Posts tagged “imac”.

iMac G4 ad insert from 2002

April 8th, 2010

imacg4guidewired

Drool.

Here we see a great switcher message, and a kick-off to the “digital hub” strategy Steve Jobs laid out at Macworld the year before.

[Via David Kendal’s tip.]

Quote of the week: anything newer?

March 5th, 2010

“The question is not ‘why do you want something that old?’ but rather: Why would I want anything newer? This computer serves my purposes perfectly well. It would be nice to be able to run Mac OS X Leopard and run all the latest software, but for somebody like me whose heaviest task is editing a photo taken with a point-and-shoot camera, I’ve found that this computer is quite powerful enough.”

David Kendal, my podcasting buddy, with a good pre-emptive piece that nicely accompanies my rant from the other day.

HowTo: clean a keyboard in the dishwasher

January 19th, 2010

Keyboard vs. Dishwasher - prep

A few weeks ago, my clumsy self spilled a cup of coffee on my Apple Pro Keyboard.

I loved the keyboard, a late 1990s model that shipped with Power Mac G4s and later iMac G3s, and used it everyday with my new iMac. It was too important to me to simply let go.

So I washed it in the dishwasher.

More… »

Ode to the iMac G4

December 10th, 2009

splorpsimac

Just created a gallery over at Flickr in honor of my favorite Macintosh, the iMac G4.

Enjoy. I sure did.

[Image courtesy of Splorp: http://www.flickr.com/photos/splorp/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 He gets thumbnail-of-my-gallery honors.]

iMac G4 as a lamp

December 1st, 2009

iMac G4 lamp

Want.

[Via Pomme C.]

iMacs at work: what a view

November 23rd, 2009

iMacs, with a view

Talk about a view.

And yeah, the stuff outside the window’s nice, too.

I like how the iMacs are floating, with the stands taken off and the main screen held up by a swivel bracket. There are some more detailed shots at the Contemporist, where this came from.

[Via badbanana.]

Snow Leopard leaves classic Mac OS behind

November 11th, 2009

twitteros8

Here’s a call out to all my classic Mac using friends.

From what I’ve read here and here, it’s not looking good. All the updates Apple threw into OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and with the abandonment of PowerPC Macs, things like networking with OS 8 and 9 Macs and AppleTalk have been put out to pasture.

I was trying to network my PowerMac G3, running Mac OS 8.6, to my new Snow-Leopard-powered iMac over my Airport hub. No luck, despite some handy how-tos here and here.

After a half day spent trying to figure this out, and a bunch of forum list reading, I’ve just about given up. I thought it would be a fun rainy-day project for those with new and old Macs, especially for you, the people, who have OS 9/8 Macs still sitting around collecting dust.

Any suggestions, drop me an e-mail.

Newton connects with Snow Leopard

November 5th, 2009

Newton connects with Snow Leopard

Newton users may wonder, with the release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, whether their MessagePads and eMates would still play nice with the new operating system. You get a new Mac (as I did) with the latest install, and you might worry – is it going to work?

I’m here to report: everything works fine.

Keyspan USA-28x

I started by download the Keyspan USA-28x driver to my new iMac for the serial-to-USB adapter. Things got weird when Snow Leopard recognized the Keyspan adapter as some sort of dial-up device (above). This wasn’t the case, obviously, but I pressed on just to see if it would work.

Newton Connection (NCX)

I went with Simon Bell’s excellent Newton Connection for Mac OS X (NCX) for the software connection, using a Newton eMate 300.

Since I’m working through the serial connection via USB, I select “serial” in the Newton’s Dock app and – whala. NCX and the Keyspan adapter give me a connection on Snow Leopard.

NCX screenshot function

First, I wanted to try the new screen shot function on NCX – something that was only possible before in a few roundabout ways, like with Newton Toolkit.

In NCX, head to File > Screen Shot, then press the little camera (above) and wait a few seconds.

eMate screen shot

And bam, you get a little window pop-up with a screen shot of your Newton. Pretty handy.

NCX package install

Next, I tried doing what every Newton user does at some point: install a package file. In this case, I picked a periodic table app from UNNA.

Newton package install

This worked exactly as before.

snowlep_keyboard

So everything, from the screen shots to the keyboard function – which, for me, worked faster than on previous Macs – works great with OS X 10.6.

Trying NewtSync on Snow Leopard

The real test, and the one I’ve had issues with on my eMate since forever, is syncing Address Book and iCal names and dates to the Newton. I’ve had no luck at all so far, besides a few to-do items syncing from iCal to the Newton’s Dates app, and I don’t guess it’ll get much better on Snow Leopard. I tried using NewtSync (above), but had no luck syncing anything.

The important message to take away is that, with software like NCX, it’s possible to connect your Newton, install packages, and do a few other tasks no matter which version of Mac OS X you’re using.

This may not always be the case. There could be some future OS X release that cripples any potential Newton-to-Mac connection. I would think it’d be in the areas of data syncing or unavailable drivers for serial adapters. But the newer MessagePads and eMates allow for Bluetooth compatibility, which shows no sign of going away.

Random error when syncing with NewtSync

November 2nd, 2009

newtsync4

Get this. An attempt to sync my Address Book contacts and my iCal dates with the eMate. I’m using NewtSync with a Serial-to-USB adapter over USB on my iMac G4. And everything’s going fine (above).

newtsync3

Then this. What gives?

The process never finishes before this error message pops up. My eMate, though, has a lot of the information from iCal loaded from the sync, including repeating appointments. Address Book contact info, however, never makes it over to the eMate.

I’ve had issues syncing my eMate with anything on OS X. Guess I’ll keep trying.

iMac G4 for sale

October 24th, 2009

Head to my eBay listing to bid on my baby – an iMac G4.

Please, give it a good home.