May 2005

May 2005
Executive Contact List
Please feel free to contact any of the following individuals if you have comments or questions relating to Macintosh Users East or Macintosh computing in general.
President Hm: (905) 263-4167 Courtice
Jim Foster Email: [email protected]
Apple Liaison Hm: (905) 983-9205 Orono
Bruce Cameron Email: [email protected]
Treasurer Hm: 905-404-0405 Oshawa
John Kettle Email : [email protected]
Publicity Director and Jolly Good Fellow
Jim Danabie
Logistics Email: [email protected]
C. Greaves & M. McCarthy
Secretary Email: [email protected]
Helen Alves
Macintosh Users East [MaUsE]
eMail: [email protected]
208 Winona Avenue, Oshawa, Ontario, L1G 3H5
MaUsE Message Line: 905-433-0777
Double Click
Double Click on the web at:
www.mause.ca
Double Click Editor
Michael Shaw
Hm: (905) 576-2097 Oshawa
Email: [email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
What you are looking at is the May, 2005 edition of the
Double Click monthly newsletter from the Macintosh
Users East, (MaUsE), a motley collection of old and new
Mac users who reside in Southern Ontario with a motley
collection of old and new Macintosh computers. What
more do you need to know ? Oh, yes. This Newsletter
is created more or less single-handed by Michael Shaw,
Double Click Editor, on his Sonnet- powered personal
Macs. He uses mostly a G4 Power Macintosh 9600/800
and an antique G4 Daystar Genesis MP 800+ Macintosh
clone. The rest of the Double Click support staff are a
G3 Power Macintosh 7600/450, a stock Daystar Genesis
MP 800+, and the “new boy,” a white 1 GHz G4 iBook.
No other humans are involved.
Submissions from MaUsE Club members, ʻthough usually
rarer than living, breathing mastodons,
are always welcome. Send them to me
either at: <michael_shaw@sympatico.
ca> if they are just text messages or at
<[email protected]> if there are files
or pictures attached. I have never refused
a submission yet. Thereʼs always room
for another piece on ANY Mac-related
topic and Iʼll make room if there isnʼt. I
would like your submissions. But I wonʼt
beg. Watch for CONTESTS only open to
subscribers who submit articles.
Apple, Macintosh, and the Apple logo
are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.,
registered in the U.S. and other countries.
The MaUsE (Macintosh Users East) is an
independent user group and has not been
authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Computer, Inc.
The next meeting
will be held at the
Faith United Church
on Nash Road in
Courtice, Ontario,
at 7:30 P.M. on May,
25th, 2005.
Auto FX AutoEye
If you read last monthʼs Double Click you would see a reference to Auto FX Photo/Graphic Edges and a promise that
I would be writing about other really neat software from
Auto FX that would also run on pre-OSX systems for those
of us who still delight in running Classic Macintosh applications under OS8.6 and OS9.1. Everybody knows about
Adobe Photoshop so lately Iʼve been presenting some fine
image-editing programs from lesser-known companies like
Corel and Auto FX. In this issue I will briefly mention a
whole bunch of Auto FX software that really make my old
Power Macintosh 9600 hum. If I pique your interest you can
look them up on the internet or download demos of most
of them. They work in Classic and OSX systems and they
function either as a stand-alone application or as a Photoshop plug-in.
AutoEye 2.0 was created to automatically improve digital images by rebuilding color detail, sharpness and image vibrancy. AutoEye uses a totally different set of adjustment methods than Photoshop or other image editing
applications. AutoEye does not use standard curves and histograms to adjust images on a global basis within the
RGB or CMYK color space. AutoEyeʼs unique methods result in image enhancements that are easier to attain and
yield a higher quality result.
During the process of converting an image from analog to digital, a great deal of color and detail information is
lost. AutoEye uses I.V.I.T, a patented Intelligent Visual Image Technology, to help it see images in a unique way
and reclaim much of the lost detail and color and improve the overall appearance of an image. I hope the effect is
apparent in these images I have presented
here on this page. On the Auto FX website
there is a gallery of before-and-after photos
that demonstrate how AutoEye software
can automatically improve digital photos
to recapture much of the detail sharpness
and colour brilliance that is often lost by
the time your analog world gets reduced
from what your eyes see to the format that
your camera or photo-grade scanner uses
to the format your monitor shows you.
