Odds & Ends

PowerBook waxy build-up Benjamin Stern received 2 new PowerBook G3s last week. Both were covered with a greenish-yellow wax, especially on the palm rest and outside top cover. He adds: "I called my vender who confirmed that they had two more in their warehouse with the exact same waxy coating. The vender called Apple who said it was aware of the problem but gave no further information. I tried to clean off the wax with alcohol but it had very little effect."

CD Firmware Update install problem reports continue Users continue to report problems installing Apple's new iMac CD Firmware Update 2.0 (see item last time), now including as far back as Revision A iMacs. [We have also has a few scattered reports of an iMac failing to startup or all CDs failing to mount - after an apparently successful installation of the Update. While these problems are rare, they are serious and fixing them typically requires taking the Mac in for "repair."]

AppleShare and Retrospect conflict? Karl Jacobs pointed us to a thread on Apple's Tech Exchange that describes an apparent conflict between AppleShare IP 6.2 and Retrospect 4.1Ai when running Mac OS 8.6. The symptom is that Restrospect will frequently crash when doing a backup - especially if another user accesses the server during a backup.

OSA Menu 1.2 slow down? Einar Floystad found that after installing OSA Menu 1.2, there were significant slowdowns in his PowerBook G3's performance, especially in drawing menus. Reverting to version 1.1 eliminated the symptom.

Quicken 2000 missing feature Mark Derison and Dave Kupiec both note that the forthcoming Quicken 2000 for the Mac appears to be missing an important online feature found in the Windows version: the ability to download data from online brokerages and mutual fund companies.

Update: Edward Lovelace counters: "I am a Quicken 2000 tester and have been tracking my Vanguard mutual fund account daily using the ticker symbol for the fund account that I own."

The iMac iReset Button attaches to your iMac, so it is always ready for action.