Glossy vs. Matte Displays
From David Chilstrom:
Below is an article which explains the rationale behind the
glossy screen. The fundamental point is that the matte screen,
which scatters incoming light, does the same for outgoing light,
distorting colors and image crispness on the way. For a 17" 'Book
serving as a desktop replacement, I would unhesitatingly go with
glossy for the higher detail and color fidelity. The case is less
clear with the MacBook, which presumably will see much more action
in the field. Having frequently dealt with screen washout in coffee
shops, etc., it will definitely be a problem. However, I think I
would opt for image quality over flexibility in harsh
environments.
PixelBright:
Anti-Reflective LCD Screens versus Anti-Glare LCD Screens
Regards,
David Chilstrom
Hi David,
Thanks for the comment and link. It's nice to have
the option of either on the MacBook Pro, although it creates
another decision dilemma.
I suppose it partly depends upon one's tolerance
for glare in un-optimum conditions.
Charles
Re: Glossy vs. Matte Displays
"I suppose it partly depends upon one's tolerance for glare in
un-optimum conditions."
I think offering a matte screen on the black MacBook would be a
way adding 'value' for the premium price. I closely compared a
MacBook next to a MacBook Pro, and the difference in clarity and
color vibrancy was immediately obvious.
Regards,
David Chilstrom
Upgrade Pismo or Go with 12" PowerBook G4/1.5
GHz?
From Laurie
Good evening,
I have been trying to decide whether to hire someone to upgrade
my Pismo (I don't feel appropriately
skilled or manually coordinated enough) so it runs better and
faster, has more memory, has a battery that holds a charge and a
power adaptor that's reliable, and generally works better as I am
both an online psychotherapist and about to embark on some other
telecommuting work to supplement my ever-faltering income. Mac
repair people in my neck of the woods (Berkeley) seem to think it
may be time to stop putting money into this machine (for labor as
well as parts) and move on to a later model of PowerBook.
I have found a 6 month old PowerBook
G4, the latest and last of the 12" G4 aluminum PowerBooks which
is in great shape and has 1.5 GHz, 80 GB, a SuperDrive, lots of
useful software. It will cost me $899, which I know is more than I
would spend to totally fix my Pismo, and it's not like I can really
afford any of this, but I absolutely need a totally reliable
and fairly speedy machine for these Internet-related jobs and for
the part-time online therapy I am doing (clients hate when you lose
contact with them).
I thought, since you are the Pismo guru, you might be
able to give me some advice. The problem is I have to let the
person with the G4 know tomorrow (Saturday, June 3), and I am in a
quandary.
How much do you think it might cost me to bring my Pismo 576 MB
SDRAM; 400 MHz running on 10.3.9) up to date?
Thanks!
Laurie
Hi Laurie,
I love my old Pismo, but even with its 550 MHz G4
processor upgrade, it's getting pretty marginalized, and in your
case - especially since you need to hire out the labor involved
with upgrades - I think the Mac repair people are steering you
right.
A processor upgrade will cost you (in round
figures) about $250 or more; a RAM upgrade $60 or so. A bigger hard
drive - $100 to $120, a SuperDrive - $200, a new battery - $130.
Plus labor for any installation necessary.
$899 for a 1.5 GHz 12" PowerBook with SuperDrive
is a bargain!. The 12" G4 PowerBook is one of the most reliable and
desirable laptops Apple has ever made. I can't speak to the
condition of this particular machine, but if it's in good shape,
it's hard to see how you could go wrong.
Do consider, however, that for a couple hundred
more than that you can get a new MacBook - although the PowerBook will
likely be a more bug-free machine.
My 2¢ anyway.
Good luck, and let me know how you make out.
Charles
Re: Upgrade Pismo or Go with 12" PowerBook G4/1.5 GHz?
From Laurie
Thank you so much for writing back to me. Your 2 cents are very
valuable! I have been enjoying and learning from your articles and
Q/A sessions about PowerBooks, specifically the Pismo, for a long
time! It has always been comforting and enjoyable to read the
knowledgeable words of a Pismo comrade!
The young man who is selling the PowerBook is a recent Berkeley
graduate who lives close by. He seems like an honest person, and as
I can actually sit down with him and try the machine before I make
a decision, it feels better than an anonymous long distance
eBay
buy!
