Wei Meng Lee has showed us how he converted his toys, er, peripherals. How about you?
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Showing messages 1 through 15 of 15.

• japanese kboards have control to left of A
  2002-10-12 14:57:53  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Get a japanese keyboard. They have the control in the right place. the rest of the keys look pretty standard to me, I use the US keymap usually and it corresponds to what is printed on the keys. There are some extra keys which you should ignore, though...
  
  

• Apple Laptop Keyboards Unsuitable for Unix Users
  2002-09-18 01:44:12  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  

  Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.
  
  

  I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics.
  The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.
  
  

  Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.
  
  

  Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.
  
  

  There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are
  horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible
  kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the
  original bad design of the ADB keyboard.
  
  

  Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 10 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)
  
  

  Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on
  x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.
  

• Printer
  2002-09-16 07:26:51  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Your can use your printer through Samba. Attach the printer to a Windows machine or Linux File/Print server running Samba.
  
  Use GIMP-Print w/CUPS to set up the proper print drivers.
  
  I have a Brother HL-1240 on a Mini-ITX Linux server which I can print to from my Thinkpad and my PowerBook.

• Ummm...ethernet cable
  2002-09-14 17:09:03  Wei-Meng Lee | [Reply | View]
  
  
  Yes, I am aware that you can do file sharing with the PC using SMB, using ethernet cables or 802.11b wireless card. But my main focus in this article is not really to propose the best way to do certain things, but to suggest ways in which your PC devices can be used on the Mac. :-)
  
  In my home, I have my eMac and PC both connected to a hub, but at times, I still find it easier and faster to transfer using a portable device like the USB drive or harddisk. And I hate the cables, especially when my room is small and things really get messy :-( Yes, you can have a wireless network, but then not everyone has one....
  
  Thanks for the message. :-)

• wireless from usb...
  2002-09-14 13:09:53  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  ...is a complete farce. USB relies on the processor to get bandwidth, where Apple's own Airport card uses the system bus, just get over yourself and use the airport card.
• wireless from usb...
  2002-09-14 15:16:36  Brian Jepson | [Reply | View]
  
  
  I've used 802.11b USB adapters from D-Link and Linksys. The performance is not great, but certainly sufficient for many things.
  
  I'd like to see these supported under Mac OS X for older Macs that can't take an Airport card. Another possibility is something like the SkyLine PCI card (http://www.proxim.com/products/all/skyline/pn476/), but I haven't looked at it yet.
  
  - Brian
• wireless from usb...
  2002-09-15 21:58:45  at_sym [Reply | View]
  
  
  The SkyLine PCI card works really well on my old Power Computing PowerCurve on 9.2. The range is a little less that I get with my iBook/Airport card, but it's acceptable. The SkyLine seems to have more trouble with thick walls than a standard-issue Airport card.
  
  I don't know that there's much hope that Apple will bend over backwards to support non-Airport 802.11x adapters on OS X, but maybe Proxim will step up to the plate.

• wireless from usb..
  2002-09-14 13:08:45  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  

• Ummm...ethernet cable
  2002-09-14 09:08:02  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I'm surprised no one has told you. With OS X's samba implementation, and a simple ethernet cable (no, not cross-over cable, but that will work too) You don't have to transfer you files over blue tooth or some keychain sized, floppy wannabe.
  
  All mac's made, I believe, since the second generation Graphite G4 have ethernet hardware that automatically detects whether a straight through or cross-over configuration is appropriate for the device you are patched into, and automatically switches for you.
  
  At school, I'm not allowed to hook my personal laptop (first gen titanium) into the PC computer lab network. S'ok, I've got a "School IP" network configuration and a printer instance configured using the ip of the lab printer. When I want to print, I queue up my job, jack straight into the printer, print and skidattle in a matter of seconds—all without technically breaking the rules.

• IrDA and SCSI
  2002-09-14 01:00:40  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I may not be a switcher having used Macs for some time but Apple is not exactly helping me use my peripherals. I have a number of SCSI devices from back when Apple used SCSI rather than Firewire (tape drive, Zip drive, slide scanner) and while my current G3 powerbook has a PC card slot capable of supporting a SCSI PC card (if Adaptec finally get their Mac OX X driver right) I notice the PC card is missing from the iBook. I'm also lucky that I haven't upgraded to a new TiBook as it seems to have lost its IrDA port. Bluetooth is fine if you your peripherals have it but Apple shouldn't be so aggressive in removing tried and true technology until the alternative is pervasive.
• IrDA and SCSI
  2003-05-18 09:44:21  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I have a Nokia mobile with an IrDA port and my G3 Lombard powerbook has one - but Mac OS X.2 does not support it anymore. This makes me so angry! Apple, you make me angry!! This is bad support!!!

• serial modem?
  2002-09-13 18:17:57  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  You mention that "getting the printer and modem connected is not easy, unless you use special adapters." Just out of curiosity, is there a reason that you're not using the eMac's built-in modem?
• serial modem?
  2002-09-13 20:35:01  Wei-Meng Lee | [Reply | View]
  
  
  Yes, I am using the built-in modem. Just thought that for those Mac users that does not have a built-in modem, it might be a good idea to use the PC modem. Anyway, the adapters are pretty cheap and I believe it is not difficult to get them to work on the Mac. :-)
• serial modem?
  2002-09-13 22:33:03  dhovis [Reply | View]
  
  
  You'll have a really hard time buying a Mac without a modem. Education customers can order a modem-free bare bones eMac, and the PowerMac can be BTOed without a modem. The XServe doesn't have a modem, but that would be silly, now wouldn't it.
  
  The only way you are likely to buy a modem-free new Mac is if you really want don't want a modem, so reusing a PC modem is really a non issue.
• serial modem?
  2002-09-14 11:21:58  Brian Jepson | [Reply | View]
  
  
  I used to have an external CDPD modem, and around the time I started switching, I wondered if I could get my Mac to talk to it. I wrote an article (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/788) about getting my Palm III to talk to it, so in theory, I could have gotten it to work with my Mac. But, I decided that a new equipment purchase should be followed by cost-cutting measures :-) so I cancelled the service (it was $40 a month).
  
  Not counting CDPD modems for PDAs, all the other CDPD modems I've seen are PCMCIA, and my iBook doesn't have PCMCIA. So, if I had decided to keep the wireless service, I would have needed one of those USB-to-serial adapters.
  
  I could probably find a pile of serial devices kicking around my office that I'd like to have my Mac talk to (older Unix workstation serial consoles, random ancient PDAs, etc).
  
  - Brian