Now when you post and say you’ve just upgraded to Mac OS 10.4 with no problems we’re REALLY gonna be impressed! 🙂
I’m skipping 10.3.9 myself. My 10.3.8 ain’t broke.
It includes a Safari update that is nice.
I installed it also last Sunday, no problems either.
I did find lots of new bookmarks in Safari that I didnt need, so I just got rid of them. I think the computer is running very quickly now, havent seen that beachball for a while unless I am running too much stuff at once.
There was one warning, Java might need to be updated, so you have to determine what version of it you have, and if its version 1.4.2_05 and you dont get any error messages, you are OK. But I guess when you install the 10.3.9 update the Java went too? Im not sure, but its there and happy, so I am happy. The less of this type of stuff that I have to do, the better.
<
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301382> Jane
I guess I’m just not "devoted" enough to Apple; I don’t use Safari. Nor Mail nor iPhoto, for that matter. Am I going to get tossed out of the Mac tribe? 🙂
Beth …
Ummm … maybe 🙂
On a serious note my 10.3.8 isn’t broke either 🙂 … I use Camino but I do love iPhoto (and its little friend iPhoto Buddy) Quite interested in what you use instead of Mail?
Beth … as if we would chuck you out of the tribe … no way!!
Wendy
I love Thunderbird. I’ve tried to get friendly with Mail, but I guess all the years I spent using Netscape just make Thunderbird feel more like "home." I also dislike the fact Mail relies on Address Book. That application is more than willing to suck up information from other sources, but it sure ain’t at all willing to give any of it back! Barbara likes Mail because it does a good job of managing accounts, but that isn’t a concern for me. If it was, maybe I’d feel differently.
I did download iPhoto Buddy, on your recommendation, but I haven’t tried it yet. I have iLife 05, so I suppose I’ll eventually start using iPhoto for some projects, but I’m not there yet. I have an automatic aversion to letting anything or anybody take over tasks I can manage for myself. 🙂
Hi, Beth. Not sure about what you mean by "relies on address book." I never voluntarily open that application. You can use mail just fine and never once go into address book if you don’t want. Mail will remember your addresses and autofill them without it. If I email you, I just type"be" or "bh" and you show up in the list of addresses that materializes.
But where does Mail store the addresses? The only place I’ve found was within Address Book, and that’s also the icon that shows in the menu bar of Mail.
I know about autofill, but when I was trying to make a copy of addresses contained within Address Book to export to another app, I couldn’t get them out in a format that another program would recognize. ???
I’d love to have you tell me I’m missing something really simple! 🙂
Oh, there are a bunch of little utilities you can get to make that easy. Here’s a link to an applescript:
<
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?13@@.68ad0b5b/0>
or there are a bunch of freeware doodads at versiontracker to convert from LDAP to tab-delimited or whatever you want.
Beth,
I don’t use adress book … I have this sort of manual address book. I created a draft message, saved it in drafts and I just cut and paste email addresses into it, rather like you would with a manual address book. The big advantage is that you don’t have to open it … you can just click on it in the drafts window and all the address are there in the bottom window. Click on any one and an email to that person is created … it may be a bit rustic but I like it 🙂
I still don’t use iPhoto as they suggest. I have two new libraries each year … Holidays (with Albums inside for each holiday or away day) and General (with Albums inside for Birthdays, Christmas etc etc) … and iPhoto Buddy manages it all. The new version of iPhoto Buddy is nice !! … Big advantage is you don’t have one hugh library and it makes backing up really simple and quick.
Wendy
I’m not much on doodads, but I did download the ‘scripts. I’ll play around later and see what kind of mess I can make. 🙂 Thank you.
Tom …
I did investigate the new iPhoto but it didn’t do much extra that I would use so in the end I just stuck with the one I have.
I don’t use much else of iLife so there was no incentive to update there either 🙂
Wendy
Wendy, I assumed your had iPhoto 5, ( I was referring to 5.0.2) if not, disregard my earlier post.
I will say that the ability to put albums in folders in iPhoto 5 is a nice feature.
iPhoto Buddy is a fabulous app. if you have a lot of photos. After a year I have 1300 images. I like separating all my Photoshop stuff into a completely different library.
Tom …
I’m still on 4 :).
I have lots of libraries … and iPhoto Buddy is amazing. I still wonder why Apple didn’t use that idea, after all not everyone wants to keep all their photos in one enormous library.
Wendy
I assumed that Apple would have done something like iPhoto Buddy, but when I got the new iLife installed, not so. But as you say, the new Folder thing is very nice.
