How to Run Leopard OS X on G4 PowerPC Macs

The G4 was Apple’s first serious pro computer after Steve Jobs became iCEO. Classified as munitions and under export restrictions because of its power, the G4 offered twice the performance of the G3 and three times the power of a Pentium 3 at the same clock speed.  When it came out in 1999, the government considered it by definition, a supercomputer.  Tiger (10.4.X), is the latest supported Mac OS for all G4s. Unfortunately, there’s not too much you can do with 10.4.  But, here’s an easy way to get G4s to run Leopard.  

First, make sure your firmware is up to date.  The latest firmware update is 4.2.8 for PPC G4s.  If you don’t have 4.2.8 installed, you need to install Mac OS 9 (9.1 to 9.2.2 will work) on a writable partition and boot to it.  Download the firmware, run the application and follow the onscreen instructions to reboot in service mode.

Second, 512 MB Ram is the minimum requirement for Leopard. Using less would be a painfully noticeable difference, so make sure you at least meet the minimum.  

Third, insert your Leopard OS X Install disc and shut down the machine.

Fourth, turn on your machine and immediately hold CMD + OPTION + O + F   until you get a black screen with white text.  This is open firmware, similar to bios in PC computers.  Leopard checks system information and if your processor is clocked under 867MHz, you WILL get a kernel panic error, which might be the scariest looking thing in the world.  Type these simple lines in Open Firmware and you can trick leopard in thinking you meet the processor requirements.

Single CPU G4s, use:

• dev /cpus/PowerPC,G4@0
• d# 8967000000 encode-int “ clock-frequency” property
• boot cd;,\\:tbxi

Dual CPU Gr4s, use:

• dev /cpus/ PowerPC,G4@0
• d# 8967000000 encode-int “ clock-frequency” property
• dev /cpus/ PowerPC,G4@1
• d# 8967000000 encode-int “ clock-frequency” property
• boot cd;,\\:tbxi

 

**Pay special attention to spacing.

**Hit “enter” and Open Firmware will display “ok” after each accepted line.

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Using Netstat Command

Netstat can be used to find out various things about what’s going on with your connections to the internet or your network behind the scenes of your OS. I have used Netstat to find things like malware intrusions accessing a network connection, ports being used by IP address, and dropped packets over the network (which can be a good way of detecting failing or failed hardware). Below I will list some of the common commands that I use and what their purposes are.

Netstat –n     This will list connections and ports that the connections are currently using.

Netstat –s      This will list statistics about your packet transactions info.

Netstat –s –s This can be an easier way of viewing Netstat –s because it will remove anything with the value 0 in the list.

Netstat –f      This will show you a list of all connected domains to which you are currently connected to whether it’s your ISP, internet web page, your VPN connection, or your current office connection.

Netstat –b   This displays the executable involved in creating each connection or listening port. In some cases, well-known executable hosts multiple independent components and, in these cases, the sequence of components involved in creating the connection or listening port is displayed. In this case, the executable name is in [ xxxx  ] at the bottom, on top is the component it called, and so forth until TCP/IP was reached. Note that this option can be time-consuming and will fail unless you have sufficient permissions.

These are the most common Netstat commands for me. I use them as tools to understand what’s going on with a network so I have a good basis to make an effective diagnosis.  I suggest reading up on Netstat to find the different commands that may work for you.

Dennis Foote - Systems Engineer

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Free Online Space

Today’s personal web space for documents is getting a lot of attention.  For the most part, you can find the services for FREE!  There are a lot of services out there that offer a set amount of free data with low-cost, optional upgrade packages for more space.  Below are some examples of free services and space allowed with free accounts:

Google Documents - free with your free Google account; 1GB of free space

Dropbox - allows 2GB of free space for almost any file you can upload and it’s very easy to setup

Apples iCloud – offers 5GB of space and has a sync feature that most people will find unbelievable. iCloud can be setup for Mac and PC users with Apple devices and will sync all your files, folders, apps, pictures, and iTunes.  

Amazon.com - started a cloud service that also permits 5GB of free space that allows you to start using it right away if you have an Amazon account.

There are services that will give you up to 100GB for free, but it will come at a cost.  They will require you to give up 150GB of free space on your local drive.  Most are secure and it’s almost like a Share cloud; the way it works is you will house data that they add to your machine from somewhere in the world.  This is called RAID 96 and is becoming popular with those who prefer an offsite backup of their machine without having to pay the monthly cost of doing so.

Cloud is a computing, mobile technology that will only grow over time. I think with the next push of wireless devices, it’s evident that a copy of your documents online will become more and more useful to complete everyday tasks in a fast and sufficient way.  Having to rely on documents that are attached to one device seems so… well, attached. :)

Dennis Foote - Systems Engineer

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Locating Drivers

I do not usually endorse products, but when I come across one that is good and works well, I feel I should share the wealth.

The product is called Driver Genius, and that’s what it is! It is a driver locator software that I seem to use more and more.  I get a lot of reinstalls for computers and laptops.  Some of them come with good driver support and some do not.  Even the good ones get old. Windows 7 is good at finding a lot of drivers, but for the specific system board drivers or the hard-to-find drivers, it does not always find what you need.

