Macopinion

How to Play Poker on a Mac

The Road Warrior Mailbag - June 2, 2008

Kanga Redux
The Ideal Mac Notebook For Road Warrioring
You don't need two hands to right-click on a Mac notebook



___

Kanga Redux

From Jim

Charles,

Greetings from my old PB G3, aka, Kanga! Running OS 9 - which I almost forgot how to configure it's been so long (whew, this thing has a terrible keyboard!).

We are computing on very thin ice right now; wife's G3 800 Mhz iBook died, and all we have now is my Pismo and this Kanga. My organization has a few Power Mac G4s, 933 Mhz, 512 RAM, 60 GB drives for sale, in-house, for $250.00, so I am getting one of those in a few weeks. It will be my first desktop since the LC III, circa '95 or so. I will have to get a monitor for it, but can still use the monitor with our future MacBook purchases. And, the PowerMac will keep me going at home for some time I hope. Going from the Pismo to the G4 PowerMac should be fast for me!

I had a time getting online with the Kanga, but finally made it this morning. Had to use IE (ugh) until I could find iCab 3.05, still made for OS 9. I am on using the built in Ethernet from my home office network - cable modem. Speed is fair with the Kanga, actually, not bad. But, boy do I miss OS X!! I wish I could get X to run on this thing, but only have 96 MB RAM, and it is expensive and hard to find RAM to take this thing up to its maximum of 160 MB to run X under XPostFacto... I just might give it a try though, if I can find the RAM.

Through all of this, I have come to the conclusion that the iBooks were some of the worst Macs Apple ever made! Both of our iBooks died - wife's with inverter cable and probably logic board, and daughter's died last year with the second logic board failure. First one was covered under the logc board repair progarm, but too late now.

Anway, I can wait for a while now with the Kanga going again and the soon coming G4 desktop to tide me over. I will probably wait until after WWDC, and maybe until August/September to see what kind of new MacBook they might have. Don't want an aluminum though...

___

Hi Jim;

Sorry to hear about the iBook. My old 700 MHz iBook G3 is still going strong in its sixth year of service, now as my wife's computer. We must be lucky, as that model has one of the worst statistiacl reliability records, and this example has neve missed a beat. It has a gazillion hours on it and the (IBM) hard drive is still quiet.

However, my daughter's late 2003 G4 iBook has succumbed to the logic board flu.

Yes, those keyboards in the 5300/3400/Kanga were pretty mediocre, although I really like the trackpad button on those machines.

By the way, do yourself a favor and download a copy of Netscape 7:02. We've found it the most satisfactory browser to use with OS 9 machines. The DL site is here: http://browser.netscape.com/releases

With the Montevina chip rollout now set back to July and perhaps into August, I'm not anticipating any new Apple 'Books until fall, perhaps well into the fall, although a MacBook Air refresh will almost certainly come before then - perhaps as early as WWDC.

If I were betting, I would have to put my money on an aluminum housing for the next MacBook. I'm kind of on the horns of a similar dilemma, wondering whether I should just buy a Penryn MacBook now or wait and see what comes in the fall and probably still buy a Penryn MacBook. An aluminum case wouldn't deter me, but I'm not a fan of buying the first version of anything, and there is specualtion that they might go with MacBook Air type styling that would necessitate leaving features out - possibly the FireWire port, which would be a deal-breaker for me.

Charles






The Ideal Mac Notebook For Road Warrioring

From Stuart Hollis

I have been reading MacOpinion for a fairly short amount of time now, Google Reader pointed me to it due to my interest in all things Mac.

In your most recent Mailbag article, when you are talking about the ideal road worthy Mac Laptop, you and Colorado both make a very common, egregious mistake.

8. Two-button mouse (it should not take two hands to do in OS X what it takes one finger to do in Windows).

CM: Good point. I can get along with the single trackpad button on my Apple laptops, but it does get tedious having to use the Control Key for right-clicking.

It does not take 2 hands for me to right click in OS X on my MacBook, whether I am running Tiger or Leopard. That is because, the very last revision (possibly the last 2 revisions) G4 PowerBooks and iBooks added in 2 finger support to their trackpads. From that point on (and this would include all IntelMacs) you have had the ability to simply place 2 fingers on the trackpad and click the button, or tap the pad with both fingers, that will give you a right click.

