Odds and Ends: PowerBook G4 Sound Input; Preview Watermark Rendering

PowerBook G4 Sound Input Ron Hammer is the latest to report sound input problems with Apple's PowerBook G4 Titanium. Apparently the problems affect both Mac OS X 10.1.x and Mac OS X 10.2:

"I am using EchoFX Interview Capture to digitize video and audio on a Titanium PowerBook G4 (800 MHz) under OS 10.1.4. Video import runs smoothly, but audio level (using the built-in audio input jack) is VERY low. The sound control dialog allows adjustment of volume (1-100) and gain (50-150), however the gain slider returns to the default level of 50 immediately after any adjustment. EchoFX Support says that Quicktime is responsible for resetting the gain, that Apple has fixed this problem with Quicktime, but the fix has not been released."

Preview Watermark Rendering Preview, Apple's Mac OS X utility for viewing a variety of document and image formats, may have problems rendering watermarks in PDF files, according to Dale Richards:

"I often download articles from the American Academy of Child Psychiatry Journal to review. I noticed when downloading in OS 9, and viewing the articles with Acrobat Reader, that the publishers inserted a watermark in the middle of each page. When I attempt to view those same documents with the built in application Preview, this watermark appears as a large black box."