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May 8th through 15th Archives

Tuesday, May 14th 2002 01:12 PDT

UPDATE: 11:07 AM: Apple Introduced Xserve

Apple's just now put up the product page for Xserve, its new rackmount server.

New PowerBooks Sport Monitor Key

Reader Thomas informed us of a new feature of the DVI PBG4s:

Iım not sure if I missed this mentioned elsewhere, but I was pleased to make a discovery on my new G4/800. In addition to running cooler and more quietly, Apple has (finally) placed a key function for monitor mirroring on the Powerbook. This new function shares the F7 key, and itıs a welcome addition. I plugged my active and awake Powerbook into monitor that was already on and it immediately sent a signal to the monitor, showing both LCD and CRT in spanning mode. A toggle of the new key and I was mirroring. A pleasant surprise all the way around.

Apple Event

Check Apple's press release page for details on the outcome of the Apple Event scheduled at the company's Cupertino campus at 9AM PDT. All reports indicate a rack mount server will be introduced.

Here's an image a reader sent to us (apologies to the original photographer, if it was taken off another site) that illustrates Apple's plans for today:

Monday, May 11th 2002 13:12 PDT

More New PowerBook Reports

A few readers chimed in with their DVI PowerBook G4 experiences:

First, some background: I bought the original TiBook (500) a year ago. Decided to upgrade to the "old" 667 a couple of weeks ago. Then when the new ones came out on April 29, I passed that one on to my partner and bought the TiBook DVI (800). All of which is to say I've had a chance to compare all three generations of TiBooks. With this latest edition, Apple has taken was a truly nice machine and just about perfected it from my perspective. I'll just talk briefly about four major items: speed, screen, heat, and build quality/value.

First, on the speed. The "old" 667 was a noticeable improvement over the first generation 500, though I wouldn't say it left it in the dust. I assume this is because of the large cache memory on the Ti500. A nice upgrade, but not enough to pay full price for an extra 167 mhz. The speed with the 800 is much more noticeable when compared to that 667--and obviously a big jump compared to the Ti500. I've only had it six days--but that's enough for me to finally say "This is how Mac OS X should feel." It's that fast, folks. I'm sure the "new" 667 is a nice machine. But my feeling is that somewhere between 667 and 800 (with the new levels of cache memory) Mac OS X feels right. With the 667, it's not...quite...there. With the 800, it is.

Point two: the new screen. In a word: "Wow." If you haven't seen it yourself, it's hard to explain. Once again, Mac OS X just...looks...right. The screen resolution is perfect for this machine and this system. The screen is very much brighter, even when accounting for the age of my old 500. I've seen none of the "washed-out" appearance others have described. At night in a comfortable lit room, I actually need to turn the brightness down. This thing just beams! And colors seems to be vibrant in photos as well as DVDs.

Point three: Heat. I had the 500, so I know heat. That baby could cook. This one doesn't. I don't know whether it's the dual fans, the plate on the bottom, more vents or whatever. I've sat for hours with it and it doesn't get hot. Warm, yes. So for those who say the machine is as hot as earlier iterations, I can only say that I don't understand that. Mine isn't. And it's quiet. The low-level fan has come on a few times under moderate use...surfing, e-mail, itunes. The second fan has come on maybe twice in the six days I've had it. By contrast, the old 500--and to a lesser extent, the old 667--sounds like a blender when its fan really kicks in. I' know. I've got them both in the same room. Major improvements in the Ti800 (and presumably the new 667) on heat/cooling issues.

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I drove over to the closest Apple Store and picked up a new 800Mhz TiBook. This thing is great! The screen is MUCH better than my old Pismo. The fan does not come up very often. I have to really stress the machine to get the fan going.

There is one thing I noticed that kind of worries me: I can hear a very soft buzzing noise from the 'Book. The noise comes from under keyboard around keys '8' and '9'. The noise is present all the time unless the processor is under a "heavy load". For example, if I boot into OS 9 and press the trackpad button the noise is gone. when I release the button, the noise comes back. My Pismo did not have such a noise -- it was completely quiet. Does anybody else has the same experience? 

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I drove to a local apple store in NJ to get mine. This was on the Friday of the release week, and they had them in stock. So far I am really impressed. I am replacing the original 400mhz Ti powerbook I bought early last February. There is a noticeable speed increase from the 400mhz slower system bus to the 800mhz faster system bus, different video card, etc. Dragging or resizing windows used to produce a noticeable system drain on the old PB, and also booting is faster. The new PB boots a full classic extension load as fast as my old 400 booted a stripped down classic extension load.

