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December 2013
I’m not much of a TV watcher. I don’t have a giant-sized screen – just a 27″ couple-of-years-old LG flatscreen model – and don’t feel any pull to upgrade to larger screen/3D/higher resolution. I subscribe to my local cable company but not to Netflix or other streaming services).
Apple released iOS 7 in September 2013, the boldest new version of iOS since its initial introduction in 2007, featuring a whole new look for the first time. But where Apple leaves behind, the whited00r team picks up.
Well, hi there. As a new contributor to Low End Mac, I would just like to extend my hand and offer you the warmest of welcomes. I know a lot of you have been avid readers and followers of Low End Mac, and I don’t want to disappoint!
Apple last updated the 15″ PowerBook in October 2005, making dual-layer SuperDrives standard and putting in higher resolution displays along with a faster memory bus. Because of their 1440 x 960 resolution displays (vs. 1280 x 854 used by prior 15″ aluminum PowerBooks), these 1.67 GHz models are designated hi-res in our listings to distinguish […]
The 12″ PowerBook G4 was discontinued in mid-2006 with the introduction of the 13.3″ MacBook, yet it remains a popular choice as the smallest portable Mac with a built-in optical drive. It is available in speeds from 867 MHz to 1.5 GHz.
If you’re looking for a great desktop substitute PowerPC Mac at an affordable price, the 17″ PowerBook gives you 1680 x 1050 or 1440 x 900 resolution in a machine not much larger and heavier than the 15.4″ PowerBook.
TenFourFox is an amazing browser and is responsible for keeping the PowerPC platform alive. But whether on a G3 , G4, or even a slower G5 processors, it needs a bit of tweaking to optimise performance.
Are you new to jailbreaking? Should you crack open Apple’s wonderful iDevice operating system or leave it as Apple intended?
This has not been a good year for Low End Mac. After switching to the WordPress content management system earlier this year, our Google rank took a nose dive, and while Google still accounts for most of the traffic coming to lowendmac.com, total traffic is about 20% of what it was in 2012.
It’s a real seller’s market. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard retailed for $129 and is now selling online for $159 and up. However, you can save by ordering at the original price directly from Apple by phone at 800-692-7753.
For those who still need Classic Mode or have apps that don’t play well on Intel Macs (especially since the introduction of OS X 10.7 Lion, which no longer supports PowerPC apps), a G5 iMac with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger can be a better choice than an Intel iMac. Intel Macs and Mac OS […]
iOS 7 jailbreaking is finally here, courtesy of the evad3rs team.
A few weeks back, I experimented with turning off mobile data and relying on WiFi only on my iPhone. Today I repeated it; this time I was a little more prepared.
Does your Mac have a built-in iSight camera? Could it be turned on without you knowing so someone could be watching you?
Although it received some relatively minor updates in 2012, the previous Mac Pro received its last real update in 2010, and by the time the 2013 Mac Pro shipped in December 2013, that model was well over three years old. The 2010/2012 Mac Pro was the last Mac to run OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, […]
No matter how much of an Apple nerd you are, you can’t remember every detail about every Apple product – not even me. MacTracker to the rescue.
Although OS X 10.7 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion, and 10.9 Mavericks have each replaced it in turn, there are good reasons you may want to (or even need to) have Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
Mobile phones are a big part of most people’s lives, but have you considered what this jack-of-all-trades product has crushed in its rise?
Apple introduced the 5th generation (5G) iPod touch with the same 4″ widescreen Retina Display as the iPhone 5. The newest Touch has a dual-core A5 processor and comes in 32 and 64 GB capacities.
WiFi might be great for laptops and smartphones, but in terms of speed and reliability it is still far behind ethernet. This is why I have installed ethernet cabling throughout my house.
The Power Mac G5 line included the most powerful PowerPC-based computer Apple ever sold, also making it a powerful line for Classic Mode – especially the last generation dual- and quad-core models, as Classic then has unfettered access to one of the Power Mac’s cores.
