The Low End Mac Link Archive, February 2002
External news links are listed below by the date of publication
with the most recent articles listed at the top, older ones below
them. Other monthly archive indexes are linked on the right. Links
were correct when originally posted. However, we cannot guarantee
that these links are still active.
- Analysis: The
pamphlet and the 6 myths, Jeff Lewis, Mac Skeptic, Mac Opinion,
02.28. Sometimes marketing hype borders on lies.
- Analysis: Family feud, Rachel
Konrad, Dawn Kawamoto, Scott Ard, News.com, 02.28. A post mortem
for Excite@Home.
- Bug:
Mac OS auto-execution vulnerability, Slashdot, 02.28. As we've
been warning Mac users for years - never enable CD-ROM
AutoPlay in the QuickTime control panel.
- Opinion: Making the
switch: the tale of a "non-early adopter," Mark Newhouse, Mac
Edition, 02.27. "OS X is truly a consumer OS. It's big, bright
and beautiful."
- Opinion: iBook:
The revised edition, Annie McCallum, Times-Dispatch. "We, as
students in the public school arena, should not be sheltered from
the thoughts of others on the Web, nor barricaded from our own
ideas."
- Rights: Digital
security fomenting a feud, Declan McCullagh, Wired News, 02.27.
Intellectual property protection vs. your right to copy in the
digital age.
- Opinion: The Web is for
serving, not surfing, David F. Carlson, osOpinion, 02.27. "The
three central tenets of the Internet are peer-to-peer, distributed
control and free speech."
- Web: 2nd annual
selling subscriptions to Internet content summit, Marketing
Sherpa. American Greetings: 1.1 million online subscribers.
Consumer Reports, 800,000.
- Web: Legacy
versions of Netscape, Netscape.com. Whether you want 2.0, 3.0,
4.0, 4.5, 4.6, or 4.7, they're all linked on one convenient page
now.
- Rights: Chilling
effects clearinghouse. The EFF, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley,
and University of San Francisco law school clinics team up to deal
with cease & desist letters.
- Low-end: PC
makers soon may be forced to recycle, USA Today, 02.25. Our
advice - keep reusing those old Macs and PCs until they drop from
exhaustion, then recycle.
- Web: The Register comes
to the USA, The Register, 02.25. New edition of The Register for U.S. and Canadian
will focus less on UK issues, more on North American topics.
- Opinion:
To laywers who love Macs and WordPerfect: Get over it, Mark
Voorhees, National Law Journal, 02.25. A Mac user's thoughts on
familiarity, standards, and change.
- Tech: IBM unveils
"fastest" IC at 110 GHz, The Register, 02.25. Moore's law
predicts CPUs will hit this mark in 7-8 years - followed by
Motorola a couple years later.
- Opinion:
Try a Mac? Why it won't hurt as much as you think, David
Coursey, ZDNet, 02.25. "I think Macs are, for the average user,
much easier to use and manage than Windows machines."
- Tech: As Apple
develops new Power Macs, DDR may be an issue, Think Secret,
02.25. Motorola appears to have good yield on 1.5 GHz G4, but that
really cries out for a faster system bus and faster memory.
- Customac: Check out
Kevin Poole's silver & black G4. Very nice!
- Tech: 1 GHz dual G4
overclocked to 1.2 GHz, Marc Schrier. 20% faster, but proceed
at your own risk, as this will void warranty.
- Consumer:
Understanding the digital home video controversy on commercial
content (copy) protection, Brian Weatherhead, Home Theater Hi
Fi [
/.]. "...the new encryption schemes mean that if you have
purchased a display device before the fall of 2002, there is a 90%
chance that you will not be able to watch digital HDTV media on
your display."
- Opinion: Console madness,
Michelle Klein-Häss, Geek Speak, Low End PC, 02.25. How I
became a Dreamcast junkie despite how badly I do at games.
- OS X:
Maximizing battery life under OS X, Mac Net Journal. Too bad
the OS X Energy Saver still doesn't allow separate settings
for AC vs. battery use.
