Macopinion

The Road Warrior Mailbag - January 22, 2007

Whitecoat seals and chickens

From Harry Kachline

Thanks for your MacOpinion article. I was unaware that the seal herds were growing or that the hunters did not club seals any longer.

But I'm pretty certain the more noise and frothing at the mouth done by organizations, the more smoke and mirrors are involved.

AFA leather products, I have wondered if saving a cow hide that will make ten (?) pairs of shoes that may last ten years each is not better than making millions of plastic shoes in Chinese factories so people will go to Wal-Mart and buy five pairs of those things a year.

I suspect that Apple is as green as anyone else, and as you note, getting better at it. I wonder how many paper plates and plastic forks were used by environmental organizations last year. Do these organizations not use computers?

Thanks for your continued common-sense approach.

Hi Harry;

Thanks for your comments.

Yes, all these envirinment and conservation issues tend to be a lot more complex than easy slogans. Excellent point about the cowhide shoes.

A good example is ethanol as a motor fuel. I was reading today that 50 percent of US corn production is expected to soon go to ethanol production at a time when world grain reserves are at 30 year lows. That combined with the energy required to grow corn or other crops for ethanol makes it a highly questionable environmental "solution." Ethanol from straw or wood bark or garbage or other waste materials would be another matter.

Prince Charles is being pilloried for flying to New York to receive an environmentalism award.

Charles

Gmail on OS 9

From Chris L. Mason

Hi,

FYI, you can use full Gmail on OS 9 using the Wamcom Mozilla 1.3.1, *if* you change the user agent version to 1.4. That's apparently the minimum Google looks for. Anyway, it seems to work okay.

Thanks,

Chris

Hi Chris;

Thanks for the tip.

Charles

From The Road Warrior Archive - Hotrodding The Clamshell iBook?

The column reprinted below first appeared in The Road Warrior on October 21, 2002. There are still quite a few clamshell iBooks around, and the article holds up pretty well, although the availability and cited prices of used units as well as upgrades like hard drive replacements are long outdated.

The last, September, 2000, FireWire-equipped revision of the clamshell iBook is the only clamshell model officially supported by OS 10.4 Tiger, although that version of the OS will have to be installed from an external DVD drive or via FireWire Target Disk Mode from another Mac unless you have the top-of-the-line 466 MHz SE model which was the only clamshell equipped with a DVD-ROM drive.

In my opinion, Tiger's video demands are way too much for the clamshell's puny video support, and you will find OS 10.3 the most satisfactory OS X version to use with these old 'Books. For the early, 300 Mhz models, OS 9.2.2 is the most satisfactory OS choice, although OS X up to version 10.3 is officially supported simce all clamshells have native USB support.

CM

Hotrodding The Clamshell iBook? (Originally published Oct.21, 2002)

We haven't talked much about the original clamshell iBook here on The Road Warrior lately. For one thing, its newer, squared-off successor as has done a great job of stealing the limelight, almost to the extent of eclipsing in the colorful clamshell unit.

Another reason is that the at the commercial end of things, original iBooks are almost off the radar screens. While used PowerBooks of various types are frequently offered by Web resellers, clamshell iBooks are relatively rare on the commercial used laptop market, and tend to command prices higher than their nominal performance potential would seem to justify when they do. These laptops are becoming collectors' items at a relatively young age.

Obviously, there are a lot of these machines out there still giving their owners great service. However, with maximum, non-upgradable G3 processor power of 466 MHz, four to eight MB of video RAM, and limited expansion potential, the clamshell iBook is no more than barely adequate for running OSX,. Another shortcoming is the 800 x 600 12.1-inch screen, which can be nice for working with text, but is a bit cramped otherwise.

What initiated this train of thought was an item I read on PowerPage by Brian Copp, who noted that while the original iBook he bought was woefully underpowered even by 1999 standards, with only 32MB of RAM and a 3.2GB hard drive, he is still using the iBook with virtually every Mac OS 10.2 (Jaguar) feature three years later, thanks to adding lots of RAM and lots of hard drive capacity, which are about the only two hotrodding upgrades one can apply to the original iBooks.

Brian noted that most people don't realize that the clamshell's single SDRAM slot will accommodate a 512 MB chip, since all official Apple specs state 256 MB maximum. Indeed, the original maximum RAM spec. Apple cited for Brian's Revision "A" iBook was 160 MB.

