The Low End Mac Link Archive, March 2004
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:
Numbers don't tell Mac's story, Al Fasoldt, The Post-Standard,
03.31. "...my own rough calculations indicate that 8 percent of the
personal computers used today in homes - leaving out all the
computers used in offices and businesses - are Apple
Macintoshes."
Rights:
File
sharers not guilty of copyright infringement - Canadian judge,
Tony Smith, The Register, 03.31. "...just putting files in a
computer directory that other people can access is insufficient an
action to constitute illegal distribution - at least under Canadian
law."- Advice: Fast
Internet access without broadband, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night
Owl, 03.31. Yes, Web acceleration does work, is readily available
for Mac users, but gives "a noticeable deterioration in the quality
of Web graphics" unless you adjust settings.
- Opinion: Is the
Pismo the most elegant, desirable PowerBook ever?, Charles
Moore, Applelinks, 03.30. "The Pismo, on the other hand, epitimizes
that je ne sais quoi quality we refer to as the PowerBook
Mystique."
- Opinion: BuyMusic.comedown:
First iTunes competitor becomes first to give up, Bill Palmer,
03.30. "...while BuyMusic hasn't quite officially shut down just
yet, it's clear now that it will in fact be the first music
download service to do so."
- Advice:
Hotrodding the Pismo phase two: Faster hard drive, Charles
Moore, Road Warrior, Mac Opinion, 03.30. "...it is probably the
hotrod upgrade that will give you the greatest performance increase
per dollar spent."
- Review: The majestic Alps
and the king of keyboards, Adam C. Engst, TidBITS, 03.29.
"...if you consider yourself a keyboard aficionado, or if you've
been bothered by the slide in quality for Apple's keyboards, you
owe it to yourself to give the Tactile Pro Keyboard a try."
- OS X: Just
how spoiled have we Mac users become?, Bill Palmer, 03.29.
"Remember having your entire computer freeze up on you?"
- Opinion: iChat status
report, Adam C. Engst, TidBITS, 03.29. "In both Away and
Available states, you can customize the message people see; in the
Idle state, iChat reports only how long you've been idle."
- Opinion: All
right, so everything Apple does is wrong, Gene Steinberg, Mac
Night Owl, 03.29. "...as you read the commentaries in print and
online, you wonder if Steve Jobs and crew can do anything
right."
- Hardware: Beige G3
owner reports on TV tuners, Accelerate Your Mac, 03.26.
Solutions for watching television and capturing video on OS X and
the classic Mac OS.
Huh?:
U.S.
online-gambling ban violates international trade laws, WTO
rules, Matt Richtel, SeattlePI.com, 03.26. "Antigua and Barbuda
argued that U.S. trade policy does not prohibit cross-border
gambling operations...."- Analysis: Is
Bluetooth better on the Mac?, Rebecca Freed, Mac Skeptic, PC
World, 03.26. "When it comes down to it, there are still too many
seams showing in Bluetooth on Windows."
- Opinion: Apple's
history: Survival of the fittest or just dumb luck?, Gene
Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 03.26. "By all accounts, any company that
made this many blunders through the years should have failed on
life support years ago."
- Opinion:
And a voice said, 'Get a Mac', George Heuston, OregonLive.com,
03.25. "So I dutifullybought and upgraded home PC's, worshiped
constantly in the Temple of the Anti-Virus,' tithed heavily, and
watched thousands of attackers hammer away at my system's
defenses."
- AAPL: Investors
cheer Apple gaffe, Paul Shread, internetnews.com, 03.25. "The
reason? The company vastly underestimated U.S. demand for the
product, which the company says has 'far exceed[ed] the total
planned supply through the end of June.'"
- Opinion: Why
the next decade of Macintosh will be golden, Bill Palmer,
03.24. "...as the Mac enters its third decade, forces seem to be
aligning in its favor. In no particular order, here are a whole
slew of reasons why the platform is poised to break on
through...."
- Advocacy:
Digital Music: Apple shouldn't sing solo, Alex Sakover, Byte of
the Apple, BusinessWeek, 03.24. "If Apple really wants to boost
AAC, it would allow other device and software makers to license
Apple's own FairPlay digital-rights-management (DRM) system."
- OS X: Mac.Ars takes on
three years of OS X, Eric Bangeman, ars technica, 03.24. Three
major revisions have taken us a long ways from OS X 10.0.
- Review: The
wireless keyboard and mouse maniac: Another choice for Mac
users, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 03.24. Hands on with the
Logitech Cordless Navigator Duo.
- Opinion: HyperCard:
1987-2004, Kevin Altis' Weblog, 03.23. "Well it finally
happened, Apple removed the HyperCard sub-directory from the main
Apple site and you can no longer buy HyperCard from the Apple
store."
- Upgrade:
Lombard renaissance, Charles Moore, Road Warrior, Mac Opinion,
03.23. "Both Newer Technology and PowerLogix made G3 upgrades for
the Lombard for a time, but they apparently didn't sell especially
well...."
- Opinion: Is
Longhorn Microsoft's Copland?, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl,
03.19. "Even if present predictions of a release in 2006 or 2007
don't come to pass, it doesn't mean it'll never happen."
