Winds of Change

written by Charles DeVore

from Mouse Tracks September 2001

Maybe I come from a different planet than some software producers. They get really upset when we discover that their software uses our internet connection to tell its server when we are using certain software. We computer users deserve to be in charge of our own machines and software. Yes, I know there are pirates that copy other people's software and never pay for it. That alone does not give software companies permission to secretly connect and send information about our machines to their database. The company I'm referring to is TotallyHip, Inc; the software is LiveStage Pro 3. The information they are taking from your computer without your knowledge is: your IP and host addresses, the application version, the application's serial number and possibly its registered user name and company, your operating system (Mac or Windows) and version, your CPU type, your QuickTime version. Here's a word of advice to companies who think this is a good idea: stay out of my data. Do not use my internet connection without my permission. Warn users in writing on the outside of the box if you are going to send data to your servers every time the program is launched. In fact, the company received so much negative feed-back about this that they have released a patch removing their internet authentication connection. Yes, as a user you do have power but only if you know what's going on.

On almost the same topic, the Code Red virus is a little present from China. Sure, it affects only Microsoft servers, but Mac users are aware the Auto-Start Virus also came from China. We (here in the States) have hackers that (as far as most of us can tell) have too much time on their hands. Let's give them something to do. Of course the Feds would have to monitor this, but every time we get a virus threat from China, let the U.S. hackers take down every server in China. Only then will the Chinese government have a reason to go after them and stop the attacks on U.S. computers.

The new G4 looks very nice, but I'm not sure I like the new CD and Zip openings. These appear to have been created to stop end-users from putting in non-Apple devices. This kind of thinking is counter to what most of us in the real world want. The new Quicksilver tower not only has these custom doors that can't be removed, but the CD-RW player has no manual eject button nor any paperclip force-eject hole. There have been times I have needed to manually remove the CD from the drive due to customers loading more than one CD or children placing foreign objects into the drive. It just does not make any sense to make it hard to open the CD drive without having the machine on. The only ways to open the CD tray are: hold down the eject button on the Apple keyboard, run an eject tray program, or hold down the mouse button on start-up. All of these things require your Macintosh to be running.

Looking at the new Quicksilver model, the first thing I noticed was the Apple logo is missing from the front of the machine. The second thing was the speaker with no protection. I haven't met a small child yet that didn't like to push things into holes. If I owned one of these, I would be looking for some speaker grill material right away.

PageMaker 7.0 has some installation problems you should be aware of. Many of the extensions it installs are not up-to-date. This appears to me as slap-it-together to make some money off an older product. That's too bad because many of my clients use PageMaker. There is no excuse to include old versions of Macintosh Drag and Drop (1994), Simple Text 1.2, MicrosoftOLE extension (1996), QuickHelp 4.1, and Kodak Precision Color extensions (1995). If you loaded the program and get an error 1010, try turning on Color Sync with the Extensions Manager. Anyone who has upgraded to this version, please send me email about how happy you are with the program. I am still hoping the program works better than the installer.

Rumor has it that Apple has LCD/iMacs it could have introduced at MacWorld. The problem is the economy needs a little better outlook or the LCD's cost needs to come down a little bit more before the introduction of the product. It's one thing to have product; it's another to sell product during bad times. As Apple found out with the Cube, you can have a product that looks great and gets the job done yet has no volume market.

Some shareware products keep on working long after their release. I still play Forty Thieves, created by Eric Snider. This release of the game was in 1992, and it works perfectly under System 9.1. Eric later went to work for Delta Tao and produced Eric's Ultimate Solitaire. Janet and I met him at Macworld Expo a couple of years ago and thanked him for his work. At that time, he thanked us for paying the Shareware fee and said it helped him keep programming. So there's where your money goes when you pay your Shareware fee. Please help support good programs by paying for the programs you use.

So what's in a name anyway? Apple calls it FireWire, Sony calls it iLink, and many others refer to it as IEEE 1394. Many folks think these are different products. It makes no sense to me at all to have three or four different names for the same product. Apple and Sony need to get together and solve the name problem. It's costing all the product manufacturers time and money to market the same product under all these names.

