Macking 81

Aliasing OSX
Those of you who have been rooting around in OSX for a while have probably noticed that there are actually two Documents folders: the one at root level (the first one you see when you open your hard drive) and another in the Users folder, under your username.
If you have multiple users, there will be a Documents folder in each User's folder. This aliasing trick won't work if you really want to keep multiple users separated.
Two identically-named folders can cause confusion, because the OSX Open and Save dialog boxes do not make the pathname clear, and some programs save files into the one in Users without giving you any say in the matter.
The solution is to first reboot into OS9, then move anything inside the one in the Users folder to the main Documents folder, and then delete it. Make an alias of the main Documents folder and put it inside your Users folder where the old one was. Now, you have only one Documents folder and all programs will write to it.

Discipline
Apple has, since OS 9.1, been trying to impose a little discipline on the normally chaotic desktop and root-level window of Mac users. A clean install of 9.1 or later on an empty hard drive yields just three folders: System Folder, Applications (Mac OS 9) and Documents.
Everything you have on your Mac can be classified as belonging to one of these three folders. OSX also adds System, Applications, Library, Users, Automount, and two files, Mach and Mach.sym.

Invisibles
That doesn't include the whole host of invisible folders that show up in some Save dialog boxes when running under 9.x, including .Trashes, .vol, bin, dev, Network, private, sbin, usr and Volumes. You'll also see invisible files called HFS+ Private Data, .DS_Store, .hidden, cores, Desktop DB, Desktop DF, etc and mach_kernel.
OS9 invisibles include Move and Rename, Cleanup At Startup, Network Trash Folder, TheFindByContentFolder, TheVolumeSettingsFolder and files called AppleShare PDS, Icon, Norton FS Data (and Index, Volume, Volume 2), Shutdown Check, tmp, and var. Italicized names are probably aliases, which normally display their names in italics.
I may have included some 9.x files in with the OSX files, but the message is the same: Don't fnord with these files! Losing or changing them could cause problems; saving documents into the wrong folder could cause them to be immediately deleted or just become invisible and unavailable. You won't see these invisibles running under OSX, either, but they are easily available when running raw Unix in the Terminal window - which you shouldn't be unless you know what you are doing. One mistake here and you will be glad that you just backed up your entire hard drive before starting. Of course you did that, right?

Back to Discipline
The reason for the simplification is to prevent you from getting hopelessly lost when moving from 9 to X. The structure is so different that your life will become needlessly unpleasant if you haven't saved all your documents, regardless of what application created them, inside your Documents folder, and into sub-folders within it.
Be sure to move your Quicken data and QuickBooks Pro data into Documents as well. These programs, in violation of Apple guidelines, like to save the documents into the same folder as the application. Throwing away the application folder in anticipation of installing a newer version can cause you to lose your only copy of some very important data. Move those files into Documents and let the program store its backup copies where it will.
It wouldn't hurt to go now and check every application folder you have and move documents you created out of them and into Documents. You might even find some long-lost files you had to recreate when you couldn't locate them.
You want easy access to documents you use a lot? Make aliases and put them on the desktop or into the Favorites folder under the Apple menu. Under OSX, drag those documents to the Dock.
This is not going to be easy if you let your desktop clutter up with all manner of items: .sit files and .hqx files (things you downloaded and decompressed and can now throw away); application folders, attached jpeg pictures that came with your Eudora mail, installers, untitled empty folders and other flotsam and jetsam of the busy user.
But do it anyway. If it's a folder containing an application, any application, drag it into the Applications (Mac OS 9) folder. Do NOT drag it into the Applications folder if you have OSX installed. That is for OSX-only applications.
Save your downloaded installers after they are decompressed into a folder you will call Installers/Updaters because you might need them later.
To further confuse matters, the Mac OS called the applications folder simply Applications under OS 9.0.4 and earlier. If you DON'T have X installed, and have a folder called Applications, the put all your programs in there. When you update to 9.1 or newer, the installer will append the (Mac OS 9) to it.
Everything else is a document. Put them all in Documents. This will also make it easier to back everything up when you want to copy to a CDR or removable cartridge. Include your mail, as discussed in last month's column "Protecting your Email."
Want easy access to certain sub-folders within Documents that you use frequently? Open them up and then choose As Popup Window from the View menu. That will collapse them into a tab at the bottom of the screen. Too bad this won't work in OSX; the Dock will just have to do until a better alternative comes along in the shareware market. Hell, it probably already has.

