Forgotten freeware remembered, hope for a dying Mac, and what to do when your software is piggish with ports.
Christopher Breen and Bob Levitus
CHRIS: Before beginning this month's festivities, there's something we need to clarify. Back in the September Help Folder (page 127), we recommended that reader Larry Kordon use FWB's CD-ROM ToolKit to reliably mount CD-ROMs even if he didn't turn on his CD-ROM drive until after he'd turned on his Mac. We stand by that recommendation, but what we left out was a freeware product -- LoadADrive -- that can do the same trick. It doesn't work for as many makes and models of CD-ROM drives as CD-ROM ToolKit, but if you want to save your nickels and dimes, give it a try (LoadADrive is available from ZD Net/Mac and other fine online services and Internet ftp sites).
Several readers asked why we didn't recommend the freeware utility SCSIProbe for mounting a CD-ROM you put into a tardy drive. The simple answer is that SCSIProbe and like utilities, such as FWB's HDT Prober, won't work. SCSIProbe looks for software drivers on peripherals it finds on the SCSI chain. CD-ROM drives don't have these drivers, so the CD-ROMs won't mount.
Chimes of Doom
Q. About two months ago, my Mac started to act up. At random, instead of playing the familiar chord when I turned it on, it would give me each note separately and then the Mac would freeze up.
Pressing the Command-Control-power-key combination let me restart successfully, and things were OK for a while. But then, without warning, the funny notes came back. Rebuilding the desktop didn't help. How serious is my problem?
E. E. Balay
Lethbridge, AB, Canada
BOB: There's a clue about how serious your trouble is in the nicknames for that strange music: "the chimes of doom" and "the arpeggio of death." Some of your Mac's hardware may be dead or dying.
If you're lucky, occasionally, and I mean very occasionally, you can make niggling problems such as this go away by zapping your PRAM. To do it, start your computer while holding down the Command, Option, P, and R keys. Wait for your machine to stutter and restart a couple of times, and then release the keys.
I doubt zapping will work, but it doesn't take long, so it's worth a try. I suspect that what you're actually experiencing is some sort of intermittent failure of one of the Mac's components.
CHRIS: Bob's probably right, unless you're the kind of person who routinely messes with the innards of your Mac. Chimes can also sound if a SIMM you installed isn't pushed all the way into its slot. Improperly seated accelerators can evoke this gentle music too. These failures generally occur at startup.
If you fall into this category, before you rush your Mac to the repair shop, open it and give each RAM SIMM a little shove to make sure it's really in. If you continue to experience problems, try taking half the RAM out and restarting. Through a process of elimination, you can isolate a bad SIMM.
Stuck in Port
Q. When I connect to America Online, I get a message saying that the requested serial port is busy or in use and asking if I would like to reset the port. What can I do to avoid this message?
Russ Ekins
via America Online
CHRIS: Jeez, don't you hate that one? I used to get it all the time, because my fax software refused to give up the modem port. You're probably seeing that dialog box for a similar reason.
The easiest way to rid yourself of this annoying dialog box forever is to make an adjustment within the America Online software (you need version 2.5 or later). Select Set Preferences from the Members menu, and then simply make sure Ask to Reset Serial Port is unchecked in the System Preferences category.
eWorld and CompuServe's Information Manager sport similar options.
BOB: Chris' idea should solve your immediate problem, but for those occasions when your communications software isn't able to reset the serial port, which can happen when your Mac crashes, the shareware program CommCloser can free up the port. It's also handy for freeing up ports when you use communications software -- such as ZTerm or MicroPhone -- that doesn't have a built-in port-resetting feature.
Trashing Locked Items
Q. Is there any way to unlock a multitude of items in one shot? I'd like to quickly get rid of the junk on my Mac -- for instance, four subfolders in Flight Simulator that each contain 30 or 40 locked items.
Scott Kend
via America Online
BOB: Just drag them to the Trash, and hold down the Option key when you empty the Trash. Any locked items will be painlessly deleted from your hard disk, with no manual unlocking required.
CHRIS: And Scott, since you're in the trashing mood, why not dump the Microsoft Flight Simulator application as well and get a real flight sim, such as Parsoft's A-10 Attack! or Graphic Simulations' F/A-18 Hornet 2.0. Oh, and don't forget to check your six.
Jumpering for Joy
Q. It really annoys me that every internal hard drive I buy has its SCSI ID set to 6. Having a pretty full and picky SCSI chain, I need to be able to change the preset ID number, barring use of a large hammer.
