Slashdot Mirror
Fix a Troubled Mac
This is the only book that I'm aware of that gives you troubleshooting assistance like it should be. I've never encountered a chapter in any book that is dedicated to helping one create an emergency firewire drive, or a bootable Mac CD-ROM that will boot essentially any modern Macintosh, let alone, explain which software troubleshooting tools to use, or how to set up system software for quick reinstalls. In addition to this, the writer takes you on a guided course on how to approach the command line (for brave Mac OS X users) to fix start-up problems and corrupted user logins.
Fix a Troubled Mac is densely packed with information presented in a light, easy-to-read way. It accelerates you through basic information towards in-depth and advanced topics -- even if you get left behind, what remains in your head are relevant and well-formed concepts and frameworks. As the author mentions at intervals, this book approaches running a Mac studio in a holistic manner. Having said that, the therapy of the individual computer user is not overlooked. Even a computer-literate person with two or three Macs in a SOHO setting will benefit.
The first chapter of the book, "Be Your Own IT Support" covers concepts on how to approach problems. Starting with the basics like the Cardinal Rules (Ask yourself, "what has changed lately?"). From there it's a nice, easy, sometimes humorous introduction to how networks work. After a few pages, much of the bafflement that is computer-related pain begins to ease, furrows recede, clock speed returns to normal. Such simple ideas, such profound effects. Perhaps this book could be subtitled 'The Tao of Mac.'
This book does indeed read like a distillation of 6 years of a Mac technician's life, filled with numerous methods to efficiently and effectively diagnose and repair troubled Macs. From paper-bag solutions for a beige box with the hiccups, to rolling out a customized OS X laboratory in less than a day, this book will walk you through the higher realms of careful planning and execution.
Very little information in this book is dedicated to the beginner. If that is my only criticism of the book then let that stand. Like any good thriller, at times you will find yourself with heart beating and sweat on your brow (when did I last back up?). Even hardened professionals will find themselves taking unhealthy interest in particular chapters.
A whole chapter of the book is dedicated to the creation of an emergency firewire drive, which is referred to again and again throughout the book and although creating one may seem arduous, you quickly learn how to use these tools to repair, recover and restore after disasters, as well as install new systems and software updates quickly. The author makes extensive references to some software essentials like Carbon Copy Cloner and NetRestore by bombich software.
There are a lot of recommendations of various software tools and their uses. Many of these tools are inexpensive, but of course there are the usual heavyweights like Retrospect and Disk Warrior. Helpfully, each tool's precious place in your toolbox is analyzed and explained, along with the situation and manner in which to use it.
Reading this book cover to cover, one of the things I found confusing was the order in which topics were presented. Of course, such a book isn't generally used in this way, and given its electronic and search/click nature, it doesn't cause any real difficulty. It may be off-putting to some, to each his own.
In keeping with its holistic backbone, the book doesn't make assumptions about the flavor of your studio's environment. Just as much coverage is given to Mac OS 9 based Macintoshes as to the Mac OS X side. There is a large section devoted to running a Mac Studio with Mac OS X Server, including hardware, software and configuration tips and guidelines.
Much of the technical knowledge contained in these pages is freely (as in free, sans-cost) available on the internet. Some of the information is quoted (and attributed) directly from such sources. However, finding this information online yourself can be very time consuming and this book addresses that problem, with well researched links that extend on the information presented, should you need it. Having all these weblinks in one document also has its benefits. This is a integrated guide and a distillation of core issues and key tips earned through (someone else's) blood, sweat and tears (not yours). And of course, in the event of system failure, even Google stops working.
There are many Macintosh books out there, so this book finds itself in a very competitive arena. However, it has several advantages over many of these books. Firstly, its in electronic format, and is therefore quickly searchable. The author recommends at the beginning of every chapter how to mine the book's information. Secondly, all references to other sections of the book are hyper-linked for quick access and all external references are hyper-linked as well. Thirdly, the book is available on a subscription basis. This may seem an expensive option, but a subscription means the information will be kept up to date and expanded as new techniques and technologies become available. Perhaps one of the few disadvantages is that in the event of emergency, the book may be stuck on your machine. (It's certainly one of those precious items to be stored on your USB stick, iPod or emergency CD-ROM .)
