• Test the memory so that, if it’s good, we can resell it instead of recycling it.
• Wipe the hard disk so that we can recycle the computer.

Tools:

• Tech Tool Pro 4 disc
• Tech Tool Pro 5 disc
• Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard install disc
• Mac OS X 10.3 install disc (came with laptop)

You’d think this would be easy…

Sunday

I spent a couple of minutes looking for the Tech Tool Pro 5 disc, but couldn’t find it, so I figured I’d try version 4 since I knew where it was. I’d forgotten that TTP4 doesn’t like this display. The colors were so messed up I couldn’t read it.

So I figured I’d use the Leopard install disc to wipe the hard drive first, and look for the TTP5 disc in the meantime. I spent at least an hour and a half looking through my CD rack and a messy pile of paper and had no luck. Meanwhile, the laptop froze while zeroing the disk. The screen had turned off, so I have no idea how much it actually wiped.

Then I found the TTP5 disc between two CD boxes.

At this point I figured I’d let the machine cool off overnight and deal with it the next day.

Monday

I got home from work, then set the laptop up on a cooling rack with a floor fan next to it. Booted to Tech Tool Pro 5 — no problem. The memory test options are time-based: do you want to test for 15 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, etc. I figured I’d start with 15 minutes and see what it did. It passed. Just in case, I ran it for another hour. Again, it passed. *whew!*

Not wanting to risk damaging the RAM, I powered the laptop off, unplugged it, removed the battery, opened up the access panel and removed the RAM extension. I closed everything up, plugged it back in, and tried to boot to Leopard.

10 minutes later, with the DVD drive still chugging away and the beach ball still spinning, I thought maybe I should take another approach.

I dug out the original install discs, which I’d found while looking for TTP5 the day before, and tried booting to that. 2 minutes, tops. That’s when I checked the Leopard box and saw that it required 512 MB of RAM. The G4 PowerBook only had 256 MB built-in. You’d think the boot loader on the disc could maybe tell you “This requires more memory than you have” instead of sitting there trying to load everything without any swap space.

Anyway, from the 10.3 installer I fired up Disk Utility, told it to zero the drive, and waited. 10 minutes later, it still said “Preparing to zero drive.” The day before, it had only stayed in that state for a few seconds before starting to show progress.

Great. Maybe it needed the memory. Power down, open it up, plug the RAM back in, close it up. This time it after booting to the installer, I couldn’t even get the menus to respond.

I figured it had managed to overheat (or whatever is going on) despite the fan and cooling rack. So I closed it down and put everything away to try again the next day.

Next Sunday

I picked things up again a few days later. First I pulled battery out in case it was overheating. So, with the extra RAM, I booted to the Leopard install discs and tried to zero the drive. After about 10 minutes, a message popped up that the computer needed to restart. So I tried again. Same thing.

Since I half-suspect the drive itself is part of the problem (though it could be a fan), at this point I decided it was probably as close to wiped as it was going to get. So I pulled out the RAM again and set it aside to sell, and figured I’d just send the machine back.

Then I remembered I should drain the battery.

What could I do with a machine that had no OS to drain the battery?

Of course! I could run Disk Utility! So I left the computer unplugged, booted to the 10.3 discs (since I’d already removed the extra RAM), and started to zero the drive again, figuring it would either freeze or run out of power.

About half an hour later I looked over…and as near as I could tell, it was done. There was no message, but there was also no progress gauge and no error…and Disk Utility showed an empty Mac OS filesystem on the drive.

Great! It finally worked! But I still needed to drain the battery, so I figured I’d start a second round. This time it froze, and the computer made grinding/clicking noises until it ran out of power. But the mission had been accomplished.

Aftermath

I sold the RAM on eBay last week. Now I just need to send the computer back to be recycled. End of an era in some ways, but we haven’t actually used it in almost a year.

“So,” I said. “I have to ask myself. Do I feel lucky?”
“Well,” Katie replied. “Do you? Punk?”
“What the heck.”

I’d done some research on application compatibility earlier this week, and the PowerBook looked ready. Katie’s desktop is going to need further study. The Mac Classic environment will no longer run under Leopard, and she’s still got a couple of Classic apps she pulls out occasionally. Also, Photoshop 7 is reported not to run under Leopard, and Adobe isn’t testing or updating anything older than CS3.

But the laptop? No critical data to back up (it’s all duplicated from the desktops), and everything we actually use on it has been tested on at least a pre-release.

