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Software Books Media Businesses Book Reviews Apple Hardware

Fix a Troubled Mac 265

Posted by timothy from the with-a-name-like-dirtymouse dept.
rossetti writes with this review of Fix a Troubled Mac, v1.3. "If you run a busy creative design business, you've encountered your fair share of Mac problems like failed tape backups, incorrect network settings, missing CD installers, flashing start-up disks. Macs are not as trouble free as one is led to believe. Running a studio environment with 20 or more Macs does cost money to keep everything working smoothly. It may be only an hour here or there, but this can easily balloon your IT support budget to over $10K a year. If this sounds like your problem, then this book is definitely for you. It takes you through step by step assistance for troubleshooting numerous issues, be it hardware, or networking or software, Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X. Once you start reading or referring to this book for advice, it really feels like having your own Mac-friendly IT support person with you all the times, but not at the hourly rate that they usually charge." Read on for the rest of rossetti's review.
Fix A Troubled Mac
author dirtymouse
pages 196
publisher dirtymouse
rating 9
reviewer rossetti
ISBN n/a
summary The book is written for advanced Mac users and aimed at creative studio and production environments and for anyone that is looking after a number macs

This is the only book that I'm aware of that gives you troubleshooting assistance like it should be. I've never encountered a chapter in any book that is dedicated to helping one create an emergency firewire drive, or a bootable Mac CD-ROM that will boot essentially any modern Macintosh, let alone, explain which software troubleshooting tools to use, or how to set up system software for quick reinstalls. In addition to this, the writer takes you on a guided course on how to approach the command line (for brave Mac OS X users) to fix start-up problems and corrupted user logins.

Fix a Troubled Mac is densely packed with information presented in a light, easy-to-read way. It accelerates you through basic information towards in-depth and advanced topics -- even if you get left behind, what remains in your head are relevant and well-formed concepts and frameworks. As the author mentions at intervals, this book approaches running a Mac studio in a holistic manner. Having said that, the therapy of the individual computer user is not overlooked. Even a computer-literate person with two or three Macs in a SOHO setting will benefit.

The first chapter of the book, "Be Your Own IT Support" covers concepts on how to approach problems. Starting with the basics like the Cardinal Rules (Ask yourself, "what has changed lately?"). From there it's a nice, easy, sometimes humorous introduction to how networks work. After a few pages, much of the bafflement that is computer-related pain begins to ease, furrows recede, clock speed returns to normal. Such simple ideas, such profound effects. Perhaps this book could be subtitled 'The Tao of Mac.'

This book does indeed read like a distillation of 6 years of a Mac technician's life, filled with numerous methods to efficiently and effectively diagnose and repair troubled Macs. From paper-bag solutions for a beige box with the hiccups, to rolling out a customized OS X laboratory in less than a day, this book will walk you through the higher realms of careful planning and execution.

Very little information in this book is dedicated to the beginner. If that is my only criticism of the book then let that stand. Like any good thriller, at times you will find yourself with heart beating and sweat on your brow (when did I last back up?). Even hardened professionals will find themselves taking unhealthy interest in particular chapters.

A whole chapter of the book is dedicated to the creation of an emergency firewire drive, which is referred to again and again throughout the book and although creating one may seem arduous, you quickly learn how to use these tools to repair, recover and restore after disasters, as well as install new systems and software updates quickly. The author makes extensive references to some software essentials like Carbon Copy Cloner and NetRestore by bombich software.

There are a lot of recommendations of various software tools and their uses. Many of these tools are inexpensive, but of course there are the usual heavyweights like Retrospect and Disk Warrior. Helpfully, each tool's precious place in your toolbox is analyzed and explained, along with the situation and manner in which to use it.

Reading this book cover to cover, one of the things I found confusing was the order in which topics were presented. Of course, such a book isn't generally used in this way, and given its electronic and search/click nature, it doesn't cause any real difficulty. It may be off-putting to some, to each his own.

In keeping with its holistic backbone, the book doesn't make assumptions about the flavor of your studio's environment. Just as much coverage is given to Mac OS 9 based Macintoshes as to the Mac OS X side. There is a large section devoted to running a Mac Studio with Mac OS X Server, including hardware, software and configuration tips and guidelines.

Much of the technical knowledge contained in these pages is freely (as in free, sans-cost) available on the internet. Some of the information is quoted (and attributed) directly from such sources. However, finding this information online yourself can be very time consuming and this book addresses that problem, with well researched links that extend on the information presented, should you need it. Having all these weblinks in one document also has its benefits. This is a integrated guide and a distillation of core issues and key tips earned through (someone else's) blood, sweat and tears (not yours). And of course, in the event of system failure, even Google stops working.

