Cover by Lonnie Houghton MyMac Magazine #49, May 1999

The Write Stuff:
Essential Writing Tools for the New Millennium

Persons grouped around a fire or candle for warmth or light are less able to pursue independent thoughts, or even tasks, than people supplied with electric light.

MARSHALL MCLUHAN (1911–80), CANADIAN COMMUNICATIONS
THEORIST. UNDERSTANDING MEDIA, CH. 33 (1964)

It was only a few decades ago that writing a research paper or novel involved sorting through a pile of three by five cards, keeping track of a collection of Xeroxed pages of research, purchasing several packages of erasable bond typing paper, desperately searching for a spool of correct-o-tape that was never there when you needed it, cleaning the end of a good eraser, and then physically attacking a finger-taxing manual typewriter. In those days editing text was such a chore that you often would begin a sentence, stumble into a few misplaced adjectives or nouns, and try to finish the thought so that it sounded okay and made sense at the same time. In retrospect, writing before the advent of the word processor was akin to driving with no headlights, no brakes, several small containers of gas, and a crank starter.

On the other hand, there’s an enormous body of literature published well before the evolution of today’s technologies which suggests this analogy is suspect. After all, Mr. Shakespeare, Mr. Joyce, and Mr. Homer seemed to accomplish a bit without a word processor. There were geniuses who composed in long hand or on a typewriter, and today too, there are writers who insist that the use of technology actually stifles creativity.

Without joining this argument, it’s safe to say that a word processor would have been helpful to several authors from the past, and though word processing is no substitute for genius, in some cases it might have significantly augmented it. What if Shakespeare, for example, could have produced twice the number of plays or Thomas Wolfe twice the number of novels!

Perhaps the real power of word processing today, however, is that it removes the tedium from the writing process and provides unparalleled access to a whole new generation of writing tools, thereby improving the overall quality of written communications. The purpose of this paper, then, is to examine some of the software and hardware features that have transformed word processing and have become essential for communications at the beginning of the new millennium.

Text/Graphics Input

A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.

Marshall McLuhan (1911–80), Canadian communications theorist. The Gutenberg Galaxy, "Typographic Man Can Express but Is Helpless to Read the Configuration of Print Technology" (1962)

The technology of writing has changed enormously over the past few decades. The manual typewriter was replaced by the electric typewriter, though each required you to enter text manually and produced static documents. A sophisticated document required detailed prior preparation and research, because the act of editing a ‘finished’ document was so cumbersome.

These early writing technologies were characterized by a separation of the research process from the writing process. Research was usually accomplished elsewhere both physically and temporally and thus the writer’s input options were effected. A typical research session took place in a library where the writer would gather information to be later re-entered on a typewriter at home or at the office. If additional inquiries were required, subsequent trips to a research center would have to be accomplished. Once the author began the final draft, there was a real inertia to shut down the research process.

Today, the writer can be connected directly to an enormous number of information resources via the Internet, other networked systems, or local storage devices. Ready access to the latest research can influence the content and structure of a document literally minutes before final output. Properly cited text and graphics retrieved from outside sources can be inserted or ‘pasted’ directly into a document and then modified or ‘massaged’ to meet specific needs.

Though the input process still depends to a large degree on manually entering data via a keyboard, features like text retrieval, on-line reference, text dictation, and ‘smart’ data entry are technologies that will influence how documents are created in the new millennium.

Text Retrieval

The latest Macintosh Operating System includes a text search facility called Sherlock that can index every document on a local or network drive and can then search for text in file name or a word or phrase within any file. The resulting search window shows a priority ordered list of all files containing the required information; search criteria can be saved for future reference. Searches are accomplished using natural language criteria, and the time consuming task of indexing the results can be conveniently scheduled during non-usage times.

Sherlock can also search the Internet, and most major sites have developed ‘Sherlock Plug-ins’ that speed its search. These Plug-ins can be both downloaded and automatically updated from the Net. In use, you can restrict your search by selecting or deselecting sites in Sherlock’s search window. While there are Windows products that can also be used to index and retrieve text, there’s presently no Windows system software to rival Sherlock’s versatility.

On-line Reference

Microsoft Bookshelf is one of many local storage reference materials available to writers. Others available on CD range from encyclopedias to law libraries, and the development of the higher capacity DVD drives will lead to even more information access.

The Bookshelf CD includes the Columbia Book of Quotations with over 18,000 entries, The American Heritage Dictionary with over 350,000 definitions and 70,000 audio pronunciations, Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases with over 250,000 synonyms, the Encarta Desk Encyclopedia with over 17,000 articles, the Encarta Desk World Atlas with over 150 maps of the world, the People’s Chronology with over 35,000 entries covering the chronology of world history from 3 million B.C. to the present, the World Almanac and Book of Facts, the Microsoft Bookshelf Internet Directory which includes descriptions and hot links to over 6,000 websites, and a specialized Computer and Internet Dictionary with over 7,300 explanations and definitions.

Bookshelf’s cross-referenced indexes make this reference material particularly useful, as you can simultaneously search all of the above sources for the occurrence of a word, phrase, or name. Another nice feature is the ability to highlight a word or phrase while using Microsoft Word and then directly access Bookshelf for relevant information related to the selection.

Dictation

Voice input will be an important option for entering text in the new millennium. There are already some amazing third party products that support voice input and, as processors get faster and memory gets cheaper, we can expect voice input will become an integral part of a modern operating system.

Dictation should be viewed, however, as an interim step in document creation. That is, speech and writing are two entirely different skills, and dictated text must still be processed to transform it into acceptable writing.

‘Smart’ Data Entry

The standard keyboard ‘QWERTY’ layout hasn’t changed much. It was designed to slow the typist and prevent damage to the manual typewriter and, though there have been efforts to replace it, none have made it into the main stream. Microsoft Word, however, includes what the company refers to as ‘IntelliSense’ features that monitor your typing and make ‘smart’ adjustments as you work. Autocorrect, for example, fixes words it considers misspelled by searching a small database of common misspellings, while Autotext will suggest whole phrases as you type. You can customize these features to suit your needs and help overcome some of the limitations of QWERTY.

Information Processing

Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.
J. G. Ballard (b. 1930), English novelist. Introduction, 1974, to the French edition of Crash (1973)

Today, we’re bombarded with information from the Internet, hundreds of cable TV stations, dedicated news networks, expanded print media, email, and local storage devices. In order to extract data from these sources and communicate effectively in writing, information must be processed.

Information processing embraces sentence, paragraph, and document structure, dynamic outlining, consistency of appearance, grammar, quotations, paraphrases, and control over graphics. Word processing tools that need to be mastered include the outliner, style editor, table generator, spelling and grammar checker, macro editor, and drawing tools.

Though it’s possible to produce documents while ignoring these features and treating a word processor like a correctable typewriter, the referenced tools effect the writing process and ultimately the final product. McLuhan would undoubtedly agree that as the writing medium has changed, these changes have had a profound impact on the written message.

Outliner

Dynamic ‘outlining’ on a computer or ‘idea processing’ provides the writer the freedom to express ideas in a non-linear way without sacrificing the organization of the finished product. That is, the user can be guided by inspiration alone and accomplish any part of a work without considering structure until the very end. Once all of the pieces are produced, the writer can experiment with structure until the required continuity is achieved. Though something similar is possible using a simple word processor and ‘cut and paste’ techniques, the process itself often gets in the way of the writing.

Microsoft Word’s outlining feature presents an alternative ‘view’ of a document. While in ‘outline view,’ you can access the outline toolbar to promote or demote headings, display various levels of headings and/or the first lines of paragraphs, drag and drop headings and associated paragraphs to any level, and generally focus on the overall structure of the document.

When you switch from ‘Outline View’ to ‘Page Layout View,’ the document instantly displays standard or user defined styles. Any changes you make while in outline view are simultaneously mapped into regular document styles, and thus your attention to document structure requires very little overhead in terms of time.

Style Editor

When word processing first became popular on microcomputers, embedded document styles were used to standardize paragraphs throughout a document. Thus, if you wanted your paragraphs double-spaced with a first line indent of a half an inch, you selected that style prior to creating the document. Some word processors displayed these codes, while others kept them hidden. As the software evolved, you could change the style in the middle of a document and every new paragraph you entered would feature the new style. This ‘document approach’ to formatting was simple, but cumbersome.

Microsoft Word was one of the first ‘paragraph oriented’ word processors. Though, perhaps somewhat confusing to the first time user, associating styles with each paragraph provides the writer enormous flexibility. Each paragraph can have its own indents, spacing, and alignment as well as borders, shading, and so on.

Selecting ‘Define Styles’ in Word provides full access to character and paragraph formatting with choices reflected in each style definition. Word includes a "pull down" menu on document rulers, and styles can be readily scanned and applied without resorting to program menus and dialogue boxes. Changes in the definition of a style are automatically applied to corresponding text throughout a document. Word also includes provisions for creating stationery files that maintain style definitions, and for the exporting of styles to the default Word document template.

Table Generator

Some information is most effectively presented in table format, and over the years, word processing software has approached this task in a variety of ways. Simple, left justified tabs evolved into left, right, center, and decimal tabs for aligning text and numbers, and ‘leaders’ were added to make it easier to read across a row of a table. Some word processors even added a ‘bar’ tab to draw lines between table columns. Though these tools added some flexibility, they still ignored the problem of lengthy table entries overlapping tab settings.

Microsoft Word 98 (Macintosh and Windows) includes a dynamic table-generation facility that automatically wraps text within a cell and resizes the table accordingly. Individual cells, rows and columns can be selectively formatted with a full range of styles, and can be assigned a variety of border formats. Microsoft’s Table Maker is a powerful feature that transforms table generation into an elegant word processing feature.

Spell Checker and Grammar Checker

Word 98 can check spelling and grammar on the fly as you type your document. The program displays a wavy underline to indicate a possible error and control-clicking the referenced mistake generates a list of options. The spelling dictionary includes standard words, modern expressions, and technical jargon.

The first generation of grammar checkers was notoriously stupid. It was sometimes more work to sift through a grammar check’s results than to rewrite an entire document, and more often than not the grammar checker was simply mistaken. Word 98’s Grammar Checker, on the other hand, is much more accurate and robust. Though it still occasionally gets things wrong, it’s worth the effort to examine its suggestions.

Macros

One of the frustrations of using a word processor is that you are often required to perform repetitive tasks that should be accomplished by the computer. The new word processors include a ‘macro’ facility to automate a series of repetitive steps. Generally speaking, the computer can record a series of keystrokes or mouse clicks or you can manually enter this information.

