Monday May 24th 1999 10:27 EDT @643
UPDATE: 15:35 EDT UPDATE: 18:29 EDT/CDT

PBZone Chat

We forgot to mention it earlier, but we'll be hosting what will possibly become a weekly event tomororow: our PBZone chat. Located on the IRC Network SlashNET, using channel #pbzone, we'll chat from 7 PM to around 8:30 PM Central Daylight Time. If you're unfamiliar with IRC, please use our guide to learn.

Last week's event was fun for all who attended. Tomorrow we'll offer the additional lure of some information early that won't be posted on the site for a few days, since it is pending verification. To catch these juicy morsels, be sure to stop by.

Digitek to Close?

Following our earlier post of MacCPU being sold at auction, MacInTouch is covering the possible closure of Digitek, another former sponsor of this site. It's hard to imaging that all these online technology stores are closing their doors at a time that Apple, as well as the rest of the industry, flourishes. If you've ordered from Digitek lately, I'd see about getting your money back soon.

While Outpost.com was the last holdout on a May (the 24th) date, they have now stuck to the later June date, becoming the last large reseller to fall in line. Several readers notified us that the backorders at Outpost numbered greater than 150 on both models, and some representatives would quote no ship date at all.

Apple's Response

PBZone Reader Michal sent a very nice, well-written letter to Apple politely inquiring just where his Lombard PowerBook was. Within hours, Apple responded:

Michal,

We have received your recent email regarding the availability of the new G3 PowerBook.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced resulting from the delayed availability of this product.

Customer interest in this product has been far greater than our original expectations; as a result, we have not been able to meet the current demand. Please be assured that we are doing everything possible to correct this situation.

Thank you for your patience. We encourage you to stay in touch with your reseller for the latest availability information.

Regards,
- David

That certainly does not answer anything. We know they're delayed and we know demand is incredible. We'll give Apple till June 1st before being too critical.

New Column

The second edition of our new column, The Cutting Edge was posted today. Today it talks a little about Mac games and the graphics situation with Macs in general, then PowerBooks.

Barb and Bob, over at MacCPU, once an advertiser on this site, have decided to fold up their business there and are selling their customer base and web domain via an eBay auction. They give a good description of their site and some fiscal numbers if you're interested.

We've gone through several cycles of thought on Lombard. They vary from outrage at Apple to sympathy for them. We'll reserve our final thoughts until after June 1st. If the machines ship, we'll accept the 12 or so day delay. If not, we'll start to dig a little deeper in to the situation.

One must always remember that Apple itself made the iMac until a short while ago (they outsourced to LG Electronics) and they still make the B/W PowerMac G3s. However, Apple designs the PowerBooks itself, but the final production is accomplished by a company named Quanta, located in Taiwan. Quanta is known for its production of laptops for several companies, including Dell. Most companies even hand off the design work to Quanta as well. We think most of the delays in the Lombard production are coming somewhere in the international shipment process. We now have heard that Apple is "drop shipping" these machines straight from Quanta to resellers. We'll know for sure on June 1st.

Sunday May 23rd 1999 09:04 EDT @586 UPDATE: 18:22 EDT

SJMN Article

Continuing their great, honest coverage of Apple, the San Jose Mercury News has a well-written summary of Apple's comeback, noting that for a true turn of the tables, the hardest part is yet to come.

TheMobileOffice Debuts

A new site, called TheMobileOffice, has started a database of locations all over the globe that have power, phone, and/or ethernet access. The database is small right now, so cruise over and add a few locations.

Saturday May 22nd 1999 09:15 CDT @635 UPDATE: 17:23 EDT

Where's Your Lombard Being Made?

Attilio Gagliardi, of the Italian PowerBook site 292, PowerBook Avenue, sent this information along. It seems all Lombards are being made at Quanta's facility in Taiwan, but as reader Sean Li sent in earlier, some work is being done at the Cork, Ireland facility Apple owns.

