Belkin Router Reputation
From Dean:
Hello,
As a frequent Low End Mac visitor, your recent columns about your
Pismo and your
experience with the Belkin router and your current Linksys router
interested me. I also had the same issues with a Belkin router, and as
a former IT person in another life, I can tell you that your daughter
is correct about the Belkin router's reputation.
My Linksys router works perfectly. I have a Pismo upgraded to a 550
MHz G4 with 1 GB of memory, an internal AirPort Card, a 120 GB
hard drive, a dual-layer DVD burner, a USB 2 CardBus, and a mini
Bluetooth module. This computer is almost 10 years old and was upgraded
over the years when I had parts from working on other Macs.
The hard drive is partitioned into three partitions with OS 9,
OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger), and
OS X 10.5.8 (Leopard). I
installed Leopard via FireWire Target Disk
Mode. Most of Leopard works fine, with the exception of things
mostly related to online video and DVD interaction. Since I don't use
these very often, I don't care. If I need full functionality, I boot
into Tiger.
I also have Virtual PC and Windows XP installed for the occasional
Windows-only item I come across. Mostly I run Windows XP from Virtual
PC 6 under OS 9 because of OS 9's less resource demand on
processor and memory for this purpose.
The whole point is that this almost 10 year old machine is almost as
capable as much newer laptops and has the ability to swap batteries and
DVD drive in a few seconds.
Everyone also mentions the Pismo's video. Yes, by today's standards
it is very inadequate, however when it was designed, much of the video
and graphics we see today didn't exist. Considering it can still run
modern web browsers and does very well in the mostly text-heavy web
pages I spend my time in, that is pretty amazing.
You have also mentioned your
Buffalo wireless card. To free up your CardBus slot for USB 2, I
can send it to you. However, if you install it, you have wireless B
capability (all original AirPort Cards are wireless B). I think your
Buffalo card is wireless G; you may want to stick with it.
Thanks for your time,
Dean
Hi Dean,
Thanks for your interesting and informative comments.
Your Pismo is even more extensively hot-rodded and upgraded than
mine.
I entirely agree that it seems almost boorish to
complain about the Pismo's modest video support given how amazingly
well it still works on most websites, happily runs Photoshop Elements
6, and is generally so satisfactory as a light-to-medium duty
production platform. It's absolutely amazing for a laptop computer
nearly 10 years old, and a testimony to the vastly increased value of
machines that can be upgraded.
Since I posted that article, I installed a second 512
MB RAM module from Other
World Computing and an internal AirPort Card in one of the Pismos.
Both are working great. (See 1 GB of RAM Gives Pismo
PowerBook Another New Lease on Life.)
The internal AirPort Card does appear to work really
well, pulling in a stronger signal from the Linksys router than the
Buffalo 54G card does - presumably because of the larger antenna
mounted in the Pismo's display bezel, and perhaps other things.
Charles
Source for ATA Notebook Hard Drives
Dear Charles,
I have some Pismos and a Lombard that I have set up a part
of a mobile lab at school. The Pismos have 1 GB memory each, while
the Lombards have 256 MB. They seem to be more finicky about the type
of RAM, as they only recognize a 256 MB stick as 128 MB. Oh well.
Anyway, I was wondering if you might know of a good supplier for new
hard drives for the PowerBook G3? I do see them at Wegener Media, but $80 for a
5400 rpm 40 GB is rather pricey. (Of course, that comes from looking at
it from seeing the prices on the SATA drives and the larger capacity.)
Any thoughts would be appreciated, as well as a good addition to a
Pismo article.
Thanks.
Ed Harris
Hi Ed,
Great to hear that you have a fleet of Pismos still
providing useful service.
ATA hard drives of what is now low capacity (i.e.: 100
GB or less) are getting hard to find through conventional retail
channels. I'm sure there are a lot of used ones out there, and perhaps
even some unused old stock items, but they would be where you find
them.
eBay and Craigslist would be potential sources.
Over the years, I've been very happy with the service
I've gotten from Other World Computing for hard drive and RAM upgrades.
However, the lowest capacity, least expensive ATA hard drive they
currently have listed is a
160 GB Western Digital "Scorpio" 5400 RPM 9.5mm SuperSlim IDE/ATA
Notebook Drive w/8 MB Data buffer for $79.99.
Charles
Editor's note: We also have a small
list of 2.5" ATA hard drives in Low End Mac's Amazon.com Store.
Prices start at $55. dk
Pismo Battery and Startup Problems
From Michael
Dear Sir:
Your email address was given to me by Scott Cook, who thought you
might be able to help me with two problems I am having with my Pismo G3
PowerBook. Here are the details.
