Thursday, March 20, 2003
The Fiancée Switcher
Charles Gaba, a long-time Mac user and the creator of the excellent and well-circulated "AAPLTalk System Shootouts", has spent the past two months journaling in great detail the story of how his fiancée switched to the Mac platform. Charles shares his story below. It's rather long, but I promise you that it has a happy ending:
29 Jan 2003, 05:56 PM EST
I am happy to report that my fiancee is finally ready to go PowerMac shopping! :)
She's been chomping at the bit for a couple of months now but I convinced her to hold off a bit, knowing that *some* sort of update was forthcoming soon. Thought we'd have to wait another couple of weeks, so yesterday's announcement was a nice surprise.
I'm gonna recommend that she go for either the discontinued DP 867 or the new SP 1 GHz model, both of which are going for $1,500 even.
Normally I'd angle her towards the new 1GHz (about a half-dozen benefits), but I happen to have a spare, free AirPort card which would fit in the DP867 but wouldn't work with the 1GHz.
So, between the two, here's where she would be at ($1,500 total each):
NEW 1GHz:
--faster processor
--faster CD-RW
--faster DVD
--includes FireWire 800
--more VRAM
--Airport Extreme-ready (54 Mbps)
--Bluetooth-ready
--QuickBooks X
--Includes iDVD 3 (I think)
--Quieter (supposedly)
OLD DP867:
--DUAL processors
--would include Airport card (11 Mbps)
Hmm...decisions, decisions...still think I'll recommend the new 1GHz.
--------------------
29 Jan 2003, 11:37 PM EST
Not only is it not a no-brainer, after going over all the specs, we decided to go for the DP 867 after all.
Reasoning?
--Processor: DP 867 vs. 1 GHz
Being from a Unix background, she fully understands SMP and would prefer dual processors to a single CPU that's a bit faster.
Advantage: DP 867
--CD-RW: 16x8x32 vs. 32x10x32
Nice, but she rarely burns CDs. Plus, she has a 48x24x48x CD-RW in her current system which she plans on moving into the 2nd optical bay (assuming it fits & is compatible)
Advantage: 1 GHz, slightly
--DVD-Rom: 8x vs. 12x
Irrelevent; it's not gonna make movies play any faster.
Advantage: n/a
--FireWire: 2@400 Mbps vs. 2@400Mbps+ 1@800Mbps
Irrelevent to her; her peripherals are all USB, and the 400 Mbps FW ports are ample for anything she might add in the future. Not a power user.
Advantage: n/a
--VRAM: 32 MB vs. 64 MB
Irrelevent to her; she's not a gamer. I have a GeForce2 MX w/32 MB and do just fine, and I have far more professional needs.
Advantage: n/a
--Airport: 802.11b vs. 802.11g
Both my PowerMac and my iBook have 802.11b cards already, so 802.11g would be wasted on her system anyway. Plus, I also have a third spare Airport (802.11b) card, which saves her the $100 on an Airport Extreme card. Not to mention that we'll be networked via a Gigabit ethernet hub anyway :)
Advantage: DP 867
--Bluetooth: Both require $50 dongle; external vs. internal (?)
She's not a big fan of wireless peripherals, and her company-provided cellphone isn't Bluetooth-compatible anyway. Besides, as far as I can tell, the only advantage on the new systems is that the adapter *may* go inside instead of using up a USB port outside (?).
Advantage: n/a
--QuickBooks X
She currently uses MSFT Money, which is incompatible with QuickBooks. Not to mention that QuickBooks X is incompatible with QuickBooks for Windows anyway. Solution: probably will continue to use MSFT Money via Virtual PC.
Advantage: n/a
--Includes iDVD 3
I was apparently wrong about this; it's only included with SuperDrive systems anyway. Plus, I'll be getting iDVD myself when I pick up iLife.
Advantage: n/a
--Noise: Loud vs. Quieter (supposedly)
This one, if true, would be a nice bonus.
Advantage: 1 GHz
So, in sum, here's where we're at:
Dual Processors & Airport card favor the DP 867 model.
Faster CD-RW and Quieter system favor the 1 GHz model, but only mildly.
Final advantage in her particular case: DP 867 (assuming they have 'em in stock at our local Apple Store this weekend).
---------------------
30 Jan 2003, 10:40 PM EST
Score! I'm happy to report that this evening my fiancee and I drove out to our local Apple Store and snapped up one of the last DP 867 PowerMac G4 towers, with a 17" Apple Studio Display to match.
