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 This
page is for all those great people who own a Macintosh. Here is lots of
resources for you. Tips, tricks, Easter eggs, places to get help, Mac groups,
buy a new Mac, and tons more. No Windows allowed |
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Shopping for Your Mac 
Below are links and my personal opinions of different companies that sell Macs and peripherals for the Mac. The second section lists online resources for software. Other pages in this section: Sign My Guestbook  View
My Guestbook |
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Kensington
- The King of the track balls! One of the unique things about this company
is that the price NEVER changes. The 'ole gray square "Tubro Mouse" came
out at $99 and now years later is still $99. My Tubro Mouse and I have
spent many years together, it never missed a click. Now with my G4 it was
time to go USB, and retire my little friend.
The "TurboBall" was half the price, had a cool shape, and a nice dark blue ball. However I'm a little disappointed. She just doesn't handle the same. Day one I was calling tech support, the problem appeared to be solved. However the next day I discovered a new one. Bottom line, with a second call to tech support, the are now sending me a replacement! No headaches, no fuss, they truly appear to have a desire to make sure their customers are happy! KeySpan - Another company with excellent tech support. Another one of those upgrade headaches was getting my old HP 870Cse printer to work on the new G4. This company offers the converter hardware, and has the folks there to help you use it! HP tech support tried to help, but it was KeySpan's tech support that made it happen. MacMall* - If you own a Mac you most likely know these folks! Most of their prices are fair, they carry most anything you could want or need. However after buying for over 10 years from them, I'm noticing a change. For years their sales folks were almost like tech support people, they would ask about your system and what you wished to accomplish, and make sure you didn't buy anything that wouldn't do the job. Now you need to know what you want. My only real complaint comes from a purchase last year. They had Jaz on sale, however it was backordered. A month later it arrived, with a new catalog packed with it. On the cover was the same Jaz $50. less than I had paid! I called expecting that I receive a $50 refund, or at least a $50 credit with the company. What did I get...SORRY Ordering anything that is backordered with this company is like playing the stock market. If the price goes up, you save. If the price goes down, you're "S.O.L.". eCost -You will have to dig around for Mac stuff, but have great prices. They are part of the MacMall, PCMall, MicroMall family. As a rule they are cheaper, however the trade off is don't plan to speak to a human! Everything is done online. So if you know what you want, and what to do with it, this may be a great choice. MacWarehouse - Almost a twin of MacMall! Again been doing business with them for over a decade. Again their quality of sales staff is dropping! Theirs was much noticeable less trained than MacMalls, to the point the sales person was going to sell me things I didn't need. While I haven't used their tech support for many years, however the last time I did need them, they were polite, knowledgeable, and solved my problem in minutes. Be sure to ask them about the "daily specials", they often have great deals of software. Small Dog Electronics - These folks are Top Dog in my book! While I have only been doing business with them for the last 4 years, they have never disappointed me. Not only do they carry new Macs but offer refurbished, demos, damaged box and used. They are very open about each unit and which warranty goes with each one. Their tech support is second to none, speaking to them reminds me of the old days with Apple. As a rule your dollar will buy more here. Back in February '97 I was ready to buy my first power Mac. After days of shopping, I saved $1,500 from local prices, and $700 from MacMall and MacWarehouse. August 2000, I bought my second complete system G4/400. Again the savings was in the hundreds. As matter of fact I saved enough to get a 15" LED display. Bottom line for folks in the US these folks are hard to beat. They also offer several newsletters that are full of tips, humor, and special deals. UMAX - I can only speak about their scanners, then I can't say much. I can sum up my experience with these folks in two words, "Good Stuff". My old S-12 with optional sheet feeder is now 4 years old, and still works as good as the day it came out of the box. I wouldn't even try to guess how many thousands of pages it's scanned. The only thing that hurt was when the S-12 was a "hot" scanner it carried a price of $495. and the sheet feeder was another $495. Last year I bought a backup for $49.99. At the cost of sheet feeders, I hope to be using these machines for another couple of years. :-) Hewlett-Packard- Over the years I've owned several different brands of printers. Some were better than others. For the past 3 years I've been using the DeskJet 870Cse, and very pleased. However when I upgraded my system, a problem did arise, having to use a converter (to USB) and OS 9 left me dead in the water. This is when HP showed what they are made of! First they have an excellent online tech support system. It only took a couple of minutes to find that there were many of us experiencing the same problem. HP and a complete