• If you’re upgrading to 10.6 Snow Leopard, download and run the SnowChecker utility to check whether you have any incompatible software.
• For 10.7 Lion, use the RoaringApps wiki.

Low End Mac explains the various issues involved in detail. They also sell RAM, video cards, and other parts for older Macs. A summary:

1. OS X 10.5 Leopard on a G4
It should install without trouble on machines 867MHz and over. Otherwise, you’ll need a utility called LeopardAssist to force an install. If LeopardAssist also fails, you might have to use an earlier version of OS X.

2. OS X 10.4 Tiger on a G4
It should install without trouble.

3. OS X 10.3 Panther and earlier on a G3
G3s can manage at least OS X 10.2 Jaguar, and some can run Panther; it varies depending on the model. (The newer G3s in blue cases will do better than the older ones in beige.) To install, use a utility called XPostFacto.

4. OS X on a pre-G3 Mac
You can consult this compatibility list for installing OS X on pre-G3 systems…but that might be more trouble than it’s worth.

Remember that, in all cases, you may need to get ahold of an external DVD drive if your older Mac can’t read DVDs. And if your install disc was bundled with an Intel Mac, you can’t use it to install on a PPC Mac.

Finally, if you don’t know what kind of OS 9 Mac you’ve got, use the System Profiler:

The specific instructions for a power manager reset vary by model, but it involves turning off the machine, unplugging it and taking out the battery, and holding down a certain key combination for a few seconds. (On newer models, the secret key is mercifully just the power button.)

Here are step-by-step instructions for various models of:
68K Macs
PPC Macs
Intel Macs (note that the Power Manager is called the “System Manager” now)

…you’ll see an option to run the program in Rosetta.

Why would you want to do this? Normally, you never would; you’d just be degrading performance horribly for no reason. But sometimes being able to emulate a PowerPC chip is worth the hassle. For example, what if you have to open an old After Effects file that uses lots of Power-PC-only plugins? Instead of having to find and install an old version of the same program, you can just pop into Rosetta mode and rescue your stuff.

Still, that little checkbox is an easy thing to overlook. Imagine if you accidentally forget to uncheck it on a computer shared between multiple users, not all of whom are savvy enough to realize why everything’s suddenly running so slowly! It would be better if we could create a dedicated shortcut for running the program in Rosetta mode, the kind of thing Windows users have been able to do for a while now:

As it turns out, it can be done–it just takes a few steps.

Step 1. Right-click on the application and choose Show Package Contents:

Step 2. Navigate to the folder MacOS and choose the main application file:

Step 6. Start the Terminal and drag the main application file into the Terminal window:

Step 7. This will spit out the full path to the application on your disk:

Step 8. Copy the path. Download this precooked shortcut, open it into a text editor, and replace the pathname with your own. (If you’re running After Effects CS3 on an Intel Mac, the shortcut should work the way it is.)

1. Turn indexing on for a volume:
sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/VolumeName

2. Turn indexing off for a volume:
sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/VolumeName

3. Delete the index for a volume:
sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/VolumeName

4. Force a rebuild of the index for a volume (should happen automatically following a delete):
sudo mdimport -f /Volumes/VolumeName

5. Force a rebuild of the Mail.app index only:
mdimport -r /System/Library/Spotlight/Mail.mdimporter

Put the name of your target volume in place of VolumeName. If you’re running a command on the startup volume, you only need to use a forward slash (/).

There are two common scenarios where you’d want to use these commands.

1. Spotlight seems to start indexing at random. (This isn’t normal behavior.)
Delete the index for the startup volume; it’s probably corrupt. It should rebuild itself after:
sudo mdutil -E /

2. Spotlight insists on indexing external drives each time they’re mounted. (This is normal behavior, but it’s annoying.)
Using the command line, turn off indexing for each external drive:
sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/VolumeName

If you’d just like to turn Spotlight off entirely, without having to type commands, you can use the Disable Tiger Features utility. Be warned that, while old-fashioned filename search still works without Spotlight, there are some odd side effects–for instance, you can no longer search for text in the body of emails using Mail.app.

This tutorial is based on instructions from Georg Filios at Mac OS X Hints.

Step 1. Boot into Windows and double-click on the clock to set it correctly.

Step 2. Make sure you have Daylight Savings adjustment and time server synchronization turned off. Make a note of what time zone you’re using.

