In your column on 2/26, you referred to Norton Utilities but only
discussed Speed Disk. My version, albeit somewhat dated, comes with
Wipe which can do a DOD wipe of the hard drive using either numeric
or alpha characters. I think this would be as effective as Speed
Disk, assuming it is still available.
Norton 6 and 7 do come with Wipe Info, something I've never
used. It only runs under the classic Mac OS. It is not available
when running Mac OS X (I just tried), nor is it compatible
with classic mode.
You told Gabriele to look for Mac dealers who carry Mac serial
printers. I have had relatively good luck finding Mac serial printers
(usually Apple brand, but sometimes some of the HPs as well) at my
local Goodwill stores (the Portland/Vancouver area has many).
Also, instead of an Apple-only serial printer, an ethernet-capable
printer would work, provided she has an ethernet card in her
LC 475 PDS slot or a
SCSI-to-ethernet adapter (or how about those LocalTalk bridge
products?).
And, of course, the old serial-to-parallel converter trick.
Probably hard to find, but most printers with USB ports also have
parallel ports.
I can't extoll the virtues of Goodwill for Mac scroungers enough.
I managed to find a 6' SCSI cable for my wife's scanner, mice,
keyboards, a StyleWriter 6500, VGA monitors, cables, NuBus ethernet
cards, and a brand new Krups espresso machine (7 bucks!).
I'd have second thoughts about buying a secondhand inkjet
printer; I've seen too many wear out over just a few years of use.
Low-cost ethernet capable printers are few and far between,
although old tank-like Apple LaserWriters with LocalTalk are
reasonably priced on the used market.
The cost of a Mac serial-to-parallel converter plus drivers isn't
generally attractive, although I worked that way with my Mac
Plus and HP DeskJet 500 a decade ago.
Although thrift stores can be a real mixed bag when it comes to
Macs (I've only seen on, a vastly overpriced Mac Classic, in any
local thrift), Goodwill has a pretty good reputation among the
low-end Mac crowd in some areas.
I read your article "Mac OS X and a Beige G3" dated 10/21/02. I
had a similar problem installing a 120 GB WD Caviar drive in my G3. I
found that the key (I think) was to change the IDE jumper, not to
slave, master or cable select as you noted but to set it to neutral
- which on a WD means pulling the jumper out altogether or putting
it sideways from 4 to 6 (which does nothing but keep the jumper until
you need it).
I'll pass the tip along in the Low End Mac Mailbag.
I read with interest your article on OS X and viruses. I would
like to share my ideas.
I would like Apple to bring out a virus checker for OS X. In
late August I bought a G4 tower with 10.1, and a SCSI card. I
connected an Iomega SCSI 250 Zip drive. Then I loaded Norton, and all
hell broke loose (kernel panic met major crash).
When I called Apple, the tech guy and I figured out the Norton had
crashed the computer when it hit the driver software for the Zip
drive. Apparently, I had not turned off the Norton
[Anti-Virus] properly when I installed the Zip drive.
The tech guy said he had had no reports of viruses on OS X. I
got the 10.2 upgrade, left Norton off, and everything is fine
. . . except I run Internet a lot, and when the
first virus hits, I have a feeling its going to be ugly all over
again.
I don't want anything Norton on my computer. I gave the program to
my niece for her beige G3 (hand me down from me). Its fine on that
(9.1) OS.
Apple gave us a good email program, and I like the new Web
browser. So why not a basic virus checker? Something like the old
Disinfectant. A basic manual scan type that could be ran once or
twice a month.
I have checked on Tucows and have not found a shareware
checker.
I have Disinfectant, Norton Anti-Virus, and the virus scanner
that comes with a .mac subscription on my TiBook. I never use any
of them. I try them for a few days, get very tired of the delays
the impose, and turn them off because they never find anything.
Never.
In a world with tens of thousands of Windows viruses (60,000+ last
time I paid any attention), the classic Mac OS never had 100, and
OS X is at a big fat zero after almost two years on the
market. Apple is also very good about using Software Update to
patch potential vulnerabilities, such as the sendmail issue
discovered over the past week.
