After setting up a new iMac G5 recently there were a plethora of software updates to be downloaded. The problem is that after the first time where the update window showed two pages of available updates it subsequently refused to show any at all.

Thinking that the problem might have to do withDirecWay as the DirecWay XML-RPC does.

However, the fault seems to be with OS X instead. If there is a cache file in the following directory remove it and all should be well:

/Users/yourname/Library/Caches/com.apple.softwareupdate/00/14

As you know, once Thanksgiving passes everyone starts to think about the winter holidays. It is no different around here. Our neighbors in the CHU next door started to decorate yesterday. They have a life size picture of Santa Clause on their door and lights inside. Not to be outdone, we had a decorating party in our CHU last night.

Frank broke out the oatmeal bars and decorations that his wife sent, we turned on holiday music, and began the festivities. Since we are a multicultural CHU, Adam Sandler's Chanukah song was played more than once. I have to admit it was a fun time. We strung lights around our window and decorated a mini tree. We ate home baked treats and drank Hi-C out of those packets you put in lunch boxes.

As I was going to sleep to the glow of the christmas lights, Frank stayed up to surf the web. Everyone once in a while he'd interrupt with my sleep. "Chanukah starts the evening of the 25th" he'd say. Later, "What is a dreidel"?, then "What are Chanukkah coins?" It was pretty cool that he must have been checking out site about my holiday to learn a little more.

I am attaching a photo of our decorated CHU.

I've been working on a friend's iPod recently. The otherwise healthy iPod has started freezing every time you move songs to it. Choose a batch of 20 songs and 5 or 6 will transfer fine and seven will die. The real problem is that it is not just the iPod that freezes but the whole computer. The machine (running Mac OS X 10.4) will stop completely. A few processes are "stuck" but even attempting to shut-d. own or restart the computer don't work. The only solution is to power down the computer and restart it. After a restart the whole scenario plays out again.

After several tries with other iPods and the computer it seemed to be a problem with the specific iPod. A trip to Apple Care and back and they report the iPod is just fine. Upon transferring the next set of songs the familiar freeze was back. The iMac locked up completely. Had Apple Care missed something? Why did this computer that works with other iPods not work with this iPod.

Eventually I decided to reload the iTunes library to make sure there wasn't a problem with the library itself. After taking all the files out and re-importing them there was no difference. Could it be the cable? The cable had been used for a couple of years and had never really been taken anywhere or used in any other way. However, it occurred to me at that point that the "other iPods" that were working fine were all USB models. Plugging the ill-functioning iPod into the USB cable it performs flawlessly. Somewhere along the line one of two things has happened. Either there is a problem with the firewire cable, which I'm still skeptical about, or there is a problem with the OS on the iMac and how it recovers from firewire errors.