Subject: Info-Mac Digest V16 #96
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--Info-Mac-Digest
Info-Mac Digest Thu, 23 Apr 98 Volume 16 : Issue 96
Today's Topics:
(Q) curse the cursor
[A] Typing Tutor
AGGHH sound play-thru keeps turning on by itself
Backup Boot Disk..
empty trash warning
Hard Disk Defragmenter?
Info-Mac Digest V16 #94
Mac to Win via e-mail attachments? (R)
missing features from macintosh version (of Netscape)
Q: empty trash warning
RAM
Too fast scrolling speed..
Web-site catalog/search
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------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 12:11:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Eisuke Arai
Subject:
I have a Mac LC III w/ System 7.6.1, 20MB of memory and...
I own a zip drive, have Norton Utilities 3.2.1 and use Iomega
Driver 5.5.1. I hear that you shouldn't de-fragment a removable media,
but, I want to de-fragment my zip disks and I can't back up all my
data and reformat my disk. Any info on this will be appreciated. I
thank you in forward for any and all help I receive.
==
Eisuke Arai
araie@stuy.edu
araie@yahoo.com
Live Long and Prosper!
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 10:30:58 +0200
From: Paul Dagleish
Subject: (Q) curse the cursor
>Dear Digest readers,
>My pointer has recently begun to disappear on me a lot.
>I have recently installed
>
>SoftWindows 95 5.0
>GoMac 1.5f1
>Kaleidescope 1.8.1
>Stuffit 4.5
>Netscape Communicator 4.0.5
>Civilization II
>Eudora Lite 3.1.3l
>
>And it is on MacOS 8.0 with a PowerMac 7200/75.
>
>Any idea what may be causing it?
>
>Closing and reopenning a few windows seems to bring it back.
>But it would be nice for it not to happen at all.
>
>Thank you.
>Sincerely,
>abrody@smart.net
I have had the same problem since switching to OS 8.1. It is definately
related to the cursur being interfered with by heavy interrupt handling
from the modem PPP connection. I found that to get it to reappear you have
to change the current application to another which is not always easy with
no pointer.
The method that ALWAYS works for me is to move the cursor to the
top left-hand corner and click just to activate PopChar (thanks
Gunther...). Of course, for this to work, you have to have PopChar
installed (does anyone not?).
Hope this helps,
Paul.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
_/ _/ _/ Paul A. DAGLEISH
_/ _/ _/ Development Branch
_/ _/ _/ Institut Laue-Langevin
_/ _/ _/ B.P.156, 38042 GRENOBLE Cedex 9
_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ France
tel:+33 (0)476.20.70.65 fax:+33 (0)476.20.77.00 mailto:dagleish@ill.fr
Web page: http://www.ill.fr/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:30:42 -0600
From: chris jones
Subject: [A] Typing Tutor
>Please recommend a beginner's typing tutor in shareware that I'm likely to
>find on Info-Mac. As basic as they get, please.
I use Learn To Type, in your favorite info-mac archive:
edu/learn-to-type-151a-68k.hqx
It gives you QWERTY or Dvorak options, a lot of feedback, I'm happy with it.
Chris Jones (drjones@usit.net)
I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with
sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use. --
Galileo Galilei
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:20:57 -0500
From: James Atkinson
Subject: AGGHH sound play-thru keeps turning on by itself
JonYo:
It's not a bug, it's a feature.
It used to be that the Mac OS controlled all the sound instructions
coming from applications, but with OS 8.1 this is no longer the
case...individual applications are now responsible for controlling sound.
Older applications, some of them, are still relying on the OS to do the
job, and so cause the "monitoring source" in the "Monitors and Sounds"
control panel to reset itself in what we humans perceive as
unusual/annoying ways.
Apple has put its foot down and is requiring software vendors to change
their code to satisfy the new spec, but for the time being (until the
software is updated) the only really viable workaround is to keep going
into the control panel and resetting the monitoring source, stop using
the offending program(s), plug a cheap set of headphones into the audio
jack.
James Atkinson
engja@showme.missouri.edu
On 4/17/98 9:57 PM JonYo said:
>
>Hmm. I think I heard that more people than just me were having this
>problem, but I can't remember there was a way to make it stop. Ever since
>I upgraded from 8.0 to 8.1, the play thru keeps turning itself on and up to
>full. I can tell by using Sound Input Strip (by Neil Hickox) in my control
>strip. Of course, if my sound in is set to the microphone, I get the
>wonderful humming noise from the feedback loop this creates. Lame lame
>lame. I've tried thrashing ever preference file that I can think of that
>might have to do with sound stuff. Any other ideas?
