TiBook Report #5
2001.02.06 - Burning Once
Monday morning I received a Podium CoolPad from Road
Tools. It's a compact device 11" wide and 8.7" deep. 
The
base has a swivel, so you can easily turn a laptop from side to side.
It also comes with adjustable risers, which let you raise the back of
your computer from 0.5" to 1.5"
I decided to start at the lowest setting, then set Quicksilver, my
titanium PowerBook G4, on the CoolPad,
where the rubber feet kept it snugly in place. The first thing I
discovered is that typing is much easier with the back of the
PowerBook propped up like this - one upon a time, all PowerBooks had
feet to lift up the back for improved typing and better air
circulation.
I still have no way of measuring the TiBook's temperature; every
utility I've tried (five at this point) simply doesn't know where to
find the temperature data. Jeremy Kezer is hoping to get his hands on
a PB G4 in coming weeks and tackle the problem, which will answer one
of the questions readers have asked most about the TiBook. Newer
Tech's Gauge Pro v1.1 does recognize the CPU as a G4 (7410), but
reports temperatures far below room temperature.
Until there's a utility to measure the TiBook's temperature, all I
can say is that Quicksilver feels somewhat cooler sitting on the
CoolPad.
I don't recall the fan kicking in even once since putting the
TiBook on the CoolPad. Sitting on my desk, the fan would usually kick
in every few hours for 5 minutes or so. The sound wasn't
objectionably loud. From a few feet away, the sounds from the other
Macs in the office would probably drown it out.
One reader berated me for not being more specific about how hot
the outside of the case gets. Sorry, but I don't have a lab or know
of a convenient way to measure that - I do know that an oral
thermometer isn't the proper tool for measuring surface temperatures.
(Any suggestions for an inexpensive surface thermometer?)
As I noted earlier, the TiBook runs too hot for use in your lap
without something like the Lapbottom to protect your legs. It won't
cause blisters, but it is uncomfortably warm.
Burning Twice
Another package showed up Monday morning: VST's new Portable
FireWire CD-R/RW Drive. This tiny gem - thinner than the TiBook and
with a footprint only a bit larger than a Discman - is powered via
FireWire, so there's no power cord or power brick to deal with.
My experience with CD-R has been limited to ordering drives for
others to use, so I had to run out Monday afternoon and buy some
blanks. I picked up five Memorex CD-RWs (rewritable CDs) for $5.99
and 50 Kodak CD-Rs (write once) for $24.99 at the local CompUSA. I
probably could have scored a better deal by checking DealMac,
but wanted to start today.
The VST drive ships with Toast for burning CDs, as well as an MP3
player - another area of technology I really haven't done anything
with yet.
Remembering Steve Jobs' impressive demo at Macworld, I dropped a
CD-RW into the drive and tried to mount it. After several minutes, I
had to force a restart. Next time I launched Toast and copied my Web
sites to a CD-RW. The process went smoothly, but when I tried to
mount the burned disk in the VST, all it showed was a lot of music
tracks. Putting it in the internal drive solved that problem. (This
isn't a VST problem; it's not a Toast problem; it's the OS.)
The next project was to duplicate a software CD. Toast makes that
pretty easy: choose Copy Disk, select your master, drop in a blank,
and find something else to do while Toast burns your copy.
That brings up one great drawback of this drive: it only burns at
4x. Eighteen minutes to duplicate a 710 MB CD-ROM, time which you
can't use to do anything else on your computer (give me OS X!). I
suspect this was the only way to run a CD burner from the FireWire
port at present, but I think I'd rather have an 8, 12, or 16x burner
and a power adapter to vastly reduce burn time.
I really wish this drive supported the drag-and-drop burning Jobs
demonstrated at Macworld. Toast isn't much more difficult than that,
but you do have to launch a program - you can't just drop the files
to the CD-R or CD-RW itself. Maybe that will come with a future
driver update, along with a driver for iTunes.
DVD Hints
I haven't yet watched a full DVD on the TiBook. Apple does have
several
suggestions on avoiding DVD stutter, such as:
- quit all programs
- disable virtual memory
- set color to thousands, not millions
- disable Speakable Items
- turn off AirPort networking
Screen Update
One of our readers, Brian J. Best, read about the problems I was
having with washed out colors and being unable to use the iBook or
Pismo profiles mentioned in yesterday's
article. He detailed his steps for making it work.
- Download ColorSync 2.5.1 and 3.0.1 from Apple's site.
- Install ColorSync 2.5.1 and restart the computer. (You'll have
to explicitly allow it to overwrite the newer ColorSync files on
your TiBook.)
- Put the Pismo profile into the ColorSync Profiles folder and
restart.
- Open the Monitors control panel, choose Color, and select the
Pismo profile.
- Close the control panel.
- Run the ColorSync 3.0.1 installer and restart the
computer.
It's a lot of steps, but it does the job. I am now using the Pismo
profile and find the colors improved over Apple's profile. It will be
nice to see a profile optimized for the TiBook - and Brock
Brandenberg tells me they'll have one out as soon as they have
PowerBook G4s to test them on - but this is definitely an
improvement over the stock profile.
Mouse Bounce
I mentioned that my Kensington
Mouse-in-a-Box Optical sometimes registers an extra click,
something I see using both the left button (set to single click) and
the right button (set to double click). I thought maybe this was a
TiBook problem, but have heard from two PowerBook owners (one Pismo,
not sure about the other) who have seen the same problem since
upgrading to Mac OS 9.1.
I usually avoid beta software, but I'm trying the MouseWorks 5.6
beta drivers.
The TiBook Reports
- TiBook Report #7: Zap!, 2/16/01. Great
laptop, but there's this pesky problem with static
electricity....
- TiBook Report #6, 2/8/01. Is the
PowerBook G4 really a desktop replacement? Also, more comments on
DVD playback.
- TiBook Report #5, 2/6/01. Heat
reduction with CoolPad, burning CDs, DVD tips, and more.
- TiBook Report #4, 2/5/01. Battery life,
SETI performance, and more on heat.
- TiBook: Day 2, 2/2/01. Internet
connection update, more on heat, brief benchmark discussion.
- TiBook: Day 1, 2//01. More impressions
from my first day with a PowerBook G4.
- First Impressions: TiBook, 1/31/01.
Stop the presses - I got my PowerBook G4 this afternoon.
Recent Content on Low End Mac
- OS X More Efficient than Linux, Snow Leopard and PowerPC Macs, and Eudora Woes, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 12.03.
A user reports both Panther and Leopard run more smoothly and use memory more efficiently than Linux. Also thoughts on PowerPC abandonment in Snow Leopard and replacing Eudora in Leopard.
- The Leopard Experience at 867 MHz, Simon Royal, Mac Spectrum, 12.02.
Mac OS X 10.5 requires an 867 MHz G4 with 512 MB of memory, but is performance really acceptable on a minimum spec system?
- A Used 17" PowerBook as a Budget Notebook Alternative, Charles W. Moore, 'Book Value, 12.02.
Sure, you can buy a refurbished 13.3" MacBook for under $900, but you could also have an expansive, feature laden 17" PowerBook in the same price range.
Latest Deals on Low End Mac
Go to the 'Book Page.
