Machine: iMac G5
Reason: Uncorrectable bad sectors on the Hard Disk

Materials: New 3.5″ SATA Hard Disk
Carbon Copy Cloner: http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Usb/Sata Cable or External Case
OSX Boot CD
USB Thumb drive

Method: Connect new hard drive to USB Sata Cable and connect to iMac.
Download Carbon Copy Cloner, mount the image and copy the application to the Thumb drive.
Boot the mac from the OSX CD, select your language and then quit the installer, but dont reboot.
From the utilities menu select disk utility and partition the New disk.
Quit Disk Utility.
From the utility Menu, start Terminal.
type cd /Volumes/[Return]
cd “The name of your USB Drive”[Return] if you are not sure, type cd and press tab and it will give you a list. if you type the first couple of letters and press [Tab] it should fill in the rest for you, very handy if you have spaces in the name

cd Carbon\ Copy\ Cloner.app/[Return]

cd Contents/[Return]

cd MacOS/[Return]

./Carbon\ Copy\ Cloner[Return]

This will start the application. At this point you have the perfect scenario of being boot from an operating system and running the program you want without touching either either Hard Disk, so the copy can happen without any files being open.
Select the Source Dive and the Destination Drive.
Double check you got the source and destination correct, or you will blank your data!! You have been warned! If you partitioned the new drive, your destination should be called “Untitled 1″.

Select “Copy Everything”
Dont worry about the message that the destination drive wont be startable because you cant boot from a USB drive. We will be putting the drive internal as soon as we are finished…

[Clone]

Wait for an hour or two..

When it is all done, quit everything and restart, but when the machine chimes that it is rebooting, push the power button in for 10 seconds till the machine turns off.
Pull the machine apart and put the new hard disk in.
Startup the machine and hold the mouse button in to eject the CD.
The system should boot exactly as it did before but this time from it’s new Hard Disk.

We’re frequently asked the question “Is our computer still up to the job, or should we get a new one?”, and it’s a good question.

The problem is that the answer is different for everyone. Someone doing a heap of video editing needs a (much) more powerful machine than someone who is checking their email and surfing a few web pages.

The second problem is most people have very little idea of how fast or powerful their current machine is, and what it might need to perform better.

Lets answer that second question first. In What version of Windows am I running? we learnt how to bring up the “System Properties” page (hint [Windows] [Pause Break]) and have a look at the appropiate section (Computer in XP, System in Vista)

How much is enough? For “Normal” home or basic office use, Any Pentium IV or Celeron above 1.7GHz with at least 1Gb of RAM will run Windows XP happily enough. If you have Vista then you will be wanting at least a Core Duo 2.0GHz with at least 2Gb of RAM. If your needs are greater, you will need a faster processor, and possibly more RAM.

Can I upgrade my computer? The short answer is yes. Most of the problems people have with slow computers is caused by not enough RAM. 512Mb is not enough to make any reasonable use of XP and even 1Gb is not enough for Vista. Extra RAM is cheap, and only takes a few minutes to install. Upgrading the processor is more difficult, and usually not worth the effort. Check back soon for another article on finding out which type of RAM you have in your machine.

Wikipedia defines Phishing as:

the process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

Today I received the email below. I was immediately suspicious, as we are not actually Optus customers, but I thought it might have someone else’s account that they had asked us monitor, so I looked further.

The sender address seemed a little odd, we’d expect something like this to come from notices@ or sales@

Then looked closely at the destination of the links in the message (by hovering the mouse over them) and found they linked to a page at a website called: w w w.ondainternet.c o m, (note I’ve broken up the www and .com to protect any unwary clickers. To be honest, I don’t know what is at that site, but I’m guessing it’s not likely to be good for my computer and is more than likely related to the current unpatched vulnerability in all versions of Internet Explorer see http://www.auscert.org.au/render.html?it=10198 or it may be just a Phishing Scam.

In fact, there is probable nothing wrong with that site in general, but it is likely that part of the site has been hijacked by someone for their own nefarious purposes.

Please be aware of what you are clicking on!!

please note that I’ve altered the links in the email to protect the compulsive clickers.

Subject:     Please read this important information about your account.
Date:     Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:42:43 -0000
From:     Optus<vieri@optusnet.com.au>
Reply-To:     <donotreply@optusnet.com.au>

======================================================
You’ve used 100% of your data allowance
======================================================

Hello,

Unfortunately, you’ve reached your maximum data allowance for this month.

So, what happens now? Because you’ve reached your data allowance, your account will be slowed to 64kbps until the start of your next billing month. We do this so you won’t have to pay any excess download fees.

Don’t be slowed down

We know hitting your data allowance can be frustrating. To help you avoid this in future, we’ve made it easy to upgrade your plan without having to wait for the end of your billing month.

Upgrading increases your speed and data allowance, which gives you more freedom to do the things you want, with less worry about being speed limited.

If you would like to upgrade to another Optus Broadband DSL plan, you can change your monthly plan by logging into the Plan Change page of Member Services. You can choose an option to make your plan upgrade effective within 24 hours from the time you submit the request or to be effective from the start of your next billing period.

Remember, you can check your online usage at any time using your Internet Usage Meter. http://www.optuszoo.com.au/enforce_myusage?eml100_myacc_dmon|brand=dsl

If you have any questions or want to learn more, you can visit us online in the Help section http://www.optuszoo.com.au/help/dsl of the Optus Homepage or call Optus Customer Care on 1300 739 407.

Regards,
Optus Consumer Solutions Team

Note: This is an automated email please do not reply.

How do I tell which version of Microsoft Office am I running?

Open one of the Office Applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)

From the Help Menu*, select About

This will display a page of information including the version number.

