Mugshot 9801

MacUser Raves Over Graphics Accelerator

The April 1997 MacUser calls the $349 4mb XClaim VR PCI multimedia accelerator a 'steal'. It is like 5 cards in one: three accelerators (quickdraw 2D, quickdraw 3D, quicktime), a video capture, and a tv output.

PowerBook 3400

64 bit wide processor bus (1400's is 32 bits) running at 40 mhz.
Fast 70 nanosecond EDO Ram
256k Level 2 cache (makes a big difference)
Chips & Technologies 65550 Graphics Controller (standard in Wintel market, and roughly double the speed of the 1400's graphic controller. It even offers limited Quickdraw acceleration.
Video ram is only 1 mb and not expandable! Therefore, maximum 24 bit colour.
Built in ethernet is back via a PCI card.
12.1 inch active matrix colour screen (800x600)
Twin slot PC card cage, same as 1400 & 5300. This handles two Types I or II, but only one Type III. Only 16 bit is supported. The hardware could handle 32, but Apple couldn't get the software in time.
The expansion bay is bigger, and now handles CDs. They are hot swappable, but sadly, won't handle modules designed for the 1400.
Tap and drag trackpad.
Full sized keyboard.
Faster built in Infrared networking
Ram expandable to 144 mb.
Very difficult to service.
Lithium ion battery. Better than nickel metal hybride of the 5300. Similar design to 5300 though.
Two subwoofers in the clam shell.
April 1997 MacUser

Infrared Networking

It began in the Powerbook 5300. It continues in the 3400. The old speed for IRTalk was 115 kbps. It still can use that, but now can go at 230 kbps or even use the 1.2 Mbps IrDA (Infrared Data Association) standard. But the latter requires a special IrDA compatible Ethernet network node, and doesn't work between 3400s.
Newton MessagePad 2000 and the emate 300 will have IrDA compliance.

Remote Access

Apple has offered cheap methods of remotely using your network for some time. AppleTalk Remote Access, or ARA, came free years ago, and some are still using version 1.0 today. Then Apple started to charge, for later versions, but now again offers it free with the system. But now, it is too slow.
ARA disable's your modem's built-in compression and substitutes its own. That was great before, but terrible now.
It is feasible to set up remote access to your network with the industry standard PPP protocol. It is faster, but also cross platform.
Different capabilities have different requirements:
- Email and Internet - Well, duh. If your network is on the internet, and your remote computer is too, well then, they can communicate.
- Internal TCP/IP communications - Your network might have its own email system or shared database system. If it uses TCP/IP, you can get on with PPP. But if there is a firewall, you will need access to a PPP compatible remote access server within the network.
- AppleTalk Devices - the network must have a PPP server, and the remote machine must have PPP client software, and both require 'AppleTalk over PPP'. Shiva and Sonic both offer this. Although, Apple's OpenTransport PPP doesn't support it, FreePPP and SonicPPP both do.
- Full Power - ARA 3.0 is due. It will support both AppleTalk and TCP/IP via PPP as well as ARAP.
April 1997 MacUser
[Consider also things like NetRemote and Timbuktu]

System 7.5.5 Memory Tip

Apple recommended adding 23k to all the preferred memory sizes of applications running under System 7.5.5. Yeah right, even if we had the energy, how do you do that for control panels, DAs, even the Finder.
There are utilities to fix the Finder's memory, such as FinderHeap Fix. But anything can be fixed with ResEdit. There are two main ways. First, change the Size resource. Second, change the type to APPL, then use the regular Get Info command to set the preferred memory, since the system will now think it is an application. The latter may permit you to avoid using ResEdit, since there are various utilities which will change the file type.
As always, work with a copy.
April 1997 MacUser

Processor Summary

601 - the first Power PC
603 - the second Power PC
602 - intended for PDAs and game machines. Less than 50% of 601.
603 - approximately the same speed as the 601
603e - about 114% the speed of the 601
604e - about 133% the speed of the 603e
April 1997 MacUser.

Double Browser Tip

Supposing you use both Explorer and Navigator. Most of the plug-ins will work in either. But they need to be stored in different places. Both will use aliases. So put the originals in one, and aliases in the other.
April 1997 MacUser

Where Did Auto On/Off Go?

Forgive me if the name is wrong. System 7.5.x had a control panel with a name something like Auto On/Off. I got used to that quickly, believe me. Now, with System 8, it is gone. But, if you have it, try the Energy Saver Control Panel, which has a scheduled shutdown and startup.
That doesn't help with external devices though. For those, some sort of electric timer is needed. Sophisticated Circuits PowerKey Pro is recommended.
April 1997 MacUser

Offline Browsing via Graphic Conversion

Print2Pict is a driver. You choose it with the chooser, then print, in any program. It creates a PICT file.
So...if you want to review a web page offline, including the graphics, this works.
April 1997 MacUser

Fight Spam with Knowledge

Junk email will usually not clearly indicate its source. If it did, the sender knows that flaming would be likely.
Display full headers and check the X-Sender address, or Received From.
Try Internic to find out who provides the mailer's internet access or domain name.
Try a Utility like MacTCPWatcher (1.1.2 freeware from Peter N. Lewis at Stairways.com) which offers a TraceRoute function.
Try a web utility like GSpam which will do domain name lookups, as well as traceroute.
April 1997 MacUser

Problem with Australian Domain?