As for quality control issues I had none. The keyboard feels different, more positively mounted than the old one, and the heat issue is down, as well as the new dual speed fan which is quieter. The screen is marginally more contrasty, but I got it mainly for the extra real estate and better video card, anticipating quartz extreme. Transitioning from the old machine to the new machine, I was able to backup most of my user folder, library, music, docs, to an external fire wire drive. I reinstalled most of the software, and then just copied everything I needed off the external drive.

More on Self-Powered Ethernet Hubs

This topic has been somewhat all over the map, but we got a few more responses we'd consider helpful to anyone looking for very portable ethernet solutions for more than one computer when there's only one jack available.

It looks to me that what your reader Ed is seeking is this: (taken from the Radio Shack web page)

Ethernet 10-Base-T Splitter
$19.99 Reg. Price Brand: RadioShack
Cat.#: 278-785 Model: 278-785
Operate two computers simultaneously with the same network
connection. Has one hub port and two PC ports.

I own one is it works as advertised. It allows you to connect two ethernet devices to one socket (either on the wall or a hub). One caveat though: Both devices have to have an static IP address. Or at least one of them. For example, it allows me to connect my PB and a printer to the wall ethernet socket where the printer is normally connected. The printer has a static IP address so my PB can obtain its IP address via DHCP. But it will not work if you connect two computers and both have to obtain the IP address via DHCP (only one will obtain the IP address while the other wont)

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The following may have no relevance to the person who asked about a portable ethernet hub, but may be of interest to owners of older Macs (or historians):

Farallon used to make a line of ethernet adapters called EtherWave. They came in different models to attach to Macs in a variety of ways: pcmcia card, aaui, etc. Each one was a self-powered 2 port 10BaseT ethernet hub on a dongle. EtherWave was a way of quickly and easily creating a daisy-chain ethernet hookup (like phonenet localtalk) or a way of joining an existing network where no extra port was available. I am still using the pcmcia variety on a PowerBook 5300cs running Mac OS 8.1 and the aaui variety on a PowerMac 6100av running System 7.6.1. Using these two Etherwaves I have the the 5300cs, the 6100av and a PC running Windows 98 with a 10BaseT ethernet card all hanging off of just one port on my 10/100BaseT Proxim Netline Gateway/4S. Please note that EtherWaves are hubs not switches, are 10BaseT only, and are discontinued. Also they do not connect to a cpu's existing ethernet port, they are ethernet adapters that create the port. Still, they were awfully clever and I wish Farallon had been able to continue the line.

---

as the other reports have indicated, you're not gonna find such a beast.

however this power-over-ethernet how-to from nycwireless might give you some ideas... http://www.nycwireless.net/poe/index.html

basicly you use 1 of the 2 unused pairs in the cat5 to extend the range of the wallwart powersupply. intended to get power an extra couple hundred feet to a remotely mounted 802.11 Access Point, but the concept applies to a small cat5 hub just the same (tho carrying around the wall wart and extra cable to extend it kinda defeats the purpose)

Newer Tech is Dead...Long Live Newer Tech

We noticed this over at Accelerate Your Mac!...apparently Newer Technology is back from the dead, according to their website, which says the company has 'new owners.' We'll see what develops...

Friday, May 10th 2002 01:26 PDT

New PowerBook Reports

A few new PowerBook reports...keep them comin' in folks!

Just received my 800mhz powerbook 2 days ago and being a pc convert I was amazed with this laptop (I guess for around $3000 that should be expected). Despite one stuck pixel on my screen (not too intrusive), the powerbook has been great without generating much in terms of heat or the dreaded fan noise. However, I am missing the s-video to composite cable. The keys on my keyboard are fine. Overall, I am very satisfied with my purchase (except for the stuck pixel and the missing cable).

Some observations on the new PowerBooks, after a 45 minute test at my local shop:

- Runs a lot hotter than I had anticipated, based on other web reports. The corners near the screen hinge were very hot.

- Screen resolution is good, but not that much higher. I managed to crash a couple of applications that didn't expect the unusual screen res. Color seemed a bit richer, but I didn't have any other PowerBook available there to do a side-by-side comparison.

- Speed, without doing any quantifiable benchmarks, didn't blow the current PowerBook G4's out of the water except with graphics. The iTunes visualizer's framerate is about double what I can get on an older 667. Return to Castle Wolfenstein ran also very well at 1024x768 resolution. It crashed though if I tried using a higher res (needed to trash the config file to reset). A good test would be realMyst, but it wasn't available to install on that particular PB 800.

- Come to think of it, perceived speed was possibly impacted by having a 4200 rpm hard drive in the demo PB vs. the 5400 rpm hard drive I have in my own PowerBook.

