RedNeck Rampage
Company: Interplay
Estimated Price: $9.95

So there you are, pistol in hand, on a long dirt road lined with trees. As you approach the intersection ahead of you, chickens appear running all about. Suddenly some hick starts firing at you, so you quickly take him out with your six-shooter.

You reach the intersection, and suddenly a pickup truck whips around a corner, taking out every chicken in his path. Blood and feathers fly everywhere amongst a sea of crazed hillbilly music brought to you by the likes of the Reverend Horton Heat. You pick up a double-barrel shotgun and slowly take it out with shot after shot as it continues to circle around you.

Yaaaahoo! So begins the first few minutes of Interplay’s Redneck Rampage. This is the long-awaited PC classic that has finally been ported to the Mac, and boy-ee! It is FUN! Built on a sweet 3D engine similar to the one used for Lucas Art’s “Dark Forces,” Red Neck Rampage teeters the line between a straight up 3D shooter and an episode of HeeHaw.

Weapons include a crowbar, pistol, shotgun, dynamite, and the likes. Your enemy is consists of a horde of fat, buck-toothed hillbillies, old hicks, and giant mosquitos! You blast your way through chicken coops, corner stores, and tool sheds!

This game is absolutely over-the-top hysterical; these guys don’t let any stereotype stop ‘em. Remember those power packs you’d pick up in DOOM to regain health? Well forget that sissy stuff. In Red Neck Rampage, you restore your power eating Pork Rinds and Cow Pies!

And if that isn’t fun enough, you can also help boost your health by guzzling beer or moonshine! But one warning: you drink too much,and you end up blasted! Suddenly your vision gets blurry, and it’s almost impossible to walk anywhere as you stagger to and fro. And forget about sobering up anytime soon—you basically end up out of commision shooting blindly and falling all over the place once you have too much sauce. It’s an absolute riot, especially for those who have, um, been there before…

The greatest feature is that Red Neck Rampage also includes your character’s voice. As you play, your character is spouting off all kinds of white-trash obscenities. It’s a blast. And all you parents, worry not: there is a Parental Control feature to block out the more adult jargon.

The game play is fast and smooth, the levels big and interesting. All in all, this is a great game for all 3D shooter fans, especially those who loved Duke Nuke ‘Em and Shadow Warrior. Have a blast—have a Pabst, and buy Red Neck Rampage!

•Mike Gorman•

Websites mentioned:

How Much a Pound is Albatross?
(Taking on ‘the great software rip-off of the 90s’)

Macworld Breakthrough

July’s Macworld convention was dominated by the introduction of Apple’s iBook with its wireless ‘Airport’ connectivity. Once again, Apple has positioned itself as the industry’s innovator by introducing technology that could significantly change the way computers are used in the home and at school. (One could count on no hands the combined number of innovations introduced by Dell, Compaq, or Gateway.)

The introduction of the iBook and the success of the iMac have made the PC industry very uneasy. Chairman Gates almost immediately took a swipe at Apple by sarcastically noting at a business conference that Apple was now limited to “leadership in colors” and that “it won’t take long for us to catch up with that.” Then there was John Dvorak’s PC Magazine column that described the iBook as a ‘girly’ machine and noted that “No male in his right mind will be seen in public with this notebook.”

Gates was overly candid (the way we all are at times) and probably feels a bit aggrieved that Apple is winning the style battle—something so alien to Microsoft that the Chairman dismissed it out of hand. Dvorak, on the other hand, would apparently write anything to attract attention. Embedded somewhere in the Dvorak inanity is inadvertent support for my proposition noted in last month’s Mac Factor that there is more than a hint of a macho aura about the current PC paradigm. Dvorak may think that’s funny, but I suspect it has influenced billions of dollars worth of technology procurement by mainly male decision-makers.

Though the iBook’s importance cannot be overstated, there was another important breakthrough at Macworld. Microsoft’s release of a ‘special edition’ of Word 98 for $99 was tacit recognition that (a) its software was overpriced; (b) Microsoft Office could not compete with the ‘bundled’ version of AppleWorks which provides all the integrated software needs for the vast majority of new Mac users; and (c) the falling price of hardware must inevitably have an impact on the way software is marketed and priced.

The Office Crunch

The success of Microsoft Office has destroyed a large part of the Macintosh software industry. Once, there were several word processing programs available for the Macintosh including MacWrite Pro, MacAuthor, Word Perfect, Word Handler, FullWrite Professional, WriteNow, and so on. Today, there are only a few, and Word absolutely dominates. Once, there were several desktop presentation programs available for the Mac, including Aldus Persuasion, Symantec’s More, Cricket Presents, and PowerPoint. Now, Microsoft PowerPoint sets the standard. And, alas, once, there were several spreadsheet programs available for this platform including Lotus 1-2-3, Claris Resolve (Wingz), Trapeze, Full Impact, and Excel. Today, almost all the competing spreadsheets have disappeared and Microsoft Excel dominates the market.

It could be that each of the Microsoft programs was so superior that the competition simply wilted, but I don’t think so. In fact, Word Perfect was/is competitive with Word; Symantec’s More and Aldus Persuasion were in some ways superior to PowerPoint; and Lotus 1-2-3 and Trapeze were certainly in the same ballpark as Excel. That having been said, how did Microsoft virtually destroy the competition?

Bundling Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into a loosely integrated package was an example of brilliant marketing, but doesn’t tell the whole story. Perhaps, equally important to the success of Office was Microsoft’s decision to maintain high prices for the individual modules. A user had the choice of plunking down $358 for one of the modules or $534 for Office. Thus, if an individual or a company required one of the programs, but wasn’t quite sure about future needs, the only logical choice was to purchase the Office suite. Similarly, the lure of non-Microsoft programs was marginalized by the suspicion that Office would eventually have to be procured at some time in the future. The combination effectively killed off the competition.

Though there was nothing legally wrong with Microsoft’s strategy, it was more than a bit heavy-handed. I contend that each individual module was intentionally overpriced. If a user could have purchased Word for $100 a few years ago, Office sales would have declined, and there might still be a vibrant Macintosh software industry.

How, you might ask, can one assess whether a piece of software is overpriced? The rest of this column will discuss issues related to software pricing and I’ll give you my own subjective judgement about several of the industry’s leading products.

Of Mice and Persons

A while back, I accomplished a software review for one of the popular Macintosh magazines. After I submitted my copy, the editor called and asked how many ‘mice’ should be assigned to the product. I asked about the criteria and was informed that five mice should be awarded to the best software and one mouse to the worst. Though it seemed an inane system, I nevertheless dutifully picked a mouse number out of my editorial hat. To this day, the magazine’s database includes my subjectively assigned mouse rating for that particular program.

It would be convenient if there was some objective set of criteria that could be used to assess the real value of a piece of software. If several programs purport to do the same thing for the same potential audience, then it’s easy to compare them to each other and claim that one is a better value. Unfortunately, due to the great software shakeout of the 90s and the ‘Office crunch,’ there aren’t a lot of competitive programs around.

In an attempt to design the Mac Factor Software Evaluator (MFSE), I tried all sorts of formulas that take into consideration a link between hardware prices and software prices, a program’s potential market, the cost of research and development, the age of the software, and even a core program which could be used as a multiplier to justify a program’s price tag, but in the end there were simply too many variables and too many assumptions to generate any meaningful data. At the end of the day, I decided that, like the magazine, the MFSE would have to rely on my own subjective judgement concerning fair market prices of software.

MFSE Considerations

In making these judgements, I’ve taken the following factors into consideration:

Cheaper is as Cheaper Does

First and perhaps most controversial, there is a marketing price cap for ‘main stream’ software that is at least loosely linked to the price of the cheapest computer required to run it. That is, if a general-purpose graphics program was priced at $500 per license when a suitable Macintosh cost $3000, the same software should drop in price with the introduction of the iMac at $1199. Though it might not seem appropriate to link this cap to an actual percentage (software/hardware), there certainly must be a marketing comfort zone that should be adjusted as hardware prices decline. I know that as a consumer, I would feel much more comfortable spending $99 on Word for my iMac than $354—not just because it’s cheaper, but also because it seems more consistent with the price of the iMac. Similarly, it would be a rare consumer who would plunk down $949 for MacroMind Director for an iMac.

Up Stream or Down Stream

You’ll note that I referred to ‘main stream’ software in postulating a marketing cap linked to the cost of hardware. That leads me to my second assumption: software prices to some extent should depend on the potential market. Clearly, there are more users interested in purchasing a full-featured word processor like Word 98 than there are in procuring database software like FileMaker.

Defying the traditional laws of supply and demand, the greater demand for main stream software should result in a lower price. Supply of an intellectual property like software is virtually unlimited and more orders means a company can afford to sell at lower prices while generating the same revenue stream as a high-priced special purpose program.

Advertising
Companies somehow have to get the word out to their target market that they exist and that they have a piece of software that should be of interest. This can cost a considerable chunk of change to a small startup, but should decrease as the company and its products become known. Though larger software houses like Adobe and Microsoft have to pay for their glossy magazine ads and their convention booths, advertising costs should decline as they increase their stranglehold on the marketplace.

Cost of Goods
Not too long ago, major applications software shipped with multiple sets of diskettes accompanied by thick, sometimes expensively produced user and reference manuals. Compact discs are a much cheaper medium for companies to produce, error test, and ship, and on-line documentation has replaced many of the traditional tomes. On-line documentation, however, remains a legitimate cost as it remains a complex task to write simply and understandably about feature laden software.

Research and Development

Another factor that must be rolled into the price of software is the cost of research and development. If it takes a team of a hundred programmers to develop a new version of Quark Xpress, then that program should at least initially cost more than a program requiring less development. To some extent, you can assess the R&D cost by examining a program’s level of ‘sophistication’ and ‘feature list.’

Maintenance and Support

Every time there’s a new version of the operating system released, the company must ensure that the current version of their software is compatible. If incompatibilities are introduced, then a maintenance upgrade must be released. In addition, technical support is a cost factor that varies with the size of the market and the complexity of the software.

Oldies but Goodies

Once a company sells enough programs to cover the initial cost of research and development, the price of software should be adjusted downwards. Right! How many times should consumers pay Microsoft for the basics of Excel? To some extent, upgrade prices help, but the first time buyer should not be expected to pay for R&D that was completed years ago and already paid for again and again. The larger software houses like Microsoft and Adobe are exceptional to a point in that there’s a lot of development that may or may not actually make it into a product, but generally, as their software ages, it should decline in price like the rest of the industry’s.

My friend (everyone’s friend) Bill Gates might suggest that the consumer must pay for continued innovation and there’s some truth to that argument. Still, the cost of innovation can hardly compare to the cost of the long-term development of a program.

The Core Conundrum

In addition to all these other factors, how should a consumer determine a fair retail price for a piece of software? If you accept that Word 98 or AppleWorks each at around $100 retail is a realistic price for these mid-range programs, then perhaps all software pricing could be determined by using these as a kind of basis. Thus, since Adobe Photoshop appeals to a much smaller market, it should cost twice what AppleWorks costs. Since it is rated as ‘high’ in terms of sophistication, perhaps an additional multiple of the ‘core’ software would be justified. Finally, because much of the code has been around for years, we should knock off about 50% of the core. That brings us to the core + another core for the target market + another core for development – .5 of the core for age or a total of $250 for a full retail version of the program. Since the actual retail price is $395 and the difference is $145 that leaves us with 145//100 or a 1.45 rating.

You see the problem. By the time you get to the 1.45 rating we’ve made so many assumptions, that it becomes meaningless.

The Mac Factor Software Evaluator

I won’t pursue the ‘objective’ MFSE any further. The point of the exercise was to demonstrate that there are factors that should pressure publishers to lower prices. There are some products on the market that are vastly overpriced, some fairly priced, and even a few underpriced. Rather than apply some bogus formula, I’ll list my choices and the reasons why I feel the way I do.

The ‘subjective’ MFSE employs five sad mice to indicate a program is vastly overpriced and five happy mice to show it’s a steal. The more sad mice a program is assigned the more of a consumer rip-off it represents, while the more happy mice, the better the value of the package. The increased range doesn’t necessarily mean the MFSE rating is more accurate, but rather it provides the Mac Factor staff (me) more flexibility in assigning a rating.

The Beginning of the End

If you peruse the ratings of the MFSE, you’ll quickly discover a pattern. That is, most software developers have not adjusted to the new PC marketplace and employ a price structure that cannot be maintained for much longer. Microsoft’s cave-in on the retail price of Word 98 and Apple’s bundling of AppleWorks with millions of their systems are just the first signs that we’ve reached the beginning of the end of the ‘great software rip-off of the 90’s.’

Software Ratings

(Note all prices are approximate and are based on a recent MacMall catalog.)

Adobe PageMaker 6.5 Plus ($499 retail, $99.99 upgrade) ($699.99 retail)
 

Quark Xpress 4.0
 

These programs have been around since the advent of desktop publishing and, over the years, I’ve written detailed feature reviews of each. Both packages are targeted at limited audiences and are very sophisticated from a developer and user’s point of view. The retail price of each, however, far exceeds the comfort zone for an iMac or even a Blue G3 user. With a little imagination from the marketing folks, PageMaker could have been as ubiquitous on the PC as is Word or PowerPoint. Alas, the marketing folks at Quark are renowned for their lack of imagination.

Adobe InDesign ($699.99 retail, $299.99 limited time offer)
 

Recognizing that PageMaker is getting long in the tooth, Adobe will soon release InDesign, their new flagship desktop publishing software. If the company is really interested in this program becoming a ‘Quark killer,’ it should make the $299.99 the retail price instead of just a limited time offer. My friends at Quark would no doubt go into deep shock and be paralyzed for months, while InDesign would probably sell like hotcakes!

Microsoft Office ($448 retail, $358 ‘Gold’ upgrade, $354 (PowerPoint and Excel))
 

Office on the Mac is either dynamite or a bomb, depending on your perspective. For me this software suite is an essential tool that has no real competitor. For the Microsoft bashers, it is slow, unwieldy, overly complex, error prone, and so on. The software has a large potential market and is very sophisticated. Despite major advances in the interface and features list, I still have the feeling that we’ve already paid for much of the Office Code and, at a suggested retail price of $448, the software is way overpriced. I propose that Microsoft scrap the unnaturally retarded Works suite, and reposition Office down in the $200 range. At the same time the company should lower the price of Excel and PowerPoint to the $99 Word 98 SE level.

Word 98 Special Edition ($99 retail)
 

At times I’ve been so effusive in my praise of Word 98 that I’ve been accused of being in Microsoft’s ‘corner.’ I stand by my extensive review of Word 98 that appeared in the July 98 issue of My Mac. At the special edition price, this software rates as a very good buy.

