Mac Musings

Mac Musings Archive - 2002

• Quartz Extreme empowers the G3, 12.31. It looked like the G3 was on its way out, but Quartz Extreme brings new life to the low end.
• Further thoughts on the NetBoot Mac, MacInSchool, 12.23. More reflections of a low cost, network bootable Mac for the education market.
• Thinking different about a low cost Mac for home, 12.20. Why a low-cost Mac could help classic Mac OS users and current Windows users make the switch to OS X.
• File Synchronization: One step closer to OS X, 10 Forward, 12.19. Clever shareware program removes one more obstacle in the slow migration toward Mac OS X.
• Thinking different about a low cost Mac for education, 12.17. One way Apple could meet the needs of the education market without cannibalizing sales of existing models.
• Hello again, MacZone, 12.16. Kudos to MacZone for their responsiveness - and more on our problems with MacMall.
• Good-bye MacMall, Good-bye MacZone, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, 12.13. Why ads and links to MacMall and MacZone have disappeared from Low End Mac.
• Give the gift of Low End Mac, 12.09. If you value Low End Mac, consider telling your friends, wearing our T-shirts, or supporting us financially.
• No, don't resurrect the Cube for schools, MacInSchool, 12.06. Yes, Apple needs a low-cost Mac for the education market, but the Cube simply wasn't designed for the realities of the classroom.
• The balanced Mac life, 12.05. Our tendency is to become obsessed with one thing. Instead, we need to find our own balance point.
• The truth about Macs vs. PCs in our schools, MacInSchool, 12.04. "Apple, this is your war. Plan it, fund it, fight it, and win it. Commit to offering the best education solution for the dollar."
• Common sense, copyright, and fair use, 11.27. Copyright law no longer serves the public good. Congress needs to overhaul copyright law to protect fair use and restore the public domain.
• Notes from the publisher, 11.25. Apologies to Kim Komando, Apple removes email block, the state of Low End Mac, and new Low End Mac services.
• Apple, let my email go, 11.14. Apple is preventing hundreds of mac.com users from receiving email from the Low End Mac lists they've subscribed to.
• The Hatemail Letters, 11.11. Readers weigh in on religious and political content on Low End Mac.
• No questioning new 'Book value, iBook and PowerBook Page, 11.06. Faster CPUs, better video, other improvements, and lower prices make the new iBooks and PowerBooks the best value yet.
• Hatemail, 10.30. How one reader has begun a crusade to ruin Low End Mac for publishing views he doesn't like.
• You will pay more for broadband, 10.28. The cable companies dominate broadband, and they will find ways to charge heavier users more for Internet access.
• Small changes at Low End Mac, 10.22. Two changes in the way we use links on Low End Mac, and one that has nothing to do with site design.
• TiVo Points to Apple's Next Market, 10.10. The true digital hub: How Apple could boldly go where no digital video recorder has gone before.
• The questionable value of .mac, 09.30. Looking for the true value of Apple's .mac service - it isn't your mailbox or homepage space.
• Go ahead, stick with Mac OS 9, 09.12. "Stick with your low-end Macs and low-end operating systems. They will continue to serve you well."
• United We Stand, 09.11. It's not one world, but the events of 9-11 have strengthened our identity as Americans.
• Norton Utilities warning, 09.06. Norton Utilities has served me well for a decade, but booting from the 7.0 CD created no end of problems.
• The evolving low end, 09.05. Unless it breaks, your hardware will always do exactly what it did when you bought it - and it may do more thanks to upgrades.
• It's the software, stupid, 08.28. MHz matters less than ever at today's computer speeds. It's the software that makes the difference.
• USS Clueless dissected, 08.23. In reading Den Beste's articles, I am increasingly convinced that the G4 is a dead end for multiple processor computing.
• A pox on CD burning, 08.21. Burning CDs is a slow, annoying process with plenty of room for improvement, so why do we keep doing it?
• Netscape 4.x revisited, 08.19. Netscape was recently updated to version 4.8. Is Netscape 4.x still a viable choice, or has it been left behind?
• Apple does the right thing, 08.16. Apple's "family pricing" is a real bargain for those who want to run OS X 10.2 on two or more Macs.
• The new G4 value equation, 08.14. G4 iMac price reductions, a SuperDrive eMac, three new Power Mac G4s - what's the current value picture?