WordPerfect and Microsoft Word include macro editors that transform a sometimes useful but complex process into an important tool, and for those users who don’t have time to define their own macros, Word Perfect comes with a number of predefined macros that accomplish everything from addressing envelopes to creating inverted drop caps. Each of these can be modified using the macro editor to meet your particular needs.

Drawing Tools

Graphics often speak louder than words, and Microsoft Word is one word processor that comes equipped to manipulate graphics. A Drawing Toolbar gives access to expanded graphics capabilities and adjustable AutoShapes provides over 100 vector-mapped graphics. Fill effects afford multi-colored gradient, texture, transparent, picture fills, and 3-D effects. In addition, the user can create geometric shapes with Bezier curves; add shadow effects; connect shapes with straight, angled, or curved connectors; modify Arrowhead styles; and insert bitmaps and background colors into transparent document backgrounds.

The Draw Toolbar provides sophisticated control over the manipulation of objects. There are options to group or ungroup them, stack them in relationship to each other and/or text, nudge them horizontally or vertically into position, align or distribute them, or edit their boundaries.

Document Output

We’ve come a long way from erasable bond typing paper. Today, there are thousands of documents and email messages produced daily that will never be put on paper. Though the paperless office has yet to become a reality, we still seem to be moving inexorably in that direction.

The final disposition of a document has a direct impact on its composition. Whether its intended for print, voice output, as a source file for a desktop publishing program, or to be published on the web, the author should consider its disposition in choosing appropriate processing tools.

Print

Acceptable quality color print technology is now affordable for the average consumer. Color inkjet printers have dropped in price almost as quickly as they have improved in output. At the same time, gray-scale, Postscript-based laser printers are now cheaper than ever while sporting improved resolution and speed.

Speak Text

The Mac Operating System now comes with some twenty-two different built-in voices, and Microsoft Word takes advantage of this technology with a ‘Speak Selection’ option under the Tools Menu. Though this technology is still in its infancy, the ability to ‘speak’ a document will be an important convenience for the sight-disadvantaged and for travelers who receive documents while on the road.

Hot Links to DTP

Though developers have expanded the word processing feature set to encompass some aspects of desktop publishing, programs like Adobe PageMaker and Quark Xpress are special purpose tools that are enormously more powerful in the creation and production of DTP documents. Word processing files often serve as a ‘hot-linked’ source for publications with changes made in the word processor immediately reflected in the publication.

Publish

With the development of presentation software, web publishing programs, and electronic mail, documents are no longer produced solely for printing. Microsoft Word outlines, for example, can be directly exported to PowerPoint presentations, and most of today’s word processors include the capability of saving in web-compatible HTML format. Because most electronic mail software supports HTML formatting, the medium can have more impact on the message than ever before.

Hardware That Makes a Difference

The G3 PowerBook

The Macintosh Portable has evolved significantly over the years. Apple’s first attempt was nicknamed ‘The Enterprise’ because it was as big and cumbersome as an aircraft carrier. A family of Macintosh ‘PowerBooks’ followed with each generation growing more powerful. The ‘Wall Street’, one of Apple’s newest portables, surpasses many desktop systems in terms of power and speed, and sports a beautiful TFT (Thin Film Transistor) screen. Perhaps as importantly, the G3 PowerBook is also a superb communications device geared to connect to anything from the web, a local network, another Mac, or an external drive.

To summarize, the G3 PowerBook is an ideal writing machine because: first (and most importantly), it includes the simple, intuitive, and multi-featured Mac OS; second, it can be connected to a full-sized keyboard, mouse, and video monitor for work at the office or at home; third, a special SCSI cable lets you plug the PowerBook into the back of your desktop Mac allowing your desktop machine to access the internal PowerBook drive; fourth, Apple includes a 56K modem option for attaching to the net; fifth, it includes two ‘hot-swappable’ bays for batteries, floppy drives, and CD-ROM or DVD drives; sixth, the SCSI port lets you connect external hard drives, scanners, and other peripherals effortlessly; seventh, two PCMCIA slots offer other expansion options; and eighth, an Ethernet connector makes the machine networkable.

The Macintosh Consumer Portable (Speculation)

There are some writers who have such vivid imaginations and power of recall that they can describe a scene in a faraway town square as if they were sitting there at an outside café sipping a cup of café con leché. Others do very extensive research on-line or in a good library and accomplish much the same effect. For most writers though, there’s no substitute for the real thing—describing a scene up close and on location.

One obvious solution is to use a small tape recorder to chronicle a verbal description of a scene, but that process still removes the writing process from the story’s environment. Though it’s possible to record in-depth descriptions and then pick and choose as you construct a setting, the exercise can be mechanical and may not produce the desired results.

Unfortunately, on location writing can be cumbersome and awkward without an assist from technology. One of the great technological breakthroughs of all time was the invention of the 3 by 5 card, but the act of writing longhand or printing is so tedious that it puts many writers off and may prevent them from choosing the exact descriptive phrase. A Personal Digitizing Assistant like the Newton might have been a suitable substitute if its handwriting recognition had lived up to its billing—but it didn’t—and its screen was too small to provide an overview of sentence, paragraph, or document structure.

Far more preferable would be a technology that accompanies the author on location and provides a complete writing environment. A G3 PowerBook would be ideal, but it’s far too obtrusive. Powerbooks and other notebook computers are awkward to use in public, difficult to impossible to use in bright daylight, and always run short of power when you need them most. If Apple’s new ‘iBook’ portables are fashionable, lightweight, can be used during daylight, and feature a long battery life, the portable computer could become ubiquitous as the cellular phone. A thin iBook bearing the tricolor, for example, might be quite at home on the Champs Élysée.

DO Try this At Home?

A Little Background
I have never been a fan of initializing my hard drive every year or two, as some Mac gurus recommend. Instead, I choose the more palatable medicine of doing Easy Installs whenever possible, and running Norton Utilities monthly. I archive items I won’t be needing again soon (or ever), and back up religiously.

For years this method has served me well, and I am in no hurry to try anything different, but…

I have friends who, for very different reasons, have recently needed a complete hard disk reformat, with immediate and substantial improvement over their previous computer woes. Now I can speak from both sides of the story.

First, Sharon
Sharon has a 6300, which she purchased new and didn’t use very much until now. She hired me as her tutor, to help her learn and use America Online, then proceed to ClarisWorks.

During our get-acquainted session, I showed her the best methods for diagnosing and fixing software problems, and we tossed out unnecessary garbage she had accumulated throughout her system. At the second appointment, she subscribed to AOL, and we set up some word processing templates in ClarisWorks. During our third session I upgraded her system software from the original 7.x to OS 8.1. So far so good.

Before I returned for round three, Sharon emailed me that she was getting strange errors and freezes, both on-line and offline. I told her not to worry, because Norton would take care of everything. Sure enough, Disk Doctor located and repaired many serious problems, and her Mac was fine again, for three days.

Changing Gears
Wham! Sharon’s frequent crashes made me rethink the entire strategy. I looked through the Book Bytes library, and was reminded about initializing and starting from scratch, which made me a little nervous with someone else’s computer. But, why not?!

We archived everything essential (not much in this case), then held our breath and ran DriveSetup 1.4 to erase the entire disk.

WARNING: If you do this procedure, make sure you have reliable backups of your essential data and software updaters, because Apple doesn’t give you either strongly worded warnings about what you are about to do, or any chance whatsoever to undo it!

In a few seconds we had an empty hard disk, which cheerfully accepted the OS 8.1 installation, plus Sharon’s other registered software. One hour later her “new” computer ran better than ever, and all three of us were wearing the famous Macintosh grin. Now, weeks later, from Sharon my phone is silent and my email box is empty most of the time, except when she is ready for another tutorial lesson.

Second, Paul
Four days after doing Sharon’s complete reformat and reinstallation, my poker buddy Paul called. The conversation ran:

Paul: Hi, John. Do you have a few minutes this afternoon?

John: Not exactly, Paul. I’m just getting over the flu, and all my deadlines are burying me right now. What’s the matter?

Paul: I got a new computer, and I want you to look it over.

John: Great, Paul. Which model of G3 did you buy?

Paul: Well, I went cheap, and got a Performa 6118, or some number like that, because the guy threw in all sorts of extra goodies.

John: Such as?

Paul: Leave them out for now, because the computer is a mess.

John: Huh? You bought a sick Mac? How cheap is cheap?

Paul: Take it easy on me, please. When will you have a little time?

John: Okay. Next Wednesday. Bring EVERYTHING that goes with this new old Performa, plus whatever else you might remotely need.

Paul: I’ll be there.

One Week Later…
He had removed about half the junk from the Mac’s 500 MB hard disk, but it was a real mess. He wanted me to help him do a clean backwards install from OS 8.5 down to 7.6.1 (don’t ask; I still don’t get it myself).

I said “No dice, Paul. It’s 8.1 or nothing.” He didn’t know I was now an instant expert, having survived Sharon’s emergency. Plus he was in no position to argue.

The entire procedure ran more slowly than on the 6300, due to the older PPC 601 processor, but after the initialization we loaded only the OS and his Internet items. Paul is a professional writer, and uses a trusted Centris for his word processing, at least for now.

Finally, Linda
The next day I received the following message from my friend Linda, in California, who also has a 6300:

We were on the “net” when the computer crashed. After the restart, we got the dreaded question mark on the screen and had to “boot up” using our Disk Doctor disk. After trying to repair the computer, we got the desktop back, but were told (by our computer!) that it was unable to fix the problem. The problem was an invalid sibling link 4,1775.

I have looked in every book to try to find out what this is. (naturally can’t find it!) We have checked the cables on our computer (i.e. printer) and everything is fine. I do believe it has something to do with being online as we hardly every crash when we are in the database or other applications.

Do you have any clues to this problem? I have found information on the question mark and that has helped some, but I still don’t know what our problem is. As far as we can tell, it is something “external” to the computer. I will call our Internet provider about it too, just wanted to ask you first.

I told Linda to run Disk Doctor, and let me know if that worked. She replied:

Sorry I haven’t been writing much email this week.

So far, we are doing ok, but I am very “ginger” when on the Internet, not asking it to do too much, for fear of a crash. but until it happens again, we’ll just continue on.

There is one possibility – our ISP was doing some work that day (they sent out an e-letter as such) and maybe it affected our connection and startup functions – is that possible?

