LEM Home Page, iBook & PowerBook Page, iMac Channel, Power Mac Page, Mac Daniel's Upgrade Advice, MacUSB, My First Mac, My Turn, Online Tech Journal, Road Apples, 56k Page Editorials DeStefano: Mac Metamorphosis, Guha: Apple Archive, Knight: Mac Musings, Moore: Miscellaneous Ramblings, Ploudre: Back & Forth, Rodrigues: Tangerine Fusion, Rumsey: Low End Mac Gaming, Taylor: Mac to the Future, Van Esch: Mac Scope Other World Computing: 9.1GB Apple ROM SCSIs only $175.00, Sonnet G3 starting at $126.50, G3/400mhz only $197! Check Out These Deals and More at OWC! Only $5 for FedEx delivery too. Click Here! Norton AntiVirus and Norton Utilities for Macintosh: Protect your Mac from viruses and repair disk problems quickly and easily with our award winning products. Click for a FREE trialware download of Norton Antivirus! Trends at Macworld July 26, 2000 Dan Knight There were a lot of unique items at Macworld Expo, but also some types of products available from several sources. Optical Mice Perhaps the biggest trend is toward optical mice. Apple's new Pro Mouse is optical, as is the popular Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer. I won't even pretend to list all the companies with optical mice, but they included Contour Design, Macally, Apple had the most clever mouse design of the show, one which should go down in computer history as a conceptual breakthrough. The Apple Pro Mouse doesn't have a button; the mouse is a button. That is, there is no specific part of the mouse that you have to push to click. Instead, pushing anywhere on the front (cable) end of the mouse gives you the click. It's a concept that only works with the single-button mouse Apple still prefers. It's brilliant. Compact Mice Nearly as common as optical mice were compact mice designed for the road warrior. Apple's certainly qualifies, although most compact mice were even smaller. Almost all of the compact mice used optical technology, and my favorite was the Contour Designs mini-mouse, which comes with a compact case to hold the mouse and USB cable in your laptop's case. Enhanced Keyboards Apple led the charge with their new Pro Keyboard, which replaces the old USB keyboard and gives users all the keys of the old 105-key Apple Extended Keyboard. Better yet, the Pro Keyboard is color neutral, so you can add it to any USB Mac without worrying about color. Best of all, the Pro Keyboard is more compact than the other USB extended keyboards on the market. With the Pro Keyboard, Apple has created a very different market for keyboard makers -- it's no longer sufficient to provide an extended keyboard, since that comes standard with all new desktop Macs. Instead we're starting to see "media" keyboards with extra programmable keys to launch files, switch programs, etc. More Accelerators We saw the first accelerators for the Power Book G3 models, as well as a 400 MHz G3 upgrade for the PB 1400 from Sonnet. There's even a G4 upgrade, although I'd think twice about battery life before putting one of those in a laptop. AirPort Farallon made a big deal about their Skyline card, which is an AirPort-compatible PC Card. I would have loved one for the PowerBook I had with me, but nobody was selling them. I believe it was also Farallon who is working on a combination AirPort-compatible base station and ethernet hub. FireWire I can't even think to count the number of FireWire drives, scanners, and other devices shown at the Expo. Intel may be pushing USB 2.0, but FireWire is firmly established. Final Thoughts If the Cube is for the executive market, will there be an executive (i.e., thin and light) PowerBook, too? A lot of road warriors would sure love a smaller, lighter Mac laptop for writing in the field. What's up with the single-processor G4/400 -- all the other Power Macs now have two processors. My guess: Apple needs to unload 400 MHz machines. Why did Apple start the Cube at 450 MHz? I'd imagine a Cube/400 would cost several hundred dollars less than the Power Mac G4/400. Of course, it Apple is trying to unload G4/400s, they wouldn't want to undercut it with a 400 MHz Cube. For that matter, why not a G3-based Cube? I'm sure one with CD-ROM instead of DVD could sell for as little as the basic $799 iMac. As a Mac user and information systems manager, I know that a 350-400 MHz G3 is plenty of power for most users. I'm definitely going to have AirPort access for the next Expo. I also need to arrive a day earlier and leave a day later -- and maybe add some time for site seeing. <back to the original article> Recent Mac Musings & articles by Dan Knight When to buy new, 8/21. The publisher of Low End Mac admits that it sometimes makes more sense to get a new computer then keep upgrading an old one. Browse different, 8/18. One way browsers could improve the Web surfing experience. Happy Birthday, iMac!, Dan Knight, iMac Channel, 8/16. "The iMac has redefined the industry and redefined Apple as a trendsetter." The new Macs in business, 8/14. The impact of the new Macs on one Mac-using business. Other New Content on LEM Linux for PowerPC, Eric DeStefano, Mac Metamorphosis, 8/24. Linux for PowerPC is fairly mature -- and a good introduction to the Unix core of OS X. PlayStation in a Mac, Anne Onymus, Rumor Mill, 8/24. Rumor is Sony has developed PlayStation2 on a PCI/AGP card, thrown in hardware DVD decoding, and then added totally outrageous 3D drivers using the Emotion Engine. Born Again: It Works!, Dan Knight, Online Tech Journal, 8/23. Yes, you can run Mac OS 8.1 on some 68030-based Macs. QuickCam + PowerBook = Webcam, Manuel Mejia Jr., Mac Daniel, 8/23. How to set up an older Mac (in this case, a PowerBook 145) with a QuickCam and use it as a webcam. Troubleshooting FileMaker Pro, Dan Knight, 8/23. How to prevent and recover from data errors in FileMaker Pro. An Old Friend, Somewhere in Boxes, My First Mac, 8/22. "My first computer was the Quadra 660AV. It was the first computer I had ever owned." Quest for a User-friendly Hub, Joshua McKinney, My Turn, 8/22. If USB is supposed to be plug and play, why do so many hubs make that difficult? New @ Low End Mac: Receive email information on new links. back to Mac Musings index Macinstein Banner Exchange Low End Mac established April 7, 1997. This page, the entire Low End Mac site, and all subsites of <lowendmac.com> copyright ©1997-2000 by Dan Knight unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. LINK POLICY: This site allows and encourages links to any public page, so long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking the linked page. Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Computer, Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iMac, and iBook are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of the individual companies and are hereby acknowledged.