Winds of Change Jan 05

Winds of Change

from Mouse Tracks January 2005

written by Charles DeVore

Using the new Kensington Slimline keyboard is kind of interesting; however, I’m not sure if the keys are too close or if my fingers are too fat. So I am back to the spongy-feeling Apple keyboard, while we keep the Kensington for traveling. I really miss the large Apple keyboards; they may not look stylish, but they sure had a good feel when you typed on them. That’s the old ADB extended keyboard for you newcomers. I have four or five around the house but they only work on the Blue & White G3 or other older computers that I’m trying not to use anymore. For those of you who think you can use a USB to ADB adapter and keep using those old keyboards; the adapters sort-of-work until you need to troubleshoot a problem and the keyboard is not recognized by the System.

The refurbished G5 sitting on my desk is now my current main computer; although Janet and I are sharing it. I have to get used to having “fast user switching” turned on and the fact that my computer may very well ask me for permission to throw away or move a file. (It might be one that Janet created and saved onto the hard drive.) It’s a different world when you’re sharing. Not that I mind sharing when it’s on a dual G5 1.8 with 1.25 Gig of RAM and two hard drives. This machine will make it easy for Janet to edit video and burn DVDs, and easier for me to troubleshoot problems and rescue data off of SATA drives.

Do keep in mind that I intend to keep my old B&W on hand for work in OS 9.1 and Quark 4.1, so its days are not, as they say, numbered. This is a good point for those of you who are thinking about upgrading your computer. Many people think that because they have a new computer, they can sell or give away their old one as soon as the new one arrives. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. It always takes awhile to configure the new computer to do everything the old one used to do—like all those mail files and bookmarks you wanted to hang on to.

What do you do if you missed your one opportunity to import those bookmarks into Safari? Janet discovered a nice little utility called Safari Enhancer that will allow you to import bookmarks from most other web browser applications, providing you’re running System 10. So all the bookmarks I have in my aluminum PowerBook can be exported from Camino and imported into Safari. If you’ve moved to a new computer and are missing your old bookmarks, this may be the program for you. Go to versiontracker.com and type in “safari enhancer,” then download it and try it out. Keep in mind that even if the old computer was System 9 or older, you can usually export your bookmarks, then use Enhancer to import them into Safari—it will read any list of bookmarks in an HTML format.

Now Contact and Now Up To Date are currently at version 4.5.3 and seem to work very nicely in Panther. After installing them and the Palm software on the G5, I was able to sync my older Sony Clie PDA without having to install the Missing Sync software I have been using on my old TiBook. The big “plus” is that I get to keep all my contacts and my notes. It may not seem like a big deal, but I have notes about clients’ machines and updates going back over six years. Yes, I know Apple supplies some nice programs called iCal and AddressBook, but I like the added features that Now Contact and Now Up To Date provide. As an example, I put in a new client’s name and save it, then with that client’s card open, I click on web services, go down to “get map” and up pops MapQuest with a map to the client site. This is just one of the many features. If you want to try it out, you can download a thirty day trial at www.poweronsoftware.com.

Just a note for all you travelers who use the web to book your hotel rooms. Every year I start looking for hotels in San Francisco. I check each website for the same hotels and each year I find one that has rates $30 to $45 dollars cheaper than all the others. At five nights that makes a big difference. This time I found my best deal at Orbitz.com but in the past Expedia.com was best. The interesting part was that hotels.com, which advertises that they have the best prices, was almost always higher than other sites. So do the research; the money you may save is there for the finding.

As I work more and more around DSL and cable modems, I follow a set process for troubleshooting problems. First, always reset the modem by unplugging it, counting to 10, then plugging it back in. I follow this by next doing the same thing with the router or switch/hub, and then restarting the computer. This ensures if there was a simple glitch, that it is cleared up. So before you call tech support and jump through their hoops, plus being on hold for 15 minutes listening to really bad canned music, follow the steps I have outlined above.

• Not all blank CDs and DVDs are created equal. Buy a brand name, do not trust disks that have no markings unless you know who makes them.

• Do not make multisession CDs; each time you add a session you take the chance of corrupting the whole disk and making it unusable. If the data is worth archiving, it’s worth the 35 cents to put it on its own CD. Many open session CDs have problems if being read by older computers.

• If you’re buying blank DVDs, make sure they are DVD-R. Apple does not support DVD-RW or DVD+R (note this is subject to change as Apple updates hardware and software).

• CDs will not last forever. Keep in mind they can be scratched, broken, and warped. If I really want the data, I make two disks and file one on a CD rack, or even at another location.

• Always let your disk verify. This lets you know the machine can read all of the data. However, just because it says it “failed to verify” does not mean the whole disk is bad, it’s usually one file.

Keep in mind when you are buying software or hardware that you may not be able to take it back. Ask questions about possible new hardware before you purchase it, like is there a restocking fee? Many dealers will not take back any software that has been opened. They have no idea if it’s registered and still on your computer. If you’re having problems with it, contact the maker. Most people think dealers make lots of money on Macs, which for the most part is untrue. So keep in mind when you take something back that does not have a box or any of the packing material, the dealers usually have to resell it to someone else as a returned, open-box machine.

