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The Low End Mac Link Archive, February 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.
Analysis: The
pamphlet and the 6 myths, Jeff Lewis, Mac Skeptic, Mac Opinion,
02.28. Sometimes marketing hype borders on lies.
Analysis: Family feud, Rachel
Konrad, Dawn Kawamoto, Scott Ard, News.com, 02.28. A post mortem
for Excite@Home.
Bug:
Mac OS auto-execution vulnerability, Slashdot, 02.28. As we've
been warning Mac users for years - never enable CD-ROM
AutoPlay in the QuickTime control panel.
Opinion: iBook:
The revised edition, Annie McCallum, Times-Dispatch. "We, as
students in the public school arena, should not be sheltered from
the thoughts of others on the Web, nor barricaded from our own
ideas."
Rights: Digital
security fomenting a feud, Declan McCullagh, Wired News, 02.27.
Intellectual property protection vs. your right to copy in the
digital age.
Opinion: The Web is for
serving, not surfing, David F. Carlson, osOpinion, 02.27. "The
three central tenets of the Internet are peer-to-peer, distributed
control and free speech."
Web: Legacy
versions of Netscape, Netscape.com. Whether you want 2.0, 3.0,
4.0, 4.5, 4.6, or 4.7, they're all linked on one convenient page
now.
Rights: Chilling
effects clearinghouse. The EFF, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley,
and University of San Francisco law school clinics team up to deal
with cease & desist letters.
Low-end: PC
makers soon may be forced to recycle, USA Today, 02.25. Our
advice - keep reusing those old Macs and PCs until they drop from
exhaustion, then recycle.
Web: The Register comes
to the USA, The Register, 02.25. New edition of The Register for U.S. and Canadian
will focus less on UK issues, more on North American topics.
Tech: IBM unveils
"fastest" IC at 110 GHz, The Register, 02.25. Moore's law
predicts CPUs will hit this mark in 7-8 years - followed by
Motorola a couple years later.
Taxes: Drivers
face road charge by satellite, Guardian Unlimited, 02.24
[
/.]. Proposal would tax Brits up to 45p a mile - and track car
usage by satellite. Maybe they will figure out how to tax the air
we breathe.
Rights: Fine
e-print, big headaches, Post-Gazette.com, 02.24. A look at
shrink-wrap licenses and online terms of service.
Tech: The
roots of Mac OS X, Gary Rogers, OS News, 02.22. "Something
important had changed though since Steve Jobs tried to market NeXT
in the late eighties, UNIX had gotten hip, thanks to a computer
science student in Finland, Linus Torvalds."
News: MacFixIt reports a
bad batch of Apple DVD media, Apple repair center infected with
SevenDust virus, and G4 iMac may scratch furniture.
Advice: VCD &
Toast: Digital video for the rest of us, Vern Seward, Mac
Observer, 02.22. "VCD [Video CD], in my estimation at least, is
ideal for the movie-making consumer...." I want iVCD. Until then,
thank goodness for Toast.
Advocacy: Good
news sampler, John H. Farr, Applelinks, 02.22. Good news on
dual 1 GHz G4 performance and flat panel iMac sales
projections.
Humor: The
Macintosh numbers game, Scott Kelby, Mac Design. "5: Average
number of four-letter words used by consumers during an install of
Microsoft Windows XP."
Hmm: Check out the
OS-free PCs at WalMart.com, Drew Cullen, The Register, 02.22.
"Naked" 1 GHz Duron and Celeron models for $399 - just add
FreeDOS, Linux, OS/2, etc.
OS X: Performance
tuning for G3 Macs, Mac OS X Hints, 02.21. Lots of little
things (and a few big ones) to boost OS X performance - and
they'll all work on G4s, too.
Web:
Getting it wrong, Doc Searls, Linux Journal, 02.21. No, Google
doesn't allow ad income to influence search rankings.
Benchmarks: Dual 1
GHz G4 Power Mac takes on other G4s, Bare Feats, 02.21. Any
surprise it won all tests? But does it offer the best value as well
as the best performance?
