Welcome to Mac*Chat, the free, weekly electronic newsletter biased
toward Mac users who are production-oriented professionals. Other Mac users may find many, many items of interest as well. I'd enjoy hearing your feedback and suggestions. Unfortunately, due to the massive numbers of messages I get every day, I can't guarantee a personal reply.
Tony Lindsey, <xxltony@cts.com>
http://www.cts.com/browse/xxltony
Mac*Chat back-issues may be found within any Info-Mac ftp archive at
info-mac/per/chat
and read with any Web browser at
http://www.ese.ogi.edu/macchat/
See the end of this file for legalisms and info on how to subscribe.
Any [comments in brackets] are by Tony Lindsey.
Topics:
Highlights Of This Issue
Mac*Chat's Future - Announcements Delayed Mac*Chat Web Site
Tips For Consultants
Terryfic Tips
Optical-Character-Recognition Tips
More About Mac Sale International
Quicktime VR Correction
Newton Buying Tip
Iomega Drive Discussion
CD-ROMs, Continued
Legalisms
Free Subscriptions To This Newsletter
Highlights Of This Issue
------------------------
I delay any announcements about this newsletter's future until later, The new "Webified" version of Mac*Chat is unveiled, the consultants among us get a BIG dose of good advice, we get some more of Terry Wilson's nuggets of knowledge, optical character recognition gets discussed, an online vendor gets discussed further, a previously-published URL is corrected, good buys on Newtons are mentioned, Iomega drives get their turn to be praised, and a few good points about CD-ROM drives are raised.
I'll be making formal announcements soon. We're still setting up the infrastructure, and it's taking longer than I expected. I think that most folks will be pleasantly surprised, since I will be encouraging readers to copy Mac*Chat as much as they want (as always), provided it stays un-edited and complete. As soon as I can post more updates, I will! By the way - I received 1,244 e-mail messages on the topic until I stopped counting. No matter the viewpoint, I've heard it in spades!
Mac*Chat Web Site
-----------------
By Tony Lindsey <xxltony@cts.com>
We've all been working very hard for the last few weeks, and I am proud to announce that the new "Webified" version of Mac*Chat is now open for business!
http://www.ese.ogi.edu/macchat/
Claude Errera <errera@ese.ogi.edu> has worked like a beaver to set up the pages, translate the setext files into HTML format, set up the topic-searching engine, and coordinate the many volunteers who are mirroring the information.
Elizabeth Lawler <eblawler@iglou.com> has designed the *very* attractive pages, and both folks have helped me greatly in making the daily decisions that had to be made. This project would never have happened without their drive and initiative!
Please join me in thanking them for their efforts - stuff like this doesn't just happen without a lot of hard work.
Tips For Consultants
--------------------
By John Friedlander <JFRIED.DD@eworld.com>, Executive Director, Macintosh Consultants Network
One way to get clients:
If you want to catch fish, you go where the fish are. If the fish you're looking for need help with their computers, look for them in computer stores.
(To be more accurate about it, retail computer _stores_ are where you're likely to find individuals and small business clients. If you're looking for corporate clients, go where the corporate types hang out: computer sales operations with a corporate emphasis, industry seminars, workshops and conferences, business-related networking organizations and social gatherings of all types, civic groups with heavy-hitting boards of directors, etc.)
Computer stores are populated by two basic types of people: people who have too little time to learn enough to appropriately configure and support the products they've been hired to sell, and people who have too little time to learn how to analyze their own computing needs and choose the appropriate solutions. Usually, the sales reps don't have enough knowledge to properly prescribe solutions, and customers don't know what to ask for or how to ask for it, and end up taking home the wrong tools for their job. As a consultant, your job is to get in the middle of this equation somehow and add information (for a fee) so that both buyer and seller benefit.
As well positioned, but overworked, generally underpaid pawns under the (generally remote) control of management, sales reps are good people for new consultants to get to know. Smart sales reps are always looking for ways to more easily handle the onslaught of ill-informed but demanding customers who have money to spend and too many demands to meet. You can help the sales rep by volunteering to help configure an appropriate solution for a prospective client with specific needs you have expertise in. If you can build a trusting relationship with an overworked sales rep (these people should not be hard to find...) you'll have many opportunities to meet prospective clients and impress them with how valuable you could be on an ongoing basis.
