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Mac OS 8 early warnings

Control panels submenu glitch Noah Bast found that, after updating his 3400/200 to Mac OS 8, if he selected a control panel from the submenu of the Apple menu (created by having Apple Menu Options installed), it did one of three things (in order of frequency): open the System Folder, do nothing, or work as expected. Clicking a control panel from a Finder window worked fine. On his 840AV, the submenu worked fine.

Update: Matt Domenici claims that this problem (which is probably not specific to Mac OS 8) is due to a corrupted Apple Menu Options (AMO) prefs … Read more

Mac OS 8 due next week; "Troubleshooting Mac OS 8" page started

Mac OS 8 is expected to be released next week (July 22). You can already order it from Claris. The minimum price (without any optional third-party bundles) is $69.00 in the U.S.

Following tradition, MacFixIt will be providing up-to-the-minute postings of troubleshooting information on the new OS, as soon as readers start sending in their reports (so get your typing fingers in shape!). Anticipating this, I have already created a Troubleshooting Mac OS page. There is very little on it right now, but its content is sure to grow soon (reports such as the next item will be … Read more

Hello again!; "Vacation News & Update" page posted

I'm back from vacation, nicely rested but already feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the catching up I need to do.

I have created a Vacation News & Update page covering the most notable MacFixIt-relevant news and information that occurred during my absence. Regular readers of other Mac web sites may already know much of this stuff, but I decided it was still useful to do, if only to have it available in the Archives. Late-Breaker postings should be back to their normal pace by next week.

By the way, my vacation was in Washington state - home of … Read more

More on Netscape Communicator problems

I received much email on many of the topics covered in yesterday's postings. Many were confirmations, while a few claimed that they were not having a particular posted problem. As always, your mileage mayvary (at least until we learn more specifics of the cause of a problem).

Several new problems were also noted. Info about Netscape Communicator clearly dominated the day. Here are just a few follow-ups to the previous item:

In addition to the slow menu drop-downs, people are also reporting slow typing in email windows. There is a problem with graphic rendering, as described on a special page … Read more

Week-end Updates

a. The June 1997 edition of Apple's Memory Guide is now out.

b. Insider Software has announced Insider Updates, a new "Internet-based product that automatically delivers all the software updates on a Macintosh computer." Check their web site for more details.

c. Neatnik 1.0.1 The new version of this program that helps clean-up icons on your desktop and within folders "fixes a bug that could cause crashes and other misbehavior on 68K machines when setting Neatnik's preferences."

d. ClockSync II 1.0.2, a program that synchronizes the clock among all Macs … Read more

Week-end Web Sites

a. MacWEEK has an interview with some Apple executives, where they discuss Rhapsody and other topics of interest. Another MacWEEK article summarizes all the different type of memory and their acronyms (such as DRAM and EDO RAM).

A MacInTouch column in MacWEEK summarizes thevarious problems with 5500/6500 Macs.

b. The Macintosh Guide Book is "a comprehensive guide of every model of Apple Macintosh and Mac OS-Compatible."

c. Macintosh Testimonial Pages contain collections of user experiences withvarious Macintosh systems, add-ons, Macintosh vendors, and anything else related to the Mac.

d. Macworld has a useful article describing all the … Read more

Odds & Ends

a. SuperBoomerang and Ethernet crashes Mark Luscher claims that system crashes he was getting when transferring large files over an Ethernet connection, via file-sharing, was due to Now Utilities' SuperBoomerang. After much testing and system crashes, he found that disabling the extension eliminated his problem.

b. Speed Disk and Password protection Frank Meijer received the following note from Symantec Tech Support: Norton Utilities' Speed Disk "will refuse to optimize a disk that has password protection because there is the risk that the password protection is dependent on file location. If SD moves files around, the protection could become invalid … Read more

Illustrator 7 does not like Aaron/Kaleidoscope;

And more on Kaleidoscope 1.7 a. Several readers (including Paul Panella and Miles Cruickshank) have noted conflicts between Illustrator 7 and almost any version of Aaron or Kaleidoscope. Problems include an inability to save files and problems with the Print dialog box. Greg Landweber pretty much confirmed this when I spoke to him at MacHack.

b. Regarding the new Kaleidoscope 1.7, I have received several bug reports:

Most notable, a reader writes that newsgroups are tracking a problem with Kaleidoscope and the IRC client Ircle (3.0b9).When Kaleidoscope 1.7 is present, Ircle will quit when attempting … Read more

RealPlayer 4.0 arrives - although some report installation crash

RealPlayer and RealPlayer Plus 4.0 with RealVideo and RealAudio have been released. RealPlayer 4.0 features better video quality over dialup connections, direct access to daily news and entertainment, and more. RealPlayer Plus 4.0 offers additional enhancements to the free RealPlayer.

However, two readers, John Matthewman (using a PowerBook 1400) and Mark Vogel (using a Duo 280c upgraded to a 2300) both report that the RealPlayer Installer crashed on launch - even if you have all extensions off. Mark cites other reports of this on the comp.sys.mac.comm newsgroup.

Jim Bain claims that RealPlayer 4.0 … Read more

Still more on system crashes with the new Epson printer driver

Leland Ho offers the following comments on the mystery crashes associated with the new Epson Color 800 printer driver ( as previously reported here): "The problem is due to the driver itself. For some reason, trying to install the new driver with an existing one already in your system folder seems to corrupt the driver. In trying to reboot the startup of the CPU appears to hang upon the loading of the Aladdin's Stuffit Deluxe TFI control panel. I am sure that the TFI control panel is not the problem. It only appears to be causing the problem since … Read more