My Love For the PowerMac G4

While I’ve mentioned my possession of PowerMac G4s in several previous posts throughout the months, I think it’s time I went into the history of them in a little bit more detail. These are machines that I have bought mainly for nostalgic purposes; machines that I idolized when they were released and wanted so badly but could never afford. After high school, however, I decided that I was a big boy and could buy them if I so chose. So I did.

My first G4, a 450MHz single core AGP machine with a DVD drive, 512MB RAM and a 40GB HD running OS 10.4 Tiger, was purchased when I was at Messiah College in February of 2007. I won it on eBay for $75+$20 shipping, which was not a bad deal by any means. It had been a design machine at a studio in New York, and had been retired and put up for sale. The auction mentioned that shipping would be slow, and indeed it was - nearly a month after I won the auction the machine showed up at my campus post office. Included was the tower, an ethernet cable and a Dell keyboard and mouse, which was more than I was expecting. My friend Isaac gave me a 15 inch Dell monitor that had been sitting in his attic, and I soon had my very own G4 up and running in my dorm room. Now, what was I going to do with it?

It wasn’t nearly as powerful as my MacBook, and it didn’t come with any software other than Microsoft Office X. I didn’t have Office at the time, so I transferred that over to my Macbook. I had bought the machine for nostalgia purposes, but now I had a machine that ran the same OS as my Macbook (10.4.9 Tiger), only slower, and had less programs. Crap. The DVD drive was very nice, since I had Japanese region DVDs that required my MacBook to switch the DVD region of its drive. Since the number of switches was limited to five, the G4's first role was as a Japanese DVD-watching machine.

But I didn’t watch Japanese DVDs that often, so I had to find another way to justify this machine that hung out under my desk. Games, I thought, I can run games on it.

So I did!



For the remainder of the college semester, my G4 ran a copy of MacMAME. MacMAME allowed me to play shmups (my first video game love), and I poured hours into playing classic games such as Progear no Arashi, DodonPachi, DonPachi, E.S.P. Rade, Guwange, Battle Garrega and Armed Police Batrider. A regular keyboard was no good for these games and I didn’t have a gamepad, so I bought a USB<=>PS2 cable and borrowed a friend’s idle DualShock to rock MacMAME. It was glorious, I assure you.

I stored the machine over the summer, as I was in Japan making money, and by the time I returned in September I was itching to actually use the G4 for classic, nostalgic purposes. A quick search on eBay and a few strategic bids netted me a copy of Mac OS 9.2 and a copy of Unreal Tournament (I see Unreal Tournament 2004 as pretty much the zenith of computer gaming, but classic UT is almost as good). Not only was I granted access to hours of fragging goodness, but being able to boot into OS 9 allowed me to download and play abandonware games for the Mac as well. These are classic games that have been abandoned by their publishers and are available for free download. The most notable of these games, of course, was SimCity 2000, Original Oregon Trail, and Civilization 2, all of which had incredibly high nostalgic value for me. I was now swimming in nostalgia goodness!

But, believe it or not, that got old. I never imagined it getting old, but it did. And soon I decided that the computer wasn’t worth the space it took up, so I decided to sell it. I bundled it with OS 9, a pair of Roland speakers, the monitor, keyboard and mouse, and the copy of Unreal Tournament and put it up on CraigsList for $150. It wasn’t exactly a flip because all of the stuff DID cost me more than that, but I certainly didn’t lose a lot of money. A guy who lived in Philadelphia came and picked it up, only to call me two days later to complain that “[he] plugged it in and it started smoking.” I expected to be out a full $150, but for some reason he never called me again. I sometimes wonder what ever happened to the machine.

Well, one G4 had come and gone, but how long would it be before I wanted another, better one?

-------


That was in the spring of 2008, after which I went for half a year without another G4. Upon moving to Minnesota, however, I decided that it would be nice to have one again, so to Craigslist I faithfully turned once again.

I sold the first G4 because I didn’t need it, so "what made me decide I needed another one?", you may ask. This time I did actually have a goal in mind. This time I wanted to use it to set up an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server. An FTP server, for those who don’t know, is a machine that hosts files online that can be accessed from anywhere that has an Internet connection. I saw my future G4 as a machine that would sit in the corner, run 24/7, serve up media files at my request and also backup any data I might want backed up.

My media is actually pretty limited - just 207 episodes of the anime BLEACH (though at 175MB an episode, that’s a lot of data) and a few seasons of House M.D. These I figured would go on a slave hard drive, while the OS and backed-up files would be stored on the primary drive.

But wait, I haven’t actually found a machine yet.


