Posts by kc0arf

Hello,

I have not joined the Sherlock bandwagon... been mainly searching with Google, and when I want to lookup movies, there is a home-grown website here in Wisconsin that shows all of the listings.

I'll have to try this at home.

Christian

Hi,

I figured it out by doing a lot of mapping. Drawing figures, and palcing things in. Where I was unsure, I drew circles around the placed data, and moved things around a little bit. As I elimited the circles, I was able to re-draw the diagram with known values. Just worked it to solve the missing animal.

Was a fun project.

Christian

Hello,

This might be in the wrong place. My question pertains to MS Excel, and using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).

We have a user that would like to hide one of her worksheets within a workbook. She would like the sheet to be securely hidden.

I found this piece of code:

Sub HideSheet()
    Sheets("Sheet2").Visible = xlVeryHidden
End Sub

and the sheet does disappear.

There are two problems:

1) I don't like the Macro warning. Hints that something might be up, and if they disable the macros, then this visibility thing does not work.

2) Anyone can go into the Visual Basic for Applications menu, and see all of the worksheets in broad daylight. They can highlight the hidden sheet, and go to the properties, and unhide it with their mouse. Data revealed.

I am going to discuss with the user the wisdom of trying to do this. If she wants to go ahead though, and do "security through obscurity", then that is her call. What I want to be sure of though is that there isn't any other way to place a password on the VBA menu, or perhaps prevent the sheets from displaying on the VBA menu.

If anyone has ideas, please let me know. I am not very proficient in VBA, so please spell out the steps taken.

Thanks,

Christian

Hello,

You have an older iBook. I will have to check from home to see if that iBook can support OS X or not. 64 MB is really lean on RAM, but the 366 MHz processor is enough to run the OS. My Powerbook G3 333 MHz @ 398 MB RAM does work with OS X.

You mentioned a password. What kind of password are you looking at? Do you have a OS 9 control password like FoolProof, or perhaps a file-level encryption / access password, such as what DiskGuard used to do? Or perhaps you have a passworded set of stuffit archives that you are tryiing to get to. I am trying to see if your password is OS related, or an application.

Mac OS 9 did not have usernames / passwords. It did have a keychain thing that I never really understood.

I am guessing that you have some sort of OS password on the file system that you need to break. What program did you use? It is not Mac Traditional.

Christian

Hello,

What is a Clam Shell Mac? Are we looking at a laptop? iBook?

If you could tell us the model number or name, that would be great.

Christian

Hello,

I think the German in the Green House has the fish.

Christian

Hello,

Your computer is probably running OS 9, but I could be wrong on that. The icon you see is part of the older Mac firmware.

Your computer has lost the ability to boot, perhaps due to a hard drive failure, or there could have been a major corruption of the hard disk. If you have a CD-ROM drive, you can put in the system disk that came with the Mac, and boot from there. When you hear the computer go BONG, hold down the C key on the keyboard to help direct the computer to boot from the CD-ROM drive.

If you don't have a CD-ROM drive, you could try to boot from a floppy. But floppys were best used for System 7 (1989 - 91) or older. Most likely, you have a CD-ROM sitting somewhere.

Once you do boot it, see if the hard drive mounts. If so, the first thing I would do is get her data files off the hard drive, especially if they are not backed up anywhere else. Not knowing anything else about what she has, you might need a box of floppies, or find a network solution.

If no hard drive comes up, then go to the Utilities folder on the CD-ROM (OS 9) and see if you can mount the disk.

NOW, if you are running OS X, then boot with the OS X CD-ROM, and when yous ee the Welcome screen, go to the Blue …

Hello,

What is the website in question? What browser is she using to go to the website? Will a different browser work for her?

IE for the Mac has been non-enhanced for 2 years now... Micro$oft gave up on the program over in Appleland (and well, I am thankful for that!). Have her try with Mozilla, or Firefox, or Safari.

Christian

Hello,

Unless you do a lot of doctoring of the Netinfo manager, EVERYTHING is going to try and go to the system partition. I have found that applications such as Firefox, that you drag and drop to the installation location, work fine. Make a folder on the Apps partition, and drag it over there.