We do not have Norton. We just used the startup disk that we got with the computer. It was not a “Disc Doctor” per se.

I have not called the tech support yet at our provider, but plan to sometime soon. I’m also going to hunt down a Mac tech person in the area – hope I find one!

Guess what? The local Mac guy did a complete reformat plus reinstallation, and now Linda is better than ever, as she explained:

We just got our computer back from Bill, he had it for 5-6 days. He did GREAT things for us, like upgrading our Netscape and our email program. He also showed us some things when we picked it up. Really really great and didn’t charge very much. We really liked him. He is president of the local users club. We gave him your email address, we think you two should communicate!

Our computer even sounds quieter! I’m thrilled. He suggested we get a program called Tech Tool to keep it running well.

Also, I must tell you that one reason that it wasn’t working well, was because I had so many undeleted messages in my email program. I just hadn’t taken the time to delete them out and they were taking up a lot of RAM. I think our Internet program will run a lot better now, and faster, thus we may not need a new modem.

What Nemo Learned
Most of the time, for most Mac users, most applications run smoothly. When chaos mode becomes crisis mode, consider doing a complete hard drive initialization and reinstallation, after FIRST archiving and backing up important items. If possible, have someone experienced hold your hand, or do the job for you. Your old clunker will suddenly perform like the lean machine it was meant to be.

If you have additional insights on this topic, I welcome your comments.

Join The Club

Over thirty years ago when I was in college, students would play pranks on one another by enrolling their “friends” in the Columbia Record Club. Shortly thereafter, a few LPs arrived followed by about a million requests for payment, terminating months later in a collection agent asking everyone else where the alleged perpetrators were located. The whole thing was only mildly amusing, but it went on nonstop.

Fast-forward to 1999, and now the two major music clubs are competing on-line for our CD business. At this moment I am enrolled in the classical music clubs for both Columbia House and BMG, each of which claims to have a full-service website for members and visitors.

I signed up to each club via snail mail, using tear-out ads in the newspaper, in order to build up a good collection of Baroque era classical CDs for the course I just finished teaching at the University of Arizona. My experience was primarily via postal mail and telephone (another story altogether), but I did do some ordering and research on their websites. These Internet divisions are now big business, but how user-friendly are they?

Let’s take a look. I’ll see how easy it is to locate and “order” a compact disc featuring the best organ works of J. S. Bach.

First I went to http://www.bmgmusicservice.com. The home page loaded quickly and was easy to navigate. I logged in as a member, and soon had notified BMG not to send the monthly selection.

I attempted to do a search for an album with “Bach organ” in the title, which failed, then searched for “Bach” in the composer-search area. The search located 88 items, and displayed fifteen at a time. The second screen contained:

RealAudio excerpts were available for every track on the CD, as was a download for the RealPlayer 5.0.

I placed an order, added the CD to my shopping cart, then signed out before the disc was actually sent to me.

This service is a good one, but can use some improvement in its classical music search criteria.

Next I typed in http://www.columbiahouse.com, and did, more or less, the same stuff as I had just done at BMG. The loading was smooth, but the home page has lots of images and is a bit busy visually.

Starting with my member login, everything was much slower compared to the BMG site, more confusing, and rather tedious. The “Bach” search took a looooooooong time, yielding one huge window with all the Bach items in the Columbia House catalog. Advice: be patient when using Columbia House, especially with a normal modem connection. The selection is good, but the web navigation is not.

At the end of a Columbia House session, it is difficult to know if the order has gone through, because no acknowledgment is provided. Try it, and tell me if I’m missing something obvious.

Both clubs offer very good prices for new and existing members, and I’m interested which music purchase sites are your favorites.

Oldies But Goodies

If you are looking for books that don’t need to be in absolute mint condition, or are out of print, try Bibliofind: http://www.bibliofind.com. This service identifies independent booksellers who have the book, and who will ship it to you, usually at a very nice price. I love it and use it all the time.

Get Stuffed?

One more thing. I am preparing an evaluation of StuffIt Deluxe 5.x, and am interested in your experiences with it. We are in the midst of a controversy here at My Mac Magazine, and value our readers’ opinions highly. I will reply personally to your messages.

See you next month. Are you using a cable modem or DSL connection yet?

John Nemerovski
nemo@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.bmgmusicservice.com
http://www.columbiahouse.com
http://www.bibliofind.com

Hello everybody! Nice seeing you again.

There is a question that I’ve been pondering lately.

Will Apple be ready for the Y2K Crunch?

I know what you are thinking. Apple Macintosh computers are Y2K compliant. So is the Mac OS. They always have been. What kind fool would ask such a silly question?

Wait!
Before you write me off as some uniformed so and so, hear me out.

The times are changing…
It seems that the good news lately has been going Apple’s way. And from what I can see, unless Apple pulls a completely bone-headed and self-destructive maneuver out of their back pocket (AppleCare?), it’s unlikely this will change any time soon.

The press has been having a field day with Microsoft’s legal troubles. Just look at Tim’s column in the March issue; Microsoft has been downright arrogant regarding their antitrust trial. Imagine trying to pass off bogus videos in Federal Court. Imagine barring the Government’s lawyers from a room while they try to rig a computer to duplicate the bogus video, and then going so far as to drop one of the demonstrations altogether when it couldn’t be recreated! (Gee, I wonder why?) And my personal favorite is when the government’s lawyer caught one of Microsoft’s executives lying on the witness stand.

Their recent attempts to settle out of court are completely laughable, and are only token attempts to give them a semblance of plausible deniability.

“Well, we tried to settle this out of court, but the Government’s lawyers were simply inflexible.” Pure PR. Microsoft knows if they settle they will have to follow the new rules immediately. If they don’t, this case could be stuck in the courts for years, and they’ll be able to continue on their merry (read: illegal, monopolistic, arrogant, manipulative) ways for a long, long time.

Doesn’t this bother you? Doesn’t this bother many of Microsoft’s clients? Well, it bothers me, and I think it bothers a great deal of other people. I can’t be alone in not wanting to do business with a company that embraces business practices that I feel are ethically wrong. And I certainly don’t think much of Microsoft’s disregard for our system of justice. While our legal system may not be perfect, we should at least be able to expect oath-bound litigants to refrain from attempting to bamboozle the court! And is it so much to ask for a witness to speak the truth without having it slowly pulled out like a bad tooth?

Just how compliant is that OS in the Window?
I have read some very interesting articles lately. “I, Cringley” had some very interesting notes on Windows NT recently. NT4.0 with Service pack 3? NOT Y2K compliant.

The French Government has stated that Windows ’98 out of the box is NOT Y2K compliant.

Of course, neither was Windows 95.

Before you all flame me… Yes, I know they can be made Y2K compliant. There are downloads and patches for each to make them Y2K ready. But there are still countless millions of Wintel users out there that aren’t quite geeky enough to know about the myriad patches required to make their systems Y2K compliant.

The one that kills me is Windows 98. The packaging says it is fully Y2K compliant. Yet, the French Government discovered a patch that has to be downloaded from Microsoft to make it that way.

It’s sort of like buying a car that was advertised as having dual airbags, but finding out after a bad wreck that you needed to go into the dealer to have them “patched” for full functionality.

“Sorry about your broken neck, but you needed the patch installed to make the passenger safe. Okay?”

No, it isn’t.

Well, what if you were a Windows 98 user and you didn’t have an Internet connection? Come January 1, 2000, you just might find a surprise waiting for you when you turn on your computer in the morning. And there must be millions of Windows 98 users that aren’t yet on the Internet. MILLIONS! Not to mention the other millions of NT, Windows 95, and 3.11 users that didn’t get all the patches they needed. Even if they are on the Internet.

(I’m not even going to get into the BIOS updates required by the manufacturers’ hardware to make the firmware Y2K compliant.)

If I were a Wintel user booting up my system on January 1st, 2000 only to find out that my supposed Y2K compliant system wasn’t, I’d be just a little bit upset. Actually, I’d be livid. The blood would drain from my face and I would come completely unglued.

Do you hear what I hear?
SMASH! CRASH! BLAMO! BONK! BIFF! POW!
(Think of the 1960s Batman series for added effect.)

Some people are going to be so mad they are simply going to take bats, golf clubs, and steel toed boots to their computers. You will see dumpsters full of smashed and wrecked Wintel computers.

Oh yeah, one more thing. You’re going to hear, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more, Microsoft! I’m buying a Mac!” It will echo from the streets, offices, and the rooftops. (Followed by a healthy “thud!” as their Wintel box is dropped off that rooftop!)

Seriously, there will be a great number of people that will have had it with Microsoft. Had it up to here with their lies, their manipulations, their business practices, their blatant disregard for their clients. After that, many of them won’t want anything to do with Microsoft.

Absolutely nothing.

The shortage of all things Macintosh
This brings us to January 2nd. When the computer stores reopen, I think you’ll find that anyone selling Apple Macintoshes will be quite busy, swamped, flooded, oh heck, there might even be riots! (Ok, maybe that’s a bit extreme.) But I have a feeling that there may be a run on Macintoshes and all things Macintosh related.

If I were you, and looking to buy a Mac, I’d make sure you do so before the end of the 1999. There could be a serious shortage of Macintosh products after the first of the year 2000.

People will finally realize that Microsoft is not a company they want to do continue doing business with.

Just imagine walking into CompUSA on January 3rd and finding the shelves emptied of Macintosh computers. Not due to the usual poor ordering this time, but because they sold them all to the ravenous hordes of fed up PC users swinging over to the Mac. (Just imagine the looks on the faces of the dedicated Apple staff. Exhausted, frazzled, and the complete envy of their bored PC counterparts on the “dark side” of the store.)

This brings me back to the question that was on my mind at the beginning of this column.

Will Apple be ready for the Y2K crunch?
(Now do you see why I’ve been pondering this?)

In anticipation of the problems, will they have enough systems to meet the demand? Can they forecast what may come? Will CompUSA, Best Buy, Sears, and others be ready for the hordes of people that will walk in and want a Mac? Just how high will Apple’s overall market share get? 10%? 15%? 20%? HIGHER!?

Will the “Small Business” version of the iMac be on display for all the businesses needing a computer that works right now!?

If Apple is smart, they might even have a special promotion. I can see the stickers plastered on the boxes:

“This Macintosh is 100% Microsoft Windows FREE!”

They’d make a fortune on those bundles!

Will there be a shortage of all things Mac? Will Apple be ready for the Y2K crunch? Will Microsoft survive? How high will Apple’s market share rise? For the answer to these and many more questions, tune in after January 1st. And be glad you have a Mac. Be very glad.

