POWERWATCH NEWS POWERWATCH VIEWS POWERWATCH SYSTEMS POWER TECH POWERWATCH FILES ABOUT POWERWATCH POWERWATCH LINKS JEFF'S LOSTWORLD		February Power News Archive (Up to March 1997 News) Friday, February 28 The page has been messed with a little bit. Netscape should work. The pink is gone. Feedback is necessary. You asked for it! Cable modem info is now online! Exclusive! (well, since I wrote it...)   Thursday, February 27 Apologies for the delays lately--been quite busy with school lately! But you should be thankful because I have put up a test version of the home page! Please tell me what you think, what you'd change, etc etc. If this look is "approved" then it will begin to appear on all the PowerWatch pages! PowerWatch activity is up 40% over last month -- we'll be getting nearly 1,000,000 raw hits this month, to 45,000 unique hosts!   Tuesday, February 25 It looks like frames are very unpopular. I will be working on a new design and I'm trying to refrain from the use of frames.   Monday, February 24 I've posted a new question for the PowerWatch Poll: I've been thinking about redesigning the page so you can access all your favorite information even faster. The topic of using frames has come up, and I'd like your help in my decision. Power is now selling refurbished systems on their Online Store. There are some impressive deals, including a Powerbase 180 for $1095. MacInTouch has the link to the new IMS Twin Turbo v. 3.8 software, which is being hosted by MacGurus. Thanks, Kimo Yap. The cable modem is going great-- after some term papers this week I will write up a page about it, if there's enough demand. For now, check out the Roadrunner home page, which is what I use. Sunday, February 23 The cable modem service (using a Motorola box) uses a proxy server. This makes setting up net applications a pain. Not to mention navigating around PowerWatch Views, as many of you know. But fear not! This week, we'll be moving up to WebCrossing 2.0 with chat features! A user wrote in saying that Power's home page has been remodeled. It is indeed! The results of the latest PowerWatch Poll are in. I'm looking for more subjects I can ask you all about. The question was: Will your next (MacOS) computer be a PowerComputing computer? 41% of those who responded said YES 36% said NO (ouch!) 23% were unsure 864 people responded!   Saturday, February 22 The cable modem is finally working, after nearly 7 hours of it not. It's absolutely amazing.. I've gotten over 150kb/sec -- great! Earlier this week, Power hired several new management people, many from Dell. MacWeek has the story. Just like last time, I saw The Empire Strikes Back at the Irvine Spectrum/Edwards 21 and it was first rate. Great sound, huge screen, and great movie!   Friday, February 21 A new C|NET review of various Macs and clones gave the PowerTower Pro a "Buy It" rating, and it was the recommended model of the five. Then again, it was competing against much slower, cheaper machines. The only strange thing I saw in the article was their comment that the case was hard to open. Update: Some PowerWatch readers agreed with the article.... Not only is Motorola on board with Be, but now it appears that UMAX will join in on the BeOS licensing game. Now if I could only get DR8.2's PPP to work.... Oops, I goofed. I actually get my cable modem tomorrow, Saturday. A PowerWatch reader wrote in with some prices on refurbished machines. Here's a small sample. Remember that these may go fast like they did last time we posted a price list. Call Power directly at 800-370-7693 and see what they have left. PowerCenter 132 $1195 PowerCenter 166 $1495 PowerCenter 180 $1695 (corrected) PowerTower Pro 200/225 $2495/2995 There may be more-- just call and ask! PowerWatch activity now averages 35,000 hits per day (raw hits) as opposed to 25,000 last month. Cool. Did I mention how cool the Powerbook 3400 looks? Want to start a Get Jeff a Powerbook fund? ;-)   Wednesday, February 19 This week's PowerWatch Poll asks a pretty simple question: Will your next computer be a Power Computing computer?   Tuesday, February 18 Power officially announced the price cuts we told you about last week. Go out and pick one up! ;-) I am very pleased to announce that not only are midterms over, but that PowerWatch was selected as SmartSite by the Internet Macintosh Users Group! More on this later when I get home. I'm looking for the symptoms of a failing PowerBase CD-ROM drive, for the PowerTech archives. Please drop Jeff a line if you can provide this info. More questions and a brief wish... I see that Cyberian Outpost is now taking orders for the cool Newton 2000. Should I pick one up or wait for the famed PowerCC notebook instead? Also, looking at the new Power Mac 6500/250 and upcoming 6500/300 Creative Edition makes me wish that Power could provide a system like that.. big hard drive, Avid-like video card, lots of editing software.. Are you familiar with the new PCS/CDMA cellular phone systems? I've got some questions. Send me mail if you are... if you have knowledge about the various forms of the above in Southern California, so much the better! Saturday, February 15 Today is a monumental day for PowerWatch. Our biggest sponsor yet, and arguably our biggest supporter, Power Computing Corporation has begun supporting this site through advertising. Soon, we'll have special offers and contests for PowerWatch users only! But first, I want to answer some important questions