Now, certain things are going to just simply insist on being on the System partition. Things that are hard-core Unix are especially in line with this, such as Open-Office, where it places hooks to things in the various unix directories such as /bin and /usr and /usr/local and so forth. You can install them to the system, and then copy out the main application and stick it on your Apps partitions too.

For the most part, I have the big applications -- Dreamweaver, OpenOffice, MS Office, GIMP, and Ragtime running from the Apps partition. Unfortunately, a few utilities such as Stuffit require System locations. I guess you cannot completely win unless you doctor Netinfo to re-direct a lot of the folders.

Suggestion is to make the System partition a little larger, and just realize that some applications are going to force themselves to that location. You may be able to copy the "meat" from one disk to the other, and then remove the meat. Expirement.

Oh, If you do install some hard-core Unix programs such as OpenOffice to your Apps partition, it will make a bunch of small support folders on …

Hey hey what's this Windoze stuff doing here? :)

IBM on older Thinkpads released floppy disks with the drivers on them... these days you can download them from the internet. You might need to go get the special IBM driver for whatever version of Windoze you are working with on the laptop.

Can you give us the IBM Model number that you have? Look on the back of the laptop, you should see something like Type 9547-U4G. We can take that information, and help you find in IBM's website just were these critters are located. Also, what version of Windoze?

Christian

Hello,

Are you by chance running Virex as a anti-virus program? I had that problem -- I installed the latest Virex for Macintosh (beta) and my Palm software just blew up. Not able to sync, and a re-install did not fix anything either. Just not a good thing.

IF youdo have Virex installed, you will need to disable the backgrounding applications, perhaps even remove it.

Christian

Hello,

Agree that booting to OS 9 is your best option... but some of the late model G4's and newer no longer boot directly to OS 9. They are OS X only machines. You might not have that option.

Also, it is a great idea to format before the sale is complete, so that any personal traces on the machine will not migrate into foreign hands.

Christian

Hello,

I would guess that this is handled by the Windows Registry. You can make what is called a .reg file that inserts information into the registry. You could write a C++ code to prompt the user the desktop options, and then have the C++ program make the registry edit. You would also need to specify if you want the current user to only receive the edit, or the whole bunch.

Do a search on Windows Desktop Registry. See what you find.

Christian

Below are the thoughts from a computer professional who has spent the last 10 years supporting Mac, Windows, and Linux computers in a variety of network applications. By no means will this general tips section be exhaustive -- that is what a good book is all about. I am also not going to spell out how to do everything by hand -- if you have a question, please post it to the Mac forums, and let our team of moderators look into the solution.

Let's get started:

Setup
Every new computer that I receive coming out of a box, either for work or play, first gets booted up with the supplied disk setup, where I copy any vendor supplied information to a CD-ROM or network device. I then reboot with the supplied CD-ROMS and build the computer from scratch by myself. Why do this? So that I know what is installed, and can control the installation. I like to control the software that I am going to work with. I can also decided to throw in extra things, such as the development tools that OS X provides (compilers and the X environment).

Partitons. I like to partition the large hard drive into three: A system partition, an applications partition, and a data partition. By doing this, I isolate my data from logical errors, such as if the OS becomes unstable, and I need to re-install. If the system comes corrupted, that damage will be isolated …

Hello,

Did these programs work properly before 10.3.4? When did you do the upgrade? I am wondering if things were just fine with 10.3.3 or not.

Also, do you keep backups? Are you in a position that you could go back to 10.3.3?

What kind of Mac are you running? Powerbook? G4? We might need to look at your console logs too.

Christian

Hello Macki,

What problems are you having with 10.3? Did you upgrade from 10.2, or from OS 9? What is not working properly -- I have no idea if you are not even getting the chance to login, or if a certain audio file is not playing from your CD. Need more data please.

Christian

Hello,

The easy answer according to me: Macs are superior in quality of hardware, and design of the operating system. They work very well for me, and for the folks that I support, but they are just computers!

The better question is to ask your self what you want your computer to do. Do you want a nice all around computer to play music, to surf the web, to do your homework, and your banking? Macs will work fine with less headaches.

