PowerBook Updates -- As Early as Next Week?

[Naimfan]

Dell v. Powerbook

Soggy--

One thing worth pointing out wrt to the Dell Inspirons you've mentioned: they fall apart quite quickly, forcing either expensive repairs or replacement. Several of my fellow law students bought Inspirons when we started school two years. More than half of them have had the machines disintegrate--compared to my 3 year old Pismo which has been flawless. And there is nothing they can do even on their brand new Dells that my Pismo can't do, though we're certainly not anything like the typical "power user."

The problem I have with Dell is that they are selling a price, not a competent product. The law school uses Dells and have already had to replace 7 of them--this on brand new machines installed by Dell folks. As the old saying goes, the lowest price is almost never the best price. And when you have to replace machines annually or semi-annually, the cheaper price looks less and less attractive....

Best,

Bob

 

[Doctor Q]

Originally posted by soggywulf
I would call very little of this R&D. I believe Apple had a hand in the technical development of firewire, so that is research, or applied research anyway. But as for the rest--these are just things that Apple decided to put in their systems ahead of time. Which is fine, but it is not R&D and it is not something that justifies higher cost as such, certainly not now long after the fact.

Maybe the point is that Apple is using money from sales today to pay for R&D for future products, not for the ones they are now shipping. When you and I buy Macs today, and some percentage of that income goes to R&D, you and I don't know what developments we're paying for: 30" Wi-Fi monitors with programmable color casing, spherical-shaped Macs, the iMovie Video Store, quad-processor iBooks, the revolutionary iNod -- a combination iPod and Newton (you heard it here first!) -- or who knows what?

 

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by vrapan
I would like to comment though that my latest laptop was a 1.2 GHz P3 and my latest desktop a 1.6GHz Athlon with a Ti4200. The former had 384MB RAM the other 512MB.

I understand what you are saying, but realize that these are pretty ancient machines on the PC side. Your 867 is the same speed as the latest Apple machines (OK, there's a 1 gig model, but not a huge difference). I have a Dell laptop (from work) as well--a P3/800. That thing is more than 3 years old now.

Originally posted by vrapan
It is 867MHz it has only 256MB. With Panther on it can handle well over 15 apps open. with jaguar more like 10

For me, if I have a couple apps open on my Jag 867 that are concurrently processing, things start to grind down pretty drastically. I can still use the machine, but it is quite unresponsive. I think that is the signal that this class of machines really belongs in the consumer range.

Originally posted by vrapan
if you feel that a 1.3GHz PM is so much faster than a 1GHz G4 then go with it what else can I say.

No, I won't do that--not yet. I want to run OSX. But I will hold out for a better deal than a 1.3 G4 at current price points.

 

[sanford]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
Maybe the point is that Apple is using money from sales today to pay for R&D for future products, not for the ones they are now shipping. When you and I buy Macs today, and some percentage of that income goes to R&D, you and I don't know what developments we're paying for: 30" Wi-Fi monitors with programmable color casing, spherical-shaped Macs, the iMovie Video Store, quad-processor iBooks, the revolutionary iNod -- a combination iPod and Newton (you heard it here first!) -- or who knows what?

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. And Apple's R&D budget is huge compared to other PC manufacturers' R&D budget. Dell has almost none. What do they need R&D for? They develop to someone else's specification using off-the-shelf components.

And Apple did a huge amount of the work on FireWire. They co-developed the 802.11b standard with Lucent. These are not just inclusions of existing technology in their products before other manufacturers -- which in itself requires more R&D than those who come later -- but development of new technologies.

I pay more for Macs because I like Macs better. That's about it.

 

[IDTheft]

Sorry to steer the conversation away from Apple vs. Dell etc. but I just placed an order for a 15" Pbook last night and it's not due to ship till around Aug. 25th.

Is that not somewhat suspicious given that if they were going to ship the same G4 Ti book, they wouldn't have to wait that long would they?

I'm definitely hoping that it turn out to be a brand new 15" Al book and not a moment too soon cause I leave for Germany on Sep 1st. I hope it's the new pbook and gets here on time.

(Now resume bashing each other over what pbook upgraded specs is necessary for Apple to remain competitive...)

 

[soggywulf]

Re: Dell v. Powerbook

Originally posted by Naimfan
One thing worth pointing out wrt to the Dell Inspirons you've mentioned: they fall apart quite quickly, forcing either expensive repairs or replacement.

