Winds of Change

written by Charles DeVore

from Mouse Tracks April 2001

I've got to say that of all the announcements from Macworld Japan, the two new iMac colors, or patterns as the case may be, was the biggest "Say What"? Followed by "what have those guys been smoking?" These are the comments I heard repeated over and over. Now usually when people say something like that, people love something or they hate it - no middle ground. I'm hoping that there are people who love the idea of blue spots or colored flowers on their computers. I think the VW bug is ugly, others love it and it sold like crazy. The new colors can't do any worse than Snow in sales reports.

In other news about the new iMacs, all of the line has FireWire now. The two upper models include more hard drive space and RAM with CD-RW drives. The speeds are 400, 500, and 600 MHz. Bottom of the line sells for $899 with the top of the line coming in at $1499. The Cube lineup now starts at $1299 and climbs rapidly, if you want a CD-RW drive or a bigger hard drive, to $1599 and up.

iTunes 1.1 was announced with support for more CD-RW recorders than just Apple's. Janet has been playing with it on her 8500 with the G3 card. It seems to work well at what it does.

iMovie is updated to 2.0.3. It requires System 9.1 so if you need the added features, you'll need to update your System to get them. Some of these features allow export to iDVD, better stability, and performance.

New Toast 5.0 is coming soon. It works with System X and does background CD and DVD burns. This product will be released as soon as System X ships. It will burn CDs while in background, which means you can continue using your Macintosh while burning a CD. Other good stuff like HFS+ compatibility, improved disk copy (CD to CD-R), and MP3s disk format. New System X GUI interface looks great.

Sometimes being quoted in The Oregonian can make you look good. However, being quoted at the front of an article about Intel's streaming media services was not what I was expecting. Streaming media right now is mostly hype and very little else. Pictures and sound break up or drop out all together. The bandwidth that connects all the major hosting sites with the general public will need to get a whole lot better before things improve. All the major vendors, Intel, RealPlayer, Apple, have good starts on getting there but the backbone provided by the telcos needs to be a whole lot better to support the massive demand. One of my Intel friends called me the other day to tease me about shutting down 200 Streaming media jobs at Intel with one quote. It's really too bad that management at Intel didn't tell that division it was going to be shut down before their interview. Intel had the right ideas, they were just too far ahead of the game to make it happen. For people on the net, here's where to find more information about this story.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/17010.html
or
http://www.counterpane.com/ crypto-gram-0102.html#1

The biggest problem with most computer users is the same problem every group has. Nobody thinks bad things can happen to them. Many of the people I talk to are up against a deadline, or need access to their computer due to important e-mail they are expecting. When I ask them what they have installed in the last couple days, I get "Oh well I updated my System 'cause the guy at the store said ____." I know I've explained this before, but here I go again. The guy at the store makes money when you buy items. So you are always going to need something that they have for sale. They won't care if you lose 40 hours of work or that the product does not work with products you already own. It's not their problem; you bought it, you installed it, you own the problem. If you are going to do a major upgrade to your System, then it's up to you to backup the old System just in case you need to put things back the way they used to be.

Teleport sold out to EarthLink not too long ago and the fallout of that merger has been hitting Teleport users for the last month. Many users report they can't get to their e-mail to send or receive their mail. Nor can they get to their web pages to make updates or take down their information. Teleport was interviewed by The Oregonian and told them that few if any problems happened during the transfer. This was just plain bull. Many long time Teleport users with Macs and PCs have turned to other local providers to get the job done. I have heard several users talk of class action lawsuits for services not provided. I've heard of downsizing before, but this is absurd. I always thought you bought other companies to grow, not lose customers.

Why is it that Microsoft can't do anything that is original? I mean naming the next version of their operating system "XP"? Then claiming that their system is more user friendly than the Macintosh? As always, if you can't do it right, beat your chest and spend millions misleading people about your product. It's the MS way of stealing headlines while it tries to repackage its OS to compete with Mac OS X. As Steve Jobs has said in the past, Microsoft has no class. I'm beginning to believe that the last fresh thing MS ever produced was ... hummm, never mind.

