Fresh to the Low End Mac mailbag from FaceBook User Michael Vega: “Possibly known knowledge, but I wanted to show a proof of concept and I’m glad it works. I have a thunderbolt 3 dock, but it works with Thunderbolt 2/1 Macs. My work laptops are a current generation of Lenovo PCs with Thunderbolt 4, […]
Category Archives: Mac Accessories
In an update to my article, Low End Wireless Hard Drive Review: The EMTEC P600, I have been able to discover some of the more intricate features of the wireless hard drive and how it can fit into a variety of “real world” usage cases. Here are some of the things of note after learning more about […]
Your MacBook or MacBook Pro probably came with one hard drive and, in most instances, a built-in optical drive that you rarely use. The OWC Data Doubler lets you install a second hard drive in place of that SuperDrive, and OWC’s SuperSlim enclosure gives your removed optical drive a new home.
Having used an iMac with a 24″ screen (1920 x 1200) for years, I started to have more travel days, so a MacBook was needed. AppleWorks 6 is necessary to open older documents every now and then. It requires Rosetta and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard from 2009.
Remember when ergonomic keyboards were all the rage in fighting carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive stress injuries? Remember how incredibly huge most of those keyboards were? Well, I’d forgotten about them until I received this monstrosity with a recently acquired Power Mac G5.
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.
This review has taken a lot longer than planned, but I finally determined that the problem with my Mystic Power Mac G4 was a sporadically bad memory module, as determined by using Rember. Slimmed back from 1.25 GB of RAM to 1.0 GB, it’s been running more reliably, but still not without problems.
This review has been a long time coming. I’ve had some problems with my dual 500 MHz Mystic Power Mac G4, which was going to be the second Mac tested with the 40 GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD Legacy Edition. Working with my 350 MHz Blue & White G3 has taught me a few […]
Last December, I started a series on SSD (Solid State Drive) options for older Macs – see SATA and SSD Options for G3 and G4 Power Macs. At about the same time, Other World Computing (OWC) was preparing to address exactly that issue with a new line of “legacy” SSDs that would be plug-and-play compatible […]
I’ve been using the Macally iKeySlim for several weeks now, and the best thing I can say about it is that I’ve hardly noticed the change.
Do you have Bluetooth devices and an older Mac with USB but without Bluetooth support? Want to add Bluetooth support for a song?
Last week, Gadgets Page’s Michael Moncur posted Alternatives to Apple’s Aluminum Keyboard, a column about his search for a replacement for his iMac’s original keyboard, which had bitten the dust – more specifically, too many food crumbs from meals eaten at his workstation.
Silence is golden, and you haven’t experienced silent computing until you use a laptop computer with no hard drive at all. That’s the promise of flash drives.
In the world of personal computing, you can never have too much speed, too much RAM, too much drive space, or too many USB ports.
I don’t own a Mac mini, and I don’t plan on buying one, so why in the world would I be interested in the NewerTech miniStack? For those not familiar with the miniStack, it’s one of many “zero footprint” drives designed to sit under the Mac mini and match its design.
Many Mac users from way back in the legacy era consider the old ADB Apple Extended Keyboard II to be the best keyboard Apple ever made. Others of us might debate that, but the Extended Keyboard II was certainly the biggest, heaviest keyboard Apple ever made, covering a vast expanse of desktop and weighing in […]
The latest thing in laptops is using them as desktops. Devices such as the Lapvantage Dome and forthcoming Oyster Laptop Dock let you move your ‘Book off the desk to position the screen at a more comfortable, more ergonomically correct height.
Mimio is a whiteboard capture tool that allows a USB-equipped Mac to capture the user’s marks on a standard whiteboard and save or print the results as a handwritten document. I recently got to play with one purchased for our school.
2001 – Iomega has produced a new entry in its collection of Zip drives. There are now, what, seven or eight different Zip drives, from the VL-Series reviewed here to the Zip 250 FireWire drive – and that’s not counting drives made for internal installation.
2001 – I recently purchased an OrangeLink FireWire 1394 + USB PCI combo card so I could begin to add some of those nifty new peripherals I’ve been reading about. I own a 300 MHz Beige Power Mac G3 desktop at home and had my eye on some USB peripherals for a while now.
Rather than just buy a USB scroll wheel mouse, the author decides to give the Wacom Graphire USB graphics tablet a try.
I couldn’t believe it – a US$19 USB extended keyboard! At that price, it was worth a try. From the photo (below), it looked like a match for the Apple Extended Keyboard layout, or at least very close.
I’ve been using a different mouse and keyboard this week. I didn’t have to, but I wanted the full USB experience.
Supporting a over 80 Macs in three locations, consistency is very important. Most of the Macs at work are still running System 7.5.5. Newer ones are generally on Mac OS 8.1 or 8.6. We use the Apple ADB Mouse (in its various incarnations) almost exclusively, along with the Contour UniMouse on Macs without ADB ports.
1999 – Imagine something smaller, lighter, and far less expensive than an iBook. Imagine writing on a keyboard with no Mac attached. That’s one way of looking at the AlphaSmart 2000, the device I’m writing this review on.
First, thank you to Adesso for supplying a keyboard for this review. Since the advent of the Power Mac G4, we have to find a new keyboard we can use at work – the G4 has no ADB port for our old Apple Extended, Apple Adjustable, MicroSpeed KB-105M, or Adesso Nu-Form ADB keyboards.
1999 – I got home last night to find another box from Contour Design waiting for me. (The first one came in February; it contained the Contour USB UniMouse, a very nice three-button mouse for the iMac and the Blue & White Power Mac G3.)
I got home last night to find a box from Contour Design waiting for me. Contour Design? It didn’t quite ring a bell, until I got inside and saw the green box marked UniMouse.
Sometimes you just have more Macs than monitors – or wish you could free up some space in your network center. But you need a keyboard and mouse to run your Macs, and a monitor to see what you’re doing.
The greatest obstacle to third party mice is the quality of Apple’s mice. Although the early Lisa/Macintosh mouse was a rather chunky affair, it was good enough – and the Mac market was small enough to attract little competition. Also, Apple’s mouse came free with the computer.