Also, this G4 was purchased new recently according to the seller
(he has all his receipts) who wrote: "The model is from 2006, just
last spring, just about 4-5 months ago. I bought it right when
Apple announced the newer and faster processor and brighter
display, so really this is the latest 12" PowerBook released by
Apple." And it has 2+ years left of AppleCare extended care, just
in case. It does seem like a great deal!
Thanks for the advice, and I will let you know how it all turns
out.
Laurie
Hi Laurie,
If I were in your shoes, I would run - not
walk - over to that guy's house and grab the LittleAl 'Book. Sounds
like a peach! And with AppleCare, too! How could you go wrong at
the price?
Charles
Video Capture with OS 9
From Tim Larson
Greetings and salutations,
I am finally getting around to the purpose I bought my beige G3 for eight years ago - video capture. I
made sure I got the A/V package for that. However, I've only
recorded audio (never video) a handful of times during the
intervening years and have since retired the machine (as primary
desktop - it runs Linux and Apache now) in favor of a 2 x 1.8 GHz G5.
Several years ago my wife and I bought an analog camcorder,
since digicams were far too expensive for us at the time. I've been
dubbing the minitapes to regular VHS tapes, but we'd like to go to
DVD. Now everything is digital, and I can't just plug my S-video
cable (from the cam or the VCR) into the G5 to record. A->D
converters are very expensive, so I hope to use the G3.
The problem is that I've been out of the OS 9 world (or rather,
OS 9 has been out of our world) long enough now that I'm out
of touch with what is (was) available in this area. I've looked
around on Google and asked in a couple forums, but haven't found
much success as yet.
http://community.livejournal.com/digital_video/220943.html
I am hoping you can point me in the right direction. I do have
an SGI O2 (that has S-video inputs) available (which is of similar
vintage), and from my research there is an Irix program
(mediarecorder) that could potentially capture this video. However,
I'm almost positive that a Mac program would be easier to use.
(Besides, the O2 isn't booting at the moment, so I'd have to fix
that before I could get to the real issue.)
Did Mac OS 9 come with video capturing software? Is there
something available very economically (cheap!) today? All I need to
do is save it to a format I can suck over into iMovie on the G5
(i.e., no editing features required).
This is a perfect situation for a "low-end Mac" to come to the
rescue. Indeed, I'm only intending to use it for one of its
original purposes! (Who says a pair of 8-year-old machines can't be
useful?) Any helpful ideas are gratefully appreciated.
Thank you,
Tim Larson
Web Application Engineer
ElectricShoes Productions
Hi Tim,
I wish I could help, but my ignorance of video
capture and recording on any platform is encyclopedic, alas.
Perhaps someone in Readerland will be able to
suggest something.
Charles
Mac OS 9 Is Still a Player
From: Mel
I just read your article on OS
9. Very good stuff.
I own two Macs (G4 Quicksilver
tower & iBook G3/700) that
can dual boot into either OS X 10.3.9 or OS 9.2.2. I use OS X
about 90% of the time. Often I have OS 9 running in Classic
mode on either Mac.
I am a diehard PageMaker 6.5 user, and we still produce several
publications with that. PageMaker 6.5 works nicely in Classic mode
on OS X, but at certain points in the workflow (like burning a
CD of the final files), I find OS 9 works the best.
I know I will soon have to bite the financial bullet and upgrade
to at least the PowerPC version of Adobe's InDesign
someday soon
before the PPC version is discontinued. Ditto for Photoshop and
Illustrator, which both have worked fine in classic for years.
Anyway, I still find Classic Mac OS's useful.
For email, if you have a Unix shell account, you can use any
terminal program to get your Unix mail. (I use Nifty Telnet on an
old PowerPC Mac clone and a PowerBook
3400).
One of the neatest Internet programs that is supported in only
one place is Headgap.com's Telefinder BBS program. I have
been a member of Headgap's BBS for many years, and the person who
runs it still supports Telefinder, which can be used with OS 8
or 9, and also in Classic mode at OS X. Nice. Plus the Headgap
site sells a lot of older Macs and stuff if people need 'em.
I also use a lot of other older classic Mac software on my older
Macs, including my favorite word processor of all time, WriteNow
4.0, as well as MS Word 5.1.
I agree that Web browsing with any classic Mac browser is a pain
these days, though you can still get by with Explorer 5.1 or
whatever, and iCab. And, yes, that little text browser rocks,
too.
