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The I Like Mac! Homepage
(Under Perpetual Construction)
"To say that Windows 95 is just like the Mac is like
finding a potato in the shape of Jesus and thinking
you have witnessed the second coming."
- Guy Kawasaki
Hello and welcome to the fledgling stage of the I Like Mac!
web presence. What I hope to do is provide a place for folks in
the MCCSC system to get and trade useful and interesting Mac
info. It's not always easy to find, and God knows Apple isn't always very
much help in that department. In a lot of cases they're not the right
people to go to anyway. So, for the moment, here's what's available.
Last updated 12/8/06
Links:
-
Special Features
In general, I won't be able to keep this section up very much, but I'll
still post the occasional useful tidbit here. If it's as old as the hills,
well, you were warned.
-
Useful Apple Sites
-
Apple Knowledge
Base.
- The
Apple Spec Database. Searchable/browsable listing of the
hardware specifications of most models of Macintosh ever sold. Useful
for figuring out what processor you have, what kind of RAM you need,
etc.
- An index of
Apple Manuals available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. If you've lost the
docs to your Mac or other Apple equipment, look here, but the site
doesn't contain every manual ever produced. You'll have more luck with more
recent products.
- Apple's Software Downloads page has been supplanted by a section of
the new Apple Knowledge
Base. From the "Category" list, select "Download".
You won't find licensed software here (no ClarisWorks or anything
like that), but you will find utilities, System Software updates, and all
of Apple's free software here (including iTunes).
- The Apple Store, Apple's
online purchasing center. Apple also has one specifically for
the education market,
The Apple Store for Education.
- Apple's
Education Price Lists in PDF format.
- Cool products and companies
This is a new category I've started for things I see on the web or that I
hear about from various sources. As such, it's not something I can
predictably update, but I hope you find it helpful, or at least
interesting.
-
Thinkstation
ProbeWare Systems - These are scientific measurement devices that can
interface with computers for automated data gathering.
- iOXperts -
"Full-Throttle Mac Device Drivers". These guys make MacOS drivers for
other manufacturer's products. Why? Some manufacturers make things that
could work on Macs if they only had a device driver (many USB devices are
inexplicably this way). In other cases, the drivers offer incomplete
hardware support or could just stand some general improvement.
- OrangeWare.com offers a driver for
Atheros based 802.11x cards, which works with a wide range of
manufacturer's cards, in both PCI and CardBus form factors.
- OSX Resources - I'm hoping to be able to put together
a list of software for OSX that isn't necessarily well advertised, as well
as provide links to resources other folks have put together. Pardon its
sparseness, I haven't had a lot of time to work on it. If you're looking
for more info, most of the sites I have linked have links to other
projects themsleves.
-
Apple's MacOSX
Downloads Page. Some of this is Apple software, some of it's freeware
and shareware.
-
mac devcenter.com from
O'Reilly. Awesome info, as always from O'Reilly.
-
OSX FAQ - "Technical News and Support
for Mac OS X"
-
macosXrumors.com - as the name
suggests, the info isn't necessarily 100% accurate, but it is interesting.
-
General Macintosh OS X
applications for Research - "Carbon and Cocoa applications for Data
Analysis Management & Visualisation, and other essential applications"
-
The Fink project - "The
Fink project wants to bring the full world of Unix Open Source software to
Darwin and Mac OS X." They're working on a lot of stuff, so rather than
try to maintain a list here, just go visit their site.
- OpenOSX's Web Site has quite a lot
of OSX software, including their
Office productivity package. Check out their
products page for more
software.
-
AquaFiles.com - another large
collection of OSX files.
-
The GNU-Darwin
Distribution site. "GNU-Darwin aims to be the most free Darwin-based
Unix distribution. Our mission is two-fold: Focus on new projects that
leverage the unique capabilities of Darwin/Mach and help Apple users to
enjoy the benefits of free software." This stuff isn't necessarily
the most user-friendly to install, but it does offer a lot of
variety, and the price is right.
