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The Low End Mac Link Archive, September
2000
Low End Mac Reader Specials
Memory To Go Special: MacPro 8 Core 8GB kit $232 / 4GB kit $116 / 2GB kit $72. New Macbook 2GB DDR3-$65. HARD DRIVES available -- Free shipping / LIfetime warranty.
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External news links are listed below by the date of publication
with the most recent articles listed at the top, older ones below
them. Other monthly archive indexes are linked on the right. Links
were correct when originally posted. However, we cannot guarantee
that these links are still active.
Opinion: Apple now
a delicious buy?, Michelle Delio, Wired, 9/29. "The Cube should
have appeared to those who wanted a little something more than the
iMac, but Apple set the price too high. It's priced for Power users
but doesn't have the features they want."
Opinion: The sky's
not falling, Dennis Sellers & Jim Dalrymple, MacCentral,
9/29. "Apple isn't losing money this quarter, it's just not making
as much money as expected."
Opinion: Perspective on
Apple's fall, Motley Fool, 9/29. "While some investors are
licking their wounds today, others are licking their chops and
thinking 'buy.'"
Web: EarthLink
issues $30,000 bill to Halo fan, Inside Mac Games, 9/29.
Popularity can kill your bank account; "excessive bandwidth usage"
leads to $30k in ISP fees.
AAPL: AAPL cut in
half by yesterday's profit warning, Wes George , Mac Observer,
9/29. "This is the first time Apple has missed earnings in over a
dozen quarters and the biggest one day drop in Apple's stock price
ever."
Software: FileMaker
FMP Reverter, A FileMaker Affliction. Reverter creates
FileMaker 4 files from FileMaker 5 files.
Low End: Get your
compact Mac on the Web, Jag's House. Seminal article on getting
a Mac Plus, SE, Classic, Portable, or PowerBook 100 on the
Internet.
OS X: Road to
OS X: Things to fix, Dennis Sellers, MacCentral, 9/28. The beta
is promising, but missing some very helpful features Mac users are
used to.
Opinion: Failings of the
PowerPC collaboration, Bob Snow, Go2Mac.com, 9/28. "The life
cycle of a personal computer is just too short to include
technology for which their is not full utilization."
Promises, promises: Motorola G5
chip will achieve 2 GHz, Dennis Sellers, MacCentral, 9/27. And
the G4 will hit 1 GHz. Question is, why can't they get past 500 MHz
today?
Here today, gone tomorrow:
Motorola removes 550 MHz chip, MacSlash, 9/27. Motorola has
removed all mention of a 550 MHz PPC 7410 from the press release
that announced it a day earlier. :-(
Spam:
Microsoft's new spamming technique, Slashdot, 9/27. "Microsoft
is now testing a beta version of their MSN Explorer that sends
e-mails to everyone in your Outlook Address, informing them that
your e-mail address has changed and invites them to to try
MSN."
Low End: CD on
CC, Stuart Bell, Colour Classic Compendium. Not one, not two,
but three different Colour Classics beautifully modified with
internal CD-ROM drives.
Opinion: iBook in high school:
Newbies, Dave Egger, MacMonkey. "The style of the iBook seems
to have been the biggest hit of all. How can it not be?"
News: HP downsizes
workspace, The Register, 9/26 [Win98 Central]. "In a move
straight out of Dilbert, HP
is trying to save money by making its staff work in more cramped
conditions."
Low End:
SE/30 with internal CD-ROM, Fantastic Things. They said it
couldn't be done. Here's how you can do it. (Tomorrow: Colour
Classics with internal CD-ROM drives!)
Humor:
Letter i found dead, Stephen Van Esch, Segfault.org. "The
letter i was found floating in a river just outside Palo Alto,
California early yesterday morning...."
Opinion: Changing
the world, one Mac disser at a time, Mac Observer, 9/21. When a
Denver TV station hyped Wintel machines as the only computers to
buy, one Mac user educated them.
Virus: UBS warns of new
virus, CNNfn, 9/21. Subject "Funny Story" or "When did you
die?" could mean trouble for Outlook and Outlook Express users as
virus steals PIN number - only on Windows, of course. (Also see
our virus page.)
