In June, My Mac lost one of our own. Susan Howerter, columnist and author or the “Stocking Stuffer Steve book” passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer.

What does one say after losing someone like this? While Susan and I had never met in person, she had become a very dear friend, one I could confide in. Susan meant a lot to me, and indeed the entire staff, that news of her passing was like a bucket of ice-cold water in our faces.

Susan first came to my attention in August 1997. At the time, we had a column titled “The Reader Voice” in which we let our readership send in their own samples for publication. This was one of the best ideas I had ever had, as it netted us not a few regular columnists, reviewers, and indeed friends for years to come. Susan send it an article titled “DUEX ex Machina” in August, hoping I would print it in the magazine. She had sent it to another Mac publication as well, but they passed. I was blown away! It was a brilliant piece of writing, so I not only published the piece in our September 1997 (#29) issue, I also asked her to join our staff as a regular writer. Happily, she agreed.

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(The following is a Internet Chat conducted during one of our “My Mac Chats” at World Without Borders. Special thanks to the folks at the WWB for all their help in providing this transcript.

10-14-98

GCSPhotoBug // We know you’ve seen My Mac Magazine, a monthly electronic magazine for everyday Mac users, dedicated to bringing its readers commentary, product reviews, information, humor, great links to other Macintosh resources and a renewed dedication to being a Mac enthusiast. Now you can join us here each week at World Without Borders, and chat with them online! Today, we meet Susan Howerter, who will be talking about writing and ideas.

GCSPhotoBug // Susan, glad you could be here today. Let’s start with you,
shall we? What took you on the path towards writting?

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Doug Noble at The Mac Bookshop did an
email interview with Susan for her book, The
“Stocking Stuffer Steve Book” that was never
published. Doug kept the interview, though,
and was gracious enough to send it to us for
publication.

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There will be others writing comprehensive reviews that give a good idea of what ViaVoice has to offer. But there is nothing like hearing how a program fares in day to day use. As a world class, truly terrible typist, I felt that ViaVoice and I were made for each other. So… was this article written simply by leaning back and letting the thoughts verbally stream onto the page? You’ve gotta be kidding…

Circa 1994 / 3:30 PM
“Buster. Open File.” The teachers packing the small room for a demonstration of early voice recognition strain forward to watch. Nothing happens. “Buster! Open file!” Still nothing. The presenter adjusts his mic and tries again. “BUSTER! OPEN FILE!” One teacher whispers to another, “I’ve been up to my ears in little Busters all day. What I don’t need is a computer with an attitude.”

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The Dot.Com Kid
Or,
How those dot.com ads make Cargo Cults of us all

New Years Eve, 1999. While the grownups watched CNN unfolding the Year 2000, five year-old Dibs played on the floor with his Christmas things. His puppet box became a ‘computer’ with an arrangement of Legos for a keyboard and Gears for a mouse. He plunked happily away ignoring the new millennium.

Neither bad weather, human terror nor Y2K error spoiled the televised celebrations as time zone after time zone came and went. In fact, about the only computer snafu seemed to be the inability of all those dot.coms to deliver the promised goods. What can I say. Amazon.com and I were practically blood brothers between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And I was hardly a stranger at MacMall. UPS has made a permanent groove in the driveway.

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What a month! A power user becomes an iMac evangelist, new iMacs in six colors redefine computing and Apple astounds us by seeming to listen when Mac lovers speak.

“You got a what? But Chris, you’re a Power User! You eat benchmarks for breakfast! Whatever are you going to do with an iMac? Oh,” I say. “I see. It’s tangerine.”

It was late August and my son, working as a media consultant for a local university, had recently moved into his grandmother’s home to be a part-time chef, chauffeur, and companion. Grandmother would get the care she needed and Chris would set up his Mac studio in her comfortable basement family room.

Unfortunately, there was no way to get Cable into the basement without major remodeling. And as he and the university often corresponded by cable modem (a necessity for sending large graphic files back and forth), the breakfast nook soon disappeared beneath the 8600, two monitors, a scanner, printer, Zip, small TV and all the paraphernalia associated with a primary work station.

Using an iMac as his Internet connection would not only save space and allow the primary work machines to spread out across the basement (as well as freeing them to render 24 hours a day when needed), it would even match the wallpaper. Grandmother was delighted.

But not nearly as delighted as Chris, when he found what a dynamo his new iMac, entry level or not, turned out to be. After upgrading the RAM to 196, it ran rings around the Umax S900 and even put the 8600/300 with its full 1 MB cache to shame.

He wrote: “This second generation iMac is truly a power-user machine! I installed Painter 5.0 on it and it’s like a whole new program. It’s snappier than I’ve ever seen it. Photoshop, too, is a speed demon. I’ve been running side-by-side plug-in ‘races’ between the iMac and 8600, and the 8600 has yet to win. Not bad for a little 18 inch entry-level box!”

There were problems of course. Without a serial port, LightWave and AfterEffects, both of which require a dongle, were unusable. And with his main computers in the basement, transferring files without a floppy, SCSI, or Internet connection was impossible. By the end of of September the iMac had sprouted a USB Zip, a USB-ADB adapter for hooking up dongles and 100 feet of cable snaking from kitchen to laundry and down the stairs to the studio. The small dinette table was filling up as quickly as Chris’ bank account was being depleted.

But the iMac was now networked in as a true member of the graphics team. Being a Mac, all three hard drives showed up on each machine. And from any machine, Chris could drag and drop large files onto the Internet icon and send them, via cable, to the university. He was more productive than he had ever imagined.

He wrote: “BTW: I have a ftp site at the university now and when I sent the first batch of videos over, my data transfer speed was 487k per sec. It turns out the same server that the Wichita Cable Service uses is used by WSU also. This means I can configure my net boot system to function just like it was on campus. I don’t have to go to the media center for video clips anymore–I just load them directly into my applications as if they were a locally mounted disk! I can see this cable modem was certainly worth the wait!!!”

The little tangerine box had just settled into place when, on the fifth of October, Apple announced iMac, phase three. Not only were prices dropping to new lows, there would be a power user version in graphite black. (Sorry Grandma, eat your heart out… but guys really go for graphite.)

He wrote: “You gotta go to Apple’s site and look up the specs on the new iMacs. Unbelievable! And it’s not just the machines or the prices that are unbelievable… It’s Apple. When I filled out my online registration, the very last question was ‘Is there anything you would like to see in the iMacs that is not there?’ So, I said More RAM, Better speakers, Video in, DVD drive, SCSI support (or better yet, Firewire) and MAKE IT EVEN FASTER!

“Well whaddaya know! It’s ALL there. They’ve even made the RAM more accessible. No more voiding the warranty to upgrade it yourself. WOW! Could it be that Apple actually listens???”

If Apple has truly learned to listen to the rest of us, just think what wonderful things could lie ahead. (Wonder where they would be if they’d listened all along?)

It is important to note, however, that current iMac owners, when considering upgrading to the new versions, should be aware that the RAM is not compatible. You can’t take it with you. And sadly, even the top of the line graphite model has only a 512 KB cache. Both of those factors cooled Chris’ initial excitement in spite of the 400 MHz processor, the dual Firewire ports, the 128 MB-base RAM and the 13GB drive in the DV Special Edition. Which is just as well as his August iMac has scarcely had time to accumulate dust.

On the other hand, his sister has long wanted a small tangerine Mac to match her own kitchen. And at only a few hundred $$$ more than last month’s standard five-flavored iMac, that graphite DV is awfully tempting. If he can sweet talk Sis into some kind of deal, I wouldn’t be surprised to find Grandma sporting a speedy, FireWired little black box in the breakfast nook before YK2 overtakes the Windows world.

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

A Horticultural Mystery (With A Macintosh Twist)

I gave the new office iMac a quick pat on its sleek blueberry top and sat back with a sigh. Done. Grandmother’s newest cultivar was neatly cataloged in our handy database. Click on Lilium, for example, and check your preference for such things as color, height, hardiness, season of bloom… and voilà! Up would come all the pertinent information plus price, availability and a luscious full-color illustration for each plant that matched your request. Ditto for Hemerocallis.

Now all that was left was dinner for twelve. Dinner, death and divine retribution. With me dressed as Nemesis. If only the Mac and I could bring it off.

“Kate stop! You’ve walked us halfway around the gardens already. I’m dying!” We were passing the only shade for acres, an old apple tree left standing at the edge of a bed of lilies. Celia came to a halt beneath the tree. I was pretty well parched myself, but this was no time to stop. We were putting the final touches on my first important dinner party and Celia was the guest of honor. The sweat trickling down my back was due more to tension than to temperature.

“This heat is making a dishrag of my hair,” Celia fussed, tossing a thick gold mass over one shoulder. “Just pick something green and get on with it!”

Even in a temper Celia made a perfect picture among the lilies. The garden, actually a working nursery, was in early summer bloom. Begun some forty years ago by my Grandmother, Lillian Grover, today LilyGrove carried a large variety of hybrid lilies. Her pride, however, was in developing the luscious, long blooming daylilies that bore her name.

At the moment we were nearing a forbidden spot, one of the few places even I wasn’t allowed. It was plainly marked ‘Private! Hemerocallis Hybrids Under Construction! By Invitation Only!’

“Well, come on then,” I said, edging Celia around Grandmother’s private plot. If we want to have the flowers done before the others arrive, we’d better hurry. What do you think about those?” I pointed across the way to a mixed border of American and Asiatic lilies.

It was a lovely June afternoon. The daylilies were coming into their own while the first true lilies still held their glory. Perfect timing for our last get together as we went separate ways after four years at Hawthorne Hall. The ostensible reason for tonight’s dinner was to celebrate Celia’s brilliant showing on the final exam. Before this year no one had ever managed a perfect score. Coupled with her outstanding academic record, Celia was not only our Valedictorian, she would also receive the Jane Hawthorne Award, good for any school of her choice. Not that she needed it. The Soderquils were one of the wealthiest families in the area.

To tell the truth, I was simply glad of an excuse to bring us back together while the lilies were in bloom. Although Hawthorne required all students to board, most of us lived within an hour or two of the campus. With Mother’s encouragement, I had invited the girls for dinner and a night’s sleep-over in the Guest Cottage. We were a very small class, only twelve this year. And, except for Tai, everyone would be here. Even Tai would be with us in spirit.

As I moved toward the bright rainbow of blossoms, Celia slipped back to the forbidden fruits of Grandmother’s private garden. “Not that way,” I said quickly. “Grandmother has a group of visitors coming any time now. Besides, this area is strictly Do Not Disturb.” Celia, as usual, ignored me.

“What strange names!” she said, lagging behind to read the stakes by some scarlet beauties. “I mean Mon Despair. Early to Bed. And this one: Dead Come Dinner ? Who in the world would buy a flower with such a dispiriting name? Your grandmother is so very old school as a rule.”

True. Grandmother is elegantly aristocratic and, though we love her dearly, we are all a little in awe of her. Certainly no one would accuse her of a low sense of humor. “In this business,” I grinned, “you’ve got to kiss a lot of toads before you find your prince. And Grandmother does enjoy naming her genetically-challenged offspring with a bit of descriptive malice. Let’s go. If she sees us here, we’ll be what’s Dead Come Dinner.” Grandmother was known for her formidable temper where her gardens were concerned. But Celia didn’t budge.