Do you need to run specialized software that deals with artwork and publishing? Macs.

Do you want to run games? Windoze. Do you want to work with specialized applications in industry to control machines (such as a machine shop), or specific cad applications? Windoze. Do you want to dance with the Devil and dare viral infection, and other OS related headaches? Windoze.

Windoze hands down is the most popular OS on Earth. But then again, using that arguement, there are more insects on the planet than human beings. Which would you rather be?

If you have intel hardware around, give Linux a try. If you are in a position that you need to buy a new computer, then go a few places and do some hands on stuff while thinking. It will boil down to personal choice, and how easy it is for you to do things.

Apple has a very very dedicated following. There is no question of brand loyalty …

Hello,

FULLY AGREE with Alex.

If the iBook is your personal property, did you ask to put it onto the company network? The company owns the power (electricity) going to it, along with the data paths. Did they say it was ok?

If the iBook is corporate property, do you have proper authority to install new programs onto it?

Do not try to go around this; if your network administrator has monitoring tools installed, they will find you. Is it worth your job?

Christian

Hello,

You have a breakdown of the Domain happening. The long S numbers are the SID numbers, or Security ID.

You mentioned that your PDC went down... Windows 2000 no longer uses the concept of PDC and BDC, unless you are working with older clients such as Win95 / Win98.

There are a couple things that work with the first domain controller installed on the network... things that keep the global catalog functioning, and a couple other Active Directory housekeeping things.

I would bet that your network is using cached information, and it is expiring. I wonder why you didn't re-build that PDC went down, or at least run DCPROMO to properly de-comission it. If that box is available, plug her in, and get it going. But if you are looking at a virus situation (you didn't elaborate why the PDC went down), you will need to repair that first.

Good Luck and let us know.

Christian

Hello,

This is a good one.

Do you have a slot 2 that you can install a drive in and see how well it works? I am assuming that this is a PCI SCSI adapter that you are moving around the "slots". Or is this a big IDE system, and you are moving a primary and slave around. Not sure.

I would say that it is pointing to the hardware. Are the server's BIOS settings up to date?

If the second drive is in the system, and SCSI, is it properly terminated? Conflict of SCSI ID numbers possible?

Let us know.

Christian

Hello,

I do not thin IPCHAINS is supported anymore under RH 9. I think you will need to learn how to use IPTABLES.

To build my firewalls that I use, I ended up purchasing a book called Linux Firewalls, and by doing some Google Searches on "Linux IPTABLES". There are a variety of online suggestions available out there.

A common idea in firewalling is to BLOCK ALL, and then only let in a handful of things.

As for apache servers, they are linux boxes with the web server installed upon them. If you are going to build a new RH box, go do the custom install, and you will see where you can add additional servers, such as web, mail, and ftp. Once you make the install, seek patches to update your system to the latest version.

For the most part, apache is install-and-go. On my systems, I have changed the standard "home" directory from /var/opt to /internet/www. I do this because logs are written to /var, and I would not want a log file to go nuts and fill the volume, and cause problems for apache. SO I put my apache on her own partition in the filesystem.

Christian

Hello,

That is rather unique. Does this happen to all of your email, or just from a certain user?

I am wondering if someone is trying to be cute to you. I have never seen a piece of email arrive in my box in such a condition.

Let us know,

Christian

Hello,

Outside of Norton Utilities (or some other restore program) it is not likely. DO NOT use an OS 9 tool for this problem either! If you have backups on a CD or tape, that is the direction I would turn.

I will have to look for a unix utility that might assist. But off the top of my head, no nothing does.

Christian

Hello,

It is possible that something in the update to 10.3.4 has broken. I do not know exactly what 10.3.4 addresses.

You might be able to boot with the CD-ROM and run the disk utility from there. It could be a disk permissions problem. Give that a try.... boot up with that CD and run the disk utility. Click the Repair Permissions button.

Let us know.

Christian

Hello,

I think you may have different voltages there, as the BIOS might have two fan speeds, and supply this amount of energy or that amount of energy. I would guess that the black wire is negative (-), and the other two are positive. Without a volt meter, or specific technical documentation, you are stuck.

