Low End Mac Archive for December 3

December 3 in Low End Mac History

Special FX: The future of low-end Macs, Chris Lozaga, Online Tech Journal. The promise IBM's PowerPC 750fx holds for the lower end of the Apple product line.
At the Genius Bar with Bit and Byte, Jeff Adkins, The Lite Side. Just like those car guys on the radio, Bit and Byte try to solve a user problem with an old beater.
Postscript printing a major bug in OS X, Marten van de Kraats, 10 Forward. Although a big step forward in some ways, OS X falls flat when printing Web pages to a Postscript printer.
Not @home, Dan Knight, Mac Musings. What do you do when @home shuts down and you have no working phone line?
Internet charges and Low End Mac, Daniel Jones, My Turn. With limited Apple support for older Macs, Low End Mac plays a crucial role in keeping older Macs in service.

A smooth switch with Move2Mac, Steve Watkins, The Practical Mac. Want to switch but worried about your PC files? Move2Mac can handle most of the transfer effortlessly.
Categories of switchers, Jeff Adkins, The Lite Side. How an electrical engineer might classify the various types of Mac switchers.

Upgrading a Power Mac G3 from Mac OS 9 to Panther, Adam Robert Guha, Apple Archive. Is this 1999 Power Mac really up to the task of running OS X or it it too slow to be useful?
Viruses, adware, spyware, and worse: The best reasons to use a Mac, Dan Knight, Mac Musings. By letting you work on your computer instead of fighting malware, Macs let you be more productive and keep support costs way down.
No sympathy for pundit bashing Macs in schools, Jeff Adkins, Mac Lab Report. Perhaps Rich Brooks can explain how bannning Macs will solve all the problems caused by Windows malware on the school's network.
Downgrade to upgrade, 'Book fragility, combo drive for Lombard and Pismo, smallest laptop stand, and more, The 'Book Review. Also Temperature Monitor 2.3, presentation software for the iPod photo, an LCD screen breakthrough, bargain 'Books from $209 to $1,699, and more.

Switching to Mac tripled my productivity, Ted Bragg, My First Mac. Tired of losing work and tech support, Bragg bought an iMac, switched to Mac versions of his apps, and tripled his output the first year.
Leopard on a G3 iMac (with a G4 upgrade), flashed video card problems, the cheapest G4 Mac, and More, Dan Knight, Low End Mac Mailbag. More unsupported Leopard reports point to the importance of a good video card, success on a CRT iMac with a G4/550 upgrade, and whether Sawtooth or Quicksilver is a better buy.
Cooler laptops, a G4 recording studio, a fast Unicode text editor, and phantom email, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings. Quieter, cooler running notebooks, a Power Mac G4-based recording studio using Mac OS 9, a fast text editor with great Unicode support, and phantom email in Mail in OS X 10.3.9.

OS X more efficient than Linux, Snow Leopard and PowerPC Macs, and Eudora woes, Charles W Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings. A user reports both Panther and Leopard run more smoothly and use memory more efficiently than Linux. Also thoughts on PowerPC abandonment in Snow Leopard and replacing Eudora in Leopard.

To Hackintosh or not to Hackintosh?, John Hatchett, Recycled Computing. Apple doesn't make a netbook, and it would be so cool to have 'Leopard' on one. But is it morally right to put OS X on a Dell?
Thumbs up for Logitech V550, picking the right MacBook, WiFi networking tips, and more, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings. Also too early for Apple to abandon PowerPC support, Belkin router problems, Linksys router praise, and Dell Truemobile 1350 WiFi CardBus card.

Monster Apple sales expected, putting an iBook G4 back in service, MagSafe blamed in fire, and more, Mac News Review. Also SSD-only MacBook Pro rumors, iPad features laptops need, Acer Iconia dual-touchscreen notebook/tablet hybrid, and more.
Year of the Mac, 'Apple tax' analyzed, steampunk Mac SE, Safari security updates, and more, Mac News Review. Also Apple tops PCWorld reliability survey again, inside the Bondi blue iMac, Thunderbird 3.3 ditches PowerPC, Mac of the future, and more.