TidBITS#776/18-Apr-05
=====================
TidBITS turns 15 this week! In lieu of blowing out candles, Adam
looks back over 15 years of Mac ownership. This week also brings
a flood of Apple news, starting with the 29-Apr-05 release date
of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger (and word that our "Take Control of Tiger"
ebooks will be released simultaneously), and continuing with the
company's stellar Q2-05 earnings report; the release of Mac OS X
10.3.9 Update; fixes to iMovie HD, iDVD 5, iPhoto 5, and iSight
software; and the announcements of Final Cut Pro 5, DVD Studio
Pro 4, Motion 2, and Soundtrack Pro.
Topics:
MailBITS/18-Apr-05
DealBITS Drawing: MaxSleeve and iProtect
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger To Be Released 29-Apr-05
Apple Q2-05 Earnings Breeze Past Estimates
Apple Announces Final Cut Studio
TidBITS Anniversary: Looking Back over 15 Macintosh Years
Take Control News/18-Apr-05
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/18-Apr-05
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-776.html>
<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/2005/TidBITS#776_18-Apr-05.etx>
Copyright 2005 TidBITS: Reuse governed by Creative Commons license
<http://www.tidbits.com/terms/> Contact: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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MailBITS/18-Apr-05
------------------
**Take Control 40% Off Sale for TidBITS 15th Anniversary** -- This
week marks our 15th anniversary of continuous weekly publication,
and we're celebrating with a 40 percent off sale on our Take
Control ebooks. To take advantage of the sale, use coupon code
CPN50416TB15 when placing an order (note that you can't purchase
any other bundles simultaneously, since eSellerate supports only
one coupon per order). The offer is good on all of our current
ebooks, but not on pre-orders of our upcoming Tiger titles. [ACE]
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/catalog.html>
**Mac OS X 10.3.9 Update Released** -- Apple has released Mac OS X
10.3.9 Update, which is almost certainly the last numbered
release for Panther. With Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger due to ship
29-Apr-05 (details later in this issue), any new Panther releases
will be specific application or security fixes (as was true for
Jaguar). This update includes fixes for a lot of fiddly problems
that must have been weighing on Apple so they could close the book
on continuing engineering (three of the upgrade notes relate to
Stickies, for crying out loud). However, a few important nuggets
are included: for example, erratic trackpad behavior on some
PowerBooks has been fixed, as well as some possible kernel panics
when waking a PowerBook G4 from sleep and a number of security
fixes to the kernel.
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxupdate1039.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxcombinedupdate1039.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxserverupdate1039.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxserverupdate1039combo.html>
The update is available as a huge 51 MB download for users
upgrading from Mac OS X 10.3.8. The Combo Installer, which works
for all previous 10.3 releases, is a whopping 143 MB. Mac OS X
Server 10.3.9 was also released at 63 MB (upgrade) and 117 MB
(combo). I must chide Apple for never considering since the
release of Mac OS X 10.0 how average dial-up users, still the
majority of all Internet users in the U.S., are supposed to
cope with these massive downloads. [GF]
**iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iSight See Updates** -- Apple last week
released updates to three of its iLife '05 applications, providing
a small but welcome collection of bug fixes. iPhoto 5.0.2
(a 5.5 MB download) gains stability and improved performance,
especially on PowerPC G3-based Macs. It also allows resizable
thumbnails in book layout mode and improves slideshow performance.
iMovie HD 5.0.2 (a 2.7 MB download) addresses audio and video
synchronization, adds better support for pass-through devices
(such as analog-to-digital converters), and improves exporting
HDV (high definition) video back to the camera. It also seems to
fix a bug where titles would disrupt DV video clips, and better
handles iMovie 4 projects that used speed-adjusted clips. iDVD
5.0.1 (a 2.6 MB download) improves stability and compatibility
with iMovie HD and with iPhoto slideshows. Lastly, Apple updated
the iSight software to version 1.0.3 (a 1.1 MB download), which
improves the audio recording capabilities of the tiny video
camera. All four updates are available via Software Update,
or as separate downloads. [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/iphoto502update.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/imoviehd502update.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/idvd501update.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/isightupdater.html>
**Adam & Tonya at New Mexico User Groups** -- Tonya and I
have never traveled to the southwest United States, so we're
particularly looking forward to a trip to visit not one, not
two, but three New Mexico-based Macintosh user groups in early
May. At 7:00 PM on 03-May-05, I'll be speaking in Albuquerque
to the AppleQuerque Macintosh User Group. Then, on the afternoon
of 04-May-05, I'll address the Los Alamos Macintosh User Group,
and at 7:00 PM that evening, the Santa Fe Macintosh User Group.
I'm planning to talk primarily about iPhoto and wireless security;
Tonya will be on hand to chat about Take Control and electronic
publishing in general. If you're in the area, come say hello!