By now you’ve probably seen Microsoft’s Scroogled TV commercial dissing the Chromebook. If you’re a Mac user, you’re probably amused that monopolist Microsoft is getting so upset at free-for-all “do no evil” Google.
Mac’s Classic OS continues to fade in compatibility and relevance, with support in crucial areas – especially Web browsers and email software – becoming more and more tenuous. Classic Mode is not supported in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on any Macs and was never supported on Intel Macs.
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November 2013
It was pretty exciting news when Apple made it possible to install older versions of iOS apps on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, but if you’ve tried to download a new app that requires a newer OS than your device has, you’ve probably been stumped.
I love my iPhone 4, but how does it stack up against similar spec’d Android handsets. Sleek looks are very nice, but it’s performance that counts when in the real world.
USB has been around since 1996, but it didn’t come into its own until Apple unveiled the first iMac in May 1998. While the PC world was content to add USB as one more port in addition to parallel and serial ports, the iMac dispensed with legacy ports in favor of a USB-only architecture. Anyone […]
One problem with personal computers is that you can’t run full diagnostics of your boot drive when booted from it. It’s very helpful to have an emergency drive you can boot from to run diagnostics on your primary drive, whether that’s a DVD, hard drive, or USB thumb drive. This article explains how to build […]
Apple introduced a new feature, Safe Sleep, with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther in 2003. When enabled, Safe Sleep writes the contents of your Mac’s memory to a file named sleepimage on its hard drive before putting the computer to sleep (this works like the Hibernate command in Windows). In case the Mac loses power […]
Would you like an iPhone but cannot justify the high price tag? Don’t need all the bells and whistles of a new one? If you think an older one might suits your needs take a look at the 3GS.
It seems like increasingly, at least for most people, digital cameras don’t matter. Sure, just as there were (film) camera professionals and serious hobbyists, there are people buying and using high-end digital cameras.
The first time I heard about Pandora, I was intrigued. The streaming music service analyzes music using 400 different factors and attempts to create playlists that will work with the performer or song you use to seed the playlist.
We listen to radio, podcasts, my iTunes collection, and iHeartRadio at work while we assemble high pressure air hoses. The air compressors in the next room over are noisy, and so is the machine that crimps the ends on each hose. It’s a good thing the stereo has lots of power and a big speaker […]
When I upgraded to an iPhone 4S this past summer, I had the option of trading in my iPhone 3GS for $100 credit or keeping it. I decided to keep it, as I was sure I could find many ways to use it. One of those is as a music player connected to a stereo […]
The iPhone grew out of the iPod, Apple’s first digital music player launched well over a decade ago. Listening to music was the reason the iPod existed, and Apple wanted to make sure that its iPhone (and later iPod touch and iPad) did it well.
Macs have had hard drives for nearly as long as Macs have been available, as is true of PCs, and a lot of those very early hard drives didn’t have great life expectancies. In addition to higher capacity and lower cost per data unit, hard drives have become far more reliable than those from the […]
This is the tale of three operating systems: Windows XP, its presumed successor Vista, and the recently displaced as king of the hill Windows 7.
I am a Mac user and have been for over a decade. No matter how much Windows changes, it will never be enough to pull me away from the beauty that is Mac OS X. But does Vista deserve the stick it gets?
OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is widely regarded as one of the best versions of Mac OS X ever released, but its successor, OS X 10.7 Lion, is often pushed aside. Let’s look at why.
I’ve been using iOS 7 on my iPhone 4S since a day or two after its release, and while the new interface and rearrangement of some things frustrated me at first, I very much like it now. That isn’t to say I’ve had no issues with it.
