Valentine In July

I love you guys. I just think....... you should know that.
Seriously, keep hammering!
Macincerely,

PS -- I can't believe I wrote Macincerely. But I did, it's done, and, like the Dick Van Dyke Show, there's nothing you can do about it now.

Jasper
IconRecord@aol.com

I'm getting misty eyed...(sniff)
I love you, man!

The Apple Connection

Although the Finder is truly native PowerPC code, we are not anywhere near "done" improving its performance.

Long ago, we had several agressive speed optimizations scheduled for the Copland Finder. When Copland blew up, we had to make many trade-offs for the Copland Finder to be ready in time for Tempo's ship date (the Tempo Finder is derived from the Copland Finder).

We hope to incorporate many more improvements in the coming months after we finish Tempo.

You also mentioned in your "My Mac" column on Tempo that you wish you could drag icons around which are viewed "As Button". You can - you have to drag the name of the icon (since clicking on the button opens the icon).

Hope this helps,

Andy

----
Andy Nicholas
MacOS Finder Engineering
Apple Computer, Inc.

My Memory Is Slipping

Congratulations on a fine and most useful June issue.

Here is a question for you or someone regarding a memory problem I appear to have with my Power PC 5300:

I downloaded ONE CLICK but am unable to unstuff the Guide. It appears as "OCUsersGuide.pdf (converted) on my desk top. When attempting to decode it, I get the message "there is not enough memory to complete this operation" both "straight" or with virtual memory turned "on". Now here is my memory situation: RAM, 48 Meg, of which 34 Meg largest unused block available, Cache set at 2560K, hard disk- 275 MB free. And, by the way, what does "pdf" stand for? Your help would be much appreciated.

Have a great vacation!
Henry F. SHERWOOD, HOSSEGOR, FRANCE
89.av.de.la.Molle@wanadoo.fr

First, you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader 2.1 or greater to view the manual. If you do not have this, you cannot view the document. Adobe Acrobat Reader is available free for the downloading at many Web sites, including Adobe's. It's definitely something you want to have now that the format is becoming more popular. If you already have Acrobat Reader, you might try re-installing in case you have a corrupted copy. And it's also possible the document itself is corrupted.

I don't think you have a memory problem at all. Please check that you've alotted sufficient memory to Acrobat once you do get it installed. Version 3.0 requires a minimum of 3300k and prefers 4500k. Select the icon and 'Get Info' to see what your settings are.

The term "pdf" stands for "portable document format", and denotes a document written in Adobe's proprietary Acrobat format, designed to make documents 'portable' between operating systems.

Hope this helps!

7.6 and Type 11's

Thank you all for a very informative e-zine. I have a lot of free time now and spend an average of three hours a day on my Performa 6320 experimenting and jumping in with both feet; yes, crashing some but learning a lot. Had been running a 450/with a 460 board with practically no problems for four years. Now my wife plays games on it. A note to the person who wrote in from Sweden experiencing error 10's and 11's. I also was plagued with those until I upgraded to System 7.6 (not 7.6.1) and bought more ram (prices are still fairly cheap/whoops, inexpensive). Presently have 32meg. Still get the 11's, but rarely and then it's a matter of assigning more memory to the program giving me the 11's. Keep up the good work.

Larry Judy
lar2jan@cyberhighway.net

Rebate Reform

In your editorial in the new issue of My Mac, you mention the annoyance of the $50 rebate coupon that is shipped with the upgrade to Norton Utilities 3.5. Well, not everyone who orders the upgrade is saddled with that problem.

Every few months, I receive junk mail from Symantec, urging me to upgrade to the latest version of NUM, and my current (and now previous) version was 3.1. (I never found a good reason to acquire 3.2.) About a month ago, yet another of those upgrade notices arrrived, but this one was for version 3.5. The upgrade, for registered users who had received this mailing, was/is being handled by MacWarehouse, and the price was $44.99. No rebate coupon, no proof-of-purchase required. My $50.00 is still gathering interest.

(Actually, I spent the $50 sending some Lou Malnati's pizzas to my Mom, who lives in St. Petersburg. :)

The moral of the story: if you sent in your registration, and Symantec didn't lose it, you would have received some useful junk mail.

---
Edward Floden
TechRen Enterprises

Thanks for the info regarding Symantec and the "special" offer you took them up on. Now my only question is, "Why didn't they send me the same offer since I did send in my registration when I got 3.2, upgrading from 2.0???" As you say, they probably lost my registration. And I never get junk mail from them. (I guess should be thankful for one thing!) I think I'll give MacWarehouse a call and still if that promo is still going on.