[ACE]
<http://applequerque.org/>
<http://www.santafemug.org/>
**DealBITS Drawing: PDFpenPro Winners** -- Congratulations to
Kevin Wong of csua.berkeley.edu, Rick Jarnat of earthlink.net,
and Ferd Diemer of lycos.com, whose entries were chosen randomly
in last week's DealBITS drawing and who each received a copy of
SmileOnMyMac's PDFpenPro PDF editing utility, worth $94.95. Even
if you didn't win, you can save 10 percent off the purchase price
of either PDFpen ($49.95 for those who don't need to create PDF
forms) or PDFpenPro using the URL below; this offer is open to
all TidBITS readers. Thanks to the 746 people who entered, and
extra thanks to the 54 people who entered after being referred
to DealBITS. Note that there's another DealBITS drawing this
week, and remember that telling your friends, family, and
colleagues about new drawings is a great way to increase
your chances of receiving a prize. [ACE]
<http://www.smileonmymac.com/offers/PDFpenProDealBITS.html>
<http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/smileonmymac4/>
<http://www.macworld.com/2005/03/reviews/pdfpen201/index.php>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08056>
DealBITS Drawing: MaxSleeve and iProtect
----------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
My main laptop bag holds so much that I'm tempted to pack a lot
more than I need much of the time, and the end result is that my
svelte little 12-inch PowerBook G4 ends up being only a fraction
of the overall weight I carry. For an outing where I don't want
all my gear, or, in fact, anything but the laptop itself, I've
just started using a MaxSleeve from MaxUpgrades. It's a sleek
black bag made of a dense polyurethane foam, and my PowerBook fits
snugly inside. A pair of zippers enable you to close it, and the
zippers are on the outside so they never come in contact with the
surface of the PowerBook. MaxUpgrades also sent me their iProtect
cloth, which is a microfiber cloth you can use to prevent finger
oils on your keycaps from marring the LCD screen surface when your
laptop is closed; it's also designed to clean sensitive LCD
screens without scratching.
<http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=
product.display&Product_ID=102>
<http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=
product.display&Product_ID=103>
In this week's DealBITS drawing, you can enter to win one of
two bundles of a MaxSleeve and an iProtect cloth, worth up to
$38.98 (the price of the MaxSleeve varies slightly with laptop
size). Entrants who aren't among our lucky winners will receive
a discount on both, so if you're looking for a laptop sleeve, be
sure to enter at the DealBITS page linked below. All information
gathered is covered by our comprehensive privacy policy. Be
careful with your spam filters, since you must be able to
receive email from my address to learn if you've won.
<http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/maxupgrades1/>
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/privacy.html>
Lastly, remember that you can increase your chances of receiving a
prize. On the confirmation Web page and in the email confirmation
message entrants receive, you'll see a custom URL that you can
send to friends and colleagues so they can enter the drawing too.
If one of our randomly chosen winners entered using your referral
URL, you'll receive exactly the same prize. The more people you
refer, the more likely it is that you'll win a prize, so feel
free to distribute your referral URL widely (without acting like
a spammer, of course!)
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger To Be Released 29-Apr-05
--------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Ending the rampant speculation of exactly when Mac OS X 10.4
Tiger would be released, Apple last week announced that its next-
generation operating system will be available for sale as of 6:00
PM on Friday, April 29th, 2005, although you can also pre-order
from Apple (and other retailers). Tiger will cost $130 for a
single user license; the Mac OS X Tiger Family Pack offers a
five-user license for $200, and the Mac OS Up-to-Date upgrade
package will cost $10 for those who bought a new Mac on or after
12-Apr-05 (this offer ends 22-Jul-05).
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/>
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/apr/12tiger.html>
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/>
Tiger requires a minimum of 256 MB of RAM (but anyone with any
sense will install more) and will run on any Macintosh that has
both a PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor and built-in FireWire.
You need at least a 1 GHz PowerPC G4 or a dual 800 MHz PowerPC
G4-based Power Mac - along with 100 Kbps of Internet bandwidth -
to participate in a multi-person video chat with iChat - one of
Tiger's most ballyhooed features. Initiating a multi-person video
chat requires even more stringent requirements: a Mac with at
least dual 1 GHz PowerPC G4s or one with a PowerPC G5 CPU, along
with 384 Kbps of Internet bandwidth (the initiating computer is
the one that handles much of the video encoding and audio-video
synchronization).
Tiger ships on DVD; if your otherwise-compatible Mac has only
a CD drive, you can either boot your Mac in FireWire Target Disk
Mode and install to it from another DVD-equipped Mac, or you
can pay Apple $10 for a set of Tiger CDs. To order the CD set,
download the PDF form linked below.
<http://images.apple.com/macosx/pdf/tigermediaexchange.pdf>
Released simultaneously will be Mac OS X Server 10.4 Tiger, which
will, as usual, cost $500 for a 10-user license and $1,000 for
an unlimited client edition. Apple is also accepting pre-orders
for Tiger Server, and the Mac OS Up-to-Date program has the same
$10 cost for anyone who buys an Xserve G5 on or after 12-Apr-05.
Tiger Server will ship on all new Xserve G5s, and can run on the
same Macs as the desktop version as long as at least 4 GB of disk
space is available.
<http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/>
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/apr/12tigerserver.html>
And yes, we are on track to release "Take Control of Upgrading to
Tiger" and "Take Control of Customizing Tiger" at 6:00 PM EDT on
Friday, April 29th, too! If all goes well, we also hope to have
"Take Control of Users & Accounts in Tiger" and "Take Control of
Sharing Files in Tiger" available then as well; all four ebooks
are available for pre-order now. Check the Take Control News page
for the latest information.
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/news/>
Apple Q2-05 Earnings Breeze Past Estimates
------------------------------------------
by Glenn Fleishman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Apple's latest quarterly report turned in another stunner:
$290 million in net earnings in their most recent fiscal quarter
ending 26-Mar-05, compared to $46 million a year ago. These
second quarter results include sales of 5.3 million iPods and
1.07 million Macs, up from 807,000 iPods and 749,000 Macs during
the same quarter a year ago. Revenue in this past quarter was
$3.24 billion, versus $1.91 billion the previous year. Analysts
expected Apple to turn in about a 24-cent-per-share set of
results; the actual results were 34 cents per share with
apparently no extraordinary one-time items.
The sheer number of iPods sold, of which perhaps a quarter were
iPod shuffles (said analysts, not Apple), shouldn't blind you
to the 1.07 million Macs shipped, of which just under half were
"iMacs," which includes both iMacs and Mac minis. This number
represents the most Macs by unit that Apple has sold in four
years.
Also, gross margins increased from 28 percent in the same quarter
a year ago up to nearly 30 percent. This is significant, too,
in an industry in which almost everything except the iPod and
the Macintosh have become commodities.
Sales include Mac minis, which one might expect would have driven
down margins, but Apple is obviously keeping a good eye on costs.
And it's likely that, like the model I recently purchased, most
minis were sold in the $700 to $900 range (with options) rather
than the bargain-basement $500.
Macs were responsible for about $1.49 billion of the quarter's
revenue; iPods for $1.16 billion. Market experts believe that
Tiger will add a few hundred million in revenue to Apple's coffers
this quarter; one said that the initial sales essentially pay back
all of Tiger's development costs, so earnings that follow from
the operating system as a separately sold item are just gravy.
The iTunes Music Store and iPod services and accessories added
$216 million to revenue. The company said in a story in the Wall
Street Journal that the store turned a small profit during the
quarter. Apple Store revenue has apparently been quite good: Peter
Cohen at MacCentral covered the live analyst call and noted that
Apple's CFO said quarterly revenue per store was $5.6 million
with 9,800 people passing through each store on average each
week. Apple will have 125 stores, 10 outside the US, by the end
of this year.
<http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/04/13/q2livecall/index.php>
Apple suggests it will gross $3.24 billion in the third fiscal
quarter that we're now in, with slightly lower earnings. Apple
also reported it has $7.06 billion in cash and cash equivalents.
As this hoard increases, Apple is likely to put it to good use -
even as a dividend to shareholders - rather than save it all as
a giant rainy-day fund.
Apple Announces Final Cut Studio
--------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) event on
Sunday in Las Vegas, Apple revealed the latest lineup of its
professional video and audio applications, Final Cut Studio.
The suite contains Final Cut Pro 5, DVD Studio Pro 4, Motion 2,
and a new application, Soundtrack Pro. The applications will be
available separately or as the Final Cut Studio bundle beginning
in May.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/apr/17fcstudio.html>
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/>
Although iMovie HD and Final Cut Express HD, announced in January
at Macworld, can both handle the HDV high-definition video format,
Final Cut Pro 4 curiously could not. This discrepancy is corrected
in Final Cut Pro 5, which improves on HDV handling as well. The
consumer applications can import HDV, but they transcode the
footage to AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) for working on the
computer. Final Cut Pro 5, however, imports and handles HDV
(and other HD formats) natively. It's also been updated with
improved real-time editing, including Dynamic RT Extreme, a mode
that automatically adjusts playback quality depending on the type
of footage and the number and types of effects that are applied.
But the most impressive-looking feature is multi-camera editing,
which enables you to view up to 16 simultaneous video clips
(which can be synchronized), and edit them into a movie simply
by clicking each one as the footage plays back.
DVD Studio Pro 4 also gains HD support with its capability
to convert standard-definition projects to HD easily, and also
offers support for burning to HD DVD discs when the hardware
becomes available. (Toshiba has a prototype HD-DVD burner at
the show, which is interesting considering that Apple recently
signed on to the Blu-ray Disc Association, which is pushing for
a competing standard for authoring high-definition DVDs. However,
both proposed standards rely on H.264 encoding, which is supported
in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.) DVD Studio Pro 4 can also distribute
encoding tasks to other machines on your network, and can
incorporate mixed video and audio formats within the same project.
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/dvdstudiopro/>
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/mar/10blu-ray.html>
Motion 2, the company's motion-design program, boasts GPU
accelerated 32-bit float rendering, which greatly improves
the quality of video output. A new Replicator tool makes it
easy to take an element and control lots of copies of it, and
the intriguing MIDI support enables designers to control effects
using a MIDI keyboard.