Best part? Total cost, including 6% sales tax: $2,118!
It was a floor model, so they knocked an additional $200 off the price, which had of course been dropped $200 already from the old $1,699 price. Add to this the $300 price drop on the 17" ASD, and we ended up paying $700 less for the whole shmear than we would have a week ago.
We're using the savings to beef it up with an extra GB of RAM and some solid speakers.
Needless to say, I'm very happy for her, but also a wee bit jealous (seeing how I laid out $2,500 for my *single* 867 tower just a year & a half ago...without a monitor...(sigh)...)
Ah well...
---------------------
02 Feb 2003, 10:28 PM EST
Home Network Status Update: Bingo! Picked up a 10/100 Base-T Linksys router and WOW, added a bunch of speed as well as a bunch of networking capabilities I didn't realize I was missing.
To explain: It turns out that for some reason, she & I were set up on separate subnets even though we were hooked up to the same cable modem via ethernet hub.
As a result, not only did USB printer sharing not work (you may recall we were having issues with that awhile back), but I was never able to utilize the SMB Windows file sharing from her Win98/Win2K laptop/server. Never understood why it didn't work until tonight.
Anyway, after hooking up the router, not only does all of the above work fine, but our broadband speed seems to have increased considerably--she was hitting nearly 200Kb/second.
And file peer-to-peer file transfer speeds--yes, 100 Base-T is plenty fast; transfered a 49.2 MB file in about 4 seconds (which breaks down to 12.3 MB/second, or 103 Mbps...which is actually slightly *higher* than the 100 Mbps rate...I assume that's just an estimate...
In any event, after doing a clean install of OS 9.2.2 & Jaguar, updating Jaguar to 10.2.3 and all the other updates (iMovie 3, etc.), she's up & running.
Installed Office 2001 (since I only have one copy each of Office X and 2001, and already have X on mine), so she should be pretty much set.
---------------------
10 Feb 2003, 11:52 AM EST
My fiancee recently made the jump, switching from her current Win'98 Laptop/Win 2K Server setup over to a DP 867 Combo Drive PowerMac G4 w/17" ACD.
The Switch has gone fairly smoothly, with the following exceptions; mentioning them here for anyone else who finds themselves (or someone they know) in a similar situation:
1. USB Print Sharing--we had a great deal of difficulty getting this to work until we discovered that for some reason our cable modem provider had us set up on separate subnets; USB printer sharing requires you to be on the same subnet.
Solution: Switched from an old 10 Base-T hub to a new 10/100 Base-T Linksys router. Bingo! We're golden; print sharing works great (if we're both under OS X; doesn't seem to work with Classic printing, ah well).
2. Outlook e-mail/contacts/etc: There seem to be any number of ways of converting/transferring over contacts, appointments, notes, etc. (via Palm, various applescripts, etc.), but the e-mail itself looked to be a bit trickier.
Solution: After trying various resources, including Paul Berkowitz's wonderful applescripts, she figured it out without my assistance:
1) export Outlook for Windows mail to her desktop.
2) import Outlook mail into Netscape 4.x for Windows
3) transfer Netscape files over to the PowerMac
4) import Netscape files into Netscape 4.x (Classic)
5) import Netscape (Classic) files into Entourage 2001 (Classic)
Worked perfectly, including all attachments, mailboxes, etc.
(Reason she's using Office 2001: I have one copy each of Office X & Office 2001, and am already using X myself; she's perfectly happy working in Classic mode, so we saved ourselves $200 on a 2nd copy of Office X).
3. Next Challenge: Microsoft Money/TurboTax.
She's not particularly taken with Money, but that's where all her financial stuff is, and as far as I know it *isn't* compatible with either Quicken or Quickbooks. Obvious solution: Virtual PC 6 (which also supposedly fixes the TurboTax incompatibility issue), but both she and I would prefer to avoid using Windows at all.
---------------------
14 Feb 2003, 11:32 AM EST
Good News: All Outlook e-mail has been successfully transferred, yay!
Good News 2: Turns out that MSFT Money *does* have some sort of conversion compatibility with Mac Quicken
Good News 3: Her Visor successfully synced all of her contacts, calender stuff, etc. with Entourage 2001...UNDER OS 9 NATIVE.
Bad news: After much trial & error, we have determined that you can NOT sync a Palm with Entourage 2001 from within OS X/Classic, unless someone here knows of a resource I haven't found.
Options as we see it:
Option 1: Shell out $99 for Entourage X or $499 for Office X. No deal--she does NOT want to give MSFT one more dime if she can help it.
