[Jeff Carpenter]

Go into System Preferences and click on “ACCOUNTS.” Investigate there. Is there more than one account? Is it set to automatically log onto one over the other?

It seems to me like you’ve somehow gotten yourself into another account. Any sort of hardwar error that would mess up files certainly wouldn’t let you boot up normally like that.

Let us know what you find, hopefully you’ve just managed to get into a different log-on name. Failing that, use Spotlight to search for the files. Can you find ANYTHING? Where is it stashed away?

[Jeff Carpenter]

I’ve seen this question asked on some other sites too. No answer yet.

MY guess: It will take 4 GB but Apple has decided not to offer it. Given the way they price RAM the 3 GB option (from Apple) is already $750. I’m guessing marketing decided that people who buy iMacs aren’t going to spend $1,000 on RAM so they just decided not to put it as a choice.

I don’t think we’ll know for sure until someone buys one with 3 GBs, switches the chips, and tells us what happens!

[Jeff Carpenter]

Oh, something that might be obvious to you, but I thought I should mention anyway:

Those two types of printers take different types of discs. The EPSON uses “printable DVDs” that feel kind of soft…not quite like paper, but close to that.

The thermal printer needs discs that specifically say they’re for thermal printing. Their surface is a hard, glossy plastic.

Like I said, it should be obvious but even KNOWING the difference myself I have, in the past, bought the wrong thing by not paying enough attention.. Having made that mistake I know it’s not fun and just wanted to warn you.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I hate to suggest spending money when I’m not 100% sure it will help, but this is something to try (and only $80, so it’s not gonna break the bank).

Try buying Roxio Toast. Instead of burning from DVD Studio Pro, just burn a disk image to the hard drive. You’ll get the video_TS and audio_TS folders on your computer. Use Toast to burn those to the DVD.

Here’s what I DO know. When I used to use Finder to burn DVDs ages ago I would sometimes get discs that worked in other players and sometimes not. Toast has an option to set where you specifically tell it you’re burning a DVD…not just a data disc. That fixed the problem for me.

Now, I would ASSUME that DVD Studio Pro would know what it’s doing and this shouldn’t be an issue…but I kind of feel like it would be worth your money to give it a shot. But like I said, I’m not really sure. Don’t buy this unless you’re feelilng a little adventurous.

And I second the suggestion for Verbatim discs.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I’d at least check google to see if there are Mac repair shops near you. Give them a call and ask for a quote to fix it. Might as well get a 2nd opinion.

But yeah, if it’s gonna be that much, just scrap it.

You can salvage the hard drives, at least, unless you’re looking to fill the MacPro up with 2 TB and don’t need your old drives.

I bet the RAM is worth something on E-Bay too. Check Crucial.com to see what it goes for new and judge from that on how much to charge for it.

As for the casing? Well, the Mac-Aquarium guys don’t seem to have a G5 on their page yet…I bet you could really blow them away!

https://www.theapplecollection.com/Collection/MacAquarium/index.shtml

Or how about a mailbox?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaldust/88847257/in/pool-tuawrigs/

[Jeff Carpenter]

You’re talking about DVDs, right?

The high cost of the machines you’re talking about usually has more to do with the robotics involved in moving 25 or 50 discs automatically from bin to printer to bin with some kind of robot arm. If you’re happy doing 1 disc at a time you don’t have to spend a lot.

For example, let’s look at what $1,900 can get you:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=401017&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

…but it’s not the printer part of it that’s expensive. It’s the robot arm.

If you’re happy with only using 1 color ink, take a look at this:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=341518&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

For only $139 you can get a thermal printer…that’s a better quality printer than you get in the $1,900 machine! Yes, just 1 color, but it will look very sharp.

If you want a full range of colors then check out Best Buy for the Epson R220:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7384948&st=DVD+Printer&type=product&id=1122654460628

For $99 you can get a pretty decent printer. It’s not going to have the exact quality of a $2,000 machine, but it will certainly be very good for the price!

[Jeff Carpenter]

I’m loving mine. I did some video compression tests and got speeds that are close to my G5 tower. I’m impressed. Have you done any tests like that? It should be FAR faster than your iBook was.

I haven’t had the issue with the trackpad you mentioned. It sounds like this is what’s causing you to judge the system as “slow” overall. Look in the system preferences for the trackpad. Perhaps you can adjust the settings in some way to make it work? I don’t know, it’s worth a look. It may be worth taking to an Apple store if it persists, mine has been fine.

The heat is an issue. I have a 5400 drive and it’s hot for me, too, so I don’t know that the drive is really adding that much in your case. It’s mostly the chips. I wouldn’t worry about the computer, just your legs. It seems like a lot of laptops these days are really more “table-tops” than “laptops.” Not much to do about that.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Photoshop Elements 4.0 actually has a pretty decent auto slideshow maker. It works very similarly to iPhoto but after you apply the automatic moves (iPhoto calls them “Ken Burns Effects”) You can then edit the start and end points.

iPhoto works pretty well, but if you use the automatic moves there’s a tendency for it to zoom in on the wrong area of the picture.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Audio is going to the deck, right?

You should hook up some kind of audio monitors to the deck’s analog outputs. Anything from headphones to computer speakers to actual nice speakers.

At that point the video on your external monitor and the audio from those monitors should match. You are watching and listening to the video and audio coming out of the deck’s analog ports.

Ok, great. But the comptuer screen is probably off, right?

At that point, go into System Settings > Playback control and find the box for “Frame Offset.”

Set it at 4 to start and see if everything matches up. If not, mess around with the number ’till you find what works.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Try this free program:

https://tacosw.com/main.php

It’s pretty much a little text editor that’s designed to write HTML in it. It has lots of little advantages over other text programs
since it’s knows you’re writing HTML. For example, it starts every document with the and whatnot already in the document. It also offers a live-preview of the page as a browser would show it.

Check it out.