“If they’re no good,” she said, continuing to finger the flowers, “why keep them off limits? They’re much better looking than that dreary bunch over there.” That dreary bunch was worth gold on the open market.

I stepped into the garden. “This is prime breeding stock. Each one has the genetic potential, if we can only find the proper frog, to be a future prince. A real show stopper. Come on. We’d better hustle.” But, the more I pushed, the slower our progress.

“Oh, no.” Celia was adamant. “Pick whatever you want for the others, but I want one of these at my place. I am the guest of honor, after all.” ‘These’ were some of Grandmother’s most brilliant experimentals. I wasn’t really surprised. Our Celia always goes first class and never takes ‘no’ for an answer. Spurs her on, actually.

“Well, all right,” I said doubtfully, carefully clipping the most radiant bloom. I didn’t blame Celia for choosing it. The flower was a huge blood-red velvet with thick ruffled petals. “But I think we’ll settle on the ordinary lilies across the way for the rest of us. How about some American hybrids and maybe a few Asiatics?”

“Whatever.” Horticulture was not her thing.

If I seem to be making Celia out to be a bit of a spoiled brat, I am. I’ve known her forever, always with an air of condescension on her part and a lot of envy on my own. If I were tall, blond, rich, and brilliant, no doubt I’d be bursting with self-assurance myself. But, if like Celia, I’d always had things my own way, never having had to struggle, never having had to fail, would I be an arrogant, self-possessed snob? I hate to think.

And, in Celia’s defense, given her many advantages, much was expected. Maybe too much. The Soderquils were achievers. Losing was not an option.

By seven that evening we were all assembled around the table in the dining room, extended its full length to seat twelve. As we were now just eleven, Tai’s absence was only too obvious. We tried to look elsewhere, but the empty place kept calling us back.

Tai was new to Hawthorne last year, coming from a school in the East. Not Back East. Far East. Like Celia, she was brilliant. Unlike Celia, she was on a special scholarship to increase our minority enrollment. From zero to one. Even in her second language, Tai was at the top of every subject. She gave Celia the first real competition she’d ever faced. In fact, most of us thought that Tai would receive the Jane Hawthorne Award. But that was before the audit.

Only a few of weeks ago, life seemed very different. No time for fun. Certainly no time for flowers. If we were more innocent then, we had no time to appreciate it now that the Fourth Year Examination, always referred to as ‘The Beast’, was almost upon us.

This was no ordinary test. We worried for months and sweat blood for weeks just thinking about it. Anything and everything we had studied over the past four years could be included. I felt fairly adequate in Latin, Literature, French, and maybe Biology. At least, I wouldn’t go down in shame when the scores were posted. But Math! Not to mention Chemistry and Physics! Even my midnight oil wasn’t likely to save my honor there.

My weak points were Celia’s strengths. She had a man’s brain in a model’s body. She not only whipped through the hard stuff, she was a computer whiz as well. While the rest of us diddled in Windows and dreamed of a Mac, Celia played DOS and UNIX like a pro. No one who knew Celia would dare to use the word ‘nerd’ but, when the school network crashed over Christmas, it was Celia who helped get things back on line for the rest of us. Now though, even she had competition. And the extra pressure was beginning to show.

“How about a study break?” I called to Tai as several of us headed down the hall to the Snack Center. “My brain’s broke and needs a chocolate fix.”

“Thank you, but no,” Tai called back, struggling with something on her computer. “I am so sorry, but I must complete my studies.” Tai was at a definite disadvantage in not having been at Hawthorne for the first two years. No doubt Celia was counting on it. It was a great honor to receive the J. H. Award, even if the money were only an extra and not a necessity. “Thank you so very much for asking me.”

“What a little sweetheart she is,” said Celia, as we turned the corner. “If she were any more polite, she’d ooze!” Celia made a mock bow. “So solly. So solly. Tank you velly much.” It was first rate mockery with a fourth rate accent. Any of us could have done better.

Kathryn and Kendall looked shocked. “I always understood that it was impossible to be too rich, too thin or too polite,” said Kathryn pointedly.

“Anyway,” added Kendall, “I think she’s a darling. And Miss Poole says she’ll be a real beauty some day.”

“Only if you like them short and dark,” was Celia’s retort. Hardly fair. Compared to Celia, we were all short and dark.

I grabbed a couple of chocolate bars and headed back to Tai’s room. She was frowning down at her screen with a puzzled look. I tapped softly in case she was in deep concentration. “Oh hello.” She looked up and smiled uncertainly. “I am glad you are alone. I seem to have a problem with my computer and I have no idea how to proceed.”

“Can I take a look?” I said, as Tai’s eyes lit up at the chocolate. “Microsoft may not be my thing, but I’ve made most of the mistakes that can be made which makes me an expert of sorts.” Considering that Tai had had no real technology in her life until last year, she had become remarkably adept. I wondered how I could help. Normally, I would be asking her for help.

“It is this monitor,” she said. “It is all lines and squiggles.” It sure was. Dimly, through the lines and squiggles, we could make out just enough to fiddle hopelessly around the desktop. We right clicked and left clicked. We opened up Control Panels and Settings and tried to call up assorted drivers to no avail. It was getting late and the monitor, if anything, was getting worse.

“Okay,” I yawned. “I give up. This guy’s headed for repair.” The stricken look on Tai’s face stopped me. Her whole world was tied up in reviewing the four years of academics stored on the school network. Each of us was assigned a computer as a part of our tuition and it had become a necessity, like it or not. But without a monitor, the computer might just as well be dead. And as it was a Friday night, only one week until ‘The Beast’, Tai was right to look stricken. I couldn’t simply walk away.

“So,” I said, suddenly energized. “There’s only one thing to do. Here, help me unscrew these gizmos. We are going to trade monitors.”

“But Kate, I do not understand,” Tai protested. “Then you will have no access yourself. It is not right. You must study too. This exam is very important.”

True, but my future did not depend on this test. Tai’s did. Anyway, I could always read the book.

It was just as well that we traded monitors as mine wasn’t working again until Wednesday. While it was being repaired, I asked what had gone wrong. The man said, very seriously, that someone or something had jiggled the jaggle or wobbled the widget, but he had tuned up the cosmos and replaced the ectoplasm and it should work fine now. Well, maybe that isn’t exactly what he said, but close enough.

It seemed to be all for the best. Tai had access to the network and I had an excellent excuse for my dismal showing in Physics. Only Celia seemed surprised. She kept asking what on earth was wrong with my computer. I never said a word.

The Day of the Beast was a grueling eight hours of agony, but there was no agony of waiting. Thanks to modern technology, the exams were quickly graded and posted–far too quickly for most of us.

At Sunday lunch it was announced that, remarkably, both Celia and Tai had made Hawthorne history. We had not one, but two, perfect scores on the Fourth Year Examination! Surely Tai would win the Jane Hawthorne Award now. It would make all the difference in her future. And, we supposed, Celia would be Valedictorian to even things out. We supposed wrong.

The Board decided that Tai should not only be given the J.H. Award, she and Celia would share the stage as co-valedictorians. There was a certain amount of cynical supposition that this was due to Hawthorne’s belated entry into the world of multicultural integration. It would surely annoy some of the staunch Old Girls, but would look good on the grant applications that the Technology Committee was preparing.

Tai was given leave for a couple of days to visit her family with the good news. Before she left we held a bang up coke and pizza party in my room. Gentle and serious, Tai was a favorite and we were all delighted with her good fortune. Well, almost all. Celia did not attend the party. She did show up in my room first thing the next morning.

“That little Asian upstart!” Celia was stomping up and down between the bed and the dresser. “Tai Chon! What a name! Sounds like a Chinese chow mein. She’s not even a citizen!”

Actually she was. Tai had been born here and was sent back to live with relatives when her mother died . Her father, who ran Chon’s Bakery, had saved until he could afford to bring the whole family over last year. Tai was as American as we were. Maybe more so. I said as much.

“No matter!” Celia fumed. “She’ll never be a real American. She’s an Oriental Interloper. A Chonni-Come-Lately. A … a velly solly sweetypants!” Either Celia ran out of epithets or out of breath, because at that point, she stormed from the room.

What a shame to waste all that eloquence on bigotry and bitterness. I can’t see why a Swede is inherently more American than an Asian, but I didn’t have a chance to say so. I’m mostly Welsh myself, thus the short and dark. While it would have been nice to be a long-legged blond, I can’t think it would make me a better citizen.

But, I understood a little of how Celia was feeling. All her life she’d been queen of the hop and now she was a merely a maid in waiting. Possibly, even, a victim of reverse discrimination. And the Soderquils always went first class. Celia had never learned how to cope with second best.

None of us saw her the rest of the day. Knowing how she would respond to any sympathy, we kept our distance until she appeared next morning for breakfast. “Over here,” Kathryn called a little nervously. But Celia joined us, though she scarcely nibbled at her toast.

As the rest of us nibbled along in a show of support, a limousine pulled up and stopped at the main entrance. Everyone, except Celia, turned to stare. Several men in suits headed up the walk to be met by the Hawthorne staff. We don’t see many men here, so they made rather a stir in the cafeteria. Even at a distance they seemed to be moving with a purpose.

The breakfast buzz suddenly hushed as the loud speaker broke in with the morning announcements. Today’s announcement left us silent, not to mention a little shaky. Instead of the usual ‘Good Mornings’ and special plans for the day, we were told to report immediately to our first class, and, under no circumstance, to return to our rooms until further notice.

Kendall broke the silence with a nervous giggle. “Go straight to jail,” she whispered. “Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.”

“What do you think is going on?” I asked Celia on the way upstairs. But Celia’s face was set and she didn’t answer.

As fourth year students, our classes were now over and this last week was dedicated to graduation and good-byes. Today we were to meet in the Library to make plans for pre-graduation activities. It’s hard to make plans while someone is frisking your room.

“But what are they looking for?”

“Who says they’re looking?

“Miss Poole said they had permission to search all the rooms.”

“Yeah! Even the computers. It’s an audit or something.”

“Oh my #?$*!” This last, a mixed chorus of expletives from the lot of us.

“I wish I’d remembered to fold my underwear.”
“I wish I’d remembered to wash my underwear.”
“I wish I’d remembered to toss my underwear. And burn my letters to boot!”

We all had regrets.

It wasn’t really an audit, of course, though we continued to call it that. It seems that a rumor had reached the Scholastic Committee that there might have been more than simple brainpower involved in the unprecedented perfect scores for not one, but two, Hawthorne students. In a word: cheating.

The Board had a warrant or something to have our rooms searched.The computer company even sent along a couple of their best operatives to frisk the computers for evidence of dishonesty. Evidence, for example, like the copy of ‘The Beast’ found hidden among the DOS files in Tai’s room.

“Please, may we see Tai for just a minute.” Kathryn, Kendall and I were at the entry of the small apartment over Chon’s Bakery. Mr. Chon held the door open just enough to say, “Go away. Please girls. Go away now. Tai can see no one.”

