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May 16th through 23rd Archives

Wednesday, May 22nd 2002 12:55 PDT

Thanks to Our Advertisers

We got a little behind in keeping up with our ads and have renewed our banner ads above. Now's a good time to thank our advertisers, past and present, on the site. Without their support, we simply couldn't bring PBZone.com to you.

Trans International often gets the latest and greatest hard drives and RAM chips long before other resellers. If you're looking for IBM Travelstar hard disks or a gigabyte of RAM for your new DVI PowerBook, please support these guys because they've supported us for over three years straight now.

Road Tools sells PowerBook and iBook accessories. We recently reviewed their PodiumPad and CoolPad Traveler. They've supported us since late in 2001.

Spire advertised with us for a period just a couple of months ago and has advertised multiple times over the past few years. Bar none, they make the best bags if you prefer the backpack or messenger style for your PowerBook.

Lastly, it's simply true that PBZone would've crashed and burned financially quite some time ago without the long-standing support of our first advertiser, Small Dog Electronics. Since October 10th of 1998, a scant three months after the site was founded and only a month after we were renamed "The PowerBook Zone," Small Dog has generously and constantly supported the site. Plus they're giving away an iMac.

When buying a Mac or an accessory, think of our advertisers first when comparing prices and reputations for service, speed, and quality. Oftentimes, one of our advertisers has the best price on a given item. To really help out, click through our banners to those advertisers when you buy and let them know at the time of ordering that you're supporting them because they support us.

Product Closeout

We're moving our offices over the next week and are suspending sales of our PowerBook accessories for a bit. Thus, we need to clear out the three 3.5" FireWire enclosures we have left, the four remaining 2.5" FireWire enclosures and the 11 remaining iAdaptor2 $65 adapters for any G4 PowerBook or Dual USB iBook. To clear these out, we now are offering free UPS ground shipping, effectively cutting $5 off the price of all the items. We also have one more "black" Madsonline adapter. Please email us for details on buying that. Visit our store to see all the items at once.

Knowledge Base Searchable Without Login

When Apple switched from the Tech Info Library to the "Knowledge Base" for its technical support information pages online, it required login using an Apple ID to view the content. Apparently it has removed that restriction on the KBase

More news later today...

Tuesday, May 21st 2002 10:14 PDT

New iBooks

iBook Zone, our sister site, covered the introduction of the little speed bump to the iBook line yesterday.

BlueTooth Orders Cancelled

Saying that the D-Link BlueTooth adapter was "delayed indefinitely," Apple cancelled all outstanding orders for the USB device. Some units have already shipped, so it's an odd decision. Does anyone have more details on this?

Tiny CDRW

We saw this over at MacNN. The Archos Cesar 8x8x24 claims to be the smallest CDRW in the world. It's barely larger than the size of a CD itself and their webpage says a FireWire version is coming soon.

inkfinder Launches

From the creators of DealMac comes inkfinder. As you might guess, it consolidates the best prices for replacement cartridges for your inkjet printer, which can be quite pricey if you buy from your printer's manufacturer, and quite cheap if you buy from a third party.

Friday, May 17th 2002 02:39 PDT

Griffin Introduces Speaker Breakout Box

While this solution doesn't apply to PowerBooks, as they don't have the digital output circuitry that the "digital audio" PowerMacs and the LCD iMacs possess, this product is neat nonetheless:

Nashville, TN ­ May 9, 2002. Now your world-class Mac can use world-class speakers. Griffin Technology proudly introduces the ProSpeaker-Breakout Cable. This cable allows Mac owners to connect any set of home stereo speakers directly to a PowerMac G4 or LCD iMac. The Mac itself powers the speakers and no additional external amplifier is necessary. This lets you listen to iTunes or movie soundtracks through traditional audiophile quality speakers like Infinity, Boston Acoustics, B&W, JBL, etc. - and not just through typical plastic "computer" speakers.