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/motion/>
Soundtrack Pro builds on the foundation of Soundtrack (which is
included with Final Cut Express HD, but no longer with Final Cut
Pro 5) by expanding control over audio tracks and musical loops.
Soundtrack Pro includes tools for isolating and removing offending
sounds (such as pops or cracks, for example), including a feature
to scan an audio file and highlight possible problem areas.
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/soundtrackpro/>
All four applications will be available as part of the $1,300
Final Cut Studio Suite, or sold separately (Final Cut Pro 5 at
$1,000, DVD Studio Pro 4 at $500, Motion 2 at $300, and Soundtrack
Pro at $300). Several upgrade pricing options are also available.
TidBITS Anniversary: Looking Back over 15 Macintosh Years
---------------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
This week marks our 15th anniversary of TidBITS, and although
we remain somewhat astonished that we've maintained a weekly
publication schedule through so many years, the evidence that
we've done so is incontrovertible. In many ways, the world has
changed around us; back in 1990, could anyone have anticipated
what it would be like to use Mac OS X on a dual 2.5 GHz Power Mac
G5 or 17-inch PowerBook G4? But although TidBITS has evolved
to accommodate such changes, we've also stayed true to our core
mission of attempting to bring clarity and understanding to
the Macintosh community. Both evolution and the avoidance of
unnecessary change remain ongoing tasks, and I'm sure we'll be
walking that fine line for years to come. After all, we're only
at issue #776, leaving us 224 more weeks (about four and a half
years) before we're forced to face up to our 1992 decision to
use a three-digit numbering scheme!
Along with offering a 40 percent-off sale on Take Control ebooks
this week, we wanted to take a trip back through the last 15 years
of Macintosh models, looking briefly at the models that meant the
most to us from each year so you can see just how far we've come
(thanks to the Apple History site for jogging my memory on dates
and details). Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for 1990!
<http://www.apple-history.com/>
**1990** -- In 1990, Tonya and I were recently out of college,
sharing a Macintosh SE that we had later upgraded to an SE/30.
It had a 30 MB hard drive that I'd built from a bare mechanism,
a case, and a SCSI card. We had also added a video card to drive
a second monitor - an Apple color display that ran at 640 by 480
and ensured I would never use a single-monitor system again. But
the SE/30 was old hat in 1990, when Apple pushed the high end with
the Mac IIfx (the "wicked fast" Mac) and the low end with the Mac
Classic. The Mac IIfx was ludicrously expensive; in fact, it was
reportedly the most expensive Mac Apple ever made at $9,870
(presumably in some seriously tricked-out configuration).
The IIfx shipped in March; in October of 1990, Apple released
the inexpensive all-in-one Mac Classic, which we purchased early
the next year so Tonya could have her own Mac - and because we
needed a 1.4 MB SuperDrive floppy disk, and buying one built into
a Classic wasn't much more expensive than buying a new floppy
disk drive for our SE/30. We never liked the Mac Classic, and
it was passed on to a friend a few years later after we had no
more use for it. The main interesting thing about the Mac Classic
was that it could, if you held down the right keys at startup,
boot from ROM.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=se30>
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=IIfx>
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=classic>
**1991** -- Ah, the year of the PowerBook. Apple's first non-
desktop Mac had appeared in 1989 - the Mac Portable - but at
almost 16 pounds (7.3 kg) it barely deserved the name. So in
1991, when Apple released the PowerBook 170, the PowerBook 140,
and my favorite, the tiny PowerBook 100, the Macintosh world was
agog. We purchased a PowerBook 100, and it remained one of our
favorite Macs. In fact, it's still in the attic; with a minuscule
monochrome screen and a 16 MHz 68000 processor, there isn't
much we can do with it, but every now and then I ponder the
possibilities.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=portable>
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=100>
**1992** -- In 1992, Apple began to ship a collection of truly
undistinguished desktop Macs, and made many of them even more
indistinguishable by coming up with the Performa name and giving
each model a different number. On the PowerBook front, however,
the company redeemed itself by creating a machine even smaller
than the PowerBook 100: the PowerBook Duo. Tonya bought a Duo 230
and loved it; its small size matched her small hands perfectly,
and she has griped about too-large keyboards ever since. What
truly set the Duo apart were the docking stations Apple also
sold; the full-fledged PowerBook Duo Dock, which the Duo slipped
into like a really big disk into a drive, and the PowerBook Duo
MiniDock, which clamped onto the back of the Duo and provided
all the necessary ports. Our Duo 230 remained in service for
years after it was too slow for real use; it ran a data-collection
program hooked to an analog-to-digital converter that monitored
weather conditions when we lived in Seattle. The Duo still works;
I just brought it down from the attic the other day to see if
I could set it up to monitor our Internet connection and power
cycle the cable modem via Sophisticated Circuits PowerKey Pro
600 we have (I ran out of time when trying figure out what was
necessary to get the Dayna SCSI-to-Ethernet adapter and the old
Linksys hub that supported 10Base-2 Ethernet cabling to connect
to our network).
