InDesign Now Works With Inkjets
One of the most serious omissions in Adobe's new page-layout program InDesign is its inability to print to non-PostScript printers, like Epsons. Now they have finally developed a plug-in that will let you do just that. It's still in beta, but if you want to join in the test, go there and give it a try. If they finish the beta program by the time you read this, just lop off the betasignup.html from the above URL and it should take you straight to the InDesign info page.
You Will Be Assimilated
I keep hearing it: from other PMUG members, writers, columnists and other users: Cut the Mac division of Microsoft some slack. They say that Redmond mostly leaves them alone, they are employed to create cool, well-designed Mac software, and they (the programmers there) are all longtime Mac heads who only want to create the best.
Do I dare? Violate my desire to keep my hard drives Microsoft-free and actually install Internet Exploiter 5? I keep hearing that it is simply a better browser, fewer crashes, more and better integration with the general Mac interface, etc. etc. Well, I suppose I must at least give them a chance.
Realize, this is like asking me to vote for Pat Buchanan because he uses the same barber as I do. I suppose I must, if only so I can speak from experience instead of prejudiced opinion. So maybe next month you will find me surfing on the Gates Express. But I will stick with Eudora, thank you, no matter what. I will also be giving iCab a serious workout, and if the Mac version of Opera is ever released, that too.
I'm Easily Seduced
(You female readers, that's a hint.) At the last PMUG meeting the product demonstrated was OneClick, which has been a popular product among many members but one I had never tried.
To my surprise I was quite impressed. The power built into this program is amazing. Just by watching, I could see how this could replace at least three of my favorite utilities: the orphaned-but-functional PowerBar, PopChar, which lets me see and select any character from the active font via a drop-down menu (useful especially in iconic fonts like Dingbats), and Now Menus, which lets me assign any key command to any menu in any application if I don't like the choices assigned by the developer. PowerBar, mentioned earlier, is an alias manager, a launcher that gives exquisite control over every file, folder and application on my drive.
But that is three utilities, not one. Three or more extensions/panels that can cause incompatibilities and conflicts. One program that can let me create buttons that will launch applications, open documents, start AppleScripts, make system changes and do virtually anything, with OneClick. Damn tempting.
Users of Quicken 98 are being offered a cheap ($20) upgrade to the embedded version, so that is the option I chose. Otherwise, the User Group price was $40 (screw this $39.95 shit) for a download or $50 for a CD. Normal price is $20 more if you don't have any excuse to get a discount.
(Quicken 98 is still available as a free upgrade to owners of ANY previous version. Just visit this web page and order your copy. I am surprised the offer has lasted this long. Plus, Q98 is simpler and more reliable than Q2000, the current version, although it isn't compatible with Pocket Quicken on the Palm.
In any event, I now own OneClick and I will be putting it through its paces this summer.
Something Else to Worry About
Web bugs. These are graphics on a web page or an email message that is designed to monitor who is reading it. They are represented as HTML IMG tags. Go to this site and learn all about this new privacy invasion and how to watch for it. (As of February 18, 2001, this site is down but it may be back later.) To give you an idea of who is using web bugs, they mention:
It's Worse for Windows
Be glad there isn't a Mac version of Comet, a little plug-in for the Windows version of Netscape and IE. It replaces your cursor with cute icons, but it is really a Trojan horse that tracks every web page you visit and uploads it to the publisher, who sells your browsing history to anyone who wants it.
The Dilbert page is one of the providers of these little tricks. They don't tell you what you are getting, either. You need to make your way to the Comet home page and read the privacy statement to see just how insidious they are in not telling you exactly what they are collecting and who is using the info. Dilbert may be funny, but be aware that Scott Adams has proudly stated that he sells anything and everything he can and is in it for as much money as possible.
There are other little shareware and freeware programs they have to worry about that also track your personal information. Because we Mackers are "marginal," they don't bother to track us as much. For now. Trust No One!
Hope for OSX
After my rant last month, developers involved with the new OS told me not to worry. Although big changes are afoot, uppermost in Apple's mind is keeping the Mac experience intact. People who are used to the Finder's familiarity should not have much difficulty adapting; all applications will not have to end in .app, and you will never, ever, have to open a UNIX terminal window to accomplish anything, unless you really want to. I hope they're right. I had better see, on first install, some kind of Apple/Applications menu. Dock, indeed!