• Good-bye XLR8, 08.19. XLR8 is out of business, but if your CPU upgrade is already working fine, there's really no reason to panic.
• Sour grapes, 08.09. Cheap is as cheap does - why Apple shouldn't port Mac OS X to today's PC hardware.
• PayPal insecurity, 08.08. More on how Low End Mac was robbed via our PayPal account - and what PayPal and our bank are doing about it
• Hijacked on PayPal, 08.06. PayPal, a convenient way to exchange funds, an easy way to be robbed.
• Apple Services: OS X and .mac for one fair price, 08.02. By offering a services package for $120 per year, the value equation changes completely.
• Website automation with PHP and MySQL, part 15, Online Tech Journal, 07.31. A little more link automation - and frustrating problems with PHP.net documentation and the imap_open function.
• Links and the changing Mac Web, 07.29. The importance of linking, and the changing face of the Mac Web.
• Faster G4s coming some day, 07.22. A look at Apple's track record in releasing faster models and suggestions for clearing out the current G4 inventory.
• Is Jaguar worth $129, Expo Coverage, 07.18. There's no doubt that OS X 10.2 offers a lot for $129, but is it enough to justify the price?
• Macworld NY 2002 keynote address, Expo Coverage, 07.17. The latest word from the mothership.
• Kiss iTools good-bye, 07.17. Effective September 30, 2002, iDisk, HomePage, and your mac.com email will no longer be free.
• Microsoft nonsense, 07.16. Microsoft makes more money from Office on the Mac than Apple makes in a year. What have they got to complain about?
• G4 upgrades zoom past 500 MHz, Power Mac Page, 07.15. It's suddenly possible to move old Power Macs and clones past 500 MHz, and to 800 MHz and 1 GHz in some cases.
• Religion on the Mac Web, 07.12. Religion is part of the Mac life. Why do some find religious viewpoints on the Mac Web so offensive?
• The blacklist brouhaha, 07.10. At least eight sites have had press passes pulled. How IDG could have avoided the whole mess.
• Guesses for Macworld Expo, with Anne Onymus, RumorLog, 07.08. Our best guesses at what Apple might introduce at the Expo.
• Blacklists, Quicklinks, and site finances, 07.08. Thoughts on the Expo blacklist, a new Mac headline news service, and Low End Mac funding.
• The Joy of X with Classic, 10 Forward, 07.05. "Mac users with the right hardware have little to lose and much to gain by running their favorite applications in Classic mode under OS X."
• Macs, politics, religion, and rights, 07.01. Why we will continue to share our opinions on issues that are important to us, Mac-related and otherwise.
• Good-bye, Rodney, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, 06.17. Rodney O. Lain is gone. It hurts. Thoughts on why we loved and sometimes loathed his writing.
• Macs, elitism, and the Starbucks demographic, 06.12. Why are Mac users called "elitists" for choosing a better built, better looking, longer lasting, more costly computer?
• Why domain owners deserve a grace period, 06.10. The MacSlash fiasco illustrates why domain owners deserve a grace period and registrars need to be more proactive.
• Carbon Copy Cloner and 10.1.5, 10 Forward, 06.06. Setting up a server and clearing files to make way for OS X on my main hard drive - with help from Carbon Copy Cloner.
• Learning from the MacSlash fiasco, 06.03. How one problem after another took MacSlash off the Web last week, and what we can learn from it.
• More about what we hate on the Web, 05.30. More thoughts on the things that annoy us on the Web, including some new ones.
• What we hate on the Web, 05.28. Hundreds of Web users told us what they dislike on the Web - and how strongly they dislike it.
• Toward a less annoying web, 05.28. Now that we know how you feel about annoying Web stuff, what's a webmaster to do?
• The future of Low End Mac, 05.22. As ad income plummets, the future of Low End Mac is in your hands.
• OS X beyond the PowerPC, 05.08. New hardware platforms provide a real opportunity for OS X to compete where Windows doesn't already dominate.
• Future of the PowerPC: Today and tomorrow, 05.01. How teaming up with IBM to push the PowerPC envelope could benefit IBM, Apple, and Mac users.
• TiBook value: New vs. old, 04.30. The new TiBook offers better value - but there should be hot deals on the old ones, too.
• Future of the PowerPC: PowerPC past and present, Mac Musings, 04.30. History of the PowerPC and why we lost the Megahertz War.
• Website automation with PHP and MySQL, part 5, Online Tech Journal, 04.29. Before you deploy it, make sure it works on your server.
