Mac OS Prose

2003-01-29T17:44:00.000-05:00

Goodbye and thanks to this Blogger version of the site.
Hello to the new home of Mac OS Prose.

The new Radio-based site won't have a lot of frills just yet, but at least it'll have the capacity to become a better news and commentary site on par with many other sites like it that you probably read from day to day. Eventually, search capacity will be added as well.

The archived posts will remain, but this is the last entry for the Blogger site. I would still recommend Blogger to anyone that needs a quick blog site that can be accessed anywhere. However, Blog*Spot is probably the better choice, because you can't expect the world from the free, basic Blogger service.

See you at http://radio.weblogs.com/0118556/.

2003-01-28T07:41:00.000-05:00

Mac OS Prose has a new home...

But if I told you where it was just yet, I'd have to kill you. (grin)

I've chosen Radio as my new blog creator and host as it has greater flexibility. In the next day or two, you'll get the new address. Posts here will cease at that time.

Apple is gaining more of the all-important mindshare. See this Infoworld article,, this another Infoworld article,, and an article on eWEEK.

2003-01-22T11:41:00.000-05:00

@#$! Blogger!

I'm really never against free blog hosting such as Blogger, but, after spending several precious minutes in composing a post to you earlier, only to have Blogger throw it up with VBScript errors, I'm more motivated to end my blog's life, much less bother to move it to a new site. After a cool down, I changed my mind. I know my site is one out of many Mac blog and news sites, most of which are more bona fide in its news generation and less involved in commentary. Still, this is my professional vent point, and a new site will enhance any tips and tricks and insights I can provide that no one has actually written.

In other words, I still don't like it when people beat me to the punch with a good idea.

Expect "Mac OS Prose" at its new home, very very soon. Nothing is really free.

2003-01-14T12:32:00.000-05:00

Teach a man to fish...

During my client's rollout of new Mac OS X systems, I've carefully watched how new users accommodate to the new operating system (all of these users worked with Mac OS 9 previously). Generally speaking, their transition is good.

What seems to be the popular application is iChat. Word is getting around fast in switching on the app in Rendezvous mode, adding a custom picture, and posting a custom "available" message. Given that these users haven't had a comparable chat application that is in use throughout the company, iChat is a fun addition.

Interesting news if you haven't found it already: Apple has a beta of an X11 (X Window) environment for Mac OS X. Some may think that this would threaten the XDarwin project in some way, but I disagree. I suspect both will have their uses and needs. I already have XDarwin installed but I may consider trying out Apple's offering, which ostensibly ties into the Quartz interface with more finesse than XDarwin.

The Big Blog Move for me is delayed. Financial and time reasons. It will happen over the coming two weeks, however.

2003-01-09T09:28:00.000-05:00

What? My thoughts on Steve Job's keynote at Macworld on January 7?

I'm on vacation from my workplace, and my planned move of this blog to another host has been delayed. I did watch, in its entirety, the keynote address last Tuesday. I found it one of the CEO's better addresses.

I think that Steve Jobs was grasping at straws for a theme to sell products. His last ideas, the "digital hub", and movie making, have been successful in generating ideas that have worked their way into the rest of the industry and spurred some sales. This keynote was missing that glue, although Apple provided quite a festival of refreshed or new applications.

The popular iMovie, iPhoto, and iDVD applications were updated, and all now mesh well to add extensibility to each. The most popular application was new: a KHTML-based web browser known as Safari. In case you're been under a rock, it's available in a beta version as a free download. It's not a perfect browser, but it works very well, and very fast. In fact, normally I have to use Internet Explorer to update this blog. Other browsers don't work. But Safari does. A few bug fixes and feature enhancements and this baby will be ready to go.

Back to my keynote thoughts. Apple is looking for something new, and, for a change, they really didn't have anything very new to offer. Analysts (read: people who draw up typically uninformed opinions for a living) may see this somewhat correctly as a bad thing. However, considering that Apple is doing OK in this slow tech sales period, it's important to see that Apple is never one to back down when things are rough. Anyone who watched Apple climb out of its doldrums in the late 1990s knows not to count Apple out.

As I expected, the new FireWire arrived. It was a logical upgrade, and I was convinced that Apple would introduce it before it updated its USB offerings to 2.0. The PowerBook offerings stunned me, and I don't think its a great idea. I like the offerings, but adding these additional products to the line increases the company's inventory as well some confusion to those just getting introduced to the product line. In particular, the 12" PowerBook is awfully confusing with the similar iBook design.

The new commercial on the airline with the small actor from the "Austin Powers" movies and the Chinese basketball player was one of the funniest commercials from Apple in some time. I hope it gets a Super Bowl play.

Enjoy the rest of the week. Talk to you on Monday.

