You must write sun up to sun down every day.
I find your work everywhere!
- Hi Marvin,
It certainly does seem that way a lot of days.
And you don't know the half of it....
Actually, my Mac Web work is only part of my journalistic output. I
also syndicate four political/cultural commentary columns a week to
newspapers across Canada, have a column in my local weekly paper every
second week, have regular columns in Canadian Yachting Magazine, The
Interim, Atlantic Fisherman, The Nova Scotia Business Journal,
ChristianWeek, and Continental Newstime, and I moderate a very active
email discussion forum.
Keeps me busy....
Charles
From Ned Morell
Subject: Google giggle
My wife and I were wondering about fax software for OS X, and
she remembered reading a column of yours about it some time ago. I went
to Google and searched for "Charles W. Moore", "OS X" and "fax".
The reason I'm telling you this is because Google categorizes you as
"Science > Social Sciences > ... > Constructed Languages >
Play Languages > Pig Latin"! I can't imagine why...
Regards,
Ned Morell
- Hi Ned,
As I noted to Marvin above, I write in many venues, and frequently find
myself popping up unexpectedly in my own Google searches.
I wrote a column for Applelinks a while back about people
using Pig Latin as a foil against copyright snoops on Napster,
which is probably where the reference you mention came from.
Best,
Charles
From: Robert Herring
Subject: Fax Software & DSL
Mr. Moore:
I recently became DSL user and am wondering if there is fax software
available for this connection. It appears that the programs all are
looking for a "traditional" modem and do not recognize the DSL modem.
Am I doing something wrong? What are my options?
Robert Herring
- Hi Robert,
I'm not a DSL user, and have thus not encountered this issue, but I
would be surprised if it's not addressed by somebody making fax
software.
If it hasn't been, I guess the only alternative is to connect via modem
when you need to send or receive a fax, although I appreciate that is
not a really satisfactory solution.
Charles
From Niran Sabanathan
Subject: Sublaptops
Hi Charles,
Thanks for the article about the QuickPad
Pro. I have not had any experience with the Quick Pad, but have
used the Alphasmart for the
last 3 years. In fact, I just bought the new Alphasmart 3000 model.
Despite having a (gasp) AcerNote Light, I really prefer using the
Alphasmart for word slinging in the field.
These beasts are light (2.2 lbs.) and cheap(er) - $319 Canadian. Now
I know that does seem a bit expensive compared to some low-end PowerBooks, but the Alphasmart does the
job of basic word processing with the least amount of hassle and back
pain. They are easy to carry in a backpack or knapsack; you almost
don't know they are there. I can not say the same for my laptop.
The batteries (3 AA) last forever - apparently 300-500 hours with
the Alphasmart 3000. This is great for travel, because you are not
constantly watching a powering down battery meter. If you do run out of
power, how hard is it to find 3 AA in most places in the world ?
The only real disappointment is the lack of screen real estate.
These machines are not good for revision of substantial documents, but
they are not meant to be. I like to think of them as electronic
notebooks. Once you have everything down, just download and compose.
The advantage of not using a "real" computer for jotting down your
thoughts - no email, no Internet, no distractions. It is just you, the
keyboard, and a black and white LCD.
By the way, I don't work for Alphasmart, Inc.
Sincerely,
Niran Sabanathan
From Scott Thomas-Fitch
Subject: QPS M2 FireWire Hard Drive
Thank you for your article on the QPS M2
drive on Low End Mac. I am in the market for
a small portable drive. How would you compare it to the VST small
drives though?
Thank you in advance,
Scott in Barcelona
- Hi Scott,
From what I hear, the VST drives are very good as well, but I have no
hands-on experience.
Charles
From Harvey Lazar
Subject: StarMax 3000 OS upgrade
Hi Charles,
Just found out about the Low End Mac Web
site and read your "ramblings" on
upgrading the StarMax 3000. I have a
StarMax 3000/180 and just added 64 MB RAM (from Crucial Technologies
for $60 w/tax). However, it is running on OS 7.6. What options do I
have to upgrade the OS? I'll be satisfied with 8.1 but even more so
with 8.6. I would appreciate any advice you can offer.
Thank you,
Harvey
- Hi Harvey,
I have used my Umax S900 (200 MHz 604e) with the following Mac OS
versions: 7.5.3; 8.0; 8.1; 8.5.1; 8.6, 9.0; 9.0.4. and 9.1.
All have worked with no problem. I expect you would find the same with
your not-that-much-slower StarMax. I am currently running Mac OS
9.1.
