Macking 80

Faster, Cheaper Macs
Today (Monday, Jan. 28), Apple announced a speed bump on their G4 towers. Now, the slowest, cheapest one you can buy is an 800-MHz model for just $1199, stripped down to a CDR drive, 128 MB RAM and 40 gig HD! Mid-range is boosted to 933 MHz/256 MB RAM, and the $2,999.00 model sports twin 1 GHz processors! This model also includes the SuperDrive, 80-gig HD and a starter 256 MB RAM. I'm getting tempted... my Saab 9000 (1986, turbo automatic) is still for sale; anyone up for a trade?
Details are, of course, on Apple's site.

Desktop Pictures
Like to increase your collection of images to put on your desktop? One of the Net's largest is available at MacDesktops. You'll find original and classic art, erotic imagery, parodies of Apple ads, plants, animals and scenic photos galore.
The service lets you limit your search to only those screen sizes that fit your monitor, type of image (including not showing you risque or nude images) and category. They will even email you when new images are posted. Check it out! (Note: the service was down as of the end of February because of needing a new server and ISP expenses. If you can donate to the cause, do so. If they never come back, we have lost a great resource.)

DesktopDB Security Flaw
Recent reports on Macintouch discuss the issue of your Desktop DB file being included onto any CD-ROMs you burn with Toast. I opened the file with a free app called "Desktop DB Diver" (downloadable from http://www.tempel.org/macdev/) and found all kinds of URLs in there! Places I visited and pictures I saved to disk from various web sites.
It seems that when you snag a picture off of a web page, its URL is saved into the GetInfo box, which is part of the Desktop DB, a file that stores other information including icons, names of applications, paths, and other things that the Mac needs to link documents to applications. Why Toast chooses to add this info to any CDs it burns is not referenced in the article, but it suggests that you look at the Files and Folders you drag into the Toast window and clear out the Desktop DB and Desktop DF manually before burning the CD.
Imagine burning a CD for a client and having them discover that you had visited competitor's sites, porn sites (of course) and anything else you might not want public!
Moreover, this info is on your hard drive for anyone to find should some authority types (boss, police, Homeland Security agents, etc.) come and snag your Mac.
Rebuilding your desktop does not clear all of this out, either. You need to actually delete the Desktop DB file by first making it visible, then putting it in the Trash and restarting. That removes ALL of your GetInfo comments.
To make the file visible: use ResEdit, MakeVisible, Visibility or any similar utility. ResEdit is on Apple's site; find others at VersionTracker.
A method that also works uses Stickies: Open Stickies, type some text into one and close it. When it asks you to Save, name it Desktop DB and save it to the root (first) level of your hard drive. It will ask you if you want to replace the existing Desktop DB. Say yes. Quit Stickies and trash the now-visible Desktop DB file. Restart. It will rebuild the desktop and all of your GetInfo comments will be gone.

Protecting Your Email
Many of you wisely perform backups of the documents you create, either by dragging and dropping them onto a Zip or Orb disk, burning a CD, or other manual methods.
To keep it simple and ensure that you never forget anything, you should store all of the documents you create in the Documents folder, or a sub-folder within. That way, you need only to drag your Documents folder to the backup device to ensure you get everything. Then, if your hard drive dies, you will need only to reinstall your OS and all your programs. You do know where all of your installer CDs are, don't you?
Real security comes when you use an automatic DAT or other kind of tape backup system, using Retrospect to catalog and copy only your changed, and new, files. Smaller systems can use Retrospect Express and an Orb, which holds 2 gigs per cartridge. But most people just drag and drop files to carts.
A useful utility to help in this kind of backup to rewriteable media is called CopyAgent. You first drop your Documents folder onto the cartridge and it copies everything. Then the next time you do that, CopyAgent scans to see which files have not changed since last backup and only adds those and the new ones, making it a lot quicker.
But your email may actually be inside your System Folder. How many of you go in there to get it?

Eudora
New installs of version 5.1 place the mail and related files in the Documents folder, in a folder called Eudora Folder. All previous versions stored that folder inside the System Folder. The program itself is stored in the Eudora Application Folder, along with dictionaries, plug-ins and other files necessary to the operation of the program. As I wrote in last month's column, don't remove the program from this folder; make an alias instead.
If your Eudora Folder is inside the System Folder, quit the program and drag it to the Documents Folder. If you relaunch Eudora and discover that all your mail is gone and it wants you to fill out the Settings again, quit. Go to the System Folder and you will find a new Eudora Folder in there. Toss it, then make an alias of the proper one in Documents and put that in the System Folder.
Now, when you drag Documents to your backup cart your mail comes too.

Outlook Express
This program, like Netscape, stores all your mailboxes in a single document, unlike Eudora, which has a separate document for each mailbox. New Installs of Outlook 5.x store your mail inside the Microsoft User Data folder, inside Documents. If you have multiple accounts, each gets its own folder inside the User Data folder.
It is really important to keep this backed up, because sometimes, for no apparent reason, Outlook just destroys your mail document and everything in it.