- For users who want to run the *nix-common GUI X windows
(specifically XFree86) within OSX, check out the
XonX Project (pronounced "Ex on
ten").
- If you're running OSX Server, check out
AFP548.com. Their goal is to
"provide an engaging and educational experience for MacOS X Server
administrators and afficionados."
- MacOSXHints.com offers a
lot of howto info, cool tricks, and instructions on sometimes obscure but
very useful topics.
- OSXGuide.com "is dedicated to
providing helpful,insightful guides on performing all sorts of tasks in
MacOS X." I haven't read through the site, so I don't know much about it.
-
MacNN has posted a
tutorial on
configuring CUPS printing under OS X ver 10.2.
-
A gent named Aaron Faby has prepared OS X installer packages for several
standard *nix utilities, and has made them freely available
here.
-
everythingmac.org - "A site
dedicated to the sharing of knowledge about the Unix underpinnings of
MacOS X. A collection of articles, reviews, graphics, unique software as
well as in-depth discussion forums pertaining to the Apple Mac platform
await..."
- Shareware/Freeware sites
-
CNet's Download.com. Large archive
and searchable index of freeware and shareware for both Macs and PCs.
-
CNet's Shareware.com. Basically the
same as the above, but as I understand it, just lists shareware.
-
Useful Web Tools
- Macworld's
PriceFinder. It's a utility that keeps track of multiple Mac reseller
catalog sites and will search them all for a specific product.
-
Macintosh Information Sites
-
MacMinute, another Macintosh
centric news site.
-
Macinstein - "The Mac Only Search
Engine." Good for finding Mac info on the web wthout having to sort
through as much chaffe.
-
Macupdate - these guys
track software versions, updates, prices, etc.
- EveryMac.com. These guys
supposedly have info on every Mac, Mac compatible computer and upgrade card
ever made.
- MacWindows, a site
dedicated to providing solutions to Mac/Windows integration
problems.
- The Insanely Great Mac
web site. These guys watch/follow Mac related news. The title is a
reference to a comment Steve Jobs made a long time ago, that the
Macintosh wouldn't just be great, but it would be "Insanely great".
- Macworld Magazine's
online version.
- MacAddict magazine's web
site.
- MacHome Magazine's homepage.
Mac Home is a consumer Mac magazine, kind of like MacWorld.
- MacTech Magazine's home page.
MacTech focuses on Macintosh technology and development.
- MacWeek - This site was made by the same folks as
MacWorld, but was shut down in early March of 2001 in favor of some
of some of the company's other sites. It's still listed here because it
was an active link for a long time.
- MacOPINION, a site dedicated to
following things like hardware and software development, and having
informed folks write opinion columns on the various topics. Three of my
favorite columns are
Utopia Planitia,
Mac
Skeptic and
Road Warrior.
- MacInTouch - a Web only
resource of Mac info and commentary.
- Macintosh News.com -
another Web only resource. Similar in content to Rumors or MacInTouch,
but a different format and with different emphases.
- Macintosh News Network (MacNN) -
once again, similar in content to the sites above, slightly different
emphases and different takes on the same news.
- MacCentral - Another
large-scale Mac news source.
- AppleInsider - Yet another
site like those above. They sometimes take a while to update their info.
- MacMilitia - Mac
enthusiasts, possibly zealots. Interesting stuff.
- the Mac Observer - similar
to some of the other sites, but they cover a different segment of the
market. One of their regular columns is
The Back
Page, offering blunt commentary on the state of computing.
- MacSlash - 'A daily dose of
Mac news and discussion.' The Mac-centric version of
SlashDot.
- MacMind - 'News to
please.' Whatever that means. Another source of Mac news and commentary.
Once again, they seem to look at different aspects than others.
- MacReviewZone - 'Mac
hardware and software reviews.' They also seem to tackle things like good
vs. bad web design, video dos and don'ts, etc.
