Even though I don’t consider myself a “gamer”, I do like the occasional console or PC game now and then. I really enjoy first person shooters for the simple fact that I can jump into an online game, or gather some friends together and just frag the heck outta some people. I don’t have the patience for long adventure games or those that require learning some new move, skill, or spell at every turn. I just want to turn on the game, have some fun, and turn it off when I start to suck get bored.

For that reason, I keep going back to the old classic Unreal Tournament. If I could have gotten credit for the amount of hours I played that game and the original Halo in college, I could have gotten degrees in each. While Halo has gotten better and better with age, Unreal (in my opinion) hasn’t. I still enjoy playing the 1999 Game of the Year edition of Unreal Tournament more than any of it’s descendants.

At some point last week I decided I wanted to play Unreal during my lunch break here at work. Even though I’m on an Intel iMac, I knew there was a Mac port that worked on my G5 iMac at home. Unfortunately “Unreal Tournament X” (as it’s called) isn’t native to and doesn’t work with the Intel Macs, so my only other option was to run it on Windows via VMWare Fusion. I didn’t have high expectations when I brought in my Unreal Disc from home today, but to my surprise it worked right off the bat. The only problem was the mouse. It worked fine in the preferences window, but was so finicky during gameplay that I couldn’t get my eyes off the floor - literally. As you can imagine, this wouldn’t do.

Fortunately, Google revealed that French blogger Arnaud Boudou had the answer:

As written above, I got issues with mouse. in fact, the issue comes from “VMware Toolbox” and VMware’s mouse driver. this tool, with mouse driver, allow you to have a transparent mouse use between VMware and MacOS X. If you uninstall VMware Toolbox and mouse driver, you won’t encounter mouse issues with games anymore.

Sure enough, if you go into the Control Panel on your VMWare-booted install of Windows, you’ll see that the mouse driver is in fact a VMWare branded driver. To change this, simply open up the Mouse properties from the Control Panel, click the Hardware tab, select the driver, click the properties button, in the Properties window select the Driver tab and click the Update Driver button. In the wizard, manually select the PS/2 Compatible mouse driver and you should be good to go. The only downside that I’ve found is the mouse is a little slower (even with sensitivity turned all the way up) than I prefer.

For some reason, the game will not run full-screen, even within the VMWare window, but it’s still very playable. As you can see, I even jumped into a quick internet game. Disregard the -4 spread, I was trying to take screenshots. ;) Anyway, it’s good to have UT back again and I’m looking forward to dusting off my Flak Cannon, Pulse Gun, and Rocket Launcher during future lunch breaks. Happy Fragging!

(If you have a first generation G5 iMac that is giving your problems, feel free to skip the story and get to the point.)

As it turns out, those issues I was having with my G5 iMac a few months ago may not have been RAM related at all. A few days after replacing a DIMM that I concluded was bad after it crashed memtest, I started having kernel panics again. It started out as an occasional crash, usually when I was waking the computer up in the morning. As time went by though it got to where the computer would need a reboot every time I left it overnight. Sometimes it would take me 10-15 minutes to get it booted, but once it was up I was good for the day. With my regular job during the day and working on the book each night, I didn’t really have time to troubleshoot it though, so I tried to incorporate the delay into my morning routine. As frustrating as this was, it was bearable because it never crashed during the day…until a couple weeks ago. Just like the rest of the issues, it started out as a freak occurance and then became more and more common. Like a lobster in a pot of slowly heated water, I shrugged off these “inconveniences” and was content with my regualar backup schedule and copying important files (like book chapters) onto another computer. About 10 days ago the problems came to a culmination and I couldn’t ignore them anymore. At that point I couldn’t have the computer on for more than an hour without it crashing again. I was convinced that it was a software error caused by my previous RAM issues and attempted a full format and reinstall of Tiger. Somehow I managed to get the full OS, the Adobe suite and a few other regular applications installed…and then it crashed again.

