Double Shutdown Problem--Revisited 2

I received a lot more email on this issue, including from Tom Brown who reported that his initial fix (deleting Energy Saver and FinderPop) didn't persist--the double shutdown returned after eight cycles. Ted Landau's MacFixIt 2/11 carried more information on the issue, including the possibility that MenuTasker solves the problem. Reader Tom Brown tried it and reported that it didn't work for him. Reader Ken Glinka says he only has the problem when he uses the emailer with Netscape and reports a new twist, i.e. when he uses ZipIt and then there are ZipIt icons in the trash. There is no common thread so far. None of the remedies work for all or work consistently. I agree with Ted's observation that it seems like a problem with the OS.

I recently visited the Absolute Mac while shopping for either a 9600 or 8600--I got a new 9600/200 for $1,399 from Compu-America. The site has become a really excellent source for comparing prices among resellers and worth a visit if you are shopping for a new Mac or clone. However, make sure that you check the back of MacWEEK and Macworld as Mac prices published there by the same resellers are sometimes lower.

PowerLogix has withdrawn the download link for its G3 Cache Contol utility for adjusting the backside cache size and speed ratio on its PowerForce G3 cards. PL did so to prevent unauthorized distribution of its copyrighted utility according to the web page. Registered owners of PowerForce G3 CPU cards can still get the utility by email.

From Pat Berry, VP of Mactell,

"Mactell Corporation today announced an addition to its line of G3 Processor upgrade the PowerJolt OverDrive for the new Apple Power Macintosh G3 Series Desktop and Mini-tower. The PowerJolt* Overdrive* is the first performance upgrade available for the new G3 Power Macintosh Machines from Apple and offers up to twice the amount of backside cache and processor speeds up of to 300Mhz. "Many processor intensive applications will see speed increases up to 60% over Apple1s stock G3 Machines," said Pat Berry, Vice President of Mactell Corporation.

Mactell's new PowerJolt* OverDrive* upgrade card is designed with a separate, extremely efficient one-to-one high-speed cache bus ratio. The proprietary cache bus enables it to handle CPU commands independently, eliminating loss of performance, Level 2 cache conflicts and bottlenecks, significantly increasing both computing speed and performance. The PowerJolt Overdrive card features 512k or 1 MB of powerful backside cache, creating the fastest processor upgrades available. The OverDrive upgrade is available in 266MHz and 300 MHz speeds, achieving processor scores of up to 1200, using Ziff-Davis MacBench 4.0.

G3 PowerJolt 750 PowerPC cards are compatible the Apple Power Macintosh G3 Desktop, Mini-tower and works with both the 233Mhz and 266Mhz models.

Prices are as follows:

• SKU#109.7200 266Mhz 1mb. 2 to 1 cache ratio $995
• SKU#109.7220 300Mhz 512k 2 to 1 cache ratio $899
• SKU#109.7240 300Mhz 1mb. 2 to 1 cache ratio $1195
• SKU#109.7260 300Mhz 1mb. 1 to 1 cache ratio $1995"

In response to yesterday's (actually Tuesday night's) Macs Only! story on the InfiniteOS, Tom Ahlfors reported:

"I have tried Infinite OS and I definately think it [could be] a hoax (COS anybody?). First time I started it up it just gave me some DOS-like text saying a few properties of my comp... Then it froze. I had to restart, but I tried it again, but this time, by chance, my GoMac bar was at the bottom of my screen, and guess what, it didn't disappear when I started the Infinite OS. Then it yet again gave me all the DOS-like text and froze, with the GoMac bar still there. If it were to switch OSes, it would most likely have to shut down the MacOS first, thus making all the add-ons disappear."

From Darren Williams,

"Active Concepts is pleased to release the next version of Funnel Web version 1.6. This version adds many enhancements and fixes over version 1.5. This version is available immediately to all registered users of Funnel Web. Macintosh users can download the updater directly from our web site at: http://www.activeconcepts.com. Windows users will be sent the access details for the new version directly.

Major new features of this version include:

• Full asynchronous DNS lookups with greater than 20 fold speed improvement
• Inclusion and Exclusion filtering on both URL and Client
• Search Keyword Reporting
• Top Entry Page reports
• Additional Log file Support for Rumpus FTP server
• Improved Memory management for logs over 80MB

as well as a number of bug fixes as detailed on the web site and in the readme file.

We are now moving into development version for version 2.0 which will support full eMail notification, archiving and FTP uploads and downloads as well as some impressive new reports.

Please feel free to provide feedback for input into this next release."

From Apple:

"Apple Computer Inc., IBM, Netscape Corp., Oracle Corp., Silicon Graphics Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc. today announced that the International Standards Organization (ISO) has adopted the companies' joint proposal to use Apple's QuickTime File Format as the starting point for the development of a unified digital media storage format for the MPEG-4 specification."

Epson released new drivers, v3.2BA for its Stylus Color 600. [Thanks Version Tracker.]

According to NEWS.COM, Iomega is contacting Zip drive owners about the "Click of Death" problem and spreading its support policies around.

Also according to NEWS.COM, Intel will enter the 3D chip market with its new i740 chip. Intel will compete in the same league with ATi and Nvidia.

MacInTouch 2/11 reported price cuts on Apple's G3's of $300-400, bring the list price on the G3 233 DT to $1,699 and the 266 MT to $2,499.

O'Grady's PowerPage 2/11 reported that CompUSA is selling the PowerBook 2400/180 for an incredible $1799.