Miracles on 34th Street

Along with Macys, New York’s 34th Street also hosts the Javitz Conference Center and the annual summer MacWorld convention. Though July might seem far-removed from Christmas, I can reliably report that, based upon what happened at the July MacWorld Expo, “Yes, Virginia. There is a Santa Claus.” There will be those that will argue that I was prey to a ‘reality distortion field’ or that I’m just another ‘true-believer,’ but I was at the keynote speech and I saw the (not so) “jolly old elf” pull out a sack of presents. I even took one with me and it is a dandy!

Though Steve Jobs has often been accused of sleights of hand in front of the press and/or distorting the public’s perception. The truth is that Steve and the creative folks at Apple often change the reality of computing for millions of Mac and PC users. The list of past Apple innovations that transformed personal computing is truly staggering and at MacWorld 2000, Apple, once again, demonstrated what is meant by true innovation.

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The Truth is Out There…

As I write this column I’m sitting in the back seat of my Renault Laguna traveling from Marida, the capital of Extremadora, a Spanish province north of Seville, headed towards Elvas, a small medieval walled town in eastern Portugal. Marida was worth a visit because it contains one of the best preserved Roman theaters in Spain and a superb museum that displays many of the artifacts from Roman times. My enthusiasm for these historic sites was tempered to an extent by a mosaic that depicted a gladiator being mauled by a lion. It made me wonder what kind of monsters these Romans were that they could take pleasure from these “games.” A Jewish friend explained that they did not view slaves as human and so therefore never recognized any ethical dilemma. Of course, he explained this with a sense of considerable irony, condemning not only the Romans and the Nazis, but also all humanity.
Earlier visits to the battlefields at Verdun, the war cemeteries in Normandy, sites of the Spanish Inquisition, and the concentration camp at Dachau had convinced me that evil and stupidity reside like a dormant computer virus in almost every political endeavor. It only takes a whiff of prejudice, a scent of power, or the smell of money to set the virus off, and then virtually anything can happen.

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The Apple Report Card

In the February 1999 Mac Factor I suggested ten positive steps Apple could take to solidify support, improve sales, and offer a more realistic alternative to Microsoft Windows. Most of the suggestions were based on common horse sense and I hold no illusions that Mr. Jobs and company actually listened to my advice. Still, it’s remarkable how Apple’s actions paralleled my recommendations. This column assesses Apple’s progress and offers even further guidance. (Note: text from the earlier column is in Italics.)

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Night Baseball and the Rain (in Spain)

March Madness

I work for one of the finest school systems in the country or, for that matter, not in the country. I’m an Education Technologist for the Department of Defense Education Activity in Rota, Spain. The Rota school complex is just one of many school complexes located at overseas bases throughout Europe and the Pacific.

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Final Draft 5.0
Company: Final Draft, Inc.
Estimated Price: $249

http://www.finaldraft.com

Final Draft: A Review

Television and cinema are such impressive media, that sometimes we forget that TV sitcoms, dramas, and movies begin as written scripts or screenplays. When you consider the number of television channels broadcasting and the revival of the movie industry, it is clear that there are many screenplays being marketed and sold.

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Gateshead: The Screenplay

Final Draft is an important program for a very specific purpose. It provides all the formatting and structural tools you need to create a professional screenplay. More importantly, the tools are easily accessible, thereby making their application less obtrusive and bringing the writer’s creativity to the fore. Next month, I’ll include a full-featured review of Final Draft.

What follows is Episode 2 of The Why Files series, imported into Final Draft and rewritten as a screenplay. (The whole series is available on MyMac.com.) After exporting the original story as a text file, it was relatively easy to open it with Final Draft and apply the built-in styles and macros to transform the document into a screenplay. Please note, however, that the Final Draft document is a fully formatted screenplay with Scene numbers, character lists, locations, and so on, while what you see below is Final Draft’s ASCII text export file. It’s quite readable as is, but does not fully depict Final Draft’s power.

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Canvas 7.0
Company: Deneba
Estimated Price: $375.00 (new) $99.00 (upgrade)

http://www.deneba.com

Graphics Powerhouse

A Review
by
Mick O’Neil

A graphic artist requires the control over precise image detail offered by bit-mapped graphics, the flexibility provided by vector-based objects, and an effective means of handling text in both environments. Until recently, that meant mastering several disparate programs like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw, and Adobe Inline Design or Quark Xpress. Unfortunately, each of these programs has a unique interface and so mastery can be problematic; fine-tuning a publication using three or more software tools can be time consuming, and the cost of purchasing a software suite is unwieldy. The sum of the parts can significantly detract from the whole.

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The Millennium Mac Factor

This is my last column of the ‘millennium,’ and so I seriously considered attempting to say something profound. I even spent some time examining writings published around the last three millenniums to see what those folks were thinking. It took me a while to figure out that around 1000 BC, O A.D, and 1000 A.D. no one was thinking in terms of our calendar. I’m just a little slow on the uptake.

There were, of course, some pretty dynamic writers back in the early days (I think this was even before the Atari 800). Plato, Artistotle, and Plutarch come to mind, but the one who seems to have deposited a lasting sound bite in my mind is Epictetus, one of the early technology coordinators. He noted that:

Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man’s task.”
(Translated by W.A. Oldfather, Loeb Classical Library, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, Fifteenth Edition, 1980)

I try to remember these words every time I’m called on to troubleshoot a Windows NT workstation. I am almost always forced to eliminate the first option.

I’m not sure whether Epictetus really wanted us to remember this quotation around a thousand years down the road, but it is amazing that we do. It was a remarkable feat back in those days to get anything down on papyrus. The opportunity to publish was pretty scarce and confined to a very small portion of the population.

Today, anyone who owns a computer and a web browser can publish. Though that undoubtedly has lead to a decline in publishing standards, when the next millennium rolls around it will be relatively easy for the My Mac writers to discern exactly what we were thinking back when we wrote it. To make this task even easier, at the end of this column I’ve included a Mac Factor Column Selector with references to my past My Mac columns. I also hope that some of my contemporaries will find this interesting, as most of the columns are not date sensitive. Though I harbor no illusions about their literary content or timelessness, I think they say some important things.

The Microsoft Meltdown – Coming ‘Real Soon Now’

“Through its conduct,” he added, “Microsoft has demonstrated that it will use its prodigious market power and immense profits to harm any firm that insists on pursuing initiatives that could intensify competition against one of Microsoft’ core products.”
(Findings of US Federal Judge Jackson, US vs Microsoft)

Judge Jackson’s Findings of Fact confirm what most of the industry—but few consumers—knew. Microsoft, with its monopoly power, not only could charge whatever it desired for its operating system software with little or no impact on demand, but it could release slip-shod versions that virtually REQUIRED users to update. This unfair leverage has resulted in operating system chaos in almost every sector of the industry. Some 20 or so years after the introduction of the personal computer, systems are more likely to crash now than ever before. I believe this can be attributed directly to Bill Gates and his lust for power and profit.

As I’ve noted in past columns, the development of applications software has also been stifled by the dominance of a single (but all encompassing) product – Microsoft Office. Where once there were a half a dozen competing spreadsheets, several presentation programs, several word processors, and several database programs, now there is little direct competition.

The Office suite is enormously powerful, but is so associated with the operating system that the first thing a user considers when purchasing a system is “Does Office work on it?” Though Office does work on the Mac, the fact that it’s a Microsoft product predisposes the purchaser to Microsoft Windows. Perhaps (just perhaps) the judge’s findings will shake the industry enough to make the consumer rethink this prejudice.

IMHO, the justice department should settle for nothing less than the breakup of Microsoft into Operating System, Office, and Internet “Baby Bills.’ The level footing that might result could jump start software development and herald a new age where quality and innovation are considered more important than pragmatism.

There’s no question that these findings are a major win for Apple. For the average consumer or businessman, the Mac OS can compete with the best of Windows, and OS X should put to rest much of the hubbub about pre-emptive multi-tasking (the ability of several Windows programs to crash independently) and the like. I think it’s fair to suggest that the advantages of the Mac OS should soon receive more media attention.

Bill Gates recently sarcastically stated that Apple had resorted to innovation by color, and that Microsoft could catch up with that kind of innovation pretty quickly. If that’s true then I’d color Gates a nice shade of beet red right now.

The Impact of the iPaq
The Technology section of nytimes.com announced ‘Compaq details sleek PC…,’ picking up an article from C|Net News.com. The AP and Reuters also covered the introduction of Compaq’s new ‘iPaq’ Internet appliance. The iPaq eschews traditional PC serial and parallel ports, PCI slots, and the like, and relies instead entirely on—you guessed it—USB “for more easily attaching peripherals such as printers.”

You might logically ask how anyone claiming inclusion in the legitimate computer press could possibly write an article about the ‘iPaq’ without making some reference to the ‘iMac,’ which clearly served as the sole inspiration for this “new” Internet “appliance,” right down to its purloined name. Still, somehow Joe Wilcox of C|Net and the fine writers for the wire services all missed it. Oh well, I suppose they just didn’t know.

There’s just a wee bit of smoke and mirrors from Compaq’s marketing branch that may confuse the unwary press. For example, the iPaq does not include a built-in floppy, CD, or DVD drive, though it does include a drive bay. Remember the bloody scream by our friends at C|Net when the iMac was released without a floppy drive? Hmmm…there’s nothing negative about this mentioned by Mr. Wilcox. Then, there’s the 4+ Gigabyte internal drive. Gee, that’s just marginally larger than the drive on the iBook, that was roundly criticized by the PC press as being too skimpy. There’s also no built-in modem, which is now pretty standard in the Mac world, but you wouldn’t know it from the article.

The price though, is a thing to behold. $499 gets you… a box. Okay, it’s a cool box if you’re into truncated Roman helmets, but it’s still just a box. You also need a monitor and some software. Configuring the iPaq as close to an iMac as possible, I worked out a price of roughly $1350 including a monitor, DVD drive, and roughly equivalent processor (Pentium III running at 500 MHz). The DVD iMac is about the same price, but has an operating system that works. Thus, the $499 is a marketing ploy that is simply designed to lure the unwitting corporate buyer into the Windows morass.

Compaq’s new strategy presents Apple with an enormous opportunity. Because of its Wintelness, the iPaq validates the corporate introduction of the network computer, and there is no more reliable network computer on the market than Apple’s own iMacs. It’s time for Apple to ‘think different’ about marketing and strongly pitch the top end ‘graphite’ iMacs to a business market which may, finally, be ready to listen.

Book of the Month

If you’re interested in language development, you must read Steven Pinker’s ‘The Language Instinct,’ published in 1994 by William Morrow and Company. When I taught symbolic logic, I always argued that learning a formal logic system helped you reason almost intuitively in the same way that learning grammar helped you write. That is, you don’t think about logical structure when you argue anymore than you think about sentence structure when you write. (The editors undoubtedly wish that I would do more of both!). In any event, Pinker somewhat discounts this notion by arguing that the use of language is to a large degree instinctive. The book is very readable, full of interesting anecdotes, and very informative. This book should be required reading for anyone in the business of software design, artificial intelligence research, or teaching language arts.

Mac Factor Columns

An Educational Perspective

Oct 99
‘The iBook: An Apple for the Whole School’ examines the new Apple laptop from an educational perspective.

May 99
‘The Write Stuff: Word Processing Tools for the New Millennium’ presents an in-depth look at word processing features of the past, present, and future. (Also published in the Journal of Computing in Higher Education.)

Dec 98
‘Time to Let the Big One Go’ is a detailed research paper that concludes that it’s time for the Mac to be taken seriously in the education and small business markets and time for the ‘technical anglers’ or ‘tanglers’ to stop telling stories about the efficacy of the Windows operating system. (Also published in the Journal of Computing in Higher Education.)

Mar 98
‘The Apple Macintosh: Still the Only Education Game in Town’ discusses why the Mac is still the most viable option for K-12 schools and universities.

Nov 97
‘Paradigm Paralysis and the Plight of the PC in Education’ argues that the Network Computer is the next logical option for universities and K-12 schools. (Also published in the Journal of Computing in Higher Education.)

Advice to Apple

Feb 99
‘iMac, Therefore I Might Be’ presents Apple with 10 suggestions to ensure future success.

Jan 99
‘MacMick’ compares Apple’s flawed installation of System 8.5 with a Shakespearean tragedy.

Nov 98
‘Mac Factor’s One Hundred and One Tips’ actually presents around 50 tips to help Mac users survive and flourish in a hostile environment.

Sept 98
‘Eye on the iMac’ includes iMac commentary as well as a step by step approach to creating business cards using Word 98.

Jan 98
‘Confessions of an Accidental Evangelist’ suggests that Apple take full advantage of its enthusiastic customer base.

Humor

Nov 99
‘Apple R&D’s Secrets Exposed’ reveals a series of revolutionary hardware developments that could knock the socks off the rest of the industry in coming years.

Apr 99
‘Exploding Myths’ explains why the author has finally rejected the Macintosh in favor of Windows NT.

Feb 98
‘The Why Files’ – Episode I – Sulky and Mutter uncover the PC conspiracy.

Apr 98
‘The Why Files: First Contact’ – Part II of the ‘Why Files’ Apple-based soap opera steps back in time to change the evolution of PC technology.

Jun 98
‘The Why Files: Mad Cows and Englishmen’ – Part III of the ‘Why Files’ series uncovers the real secret of the DogCow.

