News for Wednesday, 29 June 2005

Virtual PC has been updated toversion 7.02. This expected update fix a problem encountered by users running OSX10.4: a bug was preventing users to use the virtual network connection (in order for the "PC" to have a different IP address than the Mac).
Before updating quit all applications, and follow the procedure:

To install Virtual PC for Mac Version 7.0.2 Update
1. Print this page if you want to use it as a reference when you are offline.
2. Make sure your computer meets the minimum system requirements.
3. In the preceding table, click the language version you want.
4. Follow the instructions on the screen to save the file to your hard disk.
If you are using Safari, the file is downloaded to the desktop unless you specified a different folder in the Preferences dialog box of Safari. (To check your preferences, on the Safari menu, click Preferences, and then click General.)
If you are using Internet Explorer, the Download Manager saves the file to the desktop unless you specified a different folder in the Preferences dialog box of Internet Explorer. (To check your preferences, on the Explorer menu, click Preferences, and then click Download Options in the left pane).
5. On your hard disk, double-click the file that you downloaded in step 4 to open the disk image.
Depending on the Web browser that you are currently using, this step might be performed for you automatically.
6. Double-click Update Virtual PC to start the update.
7. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Tramb01 from our forum has just ordered a mac mini. When checking for the status of his order, he has been surprised to read the following message:

MACMINI 1.42GHZ/512/80G/CMD/F
Est. Build On or before 11/07/2005
Replaced with new product

such a message gives no real doubt regarding the short-term revision of the current Mac mini!

First a report from Gilou:

End of May, I bought a PMG5 2.3GHz with a X800XT as a BTO, and 2GB of RAM, for a typical usage: video.
After opening a FCP project that I had created on my previous computer, a pop-up menu appears warning: images might be lost with the following sentence: “some images have been lost during loading/reading”. Knowing that everything was working smoothly on my previous Sawtooth Bi-500 makes any comments such as upgrade your computer to a more powerful unit useless.
So, I create a QT movie in DV format from a DVD. when reading it, same thing, images freeze while being read (to continue, one has to press stop, then play)
So I contact my apple reseller and based on his advice I update the graphic card firmware.
Nope, nothing helps. Then he lend me a 250GB HD from his own stock on which I save the video files...and freezing problems are solved!!
Thanks to this HD, I have tried everything: reformat the original drive, partition, inverting SATA connections, etc... at the end it clearly shows that the original HD is the problem, a Maxtor.
So, I contact Apple and thanks to my warranty I obtain a new HD, the same: a Maxtor, model 6B250S0 revision BANC1E50, and as I could fear it, same problems. impossible to maintain a DV streaming.
So, either I am unlucky guy, or there is a issue with this HD. It could be why, the last configuration are equipped with Western Digital HD...

If you have experienced such problems, please let us know.

thanks to Guillaume to report that Apple Switzerland has published a success story related to a non-stop online news TV channel entirely running thanks to Xsan.
http://www.apple.com/chfr/pro/video/tvn/

This system includes: 55 Xsan, 30 XserveG5, 22 Xserve RAID, 50 license for Final Cut Pro, 50 PowerMac G5, 10 PowerBook G4 and 2 licenses for Shake.
At the end, it seems quite cheap regarding what is produced and how easy it is. But for sure it is not in our budget plans to develop such Macbidouille TV channel :)

When my brother upgraded to iTunes 4.9 on his Mac Mini running Tiger, his library got erased and might have been corrupted. iTunes 4.9 uses a newly named binary file. It's now "iTunes Library," rather than "iTunes 4 Music Library." (Perhaps an indication of what to come and/or a response to 4.8's addition of movie support) The old iTunes binary file is moved to the Previous iTunes Libraries folder. The story is quite complicated, but we were able to get it back for a moment only to loose it forever. Diskwarrior only complicated matters and further screwed up what already was a corrupted file. Our biggest mistake was probably canceling reimportation when iTunes itself recognized the binary file was corrupt. When iTunes wishes to reimport your music spontaneously, let it, because it has a good reason.
But above all, the lesson of the day is to backup that iTunes library, especially before iTunes upgrades. Often people will overlook the iTunes library files when they backup their documents. My brother's last complete system update, which included his iTunes library files, was a good six months ago.
-Nate (not moose)