Answers...

to commonly asked questions.

How do I sync contacts to my iPad with a wire.

I made the mistake of running and installing the Software Update on the PowerBook G4 last night. Now a lot of applications will not open. Is there a way to undo what I did? Or is a reinstall needed? I updated it via Software Update, and now applications will not open. Everything just bounces in the dock. I did not pay attention when I ran Software Update, so I messed it up.
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There could be several reasons this is happening.

1. out of hard drive space
2. a startup item is corrupt
3. the software update failed to install correctly
and many more.

A complete reinstall of the OS may be needed but there are a few things you could try first. Boot the computer into safe mode by holding down the command at startup. This will skip any non apple extensions from loading. If the computer boots normally then we would need to remove those items from the startup up or login folders before restarting.

You could also boot using verbose mode (command V) at startup. This would run a terminal like prompt that could also give an indication of what the problem is as it lists all activity during the start up sequence.

You could try single user mode (command S) at startup. Then run an fsck -y to try to repair the disk. Instructions will be listed at the end of the terminal startup sequence.

You could boot from an install disk and do an archive and install. This may be the quickest way out. When installing, choose options or customize in the install process and select to archive and install preserving users.

Lastly, if you really feel the need, you could just erase and reinstall (clean install) from the disc then restore all data from a time machine backup.

Even more lastly, Since it’s a G4, you can use the old “boot into firmware” trick. The new guys don’t know about this one. Start up holding down “command option O F” all at the same time. You’ll boot into open firmware. It’s sort of like an operating system before OSX loads. Now you can use the following commands to hopefully bring your powerbook back to life:

reset nvram
set-defaults
reset-all

After entering the last command the computer will restart. It’s been a while since I booted into open firmware so each of the above commands may or may not require the dash in between words.
This image is a theme.plist hack