Macking 92

The Fragmentation Issue
Well, I had a feeling that my article in Macking 90 would light a fire under somebody. I have been in correspondence with a dedicated Macker and former Symantec programmer, who got a discussion on the subject (all Macs are shipped fragmented) going on one of the Apple forums and I finally have some answers.
First, apologies to the new users who were unnecessarily panicked (as most new users can be) into thinking that they were in an emergency situation and shouldn't use their Macs or had to initialize. The problem was never more than an annoyance and the only people who would have serious problems right out of the box were people using digital video cameras to stream video and make their own iMovies.
All fragmentation will do is slow down I/O, which means input and output: that is, reading and writing data between RAM and the hard drive, loading and saving files and launching applications.
Second, there is no legal risk to Apple in admitting and fixing the problem. The user agreement (you know, that page of 5-point type you put directly into the trash) states that they guarantee only that your Mac will boot up and that the software will work from the start. Nothing else. Therefore, they were never at risk for having to supply a copy of Norton Utilities (which includes SpeedDisk, the defragmentation program) to every user.
People running OSX should not even notice a slowdown as their drive gets more fragmented under use because the Unix directories function differently from the OS9 directories: the Desktop DB and DF files that track where everything is on your hard drive. Now that new Macs cannot even run under OS9, the problem will lessen over time and it is possible that drives will never need to be defragmented.
Still unanswered (by deadline time) is why the fragmentation is on the new drives at all. There are only a few ways drives can be mass duplicated: A bank of blank drives are formatted and loaded at once via a series of installers, much the same way the individual user installs software from CDs. The other way is to create ONE master disk and then run a bit-for-bit copy of that disk onto all the drives in the duplicator. The former method would result in exactly the kind of fragmentation I am seeing, while the second method seems like it would be more efficient considering that drives are duplicated in runs numbering in the thousands.
Also unanswered is how performance for the DV people will be affected. I do know that there is no invisible Unix defragging going on in the background, although there are specific file-maintenance tasks that are performed nightly and weekly while the machine is left on and unattended.

MacJanitor
Apropos of that, people who shut down every night are not having that maintenance done. They should get themselves a copy of MacJanitor from VersionTracker and run it periodically to take care of those tasks. Here is what Version Tracker says about MacJanitor:
Freeware utility to run the system's daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance scripts (located at /etc/daily, /etc/weekly, and /etc/monthly). These scripts are normally run between 3am and 5am, and will not be run if you shut off your Mac at night. This will allow log files to grow very large, and prevent system databases from getting backed up. With MacJanitor, you can run these scripts 'by hand' periodically without having to use the Terminal to keep your Mac OS X machine in top racing form. Excellent for laptop users and others who shut off or put their Macs to sleep at night.

Apple Advances Home Networking
Apple didn't invent wireless Ethernet (like they did FireWire), but they have not been slouching when it comes to making it easily available via AirPort and advancing the standard by making all Macs wireless-ready.
Now Apple has adopted standard 802.11g, marketed as AirPort Extreme, which sends data at a maximum of 54 Mbps (megabits per second), five times faster than the original 802.11b. They could have chosen 802.11a, the proposed alternative, but that standard is no faster and is not backwards compatible with the older standard. Why would anyone push 801.11a? Gotta ask Intel/Microsoft. Maybe they just don't mind rendering all the old equipment obsolete.
Because Apple has taken the lead, you can kiss 802.11a goodbye. Not only did they adopt the new and correct standard, they made the equipment cheaper! The original AirPort base station was $299, dropping to $199 after they introduced the white base station, with two Ethernet ports, for the original price.
AirPort Extreme base stations are now $199 for the basic model, and $259 for one with an internal modem and a port for an external antenna. That modem will enable a home network to share an internet connection via dialup (slow as molasses, of course) just as a broadband system with a router. The antenna will provide more range, as the maximum 150 feet was not enough for some large homes and offices. The new standard will allow up to 50 users to connect, as opposed to the ten or so under 802.11b.
Also included in both base stations is a USB port, which will make it very easy for all Macs on the network to share a USB printer. USB sharing has been around since OS9, but it always required the host Mac to be turned on. Not so with USB in the base station.
Linksys and Belken have also announced 802.11g products and the rest will be following along soon. The official standard has not actually been locked in stone, but that should happen by summer and Apple's chosen chipset WILL be compatible although some competitors won't.
Don't expect your broadband Internet connection to speed up, though. The average connection is much slower than 11 Mbps - somewhere between 300 and 500K - and the old AirPorts are more than up to the task. All the new standard will do is speed up your local network.

Inherent Insecurity
Never forget for one minute that you are broadcasting Ethernet packets all over the neighborhood when you are using wireless. Those packets can be "sniffed" and interpreted by any Linux user with a laptop and a copy of AirSnort or equivalent, discover your network password, then get into your network to "sniff" around.
OSX limits your file sharing to nothing more than the Public Folder on your Mac, but if you have an OS9 or 8.6 node on there, and Guest access is enabled, then anyone getting through your AirPort is already behind your firewall and has full access to all your pre-OSX Macs. To do this would require them to be sitting in a car parked in front, or in the apartment or offce next door, above or below you, but think of how many people this could affect!
If you live in an apartment can you see any other wireless nodes within range? They can see you too. Be sure to password-protect your Base Station and do not enable guest access to your hard drives. I have wandered around downtown Portland with my iBook in hand and discovered numerous unsecured wireless networks that will, at the very least, let me surf the Web on their bandwidth.
It is this very access that Personal Telco is making available all over Portland through voluntary sharing of bandwidth. The difference is that they know that they are sharing, and there is a login page that will greet you, and you will be unable to send mail through their system, preventing exploitation by spammers.