This is going to be a colourful issue.
Auto FX Dream Suite
Here is another Auto FX program. Auto FX is the largest developer of
commercial plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop. While casual users like you
and me would never even think of what we could do with Photoshop
there are professional users who have pushed Photoshop to its limits and
have generated a need and market for special effect filters and imaginative image treatments that Adobe never thought of.
On this page and the following I will try to introduce you to Auto FX
software, but I will hardly do it justice with a brief description and a
few pictures. Suffice to say that Auto FX stuff is for PowerMacs running
OS8.5 and higher, and each Auto FX application installer gives you the
choice whether the program is installed as a stand-alone application or as
a Photoshop / Photoshop Elements plug-in, and these Auto FX programs
are all magical.
Some of the effects shown here on the next page may bog down your
processor somewhat on slower pre-OSX systems but anyone still running
Photoshop under System 8.6 or OS9 will still be pleased by the performance of this program as a stand-alone application. The controls for applying aspects and attributes of each filter are far more useful and subtle
than those found in Photoshop and the interface opens a different fullsized window for each effect complete with tools, sliders, and a quick
and easy way to store multiple saved copies of your documents. There
is so much more to this program than what I have showed with my ten
pictures of a parrot. I hope they show up well on your computer screen. A
quick romp on the internet will show you a
great deal more than I can do here.
If you go onto the internet to the Auto FX
website you will find that you can download demos of these programs or purchase
them outright. They arenʼt cheap but they
are worth the money in an industry where
there is no substitute for professional results and only one chance to make a first
impression.
components, and finally
gave up. The card works
with all acceleration
turned off but its redraw is
clunky and slow. Scrolling
is painfully jerky. If I turn
on the acceleration the performance is excellent but I get
these lines and artifacts whenever I launch programs. Of
course the ixMicro Ultimate Rez did cost about $15.00
The word “artifacts” has special meaning for computer on eBay last year and it is eight years old, so maybe its
screens. If you have enough video RAM for your sys- time to bite the bullet, to coin a phrase, and splurge.
tem requirements there should be no extra or unexpected
dots, lines or squiggles on your monitor screen during With that thought in mind I went on the Low End Mac
video. Iʼm not talking about dropped frames during SWAP List and asked if anyone had either a Number Nine
movie playback, an indication of inadequate RAM, but Imagine 128 S2 PCI video card or any other interesting
rather of scrambled signals or broken windows. See the 8, 16 or 32-Meg Macintosh compatible PCI video card.
example above for the type of thing that can happen. If One of the Listers offered me a Village Tronic MPDD
any appear they are called artifacts and some artifacts are Pro video card VASTLY superior to the ailing 8-meg ixindications of problems with some mechanical hardware Micro for $17.00 including postage !
component of your computers video system. The ixMicro Ultimate Rez 8-meg video card in my 9600 recently The card he offered me is the card pictured here at right:
started covering the top quarter of my screen with multi- a special “made-for-Macintosh” 16-meg PCI video card
coloured static whenever I launch programs and some- from Village Tronic, a German company Iʼd never heard
times the Menu at the top of the screen would break up of. I got right onto the internet and found out all about
this video card, including the facts that this card is about
into boxes as well.
eight years younger than my old Ultimate Rez and is still
I wasted a few entertaining hours re-configuring prefer- available as a new purchase for about 100 Euros.
ences, trying different monitors at different resolutions
and deleting and re-installing various ixMicro software
When Good Video Cards
Go Bad...
The VT-MPDD Pro graphics card is designed to offer
Macintosh users an easy and affordable way to connect
a second (or third) display to any Macintosh computer.
The included controls and operation make this task very
simple for all levels of users. The Village Tronic development team worked harder to make the MPDD Pro card
fully integrated with all the Macintosh operating systems
and hardware. The result is that I will not need any new
special knowledge in order to use the MPDD Pro graphics
card. It will behave exactly as I expect an Apple product
to behave, fully integrated in the operating system and
controlled with standard Mac OS Configuration Panels.
