Macking 137

Those Rebate Debit Cards
If you have gotten a mail-in rebate recently, you may have received one of those Visa debit cards instead of a check. Some marketing genius came up with this idea that makes a fortune for the company offering the rebate. You have to use up the entire card within a year, and some of them will deduct 3% a month after 6 months. If you don't keep accurate track there may be a few pennies to a few dollars that never get used. They get to keep that.
One suggestion I read is to go to your cellular provider's web site and use the entire amount of the card to pay your bill. You have to register the card as a Credit Card with them, but they will accept it and you get to use it all.
Of course you could use it to pay for any purchase greater than the amount of the rebate; just pay the difference in cash. Don't just treat it as a regular small-charge card, though, or you will also wind up with a few dozen unredeemable cents left on it. There is often no way to check and find out how much is remaining on it.

Beware of MSN
It seems people are still falling victim to MSN. Microsoft has bribed (the politically correct term is "contracted with") Qwest to declare that in order to get Qwest DSL you have to accept MSN as your ISP. This isn't true. You can use any local ISP like EasyStreet or SpiritOne or anyone else who supports DSL. MSN does not want Mac business at all. They have deliberately crippled their MSN mail servers so they do not use the POP internet standards used by everyone else (except, of course, AOL) so no email program, not even their own Entourage, will work with MSN. You have to use Webmail access only if you want to use an MSN email address, so don't.
Ideally, you order your DSL not from Qwest, but from your ISP instead. They will do the unpleasant work of talking to Qwest. But if you must talk to them directly, when the sales agent brightly says "Qwest DSL powered by MSN," be sure to say, "I do not use a Microsoft computer at all. I use Mac OSX which does not work in any way, shape or form with MSN. Please do not mention MSN to me at all, ever again."
Depending on the day or week they will let you get a qwest.net account, which is normally reserved for business. You might not be able to get it without paying a surcharge. If so, contact one of the above-mentioned ISPs and work with them directly.
This is a headache, but at least it isn't Verizon. They, like Comcast, don't give you any choice in the matter at all. You HAVE to accept Verizon as your ISP, or pay separately for email and other services from another ISP on top of your full Verizon/Comcast cost.
Try to avoid using Microsoft in any way. Hotmail is good for a use-once and throw-away account, but if you want a webmail service that doesn't suck, use Google's gmail instead. You have to be invited but any gmail member can send you one. I can do that if you write to me at mklprc at gmail.com. As an added bonus, gmail supports POP standards, and you can configure Eudora or AppleMail to check in and download your mail without having to use the web interface.

Portland's MetroFi
I attended the rollout of Portland's citywide (some time in the future) WiFi service on 12/4 in a tent in Pioneer Courthouse Square. Thanks for the tent; it was pretty cold outside. I got there early and got on easily, but later arrivals were not so lucky. It seems they had not planned for their WiFi servers to be able to hand out enough IP addresses, so when they were full no one got on. I had to fill out an initial registration page, but no hackable personal information was required.
I am happy to report that it works just fine. They are paying for some of this by displaying a one-inch banner ad at the top of the page, and I was curious to see how they could force that on Macs. Since the ad was not in evidence, I thought "Cool! Doesn't work on Macs but the connection does!" Well, I was wrong; I didn't see the ad because I was using Safari with my trusty copy of PithHelmet installed. PithHelmet is a shareware ad-blocking plugin for Safari, which you can download from VersionTracker. I turned it off and there was the ad. I launched Firefox and there was the ad. I had downloaded the ad blocker plugin for Firefox, but it requires you click on it and then tell it which ad you want blocked. It blocks by the IP address of the ad server, so by telling it to block anything from http://10.100.13.10 you should not see the ad any more. You can assume they will change it as necessary, though, so use PithHelmet; it works better.
Surfers are also gifted with a startup page from MSN. Since MSN simply doesn't care one whit about Macs, we should certainly block them as well. This would be a case of telling Firefox to block images from MSN's server, but I don't have that IP address. There might be multiple servers to block, too, so it's simpler to just have a button in the toolbar for Safari or Firefox that takes you to Google which you click on immediately, just as MSN starts loading.
Once you've done all that the system works very well. I could send and receive mail (with "Use Authentication" turned on) and visit any site I wanted. It loaded just as fast as my home DSL connection. If you live in the covered area, you could disconnect your paid broadband service and just use this. You would still need a mail server, though, so be sure to get a Gmail account, much better than Hotmail or Yahoomail. The covered area is downtown and the near east side, but will expand as more access points are put up. They will supposedly cover the entire city within a few years, including the West Side and east as far as Gresham. Beaverton and Gresham will need to negotiate their own contracts with MetroFi. Here is a map of access points and more info. Your AirPort menu will show two items when you are within range: MetroFi-Free and MetroFi-Paid (or something). The paid service drops the ad and costs $20/month. Better to just spend the $10 for PithHelmet.
To receive the signal indoors will probably require a $50 repeater box, but if you are sitting by a window and can see one of the access points, it should work without one.

