More on Macs and Other Classics
From John, following up on last week's On Macs and Other Classics:
Hey Charles,
Vanishing
Point sounds like my kind of movie. I'm almost surprised I
haven't seen it. Thanks for mentioning that one, I'll track it down.
I'm always a sucker for road movies which make the journey about more
than just location. From Easy Rider to Fear & Loathing in
Las Vegas - my favourite living director working with my favourite
(then still) living writer - there's something especially compelling
about setting them in times of cultural upheaval. Sounds well worth a
look.
The idea with Amazon
Studios is to let newcomers into both the writing and the
production side of moviemaking. So I kept "ease of use" in mind when
devising my story. I figured it would be practical to use the time
honoured format of great natural scenery and a classic convertible, not
least as the plot's purpose for the trip is a photography project. Any
budding director worth their salt should be able to have some fun with
all that. Besides, I'm easily bored with movies that keep the
characters chattering away inside the whole time anyway. It's nice to
have a little influence for a change. If it gets shot.
As for PowerBooks, Apple had an especially compelling lineup back in
2003 with the introduction of my 12" and your 17". It was the Verne Troyer and Yao Ming
"large and small" ad that caught my attention. I was having all the
usual problems on the Windows side and, after a lot of reading on
Apple's site and elsewhere, it was the combined notion of a deliciously
well designed PowerBook and Mac OS X that pulled me over. For
good.
The App Store and this year's coming release of the second
Intel-only major version of OS X don't spell well for much more
first- or third-party support for this old Mac. And it'll be a sad day
when I can't use Dropbox. That slick backup service helped while I was
writing Undo: I accidentally removed most of a scene and only
discovered several saves and hours later. Fortunately, a little trip to
Dropbox had the older versions back, so I could copy that part back
over while keeping my subsequent work elsewhere in the script. A
veritable undo, indeed.
It's the 13" MacBook
Air I have my eye on, of course. Every bit as compelling a Mac as
mine was way back when, and a good sight cheaper even fully loaded. The
only downside in comparison, in my view, is the non-upgradable memory,
so I'd have to spring for the 4 gigs from the outset. My track record
being, after all, just two laptops in my career starting in 1997.
John
Hi John,
Thanks for the supplementary observations. Based on
the theme of your own screenplay and your comments above, I'm confident
you would get a kick out of watching Vanishing Point. Good luck
tracking it down. I think it's available on Amazon.com.
I saw Easy Rider a bunch of times back in 1969
when it was first released. I've heard of Fear And Loathing in Las
Vegas of course, but it has eluded me thus far. In general I am a
sucker for road trip movies too.
We also seem to think along parallel lines in our
laptop preferences. I am likewise sorely enticed by the 13" MacBook
Air. I don't like the lack of memory upgradability, but I wouldn't want
any Mac running OS X 10.6
Snow Leopard or 10.5 Leopard
without having a minimum of 4 GB of RAM anyway. My concern is
whether that would be enough to satisfy potential future demands,
tending to hold onto my computers for a long time as well. Even with
OS X 10.4 Tiger, the
Pismo's maximum
1 GB of memory is marginal, but of course they are going on 11
years old, so I really can't seriously complain.
However a more topically relevant case in point is the
original MacBook Air,
forever limited to 2 GB, which is no longer adequate. My fear is that
the same dynamic may apply in the future to even a 4 GB MacBook
Air.
Consequently, my head tells me that I should probably
buy a 13" MacBook Pro next year when my three year main production Mac
replacement target arrives, and it's certainly no hardship in its
current iteration. It may well be more MacBook Air-like by this time
next year, which would probably resolve my dilemma.
Charles
An Amazingly Useful G3 iMac
From Dave in response to All-time Favorite Macs: Nostalgia
Confronts Realistic Pragmatism:
Hi Charles,
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your article and reader responses on
favorite vintage Macs. Since I recently had an interesting experience
resurrecting one, I decided I had to write.