That may be the case, which would diminish the value of those machines certainly. This is all anecdotal (you and me both), but we have a number of old Dell Latitudes and a bunch of other Dell stuff at work, and none of it has been susceptible to breakdown. Not that these machines are great designs or anything, but they aren't falling apart. Maybe their home stuff is built worse than their enterprise stuff?

 

[freundt]

Re: Dell v. Powerbook

Originally posted by Naimfan
Soggy--

One thing worth pointing out wrt to the Dell Inspirons you've mentioned: they fall apart quite quickly, forcing either expensive repairs or replacement.

Ok, now go to the apple boards and see how many people have had problems with their powerbooks.. hard drive crashes, etc...

I'm not saying powerbooks aren;t well built.. but computers are computers.. if a hard drive fails, it's not apples fault or dell's fault -- it's the hard drvie manufacturer's fault.

 

[crayzaysean]

Originally posted by fpnc
I think you forgot about the system controller, which could be the most important part of a G5 notebook design. You would probably also need HyperTransport which would mean a complete redesign of the chip interconnect and i/o system (from the existing PowerBook designs). While there is nothing that would have absolutely prevented Apple from starting such a design several years ago (let's say 18 months ago) that is a completely different story than saying "that all the pieces are in place for a G5" PowerBook and that there are "no excuses left" for waiting until next year.

this shouldn't be an issue. Transmeta has just come out with a 1ghz processor that's designed to work with hypertransport architecture and will debut in tablets. You can't tell me that Apple are behind transmeta when it comes to implementing hypertransport in thin and light configurations.

 

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
When you and I buy Macs today, and some percentage of that income goes to R&D, you and I don't know what developments we're paying for: 30" Wi-Fi monitors with programmable color casing, spherical-shaped Macs, the iMovie Video Store, quad-processor iBooks, the revolutionary iNod -- a combination iPod and Newton (you heard it here first!) -- or who knows what?

Originally posted by sanford
Yeah, that's what I was getting at. And Apple's R&D budget is huge compared to other PC manufacturers' R&D budget.

I was under the (mistaken?) impression that Apple got itself out of R&D some time ago, and is now strictly in the business of pure product development. I seem to remember reading this somewhere or the other. Perhaps more advanced development than Dell, but not R&D and not the costs that R&D implies. I seem to recall seeing a reference to this some time back. So I think the technology for these new things is going to be created by other companies, and included in Apple products.

Originally posted by sanford
They co-developed the 802.11b standard with Lucent.

Are you sure about this? There are quite a few companies that have been involved with 802.11 standards for a long time. Besides that, standards development is not technology development and is certainly not technology research, as anyone who attends standards bodies can tell you.

Originally posted by sanford
...inclusions of existing technology in their products before other manufacturers -- which in itself requires more R&D than those who come later...

That's not R&D cost. That is simple bleeding edge cost, which is passed right on to us immediately in product cost (not bought from previous "investment" in the form of past high prices). Everyone has to build the pinouts for the 802.11 card at some point, but the first adopters get to reap the disadvantages associated with low volumes of Cisco and Lucent chipsets.

Originally posted by sanford
I pay more for Macs because I like Macs better. That's about it.

Fair enough.

 

[vrapan]

Soggywolf this is a test of P-3, P-M, P4 and P4-M.

http://www.cpuid.com/PentiumM/index.php

The P-M at 1.3GHz is around 20-30% faster than a P-3 at 1.13 and much less so than a P3 at 1.4GHz. My sony used a 1.2GHz P-3. I would expect around 20% improved performace over it. the PB is well over 20% faster than it and I would expect the 1GHz to be quite a bit better. The Athlon test shows the same. I don't think that the P-M on the same clock is double the speed. So even a 1.7GHz which is very expensive still won't be more than 40% faster than my 867GHz and even less so than a 1GHz. If a 1.3GHz comes out I expect it to be in par with a 1.6 - 1.7 GHz P-M.

 

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by fpnc
You keep saying that a 1.3GHz (MPC7457) G4-based PowerBook won't be any faster than the existing 12 or 17" PowerBooks but I maintain that you are just expressing an opinion which may not be correct.

