix? Something to do with the drivers that I could fix without taking it in to a shop to repair?

Grateful for any suggestions.

launchd WatchPaths vs RuntimeRevolution CGI

evil holiday magic — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:02:33 -0800

Can a launchd plist set to WatchPaths respond to a CGI script updating a file? I have a shell script in ~/ that runs rsync between a local folder and a remote server directory. The .ssh/authenticated_keys file has been updated, so this whole process works smoothly without any user interaction.

I wanted this script to run automatically, so I set up a plist for launchd to watch the local folder, and respond to changes by running the rsync script. So, whenever a file is moved in or out of the local folder, or a file is updated by the user, rsync is launched, and the remote server is updated to reflect the changes. This also works fine.

Here's where it all goes awry:

The actual files that I want launchd to watch for updates will be updated by a CGI script. The script has been working fine for years, and the Finder reflects the new modification date when a file is changed by the script. However, launchd doesn't seem to notice the file being modified by the script.

I've tried moving the plist among the various Agent and Daemon folders (loading it with Lingon or the launchctl command), with no luck.

Ideas?

Intel Mac Mini 2.0
Mac OS X 10.4.10

Syncing a Razr? More like STINKING A RAZR

Sticherbeast — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:24:33 -0800

iSync question: I'm trying to use a USB cable to sync a Razr V3 with iSync 2.4 on an iBook G4 running Tiger, but something's not clicking. iSync recognizes the phone and it claims to Sync it, but nothing gets added to Address Book. What's the deal? The iBook doesn't have Bluetooth capability, so I can't use that. While I don't expect miracles, I'd also be very interested in learning how to get the photos off of this phone and onto the computer, without simply pix messaging an email address over and over again.

Tiger help! Why are my wireless and spotlight icons missing from the upper right hand corner of my toolbar?

radiocontrolled — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 13:35:24 -0800

Tiger help! Why are my wireless and spotlight icons missing from the upper right hand corner of my toolbar? I run Mac OS X 10.4.11 on my 12" powerbook g4. When I turned on my computer today, the spotlight and wireless icons were missing from my toolbar.

I can access the spotlight through finder. However, I can't connect to the internet. Please help me fix this!

Thanks!

Please help my dock and apps play nicely together

bricoleur — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 06:15:01 -0800

On my Mac (Tiger), I prefer to have the dock at the bottom, hidden. But all my applications insist on opening new documents and windows so that the new window touches the bottom of the screen. As a result, it often happens that when I go to resize the window by grabbing the bottom right corner, I invoke the dock instead. Usually, a second try will be successful, but this is annoying as heck. Is there a global setting that will tell my applications to stay out of that last quarter inch of my screen? Or some other solution to this?

Voice over internal modem?

ooklala — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 07:29:16 -0800

Is it possible to use the modem in an iBook running Tiger to send and receive voice messages? Is there any way to send sound (i.e. a song playing in itunes) over the internal modem? I know it is possible to hear what is going on in the modem but is it possible to send voice (not just data) over my macs internal modem with only software? What about low cost hardware to do this?

Best Chicago bar for MU/KU game?

Ignatius J. Reilly — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 13:59:09 -0800

Best sports bar to watch the Mizzou-KU game...in Chicago? So, I am a lifelong MU football fan. I live in Chicago right now, and simply don't have time to drive to Missouri and watch this game properly at Arrowhead or even at Harpo's. Given that there will never again be a Mizzou/KU football game with national-title implications, I want to enjoy this one. Anyone know of any Tiger or Jayhwak bars in Chicago?

Help my ailing iBook!

annabellee — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 06:35:26 -0800

MacTechFilter: Is this strange activity in my console log the reason my iBook is freezing up? I posted a few weeks ago about my iBook G4 freezing at seemingly random moments and not responding to anything but a hard restart.

