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TidBITS#254/28-Nov-94
=====================
This week TidBITS brings you news of AOL's purchase of ANS, the
reason some Performas don't include the modems promised on the
box, and how to find Internet mailing lists. Dave Nagel of
Apple responds to Dave Winer's recent soliloquy about Apple's
failure to properly woo developers, and the issue finishes
with Adam's write- up about his recent Macintosh marathon,
involving backups, disk formatting, data restoration, and a
tangle with System 7.5.
This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 -- <sales@apstech.com>
Makers of hard drives, tape drives, and neat SCSI accessories.
For APS price lists, email: <aps-prices@tidbits.com> <---- New
* Northwest Nexus -- 206/455-3505 -- http://www.halcyon.com
Providing access to the global Internet. <info@halcyon.com>
Copyright 1990-1994 Adam & Tonya Engst. Details at end of issue.
Automated info: <info@tidbits.com> Comments: <ace@tidbits.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------
Topics:
MailBITS/28-Nov-94
Response to "It's All About Love"
I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore
Reviews/28-Nov-94
[Archived as /info-mac/per/tb/tidbits-254.etx; 30K]
MailBITS/28-Nov-94
------------------
As the holiday gift-giving season approaches (notice that we said
nothing until after Thanksgiving - a bit of a pet peeve here in
the U.S. where we're often deluged with holiday capitalism earlier
and earlier each year), we're hoping that readers can contribute
paragraph-long suggestions of your favorite new games and gifts
for Macintosh owners. Due to our battles with repetitive stress
injuries, we simply cannot play games and must rely on others for
recommendations. Don't worry about including contact information
unless you have an email address - for this article we'll assume
everyone can talk to their local dealer or read the mail order
catalogs on their own. Thanks! [ACE]
**America Online buys ANS** -- In a distinct case of putting $35
million of its money where its mouth has been, America Online
today announced plans to purchase ANS (Advanced Network &
Services), the company that has managed and operated the NSFnet
Backbone Service since 1990. The ANS backbone network is among the
largest and fastest public data networks, carrying daily traffic
in excess of three billion packets over more than 12,000 miles of
leased 45 Mbps (T-3) fiber-optic circuits. The acquisition of ANS
follows on the heels of two other Internet-related acquisitions by
AOL, BookLink Technologies and NaviSoft.
AOL also announced a closer alliance with Sprint, the network
provider that currently carries more than 80 percent of AOL's
traffic. I wonder if the closer alliance might be related to the
fact that ANS and Sprint compete directly in the Internet provider
business. The ANS acquisition also raises the possibility that AOL
might consider changing its name from America Online to AOL, since
the addition of the ANS network could significantly improve world-
wide access to AOL. [ACE]
**Mike Blake-Knox** <72030.2523@compuserve.com> writes:
A freeware alternative to DeskTape for putting Mac data on a DAT
is Sauro Speranzo's suntar program. I've used it to transport
large amounts of data between Mac and Unix systems. It supports
BinHex and so should also be quite usable between Mac systems. It
has the advantage that a recipient doesn't need a DAT on her Mac
if she has LAN access to a Unix system.
ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/util/suntar-203.hqx
**Internet mailing lists** are often hard to find, since there are
so many. However, there's a Web page that supposedly lists all of
them. It enables you to sort alphabetically or by category, and
when you sort by category, you can get more detailed information
on the list. The site appears to be a functional advertisement for
a $99 tool (currently only Windows-based, but a Mac version is in
the works and slated for November release - they'd better hurry)
called InfoMagnet, which lets you find, search, and participate in
LISTSERV-based mailing lists. From the sounds of it, Info-Magnet
is a front-end interface to the often-complex LISTSERV commands.
http://www.clark.net/pub/listserv/listserv.html
In addition, another Web page enables you to search a database
(maintained by Dartmouth College) of almost 6,000 mailing lists.
