Motorola WN825G WiFi PC Card for Pismo
From Steve:
I read your article this afternoon [$40 802.11g CardBus WiFi
Card for OS X 10.3 and Later] and thought I would toss in my two
cents. I have been using a pair of Motorola WN825G WiFi PCMCIA cards in
my two Pismos for the
last two years. No problems and completely plug and play set up. Works
every time. Best of all they were only $10-$20 on
eBay. Reads just like an AirPort Card.
Here is the Amazon page with some reviews.
Thanks for the report and link, Steve.
Charles
External Wireless Adapters for Mac OS 9
From Andrew:
Two questions:
- Is it possible to use a Zonet ZEW2000PF USB wireless-network
adapter under OS 9? I get a "driver not available" message when I plug
it in, and Google shows no official drivers.
- If not, can you recommend another external adapter that's
reasonably cheap?
The computer is a 2000
iBook G3/366 FireWire, in case that matters.
Hi Andrew,
I didn't know, so I kicked this one over to Dan
Knight, who responded:
Andrew,
I don't know of any USB WiFi dongles that work
with the Classic Mac OS, although many of them will work with modern
versions of Mac OS X.
Every iBook that runs the Classic Mac OS can use
Apple's AirPort Card with Mac OS 9.x. They are not cheap, selling for
US$50-100 plus shipping on the used market. Low End Mac owns one
of these cards, pulled from our PowerBook G4/400 when it was dropped
and destroyed. I would be happy to sell it to you....
Dan Knight, publisher, LowEndMac.com
Editor's note: We followed up on Andrew's question by
publishing WiFi Adapters for
Desktop Macs Running Mac OS 9 on Tuesday. It's adapted from the
Mac OS
Wireless Adapter Compatibility List compiled by MetaPhyzx by his
kind permission. We've also produced these other pages covering WiFi
adapters:
Could Steve Jobs Save Even One of the Big
Three?
From Stephen:
Charles:
When I read the headline in your recent "Ramblings"
column, I had to chuckle. Immediately an image came to mind of a
car with only one control for steering, brakes, and gas!
Stephen
Excellent point, Stephen! :-)
Charles
Safari 4 Runs Well on Pre-FireWire Macs
From Matt:
Hi, I just read Damian's
email in which he asks about the Safari 4 beta running on
pre-FireWire Macs. I can confirm that Safari 4 installs painlessly on
my G4 upgraded all-in-one
beige G3 with 10.4.11. The only thing that stopped me at first was
that I hadn't installed the latest security update. After that, it
installed with no issues at all - and it actually renders faster
than Safari 3 did!
It is worth mentioning that the "top sites" feature is disabled,
perhaps due to the Radeon 7000 (that's not a typo, I did the internal
video mod on my AIO) not having Core Image support. If I still had my
Pismo, I'd definitely give it a try.
Matt
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the info.
I've personally switched back to iCab, now at version 4.5, for my WebKit browser.
For some reason, Safari 4 is slower on my dialup system, and after a
day or so of uptime it just grinds to a halt, requiring a quit and
restart to get it working again. (PowerBook G4/1.33 GHz,
Leopard 10.5.6)
Charles
Problem with Safari 4 for Windows
From Gordon:
Charles, were you able to drag the icons for "home" or "autofill" or
"text size" or "print" down into the Address and Search blank
below?
I refer to going to View and down to Customize Toolbar....
It looks easy. The icons appear to be going to the right spot, but
once they are released, they jump right back to their original place
above the Address and Search blank.
Any solutions?
Gordon
Hi Gordon,
My ignorance of the Windows version of Safari is
fairly encyclopedic.
On the Mac, after I used the Terminal command to
restore the blue progress bar to the address field, the little spinning
wheel activity thingie disappeared, but I was able to use the Customize
Toolbar palette to put the old school Stop/Reload button back where it
belongs with no problem.
Perhaps someone in readerland with Windows Safari
experience will be able to help.
