Winds of Change

written by Charles DeVore

from Mouse Tracks March 2000

Apple has posted that the Apple Technician training CD can now be purchased through the Apple Store. At first this sounded like Apple was going to allow certification for all consultants. It seemed like a good idea to me, the more training you can get the better. However Apple was quick to let us know that you can only be a Apple Certified Technician if you work for an authorized Service Center. So we get to pay $299.00, study our butts off and then pay another $150.00 to take a test that gives us a certificate to just hang on our wall. Come on Apple, even Microsoft allows certification when you pass the tests.

IXMICRO MAKES EXIT?
Ixmicro may be out of business. Reports on the net say they are not returning e-mail or phone calls. Calls to their 800 number are inoperable, calls to the 408 number just go into a loop of options.

MERGER MANIA
EarthLink has just completed a merger with MindSpring after reporting a net loss of 64 million bucks. I sure hope Apple knows what it's doing, having just invested $200 million in EarthLink.

iTOOLS CHANGES RULES
Apple has changed the iTools terms of service after user complaints. The basic idea of the contract was that Apple had the rights to anything you posted public or private. "You hereby grant Apple a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise all rights, under copyright, publicity and related laws, in any media now known or not currently known, with respect to any content you post in any public site within iTools." Guess they forgot that most Mac Users can read and file complaints. The really interesting thing was not only was this notice buried in the fine print but it was hard to read and could not be printed without copying the text to another application.

PALM LOWERS PRICES
For those of you who are Palm PDA fans: Palm announced price cuts of about $50.00 across the full line of their products. I'm still using a Newton 2100 for my PDA and waiting for Apple to release its Palm PDA. It would be nice if Apple used Newton script to enhance this version.

MORE TROUBLE FOR AOL
AOL is getting sued for all the right reasons. I'm not a big fan of lawyers so don't get me wrong here. AOL decided that if you wanted their services then you didn't need any other settings on your computer. So in their own best interest they disable it all for you and in doing so make it fairly hard to get back to your other ISP. Nikon announced NikonView software updates for Mac OS 9.0. The NikonView2.x Updates will support the Coolpix 700, 800, 900 and 950 digital cameras. This update corrects a system freeze which would occur when attempting to access a mounted Coolpix Camera. You can find these updates at http://www.nikontechusa.com/OS9Updates.htm.

  SOFTWARE ANNOUNCEMENTS:
I'm really amazed at the publicity AppleWorks 6.0 has been getting. The reason is it is still in 6.0f revision. Yes, it's close to master but why Apple is allowing the press to review these early versions puzzles me. My best guess on this is that someone out there started a rumour about what was to be in AppleWorks 6.0 and Apple needed to make sure the press got it right. It's looking like a great product but only if you are using System 8.1 or above. So if your computer is running 7.6.1 this is not your best selection.

Macromedia announced that Freehand 9 is due to be released in March. The latest version now includes Flash integration. The cost will be $399.00.

"FONT Fixer for 8.6" from DiamondSoft is reported to fix some problems that the System 8.6 font patch breaks. You can download this patch-for-the-patch at http://ww2.fontreserve.com/ update/fontfix.html.

NO FREE MACS
Freemac has bailed out of the Mac market blaming Apple for the failure. That's pretty good, to blame the very people who stand to make lots of money if you're successful. The whole con was that you bought a computer that came with a hard drive full of ads and a credit card. The ads updated themselves through your modem connection (that was part of the deal.) You paid a monthly fee for the internet connection and then returned the computer after three years. This plan was doomed from the start. You have to program all the computers, train the customers how to use the credit cards correctly and so on. This was a deal that required lots of labor, lots of money up front from someone and a payoff only if the people used the credit cards and paid their bills.