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=230>
<http://www.sophisticated.com/products/powerkey/pkp_600.html>
**1993** -- The Performa line bred like bunnies in 1993, adding
13 models, all of them slight variations on a theme so different
retail outlets could advertise "the lowest price!" on a particular
model. The Performa trend would continue through 1996, ensuring
an inexhaustible supply of difficult trivia questions for the next
century. For me, though, 1993 was the year I finally moved away
from the SE/30 and purchased a Centris 660AV (with a second video
card and a second monitor, of course). The Centris name was short-
lived, soon to be replaced by "Quadra," and my particular Centris
660AV was even more unusual because it had a transitional floppy
drive. Until that point, Macs had automatic-inject floppy drives -
a fancy way of saying that the drive sucked the floppy disk out of
your hand. Some models of the Centris 660AV had automatic inject
floppy drives, but mine didn't. Like the Quadra 660AV that would
replace it three months later, it had a manual inject floppy
drive, for which you had to push the floppy disk in yourself.
The AV stood for audio-visual and was based on the fact that
the 660AV had a DSP (digital signal processor) chip for voice
recognition and video processing, which, honestly, I never used
at all.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=660>
Despite switching to the 660AV for my main Mac, I managed to
hold onto the SE/30 by writing an article for MacUser on Apple's
PowerTalk communications technology; for that I needed two Macs,
and I earned more from the article than I would have from selling
the SE/30. The SE/30 went on to be our Web server for some time,
and then to run mailing lists in LetterRip Pro until we moved from
Seattle to Ithaca in 2001; now I can't get it to boot from the
internal hard disk.
**1994** -- With 1994 came Apple's well-handled transition from
the 680x0 CPU to the RISC-based PowerPC CPU in the Power Mac 6100,
7100, and 8100. Tonya moved from her Duo 230 to a Power Mac 7100
for her main Mac, and I finally admitted that the PowerBook 100
could no longer cut the mustard and replaced it with a PowerBook
520. I was never all that fond of the PowerBook 520, and the main
memory I have of it is its hard drive making one of the loudest
noises I've ever heard emanate from a computer before it
eventually died.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=520>
Tonya's 7100 saw 10 years of service, since it was still running
ListSTAR and managing our main TidBITS distribution list until
2005, when we finally moved that list to Web Crossing running on
an Xserve. The Power Mac 7100 merited another footnote in history,
since it was initially codenamed "Carl Sagan," a move that drew a
lawsuit from the Cornell astronomer. It was a bit of a fuss, with
many people claiming that Sagan was overreacting given that it was
just a codename, but even as a codename, it was an insult, given
that the 6100 and 8100 were codenamed "Piltdown Man" and "Cold
Fusion" respectively; in other words, the theme was scientific
hoaxes. Apple changed the codename to "BHA," which reportedly
stood for "Butt Head Astronomer," but which was sufficient to
appease Sagan. Personally, I thought it was at best poor manners
and at worst rather offensive to associate with a pair of
scientific hoaxes a living scientist who had worked tirelessly
to popularize science, but I wasn't exactly unbiased, having taken
Sagan's "Seminar in Critical Thinking" while at Cornell and having
come away with a high opinion of him.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=7100>
We also later bought an Apple Workgroup Server 6150, which was
essentially a speed-bumped Power Mac 6100, to act as our Web and
mailing list server. Amusingly, the 6150 has most recently seen
action as Tristan's Mac, because every small child needs his or
her own Apple Workgroup Server! That task is coming to an end,
though, since something has gone wrong with its caddy-loading
CD-ROM drive, and if I remember right, that drive was already
cannibalized from our 660AV due to problems with the 6150's
original drive. Tristan doesn't care for the computer much,
but he occasionally likes to mess around with CD-based Living
Books, so a working optical drive is essential, especially since
I was never able to get disk images of those CDs to work.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=6150>
**1995** -- In 1995, I replaced the PowerBook 520 with a PowerBook
5300c, one of the first PowerPC-based laptop Macs. It wasn't one
of Apple's better portables, suffering several recalls for burning
batteries and cracked cases, but mine worked fine. I did like the
fact that it could run an external monitor in extended Desktop
mode, since it was also my backup Mac in case anything happened
to my Centris AV. I never needed to use it as a backup Mac, but
toward the end of its life, it had the distinction of serving as
our first kitchen Mac and MP3 player when I wasn't travelling.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=5300c>
**1996** -- The time had come to upgrade my desktop Mac again, and
in 1996 I moved from the Centris 660AV to a Power Mac 8500/150 and
a pair of Apple 20-inch monitors. After years of using monitors
of varying sizes to extend my desktop, having a matched set was
heaven, and the Power Mac 8500 put the performance of the Centris
660AV to shame with PowerPC-native software. Tonya also felt
the need to upgrade to a Power Mac 7600, which replaced her 7100.
