Need cables?
I have been sending people to Oregon Electronics on 10th and NW Couch when they need to buy cables -- SCSI, serial, custom-made, telephone, Ethernet, etc. -- and the feedback I get is always positive. It isn't often that a company that serves the general computer market is also interesting in keeping Mac products around too, but this place is a notable exception. Whatever you need, Gary Grossoehme is likely to have it in stock or can make it up for you quickly. 239-5293 to query.
Intel Acquires Dayna
I wrote to Jeanne Talbot at Intel after reading of this acquisition to ask if that meant that Dayna would no longer develop and market their products for Macintosh. She replied, "No it does not necessarily mean that. Dayna's products will continue to be sold under the Dayna brand. In the first half of 1998, Intel and the Dayna team will make decisions about what the best product combination is for all networking customers, including those using the Apple platform." So if you are a user of Dayna products now, it would not hurt a bit to contact the company and let them know you want their continuing presence in the Mac market.
Teleport CD not anti-Mac
The October issue of Oregon Business included a CD from local ISP Teleport. Much as AOL distributes their installer software everywhere possible, this was meant to encourage OB readers to join Teleport.
So I was quite dismayed to discover that the CD was for Wintel only. First thought in my head was "They don't care about Mackers any more." But no, there was a good reason. I wrote to owner James Deibele and he responded that the reason involved licensing.
The Microsoft installer and software is free. They can hand out as many copies as they like, no charge. But even though the Mac software is free, the Apple installer is licensed on a per-copy basis. Teleport has a Mac installer available to anyone who calls 223-0076 and asks for one, but it was economically unfeasable to give out thousands of Mac installers when only a handful would have been used.
If I have any criticism at all (besides against Apple for not giving free license to the installer), it is that the CD cover did not have a line advising Mac users to call for a Mac cd.
Teleport offers a 50% discount on their monthly charges to people in education and other non-profit organizations.
Encryption News
FBI director Louse -er- Louis Freeh wants to make all electronic communications, whether Net, phone or radio, instantly decryptable so they can read our mail at their convenience. They would outlaw the making, sale and distribution of all codes it can't break. It would require any firm offering such programs to hand decoding keys over to third parties so the FBI and other agencies could get ahold of them without your knowledge.
It's the electronic equivalent of demanding that we put copies of all our records in some Federal depository.
While encryption is still legal, Aladdin Systems has released Private File 2.0. The interface uses drag & drop or an Encrypt command that Private File can add to some email programs. It comes with a two-user license for $99.95 list and is available for Mac and Windows both. Aladdin will be adding some of Private File's basic features to future versions of their free StuffIt Expander.
The battle to keep strong encryption freely available to Americans, and allow unrestricted export by the software industry, rages beyond the attention of the mainstream press. The politicians claim that unbreakable encryption will make it hard for law enforcement to deal with terrorists (as they define them), child pornographers and the other Horsemen of the Infocalypse, but they seem to forget that the subject is moot. Real criminals already have all the encryption they need, and no law will stop them from using it. After all, since it is already illegal to bomb buildings, etc., why should they care about a law against encrypting their discussions about it?
Strong encryption freely available and easy to use will actually reduce crime by increasing our protection against fraud, unauthorized disclosure of personal information, and theft of identity. But that is more than most politicians can understand. Be sure to let your local rep know that you do not want them to pass any of the FBI restrictions and keep encryption strong and freely available.Also, be sure to subscribe to the fight-censorship list.
Web TV alternative
Do you have a parent or grand-aunt who you cannot get them into a nice, easy-to-use Mac so you can exchange email? I have a friend who was just not quite ready to get a real computer. She went for WebTV and flipped for it. She surfs the net for hours at a time and exchanges email with her far-flung friends. And guess what: now that she understands what it is all about, she is ready to get a real Mac.
We with experience poohed WebTV when it came out, but for many it is exactly the correct solution. But there are caveats:
Unverified, but it seems that people with WebTV accounts are more susceptible to spam (unsolicited junk email) than people with a conventional ISP account. And from one person's experience, their physical address is available. She had visited some sites looking for freeze-dried food (survival supplies) and landed on a couple of survivalist pages. A week later she started receiving physical junk-mail from survivalist organizations! She did nothing more than hit a web site, yet they got her postal address.
There will soon be a competitive alternative to WebTV; watch for the ads. Believe me, there will be ads.
New Mac models
This month Apple will be releasing three new computers using the "Arthur" chip, originally destined to be distributed on clones. Since it is extremely important for them to win back people who wanted to buy non-Apple Macs, they will be pricing the new models at $2,000, $2,500 and $3,000 base price.
Of course this will instantly obsolete all the PowerComputing hot boxes that sold like crazy last month. But what's new? All computers are obsolete at time of sale, or will be shortly thereafter. All that counts is, does the unit do what you want it to do, with a minimum of wasted time and hassle? Then it isn't obsolete. Half of all Mackers out there would be perfectly happy with a 1st-generation PowerMac 6100 or 7100, which can be found used or refurbished here and there for under $800. Pick up an issue of Macworld (which includes the now-defunct MacUser) and scan the ads in back. Just be wary of buying from Shreve Systems, which has an inordinately high level of unhappy customers, according to complaints on the PMUG BBS, and UseNet.
