Cover by Mike Gorman
MyMac Magazine #46, Feb 1999
Mac OS8.5 For Dummies
by Bob LeVitus
<http://www.boblevitus.com>
Dummies Press
<http://www.dummies.com>
ISBN 0-7645-0397-9, 404 pages
$19.99 U.S., $28.99 Canada, £28.99 U.K.
I predict that 99 percent of the people who have already upgraded to Mac OS 8.5 have no intention of looking at any book, ever, to help them get the most out of their favorite System software. At least a third of this huge number of users (plus most of the subsequent “upgraders”) can benefit from studying a book on the topic.
Bob LeVitus is back, and I’m glad he’s holding my hand once again. This latest Mac OS book follows the form and style of his previous Dummies titles. If it ain’t broke…
Mac OS8.5 For Dummies is excellent on the basics and essentials. This book is both a true beginners-delight, and a valuable refresher course for power users. If you don’t believe me, look at Chapter Thirteen: “How to Write an AppleScript in 21 Minutes.”
The book is easy to read and understand. LeVitus’ pages are visually interesting, with ample screen shots and sidebars. New OS 8.5 features are clearly marked with special icons. Tips and warnings enhance most pages.
You want humor? How about a hilarious photo of the author, illustrating the technique for making your own Jigsaw Puzzle replacement image, with Bob wearing shades and wielding a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, circa 1973!
Certain chapters are particularly useful, such as the ones covering printing and file sharing. Bob’s advice on the Disk Cache should be committed to memory (excuse the pun) — see page 212. My personal favorite section is Part Three, aimed toward experienced readers, in which the System Folder is covered in depth.
Don’t let the title fool you. I RECOMMEND Mac OS8.5 For Dummies, and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED it for new users.
Travel Planning Online for Dummies
by Noah Vadnai
Dummies Press
<http://www.dummies.com>
ISBN 0-7645-0438-X, 323 pages plus CD
$24.99 U.S., $35.99 Canada, £23.99 U.K.
I used to throw a few items into a small backpack, and go… just like that! What a lousy traveler I was. Now I’m older, smarter, and I take plenty of time preparing for every trip and vacation. So should you.
During the last two years, the Dummies series has become mainstream in both content and style. I don’t miss all the cuteness one bit, especially when the topic is as important as my travel time and money.
This book is more than a series of recommended travel site Web URLs. The author knows his subject thoroughly, and anticipates readers’ concerns. Vadnai is as much a teacher as a tour guide. Both text and screen shots are first-rate.
The book contains: city guides, restaurant search sites, resorts of all sorts, accommodations, road and rail travel, plus trip tips for disabled, female, and senior travelers. Mailing lists, newsgroups, and online publications are covered, with much personal experience and guidance from the author.
Chapter Six, “Booking Your Flight Online” is particularly useful, and I plan to try one of the last-minute discount ticket operators this spring. A 30-page mini-directory yellow pages insert is a genuine bonus, and is surprisingly comprehensive. The book concludes with advice for physical and financial health and safety while traveling.
If there is a better book on the subject than Travel Planning Online for Dummies, I have not yet seen it. I intend to use this book and RECOMMEND this title for all beginner and intermediate travelers.
Internet Searching for Dummies
by Brad Hill
<http://www.bradhill.com>
Dummies Press
<http://www.dummies.com>
ISBN 0-7645-0478-9, 331 pages plus CD
$24.99 U.S., $35.99 Canada, £23.99 U.K.
What’s going on here? Three Dummies books in a row? Well, I requested them from IDG Books, so let’s keep plugging away in Book Bytes.
In this title we have a subject that is very precious (and time-consuming) for me, and my standards are high. How does Internet Searching for Dummies satisfy my requirements, and those of our readers?
Author Brad Hill begins auspiciously with the theories and concepts inherent in searching the Net, then uses Lycos, Excite, and Yahoo directory services to ease readers into the quest. Next comes extensive material on search Keywords, and how they are handled differently by each engine.
Then, one by one, the major brand-name search sites are covered in depth, including special distinguishing features and preferences. Usenet searching is explained, as is the Deja News site.
The second half of Internet Searching for Dummies is dominated by chapters featuring real world examples of searching within specific broad topics: health, education, news, finances, people, publications, and computer files. A modest, idiosyncratic 20-page yellow pages is in the center of the volume.
I can’t put my weight behind this review, because for some reason I am unable to get excited about this book. Perhaps my personal knowledge is clouding my objectivity. Absolute beginners will definitely find the title to be useful, as will most intermediates. See for yourself, then decide, based on your experience and skill level.
Inside Adobe Photoshop 5 Limited Edition
by Gary David Bouton and Barbara Bouton
<http://www.boutons.com>
and Gary Kubicek
<http://www.aiusa.com/gary>
New Riders Publishing
<http://www.newriders.com>
ISBN 1-56205-951-3, 1054 pages PLUS two CDs
$55.00 U.S., $78.95 Canada, £51.49 U.K.
Here’s how it usually works. I receive a bunch of books every month from several publishers, then organize them into groups of eight, for future Book Bytes columns. The books are reviewed in approximately the order received, unless I need to shuffle the sequence to make for more balanced subject coverage.
Occasionally a book arrives that is so unusual it immediately jumps to the next available review spot. Inside Adobe Photoshop 5 Limited Edition is such a book. What’s the big deal?
The big deal is the BIG BOOK. This thick, heavy volume is the only hard-cover computer book we have ever reviewed. With software versions and upgrades changing monthly, New Riders is very courageous to publish this book and two-CD combo in such a substantial package.
Let’s start with the disks. They are loaded with software, demos, images, and text, and each one is truly a custom product. As the authors explain, this book+CDs is intended to be a dynamic learning tool, and they provide their philosophy for learning in a splendid final essay.
Starting at the back of the book, Chapter 25 is huge, with 85 pages of actual techniques for “The Author’s Favorite Third-Party Plug-Ins,” with a “recommended serving of one per day.” This is the final chapter of a book divided into six major sections, taking readers from the basics into advanced Photoshop techniques, including “Publishing and Beyond.”
The first three comprehensive introductory chapters set the helpful tone for the rest of Inside Adobe Photoshop 5 Limited Edition. Greyscale screenshots are plentiful throughout the book, plus two 16-page printed color inserts, and every image produced in color on disk. The illustrations are from Windows NT, but the authors give equal treatment to Mac OS whenever necessary. My personal favorite chapter is “Restoring Heirloom Photographs.” So many old pictures in my life, with so little time left!
Writing is patient, thorough, readable, and sensible. The chapters are extensive and lengthy, with breadth and depth in every topic and component. Pages contain plenty of white space for notes and sketches, and the production quality of the imagery is high. The sequenced lessons are well-presented, and the authors are particularly strong on special Photoshop effects.
Gary David Bouton reminds me, via email:
Although it’s not universally known, if we *ever* discover an error in any of our books, the correction goes up on our website immediately, and remains there until the publisher updates the book. The area is called “Updates” at <http://www.TheBoutons.com>.
The other thing is that we have a 250+ entry glossary on the first CD, in Acrobat format with cross-indices and full color images. It’s a fairly complete product that addresses Photoshop issues but extends to imaging in general with definitions and illustrations of anti-aliasing, resolution, color models, and so on.
Inside Photoshop 5 Limited Edition is a serious, expensive book/CD package, and it is worth every penny for dedicated users. For these people, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this title.
Internet Kids & Family 1999 Yellow Pages
by Jean Armour Polly
<http://www.netmom.com>
Osborne/McGraw-Hill
<http://www.osborne.com>
ISBN 0-07-211849-0, 724 pages plus CD
$34.99 U.S.
This book opens with highly-recommended “don’t miss hotlist” and “best of the rest of the book” websites, which are sufficient to get every reader immersed for at least an hundred hours of productive browsing. The author aims for her family-oriented yellow pages to be an interactive experience. She provides web addresses for both personal contact and book updates. Bravo!
The Internet Kids & Family 1999 Yellow Pages has the same “real Yellow Pages” look and feel as Osborne’s other directory, by Harley Hahn, which we have previously reviewed and recommended. Ms. Polly uses intriguing boxed Net Files quizzes to stimulate her readers’ thinking and searching, such as: “In what sport would you find the following terms: bump and run, fried egg, and smothered hook?” (They are all golfing terms, with URLs provided.)
Several of her many alphabetical sections are particularly comprehensive, and my favorites include: Astronomy and Space, Health and Safety, History, Holidays, Music and Musicians, and Sports. The site selections and reviews throughout the book are consistently high-quality.
On a personal note, I am currently spending “too much” time following her links for jazz music, Bach and classical music, and swimming websites, so if my phone is busy when you call, I’m on the Internet.
The book is full of educational and practical resources, in every possible subject area. Two huge special sections at the end of the book cover Countries of the World, and Parenting. This area, Parenting and Families, contains an outstanding introduction, plus over 150 selected sites.
Ms. Polly provides a special short course on Search Engines and Directories. Children and families are considered to be smart, savvy, and infinitely inquisitive. There is enough material in Internet Kids & Family 1999 Yellow Pages to keep all children, parents, educators, and everyone else productive (or goofing off) forever. I strongly RECOMMEND this title, and I use it myself on a regular basis.
The author has informed me, via email:
You might also mention that only this particular edition has a CD-ROM with all the URLs on it (older editions don’t). Regarding the updates, FYI we update the current edition all the time, and the updated URLs are found on my home page, where lots of (FREE!) samples from the book may be found: <http://www.netmom.com/ikyp>. BTW, John, we are an all-Mac shop here. 
The updates occur in a FileMaker Pro database, with CGI hooks into it from the website.
Thanks, Jean.
Getting Started with 3D, A Designer’s Guide to 3D
Graphics and Illustration
by Janet Ashford
<http://www.jashford.com>
and John Odam
Peachpit Press
<http://www.peachpit.com>
ISBN 0-201-69676-2, 170 pages
$34.95 U.S., $48.95 Canada
I admit it. This book sat on my “Book Bytes Pending” shelf for half-a-year before I got the courage to examine it. The thought of learning about 3D graphics was intimidating to me, so I kept skipping over this title when selecting books to review.
What a stupid idiot I was. Getting Started with 3D is one of the most pleasant and informative books I have studied in a long time. The authors enjoy their subject, and have put enormous skill and effort into making the reading and learning experience positive for all readers, including total newcomers to the topic (me).
Visually, the book is stunning. The design incorporates a flexible column format, with every page having a special look, within a consistent plan. There are hundreds of gorgeous color illustrations, including both familiar imagery and custom demonstration graphics.
Readers can turn to any page, then fire up their computers and start creating. The nine chapters are rich with information and inspiration, and can be tackled systematically or at random, depending upon the skill and imagination of the artist. From “Getting Started” and “The Basics of Desktop 3D” to “Manipulating 3D Objects” and “Lighting, Viewing, and Rendering,” each chapter is loaded with creative projects.
Sidebars and tips are plentiful, as are diagrams in which 3D objects are analyzed and viewed from several perspectives. The quality of the production is first-rate, from heavy paper stock to rich color graphics. The physical book is a strange shape, being very wide and not very high, so it sticks out from the shelf for easy locating and page-flipping.
If you have ever considered taking the plunge into Getting Started with 3D, do as I say, and not as I do! Find this book, and get going. I especially RECOMMEND this title for beginners and intermediates, due to the authors’ emphasis on the fundamentals, and full-color pictorial overview.
Palm III and PalmPilot Visual QuickStart Guide
by Jeff Carlson
<http://www.necoffee.com>
Peachpit Press
<http://www.peachpit.com>
ISBN 0-201-35390-3, 252 pages
$15.99 U.S., $23.95 Canada
I have been reading Jeff Carlson’s effusive praise for the Palm platform in TidBITS magazine <http://www.tidbits.com>. Now we have a full-service book on the Palm III, formerly known as Palm Pilot. (For simplification, let’s call it the P3, if you don’t mind.)
If ever there was a perfect match between book format and computer topic, here it is. Using a dynamic blend of lessons, tips, screen shots, photographs, sidebars, and illustrated Graffiti strokes, Carlson has put together a superior book for beginner and intermediate users of the Palm platform. Both hardware and software concerns are covered.
Palm III and PalmPilot Visual QuickStart Guide is divided into three major parts, covering essential P3 usage, networking, and organizational techniques and procedures. I was amazed both at the exceptional quantity of things you can do with the P3, and with Jeff’s ability to explain the huge range of applications and attributes in a conversational manner.
Both Mac and Windows synchronization are covered in detail, with screen shots from both platforms when necessary. URLs for recommended third party Web sites are plentiful. Suggestion, Jeff: print the URLs in bold type next time around; the tiny italic font is insufficient.
Carlson responds:
The style of writing URLs in italics can be difficult to read at times. Fortunately, all of the websites mentioned in the book can be found on the Links page at <http://www.peachpit.com/vqs/palm>. If you’re online already, you can easily jump to that page and then jump to the page of whichever link in the book you’re interested in.
Personal data management is both the Palm’s and the author’s greatest strength. Users can achieve proficiency with a few basic tips, or become a true power user if desired. The chapters on the Date Book, Address Book, To Do List, and Memo Pad are particularly worthwhile. I have yet to see someone access email and the web with a Palm, but armed with Palm III and PalmPilot Visual QuickStart Guide I’m motivated to join the party.
I have already purchased a stack of these books to give as gifts to my Palm-using friends and associates. If you want to get the most out of your P3 or Pilot, this book will make your life much more productive. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Real World Illustrator 8, Industrial-Strength
Production Techniques
by Deke McClelland
<http://www.dekemc.com>
Peachpit Press
<http://www.peachpit.com>
ISBN 0201-35387-3, 832 pages
$34.99 U.S., $52.50 Canada
Wow! Did you hear that sound? A new “industrial-strength” application book just dropped on my front door step. Deke is back with another winner. How do these major-league authors manage to blast out one giant-size volume after another, several times each year?
My personal knowledge of Adobe Illustrator is limited, but I know a fine book on the subject when I see one. Illustrator is a powerful drawing program, and it deserves a potent book. Although the author uses colorful language and describes colorful imagery technique, the illustrations in the book are in greyscale, to keep the cover price more affordable. My opinion: give us color, and charge a bit more.