Original question here: http://ask.metafilter.com/72204/How-to-get-iBook-G4-to-stop-freezing-up
(There's no option to hyperlink or format in this text field for some reason)

As advised in the responses, I checked my console.log and system.log files right after it froze this morning and found in my system log:

Oct 20 08:48:23 iBook-G4 kernel[0]: ** ASIC Hang Log Start **

followed by about 1000 lines that look like this:

Oct 20 08:48:23 iBookG4 kernel[0]: ** ASIC Hang Log Start **
Oct 20 08:48:23 iBookG4 kernel[0]: 0x01005c63 4f000217 00000007 00000003
Oct 20 08:48:23 iBookG4 kernel[0]: 0x02007c43 c0001c04 00000002 00000008
Oct 20 08:48:23 iBookG4 kernel[0]: 0x00004443 01e1f8b7 00003b3b 80010140
Oct 20 08:48:23 iBookG4 kernel[0]: 0x4000ffff 001e0000 51b3a220 72001005
Oct 20 08:48:23 iBookG4 kernel[0]: 0x080a0f00 00000000 040100f8 80000003
Oct 20 08:48:23 iBookG4 kernel[0]: 0x0008bbbb 00000002
Oct 20 08:48:23 iBookG4 kernel[0]: 0:0x0021e110
Oct 20 08:48:23 iBookG4 kernel[0]: 1:0x80000000
Oct 20 08:48:23 iBookG4 kernel[0]: 2:0x000101ce
Oct 20 08:48:23 iBookG4 kernel[0]: 3:0x10264600

The numbers before the colon go up to 1023 each time.

These are the final lines before the time at which I restart the computer:

Oct 20 08:48:33 iBook-G4 kernel[0]: 1023:0xffffffff
Oct 20 08:48:33 iBook-G4 kernel[0]: 0x5d56f250
Oct 20 08:48:33 iBook-G4 kernel[0]: ** ASIC Hang Log End **
Oct 20 08:48:33 iBook-G4 kernel[0]: ATIRadeon::submit_buffer: Overflowed block waiting for FIFO space. Have 5, need 6. RBBM_STATUS 0x80010140. VAP_CNTL_STATUS 0x00000002
Oct 20 08:49:26 localhost kernel[0]: standard timeslicing quantum is 10000 us

Entering ** ASIC Hang Log Start ** and ** ASIC Hang Log End ** in Google give me only people who had this problem with eMacs, mostly several years ago.

Can anyone help?

How to get iBook G4 to stop freezing up.

annabellee — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 10:39:36 -0800

[iBook G4 filter]: My Mac keeps freezing and responds to nothing but a hard restart. About two and a half weeks ago, my iBook started freezing randomly. The keyboard stops working totally and the only thing I can do is move the mouse pointer with the trackpad (can't highlight anything, can't get hidden dock to show). Sometimes I get a spinning beachball for a second but usually it just shows an arrow cursor. The only way I've been able to get it to work again is with a hard restart (pressing the power button).

Lately I've noticed the I can count on it freezing up when I unplug the power cord, plug in the power cord, or unplug the speakers. It still freezes at other times, but this is a guaranteed way to make it happen.

I've done extensive Googling on OS X boards to try and find help.
I have run: Disk Utility to repair permissions; started in single user mode and gotten a clean bill of health from Disk Utility, installed and run Cocktail (which seems to just clean caches), installed and run Applejack AUTO. All give me a "nothing's wrong" report at the end.

I do NOT have my Tiger disk (Grrr, misplaced) so I'm trying to avoid the "nuke and pave" option if I can attribute the freezing to a software issue/repair the hardware myself.

Vital stats: iBook G4, purchased 1/2004, running OS 10.4.10, 1GHz PowerPC, 640MB DDR SDRAM. Approximately 12 GB free on 60GB hard drive. Applecare expired. Running Tiger for a year with no problems. Most memory-intensive programs used regularly: Quicksilver, Firefox. My battery is not eligible for the replacement program.

Please help! Happy to answer any further questions if needed.

How to install Mac OSX clean without the original discs?

rsanheim — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 12:08:15 -0800

How can I install Mac OS X on an older Macbook Pro without the original discs? My boss recently got a brand new Macbook Pro, and so I received his old 15" Macbook Pro to do dev work on. I'd like to reinstall a clean install of Tiger, not only to remove cruft but also to save some space by only installing the apps I really need. The problem is that the original discs are lost, and it seems no other install discs will work.

