UGH! I AM GETTING FRUSTRATED, trying to remain objective regarding so many gorgeous new books covering the computer as an artistic tool. It is not easy to do justice to them using words, so please visit your local book emporium to see for yourself.

Caveat: many of the outstanding graphic design books reviewed below are rather expensive, especially outside the United States. For the working artist or designer, the cost of a superior book or software application is not a major concern. Beginners should examine the recommended books in person, or deal with a bookstore that has a reasonable return policy.

 
Step-By-Step Electronic Design Techniques:
The Hottest How-To’s from Top Designers
Edited by Talitha Harper and Sara Booth

Peachpit Press

ISBN 0-201-69672-X, 224 pages
$39.95 U.S., $55.95 Canada

“Step-By-Step Electronic Design” is a monthly 20-page newsletter, featuring cutting-edge techniques for digital projects, based on the leading graphic arts applications. This inspiring book is a “best of” collection.

The term “designer” is becoming overworked, in my opinion, so I want readers to know that the contributors to Step-By-Step Electronic Design Techniques are artists. The book is loaded with attractive examples of their artwork, accompanied by detailed explanations how to achieve the specific effects being illustrated.

All of the featured artists are listed in the back of the book. Their snail addresses and phone numbers are provided, but not their email addresses, websites, or fax numbers (hint-hint).

This large-size book is stunning. You must see it to appreciate the quality of the pictures. The diagrams are linked to the columnar text lessons with bulleted numbers, which are easy to follow. The tutorials are thoughtfully organized by application, starting with Photoshop, and including Painter, Illustrator, Freehand, Ray Dream Designer, and a few more.

Among the 80+ topics are:

• The Human Touch: Maggie Macnab transforms grayscale imagery to glorious color with Indexed Color tables (Photoshop).

• Where Stylus Meets Mouse: Marina Thompson relies on the mouse for precise detail work and a pressure-sensitive tablet for a spontaneous cut-paper look (Illustrator).

• Fast, Friendly Lettering: Dan Hubig uses gradients, clipping paths, and overlays to turn every letter in a headline into a comical illustration (Freehand).

Readers immediately benefit from the expertise of the contributors, with the bonus of being able to take advantage of the promised “step-by-step” presentation.

I am running out of superlatives, so interested artists should run out now and examine Step-By-Step Electronic Design Techniques in person. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for serious artists and genuine designers.

 
Click Here: Web Communication Design
by Raymond Pirouz

and Lynda Weinman

New Riders Publishing

ISBN 1-56205-792-8, 255 pages
$45.00 U.S., $63.95 Canada, £41.49 U.K.

Raymond Pirouz (rpirouz@rpirouz.com) is senior partner of R35 digital design studio (http://www.r35.com). He is an experienced commercial artist and designer in both traditional media and Internet advertising. Lynda Weinman (lynda@lynda.com) is a renowned educator, author, and designer/artist. What a pair!

Click Here is a large size,deluxe, nuts-and-bolts intense course on how to get it right the first time and every time, with such definitive advice as:

• Own both Mac and PC and design for both, and

• Design your site with each major browser in mind.

Pirouz initially delves into technical aspect of the Web, including “GammaRamma” and “Obtaining The Browser-Safe Palette.” Each heavy-stock, high-quality page offers plentiful screen shots and diagrams, numbered sequentially per chapter (2.17, 2.18, 2.19 …). Please explain, though, why a small, delicate sans-serif font is used throughout. Older readers (me) would have appreciated type that is easier to read.

One important point: this book is well-designed. I mean that because it is by and for designers, the publishers have produced a book that looks great, in a refreshing way, from page to page.

Chapter Three is one of my favorites, covering basics such as color, white space, contrast, scale, and typography. The authors demonstrate their points effectively by examining how popular sites, such as Lycos, WebCrawler, and Excite measure up.

For Yahoo!, Pirouz comments:
“The Yahoo! interface is very text driven, and so is the site. This is fine for those who want information—and fast—yet not so good when the mountain of text creates a mountain of information to navigate through. There needs to be a balance. Let’s see if Infoseek does a better job.”

I learned a lot in this chapter!

Chapter Four begins with “The Killer Website (Is Dead)” followed by “Content is King (Not).” In Chapter Five readers learn a bunch of click-through secrets, and Chapter Six deals with the essential tools, starting with your brain, and moving quickly to Illustrator, FreeHand, and Photoshop. Animated GIFs are explained in concise detail. The remaining four chapters complete the procedure. The book concludes with the authors’ personal list of Helpful Online Resources.

I could go on quite a bit longer, but I’ll get to the point. If you want sensible, exciting, lucid professional advice and examples on creating top-notch Web pages, graft this book to your mouse pad. Definitely RECOMMENDED.

 
The Photoshop 4 Wow! Book
by Linnea Dayton and Jack Davis

Peachpit Press

ISBN 0-201-68856-5, 329 pages plus CD
$44.95 U.S., $62.95 Canada

Continuing the successful Wow! series of books on Adobe Photoshop, this latest version offers five kinds of cross-platform information: basic material on tools and functions, short tips, project techniques, galleries of completed examples, and illustrated lists of resources. The latter are enhanced by the included Wow! Actions CD.

The layout of this book is curious, and extremely effective. Each page is divided 1/3 and 2/3, horizontally, with the narrow columns containing workbook-style images and screenshots, and the wide columns containing text describing the corresponding tools and techniques.

Photoshop workers are visually adept, and The Photoshop 4 Wow! Book is probably the most visually loaded book I have ever experienced. The term “overwhelming” would not overstate the quantity and quality of examples offered to readers.

Nine chapters cover an encyclopedic range of subject matter, including Graphics Special Effects, Using Filters, Enhancing Photos, Montage and Color, and much more. The illustrations are absolutely splendid, and the accompanying text is consistently well-written.

Did you ever want to learn about:

• Rotoscoping a QuickTime Movie, or

• Making an Electronic “Woodcut”?

No sweat. Crank up your computer, dive into this Wow! book, spend a few hours being creative and productive, and you are there.

More superlatives: this book/CD is magnificent, a work of art unto itself. Please find it for yourself at the bookstore to experience the skill and care the authors and publisher have put into it. Page after page, lesson after lesson, regular and new users of Photoshop will be kept busy for countless hours absorbing the wisdom and visual gifts in the book and on the CD.

The Image Collections presented at the rear of the book refer to the pictures included on the disk, plus a corresponding list of artists, with email addresses (but no fax numbers or Web URLs). With more Wow! books coming next, I had better take a breather, but not before stating that The Photoshop 4 Wow! Book is (you guessed it) HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Look what I found, at the author’s suggestion, in the Amazon.com listing for this book:

 
The Illustrator 7 Wow! Book, Step-By-Step

by Sharon Steuer

Peachpit Press

ISBN 0-201-68897-2, 240 pages plus CD
$39.95 U.S., $55.95 Canada

Here it comes: a second Wow! cross-platform book from Peachpit Press, this time on Adobe Illustrator 7. All the praise I heaped on the previous book applies to this one also. My respect for Peachpit continues to grow as each book crosses my threshold.

If my ongoing admiration is getting on your nerves, trot down to the bookstore to see for yourself, because The Illustrator 7 Wow! Book is worth the effort. The ten chapters are color-coded to match the corners of the book’s pages, facilitating quick access to chapters on:

• Web, Multimedia, and Animation

• Lines, Fills, and Color

and my favorite chapter,

• The Zen of Illustrator, which advises:

“Treat this chapter like meditation. Take it in small doses if necessary. Be mindful that the purpose of these exercises is to open up your mind to possibilities, not to force memorization.” Examples in this chapter are specifically linked to the included disk, and to a “finger dance” tear out card, in which the keyboard and mouse waltz together for maximum efficiency.

The book is broken into clearly-marked advanced and basic techniques, each of which is described in detail, complete with gallery examples. Pages richly incorporate generous helpings of pictures and text. The total package is a visual delight and easy to put to use on an instructional basis.

Do you wake up agonizing over “Rasterizing artwork for screen” or “When is CMYK not CMYK”? Get a good night’s sleep, and turn to The Illustrator 7 Wow! Book with your morning constitutional. I should build “pauses” into these reviews to represent the fun I’m having with the illustrations and lessons. If Illustrator is your constant companion, this book is certainly RECOMMENDED.

 
The Painter 5 Wow! Book
by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis
Peachpit Press

ISBN 0-201-69651-7, 280 pages plus CD
$44.95 U.S., $62.95 Canada

Oh, no? Oh, yes, a third Wow! book, this time on MetaCreations Painter 5 for both Mac and Win. One reassuring thing I have learned while reviewing these three books is that Macintosh is firmly embedded in the working lives of today’s artists and designers. Please, you creative people, keep using Macs, tell your friends, and let the software developers know we are still here, millions of us.

Dozens of contributing artists offer their stunning work in The Painter 5 Wow! Book, with explicit tips and techniques for the reader at home or in the studio. I enjoy thumbing through the book from back to front, letting the marvelous pictures tease my eyeballs. When I halt on any given page, the descriptive text is consistently worth reading in detail, as on page 164:

“Caty Bartholomew retouched the legs and bulb with the Thin Stroke Airbrush variant, then stretched the figure disproportionally using Effects, Orientation, Scale. To give texture and dimension to the piece, she used Effects, Surface Control, Apply Surface Texture twice: first with Original Luminance; then with Paper Grain and a medium-rough paper texture.”

All the artists are listed in the Appendix, along with relevant reference contact information and a summary of the hundreds of photos and video clips on the included CD. Just try to stop me from screaming, “This Wow! series is terrific.”

The Painter 5 Wow! Book features eleven chapters, hundreds of illustrations and tutorials, and techniques for every level of user. A few chapter headings are:

• Using Painter with Photoshop

• The Power of Color

• Multimedia and Film with Painter

• Printing and Archival Concerns.

The pictures sizzle and the writing sparkles. Do yourself a favor. If you use Painter 5, consider this book HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

So far, we are five-for-five with recommended art and design books. Reading and reviewing them all together feels like eating too much pie followed by too much cake and ice cream. How about something to clear our palette?

 
Investing Online for Dummies
by Kathleen Sindell, Ph.D.

Dummies Press

ISBN 0-7645-0336-7, 326 pages plus CD
$24.99 U.S., $35.99 Canada, £23.99 U.K.

It’s time for true confessions: I get a thrill out of enjoying books for artists and designers, but I am personally on much more solid ground with a Dummies book on a familiar subject such as investing. I had to learn about finances from scratch over ten years ago, when setting up an investment plan for my daughter’s college education, and I continue to keep my eye on the financial horizon as I approach my golden years. (Is there life after 50? I’ll let you know in a couple of months.)

My eye immediately went to the 24 yellow pages between chapters 14 and 15, entitled “Investing Online for Dummies Internet Directory.” Over 100 personally-picked Web sites are categorized, starting with “Analyst Evaluations” and “Basics of Investing,” and ending with “Tax Preparation and Online Assistance.” Thanks for this excellent bonus. Dozens of other sites are mentioned throughout the book.

The author applauds “the folks who put investing information online for the public. They have changed the financial community forever.” I say amen, but I have found that investment resources on the World Wide Web often are accompanied by extensive registration queries and/or request for paid subscription services. My personal advice is to utilize the free sites, which will be sufficient for most mortals.

This book contains five major parts and 20 chapters, encompassing the fundamentals and specifics of online investing, plus “The Part of Tens”:

• Almost ten prerequisites for online investing

• Ten ways to plan a comfortable retirement online

• Ten cybertax tips.

Don’t be fooled by the Dummies moniker, because investing is serious business, and Investing Online for Dummies handles its subject with finesse. Readers can learn how to understand the real cost of mutual fund sales fees, where to obtain free downloadable retirement planners, and how to get investor information from mailing lists. The author has done her homework, and the book is enhanced with screen shots, tips, and charts.

Here’s some hard-learned advice. Smart investing requires both knowledge and time on the part of the investor, regardless of the financial stakes involved. If you are participating in any way with online investing, consider purchasing Investing Online for Dummies sooner rather than later. RECOMMENDED.

The following two books are from Peachpit Press’ Visual Quickstart Guide series. Every month we review one or more of these VQSG books, and they consistently receive our Book Bytes recommendation. So as not to bore regular readers with repeated descriptions of these unusual books, I will make passing reference to their attributes in the context of the books themselves. New readers may want to take a peek at previous VQSG reviews, or examine one of the books in person. Fair enough? Hope so!

 
QuarkXPress 4 for Macintosh,
Visual QuickStart Guide
by Elaine Weinmann Peachpit Press

ISBN 0-201-69623-1, 352 pages
$18.95 U.S., $26.95 Canada

QuarkXPress is a heavy-duty workhorse application, and this new Visual
QuickStart Guide is massive by the standards of the previous VQSG series
books. Let’s begin by identifying a few specific elements in the book:

• New Quark features are itemized and explained, including “Text: Character style sheets (hallelujah!)”

• Quark 4.0 Keyboard Shortcuts tear out card inside rear cover and extensive Appendix B

• An entire Chapter One dealing with “The Basics,” including the QuarkXPress palettes, menus, and screen features, plus sources for third party Xtensions

• Special attention to the many new features in Quark 4.0, such as beziers
for drawing PostScript shapes right inside QuarkXPress; customizable dashes and stripes to use as frames, lines, or paragraph rules; editable clipping paths; Find/Change style sheets; and 15 new tools. (There is a list of new features on the inside cover of the book that users can refer to for more ideas.)

I appreciate a book that begins with: “What is QuarkXPress? QuarkXPress is a page layout application. A page layout application is a central gathering place for text, pictures, lines, and other graphic elements, all of which together compose a page or series of pages.” And so on, for the beginner and intermediate user.

At first glance QuarkXPress 4 for Macintosh appears to be rather austere, but I soon realize that my eyes have been “color-blinded” by the five expensive art/design books reviewed above. For the money, Peachpit’s Visual QuickStart Guides pack plenty of useful material between the covers.

The author’s approach utilizes sets of instructions presented in a step-by-step format, and the book’s thumb tabs, detailed table of contents, and index make it easy to locate specific topics.Tips and keyboard shortcuts are offered on almost every page, with Speed Tip icons scattered throughout the book.