True. My opinion is that the performance boost from a 1.3 G4 will probably not be sufficient to justify keeping the powerbooks at their current price points. OTOH G5 and fast bus will probably justify this.

Originally posted by fpnc
For example, a quick look at the Barefeats benchmarking site will show that the 1.42GHz dual DDR PowerMac is about 1.4 times as fast in a range of application tests as is a 1.0GHz dual DDR PowerMac. Here is the link:

That is an interesting comparison. Note that the 1.4 and 1.25 are quite close, and the 1.0 is further behind. I wonder...is it possible that the 1.0 is running on a 133 bus?

If they are all on the 167 bus, then that is certainly a significant boost. But I will say this--some benchmarks and some app tests use the CPU heavily and rely less on memory bandwidth, and these tests tend to show the linear scaling that we see here. In other words, these tests may reveal more about the benchmarks themselves than about the machines under observation.

There is no magic at work here. During general hi-power multi-app use, main memory will be accessed heavily. There is unfortunately no getting around that. The anemic memory speed will therefore be a heavy bottleneck for any G4 system in real world use.

Originally posted by fpnc
if the MPC7457 allows Apple to improve battery life even while offering increased performance then that would be a win-win situation.

Yes, that would be nice. I'm not saying that the 1.3 would be useless. I'm just saying that it would still need a price cut after the 1.3 boost. And I would rather just see a simple price cut if that meant more resources could be spent by Apple in getting the G5 out the door quicker.

 

[fpnc]

People also complain about the quality of the PowerBooks. Defective LCDs, broken hinges, flaking paint, defective or unreliable CD/DVD burning, etc. However, for a long time both Dell and Apple have been rated near the top (or at the top) in product reliability and customer service. I've owned a lot of Macs over the last 18 years and only one has ever suffered a complete failure (a 512KB "fat" Mac, burned out the analog/power supply board -- but it was mostly my fault). My PowerBook DVI has been essentially flawless over the last 18 months (knock on wood).

As far as the introduction of new PowerBooks next week, a few days ago I was fairly confident that we'd see upgraded models next Tuesday. Now, I'm not so certain. Maybe we will need to wait until the Paris Expo. I'm now thinking that the delay might be caused either by Motorola (the regular suspect) __or__ Apple's inability to acquire or make work the next generation of mobile graphics chips (Radeon 9600 or NVIDIA 5600). It's interesting to note that both the MPC7457 and ATI's Mobility Radeon 9600 were announced as "available" way back this spring. However, both seem to be about as rare as a hen's tooth right now. The same is generally true for the NVIDIA 5600 Go, since both of these new GPUs are just now appearing on the market (and mostly from third-tier vendors).

Of course, Apple may not be planning on using one of these new GPUs. So, in that case it's either Motorola or Apple has made a very bad forecast concerning some other gating factor in the PowerBook lineup (let's hope that in January Steve Jobs didn't decide that the then current PowerBooks were "good enough" until the arrival of the G5).

 

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by vrapan
The P-M at 1.3GHz is around 20-30% faster than a P-3 at 1.13 and much less so than a P3 at 1.4GHz. My sony used a 1.2GHz P-3. I would expect around 20% improved performace over it. the PB is well over 20% faster than it and I would expect the 1GHz to be quite a bit better. The Athlon test shows the same. I don't think that the P-M on the same clock is double the speed. So even a 1.7GHz which is very expensive still won't be more than 40% faster than my 867GHz and even less so than a 1GHz. If a 1.3GHz comes out I expect it to be in par with a 1.6 - 1.7 GHz P-M.

I think there are a few hopeful leaps in the logic here. Let me make a few points.

1) I assume you are looking at the graphs at the bottom. The Centrino 1.3 looks to be about 40% faster than the P3/1.13. So let us say 30% faster than your P3/1.2 on pure CPU tasks.

2) I've said this before, but I'll say it again. These tests are almost certainly pure CPU tests, which do not test the effects of memory speeds at all. In real world usage with multiple apps, the difference between the 133 bus on your P3 and the 400 bus on the Centrino will make an enormous difference. Therefore, the 30% number considerably understates the real world speed advantage of the Centrino 1.3 machine. The same principle can be applied to show that the 1gig Mac will not be as much faster than the 867 as you might think.