The database is updated weekly, and this site has become one of my
favorite tools on the Web. [ACE]
http://alpha.acast.nova.edu:80/listserv.html
**Apple's latest product info** is available right at your fax
machine via AppleFax, a fax-back service Apple provides. Those in
the U.S. can dial 800/510-2834 for sales literature or 800/505-
0171 for common tech support solutions. (Sorry, we haven't seen
any international numbers.) Call from your regular phone or your
fax machine; you'll be asked to tap in your fax number using the
numeric touch tone keypad. On your first call, request an index of
available documents, so you'll have the ID numbers for each of the
pieces that can be faxed to you. [MHA]
**High demand** for certain Macintosh Performa models is to blame,
Apple says, for its decision to ship some new systems without the
Global Village modem that would normally be included in the box.
Instead, buyers will find a coupon in the accessory kit with
instructions to call Apple to request that the modem be shipped
(at no cost to the customer). The alternative, Apple says, was to
hold back shipments of such popular systems as the Performa 475
and 575 until sufficient modems were on hand, thereby narrowing
buyers' choices during the holiday shopping season. [MHA]
**Piet Seiden** <seiden@biobase.aau.dk> writes:
I know the treatment of non-U.S. Macintosh users is a recurring
issue in TidBITS. But apparently earlier pleas have only had
minimum effect as problems continue to appear almost every time I
examine some new application's keyboard shortcuts for menu
commands. Many developers like to use characters like < or > or [
or ] or ; or : or other non-letter characters. Since many, if not
most, of these characters are only accessible on many European
keyboards in combination with the Shift and/or the Option key,
they cannot be used as keyboard shortcuts. Take for instance the
Common Ground MiniViewer that you use to browse Apple's
Information Alley newsletters. On a Danish keyboard only the
"Previous" command has a working keyboard shortcut. All other
shortcuts are ignored. There are two solutions: either developers
write their own equivalent of the menukey toolbox routine or they
should refrain from using anything but the letters a to z and
period and comma as shortcut characters. I believe Apple's Thought
Police have guidelines saying much the same. This small issue
generates a lot of aggravation over here.
[On a related note, version 1.1 of the Common Ground MiniViewer
uses Command-Period as the keyboard equivalent for the Next Page
command, in blatant violation of the Apple Human Interface
Guidelines. Command-period is supposed to be reserved for
interrupting an action. -GD]
**DeskTape Price** -- Oops, the list price I quoted for DeskTape
in TidBITS-253_ was out of date. The current list price is $329,
and you can get it via mail order from Club Mac for $289. Club Mac
-- 800/258-2622 -- 714/768-8130 -- 714/768-9354 (fax) [ACE]
**Dantz Development Contact Info** -- I keep accidently including
old phone numbers and contact information for Dantz Development
because I go back to old TidBITS issues to extract them. Thus, I
want to set the record straight and put the right information into
an issue. My apologies to the folks at Dantz. [ACE]
Dantz Development
4 Orinda Way, Building C
Orinda, CA 94563
510/253-3000
510/253-9099 (fax)
<dantz@applelink.apple.com>
<dantz@aol.com>
<dantzdev@eworld.com>
<73367.2416@compuserve.com>
**Mosaic Name Changes** -- While I'm cleaning up administrative
details, it's worth noting that Mosaic Communications Corporation
has changed its name to Netscape Communications Corporation and
the name of its excellent Web browser from Mosaic Netscape to
Netscape. The reason? Netscape Communications said it wants to
establish an identity separate from NCSA's Mosaic Web browser. In
addition, the name change addresses trademark concerns raised by
NCSA (perhaps due in part to NCSA's agreements with Spyglass for
licensing Mosaic and with O'Reilly & Associates for the popular
What's New page).
http://home.mcom.com/home/welcome.html
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/whats-new.html
Response to "It's All About Love"
---------------------------------
by Dave Nagel, president of AppleSoft <nagel@applelink.apple.com>
[This is a response from Dave Nagel of Apple to Dave Winer's
editorial in TidBITS-251_. -Adam]
You're wrong in thinking that we neither value our developers nor
recognize their contributions. We do - very much - on both counts.
