A couple of weeks back Guy Searle posted a blog describing his battles with low-cost Cannon inkjet printers (Low cost Ink-jet printers suck). But just to balance the argument a bit, I thought I’d mention the printer I use whenever I need to send hate mail to my bank manager: the Apple StyleWriter II.
I bought this device some time in late 1994, early 1995 for I’m guessing about £100. It was part of the first Mac I ever owned, a PowerBook 150. I should perhaps mention that I’d used other Macs prior to that, and I very quickly discovered the PowerBook 150 was a completely terrible Macintosh by any standards. Fortunately it had the good grace to fail within weeks of purchase, so I got the chance to upgrade to the much better PowerBook 520. But I digress…
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Active Bag for the iBook
Company: Active
Price: $59.00
http://www.activebag.com
Active Bag for iBook is made by a company called Active, based in Italy. When they emailed me wanting a review of their new iBook carrying bag, I must say I was intrigued. Here in the U.S., “Italian Style” really means something. And a carrying bag for an iBook made in Italy sounded just too good, so who was I to refuse?
There are criteria for choosing a computer carrying case. They include size, weight, style, portability, safety, convenience, and protection. Let’s take a look at these criteria in order.
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SanDisk ImageMate USB
Flash/Smart Media Reader
Company: SanDisk
Estimated Price: $49.00
http://www.sandisk.com
Like Tim, I’ve suffered through very slow downloads when I’ve tried to move the images that are on my Smart Media card from my digital camera to my computer. I had also discovered that my USB capable system (6400/180 with G3 card and Keyspan PCI USB card) would not permit me to hook up my digital camera and download pictures through the USB ports. The camera manufacturer (Toshiba) attributed this to the fact that the camera works with iMac’s, G3s, G4s, etc. but not with a G3 equipped legacy Mac. So I was reduced to unplugging my printer after I had shut down the system, hooking up the serial cable, restarting my Mac and then slowly downloading the pictures through the software provided. Very, very frustrating to say the least, particularly when people want to see the pictures on the monitor right away.
After doing my research and hunting around for other options, I finally selected the SanDisk ImageMate USB SmartMedia reader as the best and least expensive option open to me. Initial installation of the unit was as easy as 1-2-3. Insert the Installation CD in the drive, double-click the Installer icon, follow the directions, then restart the system. Once the system had restarted, I just plugged the unit into the USB hub, inserted my SmartMedia card and then double-clicked on the SanDisk icon which appeared, opened the folder inside and found all my pictures waiting for me as JPEG images. After that it was just drag and drop the images inside to my desktop picture folder and I was done. Less then a minute to insert the card, double-click and then see what the pictures looked like, rather then spending what seemed like forever to download the pictures.
With the folder open on the desktop, viewing is easy, as is renaming each JPEG image. Trash what I don’t want, rename what I want, and then drag the images to the desktop picture folder. Definitely a major time saver as far as I’m concerned! The one thing I did discover is that you must have Apple’s File Exchange extension on if you want the unit to be seen by your Mac, so make sure you have it on when you go to use the reader. SanDisk has a very informative website and even carries the drivers and Mac FAQs on the site, so we’re not forgotten.
Now while the reader comes in the basic computer grey color with Navy Blue accents, it’s not that bad to look at when it sits there on your computer desk, kinda like it’s smiling at you. And while the unit has a suggested retail price of $49, I was able to get my unit for $29. I looked around for the best prices locally, went to the closest store that handled the product (Best Buy) showed them the flyer with one of their competitor’s pricing and they honored the price difference.
Requirements:
MacMice Rating: 5
Russ Walkowich
Iomega Zip 250 USB w/Firewire Adapter
Company: Iomega Corporation
Estimated Price: $179.95
(Firewire Adapter: $79.95)
http://www.iomega.com/zip
Iomega’s Zip is the defacto standard for Continue reading »
removable storage in today’s cross-platform
world. Long replacing the floppy, the pocket size disks can go almost anywhere. But as technologies change, and storage capacity grows at a feverish rate, standards also change. Zip cartridges are now capable of handling 250MB of data, as opposed to 100 in their previous incarnation. What’s more, Iomega has kept up with the industrial design revolution, designing an ultra-slim Zip 250 drive that, like it’s handy disks, can go almost anywhere.
Well, it was just another boring week. Get up, go to work, log on, do the usual. This week found me writing compliance programs for OSHA, demanding money from a customer who I was convinced put our payment up his nose, and fighting with Federal Express about their deceptive on line software which requires a declared value on products that they have no intention of paying on when they friggin’ lose it. Oh yeah, in the meantime I talked every day with my lover/fiancee who lives 5,000 miles away.
