Muskoka Mac User Group

Digerati University has made their Photoshop CS2 video tutorials available for free through iTunes. This iTunes link will take you to their listing in the iTunes Music Store. Once subscribed, users can view the tutorial videos in the album art window or (using the “show video full screen” button) view them full screen.
If you are interested but don’t have high-speed we can arrange to get you a copy – just drop me a line.

(macminute post here)

I wonder how many of us are aware of a thing in our Mac called a ‘kernel panic?’ I sure wasn’t, but the Help assistants are full of explanations.

A ‘kernel Panic’ is a freeze. The ‘kernel’ means at the core of the problem. But what problem?

The Help Technician at Apple Canada says a kernel panic is akin to a temper tantrum; the computer can’t figure out what to do, so it just shuts down. In the old days, the computer just went nuts and pumped out a lot of scrolling text. Now, it shuts down and puts up an error message in several languages telling you to shut down and restart. He says the “computer just panics.”

I have a new G5, in which I have installed Tiger. Therefore, it is as up to date as it gets. Suddenly, whenever I booted it up from the “off” condition, the computer would come alive. But ten seconds later (and fortunately before I would get to work on something) the screen would grey out and freeze. On comes an error message telling me to shut down and then restart the computer. Everything would then continue on as normal.

My methodology was to take the G5 back to Macs@Work with the G5. Meg put it through its paces and could find nothing. After several more weeks of the annoyance, and many emails, Meg deduced that it was either a programming error or something wrong with my peripherals. I disconnected everything and it still persisted.

About ten days ago Meg suggested I reinstall Tiger and search the internet about my peripherals. I found that Brother had a “mandatory” patch for the OSX 10.4. Once both of these were completed, I have been free of a “kernel panic” for about ten days. Hurray!

The Apple Help boffin also suggested I get old drivers out of the system and ensure I have the latest drivers for 10.4.

In my case, the jury is still out. I hope I have it fixed and it was as simple as outdated drivers.

This is just in case you haven’t heard about “kernel panics” They are annoying, and could be a symptom of something worse, e.g. a systems fault.  Usually, however, it can be overcome without much damage done.

Bill

Since by now all of you have updated to iTunes 4.9 and are really enjoying finding new pod-casts this note should be right up your alley.
Here’s a great interview with Joel Garreau, the cultural revolution correspondent to the Washington Post.
This is a sober thoughtful discussion of where our headlong rush into the future is taking us – ready or not.

A couple of months back at one of our meetings I mentioned a ‘disposable’ email address website – the perfect tool for those websites that demand an email address to view their content and you are leery of giving them your ‘good’ address. I found today a nice summarized list of throwaway email address providers. While it doesn’t claim to be complete, it shows several alternatives with details on how they work. Handy!