AppleWorks 5.0 ($89.99 retail, free for iMac and iBook buyers)
 

Don’t get me going on this program as I could write for days. This is simply the finest integrated software on the market. The average AppleWorks user can accomplish most of what an Office user can accomplish, but can also access drawing, paint, and database modules that blow Office away. From my perspective this program is under-marketed and underpriced. I also suspect that Microsoft is not pleased that AppleWorks comes free to all iMac and iBook purchasers.

Quicken Deluxe 98 ($39.99 retail)
 

What can you say about Quicken Deluxe on the Mac? Well, one thing is that it’s no Quicken 99. In fact, Intuit never released a Quicken 99 on the Mac and the 98 version seriously lags behind the 99 PC version—particularly in terms of automatically tracking stock and bonds transactions for tax purposes. This deficiency was almost important enough to deter a friend from purchasing an iMac. The program seems reasonably priced, though a full-featured program would be even more reasonable.

RagTime ($499 retail)
 

I’ve looked closely at RagTime and I’ve used it to accomplish several tasks. I have to admit that originally I was more than skeptical, but I discovered it is a complete package with a unique approach to document processing. It’s difficult to pin its functionality down, as it seems to draw from desktop publishing, word processing, and spreadsheets with a unique frame approach similar in some ways to MacAuthor, one of the original Macintosh word processing programs. This European software has been around a long time but never seems to have been fully marketed in the US, and thus has little name recognition. I suspect you can accomplish much of what RagTime offers with a judicious use of AppleWorks and so I find the retail price tag way out of line.

MacroMind Director 7 Shockwave Internet Studio ($949 retail, $448 upgrade)
 

The theory is that the more nouns you throw in the title of a software title, the more you can charge. Though the software is sophisticated and the potential market may be small, the retail price is preposterous and the upgrade price closer to what the retail should be, but would still too high.

PhotoDisc CD ROM Collection ($279.99)
 

You get 336 for 10 MB of professional photographs. Do these people think we are stupid or what? These are no-brainer discs that must pay for themselves after two or three sales. Though the photos will undoubtedly come in handy, the price is out of this world.

Photoshop ($615 retail, $179.99 upgrade)
 

What is the premier photo design tool worth? With virtually no competitors, Adobe thinks it’s worth too much. Though industry-leading software like Photoshop should undoubtedly be priced at the high end, it is still far too expensive for the average consumer. Ah, you say, but the company targets Adobe Photo Deluxe 2.0 for a mere $42 at the iMac audience. There’s such an enormous difference in functionality that Photo Deluxe pales in comparison to Photoshop. The company seems content to ride the Photoshop cash cow into the sunset, coins jingling in hand.

•Mick O’Neil•

Cover by Lonnie Houghton
MyMac Magazine #53, September 1999

Why the Obsession With Market Share?

It’s been a busy summer. Since my last GearHead column in June, Steve “Surprises Every 90 Days” Jobs has shown us the iBook, Mac OS 9, and the new Power Mac G4s. They all look pretty cool — but of course, as I write this, no mere mortals actually have any of them in their hands, so we’ll have to take Steve’s word that they actually are cool, for now.

We’ve also seen shares in Apple Computer Inc. surpass their previous record-high price, set way back in 1991 — finally clanging shut the door on the rampant speculation of the past two or three years that Apple was, as a company, not long for this world.

Good. We can put that behind us. Apple Computer and the Macintosh are healthy, and that’s no doubt good for the whole computer industry, whether running Windows, Linux, BeOS, Palm OS, or anything else. You can have any color Mac you like, as long as it’s not beige, and as long as you don’t want to connect ADB devices or more than three PCI cards to it. Wonderful.

Pentium-crushing numbers

But something’s still bugging me. People — journalists, industry analysts, webmasters, Mac users, and iCEOs alike — continue to be obsessed by Apple’s market share, and I just don’t get it. Recent articles have touted Apple’s rebound from 5% (or, according to some, less than 2%!) share of the PC market to as high as 13%. Woo woo.

A big part of growth in this share, as Jobs revealed at Seybold in August, is that the company sold some two million iMacs in one year. That got me thinking, “Let’s look at those numbers.”

First of all, in most cases they’re talking about Apple’s current (often month-by-month) share of new computers sold through certain channels, usually a portion of retail and mail order/Web sales. They say nothing about the percentage of Macs (or Apple IIs) in use out there at any given time.

Did we forget the old days?

But more importantly, the figures have no historical context. Apple sold two million iMacs in 1998-99 — about 165,000 iMacs per month — and hundreds of thousands more Power Mac G3s and PowerBooks, representing something like one-eighth (or less) of the overall number of PCs sold during that time.

Think back, though, to when Apple was the dominant player in the PC industry, between 1977 and 1981, before the introduction of the IBM PC. At the time, no one could touch them — not Commodore, not Radio Shack, no one. I’d guess the Apple II’s market share at something like 60%, perhaps more, for much of the period.

Yet back then it still took Apple, on average, about two and a half years to sell two million Apple IIs — about 70,000 machines per month, or less than half the monthly number of iMacs (not to mention G3s and PowerBooks) selling now. It took nine years (1984-1993) for Apple to sell 10 million pre-PowerPC Macintoshes — an average of less than 100,000 per month, or about 1.1 million per year.

Share is not health

What’s the lesson? Obviously, the computer industry has grown a lot, and on balance it has grown much faster than Apple’s share has. At the turn of the 1980s, Apple Computer was an unstoppable, fast-growing, market-dominating — and eminently profitable — company, all while selling less than a million computers per year.

So is there any reason at all that a company that was profitable selling a million products a year could not, if properly managed, be profitable and healthy selling two or three million?

Of course not.

Market share alone is pretty meaningless. If Apple can manufacture, market, and sell each of its computers at a profit, then whether it has 2% of 15% of the market doesn’t matter at all to whether the company is financially healthy.

On the other hand, IBM, which took Apple’s mantle as the market leader in the 1980s, and which remains in the top five of PC manufacturers, lost $1 billion selling personal computers in 1998, while making $6.3 billion in other areas, from mainframes to services. Even Compaq, which has held the number one spot as long as anyone can remember this decade, is now being called “beleaguered.” So being big — having a large market share — doesn’t guarantee profitability in PC sales either, especially with Wintel PC prices apparently sliding from $500 to free this year.

So what matters?

Since 1997, when its share price bottomed out near $15, Apple’s focus has been on building unusual computers, refining its easy-to-use operating system, and marketing its butt off to sell both at reasonable but not ridiculously low prices. Those three things have improved the company’s market share, returned it to profitability, and brought users, the press, and software developers back to the Mac.

Increased market share is a symptom of those results, not the result itself. Keep that in mind the next time a pundit spouts off about Apple’s market share — whether it’s rising or dropping — or when you’re tempted to talk about it yourself.

What counts is selling computers and making money doing it, so that Apple Computer will still be around — to give us Mac users something to buy, and make money doing it — years down the road.

Derek K. Miller
dkmiller@mymac.com

Welcome the iPony

Hello everybody. It’s nice seeing you again.

You may have read the My Mac staff’s discussion of Apple’s new iBook that was posted on our website late in July. Well, I thought I”d take my two cents’ worth and save it for this month”s column. In a column I wrote in June, “Hot Rods for the New Millennium” (My Mac #50 http://www.mymac.com/archives/jun_99/amalgamation.shtml), I compared how folks now talk about and work on their computers with the way our dads and uncles used to talk and work on their cars. There are some interesting comparisons that can be made with one particularly strong comparison springing to mind concerning the iBook.

I remember Lee Iacocca talking about the Mustang when it first came out. Originally, the Mustang was built on the Falcon chassis to keep costs down (and isn”t the iBook the first to use the Universal Motherboard Architecture?). The Mustang also debuted at a very reasonable price (only $2,368). Incredibly stylish for an American car, it competed very nicely with many of the European sports cars of the day on styling, if not on performance.

It was such an eye catcher that one cement truck driver in Seattle, having spotted it at a dealership, was so transfixed that he crashed his rig through the showroom window! Time and Newsweek magazines simultaneously featured it on their covers. Everyone was buzzing about it. The Mustang was hot!

When you looked at the base Mustang it was incredibly inexpensive. It had a generic straight six-cylinder engine, a three-speed manual transmission, and manual this and that and everything. It was a simple car, though very stylish. It was truly economical in its base form. Nothing too fancy and it even got respectable gas mileage.

However, what Iacocca and Ford found out was that people were ordering their Mustangs in droves with V8 engines, 4-speed transmissions–even automatics–along with tons of other options. $1,000 worth of options on average, in fact, and this is in 1964 dollars! Imagine increasing the price of a car by a nearly a full third with optional equipment. This is where Ford made a ton of money on the Mustang.

Lee Iacocca said something about the public in regards to these “options” people were ordering that stuck in my mind. I must paraphrase now, but it was something like, “The general public is so desperate for economy that they will pay anything to get it.”

After heaping on all these options, the Mustang certainly had more performance but not much economy. And those options were almost pure profit for Ford.

Due to the wild success of the Mustang, one bakery went so far as to put a sign in their window that read “Our hotcakes are selling like Mustangs.” It fed on its own success. And even people that were more affluent and could afford something more expensive bought one, though they did so with a very heavy hand on the options list. It was the best selling first year of any vehicle made (nearly a half-million), only to be eclipsed by another Iacocca product many years later when Chrysler introduced the minivan (and the fact that you can buy a “Town & Country” edition–with leather seats and all sorts of bells and whistles–seems to prove that Lee was indeed right about the buying public).

The Mustang was so wildly successful that it spun off not only the Mercury Cougar (just a bit of trivia: the Mustang was almost named Torino or Cougar before Ford finally settled on Mustang), but an entire new segment of the industry, the Pony Car. The rest of Detroit wasn”t far behind in introducing the Camaro, the Barracuda, and even the Javelin.

So why this history lesson on the Mustang?

Well, even my local TV and radio news has been broadcasting stories on the iBook. They were covering it like a national event. I was shocked that such a product announcement would be covered by the local news as part of their national news content. (I”m not sure if this is a commentary on the lack of the hard news gathering of local news stations, or how far reaching Steve”s Reality Distortion Field has grown, or both.)

The iBook may achieve the same “Gotta have it at any cost” of the Mustang or even its older brother, the iMac. The base iBook runs $1599, the AirPort card $99, the Base $299.

The iBook in its base form is quite a respectable machine. The USB is more than enough connectivity for the beginning computer user. Its portability is a major selling feature. The AirPort technology is the perfect mate to the iBook, providing just enough expandability that the iBook physically lacks in an area that is largely untapped–home networking.

Think that the public won”t pay more for an iMac “to go”? Just remember the Mustang.

Adding more RAM? No problem, just check off the box that says “V8″ on the order form. Wireless Internet? (Automatic transmission) Oh yeah, go ahead and add that, too. I’ll be glad to reach into my pocket again so that I can have the coolest gee-whiz techno-wizardry available on the block. (And remember, this isn”t just gee-whizardry. This is an incredibly useful advancement that once again puts Apple in front of the curve.)

And if John Q. Consumer truly needs more expandability in the future than the iBook offers, Apple will have that, too. They’re called the PowerBook G3 Series and the new Graphite and White G4 Towers!

This iBook is an introductory model. Just like the Mustang, it is simple, sporty for the price, and appeals to young buyers. You bring them into the fold and let them grow up with you. When they go to buy another car, er… I mean, computer, won’t they want one that uses all the software that they currently have? One that they know has served them well already? One they know and trust?

I don’t think the iBook is going to suffer from a consumer point of view at all. And I don’t think that the price will be a sticking point, either, since it’s still hundreds less than a number of other notebooks. I don’t think the lack of expandability is that big of a deal as many people have pointed out. Not for the first or beginning computer user, anyway.

I think Apple has another Mustang on their hands.

Now quick! Run over to you dealership, er… I mean the Apple Store and start checking out that factory order form, er… I mean WebObjects order page and check out the options. And welcome the iPony.

Bob McCormick
bob@mymac.com

On the Road with NEMO MEMO: John’s July San Francisco Journal

Barbara and I had the opportunity to spend a month house-sitting in San Francisco and beat the daily 100+°F summer heat in southern Arizona. We departed from home early on Sunday, June 27, with the sun blasting from just above Tucson’s Santa Catalina Mountain range, and both outside air and pool water temperature starting the day at 84°F.

As we headed for San Diego, Barbara mentioned that the Internet appears to have taken over a huge chunk of “reality,” and is now impossible to ignore, even for her. I asked her to explain, and she said:

“Look at you, John. You sent email messages to all our friends and family in California and the rest of the world, telling them where we’re going to be and how to reach us during July. You checked http://www.smartraveler.com for last-minute road and weather reports, http://www.zagat.com for restaurant reviews throughout California, and you printed out pages of natural foods store locations from http://www.wholefoods.com and http://www.wildoats.com.

“Then you used http://www.yahoo.com for links to San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco area information, including guest privileges at the S. F. Public Library and travel passes on the MUNI public transportation system.

“Next you got radio schedules for your favorite shows: http://www.realcomputing.com, http://www.soundmoney.org, and several National Public Radio programs from http://www.npr.org.

“Finally, Mr. Book Bytes, you made sure we had precise locations and phone numers for every bookstore at http://www.borders.com and http://www.barnesandnoble.com. I rest my case!”

While considering her well-developed dissertation, we heard on NPR’s Sunday Edition a story on a musicial entrepreneur whose latest “album” of compiled tunes is being distributed via MP3 downloads, one week at a time on http://www.songs.com.

CALIFORNIA, HERE WE COME

The primary reason for going via San Diego was a delightful afternoon at Quail Botanical Gardens, http://www.qbgardens.com. We didn’t need any Internet reviews to select our San Diego restaurant, because we spotted it on the way in, and walked there from our hotel (chosen from the AAA motor club guide book, by the way). After dinner I said “I wish we could find some fresh bread tomorrow. I should have looked up bakeries on the web.”

“You won’t believe this, John,” Barbara shouted, “but there, as you requested, across the street is the San Tropez Organic Bakery. I know it’s blind luck, but forget the Internet, and let’s explore without having so many digital expectations in advance.”

MONDAY, JUNE 28: We rarely watch TV at home, but tend to look at the Today Show on NBC http://www.nbc.com when we stay in hotels on vacation. The novelty is, well, a novelty, at least for a half hour. Enticing commercials invited us to participate in http://www.ivillage.com, an online community for women, and purchase our next house via http://www.realtor.com, letting a team of professionals take care of the particulars, instead of us having to interrupt our overactive lives to participate in the transaction.