Microsoft bash of the month
An interesting look at life in Redmond in these days of Apple/MS kissyface comes from an article on AlterNet via a recent Willamette Week. It deals with the way temporary workers are treated. We already know that job security and predictability is a joke in this industry, and at any time there are hundreds of temps at work on the Microsoft campus. Quote:
"Microsoft employees with job titles like 'editor' and 'associate producer' are as likely to be temps as regulars. Microsoft lets temporary workers know they aren't part of the gang in ways both material (excluding them from benefits and stock plans) and symbolic (excluding them from company sports teams and the health club, not inviting them to Christmas parties and other company shindigs). Temps can't even put their office plants in company-issue flower pots, which means that maintenance workers won't water them."
This brings "petty and stupid" to a new low in my book. Think about that the next time you boot up Internet Exploiter. Couple that with all the fannying about going on at Netscape over 4.0, I am getting ready to put on my coat and boots and whistle for Cyberdog.
Speaking of Microsoft
The next version of Office, according to TidBITS magazine (tidbits@tidbits.com will return a sample issue; subscriptions are free), will have stronger protection against Word macro viruses. It will warn the user that a document contains macros and allow opening it without macros enabled. It will also lock the Normal template, preventing a macro from copying itself.
Meanwhile, Word 6 users can protect themselves either by purchasing Virex or another commercial virus-proofer, or using the Insert command from the File menu. Create a blank Word document and then Insert the desired file into it. That strips out macros without opening the file, but it also removes template information. This is probably the best way to "clean" suspicious documents.
Microsoft has issued a converter that users of Word 5 and 6 can use to open Word 97-98 format documents. It is still beta and if you get it, you should skim the ReadMe file for the list of known problems. It is on the Microsoft site, most likely here. (Don't you just hate Web page documents that end in ".htm"? I wonder if Windows will ever end that limitation.)
NOW and Again
Charles DeVore writes in PMUG Mouse Tracks,
"Some companies that lose money want to blame Apple for their problems. I saw this when Portland's Now Software reported a loss, and attributed it to poor Macintosh sales.
That matches my experience. Now Synchronize always seemed a poorly implemented product; most of the Now Utilities are off my drive, and they completely dropped the ball with OS8 incompatibility. Remember before 1993 when Now was an exciting company with a good attitude? All that went with the founder, now in charge of a little company with exciting products and a good attitude: Extensis. I just wish they would produce a nice contact manager that works with the Mac and Newton, and a little utility to replace Super Boomerang.
Buying from Catalogs
Mail-order catalogs are not exactly retail companies. Think of them as magazines without content; cover-to-cover adverts. Every product sold in a catalog is there because the product's producer purchased an ad in the catalog. Some larger outlets, like MacWarehouse, carry items not in the catalogs if they perceive a demand that justifies it. Others will return all the products from a publisher if they stop advertising for even one month and yes, the ads are very expensive. This is one reason why catalog prices are much lower than retail store prices. Capitalism sucks, sometimes.
With this in mind, always keep the current issue of every catalog that comes to you on a shelf somewhere. Throw away the old one when the new one arrives, or take it and leave it in a public place, like your doctor's office. When you want to buy something, scan all the catalogs not just for price, but availability. One may not have an item that is prominently featured in another.
The cost of catalog advertising is one reason for the merger of Macworld and MacUser magazines. There are only so many ad dollars and everyone is chasing them -- including Internet sites and CD-ROMs. Overall, these content-free catalogs have resulted in a serious net loss of advertising dollars to the magazines, which hurts the users.
Personally, I read MacAddict cover-to-cover, and recommend it and Mac Home Journal, especially to new Mackers, as the best source of info for small office and home users.
Fun Stuff
Stop what you are doing, log onto the Web and get to Oddities, Curios and Rarities for Macintosh. Right after I got there I wound up downloading 12 files I did not have before. Great site. Once you have finshed filling up your hard drive, hit the Links page for more goofy downloadables.
Fun from TipWorld
There's a good easter egg in QuarkXPress. When using Quark, hold down shift-control-option-command and press delete when a text or picture box is selected. A little animated visitor will annihilate your creation.
13 monitors, max
Jerry Biehler writes that an Apple technote from 19 August 1993 states that a Mac II or IIfx can, and has, run 6 monitor cards. It also states that the NuBus expansion chassis from Second Wave, which expands your slots to 13 (8 in the chassis; 6 in the IIfx minus 1 for the card that drives the chassis). The Palette Manager would have a problem with more than 32 monitors unless they were all set to 8-bit or less, and the PRAM has trouble with more than 6, but "Many of the issues that may arise depend on how the NuBus expansion chassis manufacturer handled the technical issues surrounding the slot manager, parameter RAM, multiplexing multiple slots through one slot, and the VIA interrupts." So I guess you are going to have to keep your monitor count down to six, at least for all practical purposes.
Quote of the Moment
"At Nike, Macs make the money; PCs count it."
--Unnamed executive, when asked about his company's commitment to keeping Macs around.
Bits and drips from the MacWay EvangeList:
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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.)