The MPDD Pro graphics card operates without any additional software, thanks to the advanced ROM-based
drivers. In order to experience the full performance
of the graphics card and take advantage of additional
features, a few system Extensions have to be installed
on Mac OS 7, 8 or 9. Configuring the attributes of the
MPDD Pro video modes is performed using the standard
“Monitors” or “Monitors & Sound” Control Panels (depending on your Mac OS version). If you are using more
than one display, this Control Panel is very important
because it will let you to logically arrange the position
of each one, i.e. your Mac should know which display is
on the right side and which on the left side, in order to
let you move your mouse cursor from one display to the
other as expected. This Control Panel has the additional
“Arrange” function if more than one display is installed
in the system. After the configuration is performed, you
will immediately recognize how to use the additional
display: Just drag your mouse off the main display, to
the left or to the right, to appear on the second display.
Of course you can drag windows on and off of any display. If this feature does not perform as expected, review
the above configuration section to ensure
that the displays are properly aligned.
There is a universal installer from the
Village Tronic website that is identical to
the installer on the CD distributed with
the MPDD Pro card. It has extra optional
software for Mac operating
systems right up to and including the latest release of
OSX 10.3 Panther. Besides
working in the old PCI PowerMacs and clones it will also
work in Mac servers and in
the new G3, G4 and G5 tower
models.
Screendoubler
resolutions
are panning video modes that
cause the screen to automatically scroll when you move
the mouse cursor outside of
the border. Screendoubler mode is a video mode that offers a resolution two or four times bigger than standard.
This has got to be seen to be believed.
The provided Monitors&MP custom Control Panel (for
Mac OS 7-8-9 only) does not handle the dynamic changes in the list of video modes as it happens in Mac OS X.
A specific Extension for Mac OS 7-8-9 is installed to activate the dynamically changing video mode list. If you
want to disable this feature, just disable the Extension. It
is called “VT Panning Support”.
The outstanding features of this video card are that it is
very affordable (around 100,- EUR or $100 US excluding Tax) and it is compatible with every fixed frequency
and multi-scan Mac and VGA monitor from 13 inches
right up to 21 inches.
MPDD Pro and two 19” monitors are more productive
and usually less expensive than a single 21-inch monitor. Other video cards require adapters to connect to
any Apple RGB monitor, the MPDD Pro is ready to go!
MPDD Pro provides compatibility with Mac OS system
7.5.3 through 10.3 and it doesnʼt install a zillion Extensions in your System Folder.
Mac Care Unit
with Disk Warrior et al.
Hereʼs another found treasure from eBay. The last real
treasure bargain I found in the eBay Mac utilities category was a brand new bootable copy of Prosofts Data
Safety Suite of OSX 10.3.2 Panther utilities going for
one measly dollar plus postage. I was the only bidder
and the eBay Seller was very disappointed. You can bet
your ass I snapped that up and I still canʼt believe that
nobody else jumped on it. What we have here is a sweet
suite of Macintosh utilities including two of the very best
Alsoft ever made, Disk Warrior and Plus Optimiser.
Iʼve been watching for a bargain bootable copy of Alsoftʼs Disk Warrior on eBay for a while. The problem is
that Disk Warrior is one of the most highly prized and
highly valued Macintosh utilities ever made. It has won
more awards than any other Mac utility. Because of that
whenever a copy shows up on the Low
End Mac SWAP List or on eBay it usually gets bid up pretty fast. It is also one
of the most valuable utilities for rescuing
older hard drives on pre-OSX Macs. For
those of us in the Club who are still using
vintage OS8 and OS9 Macintosh operating systems on legacy (604e) PowerMacs
and G3 or G4 PCI Macs DiskWarrior is
the only utility that can find a drive (or
drive partition) that has failed to mount
and bring it back to life on the Desktop by
deleting the corrupted Master Directory, constructing a
new updated Master Directory from the data on the hard
drive, and then writing the new Directory to the drive so
the drive can be mounted. Thats pretty well all that DiskWarrior does. It also has a defragmenting utility but that
is more or less inconsequential compared to its ability to
resurrect a missing drive with a corrupted Directory. The
Master Directory is a special catalog file that keeps track
of all of the names and physical locations of all files,
file fragments and folders on a drive so that the Finder
can find them. Every time you create or move a file the
changes and location are recorded to this directory. Under
Mac operating systems prior to OSX your Directory can
become corrupted and cause you to lose access to your
files without warning after a power interruption or from a
disk error during copying files. The way you usually find
out about it is when your computer starts up you might
notice that one of your hard drive or drive partition icons
is missing off the Desktop. Naturally it will be a drive
or partition with valuable data on it that you intended to
back up but hadnʼt gotten around to it quite yet.
