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I have never received as much mail in such short time related to anything I've ever written on the Mac Web as I got, and continue to get, after posting my little reactionary rant on Apple's announcement yesterday that they will be terminating OS 9 dual boot capability on Macs in less than four months time. Some of you even agreed with me. Some didn't. I wish I could respond specifically and in detail to every message I've received on the topic, whether in concord or disagreement, but I'm simply overwhelmed by the volume of mail. I will be posting all the messages, with direct replies to to a few specific points raised, but I am obliged to try and address the controversy more generally a comprehensive Moore's Views & Reviews column on Friday. I wrote the Tuesday piece in the first twenty minutes after reading the Apple press release, so it was a stream of conciousness catharsis, and I didn't spend a whole lot of (like any) time in sober rumination before putting hand to keyboard, but upon reviewing the article several times, I'm not moved to revise what I said. However, some further clarification is an order, which I will address in the Friday column. Despite many eloquent and well-stated counter arguments from OS X aficionados and Apple apologists, I remain convinced that this policy announcement is a gratuitous slap in the face to substantial numbers of longtime Mac loyalists who still need to use OS 9, without any apparent objective compelling reason for the move other than force-goosing OS X adoption. In the words of a Mac Web writer colleague: Apple has handled this "with all the grace of dropping pigs in slop from the roof of the barn." In August, 1999, Steve Jobs said that "choice is good." Guess he's changed his mind. I'm not unreasonable. I appreciate that when Apple does move to a new CPU, whether it be a G5, a Power 4, X86, or something else, OS 9 can no longer be supported. However, so long as Macs are sold with G3 or G4 chips, there is simply no legitimate reason that OS 9 can not continue to be supported. If Apple can afford the development expenditure to keep OS X updated for X86 support, surely it is not an onerous demand to continue supporting the traditional Mac OS on machines with existing motherboard architecture for as long as possible. Oh yes, one other point I want to clarify: my objection to the demise of the dual boot systems is NOT predicated on my personal difficulties with OS X's non support of simultaneous input from two pointing devices. That is an esoteric issue that wouldn't be an issue at all to the vast majority of OS X users. Give me credit for a bit of objectivity folks! There are plenty of other shortcomings in OS X at its current stage of development -- notably speed, or lack of it for one -- that renders OS X unready to replace OS 9 for many of us at this time. As my anonymous "pig slop" friend sumarized: "What I can't figure out is, who among the user base is going to say, 'OBOY! A PowerMac that can't be booted into OS 9.'" I will address these points and others more exhaust only on Friday. Keep those letters coming!
OS 9 vs Jaguar Speed Bakeoff
OS 9 vs Jaguar Speed BakeoffFrom Scott R. Godin
> Shutdown computer (after running benchmark trials): > 9.2.2: 3s
Part of what you are seeing here is the way Unix works, shutting down services cleanly is important -- as important, in fact, as not force-quitting every application you use instead of going to the quit menu item. Take the time to watch a PPC running Yellow Dog Linux start up and shut down.. most of this is hidden from the Macintosh user, so you DON'T get to see the parade of messages as services are brought up and down during the boot/shutdown process. I'd like to see this made optional, myself, as I find it comforting to know the machine is *doing* something and not just spinning its wheels. Basically this is normal, and expected, for unix/linux systems. It's not likely you will ever see this change, except by using faster drives, and faster memory, and running fewer services that require startup and shutdown. I also take some umbrage with the liberal use of 'significantly' (a difference of 2.6 seconds is an eyeblink or two; hardly significant), and 'much' (used to describe the copy speed and finder scrolling speed, where here *I* would have used 'significantly' instead), and relegating the rest to "OS 9 is faster". Semantically speaking, in that context the usage makes little sense and is misleading to the reader. Keep up the great work, and I hope you solve your mouse problem soon -- that has to really stink.
Scott R. Godin
Hi Scott;
The comments you cite were verbatim from the guy who did the bake-off.
I had YDL installed on my late, lamented WallStreet, so I konw wherei=of you speak. However, it seems that 10,2 is pokier at shutdowns than 10.1.x, although I haven't checked. I rarely shut down my PowerBook. OS 9 takes quite a while to shut down too when I have my usual 20+ applications open, but surely this guy is comparing apples with apples, so to speak -- starting the shutdown with no applications open.
