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BRMUG BRMUG May 1998 Newsletter This is the index of the May 1998 BRMUG Newsletter: Features: It Is To Laugh And Then There Were None E-Zines The iMac Regular Columns: Front Page News May Meeting April Meeting Review Twins for John and Dianne Quebedeaux Apple Announcements Graphic Utilities of the Month (Icon Editors)by Glenn Matherne Nonessentials (ClixSounds) by Glenn Matherne Essentials (TechTools)by Isaac Traxler AAPL by Don Ballard Return to BRMUG Newsletter Index Front Page News The May meeting will be held at the Bluebonnet Library on May 21st, the 3rd Thursday of the month, at 6:30 P.M. This month's meeting will feature a presentation on Customizing Your Macintosh. The meeting will start at 6:30 P.M. with the presentation starting shortly afterward. At 7:30 P.M., we will begin the Question and Answer session. Meeting will end at 8:30 P.M. so that we can clean up and leave prior to the 9:00 P.M. closing time. I would like to thank Jack Pastorek for his Geneaolgy on the Macintosh presentation. He did a great job explaining the computerization of genealogy and demonstrating how he uses his Macintosh to help him record and analyze his family tree.. I spoke to John and Dianne Quebedeaux the other day. Both boys are home and doing fine. John sends his apologies, but has decided to step down as chair of the BRMUG Game SIG (any volunteers?). John does expect to return to the BRMUG meetings soon and has several articles he is planning to write for the newsletter. Congratulations John and Dianne! John and Dianne are keeping their web page up to date with information about the boys (http://www.intersurf.com/~johnq). Drop them a congratulations note at johnq@brmug.org. The world (according to Apple) has changed a lot since the last meeting. Apple has announced a number of new machines, big changes in operating system strategy and opened new online stores. Any one of these would be big news in a month. Put together, they make for a very exciting month. Now all we have to do is understand what happened (I believe we will still be trying to understand all the ramifications of this month for years to come). The iMac was announced this month. Many people have already said a lot about this new machine. Apple does not normally announce a product until they are ready to ship. The iMac was announced 90 days before the first one is expected to ship. Why the early announcement? Was Apple unsure they could keep it quiet for 90 more days? No one had advance pictures before it was announced. None of the rumored specifications were accurate. Was Apple really worried about leaks? Was Apple trying to steal some of the thunder from the upcoming Windows 98 announcement? Most people have not even mentioned the oddity of the early announcement. I believe Apple knew people were going to question if this machine was right. It appears to be a huge departure from previous Apple designs. I think Apple wanted to give us time to get used to the idea of the iMac. I think they were right. We have a lot to get used to. More to come on this topic. Apple opened their Education Online Store and their U. K. Online Store. These are considered big announcements. They will mean a lot in the long run. Don't you feel sorry for the Powerbook team. Over the years they have been remembered for what they did not do (high prices, delays, defects). Finally they get it right. They announce a new line (not just one machine). The line is made up of mix-and-match parts that include three different cpu models and three different displays that can be put together in any combination. And they did this at prices that start as low as $2200. This is really big news! Funny how it just kind of got lost in all the other news. You really do need to feel sorry for the Powerbook team. They only seem to get noticed when they mess up. By the way, the iMac has a lot in common with the original Macintosh. They were both introduced in the same room. They both said hello on their screen. They both had design features that people thought were crazy. They both produced strong emotional reactions (you love it or hate it). The Macintosh launched chapter two of the Apple story. Chapter 3? Return to Top of Page AAPL by Don Ballard During the past week, Apple stock reached a 52-week high of $31 5/8. The 52-week low has been $12 3/4. That makes it the number one performing NASDAQ stock. Just as $30 was a psychological ceiling, the next level is $50. Of course, after that is the $70 historical high but we'll see how things go through to $50, first. Just think, if you had bought 100 shares back a few months ago, you would be ahead over $1800. The new iMac looks like a real winner and the new PowerBook's should sell real well. With Macintosh OS X just announced, the future looks a little brighter than it has for a long time. Certainly, no one can fault the advertising that is cropping up in all the magazines, newspapers, billboards and television. And let's not forget that market share that is creeping up. I have lived with the news of the death of Apple for twelve years now, but I think there is a crunchy byte or two left in the ole fruit. Note: In the first day after the new PowerBooks were annouced, the Apple Online Store did over $1.5 million of business. In its first day, the Eductation Online Store did over $1 of business. Welcome back to the world's longest going out of business sale! - Isaac Return to Top of Page Graphic Utility of the Month by