BMUG PD-ROM B4/PD-ROM B4.iso/Utilities/TidBITs/TidBITS 101-125/TidBITS#115⁄06-Apr-92.etx

Text File | 1992-05-27 | 28KB | 593 lines

TidBITS#115/06-Apr-92
=====================

 In the fast moving world of Apple, you can never tell when Apple
   will fix an evil bug, offer something for free to owners of
   PowerBook 140s and 170s (new battery cases to prevent the
   batteries from catching fire), or even start a new promotion.
   All of those things happened this week, along with the
   late-breaking buyout of DataClub-maker IBS by network kingpin
   Novell. We also have an editorial on electronic privacy and a
   review preview of Nisus.

 Copyright 1990-1992 Adam & Tonya Engst. Non-profit, non-commercial
   publications may reprint articles if full credit is given. Other
   publications please contact us. We do not guarantee the accuracy
   of articles. Publication, product, and company names may be
   registered trademarks of their companies. Disk subscriptions and
   back issues are available.

 For more information send email to [e-mail] or
 [e-mail] -- CIS: 72511,306 -- AOL: Adam Engst
 TidBITS -- 9301 Avondale Rd. NE Q1096 -- Redmond, WA 98052 USA
 --------------------------------------------------------------

Topics:
    MailBITS/06-Apr-92
    Tune-Up 1.1, Just Get It
    Novell Buys IBS
    Personal, Not Private
    PowerBook Freebie
    Apple Announces New Promotion
    Nisus Review Preview
    Reviews/06-Apr-92

[Archived as /info-mac/digest/tb/tidbits-115.etx; 27K]


MailBITS/06-Apr-92
------------------
  To quote from the excellent movie "Spinal Tap," "it's a fine line
  between clever and stupid." I may have fallen off that fine line
  in writing TidBITS#114, because despite a few clues and hints, the
  fact that it was indeed our annual April Fools issue appears to
  have gone generally unnoticed. Almost everything in that issue was
  false - though often entirely possible and even intensely
  desirable - with the exception of the IBM marketing move (which
  was strange enough to be an April Fools joke), and the Dolch
  projection panel (which I used to make the last article more
  believable). Sorry folks, if I threw you for a loop.


Oops
  [Open cultural mouth, insert foot. R.P. Aditya writes to set me
  straight on my analogies in TidBITS#113. Thanks for the
  correction, I really do appreciate it. -Adam]

  You talk about not using baseball analogies for fear of confusing
  your readers in the latest TidBITS, but you do use another analogy
  that seems appropriate but is in fact erroneous:

  You wrote:
    "And lest I confuse my imagery even more, a third
    hand of Apple Shiva (the many-handed Hindi god
    of reproduction and destruction, not the people who
    make the NetModem :-))"

  First, it is "Hindu" god not "Hindi" god; Hindi is the language
  and Hinduism is the religion. Second, Siva is not the many-handed
  god, but rather the many-handed god is Siva. To put that more
  correctly, the many-handed god is an incarnation of Siva most
  commonly called Nataraja. I think the spirit of your analogy is
  respectable, but your explanatory note is confused. Sorry for
  being so picky, but when you come across so many people making the
  Hindi/Hindu mistake, one starts to get pedantic.

  This certainly does not detract from your admirable and
  commendable newsletter. Thank you for this wonderful service.

  Information from:
    R.P. Aditya -- [e-mail]


DiskExpress II/SuperLaserSpool Conflict
  Jonathan Feinstein of Shrink2Fit Software has contacted us again
  to report an oddity that users of DiskExpress II and
  SuperLaserSpool 3.0 may face.

  DiskExpress II, a disk optimization system extension (actually,
  it's a control panel) from ALSoft puts up a dialog box the first
  time it runs on your computer during the startup process.
  Basically, the dialog says, "Please read the manual! Have you read
  it yet?" and asks the user to acknowledge before it continues.
  When SuperLaserSpool 3.0, the newly-updated print spooler from
  Fifth Generation Systems, is loaded, though, DiskExpress II
  flashes this dialog on the screen and makes it go away unanswered.
  As a result, DiskExpress II does not load.