Though I decided I wanted to step up and buy a faster, better machine than the last G4 I owned, price was still a factor, and I set myself a price range of $120-$180. After a few days of browsing I happened upon a listing for a Quicksilver G4 with a 867MHz processor, 384MB RAM, 40GB HD, Zip drive(!), and running an unknown version of OS X. Apparently the lister (the same guy who had no idea how to use Pro Tools) had forgotten the admin logon password and hadn’t used the machine in ages. The machine, priced at $150, came with an Apple Pro keyboard and mouse, and the cute round Apple speakers. I looked at the listing and grinned. I could haggle that down. I called the guy up at 9:45 on a Friday night, asking if the machine was still available. It was, and he wanted it gone that night, so I hopped in my van and drove over to his house. We had a quick meeting at his apartment, he showed me the machine, and I successfully haggled the price down to $120, citing that the machine effectively had no operating system - that alone was worth the $30. The keyboard was extremely dusty, but everything looked good overall, and I drove back home eager to set up my new machine.

I got home and realized that not only did I not have a monitor, but no one in my house even had a monitor that I could borrow. After a bit of thinking, I remembered that the basement had a projector which accepted VGA input, so I hauled my new purchase down the stairs and set it up in the basement at 11 o’clock at night.

First on the agenda was obviously to get an OS loaded onto the machine. It didn’t have a DVD drive (grr!), which meant that not only could I not (illegally) load my copy of Leopard onto it, but also that I couldn’t load my copy of OS 10.4 Tiger on it either. Luckily, a Grape iMac that I had purchased a month before had come with a copy of OS 10.3 Panther, so I grabbed the discs for that and went to work.

It is worth noting that I wanted to keep things legal here. My 333MHz iMac was at the time dual-booting OS 9.2.2 and Panther, so to keep things square I deleted Panther from the iMac before installing it on the G4. The iMac ran it slowly anyway.

So now that the OS was loaded on, I needed to install a plethora of networking utilities. I set up Panther to for file-sharing and FTP hosting, (following this website) configured a DNS account using DynDNS, downloaded and installed Eavesdrop, and loaded up a VNC client. At this point I only had the one 40GB hard drive, so loading my media would have to wait.

Time to connect from my MacBook! I loaded up Cyberduck, typed in the G4’s DynDNS address, and BAM, I was FTP-ing. It was sweet. I could, like, transfer files back and forth between the G4 in the basement and my laptop in my room.

Now it was time to upgrade my system to make it a worthwhile FTP system and deal with all the technical difficulties and disappointments that went along with that!

---


So my Quicksilver G4 was humming in my basement, FTPing inside my house to my MacBook. But I couldn’t leave it set up that way - I needed to move everything into my room. That meant that before I started upgrading anything else, I needed a monitor. I thought about trying Craigslist since it is, after all, the answer to any material need, but before I could hop on there I ran across a nice 15-incher at my local Axman Surplus. The monitor, a CRT of course, was attractively priced at $1.97. They couldn’t guarantee that it worked, buy for that kind of price, I was willing to risk it.

It turned out that the monitor worked beautifully and fulfilled all of my viewing needs quite well. I then turned my attention to the RAM and hard drive upgrades. First the RAM.

The G4, as stated before, had a paltry 384MB of RAM - one slot with a 128MB stick and another with 256MB. Despite rampant claims that 16k should be enough for anybody, I ignored the advice of yesteryear and sought to procure more RAM. My first stop, oddly enough, was eBay.

I had $22 idly sitting in my PayPal account that I wanted to use, so I looked around eBay for some good RAM for about that amount. I found a listing for 1GB (2x512) of high-density RAM for $19, so I took it. It arrived, only to not work in my machine, because, unbeknownst to me, my machine needs low-density RAM (which is considerably more expensive). I flipped the useless high-density stuff on Craigslist and this time stayed there to try and find some more. I eventually, after a couple weeks, found a guy who was selling two 256MB sticks for $20, so I went for that. A quick install and my G4 was purring with 768MBs of RAM goodness, its three slots holding 256MB each.

The second hard drive posed a much bigger headache. I’ve already admitted to being kind of a sad n00bcakes when it comes to computer parts, and my choice of hard drive will demonstrate that once again. I hopped on Craigslist once more, hoping to find something around 120GB-160GB that I could partition into two parts - allowing me to keep my OS and other files on the master and organize all of the media to host on the second drive. I found a nice 160GB SATA drive for about $20, and I met the guy in a McDonalds marking lot and made the swap. I took it home only to find that my machine needs an IDE drive - a completely different type of interface. Still full of vigor, I hopped on Amazon to find a converter bridge, something that would allow a IDE machine to take a SATA drive. That part turned out to be about $15, so, ever the stickler for FREE SuperSaver Shipping, I tacked on a internal four port USB card to the order. A computer can never have too many USB ports!

