Cover by Lonnie Houghton
MyMac Magazine #55, November 1999
MacReading: How Much Is Too Much, or Not Enough?
Have you been to our My Mac chat sessions, on Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time, located at http://www.worldwithoutborders.com We have a direct link from our http://www.mymac.com home page. The moderated conversations are lively and interesting. If you are planning to join in, make sure you are registered in advance, for free, with Java enabled in your browser.
What you will find is a host, a guest, and a bunch of participants. The hour really flies, and you can then take part in an extensive range of other World Without Borders chats.
During one recent session, the group started discussing the current Macintosh e-zines. I asked for some personal recommendations, and two of my colleagues on the magazine provided informed opinions.
Beth Lock, our Babe in Boyland, ranked and rated her favorites:
http://www.mackido.com is one of the first sites I stumbled into. David Every is extremely knowledgeable, and he archives his tutorials very well. He also has some fairly nice humor. His site is easy to navigate. I found his URL from my involvement in World Without Borders. Rated A-1
http://www.everymac.com is a good one, especially their links page. That is where I first found my Macintosh sites many months ago. At that time, they were one of the finest links pages around. Links page rated A-1
http://www.applelinks.com is my personal browser home page. Do I need to rate my home page?
http://www.macopinion.com has excellent commentary. I don’t always agree, but I like the elegance of the writers. Rated A++
http://www.macmarines.com because I never could resist a geek in uniform. G No rating; it’s too embarrassing
http://www.mymac.com Hands down, the best e-zine on the net. I’m not being partial here, of course.
That’s all I read. Oh, I follow the occasional URL that friends send me in email, but these are truly the exceptional Mac sites. Applelinks will lead you to the best of the news each day.
Thanks, Beth.
Before I log onto the Web and look up those URLs, let’s see what Mr. Mac Amalgamation, Bob McCormick, has to say on the subject:
When I got onto the net in ’97, I did some searching and pretty soon I found some rumor sites. MacOS Rumors, Reality, and MacInsider were my favorite rumor sites. Sadly, some of those sites are now either gone or transformed into something else.
I also visited MacHome and MacAddict. MacHome was a bit beneath me, while MacAddict was just too weird. But I tended to read the reviews.
My other favorites were MacWeek, MacWorld, MacInTouch, As the Apple Turns, and whatever I could scare up on MacSurfer.com
Today what do I read? Well, mostly the following, ranked numerically:
MacWeek (7), MacOS Rumors (7.5), AppleInsider (7), As the Apple Turns (8), PowerBook Zone (9.5), and whatever I find interesting on MacSurfer.com (10). For news, I tend to turn to MacCentral (6), AppleLinks (6) and Insanely-Great (5). But not all that often. I don’t find anything usually that original there. I tend to stick with MacSurfer.
I had subscriptions to the print version of MacUser (over my head usually) and MacWorld. I let MacUser lapse, then MacWorld as it just wasn’t very entertaining. But I found the writing to be good. I would usually read it cover to cover. Drooling over the ads for the new CHRP systems, but sadly they were killed.
When I head about My Mac Chats on the World Without Borders site, I started reading My Mac magazine. I thought I had heard of them all. But this was one cool magazine. It was right where I was at, not over my head and not beneath my experience. I had lots to choose from and found it very entertaining. Then Tim asked me to write for it. Wow! A dream come true.
About the only web-only magazine that compares to us, in my opinion, would be MacWeek. And since they killed their plan to offer a PDF download, we seem to stand alone. “1984″ and About this Particular Mac and MacWizards are, I believe, the only ones that offer downloads. Ironically I never did get into those three, so I can’t rate them.
Very interesting, Bob.
As for me, I still consider TidBITS http://www.tidbits.com my first and best choice for well-written and researched articles, and I occasionally go to MacCentral when I want to be current on late breaking events. VersionTracker http://www.versiontracker is indispensable for current software update links, and MacFixIt http://www.macfixit.com is the best-ever troubleshooting URL.
What are YOUR preferred sites for Macintosh views and news?
Rebound: More Informed Commentary from Nemo’s Loyal Readers
Two months ago we devoted the entire Nemo Memo to reader responses, primarily on the subject of John’s infamous “$3,000 iMac.” Let’s pick up the story, with additional correspondence.
Marc thinks I am being unrealistic, and joins the many respondents who insist I should skip the iMac altogether.
Nemo,
I think you’re a little off base, because people that buy the iMac are not going to spend 800 bucks for a printer (they aren’t going to be “tired of inkjets”) and I’m guessing they aren’t going to spend 200 dollars on a keyboard and mouse combo. I recently purchased a blue & white G3 and found a two button mouse with scroll wheel for $20. I don’t know where you shop. I doubt very highly that iMac users are going to be looking for a hub, either.
Personally, I think you would be much happier with a tower. With the integrated Zip (which is extremely fast due to the ATAPI connection versus USB), and the ability to upgrade and have more than one internal hard drive (I have two hard drives already) the tower was the only way to go. The iMac is for the novice who just wants to surf and play. However I think the 64MB of RAM is realistic.
BTW, I have been living happily for 4 months without a floppy. I don’t miss it, period. Floppies are just too slow and unreliable. Everyone that I do business with has a Zip drive.
Final note: how are you going to take this computer with you? You have more things to move than I do! I have a monitor and tower, keyboard, mouse, Jaz, and printer. Pretty simple move.
Enough of my raving. Take it easy, and don’t get me wrong. I am just writing this because I don’t think the majority of iMac users are going to have the same wants and desires as yourself, and if they do they should consider a tower.
Marc
+++++
My new pal Mike, the Cyberbites guy http://www.cyberbites.com, takes a long view, and sees the iMac as part of his overall network, as enumerated below.
Dear John,
I enjoyed meeting you in person. I look forward to seeing your articles on mymac.com. I had forgotten (shame!) My Mac — which I used to read religiously before it was a website, back when it was only distributed as a DOCMaker document. I’m delighted to see it is flourishing and, having just read your last 7 columns, wish to congratulate you on your contributions to My Mac!
(See: http://www.mymac.com/archives/sept_99/memo.shtml, for Mike’s original Cyberbites contribution.)
As a sidenote and in reply to your questions of June ’99 (on the $3k iMac), my partner, Barb, has an iMac. I use a souped up 7500 and we each have an ancient PB180c (hers now a dedicated fax server). The printer and the 7500 are on an AppleTalk/LocalTalk network and the iMac and 7500 are directly connected with a special $20 Ethernet cable (no hub).
Using LocalTalk Bridge and LaserWriter Bridge (freeware from Apple that translates Ethernet to LocalTalk) the iMac prints just fine on our older DataProducts laser printer through the 7500. The PBs, while not in direct communication with the 7500 (Ethernet/LocalTalk is either/or), are able to use the printer directly at any time without additional setup as they are part of the printer’s LocalTalk network.
Floppy drive? — the 7500 has one. Read or write floppy disk on the 7500, transfer to iMac via Ethernet (wicked fast) — we thought we’d need this a lot more than we do — we use it maybe twice a month.
Backup? — onto an APS DAT drive via the Ethernet network using Retrospect 4.x ( and *not* the network/client version method — just define the iMac’s HD as one of the volumes to backup from the 7500 and set a schedule).
Zip Drive? — 7500 has a SCSI Zip Drive — open iMac HD on 7500 desktop via Ethernet, drag files/folders from iMac onto icon of Zip disk mounted on 7500 — did I mention file copy/transfer via Ethernet is really fast?! While it is true that the iMac can’t see the Zip disk directly, we don’t need it often enough to create a problem. If and when we do, we’ll buy the USB Zip.
External HD Storage? — The iMac (which already has a 6 gig HFS+ volume) enjoys full access to the SCSI HDs connected to the 7500 via the Ethernet network.
Scanner? — the iMac came with a UMAX 1220U which works better than our old SCSI scanner did.
We did buy 64 megs of iMac RAM and I installed it (about as hard as installing RAM in an 8500 — too hard, really, but doable). The fax software that came with the iMac, FaxSTF, is horrible. We should bite the bullet and get GlobalVillage software for the iMac and someday we probably will.
Barb likes the iMac keyboard and says she types faster and more easily with it than the extended keyboards she has always used before. She doesn’t like mice, vastly preferring her old EMAC ADB trackball which doesn’t work with the iMac. She’ll probably get a MacAlly iBall, rather than an ADB/USB adapter.
I have to say — we love the iMac. It is really fast and exceeds our expectations. My experience suggests the most economical way to upgrade from your Performa is to buy whatever adapter the Performa needs to connect to the iMac via Ethernet and use your existing peripherals until time moves on and we can no longer live without FireWire and whatever technology supplants
the modem.
Mike
(Mike just sent me an update:)
In the original letter I mentioned buying GlobalFax for the iMac (we did and it’s great). The MacAlly iBall was very disappointing (sent back to try again) so I would change mention of it to “a USB trackball” lest others be led astray. Other than those minor issues I wholeheartedly agree with my earlier comments and in the interim we continue to be completely satisfied with the iMac — now that the higher horsepower versions are emerging and ease of RAM installation has been successfully addressed, I would upgrade my recommendation to an even stronger “BUY.”
Several months ago I discussed what I would do with several extra hours of computing time every day. Rob gave this suggestion.
Hi John.
May I recommend a little program that is just fantastic for hour five. I cut and paste links from various sources into “Linkpad” I have no connection with Panic, but I think Linkpad is dead handy!
Cheers
Rob
I was curious about Rob’s involvement with the Macintosh, so I asked him for some additional personal information.
Hi again, John.
Hmm, a little background…. I’m a 30-year old Scot working in London, but originally from Aberdeen. I’m married (nearly 3 months!) to Jo.
I work in a drop-in health centre for Street Homeless people in south London and use Macs exclusively! I manage the Centre, and so I got to choose the hardware and software when we upgraded from 486/33 PC’s just over a year ago.
We managed to get some run-out Performa 6500/275′s and a 6200 and we use a IIfx as a print server for our Laserwriter. We’re using FM Pro 4 with some self-written databases for registering clients and their needs and also to keep us all using the same contact numbers for other organisations etc. Wordperfect 3.0 and Nisus 4.1 are our WP programs and we use Pagemaker 6 for printing out information for clients etc. We’re now entirely mac based!
I use a Q610 at home and have a Classic which is on loan to my mother-in-law!
Music and cars are my main interests outside of computers and I play in the band at my local church here in London.
Rob
I dedicate this issue of the Nemo Memo to the memory of my friend Gino.
In Memory of Gino Fortunato
(See: http://www.mymac.com/mymac/archives/jan_99/memo.shtml, for my previous article on Gino.)
Thanks, friends. Until next month! John Nemerovski Websites mentioned:
nemo@mymac.com
http://www.worldwithoutborders.com
http://www.mymac.com
http://www.mackido.com
http://www.everymac.com
http://www.applelinks.com
http://www.macopinion.com
http://www.macmarines.com
http://www.tidbits.com
http://www.versiontracker
http://www.macfixit.com
http://www.cyberbites.com
http://www.panic.com
Deathground
Author: FreeVerse Software
Shareware: $29.95 + $3.00 S&H
http://www.freeverse.com/deathg/index.html
Mike: The “big guns” of the shareware gaming scene have been flexing their muscles lately. Last month, we showed you Cythera from Ambrosia Software, and this month, we showcase Freeverse Software’s Deathground, a gangster strategy game based on the classic board game RISK.
Adam: Like Ambrosia, Freeverse Software has a wonderful reputation for high quality shareware games, and Deathground doesn’t disappoint. It shows the same all-around quality that we’ve come to expect from Freeverse. So what exactly is Deathground, Mike?
Mike: In Deathground, you play the role of a gangster who’s out to control as much territory as possible. You spend your turns attacking rival gangs to gain control of their territory, and then shuffling your troops around to fortify your areas. You gain money and resources for each territory you own, making it easier to “off” your opponents.
Adam: The more territories you own, the more troops you have to deploy, and the more fun the game becomes. Once you own all the territories on the map, you win the game.
Mike: The default map is New York City, which is divided up into boroughs. Each borough is divided up further into neighborhoods. You receive resources and cash for each ‘hood you control, but get big bonuses for controlling an entire borough. However, with the other players trying to do the same thing, it’s tough to keep total control of any one borough for too long!
Adam: Definitely true, Mike. And you really have to watch out for your enemies gaining ground, because they move fast once they’re in control, and you’ll be forced to surrender or face certain death.
Mike: FreeVerse went into a lot of detail to make the game more than just a computer re-creation of a game board. When you attack a territory, animated gangsters do battle with each other with tommy guns, and the game is full of FreeVerse’s trademark one-liners and comments by the players. The board also zooms in and out in real time, allowing you to see one borough up-close, or look at all of New York from a bird’s-eye view to see the whole scene.
Adam: FreeVerse has also included plenty of fine-tune controls so you can tailor your Macintosh to the game. If you have an older Mac, you might want to scale back on a few of the preferences. But if you have a G4, well, you know what to do!
Mike: The game can be played by up to seven players, and as many of those can be computer-controlled as necessary. There are also three maps to play, which enhances the replay value of the game, too. The downloadable demo limits you to three players and the map of New York, though. The full version comes on a CD-ROM–a first for FreeVerse–and can be bought directly from the company.
Requirements/Availability
The demo requires System 7.6 or higher, 20 megabytes of hard drive space, and approximately 32 megs of free RAM. The Deathground Demo is available for download at the FreeVerse website, http://www.freeverse.com/deathg/index.html, or from any of the great Mac shareware libraries online such as Download.com http://www.download.com. The full version, featuring additional playing maps, more players, and more, comes only on a CD-ROM, and can be purchased directly from FreeVerse for a total of $32.95.
The Summary
Adam: Deathground is a quality shareware game that is both addicting and fun. Its different levels of gameplay allow you to play for hours on end, even if you’ve never played before. The price-to-performance ratio is top notch for this first-rate shareware game.
Mike: I agree, Adam. FreeVerse’s high reputation for making excellent card games and board games for the Mac is well-deserved, and they prove it once again with Deathground. If you like strategy games and want something that’s not quite as complex as StarCraft, or if you just want to see another great example of fine shareware gaming, take a look at Deathground. Highly Recommended by The Game Guys.
Mike Wallinga
mikew@mymac.com
Adam Karneboge
webmaster@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.freeverse.com/deathg/index.html
http://www.download.com
My Mac Online goes under the knife:
Website Optimization tools reviewed
Recently, I was approached by two companies selling two very different optimization tools guaranteed to speed up web page loading times. As a web designer and content creator, anything that can speed up my web pages is important to me. Did you know that the average website contains up to 50% dead weight‹extra information that can slow web page loading to a crawl?
I was a webmaster when WYSIWYG editors weren’t around, and I have always considered myself as a clean-code writer. What really blows me away, though, is that even the blank space in my HTML documents that I leave for easy readability will become the “extra information” that will slow my web pages down.
Consequently, I was more than happy to review the two products: Mizer 1.7 and VSE Web Site Turbo 3.0.1. In this review I will put the two products head-to-head in tests using the #54 build of My Mac Online. I’ll let you know which product worked the best, and which one will suit your needs. Now, let the fun begin…
Mizer 1.7
Company: Antimony Software
Estimated Price: $69.95
http://www.antimonysoftware.com
Mizer 1.7 from Antimony Software was the first product I tested. Mizer will optimize all elements of HTML, and it will also optimize all your GIF and JPEG files, dramatically reducing the time it takes to load graphics. The main advantage of Mizer is that it does not require you to fine-tune a multitude of settings; you can get started optimizing from the get-go. Mizer allows you to drag and drop both files, graphics, and whole sites for optimization.
Mizer does have some shortcomings, though, mainly that it doesn’t create a post-optimization report with actual numbers that you can see, meaning that you won’t get actual percentage savings. Mizer also does not have a HTML 4.0 compliance option, and it could more easily damage intense HTML 4.0 documents than could VSE Web Site Turbo.
Despite the shortcomings, Mizer really shines when you put it to work in actual real-world tests. For my HTML tests I used the My Mac Online main page (/index.shtml), a 27k HTML document, and the Book Bytes archive page (/archives/reviews/book_bytes.shtml), a 38k HTML document. For my graphics tests, I used the main page logo (/graphics/logo.jpg), a 40k JPEG file, and the “about” graphic in our navigation bar (/graphics/navigation/about1.gif), a 12k GIF file. Finally, I optimized the entire My Mac Online site, which weighs in at just over 83MB.
Mizer performed very well in HTML optimization, cutting my two test documents down from 27k and 38k to 24k and 34.5k, respectively. Mizer also performed well in graphics optimization, cutting my 40k JPEG file to 12k, and my 12k GIF file to a measly 2k. And Mizer cut the entire size of My Mac Online from 83MB to 44MB. Pretty darn good, if you ask me. So how does the competition stack up?
VSE Web Site Turbo 3.0.1
Company: VSE Software
Shareware: $49.95
http://www.vse-online.com
VSE Web Site Turbo 3.0.1 from VSE Software is another impressive program that includes all of the functionality of Mizer, with a completely different interface and feature set. VSE Web Site Turbo includes drag and drop as Mizer does, but it includes a multitude of preferences to set which type of optimization it does, which type of tags it removes, and what version of HTML it should tailor itself to. Unfortunately, setting these preferences isn’t as easy as it sounds. VSE Web Site Turbo often forces you to make countless difficult, often intimidating decisions before you can optimize your web pages. However, these preferences can be put to good use if you’re an advanced user, and webmasters who are particular about the types of data that is placed into their pages will appreciate the extra effort by VSE Software to include this fine-tuning functionality.