  Since this dialog box only comes up the first time you start up
  your Mac after installing DiskExpress II, you can avoid the
  problem entirely by removing SuperLaserSpool temporarily,
  restarting the computer, acknowledging DiskExpress II's dialog
  box, then reinstalling SuperLaserSpool and restarting again. It's
  likely that this problem won't occur if you've rearranged your
  extension loading sequence so SuperLaserSpool loads after
  DiskExpress II, but since it will be an issue only once,
  temporarily removing SuperLaserSpool is a simpler approach.


Tune-Up 1.1, Just Get It
------------------------
  Apple released version 1.1 of the System 7 Tune-Up extension last
  week, and they strongly recommend that everyone using System 7.0
  or 7.0.1 use it. Tune-Up 1.1 _replaces_ version 1.0, and you do
  not have to install 1.0 before 1.1 or anything strange like that.
  Simply get a copy of Tune-Up 1.1 from your dealer, an online
  service, or a user group that distributes Apple software, and run
  the installer.

  Tune-Up 1.1 includes a new preventative fix for the extremely
  unpleasant disappearing files bug that has apparently lurked in
  the System for many years but only appeared under System 7.
  Unfortunately, it will NOT fix the disappearing files bug if your
  hard disk is already affected, but Apple is working on a new
  version of Disk First Aid to detect and solve this problem. Read
  the installation instructions on the Tune-Up 1.1 disk for more
  detailed information on how to determine if your disk has been
  affected by the bug (missing files and folders are also a good
  clue :-)).

  The entire Tune-Up package includes a new System 7.0 Tuner 1.1
  extension and a new version of the LaserWriter driver, version
  7.1.1. It also comes with two files that have not changed from
  Tune-Up 1.0 - the StyleWriter driver 7.2.2 and Chooser 7.1.

  The LaserWriter driver 7.1.1 has three significant changes. First,
  it includes support for the new Personal LaserWriter NTR. Second,
  it fixes a compatibility problem between the previous version of
  the driver and the LaserWriter Plus. This problem manifested
  itself by forcing users to reinitialize the printer after every
  eighth print job. Third, the new driver fixes a problem that
  caused PostScript errors to occur under certain conditions when
  printing TrueType fonts. (It was probably a practical joke from
  Adobe. :-)) Apparently some third party printers using PostScript-
  clone interpreters have also had problems with the previous
  LaserWriter driver, but that's the fault of the PostScript clones
  and Apple is working with those companies to fix the problem
  separately.

  You can tell if you are working on a Tuned System by looking for a
  bullet after the System Software version number in the About This
  Macintosh dialog box. To find out the Tune-Up version you must do
  a Get Info on the Tuner extension itself. One other note about the
  Tuner extension - as long as the Tuner extension is in the
  Extensions folder, booting with the Shift key held down does not
  disable the fix for the disappearing files. So make sure you leave
  that extension where the installer puts it, but don't worry if you
  have to boot without extensions for testing purposes.

  Information from:
    Mark B. Johnson -- [e-mail]
    System 7 Tune-Up 1.1 documentation


Novell Buys IBS
---------------
  by Mark H. Anbinder -- TidBITS Contributing Editor

  Novell, long a leader in the DOS networking software market,
  announced today that they have purchased International Business
  Software, a Macintosh software company that publishes DataClub, a
  popular package that allows Macs to share portions of their hard
  drives as a single, network-wide "virtual server."

  IBS and Novell have been negotiating for the last few weeks and
  finalized the deal late last week. Once the dust has settled,
  IBS's products will be known as "Novell DataClub Classic" and
  "Novell DataClub Elite." The Classic version offers peer-to-peer
  file sharing, and DataClub Elite adds the ability to link a
  dedicated server computer into the "club," plus remote
  administration software.

  Novell's move should give them a strong entry to the Macintosh
  market, one they've no doubt coveted. To date, Novell's only real
  offering for the Mac networking community has been add-on software
  for Netware file servers that allows networked Macs to take
  advantage of network services. The acquisition of IBS and DataClub
  will give Novell a significant presence in Macintosh-only
  networks, and will help with future networking plans between mixed
  Mac, Windows (we've heard that IBS is also thinking about a
  Windows version of DataClub), and Unix platforms. Competition with
  Apple's AppleShare server software will become more intense, and
  Sitka will have to enhance and differentiate its TOPS software to
  survive the 2000-pound Novell gorilla.

