Macopinion

The Road Warrior Mailbag - January 7, 2008

Does Pismo Proccessor Upgrade Make Sense?
Shutdown Cautions
Re: Scrutinizing The Macworld Expo Apple Subnotebook Rumors
Re: RIP Netscape - 1994-2007
Re: The Road Warrior Looks Ahead At The Coming Year In Apple Notebooks

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Does Pismo Proccessor Upgrade Make Sense?

From Taurus

Hello Charles,

The current situation is really a conundrum for us Apple notebook users, isn't it. I am also agog at the upcoming Macworld and the rumored subnotebook.

I've been pondering whether a G4/550 upgrade for my trusty ol' Pismo makes sense, or whether I should upgrade to a Macintel machine next year. The thing is, I don't like the current Macintel notebook lineup at all. What I particularly dislike about the MacBook Pro is the case design. My feeling is that it's sort of cold and unemotional. The Pismo's design is a lot "friendlier". It always gives me a smile when I open the clamshell. Go ahead, laugh about it, but the MBP's case design is actually a major turn-off for me.

You wrote that the MacBook Pro design dates back to 2003 when the AlBook was introduced. Well, the AlBook wasn't such a big departure from the TiBook's design, so I think it is fair to say that the MacBook Pro design actually dates back to the TiBook's introduction -- in January 2001, i.e. 7 years ago!

Right now, the Pismo is still a good alround machine. Performance with Tiger is generally good. Best OS X revision so far on the Pismo, apart from a few minor glitches. Big improvement over Panther (which had a horrible localization bug in the C library, and whose DVD Player was very unstable with the Rage 128 chip, to name just a few issues).

With Tiger, the Pismo will still be a usable machine throughout 2008, but my fear is that approximately in 2009, the Pismo's lifetime will hit sort of a boundary. That is, it will become a notebook oldtimer which you cannot sensibly use as your sole computer. One would need a companion machine, e.g. a desktop computer, that one can use for the tasks that the Pismo is too old for. And as any true road warrior knows, a "companion machine" is not what you want. You want a single machine to do all your work with, not multiple machines.

The "Leopard on Pismo" success reports appeared wonderful at first glance, but the stories PC Mag: Hitachi Announces 500GB Notebook Drive

Hitachi says the Travelstar 5K500 is the world's highest-capacity 2.5-inch internal, notebook-class hard drive.

To read more, go to: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2242877,00.asp about Leopard being confused by multiple batteries and the Pismo's expansion bay pretty much sound like a bummer when you're used to Tiger, whose Pismo support is excellent. Nonetheless, I plan to buy the G4/550 upgrade. Already bought a spare CPU card on eBay so I have no downtime while the original CPU card is upgraded. I'll probably wait until Macworld though before I order the G4/550 upgrade.

A Macintel machine with the same wonderful blend of friendly case design, ruggedness, easy upgradeability, silence, expandability and long battery life that the Pismo offers ... that is what we're all craving for.

taurus

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Hi Taurus;

First, after reading this reply, click on over to my December 25 The 'Book Mystique column on PBCentral, which addresses the hotrodded Pismo vs. aluminum 'Book issue at some length.

http://www.pbcentral.com/columns/hildreth_moore/costing.shtml

Since you really like your Pismo and are getting pretty good performance for your purposes with Tiger running the stock G3 processor, you will only like it even better with a 550 MHz G4 upgrade, so I would say you're an excellent candidate for that solution.

I've installed and used the DayStar, Fastmac, and Wegener Media G4 Pismo upgrades, and they all work well. There's really no downside that I've been able to identify in nearly four years of use other than the capital cost.

I agree with you about Tiger. I had some bad luck with the early builds of 10.4 on my Pismo, but since the 10.4.6 update it's been a rock. Currently running 10.4.10 in one of my Pismos and 10.4.11 in the other. After my frustrating experience with Leopard on my G4 AlBook, I have no interest at all in installing Leopard on my Pismos, at least until it is a lot more thoroughly debugged than it is at 10.5.1.

As for the AlBooks, I agree that the anodized aluminum doesn't present as friendly a tactile interface as the old Pismo's organically contoured polycarbonate housing, but I actually don't mind it as much as I ahd anticipated. It's rarely cold! THe MacBook of course is still polycarbonate.

I do beg to differ about the TiBook/AlBook dynamic. Metal is metal I suppose, and they're both thin, squared-of form factors, but aluminum is a lot more successful material than titanium was in this application (I do love my ultra-light titanium eyeglasses frames though).

My guess is that the most substantial form-factor change with the next generation MacBook Pro form factor will be even more extreme thinness.

I agree unreservedly with your summary paragraph.

Charles

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Shutdown Cautions

From arts

If you decide to shut down your Apple portable computer rather than putting it to sleep, be sure you allow it to shut down completely before you close the display.

You can tell when an Apple notebook computer is completely shut down by confirming you have a black screen, no active power light, and no fan or drive noise. If you close the display on a MacBook Pro, MacBook, PowerBook or iBook while it is shutting down, the computer may not shut down properly which can cause issues including starting up more slowly the next time you turn it on.

If you don't have time to allow the computer to shut down completely before you close the display, consider simply closing the display which puts the notebook to sleep.

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Thanks;

Good advice all round.

Charles

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Re: Scrutinizing The Macworld Expo Apple Subnotebook Rumors

From arts

Whatever the reality turns out to be, a hypothetical consensus seems to be gelling that a forthcoming Apple subnotebook will be even thinner than the current MacBook Pros, weigh about three pounds, have a 12 inch or a 13.3 inch widescreen display, be Apple's first notebook using NAND Flash solid state memory instead of an electromechanical hard drive for main memory storage, may or may not have an internal optical drive, and sell for around $1,500...... Cool

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Cool indeed.

CM

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Re: RIP Netscape - 1994-2007

From arts

While many have declared the Netscape browser dead for years even before AOL purchased the company in 1999, AOL continued to pour money into the development of the browser.

Earlier this year Netscape even released a new version of the browser, but it seems that would be the last update of the browser because as of today according to the Netscape blog, support for the browser has ended. (Updated will end Feb 1st 2008)

Tom Drapeau of Netscape kind of blames Microsoft and the shift in AOL's business practices for the death of Netscape.

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Hi arts;

I agree that this is the end for the Netscape browser, unless (very slim likelihood IMHO) AOL were to sell the name to another developer.

In a very real sense, Firefox/Camino/Seamonkey *are* the perpetuation of the Netscape tradition by several other names.

Charles

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Re: The Road Warrior Looks Ahead At The Coming Year In Apple Notebooks

From arts

Apple isn't the only company shipping big-screen notebooks. Hewlett-Packard, Sony and Toshiba all offer at least 16-inch models. All three models offer faster clock-speed processors and cost considerably less than the 17-inch PowerBook. But Apple has the edge in terms of size and weight.

"It's a pretty cool product and shows they are more in tune with customer demand than they were with their last product release," said Matt Sargent, an ARS analyst. "The trend is toward larger notebooks. That portion of the market accounted for the largest growth of the PC market in the last year."

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Hi;

Yes, reportedly 18" notebooks are coming:
http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/12/28/18.inch.lcd.panels/

Wonder if Apple will go 18"?

Charles

*** cmoore@macopinion.com

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