APPLE support now utterly useless

[TuckerdogAVL]

Now, mind you , I OWN apple stock. Love the company, love the products. But, go to apple/support and type something in like "Pinwheel," or "spinning." You will get 1) PRODUCTS 2) OTHER WAYS TO SPEND MONEY and 3) WHAT? YOU HAVEN'T SPENT MONEY YET? Amazing.

I'm recently experiencing more spinning spinning spinning and I want to find out what I can do to help eliminate this....I have an old system (I know, I'm not supporting the economy or the company by buying a new $3000 computer every other year), etc.

Any suggestions? I have a 933 2002 and am at my limit at 1.5mhz. On a side issue, I have an ibook (700mhz) that I would like to just completely clear and then reload Panther on it. What's the best process of doing that?

I'm sure if I put "reformat" in support on apple I'd get the names of musical bands called "Reformat" that are now available for download, How to buy a new computer, and samples of programs that are "reformat: the game" available now on PS2.

[nixgeek]

Originally Posted by TuckerdogAVL

<snip gratuitous banter>

I'm recently experiencing more spinning spinning spinning and I want to find out what I can do to help eliminate this....I have an old system (I know, I'm not supporting the economy or the company by buying a new $3000 computer every other year), etc.

Any suggestions? I have a 933 2002 and am at my limit at 1.5mhz. On a side issue, I have an ibook (700mhz) that I would like to just completely clear and then reload Panther on it. What's the best process of doing that?

<snip gratuitous banter>

How much hard drive space do you have available on either Macintosh? Also, how much RAM does each have? regarding the hard drive space, it's recommended that you have at least 10-15 percent empty space available or Mac OS X acts a little wily. Also, the more RAM you can add the better OS X will function. For Panther, 512 MB is recommended for better usage (256 MB minimum). For Tiger, double that (1 GB recommended, 512 min.).

You can also run a maintenance tool to do some cleaning on those Macs. OnyX is a wonderful tool that will help you optimize your Mac and clean out old files.
http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html

Hope this helps.

[DeltaMac]

Can't help you with your opinion of the Apple web site... although you would get better results with a little thinking about better search terms.
We can help you with performance issues, if you provide a few more details, such as what version of OS X you are using, how much memory you have installed, and how much free space you have on your startup hard drive. Add as many details about your system as you think might be relevant.

[barhar]

'I have a 933 2002 and am at my limit at 1.5mhz. ' - more specifically, you appear to have:

PowerMac G4 (QuickSilver 2002)
933 MHz processor
1.5 GB RAM maximum
System 9.2 and MacOS X 10.0.4 (Cheetah)

'On a side issue, I have an ibook (700mhz)' - there were three (3) 'iBook's with 700 MHz processors:

iBook (16 VRAM), which included System 9.2.2 and MacOS X 10.1.4.
iBook (14.1 LCD 16 VRAM), which included System 9.2.2 and MacOS X 10.1.4.
iBook (Opaque 16 VRAM), which included System 9.2.2 and MacOS X 10.2.1.

So you have either Puma (10.1.x) or Jaguar (10.2.x).

'... I would like to just completely clear and then reload Panther on it. What's the best process of doing that?' - ...

01. Backup current contents of iBook.
02. Insert 'Panther Install Disc' and boot from it.
03. At the installation window with the 'Options' button - click on the 'Options' button and select 'Erase and Install'.
04. Complete the installation process.
05. Add any desired / needed updates.

'I'm sure if I put "reformat" in support on apple I'd get the names of musical bands called "Reformat" that are now available for download, How to buy a new computer, and samples of programs that are "reformat: the game" available now on PS2.' - you might be sure or expecting such; but no. Apple Support and its respective search engine - is not for finding information about musical bands, new computer purchasing guidance, or non-related Apple products. Use 'Google' or equivalent search engines for such inquiries.

'I'm recently experiencing more spinning spinning spinning and I want to find out what I can do to help eliminate this' - if are using 'Safari', 'Safari' tends to do that a lot. By installing a more recent version of 'Safari', permitted by your current system installation, or using another web browser - you will / most likely experience the 'Spinning ball from hell (or Apple [same thing])' much less. However, if you are running Cheetah - you need to be specific as to what web browser (including its version number) you are using.