In Eudora Lite, I tried an automatic reply to an australian writer. It failed. I had to type the '.au' suffix on myself. Probably that is because the second to last suffix was '.edu'.

Doom II Cheat Codes

IDDQD for omnipotent action, or IDBEHOLD+V (invulnerability).
April 1997 MacUser

Desktop LCD Screens

It's begun. Although the monitor will cost thousands of dollars, active matrix LCD screens are being offered for special desktop applications (space-critical, or where powerful magnets must be avoided) and being purchased.
How far will the price drop? Will they repace CRT? Stay tuned.
April 1997 MacWorld

Big Hard Crashes of Web Server

A minor typo at the end of an URL, sent to a Web server running StarNine's Webstar 1.3.1 or 2.0 with Maxum Development's NetCloak 2.1 plug -in, will crash the server.
NetCloak 2.1.1 was rapidly posted to fix the problem.
April 1997 MacWorld

PDF Not Likely To Die

Acrobat 3.0 came out. It still offers the ability to create bloated portable document format (PDF) files which will run on virtually any system on the freely distributed Acrobat Reader.
It comes with:
- PDFWriter, a chooser driver, to let you print to PDF format
- Distriller, a batch converter of Postscript to PDF
- Exchange, a PDF editor
- Reader, to freely distribute
Now it offers electronic forms capability, with fields and buttons.
Further, it is tied tightly to PostScript, since Adobe makes both. So it is increasingly becoming a viable option for a print format.

PDF For The Rest Of Us

Acrobat Reader is free, and it lets anybody of any computer platform read the bulky damn PDF (Portable Document Format) files. But Reader won't write, or even do a save as.
Now, Visioneer's Paperport Deluxe scanner software offers a link which will translate to PDF files.
April 1997 MacWorld

VRML For the Rest Of Us

Paragraph's Virtual Home Space Builder lets us create 3D worlds complying with the VRML 2.0 specification, and quickly renders them. Available as a $30 download.
April 1997 MacWorld

Paper Forms

Us legal types, and maybe others, must still complete paper forms for stubborn, primitive bureaucracies. We all want to scan a form, and then edit and print from the computer.
Visioneer offers FormTyper, a $20 addon for PaperPort Vx.
Shana offers Informed 2.0, a forms design program, and Informed Filler, which completes the forms. The latter is $195 but comes with the former for a package price of $295. Informed is cross-platform, FTP friendly, ODBC compliant, and supports attachments.
Caere offers $199 OmniForm and OmniForm Filler ($99). It makes a scanned form into a little spreadsheets, capable of simple calculations.
April 1997 MacWorld

USRobotics Palm Pilot

It's no Newton. It's cheaper and people like it. It doesn't even try to read standard handwriting. Instead, it teaches you the Graffiti system, wherein any character can be made in a single stroke. That doesn't take long, and if you can't handle it, you can call up a keyboard and poke in your thoughts.
There are four built in applications.
It comes with 128k or 512k of ram. The latter will permit adding in new programs.
Simple AAA batteries last forever.
Synchronization with your desktop machine requires a special MacPac which offers different cables for an extra $15.
Now Software will be offering synchonization with its PIM software.
$300US
April 1997 MacWorld

PowerBuilder 5.0 - Powerful Mac Database, We Hope

Oracle, Sybase, Informix, DB2 rule big business databases. 4D and FileMaker rule Mac small offices.
PowerBuilder is an icon driven system to create SQL database applications, which will run on any platform.
It uses 'distributed objects', a new scheme whereby any object can reside on any computer, rather than simply the usual interface/logic on client, data on server scheme.
You can save displays as HTML, and there is a plugin to permit browsers to display reports.
Only $3K
April 1997 MacWorld

Order of Control Strip Modules

Change the order of Control Strip Modules by option dragging them.
April 1997 MacWorld

Sleep Fast

Command Shift zero, or control clicking the menu-bar battery icon will put a Powerbook to sleep.
If a desktop machine is capable of it, command option power will put it to sleep.
The following OneClick script (which just sends apple events to the finder) will do it too:
- Process(0).SendAE "fndr,snoz"
April 1997 MacWorld

Browser Cache

We have previously suggested putting a shrinkwrap disk image in the start up items, then using it as the volume for the Browser cache. Excellent speed is possible if you set the preference to keep a disk image in ram.
However, if you only occasionally use the browser, that wastes a lot of ram. In that case, launch the browser with an Applescript that will load the disk image and set the proper preference. Here is a suitable script:
- tell application "ShrinkWrap"
  - activate
  - set RAM Disk of preferences to true
  - mount alias "MacHD:Internet Cache" with unlocked //or whatever you called it
  - quit
- end tell
- activate application "Netscape"
April 1997 MacWorld

Alternative To Stickies

Since about System 7, you can, if the program supports it, drag selections to the desktop to create clippings files. These are essentially like a named clipboard. You can store commonly used text or graphics, and just drag and drop to insert them. That is good.
Putting such a file in the startup items offers capability like Stickies.
But you can't edit clipping files. That is, unless you install Finder Note, a shareware application and extension.
April 1997 MacWorld