>
>- JonYo (mailto:jonyo@wenet.net)
>(http://www.hooked.net/~jonyo)
>
>
>------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:23:29 +0100
From: mnolet@faille.unice.fr (Mike Nolet)
Subject: Backup Boot Disk..
>Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 14:06:50 -0400
>From: Mel Martinez
>Subject: Info-Mac Digest V16 #91
>
>At 4:33 AM -0400 4/18/98, tedlogan@busprod.com wrote:
>
>>You may already know that Apple recommends against using HFS+ on your
>>startup disk, which I just learned a few days ago from a clued-in Info-Mac
>>correspondent. He also made a strong case for always reading Apple's "Read
>>Me" files, especially the ones for Mac OS 8.
>
>As long as you have available a separate bootable volume that uses Mac OS
>8.1, such as on a Zip cartridge, then there is no reason not to go ahead
>and use HFS+ on your startup volume, assuming it is large enough that you
>would realize worthwhile space savings from using HFS+ on it.
>
>You can easily make a Mac OS 8.1 bootable zip cartridge like so:
>
>Quick&Dirty emergency method:
>Download the Mac OS 8.1 Emergency Bootable Floppy Disk image file from
>apple (it's in the same location as Mac OS 8.1 update). Open this image
>file on the desktop (you may need to have the latest version of Disk Copy
>but I think it is a self-mounting image) by double-clicking. Drag the
>system folder to a Zip volume.
>
>More involved method:
>Use your 8.1 system software installer CD (or 8.0 CD + 8.1 updaters) to
>simply INSTALL a universal Mac OS 8.1 system on a Zip volume.
>
>The same strategy applies to other removable or external volumes like
>syquests, jaz, etc.
>
>You will then be able to boot from this cartridge. If you used the quick &
>dirty emergency method, you will get a dialog at startup about how this
>system was only meant for emergency use - you already know that so just
>ignore it - before it loads into a bare minimum system. It will, however
>work fine and allow you to see other volumes whether they use HFS or HFS+.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Dr. Mel Martinez
>FUSE Science Software Developer
>The Johns Hopkins University
>Dept. of Physics
>mem@jhu.edu
Or just drag your system folder to the zip/jazz disk :) (after which you
can trash all the control panels/extensions for a minimum system load..)
-Mike
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 22:18:30 +0200
From: Christian F Buser
Subject: empty trash warning
Melanie Jo Watts wrote:
> I like to unclick the warn before emptying box on in the get info dialog
> window for the trash. However, lately on my powerbook 1400running system
> 8.1, I have to unclick this box everytime I boot up. Why is this ?
Probably an empty battery problem. Does the PB1400 have an extra battery
to keep the PRAM, or does it need the Powerbook batteries? Don't know.
Best wishes, Christian.
--
Christian F. Buser - phone (+41-56) 491 0877
Hohle Gasse 6, CH-5507 Mellingen (Switzerland)
Look at
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:56:26 -1000 (HST)
From: Da Chinese Boy!!!
Subject: Hard Disk Defragmenter?
Hello, I am looking for a good freeware/shareware HD defragmenter. I
dont have enough cash to buy Norton. So im looking around the net for
one. I couldn't find any and would appreciate any help that people can
give me.
Thanks.
fire44@koa.iolani.honolulu.hi.us
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 22:40:01 +0100
From: david
Subject: Info-Mac Digest V16 #94
Michael
re: I recently entered the late 20th century by buying a CD-Rom drive to
plug
>into my Performa 475, and downloaded from a cover CD Netscape 3.02. Frankly
>I don't see a huge difference from 2.01 which I was using before, but it is
>causing me memory problems. etc
We use several older macs, my experience is old software works best on
older macs especially with the internet, bloated more modern stuff seems
to gum up the works for no significant gain in performance. I found
Netscape 3.01 unstable on my powermac untill i gave it 64mb of ram. On
my older LCII the older version of netscape was great with only a total
of 8 megs on the machine!
Unfortunatly it seems to be getting harder to get hold of early versions
of software and I think the internet will leave old machines behind as
new technology demands more and more power.
hope this helps david
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 22:25:22 +0200
From: Christian F Buser
Subject: Mac to Win via e-mail attachments? (R)
Roszel Family wrote:
> Can everyone help me with e-mailing attached WORD files from my PPC to a
> Windows environment? I use WORD 5.1a, and have occasion to e-mail files
> to people who work in the Windows environment. They claim they can read
> WORD files, altho that's not their primary word processing software. The
> files I attach, saved in WORD's MS-Dos, Windows 2.0 or RTF formats open
> up as gibberish.
Might it be they get BinHex files which they don't know how to deal with?
You should get ZipIt 1.3.8
to compress the file to a "PC standard". They need WinZip or a similar
utility to de-compress again.
Best wishes, Christian.