Rights:
File sharing increases CD sales, Slashdot, 03.19. "ARIA have
released figures that show for 2003, album sales have reached an
all time high."- Opinion:
Apple Death Knell #39: iPod won't save Apple, Bryan Chaffin,
Mac Observer, 03.18. "The reality is, in my never humble opinion,
those very products, such as the iPod, are exactly what saved
Apple...."
- Opinion: The
browser wars: Still going strong, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night
Owl, 03.18. "...Safari is still one of many, and if you want more
features, you should seriously consider looking elsewhere...."
- Review: Checking out
Check Preference Files and OS 10.3.3 Combo Updater posted,
Charles Moore, Applelinks, 03.18. Freeware utility scans for
damaged preferences, tries to repair them, makes it easy to delete
those that can't be fixed.
- Opinion: MPMC...um...the
cat did it, Damien Barrett, mrbarrett.com, 03.18. "Why would I
want to view media clips on a 2 inch screen when I can view them on
my 17" monitor?"
- Opinion: Apple's
Spoken Interface: Computer read to me, Gene Steinberg, Mac
Night Owl, 03.17. "Today, the speech interface on your Mac is,
well, very clumsy, so if you want text read back to you, it can
become downright disturbing after a few seconds."
- Opinion:
Should Apple revive the Mac Portable?, Charles W. Moore, Road
Warrior, Mac Opinion, 03.16. "I think it would be great if Apple
came out with a big laptop in this general vein, more a portable
true desktop substitute than a road-warrioring machine."
- OS X: The
pleasures of the Mac OS X 10.3.3 update, Gene Steinberg, The
Panther Report, Mac Night Owl, 03.16. "Although some imply that
10.3.3 is a yawner, there are actually some very significant
changes in this release...."
- Upgrade: Daystar 433
MHz MAChSpeed G4 Lombard PowerBook Upgrade Announced, Charles
Moore, Applelinks, 03.16. First PowerBook with USB, last with SCSI,
oldest fully supported by Panther - can now be upgraded with a G4
processor.
- Opinion: The new
Newton: Could a revival work?, Apostolos Koutropoulos, New
Mobile Computing, 03.16. "All things considered, Apple will have an
interesting experience should they decide to come forth into the
PDA market again."
- Hardware: Plextor sports
a 12x Serial ATA DVD+R writer, ars technica, 03.15. If you
thought 4x SuperDrives were fast, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
- Huh?:
City
considers banning water, Fox News, 03.15. "It looks like city
officials in Aliso Viejo, Calif., need to brush up on their
chemistry after they considered banning foam cups because they were
produced with dihydrogen monoxide."
- History: Ten years old:
Apple's Power Mac line, Tony Smith, The Register, 03.15.
"...Apple's clever move of integrating 680x0 emulation software to
retain backwards compatibility with older Mac apps proved a signal
success that few other IT companies have achieved."
- History: Happy
10th birthday, Power Mac!, Simon Jary, Macworld UK, 03.15. "The
hero of the day was a brilliant software engineer called Gary
Davidian, who . . . developed [Mac OS 7.1.2] in such a way that
older Mac software could run in emulation on the new chip."
- History: Lots
of Mac history, 1 million Macs, "wicked fast," tell-all book,
Darwin, O Linzmayer, B Chaffin, Mac Observer, 03.15. Millionth
Mac in 1986, "wicked fast" Mac IIfx in 1990, first Power Macs in
1994, and more.
- Software: GraphicConverter
5.0 released, Peter Cohen, MacCentral, 03.15. Popular shareware
program receives a major update.
- News: Apple
claims 50 million iTunes downloads, will miss one year goal,
Brad Gibson, Mac Observer, 03.15. "At the current download rate,
Apple predicted subscribers will download 130 million songs this
year...."
- Virus: Bagle the 13th
spread defies belief, John Leyden, The Register, 03.15. "To
nobody's great surprise, another Windows-infecting mass mailing
worm began spreading over the Net last weekend."
- OS X: Does it
still crash too much?, Gene Steinberg, The Panther Report, Mac
Night Owl, 03.11. "The arrival of Mac OS X was supposed to change
all that, ushering in a new era of Mac stability."
- Opinion: Can you
believe what you read in the Mac press?, Gene Steinberg, Mac
Night Owl, 03.10. "What's the solution, except to ignore the
wrongheaded advice, of course?"
- Opinion:
What if Apple made an XP box?, Bryan Chaffin, The Back Page,
Mac Observer, 03.09. "In Mr. Enderle's limited mindset, making
Windows boxes is the only business there is, period, and please
don't confuse him with the facts."
- Review:
Laptop Laidback revisited, Charles Moore, Road Warrior, Mac
Opinion, 03.09. "The Laptop Laidback has been a godsend in that it
allows me to use a PowerBook comfortably while reclining on a bed
or sofa."
- Opinion:
One year and counting with my 12-inch PowerBook G4, Rob
McNair-Huff, Mac Net Journal, 03.08. Small, light, rugged, and one
of the best PowerBook keyboards ever.
