Cover by Mike Gorman
MyMac Magazine #21, Jan 1997
This Month: Email, Email, and More Email. This Month’s Topic is Email!
Hello, once again, and Happy New Year to everyone out there. I hope 1997 proves to be prosperous and positive for all of you. This month’s topic (yes, I do have one this time around) centers around my favorite Internet use, electronic mail. Let’s get started.
More Than Just Virtual Letters Continue reading »
One of the best things about email is that it allows you to write letters, notes, or memos to friends, acquaintances, and associates. You don’t have to pay postage for these messages, and you don’t have to worry about the postal service delivering it, either. Email is fast, cheap, and efficient. But if the only thing you’re using email for is to keep in touch with friends, you’re missing out.
PlayMaker Football 2.1.4
Company: PlayMaker, Inc.
Shareware: $20.00
E-Mail: playmaker@aol.com
Mike: Even the more casual readers of My Mac have probably picked up on the fact that I am a huge football fanatic. That’s why I have always been disappointed with the lack of sports games available for the Macintosh, both in terms of quantity and quality. Since Electronic Arts and Front Page Sports refuse to port their PC games over to the Mac, I’ve always relied on some other platform, such as the Super Nintendo game system, for good sports games to play.
With PlayMaker Football, that reliance on my old SNES has decreased a little. PlayMaker Football has garnered quite a following among Mac football fans, and after spending a few hours with it, it’s easy to see why. Although it doesn’t quite provide the amount of action and features that games such as the John Madden NFL Football series do, PlayMaker does boast a large variety of options, with an emphasis on strategy, and gives Mac gamers a low-cost, quality gridiron offering.
Adam: Before I say anything about PlayMaker Football, I want you to know that I am not a football fan. Far from it, actually. But I do know a good game when I see one, and PlayMaker Football is a good game! I feel that all Mac gamers should know about this great game. Those who don’t already, that is!!!
Continue reading »
World Wide Web Weaver v2.0
Company: Miracle Software, Inc.
Estimated Price: $89.00
http://www.miracleinc.com
If you’re a long time reader of My Mac, you may remember my review of World Wide Web Weaver v1.1.2 back in issue #17. You may also remember that I was not as pleased with Web Weaver as I thought I would be. Web Weaver 1.1.2 had some missing features that hindered its potential as a champion HTML editor. Well, I have to say that I am nothing but pleased with version 2.0. With version 2.0, Miracle Software has definitely taken a step in the right direction.
New Features Continue reading »
Probably my favorite feature in the new version is that it’s now PowerPC Native. The 68k emulation was really killing me, but that has been fixed now! Web Weaver 2.0 is super fast, and thus has become much more powerful. Another feature that was absent in Web Weaver 1.1.2 was a spelling checker. Web Weaver 2.0 includes a special version of Casaday & Green’s Spell Catcher, a wonderful program for catching all kinds of errors in your spelling and punctuation. Since I have been using Web Weaver 2.0 with the spell checker, I feel that my spelling and punctuation have improved. You may be asking: “How do you know?” Well, I have it set to beep any time a word is misspelled. It beeps quite often!!!
Speech is, by far, one of the neatest features of Macs. It’s also one of the least used. It seems that everybody turns off speech recognition for one reason or another. Some people say it’s too slow while others say it uses too much memory. Not only is it useful, but it’s a lot of fun.
There are two types of speech uses on a Mac. One is Text to Speech (TTS) while the other is Speech Recognition. Combined, these form PlainTalk. Text to Speech is the easiest to use. If you open any speech savvy application, such as SimpleText, you can type and have it read back to you in a variety of voices depending upon your system. There is also a Mexican Spanish TTS system available off the Internet. This allows your computer to read back Spanish with an accent. In PlainTalk 1.5, TTS can read alert boxes that pop up.
While having your Mac talk is fun, it is limited in its use. Speech recognition, the second part of PlainTalk, is where the real fun begins. With this on, you can open files, empty the trash, find out the time and date, close windows, zoom windows and even change the view of windows. Those are just a few of the things the Finder will do. If you have any speech savvy applications, many will be able to be controlled with speech.
Continue reading »
You think your Macintosh is cool now? Wait till you’re done reading this report! Then you’ll really know what a cool Mac is!
All of the following information comes from the “Macintosh Think Tank,” an organization that brings together the latest and greatest minds in the world of Macintosh computing.
The Macintosh Think Tank recently completed its first symposium, which was held in Kent, Washington. The topic of discussion was, “What to expect from the Macintosh Operating System in the year 2007.”
Although attendance at this first gathering of the greatest Macintosh minds in the world was disappointing – possibly due to the fact that the symposium was held on Christmas Day, 1996, the resulting consensus of all participants was astounding, if not earth shattering.