With a guide like this, you can quit moonlighting as fixit guy and go back to your day job.
You can download or subscribe to the electronic-only Fix a Troubled Mac through the book's official site. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Over 10K a year, gasp! =p
Anyhow, I used to mess with the innards of the computer quite a bit, and ended up breaking one of the pins off of the Motorla 608040 chip. I Proceded to fix it with a piece of copper speaker wire.
Try doing that today with one of these new fangled *ntium chips.
This comment might be slightly off topic, as I don't usually work with Macs and I've never read this book. However, I spend the majority of my days in front of a windows or linux machine, of various flavors (come on, as much as we like to joke, different versions of windows have different functionality).
The problem with writing tech support books, to be honest, is that google is faster. We have tech support books in the lab (research lab), but they're just not as quick as google. Google-ing error messages almost always pops up with exactly what you need to do to fix it or a related "problem" page. Googling specific keywords for problems without error messages almost always comes up with solutions. I've almost never found a computer problem that google couldn't fix.
Does this make me less of a "techie"? Not really. I mean, I know how to fix an awful lot of silly computer problems. But we all know that "Error 1278754874928375: No useful error message." comes up every once in a while, and we've got to find out how to fix it. Google seems to be the thing to use.
For those who don't find google useful, some tips: Use quotes. Quote phrases that should be together. Use "-" signs to negate words you don't need, or common words that are associated with terms in your query but aren't related to your problem (drive -car). Just seems like tech support books have been outdated by the web.
But that one girl saved Christmas with her Mac! If they put it on T.V., it must have been true.
Good times!
I don't know what he's been doing with his macs, but I run two labs (~120 machines) and have only had a handful of problems in the last 18 months since they were delivered, which were easily fixed (total time invested in maintainence: ~5 hours). The only real problem was with lousy software running in the classic environment, which I've mostly updated to OSX native apps. Even upgrading the entire lab to 10.3 Panther was a breeze.
OSX is rock solid. Don't even get me started on the previous HP computers these Macs replaced.
Can somebody point out the insightful part of the parent post?
Thanks
SteveM
But then we would miss out on the really suave, trendy support people apple send round to fix things for us. They tell us the latest fashions and give us advise on colour, they let us listen to their iPods so we know which indie bands are cool, helping to avoid embarassing faux pas in music conversations. Plus they have this cultivated look of practised distain I am trying to get my developers to adopt when someone says something stupid like 'WinXP is really not that bad for the casual user'.
No without apple support people our lives would be so much poorer and so much more uncultured.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Since I have years behind me in both the mac and PC world, I can honestly say that while Mac's have fewer problems, their problems are more serious, cryptic, and otherwise annoying. I am glad to see a book that compiles the often hard-to-find information... the big question: does it come with a paper clip for that disk drive button? :)
stuff |
They shouldn't be pissed. 10k/year to keep 20 computers running is really quite a good deal and reflects well on Apple. 20 windows machines is about the threshold for needing an actual IT department, at which you're in for waaaay more that $10k.
I purchased a PowerMac in early 2002, and a year later, a PowerBook.
Honestly, the hardest thing about moving over to a Mac was remembering how to delete a program: Just drag it to the trash. That's it. Simple and elegant. Panther has been ROCK SOLID for me. I *think* it's crashed once, but that might have been Jaguar (10.2).
Instead of removing spyware, ensuring my OS is up to date, grabbing the latest virus definitions, dealing with system file conflicts, etc etc, I can actually BE productive. Open the lid and go... I never thought it could be so simple.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
The parent comment is one problem I have here with this review. It hypes the book as good but the book itself is obsoleted by more effective and up to date searching of the web. Books are too slow to troubleshoot problems these days.