Imagine if you could seamlessly open any document and run any program on your computer. Wouldn’t that be great? Read and edit old word processor files – MacWord, anyone? WordStar? Run PC games on your Mac, Super Nintendo games on your Windows PC? Like the peaceful utopia in John Lennon’s Imagine, we’re not there yet. […]
If you don’t have a data allowance on your iPhone or other mobile phone, could you survive by just relying on places offering free WiFi?
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October 2013
The infamous BlackBerry Messenger (a.k.a. BBM) has made it to iPhone, another messaging service to iOS. How well does it work, and why might you want to use it?
Over the last 12 months, I have had the opportunity to upgrade both Mac OS X and Windows. Here I compare the experiences.
Since installing OS X 10.9 Mavericks, I’ve been plagued by problems with security certificates. I couldn’t visit Twitter or LastPass using Safari or Chrome. And I couldn’t log in to Messages or FaceTime. But after a fair bit of research, I found a solution.
I have OS X 10.9 Mavericks installed on my Late 2008 Aluminum MacBook, one of the older Macs to support OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and Mavericks. Until now I’ve held off upgrading past OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard because of software I’d have to leave behind, but with Mavericks available for free and a […]
Apple certainly knew what it was doing when it made OS X 10.9 Mavericks a free update available to anyone running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, 10.7 Lion, or 10.8 Mountain Lion. Released on Tuesday, Low End Mac site stats show that it passed Mountain Lion on Wednesday.
News (or rumoured news) dropped today that perhaps there is more than meets the eye behind Apple offering OS X 10.9 Mavericks for free.
Linux distributions (a.k.a. distros) are a great free alternative to Windows for both PCs and older Intel Macs. With hundreds of distros available, it can be hard to decide, but Elementary OS stands out.
OS X 10.9 Mavericks has just been released by Apple. Here are my initial impressions.
The Late 2013 Retina MacBooks have embraced Intel’s latest energy efficient Haswell technology, which provides more processing power per GHz with reduced power consumption. Additionally, the Late 2013 13″ Retina MacBook Pro is a bit thinner and lighter than the Early 2013 model. As with all Retina MacBook Pros, this one is built around SSD […]
Eight months after first upgrading the MacBook Pro with Retina Display, Apple moved to the Intel Haswell chipset in October 2013. The MacBook Pro with Retina Display (a.k.a. Retina MacBook Pro) remains the thinnest MacBook Pro at 0.71″. That’s MacBook Air thin, but unlike the Air, this model doesn’t have a wedge design. Also like the MacBook Air, the Retina […]
On October 22, 2013, Apple introduced the first 64-bit iPads, including a thinner, lighter version of the 9.7″ model. The iPad Air runs a 1.3 GHz 64-bit Apple A7 processor nearly twice as powerful as the A6X used in the 4G iPad.
I must admit to having Mac Pro lust for the new Late 2013 Mac Pro that Apple has promised to deliver “later this year”. From its radical styling and cutting edge features to its sheer power, this Mac in a black can is definitely lustworthy.
Apple surprised everyone by finally offering ‘last compatible’ versions for those running an older iOS. But is there a flaw in this?
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September 2013
When Apple introduced the iPhone 5S, it brought the first 64-bit smartphone to market – and Samsung immediately promised that it would have 64-bit in its next generation as well. But what’s the point of a 64-bit processor in a smartphone?
The Late 2013 iMac takes last year’s slimmer than ever design and powers it with Intel’s energy efficient Haswell Core i5 CPU (with i7 build-to-order options). 27″ iMac is the slimmest yet. CPU speeds on the 21.5″ models are the same as in last year’s iMacs, but the 27″ model gets a boost to 3.2 […]
I have been asked a lot recently how to make audio CDs out of audio files on your Mac. So here is a walkthrough.
I love my iPhone 4, but I must admit to having iPhone 5c envy. Jazz your older iPhone up with a colourful look.