Oct 98
‘The Why Files: A Secret Held in Plasticine’ – Part IV of the ‘Why Files’ saga examines the role of the pink flamingo.

Jun 99
‘The Why Files: The Silver Bard’ – Part V of the ‘Why Files’ series where Mutter and Sulky come face to face with the creator.

Commentary on the Industry

Aug 99
‘Shifts in Time’ discusses the hint of machismo that permeates the PC paradigm, the problems in shifting from one version of Windows to another, the marketing inertia that prevents the mainstream PC media from exposing the truth about Windows.

Sept 99
‘ How Much a Pound is Albatross?’ takes on the great software ripoff of the 90s and tells it like it is – a rarity in computer journalism.

Jul 99
‘Hardly Any Software?’ defrauds the popular notion that there are fewer software titles available for the Mac than for the PC.

Mar 99
‘Abort, Retry, Fail’ discusses the arrogance of monopolies like Telefonica in Spain and Microsoft in the US.

Aug 98
‘Taking Stock of Wallstreet’ discusses the Apple Powerbook G3 in some detail and shares the writer’s experiences with his new ‘toy.’

Jul 98
‘Office 98 – First Impressions’- summary of major interface changes introduced with Office 98.

May 98
‘Nothing Was Delivered’ – more commentary on the Windows NT ‘kludge.’

Dec 97
‘Think Again, Think Technical Support’ delineates an Apple technical support nightmare.

The iBook
An Apple for the Whole School

The vast majority of school buildings in the United States were built before the evolution of networking technology, probably before computers themselves were invented. Installing fiber optic backbones, classroom drops, server facilities, or concentrators, and completing a ‘power upgrade’ to minimize electrical interference to ensure the stability of the network, are very expensive propositions. A local area network (LAN) for a typical school of 1,000 students could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Additional workstations, server software, network licenses for applications and information sources, Internet connectivity, training, and technical support could add significantly to the overall bill.

At the same time, there is enormous pressure from almost every end of the spectrum for schools to provide students with access to the Internet. Unfortunately, the significant expense involved in installing a proper LAN has forced some school systems to opt for ‘interim solutions’ that are geared more to public relations than true technical requirements. These ‘quick fixes’ often involve coaxial or twisted-pair cable jury-rigged from room to room, ‘daisy-chained’ work stations, multiple servers running different versions of NetWare or AppleShare, and heavy-duty appliances like air conditioners and heaters sitting on the same power circuit as the servers and workstations. These systems may work fine as a temporary fix, but their performance is poor, maintenance is a nightmare, and their functional life is severely limited. The political capital gained by installing a cheap LAN will eventually dissipate when the school board is informed that the whole thing has to be replaced and ‘done correctly.’

When politics, school funding, and complex technical decisions mix, it’s often the students and school programs that suffer. There are still thousands of derelict filmstrip projectors, partially used phone answering systems, dust covered video disc players, and Betamax™ video recorders sitting around schools that demonstrate the problem. Schools genuinely want any new technology that offers an advance, but the central office either can’t afford the technical expertise to make the right decision or politics intercedes to cloud the technical issues.

The political pressure to ‘LAN’ the schools, the inherent cost in doing it right the first time, and the potential pitfalls in purchasing the ‘wrong technology’ have been mitigated by a new technological breakthrough from Apple Computer and Lucent Technology that could revolutionize the way school systems approach this challenge. The recently announced Apple iBook offers both wireless connectivity and extraordinary power with an amazingly affordable price tag. The iBook may represent the greatest advance in educational technology since the invention of the ballpoint pen!

The ballpoint pen? On the surface, that may seem like misplaced hyperbole, but please indulge me for a moment. Let’s first talk about what the iBook offers schools. For around $1,600, you get a ruggedly built laptop computer that’s faster than any non-Apple laptop computer on the market today, along with a beautiful 12.1 inch TFT screen, a 56K modem, 24 X CD-ROM drive, a 3.2 gigabyte hard drive, a full size keyboard, and USB and fast Ethernet ports. The machine is perfect for students to either carry in their ubiquitous backpacks or check out of a media center.

If that’s all the iBook offered, it would be reason enough for schools to seriously consider a purchase. The main attraction for schools, however, is wireless connectivity. Each iBook comes with a built-in antenna that can communicate wirelessly with an ‘AirPort Hub’ anywhere within 150 feet, and the hub can in turn be connected to a local network and/or an Internet Service Provider. Up to 10 iBooks can connect to a single hub at a speed roughly approaching 10BaseT Ethernet speeds—and that is fast! iBooks can communicate with each other via the hub or directly in the absence of a hub. It’s also possible to use one iBook as a temporary hub, dial up the net, and share access with other iBooks in proximity.
Thus, the iBook offers schools a functional alternative that provides Internet connectivity for a fraction of the cost of a standard LAN installation. At the same time, the iBook’s mobility, coupled with Apple’s solid system software, makes it ideal for media center checkout providing connectivity options to the whole school. And better still, the iBook is perfect for cooperative learning grouping because the iBook goes where the student goes… which brings me back to the ballpoint pen.

Some years ago, when I made the grand transition from 2nd grade to 3rd grade, I was very excited about the ‘inkwell’ in my desk and could hardly wait the two or three weeks that passed before we would begin using a straight pen and ink. For me, it was the first great technological leap; inkwells were cool. Straight pens were serious business. I loved filling my inkbottle, dipping the pen and letting the excess run off, and scrawling my letters on lined paper.

It didn’t take long, however, to realize that as long as we used straight pens, I was as tied to my desk as present day users are tied to network workstations. When learning was accomplished elsewhere, it was necessary to return to the inkwell to record official ‘pen written’ results in composition notebook. Pencils wouldn’t do, as they were usually broken when you needed them most, and the good Sisters of St Joseph looked down on anything that could be erased.

The ballpoint changed all that by letting you record information while still immersed in the learning process. On a slightly more sophisticated scale, that’s exactly what the iBook now offers. Location is crucial as the more proximate the processing is to the learning activity, the more students will be engaged and the more representative will be the results.

The Apple iBook is the ideal machine for students, teachers, parents, and administrators. It offers an inexpensive, flexible, and dynamic approach to accessing the Internet and, like an intellectual turbocharger, delivers processing power exactly where it is needed. Students will love its functionality and style; teachers will like the way it fits seamlessly into learning activities; parents will appreciate the price, and administrators will be delighted to embrace a technology that can provide Internet access to the whole student body without requiring the expensive installation of a business network. Meeting the needs of all the ‘stakeholders,’ the iBook is truly an “Apple for the Whole School.”

•Mick O’Neil•

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

Macworld Breakthrough

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

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

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

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

The Office Crunch

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

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

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

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

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

Of Mice and Persons

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

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

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

MFSE Considerations

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

Cheaper is as Cheaper Does

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

Up Stream or Down Stream

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

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

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

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

Research and Development

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

Maintenance and Support

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

Oldies but Goodies

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

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

The Core Conundrum

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

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

The Mac Factor Software Evaluator

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

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

The Beginning of the End

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

Software Ratings

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

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

Quark Xpress 4.0

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

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

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

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

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

Word 98 Special Edition ($99 retail)

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

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

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

Quicken Deluxe 98 ($39.99 retail)

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

RagTime ($499 retail)

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

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

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

PhotoDisc CD ROM Collection ($279.99)

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

Photoshop ($615 retail, $179.99 upgrade)

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

•Mick O’Neil•

Mac Factor: Shifts in Time

Automatic Shift
A recent editorial in the Washington Post lamented the demise of the stick shift in the US car market. According to a Post researcher, only one in ten new cars sport a standard transmission. The writer, an obvious stick shift aficionado, claimed that “the kind of driving done with enthusiasm, engagement, and a genuine feel of the road is disappearing…” and whined that “the only gearbox knowledge one need possess anymore is passing acquaintance with the meaning of P, R, N, D, and L.”

The knee jerk rejection of the automatic transmission, despite major advances in transmission technology that provide the automatic with close to standard transmission control, mimics the blind adherence to the Windows ‘standard’ despite major advances in the Macintosh Operating System. Whereas Windows users now must master arcane registry and system profile settings, the Mac user needs only to work with controls programmed with a common human design interface—equivalent to the P, R, N, D, and L of the automatic transmission.

Perhaps an equally pervasive, though subsurface, factor in the rejection of both the automatic transmission and the Macintosh Operating System is the superficial loss of control and the resultant blow to the machismo of the ‘road warriors’ or the ‘computer experts.’ There’s something terrifically manly about shoving that stick around while tearing around curves or screaming down the hills of San Francisco like Steve McQueen in “Bullet.” Similarly, taking the hood off of a PC, inserting the right expansion board or adding memory, slipping the cover back on, and tightening all the screws, demonstrates who exactly is ‘the man.’ Of course, with the latest versions of Windows, “the man’s” problems have just begun.

Shiftless in Seattle
We tend to look at operating systems from a personal perspective. That is, upgrading to a new version of Windows might not seem particularly intimidating if your hardware can support the upgrade. Consider, on the other hand, the plight of the enterprise or the educational institution supporting a variety of equipment.

Our school system, for example, currently runs: Windows 3.12 on older 386- and 486-based systems; Windows NT 4.0 on most of our Pentiums; Windows 95 on special purpose systems that need 95 compatibility to run particular educational programs; and Windows 98 on our ‘early childhood’ equipment (if you can possibly imagine that!). All four of these operating system are in turn connected to Novell Netware.

Even if all of these versions of Windows ran perfectly, upgrading software, installing new peripherals, and supporting the network would be almost prohibitively complex. Unfortunately, none of them run as advertised. They are replete with bugs, incompatibilities, and incomprehensible error messages, and are simply impossible to support.

We limited the installation of Windows 95 because that particular operating system was considered a security problem and because early versions of the system appeared unstable. We had to move on from Windows 3.12, however, as most new educational titles were released under Windows 95 or Windows NT. We were caught in the old Microsoft crunch—either upgrade to the next set of kludge or be unable to run any of the new software.

We waited for NT, and boy, were we surprised. Windows NT 4.0 included tens of thousands (in Microsoft’s own words) of bugs. And guess what? Windows 2000 is already on the horizon and we’ll be faced with the same dilemma. If we don’t move to Windows 2000, the software publishers will, once again, pass on by.

Short Shrift
How, you might ask, does Microsoft get away with this? I can think of no other capitalist enterprise that sells something that clearly doesn’t work and yet somehow continues to succeed beyond the analysts’ wildest expectations. There’s smoke and mirrors here that are beyond my understanding.

One theory is that the average consumer is more interested in appearance than quality. Consider all the cigarette purchasers still puffing away and killing themselves, or the millions of teenagers who wait with bated breath for the next issue of Seventeen to tell them what to wear. People just kind of stumble through life doing what they think is ‘cool.’ In the case of computers, it was once cool to buy an IBM PC and Windows sort of slipped through that door.
In fact, part of being a ‘cool’ consumer is not making an obvious mistake. That is, one should never get ‘ripped off.’ You might feel taken, for example, if you purchased a car and subsequently read that it had a tendency to tip over when going around curves or had a gas tank that tended to explode if you were rear-ended.

You might even feel ripped off if you purchased a new version of Windows and subsequently read that it was flawed. Sorry, that’s a bad example because none of the PC magazines fully report Windows design problems. If they do report minor errors, they usually mention a new ‘Service Pack’ that can be downloaded for free and will fix readers’ complaints.

The PC magazines are pleased as peach with every new round of system upgrades. A new Operating System means new hardware and software releases, new advertising, new editorial content, and so the cycle continues. It might be a very cold day in hell before we see a Computer Shopper cover with a headline like “Windows Doesn’t Work as Advertised.”

So, is there a conspiracy on the part of computer journalists to keep the truth about Windows from the American public? Hardly. Rather, there’s a lot of financial inertia that leads a journalist to write columns or articles that a magazine’s editorial staff wants published. Generally speaking, that doesn’t include exposés on Windows’ shortcomings.

Shifting Feet
Occasionally, a writer gets so overwhelmed with the importance of an issue that the truth cuts through all the politics and self-interest. Stewart Alsop, columnist for Fortune.com and, at times, associated as editor or columnist for several prestigious technology magazines in the United States, has never been accused of being a Mac enthusiast. A recent Alsop column was entitled, ‘Have I Told You Lately That I Hate Windows?’ You can read the full text of the column at . I’ll just mention a few highlights.

Alsop noted:
“For years, as I’ve been using personal computers and becoming a computer expert, I’ve been able to believe that I was in control. I’ve always believed I could choose how to use my computer and how much effort I would make for the computer to perform certain tasks. In fact, this was exactly why I got involved with computing: Personal computers took control of technology away from the experts who minded the mainframes, and transferred that power to us, the people. I loved that idea.”

What Alsop suggests, of course, is that he loved the idea of taking control of technology away from the mainframe experts to ‘the people’ like Alsop who for years was ‘becoming a computer expert.’ That, in fact, leaves out the millions of people who have no need and no desire to become experts, but who wish to use a computer to accomplish a variety of tasks.

Alsop continued:
“Now I realize it was all an illusion. When my computer crashed on Friday, May 28, it dragged my dreams down with it. I am in fact at the mercy of the experts; without them, I am unable to get what I want or need from my PC… Microsoft’s operating system is what has led to our loss of control over computing. The system is so complicated and burdened with the legacy of its past that it has become unusable by mere mortals, or even geeks like me… My journey into digital despair began when I bought a new computer and tried to upgrade it.”

