Print Center Problems
After reading about my "doubled"
Epson printer in the Print Center, Zach Tuckwiller writes:
I hope all is well. While browsing Version Tracker looking for a
couple of utilities, I stumbled across a little application that may
help out with the duplicate Epson printer in your Print Center on your
TiBook (if you haven't already resolved it. I'm referring to the ESP
870 that had me stumped). This shareware app is called
Print Center Repair (v 2.0.5) and it is a utility that will
let you do several things in regard to printing, notably in your case,
getting rid of the driver for your printer that is preinstalled with
OS X. Hopefully, this can get you back to one copy of the Epson in
Print Center.
Thanks for the tip. I downloaded the program. It looks very useful
if you're having printer problems. 
I was able to remove both Epson entries
from the Print Center before I ran it - go figure - and clicking the
button (gray in the screen shot) deleted all of my Epson
drivers. Good thing I was simply able to copy them from my other
driver.
At this point I'm down to a single driver for my Epson printer, but I
still find it frustrating that there's no easy way to know once
you've created the entry which one is the newer driver from Epson
and which is the one that came with OS X. At least with only one
now - and one I made sure to create with the more recent drivers - I
don't have that worry any longer.
HyperCard Alternatives
After reading my summary in HyperCard
Alternatives (quoted below), David Cramer writes:
HyperCard and AppleScript are two Apple technologies I've played
with a bit but never found the time to master. From the sound of
things, the project in question seems to involve a database, so I don't
think a scripting language would do the job.
We ran an article about Runtime Revolution last summer, and I'd
completely forgotten about it until you wrote. I'm guessing that
SuperCard is probably going to provide the easiest transition from
HyperCard to a native OS X program, but some of the other programs you
suggest may produce better tools.
I think that's about the best analysis I can imagine ;-) At
least we still have choices! I've downloaded the updated MacPython as
well, because there's a FrameMaker scripting/programming interface
being worked on that's based on Python. If I ever have any spare time
(!) I might look at that, too.
FrameMaker - now you've got my interest! I worked for a publishing
house, and the default design program was Quark XPress. Problem was,
Quark couldn't handle footnotes, so we had FrameMaker for "academic"
and other titles that used footnotes. That became my specialty, and I
got to the point where I hated going back to Quark. FrameMaker is a
wonderful, if not well known or appreciated, program.
Good luck with your HyperCard alternatives.
Flashing a Radeon 7000 AGP
Responding to comments about "flashing" a PC video card in Performa 6200 Unlisted Upgrade, Lennart
Araskoug writes;
I just bought a secondhand PM/G4 400 MHz (Sawtooth) to
upgrade from my iMac
G3/600.
I just read your The Low End Mac Mailbag column from 2003.05.14.
There was a brief comment about the value of flashing a PC ATI Radeon
7000 to be used on a Mac instead. Since I don't play games or anything,
I found that the R7000/AGP would be a perfect replacement for the now a
bit old ATI Rage AGP card to get full Quartz Extreme acceleration.
Buying a $60 R7000 and flashing it for Mac beats buying a Mac
edition GeForce 4 MX for $180. But how do I do it?
Where can I find the files I need? Should I flash it from a PC or a
Mac?
Please advise!
First, you need access to a PC - at least that's my understanding
of it. I've never done it, but to the best of my knowledge it can only
be done in a Windows PC.
Then you need the Mac files that will be written to the flash memory
(hence the term flashing) on the card.
I'm sure there's info out there on doing this, but a quick Google
search hasn't turned up anything helpful. Maybe a reader will supply
the necessary information or links.
Slave Drives on a Rev. A Beige G3
M. R. Schaferkotter writes:
In your article Power Mac G3 (beige):
A Good Buy on 20030515 you write:
We should note here that the beige G3 with the Rev. A ROM
does not support slave drives. It cannot boot from them in any version
of the Mac OS, cannot see them when running the classic Mac OS, and can
only access them when booted in OS X. Because of this significant
limitation, although the beige G3 is generally considered a very good
buy, the Rev. A model is considered a Road Apple.
I purchased 4 of these machines (Rev. A) to create an OS X
cluster and maxed the memory (768 MB), added IDE 40 GB hard drive, and
400 [MHz] ZIF processor upgrade.
The only thing that I still wanted to do was to add a second drive.
It was my understanding that one couldn't add the second drive on these
machines.
"...and can only access them when booted in OS X."
