What’s New?
Who knew that there were so many Power Mac 6100s and PowerBook 170s stashed away in the closets and attics of Mac relic hunters? Franklin N. Tessler, apparently. Our contributing editor’s feature on breathing new life into an older Mac turned out to be one of our most popular stories since the days of the Duo Dock II. This came as quite a surprise to us, since the posts on our Macworld.com forums “indicate that most–if not all–of our readers have bought new iBooks. Maybe you’re stashing those in the attic.
This Old Mac
Steven Mitchell The article by Franklin N. Tessler (“Get That Mac Out of the Attic and Back to Work,” How-to, June 2001) was one of the clearest, most helpful articles I’ve seen in Macworld in a long time. I hope you’ll run more of its kind, because a lot of us are looking forward to keeping our older Macs up and running.
About That OS . . .
Joel M. Sciamma The coverage of Mac OS X in the June issue lacked an essential critical view and verged on sycophancy. Mac OS X is not a pristine canvas; rather, it’s a melange of legacy technology and ideas that were past their sell-by date ten years ago. The uneasy (and unsteady) relationship between a 20-plus-year-old kernel, a poorly implemented 15-year-old user-interface concept, and elements from Windows is not what I call innovation. Henry Bortman comes to the only possible conclusion (“Are You Ready for OS X?” June 2001): Mac OS X is not remotely ready for people who need to get their work done.
Michael Kraus I bought a Mac because it gave me more options for doing things my way. Now Apple is telling me how I should access my files. Install almost any Mac OS 9 Apple software today, and you get a folder named “Applications (Mac OS 9).” Try to use iTunes, and you’re forced to have a folder named “iTunes” inside a Documents folder on the root level of your startup drive. Somebody needs to remind Apple that conformity is not compatible with the Mac OS.
iLove iBooks
Mark Paris Some have wondered whether the new iBook’s screen will stress the not-so-young eye. My own 50-plus eyes now demand reading glasses, but the iBook screen looks pretty good to me. I think it’ll be fine. I’m willing to accept the smaller screen to get the smaller form factor.
Shane St. Hill The experience of unpacking my iBook was great–the best moment in my life. Now I’m typing on the wonderful machine, and it’s perfect, the best computer I’ve ever owned (much better than the Lombard G3 PowerBooks). I’m glad I got the iBook instead of the Titanium PowerBook. I hope you all enjoy your iBooks as much as I do mine!
Toasting iTunes
Steve Cohen You’ve reached a new low with your review of iTunes ( Reviews , June 2001). You barely mention that iTunes can disable Toast. This is a showstopper. Any program that interferes with Toast is one I want to stay away from. So what are the details? Under what circumstances will I lose the use of Toast? What can I do to get around this, if anything? What does Apple say about it? Does the mere presence of iTunes disable Toast, or is it an extension or other conflict? Give me some information I can use.