Macking 7

Apple is Healthier

As a "postscript" to last month's comments about Apple, after deadline it became known that Apple had an excellent quarter, increasing worldwide market share from 7.5 to 9+% and selling more units than any previous quarter. What else happened in 3rd quarter? Win95 was released. Heh heh heh.

Regarding a question last month about Code Warrior, the programming tool for Macintosh, I got this in a message from Apple Evangelist Guy Kawasaki's mailing list: Domark, a game developer for the DOS world, has switched to Macintosh. They have been so successful in the Mac market, they will in future develop for the MacOS and port to DOS later. Writes marketing manager Paul Baldwin:

"Compared to the PC market, introduction costs on the Macintosh are lower, the market is less crowded, and the products have a longer shelf life. By deploying products to the growing Mac OS market, we essentially cut our per-unit development cost in half." He also says Domark experiences lower support costs for its Mac OS products.

And what about Domark's experience of the technical aspects of developing on the Macintosh computer? Says Colin Boswell, Domark's lead programmer, "The more I use the Mac, the more I like it, which is quite perverse, since the low-level code I write is entirely platform-independent. Best of all, the Mac platform tools are great - I wish the DOS side had something like Metrowerks Code Warrior. And Debabilizer is God's own tool."

(To join his list mailer and receive fun and interesting Macintosh email, send a message with SUBSCRIBE in the header to macway-request@abs.apple.com and you will be put on the list. This works with all internet providers, including AOL. I find Guy's information supply especially useful when arguing, with a manager who knows only Windows/Intel, for more Macs in a workplace.)

Others have written me to say that there is no other real choice available for developing PowerPC-native software. And ports are always difficult to do right.

Avoid Radius
Radius Corp. makes pretty good monitors, coming with a three-year guarantee. But that guarantee won't be worth much if the company dies. According to a recent MacWeek, that looks like a real possibility; it may have already happened by the time this column hits print. But whoever buys the remnants will probably wind up wholesaling the remaining Radius accelerator cards, monitors, and Mac clones at a pretty good price. Several articles have appeared in the Mac press detailing all the significant (million-dollar) mistakes that put the company on the verge of collapse. This does not seem to have stopped their large and expensive campaign for the Radius Mac clone, though, and the prices have been cut a bit. (Postscript: The trouble with monthly deadlines, is by the time the column hits print, things can change (or not change) dramatically. So far there has been no more negative news about Radius and they keep making good Mac clones and monitors. If anything changes I will add it to this paragraph, but for now the worst thing you may risk is winding up with a perfectly good computer and an early end to the guarantee. Big deal.

PCI Macs barely ready for prime time
Ric Ford, the consultant's consultant, finally gave us a "don't buy" recommendation for the PCI PowerMacs, after spending the last seven columns (in MacWeek) citing problems with printing and telecommunications, plus other bugs and glitches that have no fix in sight. If you need a new Macintosh now, and a remaindered 7100 or 8100 won't do, you should consider a clone from Power Computing. Some models come with both NuBus and PCI slots, giving you the best of both worlds. Ric believes that the problems will be cleaned up over the next 6 months or so, but that is cold comfort to the people who bought 7200s, 7500s and 8500s already. I like the boxes; the 7500 especially is a great design for the future, but I am sure glad I have my 7100. Don't take that as gospel, though, because...

It is not really fair to claim "no fix in sight," because there are already fixes for most of the problems caused by Open Transport 1.0: a collection of updaters are on Apple's support page (OT 1.0.8), workarounds are available for some of the print problems, and there is a new LaserWriter driver (8.3.2) that fixes standard printing problems. TCP/IP still misbehaves a little as of deadline time, though, but wait a few more weeks and things will be fine. Read Ric Ford's Web page for the best source of help and info available . I managed to clean up the last of the problems that a client was having with her 7500 connecting to her Internet provider, and other problems receiving and printing incoming faxes. All that remain are the problems attributable to conflicts between MacCommCenter's fax software and TCP/IP, which are minor. Be sure you have the latest version of FreePPP and the Open Transport updaters if you have one of the PCI Macs. (Note: the changes are coming so quickly I had to revise this section three times before turning my column in to the editor.)

