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Mygate letter

I have just read the article The Reader Writes (December, issue #56), and would like to comment on my dealings with Mygate. I have dealt with them in the past, as they are situated very close to where I live and they were always efficient and well organised.

I currently run a network of over 50 Macs, and just recently put out my maintenance contract to tender. I chose their company because of our past dealings and asked for a quotation. Since speaking to the Technical Manager to explain my needs, they have not returned my calls, or even followed up our conversations.

This is quite a large network that I run, and so I would have expected them to be more attentive in their dealings with me. Needless to say, I have chosen a different company to use.

Regards,
Damon Casey d.casey@wellcome.ac.uk

Macworld Expo Tickets

I want to thank you personally for the Macworld Expo Ticket.....spent a lot of $$ in SFO especially at the show....found a good Apple Only store near the Moscone (MacAdam) which will probably get more of my $$.....The show was an eye-opener for a non-professional like me....I was able to talk to many reps from the various companies and services on the floor....saved me quite a bit of tech research time: they were right on top of all my questions....probably answered the same questions over and over during the run of the show.....Saw your photos and read about your near brush with His Greatness, but I guess I would have rather liked to have met The Woz myself...Thanks again....maybe I'll do it again next year, when I'll have a lot of questions about OS X.

Rick Feldon rikfel@fix.net

For those who don't know, My Mac Magazine was giving away tickets for the Expo this year. We have a total of 20 tickets away, and were happy to do it.

Index?

Enjoy the mag (via Macworld CD)- especially Filemaker101. However, I find the lack of an index or any navigational aids baffling. One of us is being spectacularly dim - is it me?

best
Phil philhaynes@appleonline.net

Phil,
Nope, not you. In the DOCMaker edition, look at the bottom left hand corner of the window. You should see this:

Hello!

Just a note to agree wholeheartedly with your statements referring to the opinion column that was pulled by an unnamed site. I do not know any of the people at all, but it is my impression that the Mac OS Rumors powers-that-be are known to be attack prone and petty. I've seen some really juvenile, sophomoric stuff on their site before, and I would not be surprised if they *did* have the column pulled. It seems that they can dish it out but they can't take it. That's why I do not go to that site at all, nor do I believe one word that is on the site.

Now that I've got you all happy that I'm on your side, please put up with a nitpick from me. This is very insignificant to most, but happens to drive me completely batshit: typos.

Here's the typo in your column that was missed by spellcheck:

"At the first hint of trouble, they (allegedly) took the easy was out and ceded to the demands made by Mac OS Rumors and took it off their site."

Did you see it upon the first read? It's a toughie to catch. I'm blessed (cursed??) with the ability to catch typos and misspellings in almost everything I read. Anyways, there it is, so you may want to fix it.

That's my nitpick. And my support for your editorial integrity. All writers should be lucky enough to have an editor like you. :-)

Angela Pratt angela@indigodragon.net

Careful, Angela! The last person who kept correcting my writing was Jim Moravec, so I made him a copy editor! :-)

The Right Mac?

I am a PC user who is interested in buying a MAC. I will be using it for digital photo editing and web design. Will the special edition iMac be good enough to buy or should I look into the more expensive G4? I especially want to be able to show photo slides on a TV screen and save photos on DVD or CD. I have a sense that the G4 may be more power than I need, but I'm concerned that the iMAC may be just a "cute" machine. Any advice you can offer will be greatly appreciated!!

Alice Luchini
aluchini@sprynet.com

Alice,
The manipulation of digital images, especially if they are large files, needs as much "horsepower" you can afford to give it. You did not say if this venture of yours is personal or professional, so let's assume, then, that money is not the deciding factor.

The iMac has very limited expansion capabilities, and is more a "home" unit than a professional model. If you're going to be plowing snow, you don't get a S-10 Chevy, you get an C250 dual-axle The same is true of computers, of course.

Will the iMac do what you need? Sure, though you will be limited in the future on what you can do with it. For what your talking about, I would go with the G4. This means, though, that you will have to get a monitor as well. However, if you go with, say, a used 400-450MHz G3, that will serve you just as well, and you can then use the monitor from your PC with it. (Saving money is the name of the game, right?)