I work as a graphic designer and illustrator for a publisher. At
work, to scan images we have an 11x17 Microtek scanner hooked to an old
G4 desktop unit running OS 9 and OS X. The reason we're
running OS 9 is because I have an affinity for Adobe Streamline,
which was never made for OS X and was "replaced" by the live trace
function in Adobe Illustrator. I like the way Streamline processes the
images a lot better than the way live trace does it. With our old setup
- OS 9 and our old SCSI scanner - a workhorse Agfa we'd been
running for about 15 years - you could scan through Streamline (it
opened the scanner software automatically) and convert the scanned TIFF
image to vector all in the one program. Our current system, the G4 with
the Microtek scanner, requires third party software to do the scanning
in OS X, after which I have to open Streamline in OS 9 and
reopen the image to process it. Needless to say, the more current
process is a lot slower - the scanner is slower (about 8 minutes to
scan), and I need more than one piece of software to get the job
done.
Over the next couple of days the office where I work is being
recarpeted and painted, requiring me to work from home. While I have a
scanner set up I use with my 17" MacBook Pro laptop and desktop 24"
iMac model, I don't run OS 9 off either machine. So, in order to
scan, I would need to convert images to vector using live trace. I have
to say I really didn't want to do that. I was ruminating over the
prospect when it hit me: I still had my old Epson scanner and my old
Lime iMac slot-loading
G3 kicking around the basement. I remembered I'd installed
Streamline on the machine and set it up exactly as our work machine had
been set up. There was really no reason not to put the two back in
service for the next few days. The current set up at work takes about 7
minutes to scan and another couple to clean and convert to vector. My
old iMac G3 with my old scanner takes maybe 30 seconds to scan and
another minute to convert to vector. I was able to do all seven scans I
had on my plate in about the time it takes two using the newer system.
Sometimes simpler really is better. I realized how much I miss these
old systems. As others have mentioned, I was able to troubleshoot just
about anything that went wrong with them. The really funny part about
this machine was it didn't have a CD writer. I used to use a Zip drive
with it, but I couldn't lay my hands on it. I did find my old USB
Iomega floppy drive. So, believe it or not, I transferred the images
from the iMac G3 to my MacBook Pro using a floppy disk. The files are
pretty small, so I fit them all on one floppy. :) I guess I
really didn't need the Zip drive after all.
Well, having my old lime buddy upstairs made me realize just how
cool this machine was. My decor is retro, and I realized these old
flavored iMacs have gone from old clunker to retro gem in the last few
years. It occurred to me it would make a pretty cool living room
conversation piece. And even better, if I buy an inexpensive external
drive and load all my iTunes on it, the old Lime iMac can become a
pretty cool stereo unit too. I will probably be hooking it up to my
1961 Olympic stereo console unit for speakers. I've found an external
drive that is compatible with both OS 9 and OS X, because I
will need to transfer the iTunes from an external drive the Lime iMac
won't recognize. Do you have any advice that might be helpful in
carrying out this operation? I was reading somewhere I'd need to format
the drive for OS 9. Is this true and if so, will my newer iMac
recognize it?
Thanks!
Dave
Hi Dave,
I enjoyed reading the interesting chronicle of your
adventures with scanning on those old Macs. As a matter of fact, I
still do pretty well all of my scanning with a now-elderly Epson
Perfection flatbed and a Minolta transparency scanner on my old Pismo
PowerBooks running OS X 10.4. Photoshop Elements 3 or 4,
ToyViewer, and Color it! 4.5 do most of the image editing work. I have
scanner software for both the scanners but am inclined these days to
use VueScan mostly. Have you
tried it? I'm pretty confident that it would support both your Agfa and
Epson scanners, and it can perform quite a bit of image manipulation in
the scanning application itself, although not conversion to vector
images.
I think the Lime model was my favorite fruit-colored
iMac - definitely my favorite clamshell iBook model.
I am curious as to how you read the floppy disks with
a MacBook Pro.
As for your file transfer dilemma in relation to drive
formatting, I'm anything but an expert, but a thought that occurs is
that using one of the Windows or DOS formats might work, since both
Macs should be able to read them.
There's a lot of information here: http://www.macwindows.com/diskfile.html
However, both OS 9 and OS X should be able to access
volumes formatted in HFS+, which supports operating systems Mac OS 8.1,
Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Darwin, Linux, and Microsoft Windows (through
MacDrive or Boot Camp IFS drivers).