It’s ironic that Stewart virtually ignored the Mac OS through the years and is probably one of a handful of respected journalists responsible for the blind acceptance of the Windows kludge by the PC Press. It’s also a comment on Alsop’s ‘expertise’ and/or journalistic integrity that it took him so long to discover that Windows is seriously broken.

One final irresistible whimper:
“I was furious, depressed, and mortified. How could the dream of liberating the individual from the clutches of the computer experts have turned into a nightmare in which even the experts couldn’t solve my problems, leaving me at the mercy of an impenetrable and unpredictable system?… You know what? I really wish there were [sic] a computer out there that could give me basic PC applications that work fluidly with the World Wide Web and networking. I really wish the computer industry wouldn’t give up right now and leave us holding the Windows bag, just when we’ve got this new Internet economy opening up for us. I’m dreaming again about being freed from the experts.”

Okay Stewart. We’re all dreaming about being ‘freed from the experts’ and, in particular, experts like you who misled the public for years about the viability of the Windows Operating System.

Paradigm Shift
The iMac has changed the paradigm. Windows, as the Swiss Army Knife of operating systems, providing support for every or any device inserted into every or any slot, has become unmanageable. And as the paradigm shift becomes more and more obvious, Windows users will increasingly grow frustrated with a system designed for expansion.

The average user doesn’t need slots. Hell, you don’t have slots in your dishwasher or washing machine or even your car for that matter. The iMac is an information appliance for ‘the rest of us’ and ‘the rest of us’ are growing fast.

The iMac’s cool architecture and colors may be a bit of marketing genius that has attracted the attention of the average consumer. As the sales momentum grows, though, it will be increasingly clear that the true attraction of this machine is its self-contained accessible power.

•Mick O’Neil•

Hardly any Software?

It happened again the other day. Someone, who should know better, suggested to me that the Macintosh might be a viable hardware alternative, but “there is almost no software available for the Mac.” I understand the misconception. If you walk into a computer store in your local mall or browse the shelves at CompUSA, you might arrive at the same erroneous conclusion.

Take your local computer store loaded with PC software. First, some of the Windows software appeals to only very specific markets. For example, genealogy software or French cooking software may be interesting to a very small group of buyers, but is a real stretch for everyone else. If you glance around the PC shelves, you’ll find there’s a lot of this stuff available. Second, the shelves are packed with ‘shoot-um-up’ or arcade type games that lose their luster very quickly. A third software shelf-hog is the repetitious software upgrade. For example, you may find a Windows 98 upgrade, a Windows NT upgrade, and soon a Windows 2000 upgrade for a whole variety of products. Woe be unto him that buys the wrong one!

The overall impression given by shelf after shelf of glossy boxes is that there’s lots of Windows software out there and you’d be crazy to buy a non-Windows computer. If you observe closely, you will see the occasional iMac owner walking around these stores glancing almost furtively at each box looking in vain for the Mac OS compatible logo.

SoftPC and Virtual PC

Though much of the PC software either caters to a very limited audience, amounts to junk, or cries out for a consumer upgrade, there is, of course, some really good Windows-based software out there. Quicken 99 Deluxe, for example, offers features not found in the Macintosh Quicken 98 version and there’s little doubt that Office 2000 leapfrogs over Office 98 for the Mac.

The good news is that you can run the vast majority of PC software on the Macintosh right now by installing Connectix’s Virtual PC or Insignia Solution’s SoftPC. Though the speed of these emulators was disappointing in the past, on a 233 Mhz iMac (or faster) most productivity or special purpose software runs quite well. Graphics intensive entertainment software may still experience a few problems, but most of the new games are now being developed for both the PC and the Mac.

Thus, a Macintosh with a PC emulator installed will support both PC software and Macintosh software and let you move between environments with the mere click of a mouse. The Macintosh is the ONLY platform capable of running both Mac and Windows-based software!

The Mac Factor

The impressive success of the iMacs and the Blue G3’s and Apple’s elaboration of a system software plan have encouraged developers once again to support the Macintosh platform. That’s good news for the whole software industry because innovation inevitably happens first on the Mac and is eventually ported to the Windows kludge. A short list of major applications first developed on the Mac represents the vast majority of software used on the PC even today. Programs like Excel, PageMaker, FileMaker, PowerPoint, Word, Illustrator, Director, Freehand, QuarkXpress, and Premier were all fine-tuned on the Macintosh long before they became available on the PC. It’s somewhat ironic that the only major piece of software that didn’t evolve on the Macintosh is the Windows operating system, and it has experienced a few teething pains.

Seek and Ye Shall Find

The question then arises: If you can’t find Mac specific software in your local mall, then where can you find it? In my experience, the web offers the cheapest software buying experience on the market. Avoiding the overhead associated with renting space in a local mall or downtown store and staffing it with knowledgeable salespersons, the major mail order houses have all staked out territory on the web. Places like MacMall, MacConnection, MacWarehouse, and the MacZone can fulfill most of your software requirements, while at the same time keeping you up-to-date with new software releases. It’s also less confusing than browsing through the myriad titles at your local store and wondering if the package you’re looking at is the latest release, or has just been sitting on the shelves for several months.

Finally, if you can’t find what you need at one of the mail order houses, Apple has its own product finder up on its Internet site. A recent MacCentral iMac tip suggests you check this site out <http://macsoftware.apple.com> if you need a commercial product. For shareware or freeware, the same tip suggests you try <http://www.macshare.com/sftwre.html>. I find the Apple product finder useful though it would be nice to see some recommended retail prices along with the product information. I also noted that the Apple website seemed to generate a number of Internet errors, though a little persistence overcame these obstacles.

‘Simply Powerful Software’

I recently indexed my hard drive with System 8.6’s Sherlock and so now I can search for text strings within files. This is, of course, an invaluable utility for me as I can find out immediately what, if anything, I’ve written about various topics. This contrasts with Windows 98’s ‘Find’ facility which is equivalent to System 7’s ‘Find File.’

A search for any document that contains the word ‘Claris,’ for example, reminded me that Apple’s former software spin-off once sported a full stable of useful products including MacWrite Professional (a slick word processor), MacDraw Professional (a useful object-oriented drawing program), Resolve (a competent spreadsheet), FileMaker Professional (simply the best flat file system on the market), ClarisWorks (by far the best integrated package on the market), Claris HomePage (a fine web authoring tool), and Claris eMailer (an easy but powerful email program.) Some of this software was dropped because Claris evidently felt it was unprofitable to pursue. Some may have been terminated because they overlapped in function with ClarisWorks. Other programs were discontinued for more nebulous reasons.

Apple consolidated the Claris line, dissolved the company in favor of FileMaker, Inc., and changed the name of ClarisWorks to AppleWorks. FileMaker, Inc. markets FileMaker Pro and Claris HomePage along with related add-ons and utilities, while AppleWorks has been kept in the Apple stable. It’s a shame that Apple felt it necessary to rename ClarisWorks for two reasons. First, the new name automatically associates the program with its Apple II predecessor and though it was a successful Apple II product, it was also vastly under-powered in comparison to its Mac cousin. Second, adding ‘Apple’ to the name will do nothing to help the program penetrate the low end of the PC market where AppleWork’s advantages are so sorely needed.

My point here is that Apple has developed some very competitive software and it deserves to be marketed with the same gusto and enthusiasm as Apple’s hardware. The Claris slogan “simply powerful software” is as valid today as it was when Claris was the only division of Apple making money.

Together Again

It had been several weeks since Sulky filed her federal complaint against the cigarette smoking man. The statue forbade smoking in a federal office and as Judge Parr used to say, “No one, simply no one, is above the law.”

On the other hand, the law sometimes gets a little skewed in bureaucracies, and Sulky was punished for her assertiveness by being assigned once again to the Why Files Section. Her reassignment was equivalent to a second trip to the bureau’s Russian Front. That is, agents sent there seldom returned for any serious work.

It was so unfair. She thought she had survived the ‘Flamingo Fiasco’ and had successfully detached herself from the manic and increasingly maniacal Agent Mutter, but she found herself yet again entering the Why Files office.

Mutter looked up from his G3′s computer console.

“Sulky.”
“Mutter.”
“What are you doing here?” asked Mutter.
“I’ve been reassigned to the Why Files.”
“No, Sulky. Not after all you’ve done.”
“Look, Mutter, this wasn’t my idea. I’m being punished.”
“Oh, that’s just great, Sulky. Maybe they’re punishing me as well.”

Sulky brushed back a tear and turned away attempting to hide her vulnerability.

“I’m sorry, Sulky. I was out of line.”
“Look, Mutter,” said Sulky, “We’ve got to be professionals. What’s past is past.”
“Okay. But we need to clear the air about one thing.”
“What’s that, Mutter?”
“I had no idea you were related to John Sulky and I had nothing to do with his assassination.”
“The bureau already cleared you, Mutter.”
“Yes, but you have to know it’s the truth.”
“Okay, but who else had a motive?”
“Let’s say they knew we knew, Sulky. Then he became a liability and they cut their losses.”
“A little far-fetched.”
“Perhaps, Sulky, but when there’s no logical explanation…”
“Yada, yada, yada, Mutter.”
“I don’t have time for this, Sulky. We have a Triple Three Four R condition in Woodbridge, England, and as you might recall, that means a repeat of serious inexplicable phenomena.
“Isn’t England a little out of our jurisdiction?”
“Well Sulky, the first incident involved a US Air Force Base, and therefore the UK Ministry of Defense has requested bureau help.”
“When do we leave, Mutter?”

The Woodbridge File

Sulky and Mutter unsuccessfully tried to appear impassive as they checked into the British Air Desk for the Concorde flight to Heathrow. It wasn’t everyday that a couple of civil servants could fly in luxury, and the excitement associated with flying first class at Her Majesty’s expense presented the distraction the two agents needed to put off the inevitable awkward conversation. A glass of champagne and a joint examination of the Woodbridge case file helped fill in some of the time.
RAF Woodbridge was located in Suffolk near the North Sea and served as a US Air Force Base during much of the Cold War. In the late 70s and early 80s it was home for the A-10 ‘Tank Busters’ that would have responded in the event of an armored attack by the Eastern Block across the Fulda Gap in West Germany. Woodbridge also served as an alternative storage area for theater nuclear weapons.

In late December of 1980, two USAF security police saw unusual lights outside the back gate of Woodbridge Base. Suspecting a plane crash, the police alerted the Deputy Base Commander. LTC Halt and a security team investigated and discovered a ‘landing site’ that showed unusual signs of radiation, and a number of pine trees that were damaged on the sides facing the site. The team also noted unidentified flying objects in the vicinity bearing colored lights and flying in unusual patterns at extraordinary speeds.

“Do we know anything about this LTC Halt?” asked Sulky.
“Yes,” replied Mutter, “As the Deputy Commander, he was certainly credible. On top of that, Halt was an amateur scientist and traveled extensively exploring caves.”
“What was the Pentagon’s reaction to this report?”
“Sulky, Halt was flown out of Woodbridge almost immediately. The Pentagon never clarified the reason for this transfer nor did it attempt to explain the sightings that night. The official silence on the case was very unusual as typically a spokesperson would attribute the sightings to atmospheric phenomena of some sort.”
“Mutter, that’s because almost all of the sightings were in fact the result of atmospheric phenomena!”

An Awkward Conversation

Mutter closed the file and slipped it into his attaché case. Sulky’s eyes followed Mutter’s actions and then returned to engage Wolf’s.

“What is it, Sulky?”
“You don’t want to talk about it…”
“Sulky, you never called, you never faxed, you never emailed me, and I had to face the grand inquisition by myself. You’ll have to excuse me if romance wasn’t the first thing on my mind.”
“Mutter, the bureau instructed me not to contact you while you were under investigation. My career was on the line.”
“I’m sorry, but I thought that the last night we spent together was special. I guess I assumed the ‘bureau’ couldn’t separate us. Maybe that was naïve.”
“Mutter, what are you talking about? This was a murder investigation. Someone killed John Sulky and every clue seemed to lead towards you.”
“You thought I did it?”
“No, but I could see no way to help you, and it made no sense for me to commit professional suicide. It was also in the back of my mind that you just might need someone in the bureau with information access.”
Maybe it was an illusion, but tears seemed to well up in Mutter’s eyes. “Sulky, I went through personal hell.”
Sulky took Mutter’s hand in her own. “I know you did, Wolf, but let’s put that behind us.”
Withdrawing his hand, “I’m not sure I can.”

The pilot interrupted. The plane was now descending towards Heathrow and anticipated a smooth landing.

Hooper

Trevor Dade Hooper, Woodbridge Chief Constable, was about to finish his 30th and last year on the force and was looking forward to a quiet, hassle-free retirement. Though he’d miss some aspects of the job, he owed quality time to Margaret Brickhouse Hooper, his long serving wife, and to himself, for that matter. Thus, he was more than a little perplexed when he received calls from members of the Forestry Commission, the local Iron Monger, and Lady Margaret Kathleen Fitzgerald—all reporting strange lights in the sky over Rendlesham Forest on the same May evening. The fact that this paralleled an earlier incident in the same vicinity years earlier added an element of credibility to the claims and convinced Trevor to file an incident report with the MOD.