- Hmm: Creating
surround sound on the Macintosh, Apple. If Macs are so good at
creating it, how come they don't support surround sound
playback?
- OS X:
How to get Radeon 7000 to work in a beige G3 with OS X,
Accelerate Your Mac, 02.24. You'll need to log in as root and do
some rooting around in the Library.
Taxes: Drivers
face road charge by satellite, Guardian Unlimited, 02.24
[
/.]. Proposal would tax Brits up to 45p a mile - and track car
usage by satellite. Maybe they will figure out how to tax the air
we breathe.- Rights: Fine
e-print, big headaches, Post-Gazette.com, 02.24. A look at
shrink-wrap licenses and online terms of service.
- Web: Libel, slander, cease
& desist orders and more!, PowerBook Zone, 02.23. J. C.
Morris & Company not an authorized Apple dealer - and their
lawyers don't know libel from slander.
- News: Senators propose
recycling fee on new PCs, Jonathan Skillings, ZDNet, 02.22
[
/.]. California may impose a recycling tax on new
computers.
- Analysis: Cult of the Mac -
Why so many Mac fanatics?, Robyn Weisman, NewsFactor, 02.22.
"The PC was the machine you had to have, while the Mac was the one
you wanted."
- Tech: The
roots of Mac OS X, Gary Rogers, OS News, 02.22. "Something
important had changed though since Steve Jobs tried to market NeXT
in the late eighties, UNIX had gotten hip, thanks to a computer
science student in Finland, Linus Torvalds."
- Editorial: Converting a PC
users to the Mac platform has gotten too easy, Kyle Hanks,
MacNet2, 02.22. "Month after month, year after year, Microsoft was
constantly getting caught violating the trust of its
customers."
- News: MacFixIt reports a
bad batch of Apple DVD media, Apple repair center infected with
SevenDust virus, and G4 iMac may scratch furniture.
- Advice: VCD &
Toast: Digital video for the rest of us, Vern Seward, Mac
Observer, 02.22. "VCD [Video CD], in my estimation at least, is
ideal for the movie-making consumer...." I want iVCD. Until then,
thank goodness for Toast.
- Advocacy: Good
news sampler, John H. Farr, Applelinks, 02.22. Good news on
dual 1 GHz G4 performance and flat panel iMac sales
projections.
- OS X: Force quitting a
classic app no longer crashes Classic mode in OS X 10.1.3
according to a report on Macs Only, 02.22.
- Tech: Apple
and large hard drives: Cupertino, we have a problem!,
PenguinPPP.org. Oops, UltraATA/66 in current Macs doesn't support
drives larger than 128 GB.
- Humor: The
Macintosh numbers game, Scott Kelby, Mac Design. "5: Average
number of four-letter words used by consumers during an install of
Microsoft Windows XP."
- Hmm: Check out the
OS-free PCs at WalMart.com, Drew Cullen, The Register, 02.22.
"Naked" 1 GHz Duron and Celeron models for $399 - just add
FreeDOS, Linux, OS/2, etc.
- OS X: Performance
tuning for G3 Macs, Mac OS X Hints, 02.21. Lots of little
things (and a few big ones) to boost OS X performance - and
they'll all work on G4s, too.
- Web:
Getting it wrong, Doc Searls, Linux Journal, 02.21. No, Google
doesn't allow ad income to influence search rankings.
- Obituary: Mac
community mourns loss of Sam Sharp of Mac Soldiers, Brave New
Mac, Bryan Chaffin, Mac Observer, 02.21.
- Benchmarks: Dual 1
GHz G4 Power Mac takes on other G4s, Bare Feats, 02.21. Any
surprise it won all tests? But does it offer the best value as well
as the best performance?
- Web:
MacSpeedZone faces lawsuit from Mac Publishing LLC, Dave
Engstrom, MacReviewZone, 02.21. Sometimes it's simply better to
switch than fight. (Been there. Done that.)
- Analysis: Apple's retail
stores, John Mazione, MacNETv2, 02.20. "Who I was dealing with
here were Mac enthusiasts who cared more about being around the
product then selling it."