Automatic PPP Connection

System 7.6 comes with OpenTransport. OpenTransport comes with an OSAX (Open Scripting Architecture Extension) to permit AppleScript to control it. System 7.6 comes with a script to automate the connection, but the stupid thing always asks for your name and password. The following script with remember it:
- copy (PPP status) to pppStatus
- copy (get state of PPPStatus) to pppState
- if pppState is "idle" then
  - copy the button returned of (display dialog "PPP is currently idle." buttons {"Open PPP Connection", "Cancel"} default button 1 with icon 1) to user_choice
  - if user_choice contains "Open" then
    - try
      - PPP connect
    - on error
      - display dialog "Oops! Couldn't start PPP." buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with icon 2
    - end try
  - end if
  - if user_choice is "Cancel" then quit
- end if
October 1997 MacUser

IMAP - New EMail Standard

Internet Mail Access Protocol delivers only headers, so users can choose which to get. The server retains copies even after download.
Apple intends to adopt it.
February 1997 MacUser

Explorer 3.0 Features

JavaScript
Java
Cascading style sheets
Floating frames [html pages within other pages, just like an image]
Customizable tool bars [drag a hyperlink to a bar, and it creates a button for it]
At the time, took Microsoft ahead of Netscape.
February 1997 MacUser

CD Rewritable Format

CR-RW is adopted by HP, Mitsubishi/Verbatim, Philips, Ricoh, and Sony. Wow. The format is known as Orange Book III.
It will be coupled with UDF (Universal Disk Format) 1.5, and be, apparently, fully rewritable CDs for under $1K/drive.
Unfortunately, old regular CDRom and CR-R drives won't read them. The reflectivity will be too low.
February 1997 MacUser

Mariner Write 1.3 - Affordable with Nice Surprises

875 disk space
<2 mb ram
<$70US
drag and drop
headers, footers, footnotes - not end notes
style sheets (paragraphs only) exportable with 'based on' and 'next style'
discontiguous selections!
importsEPS, PICT, JPEG, GIF
setting to minimize disk access
Applescript-able!
support for WorldScript
10 levels of undo!
Uses Macintosh Easy Open and DataViz filters.
but
- no mail merge
- sections
- tables
- bookmarks
- endnotes
- outlines
Mariner Software
February 1997 MacUser

Nisus Writer 5.0

Noncontiguous text selection
intelligent searches (savable!)
built in scripting language
style sheets
graphics
tables
drop in sounds/movies
WorldScript
supports AppleScript, Publish and subscribe, drag and drop, PowerTalk (now defunct) openDoc live objects (it even comes with a handful of them)
but awkward and buggy HTML
Four mice
MacUser May 1997

Internal Battery Death Symptom

An internal battery lets your Mac remember stuff when turned off, like the time, and certain key preferences and data.
If the battery is dying, the power on/off key may not function, or it make take several presses.
And, of course, you might be losing PRAM settings.
February 1997 MacUser

SpeedDoubler 2

The major purpose of SpeedDoubler is to improve the emulation of the 680x0 CPUs when running on PowerPCs. Any programs not compiled specifically for the PowerPC ('native') are run under emulation. However, certain portions of the system itself are not native. This is steadily improving, but there are still non-native parts of even OS8!
Of course as time goes by, less and less will be using emulation. So SpeedDoubler is increasingly incorporating other doodads to increase the user's perception of speed. For instance, file copies, network copies, keyboard menu control are included also.
MacWorld Benchmarks
- Application - Scored nearly identical to SpeedDoubler 1.1.1, and about 9% better than regular Power PC. But note, this is with 'native' applications!
- Disk Access - Beefed up 'noticeably' with better caching and optimization for small hard drives and removables.
- Network File Transfer - Presumably this uses similar techniques to other network performance utilities, by using TCP/IP protocols rather than AppleTalk. Indeed, the biggest boost comes when SpeedDoubler is installed on both machines. However, even on only one computer, the performance improvement is noticeable. Further, it comes with a little server utility you can install. In other words, your license gives you SpeedDoubler on your machine, and that server utility on the other computer.
- File Copy - Larger chunks of data and extra ram are used. But Apple is catching up in this area and MacWorld couldn't detect a difference. My experience is that the copy takes a long time to start, but is multi-threaded so often I don't care, then goes very fast. On average it may be the same, but I venture to say you will feel improvement on large file transfers.
There is a package for sale now, with SpeedDoubler 2.0.1 and RamDoubler 8.0.1 for a reduced price.
MacWorld May 1997

MYOB Accounting 7

Excellent payroll
Excellent inventory
Allows choice of unchangeable entries, locking of months, and screen passwords.
No multiple simultaneous users.
No time tracking, just a link to Timeslips.
MacWorld May 1997

Windows NT Networks

Windows NT has a built in AppleShare server that lets it host Macs. Kudos to Bill. But if it is not installed, or the administrator refuses, Dave 1.0 from Thursby Software Systems lets you log on, looking like a Windows machine. You can access files and printers (on LAN or dialup) but not serve them.
MacWorld May 1997

Read Digital Watermarks

Graphics should be distributed on the internet. But would people pay? One of the schemes is to embed a 'watermark' identifying the artist, so that you can pay (or s/he can prove you stole it).
Digimarc offers a free reader which will let you get the watermark, and query the 'MarcCentre' db on their web site.
MacUser May 1997