Quark is a “love it or hate it” application. One well-known author feels that: “Quark (the company) doesn’t seem interested in satisfying its customers. It updates software when it wishes. It has poor technical support (and online help in its products). Its upgrades are very expensive. And there’s poor quality control. Adobe is the opposite in almost every respect. PageMaker, once the underdog, is now a superior product.”

I am not able to adjudicate this wrestling match, but I do know that Quark
has more than a few loyal followers, and certainly deserves a first-rate book such as this one.

This book is comprised of twenty substantial chapters, my favorites being:
4/Text Input, 7/Typography, 10/Pictures and Text, 13/Style Sheets,
19/Preferences, and 20/Output. As in all the VQS Guides, the columnar text relates to adjacent screen shots, graphics, and real-world examples.

I’m using restraint so far, but not any more: this book is brilliant. If you
spend more than five minutes per week with Quark and are not yet an expert, buy QuarkXPress 4 for Macintosh and send me a thank-you note. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

and now, to conclude, something very different …

 
Ray Dream Studio 5 For Windows and
Macintosh
Visual Quickstart Guide
by Richard Kahn and Andre Persidsky
Peachpit Press

ISBN 0-201-69671-1, 304 pages
$18.95 U.S., $26.95 Canada

What the heck is Ray Dream Studio, friends? Perhaps this latest Visual Quickstart Guide will help us find out, and then guide us step-by-step into using RDS effectively and creatively.

The Preface informs us that “Ray Dream Studio 5 is the most powerful, affordable and comprehensive 3D graphics modeling, rendering, and animation package available today.” Sounds impressive, don’t you think?

The book contains four main parts, with a total of fifteen chapters, such as:

• Part One, Getting Started: Chapter One, Jump-Starting Ray Dream Studio 5

• Part Two, Modeling 3D Objects: Chapter Nine, Mastering the Mesh Form Modeler

• Part Three, Finishing 3D Objects: Chapter Ten, Using Shaders and 3D Paint

• Part Four, Producing Scenes: Chapter Fifteen, Rendering Stills and Movies

Powerful is right, authors. This application is extraordinary. Can the book help us learn it? All the different Menu Bars, Palettes, and Toolbars are presented, in glorious black and white. The VQSG series rarely suffers from lack of color, and somehow the authors were able to render 3D examples effectively as line drawings.

Here at Book Bytes we attempt to have familiarity with the applications under review (or books covering them). I admit to no familiarity with Ray Dream Studio 5, but from spending an afternoon with this new book, I get it! With a few (hundred) spare hours, I could crank out some truly bizarre 3D artwork, but I promise I won’t.

Suffice it to say that Ray Dream Studio 5 For Windows and Macintosh Visual Quickstart Guide succeeds with lucid text and illustrations, and is RECOMMENDED for beginning and intermediate users of the software.

Thanks again for reading. Next month we will have a series of books on creating Web pages using HTML 4, plus several other titles. Have fun at the bookstore!

FinderPop 1.6.2 
Author: Turlough O’Connor,
Freeware

FinderPop is a small, efficient, and useful program that can enhance your experience with MacOS 8′s contextual menu feature. This control panel works by adding useful menu items to your usual pop-up contextual menus (Control-click in OS 8), such as an optional “Desktop” item to show all the items on the desktop, a “Processes” submenu that allows you to see you available free memory and switch to any other application, a “Finder Windows” menu that is useful for browsing many open windows within the Finder, and various items like “Empty Trash”, “Change Desktop Background” and “New Folder.” In addition to these features, FinderPop also has a “FinderPop Items” folder that can be customized with aliases and programs just like the Apple Menu, and the entire “View” menu for full contextual menu-based control of a window’s appearance. It can even allow a user to click and hold the mouse to bring a contextual menu up instead of having to hold the control key down.

But FinderPop’s abilities don’t even stop there. The user has full control of nearly every aspect of the program, among which are controls for the contextual menu font, pop-up delay, and has a dialog full of custom controls for advanced users who want to fine-tune FinderPop settings. Best of all, FinderPop is completely compatible with existing applications through Apple’s Data Detectors. On the author’s website there are even several localized versions of FinderPop for use on foreign systems.

The new version fixes a bug that caused crashes in rare cases. After a user quit the Finder (from another application or game), the next time a contextual menu was invoked their machine would freeze. However, FinderPop still “forgets” which applications have control-free contextual menu pop-ups enabled—you must recheck the menu item every time you open an application.

The Summary
Overall, FinderPop is an excellent Control Panel that can make contextual menus much easier to use. It’s fast, extensible, fine-tunable, and compatible with most applications. FinderPop is extensible in the sense that it has its own “FinderPop Items” Folder into which you can plunk aliases, apps, and documents. These items appear in any contextual menu, whether it’s in the Finder or any other CM-aware app (even other ones, if you have the Apple Data Detectors installed). And for the cost of absolutely nothing, FinderPop is an enhancement that no user can resist.

Kineticon 1.4.4 
Author: Sherman Uitzetter
Shareware: $10.00

Kineticon 1.4.4 provides a solution to get one of the only features that most OS’s lack: Animated icons. Kineticon is speedy, easy to install, and enhances your desktop nicely, but it takes awhile to load and when not used carefully can easily become an annoyance.

Dancing Desktops
Kineticon is not one of those “must-have” utilities; but it is definitely a wonderful addition to any desktop. Its simple, standard installer takes just one click and a few moments to install. However, the installer doesn’t even recommend the user restart (which Kineticon requires to begin animation) and can easily leave them wondering why it doesn’t work. After the computer is restarted, Kineticon begins its work. Kineticon uses custom files, called “kines”, to store data for the animated icons. To animate an icon, all the user has to do is launch the Kineticon Editor (the “kine manager”), pick an icon to animate, and then copy it from the Kineticon window and paste it onto the desired file/folder/disk’s icon (using the “Get Info” command, clicking on the icon, and pasting). Once the Kineticon Editor is closed, all of the enabled “kines” will start to animate.

Icons Unlimited
However useful Kineticon may be for animating icons in the Finder, it will also animate Finder-standard icons, including the ‘talking face’, the hand STOP sign, and the yellow triangular exclamation point icon. Since these icons are mostly used in dialogs, Kineticon can be used to effectively add a little life to otherwise boring alert screens.

Poor Selection
One major thing that the Kineticon package lacks is an extensive—even decent—selection of Kines. The package only includes a skimpy 25 standard issue Kines. 25 pre-installed animating icons may seem like an adequate number, but after some of the ugly, useless, and otherwise unwanted Kines are filtered out and disabled, most users will be left with only a few decent ones. This is because many of the less well done Kines fit with the System 7 theme but totally clash with the Copland-esque look and feel of OS 8, while others are grainy, obvious magnifications of smaller animations. A couple are taken from other shareware programs, and the rest that fall below expectations are just plain unattractive and pointless for most users.

Editing Woes
The only other thing that Kineticon lacks overall is a good Kine editor. An excellent, intuitive editor could counteract its skimpy selection of pre-made Kines, but the editor remains above the casual user’s reach. Advanced users, especially those familiar with pixmap masks, bitmap faces, and ResEdit-style icon editing (without the paint tools) can probably get accustomed to the editor, but the task is far from easy. Most will shy away from using the editor, leaving the user with a few good Kines and not much use for Kineticon at all. Were it included, an Apple Guide would have gone a long way in helping to make the process of editing icons simpler and easier to understand.

Minor Quirks
Kineticon is an otherwise exceptionally well conceived and written interface enhancement, but it has its fair share of minor (mostly aesthetic) bugs. For instance, the transparent dragging feature found on PowerMacs running System 7.5.3 (or above) conflicts slightly with Kineticon, causing icons to be improperly drawn while they are being dragged. (If you must know the technicalities, the file’s icon is drawn with the original icon’s mask and the current animated Kineticon icon’s face, which could result in a masked area that can cut off parts of the icon, and expose other white areas that are not supposed to be drawn.) Also, if you place an animated icon on your startup drive you may notice that its original icon is not completely replaced and simply draws the animation of top of it. The same side effect can occur when closing a disk with an animated icon.

There is also an confusing, semi-useful “toggle” feature in the Kineticon Editor, to turn Kines on and off. This feature can cause slight confusion because if you paste an icon that is supposed to be animated by Kineticon onto a file, it will not be animated unless its corresponding “kine” is enabled in the Editor. This feature was probably added to conserve memory by removing unused Kines, but it can become a point of confusion for the unaware.

The Summary
In the big picture, Kineticon’s advantages outweigh its shortcomings by far. The new version fixes numerous crashing bugs, especially on 680×0 (68K) Macintoshes, as well as removing the Editor’s dependency on Internet Config. It is now much more compatible with a variety of system configurations. Nearly everyone will find that Kineticon can add much welcomed liveliness to the Mac OS. Happy, bouncing icons will soon grace your desktop, dialogs and Finder windows. But if you don’t download more kines or learn how to make your own, Kineticon loses much of its value and potential usefulness.

•Jason Kim•

URLs

As all of you out there are aware, summer is here, and with it all of the fun that it brings. Great weather, sunny beaches, grassy baseball diamonds, picnics in the park, cool water in the swimming pool–all leisure activities with a fun factor of 100%.

With that idea in mind, we’ve decided to showcase two games that also follow that idea. Mars Rising, from Ambrosia Software, and Project Magellan, from Plaid World, are both awesome scrolling space shoot-em-ups with nothing but fun in mind. There are no mazes and maps to worry about, no puzzles to figure out before you can advance to the next level, and certainly no brain teasers. Just fly your ship and blast everything in sight. These games have a fun factor of 100%, too, so disengage your brain and enjoy!

Adam: Wow Mike, you really said it all there! So, no reason to ramble. Here we go…

Mars Rising 1.0
Company: Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Shareware: $20.00
http://www.marsrising.com

Mike: I’ve been complaining since day one
about the lack of quality scrolling-shoot-em-ups for the Mac. There are plenty of good non-scrolling shooters (Space Invaders, Galaga, and Centipede clones, such as Ambrosia’s own Apieron and Swoop) out there, but they just aren’t the same. Does the notion of flying a spaceship that can’t travel anywhere strike anyone else as a little dumb?

Adam: It strikes me as very dumb, let me tell ya! Scrolling shooting games have the sense of adventure that still/fixed shooting games don’t. With scrolling shooters, you never know what’s coming next, what’s around the next corner, and, well, you get the point!

Mike: The awesome folks at Ambrosia Software have come to our rescue by releasing Mars Rising, a simply stunning vertically scrolling shooter that is sure to please. Adam, you want to set the story line for this game?

Adam: Of course not, Mike! It’s all you…

Mike: Whatever you say, Adam! In the year 2084, the Mars Colony has decided that it’s had enough of playing second fiddle to the folks back on Earth, and they’ve decided to do something about it. As usual, the task of repressing the entire rebel army falls directly on the shoulders on one or two individuals. Armed with the Vac-Fighter, one of the most highly advanced combat ships in existence, you have to fight through 28 levels or Martian uprising, emerge victorious, and play the part of the hero.

Adam: Bravo, well put, Mike. No game would be truly complete without its share of bells and whistles. In Mars Rising, after you kill certain enemies, stars are left behind which you can pick up for points/lives. And once you accumulate enough points, you will get an extra life, and believe me, you’ll need them. Also left behind after enemies are killed are items such as auto fire, rear fire, bombs, speed, etc., which all enhance your arsenal and make the game play that much more exciting.

Mars Rising also has its share of options. You can set detail, like shadows, music and sound options, and key sets, so different players can have different key combinations when they play two-player games. And all these key sets are saved, so you can recall them instantly.

Mike: The game supports all kinds of joysticks and game pads, so you aren’t restricted to using the keyboard or mouse, and as Adam mentioned, two players can also play the game at once in a cooperative fashion. The fact that only the first four levels are available without registering is kind of few of Ambrosia’s games have any “crippled” or “demo” features, and I was a a bummer–very little disappointed to see them take that route with Mars Rising–but once you finish that first quartet of levels, you’ll be itching to play the other two dozen.

Requirements/Availability
Mars Rising requires a PowerPC processor (80Mhz 601 or 100Mhz 603 recommended), 7500Kb free RAM, a 640×480 monitor with 256 colors or greater, Mac OS 7.5.5 or later, and Sound Manager 3.1 or later. Ambrosia also recommends a joystick or game pad, especially in 2 player games, but I found I had much more control with the keyboard.

You can download Mars Rising from the special Mars Rising Web site, at .

The Summary
Mike: Mars Rising is a winner in my book. It’s an awesome game because it does everything right. From downright gorgeous graphics–notice the shadows of the ships on the ground below, and the craters and marks left behind from bombs that have been dropped–to an excellent, crank-it-up soundtrack, Mars Rising has it all; it should be listed in the dictionary under the word “polished.” You’ve got to try it out to see for yourself, that’s all there is to it. My check for twenty bucks is already in the mail.

Adam: I haven’t played a game as downright stunning as Mars Rising in a long time. From the minute I launched the program I was impressed. Great music, graphics, story line, and game play make this game a winner, and it’s bonus items keep you on your toes. Though it uses a “crippleware” approach, four levels are enough to let you make the decision to pay your $20.00, an asking price that is somewhat modest for this top quality game.

Download Mars Rising 1.0.1

Project Magellan 2.0.2
Company: Plaid World Software
Shareware: $29.00
http://www.plaidworld.com

Mike: Project Magellan does for horizontally
scrolling shooters what Mars Rising does for vertically scrolling ones. This game is in the mold of such arcade classics as R-Type and Gradius, and it is simply awesome.

Adam: My first impression of Project Magellan wasn’t great, considering its first startup panel and game loading progress bar are a little less than eye pleasing, but once you are past them, the game play, which is what counts, is breathtaking. Mike, the story line please?

Mike: Of course, Adam. It’s 1000 years after Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the globe (which means the story takes place sometime in the middle of the next millennium; the exact date wasn’t in the Read Me, and I wasn’t going to look it up!), and so people thought it would be cool to commemorate the occasion by sending a fleet of starships out to explore the galaxy. Problem is, it seems like a bunch of aliens decided that was a bad thing for us to do, and so they attacked the fleet while it was on its voyage. Two of our fighter ships took the offensive, and the aliens escaped through a conveniently close wormhole. The two good guy ships followed them through the wormhole, and now they’ve found themselves in between a rock and a hard place… or a worm hole and bunch of angry aliens, whatever the case might be. Anyway, good luck in piloting our troops through the enemy forces and getting them out alive!