- Analysis:
A great future in store for Apple, Charles Haddad,
BusinessWeek, 02.20. "Every nook of the store buzzed, except one:
the checkout counter."
- Web: Lessons for
small business owners. Why the Mac Web is struggling so much,
Paul Shields, Business Mac, 02.20. "...how much analysis went into
the idea that a web site could survive solely on advertising
revenue?"
- Opinion:
OS X: Usability, Philip Machanick, Mac Opinion, 02.20. "I ask
you with tears in my voice: how is the average non-geek user to
make sense of such a setup?"
- Web: apple.slashdot.org, Slashdot,
02.20. Slashdot's new subdomain launches with discussion of
OS X 10.1.3 - and an Aqua-like appearance.
- Consumer: 80 gig
drive, $99.99, see Deals on the Web for details, 02.20.
- OS X: OS 10.1.3 breaks
DVD support on b&w G3, Accelerate Your Mac, 02.20. Those
with blue & white G3s who watch DVDs might want to skip this
upgrade.
- OS X:
Mac OS 10.1.3 feedback, Mac Observer. Several readers reporting
much better Web performance.
- OS X: Mac OS 10.1.3
reader reports, MacInTouch, 02.20.
- Tech: Sony
develops affordable 6 million-pixel CCD, Digit, 02.20. Nice -
and about the same size as a 35mm frame. This has real
potential.
- News: Be Inc. sues
Microsoft, Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 02.20. Microsoft
Windows license prevented manufacturers from giving away BeOS with
new computers.
- Web: Google
lets sites bid for rankings, Excite, 02.19. Google now selling
keyword ads for as little as 5¢ per click.
- Web: Mac fiends who
live for updates, Leander Kahney, Wired, 02.19. "VersionTracker
is so popular, it is the most visited Macintosh-related site on the
Web, aside from Apple's."
- Dark side: Microsoft unveils
wireless strategies, Cnet, 02.19. Windows Phone Edition - who
wants the first blue phone of death?
- Software: Default
Folder updated for OS X, MacCentral, 02.18. Indispensible Mac
utility now available for the next generation OS.
- Cool: Aquatint,
Stickman Software. Shareware app makes it easy to create graphics
with Aqua-like appearance.
- Spam: Spam
and web-visible email addresses, DSL Reports.com [
/.]. Within 8 hours of being posted on a single obscure
page, a new email address begins to receive spam.
- News: GOP/Enron satire
site threatened, The Register, 02.18. Texas Republicans have a
cow over EnronOwnsTheGOP.com
parody.
- News: PayPal's first day
pop, The Register, 02.18. Online banned-in-Louisiana, "not
quite a bank" payment service sees stock value climb over 50% in
first day of trading.
- Web: PCs are
incorrect on TV, Wired, 02.16. Bad guys used to wear black
hats; now they use Windows. The good guys usually use Macs.
- Opinion: Mac
OS X wins war of statistics on Slashdot, Dirk Pilat, Everything
Mac, 02.13. Slashdot has featured 21 Apple stories since
1/1/02.
- Low-end: Novice
techie revives aging Macs, Register-Guard, 02.15 [MyAppleMenu]. Lorraine Kerwood
fixes up old Macs and give 'em away.
- Opinion:
Are spam blacklists unreasonable, Slashdot, 02.15. Sometimes
the solution is worse than the problem.
- Analysis:
Flaws in Mac OS X and Office v. X: Are Apple and Microsoft
listening?, Pierre Igot, Applelust, 02.15. "I don't want to go
from elation to frustration and back 100 times a day."
- Dark Side: Comments on United
States v. Microsoft, Department of Justice. DoJ post 47 "major"
comments regarding the proposed the settlement.
- Advice: An
important note about LCD iMac memory, Amy Hoy, Daily Mac,
02.15.
- Opinion: Apple, don't flub it
again, Charles Cooper, Cnet, 02.15. "The problem is a wishful
belief that millions of PC users will switch to the Macintosh
simply because it's the better platform for hosting digital media
and music."
- News: Everything is
easier on a Mac, Apple's new slogan replaces Think
Different.
