iMac sales boosts Apple's market share
"The iMac is far and away the best selling Mac we've seen since we've been tracking this information." This is a quote from PC Data, a market research firm, as reported in a news.com article. The article further states that the iMac was the second best selling computer in August, pushing Apple to third on the list with a 13.5% market share!
Disk Doctor 4.0 tip
Dale Sorenson reports in MacFixIt that Norton Disk Doctor 4.0 requires the presence of an extension called Norton Shared Lib. If you boot from a volume that does not and cannot have this file in its System Folder (such as the Mac OS System CD), you can still run Norton if you place the file in the same folder with Disk Doctor.
Be sure to visit MacFixIt for reports of problems people are having with the new version of Norton. It seems that there is a significant incompatibility between Disk Doctor 4.0 and Norton AntiVirus. You'd expect this with programs from different companies, but Symantec really blew this one. NAV isn't very good anyway; better you get Virex instead.
Virex 5.8.1 updates have been discontinued. Network Associates, the current owner of Virex, has stated they are going "to discontinue the production of updates to Virex 5.8.1" and instead migrate users to version 5.9 (released in October). Recent buyers, according to the NA rep at ITEK, will be given a free upgrade, and a low price for the CD version, which will contain a system folder that can boot most Macs.
When installing Norton Utilities 4, follow the instructions I wrote in a previous column about installing 3.5. Briefly, choose custom install and skip over CrashGuard, DiskLight and File Editor.
Write to Intel
I heard from an Intel employee after he read my column excoriating Intel for dumping Mac support for Dayna products, immediately after acquiring Dayna. He told me that Intel would indeed be willing to support Macs again, if they perceived there to be a market.
Well you should just haul out your trusty web browser and visit the Intel web page and send mail to one of the links there.
Hire Mackers First
One of the more pathetic experiences in my job is when I come to a client site and the person hired is foundering around because they know only Wintel and cannot make the adjustment. It is usually _harder_ for someone well-versed in a Windows program (like Word) to make the switch to Macs because they have been carefully taught that one mistake can be a disaster; that their files are hard to find, that the commands must be followed exactly. Of course Word is pretty similar to the Windows counterpart, but it takes a bit of training to learn that they can move files and folders around just by dragging and dropping, that they can use Cmd-F to invoke Find File and locate their document by a partial name, and how to change printers with the Chooser.
This is happening while many people who are forced to work on Windows would love to get a Mac job.
If you are in business and are looking to hire a Mac user, don't settle for a Windows user or you will lose productivity, especially if there is no one at your company to train the new user. The best resources for hiring Mackers is the local Mac User's Group. In Portland, that's 228-1779. In Corvallis, 541-754-2684. There are other groups, see the back of Bits for their phone number. You can also use Mac Temps, a national agency that hires Mackers and has branches in most major cities. Call 800-622-8367 for the Portland office. Also call all the employment agencies in town and see who is serving the Mac market; it changes from time to time, and not all agencies have all interested people registered with them.
US West's Bad Lines
To save itself money, US West is multiplexing voice lines down fewer pairs, degrading the signal overall for modem users. This is happening in new developments, and in older neighborhoods nearby, anywhere there is increasing density. The result of this is that your 56K modem will never get better than 26,400 BPS connection.
They can get away with this because USW is not required to provide modem service any better than 2400. They got this locked into their tariffs back when 2400 was actually fast.
This was first detailed to me at the ITEK show recently by an agent not directly employed by USW. I then went to the USW booth and it was confirmed by an actual USWest rep. He stated that the new DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) service that they are offering gives much better modem connections on these bad lines.
If this sounds like a way to get you to buy DSL, congratulations. AinÕt monopolies fun?
At least you are not required to use USW as your internet provider; you can keep your old one and access them through the new service.
