Macworld Disappoints
From Robert Crane:
Other than the shiny new executive non-upgradeable laptop to
distract the faithful, the update to the Apple Store was very
disappointing.
Missing in action:
- Lower priced iMac using GMA 3100 graphics and combo drive.
$899-999. For a lot of people crossing that $1,000 barrier of a Mac is
still a problem.
- Upper priced iMac using Core 2 Quad, $2599. For the gamer types and
those who fantasize about productivity this would have been an easy
move.
- Since they did not kill the Mac mini as rumored, they sure had a
lot of time in which they could have improved it: Upgraded Mac mini: to
SR Core 2 duo: Would have been nice to see a combo with 2G RAM, 100G
drive, GMA 3100 at $499. And a SuperDrive version with 4G RAM 200G
drive, GMA3100 at $699.
And on a whole new note, I think that Apple is missing a very good
market for their products: Embedded, Industrial and Ruggedized versions
of Mac mini and iMac need packaging changes but could very well fit
into motorhomes, boats and ships, and industrial control settings.
Apple makes a profit of a billion dollars a month. The changes
listed above pay for themselves in days.
Apple is not serving their public as well as possible.
Robert Crane
Robert,
I like your idea about a ruggedized Mac mini. With Mac
OS X, they would be extremely reliable. Let's hope someone at Apple is
reading Low End Mac.
It's only been 5 months since the Mac mini finally migrated to Core 2
Duo, and until the MacBook Air was announced, it was the slowest
computer in the Macintosh family. Apple does need to improve the
graphics, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the next revision of the
Mac mini include the Santa Rosa chipset, an 800 MHz bus, and GMA X3100
graphics. I would, unfortunately, be surprised to see Apple cut the
price.
Apple has defined its market, and that doesn't include
people who want a sub-$1,000 iMac, whether with a 17" display or
integrated graphics. Ditto for sub-$600 desktops, and the features of
the Mac mini pale compared with most $400 Windows PCs.
Apple is serving its own interests first: making a
profit and staying in business. Apple has the highest profit margin in
the industry, and they don't seem at all interested in shaving that
back a bit to increase market share. Looking at Apple's growth since
1998, they are doing very well for themselves while ignoring some
obvious markets.
Dan
Enough USB Ports in MacBooks
From Björn Steiner in response to We Need More than 2 USB
Ports in MacBooks:
Hi Dan,
Yes, you are right that we often need more then 2 USB ports, but no,
I don't want to see that at the machines. I prefer having the
additional USB ports on a small separate hub. Increasing the number of
ports does . . . raise the possibility to break these ports,
and that is why I go for external split - just my 5 cents.
best
Björn
Björn,
Different strokes for different folks, and Apple has
taken that thinking to the extreme with the new MacBook Air, which has only one
USB port. Of course, another drawback of only having one port is what
do you do when the port breaks? With 3 or 4 ports, that's a lot less of
an issue.
Dan
Most Macs Need More USB Ports
From Alan Zisman:
I agree with your comment that Apple needs to up the number of USB
ports on its portable computers - but it needs to up the number of
powered USB ports on its desktop models as well. My iMac comes with 3
USB ports on the body of the computer, plus a pair of unpowered ports
on the keyboard.
Once you plug the keyboard into one of the ports, you've only got
two left - you can plug the mouse into one of the ports on the
keyboard, but the other port is not very useful; it's unpowered, making
it unusable with many devices, and its location is awkward for many
other devices.
I use an external hard drive (for Time Machine backups); add an iPod
dock, a USB flash drive (or whatever these are being called these
days), a digital camera, a USB printer, and on and on - it would be
nice to not have to either get a hub or forever be plugging and
unplugging devices.
Alan,
I agree. I have two USB 2.0 cards in my Power Mac as
well as a hub in my monitor and one built into my desk. I don't think
it's possible to put too many USB ports on a computer.
As for those USB drives, I've heard them called thumb
drives and flash drives, terms that I tend to use myself.