Once you install Driver Genius and update the database, you just set it to scan and it will find everything you need.  I have used it on a bunch of machines at this point and it has not let me down, so check it out!

Kristen Hewes - Hardware Technician

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The iPhone 4S - Is It Worth It?

Apple is known for its forward thinking, cutting-edge and revolutionary inventions.  From the Apple IIe to the iPad, Apple has always been at the forefront of computing and communicating.  However, it has set the bar so high that even Apple finds itself hard to beat.  A good example is the recent release of the iPhone 4S – a truly remarkable product using the latest and greatest technology available.  But to its loyal fans, people who are always expecting a revolution instead of an evolution, some might have found the launch of an upgraded/evolved iPhone 4 instead of a revamped and brand new iPhone 5, to be less than remarkable.  However, the 4S does present 3 very impressive upgrades, which should inspire die-hard Apple users to seriously consider purchasing the iPhone 4S.

Software

Not surprisingly, the 4S is much faster and powerful.  It features the same dual-core A5 chip that's found in the iPad 2 and it makes opening apps, loading the web browser, scrolling through screens and countless other operations super smooth.  Apple states that the 4S is twice as powerful as its predecessor and has 7 times the graphical prowess.

Siri

One remarkable difference between the iPhone 4 and the 4S is the addition of  your very own “personal assistant” named Siri.  When it works, it is an amazing feat of technology. You can simply tell Siri to contact a friend and tell her you’re running late.  Tell Siri, “I’m feeling like Indian food,” and she will tell you where the nearest place serving Sag Paneer is located.  However, the caveat is “when it works.”  When Siri cannot understand a particular command, area or specific person, she will tell you humorously, if not annoyingly after a while, that she can’t process the info.  Undoubtedly this will be fixed at some point, but it would be wonderful if it worked flawlessly now.  See this article for another take on Siri.

iCloud

Another cool aspect of the iPhone 4S is that it has basically made MobileMe a stock feature.  All Apple products from now on will have access to iCloud. This means that it no longer matters which device you use, you can access any piece of information you’re looking for, whether it’s an mp3, a photo, app or document.  It’s truly remarkable, until you stumble upon some of its unwieldy aspects. The most frustrating of these is the fact that MobileMe has already created a user ID that iCloud doesn’t recognize. Furthermore, if you have an email address through Yahoo or Gmail, it won’t recognize them because they don’t have a me.com address. All new technology comes with learning curves, but the fact that we think Apple should be above these frustrations makes them all the more, well, frustrating.

Ultimately, the iPhone 4S was predestined to be a huge seller worldwide – but are its upgrades worth the wait?  The solution mostly is determined by the type of user you are. If you need to have the most cutting-edge product available, with improved hardware, camera, voice controls and iCloud, it may be something to consider.   If the iPhone or other mobile phone you’re using gets you where you want to go, its good to know that the iPhone 4S is more of an evolution than revolution – but its pretty cool none-the-less.

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What is a PDF printer?

What is a PDF printer?

PDF stands for Portable Document File.  This, by far, is the easiest way to transport, print, email, and post documents across all computer, cell phone and web-based applications. So, back to the question “What is a PDF printer?”  A PDF printer is a software tool that allows you to take most document types and print them to your PDF software to save, print, email or post to the web.

I use a program that is free and has never given me a hard time. The program is called PDF995. I suggest if you don’t have it, download it now! You will be very happy when you have to save a document, whether it’s a receipt, map, invoice, or other scanned item. After you install the PDF printer software, you will see the PDF printer located in your printer selection menu. You will need to select it to print the document to a PDF file. 

Dennis Foote - Systems Engineer

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Create a Private Cloud in your Business for $100

Virtualization is a hot topic these days.  While VMWare is considered to be the top software for virtualization, it also comes with a sky high price tag.  The other two major vendors in virtualization technology, Citrix and Microsoft, have very competitive offerings, often for a good savings.

In particular, Microsoft has recently begun to release their Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 product for free.  This is a major move on the part of Microsoft to try to encourage the industry to try their Hyper-V virtualization technology and compare it to their competition.  In our experience here at Terminal, it is definitely worth a try, whether you're currently using competing virtualization products or considering virtualization in your infrastructure.  Hyper-V is a very robust and well-performing product.  While it may not perform as well as VMWare in the large enterprise environment, it is more than capable of handling anything thrown at it in the small and medium business market.  That coupled with being entirely free make Microsoft's Hyper-V an almost unbeatable deal.

The one downside to Microsoft Hyper-V has been the ease of management.  Unlike Citrix or VMWare, if you install a Microsoft Hyper-V server, you are not able to actually manage that server from its own keyboard and monitor.  Instead, you need a second server or workstation to connect over the network to the Hyper-V server.  This is often tedious, impractical, or costly and has been a major reason people have not given Microsoft's Hyper-V much of a chance.