The iPhone 5S marked the beginning of 64-bit power. While the Android world was going with 4-core 32-bit processors, Apple raised the bar with its dual-core 64-bit A7, which has about twice the power of the A6. The iPhone 5S also introduced a built-in fingerprint sensor in the iPhone’s home button known as Touch ID. […]
Although the iPhone 5 had been a runaway success, there were some problems with the case bending, as well as battery issues with units built through January 2013 (see the iPhone 5 page for more details). The iPhone 5C was designed to address bending with its thicker plastic polycarbonate enclosure. The 5C was essentially the […]
Earlier this week, Apple changed its App Store policy to allow older versions to be downloaded. This policy has since been updated.
Apple just released iOS 7, the biggest change to their mobile OS since its introduction. But how is it?
One the biggest gripes I have had with iOS devices is that you can only download the latest version of an app for the newest version of iOS. At last this seems to have changed.
2013 – With iOS 7 right around the corner (due September 18th) and OS X 10.9 Mavericks on the horizon, there are several things to consider that are very important to all who may want to keep legacy applications and features alive with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, while maintaining the latest and greatest OS […]
No real surprises today. All those sites sharing leaks about iPhones in multiple colors, a gold iPhone, and a better-than-ever iPhone proved to be correct. Earlier today, Apple introduced the iPhone 5C in five different colors and the iPhone 5S, the new top-end model, in three.
For a while now, push notifications in iOS have had no noise when they popped up on your screen. I am not sure when this happened, but it used to. Want to enable sounds? Here’s how.
iOS 7 dropped to the public yesterday, bringing a slick and gorgeous new design to iDevices. I take look at the new wallpaper collection.
Long before newfandangled contraptions known as word processors and eventually the Macintosh, and even longer before the iPhone and iPad, the manual typewriter reigned supreme for getting your muse from thoughts to paper. Tactile key action was king here. You had to apply a greater deal of force to each letter you struck compared to […]
The SD memory card has come to dominate the world of digital cameras, both still and video, and it’s even made it way into recent Macs and many Android tablets. This is the story of the card’s origin.
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August 2013
There was a time when computer keyboards were not considered a mere afterthought. Many keyboard manufacturers proudly promoted the comfort and durability of their keyboard. Computer manufacturers, including Apple, once included some of the best, if not the best keyboards possible.
Some carriers have been offering iPhone owners a $100 discount on a new iPhone. A lot of independent companies selling mobiles are offering to buy used iPhones outright. There’s always an active iPhone market on eBay, and now Apple had entered the trade-in game. But should you sell or trade in your old iPhone? Or […]
Mac OS X version 10.0 shipped on March 24, 2001, and in over a dozen years, the platform has proven particularly resilient to malware. Not that malware for the Mac doesn’t exist, just that it never seems to get any traction.
I bought a Chromebook. Back in April, I reviewed a loaner Chromebook, a CDN$269 Samsung model. Overall, I enjoyed the experience; the hardware was reminiscent of an 11” MacBook Air ultralight notebook with many limitations – partly the result of the dramatically lower price point and partly due to running Google’s Chrome OS, an operating […]
I’ve discussed the LocationFree player and base stations before, but there is one more use for these devices that many might not be aware of – the ability to control Netflix (and even a first generation AppleTV) from afar using any PowerPC G4 800 MHz or greater Mac (recommended spec for the I-O Data Mac […]
Jef Raskin founded the Macintosh project at Apple, which led to the development of the Apple Mac and the popularisation of the graphical user-interface. He was Apple employee #31 and left the Macintosh team in mid-1981 after Steve Jobs took over the project.
Sometimes it is the simplest things in the tech world, that make things easier. This time it is the Reader feature of iOS Safari.
Michael Spindler was born during the last throes of Nazi Germany. The family was split up before Spindler was born, because his father was forced to work at a munitions plant. The absence of his father during his early childhood appeared to make Spindler even more motivated to prove himself. He excelled in school and […]
Apple started 1984 with a bang. The Macintosh was finished, and it was well received by the general public, largely due to a highly successful advertising campaign beginning with the 1984 ad.
