Shared Internet

My 450MHz Power Mac G4 and iBook are running Mac OS 9.0.4 and are networked via a crossover cable. How can I share an Internet connection made through the modem in the G4, with the iBook?

Mario Pavlou

There are two approaches to combining local-area networking with shared Internet access in this sort of setup. One is to use software, such as Vicomsoft products, which turn your Power Mac G4 into an Internet server. You can then effectively use it as a bridge to the Internet, just as a similar bridge might work in a much larger Internet-connected local network. Similar products are also available from Stalker in its Communigate product range, and both vendors allow you to try before you buy. The other option is to install extra hardware which will act as a bridge: you can get network modems, and would need to add a small UTP hub, to which the network modem and computers would then connect (using regular rather than crossover cables).

However, the neatest hardware solution would be to buy an AirPort base station, with its built-in modem, and then add AirPort cards to your iBook and/or G4. This wouldn’t be much more expensive than a software solution, but could give you a lot more flexibility without unnecessary complexity.

Energy saver

After short spells of inactivity, my PowerBook 400 (Lombard) is very slow to respond, taking several seconds to spin up the hard disk. My EnergySaver control panel settings are at ‘better performance’. How can I improve this?

Tony Michael

In the EnergySaver control panel, click on the Show Details button and you’ll be able to tweak your settings in detail to minimise such effects. Hard disk and display sleep are the two most likely to result in delays when you return to use your PowerBook, and you can turn them off, or set the timing delay long enough to prevent them occurring for most of the time. When your hard disk has gone to sleep, it’s spun down, and that saves quite a lot of battery power. The display sleep also requires a little time for the normal screen to reappear. The trade-off is that your PowerBook will then consume more battery power, and you’ll need to reconnect it to the mains more often.

Word 6 printing

My 400MHz Power Mac G4 with Mac OS 9.0.2 prints fine to an Epson Stylus 3000 from most applications, but Microsoft Word 6.0.1 can’t print ‘due to a problem with the current printer’. How can I get round this?

John Sibley

You have a bit of upgrading to do before you’re likely to get reliable printing. Most importantly, you should move up to Microsoft Office 98 (including Word 98), which is compatible with more recent printer drivers. That may give you an immediate fix, as Word 6 is clearly not getting on with your Epson driver. Next, download the Mac OS 9.0.4 upgrade from Apple’s support site: this will fix most of the remaining irritating bugs in Mac OS 9, and may well work better with the Epson driver, too. Finally, you should visit the Epson support site to check you have the latest driver.

Although the automatic update feature in Mac OS 9 should save you from many of these hassles, Word 6 is so old that it’s remarkable that it hasn’t given you more trouble than it has.

DVD Video regions

What’s the best way to watch Region 1 DVD video discs on my FireWire PowerBook?

Jonathan Rae-Brown

The entertainment industry’s infuriating regional coding system for DVDs is designed to force you to watch either Region 1 (North American) or Region 2 (Europe and the Far East) videos only, and to prevent you from switching between them more than a few times. Because of this, the DVD software detects the region code of DVDs, and polices any change. As such, the official line is you should only use either Region 1 or Region 2 discs, and not both.

You can obtain patchers which may allow you to switch between regions an unlimited number of times ­ DVDack and Region Buster are available on the Internet, but not through well-behaved software distribution sites, such as Version Tracker. Try ftp://www.vortex.uk.com/ for DVDack, but be aware there are no guarantees. For other tools you’ll have to use Sherlock, or follow links from DVD region-busting information. Although dealing in Region 1 discs in the UK, and developing software to aid their use, may be illegal, using DVDACK doesn’t appear to be illegal in any way, as long as you respect the laws of copyright, of course.

Disk error

I recently installed Toast, only to discover that the internal CD-ROM drive in my Rev B iMac doesn’t mount CDs properly any more. When I ran Disk First Aid, it reported serious errors in the BTree which it couldn’t fix. Are these related, and how can I fix them?

Al Gerrie

This sounds like an unfortunate coincidence. The disk error reported by Disk First Aid is far more serious than CD mounting issues. Before you go any further, make sure you have a full backup of all the important files on your hard disk. Ideally, you should make a complete backup of your hard disk onto a reliable medium, such as DAT tape or CDs, but if that isn’t feasible, at least make safe copies of all your work and the contents of your Preferences folder (in the System Folder).

BTrees are the data structures used by the Mac OS to construct the contents index of your hard disk: when they become damaged, you’re at risk of losing files, folders, or maybe even the entire contents of the disk. You should try to repair your disk using a third-party tool, such as TechTool Pro, Alsoft‘s DiskWarrior, or Norton Utilities. Because BTree errors are so serious, a reliable repair may not be possible, in which case you’ll have to restart from your Mac OS CD-ROM, initialise the disk, and then restore everything from backups or original installation disks. Re-installing the Mac OS in this way will probably restore your CD-ROM drive, too.