From installation to tools, palettes, icons, dialog boxes, and online help, every aspect of the program gets full-service treatment. Pages boldly display new features in Illustrator 8, plus profuse notes, warnings, and tips. The four major parts of the book (Starting, Creating, Changing, and Coloring) each have several chapters devoted to the huge range of techniques available to users.
Artists will already be comfortable with the drawing methods described, and non-artists, such as myself, will want to have the rest of the family disappear for a month or two, in order to have some mental space to try everything. Did you ever have a burning passion for “Adjusting Autotracing Sensitivity” or “Carving Holes into Compound Paths”? You will be satisfied.
I am amazed both at what this application can achieve, and with McClelland’s ability to explain it all clearly. Shortcuts receive full treatment in the Appendix, for versions 6, 7, and 8 of Illustrator.
You get the picture: this book is impressive. Whatever your requirements, I can definitely RECOMMEND Real World Illustrator 8 for every level of user.
•John Nemerovski• <johnemer@tmug.com>
Websites mentioned:
<http://www.boblevitus.com>
<http://www.dummies.com>
<http://www.bradhill.com>
<http://www.boutons.com>
<http://www.aiusa.com/gary>
<http://www.newriders.com>
<http://www.TheBoutons.com>.
<http://www.netmom.com>
<http://www.osborne.com>
<http://www.netmom.com/ikyp>
<http://www.jashford.com>
<http://www.peachpit.com>
<http://www.necoffee.com>
<http://www.tidbits.com>
<http://www.peachpit.com/vqs/palm>
<http://www.dekemc.com>
Strata Studio Pro 2.5.3
Company: Strata
Estimated Price: $949.00
<http://www.strata.com>
The thing about writing an article like this is the desire to convey to the user (or potential user) the good, bad, cool, and uncool about a piece of software that they may or may not want to consider purchasing; and it all rests on my shoulders—a guy who’s an artist/animator/model builder/previsualization dude.
I could just give you the dry run facts:
Strata Studio Pro 2.5.3 (released Nov 10, 1998)
Package consists of:
1 CD (program disk and Power Module 1, plus a lot of sample goodies)
User Manual
Reference Manual
Power Module 1 Manual
Advertising
Reference card
Total Install on My Computer (Power Mac 6500/300 – 64MB RAM – 6GB HD): 277.3MB
Cost: $949.00 (possibly less if you’re a student)
…and then go into a tirade of dry graphics and commentary on why or why not you should have this program or want to allocate hard drive space for this, but that’s not my style. I’m an artist and my close friends say I have the gift of an evangelist, so we’re gonna see what happens together.
The short of it is, if you want to get the best bang for your buck, go buy this product. No, seriously, go call 1-800-STRATA3D right now and order yourself one of the best low-cost 3D modeller/animation packages that I have come across. Well? Go ahead. What are you waiting for? What? Details? The Whys? Ohhh… so you want information, reasons to part with your hard-earned dollars. You’re sure you want it, because I heard Tim’s articles and reviews were really good this month…. Oh, OK.
Look, this is one of those Mac-original software packages, you know, where it comes with the icon-based menu bars that can actually help aid you in figuring out what it’s supposed to do [as well as a small "definitions" bar that tells you what it is if you can't figure it out (Hey, Strata, make the definitions come up ALL the time not just when the option is available!!!)]. So why is that important? Well I know certain programs are coming over from that OTHER platform that are 3D and they still look like something off the mainframe with goofy interfaces. Listen, I’m busy and time is money, and when you get into 3D, it’s really like you’re getting married to the software you choose (ask my wife) because you spend a lot of time learning the intricacies and nuances of the software. So I ask you, do you want something where you can get a good idea of what’s going on by pictures, observation and logic, or would you rather spend your time trying to figure out what’s going on by telepathy and the >ahem< “logic” of the PC programmer? (You know, those guys that always want to argue with you about how great their platform is and that DOS is really the best system and everything else is crap.) Personally, I would prefer to spend my time making money than losing it trying to figure out what one of these guys meant, but hey, three button mice are nice and having spent time working on Alias/Wavefront, you can get the hang of it, just not as fast.
QuickDraw3D or Open GL the eternal question…
I can already hear some of you saying,” OK, so I get the idea, the tool bars have pretty pictures on them, is there any really good reason I should part with my hard-earned dollars?” Oh, true believers, I have not even scratched the surface! Let’s start with the work windows.
First, you get a choice of QuickDraw3D or Open GL. This is very cool, especially if you have a hardware acceleration card that supports Open GL, because that means speed (shorter redraw time)! You can choose to view your model as a pointcloud (just like it sounds, a cloud of points), outline (the model is viewed only as control points and the lines running between them), wireframe (shows all the polygon meshes in the object-think vector graphic like you see in the “Making of Jurassic Park” specials where they show the computer dudes working on the dinosaur models), flat (shaded with little squares), hidden line (wireframe, but only seeing the side toward you), or shaded (smooth, “plastic” surface).
The models (that is the 3D primitive shapes that are provided to you) can be converted into a Skin, Bezier Surface, Polygon Mesh, or Polygon Group. This may not seem like much, but utilizing the Skin and Bezier Surface models, I have been able to create 5.5 Million (yes, MILLION) polygon models and use only 475k of disk space storing it (a friend of mine who is a 3D Studio Max Guru said that his dual-processor Pentium would roll over and die trying to run a model that big on 3D Studio Max).
I should mention here that a really nice feature is the ability to import Illustrator files and convert them for extrusion (say, logos) or as guides (like a blue print when you’re building say, a ship).
Another great feature is texture preview, that is, if you have placed a texture map on a model, it appears on the model as a grey image and you can then adjust the position of the texture to the way you want it (this did take a little getting used to). While we’re on the subject of texture mapping, you get MIP! What’s that? Oh, sorry, that means Multiple Image Placement, which is the ability to place more than one texture on an object and have it show up on the object. MIP goes very well with another recent feature called “Stencil.” Simply put, Stencil is a cookie cutter for texture maps that allows you to see what’s underneath. For a more detailed understanding, I would recommend the article “Clearly Opaque” in Stratauser #1 <http://www.stratauser.com> – I would highly recommend getting all issues, past and present, because the info is absolutely 100% useful).
You get resources! Useful, cool, modifiable resources! Like Fountains! Fountains is that plug in that allows you to make water fountains, lava spewing out of a volcano, or machine gun shell casings ejecting out of a machine gun and bounce off boxes or whatever… What? Shell casings? Well, yeah, you see in THIS program, they thought you might have more ideas than just making pretty fountains of water so they gave you the ability to specify the shape that you are using so whatever shape you specify will be the objects that spew out of the fountain and with collision detection it will bounce off the objects around it rather than passing through them.
You get Lens Flare! I don’t think I need to go into a long treatise on this one, but needless to say, they give you incredible control on how you want it to look from the flash and glare color to how much chaos and opacity you want. You also get Aura which allows you to add a fuzzy soft “glow” to objects (say around a planet or a lightbulb).
Fog/Mist is another tool feature which again is a very cool atmospheric effect that can add a lot of mood to your renderings or animation.
And speaking of rendering and animation, Strata has one of the nicest sets of renderers to choose from. You have a choice of Open GL (renders pictures in one of the above-mentioned formats), Radiosity (really cool photorealistic renderings, especially when using several glass objects of different color, thickness, and texture), Raytracing (for accurate shadows and photorealistic renderings of objects), Scanline (fast, and a good way to see the model rendered without shadows and the glass effects), and custom (build your own from one of the above by varying the settings provided). These renderers have been very fast in my experience and are quite powerful. The only drawback that I found was in rendering animations, I would like to see them develop an every “nth” frame renderer so that I can sample animations by rendering every few frames rather than having to render the entire animation to look for bugs.
A quick list of some of the standard features that many packages have (including, of course, Strata Studio Pro) are:
Metaballs; Path Extrude; Boolean Union, Subtraction Intersect, and Cut; Skin/Unskin; Lathe; Extrude; Scale; Pen; and a selection of 2D and 3D primitives as well as Lights and Cameras.
Now the drawbacks, I would be amiss if I did not say that Strata Studio Pro is lacking in some way, and that way would be the limitations on import/export formats. Though they do have several formats available, the lowest common ones are 3Dmf and dxf which take a long time to output and can take up a huge chunk of drive space. BUT help is on the way, so tune in next month to see what I’ve found to temporarily help solve the problem for not only Strata Studio Pro, but other 3D software packages as well (no, it wasn’t human sacrifice!).
But wait! There’s more! (Heh, always wanted to say that.) Strata Studio Pro also ships with Power Module 1! “OK, what’s that?” I’m glad you asked, O inquisitive one. Power Module 1 is the first (they didn’t send me any others, so I’m not gonna tell you about those) in a series of plug-ins that Strata has developed to make our jobs easier and more profitable.
Power Module 1 consists of:
•Deformation Lattice – This gives you the ability to “squash and stretch” models so that you can make them animate more easily ( say, for example, a rubber ball bouncing; or as their book shows, a teapot hopping) without having to move points.
•Inverse Kinematics – This is that plug-in that allows you to build skeletons to make your models (people, birds, whatever) move realistically.
•Hair – We’re talking MAJOR time saver here! Whether it’s putting hair on a person you’ve made, or grass in the ground, this was a welcome sight to be able to develop a texture map to make thing hairy. This does, however increase rendering time.
•Fire and Smoke – OH YEAH! Let’s go burn down the city! No more animating semi-transparent metaballs to do smoke and no more modifying “glowing” primitives! Just point, click, and modify! (Well, maybe a little more complex than that, but you get the idea.)
•HotSpot – For that glowing eye “Wrath of God” look that you always want to use on late-paying clients.
•Pixie Dust – Tinkerbell has come ‘a callin’ and needs you to create some magic pixie dust for her deep space probe’s engines (she tells you Wendy wants to take a long vacation from Peter) and now you can help her do it before Wendy can find the door!
•Mirror – OH YEAH! Save Time? OH YEAH!! Make Life easier? OH YEAH!!!! build twice the model in half the time! Say a car, build half of it and then mirror the other half! It has definitely kept me from going insane!
“Y’know, that does sound like a good deal, but two things: 1) If I do get it, is there a really fast way to get up and running on it, and 2) I can’t afford it right now and was wondering if there was some other package that Strata produces that I could get to get my toes wet with?”
Those are excellent questions, and I’m glad you asked—
1) Stratauser has produced an excellent video called “Jump Start” for $29.95 + $4 S&H to help you speed up your learning curve. Also, Strata has a news group where you can post questions and receive answers from some of the best in the field.
2) Strata sent me a copy of StrataVision 3D 5.0, which is basically their previous version of Studio Pro with some features taken out. The price for this little baby is only $279.00 plus S&H, or you can get version 4.0 for free (well, you will have to pay S&H)!
Now, I’m sure that there is a good possibility that I may have missed a few things, so go to <http://www.strata3D.com> and download the demo version to mess around with. See you in a month (barring death, fire, or Tim killing me for making this review so long).
•Bill Perry • <billperry@pobox.com>
If you work as a Systems Administrator, MIS director, or are in some position of authority over a Macintosh network system in a higher education institution, business, or non-profit organization, then you will want to read this article very carefully.
On Tuesday, January 5th, Apple Computer, Inc. made history. Computing history. Apple unveiled three critical products to the long term success of any organization’s Macintosh network. The advantages of these products include: speed, stability, ease of administration, security, cost reduction, and substantial long-terms savings. These products are: The new iMac, the completely redesigned G3 Tower, and Mac OS X Server.
THE NEW iMacs
The new iMacs. Pretty, aren’t they? Well, don’t let their toy-ish exterior fool you. These are powerful self-contained workstations. Sure, they aren’t towers. Sure, they don’t have options for lots of drives or add-in cards. But make no mistake: they kick some serious butt. They come in the following flavors: Lime, Raspberry, Blueberry, Grape, and Tangerine. Well, okay they don’t taste like those flavors, they just look like them. However, they are built around the powerful PowerPC G3 (aka 750) 266MHz chip. They also have 32MB of RAM, 6 GB internal IDE hard drive, a 24X CD-ROM, an ATI RAGE PRO TURBO graphics chip with a whopping 6 MB of video memory, and support something called NetBoot. For full specifications, check out the following web page: http://www.apple.com/iMac/specs.html. Oh, and did I mention that all of this costs only $1,299?
THE NEW PowerMacintosh G3s
The next ingredient in this formula for success is the new, completely redesigned PowerMacintosh G3. Usually, beauty is but skin deep. However, the new PowerMacintosh G3′s beauty permeates every bit of its existence. Apart from its jaw-dropping industrial design, the PowerMacintosh G3 is an unbelievably powerful workstation. Based on a PowerPC G3 processor in 300MHz, 350MHz, and 400MHz flavors, this new line of G3′s are fast. However, unlike the previous line of G3′s, the processor is not the only outstanding component of the system.
If you thought the previous line of G3 cases were easy to get into, you ain’t seen nothin yet. With the twist of two tabs, the entire side of the G3′s case swings out, with the motherboard attached. You thus have access to your logic board, processor, PCI cards, RAM, and other components. Inside the still-standing case, you then have easy access to your drive bays and power supply. Even though it sound similar to the old, trust me. As a Macintosh tech, I know that this new system is a lot easier to get into.
Now, let’s talk speed. Sure, we already discussed the processor. However, a computer’s speed only partly depends on the processor. This machine sports a 100MHz system bus, 3 (64-bit) PCI cards, high-speed 8ns access RAM (a PowerMac 6100 uses 60ns), an UltraDMA drive, dual USB ports, dual FireWire ports (400 Mbps each), and a fourth 64-bit double-speed PCI slot that houses the ATI RAGE 128GL graphics card, which comes with 16MB of SGRAM standard and support two SVGA monitor outputs on that one card!
This machine was pitted against a 450MHz Pentium II machine in both benchmarks and real-world Photoshop tests. In the benchmarks, the machine scored 2.3 times as fast as the Pentium II system. No surprise there. However, in the real-world Photoshop tests, the machine scored 1.9 times as fast, validating the claim that G3 chips are twice as fast as Pentium chips! Once you bring up the subsystems to speed, the machine easily outperforms a superior MHz Pentium!