Charles
Hi Charles,
I've never used VueScan. I'm using the Epson software that came with
my Epson scanner run through Streamline at home to make the vector
images. At work we have a two-year-old large format Microtek scanner (I
hate Microtek!). Microtek software really stinks, other than for black
and white, depending on the material the drawing is on. We had to get
third party software that cost $400 to do color work and anything drawn
on tracing paper. To scan the artwork I have to go through all sorts of
gyrations like adjusting the amount of light or photocopying the image
first so I can use the Microtek software instead. My scanner at home
had no problem with any drawing material. And the thing is slow as
hell. We haven't used the Agfa scanner since moving to newer computers
with OS X, because the Agfa isn't supported any more and has a
SCSI connector. It hides under the desk now, and I don't think I would
be supported in trying to put it back into service.
I'm looking at clamshells
on
eBay lately. I think I'm going to get a tangerine one and use it
for writing when I don't feel like lugging the MacBook Pro and need to
keep myself off line to focus.
I use an external Iomega USB floppy drive to read floppies on my
MacBook Pro. It's even an Intel Mac, and it has no problem reading the
disks. It seems like anything with a USB port will read it. I picked it
up cheap a couple of years ago on eBay.
That's an interesting idea having a PC formatted external drive. I
never would have thought of that. I'm glad I didn't buy the drive yet.
I'll have to do a little more research first. Thanks for the link.
Since I wrote to you, I joined the forum on RetroMacCast. I've really been
enjoying it. Someone walked me through getting my Mac Classic running again. I'm
now working on trying to get my Mac SE SuperDrive running. It's a
tough nut to crack, because the floppy drive has a disk jammed in it,
and it won't recognize a Zip drive so far. It bombs due to not being
able to find the Finder. I think I'll need to open this one up to get
it going again. The Classic ended up being easy because it had a boot
disk right in it. Just had to boot off the boot disk and replace the
System folder.
Thanks for getting back to me.
Dave
Hi Dave,
My pleasure.
The scanning software that came with my Epson
perfection scanner is serviceable, but I find it very pedestrian
compared with VueScan.
VueScan can be downloaded and tried out as a fully
functional demo for free. The only limitation is that your scans will
be watermarked until you pay the registration fee.
I share your dim view of Microtek scanners based on an
old black-and-white Microtek scanner I bought years ago back in
68030/OS 7.1 Mac days. It's in perfect condition, and I don't think
it's been used for a dozen years or so. I remember being underwhelmed
by the scanner software, but on the other hand it was my first scanner
and in some respects quite a revelation. VueScan works with literally
hundreds of different scanners, old and new, and probably supports the
old Microtek machines - and almost certainly would your two-year-old
one, which you might like better if you had decent software to use with
it.
I have a VST expansion bay SuperDisk/floppy drive
somewhere for my Pismos, but haven't used it for many years. It worked
fine with OS 9, however. Not sure sure about drivers for
OS X. If I really need to access a floppy, which I haven't had
occasion to do in a very long time, I have a old SuperMac S900 tower that has a floppy
drive, as well as USB and FireWire PCI expansion cards, so for me it
could serve as an intermediary if the need presented itself. Someday,
if I ever get some spare time, it would be an interesting exercise to
go through the dozens of old floppies I have to see what's on them.
Probably opening up that SuperDrive floppy drive is
the way to proceed with attempting to restore it to service. Let me
know how it turns out.
Charles
Mac Nostalgia
From Brian:
Charles,
Your last article even got me thinking.
I've the litany of Macintosh computers. Sadly, my "Fat Mac" disappeared in the
early 1990s after I left home for the service, but I still have, in
order of purchase:
Mac Classic, Mac
Classic II, a Color
Classic, my Power Mac
G4 Sawtooth, my late
model G5 iMac, and finally, my primary development vehicle, a
2010 13" MacBook
Pro.
I'm an author,
programmer, and member of the National Guard. From the active duty Army
to college/grad school, these Macs have served and continue to serve me
well.
When I was in the Army and during the early college years, the
transportable nature of the Mac Classic II and Color Classic served me
well. Computing back then was as much about economy of space as it was
about productivity and entertainment. My friends with their ungainly PC
clones struggled with fitting their PCs in the metal affairs in a
manner that didn't constitute work between barracks inspections.
Finding software at the time was harder on far flung military
installations, but I was at least happy doing it.