Opinion: Top 10 coolest
PowerBook accessories, Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac, 9/21.
You might quibble about importance, but some very good
suggestions.
Analysis: iBook SE vs. PC
laptops comparison, Dave Egger, MacMonkey, 9/21. "I would
compare the 466 MHz iBook to a desktop Pentium III 700."
Hands On: iMAXpowr G3 and G4,
MyMac, 9/00. In many real-world tests, the G3/466 "felt quicker"
than the G4/433 - something LEM has maintained for some
time.
Advice: Tape drives
for backup: You get what you pay for, Stephan Somogyi,
Macworld. Backup is a must, especially with today's huge hard
drives. We agree with Somogyi: the Ecrix VXA drive is a real winner
(it's what we use at Low End Mac).
Opinion:
How big is your hard drive?, Ceolaf, MacinThoughts, Applelust,
9/20. Why would anyone need 80 GB of storage?
Analysis: Surf
and be happy, PC World, 9/20 [Win98 Central]. "People who
use the Web at work are more productive, do better work, and feel
happier and less stressed."
OS X: Inside the
public beta, Stephen Beale, MacWeek, 9/19. "...you won't
appreciate how much you've relied on the Apple menu and Application
Switcher until you run Mac OS X."
Connectivity: Why IM matters
so much, UpsideToday, 9/19. The issues behind the Instant
Messenger war. (Discuss this article on
MacSlash.)
Advice:
Spam, spam, spam, Joe Carson, All Mac Considered, Applelust,
9/19. "Interestingly enough, no major corporation is stupid enough
to engage in this sort of useless time and money wasting nonsense."
(Also see our Spam Filtering
Guide.)
Opinion: Apple's
controlling desires, Matthew Rothenberg, ZDNet, 9/18. "I'm
going to suggest that what Apple defines as a rumor is far broader
than what most of its supporters seem to believe."
Opinion: ZDNet,
Chiat/Day, and journalistic bias, David Schultz, Applelust,
9/18. "Speculation is not a rumor, and neither is a guess or
educated guess based in history..."
Opinion:
Road Warrior Mailbag, Charles W. Moore, Mac Opinion, 9/18.
Especially see comments by David W. Murray on Newer Tech 466 MHz
WallStreet upgrade.
Connectivity: DSL users
can't get no satisfaction, Dennis Sellers, MacCentral, 9/18.
"Telecommunications industry estimates of the percentage of phone
lines that are technically fit for DSL range from 30 to 60."
Opinion:
Does USB cause system slowdown?, MacSlash, 9/18. The writer may
be on to something. I can't quantify it, but suspect adding USB to
an older Mac may slow it down.
OS X: No
printer drivers in sight for OS X, MacWeek, 9/15. Sorry, but
you just won't be able to print to those Epson, HP, Canon, and
other USB ink-jet printers for a while.
Analysis: Notebooks to
take quarter of PC market in 2000, Tony Smith, The Register,
9/14. PowerBooks were just 10% of Apple's unit sales in FY1999.
AAPL Investors puts that figure at about 21% for Q3 2000.
Hands on: SweetMail
1.9.3, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 9/15. "I have been trying
to think of something I dislike about SweetMail, and not coming up
with much."
Rumor? Mac OS X on
68k Macs, Jag's House. How to run Mac OS X on a Quadra. Really.
;-)
Rumor: Mac
Sphere? (IE users, choose QuickTime plugin to see this PNG
image)
Opinion: Regarding
your Mac site: You are free!, John H. Farr, Applelinks, 9/15.
"Corporate suppression of unfavorable news is an ongoing 21st
century scandal."
OS X: Reader impressions of
public beta, Xappeal, 9/14. "Overall impression: while there
are still a few rough edges that make it obvious that this is a
beta, the quality is astonishing overall."
Web: Ad
agency threatens Mac media, ZDNet, 9/14. "Apple Computer Inc.'s
advertising agency is offering Mac publications a choice: Get out
of the rumors business or lose Apple's business." Last I knew,
Apple didn't run ads on any of the Mac sites.... (Discuss on MacSlash)
Hardware: In
depth: FireWire iBook, MacNN, 9/14. Thoughtful overview of
Apple's newest computers. Question: Just what are we going to
call the new models?