Quite possibly my favorite feature of VSE Web Site Turbo is its ability to create post-optimization reports that show exactly what was done, and what percentage of data was saved. Mizer does not have this extremely important feature, and the only real way to distinguish how much data you are saving is to look in Mizer’s progress window, but if you’re optimizing only a few files that’s not easy, especially on a fast machine.
However, the big question is: How does VSE Web Site Turbo stack up against Mizer in optimization? Surprisingly, there was no significant difference between the two in terms of how many bytes they saved. However, one significant problem with VSE Web Site Turbo is that it ties up the whole computer when it’s optimizing, which stops you from getting other essential work done, such as email. But you won’t be tied up long; VSE Web Site Turbo quickly optimizes HTML documents and graphics for fast loading.
The Summary
Mizer is clearly an outstanding optimization tool that can be a one-stop drag and drop solution to your sites’ woes. Despite its shortcomings, it performs on par with the more fully featured VSE Web Site Turbo. VSE Web Site Turbo also performed well, yielding approximately the same results as Mizer. However, after viewing my documents after optimization, VSE Web Site Turbo yielded a dramatic change in the appearance of my documents, even after I changed its main setting to “not alter the appearance of my web page.” Only after I dug deep into its settings was I able to view my documents as they appeared before optimization. Even then, VSE Web Site Turbo still yielded an excellent optimized file.
Therefore, I will make the following recommendations based on my month with the two optimization tools. If you are an advanced or intermediate webmaster who has experience with HTML code, you will probably appreciate the depth and the choices that VSE Web Site Turbo brings, and thus, I recommend VSE Web Site Turbo to you. However, if you are a beginning webmaster, or a webmaster who wants to optimize his site on the fly without having to worry about their design being affected, it’s Mizer that you’ll want to buy, and it’s Mizer that I recommend. Mizer costs $20.00 more, but it will pay for itself in the amount of headaches you save.
I am sincerely impressed with BOTH of these optimization tools, and there is no way I can pick a clear winner. However, it is clear to me that each product has a different skill-base. Please consider your level of web-smithing expertise before making a purchase decision.
Requirements/Availability: Mizer 1.7 is available for purchase and download at Antimony Software’s website, http://www.antimonysoftware.com. VSE Web Site Turbo 3.0.1 is available as a fully-functional demo at http://www.vse-online.com, but requires you to register if you want to publish your pages. Both are available immediatelsy, and include documentation with the download.
Adam Karneboge
webmaster@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.antimonysoftware.com
http://www.vse-online.com
The Story of Moo, and How I Installed My Own CD Player (with a little help from my friends)
or
One Step Closer to Geekdom.
Last December or so, I was running around telling a very corny joke. It went like this:
“Knock, Knock”
“Who’s There?”
“Interrupting Cow”
“Interrup……?”
“MOOOOOOOOOOO”
I grew up on a farm in Missouri, so I have an extremely convincing Moo in my repertoire of animal sounds.
The joke is one that you either love or hate. Some people I’d tell, they’d fall out laughing. Others would look at me blankly….Uh….OK Beth. Either way, I’d be cackling my head off (my hen sound is pretty good, too), and snorting (ditto the hog snort).
In January of this year my local Mac guru gifted me a rebuilt 7200/75 with monitor, keyboard, external hard drive, and mouse. All I needed to do was buy a little RAM and a modem, and I’d have a nice little home computer. Since the computer had been used for a parts machine, it was sans CD-ROM drive, but at the time I didn’t want to make the investment. The CD slot sat empty for months, useful only for storing sandwiches so I wouldn’t have to leave the computer in the middle of my chatting.
My friend asked me what I wanted to name the computer, and I kicked a few ideas around. Finally the obvious came to me: call him Mooo. On January 18th, 1999, Moo came alive in my home. I had never “hooked up” a computer by myself before, but I did OK. It only took me about an hour of fumbling around to get online. (Let’s see… hmmmm… this cord looks like it might fit… here!) Imagine my delight when I first started him up to see a little cow icon with the text Mooo to represent the hard drive. I’m easily amused.
The first thing I did was record a Moooooo to use as my new mail notification. It just cracks me up to hear the computer “interrupt” me this way. “Moooooo!!!!” It beats “You’ve Got Mail” hands down.
The second thing I did was email my friend to boast of my success. I was online! At home! And I plugged it in all by myself! He mailed me right back. Mooooooo!!!!!! I felt like a big girl. Out of diapers, into training pants.
The third thing I did was log on to http://www.worldwithoutborders.com. Besides hosting the weekly My Mac chat at 5pm Pacific time on Wednesday evenings, this friendly and professional group of folks hosts the nicest chat forum on the Internet, where all ages and platforms are welcome. Their regular events are hosted by the Global Community Staff (GCS), who help everyone feel welcome and safe. Their weekly calender includes several Macintosh related chats, in addition to other events. (My very first time chatting was the prior November. I stayed late at work to visit the My Mac chat which hosted John Farr. Oh, you’ve not met the incredible, irascible Mr. Farr? Hurry on over! http://www.applelinks.com/farrsite
My limited world suddenly opened up to include the entire globe. I had something to look forward to at home after work each day; Mooo. Mooo who connected me to the world. I began to venture to all sites Mac related. I was hungry to learn how to do more than start up and run applications. I wanted to know how the computer worked. (Ones and zeros?…get out of here! *snort* *cackle*…yeah, right, ones and zeros my foot.) New words began to enter my vocabulary; CPU, Bus speed, GUI, RAM, ROM, SCSI, motherboard. I was learning, slowly but surely. I was wading through a world of knowledge which confounded and frustrated me, but excited me at the same time. I was becoming a Babe in Boyland.
One day I found out that there are hundreds of radio stations which broadcast over the net, and I was in heaven. You mean, I can chat and listen to Jim Ladd at KLOS at the same time? Now all things became possible. Singing, dancing, chatting, writing, emailing, learning, I felt multi-talented. Sure, RealAudio had streaming problems, and the sound that came out of the built in speaker was somewhat tinny, but it was worth the aggravation.
Then fortune smiled on me again (they don’t call me Lucky Lock for nothing). I fell into a set of Benwin computer speakers http://www.benwin.com. They arrived one fine day in my mailbox and when I picked up my mail at lunch, I couldn’t resist the side trip to run home and hook them up. Easy, easy, lemon squeezy! Even I in training pants had no problem. The sound that came though these speakers was far superior to the cheap little CD player I own. Plus, it was way across the room and heaven forbid I interrupt my chatting or surfing to go change the CD. I thought to myself… hmmmmm… maybe it’s time to invest in that CD-ROM drive.
http://www.smalldog.com, the perfect CD-ROM drive at the perfect price; $19 plus shipping. I immediately placed my order. My Macintosh guru reminded me that I needed something the make the CD-ROM work when it finally arrived, so off to http://www.panic.com I went to downloaded Audion and its 15 day free trial, after that $17.95. Not a bad price for an excellent piece of shareware.
Three days later the CD-ROM arrived. Plus, the part arrived with two small plastic dogs. (Small plastic dogs? I’m easily amused.) But what’s this, no instructions? I had only opened the computer once before, and that was to install some RAM. Could I do this? All by myself? The very thought made me soil my training pants Timidly I opened the case, and found three groups of wire thingys that weren’t plugged in, which fit perfectly in the slots on the back of the CD-ROM. (Hmmmm… I thought to myself, this little doo dah looks like it might plug in… here!) So I plugged them in; so far so good. But, alas, it didn’t work. Mooo didn’t recognize there was a new drive.
I was confounded. I sent dozens of emails. “Help me, boys, help me!” I whined in my best Babe in Boyland font. Much good and helpful advice came in, but after all, I was HERE and they were THERE. And “the little black thingy with the pretty gold pins” didn’t really convey that what I was actually looking at was a SCSI plug. Once again I opened the box. (Computer tip: you have to push HARD on that SCSI plug.) OK, whew! figured that out, Moo finally recognized there was a new drive. But, now it wouldn’t recognize a CD when it was inserted. “OK, well… fine”, I thought. “I’ve traded a sandwich slot for a dandy cup holder.”
Determined to have my music, though, I plodded ahead. I wanted to do this as much by myself as I could. After all, I a big gurl now! And it was at this point I ran into the baffling world of extensions. You have to have the darn things checked! But which ones? As far as I could tell, I had them all checked. But when I inserted a CD, I got an error message which said “Apple CD cannot eject.” What the… ? Then the light dawned. My CD on the computer at work works. Why don’t I just open up the Extensions Manager there and see what’s checked? Which I did. And I learned something else I didn’t know previously. There are messages which come with the extensions, that tell you what they are and what they do. And the message I read said “Apple CD/DVD replaces Apple CD.”
Ah Ha! I rushed home, opened the Extensions Manager on Mooo, and guess what, faithful readers? I had both extensions checked! So I unchecked Apple CD, restarted, opened Audion, selected CD mode, held my breath, slid in Van Morrison, and suddenly, joyfully, blissfully out of these fabulous Benwin speakers I heard o/~…I wanna rock your gypsy soul, just like back in the days of old, and together we unfold, into the Mystic…o/~ The saxophones carried me into another expansion of my world. And I cried in joy as I danced merrily around the room. (Babes in Boyland are allowed to cry.)
At last, music. Music to fill my life with joy. Macintosh music. My loyalty to the platform once again is affirmed. And hey everybody, I figured it out by myself, er… uh… all by myself… with a little help from my friends. Time to discard these training pants and move up to color coordinated iBra and panties. http://www.opsweb.co.jp/tonya/rusud/cart.cgi?page=original.html
Now, where to store this darn sandwich?
Mooooo!!!!!! Hey, I’ve got mail!
Beth Lock
beth@infowest.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.panic.com
http://www.opsweb.co.jp/tonya/rusud/cart.cgi?page=original.html
http://www.smalldog.com
http://www.benwin.com
http://www.worldwithoutborders.com
http://www.a
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
Richard Brautigan, 1935-1984, Beat poet of his generation, wrote this poem in 1967, when I was but a freshman in high school. It would be another seven years before I stumbled upon his works. When I finally did, I was living the life of a loose hippie chick in Sandpoint, Idaho, and enjoying it to the fullest. We would gather in groups and read Brautigan out loud, each taking turns with the slim volumes, sometimes staying up all night analyzing what he meant. Home computers were unheard of in 1974. And yet on fireplace-smoky freezing nights, we would read Brautigan and among other things, we wondered what computers would do for our lives. We knew only of giant mainframe computers, and the ones portrayed in science fiction. It would be another two years before Jobs and Wozniak introduced the Apple II. So where, in 1967, did this vision of Richard Brautigan’s come from?
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms
RIchard Brautigan, master of words. He was known to walk the streets of Berkeley in the late ’60′s and early 70′s, painting words of people he knew and saw. He would sit in the streetside cafes and watch others as they strolled by. He wrote about love, and life, and heartache, and passion, and… once, about computers. He had a vision of a time when we would live in harmony with our computers. What if we envisioned right now, like Richard Brautigan did in 1967, what computers might be in thirty years? What if we collectively envisioned them as a tool to bring loving grace to our planet? In 1974 it was easy to imagine that computers would change the world for the worse, put us under the control of government, and take away our freedom. It’s easy to imagine that now, with such things like loss of privacy through the Internet. But in turning our thought patterns around, it would be just as easy to imagine the opposite.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
“… all watched over by machines of loving grace.” Not machines which control our lives, or machines that create discord between platforms, but machines of loving grace. Machines which free us of our labors, and join us back to nature, and return us to our mammal brothers and sisters. What a wonderful age we live in. Our machines of loving grace unite us with the planet. How nice it would be if we could recognize the power which our computers actually give us. How nice it would be if we all would just begin, once again, to look upon our computers with fresh eyes and see the power of the Internet, and how it has the potential to unite us all together in peace and harmony. How nice to know that these marvelous machines really do free us from our labors, so we have the time to join our mammal brothers and sisters in nature.
Shortly after I began writing this piece, Microsoft was ruled by a Federal court to be a monopoly. My mailbox filled with joyous gloating from the Macintosh community. Ah ha! We knew it all along! The evil empire will be struck down! At last, we are vindicated! Patting ourselves on the back, we gloat to one another. And I wonder why this becomes such an important issue in our lives. Although we have lobbied for years for comparable software and a presence in the business world, and other issues which we Macintosh fanatics have so strongly evangelized for, in the long run how has it truly affected our lives in a negative way? After all, aren’t you sitting in front of your Macintosh reading this, right now?
I still maintain that as long as Apple continues to lead the way in cutting edge technology, I’ll not give up my Macintosh until you pry the keyboard from my cold, dead fingers. I also prefer Macintosh because I do not admire Microsoft’s business practices. I think their operating system is clumsy. I think the judge ruled fairly. But when I think about computers in general, I think of the machines of loving grace. Do I evangelize the Macintosh? You bet I do, every chance I get, especially for new users and those who are looking for “something better.” But when someone who has grown up using PCs and owns practical and useful software for that platform is looking to buy a new computer, I have to say that I support them in their right to choose their preferred “machine of loving grace.”
Richard Brautigan is dead, so you can’t email him and tell him how you feel about his poem. It is said that he committed suicide in his Montana cabin sometime in 1986. I guess his time was done. Perhaps, if he had had, at that time, a machine of loving grace…
Be well, world. Live with loving grace in your hearts. Microsoft lost. Be gracious about it, and look to the future. It’s coming faster than we can imagine.
bherenow?
The history of home computers
http://www.atari-computer.de/mjaap/computer/english/index.htm
More on Richard Brautigan
http://www.spydersempire.com/empirezine/features/march/brau-intro.htm
A note about the copyright
Richard Brautigan, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. San Francisco: Communications Company. 1967.
The following statement is included among the prefatory pages: “Permission is granted to reprint any of these poems in magazines, books and newspapers if they are given away free.”
Beth Lock
beth@infowest.com
Websites Mentioned:
http://www.atari-computer.de/mjaap/computer/english/index.htm
http://www.spydersempire.com/empirezine/features/march/brau-intro.htm
Look into My Quartz Crystal Ball
There is something that I’ve been wondering about MacOS X (read 10). It has to do with Apple’s decision to base OS X’s screen imaging on something called Quartz. What is Quartz, you might ask? Well, it’s based on Adobe’s PDF format. It offers superior graphics and text handling. But it is this fa*ct that it is based on Adobe’s PDF format that I find most interesting. Working with Adobe with the implementation of Quartz Apple has made sure that they will not be working in obscurity.
Quartz will in all inevitability become something quite leading edge and since it is built into the OS, you will find that there will be better integration with other products and services not only from Adobe, but also from other companies that adopt and use the technology. By working with Adobe Apple has, in essence, assured that it won’t be left behind with this screen drawing and imaging technology.
That is important in and of itself. Apple has learned the importance of mass adoption of any technology it uses. Why are Macs using PCI Slots and PC 100 RAM these days? Why are they using TCP/IP? Because they are industry standards.
Working with Adobe makes definite sense. Will we see that Quartz incorporates not only Open GL but also QuickDraw technologies? I think we will. I was reading that Stone Design has a program called “Create” that they had written for Mac OS X Server. You may remember that Mac OS Server has Display PostScript (DPS). However, the consumer version of OS X and the next Server version will be using Quartz.
Stone Design has decided to completely rewrite “Create” for Mac OS X from scratch. And guess what? They said it was much easier than expected. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe it has to do with the incorporation of OpenGL and QuickDraw? Kind the best of both worlds? Could be. Now of course this is pure speculation on my part, and I’m sure that if anyone in the know reads this, they may clue me in, either to my proximity or complete missing of the mark.
Ok, so we know that Quartz is powerful, and easy to write code for, what else does it have? Well, how would you like to place a PDF file directly into your email? Got a series of photographs you’d like to include in your email to a friend? No problem, just place the PDF you made of the digital photos from your birthday party complete with captions in your email.
Even more importantly, as programs are written with Quartz in mind, you will see a definite blurring of the lines between Quartz and PDF. What if any document you created on your Mac could instantly be saved as a PDF? What if anything displayed on your screen could be captured as a PDF, and instantly accessible by anyone on the web? Remember that weird error message you got while trying to install a program? Well, through a simple keyboard shortcut you could capture it, place it into an email or on a web page for your favorite Mac Guru to review. He could analyze it and send you recommendations about it and how to solve the problem.
But Quartz gets better.
What does PDF stand for? Portable Document Format. What does Merriam Webster http://www.m-w.com define a document to be? One of the meanings I found was “a writing conveying information.” And what does that include? Well, brochures, reports, spreadsheets, a thesis, a short story, a book, novel, or even a textbook.
Textbook?
There have been 160,000 iBooks pre-ordered. A goodly number of them are for students. What if Apple were to purchase say… oh ,I don’t know, the rights to electronically publish every textbook made by say… MacMillan publishing? Who knows, maybe even the rights to several other publishers of textbooks.
What if Apple included either in let’s say, AppleWorks, the ability to call up these PDF-based books via a centralized Mac running OS X Server? A student could be sitting in class and download the chapters he needs to read before heading home. He could download a searchable, printable, and easily displayed copy of just what he needs. Nothing to carry home but his iBook. Not bad, eh?