MonKeyChain - Password Management

MacUser has an exclusive utility, MonKeyChain, to do password management. You put the user name and password into its encrypted db, storing server or generic URL or FTP icons on a floating palette. After that you only need to remember one password, the one to MonKeyChain.
This was a feature of the now defunct PowerTalk. [It had features!?]
MacUser May 1997

The New New Math - 12x CD Roms only 37% faster than 8x

8x drives are about 50% faster than 4x. 12x are about double the speed of 4x and 37% faster than 8x.
How they justify the claims is by referring to best-case, theoretical data-transfer rates. A single speed is 150k/sec, 8x is 1.2 mb/sec, and 12x is 1.8 mb/sec.
But access time, buffer size, and driver caching are big factors. The size and fragmentation of the file will determine which factors are the most critical.
MacUser May 1997

Mac-Compatible OS Claims Omega

German developer Omega claims its new OS, called COS, will run in 4 mb of RAM on 680x0 and PowerPC macs with FPUs. The claim is that the $99 software, based on its own micro-kernel, will run all MacOS 7.6 and 8.0 compliant software, at four times the performance. However, the desktop will be very simple, "nothing with gimmicks or funny things that cut down the performance."
MacWorld January 1998

Mac-Emulater for Windows

$200 Gemulator 98 Advanced Edition from Emulators promises to emulate a 68040 or earlier mac on Windows. It includes a half-size ISA card with Mac ROM chips for speedier emulation.
MacWorld January 1998

MacWorld Lukewarm on Quicken Deluxe 98

They like Quicken. They even like the new features. They just don't seem them as vital, excepting report formating. Changes include:
- Splits window now automatically changes size to display more items
- Account bar at the bottom lets you quickly switch to any of the 5 most recent accounts.
- New Total line at the bottom of the account list shows net worth dynamically.
- Online banking is improved and includes Payment Log for activity in the last 60 days.
- Report formating is improved, and may be done from within the report itself.
- QuickEntry permits entries when the program is not running.
- Emergency Records organizer offers to store information about your important records in a secure place.
- Tax Deduction Finder steps you through a search for qualifying expenses.
- The investment module now permits multiple investments on a single chart. But it can't compensate for a stock split, although a checkbox appears to promise that ability.
- It includes various links to web sites.
MacWorld January 1998

MacWorld Lukewarm on ClarisWorks Office

"Built around the minimally revised ClarisWorks 5.0, Claris Works Office offers a great value--especially if you don't already have an existing set of software and need an all-in-one productivity package--but owners of Claris Works 4.0 shouldn't rush to upgrade."
MacWorld January 1998

MacWorld Compares Genealogy Software - Reunion Rules

Family Tree Maker Deluxe Edition II 3.02 from Brøderbund, and Ultimate Family Tree Deluxe from Palladium Interactive are considered to be clumsy ports of popular PC products.
Reunion 5.02 from Leister Productions gets a 4 star review, with words like "spectacular", "optimaized", "blue-blood".
Reunion accommodates many family setups, has autofill, auto capitalization, a ditto command, drag and drop, attachable multi-media, formating, and charting.
MacWorld January 1998

Delta Compression Update - Aladdin's Flashback 1.0

You designate which files (specified, those of a specified application, or all). It then runs in the background and records the contents of, and changes to, successive versions of each file. Then you can restore to any prior version of the file.
You can tell it to only store version when you close a file, or at user-defined intervals.
But the only way to designate files is by drag-and-drop. Additional Rule-oriented ways would help, like "all new files", etc.
But, Aladdin's ad suggests they use tiny 'diff' files. So that is little help with small precedent files or templates, due to minimum file sizes.
MacWorld January 1998

Myst Sequel: Riven

Broderbund has released Riven, the 5 disk (5 CDs!?) sequel to Myst. MacWorld says it surpasses the extremely popular original.
MacWorld January 1998

Desktop Patterns Sources - Nostalgia for 7

System 8 offers pictures on the desktop, and random selections at startup, and drop-in additions to the list. But you lose some of the old popular Desktop Patterns.
Desktop Patterns are tile-based, so presumably faster. They are found in the system file, or in the Desktop Patterns Prefs file. But the latter is moved to the trash the first time you use the Desktop Picture control panel in System 8. Find them with ResEdit. They are type ppat. Copy them, then paste them into the Desktop Pictures Control Panel Window.
MacWorld January 1998

Finder Views - More Nostalgia for 7

System 8 permits more flexibility for views. Each folder can have its own. But that means, you can't set a global preference.
In my humble opinion, there should always be a default you can set.
Anyway, Finder View Settings is $10 shareware by Alessandro Levi Montalcini which solves the problem.
Or you can use AppleScript. For instance, the following is the script for a little drag-and-drop application, what scripters call a Droplet. Forgive any errors, I typed this by hand.