Both items arrived in a timely fashion and I installed them in an afternoon. The USB card worked flawlessly. The bridge did not. I tried every combination of master/slave drive set up that I could think of, but nothing worked. I took the IDE drive out of my external back-up drive and plugged the bridge into that, and that worked, so I knew that the bridge wasn’t bad. I just couldn’t get my machine to recognize that stupid second drive!

I abandoned that SATA drive (the drive and bridge are still stuffed in a drawer, four months later) and trudged back to CL to find another drive. I found one and arranged to meet the guy at the Oakdale Best Buy parking lot on Black Friday. In hindsight, this was a terrible idea. Don’t ever do this. I ended up walking around the parking lot for an hour, only to never find the guy and return home. He emailed me later, apologizing for not showing up and claiming that it, “just wasn’t a good day.” Whatever, guy. I gave you my cell number - you could’ve called me.

I soon found another listing, and arranged to meet this guy at a local record store called the Electric Fetus, a popular offbeat Minneapolis joint. Again, I was left browsing rows and rows of CDs waiting for a guy who never showed up. I got home only to find an email from him, claiming that he never saw me. I had told him earlier to look for a guy in shades and a leather biker jacket, and I reminded him that that was what I was wearing.

“Oh,” he replied, “that tall guy? I didn’t know. I asked the guy at the counter if anyone was waiting for me, and he said ‘no’.”

Oh, of course. I’m totally going to walk up to a clerk and be all like, “Hey, if a some guy comes in asking if someone is waiting for him, send him over to me.” What am I, nuts? So that swap didn’t work out either.

Turns out the third one was the charm. I found a guy selling a 160GB IDE drive for $20, so I agreed to meet him at a gas station about 4 miles or so away from my house. It was cold, but I decided that I was tough and that I could bike there. I did, only to soon receive a call saying that he was running late. The gas station was in a part of town that, while not “bad”, was not exactly full of moms-driving-minivans (I’m sure you are all familiar with the M-D-M parts of town in your areas). So, because of this, the gas station wouldn’t let me wait inside, and I had to try and keep warm at 9:30AM in ten-degree weather and wait for twenty minutes until this guy showed up with my hard drive.

My hands froze on the ride home (I WAS wearing ski gloves, but I guess that doesn’t help against cold wind and bare metal handlebars), and I had to stop in at my work to warm them up before I could continue. Standing there holding my hands inside of a metal hotcase was one of the most painful experiences of my life, second only perhaps to having my nipple pierced when I was 15.

I eventually made it home, threw the drive into the G4, and booted it up.

Success! Not only did it work, but this guy had left 20GB of MP3 files on it. I didn’t want any of them, and I had to partition the drive anyway, so they all got deleted. The partition went smoothly, and soon I was loading all sorts of media onto the machine, fulfilling my dream that I had set out to achieve for it.

But is that it? Is that what the machine is doing now? Shockingly, no!


------

Now that my Quicksilver G4 is fully upgraded, I should be able to put it to use as an FTP server, right? Well, things weren’t that simple. It turns out that I don’t know how to assign a static IP address to the Quicksilver machine, which is kind of important if you want to FTP. My options are actually to A) open all the ports on the router to allow FTP, or B) assign a static (unchanging, as opposed to dynamic, or variable) IP address to the machine. I know how to do neither of these things. (If you know how, by all means let me know!)

So because I can’t FTP, the machine just sits there as a media storage unit. But, thankfully, I can put it to use in other ways as well.

In late November I bought a grape G3 iMac off of Craigslist for $25 that had OS 9 as well as Photoshop 5.5 and Illustrator 9. Since the G4 can run programs in the Classic environment, I copied the whole system folder and both Adobe programs over to it. It now servers as my graphics machine, and I use it to make these comics. Actually just about any image editing that I do is done on that machine. (I have since reinstalled OS 8.6 on the iMac and given it away).

I also tried using the G4 as a music jukebox, because my laptop is portable and my speakers are not. I like to listen to music as I drift off to sleep, but the G4 generated too much fan noise to be of any use while I am trying to sleep. It’s just too loud and disconcerting. Bleh!

The keyboard that came with the G4 was super dusty, so one week I decided to clean it. While all of the keys were strewn about my desk, I got the wild idea that I wanted to learn the Dvorak keyboard layout. So I re-assembled the keyboard in that layout, and now I am teaching myself Dvorak. One annoying part of this is that every time I restart the computer, the logon window still operates in QWERTY, so I have to try and picture the QWERTY setup in my head in order to input my password correctly. Consequently, I don’t restart very often.