With his AirPort card installed, he doesn’t even need to “get wired” to complete this transaction. He simply logs onto the school’s server with his unique school ID and downloads the information. When he registered for the class, the royalty for the textbook automatically gets registered in a database. And if Johnny forgets to download his homework before leaving school? No problem. He can log onto the school’s server and download in an instant from home. No fuss, no muss, and no more, “My dog ate my textbook” excuses.
Think about it. A textbook-less school. One that each and every single textbook is on a Mac Server running Mac OS X. Each child using their iBook for the purpose of accessing the information they need for each and every class.
No more books that have to be renewed every few years for the school. If a mistake is found in the textbook, MacMillan simply downloads the corrected version to the school at no extra charge. No reprints, no addendum, nothing to get lost or photocopied over and over again. Simply the most up to date information for that textbook. The amount of storage needed by the school would decrease dramatically! No more shelves, no more storage closets devoted to books that will be turned out in just a few years due to federal regulations.
Guess what else? It won’t be long before Amazon.com goes out of business. Why? Well guess who will get into the direct marketing of their products? You bet your boots every single publishing house in the business. Much cheaper to set up a bunch of servers containing not only the hottest best sellers for download over the internet, but also every single book they have ever published than it is to print them and distribute them. No more “out of print” books. They all exist and are available for purchase via the internet. Xanadu here we come!
And not only will your Mac display these natively on your screen but there will be options to print them to your full duplexing printer complete with binding for those of us that still prefer to sit on the beach and read our favorite prose completely unwired and undisturbed.
Heck, even your favorite monthly, My Mac, could be published in a magazine format ready for download each month for you to throw into your briefcase, portfolio, or to keep on your Mac for your reading pleasure.
This could be what the Mac is coming to. I’d sure love it. Wouldn’t you?
Look a little deeper into my quartz crystal ball and maybe you’ll see what I see.
Bob McCormick
mccnow@rocketmail.com
In our November and December issues, Book Bytes provides supplementary capsule reviews of books which could be suitable gifts for family, friends, and colleagues on your holiday shopping list. Many of these titles are “updaters” to outstanding books previously reviewed, with the more recent editions being mentioned below.
The Little Mac Book, 6th Edition
by Robin Williams
Peachpit Press
ISBN 0-201-35433-0, 445 pages
$19.99 U.S., $29.95 Canada
Who needs a basic book on the Macintosh, you ask? Well, I answer, every person who has purchased an iMac or other first-time system. If ten percent of the wisdom inside this book was common knowledge among new users, all those “how do I?” and “help me!” groans would be much less frequent. The previous edition of this title was a Book Bytes Award winner last year, and this up-to-date version surpasses its predecessors. You hear me: buy and use this HIGHLY RECOMMENDED book.
PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide, 2nd Edition
by David Pogue
O’Reilly & Associates
ISBN 1-56952-600-5, 597 pages plus CD
$29.95 U.S., $43.95 Canada
The first version of this book was a hit, and the latest edition is even better. David has done his homework, and every Palm user is a potential beneficiary. If you’re using your little wonder for more than a pocket-filler, quit monkeying around and buy this HIGHLY RECOMMENDED book + CD for yourself and everyone who might want to borrow it from you, because they won’t want to return it. Now, if I can just get 3Com to send me that “demo” unit I have been requesting…!
Mac OS 8.6 Visual QuickStart Guide
by Maria Langer
Peachpit Press
ISBN 0-201-35472-1, 330 pages
$17.99 U.S., $26.95 Canada
Book Bytes has praised Maria, and will continue to do so as long as she produces top-notch books for readers at all levels of Macintosh ability and experience. I have given this book (and its earlier editions) as a gift to more people than any other Mac OS title. Not a week passes that I don’t look up some small-but-essential feature of 8.6. If you’re stumbling through the operating system, do yourself a favor and purchase this HIGHLY RECOMMENDED title. And then don’t forget to send Maria a nice thank-you note.
Maria just sent me a message for all Book Bytes readers:
My Mac OS 9 book just went to the printer and should be in stores by November. It’s a major revision, with lots of new material and new chapters. It also has iBook info. I think it would make a fine stocking stuffer for folks who like to keep their OS up to date!
I will obtain the book from her publisher, and review the OS 9 title when it becomes available.
Harley Hahn’s Internet & Web Yellow Pages,
Millennium Edition
by Harley Hahn
Osborne / McGraw-Hill
ISBN 0-07-212170-X, 908 pages plus CD
$34.99 U.S.
Harley is one of my favorite computer book writers. He is able to take the concept of an Internet directory and make the end product highly entertaining and informative. He infuses his books with personal anecdotes and experiences that make reading the annual yellow pages a treat that lasts an entire year. When I need guidance for specific subject site searching and browsing, my hand automatically grabs Harley Hahn’s latest HIGHLY RECOMMENDED edition. One more thing: his personal website is a valuable link, and is loaded with Internet resources.
Photoshop 5.5 for Windows and Macintosh,
Visual QuickStart Guide
by Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas
Peachpit Press
ISBN 0-201-69957-5, 412 pages
$19.99 U.S., $29.95 Canada
The Photoshop application is so expensive, and this title is so affordable, that I’m wondering why someone would not immediately purchase the book. The center section of artwork, with the artists listed in an appendix, is alone worth $20! The book is an excellent addition to the toolbox of every artist and graphics person who uses Photoshop 5.5 for more than 5.5 minutes a year. Seeing is believing: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Adobe GoLive 4 for Macintosh and Windows,
Visual QuickStart Guide
by Shelly Brisbin
Peachpit Press
ISBN 0-201-35477-2, 340 pages
$18.99 U.S., $28.50 Canada
Serious web designers and webmasters consider GoLive to be one of the best authoring tools, and now that Adobe is the owner, both the software and this book absorb the new features in version 4. The proven QuickStart format is well-suited to working with such a powerful and versatile application. For anyone now using or planning to use GoLive, the low price of this RECOMMENDED title is certainly an incentive to having its Guide close at hand.
Sams Teach Yourself
Netscape Communicator 4.5 in 24 Hours
by Shannon Turlington
Sams Publishing
ISBN 0-672-31329-4, 408 pages
$19.99 U.S., $28.95 Canada, £17.95 U.K.
As Netscape migrates up toward version 5.x, potential readers of this title might wonder if looking backward is a good idea. The author’s lessons, text, tips, and screenshots add up to a successful presentation. This cross-platform book provides solid information that will be most valuable for newbies and intermediates, plus users in no particular hurry to leave Communicator 4.5+. RECOMMENDED.
Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Internet Explorer 5
in 24 Hours, Starter Kit
by Jill T. Freeze
Sams Publishing
ISBN 0-672-31328-6, 446 pages plus Windows-only CD
$19.99 U.S., $29.99 Canada, £17.99 U.K.
In theory, this Windows-platform book could provide a head start for readers who intend to use the Mac version of Explorer 5.x. Newcomers to the Web will benefit from the lesson-based approach to learning how to use the software. Experienced webheads might want to buy this affordable book as a gift for someone who will let you borrow it back for specific questions about the next version of Internet Explorer.
Please come back next month for another round of bonus Stocking Stuffers, plus our annual Book Bytes Awards.
•John Nemerovski•
Websites mentioned:
Digital Photography Answers! Certified Tech Support
by Dave Johnson
Osborne/McGraw-Hill
ISBN 0-07-211884-9, 543 pages
$24.99 U.S., $34.99 Canada
It is both rare and refreshing to have the opportunity to review a book where I know almost as much as does the author. I have been involved in photography intensely for over 30 years, and I am thinking about shifting my focus from conventional photography to digital imagery.
All photography instruction consists of two stages: how to take decent pictures, and what to do with the darn things once the image making process is complete. Author Dave Johnson provides very solid, knowledgeable advice for selection of equipment and making the pictures, including detailed information on lighting, close-ups, and “Using Peripherals and Accessories.” Image storage and editing come next, in progressively greater detail, before readers can learn about digital distribution and (gasp) digital video.
Digital Photography Answers! is structured as a lengthy series of specific questions, which are answered via text, diagrams, photos, charts, and Windows-based screenshots, as appropriate. Did you ever need to understand:
• How do I make my own greeting cards?
• What kind of memory storage should I get for my digital camera?
• How do I reduce glare from glass or shiny objects in the picture?
and hundreds more similar questions? Look no further. The answers are here.
Photography is expensive, and the photographer’s greatest investment is time spent figuring out how to get something right that came out wrong. If I had never taught one photo seminar, and had instead insisted that each student absorb the basic advice in Digital Photography Answers!, the results would have been positive.
If you are wondering how relevant yesterday’s photo instruction is to tomorrow’s technology, take a cold shower. Understanding your equipment and medium will always get you to first base, a book such as this one will get you all the way to third base, and years of imaginative elbow grease will get you to home plate. For $25 U.S. this RECOMMENDED book is a steal.
Dave Johnson tells Book Bytes:
I wrote Digital Photography Answers as if it were the only book someone would ever have to buy about digital imaging. In other words, I included all the basics of traditional photography, like composition and lighting. But I also made it specific to the digital medium, of course, with gobs of details on editing images on the computer, printing for framing, and that sort of thing. I had a lot of fun with the special effects chapter and finally put my ability to create Star Trek-like phaser blasts to use. I hope readers enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Adobe InDesign for Dummies
by Deke McClelland
and Amy Thomas Buscaglia
Dummies Press
ISBN 0-7645-0599-8, 356 pages
$19.99 U.S., $29.99 Canada, £18.99 U.K.
Does anyone still use PageMaker? How about QuarkXPress? I know more than a few people who would like to “deep-six” Quark, in spite of using it professionally for years. This new book on the long-awaited “Quark-killer” will find an enthusiastic audience, and will be the first of many titles on Adobe’s new desktop publishing (DTP) application.
The authors emphasize that potential readers will be new to InDesign, yet will cover the map with regard to experience with DTP. The modest cost of Adobe InDesign for Dummies should repay itself during the first day’s work with the new software.
Opening chapters cover the essentials, and are liberally illustrated with useful screenshots from InDesign’s windows and dialog boxes. By Chapter Five, entitled “Rock Yer Blocks Off,” users are working with blocks of text and starting to customize their text-entry possibilities. Fonts and typography come next, including scaling and kerning. The writing is both lively and informative, which I applaud.
Chapter Ten is important: “Graphic Language about Graphic Imagery.” InDesign has neat and nifty methods of handling your DTP images, friends. Deke and Amy take readers deeper into the text and illustration procedures, before delving into “Exporting Documents to HTML” and similar online publishing features.
Final sections cover bunches of “tens,” such as:
• Ten Terrific Typeface Families, and
• Ten Shortcuts Everyone Should Know.
I know one thing. Before working with InDesign, I intend to study Adobe InDesign for Dummies carefully, and put its RECOMMENDED wisdom to work.
Genealogy Online, Millennium Edition
by Elizabeth Powell Crowe
Computing McGraw-Hill
ISBN 0-07-135103-5, 335 pages
$19.99 U.S.
For genealogy hobbyists and professionals the Internet is a dream come true. This book helps readers make the dream a satisfying one, because online research can be frustrating.
Genealogy Online begins with essential hardware and connectivity info, current to DSL, then basic genealogy software and Internet sites, written primarily for newcomers to the Net. The book becomes more specific by Chapters Five and Six, in which recommended Usenet newsgroups and Internet mailing lists are itemized.
Next, over forty pages are devoted to dozens of websites, with enough people-oriented URLs and AOL keywords to keep readers browsing and following links for several decades. The author is personally involved with a project called RootsWeb, which she explains in Chapter Nine.
You say you want information on online libraries, or the Mormon Church database, or commercial genealogy sites? How about a lengthy description of America Online’s “Golden Gate Genealogy Forum” and the comparable forum on CompuServe? They all are here, clearly presented.
With a name like Nemerovski, you would think I should have an easy time with genealogy research. Armed with Genealogy Online, Millennium Edition, let’s hope you’re right. RECOMMENDED.
Professional Studio Techniques Design Essentials
With Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrated,
Third Edition
by Luanne Seymour Cohen
Adobe/Peachpit Press
ISBN 1-56830-472-2, 121 pages
$39.99 U.S., $59.95 Canada, £36.99 U.K.
Let’s get something out of the way first. This book is slim in page-length, large in price, and huge in physical footprint: 9 x 12 inches (23 x 30 cm). It’s an oddball, with an enormous title. Is it worth the price and modest shelf space? (The author wrote to explain that the reason the book is large is so that it will lay flat when opened so the user has both hands free for keyboard and mouse.)
Ooh, I think I will like it, if I can find enough room on my crowded desk to open the book. Chapter One, “Drawing,” starts with a 14-step lesson for users of Adobe Illustrator 8.0 or later, on custom borders. The pages in Professional Studio Techniques Design Essentials are so wide that in two spacious columns the author has positioned parallel sets of numbered tasks alongside the drawn results. What’s next?
Great! The format is consistent, utilizing the two-page lesson throughout. I just learned how do other projects with Illustrator, including quick 3-D boxes and pie charts. Still doing drawing, we proceed to Photoshop 5.0 or later, for a fascinating assignment on perspective grids. Hey, Luanne, you can draw and teach.
I am definitely NOT a painter, but many of you are. The next unit has some exciting painting projects using both Adobe applications. (Long pause.) Oops. I forgot to continue the book review, because I became so engrossed in learning how to make color-tinted photographs and neon graphics.
Chapter Three proceeds from simple patterns and textures into textured 3-D graphics. Text effects come next, and they are stunning: corroded type; rainbow scratched type; and several more. The book concludes with special effects and web techniques, and… (John again forgets to keep writing). A recommended reading list wraps things up, including many titles previously reviewed here in Book Bytes.
If you’re a serious student or working visual artist who uses Photoshop or Illustrator, hustle yourself over to the nearest bookstore to determine if you are as excited about this new RECOMMENDED edition of Professional Studio Techniques Design Essentials as I am.
Hewlett-Packard Official Scanner Handbook
by David D. Busch, Susan Krzywicki, and Laurel Burden
IDG Books Worldwide
ISBN 0-7645-3304-5, 470 pages
$19.99 U.S., $29.99 Canada
This is the third book in the HP series from IDG. I hope more are on the way, because this first bunch is good. I can’t claim to be a whiz with scanners, so this topic is of personal interest.
Looking at the Hewlett-Packard Official Scanner Handbook from the page-end side, I notice a dark section that takes up roughly the final third of the book. What does it signify? Oh, goody—nearly 150 pages of “Projects for the Home” are contained in the final four chapters, with scanner projects for home, for kids, for the seasons, and for websites. Let’s come back to these activities after examining the bulk of the text.
The opening 140 pages, in seven chapters, cover “Using Scanners,” taking the newcomer from how the darn things work through an array of practical techniques to color optimization and image editing. Lots of space is devoted to definitions and explanations, with very good illustrations, photos, charts, and screenshots. Chapter Four, on “Resolution, Interpolation, and Sharp Images,” should be required reading for everyone desiring to achieve intermediate status and beyond.
Many image editing applications are described in Chapter Seven, and understanding this concentrated knowledge will save you much more time and money than it takes to buy and read the Hewlett-Packard Official Scanner Handbook. Chapter Eight contains specific hardware and software troubleshooting procedures, with an emphasis on HP’s products.
Author David Busch comments:
Although Hewlett-Packard’s blessing means a lot, I really tried to fill the bulk of this book with information that can help users of any brand scanner get the most from these sensationally-useful image capture devices.
Nearly 100 pages of beginning and advanced projects for the office come before the step-by-step home exercises. I consider this book to be a three-in-one volume: essential information; no-nonsense office activities; and fun stuff to do at home. The writing and graphics are straightforward and well-structured. Looks like we have a winner. Book Bytes RECOMMENDS heartily this $20 book, and after I get my new scanner I will put the Hewlett-Packard Official Scanner Handbook to personal use immediately.
Start with a Digital Camera:
A Guide to Using Digital Cameras
to Create High-Quality Graphics
by John Odam
Peachpit Press
ISBN 0-201-35424-1, 145 pages
$34.99 U.S., $52.50 Canada
How can I not like this author? He has contributed to several of Book Bytes’ previously-recommended digital art and design books, his photo on page 146 shows a jolly gent plucking some sort of mandolin, and he sells a special shampoo for beards, at
This book is another of the rare long-thin-expensive breed that I like so much, in spite of its (at first glance) incongruous price, relative to its size. Stop me if I get carried away, but Start with a Digital Camera features excellent design, with custom layouts on every handsome two-page spread. Text, illustrations, photos, diagrams, charts, and before-after examples liberally decorate and add stylistically to every chapter. Even the Contents pages are visually engaging.
In thirteen well-produced units, readers can learn about more than just technical facts and figures, including:
• working with people and objects
• using digital photos in desktop, graphics arts, and on-screen situations
• manipulating and modifying images
and quite a bit more.
Let’s turn at random to page… 77, for Chapter Nine: “Creating Textures and Backgrounds.” Hey, this is neat. Odam offers six pages of examples with dozens of fascinating organic-subject images that can be used to enhance your final projects, such as rock, foliage, and water textures. His final results are included, to show how he got from concept to completion.
I happen to know a lot about photography, but not much about what to do with the images for enhanced creativity. If you are a visual artist or digital photographer who wants to learn from the best in the business, look over Start with a Digital Camera to determine if this RECOMMENDED title is what you need to get those artistic juices flowing.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to
Protecting Yourself Online
by Preston Gralla
Alpha / Que / Macmillan
ISBN 0-7897-2035-3, 348 pages
$16.99 U.S., $25.95 Canada, £15.99 U.K.
