Odds and Ends: Symantec updates; PowerBook "chirping"; Suitcase and WindowShade; Knowledge Base Updates

Symantec updates According to a press release from Symantec, Panther-compatible updates to Norton Utilities 8.0, Norton AntiVirus 9.0, and Norton SystemWorks 3.0 will be available via LiveUpdate on Monday, December 22. (Replacement CDs can be requested using an online form.) Panther-compatible updates to Norton Personal Firewall 3.0 and Norton Internet Security 3.0 are due at the end of January.

PowerBook "chirping" On Monday, we posted a note about a "chirping" noise that sometimes occurs on newer PowerBooks when the audio circuitry is accessed (i.e., whenever a sound is played, such as an alert sound or iChat sound effect). The sound is actually the PowerBook's audio hardware "ramping up." As explained in this Knowledge Base article, on certain Mac models, including all recent PowerBooks and iBooks, OS X will "turn off your computer's sound hardware when it is not used for 30 seconds. The delay in hearing sounds is the time it takes for the sound hardware to go from its low power mode to sound production." The "wake up" is often accompanied by a chirp or click.

If this behavior bothers you, the free third-party preference pane KeepSoundAwake plays a "silent" sound in the background every 20 seconds to prevent the audio hardware from sleeping. Note that since you're preempting a power-saving measure, using this utility may decrease battery life slightly.

Suitcase/WindowShadeX incompatibility? Reader Frans van der Geest reports an incompatibility between Suitcase 11.0.2 and WindowShade X (the haxie that brings OS 9's Windowshade functionality to OS X):

"I noticed that Suitcase does not start up correctly on boottime when Windowshade (the latest version from the Unsanity utility) is installed: Suitcase hangs at startup or the window does not 'auto-hide' at autostart at login. removing Windowshade solved all this"

New/Updated Knowledge Base Articles

• Mac OS X 10.3: About Network Browsing and Connected Servers covers the various (and inconsistent) ways in which you can connect to servers in Panther.
• AirPort: Can Connect to Base Station But Not to Internet When Using PPPoE discusses an issue that can occur when you replace a direct Ethernet PPPoE connection with an AirPort Base Station (or third-party wireless access point) that connects via PPPoE.
• Mac OS X: Configure Directory Access to Protect Your Mac From a Malicious DHCP Server provides a solution to the security vulnerability reported last week.
• iMovie: Importing Files Larger Than 2 GB explains that iMovie is limited to importing moves that are 2GB in size or smaller. The solution is to use an application such as QuickTime Player Pro to split large files into smaller segments that are each 2GB or less in size.

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