I've decided to wait at least until the next revision, or possibly until the next generation PowerBook, before upgrading.

---

I ordered Powerbook 800 on Monday morning, custom with a 30gig drive instead of 40. Site said it would ship in a week, it shipped the next day (Tuesday). Also, I used the free shipping option, which is standard ground, usually 3-5 days. They shipped it from Taiwan FedEx, got it on Thursday morning! So all that's great. I was really amazed by how quickly it got here. Quite excited. Now the badness. After partitioning the drive and reinstalling 9, on restart to reinstall X, the cd/dvd failed, spit out the disk, and refused to take any more disks. Now it's going back to Apple tomorrow. Oh well. It still should be back from the shop in the original time frame I was supposed to get it, still a bummer nonetheless.

---

Purchased a Brand New PowerBook G4/800 last night here in Tokyo. The sales person told me that there are no s-Video composite cable included and that Apple Japan has no idea what to do with the problem yet. They will announce something on the Japan Apple site soon.

The packaging was what I expected after reading other peoples experiences. Indeed the DVI-VGA cable was hanging through the hole of the foam protector. The good thing was, there were plastic covers coving the connector otherwise I'm sure it would have scratched the titanium surface of the machine.

BUT I had a few minor scratches on the machine and one major CHIP. CHIPPED paint on the carbon fibre plastic near the FireWire port. I'm afraid this will get bigger (checkout the attached pic). I have called Apple and they suggest I send it in for examination.

I'll let you know how it goes. TOTALLY unacceptable for a machine at this price!

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Hi, this is in response to your request for any and all PowerBook DVI experiences. ...

I had to have this machine, for one reason: the increased screen resolution. I love OS X, the stability, functionality, potential, even the speed (ok, potential speed!) ... but though I like the anti-alias effect better than not, the fonts definitely need help at the lower resolutions. Guess what? The PowerBook DVI is a big step in the right direction. I now feel like I'm looking at a professional OS -- or even at a (small) Cinema Display. I upgraded from a 5-month old Ti 667 Combo, simply for the resolution.

I don't notice, as others have, that it runs cooler. What I do know is ...

1. The speed boost is incremental as expected;

2. Automatic sleep works again (I'm sure I loaded something on the last couple of Macs that croaked this feature);

3. It took me four months to chip the paint on the 667 palm rest; I've done so on the 800 in one week, and I am anal about caring for these things;

4. There are no other system problems as yet.

A few other brief notes: The packaging was perfect. ... iPhoto 1.1 may have been on the hard drive originally, but I repartitioned and reloaded the OS's on separate drives, and iPhoto 1.1 wasn't in the Mac OS X install, nor was it on the Applications CD. A moot issue now that 1.1.1 has been released. ... Norton SystemWorks 2.0 won't boot from its CD, so I'll have to make a new bootable CD for it (a minor issue). I haven't yet tried booting DiskWarrior, but I'm sure it's the same story. Both booted the 667 fine.

I'm a very happy camper. Anyone want a 5-month old 667? :-)

---

I received my PBG4 800Mhz 1GB Ram 60 GB HD last Monday (6th of May) I immediately noticed that the keyboard was acting strange. The keys would not respond, or the keys would stick (not physically). Apple agreed to send me a new keyboard. Then I realized that the sound was choppy, by that I mean that it would stop for a fraction of a second. The same happened with the video. This happened under system X not under system 9. So we quickly realized that it was not the keyboard.

Playing around with the computer I realized that if I reduced performance of the processor in the energy settings all of the problems went away. Then I realized that with the processor at full speed but with either the battery or the power cord disconnected the problem went away. Apple started the replacement process on Tuesday (or so I thought) they were waiting for the engineering team to decide if they wanted my computer sent directly to them for testing. After I pushed for 2 days they finally agreed to actually start the process of replacement, so I shipped them my faulty computer today. So now I have to wait for my new computer to be assembled. I just realized that it came without the s-video cable!

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Hi. I just picked up a new PowerBook (667 model) and thought I would add my two cents. Definitely runs cooler and quieter than my "old" 550. Screen is very impressive but I do have two stuck pixels (one bright blue, one dark black) very close to one another. Unfortunately, it's probably not enough to warrant an exchange. My PowerBook also did not include the s-video cable.

Tom Bihn Announces Empire Builder Briefcase

Sunga Rose over at Tom Binh sent this press release over:

Finally, after years of promises, TOM BIHN has designed the ultimate laptop briefcase!

The EMPIRE BUILDER - ttp://tombihn.com/empirebuilder - is the result of 3 years of product development and 30 years of bag-building experience. It is uniquely styled, superbly functional, and built to withstand whatever you and the airlines can dish out.

