Following up on the wifes clamshell that charges for 15 min then stops.
I found the 366 battery update, but....
No Peter it did not work. It has 9.2.2 on it and it says it does not require the update. Tried charging while shutdown, while in 9.2, and tried the PMU reset, no luck. I may buy the external charger and also may still try the other battery reset software you mentioned.

May end up with a new battery or battery charge board but it seems to be the battery to me.

I really do appreciate the help Peter. I feel for your soft spot with animals as well. I am taking in /rescuing 7 birds right now because the breeder that has them is taking HORRIBLE care of them and is getting out of breeding them. I am the largest breeder of this type of parrot in our area and one of the top ten in the country who is not a commercial breeder (birdy mill), so this kind of idiot (thinks breeding birds will make her money) makes me sick. Birds are all underweight and dehydrated but looking better now that we have them out of her house and into clean housing with good food.

Thanks again,
Birdmanjeff

Hi Jeff,

Glad to have been of (some) help...

Some followup things to mention:

1) To use the battery reset software, you may need a specific version of OS9 (e.g., 9.0.4)... whether you want to (re-)install that particular version in order to use the software, that's up to you. Obviously, if it fixes the problem, it might be worth it...

2) When you did the PMU reset, did you do the "full" reset I suggested? (e.g., disconnecting everything, reset PMU, let it sit overnight, etc.)

3) New batteries have gotten pretty cheap. I got mine on ebay, no problems so far (crossed fingers).

As for the animals... wow, I guess we add a bird expert to the list (dogs, cats, hamsters, frogs, snakes, what else did I miss?) ... I've seen on PBS the situation with the parrots, that's truly horrible. (I seem to recall that there's a beautiful blue subspecies which is specifically now endangered because of illegal collection for the pet trade...?)

The situation seems analogous to what I've noticed with hamsters-- apparently there are commercial breeders who are mass-producing what Petco is calling a "European black bear hamster" -- this is what Scher is -- and it's just a total scam. There is no such thing as a "European black bear hamster" -- it's simply a Syrian which carries the black (aa) mutation. (The mutation was first seen in a set of Syrians from an owner in France, which is where they apparently got the "European" part from, if you can believe it!) And now the commercial breeders are now massively overbreeding them, as a new "type" of hamster... a total scam... that's apparently what I saw in Petco that last time I posted about it, a whole ton of black Syrian males.

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/2006 10:59PM by PeterB.

Peter,

Yea, I did the full reset no joy.

The battery I got was a new one from a place up in my home town but it was off ebay. seemed fine until a couple days ago. I still have some other thoughts but not going well yet. also not willing to strip the hard drive yet to fix it. wife is not that concerned since she is plugged most of the time anyways. I personally think it may be a bad cell in the battery and if I get another I will find a place to buy the Li-Ion cells as well to repair this one.

As for the birds we breed both wild type and mutations of several species, but since mutations bring bigger money (up to $800+ instead of $125) people get into them just for the cash which is so dumb. The care is expensive and can be time consuming, you make nothing really. This woman lost 8 birds recently due to "unknow causes" my guess looking at these birds of hers is that the death was starvation and/or dehydration.

I wish I could get the photos to work here I would attach a photo in the future, just can't seem to get it to work.

Birdmanjeff

Upload the photo to a website with public access and free upload/storage.
Photobucket.com is one. There are many others (sorry, don't know them).

After uploading the image, you will be given the URL to the image.
You can then embed that URL between [ img ] and [ /img ] bracketing (no spaces, of course, between the [, img, and ] ).

(spaces added)
[ img ] http ://www.goes.noaa.gov/GIFS/ECI7.JPG [ /img ]

squishing out the spaces:


You might want to limit the uploaded image size to 400x300 pixels or less.
Saves on bandwidth to acess the image, and keeps the topic posting a reasonable size.

My US$0.02,

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=DH
Donkey (Ye Olde Farte of ye Internette) Hotay is a Tilted Windmill® enterprise.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/02/2006 08:47AM by Donkey Hotay.

Jeff,

1) You can try re-celling the battery, I've seen pages on this, but 1) it's a bit dangerous since the cells can explode; 2) unless you can find the cells for really cheap, it's probably not worth it because you can buy a new one on ebay for $40-60 plus shipping (and re-celling requires a fair amount of heavy-duty soldering, so factor in what your time is worth).

2) I'm tempted to try putting the right OS on one of my clamshells, then use that Battery Reset app you found, to see if it will "fix" any of my dead batteries. Somehow I doubt it, but you never know...

