Macking 75

Mac Security
I was going to dedicate this column, like others in this issue, to Mac security issues. However, the important issues have been covered recently and the fact is, Macs are pretty secure, inherently.
Without an underlying command line that can be cracked, there is little a destructive person can do to a Mac on line. First of all, they would have to be running a Mac to even investigate weaknesses in your system. Second, the only real weakness is leaving File Sharing (or Timbuctu) turned on, with Guest enabled, and no passwords on the usernames (as set in the File Sharing control panel).
While Macs can be subject to DoS (Denial of Service) attacks, these are not platform specific. A DOS attack is instigated when someone sets in motion thousands of hits on your web pages, or your system's IP address, thus making it impossible for legitimate traffic to get through.
It is for this reason you should not be using Personal Web Sharing unless you have a firewall/router box between your DSL/Cable modem and your network, even if your network is just you alone. It is good practice to have such a router with any kind of always-on connection anyway, because tomorrow may bring an unpleasant surprise.

Double arrows
One of Apple's goofs in the Appearance control panel is the Smart Scrolling feature. The good idea is the scroll bar that expands to show you how much of your document is not displayed in its window. If you can see almost all of it, the scroll bar takes up most of the space. If a lot of the document is hidden, the bar is short. This part works fine, and is one of the few smart ideas from Windows that Apple adopted.
(I'm making an assumption here. It is entirely possible that some Mac shareware programmer came up with it first, and it gave M$ the idea. Nevertheless, I am glad to see it adopted as part of the System.)
The other idea is grouping the up and down arrows at the bottom of the screen, together. The bad idea is not including a matching set at the top, as Kaleidoscope, Greg's Buttons, and other shareware additions have done. This omission is so bad that many people forgo the dynamic scroll bar just so they can have an arrow at the top of the bar and one at the bottom. Well, now you can have both.
Macworld magazine printed a simple AppleScript that anyone could type in and run, that would put double arrows at the top and bottom of all windows. When I saw this, I thought, "That just justified my $39.95 subscription fee, all by itself." But not quite.
Trouble is, they didn't give enough information for someone not familiar with AppleScript to reproduce the effort. Here is the script, as they printed it.
tell application "Appearance"
set scroll bar arrow style to «constant****dubl»
quit
end tell
The script was submitted by a reader and probably not tested.
I opened my Script Editor and typed it in and got error messages. Nothing would work. So I got in touch with PMUG member and dedicated apple-scripter Chuck Coleman and asked him to take a look. He found out what was missing.
First, I had been using spaces for the two indented lines. They should have been a single tab. Second, the double-bracket character is not two of these: < and >, it is the character you get when you type option-backslash (\) and option-shift-backslash (« and »). These characters are high-ascii and not readable on PCs because that double-bracket is mapped to a different character. With any luck they will display correctly on this Web page, though.
To make matters worse, not every version of AppleScript is complete. For some reason, the one included in my stock 9.1 system installation gives me a syntax error when trying to compile the double-bracket character. I don't know why it works on his, but he made a successful script with the version on his Mac. You might be able to do the same if you follow the instructions and the script above.
Interestingly enough, after running the script, I can open Appearance and go to Options and find a minus sign in the checkbox for Smart Scrolling. I usually see that minus sign in installer windows when I check only some of the options in a particular category.
But if I uncheck the box to go back to conventional scroll bars, and then check it again, it reverts to the standard Apple option. I need to run the script again to get back my double arrows. A script is inherently better than an extension, because it takes advantage of code already in the system instead of hanging another addition to the already-bloated list of extensions, which can cause conflicts or impede performance.
If it doesn't work, I will save you from excessive banging of your heads against the walls and put a copy of this script on my Web site.
Important: Do not run this script unless you are using OS 8.5 or higher.
Thanks to Macworld, reader John Gillette, and mostly to Chuck Coleman for figuring out the problems.