Lots of web sites state that they sell RAM cheaper than anyone else. It may be true but will it run in your computer? I tried ordering RAM for one of my clients from one of these sites. The RAM was suppose to run in any 7100 / 6100 etc. It looked OK, it fit in the slot, yet it never allowed the computer to boot. It was returned at my expense for more RAM that didn't work. When I called to ask for my money back, they said sure no problem but there's a 15% restocking fee if you don't want to exchange it for the same type of RAM. So there went two weeks wasted on waiting for product to ship then cross-ship, plus the $6.00 times two per returned item and $8.00 shipping times two; that's $28.00 in shipping plus the 15% restocking fee and I still needed RAM. I can remember now why I don't buy from places that
1.) Charge a restocking fee.
2.) Say they'll beat any price.
3.) Haven't been in business 10 years.
Then I told my client what the RAM would cost for me to buy it from a dealer I trusted and install it. At this point I will not make one cent of profit from the sale. Please feel free to e-mail me your personal horror story on products you tried to buy (charles@pmug.org); we'll let the rest of the world know.

Hard drive manufacturers are starting to build copy protection into their drives. This is their answer to stopping pirated software. This will also make it really hard for owners of any kind of software to have a fully functioning backup for when they are hit with viruses or corrupted data. Calling themselves the 4C Entity (Intel, IBM, Toshiba and Matsushita), they want to install this on every hard drive made. There are reports that a second draft of the copy protection proposal limits this to removable devices. Just remember where most users store their backed up material. Jazz, Orb, Zip, Optical, CD-RW, and DVD recorders all fit in this category. My thoughts are that big brother should keep its hands off my media. That's all my media, be it a hard drive or an ejectable cartridge.

In a late breaking development, IBM is backing off from its push to have this become a standard. I think as people are becoming aware of the big brother watching they have seen negative comments rise rapidly. Please feel free to let them know what you think.

Here's a good laugh for most of you. Microsoft Exec Jim Allchin complains that Open Source threatens innovation. It seems that anything MS can't control is bad for the whole industry. You kinda wonder what kind of mind set MS managers have these days. This guy is even questioning the way the US government encourages open source. He thinks they need to be reeducated to understand the threat.

Long time Mac vendor MicroNet has closed. Parent company Ampex stated an 11.6 million dollar loss on revenues was the reason for the closing. Rumors says the employees are trying to work a deal to buy the division. MicroNet built disk arrays aimed at Macintosh computers.

FWB has announced that it is discontinuing SoftWindows 98 for the Macintosh. FWB bought SoftWindows from Insignia Solutions about two years ago. They have not given it a major upgrade and it has fallen behind Connectix's Virtual PC in speed and features. The DOS version will continue to be sold by FWB.

Apple has issued new software (version 1.3) for the Airport. This software adds Point-to-Point protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) for some DSL connections, DHCP Client ID support, AppleScript support, improved functionality for Computer-to-Computer mode and more.

The rumor mill has Apple opening its own retail stores in several major cities around the nation. So far Littleton CO, NY NY, Chicago IL, Glendale and Palo Alto CA have been mentioned. Apple told dealers in the past that it had no plans to open its own stores. So you've got to wonder if the way Apple products are treated in some of the superstores has changed their mind in this area. I don't know how many of you go into the Mac departments of certain superstores and never ever see a salesman in the Apple area.

MacWEEK is now Mac history. The last trace of The Original Source for hot Apple news was erased March 5th when MacWEEK.com was incorporated into MacCentral's web site. MacWEEK had only been a shadow of its former self for years. Before the Internet allowed you to check rumor sites 10 times a day, it was the highlight of the week to have MacWEEK arrive in the mail. Apple hit MacWEEK's sources pretty hard when Steve Jobs took over. It cost many employees their jobs for leaking Apple's plans to the press. It's hard to run an information leaking magazine when no one will talk to you. Rest in Peace, MacWEEK 1987-2001.

You can reach me at charles@cdevsol.com.

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