3) It is difficult to assign a number like 20% to a subjective measurement like "how fast the machine feels". Particularly when you use that result to build other comparisons or compare to other objective measurements.

 

[fpnc]

Originally posted by soggywulf
That is an interesting comparison. Note that the 1.4 and 1.25 are quite close, and the 1.0 is further behind. I wonder...is it possible that the 1.0 is running on a 133 bus?

If they are all on the 167 bus, then that is certainly a significant boost.

The DDR Power Mac 1.0GHz, 1.25GHz, and 1.42GHz machines all run at the same 167MHz bus speeds. And note that the quote I posted from Barefeats indicated that they were all DDR machines running the same PC2700 memory. Finally, here is a quote from Apple's hardware developer notes on the DDR Power Macs:

"For the 1 GHz or 1.25 GHz Power Mac G4, the main memory bus connects the main memory to the U2 IC via a 167 MHz, 64-bit data bus...For the 1 GHz and 1.25 GHz computers, the minimum speed DDR is 2x167 MHz, which is DDR 333 (PC2700)."

As far as I know, given the DDR memory these were the only machines at these speeds that were manufactured by Apple (until the 1.42GHz model was introduced).

Thus, I think it is clear that your assumptions about the lack of a potential performance benefit from a 1.3GHz G4 were overstated. True, you'll still be able to find faster PCs, but if Apple can (or does) introduce a 1.3GHz PowerBook G4 then it will be a nice upgrade, for both the 17" and 15" (perhaps the 12" will only go to 1GHz and get insanely great battery life, I don't know).

 

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by fpnc
Thus, I think it is clear that your assumptions about the lack of a potential performance benefit from a 1.3GHz G4 were overstated.

Not sure how you got to this conclusion...? My thoughts on the matter are posted after your quote. Basically, I think that such a linear scaling shows that the benchmark is a CPU-bound one, and is therefore not representative of real-world multi-app usage.

So I think you'll see a 30% increase if you run CPU-bound benchmarks, but considerably less than that if you are using the computer normally.

 

[fpnc]

Originally posted by soggywulf
Not sure how you got to this conclusion...?

Well, I can see that you've at least moved away from your initial statements, which is the discussion I was trying to end.

On the performance of a 1.3GHz G4:

Originally posted by soggywulf

Performance will be quite similar to the existing models, except maybe a placebo effect. Perhaps some speed increase in QE due to possibly faster graphics hardware, but again not a huge deal.

or later:

Originally posted by soggywulf

Well, this is where we disagree. To a 1.3 GHz G4, I say "why bother". If it is an easy change to make, then sure why not. I have already pointed out why this will make little difference. On the 15 you may notice some speed gains, but not on the 12 or 17.

As far as the Barefeats application benchmarks, I've seen similar results from other sources. To try to infer that significant performance improvements in programs like Photoshop, Cinema 4D, iTunes, and Bryce won't equate to real-world benefits is I think a bit misleading (they are a long way from any type of synthetic benchmark). And in any case even a 20% improvement over a large number or tasks goes well beyond a "placebo effect" or "why bother." Would you so easily dismiss a change in a P4 if it went from 3.0GHz to 3.6GHz? Or how about a clock speed change from a 2.4GHz P4 to a 3.1GHz P4?

It's certainly true that you could find other conditions where memory bandwidth would play a larger role, but I would argue that those types of situations are no more important to the average power user than is Photoshop, or general 3D work, or many other types of media encoding (how about MPEG2 encoding for a DVD?).

Yes, memory speed and bandwidth is important, but so is clock speed, cache size, processor architecture, hard disk speed, general i/o performance (hardware), GPU design, and OS design.

So, my final (or original) point is that I believe that Apple could design a useful and significant upgrade to the PowerBook line using a speed-bumped G4. Would it be faster than every Pentium M (Centrino) notebook? Certainly not. Would it be competitive on a dollar per raw unit of hardware power measure. No, not really (but note that here I'm not talking about general usability or productivity). Could a 1.3GHz G4 function as a significant upgrade over the existing PowerBook line.? Yes, definitely and that allows for the fact that as a whole I think the current 1GHz PowerBooks are still pretty good systems. They need to be upgraded, like yesterday, but don't give completely up on the G4 processor.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Re: just some thoughts...

