Purchase small stopgap upgrades.
This device is one of many small stopgap upgrades. G4 processor upgrades: four 1.4GHz cards offer a timely stopgap measure. Your old Mac is sitting there getting older and, if your mind isn't deceiving you, slower. Apple's Power Mac G5 has arrived on the scene, but that doesn't mean you can't get more life out of your G4. If you have a Power Mac G4 (AGP graphics and later models), you can upgrade to a 1.4GHz G4 processor. We tested Giga Designs' G-celerator GC5B-1400-D2/A, Other World Computing's Mercury Extreme G4, PowerLogix's PowerForce G4 Series 100, and Sonnet's Encore/ST G4. A $600 investment will give you a Mac almost as fast as Apple's other G4 systems, and it could keep you satisfied for another six months to a year. Installing an upgrade card is pretty easy, as long as you read the instructions and move carefully. Giga Designs' documentation is nicely illustrated and easy to follow, as is OWC's. PowerLogix's one page is brief, but it covers the basics. Sonnet's manual is the most thorough, with installation illustrations of all compatible systems; however, it doesn't mention that the Apple System Profiler won't report the correct upgrade speed unless you install Sonnet's free Sonnet X Tune-Up software (available on the company's Web site).
To set the speed of the OWC and Giga Designs cards, you must configure jumpers, which can be tricky. If you set them incorrectly, your upgrade will either. An iPod classic may also be a 'stopgap' device. Market research firm iSuppli has torn down Apple's new iPod classic, saying that the device has taken a backward-looking approach to personal media player functionality as well as technology. "While the rest of the iPod line has migrated to solid-state flash memory, the new iPod classic continues to employ venerable Hard-Disk Drive (HDD) technology for storage," the company wrote. "Furthermore, the iPod classic lacks some of the other advanced features found in the other new iPods, namely wireless capability and a touch screen." Apple can offer the iPod classic at a lower price than the its predecessor with increased capacity, but iSuppli says the dated features suggest "stopgap" measures that will likely limit the classic's life span and success in the market. Apple's total bill of materials (BOM) for the iPod classic is quoted at $127 per unit, and the device sells for $250 (80GB) or $350 (160GB).
The teardown shows material costs of this year's third quarter of 2007, listing the hard drive at $78 as by far the most expensive component. The iPod classic's display ($11.90), core processor ($8.60), and DRAM ($5.80) follow as the most costly parts. Given the iPod classic's competitive storage capacity, combined with the highest battery life of all the company's iPods, power users may find this model a clear choice over the other flash-based designs. A Pentax Camera can also be a stopgrade upgrade. If you have not held this Pentax, it is SMALL! Much smaller than the Canon 10D by a lot. I believe it is the smallest, larger sensor, DSLR currently made. It has an incredibly bright, uncluttered viewfinder. Seems brighter than my Canons even with a f/1.4 lens mounted. It allows use of both the wonderful older manual Pentax lenses, as well as newer AF/AE versions. Some lenses Paul had for it looked like new and were built like little tanks. The 45mm Pancake lens on the camera makes it not much bigger than M if at all. We slapped a 80/1.8 manual lens on it and I walked around the house shooting available light stuff, and I popped off a shot of Paul's IIIC sitting on the kitchen counter.
After taking a few minutes to download Adobe's new PS/CS RAW plug-in that now includes this Pentax digital (as well as a few other new entries), we were inspecting the results. I was impressed to say the least. Even MORE impressed when Paul e-mailed later me to say that he had forgot to reset the ISO from an earlier shoot, and the pix we shot were ISO 800 !!!! (a fact I confirmed by checking the file info in the Adobe file browser). For a small, easy to carry, easy to use vacation camera or street shooter with barely any shutter lag I could detect, with a vast array of both older and newer small lenses at very reasonable prices, this baby fits the bill.