The other problem I have is the comment that "Macs aren't as trouble free as one is led to believe." While no computer is perfect, Mac software and hardware have a far better reliability track record than Wintel PCs do. This is at least in my experience, but there are a lot of research reports and experts out there who agree with me.
This smacks of marketing hype. "oooooohhhh buy this book because you are going to have problems.... *scary clanking noises*" That coupled by the fact that instead of buying a reference manual you can get all this information for free online makes me think its just another attempt to make money on something not needed.
I mean cmon... will this book have information on the help viewer/safari security problem? It hit the presses and already it is out of date.
This is nothing new though, the same thing is true for windows and linux troubleshooting guides too.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
1. Denial
2. Denial
3. Denial
4. Denial
5. Buy another Mac
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Everyone knows dealing with macintoshes is witchcraft...
... yes. Yes, yes, a bit, a bit.
CROWD: A witch! A witch! A witch! We've got a witch! A witch!
VILLAGER #1: We have found a witch, might we burn it?
CROWD: Burn it! Burn!
BEDEVERE: How do you know it is a witch?
VILLAGER #2: It looks like one.
BEDEVERE: Bring it forward.
MACINTOSH: I am not a witch!.
BEDEVERE: But you are modded as one.
MACINTOSH: They modded me up like this.
CROWD: No, we didn't -- no.
MACINTOSH: And this isn't my power button, it's a false one.
BEDEVERE: Well?
VILLAGER #1: Well, we did do the power button.
BEDEVERE: The power button?
VILLAGER #1: And the DVD tray -- but it is a witch!
CROWD: Burn it! Witch! Witch! Burn it!
BEDEVERE: Did you case mod it up like this?
CROWD: No, no... no
BEDEVERE: What makes you think it is a witch?
VILLAGER #3: Well, it organized my photographs easily... and it's stable! It doesn't crash.
BEDEVERE: Your photographs?
VILLAGER #3: I got a digital camera, you know, for christmas.
VILLAGER #2: Burn it anyway!
CROWD: Burn! Burn it!
BEDEVERE: Quiet, quiet. Quiet! There are ways of telling whether it is a witch.
CROWD: Are there? What are they?
BEDEVERE: Tell me, what do you do with witches?
VILLAGER #2: Burn!
CROWD: Burn, burn them up!
BEDEVERE: And what do you burn apart from witches?
VILLAGER #1: More witches!
VILLAGER #2: CDs!
BEDEVERE: So, why do witches burn?
[pause]
VILLAGER #3: B--... 'cause they're made of CDs...?
BEDEVERE: Good!
CROWD: Oh yeah, yeah...
BEDEVERE: So, how do we tell whether it is made of CDs?
VILLAGER #1: Put it in a boom box.
BEDEVERE: Aah, but can you not also put cassettes into a boom box?
VILLAGER #2: Oh, yeah.
BEDEVERE: Is a CD not round, like a frozen pizza?
VILLAGER #1: Yes, yes it is!.
BEDEVERE: And what does one do with a frozen pizza?
VILLAGER #1: Eat it!
VILLAGER #2: Make a book!
VILLAGER #3: Throw it into the river!
VILLAGER #1: Burn it!
VILLAGER #2: Sit on it!
VILLAGER #1: Cherries!
VILLAGER #2: Lead -- lead!
ARTHUR: You microwave it.
CROWD: Oooh.
BEDEVERE: Exactly! So, logically...,
VILLAGER #1: If... it cooks... in a microwave... it's made of CDs!
BEDEVERE: And therefore--?
VILLAGER #1: A witch!
CROWD: A witch!
That about sums up fixing Macs for me. At least with windows and linux you're already in constant state of things going wrong.
I've crashed my 12" PowerBook twice - the first time was an accident, the 2nd was a repeat of the behavior to make sure that it really was something I just shouldn't do [trying to open a finder window for a DVD while the system is pre-writing the file structure before burning said DVD]. This has actually made me incredibly impatient with the machines that I support for family, friends and work -- but it is an impatience I am happy to live with.
sig: I'm not at home, or busy. please leave new sig after the tone.