Source close to Apple write me about that: all Lombards are being manufactured in Taiwan, for the European Market, then Lombard will be send in Cork for the Country kit (the right keyboard, the right localized OS and manuals) and then it will be send directly to the right end users stores. In this way we will see Lombard@333 not before 15 june and the 400 Mhz model not before the end of june...

Reader Alan Pedersen-Giles also sent in Lombard availability information. He tipped us off that the Apple Store now references a "early June" date for prebuilt machines and also says that Build-To-Order operations will begin in July. Apple had first said "May 20th" for prebuilt machines, then slipped to "late May" and you can now see where we are. We're inching closer to a fiasco much like the introduction of Wallstreet.

• The San Jose Mercury News has a nice article on the Palm VII introduction, and also makes the same Apple wireless Internet connections we did last week.
• Apple has also posted a new Tech Info Library article that defines the difference in the two PowerBook SCSI control panels included with Mac OS 8.6. It seems one's for Lombard only.

Site Notes

The editorial staff is on a little jaunt from homebase in Baton Rouge, LA to the Green Mountains of Vermont. In fact, this update is live from Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport, Terminal T, Gate 8. Not much going on right now, but we'll have a update a littler later in the afternoon, time unknown.

Friday May 21st 1999 01:29 CDT @311 UPDATE: 19:30 CDT

Euro Manufacturing and Availability

Reader Sean Li lets us know:

Called the Apple Store UK again - a very helpful rep told me they're still expecting the PowerBooks to be ready to ship at the end of this month, but are quoting actual delivery as first week of June. I again asked about manufacturing, and was again told that PowerBooks for the European market are being manufactured in Cork, Ireland.

I was a little worried that they had been delayed after speaking to a salesperson at an authorized Apple Reseller in London, who had said "Apple came down and told us that they won't be shipping until end of July." This is the same store that told me, a week ago, that they were 85% certain of receiving Lombards this week. Same store had already told me first week of June. In other words, they're pretty clueless.

Lombard Availability...Part Two

May 20th has come and gone, so where's Lombard? Apple's pushed the date back to June 1st for almost all resellers. Read our huge detailed report here.

To clear up any, and we mean any, misconceptions, we're going to go over the DVD options again with Lombard. The 333 and 400 MHz models have identical video cards. The 400 MHz model has an added C-Cube ZiVa card to handle the DVD decoding internally, removing the need for a seperate PC Card like Wallstreet used. So, from the factory with the current specifications, the 333 MHz has no capability for DVD and the 400 MHz can easily play DVD movies.

So what are the options for making the 333 MHz be able to play movies? It's not supported by Apple, but we've confirmed that the Wallstreet PC Card does in fact decode the MPEG-2 stream from a Lombard DVD module in the 333 MHz. However, it'd be cost prohibitive to find and buy a seperate Wallstreet PC Card and a replacement part DVD module for Lombard to make that option work. For this cost you may as well get the 400 MHz.

So if you're buying a Lombard, plan for the eventuality that the 333 MHz will never be able to play DVDs, and factor that into your buying decision. It's possible that a third party could come forward with a solution, but we haven't even heard murmurs of such a possibility. Acclerate Your Mac! covered the company in Ireland that supposedly customizes Macs, but they updated later in the day why it is probably not a good idea to investigate that option.

If you open the lastest issue of Newsweek, with Al Gore on the cover, you'll come upon a nice spread of Lombard, which covers the first two pages. The caption says "14.1-inch screen. DVD Drive. And a battery that will let you watch Austin Powers. Twice. The New PowerBook G3." It's a nice picture of Lombard if you haven't examined it closely already. It's good to see Apple advertising PowerBooks again, but we were reminded of when Apple put the large 'shark' inserts into magazines for months before there was even any Wallstreets available.

It didn't occur to us until now, but Lombard marks the end of the six-hued logo on Apple shipping products. Wallstreet was the last to sporta conventional size, conventional color logo, centered under the LCD panel. Now Lombard's logo is all white, slightly larger, and is centered above the LCD panel. And with that, the rainbow is gone.