Dan
And the new MacBook Air has just one USB port (and no FireWire)
. . . which may be carrying form over function too far.
I love the look of it - but to make it more useful would require
immediately adding a USB hub (and carrying it everywhere) and the
external drive, and the ethernet dongle, and at that point it starts to
be less of a stylish ultralight and more a collection of parts.
Alan,
I don't know what Apple was thinking in eliminating
FireWire, which has been on almost every Mac since 1999. No Target Disk
Mode for MacBook Air owners. Still, it's a very tempting computer.
Wouldn't it be great to see a 15" version with more ports?
Dan
USB Ports on MacBooks Too Close Together
From Jason Packer:
Dan-
My wife has a MacBook, and
there are more problems than just that there are only two USB ports.
They're also a little too close together. Some USB devices are a little
chunky to be used in conjunction with any other USB device
simultaneously.
That said, I think you'd best invest in the USB hub. I have an
eMac as my main machine, and I ran out
of ports way before you did. I have my original Mac keyboard plugged
into one, and an optical two-button mouse plugged into the USB hub on
the keyboard. In the same hub, I have a cable plugged in for my digital
still camera. In the other two USB ports I have plugged in an external
DVD writer and finally a connection to a 4-port USB powered hub. That
hub has an external 300 GB hard drive, two printers (a Canon i850 and
an HP PSC1310, shared on our network quite nicely, thanks), and a
multicard reader for memory sticks, SD cards, etc. One of my FireWire
ports is also taken up with a cable for our Canon MiniDV video
camera.
I'm amazed you've been able to go on this long without a hub. I
happened to have one laying around, or I'd have been forced to go out
and buy one about a week after I acquired this Mac in the first
place!
Jason Packer
Jason,
You don't want to know how many hubs I have here. Two
or three of the 4-port USB 2.0 Belkin hubs, one built into my computer
desk, a 3-port hub combined with a card reader (for which I've
misplaced the power brick), a 13-port hub I need to review, and an
ancient 7-port USB 1.1 hub from the olden days. Hubs are important at
your desk, where you may have one or two printers, a scanner, a card
reader, a keyboard, a mouse, a graphics tablet, an iPod, a hard drive,
a flash drive, etc.
The point I was trying to make is that MacBooks are
portable, so they should be designed so you don't need to carry
anything extra. They should have enough ports so you can plug in your
flash drive, iPod, and printer at the same time - or whatever
peripherals you may have. That's the norm in the Windows world, but
Apple only gives you three USB ports on one portable, the 17" MacBook Pro.
Dan
Leopard Developer Edition Ran on Yikes G4
From David Zinkin:
Hi Dan,
I went to the 2006 WWDC and obtained the developer copy of Leopard
that was handed out. I can confirm that, yes, I did have it booting
successfully on my Yikes G4
tower with a Radeon 7000 Mac Edition card installed. It didn't run
very quickly, but it did run.
Best,
- David Zinkin
David,
Thanks for the information. Now all we need to do is
have someone try transplanting the drivers and bypass any AGP testing
that may be part of Leopard....
Dan
Pismo 'Works Really Well'
From Manuel Jorge Marques:
Well, when I read this
article on LEM, I smiled, because I do exactly the same with my
almost 8-year-old Pismo.
I bought it used, on eBay - paid about 170 Euros ($250) for it, with
a not-so-stock configuration: 256 MB of RAM, 40 GB hard drive, and an
AirPort Card. The battery wasn't dead, it lasted a charge, but only for
about an hour.
It has been my only - as of today - laptop computer, and it serves
me well! I can surf through my college wireless network, write my
assignments using LaTeX,
and browse my ever-growing PDF collection. I bought a new battery, and
now the two combined (a feature I simply love in my Pismo!) can let my
Pismo run for almost 7-8 hours unplugged.
Of course I have another Mac to do the "heavy duty" work: in my
case, I have a Core Duo iMac with
2 GB of RAM for the heavy work I sometimes need to do. But for
most of the things, the Pismo works really well!