On the other hand, you're right in saying that we have shanked the
developer program in the past. The gentlemen you mention certainly
did their magic, but I fear I also contributed shortly after
"taking the helm."
We are working hard to fix these problems - and to improve the
fortunes (literally) of our developers. I have constantly been on
the bandwagon during the past six months - inside AppleSoft and
out - about the importance of doing what we can do to make our
developers successful. Recently, at our three international sales
meetings, I tried to rouse the field people into being much more
aggressive with helping "local" developers succeed with their
products and their businesses. Of course, the best thing we could
do would be to increase our market share - but that's a longer
story (which will unfold by itself, I am sure).
We are in the process of revamping our developer programs with a
view to helping the smaller developer. We also are trying to work
more closely with key large developers (the usual suspects) since
their support for the platform is both central to success in the
commercial market segments and important for the press. To succeed
in the platform game, it's clear we have to deal effectively with
both the trade and popular press - you can't imagine how much time
this takes. [It must take a lot, since the Apple PR people haven't
yet called me back from a question I posed back in September, and
we never get any press releases or official release information.
-Tonya]
So there are a number of things we are doing - and I am very
serious about that. Does it mean that I'll always do everything
right by the developers? Probably not (from their point of view),
but I am trying hard to balance the realities of our current
business model with the need to do everything possible to help
developers - both large and small - succeed better on our platform
than on the other platform.
I know the good old guys are no longer around and, from your
perspective, Dave, there are often a bunch of "suits" in their
places. But the world and our business are more complex than when
the pioneers were around. So... different folks, different
problems, different behaviors - some for the better, some for the
worse. What **does** seem to be a constant is that virtually
everyone at Apple does want to make a difference - the culture
here is still far, far from being IBM-like. I think we've lost a
lot of the "major personalities" and this has created a different
experience for those of you who deal with us.
It has been a difficult transition for us over the past couple of
years. Our profitability (gross margins) were more than halved in
a little over a year. That factor alone created incredible
pressures (apart from the layoff - itself a delightful
experience). Those pressures are certainly felt by our employees,
virtually all of whom work incredibly hard to make our platform a
success. Admittedly, it's been difficult at times to keep morale
high: employees are barraged every day with popular and trade
press opinions that we're going to be crushed under the Gates
steamroller. (Maybe if he starts spending more of his time in
those old book auctions...).
And, of course, there are a lot of start-ups right now
(particularly in multimedia) and many of our employees are being
targeted. We've always had a superior work force - it's one of the
real strengths of Apple. I don't know if you know, but Bill opened
a recruiting office in Cupertino just down the street from our R&D
facility. Morale is pretty good now (it was certainly at a low
point six months ago) but these things can change quickly. Keeping
morale high is a major goal.
So, we have changed and will continue to change. But don't pay too
much attention to superficial details. There is a certain core of
the culture that's intact - there's a tremendous passion at Apple
to do great products and to be a great company. The styles are
different and perhaps the pressure is greater; the go-go,
indulgent 80's are over and folks here are hunkering down and
working without some of the flamboyance of the past.
I feel more positive than I've felt for years. We have a good
strategy; we have some fantastic technologies and great people;
we're developing some new and aggressive marketing talent; we're
working on mostly the right things; the other side has its share
of problems to look forward to in the next couple of years; and
we've adjusted to our new financial model extremely well.
Obviously, I don't want to appear to be too much of a Pollyanna -
success is certainly not guaranteed. But I truly think we are
better situated to succeed than we have been. And I can guarantee
you it's going to be as exciting as hell the next couple of years!