Now, let’s talk games. Sure, most of you won’t ever play games on these systems. However, games are the ultimate benchmark for system speed. So, three machines were compared in games performance. The machines were: a 300MHz G3 (series I) with on-board ATI RAGE Pro graphics chip, a Pentium II 450MHz machine with a Voodoo 2 card, and the new 400MHz G3 (series II) machine. The old G3 gave a respectable 36 frames per second (fps). The Pentium II 450 with Voodoo 2, the PC world’s best graphics card, gave an impressive 50 frames per second. However, the new G3 400MHz with the ATI RAGE 128GL gave an overwhelming 62 frames per second! Go Apple! Oh, and did I mention that this level of performance starts at only $1599 (G3 series II with 300MHz processor)?
Mac OS X Server
Now, for the third piece of the puzzle: Mac OS X Server. This is one heck of an OS. It’s built on top of a Mach microkernel, has full BSD UNIX support, and is based on NeXT, Inc.’s OpenSTEP operating system. It has all of the advanced features that Mac users have been wanting for years, including memory protection, preemptive multitasking, advanced virtual memory, and more. It has a transparent Mac OS compatibility layer dubbed the “Blue Box”, so that all of your existing Mac OS programs will run on it. It also comes with WebObjects, Apache Web Server, advanced File Management, and NetBoot functionality. With the total package of software worth over $3,000, it is a great buy at $999. Oh, and did I mention that it was fast?
At Macworld Expo, Steven Jobs demonstrated a G3 tower (400MHz, as shown above) running Mac OS X Server. It was connected to 50 drive-less iMacs (hard drives, not floppy drives). All 50 iMacs booted from one copy of Mac OS residing on the Mac OS X/G3 server! And it was fast! Then, Steve streamed live QuickTime video to all 50 iMacs simultaneously! Now that’s impressive!
So, what does this mean? This means that you can scrap your existing Mac network, get all iMacs for the end user stations, get a G3 tower for your server/admin desk, and network them together with either 100BaseT ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet. Which one you choose depends on cost and what size your network is. Then, you load Mac OS X Server on the G3 tower, set up the NetBoot account on the server with the OS of choice for your machines (8.5 comes preinstalled), and then all of the application programs that you want them to have access to. They can store their files on the built-in 6 GB hard drive without the danger of accidentally altering or harming their OS, as it is on the server. And with the Mac OS X advanced file management system, keeping applications from being pirated is easier than ever. Oh, did I mention that it doesn’t take a PhD to setup and administer it?
For those of you who have a less than perfect Mac network, you can see the value in such a system. No longer will you need an on-staff technician to go fix the Macs every time someone installs a quirky program or extension. No longer will network administration require going to each single machine to set it up to be restored. No longer will you have to mess with any of these machines in any way! Everything is done through the server. Just set it up, and get to work.
Let’s see a Windows NT machine try and do that…
Mark Anthony Collins
themacman@macsrule.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.apple.com/iMac/specs.html
WEB ART – WITH A DIFFERENCE!
Last October, I received the following email message from Ardith Ibañez Rigby, an author whose book I had recently reviewed:
YOU ARE INVITED TO EXPERIENCE…
The first projection site for the Global Collage art project!
October 30 – December 23, 1998
San Francisco, California, USA
Each night, we will project the Collage — a rotating gallery of images submitted by worldwide artists via the Internet — at the corner of Green, Stockton, and Columbus, beginning at sunset for approximately 3 hours (weather permitting). We encourage you to visit the web site http://www.globalcollage.com to view the Collage, submit your own artwork, and learn more about the project.
Ben Rigby, Ardith ñezIba Rigby, and Ruth Chang
The Global Collage Team
I was curious about this project, but not being in San Francisco, I kept the idea on my mental back burner for two months. Then, at the end of December, just before the live Collage projection was about to conclude, I wrote to Ardith, Ben, and Ruth, asking for more information about their unusual venture. They offered an expanded version of their initial promotional release, including the following:
GLOBAL COLLAGE BRINGS ART TO THE STREET USING THE INTERNET
The website displays a rotating gallery of images submitted by worldwide artists via the Internet. Passersby will experience a truly global collection of ideas, emotions, and expressions. The project also brings the power of the Internet and the beauty of art to an audience who may not have the opportunity to use a computer or to view art in their daily lives.
By using the Internet as the means for collection, the Global Collage team can cheaply and easily gather artwork from a diverse group of artists from all corners of the globe. Those who may not have had the resources, connections, or time to exhibit their work in a museum or gallery now have a venue in which to display their talents. The team hopes that the Global Collage will fill this void by creating a public forum in which ordinary people can express their extraordinary talent.
The projection building lies at the busy intersection of Columbus, Stockton, and Green in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. The Proxima DP9300 projector (donated by Proxima), will be connected to a laptop computer with a wireless Internet connection. The projection will be live, which means that if a Balinese artist, for example, submits artwork at 8:30 Pacific Time, it could show up on the San Francisco wall by 8:35.
I apologize for not mentioning the Global Collage in a previous column, but Ben has just written that the first project was so successful they intend to find future venues for live outdoor display, “like the BART commuter train station, or from an RV, traveling around the country to whatever blank wall we can find!”
Ben and Ardith, both digital artists, have spent four years considering the role that art plays in daily life, and how people treat artists on the basis of that role. Art was too much of a separate experience from everyday existence, as exemplified by museums, galleries, and their restrictive entrance fees and hours of admission.
They joined forces with Ruth and created Global Collage. The Collage Team has been collecting art from all over the world during the past two years, via their site on the World Wide Web. Submission is free, and all types of images are welcome.
Initial sponsorship came from Bank of the West, Moose’s Restaurant, Adolpho’s Restaurant, and the Rigbys’ design business, Akimbo Design http://www.akimbodesign.com. The Global Collage website will remain active, and is definitely worth repeat visits. I keep it in the background whenever I’m on the Web, to enjoy the intriguing rotating 30-second image displays of work by a true international gallery of artists.
The wall projections and Web site have been enthusiastically received both by viewers and artists. Typical responses include: “Thanks for bringing great design to the web and beyond!”
I congratulate Ruth, Ardith, and Ben, and invite all readers to visit their Global Collage site. Tell every artistic person you know to submit something, and keep in touch with the Team.
NEMO’S PREDICTIONS FOR 1999
You WILL get spammed, and you WILL lose data. Ugh. What can you do about these problems?
SPAMSPAMSPAM
Just before Christmas, I received a dozen “harmless” messages, all in Italian, essentially identical to the following one.
Caro Chiappe Giovanni
Grazie per aver ordinato presso Unistore.
22/12/1998
Order No. 100065
1 ‘MitshbishiMT30′
1 ‘SiemensS10′
1 ‘MitshbishiMT30′
1 ‘MitshbishiMT30′
Attraverso la Ricevuta verifichi il progresso del Suo ordine:
Per Tornare a Unistore Usi la seguente URL:
http://www.milanoticket.it
I sent a few choicely-worded messages back to the original address, and the spams stopped, I hope. Next time, I may not be so lucky.
Here’s what I suggest, and it may be a tough pill for some of you to swallow:
1. DO NOT FORWARD or originate any jokes or “cute” messages containing someone else’s email address. These messages circulate forever, and eventually are used to generate bulk spam lists.
2. When someone includes you as a recipient on any BULK email joke or similar message, immediately write to your “friend” asking for only original, single-recipient messages in the future.
There is plenty more to say on this subject, but those two points are the most important. Any questions?
BACKUPBACKUPBACKUP
I am a fanatic on backing up, and you should be also. Regardless of whether you use Zip, Jaz, SuperDrive, CD-R, MO, removable hard drive, or floppies (not recommended), make regular, reliable backups of your most important data, and store the disks off-site from your computer. One day you will appreciate this advice.
Until then, thanks for reading Nemo Memo. See you in March.
John Nemerovski
nemo@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.globalcollage.com
http://www.akimbodesign.com
Kinesis MPC Keyboard
Company: Kinesis Corporation
Estimated Price: $315.00
http://www.kinesis-ergo.com
FUNDAMENTALS
Most of you are using a conventional keyboard. A minority of enlightened users have their keyboards positioned below desk height, on a special keyboard drawer or shelf. An infinitesimal percentage do their typing (or “keying,” as it is now called) on a contoured ergonomic keyboard.
What’s wrong with this picture?
I’m looking at you now from across the room, and wondering if your chair position, height, and adjustability are optimized for your body at the desk (or “workstation”–take your pick). Is your monitor positioned on the physical desktop (“workspace”) at the best height and distance for your body and vision?
Keep reading. It gets worse.
You sit at your friendly Macintosh for several hours at a stretch (remember that word, “stretch”) because you enjoy it, and because you are totally involved in the game/spreadsheet/webpage/document/project/whatever currently running on your system. Occasionally you need to leave the spot, for visits to the bathroom, or for some food and drink.
After an extensive round of typing or mousing, your fingers, wrists, and forearms need a good shake (remember “shake” also) because they have become stiff from doing the same thing for such a long time. Your back and shoulders also feel stiff, from sitting in your chair in one position without much other movement.
Enter the contoured ergonomic keyboard? No, not yet.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
I have spent much of the last three years studying the literature and evaluating special keyboards. Do you know much about RSI (repetitive stress injury) or CTS (carpal tunnel syndrome)? If you have not previously given them a moment’s thought, I expect you will soon, sooner than you ever imagined.
I’m not a prime candidate for RSI/CTS therapy, and if you follow a little common-sense advice, neither will you be. Custom keyboards can improve your physical well-being, and possibly your computer productivity, but they come third in the ergonomic food-chain of self-help.
The following prescription sounds easy to take, but you will resist it vehemently until you are coerced into it:
A. Every 25 minutes take a five-minute break from the computer. Get on your feet. Do a few stretches. Go for a little walk. Shake your body in several directions. Talk to a human being. You will add life to your years and years to your life at the Macintosh.
B. Talk to someone who knows more than you regarding keyboard and monitor placement, and follow this person’s advice, beginning with a sliding keyboard drawer and, probably, an elevated monitor position in front (NOT at the side) of your seated body position.
C. Consider purchasing and using an ergonomic keyboard.
D. Buy and use a high-quality, adjustable chair. (This is a topic worthy of a separate essay.)
SO WHAT’S NEW?
As I was preparing this review, a reviewer and several readers of TidBITS http://www.tidbits.com stole my thunder. There are only so many things to say regarding any one product, and most of them can be found by searching the archives in both TidBITS and TidBITS Talk, from the main TidBITS page, for “Kinesis” or “ergonomic” or “keyboard.” Quite a bit more is available from Kinesis, linked from their Web site.
The punch lines from most reviewers and users of this unusual keyboard are:
Right, it’s time for my five-minute break. You too. Get up and move it, now!
Didn’t that feel good? Set your timer for 25 minutes again.
We don’t need to walk in the footprints of the dedicated writers who have covered this product previously. I can add my personal evaluation to the growing group of reviews, and hopefully assist our readers in actively pursuing a new and different keyboard, AFTER they have adopted the sensible improvements of regular mini-exercise and hardware placement.
HOW IS THE KINESIS KEYBOARD, JOHN?
I thought you would never ask! It’s weird, and it works.
Applying the My Mac Magazine Q/D/S/V standard to it, we find:
QUALITY is good. The keys, contoured chassis, cables, and accessories are well-constructed, and built to last.
DOCUMENTATION is thorough and well-written. More is discussed than the average person ever wants–or needs–to know. My reviewer packet was an encyclopedic resource on alternative keyboards and workstation ergonomics, much of which is available from the company website. Special mention goes to the booklet of Adaptation Exercises, which, when followed, produce foolproof results over a several-week period.
SUPPORT is reasonably quick and responsive. My first demo keyboard was defective, and after a detailed set of troubleshooting email messages with the Kinesis tech director, it was repaired and returned in perfect condition.
VALUE for this expensive after-market item is right on target, especially for users who have been plagued by RSI/CTS. Consider this keyboard to be medicine that tastes better every time you take it.
Do I have any gripes? Here they are:
1. The power key is tucked back behind and under the keys, which is a very awkward location for doing keyboard RESTARTS.
2. This keyboard can also be used by PC users, and the PC power key does power up the Macintosh, but leaves everything on the Mac frozen. This PC power button stays ON when pressed, and needs to be pressed again to enter the OFF position. Very inconvenient, especially, when a newbie presses it by accident. (There is a long version of this story involving plenty of unprintable words, which I will save for another time.)
Jon Biggs from Kinesis explains:
I can understand your frustration when you accidentally press this button instead of the power button. In actuality, the PC power key of which you refer is the Mac/PC selector button and is not a PC power key. When you push the button to the “in” position it switches it to PC mode and when you push the button to the “out” position it switches to the Mac mode. The power key located next to the Mac/PC selector button is used only when the keyboard is in the Mac mode and operating with a Mac. Therefore, the selector button is only used to switch between operating systems and not to power up the computer.
Okay, Jon. I promise I’ll only press the correct power key.
My ten personal favorite traits of the Kinesis Classic MPC are:
1. Palm rests are included, but the keyboard is so well-designed that most of time wrists are “floating” above the padded rests.
2. Remapping and/or copying of specific keys is easy to accomplish. Both Classic and Professional modes feature unlimited remapping. The Pro keyboard offers larger individual macros (up to 142 characters) than does the Classic (up to 56 characters), which is why the Classic model is adequate for most users.
3. Programmable foot switches (both Single Action and Dual Action) are available, at $30 and $69, respectively. Kinesis provided me with a foot switch, but I did not have the opportunity to become accustomed to using it. I now understand that “Each contoured keyboard can support up to two single action foot switches or one dual action switch, allowing the user to activate key actions and macros,” according to Jon Biggs.
4. Special attention is given to new users with pre-existing injuries. Kinesis is particularly sensitive to their needs.
5. Kinesis offers a very strong standard limited-lifetime warranty.
6. Ergonomic guidelines are discussed in the User’s Manual.
7. Long live the LEFT THUMB Backspace and Delete keys! Remember that you can program (“remap”) any keys to suit your personal needs.