OK, I thought, it’s definitely hardware related. In doing some research, I found out that there was a repair extension program for the motherboard (or midboard or logic board…in the PC world, it’s a motherboard so that’s what I’ll call it) for first generation iMacs but the symptoms listed were video and power failure (which I didn’t technically have) and I had to take it to an Apple Authorized Serivce Provider to find out whether or not it qualified for a motherboard replacement. Just to be safe I snapped a few pictures of the interior and exterior of the computer before taking it in to a shop. When I took it in, the technician opened it up on the spot and said that it definitely qualified. When I asked him how he knew, he pointed out the orange goo on the tops of some of the capacitors on the motherboard. Although I had noticed this before, I thought it had always been there and assumed it was that way from the factory. When I got home and Googled leaking capacitors and iMacs I discovered that my situation was common among the first generation G5 iMacs and eMacs. Apparently those faulty capacitors are the primary reason for the extension program, even thought it doesn’t say that anywhere on the site. I also learned that many other computer and parts manufacturers were affected by this as well. For more info on that nightmare story of faulty hardware and industrial espionage, check out the wikipedia article on the “Capacitor Plague”.

So, to make this long story short, I just got my computer back on Saturday after having the motherboard and powersupply replaced for free (thanks, Apple!) and I wanted to send a warning out to anyone with a first generation G5 iMac. The repair extension program only extends 2 years from the date of purchase and most of these computers are nearing that deadline. Check to see if the serial number on the bottom of your stand matches up with the ranges on the repair extension program page and if it does, open it up and look inside. Here’s a picture of mine before it was repaired:

If any of the capacitors on your motherboard are bulging or leaking, take it in immediately. Apple has only promised to replace the faulty hardware for 2 years from the purchase dates. After this they will reevaluate the program, but aren’t making any guarantees. Unlike replacing the motherboard on a homebrew PC machine, you can’t easily make this repair yourself, and when I asked the technician what it would cost to replace an iMac motherboard that wasn’t covered by the program, he said I would be better off buying a new machine. As an optimisitic DIY kind of computer user, I don’t like that answer, but don’t take a chance.

On the bright side, my computer has been running for 2 days straight now and it didn’t cost me a thing. I only wish I had found out about the repair program earlier.

Update 10/2/2006: My issues were probably never RAM related at all. It may have been due to bad capacitors on the motherboard. The first generation of G5 iMacs were subject to a bad batch of capacitors that were prone to bulge and leak causing a while host issues including video and power outtages, and in my case kernel panics. To read more about the conclusion of this 6 month saga, click here.

If there’s one thing I really didn’t want to have to deal with last week, it was “computer issues”. As life usually goes though, when you really don’t want things to go wrong, they usually do. Generally “computer issues” means troubleshooting networking or Windows problems with one of our testy homemade PCs, but this time I was having problems with the G5 iMac. My wife and I originally bought the iMac back in December of 2004 to use as our main desktop computer. A few months after the purchase I switched jobs and started working from home on the Mac full time. Since we bought it, the machine has run flawlessly. I leave it on in the office 24/7 and generally only have to restart it when I install OS updates. This was a far cry from my days of working on Windows machines. I would consider myself lucky to go 3 days without having something freeze.

And that’s how things went. Day-in and day-out my Mac just ran. Until around the middle of last month. I came into the office, sat down and moved the mouse to wake up the computer. As the LCD faded in, there was a little gray box centered on the screen with my desktop and running applications shaded in the background like a Lightbox effect. In the box was a message (in several languages) that I needed to restart my computer. Having never seen this message before, I didn’t think much of it and promptly restarted the computer as the message said. As the computer started up, I heard the familiar OSX statup chime, which was followed by the display of the Apple logo and spinny widget, and then came the Gray Screen of Death:

Click image for detailed view.

At this point, I was starting to get worried. The only thing I had backed up recently was my iPhoto archive and the book I’m working on. I needed to get back into my computer. I jumped over onto the PC to learn that both of these errors were known as kernel panics. From the linked article:

A kernel panic is a type of error that occurs when the core (kernel) of an operating system receives an instruction in an unexpected format, or that it fails to handle properly. A kernel panic may also follow when the operating system is not able to recover from a different type of error. A kernel panic can be caused by damaged or incompatible software or, more rarely, damaged or incompatible hardware.

Great… I thought I had escaped OS crashes when I started working on the mac. I guess not. Everything I read about this problem points to software issue first, and then hardware issues. Luckly, there are a lot of great resources out there that explain how to troubleshoot mac issues. Here are a few of my favorite:

• My Mac Won’t Start - A printable pdf booklet from Creative Techs to keep handy in case of emergency.
• iMac G5 Support at Apple - Perhaps I should have started on apple.com instead of Google. They have quite a lot of support material on their website.
• Apple’s Troubleshooting 101: Startup Setbacks - This is where Google first pointed me when I typed in “osx you need to restart your computer”.

