NVMUG eNews, October Meeting Announcement
REMINDER:
William H. Amos presents A Mystery Demonstration
NVMUG Meeting
12 Noon - 2 PM
Saturday, October 21, 2000
Community Bank Building, St. Johnsbury
Bill Amos will treat us to a mystery demonstration of equipment he has found extremely useful to writers like himself. Read about it below, and see if you can guess what it is.
Midge will bring her computer and talk about downloading MP3’s. Midge may also bring a movie made by Gail, of Wild Women, about MacWorld 2000. If Geof is able to come, he may talk about a comparison between Microsoft Exploiter and Netscape Communicator.
If you have a question or something you would like to tell the club about, bring it to the meeting. We can ask Midge about the MacChamp meeting with Small Dog on Wednesday, October 18. They meet at Together Net in downtown Burlington.
We will have a Scott Pelok special meeting on November 25, one week later than usual. There will be no meeting in December.
We participated with MacChamp and Wired Women in Macs In The Park in Burlington on Saturday, September 30. More about it below.
"You can't have everything. Where would you put it?" - Anonymous
In this NVMUG eNews
1. Note from Midge
2. Macs In The Park
3. Mystery Demonstration
4. Make a Backup Plan
5. Online Apple Support
6. Apple MUG Store
7. Help!
1. Note from Midge
Hi again NVMUGers,
I hope you are all enjoying the fall colors and
are getting ready for the upcoming winter color.
All of you who missed MACS in the Park missed a wonderful day. The weather was absolutely perfect, the company was great and some people
actually sold a few things. We had several winners in the raffle, Warren Walker won a tee shirt, Richard Smith won the game "Diablo" - from Blizzard Entertainment, Midge Lubot won Adobe Illustrator 9.0 and Stephen Farber won Adobe Photoshop 5.5.
We also received, from the Wired One, Gail Murphy-Glore of Wired Women, a check for $95.00, our portion of the raffle sales. One suggestion that I have gotten for the money is to buy some items at the Apple User store and then raffle them off at one of our meetings. All ideas are gratefully accepted. Please let me or Hartley know what your ideas are.
We are still hearing from people that saw our article in the Caledonian Record and were interested in a Mac User Group in the area. It is always fun to hear from others who have discovered howwonderful life is with a Mac!! I am working a couple of ideas I have to spread the word even further on a more regular basis.
The November meeting will be held one week later, on November 25th and will be run by Past President Scott Pelok all the way from Ann Arbor, Michigan. He and Geri will be here for the Thanksgiving holiday and he said he will bring some toys to show us.
If anyone has any suggestions for upcoming meetings, please send me your ideas. We will again be skipping our December meeting so everyone can have more time to spend getting ready for the holidays.
See you all on the 21st.
Midge Lubot
President Northern Vermont MUG
53 Mooney Road
St. Johnsbury, VT 05819 mailto:nvmug@mac.com 2. Macs in the Park
I got up at 5 o’clock and left for Burlington by 5:50. I was there in time to help set up the tents, and to carry an iMac from a car. When I put it down on the table I said, I only dropped it twice—then accidentally put it on the table screen side down.
We set up a table on Church Street to make people aware of Mac’s In The Park, and to send them to the park. I wore my Apple hat, and was given a iBook T-shirt to wear. I spent most of the day on Church Street. Paul, from MacChamp, was a better barker than I. While I was asking, “Interested in computers?” He started asking, “Interested in garage sales?” I met a lot of interesting people.
As you know, Apple officially released Mac OS X Public Beta and has made it available through Apple’s Online Store for $29.95. Apple says it works with "Systems compatible with Mac OS X Public Beta include the following: iMac, iBook, all Power Macintosh G3 desktops, Power Mac G4, Power Mac G4 Cube and PowerBooks introduced after September 1998. You'll also need to check two things. First, you may need a memory upgrade —128 MB of Memory (RAM) is recommended for using the Public Beta. Second, make sure that you've upgraded to Mac OS 9.04 now."
There was a demo of OS X running at Macs In The Park, and I watched it for awhile. There are two native modes according to Apple. Programs written in code specially for OS X, and Macintosh programs written to run with both OS 9 and OS X. Older programs will also run using an emulation mode. The programs I use most often, including AppleWorks 6, run in native mode. (However, I have to switch to AppleWorks 5 to print envelopes on my printer, and AppleWorks 5 will not run in native mode.)
I was told OS X should run in 64 megs when ready, but not in beta. I saw the built in e-mail program, and was told it would handle our newsletter mailing. OS X looks very good, specially on Apple’s new 17” monitor.