Originally posted by clonenode
This is a big, back-to-school buying month. I know there are two or three shelves full of PowerBooks at my local Apple store. Wouldn't it make sense to wait until September to release new versions, so that this back-to-school buying can clear out inventory.

No.

Having 9-month old inventory is a good guarantee that back-to-school buying will clear out everyone else's inventory.

Originally posted by sososowhat
Can you verify this? I've heard nothing definitive about "free updgrades to Panther" with currently shipping machines.

Can you post a photo of the coupon your friend received?

Also, tell us what type of paper the coupon is made of. And make sure that the photo you post is at least 7200 DPI, and very accurate in terms of color. Because, after all, we all want a free copy of Panther.

Originally posted by Lori
Hehe, yeah, good point. I actually had a friend who tried to convince me into an ibook...he questioned how I could take a pass on the "corruptable purity" of a fresh, white ibook.

Odd. That's the same advice that my friend gives me about women.

Originally posted by cb911
macosrumors.com is also reporting on the PowerBooks... they have some very 'direct' sounding info and seem very sure of themselves.

That's MacOSRumors for you.

Originally posted by kwajo.com
There once was a rich man named Jobs
Who left the Powerbooks on a Log
He sent them adrift
The consumers were mift
And pondered the rumors 'til Tuesday

I hate to point it out, but "Jobs", "Log", and "Tuesday" don't rhyme.

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
Apple better not make the best stuff available only to the 17" like currently...the 15" should have the same features and yes, I hope that it will have the ATI 9600...it just seems like Apple is focused on nVidia lately for whatever reason...

Steve's still upset at ATI for revealing a secret announcement of his in a press release the day before.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by AllenPSU
This objective buyer is holding out for USB 2.0. There are a lot of devices that need USB 2.0. FW 800 is a wash but a slight boost in CPU would also be nice... but your right it not worth holding out for.

USB 2.0 won't come until FW 800. Apple invented FireWire, so they won't put competing technology on a computer of theirs unless they have a version of their own technology that's faster. USB 2.0 is 30 Mbps faster than FireWire 400.

Originally posted by sanford
Some techie help me out here, but isn't DDR RAM in G4 Macs mainly window dressing, as the G4 processor doesn't properly support DDR RAM and the system buses aren't fast enough to move data in and out of the RAM quick enough to take advantage of the extra speed?

On a basic level, yes. However, many system components can access the RAM directly, without going through the processor. When this occurs, you get all the benefits of DDR.

Originally posted by soggywulf
You certainly will. That doesn't mean you should have to pay such high prices. A Honda Civic is much faster than a Trabant. That doesn't mean you should spend US$50,000 on one.

Top speed is an incidental feature in cars, unless you live in Germany.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Re: Re: Re: "New" PBs

As for my own thoughts and feelings: I start college August 25. I'm willing to hold onto my iMac 400 until the new PowerBooks come out, but I'm getting a new PowerBook, no matter what the upgrade is. I don't need that much speed, I just need a pretty worthwhile machine. I can't imagine myself using Windows or Linux, so it's PowerBook for me.

Originally posted by soggywulf
I don't know why everyone is having such a hard time believing in the G5 powerbook this year. Maybe it is that we are so used to lame, slow update cycles from Apple, that we just can't believe that things could possibly move so quickly?

No, it's because an Apple executive publicly stated that there will be no PowerBook G5 for quite awhile.

Why so many people don't know this, despite the fact that it's so oft-cited, is a mystery to me.

Originally posted by soggywulf
Think of it this way. All the other manufacturers are able to design and produce fast notebooks. Why can't Apple?

Because all those other manufacturers have Intel as a chip supplier, while Apple has Motorola.

(Apologies for the triple post, but the alternative would have been the longest post in MacRumors history.)

 

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by fpnc
Well, I can see that you've at least moved away from your initial statements, which is the discussion I was trying to end.

I was never trying to imply that there would be no performance benefit at all. Certainly on CPU-bound tasks 1.3 > 1.0. That much is obvious. My real point here is that there is an opportunity cost here. Apple has had a number of months now to design a notebook. Would you rather have had them design a new 1.3 7457 laptop, or a new G5 laptop? Sure, maybe the G5 would take a little longer; but then again the former has us waiting for Motorola chips which obviously have had a history of problems in the past. And after that they have to start again with G5 design, and we are waiting another year for the G5 powerbook. If they had done the latter instead, maybe we could have had price drops in July/August and new G5's by Christmas. I think that is a more reasonable, competitive approach.

