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Note: The ol' mailbag has been overflowing over the long weekend. I'm working my way through the backlog. More tomorrow. CM

From Tracy Turner

Subject:

Computers (Even Macs) Are Still Too Hard To Use

Dear Charles,

I read your "Computers (Even Macs) Are Still Too Hard To Use" article with a lot of interest. My last job had me dealing with "Dougs" and software nurds simultaneously.

I'm currently exactly midway through CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) and math classes, just finished building a PeeCee from parts and components (new). I own 3 Macs (portable PPC, two desktops, all G3's), owned two others (68k) previously. The PeeCee is usually on the floor unplugged, the 3 Macs are frequently all running at once ;-)

I did a stint as Mac Tech Support at EarthLink Network in Pasadena. I achieved Windows proficiency to handle Windows Tech Support calls at EarthLink. I was promoted to Senior Mac Tech, Help Desk, then "Mac Call Backs". In Mac call backs, you are where the buck stops in EarthLink Mac Tech Support. You fix what no one else could over the phone, everytime, and retain the customer. You clue all other Mac Tech Support team members when they are stuck on a problem, you find what they missed.

I was promoted again to Quality Assurance (Network IT, not QA Tech Support). My title was Tech Admin/Tester. I tested Windows and Mac product software for EarthLink, new products, etc. I ghost wrote reports, was the eyes and ears of the director of Quality Assurance. I reported directly to him, not his dept. managers. The other half of the time, I tested and wrote bug reports, maintained bug-tracking and product databases. Our test Lab had over 100 Macs and PeeCee's, many running 24x7 automated tests. You get the idea....

I never ceased to be amazed at how difficult the developers made the software for newbies. "Go to the sandbox, left click on toolbar, scroll down, right click on properties, scroll right, left, down, then up again, middle click on portals, left click, type in DNS addresses.... There is a misconception of hardware and software development that the whole world is nurds. These people live and breath computers, they often believe all others do to.

Once a newbie gets lost in such a maze, they either get someone like me to grab the mouse and go "click, click, clack, now wasn't that easy?", or spend 2 hours on hold then 5 minutes talking to a computer sales chain-store reject. "Okay, now hang-up and try connecting again".

What is equally amazing is the ideology of the mass users of computers. The average computer user is like your friend Doug. I support a number of friends and family members that are exactly like Doug. Is it realistic to expect a computer, and extremely complex machine with complex software - to function like a toaster, a washer, a microwave?

Even people that "just word process, e-mail, surf a little bit" can benefit greatly from reading the owners manual.

What I would like to see is a company Apple and their OS XI team sit down with a bunch of Dougs, 2nd grade teachers, etc. and develop an OS that is as near to a toaster as possible for newbie users. The same CD could contain an "Advanced Install" for the rest of us. I'd also like to see the owners manual on all Apple Products printed in flourescent red cover ink, taped to the screen or case.... I was e-mailed last week and asked how to remove a Geoport from a 6400 Performa. Answer: Chapter 9 in the owners manual....

I'm prattling, but I got a real kick out of this article.

Best Regards,
Tracy Turner

Charles

From: John Kuzemka

Subject:

Your article

Loved your article and it's absolutely true. I probably love computing because I generally comprehend abstract concepts easily. But I never stop to think about others. I learned quite a bit when I had to really teach my wife how to use the web, email, etc. I started her out on a Powerbook 3400 on my DSL fed home ethernet LAN. This worked great but it still had wires! That was a bother to her (and me quite honestly) . I then purchased a used iBook, loaded it with max memory, put in an airport card, and installed an AP base station in my network. The 5 hour battery life, DSL speed, wireless freedom, and wake-ability of the sleeping iBook is almost flawless. It removes all of the irritating physical constraints of computing (well...almost).

Still not good enough though. Software stability issues over time still cause problems which require the computer "expert" to resolve. That is why I have seriously considered this product:

http://www.thinknic.com/

as the potential web surfing device for my 83 year old father. To me, he's the ultimate test of ease of computing. These NIC's run LINUX and I...think that whole concept is quite interesting. Still love my Macs (got way too many of them not to) but overall, I am a proponent of keeping it simple when it comes to most things.

