What to do with an old G4 Mac

Like most people I hate being told how to spend any of my limited money. Especially in this economy. It seems every time Apple releases a major upgrade to their operating system a bunch of older computers are no longer supported. Readers will recall I have a G4 Server in excellent condition. Granted I had to replace the CD drive with a DVD drive, but that was the only hardware change I had to make. In order to get the…

Apple III Pascal Manuals Now Available

From Mike Maginnis: David Schmenk scanned several Apple III Pascal manuals and I posted them at Apple2scans.net.  They are: – Pascal Technical Reference Manual– Pascal Technical Reference Manual – Supplement– Numerics Manual: A Guide to Using the Apple III Pascal SANE and Elems Units– Pascal Update: An Introduction to Version 1.1 of Apple Pascal for Improved Application Development Grab them here:http://apple2scans.net/apple-iii/apple-iii-pascal-manuals/ or over at http://www.apple3.org.

T40 Art Gallery Created

T40, the 40 column text editor created by Antoine Vignau this week, now has a new art gallery to go with the program.   The gallery created by Daniel Kruszyna only has a couple of items as of yet but the gallery is in both picture format and slideshow format in the form of an Apple ][ Floppy image. To check out the latest additions to the gallery, go to the T40 Gallery website at: http://krue.net/fortycolumns/

CFFA3000 Cards Sold Out

The Entire run of 200 of the new CFFA3000 cards have sold out.  This run was released just over 4 weeks ago and according to Rich Dreher, “this run probably sold out quickly due to the long development time frame”. Rich is now taking emails for a second run but he is saying that it could be 6 to 12 months prior to said run being completed. For more information about the CFFA3000 and other cards by Rich Dreher, check…

T40 Text Screen Editor Released for Apple ][

From a posting by Antoine Vignau: Say hello to T40 v1.2 which adds the following features: – screen flipping (horizontal, vertical) – screen mirrorrorrim (left-right, right-left, top-down, down-top) – screen inverting (convert all chars to flash, normal or inverse video mode) – an undo feature for the above ones 😉 – a feature to lock cursor movements (ideal for column art) – is now menu driven (ahem) – a change in the second output buffer (lines are now CR terminated)…

Three E-Book readers compared

The three readers are Adobe Digital Editions from Adobe, Stanza from http://www.lexcycle.com/, and Skim from http://skim-app.sourceforge.net. Each of the three have their strong points and weak points. Adobe is fairly powerful and fast, but lack many of the whiz bang features of other readers.They concentrate mostly on PDF documents (which is no surprise). Apart from formatting, there really isn’t much there which can’t be found in Preview (built into OS X). It has the look of a Windows program ported…

The difference between E-book readers and Comic Book readers

Just to let everybody know I’m still around and looking for material to write about. At the moment I’m comparing five E-book programs for the Mac. Although they are similar to the Comic Book readers I’ve previously reviewed, the two E-book reader programs I’ve looked at so far do not appear to support image files. They are mainly for PDF and other “text” related formats. At the same time the Comic Book readers do not like the “text” related formats….

Revew: Jomic

Jomic is another comic book reader. It is written for the PPC, so the Intel folks will need to install Rosetta (allows the Intel machines to run PPC code). The version I have appears to be a demo. Many of the items in the menu are greyed out. However, I found by a bit of experimentation some of these items do function. Since the program was written for slower machines I’ve observed it is very fast on a faster machine….

Add on – Dapplegrey

Dapplegrey is a front end to DOSBox. It is a way to maintain quick access to the features and programs stored within DOSBox. Minimum requirements are OS X 10.3 and a PPC Mac. Access to programs is quite simple. It is a matter of  going to the “Games List” tab and double-clicking on the desired program. The assumption is people running DOSBox are running old DOS (PC) games. In my case this is true. I do everything else in OS…

How to automatically mount an NFS drive (UNIX network) on OS X

This article is a variation/enhancement to a post I found at http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freenas/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=9289 for a FreeNAS server. Of course purely Mac folks would likely want to stick with the AFP protocol. In terms of generalities the NFS server does not necessarily have to be running FreeNAS. It just has to work. FreeNAS is basically a “Swiss Army Knife” of external storage. I find it does a lot of things very easily. It doesn’t work on all machines (I’ve had a 60%…

