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11/21/98 - Saturday's News:	Click for Current News Page
The Unreal Tips and Tricks page page has been updated with today's news/tips. Past news from the page is available on a link near the bottom of the page. Carmine's (MiM) News Feed AppleTIL Updates (Saturday:11/21/98)  MacPPP Access: Modem Initialization Strings  AppleShare Client 3.8: Read Me  Color LaserWriter: Excessive Background Toner  WebObjects 3.5.1 Cleanup Kit for Windows NT  At Ease 5.x: Restricted Finder And Desktop Printers  Mac OS 8.5: LaserWriter Select 310 Compatibility  WebObjects 3.5.1 Database Adaptor Patch Overview  WebObjects Database Access under Solaris and HP-UX After talking with a friend (Steve Weisel) on the phone who claimed that OS 8.5 boosted his PB G3/250 battery life (we went through all the possible reasons - energy saver settings, etc.), last night I took the plunge - and installed 8.5 on the PowerBook G3. Booting from the 8.5 CD and checking the HD with DFA I got a "wrapper" error message on the PB HD disk - saying I should backup my files and erase the disk. (I had just done that some weeks back - twice in two days due to disk corruption). I decided to do a 'repair' instead and that seemed fine (verify passed). Odd has I had zero problems with the drive since the low level format and reinstall of 8.1 a few weeks ago. Since I didn't have a lot of 3rd party extensions, and my Office 98, etc. was up to date (8.5 patches applied) I did a 'dirty install' that so far seems ok. I'm using Kaleidoscope (latest version) to eliminate the MDEF issues in 8.5 with my favorite apps like Emailer (the Tips page and OS 8.5 Feedback page has a MDEF patch link as well but this is easier and universal). So far so good - but I've just run my bread and butter apps. Unlike Steve's PB that often showns 3 to 4 hours remaining on the battery, mine showed 2:40 max so far. If you have any comparisons on OS 8.5/8.1 and battery life, I'd like to hear your comments. Does anyone know of any fix for the disconnects problem with the PB G3's? After having to use a PC all week during the day (forced) I've realized it was not my ISP. This is very frustrating. Since my ISP has USR modem (I think) I'm trying the special script (versiontracker) for PB G3s for that. I'm also noticing a lot of "a network error occurred" errors in IE 4 (trying the URL again works) since I installed 8.5. Speed Doubler 8.1.2 Slower: I guess I was blind in my original post - reading Ken's comments incorrectly, He notes the update linked in yesterday's news resulted in lower disk scores in MacBench: " I run a 9600/350 with OS 8.5. Downloaded the subject update today and found that without any changes, Speed doubler 8 yields a MacBench 4.0 Disk of 402 while the update shows 323. Disk cache is default of like 4608. Thats over 20% diff.! Ken Wehr " Maxtor Drive Mixup: I think Bob Friede had written a few weeks ago on the same topic, but Glen Yosho sent details on the possibility of getting a 7200RPM drive in a 5400 RPM model (and price) box: " Here's the catch. The drive is actually supposed to be a 5400 RPM drive, but Maxtor also shipped out a bunch of 7200 RPM drives in identical packaging. Depending on the date of manufacture, serial number on the box, etc., you may end up with one of three 10GB drives made by Maxtor. Here is the important info for the readers: External numbers visible on the outside of the box and on the drive itself are as follows: P/N: K0191000D on the external box and model 91000D8 on the drive itself indicates this is a Diamondmax Plus 2500, 7200 RPM drive (the one you want) P/N: K0191008D on the external box and model 91008D7 on the drive itself indicates this is a Diamondmax 2880 series, 5400 RPM drive P/N: K0191020D on the external box and model 91020D6 on the drive itself indicates this is a Diamondmax 3400 series, 5400 RPM drive Obviously, you want to buy the first one. Another thing too is the P/N on the box may not be accurate. The only way to make sure it is the 7,200 RPM drive is to look at the drive itself for the model 91000D8. " For a great site on HD performance tests/comparisons, see www.storagereview.com. Rob's Final Words on PCfx: In the last several days Rob has sent a daily update on the fit problems (needs the adjacent PCI slot free he said) and now performance of his PCfx (PC CPU card with Riva 128 chip). His card's CPU was the 200MHz IDT Winchip he said, which according to his post in yesterday's news was equiv to a 75MHz Pentium in FPU, and slightly better than a 133MHz Pentium in MIPS rating. An AMD or (preferably) a real Intel Pentium CPU would have done better I'm sure, but how not sure how much better. Rob's final comments are below: " Hey Mike I will return the card to our supplier on monday. This card is definitely not even review worthy. I spend a small fortune on games today, older games with minimum requirements of 486 chips. Only card games run fine...., no action or racing game gives playable performance. I tried Dog fight for you live racing game, World Wide Rally, XS, Thunder Offshore, a demo of Shogo and lots of other demo's. I removed a 128MB dimm out of my mac and installed on the card, no difference in performace at all. Thank god you can disable memory check in 8.5, my machine wouldn't even startup anymore after placing the dimm back. Memoryfailure sound in a G3 Desktop is nice, it sounds like somebody smashed a window. "Biep", what a