You seem to be saying here that one can add the drives and actually
use them. I wouldn't care about booting from them; I would only want
the 2nd drive for additional "scratch" storage.
Is that possible? Please forgive if I've totally misunderstood what
you are saying, as I might have misinterpreted the info about the beige
machine. In fact, I didn't realized the Rev. A slave drive issue until
after purchasing the machines. People are selling the Rev. C ROMs on
eBay for "way too much" to warrant replacing the ROMs.
I would really like to sort this out. I'm not an admin or hardware
guy, just scientific programming.
Thanx for your time.
I love to read the Low End site articles.
I have 14 (yes, 14) Macs, including Mac IIx, Mac IIci, 660AV, 5300cs, 6112, 6500, 7100, 7200, 4 beige, iMac 266, and titanium
PowerBook (and I'm not a hardware guy!).
Yes, the beige G3 with Rev. A ROMs can see and use slave drives,
but it cannot boot from them. The biggest reason I consider this a
serious enough limitation to mention on the site is that until now
there have been no powerful third-party disk utilities that ran
natively under OS X, so you'd have to boot in OS 9 to use
Disk Warrior, TechTool, etc.
Now that OS X disk utilities are starting to ship, there's less reason
to avoid the Rev. A machines for use with OS X - but we still want
to be sure users know that they won't be able to see slave drives
unless they're using X.
CoreCrib or B&W G3?
Rick Hansen writes:
Thanks for the Mac Musing about
CoreCrib.
I've got a B&W
G3 with all the memory, hard drives, and PCI cards I need. Is there
an advantage to the CoreCrib over a simple processor upgrade?
The G4 processor supports a higher speed memory access mode that
only works on a motherboard that supports it. Because of this, we
consider the "Yikes!" Power Mac G4 a Road Apple - it's essentially a B&W G3
with a G4 processor in the ZIF socket. It's not a bad system, but it
was unnecessarily compromised, since Power Macs with the new
motherboard that supported faster memory access were announced at the
same time as the Yikes!
The CoreCrib uses a motherboard specifically designed for a G4, so
you'd gain the improved memory access speed. You'll also benefit from
an AGP video card, which has a much faster bus than the PCI video on
your B&W G3. If you're running OS X - or plan to - this will
give you access to Quartz Extreme graphics acceleration.
You should be able to move everything over to the CoreCrib, although
you'll probably want to invest in an AGP video card. You should be able
to get in for under $500 plus whatever CPU speed you choose - and
probably get $150-200 for your stripped G3 with the old G3 CPU and
original video card.
If you do this, let us know what you think of the CoreCrib. And let me
know if you decide to sell the stripped B&W G3 (unless it's a Rev.
1 motherboard). It would make a great replacement for some of our older
servers that are unsupported under OS X.
No Combo Drive G3 iMac
David Sindt writes:
Thanks for your recent article concerning upgrade-options for slot-loading iMacs. There
was a significant error, however, that I noticed in this particular
article and others in the past. The slot-loading iMacs were never
available with a Combo drive option. CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, and CD-RW drives
were the only options.
Hard to believe that any Mac that was so recently in the product
line wasn't available with a Combo drive, but you're right. I've
updated the article to correct the error.
Claris Home Page
Adam Bewsey writes:
I read your page daily and recently added LEM to my "toolbar
favorites." (I know you need support), I use a 333 Lombard, and your site keeps
me focused on what I have and it's greatness vs that lust for all
Apples weekly new releases. I can't keep up anymore.
That said, I saw the post re: availability of Claris Home Page, and I
wondered did you say you still use to create some of your LEM site. I'm
looking for an entry level Web page design program, and I used HomePage
once in a Adult Ed class. Is it still viable?
I know you said it lacked some of the more up-to-date technology. I
know you're extremely busy, but I was just curious.
Thanks so much for your hard work and great site. You really help me
out.
I've been using Claris Home Page 3.0 since 1997, and I used 1.0 and
2.0 before it. It's easy and efficient. It's far from up-to-date in
terms of supporting current HTML standards, but it does create HTML
code that seems to display correctly in every browser out there. Unless
you want to do hand coding or are prepared to spend several hundred
dollars, there's not a better deal for the Mac webmaster. It's not
perfect, but it's good enough.
