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The Road Warrior Mailbag - April 9, 2007

Another Point for the Pismo!
Bunnies and Tigers
Pismo and Tiger
The Once and Future Apple Cube?
Cube
The Once and Future Apple Cube?
iPhone like device

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Another Point for the Pismo!

From Joe Leo

Hiya Charles,

I keep sending these your way because I haven't had time lately to write anything as I'm on a project for my main job in the classroom.

Did you read this? (I'm sure you did).
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2640

I like how they say "...reaching back as far as the venerable 'Pismo' PowerBook G3 - though ironically blocking MacBooks and 15-inch MacBook Pros due to their extra-thin cases."

I think my 12-inch PowerBook is a candidate for the upgrade. I'd do it if I had the money, and if Blu-Ray was the standard. I hear a lot from Best Buy and Circuit City employees saying to people to wait, because there is still a standards war akin to the VHS vs. Beta of yesteryear. I remember that even though I was still very young at the time because my uncle worked for Sony at the time, and he adopted too early, buying a lot of Beta tapes and equipment.

Oops for him!

Our beloved Pismo has outdone the Intel Macs again! I love it!

Happy Easter (or Happy Spring).

Joe

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Hi Joe;

Happy Easter is just fine.

Actually, Spring is still a state of mind here in Nova Scotia. We had a snowstorm Easter Sunday morning.

I actually hadn't read the AppleInsider piece, but the Pismo support for Fastmac's Blu-Ray drive upgrade is a big part of my The Road Warrior column topic for Tuesday.

Charles

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Pismo and Tiger

From Adam Goff

Good Afternoon Mr. Moore,

Easter Greetings from the States!

After reading the notes on your devolution from Tiger back to Panther on your venerable Pismo I was put off with the prospect of upgrading mine. 10.3.9 has been stable as a rock since being installed with only being restarted (as it should be) for those required by software update. True to my miserly ways I have almost always remained one generation behind from the currently released OS, but with the impending release of Leopard I found a good deal on a family pack of Tiger and went for it. I had upgraded my DA G4 - dually to Tiger about a month ago and have been very pleased with it's performance as I found there to be a noticeable increase over Panther.

I have always been pleased with my Pismo as she has never performed anything less than admirably. And as far as mobile computing goes (especially those with a more powerful desktop) I have always thought that the G3 hit the sweet-spot in terms of speed. Though as of late I had been finding her to be getting a little long in the tooth, especially while trying to render large, complex websites - things of that nature. I have DSL gosh-darnit, everything should be lightning fast!

So I finally took the plunge the other day. I usually evenly split my drives into two partitions, one for X and the other for 9 + applications and documents. Still wary of fully committing to Tiger I dug up my Ubuntu LiveCD and repartitioned my second partition. I hate linux but their partitioners are superb. I set aside 2GB for 9 and the rest would be for the big cat. Installation went smoothly as did the migration of my settings and preferences from Panther. A couple of my third party drivers were broken but were easily fixed with their updated versions. I then fired up Software Update and the old gal effortlessly upgraded to 10.4.9.

I believe you stopped your Tiger journey at 10.4.4, but let me tell you 4.9 is one slick beast. Overall everything feels snappier than Panther. Startup is much quicker, Safari feels way more responsive, and although it's lacking all the fancy transitions and related eye-candy, having dashboard with it's handy-dandy widgets all at the push of button is a God-send, especially widgets such as the phonebook, dictionary, and weather all right there! I can only imagine how quick she'll be once I get around to ordering that G4 from Wegener Media. I have yet to test out the internal modem so I do not know if that particular issue has been solved. I'm going to try to send a few faxes next week to confirm it's functionality, when I do I will be sure to apprise you of my findings.

If it does indeed work I would highly recommend you give Tiger another shot as I feel Apple made some great strides from 4.4 to 4.9. I know you only have dialup where you are and that the 163MB combo update would be a bear to download. If you like I would be more than happy to burn a copy and mail it to you. Anyway, my apologies for the rather long-winded email, but I do hope that you would find this useful. Have a wonderful Easter, take care, and God bless.

Adam M. Goff

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Hi Adam;

Thanks for the report, and I'm delighted to hear that your Pismo is still providing you with such great service.

Make sure to read The Road Warrior on Tuesday this week.

Actually, I upgraded my Pismo to Tiger again last month, and it's running Tiger very nicely. You can read the recent installments in my Pismo/Tiger adventures here:
http://www.lowendmac.com/misc/07/0312.html
and here:
http://www.lowendmac.com/misc/07/0316.html

The Pismo is currently running OS 10.4.8, and I agree with you that it's a lot smoother performer on the Pismo than 10.4.4 was. Someone sent me a copy of the 10.4.9 updater on disk, and I have it installed on my 17" PowerBook. No problems, and it seems a bit livelier than 10.4.8, so I'll get around to updating the Pismo when I have a spare moment.

