Installing Alexandria Clients on OS 9

By Wally Johnson
Created on 6/28/2005

Technical Note Summary

The purpose of this technical note is to assist librarians with the installation of the Alexandria client software in OS 9

Support for OS 9

On September 10, 2002, Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple, announced the end of OS 9 support on new Apple hardware.  In his landmark speech he stated:

[I]t's time for Apple and our third-party developers to focus all of our resources exclusively on Mac OS X, rather than dividing them between two different operating systems." (Rothenberg, 2002.)

In the three years that followed, COMPanion Corporation continued to release versions of Alexandria which supported OS 9.  In March 2005, with the release of Alexandria 5.5.0.0, native support of OS 9 ceased.  From that version forward, Alexandria data station and clients are only natively supported in OS X.  COMPanion recommends to all our customers that they upgrade to OS X as soon as possible.  The future of all Apple hardware and all COMPanion products is OS X.

For customers who still support older operating systems (OS 9, Windows 98 and Windows ME), it is advised that they purchase Alexandria Web.  Alexandria Web is an Alexandria add-on that is installed by simply registering Alexandria with new product codes.  Once activated, the data station becomes a web server, providing researcher access to patrons via their web browser.  For pricing information, please contact our sales department at 1-800-347-6439.

While Alexandria does not natively support OS 9 clients, client resources can be downloaded and installed which will create an OS 9 Alexandria Researcher installer.  It should be noted that this limited support is the last step in a series of changes made in versions of Alexandria over the last 3 years to encourage more widespread use of OS X.  Customers will need to carefully read the release notes of every subsequent update to Alexandria to see if OS 9 support has come to an end. When a version of Alexandria is released that does not support OS 9, customers should cease updating until they are able to purchase hardware capable of running OS X.  It is COMPanion's policy to continue supporting customers on any version of software so long as their service contract is current.

Downloading and Installing Client Resources

Client installers are created by the data station.  In order to create client installers, proper resources must be available on the data station.  The Alexandria data station comes with all the proper resources to create the supported clients.  Because Alexandria 5.5.0.0 resources differ so greatly from previous client resources, data station installers do not inherently contain resources for OS 9.  These resources must be downloaded from the update section of the goalexandria.com website.  To access the website, open a browser and type the following in the address or URL field:

http://www.goalexandria.com

From the website, choose Updates.  On the next page, select the version of Alexandria installed on the data station.  On the next page, fill out all the information and click Submit.  The next page contains links to download the Alexandria software.  Near the bottom of the page there will be two links to download Alexandria 5.44 Researcher Resources.  Download these resources and then decompress them.  The new resources should be placed in the Installer Resources folder.  On a PC, this folder is typically located at the following path:

C:\Program files\Alexandria v5 folder\Installer Resources\

On a Macintosh, the folder can be found at the following path

Hard drive/Users/Shared/Library/Application Support/Alexandria Support/Installer Resources

Place the Mac Researcher.CZ2 in the Installer Resources folder.  The next time Alexandria is started it will then create the researcher installers for the non-natively supported platforms. 

Installing Clients through a Web Browser

Once the installer resources have been copied into the appropriate folder and Alexandria has been restarted, it will then be possible to install the researcher client.  On your client machine, open your web browser and type the following: 

http://XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:YYYY/install_mac

In this case, XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX is the IP address of the Data Station and YYYY is the port Alexandria is using for web.  If Alexandria's Web Preferences are set to port 80, the colon and port number should not be entered.

NOTE:  THE WORD "INSTALL" AND "MAC" SHOULD BE ENTERED IN LOWER CASE LETTERS.

If an applet error message appears, it is likely the web browser is outdated.  An updated browser should be installed.

An authorization screen may appear.  Authorization must be granted before the installation page will finish loading.  The Research Workstation may then be installed by clicking on the button.

Figure 1 – Web Installer Page.

 

The Researcher Workstation installation may prompt for a password that can be left blank, unless the Researcher Web Installation Password has been modified.  If the password field has been modified, the password must be entered to authenticate for installation.

Once authentication has completed, the client software will begin to transfer.  Several files must be transferred.  The files will be transmitted one at a time.  The status bar will show the name of the file being transferred and the progress of that file.

The installation will create a folder on the desktop called Alexandria which will contain all the client software.  The application will be called Alexandria Researcher.  The Alexandria folder may be moved to any location on a local hard drive.  Shortcuts and aliases can be created from the application and placed on the desktop or another convenient location.

NOTE: IF THERE ARE QUESTIONS ON INSTALLING CLIENTS, PLEASE CONTACT TECHNICAL SUPPORT AT (800) 347-4942.

Reference List:

Rothenberg, M. (2002, September 10). Apple: Future Macs to Boot Into Mac OS X Only.

Retrieved June 28, 2005, from http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,525179,00.asp