Cool Mac Gear

Let me add my vote to the 82 percent of respondents to a MacWorld UK online poll support (MacWorld said "demand") Apple resuming the practice , terminated in 1997 after the return of Steve Jobs, of allowing the magazine to distribute bundled Mac OS version upgrade CDs.

"Most Mac users were flabbergasted that Apple refuses Macworld permission to carry the updates, pointing out that broadband uptake in the UK is on a far smaller scale than in the US. Apple does offer its own 10.2.4 combo updater at a cost of £14."

As I noted on Monday, it took me nine and one-half hours to download the OS X 10.2.4 Combo Updater last weekend, and I was very fortunate that I didn't have any dropped connections. It recently took me three attempts to get the much more modest 15 MB Mozilla 1.3 B installer down. Seventy-six MB is a simply an absurdly sized download for dial up Internet users, even on 56 K connections, let alone people like me in remote rural areas who get 26,400 bps connection speeds on a good day.

Apple seems to assume that everyone has broadband, but the fact is that some 75 percent to 80 percent of Internet users are still on dial up connections, and that's not likely to change for years yet. For many, there is no practical alternative. The nearest broadband access to me is 50 mi. away.

Some respondents to the MacWorld poll also noted that their ISP automatically terminates connections after two hours, which complicates things greatly. Some FTP clients support resumable downloads, but to the best of my knowledge, Apple doesn't offer an FTP alternative for software upgrades. Also, in some parts of the world, dial up charges are based on kilobyte volume, making large software downloads prohibitively expensive.

As one MacWorld poll respondent observed:

"Its about time Apple listened to its consumer base users and made it easier for its loyal customers to keep their machines up to date. Most of us are still on dial-up connections, and will remain so for many years - perhaps for ever in rural areas."

My esteemed colleague John Farr, whi also lives off the beaten track, noted yesterday:

"...downloading the monster packages on a dialup connection isn't easy. For many, it's impossible, in fact, and we feel their pain: we've waited so long to install our own copy of Jaguar, we're already two OS updates behind, and that has to be discouraging, although a combo installer is available as a 76 MB download."

Some of the Mac OS Classic version upgrade downloads used to be available in segmented files, that could be downloaded individually and "reassembled" by Stuffit Expander when the complete set had been successfully collected., but that concession to dial up users has not been extended to the OS X upgrades.

Even CD's bundled with magazines would not be a panacea. I subscribed to MacWorld for years, but the magazine only included bundled software CDs with newsstand-purchased copies. MacAddict, on the other hand, provided subscribers with the CDs at least they did when we subscribed.

As MacWorld noted, Apple does offer a Mac OS X, v10.2.4, Update CD through the Apple Store for $19.95 plus shipping and applicable taxes, but that's a pretty stiff bite for a "free" upgrade, after having paid $129 for the Jaguar upgrade. Netscape offers browser version upgrades by mail on CD for free with a reasonable postage and handling charge of $2.99. I'm sure many Mac users would be delighted if Apple offered a similarly priced option for OS X system version upgrades.

If Apple really wants to speed up adoption of OS X to expand the user base, they need to get their thumb out, jettison the elitism, and be more attentive to the realities that obtain for a lot of their customers. We dial up users may be second-class netizens, but there are a lot more of us than there are broadband users.

Off soapbox for today.

10.2.4 on a Pismo

From John Firestone

Hi Charles,

Does the CD/DVD tray still open when you reboot your Pismo into 10.2.4 or just 9.1? Or am I confused?

I am currently running 10.1.5 on my Pismo and 10.2.3 on a Umax J700. I plan to first upgrade the Umax.

I guess I am either a low-end Mac type, a serial bargain hunter, or both. The UMAX is still going strong with a G3, ATI Orion video card, 1/2 GB of memory, USB, Firewire, two hard drives, a Zip drive, CD-ROM, and 3 CD-R(W) units.

I enjoy and appreciate your columns!

With regards from John.

