What an interesting world we live in today. One of my clients purchased a Xerox 3450 laser printer for use with System 9.2.1 and invited me over to set it up for her. Having set up printers of all kinds and sizes, I expected I was going to be in and out with very little problem. Boy, was I wrong! Now, don't get me wrong; the printer is a fine one, and for under $530 with PostScript 3 built in, it should last her a long time under 9.x.x and OS X. Everything went together just fine and powered right up. Xerox even put in a 6 foot USB cable so she did not need to buy one. The store the printer was purchased from sold the client an extra 10 foot USB cable, and I'm glad they did--the 6 foot cable that came with it just did not reach far enough. Then came the fun part--installing the software into System 9.2.1 by inserting the CD and doubleclicking on the English (language) installer; within seconds the job was done.

Here I need to clear up something: putting the printer together was a piece of cake. There was a printed handout with loads of pictures to walk you through the steps. However, when it got to the software and selecting the printer, there was no documentation. Normally a printer installer for System 9.x.x places a printer driver in your Extensions folder and a PPD in the Printer Descriptions folder, along with an extension for the USB port. The only thing I could find was a PPD for the printer. Thinking that it used the LaserWriter 8 driver in some way, I checked it out, knowing that it was not likely. Nothing showed up in the Chooser when Laser Writer 8 was selected, and no other printer icon showed up in the Chooser. At this point we checked out the USB connection by going to the Apple System Profiler. Yep, there it was, big as life. After calls to the store, and Xerox tech support, I was finally transfered to a Mac tech support person. She said "open the icon of the hard drive, open the applications folder, open the utilities folder, select desktop printer utility. Double click and select 3450 USB and save." I was amazed at how cheerful and helpful she was. We chatted for about five minutes on why Xerox went with that approach to selecting the printer. Then she suggested we try printing to make sure everything worked as advertised. We printed out a test sheet and after many thank yous, hung up. The printer works very well and is just what the client needed. The point is that Xerox should have included a section on setting up the software and selecting the printer. It would have saved a call to tech support.

A client asked the other day if iBooks and PowerBooks have fans. The answer is yes, they do, and yes, they are very small. As hot as these critters get, you may think that they are not cooled. There are vents on the sides or backs of these computers that allow the hot air to exit the unit. Those vents are the reason you should be very careful with liquids around these machines. If you do spill something on your laptop computer, get it unplugged and get the battery removed ASAP. Unless you know what you're doing, you may want to lay the computer keyboard down on a towel and then arrange with a service department to see what damage has been done. Sometimes it's as simple as replacing the keyboard, other times the motherboard may be toast. Please note AppleCare does not cover this kind of thing.

The new Airport Extreme driver (version 3.4.2) is supposed to fix the Airport card failure problem in PowerBooks that have over 1 Gig of RAM installed. People with this problem have had to remove some of the RAM to use their Airport card. So, if you have been having problems, you may want to update your driver now.

Apple has also released several other new or updated products in June, the first being Airport Express with AirTunes. Basically, this is a small version of the Airport base station that you can plug into your stereo system and listen to iTunes; use with a compatible USB printer for wireless printing or even surf the web. This seems to be Apple's way of forcing people to upgrade to the latest System and patches. In order to use this handy device, you will need to update iTunes to 4.6; the wireless printing needs at least System 10.2.7. For $129, it's small and very portable. If you want to know more about the product, go to your local computer store or check it out on the Apple web site. As a side note, one of the drawbacks of this device may be its size. Many users are going to grab it accidentally thinking that it's their PowerBook/iBook power supply. Other users are going to lose theirs--perhaps forgotten in hotel rooms. Many users will lose it to their children as the home-from-collegepreppy discovers how easy it is to convert his/her portable into the perfect stereo system. Oh well, buy two! Apple loves that kind of selling point.

Many security and system updates have occurred in the last month. Currently, we are looking at an updater for the OS 10.3.4 and several others like iTunes 4.6, Quicktime 6.5, five or six security updates, GarageBand 1.1, Java 1.4.2, and Backup 2.0. So, if you have not updated in a while, it may take some time. These updates range from 2 Megs to 79 Megs in size. So, unless you have DSL or a cable modem, it's going to be a while. PMUG will help with these updates for a $10 donation to the club. Contact charles@pmug.org for more information about this service. Owners of the 500 MHz iBook may want to wait a while before updating to 10.3.4; it seems that the update kills the microphone that is built into the machine, so that you can not use the iChat audio program. Other computer owners are reporting sound problems with 10.3.4 also; some even have problems with the built-in speaker. Apple seems to be getting a high number of complaints about this, so hopefully a fix or patch may come soon.