And if, by chance you are referring to a mouse (which why would you be? The Mac trackpad is one of the best I have ever used, and frankly, for a road warrior laptop, you want a little superfluousness as possible) then it should also be noted that the Mighty Mouse, introduced something like 2 years ago or more, has the ability to have a right button as well. There are no longer any shipping Mac products that do not have the ability to right click with one hand.

On the topic of the ideal Mac Road worthy Laptop, a lot of people seem, to want a lot of things with 0 consideration for technical design. For example, Colorado wants the best in class Intel Mobile Processor. Currently that is the 3.06 GHz CPU in the 24" iMac. However, good luck trying to squeeze that in the thermal package of the MacBook. It isn't just speed that is important, power consumption and heat generation are of utmost importance as well. I know that my 1.83 Core Duo MacBook usually sits around 55-60C when doing common things, and it is not unlikely for it to spike to 70C when I am doing really CPU intensive things like Flash games (Yea, I hate Flash on OS X).

So, personally, I would rather have tons of RAM (increased battery life due to decreased disk swapping) a large, fast, high cache HDD (same reason as the RAM) and a nice cool running processor that doesn't compromise too much in terms of performance. Something around the 1.8 or 2.1 GHz range. Frankly, on a 12" screen like what Colorado wants, you are not going to be doing a whole lot of truly CPU intensive tasks, so dropping a 2.4GHz+ chip in there is just silly.

Also, his comment about needing/wanting a better GPU. \That is simply unneeded. A discrete GPU will decrease battery life, something that is very important in a road laptop. My first gen MacBook when hooked up over DVI to my 24" monitor can play back full screen 720p MKVs and MP4s with no problems at all, assuming the laptop's screen is off. So, again, reduce superfluousness, do not increase it.

As to his port array, it is important to think of design constraints again. It might be possible to put the ports on both sides of the system, especially if you are going with an external DVD drive. Plus, I would actually say that it should be a MicroDVI port and not MiniDVI, the connector certainly looks more sturdy and secure than the MiniDVI. MacBook Air inspired design styling with the flip down ports to conserve the look would be nice, and once can only reduce the weight of the power brick so far before you start to compromise on quality, and with reduced quality comes an increased likelihood of failure.

Keep up the good work,
Stuart

___

Hi Stuart,

Thanks for the comments.

Perhaos the tip about using the 2-finger trick on the scrolling trackpad will be good news for Colorado, who has a 15" Intel MacBook Pro. My newest machine is a 1.33 GHz 17" PowerBook, which does not have the scrolling trackpad, so it's two hands for me, although I mostly use that computer in desktp substitute mode (my road machine is a hotrodded Pismo) with a two-button mouse. I'm not a big fan of trackpads, although the ones in my Pismos are pretty good, and I very rarely plug a mouse into those machines, especailly on the road.

I don't much like the Mighty Mouse, and prefer the MacMice DangerMouse or several of the Kensington slim notebook mice, or a Quill (now AirObic Mouse) when my arms are hurting.

As for CPUs, I don't think the 3.06 GHz Penryn is being marketed as a mobile chip - certainly not by Apple anyway. However, clock speed is not the whole story as far as heat generation is concerned. The Penryns, run cooler than earlier versions of the Core 2 Duo, and the ones used in teh MacBook Pro have a thermal design power of 35 watts (although Intel also has on the shelf 1.2GHz and 1.4GHz Penryn processors, which draw a modest 10 watts, which I agree would make sense for the reasons you state.) However, the forthcoming Montevina Core 2 Duos are projected to have a thermal design power of 25 watts, despite being clocked faster than the Penryns.

Have to disagree about the 12" screen. I used a G3 iBook with a 12" 1024x768 display as my main workhorse for more than three years, and didn;t find it particularly cramped, although this 17-incher is luxuriously expansive.

Charles






You don't need two hands to right-click on a Mac notebook

From Brett

Re #8: you don't need two hands to right-click on a Mac notebook. Hold two fingers on the trackpad and click with your thumb. Takes a few times to get used to, but I do it all the time.

thanks,
brett

___

Hi Brett;

Thanks. My newest 'Book is a 17" PowerBook that doesn't have the scrolling trackpad. I've tried out newer machines, but not for long enough to learn the nuances of the 2-finger trackpad.

Sounds good.

Charles


***



cmoore@macopinion.com


Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.

Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM