making Mac iChat video work with an AIM account

After months of frustration, Yahoo technical and I figured out how to video conference using:

• Mac OS X 10.4.10 (Tiger)
• iChat (3.1.8)
• our AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) Account

For reasons we don't understand, the default AIM server setting doesn't work.

the fix that worked for us

1. Open iChat preferences and click on the Accounts tab
   
2. Select your AIM account
3. Click on Server settings
4. Change the default port (5190) to Port: 1080 (at the top - no need for a proxy server)
   
5. Restart iChat

[This also works for .Mac accounts - free or paid. Change the default port from 5060 to 1080.]

Yes, we have Apple's firewall on, and a Netgear router firewall in action.

solution for Photoshop CS3 crash / freeze problem

After I did the last round of software updates to Adobe's Creative Suite 3 Web Premium edition, PhotoShop CS3 Extended cease to act like the PhotoShop program I have used for years. This is on a MacBook 2 GHz Intel Core Due with 2 GB RAM.

symptoms

1. Try to open an image file and PhotoShop crashes
2. Try to save a new file and PhotoShop crashes
   
3. Try to save an image opened in PhotoShop from Bridge and PhotoShop crashes

self help

After verifying the the disk permission did not need to be repaired and that the hard drive itself was fine, I reinstalled (repaired) PhotoShop CS3 and updated it. Same symptoms. And updating produced this error message:
"Updating cannot be applied to a product. Adobe Version Cue Client 3.1 failed to install. Reinstall the product and try again."
Reinstalling PhotoShop AND Version Cue produced the same error message and PhotoShop crashes.

Adobe tech support

• The first call to Adobe's Saturday tech support was useless. I will forgo the details here.
• A search through Adobe's Knowledge base lead to a ten-page 8/10/07 Technote on "Troubleshoot system errors or freezes in Photoshop CS3 on Mac OS." After going through the beginning and some intermediate trouble-shooting steps, I stopped at #17 (Optimize hard disks) after reading Adobe's disclaimer about not supporting third party disk utilities. I haven't found a disk utility beyond Apple's Disk Utility that I trust.... I finished my need-it-tomorrow photo editing and printing using Apple iPhoto '08 and decided to worry about PhotoShop on Monday. (iPhoto's a decent program, especially in a pinch.)
  
• The second call to Adobe's tech support on Monday was also fruitless. I waited for 20 minutes in the "long cue" to talk to Christopher who suggest that there might be a software conflict. He recommended that I try turn on the computer in Safe Boot mode (hold the shift key while turning the computer on) to eliminate software conflicts. And if that didn't work, create a new admin account and try a safe boot again, opening PhotoShop in the new admin account. I asked for a case number to avoid the long wait should I need to call back.

solution

• The third call to Adobe's tech support on Monday was a bit frustrating, but did solve the problem. The frustration: my case number disappeared into the ether, so I had the long wait again, after an Adobe customer service rep verified my Adobe username and PhotoShop registration; he also provided my Adobe Customer Number - a good thing to know when you call Adobe's tech support.
  
• I repeated everything to Joel who solved the problem and patiently answered all of my questions. He recognized this as a Version Cue issue and directed me to:
  Hard Drive > Library > Applications Support > Adobe > Abobe Version Cue CS3 > Client
  and had me move the 3.1.0 directory to my desktop.
• I rebooted out of safe mode (no Internet connection to run an update) and updated the entire suit using Adobe Updater5 in the computer's Utilities folder. (Updater 4 was still there but we ignored it; Joel did not want me to remove it.)
• While all the software was updated yet again, we talked about Version Cue long enough for me to realize that I did not need it. We also talked about plan C... or D? Uninstalling the suite. Using Adobe's powerful clean up script, which sounded a little scary... We discussed the best way to uninstall the software - from the disk, not the uninstall utility, though I'm not sure why.
  
• Thankfully, although there was an ambiguous error message, Version Cue seemed to update successfully.
• Joel mentioned there was a doc on Adobe's site that dealt with this very issue: KB402521. Unfortunately, my "search of Entire Site for KB402521 did not match any documents." So I thought it best to blog this solution so it can be found.
  

PhotoShop seems to work now. I opened, edited, and printed an image successfully. I haven't verified all of the other programs yet, but I'm hopeful that they will work as expected. When I have some time, I plan to uninstall Version Cue.

Steve Jobs 2007 grad address @ Stanford

Great speech in the perfect medium - a YouTube video viewed by more than a million people in less than 4 months, easily embedded into this free Google blog.

Clearly, Steve Jobs is a key player in the development of our contemporary digital society. Now you listen to and learn from the three insightful stories he shared in his 2007 graduation address at "one of the finest universities in the world" on demand, 24/7/365.

Ah, technology....

Intego's Virus Barrier rewriting permissions?

Good Macintosh maintenance includes repairing disk permissions with Apple's disk utility software after installing or updating software, including system updates.

A few weeks ago I noticed that every time I repaired my ol' G5's disk permissions there seemed to be a set of permissions that needed to be repaired again and again: the activity monitor, keychain access, and ODBC administrator. Disk utility could repair the permissions, but the repair only lasted until the system re-booted.

I consulted with my #1 Mac tech support guru, a technical yahoo who admittedly dislikes anti-virus software. After examining the problem and the activity monitor, the guru suggested that we remove the Intego Virus Barrier x4 software and see what happens.

Once the latest version of Virus Barrier software was removed, the problem disappeared: the disk permissions stayed repaired.

I'd been using Intego's Virus Barrier x4 software for months without this or really any problem. It appears that after the latest (March '07) update, Virus Barrier x4 kept changing permissions in the root directory of my Mac.

Here's the disk utility disk permission repair report that kept returning until Virus Barrier x4 was removed:

Group differs on ./Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app/Contents/Resources/pmTool, should be 80, group is 0
Owner and group corrected on ./Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app/Contents/Resources/pmTool
Permissions corrected on ./Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app/Contents/Resources/pmTool
Group differs on ./Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access.app/Contents/Resources/kcproxy, should be 80, group is 0
Owner and group corrected on ./Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access.app/Contents/Resources/kcproxy
Permissions corrected on ./Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access.app/Contents/Resources/kcproxy
Group differs on ./Applications/Utilities/ODBC Administrator.app/Contents/Resources/iodbcadmintool, should be 80, group is 0
Owner and group corrected on ./Applications/Utilities/ODBC Administrator.app/Contents/Resources/iodbcadmintool
Permissions corrected on ./Applications/Utilities/ODBC Administrator.app/Contents/Resources/iodbcadmintool

Tungsten T5 updater v.1.1

Last weekend I wrote about restoring my T5's ability to hold a charge. And ended by saying that I would look for updates. I needed to wait several days to cool down from the frustration of attempting to install an update for the T5 released by Palm in 2005.

The "easy" way to install the update requires 16.7 MB free space on the Palm. My Palm had 43 MB free space but I kept getting an error message that there was not enough free space. Evidently not an unusual problem with this updater based on a web search.

So I tried Plan B - Palm's alternate method for devices with less than 16.7 MB free space. This method involves a hard reset that erases everything on the Palm. The alternate method worked until the very end when the installer requested that the Palm be plugged into the charger. An odd request.... The Palm didn't come with a charger. After trying to get this method to work a few more times, I gave up.

Though the updater still on Palm's site, I decided not to update the T-5. Palm admitted that there were problems with the 1.1 updater. Evidently they're still working on fixing it.

v1.1 updater from Palm
Palm forum about the problem
BackupBuddy - if you want to try the updater, back up first. Backing up is a good idea in any event.