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Updated: 11:00 PM EST

The iMac can win the hearts and minds of even hard core PC addicts. It's the VW Beetle (with a Ferrari engine) of computers. In fact, I predict there will be a iMac Beetle model later this year. [11:00 PM Update]

Mail Attachments: Please don't send large files as attachments to mails. Twice recently I had to have my ISP delete attachments as I could not receive mail due to the file size. If you have large files you'd like me to see (artwork, etc.) please email me first to make arraingements. Thanks! [11:00 PM Update]

Disk First Aid 8.2 Feedback: Henry Goh has good news on the update:

"Hi Mike,
I just downloaded the above update and I think your other readers would like to do the same. Among other things, I found that DFA 8.2 is able to repair even the boot drive without having to reboot from another volume. There's also a timer indicater to show you how much longer it is going to take to check the current drive.
Great improvement by Apple.
regards,
Henry HC Goh
Singapore"

Outstanding - great job Apple! (How about a basic drive defragmentation option in version 8.3?) [4:00 PM Update]

Newer Tech 1400/G3 Upgrade Feedback: I've added several reports from owners to the Newer G3 Survey Results page and quizzed this owner on the battery life issue:

" Hi Mike,
One of the main sources of the 'amazing increase in battery life' reported numbers that were so unlikely that I dismissed them from the start - he claimes that he got less than an hour before the upgrade, then something like 2 to 4 times as long afterward. The PB generates much more heat (as experienced when I put it on my lap - not uncomfortably warm, but much more noticable than formerly), so I am not too suprised that the batteries don't last longer. [initial claims were of longer battery life-Mike]

I have the passive matrix screen - it is supposed to use less power than the active. My tests involved just playing a few games (Tetris and Solitaire) with the screen at minimum brightness and the disk nearly always off. Before the upgrade, I got a fairly repeatable 2 hours before the system shut down for recharging. Afterward, I got 1:30, fairly consistently. I turned off the backside cache and only gained about 10 minutes (but the temp. went down to 70C, a drop of 10 degrees). I have a PC card modem and internal ethernet card, which were not used during the tests but certainly drew a little power.

Still, I am thrilled with the upgrade. Before, the PB was a sluggish as a IIci, now it is almost as fast as my desktop G3 in ways I didn't expect - disk and graphics in particular. It is amazing how much a bottleneck that 32 bit 33 MHz bus is in the PB1400. Even 512k of 64-bit wide 108 MHz backside cache helps enormously.

Best regards to Kay in your mutual ordeal.
cheers,
Warren Nagourney"

More Techworks Password Feedback: Here's the latest on the password protected driver page mentioned here previously:

" Mike,
Everything at the Techworks site seems to be back to normal. I can go from the main page to the support page, and from there to the driver download section, without any request for a password. I suspect that maybe something was just wrong with their website, because yesterday when I went there I noticed that just placing the mouse pointer over some of the little buttons (like "catalog" or "news") on the left side of the page produced a request for a password. So, either the whole thing was just a mistake, or they _really_ don't know how to implement password protection.

Now if they would just explain why CompUSA knows nothing about their Power3D price cut or the $50 rebate program... "

New Cheetah Model Feedback: Aaron Batiuk writes:

" In response to Friday's post about the new Seagate Cheetah's running cooler and faster,

Check out Seagate's Cheetah page at: http://www.seagate.com/disc/cheetah/cheetah.shtml

You'll see that the transfer rate went up from 11.3-16.8 MB/s to 14.5-21.8 MB/s (Ouch!), seek times dropped from 7.71 to 5.5 ms, the power requirements dropped from 20 W to 11 W, and the hieght is now 1 inch, down from 1.63 inches. (All for 9 GB model).

Also, in response to Sunday's Pioneer 32x CD-ROM question, the reason that the reader's CD-ROM works only when a disk is in the drive at boot time is rather simple. At boot time, the OF (OpenFirmware) will look at the CD-ROM to see if it has a bootable disk in it, and if so it will load a CD-ROM driver _off_the_disk_. The Apple CD-ROM driver 5.4.2 is not functional in any way with this drive.