Sounds logical, and it is. Sounds easy, but it's not.
In reality, most sales reps don't want to give up anything to anyone they don't know. For some reason _most_ sales reps and _most_ consultants get along like sheep and wolves--although it's not always easy to tell which is which.
Assuming you really are really good in at least one area, the key to getting started is persistence and patience. Keep looking until you find a sales rep that understands the equation described above. Keep talking to people until you find someone who needs the skill you've got to sell.
* Volunteer to do a job in your area of expertise for a local charity or civic group. Look for a group that will be willing to acknowledge its use of your services, or that has a board of directors which will learn of your efforts and is made up of people you'd like to work for.
* Advertising is always appropriate when you want to sell something to someone who needs your service but doesn't know you yet. The key is to keep the advertising message and method consistent with the kind of service you're offering. As a professional service, consulting is most successfully advertised in manners consistent with other professional services: listings in publications read by members of your target market, tasteful, personalized direct mail, getting published as an authority on your particular topic, etc. (always insist that your phone number be included in your bio). Sales techniques that work for commodity goods, popular services or consumer items don't work very well for consulting. Skip the gaudy mass mailings, Yellow Pages ads, logoed tee-shirts and broadcast ads.
What do clients "really" want? What do consultants "really" do?
Prospective clients really want to know they can stop worrying about their computer problems. Whether this problem is a computer that is located in the wrong place, a monitor that has gone bad and needs to be fixed, a hand-written general ledger that is a pain in the neck to create and maintain and doesn't provide enough management information, or a sales force that needs computer support but doesn't think it can learn how to use the tools, successful consultants find ways to help clients stop worrying about their computer problems and get back to worrying about running their business.
Consultants do whatever they need to buy groceries! Whether this means moving a computer from point A to point B, arranging for a warranty repair of a failed product, configuring and customizing an off-the-shelf software package for a clients' specific needs, or training a sales force in how to use a new computer system, consultants need to keep their eyes and ears open to any opportunity to make some computer users' life easier.
And remember, you don't have to do everything yourself. Knowing when to get help is just as important as knowing how to solve problems yourself--and just as valuable to a client.
* I frequently tell prospective clients to consider me the custom shirt maker of the computer industry: we work together to get the clients' measurements, then I custom-fit the solution, hand-delivering it and replacing buttons as needed.
Other points:
* If you don't know what area to specialize in, pick something you absolutely _love_ to do and work it in to your plans. Remember, you have to eat, breathe, and sleep your specialty, so you might as well enjoy it.
* If you don't like dealing with people one-on-one or in groups, find a "people person" whose skills or dreams complement your own and work with that person. Consulting is a _people_-oriented business--technical skills are only half of the equation.
* Referrals don't generate themselves, you've got to work your network of contacts, and don't be afraid of saying what you do well and that you'd like to do more of it. If you isolate yourself socially, you'll be both lonely and broke.
* If you have trouble communicating face-to-face or in writing, take classes to get better at it. People who can't communicate with potential clients might be able to write code (or whatever) like a genius, but if you can't speak or write well, you can't sell. If you can't sell, you won't eat.
* Remember that you're not a database designer, or a network guru, or a desktop publishing genius, _you're a problem solver_. You make people's computer problems go away. You're not a faceless, anonymous lab tech, you're a doctor. Whether you're a surgeon or a shrink, _you make people feel better_.
With a lot of motivation and a little bit of luck, your next challenges will be how to manage a growing accounting task, how to raise your prices, how to pick good (and lose bad) clients, how to hire employees and manage growth, and how to get away on vacations.
Good luck!
--------
By pmorgan@morgan-news.com (Peter Morgan, Morgan:Newsletters)
>At some point, could you provide some thoughts on billing programmes for consultants? I am thinking particularly of TimeTracker (now at 2.5, I think).
I far prefer Timeslips, available for Mac or The Other Guys.
Timeslips Corporation
239 Western Avenue
Essex, Maine
01929
Office: (508) 768-6100
Slick, stable, good for customized invoicing and has accounting links; doesn't take up much memory when timing.
Terryfic Tips
-------------
By Terry Wilson <TerryW6@aol.com>
**Stickie Notes for 1995** I always keep a Stickie Note handy on my desktop for jotting down tips and insights as I stumble across them during the course of the day. (Is that a tip?) Unlike its analog version, a desktop stickie note (part of System 7.5) can expand. Now it's time to clean it off and start a new one.
