Software Updates: Thanks to Barney Buoy for the list.

• ATTO Express PCI Firmware 1.5
• Extension Overload 5.0
• Orb Tools v1.32
• QuicKeys 5 beta

Barney also sent a long list of other news links.

More Details on CompUSA B&W G3 Clearance: A reader replies to an earlier post:

"Hi Mike, Just thought I'd clarify that the model you had in Tuesday's news as a G3-400/DVD for $999 is not correct; the part number you show is for a G3-350. [The G3/400 comment was based on a reader's forum post, I could not identify what the specifics were on the model linked in the post as no details were on the page-Mike]

Still, that, and another G3-350 $999 config at CSA is a great deal; while the G3-400's they have left are at $1299. They're all floor demos, 90 day Apple Warranty *but* you *have* to buy the CSA extended warranty for additional $$, unless you can argue/dicker well and get the store manager to approve the deal.

We grabbed four 400's (configs that were indeed $999, but are gone now) and three 350's day before yesterday (without CSA warranty because we bought so many) and there's still a few left (walk-in only, no shipping), if you're in the right area (Zip code).

Here's a quick rundown on the part numbers, for those snagging the last of them:
[I reordered the list for better grouping of IDE/SCSI systems-Mike]

POWER MACINTOSH G3 COMPUTER SYSTEMS:

[IDE HD Systems]
M6670LL/A (300MHz/512K L2/64SDRAM/6G/CD),
M7556LL/A (350MHz/1MB L2/64SDRAM/6G/CD),
M6668LL/A (350MHz/1MB L2/64SDRAM/6G/DVD),
M6666LL/A (350MHz/1MBL2/128SDRAM/12G/CD/ZIP),
M7555LL/A (400MHz/1MB L2/64SDRAM/6G/DVD),
M7554LL/A (400MHz/1MB L2/128SRAM/12G/CD/ZIP),

[U2 SCSI HD Systems]
M6665LL/A (400MHz/1MB L2/128SDRAM/9GU2/CD)
M7553LL/A (450MHz/1MB L2/128SDRAM/9GU2/CD),

As of this writing, CSA still has a few of each of the above models at various locations, some in the SF area, and some in the San Diego area. LA area is dry, AFAIK.
HTH
Frederico"

Don Harris sent a note on models he saw recently in the Detroit area stores (they may be sold out by now):

"More information on my previous post concerning CompUSA and the B&W G3 for $999.88

In the Detroit area there are five CompUSA stores. The only store which has the B&W 400 mhz w/DVD new in the box is the one in Ann Arbor, Mi. They are selling for $999.88 They have one 350 display model for the same price.

I opted for the 450 mhz B&W for $1200 included was a 2 year Comp warranty. I bought this system last Saturday. It is a rev b I do not know which revision the 5 B&W 400 machines are.
Don Harris
They also have three beige 266 minitowers with the Rage II video chip. Sells for $1200 with 3 year CompUSA warranty. "

($1200 for a Beige G3/266 rev 1?). See the June 1999 B&W G3 rev 2 page for an illustrated list of features in the 2nd revision of the Blue G3s.

EZ-Quest BOA 8X Firewire CDRW Report: A reader's mini-review:

"Hi Mike,
I took delivery of an EZQuest 8/4/32 Firewire CD-RW today and I thought you might be interested in hearing about it.

The box includes the drive, power cable, clear (like the G4 keyboard's cable) firewire cable, Adaptec Toast 4.0.2 (!) and a CD with EZQuest's own firewire software. Installation went off without a hitch in my G4/400 AGP running 9.04. I guess I should mention that I didn't have a previous version of Toast installed. The instructions also included removing the Quicktime Firewire DV extensions, which I did.

I burned both data and audio CD's at 8x without any problems using ordinary Memorex media (from a 50-disc spindle). Toast's DISC Copy feature works fine as well. I haven't tried any rewritable discs or mounting/reading a CD from the recorder yet.

The box isn't all that attractive...it's a clear/gray color with an ordinary beige faceplate on the drive itself and a large white EZQuest logo on the top and a smaller one on the front. Toast identifies the drive mechanism as a Matshita CD-RW CW-7585.

