In 1993, I was 11 years old. My experience with Macs had amounted to whatever time I could get alone with the Mac Plus sitting in the back of the classroom. I didn’t do much then. Mostly I would just play games like Shufflepuck Café or Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? I had no […]
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In October 1992, Apple introduced two updated PowerBooks, a new PowerBook Duo series, and the last members of the Macintosh II family. You couldn’t ask for a greater contrast.
2007 – Apple has announced the system requirements for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: a drive that can read the DVD install disc, at least 512 MB of memory, and an 867 MHz G4 or better. Several G4 iMacs aren’t officially supported, but we have lots of tips on installing Mac OS X 10.5 on unsupported Macs in […]
2007 – Apple has finally announced the system requirements for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: a drive that can read the DVD install disc, at least 512 MB of memory, and an 867 MHz G4 or better.
This is the fourth version of the consumer MacBook – and the first to use the Santa Rosa chipset that made its way into the MacBook Pro line in June. The entry-level MacBook remains at 2.0 GHz, while the faster models see a tiny speed bump from 2.16 GHz to 2.2 GHz. At the same […]
2007 – Apple introduced a new look to the Power Mac G4 in August 2002 with the first Mirrored Drive Doors (MDD) models. They also fully embraced dual processors, as the three models introduced then each had a pair of PowerPC 7455 CPUs. With Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard rumored to require an 867 MHz G4 CPU, […]
2007 – In January 2001, Apple moved the Power Mac to a 133 MHz system bus and adopted AGP 4x for video cards while retaining the look of the original G4 Power Mac. Seven months later, Apple introduced a new look: Quicksilver.
2007 – The earliest G4 Power Macs had a 100 MHz system bus and ATI Rage 128 graphics on a 66 MHz PCI bus or an AGP 2x bus. The following generation of Power Macs adopted a 133 MHz system bus and included AGP 4x graphics. The Digital Audio models were the first Macs to offer […]
2007 – In November 1997, Apple made the leap to the G3, the first PowerPC CPU optimized for the kind of software Macs ran. Less than two years later, Apple abandoned the 300-450 MHz G3 in its Power Mac line when it introduced the first Power Mac G4 models.
The past two weeks have been quite busy with musical rehearsals at church and some design projects – creating postcards, water bottle labels, tickets, and programs for Rishalina and the River, a musical our church’s music and arts director cowrote in 1976.
It was 1995, and I was heading off to college. We had never owned in a computer. In fact, my parents just told me they had bought one.
In recent online discussions (circa August 2004), it is apparent that there is some confusion in some circles regarding the interchangeability of different versions of what Apple calls the “SuperDrive” – the standard 3.5″ floppy drive built into most Macintosh models since just after the original Mac II.
2007: The notebook computer is a sublime invention. I prefer working on notebooks even though mine are mostly used as desktop substitute machines, but road trips make you even more profoundly appreciate the genius of the laptop.
Everyone knows they need to backup their data, but most people don’t do so regularly (if at all). Backups are confusing and annoying. Besides, who has the time? Well, your perspective may change during a post-crash enlightenment: Most people become religious about backups after their first catastrophic loss of data.