I have to hand it to the publisher of the Complete Idiot’s series. After a slow start, they are breaking new ground for computer book readers, with first-rate writers and topics that don’t simply copycat the Dummies competitors. We met Preston Gralla last month with his book on online shopping. Welcome back, Preston.
Preston knows Internet security from the inside-out, and explains it so interested newcomers and old timers will understand the subject: passwords; credit cards; viruses; child pornography; and plenty more. Your ISP and online account are important first areas of defense, with invasive web databases and online scams running a close second and third. Once you’ve been burned you need to know where to turn—and then how to proceed—including consumer services and small claims court.
Spam, or unsolicited junk email, is a big deal, and a big nuisance. Gralla devotes a hearty chunk of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Protecting Yourself Online to email privacy and web security, before addressing the monster (not really) issue of cookies. Online chat rooms and Usenet discussion groups are primary sources of your user name, and potentially, your password. Proceed with caution.
Part Six is important: “Protecting Your Children and Family Online.” The author is a parent, and speaks with the voice of experience. His advice, if used effectively even just once, may be worth the entire modest price of the book.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Protecting Yourself Online contains more information than most of us will ever need to know. Writing and design are in keeping with the well-considered content. I don’t think this book has any equals in the marketplace, so Book Bytes is pleased to RECOMMEND it.
Microsoft Office 98 for Macintosh:
The Comprehensive Guide
by Ned Snell and Brian J. Little
Coriolis Group
ISBN 1-57610-279-3, 562 pages
$39.99 U.S., $59.99 Canada
I don’t spend much time thinking about Office 98, because I’m a dedicated AppleWorks/ClarisWorks person, but when I need to work with an Office module I plunge into a nearby book on the subject. This title from Coriolis has been lounging on the Book Bytes shelf for many months, and deserves a diligent evaluation.
Thumbing through the three appendices, I’m pleased to report the authors have given ample consideration to installing and configuring Office, using the Explorer browser, and a concise description of fonts. Heading back toward the front of Microsoft Office 98 for Macintosh: The Comprehensive Guide, I observe seventeen chapters, ranging from “discovering” and “getting to know” the monster suite to “Office 98 and the Internet.”
From the beginning, the writing is friendly and helpful, and the pages include many large, clear screenshots. Newcomers to Office 98 will feel comfortable, and quickly will be drawn into the text. Boxed sidebar “FYI” tips are plentiful, but they are printed over an unnecessary, confusing “bricks and mortar” background. Hey, book designers: the thematic approach is a great idea, but makes reading the darn thing too difficult.
After the introductory chapters, Word 98 has 150 pages of progressively more detailed instruction, followed by hefty (if shorter) units on PowerPoint and Excel, plus a 60-page chapter on Outlook Express. The material is geared toward newbies, which I applaud, because these users are the ones most likely to buy and use a book, then advance past the need for it.
If you don’t already own a comparable book, and need some solid knowledge on Microsoft Office 98 for Macintosh, look into this RECOMMENDED title for your work or personal library.
•John Nemerovski•
Websites mentioned:
Apple R&D’s Crown Jewels Exposed
Over the past year or so Apple has introduced exciting new technologies that have left many Apple-bashers scrambling to find something to criticize. The new expandable iMacs, the wireless iBook, the fast and light PowerBooks, and the amazing new G4-based systems are almost too good to be true. These, however, are products that have been in Apple’s secret pipeline for some time. As always, a Mac media feeding frenzy preceded the release of each new technology, with Apple’s legal department trying hard to protect its corporate secrets.
A case in point was the theft and publication of photos and concept drawings of the ‘Kihei’ iMac. I suppose ‘theft’ is a loaded term that may offend some of the principals, but you are as much of a thief if you accept stolen property as if you stole it yourself. The websites AppleInsider.com and the German site, Macnews.com were first to publish the pictures, but were not the only ones. Macweek.com chose to display a screen shot of the MacNews web page, as if that made a difference. The problem with this type of over-aggressive reporting is that it may have forced Apple to announce the machine before it had cleared old inventory and appropriately stock-piled the new hardware. This may have had an impact on the Apple’s stock price as we saw it plummet by as much as $20 from its 52 week high.
Having said all this and taken this holier than thou stance, those of us who regard ourselves as journalists still have a responsibility to report the news as it comes our way. Clearly, if My Mac had received copies of the ‘Kihei’ photos, we would have been faced with a real moral dilemma. Did the NY Times hesitate before it ran “The Pentagon Papers?” Did ABC hesitate before it ran the story about Monica Lewinski’s blue dress? To display these photos or not? Quandaries of this kind are probably why Ben Bradlee has gray hair.
It is with considerable trepidation and some moral misgivings that I divulge a report that exposes the ‘crown jewels’ of future Apple development. Though it may hurt the company in the short term, I believe the public has a right to know. The information was compiled from a source within the highly secret Apple New Products Lab deep within the R&D bunker in Cupertino. In assessing the value of this data, I weighed the credibility of the source along with the reliability of the information. Though some of these developments are months or even years off, I believe the report to be factual at this point in time.
For her own protection, I won’t comment on the source of the leaks except to say that she is highly placed, and all of the information ‘Monica’ has provided to date has been confirmed by secondary and tertiary sources. I should note that though the subject was ‘convinced’ to cooperate, she did so voluntarily and was under no duress.
The Eye of the Beholder
Though great strides have been made in developing smaller and faster computers, one of the constraining limits has been the size of the video display. Clearly, the video display has to be both readable and convenient. Hand-held computers as well as portable phones have run into this display dilemma. It makes no sense to be able to surf the net on your portable if you can’t read a page. Attempts to design mini-web pages specially tailored to the portable electronic market are doomed to fail because they must sacrifice valuable content. In addition, it’s virtually impossible to pepper these mini-pages with adverts, thus removing the provider’s incentive to publish for this market.
The Apple Heads-up Ocular Display Unit is designed to resolve this dilemma. Combining technologies from molecular biology and digital photography, military breakthroughs in ‘heads-up’ jet fighter displays, and its own wireless communications research, Apple has designed a prototype Ocular Display Unit (ODU) that seamlessly bonds to a soft or hard contact lens and provides a focus-driven foreground display. While in an ‘inactive’ state, the ODU displays a semi-transparent menu in the top right field of vision. Focusing on any menu item and blinking triggers that item and summons an ocular keyboard at the bottom of the field. Command/blinks increase the display resolution and Shift/Command/Blink instantaneously brings the display into full focus.
Preliminary tests indicate that the ODU is quite comfortable to install and use, and outside observers find it difficult to determine when a subject’s ODU is engaged. The ODU System Extension along with special storage case will be available as part of the Apple ODU Accessory Kit and should retail for around $40. Microsoft is allegedly working on a Special ODU Edition of Word that could be available as early as MacWorld, San Francisco.
Night Airport
Night AirPort refers to a revolutionary new technology from Apple that lets remote workstations maintain communication with hubs even when the remotes are turned off. This could result in significant cost savings for downloading information and files from the Internet, and for conducting off peak network and workstation maintenance. Night AirPort is made up of two separate, though interrelated technologies:
Runway Lights consists of a sweeping radio signal from the Night AirPort hub that is picked up by remote systems and redirects and refocuses their signal. This results in a remarkable reduction in power expenditure by the remotes and allows remote stations to maintain contact even without a steady AC source.
Baggage Handling is a new technology that delivers a packet of information even after it is initially ‘lost’ due to network collisions or loss of contact with a hub. Broadcasts from remote stations include unique traveler identification. Packets of information are tagged with both destination codes and the prospective traveler ‘ID,’ and if the base station is busy or off-line, these packets are sent to an adjacent, overnight remote and then delivered when the base is finally available.
Skew Processing
Another technical breakthrough from the company that thrives on innovations, Apple developed skew processing as an alternative to traditional parallel processing. The new Apple flexible processor orientation (FPO) allows multi-planing processors that can be arranged outside the plane of the motherboard. Vertically arranged processors (VAP) provide significant speed advantages as electrical charges seek the motherboard ground. Apple is the first major company to offer skew processing, and though the technology is in its infancy, the PC industry is expected to follow suit. In a move to marginalize this new technology, Dell recently sent an advisory to its user group suggesting that the standard Dell desktop could be vertically arranged to maximize the effects of gravity on processor performance. Apple’s legal department is currently weighing a decision on whether to seek an injunction against Dell and Dell computer users to prevent reorientation of their computers. Apple argues that Dell’s advisory was based entirely on copyrighted Apple trade secrets and therefore Dell should cease and desist. It is expected that if Apple prevails in court, Dell will be ordered to physically check the orientation of each user’s system to ensure that Apple’s trade secrets are observed.
FireWater
Strange things happen in the bathtub. While lolling in his bubble bath, Archimedes discovered the principal of bouyancy and allegedly ran nude down the streets of Siracusa yelling “Eureka!, Eureka!” Steve Jobs, on the other hand, was in his Jacuzzi, playing with his small baking soda powered submersible, when he was hit by a more modern brainstorm. Water molecules are fairly dense and thus uncompressible, which means that in a confined space (a tube) a push on one molecule will result in a pop at the end of the chain. A data bus made up of stacked water molecules would have several distinct advantages over a traditional data bus. First data could be cooled, easing heat sink requirements, and second, water is still relatively cheap. ‘FireWater’ architecture will first be used to speed Mac data bus performance while the R&D lab continues working on a FireWater processor.
Though FireWater technology is still in its infancy, the experts suggest it could revolutionize data transfer. A tiny hose—thinner than the thinnest fiber optic cable—could be used to connect two systems and almost instantaneously transfer information. A prototype data pump has already been built and the company is rumored to be shooting for a commercial version in the $400 range.
Initially, FireWater will be colored an iridescent teal blue and the iMac data bus will be viewable through the semi-transparent case. Eventually, Apple will offer the full range of iMac colors with the possible exception of Tangerine, which the marketing folks suggest may offend some users. To ensure data integrity in the event of a bus leak, the new iMac cases will sport a FireWater Straw Port (FSP) with a seamless lid. The user can pop the lid by inserting a simple paperclip.
FireWater cartridges will be available from Apple and 3rd party companies and these cartridges can be ‘front loaded’ with software and/or commercial databases. Connecting a cartridge to the FSP will require both an Apple Data Pump and the FireWater Accessory Kit (approximately $40 from the Apple Store). SCSI to FireWater, USB to FireWater, and FireWire to FireWater interfaces are supposedly under development.
FireWater Technology (FT) will undoubtedly revolutionize the industry, but its application in personal computers is just the beginning. Apple Fellow, Thom Tylde, suggests that FT could also be used to send information directly to organic organisms (OOs). For example, gardening data could be loaded from your computer and the lawn sprinkled with ‘smart’ water. Eventually, humans will also ‘drink information’ (DI). This form of information delivery could have a limited impact on our future educational systems. The phrase ‘school sucks’ could take on a whole new meaning.
Googleflops
The G5 processor featuring front, back, top, bottom, and side caches and a veracity engine for true binary adds will be the first googleflop processor released on a personal computer. Because of export control laws, the US Government is expected to ban shipment both domestically and internationally. Though government regulations may dent sales in the short and long term, Apple will make extraordinary gains in inventory management and marketing. As yet unconfirmed, one source suggests that MacWorld, San Francisco could be the target non-shipping date.
Chameleon Chassis
Apple, of course, was the first major computer company to release stylized, colorful computers, and though the original iMac was terrifically successful, anticipating demand for a particular colored system was problematic, at best. Some computer colors like Blueberry and Strawberry were always in demand while others like Tangerine were not so successful. Insisting that dealers take on inventory of all five colors caused significant logistics problems and more than a little bad karma.
R&D’s solution to the problem is ingenious. The new chameleon iMacs take on the hue of a provided color patch that the user places on the wall next to the computer. Changing the patch immediately alters the color of the computer chassis. The Chameleon iMac will provide the best of all possible colorful worlds.
The ‘Lualué’ iMac Concept Drawings
Front View
Rear View
Though a bit sparse on details, the above concept drawing of the ‘LuaLué’ iMac clearly shows Apple’s movement towards a more stylized design. Note the rounded edges and the subdued almost invisible controls. The major advantage to this startling design is accessibility, as the chassis and self-righting, built-in monitor can be rolled to another user and used in virtually any orientation. The rugged, rubberized chameleon shell means this system can take a lot of beating and will literally bounce back.
Flaccid Drive Technology (FDT)
Apple engineers finally have convinced the iCEO that, after all, it was his idea to develop the floppy drive and not Steve Wozniac’s and by completely revamping the Woz Disc Controller it would be possible to introduce a high density ‘flaccid’ drive capable of formatting and accessing disks in the 1.4 meg range. Jobs, allegedly, was impressed with the portability these small 3.5 inch disks provide and may demonstrate this new technology at MacWorld, San Francisco. The demonstration may include copying a file from one system’s hard drive to a flaccid, ejecting the flaccid, and inserting it into another system. Though we’re not sure how this demo might pan out, it’s thought that the marketing folks will ensure ample rehearsal time.
Disclaimer:
No portion of this column was written by Mick O’Neil, his brother Jeremiah, or any associates thereof. My Mac Magazine accepts no responsibility for the content of this article and warns the public that the information contained therein was assembled by persons unknown and possibly unloved. Any resemblance of the code named source ‘Monica’ to any other person living or dead is purely coincidental, and attempts to relate this moniker to ‘Deep Throat’ is simply scurrilous.
•Mick O’Neil•
Continued from the September issue
Pete’s excuse:
[I apologize for missing last month's issue, especially since my most recent columns have been linked together as a continuing story. I know it was very un-cool on my part to take a month off right in the middle of an ongoing saga, but such can be the life of a truck driver. However, I place all blame for my absence on the Canadian Government and its inability or unwillingness to bolster its own dollar. You see it's..., well, it's a long story is what it is, so you'll just have to take my word for it that the Canadian dollar is the reason I have been unable to spend much time at home, let alone work on my column. A PowerBook would solve this problem of mine, and in fact I am about to purchase one. Unfortunately, it will be going to my daughter who is away at college and "just has to have one!"
Anyway, for those of you who still remember where I left off in September, here is the final installment of "2019".]
Monitoring Site #7243
While Stan and Emily were monitoring ship traffic on the third floor of Monitoring Site #7243, someone else was monitoring air traffic on the fourth floor. The second floor was responsible for monitoring railroad traffic and the people on the first floor were keeping an eye on the ‘truck only’ highways crisscrossing their respective grids. A small part of the fifth floor housed the supervisors who randomly monitored the monitoring going on below them and theoretically took charge when something went wrong. (I say theoretically because nothing has ever gone wrong with the system since the first few days following the system’s startup in 2009.) The remainder of the fifth floor is dedicated to off-planet monitoring. These people watch over the thousands of global positioning, communications, and weather satellites circling the Earth. These satellites choreograph and maintain the even flow of all commercial traffic moving about the planet below them.
Stan and Emily’s workday consisted of six boring hours of watching their monitoring screens as small diamond-shaped blips entered, moved across and then either exited the screen or pulled into a dock of one of the harbors in their grid. When a blip first enters your grid you are required to identify the vessel, noting time of day the vessel entered your grid and its present speed, and then verify its course and destination. This information is available by touching a stylus to a five digit code that is projected on the screen below the diamond blip. Doing this brings up a full screen, real time, color closeup satellite image of the vessel, displaying all its pertinent information.
All monitoring people are required to notify their supervisor if they detect a deviation of more than one half of one degree in a vessel’s automated course. In all the years since being assigned to the third floor of Monitoring Site #7243, Stan and Emily had never once had to notify their supervisor, nor had they ever heard of anyone else having to do so. Nothing had ever gone wrong.
Stan had not adapted well to his obviously unnecessary job. He considered it nothing more than a B.G. Enterprise/NWG sponsored ‘make work’ program designed to create employment for the millions of people whose jobs had been taken over by the more efficient, more productive robotic technology that Bill Gates and company had perfected and were continuing to introduce into nearly every aspect of their ongoing global techno-industrialization.
Stan had once told his wife, "Our jobs are as unimportant as it is for us to sit and watch the grass grow in our backyard." When Emily had answered with a look of puzzlement, Stan clarified by saying, "At least with the grass, we get to make the decision at some point that it needs to be mowed." Emily agreed that their jobs could not be described as intellectually challenging.
Today, sitting in front of their assigned monitors, Stan and Emily went through the identification and verification procedure for each vessel in their grid as was required at the start of every new shift. Emily presently had six blips on her screen and Stan had eleven. Emily finished her identifications first and sat back quietly waiting for Stan to finish his. When her husband sat back in his chair, Emily smiled and said, "Here we go again, another day, another purchasing unit." Stan smiled, but Emily knew he was not amused. She knew he hated coming here four days a week. But if they wanted to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, they didn’t have a choice. The NWG assigned you a job; you didn’t get to choose one.
Embedded Chip facility-Livermore, Ca.
At the same time Stan and Emily were preparing for another long day of boredom at Monitoring Site #7243 on the banks of the Hudson River, a man named Steve Jobs was racing his fingers over a keyboard at the main input terminal of the Embedded Chip production facility in Livermore, California. Jobs was sending new, overriding data via satellite to a number of embedded navigational systems around the globe–something that was not supposed to be possible. The data he was inputting would, when initialized, send the B.G. Enterprise transportation industry into chaos and turmoil. Jobs was grinning as he worked the keyboard, thinking of his boss Bill Gates and what his reaction would be when he saw his flawless global distribution network fall apart right before his eyes. "It’s payback time, Billy!" Jobs muttered to himself.