However, new software released by vtTechnology finally helps Hyper-V overcome this limitation.  The software, known as vtCommander, installs directly onto the free version of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 and allows the server to be managed directly from the server console.  This eliminates all the headaches and hurdles associated with getting Hyper-V up and running and makes it, in our opinion, by far the best virtualization option for small and medium businesses.  The cost of vtCommander?  A mere $100.  Terminal has been so thrilled by vtTechnology's groundbreaking software, we've partnered with them to help bring their benefits to all our customers.

If you're interested in seeing how virtualization can improve your business agility and cost you virtually nothing, Contact Us today.

Brian St. Marie - Sr. Systems Engineer

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PDQ Deploy

I was recently recommended a brilliant free utility from Admin Arsenal called PDQ Deploy. This is a free software deployment tool that will allow you to deploy just about any type of installer package or command line script from a source to a network client. It is capable of remotely executing EXE, MSI, REG, BAT, VBS, MSP and MSU including any command line switches that are supported by the installation package. I found this software to be a great alternative to using Group Policy startup scripts for immediately deploying single Microsoft hotfixes that might not be included in your WSUS database. It also works quite well for small scriptable installations like Adobe Reader and Flash Player. It has a simple user interface that keeps track of your deployment history so that you can quickly see which computers were successful and which may have failed.

While there are more robust options for software deployment such as System Center Essentials and a few other third party alternatives those may be too expensive or just plain overkill for a small network. I would definitely suggest putting Admin Arsenal's PDQ Deploy into your "admin arsenal".

Find PDQ Deploy here.

Adam Jones - Systems Engineer

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What is The Cloud?

Like many people, you've probably seen products and services talking about "the Cloud" for a year or more.  But what is the Cloud?  Most people understand that when they buy a product or service in the Cloud, that means its somewhere "out there" on the internet; somewhere they don't have to worry about it disappearing or going down.  But what makes something a Cloud service?  Does this mean all companies will someday have all their services hosted out on the internet somewhere?  What about companies concerned about security or centralized management?  Is the Cloud not right for them? 

In fact, the concept of the Cloud applies to all types of companies, and many companies are already using Cloud services without even realizing it.  If you've followed our blog, you may have seen Dennis' post on Virtualization some time ago.  Virtualization is a driving technology behind the Cloud.  Virtualization allows software to run without depending on the particulars of hardware; in the industry, we call this "hardware agnostic."  For instance, an email server may be set up with all your employee mailboxes and years of email history.  What happens if that server crashes?  Maybe you can fix it, then restore all your data and rebuild it, but during all that time, your employees will be without their email.  With virtualization, the email server runs independently of the server hardware.  In fact, the entire operating system, data, and configuration information is basically just a file which can be copied and pasted onto a completely different server, without even interrupting service.  What this means is that if server hardware fails, it's literally no more difficult than to copy and paste to get the email server software back up and running on new hardware somewhere else.  And this can be automated so that if the server fails, another copy of the email server is up and running in an instant, so the end user never notices a thing.

This ability to move software around freely is what enables the Cloud to be so robust.  By making services independent of the hardware on which they run, that software can be moved around without the people using the service ever knowing.  This lends itself very well to internet-based services, but cloud computing can also be used internally.  By setting up groups of servers known as server farms, a company can create their own cloud for internal servers, ensuring their software stays up and running regardless of what may happen to any individual hardware servers.  This allows companies to offer more robust services to their user base, ensuring more productive and happy employees.

In addition, cloud computing means you no longer have to be tied to one software server installation for each hardware server.  Virtualization allows more than one software server to run on a single hardware server, sharing the resources between them.  This means companies can easily create new software servers and offer new services to their employees without investing in additional expensive server hardware.  This also saves on server room space and electricity and has allowed many enterprises to drastically scale down their hardware investment through server consolidation.

This also means small companies can create their own Cloud, even if they have only a single server.  By running multiple software servers on a single hardware server, small companies can maximize their return on investment, getting the absolute most out of any server hardware purchase.  And with only two hardware servers, a small company can ensure that even if one of those hardware servers fail, all their software servers can be shifted to run on the working hardware server, ensuring their users are never interrupted.

Whether you are an enterprise consolidating your server hardware, or a small company looking to make virtualization or cloud technologies work for you, Contact Us and Terminal will be glad to help. 

Brian St. Marie - Sr. Systems Engineer

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Rebuilding Virus

A client this week had a virus that kept rebuilding itself. I found through trial and error in my past that the bad ones should be dealt with by removing the hard drive from the notebook. I removed the drive and then proceeded to hook it up to my IDE/SATA reader to run a scan with Symantec Antivirus and Malwarebytes. Once the drive was fully scanned, I placed the hard drive back into the notebook where it came from and then started it back up without giving it a chance to boot normally.

I still wanted to make sure all was okay with the drive and the virus would not rebuild itself. So when starting the notebook, I made sure to get it into safe mode right away so I could run Combo fix to see if the notebook was in fact cleaned of any and all malicious software.  I suggest you run Combo fix more than once. It may tell you it deleted something but once the notebook is back up and running, the root kill that was thought to be deleted can reinsert itself back into your windows and cause you to end up back in the same place.

I suggest that you run all your malware and antivirus software multiple times before calling your hard drive clean of all and every virus and malware.

Dennis Foote - Systems Engineer

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