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The Low End Mac Link Archive, January 2002
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.
LA Computer Company: Specials on AppleCare, iMac's, Apple Batteries and Apple A/C Adapters. Also Great prices on Used Apple Computers. Call 1-800-941-7654 Click Here.
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.
OS: Migrating
from Linux to BSD, OS News, 01.31. Linux isn't the only free
*nix out there. Here's why you might want to use it. (BSD is at the
core of OS X.)
News: Apple sued
over G3 support in OS X, Peter Cohen, MacCentral, 01.31.
"...the failure to write the drivers for the hardware video
accelerators in these computers degraded performance so severely
that OS X is rendered an unrealistic option...."
Opinion:
AOL's monster, David Lawrence, The Screen Savers, TechTV,
01.30. It's ironic that AOL is suing Microsoft over Netscape since
AOL helped Microsoft become the dominant browser.
Dark side: Microsoft piracy
police target honest consumers, Russell H. Peterson, osOpinion,
01.30. "After my auction had been listed for about a day and a
half, I got a message from EBay saying that it had been asked by
Microsoft to end my auction...."
Low End: Apple IIe
card for the Mac LC FAQ, Phil Beesley. LC PDS card puts an
Apple IIe inside LC series, Color Classic, 500 series, Quadra 605,
etc.
Low end: Being a Mac pack
rat, Adam C. Engst, TidBITS, 01.30. "I'm here today to
recommend that you do keep old hardware around if you have the
space and don't have anything better to do it with it."
Web: Your Mac Life
broadcasts tonight in streaming QuickTime.
Dark side: BBC bans use of
non-MS PDAs, John Lettice, The Register, 01.30. No Palms - only
PocketPC 2002 machines deemed secure.
Opinion: Apple doesn't need
zealots, Matt Johnston, os Opinion, 01.30. "These people are
the decision makers. They aren't zealots - they just recognize good
technology."
Opinion:
OS X, Part 2: Speed, Philip Machanick, Mac Opinion, 01.29.
"It's time we acknowledged the problem. OS X, as we have it today,
is a slug."
Opinion: Your chips are
served, Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac, 01.29. Are ATI and
Apple secretly working on support for older RAGE chipsets? (We hope
so.)
Advice: How I managed to
can the spam, Kelly McNeill, osOpinion, 01.25. "...I noticed
that the spammer had included his fax number in the body of his
message."
Review: PowerMail
v3.1, Kirk Hiner, Applelinks, 01.28. Looks like a worthy
OS X replacement for Emailer or Outlook Express - and it also
runs under Mac OS 9.
Analysis:
"Resume spamming" brings an online backlash, Carrie Johnson,
Washington Post, 01.25 [
/.]. "In a sign that job spam has hit the mainstream, a
full-blown backlash is in the works."
Advocacy: Debunking Mac
myths (*nix edition), Gary Rodger, osOpinion, 01.25.
"Unfortunately, I know of a large number of Unix geeks who still
harbor the misconception that the Mac OS is for grade school."
Opinion: The
Finder philosophy, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 01.24. Would
you rather have the classic Mac interface than Aqua on OS X?
Yes.
Review:
Acard IDE-to-SCSI adapter, Rick Pepper, Accelerate Your Mac,
2001.01.15. A year old, but a great way to put an inexpensive, high
capacity IDE drive in an old SCSI-only Mac.
Web: Global
Internet Statistics, Global Reach. English no longer majority
language on the Web at 43%, but next highest languages (Japanese,
Chinese, German, and Spanish) are each under the 9% mark.
OS X: Preemptive
vs. cooperative multitasking, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks,
01.23. "[X] features protected multitasking, in which the operating
system constantly monitors and allocates processor power to the
various running applications as needed, balancing and sharing
supply and demand...."
Opinion: Damien Barrett on
paying for access to MacFixIt archives: "...this latest ploy is
offensive to the very people that have made MacFixit what it
is."
