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This article appeared in the December 2000 issue of the Louisville Computer News. It was written by Lee Larson.
There is no better way to improve a Mac than adding memory. You can never have too much RAM in your machine. As soon as you think you have enough, Netscape or Microsoft releases a new browser that would be ever so much snappier, if only you had a few more megabytes. Right now, memory is at its lowest price in quite a while. A couple of months ago, 128 megabytes of PC-100 RAM was selling for over $120. As this is written, the same RAM is under $75. Buy now, before everybody starts upgrading that PC they got for Christmas!
This year seems to be the first year that USB peripherals have finally taken over the computer world. Macs, which were the first popular computers to feature USB, can take advantage of the amazing variety of inexpensive USB devices. Buying USB devices for Christmas makes a lot of sense, because they're so easy to install--just plug them in. Here are a few suggestions.
If you have a G3 or G4 Mac bought before August, chances are you're still plugging along with the hockey puck mouse and the awful keyboard that came with it. It's been a mystery why Apple continued for so long to produce such nice computers and such awful input devices.
At the July MacWorld in New York, Apple finally admitted their mistake, and introduced new standard keyboards and mice. Unfortunately, that left millions of customers to live with their original devices, or spend money to fix them. Fortunately, it's easy to upgrade the mouse and keyboard.
One option is to get the new Apple crystal mouse and keyboard. The new Apple mouse is an optical mouse that looks as though it has no button. Actually, the whole top of the mouse is the button. It works on any surface, and because there's no ball, it's virtually maintenance-free. The new keyboard is a somewhat smaller USB clone of Apple's very successful "Enterprise" keyboard that was available for seven or eight years. It was known as the Enterprise because of its large size, and it's still the favorite of many Mac users. Both the new mouse and keyboard are in the new transparent crystal plastic style, like the Cube. They're available from the Apple online store for about $50 each.
Other companies make very good mice and keyboards. This was written on a Macalley iKey keyboard that has the same keyboard layout and feel as the new Apple keyboard, but costs about $10 less. Macally also has a variety of optical mice that are more versatile than the Apple mouse. The Macally peripherals are available from just about any Mac vendor.
Somewhat surprisingly, many Mac users are fans of the Microsoft USB keyboards that are available all over for about $50. Microsoft has software available for download that makes some of their programmability available for the Mac (www.microsoft.com/mac). A drawback is the lack of keys labeled with or option. These have to be mapped to other keys, such as the Windows and alt keys by the software.
After keyboards and mice, the most common devices plugged into USB are various types of disk drives.
Although floppy drives appear to be heading the way of the dodo, there are still many people who need them. Both VST and Imation make standard floppy drives for the USB port that cost about $80. Imation also makes a USB SuperDisk drive that can read standard floppy disks as well as their high density 120 megabyte SuperDisks, but it's $150 and is much slower reading standard floppies than a stand-alone floppy drive.
Another interesting option for handling floppies is the VST Tri-Media reader. This $140 box not only handles floppy disks, but also the SmartMedia and CompactFlash memory used by many digital cameras.
The successor to the standard floppy disk appears to be the 100 megabyte Zip disk from Iomega. A USB Zip drive is about $80, and will not read standard floppies. When you go to buy one, be careful! On different aisles of the same store I've seen USB Zip drives boxed for Windows $10 cheaper than the same drive boxed for Macs. When asked about this strange pricing, the clueless sales-droid mumbled something about the driver software. Since the software in the box is on a dual platform Windows/Mac CD, this made no sense. A more likely explanation is the G4-like colors of the drive boxed for the Mac. The Windows drive doesn't seem to care about the color of its enclosure, and has been working fine on my G4 for several months. The software wasn't even needed because Mac OS 9 needs no extra Iomega drivers. The CD that came in the box has never been used.
Raising our price target for a moment, some other interesting USB storage options are the CD-RW and hard drives.
Since USB was designed to be a way to connect fairly low speed peripherals, such as keyboards and mice, it makes little sense to connect permanent hard drives in this way, if you have other options. Firewire, IDE and SCSI are far better methods because they are at least an order of magnitude faster, and, in the case of IDE, a lot cheaper. But, for an iMac without Firewire, or when portability is the main concern, USB does the job--slowly. The USB hard drives cost about twice as much as an equivalent IDE drive, with 30 gigabyte models going for $250 from well-known makers such as VST and LaCie.
On the other hand, CD-RW drives are fairly slow, so USB is a perfectly fine connection method for burning CDs. Several companies have such CD-RW drives available for about $250. LaCie and VST are probably the most well-known. The standard software to write CDs on the Mac is called Toast. When you buy a CD-R or CD-RW, make sure Toast is part of the bundle.
Macs have always had style, and among the most stylish accessories for your Mac is the SoundSticks USB 40 watt powered speaker system from Harman/Kardon. It's a three-piece set that seems more like an escapee from the chemistry lab than a quality sound system. The satellite speakers resemble clear test tubes, and the subwoofer appears to be a big glass beaker. They look marvelous on an iMac equipped with the new crystal keyboard and mouse. Even though SoundSticks was clearly designed with the coolness factor front and center, the sound is quite good. The whole system is $180, and the subwoofer can be bought by itself for $100.
Of course, after opening up all these USB peripherals on Christmas morning, you'll quickly find out the standard two USB ports on the back of your Mac aren't enough. What you need is a USB hub. This is a little box that turns one USB port into four or five, allowing all your new toys to be connected at the same time. They're becoming pretty ubiquitous, costing about $30 at most electronics discount stores.
As far as software goes, Christmas is the time to buy games.
The hardest people to buy games for are those little people from two to five years old. Luckily, there are some excellent choices out there.
We've had good luck with the Putt-Putt and Freddie Fish games from Humongous Entertainment. They're friendly and funny for kids from late two to four years old. They move slowly enough that even novice mousers have no trouble navigating. Both Putt-Putt and Freddie Fish have had numerous adventures. Favorites around here were Freddie Fish and the Missing Kelp Seeds and Putt-Putt Joins the Parade. If you can't find them in stores, they can be ordered directly from the Humongous web site (www.humongous.com).
For five-year-olds there are plenty of games that subversively teach the child how to read and do arithmetic. The classic among these is the Reader Rabbit series from The Learning Company. Reader Rabbit's Interactive Reading Adventure is a complete package containing a learning game and thirty little books that reinforce the lessons. Children begin learning to read, but they think they're playing a computer game. Another good game for the five to seven-year-old is Lego My Style: Kindergarten. It contains sections on reading, math and art.
For older children and adults, The Sims from ASPYR is a lot of fun. You get to play God by designing people and making life choices for them. Their fate is in your hands!
There will be no December meeting of the Louisville Computer Society. The next meeting will be January 25.
The Louisville Computer Society meets from 7:00-9:00 P.M. at Pitt Academy, 4605 Poplar Level Road, at the intersection of Poplar Level Road and Gilmore Lane. Everyone is welcome to attend. For more information, on the Web go to www.aye.net/~lcs, or e-mail lcs@aye.net.
The LCS also sponsors an e-mail discussion list devoted to Macintosh topics. To join, send e-mail containing only the words "subscribe macgroup" to majordomo@erdos.math.louisville.edu.
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