Acer One a Replacement for 12" PowerBook
From Bryan:
Hi Charles,
I recently started a new contracting job and needed a replacement
for my previous employer's 13"
MacBook I used. My problem is compounded by my inability to carry
anything much over 1.5 kg and size - I commute by train for 3 hours a
day. Rather than buy my own MacBook or even endure the weight and carry
my 15" MacBook
Pro, I bought the "little" Acer Aspire One (the one smaller than
10"). [Editor's note: The 8.9" Aspire One is currently available with a
3-cell battery for as
little as $230 from Amazon.com. It weighs just 2.2 lb./1 kg.]
I began by replacing Windows XP with
Ubuntu 8.04 Netbook Remix especially for the Aspire One (called
Linux4One) and OpenOffice. The hardware has been
great, keyboard is typical PC - cheap and tacky, somewhat cramped,
battery life is very average - 3 cells gets me around 100 minutes of
typing/saving to disk, but overall I'm very happy with it, and at
$NZ880 it compared really favourably cost-wise to the secondhand
MacBook Air I was looking
at for $NZ2000.
I consider the Acer a fine replacement for my memory of the 12" PowerBook I had several years ago, which
was also a great portable machine - whether the Acer lasts as long,
only time will tell.
regards
Bryan
Hi Bryan,
Thanks for the report. You've confirmed my
impressions. I doubt if the Aspire One will prove as rugged and
long-lived as a typical 12" PowerBook, but at the price, even if it
only holds up for a couple of years, it won't owe you anything.
Charles
Unbootable Western Digital FireWire Drive
From Rich:
Charles -
This is in response to Laurie's
question about "BlackBook" replacement choices. (I kinda like that!
In a similar vein, one of my iBooks was painted green by a former
owner, so I've dubbed it the "GreenBook" - but I digress.)
As you may recall, I got one of the new WhiteBooks about the same
time you got your aluminum Unibody. Thanks to the
processor load from running SETI, my 'Book did run hot with the fans
running until I followed up on your CoolBook suggestion (and
thanks for that, by the way). I also installed a pair of Speedballs on the bottom, at the
hinge end - something that I've previously done on each of my iBooks,
as well. I opted for the white Nvidia model because of the retained
FireWire, which I feel I need for compatibility with my family's stable
of legacy G3, G4, and G5 machines. The price was nice too, but
aesthetics weren't a consideration for me (my dad, an architect, begs
to disagree).
Lee's not the only one to have problems with Western Digital external
drives. I've got two that have FireWire but can't be used as
startup disks because my machines can't see them at power up, even when
the drives are turned on first using external power. Since I've been
able to replicate this problem with several Macs, I'm assuming it's
something about the WD drives. For what it's worth, I have not tried to
use any of the software that they came with: I reformatted and
partitioned them right out of the box.
As for his comments about living within our means: I'm afraid that
doesn't seem to be the "American way" these days, although I concede
that maybe it should be. Hooray for the Luddites amongst us! While I don't consider
myself one, I'm not an early adopter either. There have been several columns on Low End Mac
and other places along the idea of "How good is good enough?" While
my new MacBook is certainly neat, there's nothing that I need to do
that my older PowerPC machines can't handle, although admittedly with
less haste.
Thanks as always -
Rich
Hi Rich,
Glad you got the overheating issue sorted out.
I am definitely missing FireWire, but the Unibody is
such a delight in so many other ways that I'm forgiving about that
deficiency.
In terms of older PowerPC machine being good enough,
that was certainly my mantra for three years while I dithered over
whether to upgrade to a Macintel, and it's still true for most of the
stuff I do, although faster graphics performance on the MacBook isn't
hard to take.
However, had I realized that
MacSpeech Dictate performance would be such a radical Improvement
over what I had been experiencing with iListen on my PowerBook G4 and Pismos, I think I might have
been persuaded to make the leap sooner.
Charles
PowerBook Duo or Clamshell iBook?
