1998: In the computer world, it is all too easy to get so bedazzled by the latest and greatest that one’s vision becomes clouded. Currently, the latest and greatest PowerBooks are the G3 Series II “PDQ” models, and they are indeed fabulous machines.
Author Archives: Charles W Moore
June 26th 1998: ClarisWorks doesn’t get nearly the respect it deserves. For a paltry $99 you can have a modular suite of applications that does everything 90% of users ever need to do with a computer. How many of us actually utilize the power features of fatware like Microsoft Office?
The Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, pronounced scuzzy) that every Mac from the Mac Plus on has supported (except for the iMac and the Blue & White Power Mac G3) is a mixed blessing. SCSI is a parallel interface, meaning that bits of data travel alongside each other rather than in tandem like they do […]
The dual USB iBook form factor was in production for five years – the longest-running laptop design in Apple portable history. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since its only major shortcoming (albeit a significant one) is that it is relatively difficult to open up and work on – even for routine stuff like hard […]
The PowerBook 2000 (FireWire), a.k.a. Pismo, is the Energizer Bunny of Apple notebooks. It just goes on and on and on, with many owners of these now machines still using them as their main workhorse computers.
The Lombard PowerBook G3 (officially the PowerBook G3 Bronze Keyboard) was rolled out on May 10, 1999 – exactly a year after the first WallStreet iteration of Apple’s PowerBook G3 Series laptop line debuted, also at the Worldwide Developers’ Conference (WWDC). While the Lombard superficially looks similar to the WallStreet family, it had taken a […]
Apple got a lot of mileage out of the PowerBook G3 nomenclature – some might argue more than they should have attempted to.
This Compleat Guide installment might well be named the Short and Sweet Guide to the Original PowerBook G3, since it only covers one model with a single revision that was in production for less than six months.
Back in 2003, the 12″ Little Al PowerBook represented one of the most convincing smash-hit model introductions in Apple history. Sharing much of the general layout, engineering, and the 12″ display of the 12″ iBook, the baby PowerBook added an aluminum housing and G4 power – plus most (but not all) of the usual slate of […]
Apple’s 17″ PowerBook G4, announced at Macworld Expo in January 2003, essentially eliminated any reason other than lower cost for owning a desktop computer for most of Mac users. With that big screen, plenty of speed, and an inventory of features undreamed of even in high-end desktops only a handful of years prior, this PowerBook […]
The 15″ PowerBook (or AlBook) was rolled out by Steve Jobs at Macworld Paris in September 2003. After eight months of anticipation following the release of the 17″ and 12″ aluminum PowerBooks in January of 2003, it turned out to be pretty much what PowerBook fans had been hoping for and expecting.
In its day, the Titanium PowerBook G4 (or TiBook) was the most successful PowerBook sales-wise Apple had ever offered. Built from January 2001 to September 2003 in the same form factor, at the time it was the longest-running PowerBook model. Or was it?
I very much enjoyed reading Carl Nygren’s 2008 column, Graphite Clamshell iMac Still a Real Eye Catcher and Useful Tool about his Graphite clamshell iBook SE. Wow! A cherry clamshell complete with built-in DVD drive, manuals, and CD for fifty bucks. I’m envious.
Mac’s Classic OS continues to fade in compatibility and relevance, with support in crucial areas – especially Web browsers and email software – becoming more and more tenuous. Classic Mode is not supported in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on any Macs and was never supported on Intel Macs.
News, Reviews, & Opinion 10 Tips on Using Google Maps on Your iPhone Stop Multitasking and Put Your Phone in the Trunk Apple’s Forgotten eMate 300 25% of American Adults Own Tablet Computers iPad mini Wins Because It’s Expensive iPhone Tops Americans’ 2013 Consumer Technology Wish List ‘Steve Jobs Wasn’t Malicious, He Was Just Trying […]
2013-01-14: General Apple and Mac desktop news is covered in Mac News Review. iPad, iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV news is covered in iNews Review. Older Macs are covered in Vintage Mac News. All prices are in US dollars unless otherwise noted.
2012-12-30: General Apple and Mac desktop news is covered in Mac News Review. iPad, iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV news is covered in iNews Review. Older Macs are covered in Vintage Mac News. All prices are in US dollars unless otherwise noted.
Google Maps Impact Google Maps Immediately Became the App Store’s #1 App More Than 10 Million Google Maps Downloads in First 48 Hours 5 Ways Google Maps Beats Apple Maps Apple Maps vs. Google Maps iOS 6 User Base Grows 29% as Users Update After Google Maps Arrives News, Reviews, & Opinion Walmart Rolls Back […]
2012 – The proverbial bell is tolling louder for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and PowerPC Macs.
Last week I was able to cross something off my bucket list that had never really been on it – the purchase of a brand new vehicle.
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 […]
This mailbag looks at the Office 2008 installer, Adobe CS upgrades, OS X 10.7 Lion not supporting Rosetta, and other topics.
When the Aluminum Unibody MacBook was unveiled in October 2008, its memory support ceiling specified by Apple was 4 GB. That was enough for most users at the time, and it was later discovered that these machines could happily support up to 6 GB of RAM – but while 8 GB could be installed, independent testing found that if an application […]
The Geneva Automobile Show tends to often be the most interesting of the major annual auto shows, and this year’s, held last week, was no exception. While there were all sorts of exotic and “green technology” (sometimes both combined) production models and concepts on display at Geneva, many of them integrating Apple iPads and iPhones […]
In my quest for an up-to-date browser to use in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on my two old Pismo PowerBooks, one that I had consistently passed over was OmniWeb, which was the very first OS X web browser out of the blocks a decade ago. OmniWeb was originally developed for the NextStep platform in 1995, then […]
2010 – As an OS X 10.4 Tiger holdout on my two beloved 10-year-old Pismo PowerBooks, I’ve been tracking the accelerating rate of attrition in Tiger-compatible Web browser support, but there are a few encouraging signs of life for those of us whose Macs don’t support more recent versions of the OS.
It’s getting late, but it’s not too late for some last-minute gift shopping.
2009 – My first Pismo PowerBook, acquired in October 2001 in an even trade for a six-month-old Power Mac G4 Cube, has gone through many transformations during the eight years and a bit that I’ve owned it.
I got around to installing the Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard update on my MacBook over the long weekend. I figured that with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard now on the prowl, I should at least bring Leopard up to spec on my production workhorse.
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 […]
2009 – Low End Mac colleague Simon Royal says he didn’t believe the rumors last year that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard would be Intel only. I have to say that at the early point when it was reported that alpha builds of Snow Leopard were being seeded to developers as Intel-only software, the proverbial […]
Classilla, a new browser for Mac OS 9 based on Mozilla/Firefox introduced to replace long-discontinued WaMCom project. Also using Safari with OS X 10.4 Tiger requires version 10.4.11.
2009 – My First Mac’s Chris Kerins says he’s been trying to get every last month out of his 6-year-old 17″ PowerBook G4, but it’s been not starting lately. He’s had power issues in the past, after he cracked the big PowerBook open to do a repair and broke a connector. Since then the power […]
2009-04-07: Dan Knight, Low End Mac’s publisher, informs us that today marks 12 years since he first posted some old Mac profiles on his personal website and started building Low End Mac.
2009 – I had an email Monday from my daughter, who is the current custom users of our old WallStreet PowerBook, telling me that she had succeeded in getting OS X 10.4 .11 Tiger installed on the venerable ‘Book. This was particularly interesting, because I had myself failed in several attempts over the years that I […]
