boy, i installed apple mac os x 10.5 (leopard) last night and it did not go very smoothly. everything is fine now, but it was a bumpy ride for a few hours till i found the solution.

this software is pretty new (a few weeks i think) so you know there will be some bugs, always are. i was just eager to try it out, so i backed up important files and proceeded to install leopard.

it got like 60% done and then failed to install. there was some message about some language file corruption or something. so i plugged on and tried it again. this time it was successful, restarted, got a blue screen for about 1 minute then it booted up fine, or so i thought.

i was playing around until the software update popped up and asked if i wanted to install an upgrade to 10.5.1

i figured why not and clicked upgrade. that's when the trouble started!

the administrator approval window pops up, which is normal, but this time, instead of just asking me for my password, it asks for a user name and a password! and it won't take the information!

so i do a bit of digginf and find out that the leopard install has changed my user to a standard user and not an admin user. in fact, THERE IS NO USER ADMINISTRATOR in the whole computer. this spells trouble.

i spent the next 2 hours trying all sorts of passwords, scouring apple's web site, searching google for possible solutions and getting pissed.

i kept coming upon 2 solutions. one was to boot up to something called single-user mode (gets you to the unix part of the machine where only keyboard commands do anything) or to boot up the machine from the install dvd and change the password from there.

fine. the problem was, neither option worked! the machine just kept booting up into leopard and not into either of these other methods. i was frustrated beyond belief.

so at this point, i could use the computer, but i could not install any software or change any system settings.

i happened upon this one forum where some guy described a very similar situation and then he says he solved it by TAKING HIS KEYBOARD off one port and putting it directly into the machine usb port.

ha! i took my keyboard off the usb hub, hooked it to the usb port of the imac and booted up and it worked! i was able to change my root password and make my usual account an administrator account once again and the problem was solved.

i sure wish apple would post this as a possible solution. it would have saved me 2 hours of frustration and i could have played with my new leopard install for 2 more hours.

so far no other leopard problems yet.

here are the links to the post i found and to the apple page for the fix...

post...http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5896462

apple fix...http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306876

hope this helps someone else.

yippee! ruthie has finally come over from the dark side.

i was looking around on craigslist (in the linksEyeLike section if you don't know about it) and saw someone had a mac mini for sale for a really good price.

this is a small mac that apple makes that you hook up to your current monitor, keyboard and mouse. it was less than a year old and he was going to put leopard on it, which is the newest mac os x version of the operating system.

so i emailed the guy and was the 1st person who contacted him, so we arranged to meet. turns out he works in the mac department at microcenter, a computer store i go to often.

bought it, took it home and 5 minutes later ruthie had a mac running on her old accessories and was on the internet just like that.

she is thrilled.

a bonus was that he gave me the original install dvd for leopard, which i installed on my 24" imac last night, but that's a whole other story for another post. bad start, but good ending.

yup, the gush is endorsing someone for president!

my backing is going to former governor of arkansas mike huckabee. ruthie and i even sent him some money for his campaign. this guy is great. he talks straight, means what he says and no double-talk.

i know, he's a baptist minister and i am a jew, but i tell you he is someone i can back in this race, besides no jewish candidate is running. more later about mike huckabee.

i just put up 5 eBay auctions tonight.

it has been a few years since i did any auctions on eBay. with school, getting married, finishing my web development degree and moving there just has not been any time.

but i was in office depot the other day and i found a new copy of a mac only program i had used a few years back (i tried out the shareware program) called "garage sale". it let's you make templates out of your auctions and tracks them all, plus does all sorts of neat stuff i have not even discovered yet, all wrapped in a nice mac like wrapper. they had it for about 1/2 the online price so i figured why not?

i like it. now let's just hope some people actually place bids on my camera stuff i have listed for auction!

got skype?

i just started using the computer voip service called "skype" a few days ago thanks to a friend i have in kigali, rwanda named georges.

now i am hooked.

it's a great little service to chat online as well as make computer phone calls skype user to skype user (for free). i liked it so much i even sprung for $30 for a year of unlimited land line calls (us and canada). just the ability to call people and not have to hold a phone to your ear at home was worth it. my coverage with sprintpcs in my house is horrible, so the cell was not a great option at home either.

this fits the bill very well. i even bought a usb headset to use when i don't want to bother others in our office. i am using the new 2.7 beta for mac and it mostly works as advertised. a few rough edges with the address book that hopefully will be fixed soon.

oh, how can i forget...video chat! today i called a co-worker a few times that has a new hp laptop with a built-in cam and we could see each other fine. my imac has a built-in cam as well, so when i am home i can do the video chat.

this works great for me since i work from home 3 days a week. if only i could get my boss darren to download it now!

my skype name is bufordgush, btw.

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