2003-01-03T13:59:00.000-05:00

Moving Day is Coming.

I've made my decision to move my blog to a stronger weblogging tool during the week of January 6. It'll help that I'll be on vacation from my workplace at that time and can devote a strong amount of attention to the move. I'll move all 6 months of archived posts to this site, and I hope the tool works well in helping me do so.

The new file server at my client's workplace, a Windows 2000 Server running Services For Macintosh, has moved past its growing pains on the company network and is fully operational. It's replacing an AppleShare IP server and a Mac OS X Server 10.1 configuration that had promise but wasn't very robust as it could've been. Part of the lack of robustness involved its administration tools, admittedly improved with the 10.2 Server update that was never applied to this server. As a basic plain-vanilla Mac OS file server, it will have the strength and integration to my client's data center that I've been researching since June.

Macworld Expo 2003 San Francisco begins in earnest next Tuesday. I'm not the finest news site, but if things go well, you'll be directed from this site to next details about the keynote address, with pictures, RSS feeds, and the works. I'm getting all excited thinking about it.

One fine bit of reading while you wait:

GameSpy has a nice synopsis on Mac gaming in 2002. Well, I guess this is really Macintosh professional news after all, since Mac gaming appears to have entered a new support renaissance where the odds of a port are much stronger for popular PC titles.

2002-12-31T07:45:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year.

Not much throughout this week to discuss, primarily due to the holidays. However, a Macworld Expo trade show begins in less than a week.

Do I have any impressive predictions for what Steve Jobs may show in his keynote address that opens the show? Not a one. But what do I expect to see?

Expectation 1: No "G5" or any new processors, yet. Maybe in July. Expect speed bumps on existing architecture, however, especially with the iBooks.

Expectation 2: A major change to FireWire and USB. Apple was probably reticent to add USB 2.0 to their systems before they updated FireWire. I suspect they are ready to unveil "Gigawire," a.k.a. FireWire 2.0.

Expectation 3: Updates on existing iApps. iSync is finalized. Maybe a new app.

Expectation 4: No other extreme surprises, except maybe a release date for QuarkXPress for Mac OS X.

I'll start the New Year with a discussion on OpenGL performance and games in Mac OS X--a subject close to my heart since all of my games (Medal of Honor, Jedi Knight II, and especially Return to Castle Wolfenstein) experience unexpected quits during gameplay. I've scanned the console crash logs and found something odd. More later. Happy 2003, everyone. Stay safe and not too much partying, please.

2002-12-23T14:39:00.000-05:00

It's the holidays (for most Christians, anyway). What the heck are you doing here?

Go enjoy your families, not your computers, this week. OK, OK...bop the kids/nephews/nieces/cousins on your knees for a few minutes and kiss the spouse/significant-other passionately at least a couple of times before you break the shrinkwrap on that new game.

I've been enjoying Phillip Windley's blog on IT issues in the government sector. He had a different seat to view these issues than most, as he is (well, for a few more days anyway) the Chief Information Officer for the State of Utah.

I've enjoyed Phillip's site as a model for this blog: Informative views, an open mind to new technology, and a well-designed, searchable site He's using Radio,, the RSS-able blog software where I have decided to switch this blog sometime in the first quarter of 2003. A great, all around tech opinion site.

I caught wind of his site when he spoke of the consumer laptop, the iBook. On Friday, Phillip announced that he purchased a PowerBook G4 1GHz laptop to replace his XP laptop that has to go back to the State of Utah.. He's in hog heaven--and so am I, as a matter of fact.

Last week, I switched from a company-owned PowerBook FireWire laptop (still a strong system for OS X if you have a lot of RAM) to the same setup as Phillip. While I enjoy my new dual-867MHz G4 desktop at home, there's a stronger integration of power with this laptop. Nothing feels slow on this computer.

See you in multiplayer Return to Castle Wolfenstein world (I'm "JackStryker", in case you're interested) throughout the week, and have the holiest, if not happiest, of end-of-year holidays.

2002-12-19T20:43:00.000-05:00

Mac OS X 10.2.3 is now available from Software Update.

Remember--don't be a bleeding edge user unless you want to be. Wait over the weekend to see what happened to those who didn't.

Two welcome fixes: Provides a fix for the HP Communications stall, and improves speed of Virtual PC 6.0 (which just happened to be released yesterday). At least Connectix is pretty innovative with each version. About the only thing that Apple didn't add was Java 1.4 support.

No GUI for its IPSec support yet, however, several companies such as Equinux's VPN Tracker and the recently announced free VaporSec provide you with alternatives.

2002-12-19T11:13:00.000-05:00

The GNU-Darwin project is about to kill itself over GNU/Free Software ideology. And what is it with Apple and WEP support?

Find out more on Slashdot, and MacSlash (who broke the article). Sic semper stultus.