By the way, the next time you send pizza to your mom, don't forget the staff at My Mac!!
Russ

My Mac "Stuff"

I would definitely buy "My Mac" stuff. I am particulary interested in:

A coffee mug, etc... with the Jason Rainbow designed logo.

A toddler's size t-shirt for my 15 month old son would be cool.

A mouse pad with a wrist support would be excellent.

Perhaps a special set of My Mac icons, startup screens, etc...

A t-shirt for myself is unlikely unless it is on very good material. (I have a zillion t-shirts and have gotten picky in my old age.) A polo style shirt would be nice.

My Mac decals and stickers would be great also. Keep up the good work!!

Mike
mdubik@mx3.usuhs.mil

Mike,
Plans are still ongoing in our efforts. A note to all the My Mac Deluxe subscribers out there: you will be receiving free My Mac "stuff".

To Subscribe With Questions

I'm just writing to ask you if I can subscribe to your magazine. I love them so much and I'm learning so much from them. I have used a Macintosh for the past two years. In fact, I am a Computer Science major here at Ohio State University and I want to use a Mac for the rest of my life really. I visited your site many times and tried to subscribe through it many times, but all I get in return is a message saying that it does not recognize what "osu" is. So I thought I would ask you directly through the e-mail.

I have a few more questions. First of all, I own the very first Power Mac that Apple came out with, the "ancient" 5200/75LC. I was wondering if this is still considered a Power Mac, or if it's now a part of the old Macs in ancient times. I'm interested in purchasing the new System 8, Tempo, for my computer, and I was wondering if I'm just wasting my money trying to update my system on a completely useless Mac. Should I get a better Power Mac in order to use the new system or am I still able to use my Mac?

Second, I read somewhere that there's a software that allows me to use DOS and Windows softwares on my Mac (God knows where). I was just wondering if such a software exists and where I can get it. (I've seen SoftWindows and Timbuktu, but for some reason they run so slow, about 1/10th of the actual speed of a Mac computer.)

Finally, I was trying to upgrade my computer's speed, but I could only find accelerators for the higher Power Macs. Are there any sites out there where I can find info or tips on upgrading with my 5200/75LC PowerMac? I guess it would be better for me to buy a new PowerMac, but they are so expensive compared to what mine will be worth for resale.

Well, thanks for reading. And I love your magazines. I am learning so much about Macs. Good luck with the next issue!!!

Lee Rose
rose.201@osu.edu
Columbus, Ohio

Lee,
Thanks for the e-mail! You have been added to our subscriber list! Now to answer your questions:

Yes, your 5200/75LC is still a Power Mac. What makes a Power Mac is the chip, whether or not it is the latest 300MHz fire-breathing monster, or an able 75MHz LC. Your computer has a 603 PowerPC chip in it, making it a genuine Power Mac. However, it will not be able to run Apple's next generation operating system, Rhapsody.

Softwindows 95 will let you run a Windows application on your Mac, providing you have enough RAM and processor speed. A 75MHz system such as yours will do it, but it will be painfully slow. I have used Softwindows 95 4.0 on a 200MHz StarMax system with 32MB of memory, and it was slow on THAT. As I write this, however, a new product Connectix developed has just been released, called VirtualPC. From all the reports I have read (I have not yet tried it myself) it is much faster than Softwindows 95. You should check out www.macintouch.com for a list of some benchmark tests on it. Besides, the price is less than half the cost of SoftWindows 95!

As for upgrading your Mac with an accelerator chip, I would advise against doing it. That's a can of worms I'm sure you wouldn't want to open, even if one were available for your machine. If you really crave more raw processing speeds, I would suggest saving your money and buying a new computer. Hard to do when you're in school, I know, but well worth the price. Just don't date! :-) Besides, I hear Ohio State is pretty expensive. Maybe if you had gone to, say, Michigan, you could afford one? Just kidding! Couldn't help myself! I am a Wolverine fan, and never miss the opportunity to tease a Buckeye. And yes, U of M is expensive, too.

Just for the record, although your machine is indeed an early one, it wasn't the 'first' Power Mac. Those honors belong to the PowerPC 6100/60, which came along in March, 1994. Your model was designed for the educational market and arrived in April of 1995...

Be sure to drop us a note with any thoughts, corrections, or problems you may have. We all love to hear from you, and we do need to fill this page every month!

-Tim