I also just ordered another Pismo from Wegener Media last week. David has a batch of several hundred (about 600 total) lease-end PIsmos in that he says were mostly unused, and I couldn't resist. They are 400 MHz machines, but I got one with a 500 MHZ G3 card installed and a 60 GB HD, Can't wait for it to arrive. The DHL tracking Website says it's in Halifax, which is about 150 miles from here. but it will take longer to travel that last leg than than the main journey from South Carolina to Nova Scotia.

Easter greetings,

Charles

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The Once and Future Apple Cube?

From Ray

Any Apple computer configuration along the lines that you are mentioning would be very interesting.

My Cube is still running circles around other more modern computers my friends use. I have it upgraded and maxxed out with the following:

1.5 GB RAM
1.2 GHz processor
120 GB HD
64 MB Video Card

It still looks very cool with the 22" Cinema Display, and along with my Harman Kardon speakers, I have the Harman Kardon iSub to really kick up the bass.

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Hi Ray;

Sounds like you have a really nice Cube setup. The Subwoofer would nicely flesh out the otherwise excellent sound.

Charles

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The Once and Future Apple Cube?

From Tuishimi

Fine mid-range machine. They still go for a bundle on eBay. I am tempted to pick one up, but I know OS X is going to focus future performance improvements on the preferred platform.

That being said, if Apple were to reintroduce, I would sell my mini in a heartbeat and pick up a Cube. I always wanted one, and regretted not buying one when they came out.

Unfortunately, I doubt Apple will revive the Cube anytime soon, there really is no need and their focus seems to be sliding toward appliances. They would certainly not announce it at the next Macworld, since that will be for Leopard and they will want it to take all the glory (I should think that anyway).

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Hi Tuishimi;

I wouldn't mind having my Cube back.

All the folks who write to me about how they wish there were a mid-range desktop Mac might disagree with you that there's no need.

I surely hope that Leopard gets sprung before the next Macworld - it's looking like the WWDC in June could be the venue.

Charles

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Cube

From Mr. Bingley

I have a 450MHz Cube and a 17"ADC LCD display. i've upgraded the HD to 120 gigs and maxed out the RAM, and it runs 10.4.whatever perfectly fine.

Surfing and document handling are great; it certainly sputters a bit when trying to stream video off the web, but that's no big deal. it really works remarkably well after all this time.

How many Dell PCs from 2001 will run Vista?

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The Once and Future Apple Cube?

From Michael

I had both a Pismo and Cube back when they came out. Well unfortunately, I had my apartment robbed. Thankfully, the thieves stole my Pismo and left the Cube. I still use it it as a Web server with Tiger installed. It does all I want of it and it never farts or hiccups. Just sits there quietly.

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Hi Mr. Bingley and Michael;

Glad to hear that you're still getting excellent service from your Cube. 2000 may have been the all-time vintage year for Apple hardware, with the Cube, the Pismo and the Paris clamshell iBook.

I dunno about Vista, but a 2001 Dell might have a better time running OS X. Afriend of mine is happily running Tiger on a Dell Pentium.

Charles

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The Once and Future Apple Cube?

From Xeem

Recently, my dad gave me an acrylic 20" Apple Cinema Display and it just looks gorgeous together with the Cube, even better than the pictures looked.

Putting a GeForce2 MX in my Cube a little while back (necessary to drive a 20" ACD) made it snappier than I'd expected, and since I swapped out the noisy original hard drive with a 2.5" Travelstar hard drive it runs even more quietly than my iBook does. I don't think you'll find Mac users more loyal to their computer than Cube owners are.

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Hi Xeem;

Cool setup.

I agree about the loyalty too. Apple should tap into it. Then there are all the folks who wish they had bought a Cube when they had the chance, plus potential buyers looking for a Mac Pro midi....

Charles

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iPhone like device

To use an old saying your guess is as good as mine, I would like to put it another way your guess is probably much better than mine.

Do you think Apple will come out with a device like the iPhone but without the phone part?

The possibility of Safari in my pocket is a very appealing one.

Sincerely,
Richard Cooley

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Hi Richard;

I have no "insider" knowledge, but it would seem highly plausible that Apple would incorporate the non-phone iPhone features into an iPod model some time in the future after the pent-up demand for the more expensive iPhone dies down.

Charles

*** cmoore@macopinion.com

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