**Overcome 'floppy swappy'** When doing a multidisk installation such as that of Word or Macintosh System software, copy the first disk to your hard drive and run the installer from there. That way, you should only have to insert the rest of the disks once each. This keeps you from being a slave to all of those annoying requests for Disk 1.
**Instant Folder Access** In System 7.5, the submenus in the Apple menu (turn them on in the Apple Menu Options control panel)are simply folders containing files and more folders. Rather than mousing all the way through nested folders to a final document, you can stop at any of the folders along the way. This is handy if you prefer to choose items by double-clicking an icon, if you need to view your files by date, or even if you aren't going to open anything, but just need to copy or move files.
**Easy aliases** The Recent Documents (like Servers and Applications) submenu is simply a folder containing aliases created automatically by System 7.5 and updated as you open and close documents. Selecting Recent Documents (without dragging over to the pop-up menu) will open this folder. This is a handy way to drag an alias of a document onto the desktop. During the course of a day, the alias of a document you will want tomorrow or later in the week will very likely be displaced by numerous other documents you open later in the day (like each piece of email). Grab its alias before it disappears and you won't have to bother locating the original file yourself.
**Easy disk identities** If you have multiple disks or partitions, choose "Show disk info in header" in the Views control panel (by default, it is turned off); you can then tell by the space available which windows belong to which disks whether you view by icons or list.
**Easy file identities** Also in the Views control panel, click the middle size icon in the List Views section. This way, your lists will also show icons. By default, the smallest icon is checked, showing just the generic doc icons.
**Easy SCSI Addresses** You can quickly check the addresses of SCSI devices by choosing Get Info for each of them. No need to have SCSI Probe or some other utility, especially when you take a drive or Syquest to someone else's unfamiliar machine. (Just watch out for scanners which connect to the SCSI chain; you'll have to check them manually.)
**Keep your clock accurate** Current time of day can be easily accessed while on AOL. This is great for periodically adjusting your Mac's internal clock. Go to Keyword (command-K) and type Clock, or pull down Online Clock from the Go To menu.
**Mail Caveat on AOL** One bad address will spoil the whole batch. If you get a message back from AOL saying that a certain address was invalid, AOL didn't send it to anyone else in the address field either. Remove the bad address and re-send.
**Shift key reminder** If your machine hung at Shutdown and you have to restart in order to shut down, save some time by disabling all extensions when you restart (hold the shift key down as you restart). Also, if you need to turn on your Mac for a single, simple task like copying a file, you certainly don't need to hang around while ATM, Suitcase, and the other hundred extensions load. Speed things up by disabling all extensions.
c1995 Terry Wilson.
-------------------
This article may be reprinted in newsletters published by non-profit user groups, provided an issue of the newsletter in which the article appears is sent to: Terry Wilson, PMUG Dialog editor, 1601 Church Rd., Southampton, NJ 08088
Optical-Character-Recognition Tips
----------------------------------
By Frobisher@aol.com
>I am curious about the practicality of OCR - In particular about the feasibility of converting my pile of ripped-out journal articles into electronic form. Has the technology improved to the point that electronic archiving of printed material is worth considering?
I tried that with articles from MacWeek and MacUser. I used the last full version of OmniPage before OmniPage Pro (I forget what the exact version is...2.0?) and gave up quickly.
With regular-sized magazine pages, I either had to manually pick the copy blocks out in order on the page preview, or cut-and-paste the OCR'd text back into order. Unless I was scanning an article that occupied a page, a whole page, and nothing but a page. :)
MacWeek articles were useless when they ran from the top to bottom of the oversized pages. I gave up trying to piece them together.
One might get better results by manually cutting-and-pasting hard copy onto typewriter paper before scanning, but you'd have to photocopy 2-sided originals, and that would reduce the quality of the text for OCR.
I'm not putting OCR down, it has worked great for me when the originals were pretty much straight text, typewritten or typeset in straight galleys or columns. My fax software even has a serviceable OCR. You have to make a judgment based on your scanner speed, OCR speed and how much extra garbage is on the page. The OCR has to sort out all that other garbage.