Option 2: She can natively sync her Palm with Palm Desktop X, *then* export the info to vCal/vCard format, *then* import it back into Entourage 2001. She's not thrilled about this.
Option 3: She can natively sync her Palm with iSync into OS X Address Book, *then* export to vCal/vCard format, *then* import it back into Entourage 2001. Not thrilled about this either.
Option 4: She can reboot into OS 9 native once or twice a week to sync everything up natively, then reboot into OS X. Annoying, but this seems to be her best choice.
----------------------
08 Mar 2003, 04:51 PM EST
OpenOffice.org To The Rescue!
When We Last Left Our Intrepid Heroes...
--Spare, copy of Office 2001 was installed & working smoothly in my fiancee's Classic environment (I had a copy given to me free of charge during my old Demo Day stint)
--Fiancee happy with Entourage, but unhappy about inability to print from Classic environment apps to my USB-shared laser printer (can't use USB printer sharing between OS X and OS 9 environments, or at least Classic).
Solution #1: Installed nifty Classic shareware app PrintToPDF so she can save Word, Excel, PowerPoint & Entourage docs as PDFs, then print them via OS X Preview/Acrobat Reader to my shared USB printer.
Results: This is good, but not perfect--she wants to be able to print files *directly* without having to convert 'em to PDF first. (sigh...)
Solution #2: Installed Apple's X11 beta, which works just fine. Then downloaded the LARGE (164 MB) OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 beta & installed it. Install went smoothly.
Results: She LOVES OpenOffice. It imports her Word & Excel files just about perfectly (haven't tried PowerPoint yet). Options/preferences/etc. VERY extensive & easy to follow (for the most part). She's already thinking about trashing MSFT Word, Excel, & PowerPoint (I told her to hold off a bit yet).
HOWEVER, the USB printer sharing is still a bit tricky--it doesn't work from within the X11 environment, although the X11 Printer Setup test *does* print a test sheet to my laser printer, so we *know* it works.
At this point, we're *completely* out of the Mac dimension and inside the Unix dimension--I'm over my head. Fortunately, she's a Unix geek and goes to work on the X11 terminal. Half an hour later, VOILA, she's able to print an OpenOffice spreadsheet (imported from MSFT Excel) to my printer. YAYYYY!
Conclusion: ALL of her printing wishes are now answered, with one exception: there's no Entourage/Outlook app included with OpenOffice. Fortunately, she's ok with using PrintToPDF for any e-mail she needs to print (which is rare), so that's not a problem.
I swear, going with a Unix core is the single most brilliant move Apple/Jobs have made since he came back (which I guess was kind of the point).
-------------------------
20 Mar 2003, 05:39 PM EST
Settling In
OK, so now that she has all her stuff transferred over, she finally decided to enhance her desktop a bit to make life with her new Mac even better, so I introduced her to possibly the most wonderful shareware app known to man: DragThing. If you’ve used it, you know that it kicks every other “app-launcher”/shortcut-holder/whatever app away, including the OS X Dock itself! If you haven’t used it, check it out at http://www.dragthing.com.
Next, she finally got around to hooking up her own printer (well, actually my old one which I gave to her...an “ancient” Epson Stylus 740 inkjet. Noisy as hell, takes forever to run through its’ startup cycle, and the ink heads are a bit blurry, but it works and saves her the trouble of walking across the house to my laser printer. This is temporary; we’ll be picking up a new photo printer for her sooner or later, but it’s fine for now. Setting it up for OS 9 and X is a snap; installing the drivers for OpenOffice are a bit more tricky but she’s a whiz with Unix-y stuff, so she figures it out in about 15 minutes. Plus, she can print directly from Entourage 2001 via the Classic Epson driver, which solves the one lingering printing issue she was having. (as an added bonus, I have my beloved Brother HL-1240 laser printer back to myself, yayyy! Mine, mine, mine!)
Finally, just today, possibly a first in the history of the personal computer: She’s working on her laptop (no way around it--this one is for her workplace which has all sorts of Oracle- and Lotus-type software requiring an x86 machine), and the little “pencil eraser”-type joystick nub thing has completely worn out. Since she’s using a Logitech 2-button scroll mouse on her Mac, she has the original Apple Pro Mouse to spare..and plugs it into her Windows 2000 Toshiba laptop. Win2K has to install the drivers & reboot before it can use the mouse, but voila, she’s up & running.
Thanks again to Charles for sharing this fascinating story. If you haven't taken a look at his System Shootouts, you should.
