MarkSF's Profile

Besides the very legitimate issues raised in the last three replies, I have to say a line like "sucks diseased moose wang" in this type of article basically red-flags the credibility quotient of the author.

I recall reading that PPC apps were coded more in favor of memory efficiency at the expense of some speed, while Intel apps are compiled the other way around (speed over memory efficiency). Also the more CPU cores, the more memory the system uses. 1.25gb RAM is (to this day) almost always "more than enough" on my 12-inch G4 Powerbook (even with many apps running at once), while 1gb on a Mac Pro was making the thing page like crazy with just one application open. From my observations, memory requirements for the same apps running on the Mac Pro without excessive paging was around 3x what was needed in the G4 Powerbook. For web-browsing, I use the optimized Intel-specific Firefox builds found here: http://www.beatnikpad.com/archives/2007/09/19/003355.php In both features and performance, I find it far preferable to any version of Safari.

Seems to me this "review" would have been much more useful to readers after the questions had been answered. As it is, it reads more like a forum posting.

I agree with Black Six: I've never had the kinds of problems described either with the iPod's earbuds or with the power adaptors for my Powerbook. Maybe you're winding up the cords too tightly when storing them? One thing that definitely *will* stress these kinds of cords is sharp angles and stress/pulling at connection-points. Both ends of the thinner (low-voltage) cables for Powerbook/Macbook power-supplies commonly fail for that reason. When you wind up cords, keep a bit of slack at both ends, and try to never bend them sharply.

Excellent article and follow-up comments. I use my 12-inch Powerbook for DJ-ing, and nothing in the current line would work well for me as a replacement. I need the small footprint (many DJ booths have little space for a laptop, aside from the obvious and already-mentioned portability considerations), metal case (helps with heat dissipation, among other things), non-glossy screen (some bar/club lighting makes a glossy screen very annoying to use), and the inherent greater strength against torsional flexing that you get in a smaller case. I could probably live without the optical drive...especially considering that it's a very expensive part to repair or replace, compared to the cost of a normal-size DVD mechanism and a Firewire case. The only feature addition I'd want (aside from an updated processor and the faster speed) is the lighted keyboard...that's the one thing that annoys me about the 12-inch Powerbook compared to its larger siblings. Nice to have for dark environments (like many DJ booths).

I tried it on Firefox, and found it irritating enough to remove immediately. The little blue dots that it puts next to every link make certain pages really unattractive, and I wasn't fond of the full-sized "window within the window" that it created (with non-standard cheesy-looking UI elements and logo). It also seemed sluggish, and I'm using a Mac Pro. The basic idea has merit, and maybe if there was something that *didn't* litter pages with blue dots (maybe just use some keyboard command when clicking links to activate the "preview"), and rendered its preview in a user-definable-sized pop-up (rather than obliterating the whole browser window) it would be more worthwhile to me.

I think it was actually released in 1991 (a screaming 25mHz), with the 33mHz Quadra 950 following in mid-1992. Its desirability at the time was compromised by being among the first (if not *the* very first) new Mac to require System 7...a lot of software hadn't yet been updated to work optimally with System 7, plus System 7 itself needed a few revs to become acceptably stable. For a user running audio software like Sound Designer II on a IIfx (or even a IIci) with System 6.0.8, the Quadra 900 with System 7.0.1 was outright sluggish.