PowerBook, iBook, MacBook, and other portable computing is covered
in The 'Book Review. iPod, iPhone,
and Apple TV news is covered in The iNews
Review.
All prices are in US dollars unless otherwise noted.
News & Opinion
Reviews
Apple Updates
News & Opinion
Install OS X on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking
Required
Lifehacker says:
"Two months ago I walked through how to build a Hackintosh Mac on
the cheap using PC parts. Since that post, the OSx86 scene has changed
rapidly, and now you can install Leopard on your computer about as
easily as installing Leopard on a Mac - no command line hacking
required. In addition, the resulting installation is - theoretically,
at least - can be upgraded without fear of breaking. As if the
simplicity of the installation weren't already enough, the new
installation tools fix any problems I've had in the past (for example,
I no longer need to keep my install DVD in the drive to boot into OS
X), and support the Wi-Fi card on my motherboard out-of-the-box. In
short, it's a winner."
Link:
Install OS X on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required
Good-bye to .mac
AppleMatters'
Chris Howard says:
"After some four years or so shelling out to Apple for a .mac
account, I'm finally making the commitment to ditch it. It has never
been an overly good value, but changing primary email addresses is
always a pain in the butt and takes a bit of effort . . . and
will probably cause a few lost contacts.
"I won't argue that for some people .mac is the ants' pants, and
excellent value. But that crowd is shrinking...."
Link:
Goodbye to .Mac
KDE Desktop Coming to Mac OS X
eWeek's Darryl K. Taft
reports:
"Developers of KDE, the popular Linux desktop environment, are
targeting Windows and enhanced Macintosh support.
"With release 4 of KDE, also known as the K Desktop Environment,
officially announced Jan. 11, the developers of the free software
environment said support for Windows and deep support for Mac OS X
are on the horizon, with some pieces ready for evaluation now and
others to be available by the summer....
"Benjamin Reed, a KDE developer . . . said of the
libraries and applications KDE will port to the Mac OS."
Link:
KDE Targets Windows, Mac OS X Support
A Look at Native KDE 4.0 for OS X
The
AppleBlog's Bob Rudis says:
"This week Slashdot (and many, many others) reported that KDE 4.0
has been released for Windows and OS X. KDE (K Desktop Environment) has
been a popular GUI for *nix systems and there have been ways of getting
it to run (mostly) on OS X prior to this native port if you were
willing to use X11 on OS X). RangerRick (of OpenNMS 'fame' did much of
the heavy lifting for the Mac side of this project, including the
package distributions.
"To start, you'll need to grab the torrent download - I picked the
one labeled 'everything,' weighing in at over 2 GB....
"So, why would you need to run KDE? First and foremost: geek cred.
OK, joking aside - and even if you're comfortable with your current
geek karma level - KDE for OS X brings a plethora of applications for
you to try out. While many have not been compiled/distributed yet, that
site will give you plenty of browsing fodder, and the 'everything'
bundle + other dmg packages deliver well over 130 pre-built OS X KDE
apps."
Link: A
Look at Native KDE 4.0 for OS X
Reviews
New 2.8 GHz Mac Pro Matches Old 3.0 GHz Model
Macworld's James
Galbraith reports:
"Now that the week-long frenzy of Macworld Expo is in the rear-view
mirror, Macworld Lab can turn its attention back to what we were
working on prior to the annual Mac trade show - Speedmark results for
the new Mac Pro systems
announced the first week of January.
"The Friday before Expo began, we posted our test results for
Apple's 'recommended' configuration - an eight-core 2.8 GHz system. The
$2,799 system ships with 2 GB of RAM, a 320 GB hard drive and an
ATI 2600 graphics card with 256 MB of video memory. We found that the
2.8 GHz eight-core model easily out-paced its four-core, 2.6 GHz
predecessor while coming close to matching the speed of a
previous-generation eight-core 3 GHz Mac Pro."
Link: Macworld
Lab: More Mac Pro Benchmark Testing
The New Mac Pro's Achilles' Heel
The
Baltimore Sun's David Zeiler says:
"With an extra 4 gigabytes of memory and two 500 gigabyte Seagate
Barracuda hard drive successfully installed in my new Mac Pro, I fired
up the benchmark programs to see if the upgrades have boosted
performance."
"It appears having 4 sticks of memory installed does aid
performance.
"Then I ran Xbench, which includes a hard disk test. More to the
point, it allows you to test any installed hard drive, not just the
boot drive. To my surprise, the new drive bested the Apple-supplied
drive by about 33 percent - with a score of 70.38 versus 52.80...."
Link:
The New Mac Pro's Achilles Heel
Mac Pro Performance Redux (January 2008)
Primate Labs says:
"A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the performance of the new
Mac Pros. Unfortunately I only had Geekbench 2 results for the
eight-core 2.8 GHz Mac Pro. I thought I'd follow up on that post with
Geekbench 2 results for all three eight-core Mac Pros.
"Setup
- Mac Pro (Early 2008)
- Two quad-core Intel Xeons @ 2.8 GHz, 3.0 GHz, or 3.2 GHz
- 2.00 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
- Mac OS X 10.5.1 (Build 9B2117)"
Link:
Mac Pro Performance Redux (January 2008)
Apple Aluminum Keyboard Reviewed
SchwarzTech's
Eric Schwarz reports:
"We managed to get our hands on Apple's new wired keyboard (it
really doesn't have a name since it's a stock product with new
machines), a $50 product that functions much like any other
keyboard....
"First, the keys are identical to a MacBook - flat, little travel,
and with space in between each key. Second, the Help key has been
replaced with 'fn', which functions much like its notebook equivalent -
the function keys now have other primary purposes, such as volume,
brightness (if your machine supports that), and more. Third, the
function keys go up to F19, allowing you to program just a bit more.
Finally, our friend, the Apple key is now simply 'Command' with the
cloverleaf logo - this should end some confusion, and make third-party
keyboards match a bit more."
Link: Review: Apple
Aluminum Keyboard
Apple Updates
How to Disinfect the Keyboard, Trackpad, and
Mouse
A new Apple Knowledge Base
article says:
"In addition to regular cleaning of your computer and input devices
(keyboards, trackpads, and mice), you may find it necessary to
disinfect them.
"Multiple people using the same computer, people using the computer
when they were ill, and the particular environment where the computer
is used, are a few reasons you may wish to disinfect areas of the
computer that people come into contact with the most."
Link: How to
Disinfect the Apple Internal or External Keyboard, Trackpad, and
Mouse
Desktop Mac
Deals
Low End Mac updates the following price trackers every two
weeks:
For more deals on current and discontinued notebook models, see our
MacBook deals, MacBook Air deals, MacBook Pro deals, 12" PowerBook G4 deals,
15" and 17" PowerBook
G4 deals, titanium
PowerBook G4 deals, iBook G4 deals, PowerBook G3 deals, and
iBook G3 deals.