Later, when space became less of a concern, repurposing these Macs
for various purposes became a matter of pride. I performed the "Takky"
upgrade on my Color Classic. The original Classic is retired, but
the Classic II gets booted when I want to demonstrate to my children
that the games of my youth involved a text parser, probably the
equivalent of walking uphill in the snow to this generation. The G4 and
G5 make nice platforms for education software titles, and the G5 is
still supported enough that my daughter doesn't feel lame using it. She
can talk to her older sister using Skype and its built-in iSight, which
still makes it incredibly relevant.
I love the MacBook Pro. The built in SD Card is great, the keyboard
has a nice touch for extended hours of coding. It's also extremely
lightweight and durable, which makes it ideal for the drill weekends
with the Guard when I don't want to travel heavy but still want to be
productive. The best part of it all is that since in real life I
primarily write in either Coldfusion or C#.NET, with free tools such as
Sun/Oracle's VirtualBox and a licensed copy of Windows 2003 server, I'm
able to seamlessly do my development in an environment I can stomach.
Thus far, this is the only real advantage I find in owning an Intel
Mac. Otherwise, I could still get by with an ancillary Windows box and
the iMac.
I love Low End Mac, though. The list of Macs I own may sound like
I've lead a gilded existence, but all but the iMac and the MacBook Pro
were scored in various deals. I'm frugal, which is why I am not
inclined to let any of these machines die, besides the fact that each
of them has a story of its own.
Speaking of stories, one thing I love is that it is still entirely
possible to scribe a relevant novel using Microsoft Office 98 on the
Color Classic. OS 9 (with the Apple Japan appearance theme Drawing
Board, which still appeals to my sense of aesthetic over ten years
later), is still potent enough an environment to get the job done. One
of my mentors swore he'd only write his books on a SelectWriter, so I
suppose the CC is my SelectWriter.
My very first computer was a Kaypro 2X. There was no more
austere a writing environment than the green and black screen, with the
metallic reverb of its keyboard. However, since I wanted to craft
literary elegance, the Mac had and still has so much more appeal. Sure,
you can wield your computer like a blunderbuss, but Macs, even old
ones, have an air of functional sophistication that should mean
something. You show me a Windows user who holds his first Windows 3.1
box in such high esteem. I doubt you'll find such a thing.
At any rate, good work, I love reading the efforts you and Mr.
Knight put forth.
All the best,
Brian
Hi Brian,
Thanks for the stories. I always enjoy reading about
people's Mac Odysseys.
I still have a Mac Plus, an LC 520, a PowerBook 5300, a SuperMac S900, a
PowerBook 1400, three Pismos, a
G3 iBook, a 17"
PowerBook (handed off to my wife), and an aluminum unibody MacBook.
The MacBook of course shares the form factor with your
13" MacBook Pro, so you're preaching to the converted about its
virtues. In 20/20 hindsight, I wish I had waited another four months
and bought the pro model with its SD Card and FireWire slot, but the
MacBook has been a flawless and dependable performer for two years now,
and I'm planning to try to get a third year out of it as my primary
work platform before upgrading. If I was doing that today, it would be
a tough choice between a 13" MacBook Pro and the 13" MacBook Air.
I never had a Color Classic, but I always admired it.
I'm a fan of small computers, and that 10" Sony Trinitron display was a
real jewel.
I also cut my computing teeth with a green on black
monitor, in my case it was a humongously big WangWriter II dedicated
word processor, that I also still have and presume still works (not
having verified that for a long time). The system disks are on 5.25"
floppies (that are genuinely floppy), and I suppose that data written
on them has a finite life. Actually, it was a pretty good rig in the
context of its time, and it had a superb keyboard. Even the daisy wheel
printer, although heartbreakingly slow and earsplittingly noisy, did a
reasonably creditable job with the wide selection of font wheels that
came with it.
However, the Mac Plus was a whole 'nother dimension
and revelation. Talk about "magical". In the context of another time, I
could completely appreciate what Steve Jobs was getting at in his
iPad introduction. I would venture that
the early Macs were a greater and more horizon-expanding departure from
the old green or amber screen hardware than the iPad is from today's
Macs.
Charles
Beautiful Cars
From Zed:
I got to admit that for me nothing is uglier than anything produced
by American Motors from the early 70s till they died of extreme taste
failure. The Gremlin, Pacer, Matador, and even the
Hornet all looked
like bloated sausages with bizarre proportions. I think if you look up
any "top ten
ugliest cars" list you'll find at least two of these cars on that
list.
