Up Close and ‘Personal’ with Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs (1955-2011), the co-founder and former CEO of Apple Inc., left us on this date seven years ago, having passed away on October 5, 2011, from a personal battle with pancreatic cancer. Today, on the seventh anniversary of his untimely passing, I take a fond look back at the three times I witnessed his […]

Programs for Your Palm

Palms were designed to be a digital replacement for a paper planner. There were simple built-in programs with the business customer in mind. And there were people that happily used those built-in programs to keep track of appointments, lists, bits of information, and expenses.

Palm Zire 71

I bought my Palm Zire 71 new. I’d been using an M130, and the 71 seemed like a great step up. I used it for several years, then in 2008, I had a bad experience where I was unable to charge it and couldn’t access the information on it. I went analog as a result […]

Regional Mac and Apple Facebook Groups

We are helping to launch localized geographically based Apple/Mac groups to facilitate local support, local pickup of used gear, and perhaps – at the discretion of each group – the opportunity to get together for a swap meet.

How Fast Is Your Data Bus?

Processors keep getting faster and faster. Hard drives and SSDs are getting faster and faster. System memory gets faster and faster. Graphics processors get faster and faster. Network speeds get faster too. So why does so much feel slow?

In Search of Charles W. Moore

Former Low End Mac writer Charles W. Moore has not been heard from since October of 2017, and being a well-known author in the Mac web-verse – and of course, here on this site – his silence is a bit worrisome. I am in search of the writer and friend.

Future Operating System Interfaces: Will Apple Bring It to the Forefront?

At WWDC 2018, the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, which began on Monday, the next release of macOS, version 10.14 Mojave, was announced, bringing with it yet another round of new features and improvements. However, one thing has remained forever unchanged at its core: The user interface. When will Apple — or the competition for […]

Forward Into the Past

Most of my computers were older when I got them – and much older when I moved on to something newer. I got my first Mac, a Mac Plus, in early 1990, over 4 years after Apple had introduced it. I earned enough Apple points during the holiday sales promotion to get it and a […]

My Subsequent Adventure with Apple’s 17-Year Retail Venture

Apple, Inc. opened its first two retail store locations 17 years ago – in May 2001 – in McLane, Virginia and Glendale, California. A year later, in 2002, my local store, Apple Bay Street in Emeryville, Calif. was opening its doors for the very first time. Let’s take a look back at the Apple Store […]

When Good Thrifts Go Bad

This is a cautionary tale about listening to your gut feeling. I have always preferred the look of a blackbook (black MacBook) and had come across one on a local selling website. It was advertised as a 2008 MacBook in working order, except that the trackpad button didn’t click so it required an external mouse. […]

How to Put an mSATA SSD in SATA Mac

Back in 2005, SATA was a big step forward for the Mac. The original SATA specification supports transfer rates up to 1.5 Gb/sec. Most Macs used UltraATA at 66 or 100 GB/sec, and SATA had 50% more bandwidth than UltraATA 100. From there, SATA has become even faster.