There are many Macintosh books out there, so this book finds itself in a very competitive arena. However, it has several advantages over many of these books. Firstly, its in electronic format, and is therefore quickly searchable. The author recommends at the beginning of every chapter how to mine the book's information. Secondly, all references to other sections of the book are hyper-linked for quick access and all external references are hyper-linked as well. Thirdly, the book is available on a subscription basis. This may seem an expensive option, but a subscription means the information will be kept up to date and expanded as new techniques and technologies become available. Perhaps one of the few disadvantages is that in the event of emergency, the book may be stuck on your machine. (It's certainly one of those precious items to be stored on your USB stick, iPod or emergency CD-ROM .)

With a guide like this, you can quit moonlighting as fixit guy and go back to your day job.

You can download or subscribe to the electronic-only Fix a Troubled Mac through the book's official site. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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Fix a Troubled Mac

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  • Horrors (Score:5, Funny)

    by jdigriz ( 676802 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:03PM (#9279734)
    Over 10K a year, gasp! =p
    • It feels like 10K a year is what it takes just maintaining five Windows computers.

    • Re:Horrors (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AusG4 ( 651867 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:35PM (#9280048) Homepage Journal
      In one sense, it's always good when a decent book comes out that helps people do their own in-house maintenance. While there will always be a need for people of our (ie, the Slashdot community) talents, I can't tell you how helpful it is to have a client be able to do their own basic troubleshooting before calling us to ask how to plug in an ethernet cable.

      On the other hand, a $10,000 a year support budget is a dream come true for most shops with 20 machines. Often, 20 machines of any type generally warrant at least one in-house support person to keep everything running smoothly, and even at part time, you could spend well over $10,000 on such an employee, as the parent pointed out.
    • "Over $10K a year, gasp!"

      Whoa! You could keep a Windows computer running for almost a week with that kind of money!

    • Re:Horrors (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mabhatter654 ( 561290 )
      Remember that Mac shops are more likely to be power users rather than gearheads. Mac training is all about the apps rather than running the OS. By the time you have a working knowlage and experince in all the usual mac programs you have a good enough handle on the OS...but you're still not a tech. Meaning that They are more likely to need to call somebody in once every other month for a "checkup" at field service rates because they just can't fix it. Graphic design firms are also more likely to be more
  • As someone who makes his living fixing such problems for similarly situated companies:

    Can't we get the religious right to find some sort of sinful part of this book that they can use to get it banned?

    "Installing the RAM," maybe?

    • Re:i welcome our new ... uh ... wait ... (Score:5, Funny)

      by loyalsonofrutgers ( 736778 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:33PM (#9280032)
      Everyone knows dealing with macintoshes is witchcraft...

      CROWD: A witch! A witch! A witch! We've got a witch! A witch!
      VILLAGER #1: We have found a witch, might we burn it?
      CROWD: Burn it! Burn!
      BEDEVERE: How do you know it is a witch?
      VILLAGER #2: It looks like one.
      BEDEVERE: Bring it forward.
      MACINTOSH: I am not a witch!.
      BEDEVERE: But you are modded as one.
      MACINTOSH: They modded me up like this.
      CROWD: No, we didn't -- no.
      MACINTOSH: And this isn't my power button, it's a false one.
      BEDEVERE: Well?
      VILLAGER #1: Well, we did do the power button.
      BEDEVERE: The power button?
      VILLAGER #1: And the DVD tray -- but it is a witch!
      CROWD: Burn it! Witch! Witch! Burn it!
      BEDEVERE: Did you case mod it up like this?
      CROWD: No, no... no ... yes. Yes, yes, a bit, a bit.
      BEDEVERE: What makes you think it is a witch?
      VILLAGER #3: Well, it organized my photographs easily... and it's stable! It doesn't crash.
      BEDEVERE: Your photographs?
      VILLAGER #3: I got a digital camera, you know, for christmas.
      VILLAGER #2: Burn it anyway!
      CROWD: Burn! Burn it!
      BEDEVERE: Quiet, quiet. Quiet! There are ways of telling whether it is a witch.
      CROWD: Are there? What are they?
      BEDEVERE: Tell me, what do you do with witches?
      VILLAGER #2: Burn!
      CROWD: Burn, burn them up!
      BEDEVERE: And what do you burn apart from witches?
      VILLAGER #1: More witches!
      VILLAGER #2: CDs!
      BEDEVERE: So, why do witches burn?
      [pause]
      VILLAGER #3: B--... 'cause they're made of CDs...?
      BEDEVERE: Good!
      CROWD: Oh yeah, yeah...
      BEDEVERE: So, how do we tell whether it is made of CDs?
      VILLAGER #1: Put it in a boom box.
      BEDEVERE: Aah, but can you not also put cassettes into a boom box?
      VILLAGER #2: Oh, yeah.
      BEDEVERE: Is a CD not round, like a frozen pizza?
      VILLAGER #1: Yes, yes it is!.
      BEDEVERE: And what does one do with a frozen pizza?
      VILLAGER #1: Eat it!
      VILLAGER #2: Make a book!
      VILLAGER #3: Throw it into the river!
      VILLAGER #1: Burn it!
      VILLAGER #2: Sit on it!
      VILLAGER #1: Cherries!
      VILLAGER #2: Lead -- lead!
      ARTHUR: You microwave it.
      CROWD: Oooh.
      BEDEVERE: Exactly! So, logically...,
      VILLAGER #1: If... it cooks... in a microwave... it's made of CDs!
      BEDEVERE: And therefore--?
      VILLAGER #1: A witch!
      CROWD: A witch!
    • Oooh, oooh, someone who knows more about Macs than a rock. :) Could you perchance recommend an SSH/SFTP client for an iMac?
    • and then the left would find some word that looks like "God" in it when you blur your vision and not only allow the banning, but disallow it from being in any Courthouse :-)