I only charge the "little guy" once in every 2-3 days, depending on
the usage - and it sleeps whenever I'm not using it, contributing for
its gigantic uptime - my record is 40 days without a single crash! (The
only reason I had to reboot it was to install a new set of drivers for
my printer.) Try doing that on a Windows notebook :o)
Although I'm planning on upgrading to a MacBook sometime in the next year, the
Pismo is a really nice piece of hardware, and I hope it continues to
serve me well for many years to come! :-)
Regards from a happy Pismo owner!
Manuel Marques, Portugal
Manuel,
Thanks for writing. If I were to ever acquire a G3
PowerBook, it would undoubtedly be the Pismo. It's rugged, has a great
keyboard, includes FireWire and USB, takes an AirPort Card, can handle
1 GB of RAM and a 120 GB hard drive, and can even take a G4
upgrade. Taking two batteries is an additional bonus that hadn't even
occurred to me! It's no surprise they often sell for over $300 from
used Mac dealers.
Dan
Using Flash Memory on a Vintage Mac
From William Goodstone:
Hi Dan,
I read your article a while ago and decided to buy one of those
cheap CF adaptor cards for my old PowerBook, just as an experiment. But
only to find out that my PowerBook has SCSI and not IDE. I should have
done more research!
One site (http://450.servehttp.com/) claims to
have the LC web server running on CF cards. The pictures of the adaptor
CF-SCSI card look real to me.
I still haven't found sites that sell CF-SCSI card, but I thought I
would just like to inform you that such adaptors do exist so that SCSI
Macs can also take CF cards in place of a hard disk.
Bill
Bill,
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Looking at
the
photo on the Junkstation website, it looks like this might be a
2.5" SCSI-to-CF adapter with a 3.5"-to-2.5" SCSI adapter. I've sent an
email to the owner of the site asking for more info.
BTW, we try to mention in our profiles whether a Mac
uses SCSI or IDE drives. If we've missed it on a page, please let me
know. Thanks!
Dan
Mac IIfx RAM Heaven
From Cory Tobin:
Heya bud, while on some idle time I decided to randomly see if
somehow I missed out on someone's potential 16 MB 64-pin SIMMs, like
usual.
Instead of checking the usual suspects, I did a Google search,
checking out any site that had 64-pin SIMMs listed. What you'll see
next is what floored me:
<http://www.yourmacstore.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=12>
I figured that the site may be out of date and to order anyway,
worst case scenario being I get refunded, right? I order 8, price be
damned, and I did get an order confirmation and shipping
confirmation not too long after.
The SIMMs arrive today, swapped my 32 megs worth of SIMMs for the
128 megs' worth, boot the puppy up, and voilà, About this Mac
shows 128 megs of RAM (usually 131 with base-8 math), I'm ecstatic. I'm
not sure how much they have left. I'm hoping to get a second IIfx at
some point and max it out as well. I guess trying to solder-hack 16 MB
chips won't be necessary, at least not for a little while longer
:)
-C
Cory,
That's a great deal. With an accelerated video card
and Mac OS 7.5.x through 8.1 (you can install it using Born Again), the IIfx can be a really fun computer to play
with - and useful as well.
Dan
Microsoft Word vs. Apple's Pages for Academic
Writing
From Clinton MacDonald following up on Microsoft Word vs. Apple's Pages:
Mr. Adkins:
Here is some more information following up on my rant about lack of
reference manager support for Apple Pages, as well as the general
disinterest Apple has shown in opening Pages and its other iWork
applications to third-party add-ons.
TidBITS had a discussion of reference managers and mentioned several
of the points I did. Additionally, CHeinz338 mentioned another tool,
Zotero, which is an extension to the Firefox browser that helps in
tracking research sources.
Excitingly, Third Street Software has announced direct support for
Pages '08 in their Sente reference manager (well, "announced" is too
strong a word, but it is listed deep within their site).
I have not tried Sente with Pages yet, but it could be a winning
combination.
Best wishes,
Clint MacDonald
Texas Tech University
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.