So I fired up Netscape 4 for old times’ sake (and discovered that this theme is completely unreadable in it; then I switched the CSS around so that Netscape 4 won’t even try). Then I popped in the disc, selected some options, and let it install during Pushing Daisies.

No problems so far. Disk space is running low, but it’s a 3-year old laptop (so the drive is small) and I did an Archive and Install, so it has a backup of the old OS. Once it’s clear that everything works, I can free up ~6GB right there. It may also be time to wipe the Yellow Dog Linux partition. I haven’t used it in over a year.

Some highlights: I really like finally having virtual desktops (what Apple calls “Spaces”). The new search highlighting, previously seen in the Safari 3 beta, appears in other apps as well. Heck, Safari 3 is a big jump itself. (Hey, Apple, where are the Windows and Tiger releases?)

Apple: Finally pre-ordered Mac OS X Leopard, removing the temptation to run out to an Apple store or Fry’s this weekend (though I’ve been meaning to put some more RAM in the Windows box). Saved a few bucks by ordering from Amazon ($10 off the family pack, would’ve been $20 off the standard box), and picked the free shipping so that I won’t be tempted to install it until there’ve been a few days’ worth of bug reports.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering when Safari 3 comes out for Windows and Tiger. Tonight at 6:00? Monday? I’m looking forward to this putting some of the new CSS3 capabilities into the hands of potentially 5% of the web audience.

Opera: Speaking of web browsers, Opera 9.5 beta came out yesterday. In addition to lots of work on rendering & site compatibility (as seen through the last few weeks’ worth of alpha releases), they’ve launched a new service called Opera Link. It’s primarily a bookmarks sync service, plus a web-accessible interface. So you can automatically sync multiple copies of Opera—including Opera Mini—and also be able to access those bookmarks from Firefox, IE, or a computer where you’re a guest (friend, computer lab, cafe, etc.). I think the biggest impact here is going to be syncing between the desktop and phone, like Safari on the desktop and the iPhone.

On the other hand, imagine adding a bookmarklet or Firefox extension to more easily update from—or even fully sync with—other browsers. Or better yet, a way to synchronize Opera Link with, say, del.icio.us, which can integrate fully with both Firefox (via an extension) and Flock.

Spam: I’m astonished that, with the amount of comment spam that hits this blog (many thanks to Bad Behavior and Spam Karma for helping stem the tide!), I’ve only netted 7 comment spammers for Project Honeypot since they started tracking comment spam 6 months ago. I guess the software is smart enough to only hit the real forms?

Wordpress: Just released version 2.3.1 with a bunch of bugfixes and (of course) a security fix. Updated.

I’d planned on pre-ordering it from Amazon, since I have no interest in standing in line at an Apple store (though that may have been unique to the iPhone), but I’ve been holding off until the requirements were finalized. We’ve got two Macs, one desktop and one laptop, both G4s, and the desktop is old enough for compatibility to be a question. And while the 5-license “family pack” is still less than twice the cost of the single-license box—$199 vs. $129—I only want to spend the additional $70 if we can use it.

Fortunately, even the desktop meets the minimum requirements, so it’s not quite obsolete yet.

At least I shouldn’t have to repeat the shipping snafu I had with Tiger. The leasing office will hold packages now, so even if UPS (or whoever) does try to deliver while no-one’s home, I should be able to just pick it up instead of spending 4 days trying to get it delivered to the right place.

It’s funny: When Microsoft releases a new OS, my inclination is to sit it out and wait for the first service pack, usually a year or so in. When Apple or Fedora releases a new OS, my inclination is to upgrade as soon as I have the time. Even though all of them have had histories of significant problems on one release or another—the broken video driver I ran into on Fedora 7, for instance, or the firewire drives fried by one version of Mac OS X.

I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it’s trust. Maybe it’s speed of the fixes: Linux vendors will have updated packages within days to weeks. (Heck, some Linux distros have updates available by the time the ISOs go live, because a bug was fixed after the contents were frozen.) And you can count on a Mac OS 10.5.1 in a month or two. Maybe it’s the scale of problems. You risk things like broken drivers or software with anyone’s major OS upgrade, but Windows always seems to have some problem that’s bigger than just a bug fix, something that needs more time and effort to redesign. In short, something that won’t get fixed until the next service pack.

Edit: It occurs to me that since Leopard will include the new release of Safari, we’ll probably also see the final release of Safari 3 for Windows next week.