CMUG from Corvallis Oregon is celebrating its 20th anniversary on January 15th between 10:00am and 5:00pm and is inviting everyone to show up for the event. Robin Williams and John Tollett will be there and give presentations throughout the day. At about 4pm they will celebrate with presentations and raffle, etc. There will be a modest charge for the presentations by Robin and John, but the 4:00pm party will be free to all. If you have have questions contact Lew Nelson with this address cmugoffice@cmug.com. If you have never heard Robin Williams talk, you should really try to make this event.

18 years–Wausau Area Apple Users Group of Wisconsin
http://www.dwave.net/~dpregont/UG/WAAUG.html

15 years–Christian Macintosh Users Group Online
http://www.cmug.org/index.html

Anyone who has not been to the new Mac Store at Cedar Hills Crossing in Beaverton should check it out. There are lots of reasons to go there. It opens at 10:00am and closes at 9:00pm Monday-Saturday, and is open Sunday, too (11:00am to 8:00pm). But the best reason is if you show your PMUG card they will give you 5% off your purchase. However, you have to be the one who shows the card; the clerks will not ask you if you are a member.

One of the most overlooked features of having two Macintosh computers is the ability to boot one up as a FireWire hard drive connected to the other one. It’s pretty simple but you need to do things in the right order. First go to the machine that you want to act as a hard drive, turn it on and hold down the T key on your keyboard. This is called the “target” drive. After a couple seconds, the screen should show the FireWire symbol moving around the screen. At this point plug a FireWire cable into it and then into the computer you want to move the information from or to. After a couple seconds the machine you started up as the “target” drive should show up on your other computer’s desktop as the icon of a hard drive. At this point you can pretty much treat it as a FireWire drive. When you are done, dismount the drive icon by moving it to the Trash which will turn into an eject symbol. Count to five, then disconnect the FireWire cable and shut down the “target” drive by pushing the power button of that computer.

As of this writing there is a new version of System 10. Upgrading your computer to 10.3.7 is turning out to be a little tricky. Apple says to disconnect all third party FireWire drives before starting the process. However what Apple should really be saying is to disconnect all FireWire devices before installing. Several PMUG members and others on the Internet have discovered that iPods that are connected will cause the install to fail or even wipe the information on your iPod out. So be on the safe side and disconnect all FireWire devices. Please be sure to repair permissions (before and after you do this update.) Also, I run DiskWarrior, or at least the FirstAid portion of Disk Utility, before doing any major changes to my system. If at all possible, you should back up your hard drive to another hard drive with Carbon Copy Cloner, Super Duper or LaCie’s free SilverKeeper software. Several people have reported problems with network connections after the upgrade, so having a good backup is important.

I would like to thank the folks from the Tigard Apple store (Travis Gray and Gary Mickels), and also Tim Langdale from LaCie for the great information given at the December General Meeting. For those of you who could not attend this meeting, the Apple folks informed us of what services they offer and what they, as salespeople, can and cannot do. Tim gave everyone there a copy of SilverKeeper, LaCie’s free backup utility. Also Tim offered everyone at the meeting the LaCie 2.5 inch FireWire 40 gig drive for a special price of $119 and no shipping charges. Yes, it really does pay to be a PMUG member.

Have you ever thought about going to special events that vendors put on for user groups? In December, CompUSA in Tigard did a Thursday morning event and gave away an iPod Mini, a copy of Filemaker Pro7 and a $75 certificate to the iTunes store. Every prize was won by a PMUG member.

The Epson R200 printer that I reported as being hard to use for its CD/DVD printing does a great job of producing 8 by 10 glossy photos. After printing out a couple, Janet and I are very happy with the quality this printer can produce for its cost. It’s well worth the $99.99 for printing photos. Keep in mind that you really do need high quality paper, and to make sure you have set the paper selection in the printer’s software to the correct paper.

When you’re going to print an old photo, or any photo, it’s best to look at it very carefully on your screen before you invest in the paper and ink to print it. You might even ask someone else to look at the picture on your screen. If you can, look at clothing and faces. Ask yourself if there is too much red or green or blue, then use a product like Adobe Photoshop Elements to do some tweaks. In Photoshop Elements 2.0 we did our changes by going to Enhance, Adjust Color, Color Variations. This is where you can get an idea of what the changes may look like before you commit to them. Be sure and play with the slider in the lower left hand corner for the amount of change you may want to apply. Use the cloning tool to get rid of unwanted items in the background and any blemishes that distract from the picture. Remember, this is like owning your own developing shop, so a word to the wise: don’t go overboard on changes. The idea here is to reproduce the original colors of the picture, not create a fictional event. Unless, of course, you are trying to salvage some really bad pictures because Santa did not bring you a new camera.