Analysis: Apple's retail
stores, John Mazione, MacNETv2, 02.20. "Who I was dealing with
here were Mac enthusiasts who cared more about being around the
product then selling it."
Analysis:
A great future in store for Apple, Charles Haddad,
BusinessWeek, 02.20. "Every nook of the store buzzed, except one:
the checkout counter."
Opinion:
OS X: Usability, Philip Machanick, Mac Opinion, 02.20. "I ask
you with tears in my voice: how is the average non-geek user to
make sense of such a setup?"
Web: apple.slashdot.org, Slashdot,
02.20. Slashdot's new subdomain launches with discussion of
OS X 10.1.3 - and an Aqua-like appearance.
News: Be Inc. sues
Microsoft, Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 02.20. Microsoft
Windows license prevented manufacturers from giving away BeOS with
new computers.
Web: Mac fiends who
live for updates, Leander Kahney, Wired, 02.19. "VersionTracker
is so popular, it is the most visited Macintosh-related site on the
Web, aside from Apple's."
Software: Default
Folder updated for OS X, MacCentral, 02.18. Indispensible Mac
utility now available for the next generation OS.
Cool: Aquatint,
Stickman Software. Shareware app makes it easy to create graphics
with Aqua-like appearance.
Spam: Spam
and web-visible email addresses, DSL Reports.com [
/.]. Within 8 hours of being posted on a single obscure
page, a new email address begins to receive spam.
News: PayPal's first day
pop, The Register, 02.18. Online banned-in-Louisiana, "not
quite a bank" payment service sees stock value climb over 50% in
first day of trading.
Web: PCs are
incorrect on TV, Wired, 02.16. Bad guys used to wear black
hats; now they use Windows. The good guys usually use Macs.
Opinion: Apple, don't flub it
again, Charles Cooper, c|net, 02.15. "The problem is a wishful
belief that millions of PC users will switch to the Macintosh
simply because it's the better platform for hosting digital media
and music."
Opinion: Apple bidding to
regain speed throne, Ben Wilson, osOpinion, 02.15. "Apple is
looking to rekindle the flame that 'toasted' Pentiums in
1998...."
Review: Mac OS X: The
Missing Manual, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 02.15. "It is a
marvel how much useful, well-organized and easy to access
information David Pogue has succeeded in packing into this
relatively compact volume...."
Consumer: Cubes
for $995, Deals on the Web, 02.15. 450 MHz G4, DVD-ROM drive,
and that impressive Cube design.
OS X: See how much RAM
your software is using, Bob LeVitus, Dr. Mac's OS X Tip of the
Day, 02.15. "Freeware Friday" points to MemoryStick as the app for
the job.
Opinion: A
Mac OS X odyssey, Marc Zeedar, Mac Opinion, 02.14. It's not
perfect yet, but OS X has definitely arrived.
Advocacy: Should our schools
have Macs or PCs, John Droz. The best single source of
information for supporting the Mac vs. the Wintel platform has been
updated.
Opinion:
'Book value, Charles W. Moore, Road Warrior, Mac Opinion,
02.12. How to get the most iBook or PowerBook for the money.
Web: Mac
Net Journal. Rob McNair-Huff's blog has become a daily read at
LEM.
Tech: Foveon's
revolutionary X3 sensor, Digital Photography Review, 02.11.
"This could be the single most significant leap forward for digital
imaging since the original CCD."
Dark Side:
Check the fine print, Ed Foster, The Gripe Line, InfoWorld,
02.11. Microsoft - newly security conscious - retains the right to
access your computer and modify their product.
News: New G4 roadmap
promises Apple harvest, Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 02.11.
266 MHz system bus, 4 MB L3 cache support, 1.5 GHz - we'll
believe it when it ships.
Opinion: Networking
success at last, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 02.11. More in
the ongoing attempted migration to Mac OS X.
Advocacy:
How schools are tricked into using PCs - when Macs are better,
Bob Shier, ZDNet, 02.11. "The total amount of staff time required
just to keep these machines functional is an order of magnitude
higher than what we experienced with the Macs."