“But we’re her friends,” we pleaded. “She needs us. We know she could never do anything wrong.” But did we, really? Tai was at a crossroads in her life and the J.H. Award could the pave the way. It would have been a great honor for the whole family. And now. Could they ever recover from this disgrace? Could Tai?

“You must go, girls. Tai can see no one. Tai will see no one.” Mr. Chon looked grim. And frightened. Was he frightened for Tai?

“Surely,” said Kathryn, as we headed for the bus, “surely Tai wouldn’t do anything foolish.”

“Didn’t people used to fall on their swords or something when they dishonored their family? Or maybe throw themselves from a turret?” Kendall’s fears were a little melodramatic, but that didn’t mean Tai wasn’t in danger. Whether she fell on her sword or just died inside, the bright promise would be gone.

But how could Tai have managed to get hold of the test? Each year a new one was devised by the current staff. Only the Headmistress had a copy of the entire exam, rumored to be kept on her computer, well passworded and behind locked doors. How could any of us …? I froze. No. I couldn’t be right? And even if I were, what could I do about it?

Dinner at LilyGrove was always something special, one of the perks of staying with a grandmother who kept a cook to help cater for the groups of growers and buyers who often visited. This dinner was a graduation gift. I put Celia in charge of the single corsage for each guest, a LilyGrove tradition. She set the flowers by the plates while I finished the centerpiece.

Celia looked beautiful in the white she always wore to set off her blond hair and deep tan. Tonight it was something silky and probably very expensive. “This thing won’t stain will it?” she asked, considering how to place the large scarlet bloom for best effect.

“Course not,” I said, crossing my fingers. “There, right above your heart. Yes! Perfect.” The others, as they arrived, were pleased with their pink and yellow flowers, but looked enviously at the rich, ruffled daylily pinned to Celia’s silk. It might well have been an orchid.

The dinner was far too delicious to waste and, Tai or no, we did it justice. The house salad was a LilyGrove specialty made of mixed fruits and buds, topped with a daylily in bloom. It was usually served first, but tonight we were having salad in lieu of dessert. “Do we eat the whole thing, flowers and all?” was the general murmur as the plates were handed around.

“C’est tres gourmet,” I said, biting into a sweet, yellow bud. “In the orient, daylilies are used as food as well as flowers. More Vitamin C than asparagus, more protein than a string bean.”

“So,” grinned Kendall. “Do I eat my corsage now or save it for a midnight snack? It looks delicious and I’ve been low on vitamins lately.”

“Sorry,” I said, “not the right sort. But, if you put it in water when you get home, it might bloom for several days. Lilies last a long time. And speaking of time, it’s time for the show.” I was reaching for the bell to have the plates removed, when the front door opened. Oh no. Not now.

I watched Grandmother coming down the main hall with Mother. The visitors must have left early. I could hear Grandmother’s voice raised in elegant complaint and Mother being soothing. Please, let them go straight on up. But no. They were turning toward the dining room, Grandmother in her most imperious mood. Oh dear, Grandmother in high dudgeon was unnerving at best. Possibly fatal.

Grandmother stopped dead in the doorway and stared at the table. Suddenly her face tightened and she stepped forward. “Death!” she cried, pointing her finger straight at Celia. “Death Before Darkfall!”

“Lillian, please,” said Mother, taking Grandmother’s arm and hurrying her through the hall. “Tonight is very important for Kate and her friends. We mustn’t intrude.” And she and Grandmother disappeared up the stairs, Grandmother fussing all the way.

“Has she gone senile or what?” Celia demanded. But she was obviously frightened. We all were. Especially me. Dark was falling fast.

Everyone else was too polite to comment, but I scrambled to shut the curtains and set up the VCR and the Mac. The class had been putting together a collage of pictures and video snips dating back to our arrival as raw First Year Girls. We planned to end the evening laughing at ourselves.

Tai was naturally not in the first half of the program. By the time she had arrived for our third year, I had installed a QuickCam at home, a neat little device that could take still or moving pictures right on the computer. It came in awfully handy for the mid-winter multimedia project. And it was just what was needed to finish off the evening. I had added a few homemade scenes from last year starring the twelve of us clowning before the camera. We were hard to see and harder to hear, but there we all were in fuzzy black and white.

“Hey, that’s Celia, someone said, as a swish of pale hair blocked the screen. The blurry on-screen Celia laughed and stuck out her tongue at us. The real Celia covered her eyes and groaned.

We all had our chance to groan as by ones and twos we swam into focus, a year younger and full of spirit. “Look, there’s Kate,” someone else said as a small, dark shape loomed into view. “Or is it Kendall?”

But it was neither. It was Tai. We watched in silence as a cheerful Tai paused in front of the camera. “Hello my friends,” she said. “I love you all. I will love you forever, my wonderful new friends.” Since the sound was even poorer than the picture, she wasn’t easy to understand. But we understood well enough.

Just then the picture went blank. “Is that all?” Celia sounded uneasy. “And you got an ‘A’ on your multimedia project. What a lame ending.”

But it wasn’t the end. The screen slowly came to life again and, though the picture was worse than ever, the sound was clear. Someone, someone small and dark, sat in a dim room crying. It was eerie.

“Turn on the lights!” demanded Celia, starting to rise. But as she rose, the figure on the screen looked up and spoke.

“Celia,” sighed the misty figure. “See what you have done?” We strained forward as Celia dropped back into her seat.

“I am so sorry.” The voice was fuzzier now, but sounded awfully like Tai. “So very, very sorry, Celia. It is too late for me, but not for you. Confess, Celia. Save your soul. Now. Before your heart shrivels up inside your breast. Feel it, Celia. Touch your guilty heart. Does it beat? Or does it bleed with shame?”

We tore ourselves away from the image to stare at Celia in the darkening room. Hypnotically her hands rose to her heart, eyes still fixed on the screen.

Suddenly, Celia shrieked in real terror. “My hands!” she cried. “My hands! They’re all covered with blood! Death by darkfall… Your grandmother said! Oh no! No! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

“Sorry about what?” asked Mother, switching on the lights. But Celia didn’t answer. She sat staring at her stained hands as the rest of us stared at the rich red stain on her white silk dress.

“But Kate, how did you know?” We were having coffee in the parlor. Mother had taken Celia upstairs to wash and to wait for her father. “And where did all that blood come from?”

I should have been triumphant, but was shaking instead. My plan may have been a success, but, due to Grandmother catching Celia sporting her precious new hybrid, it worked almost too well. Celia had to be helped to bed, where she couldn’t stop crying. She sobbed on and on about ghosts and passwords and death by dark.

“It wasn’t blood,” I assured them. “It was just that fancy flower. Those rich ruffled daylilies make an awful mess when they wilt.

“And Tai,” they wanted to know. “Was that really her?”

“I thought she was in seclusion,” said Kathryn.

“I thought she was dead!” Kendall shuddered.

“Tai should be fine,” I said. “Now. But that wasn’t Tai. It was me.” There was a great outpouring of ‘But we all saw her.’

“You could scarcely see anything,” I reminded them. “The QuickCam and I made sure of that. And what did you hear? Only a faint voice with lilting accent.”

“It worked for Celia,” said Kathryn. “But how could you be certain that she’d really stolen the test?”

“Only Celia had both the skill and the opportunity to access the entire network. The exam had probably been hidden on her computer since Christmas. Plenty of time to guarantee her own scores. It must have been a terrible shock when Tai made an honest ‘A+’ and wound up with the award as well as the glory.”

“So, at that point,” said Kathryn, “I suppose she deleted her copy, parked it on Tai’s computer and made an anonymous call to the board. Ok. I see how Celia did it. But how did you do it? How did you work that bloody ‘heart in the hands’ business? Celia chose that flower herself. She said it was some special variety no one was allowed to touch. She seemed quite pleased about it.”

“Ah, that was the easy part. All I had to do was to ensure that Celia discovered that particular daylily. Once she’d seen it, nothing else could compare.”

“The easy part!” said Kendall. “I’ve never been able to get Celia to do anything. The harder I try, the less I succeed.”

“Exactly,” I said. “So all I had to do was to lead her to water and then warn her not to drink. It was like giving candy to a baby.”

Kendall was thoroughly confused by my mixed metaphors, but she did have one last burning question. “Ok, so you tricked her into wearing that flower. But how did you know it would shrivel up and die in the dark?”

I smiled. “Why do you think they call them Daylilies?”

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

(An Interview with Doug Noble of MacBookshop on a better way to find that Mac book you’ve been looking for.)

“Aha!” I said, tucking an elusive novel under my arm and heading for a double almond latte at the Barnes and Noble coffee shop. “At last, the missing Sharyn McCrumb mystery.” One of my favorite authors, I had been looking for this particular book to complete a set of her work for some time. Now, here it was, but with just a single copy in stock. I ordered an iced latte and sat down to read while I waited.

“Coffee’s ready.” I put down my hard-won book, grabbed the coffee and hurried back to the table. Took, maybe, thirty seconds. What? No book? Not on my table. Not on the next table. Not anywhere in the room. I’ve been robbed!

Well, hardly robbed. I hadn’t even paid yet. An idea. Could be someone comes around periodically to gather the strays from the empty tables in the café. But where do they take them? I mean, this is the only copy in the store and I want that book! I hustle up to the counter and, yes, someone does come around to tidy up every so often. But, if I will please tell them the title, the server will see that I get it back.

Tell them the title? You mean… say it right out loud? In front of all these people? I murmur something like “Mumbles of the Mumble Sun.”

“Come again?”

I mumble a little bit louder.

“Say what?”

I fairly shout it out. “Bimbos of the Death Sun!” And immediately launch into an involved explanation that it isn’t a bit like the title sounds. It’s a joke. Tongue in cheek. Really. I don’t read that sort of thing. But it’s too late. The book is retrieved, but my reputation is ruined. I slink off to the check-out lane, book stuffed under an armpit until it’s safely bagged.

Folks, it doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to present that lurid title to the check-out girl. There is a better way. The plain brown wrapper of the new millennia. Ordering online.

Not sure of the book’s whole name? It couldn’t be easier. Just bring up YAHOO! at http://www.yahoo.com, type in, um, ‘Bimbos’ and voilà, Amazon.com will come to your rescue with a little dialog box just for you. Click on ‘Bimbos’ and they will do their best to find a match. They will, in fact, do their best to find you a book on anything you type into Yahoo’s search box, including your mother-in-law’s grandmother’s poodle’s maiden name.

But what if you need a Mac book? You don’t have a specific title in mind, but it has to be Mac. You have already fumbled through a couple zillion Microsoft shelves to find the half-dozen remaining Mac books at Barnes and Noble. And when you type in ‘Mac’ at Amazon.com you are presented with two thousand, nine hundred and thirty choices (really), including everything from children’s CDs to everything ever written by anyone ever named Mac.

MacBookshop, an Amazon.com associate, and one of My Mac’s newest sponsors, is your answer. Like everything from shareware to the original Apple computer, MacBookshop was begun to fill a need left unmet by the Big Guys at the top.