What you REALLY donʼt want to see is a dialog box telling you that one of your hard drives is no longer recognised by your computer. This happened to me recently
with a SCSI drive in the PPC 9600 and I had the presence
of mind to “Eject” the disk, restart my computer with the
DiskWarrior bootable CD in the CD-ROM drive and use
DiskWarrior to create a new directory. The alternative
would have been to initialise the drive. That would make
the drive usable again but it would also erase all of the
files on the drive in the process.
With DiskWarrior I got
a new directory written to the drive and its
icon re-appeared when
I restarted the computer. Basically thats
all DiskWarrior does.
It examines your hard
driveʼs contents and
creates a new directory
that accurately lists the
contents and their loIf you only have one unpartitioned drive installed in your cations so your Finder
computer then your Mac wonʼt start up at all and you can access them again.
may just get a folder icon with a flashing question mark Thats all it does and
on it. I hate it when that happens.
no other utility can do
this.
The other Alsoft utility included in the Mac Care Unit is PlusOptimiser. This may look
and sound like a program for defragging your hard drive but it isnʼt. What it does is
take a snapshot of your Master Directory and create a report detailing how many items
in the Directory are out of order. The actual percentage may be very high, from 20 to
45 %. Then it optimises the Directory by re-ordering the information and rechecks it
by creating a new graph. The whole process takes less than a minute on most computers. Like with any optimisation process, the result is a faster, healthier, less cluttered
drive and faster access to your files.
Anyway, to make a sweet story short, I saw a copy of Casady & Greenʼs Mac Care
Unit going on eBay recently for US $0.99. That struck a chord because I remembered checking out a copy of Mac Care Unit that was being offered as one of the
raffle prizes at one of our MaUsE meetings last year and
noting that Alsofts DiskWarrior was included as part of
that Casady & Green utility package. C&G were famous
as the people who brought us Conflict Catcher and other
utilities for OS7, OS8 and OS9 but are no longer in business because they could not make the transition to OSX.
Since they went under their software is showing up quite
frequently as surplus on eBay. The eBay Seller of this item
didnʼt bother to describe the item very well and made no
mention by name of the seven excellent utilities included
in the package. As a result the item got only one bid and I
got this valuable pre-OSX bootable utility suite (Conflict
Catcher 8, DiskWarrior, Copy Agent, Chaos Master, VirusBarrier, NetBarrier, and PlusOptimiser) for about the
price of a chocolate bar.
DiskWarrior is the safest, the most technologically advanced, and the most powerful utility to prevent and
eliminate directory damage available for any computer.
DiskWarrior uses a different approach to disk directory repair than other programs.
DiskWarrior is not a disk repair program in the conventional sense. Instead of patching the original directory, it uses a patent-pending technology to quickly build a new
replacement directory using data recovered from the original directory, thereby recovering files and folders that you thought were lost and that no other program could
recover. DiskWarrior is the only product that finds all of your data. Its patent pending
method always results in a perfectly rebuilt directory
without any errors and that contains all of your file and
folder data.
Hardware failure presents a potential threat to your data.
When a drive mechanism fails, the data on the drive can
be lost, with an expensive data recovery service your
only option to retrieve your data. DiskWarrior can be
used to activate internal diagnostics that are built into
disk devices to help determine if a drive is in danger
of physical malfunction. If the potential for failure is
indicated, DiskWarrior will notify you, giving you the
opportunity to back up your data before the drive fails.
These tests can be executed manually, or you can choose
to have the tests run automatically every hour, day, or
week. DiskWarrior also provides several notification options should the diagnostics report a problem.