8. The keyboard fits into a standard under-desk sliding keyboard drawer, with dimensions: 16.5″ wide x 3″ high x 8″ deep.
9. Kinesis offers a 60-day refund, but I expect the majority of keyboards are kept, or possibly upgraded to higher models.
10. An extensive family of accessories is available, with reasonable prices. The company also sells the non-programmable Essential MPC for $265.00, and the advanced programmable Professional MPC for $395. If you’re interested in using a Dvorak key layout instead of the typical QWERTY layout, Kinesis now makes Macintosh-compatible Dvorak units: “We offer a QWERTY/Dvorak dual legend switchable keyboard. The user can switch ‘on the fly’ between layouts, and because it is hard wired into the keyboard, it does not require any special software or drivers,” says Biggs.
A few peculiar attributes of the Kinesis family of keyboards are:
1. The “embedded numeric keypad” can be activated in several ways. I could use a bit more time to take full advantage of this feature.
Jon Biggs from Kinesis tells me that:
You can either press the “Keypad” function key or use a foot switch to activate the embedded keypad. We have found that people who extensively use the keypad love this feature because they never have to move their hands to type numbers and they can use a foot switch to move back and forth between typing letters and numbers.
I should also mention that by “embedding” the keypad into the right keywell it greatly reduces the width of the keyboard. This allows the user to locate a pointing device much closer to them, reducing the reach as compared to other keyboards.
2. Thumb keys are used for keystrokes and combinations, including (LEFT SIDE) Backspace, Delete, Home, and End; and (RIGHT SIDE) Page Up, Page Down, Enter, and Space. Both the COMMAND and OPTION keys are available from either left or right thumb. The integral design of all these thumb keys redistributes workload away from overused little fingers to underused, stronger thumbs.
Biggs continues:
On a traditional keyboard the majority of the keying workload is allocated to your weakest fingers. According to one study, your little finger (which is also your weakest, in terms of maximum finger-pushing force) is assigned the greatest number of keys (25), while your strongest finger, the thumb is allocated the least number of keys (1). Not only do the thumb keys found on the Kinesis keyboard redistribute the keying workload, they also minimize the awkward and extensive reaching to specific keys.
3. Left and right fingers do most typing in separate concave key wells, each containing 28 keys. This separation of the hands, and the corresponding finger pressing actions, takes several weeks to become automatic. (It’s difficult to describe the experience of using a Kinesis keyboard, perhaps even more difficult than actually doing the learning!)
Jon Biggs states:
One of the more damaging characteristics of a traditional keyboard is that it promotes hand and finger extension. Meaning, the joints in our hands and fingers curl up and extend forward from your hands rather than relaxing down slightly in the direction of the palms. Also a traditional keyboard does not accommodate for the relative lengths of your fingers (e.g. a flat surface assumes all of your fingers are the same length), thereby, forcing your longer fingers to arch up over the keys.
Kinesis contoured keyboards addresses these problems by (1) creating concave wells by which to type in; placing your hands in a much more natural and relaxed position and (2) adjusting individual key heights to accommodate for the varying lengths of your fingers.
IN CONCLUSION
Given the research and quality built into every Kinesis keyboard, plus the 60-day return policy, I strongly RECOMMEND users with physical pain consider this keyboard immediately. Everyone else should become familiar with this family of ergonomic keyboards and accessories. Two thumbs up! I wish I could keep my Classic MPC, but I’ll be sending it back to Kinesis soon. Too soon.
MacMice Rating: 3.5
John Nemerovski
nemo@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.kinesis-ergo.com
http://www.tidbits.com
Welcome to another edition of The Game Guys. After much planning, Mike and I have decided to switch over to a “true live” format. That means that what you are reading is our actual conversation/review of the game, uninterrupted. This new format makes it much easier for us to complete a review, and we really enjoyed using it. As always, we welcome any feedback. (We are actually known to beg for it at times). Without further ado, our first game reviewed with this new format is Slithereens, from Ambrosia Software.
Slithereens 1.0
Company: Ambrosia Software
Shareware: $20.00
http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com
Mike: Ambrosia Software has a big reputation in the Mac shareware world for turning out games that are commercial quality but making them freely available and affordable. The folks at Ambrosia have struck gold again with their latest offering, Slithereens.
Adam: Mike, would you please bless us with the storyline of the game?
Mike: I’d be honored, Adam. You play the part of Luther, a snake who has been subjected to genetic experiments and is now trapped in a garden, along with many other genetically-mutated snakes. As a result of the experiments all of the snakes are segmented and can gain and lose segments without penalty, as long as they keep their heads. Segments are gained if the snakes eat other animals, and segments are lost if the snakes lay eggs or get eaten. The snakes are now prone to eating their own species, too, so Luther had better watch out! The only way out of this snake-eat-snake world is to eat all of the other snakes yourself, thus passing the levels and eventually escaping from garden.
Adam: From the minute you launch the installer, you can tell Slithereens is an Ambrosia game. Installation is straightforward, and you can start playing right away. No restart necessary.
Mike: Slithereens is very snappy and responsive during game play, too. Using the keyboard was easy (you only need to control your snake with the arrows or numeric keypad), and using a game pad or joystick was also simple and responsive.
Adam: Slithereens was very fast and stable on my G3, and I thought the graphics, sound effects, and especially the music were topnotch.
Mike: I thought so too, Adam. I also ran Slithereens on a G3, and the animations and graphics were very fluid. The digitized sound effects and spoken comments were exceptional too, and often hilarious!
Adam: Agreed, Mike. I loved the comments. They really added to the overall experience of the game. I couldn’t help myself from playing the game every time I turned on my computer. Horribly addictive.
Mike: Absolutely! It was so bad that I considered putting an alias to the game in my Startup Items folder! I really appreciated the fact that Slithereens takes advantage of Apple’s InputSprockets technology, so setting up your Game Pad or joystick is exceptionally easy.
Adam: Definitely. InputSprockets are also returning to the Extensions folder in Mac OS 8.6. It’s wonderful to see quality software adopting that standard.
Mike: The documentation in Slithereens was straightforward and helpful, but to be honest, I didn’t refer to it all that much. Slithereens is very easy to play and also easy to get started, and I found that the excellent tutorial at the beginning of the game was all I needed.
Adam: That tutorial was one of the best things I have ever seen from a shareware game. I am always one to skip the documentation, and when I started playing, I was a bit confused. Luckily, the helpful 2-minute tutorial was included right in the main menu. After watching it, I had no trouble playing Slithereens.
Mike: Slithereens even offers a two-player option, and you can work competitively or cooperatively to complete each level. Unfortunately, you do have to both be using the same computer, because there is no option for network play.
Adam: True, network/modem play would be awesome. Hopefully Ambrosia will consider it for a future version of Slithereens.
Mike: Like most of Ambrosia’s recent games, Slithereens costs $20 to register. Given how polished this game is, I consider that a steal!
Adam: It is a steal! You get to play 7 levels with the unregistered version, and when you register, you get 44 (I’ll check on that). Exceptional Value!
Requirements/Availability
Slithereens requires a 68040 or higher processor, Mac OS 7.1 or later, a 13″ color monitor, and 12MB of RAM.
You can download Slithereens from the Ambrosia Software/Slithereens website, at http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/Products/Slithereens.html, or from download.com, at http://www.download.com.
The Summary
Mike: Our minor complaint about the lack of a network game play aside, Slithereens is a near-perfect shareware game. It should come as no surprise that Ambrosia has yet another winner on its hands. Any Mac gamer should check Slithereens out as soon as possible! It’s a blast!
Adam: Ambrosia Software has always had a reputation for high quality, low cost shareware games. Slithereens further strengthens that reputation. If you enjoy nonviolent, fun, addicting games, chances are you’ll enjoy Slithereens. Highly Recommended by The Game Guys.
Download Slithereens 1.0
Mike Wallinga
mikew@mymac.com
Adam Karneboge
webmaster@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com
http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/Products/Slithereens.html
http://www.download.com
Let’s talk about getting service. More importantly, how to fix things yourself or at least drastically reduce the time a service technician will need to fix your Mac. We’ll cover how to use the technical information available to you, and if that doesn’t help, what to do then.
When problems arise, the Internet is one of the better troubleshooting tools available. Most companies now have their ‘knowledge base’ (a collection of troubleshooting tips) on their website, plus updates to their software to fix what either wasn’t correct to begin with or that interfered with another company’s software. While most of these sites are very easy to use, some are less intuitive, and this article will discuss a typical search for information.
Because I’m very familiar with most of the ways support information can be extracted from a company’s website, consider this hypothetical situation based upon a recent support call.
An iMac won’t print to it’s brand-new Epson printer. Here’s what I need to know:
1. Model of the Mac.
2. Version of the Macintosh Operating System (Mac OS) installed.
3. Model of printer.
4. Version of driver.
5. Everything is physically ok.
Here are the steps that I took (in order).
1. To figure out the model on this Mac, well, in this case there isn’t one because it’s an iMac and we’ll assume that the different revisions of iMac don’t apply. Otherwise I would just look at the machine’s front and note the model number. For example, the front of my machine says “Power Macintosh 7500/100,” and that would be sufficient.
2. I can figure out which version of the Mac OS is installed by pulling down the Apple Menu located at the upper left-hand corner of the screen and selecting About This Computer or About this Macintosh. Either way, a window will appear and declare which version is installed. I note that it indicates “Mac OS 8.5.1″.
3. To determine what the model of printer is you can normally look at the front of the printer–just like on your Mac. This printer indicates it is an Epson Stylus Color 740.
4. Determining which version of driver is installed for the printer gets a little more involved. The driver is the software your computer uses to “drive” or cause your printer to function; a wrong or old version can cause all kinds of problems. Open your hard drive, find and open the System Folder, then find and open the Extensions folder. Now, look for an item that has either the name or partial name of your printer. Once you find it, click once on it and then select Get Info from the File menu at the very top of the screen. A new window will open with lots of information regarding that item, and about half-way down will be “Version:” I note that in this case it’s version “5.3F.”
5. The step of physically checking the connections should actually be your first step, but since this has been covered in other articles (see My Mac Magazine #23) I put this as the last step and as a verifier. Check the cable where it’s plugged into the computer to make sure you have it in the correct port, and verify that the connection to the printer is also secure. Many times you will have to move the computer out of its location to be able to clearly see the connections. It’s also a good idea to follow the cable and make sure it has no excessive bends, kinks, or tears. Having done all that, I checked the cables and found that the USB connection was incorrectly inserted into the Ethernet port. I moved it to the spare USB port, but the printing problem persisted. Having done what we can, we’ll look for an answer by searching online.
Now comes the fun part where we get to look for the problem, just like an Easter egg hunt! Since this is a printer problem, I will ‘blame’ Epson and start with their site. Here are the steps I will take:
Epson’s support page had some info that suggested I get an update from Apple for the iMac just for printing problems like I was having (they even provided a link for me). Since I don’t always trust links like that because they may be out of date I went directly to Apple’s site at http://www.apple.com:
So, although it’s a lot of clicking and reading, it’s still cheaper to spend an hour or so of your time than to pay someone to do it for you. Besides, going through these steps isn’t all that difficult and can provide a great sense of accomplishment. Of course, if everything I tried still didn’t solve the problem I could have called Epson, Apple, or my local service provider and had them deal with the issue. But I think most people are like me and prefer doing what they can for themselves.
Real World Experience
The system: PowerBook 170.
The problem: Erratic booting, crashing when entering sleep.
The solution: Reset Power Manager.
The explanation:
An old fix for any PowerBook is to reset the Power Manager. Whenever your ‘book is acting up it never hurts to reset this, just like you might reset the PRAM on your desktop Mac. It varies somewhat by model, but on the old 1xx generation you unplug the AC, remove the battery and then hold the reset and interrupt buttons (back of the computer–have to use a paper clip) for 30 seconds.
Jeramey Valley
jvalley@centuryinter.net
Websites mentioned:
http://www.apple.com
Global Village Teleport 56k Fax/Modem
Boca Research Inc.
Estimated Price: $140
http://www.globalvillage.com
I’ve been using a Global Village modem for many years now, having started out with the 2400 Bronze modem that came with my first Mac. I updated to the blazing fast (!?) 14.4 Gold II and then to the 28.8 Teleport Platinum when I felt that I was spending hours and hours (and at times I was!) sitting here trying to download or upload files pertaining to My Mac or to anything else. I was very happy using the 28.8 modem, it allowed me to do what I needed done in a reasonable amount of time… but when the new 56k modems came out, I started to wonder, “is it time to upgrade?”
I’ve held off as long as I could but when the chance arrived to evaluate a 56k modem, how could I say no? Before I did anything with the new modem, I made sure that I saved all the connection information from the modem control panel and saved it as a text file. Going through the files, I saw that my average connection speed was 26400 bps, and that was no matter what I ever did to try and improve the connection speed, it never worked. I added the 56k modem to my system, changed nothing else and added nothing else except the Teleport software. My connection to my ISP was immediate with no problems at all. When I checked my access connection speed files, I found that my speed had increased to 38-42,000bps. Not shabby at all! Downloads seem to fly in and sending files out was definitely a lot quicker.
The Teleport 56k modem supports both the K56flex and V.90 protocols. The modem can auto-select either V.90 or K56flex mode and adjust appropriately. It comes with GlobalFax software and is able to sense the difference between fax and voice calls permitting the user to use one phone line to accomplish multiple missions. Faxing is capable of 14k,400 bps send and receive. I wish that I could tell you that the fax software does what it is supposed to do but I have yet to have to fax anything anywhere in all the years that I’ve been using a modem. Maybe I should start a business or something?
It continues to amaze me that people still don’t bother to read the instructions to try and make sure that the installation and the operation of the software is correct. Installing the Teleport software was quick and easy, and I encountered no problems whatsoever. The Teleport software installs a Menu bar status indicator to let you know what the modem is doing. I normally don’t use it, instead I just glance at the green LED connection indicator to let me know that I’m connected and ready to do what I want. A lot of Mac users don’t even install the software and instead just utilize the TCP/IP and OT/PPP capabilities of the Mac software to connect to the Internet. Whichever way you connect, you shouldn’t encounter any problems.