Other Uses of Wireless
Want to play your MP3 collection through your stereo without dedicating a Mac as an MP3 player? You can buy a radio transmitter from Sonic Link (Turtle Beach Systems, $60 or so) or U.S. Robotics USR6003 SoundLink Wireless Audio Delivery System, $40 or so. I found both these devices via a Google search for sale on Amazon.com, along with others by simply searching on the phrase "Broadcast MP3 from Mac to stereo system."
You can also use your laptop to control your desktop via remote control using the program "Timbuktu" from Netopia Systems. With it you can be sitting on the patio in the shade enjoying the afternoon air while operating your desktop Mac which is sitting in your dank old basement or wherever you have set up your home office. This is the very reason I got an iBook in the first place. My office is in a hot attic and my front porch is a lot nicer. It will be a few more months before sitting-on-the-porch weather begins, though.

Sharing MP3s via iPod
Apple did it again: they banned distribution of a plug-in for iPod users called iCommune. This plugin would let you synchronize your music collection to more than one Mac. Unlike my attempt to find the iDVD Enabler that they blocked Other World Computing from distributing, I did find this in time. It is available on my Web site. A listener to the ComputerBits radio show in Detroit found it for me at a place called Everything Mac. It will probably be pulled from there as soon as Apple finds out they have it, but it will stay on my site until Apple's legal goons tell me to pull it. For now, it is there, so even if you don't need it now, get it anyway so you will have it to pass along later. The author has stated that he is working on a revision to iCommune that doesn't rely on Apple code, so keep a watch out for that.

Getting A New PowerBook
I bit the hook. Although there is no way I can justify it, I ordered the new PowerBook Mini-Me, the 12" G4 matchbox speed racer along with the above-mentioned AirPort Extreme. Shipping will take 2-4 weeks so I didn't get it by deadline, but next month I should have a report on the new toy. I am getting it with internal SuperDrive too, so finally I will also be able to burn DVDs and start converting my collection of Max Headroom shows and other obscure '80s TV I have stored away on Beta tapes. A lot of this stuff isn't available anywhere at any price (although the actual Max Headroom series is on DVD and is running on TechTV) so if it is to survive, copies must be made and handed about.

New Macs
No sooner did I turn in my order than I discovered that Apple has released a slew of upgrades and price cuts to their desktop line. First, the bottom of the line has been cut to $1499 for a twin-processor 1-GHz tower. This includes a CD-RW/DVD-R drive.
What was once the top of the line, the 1.2-GHz twin is now middle market because the new model clocks in at 1.47 GHz. The biggest drop, however, is in their flat-screen TFT displays. The 23" model dropped from $3495 to $1999. Sorry if you got one at the old price; I feel your pain. The once-$999 17" model I got six weeks ago is now $699. A new 20" model, 1680 x 1050 pixels is just $1299. The old 22" that cost $1999 and sported 1600x1024 pixels is gone. All of the new Macs are Bluetooth-ready and sport FireWire 2.0 at 800 megabits per second, twice as fast as FW1. That sucking sound you hear is USB 2.0 disappearing into the aether, knowing it has no chance to compete.
You know a company is running a successful strategy when the user feels a powerful desire to replace machines that are serving them perfectly well right now, simply because the new ones are so amazingly cool.
None of the new models will boot into OS9 any more, but if you are willing to spend $500 more, the bottom two models can be configured to do just that. This is a fair compromise for those who absolutely need to be able to stay in 9 for a while longer because they depend on software that just plain won't work in Classic mode under OSX.
FYI, Quark XPress is still 9-only but DOES work in Classic mode, although rather poorly, according to many users.
Finally, Macintouch announced that there will be a Portland Apple Store in Pioneer Place Mall. They will be hiring... I'm tempted but I like working solo too much.

DropDoc
Mariner Software has been around for quite a while now with their tightly-written word processor Mariner Write. They have just released a free utility that will make it very easy for people who must deal with MS Word documents but don't want to send $300 to Redmond. It's called DropDoc and it will convert any .doc (Word PC or Mac) file into .rtf (Rich Text Format, which preserves tabs, fonts, size, and other formatting information) which can then be opened by Mariner Write, or AppleWorks.
Once you have edited your file you can then save it as .rtf and send it back to the PC user, who will simply open it in Word again. As a bonus, the conversion strips out Word Macro viruses, one of the few virus families that can move between Macs and PCs. Find it on the Mariner site here.

Letters
Dave Brook writes,
As always, thanks for your column. Regarding your Intuit rant (well deserved, I'm sure), I would suggest that, as worded, reason number 2 (having to pay for payroll tax info) is actually a sort of backhanded plus for Macs, not a negative, since the Mac service is cheaper than the Windows payroll service. At my workplace (using Windows) the bookkeeper refused to upgrade from QB 6.0 for years because it was the last version that allowed her to input payroll tax info rather than having to subscribe.
Collin Prasch writes,
Thanks for your help regarding my system upgrade to 9.2.1 causing an inability to recognize my Firewire CD burner. I tried what you suggested but with no success. After some research, I found the solution and thought you might be interested:
From roxio.com (Toast software site):
"In Mac OS 9, check the extension manager. Confirm that USB Authoring Support and Firewire Authoring Support are turned off. Confirm that Toast Firewire, Toast USB (A, B, & C), and Toast CD Reader are turned on."

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.)