Adam: Project Magellan plays a little different, as you gain points when you pick up what is left behind after killing an enemy. But the concept is still the same. There are lots of bonus weapons, and like Mars Rising, Project Magellan is very customizable. You can set music and graphics options, controls for both players, and different skill levels.

Mike: This game, like Mars Rising, features stunning graphics and a great soundtrack. If you have the horses, playing the game in 16-bit color with all the graphics options turned on is quite an experience, as is the beautiful QuickTime movie intro. Project Magellan also has a two player option, several cheat codes, and a level editor.

Requirements/Availability
Project Magellan requires a PowerPC or 68040 processor, a 640×480 monitor with 256 colors or greater, 8MB of free RAM for 8-bit color (256), 14MB of free RAM for 16-bit color (thousands), and QuickTime 2.0 for movies. If you choose to buy the full version you’ll need a 2X CD-ROM drive and 60MB of free hard disk space.

You can download Project Magellan at the Plaid World Software Web site, at . There a couple of download options, which is nice, because the full download is huge. (The full demo takes 22MB on my hard disk, the small demo clocked in at over seven, and the documentation says the full version takes over sixty and ships on a CD-ROM.)

The Summary
Mike: There’s not much more to say; this is another game that must be seen to be believed. All Mac gamers should check out Project Magellan; it’s some of the best arcade action available.

Adam: There’s simply not much you can say about Project Magellan that isn’t good. It’s a well rounded game that I am happy to have had the opportunity to review. $29.00 may seem steep, but Project Magellan is worth every bit of it.

Download Project Magellan 2.0.2

What About Shooters for Lower-End Macs?
Mike: I realize that the system requirements for these two games are a little steeper than our usual fare; Mars Rising is PowerPC only, and Project Magellan should be also–I felt it ran unacceptable slow on my ’040-based LC 575, but I also only have 8MB of physical RAM on that machine, so it may just be that it doesn’t work well with RAM Doubler.

Don’t worry that we’ve forsaken the lower-end crowd just because I jumped into PowerPC land this past month (see Wall Writings in this issue); we’ll be sure to continue to include some games that will run on any Mac in the future. The opportunity to review some amazing games that require a little more horse power is far too tempting to pass up, though; plus, we’d be doing a disservice to our readers who have new computers if we didn’t show them what was available. Now that we can choose games from all ends of the spectrum, more than ever we’d like to hear from our readers as to what games you’d like us to review.

Adam: We do have some exciting reviews ahead of us. We also hope to hop into commercial games very soon, so stay tuned.

Mike: As for this month, there aren’t many scrolling shooters for 680×0 Macs that I’m aware of. Last year we reviewed Foobar Versus The DEA, from Funner Software, and I think that it’s probably still your best bet for a less hardware-intensive winner. Otherwise, there are plenty of quality non-scrolling shooters (such as the ones I alluded to at the beginning of this article) that will run on almost any Mac. Besides, every good Mac gamer should have a copy of Swoop on their hard drive!

One final note before signing off this month: for science fiction fans who want a little more thinking and a little less violence in their games, Ambrosia has released a much-hyped sequel to one of the most popular Mac shareware games ever. Escape Velocity: Override should be available for download as you read this, and it promises to be even more immersive and addicting than the first one. I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet, but I would expect nothing less than near perfection.

Well, you got a bonus portion of Game Guys this month; this is quite a bit longer than our usual column. So, we better let you guys quit reading and start playing your games, eh? Have a great summer, and see you next month!

Mike Wallinga
mikew@mymac.com
Adam Karneboge
webmaster@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.marsrising.com
http://www.plaidworld.com

(Editor’s note: We hope you enjoy this second installment. John’s first series of Selected Short Subjects appeared in the March, 1998 “Nemo Memo.”)

On April 27, 1997, the final MacSense CD-ROM disk arrived in my snail box here in Tucson. At the time I was not aware that Chris McVeigh, the publisher of MacSense, had decided to terminate his outstanding Mac-ezine, but I found out a few days later.

Chris went through a low-profile year, and he has resurfaced at MacHome Journal http://www.machome.com as Editor at Large and Producer of the new monthly MacHome CD-ROM disk. Meanwhile, Ed Prasek, formerly an editor working under Chris at MacSense, is now the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief at the very same MacHome Journal.

You can draw your own conclusions about the chain of events leading to this apparent reversal of fortunes. The fact remains that both these talented, hard-working Mac media men have joined forces once again.

(More on the MacSense CD)

I have had a full year to become familiar with the contents of the last MacSense CD, V4.02. Here is a view of the top-level window:

The little light bulb icon represents the current CD version of MacSense, a DOCMaker Mac-ezine, which, with QuickTime interviews, tutorials, and Chris’ clever art and design, was always substantially larger than the download version. The other five generic folder icons contain files, as indicated by their names.

For example, the Shareware folder contains 31 items, including: Informinit 1.3, Ircle 3.0b8, GraphicConverter 2.8 (US), and Hornet STRIKE! Missions 2.0. The Apple Updates has 19 items, such as: Mac OS Runtime for Java 1.0.1, QuickTime MPEG Install, and Open Transport 1.1.2. You get the basic idea, so far.

This CD is, in fact, a powerful software library, containing over 500 MB of the “latest and greatest” applications, utilities, and demos current in April, 1997. I still make use of a surprising quantity of this software, and I reference the disk on a regular basis, especially for friends and neighbors who relish their older systems.

(Switching gears to MacHome Journal)

I have been a subscriber to MHJ for four years now, and I just renewed my subscription. But have you looked at it lately? There is not much heft to the print magazine, although the Web site is improving every month. As Apple develops more outstanding products, MHJ may expand with new ads and articles.

Unless your pockets are very deep, and your patience and optimism are boundless, this is a grim period to be in the Macintosh print magazine publishing business. For free, given the time and WWW access, intrepid aficionados can immerse themselves in Macintoshiana every waking moment, including: MacCentral http://www.maccentral.com, MacFixIt http://www.macfixit.com, Macintouch http://www.macintouch.com, and about a thousand other Web sites or newsgroups. Macworld http://www.macworld.com and MacToday http://www.mactoday.com exemplify the strategic presence of conventional magazine content on the Web, enhanced with endless site and software links.

During the past two years, Ed Prasek became the dynamic guiding force at MacHome Journal. Chris McVeigh now handles the Back to Basics columns that Ed pioneered so effectively, such as New Owners, and Tips & Tricks. With the MacHome CD, I expect their goal is to gain market share among the dwindling Macintosh magazine-buying public. Good luck, gentlemen.

Some more background
The timing of the arrival of MacAddict (the magazine, the CD, and the Web site) dealt a heavy blow to Chris McVeigh’s ambitions, during the months in 1996 and 1997 when he hoped MacSense would become a major publication (ezine, Web site, and CD). MacAddict is certainly holding its own, and has a loyal following. Personally, it’s a bit too “fresh” for my bald head, but the content is consistent, and often of high quality.

Where does MacHome Journal fit in? Ed appears to be continuing his predecessors’ focus on the home and home-office user of individual Macs. The articles are not comprehensive, but they are timely and easy to understand for newbies and intermediates. I’m glancing at the May, 1998 issue, with features on QuickTime 3.0, voice recognition, and “Apple’s New Marketing Appeal” in Bob LeVitus’ column, The Last Word. Go, Bob, go!

(What about the MacHome CD, Nemo?)

The CD entitled MacHome 98.05, is attractively designed, and has over 600 MB of software, in the categories:

Software Updaters

and two bonuses: a RealPlayer program called Mactalk Radio Show, described as “an Internet broadcast that brings you all the Macintosh news, commentary and opinion you need to get you through the week”; and StarPlay Exclusives, “an exclusive gift to readers courtesy of StarPlay Productions: “Crystal Caliburn”, the award-winning pinball game for the Macintosh, completely FREE of charge.”

Mac OS 8.1 Update is a 28MB file, one of 17 in the Apple Updates area. CyberStudio Installer and Eudora Pro 4.0 Installer are two of the 15 items in the Internet Essentials section. The remaining software areas are comparably loaded. I am impressed.

Nemo’s parting thoughts
MacHome Journal is aiming high with its CD and the upgraded Web site. The future of the magazine is, well, in the future.

Now don’t start reminding me that all this software can be downloaded for free off the Internet. For most mortals, those long multi-MB file transfers are a royal pain. I have always preferred my software to arrive on removable media: floppy, CD, or Zip disks. End of discussion.

I wish the entire MHJ team all the best for 1998 and beyond. My advice: find your market, work the crowd, satisfy your audience, and continue to offer superior content and design. Suggestion: get Chris more involved with the art and graphics, because he is good!

As soon as I submitted the MacHome article to our My Mac editor, I received the following message:

We wish Ed the very best in his future endeavors.

In honor of Father’s Day this month, the Nemo Memo presents a message from Nemo #1, or Big Nemo, otherwise known as John’s father, in his own words:

From: Dad, lennem@aol.com

Subject: Mac Geniuses / Nemo Memo / June 1998

To: John Nemerovski

Hello, Nemo Memo readers. I am Leonard Nemerovski of Wilmette, Illinois, USA. John is the eldest of our three children. He has graciously offered me a few words in his regular My Mac column so that I can say my hello to each of you personally. My address is lennem@aol.com.

Today is May 12, 1998 and it is my 73rd birthday. But with time as we know it, being counted in nanoseconds, in millenia, in dog years, and now, with Viagra, in perpetual youth, I can relate my computer-years to about the fourth grade level.

I am not a Mac person. I have never touched a Mac or, I think, been in the same room with one.

My computing goes back a bit about 20 years. I began with the infamous Bill Cosby Texas Instruments TI 99-4A, $50, desktop machine, to which I attached a cassette recorder plus a massive television set to act as my monitor. I had more than one hundred cassettes, each with a different program. I think that I had 16K of memory, and the machine took an hour to sort any data that I had input. But it was fun.

During the intervening years I upgraded my hardware twice. All in “PC.” I started with a 386 and an early version of Windows. I had AOL, with a slow modem. I was a DOS man. I used Quattro Pro as my spreadsheet, and Professional Write as my word processor. I was just not smart enough to use an integrated Microsoft program for all of my operations.

During these formative years I was guided by five major computer gurus. My first instructor, Reeva, was a school teacher who moonlighted as a visiting help person, while her husband baby-sat with their two young children. Next, my tennis playing buddy, Seymour, gave me almost one hundred DOS programs, and helped me to load and learn to operate them. I became adept at making and using BAT files to call up each program at a touch of a few keystrokes.

Then I found young Sam through the local high school, where he juggled his work load of five accelerated freshman courses, studied for his forthcoming Bar Mitzvah, and played Little League baseball. Because he was only twelve and could not drive, I would pick him up after school and take him home, and he would patiently teach me all that he knew about computing. Which was much more than I knew.

Bob, my fourth instructor, at Senior Net in the local community center, was the best teacher that I had since law school. He gave me an insight and perspective into AOL that I did not believe possible I could understand and put into practice. And finally there is my friend JR, who can walk on water, the way he unscrambles the messes that I get into as I wander about the maze that is computing.

It is JR who junked my 386 and custom built for me a new 486. We rejected the Pentium, because this was the time of the first edition by Intel, and we were afraid that this early Pentium would crash on me. That was a mistake, but not my first or last. JR has upgraded my original 486 more than a few times.

He increased my hard drive from 700 MB to 2,500 MB. I have a new 56K modem, a double-speed CD-ROM, and I still use Windows 3.1. I will not go to Windows 95, nor to 98, because I am comfortable with what I have.

I resist change and I treat my computer as my enemy who can turn on me at any time. So I tread lightly.

Until recently, I was using a separate local Internet provider, Interaccess, with Netscape as my browser. But it was my son, and your columnist, John, who taught me last April 10 (which incidentally was our 52-year wedding anniversary) all the glories of AOL 3.0 and the Microsoft Explorer Browser, with the easy integration among email, the Web, Favorite Places replacing Bookmarks, and the wonders of the vastly improved AOL 3.0.

You who are Macgeniuses may be way ahead of me in these areas, but John was able to transfer his knowledge of the Mac to teach his old father how to make the transition to my new computer skills, and I have gotten more proficient.

I get a lot of email. From AOL I get a lot of junk email. I do not mind it.

I have learned how to highlight a Web site address on incoming email, use the control-C to copy the URL, open up my Explorer window, use the control-V to paste that new site address, and “enter” to have the Web find the site for me; then to bookmark it with Favorite Places, and to make this whole sequence a piece of cake.

I write a weekly “family letter” to my three children and their spouses, and to my seven grandchildren. Our family is spread from coast to coast: Princeton, New Jersey; Chicago, Illinois; Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor, Michigan; Tucson, Arizona; Tacoma and Olympia, Washington.

We have grandchildren working as a telecommunications facilitator, a hair stylist, three in college, and two in high school. I feel closer to my family with email than I could possibly get any other way. It is as if we all live in the same house, which we virtually do with our email.

My most recent discovery came from my email friend, Jim Coates, who writes a regular column for the Chicago Tribune, and who helped me solve the problem of my AOL constantly asking if I wanted to stay on line. Jim referred me to an Web address where I ordered my AOL AntiTimer. I now can stay on line all day, watching both for “You have mail” and the business news on my Personal Yahoo Page. I contacted Order44@juno.com and was very satisfied with that AOL AntiTimer. John says there is something called AlwaysOnLine for the Macintosh, but I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot mouse pad.

I will say goodbye for now. Thank you for letting me intrude my grey hair and my kindergarten level PC style upon all of you sophisticated Macgeniuses. I know that each of us would have it no other way.

Best wishes lennem@aol.com father of nemo@mymac.com.

Well, Dad, Happy birthday, plus Father’s Day, and PC/AOL day to you. Will you start reading My Mac Magazine now that you are a guest Nemo? I certainly hope so!

