"Dear Mike:

The Gurus are holding a garage sale!

CD-ROM Blow-Outs!

Plextor CDROMS

12/20x SCSI PX-20TSI new OEM mechanisms, tray-fed units with manuals and original 2 year factory warranties: $139.99.

12x SCSI PX-12TSI new OEM mechanisms, caddy-fed units with manuals and original 2 year factory warranties: $89.99

8x SCSI PX-83TS new OEM mechanisms, caddy-fed units with manuals and original 2 year factory warranties: $69.99

Software Blow-Outs!

Adobe PageMaker 6.5 (new, factory sealed retail boxes) $329.99

Quantities are limited! To purchase, call 800-775-DRAM (3726) and ask for Tad or Steve. Customers must mention Accelerate Your Mac to buy these units!

In Mac Jihad,
Gurus"

The 12/20x Plextor CDRoms are excellent units based on reviews I've read. If I had not blown my budget recently I'd grab one for myself. [Note: I removed the 1GB Hard disk listing as MacGurus notified me they sold out shortly after the ad was posted, one reader bought them all.] [2:45 PM update]

Just received the Bottom Line weekly specials listing. The list also contains the stock status of the RailGun and Powerlogix CPU cards. [2:00 PM update]

PCWeek has a good review of the Apple G3/300 at: http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/reviews/0413/13mac.html It was faster than the PII 400mhz Compaq DeskPro in 3 of the 4 Photoshop tests. Below are their Photoshop 4.0 test results (19MB image) from the Excel file they have for download:

		RGB-to-CMYK Conversion		Transform Highlights		Gaussian Blur		Unsharpen Mask
Apple Power Macintosh G3/300		6.3		4.2		4.0		5.1
Compaq Deskpro EN 400mhz PII		9.2		10.3		4.5		4.6

Thanks to PC Week for telling it like it is! [12:45 PM update]

Sales: MacGurus just lowered 64MB dimm pricing to $108.99. See their ad below for links and other sale items.

Also, Jim Wheeler spotted some used H-P Raid array cases on the net at:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=11128984

I have no idea on the condition, etc. of these or any information on the auction site. As usual in auctions - buyer beware. Also don't forget to factor in shipping on the case - it's 45 lbs. according to the auction page. [12:00 PM update]

More PowerForce 220 Feedback: I'm getting too many mails from owners who are ecstatic over the performance of the card to print them all but here is a sample of some recent mail:

" Mike,
Just wanted to pile on with the rest of em and let you know that I'm another satisfied 220 card owner. I managed to get 294/42/117.6. I had my hopes up to be able to run at 300mhz but it could not finish the bytemark tests without crashing. Picked up that tip from you. It ran all other applications fine at 300mhz but the bytemark was tell tale sign to bump it down. Thanks Seems to be running very stable at 294 mhz. I have a PowerCenter 150 with 176 mb of ram w/ Ultimate Rez Video. Libmoto installed.

Bytemark  w/604 150           W/ PowerLogix 220 G3
Integer   4.4                      9.63
FPU       3.0                      6.27


MacBench  w/604 150           W/ PowerLogix 220 G3
Processor      365                 853
FPU            396                 927

Oh, and heads up for other PowerCenter 150 owners. The tolerance between the bus speed switch and the processor card retainer is quite tight. In fact my retainer actually put pressure on the switch and bent it slightly. It does not seem to have done any damage. I had to trim about a quarter inch off one end of the plastic retainer that fits on top of the card in order to feel comfortable with the installation and be able to reach the switch with my fingers.

New logo, search engine, great faqs and message boards, it just keeps growing and growing! Great Work! I think we should start a petition to get Accelerate Your Mac! listed on the main page of Macsurfer.
Take Care,
Tim Catlin"

I'd like to welcome Sonnet Technologies, my latest site sponsor. Visit their web site at: http://www.sonnettech.com for details on low cost 604e and G3 cards, cache and upgrades for many Mac models, including many older models.

MacTell PowerJolt 266/266/1MB Review: I posted the review at about 4 AM this morning after retesting with the latest v2.01 PowerJolt extension. I noticed the new extension loaded much earlier in the extension list than the previous version, but did not see any real performance improvements.

G3-Zone Makeover! Check out the new layout of the G3-Zone, courtesy of RAC Enterprises.

OS 8 Finder Memory Hack: Bob Friede sent feedback of a solution to a low memory problems in the finder:

" [Regarding] the finder out of memory problem, I received an email on this from Michael Coyle at ResExcellence:

'A way to get a faster Finder is to open it with ResEdit, open the SIZE resource, and set the top preferred memory to 1.5 mb (1572864 bytes).' "

ByteMark Change: Allen Landwer sent me a heads up that the Macintosh version of ByteMark has changed. There is now only a single version (called DR/3) in the download (prev. there were Motorola and Codewarrior compiled versions).

