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The Road Warrior Mailbag - May 12, 2008

PIsmo Purchase

From Jim;

Hi Charles -

After my 400 MHz Pismo gave up the ghost (possibly due to a hard drive that overtaxed the power supply, but I think it did other things to the circuits as a result), I've been suffering with a 'tethered'PowerMac G4 (AGP). The NewerTech battery and RAM from the old Pismo should still be good (I left the defunct Pismo turned off but hooked up to the charger to keep the battery topped off).

Finally, my rebate check arrived today, and I was ready to get my replacement Pismo ordered. I went to Wegener Media, since you had spoken favorably of them in previous articles you wrote. Their price was about the same as at other companies like PowerBook Guy, etc., possibly a little bit less.

I went to order from the W-Media site, and got as far as entering my (debit) card info, but then was informed by the PayPal site that it couldn't handle my card, and I would have to use another card. (Seriously, is there anyone foolish enough today to have multiple credit or debit cards that they use?). Since I refuse to have a PayPal account, that meant my attempt to order was dead in the water.

Not sure if this is only for debit cards, or if there was some other glitch on PayPal's site that caused the error. I see no need to jump through PayPal's hoops, given their lack of protection for buyers who use their accounts - read their policies and notice what isn't there - and their history of freezing complete bank account balances, over a (smaller) disputed PayPal eBay transaction. Sorry, I want some outside body to resolve disputes before I will use a PayPal account again or give them my personal bank information.

So I went elsewhere, and ordered my Pismo - in my case, through PowerBook Guy's website. For about $60 difference (including shipping), I got twice the memory (256MB vs. 128MB), a larger HD (15GB vs. 6GB) and no battery (but as I said, I have a fine extended-service NewerTech battery).

I have suggested to Wegener Media that they might want to consider an additional option besides PayPal for payments, and hopefully they can find some alternative that doesn't cost them too much, but does protect their prospective customers. In the meantime, be advised that at least if you want to use a debit card, you may have problems with PayPal via Wegener Media and have to see if you can do the transaction some other way.

Wegener Media (in a later email shortly before I write this) did suggest I could phone them with the order, but since I had already ordered my Pismo before then, I didn't ask if it would still be with the website discount or not.

Jim

Hi Jim;

I agree with your misgivings about using PayPal. One workaround is to link a PayPl accout to a utility checking account and only keep a keep a small float in it.

Glad you were able to get a good deal on a Pismo from The PowerBook Guy. I include both him and Wegeners in my "The 'Book Review" news roundup on Low End Mac on Fridays. I've had good service from Wegeners on a number of purchases, including one of my current Pismos, over the years.

I mention Wegeners a fair bit in my columns, I suppose, because thay have the widest selection of used Apple notebooks I know of anywhere.

Charles

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Re: PIsmo Purchase

From Jim;

Hi Charles,

I most likely would've gone with Wegener Media except for the PayPal glitch, but think it would've been a good deal either way.

Fidgeting and 'jonesing' for my Pismo to arrive (this one's a 500 MHz, while my sick/dead one was 'only' 400 MHz). Then to install a bigger drive, the NewerTech battery, and both of my largest two RAM chips. I have 512MB OWC one and will see if I have a 128MB or - if I'm lucky - a single 256MB coming in the Pismo from PowerBook Guy (Dan). Later (maybe next payday) I'll get a Hitachi 120GB drive to swap in for the older 20GB. I have a 60GB, but it's a Toshiba, which (I learned from OWC) draws too much power for the Pismo's power capacity when the drive starts up (at peak). The Hitachi, being newer (and a Hitachi) doesn't have that problem, I understand. Only $75 or so, too.

Thanks again,
Jim

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Hi Jim;

I think you'll like the 500 MHz Pismo. Both of mine ave 550 MHz G4 upgrades installed, but my most recent Pismo acquisition was originally a 400 MHz unit, and had been upgraded to 500 MHz G3 when I got it.

I was actually very impressed with how lively OS 10.4 Tiger was on it before I got the G4 card into it.

Yes, the "musical RAM chips" sounds familiar. I have 640 MB in one and 576 MB in the other Pismo. Should get more, but they run very decently on those configurations for what I do mostly with them. I'm sure some extra RAM would help with stuff like scanning and Photoshopping.