before they get asked. PowerWatch is still unofficial and completely independent of Power Computing. They, like Mushkin Memory, support us financially so we can maintain and expand this site. PowerCC does not determine the content of PowerWatch. I reserve the right to flame them at will, and to post other people's complaints, either of which they may or may not like. I'd like to hear feedback about what you think about this. In the meantime, stay tuned for exciting offers, news, and product previews! So far, response has been very positive! Thanks for your support! Yes, it's true-- Apple's MacOS Up-To-Date program now costs only $9.95 if you bought your computer after December 1st. See PowerTech for more info. Regarding yesterday's news on Speed Doubler upgrades: I think you want to contact Connectix, and not Power, on upgrade issues. Power has released the SCSI Manager Fix for PowerBase owners with trouble with those external SCSI devices. Download it now or visit PowerTech for more info on the problem.   Monday, February 10 As first reported on MacInTouch, Power Computing is looking to hire engineers and sales personnel in the Notebook division. (I know many of us, myself included, are very excited about power notebooks). What will they call a PowerComputing notebook? Not a Powerbook, for sure. A PowerWatch user reports actually receiving a PowerLogix Mach9 card. Amazing. I put in an order for a cable modem from Southwestern Cable TV. San Diegans like myself are the largest group in the US to get them (225,000). I'll be getting the 10Mbs Motorola beast on the 21st. Update: Due to popular demand, some more info. The installation is $99 and it's $44.95 per month. Up to 6 computer will be able to use the modem. It's midterm season again -- updates will be sparse through Tuesday.   Saturday, February 8 Power has posted a technical note about processor cards, bus speeds, and upgradability on their page.   Friday, February 7 Yesterday's Soapbox got many interesting responses. Most were from people who absolutely loved their machines. Many also asked if only PowerBases were unreliable (hard to answer this, but I'd say they're the least reliable from what I've read). The take home message for today is: If you are ordering a PowerBase, or any Power machine, kindly ask the sales person for the NEC CD-ROM drive, instead of the Phillips. This will save you many troubles. There is a new forum in PowerWatch Views: A forum just for International Users of PowerCC machines!   Thursday, February 6 For those who have asked about PowerTech, my answer is this: it's not done yet. It will be ready next week. Don't judge it until then ;-) Soapbox time: Yes, it's time for editorializing again. I get a lot of email from people about their problems with Power computers. I don't post most of them, unless they're just amazing stories. I'll be sharing one with you today. It's funny that in the very same Macworld (March issue), where we are mentioned in an article about tons of quality problems with Power Computing machines, that Power won several awards for their machines. While I've had two trouble-free machines (after my Power120 incident), I probably get 10 messages a day about people with problems. All this will make me seriously reconsider buying another Power machine. And now, the promised message from a PowerWatch reader: Here's a little story on my recent purchase of a Powerbase 180 [I] bought a month and two weeks ago direct from Power Computing. I have had five on-site repair calls on the PowerBase I bought, starting two days after it arrived via FedEx. I have had the CD-ROM player replaced, the internal speaker replaced, the motherboard replaced, a SCSI cable replaced and tomorrow a CD audio cable replaced-all defective.   Wednesday, February 5 PowerComputing is FINALLY on Apple's MacOS Up-to-Date list. If you purchased your system after December 7, 1996, then you can get System 7.6 for only $24. The upcoming PowerMac 8600 has a totally cool case. Check it out on the MacOS rumors page. I'd love to see a Power case like this, but it's probably too expensive.... An a similar story, MacInTouch reports that there will be some pretty hot new PowerMac 6500's coming out at $1800 with a 225MHz processor, 12x CD-ROM, Zip Drive, Ethernet, and more. Are Powerbase price cuts or enhancements due as a result? (I don't know)... Monday, February 3 People (especially potential advertisers) like to know how "busy" PowerWatch really is. So here's some info from January. We had over 810,000 "raw hits" during January, which averages out to about 27,000 per day We served over 37,000 different hosts, and transferred over 6.68 gigs of data! That's 182 megs a day! Our best day was January 29th, when we had over 35,000 raw hits. PowerCC Webmaster Brian Combs appeared to rack up over 1200 hits! Much to my surprise, he wasn't the most common visitor (I don't know who was, but it wasn't him) The stats may be off a bit, but it says that the home page was visited over 60,000 times in January! I'm blaming the fact that I was sick all weekend on taking so long to fix the faulty link on the News Archive page. It has been fixed. This excuse works for the delay in putting PowerTech up as well. PowerWatch reader Andrew Blum says that, contrary to what's posted on their web site, PowerLogix still isn't shipping any Mach9's. He's tracking this issue on a PowerWatch-inspired Mach 9 Watch page   (Down to January News Archive)