By now we needed an ever-increasing number of servers, so whenever
we bought a new desktop Mac, the Mac it replaced was often
immediately pressed into service, either as an internal file
server or as an Internet server.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=8500>
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=7600>
Speaking of Internet servers, 1996 also brought the release
of the only Performa we've ever owned, a Performa 6400 that has
worked for years as a server. It was our second most-recent
internal file, print, and backup server; we replaced it with
a Power Mac G4/450, and I'm planning to use it in place of
the 6150 as Tristan's Mac.
**1997** -- As far as I can remember, we didn't buy any Macs
in 1997, a fact that was largely related to Apple's heavily
publicized woes, which I commented on in TidBITS-392_ in an
article about MacUser and Macworld merging. Ad sales were down
across the industry, and we simply didn't feel as though we
had the money to buy new Macs. Nevertheless, Apple did release
two interesting, if short-lived, models in 1997: the elegant
Twentieth Anniversary Mac and the diminutive PowerBook 2400.
Neither spawned any direct successors, though it's possible
that some of their design decisions influenced later Macs.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=04091>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=02216>
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=anniversary>
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=2400>
**1998** -- As Apple's death spiral continued, we stayed on
the sidelines when it came to buying Macs. However, in 1998,
my PowerBook 5300c was stolen when our house was burglarized,
and our homeowner's insurance provided a PowerBook G3 (Wallstreet)
as a replacement. In fact, the PowerBook 5300c was the only Mac
to be stolen, most likely because it was small and relatively
recent. Woe to the thief who tried to walk off with my 20-inch
monitors! The insurance agent was fine to work with on the
purchase, though I did have a bit of explaining about why I
need a Road Rocket PC Card-based video card as well, since the
PowerBook G3 couldn't run two monitors in extended desktop mode
as the 5300c had been able to do, and I've always wanted my
PowerBooks to be able to take over for a dead desktop Mac.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05033>
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=pg3s>
The PowerBook G3 was a good machine, and one I liked quite
a lot. It has stayed in constant use (running Jaguar) after
being replaced by other laptops since it has a PC Card slot into
which I put the Lucent WaveLAN Silver card cannibalized from our
original AirPort Base Station. That Lucent WaveLAN card hooks to
a pigtail that then connects to the 24 dB parabolic antenna used
for our long-range wireless Internet connection. The PowerBook
then routes all the traffic internally; it also ran LetterRip Pro
and Swiki until we switched to Web Crossing.
<http://www.letterrip.com/>
<http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/swiki>
Of course, 1998 also saw the release of the original iMac, which
almost single-handedly reversed Apple's fortunes, though we've
never owned one.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=imac>
**1999** -- By the time 1999 rolled around, things had changed
rather a lot for us. Tristan was born, and Tonya switched
into mother mode, which changed the way she used her computer
significantly. At first, we brought her desk and Power Mac 7600
up into the dining room from our basement offices, but providing
it with an Internet connection required running 10Base-T Ethernet
cable along the floor, which only the cats and Tristan liked.
But then, in July, Apple announced the first iBook along with
AirPort, and when they became available, we bought Tonya an
AirPort-equipped blueberry iBook and an AirPort Base Station,
which enabled her to read email and browse the Web while nursing.
And, of course, we promptly dragooned the 7600 into being a
server; for the last number of years, it acted as our primary
Web and email server, finally giving way to our Xserve in 2004.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=ibook>
That blueberry iBook has been another solid performer; it's a
little large and unwieldy on the lap, but it has worked well for
us as our kitchen Mac and MP3 player. The 800 by 600 screen is a
small liability, and we've had trouble with replacement batteries
over the years, but for some unknown reason, it's charging the
battery now, and in conjunction with the AirPort Express Base
Station, which also hooks to our stereo, can be used entirely
wirelessly again.
In 1999, my family also purchased a pair of iMacs, a tangerine one
for my grandmother and a blueberry one for my other grandparents.
I spent quite a bit of time setting them up in grandparent mode,
and both have worked well overall. The tangerine iMac gets little
use these days, given that my grandmother is 89 and suffering from
the human equivalent of bad RAM coupled with directory corruption,
but I just upgraded the blueberry iMac my other grandparents use
with more RAM and Mac OS X so they could use a modern Web browser
necessary for online stock trades.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=imacrevd>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07978>
**2000** -- In 2000, it was time to replace my desktop Mac again
and move the Power Mac 8500 down to server duties (it's currently
hosting some of our article databases). I opted for the mid-range
Power Mac G4/450, which had actually been introduced in 1999,
though Apple had trouble getting enough chips of the right speeds
and had to rejigger the performance and price points for a while.
I quite liked the Power Mac G4/450, and in fact, the reason
I replaced it in 2002 was not due to performance problems,
but because of the cost of supporting a pair of monitors.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=g4agp>
2000 also saw the release of the Power Mac G4 Cube, which had
numerous adherents, including my parents, who still use it as
their main desktop Mac. The Cube was, of course, a design tour
de force, and wonderfully silent, but it was too expensive for
the fact that it couldn't be expanded. Apple didn't sell many,
and quietly (but never officially) discontinued it in 2001.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=g4cube>
**2001** -- We made our move from Seattle back to Ithaca, NY in
2001, and the move figured directly in several Mac purchases.