John

---

John Nemerovski
nemo@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.machome.com
http://www.maccentral.com
http://www.macfixit.com
http://www.macintouch.com
http://www.macworld.com
http://www.mactoday.com

TechTool Pro 2.0
Company: MicroMat Computer Systems, Inc.
Estimated Price: $99.99
http://www.micromat.com

It’s not very often that a really good diagnostic utility comes
around, and until TechTool Pro 2, Norton Utilities was my choice for fixing problems with my Macintosh. I had TechTool Pro 1.0, but it didn’t do much more than diagnose my problems, which wasn’t a huge help to me. However, that has all changed with TechTool Pro 2. TechTool Pro 2 is my new utility of choice, and it leaves Norton Utilities with much to be desired.

Testing, and then some…
TechTool Pro 2 can test any, and I mean, any component of your Macintosh. From your ADB port to your ZIP drive and everything in between, TechTool Pro 2 will test it, and if problems are found, will either fix them or give you “advice” on how to fix them.

The real beauty of TechTool Pro 2 is that it can correct many of the problems it finds. It will repair a multitude of disk problems that can affect B-Trees, Master Directory Blocks, Extents, File Allocation Blocks and many other file related problems. And TechTool Pro 2 is the only utility currently available that will correctly diagnose and repair Mac OS Extended (HFS+) formatted hard disks.

File Recovery
TechTool Pro 2 also allows you to recover lost volumes when disaster strikes, and have you up and working again in a few minutes. If the damage is too severe, it will recover all the lost files to another hard disk. Accidentally deleted files are also easily recovered. You can search by name or example, and it will be recovered within minutes.

This is all made possible by the new TechTool Protection control panel. With this control panel, TechTool Pro 2 can record and back up vital file data to make future recovery a snap. You can specify how frequently and when you want your data recorded, so you can have it record at times when you won’t be using your computer.

A new approach
TechTool Pro 2 is even more user-friendly than the first version, since you now you have the option to choose between two different interfaces: Standard and Expert. The standard interface has four categories: Drives, Chips, RAM, and Other. In the standard interface, all tests pertaining to these four categories are preselected for you, so you don’t have to have any technical knowledge to diagnose and fix a problem.

The expert interface gives you total control over what components you want to test, what tests you want to run, how complex those tests are, and in some cases, whether or not it should fix the problem. By being able to select certain tests only, you can isolate the problem quicker and more efficiently. The expert interface also has an “Auto-Pilot” option, which lets you select which tests to run, how many times to repeat the tests and whether to restart the machine in between test sessions. When the Auto-Pilot session is completed, you can optionally have the program shut down the machine. This is truly a great feature, especially if you want to leave your computer while it is testing, and not have to worry whether or not the tests are being run properly.

Requirements/Availability
TechTool Pro requires a Macintosh Plus or above, System software version 7.0 or better, a hard disk drive, and a minimum of 4 megabytes of RAM. You can purchase TechTool Pro 2 direct from MicroMat, at http://www.micromat.com or from The MacZone, 1-800-248-0800, at http://www.maczone.com.

The Summary
I really can’t say enough about TechTool Pro 2. Its ability to correctly diagnose problems, fix those problems, and recover lost data all in one application is amazing. TechTool Pro 2 offers ease of use that is unmatched by any utility today.

Some people may think that $99 is a little too much to ask for this utility, but I sure don’t! I have much better things to do than waste my time on a broken computer. Hats off to MicroMat. I highly recommend TechTool Pro 2 for anyone that wants to keep their Macintosh trouble free.

MacMice Rating: 4

Adam Karneboge
webmaster@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.micromat.com
http://www.maczone.com

Sulky thought it very chivalrous of the Apple CEO to offer his mansion as a place she could recover from the byte of the DogCow. She also saw it as a way to learn more about him as well as his connections with the DogCow project. Her left ankle still throbbed with pain and the doctors from the Genetics Labs at Stanford wanted to keep her under observation for several days. After finishing her reports to the Agency on the whole affair, she had lots of time to snoop around a bit, enjoy the grounds, the pool, hot tub, and to catch up on her reading.

Besides the soreness of her ankle, Sulky felt a bit different. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she seemed continuously flushed and more conscious of her femininity than ever before. At first she thought it was a combination of the rare free time and the continuing pain that made her focus on herself. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Her body felt, well… full… and on occasion she set out to explore feelings her intellect had discarded years ago.

Saturday morning she was lounging in the hot tub and just starting Jim Carlton’s APPLE – THE INSIDE STORY OF INTRIGUE, EGOMANIA, AND BUSINESS BLUNDERS when she heard a lot of commotion from the front of the house. She quickly stepped out of the tub, threw a white terry cloth robe on, tucked her blue-steel, snub-nosed.38 Detective Special in her pocket, and went to investigate.

The President had arrived accompanied by some five Secret Service agents. The agents went about the business of securing the house while the President fixed himself a carrot juice at the bar in the Rec room. Not knowing who these people were, Sulky barged into the room to confront the situation.

"Why hello," said the President, "and exactly who do we have here?"

At that precise moment a Secret Service agent stepped in front of Sulky and asked her to raise her hands while he frisked her (Usually this would have been accomplished by a female agent, but considering the President’s ‘problems’ none were assigned to this detail) He quickly found the.38 and was about to cuff Sulky, when the President ordered…

"Leave her alone; she’s okay."

"Sorry, I can’t do that sir…not until I know she’s been secured."

The agent then continued to frisk her and immediately detected that there was nothing—certainly nothing threatening—beneath her robe. Meanwhile Sulky blushed a deep crimson as the agent asked for ID.

"I’m Agent Nada Sulky of the FBI… My credentials are in my handbag in the front room. I’m authorized to carry that weapon and I had no idea the President would be arriving here."

"By the way," she whispered to the agent, "could we talk later?"

"Check her ID and then leave us alone," ordered the President.

"Thank you Mr. President," said Agent Sulky.

"Can I call you Nada?," asked the President.

"Well, sir, actually no one calls me by my first name. It’s as if it’s meant to be that way. You can call me Sulky."

"If you’d like, you can just call me Willie," answered the President. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

Sulky was taken aback by the presence of the President and was furiously weighing options in the back of her mind, while filling in blanks in the conversation, On a professional level, she considered this an enormous opportunity to discover possible connections between the White House and the apparent computer conspiracy. And on another, dark and fleeting but real level, she sensed a personal opportunity here to grab a small piece of fame.

"Well, Mr. President, I mean…’Willie,’ that’s a very long story and I was just going to ask you the same question. I was in the hot tub when you arrived. Would you like to join me?"

The agent who frisked Sulky and accompanied the President everywhere had been recruited by the Office of the Special Prosecutor months ago. He was fiercely loyal to the President and dedicated to his job. However, an irregularity had turned up in his 1995 tax return. In fact, it was no irregularity, as he had lied about a $2,000 contribution to charity. He claimed he had donated the money, but he had no receipt to prove it. The Office of Special Prosecutor had informed him that at the minimum, he would certainly lose his job if the grand jury chose to indict him. He left the President and Sulky in the Rec Room and called his handler from a phone in the hallway.

Mutter felt alone and frustrated. He had been placed in virtual internal office exile since the incident at Cupertino and he had just about had it with Agent Sulky. Once again, she had traded the obvious explanation for the credible. The tie-in between the sound that beast made and his sister’s scrabble letters was a ‘coincidence’ and the DogCow was an example of genetic engineering that might have been illegal, but in Sulky’s words ‘hardly alien.’ The DogCow’s byte was worse than its MOOF and Sulky played her injury and heroic escape to the hilt.
She had been bitten, but had managed to wound and scare off the DogCow with a pair of office scissors. At the least she would be a guest in the CEO’s Palo Alto estate for a few more days and Mutter wouldn’t have to deal with her self-indulgent cynicism.

Ironically, Mutter had escaped physically unharmed by the ferocious attack, but was in dire pain psychologically. He was so close to so many answers and yet it seemed the closer he got, the less believable he became. After the grand inquisitions over the past few days, he had finally focused on the possibility of leaving the Agency and pursuing the truth as a private citizen.

Mutter still refused to go online with his office system. He knew they were still out there and they were monitoring his movements, and an INTERNET connection was like a beacon to their probing ‘bots. Instead, he asked his fellow workers to print out all news related to the happenings in Cupertino and Redmond. A few of the other agents in the office felt sorry for Mutter, while others humored him… they all religiously printed every word they found related to his case. As it turns out, Mutter and a certain powerful man in Washington probably read the news at about the same time:

*****
(ATAT/4/98, Palo Alto)
President Clinton to Stay at Steve Job’s Estate in Cupertino
The White House today announced that President Clinton would be the guest at Steve Job’s Palo Alto home while fund-raising in California and spending time with his wife and daughter Chelsea.
*****

As Mutter stared at the news and tried to understand, the sharp ring of his phone startled him. The Director, who had open disdain for the Why Files Task Force, directed him to report to the office of Special Prosecutor that afternoon. Mutter seemed stunned as he placed the Cupertino file in his briefcase and walked out of the office.

Agent Mutter decided he needed to think this through prior to his afternoon meeting and returned to his apartment for a spam sandwich and a glass of skim milk. He flicked the TV on and sat in his favorite chair and just tried to process what was happening around him. "Why would Sulky agree to stay in Palo Alto and what was the President doing there?" he wondered. "And what does the Special Prosecutor want to see me about?"

Mutter had bitten off more than he could chew—literally—and coughed a small piece of spam into his napkin. His reverie was broken by the image of an odd-looking computer on the television. The whole system seemed to glow and neither the keyboard nor mouse was attached to the unit. It looked distinctly like the sketches he had taken from people who claimed they were kidnapped by UFO’s. He grabbed his remote and flicked off the mute.

The CEO of Apple Computer was just saying "… it looks like it came from another planet—a good planet, one with great industrial designers!"

"Damn it!," Mutter said aloud, "The sheer arrogance."

By joking about the actual origin, the charlatan had insured that no one would ever consider that possibility.

The President returned from the changing room wearing Hawaiian boxers and a Macworld Expo T-shirt. Sulky simply stripped off her robe and eased into the hot tub. The President averted his eyes as the velvety hot water slipped over her nude body.

"Willie," Sulky asked in her bedroom voice, "What would you like to talk about?"

"I’m glad you asked that, Sulky. I’d like to talk about the poor, the disadvantaged, and the hungry, and I’d like you to give me your insights as a federal agent into how we can make things better."

"Yes, but Willie…well…I’m interested in all that, of course, but right now I have to tell you that your agent frisking me kind of turned me on."

"Sulky…I hope you’re turned on to our agenda for my second term. We’re trying to accomplish a lot and with the help of citizens like you, we can certainly do it."

Sulky was baiting the President and he seemed to resist. If she could get him to loosen up, maybe he would talk a little.

"Willie, I can’t help noticing that bulge in your shorts—right beneath the palm tree. I see why they don’t call you Wee Willie!"

"You can’t see it from here, Sulky, but we’re erecting buildings all over the country. We’re trying to use federal resources to house the poor, to jump start industry, and to make this country great again.

"Man," she thought, "He’s so darn innocent. I’m getting nowhere. Maybe the direct approach will work better. Mr. President what can you tell me about Jobs?"

"You know, I’m glad you asked that question. Jobs are what this administration is all about. Let me make three points. The first step in creating more jobs is to balance the budget; Second ….."

Twenty minutes later…

"Willie, it’s embarrassing for me to say this, but I was recently bitten on the ankle and it’s very sore."

"Oh…would you like me to kiss it?" he asked.

"Well…okay…it might help."

"By the way, Sulky, if you ever consider leaving the FBI, we have a few intern positions open at the White House."

The Special Prosecutor, Ben Parr, was generally known as the most powerful person in Washington—particularly around the Special Prosecutor’s Office. He had come a long way from that two-bit town in Texas and he wanted everyone to know it. He was a deeply religious man and read the bible every morning – right after he scoured the Washington Post for any mention of his name. He religiously clipped each story and pasted it in a scrapbook that he kept under his bed. Then he said a little prayer of thanksgiving that he was, after all, himself.
He was changing the world in his own way and on his own terms and it didn’t get much better than that. He was intent on eradicating sin in its various guises and no one, absolutely no one was above his law. All of those beautiful people…all the athletes and beauty queens and popular heroes who ignored him all his life, could no longer look the other way. He had arrived and he wielded a terrible swift sword!

His morning had gone particularly well. He issued several more subpoenas, pressured another witness into corroborating his obstruction of justice charge, and had held an impromptu news conference on the steps of the capital in which he had once again done his ‘No one, absolutely no one, is above the law’ routine. He loved that speech because it implied that perhaps someone considered himself beyond the reach of the law. In his mind it was a double-edged salvo that the opponent couldn’t answer!

Benny was just about to pop another jelly bean when his executive secretary ushered Agent Mutter into his office.

"Agent Mutter, thanks for taking the time to come over and have this chat."

Though a little nervous, Mutter appeared outwardly pretty calm. "Not at all, the Director said you wanted to talk to me?"

"Yes. Please have a seat."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

"What a clever interrogative technique," mused Mutter, "as subtle as a freight train."

Moments passed. The silence grew increasingly awkward, but Mutter would not let himself be drawn.

"Agent Mutter, tell me about the Why Files Task Force."

"I’m sorry sir, but much of my work is classified. You would need a minimum of a Top Secret Cosmic clearance."

"Agent Mutter," he chuckled, "My clearances stem from the hand of God. Would you have me call your Director?"

"No sir, that won’t be necessary. The Why Files Task Force has been tasked to investigate cases involving inexplicable phenomena."

"You wanna say that in English, son."

"We investigate cases that relate to stuff no one completely understands like UFO’s, satanic instances, ESP, and the like."

"My sources tell me that you’re in over your head right now with some investigation."

"That’s right sir. We believe there is a conspiracy to slow the evolution of computer technology on this planet. And the evidence seems to point at two of the major players in the industry."

"Agent Mutter, we are aware of this investigation. What is your relationship with Agent Sulky?"

"Strictly professional, sir. We’ve done a lot of work together, but she’s turned….political."

"Please explain."

"Well, in the face of incontrovertible evidence, Agent Sulky seems to value her credibility and political standing within the agency over the truth—no matter how controversial."

"Agent Mutter, I have some disturbing news concerning your partner, but that will wait. I am ONLY interested in the truth. As you know I maintain that no one is above the law."

"And no thing?"

"That’s right, Mutter. I have arranged for you to work with us for the next six months. You’ll be part of the Greywater team. I should let you know up front that we are intimately familiar with most aspects of your investigation and over the next few months intend to subpoena the heads of both companies, Agent Sulky, the DogCow, and the President of the United States of America."