Here are interesting experiences on installing an Xserve in the classroom from Low End Mac.

I've been having a hard time locating information on WEP key support in AirPort wireless networking. Specifically, can AirPort support several WEP keys instead of having to type in a single key? In products available for Windows, this is possible. Also, getting an existing WEP key to work can be problematic if the key is a long string (alphanumeric or hex). The use of AirPort isn't very consistent on non-Apple wireless networks, and its an example of Apple either ignoring the problem or choosing to work in its near-disasterous "Not Invented Here" mode that almost killed the company.

If you know of a source for AirPort WEP support, drop me a line.

2002-12-16T10:29:00.000-05:00

Real One Player for Mac OS X is now available as a final product.

I've been very impressed by this client, especially over its RealPlayer for OS 9 versions. (Works great with geeky things such as NASA TV.) Get it here.

Things are going to get quieter here with Macintosh news quieting over the American holidays. However, I've been hoping to dive into my Mac OS X-to-Active Directory authentication testing as a new Windows 2000 server is coming up that will support it live on my client's network. If I'm able to play around between now and the start of the new year, you'll see my initial reports here.

2002-12-13T23:49:00.000-05:00

SMB corruption in Jaguar: Fixed or not fixed?

I, along with a few others, sent a note to the preeminient online Windows-Macintosh integration resource, MacWindows, regarding SMB file corruption in Jaguar. I noted problems with SMB after updating to 10.2.1. Original Jaguar's (10.2.0) SMB implementation was functional, and not as slow as in previous versions of OS X. At my workplace I used SMB to connect weekly to a share on a Windows server to update an Excel spreadsheet.

After 10.2.1, my Excel spreadsheets wouldn't open. I kept getting damaged-file messages. I confirmed that the problem was with SMB by copying a known-good Excel file to SMB, then attempting to open the file from the share and then after copying the file back to my Mac. Both were damaged.

After installing 10.2.2, the corruption disappeared. I figured the problem solved, and I noted it here.. One reader, whose name isn't recorded now on the site (thanks for reading!) relayed my assessment that 10.2.2 appeared to fix the corruption. However, a reader on MacWindows posted today that 10.2.2 doesn't appear to fix the problem for him. He used QuickTime movies to identify the problem.

So, the question remains: is it or isn't it fixed? I suspect that we're both right. Windows works differently in some locations under different network conditions, among other things. It may be possible that he experienced corruption because he copied a non-flattened QuickTime movie from a Mac to a Windows share. When you do that to any Macintosh binary file without stripping its resource fork, the fork gets mushed into the data, causing it to become damaged. I can't confirm that since the report doesn't indicate the kind of file he used. I did copy a QuickTime movie (flattened) back and forth from my SMB share without problems, including playing it from the share.

I suspect that the reader's file wasn't flattened. I also haven't read a lot of problems about SMB and Jaguar on other sites. What has been your experience? Feel free to write me about your experiences.

2002-12-11T21:21:00.000-05:00

Quark has a sound of desperation, if a recent rumor is true.

An article on the Apple rumors web site Think Secret indicates that Quark Corporation is making phone calls to assure customers that they will still be able to buy Macintosh systems that can boot into Mac OS 9, contrary to Apple's announcement that systems sold in 2003 will boot in Mac OS X only and cannot use Mac OS 9 except in the Classic Environment mode.

This doesn't ring well in my mind. Quark is obviously reacting to something. Could their worries involve the recent bad press concerning their view that the Macintosh and publishing market is shrinking, and that moving to QuarkXPress for Windows is a better idea? Concerned that, with that bad publicity, that even more Macintosh users are seriously making a move to Adobe InDesign 2.0?

Hopefully Quark's own bad missteps will light a fire under their butt. My worry, however, is that Quark is an explosive , unpredictable commodity.

2002-12-11T08:45:00.000-05:00

It may be snowing in Indianapolis, but the flames are being fanned on a few pages.

This simple, uninformed article on IT-Director.com is ignited to approximately 1500 degrees by this equally strange response on the same site.

Not particularly newsworthy, but the two articles do show the polar extremes of the Macintosh-ignorant and the Macintosh-zealot. If I were In Charge, I'd take away their computers, give them an Atari 2600 and force them to find some greater meaning in their lives. Perhaps a high score in "Pong."

Another piece in the Apple digital hub and professional editing puzzle fell: Apple announced that a new version of QuickTime is coming that supports cell phones. Not big news except when you think how Apple tends to put a twist on technologies they didn't invent.

In case you didn't believe me, Jedi Knight II for the Macintosh is really a great game. A G4 with a powerful video card is best. I'm really obsessed, however, with the multiplayer version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

"I need ammo!"

