Are Aqua-Skeptics Luddites?

2000: In Bryan Chaffin’s latest The Back Page column on The Mac Observer, he argues that Apple was brilliant for showing Mac OS X’s new “lickable” Aqua user interface now, and he sharply chides the foot-draggers (your humble servant included) who have expressed misgivings about the GUI course that Apple has chosen to follow in […]

SETI@home: Join a Team

2000 – SETI@home is a scientific experiment that harnesses the power of hundreds of thousands of Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Finding a Replacement Screen for a PowerBook 5300

2000 – Any wise words of advice on where I might pick up a new display for a PowerBook 5300c? The display on mine got cracked from the back, and while it still works, there’s a half-dollar sized blemish on the right side of the screen.

Setting Up a Cable or DSL Router

There are several ways to attach a group of computers to the Internet. At work, we have a Cisco router, an ISDN connection, and a range of 128 IP addresses. At home, I’ve used IPNetRouter on my SuperMac J700/180, which also acts as a mail and list server. The $89 shareware program does a great […]

Macs and Digital Video

2000 – I am interested in doing digital video (DV) editing – as shown in the new iMac commercials. Is there any way I can do it with my older Mac by buying a FireWire card? If not, what Mac do you suggest for digital video editing?

Raising the Dead, Part 3

2000 – When last I wrote, I was in the process of testing out my refurbished Mac II. In my quest to revive the MacDead, I discovered that one needs to have the correct RAM for the machine. I now need to install four 1 MB SIMMs in Bank A to get the beast going.

Web Design, Part 3: Cascading Style Sheets

There’s a real danger in web design – the desire to have too much control over what your site visitor sees. There are webmasters who construct their site using very complex style sheets, JavaScript, or separately coded pages for different browsers. And as each new browser ships, the designer has to figure out how to […]

Macs and AOL 5.0

2000: One problem that bugs AOL users who use Macs is the fact that the Mac version of their software is always the last to be updated. AOL for Windows will be released, and the Mac version will be released three months later. Finally, after many months of having AOL 5.0 for Windows out for […]

G4 Insignificantly Superior to G3

I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again. The G4 is insignificantly superior to the G3 unless you are running AltiVec-enabled software. It’s not a claim I make lightly, since Apple is hyping the G4 as the greatest thing since, well, the G3. Truth is, the G4 is little more than a G3 with a […]

DSL Lines and Cupertino Apples

2000: This week my DSL line is being put in. It has been a very long wait for me to get high-speed Internet service at home. This couldn’t be happening at a better time because when I quit my MIS Director’s job I gave up my T1 exploitation rights.

Apple to Get Toasted in Processor Speedstakes?

2000: Last week a reader named Mike Donahue asked if I would do an in-depth investigation into Apple’s CPU processor plans. I don’t know about in-depth – I don’t think I’m qualified – but this is a topic that I’m concerned about as well, so here is an overview at least. Others have been writing […]

Web Design, Part 2: Site Organization

2000 – Let’s start with a note on include files (the topic of the previous article). If you include a “/” in your reference as in <A HREF=”/news/index.shtml”> instead of <A HREF=”news/index.shtml”>, then it will not matter where the file is located – it will always relative to the root directory. In other words, it […]

Getting a Modem for an Older Power Mac

2000 – I recently got a Power Mac from a friend (it’s a 1994 model PowerPC). It was apparently on the network before I received it. It says it has an internal modem, but all I see is a modem port on the back of the computer without the RJ-11 (phone line) connector. How can […]

A Rescued Fat Mac

2000: Jonathan Wise shares: I found my first Mac in the garbage. It was a Mac 512K (Fat Mac) and had been the office computer at my church for about 5 years. It had developed the vertical line disease (for those of you who don’t know old Macs, when they get too hot, the insides […]

A Rescued Fat Mac

I found my first Mac in the garbage. It was a Mac 512K (Fat Mac) and had been the office computer at my church for about five years. It had developed the vertical line disease (for those of you who don’t know old Macs, when they get too hot, the insides start to melt a little […]

G4 Debacle Not All Apple’s Fault

2000: Sean Terrill says that the G4 debacle is all Apple’s fault. He makes some interesting arguments in his article on Mac Junkie, The Great G4 Debacle: Why It Is Apple’s Fault (no longer online).

Sonnet Presto Plus Unleashes the Color Classic

Yesterday I received my eagerly-awaited Presto Plus from Sonnet; I promptly canceled my other plans for the evening and started playing with it in my Color Classic. To make a long story short: “Oh BABY!”

A Boy and His Macs

My first Apple was not a Macintosh. It was an Apple IIe with a green screen and an external floppy. It worked; it wasn’t glamorous. I just used it. I did not upgrade or tinker.