Another good point of the Teleport modem series is the fact that the unit itself is compact and can be placed either horizontally or on-edge, permitting the unit to be placed where space allows. The green power-on and connection LEDs let you know that the unit is functional and connected, so no guesswork is involved.
System Requirements
Macintosh with 68020 processor or later, System 7.1 or later, minimum 4MB of RAM, minimum of 8MB of hard disk space and standard analog phone line. (Caveat included: Modem is 56k capable, however, phone line conditions or regulations may limit download speeds to 53Kbps or less.)
Summary
The Global Village Teleport 56k modem does what it is supposed to and does it well. Since installing it I’ve encountered none of the broken connections or failures to connect that I’ve had so often in the past. In all cases the modem has performed flawlessly and I’m very pleased with it. Highly recommended.
MacMice Rating: 4.5
Russ Walkowich
editor@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.globalvillage.com
This month I had the chance to have a brief chat with Mr. Yoot Saito, the gentleman behind Yoot Tower. While running between appearances and his normal work schedule, he had the time to respond to a few questions. So, sit back, relax and learn a little about Mr. Saito…
My Mac: Mr. Saito, let me first welcome you to My Mac Magazine. I know that our readers will be very interested in hearing from you regarding your program and learning a little about yourself. Knowing that your are extremely busy with the introduction of Yoot Tower, I’ll get right to our interview.
Can you provide our readers with some background on yourself, your work and how you first became involved with the Mac?
Mr. Saito: Around 1984-85 DOS machines were at the height of their power in Japan. However, the Mac, although the screen was just monochrome, had sampling sounds and many bizarre brilliant programs like RACTOR. It was like seeing the silver screen from the 21st century.
My Mac: What first got you interested in developing programs for the Mac?
Mr. Saito: I did not have a lot of interest in action or shooting games. However when I first saw SimCity I thought that it was a very smart method of expression. So when Maxis released Tower in America and Europe as Sim Tower, it was a big honor for me.
My Mac: What was your inspiration for SIM TOWER?
Mr. Saito: Unlike RPGs or adventure games with a linear story, the challenge of SimTower is the simulation model of “people” and how to treat them. There is no specific hero. By setting the movements of the elevators we succeeded in showing the natural reactions of people. It is generally thought that the building is the main character of SimTower, but ultimately it is the residents themselves. They are what brings about the excitement in the simulation. We were limited by the 2D graphics, though.
My Mac: Can you explain the premise for YOOT TOWER for those readers who are not yet familiar with your work?
Mr. Saito: Using the Sim Tower simulation engine I want to offer a variety of building construction kits in a manner similar to Lego. You can say it is the appeal of an extendible game…
As a kid, I was a big fan of Lego. Later when the windmill and the wheel were put out the fun of Lego was never-ending. So rather than having scores and game-over, being able to extend and expand the game is my intention.
My Mac: The 3 sites that you have selected for YOOT TOWER builders to construct their buildings at are Tokyo, Hawaii, and Kegon Falls. What other locations do you have in mind for add-on modules?
Mr. Saito: The Tower team is developing the Statue of Liberty, Tokyo Tower, and plans for other famous symbolic sites.
My Mac: What software did you use to develop YOOT TOWER?
Mr. Saito: I assume that this question is not about what I as the game designer used, but rather Mr. Sakai and the rest of the development team used. Primarily they used the CodeWarrior C++ compiler and Photoshop for the graphics.
My Mac: When you developed YOOT TOWER and were preparing it for release, you made it very clear that you wanted the Mac version to appear first before the Windows version. Why did you do so and what resistance did you encounter?
Mr. Saito: In making the initial prototypes, the Mac was a great sketchbook. However, in America, much more so than in Japan there is a lot of skepticism toward the Mac market. That was a very difficult point from a marketing angle.
My Mac: What’s a typical day for you?
Mr. Saito: I enjoy Ethnic music like Deep Forest. Spending time with my daughter. Partying with friends like Matt Wolf, a producer at Sega.
My Mac: A final question for you, Mr. Saito. What do you have in store for the Mac public? New projects, etc?
Mr. Saito: I am not interested in games with such concepts as scoring, game over, endings, clearing levels, etc. I would continue to make games without end, that become a part of the user’s life. Something that, in the same way as a word processor or network software, stays on the hard disk for years.
My Mac: Thank you, Mr. Saito.
Russ Walkowich
editor@mymac.com
Conflict Catcher 8.0.4
Casady & Greene
Estimated Price: $79.00
http://www.casadyg.com
How many of you reading this article have been plagued by problems caused by conflicts amongst extensions or control panels? I don’t think that there is one of us that hasn’t had that problem at least once during our relationship with the Mac. And being great Mac devotees, we have a tendency to add more extensions or control panels in an attempt to make computing even easier or more fun.
My first contact with Conflict Catcher began back in version 3 when I first used it to assist me in tracking down some problems I was having with trying to print. The 3-day demo version I downloaded helped me find the culprit extension and straighten the problem out. When version 4 came out, I made sure I upgraded to that version to make sure I could deal with Mac OS 8. And with the advent of OS 8.5, my upgrade to version 8 of Conflict Catcher wasn’t far behind.
Now my upgrade to Conflict Catcher 8 occurred before my upgrade to Mac OS 8.5. I held off installing 8.5 until December when I finally had the time to sit down, go through my hard drive, delete the items I didn’t need and prepare for the upgrade. I also wanted the time to get used to Conflict Catcher 8 due to an extra item that Casady & Greene had added to their product, the Clean-Install Merge Feature (more on that later).
I had made some changes to my system and had removed Conflict Catcher 4 before I did the install of version 8. (I also like to check and see how easy the install is for those not using the product before.) To start off with, Casady & Greene has included a great user manual–written by David Pogue–to make sure that users will have no problems understanding the product. Installation is simple, quick and easy. The Main window has been redesigned to permit users to add more columns of information to be displayed, such as: memory use, file type and creator codes, software company name, location, etc. Conflict Catcher displays Group Link info (startup files that you can switch on and off), Sets (predefined lists of extensions and control panels) and the Inspection Panel. When you utilize the capabilities of the Inspection Panel to examine a file, you are able to find the version of the extension or control panel, the kind of file (extension, control panel, shared library, application program) the size (amount of disk space the file uses), where the file is actually located (what folder), the Type/Creator (type-what kind of data is in the file – TEXT, PICT, APPL – creator-the parent program), System memory (how much memory is actually used as compared to how much is requested by the Mac during startup), plus several other useful items.
If you’ve been using Apple’s Extension Manager prior to switching over to Conflict Catcher, don’t worry that the sets you’ve been using and are familiar with are now lost and you’ll have to start from scratch with CC. Conflict Catcher allows you to import your sets from the Extensions Manager into Conflict Catcher. Follow the simple, easy instructions and within a couple of minutes you’re on your way, with everything the way you were used to. Conflict Catcher also permits you to manage other kinds of files, such as: Apple menu items, Contextual menu items, Control Strip modules, fonts, web browser plug-ins, graphics programs, to name a few. Not a bad feature considering how many of these items may be floating around in our systems. And let’s not forget the primary feature of Conflict Catcher… the ability to assist us in testing our System for those problem files that are causing us crashes, freezes, error messages, etc. The only problem with Conflict Catcher is that the problem has to be a regular, recurring problem… it cannot find or fix intermittent problems. But, when you have those regular problems, Conflict Catcher is what you need.
Earlier I mentioned the Clean-Install Merge Feature that Conflict Catcher now has. When I read through the manual prior to installing Conflict Catcher, that capability really stood out for me. What it all boils down to is that you must have Conflict Catcher 8 installed on your present System Folder, do a clean install of the new (read NEWER OS) System, (as in upgrading from OS 8.1 to OS 8.5) and then install Conflict Catcher on the new System folder. Once you’ve done this, you restart your Mac holding down the space bar until the CC window opens and you can choose Clean-Install System Merge from the Special menu. You follow the dialog boxes and verify the previous System Folder, check to have CC scan the previous System Folder for any damaged items, and then click on “Compare Folders.” Conflict Catcher then compares the contents of the two System Folders, making sure that it doesn’t move earlier versions or duplicate copies of items into the new System Folder. It will also ask you if you wish to apply a label to the items that are in the new System Folder and also to the items that you’re moving over. I let the process mark all the items in the new System Folder in orange and all items being transferred over in red, so that I could know which was which. You then scroll through the list of System Folder items from the previous System Folder, checking the items that you don’t want moved over (if you’re not sure, click on the item’s name and CC will show you the item’s description to help you along). When you’re ready, click on the Merge Systems button and all the files that you selected are copied over to the new System Folder. No muss, no fuss. You will also have the previous System Folder available to switch back over to (using Conflict Catcher) in case there’s a problem with the new OS.
Why do I sound so enthusiastic about this feature? The last time I did a clean System install, going from Mac OS 7.5.5 to OS 8, the preparation, install and then the moving over of extensions, control panels, etc. to be part of the new System Folder, took me almost 10 hours to get everything in and up and running. This time, the preparation, install of the new OS and the move over, plus the time spent in getting everything up and running, with me being back online and fully operational was less then 2 hours. Yes, I know I could have used Clean-Install Assistant or a similar item, but to combine that ability along with the ability to test and evaluate for problems makes Conflict Catcher a must-have item, as far as I’m concerned.
System Requirements
Macintosh with a CD-ROM drive, running Mac OS 7.5 or greater. (Doesn’t work on Mac Plus, SE series, Classic series, or PowerBook 100.)
Summary
Is Conflict Catcher the absolute utility that can solve and correct all of your problems? No, but it really comes darn close. If you’re having problems, go to the Casady & Greene website http://www.casadyg.com and download the demo version of Conflict Catcher. It’s good for 3 days of use and may help you solve your problems. Once you’ve tried it, I know that you’ll run out and get the full version. Conflict Catcher 8 is a keeper!
MacMice Rating: 4
Russ Walkowich
editor@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.casadyg.com
Hello there, fellow Mac users! With a wildly successful Macworld Expo behind us, some wonderful new products in front of us, and a bright future ahead of us, it’s a good time to be a fan of the Mac platform. But I’ll leave analysis of the Expo and things of that nature to the experts, and instead turn my head to what I’ve come up with on my own Mac in the last month or so. Enjoy!
A New Computer for Under $100?
Or so Apple’s ad campaign for Mac OS 8.5 says. While I’m not sure I’d go that far, the new release of the operating system is a great one. Rare stories of data corruption were just enough to keep me wary of upgrading during the first semester this year (the last thing I need was a wiped out hard drive just before finals week!), so my Mac OS 8.5 CD sat on my bookshelf untouched for about a month. But over Christmas break, with the first semester over and the second one not yet started, I felt it was safe for me to install the upgrade. It turns out that I needn’t have worried; installation went on without a hitch, even though I didn’t do a clean install like some users were recommending. I haven’t had any problems at all, and my computer overall seems a lot more stable than before. OS 8.5 is a great release, and reports of problems were probably overhyped.
After the installation, I took note of all the new features of the new OS, and wow, was I impressed. Of course, the new release already has been covered thoroughly by the media–including My Mac–so I’m not going to re-list all of the new features here. I will say, though, that Mac OS 8.5.1 (you have downloaded the update, haven’t you?) feels like Mac OS 8.1 done right. And that’s not saying that 8.1 was a bad release, because it was outstanding in its own right, but it seems as if this is what Apple had in mind all along, and 8.1 was just there to whet our appetites.
Mac OS 8.5.1 is so good, that I’m not even too concerned about the whole Mac OS X issue anymore. Apple has only promised that OS X will run on stock G3 systems, not necessarily older Macs with G3 upgrade cards installed. That, of course, includes my PowerBook 1400 with a NUpowr upgrade card. I used to be worried that I would be missing out on the latest and greatest if OS X ends up not supporting my machine, but with Mac OS 8.5 showing the maturity that it does, and with OS 8.6 still to come before OS X is released, I’m positive that I can run 8.x on my machine until I can afford to buy a true G3 and run OS X on it, and still be perfectly happy. It’s hard to keep me happy if I can’t have the most recent release of all of my software, so that’s hard evidence right there that Apple has scored big with Mac OS 8.5. Bring on 8.6!
A New Favorite Browser… Again!
Ah, the irony of timing… Just as our January issue was being put online last month–you know, the one where I mention Netscape Communicator 4.5 as being my favorite browser suite–Microsoft announces Internet Explorer and Outlook Express 4.5 during the Macworld Expo. I downloaded the combo at the first chance I had, and after trying it out for a couple of days, I fell in love with the software. The cyber-ink had hardly dried on my column last month before it was rendered false and outdated. I’ve got to admit, when Microsoft wants to, it can make GOOD Mac software.
Just as Netscape was starting to catch up to Explorer in terms of features, Explorer again raised the bar. For starters, Microsoft added the easy drag-and-drop installation and auto-repair features that were praised in Mac Office 98 (and the opening splash screens now feature the puzzle-piece look of the Office applications! ) Full adoption of Mac OS 8.5 features, such as smart scrolling, is also present. In fact, Microsoft even uses 8.5 technology to beat one of Netscape’s prime features. In answer to Netscape’s Smart Browsing button, which looks at the website that you’re currently browsing and searches the Web for similar sites, Microsoft incorporates Apple’s Sherlock search engine to do the same thing. This features also allows Sherlock to summarize a web page to the clipboard, and you can open Sherlock directly if you can’t find what you’re looking for.
Additionally, MIE 4.5 adds another pane to its tabbed side window, which already allows easy access to favorites, history, and search engines. The new option allows you to hold a page with a lot of links in that window, so you can easily refer to them while surfing in the main browser window. (For example, you do a search at Yahoo!, choose one of the results, and follow a couple of links until you realize that you aren’t finding what you’re looking for. Normally, you’d have to hit the “Back” button on your browser several times to reach the Search Results page again, and then repeat the process. Again and again and again. But with the new version of Explorer, all of the links on that Search Results page can be held in the Page Holder tab, eliminating this tedious task. Sheer brilliance! Why hasn’t anybody thought of this before?