"Sir, if it’s the truth you’re after, then clearly I’m your man.
Specifically, what role would you like me to play in your investigation?"

"Mutter, it may take some time, but I think we need someone to take an inside look at Macrosoft."

Alas, the hot tub adventure with the President had fallen a bit flat, so to speak. In any event, she had learned very little…. about conspiracies that is. The President was off taking a nap and so Sulky decided to do a little exploring. It was on this quick reconnoiter that she found the one functional computer in the house. Located on the roll top desk in the study, the odd shaped little system seemed to glow when she powered it up.

Sulky double clicked on the Word 5.1 icon and waited briefly while Word booted up. Using Open under the File Menu, she looked through the Documents folder and noted several documents bearing the initials BP. The one she opened was a note explaining that ‘the lamb is ready for the slaughter,’ and it was signed by the Special Prosecutor. She wasn’t sure about the reference, but decided to copy all the BP documents.

Sulky withdrew a floppy disk from her purse in the hopes of finding some incriminating documents. She looked around…

"Where’s the damn drive?," she thought.

"Whoa, no drive? That’s odd."

Then it occurred to her. "No drive means the net. That forces more people to go online where they can be monitored. I’ve got to get this information back to Mutter!" she thought. As she headed back to her room, she had the undeniable urge to scratch her rear against the stair rail.

"Wow…this is weird," she sighed, "What’s happening to me?"

Indeed, it had taken some time. Creating a bullet proof cover story for Agent Mutter’s new identity, Trevor Owen Fowler, establishing the proper paper trail, and modifying his appearance, accent, and keyboarding style were all time-consuming processes. Even then, the Special Prosecutor had to lean heavily on one of the ‘human resource’ specialists in Redmond to get Mutter hired.

It had been several weeks since ‘Trevor Owen Fowler’ had arrived from Cambridge. His credentials, of course, were impeccable and he came with the highest recommendations of the Cambridge Department of Computing. Human Resources had moved him briefly from job to job on the ‘orientation tour’ and this morning was the culminating interview that would hopefully earn him the certificate for completion of the Initial Macrosoft Assignment Course (IMAC).
Fowler sat at one end of a long walnut conference table, while four Macrosoft officials sat around the other. They all looked bright eyed, sincere, and laid-back wearing levis and open short sleeve patterned shirts. Then only clue that they were executives came from their brief cases and PowerBook portable computers. Because he could never keep track of names, Fowler (Mutter), numbered them 1 through 4 in his mind.

"Trevor, you’ve had a chance to work with Developers, Testers, Program Managers, Product Planners, Marketing Managers, User Education Specialists, Usability Specialists, Localization Specialists, and Product Support Specialists," said questioner number one. Why don’t you describe each one of their functions for us.

"Let’s see…the role of the Developer is to become totally immersed in designing or developing a product." answered Fowler, while the Tester gets involved with a product early on to ensure that it works meticulously."

"Well, that’s a good textbook answer," said number two, "but it’s a lot more complex than that. You see, you left out the word ‘profitable’ in your description of developer. That is, the developer gets totally immersed in a profitable project. The tester is more concerned that a product generally works. That let’s us release it in beta form, charge the customer, and fix the problems later. Hell, if we waited on meticulous testers, we’d still be immersed in Windows 3.1!"

"The Program Manager is the single thread that runs between all the people and the disciplines, providing everyone with a single vision. He/she ensures that a program has the right features that solve the customers’ problems," suggested Fowler.

"Well…not exactly," said questioner number three, "Sometimes a program requires features that the customer doesn’t know he/she wants, but can be marketed and can help sell the program."

"Wow, zero for three," thought Fowler, "I’d better get the next few right."

"The Product Planner is involved with the evolution of a product. That is, he/she ensures that each new release of a product is planned for maximum impact," said Fowler.

"Well…that’s pretty close, Trevor, but you left his/her/it’s most important role. The Product Planner ensures that product features trickle out from release to release. Otherwise, no one would pay for upgrades," said questioner number two.

"The Marketing Manager," Fowler continued, " is responsible for making sure that products speak successfully to different markets. That way it sells more," Fowler quickly added as an afterthought.

"That’s better, " Mr. Fowler, "I think you’re catching on."

"Let’s see, where am I, asked Fowler. Oh yes …. The User Education Specialist. The User Education Specialist is responsible for educating the market in the use of a product."

"And sometimes that includes ‘potential’ use," interjected questioner number three, "like when we market Excel as part of Office. We know full well that ninety per cent of the users will use at most five per cent of the features – if that; but it’s sexy to have that sucker with all of its bells and whistles sitting on your desktop."

"Let’s skip to the Product Support Specialist, Mr. Fowler. What is his role?"

"The Product Support Specialist goes one-on-one with the customers making sure they get the help they need, because without customers, there’s no Macrosoft," answered Fowler.

That brought spontaneous laughter from all of the questioners and questioner number two explained.

"Fowler, there’s no way we can go one-on-one with our customers. There’s just too many of them. The goal of the support specialist is to appear to give support to the largest audience of users. That way all of our customers perceive there is a support structure and that perception in itself solves many of their problems."

Questioner number four who had remained silent throughout the proceedings, congratulated Fowler and asked him to pose for a photo as he was presented his certificate. One of the other executives took the photo, and the four left the conference room. As they departed, a senior vice president that Fowler had seen around campus accompanied by Sam Donaldson entered the room.

"Sam Donaldson, what’s he doing here?" thought Fowler uneasily.
Slowly it dawned on him. The whole future of the Why Files Task Force was at risk. He had fallen into a horrible trap."

"Mr. Fowler," asked Mr. Donaldson, "Just a few questions. Who do you Brits burn on Guy Fawkes Day?"

Mutter knew the game was up….he hadn’t a clue.

"I never was a history buff…," Mutter lamely offered.

Donaldson smirked and saliva eased out the corner of his mouth.

"In fact, you’re not British at all, are you Agent Mutter?" replied Donaldson. "Tell me what one FBI Agent is doing undercover at Macrosoft while another entertained the President of the United States in a hot tub. This story will not go away Agent Mutter."

To be continued…

Author’s Note: All characters in the Why Files are fictitious as are references to corporations or government organizations. Any resemblance to real life characters is purely coincidental.

Bill, you old prankster you! That was a pretty hilarious thing you did to me the other morning. Almost as funny as your Soupy Sales pie-in-the-face stunt you pulled off in Brussels. Although I would have thought that a man of your stature might have more important things to do than waste your time playing such an elaborate, hi-tech prank on the likes of me, I reckon even the richest man in the world can have a sense of humor. You really had me going there for awhile.

If you don’t mind Bill, (or even if you do!) I’m gonna tell my readers how you hacked your way into my computer and tried to force your browser software on me.

Of course, I can’t prove that it was Bill Gates who did this but I can put two and two together and come up with the only plausible explanation for what happened… and it all points to Billy and/or Microsoft.

If you read my column last month, I defined Billy’s “Internet Explorer” as a ‘computer virus.’ I also insulted his Word 6.0 by calling it the ‘slowest moving object known to man.’ I suspect that Bill read this and took umbrage with my definitions and decided to play a little prank on me.

This is what happened:

The other morning at about 5:00 AM I was downloading the trial version of FileMaker Pro off the Internet to see if it might be something I could use in my trucking business. It took a good half-hour to download the 4Mb file, so while I was waiting I made a pot of coffee and a total mess in the kitchen trying to cook me up some breakfast. I returned to my desk just as StuffIt Expander was decoding and unstuffing the file. I was anxious to install FileMaker and give it a test drive.

Following the decoding and unstuffing I opened the folder labeled FileMaker Pro 4.0 Trial Folder. Inside this folder I found the FileMaker Pro 4.0 Installer. So far so good. I then double-clicked on the puppy and a VISE Installer window popped up on the screen informing me that it was getting ready to install Internet Explorer 4.0 onto my hard drive.
“WHAT THE HELL’S UP WITH THIS?” I bellowed to the woodpecker sitting in the tree outside my window. The woodpecker didn’t answer or even seem concerned with my problems.

My first thought was that I downloaded I.E. 4.0 by mistake. But how could that be? Everything that I downloaded was labeled FileMaker Pro. “There’s something fishy going on here,” I told my woodpecker friend.

I closed the VISE Installer and clicked on the FileMaker Pro Installer again. BAM! The same thing happened! “Whoa, ain’t this weird,” I said to the woodpecker. The woodpecker shrugged its wings and went back to beating its face on the tree.

I decided to back up a few steps and start over. I trashed the whole FileMaker folder. I then drug/dragged/drugged the still compressed.bin file of FileMaker Pro onto the StuffIt Expander icon and watched as it decoded and unstuffed for the second time. I again clicked on the VISE Installer but got the same Internet Explorer splash screen. I could almost feel Billy’s eyes on me and hear him laughing in that staccato, jerky way of his, or maybe that was just the woodpecker outside my window doing whatever it is woodpeckers do.

I began thinking those Senators at the antitrust hearings were right: Bill Gates does have a monopoly. He won’t let you download anything until you install his browser first! “That’s called interactive monopolization,” I told the woodpecker. The woodpecker nodded its head in agreement and smiled at me.

By now it was time to either run my youngest to school or let her take the car and leave me stranded all day. I chose to drive her. As I was getting up from the computer, I hit the restart button on my Mac. When I returned home I tried one last time to install FileMaker Pro. This time, (after the restart) instead of a VISE Installer I noticed it was a Claris Installer. I double-clicked on it and was asked where I wanted to install FileMaker Pro. I glanced out the window to inform my woodpecker buddy that everything was cool, but he was gone.

Now, you tell me. Did my computer have a brain fart, or was Billy messing with my mind?

After giving a little ‘Miner Thought’ to what had just taken place, I came up with the only logical conclusion I could.

Bill Gates, after reading what I said about his browser and word processor software, disguised himself outside my home as a woodpecker and waited for me to go online. As soon as I started downloading FileMaker Pro, woodpecker Bill somehow manipulated the data transmission coming into my home via the phone line, causing the download to show up on my screen as something it wasn’t. Bill obviously didn’t have enough time to change all the code in the data transmission but he changed just enough to throw me for a loop. He was also unable to save any of the changes he made in the code which explains why everything went back to normal after I restarted my Mac.

Bill Gates has never shown himself outside my window again, which leads me to believe that he knows that I know he’s a woodpecker. Or at least that he can disguise himself as a woodpecker. However, whenever I go online now I always take a good look in the tree outside my window just to make sure Billy ain’t lurking around waiting to pounce on my data again.

You’re a funny guy, Billy! But please keep your dirty little beak out of my computer, okay?

Just to be on the safe side, I have since installed Bill’s browser onto my hard drive, and I suggest you all do the same if you haven’t already. Not that I use it very often but it does seem to keep the woodpeckers away!

Pete Miner
pete@mymac.com

KeyQuencer 2.5
Company: Binary Software
Estimated Price: $49.95 (Lite version: $30.00)
http://www.binarysoft.com

I didn’t believe it before I tried it. I honestly didn’t. “Try this utility for a week,” they told me. “After a week, you’ll never know how you lived without it.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, with more than a touch of disbelief in my voice.

Well, after that first week, I was still saying “yeah, right,” but the sarcasm and skepticism had disappeared from my tone, and I was in total agreement. KeyQuencer is one of those things that you never know you’re missing, but once you get it, you wonder why you didn’t try it out years ago.

KeyQuencer is a macro
utility, which, to quote from
the Read Me file, “lets you
create shortcuts that perform
a series of tasks with a single
keystroke. Using KeyQuencer
you can type your name,
change your monitor’s colors,
change the sound, connect to
the Internet, or do just about
anything–all with a
keystroke.” Binary Software
isn’t lying when they say that,
either–you can do just about anything; I’ve been able to make macros for anything and everything I’ve ever wanted.

You can create a macro in KeyQuencer in several different ways. There is no macro recorder present, so you can’t just perform a series of actions and have the program remember them in sequence as you can in some word processing applications. I didn’t find that a big problem, however. KeyQuencer’s scripting language is both powerful and easy to learn–a very winning combination. Also, even if you’re the type of person who shies away from any and all scripting, KeyQuencer still can do wonders for you. KeyQuencer comes with seven Helpers that walk you step-by-step through creating many of the most common macros, such as launching a file or application or automatically pasting in a often-used line of text. KeyQuencer even comes with tons of useful macros already written and pre-installed. Some of the ones I’m more fond of are being able to Stuff and UnStuff files (provided you have the StuffIt Engine installed on your computer), delete an item or automatically empty the trash, connect to the Internet, and control audio CDs using the keyboard. Last but not least, there are many useful macros available for download on the KeyQuencer Web site, http://www.binarysoft.com some of which are provided courtesy of Binary Software, and some that have been written by third parties. Macros for using multiple clipboards, checking your email using your favorite email client, and controlling downloads are some of the more useful ones you’ll find on the Web site.

The newest version of KeyQuencer, version 2.5, is System 8-savvy (including some very useful contextual menus!), includes better tools for using KeyQuencer for Internet tasks, includes the aforementioned Helpers and better documentation to help you create useful macros, and many other minor improvements. There is also a shareware version called KeyQuencer Lite, which is available from Binary Software’s Web site, that gives an excellent feel for the program, but isn’t nearly as powerful. There is a limit to the number of functional macros (fifty), and many of the nicest features of KeyQuencer–such as integration with the StuffIt engine–aren’t available in the Lite version. I would recommend downloading the Lite version to get a feel for the program, and for some users it may be sufficient. However, if you fall in the love with the utility like I did, I think you’ll agree spending the extra twenty or thirty bucks is well worth upgrading to the full version.

KeyQuencer’s requirements are light–any Mac with 4 megs of RAM and System 7.0 or higher will do just fine. I’ve tested it on a Mac LC, a Mac LC 575, and a PowerBook 1400, with no problems at all on any of them. Binary Software boasts that even though KeyQuencer is an extension, it is very stable and causes very few conflicts, and I have no evidence that disputes that statement.

There’s not a lot more to say. KeyQuencer is simple and elegant enough for even casual Mac users to appreciate and use, but it is also complex and powerful enough that power users can really take advantage of the advanced features. In my opinion, KeyQuencer can’t help but increase your productivity and make it easier to use your computer. Even if you’re skeptical, like I was, I recommend giving KeyQuencer a try. You might find yourself wondering how you ever got by without it.