  Still in progress by IBS's developers is a utility that will allow
  DataClub Elite users to convert a stand-alone AppleShare file
  server into a dedicated member of a DataClub virtual server. The
  current version of the software allows such users to make only the
  free space on the AppleShare server part of the DataClub, or
  reconfigure everything manually (while losing any existing access
  privilege information), but this upcoming utility will allow
  network managers to automate the conversion process, and will give
  AppleShare servers easier access to the club.

    IBS -- 408/522-8000
    Novell -- 800/453-1267 -- 801/429-7000


Personal, Not Private
---------------------
  I'd call it chilling, but others may have even stronger words for
  a recent proposal which could reduce the moderate level of privacy
  currently enjoyed by American computer users (along with American
  phone users). The Department of Justice has proposed legislation
  that would require telephone companies to engineer their equipment
  in a way that would facilitate wiretaps. This proposal apparently
  comes in response to the increasing difficulty of tapping phones
  that use digital networks over fiber optic lines.

  MacWEEK quoted Scott Charney, a computer crime specialist at the
  Department of Justice, as saying that the wiretapping proposal
  wasn't as dramatic as one might think because the nation was faced
  with requiring phones to allow taps or with condoning the use of
  phone by criminals. My incredulity upon reading that statement
  cannot be expressed in print and certainly not in 7-bit ASCII
  text.

  What do you mean we have to condone the use of phones by
  criminals?!?! We most certainly do have to condone the use of
  phones by criminals or anyone else who wants to use them. What we
  do not have to condone is crime. That's like saying we cannot
  condone the transmission of sound waves through the earth's
  atmosphere by criminals. The government could stop or eavesdrop on
  normal conversation too, but somehow I doubt the general public
  would be terribly pleased about having every moment of
  conversation monitored for signs of criminal activity. And here we
  thought that George Orwell's vision of eight years ago was fading
  with the demolition of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the
  Soviet Union.

  Of course, one future concern with such a technology requirement
  placed on the telephone companies is that everything passing in
  and out of a computer modem could be easily and automatically
  monitored for signs of criminal activity. And heck, once the
  government is monitoring for criminal activity, why not start
  scanning for other immoral bits of information like dirty pictures
  (after all, many of them are in violation of copyright law, which
  would be an excellent excuse for the government to monitor them)
  or discussions of the legalization of marijuana (I saw a post on
  that today in Usenet, so any monitoring of my phone line would
  have lumped me with drug dealers, another excellent excuse to keep
  monitoring my phone. Guess I'd better not run for political
  office.).

  One side effect of building such features into phone systems is
  that technologically-advanced criminals could in all likelihood
  circumvent safeguards placed on the phone systems and utilize
  phone taps for criminal or at least unethical purposes.
  Confidential business data would be no safer than personal
  conversations or even official government communications. Somehow
  I doubt the government as a whole wishes to open itself up to such
  abuses merely so the Department of Justice can more easily
  eavesdrop on potentially criminal conversations.

  Despite my position as a publisher of free information, I
  understand the needs for certain limitations on free speech.
  Oliver Wendell Holmes's quote in Schenk vs. United States in 1919
  still applies today. "The most stringent protection of free speech
  would not protect a man in [knowingly] falsely shouting fire in a
  theater and causing a panic." However, I think many abuses of free
  speech should be self-policing, so normal people with great ideas
  in the field of new computer viruses should realize the potential
  detrimental impact on society if they exercise their right to free
  speech. Free speech is not and should not be absolute, but any
  limitations on it should be very carefully considered, both in
  terms of practical application and future precedent.

  The government has yet to show that it understands the current
  electronic world and its culture enough to police that world in an
  informed manner. Until the government acquires that knowledge, it
  will continue to act and sound like Big Brother to people who wish
  that they had no siblings. In addition, the law enforcement
  community must recognize that fighting crime, though an extremely
  important governmental function, cannot and should not rise above
  societal concerns with privacy, just as it cannot and should not
  rise above societal concerns with basic human rights. We cannot
  afford to allow easily-tappable phone systems just as we cannot
  afford to allow unauthorized search and seizures or the use of
  torture to extract confessions.