Charles Gaba, a long-time Mac user and the creator of the excellent and well-circulated "AAPLTalk System Shootouts", has spent the past two months journaling in great detail the story of how his fiancée switched to the Mac platform. Charles shares his story below. It's rather long, but I promise you that it has a happy ending:
29 Jan 2003, 05:56 PM EST
I am happy to report that my fiancee is finally ready to go PowerMac shopping! :)
She's been chomping at the bit for a couple of months now but I convinced her to hold off a bit, knowing that *some* sort of update was forthcoming soon. Thought we'd have to wait another couple of weeks, so yesterday's announcement was a nice surprise.
I'm gonna recommend that she go for either the discontinued DP 867 or the new SP 1 GHz model, both of which are going for $1,500 even.
Normally I'd angle her towards the new 1GHz (about a half-dozen benefits), but I happen to have a spare, free AirPort card which would fit in the DP867 but wouldn't work with the 1GHz.
So, between the two, here's where she would be at ($1,500 total each):
NEW 1GHz:
--faster processor
--faster CD-RW
--faster DVD
--includes FireWire 800
--more VRAM
--Airport Extreme-ready (54 Mbps)
--Bluetooth-ready
--QuickBooks X
--Includes iDVD 3 (I think)
--Quieter (supposedly)
OLD DP867:
--DUAL processors
--would include Airport card (11 Mbps)
Hmm...decisions, decisions...still think I'll recommend the new 1GHz.
--------------------
29 Jan 2003, 11:37 PM EST
Not only is it not a no-brainer, after going over all the specs, we decided to go for the DP 867 after all.
Reasoning?
--Processor: DP 867 vs. 1 GHz
Being from a Unix background, she fully understands SMP and would prefer dual processors to a single CPU that's a bit faster.
Advantage: DP 867
--CD-RW: 16x8x32 vs. 32x10x32
Nice, but she rarely burns CDs. Plus, she has a 48x24x48x CD-RW in her current system which she plans on moving into the 2nd optical bay (assuming it fits & is compatible)
Advantage: 1 GHz, slightly
--DVD-Rom: 8x vs. 12x
Irrelevent; it's not gonna make movies play any faster.
Advantage: n/a
--FireWire: 2@400 Mbps vs. 2@400Mbps+ 1@800Mbps
Irrelevent to her; her peripherals are all USB, and the 400 Mbps FW ports are ample for anything she might add in the future. Not a power user.
Advantage: n/a
--VRAM: 32 MB vs. 64 MB
Irrelevent to her; she's not a gamer. I have a GeForce2 MX w/32 MB and do just fine, and I have far more professional needs.
Advantage: n/a
--Airport: 802.11b vs. 802.11g
Both my PowerMac and my iBook have 802.11b cards already, so 802.11g would be wasted on her system anyway. Plus, I also have a third spare Airport (802.11b) card, which saves her the $100 on an Airport Extreme card. Not to mention that we'll be networked via a Gigabit ethernet hub anyway :)
Advantage: DP 867
--Bluetooth: Both require $50 dongle; external vs. internal (?)
She's not a big fan of wireless peripherals, and her company-provided cellphone isn't Bluetooth-compatible anyway. Besides, as far as I can tell, the only advantage on the new systems is that the adapter *may* go inside instead of using up a USB port outside (?).
Advantage: n/a
--QuickBooks X
She currently uses MSFT Money, which is incompatible with QuickBooks. Not to mention that QuickBooks X is incompatible with QuickBooks for Windows anyway. Solution: probably will continue to use MSFT Money via Virtual PC.
Advantage: n/a
--Includes iDVD 3
I was apparently wrong about this; it's only included with SuperDrive systems anyway. Plus, I'll be getting iDVD myself when I pick up iLife.
Advantage: n/a
--Noise: Loud vs. Quieter (supposedly)
This one, if true, would be a nice bonus.
Advantage: 1 GHz
So, in sum, here's where we're at:
Dual Processors & Airport card favor the DP 867 model.
Faster CD-RW and Quieter system favor the 1 GHz model, but only mildly.
Final advantage in her particular case: DP 867 (assuming they have 'em in stock at our local Apple Store this weekend).
---------------------
30 Jan 2003, 10:40 PM EST
Score! I'm happy to report that this evening my fiancee and I drove out to our local Apple Store and snapped up one of the last DP 867 PowerMac G4 towers, with a 17" Apple Studio Display to match.
Best part? Total cost, including 6% sales tax: $2,118!