Hi John;

The DVD tray now pops open when I reboot into any system version -- X or Classic. This is not an OS 10.2.4 issue, as the phenomenon manifested after I installed the Apple Firmware Update 4.1.8, and before I ran the 10,2,4 installer.

It certainly is annoying though. I don;t know if this problem is ideosyncratic to my particular machine, or to all Pismos.

The old UMAXs are great machines. My son and I like our S-900s.

Charles

OS9 hatred

From Jay Scheuerle

Hi Charles,

Just a thought here. The readers and responders of Mac sites tend to be more "ahead of the curve" in terms of general computer and OS usage, otherwise they wouldn't be viewing the sites. A good portion of these people are developers and self-described "power-users". The former want to simplify their workload by only developing for one Mac OS and the latter are fans who demand the latest and the greatest while seeing continued OS9 support as taking man-hours away from developing the next latest and greatest thing.

This second group, while extremely vocal and passionate, is by no means representative of the typical Mac user, just representative of the typical message-board poster. There are scores of Mac users who are using the OS that came with their machine, may have heard of OSX but don't understand what it does, have no idea that there are Mac related internet sites and really don't care. On the flipside, these people don't swallow every line that Steve Jobs tosses out because they have no idea what a Keynote or a MacWorld is.

Unfortunately, Apple seems to think that its average user IS one of these "power users"– someone who buys a new machine every 18 months, has broadband, digital video cameras and a Bay-Area salary.

I don't like going back to OS9 to boot, but there are times that I have to and it may seem like a bad-smell that I'm trying to hold my breath through while I'm there, but it's an option I NEED to have.

- j

Hi Jay;

Your comments resonate with what I said in the commentary above today.

But "bad smell?" Uh -- I think that's the sort of thing we've been talking about. ;-)

I enjoy working in OS X, but I also still get a kick out of the speed and smoothness in OS 9. I like both.

Charles

WindowShade, an addendum

From Constance Graves

Hi Charles!

An addendum to my (much) earlier letter about my problems with WindowShade and various other apps. For no discernible reason, last week, after Netscape had done its usual (at least for me) bit of losing all its prefs requiring a fresh installation, I tried WindowShade again. Lo and behold! It worked again. And continued to work after updating to 10.2.4. Go figure.

I've given up on Netscape, which I vastly preferred for a number of reasons, and am now using Safari as my preferred browser. It gets better and better with each update. Speed differences between browsers measured in seconds doesn't seem all that significant when you are using a DSL connection as I am, so I go for the browser that is stable (pace, Netscape) and allows me to do all the things I want on the Net. So far Safari fills the bill admirably.

Thanks for the response. There's no explanation (at least to me) for the weird things that can happen with a computer. I've always figured it knew what it's doing even if I don't understand it, and let it go at that.

Connie

Hi Connie;

Glad that you are finding Safari suits you.

If you miss the Netscape feature set (viz. - tabbed browsing), I've found Mozilla 1.2.1 to be very stable.

Charles

Preview as PDF to TIFF, JPEG, and numerous other formats

From Anonymous

Charles,

In response to the question on your site:

http://www.applelinks.com/articles/2003/02/20030218151350.shtml

"From: Frank Falcone

Greetings Charles,

Hoping you can help with a couple of problems.

1. Am running 10.2.4. Screen shots are being saved on the desktop as Acrobat PDF instead of TIFF. Is there somewhere to change the Helper Application for this feature? ....
Long Live OS 9.2

Big Frank"

1. Apple actually included the Export function in the File menu of Preview and it supports all these formats:

So next time you do a screen capture, use Preview to convert it. It will even reduce the file size by a certain amount, though nowhere near as powerful as using GraphicConverter .

The above attachment was a screen capture converted to JPEG with Preview.

Sincerely,
anonymous

Hi A.

Thanks A;

I used to use the Preview export function until I discovered Kunvert, which is faster and slicker than mucking about with opening graphics files in a third application. However, the Preview workaround is there and works.

Charles

The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here:
http://www.applelinks.com/news/odyssey/

CM

Charles W. Moore