It was Steve Jobs along with a secret team of his brightest technicians from the now defunct Apple Computer Company that had designed and developed this new generation of removable and re-programmable embedded chip technology. The term ‘embedded chip’ was actually a misnomer, since the chips were easily removed and attached onto any of the self-running systems in use at the time. But the term remained, mainly because no one had thought to change it. Jobs and his team had initially designed this new chip to neutralize the effects of the Y2K bug that had threatened to wreak havoc around the globe at the turn of the millennium. And in fact, had the chip been made available to the world in mid-1999 as Jobs had planned, it would have greatly reduced the resulting catastrophic effects of what actually did happen in the year 2000, now commonly referred to as "The Dark Year."
Although his new chip had been finished and readied for mass distribution in ample time to eliminate the majority of the foreseen computer problems that were predicted to pop up when the calendar jumped from 1999 to 2000, Steve Jobs and company were faced with one last hurdle that prevented them from releasing the new chips in time to do any good. That hurdle was named Bill Gates.
As founder and CEO of a company called Microsoft, Bill Gates had also been developing a Y2K chip at the time. Although his company’s chip was plagued with so many bugs and glitches that it wouldn’t have seen mass production and distribution until the summer or fall of 2000, Gates wasn’t about to miss out on the windfall profits that would go to the first company that provided a solution for the Y2K dilemma.
Not being accustomed to finishing second in any of his endeavors and unable to persuade Steve Jobs to abandon Apple and come to work for Microsoft, Bill Gates accused Jobs and his company of stealing hundreds of thousands of lines of proprietary code from Microsoft, allowing Apple to unfairly surge ahead in the race to be the first company to provide a solution to the Y2K problem.
Although Gates’ allegations were totally false, they were enough to put a halt to the timely release of Apple’s chip.
While the legal battles raged on in the halls of the slow moving American judicial system, the first day of the new millennium came and went, bringing with it the reality of what many had feared. Power supply stations shut down, bank records were lost or deleted, airplanes and trains quit running due to a perceived lack of maintenance, people depending on government social security checks were sent computer generated letters telling them they were either dead or not even born yet, and numerous other malfunctions occurred within the computerized infrastructure of the world. And nearly all of this could have been avoided had Steve Jobs been allowed to distribute his Y2K chip as planned.
By the time the suits and counter suits between Microsoft and Apple had been settled, the devastating impact of the millennium bug had already been felt throughout the world. Governments, banks, and businesses coped with the problem by reverting to manual record keeping. Power stations and other manufacturing plants were slowly brought back on-line under manual operation, effectively slowing the economies of the world to a crawl.
In July of 2000 Bill Gates had finally succeeded in getting his company’s Y2K chip up and running, and in a surprise move dropped all litigations against Apple and its CEO. By using the vast public relations and propaganda machine of Microsoft, Gates was able to convince the computing masses that it was Steve Jobs and not him that was responsible for delaying the timely release of a Y2K solution. The world responded by beating a path to Microsoft’s door to purchase his working, although technically inferior, Y2K chip.
Microsoft enjoyed record profits from the sale of its chip and the world slowly returned to its pre-year 2000 computerized state.
After the Y2K debacle, Steve Jobs swore he would do whatever it took to topple the ever expanding empire of Microsoft and its self-appointed king, even if it took him the rest of his life. He made this promise privately, to himself.
Publicly, Jobs acknowledged his defeat at the hands of the Microsoft tycoon, but promised the Apple stockholders that he and his team of developers would be back to unveil a new generation of computer chip that would make the profits that Microsoft reaped from the Y2K chip look like chump change. However, this was not enough to keep him–for the second time in his life–from being removed as the CEO of Apple Computer Inc.
Shaken by his company’s vote of no confidence, Jobs humbly relinquished his CEO position but remained working for Apple so that he and his team could continue their work on the development of what would latter become known as the monitoring chip. This chip would become the single largest breakthrough in the computer world since transistors took the place of vacuum tubes.
Over the next several years Bill Gates went on a buying spree the likes of which had never been seen before. He started in the communications industry, buying out every major radio and television station he could get his hands on. He then moved into the manufacturing, construction, and transportation industries. Towards the end of the first decade of the 21st century the conglomeration of B.G. Enterprise had become so big and so powerful that it was taking over whole government agencies such as NASA, the U.S. Postal Service, Department of Energy, Department of Transportation, and even the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Gates accomplished all of this by turning each and every buyout into a more efficient and profitable entity than it had been previously. When he encountered resistance from the political or judicial fronts, he offered incentives that couldn’t be refused.
Well on his way to controlling the entire economy of the world, Bill Gates still lacked the one thing he needed and wanted most: the monitoring chip that he knew his old nemesis Steve Jobs had developed and was still perfecting but was stubbornly refusing to sell. Gates had made several attempts at producing his own chip but could never attain the 100% degree of reliability or accuracy that was needed for such an integral piece of his global computerization plan. He had to have the chip Jobs developed, and the only way he was going to accomplish that would be to persuade the stockholders of Apple that unless they accepted his generous offer of 10 times what their stock was worth he would crush their company and they would end up with nothing. His threat worked and Steve Jobs surprisingly put up very little resistance, asking only that he be allowed to remain in charge of the monitoring chip. Gates readily agreed and gave Jobs free rein over every aspect of the chip, a move he would later come to regret.
In the years leading up to 2019, Bill Gates found more and more uses for this seemingly self-evolving monitoring chip that Steve Jobs was constantly perfecting. Once the monitoring chip had turned his whole global conglomeration of businesses into the smoothly run, highly profitable entity of B.G. Enterprise, Gates focused the power of the chip towards the human population of the world, thinking he could make life better for all by controlling the actions of his fellow man. This idea of his turned the monitoring chip into, The ‘Monitoring’ Chip. It controlled and monitored the world’s population. Maybe not as intrusively, but just as effectively as Big Brother as envisioned by George Orwell in his "1984".
Monitoring Site #7243
Two hours into their shift, Stan asked his wife to keep an eye on his screen while he went to the bathroom. When he returned he noticed an additional blip had entered into his grid. He brought up the profile of this new blip and was surprised to see that it was a natural gas tanker and that its auto-plotted course showed its destination as New York Harbor.
"This is strange," he commented to his wife.
"What’s strange?" Emily asked.
"I’ve got a natural gas tanker headed right into NY harbor."
"New York doesn’t have any facilities for tankers, Stan."
"I know. That’s what makes it strange."
"Maybe you better call a supervisor, Stan."
"No. I don’t think so. Our job is to track and monitor these ships and only report when a ship deviates from its stated automated course. The stated automated course for this lost puppy is New York Harbor, I’m just going to watch it and see what it does when it gets there."
Over the next several hours other anomalies began popping up on screens at Monitoring Sites all over the world. Third floor monitors were seeing hundreds, if not thousands of ocean going vessels being diverted to ports that were not equipped to handle the type of cargo that the vessel carried. Passenger cruise ships were arriving at freight unloading docks, while cargo laden ships were running aground in the shallow waters of beach resorts. Some unmanned vessels were just shutting down in the middle of the oceans and automatically flooding their own holds until they sank. But in every instance, the auto-plotted courses of these vessels, when checked, revealed that the ships were following the exact instructions entered into their self-navigational computers.
Things were looking even worse on the fourth floors of the Monitoring Sites where the monitoring of air traffic took place. Passenger airlines were landing at wrong airports all over the globe. Unmanned cargo carrying airplanes were staying aloft, cruising in circles until they ran out of fuel and then falling out of the skies crashing into oceans, deserts, and other uninhabited regions. Again, when their auto-plotted courses were checked it showed that the aircraft were doing exactly what they were programmed to do.
Like disasters were also occurring on the ground with the railroads and commercial truck traffic.
As word of these strange occurrences spread throughout the Monitoring Sites, it was learned that only the fifth floor monitoring of off planet vessels had gone unaffected. Satellites and spacecraft seemed to be operating normally.
Although thought to be impossible, it was beginning to look like a major attempt at sabotage was underway against the transportation industries of B.G. Enterprise. Not having a standard protocol or procedure to follow for such an occurrence, word of the ongoing disaster was slow to reach the hierarchy of B.G. Enterprise.
When Bill Gates was finally briefed on the situation later that evening, he phoned up Steve Jobs and ordered him to pull the plugs and shut down all navigational and communications satellites that controlled every moving vehicle on the planet. Jobs informed his boss that doing this would cause every aircraft that was presently in the air to fall out of the sky and crash. Gates told him, "Just do it!"
"No way," Jobs told his boss. "Give me an hour and I can at least bring all the passenger planes down safely before shutting everything else down."
"How is that possible, Jobs? Those planes are preprogrammed before they take off. You can’t access those onboard chips."
"Just give me one hour," Jobs said.
"What are you keeping from me, Jobs?"
"One hour. Bye!"
Steve knew he had just given his boss reason to suspect that he was the one behind this catastrophe by inferring that he could access and reprogram the onboard chips in the navigational systems–something that was not supposed to be possible. All navigational systems aboard every moving vehicle that used the embedded chip technology that Steve Jobs developed for B.G. Enterprise was supposed to be tamper-proof. And they were tamper-proof. That is, by anyone other than Jobs himself.
When designing the new chips, Jobs wanted them to have complete override capability, allowing changes to be made to the preprogrammed instructions on the chips. But Gates was against the idea, saying it would open the door to saboteurs and computer hackers, so he forbade Jobs to add that enhancement to his design. Steve Jobs knew that the real reason his boss wanted a closed, inaccessible monitoring chip was so he could have total control over the chips functionality, something Jobs wasn’t about to give to one man. So Jobs went ahead and secretly added the interactive capability to the chips anyway. He accomplished this by coating each chip with a silicon and copper-based paste he called silicop. He told everyone the paste was a sealant to protect the chips from dust and moisture, which in fact it did. But the silicop paste also contained microscopic filaments which were highly conductive. These filaments, when electronically excited in a certain way, could be aligned to carry overriding instructions that would bypass the chips original programming and receive and initiate new data via a satellite link. Jobs was the only person who knew how to do this and he used this knowledge as his ace in the hole, to be used against Bill Gates and his empire at the time of his choosing. That time was now.
Steve Jobs finished his instructions that would safely land all passenger carrying airliners. When the last plane was on the ground he commenced shutting down monitoring systems around the globe. Not just the communications and navigational chips that operated the transportation industry as Gates had ordered, but every monitoring chip in every B.G. Enterprise computer system around the world.
"Let’s see you explain this to the world, Billy boy," Jobs said, as he gathered up all the data and codes needed to undo what he had just done and left his office for the last time. He would go underground and watch the unravelling of Bill Gates and company from afar.
Pete Miner
pete@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.wolfenet.com/~pminer
NT and Linux Are Both Knocking. Will Apple Answer?
I’ve had a great opportunity this school year to help administrate one of the computer labs on campus. The lab is pretty small–about a dozen computers total–and has a mix of Windows NT and Red Hat Linux operating systems. After about three months on the job, I’ve come to one conclusion, which ties in nicely with the time of the year:
I’m more thankful than ever that I use a Mac.
Now I Hate Windows AND Have a Better Understanding Why
Windows NT is an even more complex cousin to Windows 95/98, and of course, in Microsoft-speak, more complexity means more possibilities for things to go wrong. In hindsight, I wish I would have begun making a tally at the beginning of the year of how many days all of the NT-based computers in the lab were up and running at the same time. I seriously doubt I would run out of fingers. Granted, not all of the problems have been NT-specific; there’s been a motherboard go bad, a video card go bad, and other hardware-specific problems that can’t honestly be blamed on Microsoft. But the number of times that there have been problems whose easiest solution seemed to be “wipe the hard drive clean and reinstall everything” has still been insanely high.
I’ve also been asked to do some troubleshooting and setup for students who bring their computers in to Computing Services offices. Most of the incidents I’ve handled have involved hooking students up to the campus network. I’ve had to install PCI-, ISA-, and PCMCIA-based Ethernet cards, as well as the Novell Netware networking client, and properly configure system settings. This experience has taught me that, regardless of what they claim, the PC industry does not know what the term “plug-and-play” means. I do chalk a lot of my initial problems up to my own inexperience working with PCs, but nevertheless, the steps required are insane when compared to how easy it is to install hardware and drivers on the Macintosh. You don’t just install the card, install the drivers, restart, and go; you install the card, add the hardware profile, add the networking protocol, add the networking client, reboot, and pray. This usually involves about three different disks, and occasionally multiple reboots. Even on the occasion that it all works right away, the process is unnecessarily complex: right-clicking on the network neighborhood icon, navigating through the proper tabbed windows, and wading through a series of dialog boxes asking such things as “which disk is the proper driver on? Please tell me because I can’t find it on my own.” To be fair, after a while you get used to the process, and you don’t always find yourself wanting to pull your hair out. But every time I need to do something on a Windows computer, I find myself wishing I was working with a Macintosh instead.
Linux Is Really Good, But It’s Still Really Geeky
Of course, it’s not just Mac users who are fed up with Microsoft. Plenty of PC users are making the switch to running Linux on their computers. Even my computer science professors got the dreaded blue screen one too many times over the summer and made the switch to running the Red Hat distribution of Linux. They encourage computer science majors to use Linux, too, or at the very least be acquainted with it. While the department still maintains several Windows NT computers, it has totally moved away from Windows 95/98. (Too bad the entire campus can’t be convinced to do the same! 
Working so closely with Linux recently has caused me to appreciate its power and features, and acknowledge that it has several temporary advantages over the Mac OS. If an application crashes, that’s the only thing that crashes–just the application, not the entire system. I have never experienced a forced restart of Linux, unless I have chosen to restart manually. Linux doesn’t freeze, doesn’t hang, doesn’t crash–and I spent a whole week setting up the lab before school started trying to make it crash! I’ve had application conflicts, numerous application crashes, core dumps, and so forth, but never anything that hung the entire system. Linux also features protected memory, better virtual memory, multiuser support, and other enhancements that make it an attractive alternative OS. In fact, one of my professors directly told me that the reason he didn’t even consider Mac OS when switching to Linux was because of its lack of many of these features. He appreciated–and was impressed by–Apple’s new hardware offerings, but felt that Apple needed a most robust “modern” operating system before it could be a true contender in business, higher education, or other networked environments.
Even though Linux offers many features the Mac OS doesn’t, it does lack Apple’s traditional trump card: ease of use. For the end user, Linux has made great strides in adding a graphical interface to its UNIX-rooted command line; desktop managers such as Gnome and KDE imitate the Mac/Windows desktop metaphor fairly well. However, setting up necessary system functions such as printing, dial-up Internet access, and mounting drives is still a complicated process. I won’t even get into the problems I’ve run into as an administrator; once everything is up and running, Linux is great, but getting it to that point can truly be a daunting task. Dozens upon dozens of .ini and .config files almost make Windows’ .dll and .bat files seem friendly! Another problem Linux users face is that few peripheral companies directly support Linux as an operating system (although more are starting to do so). This means that you have to rely on hacked drivers or patches to get some devices to work, and are still limited to what types and brands of devices you can use.
The bottom line? Linux is a good PC alternative to Microsoft-branded operating systems. If you are computer-geeky… er, I mean technically oriented enough, aren’t afraid to play around with potentially dangerous system settings, and have the time and patience to set it up properly, Linux can be an outstanding, powerful OS. The same is true if you are just a regular user but have a system administrator or knowledgeable friend to help you out. But, despite all of its robust features and capabilities, it will be a while before Linux makes it as an everyday operating system; I would never recommend it to an average home user unless I wanted to scare them.
Apple’s Golden Opportunity
This situation puts Apple in a prime position to deliver another industry-changing product: Mac OS X. Many “power” users prefer Linux because of, among other things, its memory management, crash protection, command prompt, and multi-user capabilities. But, it can be hard to configure and get running. Mac users love their OS’s ease of use and simplicity, which is combined with a good deal of power, but it lacks the advanced features of a so-called “modern” operating system like Linux. If Apple can successfully combine the two, it could cause everyone–Mac and PC users alike–to “think different.”
I just hope Apple doesn’t drop the ball here. They must maintain their stellar interface to have a truly easy-to-use product, and they have shown signs of abandoning this, even in the regular Mac OS. Many people have complained about the lack of intuitiveness in the QuickTime 4 Player, but that interface seems to continue to spread throughout the Mac OS, such as in Mac OS 9′s Sherlock 2. Also, there have been several reports of a more NeXT-like file browser system in Mac OS X, which seems to be either a love-it-or-hate-it feature. I truly hope Apple comes back to its roots in terms of graphical interface design, or else the multitude of enhancements and features that Mac OS X promises may end up seeming like a powerful, revved-up engine inside a car without a good steering wheel.
I’ve seen firsthand the problems associated with Windows NT and Linux, and I know that there are plenty of people who WANT a killer operating system with a good interface to come out of Cupertino and give them a true alternative. Here’s your chance, Apple, make good with it!
Mike Wallinga
mikew@mymac.com
The last few issues I’ve written about how to actually create CDs. This month, let’s address the number one question asked of me: how to get either LPs or cassette tapes onto CD using your Mac.
The good news is that chances are you have almost everything you will need already to do it, and what you don’t have can be easily bought at Radio Shack or the Internet.