  • Hmmm (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    this book is definitely for you

    And if it were Windows, you would need a whole library!


    Lighten up. Its a joke

  • The good ole days (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Prince Vegeta SSJ4 ( 718736 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:05PM (#9279753)
    I remeber back in the days (mid to late 80's), when I had my MAC II. 256 colors w00t.

    Anyhow, I used to mess with the innards of the computer quite a bit, and ended up breaking one of the pins off of the Motorla 608040 chip. I Proceded to fix it with a piece of copper speaker wire.

    Try doing that today with one of these new fangled *ntium chips.

    • Re:The good ole days (Score:5, Funny)

      by greechneb ( 574646 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:14PM (#9279845) Journal
      simple solution: don't use a prybar to remove chips!

      Use a big magnet or slip-joint pliers!

    • Re:The good ole days (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Nykon ( 304003 )
      yeah on mine, I had to run some games in 256 B&W because it'd run too slow in color mode :(

    • Re:The good ole days (Score:3, Interesting)

      by pilgrim23 ( 716938 )
      There is one Mac manual I treasured: Macweek Upgrading and Repairing Your Mac by Lisa Lee. This book covers the Macintosh from the early 128 through iirc the 7500-8500 604e PPC based boxes. Lee is an EXCELLENT writer and inclused everything from motherboard lay-outs ofr easy memory upgrades, to a section on Sad Mac error codes and early viri (remember nVIR-A?). I have read many technical books, but this one was well organized, well thought out, easy and pleasureable to read and an excellent source for
    • Not to be a bitch, but the II never had an 040 (68040 to be exact) the quadra series was the first mac with one.

      The IIfx (MSRP $9,900) had a 40Mhz 68030, the fastest in the II line.

    • First of all, it's "Mac II", not "MAC II". "MAC", as in "Macintosh", is not an acronym.

      Secondly, it's "68040", not "608040".

      Thirdly, the Mac II did not have a 68040. It had a 68000.
      • It had a 68020. My bad. It most certainly did not, though, have a 68040, which was a comparatively modern innovation.
  • This comment might be slightly off topic, as I don't usually work with Macs and I've never read this book. However, I spend the majority of my days in front of a windows or linux machine, of various flavors (come on, as much as we like to joke, different versions of windows have different functionality).

    The problem with writing tech support books, to be honest, is that google is faster. We have tech support books in the lab (research lab), but they're just not as quick as google. Google-ing error messages almost always pops up with exactly what you need to do to fix it or a related "problem" page. Googling specific keywords for problems without error messages almost always comes up with solutions. I've almost never found a computer problem that google couldn't fix.

    Does this make me less of a "techie"? Not really. I mean, I know how to fix an awful lot of silly computer problems. But we all know that "Error 1278754874928375: No useful error message." comes up every once in a while, and we've got to find out how to fix it. Google seems to be the thing to use.

    For those who don't find google useful, some tips: Use quotes. Quote phrases that should be together. Use "-" signs to negate words you don't need, or common words that are associated with terms in your query but aren't related to your problem (drive -car). Just seems like tech support books have been outdated by the web.

    • Re:This Comment May Be Slightly Off Topic (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Spamlent Green ( 461276 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:13PM (#9279841) Journal
      I won't accuse you of being offtopic, but I will suggest you RTFA. (This is slashdot, so I'm reluctant to say "RTFA" but there, I said it.)