In 1984, Apple Computer, a pioneer in the personal computer field, announced its biggest gamble to date. With small personal computers having reached landmark sales over the past few years, Apple debuted the Macintosh, a “computer for the rest of us”.
Before 1995, search engines relied on databases of textual keywords to find relevant results. Whenever a user entered a search term, search engines such as AltaVista and Lycos would compare the search term to their databases of terms. The pages that had text most similar to the search term were considered to be more relevant […]
Pixar, a company that revolutionized the feature film industry, had an obscure origin. A group of researchers from the most elite research institutions in the US eventually gathered at a former diploma mill and later defected to Lucasfilm. Their division was purchased by Steve Jobs and became Pixar, which created Toy Story and is now […]
The world took a big step towards the iPod generation when Sony introduced the Walkman in 1979. The device was not particularly advanced – portable tape recorders had existed for decades – but it was an advance in marketing. The Walkman was not promoted to professional journalists, like most portable tape recorders were at the […]
There are times when you need to zoom in to take a better picture, a feature lacking on all current mobile phones. But what if you could buy a lens attachment?
There are many ways to keep up on Low End Mac (LEM) as we add new content, update price trackers, and continue to migrate old articles from HTML files to the WordPress content management system.
Despite an enormous launch campaign, the Macintosh was a failure. Steve Jobs had predicted that Apple sell 500,000 Macs the first year, but by 1985.03.11 the company had sold only 10% of Jobs’ original prediction.
More than any other product from Apple, the iPod has changed the company and the world. Before its introduction, MP3 players were the realm of small companies with limited budgets that were unable to provide content. After the iPod, the entire industry has evolved and grown to the point where the largest computer companies in […]
In the months following Steve Jobs’ dramatic return to Apple on 1996.12.20, the press lost interest in the end of Apple’s eleven year interregnum. Instead, they were interested in Apple’s brand new build to order online store, a first for a major computer industry player, and (to Apple’s embarrassment) Umax’s updated S900 Mac clone that […]
Gil Amelio was unlike any Apple CEO since the days of Mike Scott, a former Fairchild executive. Amelio was from National Semiconductor, an outside company where he made a name for himself as a turnaround artist.
Apparently, the thirty year reign of the personal computer, Time Magazine’s ‘person’ of the year for 1982, is ending, with sales – especially sales to home users – declining, as people increasingly opt for tablets (and to stick with their current desktop or laptop).
More than any other product from Apple, the iPod has changed the company and the world. Before its introduction, MP3 players were the realm of small companies with limited budgets that were unable to provide content. After the iPod, the entire industry evolved and grew to the point where the largest computer companies in the […]
In the late 1980s, Apple appeared to be in the middle of a resurgence. John Sculley had forced out the volatile Steve Jobs in 1985, and a cadre of older, more experienced executives focused on building the Apple and Macintosh brands. The company was beginning to grow complacent, working to protect Macintosh revenues at the […]
Good news for jailbreak fans, the pwn dfu tool iReb is now available for Mac OS X.
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July 2013
It all started with Mapquest in 1996. Suddenly you could used that new-fangled Internet for something practical, finding the best route from point A to point B – whether across town or across the country. All you had to do was print out the driving directions and keep them handy while you drove.
The tech world has been abuzz with news of Google’s forthcoming Chromecast device, something Google hopes will change the way you use your TV. What exactly is Chromecast?
Mac sales have really taken off since Apple switched from PowerPC processors to Intel x86 CPUs in 2006. According to Apple’s data, over 90 million Intel Macs have been sold, with a peak of 5.198 million in the 2011 holiday quarter.
Sometimes, being of the nerdy bunch, you try to look for a technical answer to life’s tech problems when a simpler approach might be needed.