TUESDAY, JUNE 29: Reading USA Today http://www.usatoday.com
> at breakfast in an Los Angeles area restaurant , I came across http://www.doughnet.com, a financial site for kids, plus http://www.mapblast.com, for maps and other travel info. The previous night we had learned how the Biography TV Channel has extensive supplementary material at http://www.biography.com.

At the Los Angeles home of Wink, an old high school buddy, another friend, Raj, showed us how his wife used http://www.ebay.com to purchase a toy model of a used “woody” car Raj had purchased over 30 years ago. The toy cost more today than the $100 car had cost him.

Wink remarked, “I can now locate everything in the world on the World Wide Web, and I never knew where to look or who to ask previously.” He is active with online stock trading, and does all his investment research on the web.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30: We purchased delicious natural food carryout items at two different Wild Oats Markets in Santa Monica, armed with our printouts of the locations of every one in the state. That night, in our motel in San Luis Obispo, we were fascinated by infomercials for http://www.psychicsolution.com, appearing on the Weather Channel http://www.weather.com, with weather forecasts sponsored by America Online http://www.aol.com. As we approached San Francisco, we saw a grocery delivery van from the new service, http://www.webvan.com.

THURSDAY, JULY 1: Now in “our” house in San Francisco, I heard a huge delivery truck stopping in front of a neighbor’s home. Both entire sides of the truck were decorated with billboard-size advertisements for Go2Net.com http://www.go2net.com, the portal for Metacrawler http://www.metacrawler.com and several other well-known websites, with the slogan: “When You’re Done Surfing: Go2Net.com.”

FRIDAY, JULY 2: I downloaded the latest issue of My Mac Magazine http://www.mymac.com on the sluggish house Performa 6214CD, and Barbara replied to a few of her AOL email messages.

We had a late lunch at home, each of us reading a different information-packed current issue of a San Francisco free weekly newspaper. At one point Barbara exclaimed: “This web business is getting out of control. Does everyone really need their own site? Look at this, in the San Francisco Bay Guardian http://www.sfbg.com. Here’s a shoe store called John Fluevog’s, and their domain is http://fluevog.com.”

I noticed that the S.F. Weekly http://www.sfweekly.com was advertising for an online editor, with “knowledge of HTML, DHTML, Javascript, and Flash.” I’m sure it’s a great opportunity, but not great enough for me to abandon My Mac Magazine!

SATURDAY, JULY 3: I turned on the classical music radio station to wake us up gently, and was immediately bombarded by announcements for obtaining the latest technology news at http://www.cnet.com, getting up-to-the-minute financial reports from http://www.dowjones.com, and going on the best possible walk with shoes from http://www.walkshop.com.

The 102.1 FM classical radio station itself offers streaming audio (Windoze only?), plus expanded music listings at http://www.kdfc.com. We were lulled back to sleep with an ad for special mattresses, offered exclusively from http://www.sleepworks.com.

SUNDAY, JULY 4: was the national Independence Day holiday. That night, waiting with 200,000 of our closest friends for the spectacular fireworks display about to begin at Aquatic Park near Fisherman’s Wharf, we heard a noise, looked overhead, and observed a DC3 airplane displaying a ticker tape-style message under its wings for (I’m not making this up!) http://www.JewsForJesus.org.

On the way to the fireworks display, we had stopped in Chinatown at the world-class purveyor of tea, ginseng, and Chinese herbs, http://www.tenren.com.

MONDAY, JULY 5: The classical radio station had a bunch of new weekday announcements. We learned about alternative medical advice at http://www.mylifepath.com, and highest-interest online bank rates from http://www.wingspanbank.com. If you want to donate your car for a tax writeoff, park it at http://www.ccasf.org.

TUESDAY, JULY 6: The business section of the San Francisco Chronicle had a syndicated column discussing the best way to calculate retirement investment income, using http://www.financialengines.com.

At nearby Corte Madera Town Center shopping mall, I was delighted with the comfort and styling of an upscale $2,000 rocking chair from Norway (a bit out of my price bracket!) from http://www.rocking-chairs.com. Across the walkway is a foodissimo emporium featuring delicious imported Italian foods since 1919, http://www.agferrari.com.

Down the road, at Whole Foods Market in Mill Valley, we purchased some butter from local cows, probably all branded with http://www.strausmilk.com.

As I was secretly crunching through my third sample of chocolate biscotti at the back of the grocery store, Barbara rushed up to me, and said in a stage whisper, “Hurry, John. I found something amazing. Come up to the front right away.”

She was correct. I was incredulous.

At a display table between the specialty baked goods and the cash registers stood Mike and Barb, the brains and talent behind CYBERBITES.com, with “Food for the Internet Age.” We sampled their three different flavors of star-shaped 6 ounce chocolate or ginger-flavored brownie cakelets, and purchased “The All Nighter,” which has coffee added.

The office at http://www.cyberbites.com is “all Mac, all the time,” according to Mike, who is an avid reader of My Mac Magazine! He registered the tasty domain in 1996, and, like me, is an old hippy musician (also a handsome baldie, BTW).

We plan to stay in touch with Barb and Mike, and catch up with them at future in-store tastings.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 7: My aunt dropped in for a visit, and the first words she spoke were: “Can you imagine what the newspapers are advertising now? I just saw a full-page ad for http://www.furniture.com or something similar. I burst out laughing as soon as I saw it in this morning’s paper. The thought of buying furniture over the Internet is ridiculous.”

She continued, “I read that Ireland has positioned itself as the techno-capital of Europe. While its economy was in the dumps, the Irish government had the foresight to create an educated workforce, who are now working overtime on all sorts of software and other post-Y2K e-commerce solutions.”

That night, in charming Tiburon, across the water from downtown San Francisco, Barbara and I had a picnic highlighted by Mango Tango Smoothie from http://www.odwalla.com
>, before attending a world-class Baroque music performance by the American Baroque Orchestra, http://www.americanbaroque.org.

THURSDAY, JULY 8: On a tremendously scenic hike up Mt. Tamalpais, our hiking companion remarked that he was thinking of getting a new Mac, armed with competitive cost info from http://www.pricepulse.com, but his future expenditures would probably be headed in a different direction: an engagement ring from someone other than http://www.caratplus.com/moshe/home.html>, who lists no physical address or company personnel at the websites. Our hiking buddy has a friend who is now working for http://www.digitalchef.com, a new company attempting to be the prime mover of kitchen equipment.

On the drive back to the city, listening to “All Things Considered” on the radio, we heard a segment about http://www.rtmark.com, a group of anti-corporate hackers, who use the Internet to disrupt online business-as-usual of their target institutions and companies.

FRIDAY, JULY 9: After a discussion with my cousin Jim, centering on the thought that Internet domains have become de-facto trademarks or enterprise identities, I noticed that nearly every bus and bus shelter has a banner ad with a URL printed as least as large as the company name, such as http://www.bchothouse.com, whose Canadian tomatoes were prominently displayed at the nearby greengrocer.

More from the classical radio station: a disgusting commercial for http://www.forbes.com encouraging successful young “capitalist pigs,” and a bizarre spot for http://www.homegain.com, pretending to be a source of home equity information, but in fact being a website for homeowners to use for selling their properties.

SATURDAY, JULY 10: The Embarcadero Farmer’s Market is one of our favorites, selling lavender from http://www.lavenderfarm.com. Our car loaded with produce, we stopped to let a truck from http://www.sfsalsa.com pull ahead, followed by a bus promoting a dust-free environment, care of http://www.gazoonteit.com (honest!). This week’s S. F. Weekly contains a large ad for an online casino, http://www.goldenpalace.com.

SUNDAY, JULY 11: In the car radio on a family visit, I laughed at a promotional piece for http://www.avocado.org. Later that day, my uncle asked Barbara what I was doing with all the URL information I was collecting. He said to her, “What’s the big deal? Where has John been? Here in California we’ve been seeing Internet addresses attached to advertising for years.”

Barbara and I discussed the matter that evening. I realized that in Arizona I’m out of the bright beam of cutting-edge technology and media, but I consider myself tuned into the Net culture. Is California, which is the world headquarters of the new technology, representative of the world in general? I doubt it.

WHEN IN ROME

Since that day weeks ago, I have attempted to take URLs for granted, as they parade before me in growing numbers. Wherever I go in the American west and southwest, I am becoming accustomed to the profusion of http://www.blahblahblah.com with each turn of the head, and every sound entering my skull.

I wish all the enterprises and individuals tremendous success with their Internet-based endeavors, but I predict there will be many frustrated folks for every sponsor who achieves fulfillment in the forseeable future. My personal “brainwidth” will never be vast enough to spend time at the computer investigating more than 1 per cent of the URLs that fascinate me. It’s pick-and-choose, just like in real life.

Here’s an idea: send me the most fascinating or unexpected commercial/institutional URL, with your reasons for thinking it to be peculiar, and I’ll present the compilation in a future Nemo Memo.

Blue Screen Blues?

Tens of thousands of 15″ monitors were sold with Macintosh 6200 and 6300 series Performa computers. Many, if not all of them, are now exhibiting an inherent defect: permanent shift from normal coloration to a bluish tint. Shame on you, Apple!

The bad guys turn out to be good guys after all. By phoning Apple at (800) SOS-APPL (or your local Apple dealer outside of the United States), owners of these true-blue monitors can make arrangements to have them repaired FOR FREE.

I know it sounds to good to be true, but it’s true. Three of my friends are now happily using their recently-repaired Apple Multiple Scan 15 Displays, with a turnaround time of 2-3 weeks.

When you call, the service rep will give you a case number, and may make arrangements for FedEx to send a box for direct repair by Apple. Soon your old faithful monitor will be good as new. Oops, I mean better than new.

The Haves and Have-Mores

On the morning when the national news media carried lead stories on the “Internet gap” between economic and racial groups, I tested the premise as a one-person sample. The new, controversial main San Francisco Public Library http://sfpl.lib.ca.us opens at 11:00 on Fridays, and I was punctual.

After the homeless patrons entered, I sprinted up to the top floor, scouting for Internet computer terminals. Bad choice: most of the “Netscape computers,” as they are labeled, are on lower floors.

The policy at SFPL is simple:

It’s probably a little late for me to be sticking my two cents in about the iBook, but they don’t call me “Last Minute Lock” for nothing. I’m so far behind I still haven’t seen “Forrest Gump” or “Titanic,” and I consider my rebuilt 7200 as state-of-the-art. But fashion conscious I surely am. The fashion police have absolutely no reason to come knocking at my door. No sireee. I may be an old broad, but I dress with distinction and style.

No surprise then that my reaction to the iBook was “oh, it’s cute!” As a fashion accessory it has the same classic elegance as a Coach handbag or Chanel. I could definitely see myself sauntering down the street, slinging this little beauty by the handle. Yes, the iBook could add a certain je ne sais quoi to any outfit, mini-skirt to power suit.

I was amused by Mr. John Dvorak’s review of the iBook as something no “real man” would be caught dead carrying, implying that any man that did might be suspected of being… uh…. effeminate. Hello Mr. Dvorak, my name is Beth, and I’d like to politely remind you that this is 1999. Men are now allowed to wear something besides the boring jacket-pants-shirt-tie combo.

“Honey, which tie looks better with this Blueberry iBook, the red or the green?”

sigh….”Well, dear, you carried the Blueberry yesterday, why don’t you carry the Tangerine today and accessorize with the braided leather suspenders and the pale peach henley collar shirt? Oh, and wear those nice rust colored pants that move so pretty when you’re walking away.”

Accessorize! Accessorize, gentlemen. Fashion clue number 1. Even geeks look good when their pants fit right, IF they have the right computer. Geek chic. Ya gotta love it.

It was the Barbie comment that I liked the best of all, though. Because if Barbie has it, I want it. That girlfriend gets everything! Barbie has been maligned for years as an insult to liberated women. Ms. Barbie has, however, weathered this in stride and continues year after year to lead the way in cutting-edge fashion. (After all, she and Ken have yet to tie the knot. She isn’t hurting for hot tubs or sleek sports cars. And still not a sag or bag on her! Can you imagine this chicka with the iBook?)

If Mattel is smart, they’re cutting a deal with Apple right now to release iBook Barbie as this year’s Christmas present for up and coming young women everywhere. I suppose they’ll stick poor Ken with something boring in grey, a notebook you have to lug around in a carrying case. Poor, poor, whipped Ken.

Even loyal Apple aficionados got a little huffy about the iBook. Yeah, the Airport is cool, but it doesn’t have this, it doesn’t have that, the price is too high for what you get. Natter natter, guys. Apple didn’t build this little sweetie for you. They built it for the rest of the rest of us!

I’m sure it’s obvious to those who read my column that I’m not even close to being a power user. I installed some RAM once, and was sweating the entire time the case was open. There are so many more of us computer users who don’t know or care what a megahertz is than those who do. Computers perform a function, like automobiles. They get us from point A to point B. So what would you rather drive, a broken down ’87 Datsun, or a hot little V6 Celica convertible with killer speakers, five on the floor, and 256MB RAM (doubled) in the passenger seat? Ohhh La La.

I read a statistic which stated that 60% of the American population is not yet connected to the Internet. What a huge marketing potential for the iBook. 60% of America’s computer unsavvy waiting with open arms to embrace a computer so simple even they would not be intimidated to buy one. The computer for “the rest of the rest of us.” The computer with fashion sense. Not only the computer with fashion sense, but an Apple computer. (The operative word here being “Apple.” Shareholders take note.)

The iBook is a computer any proud daddy would be happy to give his darling daughter as a high school graduation gift.

“Here ya go, sweet-pea. Take this to college and set the world on fire. And don’t let any young men try to get his hands inside your iBook! There’s nothing in there that needs reconfiguring, if ya know what I mean.”

(Insert touching scene where darling daughter throws her arms around daddy and hugs his neck. Daddy coughs and wipes away a tear, etc. Daddy goes out and buys more Apple stock the next day, ’cause he believes in his little girl.)

I’m glad that Apple has gone beyond more than needs. So what if the Mr. John Dvoraks of the world don’t see the iBook as viable for the mighty male power user. If 60% of the population is still not Internet savvy, then it’s time Apple made this giant leap forward and gave the rest of us a tool that’s not only easily usable, but fashionable as well. What’s wrong with owning something that embodies the best of form and function?

Thanks for the iBook, Steve. By the way, nice pants. I love a man with a little fashion sense.

Now if you’d just envision a glitter case…

Beth Lock
beth@infowest.com

In case you haven’t heard, the iMac’s incredible success has not only lifted Apple to an increased level of name recognition, it’s charted a new course for products built in its innovative image. The iBook is the initial example, and all indications are that it will be an instant winner in its own right. Of immediate interest to industry insiders, though, is the fact that several other companies, Imation, for example, have now brought out peripherals designed in-line with the iMac’s inventive styling.