Digital Photography
Buying a digital camera? Visit Apple's list of devices compatible with iPhoto and only buy a camera on that list. Don't worry, it's a long list. But if you get one that's not on it, and later you want to install OSX and run iPhoto you will be glad you planned for it in advance. There is also a list of compatible printers and media readers on the same page. Some cameras that are not compatible do save pictures to removable media cards so all that you will need is the USB Media Reader.

Dental Office Software
If you are running a dentist's office and you want to get it onto Macs, try Dental Office Manager II. Thanks to Macintouch for this link.

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! (The site was down for replacement of the server as of this writing so give it a few weeks if it's not there.)

Letter
Michael, when I send items to the trash, either desktop or email, do they fully leave my hard drive or are they still lurking in the background somewhere? If the latter, is it possible to fully eliminate items that have been trashed? If trashed items don't fully leave the hard drive, aren't they taking up space?
--Devon O'Brien
When you Empty Trash in Eudora the old Eudora Trash mailbox is replaced by an empty mailbox (much smaller) ready to receive new deleted items. The original Trash mailbox is still sitting on your hard drive, along with every file you delete normally, waiting to be recovered with a disk utility program. What's removed is their listings in the directory (the Desktop DB), and the space on the drive becomes available for new documents to overwrite. Sometimes documents are quickly overwritten; others hang around for months. It all depends on where they were on the disk.
Norton SpeedDisk includes the option to overwrite all free space during its optimization process with blank 0s and 1s. Takes longer, but your disk winds up pretty clean. It isn't military grade file removal, but it's close. There are shareware and freeware utilities that do the same thing.

Napster alternatives
Chris Gray writes in with a useful site and lists three Mac networking applications for file sharing like Napster used to do.
There's far more than the ones (listed below) that I'm scarfing up... check 'em out at http://www.pure-mac.com/ftp.html#interarchy.
Chris

LimeWire v1.8c
LimeWire is a software package which enables individuals to search for and share computer files with anyone on the internet. A product of Lime Wire, LLC, LimeWire is compatible with the Gnutella file-sharing protocol and can connect with anyone else running Gnutella-compatible software. At startup, the LimeWire program will connect, via the internet, to the LimeWire Gateway, a specialized intelligent Gnutella router, at startup to maximize the user's viewable network space. Limewire is written in Java, and will run on any machine with an internet connection and the ability to run Java version 1.1.8.
License: Freeware
Author/Publisher: Lime Wire LLC
Requirements: PPC, Classic Mac OS or Mac OS X - Java based

iSwipe v1.0b16
iSwipe searches and downloads from the Web, and the FTP, Hotline, Napster, OpenNapster and Gnutella networks. It also searches the Carracho network. It includes a download manager, featuring retries and resumable downloads, and 4 slots each for FTP, HTTP, Hotline and Napster downloads (Gnutella downloads use a HTTP slot). It also includes an AutoSearch feature, which keeps a list of those elusive files that you want and can never find online.
License: Freeware
Author/Publisher: Hillman Minx Software
Requirements: PPC, Classic Mac OS and Mac OS X

Monica v2.2
MONICA allows you to easily set up a download queue by 'dragging and dropping' or 'cutting and pasting' file URLs. Once you have placed some files in the queue you may manually start each download at a time convenient to you, or allow MONICA to start downloading automatically. In automatic mode, once a file is received MONICA will start the next one, allowing up to four simultaneous downloads. If the server times you out or if the download is incomplete then MONICA will restart the download and do her best to resume from where the download left off, while you can go off to more pleasant occupations.
License: Shareware, $20
Author/Publisher: Peter Job
Requirements: PPC

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.)