Office Versions: 97, 2000, XP (2002), 2003, 2007

* If you don’t really have any menus, just a ribbon of Icons across the top of the screen, you have Office 2007. For more infoemation, click on the Office Button (top left corner) and then click the [Word/Excel etc Options] button (bottom right of the menu) and Click Resources, and then click About.

How do I tell which version of Windows XP I have?

The easiest way is to press the [Windows] key and the [Pause Break] keys together (roughly the bottom left and top right keys on the keyboard).

Or, if you don’t have a Windows Key, you can go into Control Panel and open the System Control Panel.

Alternatively, you can right click on the My Computer icon, either on the Desktop or in the start menu and click properties.

Doing one of these things will open the “System Properties” page which will tell you a lot of things about your computer including what Version of Windows you are running. Windows XP comes in two main Editions, Home and Professional, though Media Centre is another one that crops up occasionally. The service pack level is also listed, and will hopefully read “Service Pack 3″ as at October 2008. If it reads something else, you probably should run Windows Update

How do I tell which version of Windows Vista I have?

Again, the easiest way is to press the [Windows] key and the [Pause Break] keys together, or, you can go to the Start Menu, click on Control Panel and open the “System” Control Panel, or right click on the Computer icon, either on the Desktop or in the Start menu and click properties.

Again you will see the “System” page which will allow you to view basic information about your computer.

Vista comes in a range of editions from Home Basic, Home Premium, Business to Ultimate Edition. I’ll review the differences in a follow up post.

Again, the service pack level is listed, and will hopefully read “Service Pack 1″ as at October 2008. (with Service Pack 2 due towards the end of 2008 or early 2009) If it reads something else, you probably should run Windows Update

This Sunday marks the start of a changed Daylight Savings time for Victoria, and most of the eastern Australian States, bringing them all into line.
That means putting all your clocks forward one hour, but What does it mean for your computer?

On the Windows side, Microsoft have released a patch to reconfigure Windows to the right dates and times, and have in fact created a web page dedicated to the Australian time zone changes. The basic steps are:

for Windows XP:

1. Click on Start (Windows icon in the bottom left hand corner of your screen) > Control Panel > Programs and Features > click on ‘View installed updates’ (in left hand navigation bar)

2. Scroll down and look for “Update for Microsoft Windows (KB951072)”. If you have Automatic Updates enabled, this update should have been installed in August 2008.

For Windows Vista:

1. Click on Start (Windows icon in the bottom left hand corner of your screen) > Control Panel > Programs and Features > click on ‘View installed updates’ (in left hand navigation bar)

2. Scroll down and look for “Update for Microsoft Windows (KB951072)”. If you have Automatic Updates enabled, this update should have been installed in August 2008.

If the update is installed and your Date, Time and Time Zone are set correctly, everything should be fine.

Apple has released patches for the 2 most recent releases of Mac OSX (Tiger 10.4 & Leopard 10.5) that should have automatically installed on machines if they are kept up to date. Other items that may need to be patched include Microsoft Office for Mac which can be updated by going to the Help menu in any office Application and clicking Check for Updates.

Servers of all sorts also need to be checked, If you have any problems relating to daylight savings, please call the office on 1300 TECH DR (1300 832 437) or drop us a note at daylightsavings@techdoctor.com.au

Have a Great Weekend!

Q: I just need some help with why I’d be up to 80% of my Broadband use for the 2nd month in a row. What type of things use a lot? Today I’ve not used it … but it’s used 3%. All I’ve had open is my blog with me doing nothing and the local weather, which does update regularly – so that may do it.

Also, does uploading to my blog use much? Or does checking out other people’s blogs use much? That I do do a bit. Just let me know when you can so I can try to work out what to do.

And does Skype use much? …. or emails? .. hopefully last one – if I leave website open where the pictures are constantly changing – am i using up broadband?

A: The answer to all the above is that everything that comes to your screen from the internet has to be downloaded through your broadband pipe and counts against your download limit (unless you have some free services provided by your ISP.) The big question is how much.

A typical blog page can quite big, often containing big photos and video, and can be as large as 500Kb, while a fairly simple page like the weather will be as small as 50Kb. The problem is that if that weather page is reloaded every 5 minutes, that totals 600Kb/hr. Pages with pictures that change (like ads) are similarly high

Checking emails is probably only a few Kb every check (usually 5 minutes) plus the size of any emails downloaded. Skype is quite light for text, audio/video chat is approx 3-16Kb/sec.

Uploading things is quite different, and varies from ISP to ISP. Most ADSL ISPs do not charge anything for uploads, but I believe Bigpond, Optus & iiNet all count uploads towards the monthly cap

I had a couple of interesting questions posed to me today that I thought were worth sharing. Both related to backup type storage media sizes. The first was about memory sticks, and the assumption, (rather than a question) that a memory stick is bigger than a DVD. The second was asking how much info a CD can hold.

So I thought it was timely to add a quick chart of the current state of affairs in storage:

before we start, some rough idea of the size of some things:

and here are some things to put all that data onto, along with some rough prices:

There are lots of reasons you cant directly compare each of those items, like speed, size, durability and rewritability, which means that some media types are better than others for different purposes.

For example: 75 DVDs will hold the same amount of information as a 320Gb Hard Disk, for a fair bit less money, but you can only write to the DVD once.

Today, the open source project OpenOffice.org celebrates its 7th birthday. Founded by Sun Microsystems on October 13th, 2000, continues to experience tremendous growth. The project recently counted 104 million downloads from its website, and downloads have been increasing since the release of OpenOffice.org 2.3 last month. It is widely considered the most important open source productivity suite and one of the largest open source projects.