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Saturday, February 23rd 2002 11:57 PST

Update: 16:42--Libel, Slander, Cease & Desist Orders and More!

On February 8th, we received a cryptic and rude phone call confirming The PowerBook Zone's physical address. After confirming the address for the caller, we asked what the call regarded. The caller responded something to the effect of "the company is connected to slanderous material" That's to the best of our recollection...it was quite early Pacific time. As you'll see, the caller was calling from the East coast.

Fast forward to today. PBZone and at least one other website received what's commonly referred to as a "cease and desist" letter. Our network-partner X Appeal.org received two from Apple for posting screen shots of the Mac OS X Developer Previews. The letter can be read it its two-page entirety here and here.

Now that you're done reading it, you may realize a few errors in the letter. Among them:

1. The letter claims the post is "undated." The supposedly offending post is most certainly dated. It's part of the November 15th update. The date and time are clearly listed.
2. This website's name is "The PowerBook Zone" not "the Power Book Zone."
3. In the quoted portion of the letter, it refers to PowerBook Central as "Power Book Central," a misquote.
4. The single quotes around J.C. Morris & Company are added in the letter.
5. We said "PBZone" on line two, they added a space.
6. There are a bevy of quote problems on lines 3/4/5. The comma following "i.e." in our post has been omitted. The parentheses around "MAP" have been turned into brackets in their letter.
7. We said "...this one which supposedly was to benefit the Red Cross disaster relief fund..." They turned it into "...this one was supposedly to benefit the Red Cross Disaster Relief Funds..."
8. Next, we said "...'Auction for America' that does not leave it up to the seller to actually donate the funds.' They said "...'Auction for America,' the docs do not leave it up to the seller to actually donate the funds."
9. The last error is their use of "discussing" in the second to last line. We said "discussion."

The definition of libel is as follows:

li·bel
n.
1.
a. A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation.
b. The act of presenting such material to the public.
2. The written claims presented by a plaintiff in an action at admiralty law or to an ecclesiastical court.

Next, addressing the "2" definition of libel, we're almost positive PBZone.com has never posted anything at admirality law or to an ecclesiastical court.

So, we're down to whether the post on November 15th was a false publication that damaged J.C. Morris & Company. First we might visit Amendment I of the Constitution of the United States:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

1. We said the company was taking about a hundred "preorders" for big ticket items, including Macintosh computers. True.
2. We said the company's PayPal account had received payments from over 200 verified customers and the comapny was a 'verified business member' with PayPal. True.
3. We said they were certified by SquareTrade. True.
4. We said they had only run two auction on eBay, one to benefit the Red Cross that did not use eBay's built in "Auction for America" mechanism for this purpose. Both True.
5. We said the company is no longer registered under the name it used to get the SquareTrade certification. True.

As to the company's legal threats, we're fully prepared to represent ourselves and fully defend any and all statements J.C. Morris & Company may contest.

Try These Out for Size

While we're working on renewing our stock of 2.5" FireWire hard disk enclosures, we did find a source for the best-looking 3.5" enclosures we've seen yet. For more details on them and their buying info, click here.

Friday, February 22nd 2002 09:24 PST

Sleep of Death IV

We would like to get past this thread of news, but new emails keep rollin' in. Here's a possible solution for 9.x users, at least:

Regarding the Sleep of Death, I have been using OS 9.2 for a year and it (Death Sleep) started happening after about 6 months. It would usually have trouble waking after moving the machine in sleep mode. It would happen several sleep periods in a row, which really freaked me out, so I threw out the power manager prefs and that seemed to do the trick. It will happen occasionally, but after trashing the PM prefs it is always A-OK.

My PB 667 used to go into a coma every time if I put it to sleep while running the first release of VPC 5 under 10.1.2, but never under 9. The update from Connectix fixed that and I have had no problems since.

My WallStreet 233 (no cache) has the typical sleep of death symptoms about 1x a week running 9.2.2 and Office 2001. I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled 9 from my TiBook system CD back in December. I don't recall having this problem before that, but so many other problems and delays cleared up after reinstalling nearly everything from CD that on balance I am pleased with the results.

The Connectix VPC FAQ page contains some very good information regarding CPU allocation under X vs. under 9.x. It turns out that iTunes and SETI are quite the CPU hogs under X, and Connectix recommends turning them off to increase the performance of VPC. Bearing this in mind, it doesn't exactly surprise me that SETI and iTunes seem to conflict with each other.

I may be the only one who feels this way, but it seems kind of silly to run SETI on a PB.

I have had the S.O.D. problem but only when my Pismo 400 (OS 10.1.3) is running on battery power. Plugging the mains adapter in usually results in a successful awakening without the three-fingered salute.

When I first bought my Pismo powerbook 500 it used to do exactly what your correspondent is talking about.

