TidBITS#633/10-Jun-02
=====================
Scared by the big jump to Mac OS X? We were too, but we've
assembled a guide to upgrading from Mac OS 9 that will eliminate
many of the common problems people experience. Also, Adam
reports on the first MacMania Geek Cruise - read on if you've
ever wondered what it would be like to cruise to Alaska with
nearly 200 other Mac geeks. In the news, Apple started selling
the eMac to the general market, and we cover Mac OS X 10.1.5
and Mailsmith 1.5.3.
Topics:
MailBITS/10-Jun-02
Cruising with Mac Folk
Avoiding Trouble in the Move to Mac OS X, Part 1
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-633.html>
<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/2002/TidBITS#633_10-Jun-02.etx>
Copyright 2002 TidBITS Electronic Publishing. All rights reserved.
Information: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Comments: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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MailBITS/10-Jun-02
------------------
**Mac OS X 10.1.5 Released** -- Apple has released Mac OS X
10.1.5, bringing incremental improvements to applications,
networking, and third party peripherals. Adding more spokes
to the digital hub concept, Mac OS X 10.1.5 adds support for
new Canon digital cameras, Nikon FireWire cameras, and external
disc recorders from SmartDisk, EZQuest, and LaCie, as well as
magneto-optical (MO) drives. Mail and Sherlock have received
stability tweaks, and Quartz anti-aliasing of text is now offered
for applications that support it (such as the recently released
Microsoft Office X Service Release 1). In terms of networking,
iDisk access has been improved, as has file searching on local
and remote volumes, and navigating Windows NT file servers via
AFP (Apple Filing Protocol). Mac OS X 10.1.5 is available through
Software Update, or as a stand-alone 21.4 MB download for users
of Mac OS X 10.1.3 or 10.1.4; a separate 45.1 MB Mac OS X Update
Combo 10.1.5 should be used to update versions 10.1 through
10.1.2. [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06839>
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=122010>
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=122011>
**Mailsmith 1.5.3 Adds Improved Searches** -- Bare Bones Software
has updated its powerful email client Mailsmith to version 1.5.3.
The signature addition to this version is the capability to search
for messages based on the relevance of the search terms, rather
than just locating email messages that contain keywords; results
are listed with the most relevant messages at the top. Mailsmith
1.5.3 can also now create a new outgoing message with an
attachment when you drag a file onto the program's application
icon, as well as a host of other fixes and improvements. Mailsmith
1.5.3 is a free update for owners of version 1.5 or later, and
is a 5 MB download. [JLC]
<http://www.barebones.com/products/mailsmith.html>
<http://www.barebones.com/support/mailsmith/mailsmith-notes.html>
<http://www.barebones.com/support/updates.html>
**eMacs for Everyone** -- In a surprising move, Apple has
announced that it is now selling the all-in-one eMac to anyone
who wants one, barely a month after introducing the low-cost,
CRT-based system solely for the education market. (See "Apple Rolls
out Education eMac and Faster PowerBooks" in TidBITS-628_.) The
move brings the clunky cathode-ray tube display back to Apple's
mainstream product line after a much-touted shift to an all-LCD
lineup with the flat-screen iMac, but there's one strong reason
for the reversal: the eMac's $1,100 price tag puts a 700 MHz
PowerPC G4 within reach of more consumers, some of whom are still
balking at the flat-screen iMac's $1,400 minimum price tag. The
default configuration of the eMac will ship with 128 MB of RAM and
a 40 GB hard disk, along with a CD-RW drive and a 56K modem (which
weren't standard on the education version). Of course, the eMac
still features a 17-inch CRT display, built-in 10/100Base-T
Ethernet, two FireWire ports, five USB ports, and an Nvidia
GeForce2 MX graphics controller; an AirPort card can be added
for wireless networking. [GD]
<http://www.apple.com/emac/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06803>
<http://www.apple.com/imac/>
Cruising with Mac Folk
----------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The first MacMania Geek Cruise has now sailed into the sunset,
and I've had a few days to digest what was a truly fascinating
experience. We sailed from Vancouver, British Columbia, on
27-May-02, headed out into the Pacific to zip up to Alaska,
and then worked our way back down through the Inside Passage,
stopping at Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan before arriving back
in Vancouver seven days later. The days at sea were filled with
a variety of conference sessions; we had the days on land to
ourselves.
