Recession Mac OS

Mac Musings

Daniel Knight - 2009.02.16 -

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If ever it was important for a website such as Low End Mac to exist,this worldwide recession is it.

From the beginning, almost 12 years ago, our goal was to help Macusers get the most out of their older, probably nowhere close tostate-of-the-art (yet still usable for some tasks) computers. Weinitially drew the line at the Mac Plus as the oldest Mac withpractical usability, as it supported up to 4 MB of RAM, 800Kfloppy disks, and external SCSI drives. Slimey and wombat mac os. It was the oldest Mac thatcould run System 7, albeit somewhat sluggishly.

Our assessment of the Plus hasn't changed, but the world ofcomputing sure has. While power users bemoan the woefully underpowerednetbooks with their 1.6 GHz Atom CPUs, a lot of us are still ploddingalong with our aging PowerPC Macs - or even 680x0-based vintageMacs.

Computing power is definitely relative. Today's slowpoke would haveset your heart to racing 2-3 years ago. Free casino games no wifi.

Upgrade Advice

Our rule of thumb is to use your Mac as long as its up to whatevertasks you need to do, upgrade it as necessary, and replace it when yourun out of upgrade options. We have always preached the benefit of afaster hard drive, which will often have more impact on overallperformance than more RAM, which is the other thing we recommendupgrading.

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Only you can assess your own needs, but we generally find CPUupgrades hard to justify financially, as it's often cheaper to buy afaster Mac with the same CPU and sell your old one. That said, Applenever made a Power Mac G4 with 1.6 GHz to 2.0 GHz CPUs, and if you'reable to increase your productivity sufficiently, you can cost justifyupgrading the processor.

Video cards are one place wheremodular desktop Macs tend to provide lots of options, the Mac mini and 20th Anniversary Macintosh(left) being notable exceptions. Especially as Mac OS X hasevolved, demands on the graphics processor (GPU) have increased, andwith Mac OS X 10.5 'Leopard', some features require more powerfulvideo cards than some of the oldest G4 Macs that can run Leopard camewith.

Another factor is monitor resolution, features, and number. Thehigher your screen's resolution, the more it will benefit from moregraphic processing power. Some cards support two displays, and that'seven more demanding on the GPU.

And then there are things like rotation - my Dell flat panel displayrotates 90°, and Mac OS X 10.4 'Tiger' (which I still use)supports that. I occasionally rotate the display when working on verylengthy articles to gain 256 pixels of height, but there's asignificant slowdown due to the stock Radeon 9000 Pro in my dual 1 GHz Power Mac G4. I'm suresomething like a Radeon 9700 would make a big difference, but it's hardto justify spending $120.

We do live the Low End Mac philosophy here - my newest computer is a1.25 GHz eMac from 2004,and my production machine is that Mirrored Drive Doors Power Mac G4 from2002, which I acquired secondhand. Both computers have had RAMincreased and bigger, faster hard drives installed. Both have hadupgrades to 16x SuperDrives. And the Power Mac has two USB 2.0 cards,giving me plenty of USB ports at a speed the built-in ports can'tprovide (you can never have too many USB ports).

Thanks to the advent of Intel-based Macs, there has never been abetter time to buy a used PowerPC Mac, and most upgrades are quiteaffordable. We're especially fond of Power Macs with all theirexpansion slots, drive bays, and CPU upgrade potential.

Financial Realities

These are trying times. People are losing their jobs. People aretaking pay cuts to keep their jobs, whether due to less hours oragreeing to a reduction in their pay rate. Businesses are doing whatthey can to reduce expenses as income declines, reducing perks andbenefits, reducing staffing, doing what they can to stay afloat.

Homes are being foreclosed in record levels, housing values aredeclining (many of us now owe more than our homes are worth), andlenders are being very cautious. It's a time for doing with less.

Here at Low End Mac, we haven't spent much on hardware or softwarein the past year. We bought a low-cost Brother all-in-oneprinter/scanner for my wife to use in her office, we had to buy tonerfor the laser printer, and I couldn't resist the value of the MacUpdatesoftware bundle. https://trueofil100.weebly.com/what-is-sketch.html. DriveGenius alone is worth the cost of the bundle, andI've rediscovered the efficiency of Default Folder, which I hadn't usedon OS X until now.

We've just come off six weeks covering Apple history - one week forthe pre-Macintosh Apple, then one day foreach of the Mac's 25 years. It's been fun, and traffic levels havebeen good. We're not quite at our record pace - we served 17 millionpages in 2007 - but we're close at 16 million per year.

Up and Down

It's a good life writing about the Mac and working with otherwriters with the same passion, but it's had its ups and downs. I leftmy full-time job do publish Low End Mac full-time eight years ago, justas the dot-com collapse was shredding ad income. Things bottomed-out in2002 at less than 1/10 of a cent per page view in ad income while sitetraffic grew by nearly 25%.

Income per page doubled in 2003 and kept moving upward, peaking in2005/06, then slipping just a wee bit in 2007. Then came 2008. ThroughJune, income was close to the 2006 level, but July fell well short ofthe previous year's level. Through October, income seemed to holdsteady, and then came the crash.

November income was less than half what it had been in 2007, andDecember was even worse. We'd hoped to see things turn in January, butinstead it was lower still. We don't know what February holds (checksusually arrive the last week of the month), but we're looking at ouroptions.

My wife has been unemployed since autumn, and we sold the second cara few months ago, which also saves us about $60 a month in carinsurance. We're using more coupons than even when grocery shopping,and we're grateful that gasoline prices fell so far back from lastsummer's record levels, but things are getting tight. Dragon casino game. We're wonderingif we'll be able to find part-time work at all, as Michigan has thehighest unemployment rate in the nation.

Low End Mac has been through hard times before, and our readers havehelped out in the past. Here's how you can do that: Most of ourarticles have a 'Tip Jar' link, a way for you to let our writers, whoare almost all freelancers, know you appreciate their work. Donating totheir tip jars can help them stay afloat - or pay for some more oldMacs to write about.

These are trying times, and Low End Mac will be around to help youget through them as far as computing decisions go. And we thank you inadvance for any help you can provide to keep us going through thisrecession.

UPDATE 2/18: I'd like to thank over a dozen Low End Mac readers aroundthe world who have contributed to my TipJar. dk

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Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986,sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, andhas been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

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