The ProSpeaker-Breakout Cable connects to Applešs Pro Speaker Jack that is available on the new LCD iMacs and all PowerMac G4šs over 500 MHz, commonly referred to as the Digital Audio PowerMac G4. This is the same output that Apple uses to connect their Apple Pro Speakers. The other side of the cable contains a pair of spring loaded speaker connectors ready for connecting with speaker wire directly to your speakers. The power comes directly from the Mac ­ no additional hardware or software is necessary.

Reader Pixel Problem

Reader Harry is curious about a problem that has popped up on his PowerBook:

I am curious about a really thin single pixel wide vertical line that has appeared on my screen from nowhere. The screen was flawless one minute. I turned off the computer for a few minutes. When I turned it back on, there was a single pixel wide line all from top to the bottom of the LCD right in the dead center of the LCD. I can deal with this line because it is blue and so is my background and since it is not more than 1 pixel wide it is not very obvious from certain angles and it doesn't disrupt me at all when using my PowerBook. I would just like to know what could have caused this to happen?

Want Ads

If any readers out there have any of the following that they no longer need, we'd be happy to take them off your hands for a reasonable price:

• USB PC Card
• FireWire PC Card
• Any non-AirPort brand 802.11 wireless card

Thursday, May 16th 2002 12:42 PDT

UPDATE: 15:43--Edu Sales Now Available at Apple Stores

Reader Ben sent in this info:

Haven't seen this mentioned elsewhere, so I figured I'd send it in.

I was at the new Apple Store in Atlanta this weekend, and asked about educational pricing for an OS X license. No go, but they did tell me they now offer in store educational pricing on hardware.Not on software, but on all hardware: PowerBooks, iMacs, iPods, PowerMacs, monitors, etc. Savings varies, but now it's that much better as you're saving the shipping cost too.

You need to have a valid student ID, and you'll need to sign a form or two. She made noises like this was limited to higher ed customers only, so I don't know about home school and K-12.

Hope this info is helpful to someone.

One More DVI PBG4 Reports

A Reader had the following to say about his new machine:

Just got the build to order TiBook from Apple on Monday. I got the 800 Mhz model with the bukd to order 60 Gb drive, with 1 Gig Ram. I'm upgrading from a 500 Mhz Pismo.

This is really nice machine. The Pismo has been a great Laptop for me for the last two years but I've had periodic problems with it running under OSX. Occasional kernel errors, spinning balls, etc. The Ti800 is very fast and much more stable as well. I'm able to o multiple tasks simultaneously without a big speed hit. For instance, I can be ripping an Mp3 in the background and the system performance for my other tasks is unoticeable. With the Pismo, ripping an MP3 would slow down my entire system.

One of the things that I am VERY surprised and pleased with is the digital monitor out port. I have 17" LCD screen that I share between several machines (Blue G3 and a PC-Linux). I can have my Ti up and running and plug it into the LCD and have the LCD show up as a second monitor at the prefered resolution. F7 then switches the LCD to mirroring. With the Pismo, I would have to reboot if I wanted to use the LCD. Also, I can close the Ti cover to put it to sleep, then plug it into the LCD. The Ti wakes up with only the LCD as the main monitor at the correct LCD resolution. The Ti monitor remains off, even if I open the cover. This will be a real nice feature when a powerdock comes out for this new model.

Overall, I am VERY impressed and pleased with this laptop.

PBCentral Discusses Quality Control

As you may have noticed, there have been some specific quality control issues with the latest PowerBooks, and the PBG4 in general. Cables that should be included were missing and keyboard keys that popped off in transit are two that come to mind with the DVI PowerBooks. The PBG4's paint is an ongoing issue. Stephen Hildreth over at PBCentral.com has posted a little writeup on the problems.

Apple Talks About DVI PowerBooks

MacCentral interviewed the PowerBook G4's product manager here. They discussed heat issues, AirPort reception, and other concerns with the PowerBook line.

Also, Accelerate Your Mac!'s webmaster took a hard look at PBG4 800 MHz and gave his comments today.