18-Bit Screen Dithering
From Zack Smith in response to Millions vs. Thousands of
Colors: What's the Difference?:
I enjoyed your article, but I need to point out that the "big issue"
isn't so much that Apple is using 18-bit displays in their laptops (and
for the record, all laptop displays are 18-bit), it's that Apple's
dithering algorithm changed between the PowerBook and the MacBook Pro.
I went from an 867 MHz PowerBook G4 to a 2.2 GHz MacBook Pro, and the
palette in Photoshop has noticeable banding and clipping on the MacBook
Pro's internal display and not on the PowerBook's display. The palette
also appears as it should on an external display hooked up to either
computer. I can live with this, but it could be unacceptable for
professional photographers.
- Zack Smith
Zack,
Thanks for sharing this. I don't have a 20" aluminum
iMac and don't work with Photoshop Elements on the MacBook Pro my wife
uses, so I hadn't seen the difference between my Power Mac G4 with an
LCD and the MacBook Pro. As she's at work today, I just tested it: open
Elements, create a blank image, and open the color picker. There's
definitely more banding than on the Dell display connected to my
G4.
It's a shame Apple downgraded from the algorithm that
worked so well on PowerBooks, which had the same 18-bit display
limitation.
Dan
16-Bit Video Not Good Enough
From Bill Rice:
Hi Dan,
Although I'm not decided on whether Apple's 18-bit color is
indistinguishable from 24, I think you've been misleading in your quote
from the Tidbits article. Fleishman's quote was preceded by, "Apple's
rationale is two-fold....". The part you quoted was not his opinion,
but his interpretation of Apples' actions in removing 24-bit video from
newly introduced models.
He goes on to say, "I feel that you don't have to be an expert to
appreciate 24-bit video. I have spent the last 20 months working mostly
on systems with 24-bit video, and the distinction that I see between
those systems and others running 16-bit video is substantial enough for
anyone making a cursory comparison to notice. People doing serious
illustration . . . must have 24-bit video. Although you may
see smooth blends and crisp results on screen in 16-bit color, you will
have no guarantee of the actual output colors or blends."
I think that is a more honest quote that gives the gist of the
article. Considering that it was written 15 years ago, it would seem to
be even more important today for Apple to be honest about the video
capabilities of it's various models.
Bill
Bill,
Thanks for writing.
Fleishmann doesn't state that he's quoting Apple, and
16-bit color is good enough for most video and multimedia work. It's
not good enough for precise color work, but for things like adjusting
brightness, contrast, and the like, it should be adequate. So as long
as you're not adjusting the color, most users should find 15- to 18-bit
color adequate - not perfect, but good enough for typical use.
Dan
Fixing Sluggish AppleWorks
From Zach Tuckwiller:
To speed AppleWorks back up, you have to clear out the Recent Items.
I don't know why, but this fixes it. We discovered this where I work a
few years ago, and it helps us immensely. In your home folder, go to
the Documents/AppleWorks User Data/Starting Points/Recent
Items, and empty this folder out. It's full of aliases to all of
the files you've ever opened with AppleWorks on that computer.
In our work environment, after we empty this folder and then the
trash, we usually Get Info on this folder and set the owner (and group
if it's not already) to Read Only. That way, from here on out,
AppleWorks can't put the shortcuts there and bog down the application.
It takes away the ability to use the Recent Items part of Starting
Points, but if you don't use that part anyway, then it won't matter. If
you do, just clear out the folder periodically, and you should be good
to go. Hope this helps! Take care, and have a good evening!
Zach
Zach,
A million thanks. There were 984 files in that folder.
Trashing them and then emptying the Trash has AppleWorks running as
speedily as ever!
Dan
AppleWorks Clean Up
From Scott Cook:
Hey Dan,
I've read about your frustration with AppleWorks. It's still working
very well for me. You probably already know this, but in your User
folder, go into:
Documents/AppleWorks User Data/Starting Points/Recent Items/
and delete all those files, with AppleWorks shut down of course. You
are likely to find hundreds of files in there if you've never cleaned
it out before. These old files will slow AppleWorks to a crawl and can
make it unstable. You can also delete the items in the:
Documents/AppleWorks User Data/AutoSave/
folder, after backing up your work and shutting down AppleWorks
properly. Even if you already know this, there may be readers who don't
know. AppleWorks is wonderful, and I'll use it as long as possible.
AppleWorks uses 0% of my CPU while running with a blank word processing
document open. Microsoft Office uses about 10% of my CPU while running
with a blank word processing document open. What is the reason for
that?