It was a floor model, so they knocked an additional $200 off the price, which had of course been dropped $200 already from the old $1,699 price. Add to this the $300 price drop on the 17" ASD, and we ended up paying $700 less for the whole shmear than we would have a week ago.
We're using the savings to beef it up with an extra GB of RAM and some solid speakers.
Needless to say, I'm very happy for her, but also a wee bit jealous (seeing how I laid out $2,500 for my *single* 867 tower just a year & a half ago...without a monitor...(sigh)...)
Ah well...
---------------------
02 Feb 2003, 10:28 PM EST
Home Network Status Update: Bingo! Picked up a 10/100 Base-T Linksys router and WOW, added a bunch of speed as well as a bunch of networking capabilities I didn't realize I was missing.
To explain: It turns out that for some reason, she & I were set up on separate subnets even though we were hooked up to the same cable modem via ethernet hub.
As a result, not only did USB printer sharing not work (you may recall we were having issues with that awhile back), but I was never able to utilize the SMB Windows file sharing from her Win98/Win2K laptop/server. Never understood why it didn't work until tonight.
Anyway, after hooking up the router, not only does all of the above work fine, but our broadband speed seems to have increased considerably--she was hitting nearly 200Kb/second.
And file peer-to-peer file transfer speeds--yes, 100 Base-T is plenty fast; transfered a 49.2 MB file in about 4 seconds (which breaks down to 12.3 MB/second, or 103 Mbps...which is actually slightly *higher* than the 100 Mbps rate...I assume that's just an estimate...
In any event, after doing a clean install of OS 9.2.2 & Jaguar, updating Jaguar to 10.2.3 and all the other updates (iMovie 3, etc.), she's up & running.
Installed Office 2001 (since I only have one copy each of Office X and 2001, and already have X on mine), so she should be pretty much set.
---------------------
10 Feb 2003, 11:52 AM EST
My fiancee recently made the jump, switching from her current Win'98 Laptop/Win 2K Server setup over to a DP 867 Combo Drive PowerMac G4 w/17" ACD.
The Switch has gone fairly smoothly, with the following exceptions; mentioning them here for anyone else who finds themselves (or someone they know) in a similar situation:
1. USB Print Sharing--we had a great deal of difficulty getting this to work until we discovered that for some reason our cable modem provider had us set up on separate subnets; USB printer sharing requires you to be on the same subnet.
Solution: Switched from an old 10 Base-T hub to a new 10/100 Base-T Linksys router. Bingo! We're golden; print sharing works great (if we're both under OS X; doesn't seem to work with Classic printing, ah well).
2. Outlook e-mail/contacts/etc: There seem to be any number of ways of converting/transferring over contacts, appointments, notes, etc. (via Palm, various applescripts, etc.), but the e-mail itself looked to be a bit trickier.
Solution: After trying various resources, including Paul Berkowitz's wonderful applescripts, she figured it out without my assistance:
1) export Outlook for Windows mail to her desktop.
2) import Outlook mail into Netscape 4.x for Windows
3) transfer Netscape files over to the PowerMac
4) import Netscape files into Netscape 4.x (Classic)
5) import Netscape (Classic) files into Entourage 2001 (Classic)
Worked perfectly, including all attachments, mailboxes, etc.
(Reason she's using Office 2001: I have one copy each of Office X & Office 2001, and am already using X myself; she's perfectly happy working in Classic mode, so we saved ourselves $200 on a 2nd copy of Office X).
3. Next Challenge: Microsoft Money/TurboTax.
She's not particularly taken with Money, but that's where all her financial stuff is, and as far as I know it *isn't* compatible with either Quicken or Quickbooks. Obvious solution: Virtual PC 6 (which also supposedly fixes the TurboTax incompatibility issue), but both she and I would prefer to avoid using Windows at all.
---------------------
14 Feb 2003, 11:32 AM EST
Good News: All Outlook e-mail has been successfully transferred, yay!
Good News 2: Turns out that MSFT Money *does* have some sort of conversion compatibility with Mac Quicken
Good News 3: Her Visor successfully synced all of her contacts, calender stuff, etc. with Entourage 2001...UNDER OS 9 NATIVE.
Bad news: After much trial & error, we have determined that you can NOT sync a Palm with Entourage 2001 from within OS X/Classic, unless someone here knows of a resource I haven't found.
Options as we see it:
Option 1: Shell out $99 for Entourage X or $499 for Office X. No deal--she does NOT want to give MSFT one more dime if she can help it.