1969 Citröen DS
My take on the most beautiful car is the 1969 Citröen
DS. This is the 4 headlight "shark" front model. Especially the
European version with the glass headlight covers. That car was designed
with love, and it shows.
Zed
Hi Zed,
I'm not quite as down on American Motors styling as
you are. I liked the mid-1970s Matador fastback two-door hardtops,
although the Matador four-door sedan was plug ugly, and the first
iteration of the Javelin (styled by Dick
Teague, if memory serves me) was no-excuses attractive in a tasteful
and restrained way. The second-generation were less appealing to my
sense of aesthetics, but not bad. As for the rest you mention, no
argument. Some were sort of fetchingly quirky, and at least different,
but not pretty.
1968 AMC Javelin
I do agree with you wholeheartedly about the
Citröen DS. Have you checked out the one that Simon Baker drives
in his Patrick Jane persona on The Mentalist? The
most as a terribly cool DS in my estimation is the very rare
convertible model. A couple friends of mine, now both passed away, were
Citröen DS fans and owned several between them. They are fantastic
cars from an engineering as well as styling standpoint. The French have
designed some exquisitely ugly cars (a good example is the Citröen Deux
Chevaux), but they really nailed it with the DS in both
contexts.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts,
Charles
AppleCare Makes Sense for Laptops
From Daniel:
Let me add my 2¢:
I've owned my PowerBook for six years and counting, and the $250
[cost of AppleCare] has been more than covered in those first couple
years. What moving part do you think gets the most wear/force exerted
on it? In my case, that was the hinge, where the power connections to
the display happen to be. I had issues with the same part there
twice.
The first time, they mailed the machine to Texas with a week
turnaround time. I was not happy about the down time, to say the least.
Within a year, the same part went out, so this time I took it to a
local certified Mac repair shop (not the Apple Store), and the guy did
the work in less than a day, billed Apple for the cost, and I haven't
had a problem with them since.
In retrospect, I should have gone to the same place when they
finally issued the recall on the power bricks. You might remember they
had the issue where the insulation on the smaller wire would become
rigid and eventually burn through. I managed to do that to three of
them shortly after AppleCare ran out and had to buy new ones each time.
Unfortunately, the snots at the Apple Store wouldn't do a thing about
reimbursement and the new one I had to buy, even though I had the fried
evidence right there in front of them.
My advice is going to be always to take it to the local authorized
repair shop with Apple Care. They're faster. There's no shipping
hassle. And they don't ask questions or make big deals about cosmetic
damage that obviously has nothing to do with the issue at hand. This
last bit of info should be valuable to anyone thinking about Apple
Care.
Hi Daniel,
Sounds like good advice based on experience. At least
if one lives within reasonable distance of a local authorized Apple
repair shop. For me, the nearest one is 150 road miles away, which
complicates matters somewhat. However, happily in my 19 years as a Mac
user, I've only been obliged to send machines away for service twice,
and that was the first two Macs I ever owned. The first instance was
with my Mac Plus, which needed a video inverter repair, and I had a RAM
upgrade installed (to a whopping 2.5 MB!) while it was in the shop. The
second was my LC 520, which had developed a noisy cooling fan and and
issue I was unable to accurately diagnose, but resulted in the
motherboard being replaced. That happened toward the end of the basic
12 month warranty period and was not an AppleCare repair. Since then,
I've handled the exceedingly rare instances of my Macs needing repair
or service myself.
However, as you say, in your case the AppleCare fee
paid off. I've never had any hinge failures with any of my Mac
notebooks, including models that were notorious for it, such as the
WallStreet. However my laptops usually don't get a tremendous amount of
open and close cycles, so my experience in that context it probably not
typical.
Charles
Long Term Value vs. Price
From Brett in response to the
2011.02.11 'Book Review:
Hi Charles,
I always enjoy reading your work, and the 'Book Review compilations
are great too. The link this week to the
Adamo article on The Loop got me thinking about something I've
considered a few times.
My wife is (sadly) not yet in the Mac fold, she remains a "PC girl"
in spite of her frustrations - however, she likes nice looking hardware
:) and of course the Adamo fit the bill in every respect -
except price.