(Sort of reminds you of those finches in the Galapagos radiating out to fill every possible niche, doesn’t it. And to witness the expertise–not to mention the exuberance–with which humans have embraced the computer, you’d think we had spent the last million years happily evolving ourselves toward this virtual existence. But, I digress.)

Doug Noble, who founded MacBookshop in 1998, discovered his own empty niche in the rapidly shrinking Mac sections of the local bookstores. How often have you wished for a book on a particular topic and had no idea where to begin? No idea, in fact, if any such book even existed. What the Mac world needed was a bookstore of its own with easy access to all those great books no longer available to us locally. So Doug, that far-sighted Mac-finch, moved in to fill the gap. He had this to say about his company in an email interview:

Susan: What exactly is MacBookshop?

Doug: MacBookshop is an online, all Macintosh, bookstore. As it became harder to find Macintosh books in the local bookstores with the computer section being dominated by Windows, we decided to make it easier for Mac users to find a decent selection of Mac books.

Susan: Great idea and much appreciated. Why is MacBookshop so useful to the Macintosh community?

Doug: While there are many authors writing about the Mac, they often don’t get shelf space. We offer approximately 300 Mac books, organized by category to make finding books easy. For example, we have books on iMacs, Mac OS, Mac reference, PageMaker, FileMaker, Photoshop, Apple Business, Humor, and many other subjects. And they are easy to find too, using our searchable database and the more than 30 other categories in our pull-down menu. Whether you are a Mac programmer, website designer, database guru, or whether you simply use your Mac for word processing, we have books for you.

Susan: That should certainly solve the problem of weeding through Amazon’s 2,030 ‘Mac’ selections, most of which have nothing to do with the Macintosh. Does MacBookshop have any other special features?

Doug: Each book has a short review. We try to review as many books as possible, and if we don’t like a book, we will say so! We are running a contest to give away a copy of a new title every week, so enter our drawing now. Entry is quick, easy and FREE!

Susan: Sounds like fun. We all love something free and easy. And honest reviews are always helpful, especially in an online situation. How are MacBookshop’s orders handled?

Doug: We are an Amazon Associate. Most books are discounted 20%. All orders are handled and shipped by Amazon, so your satisfaction is assured.

Susan: Thanks Doug for making it so much easier for those of us in the Mac world to find all that marvelous, but elusive, information we need to get the best out of our Macs.

And thanks to MacBookshop for showing us once again how the resourceful Mac gurus around the world are able to develop innovative programs that fill those special needs that the Big Guys can’t be bothered with.

MacBookshop will be handling the SUMMER SALE of the “Stocking Stuffer Steve Book” based on the AppleCart columns for My Mac Magazine. For a humorous look at the agony and the excitement we all experienced, from Amelio to iMac, during Steve’s first year back with Apple, check us out at http://www.macbookshop.com.

More information is available on the book through website designer and publisher Tim Robertson’s page at http://www.mymac.com/applecart

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.amazon.com
http://www.macbookshop.com
http://www.mymac.com/applecart

It was the summer of ’97 and the Mac world was in turmoil. Everywhere we turned someone was pronouncing another death sentence on the world’s best-loved computer. I was still fairly new to the Internet, though I had fallen in love with the Mac a few years before when, after a decade of keeping computers at bay, an LCIII wormed its way into my classroom.

It was, of course, love at first sight. And by Christmas of ’94, I had a Mac of my own. A marvelous Performa 476 complete with 230 hard drive, 8 MB of RAM, and a modem. Oh, how I looked forward to that modem. The world would be at my fingertips. With just a touch I would find answers to all my questions.

As I was well stocked with AOL stuff (who can forget those floppies that came weekly through the mail), I hooked up almost immediately. But many days and phone calls to tech support would pass before I began to realize that the world was not quite yet at my fingertips, and my many questions would go unresolved. Sadly, I let my introductory AOL membership lapse, and I settled down to doing all the wonderful new things the Mac made possible.

Then, out of the blue, the online gremlins attacked. All that summer I’d hung out on the Mac while my husband, a founding member of Topeka’s Combat Air Museum, hung out on the phone helping to organize the September Air Show. No conflict. Suddenly, just when we needed it most, the phone went dead. Nothing seemed to help. I was desperately glued to the Mac, putting the finishing touches on materials for my new special ed kindergartners. Gene was just as desperately tying up loose ends before the air show. While I buried myself in HyperStudio, he headed into the night to find a working phone.

At midnight, I turned off the Mac and checked the phone one last time. “Good news, Honey,” I said. “The phone’s back on!” And so it was, until the following morning. While waiting for the Mac to boot, I picked up the phone to make a call. Dead again. What?

Surely not, I thought. It can’t be due to the computer. No way. I turned off the Mac. Phone worked fine. I turned on the Mac. No tone. No phone. Apple and AOL assured me it had nothing to do with them. But I was no longer an AOL innocent and took nothing, certainly not tech support, on faith. I unpiggybacked the modem from the ADB port, stuck it in a drawer, and forgot about cruising the information highway.

In fact, I had pretty much forgotten the whole thing when, a couple years later, I sold the 476 to a friend, modem and all. Together we set up the computer in her apartment. Worked great. Together we, very carefully, followed the instructions to reinstall the modem and held our breath. Nothing. The phone was dead. Really dead. So dead that it never worked again. When she left the apartment at the end of the summer, the phone in the bedroom was fine, but the phone in the kitchen remained a fancy paperweight.

Which is why, in July of ’97, I was becoming a veteran Mac user, but was still an online neophyte. I had a new all in one Mac, a close-out Performa 5215 with a 1 gigabyte hard drive, 32 RAM, and a 14.4 modem. No piggybacks this time. I was online at last.

What I found was scary. Apple, it seemed, along with the Mac, was going down for the third time. I became an online junky, glued to the Internet in the same way we find ourselves currently glued to CNN searching for the latest news on Yugoslavia.

Then one night, while fiddling for fun with a story about computers and grammar checkers, I heard a voice. I had asked the Mac my favorite grammar checkin’ question: “Is there a God?” Try it yourself. Especially with the older software you get some fascinating answers. The answers were shaping themselves into a story of sorts, with no particular end in mind. When, as I say, I heard a voice.

“There is a God”
“The whisper said”
“God is Mac”
“God is dead”

Oooh. Spooky! In fact, I had to stop writing for a few moments and catch my breath. And then, there it was. A real story. Beginning, middle and end. But what to do with it?

My favorite first stop on the Internet was John Brochu’s Sitelink: Best o’ the Web http://www.sitelink.net which lists most current Mac sites by category. Addicted to news and rumors, I hadn’t spent much time in the e-zine section. In fact, the whole idea of e-zines seemed strange to someone who had grown up on print. But I took a look and, indeed, some of the stuff was pretty good. Best of all, there were often notes at the end asking for contributors.

Where to begin? Sitelink has a nice rating system that shows the top three sites in each category. My Mac seemed to be consistently in the top three. Hmmm, I thought. Better not start there. They won’t be needing any newbies.

One by one I tried a few of the other sites. Each time I waited, with bated breath, for that cheery “You’ve got mail!” from AOL. (I finally got smart and sent myself an email so there would always be something there.) I’d wait a week and if I heard nothing I’d try another site. After a couple of no shows and a ‘thanks, but no thanks’, I sent a story off to Tim at My Mac. What did I have to lose?

“You’ve got mail!” said AOL. And I really did. Tim had not only liked the story, he was putting it in the “Reader’s Write” column for September. Better yet, he asked for more!

Wow! I saved the email–in three locations–and wrote my reply. I saved the reply as well, of course. I called it something simple like “Yowsers! Tim Likes Me!!!” (with as many exclamation points as the Mac would allow) and sent it off.

Oh agony! Oh humiliation! What if, when Tim got it, my email opened up with a file name beginning “Yowsers!” followed by umpteen exclamation points! My email was blushing. I was blushing. I might never show my face online again.

Remember, I was still new to this whole online thing. I had only recently figured out my home email address. Don’t laugh. I had to call AOL and ask. Quick, I thought. Send something to my daughter, save it with a weird name and a bunch of exclamation marks, and see what happens. “Meg,” I began. “My email is blushing…”

In case you, too, are new, let me reassure you that, no, those odd names you attach to your own replies don’t get passed along. It’s OK to save them any way you like. Just don’t send an attached file entitled ‘Brother Bud’s a Dud!’ or ‘Sister Susie Sucks!’ to Susie or Bud. And, for Heaven’s sake, don’t put it in the subject line of your email.

My second note from Tim was to confirm the September column and to suggest a change of title. Where I had written something like “Dead Macs and Grammar Checks”, he suggested “Deus Ex Machina” as just right for the story. Not being either well read or a drama major, I had to open up Microsoft Bookshelf to find out, not only how to pronounce my first published work, but to figure out what it meant. Tim was right, though. It was a great fit.

And it has been a great couple of years. Some of the best years of my life, in fact. Imagine being able to have a place to share all the fun and funny Mac things that have happened along the way. Imagine having loyal readers to share them with. And imagine doing it all with a friendly, supportive staff that goes out of their way take care of each other.

And then… imagine! It was all begun, back in the summer of ’95, with a kid and his Mac. Aren’t Macs wonderful?

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

December. Every time I headed from bed to bath, the Mac glowered at me. Always on (it made a handy night light), but rarely acknowledged. Having been brought down by pneumonia in the middle of frantically marketing a book, writing one too many columns and trying, single-handedly, to set up a Mac lab in my new school, the computer had become less a friend than a bedside guilt machine.

“Checked your email yet?” Mac nagged as I stumbled past at midnight. “And what about that deadline? It’s almost the 10th!” I would shut my eyes and hurry past.

On the way back, Mac would catch my eye again. “You haven’t been on-line for days,” it would whisper as I fell into to bed. “Don’t you want to know what Steve has up his sleeve? What’s new for the iMac? What rumors are buzzing the Net? Don’t you even care what Microsoft is up to?”

“NO!” I would groan, pulling the pillow over my head, only to fall asleep with fever dreams of lost sales and bits of unwritten columns pursuing me through the night.

Surely, I thought, once this is over, I will get back on track. Hang out on the web. Write happy Mac stuff. But no. Writer’s block had set in with a vengeance. When the doctor said major surgery was going to be necessary, my first thought was (I kid you not), “Well at least I’ll have an excuse for not writing!”

After surgery, the Mac continued to light my way through the night, though more cheerfully now that I’d remembered screen savers were more soothing–and a lot less accusing–than a blank face with an AOL dialog box. But, except for occasionally switching from Fish! Pro to Swirling Magic, five minute stints at the keyboard to check out email were all I could manage.

Worse, they were all I cared to manage. The heart had gone out of computers. They were simply big plastic boxes taking up space and daring me to engage. I still enjoyed contact with friends via email. And the support of the My Mac staff was wonderful. It made all the difference in those dark days. But the thrill was gone.

Why had I spent the last five years glued to the Mac? Why had every penny I owned, and quite a few I didn’t, found their way into software, hardware, books and magazines–not to mention the trips to far away places to stock up on more software, hardware, books and magazines?