I've tried original discs from the new Macbook Pro, a new Mac Mini, and our discs from our Apple Developer subscription. All give the same error message very early in the installation and won't continue: "This software cannot be installed on this computer."

We have the 10 seat ADC subscription and a AppleCare for all our machines, but I was wondering if there was some solution that didn't require sitting on hold for customer service or waiting in line at the "genius" bar.

What are the best Safari plugins?

jroybal — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 13:26:21 -0800

What are the best Safari plugins? I recently bought my first Mac, a MacBook, and now I've switched to Safari. What are some Safari plugins that I should be using? Preferably free. Mac OS X Tiger, 10.4.10, Safari 3.0.2 Beta. I've seen some related threads on here, but they're kind of old, and there's no mention of Safari 3 Beta.

Two things specifically, but really anything that would be useful.
1. Something that would give me more control over tab behavior
2. An ad-blocker

Thanks very much.

Unstable Mac! Advice for testing RAM?

anonymoose — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 23:15:08 -0800

My Mac is totally messed up! Help! (Hardware issue, probably ram chips, maybe HD) Powermac G4 tower running 10.4.9. 2x 232GB Harddrives("A" and "B", 1 160GB HD "C". 2 GB Ram (4x 512MB).

Last week:
Drives A and B are in a mirrored RAID array created by Softraid 3.3 (Have been for about a year now). My computer starts getting crazy unstable. Crashing, kernel panics abound. Try Diskwarrior on Drives A+B. Crashes during Diskwarrior treatment. Try Disk Utility. Computer keeps getting more unstable until it won't start up off of Drives A+B. OK, fine. Starting up off of Drive C

Now:
Running off of Drive C. Much more stable. Decide I'm going to reinstall Tiger on A+B. No luck. Tiger won't install because Drives A+B can't pass their Disk Utility Check. Run Diskwarrior. Works this time. Try to install tiger. No luck. Installs most of the way to the end, and then says "There were errors during the installation...Please try again." OK fine. I get rid of Softraid, split the mirror in half, and initialize one of the drives with Apple Disk Utility, zeroing out all the free space to catch bad blocks. Try installing Tiger again. Same problem.

According to http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106693, this is likely a RAM problem. I tried fiddling with the RAM in the beginning, swapping out chips and not noticing much more stability, but I wasn't systematic enough about it to categorically say that I tested every chip. Techtool checks of my RAM all came up fine. Unfortunately, my computer is too stable right now to test this theory without trying to install OSX 4 times with just 1 stick of ram in it each time (as the only reproduceable symptom is the failed OSX install). Can I figure out which is the broken stick some other way?

Is this even likely to be broken RAM, since my computer is basically working off of Drive C? (There have been scattered stability problems [none of which come to mind at the moment, unfortunately], but nothing like last week)

Help me revive a Western Digital hard drive

pantufla — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 09:15:22 -0800

Is there any way to get my western digital external hard drive to properly display the disappeared files & folders on it so that I can back them up? I've been backing up stuff to a Western Digital My book essential edition 500 GB drive for a few months now. It was working fine (under os 10.3.9), until I made the mistake of installing os 10.4 on my mac. Now the drive icon still appeared on the desktop, but when I double-clicked it to open it, the computer stopped responding. I then connected the drive to my xp laptop and ran the western digital diagnostic tool, which told me that the drive was functioning properly. After I ran that diagnostic, I could see what was on the drive (without freezing), but now the only thing present was a folder called "Folder.502" that was empty. Nonetheless, both the pc and the mac reported that about 200 GB was in use on the drive. I am moderately hopeful that the drive can be resurrected, but unsure as to how to resurrect it. I've been looking at data recovery services, and they cost in the thousands of dollars. Is there any way to get this drive to properly display the files & folders on it so that I can back them up?
Extra info: mac is a 5 yr old g4 867 Mhz, drive is connected by USB 1.0
Thanks!