Invisible files

What are ‘invisible’ files and why are they there? Find File keeps showing me large numbers of them. Can I delete them, as they take up a lot of disk space?

Iain Fletcher

The Mac OS uses a number of files which it doesn’t want you to treat as files, for example by moving or deleting them. Among the most important are the database files which the Finder uses to create the Desktop. These contain lists of document creators and types, together with the icons which should be displayed for each. Sherlock’s Find by Content feature also relies on large index files which are made invisible so that you don’t inadvertently ruin them. Third-party software may also create and use invisible files; this is particularly true of utilities such as Norton Utilities and TechTool Pro, which store information about volumes in hidden files. Most applications don’t list hidden files in their Open File dialog boxes, although some (such as the shareware text editor Alpha) can do so. You can locate invisible files using the options in Sherlock’s Find File. To see Sherlock 1’s full list of find criteria, hold the option key down when you click on the pop-up menu. With Sherlock 2, pick the Custom pop-up menu. However, you shouldn’t attempt to open, edit, move or modify any invisible file unless you really know what you’re doing.

Startup pause

On both my old Power Mac 9600 and my new G4 400, I suffer from an annoying pause lasting up to 15 seconds just after the Finder’s Desktop has loaded. Running Norton Speed Disk doesn’t help. How can I eliminate this delay?

J Turner

The Mac OS does suffer various pauses during the startup process, and this usually includes one between loading the Desktop into the Finder, and being ready to run. However, this is also a time when items in the Startup Items folder will be launched. If this particular delay seems too long, you should check you don’t have any unnecessary items in that folder. It’s also when some extensions and control panels may be performing startup actions: the disk protection components in Norton Utilities and TechTool Pro may well be checking the integrity of mounted volumes, and carrying out other checks. It’s easy to tell if they’re responsible, as turning off these features in their control panels should reduce the pause. Finally, your Macs may be taking this time to mount or start up external hardware devices, such as USB, FireWire and SCSI sub-systems.

Over-heating iMac

We’ve just bought a blueberry iMac running Mac OS 9. When it has been left on for several hours, it gets so hot that it cuts out, and won’t start up again for an hour or so. Is this normal?

Dan Cooper

This is not only abnormal, but potentially dangerous. Before taking this iMac back to the supplier, you should check that it is correctly located away from sources of heat and that it has every opportunity to cool itself properly. You should never place computers near radiators or other sources of heat. Integral cases, in particular, containing both monitor and computer, such as the iMac, need to dissipate quite substantial amounts of heat from fairly small units. Putting them in the air rising from a radiator, for example, could easily cause them to overheat, as can packing them into a constricted space. Another issue is direct sunlight, which can heat the case to very high temperatures and cause both overheating and premature ageing. The new iMacs employ an innovative case design which dissipates heat without a fan. If yours is in a sensible location, well within sensible environmental limits, and it still overheats, then it probably has an internal hardware problem and should be returned for replacement under your statutory rights.

Quark XPress installer error

I have recently upgraded to a Power Mac G4. While the current version of QuarkXPress installed fine, I also need to have version 3.32 installed ­ but the installer reports that it is damaged, with an error of Type 2. Is it too old for my G4?

Ross Carling

No, this is a curious Y2K bug in the installer of QuarkXPress 3.32, rather than anything wrong with XPress itself. If you attempt a new installation when your system date is after 31 December 1999, the installer fails with this type of error. To perform an installation of XPress or XPress Passport 3.32, set your system date (using the Date & Time control panel) back to 1999, perform the installation, and then restore the correct date. This problem is described in detail at www.quark.com/about/ y2k.html.

USB card

I want to upgrade my Power Mac 8600/250 with a USB card. Which Mac OS version should I choose?

Nick Daisley

Apple’s own USB software now requires Mac OS 8.5 or 8.6, even though USB support first appeared in Mac OS 8.1, while some add-in USB cards may not be properly supported by Mac OS 9. Third-party products might be able to support earlier or later versions of the Mac OS, but you shouldbe cautious about opting for anything earlier than Mac OS 8.5, as there are likely to be compatibility issues. Given a choice between 8.5, 8.5.1 and 8.6, you’d do best to opt for 8.6, as it is very stable and full-featured. Its only remaining nuisances are a font corruption problem (fixed by a font update from Apple) and a persistent memory leak with certain applications. The latter is worst with large amounts of real memory, but may never trouble you.

Upgraded memory

I have just installed an extra 64Mb of memory in my iMac, thanks to the directions in MacUser (Vol 15 No 10). It all went smoothly, but the About This Computer window still shows built-in memory as 32Mb. Shouldn’t it show 96Mb now? How can I tell if the card is correctly installed?

Frank Barlow

When you start your computer up after installing additional memory, the new total amount of physical memory should be shown accurately in the About this Computer dialog box. If it isn’t, then it’s likely the memory has been installed incorrectly, or the module(s) were defective. By far the most common problem is that memory modules haven’t quite been seated correctly, and need to be pushed in a bit more. Several different utilities will report the memory installed in greater detail: TechTool Pro is useful, as is the Apple System Profiler supplied with recent versions of the Mac OS (found in your Apple menu). These both show what memory modules are installed and where they are. If you can’t get your memory to install properly, you should return it for replacement under warranty, having checked that your installation is correct.