Interesting about the OWC comment on Toshiba drives. One of my Pismos has had a 5400 RPM Toshiba 40 GB drive in it for about five years, and I've never noticed any problems. The other machine has a 100 GB Seagate HDD, but only 4200 RPM. The payoff there is that the Seagate drive is pretty quiet, while the Toshiba has been loud(ish) since new. I have an 80 GB, 4200 RPM Toshiba in my 17" PowerBook G4, and it's quiet.

Charles

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Re PIsmo Purchase

From Jim

Hi Charles,

Good to hear about 10.4 on the Pismo. My old Pismo started acting up (at the time, I thought it was the drive; not so sure now), but it had been quick enough with Panther in there. I have Tiger on my PowerMac G4 (AGP, the 450MHz I got used from my brother).

I should have specified. OWC said that about the 60GB Toshiba - my 10GB Toshiba worked fine (the older Pismo came with it) - apparently the particular Toshiba I had bought has a higher power consumption at peak/startup than other drives do. They said the 60GB Hitachi didn't peak above the 5 v. max of the Pismo's power.

Jim

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Hi Jim;

I also have a Toshiba 10 GB drive in my WallStreet. It's gotten very noisy, but still works fine after a lot of years.

Charles

Restoring Files With Time Machine - Not

From ncousmc

Hi Charles,

I need help Restoring files with Time Machine -

Man, after hearing so many raves about Apple's Time Machine, I am now so thoroughly disappointed with it.

I've been running Time Machine to backup my hard drive. From what I understand, it backs up your entire hard drive the first time, then performs incremental backups afterwards. I have been doing this religiously for about a month a and half now.

Well, today, I was fooling around with VMWare Fusion and I accidentally hosed my Linux VM Machine. I forgot to save a snapshot (big mistake) before making changes to it.

So I said, no problem, I will just go back to the Time Machine backup where I still had the "Full" backup.

To my surprise, all the backups have been incremental (there is no full backup), so now I am out of luck with my Linux VM. (Now, I'm wondering, why does it take so long to back up to a USB 2 drive, when it wasn't backing the whole drive anyway).

When I first tried to restore with Time Machine, it said did I want to keep or replace the existing version along with the restored version- Like an idiot, I chose replace.

Is there a way to go back (man, this is what time machine is supposed to enable you to do) to the point where my Linux VM still worked? The restored version only has a handful of files and the hosed version is gone. My only other backup is in a comatose PC Laptop currently in repair (for a month now).

Please help.

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Hi;

I wish I could help. I am certainly no expert on Time Machine. I've been using it since last fall to do incremental backups, but have not had any occasion to try restoring data from the backups. Being a belt-and-suspenders type, I also do manual backups to the hard drive of another Mac, and if I need to recover anything, that's been quicker and slicker, but that's no help to you.

A couple of general observations, I wonder if Time Machine has been working properly for you? There seem to be plenty of anecdotal accounts of it not working properly (see links below).

Also, you note that even incremental backup updates are taking a long time to execute on your Mac."Long time" is of course a subjective evaluation, but I find that even if I've been lazy about hooking up the USB 2 drive and running an uodate for a week or so, it usually completes in less than half an hour, and that's on a middling slow G4 PowerBook. If you;re finding it's taking like hours to complete, I would suspect that something is amiss.

Perahps some of our other readers will be able to share any light they might have on this topic.

Something else you might try; if you can retrieve the hard drive from the non-functional PC laptop, you could try installing it in an external FireWire or USB 2 enclosure (or using an XLR8 Anydrive adapter ( http://daystar-store.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=795 ) to mout the drive and grab your backed-up Linux VM files from it if all else fails.

Here are some links that you might find helpful or at least interesting:

Other people have been experiencing problems.

http://macapper.com/2007/12/02/restoring-an-entire-backup-with-time-machine/

http://mac.blorge.com/2007/11/07/leopards-time-machine-backups-driving-mac-users-to-insanity/

Good tutorial on doing backups from Time Machine Archives
http://duncandavidson.com/2008/01/restoring-from-time-machine.html

Joe Kissell's e-book on doing Time Machine backuos:
http://emperor.tidbits.com/webx/TakeControl/leopard-easy-backup.html

Charles





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