Video capture

Which external hard disk type would you recommend for capturing video on my beige 266MHz Power Mac G3 ­ FireWire or SCSI? Would FireWire be a better investment for the future?

Christopher Twigg

If you were to buy a FireWire (IEEE 1394) hard disk, you would need to add a FireWire interface to your Mac. Although the theoretical maximum throughput of FireWire devices is superior to SCSI, in practice, you’re likely to see higher write and read performance from a more traditional SCSI disk, particularly if it supports a high-speed U/W or similar variant of SCSI.

When you upgrade your computer, it’s almost certain that you’ll still be able to buy high-performance SCSI cards for it, ensuring your hard disk is reasonably future-proof, although FireWire is viewed as having a brighter long-term future. One other consideration which is important for video capture is that this normally involves the processor, so even digital video (already encoded in MPEG format) can’t normally be laid down directly from FireWire input onto a FireWire disk.

MPEG conversion

When I try to export an MPEG movie to standalone QuickTime format, I get the message that it can’t export it because of an invalid track in the movie. This is under QuickTime 4.02. How can I fix this?

John Hathway

There are several possible reasons for this problem with a track. Perhaps the simplest solution is to upgrade to QuickTime 4.1.2 and then register for the Pro upgrade. QuickTime Player will then be able to tell you how many tracks there are in your MPEG movie, and allow you to export individual tracks or delete a damaged one.

More expensive tools such as Terran’s MediaCleaner Pro would be still more capable, but cost significantly more. You may find that the process of upgrading alone is sufficient to fix the problem. Although much of QuickTime has been remarkably good, there have been some unpleasant bugs along the way.

Windows on a Mac

My friend and I are looking to buy a laptop, and like the look of the iBook. My friend reckons you can wipe the hard disk and install Windows on it. Is that right?

Mike Popov

No, iBooks (like all Macs) can’t run Windows in quite that way. They can only be set up to run the Mac OS, or Mac ports of Unix, such as Linux and Tenon’s Power MachTen. If you want to run Windows on an iBook, you’ll have to buy a software emulator such as Connectix Virtual PC, which can’t take over the whole machine, but runs Windows in a Mac window. This is far superior: Windows hard disks are just large Mac files, and you can readily move information between Mac and Windows software, and back up the entire Windows ‘disk’ by copying the file to another drive.

However, before you decide that’s the best option, you should check out Mac equivalents of the PC software that you want to run. In many cases ­ Microsoft Office, for instance ­ there are native Mac versions of the programs. Aside from saving you the cost of Virtual PC, they perform better and are slicker to use.

CD-R failure

CD-R discs burned using Toast 3.56 and a JVC XRW2042 burner work fine on a friend’s G4, but don’t mount in my beige G3 (Mac OS 8.1) or a blue-and-white G3 (Mac OS 8.5). Is this because the G4 has a DVD drive and the others don’t? Is this a software problem, or is there something wrong with my hardware?

This sounds like a burner hardware problem, which is producing CDs which are just out of tolerance for regular CD-ROM drives, but which more sophisticated DVD drives can read. However, before taking the burner back to its supplier or an Apple dealer, try upgrading your copy of Adaptec Toast to version 3.5.7 (you can find this via www.adaptec.com), and check that there’s no firmware upgrade available for the burner itself. You might also try giving it a clean ­ the Vivanco ‘wet and dry’ cleaner process appears to be some help and is available from good hi-fi retailers.

Updating Mac OS 9

I’ve been trying to install Mac OS 9.0.4 on a partitioned ATA drive in my blue-and-white G3. Although I got Mac OS 9 to run okay, something went wrong when I performed the update to 9.0.4, and my Mac now just freezes on startup. It won’t even start up from the Mac OS CD-ROM. How can I get it back to normal and complete the upgrade?

Alice Fisher

This is proving quite a pain with some blue-and-white machines, which won’t start up from many Mac OS 9 or 9.0.4 discs. Back in the days of standard internal SCSI disk drives, you could hold down command-option-shift-delete and a numeric key to force startup from the SCSI disk drive with that numeric ID (for example, 0 for the internal disk). Not only does this not seem to work with ATA disks, but it has predictable problems with partitioned hard disks where different System Folders are stored on each partition. Holding down command-option-shift-delete at startup should make your Mac revert to the other startup volume, but you must then remember to alter the Startup Disk control panel setting, too, or you’ll be back at square one when you next restart.

Before you try any more with Mac OS 9, you may find that you can make it more reliable if you zap the PRAM (hold down command-option-p-r at startup), or remove any third-party PCI cards and USB devices. You may also need to update your hard disk drivers before you install Mac OS 9 and should possibly update your software ROM to Update 1.0, too.