Step 3. Choose Run from the Start Menu:

Step 4. Type regedit to start the Registry Editor:

Step 5. In the Registry Editor, navigate to this directory:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\
SYSTEM\
CurrentControlSet\
Control\
TimeZoneInformation\

Step 6. From the Edit menu, create a new DWORD Value:

Step 7. Double-click on the new value you just created to edit it.

Step 8. Name it RealTimeIsUniversal (check your spelling again). Set the Value Data to 1 and leave the Base as Hexadecimal:

Step 9. Your finished Registry entry should look like this:

Step 10. Boot back into OS X and click on the clock to set it correctly. (If you’re using the Apple time server to set the clock, you can leave this on.) Make sure that you’re using the same time zone as in Windows.

Try switching back and forth between OS X and Windows a few times–the OS X clock should now stay set!

Basically, the first time you run this neat little program, it clones your original drive to the backup drive–a lengthy process if you have, say, 80 gigs of stuff. Then, each time you run it after that, it only copies the files that have changed since the last backup, which is much faster. It works beautifully, but it can be hard for a new user to figure out exactly how to get started. (SuperDuper is a US$30 app with the same functionality and an easier interface.)

Step 1. The first thing you’re going to want to do is partition your new backup drive (not, it goes without saying, your original drive!) using the Disk Utility. Create one partition the same size as your original drive to use for backups, and leave the rest of the space free for other uses:

Step 2. Next, start up RsyncX, drag your original drive to the Source field, and your backup drive to the Destination field. Be sure not to get them mixed up!

Step 3. Then set the following options. This will copy the entire original drive over to the backup drive:

Step 4. When you’re ready to start, click Synchronize. For an average-sized drive, this first backup is probably best left running overnight.

Step 5. For subsequent backups, use these settings, so you copy over only files that have changed since the last backup. The Remove Unmatched setting deletes any backup files that are no longer present on the original drive–I think this is a good thing, because it’s best if you use RsyncX to keep your backup drive perfectly identical to your original. You can use another partition, or another drive, for general storage purposes.

Step 6. An extra step for Tiger users–the Spotlight search utility will try to index your whole backup drive after each use of RsyncX. Since you already have your identical original drive indexed by Spotlight, I think it’s just a waste of time. Go to the Spotlight preferences and disable indexing for your backup drive:

Step 7. Finally, go to the Startup Disk preferences and try booting off your backup drive. (Be aware that a backup created on an Intel Mac will only be bootable on Intel Macs, although you can still read the files themselves on older machines.) Don’t forget to switch back when you’re done!

Unplug all your USB devices, turn the computer off (don’t just reboot), and turn it on again. Drove me nuts.

The offending app is called the Button Manager, and it runs the easy-access controls on the front of the scanner. The buttons won’t work without it, but that’s a minor sacrifice compared to all that unnecessary wear on your system. A handful of websites diagnose the problem, but there don’t seem to be any step-by-step instructions for killing it. So:

Step 1. Go to your main Library folder on your boot drive, and look in CFM Support.

Step 2. Rename anything you see named Button Manager, so it will no longer load on startup. (If you rename, instead of delete, you can always go back later if you decide you really need those front-panel buttons.)

Here, I’ve renamed CNQL1212_ButtonManager to old_CNQL1212_ButtonManager. Depending on your system, you may have multiple Button Managers. Do ‘em all.

Step 3. Reboot and test it out. This trick may not work if you have the scanner attached through a USB hub…your feedback is welcome!

That said, this is a pretty nice option if you don’t need to create custom-printed discs more than once in a while, but want them to look nice when you do. If you have a Mac, though:

1. You’ll want to be sure and buy a LaCie brand burner, because they’re the only ones at present with OS X Lightscribe software.

2. You’ll need a template to create your own labels. That way, if you’ve got Photoshop, you don’t need to wrestle with LaCie’s included labelling program. Here’s mine; it’s not perfectly accurate, but it works for me. The Lightscribe process seems to have a pretty decent resolution, so I make my labels 300dpi, just as if they were going to an ordinary printer.

3. You’ll want to buy DVD-R Lightscribe media, not DVD+R. As the older format in this unwelcome format war, DVD-R still has a slight edge in standalone DVD player compatibility. And it’s even more important for Mac users, because older Mac DVD drives won’t read DVD+R. Unfortunately, Lightscribe DVD-Rs seem to be a bit rare. The only ones I can find at present are these HP brand 10-packs from CompUSA. At about US$2/disk, they’re not exactly a bargain.