Glenn Matherene This month, I am focusing on an item most Macintosh users take for granted, the icon. I don't know about everyone else, but I always wondered how they are created and how I can customize them. This comes in handy for me, as I use AT EASE to make using the Macintosh easier for my students. There lies the problem, when I create multimedia with Hyperstudio, the icons all look the same. So I came across a neat icon editor called Icon Dropper 2.1 by Icon Factory. Icon Dropper 2.1 consists of Icon Dropper and Icon Packer, a program that stores libraries of icon sets. For a $20 registration fee, you get access to more than 20 different sets of free icons. Most of the icons are the 3D type found in Mac Os 8. Icon Factory also posts selections of icon sets created by other shareware developers. Icon Dropper 2.1 can be downloaded at http://www.iconfactory.com/ Now, if I can get over my compulsion to change all of my progam files into cool looking icons. Return to Top of Page Essentials by Isaac Traxler TechTool is a program written by Micromat Computer Systems and provided to the Macintosh community at no charge (that's right - free). This is a really great tool that no one should be without. The latest version is 1.1.7 and it it works with system 7 through 8.1. TechTool has many features and capabilites. When you start the program, the upper left corner contains a window telling the manufacture date and the number of hours the Macintosh ahs been powerred on. This should give you a clue of its capability. TechTool has five major functions: Properly rebuild desktop Zap PRAM Analyze your system Clean your floppy drive Information about your machine Rebuilding the Desktop: TechTool's rebuild function is superior to the Macintosh OS's routine. When you use the Macintosh OS to rebuild your desktop, it removes most of the data from the file and then starts to reconstruct the desktop database files (where your icon information is stored). If the this file is damaged, the new database gets built into the damaged file leaving a less-than-perfect desktop database. TechTool actually deletes the Desktop files and then lets the Macintosh OS rebuild the Desktop information. TechTool also will save the comments that reside in the Desktop files. You should use TechTool to rebuild your desktop. Zapping PRAM: Your Macintosh stores certain parameters in RAM that retains its memory even when power is off via a battery. This PRAM stores things like which device to boot from, what video cards are enabled, date, time, and other items. It is possible for this information to become corrupted. TechTool's PRAM Zap routine does a good job saving valid information, Zapping PRAM and then restoring the information. System Analyze: This function will scan your system files and look for problems. This is a function I have not used much in the past. It claims to be able ot detect certain types of corruption. Clean Floppy Drive: Floppy drives get dirty. Cleaning kits provide a physical solution to cleaning. Unfortunately, the Macintosh does not move the head when a disk is inserted. The Clean Floppy Drive option forces the head to be moved back and forth allowing you to get the most out of your cleaning disk and prevents unnecessary wear on the heads. System Information: TechTool provides access to a lot of information about your system via severazl buttons on the lower right of the window. It can display hardware information (machine type, RAM, CPU, ...), a list of installed extensions (with a few details about them), a list of CDEV (Control Panels and some information about them), and some general information. TechTool also includes a good online help area that explains in a lot more detail the above items and others. TechTool is a wonderful package and we should all thank Micromat for making this utility available to the Macintosh community at no charge. They do market commercial programs (including TechTool Pro, diagnostic tool that competes with Norton Utilities). Return to Top of Page Nonessentials by Glenn Matherene For many people, immersed in the world of cyber-culture, having the perfect startup sound on their computer is a must. Others like myself are always in search of the 'holy grail' of sounds to fill their multimedia projects. Such a treasure exists at Clixsounds. Clixsounds is a company dedicated to creating mac only digital sounds. Clixsounds has two cds with a thousand sounds each for $34.95 each. The Hystereo CD is the latest collection of cool sounds for your system alert folder, system startup/shutdown folders, AOL mail, and email. These sound also make great sounds for multimedia projects. Since all of these sounds are digitally created/sampled, they compress with little or no distortion. Clixsounds also gives over 50 free samples from its website at http://www.clixounds.com/. My favorites include the MacThing, Infinite Startup, Burning Rubber, Yo The Man! and the Seductive Startup. So start thinking differently, and get yourself a cool Clixsound. Return to Top of Page It Is To Laugh by Don Ballard I was in my office and a co-worker (an engineer) came in complaining about not being able to read some mail of his and asking if we had a copy of Lotus. He is a died in the wool Windows man and sees no reason for Macs. I told him we haven't used Lotus in years. He went on explaining he had to have this file. I told him to bring it to me. He snickered and said I could not do anything with it since I had a Mac. Again, I said to bring it