Winds of Change

written by Charles DeVore

from Mouse Tracks June/July 2003

As most of you are aware, Apple has introduced the iTunes Music Store. This store is hooked to the new versions of iTunes (4) and QuickTime (6.2). It is a way to buy your music right online. Mostly it is a good thing for System 10 users as they are the ones who purchased a million songs in just one week. However, I view this as the real death knell for System 9 users. Services that are set up by Apple to enhance the purchase of new machines and upgrades of systems are leaving System 9 users behind. Apple has stated that they will introduce a Windows version of iTunes by the end of the year so that PC people can use this service, but nowhere was it announced that System 9 users would get a version of the new service.

I have nothing against Apple selling music and I have to admit that Steve Jobs may have accomplished something no one else in the computer world could have done. He made the music industry agree on a way to move forward together. Many have tried with one or two labels and failed. Jobs managed to get five of the top music giants on his bandwagon. In fact, the only negative thing I can think of is the impact on older computer owners who can’t get the service.

The most positive point of the iTunes store is the proof that if you give most people the chance to be honest and pay for a product, the vast majority will pay. So many times people in the music industry tried to make us all feel like we are thieves stealing the food from the performers’ mouths. Now if the performers could only know how much of their money is stuck in the Big Five’s pockets. This could get very interesting.

As I mentioned before, Apple has released iTunes 4 and QuickTime 6.2. They go hand-in-hand, so if you download one be sure and download the other. iTunes 4 requires Mac OS X version 10.1.5 or later, a Macintosh with built-in USB ports, and recommends a 400MHz G3 processor or better, and 256MB of RAM. QuickTime 6.2 adds the ability to import your music in Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format and the use of music purchased from the iTunes Music Store in iLife applications. AAC is the new audio encoding format used in MPEG-4. Check out www.apple.com for more information about these products.

And speaking of products, the latest software OS update to System 10 (10.2.5) was followed by one of the quickest updates I have seen Apple come out with in the System X lifespan. The 6 meg update was issued to fix USB hub problems, taking the current revision to 10.2.6. The combined updater is a little over 80 megs to download. One of the interesting things I have noticed is that if you have the 10.2 version of the System running on your computer and you download the combined updater, it will not install from the download. It will, however, install if you use the Apple Software Update program and update the System via the Internet. I’m not sure what it was looking for, because I could get as far as selecting the volume, but it would not let me start the update. Hum… another Apple installer mystery, and pity the poor 56K modem user.

FINDER PREFERENCES
The other day I was looking at a System 10 computer, and someone had turned off the preference (in the Finder prefs) which lets you see the hard drive and the CD ROM. I forgot where you turn them back on and had to come home and play with my computer for ten minutes to figure out how to return the icons to the desktop. There are some things I do not like about System 10 and that is one of them. If it does not have desktop icons representing my drives, it’s really not a Macintosh as far as I’m concerned. Speaking of Finder prefs—here’s one that I like to set on any machine I work on and that’s the “always open folders in a new window.” System 10 drives me crazy replacing the window that I want to move something from with the window I want to move it to. So after checking that preference, the window I’m in stays open while the window I want to move something to appears. You may remember my comment about not going to System 10 all the time in my last column. Well, I did mean it, but I find myself doing some pretty strange things in System 9. Like going down to the bottom of the screen and expecting the Dock to pop up. Having to remember all the differences between 10, 9.1, 8.1, 7.5, and 7.1 makes me crazy. I find I have to boot one of the older machines and look through the System folder and menus to refresh myself. That’s when I remember why I still own machines like the Classic, LC, LC475, IIsi, 7200, 7600 and so on.

CAMP EXPERIENCE
MacCamp was interesting this year for me. I’ve never had a hard drive power supply blow up before. So now both Terence Dodge and I know what it sounds like. The bad part was that it was my external FireWire hard drive; the good part was that the drive itself survived the blast. The capacitor that was on the IDE to FireWire converter board decided to blow off inside the case, causing a loud bang, followed by smoke. The 30 Gig drive is now in another case and is happily backing up my TiBook. Best guess is that the capacitor was bad or marginal when it was installed at the factory. This is a great reminder of why you need to keep all your receipts filed in a place you can find them for warranty purposes. My old, dead drive case is on the way back to the place I bought it, and the new replacement drive case should be arriving shortly.

The “in” thing at MacCamp this year was the USB keychain drive. It seemed like everyone had one, and those who didn’t were going to get one. These are great devices for backing up small amounts of data and files. There are a few things to watch out for in the Macintosh world with these drives. They come formatted as MS DOS drives and should be reformatted as Macintosh volumes if you are not using it to move files back and forth with PCs. The reason for this is that PC drives store things differently than Mac formatted drives. PCs see the data fork and the resource fork as two different files and separate them, basically making the program unusable. System 10 native programs and files are not affected due to the way they are written but System 9 files are damaged and cannot be used.

Apple released a new version of the eMac and lowered the price of the unit. The new eMac bottom-of-the- line unit now sells for $800 with CD player (not CD-RW) and the top-of-the-line unit sells for $1300 with a DVD burner in it. This makes it the cheapest entry level DVD burning G4 that Apple produces. Sure would be nice if Apple stopped releasing these bottom of the line units with no CD-RW installed. Face it, even beginners need somewhere to save or store their files and music. I mean, if I can find a FireWire CDRW external drive for under $125, certainly adding the $50 it would cost you to the price tag to put one in the machine would make sense. So Apple, how about it? Your motto is “rip, mix, burn”—let them all have the ability to do so!

Also from Apple are the new iPods. Gone is the 5 Gig iPod, and in place of the buttons come touch sensor controls. Apple says less moving parts is good, I say touch controls tend to make selections accidentally, like skipping the song you wanted to hear. Oh well. The new iPod comes in 10 Gig, 15 Gig, and 30 Gig flavors. Its weight is less than 2 CDs with jewel cases, and if you buy the 15 or 30 Gig it comes with a dock for charging and connecting to your computer. The only thing I do not like about the new iPod is that it uses a special cable to connect it to your computer. The old iPod used a standard FireWire cable; the new one uses a special connector to fit the dock connector. On the plus side, Apple is bringing out a USB 2 cable that will also work with USB 1. This cable will help sell iPods to the non-FireWire iMac users and the PC world. I am also hoping that this means Apple will start putting USB 2 into future machines.

In the rumor mill, the new chip set for use in the Macintosh created by IBM is said to double the actual speed of the current Motorola chip. This would be a good thing for Apple as we have been falling way too far behind in speed. I’m not talking about clock speed, most likely it would bump up a little; I’m talking the speed things really happen on your computer. If this turns out to be true, it may be time for a new machine for me.

Microsoft beats its chest on how secure its Passport online identity service is, but it fell on its face recently. A hacker disclosed a breach that took him a whole four minutes to find, causing MS to shut down the service to fix the hole. However, if the service was that easy to break into, how much of the information is already sitting in someone else’s hands? The only thing MS proves over and over again is how a closed system is not as secure as they want you to believe.

How do many hackers get into computers? You might allow them access by downloading programs or patches from online sites you have never heard of before. Please, if you’re going to download some type of helper file, do so from sites like versiontracker.com. At least from there you have a fair idea that you are getting exactly what the site says you are. The Mac world has changed a lot with the advent of System 10. Even Mac users should be aware that some programs may just be a way for hackers to have your computer send personal information without your knowledge. The PC world recently had a virus that could capture the keystrokes that were being typed and send the information to another computer. Be careful, and remember to back up your data!

You can reach me at charles@cdevsol.com.

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