The bad news, though, is the sound of your CD recorded from the LPs or cassettes will only sounds as good as the source material. If your record is really scratchy your CD will be, too. Thankfully, there are some programs out there that will help you clean up the sound somewhat. Just remember the old rule or recording, though: crap in is crap out. (As crass as that may sound, it is nonetheless true.)
Let’s pretend for a moment that we want to do this on the cheap. Here’s how you will want to do it.
First, you will need to make a quick run to Radio Shack or your favorite electronics store and pick up a cable with a mini-phone jack (3.5mm) on one end and a pair of RCA jacks on the other (see picture). If you’re not sure if you’re getting the right one, look on the back of any stereo or VCR and you will see an RCA plug. Get the cable that fits that. Chances are, one will be red, the other white (left and right). The other side of the cable is the mini-phone jack. This is the same thing as a headphone plug, or the Microphone that may have come with your Mac. If you’re still unsure just tell the salesman what you want and let him get it for you.
The first step is connecting the tape or turntable (record player) to your Mac. With a tape player, this is simple. Simply use the cable you just got to connect the RCA plugs on the tape deck to the sound input jack on the back of your Mac (where you plug in your microphone). With a turntable, you will need to use a stereo pre-amp, such as your home audio amplifier. To connect the Mac, simply plug the RCA plug into the “Tape 1 Record” RCA plugs on the back of the amplifier, and then insert the mini-phone jack into the back of the Mac.
Once you have the physical connection between your source player and the Macintosh, it is time to sit down in front of the Mac and play with some software.
The first thing you will need is a program to get the sound from your cassette or LP into your Mac. Sure, you now have a connection between the two, but you have to let the Mac know there will be music coming into that port.
You will need some software at this point. Jump on the web, and download the following two programs. (Note: other programs will work, and may even work better, but I found that those on a limited budget will find these two programs easy to learn and use, and they both get the job done.)
Ultra Recorder http://members.aol.com/EJC3/Ultra.html will let us actually record the music coming into your Macintosh. This is a $20 shareware product, which you can use just fine until you pay for your shareware fees. I found that the longer the song, the more memory you will want to give Ultra Recorder. In fact, if you’re on a Mac with very little memory and you plan on creating a lot of CDs (or MP3s for that matter) you will want to get some more memory for your Mac ASAP. Virtual Memory is not recommended, as some audio applications do not like it.
The next program you will want to download is SndSampler 4.0. http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Garage/9373/SndSampler.html This is the program you will use to clean up your music. (Debra Power did the review for My Mac back in November 1998, which you can view at http://www.mymac.com/mymac/archives/nov_98/sndsampler.shtml) Like Ultra Recorder, SndSampler is shareware and will set you back $20. Both programs are well worth the $20 shareware fee, and compete in features and ease-of-use with commercial programs costing five times as much.
Another program you can use to get the sound into your Macintosh is Adaptec’s CDSpinDoctor, which comes with Adaptec Toast 4.0. If you’re going to be creating a lot of CDs you really should purchase Adaptec Toast 4.0. It is well worth the money. CDSpinDoctor will let you take audio from your cassettes or LPs right into your Mac. If you already have this program, I still suggest downloading Ultra Recorder and comparing the two, and use the one that works best for you. (While I like CDSpinDoctor, it keeps crashing on my Mac, whereas Ultra Recorder does not.)
One more step to go before you begin recording your music. Take a trip to the Monitors & Sound control panel, click on the Sound button, and change the Sound Monitoring Source to Sound In. If you are using a pre-amp, adjust the sound level now so that it doesn’t play too loudly and that your audio source won’t suffer clipping from input overload.
You now have the tools to record music from an LP or cassette onto your Mac! Both Ultra Recorder and CDSpinDoctor will let you save the imported music into AIFF format, which is the format used on audio CDs.
This is a (very) simple explanation on how to get sound into your Macintosh. Of course, once you get the sound into your Mac, the possibilities are endless on what you can do with it. You can change almost everything about the music with SndSampler or any other music editing software. Using an MP3 encoder, you can convert your sound/music into MP3 format to play in SoundJam or another MP3 player. You could record yourself on a cassette player, bring it into your Mac, convert it into a QuickTime movie, and post in on a website. Your only limit will be your imagination.
We are at the stage where almost anyone can afford to create CDs very inexpensively. Macs of all varieties are getting cheaper in price, CD Burners are at an all time low, and blank CDs are much cheaper than a Zip disk. All told, if you’re a music lover, now is the time to take the CD creation plunge. You knew it would be fun. Did you know it could be so easy?
Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com
A week ago I placed an order for two new computers: the new G4 400MHz PowerMac and a 400MHz G3 bronze keyboard PowerBook. With the new iMac and the now shipping iBook, Apple finally has a well-rounded stable of computers for every single type of computer user.
While I wish I could say the new G4 sat on my desk, it doesn’t. One of the designers in our graphic house has the machine on his desk. Of course, I’m the guy who orders all the computers, sets them up, and plays with them first. Meaning, of course, that I got a full five hours on the G4 fresh out of the box before anyone else got to use it.
My first impression: FAST. Yes, this is a very fast Mac. I talked to another IT guy from our company who claimed the 450MHz G3 was faster than the 400MHz G4. While I hate to disagree with my esteemed co-worker, I have to say he is wrong. This G4 not only out performs the G3s, but also it FEELS faster. In everything from opening windows, launching Illustrator 8.0.1, and saving a large file over the network, this G4 just seems much more responsive.
Love at first sight? Well, no. There are some problems I’ve encountered with the G4 which have made me somewhat skeptical of this new design, and whether it was perhaps rushed to market a little sooner than it should have. I also wondered why Apple bothered to release the G4 400MHz model, which is nothing but a G3 with a G4 chip inside, unlike the 450 and 500MHz models which incorporate the new SawTooth architecture. Now I know the reason: there was a production shortage of the faster CPUs and Apple decided this course of action–ship something now rather than accrue backorders and impatient customers–would be the better public relations, if not marketing, decision. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was the lesser of two evils.
The problems have been strange with the G4. For example, I could be running Adobe Illustrator 8.0.1 perfectly when for no apparent reason the machine will slow down. Click a menu and nothing happens for at least five seconds. Then everything is fine again for an hour, until the problem comes back. An Adobe Illustrator problem? Undoubtedly. The machine works fine with other applications, even when the problem is occurring right then in Illustrator. My solution? None yet, though I have not had much time to explore it further. I hope Adobe is aware of this and is working on a fix.
The biggest comment from other Mac users in our shop? The look of the G4. “Hey, I like the look of that much better than the G3s” I hear it all the time.
When the G3 was first released, I really, REALLY liked how it looked. Different. Classy. Nice machine. Now, though, after seeing a blue and white G3 sitting next to a graphite and clear G4, I realize how muddy the G3′s color is in comparison. The G4 looks like power. It looks fast. Most important, it looks much more like a professional machine than the blue and white G3. Could some of this simply be the newness of the G4? Certainly. But people who have never been around Macs before have commented on the look of the G4, and how “smooth” it looks. These are people who don’t give a rat’s butt about Apple or computers in general, for that matter.
Something that really bugs me on both the G3 and G4s: the cheap CD tray. These things are about the cheapest piece of trash of a CD mechanism I have ever seem. If you’ve never opened a CD on a G3 or G4, you’ll be surprised the first time you do. They are VERY loud when the tray slides out, and the sound is very clunky and cheap sounding. In fact, the CD is the worst part of these machines, and I can’t believe Apple didn’t address this design with the G4. The brand new iMacs have a trayless CD/DVD player. What does “trayless” mean, you ask? Well, have you ever seen a car audio CD player, the newer ones where you just slide the CD a little and the player grabs the disc to load it automatically? That is trayless. I’ve wondered for years why the computer industry hasn’t rushed to embrace this simply technology. Well, at least the new iMacs finally have this feature. I only wish Apple had this option on the $6,498 top of the line model, not only the $999 model. Make sense? Oh, sure. You betcha.
The PowerBook, on the other hand, is very hard to find fault with. This machine is pure elegance. I have a 520c PowerBook as well, and while that machine is dreadfully slow today, it is still one of the best-made PowerBooks Apple has ever produced. Sturdy, trusty, and small. I saw last year’s PowerBook “Wallstreet” models, most notably Adam’s, our webmaster, and one at work. While I really liked the machine, it just didn’t feel quite right to me. It wasn’t until I sat with this year’s PowerBook, the bronze keyboard G3, that I finally felt Apple got it 100% correct.
The slimmer design of the 1999 G3 PowerBook makes a big difference in comfort while typing. Hard to believe since it’s only a wee bit thinner, but it does make a big difference, at least to me. Though I still prefer a full-sized extended keyboard, this new PowerBook is really, really nice to type on. Likewise, the trackpad in the new PowerBooks are much more natural feeling in use, unlike the older trackpads on the 520, 5300, or any other PowerBook.
The display is adequate, though the new display on the iBooks look much sharper in comparison. Sharper and brighter. One of my only complaints with the PowerBook is that the screen is a little too dark at times. Adjusting the settings helps, but not always. In particular, darker scenes in many QuickTime movies lack details I see easily after connecting an external monitor to the PowerBook for an A-B comparison.
The DVD player is a nice addition, thought I don’t have much use for it. Perhaps on a long train or plane trip, this would be a handy feature. Otherwise, it has no use to me. The CD tray, however, could use some work. In particular, I hate the almost recessed CD eject button. I have to use the tip of my finger to push that button, when the flat part of my finger should be able to open the tray. I know the designers wanted to prevent inadvertent ejections, but I still feel Apple could make that button a little bigger in future designs. On the other hand, ejecting the CD tray and battery is simplicity itself. Lift the lever on the front of the machine, and out the CD player or battery pops. Very handy!
Another complaint I have is the fact that the screen gets very dirty, due to the fact that when you close the unit the screen actually touches the keyboard. I don’t like this, and wish there was some space between the two. I have heard others complain of this, including Bob McCormick here at My Mac. Hair, smudges, and dirt which were not on the screen before I closed the lid, are there after I open it again. I also wonder if, after time, the screen will actually acquire indentations from the keyboard? This worries me. The machines are still too new to know yet if this will be a problem. I love the fact that I can flip the screen up horizontally with the keyboard. When you do this, the PowerBook looks HUGE.
Yes, I talked about all the things I don’t like with the new G4 and the PowerBook 400MHz G3. This is what I do, complain about stuff that bugs me. Does that mean I don’t think you should buy either of these machines? If you have the money, both the G4 and the PowerBook are the very best computers on the market today. Apple has never made a better PowerBook, or a faster machine than the G4. Both work as advertised and work well. The problems I see with these machines can be explained simply enough: I expect perfection and always see ways to improve a great design. The new PowerBook is the BMW of the computer industry, while the G4 is the Lamborghini. Both are great machines, and you will love being the owner of either one.
Tim Robertson
publisher@mymac.com
QuickMail Pro 2.0
Company: CE Software
Estimated Price: $39.95
http://www.cesoft.com
In its promotional materials and advertisements for QuickMail 2.0, CE Software promises the Holy Grail of good software programming–a clean, easy-to-learn interface to comfort the newest of newbies, combined with enough features and muscle to keep the true power users happy. Even though I have a few minor quibbles with this underdog of an email client, for the most part QuickMail 2.0 delivers on its promises, and provides users with a good, solid alternative to the heavyweights of the market.
For many people, an email client isn’t just an application they run on their computer, it’s the application they run on their computer, and life without it would be almost unimagineable. As such, it’s worth doing a little comparison shopping to make sure that this indispensable tool is the best you can get, not only in terms of features, but in its of ease of use and efficiency. If you take the time to do this, you’ll probably find that QuickMail Pro stands up pretty favorably to the competition. Whether or not it stands above the big boys is ultimately, of course, your own decision.
Looks to Die For, and a Good Personality, Too!
CE Software isn’t just giving QuickMail lip service when it touts its easy-to-learn, easy-to-use interface; it is quite intuitive, and for the most part self-explanatory. Toolbar icons are well-designed, and if you can’t figure out a button’s function by the icon, hold the cursor over the icon for a second, and some text will pop up and tell you. Menu commands are where they are expected to be, and most of them have keyboard equivalents for people who are inclined to spend as much time with their hands on the keys as possible, as I am.
The interface does break a little from the now-standard three-paned motif popularized by clients such as Netscape Messenger and Microsoft’s Outlook Express. By default, the main window shows only the status of your accounts: how many messages are unread, how many have been sent, and so forth. Clicking on the triangle widgets on the left hand side of the window collapses and expands the account hierarchies, much like a Finder window in list mode. If you like, you can expand your mailboxes to show your messages, reveal the optional preview pane at the bottom of the window, and read all of your email from this one window. I find it easier to double-click on messages and show them in their own windows, though.
Like nearly all email clients, QuickMail allows you to create subfolders to store your read mail in, but the program takes a different approach to how you put them there. Instead of a third pane on the left side to drag-and-drop the messages onto, or a menu in the menubar, QuickMail has a “File” icon in its toolbar; clicking on it pops up a dialog box allowing you to select which of your personal folders you’d like to move the message to. Alternatively, clicking and holding on the “File” icon pops up the your personal folders in a list, from which you can easily choose the proper destination for your piece of email.
But, as slick as the interface is, it could be slicker. People who prefer to read their email in the main window’s preview pane must use the keyboard or the menubar if the wish to reply to a message–the only time a “Reply” button is present in the toolbar is when a message is being displayed in its own window. Also, the toolbar buttons are not contextual–in other words, the “New” button always creates a new email message, which can be confusing if you are working with your personal folders and expect it to create a new mail folder!
Looks Aren’t Everything What Can It Do?
In addition to its outstanding interface, QuickMail Pro 2.0 offers many power features that make it a strong contender: support for multiple users; multiple accounts; multiple signatures; scheduled mail checking; contextual menus; mail filters; styled text; LDAP directory servers; and more. The built-in spell checker is both complete and customizable, and the Contact Manager is so robust for an email client’s address book that I’ve taken to using it as my own lightweight PIM of choice. QuickMail also supports Auto-Completion of email addresses (if you have them stored in the Contact Manager). For example, by the time I’ve typed “Kar” into the To: field of a new message, QuickMail has already matched my typing with the name of My Mac’s webmaster, Adam Karneboge, and has completed his name and email address for me. Finally, in one of the niftier features, you have the option of recording a voice message within QuickMail and sending it as an attachment to an email message. (That is, as long as your Mac has a microphone and/or an audio-in jack–sorry, iBook users!)
In the two months that I have been regularly using the program, QuickMail has done all I have asked it to, and more. The only gripe I have with its operation is the way it handles multiple accounts. If you have several active accounts, QuickMail doesn’t consolidate your mailboxes. For example, mail that gets sent to my My Mac address, my college address, or my home ISP address gets put into three different inboxes, and mail I send from the three addresses gets stored in one of three different outboxes. I know this is a highly subjective point, but I would have preferred one inbox and one outbox, with a column in the mail browser window devoted to specifying from which account the message originated.
Plays Well With Others… Sort Of
QuickMail Pro makes it easy to keep your current contacts and address book lists from other programs. You can directly import QuickMail 1.x address books, and, even more importantly, Outlook Express Export files, into QuickMail Pro 2.0. Additionally, you can import other contact files (from other programs) as LDIF files or text files. However, since I previously used Outlook Express 4.5 as my email client, I didn’t have a chance to try out that option.
In the other direction, QuickMail Pro 2.0 also allows you to export its Contact Manager file in either LDIF or text fomats. This is useful if you want to use that information in another program.
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to import email messages from another email program into QuickMail. So, if you have tons of mail archived in another format, like I do, your options are either converting the archives to text files and storing them that way, or keeping the archives in their old format and keeping a copy of the old email client around “just in case.”
Compatibility-wise, QuickMail has been relatively trouble free, though I had some problems with the program crashing due to Type 2 errors when I first started using it. The problem went away when I disabled, among other things, desktop printing; I never investigated further to know if that was the true culprit or not, and it may well have been something else. In any case, since then I haven’t had a single problem with the program.
In another minor annoyance, the QuickMail Menu extension insists on putting its menubar icon closest to the Application menu on the right hand side. The problem with this is that America Online Instant Messenger wants its menubar icon in that position, too, and the QuickMail extension “wins.” When both extensions are active, AIM’s menubar icon disappears, which led to me disabling the QuickMail menu extension. (I use a QuicKeys keyboard macro for checking my email, anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal for me.)
A Quick(Mail) Fix for What Ails
Users of QuickMail 2.0 should download the 2.01 update from CE Software’s website for interface improvements and bug fixes. It cleans up the user experience even further by adding icon flags to messages that have been replied to and/or forwarded, adding button titles to the Contact Manager, sorting the Account Assistant’s user list by last name instead of first name, and marking as read messages which have been read in the preview pane but not in their own window, among many other minor improvements and fixes. Get it at http://www.cesoft.com/updates.html.
That’s The Price You Pay
Unfortunately, the biggest drawback to QuickMail Pro, in light of such popular email clients as Outlook Express, Netscape Messenger, and Eudora Light, is that it isn’t free. Even though the saying goes that you get what you pay for, in this case forty bucks doesn’t get very much extra. Don’t get me wrong–I’m a big fan of QuickMail Pro, but the fact remains that it does precious little that Outlook Express can’t. This will only become all the more true when Microsoft releases 5.0 of their email client, with promised features such as direct access to Hotmail accounts and intelligent spam blocking. Even the current version of Outlook Express offers some features that QuickMail Pro doesn’t, such as the ability to access news servers.