to me. He brought me the floppy and laughed that I would not be able to use a PC disk. I took it and popped it into my trusty old 8500/120 running MacOS 8.1 with MacLinks 9.7. Of course the Mac recognized the disk as a PC format and displayed it on my desktop. His mouth dropped open. I then dragged the icon to my MacLinks alias and it indicated it was a WordPerfect document and not Lotus and further that it was the latest version. Mouth dropped open again. He then asked if we had WordPerfect for the PC. I said no. Further cursing on his part. He said he knew someone that had WordPerfect for the PC but not the latest version. I said that was no problem. Further doubt on his part. I dropped the disk back on my MacLinks alias and asked for a translation to MSWord. Of course, there were no problems. Document was displayed on the screen with proper formatting. Mouth dropped to the floor. I printed it out and he said thanks but he still had a problem. He needed to mail it to someone else in the old version of WordPerfect 5. No problem. Save MSWord as WordPerfect 5 for Windows. By this time there was no mouth left to drop. He needed to mail it. No problem. Enclosed WordPerfect 5 Document in PC format into our Internet mail system running on an old Mac II and off it went. He walked out the door with his tail tucked between his legs shaking his head in disbelief of the inability of his brand new, all the bells and whistles, PC. I wonder if I will ever have to put up with holier than thou Windows propaganda from him again. Return to Top of Page And Then There Were None by Isaac Traxler When is the last time you did a backup? What is your backup strategy? What would happen if your hard drive was no more? I lost my primary drive at home this week - over 900 MB/20,000+ files. Norton Utilities was useless. All of this drive was backed up except one little part - the document secion, 180 Mb. I had no idea I had that many documents. I was lucky, I got it back. What will you do when it happens to you? Return to Top of Page E-Zines by Glenn Matherne On April 14th, I like many on-line readers were dismayed at the rumor that MacWeek http://www.maceek.com/ was ceasing publication in August. It turned out that only the print version of MacWeek was being turned into a cross-platform multimedia publication. Instead of wailing about the triumph of the Microsoft Monster, I decided to focus on the abundance of really cool on-line magazines or e-zines in hacker slang. There are so many Macintosh e-zines that I can't keep up with all of them. So, I'd like to focus on some of the more interesting ones. Macfixit http://www.macfixit.com/ is the mecca for solutions to all Macintosh problems. It's web manager is noted author Ted Landau. He is the author of the sad macs series of books [Great book, get it! -IT]. Macintouch http://www.macintouch.com/ is the home site of MacWeek columnist Ric Ford. Ric is not only good with technical issues, he is also an insider with much that goes on at Apple. Ric maintains a library of vital technical information on his site. Mac Os Rumors http://www.macosrumors.com/ is the most interesting source of Macintosh rumors, true and false. It is an extension of the web advertising team at BlackLight Media. Webmaster, Ryan Meador seems to be right most of the time. Wired http://www.wired.com/wired/ is not a Macintosh specific e-zine, but columnist Nicholas Negroponte is always fascinatingly opinionated writer. Besides being a Macintosh fan, he is director of the famous MIT Computer Lab. Don Crabb is perhaps the most famous of all Macintosh columnists. Besides being a computer scientist at the University of Chicago, he is featured on a weekly radio show in Chicago and on many e-zines including MacWeek and MacCentral http://www.maccentral. com/. These are only a few of the most popular and useful e-zine sites on the internet. They are not written by Macintosh only users, but by professionals that use many different platforms. Each has one thing in common, their favorite computer is a Macintosh. Although, I know I left out a few popular Macintosh e-zines, but one can only fit so much in a newsletter. I hope to make focusing on e-zines and on-line sources of Macintosh information an occassional column. Do yourself a favor, and start reading at least a few of the multitude of Macintosh e-zines on the internet [Note that many of these links to many of these sites can be found on BRMUG's Macintosh page]. Return to Top of Page The iMac by Isaac Traxler Much can (and has) been said about the iMac. No one (including me) knows how it will turn out. But here are some things we do know. The iMac is a new Macintosh (sort of) that Apple has announced. the i stands for Internet. The iMac has a 233 MHz G3 processor, backside cache, expandable video memory, 32 MB of expandable memory, 4 GB IDE hard drive, 24X CD drive, 10/100 ethernet, 33,600 modem, USB keyboard/mouse, two more USB ports, a fifteen-inch integrated monitor, and a new design for $1299. iMac does not have a floppy drive. iMac does not have a SCSI. iMac does not have any expansion slots. iMac does not have ADB. iMac has been laughed at as impractical. iMac has divided the Mac community. iMac has 70,000 advance orders at CompUSA. Somebody must like it. Why would Apple abandon the floppy drive, SCSI and expansion slots? Is the iMac genius, insane, or somewhere in between? Would you buy one? iMac - the machine for how many of us? We have ninety days to think about it. Return to Top of Page