**The People** -- The most enjoyable aspect of the trip was
meeting Mac folks, both on and off the ship. The day before the
cruise left, Derek Miller, a frequent contributor to TidBITS Talk
and author of several TidBITS articles, organized an extremely
enjoyable lunch for other TidBITS Talk members and MacMania
speakers in Vancouver. A few days later, Peter Anderegg, a TidBITS
reader and former tour guide, spent an afternoon showing us around
the parts of Juneau that tour buses could never visit. Top on
Tristan's list was the Last Chance Basin Mining Museum, thanks to
their collection of decrepit mining trains (you can see pictures
of our time in Vancouver and Juneau below). In the evening, we
accompanied Peter to the Juneau Macintosh user group meeting, a
barbecue held on the shore of the stunningly beautiful Auke Bay
Recreation Area. The barbecued halibut and salmon was delicious,
the conversation stimulating, and the wind bracing. David Pogue
spoke animatedly about the wonders of Mac OS X, John de Lancie
(an actor known for more than just playing "Q" on Star Trek)
mingled and posed graciously for the Star Trek fans, and a good
time was had by all.
<http://www.museumsusa.org/data/museums/AK/81576.htm>
<http://homepage.mac.com/adamengst/PhotoAlbum6.html>
<http://homepage.mac.com/adamengst/PhotoAlbum7.html>
Back on the ship, the level of conviviality and friendliness was
exceeded only by the MacHack developers' conference, which has
sixteen years of history and shared experience to draw upon.
Nevertheless, after MacMania's first day or so, faces became
familiar, names were attached (thanks to ever-present name tags),
and most people had relaxed into a comfortable co-existence. The
key, I think, as with MacHack, was a shared space where we could
all gather with PowerBooks and iBooks and partake of the wireless
network with satellite-based Internet access. The Internet access
was expensive ($100 for the week), but for a technical conference
it was essential, and those who had never experienced the geek-
filled lobby of the Holiday Inn Fairlane in Dearborn, Michigan
during MacHack were astonished to find just how enjoyable it
is to hang out and chat with other Mac users while reading
mail, browsing the Web, or organizing photos of the day.
<http://www.machack.com/>
The pleasure was perhaps even greater for Tonya and me, since
we've been friends with so many of the other speakers for years,
but it was also great to meet new people and get to know some
of those whose work we've followed for years. A special treat was
meeting Phil Russell of the Corvallis, Oregon, Macintosh user
group, whose tips column in their Mouse Droppings newsletter we've
enjoyed for years. John de Lancie, after he realized a Macintosh
conference would be less stressful than a Star Trek convention,
loosened up and proved to be both an interesting conversationalist
and good with kids (one night when we met him at the elevators,
he picked Tristan up and "flew" him all the way through the ship's
casino to the dining room).
<http://homepage.mac.com/adamengst/PhotoAlbum9.html>
**The Conference** -- The conference itself was basically what
you'd expect, a bunch of sessions on a variety of topics and
presented by many of the people with whose names you've become
familiar over the years. My impression is that the quality of the
sessions was on par with those at other conferences. What set the
conference apart from the pack, though, was the chance to interact
with the speakers (or, from my perspective, the audience) outside
the actual session time.
The talks I deliver at Macworld Expo, for instance, are
essentially the same as those I gave at MacMania, but at Macworld,
after the Q&A session ends, I generally have to dash off to
another appointment or presentation. So although attendees
generally get their questions answered, there's simply no time for
more in-depth conversation, which proved both easy and commonplace
for most of the speakers during MacMania.
**The Cruise** -- Of course, the fact that distinguished MacMania
from all other Macintosh conferences was the venue aboard the ms
Volendam, a Holland America cruise ship carrying about 1,400
passengers. The concept was great - who wouldn't like to go on
a cruise? - but the reality was less appealing. Our cruise was
free in exchange for my speaking on six different occasions, but
Tonya and I decided we would be unlikely to seek out a similar
cruise for our own vacation plans.
The main problem, as we learned, is that different cruise lines
cater to different demographic groups. Holland America, it seems,
targets folks over 50, and the assumption that the average guest
is nearing retirement age means that those of us in our mid-30s
with a small child found ourselves constantly at odds with the way
things were done. The kids program wouldn't accommodate children
under five, there was no place other than room service to get food
from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM (when it seemed we always needed a bite
to prevent either a mother or child breakdown while waiting for
dinner at 8:00 PM), the room service menu had no options for
children, and so on. That's not to say that Tristan wasn't
welcome - both staff and other folks on the boat were extremely
nice to him - but the ship simply isn't set up for young families.
Personally, my biggest problem was that smoking was allowed in
many areas of the ship, and the combination of smoke and the
lingering odor of room freshener was a constant irritation.