bummer, I was really looking forward to finaly be able to play PC games. I read a review on Virtual PC running on a G4 with stunning performance, I guess that's the only way to play PC games on a Mac, at least VPC supports my 3Dfx card... Rob Huigsloot " I was very surprised to hear this. Possibly the CPU chip in that particular model could be a cause (it was not a real Pentium, or even AMD CPU). Take the money and get a Sony Playstation maybe ( PCs are getting almost that cheap ). Note that VPC also runs very well on the faster G3 CPUs now. Some readers (and I) were confused over a very early post of a $199 Banshee card from VillageTronic's at a gaming site. To clear up the matter there is no $199 banshee card announced at this time. VT has only officially announced three cards he MacMagic 8 MB Voodoo1 $99, the MacMagic 16 MB Banshee/MP 850 16 MB Banshee (essentially the same hardware, but possibly with different software utilities (one Gamer oriented, one DTP/Prof. graphics oriented) $299. Our Unreal area has performance tests on the MacMagic card. [For the latest reviews and info on Mac graphics cards, see the Video articles page.] PCI-X: There is a movement by the big PC mfrs to adopt a new PCI X standard - 133MHz PCI bus at 64Bits wide. This promises 1GB of bandwidth, but so far is just on the drawing board. http://www.pcisig.com talks of a PCI-X FAQ but it is available to members only (a $2500 annual fee according to their FAQ). The latest info I hear is that it may be targeted for servers only . More on SCA: Although I still don't like them (due to height of the adapters being a fit problem, the fact many are not Ultra-SCSI, falling prices on non-SCA's and the need for a quality adapter), Dana Hartshorn writes with a followup to our SCA comments in yesterday's news: " Mike, Granite's been doing this for at least 3 years (marking up CSC parts), since my first SCA adapter was acquired the same way back when I saved $600 by going with an SCA 4.3GB drive (now you know why we do it). I complained to Granite, however, that I was able to buy the same adaper for $20 less by going direct to the source and that I'd only gone to them because of their reputation as the kings of SCSI, and they refunded the difference. So far, I've had 5 drives, all flawless performers. I use them in an external case with a cable terminator, internally with the CSC/Granite adapter (which has it's own terminator) and with a 4 drive cable which has active termination. Narrow or wide, seems to make no difference in reliability. I also use SCA adapters from mcpb.com, which are not as good as the CSC, but much cheaper and work very nicely on multi-drive chains. My first drive is dead of a non-SCA related problem (replaced with cash by Quantum, gotta love their customer service), and the remainder are Seagate Hawks (again saving $$$$ over other formats, these were $139 each almost a year ago) which were OEMed for Sun. They do format with Drive Setup. Dana " DVD Ram Drives: Reader Todd Buchanan wrote a review on a $499 DVD RAM drive and how he got it working in the Mac. He writes: " I recently decided to risk trying out Creative Solutions DVD-RAM PC Drive (which is really a Panasonic/Matsushita SCSI drive) and used Software Architects DVD-RAM Tune-up to make the whole thing work. So Far the results are favorable, but not perfect.. I made up a web page describing my efforts and results....I have been one of those lurkers out here for quite awhile and I appreciate your informative format...keep up the great work! DVD-RAM page: http://www.toddbuchanan.com/dvdram/dvdram1.htm Best Todd Buchanan - Chicago Corporate & Editorial Photojournalism " Other Net News: Oni -New 3D Game From Bungie Don't let that first images on that page fool you - look at the Game engine page screenshots and you'll see maybe Frank is right, it might be a thread to Unreal. Take a $1000 refurb'd G3/233, drop in a 400MHz PL ZIF upgrade (reviewed here) - see the results at Bare Feats. Yesterday's News Summary Note on quality SCA Adapters Speed Doubler 8.1.2 update Carmine's TIL updates and news feed SCA drives Advisiory/Warning More on Orange PCfx fit/Performance Mem Mapper 1.5 Notes/Download link More Mem. Leak Tips/Quitting the Finder Script 3Dfx replies on their LCDfx chip More on Leggo Mindstrorms (Connectix/VPC) For other recent site news/features links, see the Recent Site Features page. Note: Before sending tech support related questions please check the Freq. Asked Questions, Site Contents, CPU Card reviews/articles, SCSI reviews articles, Graphics card reviews, Tips/Misc, Message Boards and Help pages - in many cases the answers to your questions are there and they have far more detail than I can list in an email. For Apple G3 system info - see the G3-ZONE. News and guest reviews that don't require a reply are always welcome. I hope to catch up in the next few weeks. Thanks. Looking for past articles? Check the menu frame topics links (CPU Cards, SCSI, Graphics Cards, Systems) under the logo above or in the menu frame below or check the Recent Features page. Make a Difference: Be the Difference Randy Mita, Brad Lau and I came up with a new slogan and theme for Mac advocacy - "Make a Difference: Be the Difference". We're asking that all Mac owners take advantage of every opportunity to let others know the Mac advantage. It's a grass-roots approach that will surely help. You might save someone from a lifetime of Windows in the bargain.