Made to carry a Brain Cell - http://tombihn.com/braincell - computer case (formerly the Lap Dog), the Empire Builder will provide your laptop with the bomb-proof protection you've come to expect from TOM BIHN products.

TOM BIHN makes great bags for PowerBooks of all shapes and sizes. Excellent protection, cool styles and Riley - the best dog in the world! - http://tombihn.com/riley.html.

Please take some time to read our customer reviews. All of our bags are made in the USA of the highest quality materials with 100% of the seams finished. Our products are satisfaction guaranteed & we ship worldwide.

Answers on Portable Ethernet Hub

It seems a ethernet hub that's self-powered and small enough to travel with easily is not a reality for a few reasons:

There are products that will split an rj45 jack into two jacks that require no power, like this: http://www.mycableshop.com/sku/RJ45SPLITTER.htm.

But you need to put one on each end of the run, ie., back at the patch panel. This is because it's using the normally unused two pairs in your standard cat 5 run (4 pairs) - 10 and 100 base T only use two of the pairs.

Trendware used to make a 2-port hub, trendware.com/products/TE100-S22.htm, but it was powered. I don't think ther's enough juice on an ethernet signal to power a hub, it's very low voltage.

I might be wrong, but I don't think this is doable as a self-powered item

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Ummmm...he would need a three port hub. Two just ain't gonna cut it. And once you are at three, how far is that to 4?

I have been working with networking since 1987 and never heard of a self powered ethernet hub. The fact is that USB, FireWire, ADB were all designed to carry power for simple devices. Ethernet was not. He is simply not going to find such a beast, unless it plugs into a USB or FireWire port to draw power. But I don't think such a thing exists.

And I don't know if they would supply enough power (I just don't know).

---

Could the same thing be accomplished by putting a PC-Card ethernet adapter into your PCMCIA slot? Then you would need to configure netd to share the connection, possibly using IPNetShareX.

http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=10619&db=mac

I don't know off hand if any PC Card ethernet adapters have Mac OS X drivers.

Thursday, May 9th 2002 13:12 PDT

Two Port Portable Ethernet Hub?

Reader Ed seeks a product:

I am looking for a small 10/100 hub or switch to take with my powerbook. It would be used to provide access when only 1 port is available. I would prefer self-powered.Do you know of any such beasts?

Another DVI PowerBook Experience

Reader Larry has some comments on his new DVI PBG4:

On the subject of poor packaging. I received my new Powerbook DVI today. It was the 667 model. When I opened up the package and went through the box there was no S video to composite cable. I called Apple they agrees to send me one. With that resolved I opened up my Powerbook to find the left shift key and the 1 key completely loose from the keyboard. I made my second call to Apple they said they would send me a new keyboard. The gentle told me they didn't have the now DVI parts in yet so I would get on as soon as they came in. This situation didn't feel me with confidence regarding Apples quality control. On a good note, heat issue seems to be good and the screen looks awesome. Thanks for hearing my rant.

Macs No Longer Welcome on Capitol Hill

According to this Wired article, the Senate office of the Sergeant at Arms at the Capitol has recommended that Windows PCs be the standard on the Hill, at least for Senate offices. Only three Senate offices still have Macs and those that follow the SAA's guidelines get tech support and hardware, according to the article.

BlueTooth Technology Preview 2 Released

Apple has made BlueTooth Tech Preview 2 available on its website here for the brave developers with the D-Link DWB-120M BlueTooth USB adapter and Mac OS X 10.1.4.

Wednesday, May 8th 2002 00:01 PDT

WWDC 2002 Gallery One

We have a 'photographer in the field,' so to speak, at Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference in San Jose. We've got 14 images that show parts of Apple's headquarters at night, a few shots of the Apple banners around, and a few images at a technical session. Check it out here.

RoadTools Review

We've taken a look at a PodiumPad and Traveler CoolPad that Road Tools LLC (a PBZone.com advertiser) sent our way. To see what we think of the laptop accessories designed to improve ergonomics and heat dissipation, click here.

PBZone Store Specials

We have 5 of the TT-35 3.5" hard disk enclosures left. If you were considering a purchase, we'd recommend buying now.

We have 18 of the ME-910 2.5" hard disk enclosures left. We've dropped the price by $10 to $75, far and away the best price for this model available anywhere.

The "pre 2001" MadsonLine AC adapters for G3 PowerBooks are out of stock, but we have plenty of silver units for G4s and Dual USB PowerBooks at $78. The Century "iAdaptor2" for PowerBook G4s and Dual USB PowerBooks are still available at $65.

All of these items can be reached at one "store" page here.