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2nd June 2002 |
KEN ABOUT .... MOSTLY MACS |
Ken Ross |
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iTunes Mac OS 8 patch 1.1.3 (Freeware - 04/24/01) about 1MB enables iTunes to run on Mac OS 8.6 Product Description: This is a minor update. It makes the iTunes 8 patch compatible with the localized versions of iTunes 1.1. Many European users requested this update. This version was tested on the international English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Netherlands (Dutch) versions of iTunes. It will probably work on the Asian versions as well. itunes 2.0 and later now downloadable off Apple's site won't work. Old iTunes download address (about 3.5MB): Get them sat onto your desktop - double click on the 'Install iTunes' and it won't as you've not got OS9 in there. So run the iTunes Mac OS 8 patch v1.1.3 on the Install iTunes - there is an option to patch either iTunes1.0 or 1.1. After the patching process is completed a version labelled 'Install iTunes (Mac OS 8.6)' is created - then this is installed. Then the patch installer has to be run again to patch the iTunes prg itself before it can actually be used. When all that biz is over fire up iTunes and it demands a folder called 'documents' then quits - this turned out to be an empty folder needed on the hard drive for it to put bits into. After this start it up again. iTunes supports USB CD burners it seems, (perhaps audio CD creation only?). My SCSI beastie isn't recognised, other than being a CD drive. CD tracks can be 'imported', converted to MP3 / AIFF /WAV files, and stored in the Documents folder and playlists created. Other 'Rippers' are available and most of them are a lot faster. It's actually quicker for me to extract AIFF files to the hard drive using Toast and then convert to MP3 with Musicmatch. After living with it for a few days its a case of style over substance. SoundApp will use playlists on any mountable disk and iTunes 'visuals' option is a swirly pattern. A Moire screensaver does an equal job. There are various Internet options - the 'i' in 'iTunes' - but I didn't explore how useful they might or might not be. I did have an alias to iTunes on my desktop, but no more. I'm sure that it is a wonderful piece of software and I may find a use for it one day but there's going to be a long wait. The one good point in its favour, found by accident, was that the extension it installs enables my Mac to access some music CDs it didn't before on the internal drive and all music CD's with multimedia sections. LAUGHTER IN PARADISE If you're not sure how much RAM is in your Mac simply click your mouse onto the little apple symbol in the top left corner of your screen while no programs are active or in the foreground. Up comes an item at top of menu saying 'About this Macintosh', (or 'A propos de votre Macintosh'), and a panel will appear to tell you about how much is in there and, if you've got any programs in background, how much they're using.
The amount of RAM used by programs can be increased easily if a 'not enough' warning comes up. Quit the program and get info about it. The info panel contains a min/max suggested limit which can be altered to fit actual requirements. Close the panel. Restart the program and that warning should be gone when the problem point arrives. Following on from that, there are times when you wish there was a bit more elbow room in the RAM dept than what you have. On your Mac there's a Control Panel entitled 'Memory'. Click it open and there are options for Virtual Memory & 32 bit addressing. VM uses a section of the hard drive to increase the amount of RAM that the system 'sees' after these are enabled. How much 'virtual' RAM can be set is determined by how much HD space is left. The fact VM uses the drive means that things will slow down. A better version of VM can be found in RAM Doubler from Connectix, (which can even allow tripling of RAM). Some programs do o't like VM or RAM Doubler and limit themselves to actual RAM installed - then it's restart with as few extensions etc as possible to do the job. THE SECRET PEOPLE A recent phonecall to Onetel to sign up with their flat 'all-the-time' rate was a lot easier than expected.
Over at Jagshouse, http://www.jagshouse.com, there's a file about surfing with only 1MB, but it requires the ISP to be using a UNIX version of Lynx on their system. So far I've not encountered any of my ISP's using this. A recent visit to his web site revealed a downloadable 'Jag's Web Kit', (3*800K floppys worth), containing the needed items such as FreePPP , Macweb browser etc., for getting any 68k Mac using system 7 onto the Internet - just add modem! As long as you've got 4MB of RAM minimum & 10MB Hard Drive minimum, System 6 (and below) people can also 'surf' the Internet with a careful selection of software. On my PB160, Eudora 1.4.2 handles the Email side of things, (although there's enough RAM available for a later version), and my browser of choice is Wannabe 68K for text only with Netscape Navigator 1 lurking in the wings in case it's needed. NEDERLANDS IN 7 LESSEN Recently I was given a copy of Freeserve's Spring 2002 magazine, sent out to their punters, and in it was an item about card models of Macs, (which I mentioned quite some time ago), and it seems reasonable to me. At present a card kit of an 8000 is being worked on here for download. (Various projects from last year are only now being restarted). THE LAVENDER HILL MOB GEOS is a wonderful piece of kit but it does have a drawback in that the boot disk can't be copied. This was fine to prevent piracy but it's a limiting factor to be restricted to a single important floppy disk! However, help is at hand in the form of CMD's GeoMakeBoot, which can make GEOS boot disks on any 15*1 format disk, (or onto RAM drive if you've got one). To get hold of this excellent utility contact Mr. Bairstow at Commodore Scene. TWO FOR THE ROAD In those far off days of sunshine and dandelion & burdock an ingenious concept was brought to life - a lorry trailer that would run on the railway as well as the road! On the railway each unit, with a pair of road wheels and a pair of rail wheels, cantilevered onto the unit in front. There was a special bogie to couple onto the loco forming rakes of wagons hurtling across the countryside. Tri-ang Hornby, alongside their well known model railways, had an OO sized road system (Minic) and the Roadrailer was turned into a miniature. See: A page with more info about the real thing can be found at Peco, (from Beer in Devon), had a construction kit made by a firm in Twickenham in the 60s, (until stocks ran out sometime in the 80s). According to the stories I've encountered, the real thing seems to have had a slight drawback in that it had trouble being moved backwards in the railway mode. Nous irons à Monte CarloUPDATE From: the pickleSubject: dead link The pickle's FAQ is at: ROMAN HOLIDAY After downloading a Quicktime Movie I found I needed to upgrade my QuickTime extensions to 5.02 from 5.01 so, after visiting Apple's download site, QT5.05 was on my desktop. Run installer, restart and ... Desktop picture vanished (okay not a great problem) 'reshowing' desktop items after uncovering them took a lot longer and then it's a bit after that before my external drives reshowed , which wasn't that good. I decided to reinstall 5.01 - all back up to speed and the familiar sight of Toronto skyline was back with me. To get access to stuff that needs the never version I've kept the main extension stored & marked as 'QT5.05' to swap with 5.01. I then export any files as an AVI that'll work with the earlier version before reversing the process. |
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