2002-12-09T12:41:00.000-05:00

Don't use "Mac" to abbreviate "Macintosh" if you want any chance to be taken seriously.

I've seen far too many articles where the term "Mac" is used to talk of all things Macintosh, and it annoys the hell out of me. It's not the same as how some Star Trek fans feel at being called a 'Trekkie' as opposed to a 'Trekker.', but for other more professional reasons.

For one, the letters "mac" means another thing in the field of information technology. If you're talking about the unique identification code on Ethernet network interface cards, you're speaking of its Media Access Control, or MAC address. Unfortunately, inexperienced IT people will typically write "MAC" (in capitals) to describe a Macintosh. In the United Kingdom, a "mac" is a umbrella.

Another reason to keep to "Macintosh" and not "Mac" is how some IT people use the term "Mac" with derision as they say it. The term "Mac" has turned into a slur in the IT world. Honestly, the term "Macintosh" doesn't hold a lot of weight, either, which is probably one reason why you don't see either term in describing the new Xserve rack mount server.

Just my two cents for the day. I have a lot of my plate at the job, so no more commentary today.

2002-12-06T09:37:00.000-05:00

Trust me: Don't blindly install everything that Apple provides via Software Update.

Specifically, you need to read the instructions for all updates before you begin any update.

I've been reading lots of readers caught in gotchas caused by the Power Mac G4 Mirrored Drive Doors Firmware Update, the Mac OS X 10.2.2. update, and other installations. For many of these users, the problem comes down to neglecting to think about what you're doing. Hell, even I've been guilty of doing this a few weeks ago when I updated my MDD Power Mac to 10.2.2, knowing that it would hose my computer due to a bug with the HP printing software that causes its drivers to hog processing time until your Mac slows to a crawl or kernel panics.

And why did I do it? Because I wasn't thinking. I was caught in that Macintosh mode of thinking where we expect the moon and the stars from anything that Apple provides to us, especially if it's a freebie. It's a different psychology than what some PC users may understand, where caution is much stronger than in the Macintosh world. When most Mac users buy software, we rip the CD from the case, install the software, and damn any manuals or instructions that come with the program. In the earlier years of the Macintosh, this wasn't as much of a problem because of the simpler design. However, this ain't your dad's Mac. It's your Mac, and it's running not only a different Mac OS, but likely has a dramatically different hardware design that requires a little more care.

Professionals and home users need to use some common sense steps for any software update or install:

1) READ the instructions about any software installation or update.
2) UNDERSTAND what the update or install is supposed to do. If you don't understand the purpose of a particular update, don't install it until you find someone that knows and can explain it to you.
3) WAIT several days after an update is introduced before you even THINK about installing an update. If there are real problems with the software itself, this problem will show itself from the many trouble reports you'l see on the Internet. In other words, let other more careless people "beta-test" the updates for you in advance.

Two good places to visit for trouble reports are MacFixit or Apple's Discussion Boards on their Support Page.

4) READ the instructions for the update again.
5) PRINT a copy of the instructions BEFORE you begin.
6) DETERMINE A PLAN to revert the change (if the update allows it)
7) DECIDE if the update is really worth installing.

Remember that users who have tweaked their Mac OS X installation dramatically (read: against Apple's recommended configuration) may experience a bad time. If you have hacked an old Mac (read: not an original G3 or G4) to run Mac OS X, you should already know that you're running the bleeding edge of compatibility.

It's a good thing that we have BSD underneath our Mac OS GUI. It leaves many more possibilities for repairs or changes, unlike in the old Mac OS 9 days where we'd have to wait for Apple to get with the problem and provide a fix. A good example: after the HP printer software problem appeared with the 10.2.2 update, several enterprising people developed several workarounds and temporary fixes while Apple and HP slowly find an official solution.

Your mileage may vary with any update. Don't experience "Go Fever" with your Macintosh, or things could blow up real good.

2002-12-05T14:40:00.000-05:00

Macworld Expo Tokyo Cancellation: Good or Bad?

I'm a little split on IDC's announcement, as relayed through MacUser in the U.K. On one hand, I'm all for Apple consolidating their resources to one or two trade shows in the places where they count most. On the other hand, Japan is Apple's strongest international market, with a disparately large proportion of Macintosh users in comparison to those in the U.S.

To a degree, I'm all for eliminating one of the two Macworld trade shows in the U.S. The summer show is normally held in New York, but recent events are returning it to Boston, its original host city. Apple didn't take that change lightly since The Big Apple is a larger consumer base, and threatened to withdraw from that program. (I haven't yet heard a follow-up on this matter.) The only program that hasn't been threatened is the San Francisco trade show, likely since Apple has to spend fewer resources to attend that show (Apple's headquarters are in Cupertino, CA).