CAUTION: AUCTION !
eBay can be a good place to bargain hunt or to lose your shirt. The other day I put a bid down on a LaserWriter 630. I already own one of these myself so I knew what I was getting if I won the bid. Total cost with shipping $325.00 without toner. Add $90.00 for toner and you have a really nice LW 630 that will print at 600 dpi via Apple-Talk, Ethernet or even to PCs through a serial port. The mistake many people make is overbidding a product or not doing the research on what they really need. First make sure you know exactly what comes with the package. Had I been expecting the toner to come with the printer I would have been disappointed. If you're bidding on RAM or a hard drive make sure it's the right RAM/drive for your machine. Many "really good" deals are not so great. 5 1/2 9 gig hard drives that are called full height will only fit in an external case. Be sure to add that cost into your purchase price. In fact many drives will not fit into the standard CPU enclosure you may want to install it in. So do your homework: check out the facts, write the seller and ask for more details if possible (buyer beware). One of the most interesting items I ever saw on auction was a very large expensive printer. The selling price was only $1,299.00. The hitch in the fine print was the $2,499.00 handling and set up fee for the company to set it up at your place of business and get it running. Total cost $3,798.

NEWER NEEDS A BREAK
Newer Technology, maker of upgrade cards, is in money trouble and has asked its creditors for a one year grace period. I'm hoping things fall into place for this company. They make some of the best upgrade cards for the Mac (in my opinion). They seem to have made a deal to cover day to day expenses with a Singapore firm called TRI-M. Rumor has it that TRI-M will only finance them if they can get their creditors to back off for a year. The only other path left is Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

TOYS FROM MACWORLD SF
I purchased several items after coming home from Macworld Expo. One was Via Voice which has been installed but not used much due to a cold. You do have to train the thing to your voice and you don't want to do this when your voice is all over the place. The second is the Graphire tablet with wireless pen and mouse. I must say that I'm not a graphic artist but loved the idea of a cordless mouse. Most of the problems from this item come from the monitor resolution. If the computer is slow at setting the 832 X 624 resolution on my 17" monitor then the mouse will only see 640 X 480 of the screen. This means I have to restart to get full use of the mouse across the screen. The product that I'm getting the most use out of is the Imation Super drive. As much as I've tried to get away from floppies they are still part of my world. It's just so darn nice to be able to stick a diskette in and copy the file over to it. Please note however that I don't even own any 120 meg Super diskettes so I don't know how that part works.

TANGERINE TOO
If you haven't been to the PMUG office lately you've missed the fact that we have two iMacs now, one Grape and one Tangerine. These machines were purchased with raffle money and donations from PMUG members for use in the office.

MACWORLD TOYKO
The new PowerBook, which was code named Pismo, should be released at Macworld Tokyo February 16-19. Japan is one of Apple's best customers and the home to many PowerBook buyers. So I'm sure Steve wants to wow them with the introduction. Mac Demo days guys will be doing the demo of the new Mac PowerBook shortly after the introduction. I would put the local demos into the March time frame. However there is bad news for those of you expecting a G4 chip in this first revision. Most likely it will be fall before they start shipping that chip in a PowerBook. The good news is that battery life is better than six hours for this model.

PowerMax = PMUG points
Don't forget that PowerMax is the User Group Store and they're local too. I picked up PMUG's latest iMac from them. If you're interested in a refurbished or a new Macintosh make sure you tell them you're a PMUG member. Each time you buy products from the User Group store, PMUG gets points that can be used to buy equipment for the office. They can be reached at www.applemugstore.com/ The login is eukanuba and the pass word is yummy.

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Now let's travel back in time to see what was going on in the February 1993 issue of MacWeek. This look back was brought to you by the shelf cleaning fairy. Ä Update for System 7.1 coming out soon, will update the 32 bit support as part of the Memory control panel version 7.1.1. This update will be for LC thru IIvx but not Performas. Ä Tokyo rollout is set for cheap 040 and new color Macs. Quadra 800 rumored to sell for $4,679 to $6,399. Ä LaCie is having a sale on hard drives: 1.2 gig now only $1,809. Ä ClubMac offered a NEC 15" monitor for only $729. Ä LLB could sell you a 1.44 external floppy for only $288. Ä Chip Merchant would sell you one 4 meg SIMM for $119. Ä A Supra 14.400 modem could be had for $349. So the next time someone beefs about paying for a new computer or hard drive just remember the good old days when everything was so much cheaper.

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