Mike Wallinga
mikew@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.binarysoft.com

Well, it’s become pretty much customary for me to mention the beginning and ending of each school year, so I’ll make no exception this time around. My freshman year of college has come to a close, and I’ve had many new and exciting experiences. However, I’m also ready for a dozen weeks or so of R & R, and I’m looking forward to spending the sunny summer days having some fun and earning some cash.

From a computer standpoint (after all, this magazine is called My Mac, not My Vacation), I’ll be happy to get away from the Windows-centric computer network at school. In the computer lab on my dorm floor, we had 13 Gateway 2000 computers, which varied from one 486-based machine to several 166MHz Pentiums. There were exactly eleven days out of the entire school year when all thirteen computers were functional for the entire day, and there were a couple of occasions when we had as few as eight computers working.

In the past nine months, I have gotten fairly comfortable with the Windows and DOS world, and have even dabbled a bit in Unix. I can appreciate some of the things that these platforms do right; I will never again speak like a Mac bigot and proclaim that everything non-Mac sucks, because that’s not the case. However, this past year has certainly reaffirmed my belief that the Macintosh is the easiest, most flexible, and least problematic computer in existence.

Where am I going with this? Well, spending the entire year with a less-than-powerful Mac LC in my dorm room and less-than-reliable PCs in the computer lab convinced me that maybe it was time I took the plunge and bought a new machine myself. Scraping together all of the funds a poor, starving college student could muster, I came up with about $1500 to spend. The question was, what to spend it on? I briefly considered buying a PC, because it would be easier to work with the campus network and the networked applications. But then, sanity slapped me in the face and I realized how crazy that thinking was. Firmly deciding that I would stay a Mac user through and through, I perused my available options… a new low-end machine, a quality used or refurbished one, possibly one of the remaining clones… and then I laid my eyes on what I knew I had to purchase:

A brand new PowerBook 1400c/133.

The prospect of having a PowerPC Mac with the convenience and portability of a laptop was irresistable. It sure would come in handy during those midnight study sessions in the library… Yes, from the moment I saw the listing in the ads in the back of Macworld, I was in love with the idea of owning that PowerBook.

OK, OK, with the amazing G3 processor, the hoopla over the iMac, and benchmarks going through the roof, the 1400 is no longer an impressive machine (in fact, it never was incredibly impressive, but I’ll get to that in a minute). However, that new PowerBook is the pride and joy of my computing life, and I consider it to be the best $1500 I ever spent.

I’m not going to go into a full-length review here, because plenty has been written about the 1400, and it is already nearing the end of its existence. I was lucky to find a 133 MHz model; the only ones Apple currently offers run at 166 MHz. But, I felt that the slight dropoff in speed was worth the couple hundred dollars in savings, especially for a computer which I plan on upgrading in the near future, anyway.

I will say that most of the reviews that have been done on the PowerBook 1400 are right on the money–it’s not flashy, not too impressive, but everything about it is rock solid. It is a very efficient, very stable machine, and it does everything I ask or want it to do without complaining. It’s 16 megs of physical RAM is the most I’ve ever had in a computer, and while I plan on buying a memory upgrade soon, the 16 megs work nicely for me as long as I have RAM Doubler installed. The 1 gigabyte hard drive isn’t overly spacious, but once again, it’s a far cry from the 250 meg hard drive in my family’s LC 575 (or the 170 meg one in my LC, for that matter!). The 8X CD-ROM drive isn’t exactly cutting-edge anymore, either, but how many CD-ROMs really take advantage of twenty-four speed drives, anyway? It’s still a lot faster than the double-speed drive I’m used to. The 133 MHz 603e processor (and measly 128K of L2 cache) isn’t about to break any speed records, but when you’re used to driving a 33 MHz 68LC040, anything seems like a Ferrari. Last but not least, the screen on the 1400c is gorgeous–when I bought my computer, the 1400c/133 and the 1400cs/166 cost about the same, and I’m glad I sacrificed some speed for the active matrix screen. It really looks awesome. Plus, even though the screen is only 11.3 inches, it feels bigger than any other monitor I’ve ever had, because of the 800 X 600 resolution (the other monitors I own–a 12 inch RGB for the LC and a built-in 14 inch on the LC 575–only support 640 X 480 resolution). So, like I said, nothing about the 1400 is flashy, but everything about it is very, very solid.

I found the transition from using a desktop computer to using a notebook computer as my primary machine a surprisingly easy one. I was extremely pleased to find that I adjusted very quickly to the PowerBook keyboard, and within a week I was typing at my usual rate of about 65 words per minute. Also, although I plan on buying a two-button mouse to plug into the ADB port, the trackpad is quite slick; I don’t just use it, I enjoy using it.

One of the biggest advantages to the PowerBook 1400 is that it’s expandable enough to be an excellent long-term investment. Right off the bat, I’m looking at buying a RAM upgrade (probably about 24 megabytes, which I can upgrade again when I get some more cash, thanks to the ingenius stackable “piggy-back” memory modules) and an expansion bay Zip drive from VST. Before the end of the summer, I hope to find an Ethernet card so I’ll be able to connect to the campus network next fall. Once I get my cash reserves built up again, I plan on buying a G3 upgrade from Newer Technology; then my PowerBook will be primed to be a powerful computer that should last me a long time.

Some friends of mine (and I know you out there are thinking it, too!) wondered why I didn’t wait just a few short weeks before buying a computer, and pick up the new entry-level G3 notebook instead. I don’t want to take anything away from Apple’s new G3 line; in all respects, they are simply awesome machines. However, for a little over $2600 I should be able to put together a 1400c with an upgraded G3 processor and 32 megs of RAM, with Ethernet, CD-ROM, floppy drive, and an active matrix screen. That would compare very well with the entry level G3 Book, which has a slightly larger (but passive) screen, a larger hard drive and faster CD-ROM drive, but lacks a floppy drive or a backside cache. Certainly the upper-level G3 laptops would run circles around my upgraded 1400c, but they also cost a lot more. In the end, I wanted to be able to buy something I could pay for up front instead of having to lease, and the 1400 was the only desirable notebook I could afford. Sure, to go through the aforementioned upgrades, I’ll end up spending a couple hundred more than the entry-level G3′s $2300 price tag, but I stand to save at least that much money by being able to pony up the cash on the spot instead of having to pay off interest on a lease, too.

I don’t mean to sound defensive in trying to justify my purchase, as that’s not my intention at all. I do want to show Mac users out there another option, though. It’s easy to get caught up in the fever pitch surrounding Apple’s new machines, and with good reason, because they are amazing computers that bode very well for the future of our favorite company. However, for you students or home users on a budget that are considering a new laptop (or desktop, for that matter; the same “buy cheap and upgrade when you can afford it” strategy works there, too), don’t overlook a good deal on a slightly older machine, especially one that’s upgradeable. For me, such a route has proven to be the perfect way to join the PowerPC crowd (albeit a little late!), and still not go entirely broke… until my tuition for next fall comes due, anyway.

Mike Wallinga
mikew@mymac.com

Mike: As all of you out there are aware, summer is here, and with it all of the fun that it brings. Great weather, sunny beaches, grassy baseball diamonds, picnics in the park, cool water in the swimming pool–all leisure activities with a fun factor of 100%.

With that idea in mind, we’ve decided to showcase two games that also follow that idea. Mars Rising, from Ambrosia Software, and Project Magellan, from Plaid World, are both awesome scrolling space shoot-em-ups with nothing but fun in mind. There are no mazes and maps to worry about, no puzzles to figure out before you can advance to the next level, and certainly no brain teasers. Just fly your ship and blast everything in sight. These games have a fun factor of 100%, too, so disengage your brain and enjoy!

Adam: Wow Mike, you really said it all there! So, no reason to ramble. Here we go…

Mars Rising 1.0
Company: Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Shareware: $20.00
http://www.marsrising.com

Mike: I’ve been complaining since day one
about the lack of quality scrolling-shoot-em-ups for the Mac. There are plenty of good non-scrolling shooters (Space Invaders, Galaga, and Centipede clones, such as Ambrosia’s own Apieron and Swoop) out there, but they just aren’t the same. Does the notion of flying a spaceship that can’t travel anywhere strike anyone else as a little dumb?

Adam: It strikes me as very dumb, let me tell ya! Scrolling shooting games have the sense of adventure that still/fixed shooting games don’t. With scrolling shooters, you never know what’s coming next, what’s around the next corner, and, well, you get the point!

Mike: The awesome folks at Ambrosia Software have come to our rescue by releasing Mars Rising, a simply stunning vertically scrolling shooter that is sure to please. Adam, you want to set the story line for this game?

Adam: Of course not, Mike! It’s all you…

Mike: Whatever you say, Adam! In the year 2084, the Mars Colony has decided that it’s had enough of playing second fiddle to the folks back on Earth, and they’ve decided to do something about it. As usual, the task of repressing the entire rebel army falls directly on the shoulders on one or two individuals. Armed with the Vac-Fighter, one of the most highly advanced combat ships in existence, you have to fight through 28 levels or Martian uprising, emerge victorious, and play the part of the hero.

Adam: Bravo, well put, Mike. No game would be truly complete without its share of bells and whistles. In Mars Rising, after you kill certain enemies, stars are left behind which you can pick up for points/lives. And once you accumulate enough points, you will get an extra life, and believe me, you’ll need them. Also left behind after enemies are killed are items such as auto fire, rear fire, bombs, speed, etc., which all enhance your arsenal and make the game play that much more exciting.

Mars Rising also has its share of options. You can set detail, like shadows, music and sound options, and key sets, so different players can have different key combinations when they play two-player games. And all these key sets are saved, so you can recall them instantly.

Mike: The game supports all kinds of joysticks and game pads, so you aren’t restricted to using the keyboard or mouse, and as Adam mentioned, two players can also play the game at once in a cooperative fashion. The fact that only the first four levels are available without registering is kind of few of Ambrosia’s games have any “crippled” or “demo” features, and I was a a bummer–very little disappointed to see them take that route with Mars Rising–but once you finish that first quartet of levels, you’ll be itching to play the other two dozen.

Requirements/Availability
Mars Rising requires a PowerPC processor (80Mhz 601 or 100Mhz 603 recommended), 7500Kb free RAM, a 640×480 monitor with 256 colors or greater, Mac OS 7.5.5 or later, and Sound Manager 3.1 or later. Ambrosia also recommends a joystick or game pad, especially in 2 player games, but I found I had much more control with the keyboard.

You can download Mars Rising from the special Mars Rising Web site, at .

The Summary
Mike: Mars Rising is a winner in my book. It’s an awesome game because it does everything right. From downright gorgeous graphics–notice the shadows of the ships on the ground below, and the craters and marks left behind from bombs that have been dropped–to an excellent, crank-it-up soundtrack, Mars Rising has it all; it should be listed in the dictionary under the word “polished.” You’ve got to try it out to see for yourself, that’s all there is to it. My check for twenty bucks is already in the mail.

Adam: I haven’t played a game as downright stunning as Mars Rising in a long time. From the minute I launched the program I was impressed. Great music, graphics, story line, and game play make this game a winner, and it’s bonus items keep you on your toes. Though it uses a “crippleware” approach, four levels are enough to let you make the decision to pay your $20.00, an asking price that is somewhat modest for this top quality game.

Download Mars Rising 1.0.1

Project Magellan 2.0.2
Company: Plaid World Software
Shareware: $29.00
http://www.plaidworld.com

Mike: Project Magellan does for horizontally
scrolling shooters what Mars Rising does for vertically scrolling ones. This game is in the mold of such arcade classics as R-Type and Gradius, and it is simply awesome.

Adam: My first impression of Project Magellan wasn’t great, considering its first startup panel and game loading progress bar are a little less than eye pleasing, but once you are past them, the game play, which is what counts, is breathtaking. Mike, the story line please?

Mike: Of course, Adam. It’s 1000 years after Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the globe (which means the story takes place sometime in the middle of the next millennium; the exact date wasn’t in the Read Me, and I wasn’t going to look it up!), and so people thought it would be cool to commemorate the occasion by sending a fleet of starships out to explore the galaxy. Problem is, it seems like a bunch of aliens decided that was a bad thing for us to do, and so they attacked the fleet while it was on its voyage. Two of our fighter ships took the offensive, and the aliens escaped through a conveniently close wormhole. The two good guy ships followed them through the wormhole, and now they’ve found themselves in between a rock and a hard place… or a worm hole and bunch of angry aliens, whatever the case might be. Anyway, good luck in piloting our troops through the enemy forces and getting them out alive!

Adam: Project Magellan plays a little different, as you gain points when you pick up what is left behind after killing an enemy. But the concept is still the same. There are lots of bonus weapons, and like Mars Rising, Project Magellan is very customizable. You can set music and graphics options, controls for both players, and different skill levels.

Mike: This game, like Mars Rising, features stunning graphics and a great soundtrack. If you have the horses, playing the game in 16-bit color with all the graphics options turned on is quite an experience, as is the beautiful QuickTime movie intro. Project Magellan also has a two player option, several cheat codes, and a level editor.

Requirements/Availability
Project Magellan requires a PowerPC or 68040 processor, a 640×480 monitor with 256 colors or greater, 8MB of free RAM for 8-bit color (256), 14MB of free RAM for 16-bit color (thousands), and QuickTime 2.0 for movies. If you choose to buy the full version you’ll need a 2X CD-ROM drive and 60MB of free hard disk space.

You can download Project Magellan at the Plaid World Software Web site, at . There a couple of download options, which is nice, because the full download is huge. (The full demo takes 22MB on my hard disk, the small demo clocked in at over seven, and the documentation says the full version takes over sixty and ships on a CD-ROM.)

The Summary
Mike: There’s not much more to say; this is another game that must be seen to be believed. All Mac gamers should check out Project Magellan; it’s some of the best arcade action available.

Adam: There’s simply not much you can say about Project Magellan that isn’t good. It’s a well rounded game that I am happy to have had the opportunity to review. $29.00 may seem steep, but Project Magellan is worth every bit of it.