Software: Eradicator
1.5, Searchware Solutions, 9/14. Freeware utility for OS 9
users deletes temporary files the Mac OS leaves behind.
Opinion: iBook narrows
consumer-pro gap, Jason O'Grady, ZDNet, 9/14. The title really
says it all. Unless you need a bigger screen, go for the
iBook.
Web: Windows Me
Central, keep track of the dark side. From the folks who run
Win98Central. It's
nice to see a Win site with the same kind of feel we're used to on
the Mac side.
MacInSchool: NC
school system abandoning the Mac?, Dennis Sellers, MacCentral,
9/14. Director of Technology Services cites limited staffing, cost
of repair parts, cross-platform integration, and networking
difficulties as reasons to stop buying Macs. (In the real world,
Macs need less support, rarely need repairs, work well with PCs,
and network nicely.)
Opinion: Anticipation and key
lime, Dave Egger, MacMonkey. The new iBooks are great, but that
new color....
Opinion:
Retrospective: The PowerBook 500 Series, Charles W. Moore, Road
Warrior, Mac Opinion, 9/13. The first PowerBook that was a viable
alternative to a desktop Mac.
OS X: OS X Public Beta available for order from Apple Store for
US$29.95 shipped - or add $10 for 3-day shipping via FedEx. (I've
got mine on order!)
Hardware: G3 upgrade for
7200, 8200, Sonnet, 9/13. Generally considered beyond hope of
an upgrade, these Power Macs can soon be accelerated with a 400 MHz
G3 for US$500.
Hardware: Radeon
comes to G4, Cube, MacCentral, 9/13. ATI's hot new video card
now a build-to-order option from the Apple Store.
Review: Logitech
Optical Wheel Mouse, Everything iMac & iBook, 9/13
[Macs Only!]. "...the
Logitech Optical Wheel Mouse is a steal and comes with a 5 year
warranty." $34.95 shipped from Outpost.com
Low End: The MacAttic,
old Macs repaired, old Macs for sale.
Low End: Salvaged Mac
Pluses, Matt Waters. These two abused Macs go beyond the old
Timex slogan, "Takes a licking, keeps on ticking."
Opinion: The
Megahertz can of worns, Michel Munger, 9/12. "The bottom line
is that if megahertz hurt Apple's image for speed, something has to
happen."
Opinion: Simply
Web, Rob Stevenson, Mac OS Journal. Did you know the first
publicly available graphical browser, Mosaic, was introduced in
Sept. 1993? That makes the Web as we know it seven years old -
twice as old as Low End Mac.
OS X:
Inside Mac OS X Public Beta, ZDNet, 9/11. Requires 128 MB RAM,
1.5 GB drive space. List of unsupported things is vast: most
third-party video cards, AirPort, multiple monitors, second ATA
drives, more. :-(
MacInSchool: One becomes many: The
Kittridge School story, Fred Showker, UGAcademy, 9/00. School
purchases 185 iMacs, community works to improve facility.
Web: Macfreewares, where all the
software is free.
Opinion: Get a
Compaq and put the old Mac to rest, Frank Ruffel, Right On
Mac!, 9/11. What do you say when the person who hooked you on the
Mac decides to go Windows?
News: Group
claims Apple protest cancelled, Kyle D'Addario, Mac Observer,
9/11. "Instead of a protest, members of the group have a
closed-door meeting planned with Apple Europe executives next
week." Cool!
Preview: Office
2001, Carson Baker, Holy Mac, 9/10. Take a close look at
Entourage, the email and information management side of Office
2001. Looks too much like Outlook Express for this Emailer user,
but sounds very impressive.
Advice: A free board for
surfing the Internet, Macinterpreter.com. Where Mac users can
get free Web access, free email, and other free Internet
services.
Advice:
Budget laptop hunting, David Grimmer, MacSlash, 9/9. "Since a
lot of older laptops max out at 12 or 16 MB of memory, even a
fully-loaded system is going to be pushed to the limits by your
software."