on run

tell application "Finder"
set theList to selection

-- i.e., if the droplet is run, it will work on selected items

end tell
changeItems(theList)

end run

on open theList

changeItems(theList)
-- i.e., if the droplet is activated by dragAndDrop, then theList will contain the files

end open

to changeItems(theList)

tell application "Finder"

repeat with thisItem in theList

if kind of thisItem is in ("Folder", "disk") then

set wasOpen to false
try

--this tells if the folder's window is not a popup
get popup of window of thisItem

on error

-- if the folder's window isn't a popup, make sure it's open
if exists window of thisItem then set wasOpen to true
open thisItem -- non popup window must be open to set view options

end try
try

--due to a bug, both of the following commands are required to set the 'always snap to grid' option.
-- ***here is where to put other commands to set view options.***
set keep arranged of thisItem to true
set keep arranged of thisItem to «class grid»

on error

displaying dialog "Couldn't set '" & (name of thisItem) & "'." buttons "Continue" default button 1

end try
if wasOpen is false then close thisItem

end if

end repeat
select theList --restore the selection

end tell

end changeItems
See the Applescript web site for technical discussions and this and other utilities.
MacWorld January 1998

ClarisWorks Tip - Entering References

When entering a formula in ClarisWorks, you can enter a reference by clicking on the cell (e.g. A1). Ah, you knew that. But did you know that if you option click the cell, it enters the absolute reference (e.g. $A$1).
The blessing and the curse of absolute references is that they are not affected by edits to your spreadsheet or to the source spreadsheet.
MacWorld January 1998

Playing With System Fonts

System 8 lets you choose among a few system fonts, but doesn't let you add them. Probably that is because a new font better have characters for command, shift, etc. and a very nice 12 point size (or be TrueType).
First. Find such a font.
- Marty Pfeiffer's free Virtue font, which looks like Charcoal but has looser letter spacing like Chicago.
- Pfeiffer also offers $10 Nu Sans Bold 12, a clone of the Espy Sans Bold font used in headings and titles in AppleGuide windows.
- Kaleidoscope comes with three: Espi Sans Bold 10, Tecton (like Adobe Tekton), and Veritas 12 (like Charcoal).
- Pick any font you like, and add the special characters yourself with a font-editor, or resEdit.
Second, add the font.
- Kaleidoscope shareware by Greg Landweber, can change system appearance in many ways, including fonts. Try MacDownLoad. But some, like me, are scared, because it modifies the system file during startup.
- Edit the resources of the Appearance extension file with ResEdit. Naturally, you work on a copy. Open sfn# resources using the STR# template. Scroll to the bottom. You should be seeing a list of the system fonts. Click on the last set of asterisks. Choose Insert New Field twice from the Resource Menu. Put the name of the font in the first, and the size in the second.
- The aforementioned Virtue font comes with a patching application, which essentially automates method #2.
- It is possible to edit the resources in the Appearance Control Panel, but then the system font popup menu won't work.
- MacWorld January 1998

Graphics Merging Operation Terms

Graphics programs let you perform complex operations on, well, graphics, to, well, merge them.
Intersection
deletes everything except the parts that are overlapping the farthest back object
Union
groups selected objects into a single object
Difference
like a cookie-cutter, it cuts out the overlapping object's shape from the background object
Reverse Difference
like Difference, but the operation cuts out the background object's shape from the foreground object.
Exclusive Or
combines all the shapes, but cuts out the parts that overlap each other (sort of a reverse of Intersection)
Combine
like Exclusive Or, but does not place corner points at all the intersection points.
Join Endpoints
it, well, joins endpoints. To work, the open endpoints of two lines (curved or straight) must be close to each other.
Quark XPress 4.0 will do all those.
MacWorld January 1998

Windows Emulation Tips

It's either SoftWindows from Insignia Solutions, or Virtual PC from Connectix.
But you better have about 250 mb of contiguous space on your hard drive, so optimize first.
Don't install SoftWindows 3.1 then upgrade it with the real Windows 95. It goes about 1/3 of proper speed. If you intend to go with Insignia, and want Windows 95, install SoftWindows 95.
Don't expect to use RamDoubler with SoftWindows. Sometimes it won't even work with Apple's Virtual Memory. Virtual PC seems ok.
Don't have a floppy inserted when you launch SoftWindows, or you'll need a paperclip to get it out.
Don't connect to the Internet with the Windows Control panel. Instead, use the Softwindows set up menu to route the Windows browser and email through the Mac's PPP and TCP/IP utilities. It's slower, but reliable and easy. Virtual PC is the opposite, so you must set it up like a regular PC user. Better call for help.
Avoid multi-tasking with Virtual PC.
MacWorld January 1998

Placing Something At the End of An Alphabetical Sort

The forward delete key, assuming it doesn't, well, delete forward, puts in an ascii character which is invisible and sorts out at the bottom. This is ideal for the Finder.
MacWorld January 1998

