Recent comments

Man, that's some abuse your iBook has taken...

You're right about the discomfort of trying to compute at 800x600 for long. Oddly enough, considering its low power, the iBook makes a nice file server or other hands-off machine, like your use of it for downloads. It's reliable, quiet (as long as the HD is quiet; mine became noisy until I replaced it), and even that small screen is fine for the occasional bit of admin work.

Done! Great site you have – really lots of info and good links there.

I take it you're an active clamshell iBook owner even now?

Agreed, it's good stuff – but is Windows different there? I thought that it, too, will toggle between two windows with each press of Cmd + Tab.

It can be handy that the Mac will toggle between two apps in that manner – but that's actually a bit inconvenient when I want to toggle between two windows of the same app. No consistent Mac keystroke for that. : ( In this area, Windows' behavior may be more convenient: you can toggle between any two windows, whether they're from the same app or different apps. In Windows, it may take a lot of initial Cmd + Tab presses to get from that first desired window to the second desired one, but from there, I believe you can toggle between the two with just Cmd + Tab presses. (Correct me if I'm wrong!)

As for the ability to perform consecutive operations like Quit while in a Mac's  Cmd + Tab mode, I agree, that's a great feature that many people overlook. I have no idea whether Windows offers the same. 

While I sometimes find it useful to alt-tab between windows in Windows, I love the way OS X is smart about cmd-tabbing between apps.

For example, if I'm you're and pasting numerous times between two applications, cmd-tab will will toggle you between the two apps you're actually using, rather than having to cmd-tab through a bunch of open apps.

My most frequent use of cmd-tab is to be selective in quitting a pile of running apps: Thumb remains on the cmd key, and index finger tabbing through the list of apps, periodically straying to the Q to cmd-Q(uit) an application.

I have five of the beasts and they all work great with Tiger 10.4.11.

My apologies - I haven't replied to your message.

All of the items you mention shipped with the TAM. I don't have a separate packing list; I didn't get to unpack my own TAM : (, and it may have been lost... but pages 2-3 of the User's Manual display illustrations of all included parts. These are:

• Computer
• Bass unit
• Keyboard and trackpad
• GeoPort telecom adapter
• Expansion back cover
• Expansion panel
• PCI card adapter
• Communication card adapter
• Remote control
• Batteries
• Mono audio adapter cable
• Stereo audio adapter cable
• FM antenna
• Conposite video to S-video adapter cable
• Telephone cord
• Power cord

In addition to that were the User's Manual, a Service and Support Guide, and likely a few miscellaneous paper items.

DId the TAM ship with these in the accessory kit or were they options?

GeoPort modem (Smoke color, not the white version, only available with the TAM computer)
Expansion back cover (this is a larger cover so the PCI and CommSlot II cards will be covered when installed)
PCI card adapter (L shaped)
Communication card adapter (L shaped)
Expansion panel (cover that hooks to the side of the Expansion back cover)

Thanks for your assistance in the matter.

Well, as another TAM owner since 1998's firesale, I'd like to rebuke a few points...

The "buzz", as people call that speaker problem you referred to, has never been proved to have affected any larger % than would have been expected of any type of fault in any other Mac production line. Yes, it has put the fear of God into anyone wanting to buy one - I myself was already aware of the buzz when I bought my TAM in March 1998, the matter weighing heavily as I was importing it to Australia, a country not lucky enough to have the TAMs on sale natively, and certainly lacking any trained repairers should something go wrong.

Apple, further, to their credit, offered any buzz affected owners a great deal - a swap for a top end Mac.

I love my TAM. Indeed, just yesterday I jumped for joy upon hearing that lovely Bose pumped unique startup chime... Yes, they should have used at worst a PowerMac 9600 logic board, instead of a custom board that resembled the 5500. Yes, they could have upped the hard drive - it was very small for the time.

However, your claim that they should have included USB is flawed. Apple did not introduce any USB Macs until the iMac in August 1998. The TAM was released in May 1997. There was no overlap. Designing the iMac supposedly began when Steve returned to Apple, which was late 96/early 97. Even then, there would not have been time to include USB in the TAM, if they were only just considering it for the iMac.

Sure, the TAM has flaws. Ever ran your hand along the ridge at the back-top of the computer, where the back panel sits. It isn't smooth. And some of those other things you mentioned. But, some things cannot be leveled against it, in fairness.

Let's be fair - beautiful machine, at the right price - after the March98 firesale. :)

I've heard of that technique, and it's worth mentioning as you do... but there are problems with it. First, is it implemented universally, or just in some apps? I have a feeling it's the latter. And how are users to know about it at all? In my version of Safari, for example, unless I'm just not seeing it, I don't see those keystrokes anywhere in the menus. Nor in the menus of a handful of other apps I checked right now.

More importantly: Whether it's in the menus or not, it just doesn't work for me! In Safari, for example, the keystoke does nothing. Is that because I have a non-US keyboard? (The ~ mark, for me, requires use of the Shift key.) I don't know.

So, at least some of us Mac users are without any consistent means of switching among an application's windows, other than Exposé. I wish there were a universal keystroke for the task. In this one respect, I think Windows is a wee easier for users (at least newbies) than Mac OS X: its Alt+Tab wiil take you to any open window. (Even if OS X had a universal keystroke like Command+~, that's still a bit more difficult, as the user has to distinguish between one keystoke for switching among apps, and another for switching among an app's windows. It's arguably better for the user in the long run, as users should make a proper distinction between apps and windows, but the Windows way is at least initially easier. IMHO.)

To switch between open windows in the active application, you can use command + ~, and that, like command + tab does with applications, will cycle through all the open windows of the active application.

Thanks for the extra info! Some thoughts:

1) I really want to second your suggestion to "trawl through the menus". I think it's a HUGELY important technique for users (especially newbies). After all, menus represent the primary genius of the graphic user interface: don't ask the user to memorize or look up commands; show all the commands up front, and let the user choose from among them!

Yet I find that many newcomers just never "take to" the menus, always looking first for a visible button or other control in a window, and if not finding it, asking "How do I do..." To which I so often sigh and say, like I do every time, "Anything you want to do is probably in a menu, so start by looking there..."

2) Good keyboard shortcut overview. I remain baffled as to why Apple uses the special key symbols in menus and in documentation, yet except for Command, doesn't show those symbols on the keys themselves! (More bizarre: There is a symbol on the Control key, but it's not the same one used in menus.) That almost seems an intentional effort to confuse people, and is so at odds with the good design seen elsewhere.

There are still many improvements that could be made to the Mac interface!

3) Exposé: Who uses it to reveal a single application's windows? I do, all the time! Very useful. 

As for the Exposé techniques you describe, you're right on: hard stuff to write and read, easy to show in person. And while it remains in the field of "advanced" techniques for many users, it's extremely useful stuff that really boosts productivity, as you suggest. 

I think Hide is a great feature. Being able to make all windows of an app vanish with a single keystroke is really handy. Use it a lot, and things always stay nice and clean, even with tons of apps running.