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News

New Macs coming and new ways to get them

The first 750 (Arthur, G3) CPU-based Macs from Apple are expected to ship in November (as reported in MacWEEK).

Meanwhile, POWERtools has just announced a new line of clones, called X-Factor, that come with the 750 chip - available now.

Apple is changing the way Macs get distributed to its reseller channel. For details and a mostly positive view of what this means, check out this MacWEEK article. For a more critical assessment, read this article from news.com.

Think Different: Apple's ad on Toy Story

Definition of a true Mac fanatic: A person who watched Toy Story last night mainly to see the new Apple advertisement, rather than the movie.

I saw it. I liked it. It was attention-grabbing and the message was effectively delivered. Still, I have lingering doubts about commercials that never actually directly mention the product they are trying to sell. It worked for Dockers, but at least they showed the pants. In any case, my best wishes for success go to Apple on this new campaign. It certainly beats the non-campaign that preceded it.

P.S. For those that missed the … Read more

Week-end updates

MagicBullets 2.0.1 A version 2.0.1 update to MagicBullets is now in the Download Library. This utility allows you to easily make useful changes to text that are especially relevant to dealing with email messages. These include: minimizing white space, wrapping text, stripping bullets, and much more. [Update: I updated the correct 2.0.1 file now!]

GURU 2.5.2 is out.

CopyThru 3.01 is yet another in the steady stream of updates to this program.

Odds & Ends

Contextual menus and CopyPaste 3.2.1 conflict Two readers have reported that they were completely unable to get Mac OS 8's contextual menu feature to work if the third party utility, CopyPaste, was active.

Update: Kirt Thomas notes that CopyPaste is now up to 3.3.x. It works fine for him.

PowerBook Security: a follow-up Regarding the report last time about problems with the Password Security function on PowerBook 3400 and 2400, Peter Gilford writes: "Password Security will not work on the 2400c under any circumstances, and the Apple Tech Note is incorrect. The reason for … Read more

Rhapsody and Mac OS 8.1 news

Rhapsody The DR (Developers Release) of Rhapsody is expected to ship in the first week of October. Details of a preview of it at a Bay Area NEXT Group meeting have been widely posted to the Web (see the MacWEEK article for an example). While this is good news (and possibly even exciting news for developers), end users can pretty much ignore this release. For example, it will not be able to run the Mac OS at all (that is, there is no Blue Box yet). And the rest, while apparently stable, is still very preliminary. For a truly usable … Read more

Icon file bug?

Two readers reported almost exactly the same problem the other day:

Ed Wiederer writes that, running Mac OS 8, "after any restart or startup, I get a 'Rescued items' folder in the Trash with a file called 'Icon' in it."

Greg Neise had the exact same problem, additionally noting that an icon file mysteriously appeared "in the Desktop folder of each of my three hard drives." He contacted Apple about this and they claimed to be unaware of the issue.

Note that these invisible icon files are normally used by the Mac OS for custom folder … Read more

Power Mac 8600/300: Energy Saver Sleep problem

Two readers (Matt Talbott and Dan Rohtbart) both using a new Power Mac 8600/300, describe the same problem: When the Mac goes to sleep (typically automatically via an Energy Saver setting), it may not wake up again (requiring a restart to get things back to normal). (In some cases, it may freeze instead of going to sleep.) Matt claims that Apple Support told him that this problem has existed with some Macs since Mac OS 7.6.1 and that they believe it is a hardware problem related to the logic board. They told him to take his Mac … Read more

Power Macintosh 6500: Freeze at Startup (an Apple TIL file report)

According to a recent Apple TIL file: If you have a Power Macintosh 5500/6500 or 20th Anniversary Macintosh running either Mac OS 7.6.1 or Mac OS 8, you may get a freeze at startup prior to any extensions loading. Here's the explanation:

"These Macs can ship with a Geoport modem card pre-installed. The Geoport modem card depends on a Shared Library in the Extensions folder called 'Serial (Built-in).' If this Shared Library is disabled using the Extensions Manager or removed from the Extensions folder," the freeze may occur. However, you can start up by … Read more

HP Printers and Mac OS 8

I received dozens of email messages regarding the report last time of problems with Hewlett-Packard printer drivers and Mac OS 8. For example:

HP laser printers: use Apple printer driver Many readers noted that, for HP PostScript laser printers (such as the LaserJet 5MP), you can work-around most problems with the HP printer software by simply discarding it and using Apple's LaserWriter software instead. Some readers reported success with LaserWriter 8.4.x. Others said they had better luck with version 8.3.x. The only hitch here may be in selecting the best PPD file to use. However, … Read more

Problems with Silverlining 5.8.1 and Silverlining Lite 2.1.1; yet another set of updates is coming!

La Cie seems to being having a run of bad luck with its recent updates to Silverlining. As reported by La Cie awhile back: "Updaters to Silverlining 5.8 and Silverlining Lite 2.1 have been removed to correct a problem discovered with certain Mac configurations." The updaters have returned. Silverlining 5.8.1 and Silverlining Lite 2.1.1 are now available at the La Cie web site. They are meant to provide full Mac OS 8 compatibility. However, readers are reporting numerous problems even with these replacement updates. As a result, as noted by Lynn Rardin, … Read more