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news of 2004-06-01

The notebook Apple won't build...

Speaking of those 4GB flash-memory based harddrives... Bear with me. I'm a writer of German short stories. I love to write in trains, out in the green, in cafés etc. Hence, I'm quite obviously always looking for such a writer's tools. The following is, thus, probably not right for you. But _I_ would buy it instantly. (Some nostalgy involved.)

I imagine... A notebook. Style: 12" PowerBook. But smaller. 10" widescreen display at, say, 1024*600. Display type would be active-matrix greyscale. Yep, greyscale. Those were the only displays one could use under any light-conditions. But they don't make those any more. So: Transreflective colour TFT. Processor: 500 MHz G3. Or higher, if a more modern processor uses less power, that is. RAM: 256 MB. Harddisk: 4 GB flashdrive, as mentioned above. Optical drive: None. (No need. You'd put the thing in FireWire-TargetMode for synching with your main Mac and could also install the OS etc. like that.) Form factor: About the size of one of those old VAIO picture-books. And battery power for more than eight hours.
Sure, the thing wouldn't run OS X like a king, but hey: What speed do you need for TextEdit? And it'd still double as an iPod that could also display DivX (erhm, MPEG-4, legally acquired in some or other way, *cough*!) movies. The harddrive, of course, could be replaced by a 'normal' notebook harddrive with up to 60 GB. You would sacrifice battery life for space then, of course. But that thing could still last for more than 6 hours. End of wishlist. - Oh, and the other nostalgy part: This could be called "eMate 500". ;-)

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-06-01 at 13:13 CET ]
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iCook: Overclocking 750FX-based iBooks

A software called iCook enables some iBook G3 users to overclock their iBooks in 50 MHz steps. You can clock your iBook from 300 to 1200 MHz. However, the developer's 700 MHz iBook could only take 800 MHz - and it wasn't very stable at that. Also, you'll lose Mac OS X' processor speed management while using the kernel extension (however, everything goes back to normal after a reboot), so you can't expect battery life to be 'normal' when overclocking your baby. I, personally, wouldn't. But there's always people who want to do such things just because they can. And now they can. ;-)

Btw.: I've also heard of new 4GB flashmemory-based notebook harddrives (link in German). If you manage to put one of those into your white iBook G3, I'd try and use OS 9 to see whether you suddenly get more than 7 hours of battery life with the screen at 30% brightness. I wouldn't be surprised... And it would make a great writer's tool!

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-06-01 at 12:59 CET ]
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10.3.4 gives it away - new PowerMacs, iMacs

New PowerMacs? Sure. A completely new iMac G5? Quite probably. The update contains hardware information for a new PowerMac (7,3, the current model is 7,2) and probably a (completely) new iMac (G5?) with the code of 8,1 (previous iMacs used the 6,x number). More information (in French) here at macbidouille.com.

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-06-01 at 11:45 CET ]
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