on 8/18/02 10:28 PM, Carl Sheperd at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> I have a PowerBase 200 and upgraded from 8.5 to 8.6 without any of the
> problems I've seen listed here. I don't remember just how I did it anymore,
> but I am not extremely computer literate and didn't do anything fancy I'm
> sure.  I also upgraded from 8.6 to 9.1 without any notable problems.  I do
> remember that 8.6 seemed to freeze up a lot more than 8.5 and I was happy to
> go on to 9.1.    --Carl

This is one of the things that makes computering so complicated and, for
some, frustrating -- the widely varying experiences of different users.

Occasionally, there is some OS or some app or some machine that is
universally admired or reviled. But more often, one person will have a
satisfactory experience with a piece of ware that will cause no end of
problems for another.

For example, my PowerTower at work took right to OS 8.5.1, but we had new
iMacs and B&W G3s crashing or freezing daily on it. Eventually, we all went
to 8.6 and the problems died down. But was it the newer OS -- or the Apple
firmware updates we applied to the iMacs and B&Ws? (We might have learned
the answer had we been more deliberate, and applied only one "fix" at a
time. Trouble was, the problems we had at the time were intermittent, and
our users had become deeply frustrated; workplace morale had plummeted. We
needed a fix, and fast, so we threw the toolbox at the problem, and fixed
it.)

Then there are the endless variables thrown at us by everyone's favorite
software, extensions. Some play nicely together, others don't. Sometimes we
trim down our extensions with all good intentions, but inadvertently disable
an obscure but vital extension.

I encountered this with a veteran tech support troubleshooter who was
helping us de-bug some proprietary software we had purchased from his
company; after ironing out the major issues, his final act before heading
off to the airport to return home was to disable most of the extensions on
the G3 servers that ran the database; by nightfall, the machines were as
trouble-prone as ever. I called him to report the troubles; he suggested
reactivating all the extensions. I did. The machine worked fine from then on
(knock on wood).

Sometimes I think the only absolute truth with computers is there are no
absolutes.


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