How do you spell relief? P-A-N-T-H-E-R C-A-C-H-E C-L-E-A-N-E-R. (Whew!)

The kind folks at Northern Softworks provide Panther Cache Cleaner as shareware. I do feel mildly guilty for trying it out for the one express purpose of seeing if it would fix my problem. Unfortunately I understand exactly what it was that fixed my no drag, no icons problem, and I can’t bring myself to pay for using only one of the many functions of the software that I can do for myself henceforth. However, (a) I don’t recommend trying to resolve it yourself unless you have experience with UNIX-like systems and (b) I will refuse to help you solve this problem unless I can get physical access to your machine. There’s simply too much potential to go wrong if done incorrectly. Northern Softworks has a product that keeps all of the potential evilness safely scripted and tucked behind a couple of checkboxes and a button. Please use their solution to this problem – unless you think you are willing to risk me sitting in front of your computer and accidentally blowing away 12 years worth of recipes, poetry, or whatever else you have on it.

As a result, my Cube is once again happily churning out GarageBand tracks and letting me add artwork to my iTunes library. Functionally speaking, iTunes 4.5 is not a quantum leap forward; I would’ve called it iTunes 4.3, honestly. The major change is that FairPlay has been modified, apparently to defeat the PlayFair hack that allows users to strip the DRM from their protected content and play the files on any computer, registered or not. (In English: if you upgrade to iTunes 4.5, your music library will no longer work with a third party jukebox/music server, and you won’t be able to directly convert your iTunes purchased music into tracks you can send to all of your friends.)

Sorry if I made your head splode. I hear that can get messy. You might want to consider a professional cleaning company.