Need a copy of System 6.0.8, 7.0.1, or a newer version of the Classic Mac OS for your vintage Mac? You can dig through apple.com and try to find them – or you can download them using the updated links on this page. (Apple does rearrange things, making it more difficult to find things.) All versions […]
I left off in part 1 discussing the necessary steps to get everything put together that will allow you to have total media bliss and harmony on both your PS3 and PSP using a low-end Mac to stream the content. Moving forward, there are just a few more things to consider that will allow you to squeeze […]
All I want to do is remotely control my old iPhone 3GS from my new iPhone 4S. It’s about 25′ away, hooked to a stereo, and used for iTunes and podcasts.
Unbelievably, your PS3 and your PSP (or Vita, to a degree) could make owning a low-end Mac a dream come true during these days of ever-increasing requirements for syncing iOS devices.
Battery life has long been a complaint not just amongst iPhone users, but across all smartphones. What drains your iPhone battery?
Microsoft Word began life as Multi-Tool Word for Xenix in 1983. It was renamed Microsoft Word and ported to MS-DOS in 1983, the Macintosh in 1985, and Windows in 1989. It has been the dominant word processing program on the Mac since 1988 and on Windows since 1993.
iTunes has grown from its roots as a program that let Mac users rip their CDs to MP3 format, manage their music libraries, and burn CDs. Today iTunes supports iPods, iPhones, iPads, Apple TV, Apple’s online iTunes Store (which distributes music, podcasts, video, and software), and online video rentals.
Adobe InDesign was created as the successor to the aging Adobe PageMaker. InDesign supports features such as XHTML exporting, professional typographical controls, and long-document support. By 1998, much of the professional market had migrated from PageMaker to rival Quark XPress 4.1 due to PageMaker’s comparative lack of features. At that point, Quark announced that it […]
FileMaker Pro is a cross-platform (Mac OS and Windows) relational database (RDBMS) application published by Apple subsidiary FileMaker Inc.
Photoshop began life as a program called Display that was made to display grayscale images on a monochrome display. Photoshop has grown to support layers, filters, brushes, text, 3D objects, video, and much others.
Apple fans have been disgruntled over the past few years with an apparent forced obsolescence of hardware. But how much truth is there in this? How long does Apple support their devices with up-to-date operating systems?
Following on from my previous article regarding How Long Will Apple Support Your Mac, this article looks at the support for iDevices.
2013 – A while back, I explained why TenFourFox is without a doubt the best browser option for anyone running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on a PowerPC Mac. Today I follow that up by looking at two contenders for the best browser on OS X 10.5 Leopard.
Two years ago I made the move from a mobile phone with a keyboard to a smartphone, an iPhone 3GS, and it has served me well since then. I’ve been using Facebook for ages – perhaps sometime in 2008 based on a look at my timeline.
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June 2013
Publisher’s note: This article, originally written by Ed Eubanks Jr and published on 2007.03.12, has been the most popular article in the history of Low End Mac with well over 2 million hits. It was written toward the end of the Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger era and has been updated since its first publication. Most of […]
Greetings Low Enders! I apologize for the hiatus, but it’s been a busy last few months. During that time I’ve come across a goldmine of my family history as I continue to sift through everything I’ve inherited from dad (a long process that has taken 3+ years thus far). I was elated one day when […]
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger was the longest-lived version of OS X with 30 months on the market. It was released on April 29, 2005 and replaced by OS X 10.5 Leopard on October 26, 2007. Tiger officially requires a G3 or later Mac with FireWire, 256 MB of RAM, and 3 GB of available […]
The big breakthrough for the 2013 MacBook Air (MBA) is improved battery life. The 13″ model is now rated at 12 hours in the field, a huge jump from the 2012 model. And if you don’t use your MBA regularly, it has 30 days of standby power. Built around 4th-generation low-power Intel Core i5 and […]
The big breakthrough for the Mid 2013 MacBook Air (MBA) is improved battery life. The 11″ model is now rated at 9 hours in the field, a huge jump from the 2012 model. And if you don’t use your MBA regularly, it has 30 days of standby power. Built around 4th-generation low-power Intel Core i5 […]
Yesterday was Apple’s big event – a keynote presentation before a friendly audience of Mac and iOS (iPhone/iPad/etc) software developers at the start of the company’s annual WWDC (Worldwide Developers’ Conference).