      The review does in fact state that most of this info is all in google -- but when your system is fried, good luck getting to google. (at least if it's your only machine.)

      That being said, I find it quite ironic that the book is not so much a book as it is a PDF file -- so one must have the foresight (and a ream or two of paper) to print it out in advance of any serious mishap.
      • I already had.

        And I read that part.

        But I didn't think the reviewer did a very good job addressing the issue: "Why should I pay for lots of information that I'm fairly sure I'm never going to need to pay for?"

        I think that in the 'net connected world, if you've got a pricey new Mac, you're likely to have other resources that are faster and more efficent at your fingertips.
      • Sorry to reply to your comment twice. Also of note, from the book's official website:

        "The book is written for advanced Mac users (not newbies) and aimed at creative studio and production environments and for anyone that is looking after 5-50 macs (less than 5 and greater than 50 is fine too ;-)"

        5-50 macs is quite a few. If you fry them all at once, you've got a fucking talent for it. =)
    • I agree. Another problem with tech books, is that the systems it addresses change faster than the author can revise the book.

      Not to mention the fact that many "do it yourselfers" get in over their head in projects, and end up paying more for someone to come in and fix the the previous wrong work than would have costed if they had called the professional in the first place. Not to say it can't be done, but a man needs to know his limitations.

    • Re:This Comment May Be Slightly Off Topic (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Otter ( 3800 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:21PM (#9279912) Journal
      That's one of the big differences between Linux and Mac troubleshooting. With Linux, you face a zillion discrete, distinct problems for which you have to find the particular fix (eg, why my Athlon/VIA/Gentoo box won't power off with kernels after 2.4.19).

      With Macs, you tend to run into a relatively small number of predictable problems. This book sounds like it lays the groundwork for preparing for problems -- and then when they come up, you fix them.

    • Google is incredibly handy. Despite that, I do buy the occasional technical book because it doesn't require power or a network to operate.

      Generally what I do for an unfamiliar topic is buy the basic book. That basic book gets me started, especially to show me the miscellaneous jargon and common gotchas. From there, I know what to look for online.

    • And to add to that (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hellfire ( 86129 ) <deviladv.gmail@com> on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:26PM (#9279961) Homepage
      The parent comment is one problem I have here with this review. It hypes the book as good but the book itself is obsoleted by more effective and up to date searching of the web. Books are too slow to troubleshoot problems these days.

      The other problem I have is the comment that "Macs aren't as trouble free as one is led to believe." While no computer is perfect, Mac software and hardware have a far better reliability track record than Wintel PCs do. This is at least in my experience, but there are a lot of research reports and experts out there who agree with me.

      This smacks of marketing hype. "oooooohhhh buy this book because you are going to have problems.... *scary clanking noises*" That coupled by the fact that instead of buying a reference manual you can get all this information for free online makes me think its just another attempt to make money on something not needed.

      I mean cmon... will this book have information on the help viewer/safari security problem? It hit the presses and already it is out of date.

      This is nothing new though, the same thing is true for windows and linux troubleshooting guides too.
      • In my experience, windows PCs need more preventative maintenance than macintoshes, and are more frequent targets of viruses and trojans. On the other hand, back in the day when MacOS actually had viruses on a regular basis, they tended to be the kind that would wipe your ass out, and they seemed to travel faster through the mac community. Without gatekeeper and disinfectant, I would never have been able to use my damn mac.

        Anyway back to my point, my experience is that windows will be relatively troublefre

      • Re:And to add to that (Score:4, Informative)

        by tverbeek ( 457094 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:48PM (#9280180) Homepage
        It hit the presses and already it is out of date.

        Um, it's distributed online [troubledmac.com] in PDF. A subscription for updates is available. You can download a partial copy of the book free of charge, to evaluate it yourself.

      • been working on a computer for someone, where it's the SOLE MACHINE available
        and you can't get the free online info, because the machine won't go online?
    • Google is truly a gift from the gods when dealing with error messages, but not so much help in figuring out what to do when the machine just does something weird or hard to describe, or is quite simply "dead". Those sorts of problems can only be solved through a combination of experience, intuition, and logic, and I can see how reading through a book of this sort might be a good supplement if your experience is lacking. There's way too much variety of stuff out there to deal with in the Windows and Linux
    • Better than google for me is WebFerret and programs like it that allow you to search on "exact phrase".