Netscape
Netscape mail is stored in two possible places: the Netscape f (symbol for option-f here) or the Netscape Users folder. Inside is a folder with your name on it, as typed in when you first set up Netscape.
If you upgraded to version 4.x from version 3, what sometimes happens is the folder with your name on it is actually an alias of the Netscape f folder.
Other times you will find two folders: Your Name and Your Name-1. This is because at some point you had to re-enter your data and got a fresh mailbox with all your bookmarks, address book, and mail gone.
If you set up a Netscape account for more than one person, you see a window at startup that lets you choose which account to open. Individual mailboxes and bookmark lists can coexist here. When it works, it works reasonably well. When it screws up it sometimes overwrites your mail folder and everything is gone. If you are lucky, then it just makes another folder and your old one is okay.
You can't store this folder in Documents, because it is too dependent of the hard drive name, the System Folder name, and Preferences. In other words, it is path-sensitive. Conceivably you could use aliases and put the Netscape Users folder in Documents as well, but it has failed to work in the past.
While that alone is good reason not to use Netscape for your email, also realize that it can get bogged down if you like to archive thousands of email messages in various folders (within Netscape). Imagine a Datsun pickup trying to climb Mt. Hood with a cord of wood in the back.
To back up your Netscape mail, you will need to open the Preferences folder and copy Netscape Users to your backup device. Before you do that, go to the Preferences, Advanced, Cache setting in Netscape and click on Clear Cache Now.

Compacting Mailboxes
All programs allow for compacting your mailbox. As incoming mail reaches your Inbox, it grows to hold all the mail. But as mail is transferred to the Trash or otherwise deleted, it leaves a hole in the In mailbox where the message was. Meanwhile new messages are appended to the end of the file, increasing its size. Compacting is simply a way of doing a Save As, which eliminates the empty space. These mail documents can get huge: 15 megs is not uncommon for Eudora. This can lead to corruption or sluggish behavior.
When you Empty Trash in Eudora, the mailbox returns to zero K in size. But the other mailboxes stay large. To compact mail in Eudora, notice a set of numbers in the lower left corner: for instance, 133/5633/2044/. This means that there are 133 messages still in the box, taking up 5633 K space, and there is 2044K of wasted space. Click on this number (it's actually a button) and the mailbox will compact itself, recovering all that space. Do the same thing to your Out mailbox, assuming you have been regularly deleting old Out messages. If you have not been doing so, you will marvel at the hundreds of old messages in there that you can transfer to the Trash mailbox.
In Outlook and Netscape, it's called Sent Mail or Sent Messages. In those two programs, deleting a message merely moves it to the Deleted Messages folder. You must click on this mailbox, Select All and Delete if you want to get them off of your drive. Different versions will do this if you simply choose Empty Trash from File. Starting a Compact operation (called Compact This Mailbox under the File menu) will compact ALL mailboxes.
It's important to note that Eudora handles attachments differently from Netscape and Outlook. In the latter two, attachments are actually stored in the mailbox with the message; in Eudora the attachments are placed on the Desktop or, if you have not changed the defaults, into the Attachments Folder within the Eudora Folder.
When you have all those attachments, and you archive all your mail and don't empty the trash, your mailbox file can grow over 100 megs in size in a matter of months (assuming you receive a lot of attachments).

Saving Attachments
In Eudora, they are already saved, either to the Desktop upon arrival, or inside the Attachments folder inside the Eudora Folder. Just move the ones you want to keep to another folder and change the name.
If you choose, you can check an option in the Settings window to Trash Attachments With Messages so when you delete a message and Empty (Eudora) Trash, the attachments go too. This can be dangerous if you forget to move and rename the ones you want to keep!
In the other two programs, you will usually see an icon representing the attachment at the bottom of your email message. Sometimes it will be obvious, others may not be, having odd titles like "Base649090000T" which, when removed, will become proper files, although you may have to drop the result on StuffIt Expander.
The simplest way to extract the file is to drag the icon from within the message over to the sliver of desktop viewable to the right of the email window. It won't remove the attachment; it'll just make a copy.
If you try to copy your Netscape Users or Microsoft User Data folder onto a Zip disk, this is why it won't fit. If you plan to keep using those programs, you gotta be militant about keeping your mail archives slim and trim or the 95-meg Zips simply won't work.

Lost Mailboxes
When Outlook destroys your mailbox, you have no recourse but to revert to the last backup. But sometimes Netscape mail can be restored.
If Netscape goes weird on you, you must hunt down the original mailbox on your hard drive. First look in Netscape Users and look for all the mailbox documents for the largest. Unless you just did a compact operation, that will be it. Don't look for the Most Recently Modified, though, because that will be the newly-created bogus one you DON'T want.
Make a copy of this (and the entire Netscape Users folder containing it) and store it elsewhere on your drive. Then throw out anything with the word Netscape in it that is inside your Preferences folder. Finally, relaunch Netscape and let it create a new Netscape Users folder. Once that has been done, quit Netscape and open the Netscape Users folder, and open the one you named (Your Name) inside. Select all of the contents thereof and toss in trash. Then open the one you copied to elsewhere on your drive and move the contents to the (Your Name) folder. Relaunch Netscape and you should have all your data back.
When you restore from your backup, you do essentially the same thing: put files that you knew to be correct when backed up in place of the problematic ones.
Your Bookmarks file is stored in a document called Bookmarks.html. Make a copy of this every now and then. Your email address book is obscurely named "pab.na2." Make a copy of THAT occasionally as well.

Guns 'n' Modems
The NRA has launched a national ISP as an alternative to AOL, which has openly declared its hostility to the 2nd Amendment. If you need an ISP with a lot of local numbers around the country, stop by and sign up for an account. Yes, they do support Macs and do not require a proprietary interface like AOL does. Ignore the message to download software.

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.)