Readers sent in a link to a New York Times article that details the 'toughened' notebook computer market. These machines, all Windows based, are beefed up to deal with abnormal rigors:

The most obvious difference between a
rugged laptop and its regularcounterpart 
is the case. Rather than the traditional 
PVC plastic, they are usually clad in 
magnesium -- a material that is, by
Panasonic's estimate, 20 times stronger 
than the most durable plastics. Some models 
also get a layer of thick rubber. 

The article is quite interesting. They have pictures of machines operating while being inundated with water, put into a operating dryer, and run over by cars. All this durability comes at a price, some of these machines can cost $8,000.

Reader C. Young sent in his sob story:

I called MacAdam Computer Store in San Francisco at 5:30 this afternoon to find out if they were indeed expecting a shipment of Lombards tomorrow. The salesman took the information on my backorder, and after a few searches he had found my order, and Yes!!! they had indeed received four (4) Apple G3 Powerbook 400's today!

The salesman said that if I could get to the store before 6:00 pm I could pick it up this evening. Great!

Faster than a speeding bullet. That was me, and at 5:58 pm, I walked into the Mac Adam Computer Store, straight up to the counter and gave a salesman my name and order information.

Immediately I recognized that look of, "you're dreaming", but he dutifully checked with the other salesmen, finally finding (he shall remain nameless) playing some game at an iMac. Oh yeah, [he said] they're over there, pointing to two G3 blue & white's on the floor.

Not particularly useful for us, but it was enjoyable to read anyway. Try to confirm for sure on the phone if you're presented with a similar situation.

As always, there will be an afternoon update, so be sure to check back. Another reminder: The PB Zone updates on weekends, so look us up on both Saturday and Sunday.

Thursday May 20th 1999 01:13 CDT @300 UPDATE: 15:39 CDT

Apple Posts Help Page

We were asked by Apple to get the word out on a recently posted complete PowerBook Problem Solving page, which unites all their troubleshooting information in one organized area. In the future, if you have a problem with your Lombard, this is the first place to stop.

A reader sent this in:

I just read a post at Apples Powerbook Technical Exchange from someone who claims to have gotten his Bronze Keyboard "Wallstreet" 400 megahertz with DVD. He went onto ask some questions that sounded genuine. I emailed him for some elaboration and will get back to you if I hear anything worth reporting.

We asked the reader for more information and he queried the poster for more details. He said he bought the machine at a local CompUSA in Dallas. While we have no reason to distrust the report, we're highly skeptical that any Lombard machines have shown up at a CompUSA, but we'd welcome any user reports of that occuring.

• MacTips-Another Lombard availability report.
• PowerBook Central-PowerBook Names

Lombard Availability Report

The appointed day has arrived. A week and a half or so ago, Steve Jobs decreed that Lombard would be shipping today. Some mail order houses have the 20th as the day of receipt, while a good many others have the 1st of June. It seems Apple has slipped to the 1st of June. But you don't have to call to check on your order...we didn't take off to see a movie...we've checked for you...

MacZone

Expected "27th or 28th" 333 MHz-70 backordered, 200 expected. 400 MHz-74 backordered, 126 expected. Salesperson noted 'wild popularity' of the products.

MacWarehouse

Called several times. Had original ship date of the 24th, both 333 and 400 MHz have slipped to a new date Apple has given them in the last day of the 1st of June. Saleswoman called it a 'hot item,' but noted they were getting 'disgustingly little' in to cover backorders on both machines of 'less than a hundred.'

MacConnection

June 1st for both models. 333 MHz-49 backordered, unknown number expected. 400 MHz-60 backordered, unknown number expected.

CDW, J and R

Closed at the time of call. The amount of lost sales to being closed at this hour boggles the mind.

ClubMac

"within 10 days...June 1st" 333 MHz-22 backordered, 200 expected. 400 MHz-18 backordered, 100 expected.

