Some programs seem to do a thousand different things. Others are one trick ponies. HyperDither falls in the second category, and compared to image editing powerhouses like Photoshop and even Photoshop Elements, its feature-set is incredibly sparse. In fact, it only does one thing – it dithers images.
2008 – While it transcends the topic of computing by a vast margin, ocular vision is a key element of the computing interface. Being able to see the display is pretty elemental.
I’ve been into computing for over 15 years, but I didn’t see the Apple light until 2000. I had always liked Macs, but they were way out of my budget. I started working for a publishing house and was using an old Quadra. Even though it was old, it was amazing. It was my first experience […]
One of the biggest complaints about the original iPhone was that it didn’t use 3G for wireless data, instead depending on the far slower – average data speeds between 75-135 Kbps – EDGE protocol. Another complaint was the lack of third-party apps. The iPhone 3G addressed both of these. The iPhone 3G is very similar […]
2008 – Apple released the Time Machine backup utility as part of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in October 2007. Time Machine is most commonly used to back up to an external USB or FireWire hard drive directly attached to a Mac running Leopard.
When Steve Jobs introduced the white dual-USB iBook in May 2001, he described it as “amazing”. I had to agree. In the context of the time, it was amazing that they were able to pack all that good PowerBook stuff into a package with about one-third less volume than the PowerBooks 5300 and 1400 – […]
The ability to view and optionally control the screen of a remote computer can be very handy in a number of scenarios. Maybe you have a parent living in another city with questions about their computer or problems. Trying to help someone over the phone can be problematic, if when you say “Open the Finder” […]
2008: Has it really been five years since Apple introduced the Power Mac G5? Yes, and the new enclosure introduced on June 23, 2003, lives on as the housing of the Mac Pro.
Five years ago this week, on June 23, 2003 (although it seems longer somehow), Apple Introduced the G5 Power Mac, claiming it to be “fastest personal computer ever” and “first 64-bit personal computer”. Speculation soon began about the possibility of a G5 PowerBook. Not so much at first, since the G5 was launched as a power […]
2008: Bigger, more, cheaper! Those are the cries of computer buyers – and successful manufacturers answer in spades with faster CPUs, more RAM, bigger hard drives, and higher density displays. Oh, and sometimes smaller, cheaper computers as well.
2008 – Macs have been around for a long time, waxing and waning in popularity – 24 years as of this writing. Many people have used Macs in grade school or college, as business users, or personally, and have old data and software stored on floppy disks, SyQuest cartridges, hard drives, etc. from these Paleolithic […]
Being a long suffering Windows user, I finally gave into the peer pressure of my upwardly mobile friends who constantly urged me to go Mac. Ever since 2001, when I was helping a friend with a short film (which he edited using Final Cut on a Sawtooth Power Mac running OS 9), I’ve thought they were beautiful […]
During the mid-90s, Mac users were prone to dealing with poorly trained and ill-maintained Mac sections in big box computer and electronics stores. These environments did not foster customer loyalty, nor did they help differentiate the Mac user-experience from Windows.
When I saw the other My First Mac articles, I figured I’d share my story too. My Macintosh experience begins in 2003. My school had two Bondi blue iMacs, and these things were always unplugged.
One of the things that sets Macs apart from other computers is their longevity. People don’t just throw them away. Macs tend to soldier on long after their spec sheets say that they’re “obsolete”. This may explain another phenomenon almost unique to the Macintosh subset of the computing world: Mac collectors. It’s understandable when you […]
Early in 2006, I wrote an article for Low End Mac entitled VNC, Basilisk II, and SheepShaver: 3 Ways to Run Classic on an Intel Mac. In it, I noted that the then-new Intel-powered Macs were unable to run older Mac software in called Classic Mode, but that there were at least a couple of […]
Apple updated the iMac with Intel’s more efficient Penryn processor in April 2008, which has a larger Level 2 cache and includes the SSE4.1 instruction set. The Early 2008 iMac also moved from the 800 MHz system bus in the Mid 2007 iMac to 1066 MHz, and clock speeds now range from 2.4 GHz to […]
2008: It’s called the KPC. It sells for $99 bare bones (no CPU, RAM, or hard drive), and as low as $229 configured. And it makes me wonder, “Can it run OS X?”