Charles
From Anonymous by request
Subject: c500 info
Charles,
Here are a couple of other sites that might help the guy with the
wonky C500. They're not exactly
troubleshooting sites, but I've found a lot of useful info for my
C600 there.
SuperMac C500/C600 Info Page
http://members.nbci.com/Mark_Carrot/s-max/c-max.html
(and since it's the same motherboard as the 6400/6500 ...)
The 6400 Zone
http://homepage.mac.com/zone6400/
Power Mac 6500
http://bioss.telenet.be/pm6500.htm
Of course, the Low End Mac page for
the C500 might have some other sites to check out.
A couple of things come to mind about his startup freeze. He said
booting from CDs didn't help. How about disconnecting the hard drive
and then starting from a CD? That way you can tell if it's the
HD or something more fundamental. If there's a video card installed,
then switching from that to the Umax's built-in video port would
eliminate another possible source of the freeze. (Might need a Mac to
VGA adapter for that.)
Good work on the columns!
- Thanks for the info and the links!
C.
From Wayne
Subject: S900
Hi Charles,
I was reading an article on Low End Mac and you mentioned you had an
S900. I recently found a deal on a
1400cs and an S900 package. I resold the
1400cs (I have a PB G3 PDQ) and kept
the S900.
How the heck do you get this thing to boot using a Norton CD!? I
know that CD ROM Toolkit is required for the CD ROM. This is what I
have tried: Creating a rescue disk from the internal Zip and using
Norton as the utility. System freezes before happy Mac. The Norton CD
does the same.
The SuperMac CD works, but it is System 8.0 with no network drivers.
I would just mount the Norton CD from another Mac and fix away. So I
figured I would burn a bootable CD using the SuperMac CD and add OS 8
network drivers and Norton Utilities.
Burned CD did the same thing, freeze before happy Mac. Any
ideas?
Thanks
Wayne
P.S. What kind of upgrades do you have in the S900? HD? G3/G4? USB?
FireWire? DVD? RAM?
Man this thing is a beast...
- Hi Wayne,
I've never encountered this one before, although I had some weird and
frustrating problems with my S900 that were finally determined to be a
very cranky Seagate 2.15 GB 7200 RPM Barracuda hard drive. I replaced
the latter with a Quantum 4 GB unit and have had no further
problems. It took me several months and a lot of hair tearing to figure
it out however.
I doubt that your problem is the HD. Does the machine boot up OK
otherwise?
Maybe you should try Micromat's Tech Tool Pro as an alternative to
Norton.
My S900 is a Frankenstein machine. I bought it new (that is, it had
never been used) in May 2000 as a bare chassis and motherboard, and
have added:
- A 200 MHz 604e processor from a PowerMac 7300
- Hard drives as above - the Quantum is a pull from a Power Computing
machine.
- An Apple 8x CD-ROM drive
- An odds and sods assortment of scrounged RAM DIMMs - no two alike,
totaling 120 MB (and I still have an empty slot or two
- A video card out of a Umax J700
(it's not great)
- A Macally USB PCI upgrade card
- A Macally FireWire PCI upgrade card
- I have used the following Mac OS versions: 7.5.3; 8.0; 8.1; 8.5.1;
8.6, 9.0; 9.0.4. and 9.1. All worked well. It's currently running OS
9.1.
And yes, it is a beast!
Charles
From Vance A. Butler
Subject: Navigation on a Mac
Charles
David M Ensteness recently queried you about using a PB 5300 for this purpose. It appeared the major
problem was the lack of a CD drive. I, too, had pondered that when
using DeLorme Atlas 4.0, as it required the CD for 100% functionality.
I simply made a disk image of the CD and placed an alias on the
desktop, now when I want Atlas to launch, I boot up the disk image and
it "fools" the 5300 into thinking its running off a CD. A very simple
yet elegant solution, one caveat - you have to have the disk space
available, although Atlas does allow you to extract their map database
into smaller, I don't remember the exact feature name I think its
called Extractor. Anyway thought this might be of general interest to
those whose PB are CD-less
Thanks
- Thank you! A very useful tip.
Charles
From Frank C. Modica
Subject: Spellchecker
Charles:
After reading your article about spellchecker, I downloaded it. I've
been using it on a PB 170 running OS 7.1
with Thread Manager and Drop and Drag. Though it's a bit slow on that
machine, I've found it very useful. I also use it on my G3 powered
6100, and it is quite a bit faster
there.
Frank C. Modica
- Glad you're finding it useful. I find it indispensable, and don't
know what I will do when I switch to OS X.
C.
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