Thoughts on SiliconFilm

2001: I’m a 35mm photographer from way back. Much as I’d love a digital camera that takes my Nikon lenses, until now they’ve been preposterously expensive. So I use a wonderful little Canon PowerShot A50 for digital shots and my Nikon N6006 when I want more control.

Why the Cube Failed

Well, let’s get this part out of the way first. The folks over at the Cube-Zone (G4 Cube Forever!) will tell you the Cube didn’t fail, still has life in it, won x-many awards, and so on and so forth. Nevertheless, we can all agree that the Cube’s sales have been, shall we say, less […]

Are Apple Users Lefties?

Hello, my ever so fast growing gathering of hard-core Mac UK fans. Thanks for dropping by on this oddest of all Low End Mac columns, where some strange doctor from the Scottish west coast rambles about the state of affairs in the homeland of “first past the post” democracy (in this sentence is an oxymoron […]

Pentium Threatens Planet

Madame Chairperson, Esteemed Members of this August Committee, Members of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Speaker of the House of Representatives: Thank you for allowing me to address you on this most urgent matter.

1984, Round 2

2001: Apple seems to be on a roll these days. Knock your socks off hardware, a new assault on the education market, accolades for their software efforts – and the list goes on.

LEMMY: The Low End Mac Excursion Module

I teach Astronomy and Space Science. Wishing to teach students about the difficulties of manned vs. robotic exploration, it occurred to me that it would be nice if I could simulate a deep-space rover. The basic idea is simple: Use a radio controlled car to drive around a video camera, which will transmit live video […]

Video CD Reconsidered

2001: About a year ago I discovered Video CD (VCD), a low cost, low tech alternative to DVDs. In Is Video CD a Real Alternative to DVD?, I looked at the quality of VCD and found quite quite a bit of variance. The best offer the same quality as a top notch videotape and may […]

Writing and Editing with Microsoft Word

2001 – Everyone knows how to type, and many typists use Microsoft Word, since it is a standard for word processing. Word has plenty of unused and unknown features that facilitate the writer’s work. Whether they help to improve your writing, make word processing easy on the eye, or provide powerful editing techniques, those features […]

Mac Advocate Glossary

2001 – Here is a partial glossary of terms you are likely to encounter when discussing supporting the Mac platform with a longtime Mac user. If you have more contributions, tack them on in the message board.

Celebrating 80 MB Hard Drives

2001 – In 1991, I got my first Mac. It was a Mac IIsi with an 80 megabyte hard drive, which was considered a big drive then. Fast forward ten years, and we have 80 gigabyte drives that occupy the same niche in the storage environment. Compared to my first drive, a current 80 gig […]

If TV Characters Used Real Computers

2001 – MacCentral will occasionally post “famous people” sightings, where celebrities and others use Macs as props or as tools in public. I was thinking about this the other day, and wondered if people in TV shows used computers as much as real people – and real computers, not those 67-point font monsters that say […]

75 Mac Advantages, Part 5

2001 – For those of you new to this series, this is a look at the old 75 Macintosh Advantages brochure put out by Apple in the pre-iMac days. Many of the advantages still exist, but some have fallen by the wayside. There are references to OS X here, but my general attitude is that if […]

Software Subscriptions and Value

In the past few weeks, Microsoft has been getting some bad press. Okay, I don’t suppose that is particularly a news item. The current issue is the change in Microsoft’s software license. In layman’s terms, Microsoft is switching from selling its software to leasing it.

A Day With a Typewriter

The Royal Quiet De Luxe portable typewriter is about a ten pound machine capable of printing single page documents not wider than 9 inches and of indeterminate length. It was designed to allow the user to continue working while on board trains and in hotel rooms, but it was never practical for air travel, due […]

The Exclusivist Mac

2001: Last time I outlined the basic Mac Populist user. To recap: The Mac Populist believes that Macs should appear on every desk in every home and office. Their interpretation of “The Computer for the Rest of Us” is that the Mac is a computer meant for the mass market, and its destiny is to […]