" Hi Mike-
With just about a month to go before the upcoming Napster courtroom battle, Blackhole Media has released their free Macster PR 5.5. Featuring upload capabilities, this version works better than ever. (One thing though: I had to increase the memory partition for the installer before it would stop crashing with a Type 1 error.) I can't really tell you all they did "under the hood" as the ReadMe is still from v5.0, but their website www.macster.com reports these four changes:

1.Hotlist! Communicate with friends from one easy-to-find spot.
2.ID3 Tag Editor - Now you can edit and store more info about your music.
3.Contextual Help - Find help much faster and easier
. 4.Bug Fixes

Most of all, I found its network connections to be much faster than before, and also more reliable. This puts the Macster crew in the lead again when it comes to quality--for now anyway.
Rgds,
Bob Friede "

" The G4 Cube comes with yet another slightly modified version of MacOS 9.0.4, version 2.0...

Once again, in the disk image entitled "Macintosh Computer SW.img" there are some minor revisions:

Mac OS ROM 5.2.1 (was 4.9.1)
Apple Audio Extension v.1.0.9 (was 1.0.7)
Apple Monitor Plugins v.2.0.3 (was 2.0)
Serial Shim Lib v.1.4.5 (was 1.4.4)
USB Device Extension v.1.4.5 (was 1.4.4)
Apple System Profiler v.2.4.6 (was 2.4.5)

The earlier versions cited are from the G4 Multiprocessor System CD.

It seems that the only modifications were probably nods to the Cube's monitor port and USB speaker setup.

I have set up five of these and have just a few comments:

1) Apple was thoughtful enough to provide a right-angled monitor port extender with the Cube. Perhaps this may have resulted from testers complaining about how their monitor cable ends were getting squished under the cube? (There's not a whole lot of room down there.)

2) The switch on top of the machine.. ARRRGH.
If Apple had recessed the switch it'd be a lot more liveable. As it is, turning over the Cube while it's on is an adventure.

The switch is just TOO sensitive. If you power down and leave the Cube's power cable plugged in when you turn it over, there is a good chance you'll power up the Cube again (which is not a good idea while installing RAM..) because the switch will 'feel' anything that brushes against it and activate..

3) The disk eject key apparently only works for anything in the DVD drive. A Macally USB 3.5" floppy would not unmount using the key.

Peter Chin
Mac Systems Administrator "

I'm dying to get one of these Cubes. I'm trying to wait for the Radeon to be available before ordering.

" Hi Mike,
36.7 Gb Quantum Atlas 10k II for $865;
it is the new drive from Quantum Part Number#: QM336700TY-LW.
(The 10,000 RPM series II drives are said to be faster than the series 1. The drive info page notes these drives have an 8MB cache. -Mike)

We are also offering 18.2 Gb Atlas V Wide 68-pin for $295
this drive has a 4 Mb Cache Buffer.
Ken
Transintl.com"

" Fortissimo
The Sonnet Crescendo/PowerBook 1400 400 MHz upgrade touts the new Fortissimo technology which introduces a separate bus on the upgrade card running twice the speed of the host motherboard. The PowerBook 1400, which has an original bus speed of 33.3 MHz, would normally support a G3 running no faster than 10x the bus speed or 333MHz. With a Fortissimo bus speed of 66.6 MHz, the Sonnet Crescendo takes full advantage of a 400 MHz processor."

See yesterday's news or search the Rate Your CPU Upgrade database for PB 1400 owner reports on these upgrades.

" Bought an ADS Pyro and a Plextor, thinking I'd save some money and time..

My setup :
Powerbook G3/292 Wallstreet, Ratoc CBFW, ADS Pyro, Plextor 12/10/32

Software:
OS 9.04, Firewire 2.33 (also tried 2.5), Ratoc CBFW2 drivers 1.7, Toast 4.1.

Unfortunately, the drive is totally invisible to Toast 4.1. The Drive Mode Selector sees the case only intermittently, and never offers the chance of switch from HD to CDRW (all buttons greyed). Firmware revision is March 2000.

A detail that might be helpful to others - I'm using a Ratoc Cardbus firewire PC card (CBFW2). Thinking this might be the potential source of the problem, I wrote to Ratoc in Japan, and very quickly got the following reply :

The ADS Firewire case is using Texas Instrument chip and this chip has the noise which defects to the early model of CBFW2. We have new CBFW2 that took measures to meet this noise.