Bob McCormick
bob@mymac.com

DiskWarrior 1.0.2
Company: Alsoft, Inc.
Estimated Price: $69.95
http://www.alsoft.com

Owning a computer has its ups and downs, guaranteed. While the ups usually outweigh the downs, bad things do happen. Losing your hard disk containing all of your important files, applications, and other data certainly is no fun. What’s more, if you don’t have a backup, and utilities such as Apple’s Disk First Aid or Norton Utilities are unable to resurrect your disk, your data could be gone forever.

The reason Norton Utilities and Disk First Aid occasionally have problems repairing your disk is because the directory catalog is damaged. These tools attempt to repair a directory by patching over directory data, essentially deleting it and making the disk harder to recover. Fortunately, Alsoft’s DiskWarrior focuses solely on directories, looking at existing catalog data, collecting additional information the OS has stored elsewhere on the disk, and creates an entirely new catalog from all the information it has collected.

Since DiskWarrior creates a new directory catalog from all the information it collects, it can actually recover deleted files in addition to repairing disks. Moreover, if your directory is healthy to begin with, DiskWarrior will provide a noticeable speed increase, since the Mac OS can search clean, organized directories much faster than scattered ones.

The Interface
DiskWarrior is perhaps the easiest program you have ever used, period. There are no preferences to set, no options to skip, no “advanced” tests to do. You simply select what disk you want to run DiskWarrior on, and click “Rebuild.” DiskWarrior is much faster than other disk utilities, and it will fix all types of disks: hard disks, Zip disks, floppies, both in Mac OS Standard (HFS) and Mac OS Extended (HFS+) formats. After clicking rebuild, disk warrior will run through 10 steps including rebuilding the new directory. Once the new directory is created, you can use DiskWarrior’s preview mode, to “preview” what the disk will look like in the Finder. If you don’t want to preview the disk, you simply click “Replace,” and DiskWarrior will replace your existing directory, fixing any existing problems and preventing future data loss.

The Proof
While DiskWarrior claims it can repair your disks, the real test is using it to recover real damaged directories. Being a Macintosh technician at my university, I’m exposed to lots of computer problems. The first time I ever saw DiskWarrior in action is what made me a believer in this product:

The Machine: PowerBook 3400/240
The Scenario: The person had told me that they had experienced a typical system lock-up (frozen mouse pointer) the night before. When they turned the computer on the next morning, they got the blinking question mark. After starting up off of the Norton Utilities 4.0 CD, and attempting to repair it with Norton Disk Doctor, the disk was still not mountable, and Norton wanted a “FileSaver” file to repair the disk. Other disk repair utilities were used to no avail. I declared the disk “gone,’ and prepared to re-initialize.

That’s when one of my colleagues brought their DiskWarrior CD in. I started up off the CD, it recognized the unmountable disk, rebuilt the directory, and recovered the disk! The disk was fully bootable, and files that had been deleted more than a week before were now recovered.

The second time I had to use DiskWarrior, it was on a machine in our Macintosh classroom:

The Machine: Power Computing PowerTower Pro 225
The Scenario: The situation was similar to the previous one, however this disk was mountable, but not bootable. Running DiskWarrior again fixed the problem.

Requirements/Availability
DiskWarrior is available from Alsoft’s website at http://www.alsoft.com for $69.00. You can order it on-line and download it, or you can choose to have the CD sent to you. DiskWarrior requires a 68020 and Mac OS 7.1 or higher for Mac OS Standard (HFS) disks, and a 68040 or PowerPC for Mac OS Extended (HFS+) disks. The DiskWarrior CD is bootable, and will allow you to repair your startup disk by booting off the CD.

The Summary
Alsoft’s Disk Warrior is unlike anything I have ever seen. It offers the safest, most powerful disk recovery protection on the market today. What’s more, it fixed real world disk crashes, not laboratory-simulated ones. With an amazingly simple interface, and unsurpassed repair capability, DiskWarrior is perhaps the only disk repair utility you will ever need.

If you have ever lost a disk full of data because you didn’t have a backup, you know the feeling, and you know why you need DiskWarrior. My recommendation is to buy DiskWarrior today. It will fix a damaged disk, and will make a healthier one even better, optimizing it and preventing further damage. If you only buy one piece of software this year, buy DiskWarrior. You won’t regret it. Highly Recommended by My Mac Magazine.

MacMice Rating: 5

Adam Karneboge
webmaster@mymac.com

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

It’s been six years now since I made my first computer purchase—a Performa 550 with a weeny 68030 processor inside. I keep telling myself, "Time to upgrade, Pete, time to get one of those new fancy schmancy machines." But every time I get close to committing myself to a new purchase something always seems to get in the way.

By the time I learned there was a significant difference between a 68030 and a 68040 machine, (after the purchase, of course) I cursed myself for not going the extra couple hundred bucks and getting the ’040. But hey, what did I know? I was computer illiterate and a truck driver on top of that. I did, however, promise myself that I would save up the bucks and get into a speedier machine as soon as possible. So save I did, and before long I was ready to make the trip back to the candy store and purchase a ’040. The Mrs. didn’t quite understand why I needed a new computer so soon after laying out two grand and some change for the one I had, but she didn’t ask too many questions and was very supportive right up until the day before we were going to make the purchase.

What happened on that "day before" was a trip to the family dental practitioner by our youngest daughter, Lindsey. When Lindsey and her mom returned home I was informed that braces were in order if we wanted to keep her pearly-white smile in a straight line under her lips. Having just gone through this same thing with her older sister, I knew this would do in all my stash of cash—and then some. I tried reasoning with Lindsey by telling her that if she never smiled no one would ever notice her crooked teeth. She didn’t buy it, her Mom didn’t buy it, so consequently I didn’t buy it… the ’040 that is.

Okay, back to square one. Start saving again.

As things turned out I was glad I didn’t make the "mistake" of purchasing a 68040 machine because shortly thereafter Apple introduced their new PowerPC line. "Now this is what I’ve been waiting for!" I told myself. "I really need one of these!" myself answered back. " And have one you shall!" said some unknown third entity in my head.

I would visit my new PowerPC machine several times a month at the local computer candy store. I even went so far as visiting it at COMDEX 95 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Not that it was actually mine at the time but it would be, oh yes indeed, it surely would be! No more daughters needing braces this time. I was home free.

Trucking that year was very good to me. I was able to stash away quite a large sum in a short time. Enough to buy a top of the line PowerMac and still have enough left over to get the Mrs. a nice Christmas present. I had planned to get both the computer and my baby doll’s present on the same day, December 20th. But on Dec. 15th I was headed home from Phoenix, Arizona, my last trip before taking the rest of the year off. I stopped in the small town of Hawthorne, Nevada to have a cup of coffee and call home to let my wife know I was on schedule and would see her in a day and a half.

"It’s me," I said when she answered the phone.

"Something’s wrong with the car, Peter." was her reply.

"What’s wrong with it?" I asked.

"How should I know? It just won’t go."

"Does it start?"

"Yes it starts. But I put it in gear and it won’t go!"

"Did you release the emergency brake?"

"PETER! I’m not stupid. It just won’t go!"

"Okay, okay. Call the garage and have them come out and look at it. I’ll call you tomorrow and see how it’s going."

When I called the next day I was informed that the transmission in her car could now be used as a paperweight or a door stop, but not much else.

When I got home I immediately went out and bought the Mrs. her Christmas present. A new (used) car. I didn’t have anything left over for a PowerMac.

Okay, back to square one. Start saving again.

Well into my third attempt at saving up for a new computer I realized I really didn’t need a new one. After all, the one I had was doing everything I asked it to do and was doing it flawlessly, although not as fast as I might have wanted. I wanted a new one, sure, but need one? Not really. Then Apple threw me a curve ball by introducing their new OS that would only run on a PowerPC. I was to be left behind in Apple’s dust running 7.5.5 if I didn’t upgrade. I reevaluated my philosophy on upgrading and began thinking along the lines of dual use and mobility. A PowerBook is what I needed. That way I could continue my computing experience on the road as well as at home.

Alas, about the time I saw a PowerBook in my not-to-distant future, my second daughter approached me insisting she had gone as far as she could in college without a laptop computer, and could her mother and I maybe help her out. I had to decide what was more important, my daughter’s future or my ability to surf the net at a faster clip. Tough call, but I capitulated to my daughter’s future.

Now that my daughter has a PowerBook (a used 5300 that she insists I can have as soon as she graduates in June), I have pretty much given up on the idea of upgrading. No more saving for me. At least not for a new computer. I’ll just save for the next family financial crisis and spare myself the agony of disappointment.

This is where I originally intended to end this crybaby, don’t-you-feel-sorry-for-Pete article.

BUT WAIT! There’s some LATE BREAKING NEWS to be added here! Yes, indeed there is!

Picture if you will: it’s Good Friday, April 2nd, 1999. I’ve got half this article written and still have eight days till deadline. I’m sitting in my easy chair imitating a potato. A knock comes at the door. I look around and realize I’m the only one in the room. I get up and open the door. It’s the UPS man. Oh great! More Tupperware, QVC junk, or some other useless crap, I think. But wait! What’s that huge box behind this Buster Brown man? That’s an iMac box! "What the hell!" I exclaim.

"Got yourself a new computer, huh?" Says Buster Brown.

"I wish. But no, you must have the wrong address," I tell him.

Buster looks down at the electronic thingamajig in his hand and asks. "Does Pete Miner live here?"

My heart stopped and I quit breathing. For a second I thought he said my name.

"Are you Pete Miner?" Buster asks again.

I must not have answered him the first time and all I could do the second time was nod my head.

"Sign here, please."

I scribbled something loosely resembling my name on his electronic thingamajig and the UPS man thanked me, turned and left.

There on my doorstep sat a colorful box that, if I could believe the markings on the box, contained a $1200 iMac computer. I picked it up, carried it inside and set it down right in the middle of the living room floor. And began circling the box.

My wife walked in and saw the box on the floor.

"You didn’t!?" she said eyeing me suspiciously.

"No, I didn’t" I replied. "I thought maybe you did?"

"Not hardly, my dear!"

"Well if you didn’t, and I didn’t, then who did?"

"Read the shipping label." Carol said.

"Yeah right, okay."

I read the shipping label and part of the mystery was solved. The label identified Small Dog Electronics as the shipper, and underneath that were the words: To Pete Miner, Compliments of My Mac Magazine.