Download Project Magellan 2.0.2

What About Shooters for Lower-End Macs?
Mike: I realize that the system requirements for these two games are a little steeper than our usual fare; Mars Rising is PowerPC only, and Project Magellan should be also–I felt it ran unacceptable slow on my ’040-based LC 575, but I also only have 8MB of physical RAM on that machine, so it may just be that it doesn’t work well with RAM Doubler.

Don’t worry that we’ve forsaken the lower-end crowd just because I jumped into PowerPC land this past month (see Wall Writings in this issue); we’ll be sure to continue to include some games that will run on any Mac in the future. The opportunity to review some amazing games that require a little more horse power is far too tempting to pass up, though; plus, we’d be doing a disservice to our readers who have new computers if we didn’t show them what was available. Now that we can choose games from all ends of the spectrum, more than ever we’d like to hear from our readers as to what games you’d like us to review.

Adam: We do have some exciting reviews ahead of us. We also hope to hop into commercial games very soon, so stay tuned.

Mike: As for this month, there aren’t many scrolling shooters for 680×0 Macs that I’m aware of. Last year we reviewed Foobar Versus The DEA, from Funner Software, and I think that it’s probably still your best bet for a less hardware-intensive winner. Otherwise, there are plenty of quality non-scrolling shooters (such as the ones I alluded to at the beginning of this article) that will run on almost any Mac. Besides, every good Mac gamer should have a copy of Swoop on their hard drive!

One final note before signing off this month: for science fiction fans who want a little more thinking and a little less violence in their games, Ambrosia has released a much-hyped sequel to one of the most popular Mac shareware games ever. Escape Velocity: Override should be available for download as you read this, and it promises to be even more immersive and addicting than the first one. I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet, but I would expect nothing less than near perfection.

Well, you got a bonus portion of Game Guys this month; this is quite a bit longer than our usual column. So, we better let you guys quit reading and start playing your games, eh? Have a great summer, and see you next month!

Mike Wallinga
mikew@mymac.com
Adam Karneboge
webmaster@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.marsrising.com
http://www.plaidworld.com

A little background for those who don’t have time to keep up with Microsoft vs. the DOJ. Due to pressure from the courts to show why the Gates’ guys shouldn’t have to follow the rules like the rest of us, Microsoft has decided to beef up their public image. And who knows better how to affect the minds of millions than America’s PR men.

Seems Microsoft has hired some of the best of the best to orchestrate a vigorous campaign targeting the nineteen states that filed antitrust suits against Microsoft. One plan, so we hear, was to encourage a deluge of agency originated, ‘unsolicited, grassroots support’ for Microsoft and Windows in the local press. They’ve even had form letters written for the digital bigwigs to sign and held a pep rally in the Big Apple with Big Bill as cheerleader. ‘Gimme a ten! Let’s hear it for M!’

And the chips and slicks? Well, in order to encourage a swing to Microsoft Explorer as the nation’s number one, bar none browser, Microsoft intends to give away NT 4.0 Server software and assorted goodies to ISPs able to sign up at least 500 subscribers using a new customized MIE browser.

“Wait just a minute,” says someone. “Isn’t that sort of thing considered illegal dumping?” No, says Mr. K (another Bill). “It’s like taping a package of snack chips to a bottle of Coke.” (CNET News.Com, 4/10/98) ‘Hey! Hey! Hey! Gimme a K!’

While we doubt the world as we know it will cease to exist if Win 98 misses another deadline, you gotta admire their spunk. So today, let’s celebrate that die-hard spirit in this, a modern musical, untouched by Disney.

The scene opens in 24 bit Color and 3D Surround Sound. A line of Trolls, marching in time, stretches from the top of MicrosElf Mountain to the courthouse below. No picks and shovels today, folks. It’s all picket signs and briefcases. An oldie but goodie sets the mood. You’re welcome to sing along.

Signs, swung across each burly shoulder, say things like: “98 Rules!” And: “Don’t Delay / The World Will Pay!” Or: “2 4 6 8 / Gotta Be Free to Innovate!” And the favorite: “Monopoly? Who Me?”

Their briefcases bulge with papers that proclaim: ‘It’s not the Power. It’s the Principle!’ Or: ‘Freedom to Innovate. That’s what we’re all about!’ Along with the erudite: ‘Throw no Sand in the Gears of Progress!’ And dire warnings that threaten: ‘Scratch MicrosElf and the Whole World Bleeds.’

As the endless line of Trolls snakes down the mountainside, the scene fades to a cave deep beneath a grassroots meadow where a Dwarf called Docket trundles a wheelbarrow loaded with books and briefs toward a long wooden table. A group of Elves are clustered around the table, up to their pointy little ears in chips. A few seasoned Dwarfs oversee their efforts.

“You there, Grumpski,” says Docket, tossing a bundle of papers onto the table. “Take a letter.”

“Me!” Snaps Grumpski. He waves fingers plastered with Nachos and licensing agreements under Dock’s nose. “You ever try to stick a chip on a disk? Get Dumpski.” But Dumpski’s stuck fast in a soda slick, his turned up toes mired in congealing Coke syrup.

“How come we’re stuck with all this stuff, anyway, Dock?” Dump wiggles a toe loose and grins. “Duh, that’s a joke, folks.” But Dock’s in no mood for jokes.

“The DOJ!” He says it like a four-letter word. “Bloody busybodies! This antitrust stuff oughta be against the law. Mess with Big M., you mess with destiny.”

Grumpski nibbles a Nacho off one gnarled finger. “I remember the old country. We invented everything. Everything! And no bumble-headed busybodies around to say nyet. Da! Those were the days.” Grump sighs. Visions of work camps dance in his head.

Dock nods. “Ah, Siberia. And they call this progress. If it weren’t for the DOJ, we’d be in scurrying through dark corridors and lurking about digital corners right now. Sniffin’ out all those great ideas and in-no-va-tions for Big Bill.”

Just the thought makes his nose twitch. “As it is, we gotta waste all this time on paperwork. And speaking of paperwork…”

He shoves a packet of letters down the table at Snuffle and Snorffle, catching Snorf head down and hard at it. “So! Sleeping on the job again! What’s Big Bill gonna say about that?”

“But, Dock,” says Snorf, “we’ve been on overtime for months. Hidin’ under beds. Diggin’ up the dirt. Layin’ down the doubletalk. I’m bushed.” His eyelids begin to droop.

“Well Gents, we’re going to be on triple time before we’re done. Quit your grousing and take a letter.” Dock drops a dozen or so phone books onto the table, bringing Snorf back with a start and sending Snuffle into a bout of wild sneezing.

“Hey, watch it, Dock,” says Snuffle through a cloud of dust. “What kind of letter? Better be DOS Talk.”

“Well, it for sure ain’t Apple Talk,” says Dock, wheezing at his own joke. “It’s People Talk.”

“People Talk!” Heads snap up around the table. “We can’t hardly think in People. Let alone write the stuff.

“No need to think. It’s all here.” He waves a fat brown envelope. “Yessiree! Dozens of unsolicited, heartfelt psalms of support for MicrosElf and Big Bill. All from the grassroots of America. Made ‘em up myself this morning. All you gotta do is look through the phone books for some classy human sounding names and sign the things. Grab a quill.”

“And me allergic to feathers,” says Snuffle, blowing a particularly wet sneeze on one of Dock’s psalms of support. Snorffle is quietly nodding off again.

Dock snatches his handiwork from beneath Snuff’s nose just as Shuffle slips past in the shadows. “Hey! You there! Take a letter!” But poor Shuffle turns bright red and sidles off to poison another batch of apples.

Down at the end of the table, SlapHap and and some fledgling Elves are deep in a game of Monopoly. Dock hesitates. “Beg pardon, Boys, but I could use some help. Sorry to louse up your game.”

And he is, too. Monopoly is serious business around here and the boys need all the training they can get. Still, this is an emergency. Big Bill could be headed for a humdinger of humble pie in the eye.

“Sure thing, Boss,” says Hap. “Whatcha need?” And soon SlapHap and his merry men are busy putting the finishing touches on stacks and stacks of spontaneous, from the heart, testimonials, opinion pieces and letters to the editor.

Shuffle tiptoes round the table with a bag of chips and a basket of apples. As the scene dims the only sounds are those of quills scratching and the crunch of an occasional apple.

Sometime later: We rejoin Countless Trolls, Umpteen Elves and Seven Digital Dwarfs emerging into the 24 bit sunshine after a long day in court. Everyone’s singing and dancing in the streets. (Well, this is a musical.)

An enormous circle soon surrounds the courthouse and the whole lot of them throw their hands in the air and begin to shake from head to toe. Hey! We know this tune! We find ourselves humming along.

As the sun sinks behind the mountain, they weave their way home, legs and bodies bouncing up the trail in what looks suspiciously like the Conga with a little Bunny Hop thrown in. Big Bill is leading the way.

Our movie ends with a multitude of extras, silhouetted against a Technicolor sky. They’re streaming through the MicrosElf portals, singing as they go. And everyone, well almost everyone, lives happily ever after.

But wait. Just as the credits start to roll, the picture changes. The scene fades to a lone minstrel on a darkening hilltop, strumming his lute and singing the blues. This bleak, black and white landscape has no hint of Disney. And the minstrel’s voice is the voice of the people. We can barely make out his words over the distant sounds of revelry.

And we fade to black.

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

“Why don’t you write something about my Mac,” says Number One Husband, setting a plate down close, but not too close, to the computer.

“Your Mac?” I say, waving a fork. “Mmmm, this is good. But I don’t understand. I’m always writing something about my Mac.”

“Not your Mac.” He watches with interest as I dislodge a piece of cheese from between the keys. “My Mac.”

‘But Honey,” I try to break it to him gently. “You don’t have a Mac. You’re an IBM sort of guy.” It’s true. He has a perfectly good Pentium 133 in the living room. It even has a new modem. One of these days I’ll have to make time to show him where to plug it in.

Since computers first entered our lives, much has changed. Like cooking. There was a time when I hustled around the kitchen coming up with 101 variations on Hamburger Helper and Shake & Bake. Now the kitchen’s become a place I pass through on the way to check my email. I’ve almost forgotten how to use the stove.

I pause, fork halfway to my mouth, thinking hard. Too hard. Pasta slips onto the caps lock and slides south. “Aha!” I say, scooping the edge of an envelope between the caps lock and the shift key. “I see!Your Mac!

I’ve got to admit that Dad’s become pretty handy in the kitchen these last few years. Well, it was either that or starve. His mother’s macaroni and cheese, soul food from childhood, is delicious. He does a mean pork roast and a tasty BBQ, too. And his peanut butter-chocolate fudge is legendary.

How did we get to this state? How did Mom turn from a technophobic to a Macaholic? How did Dad, a.k.a. Gene, dip his little toe into DOS and find himself drowning in Windows? How did our new, tastefully planned, empty nest become a quagmire of hardware, software, peripherals, catalogs and boxes? How did Dad become chief cook and-glory be!-bottle washer?

While Gene points to Mom’s Mac mania as the turning point in our lives, I say, let’s blame it on Dad. He may not know how to turn on a Mac, but he’s the one that started us down the path to digital ruin. There was this WordPerfect for DOS class held at his school.

“Why? ” I asked. “Why do you want to spend six weeks wading through DOS?” I’d just spent six years frantically keeping my name off the Apple II rotation list. If it was over my head, what chance did my little special ed-ers have? (Wrong!)

Gene not only took the course, he passed. Worse, he started making ‘join the computer generation’ noises. “A computer!” I was stunned. “But why?” And just as important, ‘where’? Where to put the beast, that is.

This place had been planned, only a couple years before, right down to the last begonia. Everything was in more or less harmonizing shades of blue and green. Didn’t match? Didn’t fit? It was banished to the basement. Could I banish Dad and the beast there, too?

But a good husband is worth any number of begonias, so I started to measure. I measured tables. I measured desks. I measured computers. I haunted Best Buy, ruler in hand, looking for the smallest computer I could find.

Let others sweat the mysteries of RAM and Hard Drives. I was buying my computer by the inch. Guess I forgot that old saying: Give’em an inch and they’ll take a mile.

In the end, like most beginners, we went for cheap. A close-out Laser 386sx25 with 2 Megs ram and an 80 MB hard drive. It was big. And ugly. And scary. But it did have GeoWorks and scalable fonts. I was hooked. This was even better than an electric typewriter with a daisy wheel.

Suddenly, big news! The Performas were coming! By now I knew all about RAM and hard drives. You always need more. And speed. You always want more. I’d had fun with our new Mac lab at school that fall. But what I wanted, what set my heart afire, was a Mac of my own.

Yeah, but what would Gene say? We had a computer already. And the living room was fast disappearing under all the stuff that collected around it. Stuff was even creeping into the dining room and taking over in the kitchen. Gene would not be pleased.

I tried. Really, I did. Day after day I stopped by stores to check out the price and the specs on this Performa or that. Always I left, empty handed and with a sigh.

Then, oh glorious day, the 476 appeared with its 040 chip and its 230 drive. I spent a couple of hours shuffling from foot to foot, checking out the software and playing with the system. The salesmen didn’t have a clue how to load the demo. Not even a password. It was all mine. And I guess we must have bonded, that Mac and me, cause just like a stray dog, it followed me home.

“Uh, Hi Honey,” I mumbled, caught red-handed tugging an oversized box into the bedroom. “I, um, I bought a Mac.” And worth every penny, too. Worth even a few frosty looks from number one spouse.

Suddenly, I could cut and paste. Take screen shots. Make aliases. Move stuff effortlessly between programs. Install without fear. It was perfect. But, as every Mac lover knows, one Mac is never enough. It’s not that you need more. The old Mac is perking along just fine and does every thing you really require. Still…

Grandma’s rocker was the first to go, followed soon after by Great Aunt Harriet’s hutch. While Dad Laser-ed away in the living room, Mom Mac-ed it up in the back. I spent every evening on a creative binge, previewing software and making personalized projects for my little guys. I really needed a faster printer to get it all done by midnight. And, Gee, sure would be nice to have a second Mac for that second printer. I’d churn out twice the stuff in half the time.

But where to put it? What had once been the master bedroom, complete with king-sized bed and a bay window over looking a little lake, was now a jumble of desks, disks, Zips, QuickCams and external hard drives. Hardly an inch to spare. Out came the yardstick. Voila! The only thing standing between me and Computer Heaven was the bed. There was only one thing to do. I sold the bed.

