[X-Newbies] Re: 2 Firewire or not 2 Firewire, that is the MacBook question.

[Randy B. Singer]

On Jan 15, 2009, at 1:27 AM, Charles Martin wrote:

> You'll be pleased to hear that all Mac models (even the latest  
> ones) still support the $49 Apple USB modem as an add-on. It's both  
> a "regular" modem AND a fax modem, and works extremely well with  
> all Mac models.
>

"Works extremely well" is debatable.  It is a "softmodem" that is  
sensitive to line noise and which uses your Mac's processor to work.   
So performance is often much less than you might expect.
For a very long discussion about this, see:
http://www.macintouch.com/modemproblems.html

A better choice for the same price is:
U.S. Robotics 56K* USB Faxmodem  $50
http://www.usr.com/products/modem/modem-product.asp?sku=USR5637

> And the MacBook Pro (and the latest iMac, and the towers, and  
> presently the Mac mini) all still have FW in some form or another  
> -- most use the FW800 connector now, but that can easily be  
> converted down to FW400 with a hub or an inexpensive cable if need  
> be. FW800 is, as the name implies, twice as fast as FW400, which  
> opens up some interesting possibilities.

FW800 is twice as fast as FW400 in theory.  In practice, how much  
faster FW800 is depends on a number of things.  Different Macintosh  
models have FW800 buses that perform differently.  Generally, in the  
real world, FW800 is from about 30% to 50% faster than FW400.  Also,  
if you have an external hard drive that can't take advantage of  
FW800's extra bandwidth, you may see little or no difference in speed.
http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html
http://www.barefeats.com/imcd.html

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
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