It was just another week in the life of Bland…Jane Bland.
I’m 47 years old, pushing 48, and still occasionally get depressed because I don’t have breasts like Bette Midler. My lover likes my breasts and I’m grateful, but still and all I have always wanted the ones that were just a little bit bigger, and rounder, and firmer…*sigh*. The clothes fit so much better when they are that way.
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Retrospect Express Backup 4.3
Company: Dantz Development Corporation
Estimated Price: $44.95
(See the Dantz web site for free or inexpensive
upgrades for registered users of earlier versions
of Retrospect and Retrospect Express)
http://www.dantz.com
I use Retrospect Express every day to update the backup of my entire hard drive onto my splendid new SmartDisk VST USB/FireWire Hard Drive. (See http://www.mymac.com/nemo/vst_10.15.00.shtml for our review of this product.)
Each of my consulting clients is required to use RetroExpress at the beginning of every month, updating their “Storage Sets” (from earlier versions of the software) or “Backup Sets” from this latest v4.3 release.
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Western Digital 45GB Firewire HD
Company: Western Digital
Estimated Price: $379.99
http://www.wdc.com
An external hard drive is a very handy piece of equipment to own. You can move it between more than one machine, you can save space inside your computer, and it takes almost no effort to install one. I am used to dealing with SCSI hard drives, with the always looming dread of a SCSI conflict or setting jumpers correctly. However, the Western Digital Firewire HD was a piece of cake.
Think about this: 45GB for LESS than $400! So, if you have a newer Macintosh with, say, an internal 10GB hard drive, you can, for under $800, add two of these Western Digital drives for a total capacity of almost 100GB.
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The Mac Authority’s Dreadful Review
http://www.elementkjournals.com/tma
A week ago, I wrote a brief column on my
thoughts on Microsoft’s latest, Office 2001 for
Macintosh. In my opinion, there is no justification
for anyone to buy this product that already owns
Office 98. So I was looking forward to reading a
review of the program in one of my favorite
newsletters, The Mac Authority, a monthly 16 page no advertising mailing I get from Element K Journals.
“What’s not to love with Office 2001 for Mac?” the title reads. Oh-oh. I can already tell I am going to have a problem with this review. What’s not to love, the reviewer asks? Well, how about the price for starters. To update from Office 98 to Office 2001, you have to spend upwards of $269. To buy it outright, your talking about $499.
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Do you believe in love at first sight? Before the personal computer and long before e-mail, life was a lot simpler. Here is a true story of how fate, a book and a friend brought two people together. Although they didn’t know at the time, the seed of love had been planted and the end result was inevitable. Only the names have been changed (sort of) to protect the trio in this story.
Our courtship was a rather whirl wind affair. My wife Rosie and I had met through my former girlfriend, Viola. Rosie and Viola were close university chums. Viola wanted to play a practical joke on Rosie and she enlisted my help. The plan was to meet Rosie after she finished her part time job at a major department store. It was the pre-Christmas shopping season and Rosie was short of cash and was too proud to let her parents know. So, being the independent person she was, she opted to work in the book department during the Christmas rush to earn some extra spending money. All this was in addition to her full time attendance at university.
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I really was not planning on writing anything tonight, just playing with my new G4. But after tonight’s bedtime story, or more accurately, during the story, I came across something I just had to share. Something that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Macs (in this case, the iMac) has so suffused within our society that it has forever change our perceptions.
Below is the book read to our kindergartener. Any of you who have young kids will recognize the series, the scholastic books Clifford the Big Red Dog.
While reading the story, here are some of the pictures. Now, you tell me, is that not an iMac?
Office 2001 Continue reading »
Well, it has been a few weeks since I started using Office 2001 from Microsoft. I know some people detest Word, such as John Farr over at AppleLinks.com, and I can understand why. I am forced to use it at work day in and day out, and have found it a decent word processor for the most part. I was pretty used to Word 98, and was very curious about the new version, Word 2001. Now that I have it, I wonder what the hell the big whopdeedoo is all about?
VST Flash Media Reader
Company: VST
Estimated Price: $69
http://www.vsttech.com
Price is usually a deciding factor when it comes to choosing peripheral products for your computer. But the lower the price an item is, chances are the lower the quality. In this, the new VST Flash Media Reader is a breath of fresh air, being both a cost effective solution to your media reading needs, at a cost that is very low for such a useful and great looking piece of hardware.
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Book Review
Book Review
MyMac Podcast #385
MyMac Podcast #384