Ralph Johns

 
Potted Computer history
For Tom,

My first taste of anything to do with computers was in 1977 when I went back to college here in Britian. This was a Further Education college that offered GCSE 'A' Level exams as well as other vocational and higher qualifications.

I started to do three. I lasted a term (Sept to Christmas) whilst trying to get a grant. (First person in Dorset to stuffer the first round off Education Grant cuts). This included computing.

I have no idea now what the computer was. I know it was a hand-me down from somewhere.
It had been pleaced in a room that was too small for it. The card reader was in one room and a printer (14") was based in yet another. The computer almost filled the room. It was taller than my 6ft (181cm) and about 4ft square at the base.

My course started with us having to learn BASIC. We had to type the cards out which obviously got punched and then hand them in to an assistant who ran them through the machine. The computer was not specifically programmed to run BASIC and did so under an emulation. Consequently it sometimes took days to get stuff back. In the term I was there I had just about managed Add,ubtract, Divide and Multiply. High level stuff I know.

When the Sinclair group broght out their Spectrum (sometime in the '80s), I had a 16k (yes a memory of a whole 16k) one. It had the rubberised keyboard that it was famous for. I learnt to programme it it it's own version of BASIC and to some extent in it's machine code. Lots of time also spent playing games in 8 colours. It stll works. Programmes were loaded from a tape recored and stored on cassette tapes.

There was then a big gap until 1991 when I started my nurse training.

Here, the School of Nursing and the local Poytechnic joined together to offer the new type of nursing qualification. (Project 2000 for those interested). (The two bodies later amalgamated to form a University).

This was my introduction to the Mac. We had an introductory seession. I was placed in front of a Mac plus and given a A4 (8.25 X 11.75 inches) with some simple instructions and told to "explore". The instructions were to use ClarisWorks (System 6) so that we could learn how to write our essays on a computer.

Despite there being several Mac labs all over the Campus and loads more dotted about in the Library it was always difficult to find a free computer. So in 1992 I bought a Performa 400.

This had a 68030 chip runnng at Mgz (I think). 4Mb of RAM and an 80Mb (yes Mb) hard drive. It also had a floopy drive and took about 40 or so to do a complete back up, once I had added my own stuff. It ran System 7.0.1 and I have updated that to 7.3.5, which is the highest it can go.

It came with several demos including one of the start of the Aladin series.

In 1998 came my Original Bondi Blue Ver A iMac (233mhz). What a difference !! The place I bought it from downloaded the 80Mb from the old computer (2 1/2 hours and loaded it on to the iMac (15 mins). I bought an AsanteTalk box which allowed me to connect the two.

It also came with a modem and so the internet started. On Dial-up at first. Then longer periods as optional phone service came on line. And finally on Broadband (ADSL 500k down/ 256k up).

I had upgraded the processor to 400Mgz, added a 80Gb hard drive and added more Video memory to it's max of 8Mb. However the screen then died on New Years Day 2003.

I currently have a G4 1GHz Mirror Door tower. It has been fitted with 3 extra drives. The salvaged 80 Gb , a 60Gb from an external USB unit that the G4 would not recognise in OS X and a 250Gb split into two partitions.

I would say I can use AppleWorks and Office for Mac and produce acceptable printed and Visual work. I can just about produce something in iMovie having edited my Father-in-Law's analogue video tapes through DV converter.

That has led my to iChat - and we all know about that.

Ralph
- posted by Ralph Johns @ 11:53 am 0 comments

 
How to Get iChat to Open AIM weblinks (Chatrooms)
Hi All,

Ruth Lachman posted this answer on the Apple IChat 3 Discussions: Link to Thread

Just in case any of you were wondering, you open up Internet Explorer. Then you go to preferences and choose Network, then Protocol Helper. Then it'll give you a list of helpers, one being AIM. The helper will be AIM by default. Just hit the change button and select iChat as the helper.

Ralph
- posted by Ralph Johns @ 8:55 pm 0 comments

 
PostgresSQL
On the Apple iChat Discussion Pages.
Kevin Woon reported this:

You don't actually need to kill PostgreSQL to be able to run iChat. I did some experimenting and found that if you reduce the number of shared-buffers. I had started with 300, but reduced it to 75. After I did that everything worked fine.

And Kaan Erdener replied with:

Ok, I managed to get my iSight working again with iChat while leaving postgres running. Here's what I did.

Before I get started, I'm running postgres 8.0.1 on OS X 10.4.1. My postgresql.conf shows these default values for max_connections and shared_buffers:

max_connections = 40
shared_buffers = 200 # min 16, at least max_connections*2, 8KB each

So, I'm not sure where you saw a value of 300. Was it somewhere else besides postgresql.conf? Or are you running a different version of Postgres? Something else?

