Macking 11

Faxing Within QuarkXPress
Addendum to last month's answer regarding faxing from Quark XPress through Global Village modems. I spoke with a GV representative at a trade show recently and got a workaround. What you have to do when you want to fax is first Print normally. When the print process starts, hit Cmd-period to stop it, then hold down the Option key and select Fax from the Print menu. Now it will work. The reason for the problem in the first place is the non-standard Print dialog that Quark uses; it substitutes the standard Apple print dialog with its own and that interferes with faxing.

OS Face-Off
Last month I mentioned the OS faceoff between Microsoft and Apple that MS refused to participate in. Well, the MacOS won (surprise). What made it fun was the WAY the Mac won.
The contestants were Jim Louderback, Editor in Chief of Windows Sources  magazine, vs. Max Stein, a ten-year-old supplied by Apple Fellow Guy Kawasaki. "Max proved that the Macintosh is kid-tested plug-and-play," Kawasaki said in an interview. "Even a child can make this computer work, without installing a handful of drivers, or restarting the system at all."
There were seven points and the times were about equal in all counts, except that Jim hedged his bets a little, practicing his moves the night before and discussing some problems with MS tech support. Max did the whole thing cold.
Is this relevant? Not really; we all know that the Mac is easier to set up and use, and anyone seeking their first home computer would be ill-advised to buy Wintel when there is no clear advantage to do so. Since all Macs are Wintel-compatible to whatever degree is necessary, why lock yourself into one aging and troublesome standard? But you already knew that.