I have mixed feelings about an Apple antivirus program. On the one
hand, all the viruses it finds will be Windows viruses in email
attachments, which will constantly remind us what an insecure
platform Microsoft has created. On the other hand, there are no
OS X viruses and very few classic Mac OS viruses for it to
find - and some of the classic Mac viruses won't even run on a
PowerPC chip, let alone inside the classic environment.
On the gripping hand, there is the peace of mind of knowing that
your computer is virus-free and working to stay that way. If Apple
were to do this, users should have the option of letting
iNoculation in the background at all times, as part of the daily
OS X cleanup routine run during the night, or as a scheduled
task once a week. Leaving it as something the user has to run
manually could be an option - but how many users would neglect to
run it?
I don't like the intrusive way virus checkers work. If Apple could
address that, they'd have a powerful tool for Mac users and one
more strong argument to attract switchers. And one more reason for
Mac users to upgrade to the latest version of OS X - so they
could have iNoculation.
Mac Won't Shut Down
Perplexed by the behavior of his recently acquired Mac, Garret
Thompson writes:
I have a question about a Power Mac 8100/100av
(Mac OS 8) that I received from a friend. I am a Windows person and
have only just recently discovered the Mac platform; I like Macs but
know little about them.
After I first hooked up the monitor, keyboard, and mouse, I
plugged the computer into the wall, and it started booting up without
me pressing the power button. When I shut it down from the Special
menu, the OS shut down, and the monitor went blank, but the computer
itself stayed on.
Pressing the power button had no effect, and the only way to turn
it off completely was by turning off the surge protector.
The next time I turned on the surge protector, the computer again
turned on immediately. Instead of using the Special menu to shut
down, this time I just pressed the power button; the computer shut
down the same way as before, but still did not turn off.
This may be some problem with an obvious solution, but I know
nothing about Macs. Do you have any idea of what the problem may be
or who else I could ask about it? I appreciate any help you could
give me (and continue the great work done on Low
End Mac!)
The power switch on the back of some Macs, such as the ancient
Mac IIcx and your Power Mac
8100, has two positions. In the normal position, you can shut down
the computer. Pushed in and turned 90°, the power button will
not allow a complete shut down. This is ideal for servers, but not
so good for users who want to shut down the computer.
To solve your problem, hold down the power button on the rear of
the computer and turn it 90° in whichever direction it lets
you turn it. This should let you shut down any time you want to
without ever touching the surge strip.
Flash [memory] sure does improve PowerBook performance. I
have used it on a PB 520 and a
PB 540, and it works. System 7.5.5
or 8.1. 32 or 64 MB CF (Compact Flash). I can boot from CF in a
garden variety CF adapter slid into a Rev B card cage. Mileage may
vary with Rev A or Rev C card cages - I've no experience with
them.
Also, there are some CF cards that simply won't work and cause a
crash whether they have a boot system on them or not. Those same
ditzy CF cards usually work just fine in a PB
3400.
But those CF cards that do work result in faster boot, faster
running, slightly faster Internet access, and the HD can be dropped
into the trash for longer battery life. Everything you said - except
you noted that it wouldn't work in a 540 or 520. Works fine. I'd love
to try it with a 256 or 512 MB CF card and never need my HD.
Thanks for the field report. It would be interesting to figure
out why some CF cards work in the 520/540 and others don't.
Memory prices are coming down, and CF speed is improving. I read
earlier this week that one of the companies (Delkin?) now offers a
line of "extreme" CF cards twice as fast as their old ones - and
at under US$400 for a 1 GB card. And less, of course, for the
256 MB and 512 MB cards.
I'd love to find a way to inexpensively adapt CF cards to SCSI,
which could make for a whisper quiet Mac Plus and hard drive
performance, a really low power consumption PB
100, a much lighter Mac
Portable (only half kidding - the 10 hour battery life and
active matrix screen are great, but the clunky old 3.5" hard drive
is pretty pathetic), etc.
