A Fist Full of Hollers

I’ve had some interesting experiences lately. Time for a blog entry.

1. iTunes 7. iTunes 7 works beautifully on my PowerMac G5. But I made the mistake of installing it on an old 500 MHz TiBook – namely because I was curious to see if it could handle the new graphics. This TiBook has 8 MB of video RAM. One of the new wrinkles with iTunes 7 is that it requires at least 16 MB of video RAM. It seems strange to me that if the System Profiler is smart enough to figure out that the TiBook only has 8 MB of VRAM, why isn’t the Software Update smart enough? It invited me to upgrade, so I did. But Cover Flow and Album View don’t work, and the graphics display becomes garbaged.

Back to iTunes 6. However, this takes you down a rabbit hole. The iTunes 6 installer refuses to install an older version. So you have to go into /Library/Receipts and delete references to iTunes packages. Then iTunes 6 will install, but the music library has been touched by iTunes 7, and iTunes 6 won’t see the songs. So you have to do some fiddling with the folder "Previous iTunes Libraries". A Google search will reveal some Q&As on this. Try "Reinstalling iTunes 6".

It’s surprising that Apple didn’t have the Software Update do a simple check on the hardware. Customers who are victimized by this will not be happy about going into various directories and doing system administration to recover from the iTunes 7 installer’s error.

2. I recently had to build a Website for a personal business. I had some great experiences with Network Solutions in the past, so I decided to let them host my new website. (More on that when it’s finished.) Anyway, instead of wading through their very nice Website and selecting services, I elected to call a customer service rep. I had some questions that I wanted to ask along the way, and one always has nagging questions when going it alone — even though their Website is admittedly terrific.

I got through to a customer service rep immediately. Alisa walked me though, answered all my questions accurately, we registered a domain name, set up the Website, got FTP access info, and set up e-mail, all in a few minutes. It was unbelieveable. This is excellent customer service, and I very much recommend Network Solutions if you need to register a domain and/or host a Website. (Registering a new domain name and creating a hosted Website came to just over $120/year.) There may be cheaper Web hosting services, but they’ll be hard pressed to offer Network Solutions’ vast array of technical services, user security, and customer service. These guys get it.

3. I also want to say something nice about Other World Computing. I’m partial to their Mercury Elite drives, and when I went back to their Website to buy a second one, I was reminded how elegant, accurate, and trustworthy their e-commerce Website is. If you need some great external hard disks with USB2, FW 400 and FW 800, 7200 rpm, the Mercury Elites are very nice. OWC ships when they say they will, and their Website has earned my trust when I use a credit card. Great outfit.

4. Google. Every once in awhile, I am trying to think of a technical term or some entity that I just can’t remember how to spell. So I type my best approximation into Google, and it almost always comes back with the right word like this: "Did you mean: …." That feature of Google has saved me dozens of times as a writer, trying to pin down a term or spelling of something. It’s my second dictionary. Try it sometime. For example, type this into Google, without the quotes: "Keanau Reeves" and it’ll come back with his name spelled right and actively linked. Very cool.

5. Based on Owen Rubin’s article, right here at MyMac, I tried FruitMenu from Unsanity. Best $10 I’ve ever spent for Mac software. I especially like having the IP address of my Mac in the Apple Menu items. But there’s much more. Check out Owen’s review from Oct 18th. You’ll love it.