John Kuzemka

Charles

From: Jane Thompson

Subject:

I enjoyed your article...

about computers not being simple enough.

I'm trying to get together a system for my 72 year old mother who lives across the country and doesn't know anything about computers at all, including turning it on and using a mouse, I'm trying to get her to see the value of email to us on the opposite coast, and how she can keep in touch with her sisters in Denver and Chicago, too. I bought her a PB 170, which is supposed to be very stable and sturdy (it feels like a tank) and I'm wondering how I'll get her to plug it in and turn it on, never mind actually using it and shutting it down. I got her a tiny 170, so she can mail it back to me if it breaks down and she gets too frustrated to do it herself. It's a good thing that I have almost unlimited free weekend minutes from my cellular company! It would be great to get back to simplicity. I own 7 Macs myself, and they do more than I'll ever need to know how to use. I have a modern firewire PB, but just got an old 280c so I can drag it around with me to do the simple things and use the newer one for backup and "fancy stuff."

Face it, I don't usually need to burn cd's and make movies on the fly.

I need a word processor and a game machine for when I'm stuck in traffic on the bus or in the airport or in the doctor's office. I like to write outside, and I can no longer read my own writing, and if I want anyone else to read it, it has to be transcribed, anyway. Life could be so much simpler.....

(no computers at all) '-)

Jane Thompson

Charles

From: David

Subject: Re:

Computers are still too hard

Charles:

I wonder if we will *ever* be able to achieve a simple to use computer which is also flexible enough to permit software installations and multiple users. Heck, let's even leave multiple users out of the picture. I've tried to imagine what such a thing would look like.

We have Windows which spews files willy nilly throughout the hard drive with the potential of breaking other programs or the OS itself. And lets not forget a Registry that still is too fragile. Go Back is a step in the wrong direction. We shouldn't be forced to Go Back in the first place. Obviously this model doesn't achieve the goal.

The pre OS X Mac model is much closer to the mark. Here *most* of the components are left in the subdirectory where the application is and where the subdirectory is or gets moved to doesn't much matter. But of course data and preference files usually go somewhere else and the program may install files into several subdirectories in the System folder. Well, I guess this isn't such a great idea either. Mac OS X is looking mighty stable for me but if anything goes wrong I certainly have lots of places to go looking. Not good. Extremely stable doesn't meet perfectly stable and hard drive sectors can go bad, so for right now I'm thinking that when my OS X system goes kersplat I'll be in a heap of trouble.

What does this leave us? Microsoft's self healing technology? Okay, but darn it, that technology doesn't know to kill off preference files which have become munged. These bad prefs kill the menus. Maybe this could be added in. How about a system whereby the entire application subdirectory is self contained - everything goes into it. Well, that might make the job of fixing applications easier but I'm darned if I can see how such a system would be flexible enough to add usability and function at the system level. Maybe a system that netboots from a central location and technical geniuses keep the system running whilst we all use dumb terminals? Maybe, but I'm not sure I'd every want to use such a system. Besides, who would run it? Microsoft, Time Warner, Ma Bell or one of her children - I don't trust any of them to get it right.

Unless there are folk out there that can thing of something I haven't, I guess we're going to be forced to settle for making a computer easier to *use* and continue to rely on the technically proficient to keep the computers running. Unfortunately, after being MacOS technically proficient for over a decade, I find myself a newbie again. That isn't a particularly comfortable feeling at the moment.

cheers
David

Charles

From Anonymous by request

Subject:

Copyright War (& Irony ^_^)

Hey Charles!

When I saw the article about "Copyright - It's War!" the first thing I though of was the famous quote from the Bugs Bunny cartoons:"Of course you know this means war!!", then immediately has the second (facetious) thought:"Oh wait - I can't use that quote, I'll get sued for copyright infringement!"