Since I wasn’t currently teaching, there was no incentive to make nifty projects for my students. And when it came to writing, I found I had nothing to say. Oh, I might have written something witty about the joys of hanging from a cavernous belly-board, supported only by breastbone and incision line, during interminable treatments. But when it came to computers, even the Mac, I was running on empty.

Then one morning our preschooler said he wanted to read. He wanted a book just for him. To read by himself. Read? In my heyday, I could teach a stone to read! But all my carefully made materials were packed away in the basement–on the top shelf.

Well, maybe my little homemade readers were out of reach, but not my Mac. Waiting patiently inside HyperStudio were the templates I’d used, not to mention the shoe boxes full of stickers I’d scanned into my own private clip art for kids.

And so, for the first time in months, I sat down at the Mac and actually used it. Not to write about it or to worry about it, but to do the things that make Macs great.

What a joy to find the Scrapbook full of the tidbits that had once made my daily computing a breeze. Arrowing through, my life passed before my eyes. (I tend to move old scrapbooks from one computer to another which really helps keep the past alive.) There was my capital ‘I’ (the one with a nice top and bottom, so as not to be confused with 1’s and L’s) in three handy sizes just waiting to be cut and pasted into primary readers.There were old URLs mixed in with email addresses, pictures of last year’s class, Christmas and Mother’s Day mockups from ’95 to ‘98 and, of course, photos of the grandsons at various ages. A real scrapbook.

Screen Shots and SimpleText–how does anyone get along without them? My hard drive fills with quick snips of email, web stuff, columns in progress and work that needs to be temporarily stored or moved from one program to another. Every now and then I have a grand clean up, opening, reviewing and discarding megabytes of picts no longer needed.

But when it comes to the simplicity of moving things from one program to another, it’s hard to beat the Mac with it’s classic Clipboard. Windows may have a clipboard of sorts, even long file names (and it’s about time), but I have never found it possible to coordinate multiple, unrelated programs to build a stand alone project without using the Mac. Even I, the eternal Desktop Dilettante, am able to slip things in and out of HyperStudio, ColorIt, PrintShop, ClarisWorks and assorted clip art packages to make great stuff for the kids. I felt like a pro from Day One. Well, maybe Day Two.

As I began designing the booklets for Little Squirt, I found myself marveling once again at the convenience of desktop duplicates and aliases; the pleasure of personalized labels and icons; the ease of just plugging in scanner, Zip Drive, Wacom Pad, and three external hard drives. There was the joy of rummaging through all those drives to find half-forgotten files–just where I expected them. And oh, the power of being able to fill those extra megabytes with CDs running straight from the hard drive. Try that with Windows.

You may guess from this that I am not yet an iMac-er and still find 7.6.1 just right for my needs. But whatever the machine or the System used, it’s hard not to find a good friend in the Mac. (Pesky, infuriating little demons they so often are!) I may never again find Apple’s rumors as enticing or the Microsoft saga so irresistible. I may not even buy an iMac.

But once my fingers find the keyboard, I just can’t keep from falling in love all over again.

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

I was fast running out of midnights. Our family had put together a book based on the AppleCart columns for My Mac (with a sprinkling of articles from the MacTimes Network) and it was all over but the shouting. Or rather, the advertising. Anyone who has seen what a flood of Internet hype can do for shares of Yahoo and the Web, or what some bondi-blue hoopla can do for the iMac and Apple, knows how vital that last step is.

But, by the time we realized we were actually going to self-publish a holiday book based on the Steve’s first year back with Apple, time was growing short. This was due in part to natural procrastination and in part to the fact that, if we couldn’t end the book with ‘and they all lived happily ever after’, there wouldn’t be much point in doing a book at all. It wasn’t until September, with the success if the iMac assured and Apple on everyone’s lips, that we felt we could commit ‘The Stocking Stuffer Steve Book’ to the printer.

Had we known in July what we know now, we would have gotten in touch with Amazon.com
, one of My Mac’s advertisers, and then sat back to bite our nails in peace. As it was, there was plenty of nail-bitting, just not much peace. And precious little sleep.

But if it was too late to follow protocol and have all the necessary things in place for amazon.com, there was still iCat at http://www.icat.com, an internet ‘mall’ where people with limited skills could set up all kinds of virtual shops.

It not only seemed like a good bet for selling and showcasing the book, we liked the name. It had a familiar ring. Sort of second cousin to the iMac. And it seemed like it could be fun to set up a store, using our own ideas and our own graphics. Even the price was perfect. Free to those with less than ten products to sell.

Trouble was, that to set up the store with custom graphics, they had to be done as either JPEGs or GIFs. And the uploading had to be done after midnight when traffic was less on the Web. I was having no luck in getting my graphics accepted by the program and seemed to be stuck on ‘Step Three / Store Design’ forever.

As the book was to be offered during the holiday season–when else would something called ‘The Stocking Stuffer Steve Book’ be a hot item–I began counting midnights instead of sheep. (See “iMacs, iCats, Best Buy or Bust”, MTN http://www.mactimes.com/features/howerter101698.shtml)

We had, by now, decided against setting up the ordering, shipping, and payments through icat.com and would use the site primarily as a showcase. Why? Other than slow loading and a tendency to crash, we knew that icat.com worked well. I’d already ordered a couple of books to check it out. And it seemed like a sensible, business-like way to keep track of everything. So what was the hitch? The hitch was that I not only had to have Excel on hand, I had to know how to use it.

Use a spreadsheet? Me? The Desktop Dilettante.The Eternal Amateur. The one who keeps vital records on the backs of envelopes and then loses the envelopes? Or mails them. It made gif-ing look like child’s play. And while one of my original aims was to find a secure way of taking credit cards, the responsibility, the complexity, the (let’s be honest) the math involved, was leading to second thoughts.

In the end, Tim, My Mac’s gallant publisher, rescued us. First with his suggestion that, if I had GraphicConverter by Thorsten Lemke, I could GIF and JPEG with the best of them. Well, maybe not the best of them, but at least I could get on with Step Three. Actually see my own ideas transformed into my own digital showroom. And he was right.

I had never realized that GraphicConverter worked both ways. What a joy to have my little 80×80 GIF online and see just how neat my store could be. Even better, what a relief to have something up for others to see. Hopefully to shop. But, just to get the store up and running as a showcase would take more midnights than I had left. It was already the middle of October and we were well behind schedule.

And that was where Tim came to our rescue the second time. He had generously offered to put up an ad for the ‘Steve Book’ using his professional skills and experience. In fact, it was practically ready for prime time. In which case, said Tim, why not give up the midnight vigils and… get some sleep!

As Tim pointed out, with his ad running and available as a link, why did we need the iCat store. I had been so focused on getting to Step Four, it hadn’t occurred to me that I could just quit. Hang it up. Get some sleep. So, with some of my daughter Meg’s illustrations and Tim’s talents, we now have an ad and (this is a shameless, self-serving tout, here) about 2,000 books waiting for a good home.

What have we learned. Well, life would have been a lot easier if I had considered amazon.com early on. See: Publishers Resources / Author’s Guide in the lower righthand corner at http://www.amazon.com for details on using Amazon.com to sell your own book. But these details do take time. And time was what we no longer had.

As we were only planning on selling through the Internet, we had decided against the expense–and the paperwork–involved in getting a proper ISBN number. This was short sighted as we could have put the actual sales into Amazon’s hands, a benefit both to us and to the customer.

We did set up an AppleCart account with the bank that is able to accept Visa, but without a secure way of offering it on-line, use it only for those who specifically ask. Again, this would not have been the case if we had been ready with an ISBN number so that we would have been able to use Amazon.com as our virtual storefront and cashier.

On the other hand, doing it ‘our’ way, right or wrong, was a real learning experience and has brought the family together. Daughter Meg was our Illustrator. Daughter Amy, our Editor. Son Chris, was Technical Director. And Dad? Well Dad was Chief Cook and Bottle Washer. He never once complained that both wife and phone were forever on-line. Thanks, Gene. And thanks, Tim.

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.icat.com
http://www.amazon.com
http://www.mactimes.com/features/howerter101698.shtml

The following column was originally published at www.mactimes.com. My Mac Magazine makes no inference of ownership or implied copyright provisions. My Mac Magazine is simply presenting these as a tribute to Susan, our friend. The following is ® MacTimes. Permission was NOT given to My Mac Magazine for reprinting.

iMac Rollout in Topeka: Bye-Bye Best Buy!

November 10, 1998

“This is last time I’ll bother with Best Buy! And you can quote me on that!”

Jason, the official iMac representative, and I stood at attention behind a large rack of close-out Windows software. A couple of folding chairs would have been welcome as the day wore on. Heck, a nod and a smile at the iMac would have been welcome.

No Balloons. No fanfare. No enthusiasm. Not even a friendly greeting from the salespeople passing by. The last straw? One of the passing salespeople asked Jason, dressed in the prescribed iMac shirt and khaki pants while handing out iMac brochures, if he might “help you with a computer, sir.”

If this is an Apple-aware, iMac-trained, ready-for-action bunch, I’ll eat my nowhere-to-be-found Imation SuperDrive. Sadly, I’ve always considered our Topeka Best Buy the most computer savvy, well staffed store in the area. But even Carlos, the friendly sales manager who had seemed so enthusiastic when we’d spoken the day before, never stumbled across us behind our seemingly impregnable software shield.

Not that he was allowed to say much when I attempted an interview for MacTimes except to watch for the Sunday ad. Apparently, the iMac rollout was top secret – only on a need-to-know basis. So secret, in fact, that no one knew we were there. Even the Mac Users Group, who had long ago quit reading the local Sunday circulars, missed the grand event.

True, the iMac was featured on the front page of the November 8th Best Buy circular. It was a decent-sized ad offering an iMac and an Epson 740 for $1499, with no payments due until January. But, with no prior announcements and no hoopla surrounding the day itself, we pretty much stood in our corner and watched the world go by.

The best part was looking up at the end wall to see dozens of iMacs looking back down at us. But there they stayed. The only iMac on the floor was our demo, thankfully no longer crouched between a couple of giant Acer Aspires. ( What do they *do* with all the excess space inside that prow-shaped monster!?) Unfortunately, the lone iMac banner was hung on the other end of the computer display over, you guessed it, another Acer.

I need not have worried overly much about the lack of USB Imation drives to accompany our iMacs home. When I abandoned the watch about 4:30, Jason had given his well informed talk to several possible buyers and had a nice chat with several Mac sorts who drifted past. But not even a nibble of a sale.

Having recently worked with the OS 8.5 introduction at CompUSA in KC, Jason found the lack of iMac interest especially discouraging. But even more discouraging was the apparent disinterest by the Best Buy staff. It seems that any Apple training has yet to trickle down to the salespeople on the floor.

So, though hopeful on Saturday, I left Best Buy Sunday feeling pretty discouraged. The good news is that the Mac has indeed got a foothold in town and it appears that there will now be some Mac software available locally.

The bad news is that, as soon as the demo is over, the iMac may find its bondi-blue self once again stashed between a pair of Hulk Hogans to the amused comments of passers by.