Michael J. Bell
via America Online
CHRIS: What you are about to read is my expression of astonishment: ID 6!?
BOB: Where in the universe are you getting these drives? If you were dealing with a reputable company, each drive's ID would be set to 0 right out of the box.
CHRIS: That's how your drive should arrive, for good reason. You see, 0 is the default ID for the internal hard drive that comes with a new Macintosh. Most drive vendors assume that if you're buying an internal drive, you intend to replace the one already in your Mac. To avoid ID conflicts with other devices in the SCSI chain, the ID on the new drive is set to 0.
BOB: The only reasonable exception would be a drive with the SCSI ID set to 1. A company such as APS will change the ID to 1 if you tell it you plan to use the drive in the second internal-drive slot of a Mac that has two drive slots.
CHRIS: You gotta love those guys.
BOB: And I do. But what about Michael's question?
CHRIS: Oh, right. You can change SCSI IDs by using jumpers. Because I used up my one good jumper joke in last May's Help Folder (check it out on page 118; it was a real humdinger around the office), I'll get to the point: A jumper is a metal-and-plastic collar that's smaller than a Fruit Loop . . .
BOB: . . . and more rectangular . . .
CHRIS: . . . that fits around a couple of metal terminals (if you want to be completely hep, you will refer to these terminals as pins). Placing the jumper on a pair of pins completes a circuit that sends a message to the computer along the lines of "I'm set to SCSI-ID 2."
You will spy a group of these pins arranged in pairs on the component side of the internal drive -- the side with all the chips and circuits. To change the ID, simply arrange the jumpers according to the instructions that probably came with your drive. If the jumpers and instructions are missing, try calling the vendor to get them.
Do not proceed until you possess jumpers that fit and know which pins to work with. Some drives are just studded with pins, and jumpering the wrong ones is bad medicine.
For do-it-yourselfers, here are the accepted jumper arrangements:
ID 0: No jumpers.
ID 1: Jumper the first pair of pins.
ID 2: Second pair.
ID 3: First and second pair.
ID 4: Third pair.
ID 5: First and third pair.
ID 6: Second and third pair.
BOB: Two warnings, though: Ground yourself before handling your internal hard drive, and don't put jumpers on all three pairs of pins -- doing so sets the SCSI ID to 7, which is reserved for the Mac.
Read-Only Indeed
Q. Is there any way to lock text files created with word-processing programs, so they can't be edited?
Mark Ty Unno
via the Internet
CHRIS: If you mean locking them so there's absolutely no way on earth to let someone grab the text and with it do the voodoo that you do so well -- not exactly.
There are several steps you can take to protect a document, but if it's widely circulated and someone is clever enough, there's always a way to copy it and alter the text (for example, take screen shots of the document and run the resulting graphics through an OCR program).
Assuming your readers are not so dastardly as to try this, here are a few suggestions. The simplest way is to lock the document in its Get Info window while you're in the Finder. But you've already thought of that, haven't you?
For an added level of security, you can create password-protected read-only documents in Word 6. Files so designated can be read by one and all, but you must have a password in order to save changes. Unfortunately, getting around this is as easy as cutting the text from the document and pasting it into a new, protection-free document.
Alternatively, you can create a document in TeachText or SimpleText and, using a utility such as FileTyper, FileBuddy, or Snitch (shareware available from online services; see end of article), change the file type to ttro. The icon will switch to a cute newspaper icon, and the document will become uneditable -- at least until someone changes the type back to TEXT.
You can make the same type of modification to files you create with the eminently fab shareware program DOCMaker. All you do is change the creator of a DOCMaker document to any four characters you like. Then the file cannot be edited.
BOB: My favorite way to produce uneditable documents I'm going to distribute widely is to use Adobe Acrobat software. I used it to create demo versions of my WebMaster Macintosh book (AP Professional, 1995) that nobody is able to insert a cursor into to make changes. It's at least as secure as anything Chris mentioned, and it has some nice bonuses -- for instance, it can be viewed on platforms other than just the Mac. The only negative is the $150 estimated street price.
Parked Benchmarks
Q. I put my Power Mac 8100/100av with a monitor attached to the AV port to the test. In order to see how speedy it was, I ran Norton Utilities' System Info check (see figure 1) and compared the results with the benchmarks for the Power Mac 8100/100. The only test for which my Mac wasn't equal or better was the one for video, which was miserably worse. Am I stuck with this doggish speed for ever?