That's the really pernicious thing about the modern corporate draconian approach to copyright - it has the entire creative world in a state of permanent fear and paranoia about what they can "get away with". I saw this a *lot* with other musicians and artists: they constantly worried about whether they could use some cultural reference in an artistic work without being sued for royalties, and of course at the same time were completely paranoid about wanting to protect their own copyrights with that same kind of fanatical corporate zeal. It creates a kind of psychological "prior restraint" that leads to creative paralysis. All art makes some reference to culture as a whole, since nobody exists in a vacuum. Of course the end result is that we will live in a society with no culture, apart from the vacuous shallow pap the megacorporations sanction and foist on us for no reason other than making money. This is what happens when creativity gets permanently tied to basic survival anxiety - it's like our reptile brains are controlling all our higher functions, when it should be the other way around. Yes, artists should be *fairly and equitably* compensated for their efforts, but this has gotten completely out of hand - art should be about expressing yourself, not a "job" to pay the bills.

Anon.

Charles

From Ed M.

Subject:

Charles, check out this article on copyright

Charles, Post this link for all of your web-visitors to read.

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/31/dmca_report/index.html

Isn't it amazing how corrupt our laws have become? They only seem to cater to big business and other entities with the lobby $$. It's a sad state of affairs. What did you think about the article?

Ed M.

Charles

From: Jim Marin

Subject:

A PowerBook and LCD display question

Charles,

I enjoy your writings and try to keep an eye open for your latest offerings.

As a graphic designer for many years, I am presently working on an early model G4 and after many years of wishful thinking, hope to make my next desktop machine a PowerBook... And I am caught up in the question of waiting for a rev2 version to appear in the sometime near future or getting the discount on the high end model.

Meanwhile a more esoteric concern is how would I be able to use an Apple LCD 17" with a Titanium PowerBook. When I came across this article(by someone else), I wanted to ask your opinion on their solution to this question.

1. Does the solution below sound workable?...or beset with any problems and conflicts (not to mention cost). I am wary of adding too many adapters and expansion devices... but if it really works....

2. Although I realize it is only speculation in regards to future PowerBook model updates... are there any hardware problems or annoyances with the revA version that would make the wait worthwhile for next Titanium PowerBook (If it was going to be used for high end graphics and future video/music projects)?

Thanks for any thoughts or info...

Jim Marin

Charles

From Shawn King

Subject:

Microsoft & Apple

Charles, you say, "Microsoft purchased a token $150 million worth of Apple stock as an ernest of its good faith in cementing the deal."

Actually, Apple created a special stock category for that purchase. They were non voting shares and MS was contractually obligated *not* to sell for three years.

Which they did, BTW, last September during Apple's stock meltdown.

Not only that, but when MS bought that stock, they also shorted Apple by the same amount to "cover" themselves, according to Wired magazine. The stock buy wasn't the magnanimous gesture some try to portray it to be.

Shawn King
On this week's Mac Show:
1394 Trade Assoc., Nvidia, SFMOMA!
http://www.macshowlive.com

From Olle Jonsson

Subject:

More on MS-shares 1997

Hello Charles,

Today you wrote "As far as I know, that's it as far as Microsoft's "ownership" of Apple. I don't have figures at hand on Apple's current capitalization, but I doubt that a $150 million investment would amount to a 1% share, let alone 15%."

Check this pressrelease from Apple.

Snippet from the Pressrelease: "To further support its relationship with Apple, Microsoft will invest $150 million in non-voting Apple stock."

Next url:
http://www.amug.org/amug/news/amug-update.html

They write:

"Microsoft will purchase 150 Million dollars of Apple Stock (non-voting) and is required to hold it for a minimum of 3 years. Microsoft and Apple will cross license technology resources for the next 5 years.

Apple will bundle Internet Explorer with Macs. Apple will work with Microsoft in Java development. Office 98 will be released for Mac."

/// I have seen someware that it should have been 7% of non-voting stocks... the story also was that MS got far less patents than Apple and that MS hade to pay to use that technology... so the winner could have been Apple. It would bee very intresting to know if MS have sold those shares

Thanks...