"Well I’ll be a son of a…"

"PETER!" My wife cautioned.

"Sorry. But can you believe this, Carol? They sent me an iMac! A real honest-to-god, brand-new still-in-the-box, G3 screaming, blueberry-flavored iMac!"

"No, I can’t believe it. Why would they do that?"

"I’m not sure. But I’m gonna find out. I’ll call Tim."

"Aren’t you gonna open it first?"

"Not till I talk to Tim. Who knows, maybe it’s a mistake and I’ll have to send it back."

I called Tim Robertson, the owner and publisher of My Mac, but he wasn’t home, so I left a message. Five minutes later Tim hadn’t called back and I couldn’t take the suspense any longer. I opened the iMac box. I was as excited as a seven year-old on Christmas Day.

Later that evening Tim returned my call. By then the iMac was up and running and I had decided he wasn’t getting it back even if it was sent to me by mistake.

Tim assured me it was no mistake and proceeded to tell me what the magazine was doing in regards to this iMac giveaway. He told me that I was not the only member of the staff who would be paid a visit by Buster Brown’s UPS truck in the months to come and wished me well with my new computer.

So how cool is that? "Way too cool!" my 17 year-old daughter says and I have to agree with her. Way too bondi-blue cool!

This story was supposed to be about an upgrade that never took place. About my Performa 550 that I so badly wanted to upgrade but in the end really didn’t NEED to upgrade. I was going to compare what I can still accomplish with my old ’030 machine to what I couldn’t accomplish had I bought a ’386 PC machine 5 years ago. And how lucky I was that I went with the Macintosh. And I was going to tell you how much I still love that old 550 of mine.

But now…, now that I have this screaming iMac, who cares about that old bag of bones relic of a Performa! Not I. No sir, that thing can sit in a corner and collect dust for all I care! I’m in "speed heaven" and ain’t never looking back!

Not that the old girl will actually end up in a corner collecting dust. Nope. She’s still got some life left in her and will be moving to a new home to be shared between two of my daughters who live in separate apartments across the hall from one another. They’ll get lots of use out of her, I’m sure.

Pete Miner
pete@mymac.com

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

December. Every time I headed from bed to bath, the Mac glowered at me. Always on (it made a handy night light), but rarely acknowledged. Having been brought down by pneumonia in the middle of frantically marketing a book, writing one too many columns and trying, single-handedly, to set up a Mac lab in my new school, the computer had become less a friend than a bedside guilt machine.

"Checked your email yet?" Mac nagged as I stumbled past at midnight. "And what about that deadline? It’s almost the 10th!" I would shut my eyes and hurry past.

On the way back, Mac would catch my eye again. "You haven’t been on-line for days," it would whisper as I fell into to bed. "Don’t you want to know what Steve has up his sleeve? What’s new for the iMac? What rumors are buzzing the Net? Don’t you even care what Microsoft is up to?"

"NO!" I would groan, pulling the pillow over my head, only to fall asleep with fever dreams of lost sales and bits of unwritten columns pursuing me through the night.

Surely, I thought, once this is over, I will get back on track. Hang out on the web. Write happy Mac stuff. But no. Writer’s block had set in with a vengeance. When the doctor said major surgery was going to be necessary, my first thought was (I kid you not), "Well at least I’ll have an excuse for not writing!"

After surgery, the Mac continued to light my way through the night, though more cheerfully now that I’d remembered screen savers were more soothing–and a lot less accusing–than a blank face with an AOL dialog box. But, except for occasionally switching from Fish! Pro to Swirling Magic, five minute stints at the keyboard to check out email were all I could manage.

Worse, they were all I cared to manage. The heart had gone out of computers. They were simply big plastic boxes taking up space and daring me to engage. I still enjoyed contact with friends via email. And the support of the My Mac staff was wonderful. It made all the difference in those dark days. But the thrill was gone.

Why had I spent the last five years glued to the Mac? Why had every penny I owned, and quite a few I didn’t, found their way into software, hardware, books and magazines–not to mention the trips to far away places to stock up on more software, hardware, books and magazines?

Since I wasn’t currently teaching, there was no incentive to make nifty projects for my students. And when it came to writing, I found I had nothing to say. Oh, I might have written something witty about the joys of hanging from a cavernous belly-board, supported only by breastbone and incision line, during interminable treatments. But when it came to computers, even the Mac, I was running on empty.

Then one morning our preschooler said he wanted to read. He wanted a book just for him. To read by himself. Read? In my heyday, I could teach a stone to read! But all my carefully made materials were packed away in the basement–on the top shelf.

Well, maybe my little homemade readers were out of reach, but not my Mac. Waiting patiently inside HyperStudio were the templates I’d used, not to mention the shoe boxes full of stickers I’d scanned into my own private clip art for kids.

And so, for the first time in months, I sat down at the Mac and actually used it. Not to write about it or to worry about it, but to do the things that make Macs great.

What a joy to find the Scrapbook full of the tidbits that had once made my daily computing a breeze. Arrowing through, my life passed before my eyes. (I tend to move old scrapbooks from one computer to another which really helps keep the past alive.) There was my capital ‘I’ (the one with a nice top and bottom, so as not to be confused with 1’s and L’s) in three handy sizes just waiting to be cut and pasted into primary readers.There were old URLs mixed in with email addresses, pictures of last year’s class, Christmas and Mother’s Day mockups from ’95 to ‘98 and, of course, photos of the grandsons at various ages. A real scrapbook.

Screen Shots and SimpleText–how does anyone get along without them? My hard drive fills with quick snips of email, web stuff, columns in progress and work that needs to be temporarily stored or moved from one program to another. Every now and then I have a grand clean up, opening, reviewing and discarding megabytes of picts no longer needed.

But when it comes to the simplicity of moving things from one program to another, it’s hard to beat the Mac with it’s classic Clipboard. Windows may have a clipboard of sorts, even long file names (and it’s about time), but I have never found it possible to coordinate multiple, unrelated programs to build a stand alone project without using the Mac. Even I, the eternal Desktop Dilettante, am able to slip things in and out of HyperStudio, ColorIt, PrintShop, ClarisWorks and assorted clip art packages to make great stuff for the kids. I felt like a pro from Day One. Well, maybe Day Two.

As I began designing the booklets for Little Squirt, I found myself marveling once again at the convenience of desktop duplicates and aliases; the pleasure of personalized labels and icons; the ease of just plugging in scanner, Zip Drive, Wacom Pad, and three external hard drives. There was the joy of rummaging through all those drives to find half-forgotten files–just where I expected them. And oh, the power of being able to fill those extra megabytes with CDs running straight from the hard drive. Try that with Windows.

You may guess from this that I am not yet an iMac-er and still find 7.6.1 just right for my needs. But whatever the machine or the System used, it’s hard not to find a good friend in the Mac. (Pesky, infuriating little demons they so often are!) I may never again find Apple’s rumors as enticing or the Microsoft saga so irresistible. I may not even buy an iMac.

But once my fingers find the keyboard, I just can’t keep from falling in love all over again.

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

As almost everybody reading this knows, Apple has decided to release some of the source code for OS X Server under an Open Source license, a project code-named “Darwin.” I’m sure a large percentage of the people reading this, however, are wondering if they should care. I’ll try to explain what Open Source is, what Apple hopes to gain from it, and who else might benefit from it.

Unfortunately, Open Source can depend on who you ask. Even within the Linux community, which is most closely associated with Open Source software, there’s disagreement as to what constitutes true Open Source software (witness the various diatribes and responses to the announcement of Apple’s Open Source effort). In the simplest terms, Open Source is the set of rules under which the writers of software and operating systems release the code for their software. Its conditions govern what other users can do with the code, and how their changes can be used and published. What these conditions are is what tends to cause the controversy.

Perhaps the purest form of Open Source license is the GNU license. In brief, it requires anyone who uses the code for any work, private or commercial, to release any modifications they make to the public under the same license. As a result, anyone with access to the appropriate compiler can build the code into useable software. That’s worked great within the context of freely distributed software (such as Linux), but there are some issues when it comes to its use in commercial software. For example, when Netscape decided to release the code for Navigator to the public, it had to carefully work around code licensed from other companies that hadn’t released their code to the public. As a result, Netscape released their code under their own licensing agreement.

Apple’s situation is even more complicated. Although it’s not clear how much of previous Apple technology is included in OS X, Apple has licensed all sorts of software in the past, and so may face some of the same issues Netscape did. Unlike Netscape, though, it’s trying to sell the product that it’s releasing the code for. Therefore, the release agreement for the source has to include the ability for Apple to use any improvements or bug fixes made by others within software they sell under a strict licensing agreement. Finally, many components of OS X Server, from the kernel to the web server, was originally released as Open Source, and Apple has to work around this license.

You can read the Apple license for its source code here. In addition to the usual Open Source terms, it requires anyone who makes modifications to Apple’s code to notify Apple of the changes they make, and there’re a few clauses designed to protect Apple from copyright violations. These extra conditions have caused them the most grief; complaints ranged from the concern that Apple might cease to exist and therefore be incapable of being notified, to more realistic concerns about the nature of copyright disputes that would allow Apple to invalidate a user’s rights to the source code.

Also an issue was the limits Apple placed on what code to release. Instead of providing the instructions for the entire operating system, Apple restricted their release to the code for the kernel and some of the UNIX software that was packaged with it (you can look over what’s released here), keeping the code for the user interface out of the public domain. This keeps anybody with the appropriate compiler from building the whole OS, preserving Apple’s revenue and control. It can be argued, though, that Apple’s primary contributions to computing have been in the area of the User Interface, so looking at their code for it could be very informative.

Apple. They can benefit in a variety of ways, not the least of which is association in the press with one of the more interesting current trends in software. The other intended benefits, however, will require that a productive community forms from people using the code. The main reason that Linux has become such a significant force in computing is that it has attracted a large, skilled, and dedicated group of programmers, ensuring that bugs are squashed and new features are added with great frequency. Apple has to hope that a collection of dedicated Mac programmers, ex-Nextophiles, hobbyists, and students will coalesce and use their code productively

This is in no way a certain thing. If it does occur, however, Apple may get any number of the following:

• Bugs fixed for free, which will allow system upgrades to focus on adding new features.

• Support for more peripherals, even if their manufacturers have never even seen a Mac.

• Free ports to other processors and/or architectures.

• System code optimized for specific tasks, from serving through desktop publishing.

• System level support for emerging technologies.

• Add your own point here; there are undoubtedly many I haven’t thought of.

