After reporting yesterday that Aladdin released StuffIt Expander v4.5, many readers wrote to mention that only StuffIt E

xpander v4.01 is available on Aladdin's site. I have confirmed this but I got a copy of v4.5 before it was removed. After installing it, several downloads resulted in a "ShrinkWrap" error message so this may be the problem. The downloaded and unstuffed files seemed to be fine, however. I'll post a note when Aladdin re-releases v4.5.

From Bolo,

"I was one of the guinea pigs to order the 240 MHz 603e upgrade card for the PowerBase ($99 at AllMac). It was very easy to install, you can follow the same directions you gave for installing the PowerForce card (except one does not remove the L2 cache in this case). Some MacBench scores are given below:

Processor-----------332/367
Floating Point------235/307
Disk-----------------263/280
Graphics------------267/308
lo-res pub graph---250/313
RC5-64, kkey/sec-520/756

Notes: MacBench tests were run with Mac OS 8 extensions only, no Libmoto and no Speed Doubler. Disk cache was 2048K, system had 112 MB of memory, and 512K L2 cache. RC5 tests were run with "standard configuration" (Speed Doubler, LibMoto, and a whole host of extensions active). The RC-5 test is a good gauge of raw processing horsepower, and that is why it was run. Interestingly enough, when I used the Newer Gauge Series, it shows a processor speed of 239.5 MHz, and a bus speed of 39.91 MHz.

Conclusions: Based on the MacBench tests, RC5-64, and general use, the speed increase is small in this upgrade. Applications which require a lot of processor horsepower (such as RC5-64) the speed increase is significant. In many other cases (general use, Virtual PC, etc) the speed increase is less noticeable (between 10-20%). I, personally, will wait a little while, and purchase a G3 upgrade, perhaps the 250/125/1MB, or the 275/183/1MB, for around $1000, when I can afford it. My advice to other PowerBase 180 owners: don't rush out for the 240 MHz upgrade, apply it toward a G3 card!"