If you try scanning magazine or newspaper pages, let me suggest you cut a piece of black paper as a backing sheet before you scan. This helps prevent the text on the back of the sheet from reading through and flummoxing the OCR. You might have to adjust your scan density a mite, or even a tad lighter.
------------
By haynes@asel.udel.edu (Carl W. Haynes III)
http://www.asel.udel.edu/~haynes/g1r.html
>[My personal opinion is that it's still pretty awkward - Anybody else wanna take this one?]
I disagree, OCR has advanced to the point that it is very good at what it does. I have used OmniPage Professional and have found it to be both quick and accurate. If the articles are all from the same journal, an additional measure you can take to ensure accuracy is to train the software specifically on the font used in the journal. You can probably expect around 95%-98% accuracy. Running a spell checker over the finished document usually catches any mistakes. It is by far the cheapest and most cost effective way to get a large number of documents into electronic form. Of course it will be mind-numbingly boring to scan in all the documents, but it is great to have searchable documents online.
More About Mac Sale International
---------------------------------
To: jglazer@gard.com
>Could you provide contact information for Mac Sale International? In your last MacChat you provided their web page but (still being locked into the late 1980's) I only have e-mail access.
[Sorry - I forgot!]
Mac Sale International
1150 West Alameda Suite 1
Tempe ,AZ 85282
Toll-free: (800) 729-7031 * In Arizona: (602) 858-0900
-------
By s.tout@cclru.unsw.edu.au (Simon Tout)
I'm a peeved Australian.
On your recommendation I gave "Mac Sale International" a call to ask about the Microsoft Word 5.1/Excel 4 deal. I was disappointed to find that the "international" part of their name doesn't really mean anything, the package is for sale in the US only and they don't ship overseas (according to their uncommunicative telephone operator anyway).
As a considerable proportion of your readers are probably not in the US <insert clichi about "Global Network Village" here> it might be worthwhile to check whether these "offers" are available outside continental North America.
Sorry if I sound churlish, but I've been getting more and more sensitive about receiving a whole bunch of useless postings (to me), telling me about my "First Amendment Rights" or offering to sell me software/hardware, all of which can be easily remedied by a simple "restricted to US only" command when posting. Perhaps I'm over-tired. I do enjoy reading MacChat, anyway, congratulations on the good work.
Quicktime VR Correction
-----------------------
To: "Scott L. Sherrill" <slsherri@mtu.edu>
The URL http://www.quicktime.apple.com is incorrect. To obtain the Quicktime VR viewer the URL is
http://qtvr.quicktime.apple.com
Of course it can also be reached through Apple's home page
http://www.apple.com
[I appreciate the correction - Maybe when I can afford staff we'll check every darned URL before posting it! I sure try, but I get so rushed at deadline. You wouldn't believe the size of the checklist so far.]
Newton Buying Tip
-----------------
By Victor Eijkhout <eijkhout@math.ucla.edu>
>One of the User Group editors alerted me to the fact that MSI is charging $129 for Apple's Original Newton Message Pad,
Big deal. The MP100 is $150 nowadays, and that one has the same ROMs as the 120 (which is not true for the OMP). Available from MacZone, MacMall, and probably a few more. (The 110 is $280, but the consensus on comp.sys.mac.newton seems to be to stay away from it: either get the cheapo 100 or the 120 which can be ROM-upgraded when the new OS comes out this fall.)
Iomega Drive Discussion
-----------------------
By taylore@rtd.com (Eric Taylor)
I've been Systems Admin for the last 5 years for a desktop publishing company, and since we have to have a variety of media just to be compatible with the various service bureaus we deal with around the country I've had a fair amount of experience in this area.
I like magneto-optical in terms of its storage life and imperviousness to outside magnetic influence, but as for its speed, I don't like waiting the 20 minutes it takes to fill a 128mb optical (or format it for that matter). For online storage, unless you specifically need compatibility with a service bureau, give me an Iomega Bernoulli drive. Its as fast as a Syquest but generally with reliability more like MO media. Its also what I have on my own system at home.
Of the 15 or so Bernoulli drives I've had experience with in the last 5 years, only one drive has gone bad (and it quickly repaired) and more importantly, only 2 out of the 50 or 60 disks I've had contact with has gone bad. This includes surviving strenuous real-world usage such as accidentally rolling over a disk on the floor with my office chair. The Syquests we have, on the other hand, pick up bad blocks fairly regularly during Fedex shipping and I've had several of them fail in the last year alone.