I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore
-------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
Life isn't as simple as it used to be in the Mac world. A few
weeks ago, I decided the time had come for some fall cleaning on
my Mac. A few things were happening on my hard disk that I
couldn't quite explain (disk accesses at strange times,
primarily), and I wanted to install System 7.5, a SCSI Manager
4.3-savvy driver, and generally fix things up. I'm not a fan of
optimization software since I've found that in many cases, it
doesn't make much difference (but for those of you who like to
optimize twice a day, more power to you - keep good backups).
After a year or so, I prefer to reformat my hard drive,
eliminating any nastiness that might be lurking at a low level and
eliminating fragmentation in the restore process.
**Backing up** -- This was the first time I've reformatted my
current hard disk, an APS 1.2 GB drive with an Quantum mechanism.
I back up to an APS DAT drive with Retrospect 2.1, and I've
retrieved files from the tapes on ten or twenty occasions, so I'm
fairly confident of my backup scheme. Nonetheless, relying on a
single backup scares me, so first thing in the morning I backed up
the important folders from my files partition onto other hard
disks on our network, and it was a good move. More on that later.
I also copied my entire system partition to my Centris 660AV's
internal 230 MB drive, which I mainly use as scratch space, so
that I'd have a familiar boot environment once I'd reformatted the
main drive. Luckily, while copying, I thought to copy my entire
Retrospect folder to the internal drive as well; if I hadn't I
would have not only had to load Retrospect from master floppy
again, but I would have had to rebuild the catalog file to my
latest backup tape. Not good, and if I had read the Retrospect
manual more carefully first, I would have seen Dantz's warning to
copy catalog files before reformatting.
**Reformatting** -- With everything completely backed up (this
took a few hours all told, I'm paranoid about backups), the time
came to reformat the disk. I chose Drive7 from Casa Blanca Works
because it has received good reviews and supports SCSI Manager
4.3, which wasn't true of the version of La Cie's Silverlining I'd
been using (and I hate playing their "update of the hour" game).
Using Drive7 to reformat the drive was trivial, or at least it
would have been if Drive7 hadn't crashed while trying to close the
Silverlining driver. Thankfully, Drive7's manual mentioned that
specific problem, and its solution - turning the external drive on
after running Drive7 and then rescanning the SCSI bus before
formatting - worked perfectly. Still, I had a brief moment of
panic, which would have been worse if I hadn't seen that comment
in the Drive7 manual.
The formatting process was a little strange. Since Drive7 supports
the SCSI Manager 4.3's disconnect-reconnect feature, I clicked on
the Format button, answered the usual "Are you really sure you
want to do this?" dialogs, and then Drive7 issued the AsynchFormat
command and let me work again. The strange part was that not only
did Drive7 allow me to work in it or in other programs (something
that's never been possible before while formatting), but the drive
didn't seem to be accessing at all. The access light was off, the
APS SCSI Sentry's lights indicating SCSI activity were off, and I
couldn't hear the disk doing anything. After about five or ten
minutes, I chickened out and called John Catalano of Casa Blanca
Works, who assured me that this process could take a while
sometimes. Of course, about a minute after he answered, the format
finished and all was well.
**Partitioning** -- Next was the partitioning process. I have four
partitions on my hard drive, a 20 MB test partition that doesn't
mount by default, a 250 MB boot partition, a 250 MB files
partition, and a large partition for applications that takes up
whatever space is left. It seems reasonable to me, and I used this
scheme (minus the test partition) even back when my hard drive was
only 105 MB. I still had John on the phone as I started to
partition the drive and he got a little nervous as I began having
trouble, mentioning that he doesn't like the interface for
partitioning and plans to have the programmers change it. We
chatted briefly, and then I hung up to concentrate on the task at
hand.
The Drive7 partitioning interface uses a rectangle to represent
the disk and four smaller, resizable rectangles inside the
rectangle represented my four partitions. To resize a partition, I
shrunk its corresponding resizable rectangle (you can only
decrease the size, since there is no free space inside the main
rectangle). When I shrunk one partition, another partition
increased in size to account for the size change. There is no way
to predict which partition will change, and sometimes more than
one changes.