In a word, these new products have been selling well–immensely well. So well, in fact, that an iMac imposter using an Intel chip has already been made, although whether it or not it will be allowed to be brought to market is still a matter of intense legal investigation.

Up to now we’ve been discussing hardware products, which leaves another area for Apple to make an important statement: software. Enter Bob McCormick, an Oregon-based writer for My Mac Magazine, who has come up with a name for the most important software of all: Apple’s System Software. Bob had in mind something for the next version of the Mac OS, Mac OS 9. This new name would be instantly recognizable as Apple’s newest and greatest, and fits, we think, every aspect of Apple’s new identity, that of innovation, iMacs, and iBooks:

We think it’s ideal.

Apple, Rename OS 9!

Here is a modest proposal for Apple to consider.

Rename OS 9.

Why? Well there is the little matter of the other company that already holds the trademark on it. Ironically OS 9 the Real-Time Operating System for embedded designs from Microware is already in some Macs. They own this trademark and deserve to have their rights protected. Just like Apple is “protecting” its rights over the iMac design by filing lawsuits against eMachines and others.

I believe that Apple could avoid this trademark lawsuit and the bad press while still being able to pronounce their Operating system “oh-ess-nine.” How you say? Let me introduce “Mac OS iX.”

Huh?

Apple could in fact achieve three very strategic accomplishments by re-naming OS 9 as OS iX:

First-
and foremost avoid the trademark lawsuit and the bad press that would follow. (It is kind of ironic that they would infringe on someone else’s trademark when they are so enthusiastically filing lawsuits against others over iMac knock off designs.)

Second-

This would create an excellent tie in between iMacs as well as the iBook. Not to mention a great way to identify the Operating System upgrade path for all those iMac and iBook users. This would be a no brainer for those two million plus iMac users out there to see this upgrade path. This would also increase sales of Mac OS iX by a significant margin.

Third-
Create an excellent tie in for those of us with G3 computers as the precursor to OS X. We know it’s coming, we know that it will be here soon. And obviously iX (9) comes before X (10).

Renaming OS 9, OS iX accomplishes these three things quite easily. It’s a somewhat playful link between the current Mac OS 8.x and the much anticipated OS X. Certainly it is much more playful than Apple disregarding other’s legal rights and getting sued. Much more like the Apple we believe still exists. One that helps the little guy and doesn’t squash him. And certainly much less like Microsoft that has quite literally drained company’s resources to the brink of dissolution over trademark issues. Anyone remember the name SyNet Inc. and its web browser–Internet Explorer?

Come on Apple, rename OS 9, OS iX. You have a chance to play a little fairer as well as find a great way to tie in your new consumer market and your much anticipated OS X.

Write me and tell me what you think.

Bob McCormick
bob@mymac.com

PowerBook G3 (Bronze Keyboard)
Company: Apple Computers, Inc.
Estimated Price: $3499 (highend)
http://www.apple.com

Living with Lombard:
The Great, the not so Great, and the Ugly.
(With apologies to the Spaghetti Westerns.)

I wanted to write up a review of Lombard. After living with Lombard for about a month now, I thought I’d go ahead and share my experiences with it. When I first decided to write a hardware review, I thought it would be this glowing, radiant love fest. But the longer I used my black beauty, the more I realized that it wasn’t going to be quite the love fest I thought it would be.

If you need a rundown of the specs, check out Apple’s web page on the matter. http://www.apple.com/powerbook/specifications.html

The Great:

Speed:
Plain and simple, this thing is fast. (Well most of the time, see The Ugly: later in this review.) Opening applications, opening files, transferring files, downloading, copying, sending emails, you name it–this Mac is fast. With 400MHz under the hood sporting a 1MB backside cache running at 2.5 to 1, it just rocks.

Sometimes the speed is actually a hindrance. If you accidentally double-click on the wrong file it might open before you have the presence of mind to hit Command-”.”(period). Or if you accidentally drop a file on the wrong folder/partition, you find you have copied or moved it before you can click ‘Cancel.’ And at times you are sitting mouth agape as tasks that used to take forever on your old system now complete in no time at all.

I’ve been caught off guard a couple of times. I just stare at my desktop realizing that my life is now simpler, and less complex than I thought it would be with this machine.

This speed allows you to think much less of the computer itself and concentrate on the task at hand. Overall this makes for a much more transparent symbiosis between man and machine. It does what you want it to do, without much thought. Some may think this would lead to a “disconnection” with our Macs. I would say that it leads to a much stronger connection with them.

LCD Screen:
Another thing that is wonderful to watch are the splash screens of applications as they truly “splash” open, or spin a QTVR so fast that you feel ill. I’m wondering, has anyone combined a QTVR with Video for a ride on a roller coaster? I’d love to see that.

What would make that possible is the incredibly rich screen of the Lombard. 14.1 inches of 1024×786 resolution, 3D accelerated 24 bit color is just wonderful. It is expansive and nearly as big as my 17″ monitor. I recently pulled up my PowerBook 150 for some quick thoughts in MS Word 5.1a. I was just shocked at how clunky, how out of date it felt in comparison. The itty bitty screen was just too hard to take at 640×480, yikes! I’m telling you, once you get your hands on a G3 series PowerBook and gaze upon its screen, you’ll be hard pressed to go back to anything less. Even a 15 inch monitor would seem smallish in comparison. This screen is lush, rich and expansive.

Video Output:
Monitor spanning capabilities will spoil you. I’ve got an indestructible 1705 monitor. It has served me well and with the Monitor spanning capabilities built right into Lombard I’m afraid that I want to lug my 1705 with me everywhere. Seriously, it brings about a whole new way of working with your PowerBook. What I have found most useful is to place my Monitor behind and above my PowerBook. With the simple “arrange” controls built into the Monitors and Sound control panel I find myself arranging the desktop in 1024×1536 set up. I suppose I could rearrange my monitor so that it would sit next to my PowerBook but that simply would take up too much real desktop area. By placing my PowerBook display below the level of my Monitor I can place tool windows on it and work with the main window of my application on the CRT very easily. This allows me to get a much less cluttered view of what I’m creating. I think that desktop publishers, video editors, and web surfers will find this quite helpful. And in the long run, more productive. I don’t have to hide my tool windows to get an unobstructed view of my work nor do I have to hide my web applications behind other open windows. I like this feature tremendously.

Keyboard:
Some have complained about the Lombard keyboard. That it is too mushy. Not me. I was definitely unaccustomed to it when I first started using it. However, I’m finding that I prefer it to all the other keyboards I also use. Certainly compared to a clunky, crunchy, PowerBook 150 this thing is a dream. My standard Apple keyboard, although much more ingrained in my hands’ “memory,” now feels somewhat stilted in comparison.

When I’m at my “day job” with an “ergonomic” keyboard, I find myself lusting for the ease and comfort that Lombard’s keyboard offers me. Just wishing that I could begin a particular big project on the smooth and forgiving keyboard of my PowerBook. Hmmm, just wish I had Virtual PC running NT on my Lombard, maybe I could start and finish those projects on my Lombard after all. (I do have a few complaints about the keyboard; look in “The Not so Great” and “The Ugly” section of this review.)

In fact, the Lombard’s keyboard has spoiled me enough that I won’t even consider buying an external keyboard to hook up until I can get some real time with a unit that I feel would be the equal or better of Lombard’s built in keyboard.

Mass:
Weight is a big factor in a PowerBook, and I notice with the introduction of the iBook that it is not only second in speed to Lombard, but also in weight and size. Weight by nearly a pound! and size by a nearly a 1/3rd of an inch. Not that Lombard is exactly a petite gymnast, but this thing is pretty darn portable. I simply slip it in a sharp leather portfolio I have. Since I’m already carrying a sports bag, I can place the power brick right in there. Not a bad deal for ease of travel. I’m well pleased. Naturally, when you need additional accessories a standard PowerBook carrying case comes in handy. This is when Lombard shows that it still could lighten its load. But considering the combination of weight and power, I dare you to find another computer from any manufacturer that offers all that Lombard does at this weight. Right now, I don’t think it can be done. (Only desktops come close to the performance, but certainly not the portability 5.9 pounds offers.)

DVD:
Never having had “DVD” player before I was pleased that the 400MHz unit comes with it standard. I have rented some DVDs. It is amazing the quality of the play. Both on the PowerBook’s screen as well as on my monitor. I haven’t bothered to hook it up to my television as the quality of DVD is lost on such low resolution (though it does come with an adapter to do so, I just wish it came with the appropriate audio adapters to connect to your television, but those are much more common and inexpensively obtained). It ran virtually flawlessly. Only once in awhile did I notice a stutter or a mechanical feel to the playback; even with other applications running this was rare (though I did notice it even when other applications weren’t running). I was most impressed overall.

Battery:
Oh yes, I’m a big fan of the battery. Does it last 5 hours? I don’t think so. Does it last longer than any other PowerBook battery that has come before it? It does. This is a great advancement. And with the very self explanatory Energy Saver control panel, it’s easy to customize your settings to get the best compromise of energy savings and performance that suits you. It is all just a matter of working with the control panel to suit your needs and your desires.

I have turned on virtually all of the energy saving options and have just gained about 40 minutes of estimated battery time according my control strip. Not bad. In fact, great. In all fairness, you could probably get the battery to come close to its advertised 5 hour rate. However, you would have to be a master of energy saving techniques that would, I believe, become a hindrance to your productivity. Why not work more efficiently than fuss with energy savings tricks that could distract from your work?

Connectivity:
Lombard is probably the last Mac to be made with SCSI standard. That combined with 10/100MB Ethernet and two USB ports, this is for me the best combination of legacy and future connectivity for computers. I only lament that it can’t have at least one ADB port for those of use who cannot replace all of our legacy hardware at once time. No worries. There are a plethora of adapters out on the market that can extend the life of your old hardware.

Access:
This is a truly nifty feature. Just pull back on a couple of built in tabs between the function keys and Ta-da! Instant access for RAM and hard drive upgrades. It is wonderful. Plus you have the ability to “lock” the keyboard in place to keep prying eyes from sneaking a peek inside. Apple outdid themselves with this.

The Not So Great:

The name:
First and foremost this is one great computer. Certainly a fine evolution of the WallStreet. Why did it get such a yawner of a name? Personally I call mine, Copperhead (in honor of the copper G3 under the hood). It certainly is lethal to all the Wintel laptops.

Keyboard Layout:
The keyboard layout is odd, inasmuch as the new “Function” shift key that has been added in the traditional location of the left control key, bumping it, the Option key, and the Command key to the right. I think that it could have been placed somewhere else. Above the other keys would have been nice, or even integrated with the function keys would have been better. Who knows. But that is about my only complaint about the keyboard layout other than the itty bitty arrow keys and the worthless Enter key (that should have been a Command key, without doubt) to the right of the Spacebar.

Speakers:
I’m sitting here listening to a CD. It’s not an unpleasant experience but it just isn’t up to par with the rest of Lombard. The speakers are tinny and not very responsive. Much of the rich sound of the Elliott Smith XO CD is just not coming through. If you use your PowerBook for any extended periods at a desk and want sound, consider external speakers. They will be a must with Lombard.

The Ugly:

CD Drive:
The CD function is loud, obnoxious and buzzy as a data CD spins up. I found this annoying as well as at odds with the overall smooth and refined nature of Lombard. It seemed just a bit out of place. Why would something so sophisticated have such a glaring rough edge? I have to say, “Apple, fix it!” This is not in keeping with the refined tool that is Lombard. It is kind of like buying a Ferarri and when you turn on the heater you have to turn up the stereo to drown it out.

The Pause. The Stall. Argh!!!
Speaking of the CD player, I’ve experienced the dreaded “pause” under 8.6 with Lombard. If you haven’t heard about it, it is quite annoying. So much so it made it into my “Ugly” section. What happens is this, you will be working along in or between applications and suddenly the system just stops. Mimicking a system freeze, so much so that at one time or another I’ve hit Ctrl/Cmnd/Power and rebooted. If you simply hold on, the system will come back to you. If you have not experienced this, words cannot describe how completely infuriating it is until you experience it. Apple’s cure is two fold. One of which is to disable the CD/DVD extension. HA! Oh yeah that makes sense. The other cure is to keep a data CD in the drive http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n31023. Like that doesn’t contradict the other TIL that tells you to remove CDs to prevent the computer from accessing the CD http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n30376 as it will periodically spin up to check data. DOH!

I’ve got a better idea:
I’ve got a much better solution. The only cure that seems to work for me is keeping an Audio CD in the drive. A data CD–unless you are constantly copying data–won’t work. It spins down sooner or later and will be accessed by the system again causing a significant delay. The best workaround I’ve discovered is keeping a music CD in the tray. I’ve done so this whole time and haven’t had a single pause. Obviously, the system recognizes that it doesn’t need to access the music CD. Maybe that is my cure until Apple updates the software. I’m telling you, that 10 second pause was truly annoying!!!! Apple, get on the ball and fix that problem.

The Trackpad Button:
The other completely frustrating situation with Lombard is the problem with the trackpad button. This is a you write for and suddenly the cursor will jump to another place in the review you are writing and boom! You’re seemingly fluid flow of thoughts jump right into the middle of another paragraph.

serious flaw in the current PowerBook. You can be working along and unwittingly put enough pressure on the wrist rest to accidentally click the button (Without actually touching the trackpad button). This rates right up there with the 8.6 “delay.” You could be writing, let’s say a review for the magazine

(See what I mean?)

Made worse with The Pause:
Or to compound the situation, you might click on an open window of another application and not only do you have the inconvenience of having to switch back to the application you were working in, but you may also incur the 10 second delay without realizing you have done so until the other window jumps to the front and you realize you have to click back. ARGH!

The Bronze keyboard never should have made it to market with this flaw. It should have been caught long before it came to market. This definitely is one for the Ugly category.

Heat:
Heat is that last of the uglies I have to review. Despite a new copper chip, the 400MHz unit is darned hot. “Dang hot, I think I’m going to do a little crotch pot cooking!” Seriously, my Copperhead has melted its rubber feet. Leaving nice little remnants on my desk. I’m sure glad this was an old desk and not some really nice mahogany desk. But there are bound to be a few execs that find that their Lombard has left little remnants behind. For the price of the thing, you think Apple could have put on feet that could stand the heat. (I couldn’t resist that little rhyme.)

Conclusion:
Overall Lombard is one of the finest computers available from Apple. I think it has a few growing pains to sort out. I broke my own rule of never being an early adopter and will remember that when it is time for my next computer.

But do I love it? I sure do. It is fast, beautiful and more than I’ll need for a long long time? Oh yeah. I think about if I had gotten a WallStreet, or a Blue and White but nothing can compare to this Lombard and its extensive list of features. Overall it is one sweet machine even it it isn’t all great.