I realized that the detail page pulls out Mac OS X, which makes up 2.8%…but MSIE doesn’t say whether it’s running on Classic or OS X. Fortunately IE 5.2 is OS X-only, so we can add in that 0.6%, leaving us with an estimated 3.4% on OS X and 1% on Classic.

So, to the extent that these stats are reliable…

• Nearly one fourth of Mac users visiting this site are still running an obsolete version of the OS.
• 65% of Mac OS X users are using Safari, with only 20% on Internet Explorer.

Anything more detailed is going to require going through the logs myself or writing my own stats script, so I have no idea how the remaining 15% breaks down.

*All of hyperborea.org.

After five years of rumors, Apple has not only confirmed Mac OS X can run on Intel processors, but future Macs will run on Intel. No, they won’t be releasing a version of Mac OS that you can install on your PC, they’re “just” replacing the CPUs in future Macs. Apparently Intel has a better road map for future performance. (Hmm, better tell the marketing division, quick. The PowerMac page [archive.org] still touts the PowerPC’s superiority over the Pentium 4.)

It’s a switch on the order of—well, on the order of leaving the Motorola 68K for PowerPC. Back in those days, it was Apple vs. IBM Compatibles, and IBM was a partner in the PowerPC design. These days it’s Apple vs. Wintel, the Windows/Intel combination.

Apple seems to have everything planned out. Secretly running OS X on both PPC and x86 for the past five years, preparing developer tools to produce applications for both architectures, setting up a translation tool to run PPC apps on Intel chips. Microsoft and Adobe are already on board. It’s not a surprise, really—they’ve done it all before. Of course, we all know how well the best laid plans go…

I do have to wonder how this will affect Linux distributions aimed at the PowerPC line. Yellow Dog Linux, for instance, is also advertised as running on IBM’s own PowerPC systems. And depending on the rest of the hardware, standard x86 distros may have to incorporate formerly PPC-only code. Update: It hasn’t shown up on their website yet, but I just got an email from YDL stating that they will remain focused on PowerPC, remain “in good standing with Apple” as a reseller, and “expect [server OS] Y-HPC to gain an even greater userbase with existing Apple Xserve users.”

I also wonder which Intel chip line they plan on using. Everyone seems to be assuming it’s x86-based, and I’d guess it’s 64-bit (why go backwards from the G5?). In theory Apple could go with Itanium, since they don’t need to drag around x86 compatibility, and the extra volume might be enough to bring the price down.

Anyway, I opened up the box to take a look, and aside from a sticker on the box and a 1-paragraph license addendum, I don’t see anything else to indicate how the 5-license pack differs from the standard 1-license pack. I guess they figure on voluntary compliance rather than messing around with license keys. (Keep in mind I’ve never actually installed Mac OS X before. Katie’s upgraded her computer a couple of times, but the laptop came with Panther pre-installed.)

On the plus side, we already know 10 days’ worth of pitfalls to watch out for before upgrading…whenever we have the time to do it.

Anyway, off to lunch and then back to work.

I assumed it was yet another book about the OS timed to come out just as people would be interested. No, it’s the 1982 rock album by Survivor, featuring the well-known Rocky III theme…which has now lodged itself firmly in my head.

Interesting cost comparison: the 5-system “Family Pack,” which can be used for both upgrades and fresh installs, costs $199. That’s only $70 more than a one-system package. It’s also the same as a one-system full install of Windows XP Home or two copies of the Windows XP Home Upgrade. And while Microsoft does offer additional licenses, the only pricing references I can find are three years old and only a $10 discount per extra system.

Of course, you also have to take into account Apple’s faster release cycle (IIRC this is the third version of Mac OS released since Windows XP shipped), though that’s slowing down.

It starts Monday with the anticipated release of Fedora Core 3, which is expected to form the base of Red Hat’s next Enterprise Linux. I’ve got quite a few systems running Fedora Core 2 between home and work, and while I won’t be upgrading everything at once, it looks like it should be less painful than the upgrade from 1 to 2.

Then there’s two releases on Tuesday. Most anticipated is the final release of Firefox 1.0. I’ve lost count of the systems I’ve installed Firefox on, and I’m very much looking forward to 1.0!

Finally, also Tuesday, is the monthly collection of Microsoft security patches. Off to the land of installations and reboots!

Of course, Mandrake released a new version last week, Apple posted a minor update to Mac OS yesterday, and Yellow Dog Linux just released 4.0, so it’s definitely upgrade season.