28 MacDirectory
DEPARTMENT
Q > A couple of months ago I bought
an early '08 8 core and laid down a
whopping pile of cash for the Nvidia
Quadro FX 5600 video card. System
Profiler sees the card but After Effects
reports that no OpenGL card is installed.
The Genius Bar guys say that the card
shows up in its diagnostics. I broke the
bank paying for this card, but it is slow,
slow, slow! What's up?
R. Hanson, Texas
A > There is some buzz on the blogs
about this issue and you do not appear to
be alone. It might be resolved by wiping
the drive reinstalling everything. If this
works, run the Adobe updater and see if
the problem returns. If it does return, this
means that you will have to reinstall again,
religiously avoid updates, and wait
patiently for Adobe to fix things. If nothing
works, you might want to speak with
Apple Customer Relations. In any case, you
will notice that this card no longer
appears as an option on the online Apple
Store, so one can infer all sorts of things.
There is a long, long history of limited
video card options for the Mac and one
wonders how Apple can shift the platform
to a Windows-compatible hardware yet
provide a video architecture that cannot
accept PC video cards.
Q > What do you think about running
Windows on a Mac?
L. Delp, California
A > We have come a zillion miles from
AccessPC and SoftWindows. Considering
the confluence of Intel Macs with Parallels
and Fusion ,
there is no longer a valid reason for PC folk
to deny themselves the Macintosh
experience. I've currently got two of my
eight cores and a couple of gigs of RAM
assigned to my Windows XP 64 bit
environment and another to Red Hat 9.
As for everyday use, it is as solid as a PC
can be and it boots from a snap shot in
seconds. (My main PC apps? Project
and Outlook.)
My only advice for someone who is
considering Windows on an Intel Mac is to
use a good antivirus program but avoid a
broad spectrum protection app that is
hard-wired to PC hardware, as the process
of looking for PC-specific hardware scans
can cause a forced restart.
Q > What's on your iPhone?
B. Moseli, Florida
A > Well, I travel a lot, so I use the
standard Map app constantly. (I had a
surprise at first, when I entered "pizza" in
Quebec and I found myself in Rome.)
Other stuff: Stanza (ebook reader –
currently reading the life of explorer Sir
Richard Burton from the Gutenberg
Project), Custom Sounds of Nature (great
for meditation), Keynote Remote,
Nanosaur 2 (Bondi nostalgia), Koi Pond,
and other stuff. I use the phone. I text, I
use the phone, I text. If I want to twiddle, I
use my Mac. Anyone else have iPhone fun
at SXSW this year?
Q > I have a pair of batteries for my
MacBook. One is a couple of years old
and the other is six months old but I
cannot tell them apart. I am afraid to rely
on the older battery. What do I do?
S. Garza, Tennessee
A > Laptop batteries are much more
reliable now than they were in the past. As
long as you do not notice any difference
in performance I wouldn't worry too
much. To answer your real question, go to
the Apple menu, select "about this Mac"
and click on the "more info" button. Go to
the hardware listing in the pane on the
left and click on "power". Under the
battery listing check the cycle count. The
more cycles, the older the battery.
Q > What's the best way to copy a hard
drive? Can I just drag everything to a
blank hard drive?
R. Pfeisher, Washington
A > There are a bunch of invisible files
that wouldn't make the journey. Instead, I
suggest you use a cloning utility such as
SuperDuper from . It
will produce a bootable copy with only a
few mouse clicks.
Q > Are you single?
M. Park, N. Carolina
A > Trust me. You so could not keep up.
BEEBE > MACDIRECTORY'S TECH GODDESS
KOI POND