But the great news is, if anyone manages to find and buy an iMac from our local Best Buy, it appears they will take home the new version all decked out with VRAM and improved video, not to mention OS 8.5. A gamers’ delight for the holidays.

But precious little delight for the Mac fan in Topeka.

November is a time of Thanksgiving and Mac lovers have much to be thankful for. A year ago things were touch and go for Macs and Mac lovers alike. So, this year, when you sit down to turkey and pumpkin pie, take a minute to reflect. And sing a few rounds of our ditty below.

(This month’s AppleCart is more for our regular readers than for those of you just checking us out for the first time. It’s In-Joke Time, Folks. But even the My Mac faithful will never know little Eddie’s dark secret. Hey, don’t look at me. I won’t tell.)

Peter Peter Apple Eater
Had a Mac he couldn’t sell.
Put her in an iMac shell
And there he sold her very well.In her pumpkin colored box
Packed her up and watched her go.
Now everybody’s still in shock;
Four winning quarters in a row!

Peter says, “I told ya so.”

It’s Pumpkin Time in schools across the country. They are on the walls and in the halls. As the Halloween pumpkins rot on porches and street corners, Thanksgiving keeps the pumpkin alive for another month.

The Kindergarten’s chanting ‘Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater’ and drawing pictures of Turkey Day. The primary set is counting pumpkin seeds, dressing up as Puritans and writing stories called ‘I am thankful for…’ The Intermediates are making pumpkin pies, researching the first Thanksgiving, and collecting food for the hungry.

The Mac lab is unpacking 25 iMacs from their pumpkin colored boxes and hunting vainly for that one Imation drive. Have to load the teachers’ old floppies before the kids can dive into the new Macs.

Off on a morning field trip, bus loads of eager children descend on the pumpkin patch as their harried teachers try to keep a head count. A muddy pumpkin in each book bag, they reboard the bus for the trip back to the city.

“All aboard the Little Red Bus for Apple-a-Day Elementary, kids.” Teacher gamely tries to round up her little apple eaters and their pumpkin pickin’s for the trip home. “Line up. Single file. Hands to yourself.”

“Eddie! Are you pushing again? Don’t make me tell Dad.”

“No, Johnny. Just one, please. Your book bag is already bursting.”

“Yes, I know Gordy has two. But one is for little Gracie.”

“Good Job, Rusty. You really know how to follow the rules.”

“Now Manny. Put those files away. Field trips are supposed to be fun.”

“What Mickey? You say you found a pink flamingo… where?”

“Adam and Mike! This is not the time for games, boys.”

“And Susie! Quit procrastinating and get on the bus.”

“Come along, Jason. We must look for the BUS. Not the BeOS.”

“Jack! Jack! Wake up. Time to go.” Gotta get that boy to bed earlier.

“Alan and Bill. No need to squabble over who picked the best pumpkin. They will both be magnificent when you finish the autumn art display.”

“Hold my hand, Babs, and repeat after me: there ARE no monsters in the pumpkin patch. There ARE no monsters.” Too many movies, that girl.

Hmmm… Who’s the kid with applesauce on his face? Oh, it’s Ralphy, our new boy. “Hi Ralph. Glad to have you aboard.”

Shay! We’ve lost Shay! “What’s that, kids? Oh, right. Shay moved. And you say Brian’s off chasing rainbows? Hope he gets back soon.”

Dear me! Where’s Timmy got to now? So busy dreaming up new schemes, one of these days he’ll miss the bus altogether.

“There you are, Timmy. Trying to juggle three pumpkins at once, I see.” SPLAT! SPLOP! “Good boy. One is quite enough.”

Now, where’s Jerry? And our new Jacob.That’s right. Principal kept them both back to rewire the Mac lab. Lucky for us someone knows how.

And Jimmy? Rewriting the Newsletter for Ms. Secretary, as usual. She can’t spell for sour apples.

Speaking of apples, Mark’s in trouble for drawing apples on the school walls again. Not a bad boy. Just too creative for his own good.

But Pete! I can’t find Pete! Whew, it’s OK. I remember now. He’s absent. Someone said Big Brother took him for a ride.

“That should be everyone, driver. Wait just a minute. One last head check. Hey Mac! Hold everything … We’re a kid long.”

“Billy! Billy Gee! You don’t even go to our school! Get back onto the fancy Big M Bus where you belong!” That boy! Always hanging around trying to steal our stuff! Somebody ought to call the authorities.

Yes, It’s November and time to count our blessings. So what am I thankful for? Well, I’m thankful the Mac still lives. That I have a Mac to write about. A Mac to write it on.

And I’ll be more thankful yet, if Billy Gee will only stay on his own bus. Or, do I dare to hope, the DoJ puts him in long-term time-out for messing with my Mac.

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

The following column was originally published at www.mactimes.com. My Mac Magazine makes no inference of ownership or implied copyright provisions. My Mac Magazine is simply presenting these as a tribute to Susan, our friend. The following is ® MacTimes. Permission was NOT given to My Mac Magazine for reprinting. So sue us…

Mark Delfs’ latest Sharkbytes column “Yes, Virginia, it’s time to upgrade,” set me to thinking. Like Mark, I’ve learned that, if you want to stay in the game, never say ‘never’ when it comes to technology.

In spite of my husband’s heartfelt proclamation (on upgrading from our first 386 25 MHz to a 486 33 MHz some years later): “This is the last computer I’m ever gonna buy!” — it wasn’t.

Though, now that I think about it, in his own way, he may have been right. Gene has not bought so much as a piece of software in the last four years. I, on the other hand, discovered the Mac and never looked back.

So, I certainly agree with Mark on taking a hard look at your current needs, biting the bullet and at least checking out your options. Where I see things a little differently may be with what happens to that old, out of date machine. If you really love your little shavers, don’t saddle them with that ancient Mac and expect either their gratitude – or their grades – to sky rocket.

I know. It’s easier to justify spending big money on the grown ups, if only we can pretend it is really for the kids. Done it myself.

“Hey Ma!” says Pa. “Gonna get a new Mac. The old Classic just won’t cut it anymore. Gonna give this old one here to the kids for Christmas.” Wowee! Happy Holidays, Kids.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. As computers go, that old Classic has a lot more life in her than a DOS-based machine of the same age. But, if Dad has outgrown his old Mac, the kids are sure to find it a pinch as well. This is especially true if Dad (or Mom) is of the word processing, data base, spreadsheet generation.

The older computers were designed for just such tasks and many a book has been written or a checkbook balanced on a Classic. But take a look at current software for the kids. Unless Junior spends most of his time writing black and white reports on ‘My Summer Vacation’ and Sister is devoted to making a database of her current boy friends, that Classic will spend more time off than on.

But there’s Pa, still yearning for a new Mac. Maybe he wants into games big time. Shame on you Pa. Is your daily dose of blood and guts more important than Junior’s JumpStart 2nd Grade? Or Sister’s HyperStudio project? And how about Ma’s passion to get her Ph.D. or to keep in touch with the family using pictures scanned into her email?

Then again, maybe Pa’s a struggling PhotoShop sort of guy. In that case Pa, go for it! I have to admit, you are overdue for an upgrade. Just don’t think you have done the kids a really big favor in unloading your Classic, SE, LC, or aging Performa on their eager little fingers. Or that your well-past-its-prime Mac is the answer to their computing prayers.

Their computer needs are equal to your own. Their software, rightfully rich in graphics, movies, sound files and information, can be as demanding of resources as your favorite game.

Being a true Mac fanatic, and believing in my heart if not my mind that one Mac is never enough, I say buy a couple. Give the Classic to Grandma for the church newsletter. (Sorry Grandma. Simply trying to protect the grandkiddies here.) Just don’t pawn it off on the kids and then pat yourself on the back.

Before you say “You gotta be crazy! Think I’m made of money?” think again. Think about the ‘Trailing Edge.’ History would indicate that today’s Macs will have their prices cut in the near future. Rumor says we might see some bargains around Christmas. Buying your new computer on the trailing edge, just as the next generation comes along, often means having great technology at a fire sale price.

So, here’s an idea. Why not get an iMac or two and network that old Mac as a floppy/SCSI connection for the pair. Instead of a family focused on Nintendo and the tube, your family will group enthusiastically around your new USB hub.

The whole flock will be there. Egging Dad on in the latest games. (Trashing Dad’s buttocks in the latest games!) Getting a jump start on great educational software. Scanning those family photos into a school project. Sending them off to Aunt Bertie via email. Checking out the Net under a watchful eye.

It’s a paradigm shift, Folks. (Don’t you hate these trendy words!) Once we gathered around the hearth, then the radio and now the TV. But in the world of tomorrow, what can I say? Families that USB together, will *be* together. (Ouch – how’s that for thinking different!)

So, let’s try another paradigm shift. What’s good for the Gander is good for the Goose and the Goslings as well. Check it out Pa. Those little goslings will think you’re Top Duck.

Note: I know a lot more about kids and computers than about cables and computers, so I checked it out myself with Dan Knight at MTN’s Low End Mac. I needed advice on using a Classic or other low end Mac as a floppy/SCSI connection to a the iMac.

Dan, I wrote:

Can a Classic be networked to an iMac to serve as a floppy input and for limited SCSI? If not, what Mac would be the earliest one practical for such a situation?

Dan answered:

You’d need an ethernet-to-LocalTalk adapter between the two computers, but with System 7.x file sharing turned on, you could give the iMac access to the floppy and hard drives. It would be very slow.

Another alternative, about $100, is a SCSI-to-ethernet adapter on the Mac Plus/SE/Classic/etc. I don’t know how fast this would be, but probably 4 to 8 times faster than LocalTalk.

- Dan Knight, Mac Advocate, dknight@mail.iserv.net

Editor in Chief, MacTimes http://www.mactimes.com/

Webmaster, Low End Mac http://www.mactimes.com/lowend/

Thanks for the input, Dan. You’re Top Duck with us.

This was truly the Summer of the Trailing Edge, with marvelous buys on everything from close-out clones to high level G3s. But for the female side of the family, it became the Summer of the PowerBook when the Desktop Dilettante* tossed kith and kin into the AppleCart and enticed them to go for broke.

VooDoo One: Calling all PowerBooks!

Early this summer my sister and her daughter arrived from London for a family wedding, their well-worn 140 and 170 in tow. Both had served them faithfully. The 140 saw my niece through school and into marriage. My sister had been so fond of her original 170 that, disappointed in her new 5300, she traded it, the next trip home, even-steven, for a used 170.

Naturally, not long after landing, they found themselves at Haddock Computer Center in Wichita checking out the latest Mac stuff.

Day One: There they were, fighting jet lag and browsing happily among the Macs, wishing they could upgrade, but knowing the prices would stagger the budget. Then, Voilà, they saw them. A couple of close-out PowerBooks at fire-sale prices. The last ones in stock, until the new, second generation, G3s arrived.

An expedition to CompUSA turned up a lone 1400/166 as well as a speedy light-weight 2400 (great for travelers, but no CD). Wichita was down to a dwindling handful of PowerBooks.

Call to the Dilettante in Topeka. Should Allison (sister) get a close-out 1400 and let Kate (niece) have her 170? Well, you know what we said. “Quick! Grab one! Before they disappear!”

