Sonnet Technologies eNewsletter - March 2002 Features Sonnet’s latest product information, new website developments, tradeshow events, and tech tips.
Sonnet Creates "Digital Hubs" With iPod, iTunes and iMovie, Apple has created a lot of new reasons for people to use their Macintoshes. People with older models may feel left out, but there are plenty of options. In fact, Sonnet makes just about everything needed to turn a beige G3 or a PowerMac 7500 into a completely functional "digital hub".
iPod and iTunes work with Mac OS 9.1, and they work with Sonnet's Tango FireWire/USB PCI card. Apple's specs don't say so because Apple didn't test these things. We did. This is huge news for people who want to use this cool new device from Apple, because now they can add it to any 9.1-supported system for only the $99.95, the current price of a Tango card. iMovie works just as well. For bigger, faster ATA storage (sometimes needed for big digital files), check out Sonnet's Tempo, and for faster processing overall, Sonnet makes Crescendo and Encore CPU upgrades for most Macs with PCI slots. You'll be amazed at all that Sonnet can do for your Mac. Visit this web page to use our handy product configurator: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/configurator.html
Sonnet Tempo Line is "Simply Fast" Storage Solution Who doesn't want more storage capacity? Sonnet’s Tempo product line of drive controller cards makes adding storage simply fast! The Tempo ATA100 supports up to 4 ATA drives, providing an abundance of inexpensive storage space. Drives connected to the Tempo ATA100 are seen as native IDE drives under OS X, so a wide variety of removable media drives are also supported. For more details see: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_ata100.html
Sonnet also offers the Tempo RAID133, which not only supports up to 4 ATA drives, but also allows the user to stripe two drives together, substantially improving performance. Either of these cards are great additions to Macintosh G3 and G4 machines. And Apple agrees – the Sonnet Tempo RAID133 is featured on the enhancement page for the new G4 Quicksilver machines. See: http://www.apple.com/powermac/expansion.html. For more product details see: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_raid133.html
HARMONi G3 Strikes a Chord with Early iMac Owners HARMONi G3 processor upgrade with FireWire has proved to be a winning new product for Sonnet. This new product, compatible with revisions A – D iMacs, offers a combination of a robust G3 500Mhz processor and an additional FireWire port for connection of the latest digital video and peripheral gear including the FireWire-enabled iPod mini-drive/MP3 player. The HARMONi G3 is OS X compatible out of the box without any additional software upgrade or plug-ins required. It is the ideal product for any early iMac owner looking for more expandability and speed. For more information about the HARMONi G3, please visit: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/harmoni_g3.html
Website As Sonnet continues to find ways to better serve its customers, we have recently made several improvements to the Sonnet website. These include:
1. New design to the Sonnet online store which now includes an automated order confirmation: http://store.sonnettech.com/sonnetstore/default.tmpl 2. New format of all product support pages for ease of use and consistency which you will find apparent throughout the website. 3. Full functionality of the Japanese website for our Japanese market: http://www.sonnettech.com/jp
US sales Following a successful introduction at MacWorld San Francisco 2002 this January, Sonnet's HARMONi G3 iMac upgrade and Piccolo USB Flash drive products continue to prove very popular, with strong sales during the first 2 months of the year. CompUSA recently added HARMONi and Piccolo to their on line store (www.compusa.com), showing their enthusiasm for these 2 new exciting products. Recent publications that have featured the Sonnet Piccolo include the Wall Street Journal, Orange County Register, Macworld Magazine, and MacHome Magazine. Look for a review of the HARMONi in the May issue of Macworld Magazine.
International Sales Sonnet will be supporting the Japanese market by exhibiting at the Macworld Tokyo show from March 21 – 23, 2002. This year’s Macworld Tokyo show will be held at the Tokyo Big Site in the Godaiba District. Sonnet’s booth will feature product demos and representatives from Sonnet to answer customers’ questions. There will also be special show prices offered to those attending the show.
Sonnet will be partnering with PTR Distribution to exhibit at the Apple World show in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from March 24 – 25, 2002.
Tech Tip Not able to boot from an IDE hard drive connected to the Tempo ATA 100
Product: Sonnet Tempo ATA 100
Computer Models: 2002 Quick Silver 800 MHz, 933 KHz, and the Dual 1-GHz PowerPC G4’s
Issue: Although the drives are recognized and have the ability to store and retrieve data, you are unable to utilize them as a bootable drive.
What to check: First make sure that the drive is plugged into the correct port on the supplied IDE cable and that it is using the correct jumper settings. Example – When hanging one drive off of the Tempo card it should be plugged into the black port with the blue port plugged into the Tempo card. The black connection is the “Master” port; therefore the drive needs to be jumped to “Master”. If you ever add a drive to this configuration, plug it into the gray port, which is in the middle of the cable and it should then be jumped to “Slave”. Once the correct configuration is verified and you continue to have problems booting off of a valid System folder, the next step would be to check for the version of the “firmware” that is loaded on the Tempo Card. Make sure you have downloaded and installed the latest version of the firmware found here: http://www.sonnettech.com/support/tempoata/default.html.
Solution: Sonnet posted the firmware version 2.2.3 for the Tempo ATA 100 on February 28, 2002. (See: http://www.sonnettech.com/support/tempoata/default.html) This version of the firmware addresses the issue of not being to boot from a valid System folder, along with Mac OS X Version 10.0 support. Please be sure to follow all directions from the web page as well as any others that come up in dialog boxes during the install.