Linux Users. The current releases of Linux for the Mac, LinuxPPC and MkLinux, can both benefit from the release of source code. Each time Apple releases updated hardware, the folks at LinuxPPC have to spend time and energy sorting through it and altering the kernel so that it recognizes and works with the new configuration. If Apple releases the entire Mach kernel code, this should include the necessary hardware support information. More directly, MkLinux uses the same mach kernel that the non-server version of OS X will, perhaps allowing for more direct use of what Apple releases.

The benefits do not end there, however. To make their Mach-based system useable by today’s Mac users, Apple’s going to have to overcome two of the most frequent complaints against Linux: its complicated directory structure which makes managing it too difficult for non-gurus, and the primitive user interface of its desktops and programs. A functional UNIX system depends on a strict and complex directory structure; moving a critical file or changing its name will often bring the entire system to its knees. This sort of behavior is antithetical to today’s Mac users, who expect to be able to organize programs and data any way they see fit. If Apple alters their kernel to bring it in line with OS 8′s user customization, the code may allow other flavors of UNIX to be modified in similar ways. Apple is also including many standard UNIX utilities in OS X Server and is releasing their source code. It’s likely that either Apple or an OS X user will then eventually make a decent interface for these (and other) utilities.

You and Me. Although most of us are not likely to muck with the source code, there are definite benefits to the possibility of bug fixes being available immediately, as opposed to waiting for Apple to do a new system release. Many of the Open Source utilities that are or will be ported to OS X have a 20 year history of refinements while running on other forms of UNIX, and will no doubt be helpful to some current Mac OS users. And, in the end, it’s also a good thing to have Apple ahead of the curve on what may be a major trend in computing.

Fine, But Are There Risks?

Would I have brought this up if there weren’t? Apple’s already taken some bad publicity on their licensing terms and the limits on what they’ve open sourced. Depending on how things develop, there may be a continuing stream of bad publicity. There are also dangers to both the success and failure of the program. If it succeeds in generating a community of developers, engineers at Apple may have to waste lots of time poring through poorly coded submissions produced by amateur enthusiasts. If it fails, expect more bad publicity about Apple pursuing-and then dropping-another grandiose operating system strategy.

Overall, these risks are almost certainly worth the potential benefits of this attempt. Still, Apple will have to move aggressively to encourage developers to contribute, help organize them to minimize duplications of effort, and focus people on areas of maximal return. So far, however, nothing’s been posted on the Darwin site to indicate any effort of the sort is in progress. Nothing new has been posted there since mid-March, when the original program was announced.

Looking through Apple’s mailing list archives at the Darwin-develop list gave me cause for both optimism and concern. The concern comes from the fact that: everything feels hastily thrown together; the source does not include device drivers, it can only currently be compiled by people who already own OS X Server; the source as it exists doesn’t provide for a user interface even if it’s successfully compiled; and there seems to be only a couple of Apple employees reading the lists.

Still, as I said, there remains room for optimism. The Apple employees who wrote in were pointing out what other code was likely to be released soon, and which of the suggestions of people writing in were worth considering or adopting. Most significantly, however, it appears that despite all these limitations, people are trying to work with the source code. Several postings even detailed attempts to get the kernel to compile on Intel-based Linux systems. If Apple gives these people just a little more help and some more code to work with, Darwin could really take off.

Jay Timmer
jtimmer@tuna.net

Adventures in Computer Audio

Last month I offhandedly mentioned that I was converting many of my compact discs into MPEG format and storing them on my hard drive. The endeavor has been a great success, and I now have access to my favorite songs whenever I’m using my computer, whether I’m at the library, on a bus or car ride somewhere, or in my dorm room late at night while my roommate is sleeping. I no longer have to carry numerous CDs or a portable CD player around with me, and I’m not limited to listening to one artist at a time; it’s like having a huge CD-changer in my Mac. In that regard, it even beats the pants off the 3-disc stereo system I have in my dorm room.

That’s the only regard that my computer beats my stereo in, however. You’ll notice that all of the examples above involve relatively quiet volume levels or the use of headphones. Very few computers have the audio equipment necessary to compete with even a low-end stereo system, and trying to pump up the volume on my PowerBook 1400′s tinny built-in speaker is a big-time joke.

It wasn’t long before I began to see ways to attempt to remedy this. Would it be possible to turn my computer into a lean, mean audio system? With less than $200 to spend and a month to get the job done, I decided to find out. (If I spent any more than $200 I’d be broke, and if I took any more time than a month, I’d be too late to write a column about it for this month! Even though I’m not about to throw out my stereo or my Discman, the results of my experiment were pretty positive, enough to convince me that one day–with a few minor advancements in technology and a major advancement in my budget–the goal would be easily achievable.

That Speaker Has Got to Go!
The first thing I wanted to deal with was my most glaring problem: getting a good set of speakers so I could actually get respectable sound out of my PowerBook. There are a ton of multimedia speaker options, and the huge number of choices was a little overwhelming at first. With my budget in mind, and armed with a handful of magazine reviews, I decided to go with form over function in making my purchase, and bought a flat-panel speaker system from Benwin http://www.benwin.com for $99. Although they can’t match my stereo speakers, the Benwins sound good, and they look incredible. The subwoofer is small and unobtrusive, and the wafer-thin speakers look like they came from the set of Star Trek.

I’m still amazed that manufacturers can make flat-panel speakers and have them sound anywhere close to big, boxy, traditional speakers. They do it, though, and at times the sound quality even surpasses that of traditional speakers. A recent issue of Macworld had a flat-panel system from a different company (I forget which) that received a very high rating; they cost more than my $200 limit, though. To my knowledge, the Benwins are the only flat panels that retail in the $100-$130 price range, but don’t be mistaken by that fact: they are still very high-quality speakers.

Playing audio CDs and MPEG files from my computer sounds great now, and the included subwoofer really adds depth and bass to the tone. The speakers also make games shine; Unreal is more unreal than ever now that I can experience it in stereo sound with added bass! Even the sound effects in older shareware games like Swoop sound impressive. I hooked up the speakers to my family’s LC 575 while I was home over Easter, and they sounded great. However, when I brought them back to my dorm room and hooked them up to my PowerBook, they sounded amazing! I’m sure that the reason is the location of the computers: the LC 575 is in a corner in a rather large room of our house, while my PowerBook resides on a desk in my dorm room, which isn’t nearly as big. With the smaller room dimensions, the speakers can really shine and fill the room with sound!

By no means is this meant to be a formal review of Benwin’s three-piece flat panel system, but it is a recommendation. If you want a set of low cost multimedia speakers that sound good and look out of this world, I suggest you surf over to Benwin’s website and give them a look-see. There are probably better sounding speakers, and there are cheaper speakers, but for the average computer user/music fan/game player, these should be more than satisfactory.

Before I change topics, as a side note, while I was shopping for the Benwins on-line, I stopped by eBay and picked up a cheaper pair of multimedia speakers for my family’s aforementioned LC 575. I only paid twelve bucks for them, but they also sound like twelve-dollar speakers. After listening to the Benwins, there was no comparison! Since I bought them on an auction, I can’t help but wonder what they would actually retail for. Oh well, I guess it just proves that you get what you pay for…

OK, The Speakers Are Cool… Now What?
Now that my computer was sounding good, I had to have some stuff to listen to so that I could take advantage of that fact. In no particular order, these things are immeasurably more enjoyable with my new speakers:

* Games: Pick one. Any one. The more intense, the better. If you’ve ever played a PlayStation or other video game console when it was hooked up to a stereo TV or entertainment center, you know what I mean. They sound so cool, you get hooked by the music and sound effects alone.

* MacAMP/MPEG files (and audio CDs): As I said earlier, my computer isn’t about to replace my stereo just yet, but it sounds so much better than before that I’m no longer hesitant to play some tunes from my computer instead of my stereo every now and then. Especially if I want to play a few MPEG files on my computer that I don’t own the CDs for… oh, wait, I don’t have any of those. Honest. I forgot…

* MacTuner: This is one cool app. Even if I had the most expensive speakers money could buy and a hard drive large enough to hold every single audio CD track I own in MPEG format, my computer still couldn’t totally replace my stereo because I wouldn’t have a radio to listen to. Not so with MacTuner. MacTuner has a database of literally dozens of radio and TV stations that broadcast their content over the Internet, sorted by content type and genre. Very, very cool! But MacTuner needs some help in order to be truly enjoyable, and that one app is…

* RealPlayer: Will they hurry up and get the final Mac version of the RealPlayer G2 already? I’m getting anxious for the new version, now that I can listen to Internet audio and video content with my new speakers!

If QuickTime 4.0′s streaming technology is as good as its supposed to be, I may just have to add another item to this list, but since I’m writing this in early April, I don’t have any concrete information on it yet. Sigh… the best things come to those who wait, I guess.)

Anyway, one of my favorite uses for the RealPlayer is to listen to my favorite baseball team’s radio broadcasts that are too far away for “normal” reception. (Go Cardinals!!!)

So, that’s how my PowerBook went from a tinny-sounding featherweight to a audio heavyweight. Or something like that. Neat story, huh? See you next month!

Mike Wallinga
mikew@mymac.com

Bubbles PPC 1.3
Author: Maxym Runov
Shareware: $10.00
maxym@elegantsoft.com
http://www.elegantsoft.com

Mike: This month, we have chosen a puzzle game called Bubbles, by Maxym Runov. The author states in the Read Me that “the task is easy, but the way is hard,” and that’s a pretty good description of the challenge involved.

Adam: Bubbles is definitely a game that takes skill. It involves a good amount of strategy and a huge deal of thought. You can’t just go in and play, you have to think every time you move a ball. Now Mike, why don’t you tell us how Bubbles is played?

Mike: Sure, Adam. The game field is a rectangular grid, and the game starts with a set amount of balls (for example, 3) in random spots on the grid. The balls have both different colors and patterns, and your job is to move balls that look alike into rows of 5. However, every time you move a ball, 3 more appear in random spots in the grid, making it harder to move the balls to the places you want. You get points for every move you make, and additional points when you group 5 like balls together. The game ends when all of the spaces are covered.

Adam: Scoring in Bubbles is similar to scoring in Tetris, which means you go for as long as you can while accumulating points. You can play with a small, medium, or large grid, adjust the number of new balls that appear every time you make a move, and also set a limit on the amount of time allowed to move a ball before new ones automatically appear.

Mike: You’re right, Adam; there are lots of options in the game. If you don’t like the built-in grid sizes, you can even create your own playing field of any size you want! Additionally, the game is very easy to control; everything is done with the mouse, and is very straightforward.