So, dear reader, our journey has come to an end. You have followed me from basement monitor setup to Dvorak layout, and suffered with me through parts upgrades, missed appointments, incompatible hardware, and other frustrations. But now you know the whole story behind my Quicksilver G4, and why I love it so much. It’s become a permanent fixture in my room, humming away a bit too loudly, and providing my with good classic software that lets me get done what I want to do.

Hooray!



_DZ

Ubuntu 8.0 on a Macbook to replace Leopard? Not quite yet!

Last weekend I entertained the idea of switching my Macbook OS to Linux, or more specifically, to Ubuntu 8.0. Right now if course I run OS Leopard 10.5.6, which I love. So why would I want to switch? Well, there are a couple of reasons.

First, I was just curious. The last time I tried Ubuntu was back when it was version 7.0 and wouldn’t recognize my Mac’s wireless card. No wireless was kind of a deal breaker, and I wasn’t about to go rooting around to find code or drivers to make it work, so I immediately retreated to the safety of Leopard. But now version 8.0 was out, and I thought I would try it out to see what features it had to offer, and to see if the wireless issue was fixed.

Secondly, I was attracted to Ubuntu because it was free, open source software (the two are not synonymous). More importantly, it was a free, open source operating system. I use free software on my Mac whenever possible, but a free operating system would be a first. Open sourcing is an issue I care about because I feel that closed, proprietary formats and software seriously inhibit the progression of global, grassroots software technology. In order for software to be available to everyone, it needs to be as cheap as possible, and nothing is cheaper than free. In the past free software couldn’t compete with commercial products, but that has changed thanks to (a) more programmers and (b) their willingness and ability to collaborate with one another over the Internet. Free software really is the future, and as such I feel that I should adopt it as soon as possible.

So I was all ready to install Ubuntu, but then I had second thoughts. What would I lose by abandoning Leopard? Have my computing habits become so ingrained in the Mac user experience that I would find it difficult or even painful to switch? In the nine years or so that I have been using Macs, I have become somewhat of a Mac power user (also a Power Mac user!) It was time that I examined the features that I totally take for granted on my Macbook.

For starters, I would lose the total hardware/software integration. These are the little things that make the Mac user experience so enjoyable. Things like the brightness and volume adjust keys, the Safari/Dashboard integration, and Exposé. The two finger scroll, the numerous keyboard shortcuts that I have memorized, and the native iSight and iPod support. These things “just work” on a Mac.

This goes for language support as well. I have a MacBook with a Japanese keyboard, which allows me to switch from English to Japanese with the press of a single key. I also get to type @ ¥ ^ - [ ] : ; / _ without hitting the Shift key!

On the tangent of iPod support, I would also have to face losing three years worth of music statistics kept track of by my iTunes. Stats like song ratings, play counts, playlists, not to mention other perks like album art and downloaded lyrics. I would literally have to start from scratch.

Another thing I would miss is the intuitive, subtle features present in Leopard itself. While I could do without gimmicks like Stacks, other features such as Spaces, Quick Look, Spotlight, and the Dock have become mainstays of my computing experience. Would these have Linux counterparts? Linux has such counterparts for programs like Quicksilver (a third party application launcher that has revolutionized how I interact with my Mac) and Time Machine, which I feel that I could get used to quite quickly.

Of course, there are other apps that I run on my Macbook that I would likely miss as well - programs like Amadeus Pro, Garageband, Handbrake, Ghost Recon, iMovie, and GarageSale. These might have Linux alternatives, but it would take me time to learn all of them, and, frankly, right now I don’t see the point in learning a lot of new software that does the same stuff that I can already do.

And what about the migration of all my preferences? All my saved passwords, system settings, website autologins, and bookmarked links? I would have to reset all of those!

So I didn’t install Ubuntu. I figured, “Hey, I paid the money for Leopard, I might as well get all the use out of it that I can.” And this is what I plan to do. Right now I am not yet ready to make the migration to the Linux world, but I plan to eventually. And by the time I am ready, my Macbook will no doubt be falling apart and Ubuntu will have gotten even better. But know this, I will install Linux on the next computer I buy. And the next one. And the next one.