- Freeware: TechTool
Lite 3.0.2 available, MicroMat.
- Opinion: Apple bidding to
regain speed throne, Ben Wilson, osOpinion, 02.15. "Apple is
looking to rekindle the flame that 'toasted' Pentiums in
1998...."
- Review: Mac OS X: The
Missing Manual, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 02.15. "It is a
marvel how much useful, well-organized and easy to access
information David Pogue has succeeded in packing into this
relatively compact volume...."
- Consumer: Cubes
for $995, Deals on the Web, 02.15. 450 MHz G4, DVD-ROM drive,
and that impressive Cube design.
- OS X: See how much RAM
your software is using, Bob LeVitus, Dr. Mac's OS X Tip of the
Day, 02.15. "Freeware Friday" points to MemoryStick as the app for
the job.
- News: Government
cracks down on Miss Cleo, Fox News, 02.15. "A fool and his
money are soon parted."
- Opinion: A
Mac OS X odyssey, Marc Zeedar, Mac Opinion, 02.14. It's not
perfect yet, but OS X has definitely arrived.
- Advocacy: Should our schools
have Macs or PCs, John Droz. The best single source of
information for supporting the Mac vs. the Wintel platform has been
updated.
- Advocacy: Repair
statistics, Lumpkin County (GA) School System. Real time
"failure rate" statistics for Macs vs. PCs in a school
setting.
- Advice:
Choosing a 19" monitor to fit your needs and budget, Joel
Hruska, Van's Hardware, 02.14. Comparison of the top-end and budget
monitor.
- Virus:
Microsoft Instant Messenger Worm sweeps Net, Slashdot, 02.13.
Some Web pages contain malicious code that hijacks your "buddy"
list and sends instant messages.
- Virus: Warhol worms: The
potential for very fast Internet plagues, Nicholas C. Weaver.
"...it is possible to construct hyper-virulent active worms,
capable of infecting all vulnerable hosts in approximately 15
minutes to an hour."
- Opinion: Why
OS X suits some better than others, Charles W. Moore,
Applelinks, 02.13. "However, I would also argue that a is not just
familiarity."
- Web: Flat Pack Macs, Mark
Benson's new site dedicated to the LCs.
- QuickTime:
Licensing fee takes a bite out of Apple, SF Gate, 02.13.
QuickTime 6, QuickTime Broadcaster delayed due to MPEG-4 licensing
fees.
- News: Feds
launch "spam" email crackdown, Andy Sullivan, Yahoo/Reuters,
02.12. FTC targets chain letter, pyramid schemes, deceptive return
addresses, failure to remove email addresses, etc.
- News: Apple cuts jobs,
discloses store revenue, Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 02.12.
Apple expects to lose money on retail stores through 2002.
- Opinion:
'Book value, Charles W. Moore, Road Warrior, Mac Opinion,
02.12. How to get the most iBook or PowerBook for the money.
- Web: Mac
Net Journal. Rob McNair-Huff's blog has become a daily read at
LEM.
- Tech: Foveon's
revolutionary X3 sensor, Digital Photography Review, 02.11.
"This could be the single most significant leap forward for digital
imaging since the original CCD."
- Dark Side:
Check the fine print, Ed Foster, The Gripe Line, InfoWorld,
02.11. Microsoft - newly security conscious - retains the right to
access your computer and modify their product.
- News: New G4 roadmap
promises Apple harvest, Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 02.11.
266 MHz system bus, 4 MB L3 cache support, 1.5 GHz - we'll
believe it when it ships.
- Opinion: Networking
success at last, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 02.11. More in
the ongoing attempted migration to Mac OS X.
- Advocacy:
How schools are tricked into using PCs - when Macs are better,
Bob Shier, ZDNet, 02.11. "The total amount of staff time required
just to keep these machines functional is an order of magnitude
higher than what we experienced with the Macs."
- Opinion: Microsoft Office
v.X's lame anti-piracy..., Bob LeVitus, Dr. Mac's OS X
Tip-of-the-Day, 02.11. Explains the "updater from Hell" and lays
into MS for "lame-brained, invasive, and 1984-ish network
anti-piracy mechanism" and an update installer that doesn't play
well with other processes.
