Top Links: December 2000

Mac News Today

The Low End Mac Link Archive, December 2000

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: Why Newer failed and how Apple may follow, Bob Moriarty, MacCPU Café, 12/29. "You can have truly superior products and unlimited demand and still fail. All you have to do is consider your customers the enemy."
Opinion: Darek's dirty little secrets: Things every Mac and PC user should know!, Darek Mihocka, Emulators Inc. Lots of very helpful information for Mac and PC users.
Analysis: Everything you ever wanted to know about CPRM, but ZDNet wouldn't tell you..., The Register, 12/29. "Content Protection for Recordable Media is a mechanism for controlling the copying, moving and deletion of digital media...."
Opinion: Step backward to go forward, John Holmes, osOpinion, 12/29. "...Apple's only hope for survival is to get OS X on as many boxes as they can, as quickly as they can."
Consumer: Week's best iBook, PowerBook deals, PowerBook Central, 12/29.
News: Newer Technology closes doors, MacNN, 12/28. A real loss to the Mac community, since Newer made some of the finest accelerators on the market. Also see article on MacCentral.
Software: iCab Preview 3.3 available, iCab.de [Macs Only!]. iCab now supports Mac OS X.
OS: LinuxPPC 200 Q4 released, LinuxPPC.com, [ Slashdot]. Latest rev available on bootable CD for Cube, dual processor G4s, "Pismo" PowerBook.
Analysis: Slower than its predecessor: Pentium 4, David Pogue, NY Times (registration required), 12/28. Unthinkable? Not to Intel, whose 1.5 GHz P4 is slower than a 1 GHz PIII.
Opinion: Apple is beleaguered! Everybody off the bandwagon!, Michel Munger, On the Flip Side, Mac Observer, 12/27. "...such situations are complex and nobody could pretend to grasp all of them."
Analysis: Pentium 4: In depth, Emulators, Inc., 12/27 [ Slashdot]. "...Intel's new flagship Pentium 4 processor turns out to be an engineering disaster...."
Advice: Printable guide for new Mac users, Nancy Carrol Gravley, Mac Observer, 12/27. Getting started with the Mac, step by step.
Analysis: Top UI grievances of Mac OS X, Dave Giovannini, osOpinion, 12/27. Read this article to better understand why OS X is different.
Opinion: Vaporware 2000. missing in action, Wired, 12/27. List includes Bluetooth, Itanium (aka Itanic), OS X, and several games. Which is #1?
Opinion: Something to ruin your holiday digestion, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 12/26. Piracy preventing hard drives? Proposal protects copyright, but wrecks lots of other things. (Also, good discussion on Slashdot.)
Charity: Washington Apple Pi delivers 25 refurb Macs to families in DC, Mac Observer, 12/26. "One of the beautiful things about the Mac has always been its longevity as a useful machine"
Humor: Zap the PRAM, Macboy.com. This week, an animated cartoon.
Opinion: Ode on a Blue G3 (dead link), Niko Coucouvanis, MacAddict, 12/26. "That's right- I use a machine that's nearly two years old, and I love it, Moore's law be damned. "
Opinion: Top 10 security stories of 2000, ZDNet, 12/24 [Win98 Central]. Three Windows worms, site hacks, stolen credit card numbers- and no mention of the Mac or Unix.
Opinion: Cube-PowerBook hybrid a bad idea?, MacSlash, 12/22.
Benchmarks: Dual G4/500 smokes 1.4 GHz P4, Bare Feats, 12/22. Power Mac G4/500MP beats 1.4 GHz P4 machine in Photoshop, Cinema, Bryce, and Quake III Arena tests. Just wait until we close that MHz gap. ;-)
Analysis: The LCD update: Still no headaches, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl. After several months with LCD monitors, headaches remain at bay. Also, prices should drop in the coming year.
Tech: Table of RAM compatibility for 68k Macs, Jag's House. Almost everything you'd want to know about memory upgrades for Macs (except what capacity SIMMs each model supports).
News: Classic Mac club plans Xmas party, Macworld UK, 12/21. Stuart Bell and "the pickle" will be in attendance at Dec. 28 get-together for members of Mac UK list.
MacInSchool: A gaggle of LC IIIs, part 2, Steve Wood, View From the Classroom, 12/21. Ongoing project to provide special ed students with take-home computers.