The AutoFill option is another godsend for me. Using this feature, you can enter your personal information into a preferences dialog, and Explorer will remember all of the info. Now, when you find yourself having to fill out a form on a web page, you can just click the AutoFill button on the tool bar, and all of the information will be put in the appropriate spots. This is a real time saving feature for someone like me, who does a lot of shopping, completing software registrations, and filling out mailing list sign-ups on the web.
There are a couple of gripes with Explorer 4.5, but they are minimal. The “Add to Favorites” button is gone on the toolbar; it’s seemingly been replaced with a useful History button for quick access to your History file, but I really miss the ability to add a site to my Favorites listing without going up to a menu or the tabbed window. The installer installs an outdated version of the QuickTime plug-in; luckily, I had a spare copy of the QT 3.0 plug-in in my QuickTime folder, so it wasn’t too much of a hassle for me. Finally, just in case a novice user can’t figure out that hitting the return key after you’ve typed a URL will take you to that URL, Microsoft has added a big “GO” button on the address bar, right next to the Sherlock button. A nice gesture for novices, I guess, but I would like the option to get rid of it. I don’t need it, it takes up space on my tool bar, and in my opinion, it’s ugly.
Outlook Express has also been updated to version 4.5, although I haven’t noticed as many new features in it. Support for Mac OS 8.5 is present, just as in Explorer, and there are a few interface enhancements (such as a new column with icons showing the status of the message-read, unread, replied, forwarded, etc.), but as far as I can tell, the new version isn’t updated nearly as much as Explorer. However, Outlook Express was already a pretty solid email client, so I’m not complaining too loudly.
Microsoft’s other big recent “innovation” was the opening of the MacTopia area of their website, at http://www.microsoft.com/mac. In reality, it’s simply a redesign of their existing Mac site, and although it does do a few nice things, such as offer top industry new headlines and Apple-specific headlines, it’s not going to replace MacInTouch http://www.macintouch.com or MacCentral http://www.maccentral.com as my choice for daily Apple news. In fact, I don’t plan on visiting it again until I need to download a new version of Explorer. I guess you can call it a nice gesture towards Mac users, but I prefer to take the skeptical point of view that’s it’s really just a PR move.
So, Microsoft, please don’t wow me with fancy designs and a new name for the Mac portion of your site, just keep giving me quality software like Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. I’m not a big fan of you as a company, but like I said earlier, you sure can make good Mac software when you want to.
Long winded? Me?
I didn’t mean to take so much room talking about Internet Explorer this month, but I did, so there’s not much room for anything else this month. So, next month I’ll take a look at some of the other things I meant to mention this month, most notably Apple’s Speakable Items and Insider Software’s Update Agent Online. Until then, happy Mac-ing!
Mike Wallinga
mikew@mymac.com
Welcome to another edition of The Game Guys. After much planning, Mike and I have decided to switch over to a “true live” format. That means that what you are reading is our actual conversation/review of the game, uninterrupted. This new format makes it much easier for us to complete a review, and we really enjoyed using it. As always, we welcome any feedback. (We are actually known to beg for it at times). Without further ado, our first game reviewed with this new format is Slithereens, from Ambrosia Software.
Slithereens 1.0
Company: Ambrosia Software
Shareware: $20.00
http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com
Mike: Ambrosia Software has a big reputation in the Mac shareware world for turning out games that are commercial quality but making them freely available and affordable. The folks at Ambrosia have struck gold again with their latest offering, Slithereens.
Adam: Mike, would you please bless us with the storyline of the game?
Mike: I’d be honored, Adam. You play the part of Luther, a snake who has been subjected to genetic experiments and is now trapped in a garden, along with many other genetically-mutated snakes. As a result of the experiments all of the snakes are segmented and can gain and lose segments without penalty, as long as they keep their heads. Segments are gained if the snakes eat other animals, and segments are lost if the snakes lay eggs or get eaten. The snakes are now prone to eating their own species, too, so Luther had better watch out! The only way out of this snake-eat-snake world is to eat all of the other snakes yourself, thus passing the levels and eventually escaping from garden.
Adam: From the minute you launch the installer, you can tell Slithereens is an Ambrosia game. Installation is straightforward, and you can start playing right away. No restart necessary.
Mike: Slithereens is very snappy and responsive during game play, too. Using the keyboard was easy (you only need to control your snake with the arrows or numeric keypad), and using a game pad or joystick was also simple and responsive.
Adam: Slithereens was very fast and stable on my G3, and I thought the graphics, sound effects, and especially the music were topnotch.
Mike: I thought so too, Adam. I also ran Slithereens on a G3, and the animations and graphics were very fluid. The digitized sound effects and spoken comments were exceptional too, and often hilarious!
Adam: Agreed, Mike. I loved the comments. They really added to the overall experience of the game. I couldn’t help myself from playing the game every time I turned on my computer. Horribly addictive.
Mike: Absolutely! It was so bad that I considered putting an alias to the game in my Startup Items folder! I really appreciated the fact that Slithereens takes advantage of Apple’s InputSprockets technology, so setting up your Game Pad or joystick is exceptionally easy.
Adam: Definitely. InputSprockets are also returning to the Extensions folder in Mac OS 8.6. It’s wonderful to see quality software adopting that standard.
Mike: The documentation in Slithereens was straightforward and helpful, but to be honest, I didn’t refer to it all that much. Slithereens is very easy to play and also easy to get started, and I found that the excellent tutorial at the beginning of the game was all I needed.
Adam: That tutorial was one of the best things I have ever seen from a shareware game. I am always one to skip the documentation, and when I started playing, I was a bit confused. Luckily, the helpful 2-minute tutorial was included right in the main menu. After watching it, I had no trouble playing Slithereens.
Mike: Slithereens even offers a two-player option, and you can work competitively or cooperatively to complete each level. Unfortunately, you do have to both be using the same computer, because there is no option for network play.
Adam: True, network/modem play would be awesome. Hopefully Ambrosia will consider it for a future version of Slithereens.
Mike: Like most of Ambrosia’s recent games, Slithereens costs $20 to register. Given how polished this game is, I consider that a steal!
Adam: It is a steal! You get to play 7 levels with the unregistered version, and when you register, you get 44 (I’ll check on that). Exceptional Value!
Requirements/Availability
Slithereens requires a 68040 or higher processor, Mac OS 7.1 or later, a 13″ color monitor, and 12MB of RAM.
You can download Slithereens from the Ambrosia Software/Slithereens website, at http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/Products/Slithereens.html, or from download.com, at http://www.download.com.
The Summary
Mike: Our minor complaint about the lack of a network game play aside, Slithereens is a near-perfect shareware game. It should come as no surprise that Ambrosia has yet another winner on its hands. Any Mac gamer should check Slithereens out as soon as possible! It’s a blast!
Adam: Ambrosia Software has always had a reputation for high quality, low cost shareware games. Slithereens further strengthens that reputation. If you enjoy nonviolent, fun, addicting games, chances are you’ll enjoy Slithereens. Highly Recommended by The Game Guys.
Download Slithereens 1.0
Mike Wallinga
mikew@mymac.com
Adam Karneboge
webmaster@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com
http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/Products/Slithereens.html
http://www.download.com
After my review of the Vimage G3 card a few months ago, I have had a steady stream of emails with questions on how this works, is there any ill effects, ect… When I found this FAQ page on the G3 upgrade card I reviewed, I asked Vimage if it would be okay to reprint this here in My Mac for all of you who have asked the questions. They agreed, so I am happy to share this information with you here.
54xx/55xx/64xx/65xx/TAM G3 upgrade FAQ
Q: Who developed the Level 2 cache slot upgrade path?
A: The Vimage Corporation’s engineers developed this upgrade path. It is entirely fair to say that if it weren’t for Vimage, countless users of “dead-end” machines would never have been able to upgrade. As long ago as last summer, people with “un-upgradeable” machines have been able to join the G3 party, thanks to Vimage. (At this writing, there is still no other company in the US to have accomplished a similar feat.)
Q:Why doesn’t Vimage offer a 300-MHz card for the machines mentioned in the title of this FAQ?
A: The cooling requirements of the x4xx/x5xx are such that a silicon-300 MHz CPU (without a fan) will run hotter than the machine can comfortably tolerate. This especially holds true for the Twentieth Anniversary Mac, whose internal design makes even a 240-MHz silicon chip inappropriate
By using too hot a CPU, you may upgrade your computer’s performance in the short term; but, as the weeks and months go by, you can expect to find your machine’s health in increasingly sharp decline.
Although somewhat more expensive, a copper CPU will run much cooler, and not cause long-term damage to your computer that may not be apparent over the first couple of weeks or months of use.
The market right now is such that copper CPU upgrade cards are somewhat over a thousand dollars. It is extremely likely that anyone who tries selling you a “much cheaper card that is made of copper” is either (better case) misinformed, or (worse case) being “economical” with the truth.
With technology, perhaps more than most other things, you really do get what you pay for.
Q: I’ve heard from another manufacturer of these upgrades that Vimage’s design is shoddy. Why do they say this?
A: Vimage constantly and carefully monitors all the venues where customers’ voices may be heard: print and electronically published reviews; user groups; and, of course, our own phone lines and e-mail. If a customer suffered a problem as the result of faulty construction, we would certainly have heard about it.
Nothing of the sort is true. Accusations of “shoddy design” are deliberately vague, precisely because there is no real evidence, only irresponsible, biased–and just plain untrue–speculation.
Q: How reliable is Vimage’s information on this topic?
A: Again, we invented this upgrade path. We know the technology better than anyone else on earth. We know what it can do, and what it can’t. This isn’t bragging; it’s just the facts.
We’re happy to make money, but we’re not going to do it by selling a product that may, down the pike, leave you and your computer in a very unhappy position.
When you want to know about upgrading your Power Mac/Performa through its L2 cache slot, there’s only one reliable source for information: the people who made it possible in the first place.
Thanks to Vimage for allowing us to reprint this FAQ page here. No, Vimage is not a My Mac sponsor (Though we hope they become one!) but I felt this was information which would be of service to our readers. Hope it helped!
Vimage is the company that brought G3 upgrades to the rest of the Mac families: the Power Mac 4400 series, StarMax 3000/4000, Performa 5400/6400 6500 and PowerBook 1400.
http://www.vimagestore.com
Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.vimagestore.com
Wipe Out! CD Repair Kit
Company: Esprit Development
Estimated Price: $14.99
http://www.cdrepair.com
Like most people, I have a lot of CDs and CD-ROMs. I also plan on buying a DVD (with DIVX!) player within the next year or so. Long before I was into computers, I was an audiophile. My stereo equipment is still worth more than my computer systems which is one of the reasons I have so many CDs. No sense in owning a stereo if you don’t have CDs to play on them! I also still use my reel to reel, but that’s another story.
As happens from time to time my CDs become scratched, be it from taking them in the truck to jam on the road or simply dropping one, it just happens. Same thing with my CD-ROMs. And once a CD get a really good scratch, it is about totally useless. Which is what happened to both my Foo Fighters CD as well as my WarCraft II CD-ROM.
I have tried cleaning both of them. I even bought a “Scratch Removal” kit from one of the stores in the mall. I really liked the Foo Fighters CD, and while the scratch only effected one song, it just happened to be the one song I liked the most on the CD. As for WarCraft II, I had all but given up hope. When I would insert the CD-ROM, it would not even show up on the desktop. It was very depressing. I still enjoy WarCraft II, and once I knew the CD-ROM was scratched and unplayable, I only wanted to play it even more! Never fails…
I was browsing the Internet one day when I ran across Esprit Development’s website. I couldn’t help wondering if their product, Wipe Out!, really worked. I had a need for a product that would and at only $14.99, it would be a steal if it did work. So after contacting Marc Guest (CEO of Esprit) and telling him who I was, he agreed to send me a trial sample of the product to test out for review. Marc was very positive about the Wipe Out!, assuring me it would work as promised. He also said something that stuck in my head. He told me that Wipe Out! would not make the CD look as pretty and shiny as it was when it was new. He said it was because they had a choice to make it do that, or make it actually work. They decided to make it work.
A few days latter, I received the package in the mail, and set out to test Wipe Out!.The directions are quite simple: Shake Wipe Out! for 20 seconds. Apply one drop to scratched area. Wipe with nonabrasive cloth (which is included) until scratch is removed. Clean disk with water. Play disc. Which I did.
The Foo Fighters CD was the first test subject. I immediately noticed that Wipe Out! does not make the CD look shiny and new, just as Mark had told me. But as long as it worked, I didn’t care. After following the directions, I tested the repaired CD in my Mac, my home stereo system, and the Clarion CD player in my truck. Amazingly, it worked like a brand new CD! No skipping, no missed tracks, no long delay accessing any track, nothing. If I didn’t know better, I would have never guessed the CD was ever in a condition that it would not play. I was ecstatic!
I put Wipe Out! to work on the WarCraft II CD-ROM next. I first tested it to make sure that it was indeed still damaged and that my Mac would still not recognize it. Still dead as far as the Mac was concerned. Once again I followed Wipe Out!’s directions, and once again it worked. After months of not playing WarCraft II, I was again slaying Orcs to my hearts content.
Esprit Development Corporation guarantees that the product works and it does work as advertised. And while this review sort of sounds like a late night infomercial, I can only say I am really amazed with Wipe Out!. One bottle (1.5 oz.) is enough Wipe Out! to repair at least fifty CDs. (By the way, if you have 50 scratched CDs, someone needs to show you how to take better care of your things!)
While you may not have a scratched CD, CD-ROM, or DVD disc now, you probably will sometime in the future. I think it’s a good idea to be prepared, and if you’ve invested as much time and money as I have in music CDs, being prepared is only smart. I plan on ordering more Wipe Out! when this bottle runs out, though that may take a long time. But I’m much less worried about damaged CDs now than I was before.
Great product! Great price as compared to replacing even one CD! I highly recommend it!
MacMice Rating: 4
Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.cdrepair.com
Palm III
Company: 3COM
Estimated Price: $399.00
http://www.palm.com
For the past six months I’ve been using 3Com’s Palm III Professional Edition PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). It was about seven months ago that I noticed a growing number of Mac people talking about these units, which were already popular among PC users. I became interested in learning why so many people were investing in them.
