Macking 94

Databases for Macs
When you think "database" you normally picture huge files linked across networks that maintain store inventories, airline reservations, Ticketron, and the like. There are at least two major programs for Macs as well as Windows that can handle this kind of size: Filemaker Pro and 4D. Each database has its own class of consultants who help companies roll out their own databases using these programs, and it is a specialty in itself. Some of them belong to my local consultants' organization, the Macintosh Professionals Network. If you need this kind of expertise, contact me and I will put you in touch with them.
Many people became dependent on ACT, a contacts manager that has not been upgraded in years. The program's data is not exportable, so people are faced with re-entering all their data when they switch away, or sticking with it and hoping it will continue to run in Classic mode.
Fortunately there is a new data manager called Daylite, published by Market Circle. What makes it remarkable is the fact that it has an ACT importer! Finally you can escape into a modern OSX program without extensive retyping. Is it any good? Haven't a clue. I just learned about it recently so you're on your own or can enlist the help of the MPN, mentioned above. Review opinions run from "Awful" to "Pretty good work-in-progress does what I need it to."
Databases are also little things: your personal address book, your email list in Eudora or Outlook, your collection of record albums in AppleWorks. Personal-level databases are fairly numerous in the Mac market, and many will link with their Windows equivalents. For years my favorite was Now Contact and its sister application, Now UpToDate (which I never used). Now Software used to be a Portland company before it sold out to PowerOn Software, which still markets under the name Now. Palm Desktop is the one I finally migrated to, because PowerOn was a little slow in moving to OSX and easily synchronizing to the Palm Pilot line of PDAs. Too bad, because Now was first from the gate in supporting Palm, but due to proprietary and difficult-to-update conduits, Palm was able to take the lead. Where did Palm Desktop come from? It was a simple purchase and revision of the old Claris Organizer and is available free to any Macker who wants to download it from Apple or Palm's site.
It also comes on the CD shipped with the new model Palms; you will need to reinstall if you get one of the Tungstens, otherwise it won't recognize your handheld. Since your data is stored separately (in the Palm folder inside Documents) upgrading the program will not affect your data. If, however, you are moving up from an old 2.x version of Palm, search the program's folder to make sure you data isn't stored in there. In general, you should NEVER store your data in the same folder as the program or when you upgrade it you could lose all your info.
The Palm program is superior to Apple's Address Book program that ships with OSX for one reason only: Apple left out the Categories flag that lets you organize your contacts into meaningful groups. That omission made me have to go through all 670 of my contacts and reassign the category when I went back to Palm Desktop after experimenting (and otherwise liking) the Address Book application. However, you can't get away from Address Book entirely: If you want to use the program FaxSTF, which I consider one step up from utterly useless, you need to make your fax directory in Address Book or you can't use the program. Period.
You are better off using one of the Web and email-based fax services (search Google) over this atrocious program, but if you work hard enough, and call Apple's support line (within your warranty period) to help you when it won't set up correctly no matter what you do, then you can still fax from your Mac. Oh, how I long for the days of Global Fax, published by Global Village, manufacturer of the best Mac modems ever. GV is still alive, but in a form of spirit because after it was taken over by Boca, a large modem maker, Boca was then acquired by Zoom. They are unwilling or unable to convert GlobalFax into a universal program that would work with Apple's current modems. It would not hurt to contact Zoom by going to the Global Village site and going to the Contact Us section and making your wishes known. To confuse things further, only the brand name was bought by Zoom (whose own modems were considered vastly inferior back in the days when several companies competed in the Mac modem market) and the warranty and tech support is still maintained by a company called Imprimus, Inc. Who the hell are they? No one can keep track when companies and their assets are traded like comic books on Ebay.
Do remember that my only experience with the last "Global Village" product, a USB modem, was horrible. The thing was so poorly designed that it would work only when plugged into the Mac's one of two USB ports. It would not work in a hub, powered or not. This meant that you either had no other USB devices or you had to plug your keyboard into a hub, which deactivated certain keyboard combinations you would invoke at startup, such as Command-Option-Shift-Delete, to force your Mac to start from an external hard drive when it would fail to start from the internal. It was a disaster all around and the sad, last gasp from a once-great company.
Because the company and the two that followed it are as dead as a Monty Python parrot, except as mentioned in Macking 91, you can feel safe and secure in handing out a copy of the GlobalFax software to anyone who has a Mac capable of using it. Some of those Macs are the blue & white G3 and the early iMacs with internal modems. Ask your friends.

Sell your old System CDs
It's been about 20 months since Apple started shipping Macs with OS9 and OSX installed. In the package has always been a set of CD-ROMs that you can use to reinstall your system software, and in the case of iMacs and iBooks, a whole bunch of bundled programs.
Since the release of Jagwire 10.2, there has not been an OS9 CD included. The regular install would let you replace an OS9/Classic Mode system folder, but even the store-bought copies lacked a separate CD for OS9.
That CD has value. You could sell it on eBay and make some money back. Interestingly enough, the OSX CDs older than 10.2 are next to worthless (except to people with external DVD burners, see below).
OSX has been going through such significant upgrades that the previous versions seem downright primitive, which is exactly what they are. OSX is more of a radical change in how your Mac works than was the upgrade from System 6 to 7. System 7 also needed immediate updates and didn't become useful until 7.1. 7.5 was also a significant jump and was a paid upgrade, just like the jump from 8.1 to 8.5 and then to 9. At least there is still a market for used copies of 8.1 or later (but not 8.0).
Since new Macs will no longer boot into OS9 at all, buyers of new Macs don't need those CDs, nor do they get them. But those people who have bought the upgrade for their current Macs may have a copy of the original system software and no further use for it.
Throw out the original 10.0 or 10.1 CDs unless you have an iMac or iBook. If you bought 10.2 you will never need them again. iBook/iMac owners may need to reinstall the programs that came with it, but never again need to install the older version of X.
The Apple Store online is secretly selling OS9.2 CDs for $99 to anyone who asks. You could probably get near that on eBay. Check your packet of original CDs. If there is one in there that is marked 9.1 or 9.2, and you have bought 10.2 since then, you can go ahead and make some money.
With Apple, the license and the right to use their software comes with the CDs. If you have them, you own them. This is different from commercial software in which the CDs are all alike but you need a serial number to install them. If you buy a CD of Photoshop, for instance, the seller must not legally keep using his copy of the program. You can contact Adobe and transfer legal registration to you.