After all, I knew Sis was good for it. She had recently gotten an advance on a self-help book she’d written. Something she had intended to call ‘Lifestyles of the Normal Neurotic’ though Lord knows what the publisher would call it in the end. Regardless, her advance would have covered a G3–with a little something left over for RAM.

“But which one do I get?” she moaned, as Mac Lovers do when we have to make a choice. “I just want to write, do email and surf the Web. One machine is cheaper, but they assure me the other, only a few hundred more, is really the better buy. Faster, I think, and there is something about the screen.”

“Ah,” I say, smug in my growing knowledge of computer jargon, “probably Active Matrix. Easier on the eyes. And the better machine no doubt runs at 166 vs.133.” I’m determined to strut my stuff. Well, why not? She has an advance. I don’t even have a nibble.

“Either one would be fine for word processing, email and the Internet.” I add. “Don’t shilly-shally around, though. Deals like this won’t last. Oh, and make sure you have them add another 16 RAM before you go.” It was as good as bought.

Day Two: Second phone call. Says Allison, “Shhhh! Don’t tell. Haddocks must think I’m crazy. But I bought them both. One for me and one for Kate.

And so she should. If it hadn’t been for daughter Kate’s persistence in peddling the manuscript, there wouldn’t have been any advance. Let alone a book.

“You got both?” Ah, happy visions of setting up not one, but two, brand new 1400s. And all while the bourgeoisie fiddled around getting their nails done for the upcoming wedding. “So who gets what?”

More gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair. “I hope I did the right thing. It’s a lot of money just to save a few dollars on long distance. I can’t even decide which one I prefer. The faster one, the one with the better screen, seems bulky. Hard to hold on to. And almost no software.”

“No Software? They both ought to have the same stuff. They certainly ought to be the same size!” Hey, I know those PowerBooks. I window-shop Macs like some folks window-shop cars. “What does the sales receipt say?”

We work our way through a maze of numbers. Slowly. Numbers aren’t our thing. “Well, this is odd,” she says finally. “It says here something about $1899 next to something about 3400. It might be the price of the two computers together, but…”

“3400!” I squeal. “You mean you just got a 3400 for $1899?” I’m breathing hard and thinking fast.

Panic stricken, she asks, “Is there something wrong? Did I blow the deal? Visions of creeping back to Haddocks to eat crow flash through her mind.

“Hardly!” I say. “But that 3400 is far too good for you,” Okay. Maybe I shouldn’t have put it quite so bluntly. But we were badly in need of a fast, graphics capable PowerBook for our own daughter. A 3400 to be precise. I’d been scanning the Net for a cheap close-out for weeks.

The wheels started spinning. Once committed to a new Mac, there’s no turning back. But the 3400 really was overkill for ClarisWorks and email. And, as a frequent transatlantic traveler, Allison was already concerned about weight and size. A wily sister might turn this to her advantage.

“You’re having the old Impulse Shopper’s Second Thoughts Panic Attack, right?” Note: I am leading the witness here.

“Check with CompUSA,” I say. “If they’ve still got that 2400, get it. We’ll pay you for the 3400. Even go halves on a CD. It was a win/win sort of thing.

Day Three: Allison slips into Haddocks with her third PowerBook. (Wrapped thoughtfully in a plain brown wrapper.) Now they know she’s crazy and the upgrade department is on overtime. She mumbles something to the effect that it’s all her sister’s fault.

Her sister, she says, is some sort of Mac maniac emanating that hypnotic Mac Voodoo that causes innocent bystanders to break down and snarf up an entire city’s supply of PowerBooks.

(This is now known as the ‘iMac Phenomenon’ due to numerous reports of people so entranced with the new blue beauty that they leave the store trailing more iMacs than their cars can carry.)

The salesman pulls out the original two PowerBooks and places them side by side on the counter as Allison stands transfixed by the enormity of what she is doing. With three PowerBooks staring back at her, all on the same charge card–hers–it’s hard to know where to begin. But she has her instructions.

She pulls out her list, checking it twice. It puts Santa to shame. Gamely, she takes a deep breath and begins.

“Could you please put that 16 RAM thingy in the 2400 instead of the 3400 and add another 64 RAM to the 3400. And, don’t forget, we still need an additional 16 RAM in the 1400. Let’s see now. Where were we? Oh yes. We could use an extra battery and a couple of those handy airplane adapters. And um, there was something else. Wait. I know I’ve got it here somewhere.”

She digs around in her purse for a second list. “Found it! Kate needs one of those nifty pocket Zips and I need that little PCmodem doojiggy.” She stops, briefly, for breath.

“Oh! I almost forgot. We better get some of those whatchamacallit cables to hook it all up. And a bag to carry it in. Two actually.”

“Anything else???”

Um, well… Could they be quick about it, please. The plane leaves for London on Monday.

Email from London: 6/98

Yo Susan! Wow! This new 1400/166 is Marvelous. Would you believe that even my Scottish born, IBM toting husband is impressed! It rocks!

Mom will email you as soon as she can get AOL figured out. We spent five hours with her last weekend trying to get her up and running. Think she’s about got it.

Thanks for everything. Kate

AppleCart: 9/98
Hey Sis! I’m waiting.

*******************

* Why Dilettante? In addition to writing for My Mac, I’m now doing a bimonthly column for MacTimes Network as the ‘Desktop Dilettante’. The what? The Eternal Amateur, in love with the Mac for what it allows even the klutz among us to accomplish. You will find us at: http://www.mactimes.com.

Or go straight to the ‘Desktop’ for:
“IMAC EVE! A Sure Cure for the Dog Days of Summer”
http://www.mactimes.com/features/howerter81498.html
“Hello! From the Desktop Dilettante” with risqué iMac Cartoon

http://www.mactimes.com/features/howerter9198.shtml

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.mactimes.com/features/howerter81498.html
http://www.mactimes.com/features/howerter9198.shtml
http://www.mactimes.com

Much as I have loved doing the ‘Churns’ I am going to phase them out with this final piece. Ah, but it’s a piece with a happy ending.

An Apple in disarray offers all sorts of dramatic possibilities. And Steve certainly gave us plenty of drama throughout the past year. But an Apple, fallen on happy times, is harder and harder to churn. A good Churn requires passion and pathos. A certain fire and frenzy, seasoned with a dollop of despair.

Microsoft, of course, is always with us, but how many ways can you write that same old refrain: ‘One for All and All for Bill’

So, now we will live happily ever after? Not likely. And if the Apple Saga heats up once more, don’t be surprised to see a Churn bubbling away in the pot.

My Bondi-Blue Beauty Awake Unto Me

“Smile for Papa,” urged the King. “Smile at all the nice people,.” But the toddler clung to the Queen’s skirts, peeking through folds of silk at the throngs who had come for her christening.

The King looked at the Queen. The Queen looked at the King. The Good Fairies rolled their eyes and looked at the ceiling.

Just then, young Prince Steven, cousin of the Queen, slipped onto the stage. And giving the child a wink, he raised her high above his head, perching her atop his shoulder.

The King and the Queen held their respective breath. The audience held their respective ears. There is nothing more earsplitting than a howling princess at her Grand Debut.

The Prince tickled a royal toe and whispered something to the Princess. And with a charming smile, Little Beauty grinned at the crowds below and babbled her very first word.

“Hello.”

With that, the Five Fairy Godmothers swooped down to welcome the young Princess and offer their gifts.

The First Fairy kissed the child on either side of her sweet smile and said, “May she always remain as charming as she is today. I offer the gift of User Friendliness.”

The Second Fairy kissed both rosy cheeks and said, “She’s a born beauty, no help needed there. May these apples always bloom in her cheek. I offer the gift of Good Health.”

The Third Fairy, noting a gleam of mischief in those royal blue eyes, kissed Beauty on the forehead and smiled. “May she always bring pleasure to those around her. I offer the gift of a Joyful Heart.”

The Fourth Fairy, the artistic one, took the small dimpled hands in her own and said, “May she find delight in all that she sees and does. And inspire the same in others. I offer the gift of Creative Endeavor.”

The Fifth Fairy stepped forward intending to offer a gift of Memory, something in short supply on the King’s side, when a sudden hush fell over the Great Hall.

“So! What have we here!” Demanded an apparition so black that power supplies were drained and disks instantly demagnetized.

“Did you think I would have no gift for the young Princess?” Cried the Black Fairy. “Why, I have more than enough gifts for all!

“Where shall we start? Such a sweet little flower. Perhaps we will allow her a brief period of bloom. Minstrels and poets will sing her praises.

“But, just as she comes of age, she will fall into disfavor. Those same troubadours and snake-charmers will cry her doom.

“Their very words will so dishearten the girl, she will slip into a swoon and die.” And with that, the Black Fairy tapped the child with the tip of her wand and was gone.

The last Fairy picked up the small princess and sighed. “My Little Beauty,” she said to the wide-eyed child, “I can do nothing to erase the Black Fairy’s curse. But, I can soften the pain. You will, I’m afraid, fall into a swoon.

“But you will not die, my dear. You will simply sleep forever. Or until someone brave and daring, and yes, charming as well, hacks his way through the brambles to awaken you.”

Minstrels, poets, storytellers, soothsayers and even itinerant scribes were banned, forthwith, from the kingdom. And the young princess grew in good health, filled with joy, creativity and, above all, user friendliness.

But on the day of her coming of age, she slipped away to the top of the castle and there, in a musty corner, found an old, old woman, dressed in black and plucking a lute.

Never had Beauty seen such a thing, Never had she heard such sweetness as poured from the ancient strings. Blessed as she had been, her young life had never tasted the joys of story or song.

“My good grandmother,” she said shyly. “What is this thing you hold? This strange and wonderful thing you have that I’ve never seen nor heard before.”

“Only your life in my hands, my dear,” smiled the old woman. “Come a little closer. I shall sing your days.”

Beauty crept closer to the old woman, fearful yet drawn by the haunting sound of the lute. “Perhaps an apple for your health,” said the crone, placing a ripe, red fruit in Beauty’s lap. And she began to play.

The first notes were gay and Beauty’s heart soared with the melody. But slowly, subtly, the key became a minor one, filled with sadness and doom. And death. Over and over, the songs sang of death.

The rosy glow vanished from Beauty’s cheeks. The apple shriveled in her hands. Her smile flickered and died. And she fell to the floor in a cold and dreamless sleep.

The best minds and the wisest magicians were summoned to the castle. But not one could rouse the Princess. Dr. Peter, in constant attendance at her bedside, looked grave. “There is nothing more I can do,” he said.

The King and Queen, devastated that nothing could be done to waken Dear Beauty from the coma in which she lay, retired to their bedchamber and would see no one. The palace fell into disrepair and a hedge of thorns encircled the castle wall.

Time passed. In a distant land, Prince Steven, no longer in his first youth, but still as charming as before, heard tales of an enchanted Princess locked in an endless sleep.

Now, due to some awkwardness in the past (our young Prince had once tried to usurp Uncle’s throne), it had been many years since he had set foot in the Kingdom.