Being that the G4's internal DVD-ROM is a Matshita, I wonder if the CD-RW would work if removed from the EZQuest case and installed internally?
Mike Package"

So far the only report of a Bootable IDE CDR in a Mac is the Acer 8X CDRW noted in the FAQ's CDR section (see the 'What IDE CDROM Recorder drives work with the Apple CDrom driver?' question there). The Acer 8X is a PC retail box, with no mac CDR software of course. He later said he bought the drive from OWC but I no longer see the FW CDRs listed at their site CDR/CDRW page.

Apple Teams Up with The Wiz: Apple announced today the 41 'THE WIZ' stores located throughout the New York metropolitan area will be offering complete desktop video solutions based on the iMac DV. (The iMac DV SE was reviewed here last fall.) See the press release for more info.

IE 5 'Security Issue' Blown Out of Proportion? [BTW - IE 4.5 has the same 'site passwords' prefs as IE 5, just verified that here.] As I noted in last night's update, I did not see any passwords in the prefs (but I do not have 'save passwords' enabled in remote access). A reader comments on the issue:

"Mike,
Here's what REALLY happens with IE 5:

There is no problem with a record of one's logins, Netscape has the same thing in its preferences too, under Mail Servers.

Additionally, a list of downloads is only a collection of the actual URLs for those downloads, a useful feature if one wants to redownload something they lost, without going crazy trying to find the link again.
[I think IE 5's download manager history uses this file also-Mike]

This is similar to the History file for URLs visited, which BOTH IE and Netscape have, only Netscape's sucks. IE's is configurable to keep track of NOTHING, if one wants it too be that way (Under Preferences-Advanced make it into 0). Same thing for download URLs.

Some people never acquire brains at ...birth. It is amazing to me at how naive some comments are, as people make judgements without even knowing how to use an application, or even go into the preferences to look AROUND for a change. Please clarify this, because the FUD lately has reached amazing proportions.
Regards,
Theo "

Another reader's comments:

" I have some comments about the Explorer 5 security issue.

First of all, I think that it's pretty lame that MOSR would post something like that without first doing any research on the subject. If they had, then they could have pointed out that since Internet Explorer 5 doesn't install any extensions or background applications (only shared libraries), it would be pretty damn hard for MS to track online activities while IE is not actually running (as the reader was claiming). I don't use the newest versions of Netscape or Eudora, so I don't know for sure, but if passwords were being recorded while running one of those programs, maybe they are the ones to blame.

Explorer keeps its settings, cookies, etc. as resources in the common Internet Preferences file (used by Internet Config, the Internet control panel, and many other internet applications), so if Explorer's preferences window shows passwords to sites not visited with Explorer, then it's quite possible that another application put them there (without notifying the user). In fact, Explorer does give an option to *not* remember passwords whenever they are entered.

As for the record of downloads that you mentioned, the file (Downloads.html) in Explorer's preferences folder simply lists the files that are currently in the download manager window. They are removed from the file when they are removed from the download manager, manually or automatically (Explorer has an option to either remember a certain number of downloads, or remove them as soon as they finish downloading).

Of course I could be wrong, but it just bugs me when any site that has such a large number of faithful readers starts spreading paranoia, simply because they didn't do their homework. :P
Martin

PS: I don't currently use any site passwords so I can't check this myself, but you should be able to "disable" the record of logins/passwords "feature" by setting the appropriate resource in the Internet Preferences file to "protected" with ResEdit, so that Explorer (or any other program) can't edit it. "

I saw no passwords in my IE 5 prefs as noted here last night, but I do not enable save passwords in remote access, or when prompted in dialogs in IE. Even on the PC, MS is going to using HTML files for storing most settings, history, etc. (even the windows desktop eventually). If you really want to stop the listing of downloads (harmless really), check the box titled 'Immediately remove items after they have been downloaded' in the preferences. I'm at a loss to explain why some reported that the download history included files downloaded by other programs (makes no sense to me).