- MacFixIt, a site dedicated to
'Troubleshooting for your Mac'.
- PowerBook Central,
whose name kind of says it all.
- MacRumors, "The Mac news you
care about". This site is new to me, so I don't have a lot to say yet.
-
Third party manufacturers
-
Newer Technology, one of the big
shots of Mac hardware accelerators, and which went belly up a while back,
is back - under new ownership.
- Sonnet Technologies,
manufacturer of G3 and G4 upgrades. These guys rate very highly, and
make a wide variety of upgrades. They currently produce the only G3
upgrade for the PowerBook 1400 series.
- Powerlogix, another
manufacturer of G3 and G4 upgrades. These guys support some PowerBook
models that other manufacturers don't, specifically the G3 PowerBooks.
- XLR8, another manufacturer of G3 and G4 upgrades has apparently
gone out of business. I saw this reported on 8/13/02.
- Hewlett Packard, the printer people.
- Other Operating Systems that work on Mac
Hardware
Believe it or not, there are other OSes that will work on the Mac's
hardware. Be warned, these OSes are usually more suited for
die-hard techies, not your average home user.
Below is a listing of all the ones that I know about. For the moment, info
provided on this page is pretty sparse, and I don't even pretend that this
list is exhaustive. Please be patient, I'm working on it as time
allows.
- 680X0 based Macs
- PowerPC based Macs
- Resellers/Catalog Sites
This is a list of sites that I'm personally aware of. It is not meant to
be comprehensive, nor should the presence of a site on this list be taken
as any form of endorsement, promotion or advertising by myself or MCCSC.
This list is meant strictly as a jumping off point for people who need Mac
merchandise and don't know where to start looking.
I also strongly recommend checking out these and all other companies
before spending money with them. There have been increasing numbers of
reports on the web of problems with some (not all!) online resellers. One
place you can start looking is Mac Review Zone's Merchant Tracker page, with customer reports and links to the Better
Business Bureau's reports on the companies.
-
The Apple Store for Education OK, this isn't a reseller,
but if you're looking to buy, it fits, as does the regular
Apple Store.
- AlphaMemory, Inc. These guys
have decent RAM prices, but the best thing on the site is their
manufacturer and machine type index. Select "Apple" from the
Manufacturer menu under "Search on Memory Modules". Then find your
machine type in the next list.
- Crucial.com - another vendor
with a manufacturer and machine type index for memory, and they have
good prices the last time I checked.
-
Terra Soft Solutions, the
parent company of the
Yellow Dog
Linux folks, is now offering
new Macs with Yellow Dog Linux preinstalled. OS X is also installed to
maintain Apple's warranty and to provide the license that you pay for with
a new Mac.
- mac-o-rama - I swear, I
don't make these names up. These guys sell hardware, software, etc.
- Small Dog Electronics - These
folks have some really good prices on hardware.
- Power Max - These folks sell
both new and used Mac stuff.
- Outpost.com - They sell a lot
more than computers, but their selection for Mac stuff isn't bad.
- Other World Computing
- Mac Solutions
- Warehouse.com, the parent
company of MacWarehouse.
- MacConnection
- MacZone
- Sun Remarketing - These guys
specialize in older Macintosh stuff. They have a large variety of
merchandise, but they can be kind of pricey.
- MacResQ. Another company that
specializes in older Mac stuff. Same comments apply.
- Preowned Electronics - Another
place that specializes in older Mac stuff. Their prices aren't as bad as
MacResQ or Sun Remarketing, but they're still not great. They claim to
support stuff that Apple's about to reclassify as "vintage" (as of July
2000).
- Miscellaneous
- The Knowledge Base at
IU. There's a whole lot of Mac info in there (along with all kinds of
other info, too.)
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Additions? Send them to
rschmelz@mccsc.edu
MacCSE = Macintosh
Certified Systems
Engineer