On the topic of OS Installation

Posted on November 30th, 2007 by phiber811, under main.

I just picked up on an article over at PC Mag, where the writer in question, goes out of his way to find more than a few things he hates about Mac OS 10.5, and Windows Vista. Of course, I agree with the vista things, but I found a lot of the Mac based critique to be user specific, situational, and somewhat non-universal. Of course, I could link you, and let you read, but MacDailyNews.com already linked, and thats enough. Instead, I’m going to use my time to explain something very simple, that most people manage to make a mess out of. Installing an OS.

If your machine has no OS, this is really easy. You just put that puppy on there. But what if you’re upgrading to a new version of OS X, or your machine boots to blue screen, or something similar? Therein, it becomes a little more hands on.

Firstly, when you install, one of your options is to “Upgrade.” In my opinion, this option should have been done away with ages ago. More often than not, I’ve seen customer machines in a state of non-functionality because they upgraded, “and then it would get to the gray apple and stop!” Well yes. Big surprise there. How many haxie apps do you have cluttering your dock? Are you running dock patches, something to skin your OS, and a million little “extras?” If the answer is yes, you fail.

All of this crap does one thing. It modifies the OS to do something it wouldn’t normally do. And that code is written for the existent version. When you install a new version, there’s no guarantee that the app will function correctly. Remember that its in many cases shareware, or freeware. And there’s no such thing as a software warranty. When installing a new OS, turn that crap off. If the developer has a new version that works, score. Download it, install it, be happy. If not, you get to wait. Simple as that.

Likewise, if your machine is crashing constantly after an update, Apple provides you with one of the greatest resources known to man. It happens to be in your Utilities folder. It would be your Console App. What does Console do? It reads your computer’s log files. Your system log is especially interesting. It lists everything your computer does. So, if your system kernel panics, you can restart, open console, and read the most recent entries to the system log. Chances are, you’ll see the name of what caused your crash. If it happens to be oh, boobsinmymenu.app, then you know that the little haxie that puts a pair of boobs in your menu bar is to blame. Its almost like the Mac records all this stuff, so you can find the problem! Oh, wait, it does. What do you think the guys at your Genius Bar do? they read your system logs.

And here’s their other secret for fixing your OS. Its called the Archive And Install. Its the option below Upgrade. It installs a fresh new gorgeous OS, while leaving your user account in working order. 75% of the time, when you, Joe Customer brings in your computer because it wont boot, we archive and install your OS after we run Diskwarrior on your hard drive in order to clean up your file structure and directories.

So, what does all of this boil down to?

1. before installing an OS, make sure your software is up to date for the new OS. If its not, it may not work, and thats not Apple’s fault. Likewise, if it causes your machine to not boot, or lock up in the new OS, that isn’t Apple’s fault either. It has become your fault for not paying due diligence and making sure your stuff is up to date.

2. Upgrade in the Install Options menu is a bad idea 90% of the time. Archive And Install is a good idea 90% of the time. If you are at the point where its time to reinstall or upgrade, its best to put a new OS on that bad boy. If its good enough for us technicians to do for you for a nominal fee, its good enough for you to do at home. Learn from us, you’ll be glad you did.

3. Minimum system requirements are just that. MINIMUM. If it takes me 3 hours and half a tank of gas to drive from Portland to Seattle, will I put just that much gas in the car? No. Invariably I’ll get stuck in traffic in Olympia, run out of gas, and be on the side of the road. Who will I curse? Mazda, because my car didn’t make it to Seattle? Exxon, because their gas didn’t get me there? Or me, because I went with the bare minimum? You got it. Number three. So, if you barely meet the spec, expect a bumpy ride. And, if you barely make spec, its probably a good indicator that the market is passing you by. If you want to keep up, its time to upgrade.

4. Your experience is not universal. Everyone does not have the same problems you do. They will most likely have other problems, or none at all. However, if 100 of you, out of the several hundred thousand, if not million people who installed the os, have the same problem, its probably not a bug, failure, or issue worthy of class action status. It probably means you all have the same piece of crap 3rd party app causing a problem. Before you take a dump in Apple’s corn flakes by ranting about it to me at the service counter (hint, I’m not apple, and while you’re ranting, I’m thinking about boobs), maybe try and think about where your problem is, before you come and rant to me. Granted, I like your 90 labor fee. I really do. But half the shit you pay me for, you could do yourself if you took the time to pay attention.

Knowledge is power. You’re now a little less powerless. And, for the sake of saying so, I have Leopard running on the two machines on my desk right now, a MacBook Pro, a G4 tower with a ton of upgrades, another G4 tower with no upgrades, and a PPC Mac Mini hooked up to my TV. To date, I’ve seen the Mac OS lock up once. My Mac Mini froze because the Miro video player did something wonky. Otherwise, my Leopard experience has been first rate. Of course, I read ahead and removed Unsanity’s Application Enhancer software beforehand, since it was causing issues. I also don’t run a ton of extra garbage.

And I know what some of you are saying. “Oh, man, he’s a professional service tech. He never has problems. durrr.” Uh, thanks. But when I go home, I’m a user just like you are. I do the same stuff you do. and my machines behave just like everyone else’s. The difference is that when I come to work in the morning, not only do I fix mine, I fix yours too.

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A reminder.

Posted on November 28th, 2007 by phiber811, under main.

Okay, this first part serves as a reminder. Firstly, ModYourMac.com is no longer in any way, affiliated with MacForce Computers. Since I’m no longer there, my services are no longer there. Second. MYM is on Hiatus. What does this mean? It means that while we’re still active in the Mac Modding community, we arent actively accepting or producing new work at this time. There are many reasons for this. The facts remain the same however. Please dont contact us, looking to have your computer painted. We’re going to say no.

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