“That may have been a mistake,” mused Trevor to himself, as the clerk ushered the two FBI Agents into his office.
“Welcome to Suffolk, Agents Mutter and Sulky. I assume you’ve been looked after by the MOD folks at Bawdsey and are situated with adequate accommodations?”
“Thank you, Mr. Hooper,” replied Mutter, “the White Horse Hotel in Ipswich is just fine for right now, and thank you for your hospitality.”
“Let’s get down to business, then. You’ve read the file?”
“Yes, on the Concorde, but we have just a few questions.”
“Did the MOD ever do their own investigation of the 1980 incident?” asked Mutter.
“No. The US Air Force sent all the witnesses out of country before we had a chance.”
“But wasn’t that politically awkward for a guest unit serving on an RAF base to stifle an investigation?”
“You’re forgetting that Thatcher was PM and anything Ronnie Reagan and the Yanks wanted, they got.”
“Okay, Chief Constable, let’s move the clock forward to 1999. What’s the nature of the latest incident?”
“Very similar to the first except it happened during daylight hours, and instead of security police, we have members of the Forestry Commission and other local civilians who reported similar sightings, only some 19 years later.”

A Bird in Hand

After reviewing the statements from the witnesses and discussing options with the Chief Constable, Sulky and Mutter decided to return to the White Horse to get cleaned up, have dinner and get a good night’s sleep. They arranged to visit the sites of the two respective incidents in the morning.
That night, however, Mutter couldn’t sleep. He found himself tossing and turning—thinking about the John Sulky killing, his turbulent relationship with Sulky, the origin of the Pink Flamingos, and the incidents in Rendlesham Forest. He finally decided to go down to the hotel pub to have a nightcap.
As he sipped a pint of bitter, Mutter almost automatically surveyed the pub—recording details in temporary memory, comparing and contrasting them, and picking out those for permanent storage. After years of police work, Mutter had honed this process to a fine skill and, once in a great while, an incidental location like a bar presented the key to an investigation.

As an Anglophile, Mutter was so engrossed examining details, he neglected to spot Sulky as she sat next to him on a barstool. “So, are we a little jet-lagged, Wolf?”
Mutter jerked back into something approaching consciousness. “Oh, hi. Couldn’t sleep, but I’m not sure it was jet lag.”
“Rendlesham Forest?”
“No, a combination of things. Like the pink flamingos. Who placed them? Who led us to John Sulky and why? It was almost as if we had some secret mentor—someone obviously concerned about the evolution of technology on Earth.”
“Mutter, maybe it was just one of his enemies.”
“No, Sulky, it was someone who had extraordinary foreknowledge of events—almost like a time traveler.”
“Someone from the future, Mutter? I’ll have whatever you’re drinking.”

Two in the Bush

After a breakfast of corn flakes, eggs, back bacon, mushrooms, and deep fried tomatoes washed down with hot white coffee and orange drink, Sulky and Mutter were picked up by an MOD jeep and driven via back roads to Rendlesham Forest and the rear entry of old Woodbridge base. A short trek through a forest path brought them to the incident site, which was roped off and guarded by the local police.
The two investigators spent several hours with the Chief Constable examining indentations in the ground, looking at scarred trees, and sifting through the brush looking for any additional clues that might suggest a plausible explanation for the sighting.

They then moved on to the site of the earlier investigation of the 1980 incident which had occurred just a few hundred yards away. The old site was, of course, grown over, and little remained to indicate anything out of the ordinary. It appeared that one of the dozens of UFOlogists who visited the site over the years had carved the word ‘Bard’ into a silver birch—perhaps bored by the lack of anything substantive to find here.

“Backwards that spells ‘Drab’,” thought Sulky, “and that just about sums up my life and it sure sums up this gloomy day.”
They made it back to the jeep for the return to Ipswich and Mutter appeared preoccupied.
“Mutter, you’re in one of your moods. What’s going on?”
“I can’t put my finger on it, Sulky, but there’s something wrong here.”
“You mean at the new site?”
“No, at the old site. It’s the way that tree carving appeared so clearly. It was old, but it stood out as if it had been carved recently. Like someone wanted us to see it…”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Why would they want us to see the word ‘Bard?’
“Think for a minute, Sulky. ‘Bard’ was carved in a Silver Birch tree. Where have you heard the phrase ‘Silver Bard?”
Sulky thought back to the incident at Fort Ontario. The note attached to one of the flamingos: “…forgotten by the silver bard. A secret held in plasticine.”
“There’s something here,” Mutter remarked.

The Silver Bard

Mutter and Sulky spent another few days re-interviewing witnesses, searching MOD and Pentagon databases, and re-examining evidence from the sites. The breakthrough occurred just as they were about to temporarily close the case. A cross search on personnel in the area, ‘Macrosoft,’ and ‘Macintosh’ yielded the name of a teacher at the local DoD school during the 1980 incident. This teacher later became a leading Macintosh columnist and wrote a monthly feature for one of the best selling computer magazines in Europe. He also contributed freelance columns and reviews to a broad range of Mac magazines, and eventually moved to Southern Spain where he now writes his Mac Factor column for My Mac Magazine on the web.

“Mutter, I don’t get it. Why is this person important to the investigation?”
“Let’s say you want to create a conspiracy to let Macrosoft dominate the world market and there is one other company that offers superior technology. One strategy is to ignore the competition and hope that Macrosoft uses its marketing muscle to bully them into submission. This runs the grave risk that the superior technology will be discovered by the mass media and Macrosoft will be forced to compete. A better strategy is to plant ‘journalists’ that appears on the surface to support the alternative technology, but who are so confusing that they inadvertently promote Macrosoft. In that way, the rest of the media take an occasional swipe but generally ignore the Macintosh as a serious alternative.
“But Mutter, what could transform a mathematics teacher into a computer journalist?”
“The teacher in question lived in Saxmundham—just a few miles from Rendlesham Forest and was home on the night of the incident in 1980. What if the base visit was simply a diversion and the real purpose of the visit was to embed a ‘sleeper’ program in this teacher’s brain? Four or five years later, when the Macintosh technology became a threat, the program was activated. I know this seems far-fetched, Sulky, but when you consider this explanation, the pieces seem to all fall in place.”
“I’m a little worried, Mutter. The last time we identified a suspect, he was murdered.”
“This is about more than computers, Sulky. This is about the future of our planet. It’s bigger than you, me, or some two-bit teacher turned journalist.
“Mutter, what are you trying to say?”
“I have to talk to this gentleman which means I leave for Spain in the morning. You’re welcome to come along.”
“No thanks. I think I’ll interview the publisher of My Mac and find out some background information on our man.”

La Rasaca

El Puerto de Santa Maria, one of the oldest cities in Europe, is now the premier vacation destination for thousands of Spaniards, Germans, and Irish. El Puerto offers an unspoiled, pleasant atmosphere, fresh fish, delectable sherry, and access to some of the finest beaches on the Atlantic Coast. During the late spring and summer, Puerto’s numerous bars, restaurants, and discos open late and stay busy well into the morning hours.

‘La Rasaca,’ also known as ‘The Hangover Bar’ is the working class soul of El Puerto de Santa Maria’s party district, and though it attracts some tourists, it also serves as a local hangout for amateur flamingo enthusiasts and anyone who just likes to sip a sherry, ‘tinto verano,’ or a cerveza and enjoy the Sevillana music.

La Rasaca occupies part of a former Sherry Bodega and thus features high ceilings, arched entryways, and large oak sherry barrels. The ceiling fans, raised dance floor, square walk-around bar, and bullfight paraphernalia all add to the genuine Adalusian flavor. All of these factors are enough to attract a regular clientele on most nights, but there’s another remarkable facet of the La Rasaca experience.

On or about midnight on Friday and Saturday nights, an extraordinary transformation occurs. The waiters at the bar distribute small candles to each table surrounding the dance floor, the Sevillana music is cut, the candles are lit, the lights are dimmed, and Maria, the wife of the proprietor, appears on stage to sing a tribute to the Blessed Virgin. Everyone sings along through the deafening chorus of “OLÉ, OLÉ, OLÉ” that literally shakes the building. When the ceremony is finished, the lights come back on and everyone resumes drinking and dancing. The five to ten minute ceremony has a dream-like quality that is simultaneously charming and disturbing.

Mutter entered the bar at about 11:00 PM and sat at a table well behind the subject. After a short surveillance to assure himself that the subject was alone, he approached his table.

“Hi, is this seat taken?” asked Mutter.
“No, please sit down,” replied the subject.
“Do you come here often?” continued Mutter as he took a seat.
“Once in a while—though particularly on Saturday nights when Maria does her thing.”
“I don’t think we’ve met,” said Mutter. “My name is Sam and I’m new to the area.”
“Glad to meet you. You’ve come to the right place for entertainment.”
“So what are you doing in Spain?”
“I’m a computer consultant for the Department of Defense school system and I also write a little bit.”
“What do you write about?” Mutter asked.
“Mostly nonsense, but right now I’m working on an important project—the 50th anniversary issue of a Macintosh web magazine.”
Confirming the subject’s identity, Mutter slipped his right hand down to unbutton his holster. Just as he felt the handle of his weapon, a waiter arrived with a short candle.
“A web magazine?” asked Mutter with feigned interest. “What got you interested in writing?”
“Let’s talk later. It’s going to get very loud in here very shortly.”

Maria arrived on stage and faced the shrine of the Madonna over the dance floor. Lights were dimmed and a waiter lit the candles on each table. Mutter unholstered his weapon keeping his index finger taut on the gun’s trigger.

My Mac

Sulky was surprised at the sheer scale of the Robertson estate as she pulled up around the circular drive. A tennis court on the left and a swimming pool on the right flanked the white mansion, and Sulky noted garages and stables through the back. She climbed the three steps on the front porch and rang the fancy brass doorbell.

A scantily dressed young lady answered the door. “Welcome to My Mac Manor. How can we help you?” she inquired in a deep, suggestive voice.
“I have an appointment with Tim Robertson and I believe he’s expecting me,” responded Sulky.
“Yes, dear. If you have an appointment he would be expecting you, wouldn’t he? Follow me.” Her pert buttocks flipped back and forth almost with a life of their own.
Sulky was shown into Robertson’s Study—an enormous room filled with shrink wrapped copies of software, new computer systems in their original boxes, and Mr. Robertson sitting at the end of a long refractory table.
“Hello, Mr. Robertson, I’m Agent Sulky from the bureau.”
“Have a seat, Agent Sulky. Sheila, I don’t wish to be disturbed, and please tell the rest of the girls I’ll be a little late this afternoon.”
“You’re always late, honey. That’s what we like about you!”
“Okay Sheila, that will be all. Now Agent Sulky, what can I do for you?”
“We briefly discussed one of your writers on the phone. Can you tell me how long he has written for My Mac Magazine and how he is reimbursed?”
“Well, Agent Sulky… Do you mind if I call you “Agent”?”
“You can call me anything you like. Please just answer the questions.”
“He came to work for us in October of 97 and he is paid approximately $4 a word. Please don’t let that little fact out as most of our writers work for free and they might be more than a little upset if they found out we paid this guy.”
“But why do you choose to pay him and not the others?”
“Well, honey, he’s just so damn superior to the rest.”
“Has he ever written anything that would lead you to question his loyalty to the Mac? Anything, say, really pro-Macrosoft?”
“Interesting that you should bring this up. His last column was entitled ‘The Write Stuff: Word Processing Tools for the New Millennium.’ It occurred to me that there was an awful lot of pro-Macrosoft stuff in there. In fact 12.3456 % of the adjectives modified nouns that were in some way related to software and software, after all, is what Macrosoft sells.”
“Thank you for being frank, Mr. Robertson. I think I have the information I need now.”
“Would you like to join us for a little drinkie in the hot tub before you leave, honey?”
“Sorry. I’m still on duty. I’ll show myself out.”

OLÉ

Maria stood in front of the bar, exhorting the occupants to sing at the top of their lungs. “OLÉ, OLÉ, OLÉ” responded the audience and at the peak of the performance, just as Maria’s hands were raised to the Virgin Mary, a shot rang out…

The Write Stuff:
Essential Writing Tools for the New Millennium

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

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

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

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

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

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

Text/Graphics Input

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

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

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

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

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

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

Text Retrieval

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

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

On-line Reference

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

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

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

Dictation

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

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

‘Smart’ Data Entry

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

Information Processing

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

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

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

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

Outliner

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

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

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

Style Editor

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

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

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

Table Generator

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

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

Spell Checker and Grammar Checker

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

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

Macros

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

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

Drawing Tools

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

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

Document Output

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

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

Print

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

Speak Text

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

Hot Links to DTP

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

Publish

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

Hardware That Makes a Difference

The G3 PowerBook

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

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

The Macintosh Consumer Portable (Speculation)

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

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

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

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

Exploding Myths

My Spanish home is not on city gas, and so the hot water heater in my house is connected to two butane bottles which last approximately two to three weeks in the winter and four or five weeks during the summer. A few nights ago, the bottles were depleted and the hot water pilot light went out. I dutifully changed the bottles and attempted to light the pilot.