MacMall

This is a little hard to believe, and dealing with salespeople you can never be sure, but... expected tomorrow for both models. 333 MHz-76 backordered, 920 expected. 400 MHz-77 backordered, 700 expected, with 1500 total soon after.

Outpost.com

Said "interest is incredible" and "a lot" of orders, though he couldn't give me any numbers on backorders or expected number. Did say June 1st is still what they have.

Well, it seems many places don't quite know what's going on...and that's to be expected with Apple. We'll call again this afternoon and give a little update.

Readers who receive confirmation of their orders shipping are asked to drop us a line giving us a little information, including where and when they received it .

Next Monday, the 24th, Palm is set to introduce its latest 'connected organizer' to the world. Dubbed the Palm VII, the device is their first to have wireless Internet capability. News.com adds a few important details about the machine. It will initially cost $599 and starts trial access in East Coast markets.

The most exciting part of the whole introduction is the debut of the palm.net wireless service, costing nine dollars a month to access the Internet with the Palm VII. It won't show full webpages, but ones that have been 'clipped.' The service is available in selected areas, which include most population centers in the U.S. This means what to the Mac world? First, P1, Apple's consumer portable, has long been rumored to include wireles Internet as an option. Next, Apple has also long been rumored to be working with Palm on a project, though its focus is not very well known.

The actual rollout of a technology like this bodes very well for the option to be available on P1, though we doubt it'll even be available at P1's release, and it most likely will not be a standard item.

Here's News.com's summary of the Palm VII's Internet abilities:

ABCNEWS.com, Bank of America, ESPN.com, E*Trade, Fodor's, MapQuest, MasterCard, Merriam-Webster, Moviefone, TheStreet.com, Ticketmaster, Travelocity, USA Today, US West, Visa International, The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, The Weather Channel, and Yahoo have all previously announced support for the Palm.net service.

Palm.net content partners prepare information in a query-response form, allowing Palm VII users to access the information they need with minimal interaction with the Internet itself. Palm executives have said previously that this type of pared-down service is necessary to optimize Internet content for such a small device.

As you can see, the device doesn't really act as a web browser. We certainly hope P1's capabilities, if they are included, are a little more robust than this. Though overall, the Palm VII is a very exciting product.

Reader Sean Li sent in a link to the first hands-on review of Lombard so far. It's at MACWORLD UK. It appears free registration is necessary to view the article.

Wednesday May 19th 1999 00:01 CDT @251 UPDATE: 16:08 CDT UPDATE: 19:20

Apple's Kosovo Initiative

Apple has donated 12 iMacs and a G3 Server to the refugees currently housed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Other companies have pitched in to help at Fort Dix and around the globe at similar labs. Mac users in the area are needed to help the refugees with the iMacs and Internet access in general. MacCentral broke the story first and has all the details.

VST SuperDisk Rebate

Reader Paul Cesarini wrote in with this detailed note:

I noticed that Club Mac had a $50 mail-in rebate listed for the PowerBook G3-series SuperDisk expansion bay module, from VST. Since it was only mentioned on page 13 of their print catalog and not on their web site, and since no other company mentioned it (inlcuding VST's web site), I called Club Mac to confirm it. The rep from Club Mac faxed me out a copy of the rebate form and, sure enough, it's directly from VST and is good for $50 off. Although the form doesn't specify which PBG3 models it's good for, the pics on the form are of the Wallstreet PBG3 and not the old 3400-style one or the new, Lombard version.

Anyway, the rebate's good from 5/15/99 to 7/15/99, and all rebate requests are supposed to be postmarked by 7/30/99 at the latest. It says to expect a 6-8 week turn around time for the $$. I just ordered a SuperDisk expansion bay module last week, from Computers By Net, but it's currently back-ordered. Once it arrives, I'm looking forward to knocking $50 off the price :)

We assume this rebate should be good with other resellers, but we have no confirmation of this. If you're ordering from somewhere else, confirm the rebate before purchase. Thanks Paul for the heads-up!