Opinion: The
new iMac, Dirk Pilat, Everything Mac, 01.22. Sorry, but *nix
geeks are not going to be interested in a desklamp computer.
Web: Shawn King starts up My
Mac Life, Macs Only, 01.22. King hopes to launch his new online
radio show on Wednesday, February 6 - and no membership fees.
Web: MacFixIt Pro -
MacFixIt will now be charging for access to archived content - even
searches.
Dark Side: How Microsoft drove
me to Linux, Thomas C. Greene, The Register, 01.22. "Under my
definition, Windows had clearly become an extremely malicious
virus."
Opinion: Will IBM supplant
Motorola to supply G5?, kelly McNeill, osOpinion, 01.21. "If I
were a betting man, my money would be on IBM to supply Apple with
its next-generation G5 processor."
Advice: Mac Plus to
iMac, MacInTouch. Reader report has various suggestions for
moving files from a vintage Mac to a modern one.
Advice: How to manually
remove Microsoft Office 2001, Damien Barrett, AppleTechs.com,
01.18. Reinstalling Office without removing all the components may
not solve your problem.
OS X: Reader
reports on Mac Radeon 7000, Accelerate Your Mac, 01.18. Darn,
looks like this card is incompatible with OS X on the beige
G3s - otherwise the ideal market for them.
MacInSchool: TiBooks
flourish at Cincinnati college, Dennis Sellers, MacCentral,
01.18. "...when asked if they would trade their Mac in for a PC if
given the chance, not one user would...."
Benchmarks: IBM
DeskStar 120GXP, Bare Feats, 01.18. Fast new drive tested with
ATA-100 and FireWire case, outperforms older 60GXP drive.
Opinion:
Usability of OS X, Craig Linton. Some excellent reflections and
suggestions regarding the dock.
News: State
drops distributed-computing dispute, c|net, 01.17. "Computer
administrator David McOwen will pay just $2,100 and serve 80 hours
of community service after reaching an agreement with Georgia state
prosecutors."
Dark Side: Intel
sabotaged Solaris on Itanic, Andrew Orlowski, The Register,
01.17. Sun contends Intel withheld key info on Itanium - sounds
like Microsoft's behavior with Windows.
Hack: 50 MHz
SE/30 running Mac OS 8.1, Manfred Huchler. IIfx ROMs make it
32-bit clean, 20 MB RAM makes 8.1 feasible, and Vintage Box
makes installing and running 8.1 possible. Too bad there's not one
more slot for a grayscale video card....
News: eBay
hikes fees, eBay, 01.16. Effective 2002.01.31 final value fees
increase 0.25%, $1 higher reserve fee over $200, 5¢ fee for
using Buy It Now, and more.
OS X: Mac OS X
installation problems, Mac Night Owl, 01.16. When installing
Mac OS X, read this to be prepared - and be sure to follow
Apple's instructions, too.
Opinion:
If I go Mac, will I ever go back?, David Coursey, ZDNet, 01.16.
Can anyone willing to put up with Microsoft FrontPage really find
happiness on a Mac?
Opinion:
PowerBook 5300 revisited, Charles W. Moore, Road Warrior, Mac
Opinion, 01.15. "I always get a kick out of using the little 5300,
whose looks have always appealed to me, and which I consider just
about the ideal size and form factor for a laptop...."
OS X:
XPostFacto 2.1, Ryan Rempel, Other World Computing, 01.13.
Web: OS X FAQ. With Bob
LeVitus as senior editor, we're expecting a lot.
Dark side: Settlement terms
nixed by judge, Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 01.11. Judge
rules Microsoft's proposed settlement would amount to
"court-approved predatory pricing."
Deals: Brand new Newer Tech
product, TechnoWarehouse LLC. Newer Tech is history, but their
reliable products are available from TechnoWarehouse.
Tech:
TDK unveils 2 GB CD-RW drive, discs, Hardware Central, 01.11.
New 36/24/40x mechanism works with old fashioned CD-R, CD-RW; can
write 2 GB in 6 minutes.