--
Christian F. Buser - phone (+41-56) 491 0877
Hohle Gasse 6, CH-5507 Mellingen (Switzerland)
Look at
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 17:29:45 +0000
From: Marlon Deason
Subject: missing features from macintosh version (of Netscape)
> I hope this feature stays missing. It gets in my way when I have to work on
> a Windows machine. I usually command-click on URLs or copy and paste them,
> rarely typing a whole one in. In my experience Netscape usually guesses
> wrongly what I want to do.
I agree, the real missing feature from Netscape is the ability to browse
your harddrive and launch applications from within a browser window.
Ultimately the answer to this and any other complaint with Netscape is;
download the source code and do it yourself. Some software publishers
(i.e. Quicken) who are face-to-face competitors with Microsoft choose to
axe their Mac development roster to better compete with MS (IMHO this is
the equivelent to throwing out your bicycle because your having trouble
keeping your car running.) But Netscape has chosen a much nobler path,
make the source code free. Who better to improve a program than the
people who use it? I hope more developers choose the Netscape path over
the Quicken one.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 10:42:59 +0100
From: Scott Coats
Subject: Q: empty trash warning
>From: Melanie Jo Watts
>Subject: empty trash warning
>
>I like to unclick the warn before emptying box on in the get info dialog
>window for the trash. However, lately on my powerbook 1400running system
>8.1, I have to unclick this box everytime I boot up. Why is this ? it never
>used to be the case.
>Thanks for any help
Same thing happens on my 9500, and yes, the battery is OK.
On our 6300, File Sharing also resets itself at restart, and the battery
is OK there, too.
Scott
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:26:23 +0100
From: mnolet@faille.unice.fr (Mike Nolet)
Subject: RAM
Dunno if this is the right place to post this but could someone explain to
me exactly the difference between SIMM's, DIMM's, EDO DIMM's, and
SDRAM?? (I realize there's a speed difference...)
-Mike
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:22:12 +0100
From: mnolet@faille.unice.fr (Mike Nolet)
Subject: Too fast scrolling speed..
This is a response you got in Infomac V16 #46... dunno if you read it then..
-Mike
>Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 12:15:14 -0500
>From: Mel Martinez
>Subject: scroll speed on G3
>
>At 4:34 AM -0500 2/19/98, Luskin@aol.com wrote
>>
>>I find that the scroll speed on my new G3, System 8, is too fast for me. I
>>can sort of scan things as they go by on my Mac IIvx, system 7.5.1, but this
>>is too fast. Is there an extension or technique that lowers the scroll speed?
>>
>
>Which application are you scrolling in and which of the three methods are
>you using to scroll:
>
>1) pressing the up/down key to move the cursor up/down line-by-line in a
>text editor?
>
>2) clicking and holding the mouse button on the up or down buttons at
>either end of a scroll bar?
>
>3) clicking and holding the mouse button in the 'grey area' of a scroll bar?
>
>If the application is written correctly, or simply makes use of the Mac OS'
>built in TEClickLoop routines, then the methods (1) and (2) should NOT go
>flying by no matter how fast your machine is. Apple long ago anticipated
>this user interface issue and put in, in effect, a 'governor' so that the
>text would not scroll by faster than a certain limit when using either
>ofthe first two methods (assuming the application used the built-in toolbox
>routines for this. As proof, take some benchmarks with scrolling through
>the same long document in, for example SimpleText, with a variety of macs,
>with a variety of color depth settings. Once you get beyond a certain
>moderately fast mac (like a IIci or so) then the scrolling speed really
>doesn't change much. [Note - because of this issue, I've always _HATED_
>comparative benchmarks that compared scrolling speed on macs to other
>machines. Useless as a benchmark!]
>
>I am pretty sure this issue is/was discussed in their human interface
>guidelines documentation way back when. If the application is scrolling
>too fast with either of these two methods, then the programmers should
>think about fixing it.
>
>Now, the third method is akin to scrolling 'page by page' instead of line
>by line, and it is more likely to be left ungoverned - it should be faster
>with faster macs, since most users generally want this speed to be fast
>since they use this method to move greater distances in a document.
>
>Cheers
>
>Dr. Mel Martinez
>FUSE Science Software Developer
>The Johns Hopkins University
>Dept. of Physics
>mem@jhu.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 98 07:45:35 -0400
From: Kate and/or Jack
Subject: Web-site catalog/search
We have a small business with a website and we
would like to put up our entire catalog (56 pages) which is currently
done in PageMaker (5, I think - not my program).
Is there a quick way to convert from PM to html?
Does PM do html?
What is the best way to search a catalog?
What kind of software do we need to handle credit cards (security, etc)?
Can someone point me in a direction just to get me started?
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