troubleshooting

Yahoo Groups: Upgrades & Changes

        "If you are using one of the Yahoo Groups and your Mac is not at the latest OS update, you may find that you can’t upload files/photos to your Yahoo Group anymore," John Carter says.  He goes on to explain,  "A friend of mine posted this comment:

Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, etc. have all recently made significant "upgrades??" - in their minds, not mine - to include numerous social networking capabilities to their e-mail sites, group sites, etc. They all require significant upgrading of the Mac OS on my primary desktop computer from OS 10.4.11. I cannot upgrade the OS for this computer because it's a PowerPC G5 and I still want to maintain OS 9 Classic for a couple of legacy programs. It appears that the changes Yahoo, Google & Microsoft made to the functioning of their various sites are incompatible with OS 10.4.11. I only get rudimentary e-mail capabilties on my desktop now - barely functional. The sites work perfectly fine on my MacBook Pro OS 10.6.8 - for now."

        John explains his conclusion, "So, if you thought that you could continue to use your old OS for years to come, then the changes that are happening with websites are in the direction of what’s happening with the new versions of any OS, be it Mac or Windows, will leave you behind and not able to work with those websites. If upgrading your computer or OS means giving up a legacy app, welcome to the 21st Century! Find the best alternative, if any at all, and move on. And all this just to be able to continue browsing the Internet and using online services!"

Java in Lion: You Might Need Help

        In a recent post regarding the Flashback virus, John Carter reported that he had a problem with Java. This “bug” appeared only after a recent update to Java. He brings us up-to-date here:
        "There is a workaround for the problem with Java in Lion. (The problem is that in the Terminal the command ‘java -version’ returns an error message: unable to locate java runtime to invoke) The workaround is accomplished by adding the system environment variable JAVA_HOME to the login environment in the file /etc/bashrc.
        "The variable should be set to '/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Home'
        "There is no easy way to instruct the non-technical person on how to add a line of code to a system file. Anyone having a problem with Java should contact John Carter and he will install the workaround free."  Go to the PMUG site > About Us and scroll down to Contact Us and click on Webmaster.
        John closes with this, "The JAVA_HOME variable should not have to be added, so there is still some kind of Java problem that needs to be researched."
        Now, John Carter to the rescue!  Here's the very latest help: "Regarding why Java fails on the iMac Lion that I have, I just discovered this fix:
        Remove this file: /Users/[logname]/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.java.JavaPreferences.plist
        That file does not exist on the Mini, MB Pro, or MB Air.
         The next time you execute ‘java -version’ in Terminal, you get:
         java version "1.6.0_31"
        Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_31-b04-414-11M3626)
        Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.6-b01-414, mixed mode)
        "This is confirmed by: osdir.com/ml/java-dev/2010-10/msg00974.html  by Mike Swingler, Java Engineering, Apple Inc."
        Any other questions?  If so,  email John.  And remember, he's speaking this Saturday for PMUG.  See you there?