Fear Not: BTO is Not Dead

All it takes is one mention by a untrained Apple phone jockey somewhere and the rumor spreads like wildfire that Apple is not offering any Build To Order options with Lombard. This is however completely false. When the high demand for prebuilt Lombard systems dies down, Apple will commence BTO operations. This could be as soon as the middle of June, or a little earlier. Options expected to be available for BTO include 10 GB hard drives and accessories like a FireWire PC Card.

First we'd like to thank those that participated in the chat yesterday. We certainly enjoyed the experience. Due to the success of this trial chat, we've decided to try a few more. We've tentatively scheduled next week's chat for Tuesday at the same time, 7 PM CDT.

Yesterday we received the following email from MarketSource, the promotion company Apple hires for most events like the iMac Demo Days:

We are extremely excited to offer you an exciting new opportunity to work with MarketSource and Apple Computer Inc. to help leverage a new retail partnership with Sears. As you may be aware, there are Sears locations throughout the United States. Apple Computer Inc. will be introducing the iMac into Sears.

We are looking for enthusiastic Mac savvy people to detail the Sears stores. Each store will need to be visited 1 time per week. Detailing should be preformed Tuesday-Friday. In order to participate, please submit your application via the web.

We have initiated a web-based application program so we may respond to you quickly. The web-based programming will make your participation easier. The web-based programming will:

Allow you to apply and download your assigned stores Bulletin Board will update you daily on Apple information Access your work schedule Submit feedback forms electronically

If you are interested in participating in the Sears Program, simply visit the Apple Sears Detailing Home Page and Apply. http://apple.marketsource.com.

The email and the webpage linked above are pretty self explanatory. They'll pay you to drop by Sears once a week and straighten up everything. Read our full article on this subject here. We've signed up, have you?

Tuesday May 18th 1999 02:39 CDT @360 UPDATE: 16:22 UPDATE:18:52 CDT

Chat Underway

The PowerBook Zone chat is now getting underway. To get in on the action, visit our IRC page for details..

Apple and Marketsource, the company that has previously sponsored "demo days" at CompUSA and other stores, have started a new program to introduce the iMac at Sears department stores. This is the first two paragraphs of an email sent to participants:

We are extremely excited to offer you an exciting new opportunity to work with MarketSource and Apple Computer Inc. to help leverage a new retail partnership with Sears. As you may be aware, there are Sears locations throughout the United States. Apple Computer Inc. will be introducing the iMac into Sears.

We are looking for enthusiastic Mac savvy people to detail the Sears stores. Each store will need to be visited 1 time per week. Detailing should be preformed Tuesday-Friday. In order to participate, please submit your application via the web.

DVD Upgrade Path for 333 MHz

This may be the most expensive way to get DVD on your 333 MHz Lombard, but we have confirmed that the Wallstreet PC Decoder card does in fact decode MPEG2 on the Lombard. Now all you'd have to get is a Lombard DVD module, which you could order as a replacement part. Though you would have already had to order the entire Wallstreet DVD kit as they do not sell the PC Card seperately. Unless you have the card sitting around for some reason, this is not a cost effective method. We just wanted to confirm that the DVD PC Card from Wallstreet works in the 333 MHz (and the 400's though DVD is built in) Lombards. More on this at the chat tonight.

Were we not clear? In all of our reports, we've said that Lombard Build-to-Order would not be available right away, but at a later date, possibly as late as mid-June. This information has never changed since the first day we posted it, before Lombard's introduction. We think it's inconceivable that Apple would completely not offer BTO as MacInTouch seems to think. The 10 GB drives, only to be available through BTO, are mentioned in the developers note for the machine several times. NewerTech is counting on their FireWire card to be available BTO as well.

MacNN today has the scoop on a new feature in the Password control panel when upgrading to Mac OS 8.6. The OS allows you to enter your name and address so that if you lose your computer, when someone starts up your computer and gets to the password screen, they can see your address and hopefully return the machine. Nice innovation, Apple!