_DZ

Do Computers Belong In Schools? (A debate augmented with personal history)

Lately I’ve ben forming my own view on the debate over whether computers belong in schools or not. Actually it doesn’t seem to be much of a debate; it’s more like a bunch of people champion the cause incessantly and see any soul opposed as a Luddite who wants to impede progress. Even laypeople who have no idea there was any debate will say, “Well, of course computers belong in schools” when asked. While I am not quite ready to form my own concrete opinion, the issue has gotten me thinking about the role of computers in my own education. Their role is a rather obscure one, actually. In fact, the more I think about it, the less I can remember school computers helping me learn anything significant.

The first time I used a computer for education-related purposes was for a research report on knives that I did in third or fourth grade. At the time I was attending Japanese school and simultaneously being home-schooled. The computer, my dad’s Compaq tablet PC running Windows 3.1, served only as a way to write my report down - all the research was done in encyclopedias or other books books around the house. The report turned out to be barely a page long, but the whole process was very enjoyable. My mom even took pictures of the event.

I didn’t use a computer in an actual school until sixth grade. Despite the level of technological sophistication associated with Japan, there was not a single computer in any classroom in my entire public elementary school - not even on a teacher’s desk. In sixth grade, however, I moved to the US and my private Christian school had a computer lab full of obsolete DOS computers. This was 1998, and the school had a lab full of machines that still ran Paratrooper, Wheel of Fortune and original Oregon Trail. Incidentally, playing games was the only thing I remember doing with them. That year the school decided to buy new computer equipment and organized a jog-a-thon to help raise money. I dutifully sent a letter to everyone on my Dad’s Rolodex, explaining that I needed sponsorship to help pay for new computer equipment. I had no idea what the school would do with new computers (Organize Marathon LAN parties, perhaps?), but I was definitely going to help them get some! After all, it was progress!

I started middle school at a private international K-12 school in Japan, and they were all about computers. They had a typing lab workgroup of Mac Color Classics with At-Ease, and another full lab with Power Macs, two iMacs and assorted PCs running mainly Windows 95. This was when I started using the computer for just about everything. Using computers became more of an obsessive compulsion for me than anything else. I literally got joy just from being around them. Sure, I spent a lot of free time exploring the Internet, but I typed up a lot of papers, did a lot of research, created some fancy presentations and taught myself a great deal of software. My parents had bought me a second-hand laptop that ran Windows 3.1 (in 1999), and I taught myself how to do some elementary programming in BASIC on that machine. The majority of my on-screen time, however, was spent on entertainment, whether that be playing SimCity 2000, browsing the Web for pictures of sweet sports cars, or playing Yahoo! Pool.

I took a number of computer-related courses throughout high school, among them AutoCAD, Computer Applications (basically MS Office), typing, and Yearbook. Of those classes, I have completely forgotten CAD (most of the screen time in that class was spent on Yahoo! LaunchCast and MSN Messenger) and nearly all of Microsoft Access. Almost all the stuff that was covered in Excel, Word, and Publisher I had already taught myself in middle school. Typing, a middle school class, was spent (in Mavis Beacon, of course!)playing a grocery bag game that taught me how to use a keypad, and a race car game that just reinforced the ability to type a bunch memorized phrases quickly. I learned how to win at the game; not how to type. Yearbook class was spent on Apple eMacs running Adobe Photoshop CS2, and that has proved moderately useful, even four years later.

So the computer applications courses were moderately successful at best, but what about the forays of other school subjects into the computer world? What about the English projects, the social studies collaborative efforts, and the science research? For the most part, completely forgettable. I remember one time, junior year, when a mobile laptop cart with Apple iBooks (that’s twenty-five laptops at about $1300 each) was brought in for English class. My teacher spent the whole class period teaching the students how to log in and open up Word and the Internet. That was what we did for forty-five minutes. By the time the teacher had trouble-shot everyones problems, the period was over. I had been using Macs for four years at this point, and I spent the time by helping those around me get set up. Who knows if they remembered how to do that stuff when the cart came around next month for another lesson.

The second half of my senior year revolved around completing an interdisciplinary comprehensive project about a global issue affecting our world. I chose to compile research, design a school-wide survey, write a thirty-page portfolio report, and give a twenty-minute oral presentation on the effects of violent video games on popular culture. By the end of the semester the words out of nearly every teacher’s mouth at the beginning of class was “Go to the lab and work on your Comps.” That, literally, was the plan for the day. Sit in front of a computer, do research, and write your report.

Heck, I thought, I can do that from home. That would save me transportation time and costs, lunch money, the potential distraction from peers, and the hardship of waking up at seven every morning. I could wake up at nine, take my time getting ready for “school”, plop myself down in front of the family Dell for a few hours, play some video games (Unreal Tournament 2004, ironically) if I got bored, and still accomplish more than my peers did in the same amount of time. They just seemed to always be socializing in the lab, browsing one another’s shared iTunes libraries or whatnot. School was the place where I got less work done.

