Winds of Change

written by Charles DeVore

from Mouse Tracks January 2004

Apple seems hell-bent on undoing any improvements by changing the rules and programming on FireWire devices. What worked for you before may very well not even mount under Panther. Even worse, Apple wants companies like Oxford and their 922 chip to take the heat for it. That’s not the way to win friends in the electronics industry. Apple really needs to make it as easy as possible for companies that support the FireWire standards to produce products that reflect Apple’s ease of use PR. Making things easy should be Apple’s motto. Ticking off their friends should be the last thing on their minds.

Seems that an update for Panther should be out by the end of the year, most likely just before Macworld Expo in January. Many people had problems with the last revision 10.3.1: USB device problems, FW problems and transferring music to iPods are just a few examples of these problems. Please note that not everyone has these problems, and that combinations of different machines and devices affect the outcomes.

I have this to say about System updates: back up your data before you do these. Many folks have reported they can no longer get their FireWire hard drives to show up after updating their system. This means you may have to reload your old version of the System and use it just to see your external hard drive. What if you can’t go back because of the update? This is the reason for data backups. I suggest backing up your data to CD or DVD if at all possible. Hopefully you can reload your old System from the CDs that came with your computer. Yes, I know it’s going to take awhile to get all this done, but when you’re through you will have your data. This beats the heck out of having to recreate all that information again.

You know I really have mixed feelings about reviews of products that come out with glowing reports. It does not matter if it is a review in Mouse Tracks or MacWorld or MacAddict. Giving a product, any product, a review that shows no problems makes me wonder if the reviewer lives in the same world as I do. Good reviews should show reasons to buy a product and reasons you may not want to deal with it. Almost every product I own has a few flaws here and there. If it’s a product you can’t live without, you learn to deal with them. However, you should be warned about those faults in reviews and not have to find out after you buy the product.

Symantec is supposed to release updates to its utilities: Norton AntiVirus, Disk Doctor and Norton System Works 3.0. These updates will be via Live Update around December 22nd, and CD versions should be ready around the middle of January. Norton Internet Security 3.0 updates will follow at the end of January.

It seems TechTool Pro 4.0 is shipping after an eight month delay. Most feedback says it looks good. I have not received my copy as of December 3, but hopefully it will arrive shortly. Most comments are on the newly featured eDrive that needs 4 Gig of space when it’s installed.

Just a note on the fact that you can download and use Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X. It seems to work fairly well on most modern Macs. Also released for Mac are the following products: QuickBooks Pro 6.0, Route USA 2004, NetBarrier X3, 2004 WorldBook, and Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb. For the professional user there is Mango Dental for Mac based dental offices (1-888-806-2646), LawStream for keeping track of things in law offices (1-250-782-3322), and Business Productivity Toolkit 2004 for use in your business office (1800-346-5426). You can find other information on all these products at the Apple web site under the Made4Mac tab at www.apple.com.

It’s kind of entertaining that the very people who jumped on the Anti-Newton bandwagon because it was too big are failing to see the correlation with their efforts to compete with the iPod. They keep bringing out large devices that no one wants to pack around and telling everyone it’s the iPod killer. No, stupid, it is the size and the style that keeps selling them. What they are trying to compete with is not going to fly until they understand what people really want in that product. Yes, I know that some people will buy it simply because it’s cheap. Apple wasn’t going to sell to those folks anyhow, so it’s not like it’s hurting their sales. So for all you guys lusting after these iPod sales, you want a small device with lots of power and style—enough said.

OWC (Other World Computing) has released a non-final version of Xposfacto 3.0 alpha for use with Panther. All you folks who are still limping along with 8600 Macs with G3/G4 cards may yet be able to run the latest and greatest OS (10.3) on your machines. They still have a way to go on this product before it’s a full working release, but it seems to be coming right along.

Interesting article from a G5 user on the Accelerate Your Mac web site. He thinks Apple may have screwed up the fan sensor for the hard drive bays in the G5. The fan may never kick up to the speed needed to keep the drives as cool as it should be. For those who have interest in this, you can check it out at www.xlr8yourmac.com.

El Gato EyeTV v1.3.1 software for their hardware device that allows you to record and watch TV on your Mac now has seamless integration with Toast 6, according to their website. This site also states that it has added support for TVTV by FAST TV Serve AG that makes finding and automatically recording programs significantly more comfortable. Anyone out there owning one of these devices please send me email telling me if this product is as good as they claim. Even better—write a short article about the device and the software.

AppleCare is a wonderful hardware product for most Mac buyers; however, you must understand the limits the Apple Dealers have. This really is a hardware warranty, meaning that corrupted systems and old software installs are not covered. If your computer is not working due to the fact you installed software incorrectly, the dealers are going to charge you for looking at/fixing your computer. Apple does not reimburse them for time they spend sorting out or reinstalling your computer system. They make very little money off the products from Apple, often making money only on third party sales, printers, RAM, hard drives and their installation. I have seen several people get really angry at the dealers because they had AppleCare and the dealer charged them for fixing a non-hardware problem. In order to get a better idea if this is a hardware problem, call Apple and let them try to talk you through the hardware tests. Do this before dropping it off at your local computer store only to find out it was an old copy of ATM or Norton that damaged your system folder.

HELP YOURSELF AS A USER
How to get the most out of your user group: the most important key word is participate, followed by volunteer. I know that some of you think I’m saying this just to get people helping out, but this is truly the way you get the most out of your user group. People who spend time teaching or helping out in class tend to learn things they didn’t even know to ask about. Face it—the reason you join a user group is to get help in areas you know nothing about. Just being around other folks who use the Macintosh day in and day out tends to teach you things that make using your computer a lot more fun. Coming to the General Meeting is a good place to start and to meet people. Follow that up with visits to the office on Tuesday nights and you have a good start. Many folks who had very little training have gained a lot by volunteering to help at PMUG college; some even go on to teach classes. Remember you joined because you wanted to learn —spend a little time and you’ll learn even more.

The PMUG swap meet is coming up fast (Feb. 9th). Please contact Chuck Japely to volunteer for helping with set up or to help tear down after the event. This truly is one of those events where many hands make the job a easy one.

So you think you want to write for Mouse Tracks. Well, why not? If you are waiting for the an invite—this is it! Now come the questions, like “suppose I make a fool out of myself?” “What if someone disagrees with me on the topic?”

Forget the questions—just start writing about your topic. It may take a few tries to get it going. In fact sometimes I write a lot of text that doesn’t make sense to anyone but me. This is where editors come in to play. Every word I write is edited for content, grammar, spelling, and to ensure that it makes sense. This happens to every column I write and I like it. Because of the editors I can spend most of my time writing about something that interests me, and not worrying if I spelled Macintosh correctly. So if you can list facts or events that got you from Point A to Point B, you too can be a writer.

Do remember that writers write, editors edit. In fact, being an editor is a tougher job than writing as far as I am concerned, due to the fact that you have to adjust someone else’s words while keeping the flavor of the piece and making sure you get the story told just as the author wanted the words to come out. In fact I often compare my version and the MT edited version just to see how many changes happened. If I don’t have them side by side, I can’t tell what changes were made, if any at all.

You can reach me at charles@cdevsol.com.

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