System Update 2.0
This is what we have been waiting for: fixes to all the little glitches and gotchas that have prevented System 7.5 from being the great upgrade we had all hoped. This is also the long-awaited fix for network and printing problems experienced by PCI PowerMac owners: Open Transport 1.1. Remember when the PowerMacs first came out, and Apple promised that they would be the first machines to get faster as they aged? This is exactly what is happening, as more of the System and Finder code is written native to the PPC. Bet you forgot that most of the system has been in emulation all this time, right? It's the applications that have been released in PPC native versions, and it has been only some system segments that have prevented them from reaching their full potential. And there is more to come.
I set aside an entire day last week for expected debugging and fixing conflicts. There weren't any. Here is the process for almost everyone to follow to install the update: Download the update from Apple's ftp site (many options, some outdated by now. Use one of the search engines, or just start at ftp.apple.com.). Expect to spend some time on line: the total is about 20 megabytes for 14 disk images. They are also available on the PMUG and CMUG (Corvallis) BBSystems. Or buy the CD: PMUG, CMUG and the Computer Store will have it at or near cost, about $13. (Apple is just giving it away in April and May so call quickly! Down side: a wait of 3 or 4 weeks.) If you have no other sources, Claris will sell it to you for that if you call them at 800/293-6617. There is no option for 800K disks; High-density floppies or CD only.
Apple recommends this upgrade for all users of 7.5, all the way down to the Mac SE and Classic, and even the Plus. Those machines should have 4 megs RAM, of course. System 7.5 pretty much overwhelms the poor old 7.83 mHz 68000 processor, though, so if you are still using a Plus you should stick to System 6.0.8 and use older software.
The installer is now smart enough to locate disabled extensions and panels that need to be upgraded, as long as they reside in one of the (disabled) folders created by Extensions Manager, Now Startup Manager or Conflict Catcher, and the name has NOT been changed (like adding a version number to it). If you use either of the latter two utilities, however, be sure to disable Extensions Manager after you finish the install by manually dragging it and EM Extension into the (disabled) folder. What this means is that in most cases you can safely do a "dirty" install of the upgrade, right over your existing, functioning 7.5.0, 7.5.1 or 7.5.2 System Folder.
Despite that, I recommend you do a clean install of 7.5. Boot from the CD and remove the Finder from your existing System Folder. Rename it Old System Folder and start the reinstallation process. (You should have at least 20 megs free space on your HD to do this. Also, there is an option in the installer for this, but I prefer to do things manually.) As soon as finished, proceed immediately to the 2.0 upgrade. If you have the CD, of course, you will need to reboot into the new System Folder. That's okay. If you downloaded and uncompressed all the disk images, you have other alternatives.
Assuming you have lots of free space on your HD, mount the disk images using the drag-and-drop utility Mount'Em (available right here, on all online services, or where you got the upgrade). Create a folder on your HD called 2.0 Install Set, and drag the mounted disk images into that folder. That will give you 14 folders, properly named, on your HD. Now you can dismount the images and Trash or archive the disk-image files from your HD. Open the first folder and double-click the installer. Choose Easy Install and let her rip.
I usually prefer to do Custom Install when creating a new System Folder, but this time I wanted to see how well the script worked. Well, it worked just fine on my system and I had to delete only a few superfluous items.
When you are finished, open your new System Folder in view-by-name mode and align it alongside the Old System Folder. Start replacing your old fonts, 3rd-party extensions and panels, special folders (Claris, Microsoft, etc.) and the contents of your old Apple Menu Items folder. Be sure not to replace anything that has been installed by the update, paying close attention to items in your Preferences folder. Trash older duplicates as you go. Check your Fonts folder and be careful not to have both TrueType and PostScript versions of the same font. If you are in doubt about any of your extensions and panels, test them one at a time. If you have been living with any of them under the previous version of 7.5.x, you should have no trouble with them under 7.5.3. Notable exception: RAM Doubler. Make sure you have the latest updater (1.6.1 or newer) but ideally, do not use it at all. RD is just a hack, albeit a good one, that tides you over until you can buy real RAM. Prices are dropping, so save those pfennigs until you don't have to rely on RAM Doubler any more. Do you need a System Folder on an external drive that can boot any Mac? About the only people who do are system administrators and traveling Mac doctors, because we can be confronted with any model from the Plus on up. 7.5.2 on the PCI Macs made it impossible, but the problem has been fixed with this upgrade.
To do this, follow the above steps, except choose Custom Install, and select System Install for Any Macintosh. Then when running the Upgrade installer, choose Custom Install and then Universal System. ("It is nominally impossible to build a universal System 7.5.3 on recent Macs because you can't install the required System 7.5 on these models. Readers found a trick, however, that unlocks the Installer's handcuffs and lets you install System 7.5 from any Mac: Holding down the Option key while starting up the Installer takes you directly to the Custom Install option and hacks a warning message into the install packages list if the Mac model cannot start up with the older System software. At this point, you can proceed to do a Custom install of System 7.5." --Quote from Ric Ford in the 4/1/96 MacWeek.) A more detailed set of instructions are included with the Upgrade 2.0 disks, on Disk (or folder) 1.
But do it. Spend no more time in any older version of 7.5 than you have to. Besides a few cool new features, it is faster and more stable. The coolest new feature? Finally, after dropping this particular ball for 12 years, comments typed in the Get Info box are preserved after a Desktop Rebuild!
The only remaining or new potential problems with 7.5.3 involves older disk drivers (those not updated since 1994) that may prevent booting due to compatibility problems with SCSI Manager 4.3 which is now part of the System. Some PCI PowerMacs might have a different physical Ethernet address after installing the update (be sure to see the #3 ReadMe) since the update fixes a bug in TCP/IP. Also, the update does not come with a bootable DiskTools disk or Network Installer disk (although older versions of this will work). As always, Your Mileage May Vary; people have been reporting troubles comparable to a Win95 install in trying to upgrade their particular setups. But overall, this is pretty smooth so if you are careful, things should be just fine.
It is always good practice to back up before installing a major upgrade, and it is also good to have a Zip or SyQuest cartridge with a system folder capable of starting your Mac, should any problems arise. Once you have created such a cartridge, also be sure to install Norton Utilities on it. If Murphy knows you are prepared for problems, he is less likely to give you any.

Microsoft Bash of the Month
Since one of the other columnists here spends inches of type on Mac bashing in the sneering, arrogant way used by the overtly bigoted or extremely clueless, the least I can do is respond with an experience from within the PC camp that demonstrates why we are all better off using Macs. (These are from the MacWay EvangeList):
From the April issue of FamilyPC "95 days with Windows 95: Final Report" (pages 81-83).
"Trouble is, only about half the families who started our Windows 95 review stuck with it to the end. By the time we closed out 95 days with Windows 95, many families had given up, frustrated by its slow operation on their machines, or just plain fed up with compatibility problems."
There are some fascinating quotes from families involved in the review, like these: "It has been a time-consuming disaster." "My son asked me to uninstall it so he could use the computer again." Full text of the article should soon be available at FamilyPC's web site.

Most Useful URL of the Month:
This site is called PCI PowerMac Pruning Page. A wonderful resource for figuring out what all those extensions are for and which ones can be pruned. Thanks, SmallBiz List .

No Microsoft products were used in the production of this column.

email mp at moonmac dot com. (I took out the mailto link because that's how the spammers find me.)