- My machine no longer charges the main battery. I put in a new
power-board, but it still will not charge the battery. Would a new PRAM
battery help this issue? My PRAM battery has been dead for months now.
I have tried several different AC adapters and two different batteries,
but the machine simply will not send a charge to the battery at
all.
- I cannot turn off the startup chime even though I have muted my
internal speakers. I have to hold the mute button on the keyboard every
time I start up the machine. Someone at the local Apple Store said the
dead PRAM battery may be causing the machine to play the startup chime
even though the audio system is muted in the system preferences. By the
way, I am running Tiger on the Pismo.
I look forward to hearing from you. Have a wonderful holiday
season!!
Best regards
Michael
Hi Michael,
It's the kind of thing you can only diagnose for sure
by substitution, but the symptoms you describe definitely point to some
sort of hardware issue, and the PRAM battery would be a likely culprit.
These machines are getting on in years.
How are the date and time settings on your Pismo
holding up? One symptom of a bad PRAM/BIOS battery is losing that
setting.
Wegener Media has new (manufactured in 2008 - not
pulls form other machines) PRAM/BIOS batteries for
the Pismo for $18.99 with a 60 day warranty.
The no-charge issue sounds identical to what happened
to a Pismo of mine last year after an unfortunate incident with either
a bad extension cord, a faulty "flying saucer" power adapter, or both.
I replaced the entire case and chassis, including motherboard and power
board. However, unless you've had some sort of electrical connection
malfunction, its probably not the same thing with your machine.
Good luck and lest us know how you fare.
Charles
Editor's note: I've been using StartupSound.prefPane
on my G4 Power Macs to mute the startup sound. It works on OS X
10.2 and later. dk
Using Spaces to Enhance Productivity
From Bikalpa:
Hello Charles.
You did tell us about the utility of Spaces feature in Leopard (and
Snow Leopard), but you did not tell much about how you have been using
it. Like how you assign a particular Space to a specific task and what
goes to your Spaces from 1 to 9. When I read about you finding 9 spaces
as the best balance, I thought I might as well try the same.
I do work with multiple applications at the same time, and I could
put 9 Spaces to use. But I did not find it easy to assign applications
to a space and switch between Spaces all the while, more so because the
number was now 9. I doubt it has done much to "enhance productivity",
so to say.
And I find Exposé something that I cannot live without. It's
so easy to switch windows with a 4-finger gesture when on the trackpad
or with the mouse (I have the middle button configured to invoke
Exposé along a hot corner that shows me the desktop) or with the
keyboard shortcuts. Since you have 9 Spaces to organize your
application windows, you might be missing the whole window-sorting
utility of Exposé.
That's it for now. Thanks for reading.
Yours Sincerely
Bikalpa
Nepal
Hi Bikalpa,
It may be that for folks who find Exposé to
their liking, Spaces won't be a mode that suits their particular tastes
and habits. Personally, I never got into using Exposé much, but
I just love Spaces. I think you have to integrate Spaces into your
normal work routine to really appreciate and get the best from it.
You can assign a particular application to "stick" to
one Space in the Spaces System Preference panel, although I don't do
this.
Here's how I have my Spaces organized:
- Space 1 - Email clients - Thunderbird or Eudora 8, and Mail Beacon
- Space 2 - Opera
10.1
- Space 3 - My "root" space by virtue of the keystroke on the
numerical keypad being easiest to hit without looking; Tex-Edit Plus, Spotinside,
ToyViewer, Color It 4.5, Interarchy, Preview, TextWrangler, all launched here
and kept hidden when not in use except for Tex-Edit Plus, which is
virtually always in use.
- Space 4 - Reserved for opening a fourth browser when I want
one
- Space 5 - Clean Desktop
- Space 6 - Chrome
browser, Stainless,
iCab, or Safari, Smultron
- Space 7 - Either Firefox,
Camino, or SeaMonkey
- Space 8 - iTunes, Photoshop 8 and/or Pixelmator,
MacSpeech Dictate
- Space 9 - MailSmith, Adobe Reader
Charles
YouTube Playback on G4 PowerBooks
From Seth:
Hello,
I was on LEM and saw your article about your 17" PowerBook G4. I'm
looking into purchasing one myself, and I went on a Mac forum to ask
about YouTube on a 1.3 GHz or 1.5 GHz model with at least 64 MB of
VRAM, but no one answered, so I decided to email you. So on your
PowerBook, do you use YouTube? Is it choppy?
Hi Seth,
I've recently handed off the 1.33 GHz 17" PowerBook to
my wife, who watches a fair bit of stuff on YouTube and other video on
it; she finds it very good. I was watching some YouTube video on it
yesterday and detected no "choppiness". I suppose it depends somewhat
on the speed of your Internet connection.