Attending the first annual Macintosh Think Tank Symposium were:
Symposium Chairman: Pete Miner Continue reading »
Think Tank members attending: Pete Miner
Minutes of the symposium recorded by: Pete Miner
Coffee and doughnuts served by: Pete Miner
Post symposium cleanup and floor sweeping donated by: Pete Miner
In this month’s My Mac Interview, I speak with Jason Rainbows, the creator of some of the most uniquely different icons out there in cyberspace awaiting downloading into your Mac. Following this introduction are some of Jason’s unique icon stylings to add a cheerful look and feel to your desktop. And please keep reading, for Jason will reveal a secret known only by him and two others, which he shares for the first time with the readers of My Mac.
My Mac- Jason, thanks for taking the time to sit down and talk with us. Can you provide our readers with some background on yourself, your work and how you first became involved with the Mac?
Jason: I was forced into it by evil publishing moguls. Back in ’83-’84, I worked 90 hours a week at a magazine that used Compugraphic machines for all their typesetting. Ever seen one of those? Looks and sounds like an army tank with little midgets bumping into each other inside. You get one line of, like, 36 characters, all caps, using red LEDs. When it line-returned, and you noticed a mistake a line back, you grabbed page 1 of the copy and started all over again.
Continue reading »
THE BE BUZZ THAT WAS
All the hollering over the Apple/NeXT deal can’t get rid of some previous developments on the Be front. The attention Be was getting from the world as a result of the attention it was getting from Apple led to some interesting developments. Some of the recent reporting on Be: (from Information Week, Dec. 2):
NeXT cost Apple $400 million. One of Be’s main problems was that it had slapped a price tag of $500 million on itself. Apple reportedly wanted a sale price of $100 million. In Infoworld’s December 2nd issue, gossip columnist Robert X. Cringely declared that the $100 million offer was plenty for Be to buzz about. Of course, as pointed out by the November 18th issue of Inter@ctive Week, outright sale of Be to Apple was never the only possibility; licensing the BeOS was also an option for Apple.
Continue reading »
WHO KNEW? Continue reading »
What a nightmare! Actual, true-life research was required for me to write this month’s column! But these things happen with late breaking news. Of course, late-breaking is a relative term when you write for a monthly e-zine. One of the dangers of writing a monthly column concerning a fast-developing industry like the computer industry is that the words you write can become outdated before anyone but your editor reads them. Which is, of course, just what happened to me this month. I had been proud of myself for once again sending off my column to Tim, our publisher, within a day or so of the actual deadline (rumor has it I am often the last of the My Mac staff to submit my work). And then AOL’s News Profile system quietly slipped the news into my e-mail box: Apple Computer had pushed Be Inc. out of the spotlight and bought up NeXT, the computer software company established by the Apple’s founding father, Steve Jobs. I had my suspicions as I scrolled through the first few articles that perhaps this would call for a small addendum to my column. A correction. A tweak here or there. But in the back of my brain, an idea was fighting for attention. It was the idea that I needed to do some actual research to leave my column some integrity. Yes, I would have to pursue the story, not simply let it be delivered to me with the rest of my office mail. As past readers of my column know, I make a column every month by splicing together comments and editorial that the PC press has made about Macintosh and Apple and then throwing in my own humble critiques on those articles. For deadline purposes, however, I took to the Web to rewrite my column this month. Visiting the Websites of some of the major PC publications, this is what I found….
Dear Readers:
As you’re reading this month’s column, I’ll be on the sunny and warm island of Puerto Rico, taking a much looked-forward-to vacation. Sun, museums, warmth … I recommend it for anyone needing a break from your normal (or not so normal!) day to day activities.
To help you in your quest for knowledge, I will be creating a ClarisWorks database containing all the helpful hints you will be reading in “My Mac.” So, if you miss something or want to have your own reference file, just e-mail me with a request. All I ask is that you give me a few months to build the database! Also, it will be an ongoing project. As each issue of “My Mac” comes out, more hints will be added.
Now, on to the good stuff! Last month, I left you with a couple of basic helpful hints that I hope have already helped improve your computer skills. Here’s a couple more…
PowerOS. Another cool name for a free operating system, much like OpenOS on the page before. However, PowerOS is in fact a different operating system, and when this issue went to press, Ben Martz, PowerOS creator, had much more available on his web site. Thanks go out to Ben for taking the time for this interview.
My Mac- With all the talk of a new operating system from Apple and/or Be, and with
the new crop of PPCP machines able to run multi-OS’s, where do you see your OS fitting in?
Ben: I would guess that there will still be a large number of people with the current batch of Power Macintoshes, just as people still have 680×0-based machines these
days. I think that the open architecture and public availability of PowerOS and other projects like it will make them attractive to hobbyists and (I would hope) educational institutions.
My Mac- If someone from the PC side came to you asking for a Intel port of PowerOS, would you be willing to do that?
Continue reading »
OpenOS. Cool name for what we hope will be a successful and great new operating system for your Macintosh computer. Kevin Avila, creator of the OpenOS, took some time to answer some questions for My Mac.
My Mac- With all the talk of a new operating system from Apple and/or Be, and with
the new crop of PPCP machines able to run multi-OS’s, where do you see your OS fitting in?
Kevin: I see the OpenOS on a floppy disk. 