Scott Cook
Scott,
Thanks for the tip. Another reader already suggested
clearing out the Recent Items folder, and it made a world of
difference.
I can't imagine why Word would use 10% of your CPU. On
my dual 1 GHz G4 with no window open, it's reporting 2% of CPU cycles
being used by Word, 23% by Safari (Yahoo Mail is open), and a big fat
zero for AppleWorks. Something called TrueBlueEnvironement is using
about 100% of CPU cycles (remember, this is a dual CPU Mac); I'm
guessing that's part of Classic Mode, which was called the Blue Box
when Rhapsody was being developed. (I just verified that by quitting
Classic, and after restarting, it's using up a lot less resources.
Interesting....)
Thanks again for the tips.
Dan
The tip comes from AppleWorks
6: The Missing Manual, which is an excellent resource. I
actually read it from cover to cover and learned a lot. I still refer
to it whenever I need to.
I'm using a 500 MHz G3 iBook at the moment, so 10% of my CPU is
probably about the same as 2% of yours. I can't imagine why a blank
word processing document would use any of the CPU. Thankfully
AppleWorks doesn't. I leave AppleWorks running all the time, even when
I'm not using it. I have to shut down all Microsoft Office applications
when I'm not using them. I hardly ever use Office unless somebody sends
me a document. I have iTunes playing an .mp3 CD most of the time. It
uses 15% of my CPU. Safari and Mail are always running - and use less
CPU than Word does. I only run Classic when I need to use an OS 9
application, usually Photoshop 5, which is wonderful on my little G3
iBook by the way. I think AppleWorks, Roxio Toast with Jam, and Adobe
Photoshop are some of the best Mac applications I've ever purchased. I
now have Final Cut Pro 3, which will run on my G3 iBook. This should
prove interesting! (laugh)
Am I a low-end power user?
Scott Cook
Scott,
Yeah, I'd consider you a low-end power user: You know
how to get the most out of what you have.
Although I now use Photoshop Elements 3.0 for almost
all of my image editing, I used Photoshop 5.5 for the longest time -
and only upgraded to it from 4.0 so I could have editable text. There's
a lot of value in good old software like AppleWorks, FileMaker Pro,
Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, not to mention great Classic apps like
Claris Home Page and Claris Emailer.
If I didn't already know enough about AppleWorks to do
everything I need, I'd seriously consider picking up the Missing
Manual.
Dan
AppleWorks 6: The Missing Manual is $4.35 with shipping
included on Amazon.com right now. It's probably a similar bargain on
eBay. I bought it at full retail and found it to be one of the best
resources I ever bought. I've been a heavy AppleWorks user for years.
My other best resource is Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther
Edition. I read it cover to cover and still use it as a reference
whenever I need.
I'm very thankful Apple periodically obsoletes its technology,
leaving me with tremendous software bargains! So far I got Microsoft
Word 98 free, Office X full version for $13, Adobe Photoshop 5 full
version for $7, Final Cut Pro 3 for $20, Digidesign ProTools
Free as a free download, and a big stack of games and other stuff
for a few dollars. This is some seriously nice software for practically
nothing. All I need is my G3 iBook (also given to me free) to run it
well. How many thousands of dollars would this software cost just a few
years ago?
I can hardly wait until Apple dumps Intel so I can steal some more
cool stuff! (laugh)
Scott Cook
AppleWorks Drawings
From Bob Forsberg following up on Disappointed with iWork:
Thanks Dan for your input. Yes, I've found Pages able to open
AppleWorks WP when inside Pages (word processing) but not DR
(drawing).
For my business documents I created DR templates enabling me greater
freedom to move around created objects/text, than was available in WP.
Unfortunately, DR documents don't open. They are grayed out in iWork
08's Pages. Pages opens WP not DR. I realize its the price we pay for
using older software (AppleWorks 6.2.9) on newer hardware (Intel
2 GHz 24" iMac), but I expected Apple's replacement software,
iWork to always support the most recent AppleWorks.
Experiencing problems with AppleWorks isn't something I've
encountered, except AppleWorks sometimes quitting/failing to open when
attempting to open an AppleWorks document by clicking on its icon. For
me, it takes a total restart of the system to allow AppleWorks to again
run correctly. I don't know if its something I do prior to opening an
AppleWorks document that might hoard/freeze RAM or cache, but even
quitting all other programs . . . after getting the alert
message that AppleWorks quit . . . and again attempting to
open the document without restarting, doesn't work. I've also tried
force quit of the finder before a restart to no avail.