I cured it by accident when I reset the power management button and zapped the PRAM a couple of times. It has not occurred since and is fine in either system 9 or 10.

I was the one who had originally written to you about the Sleep of Death issue. I have noticed one thing which has helped me reduce the incidence of the problem (though not eliminate it). I uninstalled the Palm Desktop software and this allowed me to turn off the IrDA port as well. I have a suspicion that the Palm Desktop would periodically look for a device on a certain port and then would "hang" until it could find one. Lets hope that Palm fixes this in the full version (when it finally is released).

1 GB RAM Answers

A few readers responded to reader Tony's problems with 1 GB of RAM:

I don't know if this helps or not but more than a few people have been having problems with 1.024GB RAM configurations in the G4 powerbooks. While the Apple discussion threads are currently not searchable. I remember a particular thread and that it was a problem with the newer G4 Powerbooks, the 667mhz model in particular. I am not going to bad mouth some chip suppliers but I have heard that the micron dimms have been known not to show up when in in the upper slot. 

Not knowing what model Tony has I couldn't say for sure. What he could do is run the Apple Hardware test on each dimm to check if they are functional. I currently have 1.024GB in my G4 400mhz one 512MB dimm whhich shipped from Apple and one 512MB dimm I purchased from www.thechipmerchant.com and have had no problems in 9.2.2 or 10.1.3.

I have also heard that www.transintl.com has a very nice web site and their 1.024GB kit is guaranteed they also have very detailed ram installation instructions for all powerbook models. They even sell a 512mb kit(2 low profile 256mb dimms or 1 low profile 256mb for the lower slot 1 "normal" 256mb for the upper) for the G3 Wallstreet(although Apple doesn't support that configuration I've installed it and had no problems with it in 9.2.2. I have never run OSX on a Wallstreet so I can't say if the 512mb would be recognized for sure.I don't see why not though) As for Tony's problem, returning the dimms may be the easiest route.

Thursday, February 21st 2002 09:02 PST

Sleep of Death III

We received about 10 more emails on this subject today and we're no closer to any set pattern or solution. Reports suggest that 10.1.3 does not fix the issue. If you feel you have something new to report, by all means, send us an email...but for now, we're at a loss for what causes and what can fix the issue.

1 GB RAM Problem

Reader Tony asks:

While I'm not having the 'sleep of death' problem, I am having a problem restarting my Titanium. I never used to have this problem, but a few weeks ago I upgraded my RAM from 756mb to 1gb - using identical 512mb modules from the same vendor. Now if the Ti has to be restarted, it will turn off, and sit there. I have to hold down the power button to completely shut it down and press the power button to turn it back on. I've tried swapping different 512mb modules, but still the same problem. Also, SETI now kills iTunes sound out when it has been running for a brief period. Have to mute and then un-mute to get the sound back. This is all under OSX 10.1.2 and 10.1.3.

We're just inclined to tell him to return the RAM to the vendor and try some other modules, but we'd thought we'd give it a shot among the audience of the site first. Any ideas other than returning the RAM?

Screen Protectors for 14.1" iBook

JR Hill & Co has released the latest modification to their leather screen protector line of keyboard covers. Made for the 14.1" iBook, this version costs $6.99 and is available immediately.

Wednesday, February 20th 2002 13:45 PST

Sleep of Death, Part II

Wow. No less than 15 of you wrote in confirming the symptoms of the "sleep of death" syndrome on PowerBooks running mostly Mac OS 10.1.2, but readers complained about other OS versions as well. Out of thousands of readers, that may seem small, but this is a large response--people are pretty lazy about writing emails, figuring someone else will do it or they just don't care. Here's a select few:

The same problems occur on my Pismo 500 sometimes: I almost never shut down my Pismo (only for transport) and always put it to sleep during the day and at night. And it happened 3 times so far that it didn't show any reaction after opening the lid. pressing keys doesn't help either and only "option-ctrl-power" reset works to get it started again. the first time it was scary but now I know what to do.

I'm using os x and always upgrade to the new version ASAP, so I'm running 10.1.3 since yesterday. It first happened in mid-december so I guess it was 10.1.2 and might have to do with it. and I'm not running office x so it doesn't have anything to do with it. it might be a "system thing".

---

I have a prismo 500 powerbook that has never been able to wake from sleep. Fortunatly, I don't need short sleep intervals ( I am either on or off for long peroids). I am still using OS 9.2, but this problem has been present since I purchased it in July 2000(?) with what ever the OS was then.

---

I've got a PBG4/500 with the problem you described. I just got it about a month ago and about 5 days ago it started acting up. There was some update or other that I downloaded that seemed to coincide with the problem. After Apple trying to tell me that it was caused by 3rd party memory (ruled out after removal), they've finally agreed to send a box so that it can be repaired. It seems to occur after several minutes of sleep, but it also occurs in a shut-down. The computer appears to forget that there is a screen, so it is really waking up (or booting up) but there is no display associated with it. Sometimes the screen (and backlight) do come on but the mouse is frozen.