Despite its flaws, what it does is incredible and will satisfy all but the most power hungry users. Without a doubt it is the fastest laptop available out there. Working at a major PC manufacturer I get to see some great equipment from the Wintel side of the curtain. But nothing compares to this Lombard.

If you aren’t in a hurry for a Lombard, I’d wait. Let it evolve a little and smooth out some of its rough edges. If you just have to have some portable raw power and none of the uglies listed above scare you, dive right in. I definitely give Lombard a strong recommendation.

MacMice Rating: 4.5

Bob McCormick
bob@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.apple.com
http://www.apple.com/powerbook/specifications.html
http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n31023
http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n30376

OS 8.6 Folly

It used to be that when Apple made a mistake, they stonewalled, thinking the less said the better, and the Mac faithful will soon forget. Then with the return of Steve Jobs this arrogance seemed to disappear. When a mistake was made Apple listened to the faithful and fixed the wrong. Well, Apple, you’ve made a serious blunder to those of us who stood by you. I’m speaking of the failure to release OS 8.6 update to MacAddict, Macworld, and MacHome Journal for distribution. Like many of you readers, I counted on those updates. Not so much for home as for school when it came time to update dozens of machines. Asking users to spend 3-5 hours downloading the update is sheer folly. The opportunity for file corruption increases geometrically the longer the download takes. I know of several people, including myself who have shunned getting the update as too big of a nuisance to bother with for the amount of benefits it brings to the table. It’s pretty obvious why Apple chose this route; by signing on to the Apple server the marketing department is able to get a fix on the demographics of Apple users. But I would bet that the number of people upgrading this way is several times smaller. What Apple could have done is allow the three to distribute the update minus a “key.” To get the “key” the user would sign on to the Apple website, answer a few questions, and quickly download the “key,” thus making everyone happy.

Profit and Stocks

The profit numbers continue to come in, while ironically Compaq continues to lose money. Has anybody heard Compaq being called “troubled”, “unviable”, “has-been”? John Dvorak, a famous Apple basher, continues to pound Apple with criticism for doing nothing more than innovating and challenging the status quo. If Dvorak was fair he would prove it by coming down on Compaq for losing a greater amount of money than Apple. But, of course his argument would be that Apple had it all and was stupid, while Compaq is under the pressures of the global marketplace. On the surface this might appear to be true, however Apple has been blazing its own trail while Compaq travels the Microsoft/Intel superhighway.

Don’t you wish “The Site’ was still on MSNBC? The stupidity of ending that show still boggles the imagination.

At Macworld, Steve Jobs announced that Apple intended to buy back $500 million shares of Apple stock. It’s a great idea considering the amount of cash the company currently has on hand. What I suggest Apple should do is give a rebate of one share to everyone who buys an iMac or iBook, and two shares for a PowerBook or B/W G3. Why? To strengthen Apple loyalty! Think about it: instead of a rebate, a share of the company. An instant, extra level of loyalty. Granted, not everyone would hang on to the stock, but most would, for no other reason than the novelty of it at first. After a while the loyalty would set in. With the speed of technology ever increasing, loyalty will be harder to come by. Many companies have discovered that one of the best ways to keep employees is to give stock-based bonus. Why not do the same for consumers? Are you listening, Steve?

iBook Commercial

Based upon various pictures, the iBook looks like a winner. The handle alone is a great idea. How come nobody ever thought of that before?

Scene: Typical white Apple commercial background.
Music: Theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey

Timed to the music, the iBook is shown from various angles, first the top, then the back, the sides, and finally the front. When the tympani drums begin to pound the lid opens, the screen displays the statement, “Hello, look, no wires (to the Internet)”.

The black screen appears with the Think Different and an orange Apple icon.

Back On The Bandwagon
The rumors of my writing death were only slightly exaggerated. It seemed like I was in a deep coma, unable to put words into a column. Looking back, I would have to say my absence was a simple case of computer burnout. I have spent the better part of five years learning and (semi) mastering Macintosh. Then, this past year I added the Evil Empire to my dangerous base of knowledge. I was eating, breathing, sleeping computers. All on top of my regular teaching, parenting, and spousal duties. My plate was too full, and something needed to give. My subconscious picked writing. At first, it was skipping the column every other month. Then came July 10th, I had nothing to offer. Well, I did have an idea I discussed with our publisher, Tim, but I could only say a few words; extreme brevity had taken control. I felt guilty about it for a few days past our deadline, then with my computer troubleshooting job at school ending I was able to let go. For all but 6 hours this past month I was just a user of computers, nothing more. What a vacation it was; I surfed the ‘net for the sheer joy of it! I even toured the White House. http://www.whitehouse.gov It was a heck of a lot cooler temperature-wise than being there in person.

Until next month…

Mark Marcantonio
markm@mymac.com

Heretic PPC
Author: Brad Oliver
Freeware
bradman@primenet.com

Mike: We’ve reviewed some great shareware games in these pages before, but one type of game you rarely see a shareware developer write is a first-person shooter. This month, however, we review Heretic PPC, a freeware port of the PC game that never made it to the Mac.

Adam: It’s rare that you see a shareware developer port a game to the Mac, and even rarer to make it free. So when Mike suggested Heretic PPC, I thought we’d give it a try. While it didn’t fully work as advertised, it’s a great gesture to the Mac community. Is there a plot/storyline to this game, Mike?

Mike: The included Read Me file didn’t say much: “The object of this game is simple–shoot stuff and don’t get killed.” Like most first-person shooters of its time, Heretic relied more on trigger-finger reflexes and less on plot. The game, and its sequel, Hexen, was released by id Software in between its smash hits, Doom and Quake, and it’s set in a medieval setting rather than a futuristic, sci-fi one.

Adam: When Heretic PPC is first launched, it almost looks like it crashed. Your screen goes black and white, flashes a few times, and then a progress bar comes up to show the loading sequence. Once it’s loaded, you navigate with the arrow keys through the various options and into the game play.

Mike: Anyone who’s ever played Doom or another of id’s shoot-em-up titles will be right at home with the menu navigation and game play. It’s not always true to the Mac interface, and some commands are a little counter-intuitive, but what would you expect from a Windows port?

Adam: There are options for pixel doubling and tripling, but they looked horrible on my 1024×768 screen. And even though music was listed as an option, it failed to be produced on my PowerBook.

Mike: Since my screen has a maximum resolution of 800×600, I didn’t try the pixel doubling option, and kept the game’s resolution at its standard 640×480. The graphics looked dated, but acceptable at that resolution. Unfortunately, although I tried all of the tips listed in the Read Me, I couldn’t get any music while I was played, either.

Adam: One good thing is that it did render well on my PowerBook G3/250 (WallStreet) with the ATI Rage LT graphics chipset. However, it crashed numerous times throughout game play, so I had a tough time keeping interest in the game long enough to give it a fair review.

Mike: Excuse me while I express my jealousy at the fact that Adam *has* an ATI chipset in his PowerBook… OK, with that over, I can say that I never experienced the crashes that Adam did, for unknown reasons. I can attest that the game plays, well, like a first person shooter. You run around an intricate maze, searching for the exit, and killing all of the monsters in your way with your magic scepter. It doesn’t have the plot depth of Marathon, the graphics or Unreal, or the pure adrenaline rush of Quake II, but you don’t have to lay down a couple of twenty dollar bills to play it, either.

Requirements/Availability
Heretic PPC requires a PowerPC processor and System 7.5 or later. You can download Heretic PPC from Download.com http://www.download.com or any other Macintosh shareware archive.

The Summary
Adam: All-in-all, a freeware port of Heretic is a wonderful gesture towards Mac users, and for that reason, we can cautiously recommend it. However, if you have the crashes that I experienced, delete it. You’ll get more excitement out of seeing the trash can empty than you will playing the game.

Mike: Well put, Adam. I applaud Brad Oliver for making Heretic available to Mac users, but I hope that there will be an updated version in the near future that fixes a few bugs. If that happens, he will really have done Mac gamers a great service. Cautiously recommended by The Game Guys.

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

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

A Better Finder Attributes 1.2
Author: Frank Reiff
Shareware: $10.00
http://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderAttributes

Frank Reiff’s “A Better Finder” contextual menu plugin series is perhaps one of the most useful sets of contextual menus available for download today. The latest addition to the family, A Better Finder Attributes, is no exception. A Better Finder Attributes allows you to quickly change creation and modification dates, custom icon and invisible bits, and many more properties of a file or folder quickly and easily, all without using ResEdit. Additionally, you can create mini droplet applications for recording repetitive tasks and repeating them simply by dropping them on the droplet application you created. Neat!

The Summary
A Better Finder Attributes is a superb piece of shareware that attests to the quality of software produced by Mr. Reiff. $10.00 may seem a bit steep, but it will pay for itself in the amount time you save. Recommended for software developers, FTP/file server administrators, and anyone else that deals with editing buried properties of files and folders.

FavorStrip 1.4
Company: Kykz’s Software
Shareware: $10.00
http://www.246.ne.jp/~kykz

FavorStrip 1.4 is a simple, yet useful, control strip module. It automatically categorizes all of the items in your Mac OS 8.5.x “Favorites” folder into five distinct categories: Applications, Accessories, Documents, Folders, and URLs. There’s more to FavorStrip than meets the eye, however. You can easily add, remove, and display the originals of any item in FavorStrip’s menu.

However, most of FavorStrip’s features can only be specified by holding down certain key combinations while opening FavorStrip. It would be very helpful to have a separate application that could control these types of settings and apply them to the control strip module.

The Summary
FavorStrip is a neat piece of shareware that will quickly and easily reduce clutter in your “Favorites” folder, especially if you have a great deal of items in the folder. If you want to get into the more advanced features of FavorStrip, you may be overwhelmed by the amount of key combinations to remember. But, if you just want a quick piece of software for a reasonable price that will enhance your system, then I recommend you give FavorStrip a try.

Wapp Pro 2.0
Author: Jérome Foucher
Shareware: $10.00
http://come.to/beastieit

Wapp Pro is a fairly new, but extremely useful piece of shareware that allows you to switch windows embedded in applications via a simple pull-down menu. However, you can do much more than just switch between windows. Wapp Pro allows you to quit or hide applications quickly and easily from within the Wapp Pro menu.

Wapp Pro is extremely customizable, allowing you to have keyboard shortcuts for both window and application switching. It puts superior control of the behavior of the switching at your fingertips, allowing you to set the behavior of the “Quit All” and “Hide All” commands, for example. Wapp Pro also allows you to “exclude” applications that prove to be incompatible with Wapp Pro’s abilities, allowing you to maintain compatibility while still utilitizing Wapp Pro’s outstanding features.

The Summary
Wapp Pro is an example of a lesser-known, but unbelievably useful piece of shareware. A measly $10.00 shareware fee is nothing to ask for the usefulness that Wapp Pro brings to your system. If you’re looking to be more productive switching applications and windows, Wapp Pro may be just what the doctor ordered. Highly Recommeded.

Requirements/Availability: A Better Finder Attributes requires Mac OS 8.x. Both Wapp Pro 2.0 and FavorStrip 1.4 require Mac OS 8.5.x or higher. All three of these utilities can be downloaded at their respective URLs.

Adam Karneboge
webmaster@mymac.com

DSL for Dummies
by David Angell

Dummies Press

ISBN 0-7645-0475-4, 321 pages
$24.99 U.S.,. $35.99 Canada, £23.99 U.K.

This book is one of the “smartest” and most fascinating Dummies titles I’ve seen in a long time. The author covers every aspect of high-speed, always-on Internet connections. Anyone using or considering a “broadband” service should read DSL for Dummies from cover to cover. The cost of the book is worth every penny, and is insignificant compared to your monthly high-speed Internet fees. Strongly RECOMMENDED.

Fireworks 2 for Windows and Macintosh, Visual QuickStart Guide
by Sandee Cohen
Peachpit Press

ISBN 0-201-35458-6, 280 pages
$18.99 U.S., $28.50 U.K.

The Fireworks application is raging out of control in certain web graphics communities. Each component and feature is discussed systematically, taking full advantage of the Visual QuickStart format. Web graphics are far from my area of expertise, but I am quickly grasping the essentials, armed with Fireworks 2 for Windows and Macintosh. Fireworks has a substantial learning curve which is made much easier by following the lessons and tips in this RECOMMENDED title.

LINUX for Dummies, 2nd Edition
by Jon “maddog” Hall
Dummies Press

ISBN 0-7645-0421-5, 354 pages plus CD
$24.99 U.S.,. $35.99 Canada, £23.99 U.K.

Every large bookstore now has shelves of books devoted to the Linux operating system. My personal knowledge of Linux is limited, making me unqualified to offer informed commentary on the Windows-based LINUX for Dummies, 2nd Edition, particularly for Macintosh users. The author is a genuine expert on Linux, and explains his material clearly and comprehensively. Please let me know when you locate a book which is most appropriate for our Book Bytes audience.

PowerPoint 2000 and 98 for Windows and Macintosh, Visual QuickStart Guide
by Rebecca Bridges Altman
Peachpit Press

ISBN 0-201-35441-1, 319 pages
$17.99 U.S., $26.95 Canada

PowerPoint 2000/98 is robust and versatile. Do you need to upgrade and work with the app? How should I know?! Computer-based presentations are here to stay, which means serious users will have to contend with PowerPoint sooner or later. This book is impressive in its sequential, itemized method of cross-platform instruction. You are advised to put the author’s RECOMMENDED lessons to work before next Monday morning’s presentation!

The Internet for Dummies, 6th Edition
by John R. Levine, Carol Baroudi, and Margaret Levine Young

Dummies Press

ISBN 0-7645-0506-8, 358 pages
$19.99 U.S., $28.99 Canada, £18.99 U.K.

I have been suggesting The Internet for Dummies for several years to total beginners who need a lot of hand-holding. From “What is the Net?” to “My First Home Page,” with chapters on WebTV and AOL, it’s all here, in small doses. The Dummies approach is well-suited to introductory material. Plenty of people are not already Net-savvy, and I continue to RECOMMEND The Internet for Dummies, 6th Edition for them.

Sams Teach Yourself the Internet in 10 Minutes, 2nd Edition
by Galen Grimes

Sams Publishing

ISBN 0-672-31610-2, 178 pages
$12.99 U.S., $19.95 Canada, £10.99 U.K.

Ten minutes, right? Forgetaboutit. This friendly pipsqueak of a book is in the category of “a little knowledge can get you really confused on the Net,” based on my extensive experience. Ironically, the topics are so pared-down that newcomers with fears and phobias will be able to participate at a basic level, but they may soon require more a extensive tutorial companion.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Microsoft Office 2000
by Joe Kraynak
Alpha Books/Que/Macmillan

ISBN 0-7897-1848-0, 330 pages
$16.99 U.S., $25.95 Canada, £15.99 U.K.