In running through the troubleshooting steps on those guides, I thought I had it figured out. Apple’s Disk Utility reported a few errors when I tried to repair the volume. Disk utility said that it repaired the issues and the S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic status said the drive was OK. I was able to reboot just fine and thought I was done. That evening though, the machine crashed again. So I went back to Google and picked up where I left off. Each time I was able to eventually get the machine running again only to have it crash within a day or two. Eventually, I found a thread in a forum that suggested that RAM might be the issue. In researching this new theory, I found the the best way to test the RAM on a Mac, isn’t the hardware checking software that comes with the computer, but a free little utility called memtest. When I tried to run memtest in single-user mode it went into a kernel panic within about 3 minutes of me issueing the start command. I then removed one of my two 512MB DIMMs and ran the test again overnight. The next morning, the test had run successfully. So, I restarted the computer with only the one DIMM and as of this morning it’s been running for 2 days straight…and I’ve been working on my book all weekend. I still need to run the test again with just the faulty DIMM to make sure it’s faulty, and run it once more with the good DIMM in the other slot to make sure that the slot isn’t bad. I have noticed that the computer is running a bit slower with only 512MB but I think it’ll do until I can finish the testing process and pick up a new DIMM from Crucial. Hopefully this solution resolves my “computer issues” for a while.

In talking to Ames the other day, I think we’ve agreed that OSX Tiger is worth the upgrade. Partly because she’s eligible for the student discount, and also because of our unquenchable desire for widgets. Sure, there are other great reasons to upgrade to 10.4 like automatic font smoothing, the image slideshow, spotlight - but the REAL reason we want the update is so we can get Dashboard with it’s myriad of nifty mini-application widget thingys.

Any mac users out there NOT planning to upgrade?

You're probably here looking for a Magnetix I-Coaster...
In that case, you'd want to click on the link below.

Or, while you're here, perhaps you'd like to buy your kids a nice
book about website design principles?
Hey, it was worth a try, right?

Thanks,
Jason Beaird
Toy Peddler and Webdesign Author Extraordinaire


Now on to the original blog post...

The most affordable Mac ever.

With a starting price of only $499 this 6.5" x 6.5" x 2" box of G4 mac goodness is a great deal. With the size and power of this little mac, I can see hooking into into the entertainment system as a music/video server, taking it on the go (as it's smaller than some portable hard drives), or just replacing the old PC desktop.

Update: No longer trying to win an iMac though FreeMiniMacs.com...

I've seen the ads of people claiming that you could get a free ipod from freeipods.com for a while and didn't believe it...till people started saying they just got their ipod in the mail. Well, the people that put together freeipods.com have launched FreeMiniMacs.com, and it's just as Legitimate.

If you want to get your own Free Mini Mac (er...iCoaster), all you have to do is go to http://www.FreeMiniMacs.com/?r=13923856, sign up for an "offer", and get 10 people to do the same. Among the "offers" are Blockbuster, Rhapsody, Credit Cards, and all sorts of other services. I personally signed up for the Platinum Discover card since it was completely free and gave me a way to use a credit card at Sams Club (they don't take Visa or Mastercard). A few of the guys at work are doing the same and paid $9.95 to try out a first month of unlimited Blockbuster rentals, and said it was well worth it even if it were not for the free mini mac.

P.S. - The URL above with the ?r=13923656 is my referrer link. As soon as I get the 10 people signed up that I need, I will take it down and post a list of the the referrer links of the 10 people who completed offers on my referral. This is only fair since I can only get one iCoaster,and I'd like to help those that help me.

That was the first line of an email we received titled, “Your Apple Store Order”. Yes, we’ve shot the moon, gone for broke, and thrown caution to the wind. In a more literal sense, we just purchased a new 20-inch G5 iMac.

OK, so we didn’t follow our plan at all, but our new iMac order is in processing and is due to be shipped on or before December 21st, 2004. We really did intend to wait on making this purchase, but after selling my old laptop and receiving (& returning) an Averatec laptop from BestBuy.com with a bad pixel in the middle of the screen, we were ready to stop playing around and get what we really wanted to begin with.