Charles RE: Getting ViaVoice for OS X to work on 10.2 (Jaguar) From Larry Singer I'm the quadriplegic gentleman who originally wrote about ViaVoice incompatibility. I have ALREADY done the resetting of the system preferences in both places. I AM able to do the voice model setup...the hang-up comes after this when I don't get a level to register in the VoiceCenter. I can do nothing after setting up ViaVoice. VoiceCenter just sits on my screen looking pretty. As for the 2nd aspect, T. Patrick - mabye you're right and I have jumped the gun too quickly and haven't done enough set-up and document analysis.If I ever get it to work, i'll definitely do more practice paragraphs and document analysis. Thanks. If you or anyone hs any suggestions, please e-mail me; lsinger9404@cox.net
Thanks-
Hi Larry;
My suggestion would be to try iListen 1.5.1. It supports Jaguar, and in my experience does not have the cranky microphone recognition issues that afflict ViaVoice.
Charles
Re: Getting ViaVoice for OS X to work on 10.2 (Jaguar) - The Sulotion At LastFrom: Larry Singer FINALLY. I broke down and called the 900 number to get the Holy Grail. After going through their routing system (which took a minute at $2.99/minute). And it turns out the issue is something they know about...but they're not gonna put it up on their technical support website - not when they stand to make $2.99/minute (all told, it takes about 5 minutes of going through the routing menu and the tech guy SLLLLLOOOOOWWWLLLYYYY asking you questions about your system - I cut right to the chase at every opportunity). Turns out, in your Applications->ViaVoice->Utilities->Command & Control->Third Party Plug-ins there's a file called VVIEController (hmmm...for a Microsoft application...who would have ever guessed??!!??) Take it out. Drag it to the trash. Empty the Trash. You're set. Don't forget the system Preferences things - the Speech and the Sound Control Panels set for the microphone And the tech guy admitted they knew about this! Well...you've heard of shareware? In this day and age of "for fee" tech support, i'm going to institute a thing I call "sharetech". That's right. On the honor system. I took the plunge for all you VVer's without a voice in Jag. If you read this and found it useful and have used it for longer than 10 days - I saved the $15 for you, so in return, feel free to PayPal me a donation - $1, $2, $5...whatever you feel, to: lsinger9404@yahoo.com Thanks for your continued support! Larry Singer From Steve O'Neal Hi Charles, I've read with interest all the various users reporting success with Via Voice and OS 10.2, mainly by setting speech and sound preferences for the Andrea Microphone (which, BTW, did not need to be done in OS 10.1). As I noted to you in a previous email, I found OS 10.2 and Via Voice to be incompatible on my DDR 1ghz Powermac, even after setting these preferences, reinstalling Via Voice, and reading new stories. I'm suspecting now that Via Voice is perhaps not able to work well with either the new DDR Powermacs or the OS 10.2 build that is preloaded on these machines. It seems that others are having better results with Via Voice and OS 10.2 if they are using either the retail or upgrade CD version of 10.2, rather than its preloaded cousin. I do hope that is the case, as I'll be upgrading to OS 10.2 with the CD retail package soon, and advise you on my progress. Even with OS 10.1 and a Quicksilver 1ghz Dual Powermac, I find that dictation with Via Voice is still much slower into Word than into Speakpad. I'm thinking that this is a function of Word, but until Nisus releases an OS X version, there is really no other word processor comparable to Word. Unlike others, I find dictating into Speakpad and then transferring to Word to be very cumbersome, especially if you are modifying old documents, or using them as templates. In the meantime, I'm tempted to return to OS 9.2, Word 98 or Nisus Writer, and either iListen or Via Voice Enhanced. Maybe in another 6-12 months these software and hardware products will mature into their full speech recognition and dictation potential for OS X. Steve O'Neal
Hi Steve;
Of course, if you bought iListen 1.5.1, you might find it running in 10.2 the ideal combination. The beauty of iListen now is that it works well in both OS x and OS 9.