“But,” he reminded himself, “memory was never the old King’s strength. Probably forgotten all about feeding me to the lions should I return.” And off he went, on a great white horse, to rescue his Sleeping Beauty.

It wasn’t easy. The brambles about the castle were fiercely entrenched. Songs and Stories, once unleashed, took on a life of their own, escalating with every telling. And the old King’s memory was not quite as bad as the Prince had hoped.

But the Prince, hatchet in one hand, charm in the other, persevered. At last he stood in the Great Hall where once he had hoisted the young Beauty to his shoulder.

There, surrounded by candles, growing shorter and shorter until they were little more than stubs, she lay on a slab of white marble. Death no more than a breath or two away.

He bent low, brushing aside some bits of withered apple still clinging to her gown. He took her hand in his and planted the requisite kiss upon her brow. “Awake!” he commanded, “your Prince has come.”

Her face held only a blinking question mark. Though her hard drive still spun, her ROM was clouded and her desktop in urgent need of rebuilding. And anyway, memory had never been her strong suit.*

There was some doubt in her mind as to whether she was a princess, a toaster or a washing machine. In a small, troubled voice she murmured, “Where am I? Who am I?”

The Prince leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “Think, Beauty! Remember what I said when you were but a babe.” Her eyes opened slightly and her monitor began to glow.

Suddenly, her lips parted. “I remember, now,” she whispered back.

“I think, therefore I Mac. I Mac, therefore I am !”

A smile lit her face and twin apples reddened her cheeks. She gleamed up at Prince Charming. And said with a twinkle in one bondi-blue eye:

“Hello Again!”

*The original Mac was a marvelous thing, but a bit short on RAM.

“Trojan Horse? Or Cavalry Come to Save Us?”
Desktop Dilettante / MacTimes Network
http://www.mactimes.com/features/howerter10198.shtml

Susan Howerter
susan@mymac.com

Websites mentioned:
http://www.mactimes.com/features/howerter10198.shtml

The Dog Days arrived early this year. The thermometer in Wichita read 108 in June and the dew point wasn’t far behind. In spite of an unremitting wind, we’d hit the summer doldrums before summer began. And July continued what June begot – with a vengeance.

As for the Mac, we were in a sort of doldrums of our own. No, not a ‘down in the dumps, this is the pits’ sort of depression. It was a period of well-deserved calm. A time to regroup and reflect on the tumultuous turns of the past year. We could see the light at the end of the tunnel, the inn at the top of the mountain, the port after storm. We began to feel relieved, relaxed and gotta face it, just a bit bored.

August. Texas lay panting under a searing sun as the Mac world curled up in the shade, biding its time. The first iMac exhilaration was over and the bondi-blue beauty not yet ready to ship.

Sure, Steve had livened things up in July with his red eye flight to address the crowd in the Big Apple and ‘beleaguered’ was no longer our Apple’s first name. Profits were soaring and both the media and Wall Street were once more finding Apple a surprisingly sweet byte. Ahhh. How delicious it was.

But: Where was our daily fix of angst and anguish? The frenzied search of the Web for the latest dose of Mac mania? Where had all the invigorating rumors gone? What was life without a couple of Mac conspiracies crisscrossing the Net, gaining momentum as they went? It’s been a far cry from the hysteria mustered up last August.

The thrill of victory is all very well, but were we Mac lovers too long galvanized by the agony of defeat to savor success? Had we gotten hooked on living at the bleeding edge? Was an occasional bone from the media too fleeting to keep the old adrenaline pumping?

Guess I, at least, had been well and truly hooked. Suddenly the Web seemed a lackluster pla’ce, fit only for those savvy enough to understand the underpinnings of ‘Carbon’ and OS X’ or to feel passionately pro or con about ‘Charcoal’ as System font by default.

Was the ever-ready Microsoft, the only action left? Were we to be reduced to reading nothing but The Tale of Two Bills? I don’t know about you, but I was getting mighty bored with both. Microsoft, as they say of poverty and pestilence, is always with us. But their theme song of ‘One for All and All for Bill’ soon loses its charm. And as for the other Bill — I blush to watch the nightly news.

Monica surely takes ‘not washing the hand that shook the hand’ to new heights. Gosh, I didn’t even save my prom dress. But don’t blame Bill too much. He’s like a kid in the candy store who can’t keep his hands off the darn marshmallows. And hey, the marshmallows are free.

Still, it’s almost mid-August, and the two Bills are, no puns in intended, the hottest thing going. Both are in danger of being called to account for their deeds — in the flesh and under oath. Or to take the Fifth as need be.* (Yes, I know, Bill C plans to testify via tape. Maybe, under the circumstances, baring all that flesh was just too much.)

Which reminds me, the closest I’ve come to a whiff of conspiracy lately is to wonder if the Dark Side might not be behind the call to charge Janet Reno with Contempt of Congress. Let’s see now, Microsoft is annoyed by the DOJ, which like a pesky gnat on a summer’s day, just won’t go away.

They’ve even got the audacity to order Big Bill himself to take the stand for not one, but two, sessions. There goes a lot of golf out the Window. If you were the richest guy around and had more lawyers on tap than the rest of the free world combined, what would you do?

But I’m not hooked on DNA, National Politics or Microsoft. I’m hooked on the Mac. Withdrawal makes me edgy. I yearn for something Applelike, something sweet and juicy, to sink my teeth in. Something to put a little pizzazz in my summer.

Wait just a minute! Hold everything! It’s August! And it’s almost half over. Could the Ides of August** be upon us already? Lord-a-mighty, today’s the 14th. Hallelujah! It’s iMac Eve!!! Where does the time go? Only one more shopping day, folks, til that bondi-blue beauty hits the shelves. Finally, a chance to touch it. Stroke it. Gaze soulfully into it’s translucent blue innards. As the old song says — ‘Make it mine… Make it mine… Make it mine!’

Gotta go, Guys. Gotta wash my hair and gas the car. Maybe stick a few iMac brochures in the window and hang a really, really big sock by the fireplace. So much to do. So little time. See you in the farthest corner of the nearest CompUSA (just behind that bondi-blue stocking ladder) first thing tomorrow.

We had an Apple Education event at our alternative High School last week with a variety of teachers, three Apple reps and one ice cool iMac. After our local I.T. person opened by pointing out that, in spite of a large number of new Macs in the classrooms, Topeka was ‘really an IBM’ district, we got down to business. Playing with the iMac.

The I.T. lady notwithstanding, the host school had just ordered four blue beauties and everyone was anxious for some Hands On. But when it was time for questions and answers, my concern remained the one I’ve been voicing since May: How to get things off and on a computer with no floppy, SCSI, serial, parallel or ADB ports. And USB stuff that won’t talk to a Mac.

Yes, I know that some new owners will plug right into a home, school or business network. And, yes, I know about the Internet. Boy! Do I know about the Internet. Not many high speed lines in this neck of the woods.

And then there are the creative solutions. Like noting that the iMac has an infrared thingamabob. And Hey! What a coincidence. So does your neighbor’s sister-in-law’s grandson’s 3400 PowerBook. Shanghai the kid. Empty files onto a bunch of Zips (the old fashioned SCSI sort). Load old Mac programs on a bunch more SCSIs and Zip into the PowerBook. Stick Powerbook and iMac belly to belly and voila — instant miracle.

Back at the seminar, things were a little less innovative. The Apple rep assured us there were all sorts of USB products in the marketplace. Today. Wrapped up and ready to ship. But what does he know. He just works there.

Many of us see the iMac as Apple’s Last Best Hope, Custer’s Last Stand, and The Last of the Mohicans, all rolled into one. We check USB specs like Yuppies check Wall Street. This time, Apple, it has got to be right. Face it. Fine words do not a download make.

But, just in case there’s less B.S. and more USB about, I hitched a ride on the Web. Well, I tried. Streets must have been mighty empty across the US last weekend. Every Sunday driver was out cruising the information byway looking for Starr’s version of ‘The Playboy of the Western World.’

I slogged from MacWarehouse to MacMall, MacZone to MacConnection. Once there, things were about as speedy as a 2400 baud modem on a graphics based Web. And, as if we needed a secondary road jam, with all the MacCatalogs now having a PC doppelganger, searching for ‘USB’ tends to bring up hundreds of PC products that must be winnowed down to the occasional Mac bit.

So I tried ‘Zip’. That brought in some 155 returns. Everything from zippered wallets to refurbished 6500 PowerMacs. But not a USB Iomega ZIP among them. It was nice to find that the Rainbow Ten Pack was now less than $100. Course, to take advantage of those zesty Zips, you’ve gotta have that SCSI : (

Every catalog said the same thing. Come on in and lay your money down, Folks. The USBs, they are a-coming. All you need is patience, prepayment and a bountiful bladder. OK. So, maybe you had to read between the lines.

I found myself approving of the Mac catalogs that were up front about their goods. Thanks to MacZone for letting us know when stock is expected. And to MacConnection for making things clear with a quick ‘in stock? Yes or No.’ Or MacMall for its handy ‘units in stock:’ followed by the quantity or advice to call.

Thumbs down on MacWarehouse expecting the shopper to click on ‘buy’ and then pull hair before finding out they must ‘Contact.’ Bad enough anytime, but that extra step, each step of the way, on a slow day . . . Skip it.

But, things change overnight in the iMac world. If USB is headed our way, it’s only fair to give it another go before posting my tirade. So, Wednesday, a month and a day after the big iMac event, I checked out MACS4U.com.

Wow, one stop shopping for all your iMac needs. And no PC clutter to confuse the harried shopper. Just the Mac stuff. So, what have they got in stock. Well, they’ve got a hub. An ‘Express Bus Four Port USB Hub’ by Belkin. In stock. Ready to connect up all your USB stuff.

What stuff? Well, there’s the catch. There really isn’t much stuff. Not enough to necessitate a four port hub. There is a Printer. An Epson Stylus Color 740, complete with USB cable. Hard copy, here we come.

To get pictures into your iMac, Kodak has a Digital Science DC 260 USB compatible camera. In stock and only $979.95.

You swallow hard a couple of times. That’s almost as much as I paid for the iMac! Anything cheaper? Not to worry. Umax has a scanner for only $179.95 and it’s… um, it’s due in any day now. Figures.

But what about my files, you groan. How to get’m in. How to get’m out. How to get’m from the old Mac to the iMac. In other words, what about Imation!

Where’s that symbiotic SuperDisk drive they promised us last summer??? Ah! Yes! There it is. Number Three on the list. And only $169.95. It seems like a lot for something you’ve mostly taken for granted, but you are plumb full of files and can’t be bothered by trifles.

You leap onto the Web, waving your Visa. Only to be met with a firm, but friendly, notice. “Due,” it says, “10/1/98. Reserve yours today!” AUGHH!

Two more miserable weeks until you can dump those files. It’s a new twist on an old Microsoft favorite. We call ours Pay and Pray.

Up iMac Creek Without a Paddle

Up iMac Creek without a paddle
What a prickly place to be
Floppies! Floppies! Everywhere
And not a drop for Me

Nope! Not a drop of USB
Oh, what a spot to be in
Plumb full of Stuff and Bound to Bust
Without a pot to pee in