This interface stinks. I even went so far as to reformat the drive
and repartition with Silverlining, hoping to get Drive7 to take
over the partition sizes (it didn't work). I then tried the same
thing with a program called DriveForce that comes with Microtech
drives, but DriveForce wouldn't let me click on the radio button
for setting custom partitions. So, I reformatted one more time
with Drive7, and this time went about the partitioning process
meticulously, throwing out the Drive7 Prefs file (which stores
your mistakes) each time I screwed up. Eventually, by resizing the
bottom partition to approximately 250 MB, the second to last one
to approximately 270 MB, and the third from last one to about 20
MB, I succeeded in sizing my partitions. Drive7's partitioning
graphical interface should be junked in favor of that old standby,
typing numbers in edit boxes, which would have taken about a
minute.
**Restoring files** -- Once I'd managed to reformat and partition
the disk, the time came to restore from backup. As I said earlier,
I'd remembered to put Retrospect and its files on my internal
scratch disk, so restoring was easy, although it also wasn't all
that fast even with Retrospect 2.1's SCSI Manager 4.3
capabilities, because I had a lot of data to restore. After
restoring, I started to poke around in some of the restored
folders since I'm paranoid, and I don't trust even well-respected
programs like Retrospect to do exactly what I want.
It was a good thing I did, since I noticed a couple of important
folders that contained different numbers of files. When I checked
them against my secondary backups on my other Macs, I discovered
that Retrospect, like all good computer programs, had done exactly
what I'd told it to do, which was not exactly what I wanted. Like
many people who use Retrospect, I suspect, I have a custom
selector that avoids backing up certain files that are pointless
to save (temporary files, automatically generated log files,
etc.). Although I did not indeed want these files backed up every
night, I did want some of them backed up once (I had failed to
turn off my custom selector on the first backup session on that
tape), and I also wanted the disk restored to exactly the same
state before my reformat process. Luckily, my secondary backups
retained those files exactly as I wanted them, so I didn't lose
anything. The moral of the story is: Be paranoid about backups,
it's safer that way.
**Installing System 7.5** -- With the entire disk back the way I
wanted it (aside from aliases and various preferences that always
get hosed in a restore process), I set about installing System
7.5. First, I installed a copy on my 20 MB test volume, since I
like being able to boot that volume with a clean System. I had no
problems with that installation, so I installed a clean copy
(reportedly a good idea with 7.5) on my main boot volume. If you
press Command-Shift-K in the main installer window, the installer
gives you the option to Install New System Folder, which then
renames your old System Folder to Previous System Folder.
In the past, I've always recommended that people install for any
Macintosh, but with System 7.5, I give up. If you select the "For
Any Macintosh" option in the installer, it installs tons of
garbage that won't even run on a specific desktop Mac, including
all sorts of PowerBook-specific extensions. Sorting through the
mess simply is no longer worth the effort (in the eventuality that
you might use your hard disk to boot another Macintosh). It's also
definitely worth customizing to avoid installing files you'll
throw out immediately anyway, such as (in my case) Easy Access.
Rebooting with that copy of System 7.5 worked fine, as I expected
it to. The next trick was to move the contents of my old System
Folder over to my new one. My standard technique is to open the
old Apple Menu Items folder and the new one, then to copy
everything from the new one into the old one, replacing anything
that should be replaced, like the old Chooser. Once the older
files have been replaced, I copy the entire contents of the old
folder back to the new one, which transfers all of my old files
back to where they'll load. I then repeat this process with all of
the folders in the System Folder and with the items in the System
Folder itself.
