Avery is now offering sheets of floppy disk label stock which works in a LaserWriter. Thunder Enlightning from Thunder Bay, Canada MUG cynically comments: “Just look how many conveniences became available after IBM went to the 3-1/2 inch disk. Uh huh, now I see!
MacWeek recently pointed out that although Apple said in mid-September that they had been “unaware” or the high failure rate of Apple/Quantum 40 and 80 meg hard disks, an Apple internal document says they learned of it in mid-summer.
There is now a repair program in place, including people who paid for repairs after—guess what—April Fools’ Day 1989. Nice date choice, Apple.
The fix is a “kick starter” to overcome “stiction,” which occurs when stiff lubricant keeps the drive platter from starting to spin.
If you paid for out-of-warranty repair, call (408)252-2275.
Since Apple won’t fix Quantum drives until you have a problem, and since a lot of drives are having problems, you might want to “have a problem” before Apple quits taking responsibility for the problems.
Are you a gambler? If you were a Fortune 500 corporation, would Apple make you gamble?
Should you use the yellow plastic disk drive protector in FDHD 1.4 meg drives? Bottom line from Apple: Not just no, but hell no. The FDHD drive protects itself by retracting the heads when not in use.
A Mac user in the Bay area talked a Mac owner with Apple Care into letting him shove one of those plastic jobbies into his drive. The drive was ruined and Apple replaced it under Apple Care.
To make sure, our friend did it again. Yup! Another ruined drive for Apple Care to replace.
That ought to prove something and save you from using your Apple Care.
The new screen saver, After Dark, has people panting. It lets you customize your screen to a fare-thee-well. It includes such screens as Hard Rain, Zot (lightning), Life (game) and many others. It also has an anti-snoop feature which lets only you open the screen again, $39.95, Berkeley Systems.
Don’t use FDHD 1.44 meg floppies if storage is your only problem. At current prices (which change all the time) storing on FDHD disks is 160/113ths more expensive than storing on 800k floppies. Use FDHD disks when you need to get more than 800k on one disk, like PageMaker 3.01 and up. When FDHD floppies come down in price, they’ll be fine for storage only, but not right now.
Sigh! What else won’t ReadySetGo let you do? It won’t let you specify fractional font widths. PageMaker, of course, does that.
I keep reading those “any old cheap copier paper will do for your Laser Writer articles. If the copy paper you choose is smooth, and not linty, it’s OK for proofs and trial runs.
But why give a client that crap? Buy some ultra-smooth, ultra-white, ultra-dry, 24 pound laser paper for final client copies.
They drool a lot when they see those beautiful pages.
I use either Howard Paper Mills Super Max Opaque or Weyerhauser #1176 Laser Quality for everything, including proofs and trial runs. The whiteness and feel are striking. The cost is always under $10 a ream. So 1,000 sheets is only going to cost you about $12-$16 more than using copy machine junk paper. How long does it take you to use 1,000 sheets? C’mon now!
Here is a formula for Service Bureau users to figure the true cost of one page:
Stated cost per page + (minutes for page to print out divided by labor charge per minute)
Example: 50¢ a page charge plus $10 per hour for a document which takes 4.5 minutes to print equals .74-7/10th cents, not just 50¢. Check it out.
Other considerations: will the Service Bureau help you solve any problems? Is there an hourly charge for this? If the first printout is crumby, will you be charged for the redo? When and why do hourly charges kick in?
I think you should get a printout, including a second try and a few minutes (less than 5) of “fixup” by a qualified Service Bureau employee, not by you—all for $1.00 “real total cost.” Maybe less if the document is many pages and simple to print.
Remember, on occasion a complicated document may take 4.5 HOURS to print. If you don’t believe that, I’d be glad to introduce you to the suffering LaserWriter user!
If you print out on a LaserWriter, be sure Symbol font is installed, even if you never use it. Why? Symbol provides information which many downloadable LaserWriter fonts will use to print out special characters. No Symbol, no characters.
I didn’t know that! With SmartScrap 2.0, anything grabbed with as lasso becomes a bitmap enroute to the Clipboard. To retain the PICT quality, use the marquee. (Thanks, Windows, MacOrange CA MUG.)
Handles on a Freehand block have magic properties. The left center handle adjusts letter spacing, but if you hold down the Option key, word spacing is adjusted instead.
The lower left corner handles adjusts line length, but add the Option key to stretch the text.
The center bottom handle adjusts line spacing (or leading). (Thanks, Ken Weeks, MacOrange CA MUG.)