Advice: Enough Mac (& other) holiday links to choke a Microsoft exec, Nancy Gravley, Mac Observer, 1/20. You might also want to read her Mac cookie recipe.
SETI@home breaks 500,000 years, Slashdot, 12/20. No sign of ET, but 2.6 million users have completed over 2.5 billion work units. (See SETIonMac for more info.)
Virus: Kriz virus makes return appearance, ZDNet/Yahoo, 12/20. Virus piggybacks on other viruses, strikes on Dec. 25, wipes hard drive and BIOS on PCs, currently ranked #8 infector by Trend Micro.
Tech: Can disk drives keep up with faster PCs?, Cnet, 12/19. Serial ATA designed to replace parallel ATA for drive, compete with FireWire, improve performance, and reduce cost.
Science: Time for change, Fox News, 12/18 [ Slashdot]. Proposal for "human calendar" with 13 months of 28 days seems sensible, but we're such a change-resistant species.
Review: Three photo printers, Digital Camera Resource Page, 12/17. Quality, speed, consumables, and more.
Tech: What is an HFS Wrapper?, Ask Al, Alsoft, 12/19. "Only the Mac OS 9.0.x System file contains the errant wrapper System file startup code."
Tech: Multiprocessing in Mac OS X, David Read, MacWeek, 12/19. Good explanation of cooperative vs. preemptive multiprocessing and support for multiple CPUs.
Opinion: Mac Daddy psychoanalyzes George Clinton, Apple spiffs & other Cupertino flaws, Rodney O. Lain, iBrotha, 12/19. "Each product has a fatal flaw in it. You know, you could be on to something!"
Analysis: Macintosh fellowship, David Schultz, Applelust.com, 12/18. "This is the best argument I know that Apple needs its own retail stores: Only a Mac lover can sell Macs- one cannot fake it."
AAPL: Apple's K-10 and Apple's future, Wes George, Apple Trader, Mac Observer, 12/18. "...complex systems never fail for simple reasons."
Technology: Ten passed technologies, Nick Montfort, Technology Review [Slashdot]. Elegant technologies that are disappearing.
Virus: More than 54,000 virus threats exist today, ZDNet Asia, 12/18 [Win98 Central]. And 99.9% of them can't touch the Mac. :-)
Opinion: Corporate arrogance and fan websites, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 12/18. "Warner Bros has . . . provided Apple with an object lesson in how to address the issue of fan support websites...."
Web: We now interrupt your browsing for this commercial message, Susan Stellin, New York Times, 12/18 [free registration required]. I usually stop visiting sites with popup ads and can't see why advertisers would prefer them. (Good discussion on Slashdot.)
News: Canadian government goudges recordable media consumers deeper, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 12/18. Levy ranges from 21-77 cents for CD-R, CD-RW, audio tape.
Humor: Zap the PRAM, Macboy.com, 12/18. Today, a look at mammals.org.
Opinion: Rid thyself of angst concerning OS X on pre-G3 Macs, Bryan Chaffin, Back Page, Mac Observer, 12/15. "...if you are doing the things you do today two years from now, your Mac will still be performing just as well then as it does today"
Analysis: End of an era: 3dfx selling assets & shutting down, Bryan Chaffin, Mac Observer, 12/15. "The bad news is that this leaves ATI as the only participant in the Mac market."
Hack: Wrappers for your G4 Cube, Patrick O'Kelly, ResExcellence, 12/15. How to change the appearance of the Cube- the computer itself, not the desktop.
News: Flat-panels prices "set to halve," Macworld UK, 12/15. By next Christmas, flat panel displays may cost half as much. $2,000 Cinema Display anyone?
Advice: Putting your old fax machine to rest, Paul Shields, Business Mac, 12/15. A look at Mac fax solutions.
Software: Apple Disk First Aid v8.6 covered at Macs Only!, 12/15. Among other things, this fixes a "Wrapper System file error." It has found this error on almost every partition we've run it on- and fixed it.
Opinion: Should OS X be dumbed down?, Rodney O. Lain, iBrotha, Mac Observer, 12/15. "...the computer needs to take on a level of complexity that would never have been accepted by the masses of old."
News: Microsoft says profits will miss forecasts, Yahoo/Reuters, 12/15. Apple, Gateway, Compaq, Intel, Microsoft- the list keeps growing.
