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The headless PowerBook
According to the photo's Flickr description, this poor 12-inch PowerBook took a nasty spill down some wooden stairs, resulting in the defacing you see before you. The computer continued to function after losing its head thanks to an external monitor, but after an unfortunate power cord tripping incident led to a more serious tumble (this was before the days of MagSafe after all), it finally met its maker. We salute you for your service, sweet prince. [Photo credit: Brian Pennington]
PowerBook takes a dive
Ever wonder what a PowerBook would look like after falling from the top of a building? Apparently that's exactly what happened to this poor fella. The photographer who snapped this tragic picture doesn't provide much detail beyond the fact that it was thrown, but judging by the damage the laptop suffered, it looks like it tumbled from higher than the second or third floor. [Photo credit: Aaronx]
The $5 PowerBook
I love my MacBook Air, but I couldn't possibly turn down a deal like this. A fiver for a gorgeous machine like that? Look at that screen, those massive hinges, and that classic trackball embedded right in the center. What a beauty. [Photo credit: Oskay]
How Apple laptops interfaced with phones in 1999
1999 doesn't seem all that long ago, but it was -- it really was. Here we see a PowerBook 550c (1995/1996) getting frisky with an NTT Personal PALDiO (1999) Japanese flip phone in its PCMCIA slot. Not exactly as slick as an iPhone wirelessly chatting with a MacBook, but it was probably pretty damn cool at the time. [Photo credit: raneko]
A precarious perch
On the list of "Places I wouldn't want to use my Apple notebook" this would be near the top. Maybe I'm just not brave enough to handle it. Have you ever used your MacBook (or PowerBook) next to a large quantity of water? [Photo credit: Ondra Soukup]
The PowerBook 5300: The laptop that halted an alien invasion
In August of 1995, Apple launched a computer that would change the fate of the world: the PowerBook 5300. This 5.9lb fusion of black polycarbonate and capacitors had a modest debut, but little did anyone know that less than a year later, on July 4th 1996, it would save the world. It was on that fateful day that, David Levinson -- a cable company employee and MIT alumni -- took to the skies in a refurbished alien spacecraft, leaving behind an Earth ravaged by ongoing attacks. Once docked with the massive alien mothership, Levinson pulled out his trusty PowerBook 5300, equipped with a staggeringly powerful 100 MHz processor and a ridiculous 64 MB of RAM, and (somehow) began to interface with the ship. Nobody is really sure how he did it, as presumably the aliens' computer infrastructure was far different from the Mac OS 7.5.2 operating system of his lowly PowerBook, but at the time we didn't ask questions. We simply waited as the chunky laptop uploaded some sort of nondescript computer virus to the mothership. The totally realistic and absolutely not fake virus took down the shields of the powerful City Destroyer ships hovering around Earth, and also for some reason started a countdown which ended with a funny little laughing skull and an exploding nuclear missile. Despite this amazing success and the PowerBook 5300 being heralded as the savior of the entire human race, Apple discontinued the computer less than a month later, on August 3rd, 1996 -- because, I mean, just look at the thing.
Macworld lists six rare Macs
Benj Edwards of Macworld takes a walk down memory lane and lists six obscure Mac computers that saw limited production runs. All the unusual machines were produced in 1990s and include the JLPGA PowerBook 170, the Color Classic II, the Macintosh TV, Power Macintosh G3 All-in-One, Twentieth Anniversary Mac and PowerBook 550c. You can view an image of each model and read more about their history on Macworld's website. It's well worth the read!
Growing Up Geek: Jon Fingas
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, an ongoing feature where we take a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. Today, we have our new editor, Jon Fingas. You might say I started early. Some of my first memories of technology -- or of anything, really -- were of mashing the keyboards on Compaq PC clones at my dad's workplace when I was three. Little did I know that I'd started on a path towards technology that would lead me towards mashing the keyboards for a career that would land me here at Engadget.