Apple has been trying to break the cycle where their sales dip as conscientious Mac die-hards await new products from an upcoming trade show. By going to a single U.S. show, Apple may suffer only one dip, as well as getting more marketing and resource bang for their bucks. It leaves Apple to announce new product with greater surprise and less rumormongering, which erodes the marketing effect.

2002-12-05T09:07:00.000-05:00

Apple fills in the quiet holiday anticipation with an interesting and anticipated twist on FireWire technology.

Apple Developer Connection is offering a preview release of their IP over FireWire technology. Essentially, this allows two or Mac OS X systems to be networked together and use any IP-based resources, but over their high speed FireWire connection.

Slashdot has an article about this introduction. I can see it as a quick way to form a LAN game party, myself. No hub required--just a lot of FireWire cables.

2002-12-04T09:19:00.000-05:00

I think this article from ComputerUser hits the nail on the head regarding Apple's future markets.

After reading it, I've begun rethinking where Apple's strengths should be placed, rather than which markets that Apple appears to show interest.

I think that Apple has almost lost the education market to the Windows/Dell sales powerhouse. No longer are computers isolated, so the little Apple computer in the corner has been replaced by mobile, wireless storage bays filled with laptops. Apple does offer mobile labs of its own, but I think that Apple's losing this battle for the same reason that they aren't firing on all thrusters with the enterprise sales market. Not nearly as many teachers maintain their computers today as opposed to the past; many schools or school districts have IT departments. Guess what kind of training and experience are dominant in school IT departments?

Like in enterprise, Apple must provide exhaustive and extensive documentation on mating Apple products to the larger Windows infrastructure. But the problems don't stop there, I thought, which led me to the prediction that Apple's education installed base will not increase and its market share will not get much better without one major element: software.

Education software is a peculiar beast. Most consumer education titles have always been written to work for both Macintosh as well as Windows. This trend, however, has been breaking. Companies such as Disney and Mattel have predominantly Windows-only titles, and quite a few companies that made the hybrids have had financial trouble and have folded, changed their business model, or have been bought out by a larger, less Macintosh-hospitable software development group.

Professional administrative software such as PowerSchool has been bought by Apple to shore up matters, but the OS and admin support may not matter if classroom-oriented titles don't appear in a Mac OS X version. I'm hard pressed to find many OS X native titles for education.

Never mind the available hardware. Without a sufficient Mac OS X-compatible software base for education, Apple has a much more difficult hike up an already very steep and dangerous mountain. Because of Apple' s past business sins, educators still think that Apple is an obscure technology island where they don't care to get stranded.

2002-12-03T07:40:00.000-05:00

Apple's reputation is being polished by its product, but they've missed some spots.

A recent InfoWorld article talks about the doldrums that is the IT industry. A shining point, so sayeth the writer, is Apple, who looked the economy's realities in its face and denied it, bringing forth new ideas (or better packaged ones) to keep its ship afloat in a stormy sea of slow PC sales.

Does that mean that Apple is in better or worse shape? Generally, it's better. However, they can really shore up two areas: Enterprise and Education. The education market is just turning to Mac OS X, primarily because the applications they need aren't Mac OS X-ready and the deeper server support is a mixed bag--while Mac OS X Server supports both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X clients, the server operating system's network booting feature (NetBoot) still supports Mac OS 9 (as of 10.1--I know 10.2 should have a stronger feature by now).

Apple really gave itself credit with its first enterprise-level rack mount server. However, it needs more redundancy and stronger documentation. Apple is generally geared to write text for their home and small end-user consumers in the business market. But enterprise really wants exhaustive and proven methods, not promises such as the LDAP/Active Directory integration in 10.2 that doesn't really work using Apple's documentation (some third-parties have worked it out--a topic to revisit very soon once I have access to an AD domain to test it with).

To sum it up: Apple's grade is a B. Just a bit more polish is needed for the markets that Apple has let languish for one reason or another.

A link to an interesting article relayed from MacCentral on the increasing popularity of Mac OS X Server products.

2002-11-28T21:25:00.000-05:00

I think Quark has got their spin up to about 7400 RPM right now. I'm still not convinced.

(OK, OK, so I said I wouldn't post again until Monday. But a bunch of you were reading today, and I wanted to keep your attention.)

Quark has quickly (and over a holiday, even) sent out a spin-control public announcement regarding their support of QuarkXPress on Mac OS X.

It makes sense--that is, all except the "fewer publishers are purchasing Macs" thing. Of course publishers aren't buying new Macs. Their industry is in the toilet. But, like the highly misinterpreted concept of "market share" in computers, just because Apple isn't selling many new computers (which is market share) doesn't mean that the base, installed market of Macintosh systems is shrinking. Publishers are just milking a few more months from what they computers and work that they have, and for good reason.

