Subject: Info-Mac Digest V15 #194 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="Info-Mac-Digest" --Info-Mac-Digest Info-Mac Digest Wed, 10 Sep 97 Volume 15 : Issue 194 Today's Topics: [*] TidBITS#396/08-Sep-97 3400 & Scanning... 7.5.3 and nt server: vanishing files? [Q] MAC-OS - German-localized? International-English? [Q] Power Poker - a really good poker game, but i can't find it! Mac IIcx--which monitor??? OS8 on a Performa 6300? two questions... What is this group? What is this group? What is this group? What is this group? The Info-Mac Network operates by the volunteer efforts of: Gordon Watts, Adam C. Engst, Demitri Muna, Mike O'Bryan, Michael Bean, Matt Bauer, Liam Breck The Info-Mac Archive is available at 50 public and private sites around the world. For the site list, request it by mail (address below), or try: Also accessible by ftp. Help files and indexes are also in info-mac/help/. Administrative queries & info: Articles for digest publication: Files for inclusion: To submit a file greater than 800K, or to avoid submitting by (and segmenting for) email, send email describing the file to and upload it to: -- username/password macgifts/macgifts at info-mac.org As with emailed submissions, non-text files must be binhexed. See our new WWW site: , where you can find all of this info and more! The Info-Mac digest is sponsored in part by StarNine Technologies, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Quarterdeck corporation. StarNine develops Internet server software for the Macintosh, including World Wide Web and e-mail publishing systems. We'd also like to thank AOL, who has supplied the hardware the main info-mac machine runs on. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- --Info-Mac-Digest Content-Type: multipart/digest; boundary="----------------------------" Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Info-Mac Digest V15 #194" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 20:40:10 -0700 From: TidBITS Editors Subject: [*] TidBITS#396/08-Sep-97 TidBITS#396/08-Sep-97 Wondering about Apple's future in a world without Power Computing clones? Guest writer Matt Deatherage provides detailed analysis and posits that Apple is afraid to compete. Other news includes Apple plans to retain the Newton, CompuServe's sale to WorldCom and AOL, and notes on key updates to RAM Doubler, Conflict Catcher, OneClick, and other programs for Mac OS 8 compatibility. We promise to continue our Successful Shareware series in a future issue. Topics: MailBITS/08-Sep-97 Update at OS 8 Apple's Competitive Nature [Archived as /info-mac/per/tb/tidbits-396.etx; 30K] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Sep 97 11:47:42 -0000 From: "Steven J. Tryon" Subject: 3400 & Scanning... I have a PowerBook 3400c (200MHz version) that I have been trying to connect to a desktop scanner. I have tried with the Umax Astra 600s (two separate scanners) and the Microtek ScanMaker E3. Each time, some sort of weird SCSI thing takes place. In the case of the Umax, the scanners would prescan the bed, but then when told to scan, would only move the light bar about 1/4 inch, return to it's original position, than show me the scanned image. The scanned image was always just a plain white image because the light bar never moved more than 1/4 inch. In the case of the Microtek, the software doesn't see the scanner on the SCSI chain. It does it's own little SCSI check and shows something at that SCSI id, but instead of putting in information about the device, I see just a string of small square boxes. I tried tech support with Umax, Microtek, and Apple. The net result is that my ear is sore from listening to all the stupid hold music, and nothing works yet because none of them have a clue. So, has anyone on Info-Mac ever successfully connected either one of these devices to a PowerBook 3400c? If so, I would love to talk to you via email about what I might be doing wrong! Thanks! Steven Steven J. Tryon - VP Marketing - New World Media http://NewWorldMedia.com - Steven@NewWorldMedia.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Sep 1997 13:39:52 -0400 From: "David P. Baker" Subject: 7.5.3 and nt server: vanishing files? hi. we have macs running 7.5.3 connected to an NT 4.0 server, and the macs keep losing files from the server: some files will disappear from finder windows, even though the files are still on the server. they won't come back until we go to the server directly (or through a pc) and move the files into another folder. anyone have any info about this, or a solution? would 8 have any effect on this--is 8 supposed to interact better with NT? thanks much. -- David P. Baker Director of Engineering Voice: 203.698.0777 StarMedia Network, Inc. Fax: 203.698.1524 http://www.starmedia.com/ Email: david@starmedia.