/// Olle Jonsson \\\

From: Larry Rosenstein

Subject:

Microsoft ownership of Apple

You said:

"As far as I know, that's it as far as Microsoft's "ownership" of Apple. I don't have figures at hand on Apple's current capitalization, but I doubt that a $150 million investment would amount to a 1% share, let alone 15%."

Here are the facts as I found them. According to Apple's 10-Q filing from the beginning of August:

In August 1997, the Company and Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) entered into patent cross licensing and technology agreements. In addition, Microsoft purchased 150,000 shares of Apple Series A nonvoting convertible preferred stock ("preferred stock") for $150 million. These shares were convertible by Microsoft after August 5, 2000, into shares of Apple common stock at a conversion price of $8.25 per share. On September 15, 2000, 74,250 shares of preferred stock were converted to 9 million shares of the Company's common stock. In the first quarter of 2001, an additional 72,450 shares of preferred stock were converted to 8.8 million shares of the Company's common stock. In the second quarter of 2001, the remaining 3,300 shares of preferred stock were converted to 400,000 shares of the Company's common stock.

According to this, Microsoft owns 18.2 million shares of common stock. That same document says that there are 350,812,367 common shares outstanding. This works out to just over 5%. (I suppose Microsoft might have sold some, but I don't recall reading anything like that, and I think that would be widely reported.)

Larry Rosenstein

From Tony Reidy

Subject:

Microsoft Office vs. AppleWorks

Mr. Moore --

Love your articles and tune in to catch new ones regularly! Thank you!

I was intrigued by your comments on ThinkFree Office, etc. and wondered what you thought of AppleWorks? I would very much like to drop the need to continually purchase upgrades of MS Word and Excel -- but wonder if AppleWorks is truly a good substitute? Especially when I will be receiving Word and Excel docs from colleagues on a daily basis?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Best regards,

Tony Reidy

Charles

From Sime Ungar

Subject:

Word 5.1 keyboard commands

Dear Charles,

I have noticed recently that several people write to you about having problems with M$ Word's 5.1 keyboard commands. Althouhg I intend to be as much M$-free as possible, and do _all_ my writing in LaTeX, I do use Word 5.1 occasionally for opening either old or rtf-files. I do not have any problems with Word 5.1 neither on my PowerBook G3 Lombard under MacOS 8.6, nor on my PowerMac 7600, also running 8.6. Even running MacOS 9.0.4 and 9.1 on my PowerBook, which I have on other partitions, just in case, Word 5.1 runs smoothly, without any keyboard commands problem. I do not consider myself particularly lucky, but may be the reason that I, in contrast to some other people, do not have any problems with Word 5.1, is that I actually use Word 5.1a. This 'a' comes >from a patch I have found somewhere on the net, and applied it a long time ago. If I remember right, the patch was to cure some fonts related problem in version 5.1.

I hope this might be useful to others as well.

Regards,
Sime
Department of Mathematics
University of Zagreb

From Daniel Shockley

Subject:

Word 5.1a fixes keyboard commands

Hello,

In reference to:

"Word 5.1

Apple broke Word 5.1's keyboard commands with the upgrade to 8.6 or 9.0. I'm not sure, since I went straight from 8.1 to 9.1."

"At any rate, the problem appears to be that when the apple key is pushed, Word thinks a letter is a different letter. Luckily, you can set any keyboard command you like in word (although I can't explain it off the top of my head and I don't have a copy of word handy).

"In a nutshell, you go into the keyboard command section and tell it apple-A, for example, really does mean select all. It will think you've pushed something else, but it doesn't matter.

"I think all is well in the menus. I STILL find it to be my favorite word processor, although I'm warming up to some shareware solutions."

In reference to a user letter (above), version 5.1a of MS Word fixes the keyboard problem, at least on Mac OS 9.1.