Hope this helps,
Tim

Tim,

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I'm afraid that I have a few more questions and hope you don't mind me taking a bit more of your time.

The digital interests I have are personal. I've been doing digital photography for family trips and am looking for storage and manipulation options. Also, my daughter uses a lot of images to maintain her web sites. So, if I understand you correctly, the G4 would provide more power to do this type of work.

I keep hearing that the G4 is expandable, but so is my current Gateway PC. The problem, though, is that it is not worth it to increase memory and add peripherals when the processor is only 233. So, here's my naive and uneducated question. Would it be better to buy an iMAC as a "disposable" computer that I know I'll need to replace in 2 years OR buy a G4 that I can expand BUT may or may not be worthwhile to expand because the processor is too slow (after 2 years or so)?? In other words it seems to me that the speed of the processor is always a limiting factor in the economic decision of whether or not to expand a PC; so the G4 may be no different than my past experiences. Does my question make sense to you? I AM leaning towards the G4 because I can get a really good deal through the university, BUT the extra cost for the monitor is a bite. I plan to keep our Gateway because it is still very useful for non-graphics work so I won't be able to use its monitor. I just don't want to be facing another upgrade in 2 years with a $3000 investment when I may have been able to make a $1500 investment and get the same result. If you can help me with this quandary, I will be VERY grateful.

Alice Luchini
aluchini@sprynet.com

Hello Tim, we need some info. Our son plays music and wants to record and burn his own cd's. How would he go about this? We are thinking of purchasing a used mac to use as a dedicated machine for this purpose. What software would he need to record his music? Or would it be better to record on another piece of equiptment and then transfer to the computer? We are totally new to this and want to help him, but we don't know where to start? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Lorie and Armand
ritchie@mcn.org

Re: Rodney's Realist column

I respect your stand for creative freedom, but I won't read another Rodney Lain column if I can help it.

I've given him two tries (that I can remember), and in both pieces he was unfoundedly arrogant (Steve Jobs being arrogant is irritating but not unfounded) and overly critical of those he considers beneath himself. His attitude stinks.

He's jealous of the hits that the rumormongers get and has a warped idea of what value the different kinds of journalism have. The rumormongers are investigative reporters (without the liberal agenda most have) who are trying to ferret out useful info on upcoming products and services so we in the industry can better make our development plans, purchase decisions, and stock investments. You have to use them wisely, though, unlike the idiot from England Rodney mentions who came to MacWorld "to buy a Pismo, because he'd heard from Mac OS Rumors that Pismo was a sure thing at Steve Jobs' keynote." First off, you just plain never depend on a rumorsite to that degree, secondly, an announcement usually _precedes_ availability, and thirdly, new products from Apple usually aren't available at the convention location (Newton was, I think). Rodney's trying to use one extreme idiot to make his lame case.

Opinion journalism, on the other hand, has entertainment value, along with some tendency toward fostering consensus-building and maybe even political action, but in general it is much less useful reading than the rumor sites. At least to me. And his kiss-my-butt attitude is offensive. Maybe he feels majorly put upon, maybe I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. But adding the race card ("the black part" [of his butt]) was going too far. I'd fire anyone who worked for me and spoke like that; writing like that is no different.

So I'm firing him. At least for a while. And if he doesn't mend his ways, you should, too.

Sincerely,
Randy Boring randy.boring@thursby.com
Thursby Software Systems

Randy,
While I agree with some of what you say, there is a larger picture which you did not hit upon, which is the real reason his column appeared on mymac.com. Creative freedom is something I hold dear, and censorship (while needed at times of course) is not good. His column first appeared on another website. It was my understanding at the time (and I have thus been proven wrong) that they pulled it after threats from the focus of his column. This, to me, is what I have a problem with. His opinions matter not to me, as long as they are valid and truthful (at least from the writer's point of view) But when a website pulls a piece for the reasons stated above, I have a problem with that. (Again, I recently learned that was not the case here, so I was wrong)

Like a TV or radio station, you can always change the channel when something you don't like comes on. The same is true in our digital magazine and website. Read what you enjoy and like, ignore that which you don't. But respect the fact that you HAVE that choice, because it wasn't always so.

Thanks for the thoughtful letter,

Tim