  Information from:
    MacWEEK -- 23-Mar-92, Vol. 6, #12, pg. 4


PowerBook Freebie
-----------------
  by Mark H. Anbinder -- TidBITS Contributing Editor

  Late last week, Apple announced to its dealers that it will be
  offering a free protective battery case to all existing PowerBook
  140 and 170 customers, as well as including one of these cases
  with each PowerBook 140/170 and 140/170 battery sold in the
  future. Apparently the non-conductive case is designed to prevent
  the battery from short-circuiting.

  The notice sent to dealers warned that batteries stored outside
  the PowerBook without any protective wrapping could short-circuit
  if metal came into contact with both battery terminals. This could
  result in burn injuries or fires. In the future, PowerBook 140/170
  batteries will bear a warning label explaining the danger and
  stating that the batteries must be stored in the protective case
  when not installed in a PowerBook.

  Apple is mailing letters to all registered PowerBook 140/170
  owners this week, explaining the situation and providing
  instructions on how the owners can obtain the free protective
  case. PowerBook owners may visit their Apple dealer to get the
  case or call Apple at 800/377-4127. Note that since dealers have
  just been informed of this, most won't have the cases on hand
  right away. If your dealer is not aware of the situation, please
  refer them to part number 076-0590.

  PowerBook 100 owners apparently don't need to worry about this
  issue. The design of the PowerBook 100's battery, which is
  different from the battery for the 140 and 170, may not be as
  susceptible to short-circuiting. The contacts on the 100 battery
  are recessed and not right next to each other; the 140/170
  battery's contacts are only a millimeter apart and thus may be
  more easily short circuited by a paper clip or some such object.
  However, PowerBook 100 owners still need to be cautious, and
  should avoid setting a battery down on a conductive surface or
  object.


Apple Announces New Promotion
-----------------------------
  by Mark H. Anbinder -- TidBITS Contributing Editor

  Special promotions seem to be all the rage at Apple these days,
  and Spring '92 will be no exception. Apple has just announced the
  new "Easy to Buy, Easy to Use" promotion, which will run from
  15-Apr-92 until 5-Jul-92. Customers who purchase certain Macintosh
  products will be eligible for a special financing deal and free
  software.

  Customers purchasing any configuration of the Macintosh Classic
  II, LC, LC II, or any PowerBook with an Apple Consumer Credit Card
  need not make payments for three months and will not be assessed
  any finance charges on the purchase for three months. Also,
  purchasers of the Classic II, PowerBook 100, or PowerBook 140
  (though NOT the 170 or either LC model) will receive their choice
  of Microsoft Works, ClarisWorks, or Symantec GreatWorks, free of
  charge.

  The customer must get a special coupon from their dealer, fill it
  out, and send it to Apple along with their invoice in order to
  participate in this special offer. Apple will be checking that the
  invoices are from authorized resellers, so people who purchase
  from "grey-marketers," or non-authorized companies, will be out of
  luck.


Nisus Review Preview
--------------------
  by Matt Neuburg, [e-mail]
     (with comments by Adam C. Engst, [e-mail])

  We're experimenting with a new distribution method with this
  review of Nisus. Quite frankly, it's not a program that can be
  trifled with in a review, and the TidBITS review will be rather
  long. Our reviewer, Matt Neuburg, didn't help matters by including
  extremely useful information that belongs not so much in a review,
  but in a third party book about the program. As a result, we're
  distributing this issue in three different forms. First comes this
  preview for people who don't know if they will be interested in
  reading the full review. Second will come the review, broken up
  into several issues to fit through gateways. Third and finally,
  the extended review, which includes the detailed nuts and bolts
  information that doesn't really fit in a review, will be submitted
  as a separate file to archive sites and file sections without a
  TidBITS issue number. Our apologies if this seems confusing, but
  it seemed to be the best compromise.