Thanks for the great site! It's a daily must-read.
Aaron Batiuk"

PortJuggler/Word 98 Errors: Klaus B. Piontek writes of a problem with the combo:

"Hi Mike,
I've a unusual observation with my 8500 upgraded with a RailGun G3 card. I use a PowerPortJuggler from Momentum, Inc. to toggle between two printers and a QuickCam. I'm not sure whether it's related to the G3 card or just Microsoft Office98 but Word quits with an type 1 error when I try to open an "old" Word 6.0 file but works fine with new documents. When I remove the PowerPort Juggler extensions it works fine. Does any of your readers has a solution (other than switching extensions during startup)? I've sent an email to Momentum as well, maybe they come out with a fix. Hope your wife will feel better soon.
Klaus "

If you have a solution please contact me. [12:00 PM Update]

The G3 CPU Card Survey Results page was updated last night to add more entries for the Railgun, Newer Tech, PowerLogix and XLR8 pages. I still have about 100 more entries to add.

The comments from respondents often contain installation tips or other information on specific Mac models that may be of help to current and future owners of these cards. Also check my Tips page for articles that may be of help as well.

ATI Fuzzy Video Feedback: Although I've not seen the problem here, a reader sent a note that a preference setting in the Monitors and Sound Control Panel for a colorsync display may fix the problem for owners that are reporting a lack of sharpness. The Overscan setting in the geometry section should be turned off.

I've noticed that the Gamma settings in Monitors and Sound can also make a difference as well.

Pioneer 32x CDROM Issues Resolved: Nick Lovejoy reports that CDT solved the problem of CDs mounting (ref: yesterday post):

" Hey there Mike,
I took your advice on the FWB CD Toolkit and it works great. I have had no problems with it at all and the features included are nothing short of amazing. Also, just wanted to say that to hook up the sound I just used a standard MPC2 CD-ROM audio cable, I think it's pretty standard for most new cd-roms, it connected easily to the audio plug on my 7600 motherboard.

Thanks for your help and we are all praying for Kay's speedy recovery.
Nick Lovejoy"

Although there was a note in yesterday's news about the age of the Pioneer drivers, I just received mail from someone that says they worked fine in his S900:

"Mike,
Regarding Nick Lovejoy's problems with a Pioneer 32X CD-ROM. I recently put one in a UMAX S900 (225MHz) and had no problem. I removed the FWD drivers (which I have generally been unimpressed by) and used Pioneer's drivers which are available from Pioneer's web site [http://www.pioneerusa.com/tec.html]. I was able to use Apple's audio drivers and interface successfully. I did not try it with just the Apple drivers. Carl Manson"

Quote of the Day: Bill Hill wins the prize with this comment:

"Hi Mike
For the most part the Mac community is one big family. With square pegs you can easily build. Round pegs (Windoz) you just fall apart.
Best to You and Kay.
Bill Hill"

Rhapsody Driver Kit: A reader sends a note of a developers driver kit in hopes that a G3 CPU backside cache enabler will be written for Rhapsody soon:

" I am also one of the people who would like to use Rhapsody with a G3 upgraded machine. Right now it is running on a 604/180. I have ordered a G3 upgrade card but wondering how to turn on the G3 cache in Rhapsody DR2.

Well, today I was browsing Apple's developer site and found Apple has posted the Rhapsody DriverKit documentations (http://developer.apple.com/rhapsody/). Maybe PowerLogix, or XLR8 would do a real G3 cache driver for Rhapsody?

Please pass the thought to PowerLogix/XLR8. Love your site. Thanks for all the time and energy.
John"

I've passed the word along. Thanks for the info John.