IBM touts new Power7 systems, still no mass market Watson
IBM's latest announcement probably won't get us any closer to securing our very own in-house version of Watson, but the firm is boasting a new line of Power7 products that includes an upgraded version of the supercomputer's server. First up are the BladeCenter PS703 and PS704, sporting 16 cores and 32 cores, respectively -- the PS704 touts a 60 percent increase in speed over its predecessors. The Power 750, the same system that gave Watson the stuff to slaughter those humans on Jeopardy!, is getting an upgrade that supports as many as 32 cores and can run up to 128 simultaneous threads, while the Power 755 offers up high-performance computing with 32 cores of its own. The cheapest version of the Power 750 Express rings in at about $30,000. So, no, we won't be battling Watson in a Jeopardy! Home Edition showdown anytime soon, but we're happy to see that our favorite supercomputer could be even smarter -- or at the very least, faster -- the next time it shows up on the boob tube. Full PR after the break.
My main computer, 2004 versus 2011
In 2004, I bought my first Mac. I'd used Macs for decades before that, but those Macs always belonged to someone else. The first Mac that I called my own was a 233 MHz PowerBook G3 I bought off eBay for the princely sum of US$205. It quickly became my main machine, which thrilled my wife because it meant she could have her PowerMac G4 all to herself again. A few weeks ago, I bought an iPad 2. I had barely used an iPad before dropping $829 on one, but after two years of using various iterations of the iPhone, I expected a certain level of familiarity. Today, the iPad 2 performs most of the tasks that my MacBook Pro used to handle. In fact, besides editing and posting on TUAW, downloading files and photo editing, I barely use my Mac anymore -- and considering that it has a history of breaking and is now out of warranty, that's probably a good thing. Now the fun part: comparing my first Mac -- the PowerBook G3 -- to the iPad 2. As expected, the iPad 2 is superior in almost every way. Check out the details below, noting how much the "limited" iPad, a machine that some pundits hesitate to call a "computer," has to offer compared to the state-of-the-art from 1998.
SafeSleep lets you use safe sleep on demand on your Mac
Editor's note: This app is no longer being developed or supported by the original developer. If you've ever wanted more control over Apple's "safe sleep" mode, the free SafeSleep.app from Side Tree Software is for you. If you've never heard of it before, you might be wondering what "safe sleep" is (but if you have heard of it, you can skip the next couple paragraphs). When the battery on one of Apple's notebook computers (including the MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and some late-model PowerBooks) is very low, OS X will put the machine into what Apple calls "safe sleep" mode. This is similar to standard sleep, except the contents of the RAM are completely written to the hard drive and all power shuts down. You can even remove the battery while the machine is in safe sleep. To wake the computer from safe sleep, press the power button on the computer. A progress bar will display (startup will be noticeably slower than a normal wake from sleep), then your computer will be restored to how it was before safe sleep was invoked. This feature is called "hibernation" in the Windows world, and it's one of the very few features I missed when I switched from Windows to Mac. (The other big one was how Windows deals with moving files, which can be replicated on the Mac side using moveAddict.) One of the nice things that Windows computers have is the ability to choose to hibernate when you are shutting down the machine. For years, I never turned my Windows laptop off; I only hibernated. Unfortunately, Apple has not made that feature available to Mac users. That's where SafeSleep.app comes in. When you launch the app, it displays several options. The one I'm most excited about is "Safe Sleep Now," which lets me choose safe sleep without having to change the way the Mac usually works. I can still just close the lid for normal sleep (or choose it from the window above), but if I want to make sure to trigger safe sleep, it's now much easier to do. "Always use Safe Sleep" will tell the computer to never use the normal, faster sleep mode. If you choose that and want to change it back later, select "Only Safe Sleep in Emergencies." You can also totally disable safe sleep; this isn't recommended for obvious reasons, but if you're willing to take the risk, disabling it can make the process of putting your Mac into "normal sleep" faster. Although safe sleep was designed for portable Macs, you can also use it on desktop Macs. At night, I use safe sleep on my iMac because, otherwise, it seems to wake from "normal sleep" on its own. A word of caution, however: be sure to unmount any external drives that are connected to your Mac before entering safe sleep. Even if they remain physically attached to the Mac, OS X thinks that the disk was ejected without being unmounted, which is something you want to avoid. Physically connected drives will automatically be remounted when the machine wakes from safe sleep. SafeSleep is free and can be downloaded from MacUpdate.