However, Dell also makes a very similar Vostro unit, first as the
V13 and now as the V130. I will likely purchase a V130 for her as a
surprise anniversary present (not very traditional, I know). It looks
very similar to the Adamo, as I am sure you are aware, and is much more
reasonably priced (Dell hasn't been kind enough to extend the lowered
prices on the Adamo to Canadians, for some reason - and doesn't seem to
be listing it at all right now anyway).
So perhaps the Vostro V13 and V130 have also cannibalized Adamo
sales - some folks want the look, but didn't need the higher-end
components. I mean, for a lot of folks integrated graphics and standard
hard drives are good enough - the V130 looks the part and works well
from what I've read.
Anyway - keep up the good work!
-Brett
Hi Brett,
Thanks for the kind words about my scribbling, and the
comments.
You're probably correct about the Vostro Dells
siphoning off sales from the Adamo. However, Dell (and most other PC
manufacturers) seems to be unable to produce competing products that
have the style, appeal, and overall panache that Apple hardware
typically does. I think that the Adamo was probably doomed from the
get-go for that reason, and of course it's high price. Many people will
pay more for Apple. Considerably fewer for another Windows PC box.
Sorry you can't persuade your wife to go with a
MacBook Air, but if she really prefers Windows, she's of course
entitled to.
Charles
Hi Charles,
You are quite welcome - thank you for your reply.
I agree with you about Dell and other PC manufacturers (I saw just
today on CNET that HP has canceled the Envy 13, which was another
MacBook Air "competitor") - you are right in my opinion too, they just
cannot compete with Apple, even when they try. I have this argument
with a colleague of mine at least once a week.
He's a staunch Apple-hater and PC-lover, and he'll go on and on
about how he doesn't understand me buying Apple products, especially
laptops. Yet he is saving to buy an Audi or a BMW - when I try to make
it into a car analogy, he somehow misses the point (I will typically
say to him, "the 2011 Hyundai Sonata 2.0T is almost the same as a base
model Audi A4 2.0T except for the lack of AWD, it has more power and
equivalent or perhaps nicer interior - plus a better warranty and
better reliability - so why would anyone pay for an Audi?")
Of course, I'd prefer the Audi too myself - as I prefer the Apple
hardware, since it not only looks better to me and functions better for
me, but it seems to last longer as well. My "second" laptop is a
last-model PowerBook
G4 (just prior to the Intel switch, so a 1.67 GHz, with 2 GB
memory) and it is running Leopard like a top. I paid $650 for it
including tax and shipping last October. I know a lot of folks who
bought PC laptops for that around the same time - they got plasticized,
creaky machines with loud fans - and I predict they will be buying new
ones long before the PowerBook needs replacement.
(My primary laptop is a 2008 MacBook Pro 2.5
GHz with 6 GB memory, last one prior to the unibody - I love it and
will probably put an SSD in it when Lion comes out, then do a fresh
install.)
I have considered buying a MacBook Air for my wife anyway - if she
really doesn't like OS X, I can install Windows 7 on it, I suppose
:) or I could just keep it for myself!
Have a great day and a great weekend Charles,
-Brett
Hi Brett,
I thought of you today when I read about the HP Envy
13 being canceled.
I also have a PowerBook G4 - a 17" unit with the 1.33
GHz PowerPC processor. I handed it off to my wife about a year ago, but
it's still running great with Leopard. It just works, which is what she
cares about in computers. Goes for months, sometimes even seasons
without a restart. The original battery, which dates back to at least
2005 and probably further back than that (it was an Apple Certified
Refurbished unit, and the ACR serial number is from July 2005), still
has useful life in it, although almost certainly less than 80% of its
original capacity.
If the sticking point for your wife is Windows
affinity, why not indeed run it on a MacBook Air?
I think the analogy of Apple hardware and German cars
hold a lot of water, not least because Steve Jobs has long been a
Mercedes and Porsche fan. Good point about the latest iteration of the
Hyundai Sonata, which is truly impressive, especially in light of it's
modest price. The midsize range is a brutally competitive market
segment with a vast selection of excellent choices. My favorites among
the current and recent offerings have been the Mazda 6, the Chevy
Malibu, and the Ford Fusion, but I think were I buying right now I
would go with the Sonata. And I say that as a current Toyota Camry
owner. Of course an Audi is a whole other dimension, and raw
specifications really don't capture the essence of it's desirability,
anymore than citing clock speeds and feature lists adequately sizes up
the essence of a Mac.
