Have a question? Ask an expert! Navigation Used Mac Dealers Apple History Best Used Macs Video Cards Email Lists InfoMac's Low End Mac Forum Favorite Sites MacSurfer MacMinute MacInTouch MyAppleMenu InfoMac Macs Only! The Mac Observer Accelerate Your Mac RetroMacCast PB Central MacWindows The Vintage Mac    Museum DealMac DealsOnTheWeb Mac2Sell ramseeker Mac Driver Museum JAG's House System 6 Heaven System 7 Today the pickle's Low-End    Mac FAQ Abandonware    Petition Mac vs. PC Info Affiliates The Apple Store Mac Connection MacMall TechRestore MacResQ ExperCom Crucial Memory batteries.com Advertise All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only. Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser. Microsoft's Holding Pattern Low End Mac Reader Specials Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com LA Computer Company: LA Computer Company: Specials on AppleCare, Apple Displays, MacBooks, iMac's, MacBook Pros, Laptop and iPod accessories and more. Apple A/C Adapters for laptops starting at $25.00 Call 1-800-941-7654 or Click Here. Other World Computing has the Upgrades, Enhancements, and Accessories for getting the most from your Mac. Quality Products, Competitive Prices, Expert Support Staff - www.macsales.com Mac users can finally play Party Poker for Mac. Not only that, they can also learn how to play PokerStars for Mac. Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs. Compare products like desktop computers, laptops, and LCD TVs side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for a new cell phone GPS products or MP3 players. The Ciao network makes searching products easy for you. New iMac 800Mhz Memory 4GB $98, 2GB $50. Click to Maximize your Macs... Stephen Van Esch - 2003.10.15 Is it just me, or is Redmond in a holding pattern? It seems that all the innovation is happening elsewhere in the computer industry these days. Apple is a prime example of this. It continues to update OS X and other software packages at a good clip. Panther contains a boatload of new features that will make the upgrade (even paid) worthwhile for Mac users. Hardware also seems to be coming along nicely. After a couple of years of its own holding pattern with the G4, the new G5 is a welcome relief. The iMac and PowerBooks are also on a reasonable refresh cycle. If you consider the amount of software that Apple is also constantly updating, it would seem that the tech heads at Apple are working double shifts. While it would be a simple matter to point derisively at Microsoft's slothful movements, I'm starting to feel a little bad for my PC using counterparts. Take Internet Explorer, for example. While friends and family wade through pop-ups and stacks of windows (no tabs, you know), Mac users are enjoy the svelte and robust Safari. Pop-ups are a thing of the past and tabs make browsing much much easier. Of course, PC users have access to more modern browsers, but the fact that the vast majority of Web users use Internet Explorer indicates that most are content with mediocrity. The snail's pace of Microsoft's development has its negative effects, though. Because Internet Explorer is tied to the OS, it won't be updated until Longhorn ships in another two or three years. [The latest bet is late 2005 or sometime in 2006. ed] This leaves Web designers in the relative coding dark ages, because the vast majority of users are using an extremely out of date browser. I've been wondering lately where Apple and other nimbler players will be when Longhorn finally ships. What new features will we be seeing? At the current rate, I'm pretty chuffed about what we may see as the years roll by. We may see OS X 10.5 or 10.6 before Longhorn ships. I'm less confident that Windows users are as excited. Perusing a few sites that have reviews of alpha versions of Longhorn leaves little to be excited about. Now I understand that alpha versions will look nothing like the final product, but new features in Longhorn alpha seem like features that have been available for OS X for at least a year or more. To be absolutely fair, Apple has a bit of an advantage with OS X. Because it's new, development is probably a bit quicker than on the Windows side of things. But it's nice to be on riding with Apple this time around. There's still a feeling of possibility when I start my Mac. Stephen Van Esch is the founder and president of the E-learning Foundry, an online training resource for Mac users. Steve loves the Mac and is doubly bilingual, since he's also fluent in Windows and French. Recently on Mac Scope Connecting with the broader Macintosh community, 04.06. "But beyond the very minor celebrity status that came with being published on Low End Mac, it gave me a real opportunity to participate in the Mac community." Hardware failure, that rare Mac headache, 07.09. Macs are usually pretty reliable, but a hardware failure after just two-and-a-half years is still disappointing. Still waiting for iTunes Music Store Canada, sort of, 06.23. While the pay-per-tune model makes sense, Apple's post-purchase copy management flies in the face of Canadian copyright law. More in the Mac Scope index. Recent Content on Low End Mac Mac Pro overclocking, Windependence with Darwine, Blu-ray for Macs, and more, Mac News Review, 07.04. Also more on running Leopard on non-Apple hardware, Ubuntu on a Mac mini, the first autofocus webcam with Zeiss optics for Macs, and more. Wouldn't life be great with an iSlate?, John Hatchett, Recycled Computing, 07.04. PDAs and smartphones are too small for some tasks, full-fledged Tablet PCs are overkill, and ebook readers are too limited. Apple has the tech to own this niche. Mac of the Day: 17" PowerBook G4/1 GHz Mar. 2001 The first PowerBook with a 17" display, also the first with FireWire 800. List of the Day: Panther List is for anyone using Mac OS X 10.3. The Macintosh Portable started a notebook revolution, Carl Nygren, Classic Macs in the Intel Age, 07.03. Before Apple introduced the Mac Portable, notebook computers were text-based and ran MS-DOS. Ever since, graphical interfaces have been the norm for laptops. More links in our archive. 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