It’s not uncommon for even the most Mac-oriented user to have a PC sitting in the corner. Why? Usually for testing designs. So will the prospective low-end designer need to get a Windows PC? Maybe.
This week The Low End Designer looks at printers, mass storage, and graphics tablets, all considered essential items to finish off the studio – but are they?
By this stage, anyone following this column should have collected a Mac or two and some software. This week we’re looking at obtaining a flatbed scanner. All of the information here intended as nothing more than examples – and hopefully an aid to understanding scanners, rather than an inducement to purchase a machine from a […]
In last week’s edition of The Low End Designer, we took a quick detour from hardware to look at the issue of Quark XPress. This week we’re focusing on software, and Quark will once again rear its head.
Last week you had the rant; this week you get the information. Jason Walsh examines the options when it comes to choosing inexpensive Macs for design work.
In this series of articles, Jason Walsh takes a look at how to run a design studio on low-end Macs. Whether you want to get off the upgrade treadmill, are just out of art school and want to set up shop on a budget, or just want to pick up a few tips and tricks, […]
How long should a laptop last?
Have you ever wanted to plug a low-cost PC keyboard into your Mac’s USB port, only to find that a few minutes of trying to type is driving you crazy? Or have you ever wanted to pick up an inexpensive USB keyboard for your ‘Book so you can have all those extra keys or be […]
With Intego’s announcement of the new “virus” for Mac OS X on April 8, 2004, for a while it seemed as if there was a bit of a panic through the Mac community. What do you mean there’s a virus for OS X?
Dearest readers out there in the digital void! I am sure you actually don’t have the time to read this, as you are probably already hasting through toy stores, lingerie boutiques, and Martha Stewart shops to get your Christmas shopping done (what? on Stansted Airport the Christmas decoration has been up since late September), because […]
Bonjour, mes amis! You will remember my usual incoherent rambling about me trying to buy a new portable Apple computer from my last article. Well, after a bout of unsuccessful stints onto the highstreets (the machines I wanted to have were never in stock or only available as demo-models with faults), I fell into a […]
2003 – The Color Classic, introduced in February 1993, was one of the earliest Macs to merit the Road Apple label. Road Apples are defined as Macs that were less than they should have been, models crippled for the sake of marketing or to keep costs down.
Woahey! After last week’s successful “talk like a pirate” beginning, I thought today we’d celebrate “talk like a neurosurgeon” day. Notice any difference?
2003: No sooner did I decide that the Fujifilm FinePix S5000 would be the perfect next digicam for me (see Going Mostly Digital) than Minolta upped the ante by announcing the Dimage Z1. It offers 3.2 MP, 10x optical zoom, and a $100 lower price.
In the endless rush to get the latest Mac that has come off the assembly line, Mac users leave behind a wondrous treasure trove of applications and documents that are of little or no use on the new Mac. The reason for this is simple – the application or document will not run using a […]
2003: My first digicam, a 1999 Canon PowerShot A50, was a reasonable choice as a snapshot camera and first digicam four years ago, but it’s been very much left behind. The worst problem is shutter lag, which has cost me more pictures than I care to remember. Sometimes it just doesn’t want to shoot – until […]
Low-end classic Mac users, Judgment Day seems to have come for us all. While reviewing July 9th in Low End Mac History for 2001, I came across an account of how one vintage Mac user was having trouble accessing his email using a Triassic Mac running vintage software. It seems that there was a problem related […]
To hear Slyck tell it (iTunes Sales Continue to Fall, 2003.07.30), the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) is in big trouble. After a hugely successful launch of 200,000+ tunes, sales have dropped to about 50,000 per day during the past month. Worse yet, there seems to be no end in site for this decline.
2003: Bang for the buck, the Fujifilm FinePix S602 has been one of the better choices for a serious photographer going digital for under US$1,000. The 35-210 equivalent zoom doesn’t go quite as wide as the recently discontinued Minolta Dimage 7i (28-200) or as long as the Nikon Coolpix 5700 (35-280), but the S602 sells […]
Over the last several months, the home network has fallen into something of a state of disarray. The OpenBSD file server was rooted with an ssh exploit sometime ago resulting in random outbound IRC connections, and the OpenBSD router forwarded its last packet some weeks ago due to a barrage of software and hardware issues.
I can’t recall the last time I bought a music CD. It’s probably been several years, so I’ve definitely been contributing to the slump in music sales.
Apple’s adventure into the PDA market was, shall we say, less than successful. Not that the Newton wasn’t a good product; it was just a little bit ahead of it’s time. PDAs started becoming popular in around 1998 with the Palm III.
2003: In my previous column, The Digital SLR: Affordable or Overpriced?, we looked at the drawbacks of using 35mm lenses with digital SLRs that have image sensors smaller than a 35mm frame. Dealing with the “conversion factor” is frustrating, and it only seems reasonable that we’ll eventually see digital SLRs that take 35mm lenses and produce […]
2003: Nothing has more typified the advanced amateur photographer in recent decades than a good SLR camera. That was true when I got started in photography 30 years ago, and it remains true today.
2003: In the May 2003 issue of Popular Photography & Imaging, editor-in-chief Jason Schneider declares that digital has achieved the quality of film. More specifically, the Kodak DCS Pro14n digital SLR matches the resolution of Kodak Max Versatility 400 color print film in a 35mm camera.
2003: There are lots of variables in digital photography, but the most important one is megapixels. Even a lowly 1 megapixel (MP) camera can give you just great 4-by-6 snapshots, assuming a good lens and exposure. I’ve printed pretty sharp 5-by-7 photos from my 1.3 MP Canon PowerShot A50 on my Epson Stylus Photo 870 inkjet […]
2003 – The good news: The Mac OS X v10.2 Jaguar upgrade CD can be turned into a full install CD using nothing more than Disk Copy, the Terminal, and a CD burner. Terminal seems to be the crucial piece; without it I wasted two CD-Rs trying to make an installer.
Q. How can I upgrade my G3 iMac? A. The iMac was and remains one of Apple’s best selling computers. Now in its umpteenth revision, sporting LCD screens and faster than ever processors, the iMac has come quite a long way from the original 233 MHz Bondi blue bombshell. While many people lust for the […]
Claris Home Page was one of the finest applications ever made for the Mac. Version 3.0 has been around since 1998, and a lot of us have yet to find a better program for writing and publishing on the Web.
2003 – It’s been a good week for OS X users. First, Apple released an update to Safari that fixed some really obvious errors, such as text not wrapping around graphics properly (as mentioned in my previous installment) and problems with secure sites. Then they finished OS X 10.2.4 and made it available.
February 10, 1993 was one of the biggest days in Mac history. Apple introduced six new models at once.
2003 – It’s been a month since I upgraded from OS X 10.1.5 Puma to 10.2 Jaguar and tried to make OS X my primary operating system. It worked, and now that I’ve done it, I don’t like going back to OS 9. Classic Mode is fine for all of my software – except for backup, and […]
As we discussed last Friday, Apple has never been a dominant player in the personal computer industry. However, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a significant player.
Despite the myths, Apple has never been a dominant player in the personal computer industry. Although the Apple II once accounted for nearly one-sixth of the market, the Mac has never had more than a 12% market share.
The new PowerBooks (Big Al and Little Al) are nice enough, but I think that the new five-times-as-fast AirPort Extreme will have much more impact in the long run.
