Thread: Please tell me I didn't kill my Vista/iBook G4 problems

You can do some decent editing with GIMP.

Originally Posted by Zhaylin

I was desperate. Dust was clogging up my machine to an extreme degree, so I took all of the fans off (except the one at the top which was pretty impossible to get to) and vacuumed everything. It was completely unplugged.

My hubby gave me hell because one of the fans I removed came off the motherboard itself. It's seemingly supported for 4 "prongs" only.
I thought I had it aligned properly, turned it on, it started to load then simply shut itself down. I tried it again with the same results.
I concluded I hadn't put the fan on right and after a couple hours, I gave up lest I mash the beastly devil against the wall.

I then took it to hubby's because he repairs everything.
He won't even LOOK at the problem. He tells me I ROYALLY screwed up, but he'd have his friend Scott look at it (Scott knows more than my hubby about such things). But Scott's disappeared off the surface of the world... again lol.
No telling when I'll have my machine back, if ever. I fear the worse.

In the meantime, I'm using my iBook G4, the screen of which was shattered several years ago when one of my daughters threw a comb at her sibling and missed
I hooked it up to a monitor and all was well for a year or so. Then it had a serious melt down. I had misplaced my disks for it, so hubby used some other program he had.
I lost my iPhotos, but the machine itself works perfectly fine again.

Does anyone know of a good Mac application that's free for importing and editing pics?

Thanks.

GIMP is the best editor, but there is no application that's anything like iPhoto as far as I know. You don't have the iLife CD anymore?

The fan on the motherboard was the processor cooler. If the processor gets too hot, it cracks, so if it's not coming back on, you need a new processor.

Ouch... everything on my Vista still appeared to be intact. So maybe there's hope.

I looked for GIMP, but I didn't find anything compatable with my iBook.
Oh yeah... almost forgot. I did go to Apple while at the RV today and there was an upgrade for my system but there was a system error and I was told to try to save the info on a CD then transfer it onto the Hard drive. I didn't have any with me, but I'll definitely try to do that tomorrow at the Library.
Maybe that could take care of some of my problems.

Yeah, I'm an idiot. I tend to lose everything that's even remotely important.
I do a more thorough search of GIMP tonight or tomorrow. Maybe I just overlooked something.

Thanks for the suggestions

Oh shit, I forgot GIMP requires X11. X11 is free, but it's hard to install and find. Go to the Apple Store and have them install X11. GIMP is the first one that pops up when you google it and it's been ported to every imaginable system.

Do you mean a literal Apple Store or the internet store?
I have NO IDEA where the closest actual Apple store would be lol

Also, another tip: If you have dust problems, do NOT use a vacuum under any circumstances. It's much safer for the parts to get a can of air duster and blast the dust away.

Who says X11 is hard to find and install? This . . . is . . . THE INTERNET!

Check this out. GIMP - for Mac OS X

The only problem with GIMP is that it uses the strangest fucking keyboard shortcuts you'll ever see.

Copy is Ctrl + C
Float is Ctrl + Shift + L
Open is Ctrl + O

I want to know who the hell came up with those brilliant ideas and smack them.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

The only problem with GIMP is that it uses the strangest fucking keyboard shortcuts you'll ever see.

Copy is Ctrl + C
Float is Ctrl + Shift + L
Open is Ctrl + O

I want to know who the hell came up with those brilliant ideas and smack them.

it's always difficult with cross-platform apps, as different platforms have different (and conflicting) traditions

CTRL+C for copy came from VMS
MS DOS came from VMS (some say "stolen", but that's a whole nother argument)
In the unix world, ctrl+c is cancel (terminate), but there we go

CTRL+O for open is standard unix
and fairly obvious, I think

Well it's not hard to fix that:

Code:

#ifdef __MSWIN__
   #define COPY *Keycode for Ctrl + C*
#else
   #ifdef __OSX__
      #define COPY *Keycode for Command + C*
   #else
      #define COPY *Keycode for Ctrl + Insert*
   #endif
#endif

How hard is that? Program it once and forget about it, I write plenty of cross-platform apps, each using a different set of keyboard shortcuts and behavior, it's very very easy.

I do so hate going from Photoshop to the GIMP, because all my keyboard shortcuts, some of which are custom, are completely and weirdly different. However, on Windows Ctrl+C for Copy is standard, as is Ctrl+O for open, usually.

But I'm not using Windows. Ctrl+C is execution stop, Command+C is copy. It's very very easy to program a cross platform keyboard shortcut, I don't understand why the GIMP engineers are ignoring that. It's an X11 program, not Blender.

I'll have to try the link tomorrow while I'm at the RV. Thanks

I've used Air blowers before but my hubby told me to stop because it was just forcing the dust more deeply into the machinery... and a basic feather duster just doesn't cut it lol.

Vacuums can generate static electricity, which has a good chance of ruining any computer part that gets shocked.