The recent announcement of iOS 7 due for release late 2013 has spelled the end of support for the long running iPhone 3GS.
The long awaited Apple WorldWide Developer Conference 2013 kicked off yesterday, and what a roller coaster it was. This article is regarding the next version of Mac OS X, 10.9.
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May 2013
PowerPC Mac owners can now experience Flash 11.7 with the latest unofficial hack update.
The future of PowerPC web browsing is looking even bleaker with the recent announcement of no plugin support in future releases of TenFourFox.
The original Asus EeePC can handle Windows XP very well, but the 4 GB SSD can be a bit cramped. Here is how to slim it and tweak it.
With PowerPC Macs being left further and further behind, the unofficial Flash 11.1 hack from 2011 has now been updated to 11.5.
At first glance, the LaCie 5big Network 2 could be mistaken for a new Borg ship in the Star Trek™ universe. However, it is actually a 5-bay network file server intended for small business use. Casual users will probably find the LaCie sufficient; power users will be frustrated.
Talk is cheap. So is storage. But what isn’t cheap is cloud storage, when you need a lot of it – or at least it wasn’t cheap before AeroFS.
Every year, Apple has an update to the iPhone, and 2013 will be no exception. We can expect an improved version of the iPhone 5, which will almost undoubtedly be called the iPhone 5S, and we can expect the current iPhone 5 to replace the iPhone 4S at the $99 (with contract) price point.
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April 2013
Many users complement their Macs with Apple-branded iPhone smartphones and iPad tablets. They all tie together nicely, syncing with iTunes. (Whether iTunes has grown into an ungainly combination of music player, video player, and connection device for the range of Apple devices is a question for another article.)
There was a time when, at least according to rumour, Microsoft made more money – on average – from each Mac user than from each Windows user. That was because most Mac users got copies of Microsoft Office paying the full retail cost, while most Windows users had copies of Windows and Microsoft Office pre-installed […]
In a recent blog posting, I wrote about a week I spent with a low-cost (CDN$269) Samsung Chromebook – a small and light system running Google’s Chrome OS.
There are still some apps on the App Store that only require OS 3 without resorting to custom firmware and custom app stores, like the one provided in whited00r, but will work in both standard Apple firmware and whited00r – but how do you find them? Up until now, it used to be pure luck: […]
Safari held its own for years, and Camino remains a very nice, speedy browser, but for OS X 10.4 Tiger users, Firefox had them both beat – and then the Firefox team stopped supporting Tiger and PowerPC Macs.
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March 2013
Online information about ScuzzyGraph is minimal. We do know that it allows old black-and-white Macs with SCSI ports to work with an external display. It supports a 3-bit, 8-color palette (some sources say 4-bit/16-color with some Macs), which is a far cry from the 8-bit/256-color output introduced with the Mac II’s first color video card […]
Who needs a screen saver when you can have real fish in your old Mac? Perhaps nothing else he’s done has brought Andy Ihnatko quite the same fame and notoriety as inventing the Macquarium – a compact Mac gutted and turned into a fishbowl. Following are links to online resources for those interested in converting […]
A few months ago I stumbled across iDroid, a project that ports Android – Google’s mobile operating system – to the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, and first generation iPod touch. Your iDevice will need to be jailbroken first with Redsn0w, PwnageTool, Blackra1n, or whited00r.