Adam: You can also easily turn the sound off for those late night players who have roommates, and registered users have the advantage of saving high scores. Also, the shareware fee is only $10, which is very reasonably priced.

Requirements/Availability
Bubbles requires a Color QuickDraw-capable PowerPC-based Mac PowerPC, Mac OS 7.6.1 or higher, and 2 MB of free RAM. You can download Bubbles PPC from either Download.com http://www.download.com or the author’s home page, http://www.elegantsoft.com.

Summary
Mike: So, to sum things up, Bubbles offers a fun, easy-to-learn challenge for a very reasonable price. The game is simple and straightforward, but that doesn’t keep it from being fun and addicting. I would recommend Bubbles for puzzle enthusiasts.

Adam: Bubbles is just one of those wonderful games that is made available to the public for a price that won’t empty our wallets. As Mike said, if you’re looking for a fun, challenging game, Bubbles may be just what your looking for. Recommended by The Game Guys.

Download Bubbles PPC 1.3

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

Websites mentioned:
http://www.download.com
http://www.elegantsoft.com

Last month, I shared with you the core programs I keep full time on my hard drive (and many thanks to those of you who wrote in with suggestions of better software to use-keep the letters coming!) This month, I’ll cover the last three categories: text-type programs, financial programs, and graphic programs.

Text Applications

Financial Applications

Graphic Applications

And remember, if you know of any undiscussed software you think I should spotlight in My Mac, please drop me a line at publisher@mymac.com!

I thought that you all might be interested in what some of the readers wrote in with as their suggestions for Mac applications, utilities, etc., so I’ve included their letters below:

esanders@gvc.net

http://www.gvc.net/~esanders/index.html

Michael Sylvester mksyl@sprynet.com

Arthur M. Kent akent@seanet.com

Richard acorn@jps.net

Eolake eolake@stobblehouse.dk

HD Morgan hdmorgan@flash.net

Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com

Update Agent 3.0
Insider Software, Inc.
Price: $89.95
http://www.insidersoftware.com

What can you say about a product as good as this one? Certainly not enough to do it justice. Update Agent 3.0 is a program every serious Macintosh user should have on hand. It’s designed for anyone who wants or requires the most up-to-date, bug-free software available.

Update Agent, from Insider Software, is a very simple to use program. The concept is easy enough: have a simple interface and allow people to download the latest and greatest updated program found on your hard drive. This is no small task, but Update Agent 3.0 does it better than any other program, and is much easier to use than any software update website.

Not long ago, Mac users were forced to check in periodically with all the vendors who made the software we use. Do you use Office 98? If so, you’d better drop by Microsoft’s website from time to time to see if there’s an update. Same with Photoshop. And let’s not forget all the shareware and freeware programs we love to download. Do you have the latest version of GraphicConverter? Do you have the latest version of Worm Scanner, or how about Apple Disk Copy?

Sure, we could visit a website such as Version Tracker to check out the latest software, but you will no doubt have to check each and every program you are thinking of updating to see which version you have. With Update Agent 3.0, that’s not necessary. Update Agent will scan your hard drive, log onto Insider Software’s server, and let you know which programs require updating. You then decide which programs you want to update, click a button, and download either the update or the latest version of the software. It’s really that simple!

The CD-ROM version also comes with two CDs holding 1.3GBs of updated software, though there may be a new version on-line. However, not every program is updated on a regular basis, and the version on the CD may be the latest and greatest. In every way it’s a real time saver over downloading from the Internet.

Update Agent is great. It’s fast: it scanned my whole 4GB hard drive in a very short time, and when you connect to the Insider Software’s fast Internet server, all the programs and updates are located right there. This means your downloading time is much shorter.

Pricing varies depending on your needs. For $9.95, you can download the “on-line only” version of Update Agent and use it once; updating everything in one fell swoop. You can also buy the one year on-line edition, allowing you to download all your updates for a full year for only $49.95. The best, however, is the $89.95 edition that will never run out. (though for $249.95 you will receive four update CD-ROMs rather than just the first two.)

This is a great product, and Insider Software is to be commended for a great concept and implementation. It is super easy to use, and it brings the full power and convenience of the Internet to your desktop. I highly recommend Update Agent 3.0!

MacMice Rating: 4.5

Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com

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

Adobe Acrobat 3.0
Company: Adobe Systems
Estimated Price: $299.00
http://www.adobe.com

If you are going to work with any electronic documents, and you need a solution which will work on virtually every computer platform available, there really is only one choice: Adobe Acrobat.

Acrobat lets you distribute documents electronically over the Internet, via CD-ROM, or any other type of medium. With the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, anyone can read your document.

Let’s say you have to create a user agreement for a company Intranet. While you may not know which word processing program each user has, you do want them to be able to download and print the agreement. In times past, you would either have to provide multiple copies of the document in various formats (MS Word, ClarisWorks, Word Perfect, etc.) or post a simple text-based document any word processor can open. The latter is a poor choice, as you are very limited to layout and design. No company logo, no forms, nothing at all which may make the user agreement easier for the end user to use. With Adobe Acrobat, the problem is solved! You simply use your favorite program, such as MS Word, and save it as a Acrobat PDF (Portable Document Format) file.

Creating a PDF file on a Macintosh is simplicity itself. Simply install the program; choose Adobe PDFWriter in the chooser, and “print” your document. You simply select the attributes you want the PDF to have, and save it to disk. All done! (Almost.)

What is Acrobat, really? It is really a collection of programs you use to create a PDF document. Included with Acrobat are Acrobat PDFWriter, Acrobat Distiller, Acrobat Scan, and Adobe Capture plug-in. Together, these programs allow you to create a PDF document from a variety of sources. You can scan in a document and save it in PDF format, or create an electronic document (in another program such a Work or Illustrator) and save it in PDF format. Rather than go into every one of these, I will look at electronic created content, as that is what I’m familiar with.

As I said, you simply “print” you document after choosing “PDFWriter” in the chooser, or set up a keyboard shortcut to do the same. (For instance, if I hold down Option-Control and choose “Print,” it will export my document as a PDF, thus saving a trip to the chooser.) This is a very nice feature, and should allow even a novice to use Acrobat.

What can your PDF document have in it? Sure, you can have a text-only document, but what fun is that? You can also incorporate graphics, sounds, and movies right into your PDF file. The best part is that the size of the finished product will be much smaller than, for example, a Macromedia Director file. This is because Acrobat has its own compression software, meaning large files will be much easier to download or share.

Acrobat also allows you to embed a font (or fonts) into your document, thus solving an age-old problem with creating text documents. Previously, your document looked great on your end, but the person you sent it to might not have the same fonts, causing your document to look very different at best, and garish at worst. Adobe’s Portable Document Format eliminates that problem.

Another great feature of a PDF file is that you can embed it with links. Say you’re preparing a manual for your software project. Rather than refer to different page numbers in your manual and hope the end user will not get lost, you can have some text or graphics actually be a link which a user can merely click to go right to that page. That same click could also send the user to an altogether different document. In fact, a click on one of those links could even launch a web browser and go on-line to a webpage!

It’s difficult to write a review of a program that does so much without getting too wordy. Let me just say, then, that Acrobat is a wonderful and necessary program for those working with documentation. In fact, in the next major release of the Mac OS (Mac OS X), PDF will become a standard, replacing the PICT format. So Mac users will have no trouble at all opening and viewing your Acrobat document; it will become part of the Macintosh Operating System.

Adobe will soon be releasing version 4.0, and we will review that update in an upcoming issue. Adobe promises some new features and improved reliability, though I understand the Windows version will (at least initially) have more features than the Mac version. But we’ll have to wait and see.

MacMice Rating: 3.5

Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com

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

Dear Readers:

Spring is here! My tulips and crocuses are pushing their little stems up through the dirt, getting ready to amaze the world with their loveliness. It almost makes winter worthwhile.

Teena in Australia has written in with some fabulous information. Read on; I think you’ll like what she says:

“iMac Update is a periodic news communication from Apple Computer sent to customers who requested more information on iMac. If you received a copy of this issue of the publication from someone else and would like to subscribe to iMac Update yourself, you can do so at the following website: http://www.apple.com/imac

“Did you know that Apple’s Technical Information Library (TIL) contains over 14,000 articles filled with valuable product, technical, and troubleshooting information? It’s true. In fact, Apple product and support personnel add to this rich knowledge base on a daily basis. Just recently, they added an article that could help you if you encounter a problem with your modem while going online with iMac. The article — iMac Modem Troubleshooting — describes some symptoms you may experience (like not hearing a dial tone) and suggests likely causes. To read the article, go to: http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n43079

“What other articles are available? Take a look at the new or modified articles we’ve added to the TIL in the last 7 days: http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/Changes

“The Tech Info Library is where I’ve found answers to all my iMac questions…re: freezes, bugs, etc., and perhaps it’ll help you. I must admit I also have the problem of the frozen mouse after periods of non-use, the same as rustyhoge@mindspring.com wrote about, and just unplugged from one USB port and into another, which solves it. It has only happened twice so I didn’t go to the Tech Library about it, but I’m sure it’ll be mentioned there.

“Found this in the Tech Info Library…not much help, I’m afraid, so we’ll have to suffer with the mouse’s temporary loss of memory of what it’s doing!” http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n234508

Teena wrote the above messages to Rusty and Anne after reading about their trials and tribulations in a recent Starting Line. Teena, I can’t thank you enough! Some people don’t have the time to look, others don’t know where to begin. Your tenacity and perseverance is admirable–and impressive! Thank you for sharing the information.

Helpful Hints

Avoid all those “Back” buttons in Navigator. It’s easy! Say you want to visit the previous site and don’t want to hit the “Back” button a dozen times. Simply hit the Option key then the “Back” button. It takes you to the first page you visited in the previous site.

The next best thing to rebuilding your desktop is defragmenting. Rebuilding your desktop cleans it up. Defragmenting puts things back together. You see, as you save files, they can get moved all over your hard drive. And, the further away a file is from the application (whether a document or an extension or whatever), the longer it takes to open or work. So, how to defragment? It’s easy but, this is one where you have to buy a software package. Norton Utilities is a great one. There is also one by La Cie named SilverLining. I’m sure there are others. The only one I have used is Norton Utilities and I have found it to be sufficient. [Editor's note: Alsoft's DiskExpress and DiskExpress Pro are also excellent defragmenting tools; safe, reliable, and efficient. DiskExpress is unique in that it not only "puts things back together," it reorganizes them according to usage.]