So, back to the original question - do I think computers belong in schools. Well, apart from the technology courses, I don’t remember my learning being enhanced by computers per se. They made everything all professional and snazzy looking, and certainly made research easier (though I graduated high school not knowing the Dewey Decimal System) but I don’t know if I necessarily learned better. I certainly don’t think I would have learned less if computers hadn’t been around, however.

I think it is rather hard to justify pouring money into computers that will be obsolete in three to five years. Not to mention having to deal with all the headaches over access privileges, privacy controls, and software upgrades. Sure, a school should have a computer lab, but should we extend that to giving every kid a computer? Should every classroom even have a computer? Can’t that money be better spent elsewhere? Judging by my own history of computing in education, I think so. On top of that, apart from the specialized classes I took, I taught myself nearly everything I wanted to know about computing . Learning about operating systems, basic programming, installing software, using graphical user interfaces, word processing, desktop publishing; all these things I learned by myself. I didn’t need a “general computing” course or anything like that. I was naturally inquisitive. That’s what I think the major role of computers in schools should be - to let kids get acquainted with them on their own time. I spent hours upon hours, both before and after school, hanging out in a computer lab puttering around on an iMac. I didn’t need formal instruction, and I don’t think kids these days do, either.



_DZ

The Common Fallacy That Technology Can Replace Effort

Part of my daily Internet routine involves hopping on Craigslist.com and browsing the listings of all the Apple Macintosh-related items for sale or trade. It is definitely more out of habit and curiosity than of need, but it does afford me some interesting insights into the second-hand Mac market. I find that, in view of the overall number of Macs for sale, a disproportionately large number of them are being sold by the amateur creative types: the aspiring graphic designers, music producers, and videographers. Their typical listing includes a high-end MacBook or Mac Pro (computers in the $2500+ range) and usually some expensive software like Photoshop, Logic Pro, or Final Cut Pro. The system, deducing from the hardware specifications, is usually less than six months old - which begs the question, “Why are so many people dumping high-end systems so soon after purchase?” The answer, I think, can be found by considering the availability and raw power of such systems and software and their corresponding position as status symbols. People are trying to use powerful technology as a short-cut to avoid effort, and it doesn’t work.

Moore’s Law dictates that computer hardware capabilities double every 18 months, effectively rendering older technology obsolete rather quickly. In this extremely fast-paced technology environment, software has a heck of a time keeping up. More often than not in the rush to make new programs available for the newest system, developers aren’t able to fully harness the hardware’s capabilities. In addition to this rush, new system architecture sometimes requires programs to be re-written to prevent from being rendered obsolete. The result is that programs never become more usable per sé, rather they are sold as the same program as before with more features added in each new release.

Because of this feature creation-fest we have extremely powerful software that requires users to read thick volumes of literature in order to learn how to use it. A guide to Adobe Photoshop Elements (the really stripped-down version of normal Photoshop), for example, tops out at over 400 pages. Imagine the guide to the full Photoshop experience!

Amateur professionals simply do not have time to read 700+ page manuals or guide books to software that will be obsolete in 18 months. These days, to really know how to use a powerful piece of software, you have to either go to school and learn it or have a job that trains you in it. Preferably both.

Regardless, the software and hardware makers still tout their products to hobbyists as “powerful tools for the amateur professional” or some other equally catchy tag line. Just because a product is available, however, doesn’t mean that it is for everyone, as evidenced by the number of people who buy high-end Macs only to find out that learning Final Cut Pro takes a lot of time. They paid for their $5000 setup with a credit card, and now they have to offload it before the bills start to pile up on a piece of incredibly powerful technology that they cannot harness. My own PowerMac G4, for example, I bought from a guy in his late twenties who admitted that he “bought it for music production before [he] realized that [he] had no idea how to use Pro Tools.” Expensive technology, surprisingly, didn’t help him become a better musician.

Buying expensive tools does not make up for lack of talent or drive. Technology cannot solve those problems. If I aspire to be a professional photographer, buying a $1500 SLR camera might make my color look a little better or my pictures more in-focus, but it cannot improve my framing, lighting, or ability to be in the right spot at the right time to nab that action shot. If I don’t have the motivation and humility to take a bazillion pictures and study them relentlessly, owning a $1500 camera will only make me feel bad about having another expensive toy that I don’t use. I would probably sell it and use the money to buy something I actually need, like food.

We can see this over-reliance on technology in other media as well. The popular day-time T.V. show “The Doctors” recently aired an episode in which a panel of doctors fielded questions from the audience related to sexual performance and other topics of that nature. It was billed as a kind of “we’ll answer those questions that you are to embarrassed to ask your partner” type of episode. Really, society at large? Really?