The specs for our new dream-machine are:

• 512MB DDR400 SDRAM - 1 DIMM (We plan to upgrade this to 1GB with another 512MB DIMM from crucial when we can afford it.)
• 160GB Serial ATA drive
• Standard Keyboard and Mouse (We opted not to get the bluetooth keyboard and mouse after hearing a few bad reviews including this one from Andy Budd.)
• <drool>20-inch widescreen LCD</drool>
• 1.8GHz PowerPC G5 Processor
• SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra w/64MB video memory

Ames and I have finally decided that we ARE going to get a sexy new 20-inch G5 iMac. I could really use a machine like that at home to expand my familiarity with the mac OS, and Amy has simply fallen in love with them. We currently have 3 PCs: a multimedia server, our main desktop computer, and our laptop. It may seem a bit abberant, but here’s our 5 step plan for becoming Mac users.

1. Sell our HP Laptop - We are definitely going to need some extra cash in order to afford what really ammounts to a luxury item. I got my HP laptop as a graduation present, and at 2.8 GHz with 512MB of ram, it’s a decent machine, but it doesn’t really fit our requirements for a laptop.
2. Buy a cheaper, more portable laptop - We want the iMac to be our main home computer, but we need to have a laptop that Amy can carry around for grad school, so the lighter/cheaper the better. We decided on the Avertec 3200 series, and got a good deal at Best Buy during the crazy holiday sales.
3. Accumulate resources - Even after exchanging our laptop for a lighter and cheaper one, we’re still a little too short on cash to buy a new iMac. It’s also almost Christmas, which means our holiday budget is going to eat into the iMac fund a little. When Amy graduates, she’ll be getting a raise and working full time. With that boost in income, we should be able to save up the remainder of what we need after a couple of months.
4. Make room for the new baby - No we’re not having kids. Kids would definitely hamper our iMac buying process and make this list much longer than 5 steps. I was talking about making room for the new G5. Our desktop machine is a 1.8 GHz machine that is still really useful, but the iMac would be replacing this machine, as well as stealing it’s desk space. I plan on gutting both the desktop and the media server and combining the best of both to build a better, faster version of “The Box”.
5. Bring her home - Once steps 1-4 are completed, we’ll be home free. Our computers will be up to date having well definied purposes, and we will have the money to put towards our new desktop machine, the 20-inch G5 iMac.

What do all of the following people have in common?

Greg Storey, Andy Budd, D. Kieth Robinson, Cameron Moll, Andrei Herasimchuk, Jon Hicks, Jason Santa Maria, Garrett Murray, Eric Meyer, Dave Shea, Mike Davidson, Shaun Inman, Dan Cederholm, Douglas Bowman, Jeffrey Veen, Sean Voisen, Jeffrey Zeldman

1. They all have amazing websites with blogs that I read on a regular basis.
2. They’re all people who have made great contributions to the web and standards-based design.
3. Every single one of them uses a Mac.
   Even if they don’t like to admit it.

My first computer was an Apple IIe that my cousin passed onto me when he moved to New Mexico to work for Intel. Although I really loved that machine, I’ve never felt the need to buy an Apple computer. I made it all the way through Graphic Design school with a PC that I built myself. I used Macs in the labs when I had to and know my way around OS 9 and OS X as a result. When the graphic design school at UCF started to require us to bring our own computers however, my buddy Jeremy Darty and I would always get a lot of flack from our professor and classmates for our Dell laptops. To me, the whole thing was a joke. Even if it was a little uncool, I was convinced that I could do anything with my PCs that the Mac addicts could do with their shiny Apples.

I currently have a PC laptop, desktop, and file server at home and do my design work at Acceleration on a blazing fast dual-monitor machine with a gig of ram. So why am I thinking so much about making the switch now? Well, it’s simple really… My wife wants one. She really wanted a 2nd generation iMac, and now she wants the new 20-inch G5 model even more. We spent the morning before we left for school/work customizing them online. This is it. My chance to be the man, bare the financial responsibility, and give the final word on this major decision. And I say we should go for it. It would be a personal computer that she would love for daily use, and a tool for myself that would grant me a little more diversity with my skills and software knowledge. It may mean we have to take out a student loan to make it happen, but Ames will be working on her phD for the next 5 years so what do we have to lose?