However, Apple routinely understates maximum RAM capacity for its portable products. For example, the official maximum RAM configuration for this Pismo PowerBook I'm typing on is 512 MB, but I have 640 MB installed, and you can go up to 1 GB with two 512 MB DIMMs.

Brian Copp utilized MCE Technologies send-in program (more on this below) for iBook hard drive upgrades and replaced his 'Book's puny 3.2 MB HD with a 12 GB drive two years ago. Today MCE can take you up to 6 0 GB if you wish.

The original 1999 iBook featured an advertised battery life of up to six hours, a 300 MHz PowerPC G3 chip, and introduced Apple's new optional AirPort wireless networking, as well as a radical new laptop form factor available in two bright colors -- Blueberry and Tangerine. A Graphite iBook SE model followed at MacWorld Expo Tokyo 2000..

The clamshell iBook featured a 12.1" TFT display; built-in 56K modem and 10/100BASE-T Ethernet networking; a single USB port, and a built-in 24x CD-ROM drive. The "Revision B" iBooks (Tokyo, February, 2000) came with 64 MB of RAM and a 6 Gig hard drive -- up from the not really adequate 32 MB and 3.2 Gig of the original model.

There was quite a lengthy list of features that the iBook did NOT have, including: • No PC Card slots
• No Video out (finally added on the Sept. 2000, Paris models) • No Expansion bay
• No SCSI or FireWire ports (the Sept. 2000, Paris models also added FireWire) • Only one USB port
• No Microphone or sound-in port
• No IRDA
• No stereo speakers
• No DVD support (the Sept. 2000, Paris SE models added DVD)

Unfortunately none of this stuff is upgradable, so naturally the most desirable clamshell iBooks are the Revision "C" Paris models, which had an AV video-out port and a new composite video port resembling a conventional 1/8" audio jack, but output video to TV through a special cable, and FireWire, especially the SE model with its DVD drive. The Paris iBooks also got speed bumps to 366 MHz and 466 MHz for the basic iBook and the iBook SE respectively, with IBM's PowerPC 750cx processor that used less power than the 750 G3 of the earlier models, about 4W at 400 MHz vs. 7W. The 750cx also has an integrated 256k level 2 (L2) cache, albeit the size of cache was reduced from the original iBook's 512k cache.

Additionally, the Paris models have an ATI Rage Mobility 128 video card with 8 MB of VRAM, bigger 10 GB hard drives (and optional 20 GB units).

If you are enamored of the case design of the clamshell iBook, with its two-tone color schemes and fold-out carrying handle, the Paris models are definitely the best choice performance and connectivity-wise, if you can find one at a reasonable price. I checked on eBay, and bidding seemed to be in the $650 - $700 range for later model clamshell iBooks.

For available iBook RAM upgrades, the most convenient place to check out availability and compare prices is at RAMSeeker: http://www.ramseeker.com/

Currently prices are averaging:
512 MB - around $100
256 MB - about $30

As for hard drive upgrades, as MCE Technologies notes:

"The hard drive in the iBook is not end-user, or even dealer/service center, upgradable. Just accessing the hard drive bay is a job involving the removal of over two-dozen screws, hex-nuts, plastic parts, and very small, sensitive, electronic components. If the proper level of anti-static protection is not maintained and the take-apart procedure not properly documented then a successful upgrade is nearly impossible.... Fortunately, we have the facilities and can perform the upgrade for you! MCE now offers an iBook hard drive upgrade program."

Send your iBook to MCE and they will install a high-performance hard drive up to 60 GB in capacity, transfer all your data from the old drive to your new one, and give you trade-in credit for your old drive. The trade-in value for an iBook's 3.2GB drive is $10, for an iBook's 6 GB drive is $20, for an iBook's 10 GB drive is $30, for an iBook's 15 GB drive is $40 and for an iBook's 20 GB drive is $50. Call MCE's sales department at 1-800-500-0622 for details.

All of the upgrades listed below include the hard drive, installation, data transfer, and two-day UPS return shipping of your iBook. (International shipping is extra.)

MCE 10 GB iBook Hard Drive Upgrade - $199.00

MCE 20 GB iBook Hard Drive Upgrade - $239.00

MCE 30 GB iBook Hard Drive Upgrade - $279.00

MCE 40 GB iBook Hard Drive Upgrade - $299.00

MCE 60 GB iBook Hard Drive Upgrade - $499.00

From the time MCE receives the iBook to the time they ship it back out is generally 1-2 business days.