OS9 or Else
Apple is coming up with ever more ways to force you to upgrade to OS9. An increasing number of updates to its technologies, like FireWire 2.4 and AirPort 1.2 offer improvements in performance, but will not install on 8.6 machines. I think I am going to give up for now and install 9.0.4 on my iBook, which is a secondary computer for me and won't make me give up all my favorite utilities and other items that have died under OS9. My main beige desktop G3 (one of the most desirable of all used Macs due to the fact it still has SCSI and serial ports, and ADB port for keyboard and mouse, yet will be supported for all future OS upgrades) remains at 8.6 indefinitely.
More OS9 Problems
In my business, I have to fix whatever problems people are having with their Macs, come what may. Because all new units have 9 preinstalled, and cannot be downgraded, I am getting lots more work.
I cannot stress enough to all of you how important it is to not install any software whatsoever on your new Mac without knowing, in advance, what each step of the process will do.
The first thing you must do when confronting a new software installer is to locate and select the Custom Install option. To a greater or lesser degree, the installer will tell you what it wants to install and lets you opt out of some of the items.
Worst offender? UMAX and Epson scanners. Their CD, if left to do a Simple install, loads the obsolete and almost-worthless Adobe PhotoDeluxe 2.0, which will place the library file ObjectSupportLib in your Extensions Folder. I have written about this repeatedly and I cannot stress enough that this file is dangerous.
Adobe should immediately recall ALL CDs included with ALL licensed scanners and rewrite the installer to check the system version and NOT install this item into OS8 or later. But will they? It's been over three years now and there is no sign that they have learned a thing. So it is up to YOU, the user, to take more responsibility than you would desire to ensure the health of your system.
Choose Custom Install and install ONLY the drivers provided for your scanner and the plug-in for Photoshop. If you do not have Photoshop and are going to depend on PhotoDeluxe for your scanned images, then go ahead and install it, but as soon as the install is finished, restart your Mac with the shift key down to disable all extensions, open the Extensions Folder and remove ObjectSupportLib. Then restart.
If you followed my advice in previous issues and created a folder with this name in your Extensions Folder, then the installation will fail! This is a GOOD thing, and a warning that trouble is ahead. Remove the folder, let the install proceed, remove the item afterward and replace the folder. This is staggeringly important. Tell your friends, and write to Adobe and UMAX/Epson to complain.
Ebay and Old Macs
David L. Duff writes,
I love your column in Computer Bits, but I have to point out that it is quite possible to have the eBay experience with older versions of Netscape.
I just won an auction using this very same Macintosh SE/30 running Netscape v.2.02 (also the same that I'm compiling this e-mail to you with). I imagine it's quite possible to use v.1.1N as well, I'll let you know on that later.
I would of course, not try the older versions while trying to do a
secure credit card transaction (old certificates). But then, I'm the kinda guy that won't do on-line bank account numbers anyway. Cashier's Checks and Money Orders are sufficient for all but a few transactions. I find I can usually wait a few hours for another seller to offer an item who will take the funds I can offer.
A small cult of us "Compact Mac" folk prefer these older rigs for e-mail as they are near impervious to attack. I mean what self-respecting virus writer would write code these days to go after old 68K machines running MacOS 7.0.1 or older? It would have to be a real pre-vert. It also protects my PPC imaging Mac by keeping it off-line. Additional sources for webbing on old Macs is at the Resources for the older Mac page.
Keep up the good work, and happy eBay-ing.
Antique Virus
Last month I visited a client whose 9600 crashed on startup, and reinstalling the OS would not fix things. Running his system from my external drive, I was surprised to find his HD contaminated with an almost-ten-year-old virus called WDEF. He had no virus protection program running. It had infected the System File, Finder and seven other applications, so it reinfected every time he restarted.
This virus is so rare it has been three years since I have seen it. The old free virus fighter, Disinfectant, would have blocked it, but most people quit using Disinfectant when development stopped in 1997 due to the impossibility of maintaining a free virus protector in the face of the thousands of Microsoft macro viruses and the Autostart Worm.
His Mac was on a network at a publishing house, and it was contaminated when one of their clients provided it on a Zip drive, but it could come in even on a floppy.
The obvious moral is, buy a virus protection program! I recommend Dr. Solomon's Virex as the less intrusive of the two major products, and you should run the updater every month, when new virus definitions are issued. But even if he had not run the updater since 1997, it would have blocked WDEF.
Old viruses are rare, and new ones few and far between (except for Word macro viruses), but they can be very troublesome when encountered. Unless you never download files from the Net, or ever receive files from others, you need a protection program. Get one.
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.)