Why am I not excited about Office 2000, friends? Does anyone use it by choice, rather than necessity? Talented author Joe Kraynak has cleverly reduced the behemoth from Redmond into an approachable task-based software suite. Ordinary newbies and “complete idiots” will appreciate his content and style. When your neighbors are having difficulty with Office 2000 on Thanksgiving Day, first tell them to get an iMac loaded with AppleWorks, then suggest in the meantime they buy, read, and use The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Microsoft Office 2000. RECOMMENDED for beginners.

Dreamweaver 2 for Windows and Macintosh, Visual QuickStart Guide
by J. Tarin Towers

Peachpit Press

ISBN 0-201-35435-7, 384 pages
$19.99 U.S., $29.95 Canada

I scoured the neighborhood for anyone familiar with Dreamweaver, an impressive WYSIWYG visual editing tool for web designers. No luck. That leaves me with the formidable task of determining if this book is a good choice. Dreamweaver 2 for Windows and Macintosh is loaded with valuable tips and techniques, and appears to be tremendously helpful on every feature. On a page-per-dollar basis, this title has exceptional value and quality.

•John Nemerovski•

Websites mentioned:

Hewlett-Packard Official Printer Handbook
by Mark L. Chambers
IDG Books Worldwide

ISBN 0-7645-3289-8, 377 pages
$19.99 U.S., $29.99 Canada, £18.99 U.K.

The funny thing about this new book is that it’s unique, meaning I’m not aware of any comparable books on the subject of printers. Considering how much time, effort, and expense our printers require, and how little thought we give to them most of the time, the Hewlett-Packard Official Printer Handbook should find a welcome spot on the bookshelves of people who need a handy reference work, or guidance with their printer hardware.

You would think such a book is going to be dull, and you are wrong. Mark Chambers’ writing is both enjoyable and informative. He offers facts and opinions, based on personal knowledge and the resources of the H-P company.

Did you ever call Hewlett-Packard for telephone tech support? I have, with some success, but I would have been well-served by the 50+ pages in Appendix A: “Hewlett-Packard Tech Support’s Frequently Asked Questions.” If you find the answer to your printer problem here, it may be worth the entire cost of the book.

In contrast to our normal thorough approach in Book Bytes, I want to “leave you wanting more” info on Hewlett-Packard Official Printer Handbook. Whether you are planning a purchase or need reliable facts and figures on printers (ink jet, laser, or all-in-one units), this book is twenty bucks well spent. RECOMMENDED.

Mark Chambers comments, via email:

When IDG first contacted me about the project, I spent a few minutes researching the competing titles, and ended up very surprised that there really were no beginner-to-intermediate books that took a comprehensive look at selecting, installing, using and maintaining a printer. Now there is!

You can bet I’ll be checking Book Bytes, and my friends and family will add to your hit count.

 
 
Real World Digital Photography:
Industrial-Strength Techniques
by Deke McClelland

and Katrin Eismann

Peachpit Press

ISBN 0-201-35402-0, 403 pages
$44.99 U.S., $67.50 Canada

One of the few genuine perks in being a Book Bytes reviewer is receiving a new title that is both outstanding in content and visually stunning. Over the years, Peachpit Press has taken a commanding lead in books of this type. Deke McClelland, the undisputed champion author on digital creativity, again teams up with Katrin Eismann, and we are the beneficiaries.

What is the fair market value of a high-quality professional computer book? Fifty dollars, more or less? When artists and designers are at work, they are using hardware and software worth thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. A given project can be valued at even a higher amount. At what point does the creative pro decide to buy an expensive new workbook?

Once the prized purchase is in the studio or office of the artist/designer, how many users actually plow through the lessons, or at least refer to the tutorials?

I think about these ideas all the time. Am I alone? Are you talented readers on the same wavelength?

Real World Digital Photography follows in the celebrated path of Deke and Katrin’s previous books, particularly since the release of Photoshop 5.

I have a personal interest in the future of digital photography, having been involved in photography for fun and profit for over 30 years. I decided that I will “retire” from teaching photography when more students come to class with digital cameras than with conventional film cameras. Time will tell.

The book begins with a basic unit on camera selection and operation, loaded with explanatory terminology and greyscale photos. Deke and Katrin then ease readers into a discussion of pixels and image formats. Next comes a more thorough series of chapters on making the working digital camera experience as productive as possible. The authors realize that exciting improvements and price reductions are happening on a daily basis, and provide web URLs to help readers stay current with the latest and greatest.

At some point they simply had to grit their collective digital teeth and address “Mac versus Windows: Which OS Is Better?” Can you guess? Hint: turn to page 144.

Deeper and deeper we delve into successful photographic techniques (for once, in a Deke book, something I actually understand), before getting into the sexy stuff, such as “Immersive Imaging and QuickTime VR.” You guessed what comes next: working with Photoshop, and printed output. Never a dull moment, right Katrin and Deke? Final chapters cover Web imagery, plus cataloging and archiving your photos.

Attractive groupings of color plates appear after every few chapters, in four color-coded clusters for easy location. The physical book is printed on high-quality glossy paper stock, enhancing all the illustrations and text.

I’m not sure this book has any competition, making it straightforward to RECOMMEND Real World Digital Photography for serious computer-using photographers.

 
 
Adobe GoLive 4.0: Classroom in a Book
by “The Staff of Adobe”
Adobe Books / Peachpit Press

ISBN 0-201-65889-5, 318 pages plus CD
$40.00 U.S., $60 Canada, £37.50 U.K.

Adobe has goosed its “new” GoLive web page creation application up to version 4.0, and quickly produced this title as an aftermarket workbook. The classroom approach blends lessons in print with corresponding electronic files on the disk. The book is not meant to replace the User Guide that comes with the software purchase, or supplementary updaters on the company website.

The production quality of the physical book is high, using heavy, glossy paper stock, with ample margin space for reader scribbling. Pages contains helpful and well-structured screen shots, which must have taken hundreds of hours to produce.

Each of the eight chapters is lengthy, consisting of consecutive tutorials. There are review questions and answers at the end of every chapter. The course material remains uniform, carrying a specific web page project from concept to completion, step by detailed step. Chapter titles are simple (“Laying Out Web Pages,” “Links,” or “Animation”), yet the content is extensive.

Lesson Seven is heavy-duty: “Using Cascading Style Sheets,” and I can really use some help in this department! The book concludes with a vital unit on site management.

How much time and money is it worth to learn GoLive correctly out of the box? If $40 seems reasonable, then we can agree to RECOMMEND Adobe GoLive 4.0: Classroom in a Book.

 
 
Windows for Mac Users:
The Macintosh-to-Windows Guide
by Cynthia L. Baron and Robin Williams
Peachpit Press

ISBN 0-201-35396-2, 421 pages
$19.99 U.S., $29.95 Canada

Here’s an intriguing idea: make it easy for Mac people to use Windows. Why didn’t somebody think this one up previously? The authors encourage readers to “jump in, learn the dumb thing, and move forward empowered!”

Let’s get serious, okay? Windows for Mac Users prepares us physically and mentally to “do Windows,” starting with choices of Macintosh hardware and software for running Windows on a Mac. Every page of text has an outside column containing valuable terminology and tips, in bold type. Thanks, Robin and Cyndi.

Next come the basics of the Windows platform, and how it’s both similar and different from the Mac universe. If you ever wondered how to operate “the amazing two-headed mouse,” you will find the answer, beginning on page 84.

I was uninformed on how to use the Taskbar and Start Menu, until I studied chapter eight in Windows for Mac Users. Throughout the book, the writing and tutorial chores are clearly written and illustrated. The sections on display settings and control panels are particularly helpful.

Chapter 14 is clever, entitled “Mac Desk Accessories a la Windows.” The authors work their way through each well-known Mac item, such as Stickies or the Chooser, then patiently describe its Windows counterpart. A little later comes a chapter on file transfers, with special emphasis on correct creation and naming of Mac-to-Win files.

To conclude, in Chapter 28, a troubleshooting unit covers loads of essential techniques to try when all else fails, plus plain old common sense: backing up, defragmenting, and similar procedures. Overall, this book has outstanding content at exceptional value. When Windows is a necessity, the time you spend with Windows for Mac Users: The Macintosh-to Windows Guide will be much less than you would need to figure out what to do (and what not to do!) on your own. RECOMMENDED.

 
 
The Ultimate iMac Book
by Dan Parks Sydow
MacCentral Press


ISBN 096670260-3, 344 pages
$17.95 U.S.

The race is on, and at the last count there are nine competing books on the mighty iMac, including this new title. If Book Bytes has overlooked any other ones, let me know right away.

My source at MacCentral tells me that this is the first book with their imprint, with hopes for future titles. They certainly have a high-visibility website, so the potential may soon lead to a reality.

The author begins at the beginning, patiently and thoroughly explaining newbie hardware and software terminology, including plenty of essential operating system stuff. Gigantic screen shots make the learning experience visually accessible.

URLs are liberally sprinkled throughout, and are printed in legible Courier font, for easy recognition in contrast to the primary text font. The Internet features prominently in The Ultimate iMac Book, again with the fundamentals getting most of the content.

Ambitious readers can learn about “Creating Your Own Web Page” in the extensive Chapter Eight, before wrestling with USB and peripherals in the following chapters. Sydow offers a well-presented section on “Networking With Other Macs,” knowing that many iMac owners already have an older computer.

The final chapters have discussions on maintaining, upgrading, and playing games with your colorful new iMac, plus several pages of suggested websites for pleasure and information.

Overall, it is a good book. I hope MacCentral sells enough copies of The Ultimate iMac Book to subsidize their next item. Book Bytes RECOMMENDS this title for total newcomers to the iMac.

 
 
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to
A Career in Computer Programming
by Jesse Liberty

Alpha/Que/Macmillan

ISBN 0-7897-1995-9, 282 pages
$16.99 U.S., $25.95 Canada, £15.99 U.K.

What I don’t know about computer programming would fill a much larger book than this one. Let’s see if I can become inspired.

If the first chapter, “Market Opportunity,” is any indicator, the author is an experienced, thoughtful writer. He explains the realistic possibilities of a career in programming, including some obstacles.

Both self-study and formal education can be used to learn one or more programming language. Jesse Liberty presumes readers will be writing for Windows, but many of his suggestions are cross-platform. You can learn to program either/both for applications or the Internet, but usually one at a time.

As we proceed deeper into The Complete Idiot’s Guide to A Career in Computer Programming, the techie terminology becomes more strenuous, so be patient as you push on. I became mired on page 113, finding myself reading, for the 99th time, the section on “Execution Falling Through the switch Statement.” Sorry, but I’ll need more time to finish this book!

Skipping ahead to lucky Chapter 13, “Looking for Work,” readers can take a self-evaluation test to determine how to delve into the profession. The book concludes with additional real-world work suggestions, plus a helpful reading list and section on binary math.

If I were 21 and not 51, my enthusiasm for this exciting and expanding field would be greater. Does anyone know how to reset my clock back 30 years? Younger, more energetic readers should take a long, hard look at The Complete Idiot’s Guide to A Career in Computer Programming before deciding on a lifetime occupation.

 
 
OpenSources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution

Edited by Chris DiBona, Sam Ockman, and Mark Stone
O’Reilly and Associates

ISBN 1-56592-582-3, 272 pages
$24.95 U.S., $36.95 Canada

I’ll spare you a detailed review of this ground-breaking book, because the entire content has been “open sourced” at the long URL just under the title, a few lines above here. See for yourself.

Do you get as annoyed as I do when someone says “If you have never heard about blahblahblah you must have been living in a cave during the last XYZ years?” In this case, the topic under discussion is the open source movement, spearheaded by many of the contributors to OpenSources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution.

Open sourcing refers to software developers allowing other people free access to enhance the original code, for ultimate benefit to the entire user community. The most famous example of this practice is with LINUX, a heavy-duty free operating system initially based on the UNIX-OS.

Before our non-review becomes really tedious, I’ll mention that this book is geared to people who are comfortable thinking and talking about computer programming and its economic/political consequences. Early chapters provide historical perspective, before the writers begin to discuss “microkernels” or the “GNU General Public License.”

Much of the geeky material is way beyond me, but I am drawn to OpenSources by the pervasive, radical power of the concept of free software. Reading the book (in print or on the web) as a non-programmer with a sense of history and an ear aimed into the future, I can pick and choose from among the paragraphs, and feel some degree of participation in the process.

If the names Larry Wall, Linus Torvalds, Tim O’Reilly, and their visionary colleagues don’t mean anything to you, spend a few minutes or hours learning about the revolution, because it will affect you, positively, sooner rather than later.

 
 
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum:
Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy
and How to Restore the Sanity
by Alan Cooper

Sams Publishing

ISBN 0-672-31649-8, 261 pages
$25.00 U.S., $37.95 Canada, £22.95 U.K.

In content and style, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum is aimed toward the “technology-savvy businessperson,” which includes many of you Book Bytes readers. Beginning with a description of the bizarre ways in which computers have invaded the infrastructure of our lives, the author segues into his chosen field: software design and implementation.

Cooper and I think alike, when he writes that the international computer experience has led to an “apartheid” of economic and cultural proportions. Hear, hear! By page 52, we’re treated to “The Hidden Costs of Bad Software,” and our eyes are opened to the harsh realities of good/bad programming.

The author is a lateral-thinker more than a naysayer. He encompasses computer-related issues from several perspectives. Then he zeros in on their practical consequences, such as “customer disloyalty,” “an obsolete culture,” and his final major section on software design for power and/or pleasure.

I’m not going to pretend I have studied The Inmates Are Running the Asylum in depth yet, but I will do so sooner rather than later. The text is not exactly vacation reading, but should be on the nightstand of tens of thousands of clear-headed managers and executives. They ignore Cooper’s message at their peril.

•John Nemerovski•

Websites mentioned:

The year 2000 computer bug. Commonly referred to as Y2K, the year 2000 problem, the millennium bug or just plain ol’ Oops! We all have a pretty good idea what it is and what kind potential it has for wreaking havoc upon humanity. But aren’t you getting tired of listening to all the hype associated with this little bugger? It wouldn’t be so bad if everyone agreed on just what exactly will happen at midnight on Dec. 31st, 1999, but nobody does. Ask ten different computer experts what’s going to happen and you’ll get ten different answers ranging from, “Not much,” to, “It’s hard to say” to “The total breakdown of civilization as we know it.”

