Macking 73

Use Sherlock More
So many people I deal with do not use Sherlock because they don't understand it. While I grant that Apple has made it appear needlessly complex, the most important part is simplicity itself.
Can't locate a file? Want to remove all traces of AOL from your drive? Just remember this simple command: Command-F. (Total newbies, the command key is that cloverleaf symbol next to the spacebar, which may also have an Apple symbol on it too.)
How to dump AOL: First type Cmd-F. That brings up the basic Find window. Ignore the icons (OS9 and above) or tabs (8.5-8.6) and just type in the word America in the field (just start typing; you are already in the correct field) and hit Return or click the magnifying glass. This will locate all files on your drive with America in the title and display them in a Results window. It will be obvious which ones are related to AOL and which are not.
Click once on the first item in the upper part of the window and look at the bottom third of the window. You will see a list of folders starting with the name of your hard drive. This is the path, or the list of which folder contains which folder, down to the final item. For instance, you might see Macintosh HD, Internet, Internet Apps, AmericaOnLine Folder, AmericaOnLine. This is how to locate the actual application.
If you click on the icon representing America OnLine Folder in this list, it will highlight and you can then go to the File menu and select Open Enclosing Folder. That will switch you to the finder and show you the contents of the Internet Apps folder, with the America OnLine folder highlighted. There will probably also be an alias of AOL in here too. Drag them both to the Trash, or simply highlight them and type Command-Delete. (That's the Delete key, in the upper right of your keyboard, not the D key.) That, as reflected in the Finder's File menu, is the command for Move To Trash. This works in any OS, from 8.0 onward.
Now switch back to the Results window in Sherlock and look for your other items. You might find a folder called America OnLine, and when you click on it, the path at the bottom will show you a folder inside your Preferences folder, inside the System Folder. This is where AOL stores all your mail, preferences, and other items. You can get this to the trash by the method above, or to save time, you can invoke the Move to Trash command right from Sherlock's File menu, or using the same Command-Delete as you do in the Finder.
Work your way down the list, and do not do anything to any America items that are NOT obviously connected with AOL. There are fonts by that name, keyboard layout items, etc. Sherlock will tell you in the Kind field whether or not the item is an AOL document, folder or application. When done, switch to the Finder and Empty Trash.
Finally, change "America" to "AOL" in the Find field and do another search. This will find any parts not containing the word America specifically and delete those too.

Lost Documents
Can't remember the name of a file you saved or where you saved it? Sherlock will help save you from having to root around in every possible folder on your drive. Just type in part of the name you think you might have used and search on that. The name can be any string of letters, anywhere in the name.
If you can't even remember enough to do that, then search on the date instead. Click on the Custom... button in the window and then click Edit. You will see a number of options to look for, such as Created On or Modified on, and then subcategories of Before, After, Within 1, 2, or 3 Days of, 1,2,3 Weeks of, etc. There are a lot of other options you can use in this list to narrow down your search. For instance, you can check Kind, and then the popup includes Alias, Document, Application, Clipping, Extension, Printer driver, etc. If you know you created the document last Saturday, you would choose Created On, type in last Saturday's date, and check Kind as Document. That will show you only files that fit those criteria, regardless of what their name is.
Spend fifteen minutes now, or the next time you get to your Mac, practicing this. Get used to it. It is quite amazing what Sherlock can do.

Other Features
Sherlock will also Search Internet (the World icon), People, Shopping, all those icons at the top. If you hover your mouse over each icon, a caption will pop up telling you what it is. You also have an option for Search Inside, which will look for any string of text inside any document on your drive. For this to work, however, you must Index your drive, a process that will take overnight or, if your drive is pretty empty, a few hours. It severely exercises your hard drive, and I have not done indexing on my Mac. I also don't use Search Internet because I am happy with the performance of the search engine Google (www.google.com) which has always been able to find anything I need. I no longer do business with Yahoo because they have become quite large and intrusive in their operations, in addition to creating features that are not available to Macs. I just wish I could figure out how Google makes their money.

More on Zips
I neglected to mention in my Tip on Zip mounting last month that this does NOT work if you are using a USB Zip drive. It must be SCSI or internal for it to work. (Brief repeat: Shut down the Mac, insert a known good Mac-formatted Zip cartridge, then start it up, either with the shift key down or not. The driver will be loaded from the cartridge. If it fails to mount then, and you have tried everything else, you probably have a bad drive.