The disk directory is the table of contents for your hard drive. Directory errors build up slowly over time – or quickly after a crash. Such errors can cause problems opening or saving files, and if severe enough they can prevent your Mac from starting up, instead displaying the flashing question mark. Fixing the disk […]
I find myself once again in the deserts of the Middle East. I have been here a long time and am almost ready to go home. One of my best friends (other than my wife, who I talk to through emails and Skype) is my Newton. I have both my PowerBook G4 and my black […]
As part of its huge September 2007 iPod event, Apple introduced the first iPod touch, essentially the original iPhone with its phone circuitry removed. Better yet, the iPod touch was a bit smaller, significantly thinner, and also lighter than the iPhone. Best of all, it didn’t tie you to a two-year AT&T wireless plan. You […]
The hard-drive based iPod got a new name in September 2007. Henceforth it would be called the iPod classic. This was the 6th generation of the classic iPod design – and the first with an aluminum front. The iPod classic had dramatically better battery life than the 5.5G iPod it replaced – up to 40 hours […]
In September 2006, Apple completely changed the configuration of the iPod nano, giving it a wider, larger screen so it could display video content. The iPod nano also got a new range of colors. The low-end 4 GB version was available only in silver, and the 8 GB in silver, turquois blue, mint green, and black. There […]
2007 – With all the rumors and speculation about a new subcompact MacBook Pro, which some have even suggested might be called the MacBook Pro Duo (I’m exceedingly doubtful about that), I thought it would be timely to take a retrospective look at the original subcompact Mac notebooks (aside from the PowerBook 100, which was […]
When we think of ethernet today, we think of wired networking with RJ-45 ports and plugs. These connectors look like an oversized phone jack. But that was only one of several competing connectors in the early days of networking.
Bong! . . . 🙂 . . . Welcome to Macintosh! In the first installment of In House with Low End Mac, I interviewed Dan Knight, who founded and runs Low End Mac. Next up to bat is a man whose writing speaks for itself. He has written for Low End Mac since 1999 and […]
It was early 1995, and I was a young graduate student in the Environmental Engineering department at Clemson University. I was finishing up my research and desperately needed a computer to produce my thesis on. There were quite a few Macs at the University, but the trend towards switching to Wintel was already picking up […]
Sometimes your Mac just doesn’t seem as peppy as it used to, particularly if it’s been running for a long time. Memory and disk problems are the most common causes of routine glitches and sluggishness, especially the dreaded “Spinning Pizza of Death” (a.k.a. beachball cursor) that never seems to go away. Sometimes RAM and disk […]
I’m lucky enough to get to check out a fair number of technology gadgets. Most of them turn out to be just that, gadgets. They’re fun for a little while, but not really useful enough for me to care much about. But lately one has managed to insinuate itself into my life. I think it’s […]
Apple’s new aluminum keyboards have received mixed reviews, and some of our readers share their opinions of the new style keyboard. Also the reliability of Dual USB iBooks and adding USB to the Beige Power Mac G3.
Apple gave the iMac a fresher look in August 2007, the first change from the stark white face introduced with the first G5 iMac three years earlier. The new look puts a black border around a glossy display, has an aluminum finish, and is thinner than its predecessors. The 2007 iMac has gone aluminum. The new […]
Apple “refreshed” the Mac mini the same day it unveiled new iMacs, iLife ’08, and iWork ’08. The updated model finally moves the Mini from the outdated Core Duo to a Core 2 Duo processor, giving it 64-bit capabilities along with faster CPU speeds. Between the newer, more efficient CPU and 8-10% higher clock speeds, […]
2007 – For writing at your computer, the ideal tool is word processing software. It lets you play with fonts, type size, boldface and italic – all the tools you need to write a short story, a novel, an essay, a review, whatever. For creating code, the ideal tool is a text editor. It doesn’t […]
I’m sitting in bed using my six-month-old MacBook Pro, and I have to tell you that I used to really love this computer. Used to.
In this modern age of computing, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. There are so many things you can do on a computer that you can easily become lost for focus. I spoke of this very thing in an early Welcome to Macintosh article, The Good Old Days of Computing.
We hate to say it, but it appears that the Mac mini is dead.
Mr. T is famous for his bad man attitude, as seen in Rocky III and The A-Team (which are among my favorite movies and TV shows respectively). However, in his infinite wisdom, Mr. T produced a series of self-help videos in 1984 that were intended to help young kids as well as show his softer […]
This column began as an email exchange with Sonic Purity in relation to Why Does a Mac Die, Why Macs Die, More About Why Macs Die, Why Some Mac Die: Bad Capacitors, and Aging Capacitors and Tin Whiskers. It has been adapted with his permission.
Cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck . . . Welcome to Apple II!