Mozilla is Ready
Mozilla, the open-source version of Netscape, is up to version 0.9.7 as of this writing and it works very well. I downloaded a copy of it from the Mozilla site and installed it in a few minutes (DSL connection) and am running it now. It is the equivalent of Netscape 6.1 in terms of browser capability. It has skin options which let you customize the appearance of the program! I think I am going to like this. I'll be using it exclusively and will fill you in with more details next month.
It takes more memory than Netscape because it contains debug code, but it is quick and responsive and displays all of my regular web sites very well. Plus, there is a version for OSX! Fear not, X users, Mozilla is free and works better than Omniweb, the only other OSX alternative to M$ Internet Exploiter. Go get it! (And plan to spend some serious time on line if you are using a dialup connection.)

Macs Last Forever
Today I just finished replacing the motherboard in a client's IIci, which he purchased in 1991 to run his computer-aided manufacturing software. Yeah, I know, replacing the motherboard kind of strains the concept of "runs forever." Anyway, this machine has not needed attention since he had me install a larger hard drive in 1997. Now he is happily running his CAM program again and will probably continue for another five years.
How many people do you know who are getting useful work out of a 1991 PC?

XP Screws Everybody
According to a Cringely column last month, M$ is dropping support for Netscape plugins in the XP version of IE. This is a big, rusty shaft in the faces of Web designers who rely on QuickTime and RealAudio to enhance their pages, and possibly even Shockwave as well. The purpose of this is, of course, to make all the webmasters absolutely dependent on Windows Media if they want their pages accessible by all the XP users.
Fortunately, Apple already has dealt with this. Here is the skinny from them:
Apple has become aware of a compatibility issue between QuickTime and Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2 and the Internet Explorer 6 Preview for Windows. To restore compatibility, those using these browsers need to install a small piece of software, called the ActiveX control, which is available on our website.
This issue affects ONLY those of you using one of the above versions of Internet Explorer on a Windows-based computer. It does not affect those using Internet Explorer on a Macintosh or those using Netscape Navigator, other versions of Internet Explorer, or other web browsers. In short, the above versions of Internet Explorer no longer support Netscape-style plug-ins, such as the plug-in installed with QuickTime 5.0.2 and earlier versions of QuickTime. As a result of this issue, when you visit a site with QuickTime content, Internet Explorer will display the icon of a broken plug-in.
To resolve the issue, customers using Internet Explorer on Windows should visit our QuickTime site, where you will be prompted to download and install the ActiveX control (if you do not already have it). Note that if you have chosen to trust software from Apple during previous installations, you will not be prompted before the ActiveX control is installed.
Outside of demonstrations and protests at the Redmond campus (which I would love to see) there is probably not much we can do about regaining support for Netscape-style plugins. But there is something else important that Apple can do: port QuickTime to Linux.
I can't believe that this hasn't been done already. Porting QT to Linux would give yet another reason for the user to make the switch away from Windows entirely. It would make designers happy because their potential base would expand, it would make all the Linux users extremely happy, and it would be a great response to M$'s assault on QuickTime.
Remember, Mackers. Linux is our friend (regardless of what Torvaldes has to say about OpenBSD and OSX) because Macs and Linux machines work well together, a lot better than M$, who doesn't play nice with others at all.

Windoze Daymares
If you are in education and some twit wants to dump the Macs, read on:
(from the MacProfessionals e-list) Let me pass on a couple of Windoze day/nightmares.
Kent Myhre writes, "There is a school district just north of Ft. Worth, Texas called Keller ISD. In 1996-97 the school district decided to replace all 3000 Macintosh computers, in the district, with PCs running Windows 95 and have continued to upgrade since from Pentium I and IIs to PIIIs and Win98SE.
When the Macs were in place they had three (3) techs managing those 3000 machines without any difficulty. Today, with the same number of boxes they have 18 or better techs on the payroll. And at a minimum annual salary of $20,000... do the math.
"One of my colleagues is a gentlemen named Jim Johnston. He has a company called Johnston Technical Services. He is considered the leading expert, in the five state area around Dallas/Ft. Worth, for the installation of, and caring and feeding of networks no matter how complex. He is even certified to install a network into a 'clean room.' He has all of the networking and RF communications maintainence and updating for the Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport. He was installing RF wireless communications between branch banks and their main office mainframes as early as 1989.
"We met for breakfast several months ago and as he sat down he looked at me and rolled his eyes. And immediately stated that he would never work on a WinNT/2000 server again. He went on to say...'until they write a script that will reboot the machine at least once a day he would not touch another one.' 'You just can't keep them running.'
"Here are a couple of places to go for good info about Apple products/solutions and education. The first link will take you to a story that broke last week about the Appleton, WI school district and their problems and Apple's solution that they put place.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/may/1henrico.html
http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/082001-1.html
http://www.apple.com/education/powerschool/
"I think your folks on the school board cannot ignore the fact that these school districts, referred to in these stories, are certainly managed by professionals and they certainly don't make the kind of decisions that your school district is about to make based on some IT (fascist) that just arrived in town and probably has never turned a Mac on. He probably wants to go out and hire a bunch of little (serfs) to help him run his little kingdom.
"We deal with these types every day of the week and they have cost this country's businesses billions of dollars. If you really want to wake some of those people up print up the story from this site and pass it around. Is this the company you want running your schools? (Note: This is the story about M$'s attempt to take over TCP/IP, and therefore the entire Internet, and make it proprietary. --MP)
"If you have any questions that you think I can help you with please fire away. I want to see you all succeed."