Nisus Introduction
  Nisus 3.06, the dark horse of the Mac word-processing world, is a
  paradox. Devoted users world-wide swear by it; yet it remains
  relatively unknown, and in a comparative evaluation of word
  processors in the Sep-91 Macworld it was not ranked top in any of
  seven document categories. Nisus provides tremendous flexibility,
  and incorporates features borrowed from far pricier page-layout
  programs; yet it lacks some basic functions necessary to produce
  acceptable formal copy. It comes with a powerful macro/programming
  language; yet that language is nearly devoid of fundamental page-
  description capacities. Nisus is a pure original, a rethinking of
  the philosophy of word processing on the Mac from the ground up;
  yet its creators often seem not to have considered the most
  elementary needs of word processor users. It is the best of word
  processors; it is the worst of word processors.

  Nisus is cobbled together from so many elements, and its look and
  feel is so different from other word processors, that only a large
  description can give a fair sense of it. Imagine Nisus as three
  worlds piled upon one another, of which we will explore each in
  turn. The bottom is the hugely powerful search-and-replace and
  macro/programming capabilities from which Nisus derived its
  earliest incarnation (QUED/M). The top is a suite of page-layout-
  like capabilities such as page placing, graphic characters,
  updatable cross-references, footnotes, indexing, and so on. The
  middle is the word processor itself, where you see, navigate,
  edit, and format your document. The search-and-replace and macros
  are solid and worth buying the whole program for, and the word
  processor milieu is a brilliant tool for entering and editing
  text, but the page-layout features are, on the whole, badly enough
  constructed that you could not use Nisus as your chief word
  processor for generation of large formal documents. Nisus styles
  itself "The Amazing Word Processor," but I view it more as "The
  Amazing Text Processor;" creating and editing text is a blast and
  a half, but building certain types of complex printable documents
  may prove almost impossible.

[See the next few issues of TidBITS for the full review.]


Nisus Conclusions
  For large documents with layout needs such as tables, Nisus cannot
  compete with Microsoft Word. But it is perfect for what I bought
  it for: conversion of documents from other formats into Mac
  format. I would rather compose the basic text of a document in
  Nisus than in any other word processor I know. In fact, Nisus's
  search-and-replace and macro facilities are so handy and powerful,
  and its Rulers and Styles so convenient, that one is actually
  tempted to use it also as a sort of front end for Word.

  But although I love Nisus's look-and-feel, and give its creators
  an A for effort in their rethinking of how a word processor can
  operate on the Mac, the point I keep returning to is that despite
  my genuine longing to use Nisus as my sole word processor of
  choice, I cannot. Things that I find constantly necessary that are
  easy in Word - the writing and appearance of footnotes, placing
  paragraphs in complex ways, tables and side-by-side paragraphs -
  are clumsy, difficult, or downright impossible in Nisus. These
  things won't change until Paragon recognizes the problems and
  makes time to fix them, something which can be difficult for a
  small company that provides at least seven different language
  versions of its software. Those of us who want a word processor
  with the features needed to write a book without the expense of a
  full page-layout program are going to have to go on, for better or
  for worse, riding a different train. But don't forget: I wouldn't
  be writing these words if I didn't love so much about Nisus as to
  wish fervently that it _would_ fix its tables and footnotes and
  beat the pants off the Microsoft juggernaut.

  [Adam] I agree the footnote facilities could be better, and there
  are some quirks with the way styles and rulers interact at times,
  but when it comes right down to it those are document processing
  and page layout features. I feel that Paragon added those features
  to compete in the advertising check box wars with Word, not
  because they wanted to make Nisus into a serious page layout tool.
  Nisus is and always has been a text processor, not an document
  processing tool.

  I applaud Paragon's unique approach in writing a program that is
  not just another word processor because a large portion of the
  time spent creating any document must perforce be spent writing
  it. We _need_ better writing tools and Paragon has provided that.
  I'm even willing to jump to the other side of the fence and
  suggest that they should strip out all those things that are
  merely lip service to the great god of desktop publishing. (Matt:
  And in a way I agree; my whole point is that Paragon should either
  make its bells and whistles fully useful or eliminate them
  altogether.) I'm sure that Paragon is considering these comments
  and those from other users seriously and will deal with many of
  them in future versions of Nisus, although I have no idea when we
  might see that next version.