CoreCrib Not a Low-End Solution
Continuing our discussion from last
week, Peter da Silva writes:
The CoreCrib allows Mac users to do something Apple hasn't let us
do since the era of the Mac IIci - buy a bare bones computer and build
it the way we want it. Believe me, when I worked at ComputerLand of
Grand Rapids, we sold a lot of SEs, SE/30s, IIcxs, IIcis, and other
Macs that we ordered in the minimum floppy-only configuration and
upgraded with RAM and third-party hard drives for our customers.
But you were starting with a working system supported by Apple, with
the OS and processor included.
The CoreCrib isn't competing with the essentially unexpandable
eMac, iMac, or iBook. It's intended for the Mac user who wants
expansion options, and depending on how much can be moved older from an
existing Mac, the cost of a CoreCrib can range from under US$400 to
over US$1,200. It's not for everyone, but I believe there is a market
for this box.
There's a market for anything, but you were describing it as
something for the bargain hunter. And you're still using unreasonable
prices.
You can't put together a system for $400, unless you're just getting
rid of your old case; you need everything else from the old system to
get that price. That's $400 for a new case.
And building it up yourself if you don't already have the parts just
doesn't make sense. Your collection of used parts ended up costing as
much as CoreCrib's basic 800 MHz system. Buying new parts at retail
would push it up even higher - into the range where a new faster Mac
that'll take even faster processors would be more cost-effective.
Where it makes more sense is at the other end of the market, where
you're looking at a loaded box with more room for expansion than
Apple's machines allow.
It's a high end, not a Low End Mac.
Rick Hansen might disagree with you. He's got a
B&W G3 and is considering moving to the next level. He could get by
with just a CoreCrib and a G4 CPU. And someone with a Sawtooth G4 who found the
limited number of drive bays limiting could migrate for just the cost
of the CoreCrib itself.
You're right that having Core build a system is competitive with
building your own if you don't already have some of the parts, but I
don't recall the ready built systems being listed on the site when I
wrote the article. For someone who doesn't want to spend $1,500 for a
new single processor 1 GHz G4, being able to build exactly the
system they want or need starting with the CoreCrib is a viable
option.
The CoreCrib isn't competing at the very bottom end, which is where the
eMac live. It's definitely a hobbyist machine intended for someone who
might want several CD burners, doesn't need the latest CPU speed, etc.
It's an affordable way to acquire a very expandable computer,
especially for someone who already has a Mac, hard drive, media drive,
and copy of the Mac OS.
Screen Captures from DVD
Scott Brown
I read your article on HyperCard and your possible future eMac
purchase.
My two cents re: Hypercard and OS X. It does indeed run in Classic,
and frankly, I will always have at least one machine that can
run it, either in OS 7/8/9x or in the Classic mode. Why? Because there
is no other product that combines ease of use, power, and speed of
development like HC.
Yes, there are far more powerful programs (such as Metacard, etc.),
but they have the large learning curve that HC does not. I just have no
desire to invest a few hours in learning them if HC does everything I
need. Besides, I have built quite a few stacks that handle personal
chores quite well, and I don't want to deal with the
conversion/re-writes at this point.
A sort of super-QuickTime was supposed to be the next iteration of
HC, but that project died. I think it would be smart of Apple to bring
the product back, make it OS X native, etc., but I don't expect
that to happen any time soon.
On to the DVD screen capture issue. Ambrosia SW has a product that
does that pretty well: Snapz Pro
X. I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard good things about
it, and the Ambrosia site states that you can capture stills or movies
from a DVD as long as you have an Nvidia or Quartz Extreme capable ATI
card.
Oh, you can also record your own QT flicks, plus do the usual screen
captures of various needs. Free demo for download.
As long as HyperCard works for you, I'm not going to suggest you
switch. I still use Claris Emailer and Home Page, two wonderful
applications that will never be available for OS X. Ditto for
Mizer, a practically ancient HTML compression program, and BBEdit Lite
4.6, which does exactly what I want for free - unlike the current
X-native version. Photoshop 5.5 does everything I need, so I don't
anticipate spending the money for 7.0. And I use FileMaker Pro 3.0 rarely enough that I
can't see spending money to upgrade it, either. (Ditto for MS Word
5.1a.)
Three cheers for the classic environment, which lets us keep using our
old Mac apps as long as it makes sense to keep using them!
Next time I want to try a screen capture from a DVD, I'll download the
demo version of Snapz Pro X and try it out. Some day I'd like to have
the time to write some more reviews for Digital-Views.com, but the site
is essentially in stasis at present.
Dan Knight has been publishing Low
End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.