iPhone or Not?
The rumor sites are a buzzin' with pictures even. Looks like a certainty that Apple will release a combined cell phone, PDA and iPod at Macworld this month. But will they? Even though an unnamed Chinese company is claimed to be making 12 million of them, your imagination may be better served by visiting Blogspot and picking your favorite. To see what the most popular rumored design is, that can be had at either macosrumors.com or thinksecret.com. Both sites have correctly predicted new models in the past but with Apple, it's always a gamble. "We don't comment on unannounced products" is their litany, even if one of those products is dangled from a light pole in Times Square.
More certain is a new high-end iPod with a bigger screen. Apple needs something to serve fans of the Archos video player and other AVI and MPEG players. Even though you can plug your video iPod into a TV, it would be nice to have a built-in video screen that didn't require extreme nearsightedness to appreciate.
Hopefully, though, the MacPhone will not include the same spying capability as the Motorola RAZR phones, which can be remotely activated as listening microphones, even when powered down. According to an article in the NJ Star-Ledger, which quoted Judge Lewis Kaplan in New York, the phone "...functioned whether the phone was powered on or off, intercepting conversations within its range wherever it happened to be." Apple, how about including in your official announcement that this phone is NOT capable of being used like this. Anyone want to buy my RAZR?

My MacBook Is Still Okay
Over two months now and no more heat problems. For the longest time I was recommending against the MacBook because so many users were having serious problems. It's moot now because all MacBooks have the upgraded Core2Duo chip, which runs cooler anyway. If you buy a used or refurbished CoreDuo model, though, make sure it has had the repairs done already (like mine) or still has AppleCare. Then install Temperature Monitor and keep track of the heat level. A MacBook should run below 115 degrees F.

AllOfMP3 Still Lives
Not sure for how much longer: located in Russia, they will sell you MP3 tracks in any compression from 128Kbps to 256 or more for only 10-20 cents per track. They claim to be in compliance with Russian laws, but since the RIAA has ordered Bush and their paid Senators to make Putin close the site or Russia will not be allowed into the WTO, I expect to hear the principals had been gifted with a little Polonium Package from Putin any day now.
So enjoy the site while you can. You prepay in $10 or greater increments with a credit card that goes not directly to them, but a secure commerce site that can be trusted as much as any commerce site. Pressure from the RIAA has gotten the main credit card companies to refuse to deal with AllOfMP3 but there are slightly more convoluted alternatives on the site. Then you order tracks and download them when ready. They even send an email that initiates each track's download.
I use it mostly to save myself the trouble of digitizing my vinyl collection. There is not much new music I buy any more, and that which I do I just get the CD. Latest purchases: new ones by Dirty Martini and Loreena McKennitt. But today I got MP3s of the Stones "Her Satanic Majesty's Request" and some Moody Blues early ones. For two dollars it beats spending an entire afternoon with my record player and copy of Sound Studio, cleaning up pops and scratches and making conversions into MP3 when the whole mess is done. On top of that, I'd have to type in all the track information. AllOfMP3.com is WAY more efficient.
If you want to buy new stuff otherwise available on CD, locate the artist's web site and send them a couple of bucks via PayPal. That's a lot more than they would get from the record company. Many artists will just sell you tracks directly right off of their own site, so nothing goes to the goons at the RIAA at all. Another alternative for buying CDs by independent musicians is CDBaby, located right here in Portland.
How bad is the RIAA? In the middle of all this, they are petitioning to cut down the amount of royalties they have to pay their artists. There is now NO moral reason to obey their dictates.
Even more entertaining is a proposal, or at least a suggestion into the ears of the MPAA's Pwned politicians: Put a $50/year tax on anyone who owns a TV larger than 29" and a couch or two comfortable chairs (they really said this) on the grounds that you have a Home Theater and should be paying royalties on whatever you watch. It isn't enough to buy the DVDs or watch the TV broadcasts, the greedy idiots want... well, nobody cares what they want. Just be sure your local politician knows you are not a fan of the entertainment lobbies and they'd better represent your interests, not theirs. I'm talking about you, Gordon Smith.

StyleWriter II
I have a client who is sticking with OS9 on his USB Mac, and he reports that you can still use the old StyleWriter II printer. It was made by Canon so it uses the Canon BC-02 cartridges and the Color SW 1500 driver. Plug it in with the $20 Keyspan USB/Serial adapter and you're good to go. The SWII is a black-only printer. Won't work under OSX, however.

Font Downloader
Paul writes, "With my new Intel Mac I've left behind all my Classic applications. The only one I still need is something to download PostScript fonts to my laser printer's memory. Neither the HP Laserjet Utility nor Adobe Downloader works in OS X. Is there a replacement?"
All fonts are automatically downloaded as needed. On older, slower printers this takes a little time, but the downloader programs aren't needed. The speed of the Mac makes up for the time savings we used to need back in the IIci days..

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.)