In That Same Vein
This exchange between Randy Singer, Co-Author of "The Macintosh Bible" and teacher Paul LaReau was on a recent EvangeList digest. Good information if you are in danger of losing Macs at YOUR school.
Paul J. LaReau said:
To the delight of our tech people, the ax is beginning to fall. Our school system uses SASI for all its record keeping and they claim that SASI can't be run on Macs and needs special network configurations also.
I'm afraid that whomever told you that is seriously in error, and should be corrected immediately. See:
NCS Pearson - Schools Administrative Student Information Software (SASI) page.
I would contact NCS Pearson and have them send you their brochure so that you can show it to your school system's administrators. (And then you can suggest that your school's tech people be let go because they are incompetent to be handling the technology which comprises your school's network.)
Which brings up an issue that is a pet peeve of mine:
<rant> If your information services (IS) people don't know enough about Macs to be comfortable with them, so that they go around lobbying to have your network replaced with PC's, DON'T argue with your IS people. (Most people make this mistake.) You are unlikely to change their mind. Instead point out to management that the problem is that your IS folks are INCOMPETENT because they don't know how to deal with the very significant investment that your company has made in Macintosh computers, and suggest that they be let go. After all, your IS people were hired to support the existing network, weren't they?</rant>

Avoid UMAX Scanners
This is a heads-up published in the MacProfessionals list recently. I hate it when good companies go bad, but it happens. If they clean up their act, I'll let you know.
Ken Hooper quotes and replies, "Umax Tech Support doesn't answer their Email. Their phone is always always busy... so I haven't been able to find out from the source."
UMAX has gotten so bad that (in my experience) about 40% of their products are bad out of the box or fail within weeks. There simply is no way to get a human on the phone, and they don't answer email. I've started trying to intercept scanner orders and substitute HP or Microtek products, and I actively dissuade our users from buying UMAX products.
--Ken Hooper --ITS Macintosh Support Specialist
--St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
--Memphis TN USA
But then a followup writer excoriates Microtek's tech support as well. He says that "ScanWizard, the provided software, sucks up 40 megs of RAM on launch. Tech support blamed Apple but the writer was able to fix the problem with a simple change to Preferences in ScanWizard. Their own techies have no clue over there." Aargh! If I were buying a scanner now, I would cross my fingers and get an Epson.

Cisco Router fix
David Atkinson writes in Macintouch 9/1/01: A CBOS update has been posted for Qwest customers.
"Qwest released the updater and instructions for dealing with the Code Red worm today. I just returned from a client's house, where I downloaded the fix (15 MB + 2.5MB for the .pdf instructions) and installed it. This brought the Cisco 678 up to CBOS 2.4.3. This software works entirely from a Mac - no need to connect a PC to the router. By the way, I had no problems with the Power Mac G4 (pre-QuickSilver) running Mac OS 9.2.1 during any part of this process."
The updater is available at https://www.qwest.net/tools/ppp/cbos/.
However, the twits require your Qwest username and password to access the site.
I apologize for ever having said anything nice about Qwest. They are getting worse every day.

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.)