I had a number of trips scheduled in the May through August time
frame, and our move itself was on June 30th, so I decided it was
a good time to replace the PowerBook G3 with the just-released 500
MHz white iBook. I didn't regret that decision at all; the iBook
was a great workhorse machine for a number of months when I was
using it more than the Power Mac G4, and its combination of decent
performance, solid construction, and wireless networking endeared
it to me.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06452>
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&;
model=ibook_dual_usb>
Tonya kept relying on her blueberry iBook for much of the year,
but after we were settled in Ithaca, she wanted to switch back
to a more-powerful desktop Mac, so we bought a Power Mac G4/733
(Quicksilver) and an Apple 17-inch LCD monitor. That enabled the
blueberry iBook to take up its kitchen Mac and MP3 player duties
full time. The Quicksilver has performed fairly well, but it came
with a CD-RW optical drive, which has proven quite irritating on
a number of occasions when we need to install something from DVD.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=
g4_quicksilver>
Interestingly, although we tried to give away as many old Macs as
we could before we left Seattle, we ended up moving the SE/30, the
PowerBook 100, the PowerBook Duo 230, the Centris 660AV, the Apple
Workgroup Server 6150, and the Performa 6400. Only the last two
have seen much use (and I cannibalized parts from the 660AV for
the 6150), but it can be tricky to get rid of Macs that require
so much obsolete knowledge to set up and use.
**2002** -- As you can see, I generally go 3 to 4 years between
new desktop Macs, so buying a dual 1 GHz Power Mac G4 (Mirrored
Drive Door) to replace my perfectly functional Power Mac G4/450
was a bit unusual. It was driven by two factors. First, one of
my two 20-inch Apple CRT monitors finally died, and although I
worked for a while with mismatched monitors, I wasn't happy about
it. The problem was that I wanted a pair of Apple 17-inch LCDs,
which would have required expensive adapters for their ADC
connectors, and possibly a new video card as well. If I remember
my calculations at the time, it was going to cost about $600 in
adapters and cards alone, which seemed ridiculous given that the
dual 1 GHz Power Mac G4 had a double-headed video card and would
support the two Apple LCDs with the addition of only a single
adapter. Adding urgency to the decision was the fact that the
Performa 6400, which had been acting as our internal file and
backup server, was having real troubles with Retrospect. It was
too slow, and we were having issues with the SCSI-based VXA tape
drive as well that caused me to want to switch to FireWire hard
disks. Clearly the solution was to decommission the Performa 6400
and replace it with my Power Mac G4/450, and buy the new dual
1 GHz Power Mac G4. Don't you love geek rationalizations?
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=g4_mirror>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07295>
I did end up buying another Apple 17-inch LCD monitor, and
absconding with the one that Tonya had been using, replacing
it on her desk with a pair of refurbished Dell 17-inch LCD
displays that are extremely decent and especially cost-effective
when purchased refurbished.
Perhaps the universe knew that line of thinking was a
rationalization, since the dual 1 GHz Power Mac G4 has struggled
a bit. It has never seemed as fast as I think it should be, but
I've never been able to prove there were any problems. For quite
some time it would go into a tight loop and just lock up for 10-20
minutes... assuming I let it go that long. That problem defied
all efforts at troubleshooting, though in my attempt to isolate
the RAM I did end up with a whopping 1.75 GB of RAM that I quite
enjoy. Oddly, the problem eventually disappeared, and I was never
able to associate the improvement with any particular change.
I also replaced the power supply to make the Mac somewhat quieter,
though it's still far louder than I'd like, particularly when
my office is hot. A lightning strike near our house took out its
onboard Ethernet, but I worked around that with an Intel Ethernet
card that didn't require extra drivers.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07230>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07737>
**2003** -- In 2003, I had a fair amount of travel, including
a keynote address to give at the O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference
several days after we released our first Take Control ebooks and
Apple had released Panther. I was running Panther on an external
hard disk, since I hadn't dared upgrade my iBook from Jaguar just
before an important trip, and the amount of work I had to do while
away convinced me that I needed a more powerful laptop. Luckily,
Apple had just released the 12-inch PowerBook G4, and I bought an
early unit (something I seldom do). So, I handed the iBook down
to Tonya, and I've liked the 12-inch PowerBook G4 a great deal.
Perhaps the only criticisms I can make is that I can't change
batteries while it's in sleep, and it doesn't feel quite as
indestructible as the iBook did.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=pg4_12>
In 2003, we started on our great server migration by purchasing
a dual 1.33 GHz Xserve G4 to run Web Crossing. I've only seen
pictures of it, since it was delivered directly to digital.forest
for hosting, but I've been extremely happy with it from afar.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=xserveslot>
**2004** -- All of our computers had been doing their jobs
acceptably, so 2004 didn't bring any new additions. However,
I did receive a third-generation 20 GB iPod as a Christmas
present at the end of 2003, so I'll count it in the 2004 category.
Initially, I thought I'd use the iPod for bringing music into
our bedroom, given that everything we owned was now in MP3
format, and I couldn't bear to deal with physical CDs any more.
