PowerBooks are wonderful but problematic. They can be too expensive, a poor desktop replacement, and not really that portable by the time they are packed up for traveling. Many people get caught up in the marketing around PowerBooks or iBooks when they would be better off with a different Mac.
Category Archives: Back & Forth
2001 – There’s a chasm that separates the promise and the reality of PowerBooks. Maybe it is marketing or collective delusion, but PowerBooks can be a horrendous value for many people. Many PowerBook users just don’t get their money’s worth.
2001 – I’ve had the chance to own a lot of high-end PowerBooks. First it was the PowerBook 180 (instead of the top of the line 180c). Then the PowerBook 540. Lately I owned a Pismo PowerBook G3, and next week I’ll get my hands on a PowerBook 3400/180.
How many clicks or keystrokes did it take you to get to Low End Mac? I used to do nine clicks and keystrokes to get to Low End Mac. One click on iCab on my launcher program called Malph. One Cmd-L to open a URL, and then six keystrokes to type “www.lo” – at which […]
I was recently reading a magazine called T3 (Tomorrow’s Technology Today), which has all sorts of gadgets that I would like to buy. They reviewed digital picture frames, and I could see how it would be neat to have a way to display continuous slideshows away from my computer. But the prices were outrageous – […]
Computers are supposed to make life easier, right? It seems like if I have a faster computer, I should be able to get things done more quickly and have more free time for important things – like talking to my fiancé or getting some exercise. But often that isn’t the way it seems to work […]
In my earlier articles about speed, I made the point that much of speed depends on what software you choose and how you set it up for the way you work. In How to Pick Faster Software, I gave some yardsticks you can use to measure how good your software is. Now I’d like to […]
I have been thinking a lot about speed lately. Speed is the most touted feature of each new computer, but it is equally relevant to low-end Macs. Low End Mac’s webmaster, Dan Knight, puts it this way: Eventually every computer becomes low-end.
In this article I’m going to look at three common types of Mac users and offer a suggestion for each that should make them faster.
A few weeks ago I wrote a series of articles about fonts. In A History of Font Technologies, I looked at the four major trends in Mac fonts: bitmapped, PostScript, TrueType, and anti-aliasing.
Last week, I reconsidered computing speed and came to the conclusion that time spent picking the right software and customizing it for the way you work is time well spent. With speed in mind, I think it is right that I discuss the slowest component of most Macintoshes.
For years I have been following Macintosh hardware advances. When I first started using Macs in 1990, the wicked fast 40 MHz Mac IIfx was on the top. I was in college at the time, and I knew two frosh in my dorm who owned IIfxs. I did not realize then how rich their parents […]
In my previous article, Macintosh System Fonts, I surveyed the fonts that have shipped with the Mac OS and suggested that people without printers use a bitmapped font called Espy for everything on their system. Now I’d like to give a little more information about Espy.
In A History of Font Technologies, I talked a bit about font technologies on the Mac. If you are unfamiliar with terms like “bitmapped” or “outline” fonts, you might want to read that article first. Here I am going to discuss the fonts that Apple has shipped with the Mac. I am on my way […]
Fonts have been central to the Macintosh experience since the very first Mac. By looking at the history of font technologies on the Mac, I’m hoping to derive some suggestions about how you can get your fonts to work best for you. This is the first article in a short series.
Jonathan Ploudre first started using Macs in 1991 with a Mac IIsi. He’s a technophile who especially enjoys making things usable. He’s a Family Doctor in Mount Vernon, WA, where he lives with his wife and three girls. He wrote for Low End Mac from May 2000 through Sept. 2002.