I tried descreasing shared_buffers to 80 (the smallest value allowed following the math rule of max_connections*2), but iChat still failed on video chats. This was logged to console output:

2005-07-17 06:37:13.894 iChat[8259] WARNING: Freeze-frame failed: couldn't get local buffer for layer Local!

When I decreased both max_connections and shared_buffers, as below, I found that I am now able to leave postgres running and use iChat with iSight for video chats:

max_connections = 20
shared_buffers = 40 # min 16, at least max_connections*2, 8KB each

Kaan

This might help other with the Postgres problem.

Ralph
- posted by Ralph Johns @ 3:25 pm 3 comments

 
Sorting Tiger and iChat
Hi All,

This post is designed to help isolate problems.

Problems from Updating from Panther.

There are or were serveral Add-ons and applications avaiblable to Panther users of iChat that are not compatible with iChat 3.

These following need to be deleted.

iCAR - An Add-on that posts an Auto response Away message (produces a 1 fps result in a Video chat)

Virex for Panther - An Anti Viru app avialable to @mac account users (Produces the 1 fsp problem)

Similar with Apple Remote Desktop if active in the System Preferences > Sharing pane


iChatUSBCam for Panther/iChat2.x - A Add-on utility for using iSight or USB cam with iChat2.x (Incompatible with Tiger/iChat 3)

iProfile - An Add-on for producing a profile on the AIM server thta ichat 2.x caould not do (not proven to be a problem but now not needed).

Use Spotlight to find all files including .plist and delete.



Lotus Note 6 has recently got a mention

A clean install of Tiger (not Archive and Install) produces the best results.

Check Settings

Don't be complacent that you have not set anything different.


There are several new things in Tiger that may trip you up.

These are worth looking at:

Mac Firewall Now includes the ability to Block all UDP traffic in the Advanced button (System Preferences > Sharing >Firewall tab).

Also can now open UDP protocol for ports where as the Panther one only did TCP (Check any old Panther settings you Added to the presets).

The ports should be:

TCP -5190

UDP -5060, 5190, 5678, 16384-16403


There are more ports for Bonjour and Jabber)

QuickTime This has a change in the name of the Connection Speed tab to Streaming (System Preferences > QuickTime) Check this is set to higher or equal to your connection speed.

Date & Time Not conclusively involved but worth eliminating. Set a Network Server and the correct Time Zone.

Next test the actual speed you are getting form your ISP.

http://www.dslreports.com/stest


There is a table here of the speeds you need:

Requirements		1-to-1 Audio Conference	10-Person Audio Conference	1-to-1 Video Conference	4-Person Video Conference
To Initiate (Host)	System Required	Any G3, G4 or G5 processor	1GHz G4, dual 800 MHz G4 or any G5	600MHz G3, any G4 or any G5	Dual 1GHz G4, any G5
	Bandwidth Required	56Kbps Internet connection (up/down)	128Kbps Internet connection (up/down)	100Kbps Internet connection (up/down)	384Kbps Internet connection (up/down)
To Participate	System Required	Any G3, G4 or G5 processor	Any G3, G4 or G5 processor	600MHz G3, any G4 or any G5	1GHz G4, dual 800 MHz G4 or any G5
	Bandwidth Required	56Kbps Internet connection (up/down)	56Kbps Internet connection (up/down)	100Kbps Internet connection (up/down)	100Kbps Internet connection (up/down)

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301050

The one you get linked to in the Help menu is wrong.

Test with a known "good" Buddy:

Ralph Johns (UK), "FAQ: Want to Test your iSight WIth Another Person?", 10:18am Dec 14, 2004 CDT from this list or the four Auto Respoding AIM name accounts

tryichatav Not on line as often a it was.


appleu3test01, appleu3test02 or appleu3test03 New AIM name accounts.

D-Link router owners could try rebooting their router as this has worked in a number of cases.

After that if you are still having error messages post them in the discussions.

List all the steps above you have done and checked off.

State which problem message you are getting.

Insufficient Bandwidth


(Your name) did not respond when you started the chat.

NO Data was recieved for 10 secs

State which ISP you are using.

State your Geographical Location.

State your Computer's processor speed.

Ralph


- posted by Ralph Johns @ 10:09 pm 0 comments

 
10.4.2 is Out
Hi,

For those popping by, 10.4.2 update is out and includes an iChat fix for the "Insufficient Bandwidth" issue.

Ralph
- posted by Ralph Johns @ 10:57 pm 1 comments