Bruce Bilyard
Woodbury, CT
CHRIS: Doesn't this situation strike you as being remarkably similar to those old commercials in which a happy couple is seen blissfully devouring a butterlike substance, only to blanch upon discovering that the quasi-dairy product is, in reality, reconstituted fish emulsion?
Honestly now, what did you think of your Power Mac's speed before you ran the benchmark? Come on, admit it, pretty perky, wasn't it?
Ah, but woe is you. Run a simple benchmark that indicates your video isn't up to snuff, and suddenly your lightning-fast cheetah is an old, smelly dog.
Tsk, I say. And again, tsk.
But I didn't drag your letter out just to chide you (although as the owner of a stable of considerably slower Macs, I admit my motives were less than 100-percent pure). No, if you want to see better numbers in the benchmark, a simple solution is at hand: Plug your monitor into the Mac's main video port.
Here's why: The AV card employs a 32-bit-wide data path, and the Mac's internal video circuitry has a 64-bit-wide data path. You can probably infer which is faster. The trade-off is that using the internal video causes your digitizing speed to head south in a hurry.
BOB: Right. If you're going to digitize video, you're much better off connecting the monitor to the AV card. If you're not digitizing video, plug the monitor into the internal port. But I wouldn't bother switching back and forth unless you see a noticeable difference in speed.
figure 1 / Testing all Macs -- you can compare your Mac's speed with that of other Macs by using System Info, part of Norton Utilities.
Bob LeVitus is the director of evangelism for Power Computing. Christopher Breen is a Mac consultant who writes for a variety of Mac publications.
You can find the shareware and freeware programs referenced in this article in the MacUser and ZD Net/Mac areas on CompuServe and eWorld. See How to Reach Us for instructions on accessing ZD Net/Mac.
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Don't want to wait for an answer? Post your question on ZD Net/Mac, MacUser's online service, or send e-mail to helpfolder@macuser.com or tips@macuser.com. We pay $25 to $100 for any undocumented tips we publish.
Tips / Startup Items
Stopping Startup Items
Here's a simple way to control whether or not your startup items load: Create a new folder, and name it A. Next, make an alias of that folder and place it in the Startup Items folder. Finally, delete the original folder.
When you restart your Mac, you'll get a dialog box saying that the alias' original item could not be found. The Mac will now let you choose whether to continue or stop loading the startup items.
Alex Rampell
via America Online
Customized Startup
If you want to control which application, folder, or file in your Startup Items folder ends up as the active item after startup, instead of putting the actual item in the folder, place an alias of it there and name it so it's the last item to load -- putting a tilde in front of the name does the trick. If you want the Finder to wind up as the active application, place an alias of your startup disk in the Startup Items folder and rename it so it's the last to load.
If, in addition to making the Finder the active application, you want your Mac to open specific folders at every startup -- for example, the Control Panels and Apple Menu Items folders -- don't bother with the startup-disk alias. Rather, using the same alphabetizing scheme, place aliases of those folders in the Startup Items folder.
Kris Thole
via America Online
Startup Reminders
Want a painless way to create voice reminders that play when your Mac starts up? Here's how: Make aliases of the System file and the Startup Items folder; place them on your desktop; and rename them Prereminders and Reminders, respectively. Make an alias of the Sound control panel, rename it Reminder Record, and put it into the Apple Menu Items folder. To record a reminder, select Reminder Record from the Apple menu and record a message, such as "Meeting at 12:30 Tuesday." Give it an appropriate name, and close Reminder Record. Open the Prereminders file -- you'll be instructed to close any open applications -- and drag the proper sound file to your Reminders folder.
Now your message will play at startup. Trash any obsolete sounds.
James F. Young, Jr.
via the Internet
Tips / Childproofing
Locking Folders
Have you ever wished you could lock a folder so that children or novice users couldn't change or delete it? Here's a simple way to protect yourself: First, turn on file sharing (via the Sharing Setup control panel). Now click on the folder you want to protect and choose Sharing from the File menu. Check the option labeled "Can't be moved, renamed or deleted." Even if you don't share the folder, it will be protected from little hands.
Mike Basham
via CompuServe
The Old Switcheroo
To lock not only children but also snooping teens and adults out of a private file, try switching its type and creator codes by using a utility such as ResEdit or, better yet, by using Mitch Jones' shareware program Snitch.
For example, switch the codes for a ClarisWorks database from type CWDB and creator BOBO to type BOBO and creator CWDB. Anyone attempting to open this file will be greeted with an Application Not Found dialog box. When you want to access the file, simply switch the two codes back again.