Charles Comment on Moore's Mailbag: Firewall From Bob Lopez Hello Mr. Moore, (In response to Joseph Dimattio's question about Mac Firewall software because he is going to upgrade to DSL.) Joseph, I have had all my home Macs on DSL since it first became available several years ago. Based on my experience at work I decided to not use any firewall software when were were using Mac OS 9 since it is very hard to break into and most crackers are looking for Windows machines to target. This should work OK for you if you are not running any kind of servers on your machines. If this is too radical, or are running some sort of server then you could try Symantec Norton Personal Firewall and see how you like it. Mac OS X is a different story. There is an excellent firewall built into the BSD UNIX layer called IPFW (IP firewall). Fortunately you do not have to be a UNIX geek to use it. If you are running 10.2 then go to System Preferences > Sharing, then click on the Firewall tab. You may turn the firewall on and off from there and add custom rules if you wish. If you would like a more elaborate tool or are not running 10.2 yet, then try Brickhouse by Brian R. Hill. This is an excellent GUI to the built in firewall and works on all versions of OS X. If you are familiar with Checkpoint's Firewall-1 then I recommend you experiment with Brickhouse because you can create a much more detailed firewall ruleset compared to Apple's very easy to use GUI. Brickhouse also has an expert mode in case you would like to look at or even modify the command line parameters yourself. The same scenario applies to Mac OS X as it does to Mac OS9, if you don't run any kind of server (or sharing) software, you will very likely be OK, if you want to feel more secure, run the firewall on every machine. The last, or maybe the first thing, to consider is that when you install DSL, you can use a router and gain the advantage of all its features. In this case you would use a small home router with built in firewall and NAT. Most small router manufacturers (including the popular ones) claim that they have firewalls built in but they only block your ports from being open to the Internet, but they do include NAT (network address translation, AKA SUA). NAT allows more than one machine to share a single IP address to the Internet. This is not only useful to allow your whole family to surf the Web simultaneously, it is also considered an effective security measure on its own (since outsiders don't know what IP address your machine is at). Since you are already blocking your ports (don't have them open) if you are not running any server software you didn't gain anything with a port blocking firewall so you would really want to get a serious firewall. The premier unit to get is the Netscreen NS 5 series of firewall (it has a built in router). This is a top of the line commercial grade firewall with the same guts and software as the big units we use in global datacenters. It is a stateful firewall (it actually watches what you are doing and blocks access attempts to your machines that you did not initiate) and is completely customizable. This is the same protection you would get by running Checkpoint Firewall-1 at home, except that the Netscreen is faster, cheaper and easier to use. Their lowest cost unit is just a few dollars more than a top of the line home-oriented stateful firewall/router like the Zyxel Zywall 1 (a good second choice). If you would like to know if anyone is actually trying to get into your Mac (that is running Mac OS X), then try HenWen. This is an installer and GUI for SNORT, the UNIX network intrusion detection system (NIDS). You can easily get it running with the default installation but, It will take a bit more effort to customize to your own needs. There is so much more, but I hope that this is enough to get you started. Bob Lopez PS Netscreen firewalls are internationally reknown and awarded for their speed, ease of use and protection. Here are both company's links. http://www.netscreen.com/products/appliances.html#ns5xp_xt or: here From Wayne Folta Charles, Joseph DiMattio asked about firewalls for MacOS X. It turns out MacOS X comes with firewall software built in, and 10.2 adds a graphical interface for configuring it. This graphical interface may not be as fully featured as third-party products, but it's free and the overall firewall software is powerful. To be honest, I'd recommend getting a gateway that has a ethernet switch in it and does NAT/DHCP, attach it to your broadband connection and hook your Macs to it. It'll provide security from the internet and hook your Macs together at high speed and it's transparent to you. From Greg Burkman Hi Charles, Greetings once more from Seattle! Joseph DiMattio wrote to know more about firewall software for OS 9 and X. OS X has a built-in firewall, but from what I understand, it's not all that friendly to configure. And an improperly configured firewall can create all sorts of problems, from rendering the firewall useless to preventing Web and e-mail access. There is a shareware (US$12) app over here that supposedly works with the OS X firewall to provide a more user-friendly, Mac-like GUI: http://www.securemac.com/macosxfirewalk.php. However, I have no experience with it, but it looks like it's worth a spin. I do have much experience with NetBarrier, a commercial (about US$70, I believe) firewall for OS 8 and 9. It's made by Intego, is very easy to set up, and is extremely effective -- I have a friend who is a Linux-based hacker, very experienced. I asked him to break into my machine. The firewall caught him immediately, alerted my by sound and by e-mail, and put him on its "stop list," meaning a list of IP addresses the software remembers tried to break it. "Access denied" LOL! Intego makes a lot of other great security solutions (no, I don't work for the company and am not affiliated with it in any way). Here's their site: http://www.intego.com/home.asp. Hope this helps, Joseph.
Best,
From Theodore M.Finkel
Three good ones are:
-BrickHouse
-OSX 10.2 [built in ]
Hope this helps. From dxtr Hi Charles, In OS X Odyssey 162 there were a couple of letters about FTP clients. I am wondering why you need a separate FTP application? In Xv2 all you need is to select "Connect to Server" under the "Go" menu. Enter the FTP Server address in the "Address" space and there you are. No muss no fuss. Am I missing something?? I guess if you upload there is a need, but for downloading the latest Chimera build it's the easiest way I've seen.
seeya
Hi dxtr;
I occasionally use a ftp client for downloads, but 98% of the time it's for uploads.
Charles The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here: Note: Letters to Moore's Mailbag may or may not be published at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context. Opinions expressed in postings to Moore's MailBag are those of the respective correspondents and not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Editor and/or Applelinks management. If you would prefer that your message not appear in Moore's Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published. CM
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