Publishers have really been hit--hard--in the past two years. In particular, computer book publishers have been dropping like flies. Visit a bookstore and think back to where you'd find two back-to-back aisles of computer books of all kinds. Today, you might--might find a half-aisle with a few programming and certification books, with a handful of self-help books.

If these companies haven't been sold, they've died. Coriolis Press is a recent victim. I was 4 chapters into a very large book I had signed with the company before it canceled my book and, a few weeks later, canceled itself. I've worked for four computer book publishers in some capacity in the past 8 years and have been saddened to see many of them deteriorate into a shadow of their former greatness.

Companies love to condense the number of resources they have for cost savings, especially in lean times. Computers and their users are a natural target since you can coax a little more work out of the remaining few. Personnel cuts are usually indiscriminate, but the prepress departments are not usually extremely big. Desperate companies may eliminate their prepress departments altogether, deciding instead to outsource their prepress to another company.

The Macintosh is the de facto computer for prepress and graphic design. Windows, despite its advances, still lacks a certain finnesse and accuracy in its color management, font rendering, performance, and interface consistancy compared to an identical experience on a Macintosh. That doesn't mean you can't use Windows, however, getting someone to print your book will be a challenge since many of these companies expect your work not only in QuarkXPress format but on a Macintosh disk. They can accept your Windows disk, but likely charge you extra for the trouble.

Another serious matter that Quark should consider when analyzing their drops in sales on QuarkXPress involves how users perceive Quark. First, why was it necessary for publishers to upgrade from QuarkXPress 5 from version 4? Most users weren't going to try that trick again. They were burned by their last move from the usable and stable version 3.32 to version 4.0, which was so ridden with bugs that users demanded a way to revert their 4.0 jobs back to 3.32. There really wasn't a lot of technical benefits or new features that motivated users to make a switch. The second matter: Quark's customer service is reknowned for their scary service. Why move to a new product when you can't guarantee that Quark's own Customer Service will help you with a problem?

For some users who have been bitten by computer software companies that are here-today-gone-tomorrow, another worry may be why Quark has been so slow in getting a Mac OS X version of QuarkXPress out the door. Are they "struggling?" Could they even be "beleaguered?" Quark is a private company, so there aren't any shareholders to push the management to get their act together.

So, while Quark has, in all likelihood, truly detected a decrease in Macintosh orders for QuarkXPress, there are too many factors for them to make very radical moves that could leave the DTP ball in Adobe's hands.

2002-11-27T21:08:00.000-05:00

It's an American holiday here, but I have one news tidbit that floored me about an Xserve user.

The original article on Insanely Great Mac discussed some recent significant Xserve users, including Clear Channel, the mega-comglomerate that owns WFBQ-FM 94.7 here, the home of The Bob and Tom radio show.

But it was the first post that really a clincher. I'm going to copy the post here just in case--it was that impressive:

"I work for an educational support facility. We provide a media library (10000 videotapes, audiotapes, CDs, DVDs, anatomical models, etc), available to teachers in a 4 county area in SouthWest Florida. We also provide electronics and computer repair services.

Before we installed our Xserve, we utilized several machines. An HP front end server for taking orders, a Dell server for database/scheduling, a WorkGroup Server 8500 (AppleShare IP) for our internal needs, a Power Computing PowerBase 240 as a Filemaker server, and another PowerBase running as a router/firewall between all this and our Lan.

The number of workstations on our LAN fluctuates wildly because we also host training sessions and teleconferences. The base number of users is 8, with our visitors often bringing it up to 30. We serve 28 schools ranging in size from 500 to 3000 students each, roughly 3000 teachers, around 10000 workstations.

On the repair end, we kept yet another Mac as a Filemaker server, keeping track of pickups, deliveries, and work order status and history. Additionally we had a couple of machines setup as diagnostic stations (transfer the hard drive from an ailing machine, drop it into the diagnostic workstation, run Norton, defrag, etc).

We got our Xserve in July, with the idea of consolidation. Using a conservative estimate, I reasoned we could replace the HP, the 8500, and one of the PowerBases. I had planned to do this in stages over a time span of about a month.

However, fate intervened. A storm knocked out the Filemaker machine and router machine. Having had the good sense to make regular backups (school of hard knocks), I decided to just install Filemaker on the Xserve, and to turn on routing... it would do in a pinch, until we got our regular machines replaced. We might run slow (filemaker is a bandwidth/CPU hog!), but we would run.

To my amazement, the Xserve just took it in stride. As an experiment, I copied EVERYTHING to the Xserve and exercised it over one weekend, carefully testing response time, watching for dropped packets, CPU usage, memory usage, etc. With joy I noted that not only did our LAN load go down (due to the apps no longer needing to talk over the wire), with everything going all at once, the Xserves CPU load was insignificant.