In schools, libraries and homes across America, World Book Encyclopedia has always been considered the go-to reference for general knowledge in a clear, easy-to-understand format. World Book Encyclopedia has been in print since 1917, and within the last couple of decades it has expanded to digital formats such as CDs, DVDs, and the internet. The […]
If you’re anything like me, you’ve had lots of different email addresses over the years – and lots of different websites you log into. The Mac’s password manager does a good job if you have a single Mac, but things gets messy when you use multiple Macs (or multiple versions of OS X on the […]
A style guide is where you turn when you’re not sure how to spell, capitalize, or punctuate a word or name. This is presented as a public service to Mac webmasters, who should feel free to contribute additions and suggest changes.
Not only does Low End Mac serve an international audience, we also have writers from around the globe. Most of our staff is in the United States, and we also have writers in Canada, the UK, and France. Because of this, we’ve tried to standardize on some of the spelling, punctuation, and usage issues that […]
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February 2013
There’s a lot more to using an image online than just uploading it and linking to it. While that works, there are some steps that should be taken to tweak the image before resizing and otherwise optimizing it.
Here at Low End Mac, we appreciate older computing equipment more than most – and that extends to more than just Apple gear. As someone with an active interest it retro technology, I was asked to promote the first ever Vintage Computer Festival SouthEast being held on April 20th and 21st, 2013.
Until the launch of iOS 5, Apple relied on regular messaging services on its iPhones, such as SMS/text messaging, MMS/picture messaging, and email. However iOS 5 brought with it iMessage, and a new messaging revolution started.
There has been a lot of buzz around Windows 8. About a year ago I was given a half-built PC tower, which I finished off building and gave to my kids. I decided to take advantage of cheap Windows 8 upgrade offer from Microsoft – but is it an upgrade?
WordPress is a widely-used content management system (CMS) used by many blogs and websites, and it’s the CMS we’ve implemented at Low End Mac. After nearly 16 years of writing, editing, creating HTML pages, and uploading them from my Macs, everything is much more automated with WordPress.
After nearly 16 years of writing and editing site pages on my Macs, uploading HTML files to a server, and doing most site updates manually, Low End Mac is moving to WordPress. WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that is often used for blogging, but I want to make it clear that we are […]
Four months after introducing the first 13″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display, Apple introduced a slightly faster version with 2.5 and 2.6 GHz dual-core i5 CPUs. As with its 15″ sibling, there’s no built-in SuperDrive and no hard drive. The Retina MacBook Pros are built around SSD technology for enhanced speed and ruggedness, not to mention […]
Nine months after introducing the first MacBook Pro with a Retina Display, Apple has speed bumped its top-end notebook. The MacBook Pro with Retina Display (quite a mouthful) is the thinnest MacBook Pro ever at 0.71″. That’s MacBook Air thin, but unlike the Air, this model doesn’t have a wedge design. It is almost 1/4″ […]
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January 2013
Now that Apple has kicked the first version of the Mac Pro out of the family, I think it’s safe to say that it’s now part of our family – a low-end Mac – yet one with extraordinary power waiting to be uncorked.
News, Reviews, & Opinion 10 Tips on Using Google Maps on Your iPhone Stop Multitasking and Put Your Phone in the Trunk Apple’s Forgotten eMate 300 25% of American Adults Own Tablet Computers iPad mini Wins Because It’s Expensive iPhone Tops Americans’ 2013 Consumer Technology Wish List ‘Steve Jobs Wasn’t Malicious, He Was Just Trying […]
2013-01-14: General Apple and Mac desktop news is covered in Mac News Review. iPad, iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV news is covered in iNews Review. Older Macs are covered in Vintage Mac News. All prices are in US dollars unless otherwise noted.
News & Opinion Use Non-Apple Keyboards and Mice with Your Mac Create a Keyboard Shortcut for Menu Items Anywhere Why Dropbox Is Taking Over the World How to Disable the Dashboard in OS X Is Your Mac AirDrop Compatible? DisplayLink Announces New USB 3.0 Mac Driver and Showcases at CES 2013 Rumor Roundup Apple on […]