- Rights: China accused
of torture, killings in crackdown on unregistered Christians,
Fox News, 02.11. Christians, Falun Gong, and Buddhists among
religious groups targeted by Chinese government.
- Resource: Mac OS
Error Codes, USC.
- Opinion: The tin cup
syndrome, Steve Wood, Busman's Holiday, 02.11. "I doubt that
the ad-free subscription model will do those sites any longterm
good."
- Benchmarks: How
much slower is the "end" of your hard drive?, Bare Feats,
02.09. Some parts of your hard drive are slower than others.
- Opinion: Is
Andrew (Orlowski) right?, Marc Zeedar, Mac Opinion, 02.08. "The
long and the short is that I work differently under Mac OS X
than under Mac OS 9."
- Tech: USB
2.0 and FireWire - Killing some myths with tests, Jeff Lewis,
Mac Opinion, 02.08. Real world testing shows performance is
comparable - but which is faster?
- Advice: Clean
your internal CD-ROM drive, Macinstruct. Disassemble at your
own risk.
- Opinion: Not
quite ready for prime time yet, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks,
02.08. "I shall not be switching to 0S X for production this
weekend, or likely in the near-term future."
- News:
Dell discontinues Itanium workstation, Ken Popovich, Extreme
Tech, 02.07. Chip sinks on maiden voyage. We first labelled it
the "Itanic" chip in October
1999.
- Oops:
Apple spams users with virus, Silicon.com, 02.07. Apple's
Swedish headquarters sent an infected screen saver to several
hundred users.
- News:
NY challenges McAfee covenants, Yahoo/AP, 02.07. State contends
restrictions on product reviews restrict free speech.
- Humor: Protest march
of Felines Against Flat Panel Monitors, Joy of Tech.
- Advocacy:
Tired of viruses and bugs? Ditch Microsoft, Mac Net Journal,
02.07. "I have found the best antidote to Internet viruses and
computer security concerns is to avoid Microsoft products like the
plague."
- Consumer:
New Vermont "opt-in" privacy law faces legal challenge,
Computerworld, 02.07. Law requires customer consent before a
business can share their data.
- Rights:
Bigger not better with copyrighted Web photos, Law.com, 02.07.
Thumbnails considered fair use, but larger images harm the owner's
market.
- Advice: An almost
unbelievable utility, Bob LeVitus, Dr. Mac's OS X Tip of the
Day, 02.07. The addictive LaunchBar program (shareware).
- Lite: PCs don't go
gently into Macworld, Leander Kahney, Wired News, 02.07. What
happened when a Mac Web publisher has to used a borrowed Windows
laptop at Macworld.
- News:
Feds release Microsoft comments, D. Ian Hopper, Yahoo/AP,
02.07. 15,000 opposed proposed settlement, 7,500 approved, 7,000
were irrelevant, and some were spam.
- Opinion: OS themes are only
skin deep, Kelly McNeill, osOpinion, 02.07. "What advocates of
'theme' or 'skinning' software fail to realize is that OS
consistency is only truly realized when an entire platform is
universally similar."
- Disinformation: EEMBC publishes benchmark
scores for Motorola PowerPC processor, EEMBC, 02.06. "MPC7455
sets new records" - but they don't seem to have ever tested Intel
Pentium or AMD Athlon processors!
- Oops:
Malformed network request can cause Office v. X for Mac to
fail, Microsoft Security Bulletin, 02.06. Vulnerability could
let one user close down another's Office apps, losing any unsaved
data.
- Archive: Quality,
quantity, benchmarks and reality, Jeff Lewis, Mac Skeptic, Mac
Opinion, 1999.09.09. Some very clear thinking on benchmarks.
- Web: Will the real G4
PowerBook review please stand up?, Philip Ferreira,
Reviewboard. Horribly misinformed review pulled, replaced with much
more accurate, positive one.