You might have the idea of checking the power with the computer on, but if you short something, that could sizzle something else. Only proceed if you really know what you are doing with the VOM, and have a steady hand.

Christian

Hello,

I am running a IPTABLES firewall written by hand with the aid of a RedHat Press book.

I run RedHat 7 & 9 machines, and always boot to just the console. I leave the graphical login client off. I use the vncserver :port -depth commands to spawn off VNC sessions while the main screen remains in a text environment. In those VNC windows, I run TWM to keep the fancy desktop off of the network... a bare-bones xterm is about it for me.

One of these days, I need to build a fedora box and see where that technology is going.

Christian

HEllo Starfish,

I am glad to hear that by insalling 10.1.3, that your computer is a happier computer, and things are going well for you. Yes, a lot of the older programs are going to still run, but they will run in what is called "classic" mode, and you will find yourself doing some dual setups to get classic to work properly.

For example, let's say you have Photoshop 5 on the computer. The program is a OS 9 program. Now that you are running 10.1, you have setup a printer to use in 10.1 IN order for Photoshop 5 to print, you will need to also setup a printer within the classic environment using the classic chooser.

Only when you upgrade your old programs to their OS X counterparts will you eliminate the need for classic.

Christian

Hello,

Is it possible for you to show us a link to your page, so we can go see it too?

Thanks

Christian

Hello,

You can re-install windows, and during the initial setup, be sure to kill the partition, and create a new partition. I would make it a slightly different size, so that the OS is forced to re-partition and update the disk tables. Then install windows.

I hope that you do not have any data on here that needs to be rescued.

But I am also wondering if this is a special password, or the general Windows 2000 login screen that you are referring to. If that is the case, then if you have the administrator account information, you can login as the administrator and change the password in there within the Computer Management administration tool.

Christian

Hello,

What you propose to do is change your computing paradigm all over, and this will take some thought.

NT DOMAIN CONTROLLER -- Ok, so you have an NT4 domain at your location. I assume that you have some Windows machines on the network too. Are you planning on migrating those to linux desktops too? If so, you can have a central LDAP based authentication scheme. If this computer is also doing file sharing services, then Linux will be able to mimic all of that too. With Samba, you might even be able to make it a Domain Controller (at least to Windows clients).

EXCHANGE 5.5 If you are looking for pure email, a POP3 server and sendmail will work for you. If you want calendaring, then you will need to search out some other packages. There is support out there for a palm-like calendaring program out there, but I have not found a groupware thing yet for linux. then again, I have not looked too hard. But simple email (POP3 or IMAP) is easily supported, and if you want webmail, look at the SquirrelMail product.

ISA Server 2000 I have not used it. BUt it is webserver security. A lot of that can be administrated within apache, and firewall rules.

IIS -- If you are looking for straight webserving, in other words .html and .php, then apache will work for you. If you have strictly windows stuff -- the X controls and other windows …

Hello,

If you reboot to the CD-ROM, you can re-install. YOu need to make sure that you backup your data first. Once that is done, you can boot the CD-ROM, and using the disk utility, re-format the disk, and then re-install to it.

If you do this, you WILL LOSE information on that disk. If you have partitions, you will only lose that one partition (which is why I favor having a system partition, and a data partition).

Christian

Hello Spikeyfun1,

I am guessing that your modem is working properly with OS 9, but not with OS X. I am wondering if you have the proper modem selected in the Network Preferences.

Click on System Preferences, and then click on Network. Show the Internal Modem selection, and then click on the Modem sub-tab. Is your modem properly setup? Is the right model listed there?

Then, select the PPP sub-tab. Is that information all properly filled out? Click on the PPP Options. Everything look good? Then click on the DIAL NOW button. See if it goes off-hook. If your volume is loud enough, you could hear the dialtone on the line. Then again, in the modem section, you m ay have shut that off.

The big thing that we need to see is if you are getting a dial tone when you start to dial the connection.

Let us know.

Christian

Hello,

Did you by chance insert the card backwards, or upside down?

What kind of iBook do you have? If it is one of the older older ones, it might not be Airport compatable.