You have a very nice and capable PowerMac (processor speed and RAM amount wise). If not already installed, consider installing either Panther or Tiger onto it.

[TuckerdogAVL]

The iBOOK is running 10.3.11 so I don't know which animal that is, but from what I understand @ 700mhz, it's the highest I can go on that one. The version of Safari is the 1.3. When I attempted to upgrade to 1.3.1, after downloading, I get a message that says "this system will not allow this" or something similar after the installation program performed it's function to see whether the system would allow the program. Perhaps it's because I already did the combo upgrade? So, that's the iBOOK story. I also got out the Panther disks (so I am assuming 10.3.x is panther) and I can't reload the Safari because "a new version is already running." So, can't go back. Can't go forward. And, as far as I understand from minimum reqs, Can't go to the next animal.

As for the 2002 Quicksilver G4, it is a 933mhz as I said and the 1st hard drive - which has the operating system on it : 10.4.11 (again I don't know what animal that is, Tiger perhaps?) is 75gb and has 30gb left on it. The 2nd hard drive is 150gb with 97gb available. I keep attempting to move "things" over ie sizeable docs, photos, audio/video files, etc. to the 2nd hard drive, but I can never, ever figure out all that I can eliminate. I can never truly figure out where the space goes (sort of like money :-)).

As for RAM on the G4, I have 1.5gb...but the L2 Cache is 256K and L3 Cache is 2MB for whatever help that may give. The Bus speed is at it's max at 133.

As for maintenance, I run MacJanitor about 3-5x a week, sometimes 2x a day since it doesn't take much to do...and I run ONYX Maintenance and Cleaning occasionally. But, all that seems to be is things like Cache, rebuilding mail and favorite preferences, and doesn't seem to have anything to do with the actualy operating system or speed. So, if you can give me an idea as to what boxes to check to "clean out old files" etc that helps with performance, I'd really appreciate it.

Oh, I empty the cache every time I finish using the system and basically clean out the cookies periodically.

And I run the Disk Utility periodically, and "First Aid" clicking on the hard drive in question..and I assume it repairs and verifies disk permissions whether that's doing anything or not I haven't a clue. It often says this file is being overwritten by that, etc. and when I run it again, the same information appears. "Repair Disk" seems to usually be grayed out.

And just what is "Enabling Journaling?"
And Mount/Unmount?

As for better search terms, I have found that anything more than one word ie Pinwheel, spinning, Safari - and putting phrases in quotes with more than two words - usually results in "not found." Try "web speed", "web speed issues", "slow system response," "system slowing down," "G4 slowing down," "G4 speed" and tell me what you get. Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to the question in order to put in the information that will confirm the answer. You know, like "Do I need a new UPDV133.4, system 10.5.11-G in order to increase the 335.56version thingey?" If I knew what to ask, then I most likely would know what to do...and therein lies the problem. So, thanks for all your help and understanding that I only know what I know and step by step instruction is the only way I can learn this stuff.

[Giaguara]

10.4.11 on the iBook? 10.3 highest was 10.3.9.

[nixgeek]

I can answer the Journaling question.

The journaling option allows HFS+ (the filesystem used by Mac OS X) to take a "snapshot" of the current state of the system. Before journaling, any changes made to the system (file additions/modifications/deletions) were pretty much "saved" when you shut down your system. This is why it was always so dangerous to just abruptly power off your computer instead of shutting down the proper way, or if there was a power outage causing the computer to turn off abruptly. Since the OS never had a chance to be aware of the changes made to the system from a proper shutdown, you might have ended up with either corrupted files, ghost files (where the system might think that such file exists when it was in fact deleted), or an unbootable system (because something happened to a system file necessary to the OS).

Journaling in the filesystem was a way to "soften the blow", if you will. The OS is updated about the filesystem's state at a certain interval by taking a taking a "journal" of it. So if anything were to happen that would cause the system to power off abruptly, the OS would have been made aware of the most recent update in its filesystem state and revert to that, minimizing any corruption. You still are recommended to shut down the computer properly, but in case of accidents you won't get hit broadside.

If you're familiar with transactions done in SQL, it's kind of the same thing. My description is most certainly a simplified description of it, but it's basically that. Here's a much better, in-depth description.

[TuckerdogAVL]

So, is there anything I can do? Set? or does it just happen.