Ventilation is your friend. Keep the space around your hard drive clear. We’re all aware that our hard drives contain fans which keep its “guts” cool. If you block the flow of air, the fan can’t do its job. That puts you at risk of overheating your system. Not a good thing. So remember–don’t stack up junk around your hard drive. A clean desk is a happy desk!

Browser Status Bars. At the bottom of Netscape and AOL (and I’m sure MS Explorer), there is a nifty little status bar. This status bar lets you know the status of the page you are visiting. Say you just typed in the URL of the site you want to visit. It begins to download. If you look at the status bar (located on the bottom of the browser window), it tells you what percentage of the page is downloaded. It also lets you know when the download is complete. How is this useful? Well, if you’ve been waiting 5 minutes and only 5% of the page is downloaded, you might want to move on. Or, at least go start another pot of coffee and make an omelet!

Site of the Month: http://www.Renie.com

Renie is a fashion illustrator. If you have an interest in fashion, or fashion illustrations, visit her site! It downloads quickly, it’s easy to navigate, and her drawings are great!

Happy Summer!

Barbara Bell
pr@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.apple.com/imac
http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n43079
http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf
http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n234508
http://www.Renie.com

Marks, If’s, and Flags
Example file: Phone2 (Part of Phone.fp3)

Value Lists Using Related Files
Before getting started I wanted to fill in an omission from last month’s column. I left out an obvious point about using related fields for value lists.
I’d talked about creating a calculation field in the local file to mirror a field in a related file that you wanted to use as part of a Value List, as the second field, using the “Also display values from” checkbox. You’d use this when you have an ID field and you want to show names to identify the ID numbers.
Another way to do this, without having to create the field, is to just use the ID field in the other file for the Value List, choosing the file with “Specify File,” choosing the ID field, and also showing the Name field.

The difference between these methods is that the first way will show you only ID#s which you’ve entered in your local file. This is good if you’re using it in Finds, etc. The second method will show all the ID#s in the other file. This is better if you’re choosing IDs for new records, as you’ll often want an ID# which doesn’t yet exist in the local file.

Marks, If’s, and Flags
This month I’m going to write about a few little fields. They normally have only a “1″ or an ID number in them, but they give FileMaker much of its power and flexibility.

Marks and Flags are fields, usually type number, that generally have either a 1 or nothing in them. They are very similar, but I’ll treat them separately because they are used differently. I don’t think there are rigid definitions, but this is how I think of them and use them.

A Mark field is often set during Field Definitions, as the result of a calculation or lookup, and seldom changes. A Flag can also be set via a calculation, but is usually more dynamic, changed back and forth from “off” to “on” as conditions change. It can also be set via a script.

They can both be indexed or non-indexable. I’ll deal with the indexed first. If they are indexed calculations or operations using them will be many times faster. You can Find them quickly, even in large files, as it’s pretty easy for FileMaker to search for either 1 or nothing. They can also be used in further indexed calculations, such as Counts. Only indexed fields can be the target of relationships, and can be used to create other fields that are the target of relationships.

A Mark can be the result of either a calculation or a lookup. The first is very flexible. Using the simple calculation; If (something, 1, “”) you get your Mark.
The calculation can be practically anything, based on the contents of other fields, so there’s often a way to mark records according to your needs.

Mark First Entry (again)
Another way to get a Mark is to use a lookup. In this way you can get a Mark auto-entered into a record when it is first created, when perhaps the conditions are only true at that moment.

An example of this which I use all the time is to lookup a Mark for the first entry, and only the first entry, of each unique ID#. For example, if I have a file that is storing daily hourly entries for work–for all different jobs–I need a way to filter those entries for only the first entry of each job, so I can easily see which jobs are in there. It would have to be fast and reliable, as only a relational match would be. A Find would be too slow and dependent on the found set. The way I do that is to lookup a Mark, 1, for the first entry, and nothing for subsequent entries. I can then use it in a relationship (later).

I’ve already written about how to do this, but it’s important, so I’ll cover it again quickly. First you’d need a Self-Relationship on the ID field, Job ID in this case.
You’d also need a strange global number field, Null.g. It never has anything in it. The lookup (Options, Auto-Enter, Lookup) for the JobMark field is based on the self-relationship. It is set to lookup the Null.g field if there is a match. If there isn’t a match, it is set to enter data, 1. Be sure to uncheck, “Don’t copy contents if empty,” as that’s exactly what we want it do.

The way this works is this: there isn’t a self-relationship when the first record for that ID# is created. FileMaker must exit the record before establishing a self-relationship, whereas the auto-enter lookup occurs immediately upon creation. But every record after that is. So a 1 is entered the first time, but for all subsequent entries of that ID the empty Null field is looked up.

It works on imports too, as long as the auto-enter checkbox is left on. It will be lost though if you either delete that first record, or perform a Relookup based on the ID field. It works fine though in files whose purpose is archiving, where individual records are never deleted. The ID# must be protected from editing and Relookups, but these are not often used. You can provide proper data import scripts so they aren’t needed, or run a Replace to fix them afterwards.

Marks and Relationships
Once you have a 1 in your Mark field, there are a number of things you can do with it. One of the easiest is to make a relationship from a Constant field (calculation, =1) to your Mark field.

This relationship will give you instant access to those records:
GoToRelatedRecords [Show, "Constant-MarkField Relationship"]

You can show those records in a portal, using that same Constant-Mark relationship. This is especially useful for files like my example where you have marked the first of several different IDs. The portal will show one (the first) of each unique ID#’s records. Put the name field in the portal and you’ve got the basics for a navigational system. Since there should be a Constant field in all of your files, you can relate back to a Mark field in this file to set up the same portal in any of the files, for a more universal tool, to choose which job, or whatever the main choice is.

I use a simple checkbox mark, “Active,” in one of my main files (auto-entering a 1 on record creation). Creating constant relationships back to it allows me to display only active jobs in a portal in any of the other files. When I’m done with the job I click the Active checkbox, which I also display in the portals. This turns it off in the main file, so the job no longer appears.

So far we’ve been able to relate to the first of each ID group within a file, but the next step takes you one level further.

If-ID Fields
I call these “If-ID” fields. They are defined by an If (or Case) calculation using either a Mark field (any Mark field, not just the first entry) or just the calculation itself. The concept is pretty simple. When the conditions are met, the ID# exists, if not, it doesn’t.
If (Mark = 1, ID, “”)
To do it without the Mark field:
If (Calculation, ID, “”)

So there will only be the ID in the records which have the Mark in the one case, and when the calculation is true in the second case.

You can use this record rather than the ID field itself as the target field in certain relationships. A relationship to this field will match the regular ID field in the file (or any file with the same ID field) only once for each ID, on the record that has the Mark.

If you are basing it on a FirstMark, you can use this relationship in a lookup to bring in data from another file only once for each ID. This can save a lot of disk space, especially when dealing with long text name fields or summarized totals, data that would be the same in every record for that ID. There’s no need to waste space having it in every record. It’s kind of a special case, probably most suited for archive-type files, but useful if you need it.

Because the data is in the first record of any ID’s set of records, it will be the value found by using a self-relationship on the ID (which goes to the first record in order of creation). So you can reliably get or display it using the self-relationship (more on this next month).

By using Marks and calculations using any number of conditions and fields, you can construct an If-ID field for practically anything. It is independent of the found set, so relationships, portals, and calculations (unstored) based on it will also be independent, as well as usable across file boundaries (which found sets are not).

Flag Fields

Flag fields are like Mark fields, but are generally used to “toggle” between a value (usually 1) and no value. The simplest way to set a flag is to a create a checkbox to click on the layout. Create the checkbox by making a checkbox value list, with only one value, 1. Format the field on the layout as a number (via Field Format menu); click “Boolean,” enter 1 for yes values, clear the no value. A click on the checkbox will either turn it on or off.

They can also be set during scripts.

Set Field ["Flag", "1"]
This sets the Flag in the current record at that moment. It can be used any time during a script, to either temporarily or permanently flag that record.
You can have different Flags for different reasons, using different calculations in the Set Field. It’s a great way to mark records that have taken part in an operation, such as an export, so that they can be ignored the next time, either by being left out of the found set during a Find, or checking for the Flag with a looping script and omitting each during the operation’s script.

They can be used to check records during a Replace script step on the entire found set, by including a check for the Flag in the calculation, as in:
Replace [If (Flag <> 1, something, "")]

You can set the Flag in the found set by using a Replace on the Flag itself:
Replace ["Flag", "1"] or conversely,
Replace ["Flag", ""]

One use for this would be to temporarily mark a found set, so that you could come back to it later after it was lost.

Another way to use a Flag is to make it a global field. It would be unstored, but would be the same for all records. One use would be a simple way to simulate opening preferences. You can make it a checkbox on the first layout so that the user can make choices, on or off; but other value lists with more choices are possible.

I use it on the introductory layout to allow you to click the checkbox saying, “Bypass this introduction,” after reading once or twice. An Opening script is written, which checks to see if the Flag is on, then goes to another layout if it is. In Preferences (Edit Menu), Document, Introduction is set as the layout to normally open to. But the Opening script is chosen to run on the document’s opening (just below in the dialog box), which can then override and skip the Introduction layout.

Another more serious use would be to set a global flag as 1, and then check it every time to see if the file had been cloned. Cloning removes all data including globals. If you have several global container fields holding buttons, etc., this can be a disaster. It can be mitigated somewhat by checking for a global upon opening, then going to a layout with “spare” buttons. Paste a version of the buttons as simple layout objects right next to their global container fields, with instructions how to paste them in. Other users would need access to Layout mode to do this (which could become problematic).

Relationship Flags
You can also use relationships to define fields which function like Flags. One of the simplest and most useful is:
Count (Self-relationship::ID field)

This will tell you how many records there are of that ID (it will equal one if there is only one). You can create a concatenated (put together) calculation field of more than one ID field, e.g., ID & ” ” & ID, to count how many there are of records that have both of the IDs in them. You can add a Mark field onto the end to find how many of those are marked. Even though these are non-indexed, FileMaker seems to be able to calculate them fairly quickly. And because they are unstored, they will give an immediate feedback. This is useful for such things as duplicate warnings, which must appear before the user leaves the layout. They do, however, need to either “tab” or “click out” of the field being used before it can recalculate.

Use these simple fields to create seemingly complex operations without adding very much space in your files. Everyone will be impressed.

Fenton Jones