Megapixels and Sufficient Resolution

2003: There are lots of variables in digital photography, but the most important one is megapixels. Even a lowly 1 megapixel (MP) camera can give you just great 4-by-6 snapshots, assuming a good lens and exposure. I’ve printed pretty sharp 5-by-7 photos from my 1.3 MP Canon PowerShot A50 on my Epson Stylus Photo 870 inkjet […]

Apple Has Always Been a Niche Player

Despite the myths, Apple has never been a dominant player in the personal computer industry. Although the Apple II once accounted for nearly one-sixth of the market, the Mac has never had more than a 12% market share.

First Impressions of the Safari Beta

2003 – It’s only a beta, but Safari – Apple’s new Jaguar-only browser – won me over the first time I launched it. And it continued to impress me as I visited site after site. And then I headed off to Yahoo Games to unwind.

Things I Really Like about OS X Jaguar

2003 – I’ll be rebooting my 400 MHz PowerBook G4 into OS 9 sometime today so it can be backed up over the network by Retrospect, but the more I work in OS X 10.2 Jaguar, the more I like it. I may have to invest in that ten user Retrospect client upgrade real soon now.

OS X Jaguar on a 400 MHz PowerBook G4

2003 – Last Friday, I received a copy of Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar in the mail from a reader. After finishing the morning site update, I rebooted my 400 MHz TiBook into Mac OS X 10.1.5 Puma, inserted Install Disc 1, and began the long, slow task of updating Quicksilver, my TiBook.

Flash Memory Improves PowerBook

When we published Flash Cards: A Solution for Low Memory Macs in June 2000, Maxwell Cabral suggested using CompactFlash (CF) for virtual memory. The scenario: Pop a CF card into a PC Card (formerly PCMCIA) adapter, plug that into the PC Card slot on your PowerBook, format it as a Mac volume, open the Memory control panel, and […]

OS X: Of Docks and Roadblocks

2002 – As I said last time, the more I use Mac OS X, the more I like it. This is especially true since replacing the stock 10 GB Toshiba drive (4200 rpm, 1 MB cache) with a larger, faster 20 GB IBM Travelstar drive (5400 rpm, 8 MB cache).

I Want to Switch But…

2002 – For years the Mac faithful heard promises about Apple’s next generation operating system. Copland or Rhapsody (or whatever it was being called at the time) would be fully buzzword compliant, would run on any Power Mac ever made, and have us chomping at the bit to upgrade.

United We Stand

As commentator Paul Harvey is fond of saying, “It’s not one world.” The events of September 11, 2001 brought that home to Americans, who usually felt safe and secure at home. And now we worry about terrorism.

xD-Picture Cards

2002: All memory cards are not created equal. CompactFlash and SmartMedia have been duking it out over price, speed, size, and capacity for several years. Sony threw a wrench in the works with its Memory Stick technology (which hardly anyone except Sony uses), and just recently the tiny Secure Digital card has come into play […]

Good-Bye, Rodney

Rodney O. Lain was one of the most erudite, informed, opinionated, and iconoclastic writers on the Mac Web. In other words, he thought for himself, spoke his mind, and did it well.

The SE/30 Is the Perfect Mac

The first Mac didn’t quite cut it. With 128 KB of RAM, a single-sided 400K floppy, and no native support for a hard drive, it was a proof of concept machine…