Farewell, Original iMac
Apple has quietly terminated the original CRT design iMac that brought the company back from the brink of disaster in 1997. Except for one educational-only model, that means that there are no more desktop G3 machines and only the iBook remains using the G3 chip. The G4 will remain as the standard chip in all Macs, at least until the much-speculated-upon next-generation chip is released this fall.
There are rumors that Apple is dumping the unprofitable eMac (unprofitable due to an extremely high rate of warranty repairs), but I am certain that there will continue to be a heavy, economical model for schools. What it will be is anyone's guess right now.

First report: iDVD Enabler Works
You have to be running 10.1.5 to use it, but the OWC-released and Apple-suppressed enabler lets you use iDVD with an external drive. Find it here. Report is that it hangs occasionally but it's better than nothing.

Report on the Ex-tend-it
Last month I mentioned that I sent for an evaluation copy of a device, the VGA to ADC Conversion Box produced by Gefen, Inc., that would let me use my Apple 17" display with the new PowerBook. In the middle of the month, with plenty of time to test, it arrived. I am happy to report that it works as advertised, albiet with a few gotchas and traps here and there.
I did what I assumed most people would do: disobey instructions and plug it in without shutting down and restarting. Amazingly, it mounted perfectly, showing a mirror of the powerbook's main display. I went to the Displays preference pane and told it to separate the monitors (turn off mirroring), but the poor thing was quite confused as to where the margins of the display were. The bottom and right edges were blank and windows dragged to them disappeared, even though the entire screen took up the background color I had chosen. It behaved as if the actual screen was offset two inches to the left and 1/4 inch from the bottom.
Okay, I restarted properly and was presented with a correctly drawn screen. Like the old Monitors control panel, each screen presented a window that let me choose color depth and resolutions. Since these are not CRT displays, there is only one resolution: 1024x768 for the Powerbook and 1280x1024 for the 17" model. Windows drag from one screen to the other just like any Mac using dual displays.
When I disconnect the external display I close the PB to put it to sleep. When I reawaken it, there is a moment of confusion on its part as it adjusts itself to the absence of the external and moves windows back where they belong. I try to close all windows before doing this, though. Now, after using it for a while, I prefer to NOT put it to sleep before plugging or unplugging the monitor. It does all necessary adjustments as soon as it detects a change.
Only Netscape 7 gives me trouble: When I put the external display back it opens windows off screen with only a small edge visible. This is a problem under OSX because the windows can no longer be dragged by any edge, as under OS9. What I have to do is keep typing Command-N to get window after window until one finally draws its title bar where I can get at it. I minimize that window to the Dock and then type Command-W over and over to close all the other windows. Then when I bring the good window back it's in the right place.
Quitting and restarting Netscape doesn't help because it's remembering where the last window was - off screen and unavailable. A minor bug that no other program has had that I will report to Netscape.
The best way to use it efficiently is to go to Displays and drag the menubar to the external monitor. That makes it the primary window, and has the bonus of remembering window position when you remove the external and return to normal laptop use. This has pretty much eliminated the odd Netscape display bug.

Other Displays
Okay, that's my 17". How does it work on Apple's other offerings? I visited MacForce to try it out on the Apple 20" (1680 pixels wide) and the 23" (1920 pixels wide). It performed perfectly on the 20. That is one of the best-looking displays on the market right now, and is a perfect mate for this model PowerBook. By extension, it should also work on the old 22", because they were only 1600 pixels wide. No such luck with the 23, however. It requires more video RAM (VRAM) than the included 16 megs so while the Displays preference pane recognized the presence of the monitor, it was not able to put an image on it. Obviously it can't be expected to drive the rumored THIRTY INCH DISPLAY that Apple may be releasing this summer.
Gefen makes another product for that: a $700(!) video adapter that includes its own VRAM and will enable ANY VGA Mac to drive any of Apple's displays. Learn all about their products at http://www.gefen.com/.

Stuff for Sale
Orb drive, SCSI, holds 2.2 gigs per cartridge, includes two carts and separate FireWire adapter, $149. Current model drive, price new with the FW adapter is normally twice that. Very little use.
DAT Technologies tape backup drive, DDS-3 which stores 2 to 4 gigs per tape. SCSI drive, not OSX compatible because it's SCSI. Maybe it can be made to work but it's better for older Macs like the Beige G3 or before. Includes 20 backup tapes, four unopened, that normally sell for ~$15 each. Includes Retrospect backup software. Total price $249. DAT drives never sell for less than $500 new not including tapes. Works fine and can be refurbished by DAT Technologies when needed.
Apple International USB keyboard with European key mapping, $25.

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.)