Those first Macs have, by now, found their way to my classroom to serve as a mini Mac lab for the kids. Faster Macs have taken their place in the ‘Mac Room’ and the living room Laser has given way to a Pentium. Face it. We’re full up. Stuffed. I’d almost forgotten that old Mac craving in the pit of my stomach.

Then, as I was surfing the Net one evening in May, I clicked on a new word: ‘iMac’. Without warning, I was transported over the rainbow to Apple’s Home Page. And there it was, spinning in cyberspace, the most luscious Apple I’d ever seen. Teal blue and tiny. With an iridescent glow.

I wanted to stroke it. I wanted to hold it. I wanted to… Oh no! I wanted to own it. I felt that old Apple urge growing inside me. Kinda like being licked all over by a warm, wiggly puppy.

“Hold everything!” I said. “Stop right there! You haven’t the space, the need nor the wherewithal.” Be strong, Susan. Fight this mad Mac addiction. Think tough! Think Gene!”

“But,” I argue, “it’s so cute. It’s so fast. It’s so just the right size.” And the clincher. “It’s Blue!!! Finally. Something that fits the decor.”

That does it. Mac Attack in full swing! A jellyfish feeling starts at the toes and works its way up and over the brain, dissolving grey matter and inhibitions willy nilly. There is only one thing to do.

“Honey,” I say. “I sold the stove.”

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

Greetings to one and all. Last month I asked for some genuine feedback
regarding your Macintosh. How to upgrade and the like. I received several responses from some of you and this month’s article is devoted to the questions that you asked. So, this article is dedicated to Ken R., Robert H., Richard (@CalTech) and Jon S.

Okay, Richard, you came in first. Which OS do I recommend for a
PowerBook 5300 and why? Well, first of all, if memory serves correctly,
it originally came with at least 7.5, yes? It is a PowerPC so…Hmm … (don’t hurry me, I’m processing). I’d suggest that if it has the RAM, at least 16MB, then you could upgrade to OS 8.1 but keep in mind that your applications most likely will need to be upgraded too. Any Power Mac can handle that jump but the applications may not like it. Check those out and let me know.

Robert, you’re next. Faster graphics, eh? PowerMac 8100/80, eh? Nubus slots, eh? Man, I wish I had an old copy of MacWeek nearby! The last 90 pages or so had all kinds of good, wholesome advertising that you could paw through. I’m sure you’ve done some shopping around but if you haven’t, I would first check with the likes of ClubMac, MacZone and MacConnection, etc. Another place comes to mind, Pre-owned Electronics (1-800-274-5343 ext 4411). I know a guy who works there, Gary McNamara. Tell him Eddie says “Hi!”… He’s gonna kill me… :^D

The Nubus slot, sad to say, is not being researched anymore, everything is PCI now so it will be tough finding something, but do check these places out; they’re good places to launch from. Keep me posted.

Ken, you have a Power Computing clone. 100Mhz? Conflicting stories about
upgrading the cache? I haven’t heard those. You want my opinion on whether to sink a bunch of $$$ into that machine or buy a G3? This one is easy. G3, G3, G3, G3 and I’ll tell you why. First of all, Power Computing is gone. I’ve heard some horror stories about getting them serviced. That is always an issue with me. You have to be able to get your computer serviced. Secondly, the pricing. All of the upgrade stuff you mentioned like the cache card and the G3 card are going to easily run you about $1,000. Would I spend that kind of money to upgrade? Simply put, NOT!!!! You even listed that it may not be compatible… big time headaches for you… trust me. If you’re going to spend that kind of money anyway, a G3 is your best bet. Pricing, servicability and compatibility… a G3 is definitely my choice… Ya know what I’m saying?

Jon, you get to help me wrap this one up. You asked me about RAM Doubler
2 running on your Power Mac ?/200, and you said it’s giving you problems with your Internet access. Okay, let’s take a look at this. You also said that the tech support staff was not the most helpful. Not a good thing. First of all, I’m gonna have to agree with your friends, you should definitely get physical RAM for an upgrade. I think there’s a law written in your state that says that… RD2 is best described as a quick fix…IN MY OPINION… not necessarily the opinion of the management… yada, yada, yada. Anyway, physical RAM is the way to go on this one. The sooner, the better. If you’re running OS 8.1, then there may be an issue with updating RD2. That may be the problem. I can’t guarantee anything on this one other than getting the RAM as soon as possible. Your friends are right on this one, just don’t tell ‘em I said so. ;^)

Oh yeah, Jon, get the upgrade before you go with Virtual PC. This is a good program but you don’t need any more problems. Write me again if you have anymore questions.

I am da Mac Man… That’s why I’m here… Ya know what I mean?

Catcha L8r

Ed Tobey
edtobey@hotmail.com

Macintosh 128k
Company: Apple Computer, Inc.
Cost: $ Priceless
http://www.apple.com

The Apple 128k Macintosh was the first Macintosh model made. I ran across this little gem one day at a “friend of a friend’s” house. I was there to look at a washing machine and see if I could help fix it, when I noticed a white box with the Apple logo on it. I was told that my friend’s friend had a garage sale a few weeks ago, and the old Mac was never sold.

I checked it out, and was amazed to find that the machine was an original Mac, made in February 1984. Not only did he have the Mac itself, which worked like it was brand new, but the keyboard, the mouse, an extra external disk drive, all the original floppies, as well as the original box (in perfect shape) and the original cassette tutorial tapes. He had everything, just like it came from Apple ‘lo those many years ago.

One of the first things I noticed was that the original disks will not work in a newer Mac. The message “This disk cannot be read my this Macintosh” came up, which bummed me out a little.

For those unfamiliar with the original Mac, you should know that there is no internal hard drive. If fact, everything is run off of a floppy disk. All your programs and system software is on disk. So each program disk I have, from MacPaint to Microsoft Word not only has that program on it, but the system software as well. Also keep in mind that these disks are only 400k in size. To grasp just how small in size that is, you would need five of these disks just to hold the last issue of My Mac Magazine. Or, by going to my Extension folder, I see that the latest release of QuickTime 3.0′s extension is 2.7MB in size. That one extension is larger than all of the system software and Microsoft Word 1.0!

What is amazing, really, is how similar everything is on the 128k compared to the latest Macintosh. The mouse cursor is the same, though the newer version is a little less jagged. The windows look very similar to pre-Mac OS 8.0 windows. The scroll bars, the on-screen text, all the same. There is even an Apple menu, and File, Edit, View, and Special all reside in the menu bar.

Going to the Apple menu, you do not find “About This Macintosh” like you do on older Macs (Or “About This Computer” with newer systems) You see “About The Finder…” When you click it, it reads “The Macintosh Finder: Bruce Horn and Steve Capps” with the date and version number.

The 128k will boot up, off floppy disk remember, in about twelve seconds. The screen is tiny even compared to a 13″ monitor, and it is all in black and white. From the Apple menu there is a “Control Panel.” Users who have never used a 128k will recognize this, but rather than a folder like on the newer machines, this is THE control panel. By selecting this, you can change your desktop pattern, set the volume, mouse speed, keyboard speed, date and time, and the like. It is all very simplified, and in many ways easier to navigate than the new versions. With a new Mac running system 8.1, you need five or six different control panels to perform the same functions. There is even a “Get Info” command, which will give you info on a file or disk that you have selected. You cannot change the icons, but you can enter in comments.

Sitting on the desktop, just like today, rests the trash can. And just like on today’s Mac’s, you drag folders to it to delete them, and empty the trash via the Special menu. However, when you put something in the trash, it does not bulge up like the current one, or show trash sticking out of the lid.

The keyboard is twice as small as a newer Mac’s. It’s not as easy to type with once you are used to the current extended keyboard. The mouse is a blocky little thing, one button and a roller ball. The keyboard plugs into the front of the Mac with what looks like a telephone jack, while the mouse goes into the back of the machine via a large plug. When the machine is running, it is loud in comparison to my 6500/250. The fan makes an awful racket, but after running for a few minutes, you kind of get use to it, like white noise.

With the advent of the iMac, many people will compare it to the original Mac. I like the new iMacs, and feel they hold a lot of promise. The design is neat and original. Steve Jobs used the same tactics when he introduced it as he did the 128k. However, nothing can compare to the original.

Like a vintage automobile, the 128k has a special place in history. It is an original, a work of art. It was one of those things that transcend itself. Yes, it is a computer, virtually useless today. It only had 128k of memory, not enough to open even SimpleText today. The mouse is not very comfortable to use, and the keyboard, while functional, is awkward. The screen is much too small and not in color. A newer machine, if it had any of these faults, would be a joke. No one would want it.

As for my 128k, I would not sell it for anything. I’m proud to have it sit on my desk next to the 6500/250. It has character, something most products can never hope to have. It holds a significant place in history. It is the original Macintosh, a device that made people Think Differently and changed the world while doing so.

Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.apple.com

Dear Readers:

June is here! Finally, warm summer months! All the hard work in the fall, planting bulbs, fertilizing the lawn, and the never-ending weeding is paying off… give me a couple of years gardening and some time to grow the plants, and I will have a little showplace, if I do say so myself!

I just hope all of you are enjoying your late spring/early summer as much as me.

I have to thank the following folks for keeping me on the straight and narrow: Jose Coba, Jeff Kalmes, and Buzz Buzzell.

Jose brought to my attention a goof I made. A couple of months ago I advised checking out Data Advisor at ONTRACK Data International, http://www.ontrack.com. Well, when I visited the site, I saw some interesting stuff and I swear, I saw Macintosh compatibility there. Jose went there to download information and only found PC stuff. I went back and… well, I humbly hang my head in shame… no Mac stuff (unless it is buried very, very deep!). Jose, thank you and if I make more goofs, please let me know! It keeps me humble.

By the way, I did email ONTRACK to see what they say. I mean, my memory isn’t that bad! (At least I hope not!) I’ll keep you posted.

Jeff and Buzz both wrote with suggestions for our column (and I do mean “our.” Dear readers, without your suggestions and the occasional nudges, this column would be meaningless. Your input keeps it interesting and fresh–Thank you!).

Their suggestions will be incorporated over the next several months. And, remember, if you have something you’d like to share with the world or see a need that is not being met (just look at my great corporate lingo!) just send me an email. I’m more than happy to oblige.

Helpful Hints

HH#48: Diskettes & CDs– Disks are funny little things. They are so necessary for holding all our information, yet are rarely big enough. They have a limited life, yet we use them forever. They hold our histories in their little hardcase bodies yet how often do we really pay attention to them? They get dropped on the carpet, thrown in envelopes, and stepped on when we’re too busy to pick anything off the floor.

CDs are their distant cousins. They hold much more information and yet are more fragile. Their cases separate from their bodies and if you’re not careful, they will never find their mate again! They have to be held carefully and once scratched, are useless. Unlike their smaller cousins, they can only be written on once. So make sure what you are putting on them is what you want there for eternity!

But enough rambling… let’s get to the point. Disks can be handled pretty much any way you want. The hardcase shell protects the disk inside from damage. The little door that you can snap open really shouldn’t be played with (I’ve seen some folks with nervous habits open and close the shutter door constantly!). If you play with the shutter enough, it will break and leave your disk open to damage.

You can lock your disk to prevent information from being written onto it. On the back of the disk, in the upper left hand corner, is a little switch. Push it up, and you keep your disk save from being overwritten.

Push the disk into the drive shutter first, facing up. How do you know it is facing up? A couple of ways. The manufacturing information is usually stamped on the front of the disk, on the shutter door. Also, the little round metal disk on one side of the disk tells you it is the back.

Labels always go on the front of the disk. Sometimes they fold over the top–it just depends on the manufacturer. I’ve seen folks place labels so they can be read when being inserted into the floppy disk drive. I place them the opposite. Why, you ask? Well, when I use a disk storage tray, my shutter door is down, inside the tray, rather than sticking up. For a klutz like me, that keeps my disks safe. No way I can snag the shutters when I’m rifling through the tray.

CDs, as I mentioned above, are more fragile. I always hold them buy their edges, not letting my fingers touch the disk. I’ve seen people put their fingers all over them and not have any problems, but I prefer taking the safer route; after all, I’ve spent a lot of money on the darn thing, I don’t need to scratch it the first day I have it.

When possible, use hard, clear plastic cases to hold your CDs. You know, the same ones that come with your music CDs, called ‘jewel’ cases. They take up more room than the plastic books you can pick up, but they are more sturdy. If the information is important, you want to keep it protected.

To eject either, close or quit what you are doing. (If using disk, close the document. If using a CD, it depends. If the CD has the application you are using on it, you have to quit the application.) Drag the icon to your trash. Out it goes! (Or, highlight the icon and press Command Y.)

Credit to Buzz Buzzell–Thanx, Buzz!

HH#49: Practice, practice, practice!– Yeah, like you have that kind of time! But really, typing is an important skill when working on a computer. There is voice command technology, but it’s not “there” yet. If it were, we would all have it.

So, if your typing really leaves something to be desired, take a community college course. Work on that skill! In the long run, you’ll create better email at work (yes, it is important!), better presentations, better everything and it won’t take you as long. Trust me on this. My typing has gotten to the point that is actually difficult for me to write in longhand. It’s just not fast enough and I lose my train of thought. However, I can type almost as fast as I think and it makes for a much more coherent document.

Credit to Buzz Buzzell–Thanx, Buzz!

HH#50: A TechTool quirk– Jeff wrote of a little quirk he ran into when using TechTool. He has a Performa 6400/200 (OS with a Hewlett Packard DeskWriter 540 printer. The printer must be disabled prior to using TechTool. He ran into same problem with his older Performa 575 with System 7.5, using the same printer. It was such a hassle for him he understandably removed TechTool from his system.

Thanx for the tip, Jeff! I’m quite sure you’re not the only person to run into this problem and it’s tips like these that really help.

Credit to Jeff Kalmes–Thanx, Jeff!

Internet Site of the Month:

NetLine, a great job hunting resource. It can be found at http://www.netline.com. As NetLine puts it: “NetLine Corporation offers an array of information services for the Internet Professional in a convenient on-line format.” One of its better features are the links to different job banks on the Web, including the famous Monster Board. If you’re looking, or like to keep your bases covered, check it out!

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Adiós!

Barbara Bell
pr@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.ontrack.com
http://www.netline.com

Jeramey R. Valley
jvalley@centuryinter.net