Odds & Ends: Macintosh Manager alias glitch; QT, Midi and VM; Hard drive death; more
Odds & Ends: Macintosh Manager alias glitch; QT, Midi and VM; Hard drive death; more
QuickTime 5.0.2 and Midi: VM on is a work-around? Joseph Kriz found that his problem with playing Midi files via QuickTime 5.0.2 was fixed if hew turned virtual memory on.
Hard drives that grind and die Mike Marco alerts us to two recent MacFixIt Forums threads (one and two) that discuss dead hard drives on iMacs and G4s. The failure is typically preceded by grinding noises coming from the drive. The only solution appears to be to replace the drive.
"Accidental damage" busts PB G4 display A reader describes how his PowerBook G4 "slipped off a low coffee table. It fell no more than 18 inches to a very soft carpeted floor and sustained no visible damage whatever." However, the LCD display was busted and needed to be replaced. Apple said that they do not cover accidental damage and charged him almost $1500 to replace the display - even though the PowerBook was only a week old. He informs us that postings in the PowerList archive contain similar incidents.
Update: Chaz Larson suggests that, if your homeowner's insurance includes computer coverage, it would likely pay for this sort of damage.
KnowledgeBase continues to stumble As other readers (including Steve Linke) have reported we are once again (see one and two) getting the "An unexpected error has occurred" message (or other errors) when trying to access Apple's KnowledgeBase. The errors are intermittent but happen at least briefly almost every day. Even when the KnowledgeBase is working, we find that locating recent software updates is less convenient than via the old Software Updates method. Note: This URL will still take you to Apple's software update server.
Update: Thomas Koons writes: "When I get these errors, I usually just hit the refresh button on my browser and it loads the page fine. This only happens on the first entry into the site and from then on it works fine."