CharisMac Utilities: Although I've mentioned them in the past and used their Raid software in my SCSI tests I often forget to mention CharisMac's utilities for the Mac. Eric of CharisMac sent a reminder yesterday:

" Mike,
I was browsing your site again about the CD ROM postings and noticed the FWB Special when end users bought their CD-ROM Toolkit . Our specials here at CharisMac are Anubis Plus v3.01Hard Disk/Removable Media Utility for $14.95 (Don't let the price fool you) and RAID+v2.0 for Mirroring and Striping Hard Drives which includes Anubis Plus v3.01 and Power Control v1.08 for setting mode pages for $69.00 Both of these programs are HFS+ and system 8.1 compatible. These prices apply both to competitive upgrades and for our registered users.

Best Regards,
Eric Eubanks
Field Application Engineer
CharisMac Engineering Inc.
www.CharisMac.com"

One reader reported yesterday that using Charismac's Cdrom drivers reduced the delays he was having with his G3 CDROM drive.

More V90 Raves: Based on feedback I've gotten, the V90 upgrade is the best thing to happen to modem connections since X2:

" Hey Mike,
Just thought I'd let you know what my experience is with the x2 flash upgrade. before the upgrade, I was very happy with my connections.... averaging 52-54k, now I frequently handshake at 56k (which I know is above the fcc regulations), but the connections are extremely stable, and downloads rock! Regards to kay...
keep up the good work, you are a true evangelist!
David D.
Office of Instructional Technology"

Ron Yoshimoto commented that the greater than 53K speeds reported may actually be modem port speeds, not the true connect rate (since FCC Limits are 53K). I know of many cases (including here) where connect rates went up after the upgrade. At home my rates were 37.3K before the upgrade, 45K after.

Several readers expressed concern that the MicroConversions URL returns a DNS error. I sent my contact there email asking for a update but can only assume it's part of their site redesign efforts. Last week the site was down with only a main page noting that the site was being redesigned. MicroConversions told me recently that their 8MB and 12MB Voodoo II cards would be shipping at the end of this month and they would be on sale at MacWorld as well.

News.com has articles on Microsoft selling SoftImage to Avid and a story on possible abuse with OutLook Express.

In case you missed yesterday's news I've added Aurora Design's Fuse Video Capture card Review and a reader submitted Guest Review of the Sonnet Nubus G3 CPU upgrade for the 6100.

Railgun Upgrade Feedback: In addition to adding several Railgun owner reports to the Survey Results page I received this mail from a owner with a comment/tip that might be of interest:

" Yep Mike.... with a CLEAN INSTALL of sys 8.1 my Railgun 250 is purrin' along in my Power Tower. From what I'm hearing, most folks who upgrade should pay special attention to doing the install. Seems most if not ALL problems go away. I also upgraded my internal and external Quantams to the latest Silver Lining drivers.... no disk errors! Hope the wife is better. RJ "

According to the Railgun results page most owners did not have to reinstall the OS, but it may help in cases where files are suspect.

New G3 IDE Slave Drive Feedback: The latest input from readers adding slave drives to the new G3 systems:

" I noticed two problems with adding an EIDE drive as a "slave" on the Rev. 2 G3:

1. Even though the slave drive appears to function normally, neither Apple System Profiler nor FWB HDT will accurately report the characteristics of the slave drive. Both programs do see the slave drive, but report either the wrong size or no manufacturer information.

1. When the CD-ROM is set to slave, discs will only show up on the desktop if a disc was in the drive at startup. If so, you can use the drive as usual. [Sounds like the CDROM driver does not fully support the drive -Mike]

I suspect these are minor issues resulting from programs not equipped to handle slave drives. I have not encountered any data loss or corruption from normal use. For now, I am using the CD-ROM as a slave drive since there no risk of data loss on the CD-ROM. The only drawback to this approach is that I must boot with a CD in the CD-ROM drive.

-Ruben
[He later sent an update:]

I tracked down some authoritative information on slave drive compatibility issues. The following quote is taken from Apple's "ATA Device 0/1 Software Developer Guide" at pages 28-29 ( Developer_Notes/System_Software/AT A_Device_Zero_One.pdf) "

I want to add a Seagate Medalist Pro (hope the heat and vibration is not an issue) 9.1GB drive to the G3 in the near future.

