Macking 42

File Can't Be Found?
A recently discovered bug in Virex 5.9 appears when you are trying to copy files from a hard drive to another, or an external cartridge device. The Finder gives the message "The file 'xxxxx' can' be copied because it cannot be found." If this happens to you, stop the copying and open the Virex control panel. Click the switch icon (next to the X) to OFF, say OK to the warning that you are not protected, and then resume copying your files. Be sure you turn Virex back when done; if you forget it will never turn itself back on, even after restarting. Expect a fix to come along sometime in January. But the worst bug happens when you are running 8.5 on a network. Any attempt to copy files will freeze the machine, and sometimes the server too! There is no cure or workaround, either. You simply have to run bare (no virus protection at all) because NAV is incompatible with 8.5 as well. The only cure is to run the Virex application every day, use Virex DropScan on every cartridge you mount, and if you find an infection run the Virex application on your drive again. Simple exposure to an infected cart copies it onto your hard drive. Make sure you have "CD-ROM AutoPlay" disabled in the QuickTime Settings control panel; it will give you protection against some versions of the AutoStart Worm. If you feel ambitious, email a complaint to Network Associates.

Norton 4.0.1 Update
No surprises here; I should have started a betting pool on how many days after the 4.0 release that Symantec would release a patch to fix problems with the new version.
It took a mere 13 days. The 4.0.1 updater is on Symantec's website; if you have 4.0 go get it now. There is also a "special edition" that you must download and put on a floppy, so that you can start your Mac from the CD and have the updated version of Disk Doctor to run and fix your drive. This is a nuisance, of course, and for you iMac owners, a good reason to get an external floppy drive. Any bets on when the 4.0.2 updater will come out?

Good news about Iomega
I have been ranting about Iomega's horrid customer service for years now but someone finally sold them a clue. I recently had a client whose out-of-warranty Zip drive developed the dreaded "click of death," and he was not only able to phone a human at Iomega, but after hours as well! The tech was friendly and helpful, and when he called back the next day, they didn't hesitate to give him an RMA number for his dead drive (and three disks); when they found out he was handicapped, sent him the new one straight away.
The rest of us would have to wait until they received the bad drive, unless we gave a credit card number to ensure that the bad drive would be sent. That is eminently fair, and I have to give a thumbs up to Iomega, while continuing hold their feet to the fire so they don't backslide.
I still recommend very strongly, however, that you buy your Jaz drives from APS or any other company that installs the Iomega drive component in a shielded case, with cooling fan. The stock Jaz drive in the plastic case is neither shielded nor cooled, and desperately needs to be.
Iomega will soon be shipping a new Zip drive, backwards-compatible with your current disks but capable of writing 250 megabytes on a new disk cartridge. This is a nice, and needed, improvement, but as always, wait for the reports to come in from early adopters before trusting your own data to them. And remember that all Zips should be considered temporary, short-term storage because the weak magnetic fields on the cartridges are prone to errors after a year or so. Have a CD-ROM burned if you want long-term archive storage.

Serious Excel bug
This from the MacManagers mailing list, via MacInTouch:
"We have verified a serious Excel bug reported on the Mac Managers mailing list today: If you have a hard disk and a floppy both with the same name, Excel will save a file onto the hard drive when you tell it to save to the floppy. Among other nasty problems, this may succeed in bypassing disk security controls provided by such programs as At Ease. More details:
"Excel is the only application I've seen that exhibits this behavior. Both Excel 4.0 and Excel 98. It gets worse. If you create a folder hierarchy on the floppy that mimics the hard drive, you can save files anywhere on the hard drive.
And if that weren't enough, it also lets you replace a file with the same name. It doesn't even prompt you with the "file already exists" dialog. For example, I just saved an Excel spreadsheet called Finder. I tried to save it in a folder called "System Folder" on an otherwise empty floppy disk called "Macintosh HD." It did exactly what you'd think it would do."
Other correspondents report that Excel 98 needs a lot more memory assigned to it that the Suggested Size. If you plan on writing or using macros or the Help function, go to the GetInfo box and boost it to 10240. Also, like most Microsoft products, Excel is not fully Y2K compliant, so you will need to download a couple of wizards, although it is reported that this site is poorly maintained and a bit out of date. Big surprise.

G3 for 6100
I finally got to work on a 7100 with the Newer Technology G3 upgrade. I had been recommending this for users of the x100 series PowerMacs based on specs alone, but finally I can say from experience that this is a very good product.
While it can never really approach the speed of a genuine G3 due to bus and RAM limitations, among others, the fact is that with the cheapest 210-MHz card performance is so peppy that any user would be completely satisfied. The Mac in question runs fine on 8.1 but I am not sure about 8.5. An extension must load for the card to perform at its best. Bottom line: get yourself 80% of a G3 for only $500. But don't forget to ask yourself if you also need more RAM and a bigger hard drive too. If yes to both, then maybe you should just spring for a new box.