With such wide ranging possibilities lurking over the horizon, I’ve concluded that no one really knows what the hell’s gonna happen in January, at least not when talking about our banking institutions, power plant companies, sewage treatment plants, transportation and distribution industries, satellite and communications, nuclear missile launch sites, etc., so I’ve decided to leave the discussion of those dry, unimportant topics to the experts and focus my energies on things that really matter to all of us.

I’ve done extensive research on the compliancy issues of Y2K on a number of items that I feel the ‘experts’ have overlooked and I’m happy to share my findings with you, my dear reader. I think it’s safe to say that nowhere else on earth will you find the following information:

September and the kids are headed back to school. Was it only a year ago that the iMac was a little bondi-blue novelty, just beginning to pop up in a few classrooms? I managed to finagle an invitation to an inservice that first week of September ’98 at an alternative high school which had ordered several iMacs for the kids. My own school, due for an update in 2003, had to scrape along with a mix of LCs and Apple IIs. And when it comes time to update, it’s almost certain to be PC-based. Information Technology in Topeka no longer speaks Mac.

The inservice was fun, even if I wasn’t due for a new computer. They gave away T-shirts and software. There were videos and speakers. There was even an iMac, the first one most of us had seen. But there was also a lot of confusion, not to say, misinformation. The printer wouldn’t print. Some software wouldn’t load. And when teachers asked how they were to transfer their files, they were assured, by the Apple reps, that Imation’s drive was ready and on the market.

It wouldn’t be actually be available until at least a month after school had begun and that didn’t include waiting-in-line time. With no way to move files, no networking in place and no way to install the school reading program, there was more anxiety than rejoicing last fall.

Worse, the teachers badly needed ‘At Ease’ to keep sticky fingers out of the works, especially as this was a school serving Topeka’s most disturbed middle and high schoolers. I put out an SOS to other educators on the Net, hoping one of my online friends would have found a solution. But it was all too new. Not only was there no floppy drive to transfer the old protection, there was considerable doubt that the current software would work with the iMac’s System 8.1.

Apple’s tech support was clueless. Useless. Inept, incompetent, and uninterested. The teachers were told to download ‘At Ease’ from the Internet. But the school had no Internet as yet. Then they were told to download to another computer and Zip it over. But remember, there were no USB Zips at that time. Or much of anything else. Apple did, at last, mail out some hard copies. For the iMac. On floppies!!! When the school protested that was not a workable solution as they had, ahem, floppiless iMacs, they were told “Sorry. No return. The software has been opened!”

Fortunately persistence, and the ingenuity of the average Mac lover, came to the fore. The Principal eventually found someone with a CD burner to make a CD with ‘At Ease’ and a few other vital files. As I understand it, things were beginning to fall into place sometime in January.

How different it is this year. I got a phone call yesterday from the husband of a second grade teacher in a small school south of Topeka. Joy and excitement! The office was piled with a rainbow of boxes; each teacher would sport an iMac on her desk this year. They were apparently doled out with no choice as to color–bet there is a fair amount of trading going on after hours–but she was thrilled to have drawn a lime green for her class.

The students were not forgotten. Although the class iMac will sit on each teacher’s desk, the computer lab has 25 lollipops ranged around the room in strawberry, grape, lime, tangerine and blueberry. Kansas State kids can fight over the purple. Don’t know what the KU kids will make of strawberry. But the first day of school will knock their socks off.

The only problem, according to the teacher’s husband, a pretty computer-savvy guy, was that the old classroom ImageWriters did not seem to fit any of the ports on the back of the spiffy new iMac. Well, no. And there was no sign of stacks of printers to accompany the wealth of new computers. On the other hand, it appeared that the whole school was being networked, which probably meant a central printer somewhere about. With an abundance of Zips and other USB equipment now available, this year should get off to a pretty good start.

I do hope they manage to install several printers per building as the excitement of using all those new iMacs could result in a serious backup in the printer department. Shades of ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same.’

Twenty years ago, teachers spent every spare moment in line for the old crank Ditto machine, which later gave way to camping out after hours for the Xerox. (Tempers were known to flair when someone jumped the line.) Each new advance has led to an outpouring in teacher creativity, which has led to a paper shortage, which, in turn, has panicked the administration to cut off paper supplies about Easter.

They never learn. The heads downtown measure success in major equipment purchases. But those same heads seem oblivious to the need to plan for actually using the new stuff for educational purposes. Buying into technology looks good on paper. Makes a district look modern. Makes administrators feel important. But supplies? Kids? Teachers? A drag on the budget.

It’s not just parsimony, however. Some of it is simple dunderheadedness. One of the district’s most enthusiastic computer users, a preschool teacher who designs personalized materials and projects for her children and constantly attends computer workshops on her own time, was lamenting last year that new all-in-one Macs sat unused in some classrooms while she was stuck with an ancient LCII. Surely, I said, they can see that you really need a new computer. And would make such good use of it.

“No,” she said. “All they know downtown is that a computer is a computer. And there’s already a computer on my inventory. They don’t have a clue what to do with them once they are in the classroom. Maybe that’s why they never order us any software.”

This year the long awaited computerized IEPs have arrived for all the teachers in Special Education. What a saving in time and effort! The problem? The Special Ed classes run solely on Macs, many of them years old. But downtown is big on IBM. So all those new IEPs are done in Microsoft Word–which not only isn’t available to the special ed teachers, it won’t run on those old LCs.Those that can, teach. Those that can’t, administrate.

So if your kids are lucky enough to find a rainbow-colored autumn when they head back to school, you might want to check that there will be sufficient resources for them to make full use of the new equipment. On the other hand, an administration smart enough to choose Macs over PCs, in spite of the current pressure to make Microsofties of us all, just might be smart enough to do it right.

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

This month My Mac Magazine is proud to present an interview done with Jef Raskin, considered by many Mac enthusiasts to be the father of the Mac. He took some time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions presented by both Tim and Russ. So, sit back, relax and learn a little bit about someone involved with the Macintosh from the very beginning.

My Mac: The Mac has changed much since your original model. What do you like and dislike in the Mac now?

Jef: Like everybody else, I appreciate the increased power and speed of the newer models. However, they have become increasingly complex and difficult to understand and use. I just got a new PowerBook and it took me four days before I got it running. If it really will run over four hours on one battery pack, I’ll like that, too.

Here’s the note that I have up over the computer to remind me how to turn it on. If I do not follow this sequence either the peripherals won’t work or the computer will crash:

To Turn On This Computer:
1. Make sure that iMate USB-to-ADB adapter is attached to upper USB port in back of computer.
2. Make sure that nothing is attached to the iMate adapter.
3. Make sure that the printer is not plugged into the other USB port.
4. Boot. Wait for full boot up.
5. Attach dongle and keyboard interface box to iMate. Keyboard, trackpad, and dongle should now operate.
6. Attach Epson USB printer cable. Printer should now operate

USB is a fine idea, but it is still not ready for prime time. If it wasn’t for the fact that my son is trying to write a USB driver for a motion simulator we are building (you sit on a chair in a box and the box moves like a flight simulator as you watch an image on the display, sort of like a home version of Disneyland’s Star Tours), and if we didn’t have the USB debugging tools, we probably would not have been able to figure it out. If we had not been hardware/software hackers (in the good sense) it would have been even more frustrating. If you happen to need lots of USB devices, this is not “the computer for the rest of us.” We had similar problems with his G3 tower, which still doesn’t work with his printer.

My Mac: What would you like to see done with the Mac to improve it?

Jef: Answering this question gets you the real answer to question 1: The Mac interface has become too complex and is far too hard to use. I designed the Mac as hardware and software built around a clean interface design, but that happened 20 years ago and we know a lot more about interface design now. For example, the desktop is a useless waste of time (you don’t get your work done there!) and the gradual accretion of interface widgets has turned the Mac into a kludge.

I just finished writing a book on how it could be fixed. The book’s title is “The Humane Interface.” It’s to be published (by Addison Wesley) late this year or early in the next millennium.

Some of my ideas in this regard are on the website that friends put up for me: http://www.cfcl.com/jef

My Mac: If you could go back in time, what changes would you make to the Mac at the beginning?

Jef: You can’t go back, but in retrospect it might have helped if I had stayed and fought for my bus extension port that was part of the original Mac; I knew that we’d need expandability. While developing the Mac, I tried to convince Apple to get its customers onto the Internet (then the ARPA net), and failed. Perhaps I should have pushed harder.

My Mac: What do you think the future holds for computing?

Jef: There’s no room here for the book length answer this question requires.

My Mac: What changes do you think Apple needs to make to improve their share of the market?

Jef: A good interface would help.

My Mac: Are USB and FireWire the way of the future in computing or is there something better in the works?

Jef: As said earlier, USB is peculiar. I haven’t used FireWire, but the specs sound great. USB sounded great until I tried using it. I have always advocated hot-swappable electronic connectors; it is good to see that happening. But human factors were ignored. For example, the USB plug is barely asymmetrical, unless you look carefully, you try to plug it in upside down; true, it doesn’t fit the wrong way, but you have just wasted some time.

It would have been better to make it more obviously asymmetrical or, better still, design it so that it works however it is plugged in. If the connectors were also hermaphroditic, then it wouldn’t matter which end was plugged in and any cables could be used to connect two units or as extenders. This, too, is discussed in my book.

My Mac: Much has been said lately of the coming changes to the OS in Mac OS X. Are these changes necessary in your mind? Do they need to be done or are they still not enough?

Jef: They are very much in the wrong direction. Here’s my definition of an operating system: what you get to hassle with before you can hassle with the applications.

Operating systems should be like the pistons in your car engine, you never have to see them or touch them.

My Mac: In your mind’s eye, do you see yourself as a writer, engineer, or something else?

Jef: I prefer to think of myself as something else.

My Mac: Looking back, what was your greatest professional achievement?

Jef: My current work showing how interface efficiency can be quantified, making interface design a bit more of an engineering task than a religious debate, is pretty spiffy. Convincing Apple that it was better interfaces and not better hardware that it needed to stay alive after the Apple II, and creating and leading the Macintosh project to implement that insight are wonderful credentials to have in my résumé. The far better interface I created for the Canon Cat makes the Mac look dopey. And the stuff I’m doing now is spiffier still.

As far as I know, I was the first to introduce musical performances with slides showing lyrics in translation when I was a conductor. The idea is now widely used. I am also properly credited with revolutionizing the way some model airplanes are now built (the foam-and-tape concept) and I manufactured the first model plane to use computer-aided design back in 1973.

My Mac: I assume you saw the TNT movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley” The movie made it seem that Macintosh was Steve Jobs’ idea, which is not true. As the man who created the Macintosh, does this bother you? And what did you think of the movie as a whole? Accurate or mostly fiction?

Jef: Your assumption is wrong. I did not see it. I can’t get cable in the “rural” setting where I live (five miles south of San Francisco is just too far out, they tell me). Like many of the books written about Apple’s history, the movie was fiction. I’m told that the movie was billed as fiction, the books tried to pass themselves off as history. However, two recent books, Malone’s “Infinite Loop” and Linzmayer’s excellent “Apple Confidential” (Linzmayer’s book is recommended reading for any Mac fan), get the Mac story pretty much correct.

Speaking of TV, if you stole our family TV, we might not notice for few days. Sometimes I don’t watch it for weeks (OK, I did watch Star Trek last night while cooking and eating dinner). There are so many more interesting and rewarding things to do. I do spend an hour a day practicing piano or organ. I just put in a pipe organ, and Bach and Buxtehude call to me more loudly than any TV show. The kids have their practicing and homework, and in the summer we do great projects together. My wife is extremely busy with her own professional work.

As for credit, yes I am upset when the creation of the Mac is attributed to Jobs. It’s sloppy reporting. On the other hand, Jobs’ role in bringing the Mac out was also crucial, as were the contributions of hundreds, indeed, thousands of others at Apple and elsewhere. What would the Mac be without third-party software and peripherals? And who among us Mac-aficionados has not applauded Jobs’ recent rescue of an Apple Computer that was nearly dead?

My Mac: You have a passion for model remote controlled airplanes. Where does that passion come from?

Jef: How we get our passions, choose our vocations and avocations, and why we ride our hobby horses so avidly is not understood. Maybe it was the airplanes my father put up on the ceiling of my room when I was an infant. Maybe it was the human urge to fly. I love the mix of aerodynamics, building, and getting out to field or cliff and flying, but I can’t say why. Your question is a nice research topic for psychology. I haven’t a clue.

My Mac: Looking at your Curriculum Vitae, you have done everything! What do you most regret not doing?

Jef: I have not done everything. For example, I have no accomplishments in sports at all, I never got beyond local time trials in bicycle racing, any decent club player can beat me at table tennis, I’ve never even played touch football much less the real thing, and I can’t skate (just for starters). If I go to a library, it is full of books that contain immense amounts of knowledge I know little or nothing about; though born on the same day and in the same city as Bobby Fischer, I am terrible at chess. I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody over the age of 8 or so from whom I could not learn something. I believe that anybody can participate in at least as wide a spectrum of human activities as I do. You have to give yourself permission, be willing to be a beginner when striking out into new areas, and to take risks. If you’re lucky, as I have been, it can work out well. If not, the trip is still worth the price of admission.

My Mac: Thank you for spending some time with us.

Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com
Russ Walkowich
editor@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.cfcl.com/jef

Trilogy \Tril”o*gy\, n. [Gr. trilogi`a; pref. tri- (see Tri-) + lo`gos speech, discourse: cf. F. trilogie.] A series of three dramas which, although each of them is in one sense complete, have a close mutual relation, and form one historical and poetical picture.

In the March 1999 issue of My Mac Magazine,Pete Miner claimed that the real cause for the rapid advancement in computers and technology these past 50 years was not due to human ingenuity and perserverance, but rather was a mysterious “gift” from an alien race called the “Zar-ron.”

Tim RobertsonandRuss Walkowich enjoyed Pete’s storyline so much that they didn’t want to see it end, so it wasn’t long before they decided to pick up where Pete left off.

By:Tim Robertson
Publisher, My Mac Magazine
publisher@mymac.com

Part Four

She stood just inside the darkened hallway by the door, looking into the smoky interior. While she was far from inconspicuous, her penetrating stares at those who paid her more than a passing glance was usually sufficient to dissuade the curious. She was here for a purpose, one that she was not at all looking forward to.

“Help ya with something, missy?” the bartender asked from behind the mahogany bar. He was a short, skinny fellow with a few tufts of white ungainly hair, which seemed to poke straight up toward the ceiling fan. In his left hand he held a dirty rag which he was using to ‘clean’ the bar top.

