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When Is Your PowerPC Mac Too Old? Linux Could Extend Its Useful Life
Apple MacBook Component Factory In China Still Shut Down Due To Noxious Fume Emissions
SHOOTOUT: Seagate's Gen 2 Hybrid HDD versus Gen 1 Hybrid HDD versus HDD and SSD
Why It Makes Sense To Expect Siri For The Mac
Notebooks Expected To Fully Adopt HD Quality Webcams In The Second Half Of 2012
AMD and NVidia Launch New "Old" Generation GPUs: Rebranding for Christmas
Last DEVONtechnologies Maintenance Updates Before Christmas
Jettison 1.2 - Close Your MacBook and Go
When Is Your PowerPC Mac Too Old? Linux Could Extend Its Useful Life
Low End Mac's Dan Knight comments that Charles Moore raises a good point in his recent column, Thoughts on Using Older Macs as Work Machines ( http://bit.ly/uH6Pv5 ): "As much as we may love our old Macs," says Dan, "some of them just don't have what it takes to be productive in the wired and wireless world of the Internet today."
Dan observes that these days, we want a Mac with Ethernet or WiFi, as well as a fairly up-to-date browser, and a big problem is, that there's only one relatively modern browser still being developed for the Classic Mac OS (up to version 9.2.2), Classilla, essentially a custom port of Mozilla 1.3.1 with some additional features and updates, and if you have a Mac that can't run Mac OS X, it's probably your best bet, but to use more modern browser, you need a more modern operating system, and that's where the problem lies with early G3 Macs. The Beige Power Mac G3 and WallStreet G3 PowerBooks are only supported through Mac OS X 10.2.8.
Dan advises that if he had a Mac that could only run OS X through 10.2.8, he would probably stick with the Classic Mac OS, and with somewhat newer G3 Macs, you have the choice of running Mac OS 9, fairly outdated versions of Mac OS X, or a PowerPC version of Linux, which in theory would give you access to more modern browsers than OS X 10.2.8 and 10.3.9 support.
PenguinPPC.org is the leading resource for Linux on PowerPC hardware, including Macs and other platforms, and Dan reports that he's also been experimenting a bit with MintPPC Linux (version 9.3), trying to get it up and running on his two oldest iMacs, a 233 MHz Revision B from 1998 and a 333 MHz Rev. D from 1999. He chose
MintPPC because it's the most lightweight version of Linux for PPC Macs, and when you're running a machine in the 233-333 MHz range with a relatively slow hard drive and limited memory, that's exactly what you want.
However, he observes that surprisingly, there are quite a few different Linux distributions for PowerPC Macs -Arch Linux PPC, Fedora Linux PPC, Debian for PowerPC, and Ubuntu being just a few of the other Linux PPC distros.
For the full report visit here:
http://bit.ly/t7MhmO
Apple MacBook Component Factory In China Still Shut Down Due To Noxious Fume Emissions
IDG News Service's Michael Kan reports that Chinese authorities continue to inspect a Catcher Technology factory in Suzhou, China that produces aluminum casings for Apple's MacBook laptops, that was shut down in mid-October after nearby residents complained of unbearable odors coming from the facility.
However, Kan notes that Apple's MacBook inventories appear so far to be unaffected by the factory's temporary shutdown, according to one analyst.
For the full report visit here:
http://bit.ly/vfeviS
SHOOTOUT: Seagate's Gen 2 Hybrid HDD versus Gen 1 Hybrid HDD versus HDD and SSD
BareFeats' rob-ART morgan says Seagate is shipping the 2nd generation Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid HDD. and BareFeats wanted to know if it was faster than the 1st generation Hybrid HDD. They also wanted to know how it compares to a 'normal' HDD as well as a "pure" solid state drive., so they tested all four permutations using both Thunderbolt and 6G/s eSATA interfaces, and found that although slightly faster than a "plain" HDD, the Seagate Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid HDD can't hold a candle to a "pure" SSD.
For the full report visit here:
http://barefeats.com/tbolt03.html
Why It Makes Sense To Expect Siri For The Mac
Computerworld's Jonny Evans observes that Apple's Siri voice assistant technology in the iPhone 4S is proving itself a game-changer, noting that the company is hiring new engineers to develop its solution. So what improvements might we expect from their efforts, and when will we see Siri support in OS X?
Evans cites this come-on from Apple's help wanted ads:
"Want to make the next big thing even bigger?
Want to do the impossible?
Want to be constantly challenged into accomplishing things you know are beyond your reach?"
Evens thinks there's good reason to suspect that Siri will eventually make an appearance on the Mac, although we shouldn't be holding our breath.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://bit.ly/rN24ZG
Notebooks Expected To Fully Adopt HD Quality Webcams In The Second Half Of 2012
Digitimes' Erica Yen and Joseph Tsai report that notebook players are expected to fully adopt high definition (HD) quality webcams into notebook models in the second half of 2012, as Microsoft launches Windows 8, which is expected to start a new wave of competition among upstream optical camera module players, according to insider sources.
Yen and Tsai say that due to Microsoft's plans to have Windows 8 mainly support HD quality images, if the plan does not change, the sources expect many of the notebook brand vendors will start launching notebook models that adopt HD quality webcams in the second and third quarter of 2012.