<www.MacNN.com> has the latest TILs for OS X listed on their site. If you
are getting the beta and want to see what's up before you do the installation,
check out:
A street entertainer, juggler, started performing next to us at about 2:20, after which we were not noticed much. I stayed to watch the raffle drawing in the park. Stephen and Midge won stuff. I didn’t, but I got to keep the T-shirt. The weather was great. It was a good day. 3. Mystery Demonstration
To tantalize NVMUG members, this piece of little-known Mac-related extremely useful hardware (not an Apple product) won't be identified until it is shown at the October meeting.
I was doubtful when considering this compact little gem prior to purchase, but no longer. It has proven to be indispensable in writing. It is NOT a computer and is smaller, lighter, and much less expensive than a PowerBook or iBook. A generic term might be "computer companion," designed more for a Macintosh than a PC, although it can be used with either. I tend to think of it as a full-function remote keyboard with ample lithium-powered RAM storage (about 50,000 words). It's larger than a Palm, but smaller than a laptop, just the size of a normal keyboard (less numeric keypad) with a small display for text.
It can be used independently as a stand-alone word processor, although sophisticated formatting, font choice, and point size must be done with your Mac through cable connection or IR. If necessary, it can export directly to a printer using the printer's defaults. Its main use, however, is to transfer up to a 100 pages of text to ANY word processor application in your Mac or PC (also to spreadsheet and database). Then in the reverse direction, it's possible to download text from the Mac to this unit to work with elsewhere. It weighs a trifle less than 2 pounds, is the ultimate in comfortable portability, very rugged, and is battery-powered for up to 500 hours of use with three ordinary AA alkaline batteries!
Despite what at first may seem to be limitations, it works flawlessly, rapidly, and is truly liberating to allow any kind of remote writing--from notes to books. 4. Make a Backup Plan
You would think that after at least 18 years as an Apple computer owner, I would have a backup plan, but then you would be wrong. Of course I have backed up my data and programs. At first I backed up my programs because they were important and expensive. Later I also copied data files to disks when I thought of it. But, I have never had a backup plan.
Originally a floppy disk would hold a program. Then it took several floppy disks. I used to think that if I had a program in my computer, and floppy disks to install the program, I was safe. One of the floppy disks containing the ClarisWorks 4 installer now has a flaw in it, so I made a copy of the installed program and related files.
Last November I bought an eZQuest CD ROM -RW drive so that I could transfer music from LPs to CDs, and so that I could backup my data. With it I can record volumes to CD-R and CD-RW disks, and can drag files to a CD-RW disk, much like to a floppy, using a program called Adaptic Direct. I partitioned my hard drive into three volumes. I made a 696 MB “System “ volume, a 227 MB “Work” volume, and a 696 “Save Files” volume which I use to record data to disk. When I use Print Shop, I put all of its libraries on the “Save Files” volume. (Partitioning a hard drive is not necessary to use a CD recorder. )
I copied my “System” volume to a CD-R as a base backup. Then I copied most of my my programs to a CD-R. They do not all fit on one. I copied my data files to a CD-R, and had quite a bit of space left over. It is surprising how much text you can get on one floppy. I tried to remember to drag important files to a CD-RW as I created or updated them.
This month I loaded my data files into the “Save Files” partition from the CD-R and CD-RW disks, and made two backup copies of the consolidated file, one on a CD-R, and one on a CD-RW.
As you can see, I am backing up files and programs, but I still do not have a plan for doing so. I started to develop a plan several times , and failed.
Then I read a well written article on making a backup plan in Dawn D'Angelillo’s Eds Up newsletter sponsored by Small Dog. http://www.smalldog.com
Once again I decided I needed a backup plan.
Dawn’s article talks about the media you might use to save your files . My decision was already made, but you may find this table from her article interesting.: “Here is the approximate cost per megabyte for the media (doesn't include the price of drive):
Floppy disks: 70 cents
SuperFloppy: 9 cents
Zip 100 MB: 8.9 cents
Zip 250 MB: 6.9 cents
Orb 2.2GB: 1.2 cents
CDR 650 MB can be as little as: .01 cent
CDRW 650 MB: .06 cent
DVD can be as little as: .04 cent”
The next major consideration is what to backup, and how many backups you want to make. I made a bootable backup of my system installer. I generally make a backup of either the latest version of the programs, or the installer and updater programs, and sometimes both. I am not sure this is necessary since they are generally available to download from the Internet in the latest version.
I usually save my documents first to a documents folder, and most of the time I put a copy of “important ones” in my “SaveFiles” volume for eventual backup. I know that I never get around to looking at most of what “important ones” I have saved. I also know that just once in awhile I go to look for something that I did not save.
I do not run my CD-ROM drive when I am not using it, and should have a schedule or criteria for when to drag backup files from my “Save Files” volume to the CD-RW, but I do not.