    • Actually, googling for "Error 1278754874928375" shows up nothing. :-)

  • I'm getting tired of playing engineer all the time for all the laptops I buy, running linux (usually XP Pro and BSD under vmware). Someone told me this when I mentioned about getting a Mac laptop: "They Just Work out of the box and all the time!". Is this really true?

    This concept is new to me, but I am looking into it more. If nothing else, they look awfully perty...Glowing apples are kinda cool.

    • Insightful! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SteveM ( 11242 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:14PM (#9279854)

      Can somebody point out the insightful part of the parent post?

      Thanks

      SteveM

    • They do 'just work,' as long as you don't surprise them.

      I bought an iBook, my first Mac, in October. It's been basically trouble-free. I've had it crash once, by running strings(1) on an audio CD. This was apparently not something Apple had anticipated, but I've submitted the bug, so we'll see.

      The only hardware-compatibility issues I've had have been my eight-year-old Intel webcam (unsupported) and my father's bleeding-edge Sony external DVD-R (unsupported as a burner). Everything else has worked grea
    • OSX is far more reliable than XP and if something completely screws the system, you run your recovery CD, select "Archive and Install / Preserve Users and Network Settings" then you have all your user data saved but new system software to start fresh with. That fixes everything but a corrupt user (obviously).

      The nice thing about OSX is that it's much easier to fix than XP. The archive and install process doesn't touch ANYTHING except the system folders and no personal information is there. It just disable

    • Pretty much, yes. Whatever you can say about the desktops, Apple laptops lead the industry.

    • Re:Thinking of Switching to a OSX for a laptop (Score:5, Informative)

      by rampant mac ( 561036 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:24PM (#9279935)
      I used Linux from 1995 to about 2001, and it was never really "quite there" in terms of usability. Windows is, well, Windows. Take that last comment with a grain of salt...

      I purchased a PowerMac in early 2002, and a year later, a PowerBook.

      Honestly, the hardest thing about moving over to a Mac was remembering how to delete a program: Just drag it to the trash. That's it. Simple and elegant. Panther has been ROCK SOLID for me. I *think* it's crashed once, but that might have been Jaguar (10.2).

      Instead of removing spyware, ensuring my OS is up to date, grabbing the latest virus definitions, dealing with system file conflicts, etc etc, I can actually BE productive. Open the lid and go... I never thought it could be so simple.

    • > all the laptops I buy

      Gee, how many do you need? :-) Apples just run, mostly, depending on how hard you push them. You can check out the support boards at apple.com for grousing about battery controller software, hinges, dead motherboards, wrong permissions, bad RAM (usually not Apple's RAM) and the occasional program which dies with a "System Error."

      Of course all most of those troubles are history now that Apple has release MacOSX 10.3.4. You will be the proud owner of a mostly new set of problems. :

    • Re:Thinking of Switching to a OSX for a laptop (Score:5, Interesting)

      by lakeesis ( 325621 ) <lakeesis&yahoo,com> on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:36PM (#9280062) Homepage
      I have to admit, as corny as it sounds, the Apple laptops do work right out of the box. No manufactured laptop will be absolutely perfect, but the system and hardware are generally worry-free.

      I've crashed my 12" PowerBook twice - the first time was an accident, the 2nd was a repeat of the behavior to make sure that it really was something I just shouldn't do [trying to open a finder window for a DVD while the system is pre-writing the file structure before burning said DVD]. This has actually made me incredibly impatient with the machines that I support for family, friends and work -- but it is an impatience I am happy to live with.

      • You are right, they DO work right out of the box, provided that you don't add anything else to them. ;-)

        Now that I think about it, OSX really IS stable, I've only got it to kernel panic once (last month on a panther -I was running Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign, Quark, Sherlock, A terminal, Fontbook, Suitcase, Ichat, Itunes and Safari...I think it was Quark [like always] pushed it over the edge.) The problem now is the applications.. wait let me rephrase that: The problem is the FONTS that the applicatio

    • Can only go by my own experience.... but it seems to be the case. The best example is installing OSX on a supported system, no need for drivers, no jiggery-pokery, it just installs then runs.
    • Well, while everyone's talking about their Mac stories, I'll share my pair. :-)

      My PowerBook's been wonderful. I'm a hardcore, impatient user, so it hangs and crashes... but not as often as Windows did. I would guess once a month. Maybe twice? The last one was caused by a digital camera and iPhoto not getting along.

      My finacee's iMac, however, is in pretty poor shape. Open iTunes? Crash. Open iCal? Crash. Open i??? Crash. Haven't figured it out yet (before the archive-and-reinstall, I thought something was

    • I use a clamshell iBook at work a good part of the day (and for awhile it doubled as a personal machine). It's exactly 4 years old and has been bashed around quite a bit, has had a battery and HD replacement, and the backlight is starting to dim. It only has an 800x600 screen (but Panther's Expose feature has made it useable again).