I bent over, held the pilot light button in for a few seconds, and then pushed the spark button. The next thing I remember I was across the room with the hair on my hands and my eyebrows literally smoking. I’m sure there was a mighty flash though I’m not certain of the duration or intensity. I recall sitting by the opposite wall, shaking in fright, and examining my extremities for any serious damage.

I suppose I am fortunate I was wearing glasses and there was no serious damage to my eyes. In fact, I was physically lucky in several ways. Psychologically, though, it took me awhile to put this incident in perspective. During the healing process, I did a lot of self-examination and fatalistically concluded that life is too short for misspent enthusiasm.

The Mac – No Longer a Factor

It has now been some ten years since I began writing my monthly Macintosh column. The ‘Mac Factor’ was first published in Personal Computer World Magazine in the UK and later moved to My Mac Magazine. During those years, I covered the best and the worst of the Macintosh—the exhilaration of the early years, the disappointment of corporate Apple’s blunders, and the belated hope of the early days of the iMac. It was an exciting time to work as a computer journalist and I’ll always remember those years as golden.

As a freelance writer and columnist, I always tried to be brutally honest. I unabashedly dished out praise and criticism and let the chips (so to speak) fall where they may. In this, my last column for My Mac, I will give you a frank assessment on the state of the Macintosh. Many readers might not like what I have to say, but I stand by my arguments and hope that even the most zealous Mac fanatic will at least hear me out.

Mac Toast

I’m quitting this column because the Macintosh is doomed: dead, finito, gonzo, kaput, toast, finished… It’s time for all of you—Mac aficionado or Mac beginner—to recognize that if the journey is to continue to be the reward, then that journey must inevitably include Windows NT.

There are those users out there that will be repelled at this suggestion. Many simplistically equate Microsoft with the ‘evil empire’ and, through some distorted twist in logic, associate Microsoft’s success with Apple’s failure. In fact, Microsoft’s success was achieved irrespective of Apple’s failures. Bill Gates learned early on that if his company produced the goods, everything else would follow. And with Windows NT, Microsoft has delivered the goods to dominate the market for the foreseeable future. Microsoft is good. Microsoft is cool. Microsoft is God.

Windows NT Superiority

There are an enormous number of reasons why Windows NT is superior to the Mac OS and I will list a few of the majors:

• Windows NT provides the user unparalleled simplicity. Either it works or it doesn’t work. In the latter case you reinstall the operating system. There’s none of this ‘turning off extensions’ nonsense or looking for conflicts of any kind. It’s so much easier to pop the old CD in and click reinstall. You may lose some settings, but you’ll get used to it.

• Windows NT error messages are completely unintelligible and therefore place no burden on the user. When the old “Missing file MB0003.DLL” shows up on the screen, you brush it off. If it’s really a problem, you go to #1, above.

• Microsoft doesn’t pretend their operating system will work as delivered. You simply download their latest ‘service pack’ and though that doesn’t fix everything, you know there will be another service pack that won’t fix everything available in a few months.

• Managing multiple users under Windows NT is as easy as building a house of cards. The Windows Registry is one of the great intellectual works of our century. Though there are some who criticize its complexity, I often open the file and browse through, admiring all the quaint and curious ‘flags’ and ‘settings.’ It reminds me of a chapter from Principia Mathematica by Russell and Whitehead—if you remove a wee bit of the logic.

• Unlike the Macintosh, Windows NT offers protected memory and preemptive multitasking. That is, if you’re running multiple applications and one crashes, it’s still possible to return to another and crash that one as well.

• There’s a whole lot more software out there for Windows NT. Most of it is worthless and very little of it works, but the stores are full of titles.

• Microsoft Access is reason enough to switch to NT. I’m sure it’s much more powerful than FileMaker, though I’ve never been able to create a simple database to test it.

• Windows NT is the precursor to Windows 2000 and should be released by 2005. It makes sense to start getting familiar with the errors now rather than sit on the sidelines or select an ‘error-free’ goody-goody machine like a Macintosh. It’s time to get down and dirty!

• Hardware expansion under Windows NT is never a worry; it’s way too complex to even contemplate. First you buy a piece of equipment that might be compatible and then you must find an ‘NT driver’ or try Windows 3.1, Windows 95, or Windows 98 drivers. The Mac, on the other hand, is so easy to expand via SCSI, USB, or FireWire that you’re constantly under pressure to buy the latest and greatest peripheral.

• Installing Windows NT means you get to play with all new equipment, as it’s a bear to configure older peripherals. I recently spent several hours unsucessfully trying to get an H-P ScanJet 5P to work with NT. Remember, that’s an H-P Scanner that sold in the thousands, and neither H-P nor Microsoft have made an effort to provide proper drivers for the scanner or the SCSI board. What do you suppose they’re trying to tell us?

• Windows NT offers a ‘profile manager’ for setting up multiple users’ desktops. Of course, the profile manager must be run from a different machine, but that’s pretty straightforward.

• Windows NT offers security for literally thousands of technical support specialists throughout the country. The interaction between users and technical support types promotes technical breadth and is therefore a breadth of fresh air.

• The Pentium III processor is vastly larger (and therefore superior) to the PowerPC. The ‘complex’ instruction set minimizes the ‘risk’ of oversimplifying programming code and the Pentium generates a lot more warmth than the relatively cold PowerPC.

• You aren’t required to decide whether ‘Windows NT for Dummies’ is an appropriate book choice. If you purchased NT, you already meet those requirements; buy the book.

• Purchasing Windows NT directly supports Bill Gates and Microsoft and this must be a good thing—otherwise why would he be so damn rich?

• NT users earn their stripes. That is, it’s cool to talk about the latest Pentium, but deep down, everyone shares the same pain and earns the same grudging admiration—at least from each other.

• The Mac is ‘too cool’ to put in a serious place of business. Customers expect to see boring beige and a secretary with a puzzled look on his face.

• Macs are faster and cheaper than comparable PCs and therefore there must be something wrong with them.

• Windows NT lets anybody do just about anything. That is, if you don’t sort out the user-rights problem, any user can change a setting in a control panel that will take you weeks to discover. If you’re lucky, you might be able to change it back. There are times, however, when NT merrily deletes a file in response to a changed setting and this can be a whole lot of fun to fix.

• Microsoft Office 97 for Windows NT provides a customizable toolbar that every user will eventually misplace. Attempts to recall the toolbar and correct the problem are particularly adventuresome as you take a trip through profile lane.

• Microsoft advertised on their website that Windows NT 4.0 had ‘tens of thousands of bugs’ that NT 5.0 would fix. This candor was laudable though apparently the company inadvertently deleted this web page.

I could go on for some time, but you get the point. There’s certainly no comparison between Windows NT and the Mac OS. I’m sorry if my brutal honesty put you off. Enjoy April 1st and I’ll see you next month!

Break Up…Telefonica?

Telefonica is Spain’s telephone company. Formerly a state-owned monopoly, Telefonica is now a free market monopoly, and controls every Spaniard’s access to the Internet with its infamous Infovia and Infovia Plus services. Infovia, Spain’s first attempt at a national Internet exchange, was slow but often reliable. That is, you could normally log on through an ISP to Infovia without authentication errors and, generally, access to the rest of the world appeared to function normally.

Over the past few months, however, Infovia was replaced by Infovia Plus, and Infovia Plus is a nightmare. Authentication errors are rampant and even when users are authenticated, Infovia Plus sometimes does not provide access to websites outside of Spain. Mail servers also seem unpredictable. The local providers (ISPs), who are forced to link through Infovia Plus, are taking the brunt of the consumer dissatisfaction, but it’s the monopoly that’s the killer. There simply are no other choices.

To further exacerbate the situation, Telefonica recently raised the price of local telephone calls, and so every time a user calls and is not authenticated, he is charged for a local call at the increased rate. Yes, Telefonica is an in-your-face, screw-the-consumer, squeeze-them-till-they’re-dry monopoly. Most people who use the service recognize the symptoms—incompetence flavored with irrepressible arrogance.

Abort, Retry, Fail

Microsoft has been accused of exhibiting similar traits in the world of operating systems and applications software. The present court case has already shed considerable light on these issues as has the frustration experienced by literally millions of users trying to deal with Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 3.1, and MS-DOS along with the slew of accompanying indecipherable error messages.

One of the pivotal issues in the court case appears to be the relevance of Microsoft’s browser (Internet Explorer) to the operating system. The government claims Microsoft incorporates the browser simply as a means to bash the opposition, while the company claims it serves as an integral part of the operating system.

I’ve been working with Windows NT for some years now, and my personal observation is that Internet Explorer has no obvious relationship to the operating system. Microsoft’s attempt to wed the two is clumsy, intrusive, irritating, and unnecessary. The new version of Explorer can compete quite well with Netscape on a level playing field and twisting it around the OS was a bad decision. I suspect our Redmond friends originally thought Netscape would disappear once Explorer was provided free of charge and when that didn’t happen, the OS/Explorer cuckold was conceived.

I’m more concerned about Microsoft’s steady stream of OS releases that appear to be in beta or late beta form. The millions of users who are practically forced to upgrade are used as virtual beta testers, while the company issues fix after fix. Meanwhile, we all lose in terms of productivity, frustration, and innovation.

General Protection Fault

To gain an insight into how a monopoly works, one just has to look at Microsoft applications software. From my perspective, Microsoft Word is the most important piece of applications software ever developed on a personal computer. It’s laden with powerful features, solid as a rock, and has a useable and sometimes Mac-like interface. Microsoft continues to develop Word because there are other competitive word processors on the market and because word processing is the key to selling an office suite.

Excel, on the other hand, appears to be a victim of its own success, as does PowerPoint. Microsoft redefined what we meant by spreadsheets when the company combined Microsoft Chart with Multiplan to form Excel. Excel continued to evolve as long as the spreadsheet market remained competitive. As the Office suite became dominant, however, Excel development slowed considerably. Similarly, when Aldus Persuasion and Symantec’s More were prematurely terminated, PowerPoint development appeared to stop.

The ideal scenario is that competition demands the attention of the successful company. A more cynical view is that destroying competition allows a monopoly to turn its attention elsewhere.

A Passion for Processing

My frustration with Telefonica here in Spain (‘A Passion for Living’) has served a purpose. I’ve gained some insight into how the function of personal computers has dramatically changed over the years. Just a few years ago, my major goal in working with a computer was to express myself in words or graphics. Now, my first inclination is to connect to the net and check my mail or browse my favorite websites. Though the net is almost by definition interactive, it’s easy to become a passive surfer, picking up information gems; it’s another matter to organize or process them.

Apple’s iMac marketing campaign has emphasized the compactness, ease of use, communications capability, colorful cases, and affordability of these incredible machines. It might also be worthwhile to show AppleWorks (formerly ClarisWorks) as the ultimate information processing application. With integrated word processing, draw, paint, and spreadsheet modules, AppleWorks provides the power to process information from the net. Apple should remind everyone that this dynamite application comes free with every iMac!

Dear Steve

I recently had two personal encounters that lead me to believe that Apple made a serious marketing error in not offering an Apple external floppy drive as an iMac option. First, an educational professional noted he read an article in the paper that indicated the iMac was easy to use but was flawed because it lacked an external floppy drive. I explained that technically, the usefulness of a built-in floppy drive was questionable since most software is now delivered on CD and most users have access to network or Internet storage facilities. He listened attentively, but I’m sure that in his mind, the iMac was somehow tarnished.

I also was engaged in a conversation with a couple of computer professionals. These people knew better, but laughingly seized on the lack of a floppy drive as a means to dismiss the iMac from serious consideration. Though again I mentioned iMation’s external drive, the argument had already been lost.

Though Apple has been the major innovator over the years, the company needs to recognize that the iMac market is different than the computer enthusiast or business markets. Many iMac purchasers or potential purchasers are simply not interested enough in details to research the specifications of a machine and are therefore greatly influenced by ‘soundbites’ in the press about the good points or bad points of a computer.

As soon as an issue grabs their attention, it is difficult to dislodge their first impression. Thus, the failure to offer an Apple floppy drive (no matter how justified by the evolution of technology) provides Apple’s detractors with the leverage to dissuade large numbers of Apple’s potential customers.
One solution is to contract with iMation to produce an ‘Apple’ external drive bearing the Apple logo and appearing on Apple specification sheets as an Apple option. Apple could then proudly market the iMac and the new G3’s as computer systems that don’t require you to purchase the optional floppy drive. This could transform a marketing weakness into a marketing strength.

Ideally though, I’d like to see the internal CD drive replaced with an expansion bay that could handle a CD drive, a DVD drive, or a floppy. That would silence the critics for good!

iMac, therefore I Might Be

Apple management must wonder just what the company has to accomplish for Wall Street to consider it successful. In spite of doubling its market share by selling some 800,000 iMacs since August of 1998 and despite introducing a ramped up, colorful, and cheaper version of the same model, there are industry analysts who still see problems on the horizon.

It’s apparently not enough for Apple to continue to exceed Wall Street’s performance expectations; and it matters little that the company has a slew of dynamite new systems on the market. Some investment firms want assurance that the good news will continue.

Part of the problem stems from the volatility of the industry as a whole and part from a few analysts’ perceptions that Apple will make the inevitable blunder. Success, after all, can act as an intoxicant, and there’s at least some evidence that the company’s past blunders stemmed from complacency and arrogance attributable to short-term achievement.