Connectivity: High-speed
Web access goes rural, Des Moines Register, 9/7. Slower than
AirPort, but with a 6- to 8-mile range, wireless Internet access
looks like a winner.
Opinion:
Forget Circuit City. I'm working at Micro Center, Rodney O.
Lain, Mac Observer, 9/8. "...there wasn't just a Mac section in the
back corner, á la CompUSA, there was actually a
respectable-looking, immaculate Mac Department."
Technology: Serial ATA
waits in the wings, MacWeek, 9/8. Every major hard drive
manufacturer and most major PC makers, except Apple, are involved
in 150 MBps protocol.
Review:
Six great things about Photoshop 6, Derrick Stgory,
Webreview.com, 9/8. "Adobe has fixed the one thing that Photoshop
was really lousy at: text handling."
Opinion: An open
letter to Seiko-Epson, Bruce Fraser, MacWeek, 9/8. Problem with
Stylus Photo 870/1270 and Premium Glossy Paper. (I just got my 870
yesterday. I'm looking forward to testing it over the
weekend.)
Review: Windows Me,
Windows98Central, 9/8. Due for release the day after OS X Beta, new
Windows takes 25-40 minutes to install.
Rights: Downtime by law, Suck,
9/8 [Slashdot]. "Millions use
the Internet without the slightest idea that their rights are being
stripped away...."
Advice: Turn off
your modem's sound, MacInstruct. If you hate the screeeeeching
as much as I do, read this article.
Duh: Net gamblers
believe casino sites are fixed, Computer User, 9/7. [Win98Central]. About 60
percent of Internet users who place bets online believe the games
they play are rigged. The rest of us should be savvy enough not to
gamble online. ;-)
Opinion: (Dawning
of a) new Mac era, Stephan Somogyi, ZDNet, 9/6. Best argument
yet for Apple supporting pre-G3 hardware.
Web: Death
of the websafe color palette?, Webmonkey, 9/6. Across browsers,
operating systems, and bit-depth, only 22 of the 216 "websafe"
colors are completely safe. OTOH, Mac browsers are consistent. (See
discussion at
Slashdot.)
News:
Microsoft jumps back into sub-notebooks, Stephanie Miles,
c|net, 9/6. Smaller than a notebook computer, but larger than a
PDA, HPC 2000 includes keyboard, runs WinCE software.
Advice:
How to design a bad Web site, Nancy O. Johnson, Applelust, 9/5.
"All the bells & whistles in the world won't help a bad
website... in fact, they will do just the opposite."
Connectivity: Can
you escape "DSL Hell"?, ZDNet, 9/5. We've had ours on order
for, well, it seems like forever.
Virus: "Donald Duck"
virus on the loose, c|net, 9/5. Trojan horse proliferating
mainly in Philippines at present. Windows only, of course.
Rumor? Return of the Compact
Mac, Anakin Onesimus. Apple to complete product matrix with
compact flat panelled Cube.
News: Protest
planned for Apple Expo, aim to disrupt Jobs' keynote, Kyle
D'Addario, Mac Observer, 9/5. "Apple needs to adapt the way it
deals with these people [fans, webmasters] and find some other way
of dealing with them other than sending in the lawyers."
Opinion:
What's happening at Motorola?, MacUser UK. "...three years ago
PowerPC 604's were clocked at 350MHz while the Pentium was a mere
150MHz. So what's gone wrong?"
Opinion:
Apple, give us alternative processors, not just multiple ones,
Kelly McNeill, osOpinion, 9/5. "...approximately 1/3 [of surveyed
Windows users] said that they were so dissatisfied with their
current OS that they would eagerly dump it in exchange for OS
X."
Opinion:
PowerBook 5300 exposed, Charles W. Moore, Road Warrior, Mac
Opinion, 9/5. The PowerBook 5300 gets fixed under Apple's repair
extension.
Analysis: Internet
no longer US dominated, Macworld UK, 9/5. That may overstate
things a bit, but the Internet is becoming a truly international
medium.
Analysis: Macintosh
vs. PC: The DSL wars, Josh Munce, MacInterpreter. Macs have
been ready for ethernet, therefor DSL, for almost a decade. Windows
computers? That's another story.