- Analysis:
Apple Death Knell #38: "The Mac market is ending", Bryan
Chaffin, The Back Page, Mac Observer, 03.08. "Apple is healthy, of
course, and Mac developers seem to be healthy as well."
- Opinon:
Study finds upgrades better for environment, Gizmodo, 03.08.
"The lesson from all this? Sometimes spending a little more on
something that will last is worth the extra money."
- Advice: Fixing Virtual PC's
speed in Panther, Macs Only!, 03.08. "...rebooting our Macs and
launching Virtual PC before launching any other application cured
our problem of extremely slow running of VPC under
Panther...."
- Opinion: Please
Apple, just make it dependable, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl,
03.08. "...the Mac sucks less, but is it as good as it can be? I
don't think so."
- Review: Matias
Tactile Pro Keyboard, Kirk Hiner, Applelinks, 03.07. The
Tactile Pro's key caps are clearly labeled with the international
characters, accents, punctuation, and currency symbols that are
available by holding down the Option or
Shift+Option keys.
- Opinion: Should the iBook
go widescreen?, Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac, 03.05. HP,
Acer, and Sony will be adopting a new widescreen 14.1" LCD. Should
Apple follow suit with a widescreen iBook?
- AAPL:
Apple stock rallies to highest price since '02, Peter Cohen,
MacCentral, 03.05. Apple's stock price has rallied to its highest
price in two years, on dramatically higher volume than usual.
- Opinion: Why did
Apple throw cold water on the headless iMac?, Gene Steinberg,
Mac Night Owl, 03.05. "... there's a genuine perception that
Apple's products are just too expensive compared to the
competition, even if you can demonstrate by in exact comparisons
that it isn't necessarily so."
- History:
Spam's tenth birthday today, Glyn Moody, Netcraft, 03.05. "On 5
March 1994, a message was posted to some Usenet newsgroups by a law
firm called Canter and Siegel, advertising their services...."
- Advice: SCSI
connector and SCSI cable information, RAM Electronics, 03.05. A
visual guide to all those different SCSI connectors used over the
years.
- * 12. Opinion: Things I don't like
about being a Mac user, Rubaiyat Haque, OSNews, 03.04. "To the
zealot, Apple and Steve Jobs can do no wrong and any criticism of
their Messiah is tantamount to blasphemy."
- OS X: Are annual upgrades
too much, too soon?, Gene Steinberg, The Panther Report, Mac
Night Owl, 03.04. "There's nothing really wrong with an 18-month
development cycle if it breeds an operating system that has even
more compelling features, but runs more stably in the
bargain."
- Review: Results of AAC
at 128kbps v2 public listening test, Roberto Amorim, 03.04.
Apple's iTunes AAC codec rated best at 128k sample rate.
- News: Willow
Design to stay open a bit longer, Peter Cohen, MacCentral,
03.04. Lots of Willow customers are stocking up at the last chance,
going out of business sale.
- Opinion: The sky is
falling! Again!, Damien Barrett, mrbarrett.com, 03.03. "I think
it's a mistake to confuse the 'Mac web' with the Macintosh
community. They are not the same thing."
- Advice: Replacing the hinge
of titanium PowerBooks, Michael C Jaeger, 03.03. It's tricky,
but it beats spending US$1,000 for the repair.
- OS X: The perils of the
clean install, Gene Steinberg, The Panther Report, Mac Night
Owl, 03.02. "The installation should have, in theory, retained
those preference files without damage. In practice it just didn't
work that way."
- Humor: Top
ten Apple headlines you don't want to read, Bill Palmer, 03.02.
"Inspired by success of iPod mini, new PowerMac G5 to come in
Pink"
- Review:
CoolMac flexible, waterproof USB keyboard, Charles W. Moore,
Road Warrior, Mac Opinion, 03.02. "So what is the CoolMac like to
type on? Well, different from what you're used to."
- Benchmarks: Final
Cut Pro 4: G5 versus G4 and single CPU versus dual CPU, Bare
Feats, 03.01. With Final Cut Pro 4, a second CPU makes things about
45% faster.
- Advice: Add a
custom icon to your site, Web Page Design for Designers, 03.01.
How to create a custom icon for your website.
- Opinion: Vote for me
if you want a headless iMac, Vern Seward, Just a Thought, Mac
Observer, 03.01. "I will personally hold Steve Jobs accountable for
ignoring the cries of thousands, nay, millions of Mac users begging
for a headless iMac."
- Huh?: Xbox 2
heading for Macs, Macworld UK, 03.01. Microsoft's next Xbox
will us an IBM PowerPC processor, and developers are receiving
Power Mac G5s running a custom version of Windows NT.
- Opinion: Reply and
critique to "My last two hours enduring Mac OS 9", Charles
Moore, Applelinks, 03.01. "Personally, OS X's multi-user anal
retentiveness drives me nuts. I'm the only user of my production
computers."
- Advice: Moore's free
POP3 email services roundup - 2004, Charles Moore, Applelinks,
03.01. "With POP3, you can do all your email work offline except
for actual sending and downloading of messages, which cuts down
immensely on online time used...."
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