IDE adapters are cheap, since the CF protocol is directly related
to IDE, but SCSI is another store entirely. A SCSI to IDE to CF
setup would cost $100 or so - a bit steep for use with ancient
Macs.
Where to Get Claris Home Page
The Jimster writes:
While it may be difficult to find any kind of copy (demo or
commercial) of Claris Home Page 3.0, such is not the case with CHP
2.0, which is about as good. To find it, you must get Google off the
brain and scut around. The MacAddict "the disc" for April 1997 has
the CHP2 demo on it. It also has the CHP1 to CHP2 updaters for those
with a legit copy of the earlier product. There's only about a
half million of those disks out there.
But there's an equally easy source. Anybody who bought the
ClarisWorks 5 install CD has a CHP2 demo in the tryout folder.
There's probably only a million of those out there.
You're starting to scare me, Dan. I've come to rely on your Mac
advice as gospel. Surely you knew where this stuff was?
Surely you jest. Why would I have any idea what MacAddict put
on their CDs six years ago? I don't think I ever subscribed to the
magazine, and the only MacAddict CDs in my collection are from the
August 1999 and August 2000 issues - probably picked up for free
at the Macworld Expo in New York.
Ditto for ClarisWorks 5. I never saw any reason to upgrade from
4.0, which was practically perfect in every way. The only reason
I'm using 6.x today is that my wife got an iBook, and I needed to
be able to work with her AppleWorks files.
I was trying to find a source for Home Page that anyone with Web
access could use. Even if I'd known about the demos on the
MacAddict and ClarisWorks CDs, these may not be items the average
Mac user will be able to lay hands on readily.
You scare me, Jimster. Nobody should be so preoccupied with their
computer that they know the contents of every MacAddict CD.
;-)
Where to Download Home Page 2.0
Todd Ronnei found what I was unable to:
Here's a site where the CHP 2.0 demo can still be downloaded:
Thanks! Interested readers can download the 2.6 MB file and
try one of the finest WYSIWYG webpage design programs ever.
Wants to Swap so He can Switch
So as not to embarrass him, I won't use Gary's last name. He
writes:
First let me say I love your site. Low
End Mac has taught me a great deal about older Macs and Macs in
general.
I need your help with a problem. Due to job requirements, I'm
considering switching from the PC to the Mac. currently I have an
Emachine 1.7 GHz desktop with 384 meg RAM and a 40 gig hard disk.
Modem and ethernet built in. Plus a high speed external CD-RW. And,
of course, keyboard and mouse.
Do you know anyone who might be willing to do a straight across
trade for an iBook in the 466-500 MHz range?
You're looking to swap a cheap Wintel clone system for an
iBook worth in the ballpark of $700? I don't think it's going to
happen, but if anyone out there is interested in following up on
such an offer, please email me. I'll forward your reply to
Gary.
Good call on the beige G3. When my daughter bought a G4/450,
I inherited her old G3/233 and
decided to give the upgrade path a try. I figured that I could get
the computer running at 400 MHz with a G4 ZIF processor and a Rev. C
ROM for about $200.
I discovered, however, that this is trickier than it might appear.
In my experience, getting a 400 MHz G4 to run stably with the
backside cache enabled is no cakewalk. The machine, to its credit,
seemed to run fine with the cache disabled, but the loss of the cache
didn't seem worth the gain of 167 MHz.
When the cache was turned on with either the PowerForce Cache
Profiler or the XLR8 Speed Control Panel the machine would soon lock
up. I suspect it was a RAM incompatibility, but I didn't feel like
taking the time and, quite likely, the expense of replacing RAM
modules on what was supposed to be $200 G4/400. Nor did I want to
spend days researching the various possibilities which may have
produced the problem if the RAM wasn't the culprit.
I am not technically inclined in that way; if it isn't truly
plug-and-play, I'll probably take my ball and go home. To make a long
story short I am getting rid of the processor and ROM and will be
saving my pennies for an Apple G4/450 like my daughter's. It has
proven to be very stable, comes with better video, a DVD-RAM, and is
OS X ready.
This machine, as I have noted by following your price lists, has
also experienced a large drop in price over the past month or so.
