Rumor mills have Apple producing a new, even smaller mini iPod near Christmas or possibly Macworld Expo. So iPod fans, if you still think it’s a little big for what you had in mind, just wait awhile. Also keep in mind that rumors are just that and may never happen. In this case, I think Apple wants as much of the market as possible, so there is a pretty good chance on this one.

Mr. Ballmer of Microsoft fame stated that iPod music is "mostly stolen" right after telling everyone there is no way Apple is going to win the digital media war. So MS is hoping that people will believe MS is the only answer. If you can't buy it, steal it; if you can't steal it, then lie about it. Hey, it's worked all these years, why change now?

Myst IV Revelation was released at the end of September and has been leaving the store shelves at a pretty good pace. Macintosh users take note of the System requirements: OS X 10.2 -10.3 only, 700MHz G4 (G5 recommended),128 meg RAM, 32 meg V-RAM (64 recommended) and QuickTime 6.5 or higher. Please notice all the “or higher” notes. It runs OK on my 12 inch AL Book, but the video refresh is kind of slow. So keep that in mind if you're going to play this game. It feels like it was only a couple years ago that the first Myst game arrived with no instructions. We had some friends over and played it for nine hours solid on my IIsi and a 2X CD player. Now here we are years later (like in 10), it's still about the same speed, but the graphics are wonderful.

About a month ago I bought a new inkjet printer for printing on CDs and DVDs. We had waited until now due to the fact that most printers with this function cost over $250 and that was a little out of my price range. We purchased an Epson R200 that has a special tray for just that purpose. The cost of the printer was $100; the inks range between $13 for color cartridges and $18 for black. Keep in mind there are six colors you need to buy when the ink starts to run out. The first thing we discovered was you need special CDs and DVDs with printable surfaces. You may think you can just print on any old CD, but even though you can, it will not stick. We proved this by printing to plain CDs and then wiping a cloth over them the next day. They wiped off very cleanly, just leaving a bit of a smear. So you will need to buy CDs and DVDs with a printable surface if you want to use this printer in that way. One of the things they do not tell you when you buy a printer that prints on CDs and DVDs is that the disk should not be touched or used for about 24 hours after printing to make sure the ink is thoroughly dry. Do keep that in mind. The next problem is how picky the machine is about lining up the tray to print the CD. If it is not perfect, the printer will bend the small clear tab on the tray and you will spend hours trying to make it work. I have in fact put in hours working to get this printer to print to CDs and DVDs. Many times when it spits the tray back out, you need to go to the Print Center and cancel the job, close the door of the tray, then reopen it and even turn the printer off and back on. The way the tray tab can be bent by the printer is really bad design; so bad, in fact, that I ordered three more trays in order to make sure I had a tray that would work if I really needed it. In other functions the printer seems to work fine, on everything but what I bought it for. So for ease of use printing CDs and DVDs, I rate it one star out of five; and as a low cost general printer, four out of five stars.

Now for the fun part of this printer. Having never used USB sharing we decided that we would give it a shot so we loaded the software up on several computers and things worked just fine. Keep in mind that you have to have your computers networked together before this will work for you; however, it really was an easy setup here. Note that our blue and white G3 Mac running System 9 does not see the OS X iMac that the printer is shared through.

I really am impressed with the new iMacs. I love the 20 inch screen; it's just the right size to bring up two web site windows next to each other and compare them. Wish I had one when Janet and I were shopping for a van last year. The only negative thing that I hear over and over again is that the monitor does not swivel. People got spoiled with the neck joint on the iMac model this one replaced. A simple lazy susan of good design should take care of that problem. You can have one made for you at any good furniture store. I can tell that several will be offered by the third party people as soon as they can have then painted silver and shipped. So by the time the iMacs are in good supply at the stores, we should be seeing vendors suppling rotating bases for the new iMacs.

In another note, all FireWire cables are not created equal. I have had three bad ones show up over the last six months. So before you go blaming the drive or the case the drive is installed in, please try a different FireWire cable. Many problems that show up when people daisy chain several drives together can be solved by better quality cables or even going to a FireWire hub.

Apple has released at least three security updates in the last three or four weeks and I don't install them until I hear from others if there are problems with the updates. Sometimes it seems the security update fixes problems from the last security update.

Terry Shellenberger will be running a class on video editing on Thursday evenings October 28th through November 18th. The cost is $10 per session. This is a great way to learn the do's and don'ts of editing. So please think about coming. You will need your own computer and camera and programs to follow along hands-on; or you can observe as a lecture class.

The PMUG General Meeting is going to move after the December meeting. We have not decided on a new meeting site as yet, but we are looking at several different places. Some of the things that a new meeting site needs to have are: access to public transportation, handicap access, room for at least 100 people, chairs and video screen, parking, guarantee of access on the second Monday of each month. It would be nice to also have access to the internet. So watch for notices on the website as well as in Mouse Tracks and on the Sheep of where the new General Meeting site will be. This is because the NNCC where we have met for over 18 years is closing for a remodel and is not due to reopen for two years.

Speaking of moving, by the time you read this, the Cedar Hills Crossing Mac Store should be open for business. Be sure and stop by and say hi to the guys in their new digs. It never hurts to let Mac folks know you are a PMUG member.

Those of you who do not use the Electric Sheep are missing a lot of daily action. Find everything from how to fix your Airport base station to a Java script for checking to see if the website you are on is really where you want to be. Also there are discussions on DVD region free codes and other great topics. Contact janet@pmug.org for more information about adding the Sheep to your membership.

Virus calls are starting to mount up from users who do not understand that it's not their fault. Many users assume that if an email bounces it's because they did something wrong; however, they get even more concerned that the message from the bounced email tells them they have a virus. I am going to try to explain what is going on here. You send a friend who uses a PC a note or file and they put you in their email address book. Later that same PC user is infected by a virus that uses their email program’s address book to spread itself. It does this by taking an address from the address book and using it as the "from address," then it picks another address from the same address book and makes it a "to address." If the "to address" server has updated virus protection, it will send back a notice that you have a virus. Please note that the message comes to you as the sender, not the infected computer that sent the message out. So until the infected computer is cured, it just keeps spreading the virus to as many unprotected PC people as it can. Usually after a week or two, the PC starts to crash and that is when the virus is found and removed. So what that means to you is that your address will continue to get non-delivery notices and virus warning letters for months after the infection starts.

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