Charles
Plastic Bags Are the Better Value
From Stephen:
Dear Charles,
I strongly agree with your
position on plastic bags. There's a real problem in being charged
above cost for plastic bags in supermarkets; if you're paying above
cost for something there's a profit involved. The argument that the
price has to be higher to appreciate the costs involved on an
environmental scale only helps if the money actually moves that way;
I'd really like to see a breakdown of the charges companies make for
green moves - and if any of these happen to pad the bottom line.
The fact that paper bags are less useful is extremely important, the
handles that a plastic bag can sustain are one example. This is cutting
off our noses to spite our faces. The fact that there's more
environmental effect in producing paper bags is a very, very good
point. The replacement that people are encouraged to use is much better
made "reusable" bags, obviously falsely implying that you can't reuse
regular plastic bags. I keep a canvas bag in my backpack if I need to
carry something unexpectedly; the energy cost in producing that was
higher than a plastic bag, but it evens out over the lifetime of its
use, and that seems sensible. If I was to throw that canvas bag away
the first time I used it (it was free with a purchase), then clearly
that would be a much higher energy cost. Paper bags are only used once:
if they get wet (even condensation from chilled bottles can be enough)
they're spoiled and you're left with goopy pulp that's useless and hard
to get into a recycling bin. The main use of a paper bag once it's home
is to line bird cages and for paper maché.
That said, I happen to quite like getting my groceries in a paper
bag (on dry, sunny days), because it's something that happened in the
old days before I was born, but that's nostalgia and not ecology.
Regards,
Stephen
Hi Stephen,
We seem to think along parallel lines. I get nostalgic
about paper bags because they remind me of the old days too, only I
lived in them (the old days, not the paper bags). For the first 30-odd
years of my life, paper bags were what we brought the groceries home
in.
Plastic bags were a quantum functional improvement,
handles being a case in point, and I find them immensely useful beyond
the original use.
I enthusiastically support using fabric bags whenever
practical, but by banning plastic we're throwing out the proverbial
baby with the bathwater, or, as you observe, cutting off our noses to
spite our faces.
Charles
Plastic Bags and Biodegradability
From Brian:
Hi Charles...
The real problem with plastic bags is not their carbon
footprint but, rather, their non-biodegradability in landfills. There
are plastics available that will degrade in a matter of weeks but they
are more expensive. It would make more sense to use those materials
(for garbage bin liners also) and charge folks 5 cents a pop.
Any rebuttals?
Regards
Brian
Hi Brian,
Actually, I don't think biodegradable plastic bags are
really much more expensive than the conventional sort, and if they
became the norm, I would expect that economies of scale would take care
of any cost difference.
The problem with biodegradables is that they mess
things up when they get put in the conventional recycling stream with
regular plastic bags - a logistics and education issue.
Conventional plastic bags are also eminently
recyclable. Here in Nova Scotia, Canada, where I live, 45% of all
retail shopping bags already recycled, and last year the provincial
government agreed to invest Can$21 million to assist a private
enterprise in a project partly focused on recycling plastic bags into
diesel fuel.
The impact of plastic bags on landfill volume is often
vastly overstated. According to studies by the Canadian Plastics
Industry Association, plastic bags l represent less than 1% of landfill
contents, and a 2005 Nova Scotia Department of Environment and Labour
study showed plastic bags aren't even a top 10 roadside litter
item.
Charles
Potential Environmental Danger from Plastic
Bags
From Andrew:
I'm not worried about plastic bags and climate; I'm worried about
microscopic synthetic plastic polymers in water and food. I don't think
a paper bag would irreparably harm wildlife or mess with my hormones.
(So long as it's not treated with lots of toxic stuff.) In any case, I
take a backpack shopping with me. The older and more beat up, the
better. Anyone turns up their nose at a backpack needs to pull their
head out of their behind and join the rest of humanity!
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Personally, I think there are vast congeries of
environmental pollutants that merit more concern than the breakdown
residues of plastic bags (and, of course, one of the drums plastic bag
critics like to beat is that plastic bags take "thousands of years" to
break down - I have no idea whether that is accurate). On the other
hand, biodegradable plastic bags are 90% cornstarch.
Ever live near a paper mill? I have, and I would much
prefer close quarters with a plastic bag plant. There is nothing
environmentally benign about paper production.
