Consulted a customer who reported the following error message when opening Apple Mail on her PowerMac G4:

“Mail cannot update your mailboxes because your home directory is full. You must free up space in your home folder before using Mail. Delete unneeded documents or move documents to another volume.”

A system check revealed that her start-up drive had plenty of free space available. A Google search uncovered an easy fix that’s documented on an Apple Support page.

1. Quit Mail if it’s running.
2. Choose Go to Folder from the Finder’s Go menu, then type :
~/Library/Mail/
3. Move the file named “Envelope Index” to the desktop (or the Trash).
4. Open Mail. Your will be alerted that your Mail messages will be imported again. Click OK.
5. Once the issue is resolved, you can delete the “Envelope Index” file from your desktop.

In my client’s case, I had to re-import her Mail messages twice to eliminate the error message. During the first pass, Mail reported that it needed to repair problems with some of the messages. The second pass reestablished normal access to Mail and caused the error message to disappear.

As a Mac consultant, I deal with a variety of customers. The software programs I support range from the very old and eclectic to the most up-to-date applications.

Not too long ago when PowerPC processors reigned supreme at Apple, it was common for customers to run Windows on a Mac using Virtual PC. A large percentage of customers stuck with their original versions while others updated their program every time Connectix or Microsoft issued a new release. I could support both sets of customers from one computer, as I could keep different versions of Virtual PC on my Mac and switch whenever the need arose.

Not so with Parallels Desktop 4 or 5. If you run Parallels Desktop 3 (as I do to support my Windows XP customers), you are not allowed to keep this version on your Mac in addition to the later release. During setup, Parallels Desktop 4 or 5 erases version 3 from your system.

I recently was asked by a small business to troubleshoot the installation of MYOB AccountEdge 2009 Network Edition hosted on an Xserve running Mac OS X 10.5.8. While multiple users could log into the program from their respective workstations, performance was excruciatingly slow and considered unacceptable for daily use.

An MYOB consultant whom I spoke with over the phone suggested that I take a look at a third-party utility called Aqua Connect Terminal Server that is designed to facilitate and enhance resource sharing on an Mac OS X Server.