page of things to try. When these tips failed, they were more then willing to help. While the converter's tech support was actually the one that got things working, I'm sure HP's techs would have stayed on it until the problem was fixed. Fuji - I was so disappointed with the folks, I won't even give them a link! Several years ago I bought one of their more expensive digital cameras. From day one it was nothing but a headache! Tech support was rude, software had bugs, and the camera died at the age of 6 months with a mechanical failure. To give you an idea how bad it was I had to zap the pram overtime I wanted to download my pictures, and their tech support tried to convince me that this wasn't a problem! While I had used their film for many years, I will never spend another penny with this company! Ricoh - These people know how to make a camera! I can't say anything about tech support since I've never needed it. What a great concept ... to buy something that works the way they promised. While there are many that are cheaper and more expensive the ROC-5000 has all the bells and whistles I need. |
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it's not to say there is anything wrong with them. |
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APS
B & R Computer Services (older Macs) CH Products (joy sticks) Herb's Mac Stuff (looking for an antique Mac?) |
ICN | Orange
Micro
Owen Ink (Great Mac Books) |
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Special link "MS Office 98 Patch for OS 9" By the way Office 4.2.1 will NOT work on OS 9, and MS has no plans of offering a patch. :-( |
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DealBITS - listing of various street prices | Emulators for the Mac - information about different emulation programs | |
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Adobe | Claris Corporation | FileMaker |
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Freeware, Shareware, & Postcardware | ||
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Adobe
Acrobat Reader
After Dark modules - free AWOL - free utilities Earthlink Screen Savers - free Etchelon Macdoodle - graphic progam for kids eWare - e-mail FreePPP - free utility GIFConverter* - graphic Go! - utility - Postcardware Installer Observer - utility Iron Software - utilities & games Jim Walker's Software Source - assortment Katoemba - utilities LairWare Software - games Lizard Breath Software - utility |
MacDesktops
MacMame - game Mac Perl - programing -free Mac Screen Savers -lots of free ones Mozilla* - if you surf the net, a must see MPj Astro - astronomy OneApp Software - utility & Dictionary Orrery - astronomy Panic - audio Peirce Software - assortment Royal Flush PinBall - game Semicolon Software - assortment Sono Software - assortment |
SoundApp
- audio - free
Split It! - free utility Stephen's Screensavers - free TapGuard - for lap tops The Budget - free The Resistance - assortment The WordCrosser - game Tiger Technologies - utilities Time Palette - time & maapping software Twistory - educational Unmarked Software - office/webmaster Wilson Effortlessware - utility WormScanner Is your Mac acting strange? You may have a worm this site has the fix or this nasty virus. |
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ChezMarks Picks | MacUpdate | Software for Newbies |
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a
Collections - collection of images specially made for desktop backgrounds.
Active Concepts - web software Alsoft - utilities Ambrosia* - games ArtMatic - graphic AvShop - aviation software Bare Bones* - BBEdit, internet, also offers some freeware! Binary Software - utilities Bing Software* - computer/telephone integration BoxTop - graphic BTV - video software Byrd Soft - utility CE Software - utilities & e-mail Chaotic Software - assorted, including some shareware ClixSounds - sounds, including some shareware Connectix - emulation, including Virtual PC Copernican Technolgies - utility Dantz - backup software Delta Tao - games DataViz* - conversion software
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EarthBrowser
- educational
Endora - e-mail software Evatac - assortment FaxElite - fax Felt Tip - assortment Fifth Wave - scientific/engineering, graphic arts, & publishing Font Cat - font tool Computer User - games, includes demos & shareware IBM ViaVoice - voice recognition Kineticon - animated icons Land of the FreeVerse - games Macast - audio multimedia MacSoft- games MacSpeech - voice recognition McAfee - utilities Mercury Software - office MicroFrontier - graphics Micromat - troubleshooting MindVision - utilities, includes freeware Mizer - webmaster utility MPegger - audio multimedia Neon Software - networking |
Nova
Development - graphics
OmegaWindow - utility Real Software - development tool Research Software Design - office Reunion - genealogy Search & Rescue - data recover Second Nature - screen savers Sig - assortment SimCity - games SoundJam - audio Squeegee Software - games Starry Night - astronomy Synthetik - graphic Terry Morse Software - webmaster TextBridgePro 8.0* - office The Home Gene-Splicing Kit - kid software Timbuku Pro - networking TypeStyler* - graphic Web Confidential - utility WebEvent - networking Webroot Software - utilities WestCode Software - utilities Xorsis Software - programing |
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ArcaMax*
- Super cheap discontinued software
AuctionMac - online auction |
DigitalRiver | MacWarehouse* |
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SharewareShop | ||