      Really, it's amazing. It runs for months without a reboot, on Panther. Latchless spring loaded lid: close to sleep (instant), open to wake (2 seconds). An average of 10 applica

  • Wait a minute! (Score:5, Funny)

    by stinkyfingers ( 588428 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:09PM (#9279794)
    Macs are not as trouble free as one is led to believe.!!!

    But that one girl saved Christmas with her Mac! If they put it on T.V., it must have been true.

    Good times!

  • What a load of garbage (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:10PM (#9279799)
    I don't know what he's been doing with his macs, but I run two labs (~120 machines) and have only had a handful of problems in the last 18 months since they were delivered, which were easily fixed (total time invested in maintainence: ~5 hours). The only real problem was with lousy software running in the classic environment, which I've mostly updated to OSX native apps. Even upgrading the entire lab to 10.3 Panther was a breeze.

    OSX is rock solid. Don't even get me started on the previous HP computers these Macs replaced.

    • which I've mostly updated to OSX native apps

      Bet just that took longer than ~5 hours. Remember, for a graphic design company, upgrading, fixing, etc. will count toward their IS support budget. $10k for suppporting 20 computers in a professional environment is not bad.

  • Dirty little secret (Score:5, Funny)

    by John Newman ( 444192 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:12PM (#9279826)
    Running a studio environment with 20 or more Macs does cost money to keep everything working smoothly. It may be only an hour here or there, but this can easily balloon your IT support budget to over $10K a year.
    Shh...do you want to send the IT profession into a death-spiral? If you say that any louder, companies might get the impression that maybe they don't need to staff a full-time MCSE-qualified IT worker at five to ten times that budget in order to keep a few dozen computers running happy. Maybe they just have to choose their platform more wisely. Goodbye, thousands of IT support jobs.

  • We could buy this book (Score:4, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:17PM (#9279873)
    But then we would miss out on the really suave, trendy support people apple send round to fix things for us. They tell us the latest fashions and give us advise on colour, they let us listen to their iPods so we know which indie bands are cool, helping to avoid embarassing faux pas in music conversations. Plus they have this cultivated look of practised distain I am trying to get my developers to adopt when someone says something stupid like 'WinXP is really not that bad for the casual user'.

    No without apple support people our lives would be so much poorer and so much more uncultured.
  • Since I have years behind me in both the mac and PC world, I can honestly say that while Mac's have fewer problems, their problems are more serious, cryptic, and otherwise annoying. I am glad to see a book that compiles the often hard-to-find information... the big question: does it come with a paper clip for that disk drive button? :)

    • what disk drive eject button?

      what are you... living in 1997?

      • what disk drive eject button?

        Believe it or not, certain modern Macs still have need for a paper clip or similar probe. The pinhole's just been moved to either the CD tray for Macs don't have CD eject buttons on the case or real early iMacs used a pinhole for the Programmer's Switch.

        OTOH, my flat panel iMac uses a pencil instead of a paper clip for it's CD tray... there are times where you have to get a jammed CD out while the system's powered down. (Apple eventually had to replace that one drive, it wa

  • http://fixa.troubledmac.com/

  • Five Stages of Dealing with a Broken Mac (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rick.C ( 626083 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:30PM (#9280002)
    1. Denial
    2. Denial
    3. Denial
    4. Denial
    5. Buy another Mac

  • Fitting Douglas Adams quote (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bobobobo ( 539853 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:33PM (#9280034)
    The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair.

    That about sums up fixing Macs for me. At least with windows and linux you're already in constant state of things going wrong.

    • From the man himself...

      I wrote an ad for Apple Computer: "Macintosh - We might not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end."

      The Macintosh may only have 10% of the market, but it is clearly the top 10%.

      hehe. Enjoy.
  • But what can you do when your coworker arrives in your cubicle, obviously alarmed, complaining that her floppy drive wont accept her diskette, which has all moving parts stuck (probably from a sugar-laden drink spill), and wont take "your diskette died" for an answer?

  • support costs (Score:3, Interesting)

    by plopez ( 54068 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:37PM (#9280071) Journal
    From the introduction about a lab of 20 machines:

    >this can easily balloon your IT support budget
    >to over $10K a year.

    In the late 90's Gartner published a study pegging the support costs of a Windows corporate network at $5k to $10k per year *per seat*.

    Even with a simple Windows based network the cost easily could be $30k to $40k per year just for a sysape to keep things running and deal with viruses etc. Macs *are* less expensive to run.