Network backup

We have eight Power Mac G4s in a network. At the moment, each user saves their work on their machine, and when they finish a job the files are burned onto CD-R. What’s the best solution for backup? Should we get a G4 server?

Stuart Lythgoe

Your current policy sounds a good one for archiving completed work, but not very good for providing in-progress backups. You should ask yourself how much it would cost (in terms of time and money) if you lost the entire contents of a hard disk before the work was stored away on CD-R. In all probability, this would be more than an inconvenience, so you should implement a scheme to back up work in progress at least once a day. There are many different ways of achieving this, but one of the most cost-effective and simple is to store all working documents, either the originals or copies of the working files, on a server (perhaps running AppleShare IP 6.3), which backs up overnight using Retrospect. This doesn’t have to be a high-powered Mac, just one which will connect to your network and run your backup software. No special operating system software is required. You could either leave users to transfer files to the server, or you could use remote (client-server) features to handle backing up from each workstation.

An important consideration in all this is how much you can rely on the users to perform actions in support of backing up, and how much needs to be done automatically for them. Even the most experienced users can be remarkably lax when it comes to backing up, and there are strong arguments for making all backup systems automatic and thus not relying on user discipline. On the other hand, automatic systems can quickly accumulate a lot of less important content, straining the backup media’s capacity with massive numbers of files. Whatever strategy you adopt, you should test your ability to restore files before an emergency happens. All too often, administrators discover incremental backups have omitted essential files, or they simply don’t know how to properly restore from a backup. This may seem a waste of time now, but one day it will all prove to have been an excellent investment.

Simple network

I need to move a lot of data from a Rev B iMac to my new Power Mac G4, once only. Can I connect the two computers with a single cable?

Sheik Abdul

Yes, provided it’s a cable of the correct type. To connect two machines with phone-style ports for unshielded twisted pair (UTP) Ethernet cabling, you should buy a special ‘crossover’ UTP cable. This differs from a regular UTP cable in that lines are crossed over inside it, so that it does not work through a UTP hub. (If you already have non-crossover UTP cables, you can get a small double-socketed adaptor which performs the crossover internally. ) This is normally a more flexible option, but you must then ensure you don’t use a crossover cable with it. Once connected, select Ethernet networking in the AppleTalk control panel, and you should be able to move files very easily.

USB hard disk

I can’t initialise a USB hard disk using Apple’s Drive Setup, as the drive doesn’t appear in the list of accessible drives. Are there any workarounds? When will Drive Setup support USB drives?

John Dixon

Drive Setup, as supplied with the latest version of the Mac OS, doesn’t support USB or FireWire hard disks at all, and simply omits them from its listing of available drives. It only works with SCSI and IDE hard disks, and even then may not work with some non-Apple disks. If you want to use disks which are not supported by Drive Setup, you’ll need to obtain a third-party driver, such as LaCie’s Silverlining or FWB Hard Disk Toolkit. Most such drives ship with one of these products, or you can buy them separately.

Because USB and FireWire support is not yet tightly integrated into the Mac OS (in particular, support for these disk types is loaded late when starting up), you should not expect to be able to use them as startup disks for some time to come ­ and Drive Setup will probably not work on them for a while to come either.

DVD screen capture

I have been trying to get screen grabs of DVD videos from my new Power Mac G4 450, for birthday cards, and so on. Each time I try this, all I get is a picture with dark green where the video should be, no matter what screen-grabbing software I use. How can I capture stills from DVD?

Will Hamlyn

Macs with DVD can’t show any of the video image in screenshots, so what you’re trying to do is not, at the moment, possible. This is because the output from the DVD drive is passed directly to the decoder, and then into your graphics card as ‘zoomed video’. The Mac OS and the main processor in your Mac don’t ‘see’ any of this video content: all they are aware of is the olive green chroma keying field, which you see in your screenshots.

Rio MP3 access

I’ve just got a Rio 500 MP3 player, and had already bought SoundJam MP. When I connect the Rio to the powered USB hub of my blue-and-white G3, SoundJam doesn’t do anything different. How can I get it to access my Rio?

Jim Flanders

Your problems probably stem from the latest epidemic to sweep Mac users: USB hell. Although the Mac OS support for USB remains far from perfect (there are hardware timing and power issues which are still not fixed in Mac OS 9), these mainly result from hardware and software conflicts with other USB devices. Try disabling all non-essential USB drivers using the Extensions Manager control panel, removing all non-essential USB devices, and then connecting the Rio’s USB cable to your Power Mac G3.

You might find it better to use one of the two USB ports on your computer, or to use a port on a powered USB hub. Avoid connecting the cable to the free port on a USB keyboard, for instance, which doesn’t supply power. Restart your Mac, switch on the Rio, and then start up SoundJam. If the software still can’t see the Rio, your cable may be defective. You should also, of course, ensure you have SoundJam version 1.6, USBRioDriver extension version 1.6 or later, and the Rio500 Plugin in your SoundJam plug-ins folders.