If you have been reading about people using Toast Deluxe to burn ISO 9660 formatted disks or Mac/ISO hybrids, please remember you must purchase the full product before you get those options. The OEM version of the program included with your CD-RW recorder is a "lite" version of the program. Many companies get little money for those OEM versions so the only way they can make money is to sell you the upgrade. I always remind customers that in the old days, when CD-RWs were priced at $1,200, throwing in the full version was no problem. Now with $300 burners, the profit margins just don't allow this kind of bundle. So count on spending another $80 to upgrade to the full version if you want all the features. Another plus of buying the full package is that you get a well written manual that will tell you how to do those Mac/PC Hybrid copies.

While we are on the topic of CD-RW burners, here are a few items of interest. Do not try to burn files from a Zip drive, it's too slow to feed information to the burner. If you're having problems make sure that file sharing is off. Always empty the Trash before starting the burn. Use Norton Disk Doctor first to make sure there are no damaged files in the files and folders you're burning. CDs sometimes go bad so make several copies; and last, but not least, buy brand name CDs.

Lowest price is not how you buy RAM or hard drives. Look around and find out how long the company you are doing business with has been selling products. Ask what kind of return policy they have and ask what the shipping costs are. Many times low price is made up for with over-priced shipping, handling and insurance. Next, check out does the warranty work, under what conditions will they refund your money (if any)? The last and final thing to think about is who is going to install the product? If you are the installer, make sure you ask for the right brackets and screws for the hard drives. If it's RAM, be sure and have a static strap and wear it. If you're going to pay someone to do it for you, be sure and tell them any details in advance of arriving. These details include showing you how to increase memory for applications, moving the data from the old drive, replacing the battery, or cleaning the dust from the motherboard. Some consultants do, and some do not, perform these services.

New QuickSilver owners who are installing additional hard drives please note: Ultra ATA 40/80 cables are port specific; i.e., the blue connector must be placed on the MOBO; the black (or end) connector is placed on the Master; the gray (or middle) connector goes to the Slave. Now, while you can sometimes get away with swapping Master and Slave, you can never get away with swapping the MOBO (blue) connector with a drive. The result will be erratic behavior, crashes, data loss, and damage to directories, partition maps, boot blocks, system files, etc.; and generally only one drive will appear (mount) consistently due to improper alignment of the ground-loop on pin 33. Isn't progress wonderful?

The new machines also bring problems that most of us have not had before. Many new owners report that the speaker makes a hissing noise after it's been in use. The only way to make it stop hissing is to check the mute box. This is not a good thing. This may be a hardware defect but let's hope it can be solved with a software patch.

Things I don't like about USB keyboards and mice. If you plug the keyboard and mouse into the USB hub, you can't use the C key to start up with the CD ROM in the drive. When your computer starts up it looks at its USB ports to see if there is a signal coming from the keyboard or mouse. It will not see the keyboard, but it will see a USB device (the hub). If it does not see the keyboard or mouse it starts loading the System off of the hard drive. So if you are having problems with your machine and can't seem to start up with your System CD or your Rescue CD, ask yourself where the keyboard and mouse are plugged in. At times like these, I'm happy my B&W G3 is ADB.

Other USB things that have to be plugged directly into the computer are CD-RW recorders and some brands of scanners. So if for some reason the USB device is having problems, try connecting it directly into the computer.

Speaking of keyboards, it seems that Apple is doing its best to drive people to use their keyboard with the built-in eject button, sound up and sound down buttons. That would be well and good if we all liked the same feel to our keyboards. I hate the feel of the Apple keyboards, as the keys feel mushy and have no action. On the other hand, I love the old Apple extended II keyboard–it had the feel I like. The big problem is I can't buy a third party keyboard with all the features Apple is building in. If Apple is going to give keyboards special keys, they should allow the third party manufacturers to add keys giving the same functions as the ones on the Apple keyboards.

I got a good kick out of a quote by James Coates, a writer for the Chicago Tribune. "Quite frankly, I am appalled that I see no alternative other than to join the torrent of fawning, feel-good, kiss-up-to-Steve Jobs iBook reviews already filed by some of my competitors in the kiss-up-to-Steve Jobs, Apple-centric media." (I thought I had problems with run on sentences.) I'd like to know where he gets his news, cause most of what I read is pro PC, down on Apple. If our local paper prints anything positive about Apple it puts at least one negative twist in at the end. His later comment is really a good one: "just about every new computer technology that surfaces makes its debut as a Windows-only product". Really? What rock does this guy live under? He goes on to give the iBook a positive review with the only negative being it's an Apple product.

You can reach me at charles@cdevsol.com.

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