Specifically:
• The company’s most significant mistake was its failure to license the Mac OS after it was assured of some success. The whole computer landscape would be different today if the Apple managers hadn’t been so hooked on proprietary systems and the large margins they ensured.
• In addition, there is the almost legendary “port” blunder where Apple insisted the Macintosh would not support the industry standard printer interface, thereby precluding the use of the millions of dot matrix printers already sitting in offices throughout the land. Thus, in order to switch to Macintosh, users were required to buy a $500 ImageWriter Printer from Apple.
• The failure by Apple to incorporate a hard drive in the Apple IIGS doomed that machine while the company continued to sell thousands of these cash cows to K-12 schools. This crippling by omission had ensured the color Apple IIGS couldn’t compete with the successful grayscale Macintosh, but effectively opened the education market to competitors.
• Then, there was Sculley’s Knowledge Navigator and the Mac with a thousand names. The former sucked R&D monies into hyperspace while the latter was an attempt to sell customized Macs to every end of the market. Someone in marketing thought that if you changed the specs and renamed the machine (Performa, Centris, Quadra, etc.) you could sell Macs to everyone at remarkably different prices. Instead, Apple had a hard time predicting demand everywhere and frustration and confusion grew.

Many of these mistakes could have been avoided if Apple had only listened to feedback from its customers. In that light, I’d like to offer Apple ten positive suggestions to minimize potential pitfalls for 1999:

1. Lower the price of the iMac to $999. The thousand-dollar mark represents a marketing flashpoint and if Apple is to compete with the even lower-priced Windows PCs, it’s necessary to grab the momentum. We all know that the iMac is significantly superior to any sub-thousand PC, but that’s not enough. You have to get Joe Public’s attention first before they look at the details.

2. Make another deal with Microsoft. Though I condemned the original deal in a column entitled “Dancing with the Devil in the Pale Moonlight,” I was wrong. The development of Office on the Mac and a new version of Internet Explorer are important reasons for owning a Mac. Now that Microsoft is under considerable pressure from the government suit, it might be a great time to share technologies and perhaps convince Gates that Microsoft Access on the Mac is a profitable proposition.

3. Begin paying Steve Jobs what he’s worth. Whether you classify him as an interim CEO or a petulant patriarch, Jobs has made an enormous difference. When you consider that Ken Brown, recently signed pitcher for the Dodgers, will make over $300,000 per game, you have to wonder why Apple doesn’t reward Jobs for his accomplishments.

4. Introduce the nMac for education. To me, the most important product revealed at the January Macworld show was one that has yet to be marketed and was only shown incidentally as part of a demonstration. In order to show the power of Apple’s new System X Server software, Mr. Jobs booted a large number of stripped down or ‘immaculate’ iMacs directly from the server and ran some intensive graphics software. A driveless, modemless nMac could be priced aggressively and Apple could market classroom sets along with server and software solutions. Similarly, school-wide nMac networks could save school systems enormous costs in maintenance and support personnel.

5. Fix technical support. It’s time for Apple to ‘think different’ about technical support. Users still find themselves in long telephone queues, interacting with robot voices, and struggling to get appropriate advice or support. It’s not enough for Apple to offer industry standard support when that standard is woefully inadequate. We expect more of Apple and suspect that the company could break some new ground in support of its users.

6. Get the system software right BEFORE it is released. As was noted in a previous column, the System 8.5 (and 8.5.1) release was flawed and caused significant problems for hundreds of users. There’s never an excuse for releasing any software that can destroy data and if that is somehow inadvertently done, Apple should make it up to those who suffered (like me, for instance!). I would have settled for a proper fix that would restore my corrupted drive, but none was forthcoming. Instead, I spent several hundred dollars downloading utility software and buying an additional cartridge drive to restore my files.

7. Extend the color iMac scheme. The colored iMac was a brilliant marketing ploy and if the company can resolve the associated logistics problems, it could add even more impetus to the iMac’s success. Universities, K-12 schools, and businesses should also be able to order customized iMacs with school/business colors, logos, and the like. Of course, a long lead-time and a minimum number of systems might be required, but such orders could result in real long-term commitments to Apple technology.

8. Bundle a floppy drive as an Apple option. There’s no doubt in Job’s mind that the floppy is an expensive nuisance that has had its day, but like the port fiasco mentioned above, the lack of a floppy drive in Apple’s new equipment presents another blind spot in Apple’s marketing effort. My own school system, for example, turned down a significant Mac requisition simply because the iMac lacked a floppy drive and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the system derided because of the lack of a floppy. If the truth be known, of course, there are third-party USB drives that can happily serve the same function, but they don’t have an Apple logo on them and they aren’t automatically recognized by procurement organizations as an Apple option. C’mon Apple – get your collective head out of the sand.

9. Begin the transformation. The margins on standard desktop CPUs will continue to shrink as prices decline and so Apple needs to offer specialized solutions that differentiate Macs from the long beige line. The nMacs for education mentioned above are just one example. Home Macs could also be modified to meet individual requirements. I can envision kMacs (Kitchen Macs) with small screens and a rugged keyboard, gMacs (game Macs) with high speed accelerators and special input devices, tvMacs providing Internet access on the TV, and even bMacs (bedroom Macs) offering their own unique services. These could all sport iMac cores with customized add-ons providing the differentiation.

10. In order to accomplish #9, Apple has to deliver solutions to the education, home, and small business markets much the way IBM delivers solutions to corporations. That is, Apple and its subcontractors must fully assess a local need, offer a Macintosh solution that includes installation, training, and maintenance, and establish a real working relationship with the local client. This will require Apple to ‘think differently’ about the way it does business, but offers a way to leverage its hardware and software in the face of intense competition.

•Mick O’Neil• <mickoneil@mymac.com>

MacMick

By the pricking of my thumbs

I’ve been a Mac user now for some 14 years and I’ve owned probably a dozen different models. I’ve also upgraded system and applications software more times than I care to count. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s to back up my data and be very careful with software upgrades. Unfortunately, both of these tasks have now become almost prohibitively complex for the average user.

By the end of the year, Apple will probably have sold some 800,000 iMacs—the dynamite computer appliance that the company hinted at with the introduction of the Macintosh 128K back in the mid-eighties. These machines are cheap, easy to use, and amazingly powerful and, of course, that’s why they’re so popular. The good news is that the iMac sports a 4 gigabyte internal hard drive. The bad news is that it’s virtually impossible for the average user to back up.

Yes, I realize there are USB ports and a fast Ethernet port and so there are indeed backup options, but most iMac owners won’t purchase an external storage device and are not attached to networks that allow them to routinely toss up 4 gigabytes of data. iMac users and other Mac users with large internal hard drives then face a real dilemma when Apple releases a new version of the System Software. How can they back up data and show the care required in any System upgrade?

Something wicked this way comes

Apple is renowned for the quality of their System Software and has a great track record of releasing solid, trouble-free upgrades. That’s why I was a bit taken aback when I read the License for Macintosh System Software. Apple “expressly disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Apple does not warrant that the functions contained in the Apple software will meet your requirements, or that the operation of the Apple software will be uninterrupted or error free or that defects in the Apple software will be corrected.” And so on… In legal terms this means you are out there on your own, buddy. Get a new Mac for $99, but… oh, it may not work and that’s just too bad.

This may all be standard stuff for the software industry, but that doesn’t make it right. Can you imagine the auto industry getting away with that kind of warranty?

Double, double toil, and trouble

Why, you might ask, am I concerned about these issues if the Apple’s software updates are so solid? Clearly, the company’s release of System 8.5 was exceptionally problematic.

Apple provides all sorts of warnings before you install the software, but as I noted above, there’s very little that many users can do to pay heed to these warnings. In my personal situation, I had a PowerPC 8100 with two internal 520 MB drives. My boot drive was the original Apple (Quantum) hard disk that came with the system, while my second drive was a Fujitsu formatted with LaCie’s Silverlining software. My internal drive was running System Software version 8.1 at the time of upgrade and to make sure nothing deleterious happened, I decided to upgrade my second drive and leave my boot drive alone. That way, if all hell broke loose, I could always restore the situation by booting up System 8.1 again.

Thus, I moved any critical files off my Fujitsu to my boot drive and did a clean install of System 8.5 on the Fujitsu. I then went to the Startup Control Panel and changed the Startup Disk to the new system.

I booted the machine and everything seemed okay. I realized I’d have a long struggle to get all of the extensions and Microsoft odds and ends copied into the new System Folder in order to run Office again, but that didn’t intimidate me. Just to make sure I hadn’t lost any ground, I once again changed the startup drive and rebooted to see if I could run the old system and use Microsoft Office immediately to work on my Mac Factor column. I also wanted to browse the Internet and check my mail, but I had a tough time getting the new System to recognize my Teleport Modem.

In the cauldron, boil and bake;

That’s when things started going terribly wrong. My computer ignored the older System and continued to boot System 8.5 off the Fujitsu—no matter what I selected in the Startup Control Panel. I thought this was odd, but decided to commit to the new System and began work on the extensions. Just out of curiosity, I tried summoning Sherlock, Apple’s new Find facility, and I received a memory error dialog box.

The first software I reinstalled was FreePPP and this allowed me to browse MacFixIt.com, MacInTouch.com, and Apple Technical Support (Apple.com/support) to try to determine if anyone else had reported similar problems. I noted a slew of hard drive complaints and quickly downloaded the 8.5.1 fix for System 8.5. I installed the fix, hoping that this would recover the situation. That’s when all hell broke loose.

Thrice the brindled cat hath mew’d.

After rebooting, my former 8.1 startup drive disappeared. If you will recall, this was the drive I copied all of my critical data to for safeguarding. I had installed NOTHING to this drive and yet it was gone. I tried SCSI Probe and it saw the drive but it wouldn’t mount. I tried the System 8.5.1’s Drive Setup (version 1.6.2) and it also saw the drive but suggested it be initialized. There are few words that describe the cold shudder a computer consultant experiences when the word ‘initialize’ is encountered. I didn’t want to initialize anything… I wanted my drive back.

Out of desperation, I ran a copy of APS PowerTools that had come with an older external drive that was in my hardware graveyard, and APS reported “Error – can’t find driver descriptor in block 0 (This tells the Mac where the driver is on the disk).” Remember—this was the drive I had installed NOTHING on.

My brother in the US called Apple Technical Support and after a number of long waits and multiple calls, got through to a human being who seemed to recognize the problem. He suggested I download the latest copy of FWB’s Hard Drive Toolkit and update the drivers on the dead drive. I dutifully paid the $69, downloaded and installed the Toolkit, and it reported that it could see the drive but could do nothing because the device at address “SCSI:0 ID0 does not contain an Apple IM 5 partition map.”

I tried Norton Utilities 4.0 and although Norton could not mount the drive, it could see the files—all 5200 of them and none of them in folders. I could choose to use Norton’s ‘unerase’ facility and rescue the files to another drive—if only I had the space. Then, I’d have to reconstitute the files in their appropriate folders—a task that would take hours and hours.

At this point, I was experiencing a wee bit of frustration and I even began thinking the unthinkable—about the new Compaq in the local exchange. Instead, I decided to reinstall System 8.5 and then reinstall the fix. Still no joy, as my 8.1 boot drive remained in the nether world.

Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

The hedge-pig wasn’t the only one whining. I was now very upset with Apple. How could the company release System Software that destroys the descriptor block and partition map of a companion drive that happened to be sitting on the same SCSI chain? And given that this was a serious problem, why didn’t Apple release software that would fix the problem?

Again, out of curiosity, I ran Sherlock and this time, it worked fine. I connected to the net and asked Sherlock to find all sites that mentioned ‘hard drive recovery and Macintosh.’ After browsing through a number of hits, I ran across a program called Data Rescue by a company named Sylvain Demongeot. (<http://www.wildbits.com/rescue>)

I downloaded Data Rescue and the unregistered version examined my SCSI Bus, found the missing drive, and showed all of my files IN THEIR ORIGINAL FOLDERS! I paid the $39, registered the software and purchased an Iomega 1 GB Jaz Drive ($200) to provide space for the rescued files. Data Rescue saved the day and I recommend it without reservation. It was probably the best $39 I ever spent on software.

Harpier cries ‘Tis time, ‘tis time.’

Those familiar with the Iomega Jaz drive and the Mac might have raised a curious eyebrow at this decision. I had no choice; it was the only option in town and I had to rescue my files. So far, the Jaz Drive has worked flawlessly, though I have scanned through the alarming number of messages concerning Jaz drive problems and I will copy the files to another hard drive when I finally purchase one.

Thus, installing Apple’s new System Software cost me $69 for FWB Hard Drive Toolkit, $39 for Data Rescue, $200 for a Jazz Drive, $99 for the System Software itself, and countless hours of frustration sorting it all out.

Tell me, thou unknown power, —

I am not alone in experiencing problems from the installation of System 8.5. The MacInTouch website (<http://www.macintouch.com>) includes a ‘Mac OS 8.5 Special Report: Disk Damage Issue’ and notes that “Since the introduction of Mac OS 8.5, more than a thousand MacInTouch readers have reported severe disk corruption associated with the upgrade process.”

As prices drop precipitously on computer hardware, so too do margins. Increasingly, Apple will find that System Software updates are an important part of its bottom line. It’s important right now to undo the damage caused by the premature release of System 8.5. Apple should gather the information presently being compiled by MacInTouch, apologize to those users (like myself) who have lost data, time, and money, and offer to compensate us in some concrete way.

