Networking mac & pc

[Anonymous]

We have a small Practice only two man show. i am the computer guy sense i am still in school. the problem is that recently by updating my pc laptop to service pac 2 or sometime prior the two computers no longer communicate with another. My boss is running an apple G-4 with the latest mac OS. I have tried everything i can think of. when my boss tries to log onto server (my laptop)using the IP he is asked for his user name and password by my machine. then he gets an error message telling him system resources not found. it was all working so well and some stupid update that i am completely unable to track down messed it all up. neither one of the machines can see the other when browsing the network. i tried setting back my system and that didn't even work which decent make sense. i will try just about anything to fix it other than getting a new machine.

[Thomas Holm]

Interesting, Karl. I've been a little reluctant to update to 10.3.7, because of the Macfixit reports (www.macfixit.com - a valuablee troubleshooting source!).

But what you say may be an explanation to the troubles I've had to share an Apple Laserwriter at home with my kids' PC's.

Happy Holidays!

[Karl Ottenstein]

Thomas wrote:
Interesting, Karl. I've been a little reluctant to update to 10.3.7, because of the Macfixit reports (www.macfixit.com - a valuablee troubleshooting source!).

Thanks for the link to macfixit, Thomas! I'm still coming up to speed on Mac OS X ... give me another few weeks. 😉 Yes, I did notice slower startup as mentioned on that site after upgrading to 10.3.7. I usually just put the Mac to sleep, so put off worrying about it... but will now read more as I find time, or perhaps 10.3.8 will be out by then. 😉

Happy solstice and holidays to you, too. 😉

Karl

[Thomas Holm]

Thanks again, Karl!

Today I dared do the update to 10.3.7. Everything worked fine, and to me the system seems faster afterwards. It often does. But I did some other things as well (see below).

And here are some other Mac OSX tips that you may not need:
When people report problems after a system software update, in my experience it's most often symptoms of trouble they already had before, but that didn't surface until the update. This is of course unless there are really massive and widespread trouble reports after the update was published. That's why I try to keep an eye on http://www.macfixit.com after Software Update reports that something new is available. I usually wait and see a couple of days or a week before I install it.

To be on the safer side, there are some things you can do:

First, use some houskeeping application once in a while. There are several alternatives. I've settled for a French freeware called OnyX.
http://www.titanium.free.fr/
It's actually just a GUI frontend for a bunch of Unix system tools otherwise available through the Terminal. You can update Whatis and Locate databases, access the Safari Debug menu, and a lot of other things, but what i usually do is just use the handy Automate option before each Software Update. This way, I by just one click
- repair permissons
- run the Unix "daily, weekly, monthly" maintenance scripts (I have to do it this way, because they are run automatically by the system only if the machine is kept running all night, and I turn it off when i quit working)
- update system optimization
- erase user caches and clean system caches
- erase logs, Internet caches and history, and
- erase recent Objects and Servers.

Then I run the Software Update. You should know that Apple publishes these updates as downloadable files that you can run off-line too. Handy if you have a slow Internet connection and several machines to update. Also, the system updates are usually published as two options: One "incremental" that assumes that you have applied all previous updates available since the OS version (in this case 10.3) was distributed on CDs,
and one "Combo" version that contains all these updates in one file.
Information on both is in this case available here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300385-sv

The Combo version can anytime be used instead of the incremental, and sometimes this avoids problems that people get using Software Update, probably because it re-installs fresh versions of system files that may have been manipulated by other programs in the meantime.

The Combo version is of course handy if you need to re-install the system from the CDs, too. No Microsoft-like update-restart-update-restart forever, just do it once.

I used the Combo version this time, and that may have saved me some of the trouble others have mentioned.

Then, after the update is complete, I usually run Utilities > Disk Utility > Repair Permissons too. This is something that often needs to be done after any new software installation. I guess because some installers don't get everything right at once.

Oh, and I forgot the most important: Backup your data first! I use a very handy and versatile freeware app called Silverkeeper
http://www.silverkeeper.com
It's supported and maintained by laCie, and works beautifully.

All the best!

[Anonymous]

Thomas wrote:
- erase user caches and clean system caches
- erase logs, Internet caches and history, and...!

Do you mead actually the Folder CACHES (User/Library/Caches)? Is there any ramification on the system or applications?
Thanks,
joseph

[Karl Ottenstein]

Thanks for all of the tips, Thomas! Am downloading the free apps now and will take a look... 😉

Karl

[Thomas Holm]

Do you mead actually the Folder CACHES (User/Library/Caches)? Is there any ramification on the system or applications?

I don't know the technical details. What I know is that MacOSX logs and caches (temporarily stores in memory and on disk) a lot of data while you work (application code, search paths, recent documents, used fonts, settings, recently visited server data, web pages etc). This is why the second restart after a clean system install is faster than the first, etc.

But when the system is updated, some of this cached data might get obsolete because something has changed in how the system uses the data. So, if the caches aren't clean enough, something might go wrong. This is the most common cause for network or printing trouble after a system update, I think.

Of course, the system update itself should take care of this, but as a safety measure, I can do it myself this way and thus ensure that the update is as smooth as possible. I should maybe stress the fact that the application OnyX, like its more expensive colleagues Cocktail, MacSweep et al., does nothing by itself. When you click the buttons, it just issues Terminal commands to start BSDUnix routines already available (and supplied by Apple) with the OSX/BSD system.

I would never try to do this myself by manually removing files. Most of them are anyway invisible and non-permitted to access through the GUI. I'd like to stress: Never mess with the system - let those who know do it instead. But as with every application, there's always the risk that the developer messed things up. Backup!

(the folder you mention, as seen by the GUI, should never be touched. It's primarily a storage place for application caches and data, I think)

[__archiben]

Joseph wrote:
Is there any ramification on the system or applications?

the caches and logs can get very big if they're not cleaned out regularly. the system uses, adds to and keeps track of this data during normal operation and so can begin to slow if it's trying to manage a lot.

you'll probably never experience a slow-down purely because of the caches and logs because permissions and prebindings will have an impact way before that after any heavy installation . . .

HTH
~/archiben

[Thomas Holm]

I just noticed that OnyX (the free OSX system maintenace tool) has been updated to 1.4.9. There is a description at
http://www.applelegal.com/software_comments.php?id=204_0_1_0_C

[Eduardo Rolon]

That was on Dec 26, last year.

For users of Quicksilver there is a newer version out and so for Delicious library