My own recommendation? I wouldn't have said this two weeks ago (when I started assembling this month's column), but I give it a Do Buy, all the while keeping an eye on the Power Computing clones for comparative value. And if you have money to burn and need to create TV programming or standup 3D holography, Daystar Digital will be releasing a clone "real soon now" that contains FOUR 604 processors working together. Now we're talking "screamer." Cost? Over 12 grand including 72 megs RAM.

Hacking is a Good Thing
The "media," mainly clueless daily papers and national magazines (not to mention television) has taken it upon its ignorant collective self to demonize the term "hacker," when one who hacks is nothing more than an explorer, an accumulator of knowledge, who pursues possibly unauthorized information purely for its own value. If you always ask yourself the question "what would happen if I..." then you are a hacker at heart.

The print central source for hacker information, 2600 magazine, has been largely Macintosh-free for most of its existence but as more Mackers discover secrets and contribute articles, that will be changing. Last issue discussed how to hide things from school lab administrators by stashing them in the System Folder, generically named and accompanied by an appropriate custom icon. This Fall's issue included the following letter, excerpted here:

"Once I obtained access to one of the Macs, I, with ResEdit, created a copy of the Finder, made it an APPL, type fydr, called it 'System Enabler 666' and put it you know where. (I later changed it to 303, much less conspicuous.) Then came a wonderful idea: I altered the BNDL resource: deleted all BNDLs, created a new one, type fydr, made 2 entries, APPL (I gave this one the finder/system enabler icon), HAQr (gave this one another icon at random).

"When this program was saved I created a document on my floppy disk, creator fydr, type HAQr. Then I rebuilt the hard drive's desktop file (optional). I now have a 512-byte key to unlock AtEase whenever I feel like it. With custom icon file icons (System 7+, not with lite finder only) and altered BNDL (all versions of the OS) you can disguise file, and folders too. Just call it System Enabler XXX."

If you don't understand any of this, fine, but if you do I know what YOU'll be doing tonight! Not enough detail is included for a beginner to do this, but it'll get you pointed in the right direction.

Subscribe to 2600 magazine by sending $21 to PO Box 752, Middle Island, NY 11953. Their Web page is at http://www.2600.com/. The difference between a hacker and a cracker? A hacker collects knowledge about how to do all kinds of illegal, fattening or destructive things just because it's fun to know; a cracker actually uses the information to commit mayhem. Don't be a cracker; it makes things hard on us hackers, especially with all those control-freaks in Washington, DC who somehow think they have the right to regulate and influence our lives. (Where do they get such strange ideas?)

c|net central on NetVR
I just finished watching a report on VRML, Virtual Reality Markup Language, on the TV program c|net central (USA Network, 9:30am Saturdays, also on SciFi network) and I am knocked over, twitching on the floor. I can't wait to get involved in this most cool of Internet applications. But I am going to have to wait, as are all Mackers, because there is no VR browser yet. Development is awaiting a port of Java, the programming language/animation and VR addition to Netscape 2.0, which may be officially released by publication time. I queried one of the developers for this technology (who uses Silicon Graphics equipment and software) and he said that no Mac programmers have stepped up to port the application yet. Source code is available from Sun, and whoever does this will become a Mac God and endure our undying thanks (not to mention being showered in money!). Stop by DimensionX for more info and some cool links. And be sure to check out c|net itself for interesting info. This service is one of many that is providing the kind of news, gossip, images, software collections and links that used to be the province of commercial services like AOL.

If you want to do a little background research on what Internet Virtual Reality could be like, read Neil Stephenson's novel "Snow Crash" and his latest "The Diamond Age." You'll be glad you did! But the actual implementation of WebVR will have to wait until we have ISDN or cable-modems. Even 28.8 is a bit too slow for all but the most rudimentary interaction.

No Microsoft products were used in the production of this column.