Features
* Uses directory data to quickly rebuild the directory
structure
* Eliminates risk of losing access to files other disk “repair” utilities attempt to fix the directory by patching the
structure and risk deleting some of the directory
* Scavenges directory to find
all salvageable file and folder
data, even data contained in
damaged nodes
* Eliminates unseen directory
errors, preventing minor directory errors from escalating into
major problems
* Recovers lost files and folders
* Optimizes directory for maximum directory performance,
speeding up overall disk performance
* Monitors drive hardware for
potential drive failure
* Verification of replacement
directory ensures data integrity
* Comparison of original directory with replacement directory tells you which files and folders may have been
affected by directory damage
* Preview feature to view what the disk will
look like after the directory is rebuilt, allowing you to test files, folders, and applications
before any directory changes are written to
disk
* Repairs damaged boot blocks and blesses
the system folder to ensure that the computer
will start from the repaired disk
* Checks custom icon files for corruption,
eliminating a common cause of system
crashes
* Repairs problems with wrapper volume
System files caused when HFS Plus disks are
initialized under Mac OS 9.0 - 9.0.4
* Safely permits interruptions of any kind,
including power outages
* Advanced “Verify Reads and Writes” technology protects your data
* Supports bad block sparing software
* Rebuilds directories on disks as large as 2,000 gigabytes (2 terabytes)
* Supports file journaling (Mac OS X 10.2.2 or later)
I emailed the Seller after the auction ended to see if he
had enough copies for everyone in the MaUsE Club still
running pre-OSX operating systems but unfortunately
he only had four more copies left. There are more copies
of Mac Care Unit from the same and other Sellers still
available from time to time on eBay. As long as they
donʼt advertise that DiskWarrior is in the package they
will be selling cheap. Pick up a Mac Care Unit for a
buck or two plus postage. Your old Mac will appreciate
it and you will have the added security of knowing you
will be able to rescue your files yourself if your drives
start to fail.
Copy Agent by Connectix:
Copy Agent will safely back up, copy and synchronize files automatically. Its a 2000 Macworld
Eddy Award Nominee for “Best Utility”
Net Barrier by Intego:
Use Net Barrier to protect your computer from Internet and network intruders.
Monitors incoming and outgoing network activity. Another 2000 Macworld
Eddy Award Nominee for “Best Utility”
Virus Barrier by Intego:
The Mac Care Unit CD launches a window like the one shown here when you insert it.
Virus Barrier protects your machine
You can click on any of the information tabs to select the program you are interested in
from viruses, and is non-intrusive when
and then chose to install it or view a tutorial or open the users manual. Mac Care Unit
it performs its job.
is the software every older Mac needs for diagnosis, cure and prevention of problems
with your files and extensions, disk directories, hard drive fragmentation, Internet Intruders, back up of data, and more!
Chaos Master by Casady & Greene:
Chaos Master brings order to your hard
Conflict Catcher 8 by Casady & Greene:
drive by eliminating duplicate files and
1997 and 1998 Macworld Eddy Award
applications.
Winner for “Best Utility,” Conflict
Catcher 8 manages your files in your system folder, conflict testing and performs
a Clean Install System Merge which allows you to merge your previous system
folder into a clean system folder. Its so
superior to the Apple Extension Manager
that Apple should be ashamed.
3dfx Voodoo5 4500 &
5500 PCI
Remember when 8 Megs of RAM was standard in
most computers and you only got 16 megs in the
high-end 604e-powered models? Back then Macs
usually shipped with two megs of video RAM and
it could be upgraded at great expense to four megs.
Well, those days are long gone but around our house we still have a few old PCI
workhorse PowerMacs and I have a lot of fun finding cheap ʻnʼ cheerful MacJunk and
MacTreasures at garage sales, on eBay, and at computer internet swap lists to install
in them. A lot of this stuff was so expensive back when it was new that not very many
units were sold, which makes them rare now, and some upgrades were only manufactured for a brief period of time before the company that made them disappeared. Now
these neat items are being freed up in limited numbers as PowerMacintosh computers
are being parted out by owners who have upgraded to new G4 and G5 systems and find
that selling their old system as a working computer isnʼt worth squat.
Five years ago, when OSX was unheard of, a company called 3dfx made some of the
most impressive PCI video cards for Macintosh under the model name “Voodoo5”.
These Voodoo cards were designed to work under OS8 and OS9. Then 3dfx went
out of business so there never were any updated OSX drivers for these cards. Since I
still use exclusively pre-OSX operating systems on two PCI PowerMacs here in the
delightfully retrospective Double Click office, I have been monitoring video cards on
eBay hoping to pick up a bargain on a Macintosh 3dfx Voodoo5 4500 32 MB or, even
better, 5500 64 MB video card.
At the heart of the Voodoo5 products is the VSA100 (Voodoo Scalable
Architecture) processor.
