I thoroughly enjoyed John Nemerovski’s “To AppleCare or Not?” column from MacSense's November issue.  I had never thought of needing, much less purchasing AppleCare, so it made me look at my computer a little differently.  Something just may happen to my computer some day and that I will have to worry about how to repair/replace it when that does happen.  I have no doubt my Mac will work fine for years to come—but even if it pooped out today, as one person wrote concerning the AppleCare dilemma, I'd be in a “upgrade-or- keep?” mode. Wouldn't its demise be one more reason to go for that new Power Mac?

                                                                                                   Matt Werum, via eWorld

90% of the time, it's cheaper just to replace or fix the [broken computer parts]. My son's Mac Classic logic board [died]. Apple said it would cost about $150.00 to replace. I took it to a computer repair shop, paid $5.00 for a chip and $40.00 to have it installed. Total cost $45.00. The Apple Plan Extended Warranty was over $100.00 for a year. The computer runs perfect.
                                                                                                   Gino, via America Online

Pure and simple—[extended warranties are] a gamble. Predicting the outcome is impossible. From a purely statistical and logical viewpoint, consider this: industry wide, approximately 12% of the premium for this type of insurance is appropriated to actual claims for repair. The vast majority is profit. Administrative fees consume their part also.

                                                                                                 Bill Price, via the Internet 

 

 
In the November issue of MacSense, Edward Prasek wrote that “The Thinking Mouse also has pop-up menu capabilities, but this feature is all but worthless on a Mac.” This is rubbish. Using QuicKeys, you simply create macros to launch programs, and then create a Thinking Mouse pop-up menu which sends the appropriate keys. Far from being worthless, I consider the pop-up menu capability to be the best feature of the software that comes with Kensington’s Thinking Mouse. I have a pop-up menu in the Finder which allows me to launch PPP, empty the trash and change monitor resolutions, among other things. I also have a universal pop-up menu which allows me to launch any of my favourite programs. I couldn’t live without my Thinking Mouse!
                                                                                          Stephen Giles, via the Internet

 

 
I was wondering why the Output Text command was not included in November issue of MacSense. I usually use that command to output the text to a file to be converted into a PC text file, and then transferred to a floppy. I would bring the floppy to work, where I’m forced to use an IBM OS/2 system to read at my leisure. Is there any other way to output the text for conversion without having to select all the text page-by-page and then using Drag-and-Drop?
                                                                                       Alan M. Matano, via the Internet

In jumping to DOCMaker 4.5, we simply forgot adjust our preferences. A quick browse of the ‘File’ menu will reveal the Output Text command, back in place as it should be. —Ed.

 

 

You've probably covered this some place before—but 
what ever happened to the first five issues of MacSense?
                                                                                              anonymous, via the Internet

I have looked for the back issues of the magazine (in par-
ticular, for the issues 1-5) and I cannot find them. Help!
                                                                                           Bill Harrison, via the Internet

We’ve received numerous requests about this over the past few months. It’s a rather long story, but I’ll keep it as concise as I can. 

In the beginning, there was MacSense. And it was on paper. A wise man then suggested we make MacSense electronic, and we did. But MacSense didn’t make the transition to pixels that well. The first two issues were black and white. The next three introduced color, as we got more confident with our electronic venue. With issues 6, 7 and 8, we became more daring and experimented with format and graphics. With issue 9, we introduced the MacSense look and feel you are familiar with—and we went international for the first time. 

It’s important to note that the issues 6, 7 and 8 you likely have archived are not the original versions of those issues. After retooling our look and going international, we reworked issues 6, 7, and 8 with the look of issue 9 and the best content of the first eight issues. 

The original *eight* issues remain safely stored away on my hard drive. I’m very happy to send them off to any die hard MacSense reader who wants them, on one condition: they are never, ever uploaded to an online service or printed to a CD. 

Why? They’re just not very good! — Ed.

 

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