  Nisus's true calling will come when Nisus XS, the module for 3.06
  that will enable full AppleEvents and interapplication
  communication, ships sometime this spring. What I'd like to see is
  all those programs that require sometime significant amounts of
  text editing, QuickMail, uAccess, FileMaker, PageMaker, etc., all
  link to Nisus's text editing and manipulation tools so we can have
  an advanced writing environment no matter what we're writing. Too
  many programs use Apple's limited TextEdit routines. Let's face
  it, Nisus stands no chance of taking over the word processing
  market from Word, but it would be an incredible coup if suddenly
  all the major programs could link to Nisus and use its full power
  in whatever context made sense. I congratulate Paragon on
  providing a program that stands out, a program with a difference,
  and I encourage them to continue on their unique and often
  misunderstood path.


Reviews/06-Apr-92
-----------------

* MacWEEK
    Sketch! 1.0.2 -- pg. 29
    GeoQuery 3.01 -- pg. 29
    DataPrism 1.7 -- pg. 34
    Brother HT-500PS -- pg. 34
    MyTimeManager 4.0 -- pg. 35
    DynoPage 1.7 -- pg. 35

* MacUser
    Atlas Pro -- pg. 44
    DataPivot -- pg. 46
    Trackballs -- pg. 48
      MicroSpeed MacTRAC
      Curtis MVP Mouse
      EMAC Silhouette
      CoStar Stingray
      Appoint Thumbelina Mac
      Logitech TrackMan
    ultraSECURE  -- pg. 50
    Empower II -- pg. 50
    Enhance -- pg. 54
    FontStudio 2.0 -- pg. 56
    Hard Disk Toolkit -- pg. 58
    Macintosh LC II -- pg. 78
    Personal LaserWriter NTR -- pg. 78
    Accelerated Video Cards -- pg. BG16
      CalComp ChromaVision QuickPlus
      E-Machines Futura MX
      Radius PrecisionColor 24X
      RasterOps 24XLi
      RasterOps 24XLTV
      SuperMac Spectrum/24 PDQ Plus
      SuperMac Spectrum/24 Series III
      SuperMac Thunder/24
    Color Printers -- pg. BG36
      General Parametrics Spectra*Star 430
      HP DeskWriter C
      HP PaintWriter XL
      Kodak Diconix Color 4
      Mitsubishi International CHC-S445
      Seiko ColorPoint PSX Model 14
      Seiko Personal ColorPoint PS
      Tektronix Phaser II PXi
      Tektronix Phaser III PXi
      Tektronix Phaser PX

* Macworld
    Macintosh LC II -- pg. 136
    Personal LaserWriter NTR -- pg. 136
    Ethernet Boards -- pg. 150
      (too many to list)
    High-capacity Hard Drives -- pg. 156
      (too many to list)
    Adobe Premiere & Video Spigot -- pg. 172
    Aldus PageMaker 4.2 -- pg. 173
    CA-Cricket Draw III 1.0 -- pg. 176
    Tiles 1.01 -- pg. 176
    GraphMaster -- pg. 176
    DeltaGraph Professional 2.0 -- pg. 178
    MenuFonts 4.01 -- pg. 180
    Spectre -- pg. 180
    VersionMaster 1.0.7 -- pg. 182
    NEC Intersect CDR-36M -- pg. 182
    DataPivot 1.02 -- pg. 189
    Ringo LM 1.0 -- pg. 189
    Status Mac 2.0.2 -- pg. 190
    Maple V -- pg. 190
    Math Shop, Math Shop Jr., Advanced Math Shop -- pg. 191
    ScanMatch 1.01 -- pg. 191
    Taste 1.02 -- pg. 192
    QBlazer -- pg. 192
    ZP4 7.0 -- pg. 193
    Wallpaper 1.0.1 -- pg. 193
    Shanghai II: Dragons' Eye -- pg. 194
    Hot Keys 1.0 -- pg. 194
    AudioTrax -- pg. 195
    A Silly Noisy House -- pg. 195
    In Control 1.0 -- pg. 196
    Panorama II 2.0 -- pg. 196
    American Discovery -- pg. 197
    HardBall II -- pg. 197

References:
    MacWEEK -- 30-Mar-92, Vol. 6, #12
    MacUser -- May-92
    Macworld -- May-92


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