Chat Tonight

Make plans to attend our reader chat tonight at 7 PM Central U.S. time on the IRC Network SlashNET, channel #pbzone. For instructions on getting there if you're unfamiliar with IRC, head on over to our help page for more details. We hope to have a great turnout, so if you're not standing in an Episode One line, you should certainly try to make it. See ya at seven...

Day in and day out you hear our commentary on the PowerBook world. Today we'd like to introduce a new voice, one more frank and straightforward, hopefully to represent what the majority of the readers think about particular issues. Today, columnist Gian-Paolo D. Musumeci discusses the introduction of Lombard in his column, which has been titled The Cutting Edge. He doesn't mince words when talking about its faults, but gives the introduction a strong review, much like we did. So without further ado we give you: The Cutting Edge: Musings on Lombard.

Helpful Apple and their info-resource the Tech Info Library have posted a host of new articles, some about Lombard, some just general PowerBook help:

• 58385-PowerBook: Troubleshooting a Dead Unit
• 58384-PowerBook: Troubleshooting Won't Run From AC Power
• 58388-PowerBook: Trackpad Button Does Not Respond
• 58390-PowerBook: Troubleshooting When Keys Appear to Stick or Not Respond
• 58389-PowerBook: Trackpad Does Not Respond
• 58392-PowerBook G3 Series (Bronze keyboard): S-Video Questions and Answers
• 58391-PowerBook G3 Series (Bronze keyboard): Power Available Through USB Port

Reader Evan Hoffman asks:

This isn't really a PowerBook-specific question, but I saw Steve Jobs say at the WWDC that Apple has gotten down to only one day's inventory, and went on about how they "beat Dell" for the past three quarters. My question is, if they are keeping so little inventory, how come it took so long to get rid of all the Wall Street models? I saw reports for weeks about "dwindling supplies," but if Apple's inventory was so fantastically small, shouldn't they have been able to clear out the Wall Streets wayyy sooner?

Well Evan, that one day figure refers to the amount of inventory Apple has of the components on hand before assembly, not of completed units in the retail channel for sale. Though Apple has the industry-best one day of inventory, we all know how many Wallstreet machines were in the channel towards the end of their life. Once Apple got rid of the Wallstreets through several promotions, the channel was cleared to introduce Lombard.

If you whip out your hardback copy of the 1999 Guiness Book of Records, and flip to page 174 under the heading "Most Powerful Laptop" you'll read the following:

In 1998, Aple launched the PowerPC 750 RISC chip Powerbook G3--the most powrful laptop in the world today. The Powerbook G3 looks and feels like Apple's 3400 model, but is twice as fast and has a 32 megabtye EDO DRAM memory that is upgradable to 160 megabytes. Its power fives it a weeight of 7 lb. 11 ox., making it difficult to carry in one hand.

Well, for the 1999 version of the book, they sure aren't that up-to-date. The PowerBook G3 they speak of was introduced in November of 1997, around a year and a half ago. We're not going to argue with the title of "Most Powerful Laptop," as we know the 400 MHz Lombard would easily smoke anything out there on the PC side.

Stephen Hildreth, over at PowerBook Central, has posted an article titled "International Travel with your PowerBook.".

Monday May 17th 1999 01:49 CDT @326

433 MHz Lombard...Not Far Off

Many users have complained that there's no "middle" model between the 333 and 400 MHz choices the buyer currently has with Lombard. However, Apple fully intends to make the 400 MHz model the middle choice, introducing a 433 MHz model soon.

Sources report two things delay the full introduction of these machines. First, Apple is likely waiting for desktop speeds to reach the rumored 450 MHz soon before introducing a 433 MHz PowerBook, so as not to eclipse the professional desktop line with a portable. Second, Apple obviously requires much higher volume of fast chips than an upgrade maker like PowerLogix, who already has 466 MHz upgrades. This means Apple will likely trail upgrade manufacturers in speed since it is waiting on high volumes of the 433 MHz chip to be available before introducing this new high-end model of Lombard. We'd like to see a simultaneous release of a PowerMac 450 MHz and a PowerBook G3 Series 433 MHz, but we've been told only "soon" for an introduction of either.