... I come across this article.
Honestly, after supporting a group of about 20 graphics folks with Macs for the past six months (along with about 90 Wintel boxen), I'm just sick of seeing the same thing over and over again: 99% of all Mac problems have to do with FONTS. Corrupt fonts, missing fonts, bad font activation, etc. (That last 1% is reserved for Quark's profound suckedness.)
I can't tell you how many fcsking times I've told these people not to remove their system fonts. Invariably, someone will come to me complaing that Outlook doesn't work, and I end up solving the problem by reinstalling their system fonts. And repeating the lecture, again.
Terminal.app
Or if you don't know what you're doing, Transmit.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Like Fugu?
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
Sure. There's a LOT less hardware calls, but when there's one, there are bound to be many of the same type.
I have about 200 Macs under my responsibility, and since November I've not had to fix ONE hardware issue with a desktop (excepting two dead keyboards). I've sent a few iBooks in, but those have been abused for almost three years by fourth-graders.
When I notice one iBook drive go, though, I know there are six more waiting to die, so I tested them all and sent the dying ones back.
The PC-support guy has about twice as many computers to handle, but he easily does five times as many hardware repairs as I do.
As for software, if you really know *NIX, you can keep users pretty happy while limiting their destructive whims to their own home folders, which is a joy.
We don't have popups, adware, spyware, worms, or viruses on our side of the fence, so there's a LOT fewer support calls. You do, however, have to keep users up-to-date withtheir software, and that means registering each machine in ARD so you can push packages. I spend a decent part of my day in front of ARD getting reports on OS versions to track down any update-stragglers.
Active-Directory integration lets me give some users temporary admin rights to their machines if I trust them, which is way cool. You can run roaming profiles via SMB and AD as well if you like, so non-admin users can't write a damn thing to local drives.
Imaging is painless, as there's netboot; and you NEVER have to make separate images for different breeds of hardware, the image for the G5 works fine on the bondi-blue iMac.
ARD lets me remote into people's machines and SHOW them how to do attachments in email, etc. Saves me the walk across campus.
There is a big learning curve though, not to USE a Mac, but to admin them. You've got to learn the whole 'vibe' and get a feel for the types of problems these strange machines can exhibit. And don't forget to memorize your startup keystrokes, command-option-p-r can save you quite a bit of time.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Have you tried "ssh" and "sftp"? :)
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Being an eBook I wasn't aware of this book's existence at all. I have to say that I'm both intrigued and put off by this. A physical book has a long production time and is read and commented on by experts and non-users heavily. Is there any editing to this electronic version? From the review it sounds like it could be a bit disorganized or even contradictory if there was only limited editing/review by others.
The reviewer mentions "The Tao of Macintosh" as an appropos subtitle, but this was already used by a book in the System 6 / System 7 days. I had that book at one time and found it to be all philosophy and very, very little usable advice. A good subway read, but definitely not a "useful" or "must have" book. I'm a bit concerned by the extensive philosophy the author says is focused on in early chapters. Is it readable? Is it obvious? Does it draw too many metaphors to other things and leave you to apply the lesson to your job?
I'm also a little disturbed that the advice that was taken from the internet sources hasn't been digested and distilled by the author and instead simply reprinted directly. One advantage of many books versus scanning the internet is getting the voice and perspective of one author. Besides just tone and readability, as you read a book author you set your own perspective of what this person thinks is "too risky" or what procedures are a "useless waste of time". You don't get that perspective on the internet and it would be nice for the author to have tried to digest the information and filter it through his own experience and mindset.
As far as some of the technial issues, I'm a bit concerned it tries to cover everything and by being too broad, lets things escape in the cracks. I used to know a cornucopia of Mac OS 9 troubleshooting tips and tricks ("Hold the command and option keys down while opening the latest memory control panel and you'll see an advanced config screen"). Now I don't even bother. Apple isn't going to update Mac OS 9 so it's just easier to refresh the disk from an image than try to troubleshoot quirky problems. Additionally, the mindset for dealing with OS 9 problems is much different from OS X ones. I quickly find I wind up with privilege problems or corrupt resource forks if I mistakenly apply tricks from one OS to the other.