I was also restricted to running on treadmills thanks to a no
running policy on the perfectly nice outside loop around a lower
deck. Rough seas the first full day laid Tonya low, made me feel
woozy, and turned an otherwise boring treadmill run dangerous.
The food, although a solid effort considering the vast numbers
of people being served, was nothing special (but you could order
as much as you wanted).
On the plus side, the service was exemplary, thanks to the ship's
primarily Indonesian crew. Our room steward must have been part
elf, to judge from the way our toy-strewn room was magically
cleaned and organized twice a day, and Tristan was utterly taken
with the concept of finding a chocolate on his pillow each night
before bed. The ever-smiling wait staff was equally as good,
whisking unnecessary bits of silverware away after you ordered
and being constantly available without hovering.
The ports of call were mixed. We had a fabulous time in Juneau
with Peter Anderegg, and in Skagway we took a three-hour train
ride on the White Pass & Yukon Railroad that offered amazing
scenery for us and the chance to be in a railroad passenger car
for Tristan, who's currently in a train phase. But the towns of
Skagway and Ketchikan in particular seemed to be little more than
tourist traps (the population of Skagway is nowhere near as large
as the number of passengers disembarking from the two or three
cruise ships that appear regularly), with an odd combination of
cheap schlock and high-end jewelry store chains (seeing a Diamonds
International and a Little Switzerland store in each town bordered
on the surreal). I'm sure the stores do a good business, and I
presume they've figured out exactly what the kind of people who
take cruises want to buy, but we were still bothered by the
overwhelming emphasis on shopping, especially for goods unrelated
to the location.
The scenic highlight of the cruise was our slow sweep through
Glacier Bay, where a trip down a mountain-bordered fjord ends at
a pair of glaciers inching down to the water. Alaska's mountains,
though craggy and appropriately covered with snow, weren't all
that different from the Cascade mountain range we'd become
accustomed to while living in Seattle, but nothing prepared
us for the sheer size and grandeur of the glaciers. We spent
several hours within a few hundred meters of Margerie Glacier
(scale is hard to estimate near glaciers, since they're so
large), punctuating our amazed staring with exclamations of
delight every time a large mass of ice calved off into the
slushy water below.
<http://homepage.mac.com/adamengst/PhotoAlbum8.html>
**Future Events** -- If you missed this first MacMania Geek
Cruise, you can sign up for MacMania II, scheduled for 01-Jun-03
through 08-Jun-03 in Hawaii. It will be a bit different from the
first MacMania - aside from the change in venue from Alaska to
Hawaii, it's being held aboard a ship run by Norwegian Cruise
Lines, which may cater to a somewhat different demographic than
Holland America. Plus, the conference will apparently focus more
on "visual arts" and Perl on the Mac. I wasn't asked to speak at
MacMania II (and flying to Hawaii is an incredibly long trip from
upstate New York) but many of the other speakers will be the same.
<http://www.geekcruises.com/home/mm2_home.html>
What MacMania proves, at least to my mind, is that there's room
for more of what I'd call "destination conferences," where
everyone stays in the same place and the talks are only part of
the attraction. The general location might be part of the draw,
along with activities that would allow an entire family to come.
Most essential, though, would be a low-key public area in which
attendees can congregate for Internet access when not in session.
I'll bet there are a variety of resorts that would fit the bill,
and I wouldn't be surprised to see additional conferences popping
up to cater to groups like the Macintosh community, which tends
to be both social and technical.
Avoiding Trouble in the Move to Mac OS X, Part 1
------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
No activity in the Macintosh world has ever inspired as much fear,
loathing, and terror as contemplating the upgrade from Mac OS 9 to
Mac OS X. People are worried they'll be forced to use the command-
line (you won't) or that they must reformat and repartition their
hard disks (it's not necessary). Others worry that they'll have
to spend hundreds of dollars upgrading software (upgrades can be
helpful, but aren't always essential) or that Mac OS X's well-
publicized shortcomings will prove to be huge obstacles (only
if you're entirely inflexible). Then there are the immovable
obstacles - old hardware or mission-critical software or
peripherals that aren't compatible with Mac OS X.
So the first step is to determine if you can upgrade to Mac OS X.
If you lack a relatively recent PowerPC G3- or G4-based Mac, or
you're reliant on software or hardware that simply won't work with
Mac OS X, you can't upgrade. Similarly, if you don't have some
spare time to install the new operating system and become
comfortable with the new environment, you shouldn't upgrade -
the task isn't hard, but if you don't spend the time up front
to do it properly, you'll waste even more time later. No matter
what, I strongly recommend that you not stress about the fact that
you can't upgrade. Apple hasn't set the technical requirements of
Mac OS X to annoy you personally, and the reasons why any given
program or peripheral aren't compatible with Mac OS X are many and
varied. In short, if you have a Macintosh setup that does what you
need, be happy with that and don't worry about Mac OS X until it
becomes unavoidable (as it will the next time you buy a Mac).