We're not releasing this information lightly, as we know if affects many people's purchasing decisions. We were very accurate with our original Lombard information, and put the same value in this information. Current pricing of the 333 and 400 MHz models would likely not change.

A week ago today Steve Jobs quickly introduced the next generation of PowerBooks, machines that might take us into the new millennium before a major revision. While the jury is still out on whether Apple can ship these units on its promised May 20th date, production and supply seems good. Those who ordered through Outpost.com through our sponsor PepeSearch have been quoted that the PowerBooks arrive at Outpost.com on the 20th, and shipped to them by the 24th. Again, if you're looking to buy a Lombard, and are buying from Outpost.com anyway, visit PepeSearch to get entered into their contests for ordering through them. If you've got your report on ordering a Lombard and your expected ship date, we want to hear it, so send it on in.

We're very excited about our first reader chat set for tomorrow night at 7 PM Central U.S. time. We had thought about using a browser-based Java client, but we've decided in favor of IRC. If you're unfamiliar with IRC, please visit our help page to get set up before the chat starts tomorrow night. We're hosting the chat on channel #pbzone on the SlashNET network. There's no preset time limit for the chat, we'll probably be there all night. So far we've decided on an unmoderated format, though some rules will be enforced. For more details, visit the IRC page.

It should be a lot of fun. Other editors from the Mac Media Network will be in attendence. We'll be in the channel tonight to help with any problems, or if you just want to chat for a bit.

We've gotten several emails from readers still confused about the whole RAM situation with the various PowerBook G3 models. So to answer all these questions in one area for everyone, we've whipped up a PowerBook G3 Series memory page to help clear things up.

In a pretty exciting scoop, Mac Media Network member site X Appeal has received screen shots and the first hands-on review of Mac OS X Consumer version. While some 8.7 (Sonata) screenshots have been floating around on various sites, We believe these are the first postings of OSXC shots. It's certainly worth a look.

Sunday May 16th 1999 00:21 CDT @265 UPDATE: 17:28 CDT

Reader Question

Not much going on this afternoon, so we'll get your help with this reader question:

I've been searching high and low for information on how to print via Infrared from a Powerbook to an HP Deskjet 340Cbi printer. HELP! Can it be done? If so, how??? Do I need special software from HP?

If you can help reader Chris, please let us know

PBZone Chat Set

The date, time, and place of the first PowerBook Zone reader chat has been decided. We've evaluated doing an web-browser based chat using Java, but decided in favor of IRC. If you've never used IRC, it's easy to learn. Visit our IRC page and learn the ropes. We've set the time of the chat for next Tuesday, May 18th starting at 7 PM Central U.S. time. Anything after that interfered with the release of the Star Wars prequel. On Tuesday, follow the directions on our IRC page to connect to the IRC network, then join channel #pbzone. We'll be there as well as other editors from the Mac Media Network. We'll see you there!

Our Tokyo bureau has reported that the 333 MHz Lombard model costs 298,000 yen (About $2483) and the 400 MHz Lombard model costs 430,000 yen (About $3583). This is exciting for Japanese buyers as these prices are noticeably not that much higher than the U.S. prices, something that has not always been the case in Apple's history. Many stores in Japan are taking preorders and sources report that the stocks of Wallstreet machines are gone.

Fellow Mac Media Network site X Appeal, which covers all kinds of news on Apple's OS X operating system, has posted an exclusive first look at Mac OS X Consumer Developer Release 1, titled An OS Xcursion. As far as we know, this is the first public publication of screenshots from the OS on a webpage.

Written/Edited/Published by Doug B. Landry
Logo by Jon Iverson
Apple, Mac, Macintosh, Mac OS,The Apple Store, and Powerbook are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.
©1998 Doug B. Landry. All rights reserved. All or part may not be reproduced or distributed without written permission.