Another reader said the save passwords feature is also in Netscape 6.0 PR1 (I've not tried NS 6 PR1 yet due to the problem reports by readers).

OS 9.04/Adaptec 39160 Problem Report: [Update: tests so far with my 39160/Atlas 10K running Apple drivers in OS 9.04 in a B&W G3 show no boot problems and no problems running apps. Several other 39160/OS 9.04 users also noted no problems.]

"I have a G3 400/512 MB Ram with an Adaptec 39160 SCSI card (firmware 1.0.1) and ever since I installed 9.0.4 I have had MAJOR problems on start up. Most of the time I have to boot from a drive that still has 8.6 installed. If I use Diskwarrior 2.0 to rebuild the directory on the OS 9 disk, and restart it will work. Diskwarrior reports no problems on the disk when rebuilding it. Neither does Norton 5 or TT Pro 2.5.4. I did a clean install from the OS 9 CD and even initialized the drive to try and eliminate that as a problem.
It is so frustrating!
Matthew Yonan"

My 39160 card and Atlas 10K drive is in the B&W G3 (running OS 9.04). It had Softraid 2.2.1 drivers on the Atlas drive but I reformatted it with Apple's drive setup (had to do this twice in drive setup to have the drive actually reformatted - odd). I'm copying over my IDE boot disk contents to the Atlas drive now to run tests under OS 9.04 to see if there are any problems here. I'll update this post later today with the results but welcome other 39160/OS 9.04 user comments.

Wanted: Beige G3 'Royal' VRM Feedback: [See the later post for markings on Royal VRMs] OWC says they have no feedback indicating there is any VRM specific issues with the G3/450 upgrades. Based on hundreds of Beige G3 upgrade entries in the Rate Your CPU upgrade database, upgrade problems seem rare overall. (Based on past feedback, RAM is the most common reason for problems, or incorrect jumper settings, reversed heatsink clip, etc.) Not sure how many owners had the Royal VRM, but so far feedback on VRM brands has not been conclusive as far as matching a specific brand to upgrade problems. The G3-ZONE Troubleshooting page has a link to this picture of the VRM module. Often a chip or other marking on the VRM module will not the mfr (Raytheon, etc.). Royal module markings are shown in the photo on the Macworld article. My Beige G3 rev 2 has a Raytheon VRM as noted here previously (marking is on a chip on the component side of the module). If anyone knows the dealer price for VRM modules, please let me know.

OpenGL 1.1.3/iMac GameWizard Performance: A reader notes he lost a few FPS in games with OpenGL 1.1.3:

"my system: iMac Rev B/MC Gamewizard/160mb RAM

I went from 8.6 to 9.04 in one go. This slowed UT and Unreal down quite a bit - I had an average of 26fps in Unreal before the upgrade, about 22fps after it. I have now re-installed Open GL 1.1.2 'over the top' of the 1.1.3 and have got my previous performance back. Other than that, 9.04 seems very stable, but I am worried that new games such as AvP will run best on Open GL 1.1.3, meaning I'll have to keep changing the revision of GL I use.
--Nathan Harris "

For Quake2, the config file tips in the Powerbook Firewire review apps/game page update might help, it dramatically boosted framerates on the Powerbook running Quake2 v1.03 with OpenGL 1.1.3. There have been mixed reports of performance with OpenGL 1.1.3 in general, some noting lower performance, a few others higher scores. See the OS 9.04 Feedback page for other OpenGL 1.1.3 performance comments.

$9.99 10/100 Network Cards:

"Mike, just thought i'd let your readers know there is a deal on SMC EZ 10/100 cards at CompUSA ($9.99 after rebate). you just have to download. the drivers here: http://www.smc.com/eznet/support/drivers.html
Jeff Wiswall "

BTW: The drivers page lists Mac drivers OS 9 and OS 7.5 and up (to 8.6 I assume) under the 'EZ-Net 10/100' list.

More Info on Abyss DVD Movie Problems As noted in the update to yesterday's news post on the issue, the Abyss has the 'seamless branching' feature which may cause a problem with some players. One reader noted that depending on the ratings settings, this may also cause some scenes to be skipped based on the current ratings level.