Wires

I have always overlooked the wires. I knew that the bits must go in pulses of some form across wires, but I figured that the key was the creation and detection of the pulses. Evidently there is more to it than that.
It made sense to me that if you are experiencing bottlenecks with a single wire, divide the pulses and send them over more wires. That is using a 'parallel' approach. And indeed, SCSI has from 25-68 wires in parallel, and computers have been steadily increasing their 'bus width'. The Mac was an industry leader when it came out with whopping big 8 bit buses. This means that the 'wire' between the computer brain and the other computer parts, like memory, hardware controllers, expansion slots, etc., was actually 8 wires going simultaneously. Now leading computers are talking of bus widths of 64 and 128!
But the parallel approach has limitations. The bits being sent simultaneously must arrive at least in some harmony, if not simultaneously, or the confusion, if resolvable at all, will slow things down. Length of the parallel wire is limited because the longer the wire, the greater the divergence of the pulses. It also seems that the faster the pulses are sent, the shorter that length becomes.
I guess that's why SCSI cables are annoyingly short, and the total chain is limited, and even though it is very fast, network cables are never SCSI and typically not parallel at all.
But now, the senders and detectors are so damned fast, that using parallel cables to improve the speed results in unusably short lengths. So just regular serial pair cables can achieve comparable or greater results. And they are way cheaper. And way easier to attach to a plug. And far less fragile.
As a side note, my crude understanding of fibre-optics, is that by using different wavelengths of light to carry the pulses, you can achieve the benefits of parallelism in a single wire, and be much less restricted in distance.
'Serial', according to the Random House Dictionary means:
- 1. n. anything published or broadcast in short installments or regular intervals
- 2. adj. of or pertaining to a serial
- 3. adj. of or arranged in a series
Definition 3 is the closest to how 'serial' is used in reference to computer wiring. Where devices can be hooked up in a series, such as in a network, where a wire runs from one computer, to the next, to the next, to the next, it would be properly called serial. But computer usage adds the requirement that it not be parallel. For instance, although SCSI, which can handle seven devices in a series, is 'serial' by ordinary English, it is not so in computer usage. I wonder if a wire which is not parallel would be called serial, even if it could not handle a series of devices. I imagine so. This is so, notwithstanding that SCSI, the leading example of parallelism, actually stands for 'small computer serial interface'. Language is crazy.
Anyway, one expects that originally wiring would be 'serial', in the sense of a pair of wires, the minimum amount permitted when using electricity. Presumably the wiring became more standard.
Eventually, by the early 80's, devices like modems (slow) and networks (long) used 'serial' standards like RS-232, while devices like disk drives used 'parallel' standards. At that time, printers would come in either parallel or serial, often supporting both. Most were able to outspeed their CPUs in some cases and were kept close at hand, so parallel wiring had its appeal. Recall the early Mac Imagewriter, which plugged into either port.
SCSI had 25 pins minimum. That is how many come out the back of a typical Mac. But most storage devices require a ground wire for each, so that brings it to 50. That is how many come out of the back of most disk drives. It can handle 8 devices (counting the CPU), at up to 6 metres in total length.
Wide SCSI is 16 bits wide, so it uses 68 wires. Sure. Of course.
Engineers promise that they can push out the usable length of SCSI again, by using Differential SCSI. Normal SCSI measures the difference between the pulse and the ground. Differential SCSI measures the difference between two signals, which, somehow, gives more precise control over each signal pulse. After that, Low Voltage Differential SCSI, aka Ultra 2 SCSI will use shorter more closely spaced pulses.
I've been tortured by wiring because when a new standard comes out, it includes both a hardware and a software protocol. Then, inevitably, they separate, and yet they have the same name. Apple's old serial standard, LocalTalk, eventually separated into the hardware (still called LocalTalk) and the software (now called AppleTalk) since many of us are communicating via AppleTalk over Ethernet, another serial cable.
That is why, it should come as no surprise, that as serial (misnamed) begins to prevail over SCSI, SCSI will be running on the serial. SCSI-3 is the next software protocol, and it supports use of serial wires, and specifically of SSA, FC-AL, and firewire cables.
SSA is serial storage architecture. It is a looped scheme, with each device connected to its two neighbours by way of two bi-directional cables. Each can read/write simultaneous signals from multiple sources at 20 mb/sec, for a total of 80 mb/sec. It claims to keep the bus packed to its greatest capacity with 'spacial reuse' technology. Unfortunately, the MacOS is not yet capable of taking advantage of that trick. The only major current drive vendor for this format is IBM. But, it is easy to use and manage, and highly efficient in multi-client setups.
FC-AL is 'fibre channel arbitrated loop'. It is the very fastest, sort of, at 200 mb/sec (SCSI is 5), and not even approaching its potential. It is hub based, sort of. Each device has one cable, connecting it to the hub. But the hub contains a loop, and the loop can only handle one transaction at a time, so each device must share and therefore reduce the theoretical speed. But the wait is so short that studies show it can hold up well under enormous transaction loads. It has several vendors, but is still very expensive.
FC-EL is 'fibre channel enhanced loop', which doesn't even have a final specification in place at the time of writing, but promises to combine the best of SSA and FC-AL.
USB is 'universal serial bus'. It is amusing to read the MacWorld article in the knowledge that Apple has elected to standardize on it. They describe it as a low-cost, low-speed interface designed for things like mice and keyboards, maybe low end scanners, and state, "Only appropriate storage use is for CD-ROM drives. No Mac specification yet." Indeed, at the time of writing the speed of 1.5 mb/sec is markedly inferior to even the original SCSI.
Firewire is Apple version of the IEEE-1394 specification, and seems to be supported by Sony. It offers good ease of use, and Apple seemed excited about it.