More big news from Apple is the refresh of the G5 tower line. The dual 2.5 GHz machine needed a water cooling unit to keep it from melting down. As far as I can tell, not much else has changed in the other models other than the removal of the single G5 1.6 Gig model from the line up. Do keep in mind they are still limiting the dual 1.8 model to 4 Gig of RAM rather than the full 8 Gig you can put into the top models. Also, the PCI slots in this model are not the PCI-X slots found in the top models. So, basically it is the old 1.6 MHz motherboard with two processors and no other changes to speak of.

The new G5s do come with a software feature that is very needed and welcome. It is called System Migration. When you first boot up your new G5, you are given a chance to connect a FireWire cable between your old machine and new machine. Then, you will be walked through migrating user folders, accounts and preferences to the new machine. This should save most folks a bundle of time. My only question is how some of the applications are going to take to being moved. Many new copy-protected programs like Quark, Dreamweaver, and other pricey applications anchor themselves to the machine, and know when they have been moved. My best guess is most will work for a while, then need to be reinstalled. Some will even demand you call the company and get a new serial number, so be aware there are very few ways around some kind of moving pain.

Apple has announced that it is no longer making the G4 tower. When the last one is sold; all those people relying on being able to boot into System 9 will no longer be about to purchase a new machine.

Why is it I get the feeling that Bluetooth is one of those things that was released a year before its time? What I see so far are some cell phone network connections, but other than that it is mostly mice and keyboards. Where are all the Bluetooth printers and other devices that were going to replace all those cabled devices hooked to our computers?

Every once in a while mail programs get corrupted messages or attachments that cause the mail reader to fail. Yes, it just locks up and you're stuck trying to get past that point. Sometimes you can get the mail through a different email program; other times you have to try other means. Most providers give you the option of web mail. Try going to the website of your provider, look for the mail button, put in your email name and your password. This should get you in to see your mail. If you know which message your good friend attached the 20 megabyte picture to, you can select that message and delete it. If not, you may have to go though all your mail on the server and delete after reading each one. After doing this, and making sure you have marked all the unwanted and bad mail to delete you should be able to send and receive your email using your normal email program.

Members and clients have been asking about virus software for the Mac for System 10. Wait to buy one until you need one. One of the best selling points currently for the Mac is the amount of viruses the Mac is affected by. At the current time the Mac has zero viruses to deal with. We have a couple of ways a Trojan program can get into your computer, most of which no virus program can find or stop. Currently there are no worms that we know of on System 10. When there are viruses out there, I will have to go back to trying to convince all users to get and keep current their virus software. Folks will say "but you need it to protect the PC users from viruses you may pass on to them from other PC users." Great, Norton AntiVirus does that to a degree. However you need to make sure you update this software every time there is a update or you're not protecting anyone. Many of the viruses the PC users get are due to the fact they do not update their virus software nor their system software to protect against their email program being taken over by a virus. Here are a few things you can do to protect PC users from themselves.
1 Do not forward executable attachments to them. Lots of viruses are buried in these programs.
2 If you send text files, be sure and put an extension of .txt on the end of the file name.
3 Don't forward or reply to emails requesting you send out messages to ten or twenty friends for good luck.
These are just a few things you can do to help your PC friends stay clean. When they send you a message saying you have given them a virus, tell them you have a Macintosh and if they have a virus, its source was another PC user. For those of you who love to make your old machines run as long as possible even though Apple does not support it in the current System, XPostFacto v3.0b1 has been released. This allows you to run OS X on hardware it was never intended to run on. Please note, I do not recommend doing this; but then, that never stops some people from trying. You can find XPostFacto v3.0b1 at Other World Computing or try a Google search.

Many of the readers of Macintouch suggest upgrading Photoshop to the CS version if you are using it in conjunction with InDesign CS. Many readers had written in complaining about Photoshop 7 crashing when used with InDesign CS. However the users who had upgraded to Photoshop CS reported no problems at all. 

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