Dawn points out that when to backup depends on the content. My tax computations and reports like the NVMUG newsletter and school board meeting minutes are sometimes saved before they are finished, at least to the “Save Files” volume. One of the things I should plan is a schedule or set of rules that define when I should save different kinds of files.
Dawn also recommends that you add your e-mail files, the Preferences folder in your System folder, and your bookmarks folder if resides outside your Preferences folder. Internet Explorer saves bookmarks to a file called "Favorites" in a folder called "Explorer" in your Preferences. Outlook Express creates a folder named "Microsoft User Data" in a Documents folder on your hard drive. If you're using Eudora, you'll find your mail files in a folder called "Eudora Folder," which is generally located in your System Folder.
I used Sherlock to find out what files, not aliases, were modified yesterday. I experimented with labeling the files I would like to backup, but for me it seems to be easier to just drag the files from Sherlock to my “Save Files” volume.
Sherlock showed me files that were modified and should be backed up including AppleWorks clippings (or Library) files, and Templates (or Stationery) documents.
I had copied an AppleScript from MacWorld magazine. This AppleScript is useful when I am looking at an Appleworks Help page, and want to copy just part of it. The AppleScript gets the Help page in my browser. Sherlock reminded me that I should backup the new AppleScript.
Sherlock found that DB Files were modified in my Presto Page Manager program, but I had already saved these pictures as files. If you use Palm DeskTop as your organizer, use Save A Copy in the File menu to save a Copy of User Data.
I am going to keep using Sherlock to learn about files that have been modified, and those that should be backed up.
I should learn how to back up my Internet and TCP/IP data, which may be Internet Config and PPP on your machine.
I know that some Preference files are important because they include things like program registration information, and customizing data that would take time to recreate. But, I am not sure that there is any reason to backup all of the Preference files, or how often to bother.
I still do not have a backup plan, but think I am getting closer.
While I was working on this article, I discovered that I had lost a file. I was cleaning out some files, and backing up others. One title was an NVMUG eNews draft. Thinking that I did not need to keep a draft of an old NVMUG eNews, I deleted it. A few days later, I discovered that it was the draft for this eNews. The biggest problem I have is not equipment or software problems, it is human error. The most dangerous time appears to be when either cleaning up files in preparation for a backup, or when installing or reinstalling systems.
TechTool Pro 3 protects against accidentally throwing away a file, and I have been planning on buying the upgrade anyway. Upgrades are on back order now, but I will write about it in a future issue. 5. Online Apple Support
Apple is making it easier and easier for the user to troubleshoot, and in many cases solve the problems they experience with new and refurb purchases. If you get stuck on what you think might be an easy fix, check out:
There is an immediate subcategory for the machine you have (if it's a fairly recent one). There are easy to use popups that lay out the possible problems under main headings. It's easy and fast to look up many quick fixes for
common problems. In the future, this will make my job as a tech support rep
easier, once people become accustomed to researching these types of problems
online.
Apple has started a beta support forum as well. The new forum allows Mac
users to post problems on a message board and get responses from other
people who have experienced similar issues. This kind of customer networking
saves everyone the time and hassle of figuring out a fix for themselves. We'll see how well this works and if Apple will be able to better serve their customer base with this forum. Of course, the standard call to
800-SOS-APPL is also a good way to get support, but who wants to wait on
hold when the answer may be ready for them at Apple.com. 6. Apple MUG Store
Apple appointed PowerMax, one of the nation's leading consultative phone and internet resellers, as a special provider of good deals and top-notch service and support to User Group members, to give them the very best Macintosh purchasing experience possible. They sell new, rebuilt, and used Macintosh computers. They take PowerMacs in trade, and sell them at prices beginning below $200.
If you would prefer to deal with someone closer to home, someone who likes dogs, has god newsletters, and maintains a friendly atmosphere, check out <www.smalldog.com>.
I appreciate things like Don Mayer, Small Dog, describing Apple’s new loan program thusly:
“I wouldn't call the Apple interest rates all that appealing, and you might find
that borrowing the money from your bank is less expensive, but it's a
simple process that will let more people buy Macs more easily.” 7. Help!
Hi Hartley,
>This is Four Seasons T&S in Lisbon, N.H.
>Good luck with your Macs in the Park. I hope you have good weather.
>We're a Macintosh-based sports/health club, and we desperately need a tech
>who can troubleshoot from time to time. Things like setting up a new machine
>on our internal network, downloading files. No heavy lifting (technically
>speaking).
>If you hear of a freelance Mac tech, please let me know.
>Or have them contact me via this e-mail address (FSTSports@aol.com).
>Thanks,
>Therese