I also thought the iPod would be useful on car trips, and for
that purpose bought a TransPod from Lifestyle Outfitters for
the car; it holds the iPod in a dock, charges it from the car's
outlet, and provides a relatively easy-to-use FM transmitter.
Thanks to the awkwardly jointed arm that plugs into the car
charging socket, it's tremendously clumsy to use. As much as
it works and does provide the collection of features I wanted
(hold the iPod so it can be used, charge it, and transmit it
via FM or cassette adapter), I rather dislike the TransPod and
explicitly do not recommend it. Luckily, thanks to living in
Ithaca, where you're hard pressed to drive more than 15 or 20
minutes at a time, we use the iPod in the car only for occasional
long trips. Where the iPod has proven life-changing is in helping
us go to sleep every night - we're now on our second listening
of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything audiobook,
and we're still learning things.
<http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=ipod_3g>
<http://www.everythingipod.com/suggest.tpl?command=search&db=dbs/products.db&;
eqPRONAMEdatarq=DLO%20TransPod%20FM%3Cbr%3EAll-In-One%20Car%20Solution>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08004>
**2005 and Beyond** -- So far this year, we've managed to resist a
Mac mini, although bad noises have been emanating from the fan of
the Power Mac G4/450, which continues in its role as internal file
and backup server. The Mac mini is so cheap that I'd have to think
carefully about the cost of replacing the power supply in the
Power Mac G4/450 if it died entirely. Of course, the other, more
likely alternative is that we'd buy Tonya a new Power Mac G5 after
the June/July time frame, when my research for "Take Control of
Buying a Mac" indicates that we're likely to see either a speed
bump or a major model change. Then her Power Mac G4/733 could take
over server duties. And of course, I'm starting to itch for a new
desktop Mac that's quieter than my current one, but I want to see
what appears with the next round of Power Macs.
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/buying-mac.html>
I hope you've enjoyed this trip through the history of Apple's
Macintosh development, seen through my eyes over the past
15 years. I'm a little shocked that we've owned so many Macs -
20 all told - but I'm also tremendously pleased to see how long
we use them. In fact, every Mac we've bought since 1998 is still
in everyday use, and of the seven Macs we bought from 1994 to
1996, only the PowerBook 520 and stolen PowerBook 5300c either
aren't still in use or were finally turned off in 2005. I'll
gladly pay a little more for computers that I can rely on in
varying capacities for 7 to 10 years.
Take Control News/18-Apr-05
---------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
People at Apple aren't the only ones furiously preparing for
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. We're putting the finishing touches on our
slate of Take Control of Tiger ebooks, which we plan to ship right
when Tiger does.
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/news/>
**Pre-orders Open for Our Tiger Ebooks** -- Apple announced that
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger would ship at 6:00 PM on 29-Apr-05, prompting
immediate questions in email from readers asking if we would be
updating our ebooks for Tiger. But of course! A short time to
publication is one of the major advantages of ebooks, and we've
all been working extremely hard so we can release four ebooks
simultaneously with Tiger itself.
Joe Kissell has installed Tiger at least 40 times by now in
developing his all-new advice about how to best upgrade for
"Take Control of Upgrading to Tiger." In adding coverage of
Spotlight, Smart Folders, Dashboard, Automator, and more,
Matt Neuburg has almost doubled the size of "Take Control of
Customizing Tiger." And both Kirk McElhearn and Glenn Fleishman
have meticulously researched all the large and small changes
in Tiger for "Take Control of Users & Accounts in Tiger" and
"Take Control of Sharing Files in Tiger."
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/panther/upgrading.html>
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/panther/customizing.html>
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/panther/users.html>
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/panther/sharing.html>
Needless to say, Apple would have our heads on a platter if we
released these ebooks before Tiger shipped, so we'll be putting
the finishing touches on each one and working on PDF production
over the next two weeks. But if you can't wait, you can pre-order
as many of the four ebooks as you'd like for the same price as
they'll sell for after April 29th (that even applies to the
discount bundles). If you choose to pre-order, at the end of
the order process (your credit card will be charged), be sure to
download the pre-order book covers, since they include the Check
for Updates buttons you must click to download each full ebook.
We will attempt to notify everyone who pre-orders via email when
we release the final ebooks; make sure to select the "Notify me
of new Take Control books via email" checkbox while ordering.
When it comes time to download, click the Check for Updates button
and then the download link in the Web page that loads.
And so the countdown to Tiger begins!
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/18-Apr-05
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The second URL below each thread description points to the
discussion on our Web Crossing server, which will be faster.
**Replacing eFax with MaxEmail** -- Adam's article on switching
to a new fax service prompts other suggestions from readers,
including other applications that can view the TIFF-F formatted
files that some services create. (13 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2545>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/404>
**Moneydance comments** -- Jeff Carlson's pre-tax deadline rant
about Quicken and accessing online banking data spurred a few
favorable comments about the alternative software Moneydance,
including tips on how to run tax-related reports. (5 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2547>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/405>
$$
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