Let us know.

Christian

Hello,

I think the iBook G4 has the option of having a DVD burner in it. Depends what you have in there... I think there were options to go with a Super drive or a combo drive.

If you have the standard combo drive, then it is a DVD-ROM / CD-RW

If you have the Super Drive, then you do have a DVD-R / CD-RW drive that you can make your own DVD's.

If you only have the ROM version, then you can look for USB or Firewire DVD-R units if you so need them.

Christian

Hello,

How you establish a connection depends on what you are using to make the connection. Are you on a cable modem? Dialing up with an internal modem? Using a wireless card?

ARe you on a laptop? OS 9 features the location manager that will allow you to configure things really nice and sweet.

Let us know.

Christian

Hello,

The XP and the iMac will work just fine. All you will need to do is ethernet them together. While some might say "take a crossover cable and do it", I would suggest that you get a hub/switch, or if you have a high-speed internet connection at home, get a router box. If you are going to go wireless, make sure that you use the same technology (802.11b or g) that both laptops support.

On the Mac, turn on Windows file sharing (samba). On the XP computer, do the same. On both computers, create accounts that will give you the access you need.

Now, the question about the printing. If you have a post script printer on the XP box, that will be easy. Macs like postscript printers. But if it a major different printer, then you might have a driver problem. Just have to see how that will work. You can share a printer on the Windows side. Worst case is that you work the file on a Mac, and then send it to the XP box, and have the XP program print it.

BUT

If you have an older desktop around (not a dinosaur, but an older computer say Pentium II 500 Mhz), you could make a nice Linux server as a small file server, and work the laptops that way. WHy? You have laptops, but you might also want a server-like environment for file serving and safe keeping. Make a small …

Good Morning,

I learned Linux back in college on a PowerMac 7100 running mklinux. I found a couple books very helpful along the way, and from there, got more involved with the OS to the point that I obtained a server-class machine with a RAID system to just keep all my stuff together.

You will find Linux documentation all over the place -- on the web, in a book, in a discussion you have with friends.

Think about what you want to do with the OS. There is no such thing as "learning everything". For example, I like to write out my DNS files, so I have never learned to use the simple tool that RedHat ships along.

My suggestions:

1) Pick a Linux flavor and run with it. There are many to choose from: RedHat (now called Fedora), Slackware, Mandrake, Debian, Knoppix, YellowDog. I would have to say that RedHat is the most popular, but they also did something to really shift things around by starting the Fedora package, and they recently went politically correct. I did not like my experience with Debian. Some people might lump FreeBSD into this category. But pick one and dig deep into it.

2) Run the OS often. DO things. Setup DNS. Setup a print server. Setup Samba. Setup netatalk. Setup mars-nwe. Setup NFS. Setup VNC and remote control things. Setup IPTABLES and do firewalling. It is easier to learn when you define the problem to learn …

Hello,

Apple is moving away from the forked file system to be more inline with the Unix cousins (Darwin). Yes, make the file a binhex one, as that is the standard (a la zip for the Windoze people). Binhex is pure text: it will survive email, ftp, and web transfer just fine.

You can find binhexing utilities out there; my favorite was Compact Pro, a shareware utility that for whatever reason just faded away a bit. It would make tighter files faster than Stuffit in that day and age.

Christian

Hello,

I am really out of territory here -- I have not seen this problem before, and as I do not have anything G4 related yet, cannot "try this at home".

Ok, it is OS X that we are talking about here, and according to BDeetz, he is not able to get it to go with the CD-ROM either. This hints to a problem with the BIOS/Firmware. Take a look at

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75132 where it talks about Powerbook Firmware Update 4.1.8. But that software is 2001 vintage. Dunno. Also look at artnum=60351 where it talks about how to get the Firmware version.

Also -- did you guys install anything recently? Just started happening? Any system updates or new programs?

Are you booting the laptop with anything attached (USB camera / Scanner / Firewire stuff)? If so, can you disconnect everything? What happens when you do.

Did you make a resolution change in your control panel? Drive the monitor out of range?