Presumably the only way to get USW to upgrade the quality of the neighborhood voice lines is by getting the Public Utilities Commission to force them. This should happen shortly after pigs sprout wings, but it can't hurt to send them a letter. It also wouldnÕt hurt to join the Citizens Utility Board, a local non-profit pressure group that has managed to save utility customers lots of money since it was formed in the late '80s. (921 SW Morrison St., #550, Portland 97205; 503-227-1984; email: cub@teleport.com. No web page.) They are on a shoestring budget, so send them $20 along with your concerns. Who knows, maybe USW will lose this one. Some day.
BusinessMac column online
Paul Shields writes, "Applelinks announces the expansion of the Business Mac column, which features weekly articles, along with a new section dedicated to highlighting Mac business success stories. A recent feature column covers building an ethernet network."
Stop by, read the articles and participate in our online discussions. See the Business Mac page here.
Free Spell Proofing Software
Newer Tech has delayed the release of version 2.0 of its SpellTools program, so it has made the current version 1.3.3 available from its web site for FREE. Go to and download away! This is a useful Mac-only program that reads your writing back to you so you can proof for spelling, etc., in your own writing when sometimes the typos slip by your eye.
OpenDoc Just Resting
Proclaimed dead many times over, OpenDoc, the technology that splits programs into "parts" that work on document "containers," may just be pining for the fjords. It still is available for install on 8.1 disks, comes preinstalled on the iMac, and is required by AppleShare IP 6. According to Apple, via MacOS Rumors, OpenDoc is no longer under active development but is being investigated by the engineers who are trying to find a use for the technology. They also don't want to upset or confuse developers who are busy writing for Carbon (OSX).
Right now you can feel secure unchecking the Install OpenDoc box when doing an OS8 install (ditto 8.5) and throwing away the various folders, control panels, extensions and libraries that belong to OpenDoc if you already have it installed. Just about the only thing that runs on it now is CyberDog, and only a few thousand people have even run it, let alone messed with it.
Those who have dug in, like it a lot (for unfinished software).
The Return of Cloning
Drifting in from the fringes of MacOS Rumors, there is talk in Cupertino that MacOSX could be licensed to third parties for bundling with PowerPC hardware. Because there is no longer an Apple ROM to license (what was in ROM is now part of system software loaded into RAM), and because Apple has returned to profitability, it is entirely possible that new contracts can be written that are profitable to both Apple and the would-be cloners. When Apple announced the end of clone licensing early last year it intended to return to the clone license market when it became possible. The closest date quoted for this to happen is mid-1999.
Keep Those Enterprise Macs
Need ammo to fight IS department heads who want to take away your Mac? Are you a parent who wants to keep Macs in schools (instead of turning the teachers into computer-science instructors for Windows)? Visit the Ammunition Headquarters site and check out the Surveys and Reports section. Lots of useful info here that PROVES that it is less expensive and more productive to standardize on Macs instead of Wintel boxes.
Road Apples
Apologies to clients and readers who have these models, but a page on the MacTimes site describes the most poorly-designed models of Macintosh and explains why, in excruciating detail, they should be avoided. Highest on the list are the 5200-53xx and 6200-6320 models. I always knew there was something squirrly about those units, but I did not know the gory details. To quote the site's definition of Road Apples: "Road Apples are Apple's most compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they're not really bad -- simply designs unable to provide all the performance they should have."
Bottom line: If you have one, think about upgrading to one of the 7000 series, with the 7200 being the cheapest and least upgradeable of the lot. Best buy for the money: the 7600, which comes with built-in video and a 604 processor running at 120 or 132 MHz, upgradeable to a 604e 233 MHz card. But you gotta hurry; those processor cards are out of production and being sold off by various Web retailers for as little as $189 for the fastest 604e. Expect to pay between $750 and $900 for a good 7600. The 8500 is also around, for about the same price and with the same upgrade capabilities, if you donÕt mind a minitower case.
Even if you have a "good" model, visit this site for the well-organized details about each and every model of Mac ever made.
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.)