Excluding underlined text, how many combinations of styles are there on the Mac? Sixteen. They are P, B, PI, PO, BO, PS, BS, PIO, PIS, POS, BIO, BIS, BOS, PIOS and BIOS.
But, on the LaserWriter only a limited number of these combinations are available. Print out a sheet containing samples of all 16 styles and you will find out what is available in each font.
For a short.trial, print out all 16 styles of Zapf Chancery and of Times. Very instructive!
Are you still using a Font/DA Mover prior to version 3.8? Don’t! Are you using Font/DA Mover at all? No? Shame on you! You are not in charge of your Macintosh yet!
Do you use all the neat keyboard equivalents in Word 3.0 and up? For example, to delete the previous word, use Option/Command/Backspace. Substitute a G for the Backspace and you delete the following (next) word instead. Go ahead! Try it!
For an end to screen font jaggies, get Adobe Type Manager. Your 41-1/2 point Adobe font will look clean as a whistle on screen.
Help! Anyone out there having problems with System 6.03 not opening documents with a double click? Several people have phoned in to Mouse Droppings suspecting 6.03 as the culprit. You get a message saying the application is missing, but it is not. Anyone confirm this? Anyone got a solution? I have already checked to see if the bundle bit is properly set, so don’t bother thinking that is the problem.
I have this idea. Why doesn’t some feminist artist produce a disk or two of EPS clip art depicting women (and men) in non-stereotypical roles?
Like women welders, steelworkers, doctors, lawyers and men nurses, librarians, secretaries, etc.
Are you listening, NOW members who happen to be artists?
Finder versions 6.0 and up park the heads on your hard drive if you hold down the Option key during Shutdown.
If you are forgetful, you could program a QuicKey or Macro to park the heads on every Shutdown.
November MacUser invited you to convert sounds from HyperCard snd format to CheapBeep’s Sound Cap format with Mac Recorder, $249.
Why not use shareware SoundLeech? It strips a copy of all the snd’s in a stack and converts them to SoundCap in seconds.
Why pay Farallon $249 when you only need Sound Leech?
If you are a masochist, hold down the Control key and start hitting other keys. (Do the word BOMB ring a bell?) (Thanks Jerry Pournelle, in InfoWeek, via MacNexus Interface of Sacramento CA MUG.)
A quick way to super- and sub-shift is Command/Shift/+ or /-. Command/ Shift/H makes small caps, and/K gives you all caps. (Thanks, Cindy Moore, Graphic Designer.)
If you ReadySetGo users are frustrated trying to find the end of a long text chain, let a PageMaker user give you a hand. Click on the chain, Select All and then press Option/forward arrow. Boom—you’re at the end of the chain.
To quickly locate the coordinates on a HyperCard screen, type this into the message box:
put the clickLoc
Now when you click at the desired location and hit Return, the coordinates appear in the message box.
On the other hand, if you need to locate a bunch of coordinates, create a “Find Coordinates” button. Script it this way:
on mouseUp
repeat until the¬ CommandKey is down
get the mouseLoc
put the mouseLoc
end repeat
end mouseUp
Note that pressing the Command key exits this button.
To make one button control another button, all you have to do is have the script of the controlling button click the mouse at the location of the button to be controlled, like this:
on mouseUp
click at 480,75 --or the --location of the button you --want to control
end mouseUp
How about a BSR 1200 baud modem for $49.90? Drag out the DAK catalog or call 1-800-325-0800 to order. Or call 1-800-888-7808 for a catalog. DAK is excellent to deal with.
Oh, you wanted a 2400 baud modem? Sorry. That one is $129.90.
Can’t beat those prices with a club.
If you are using Tops 2.1 on a network, be sure to have at least one DA open, or everything slows down to a walk. Bug in MultiFinder, according to Tops.
Although the current version of Panorama does not have auto-scroll in Forms Design mode, if you select the magnifying glass tool, move it to the work area, hold down the spacebar, and click the mouse, you get a reduced view. You see the whole page and you can work on it in that view. Command/click on the magnifying glass tool to return to actual size. (Thanks, Paul Chance of ProVue.)
There is now a MUG for Dyslexics. If you are interested, write Dyslexics MUG, The Forman School, Litchfield, CT 06759, (203) 567-9048.
And at West Point, where every cadet has to have an MS-DOS computer, USMac thrives. They’re outnumbered, but committed. The big surprise is no surprise to me. Guess who runs the USMA MUG bulletin board? A Navy captain. Beat Army, huh?