Perhaps I should get Buddy, as I sure have a lot of photos too. Additional libraries would be nice. Jane
10.3.8 was toxic to my PowerBook, because if I left any Firewire devices on when I put ‘er to sleep, she woke up with a black screen. 🙁 A lot of people had the same problem.
iPhoto Buddy is a great app. I think there is some way in iPhoto 5 to get it to ask you which library to load (some magic key sequence in iPhoto) but I never remember stuff like that. Heck, people have posted the PSE key sequence to reset preferences a billion times here, and I still need to look it up. 🙂
Ha ha. I just found out–much to my chagrin–that the problem isn’t fixed in 10.3.9. Oh well…
Lou,
I have my external hard drive with firewire connection almost always connected in both 10.3.8 and 10.3.9. I don’t believe I’ve ever had that problem. I have both PowerBook G4 and iMac G5. Why do you have the problem and I don’t? Any clues?
Wendy,
Do you listen to music ever? iTunes has changed my life as much as the change to digital photography. The downstairs family room no longer had CDs all over the place. I can easily find whatever album I want instead of not seeing it for 5 years. I can broadcast it to where my stereo is with AirPort Express. I have many CDs of both blues and nuevo flamenco; I have an album for each containing all those albums that I play on shuffle and always its new. I get audio books I listen to on my iPod when exercising or driving my car. I download music from the iTunes store instead of driving out to a music store to buy the CD; and its cheaper. This is not an exhaustive list, but to give you a flavor for how iTunes with or without an iPod can change your life.
Carl
That’s how I understood it Tom. I do have a firewire device, but I made sure I unplugged it when I went to 10.3.8.
Carl, you amaze me!! What happened to the guy from a couple of years ago who could barely figure out how to turn on his computer?! You’ve become a first class Mac junkie. 🙂
Tom,
The disconnect firewire devices before updating has been around for some time .. but I can’t remember where I first read it,
We have firewire devices on both the iMac and the Powerbook and haven’t had any problems at all.
Wendy
Carl,
I spend most of my time either answering question on Elements or using it to do things … and I’m one of these people who prefers peace and quiet when I work, so I don’t listen to music when I’m using the computer. My husband turns it on and I turn it off 🙂 🙂
Wendy
My choice for listening while on the computer is;
iTunes>Radio>Ambient>Groove Salad or Drone Zone.
Tom, thanks for the LaCie link, but my PowerBook has a different problem. It wakes from sleep with a black screen. The fan is running and the sleep light is off, but the LCD never wakes up. Similar to this post (it’s a long page; search for "Cobb"):
<
http://www.macintouch.com/panreader55.html>
Lou, do you have this problem when you let the pb sleep on its own, or always? There’s a known issue with auto sleep and some macs.
Ah, yes, the USB snafu. I’ve been reading up on that one, because I have a USB 2 card I’m getting ready to install. I think I’ve researched enough to know how to avoid the problem, but please wish me luck! In some cases, the computer fails to go to sleep at the scheduled time, but in others, like Lou’s, it won’t wake up. I can tolerate losing the automatic sleep feature, but I hope I can figure out how to avoid the more serious problem. The verdict will be in later today.
Lou, can you eliminate the problem if your firewire device is completely disconnected? Or, can it simply be turned off?
Well, even before th USB thing, every sleep-related problem I ever heard about came from letting the computer decide when to sleep. (Although I do let my ibook make its own decisions and have never had any problems.)
I haven’t had any problems up to now – all of mine have been napping on their own, but I suspect the USB2 card will create a problem on the desktop machine. I just have to figure out how to minimize it, even if I can’t eliminate it.
Barbara, my PowerBook never sleeps by itself. The System Preferences is set it to sleep after 3 hours (because I don’t want it to sleep while doing long DVD Studio Pro or iDVD MPEG-2 encodings) but I generally end up putting it to sleep myself.
In my case, it’s not USB but Firewire that causes the problem. Beth, if the Firewire device is plugged in but turned off, there’s no problem. It’s only if a Firewire device is turned on when I put it to sleep that I have the problem. It’s 100% reproducible.
That is strange, Lou. What happens if you have a firewire device plugged in that isn’t storage, like a scanner?
My USB2 card is going in within the hour. The only thing I’ll use it for is the printer, and I’ve been told the computer might quit going to sleep on its own after the install. If that’s as bad as it gets, I can live with it. I won’t like it, of course, but I can live with it!
Beth, that’s a good idea, but I’m getting rid of the PowerBook because I just got a Power Mac. 🙂 I really loved the PowerBook, but I really like the dual processors for doing video/DVD editing.
Ah ha! I just sent you an e-mail asking about that. I thought I’d spotted a reference in another thread about Tiger. Contratulations! You are, of course, keeping the PowerBook, too, aren’t you? Duallies aren’t very mobile, ya know. 🙂
Ah, the PowerBook must go. 🙁 My blood (and wallet) isn’t so rich as that. I’m planning on picking up a new iBook whenever Apple announces a new batch. Portable web browsing, e-mail, and DVD viewing is addicting.
If I didn’t do so much DVD authoring, the PowerBook would’ve been ideal–and it was, for a year and a half. They’re GRRRREEEEATTT. 😉