Even more stuff for Virtual Machine and Dual-boot users

Linux Mint 11 is out. Linux Mint is a specialised Linux distribution focusing on Multimedia. There are versions for residents of restrictive countries like the U.S.A. and Japan, as well as as a version for those of us in the rest of the world. It can be found at… http://linuxmint.com

More stuff for Virtual Machine users

Fedora 15 was released a short time ago. http://fedoraproject.org

Running apps installed via MacPorts (or the others) from the GUI

When an app is installed via MacPorts, or one of the other programs used to bring Linux apps to the Mac, it is stored as a program requiring a terminal program to run. This is fine for some programs such as 7zip but not for others such as pan (a GUI newsreader) and gftp (a GUI based ftp program). I use these programs enough so I’d want them on the dock. After hunting around I found some discussion in a…

Beagle Bros website updated

The Beagle Bros Software Repository, managed and produced by A.P.P.L.E. Staff and Brian Wiser, have once again added a number of graphics images from the long defunct company.  Beagle Bros was one of the most popular Apple ][ software companies and had a large following due to their unique style of graphics According to the Beagle Bros website, “Thanks to the efforts of Brian Wiser, we now have two new graphics sections in the Beagle Bros Software Repository.  Sections 6…

Apple Japan offers free repairs for Earthquake/Tsunami damaged machines

The Apple, Inc. Japan website is offering free upgrades for all Macs, iPhones, iPads, and iTouches damaged in the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.   (http://www.apple.com/jp/support/information.html) According to the website, repairs must be requested before the end of June.  Keep in mind that their current policy is subject to be pulled at any time so be sure to get your machine in as soon as possible. For those who evacuated from Japan with damaged machines, no definitive word on what can…

The Northern Spy

By Rick Sutcliffe The Good, the Quick, and the BigMay 2011 Apple bids fair to take over the electronic worldas iSteve’s little Cupertino company doubles revenues year over year, pushes profits to heights not previously imagined, and bids to continue on this path indefinitely. As previously predicted in this space, many of the purchasers of iProducts are now buying Macs as well, ensuring a growing dominance in that space as more and more people come to realize that it’s better…

Bytes From The Apple — A Resurgence of the Apple-1

By Bill Martens When Steve Wozniak first created his Apple-1 computer, it was all hand wire wrapped and on breadboard.  No fancy automated electronic assembly was even thought of.  It was purely a labor and work of true love of the art form.  These hand built machines were mostly produced in early 1976 with the original production machines being produced in April 1976 by Steve Wozniak (http://www.woz.org) and Steve Jobs. The fact that only 175 of the original Apple-1 production…

Donut Games Rat on a Skateboard Upgraded

Donut Games has updated their Rat On A Skateboard app for the iPhone.  Version 1.10 is now available from Apple’s App Store at http://itunes.apple.com/app/rat-on-a-skateboard/id404095058?mt=8 For a limited time, Rat on a Skateboard is also available for Free from the Donut Games website.  For other Donut games for the iPhone, check out the Donut Games website at http://www.donutgames.com

Skyworks releases update for 3 Point Hoops Basketball for iPhone

Skyworks Interactive, Inc. has released an update for their 3 Point Hoops Basketball App for the iPhone.  Version 3.3 was released today to address a host of bugs in the App.  For information about the update and other Skyworks Apps,  check out the Skyworks website at http://www.skyworks.com/iphone/ The 3 Point Hoops Basketball application is available for .99 cents from the following page: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/3-point-hoops-basketball-the/id306597349?mt=8

IOS 4.3.3 Released by Apple, Inc.

Apple, Inc. this week took measures to curb the bruhaha caused by the iPhone tracking peoples locations with a new release of IOS.  Version 4.3.3 reduces the size of the tracking  cache, as well as totally eliminating the cache when tracking is turned off.   The cache also is no longer backed up to iTunes, thus eliminating the possibility of the iPhone tracking movements unless done so through the user controlled settings. For more information about the update, you can check…