While all the other OS’s are starting to get bigger and bigger, we’re doing our best not to ship OpenOS in a CD pack. We’re trying to keep the base install around 5MB. I came to this decision after hearing that Harmony (Mac OS 7.6) will have a base install of around 90MB. My System Folder is already 200MB+, I don’t need more crap.
My Mac- 5MB would seem a tall order to stay under for a modern operating system. Do you think this can really be done?
Kevin: I think, for a minimal install that this goal is possible, the users will then have a choice to install more “packages.”
Continue reading »
(This article, and the following interviews, were written before the Apple/NeXT deal was made public. Deadlines being what they are, we decided to run these as is.)
Hype
That’s the first word that comes to my mind when thinking of the next OS (Operating System) from Apple. Everyone, it seems, wants it and with good reason. The Mac OS, while still the easiest, most productive, and most customizable computer operating system ever made, is woefully out of date. Yes, out of date. One small bug in the tiniest program can bring your whole system down. Everyone, save perhaps the most newest of users, have had their Mac crash on them at least once. Or, if you use your computer as much as I have, many more times than that. I bet I crash my system, on average, at least five times a week or more. And when you’re trying to get work done, or even play the latest game, that crash will often upset you.
Hype. Apple has been giving us nothing but hype for the next Mac OS for well over two years. When System 7.5 was released, Apple had already leaked information to the press on how great System 8.0 (Copland) would be. Now, more than two years later, we all still sit and wait. And truth be told, we’ll be waiting longer still. Apple has effectively killed Copland, and is now talking to other software companies, such as BE, about porting their operating system to the Mac and calling it good. Who’s to say if this is a good or bad thing? All I know is I’m still out here waiting, and all I hear from Apple is hype.
Continue reading »
NASCAR Racing
Company: Sierra
Estimated Price: $54.95
http://www.sierra.com
By Tim Robertson
First, a little background. In the summer of
1995, I worked as a race track announcer on
the Winston Cup NASCAR circuit. Up until this
time, I didn’t have much experience in racing,
but some as an announcer. I learned much in that
three months, such as Winston Cup racing is the
#1 spectator sport in the USA, who the drivers
were, and more. I also met some of the nicest people I have ever met in the NASCAR fans, as well as some drivers. And, more importantly for this review, I also became a fan.
That said, I can say that as soon as I learned of this game, I decided I had to try it. As I write this, I haven’t yet bought the game, but I plan to. So, for this review, keep in mind that I’m referring to the demo version.
Continue reading »
This month’s article will deal with something I am frequently asked to do to a client’s Mac – tune it up. We’ll discuss what pieces of software your System Folder may or may not need, where to look for them, and what to do with them. Standard disclaimer: “If you are even slightly uncomfortable with any of the following “tasks”, please don’t attempt do it.”
What is the System Folder?The System Folder contains the software parts that your computer needs in order to boot up (turn on), and other software that is used to give your computer certain functionality (such as printing, video and sound). By removing or disabling certain unnecessary parts of it, you can increase the speed of certain functions as well as making other programs much more reliable.
On newer Macs, with System version 7.1 and greater, the System Folder is categorized into several main parts:
Finder
System
Extensions folder
Apple Menu Items folder
Control Panels folder
Preferences folder
Two main things to keep in mind as we move along:
Continue reading »
I’m back from several months of surfing in darkest Africa and have returned an older, wiser Webhead.
In the last year the Web has grown exponentially. It has taken some of the questions I posed in my first few articles and made them reality. (I was jazzed about Real Audio 1.0!) It has also exposed some of the ideas that I might have held in high esteem at that time to be downright silly.
One of the biggest concerns that I had as an Internet retailer was how to lure customers into my store. The prevailing idea a few months ago was that “content was king”. Although this is still one of the main tenets of Web retail, it is no longer a race to put up the biggest site with the most bells and whistles. The focus has shifted–the stores now try to just sell product. If you need help in another area, such as adding content, you look for help. The Web has begun to crystallize. Where there were sites that Continue reading »
did it all a year ago, now we have started to see that Web sites can specialize in what they do best.
“Hmm. . . It just quits on its own?” Continue reading »
“Yup.”
“Well, have you tried rebuilding the desktop?”
“Three times.”
“Well. . .” (long period of silence.) “Have you read the READ ME to see if there’s
anything in there?”
“Yes, many times. There was nothing about this.”
“Hmm. . . Well, let me switch you over to another representative.”
(Elevator music plays for thirty-five minutes.)
“Hello, this is Joe. How can I help you?”
“My application unexpectedly quits on me. This has only started happening today.”
“Hmm. . . Have you rebuilt the desktop?”
“Yes!”
“Have you read the manual?”
“Yes, that’s why I called you. That didn’t help at all.”
“Well. . . Could it be that you installed the program the wrong way?”
“I don’t know, you tell me.”
“Hmm. . . I’m not sure. Sunspots?”
(Click)
Comments. Be heard!
MyMac Podcast #385
MyMac Podcast #384