Intel Screws Mackers - Just Because They Can
The Cancer Research Project is a distributed-network project to calculate molecular responses out of the Chemistry Department at Oxford University. It is similar in function to SETI@Home, the project that examines radio signals for any sign of intelligent life.
This is a letter I sent to their webmaster, and the response:
"I am writing to you because the entire site, including the United Devices site, does not offer any way to contact anyone involved in the project. Please forward to someone more directly involved.
"What I cannot understand is why you have deliberately excluded the Macintosh community from participating in this. It seems especially odd when SETI has no problem producing a Mac client, and the Mac-based teams are consistently in the top 10 numbers of packets processed. It's no secret what power is available in even the entry-level G4 computers, and the existence of over 5 million iMacs, 90% of which are online.
"Why would you exclude these resources?
"I can only assume that because Intel is involved, unofficial word came down that Macs were to be excluded. Pretty petty, it seems to me. If United Devices is having problems producing a client for Macs, I am sure the SETI people would be glad to help.
Thanks,
Michael Pearce"
Dear Michael,
All I can say is I agree. But Intel doesn't care. I have a large number of Macs and this is written to you on a cube, which is still running SETI.
Dr. Karl Harrison, IT Coordinator and Training Officer
Central Chemistry, University of Oxford
South Park's Road, Oxford, OX1 3QH, UK.

Microsoft and the BS Alliance
Just think of them that way: Microsoft = BS. The actual name is Business Software Alliance, and although the scare letters many of you have received invoke the Holy Names of Apple, Adobe, Oracle, Commodore, Altair and Babbage, they're just an attempt to make you think that this is something more than a Micro$oft scam to get more money out of you.
First, they don't care a whole lot about Mackers. They make their big bucks with licenses to businesses. Separately charged licenses for each and every copy of Window$ Whatever, plus lot$ extra for licen$e$ for their $erver $oftware. Some companies even buy extra copies just so they will be ABLE to install onto replacement machines when their NT boxes go down; $eparate charges for web $erver$, mail host$, ad nauseam. Oh, and lots of extra charge$ for Office, too.
Their target is those companies: anyone who has had or does have unhappy employees who might turn them in to the BS Alliance, claiming that there is pirated (read: copied) software somewhere in their enterprise.
It is easy to say that any company that is managed in such a way that the workers are pissed off enough to rat on them deserve what they get, but sometimes it isn't that simple. Suppose a company is generally run with a good attitude, but some middle manager is infected with big frog/small pond syndrome and runs his department like a little fiefdom, alienating everyone s/he comes in contact with.
Or suppose the company and the management is great, but accidentally hire some selfish incompetent boob who fails miserably at his job and then gets fired, and gets revenge by filing a false claim with the BS Alliance.
The problem is that the BS people have semi-police powers without the accountability of even the Portland police department. All they need is an anonymous complaint against you and that gives them the right to interrupt your business and make you prove that every piece of software on your system is properly licensed and paid for.
Personally, I would like these people to be on the receiving end of our 2nd Amendment rights, but they can come back at you with necessary legal papers, and then you are facing the full contempt and wrath of the United States Government. Got any nukes handy? You might need them.
The best solution is, of course, not to have any unauthorized software on your systems. But you had better have all your install disks and receipts where you can get at them in a moment's notice.
We Mackers have it easy; we can keep our Macs completely Microsoft-free as long as compatibility with Word, Excel and PowerPoint is not needed. A little $20 utility called icWord 1.2 will let you open and print Word documents. This is the best possible solution when dealing with M$: don't use their products.
AppleWorks is a nice substitute that will work well for MOST users. If you frequently have to exchange files with PC Word users, though, or ever have to read PowerPoint documents, you are out of luck. Keep Office on as few Macs as you can get away with and pay their tithes. Plan on keeping Office 2001 around for a long time, though. Windows users are going to be forced into active Internet registration with the XP version, as well as WindowsXP. If a machine isn't on the Net, the program won't install. Maybe they will have some horribly convoluted method for a non-connected Wintel box to install if net access is not available, but maybe they will just blow those people off completely. Whatever scheme M$ tests out on Windoze, you can bet a Mac equivalent will follow.
Their goal, eventually, is to only rent you the software license and make you pay renewal charges, year after year after year. For every machine.
This is one important reason why Macs are much cheaper to run that Wintel boxes. Intel/AMD users have NO other options but to go Linux, which is why M$ is so vociferously attacking it and the Open Source movement.

Get a Firewall, Dammit
In the October issue of ComputerBits, three of us regular columnists will devote their columns to security issues. Before that, I must advise all of you who are using DSL or Cable modems to go get a firewall/router. I recommend the XRouter from MacSense, which for about $150 will protect you from the crackers port-scanning you, accessing your printer, getting into your Shared Folders, etc. Buy it and install it, and if you can't figure out how to do it from the relatively simple, and well-written, instructions, their tech support will walk you through the process. Just remember that if you are always connected to the Internet, the Internet is always connected to you! Net monitoring software will report as many as 60 scans an hour hitting your machine, as automated programs ('bots) test every possible IP address looking for open ports that they can exploit. They are very fast and efficient at it.
Most crackers and script kiddies will ignore Macs, but OSX is Unix and opens new possibilities. Besides, there are nasty things that someone can do to you if they like, even though you are on a non-X Mac. So get a firewall and keep an eye out for the October issue where there will be many more details of what is going on out there.

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.)