**Set Expectations** -- If you are ready to make the leap to Mac
OS X, the most important thing you can do is to set your
expectations appropriately. Apple's marketing materials would
have you believe that Mac OS X will somehow change your life.
It won't. It's a computer operating system with a graphical user
environment - nothing more, nothing less.
For the vast majority of Macintosh users at this point in time,
Mac OS X will not enable you to do anything you can't already do
in Mac OS 9. Browsing the Web, reading your email, using a word
processor or spreadsheet - the primary uses of computers are
equally as possible in both operating systems. Until fairly
recently, in fact, upgrading to Mac OS X meant losing capabilities
for most Mac users. That's less true every week, luckily, and more
important, we're seeing new software appear for Mac OS X that has
no equivalent in Mac OS 9.
You will have to put some real time and effort into thinking about
how you want Mac OS X to work, configuring it appropriately and
installing the necessary utilities for interface extras without
which you simply cannot use your Mac. Realistically, it took me
roughly a day to do the basic installation of Mac OS X and parts
of several more days before I'd done enough configuration that I
could remain booted into it. Fortunately, it's easy to boot back
into Mac OS 9 while you're finishing off Mac OS X's configuration,
so you don't have to commit a huge amount of time all at once to
the upgrade.
Another expectation you may need to adjust is the amount of
control you'll have over the system and how much you'll know about
it. Long-time Mac users have often built up idiosyncratic filing
systems and ways of working that simply aren't going to mesh with
Mac OS X's rigid directory structure and multi-user mindset. All
I can say here is, get over it, or you'll just spend all your time
being angry about a few nested folders - life's too short for
that. Apple has been pushing us in this direction for a long time,
first with the System Folder, then the special folders inside the
System Folder, then the Applications and Documents folders, and so
on. You may not like it, just as you may not like the way Mac OS X
can make you feel like a visitor on your own Mac, but these are
deep-seated design decisions stemming from Mac OS X's Unix
underpinnings, and you'll simply have to accept at least some
of them. Consider it a Zen thing.
It's also hard to accept that you're not going to understand what
makes Mac OS X tick, particularly if you've built up a store of
Macintosh knowledge across many years. My advice here is to think
back to when you were first learning the Mac and remember how much
fun that was (well, it was for me). I've quite enjoyed learning
Mac OS X's quirks and developing new ways of working, and my years
of experience have made the process a lot easier than it was way
back when.
**Survey Hardware** -- Assuming that your Mac has sufficient CPU
power to run Mac OS X, the next step is to evaluate your hardware
setup to make sure your system will work with Mac OS X and, if
necessary, determine what steps are necessary to make it work.
RAM is essential, and although it's not quite the steal it was
recently, it's still sufficiently cheap that you should make sure
you have lots. 128 MB may be the amount Apple recommends as a
minimum for Mac OS X, but since memory is dealt with completely
differently than in Mac OS 9, the more RAM you have, the better
(up to about 512 MB for normal use). Check TidBITS sponsor dealram
for recent pricing on RAM for your Mac.
<http://dealram.com/src=tb>
As far as hard disk space goes, Mac OS X needs a bit more than a
gigabyte for itself. Most Macs that can run it have hard disks of
at least several gigabytes in size, but I'd say that if you don't
have at least 2 GB free, you should either free up some space or
consider upgrading to a new hard drive. That's what I did: I
originally bought my Power Mac G4/450 with a 10 GB drive - the
smallest available at the time - and when the time came to install
Mac OS X, I replaced the almost-full 10 GB drive with a 60 GB
Maxtor hard drive that cost about $125. (This isn't the place
to talk about the specifics of that installation process; suffice
to say that I found Accelerate Your Mac's information invaluable,
if a bit rambling.)
<http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/IDE.html>
Peripherals like printers, digital cameras, external floppy
drives, SCSI cards, and tape drives are sticky wickets. Many
perfectly functional but older peripherals are not compatible with
Mac OS X, and may never be. I recommend determining what is and is
not compatible with Mac OS X before upgrading - that information
is usually available on the manufacturer's Web site or by calling
tech support. If a device isn't compatible with Mac OS X, you
have two choices. You can replace it with one that is, handing
down or selling the incompatible device as appropriate. Or, if
the replacement cost is prohibitive, or if there's simply no
compatible replacement available, you can reboot back into Mac OS
9 when you need to use that device (assuming, of course, that it
doesn't work in Mac OS X's Classic environment, which most won't).