Is Microsoft a monopoly? Has Microsoft been guilty of monopolistic behavior? These are questions we’ve been asking for well over a decade, and the subject surfaced again this week [mid March 2008] after the US Supreme Court cleared the way for Novell to file an antitrust case against the Redmond behemoth over the way WordPerfect […]
I’ve had this Blue and White Power Mac G3 in my office on and off for a few months. I spent several weeks working on it and a Mystic Power Mac G4/450 trying to get them both working reliably. Long story short, the problems turned out to be bad RAM.
2008: It’s been the hallmark of serious photographers – professionals and advanced amateurs alike – for nearly 50 years now. It’s the single lens reflex (SLR) camera, and it’s seen a lot of changes, especially in the digital era.
2008: I’ve been into photography since the mid-1970s, and I’ve worked in camera stores several times over the intervening years. For me, one of the banes of good enlargements is dates in photos. I’ve seen more nice candids, animal shots, sunsets, etc. that would make excellent large prints – but they have a big, ugly […]
With the introduction of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple upped the ante on Mac remote control. All of the methods covered in previous articles still work, but new options now exist in the operating system and via associated services.
Just four months after moving the MacBook to Intel’s Santa Rosa chipset, Apple has refreshed the line. The entry-level MacBook now runs at 2.1 GHz (yeah, it’s only 5% faster), while the faster models now clock at 2.4 GHz (almost 10% faster). The updated Core 2 CPU (known as Penryn) has an enhanced SSE4 vector […]
Multitouch. Introduced with the iPhone, brought to the Mac with the MacBook Air, it now makes its debut on the MacBook Pro. Surprisingly, Apple is doing it using the same trackpad, not a larger one like the MBA has. Although nominally faster at 2.5 GHz, the new Penryn CPU used in the new MacBook Pro […]
Multitouch. Introduced with the iPhone, brought to the Mac with the MacBook Air, it now makes its debut on the MacBook Pro. Surprisingly, Apple is doing it using the same trackpad, not a larger one like the MBA has. Apple has refreshed the 15″ MacBook Pro in almost every aspect – except for its looks, […]
2008: Last month we looked at the megapixel myth. As we noted then, “in the rush to market megapixels, images can actually be worse with a high megapixel camera than from a lower megapixel one.” The sad truth is that it’s worse than we thought.
2008 – When you’re reviving an old laptop, you face one issue that you don’t when you rehab a desktop computer – power. Hence the need to have a least a power brick in order to use a laptop as a desktop. Of course, almost (but not quite) every different laptop has a different AC […]
Part 1 of this series covers general considerations and Apple-supported methods available for remote system control that will generally work on any version of Mac OS X (Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, and Leopard) – and even OS 9. This article addresses some commercial solutions that also support multiple OS versions, along with how to force-reboot a remote Mac. Part […]
We’ve already suggested reducing your screen resolution, switching from millions of colors to thousands, and using Mac OS X 10.3.x Panther as ways to get better playback of YouTube videos. Several readers have written in with other suggestions, including adjusting video quality and using other programs to view the videos rather than using a web browser.
There’s an urban legend that Mac’s don’t crash. That’s not entirely accurate. Mac hard drives, for instance, are identical to those in Windows systems and suffer the same sorts of physical failures with the same frequency. And the Mac operating system, while based on a solid industrial-strength Unix core, can suffer from problems from time […]
The most important part of this mailbag is the analysis of how to get the best performance from YouTube an an older Mac. YouTube Videos Run Poorly on Older Macs How Many Dead Pixels Are Too Many? Which iBook G4 Is the Better Deal? Increasing Safari Problems in Panther Quartz Extreme Support for PCI Video […]
Remote control of your Macintosh allows you to access a remote (host) computer across a network or the Internet from a local (client) system. The screen of the shared host computer appears locally, and you use your mouse and keyboard to control the other system from afar. Historically there have been fewer options to accomplish […]
My first Mac was an old PowerBook Duo 2300 I got as a birthday gift about four years ago. That’s all it took to get me hooked.
2008: The prayers of many for an ultralight MacBook have been answered, but in an unexpected way. And that’s pure Apple.