I do strongly believe that QuickMail Pro is much, much better than the underpowered freeware offerings from Netscape and Eudora Light, and any users of those programs should check into QuickMail Pro. However, the program doesn’t have much to set it apart from other commercial offerings, nor does it offer a truly compelling reason–other than it’s interface–to pay for it, when you can get a high-powered client like Outlook Express for free.
Personally, I’m in love with QuickMail Pro’s interface, and am willing to pay for the privilege to use it. But that will probably not be the case with most Mac users, and understandably so. The fact that you have to pay for QuickMail Pro shouldn’t cause you to immediately write it off as an option, because if it sounds like a program that might be up your alley, I strongly suggest you “try before you buy” by downloading the demo from CE Software’s website, at http://www.cesoft.com/demo.html. The demo is fully functional for thirty days, and CE Software even provides free technical support during the 30-day evaluation period, so you can’t go wrong by checking it out.
The Target Audience
Given all of the above pros and cons, whether or not QuickMail Pro is for you probably depends on who you are and what type of situation you’re in. For example, even though I didn’t get a chance to test it personally, CE Software’s QuickMail Office package, which offers clients for both Macintosh and Windows as well as mail server and directory server software, seems like an ideal way to set up a cross-platform mailing system. Using the same software on both platforms will keep support simple, and the intuitive interface will keep the learning curve and training cost at a minimum.
Even if you’re not running a network, QuickMail Pro’s support for multiple-user accounts is great for a single Mac with multiple-users. For example, my three roommates and I can all use QuickMail Pro to check our email without worrying that one of us will read someone else’s mail or send a message using someone else’s name (either intentionally or accidentally).
A single user who is searching for an email client right now should definitely give QuickMail Pro a look, too. But, for someone who’s on a budget or already using an email client they’re happy with, it’s hard to recommend switching to QuickMail Pro too strongly.
Summary
I do think that, overall, QuickMail Pro is a very, very good email client. Its stellar interface makes it a snap for anyone to get used to, and its feature set is robust enough for all but the most demanding users to appreciate. It has enough power to be a true workhorse while maintaining a light footprint (requiring 6.5 megs of hard drive space and less than six megs or RAM), and you’ll never find yourself scratching your head wondering how to perform a certain task.
Whether or not you should choose to use QuickMail Pro as your email client depends on several factors, such as your user environment, needs and wants, and willingness or ability to pay money for a program which has top-notch freeware competition. Rest assured, though, that if you do choose QuickMail, you’ll be getting a solid program that you won’t regret buying.
I’ve always thought that the truest test of a reviewer’s opinion, regardless of what gets said in the printed review, is whether or not the reviewer actually uses the program in day-to-day life over its competitors. This is the case with me and QuickMail Pro, and in the last two months of using it I’ve made it my email program of choice. As such, even though it’s not for everyone, I recommend QuickMail Pro 2.0. It’s not a Holy Grail, but it is a solid contender in the battle for email client supremacy.
MacMice Rating: 3
Mike Wallinga
mikew@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.cesoft.com
http://www.cesoft.com/updates.html
http://www.cesoft.com/demo.html
Deathground
Author: FreeVerse Software
Shareware: $29.95 + $3.00 S&H
http://www.freeverse.com/deathg/index.html
Mike: The “big guns” of the shareware gaming scene have been flexing their muscles lately. Last month, we showed you Cythera from Ambrosia Software, and this month, we showcase Freeverse Software’s Deathground, a gangster strategy game based on the classic board game RISK.
Adam: Like Ambrosia, Freeverse Software has a wonderful reputation for high quality shareware games, and Deathground doesn’t disappoint. It shows the same all-around quality that we’ve come to expect from Freeverse. So what exactly is Deathground, Mike?
Mike: In Deathground, you play the role of a gangster who’s out to control as much territory as possible. You spend your turns attacking rival gangs to gain control of their territory, and then shuffling your troops around to fortify your areas. You gain money and resources for each territory you own, making it easier to “off” your opponents.
Adam: The more territories you own, the more troops you have to deploy, and the more fun the game becomes. Once you own all the territories on the map, you win the game.
Mike: The default map is New York City, which is divided up into boroughs. Each borough is divided up further into neighborhoods. You receive resources and cash for each ‘hood you control, but get big bonuses for controlling an entire borough. However, with the other players trying to do the same thing, it’s tough to keep total control of any one borough for too long!
Adam: Definitely true, Mike. And you really have to watch out for your enemies gaining ground, because they move fast once they’re in control, and you’ll be forced to surrender or face certain death.
Mike: FreeVerse went into a lot of detail to make the game more than just a computer re-creation of a game board. When you attack a territory, animated gangsters do battle with each other with tommy guns, and the game is full of FreeVerse’s trademark one-liners and comments by the players. The board also zooms in and out in real time, allowing you to see one borough up-close, or look at all of New York from a bird’s-eye view to see the whole scene.
Adam: FreeVerse has also included plenty of fine-tune controls so you can tailor your Macintosh to the game. If you have an older Mac, you might want to scale back on a few of the preferences. But if you have a G4, well, you know what to do!
Mike: The game can be played by up to seven players, and as many of those can be computer-controlled as necessary. There are also three maps to play, which enhances the replay value of the game, too. The downloadable demo limits you to three players and the map of New York, though. The full version comes on a CD-ROM–a first for FreeVerse–and can be bought directly from the company.
Requirements/Availability
The demo requires System 7.6 or higher, 20 megabytes of hard drive space, and approximately 32 megs of free RAM. The Deathground Demo is available for download at the FreeVerse website, http://www.freeverse.com/deathg/index.html, or from any of the great Mac shareware libraries online such as Download.com http://www.download.com. The full version, featuring additional playing maps, more players, and more, comes only on a CD-ROM, and can be purchased directly from FreeVerse for a total of $32.95.
The Summary
Adam: Deathground is a quality shareware game that is both addicting and fun. Its different levels of gameplay allow you to play for hours on end, even if you’ve never played before. The price-to-performance ratio is top notch for this first-rate shareware game.
Mike: I agree, Adam. FreeVerse’s high reputation for making excellent card games and board games for the Mac is well-deserved, and they prove it once again with Deathground. If you like strategy games and want something that’s not quite as complex as StarCraft, or if you just want to see another great example of fine shareware gaming, take a look at Deathground. Highly Recommended by The Game Guys.
Mike Wallinga
mikew@mymac.com
Adam Karneboge
webmaster@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.freeverse.com/deathg/index.html
http://www.download.com
Hello all!
Thanksgiving… can you smell the turkey in the air? Halloween is over and with it, the last of Indian Summer (if you were so lucky!). Now, the weather inches noticeably closer everyday to the really cold weather. As much as I dislike it, at least I know my tulips and crocuses will grow again in a few months.
Now begins the really hectic time of year. Most of us can’t escape from it. School has started, so now traffic is bad in the morning. Soon, the serious Christmas shoppers will start making traffic really bad in the evenings, too. We’re running the kids around to after-school activities, getting ready for the holiday season, finalizing year-end documents at work, and still attempting to keep up with our everyday activities all the while hoping to maintain some semblance of a normal, or at least more relaxed, lifestyle.
So, keeping in mind you don’t have a lot of time to read this month, I kept this column short and sweet. Enjoy!
Helpful Hints
Y2K stuff — Basically, you’re on a Mac; you’re okay! However, there may be a few glitches in the software or in macros and scripts you’ve written that can cause a few bumps in the road.
Probably the biggest offender will be databases or spreadsheets where the year is just a two digit number. Since you’ve never specified whether it is 19xx or 20xx, the program has no choice but to guess. A good habit is to always use the four digits in a year. A pain? Yes. But a problem solver? Absolutely.
Geoff Duncan wrote an excellent article on how Y2K affects Macs in the October 99 (whoops! I mean 1999) issue of MacWorld. It’s titled “At the stroke of Midnight on January 1, you won’t have to worry about your Mac — or will you?”
While I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, I suggest you take the time to follow his precautions to ensure a smooth transition into the new millenium. I certainly am. And then I can gloat over all the poor, suffering PC users. I may be freezing ’cause I won’t have heat, but at least I can use my Mac! (Or will, when the power is back on!)
Failing aliases — Possibly you deleted the original file. One of the few irritations of aliases is when you delete a file its alias remains. If you are absolutely certain the original file exists, that means the alias became corrupt. It’s easy enough to fix: delete the offending alias, do a Find File for the original, then create a new alias.
Unfortunately, maybe the file exists, but it’s now on a floppy or Zip disk. If you know this to be the case, again, delete the offending alias. Insert the floppy/Zip/Syquest/SuperDisk/whatever, and make a new alias from the file on the medium and drag it to the desktop. That way, when you insert your floppy (or whatever), the alias pops up for you but is also removed when you remove the floppy (or whatever).
Easy Scroll — In OS 8.5.x, you can activate a little hand that grabs your open window and lets you scroll in any direction your heart desires. Simply press the Command key, click in the window, and move your mouse. This does not work with document (unless it is an application specific thing). It works with the open folders/windows on your hard drive.
Opening DOS files ending in .exe — .exe stands for executable. Don’t you love DOS shorthand… NOT! If the files are compressed, you’ll need to decompress them first. StuffIt Expander will usually do the trick. There’s shareware product called Dropstuff with Expander Enhancer that also works well. Both are from Aladdin Systems http://www.aladdinsys.com
Once unstuffed, however, you need DOS emulation software to run the darn thing. Connectix Virtual PC, which I have, is fine http://www.connectix. com Or, Insignia SoftWindows will also do the trick http://www.insignia. com I’ve never used SoftWindows so I can’t compare it to Virtual PC. (And, frankly, comparing the virtues of DOS emulation software turns my stomach.) Virtual PC has worked well for my very minor DOS needs, such as opening files from my goofy friends who haven’t yet figured out that Macs are so much better!
Internet Site of the Month: The Online Sex Offenders Registry, at http://www.apbonline.com/safestreets/sexoffender/index.html. This is a great resource, right at your fingertips. ‘Nuff said.
Have a safe & Happy Thanksgiving!
Barbara Bell
pr@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.aladdinsys.com
http://www.connectix.com
http://www.insignia.com
http://www.apbonline.com/safestreets/sexoffender/index.html
Layout Design
In this installment, “Layout Design” Fenton “lays out” his theory of screen design and tells where to find all those nice buttons.
I would like to describe a method for layout design that I use. It’s nothing special really, kind of conservative, but attractive and efficient.
The main idea is to begin with the data, and work outward from there. That seems fairly natural, as that’s what you have to work with.
The overall theory is this: Use the least amount of layout elements to clearly convey the message. Be reasonably consistent within a type of element. Use a gradual contrast to separate elements, with small touches of dramatic contrast reserved for focusing attention.
My theory is based on a simple discovery. I found, by experimentation, that every layout element adds, by its contrast, a small amount of distraction from the data.
Contrast of Elements Explained
By contrast I mean all the ways that make elements distinct: shades of black; white or color of text or lines; relative to the background; size and position.
Some contrast is needed of course, to allow the data to stand out quickly from the background. It is a balance. Thus the “least amount” must be found.
It’s not that hard. Simply increase the contrast until the data looks good and is easy to find. Then increase it further, look away, then look back. You will notice a slight confusion, even irritation from the extra. It will be slightly more difficult to quickly read the data. Try it. Use this test on every element you add, while viewing the layout as a whole.
Often, after adding many fields and elements, you’ll run into the opposite problem, wherein you can’t quickly find the main data that you want to see first, such as a name in the header or a few primary fields. In this case, I’ve found a couple of good ways to add contrast, as long as they aren’t overdone.
Text Color
One method is to change the text color to a slightly brighter shade. If the other text is black, change that field to very dark blue (it looks almost the same, but is a tiny bit more readable). I often use dark blue for most of the fields, highlighting the few critical ones with one step lighter blue. Bright blue stands out better than any other color.
Red stands out too, but it’s irritating, so I reserve it for warnings.
Dark green doesn’t stand out quite as well, but it’s also good, especially for labels; it’s sort of tranquil.
Dark gray, rather than black, can be used for labels, which, although necessary, don’t need to be as obvious as the data in the fields. This is especially true for things like address or phone number labels, which we all recognize by their format anyway.
As I said, every element adds some distraction. Tone down the labels and the data will stand out more clearly. Do keep them readable, however.
Backgrounds
The other way to add contrast is to change the background of the secondary fields to lightest gray, while leaving the main fields white. That way your eye is quickly drawn to the main ones, and the others are still easy to read.
I usually use a Body background of light gray. (Set the background color by clicking once on the “body” tab, then choosing the fill color.) In this case though, you’ll probably want to change the overall gray background one shade darker than the fields, to preserve some contrast.
By the way, this is generally for Form views, or header or footer elements. Field backgrounds in List views are done differently (see below).
Borders
For the border of the fields, I usually use a slightly darker gray, maybe two shades darker. This is what I mean by “gradual contrast.” If you use the default black it looks “boxy,” and it becomes more difficult for your eye to move quickly to the data in the other fields.
3D
If you feel you need more separation between the elements, or to group certain elements together, use a soft 3D box, or put it around the group.
The 3D effect is made by covering two sides of the box with one or two light colors (white, lighest gray) on two adjacent sides, and one or two dark colors (dark gray) on the others to create the illusion of 3D. I’ve found that if you use two shades for each it’s more realistic.
Layout Purpose
It is essential to have a good idea of what the layout should show, and what the purpose and focus of the layout is.
It’s necessary not only to know what data to put on the layout, but also to know what to leave off. If it seems there is more than one distinct group and there are a lot of fields, give those fields their own layout. That’s what makes a database better than a spreadsheet for displaying sets of information.
There’s also no need to cram everything on one big screen, forcing users to scroll all over looking for things. A simple button, or tab, to jump back and forth is much better.
It is whether you want to see lots of data from one record at a time, or certain fields from many records, that will determine whether you choose a Form view or a List view type layout.
If there is a need for both, you could probably do what you want with a Form view and a portal or two to show lists.
List Views
In the case of List type views I almost always use the alternating background row technique in white and lightest gray behind transparent fields. (See my article from March, “Layout with Global Containers,” and the example file “AltRows” for this simple technique.) Not only does it look good and allow you to easily see what row you’re on, it also enables “the least contrast.”
You can dispense with contrasting lines between the rows. This usually allows you to make the body one pixel shorter, saving at least a pixel per row (and that’s a lot per screen), without cramping the data in any way.
List View Borders
I don’t really like the “grid” look of spreadsheets for list views. Once again, all those black lines cut up and distract from the data.
Sometimes you can leave out borders entirely. But they are often needed to separate the columns and group them with their header label. In that case an elegant solution is to give them a border on just one side and a line color of light gray (a shade or two darker than the background).
Take Sides
To make it look really good, choose the side for the border that interferes least with the data. In the case of two text fields, give the left field a border on the right. In the case of number fields, give them a border on the left. Nudge the fields a couple of pixels apart.
What you are doing is using the adjacent field to create the border, and what it avoids is having the border crammed right up against the data. It appears to float between the fields, lifting and separating (oops, that’s a bra commercial).
You Can Push My Buttons
Buttons are a bit of a problem. I mostly use the built-in 3D buttons. But I try to add a few embellishments when possible.
Buttons should be as clear as possible while remaining a reasonable size. They should be labeled with text unless the graphic is dead obvious (or repeated throughout the database after having been clearly labeled on the main layout).
One way you can customize text buttons to make them more recognizable is by using color. Most buttons I make have dark blue text with dark blue lines around them. The fill is one shade lighter than the background when possible, one shade darker when there is no lighter color (I avoid white buttons usually; too glaring).
The lines would also be dark blue. This allows the buttons to stand out, but draws no particular attention to any one of them.
Buttons for actions that really change the records get a lighter color. For New Records and navigation scripts to other files I use a lighter, more electric blue color, and lighter blue text. This says, “I do something!”
For Deletes I always use dark red text and brighter red line–”Be careful!”
For the button that returns to the main control panel for the whole database I use bright blue text and neon green line, hard to miss if you’re lost or in a hurry to get out. I try to put it in the same place on every layout that has it, which in most layouts is on the far bottom right.
Consistent Locations
“Be reasonably consistent within a type of element.” This is very important with buttons. We associate them with the look and location we saw them last. While this is not a hard and fast rule, it’s a good idea to try and put the same button in the same place on different layouts where it is needed.
This is not to say that it should be on all layouts. Once again, the “least amount of elements” would mean not to put things on a layout that aren’t useful there, unless your overall design requires it.
I sometimes bend the “consistency” rule, especially in cases where the layouts are so different that you can’t reasonably put the button in the same place. A Form view Main Menu type layout and “letter” or report view have little in common.
Alignment and Balance
This is another mysterious area. Suffice it to say that some kind of alignment is better than none. There is no need, however, to have everything line up exactly on their edges.
One thing I’ve noticed is that even unrelated objects should line up with something if possible. This is especially true if an element is just a little out of alignment, but not enough to be considered as part of some other arrangement.
For example, there are some horizontal fields, lined up along their bottoms, with a small graphic button on the end, at the right edge of the screen. Up higher on the layout, there is another similar, though not identical graphic by itself. It really looks better if the upper graphic is moved to line up with the lower, on its outer edge, even if it’s a different size, so the overall layout has a right edge.