AutoStart Worm and NAV
Mouse Droppings reports that a commercial software vendor sent out an infected CD. When notified, he rechecked the original master and NAV found nothing. He then tried Early Bird and it found the virus. Turns out that the culprit is the "Auto Repair" feature so if you are using NAV version 5.0x, turn off the auto-repair. You can also search for these invisible files: DELDB, DB and Desktop Print Spooler (not to be confused with the legitimate Desktop Printer Spooler) and if it locates them you know what to delete.
To get Find File to search for invisible files, hold down the Option key while clicking on the first popup menu (Command key in some earlier versions) and you will see added to the bottom Name/Icon Lock; Custom Icon and Visibility. Unfortunately once you find them you cannot just delete them now, or make them visible without a utility such as "Visibility" (available at MacDownload). But you will know you have the virus and make sure NAV or Virex removes it.

New Numbers to learn
Petabytes, yottabytes. Hard drive too small? How about a snapshot of the Internet? That should take a petabyte or two. We're talking quadrillion. 1,000,000,000,000,000. Yottabytes? That's a quintillion, or about what it should take to generate 3D standup holography, filling your living room, including replicated touch. Or just enough to load MS Office 2000. "Yes, please, I'd like the new PalmPilot IX with the yottabyte upgrade. Here's $300."
An old sigline once stated, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of CD-ROMs hurtling down I-5."

Better Color Classic Resolution
PMUG member Burton Wright, 503-626-8104, directed me to a web site that instructs Color Classic owners how to modify their machines to enable the monitor to display 640x480 resolution. He believes that Apple planned to include this option but someone in management (the same management that made so many other idiot decisions back then) decided that the monitor was too small for that high a resolution so your choice was removed.
Although a savvy user can do this to his own Mac, Burton has done some practicing and will do it for you for $50. If I had one I would definitely take him up on it. But any competent tech or electronic hobbyist can follow the instructions on the site. If you do this I also recommend you pick up one of those accelerator cards for the LCII, which also works in the Color Classic and runs it at '040 speeds, available at better Mac online and 1-800 retailers everywhere.

Another Good Essay
Go to 32 Bits Online and read the essay on "Degrees of Freedom" and how it affects a business' ability to remain competitive. The author does an excellent job of arguing against the movement in corporate IS departments to "standardize" on Wintel. Just more ammo, folks. (Note: this link broke just a few weeks after I wrote this. Try contacting the magazine to see if they will repost the article.)

Java for Mac
Keep an eye out for version 2.1 of Macintosh Runtime for Java. The current version installed with OS 8.x is 2.0 and has been an under-utilized waste of disk space. But all that has changed with the court-ordered removal of the Java Virtual Machine from Microsoft Internet Exploiter; it will instead use the MRJ on your system.
Paul Blair writes in the EvangeList: "Java promises cross-platform software, but anyone who has actually programmed in Java knows about the frustrating reality of 'write once, debug everywhere.'
"Regrettably, it is true that until now none of the Java Virtual Machines (JVM) for the Mac have worked as well as those on Windows and on UNIX: they are far slower and certain features are broken. (E.g., certain key graphics features do not work, such as transparent GIFs, "grabbing" pixels from the screen, etc.) I have heard that the reason is that all the JVMs are based on Sun's initial JVM for the Mac, whose graphics subsystem apparently did not use the Mac's graphics efficiently.
"The good news is that Apple has apparently redone the entire graphics subsystem for the upcoming release of its JVM, which will be called MRJ 2.1. This release will fix numerous bugs and is rumored to increase Java performance by six or seven times, rivaling the fastest Javas on other platforms. When Apple releases MRJ later this year, I recommend that everyone download it as soon as possible." Pre-release info with links to the ftp site are at Apple's developer site.

The MS/DoJ suit
Maybe you remember back when Apple announced a $150 million "agreement" with MS to license certain unspecified code. Well, it wasn't an agreement, it was a settlement. An article on this little scam in The Register, an online newsletter whose motto is "Biting the hand that feeds I.T.", tells how Intel entered into an agreement with the San Francisco Canyon Company, the same people who developed key parts of QuickTime for Apple. "although Intel certainly knew that Canyon had developed key parts of the code for Apple, it did not specify that this must be undertaken in a clean room, which is a damning condemnation in view of Intel's experience of such matters following its own litigation with AMD." We have already learned that MS tried to pressure Apple into stopping development of QT for Windows under threat of ending development of MS Office for Mac. Apple exec Avie Tevanian's testimony regarding MS's unethical practices will boil the blood of anyone who reads it.
And you wonder why Microsoft should be broken up? Fry the bastards.
Oh, remember the report a few issues ago about how Windows NT caused Navy ships to stall and have to be towed to port? According to a web page dedicated to tracking NT bugs, a good portion of the US Department of Labor's network crashed in September, destroying records and delaying immigration procedures and green card applications in New York and San Francisco. Hey, folks, it's not too late to set up a Mac network with Linux servers...

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.)