Under both OS9 (9.1, 9.2.1, 9.2.2) and OSX (10.1 and 10.1.2). This even occurred while installing 10.1 from the CD onto a fresh partition. (I walked away for awhile during the install and the machine went to sleep...and didn't wake back up -- well, the blinking led stopped, but that's all.)

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I just wanted to chime in on this issue, and say that after I upgraded to 10.1.2, I started to experience the same thing: my PowerBook not waking up from sleep. I still experience it. The only way I'm able to get it to do *anythying* at that point is to force restart it. (I don't have Office X installed, although I did have the Word X test drive installed at one point).

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I've been having the "Sleep of Death" problem on my PB G4 ever since upgrading to OS X 10.1.2 (or possibly one revision before that.) I have not installed Office X, although I did install the Word X test drive at one point. However, I didn't notice any correlation between the installation of Word X and the sleep problems, as the other fellow asked. I haven't done very thorough testing, but the sleep problem SEEMS to only occur when I close the screen to put the system to sleep, as opposed to selecting sleep from then Apple menu (or pushing the power button and then clicking sleep.) It's very hard to be sure though as the Sleep of Death seems to be extremely random.

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I have this problem every so often with my PBG4 running 10.1.2. I have office for X installed.

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My PB G4 (1st Gen, 500MHz, 512 MB RAM, 20GB HDD, running latest fully updated version of OS X) from time to time doesn't wake up from sleep, as happened this morning. The drive doesn't spin up, the pulsing LED doesn't pulse, the system is dead and requires a hard restart. Interestingly, I do have Office X installed, although it never occurred to me that it might be the cause. The "Sleep of Death" happens once every week or two; it's not a frequent or consistent problem.

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I too have experienced the dreaded "Sleep of Death" on my Titanium PowerBook G4 500. It only seems to happen when I change monitor configurations, and then put the TiBook to sleep for an extended period of time. I use a second monitor at work. When I put the TiBook to sleep, disconnect the monitor, and go home, and later attempt to wake the machine, it hangs, with a spinning disc cursor (I may or may not be able to see the dock and menu bar, but even if I can, they are not responsive). Once I was able to ssh into the TiBook, and kill the finder, the window manager, and the login window processes, and this seemed to set things right, however, most of the time, I cannot even ping the machine.

One work around I have found is that if I put the machine to sleep, disconnect the second monitor, and then immediately awaken the machine, allowing it to detect that the second monitor is gone, and then put it back to sleep, the "Sleep of Death" does not occur.

This was all under 10.1.2; we will see if anything has changed in 10.1.3

Overall, sleep is just a buggy feature. Always has been, probably always will be. A few readers mentioned problems in 9.x, but the actual specific issue we're discussing here is the higher rate of problems in sleep in 10.1.2. With the release of 10.1.3 yesterday, the question now becomes: does 10.1.3 fix it? It'll probably be a few days before anyone can tell us reliably if the occurance is lower, but we'd like to know...

Tuesday, February 19th 2002 09:12 PST

Combo Drive Updates

Reader Mike writes with an update on the Combo Drives in Asia:

Got some info on the PB G4 Combo Drive Upgrades; it seems Apple - in Asia at least - is waiting for the release of OS X 10.1.3 before proceeding with the upgrades. It was scheduled for mid-February, but it may be delayed another couple of weeks depending on how the latest round of testing goes.

A reader in the UK writes that the program hasn't even begun there, so perhaps the 10.1.3 issue is holding things up there as well. Any US reports? Send them in here.

More on AirPort Cards, iMac Adapters and More!

A reader noted that OWC still has AirPort cards for $59 but they don't include the adapter for the iMac model only. (The G4 iMacs do not require this adapter) Since this is the PBZone...we'd expect most of you are looking for a card for a PowerBook, but a reader wrote in offering his extra iMac adapter. For a donation of $5 to the 9/11 FIrefighter's fund, he'll send the adapter to you if you wish. Update: a reader has taken Andy up on the offer.

Corroborating Evidence for "Sleep of Death" Issue?

As we usually like to do when a reader emails a problem he might think is widespread, we're asking for confirming evidence or fixes for this issue:

I spent the last 4 hours trying to convince AppleCare Support about the sleep of death problem and couldn't convince them that it was happening. And I was wondering if other people were experiencing it (especially with Office X installed). "Sleep of death" means that after a few times of prolonged sleep, the computer fails to wake up properly. Either the screen won't come on, or the hard drive won't spin up, or it will just ignore commands to run programs. Is this a known issue with 10.1.2? Do you know about it being addressed in the update?