Tech: GeForce
4 details, The Inquirer, 01.11. GeForce 4? Mac users don't even
have GeForce 3 yet!
What's up with that, Apple?
Opinion:
We can put an end to Word attachments, Richard Stallman,
NewsForge, 01.10. "Don't you just hate receiving Word documents in
email messages?" Yep.
Opinion: Why we've
embraced Mac OS X, Derrick Story, O'Reilly Network, 01.10.
"...this new OS has accomplished in a short period of time what
others have struggled to do for years: bring a compelling, widely
accepted GUI (called Aqua) to Unix."
Opinion: Why the
new iMacs will be successful no matter what they look like,
Robert X. Cringely, PBS, 01.10. "The new iMacs will be successful -
very successful - for reasons that have almost nothing to do with
their clever design, and almost everything to do with market
demographics."
Consumer: OS X 10.1 w/128 MB PC100 DIMM or w/128 MB PC133 DIMM,
$129.95, Outpost.com, 01.10.
News: ATI unveils
Radeon 7000, 8500, Peter Cohen, MacCentral, 01.08. $129
PCI-based 7000 supports two displays, could be just what beige G3
users want to speed up OS X.
Opinion: Just say no to
Internet micropayments, Adam Barr, osOpinion, 01.08. "The main
problems with the micropayments theory is that people don't want to
pay like that...."
Opinion: And now
back to earth..., Rob-Art Morgan, Bare Feats, 01.07. The
keynote was over-hyped, and the FP iMac is a reshaped G4 Cube.
Software: iPhoto
available for download, Apple, 01.07. Alas, it requires
OS X. That'll help justify the $129 cost of the new OS.
Opinion: The smart move for
Apple, Damien Barrett, MrBarrett.com, 01.06. Another voice
speaks up for a faster, less busy, less processor intensive
interface than Aqua.
Opinion: State of the
OS: 10.1.2, Derek Currie, Insanely Great Mac, 01:04. Mostly
positive assessment of latest OS update - but still room for
improvement.
Rights: Is CD
copy-protection illegal?, c|net, 01.04. Should companies that
copy protect CDs lose royalty fees on blank media?
Web: TMO
announces launch of new Mac deal site, Dave Hamilton, Mac
Observer, 01.04. DealsOnTheWeb.com "a combined effort from both TMO
and the team that managed DealNN.com for the last year."
Advice: What
can you do with a low-end PC?, Eric McCann, Thinking From the
Box, Low End PC, 01.04. Some uses for an old PC - or maybe even an
old DOS card.
Web: Ad-free
subscriptions for the Mac Observer, 01.03. One year of ad-free
site content, US$24.95 - or no cost access with ads. Low End Mac
will be heading there soon.
Opinion: Chump
change - $100,000, Steve Wood, Educator News, 01.03. It Apple
really willing to let a $100,000 laptop grant fall through the
cracks? I hope not.
Opinion: How I learned to
stop worrying and abandoned Mac OS X, Andrew Orlowski, The
Register, 01.03. "It's really . . . a 'user experience'
issue, but if performance impairs the usage of the machine, then
that's bad UI. And performance on OS X is really not
good."
Advice: Repairing
directory damage, Damien, AppleTechs.com, 01.03. How to fix
your disk directory so you can delete an undeletable file or just
make the drive work again.
Advice: Syncing PocketPC
devices with Mac OS, Tecno, AppleTechs.com, 01.02. Yes, you can
sync PocketPC (formerly Windows CE) devices with your Mac.
OS:
BeOS for Power Macintosh FAQ, BeatJapan.org, 1998.12.09. Old
but interesting FAQ for those seeking to run BeOS on a Power Mac or
clone.
OS X: VoodooX, Adam
Thayer. Adam is developing Voodoo drivers for Mac OS X. We
wish him the best. How about ATI when this is done.
;-)
Web: Will
your G3 work well with OS X?, Anthony Surace, MacMatrix, 01.02.
Quick overview of how well various G3 Macs work with OS X, but
PowerBook coverage is inadequate.