Originally posted by fpnc
And in any case even a 20% improvement over a large number or tasks goes well beyond a "placebo effect" or "why bother."

Not if it takes a year, and not if there is a large opportunity cost.

Originally posted by fpnc
Would you so easily dismiss a change in a P4 if it went from 3.0GHz to 3.6GHz? Or how about a clock speed change from a 2.4GHz P4 to a 3.1GHz P4?

Yes, if it takes a year and is not accompanied by a bus speed improvement and it costs the same as it did last year. I would consider that a poor deal.

Originally posted by fpnc
It's certainly true that you could find other conditions where memory bandwidth would play a larger role, but I would argue that those types of situations are no more important to the average power user than is Photoshop, or general 3D work, or many other types of media encoding (how about MPEG2 encoding for a DVD?).

I do encoding and authoring all the time. The difference is that I expect to be able to use the computer while all these things are going on. If you are doing just one thing, responsiveness remains good. But as you start doing more and more stuff simultaneously, that 1.3 GHz speed gets closer and closer to 167 MHz responsiveness.

 

[soggywulf]

Re: Re: Re: Re: "New" PBs

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
No, it's because an Apple executive publicly stated that there will be no PowerBook G5 for quite awhile.

Yes indeed. So we hear that, and we say "oh ok, I guess I'll go ahead and pay full price for a G4, then".

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Top speed is an incidental feature in cars, unless you live in Germany.

Make that "better", not "faster".

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Because all those other manufacturers have Intel as a chip supplier, while Apple has Motorola.

That no longer has to be the case. How long has Apple known about the 970? How long does it take to design a G5 laptop motherboard?

 

[Naimfan]

reliability

Soggy et al--

I think you made some perfectly valid points re reliability of Powerbooks v. Dells. And certainly my experience is anecdotal. And I do not mean to imply PBs don't have problems--clearly people have had problems with them.

My larger point was that a Powerbook or an iBook is, for most people, probably a better investment. Part of the reason is OSX, part of it is superior hardware (IMO, obviously), part of it is the sheer ease of use (though MS has indeed made great strides), and part of it is that Macs in general offer overall superior reliability and longer life.

Very few people, on an absolute basis, really need the speed and power of any of the top laptops, whether from Apple or Wintel. As I mentioned previously, my G3/400 can do anything I've needed--running multimedia Powerpoint shows, accessing Lexis/Westlaw, Word, etc. And--I've never lost data on it, where a number of folks in school with wintel machines have. Anecdotal, certainly. But I know way too many people with similar experiences, in different parts of the country, for it to be purely coincidental.

Best,

Bob

 

[Daemonport]

Originally posted by fpnc
People also complain about the quality of the PowerBooks. Defective LCDs, broken hinges, flaking paint,

In my long use of Mac and Mac Portables I have only had 2 structural problems, one with my Graphite Ibook, I jumped out of my chair and it flew out of my backpack, hit the rof and then proceeded to to hit the floor, two problems arose, one, a nice crack in the top of the case and the other a sound card that only works when I squeeze my Ibook heheh. After I had this happen and not a full loss of use, I was proud to count on the reliability of mac products. However this changed 20 day ago.
My hinge on my 15" PB 800 decided to jam and proceeded to sheer through the bas of my screen, cutting a few wires and so on. The paint chips and e.t.c. were always a problem, and that hinge was always a little bit sticky. But never something this big. I am still faithful to macs though, im hoping these new puppies come out so I can replace it. The beauty was, it happened 3 days after the warenty expired, but as I understand it would not be covered. Now the crreme on the cake is, the cost of the repair is what my pc loving friend has decided to spend on a new dell notebook, I am cursed by the fact apple just doesn't have repair hinges, and apparently they will get my old screen when the repair is done. Does any one have any advice that could help me along these lines?

 

[hexor]

If something does come out tuesday they are sure doing a good job keeping it quite this time. Maybe we should find out where Steve lives and watch what he brings home at night

 

[Doctor Q]

I go through Steve's garbage every weekend, but I haven't spotted any clues so far. I find a lot of receipts for turtlenecks, but that's about it.

I think arn has better ways to get inside information.