Could you tell us your serial number of the CBFW2?
If your card is early model, we will replace the card for you.

My card is a very early one - and maybe some other people's problems might be explained by early Texas Instruments chipsets. Kudos to Ratoc for standing by their product.
Raphael "

I've asked Raphael what the serial number of his card was (I have a Ratoc PCcard as well, and they also were an OEM for some other brands like my Digital Origin MotoDV mobile kit) and what email address he used to contact Ratoc about the issue.

" Hi Mike,
I saw the item on Wednesday's news page about some problems with G3 upgraded Macs and some audio applications. Here is an excerpt from Arboretum's web page:

'G3 Upgrade Cards Not Supported: We are now able to independently verify what we long suspected, which is that G3 processor upgrade cards for older Power Macs (from manufacturers including Newer Technologies and others) exhibit a number of incompatibilities which well may interfere with audio editing programs. The upgrade card manufacturers themselves are beginning to acknowledge the problem; this ends the mystery surrounding a number of heretofore unresolvable technical issues pertaining to G3 upgraded Macs. Our advisory on this topic is therefore reiterated and intensified: We will not be able to guarantee performance on systems with CPU upgrades. Don't use an upgrade card to extend the life of your old Mac. We suggest you consider trading up to a new factory-built G3 instead.'

Arboretum makes several audio applications, with excellent Macintosh support. You can find that quote at www.arboretum.com/S40_support/S40SUPPORTmac.html, about 2/3rds of the way down the page. Personally I think tellling people to buy a new machine is a bit drastic though.

For what it is worth, I use several audio apps on my G3 upgraded 8500 (PowerLogix 300/300/1Meg upgrade card) and have never had any problems.
-Barry Klawans"

As noted in the recent news here, several older mac owners that were having problems noted either setting the backside cache to write-through modes and/or deinterleaving RAM helped. Not all owners have problems, but there have been some reports in the Rate Your CPU upgrade database.

• Newer Tech G3/366 in 7500/100 (rated 10)
• XLR8 G3/300 in PowerTower 180 (rated 10)
• XLR8 CarrierZIF w/G3/366 ZIF in 7300/180 (rated 7)
• XLR8 CarrierZIF w/G3/300 ZIF in PowerCenter Pro 210 (rated 5)
• Beige G3/233 OC report

You can find these full reports by searching the database selecting the indicated Mac model and upgrade card brand/type. If you've upgraded the CPU on your Mac, please post an entry in the database. Search the database of over 4,400 entries from most every upgradable Mac model *before* you buy.

DVD ROM Drives:
• Toshiba IDE SD-M1402-S (12x/40x) in Beige G3
  
  CDRW Drives:
  
• Plextor 12/10/32 in ADS Pyro Case w/Wallstreet 1 & Ratoc FW PCcard
  (interesting notes from Ratoc on ADS TI Chip)
• Sony Firewire CRX145 (10x 4x 32x) w/Apple G4/AGP
• Sony Firewire CRX145 (10x 4x 32x) with G4/AGP
  (notes disabling VM helped, esp. CD-CD burns)
• Yamaha SCSI CRW8824SZ in 6400
  
  Hard Drives:
  
• Maxtor DiamondMax Plus40 10GB in iMac rev A
• Quantum IDE LM 30GB (x2) in Beige G3 w/VST IDE card
  (Updated entry on RAID)
• Seagate IDE 20GB in 6400
• Seagate IDE ST39140A 9GB in Beige G3
  (problems noted, pauses, freezes)
• Toshiba HDTS2016 20GB in PowerBook G3 wallstreet2

If you've added a IDE, SCSI, Firewire or USB hard drive, CDRW, tape drive, etc. make sure you add a report to the database.

Software Updates:
• Extenstions Overload 5.3
• OT Advanced Tuner 1.3.6
• Mac OS Items Manager 2.0.1
• Macster 1.0 Preview 5.5 (direct download link)

Apple TILs:
• Mac OS: Technical Overview of Disk Volume Structures
• Power Mac G4 (Gigabit Ethernet): Computer Display Is Blank
• Power Mac G4 Cube: Mold Lines in Enclosure Plastics are Normal
• iMac Discussion Board: Frequently Asked Questions, Part 1
• Software Updates Online: Frequently Asked Questions
• Disk First Aid: What to Do When It Finds an Error