Carrie Bradshaw: a Mac no longer
Say it ain't so, Carrie! Our friend Christina Warren reports over at Mashable that the second Sex and the City film is featuring product placements from Hewlett-Packard rather than from Apple, including an entire site dedicated to the movie. As Christina points out, Carrie's Mac was practically its own character in the original Sex and the City TV series. The episodes were bookended by Carrie typing away on her PowerBook (a Pismo was mostly used). The laptop was the focus of its own episode when the motherboard fried and Carrie's boyfriend at the time tried to replace it with the first generation iBook, referring to it as a "purse." At age 25, moving across the country from my family for the first time, Carrie and her PowerBook were both a comfort and a symbol of power to me. They represented the modern, independent female journalist and I wanted to be like her. Okay, so I could never have the hair or the figure, but I did scrape together $175 to buy a used G3 PowerBook off of Ebay. When I did my second cross-country move, this one solo, I recorded my journey on that PowerBook and was pleased with my inner Carrie. The move by Sex and the City's producers appears to be motivated by HP's aggressive product placement program, and I'm sure that a good chunk of money was saved by having Carrie leap to Windows rather than upgrade to a 27" iMac and the latest MacBook Pro. It really is a shame, and I know I'll wince a little inside when I go see the movie. For me, Carrie Bradshaw will always be a Mac girl.
Twelve things to do with an old Apple computer
As I type this article on my MacBook Pro, I can't help but glance over at my poor PowerBook Lombard G3 with its awesome translucent bronze keyboard, sitting in its dusty laptop bag. The battery is long toast. When I last booted it up, the clock thought that the system time was close to 1970 thanks to the internal clock battery no longer holding a charge, and thanks to the fact that it's capped at OS X 10.3.9, I can't get a new version of Firefox on it. In short, it's seen better days. However, for all its faults, it's still got a decent hard drive and nearly a gigabyte of RAM, so it can't be totally useless. This makes made wonder, what can I do with this old 'Book (or an even more ancient Mac)? Here are a few possibilities: First of all, if you have an older but still functional laptop (like me!), you could strip off the plastic, keyboard, etc. and turn it into a hanging digital picture frame on the cheap. Use it to surf the web, old skool style, with Contiki. Yes, surprisingly, even the old Apple IIe can surf the modern internet, though only in text form. Turn it into a Personal Webserver. Of course, your newer Macs can serve up web pages using Apache. Personally, I've had great success in getting my server up and running (along with MySQL and PHP to boot!) using XAMPP, but if you want to really be different, turn that old Macintosh SE/30, IIci or LC into web server.
Two PowerBooks spliced into one epic snowboard (video)
We don't know that this requires much more explanation than the title. A couple of rad dudes from the German-speaking parts of Europe have taken up tools against their old titanium PowerBooks G4s and produced the righteous bit of snow-surfing kit you see above. It was done for a competition asking for creative ways to re-utilize old gear, though judging by all the flopping and crashing that ensued in their tests, this isn't exactly useful. See it on video after the break, and if it really catches your fancy, the PowerBook snowboard can be found on eBay, though no one has been mad enough to bid for it yet.
Flickr Find: MacBook Generations
Oh man. I'm tempted to just sit back and let you marvel at the beauty, history, innovation, and intelligence that is on display in the picture above, taken and posted by Robert Donovan on Flickr (and be sure to check out the alternate view, too -- I actually like the alt view better, given that it shows all of the ports over time). But just in case you're wondering: Unibody 13" 2.53Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro 15" 400Mhz G4 Titanium PowerBook 15" 1.25Ghz G4 Aluminum PowerBook 15" 2.5Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro Amazing stuff -- think of the engineering, manufacturing work, and design arguments that went into those little bands of metal, and all of the good work and art that has since been created with them. Beautiful.
MacCores iTab Mini mod gives us a taste of the future
Given that September 9 is unlikely to finally reveal the fabled Apple tablet, this might be the nearest thing we have to it for a while yet -- and it has one other advantage: it's real. The iTab Mini is a mod project of the "more time and energy than sense" variety (our favorite kind) that melds together a 12.1-inch resistive touchscreen display with the remnants of an old PowerBook and a decidedly modern Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD spec. The outcome is, in a word, stunning. You can find a full run-through of the build at the read link.