- Advice: Mac
backup alternatives to Dantz Retrospect, Charles W. Moore,
Applelinks, 02.06.
- OS X: Swap Cop lets you
change your swap volume, J. Schrier. By using a separate
partition, you can avoid slowdowns due to fragmentation on your
main drive.
- Review: Travelstar 60 GB
PowerBook hard drive, John Manzione, MacNETv2, 02.06. A big,
fast hard drive - the last, best PowerBook upgrade.
- OS X: Does Broadband
Optimizer actually improve your throughput?, Bob LeVitus, Dr.
Mac's OS X Tip of the Day, OS X FAQ, 02.06. Yes, it does, according
to LeVitus.
- Opinion:
The laptop vs. desktop dialectic, Charles W. Moore, Mac
Opinion, 02.05. "...once you begin using a laptop it's highly
likely that you will be ruined for desktops forever."
- Opinion: More
on the state of the Mac Web, Scott McCarty, Graphic Power,
02.05.
- Opinion: ZDNet's
David Coursey - Apple shill, Rodney O. Lain, Mac Observer,
02.05. "The nerve of him, praising the iMac. Next thing you know,
he will even buy one."
- Benchmarks: How
fast is the new G4 iMac?, Bare Feats, 02.05. Performance
compared with Power Mac G4/733 and Dual G4/800.
- Opinion:
If we bill them, will they come?, Dean Browell, Applelust,
02.04. The case against charging for Web content.
- Web: Go2Mac.com is now
O'Grady's PowerPage (again), 02.04.
- Analysis:
Mac OS X font rendering, Nicholas Riley's Weblog, 02.04. Why
fonts may be fine in some cases, ugly in others in OS X.
- Opinion: State
of the Mac Web, Scott McCarty, Graphic Power, 02.04. Thoughts
on site income (and the lack thereof) on the Mac Web.
- Benchmarks:
Radeon 7500 vs. GeForce 4MX, Accelerate Your Mac, 02.03. Both
AGP cards available with Quicksilver (2002) Power Mac G4 compared.
Neither will disappoint.
News:
Rogers mulls new fees to curtail "bandwidth hogs," Globe &
Mail, 02.02. Rogers proposing three-tiered plan for light,
moderate, and heavy users.- Opinion:
Why I'm glad I made the switch to OS X, Dan Shafer, 02.01. It's
smooth, stable, gorgeous....
- Opinion:
How Apple could have made the OS X switch easier, Dan Shafer,
02.01. "I wonder why Steve Jobs & Co. didn't include some basic
things in OS X that would have made the transition for long-time OS
9 users much easier."
- Opinion: Mac OS X for the
masses, Matthew Peterson, osOpinion, 02.01. "...the Aqua UI
masks enough of OS X's Unix underbelly to make it an ideal
operating system for even the most inexperienced home computer
user."
- Web:
Salon makes a go of premium service, Lisa Schneider, Media Life
Magazine, 01.28. Salon claims 35,000 paying subscribers, about 1%
of total visitors. "Hurley claims people are more than happy to pay
. . . to avoid advertisements."
- Review:
Radeon Mac Edition, Joel Hruska, Van's Hardware, 02.01. "That
two or three year old computer has hope of staying 'cutting edge'
with the help of a video card upgrade."
- Opinion:
Mac OS 9 move to OS X: Hardly trouble-free, but worth it, I
think, Dan Schafer, 02.01. "The switch was much more difficult
and frustrating than I had anticipated."
- Poll: How often do you
replace your Mac?, MacMerc, 02.01. I'm averaging four years per
computer.
- Opinion: Cox Communications
Internet conversion catastrophe, Kelly McNeill, osOpinion,
02.01. A simple connection upgrade? Not for those using Mac
OS X.
- Opinion:
The plain truth about software piracy, fprefect, Ambrosia
Software, 02.01. Thoughts on shareware, product registration, and
pirated registration codes.
- Opinion: Apple should "thing
different" inside, too, Stephan Somogyi, ZDNet, 02.01. "Apple's
hardware . . . should also bring with it a greater
commitment to quality and reliability."
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