Never mind actually communicating with your partner. Never mind having an open channel in which you can broach such topics as these. No, please take those questions and ask them in front of a TV audience, because that makes for good entertainment. You will get your answer, thanks to the technology of daytime T.V., and your partner will be none the wiser!

If you still don’t think this is a problem, consider the 12/15/08 Dear Abby column.

DEAR ABBY: My adult daughter, "Marsha," lives at home and will walk in and start a conversation or tell me something while I'm watching the news or some other show I'm interested in. Marsha never seems to arrive during commercials, which I'd gladly skip.

If I don't stop what I'm doing and pay full attention to her, she becomes offended. I feel she is interrupting. Who's right?
-- JAMES IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

DEAR JAMES: You are. However, a compromise might be to invest in a digital video recorder. That way you can "pause" whatever you're watching and return to it when interrupted.

Talking this issue through with his daughter is apparently too much to ask. Buying a TiVo is an easy solution, and hey!, it only costs some money. Apparently if you throw enough money at a problem or use technology creatively, it will go away? I wish that were true.

The truth is that investing effort in something is usually the only way to make it truly valuable. This is the same whether you’re talking about relationships, social problems, or even making a good movie or record album. Technology can be a great tool in helping you such things, but when reliance on technology becomes thought of as a shortcut to success, the result can only be disappointment.

Allow me to wrap up with a personal story. When I was in 9th grade, I discovered file sharing networks. This was during the "golden age" of file sharing before it was all deemed a legal threat. Immediately I was granted access to a huge library of “free” powerful software applications used by professional studios all over the world. My cable modem spent untold hours as my faithful slave, bringing me Adobe Photoshop 6, 3D Studio Max, FruityLoops, and AutoCAD, among others. I eagerly installed them, but then I hit a wall. What was I going to do with them? I wasn’t particularly creative, either artistically or musically. I had no interest in industrial design or 3D rendering. Professionals used this software because it allowed them to do what they loved to do - they used it out of necessity. I was a 15 year-old kid who wanted to say he had experience with expensive software applications. I fiddled around with the programs for a bit, but then when I found out that they were incredibly complicated, I lost interest. I had no time to read thick books. I had no real drive to learn Photoshop. I just liked it because I could put weird warping effects on peoples’ faces. I used maybe 1% of the total features available to me.

I currently use Photoshop 5.5 and Illustrator 9 on my PowerMac G4, mainly to produce the three-panel comics that I post on this site. These are old versions, but I don’t care. I use Photoshop for resizing, adjusting color, and very light editing. Version 5.5 helps me accomplish that. I chose Photoshop over free editing programs like GIMP because, though GIMP may be advanced, it would require me to learn a new user interface. I don’t want to do that. Learning Photoshop for my Yearbook class took me long enough as it did, and if I have to settle for a cheap, outdated copy of Photoshop because of my refusal to re-learn a new program, so be it. At least I know how to use it for what I want it to do, which I think is certainly more than can be said for the guy trying to pawn off his quad-core Mac Pro on Craigslist.



_DZ

Netbooks are not Apple's design

Several weeks ago Apple, Inc. unveiled its hot new line of laptop computers to much rejoicing and hullabaloo. These were gorgeous machines with respectable spec sheets and for the first time the entire Apple notebook line had sturdy all-aluminum casing. Not all was well in the Mac community, however. There were some who had wanted Apple to release a notebook in the emerging 'netbook' market, and they were sorely disappointed.

Netbooks are an emerging market, a market so new in fact that my copy of OpenOffice still throws a red squiggle under the word. They are essentially a bare-bones laptop with a very small footprint - usually a 8 or 10 inch screen. They are meant for browsing the Internet and word processing and not much else. They aren't for gaming, storing your entire media library, or multi-tasking between seven different applications. They usually don't have webcams, CD drives, or other fancy-shmancy add-ons. They are also really cheap -usually under $500 - which is their main draw. Some would say that they have a low price point, but those people are idiots. A word of advice to them – there is no need to use the word 'price point' when 'price' conveys the exact same idea. You are not going to ask your friend what the price point of the new toaster he purchased was. No, you're going to ask him how much it cost, or how much he paid for it.

So these netbooks are really cheap and are apparently selling like hotcakes. Well, hotcakes with screens. And some “loyal” – I use that word lightly here – Apple fans think that Apple should produce a laptop for this market. (One could I suppose argue that they just wanted the Mac Air for cheaper.) They think that by releasing a sub-$800 laptop, that Apple would make a lot of money and gain new customers. This is a misguided wish for several reasons.

