Organize Your Files and Never Lose Track of Them

2001 – Before we get started, let me introduce a new feature to iBasics. I will rate tips in terms of difficulty, from easy to intermediate to expert. As the focus of the column is basics, we will mostly go through easy and intermediate topics, but sometimes an “expert” tip will be useful, especially as […]

BeOS or NeXT: Did Apple Make the Wrong Choice?

It’s hard to believe it has been four years. In early 1997, Power Computing announced that they would ship BeOS with its clones. An upstart clone maker shipping an upstart OS, if you will. This was big news, since BeOS fixed many of the problems that System 7 faced. The discussions from then sounds all […]

Home Network Throughput

In a previous article, I talked about creating an MP3 server out of a Quadra 630. At that time, I asserted that it could handle the job, but I hadn’t really tested it out. Now I’d like to put a few numbers on my Quadra’s performance and talk about optimizing it.

4 Years of Low End Mac

2001 – Four years ago, there was no Low End Mac. There were good resources for PowerBooks and Power Macs, but support for older models was spotty. You might find a really good Mac Plus page or a site with excellent Mac IIfx info, but I couldn’t find a comprehensive resource covering the oldest Macs.

PowerBook Value

2001 – Two weeks ago, in What’s Wrong with PowerBooks, I wrote about some negatives of PowerBooks, and last week I looked at the other side in What’s Right with PowerBooks. So what does it all mean?

Going High End Requires Some Adjusting

It had to happen, what with Dan Knight getting a new TiBook and retiring his Umax SuperMac S900. Dan sets the tone of things for the now-former Low End Mac, being the founder, publisher, editor, and all, and there is nothing “low end” about a titanium G4 PowerBook.

The Virtues of a G4

I don’t understand why Low End Mac readers stick with your old clones or pre-G3 computers. I’ve been using Macintoshes since 1994, and most of the time I’ve had one of the latest machines. To me, living without the latest, most powerful stuff is unthinkable.

About High End Mac

Hey, what happened to Low End Mac? Have you guys gone nuts? No. We realize that the future of the Macintosh platform is intimately tied to the future of Apple Computer. If you don’t buy a new Mac every now and then, Apple suffers financially…

Buy New Every Two

A local auto dealer has been pushing “drive new every two” for a few years. It’s also become the norm in the Windows world, where three years used to be the norm. Mac users, it’s time to make “buy new every two” our battle cry as well!

Low End Mac Users Are Nuts

Dan Knight, most caring of all Mac-related website editors, thought it was time to allow us people from that little island across the big pond (that’s Great Britain, not Hawaii) who still use Apple computers in the face of ever dwindling numbers of Apple stores and ridiculous retail prices to make their voice heard on […]

What’s Right with PowerBooks

PowerBooks are wonderful but problematic. They can be too expensive, a poor desktop replacement, and not really that portable by the time they are packed up for traveling. Many people get caught up in the marketing around PowerBooks or iBooks when they would be better off with a different Mac.

Shot in the Foot Again: Firmware Upgrade Disables RAM

2001: Before I even knew there was a firmware update for my PowerBook G4, the Mac Web let me know that a lot of users were having problems with it. These updates were posted late Friday, March 23. By Saturday morning, sites like Accelerate Your Mac, Mac Observer, MacCentral, and MacFixIt were reporting big trouble […]

75 Mac Advantages, Part 3

2001 – There’s been a hiatus in the Mac Lab Reports, a column I have been writing consistently once a week for several months, while I did research for this entry, especially regarding QuickTime. I’ve wrestled with that one in particular because of the issues surrounding the implementation of multimedia on PCs.

RAM Disk Benchmarks, Classic Mac OS

2001: The newest addition to our benchmark suite is TimeDrive 1.3 (available here), which measures drive throughput. This can test a floppy, Zip, hard drive, or RAM Disk. TimeDrive is fairly primitive; the benefit of that is being able to run it on very old Macs.

Using Outlook Express 5, Part 3

2001 – Welcome to the third and final segment of this Outlook Express (OE) tutorial. We went through the most important features of OE in parts 1 and 2. To put the icing on the cake, let’s examine a bunch of convenient features available at your fingertips. They are mostly useful to personalize OE or […]

What’s Wrong with PowerBooks

2001 – There’s a chasm that separates the promise and the reality of PowerBooks. Maybe it is marketing or collective delusion, but PowerBooks can be a horrendous value for many people. Many PowerBook users just don’t get their money’s worth.

Using Outlook Express 5, Part 2

2001 – Last week, we went through the basics of Outlook Express (OE). Now it is time for slightly more complex operations to take advantage of the power that begs to be used. In this case, more complexity means more power. OE has a variety of tools that make importing, filtering, and sorting easy. They […]

Comparing High-End PowerBooks

2001 – I’ve had the chance to own a lot of high-end PowerBooks. First it was the PowerBook 180 (instead of the top of the line 180c). Then the PowerBook 540. Lately I owned a Pismo PowerBook G3, and next week I’ll get my hands on a PowerBook 3400/180.

Using Outlook Express 5, Part 1

2001 – Outlook Express (OE) 5 is the default email application for Macintosh when you install any recent Mac OS. Despite the fact that many folks choose Eudora, Claris Emailer, PowerMail, and other capable clients, many stick with OE since it is free and it satisfies them.