Over the next month I moved EVERYTHING over to the Xserve, for real. I kept the WS8500 as a backup machine, but the other machines have all been recycled into workstations or cannabalized for parts.

The Xserve handled this all so well, that in September I added additional responsibilities. I broadcast a Quicktime video stream from a camera in our repair shop, and I setup an MP3 broadcast of music I find enjoyable so that whenever I am 'on the road' I can at least have some decent music (sorry, private broadcast!).

I setup Netboot, allowing us to boot Imacs from the server, with a complete set of diagnostic tools available, the sick machines own hard drive sitting idle and helpless, ready for any and all repair procedures.

Since the middle of September our Xserve has been performing remarkably well. Consider everything it is doing. It serves our Web site, it is our file server (Apple AND Windows), print server, mail server, Directory server, FTP server, Filemaker server, DHCP, TFTP and Netboot, DNS. On top of that, it is streaming a 24 hour Quicktime video, as well as a 24 hour MP3 radio playlist. To boot, it is our firewall AND our router. And yet, with all that, the average CPU usage is less than 4 percent. That's right! FOUR percent!

Last week, I happened to have 5 iMacs in at once, so I decided to put Netboot to the test. I set each machine to boot OS9.22 from the Xserve (using the Startup Disk control panel), then shut them down. As fast as I could move my fingers from one machines power button to the next, I powered them all up simultaneously. The last one, I timed how long from the startup bell to the appearance of the desktop.

The result? The iMacs actually booted faster from the Xserve than from their own hard drives! But only by a few seconds (3 to be exact). The Xserve CPU load? Whilst still tending to everything I have already described, and acting as a surrogate hard drive for 5 iMacs (and routing all that data to them, by the way), it rose to a whopping 41 percent.

I would be very interested in hearing from anybody who has put Xserve, NetBoot, and Macintosh manager to real use in a classroom. I think (based on napkin calculations) that an Xserve could handle a couple hundred NetBooted and managed workstations easily under certain circumstances. The little darlin's (those snot nosed kids who make Dennis the Menace look like an angel) could do anything they want with the machine. When it gets so fouled up that you can't work with it, you don't have to re-install, re-configure, re-store, or re-ad.

Just re-boot, and it has a clean, fresh OS9 with everything a student workstation should have. It's as if the Supreme Being granted forgiveness and wiped away all the childs sins.

And it doesn't take any longer than, well, just booting!

Xserve switch? If you are Unix/Linux experienced, it's a no-brainer. Simple as 3.1415926... If you are a Mac lab admin, you'll be up and running real soon, with just a few new things to learn. If you're a MSCE or such, well, you'll have to unlearn some things, and learn some new things, but if you're able to figure out how to do anything remotely useful with Windows, you'll be a hero with an Xserve and OSX Server 10.2 !

Michael Duane Rice
Computer / Electronics Analyst
Special Projects Center
[e-mail address removed for anti-spam measure]"

'Nuff said.

Regular posts (for what some might call "regular") will resume on Monday, December 2.

2002-11-27T09:38:00.000-05:00

Perhaps this article was written before Quark's recent conference. That news should be the really scary part of any Mac OS X transition.

This article talks about a company's reticience to move to Mac OS X because of their dependence on QuarkXPress.

News flash to this company: Apple's not calling the shots here. Quark may never release its Mac OS X version of QuarkXPress. Don't make a bad business decision by being wholly dependent on one technology or application. InDesign is a viable option to review. It may be cheaper and more efficient to make that transition than to wait with your Mac OS 9 applications and find that, as you buy systems later next year that are incapable of booting Mac OS 9 from the hard drive, that your business has really fallen behind.

2002-11-26T20:58:00.000-05:00

QuarkXPress in jeapardy?

That's the buzz, although some people in a few circles are probably not surprised.

QuarkXPress is the de facto desktop publishing application for Macintosh, arriving in the early 1990s to compete with, and eventually overtake, Aldus (now Adobe) PageMaker, the original DTP application. Quark (which many people call the app for short, although "XPress" is really the product and Quark the company name) is widely used for power DTP creations, particularly in the book and magazing publishing world.

A few years ago, Adobe realized that PageMaker was running out of steam and features to compete. So, in came InDesign, a totally new application in 1999 that used many of the same tools and palettes from Photoshop 5 and Illustrator for easy use. It wasn't the "Quark Killer" that Adobe promised, but it did show a few signficant kinks in Quark's armor.

The first armor kink was Quark's shoddy performance and bug problems that made versions 4.0 through 4.0.3 of QuarkXPress almost unusable. It also lacked proper reverse compatibility to early versions of QXP when version 4 was deemed too unstable by many users.

At present, QuarkXPress is the only major prepress application that has not arrived in a Mac OS X version, and it is easily a year overdue.

