Is Bing Good Enough to Replace Google Search?

I’ve long been something of a Google loyalist. I have to say that in general, Google’s more freewheeling, Internet-based philosophy of providing high-quality free content (albeit ad-based, which doesn’t offend me) suits my taste much better than Apple’s more buttoned-down, app-oriented “walled garden” approach. Also, on substance, Google’s applications, whether they be freestanding like the […]

The Future of Up-to-Date Browsers for PowerPC Macs

The gradual marginalization of PowerPC Macs is bound to accelerate sharply with the release of Intel-only Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and one can anticipate that it may not be too long before PowerPC Mac owners begin to be confronted with the frustrating up-to-date browser issue that is one of the biggest problems for Classic […]

Seashore: A Free, Basic Image Editor for Mac OS X

Open source high-end image-editing software is an unlikely concept when you think about it. For one thing, anyone who really needs an industrial strength image editing application for professional purposes can probably afford and will more often than not have the undisputed king-of-the-hill in bitmap graphics software, Adobe’s Photoshop CS, and most users – professional […]

TopXNotes: A User-Friendly Solution for Creating, Managing, and Accessing Your Notes

TopXNotes is Tropical Software’s solution for creating, working with, and managing text-based notes – another entry in the increasingly crowded field of Classic Mac OS Note Pad replacements for OS X. The program supports to-do lists, Web account information, software serial numbers, and just about anything else you need to store – another spin on the theme […]

Why I Live Microsoft Free

I didn’t always shun Microsoft software. Indeed, for half of my decade as a Mac user, Microsoft Word (first version 4, then version 5.1) was the application I used most in those pre-Internet years.

Screens of Plastic Could Be Fantastic

2000: Last week, Lee Dye of the Los Angeles Times reported on a research project by Ghassan Jabbour, an assistant research professor in the optical sciences department at the University of Arizona in Tucson, whose team is developing thin computer display screens so flexible that they can be folded and tucked away in your pocket.

Processor Upgrade Market Never Better

On June 7, 2000, online Mac upgrade reseller MacCPU voluntarily closed its cyber-doors and shut down permanently. MacCPU principal Bob Moriarty explained dyspeptically in a column on MacNN that while, in his opinion, “CPU upgrades remain the single best idea we have ever seen in computing after the Macintosh Operating System . . . Apple […]

Outfitting the BTO SuperMac S900

2000: If you’re a regular Low End Mac reader, you probably remember my articles back in May about the Frankenstein Power Mac 9500 project, in which I was attempting to procure a decently fast and capable machine as a backup to my faithful WallStreet PowerBook by adding bits and pieces to a stripped 9500 my […]

Quest for a Silent Computer

2000: One of the things I used to love about my Mac Plus back in the old days is that I could put a stripped-down version of System 6 and a text editor on a floppy disk, boot the machine from that, and work in blessed silence with the (external) hard drive shut down, disturbed […]

Cheap G3 and G4 Reader Feedback

2000: Last week’s article about cheap Power Macs for G3 and G4 upgrading was the most popular Miscellaneous Ramblings article that Low End Mac has published, beating out my previous champ – a piece on the economics of processor upgrades. Apparently, upgrades are a popular topic. They also generate a lot of reader feedback: From […]

Moore Orders a SuperMac

2000: Dan Knight tells me that my column last week about cheap Power Macs for G3 and G4 upgrading was the most popular Miscellaneous Ramblings article that Low End Mac has published, beating out my previous champ – a piece on the economics of processor upgrades. Apparently, upgrades are a popular topic. Thanks for reading.