“No, thank you.” She replied, once more scanning the room. She was right on time for this meeting, and he should be here. She walked carefully towards the back of the room, her eyes carefully scanning everyone and everything. Her eyes did not miss any details. Here, a woman at least one hundred pounds overweight. There, an older man apparently asleep at the bar, his head inches from his shoulder. The head of a dead animal above the male rest room: an elk, if she was not mistaken. Why was the decapitated and severed head of an animal a prized trophy, when these same humans would bring other animals to their homes and treat them as family members? A strange and curious species, these humans.

“Have a seat” a voice commanded from her left. She counted to three before turning toward the voice. The man sitting there was a non-descript human male. His voice was soft, eyes a plain brown, hair short, and olive drab skin color. Unremarkable in every respect. Not at all threatening in appearance. “Excuse me?” she replied, lifting on eyebrow. Her left hand moved on its own accord, touching the hidden slap-blaster behind her back. Her legs automatically moved to a fighter’s stance. Only another experienced warrior or assassin would notice the change in her.

“No need for that, Captain.” he said, bringing a glass of liquid (beer?) to his lips and drinking slowly. He did not look directly at her. “Again, please have a seat so that we may converse more comfortably.”

She sat opposite him, but still facing the rest of the bar patrons. It was then that she realized that he had not spoken in English, the language native to this part of Earth, but Russian, a country on the other side of the globe. “I was ordered here by you?” she asked, feeling the warmth of the fully charged slap-blaster against the small of her back. It was comforting. Of course, the black sweater was bulky and no one would suspect the weapon was even there, but this man had known. He had also recognized her warrior stance for what it was, meaning that he was as well trained as she was. Who was he?

“Your tracking is going well, no?” he asked as he sat his drink on the table between them. “No problems locating the writer?” His voice was still pleasant, his demeanor relaxed, but his eyes were in constant motion.

“No problems” she lied, wondering how much he already knew or suspected. She had been on the trail of Miner for a week now, and was no closer to locating him now than when she had left Washington. It was very frustrating, and her patience was wearing thin.

His eyes stopped their sweep of the room and focused intently on her. “No problems?” his voice just above a whisper, “Really now, Captain, I would hope we could have an honest and open relationship here. Starting out with falsehoods is not the way to accomplish that objective.” Once more, his eyes started to take in the surroundings. She remained silent, also taking in the room. The over weight woman, about forty years of age she would estimate, had gotten up and gone to the bathroom. The bartender was watching a sporting event on the television. Another man, sitting alone by the front door, was not there when she had entered. He was not looking at her, but she sensed he was watching her every move.

“A necessary precaution, I am afraid, for a man in my position,” he remarked, following her gaze, “which I am sure you can understand.”

“I was ordered to be here to meet with another operative. I assume that is you. Now what is it you want?”

“I know all about the breach, Captain, and I’m understandably worried. You have reported no progress in a week. You have yet to call for help. We simply cannot have our agents running independent operations that may jeopardize our objectives, not even on a backwater planet like this,” he said, his eyes once more focused on her.

She had finished her survey of the room, and could find no one else besides the man by the door to worry her. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Ivan will do for now, Captain” he said, reaching again for his drink. “You have acquired the target, yes or no?” She then noticed that he wore something on his wrist. To humans, it would appear to be a simple bracelet. To her, it signified rank. Another Captain, like herself.

“No” she replied, meeting his eyes. He smiled, sat back in his chair, and crossed one leg over the other. His brown pants were new, the crease perfectly straight. His shoes were a dark brown, supple leather, something a bureaucrat might wear, she thought. “The writer is also an over-the-road transportation specialist, and his whereabouts are unknown at this time. I had a very good track when I was interrupted to meet here. I hope this meeting will prove worthy of the disruption of my mission, comrade.” The last she spoke with distaste.

“We are thinking of calling in a termination squad and be done with this problem,” he said, his eyes again sweeping the room. He may dress and speak as a bureaucrat, but his eyes were those of a killer. So were hers.

“That would be foolish at this point,” she replied, moving her body slightly so she could see both Ivan and the man by the door. Ivan leveled his gaze on her once more, leaning forward. “Foolishness is not calling for assistance when your own ineptitude is risking our security.” He said, switching to earth English when he spoke. The man by the door moved then, but not of his own accord. He pitched forward, his body limp. A fountain of red erupted from his shattered skull. The shot which had killed him had come from outside, she could tell from the bloom of his destroyed skull. She was in motion already, diving left and away from the table. Ivan dove down and to the right. Her right hand had already pulled the slap-blaster from behind her back, and she squeezed off two quick rounds out the open door. No return shots were fired.

“You were followed!” Ivan screamed from his position on the floor across from her. The other bar patrons were confused. Some dropped down to the floor, covering their heads with their arms. Others had half-risen from their seats, confused and uncertain on what to do. The bartender, she saw, was nowhere in sight, though she could hear him talking frantically to (undoubtedly) the police.

“No,” she said, scanning the doorway, roof, and all other avenues of possible attack. “I was not. Did you see where the kill shot came from?”

“No. Whoever it was would have had to open the door, but I didn’t see either the door open or anyone come in,” Ivan said, pulling his pant leg up to removed a slap-blaster similar to her own from an ankle holster. “Options?” he asked.

She did not answer, but rather rolled further away from their now overturned table. She slid to a crouch, leveling the blaster at the door, and slowing moving her hand back and forth across the room. The humans had started making a mass exodus to the front door to get out of the building, and her view of the outside was blocked. The bar had no windows and a drop ceiling. Good, no one would come though either of those ways. That left the back door.

“Stay here and cover the front, I will go around back” she ordered, moving to a door back by the bathroom. She went through the door low, her arms tracking back and forth. Nothing. No one. Foodstuff, empty bottles of beer, stale cigarette smell mixed with stale beer smells, but not much else. The back door had no glass, and was locked from the inside.

Turning back to the front, she heard a high pitched whine, a thousand bumblebees in intensity, and the small hairs on her arm and neck stood up. “Skimmer!” she yelled out a warning to Ivan, turned back around, put a blaster shot through the rear door, and plunged outside. She was flung twenty or thirty feet in the air as soon as she was outside, the concussion from the bar exploding behind her. She hit something hard, her sight dimmed… blackness.

She tried to open her eyes. Bright light. Sirens in the distance, coming closer. Voices far off. Pain in her neck and left arm. Possible broken ribs. Dizziness. More blackness. Now gray. A male voice, above her. One eye open, a black, cheap shoe before her face on the cracked pavement.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” the familiar voice asked. “Nice to see you again, Jade.” She tried to rise, get some weight under her, but she was too dizzy, too weak. Where was her slap-blaster? She groaned, blinked back the dizziness. Tried to put the voice above her with a face. Nothing, she was too far out of it. The void of healing, of a deep dark sleep was pulling her down. Gravity around her body was too strong.

“No,” the voice called from far off. “Don’t try to get up, Jade. You’re too banged up. But don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. I’ll get you cleaned up, and then you can tell us everything you know about Mr. Miner.”

She could fight the darkness no longer, and oblivion was there. Her last thought before going under was a memory of the voice above her in another time and place. The voice had a gun, and sharp pain in her left side. Yes, the owner of that voice had tried to kill her. But her memory also told her she had killed that man, the man who was not a man.

“Sleep now, Jade.” His voice said, and then darkness.

To be continued…

Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com

Back in the mid-1980s, I would regularly make my own cassette tapes to listen to in my car. Back then, CD-players were still very new, and I didn’t know anyone who actually had a car CD-player. If you wanted to make your own compilations, cassette tapes were it.

I owned a few CDs, but I mostly bought cassettes of all the new albums. If it was something I wanted to own “forever,” I would buy a CD and buy a blank tape so I could jam to it in my car. In fact, thinking back, my first CD was Def Leppard’s “Pyromania.” I also had the actual cassette, but after listening to it a thousand times, it was getting worn out. So with the CD and a tape recorder, I would always have a “fresh” cassette in my car. If one wore out, like the original, it was only a matter of spending an hour re-recording it again. I also learned that blank cassettes were of a higher quality than the tape in the cassette version of an album. If I recorded from a CD to a high quality blank tape such as a TDK, it sounded much better than the original cassette album tape did.

But compilations were my favorite. I owned a CD-player, three cassette player/recorders, and a mixing board (not like you would see in a recording studio, but one you would find at Radio Shack, with some volume and EQ slide settings). With this setup, I could put songs from any of the hundreds of cassette tapes or CDs I owned–the best songs from each–and make a 90-minute masterpiece. I was my very own K-Tel! (For those in the younger generation, K-Tel did just that, taking songs from different artists and placing them on one album. The only problem with K-Tel, of course, was all the albums they made sucked. Mine were much better). I would take twelve songs for one side of the cassette, mix it so that each song blended into the next with no pauses, and have no extra blank tape at the end. I would also mix in various sounds, such as helicopter noises during a Pink Floyd song, or explosions during a Dokken song. It was all very hi-tech at the time for me.

Now, jump ahead fifteen years. I still own the mixing board (though it is packed away in a box somewhere) but no cassette players. (Actually, I do own a Kenwood cassette player, though I haven’t used it in years now.) Everywhere I listen to music, I have a CD player. The one in my home entertainment system, the CD-player in the Mac, and the Clarion in the Suburban. So the days of making my own compilations are over. NOT!

The Search
I had been following the steady decline of the prices for CD-R players/recorders for a while now. Keeping an eye on the Small Dog price sheet which comes with every issue of My Mac, I finally saw that which I had been waiting for: an affordable CD-R!

I will let you readers know that this column and the next few in upcoming issues of My Mac, which I will continue to write about the ins and outs of using a CD-R, could not have taken place without the help of Small Dog Electronics. Hapy, the owner, and Tom, their advertising specialist, were instrumental in getting me a CD-R to use for the purpose of writing these articles. At first, I only wanted to use a unit without keeping it, and Hapy and Tom obliged me by sending me an evaluation unit for 45 days. As I write this, though, I have decided to send them a check and to keep the unit, I love it that much! So Hapy, Tom, and everyone at Small Dog Electronics: thank you! To most of our readers, you are simply one of the sponsors of this magazine. I wish I could tell our readers how much more Small Dog means to My Mac and to the Macintosh community. Hey, I think I just did!

Anyway, with the help of Small Dog, I embarked upon my quest to capture some of my youth, and make some more of the compilation CDs like the cassettes of old. With no experience, I wasn’t sure how successful I would be. I was also surprised by the lack of information for Macintosh users on the Internet. Where were the articles to help the first time users? Where were the resources for the new iMac user who wants to buy a CD-R and back up his entire hard drive? Where was the step-by-step instructions for Mac users to make an audio CD? With the exception of a few article from Andy Ihnatko at MacCentral (see http://www.maccentral.com/news/9906/22.ihnatko.shtml for Part One) I couldn’t find much more of anything on the subject. And as much as I enjoy reading Andy’s stuff, it was not really the type of article I was looking for on the subject. So why not start from a ground zero perspective and write it myself?

Now, this will not be a review of the various CD-R and CD-RW units. Unlike Macworld, My Mac cannot afford to go out and buy each unit to test. If you want to know if one unit is better than another, you’ll have to do a bit of research on your own. I have only used one, which we will get to later, so please don’t ask me for comparisons with other models. And since I also have only used two software packages to burn CDs, please don’t ask me if another product is better than what I used, because I honestly don’t know!

Definitions
While this article will be spread out in the next few issues, I did want to give you some basics before I leave you this month.

CD
Simply Compact Disc. For the most part, when you think of a CD, you could think of either a music CD or the type of CD your computer uses, a CD-ROM. They are not the same, though.

CD-ROM

This is the disk format of CDs that your computer uses. It stands for Compact Disc Read Only Media. All the games and programs you buy for your Mac now usually come on a CD-ROM. Of course, you do need a CD-ROM player to use a CD-ROM disk. Fear not, though, because all Macs for the past four years came standard with a CD-ROM player.

1x, 2x, 16x, 32x, etc…
You’ll see these numbers on a spec sheet all the time. What do these stand for? Basically, they refer to the speeds of a player, or recorder. If you are looking at a 16x CD-ROM, it means this CD-ROM player will play the disc 16x (x means Times) faster than the first generation CD players. When you’re listening to music CDs, this will have no affect on what you hear. But let’s say you’re installing software from a CD-ROM to your Mac. A 24x CD-ROM will install the software much faster than a 4x CD-ROM player will. Games will load and play faster, too.

CD-R
There are two different CD-R definitions. One refers to the unit that you use to actually make the CDs, while the other refers to the media, the CD itself. A unit, which makes the CDs, is called a Compact Disc Recorder. The media, or the CDs themselves, are called Compact Disc Recordable. Not much chance you will mess this up.

CD-RW
To really confuse you, there is also a CD-RW. This is a relatively new media, and it simply means you can re-record CDs more than once. Don’t ask me the technical aspects of how this is done; though I do plan on researching it more. CD-RW stands for (unit) Compact Disc Recorder Rewritable while the media (the CD itself) stands for Compact Disc Recordable ReWritable.

DVD
No one can seem to make up their minds yet on the REAL definition of what DVD stands for: it is either Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc, depending on whom you ask. I think both work, for as a movie DVD would be better served by Digital Video Disc, while a CD-ROM type of disc would be considered a Digital Versatile Disc. Whatever you want to call it, you can read a great article written by Brian Koponen in My Mac #27 back in July of 1997. http://www.mymac.com/mymac/archives/jul_97/briank.shtml

DVD-RW
While my unit does not do this, soon you will be able to get a unit and media that will use the DVD format. The RW here also means Recordable ReWritable. Most of us think of DVD as the new movie CD and players, which are the same size as regular media CDs but contain an entire movie on it. You can even order a DVD player for your Mac, which will allow you to play DVD, CD-ROM, and music CDs. The advantage of a DVD discs over a CD or CD-ROM is how much information they can hold. A CD and CD-ROM media can hold 650MB. A DVD can hold 4.7GB. Yes, that is a lot more information. I predict that soon DVD will replace the CD and CD-ROM format everywhere, not just in computers but also in home and car audio systems.

On the DVD note, you can also get Zip types of drives and disks which also use the DVD compression method to hold a lot more information. A DVD Zip disk, for instance, may hold 4GB over a 100MB Zip disk.

Disc vs. Disk
Finally (!) there are two different, well, discs. Disc and Disk. A Disc is a CD-type of media, while a Disk is a floppy or Zip-type of media. Same with the player or units which read these types of media. A Floppy Disk and a Compact Disc. See the difference?

Well, next month we’ll delve into Part Two of this series, where we connect and fire up the LaCie CD burner Small Dog Electronics sent me, try out the software which came with the burner (Toast and DirectCD) and see what sort of trouble we can get into. Maybe if we’re lucky, we will actually make our first music CD! We will also explore MP3′s and a few MP3 players!

Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.ktel.com
http://www.smalldog.com
http://www.tdk.com
http://www.lacie.com