Mel
Hi Mel,
Thanks for the comment and suggestions.
Charles
Even When DiskWarrior 3 'Fails', It Can Save
the Day
From Ken Watanabe
Charles,
Your article [DiskWarrior 3: The
One Disk Utility Every Mac User Should Have] is a great
explanation of what DiskWarrior does so well. The two tools
I keep on hand are DW3 and
TechTool Pro 4.
While I was at Macworld in January, I took the opportunity to
upgrade to DW3. Recently, I had a chance to use it (the newest
version) for the first time in a "rescue" situation. The ailing Mac
could no longer mount the boot volume, and [Apple's] Disk Utility
could not repair it.
I brought over my external drive with DW3 and attempted to fix
the problem. Surprisingly, DW3 could not repair the damage (it was
the first time I have experienced DW not being able to fix a
directory problem). However, it did not "error out" with a cryptic
message, as some utilities do. It completed the work, stated that
the damage was too severe, and suggested that I mount the "preview"
volume and back up available data. I always thought the preview
feature was just for visually inspecting the optimized version of
the volume before committing, but it worked great to recover
data.
Once mounted, it acted like any volume "system wide", so I was
able to use Disk Utility to make a disk image of the damaged
volume. After doing a "restore" from that disk image to a
reformatted hard drive, most of the files were there (and all the
user's data appeared intact). I had to do a "replace existing Mac
OS X" installation of Tiger, but otherwise, things appeared to
be back to the way it was before. There may be some missing data
and files, but we could not find any obvious problems.
So even when it "fails," DW (once again) saves the day.
- Ken Watanabe
Hi Ken,
Thanks for the report. I've never encountered
directory damage that DiskWarrior couldn't fix, so it's interesting
to learn that it can happen. The bit about using Preview Volume to
recover files could be a lifesaver.
Charles
Best Keyboard for Neuropathy in Hands
From Michael Myers
I was just reading your review
of the Matias
Tactile Pro USB Keyboard. My G4 Apple keyboard is dying (the
keys stick up, not down), so I need to get a new one. What I
was wondering was if you have tested the
Logitech S530, which is made specifically for the Mac. I've
heard that the feel is between the regular keyboard and the Matias.
My favorite was the Extended II keyboard, but with diabetic
neuropathy in my hands, I'm not sure that I could use the
Matias.
Thanks!
Michael
Hi Michael,
If you're dealing with peripheral neuropathy, the
Matias Tactile Pro is not for you. The Matias OS X and
USB 2 keyboards have a much gentler action, but they are
membrane-type keyboards.
I have no experience with that particular Logitech
model, but I found the action on a Logitech 'board I had for a
while was too stiff and "over center" for my peripheral neuritis
problems.
The 'board I've personally found most comfortable
and least aggravating to this condition is marketed by both
(Kensington SlimType, US$39.99)
and iRocks (Mac X-Slim).
It has a nice, positive, short-travel action that seems not to
irritate, but does not feel mushy either.
Charles
DiskWarrior 3 vs. Norton SystemWorks
From dfstein
Good review but the program, as far as I've seen, can't remount
a drive - so if the drive doesn't appear, you still need something
like Norton SystemWorks to get the drive to reappear. As good as DW
is, Norton SystemWorks has bailed me out many a time when nothing
else could-too bad it isn't continued in development.
Hi DF,
Norton was my standby in the
pre-DiskWarrior/Classic days, but I was never enamored with the
OS X version, and development and support for Norton for the
Mac is now discontinued.
As I mentioned, my recommendation is to have more
than one disk repair utility. Besides DW these days, ProSoft's
Drive Genius is the other main tool in my arsenal these
days.
Charles
Link:
Charles Moore Reviews ProSoft Drive Genius Disk Tools Suite
Re: Camino 1.0.1 a Real Speedster
From Peter Tyler re: Camino 1.0.1
a Real Speedster:
One more thing....
I noticed the inconsistency, too, but it hasn't crashed on me
that much yet.
I decided to fire up Shiira again and find that
while I don't/can't trust it for heavy duty work. For simple things
like browsing Web forums it performs quite nicely. I have it set as
the default now but launch SeaMonkey from the
Dock for more important activity.
- Pete
Hi Pete,
I've got the same dynamic going with Opera and SeaMonkey.
Charles
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