They also project that the standard specification of rear-side cameras in smartphones and tablet PCs is quickly rising from 5-megapixels to 8-megapixels (a la the iPhone 4S), as demand for front-side cameras to deliver high quality results has risen, resulting in upstream players including Largan Precision, Newmax and Ability Opto-Electronics Technology all aggressively working to upgrade their VGA quality lenses to HD quality through their existing 2P process, while simultaneously addressing demand to make even smaller products.
For the full report visit here:
http://bit.ly/taHW7t
AMD and NVidia Launch New "Old" Generation GPUs: Rebranding for Christmas
HardMac's Lionel reports that NVidia unveiled its new series 600 GPUs this week, while AMD announced its Radeon HD 7000 models. Unfortunately, he notes, as has happened several times in the past, both GPU manufacturers have been applying a basic rebranding strategy, keeping the same hardware, and changing the design appearance and the name, with, for example, the "new" NVidia GeForce 610M, 630M and 635M being identical to the previous GT 520M, GT540M and GT550M models, and AMD's new HD 7600M, HD 7500M and HD 7400M are renames of the previously branded HD 6750M, HD 6630M and HD 6470M.
Ergo, nothing really new on the mobile GPU market.
For the full report visit here:
http://bit.ly/vf8Uur
Last DEVONtechnologies Maintenance Updates Before Christmas
Just in time for the holiday season in North America, Europe, and many other countries DEVONtechnologies has put together a package with enhancements and bug fixes for DEVONthink, DEVONagent, and DEVONnote.
DEVONthink and DEVONnote 2.3.2 display empty groups in lighter gray so that they can be easier recognized and make adding new tags to documents more comfortable. DEVONthink also comes with a better Sorter — an applet that runs independently of DEVONthink and allows to quickly add files to databases even when DEVONthink itself is not open. The update also improves compatibility of OmniOutliner 3 files, DEVONthink Pro and up come with enhanced scripts for Microsoft Entourage and Outlook, better layout handling for tabular data (sheets), and even better AppleScript support.
The updates for DEVONagent Pro and Express bring updated plugins for Googlism, PubMed, Twitter, Wiktionary, and the DEVONtechnologies user forum as well as improved wallpaper, thumbnail gallery, and video scanners. DEVONagent scanners filter search results for data types like "page contains videos" or "page is a picture gallery". In all editions of DEVONagent both keywords and names of plugins and search sets can be used to quickly search with the named search engine or search set. Plugin names can also be used in the address bar of DEVONagent Pro browser windows. DEVONagent Pro search windows display the number of unread results and a new script for DEVONagent Pro opens the last Safari session in DEVONagent.
All updates also add support for the recently relaunched DEVONtechnologies website to the built-in support assistant and fix a number of minor bugs and glitches.
"Customer satisfaction is our highest priority. The support assistant in all editions of DEVONthink, DEVONnote, as well as in DEVONagent Pro places customer support directly into our apps instead of forcing the user to visit our website. Whether it's about downloading extras such as scripts or templates, viewing tips and tutorials, getting a trial extension, or contacting our customer support staff: it's always just a click away," says Eric Böhnisch-Volkmann, President of DEVONtechnologies.
All Mac apps require Mac OS X 10.5 or later and, with the exceptions of DEVONagent Express and Lite, can be downloaded as free trial versions from:
http:// http://www.devontechnologies.com
DEVONthink and DEVONnote can be test-driven for free for 150 hours of non-continuous runtime until they need to be properly licensed, DEVONagent Pro for 30 hours.
• DEVONagent Pro: US $49.95 (Mac App Store: US $49.99)
• DEVONagent Express: US $4.99 (only in Mac App Store)
• DEVONagent Lite: free (only in Mac App Store)
• DEVONthink Pro Office: US $149.95
• DEVONthink Pro: US $79.95
• DEVONthink Personal: US $49.95 (Mac App Store: US $49.99)
• DEVONnote: US $24.95 (Mac App Store: US $24.99)
For more information, visit:
http://www.devontechnologies.com
Jettison 1.2 - Close Your MacBook and Go
St. Clair Software has announced the release of Jettison 1.2 for Mac OS X. This update adds the option to choose which types of drives it ejects, and automatically remounts any drives that are still connected when you wake your Mac back up.
Jettison is a small, purpose-built application that automatically ejects external disk drives from your Mac before you put it to sleep. Are you ready to close your MacBook and leave your desk? Jettison eliminates the hassle of manually ejecting Time Machine backup drives, network server volumes and flash drives before you put your MacBook to sleep - just close the lid and Jettison does it for you! Time Machine will be stopped and other data safely written to the drives before they're ejected.
What's New:
(*) Jettison will now try to remount ejected disks when your Mac wakes up.
(*) You can choose which types of disks to eject (Hard disk / DVD / Disk Image / iDisk / Network server).
System Requirements:
(*) Mac OS X 10.6 or 10.7 (Lion)
(*) 0.8 MB
Jettison 1.2 is a free update if you purchased an earlier version. It is available for $1.99 (USD) in the Mac App Store if you don't have it yet. Please see the St. Clair Software web site or the Mac App Store for a full change log and additional feature information.
Jettison 1.2:
http://www.stclairsoft.com/Jettison/index.html
Purchase and Download:
http://itunes.apple.com/app/jettison/id447430809
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