A few days ago I got Tiger freezing up, repeatably … I finally found a workaround.
Running Tiger 10.4.1, I added some large pictures to my screen saver, and updated to the latest QuickTime. Then I found Tiger freezing in all circumstances after 10 to 15 minutes of use. Lots of reboot. Unhappy Mac user.

Workaround: I finally found (using Jaguar) some hints that QuickTime 7.0.1 might have some freeze bugs. I rebooted into Tiger, then quickly changed the Screen Saver and Desktop not to change pictures. I suspect that doing so invokes QuickTime’s fatal freezing flaw.

Tiger has once again given stable performance, no longer freezing up.

When you make the switch to Tiger, you find yourselft checking a lot of software for updates. Here’s a handy alternative to Version Tracker, and it’s free.

Macupdate is the site; (more…)

A few weeks before Tiger’s introduction, I came across some large capacity LaCie disks at the Eugene Mac Store. I got a 240 GB unit, a bit larger than the Mac mini, that attaches by firewire to my Mac.

I used to try backing up by writing CDs, a painfully slow process, ill-suited to large video files (among others). So, backup often ended up as a postponed ‘to do” item.

Now, I backup by dragging folders to the LaCie drive. It’s great — room for photos, room for videos, room to back up my wife’s iMac.