OS X and forum incompatability - Page 3

Steven Sweeney · 03-03-2003, 04:09 AM

Quote:

I don't think I've ever retrieved an image from the site, since I don't know what that is.

I'm reminded of an only tangentially relevant poem by John Updike, in which he notes that the infant who is the subject of the poem "jargons, jargons, all day long."

Retrieving or capturing an image comes up in the critiques, when I want to take an image that a member has posted, download it onto my own desktop and then open it in Photoshop so that I can "test" my suggestions about drawing, value, color and the like. The process is very different from that in OS 9. It's probably all there in black and white somewhere, but there are just too many 3" thick manuals to wade through.

My Computer Doctor Certificate came from WalMart. We seem to be making some progress, though, and until an expert appears, I'm doing all I can with these credentials. I'm not even supposed to be here. I'm a painter. If I had this kind of contact with painters without computers, I'd be gone. Just the way it is, no offense to anyone.

Jean Kelly · 03-03-2003, 05:58 PM

Walmart just ran a sale here, but after buying the scanner we're broke, so I'll just have to make sure I keep Tom happy and well fed. Can't afford to be without him now, he has to teach me how to use a scanner, poor soul.

He's going to come on tonight and recommend some software (says he'll e-mail it to you) so read you later.

Jean

Jean Kelly · 03-03-2003, 09:17 PM

This is Tom, Jeans' lazy husband.

Steven, what I did in OS X is run the periodic repair routines. These are: empty caches, update prebindings and repair permissions. These are Unix maintenance routines that OS X runs automatically if your computer is on at 3am. That's all I know - I have no idea why these routines are required, what they do, or why they run automatically at 3am!

What I do know is that every so often - regardless of whether the computer has been on all night or not - I run these routines from a freeware program called "Cocktail", which also performs a number of other maintenance tasks. You can download "Cocktail" from http://www.dicom.se (it's a German site).

There are other useful maintenance programs that can be found at VersionTracker (http://www.versiontracker.com/index.shtml) under 'utilities'.

Steven Sweeney · 03-04-2003, 02:16 AM

Thanks, Tom. Looks like Cocktail (as available from the VersionTracker site, very highly rated there) requires OS X Version 10.2 or higher, so for now that leaves me out, which is probably right where I should be.

At the moment, I'm not having any problems with navigating the site. (Well, I am, but today it's AOL's fault. Fortunately I can connect without using AOL, but it's not as convenient and it means that today's not the right day to start downloading and installing things.) I'm a little leery of upgrading (or, sometimes, even updating), for fear of introducing new bug variables.

Haven't yet tried everything here that I intend to, so will report back. It's frustrating not to be able to offer a "fix" for everything raised here, but at the very least, we've answered the initial question. There is no systemic OSX/SOG incompatibility.

For the benefit of all here, make friends with MacFixit Forums.

Leslie Ficcaglia · 03-04-2003, 09:16 AM

Following this thread with great interest since I'm making the switch to Jaguar on Friday. I'm on a G4, 400 mghz, to which I'm adding an 80GB hard drive and two 512 RAM chips. Recently, since Cynthia revamped the forum, I've occasionally had glitches loading the graphics for her heading, and this while still on good old 9.1. So some of the loading problems may be unrelated to OS X.

I also picked up Pogue's The Missing Manual at the advice of some Mac-savvy artists on a painters' list I belonged to, but I'm having a Mac tech person do the installation and any troubleshooting for me because I haven't the stomach for the hours and aggravation which would be entailed if I did it myself. I've been on Macs since the LC and used to be the one at work and among friends who did the diagnostics and fixes when they had problems, but it's gradually lost its charm.

I've been using Corel's Print Office 2000 for my cards and brochures. The price was right and it got great reviews when it came out. Any suggestions for OSX compatible alternatives that don't cost $200+?

Elizabeth Schott · 03-05-2003, 12:21 AM

Marvin, I just thought of something else relating to the blank screen under the site headings.

Last week my site was having problems pointed out by some fella in the Netherlands (of all places). I had Michele check, and she reported the same thing. My enlarged images were not loading after they clicked the thumbnail.

After my hosting site checked, they could not find a problem, so they thought the download was "timing" out before their browsers recognized them. So again, I think it leads back to a memory glitch somewhere.

I reduced the size and optimized the images and it seems to have fixed the problem. Of course I got carried away and added more.

Check into your "Apple system profiler" and try and open the forum after you boot with your extensions off, maybe there is a conflict. I am not sure if you just hold down the shift key with OS X.

Let us know if anything is working. Then please come straighten out all my Microsoft software!

Marvin Mattelson · 03-05-2003, 01:06 AM

I've been too busy to address my OSX problems. However OSX has no extensions. That is why it is so problem free.

Elizabeth Schott · 03-05-2003, 10:53 AM

Big "d'uh" from me on the extensions -- shows how much I use it.

I downloaded the new 7.0 Netscape and it has caused major problems with my mail. I am not sure who your provider is. Mine is called Zoomtown (DSL). They just told me they are not supporting Netscape 7, so when you get time see if your provider supports OS X.

Steven Sweeney · 03-05-2003, 09:03 PM

Nix the memory reallocation idea, as well. That's an old OS 9 trick. Jean and I had each briefly seen "low memory" warning dialogues, which made me wonder if there was still some residual reallocation that could be done manually. But OS X is pretty well locked up. It's written to perform optimally as is, and brilliantly so, and they don't want people going in and changing things.

Anyway, virtual memory is always on in OS X, and reallocation takes place automatically as called for by applications as needed. I don't believe that it's possible for non-geeks to manually reallocate memory in OS X, even if we wanted to.

And we don't -- as long as it's "performing optimally". There's the rub.

I'm out of ideas here. Sorry. We did what we could, but this is, after all, a painting Forum. I'm sure that it's just a matter of tweaking individual computer set-ups, but it's impossible for us to know what those set-ups are (that is, what hardware you have, what software, and how it all works together) and offer advices. Even the computer pro sites are all over the place with solutions, or trials.

Good luck.

Carol Norton · 08-27-2004, 10:43 AM

For the past year I have been an avid student on The Forum but have not posted any paintings nor photographs. At this time, however, I would like to be able to do so directly from iPhoto. I also use Photoshop Elements 2.0 and am on a learning curve here, too. How can I get started with this procedure and is there a compassionate soul out there who can teach me how to go about this via iMac, Jaguar and Safari mode? Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.