Opinion: Microsoft Office
v.X's lame anti-piracy..., Bob LeVitus, Dr. Mac's OS X
Tip-of-the-Day, 02.11. Explains the "updater from Hell" and lays
into MS for "lame-brained, invasive, and 1984-ish network
anti-piracy mechanism" and an update installer that doesn't play
well with other processes.
Opinion: The tin cup
syndrome, Steve Wood, Busman's Holiday, 02.11. "I doubt that
the ad-free subscription model will do those sites any longterm
good."
Opinion: Is
Andrew (Orlowski) right?, Marc Zeedar, Mac Opinion, 02.08. "The
long and the short is that I work differently under Mac OS X
than under Mac OS 9."
Opinion: Not
quite ready for prime time yet, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks,
02.08. "I shall not be switching to 0S X for production this
weekend, or likely in the near-term future."
Advocacy:
Tired of viruses and bugs? Ditch Microsoft, Mac Net Journal,
02.07. "I have found the best antidote to Internet viruses and
computer security concerns is to avoid Microsoft products like the
plague."
Advice: An almost
unbelievable utility, Bob LeVitus, Dr. Mac's OS X Tip of the
Day, 02.07. The addictive LaunchBar program (shareware).
Lite: PCs don't go
gently into Macworld, Leander Kahney, Wired News, 02.07. What
happened when a Mac Web publisher has to used a borrowed Windows
laptop at Macworld.
News:
Feds release Microsoft comments, D. Ian Hopper, Yahoo/AP,
02.07. 15,000 opposed proposed settlement, 7,500 approved, 7,000
were irrelevant, and some were spam.
Opinion: OS themes are only
skin deep, Kelly McNeill, osOpinion, 02.07. "What advocates of
'theme' or 'skinning' software fail to realize is that OS
consistency is only truly realized when an entire platform is
universally similar."
Opinion:
The laptop vs. desktop dialectic, Charles W. Moore, Mac
Opinion, 02.05. "...once you begin using a laptop it's highly
likely that you will be ruined for desktops forever."
Opinion: ZDNet's
David Coursey - Apple shill, Rodney O. Lain, Mac Observer,
02.05. "The nerve of him, praising the iMac. Next thing you know,
he will even buy one."
Benchmarks: How
fast is the new G4 iMac?, Bare Feats, 02.05. Performance
compared with Power Mac G4/733 and Dual G4/800.
Analysis:
Mac OS X font rendering, Nicholas Riley's Weblog, 02.04. Why
fonts may be fine in some cases, ugly in others in OS X.
Opinion: State
of the Mac Web, Scott McCarty, Graphic Power, 02.04. Thoughts
on site income (and the lack thereof) on the Mac Web.
Benchmarks:
Radeon 7500 vs. GeForce4MX, Accelerate Your Mac, 02.03. Both
AGP cards available with Quicksilver (2002) Power Mac G4 compared.
Neither will disappoint.
Opinion:
How Apple could have made the OS X switch easier, Dan Shafer,
02.01. "I wonder why Steve Jobs & Co. didn't include some basic
things in OS X that would have made the transition for long-time OS
9 users much easier."
Opinion: Mac OS X for the
masses, Matthew Peterson, osOpinion, 02.01. "...the Aqua UI
masks enough of OS X's Unix underbelly to make it an ideal
operating system for even the most inexperienced home computer
user."
Web:
Salon makes a go of premium service, Lisa Schneider, Media Life
Magazine, 01.28. Salon claims 35,000 paying subscribers, about 1%
of total visitors. "Hurley claims people are more than happy to pay
. . . to avoid advertisements."
Review:
Radeon Mac Edition, Joel Hruska, Van's Hardware, 02.01. "That
two or three year old computer has hope of staying 'cutting edge'
with the help of a video card upgrade."
Opinion:
The plain truth about software piracy, fprefect, Ambrosia
Software, 02.01. Thoughts on shareware, product registration, and
pirated registration codes.
Opinion: Apple should "thing
different" inside, too, Stephan Somogyi, ZDNet, 02.01. "Apple's
hardware . . . should also bring with it a greater
commitment to quality and reliability."