When you buy a USB flash drive, it comes preformatted for use on Window PCs. But will it work more efficiently if its reformatted in a Mac-native format? We just had to find out.
Author Archives: Daniel Knight
I hadn’t realized how much work it would be to move my wife from her iPhone 4S to an iPhone 5S. The project took many, many more hours than anticipated.
Until yesterday, Apple had never designed a low-end iPhone. Every single iPhone model had been designed as the top-end iPhone and only became low-end as newer models arrived. The iPhone SE changes that.
As a community-based resource, Low End Mac depends on its readers to help cover our expenses. We came to you on March 8 to request $2,000 in support to cover monthly expenses, taxes, and give us a bit extra to upgrade our old Macs and iPhones. You came through with flying colors!
Last Sunday, March 13, we tried to launch a site redesign that had looked just fine on a test server. Well, some problems cropped up, but things are looking pretty good right now.
If you have an old iPhone or iPod with the 30-pin dock connector, there are some real deals out there for charging on the cheap.
When Apple introduced the third generation iPod in April 2002, it added a new 30-pin dock connector that could charge the iPod from FireWire, as with all prior iPods, and USB, which finally came to the iPod with the 3G model. While the plug and port were unchanged, over time some pin assignments changed.
With Firefox preparing to leave behind OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, 10.7 Lion, and 10.8 Mountain Lion after Firefox 45 ESR* is replaced by the next Extended Support Release, I suggested it might be time for the Mac community to develop a branch of Mozilla that continues to support Snow Leopard. But maybe not.
Low End Mac has been on the Web since April 1997, and one of the first community-building things we did was create an email list for Mac Quadra users later that year. While groups already existed for 68030 and earlier Macs as well as PowerPC Macs, 68040 Macs had been overlooked.
Those using G3, G4, or G5 Macs with OS X 10.4 Tiger or 10.5 Leopard are no doubt aware of TenFourFox, a port of the latest Extended Release version of Firefox to these old systems. With Chrome and Firefox due to drop OS X 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 support, perhaps it’s time for a similar […]
The Intel iMac Group is a group for anyone using an Intel-based iMac. Group begun 2016.03.16.
I’ve been using an iPhone 4S since the days when the iPhone 5 was the top-end model, so sometime in early 2013. That replaced an iPhone 3GS, which was the entry-level model when I got it in late 2010. And with iOS 9.2.1, the 4S has become remarkably sluggish.
The goal of each of our groups is to create and maintain helpful user communities. The following policies have been established for Low End Mac’s Google Groups. They may be revised as necessary.
There are informal rules of Internet communication which are termed netiquette to help people use proper etiquette within forums and email groups. Some examples of poor netiquette are not signing messages, sending unsubscribe messages to the posting address (instead of the administrative address), or TYPING IN ALL CAPS (which is the equivalent of yelling).
Low End Mac has been online since April 1997 and is composed of thousands upon thousands of pages. Everything from 2013 and beyond is in WordPress. Our most popular content from before 2013 is also in WordPress. But thousands upon thousands of articles are still in HTML files.
I’ve been publishing Low End Mac for nearly 19 years. We’ve had our good years, which peaked around 2007. And we’ve had our bad years, one after the other ever since. We no longer pay our writers, myself included. We are a community based organization staffed by volunteers. We have expenses – hosting, phone, Internet, […]
We are embarking on a new project, bringing our LEM Swap group, an email list we launched over 15 years ago, into the Facebook era. We’ve already launched LEM Swap UK, LEM Swap Canada, and LEM Swap Australia. Today we start LEM Swap USA.
Okay, for those of you unsure about The Rumor Mill, here’s the lowdown: it’s a farce. There are no contacts at Apple Computer. There are no leaks from anyone reaching us. There is no Anne Onymus.
We are embarking on a new project, bringing our LEM Swap group, an email list we launched over 15 years ago, into the Facebook era. We’ve already launched LEM Swap UK and LEM Swap Canada. Today we start LEM Swap Australia. We’ll be adding LEM Swap USA soon.
One of the great benefits of Apple moving to Intel CPUs is that we have access to Google’s Chrome browser, which rapidly displaced Firefox as the alternative browser of choice among Windows users after its release in Sept. 2008. For some of us, that is coming to an end in April.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in nearly 30 years using Macs, it’s that Apple will be Apple. They will change things for the better. They will change things for the worse. And they rarely change their mind.
Every four years, we get a February 29th. What’s the story behind that? And how long has this been going on?
Michael Roeder reports: I bought my Macintosh Centris 610 way back in 1993. It’s been a reliable and fun replacement for my Mac Plus. Because I have some way cool computers at work, I haven’t had the need to buy a new Mac of my own.
There are some fairly consistent reports of the Sonnet Presto 040 having severe problems with browsers over PPP connections.
We are embarking on a new project, bringing our LEM Swap group, an email list we launched over 15 years ago, into the Facebook era. We’ve already launched LEM Swap UK, LEM Swap Canada, and LEM Swap Australia so we can learn from a smaller group before launching a group for the larger US audience.
Apple completely overhauled the Mac Pro in 2013, eliminating things like drive bays and expansion slots in favor of a radical new design that includes two video cards along with the fastest SSDs available. For those who need drive bays or expansion slots, there are lots of older Mac Pros to pick from starting below $200!
Apple last updated the Mac mini in Late 2014, moving to a 1.4 GHz dual-core low-power Intel i5 CPU that can Turbo Boost to 2.6 GHz on the entry-level model and a very powerful 2.6 GHz i5 on the “better” Mini (power hungry users can upgrade that to a 2.8 GHz i5 or 3.0 GHz i7). System memory can no longer […]
Apple reinvented Apple TV in Late 2015, no longer hiding the fact that it has an operating system. The 4G Apple TV has a 64-bit A8 CPU and a full-fledge operating system, known as tvOS. It’s also designed to run games and includes Siri.
Although the Classic Mac OS remains useful, it’s getting hard to find at a reasonable price. We hope these links help you do so, whether for System 6, Mac OS 9.2.2, or something in between.
Personal computing never would have gotten started if not for the invention of microprocessors, which puts a computer’s CPU (central processing unit) on a single chip – sometimes with companion chips. Intel released the first commercial CPU in 1971, and the first 8-bit “home computers” arrived just a few years later.