Opinion: Why Apple didn't die, Marc Zeedar, Mac Opinion, 12/14. "No ordinary PC company could have survived the mistakes Apple made."
Opinion: It's like a little office, John Holmes, osOpinion, 12/13. "Wasn't the whole reason for the Mac's creation, to allow all of us to feel comfortable in front of our machines?"
2000. Year in review, MacFixIt, 12/13. Well, someone had to be first.
Opinion: On bloatware and good enough software, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 12/13.
Opinion: The quality issue: Are Macs built as well as they should be?, Charles W. Moore, Road Warrior, Mac Opinion, 12/12. "American technology companies accept 'good enough' quality for the sake of speed and constant innovation."
AAPL: One for the money, Andrew Shalat, MacWeek, 12/12. "Back in September, when Apple's stock dropped to 20, I bought about 50 shares."
Opinion: The best Mac OS ever?, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 12/12. "...crashes of any sort, were virtually nonexistent running this setup, and it was speedy, even with the puny 8 MHz 68000 processor, and a paltry 2.5 megabytes of RAM."
Opinion: Dueling email client proponents, John H. Farr, Applelinks, 12/12. Emailer vs. Eudora vs. Outlook Express. Hint on speeding up OE.
Low end: Vintage word processors, System 6 Heaven. Writing tools for the System 6 user.
Justice: Spammer gets seven years, CNN.com, 12/12 [Slashdot]. Jason Garon hijacked mail server, spammed millions.
Opinion: Apple's innovations welcomed by creative types, Hugh Peebles, San Diego Union-Tribune, 12/12. A very nice feel-good read.
Opinion: Microsoft & bloatware revisited, Michel Munger, On the Flip Side, Mac Observer, 12/12. "The dirt: quite a few applications that people describe as bloatware are actually full of the types of features that are far ahead of everybody's needs."
Opinion: The many flavors of spam, Mike, osOpinion, 12/12. "The spambots have been working overtime...." As if we didn't already know that. ;-)
Opnion: One step forward, none back, John Holmes, osOpinion, 12/12. "'...what was so great about the SE/30, that a PC machine of the same generation couldn't do.' I told him, evolve."
Opinion: Moore's pretty good law, David Coursey, ZDNet, 12/11. "Most people already have more megahertz on their desktops than they can really use."
Oops: Mac USB not 1.2 Mbps, MacFixIt, 12/11. Quoting from the Roxio/Adaptec newsletter: "Apple's USB device driver . . . has a maximum data transfer rate of 680 KB/sec." and is therefor unsuitable for 4x CD burns.
Analysis: BusinessWeek slams Apple with erroneous data & flat out lies, Bryan Chaffin, Mac Observer, 12/11.
Oops: MacAddict January disc has virus infection, MacCentral, 12/11. The DarkRage Public Beta game is infected with a strain of nVIR.
News: Mac Web loses a beloved member, big g media, 12/11. Scott J. Gray of Appleholics-Anonymous and big g media passed away on Saturday, December 9.
Web: MacCards back with "Just Think" ecards, 12/11.
Humor: New Zap the PRAM cartoon, Macboy.com, 12/11.
News: Verizon clears backlog of spam, Webmaster Inc., 12/10 [Slashdot]. Some email delayed for hours by tens of millions of junk emails flooding mail servers.
Analysis: Apple's recordable CD options, David Read, MacWeek, 12/9. A look at CD-RW and other options.
Advice: Ethernet/LocalTalk, MP3 to WAV, cheap stock trading, Dave Hamilton, Ask Dave, Mac Observer, 12/8.
Low end: System 6 Heaven, Marten van de Kraats. "System 6 will make any vintage Macintosh computer as fast as a G3."
Opinion: Apple's pain is your gain, Bryan Chaffin, Back Page, Mac Observer, 12/8. The best time to buy a new Mac may be before Macworld Expo, not after.
Review: Ecrix VXA-1 tape drive, Paul Shields, Business Mac, 12/8. This is the drive we use for backup at Low End Mac- recommended!
Consumer: Week's best PowerBook, iBook deals, PowerBook Central, 12/8.
Review: iListen, Charles W. Moore, Moore's Views and Reviews, Applelinks, 12/8. "...iListen offers functionality that has never before being available on the Macintosh."
