Archive for the Mac Tag

Taming the beast – Part 2

After taming the Mini… it was time to update the iBook. This went pretty smoothly. I used the “upgrade” installer, since this was a machine that had never been tainted with the kind of firewire brain swap that seems to have affected the Mini originally. Having built Fink on the Mini in advance and done my homework on a few
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Taming the Beast – Part 1

After a few days of exploring Tiger on the Mini, I had a small but important laundry list of things that simply must be fixed before I can use it. First, the system seemed sluggish, which is odd because everyone that is happy with Tiger remarks on its speed. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the Classic environment didn’t work at
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Tiger: First Impressions

The install on the Mini went rather smoothly. I popped in the install DVD, clicked “install,” rebooted, answered a few questions, and walked away. When I came back, the familiar LoginPanel.app greeted me with a list of users, inviting me to log in. This is where the only two issues I have experienced surfaced. First, the system was so busy
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The Tiger Pounces…

So, my Tiger arrived today. I probably won’t install it on the iBook until next week after class is over. I may install on the Mini sooner, we’ll see how the weekend plays out. And why, you may ask, do I need a Tiger? Because I looked that muppet in the eye and said “give me the test!” And here
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The Tiger Pounces!

Steve finally announced The Pounce! With the release of Tiger, Apple will be bringing a few new features to their desktop OS. While many are singing the praises of the new Spotlight and Dashboard features, I think I’m most looking forward to computer–computer synchronization in the new iSync. I need to be able to keep Bill’s Mini and iBook in
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iPod and TFT birthday happiness!

Jen managed to pull a bunch of friends and family together for a belated birthday (too many people couldn’t make it if we had held the party on Easter weekend, and my birthday was Good Friday this year). She also convinced them to pool their cash and get two sweet mega-gifts. The Philips 170B5CS flat panel display that I’d been
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“Mac ee tosh”

Wee lad’s computer arrived yesterday. He calls it “Mac ee tosh.” We have a couple of games he likes, although I won’t be buying more from the JumpStart series. They claim to be Mac OS/X compatible but they don’t work well on the iBook, and according to some searching on the web, this is a problem common to all the
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Mini Madness

It looks like Wee lad is nearly ready for a computer he can explore with less supervision. We’ve weighed several options, including cobbling a PC together from spare parts, and come to the tentative conclusion that he is better off with a Mac mini. Among the reasons are the fact that some of the programs we want him to use
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14 months as a Mac user (or, a NeXTStep user comes home)

In September of 2003, I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about. I acquired a secondhand iMac (original, Bondi Blue) and the latest OS/X (Jaguar, follwed quickly by Panther). Since October ’03 I haven’t looked back. Even that slow 233 MHz gem was quite peppy compared to Windows. The only thing it wouldn’t do to my satisfaction
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