Obviously, rebooting in Mac OS 9 to use a peripheral isn't ideal,
but knowing that it will be necessary is an important part of
setting your expectations.
I recommend making a list of all your devices, and note which
ones are compatible, which ones will require new drivers, and
which will need replacing. For those that need new drivers,
record the URL to the page where you can download those drivers.
**Survey Software** -- Once you've evaluated your hardware
situation, it's time to do the same for your software. My
experience is that most Mac users use more programs than they
realize. Here's a trick that can help you determine which programs
you really use in Mac OS 9. In the Apple Menu Options control
panel, set the number of recent applications to track to 99
(the maximum), and then use your Mac normally for a week or two.
When you think your usage has been representative, open the Recent
Applications folder in the Apple Menu Items folder, view it by
name, and copy the listing to a word processing document (select
all the files, press Command-C, switch to the document, and press
Command-V) where you can make notes.
First, delete from the list installers or other applications that
you won't use again. Then, for the remaining applications, visit
their Web sites and try to determine if you need an upgrade. If
so, note in your list how much the upgrade costs, the URL to where
you can get it, and if you'll be able to run the older version in
Classic mode temporarily. For instance, I haven't gotten around
to upgrading to the Mac OS X-compatible version of Timbuktu Pro,
and for the few times I've needed to use it, it has worked
acceptably in Classic.
As with your peripherals, if you have an application that you
can't do without but which has no upgrade and isn't compatible
with Classic, you have two options. Either reboot into Mac OS 9
when you need to use it, or find a replacement program. I won't
pretend that these are good options - the main consolation I can
offer is that most applications I've tried have worked fine in
Classic. A few others, such as the heavily used QuarkXPress 4.1,
are compatible with Classic but miserable to use. (When switching
from another application to Quark, I recently discovered, you
must refresh the screen with Command-Option-Period, something
that's perhaps best done with a macro; also, if you're accustomed
to switching tools using Command-Tab, you need to use Command-
Control-Tab instead or try the Shift-F8 shortcut for switching
between the two most commonly used tools.) I'm looking seriously
at Adobe InDesign 2 for the next iteration of my iPhoto book.
**Survey Interface Usage** -- There's a class of software that has
likely escaped your notice in the previous step - those invisible
utilities that make life so much easier in a myriad different
ways. Check your Control Panels and Extensions folders and add
any utilities you rely on to your list of software, paying special
attention to subtle bits like the Retrospect Client software, for
which you'll need to upgrade Retrospect backup servers as well.
And don't forget to note items that don't necessarily reside in
your System Folder such as Palm synchronization conduits (located
in the Conduits folder within the Palm Desktop application
folder), which still don't exist under Mac OS X for many
applications.
Also go back and read the articles I've written about the top
Mac OS X utilities for ideas on how you can replace not just
third party utilities, but also some of the aspects of Mac OS 9
you can't imagine living without. For instance, my father was
flummoxed by Mac OS X's static Apple menu and the Dock; once
we installed ASM and FruitMenu, his comfort level increased
significantly.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1218>
<http://asm.vercruesse.de/>
<http://www.unsanity.com/haxies.php>
**Gather Software** -- Once you've completed your lists of
hardware, software, and interface modifications, I'd encourage
you to go out and start downloading everything you can, purchasing
programs like Microsoft Office X if necessary, and acquiring any
necessary hardware. Obviously, there's no reason you must do this
before installing Mac OS X, but doing it beforehand lets you do it
at your leisure, rather than all in a rush after installing Mac OS
X. Make sure to store all the things you're downloading together
so you can get to them easily once the time comes to install.
If you're not absolutely certain you will stay with Mac OS X
after upgrading, feel free to put off purchasing upgrades to
applications you can run in Classic or replacing peripherals
that work fine in Mac OS 9.
If you have a slow modem connection to the Internet, not only
will downloading these updates in advance remove stress after you
installed Mac OS X, you can also get the various Mac OS X updates
that you'll need, since otherwise you'll be stuck waiting for
Software Update to download very large files as part of the
installation process. Plus, should you ever need to reinstall,
you won't have to download these installers again.
I'll cover more on that in the second part of this article,
as we get into the nitty-gritty of preparing your hard disk,
actually installing all this software, and taking your first
steps in Mac OS X.
$$
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