I’m not a conformist. Being a Mac user puts me in the minority of computer users. But I could go one step further. With my foot firmly in the door of Open Source software, would an Open Source operating system be the next step forward – or would it be a step back?
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If you thought buying videos through the iTunes Store was the online equivalent of buying them on DVD or Blu-ray, think again. In a completely unexpected development, owners of the October 2008 MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air have discovered that the new Mini DisplayPort includes High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) – and this makes it […]
2008 – There has been lots of talk on various Apple discussion websites and Mac mailing lists that I subscribe to about how Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is not geared towards PowerPC Macs and was developed with Intel Macs in mind. I disagree with this.
As with operating systems, Microsoft also has the market cornered for office suites. Microsoft Office has long been the de facto standard in offices across the world – and in homes too – probably because it follows having Windows. There are good alternatives for Mac users – and for Windows users too.
The future of PowerPC Macs has been in question since Apple moved to Intel processors in 2006.
My latest main Mac (since my Intel iMac died) is a Power Mac G4 Sawtooth that is way under Apple’s minimum requirements for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, but I set out on a mission to get it installed. At Low End Mac, we pride ourselves in getting the most out of our Macs. I use G3s running […]
I have a lot of Macs similarly spec’d, and I began noticing a lot of difference between them, so I set about benchmarking them and comparing the results. I thought I would share my findings with you.
The era of formed aluminum Apple notebooks has come to an end. The new 15″ MacBook Pro (MBP) is carved from a 2.5 lb. block of solid aluminum. The result is a quarter-pound enclosure – and 2.25 lb. of aluminum that’s recycled to make more enclosures. It’s even thinner, the first time Apple has built […]
The Late 2008 MacBook Air (MBA) has the same Mini DisplayPort introduced with the 15″ MacBook Pro. Drive options are a 120 GB hard drive or a 128 GB solid state drive (SSD), but now on a SATA bus for much better speed.
It looked like the end of the line for the plastic bodied MacBook design introduced in May 2006. The October 2008 MacBook White was the first to dip below the $1,000 mark, but that was because there was not much new about it. Apple had pretty much taken the 2.1 GHz Penryn MacBook, replaced the […]
The Aluminum MacBook uses the same unibody construction as the 15″ MacBook Pro and now has an LED-backlit display. The top-end 2.4 GHz MacBook also has a backlit keyboard. The Unibody MacBooks use new, more energy efficient versions of the Core 2 CPU: P7350 in the 2.0 GHz model and P8600 in the 2.4 GHz […]
A mate of mine who has only been using Macs for a few weeks has been using a PowerBook G3. We installed Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on it, and then he got a larger hard drive. He was about to reinstall OS X when I suggested cloning.
I recently joined the ranks of the iPhone enabled and am having a generally marvelous time with my new iToy. One of the best features is how seamlessly the iPhone works with my Mac’s Address Book and Calendar data via Apple’s Sync Services. No third party data conduit is needed – unlike Treo or BlackBerry […]
I love G3 Macs, but I’m no fool. A G3 machine in its original Apple-shipped state won’t cut it in today’s computing world – but with a few upgrades and additions you can easily get a little extra usage out of older Macs.
Last week fellow Low End Mac columnist Simon Royal posted a feature comparing nine Web browsers in the context of use on G3 and older G4 Macs. That’s a space I inhabit.
I’ve been an avid reader of Low End Mac for a number of years and have recently shown my appreciation and become a writer. But what exactly is a low-end Mac? Different people have different ideas.
As a user of older Macs, especially G3s, lightweight apps make your day-to-day usage a lot easier, and this extends to web browsers.
I have been in several discussion with people who claim that all operating systems are rubbish these days, whether Windows, Mac, or Linux. In this day and age of cross-platform computing and the Internet, does it really matter what OS you are running?
We have had time to get used to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. How does it compare to the legendary Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger?
Everyone seems to want portable computing, but are laptops now considered too big? Could a smartphone be a suitable replacement for a laptop?
2008: This one boggles the mind: The iPod and iTunes Music Store were essentially invented in 1979. That’s more than 20 years before the first iPod shipped – and three years before the first CD players came to market!
Kudos to Apple for some real changes in the iPod line. It’s been a year since Apple overhauled the entire iPod range with the 3G iPod nano, the iPod touch, and the new name for the “classic” iPod – the iPod classic. Yesterday saw the introduction of a new form factor for the iPod nano, […]
Wow, we’ve received a lot of suggestions for a content managment system in response to Looking for a Content Management System That’s as Easy as Mac. One reader suggests that it’s too early to write off ExpressionEngine, while six tell me that I ought to be looking at Joomla. WordPress is in second place, and […]
I’ve been suffering from Product Confusion Fatigue (PCF). It happens a lot in the world of computing. You want to upgrade something simple like a hard drive. Instead of just looking for the best price, you find a half-dozen different product descriptions – and now you don’t know which one is compatible with your computer.
Open source high-end image-editing software is an unlikely concept when you think about it. For one thing, anyone who really needs an industrial strength image editing application for professional purposes can probably afford and will more often than not have the undisputed king-of-the-hill in bitmap graphics software, Adobe’s Photoshop CS, and most users – professional […]
I am a firm believer in getting the very most out of older hardware – part of the reason I like and write for Low End Mac. With the move to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple cut out a lot of older computer users and began a slow death for the G3.
My first Mac helped to change my life for the better. It was a 1.42 GHz G4 Mac mini, which later became 1.5 GHz thanks to overclocking. I was hooked from that moment on.
You spent $4,500 on the IBM PCs we have at home? The one you brought home one sunny evening as I was causing great amounts of stress for one of our baby-sitters?
This article aims to show which Mac browsers are best, in terms of stability, speed, general features, and compatibility.
2008 – Low End Mac needs a good content management system.