• Website automation with PHP and MySQL, part 4, Online Tech Journal, 04.26. Using PHP to display the information in your MySQL database.
• Tight times at Low End Mac, 04.25. We seem to be breaking even financially, but we're a month behind on paying our bills.
• Website automation with PHP and MySQL, part 3, Online Tech Journal, 04.25. Massaging your existing data so you can import it into your MySQL database.
• Website automation with PHP and MySQL, part 2, Online Tech Journal, 04.24. Creating your MySQL database and defining the data fields you'll use.
• Website automation with PHP and MySQL, part 1, Online Tech Journal, 04.23. The first step is deciding what it is you want to do.
• No room to update to 10.1.4, 10 Forward, 04.18. Why you shouldn't try to run Mac OS X on a small partition.
• Macs: practical and pretty, 04.10. Stylish Macs "glorious but impractical"? You couldn't be more wrong.
• Low End Mac at five, 04.08. This weekend LEM passed the five year mark. A brief history.
• SE.30 the perfect Mac, 04.01. Mac design peaked with the SE.30 and has been slipping ever since.
• The case for a 'Book, 03.18. For most of the users most of the time, an iBook or PowerBook is the perfect computing solution.
• Upgrading an old G3, Dan Knight, Mac Daniel, 03.15. What are the best options for upgrading a beige Power Mac G3?
• System 1.0 and Mac OS X, 03.11. Understanding the history of the Mac OS can help us understand the future of OS X.
• The upgrade option, 03.06. Upgrading an older Mac can be a viable, cost-effective alternative to replacing it.
• The breadth of the Mac Web, 02.18. What sets the great sites apart from the rest?
• If they come, will we bill them?, 02.11. An insider's perspective on subscriptions and the Mac Web.
• iCab, PowerMail, the Dock, selecting files, and more, 10 Forward, 02.08. Moving bookmarks, learning PowerMail, more thoughts on the Dock, and plenty of reader tips.
• Broadband Optimizer, X-Wares, 02.07. Can a freeware utility really improve broadband throughput? Sometimes.
• Going Ten, part 3: Progressing slowly, 10 Forward, 02.05. It's going to be a while before I stop booting into OS 9.x to get my work done.
• A faster loading Classic environment, X-Basics, 02.05. How to use the good old Extensions Manager to optimize your Classic enviroment.
• Thinking different about USB ports, 02.04. Apple has a new way of counting the number of USB ports on the LCD iMac and 2002 Power Macs.
• Review: ramBunctious, Mac Wares, 02.04. The best RAM disk software for the classic Mac OS.
• Why OS X doesn't need a RAM disk, X-Basics, 02.01, updated. How the disk cache in Mac OS X makes RAM disks unnecessary.
• Going Ten: Installation, first impressions, 10 Forward, 01.31. The weird, wild, wonderful world of OS X - now installed on two older Macs.
• The new Power Mac value equation, 01.28. We finally hit the 1 GHz mark. Here's how the new compares with the old.
• Going Ten, part 1, 10 Forward, 01.15. We've got the low-end hardware and are preparing for OS X.
• Unknown OS redux, 01.15. On reexamination, it looks like our "unknown" visitors are mostly spiders, not OS X users.
• The new iMac value equation, 01.14. How good a value are the new LCD iMacs - and the remaining classic iMacs?
• The new iBook value equation, 01.14. While the smaller iBooks are indisputably good values, the value of the 14" iBook is entirely a personal decision.
• Is OS X the unknown OS?, 01.12. Our server logs don't list any visitors using Mac OS X - is it falling under "OS unknown"? If so....
• Preparing for OS X, 01.10. Yes, we will be trying OS X soon - here's the low-end hardware we'll be using.
• 40,000 the hard way, 01.10. Wow, three days in a row at the 40,000 page level - and no single article bringing in all the traffic.
• Joy in iMacville, 01.09. The death of CRT computing? No, Apple will keep the CRT iMac around!
• Lament for a budget iMac, 01.08. I come not to bury the classic sub-$1,000 iMac but to praise it.
• Way beyond AirPort, 01.06. Imagine the potential for high speed wireless Internet access from space....
• Why BeOS was so different, 01.02. Why BeOS was such an impressive operating system compared with Unix, Windows, NeXTstep, and the Mac OS.

More Mac Musings in the archive: 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010