  • As I sit here fixing a Mac... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by raddan ( 519638 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:40PM (#9280096)
    ... I come across this article.

    Honestly, after supporting a group of about 20 graphics folks with Macs for the past six months (along with about 90 Wintel boxen), I'm just sick of seeing the same thing over and over again: 99% of all Mac problems have to do with FONTS. Corrupt fonts, missing fonts, bad font activation, etc. (That last 1% is reserved for Quark's profound suckedness.)

    I can't tell you how many fcsking times I've told these people not to remove their system fonts. Invariably, someone will come to me complaing that Outlook doesn't work, and I end up solving the problem by reinstalling their system fonts. And repeating the lecture, again.
    • Dude, start wearing death-metal shirts and get a skull tattooed on your neck. Then use a large hunting knife as a pointer when telling them what the problem was. No more font problems!

    • Re:As I sit here fixing a Mac... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Maserati ( 8679 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @03:14PM (#9280409) Homepage Journal
      Put the required fonts in /System/Library/Fonts and make sure they only have read access to that directory. If you aren't on OS X yet, turn on filesharing (use appropriate permissions [1] )or use ARD to push the fonts so you can fix 'em remotely.

      I do have to assume the OP is a newbie, Quark suckiness should be taking up way more than 1% :-) I kid, I kid, buggy versions of Font Reserve are a hefty chunk of my support calls as well - as are studio managers who insist on 800MB font libraries with duplicate font names in 'em. FR isn't *supposed* to be stable with that going on, it'd be nice as it was but you can't design an idiot-proof general-purpose program to handle every explicitly stupid situation.

      [1] Determining appropriate permissions is left as an exercise for the reader. Hint: nobody by the admin account should be able to get at the System Folder !
    • First, find all files that end in .dfont on the Mac and get rid of them. I usually move them to /Shared/unused_fonts or something like that.

      Some of those dfonts are crucial, like Helvetica. Google for a minute and you'll find a list of them somewhere, I'm feeling lazy right now. Put ordinary Postscript versions of the crucial fonts where the dfonts were. Some of these actions require the use of sudo in the Terminal.

      After that, things will be much improved. You should also get a decent font management app. I usually recommend Suitcase. I had a couple clients try Font Reserve, and it gave them way too many problems. Plus Extensis now owns both Suitcase and Font Reserve, and based on the frequency of updates it's pretty clear that Font Reserve is getting short shrift and is probably living on borrowed time.

      Anyway, once you get your font management app installed, be sure to configure it to manage your system fonts for you.

      Once you do the above, you should have far fewer problems (but Quark still sucks, especially when it's version 4.x running in Classic).

      ~Philly

  • Mac Help Books (Score:4, Interesting)

    by buckhead_buddy ( 186384 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @03:04PM (#9280324)
    Being an eBook I wasn't aware of this book's existence at all. I have to say that I'm both intrigued and put off by this. A physical book has a long production time and is read and commented on by experts and non-users heavily. Is there any editing to this electronic version? From the review it sounds like it could be a bit disorganized or even contradictory if there was only limited editing/review by others.

    The reviewer mentions "The Tao of Macintosh" as an appropos subtitle, but this was already used by a book in the System 6 / System 7 days. I had that book at one time and found it to be all philosophy and very, very little usable advice. A good subway read, but definitely not a "useful" or "must have" book. I'm a bit concerned by the extensive philosophy the author says is focused on in early chapters. Is it readable? Is it obvious? Does it draw too many metaphors to other things and leave you to apply the lesson to your job?

    I'm also a little disturbed that the advice that was taken from the internet sources hasn't been digested and distilled by the author and instead simply reprinted directly. One advantage of many books versus scanning the internet is getting the voice and perspective of one author. Besides just tone and readability, as you read a book author you set your own perspective of what this person thinks is "too risky" or what procedures are a "useless waste of time". You don't get that perspective on the internet and it would be nice for the author to have tried to digest the information and filter it through his own experience and mindset.

    As far as some of the technial issues, I'm a bit concerned it tries to cover everything and by being too broad, lets things escape in the cracks. I used to know a cornucopia of Mac OS 9 troubleshooting tips and tricks ("Hold the command and option keys down while opening the latest memory control panel and you'll see an advanced config screen"). Now I don't even bother. Apple isn't going to update Mac OS 9 so it's just easier to refresh the disk from an image than try to troubleshoot quirky problems. Additionally, the mindset for dealing with OS 9 problems is much different from OS X ones. I quickly find I wind up with privilege problems or corrupt resource forks if I mistakenly apply tricks from one OS to the other.

