ceremonious Wisdom of Solomon says you just do n’t put icon of smoking , battered Macs on the cover of a Mac magazine . To which we sayphooey . Let ’s face it : Mac sustentation — like flossing your teeth and changing your crude — may not be scintillating , but it really is important . So excuse us for slightly exaggerating the consequences of carelessness on our February cover . judge by your response to “ Prevent Mac disaster , ” a little editorial license on the concealment did n’t keep you from reading what was privileged .
Disaster Response
Kimberly BarnesI just wanted to say thanks for the great info in “ Prevent Mac Disasters ” ( February 2005 ) . Although I ’m not new to Macs , I did n’t know where to commence my cleaning job with this belated beast ( OS X 10.3.5 ) . Thanks to your tips , the spinning beach chunk is packed out and my Mac is running like a Modern one . ( Too bad — I take a estimable self-justification to say a G5 iMac . )
Skip BluntJust got the February issue and got misplace in “ Prevent Mac Disasters . ” The “ eight simple steps you may take now to keep your Mac from falling apart ” were too tekki for me . For example , in the section about preferences , you advocate we “ apply the Unix utility plutil . ” What is a plutil and where is it ? Sherlock ca n’t recover any plutils ! Then you go on to tell us to type some textual matter in Terminal . Sherlock found that one , but I could n’t use it , thanks to all my fat - finger typos . broadly , I really appreciate the articles inMacworldand look forth to every issue . But this one should have get with a techie warning for regular estimator users .
Kevin ChurchmanI was surprised to find no mention in “ Prevent Mac catastrophe ” of a fantastic product I use : Marcel Bresink’sTinkerTool System . It runs maintenance scripts , repairs permission , and erase memory cache and log single file . It can also assert the integrity of preference files , lock and unlock grouping of Indian file , hit foreign - language file , silence the startup chime ( thank you ! ) , and much more . I evaluated some of the other products you refer , but Ifound TinkerTool System to be superior . I think it should be required issue for the Mac newbie . I know your article should be .
Ryan HannanI was surprised not to seeAnacron , a detached open - source public-service corporation that runs daily , weekly , and monthly cron jobs while using practically no organization resources .
Donald TuckerI’m surprised you did n’t include Dicom Datautveckling ’s Cocktail , which received four mice inMacworld(August 2003 ) , has more features than the Titanium OnyX program you included , and costs just $ 14 .
We seek to provide a crossbreed - plane section of apps , but we did n’t have room to remark them all . Some of the aforementioned apps were in the original conscription but were cut for space reasons.—Ed .
Underpowered Power Mac?
Ron StewartAs the owner of a Power Mac G5/1.8GHz , I must take issue with your lukewarm review of this Mac (; February 2005 ) . Your literary criticism might be valid for someone to whom monetary value is no object — but for someone seem to upgrade , this is a swell unit . An 80 GB hard drive and a SuperDrive are nothing to sneeze at if you ’re coming from an former iMac with a 6 GB heavy drive and a compact disk - ROM campaign . Sure , artwork pros who really need dual central processing unit might bump this Mac lacking , but the medium drug user wo n’t .
Steve DunlapStop encouraging Apple to eliminate the bottom end of the Power Mac lineup ! I just read your revaluation of the Power Mac G5/1.8GHz single - mainframe desktop . I think it ’s great that Apple has a automobile in the Power Mac lineup that replete this particular price , performance , and expandability slot . Because budget vendee like me typically keep machine longer , expandability is more important than top amphetamine . In the material world , masses do expend computing machine for things other than desktop publication and rendering movies . To say that a 1.8GHz 64 - bit processor is good only for file serve and driving multiple terminal is ridiculous .
Hatin’ on Quicken
Philip MeissnerI’ve noticed thatMacworldconsistently give Intuit Quicken high paygrade (; February 2005 ) . If you only roll in the hay the torture that Quicken has put its users through ! Like QuarkXPress , this is the program mass know to detest . Adobe InDesign gave QuarkXPress users an out . Quicken users have not yet been so favourable .
Chet DurnalAs a registered user of Quicken 2002 , I recently received a letter from Intuit that stated , “ As of April 19th , 2005 , in accordance of rights with the Quicken sunset policy , Online Services and live financial backing will no longer be available for Quicken 2001 and 2002 users . ” So a product I ’ve been using for just two years will no longer have backing , and many of its feature will be break . This is the first fourth dimension I have know a ship’s company almost breaking its mathematical product in rules of order to get me to bribe a novel version ( $ 69.95 minus $ 20 for being a good client ) . I plan to look elsewhere for personal finance software .
Readers’ Choice
To be eligible for this year ’s Eddys , products had to be released between November 1 , 2003 , and November 1 , 2004 . That ’s why World of Warcraft was n’t eligible : it was n’t released until around Thanksgiving 2004 — well past our deadline . ( We critique it in our February 2005 emergence . ) Bungie released Halo in December 2003 . We ’ll certainly consider World of Warcraft for the 2005 awards.—Ed .
Mac Off the Web?
Tom DaltonI broadly opt my honest-to-god Macs to my PCs ( two fresh Dells and a Gateway laptop computer ) . But those Macs have a great job : a develop number of Web Sir Frederick Handley Page use ASP ( Active Server Pages ) apps that do n’t knead on the Mac . judge using a WWW - based WYSIWYG Web editor or NetSuite on a Mac ; chance are it wo n’t work . These sites ask the late version of Internet Explorer , but Microsoft stop developing Explorer for the Mac several age ago .
The net promised to level the group O playacting field . Has Apple notice that the Mac is becoming more and more out or keeping with the Net ? Is Apple doing anything about it ? And what will happen in a few year when all software ( including Microsoft Office ) is Web - ground ? Where will that impart the Mac if it ’s compatible only with basic hypertext markup language vane pages ?
Cover Arts
Matt LittleOn the cover of your February 2005 issue , there ’s a picture of a broken Mac G5 . In the picture , the Apple logotype on the side of the computer is undress off like a sticker . But is n’t the logotype engrave into the alloy ?
Jim GleesonI could never bend my G5 Mac ’s causa that elbow room . In fact , I think whatever it ’s made of could replace the Kevlar in bullet - proof vests . The matter is a fortress . And when its potato chip got electrocute , there was a click , some smoke , and an interesting smell , but no extensive damage . Still , kudos on the amazing cover .
