July 2, 2001

Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?

How low can you go?
OK, this is ridiculous! I just got an email from a well-known vendor offering 168 Pin 5V DIMMs for my high-zoot PowerMac 8600 at prices that defy belief. Are they making these things out of recycled milk cartons or what? And do they actually work?? I suppose at the given prices, I could just go ahead and find out: these guys want only $45.95 for 128MB! The same thing (it is?!) from a really dependable geek shop costs three times as much. What's going on here?

Many years ago you used to be able to buy really cheap cigarettes in different parts of the world that were reportedly manufactured from recycled butts. I always doubted these stories, since I'd been to the countries in question and never noticed anyone gathering up ashtray leavings. Not being a smoker, I couldn't give the cheapo cancer sticks a taste test, either. But since cracking open the 8600 is child's play, forty-six bucks for 128 megabytes is something I can try. Will my Mac respect me in the morning, though?

The Big Guy already has 224MB to play with, plus a 450MHz G3 upgrade and two high-speed SCSI drives. The VRAM is maxed out, and there's a USB card for ports for the scrolling mouse and a nifty USB hub I picked up a while back. 224MB used to be enough. I haven't had a low-memory crash since, well, um, last week (as it turns out): I had damn near eveyrthing open, including Dreamweaver, Photoshop, two browsers, and a host of other goodies, when low and behold I finally ran out of juice. All right, I need more memory. But can I trust the cheap stuff?

Mysterious disappearing hard drive volumes
For that matter, can I trust myself to reformat my own hard drive? A while back I explained how I had set up one of my two drives to more or less mirror essential data from the other one. Connectix' Copy Agent does a great job of duplicating my daily output, the bookmarks file, and even my email database, but once in a while it doesn't work because the newly-scrubbed backup drive's partitions just vanish from the desktop. Ack!

I probably should have zeroed out the drive or something. I'd orginally partitioned and set up the thing with CharisMac Anubis, a decent enough piece of software, but I'd gotten tired of hassles with third-party drive partitioning (like having to pay for new drivers).The last drive MacGurus sold me worked just fine with Apple's latest Drive Setup utility, so I tried the same thing on this one. Everything went swimmingly ("This drive can be initialized," etc.) until about a week later when I turned on the Big Guy in the morning and couldn't see the volume icons on my desktop! Well gee, where'd they go? I rebuilt the desktop and they quietly reappeared. Hmm.

Ever since then, I'd say it's been about 50/50. Sometimes they're there, sometimes not. If they're missing, a simple restart usually brings them back. Rebuilding the desktop or updating the disk drivers resurrects the missing partitions, too, and as far as I know there haven't been any other problems like data loss or weird digital boojum-scroojum. So far, I can live with it, like I'm living with the next topic.

Rich teenage sluts who can't spell
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that email spam is taking over the world? What I can't figure out, among other things, is why this is happening at all. I mean, someone is being paid to do this, right, but WHAT FOR?? Is there really money to be made from this activity? Do people who actually respond to junk email? Looking at the kinds of things I receive on a daily basis, it's hard to believe.

Hardly an hour goes by without another offer of Viagra by mail or penile enlargement scams. Maybe these are the unfortunate consequence of necessary sociological research conducted in my role as an Internet editor, maybe not (I'd have to check my 88-year-old aunt 's email to be sure). Then again, I have so many email addresses stuck up all over the Web, it's probably a wonder I don't get more of this stuff. I also get tons of get-rich-quick come-ons, offers of everything from horny coeds to cheap mortgages and dental insurance that's even more unbelievable than 128MB for $46, as well as several Microsoft newsletters I never signed up for and simply cannot get unsubscribed from (believe me, I've tried). But what really gets me are the spammers who use dumb tricks like subject lines that masquerade as personal messages: "You HAVE to see this," "I really miss you," and so on. Most of these are misspelled as well.

And don't talk to me about filters. I'd still have to check the "Deleted" folder to see if anything good got swept out with the bad. I have a bunch of filters set up anyway, mostly to keep individual idiots off my radar screen. THAT works great, in case you'd like to try the same thing! My question remains the same, however: why does spam exist at all? Are there really that many brainless, knuckle-dragging, droolbucket doofuses out there sending off for videotapes of Katie Couric having sex with hippos or buying RAM chips made of old cigarette butts? You tell me! All I know is that while I was writing this, I got half a dozen "See your favorite celebs nude!" emails, yet another Britney Spears doing something unmentionable (here) video offer, plus four "Get cash fast!" messages. Geez...

Awright, where's my wheels?
My humblest apologies if I incorrectly remember a certain phrase I cobbled together from a Berlitz guide years ago, but here it is now almost a month since I set myself up as a Web designer on the side, and I'm still not rich! I've gotten an assignment or two, however. I've even made some actual money, enough to keep me from going into "retail," at least. No offense intended if that's your gig, you understand, I just wouldn't be able to handle it. The concept of customer service is hard enough to get into as a digital entrepeneur: so far, for every person who wants to pay me, there are at maybe ten who just want free advice, and I figure this is nothing...

In the course of this madness, I've had to (try to) learn Dreamweaver. At this point I think I'm beginning to understand why some folks recommend GoLive, but it's also clear that both of these apps are powerful tools. So is a hydraulic press, but if all you need to do is bend back a few metal tabs, use a hammer. Claris HomePage 3.0 ("that old hound dog," as my webmaster brother calls it) is looking better and better all the time. And do navigation bars with Javascript rollovers really work better than ordinary text links? Why does this remind me of my cheapo Wal-Mart GE microwave with a twist dial instead of a numeric keypad? I can heat a cup of coffee with one motion, no beep-beep-beep-push required.

Think about it, and can I build one for you?

Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr welcomes your comments and is tired of updating this blurb, so it still says that FARR SITE fans of yore can sign up for the Farr Site News by clicking HERE and sending a blank email (it lives at ZOOZONE.COM). The ZOOZONE, incidentally, is immeasurably distinguished by FotoFeed, a daily New Mexico image. Is that cool or what?!

Put this into the <head> section of all your Web pages and strike a blow for freedom...

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AUDIO CREDIT: embedded 44k file, European Birds -- Sounds and Sonograms.

DESIGN CREDIT: GRACK! byline graphic by Bob Farr.