For more information, contact:

MCE Technologies
30 Hughes, Suite 203
Irvine, CA 92168
MCE telephone: (949) 458-0800

or visit:
http://store.powerbook1.com/ibhardrivup.html

So, while the mostly non-upgradable clamshell iBook is obviously not an ideal candidate for serious hotrodding projects, maxing out the RAM and getting a bigger hard drive will extend the useful life of these machines. However, if you're not especially attached to the clamshell form factor I would suggest giving careful consideration to selling your machine and picking up a used or refurbished (or even new) dual-USB iBook as an alternative. The bottom line cost might not be much higher than upgrading your present machine.

Appendix

Clamshell iBook Specs.

iBook (July 1999)
300-MHz PowerPC G3 processor; 512K backside level 2 cache on processor module 66-MHz system bus 32MB of SDRAM - Upgradable to 288 MB
3.2GB IDE hard drive
24x CD-ROM drive
One 12-Mbps Universal Serial Bus (USB) port Built-in 10/100BASE-T Ethernet
Built-in 56K modem supporting K56flex and V.90 standards Optional 11-MBS Air Port wireless networking card Single built-in mono speaker; 16-bit stereo sound output minijack 4 MB of SDRAM video memory
2D/3D graphics acceleration through ATI RAGE Moblilty graphics controller with 2X AGP 12.1-inch (diagonal) built-in TFT SVGA active-matrix display, offering 640- by 480-pixel and 800- by 600-pixel resolution with millions of colors Lithium-ion; 45-watt-hour battery; Up to 6 hours of battery life full-size keyboard
Solid-state Apple trackpad supports tap, double-tap, and drag capabilities - Width: 13.5 inches (34.4 cm)
- Height: 11.6 inches (29.4 cm)
- Average depth: 1.8 inches (4.6 cm); depth ranges from 1.24 inches (3.15 cm) at the thinnest point to 2.06 inches (5.2 cm) at the thickest point; Weight: 6.7 pounds (3.0 kg)

iBook "Revision B" and iBook SE (February 2000) PowerPC G3 microprocessor running at a clock speed of 300 or 366 MHz. 512 KB backside L2 cache
64 MB of SDRAM - expandable up to 320 MB Hard disk drive with a capacity of 6 GB. CD-ROM drive with 24X speed
12.1-inch TFT display with SVGA resolution (800 by 600 pixels). 4 MB of video RAM supports millions of colors -- ATI RAGE Mobility graphics controller with 2X AGP Lithium ion battery - battery life under normal use is up to 6 hours. One USB port
Built-in modem with 56 Kbps data rate.
Built in Ethernet port for 10Base-T and 100Base-TX Internal wireless AirPort LAN module available as a build-to-order option or as a user-installable upgrade. Built-in mono speaker and a stereo headphone jack. Integrated trackpad includes tap/double tap and drag features. Weight: 3.0 kg (6.6 pounds) with the battery installed. 34.4 cm (13.5 inches) wide x 29.4 cm (11.6 inches) deep. Thickness varies from 3.1 to 5.2 cm (1.24 to 2.06 inches); the average thickness is 4.6 cm (1.8 inches).

"Paris" iBook 366 MHz (September 2000)
Active-matrix 12.1" color display (800 x 600) Lithium Ion battery (up to 6 hours use)
tappable trackpad
built-in mono speaker
10/100 Base-T Ethernet
Built-in 56k Fax/Modem
16-bit stereo sound output
24x CD-ROM drive
10 GB HD
One USB port
One FireWire port
Maximum RAM 576 MB (64 MB standard)
PowerPC 750cx (G3) 366 MHz
66 MHz System Bus
256k on chip cache
ATI RAGE Mobility 128 graphics accelerator with 8 MB of SDRAM Optional Airport wireless networking
Carrying handle
Weight: 6.7 pounds

"Paris" iBook SE 466 MHz (September 2000) Active-matrix 12.1" color display (800 x 600) Lithium Ion battery (up to 6 hours use)
tappable trackpad
built-in mono speaker
10/100 Base-T Ethernet
Built-in 56k Fax/Modem
16-bit stereo sound output
6x DVD-ROM drive
10 GB HD (20 GB optional)
One USB port
One FireWire port
Maximum RAM 576 MB (64 MB standard)
PowerPC 750cx (G3) 466 MHz
66 MHz System Bus
256k on chip cache
ATI RAGE Mobility 128 graphics accelerator with 8 MB of SDRAM Optional Airport wireless networking
Carrying handle
Weight: 6.7 pounds

CM