The second kink appears to be from within Quark itself. Forgive me, Jack, for portraying you as a news site, but As the Apple Turns had a very humorous take on comments from the Quark CEO that seems to indicate his distaste with the Macintosh population that uses Quark. The venerable news and rumor site The Naked Mole Rat spoke of Quark CEO Fred Ebrahimi's comments that lead many to feel that Quark is not trying hard enough to get an OS X version because they want to move to a Windows base only. Quote the Rat:

"Publishing professionals who attended a Quark-convened “executive summary” in New York last week are still abuzz over the performance of Quark CEO Fred Ebrahimi, a gentleman whose outbursts make Steve Jobs seem like Captain Kangaroo.

The ostensible topic du jour: the pending integration of Quark Publishing System and Digital Media System within a framework of Microsoft’s .Net and SQL Server technologies. Notably absent from the roadmap: any support for Mac OS X Server.

Indeed, these witnesses attest, audience questions about Mac OS X provoked an Ebrahimi tirade of Old Testament proportions: Quark’s Dear Leader told his squirming guests that “the Macintosh platform is shrinking,” and that “publishing is dying.” He suggested that anyone dissatisfied with Quark’s Mac commitment should “switch to something else,” although he insisted that making the move to Adobe’s long-Carbonized InDesign package is “committing suicide.”

Kiss of death for Quark? Maybe, maybe not. Quark is obviously trying to move users to the larger Windows base, and even if they score only a fraction of these users, I feel it would have a somewhat larger user base than with Mac users. However, Mac OS X is an attraction, not distraction as it has been for Apple in the late 1990s, and its user base is growing. Maybe not in the circles that Quark desires, but growing, nonetheless.

This is Adobe's chance to grab the brass ring and slap Quark around with it, in my opinion. As a rule of thumb, Adobe's first versions of their apps are pretty awful, but by version 2 or 3, the quality of the application tends to hit its stride and become production-ready. InDesign 2 has improved on many of its 1.0 sins and has made many users make a switch from QuarkXPress.

Personally I've never figured Quark to have a lot of management brains to stick with their strengths. Growth is a natural objective for any business, but this company has had the DTP side of things wrapped up. If they wanted to move into Microsoft technology integrations, that's great--but doing it by sacrificing their bread-and-butter application? Not good. Not good at all. It really sounds like Quark is envious of other technologies that intergrate more with the computer, such as MP3 players and applications. They want to become part of the "digital hub" too. Rrrriiiiiight.

Watch this sequence of events for Quark become hyperbole, and listen to the sounds of cash registers and invoices printed for copies of InDesign destined for people who have waited enough.

2002-11-25T19:06:00.000-05:00

I'm just filled with news, so here goes the volcano.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago of something big that was to happen professionally. Well, it did and it didn't happen. As I might have mentioned in summer posts, I applied for the Mac Genius position at the soon-to-be-opened Apple retail store in Indianapolis. Things looked good for my qualifications, but I knew that my benefits and compensation would be a problem. So, things came and went, and I was dinged for the position. The store opened on November 2 to a very happy city reception.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. Apple calls me, asking if I were still interested in the position. Turned out that one of their three Geniuses had found a better offer. I had a pleasant interview with the store's manager, who was enthusiastic about my skills and experience. I was still skeptical that Apple would be able to meet my salary since I'm paid nowadays with a pretty professional rate. Unfortunately my skepticism did prove true, although Apple made a good attempt to get close to what I made. Sadly, the benefits didn't fit. After receiving an offer for the job, I declined.

Well, at least I can say I was offered the job. Not many could say that. If you've visited an Apple store and spoke with a Genius, you might get an idea now of how much Mac stuff I have crammed in my brain.

So, enough with the meeting of my "Admiration Society." Let's dig into some news, with more to follow tomorrow.

His journey towards the Dark Side is now complete: Writer David Coursey how Mac systems make a great Christmas gift. He practically gushes, but not with zealotry, and has a few positive words on Windows XP as well.

The last major application from Macromedia is announced: Macromedia Director MX has been announced for a December release. It appears that Macromedia has beaten Adobe in carbonizing their primary applications for use in Mac OS X. Here's hoping for decent functionality.

Yes, you CAN open up a Macintosh: Apple has wisely posted a guide for those of you who wanted to save a few bucks on that hard drive or RAM upgrade and install the stuff yourself.. As a rule, follow the same steps you'd use in upgrading a PC--especially anti-static protection. Nothing will ruin your day by shocking your Mac or its parts to death. Trust me on this one.

I found on MacWindows some very interesting information on getting Mac OS X to work with login authentication with Windows Active Directory. I've been dying to try it, but tasks at work make it impossible. I hope to have some time to play with it later this week.