It was hard to find the patch, even though www.microsoft.com/downloads showed a link. There is a direct link here, but it "currently" isn't working:

My guess is they removed it, and I doubt it will be easy to get them to post it back up, even though it's listed as a downloadable file. I found a third-party patch that updates 5.1a to 5.1A, fixing a bug that MS would not fix, but looked for a while for 5.1a updater, and couldn't find it on the web. May have to resort to Hotline. Actually, I've got install images for 5.1a, but probably not good to pass them around indiscriminately, right? :-)

Hopefully another reader will be able to find the updater. If I do, I'll let you know. With 5.1a, Word seems to work fine, and is very fast.

Good luck!

Daniel A. Shockley

PS:

After more searching, I found:

http://miura.uh.edu/MacOs/Updates/Word_5.1a_Patcher.hqx This server requires you to have a (probably) university IP Address to download the file. Not sure how easily that could be spoofed, and may not be legal.

I found this patcher, but it seems to be an empty file, even though there is a README file in the directory. Ouch!

Still no luck. The 5.1A (capital-A) third-party patch updates 5.1a to fix a false "not enough memory" error. That can be dl'd from hyperarchive, but it seems Microsoft didn't allow many, if any, others to host the 5.1a update. Of course, as I mentioned, they've lost the link for it themselves. Surprised?

Thanks Sime and Daniel;

I have had no luck finding the Word 5.1 patch either. My unpatched copy of Word 5.1 does work reasonably well under OS 9.1, save for the word count function.

Charles

From: Russ Calvert <russcalvert@mac.com>

Subject:

UK Price Rises on Dual 800MHz Macs

Hi Charles,

I've been thinking about buying a dual 800MHz Mac recently, and had selected a "slimmed-down" model with a 60GB hard disk, 128MB RAM, a CD-RW drive, and a single-view video card (trying to get dual 800MHz power at the lowest possible price). Until two days ago, this came to £1,899 on the Apple Store UK. Yesterday, I noticed that this has now gone up to £1,983 - a price rise of £84! Looking into this in more detail, I discovered that the difference between selecting dual 800Hz and single 867MHz (in the store's pop-up menu) had risen from £380 to £464. Interestingly though, Apple seem to have knocked £84 off the price of some other component (the superdrive?) so that the price of the standard model remains unchanged at £2,499 - only customized dual 800s have the price rise. Sneaky, eh? I don't know if this is reflected in US Apple Store prices, or if this price rise is only in the UK.

Russ Calvert

UK

Charles

From Ed M.

Subject:

Programmer Breaks Into Microsoft's E-Books

And this is the platform that people want to use?

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,60383,00.asp

People always bitch and moan that the Mac doesn't have this and the Mac can't do that and the Mac costs this much. Bla bla bla bal....

Still, I would have to say that at least the Mac is more secure and stable. Unless people's property, data and personal information aren't important to them or they fall for the MHz. myth, then they should go out and buy a Pee Cee. After all they give you all of those other great things, right?

Ed.

From Anonymous by request

Subject:

MacOS 8.1 and Norton a BIG no-no!

Charles,

In your article you mentioned today about the ease of use of computing hasn't improved, well you did one thing on yourself to make it harder. Ask any users group in the U.S. and they will tell you not to mix Norton Disk Doctor with Mac OS 8.1 or higher. The problem is that it destroys disk directories so frequently as to be dangerous. Norton Disk Doctor is Norton Disk Kevorkian. I've had more headaches with Norton than any other software beginning with Mac OS 8.1, and I give freelance support to many Mac users.

Sincerely,
anonymous

C.

From Anonymous by request

Subject: Re: MacOS 8.1 and Norton a BIG no-no!

Charles,

Only Alsoft Disk Warrior.

Sincerely,
Anonymous

From: Stefan

Subject:

Computers (Even Macs) Are Still Too Hard To Use

Charles,

Good article. Good points. Totally agree.

S.I.

From John Spates

Subject:

Politics

Hi Charles,

I thought you might enjoy these quotes.

"Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness...Could we take off the dark covering of antiquity...we should find the first (King) nothing more than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners or pre-eminance in subtley obtained him the title of chief among the plunderers."

Thomas Paine

Regards,

John Spates (who doesn't care much for politicians of any stripe)

Charles

CM

Charles W. Moore

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