Technology	When Avail-able	Max devices/bus	Max bus length (metres)	Mb/sec max through-put
Parallel
SCSI-1	1984	8	6	5
Fast SCSI	now	8	3	10
Fast Wide SCSI	now	16	3 normally 25 if differential	20
Ultra SCSI	now	4 or 8	3 if 4 devices 1.5 if 8 devices 25 if differential	20
Wide Ultra SCSI	now	4 or 8 or 16	NA if 16 devices 1.5 if 8 devices 3 if 4 devices 25 if differential	40
Ultra 2 SCSI	late 97	8	12 if low voltage differential	40
Wide Ultra 2 SCSI	late 97	16	12 if low voltage differential	80

Serial			*Max distance between* devices**
SSA	late 97	127	25	4x20
FC-AL	mid 97	127	30	2x100
USB	98	127	5	1.5
FireWire	98-99	63	10	25 now 50 later
FC-EL	99-2000	?	?	200-400
Ethernet	?	?	?	?
Fast Ethernet	?	?	?	?

At the kind of speeds available now, the day fast approaches when your disk drive will be part of the same wiring chain as your CPU on the network. As that day comes, one might expect:
- the devices to become more independent, like Laserwriters;
- network access to be equivalent in speed to your own hard drive. That suggests a further implication that one might expect a heavy tendency towards central storage, even of applications, perhaps even of systems! Maybe network machines aren't so goofy after all. Such a centralization would be a regretable dis-empowering of individual users.
- systems are going to face complex demands to arbitrate the security and timing of access to files. The MacOS is definitely not up to it at this time.
MacWorld January 1998

Browser Safe Colouring

You've got a nice web page. But it has thousands (16 bit depth) or millions of colours (25 bit depth). Many browser users will have set their monitors to 8 bit. So you decide to dumb it down.
As I understand MacWorld's article, your challenge is in selecting which of the 256 colours to use.
GIF is an 8 bit format. A set of colours is a colour lookup table (CLUT) aka 'palette'.
You can use an 'adaptive' palette, in which the most important 256 colours in your nice picture will make up the palette. When the viewer looks at it, his browser will use the colour in the palette, if available, or translate it by looking up an equivalent in the system palette. So, if the colours are available (i.e., when the user has set his browser to the same bit depth as your image, or when he is just very lucky), the page looks great, perhaps indistinguishable in quality from the original.
But if there are lookups to substitute colours, it gets ugly. You could convert your page to a system palette, and then fix whatever needs fixing. Then surely everybody will have that system palette, and it will look good.
But Microsoft and Apple offer different system palettes. So even if you convert to a system palette, and touch up the page, it could still look ugly on the other system.
But there are 216 colours in common between the two system palettes. If you restrict your page to those, it will look the same for any viewer with at least 8 bit colours, who hasn't tampered with their system palette.
Those safe 216 are known as the 'Netscape palette'. Those colours are created from a mathematical colour cube based on multiplying six values of six colours: red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow. So it is sometimes known as the 6x6x6 palette.
HTML lets you refer to colours by name. Don't, since the names rarely correspond to the safe colours.
The only safe way to pick colours is by typing in the hexadecimal values for the colour (i.e., the number in base 16)
HTML publishing programs often lets you pick a colour using Apple's lovely Colour Picker. But that uses percentages.
The numeric value for colours runs from 1-255. Expressing it in hexadecimal doesn't change that, but you show it differently (0-FF). The percentages are, well, percentages.
Pictures are the same, in principle. But in practice, limiting a picture to 256 colours is bad enough, so 216 is even worse. Most publishers prefer to cater to those who have demonstrated they care more about graphics, those with 24 bit depth. So use an adaptive palette and to hell with tight-wads on foreign systems.
You can reduce file size by converting a graphic down to 8 bit depth. But you can reduce the size even further by using fewer of the colours in the palette. There are programs to help with this reduction, such as Digital Frontier's HVS WebFocus and Boxtop Software's PhotoGif.
MacWorld January 1998

Network Administration - Remote Installations

Three applications offer the ability to configure, from your computer, other computers on the network, at varying sophistication and cost.
Some can reproduce your own set up on other machines. Some can vary the package according to the capabilities of the remote computer. Some can schedule. It seems to range from about $20-$60/user, though FileWave has only 10-user and a 50-user packs.
FileWave 2.6 at Wave Research gets 4.5 mice, LAN Commander 1.02 from Power On Software gets 3, and NetOctopus from DataWatch gets 4.
MacWorld January 1998

Otto Rates eBay Auction Service

Our own Otto Dobler showed me eBay, another on-line auction service. It's not just for computer stuff. It features and shows closing dates for the bidding on each item. You can put in a maximum, but it won't make you pay any more than necessary to beat the other guys. It has pictures. And the prices! Dang! Stuff is going for $1 or $2! I didn't feel the search was up to the United Computer Exchange standards for CPUs, but for accessories, it was swell. UCE lets you search by price range and processor speed, for instance.

Speech Recognition

You need both Speech Manager and Speech Recognition extensions, and Speech control panel, and a fast mac. You can attach finder objects, including applescripts, to a voice command. You can have it listen to everything, or only after a voice cue or keyboard cue (much faster). Check out the Apple speech site for the latest stuff.
If you want it only for your browser, there are two plug-ins. Digital Dreams' ShockTalk adds onto Macromedia's Shockwave plug-in. ListenUp is a stand-alone plug-in. Both require the page you are viewing to support them. ShockTalk requires 10 lines of HTML and that the 12k shocktalk movie is embedded. ListenUp just needs a few extra lines of HTML.
MacWorld January 1998