Thanks, as usual, for a timely and informative site.
Thanks for the kind words. We have a beige G3 with a faster
CPU, USB card, Ultra66 drive controller, and faster hard drive.
It's an interesting learning experience, and at the time (a year
ago) the beige G3 seemed like a pretty good deal.
In retrospect, although it makes for some great upgrade articles
and a lot of practical hands on experience, a blue & white G3
would have been a better choice, as
I explained yesterday. Then again, this is Low End Mac, and I
did want to work with one of the least powerful machines that
supported OS X. It's done that.
You don't mention what brand of G4 ZIF you're plugging into your
beige G3, which leads me to suspect it's an Apple module. If so,
it's specifically designed to run on a 100 MHz system bus. Most of
the third-party G4 upgrades were designed to handle either the 66
MHz bus of the beige G3 or the 100 MHz bus of the blue &
white. Since Apple's CPUs were never designed for use as upgrades,
there is no reason for them to support the slower bus speed on
your beige G3. Since the cache is probably designed to only work
with a 100 MHz memory bus, that's probably why you're experiencing
crashes when you enable it.
Selling your G4/400 to someone with a blue & white G3 would
also be problematic due to the
oft decried firmware upgrade that removed G4 support from the
b&w G3. You might be stuck with that G4 processor.
Until you're ready to go for a Sawtooth G4 (which we'll be
praising in tomorrow's Mac Daniel column), try overclocking your
G3/233 by adjusting settings on the
J16 jumper block. You can probably run it at 266 MHz (a 14%
boost) and may find it stable at 300 MHz (29% more power).
In 1968 I bought a DT 233 MHz G3.
I have upgraded it over the years with:
an XLR8 450 MHz G4
768 meg RAM
an LDG combo drive
various hard disks, both SCSI and IDE
ATI 7000 so I can watch DVDs
a combo USB/FW card
an Initio Miles Ultra wide SCSI card and lots of extra bits
and pieces.
I will probably keep it until the IBM 970s appear - or whatever
Apple serves up as a modern CPU replacement. No real problems. A
very satisfied customer.
However, I read:
"But the Rev. A ROMs of the earliest beige G3s doesn't support
slave drives, a problem that can be solved with a ROM transplant.
With the Rev. A ROM, the beige G3 only supports 2 IDE devices;
with Rev. B and later, it supports 2 masters and 2 slaves."
This is certainly so in OS 9 and before, but it is certainly not
so in OS X. At boot time the initialization routines patch the
ROMs and allow the presence of slave devices on both of the IDE/ATAPI
buses [0 and 1]. This is not a maybe thing, it is real, and I
can attest to it, since the Rev A beige DT before me has an IBM 45
gig as master on 0 and a 55 gig WD as slave on 0, and my LG
CD-R/RW/DVD is master on 1 and the original 4 gig WD does yeomen duty
as slave on 1.
There were initial rumors about data corruption by putting
'unsupported' drives as slaves on rev A beige machines, but I have
never seen this in multiple machines that I have set up. Just don't
put anything on the slave drives that you might need if you boot into
OS 9. While the drives are there in classic [mode], they
are certainly not there in stand-alone-boot in 9.
Thank you for a very nice article about a machine that I regard as
the SE/30 of the 90s.
Thanks for raising this point. I know I'd read it somewhere
before, but it didn't come to mind while writing Monday's article.
I'll be sure to note it when I write an "almost a best buy"
profile of the beige G3 for our Best Buys section.
Also thanks for explicitly noting that the ROM patch is a
temporary thing that only functions while booted into OS X.
Beige G3 owners who attempt to use slave drives when booted in
OS 9 (such as from a Disk Warrior or Norton Utilities CD)
will have no access to those drives.
"The SE/30 of the 90s," eh? It's an interesting image. The SE/30
was the most powerful b&w compact and the last to use the SE
enclosure. The beige G3 was the most powerful Mac in a normal
desktop case, the last to use the case designed for the 7500. The
SE/30 could be accelerated with a next generation 68040; the beige
G3 supports a next generation G4. The SE/30 suffered from "dirty"
ROMs; the beige G3 suffers from the slave drive issue and
pedestrian IDE. The SE/30 had very limited onboard graphics; the
video in the beige G3 is also a drawback in the age of
OS X.