Charles
Working Around the Google Chrome Bookmark Import
Bug
From Cormac:
Charles
I read your article on Google Chrome for Mac, and I
have found a solution to the bookmark import bug. What you need to do
is:
- Quit Chrome
- Go to ~/Library/Preferences/Google/Chrome in finder
- Delete the file named "First Run"
- Open Chrome again, and you will have the first run screen
again.
Hope this helps,
Cormac:
Hi Cormac:,
Thanks for the tip. I'll keep it filed for future
reference.
Charles
Incomplete Browser Review
From Todd:
A more complete and respectable list would be
Best of luck on the revised update with these included. Some
actually deserve attention.
Hi Todd,
I'm guessing that you're referencing 4 Mac Browsers Updated
Recently, which is my most recent Miscellaneous Ramblings browser
review piece. It was never intended to be a comprehensive profile of
every Mac OS X browser available, but specifically four recently
updated applications. It's always a moving target,
Of the browsers you listed, at one time or another
I've reviewed all of them except for Flock, Fluid, KidZui, Prism,
Radon, and Songbird - the only one of which I'd previously heard of
being Flock.
I typically have three - and sometimes four - browsers
up and running (Spaces in OS X 10.5 and later is great for this; I
use the Hide Others command when running in OS X 10.4).
Which three or four get used also depends partly on
what machine I'm on. On my Intel MacBook running Leopard,
Chrome and Opera are always going, along with one of the Mozilla
menagerie - Firefox, Camino, or SeaMonkey the most likely. Right now I
have Camino 2.0.1 on the go. Also sometimes called off the bench are
Stainless, iCab, and Cruz.
On the two hot-rodded Pismo PowerBooks I still have in
production service running OS X 10.4.11, Chrome isn't supported,
nor is Stainless, so it's Opera as number one, either Netscape
Navigator 9, Camino, or SeaMonkey as number two, and for number three
either iCab or, yes, Safari 4, which for some reason I find I'm happier
with in its Tiger version than the Leopard build.
Welcome Video for New G3 iMac Owner
From Stephen:
Dear Charles,
I am preparing a 500 GHz G3 iMac with Tiger installed, together with
some freeware and all the updates. Is there a way to give him the new
Mac user experience of the welcome video and setup assistant when he
turns it on? He hasn't had a computer for some time, and I think it
would be a nice experience for him.
Thanks in advance for any help or direction on this.
Stephen
Hi Stephen,
The only way I can think of would be to do a clean
system reinstall from a Tiger Installer or Software Restore disk.
Charles
ImageWriters on Ethernet
From Kurt:
Re: Multiple Chemical
Sensitivities and Older Electronics
Hi, Charles.
You quoted me in the above as follows:
"Don't use a serial; she's running it on her
Wallstreet via Ethernet (OS X sadly turns the Serial Port off of the
WallStreet. I tried to recompile a driver for it a long time ago; hours
later, I gave up)."
Actually, these instructions do work - they are the
instructions for getting an ImageWriter II working on an ethernet
network as an AppleTalk device.
The main instructions are as follows:
[This is in Print Center/Printer Setup Utility/Print and Fax in
10.2.x to 10.5.8]
Okay, this should be easy to fix
- delete the three ImageWriters currently in Print Center and
option-click on "Add" to begin adding a new printer.
- select "Advanced"
- for "device" select "AppleTalk Printer Access Protocol (pap)" for
"device name" enter "Ingrid" for "device URI" enter
- "pap://*/Ingrid%20the%20ImageWriter/ImageWriter" (note: in the
output from atlookup that you sent me the spaces need to be converted
to %20).
- for "printer model" select "Apple" and "Apple ImageWriter, FooMatic
+ iwhi"
- click "Add"
[To find the AppleTalk Devices (the ImageWriter II) on the network
and find its exact name, one needs to do an atlookup in Terminal. An
example of how that will look is presented in the link:
ffd2.f9.8a Ingrid the ImageWriter:ImageWriter
ff00.47.8a Isabella the Imagewriter:ImageWriter
Sadly, the instructions for recompiling a driver for the serial port
are long gone - I cannot find them. I assure you, however, that the
link in your article for "recompile a driver" is not for that, and
happily, those instructions do work for adding in an ImageWriter
II to an OS X wireless/Ethernet network.
Take care!
Peace,
Kurt
Hi Kurt,
I'm not sure what happened here. I've just been
rechecking, and there seems to be some sort of cut-and-paste
incompatibility/failure somewhere between your incoming email message
in Thunderbird and what got posted in the article.
Purely unintentional.
Thanks for clearing it up.
Charles
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