I own iWork '08, will continue using AppleWorks and hope an iWork DR
module that opens almost 2 decades of my AppleWorks DR documents will
be added.
Bob Forsberg
Bob,
It's a shame that Apple hasn't turned iWork into a
real replacement for AppleWorks. I've become quite proficient at
creating a chart in a spreadsheet, copying it to a drawing, changing
colors and line weights, and then pasting that into Photoshop Elements
to create graphics for Low End Mac and Reformed.net. I doubt we'll ever
see anything like AppleWorks again, which is a shame, as it also
included paint and presentation modules. Until iWork gains a draw
program, you're probably going to have to stick with AppleWorks.
I haven't experienced the problem you mention, but
I'll post it to the mailbag in hopes someone will have some
guidance.
Dan
Damaged Address Book in Outlook Express 5
From Peter de Waal:
Hi,
Greetings from New Zealand. A friend of mine does community
development work and has for years used Outlook Express 5 on OS 9.2.2
on a G4.
He now wants to upgrade to OS X and Apple Mail but is having trouble
upgrading because his OE5 Address Book became corrupted, as his volume
of mail at one point last year was 2.5 Gigabytes!
Apparently Outlook Express 5 has a file limit of 1.99 gigabytes
according to
Wikipedia.
On inspecting the Outlook Express 5 "Database" containing the
address book with Microsoft Excel, I found fragments of emails
scattered about with addresses, other information, and the code that
Microsoft write their applications in. So it seems like a classic case
of "Address Book Corruption" caused by having too many emails stored,
as Wikipedia describes.
There are numerous software tools for Windows users to unscramble
this problem, but nothing available for Mac users.
Do you know of any utilities that can repair this damage?
Peter
Peter,
I found a bit about OE5 for Mac on the Internet.
Outlook Express 5.0
for Mac: Maintenance looks like a very helpful resource. They
recommend using version 5.02 or later, stating, "A complex rebuild can
create troubles with your address book in versions prior to 5.02." They
also explain how to rebuild a damaged database and compact an overgrown
one. I hope that's enough to help.
Dan
Hi Dan,
Thank you very much for getting back to me. My friend is already
running Outlook Express 5.0.6. I tried the "Complex Rebuild of
Database" option - it runs to the end and then dies, giving an error
message saying it has had an "Error of Type 2."
I tried copying Outlook Express 5.0.6 and the "Documents" folder to
a 249 MB RAM Disk (as I have 1024 MB of RAM in my G3 B/W), deleting the
originals with the same result.
There doesn't seem to be any way of printing the contact lists off
in OE5, so it looks like it will have to be a manual copy from one
machine to another of 2400 contacts...
Such is life.
Thanks very much for your help.
Regards,
Peter de Waal
Peter,
Sorry to hear it. I remember running into the same
problem with Quark XPress well over a decade ago - you could create,
work on, and save files that were too large for XPress to ever open
again. Very frustrating - no program should save a file bigger than it
can open without a warning message.
Dan
Information on Apple Displays
From James Haudenshield:
Hi Dan,
As always, LEM continues to provide great content, despite the
annoying keyword popup links. Your site has really grown nicely over
the past 8 years that I've been surfing to it.
Now that the color
depth of Mac monitors has come to the foreground of the Mac
community, I began investigating the low-end "Apple Studio Display" 16"
CRT that I'm using with my low-end Sawtooth G4 PowerMac. And I
noticed that LEM doesn't really have a section for monitors/displays.
There are sections for video cards.
So my idea is that LEM could have a section on "Monitor/Display
Profiles" just as it has for "Mac Profiles", and the specs for all
these displays (including the flat panel of PowerBooks, iBooks, and
MBAs) could be shown. It would include, of course, the true number of
bits per pixel, but also the connection type, true viewable area, etc.
To populate this new area of LEM with data, you could initially set it
up as a "Web 2.0" style forum, where users can add information
themselves, as replies to a blog, one topic per monitor. Then, after
enough info is accumulated, you can simply compile the data into a
pretty website, and add the advertising links to various display
resellers. :)
Cheers,
- Jim
Jim,
Thanks for writing. There are some areas we didn't
cover that we now wish we had. We're slowly adding profiles for
PCI and AGP video cards, LaserWriter printers, and Mac software. I'll get started on a section for displays as well, although it
won't include the displays built into notebooks. (We can include that
on the pages for those 'Books.)
We also ought to add sections for PCI-X and PCIe video
cards. I'll post this in the mailbag in hopes of finding a few readers
who would like to help with this project. Thanks for the
suggestion.
Dan
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.