I think Oscar Wilde's observation about people who
know the price of everything and the value of nothing applies quite
well to Apple - dissing Windows fans, and as Steve Jobs put it so well:
"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have
absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that
in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and
they don't bring much culture into their products."
Charles
Hi Charles,
I know that's what my wife values most in her computer as well -
that it should "just work" - so I guess sometimes I wonder why she
keeps using Vista (I've even suggested she try dual-booting Windows 7
on her current Dell, but she won't budge!) - she does have her share of
problems.
I will say this, from time to time she's mentioned perhaps being
interested in an iPad but then worries about the lack of physical
keyboard, which makes me think maybe an 11" MacBook Air would do it -
and then with Boot Camp and Windows, it would be perfect. We shall
see.
I can't help but use car analogies, as I am as much a car-lover as I
am a computer-lover (though I currently drive a Hyundai Accent, in
spite of missing my VW GTI terribly, I have to be practical since we
have four children - a 9-year old and 6-year old triplets - it comes
down to putting your money where it is best served, sometimes
:) which doesn't explain why I have four computers of my own -
then one for my wife - two for the kids, with more coming. *sigh*)
I do love German as well as Japanese cars, but I can see if I
upgrade in future it will probably be to a Sonata, since they are just
so well-made for the price.
I like the Oscar Wilde observation and Steve Jobs' quote - though I
do like and respect my colleague, these words seem to fit him when it
comes to his hatred of all things Apple and his love for Microsoft and
commodity-spec computer hardware. As an example, on Friday evening he
called me for some assistance. He was putting a new hard drive in a
Toshiba A200 laptop (the old hard drive died somehow), and then when he
went to install Windows, he discovered that the optical drive would not
recognize the disc. The A200 was manufactured and sold in 2007, yet my
2006-vintage PowerBook G4 is still working perfectly, burning discs
like crazy, and the battery shows over 90% capacity. Go figure.
I ended up loaning my colleague a Windows 7 USB installer to get him
out of his predicament. That's what you get for valuing bottom line
over quality, right?
As a side note, I used to own a B&W [Power Mac] G3/400,
which ran perfectly until I sold it last year, and I had picked it up
secondhand in 2005 (I had also upgraded it with a DVD burner, 1 GB
of memory and dual 120 GB hard discs). How many PC's from 1999 are
still running well in 2011?
It makes me want to buy a nice Power Mac G4, maybe an MDD with FW800, while I can
still find them.
Have a great day
Brett
Hi Brett,
At least from my perspective, an 11.6" MacBook Air
sounds like it would be perfect for your wife if she's looking for a
small computing platform with a good keyboard that can run her beloved
Windows. Except for the Windows part, it's a solution that certainly
appeals to me. My most significant objections to the MacBook Air are
the non-upgradable RAM capped at 4 GB and the not adequate for my
needs maximum 128 GB storage capacity in the 11.6" model and the
astronomical price of the 256 MB option in the 13-incher.
I was a consummate car freak for some 30-odd years
before I got my first personal computer. Nothing to apologize for in
running a Hyundai Accent. It's a cost-effective, economical, and
reliable automobile, And when you have small children, that takes
precedence of importance.
I've owned something north of 60 cars over the past 44
years, starting with a Nash Metropolitan
when I was 15. When our kids were young, I drove a Dodge Royal
Sportsman eight passenger van with a 360 CID V-8. Fortunately, gas was
a lot less expensive in those days. The van was pretty much a dud when
it came to driving pleasure, but it was very practical for hauling a
family around.
The only German car I've ever actually owned was a
1962 Volkswagen Beetle,
but I've driven Mercedes-Benz and BMW, and I understand the appeal. My
daughter had a BMW 3 series for a short time. She showed up here for a
weekend last summer driving a seriously hot rodded VW Super Beetle that
she helped a friend build - modified engine with twin Weber
carburetors, Porsche 928 alloy wheels with fat rubber, lowered
suspension with what felt like little more compliance than a go-cart,
but loud, powerful (as long as you kept the revs up because of the
racing style camshaft), and tons of fun to drive. Their current project
is swapping a Subaru flat four into the Super Beetle for even more
power. She also hopes to have her 1968 Imperial LeBaron convertible hot
rod with its 440 CID V8 back on the road for the summer.