DANGEROUS: You can also try booting into text only mode if you enter Open Firmware. Use directions on Apple's pages. Then see if you can get into /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist Delete that file. Reboot and see if that helps.

If you are able to get into text only mode, you might first want to go get your data off the hard drive.

Do keep us informed; I want to see this one though. Unique for me.

Christian

Hello,

According to Apple's website, the HFS+ under OS 9 should support a 2 Terabyte solution. Your volume is smaller than that by a long shot.

TO be honest, I have never been a fan of ungodly large partitions like this on a workstation.

What happens if you try to make 2 partitions 100 GB each?

Christian

OH!

I forgot. NT 4 before SP2 I believe could not handle really large drives... I think it was 8GB or something. If your fella built the mirror before moving the OS to SP6, that could cause something too!

Hello,

I know that mirroring works with IDE and NT4. I won lunch over that discussion a couple years back.

What I think you need to do is break the mirror, and then format one drive to a size a bit smaller than the other volume. Then establish the mirror.

Disks come in a variety of sizes. You may have purchased an 80 GB drive, but it might format to 79.43 GB. If the other drive formats down to 79.38 GB, then you have a problem. I would round it down to the nearest integral GB for safety.... 79 GB. Yes, that is some waste, but drives are not identical to each other, and if you have to replace one, the third drive might be 79.25, and well, you are stuck.

Let us know. This is interesting.

Christian

Hello,

Great on the code!

Just wanted to clarify that no one logs in through DNS. DNS (Domain Naming Service) is a "yellow pages" of information concerning servers and computers on the internet, or in a private network. DNS maps the name www.apple.com to 17.x.y.z You will not receive a login prompt from a DNS server.

What you are talking about here is Active Directory, a pure Microsoft Thing. While hooks are becoming available for Mac and Linux to login to Active Directory, it is mainly a Windoze operation.

Code looks great though! I wonder if it would work from a linux box, assuming that the other libraries are available.

Christian

Hello,

I am wondering what the "using namespace std;" statement is all about. I have never seen it, yet have done the "hello world" program as coded above many times.

Christian

Hello,

This could be OS dependant. In C++, programming on a Mac, you would make an API call to the OS to build the dialogue box, and then the files would be populated within. I am sure Windoze has similar functionality.

What OS are you building / programming for?

Let us know.

Christian

Hello,

Do check back here to see if others have input. And if you could, please post what you find, so that others can learn too.

Thanks,

Christian

Hello,

OS 9 or OS X?

Have you tried booting from the CD? If the CD works fine, then I would suggest that the problem is in the hard drive's version of the system software. Do you remember what triggered the restart event (I crashed using word, and restarted, and it is now not starting properly).

You can also try holding down the shift key under OS 9 and that will prevent any extensions from loading. That will give you a "safe mode" on the Mac from where to start troubleshooting.

We need to know...
* OS Version
* Trigger event
* Boots off CD?

Thanks!

Christian

Hello,

Are you using OS X or OS 9? I am also wondering if you formatted HFS or HFS+. I think that on the larger drives, you want to go HFS+ due to sector size. It is designed for the larger hard drives, and security and so forth.

Let us know,

Christian

Hello,

This is a good one.

Might want to download the Windows Installer again, and make sure you get the complete package, not the little morsel that connects to the internet to get the rest of the parts.

Then restart in Safe Mode. Try installing it again.

Let us know.

Christian

Hello,

Yes, you do have a problem. Are these mirrors Data or System? When you boot the NT Server, does the system come up stable and well? ALso, what do you mean by initialize? Are they reformatting every boot?

Are you running the latest SPack? I think it is 6a. If not, do not just run out and upgrade.... it might break something.

You may forage into the Event Viewer and into the Disk Administrator and see what is going on. Do the logs suggest any problems? Do you need to do a checkdisk and clean them up? Overly fragmented?

You might have to break the mirror set and check them independantly too.

But before I went too far, I would get a SOLID BACKUP of that mirror set. Have a spare drive handy? break the mirror, put the new drive in there. Make a new mirror. Once that is stable, break that one, and work with the first two disks. Put that third drive on the shelf in the event of Armegeddon.

Christian