Option 2: She can natively sync her Palm with Palm Desktop X, *then* export the info to vCal/vCard format, *then* import it back into Entourage 2001. She's not thrilled about this.
Option 3: She can natively sync her Palm with iSync into OS X Address Book, *then* export to vCal/vCard format, *then* import it back into Entourage 2001. Not thrilled about this either.
Option 4: She can reboot into OS 9 native once or twice a week to sync everything up natively, then reboot into OS X. Annoying, but this seems to be her best choice.
----------------------
08 Mar 2003, 04:51 PM EST
OpenOffice.org To The Rescue!
When We Last Left Our Intrepid Heroes...
--Spare, copy of Office 2001 was installed & working smoothly in my fiancee's Classic environment (I had a copy given to me free of charge during my old Demo Day stint)
--Fiancee happy with Entourage, but unhappy about inability to print from Classic environment apps to my USB-shared laser printer (can't use USB printer sharing between OS X and OS 9 environments, or at least Classic).
Solution #1: Installed nifty Classic shareware app PrintToPDF so she can save Word, Excel, PowerPoint & Entourage docs as PDFs, then print them via OS X Preview/Acrobat Reader to my shared USB printer.
Results: This is good, but not perfect--she wants to be able to print files *directly* without having to convert 'em to PDF first. (sigh...)
Solution #2: Installed Apple's X11 beta, which works just fine. Then downloaded the LARGE (164 MB) OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 beta & installed it. Install went smoothly.
Results: She LOVES OpenOffice. It imports her Word & Excel files just about perfectly (haven't tried PowerPoint yet). Options/preferences/etc. VERY extensive & easy to follow (for the most part). She's already thinking about trashing MSFT Word, Excel, & PowerPoint (I told her to hold off a bit yet).
HOWEVER, the USB printer sharing is still a bit tricky--it doesn't work from within the X11 environment, although the X11 Printer Setup test *does* print a test sheet to my laser printer, so we *know* it works.
At this point, we're *completely* out of the Mac dimension and inside the Unix dimension--I'm over my head. Fortunately, she's a Unix geek and goes to work on the X11 terminal. Half an hour later, VOILA, she's able to print an OpenOffice spreadsheet (imported from MSFT Excel) to my printer. YAYYYY!
Conclusion: ALL of her printing wishes are now answered, with one exception: there's no Entourage/Outlook app included with OpenOffice. Fortunately, she's ok with using PrintToPDF for any e-mail she needs to print (which is rare), so that's not a problem.
I swear, going with a Unix core is the single most brilliant move Apple/Jobs have made since he came back (which I guess was kind of the point).
-------------------------
20 Mar 2003, 05:39 PM EST
Settling In
OK, so now that she has all her stuff transferred over, she finally decided to enhance her desktop a bit to make life with her new Mac even better, so I introduced her to possibly the most wonderful shareware app known to man: DragThing. If you’ve used it, you know that it kicks every other “app-launcher”/shortcut-holder/whatever app away, including the OS X Dock itself! If you haven’t used it, check it out at http://www.dragthing.com.
Next, she finally got around to hooking up her own printer (well, actually my old one which I gave to her...an “ancient” Epson Stylus 740 inkjet. Noisy as hell, takes forever to run through its’ startup cycle, and the ink heads are a bit blurry, but it works and saves her the trouble of walking across the house to my laser printer. This is temporary; we’ll be picking up a new photo printer for her sooner or later, but it’s fine for now. Setting it up for OS 9 and X is a snap; installing the drivers for OpenOffice are a bit more tricky but she’s a whiz with Unix-y stuff, so she figures it out in about 15 minutes. Plus, she can print directly from Entourage 2001 via the Classic Epson driver, which solves the one lingering printing issue she was having. (as an added bonus, I have my beloved Brother HL-1240 laser printer back to myself, yayyy! Mine, mine, mine!)
Finally, just today, possibly a first in the history of the personal computer: She’s working on her laptop (no way around it--this one is for her workplace which has all sorts of Oracle- and Lotus-type software requiring an x86 machine), and the little “pencil eraser”-type joystick nub thing has completely worn out. Since she’s using a Logitech 2-button scroll mouse on her Mac, she has the original Apple Pro Mouse to spare..and plugs it into her Windows 2000 Toshiba laptop. Win2K has to install the drivers & reboot before it can use the mouse, but voila, she’s up & running.
Thanks again to Charles for sharing this fascinating story. If you haven't taken a look at his System Shootouts, you should.
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