    The cross-referencing in an ebook sounds great. I'd love to have this in real books. But good cross-references take time to build. You say that many chapters refer to the "building a firewire rescue drive". But if I have iBooks that have no Firewire ports, then I'll find these cross-references more of a bother than a help.

    I hope my comments don't sound overly harsh. It does sound like there's some good information in this tome. I'm glad that this review brought it to my attention, but I'm still a bit wary of whether it'll be applicable for my needs.
    • You really should download the sample chapters from the site [troubledmac.com].

      Disclaimer before I go any further: I have read most of this eBook. I do know the author, he isn't one of my inner circle of friends in real life, but we get along, and we have some common close friends. My posting history should show that I'm reasonably knowledgeable about the Mac.

      That being said, I'm going to address your issues you have raised.

      This book has very little blatant philosophy, and almost entirely consists of practical advic

  • Basic Mac Troubleshooting Steps (Score:5, Informative)

    by tbmaddux ( 145207 ) * on Friday May 28, 2004 @03:06PM (#9280334) Homepage Journal
    In increasing order of desperation:
    1. Repair permissions.
    2. Delete the contents of ~/Library/Caches/, /Library/Caches/, and /System/Library/Caches/. You can do this on the command line in single-user mode (reboot and hold down cmd-S) or using a utility like Panther Cache Cleaner. [northernsoftworks.com]
    3. Reset PRAM. Reboot, hold down cmd-opt-P-R, and wait for the startup chime to ring 3 times.
    4. Reset NVRAM. Reboot, hold down cmd-opt-O-F. When you get to the Open Firmware prompt, type "reset-nvram (return) set-defaults (return) reset-all (return)" Your machine will reboot.
    Usually a cache cleaning is enough for me. Permissions repair rarely does anything for me since installing Panther, but it's so easy that I put it first. I rarely have to move on to more advanced steps like throwing out selected preferences/plists, disk utilities (like DiskWarrior), reinstalling apps, combo updaters or an "archive and install" of the operating system, but those would be the next steps.

  • This is how much we pay for 43 Mac in 3 labs (Score:5, Informative)

    by olePigeon (Wik) ( 661220 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @03:06PM (#9280336)
    We have three labs with a total of about 43 Macs. A mix of eMacs, iMacs, G3 towers, G4 Towers, a dual XServe, and one dual G5.

    So far, in the past two years, we've replaced only 1 eMac because it was having trouble booting, and it was under warranty. The only major failures are the dumbass B&W monitors that came with the G3s. Of the 12 we had, only 3 are left. They've been replaced by Hitachi monitors which are working perfectly. Lucikly we're getting brand new eMacs to replace all the B&W G3s (not because they're broken, but because they're too slow for OS X Panther + Adobe CS.)

    We have 4 techs, each paid (gladly, I might add) $9.00 an hour for 20 hours a week. All the techs are Apple gurus and love working for us and especially with the equipment (XServe is just so cool.) It's amazing having people who are so enthusiastic about the software, hardware, and the company that makes them. The techs are excited to come to work and troubleshoot when needed.

    Everything runs smoothly. Regular backups on the XServe, use NetBoot and Bombich's NetInstall for setting up the labs (takes about an hour to set up the master disk image, then only 30 minutes to deploy on 40+ Macs), and we're moving to an OpenDirectory structure by next year.

  • "If you run a busy creative design business" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by caitsith01 ( 606117 ) on Saturday May 29, 2004 @01:15AM (#9283680) Journal
    "If you run a busy creative design business, you've encountered your fair share of Mac problems"

    Assertion: It is only possible to run a 'creative design business' with a shed load of Macs.

    With all due respect, this is clearly bs, and it is the kind of attitude that really, really pisses off non-Apple users. It is perfectly possible to run a web design/publishing/graphic design/3D rendering/printing business using Windows machines, without any extra effort. There is hardware and software available for the Windows environment that is at least as good, and arguably better, than the current crop of Apple products.

    Dreamweaver, Photoshop, InDesign, etc. etc. all sell well on PC, and indeed there are rumours [graphics.com] that Adobe is strategically scaling back its investment in Apple due to low demand and poor return-on-investment in developing products for the OS9/X platforms. In other words: they make more money out of Windows sales of their software, including Photoshop, than they do from the Mac sales.

    I'm not trying to take part in the holy wars here, it's just that the opening line was such a typical Apple fanboy cliche that I feel compelled to respond. Please, get over yourselves. You choose Apple. Others choose other tools. Not all graphic designers use Macs, and Apple products are not a prerequisite for running a successful design business.

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