HotSwapping

The MacIntosh Bible, 6th ed, says it's ok to hotwap (i.e., to plug or unplug without shutting down the computer) ADB cables (i.e., keyboard, mouse). But, that does not apply to the Mac II, IIx or IIcx.
SCSI is definitely not hotswappable, unless you use SCSI PowerPlug from APS.
Monitors are supposed to be ok.
Surely to gawd earphones and microphones are ok, but the Power MacIntosh User's Guide p.38 says no to mikes and p.39 says no to external speakers. [oops!]
Powerbook bays are supposed to be hotswappable, but many reports suggest it is better to put your machine to sleep first.
LocalTalk is hotswappable.
Ethernet ThinNet is definitely not. It's hardly coldswappable! Any change to the configuration brings down communications for the whole network. But, it may be effectively hotswappable. For instance, my PowerBook PC card hooks up to a little adaptor, which hooks up to the ThinNet. The little adaptor stays connected, but I can eject the card from my computer, thereby severing my connection.
Anybody got any others?

Offline Browsing

Netscape Navigator Gold lets you save a page, including all associated image files to your local drive for later reading.
Well, it isn't really the reading that slows it down. Even so, that might be ok for reference pages.

Including Sounds on a Web Page

Both Netscape Navigator 3.x and Internet Explorer 3.x recognize .WAV format sounds.
For Explorer to play the sound automatically, just add the HTML

<bgsound src="[address of file]">
For Netscape to play the sound, add the HTML:

<embed src="[address of file]">
But with Netscape, that does not begin automatically, and it shows something on the page. Don't ask me what. So add some extra tags to make it start automatically and not show anything, as with the following HTML:

<embed src="[address of file]" autostart=true hidden=true></embed>
Put the sound commands near the bottom of the HTML so it will display most of the page without waiting for the sound to start.
NetLife 9711

Genealogy Links

Marthe Arends publishes OnLine Pioneers, a genealogy newsletter, and offers online genealogy courses through Spectrum's Virtual University.
Cyndi's List has 23,000 genealogy links.
Sympatico's Mature Adults section has some genealogy links.
Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library has a genealogy site.
Most Genealogy software publishes have links on their web sites.
The World Genealogy Web Project is a volunteer service that breaks down resources geographically.
Specialized databases abound, including the Canadian Expeditionary Force (600,000 Canadians who enlisted in WWI) and the Ontario Cemetery Finding Aid. Alan Tupman's site offers a directory of such databases.
You can even look at collections of family trees, such as GenServe, Family Tree Maker's Search Engine, and Kindred Connections.
NetLife 9711

Wheels Within Wheels - Complex Escape Velocity Cheat

Option click the title screen. You see a poem. This seems like the sought-for Easter Egg, but if you 'crack the shell' by pressing Shift-Control-Option-Command-F, just as "MCB 4:35 A.M. scrolls up, you'll hear "They'll try to kill 'em with a forklift!" That isn't the Easter Egg, but merely confirmation that you got the real Egg, the added fearsome weapon of the Fork Lift.
MacAddict 9801

MacAddict On G3

Using Norton Utilities System Info benchmark program, with the Mac Plus at 0.961, the G3 (266) scored 600.
If you owned a Plus, then a IIci, then a Power Mac 6100/60, then each machine has been 10 times as fast as the last. To stick to that pattern, and with the rate of improvement, I would suggest waiting another year. After all, this is only 6 times as fast. Why bother?
It seems that some of this speed is not raw power, but design. The chip engineers studied how 6 popular Mac programs worked with the chip. This means that mere megahertz ratings are increasingly misleading.
As a result of the optimizations, Excel's startup dropped from 8-20 seconds to 2-3.
L1 cache is on the chip. The G3 has twice as much (64k), but any more would make it too expensive and hot.
L2 cache is next best. It's speed is improved by putting it into direct contact with the CPU rather than going through the same controller as memory and PCI calls. That's called 'backside' caching.
The floating point speed has suffered. MacAddict blames the backside caching.
The bus is faster, at 66 mhz. Existing, even current, PCI cards may experience problems, because they were designed for a 50 mhz bus.
The ram is even faster (and cheaper), being synchronous dynamic ram (SDRAM).
Theoretically, you can put 128 mb simms in each of the 3 slots. But excepting the tower version, the clearance is 0.35 inches too short. Duh.
Apple took sound I/O, modem connectors and video cirtcuitry off the motherboard. In addition to cheapening the motherboard, the machines are more easily configurable, with 'personality cards' for such purposes.
The CPU is attached with a zero insertion force socket, presumably to facillitate upgrades. Gossamer (the motherboard) can run at 83 mhz, and you can tell the motherboard how fast the processor and bus are with special jumpers. Don't touch them though, or you void the warranty.
MacAddict 9801

MacAddict Browser Tips (Selected)

If you plan on returning to a page, let it load fully, so it will be cached.
Put your cache (assuming you don't have it on a ram disk, as routinely recommended) at least on a disk that does not contain the system folder, to avoid interfering with system operations.
There are many cookie options. MacAddict recommends accepting only cookie that return to the same server. The new explorer lets you read what cookies you have accepted, view them by site, or delete them.
The big plugins are:
- QuickTime
- RealPlayer (streaming audio/video)
- Shockwave (animation, interactivity, features). Note, it requires a registration process.
Netscape Navigator 4 has lots of built in security. Explorer has an edge in ease-of-use.
MacAddict 9801