The cross-referencing in an ebook sounds great. I'd love to have this in real books. But good cross-references take time to build. You say that many chapters refer to the "building a firewire rescue drive". But if I have iBooks that have no Firewire ports, then I'll find these cross-references more of a bother than a help.
I hope my comments don't sound overly harsh. It does sound like there's some good information in this tome. I'm glad that this review brought it to my attention, but I'm still a bit wary of whether it'll be applicable for my needs.
- Repair permissions.
- Delete the contents of ~/Library/Caches/,
/Library/Caches/, and /System/Library/Caches/. You can do this on the command line in single-user mode (reboot and hold down cmd-S) or using a utility like Panther Cache Cleaner.
- Reset PRAM. Reboot, hold down cmd-opt-P-R, and wait for the startup chime to ring 3 times.
- Reset NVRAM. Reboot, hold down cmd-opt-O-F. When you get to the Open Firmware prompt, type "reset-nvram (return) set-defaults (return) reset-all (return)" Your machine will reboot.
Usually a cache cleaning is enough for me. Permissions repair rarely does anything for me since installing Panther, but it's so easy that I put it first. I rarely have to move on to more advanced steps like throwing out selected preferences/plists, disk utilities (like DiskWarrior), reinstalling apps, combo updaters or an "archive and install" of the operating system, but those would be the next steps.Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
We have three labs with a total of about 43 Macs. A mix of eMacs, iMacs, G3 towers, G4 Towers, a dual XServe, and one dual G5.
So far, in the past two years, we've replaced only 1 eMac because it was having trouble booting, and it was under warranty. The only major failures are the dumbass B&W monitors that came with the G3s. Of the 12 we had, only 3 are left. They've been replaced by Hitachi monitors which are working perfectly. Lucikly we're getting brand new eMacs to replace all the B&W G3s (not because they're broken, but because they're too slow for OS X Panther + Adobe CS.)
We have 4 techs, each paid (gladly, I might add) $9.00 an hour for 20 hours a week. All the techs are Apple gurus and love working for us and especially with the equipment (XServe is just so cool.) It's amazing having people who are so enthusiastic about the software, hardware, and the company that makes them. The techs are excited to come to work and troubleshoot when needed.
Everything runs smoothly. Regular backups on the XServe, use NetBoot and Bombich's NetInstall for setting up the labs (takes about an hour to set up the master disk image, then only 30 minutes to deploy on 40+ Macs), and we're moving to an OpenDirectory structure by next year.
First, find all files that end in .dfont on the Mac and get rid of them. I usually move them to /Shared/unused_fonts or something like that.
Some of those dfonts are crucial, like Helvetica. Google for a minute and you'll find a list of them somewhere, I'm feeling lazy right now. Put ordinary Postscript versions of the crucial fonts where the dfonts were. Some of these actions require the use of sudo in the Terminal.
After that, things will be much improved. You should also get a decent font management app. I usually recommend Suitcase. I had a couple clients try Font Reserve, and it gave them way too many problems. Plus Extensis now owns both Suitcase and Font Reserve, and based on the frequency of updates it's pretty clear that Font Reserve is getting short shrift and is probably living on borrowed time.
Anyway, once you get your font management app installed, be sure to configure it to manage your system fonts for you.
Once you do the above, you should have far fewer problems (but Quark still sucks, especially when it's version 4.x running in Classic).
~Philly
You can't get 20 PCs for 10k that are worth any further than you can throw them. Seriously, you can build PCs and buy crapbox PCs for cheap, but don't expect any vendor support and don't expect them to run for more than 5 minutes without you fixing them. I know Macs are not cheap, but if you price them out feature for feature with any other tier one vendor they are at least in the realm of being competitive.
Who are you that are so wise in the ways of computer science?
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada