Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

From Luddite to Low End Mac

From solar Luddite to Mac user in a few easy steps

Beverly Woods - 2001.04.26 - Tip Jar

Five years ago, I was living with my small daughter in the shell of a solar house that I was building myself. I had a modest array of used solar panels and a small wind generator hooked up to a bank of batteries, and a noisy little gasoline-powered generator for backup.

Needless to say, I had no extraneous electrical appliances. A few compact fluorescent lights and a little music were all the system could manage in the depths of the New England winter. You want toast? Use the wood stove. Water? There's the well...here's a bucket.

Enter my partner, Seth, optimistically moving up from the South, Mac Plus in hand.

Yikes! A computer! What do you need that for?

Well, email is useful.

Email? What's that?

So, you want to run this thing here? I suppose...hmm... Power consumption may be 60W, not too bad... Hear that fan? Listen, only when the sun's been out, OK?

The batteries are kind of low... What are you writing there? A song? A new promo blurb? Why can't you just use the typewriter?

This phase didn't last too long. Seth and I are both working musicians, a profession which requires periodic recording, which requires the periodic investment of largish sums of money either in someone else's recording studio to buy time or in your own studio to buy equipment. We had both been going the build-your-own-studio route for a while.

I needed to make a new CD. The recording process would be greatly assisted by the ability to do digital editing. After considerable research, Seth bought a used Quadra 650/24/230 with an external 1 GB hard drive (wow) and video monitor (huge) to do the editing on. In 1997, this was an older model and seemed reasonably priced at only $1,500 or so. Seth was also working on a film score and had a contract for some music books which had to be done in Finale.

This new computer assisted in all this reasonably well. It also ate lots more kilowatts. I could see the gauge on the batteries going down when the Quadra was on. "Don't check your email now, or it will be only kerosene lights tonight!" I'd say. Or, "Do you really want to listen to the generator all afternoon? We're going to need it if you use the computer today."

An added twist was that the laser printer required enough power at startup so that you couldn't have the Quadra, the monitor, and the printer on simultaneously, running from the inverter and the battery bank. Any printing required the generator to be on. I was the one who had the better luck starting the generator.

My wish to be a supportive partner was in conflict with my role as Manager Of The Electrical System. Any wish I had to familiarize myself with the computer was superseded by my position as Guardian Of The Batteries.

The computer (and the rest of the studio) needed more electricity. The family also needed more room. We bought an old grange hall and moved the studio into it. In an arrangement to which I was by then unaccustomed, electricity came from a wire on a pole, through a meter, and into the building. Now any project could be done at any time, regardless of what the weather had been the previous week. I said a fond farewell to my days of troubleshooting generators outdoors in sub-zero weather.

Seth patiently taught me how to use the Quadra for writing and email. I began to use the computer more. I began to like the computer. No more piles of discarded paper when revising a draft. Easy, low-cost messaging system. Graphic design capabilities far beyond my analog resources. This was an invention even a Luddite could love.

My daughter is homeschooled and wanted in on the action, too, of course. Soon there was a line to use the Quadra. Last February I bought my own first computer, a refurbed iMac 350. Now I'm the one trying to help others - my daughter, my friends - learn to use their Macs. I, who once could not imagine why anyone would want a computer, now wouldn't want to be without a Mac.

I'm still committed to appropriate technology and keeping cost and power proportional to the job to be done. So here I am at Low End Mac. I look forward to sharing my further adventures with LEM readers.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: Mac mini Core Solo, Feb. 2006 - The only Mac to use a Core Solo CPU, this model ran at 1.5 GHz, has integrated graphics, and includes a Combo drive
Group of the Day: SuperMacs is for those using Umax SuperMac clones.
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

Best G4 iMac Deals, 11.24. Used 15" 700 MHz CD-RW, $150; 800 MHz Combo, $229; 1 GHz, $289; 17" 1.25 GHz, $200; 20" 1.25 GHz, $509.
Best PowerBook G3 Deals, 11.24. Used 233 MHz WallStreet, $75; 266 MHz, $160; 400 MHz Lombard, $199; 400 MHz Pismo, $289; 500 MHz, $350.
Best MacBook Air Deals, 11.24. Used from $899; refurb from $1,099; new 1.6 GHz/120 HD, $1,150 after rebate; 1.8/64 SSD, $1,150 a/r; 1.86/128 SSD, $1,350 a/r; 2.13/128 SSD, $1,694 a/r.
Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.23. Used 867 MHz SuperDrive, $348; 1 GHz Combo, $379; SD, $519; 1.33 GHz, $529; 1.5 GHz Combo, $549; SuperDrive, $609.
Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.23. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 4-core. $1,919; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.93 8-core, $4,999; new 2.26 8-core, $2,290.
Best Time Capsule and AirPort Deals, 11.23. Used 802.11g AirPort Extreme, $49; 500 GB Time Capsule, $150; new, $190; 1 TB dual-band, $280; 2 TB, $469; 802.11n AirPort Extreme, $170.
Best eMac Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz Combo, $100; SuperDrive, $269; 1.25 GHz Combo, $119; SD, $319; 1.42 GHz Combo, $289; SD, $498.
Best Mac OS X 10.6 and Mac Box Set Deals, 11.18. "Snow Leopard", single user, $25; 5 users, $45; Mac Box Set, single user, $139; 5 users, $180; Server, $414. Shipping included.
Best Xserve Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz dual G4, $649; 2.3 dual G5, $795; 3.0 4-core Xeon, $1,899; refurb 2.26 4-core, $2,499; new, $2,888; refurb 8-core, $2,999; new, $3,449; more.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Acoustic Mac articles ©2001-2005 by Beverly Woods. � Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.