Reason 1: Apple is a respected brand that has always made higher-end consumer products. Their laptops typically are released at a price of around $1200 going all the way up to their Pro line of $3500 or so. Historically they make products for the artistic professionals – movie makers, photographers, designers, etc. The business world uses Windows and all the art is made on Macs. (This accounts the disproportionate amount of Macs you see in movies and TV shows.)

Reason 2: Apple puts a lot of work into designing their products, and it shows. People don't realize that making good design is usually expensive and requires a lot of hard work. Somebody has to pay for all of that gorgeous design that sets apart Macs from the rest of the computer world.

Reason 3: Most Mac users are extremely loyal. (Since 2002 I have owned five different Macs, and that was not because I needed them. I just liked having them around.) What this translates to is a very active second-hand Mac market. Macs have famously high resale value, which happened to be one of my considerations when buying my MacBook the weekend it was released. I bought my Mac for around $1500 three years ago and WILL be able to resell it for 700-800 dollars if I choose to sell it even now, almost three years later. When my mom needed a new laptop, I advised her to buy a used Aluminum PowerBook rather than a new MacBook because it was essentially the same machine, only $300 cheaper. Mac fans who whined about no $500 notebook failed to see that they already had one – the 12' G4 PowerBook. Sure it doesn't have the newest Mac OS or other nice features, but hey, it has a wireless and can run OS X, right? That's really all the average netbook user would need. For even cheaper you could buy a used iBook and still have OS X.

By releasing a netbook Apple would not only risk jeopardizing their respected professional brand, but they would also risk sabotaging their second-hand market that keeps enthusiasts abated until they decide to buy another new Apple machine. They would also risk having to release a machine that was not iconic in its design, like nearly every Apple machine has been. Way to go Apple, for continuously sticking to your guns and releasing great computers at reasonable prices.


_DZ

Leopard and Two Gigs of RAM

As mentioned in a previous post, I ordered 2 gigs for RAM and OSX 10.5 from Amazon.com. The RAM came before OS X did, so I had a few days of blissful Tiger running on almost 5 times the minimum required RAM. To be clear, it was speedy. I opened all of the applications on my dock at the same time just because I could. With 512megs (the default amount), I have to be responsible and prioritize which application I really wanted to have running. No more! There's really no downside to having more RAM. A new OS, however...

Leopard arrived at my door last Monday, three days after it's release. From what I had read on message boards and in reviews online, it seemed great. Sure, there was talk of the little 'Leopard BSOD' incident, but I threw it in the back corner of my mind, where it splattered against the wall.

Two hours after I had begun the install, and I was staring at a very bright blue screen. I had mouse control, but that was about it. No keyboard, no CD drive, no nothing. I grabbed a nearby laptop to see what was the matter. Upon a quick Google search I found myself at Apple.com's support pages. One clearly hastily thrown up page told me that I had an issue with my ApplicationEnhancer plugin (which I had indeed installed). The site told me to reboot into Single User Mode (a 'feature' which happened to have locked me out of my computer on the flight over - my fault) and type in a few lines of code to delete the file bundle, which I did. A quick reboot and Leopard was now ready to go!

The install overall was the smoothest install I have ever had the pleasure of sitting through. Granted, all the previous install I had done were with Windows, but still, Leopard was amazing. Macs are set up so that the system folder is completely separate from the applications and other data folders, so a new OS install leaves everything else perfectly intact. This is unheard of when using Windows. I plan to install Mac OS 9.2 onto my G4 Powermac soon, so I'll get to compare the experiences soon enough.

Now for a basic run-down of the pros and cons I have found with Leopard so far.

PROS
-User interface is gorgeous
-The ability to lock folders to a certain view option is much appreciated. I use List for Apps, Grid for Movies, etc.
-Spaces is brilliant
-The new iChat is awesome
-The new backdrops in Photo Booth are nice
- I can finally record video via built-in iSight from Photo Booth - I no longer have to open iMovie
- Cover flow is a nice addition to Finder, especially in the Photo and Documents folder
-The predefined spotlight searches for Today, Yesterday, This Week, etc, are nice

CONS
-Takes an additional three gigs of space over Tiger
-Time Machine wants to re-format my external before it can use it. That will not be happening.
- Stacks are no so cool. In fact, they get rather annoying.
-My Cocktail app doesn't work with Leopard yet.

Overall, I enjoy using Leopard a lot. However, seeing as Spaces alone takes up probably 200megs of RAM, I wouldn't recommend using Leopard on any machine sporting less than gig or RAM.