Backpacks are great. Good on you. My wife and I have a
stack of seven (which seems about right for us so far) cloth grocery
bags that we keep on the transmission tunnel of the truck, which makes
them reasonably easy to remember (we live 50 miles from the nearest
supermarket), although about two times out of five we'll still forget
to grab them and have to make a return trip to the parking lot. They're
great, but where they're not adequate is for stuff like meat that might
have fluid run out of the packaging during transit (yuck!). I don't
think you would want that in your backpack either! Disposable plastic
bags still rule there.
Charles
Yeah, I still use plastic bags for meat, and then use them to take
out my garbage. It's practically a full-time job trying to stay ahead
of what's bad or less bad for the environment. My grocery store started
selling cloth grocery bags - they stink of some nasty chemical and have
"Made in China" tags on their
undersides.
Actually I grew up down the street from Appleton
Papers in Wisconsin, but I always thought much of what they did was
just the cheap and easy way out, that they could have been more
responsible. The Fox River is full of the PCBs they dumped for decades
until the EPA told them to cut it out, yet they still miraculously make
paper and profit without dumping anymore. We just need to make it clear
to companies that there's profit in doing things the right way.
I'd be more frightened if plastic didn't break down.
When it does break down, it's still there, just so small we can't see
it. Doctors have a hard enough time figuring out what's wrong with us
without having to track tiny polymers through the food chain.
- Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I've been battling severe Multiple Chemical
Sensitivities for the past 20 years (and less severe ones since I was a
teenager), so I'm pretty tuned in to the topic of pollution and
environmental degradation - and doctors who don't have a clue as to
what's causing the problems.
What bugs me most about the plastic bag thing is that
it's one of a number of essentially "feel-good" divides that people
employ to kid themselves that they're doing something to help the
environment without actually altering their lifestyles at all in any
substantive way. Plastic bags are a relatively trivial contributor to
the problem compared with harder or more inconvenient things that
actually might make a positive difference.
Charles
Paper Grocery Bags Are the Best
From Karl Seitz:
Charles:
When it comes to computers, I appreciate your opinions and
knowledge, but you lost me in your piece on plastic bags. It's not the
environmental argument. I remember a report several years ago that
found little difference between plastic and paper bags in their overall
environmental impact. I've long accepted that conclusion. Your sources
are pro-plastic. I'm skeptical, but that's not what I object to.
It was your attack on paper grocery bags that made my blood boil. My
opinion is just the opposite. I find plastic grocery bags the worst
thing that has happen to the grocery business in my 65 years - note
that I'm talking only about grocery bags, not those at other stores.
Unlike you, or perhaps you as a child, I find paper bags so superior
that I refuse to shop at grocery stories that don't have paper bags
available.
Each paper bag holds as much as two or three plastic bags, meaning
fewer trips between car and house. Paper bags are easier to carry and
probably more ergonomic. Just wrap your arms around two of them and
hold them against your body. You can't hold the plastic bags against
your body. They'd spill. Holding plastic bags by their handles puts
extra pressure on your shoulder joints. Plastic bags get tangled up in
the car. Paper bags don't.
As for your objections to paper, I seldom have bags out in the rain
long enough for wet strength to be an issue. And my wife has all sorts
of uses for paper bags.
Karl Seitz
Hi Karl,
I admire your spirited advocacy of paper grocery bags.
I don't agree with your evaluation of their functionality as superior,
but I do remember them (for about 30 years of my life) with nostalgia.
I can usually lug four or five full plastic bags at a time in from the
car, and the handles make them much easier and more secure to carry,
IMHO. Also, if you're on a bicycle, it's no contest.
As an aside, I keep a wad of plastic grocery bags
stuffed under the seat of my bike for any carrying tasks I may
encounter en route, and they're also a lot more useful than paper bags
would be for keeping grease off your hands if the chain comes off and
needs remounting!
I'm fascinated that you can actually find grocery
stores that have paper bags any more. I think it must be 25 years or so
since they disappeared from supermarkets and smaller grocery stores
here in Atlantic Canada where I live.
Charles
Go to Charles Moore's Mailbag index.