The Palm PDAs were showing up all over the place. At work, I would see busy executive-types huddling outside the smoking area busy with their Palm IIIs (or the older Palm Pilots). While at the time I couldn’t really see a need for such a unit myself, the handheld PDAs seemed to have a huge following. Perhaps I was missing out on something? Perhaps I should be reporting on this much needed device to our readers? So after talking with 3Com, I procured a Palm III for review here in My Mac. (I’d like to take this time to publicly thank the nice people at 3Com for all their help in this endeavor.)
Recently, the Mac version of the connectivity software (MacPac II–still in beta testing as of this writing) was released, allowing your Mac to communicate and synchronize with the Palm III PDA. I’m happy to report to Mac users that this version greatly improves compatibility and ease of use. When I first started to use the Palm about two months prior to the release of Mac OS 8.5, I had no problems connecting the Palm to my Mac. However, once I updated to Mac OS 8.5 the Palm would no longer communicate due to incompatibilities in its connectivity software. But the release of MacPac II has corrected that. So if you are already a Mac Palm user, point your browser over to http://www.palm.com/custsupp/downloads/macbeta.html for the latest beta version.
After my initial “Cool, a new toy to play with” attitude subsided, I got into the habit of using the Palm III everyday. As I mentioned above, I didn’t believe I needed a PDA at first, but with the popularity of the Palm III, I wanted to give it a try. Hey, David Pogue from Macworld even wrote a book on it, so something must be there…
The software preinstalled in the unit consists of an address book, memo pad, calculator, an appointment organizer, and email (to access the Internet and email you must also purchase a Palm Pilot modem–an additional $129). Most of the bundled software is easy to use and very functional, though with the ever-growing Palm freeware on the Internet available for downloading, you should never run out of useful (and not so useful!) software for your Palm Pilot.
There are two methods to input information. The first (and much easier way to input and store information such as phone numbers and appointments) is to just use your Mac and simply transfer the data to your Palm. Of course, you could also enter the information into the Palm directly by using the built-in handwriting technology called “Graffiti.” Anyone who has ever used handwriting technology in the past knows what a chore this can be, but (in my limited experience) I have found Graffiti the easiest to use and learn. Unlike Apple’s now defunct Newton which learned the way you write, the Palm Pilot requires you to learn its handwriting style. Fortunately, it’s very easy to learn, and you can do online now if you point your browser to http://www.palm.com/products/input/index.html
3Com advertises that the Palm can “Store some 4000 addresses, 4 years of appointments (approximately 2400), 750 to do items, 750 memos, and 100 email messages.” I haven’t a need for most of that capacity, but many people will. Four years of appointments? Heck, I don’t know what I am doing a week from now! And 4000 addresses? I don’t think I need to remember where twenty people live, let alone 4000! But for a business person on the go, this may be just the ticket you need.
As I said, the bundled software is handy and will fulfill most people’s needs. But if you have to lug this very lightweight unit around with you everywhere, chances are there will be times when you simply want to get away from work and have a little fun. You can download a plethora of games and mindless activities from the Internet to use on your Palm Pilot, many of which are either shareware or freeware. I have found the Palm shareware market to be full of very innovative products of such high caliber to almost rival the rich diversity of Mac shareware. (Almost, but not quite!)
Rather than just test the unit like any other hardware, I decided to let other people, both computer literate as well as the technology challenged, use the Palm Pilot for an hour or so. I wanted to see how people reacted to its supposed ease of use. Did they think they would have a use for such a unit? What would they use it for? The reason I did this was simple: as I said, I never before had any everyday PDA needs which the Palm III could fulfill for me. And after a month of constant use, I still had no real need for such a unit. I don’t travel, and I’m home every night where my Mac is. If I’m at work, I also have a computer there I can use. If, by chance, I need something on a daily basis at work which is on my home computer, I can always email my work or HotBot email address. If it’s something I need very infrequently, chances are it would not be on the Palm Pilot to start. But perhaps I’m the rare exception, and most people do need instant access to this sort of information you can store on the Palm.
Adventures of Bob
The first person I let use the Palm was Bob, a businessman who is on the road all the time. He’s never in his office, and carries a not-so-small organizer with him everywhere. This thing bulges at its leather seams to the point of papers sticking out of it. But Bob knew right where everything was in that organizer. Sure, it was done in his own filing system, but that was all that mattered to him. All the information (and then some!) was in that leather case. When I presented him the Palm III, I asked if he would use it for a week. (Most testers I let use the unit only had it for an hour or two, but Bob was a rare case, and the typical Palm user, I thought) Bob was happy to give it a try, but warned me that if he fell in love with it I had to explain to his wife why he would have to run out and buy one.
After a week, I asked Bob what he thought. (In the proceeding week during his testing, he still carried his organizer with him everywhere, which now was even wider with the Palm also crammed inside). Bob asked how much one would cost, and after going over price and features, decided he may just end up buying one himself. I did want to get some of his thoughts, the good and bad, and he was happy to oblige.
The good: very lightweight. He could fit it into his organizer fairly easily. I asked him if this let him keep less paperwork in his organizer, such as phone numbers and memos. He said no, replying “What if the battery died on me? Or if I entered the wrong number or something? I need my hardcopy handy just in case.” While I can understand his hesitancy to completely trust his important information to a PDA, I did ask why, then, he was thinking of buying one himself. “I can use it to search, rather than rummage through my organizer. Faster.” Bob also liked the calculator. Of course, the one he had been using was made in the early 1970s and weighed almost as much as a large book. And the handwriting software was very easy for him to learn.
The bad: Bob could not see the screen very well. He would turn it this way and that to make the screen sharper. Even when he used the back lighting (a feature to illuminate the screen in darker situations) and adjusted the sharpness as much as it would go, he still had trouble making out the text onscreen.
Bob is also a fairly large man, and as such had trouble using the writing stylus with his chubby fingers. (His own words, not mine!) He used a Bic pen instead, just leaving the cap on, “though it may have been messy had I forgot to put the cap back on after I used the pen.”
All in all, Bob really liked the Palm, and was thinking of buying one himself. The price was a bit high for what he was using it for, however. He also mentioned that if he could find a Da Vinci PDA from Royal (which cost only $99) he would probably buy that and save some money.
OCU
The next person I let use the Palm was a lady named Lisa. Lisa is an Occasional Computer User, or OCU. Lisa plays a little on her Mac, and uses a PC everyday at work. She is far from a power user. Lisa spent about an hour with the Palm. I offered to let her take it home, but she professed “I would have no need for anything like that.”
Lisa is, however, a fairly good cook. I told her how she could download some Palm cookbooks or software to store her recipes on. “Why? I already do that on my Mac.” She did try and learn Graffiti, and while she seemed to have at least a good three-fourths of the letters down, she said she could never get used to it. Some people, of course, just don’t like change and are a bit afraid of technology on the whole. Being an OCU to begin with, I was not really surprised by her reaction.
What she liked: Very slim design. She could take it about anywhere, and it would hold a lot of information. “But I don’t have much info to put into it, really.”
What she disliked: She also couldn’t read the screen very easily. Nor did she like how the cover came off without much effort. She also didn’t like the fact that she had to unhook a printer just to do a hot-sync, the method of allowing the Palm and Mac communicate. She did, however, love the MacPac software’s calendar feature. She said she was going to download the betas for that reason alone, even if she doesn’t own a Palm Pilot. When I asked if any PDA would be worth buying, say at a price under a $100, she answered “Not unless it could change my TV channel, remote-start my car, and wake me up in the morning.” That’s some wish list! I felt like telling her that the Palm could actually do all three things right now–which it can–though I never tested out any of those features myself.
Continued next month…
MacMice Rating: 4
Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.palm.com
http://www.3com.com
http://www.palm.com/custsupp/downloads/macbeta.html
http://www.palm.com/products/input/index.html
Connectix Virtual Game Station
Company: Connectix
Estimated Price: $49.99
http://www.connectix.com
Much has been written about Connectix’s Virtual Game Station, and as of the writing of this review, it has not yet gone out to the vendors to be sold. But thanks to Connectix, My Mac has been “playing” with it now for a few weeks. And so far, I’m very impressed.
Most of you know that Virtual Game Station (VGS for short) will only run on a G3 Power Mac. If you own an early Power Mac, you’re out of luck. Many people have written in asking me if I know why this is so. The answer is that VGS needs a very fast system bus speed, 50MHz or greater, to ensure decent game play. System bus speed is not the same as CPU MHz, so even if you have a 603e 100MHz system, it will not work. (See “Carpe Tracheam” by Mark Anthony Collins in the January 1999 issue for an excellent tutorial on the difference between CPU MHz and System bus speeds)
Connectix has been creating great Macintosh software for a long time. From Ram Doubler, Speed Doubler, Virtual PC and others, Connectix has proven time and time again that they are great innovators of Mac software. VGS is just one more example of the creative talent that the company has.
Does VGS work? You bet, and very well, I might add. It allows Macintosh G3 owners (including the iMac) to play Sony Game Station games right on their Macintosh. And it does so at true Game Station speeds (not really surprising as the G3 chip in these Macs is much faster than the chips in a Sony Play Station).
When you install VGS you actually do a two-part install. First, you install the ATI drivers which come on the CD. Then you install the VGS application itself. The VGS application, once it’s installed, takes less than 1.2MB of disk space. So not only does the program work, it takes very little space on your hard drive. Like Virtual PC, (see David E. Price’s review of Virtual PC 2.0 in this issue) Virtual Game Station is emulation software. It requires about 9MB of memory for play.
How does it work? When you launch VGS, it asks for you to install a Play Station CD.
Once you do so, VGS takes over and your Mac is now a Play Station. Of course, you may want to take a visit to the Preference menu and configure your keyboard to use as the controller. (You can also bring up the hidden menu bar by hitting the ESC key on your keyboard.) If you’re a die-hard Play Station user, using a keyboard rather than a joystick controller will be very cumbersome. With any luck, a Play Station Mac controller will be forthcoming shortly in both USB and serial port versions.
Game play on a true G3 is very smooth and fast. On a Mac with a G3 upgrade card, such as my Power Mac 6500, it’s somewhat choppy and slow. Sound works almost flawlessly on an iMac or other G3, but not so on an upgraded Mac. In other words, if you have an older Mac with a G3 card installed in lieu of a real Macintosh G3, don’t bother with VGS. It just will not run as well.
The only problems I have found so far involve multi-CD Play Station games; those games which make you insert another CD during game play. However, Connectix does not advertise that VGS will work with all Play Station games, so if you’re under the impression you can pick up any of the thousands of games for the Play Station and use them on your Mac, you’re mistaken.
Recommendations
This is a great program. While PC users have longed claimed dominance over Mac users in the number of games available for their platform of choice, the Connectix Virtual Game Station now brings us thousands of new games playable on the Mac–something which the PC world can only dream of doing. Connectix has stated that a PC version is in the works, but recent rumors aside about Apple trying to either buy the rights to Virtual Game Station to keep it a Mac only application or else buying Connectix corporation itself, Mac users now have a leg up on the computer game playing world. Connectix should be commended for this superb piece of engineering emulation, and like any product that gives Mac users new ways use their computers, Connectix will be rewarded with the sale of thousands of copies of this software. It works great, gives Mac users a new way to play games, and it’s from a company which has shown a dedication to the Macintosh platform year after year. Thanks, Connectix!
MacMice Rating: 2.5
Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.connectix.com
Hello!
It’s February, Spring is a promise and we’re still paying those holiday bills! One of mine was an iMac purchase. In my last column, I gave you a quick run down of my initial thoughts of this great little computer Apple came out with. This month, I thought I would add to that a bit and give everyone some things to think about if they are considering purchasing an iMac.
I do get a fair amount of crashes and as I mentioned last month, the little pinhole on the side is a pain to deal with. On the plus side, I believe the crashes are related to my early version of AOL 4.0, which came already installed. Why do I think that, you ask? The crashes are more frequent when using AOL. I’ve had them when I quit out of AOL rather than signing off first, when I try using FastFax after using AOL (but not when using FastFax first), and sometimes the system freezes while AOL is in use. Fortunately, I’ve lost no data and the system checks itself when it restarts.
I plan on purchasing Norton Utilities soon to help manage this problem. I will also upgrade to the final version of AOL 4.0 when it’s released. Between the two, the crashes should decrease, and if I’m really lucky, go away completely!
I finally received my free version of Retrospect–a fine backup utility. (Apple had a great coupon book that offered all types of freebies depending on your purchases. Retrospect was one of the offerings.) I tried doing a backup of my entire hard drive and ran into some problems. I was attempting to backup my external drive. As you know, iMacs do not come with floppy drives, so I purchased a SuperDisk drive from Imation. This external drive not only allows me to use my floppies, but also use 120mb disks that are the same size as floppies. These will provide a nice medium for backing up. (I just don’t have the courage to try backing up to the internet yet so if someone has tried it, let me know how it works!)
Back to the problems–first, my disks would not mount. I had a horrible fear that my computer curse had come back and I would have to swap out the drive! But I did a quick rebuild of my drive’s desktop file and removed the small speaker I had placed on top of it. Fortunately, that took care of the problem. (For those of you not familiar with rebuilding your hard drive’s desktop file, see below!) I then starting backing up and my system froze. Bummer! But, no problem. I got out my trusty paperclip, gently inserted it into the pinhole on the right hand side of the iMac and restarted my system. I started to backup again. This time I ran into a Error #3. So, I stopped the whole process. I emailed Dantz to make sure Retrospect is compatible with O.S. 8.5. I received an email back saying it was and a polite request to call customer service–which I will do this week.
Hopefully, I’ll get this resolved quickly and backup my iMac. Better safe than sorry is my motto!
My only other real difficulty (if any of these are “real!”) is with the keyboard. I am accustomed to an extended keyboard… until the iMac, I don’t believe I have used anything else! So, it is a challenge to use the regular keyboard that comes with the computer. I make more spelling errors just trying to find the correct placement for my fingers. Granted, it’s something that a little practice takes care of, however, if Apple ever decides to put extended keyboards in with new Macs, I would be extremely happy.
My feelings are these minor irritations are just that; minor. I thoroughly enjoy the speed of the machine, the great monitor, and huge hard drive. I may get a trackball just because I prefer them and a scanner to use with Kai’s PowerGoo, but these are only wants, not necessary items. Over all, this little computer has everything necessary to use at home.