**Removing System 7.5** -- The theory is all fine and nice, but
the next hour of inexplicable crashes in normally stable
applications worried me. I ran conflict tests in Conflict Catcher,
but since my crashes weren't reproducible, it couldn't help. I
tried reducing the set of extensions to those I consider
necessary, such as QuicKeys and Super Boomerang, but nothing I did
made much difference. I couldn't figure out what was causing the
crashes, and since it was now closing in on midnight, I felt tired
and crabby. In a fit of pique, I decided that other than Apple
Guide (which I personally won't use much, even though I think it's
extremely cool), I had all the new System 7.5 features that I
wanted in System 7 Pro. So, in a bold move, I rebooted from my
internal drive, erased my entire boot partition, and restored the
entire silly thing from my DAT backup once again. A few small
tweaks later, and my Centris 660AV was working as I expected it
to, with no weird crashes. Life was good, and I'd only spent about
17 hours on the entire process.
**Lessons learned** -- Why am I telling you all this? Several
reasons. First, I did some things right and made some mistakes,
and I hope my experiences and techniques might be of use to
others. Second, there are times when discretion is the better part
of valor, and for me, fighting with System 7.5 was unnecessary. I
don't need the features it boasts over System 7 Pro, and I do need
to use my Macintosh, so I think I made the right decision in
immediately falling back to System 7 Pro rather than putting up
with crashes. As I upgrade my extensions and control panels, I
expect that whatever caused the crashes will go away, and at some
point, I'll try upgrading again. In contrast, Tonya's Duo 230
hasn't experienced System 7.5 crashing problems, and my SE/30
fileserver has been running System 7.5 constantly for several
months without a single unexplained crash.
Third and finally, as much as we'd like to think our beloved
Macintosh is still an elegant and simple machine without obscure
quirks and hassles, it just isn't entirely true. That's not to say
that the Macintosh still isn't the best or most elegant
microcomputer out there, but it's significantly more complex than
ever before. I fully admit that I knew what I was getting into,
and that it was a complicated procedure, but even considering the
quantities of data I was moving and the safeguards I employed, 17
hours from start to finish is a lot of time. I don't regret that
time, since I learned a lot and succeeded in my primary objective
of installing a SCSI Manager 4.3-savvy driver, but still...
As a postscript to this article, and to my trials and
tribulations, I did finally track down one irritating occurrence.
I had assigned custom icons to the partitions of my disk, but when
I rebooted with extensions on, I'd only see the generic hard disk
icons that I specified in Drive7. It turns out that if I use
Drive7's MountCache control panel to create a driver level cache,
my custom icons disappear. When I booted without extensions the
custom icons generally came back, but it took me a while to make
the connection. I'm not all that attached to the custom icons, and
since a 512K driver-level cache improves my disk performance
(currently) by 122 percent, I think I'll stick with the faster
disk and generic icons.
Reviews/28-Nov-94
-----------------
* InfoWorld -- 21-Nov-94, Vol. 16, #47
mPower for the Macintosh 2.0 -- pg. 124
* Macworld -- Jan-95
Adobe Photoshop 3.0 -- pg. 52
Microsoft Excel 5.0 -- pg. 54
QuarkXPress 3.31 -- pg. 55
PrimeraPro -- pg. 56
QuickMail 3.0 -- pg. 59
Claris Organizer -- pg. 61
Microsoft Works 4.0 -- pg. 63
Now Utilities 5.0 -- pg. 65
Cal 1.0 -- pg. 65
InfoDepot 2.0 -- pg. 67
ClarisDraw 1.0 -- pg. 69
Blueprint 5.0 -- pg. 71
MarcoPolo 3.0 -- pg. 71
Wiz Tools for PowerBook 1.2.2 -- pg. 73
Peirce Print Tools 1.0 -- pg. 75
TypeTwister 1.0 -- pg. 75
BLAST Professional -- pg. 77
FastPace Instant Contact 1.0 -- pg. 78
Launch Pad 1.0 -- pg. 78
Vivace -- pg. 83
Bird Brain 2.01 -- pg. 83
Practica Musica 3.0 -- pg. 85
Aquazone 1.0 -- pg. 85
Amazing Animation -- pg. 87
ScriptWizard 1.0 -- pg. 87
LCD Panels and Projectors -- pg. 90
(too many to list)
$$
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