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 16:57:10 +0200 From: Thomas Rohde Subject: [Q] MAC-OS - German-localized? International-English? Dear all, I have the following problem, and I guess, apart from Mac-OS gurus, my German collegues might be the best candidates for answering: living in Germany, purchasing "germanized" machines/OS. Switching my OS/software to English coz of better availability of updates/patches/etc. (And my English is better than their German!) Now, many ppl talk of certain incompatibilities/idiosyncrasies of machines/non-/localized OS. Esp. it is said that US-English OS won't run, or give problems, with international machines. ISDN, VIDEO, GEOport, whatever. Please folks, could any of you enlighten me? Currently I'm using the International English OS, but that takes just as long to come out as does the German localization. So, I am thinking of switching to US-English, but I'd like to know about any problems since every switch costs time and money. Thanks in advance, Tom -- TOM ROHDE MEDIA DESIGN BONOBO.COMmunication Thomas Rohde, Dorfstrasse 3, 29646 Bispingen / Huetzel, GERMANY Phone (++49)-5194-6741 office / -6746 private / -6742 FAX ;-) signature updated: September 9, 1997, 16:55:08 q-: ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Sep 97 17:57:24 -0400 From: Andrew Murray Subject: [Q] Power Poker - a really good poker game, but i can't find it! While I was at a friends house in Winnipeg this summer, i found a game they had on a Nautilus CD (i believe) that was called "Power Poker Demo" and it was a really great poker game for macintosh, not just some dumb video poker game, you could actually play real poker against computer opponents. I looked everywhere on the net and couldn't find it anywhere! I'd REALLY like to have a copy of this game. If anyone out there has this game could you please either tell me where you got it, or even stuff and e-mail me the whole thing. I'd also like know where i can get the full commercial product from. (is there a web site or something?) thanks for your help! Andrew Murray (amurray@kos.net) P.S. please reply directly to my e-mail address (as well as posting to the list if you wish). ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Sep 97 12:58:15 -0800 From: "B.J. Major" Subject: Mac IIcx--which monitor??? I just picked up a Macintosh IIcx in a Goodwill store here for a great price. Can someone tell me which older Mac monitor can be used with this model? Thanks in advance. --bj ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:06:07 +1000 From: Ian Davis Subject: OS8 on a Performa 6300? In article , acarnley@stb.com (Al Carnley) wrote: >Can 8 be installed on a 6300? If so, how? Forget the other advice. I had the same problem last night and managed to solve it with the help of something buried at the Apple web site. Do the following: Restart, with CD in drive of course. Hold down c key until small smiley face appears. Immediately let go of the c key and hold the shift key down to turn off extensions. It will then work. Be warned: the install takes over an hour on a 6300. Now if only I can work out how to connect to my work ppp server... 8^} Ian Davis davis@licre.ludwig.edu.au ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 15:36:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Mark Fiske Subject: two questions... First... how does one go about making an extension that, say changes the appearance of the trash-can? Second... if any of you has such an ability and would like to make an extension that installs my "Fake-8" 3-D Finder/System icons over the old 2-D ones, let me know. I'll send you the necessary resources. private e's only (my news-reader's temporarily broken), Mark. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Sep 1997 16:52:22 -0700 From: Greg Lyzenga Subject: What is this group? In response to Al Bloom's recent comments about the lack of lively discussion on Info-Mac of late ... I too had been having very similar thoughts. I wondered if it might be an indication that there just wasn't anything Mac-wise to talk about anymore. Depressing thought, but maybe...? However, I had a recent experience that got me thinking in another direction. A couple weeks ago, I tried posting a message to the digest. Initially I sent it to the address indicated at the top of each digest for article submissions. It bounced back to me with an automatic message from a "robot". So I tried another address... To cut the story short, I sent it four separate times, including once to the moderator's address that is supposed to be read by a human, but each time it got bounced by the robot. My posting never did show up in the digest and I finally gave up. My submission of this message is therefore an experiment to see if I can get through! I'm wondering aloud here if there might be some generic glitch in the digest software that has been inhibiting others besides myself from submitting. Is it possible that there are teeming masses of would-be submitters who just can't figure out how to get through? I suppose the probability of this is sort of small, but I had to mention it just in case... - Greg Lyzenga Gregory A. Lyzenga, Dept. of Physics, Harvey Mudd College -> lyzenga@thuban.ac.hmc.edu <- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Sep 1997 13:01:17 -0400 From: Eric William Burger Subject: What is this group? I have to admit to the same feeling. I've neither unsubscribed nor killed IM messages. On the other hand, IM is about the last mail in my inbox I do read. In the last year, I [anecdotally] receive 3 archive summary digests to 1 Q&A summary digest. I actually DO value the archive digest. It's much more efficient *for me* to get the information in a digest when it's available than browsing the abstracts [e.g. at MIT Hyper Archive]. Wanting my cake and to eat it, how is this for a proposal: Split off the discussion vs. archive abstracts. We could do this by either noting in the Subject line that the digest in question is all-abstract or all-discussion OR splitting the list itself into two lists (e.g. info-mac-archive and info-mac-discussion). It seems [again anecdotally] that the moderators have already gone in that direction: most digests lately (but not this one!) seem to be either all-abstract or all-discussion. > Subject: What is this group? > Date: Sun, 07 Sep 97 19:44:17 EDT > From: "Allan M. Bloom" > > Is anyone else as distressed as I at the direction that I-M seems to > be taking? I-M used to be a community. The digests we get lately seem > all or mostly postings of software of varying general utility. I dunno > about y'all, but I don't see much if any utility personally. Or much > interest personally. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 09:09:16 -0700 From: "Adam C. Engst" Subject: What is this group? Hey Al, >Is anyone else as distressed as I at the direction that I-M seems to >be taking? I-M used to be a community. The digests we get lately seem >all or mostly postings of software of varying general utility. I dunno >about y'all, but I don't see much if any utility personally. Or much >interest personally. Couple of things. I've noticed of late that the postings have tended toward the aesthetic. Tons of Kaleidoscope themes, desktop pictures and patterns, that sort of thing. My suspicion is that this is merely a phase prompted by Mac OS 8's different visuals. We've seen similar things in the past, I suspect, with After Dark/Darkside modules and wallpaper PPATs. Despite that, we've had huge numbers of uploads recently. Michael Bean, our main archivist, reports that he's uploading about 160 files per week (about 70 MB). Of that, it's roughly split down the middle as far as upgrades versus new material. >Last year we saw a new very bright and informed guru join the group. I >was properly impressed and sent him a note asking where he'd come from. >He said he'd been hanging around the comp/sys/mac/system newsgroup, but >it got trivial so he came to I-M. I haven't seen him lately, and I'm not >much surprised. The quality of the discussions is of course another issue entirely, and I worry that it's one that's related more to the changes on the Internet than the changes in Info-Mac. The delay we've had in moving over to the new machine may have reduced enthusiasm slightly, and the fact that as a digest, Info-Mac is by definition slower than a newsgroup may have hurt the discussion aspect of Info-Mac. However, my feeling is that discussion groups in general are taking a hit from the growth of the Internet. There are more novices than ever, and more of the gurus are burning out or leaving for small private lists. Combine all those factors, and it may account for the drop in popularity and thus utility of Info-Mac's content. >The newsgroup may be mostly trivial, but I'm finding it more interesting >than I-M. I certainly don't have to subscribe to I-M to access the files >in its archive. And I'm becoming progressively annoyed with digests that >are no more than ads for personally useless stuff going into the archive. > >I'm certainly not against the archive. I was one who helped pay for a >larger I-M HD at Stanford a couple years back. > >I just don't think the archive is all I-M should be about. This is a discussion we moderators have every now and then. The general consensus is that we agree with you, that Info-Mac is both the digest and the archive, but the reality of the matter seems to be that the archive is unique (most of the other Mac sources of files get their stuff from us, especially now that UMich seems essentially moribund) whereas the digest is merely a general Mac discussion forum. There are a number of those, not to mention the tons of specific Mac discussion groups. Also note that the archive is what sucks most of our effort as volunteers. 160 files/70 MB a week requires significant attention on a constant basis, whereas Gordon's moderation of the digest contents doesn't take nearly that much time. And, we're just moderating for basic acceptability of postings, not attempting to drive or direct discussions. We have talked about running Info-Mac as two separate lists - one for the discussion and one for the archive postings. It would require some work, but could be done. And then there's the question of if Info-Mac should be a digest or a normal list (and if it would be way too much for for us if it were a normal list). There are plenty of issues here to think about - what do people think Info-Mac should, in an ideal world, be? (Note that that's not necessarily what it has been.) cheers... -Adam -- Adam C. Engst, TidBITS Publisher/Info-Mac Moderator -- ace@tidbits.com http://www.tidbits.com/ -- http://www.tidbits.com/adam/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Sep 97 14:50:50 -0700 From: Dan Frakes Subject: What is this group? "Allan M. Bloom" wrote: >I'm becoming progressively annoyed with digests that >are no more than ads for personally useless stuff going into the archive. Well, there are plenty of other, more informative, mailing lists that answer questions, act as a "community" etc. for Mac Users. Mac-Info, IO-MUG, PowerList, MacPCI... I subscribe to all of those, and they provide infinitely more "information" than Info-Mac. I know that Allan would like Info-Mac to provide similar resources, and think it would be great if it did! However, I personally like the archive info. I _really_ appreciate getting a regular list of new files posted to the archive, and would not be terribly disapppointed if that's all the digest was... not because I don't like normal messages, but because normal messages can be found on any list, but the software archive updates can _only_ be found here. Just my opinion, not intended to spark flames ;-) Dan frakes@kagi.com InformINIT: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/DEF/ -------------------------------- --Info-Mac-Digest-- End of Info-Mac Digest ******************************