From Evan:
Thanks for your reply! I
found it whilst skimming
eBay for a PowerBook Duo and a DuoDock
. . . sure, I have no money (Curse you child labor laws! oh
well, on Nov. 15 I'll legally be able to get a job!) but I can hope
. . . Of course, if I'm willing to trade one of my PS/2s, a
iBook G3 300 MHz
w/576 megs of RAM may fall into my possession, which I could use to
fulfill my dream of having a Mac and PC running in tandem and fulfill
my netbook problem. Sure, it's not quite the netbook form factor, but I
think that won't be much of a problem, seeing as I don't travel that
often but need something that I can take with me.
Hi Evan,
The Duo is, like the 12" PowerBook, one of those great
small Macs that I admired vicariously but never actually owned. The
original Duo concept always appealed to
me as one who spends most of his computing time at a desktop
workstation but likes to be able to take my main computer platform on
the road from time to time.
Of course, it made a lot more sense back in those days
when the regular PowerBooks were
really heavy to lug around, even though they weren't that large in
footprint. Having gotten used to the aluminum PowerBooks and MacBook,
it's always a bit of an orientation adjustment to pick up my old
PowerBook 5300 or 1400 and feel how unexpectedly heavy
they are for their size.
A Duo probably could make a half decent substitute for
a netbook, although the "net" part would be considerably handicapped.
Off the top of my head, I don't think there are any WiFi solutions that
will work with the Duo, and the internal modems are very slow by
today's standards. Even the PowerPC Duo 2300 was no ball of
fire, being even slower than the lazy PowerBook 5300 due to an internal
architecture inherited from the original '030 Duos, along with the case
form factor.
The Duos were absurdly expensive in their day, but
they were very well built and rugged. One thing they have in common
with the netbooks is that their keyboards were undersized, although not
quite as radically.
Charles
Well, I was thinking of using the iBook G3 as my netbook (any
intensive tasks would be reserved for the 4x4, my main machine (4-core
processor, 4 GB RAM, and Vista isn't actually as bad as most
people say - honestly, it's not quite XP or 2000 but it's definitely
not ME. I can live with it.), but I still rather admire the Duo and the
DuoDock, mainly because only recently I figured out you could dock
laptops (me being prominently a desktop user and only recently
experimenting with laptops).
Hi Evan,
Yes, the Duo was a very elegant concept. However, it
isn't the only laptop that can be docked.
For example, a firm called BookEndz makes docks for a variety
of Apple laptops, including the iBook G3
Charles
WiFi Range Reduction?
From Scott:
Is there a way to reduce the range of wireless to make it more
difficult and less attractive for the neighbors to steal your wireless
in the first place? Perhaps removing the antenna(s) from the gateway or
something? I know in my neighborhood there are a bunch of wireless
signals stronger than mine. I think a wireless thief would go for the
strongest and fastest wireless he could break into . . . just
a random thought.
Scott
Hi Scott,
Beats me. The orientation usually is to increase range
I guess. One way to limit range would be to use an older metal
PowerBook as a wireless server!
Charles
My wireless gateway has a setting to limit it to wireless B only. If
my neighbors had Internet access that exceeded the speed of wireless B
(not likely), then that would be one way to make my wireless less
attractive I suppose? I don't think anyone has ever tried to break into
my wireless though, so I'm not even concerned. I could just run a wired
network if I had to.
It might be good to point out to readers that their Internet traffic
is not secure, even through a wired network or the most secure wireless
network, unless they and the people they talk to use email with 128-bit
encryption, or they're visiting websites with 128-bit encryption, which
all financial sites do as far as I know. Those are the only cases where
their Internet traffic will be secure, regardless of how secure their
wireless may be. Most people don't have secure email, which means their
email username and password are broadcast in the clear every time, even
over a wired network, or secure wireless.
Scott
Hi Scott,
A sobering thought. Right now I'm completely wired -
dialup Internet and a hard-wired home ethernet network. However, we are
told that broadband via wireless is on its way here (I'm not holding my
breath, but I'm cautiously hopeful), and that will change things. OTOH,
this is (to quote a former head of the local RCMP detachment)
"essentially a no-crime area" - but most readers of this column will
not be as fortunate in that regard, so your counsel is well-taken.