Analysis: Reasons to keep your old Mac, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 12/8. Some things a lot of low-end Mac users already know.
Dark side: Microsoft's Y2K security holes: 93 and counting, The Register, 12/8. "The trend in security breaches, particularly with respect to any software package carrying the popular Microsoft brand name, is clearly up.
Analysis: Why aren't more Macs being sold?, Gene Steinberg, Arizona Central, 12/7. it's our fault - we hold onto our Macs too long. :-)
Mac-N-DOS: SoftMac 2000, Emulators, Inc. Stuck working on a PC at work, home, or school? SoftMac emulates a 68k Mac, runs Mac OS 8.1, and reads Mac floppies.
Web: MacFixIt Toolbox Awards, MacFixIt, 12/7. Best new/updated software for 1999 and 2000.
Consumer: Refurbished G4 Cube, $1,299, Apple Store, then click Special Deals. Save $500, and no need to buy an Apple display to obtain a $300 rebate.
News: Author of Fetch wins half-million on Millionaire, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 12/7. Fetch is a popular Mac FTP program. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a popular TV show.
Reap what you sow: Californians told to cut power use, AOL/AP, 12/7 [Slashdot]. 2,500 megawatts due to from plants closed because they reached the state's annual limit for pollution.
Advice: Small office networks: Wired or wireless?, Paul Shields, Business Mac, 12/7. Probably a bit of each.
Opinion: Down with TLDs!, Marc Zeedar, Mac Opinion, 12/6. "What matters is your actual domain name, not the extension. What good is getting a .net version of your domain name when someone else owns the dot-com?"
Analysis: AAPL: How low can it go?, Wes George, Mac Observer, 12/6. Apple stock below $15 after news of anticipated quarterly loss.
Consumer: FCC weighs 10-digit dialing for all calls, LATimes, 12/6 [Slashdot]. Every call would include current area code.
News: Apple to report disappointing first quarter results, Apple, 12/5. Apple expects a net loss of $225-250 million, the first loss since Steve Jobs became iCEO.
Analysis: Apple's CD-RD strategy, xYankee, AppleInsider, 12/5. Jobs notes Apple "totally missed the boat" on recordable CD. Sources expect Apple to address this soon.
Opinion: Will the next PowerBook be a "WideBook"?, Charles W. Moore, Mac Opinion, 12/5. Thoughts on "Mercury" rumors.
Web: My Heavenly Memories, John C. Foster. Clever use of QuickTime on the Web!
Software: Connectix unveils Virtual PC 4.0, MacCentral, 12/4. Faster, more space and memory efficient, allows multiple concurrent Windows sessions. Requires G3 or G4.
News: G3 available at 700 MHz, IBM [Accelerate Your Mac]. "Models include the new 350-700 MHz PowerPC 750CX and 750CXe."
AAPL: Apple's stock: A double your money gamble?, Wes George, Mac Observer, 12/4. "Is AAPL a good buy at this point?"
MacInSchool: Macs headed for extinction in Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools, Macs Only!, 12/4. School apparently bought PC-only registration/grading software "by accident" and needs to replace Macs with PCs so they can use it. Huh?
Humor: Zap the PRAM, Macboy.com, 12/4. Latest cartoon from William Levin.
Virus: Virus writers send Christmas gifts, Yahoo/Reuters, 12/4. "...the first two Christmas viruses already spreading fast." In the Windows world, of course.
Advice: Using System Picker to change OS on a single volume, Bob LeVitus, Ask Dr. Mac, MacCentral, 12/2. It's an old trick, but a very useful one.
Analysis: Upgrades in store for the Cube?, MacWeek, 12/1. Faster CPUs, better video cards, larger hard drives, and higher capacity DIMMs all possible.
Virus: "Creative" virus spreading quickly, Cnet, 12/1. "The virus, dubbed 'Creative,' carries no destructive payload, but automatically emails itself to a victim's entire email address book." Windows and Outlook Express; user must run file "creative.exe".
Digicam list, Leben Lists. General discussion about digital cameras.
Benchmarks: FireWire vs. SCSI Orb drives, Bare Feats, 12/1. Compares SCSI drive with three different FireWire solutions.
Opinion: Video CDs: Movie viewing on non-DVD PowerBooks, John C. Chen, PowerBook Source, 12/1. Video CD also works on many Power Macs and clones.

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