Outliner History
Thanks for the great article. I always enjoy knowing the history of things. I, too, missed Idea Keeper, but have found a wonderful replacement—DEVONthink. I’ve quickly become dependent on it as the organizing center for many of my computing activities.
—Michael McKee
Terrific article! I’ve been blazing through several nascent outliners and have—for now—settled on OmniOutliner. We’ll see how it goes. This is still an immature category, as far as I’m concerned, but one that’s been long overdue.
I look forward to reading further columns.
—Larry Stevens
Laptop or Desktop
There’s another option—a new desktop and an old laptop. I use a Duo 280 (3 lbs., greyscale) for travel. It runs Eudora (a quick copy of the Eudora folder and all mail is transferred), Word 5 (conversion is easy), Excel 5 (ditto), PowerPoint, and even SPSS 4 for statistics, and it does them all quite nicely. The only thing an old, very cheap (under $300) laptop does not do well is Web surfing. Batteries are the most expensive part of an old laptop, but if you only use them in a hotel room or a car or on the train, you can hook them up to a power supply and do just fine.
—Dave
Up front cost is only one component of total cost and I’ve found that having a laptop has saved me time and allowed me to secure a number of sales that were helped by being able to instantly demonstrate an idea. Also, I don’t want to have clients in my home. That’s private.
If I were buying today, I’d get the 12" PowerBook. It will drive a larger external monitor than my iBook, and it has AirPort Extreme. I sometimes use an external monitor and keyboard at home. A PowerBook won’t keep up with a G5, but I don’t game, do video production, or work with huge Photoshop files. I also don’t own a race car. Massive speed is nice if you need it, but most of us don’t. Almost any computer sold today is fast enough for general business use.
—Michael
I’d go with Dave’s suggestion: Laptops are still too slow, confining and, to put it bluntly: unusable, for serious computing. Even word processing and (gag me with a spoon!) Web surfing are painful on a laptop’s tiny, low-res screen (though I’ll admit that even working on a single-monitor desktop gives me fits of claustrophobia).
Desktops aren’t just superior in terms of power, but display space, keyboard/mouse space, and ergonomics.
—Eric D.V.H.
Hello Again
A great article! You had me laughing, nodding my head in solemn agreement (except about the Newton—I still use my 130), and tilting my head in rank nostalgia. Thanks for the memories.
—Mike Welsh
Excellent! I love to remember all the amazing history crammed into the past 20 years. Thanks for reminding us.
Welcome home, Angus!
—Chris Smith
Color Commentary
Red, green, and blue are the primary colors of light. Magenta, yellow, and cyan are the primary colors of transparencies and dyes. Red, yellow, and blue are the primary colors of opaque pigments.
The Red-orange-Yellow-green-Blue-violet-Red color wheels used in elementary school are based on pigments (such as fingerpaints), not dyes or light.
Inkjet printer inks are neither pure dyes nor pure pigments, which complicates matters. They are closer to dyes, which is why many printers use CYMK inks. But, because they aren’t pure dyes, many printers have added more ink colors to expand their gamut of colors.
—Gregory Tetrault
Picking the Optimal OS for Your Mac
When working at a full-time job, I think I’ve used everything from the last version of System 6.x to OS 9.22. Frankly, I’ll use whatever a paying employer gives me. But, at home, I have a sweet penchant for my G3 Wallstreet and 3400c PowerBooks, both on OS 8.1. Memory is maxed on both, both run identical software (Quark 4.1, Illustrator 8.0, Photoshop 4.0…you get the point).
The beautiful thing is, unless I get into production work (which I don’t), this stuff is more than sufficient. A few of my colleagues use System 7.5/7.6 and earlier apps…and are perfectly happy. I mean, what gives with these bloatware software manufacturers? Don’t they realize there comes a certain point when people are “just fine” with what they have? My gear is from 97-98, and I love it because I am very productive with it. It doesn’t surprise me the least that the hardware side of the market is hurting, as I know there are scads of others like me out there. Call me a “retro-grouch” if you wish, but I’m doing just fine, thank you very much!
—Sprocket999
Copyright © 2003 the ATPM Staff,
editor@atpm.com. We’d love to hear your thoughts about our publication. We always welcome your comments, criticisms, suggestions, and praise. Or, if you have an opinion or announcement about the Macintosh platform in general, that’s OK too. Send your e-mail to editor@atpm.com. All mail becomes the property of ATPM.
Reader Comments (2)
At this time in my life, I'm retired and am, more or less, on a fixed budget (if I'm going to leave anything to my heirs).
The question I have is, do I want a new computer? Of course I do, or I wouldn't be writing, I just don't know about the new systems like Jaguar and newer.
I'm proficient with OS 9, but that's the extent of it. I have the OS 9.1 CD but never installed it. There were too many ifs and don't dos. I've seen many pros and cons from other sources, so I never even attempted to buy OS 9.2.2.
Regarding OS X, some of the new ideas seem very far-fetched, like almost learning new ideas about how the new systems work and how they're applied in everyday tasks. Of course, I couldn't use it because I'm using a 603e processor in a 200 MHz Performa 6400. Not applicable.
I've been keeping up with your upgrade articles and have almost decided to upgrade but, even if I was to buy a new computer, which should I purchase? There are so many. I don't know if I want an iBook, iMac G4, G5, or what.
G5? I wish! A PowerBook seems to expensive for what I have in mind.
I don't write programs like C++ or anything, but I do write HTML. I haven't learned JavaScript and I don't plan to. At my age, it's almost over my learning ability.
I don't need to tax my senses more. I'm just trying to hang on with what's left to me without going completely senile. "It's a great life," some people exclaim!
I just want to get your opinion on what is the best bang for my bucks at this writing.
Regards, and keep up the good work,
Robert
As for the hardware, it's pretty easy to narrow down your choices. First of all, do you have need to be mobile with your computer? If so, then an iBook or a PowerBook is definitely worth considering. Apple's portable computers, these days, are extremely well-suited as your sole machine. Indeed, I use a 15" 1GHz PowerBook G4 as my only machine at home. I did just purchase a used 450 MHz G4 tower, but it will function as a server and a permanent location for my iTunes music.
This portability, however, comes at a premium. The cost for laptops is a fair bit higher than a desktop machine. The cheapest iBook starts at $1,099, though they now sport a G4 processor instead of a G3.
Additionally, based on what you've written, it doesn't sound as though one of Apple's beefier machines (Power Mac desktops or PowerBooks) would be of significant extra value to you. My opinion is that either an iMac, iBook, or eMac would be best suited for you.
Some time after you wrote your message here, Apple made the eMacs extremely attractive in all respects. While the iMac is simply an awesome-looking computer, the eMac is, arguably, the best bang for the buck. They now come with a 1 GHz G4 processor. The least expensive eMac (and least expensive Mac, in general) is $799 and comes with 128MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a Combo drive which will read and write CD-R/RW and will read DVDs. $300 more gets you double the RAM, double the hard drive size, and a Superdrive that also burns DVD-R discs.
Honestly, for anyone who does not need simple portability (though the eMac has a decent handle on it) and doesn't necessarily need the creme of Apple's crop, the eMac is where it's at. It's a great machine.
One last major bit of advice, no matter which machine you choose to get: buy RAM, and lots of it. Max it out if you can (the eMac can accept up to 1 gigabyte). If you can't max it out, buy as much as you can afford and then buy just a little more. OS X loves memory and you can not have too much. This isn't to say OS X is bad with memory handling—quite the contrary. It's very good with it. But having more makes it work all the better.
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