Or there is one wide field, with two smaller ones under it. If possible, the first of those should line up on the left, and the second on the right of the one above. Either the fields and/or the space between them should be adjusted to make it so.
Sometimes center-alignment is a good choice when neither right or left will do. These are small things, but they add up.
Spaces between objects should be given roughly the same care as objects themselves. That is, they should be the appropriate size to separate the data fields with their respective labels, uniform within groups of fields and roughly uniform between groups (a pixel or two doesn’t matter).
Overall, the layout should have a pleasing balance. This is something that you just have to sit back and adjust. Move things around. Group the data fields that belong together. Balance the data with the space.
Make a copy of the layout to try out real different arrangements (as it’s a pain to recreate a messed up layout).
So that’s my method. I’m not saying that you should do yours the same. But do give it some thought, look at other files and develop a style of your own.
Databases can be aesthetic; they will not only look better, but they make it easier to find what you’re looking for, which is what it’s all about, right? They don’t have to look like a spreadsheet or a bunch of bare black boxes on a white background. Neither should they look like a piece of abstract modern art (unless it looks good and works), nor like a peacenik’s vest covered with buttons.
I like to think of mine as simple control panels for personal data-space craft 
Sliding Rows
OK, here’s an actual useful tip, for those of you still awake. To achieve the ultimate soft 3D look with a list-type view, draw (in Layout mode) a 1 pixel horizontal line across the bottom of the Header for the whole width of your layout, right over the black default line. Do the same for the Footer (if you have one), but nudge the line down one pixel below the dotted line (elements touching a dotted line belong to the part above it).
Make the top line a shade or two darker than the Header and the bottom one white.
The body now appears to be inset beneath the other parts. When you scroll down, the list view rows appear to be sliding underneath. It’s classier looking than the black lines and besides, it adheres to the “least contrast” rule (OK, I’ll never say it again).
Moving, Deleting Parts
Sometimes you want to remove a part (Header, Body, etc.), but keep the fields that are in it. Normally if you press Delete, you’re asked if you want to delete the part and everything in it. If you hold the Option key, just the part will be deleted, without dialog, and all the objects will remain just where they were.
Other times you want to adjust a part, moving its line up or down past existing objects; it stops when it hits one and won’t go further. Once again, hold the Option key and it will glide right past. If you slide a Header line all the way to the top, it’s the same as deleting it (above).
There is a reason for the default “stopping” behavior. It lets you move the part line snug to the bottom of fields or labels without having to look hard to get it pixel perfect, very useful in list views. Remember the Option key to get the best of both worlds.
T-Square
Sometimes one or both of the T-square tool’s lines are difficult to grab quickly, either far away or off the visible screen. Rather than trying to scroll and grab the one you want and then drag it back, simply hold the Command key and hit “T” twice. The first hit makes them disappear, the second brings them back centered on the screen.
Duplicating fields and Value Lists
Once you get one field all fixed up like you want it (formatting and lines), you can Option-drag it to create another. The Field dialog will conveniently pop-up so you can reassign it. Hold the Shift key to keep it lined up.
Caution: When you duplicate a field that has a Value List attached or Auto-enter options, the duplicate will have them, too. Usually you won’t notice this until you click in one in Browse mode and the wrong list drops down.
Field Format Dilemma
You can select several fields at once to strip or add a value list to all of them. This can happen even if you don’t intend it to.
If you select several fields–one of which has a value list–and trigger the Field Format dialog and change the value list options (or any of the other options), their entry status (entry or non-entry, select contents), or change the number of repetitions, they will all change.
If no value list is showing in the dialog box, all selected fields will lose their value lists. If you click on the value list radio button to add or modify one when they’re all selected, they’ll all get it.
It is difficult to predict whether a value list will be showing when you open the dialog. If a field has a pop-up list, it tends to show. If it’s a pop-up menu, it doesn’t show. It probably has something to do with pop-up lists being the default.
In any case, you have to pay attention if you select groups of fields with value lists or they will get changed behind your back. If you have any doubts at all, hit cancel and check.
Button Templates
I have a little Layout file to store small graphics that I use, most borrowed, some modified, some homemade. Everyone needs “Sort, Print, List, Find” graphics.
For these common things I’ll use a small graphic, perhaps with some small text, perhaps alone.
You can also make your own graphics in a drawing or painting application. ClarisWorks is good for simple ones. Keep in mind that complex graphics can add file size and slow screen redraw considerably.
Drawing graphics for buttons is probably alot like drawing icons, that is, they’re so small that you must draw in a magnified view, but then they look quite different at 100% view.
I suggest having the two views open at once on the screen, so you can see what your changes are doing; it’s often surprising.
It’s also a good idea to set the “Rulers” to have more divisions. I put 72 per inch. This gives more control when nudging with the arrow keys.
Buttons on the Web
I searched my FileMaker sites and assembled the following list of graphics templates.
The king of FileMaker buttons is undoubtedly John Krische. His “1000 Buttons” series, up to Volume IV now, has hundreds of layout objects at a reasonable price ($5-$10 file). I had a little trouble with expanding the Mac (.bin) files; I ended up downloading the PC (.zip) files, which worked fine. Perhaps you’ll have better luck
.
http://www.krischesystems.com
Another nice set of buttons is by Parker Bennett of Mogulsoft (databases for the entertainment industry). It’s generous of him to give these away free. (His download server was down, so this is his main page.)
http://www.mogulsoft.com
This is a basic set of buttons and other layout objects released by FM itself (long ago), also on the FileMaker CD.
ftp://ftp.claris.com/pub/USA-Macintosh/Templates/FileMakerPro4/ButtonsAndDialogs.bin
(that’s all one line, folks).
A multi-volume set of free buttons by Charles Lunsford is available at this address. It has a lot of buttons, most with an unusual pastel colored interface theme.
http://home.HiWAAY.net/~cullman
See you next month!
Fenton Jones
Fenton Jones is a FileMaker database designer and consultant, based in San Diego, CA. FileMaker is a cross-platform rapid-development tool for affordable relational databases. If you have need of a FileMaker Pro expert, please be sure to visit his home page at http://www.fentonjones.com
In 1937 Scarlett O’Hara blazed her way to glory in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind. The book was an outstanding best seller and the 1939 film became an instant classic. On the threshold of the new millennium, perhaps Scarlett might react to today’s computer and internet world this way.
“Fiddlee dee. War, war, war. All yo two evah talk about is war. Macintosh, Windahs, Windahs and Macintosh, it’s always the same. Ashley darlin’, don’t yo all thank that Ah’m more interestin’ than that pokey Windahs?” Scarlett puffed up her crinoline and the pale green muslin dress billowed like a typhoon in the South China Sea.
“Scarlett, yo know Ah adore yor sweet smile. It positively melts my heart, but Ah am also devoted to Windahs. Ah can’t work without it and Ah need to have access to my email. Ah’d be lost ifen Ah stopped usin’ it.”
“Now that is a wishy-washy southern gentlemen for you.” Rhett’s Buttler’s cold, black eyes sparked with intensity while his upper lip curled in a mischievous grin. “What would you do, Scarlett, if you met a real man? Someone you couldn’t wrap around that ring finger of yours?”
“Yo all hush up, Rhett. Ah suppose yo thank just because yo use that funny Macintosh that yo could be that man?” She threw her head back and laughed out loud. It sounded not like a laugh but more like the tinkling of fine china. He was flirting with her as she was with him, but in her heart of hearts there was only one man for her, Ashley Wilkes. But Ashley was betrothed to that mealy-mouthed Melanie. All she did all day was scan recipes from the Mangia CD that Ashley gave her on their engagement. She shook her head as if to knock the thought of Melanie out of it.
“Ashley, darlin’, please pass me a fresh glass of iced tea. It’s so warm heah under the portico.” She flapped her fan vigorously, but it was to no avail.
“Would yo care to go indoors? Ah could show you a nifty new shoot-em-up game on ma computa. It’s called Cotton Ginny and it’s all about how thisen young sharecropper dupes a few dozen Yankees into investin’ their money…”
“Oh Ashley, Ah don’t wish to heah about yo computah games. Next to the war talk that is the most boring subject to me.” She turned her head to show her displeasure.
Suddenly, from the dirt road that led up to Tara, came two galloping riders in a flurry of hoof beats and a cloud of red dust. Rhett stood up as he recognized the Tarleton twins.
“It’s war! War!” they shouted over and over as the dust drifted by the Portico.
“Microsoft has finally declared war. They will no longer support any system other than Windahs. No Macintosh, no OS 2, and certainly not Solaris or Be. They also have declared that they will fight to the death against Unix and particularly Linux,” panted Terry Tarleton.
“Microsoft declared that to give away free software is ungentlemanly and contrary our southern ways,” added Jerry Tarleton.
“That can’t be true,” Rhett interjected. “They gave out millions of free copies of Internet Explorer hoping to bury Netscape, and then tied it into their non-monopolistic Windahs.” His sarcasm went unnoticed.
The news of war travelled quickly through the plantations and, inevitably, sides were chosen and decisions made. Because events were moving so quickly and the outcome of the war was clouded, Ashley and Melanie decided to marry and the wedding was held at his beloved Twelve Oaks. At their reception, Scarlett impulsively announced her own marriage to the elderly but wealthy lumber mill owner, Frank Kennedy. Frank was not dashing and he was not young, but he did have a good business in the mill and, of primary importance to Scarlet, a healthy bank account. She had already formulated a plan on how to bring the mill into the new century. In place of lumber, she would get Frank to invest his money in software development. He might balk at first, but Scarlett knew she had the means to get her own way.
Unfortunately, only two weeks after their marriage, old Frank Kennedy was gone.
People whispered, behind closed doors, that he died of a heart attack in bed. The residents of the area blamed Scarlett’s willful manner and her determination to change the business from lumber to software.
In desperation, the widow Kennedy, a description Scarlett despised almost as much as dressing in black, asked Ashley to manage the new company she named Mill Software. The company motto was “Software construction the way it should be”, a thinly veiled allusion to the bloated software from Microsoft.
“Ashley, if yo say yes, Ah promise to give you 50% of the company stock. Yo and Melanie will be secure forevah. Aftah the war,” she added her eyes wide with excitment, “Windahs application development ought to go sky high.”
The war, however, dragged on. Neither side would give in. To gain additional revenue for its war effort, Microsoft introduced a surcharge on all its products. It also issued a Windahs upgrade each month that, curiously, would not allow the user’s system to function unless each upgrade was installed and paid for.
Ashley accepted the managing position. All of Frank Kennedy’s funds had gone into converting the mill and hiring the engineers. Now Scarlet needed to secure more money to operate the company, but she was strapped for cash. There was only one possibility, Rhett Buttler. The program engineers were hard at work on the code for Mill’s first application, a program for drapery design called Curtains. The program gave Scarlett an outrageous idea. She would transform the parlor drapes into an ensemble that would mesmerize Rhett so he would give her the money she needed.
Rhett had moved on to Charleston, where he felt that honour of his beloved Macintosh needed to be protected, and gave all his effort to the destruction of Microsoft and Windahs. He started his own Mac company called Ex. When Scarlett waltzed into his small office in her new green velvet dress, compliments of her first Windahs program, he was mildly dismayed. When he learned of her real purpose, he became angry.
“Scarlett, will you never grow up? Don’t you realize that, as a Mac user, I could never lend you support, morally or financially?” He turned her down flat. After she left, he decided to return to Atlanta where the World Wide Computer Conference would convene to try to settle the dispute. His first stop, however, was to visit his old flame, Belle Watling, in her sweets shoppe on Decatur Street. Belle was warm and sympathetic and, after several days and nights, Rhett left reinforced in his determination to fight the evil empire.
Microsoft, its own worst enemy, shot itself in the foot with its nefarious software surcharge. The software industry collapsed under the surcharge assault. Many companies, including Mill Software, were forced into bankruptcy. Windahs users migrated in droves to Apple, Solaris, Be, OS2, Unix and Linux. Slowly but surely, the Microsoft stranglehold on the industry disintegrated.
Back at Tara, Scarlett stood in the ominous shadow of the gnarled two hundred-year old oak tree. The glow of the orange sunset cast a surrealistic look on the fields of Tara. She raised her arm and clenched fist to the sky. “As God is my witness, if Ah have to beg, steal or pirate software, if Ah have to wear my fingers to the bone keyboarding, as God is my witness, Ah’ll never use Windahs again.”
Intermission
Life in the bright new world after the War of the Operating Systems was not all goodness and light. Heated discussions still erupted frequently in the Internet bars and cafes on Peachtree Street in Atlanta. What was different, however, was the general camaraderie and team spirit that hovered over the reborn industry. A large and important mover had emerged after the cannon fire had ceased. The Atlanta Declaration was issued and supported overwhelmingly. Part of the Declaration had been the forming of the Operating Systems Manufacturers’ Association – OSMA for short. Its primary purpose was to integrate the most valuable and user friendly parts of the individual systems into one. There would be no proprietary code. The system would be open-sourced and would have input from the six signers, including the remnant of the former Windahs.
Scarlett had salvaged more than most from her former company. From the ashes of Mill Software was born Phoenix Technologies and their first OSMA application was a reworking of their original Curtains. It was the very first program to market and was snapped up like the proverbial hotcakes.
It was inevitable that Scarlett and Rhett would meet and rekindle their close friendship. Atlanta, although a thriving city, was still more like a small town. Although their differences during the war were diametrically opposite, with the Declaration and OSMA in operation, all that former baggage had disappeared. They met on Peachtree Street just outside of Software Heaven, the new mega software chain that bought out Best Buy and introduced a novelty that many thought they would never see‹a knowledgeable, helpful, non-teenaged staff.
“Is that you, Scarlett?” Rhett spoke in mock surprise, “I hardly recognized you. You must have found the fountain of youth.”
“Rhett, darlin’, how sweet. Yo shor know how to please a lady. I’m shor that Belle Watlin could tell me stories about yo. Isn’t that true?” She could not resist the jibe.
Within a month of their meeting, they had courted and announced their engagement. After less than three days, they eloped and were married on the Mississippi Maid making their way to New Orleans for their honeymoon. It was on their honeymoon, during one of their most intimate moments, that she inadvertently uttered Ashley’s name. The frostiness that settled over them was like the primary colour of the new iBook.
What should have been their most romantic time together ended with sharp volleys of anger and resentment. Their return to Atlanta a month later was made in studied silence. The silence was finally broken when Scarlett to her dismay found that she was pregnant. She had mixed feelings and did not know how to approach Rhett. When she finally summoned her courage and blurted out the news, she was pleasantly surprised at his reaction. Rhett was overjoyed and contemplated the great times he would have with his son. He was suddenly the perfect expectant father.
The months passed quickly. Ashley continued to manage Phoenix Technologies, and Rhett’s company, Ex, was also thriving. The software market was growing in leaps and bounds with no in fighting between software developers and OSMA. Finally there was commitment and rapport between the hardware and software factions of the computer industry.
When the baby was born, the expected boy suddenly emerged as a girl. Rhett promptly named her Bondi Blue and fell totally under her spell. He doted on his daughter with the excess befitting a man of wealth and success. There was nothing that he would deny her.
Scarlett was glad that Rhett had become such a loving father and it amused her to recall how different he had been when they first met. But that did not sway her from her determination not to have any more children. She disliked her “condition” during pregnancy almost as much as the time she was confined to widow’s black. Her decision drew still another wedge between them
For Bondi Blue’s 4th birthday, Rhett bought her a Shetland pony. It was the best and worst decision he could have made. The child showed amazing promise, even at that young age, of becoming an accomplished horsewoman. She reveled in her birthday present and began daily rides and jumping contests. Shortly after, on a day like many before, with her family and the household help watching, she trotted the tiny pony about the yard, and started for the jump. This time it ended in disaster. She fell from the animals back and hit her head. Two days later she was dead.
The desolation that enveloped Scarlett and Rhett with the death of their daughter also drove them more apart. They each blamed the other. They spoke less and less and no longer shared the same bed. The marriage was disintegrating before their very eyes and neither one made any effort to stop it.
She went to Ashley for consolation, but he was more concerned with Melanie who was feeling very sickly. In his confused and distraught state, he could not give Scarlett what she felt she needed from him. It was then that she realized that she did love Rhett. She had loved him all along and it was her misinterpretation of Ashley’s love for her that had kept her hopes alive.
She returned to her large comfortable home. She would tell Rhett and beg his forgiveness. All the success of her company, all the software sales in the world were not enough if she could not have personal happiness. She called out to him. The house sounded hollow and empty.
“Rhett,” she called again and at the same time heard the scuff of his shoes on the stair tread as he descended. “Rhett, where are you going?” she asked, noticing the suitcase in his hand.
“I’m leaving you, Scarlett, as I should have long ago.”
“But you can’t desert me. Ah love you.”
“That, my dear, is your misfortune”
“But Ah need you. Ashley is desolate about Melanie and can’t care for the business. Ah need you now more than ever. We can make it work. We did once, we can do it again. Ah tell you, Ah need you desperately. What will Ah do without you?”
Rhett reached for the door knob, pulled open the oak door and half turned to her, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” And he was gone.
Scarlett was reeling from disbelief. He did still love her. She knew it. But she couldn’t think about it now. She would think about it tomorrow. Tomorrow she would devise some plan to lure him back. Perhaps a new internet program or 3D strategy game. Something.
“Ah’ll think about it,” she said teary-eyed, as her lip quivered, “tomorrow.””
Ralph J. Luciani
ralph@mymac.com
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