Apple should have thoroughly tested the software prior to its release and once the company recognized people were losing data, a media warning should have been issued. That would have been a brave decision that might have cost the company in sales but earned it a lot of respect from users. Apple should also release a utility to recreate the partition information for those of us unlucky enough to have trusted their software.

There are also long term implications that can be drawn from the 8.5 debacle. If necessary, the company should raise the price of future System Software to pay for better testing and better technical support. Though pricing the upgrade at $99 might be a great marketing ploy, most users would rather pay a little more for a solid update and a warranty that says the software really works.

The new System Software is certainly impressive and Sherlock makes a significant difference in the way you can retrieve information. But the evil that the installation of System 8.5 did, lives after it. The good will no doubt be interred within its bones. (Sorry, Bill.)

•Mick O’Neil• <mickoneil@mymac.com>

Websites mentioned:
<http://www.macfixit.com>
<http://www.macintouch.com>
<http://www.apple.com/support>
<http://www.wildbits.com/rescue>

The Mac Factor: Time to Let the Big One Go!

Some people are under the impression that all that is required to make a good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing; but this is a mistake. Mere bald fabrication is useless; the veriest tyro can manage that. It is in the circumstantial detail, the embellishing touches of probability, the general air of scrupulous—almost of pedantic—veracity, that the experienced angler is seen.
—Three Men in a Boat, ch. 17 (1889) (1), by Jerome K. Jerome (1859?1927), British author.

Today’s tall tales are told by ‘technical anglers’ or ‘tanglers’ and they unabashedly shower the unsuspecting observer with circumstantial detail about the speed of a processor, the width of a data bus, the exhilarating impact of the latest graphics accelerator, the ‘cool’ new version of Windows, and/or the overwhelming number of software titles available for ‘their’ recommended system. The tanglers won’t tell you about the system crashes, the incompatibilities, the hours and hours it takes to upgrade hardware and software, or the almost incomprehensible slew of error messages that accompanies practically every change they make to their system.

The technical tall tales combined with disingenuous coverage of Windows problems by the media adds enormous confusion to the market. Every prospective buyer, including universities and K-12 schools, must attempt to find a reliable source of advice that can ‘untangle’ all of this misinformation. My purpose in writing this column is to provide an unbiased, factual, and understandable discussion of the issues involved in the educational procurement of technology. With the presidential goal of universal student access to the Internet by the Year 2000, it’s increasingly important to ‘let the big one go,’ and make procurement decisions based on the best information available.

This paper will examine the facts related to these issues in some detail citing data compiled by the leading research organizations in the industry (2). Specific arguments will be presented concerning compatibility, cost considerations, and the capability of the Macintosh both as a standalone and as a network computer.

Empowerment

A few years back, “empowerment” was the ‘buzz word’ that resonated through educational circles. Teachers were in the business of ‘empowering’ students by providing the opportunity to learn, the tools to learn, and a positive, proactive learning atmosphere.

Empowerment was a concept that schools could embrace because it was achievable and because it placed some responsibility on the student to participate in the process.

Though perhaps not as much of a trendy term as before, ‘empowerment’ is a concept that is still very much with us. The job of an educational technologist (ET), for example, is to empower teachers and students to use technology to access and process information. In an ideal world, an experienced ET might play a pivotal role in providing advice to educational decision-makers during a hardware or software procurement. Given empowerment as the goal, such advice would inevitably lead to the purchase of systems that are the easiest to use and maintain.

Alas, we don’t live in an ideal world. Technology procurement decisions are often made by chancellors, superintendents, and principals with minimal technical knowledge or experience. They often rely on ‘self-styled experts’ in the ‘Management Information Systems’ office for advice, and many of the ‘experts’ have little or no insight into the educational use of computer technology. In fact, the background and experience of these advisors may predispose them to give faulty advice.

Micro-bigotry ? A Source of MISinformation?

Micro-bigotry has been around since the first microcomputers were introduced and stems at least in part from the overwhelming intellectual and sometimes emotional commitment a user makes to a particular system in order to use and master it. Indeed, there were Apple II, Atari, and even Radio Shack bigots. Using these machines required learning arcane operating system commands, and expanding them required ‘getting your hands dirty’ by removing the cover and inserting boards, wires, and sometimes even individual chips. It was all so… white, so middle class, and so macho! Each group considered their system superior to others in the industry and the more success users felt in mastering their micros, the more isolated they became.

Today, the microcomputer world is arguably divided into two camps. The Windows/Intel (WINTEL) machines dominate the market and purport to provide the user access to most of the software originally developed for the Macintosh. The Mac is also back and stronger than ever, Apple having introduced not only a new and improved Mac OS, but a full-powered and inexpensive version of the original Macintosh paradigm, the iMac.

There are still ‘bigots’ in both camps and they continually confuse procurement issues. Some make decisions on poor or little information, while others find solace in ad hominem attacks on users with alternative viewpoints. Micro-bigotry, however, often rears its ugly head like most bigotry. There’s no open discussion of issues. Instead, there’s a nod, nod, wink, wink… and suddenly a particular system is no longer considered acceptable. This process could have been observed at a number of universities who recently decided to recommend Windows equipment to incoming freshmen and to phase out support for the minority Mac.

Lost in “the circumstantial detail”

I’ve worked with PCs and Macs in an educational environment for over ten years. During that period, I’ve installed dozens of networks with workstations supporting three different versions of Windows. I’ve also expanded workstations to support multimedia add-ons like CD -ROM drives, sound cards, and a variety of video boards. I’ve dealt with hardware problems, software problems, security problems, user training, upgrades, sidegrades, emulators, translators, and the finest utility software in the land.

There is a dirty little secret that I need to share with you. Windows is broken. It doesn’t work as advertised and it particularly doesn’t work well in an educational environment. This is no secret to those of us who have tried to make it work, but it is a secret in the sense that you don’t read about the myriad problems in the popular computer press. There is almost a conspiracy of silence (3) about the mess that we’ve been left in by our friends in Redmond.

Specifically, we now have four versions of Windows installed in schools: Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT. Individually, each of these systems has significant problems with system freezes, innocuous error messages, memory conflicts, and so on. Attempting to move software or data between these systems is a virtual nightmare. Attempting to upgrade hardware to support the latest releases is almost prohibitively complex. Trying to effectively support different versions of Windows in an educational environment is practically a non-starter, and dealing with Windows security issues over a network is a full-time job.

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice. (4)

“the general air of scrupulous—almost of pedantic—veracity”

The micro-bigots have resorted to one or more subtle variations of the following themes to affectively exclude the Mac from some school procurements:

The technology in the schools should mirror the technology in business so that kids can translate their training and experience into immediate benefits when they leave school.

If 90% of computer users work with Windows, then it must be okay.

There’s more software out there for Windows-based systems.

The Macintosh is incompatible with the management systems we have in place.

The Mac can’t be expanded like the PC and therefore can’t be used for multimedia production.

Most software development is done on the PC.

If Apple goes out of business, the selection of Macintosh-based systems will be a disaster.

No one has ever been fired for buying IBM (or, by extension, PC compatibles).

The dangerous aspects of these themes is that like the ‘big fish’ story, they each contain an element of the truth and thus are ultimately believable to those who are uninformed and/or rely on ‘computer experts’ for advice. And like the snake that devours its own tail, the pursuit of PC technology feeds on itself as schools strive to upgrade systems, purchase ‘compatible’ hardware, install the latest 32-bit software, support multimedia, and cope with the latest version of Microsoft Windows or its most recent ‘Utility Pack.’

There are three compelling reasons why schools should drop the technology fishing expedition and opt for Macintosh technology:

The Macintosh is easier to use (compatibility and capability);

The Macintosh is cheaper to buy and cheaper to support (costs);

The Macintosh provides students more accessible power in terms of information retrieval and processing (capability and connectivity).

Prejudices are so to speak the mechanical instincts of men: through their prejudices they do without any effort many things they would find too difficult to think through to the point of resolving to do them. (5)

Compatibility, Costs, Capability, and Connectivity

Contrary to MIS arguments, the Macintosh is compatible with Windows-based software; cheaper to install, maintain, upgrade, and support; and more capable than equivalent Windows-based systems.

Compatibility

Compatibility with Educational Software
Apple is the leading seller of information technology to schools and, therefore, the majority of educational software companies develop software for the Macintosh platform. Two-thirds of all educational software titles run on Apple computers, and the Mac OS leads Windows in the number of educational software titles for all grade levels and subject areas (6).

Compatibility with older Macintosh and Apple IIGS software
Unlike new Windows-based systems, the iMac can happily run software developed years ago. There’s also Apple IIGS emulation software available that will allow your Mac to take advantage of most of the software developed for that machine. Meanwhile, the Windows world is plagued by incompatibilities between evolving 32-bit system software and older, 16-bit applications.

Compatibility with PC disks and PC data files
The optional IMATION floppy drive works like all Macintosh floppies in that it will recognize and mount PC formatted disks. The Mac has had this capability built into its System software for years. Since the programs most frequently used in a Windows environment were first released for the Macintosh, Mac applications have very few problems opening and translating Windows data files.

Compatibility with PC software
There are two robust Windows emulators available for the Macintosh that run all major Windows programs. The Mac can, in fact, run both the Mac OS and Windows simultaneously, and cut and paste information between applications in both operating systems.

Compatibility with Novell Netware
PCs and Macs can coexist quite happily on a Novell LAN, and the Mac desktops can be individually tailored using At Ease for Workgroups—an elegant desktop security system in comparison to the confusing and often unpredictable profile management tools available with Windows.

Compatibility with Multimedia Equipment
Ease of upgrading to multimedia was rated very good to best by most schools using the Macintosh platform compared to only 37% for schools using Wintel PCs (7). Upgrading older PC hardware to support multimedia applications can be a technical nightmare. Older Macs, on the other hand, can be expanded via their Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) to support several peripherals.

Windows Compatibility issues
There are significantly more compatibility problems between PCs running various versions of Windows than there are between the Mac and the PC.

Windows Reliability Problems
Windows NT 4.0, Windows 95, and Windows 98 are rife with bugs, meaningless error messages, and indecipherable dialog boxes. Including these systems in an educational setting presents both a costly and time-consuming challenge. In an ad for Windows NT 5.0 (now referred to as Windows 2000), Microsoft advertised that the new version would “correct tens of thousands of bugs in Windows NT 4.0.” When several members of the press (including this writer) pointed this out, Microsoft quickly removed the ad.

The paradoxes of today are the prejudices of tomorrow, since the most benighted and the most deplorable prejudices have their moment of novelty when fashion lent them its fragile grace. (8)

Costs

Support
In the business environment, the ratio of users to computer support personnel is about 50:1. In education the user to support ratio is around 500:1. The Mac’s ease of use increases the effectiveness of technical support and helps obviate the low support ratio (9).

Support Specifics
Specifically, IDC’s White Paper indicated that the Macintosh was easier to support in terms of speed of training, ease of learning, ease of adding peripherals, ease of installing software, ease of installing hardware, and overall effectiveness.

Support Costs Lower
A study by the Gartner Group revealed that the technical support costs for Macintosh computers tend to be 25 percent lower than for corresponding PCs. The study further indicates that a single technical support resource can support 100 Macs but only 77 PCs (10).

Dual Platform Support Costs
“No, there are no detectable extra support costs associated with having both Macintosh AND Windows over and above having Windows alone.” (11)
Though the study was completed in 1995, the cost of supporting dual platforms has declined with the introduction of more robust operating systems and the dramatic falls in the price of computer hardware. “…in a mixed Macintosh/Windows environment, costs can be reduced by increasing the percentage of Macintosh deployed.” (12)

Downtime
Downtime for educational PCs is two to three times higher than for business computers. The robust nature of the Macintosh Operating System minimizes downtime, while Windows systems experience more interface problems including confusing error messages, system crashes, and reinstallation requirements. Specifically, the IDC Survey indicated that PC platforms exhibit 50% more failures than Macintosh platforms in an educational setting (13).

Share of the education market place
An often-used barometer of the reliability and staying power of a computer company in any particular segment of the market is its segment market share. Apple systems presently comprise 53% of educational computers. The nearest rival, IBM, has less than one third of Apple’s presence in the K-12 educational market. Fully 70% of K-12 school systems employ Macintosh (14).

System Longevity
Schools keep their systems on average about five years vs. three years for business. Though the Macintosh OS has evolved over the years, software that worked five years ago still works fine under the newest upgrade. The reason is simple: The Mac OS has been a true 32-bit operating system since early in its development. Windows, on the other hand, is plagued by incompatibilities between the latest versions and recent 16-bit applications. Specifically, Macintoshes are used by schools an average of 5.4 years vs. other PC platforms that are typically replaced after 4.5 years. Macs are also used longer before upgrading is necessary (15).

People commonly educate their children as they build their houses, according to some plan they think beautiful, without considering whether it is suited to the purposes for which they are designed. (16)

Capability and Connectivity

Information Processing
Students who use Macs in school on average use more applications than their PC counterparts, and the use of more applications indicates more in-depth information processing. Though the latest versions of Windows claim ‘preemptive multitasking’ that should result in less data loss, my experience has been that the Macintosh is still much more reliable running multiple applications. This is particularly important for desktop publishing or multimedia authoring—both crucial areas of interest for the schools.