In addition, the formatting and driver software Iomega ships with the disks is excellent, with such handy features as putting the drive to sleep after a user-specified time period and finding out how much life is left before the disk needs reformatting. Again I contrast that with Syquests, which I have to reformat with FWB just to achieve reliable mounting and unmounting.
As always this is just one users opinion, but I sincerely believe that for people seeking a personal online storage solution Bernoullis are a reliable answer. (And Zip drives too--from what I understand they use the same Bernoulli technology.)
--------
By patrickh@omni.voicenet.com (Patrick Henebry)
Your placing my warning about Iomega technical support in Mac*Chat seems to have reached a wide audience. However there seems to be somewhat of a misconception (my fault not yours). I didn't mean to say that the product has problems, just the technical support. What follows is typical of several E-mail messages I have gotten (and responses I wrote) in just the past day.
>regarding the note you placed in Mac*Chat about the problem you have with your Zip drive: what exactly is the problem? I'm asking because I've been telling people the drives are great and want to know if I should stop saying that, and why.
I ordered the SCSI version of the Zip drive and the Iomega Zoom SCSI controller for PCs. The controller installed fine, so did the software. But as installed the drive isn't cached by Smartdrive (the DOS disk cache). I wanted to do this to further improve performance. Some SCSI devices require what is known as 'double buffering' in order to work properly with Smartdrive.
When I couldn't find the answer to this question in any of the documentation, including the online manual I started checking out the online support. After discovering that Iomega had closed their support areas on CompuServe I then posted to AOL.
After receiving no reply in a few days I reinstalled the DOS 6.2x help files (removed way back to save space). After consulting them and doing testing I determined that the drive did not need to be double buffered. As of this writing I still have not gotten a response from Iomega.
*****The drive itself, and the controller have worked flawlessly.*****
However technical support for the product is severely understaffed due to grossly underestimated demand for the product. The technician I spoke with on the phone said that letters of complaint to the address I gave in Mac*Chat would actually help the support staff to convince their superiors to hire more people. As I said in my original message in Mac*Chat (apparently not clearly enough) my problem is not with the drive but the support.
Because the Zip drive is so popular and there may be others who order the SCSI version and controller so that the drive can be used on both Macs and PCs I felt I should pass on the warning about support problems. As I said in the warning not every user will be able to take appropriate diagnostic steps to solve whatever their problem is.
CD-ROMs, Continued
------------------
By Jonathan Cooper <Jonathan.Cooper@ASU.edu>
One quick note about CD-ROM drives that won't be relevant to many people: With some drives (I know Apple double-speed drives will do this, I'm not sure about any others, but Apple quad-speed drives will almost certainly do this also) you can send audio data through the SCSI port. This means that if you want to do any audio editing, and want to keep the cleanest possible signal, you should get a drive that supports this feature. Otherwise, you have to send the audio through the drive's A>D converter, and then through the computer's D>A converter, with a very noticeable loss of quality.
----------
By "_GFlouret" <gflouret@script.org.ar>
I have a PowerMac 6100/60 with the DOS Compatibility Card. Recently I installed the CD-ROM 5.1.1 software and I found that there is an incompatibility between it and the DOS CD-ROM driver. When I try to read a CD-ROM in the PC mode, it fails giving a 101 error, saying that there is no disk. I reinstalled the 5.0.1 version and it works just fine.
I'm using PC Setup 1.0.3 and I don't know if there is a newer version but I think that it will make no difference.
Legalisms
---------
Copyright 1989-1995 Tony Lindsey. Nonprofit groups (such as Mac
User Groups) or other non-commercial publications) are welcome to use any part of the Mac*Chat newsletters if full credit is given. All others will need to contact me.
This newsletter is intended purely as entertainment and free
information. No profit has been made from any of these opinions. Time passes, so accuracy may diminish.
Publication, product, and company names may be registered
trademarks of their companies.
This file is formatted as setext, which can be read on any text reader.
Tips from readers are gratefully accepted. Please write them in a
user-friendly way, and if you are mentioning an Internet site, please include a paragraph explaining why others should visit it.
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