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Troubleshooting

Info-Mac temporarily offline

Info-Mac, one of the best places on the web to find and download freeware and shareware, will be offline for a few weeks. Demitri Muna of Info-Mac writes: "The archive is moving from Stanford to its new home at MIT. We will need to shut down the archive for approximately two weeks to complete the move, set up new scripts, etc., beginning immediately."

Global Village Platinum modem miscellany

a. Global Village Platinum users can now upgrade to version 2.6.2 of Global Fax software. Although the Global Village web page lists it as just for Internet Edition users, reports suggest that it should work fine with non-Internet Edition users as well. However, you will need version 2.6 to get the update to work - and version 2.6 is not currently online. Sort of a Catch-22.

b. By the way, according to Mike Murdock, the Global Village Platinum PRO PC card will not work in a PowerBook 3400, mainly because GV has no driver for it. … Read more

-49 error when printing: Solutions

We received a number of items on this subject ( first mentioned last time). It appears the -49 error problem is not limited just to Mac OS 7.6. As to solutions:

a. Dick Sommers found that disabling the desktop printing extensions eliminated the problem.

b. Bob Bohanek traced the problem to an interaction between these desktop printer extensions and the Virex control panel. Indeed, in a timely coincidence, yesterday's MRP notes that a new Virex 5.7.1 is out: "According to the release notes, two of the bug fixes include the resolution of problems with Disk Express … Read more

Info Alley items of interest: issues with 9600 Graphics Accelerator extension and Find File

Two notes from the March 10 Information Alley:

a. If your 7300 Mac starts up with a X through the 9600 Graphics Accelerator extension, don't worry. You don't need the extensions anyway. Just discard it.

b. Add a background pattern to the Find File utility (via the Option key trick while in the Desktop Patterns control panel) can cause it to fail to open due to insufficient memory. The solution is to increase the Find File file's memory allocation (or not to use a pattern for it!).

Warning! If you formatted your drive with Apple HD SC Setup (7.1.2 or older) - Installing Mac OS 7.6 could result in losing all

For the past several weeks, we have had several items on a blinking question mark (or similar symptom) at startup that occurs right after installing Mac OS 7.6. We have never gotten a completely satisfactory answer as to what is going on here and why some people have this problem while others do not. Well, here is some new (and very important!) info that sheds more light on this subject:

a. An Apple TIL file describes what is probably going on if, after installing 7.6 and restarting, you get a blinking question mark:

"This behavior occurs only … Read more

Apple lay-off announcement today

From MacWEEK news alert: "Apple will announce the deepest cuts in the company's history today at 1:30 PST. Early reports indicate that Apple will slash its work force by up to 45 percent and eliminate several current and future product lines. OpenDoc development may be cut, while Java tools are apparently safe; the restructuring will refocus the company on its CPU and OS efforts, while it looks to sell off secondary technologies." Check the MacWEEK web site for more details as they become available.

MacFixIt "secret word" contest coming

As promised previously, with the first anniversary of this site approaching next week (plus the million visits mark coming on the counter any day now), we would celebrate with a contest. It will start on Monday when I post the updates. Here's the deal. The first person to tell me the correct secret word will win a free copy of the third edition of Sad Macs. A free copy will also go to one other person, randomly selected from all the people that send in the correct secret word within 24 hours of my receiving the first correct response. … Read more