Vision 3D Pro II Font cache issue: Ray Gauss reports that that with the font cache enabled on the card rendering quality of fonts is degraded:

" Yes, but the bad news is that it appears to achieve its speed by not drawing the characters in their fullest (ie: throwing away some of the pixels of the characters) which is not acceptable if one does typography and design, which I do. (see attached screen shot). So for now, until I talk to Mactell, I have to leave fontcache set to 0, which makes drawing text 3 times slower than what I have on my ATI mach5 board. "

I didn't notice this anomaly during testing on my card, but I may unpack it from the box and verify this before I send the card back. [Update: This is said to be fixed by disabling the ATM extension.]

1st Year Anniversary Feedback: I received many mails on the site anniversary, but this one really cut to the heart of why I put so much effort every day into this site - it keeps many Mac owners from jumping ship to the WinTel platform. Michael Gordner wrote:

" Dear Mike,
congratulations on your 1st anniversary. You did an incredible job in developing your site into what I believe is by far the most informative Mac site on the net, within just one year. It's the only site I visit daily!

I am one of those who where about to convert to the 'dark side' last year. I was stuck with my then slow 8500/120 and using fast and inexpensive Pentiums at work. There I learned to appreciate the multi-threading and memory protection of the admittedly less elegant Windows 95 over system 7.5 with its frequent system crashes. The idea of buying a reasonably performing new Mac at Singapore's only (!!!!) real Mac retailer at those incredibly high prices as compared to the bargains you could get on the 'dark side' seemed not appealing at all, especially in the absence of clones here. On top, as a late starter with computers my savvy was limited, and I never dared to even open the box of my Mac. So upgrading was something I didn't consider myself capable of at all!

Then I tumbled across your site. Your reviews were an excellent guide what to buy and your tutorials enlightened me that computers are no incomprehensible miracles after all and upgrading isn't really that difficult.

How different are things now. Thanks to you I'm happy with my Mac again (upgraded with a PB Pro 233, Rapid Cache and a Cheetah with ATTO Express PCI), and Apple did their part in finally delivering an OS with an edge over Win 95. Now working with my Mac simply is fun again.

As I seem to be just one of an incredibly large and ever growing number of Mac owners to which your site has been of great help, it's no wonder why your site has seen such an incredible growth.

I'm looking forward to what the 2nd year of XLR8yourMac will bring to 'the rest of us' and wish you all the best. "

It will only get better this year! Thanks to all of you who wrote with congrats on the anniversary.

Make Your Voice Heard: I'm asking all MacOS owners who are even slightly interested in the future of Mac OS 3D and gaming to go to: http://www.cqf2.apple.com/MacOSQ.FM$random?HTML=MOSQ.html and ask that OpenGL be supported in future MacOS versions like Rhapsody. It would help in porting a lot of software to the Mac.

Reviews Status:I'm back to finishing the 3 video card comparisons (ATI 3D, VR and Vision 3D). Then I have PowerLogix's 300/150 CPU card to test. The Fuse video capture card is scheduled to arrive later this week, as is (I hope) the 300/300 CPU Card for the Ultimate Mac project. I'm going to explode if I don't get that finished. The CPU Card is the last major piece.

Misc. News from the Net:

• Computer Shopper Apple article
• Firms upgrading to Macs instead of PCs (MacCentral)
• Sonnet G3 upgrade for older Macs
• IBM growth declines for first time in 2 years
• Press barred from Apple Meeting
• PowerPage info on new PowerBooks
• Panasonic's 2lb, $2000 notebook

In case you missed us this weekend:

1st Site T-Shirt Design chosen: The voting was very close - but the winner was #1 by just two votes over #4. I was amazed that the spread, literally all designs had some votes. To review the designs, see the T-Shirt Page.

Based on the feedback, I plan to offer several different designs in the future and I'd like a poster of the #2 design for myself.

I'm drawing 50 winners from the list of those who voted - as I felt it you took the time to vote, you deserved an entry rather than just have a separate contest. I'd have done that today if the disk drive disaster had not happened.

I will be sending the artwork to the printer on Monday - and hope to have the shirts printed within a week. About 50 more will be given to readers who have consistently sent in tips, those who have written guest reviews or helped in other ways. Also my site supporters will receive some as well (MacGurus says they will wear them at MacWorld!)

I'd like to use the new JetPack Logo for a shirt, but since the voting is over and the artwork is done that may have to wait for next month.

I've got news to post but I need a breather, more news later in the day.

Need Help? Don't forget to check the FAQ, Performance Basics, Links, and Forums for solutions to your problems or answers to tech support questions. They have a lot of good info and are a great source of help.

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