Charles
WiFi Insecurity
From Ralph:
Thanks, Charles, for forwarding me Dan's answer. I do want to answer
him:
Hi Dan!
Thank you for your response.
Regarding possible hardware: You can use several PCI WiFi cards,
which are supported natively for OS X. My card of choice is Asus
W138 v2, which uses a Broadcom chipset and OS X (starting with
10.3 "Panther") recognizes it as native AirPort Card. Same goes for the
Aria Extreme, Buffalo WLI2-PCI-G54S, Motorola WPC1810G, and US Robotics
USR5417 PCI Wireless cards.
Another option, at least for desktop machines which need wireless
networking, would be to attach a wireless router capable of WPA2
security via ethernet-based bridged mode - that's what I do (two
machines cabled to the router, from there via WPA2 to another wireless
router, which connects the Internet), e.g. All of these cost you a mere
US$20 to US$50, the most for each device - many of them available used
and cheaper.
Regarding the N standard: It's still drafted and not finalized yet,
so anyone buying hardware today has no chance of knowing whether the
finalized standard "N" will be supported - it is likely, though, via
firmware updates, but neither ensured nor enforceable. And there are
quite some inconsistencies regarding N capable devices between
different manufacturers. Right now 802.11g is good for anyone but one
wanting to transmit Blu-ray 1080p HD content via wireless networking -
but those definitely won't be using low-end Mac hardware firsthand.
I still do insist on my initial recommendation: If you transmit
sensitive personal data over your wireless network, you must stay away
from WEP all together. If you use a WEP based machine to connect to the
Internet, the same applies. WEP is termed "completely hacked" since
five years ago (took a couple of minutes), and today's hacking takes a
mere couple of seconds. You are right, this very likely involves
someone with bad attitudes - but this is the security threat one wants
to eliminate at all costs: A criminal hacking into your network to
steal sensitive data, as credit card information, address, phone
numbers, pictures, etc. or using your Internet connection to commit
crimes which could put the owner of the connection into quite some
legal trouble.
Now, as I mentioned, the original AirPort Cards could be updated to
128-bit encryption via Mac OS 9 using the AirPort 2.0.4
Update. This basically turns your 64-bit WEP encryption card into a
128-bit WEP encryption card (same goes for the AirPort Base Station).
The more important thing it does, though, is: When you're running
OS X 10.3 Panther (and upwards), you will get WPA capabilities and
therefore a magnitude better security - but not so with System 9.
Technology has moved on, and unfortunately regarding OS 9 hardware,
wireless networking is not recommended at all, as it is forced
to use WEP with all its negative implications. I must repeat: WEP
64-bit/128-bit encryption does not give you security at all;
it's a complete false sense of safely connecting. And the breach you
want to avoid is not your neighbour sniffing in shortly, but someone
with criminal intent to steal from you and cause you severe economic
damages - but even your neighbour can cause you serious harm. Legally
speaking you are solely responsible to secure your network. You are
accounted liable, if you didn't protect your network with reasonable .
This is in regard to the US, I think, it certainly applies to us here
in Germany.
As technology moves on, even WPA slowly comes near its end of life,
too, as successful hacking attempts based on ill-implemented paraphrase
checking (proven 2008). It's still kind of secure, but must phase
out.
The wireless security you want to choose today for your devices (any
of it connecting to sensitive data) is called WPA2 AES encryption,
nothing less. The hardware for older machines is in place, too.
Here's an interesting read from one year ago. Check out all the
comments to sense the need for WPA2 AES: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001141.html
With best wishes,
Ralph
Ralph,
I reiterate my position: Some security is better than
none. Given the choice between a wide-open WiFi network with no
security and an 802.11b one with WEP, which one is more likely to be
used by a neighbor? The one that doesn't require any hacker skills or
special software.
My point isn't that using WEP and not broadcasting the
SSID makes a network secure, but that using them is enough to keep
casual users from using your network and should be sufficient to
demonstrate to the courts, should it ever be necessary, that you tried
to make your network secure.
Dan
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