3) Birds and the mutations. No question that by introducing the mutations, you are making the animals sicker... most mutations are deleterious (this is Genetics 101!)... occasionally one will give an animal a selective advantage, but this is rare. Because of most animals being diploid (two copies of chromosomes), most mutations are recessive-- which again favors that mutations are not normally "seen". So by intentionally breeding animals which contain recessive mutations (for example, black hamsters, the aa mutation I mentioned), you end up doing a fair amount of inbreeding, which in turns leads to buildup of other recessive mutations... many of which can cause the animal to be unhealthy. A good example is some of the albino mutations in almost any species... typically these mutations, though might be attractive, will make the animal significantly less healthy than average. (This is certainly true for albino human beings...) Reason I bring all that up is because, if breeding animals for show, or for sale, it is important to keep in mind that mutations will in general always be unhealthy, and so it's a good idea to mix things up a bit... and that if you insist on breeding mutations, they will often be a lot less healthy than the "mutts".

4) Photos-- I really like [www.imageshack.us], though another good one I've recently come across is Albumtown, which allows you to easily do batch image uploads (requires registration, but they don't ask for very much info). Here's an example, something I posted awhile back:

[www.albumtown.com]

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)

Peter you are very correct about mutations. Proper breeding and outcrossing of mutations is difficult and time consuming. In parrots because of the reletivly small population and inability to bring in wild type birds (even captive bred ones not just wild caught) mutations are inevitable. with proper breeding the bad effects can be reduced to a much lower concern just like the difference between blonds and brunnetts in humans but it takes time and proper breeding something few take into consideration when it comes to the almighty dollar. I do my best to do right and my birds are better cared for and healthier for it. It is the quick buck people who make the the craziest. It is just lucky this breeder who's birds we are taking did no permanent damage to most of them, or to the species.


I'll try to post this in here and see what happens. If it works it is one of the little ones (a baby still that we are rescuing. He is 25 grams and about 4 inches long. A wild type of this species is 4 to 5 inches and nearly 30 grams but his stunting is mostly due to malnutrition. He is a dilute blue pacific parrotlet.

Thanks Donkey Hotay and PeterB that worked this time I had tried image shack but could not seem to get it to work here. this worked great so I appreciate it.

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Birdmanjeff


www.magfundraising.com/faleofamilyadoption
www.cafepress.com/aviary

Cute little guy there, bmj! I hope he and his brethren (and sistern(!)) pull through with full recovery to health!

Lovely plumage, wot?

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=DH
Donkey (Ye Olde Farte of ye Internette) Hotay is a Tilted Windmill® enterprise.

Pretty bird!

Jeff, the problem with outcrossing mutations is that a lot of times either you will have a linked mutation (e.g., on a chromosome, two things will be close together, and it will be difficult if not impossible to separate them), or the mutation itself, besides giving you the appearance you want, will also cause defects that seriously impact the animal's health. An example of this in the hamster is anopthalmic white, which as a homozygote, causes the animals to be born without eyes and with a seriously shortened lifespan (ugh)...

Parrots, I can imagine the problems you're having, with a limited reproductive pool... ironically, you might be better off getting access to the wild animals, so that the stock you have doesn't eventually die off from constant inbreeding... maybe a zoo could help? Or rescue organizations, who have parrots which will no longer make satisfactory pets, but could be used as breeding stock? (I can imagine that another big problem is the lifespan of the animals... that it is so long, and that there are probably limited numbers of offspring per mating, means that it will take a long time to undo any damage done by improper crossing... not like hamsters, where their generational times are pretty short, and the gestation is only 16 days...)

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Freya says, 'Hello from NOLA, baby!' (Laissez bon temps rouler!)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/02/2006 10:27AM by PeterB.

Peter,

The lifespan of these little ones is short compared to big parrots, about 15 to 20 years. and their breeding life is about 1 year old to 6 or 7 years old. We can screw up or fix problems very quickly in these but still can be tough. The dilute blue is actually two mutations on a single bird, one natively strong and one weaker. I wish I could get access to normal birds like these from other countries though I am totally opposed to wild caught birds from south america, but because we have a "large" population here the only thing we can import is mutations. I keep a geat deal of normal type, no mutations, birds and have over 8 generations of two bloodlines outcrossed to unrelated stock since 1993.

I have my limits on mutations. Red eyed, or -ino, mutations have had notoriously bad eyesight and I will not breed them currently. A I watch for the unsuspected effects of breeding them and work with it accordingly. The Blue mutation which produces larger apparently healthier birds in fact seems to have an effect on the liver which means if the bird is fed the wrong diet (to much proccessed foods) the birds lifespan is dimminished. Proper outcrossing has lessened the effect and the birds are nearly normalised in every way after 15 years of breeding this mutation but I still give purchasers a great number of guidelines for care and feeding as well as 24/7 support for the life of the bird and beyond.

OK that is more than I am sure anyone ever wanted to know....

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Birdmanjeff


www.magfundraising.com/faleofamilyadoption
www.cafepress.com/aviary