I think your analogy has merit. I originally thought of the
Power Mac 7500, but that's more
like the legendary Mac IIci -
three expansion slots, easy access to the insides, more CPU
upgrade options than you can shake a stick at, decent onboard
video that could really be improved with an add-on video card. So,
yes, we'll call the beige G3 the SE/30 of the 90s.
Letters sent may be published at our discretion. Email addresses will
not be published unless requested. If you prefer that your message
not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be
edited for length, context, and to match house
style.
Dan Knight has been publishing Low
End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.
Mac of the Day: iMac Core2, Sep. 2006 - Apple introduced the biggest screen ever in an iMac with a 24" Core2 Duo model at 2.16 GHz.
List of the Day: Old Mac MP covers 604-based multiprocessor Macs and clones.
September 6 in LEM history: 99: G4 vs. Pentium III - 00: Setting up a server - 02: Norton Utilities warning - 10 greatest computer annoyances - 06: iMac Core2 Duo - Mac mini Core Duo - The iMac Core2 value equation - 07: Apple seduction - Why I really want an iPod touch - iPod history, 2005 to present - Upgrading a Power Mac G - Apple intros iPod touch, classic, and video nano
Listen to Just the Music with the V-Moda Vibe Earbuds, Tommy Thomas, Welcome to Macintosh, 09.05.
Well built, the noise canceling earbuds will let you hear all the nuances of your music without letting through background noise.
Best iPod touch Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.05.
Refurb 8 GB, $199; new, $284; refurb 16 GB, $299; new, $370; refurb 32 GB, $399; new, $453.
Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.05.
Used 1.83 GHz Core Duo, $999; 2.16, $1,125; new, 2.2, $1,450 after rebate; refurb 2.4, $1,699; 2.5, $1,999; 2.6 Santa Rosa, $1,849; rebates on new.
Best iMac G4 Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.05.
Used 15" 700 MHz CD-RW, $279; 800 Combo, $300; 1 GHz $390; 17" 800 MHz SD, $439; 1.25 GHz, $449; 20", $569.
Tomorrow's Solid State Drives and Notebooks, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, 09.04.
Flash drives are great but have some shortcomings. Some thoughts on building better SSDs and notebooks to use them.
Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.04.
Used 867 MHz Combo, no APX, $490; 1 GHz, $550; SuperDrive, $625; 1.5 GHz w/o APX, $660; w/APX, $675.
Best Mac mini Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.04.
Used 1.25 GHz G4 SD, $549; 1.42 Combo, $409; new 1.83 Core2 Combo, $569 after rebate; 2.0 SD, $769 after rebate.
Best 17" PowerBook G4 Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.04.
Used 1 GHz, $779; 1.33 GHz, $799; 1.5 GHz, $859; 1.67 GHz, $910.
11 Mac Browsers Compared, Simon Royal, Mac Spectrum, 09.03.
The latest versions of Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Shiira, iCab, Radon, Firefox, Netscape Navigator, SeaMonkey, Flock, and Camino tested in Leopard.
Best eMac Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.03.
Used 700 MHz Combo, $120; 1.25 GHz SuperDrive, $150; 1.42 GHz, $349.
Best Mac OS X 10.5 'Leopard' Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.03.
Mac OS X 10.5, single user, $99; 5 users, $140; 10.5 Server, 10 users, $395; unlimited, $850.
Best MacBook Air Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.03.
Refurb 1.6 HD, $1,499; new, $1,690 after rebate; refurb 1.8, $1,699; new, $1,919 a/r; refurb 1.6 SSD, $2,099; new, $2,294 a/r; refurb 1.8, $2,299; new, $2,400 a/r.
Psystar Strikes Back, Countersues Apple, Frank Fox, Stop the Noiz, 09.03.
Psystar is trying to paint Apple as a monopoly and force it to license the Mac OS.
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