"The Abyss DVD uses "seamless branching" so both the theatrical version and the special edition version of the movie can be on the same disk. Seamless branching is in the DVD spec but only a few DVDs so far take advantage of this feature. Jeremy's problems could be occurring at the first instance of a seamless branch. This is from the DVD FAQ:
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html

"A disc can also be designed so that it plays a different version of the movie depending on the parental level that has been set in the player. By taking advantage of the seamless branching feature of DVD, objectionable scenes are automatically skipped over or replaced during playback. This requires that the disc be carefully authored with alternate scenes and branch points that don't cause interruptions or discontinuities in the soundtrack. There is no standard way to identify which discs have multi-rated content.

Multi-ratings discs include Kalifornia, Crash, Damage, Embrace of the Vampire, Poison Ivy, Species II. Discs that use multi-story branching (not always seamless) for a director's cut or special edition version include Dark Star, Stargate SE, The Abyss, Independence Day, and Terminator 2 SE (2000 release)."

This G4/350 owner reports the movie played fine on his system, but had problems on his standalone player:

"its been all over the DVD newsgroups... the abyss and stargate SE use "seamless branching". some players wont read the disc right & will repeat/loop every chapter. my G4/350 plays it fine I watched the whole movie. My low end sony dvd player has no problems, but my Apex DVD player and some older players have the looping problems.
I don't have a fix per say, but that seems to be the problem with those DVDs."

One reader noted the movie had the same problem in his home (standalone) player. Several other readers suggested that the owner of the B&W G3 update the DVD (hardware decoder) to v1.3 (he was running v1.1). Apparently the v1.3 update is only on the OS 9 CD.

NAB Show Comments: [Updated for clarity and pricing info]

"Mike,
I am attending NAB, the Apple booth is quite impressive. Final Cut Pro is shown in different configurations ranging from FCP and a DV Camcorder all the to FCP and TARGA Ciné High definition card. There is also an AURORA Igniter running uncompressed video, serial digital input/output as well as TARGA Ciné standard definition uncompressed video. No apparent differences in video quality, the only differences seemed to be price.

[updated/clarified info-Mike]

The igniter card is shipping. The Ciné cards are not shipping until June. The Matrox RT card is not shipping until summer.

As far as pricing, the Ciné has two different models: one for standard definition television and one for high definition television. The Pinnacle person running the Ciné demo said they want to sell them as turnkey systems; CPU, drives, board sets, software. I asked about individual pricing and he said the standard definition card would run about $7000 and the high definition card would be about $17,000. For comparsion, based on my research a standard defintion Igniter card with comparable features to the standard defintion Ciné runs about $9000. [Base Igniter card is $1149, for specific options pricing see Aurora's Igniter order page which lists prices of various card configs.-Mike]

The matrox RT card is around $1000-1500 [$999 I hear-Mike], this card will make certain effects real time when working with DV and FCP. The matrox RT looks nice but it only works with DV quality video and it won't be shipping until summer/fall.

If one is looking for an uncompressed digital video card have a look at digital voodoo. They have uncompressed card with SDI and runs through FCP for $4000. One version of the card even has an alpha output, very popular composting applications.

Hope this helps, let me know if I can help with anything else.
John Schlauch"

I've asked for clarification on the Ciné as the sentence above was a bit unclear to me. I've also asked if he can get pricing on the cards alone.

Don't know how I missed this before (probably due to the thread subject being just B&W G3), but a reader post a few days back in the G4/Upgrades forum said his local CompUSA was selling B&W G3/400 DVD systems for $999.88. I searched CompUSA's web site and found a reference to an Apple G3 system for $999.88 and another for even less, but there are no details listed. Apple part number was listed as M6666LL/A on the $998 system. However when searching by my ZIP code, all 4 stores in a 100 mile radius were listed as out of stock on every one of the low priced models, so I expect they are sold out.

The Owner's CPU Upgrade Ratings and Mac Game/Video Card FPS databases were updated this morning.

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