Easier Multimedia Access
The Mac is the overwhelming choice for working with multimedia as students find it easier to use video editing, to scan and use scanned graphics, and to work with digital cameras. Upgrading to these technologies on the Mac requires no consideration of Interrupt Requests (IRQ), port address, or memory locations, while upgrading on equivalent PCs can be a virtual nightmare. Apple lead the way in pioneering multimedia technology and more than half of all multimedia computers used in schools are Macintosh (17).

The Desktop Metaphor
Apple’s Macintosh employed a simple, straightforward desktop metaphor from its inception in 1984. Microsoft copied much of the look and feel of the Mac but avoided the simple desktop in order to preclude an Apple lawsuit. To date, students find the Mac significantly easier to use than Windows 95, 98, or NT.

Teacher Effectiveness
A survey by Field Research Corporation indicates that the Macintosh is the leading brand of computers used by teachers with over 2 million teachers using Macs at school or at home. Clearly, teacher familiarity with a platform minimizes support and training costs (18).

Availability of Educational Software
In the Fall of 1997, the EPIE Institute reported that the Mac OS leads Windows in the number of educational software titles for all grade levels and subject areas. Nearly all of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development’s (ASCD) highest rated software programs run on Macintosh computers. (19)

Internet Access
More schools that use Macintosh computers access the Internet than schools that use PCs or PC compatibles. Correspondingly, teachers and students in schools that use Macs are more likely to access the Internet than their PC using counterparts. (20)

The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration. (21)

iMac: The First Educational Network Computer

In the Winter of 1997, I wrote a paper entitled ‘Paradigm Paralysis and the Plight of the PC in Education’ which was published in the Fall issue of The Journal of Computing in Higher Education (22), the April 98 report of the International Conference on Technology and Education, and the November 97 Mac Factor column at http://mymac.com. In that paper, I analyzed the state of educational computing and concluded that educators spend far too much time maintaining their computer systems, upgrading software, and dealing with security issues. I concluded that network computer technology offers an inexpensive way forward for K-12 education while meeting the President’s Year 2000 goals.

Since that paper was published, Apple released the iMac computer. The iMac is a kind of quasi-network computer that includes many of the educational advantages cited in the article. It provides an affordable, powerful alternative to the standard complex workstation and should be seriously considered for procurement by universities and K-12 schools interested in increasing student information access while simultaneously cutting purchase and support costs. ‘Thinking differently’ could transform a school’s computing environment, letting information access and processing to surface, with the hardware disappearing seamlessly into the background where it belongs.

Network Computer: Inexpensive
Apple’s iMac: Inexpensive

Network Computer: Easy to install
Apple’s iMac: Easy to install

Network Computer: Easy to connect to the Internet
Apple’s iMac: Easy to connect to the Internet

Network Computer: Minimal expansion ensuring simple maintenance and support
Apple’s iMac: Expansion only via the industry standard Universal Serial Bus

Network Computer: Diskless to maximize network security
Apple’s iMac: Diskless (though optional floppy drive is available)

Network Computer: Secure desktop software tailored to individual users
Apple’s iMac: At Ease for Work Groups individually tailors and protects desktops

Network Computer: System Software easy to use
Apple’s iMac: Mac OS sets the standard for ease of use

Network Computer: Fast Ethernet port built-in
Apple’s iMac: Fast Ethernet port built-in

Network Computer: Peer to peer networking software
Apple’s iMac: Peer to peer networking software an inherent part of the Mac OS for years

Network Computer: Server-based applications software
Apple’s iMac: Supported by Novell-, Windows NT-, and Apple Rhapsody-based servers

Network Computer: Inexpensive to maintain
Apple’s iMac: Macintosh has an outstanding maintenance history in comparison to PCs

Footnotes

(1)The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
(2) International Data Corporation (IDC), ‘Understanding the Total Cost and Value of Integrating Technology in Schools’, October 1998. IDC is one of the leading providers of market information, industry analysis, and strategic and tactical guidance to users of information technology. An extensive list of IDC studies is available on the World Wide Web at <http://www.idcresearch.com>
(3) Computer magazines make money from advertisements; software/hardware companies advertise new products; new products are released often in conjunction with new operating systems; and new operating systems are often released to fix problems with older operating systems. Thus every time Microsoft releases a new version of Windows, there’s a new version of PageMaker, a new version of Office, and so on. Of course, Adobe and Microsoft take out full page ads in every PC computer magazine. Do you suppose there’s any chance at all that the major computer magazines would dwell on the truth about the flaws in the system that’s driving its main source of income?
(4) Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher. Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2, ch. 1, sct. 17 (1851)
(5) G. C. Lichtenberg (1742-99), German physicist, philosopher. Aphorisms, “Notebook A,” aph. 17 (written 1765-99; tr. by R. J. Hollingdale, 1990).
(6) EPIE Institute, Fall 1997 Update, The Educational Software Selector (TESS).
(7) IDC White Paper, 9.
(8) Marcel Proust (1871-1922), French novelist. Pleasures and Regrets, “Regrets, Reveries, Changing Skies,” no. 5 (1896; tr. 1948)
(9) IDC White Paper, 1.
(10) Gartner Group. Technical Support Costs in Dual-Platform Computing Environments, October 1995
(11) Gartner Group, 5.
(12) Gartner Group, 6.
(13) IDC White Paper, 10.
(14) IDC White Paper, 3. and Market Data Retrieval, Technology in Education, 1997 (advanced report findings)
(15) IDC White Paper, 4.
(16) Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), English society figure, letter writer. Letter, 19 Feb. 1750, to her daughter Lady Bute (published in Selected Letters, ed. by Robert Halsband, 1970)
(17) Quality Education Data, Education Technology Trends, 9th Edition, Dec. 1996
(18) Field Research Corporation, K-12 Teacher Survey, Jan. 1997
(19) EPIE Institute, Fall 1997 Update, The Educational Software Selector (TESS).
(20) Field Research Corporation, 10/97 K-12 Survey
(21) Allan Bloom (1930-92), U.S. educator, author. The Closing of the American Mind, Preface (1987).
(22) Mick O’Neil. “Paradigm Paralysis and the Plight of the PC in Education,” The Journal of Computing in Higher Education (FALL 1998): 97-104

•Mick O’Neil• <mickoneil@mymac.com>

1. Never buy a publication with this kind of article on the cover. It’s a clear indication that the editorial direction of the magazine is spiraling out of control.

2. Never buy a first generation anything from anybody except for the iMac, which is clearly a second generation machine released ahead of schedule.

3. Never read anything by John Dvorak. Frankly, he’s the Jerry Springer of computer journalists and will write anything, no matter how preposterous, to get your attention.

4. Never read a series of tips that overuses the universal negative qualifier ‘Never.’

5. Always back up your important files. Do it now. Right this second. You’re not doing it? You deserve to lose everything.

6. Always remember that you’re lucky to be a Mac user. You could be one of the great unwashed—plagued by absurd error messages, annoying system freezes, and a relentless series of meaningless upgrades from our friends in Redmond.

7. Always read My Mac Magazine (<http://www.mymac.com>), MacCentral (<http://www.maccentral.com>), MacIntouch (<http//:www.macintouch.com>), and MacFixIt (<http://www.macfixit.com>). The rest are sometimes interesting but often superfluous.

8. Don’t send humor over the net unless it’s something VERY special. Few users appreciate scrolling through jokes forwarded hundreds of times—particularly when they’re not funny.

9. Don’t give up the Mac penetration fight. Even if your organization has hundreds of PCs and doesn’t want to hear it, tell them again, but this time with more humility.

10. Listen intently to anyone who tells you to upgrade your processor. Chances are that you may be better off buying an entirely new system.

11. Don’t wait on the sidelines too long. One of my old economics professors used to say, “In the long term, you’re dead.”

12. Read My Mac Magazine (<http://www.mymac.com>) from cover to cover. Some magazines are well worth their price.

13. Generally, don’t send graphics over the net unless it’s absolutely necessary. Remember that the prospective recipient may not have the fast access you have, and downloading a superfluous graphic can be very irritating.

14. Download and pay for GraphicConverter right now. It is perhaps the most important utility you can own if you work with graphics from different sources.

15. Never buy a book for ‘Dummies.’ They trade on your insecurity and often are written by dummies.

16. Don’t try to use a spreadsheet to do what a Word Table can do better, that is, display text in rows and columns.

17. Never use spaces to align text. Spend the few minutes it takes to learn about TABS and the interactive ruler. Using Word, tables can also be an easy way to align columns of text.

18. If you’re a professional, buy Office 98. It’s the single most important piece of productivity software ever released on any machine.

19. If you must insert more RAM or an additional board in your Mac, buy a cheap, throwaway, anti-static wrist band at your local Radio Shack and make sure you’re grounded before you touch the board or the interior of the computer.

20. If you can’t comply with #19, above, turn the computer off, keep it plugged in, and touch the power supply to drain off static charges prior to any installation.

21. Don’t trash an old Macintosh. Donate it to a local school and write the value off your taxes. Most Macs run Microsoft Word 5.1 or ClarisWorks plenty fast enough to use effectively in a writing class.

22. Be very cautious with utility software. Programs like Conflict Catcher can be very confusing even for experienced users.

23. Don’t worry excessively about disk fragmentation. It’s something you should probably monitor every couple of months.

24. You still haven’t backed up those important documents?

25. Don’t let anyone else attempt to ‘organize’ your system. I spent several hours trying to correct a situation for a friend whose son got him ‘organized.’ In fact, he deleted some important files that were impossible to undelete.

26. If you can afford it and have a supporting model (one with slots), install a second video board and hook up two monitors. This is particularly useful for surfing the net on one of the monitors, while word processing on the other.

27. Read the Microsoft documentation. It’s cool not to read manuals, but the Microsoft documentation is usually excellent.

28. Don’t miss ‘All Along the Watchtower,’ the complete WhyFiles expose which can be downloaded from <http://www.mymac.com>.

29. Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.

30. Don’t make fun of Windows users. It makes them furious and alienates them from the Macintosh Way.

31. If you’re an educator working with the Mac, buy AppleWorks. It’s by leaps and bounds the finest integrated software on the market.

32. Recommend AppleWorks to Windows users. It provides graphics support in that environment accessible only in much more expensive packages.

33. If your system can spare the RAM, set up a RAM disk and put your Netscape Communicator cache there. This will significantly increase the speed of cache access, minimize browser-based disk fragmentation, and let you automatically clear the cache every time you turn your computer off.

34. Leave your computer on twenty-four hours a day. This eliminates the peaks and valleys that can accompany a power on or power off. Turn off the monitor for long periods of inactivity.

35. It’s time to splurge for a surge protector or uninterruptable power supply. Make sure you fill out any warranty and keep track of any advertised liability insurance that they offer.

36. Visit my web page at <http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/3423/mick.html>.

37. Clean the protuberances off your mouse balls.

38. Read the complete My Mac series on using FileMaker Pro. FileMaker Pro is easy to use, powerful, and very utilitarian for tasks from home inventories to contact lists. It’s also available on the Windows platform, where its main competition is Microsoft Access. (Access is also powerful, but much more difficult to … access.)

39. Learn the Outliner in Word. It lets your organize your writing without being intrusive. That is, by simply switching from page layout view to outline view you can focus on a document’s structure.

40. Learn to use the Scrapbook and Note Pad. These remnants from the early days of the Mac are important tools for storing and retrieving information.

41. Subscribe to a Mac magazine. Mac print magazines are struggling, and require user support to survive.

42. Never use multiple tabs to align columns of text. Set a tab on the interactive ruler and use a single tab to get to it.

43. Use a reasonable screen pattern. Many compete with the desktop icons for attention.

44. Clean out your Navigator Inbox and Message Log File. Chances are you’re saving a copy of every message you send and eventually, this will become burdensome.

45. Don’t argue with a PC user about the Mac’s obvious superiority. You can never win these arguments and it’s much more effective to show than to tell.

46. Purchase Apple computers, peripherals, and software, and you support innovation. Apple was the first company to mass market the personal computer, the mouse, the 3.5 inch floppy disk, the Graphical User Interface (GUI), the Laser Printer, the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), the built-in CD-ROM Drive, predictable color (ColorSync), the QuickTime animation/movie system, peer-to-peer networking (Appleshare), built-in networking (AppleTalk), HyperCard, video editing, multiple monitor output, the ADB expansion bus, the Universal Serial Bus, and computers with style (the iMac). Meanwhile, Dell and the rest of the PC clones have brought absolutely nothing new to the table.

47. Consider a G3-based PowerBook in lieu of a desktop system. The new PowerBooks are slick and fast and the screens are something to behold. Mine includes S-video and VGA out, a SCSI, serial, ADB ports, built-in Ethernet, a 56K modem, hot-swappable CD and floppy drives, two PCMCIA slots, and two interchangeable bays for batteries and drives. Crucially, the keyboard seems full-sized compared to most portables and the touchpad is large and conveniently located for easy access.

48. Take the time to learn the Style Editor in Word. It will save you countless hours of work and standardize your documents.

49. Never keep a personal computer for longer than 2 or 3 years. Sell it at a loss and purchase a new system or you risk a complete write-off shortly thereafter.

50. Never take the time to read 101 tips. Clearly, when you get beyond fifty, you’re in filler territory. That’s why I’ve employed a little poetic license and stopped here.