Reader Request: Hoping my Japanese readers can help with this one. Ben Chi needs ordering information for a 240mhz 603E upgrade for the PB 2400 that was offered by a Japanese company:

" Hi Mike:

What i'm looking for is a 240mhz 603ev card like the 2400c/240 in Japan. I can't justify spending $850 on a G3 CPU upgrade. I'm hoping I can get a 240mhz 603ev card for much less.

Yes, I did upgrade the RAM from the stock 16 to 80 via a 64mb SO-DIMM. RAM install is very simple. No torx screws used, only philips screwdriver. Taking apart the whole machine however is a whole different story altogether. It looks deceivingly simple, but after you remove about 20 screws, the real trick is to be able to put them back. Good thing though the threads are of a different pitch so you can sort of figure out where they go.

This is a US model with a US keyboard, and right now for a CD-ROM drive, i'm using my Yamaha CDRW4260 CDR drive. I too have a 4x CDROM external Panasonic drive with PCMCIA interface and it didn't work on first try, but I haven't installed CDROM toolkit 3.0 yet. I'm hoping that will work. Right now, my main concern is the hard drive. regards,
ben chi "

If you know the name of the company or a source he can order the upgrade, please contact me.

Video conferencing with new G3s?: Still looking for verification that Video conferencing (CUseeMe, etc.) works in the Rev 2 G3 systems (RagePro models) with the 4MB or 6MB video upgrade. Martin Kaufman reports that his rev 1 G3 with 4MB Vram upgrade locks up after a minute or so (with Video input) unless he removes the Vram expansion.

If you have tested a Vram expanded Rev 2 G3 system with CUSeeME or iVisit, please contact me.

CPU Card Survey: If you're running a G3 CPU card upgrade (Nubus or CPU slot) I'd like to know the details. I've created a feedback form that will take you only a few seconds to complete and I'd be very grateful for the information.

Feedback is pouring in, I've got about 300 more to add to the current CPU Survey Results pages. Currently I need more input from MacTell G3 CPU card owners.

The Newer Tech page even has a PowerBook section for owners of the 1400 and 2400 G3 upgrades, so if you've just bought one of these upgrades I'd like you to take the survey.

3D Column Logo Contest: I'm still asking for all 3D artists out there to submit their creations for our new 3D Column Logo/Banner. The Logo should include the site URL (www.xlr8yourmac.com) but otherwise the design is up to you. Please keep file size down to 25K or so if you can, and use your name as the file name to help me keep track of who submitted the image (I get so many mails a day I need all the help I can). Thanks!

The winner (and any other interesting entries) are invited to write an article (complete w/screen captures ) showing how it was done. I'd like to have all entries by June 30. Resolution should be 200H x 500W (Maximum size - smaller is fine). GIF (animated OK, but try to keep file sizes small) or JPEG format for the final image.

If you'd like to submit a 3D Logo design (full credit given of course), please contact me.

This site is 100% Intergraph free - no persons working on this web site have ever been on the payroll of any PC manufacturer.

Please check your bookmarks - make sure you are using www.xlr8yourmac.com.

We need your G3 info! Reader "Oz" has offered to help with collecting data on Apple G3 system compatibility issues (hardware and software) of all types. Please send him any Apple G3 system compatibility info/issues you have or are aware of at: oz@bbdoperu.com

Search Tip! For searches on product names with mixed capitalization, use keywords like PowerBoost Pro (not Powerboost Pro or powerboost pro) and MaxPowr (vs maxpowr or Maxpowr). It seems that capitalization within the word on the site pages is throwing off the engine. Keep that in mind when searching for some of the odd product names.

Need Help? Before you send email for tech support, please check the Troubleshooting page or try searching the site (use quotes for exact matches! i.e. "mach 5" vs mach 5 which will match machine, 5, etc.) and to check the FAQ, Performance Basics and Links page 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.

If you're curious as to how a G3 CPU card would perform in your Mac, look at the results hundreds of readers have reported in the G3 CPU Card Survey Results page.

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