Don't panic: Liquid damage, and what to do about it
We've all had an "oh poopie" moment involving liquids: Time slows down, you watch as the glass tips over, its contents cascading (beautifully, in another context perhaps) over the rim and onto the table. The rivulets of beverage roll in a miniscule tidal wave across the surface, over the edge, and drip to the floor. All in the span of a few seconds. The worst part is when there's a computer between the cup and the table. That's when an oops becomes a crisis. What's the best thing to do when there's a spill on your laptop? Keep calm and carry on: 1. Don't panic. First, know that your data is safe. Hard drives -- while not hermetically sealed -- are tightly put together. If you act quickly, you can prevent the liquid from getting to your hard disk, and damaging your valuable data. (I'll save the bad news for later.) 2. Turn off the computer. Even before you run to get a towel, turn the computer off. If you can't shut it down normally (the keyboard won't respond for example), try pressing the power button for several seconds to force the computer to shut down. Unplug the laptop, and disconnect any cables and USB devices. 3. With the lid open, turn the computer upside down. This prevents the liquid from getting too far into the computer. While the computer is upside down, remove the battery and set it aside. 4. Wipe up the liquid. All joking aside: use toilet paper. Ounce for ounce, it's the most absorbent material you're likely to have handy. It's also thin, so it can reach down into crevices in and around your keyboard to soak up the liquid. This is especially important for sugary drinks like colas and juice: Sugars are sticky, and if they dry, you'll have a bigger problem. Next: If you're prepared, you can take your computer apart to clean up any liquid inside.
A tweet for a case
We're not sure what someone has been putting in the water lately, but two separate vendors pinged us with case giveaways within minutes of each other. They're both using Twitter as the entry mechanism for the giveaways.The first giveaway is from our buddies at Evernote, who want you to win one of ten Griffin Clarifi iPhone 3G cases every Friday in March. The Clarifi is pretty sweet, with a built-in closeup lens for taking snaps that are perfect for Evernote.To enter, all you need to do is send a Twitter message containing the #EvernoteClarifiGiveaway hash tag.Not to be out-cased, RadTech is doing a giveaway of 5 NeoCases. These are sweet form-fitting sleeve cases for MacBooks, iBooks, and PowerBooks. How do you enter? Tweet @radtech with a clever statement including the word "Neocase", and you're entered. The drawing will be held Monday, March 9, 2008, and you'll be able to choose the size of NeoCase for your favorite Mac notebook. What are you waiting for? Get tweeting and win a case!
Apple: Welcome to the obsolete list, PowerBook G4
Ars Technica reports that Apple will announce the latest additions to its list of vintage and obsolete machines on March 17. The list, initially reported through MacMerc, includes the following:The "vintage" machines are ones where service parts are available to repair machines purchased in California due to existing statutes. This classification does not apply in the other 49 states. Xserve RAID Xserve (Slot Load) Xserve (Cluster Node) The rest of the additions, to grace the "obsolete" list, include: PowerBook G4 Power Mac G4 (Digital Audio) Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver) Macintosh Server G4 (Digital Audio) Macintosh Server G4 (Quicksilver) These machines have all had good runs. I had a Quicksilver as my first post-college work computer and thought it was the greatest computer I've ever worked on the time - way, way back in the golden days of years gone by (aka 2002). These computers will now join their brethren in the Mac retirement home. But just because Apple classifies them as obsolete doesn't mean that you can't breathe new life into them. Have fond memories of these machines? Share them in the comments!
Twitterers remember their first Mac
Reader Sam K. (thanks!) noticed the fun on Twitter -- lots of folks are sharing their memories of the first Mac they bought/used with the #firstmac hash tag, and boy is it fun reading through them. The responses are all over the place, from the old ][e (technically my first computer ever at school, though the first one I actually owned at home was a Tandy Color Computer my Dad bought from one of his coworkers) and //c up to the old iMacs and even a few people who can only claim iPod as the first Apple product they used. The first Mac I actually owned was much later than my first steps into BASIC -- when I needed a laptop a few years ago, I picked up a 12" Powerbook G4 and have been straight OS X ever since. It's great to read this stuff, because you can see just how Apple has shaped people's lives. I was amazed to hear all of the emotion in the calls to Steve on our talkcast last week, but looking at something like this Twitter feed (to put your own memories in, just mark a tweet with the #firstmac tag somewhere in there) really shows you how dedicated Apple's products have made the company's customers. These people have all bought a Mac, whether it was a Mac SE (errrr, a Mac Classic?) or a MacBook Air, and never looked back since. Very cool. And while we're at it, is it possible that you're on Twitter and haven't yet started following us? If not, jump in and do so now!