Our current fleet includes the Toyota Camry that I
mentioned previously - a 1990 model that we've owned since 1998, a 1991
Corolla that is my wife's winter beater daily driver, a 1994 Mazda
B-4000 4x4 pickup (Ford Ranger clone built in New Jersey), and my pet
2000 Mercury Grand Marquis that is currently stored indoors for the
winter. The big Merc gets astonishingly good fuel mileage on highway
runs, is superbly comfortable, and even handles decently well. That
Ford Panther platform is probably the best rear wheel drive body on
frame design the company ever built. My daughter has had two Police
Interceptor ford Crown Victorias, which are the same chassis as the
Merc. I like to upgrade the Merc's suspension to Police Interceptor
specification, but will probably never get around to it.
As for your rhetorical query: "How many PC's from 1999
are still running well in 2011?" I still have two Pismo PowerBooks in
daily production use running OS X 10.4 Tiger. I expect that there
are very few contemporaneous Windows laptops still in active service,
although Windows XP is still far and away the most prolific operating
system in use with personal computers.
Charles
Hi Charles,
Yes, that's what I am thinking as well. I have seen a new model Sony
VAIO (a "Y", I think, it's an 11.6" form factor running an AMD Fusion
processor) for $499 - but it's all "plastic-y" so I'm not sure - plus
no SSD, only 2 GB memory, etc. - I may just take a chance when Lion
comes out and splurge for her, see how she likes it, and if she
doesn't, we can always put Windows 7 on it.
I figure collecting computers is a pretty benign hobby compared with
some of the others out there, and they don't seem to rust away, unlike
cars in this part of Canada (good old Eastern Ontario salt trucks) -
and as you say, with small children (and many of them in our case),
practical is best. We have a Kia Sedona minivan as the other vehicle,
and we love it. The Accent makes the best sense for me since my daily
commute is only 36 km round-trip. I have considered going with a hybrid
next time, but that's just the "tech junkie" in me talking, as I would
never recoup the additional cost in spite of the fuel savings with such
a short commute. Now, when the cost of those drops (i.e., when Hyundai
puts out a hybrid Accent), I may make the jump. I have driven both the
Insight and the Prius, and they remind me of Star Trek
shuttlecraft inside!
I have two semi-vintage Macs on my radar at present - a Ti PowerBook (which was my first
"modern Mac", I used one for work in 2003-04) and a Cube. So I keep my eyes open on
eBay - one of these days, the right ones will come along, and I will
grab them both :)
For now, what I have is ticking along well - the Al PowerBook is
fast enough for a Web work/writing machine and can remotely access my
other machines if I need more horsepower. My MacBook Pro is only three
years old and so it is still a powerhouse as far as I am concerned. I
will probably put an SSD in it when OS X 10.7 comes out and take
advantage of that moment to do a clean install rather than an upgrade.
Then every application will have to "earn" a spot on the hard drive,
and it will give me a good reason to simplify my work flow (I run two
consulting businesses from home on the side, one as a computer services
business for SMB's, and one as a Federally incorporated nuclear
consulting company with a colleague).
I admit to also having a soft spot for the old Clamshell iBooks...
;) so I wouldn't be surprised if one ends up here someday!
- Brett
Hi Brett,
I understand your sentimental affection for the
TiBook, but they were not a particularly long-lasting Mac laptop.
Wegener Media's David Wegener once told me that he had a large
collection of dead TiBook motherboards, but very few Pismo ones.
I had a Cube (Dan Knight used it a bit first), but
swapped it even for one of the Pismos I'm still using back in 2001.
I'll see your "good old Eastern Ontario salt trucks"
and raise you year-round coastal Nova Scotia salt spray from storms,
plus a damp climate and relatively warm but snowy and slushy winters
(liberally seasoned with road salt). That's why my Mercury and my
wife's Camry are mothballed for the winter.
IMHO, hybrids, while technically interesting (and
statistically, the Prius is Toyota's most trouble-free model), make
little economic sense unless you're an urban commuter in a lot of
low-speed, stop-start traffic. For highway commutes, diesels are the
economy champs.
Charles
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