Helpful Hints
Rebuilding the Desktop–Rebuilding your desktop is the easiest thing in the world you can do to help keep your system running smooth. There’s a couple of different ways you can do it. First, there’s the old-fashioned way. When starting your Mac, hold down the Command and Option keys until you see a dialog box. This box will ask you if you really want to rebuild your desktop. Hit Yes, and let your Mac do its thing.
The second way is just as easy. Download MicroMat’s http://www.micromat.com free version of TechTools, or purchase the full-fledged version, TechTool Pro (only $99.00). This automates the process and offers a few other options as well, such as zapping your PRAM.
Keeping your Desktop Clean–O.S. 8.x offers nifty features to keep your desktop from becoming cluttered. One is by using the WindowShade option. This closes the window with one click, but keeps the document open. To reopen the window, click on the icon again and your window pops open.
The icon you’ll use is a square with a double line running through the middle of it. It is located in the upper right hand corner of your open window.
Another option is just moving your windows around. In System 7 and below, you could only click and hold on the top bar of the open window to move it. In OS 8.x, you can click and hold any of the window borders to accomplish the move. Easy!
Aliases–There’s a few of ways to create an alias. The first is using your Apple menu. Click once on the item you wish to make an alias of, go to File and scroll down until you see Make Alias. You’re done! Or, again after clicking once on the icon, you can use the key command, Command-M, to make your alias. The drawback to each approach is you have to click and drag the alias to where you wish it to be.
To streamline a little, click, hold, then press the Option and Command keys, and drag the original icon to where you want the alias to be. Once there, release all the buttons and you’re done! Okay, you need coordination between all your fingers, but it is easier.
Internet Site of the Month:
Mark Kantrowitz’s financial aid site, http://www.finaid.org. For folks looking for financial aid for college, this offers a ton of information!! It’s almost overwhelming but if you need financial help, this is a great place to start.
Have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!
Barbara Bell
pr@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.finaid.org
Calculated keys & portals
Example files: Phone.fp3,Import-Transit
This month is going to be mostly catch-up, for me to go back and explain some things in the example files. There were a couple of layouts and operations that got left out. Maybe you’ve already figured them out.
Alphabet Layout with Calculated Key
Keys do not have to be plain text fields or number fields. You can also use calculated fields on either side of a relationship, as long as they can be indexed, and always on the left side..
In the Phone.fp3 file there is a layout named Alphabet. There is a global field, Alpha g, on the left, formatted as radio buttons. It is also formatted to use the calculation field Alphac as its Value List. As soon as you have enough records, it will appear as the letters of the alphabet (you could type in the alphabet yourself, but why bother)..
Alpha c is defined as the simple formula, = Left (Last, 1)
Last is the last name field. This will give you the first letter of the last name..
There is a relationship between the two fields, Self Alpha;
Alpha g= ::Alpha c.
The portal is also based on the same relationship. So if you click one of the letters, a relationship will be established between that letter and first letter of the last name field (in the portal) instantly showing the related records. To go to that record, a transparent button over the names is attached to the script Go Main Alpha g:.
Set Field ["Serial ID g","Self Alpha ::Serial ID"]
Exit Record/Request
Go To Related Record [Show,"Self Serial ID g"]
Go To Layout ["Main View"] .
The global Serial ID g temporarily holds the value of the Serial ID field, which is an auto-entered text serial number; most files should have these two fields. The Self Serialg relationship between them will always be able to identify a record(s). You have to use these steps to get out of the portal, which is considered as if it’s a separate file..
Clairvoyance Layout
The Clairvoyance layout takes this idea a step or two farther. It uses a simple multi-key calculated field to achieve a many-to-many relationship. We’ve seen a similar relationship before in the Copy All Records trick (which I’ve already written about twice). This time though the multi-key is built by a calculation field rather than by the copy/paste trick. It’s still the same general principle, which I would state as:.
For relationships FileMaker considers each line of an entry in a field to be a separate record..
So, the only thing that is needed is to put paragraph returns between them. In this case we’ll just expand on the earlier calculation field (text result) to create a new one;
Match c = Left(Last, 1) & “¶” & Left(Last, 2) & “¶” & Left(Last, 3)
(“¶” is the paragraph return symbol in case html mangles it)
The first line will hold the first letter, the next the first two letters, etc…
A global text field, Last g, will hold user-entered letters to match up to this. Make a relationship between them, Match Last g;
Last g= ::Match c.
As you type letters into the Last g field, the records that match it will narrow down to the correct name(s). There is one problem: the portal records don’t refresh unless you either hit the Enter key or click somewhere outside the fields. But then you’re not in the Last g field anymore. To type another letter you have to click back into the field. Clunky..
There are two methods I know of to fix this. Both use scripts. The first begins a loop, pausing and resuming every second to refresh the portal. This works, but the screen refreshes are unnerving, and you still have to click to end the script. I came up with an alternative script, Clairvoyancer, which is a little smoother, but still requires the Enter key..
Loop
Exit Record/Request
Go to Field ["Lastg"]
Pause/Resume Script []
End Loop.
It requires a button, Begin, to start it. You enter a letter with your left hand then hit the Enter key with your right. This feels fairly natural. It triggers the Pause/Resume step, the portal refreshes and the cursor is in the Last g field, ready for the second letter (in case just one wasn’t enough). The loop continues..
Now we come to the fun part. Because of the paragraph returns, the two letters in Last g
will match the Left(Last, 2) of the Match c field. If that’s not enough, enter a third letter, and hit the Enter key again. Last g will now match the Left(Last,3) line of Match c. .
There is also a transparent button over the names in the portal, this time based on the Match Last g relationship, to set the Serial ID and go to that record..
The one caveat is that the loop is still continuing. It can be stopped by choosing the Exit Script option in the little drop-down menu that appears when you attach the following script to the transparent button:.
Set Field ["SerialIDg", "Match Last g::SerialID"]
Exit Record/Request
Go to Related Record [Show, "Self Serial g"]
Go to Layout ["Main View"].
Just to be safe, in case there is no match and the user leaves the layout, every navigation button on the layout should also have this option chosen. You’d want to stop them using the Window Menu also; but that’s a whole new kettle of fish..
Limiting Menus
On that topic, let me just say, without going into detail, that you should provide buttons for most functions for three reasons:
1. You can add script steps and parameters, such as above, that are unavailable to the standard FileMaker menus and command keys.
2. The user can get used to finding what they need on the layout, so they’ll use the buttons rather than the standard menus.
3. Eventually you may have to lockout certain menu commands or even the entire Menu Bar to keep control of things, so you may as well begin adding buttons now..
Multiple Checkbox Choices in a Global Field
In another situation, with a non-alphabetical field, the global field could be formatted as a checkbox to take advantage of the multi-line matching ability as well, without needing a calculated field. Relate it to a regular text field. Multiple choices in a checkbox field (or radio buttons if you use the Shift key) are also considered as separate entries, so all records relating to any of the choices would show up in a portal based on the same relationship.
Remember that the fields in the portal have to be defined as belonging to that relationship as well or they won’t show up..
Reviewing Duplicate Records Before Importing.
I added a routine in the Import example file to allow you to review duplicate records in Transit before deleting them or using them to update the original entries in Import. The operations are fairly simple, but they hop back and forth a little..
Checking Related Records
I think I’ll put the script first, Check Duplicate Names:.
Perform Script [Sub-scripts, "Copy All Records"]
Go to Layout [original layout]
If ["IsValid(Concat g::Last)"]
Show Message ["There are new records in Transit with the same name.
Do you want to check them before overwriting the originals in Phone?"]
If ["Status(CurrentMessageChoice) = 1"]
Go to Related Record [Show, "Concat g"]
Perform Script [Sub-scripts, External: "Transit"]
Comment ["Halt Script <--Import"]
Else
Exit Script
End If
End If.
The new steps begin with If ["IsValid(Concat g::Last)"]. I love this step. In general terms, If [IsValid("the relationship::any field with data)"]. Its beauty is that it checks to see if there are related records before having to go to them.
That is much better than using the Go to Related Record [Show, "Concat g"] by itself and then having to trap for Status(CurrentFoundCount)=0. You can use this step to check for related records first in either scripts or calculations..
The way it is used in this script if there are no related records the first If isn’t fulfilled and nothing happens.
If there are related records the message above is displayed. “Yes” is the default choice, which is trapped by If [Status(CurrentMessageChoice)=1].
A simple script with a single step, Halt Script, is then called as an external script in Transit to stop everything. It’s in Transit so that its window is brought to the front and you can see the duplicate records..
Halt Script vs. Exit Script
The reason that I used Halt here is because this whole script is called as a subscript by the main Relookup script. Halt stops all scripts, whereas Exit only stops the script it’s in. If it’s in a subscript like this one, then subsequent steps in the main script that called it will continue. It’s sometimes a big difference.
If the “No” button is clicked in the dialog then the Else step happens, the Exit Script stops this script but the Relookup script continues..
Review Button in Transit
To make it easy to review records a script was added to Transit, attached to a small button that shows up on each row in list view..
If ["IsValid(Import concat::Concat)"]
Go to Layout ["Form"]
Go to Related Record [Show, "Import concat"]
Perform Script [Sub-scripts, External: "Import"]
Comment ["Form View <--Transit"]
End If.
The first step checks if there is a related (duplicate) record. If so it displays it in form view in both files, so you can see all the information and make a decision. I sized the layouts and windows so they can be tiled horizontally and still see everything..
Finally, there is also a button to delete the record in Transit. There is no need to delete the one in Import, as it will be overwritten by the Relookup script..
You’ll have to run Relookup again manually after reviewing, since I halted it. Another way to do it might be to use a different combination of Exit script steps between the files, so the script would only be paused. But this way seemed good enough, and less prone to user (and creator) error..
Fenton Jones
Fenton Jones is a FileMaker database designer and consultant, based in San Diego, CA. FileMaker is a cross-platform rapid-development tool for affordable relational databases. If you have need of a FileMaker Pro expert, please be sure to visit his home page at http://www.fentonjones.com
A Better Finder Creators & Types
Author: Frank Reiff
Shareware: $10.00
http://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderCreatorsAndTypes
Many readers may remember my review of Frank Reiff’s A Better Finder Rename, back in October, 1998. A Better Finder Rename enabled you to automatically rename batches of files through a contextual menu in the finder. Similarly, A Better Finder Creators & Types (referred to as ABFCT from this point on) allows you to change the creator and/or type of any file via an application launched through a contextual menu plug-in.
ABFCT will change the creator and/or type of a large batch of files all at once, eliminating the need to manually “Save As…” from the program which you want to be the creator (the program that is opened when you double click on the file). Another way to do this would be with ResEdit, but this would be even more time consuming. ABFCT is a no-fuss program. It has a very well-done interface, allowing you to simply select the creator and/or type from a pop-up menu and then click “OK.” ABFCT also allows you to type in a creator and/or type code, so you can give a file any code you want, not just the codes of the programs listed in the pop-up menu. ABFCT is very fast, and your file(s)’ creator and/or types are changed instantly.
ABFCT also ships with a handy “Drop” application, where you can drag and drop any number of files onto it and it will launch ABFCT, just as if you were using the contextual menu.
The Summary
ABFCT is another ingenious utility by Frank Reiff that fully exploits Mac OS 8.x’s contextual menus. It is fast and runs smoothly without a hitch. If you work with foreign files frequently, or like to open files in two or more different applications, ABFCT is for you. $10.00 is the right flavor for this top-notch piece of shareware. Highly Recommended.
Download A Better Finder Creators & Types 1.4
QT Speed 1.0
Author: Mark Eaton
Freeware
http://www.mindspring.com/~markeaton/QTSpeed.html
Owning a PowerBook is different, and many desktop users don’t realize how much different it really is until they own one. When I was a desktop user, I never imagined that I would have to literally reconfigure my machine several times a week. Now, however, I’m the proud owner of a PowerBook G3–a machine that I take almost everywhere I go. Every time I change location preferences using Apple’s handy Location Manager, I am more and more thankful for this wonderful software. However, there was always one setting that the Location Manager didn’t change: QuickTime Connection Speed. QT Speed, by Mark Eaton, has filled that gap nicely.
In today’s world, QuickTime movies imbedded via the QuickTime Plug-in on Internet web pages are commonplace. Many web pages include different versions of their movies, and the version that you receive depends on the connection speed setting you have in your QuickTime Settings control panel. I switch between a modem and a T1 connection frequently, and having to reconfigure this setting each time I browse the web is a hassle. That’s where QT Speed 1.0 comes in. I can configure this module along with the rest of my Location settings, and it will automatically change my settings each time I switch settings with the Location Manager.
The Summary
What a useful piece of software! QT Speed makes life with my PowerBook easier, and that is what matters most. Go try it, it’s free! There is no excuse not to. Highly Recommended for all PowerBook owners who use Apple’s Location Manager.
Download QT Speed 1.0.1
Trash It! 3.6
Company: Skidperfect Software, Inc.
Freeware
http://www.pair.com/ammon/skidperfect
Trash It! is a simple control strip module that allows you to instantly delete anything that you drag and drop onto it. It will also empty the trash if you click on it. Trash It! will delete locked or busy files without any prompting, and is fully Mac OS 8.5.x and Control Strip 2.0 compatible. Cool!
The Summary
Trash It! is a neat control strip module that can be a big time saver–if used properly. However, it can also be a dangerous feature if left in the hands of a novice or beginning user. Thus I can recommend Trash It! for advanced users but I cannot recommend it for advanced users who also share their computer with less-experienced users.
Download Trash It! 3.6
Requirements/Availability: A Better Finder Creators & Types requires a PowerPC Macintosh running Mac OS 8.x. QT Speed 1.0 requires Apple’s Location Manager, and Trash It! 3.6 requires Apple’s control strip software. All three of these utilities can be downloaded at their respective URLs.
Adam Karneboge
webmaster@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderCreatorsAndTypes
http://www.mindspring.com/~markeaton/QTSpeed.html
http://www.pair.com/ammon/skidperfect
Comments. Be heard!
MyMac Podcast #385
MyMac Podcast #384