The architecture incorporates industry-standard 3D
features including 32-bit
RGBA rendering, 24-bit
depth-buffer (Z and W),
8-bit stencil rendering,
FXT1 texture compression
support, 32-bit textures,
2048x2048 texture size support, advanced texture and color combine capabilities, and
the native support of Macintosh data formats. Additional features include the worldʼs
most powerful and feature-complete 2D engine, as well as compelling video features
including a 350 MHz RAMDAC for unsurpassed video quality.
The Voodoo4 4500 PCI for Macintosh features a single VSA-100 processor and 32 MB
of graphics memory. In 2000 it was the ideal choice for both pre-press professionals,
and casual gamers, as well as users who wanted to upgrade to a board to drive Appleʼs
new digital flat panel monitors. For professional designers, the Voodoo4 4500 PCI
also had the necessary power to deliver high visual quality with a 350MHz RAMDAC
that provided rock-solid images at high refresh rates. The Voodoo4 4500 PCI for Mac,
which rendered two fully featured pixels per clock, delivered up to 333 megatexels/
megapixels per second fill rates and cost about US $200.00, or about $300.00 here in
Canada.
The Voodoo5 5500 PCI for Mac features dual VSA-100 processors and 64MB of total
graphics memory. The product was targeted at both 3D Professionals and hard-core
gamers, providing compelling support for 3D modeling, CAD, animation, and virtual reality applications, in addition to the fastest gaming experience on the Mac. The
multi-chip capabilities of the VSA-100 allowed, for the first time, 3D rendering that
employed, true full-scene, hardware anti-aliasing at real-time frame rates. Additionally, the Voodoo5 5500 PCI enabled advanced T-Buffer(TM) digital cinematic effects
including motion blur, programmable depth-of-field, soft shadows and soft reflections.
The Voodoo5 5500 PCI, which rendered four fully-featured pixels per clock, delivered
up to 667 megatexels/megapixels per second fill rates and was priced at US $329.99,
or $425.00 Canadian, in retail stores.
Both the Voodoo5 4500 PCI and Voodoo5 5500 PCI for Mac support all major 3D
APIs including OpenGL®, GLIDE®, QuickDraw(TM) 3D Rave, providing the
highest possible software compatibility. In addition both products had planned
support for Appleʼs upcoming OS X but that promise was never realised. With
64MB of RAM and a dual VSA-100 chip set running 2D and 3D functions, the
Voodoo 5 5500 PCI graphics card surpassed the ATI Rage 128 as the leading Mac
3D card. From reading old reviews on the internet I decided that I would be happy
with the 32-meg Voodoo5 4500 if I could find one for under $30.00. Performance
with these cards is rated as excellent for 2D operations. Unfortunately there were
few of these sold compared to the faster 64-meg Voodoo5 5500 cards and there
were none available on eBay when I looked.
Several other factors convinced me that I wanted the 64-meg Voodoo5 video card.
One of them was that I picked up a box set of Macintosh Clip Art CDs at the Goodwill store in Ajax for $5.50 and offered it for sale on a swap list I subscribe to. A
fellow in Tennessee offered me US $30.00 plus postage for it. That was a good
beginning towards a PCI video card.
Once youʼve installed a Voodoo card and software in any PCI PowerMac, you
suddenly have a state-of-the-art 2D and 3D graphics and game-playing system.
Although the Voodoo 5 will zip through Photoshop filters faster than your Macʼs
standard ATI Rage 128, the difference is negligible. Where it really flies is in intensive 3D gaming apps, such as Quake III, Deus Ex, and Unreal Tournament.
I checked eBay and found that there were NONE of the 32-meg Voodoo5 4500
PCI cards available there, which was more or less what I expected. There were,
however, no less than five 64-meg Voodoo5 5500 Mac PCI video cards listed at
about the same time. All five had bids. I watched one of them sell late in the evening for US $75.00 and searched Completed Auctions to find that in the recent
past Voodoo5 PCI video cards for Macintosh systems sold for prices ranging from
US $60.00 to US $83.00. And most of the action occurred in the last few minutes
of the auction. (The card that sold for $75.00 was going for $38.00 right up until
two minutes before the auction ended). The next Voodoo5 5500 Mac card was at
$27.00 and the action ended at noon the next day. I thought, “Thats a hell of a
silly time to end an auction”. I waited until one minute before the auction ended
and made my move. I won that auction and had to pay only US $34.51 for a video
card identical to the card that sold for US $75.00 the night before. I continued to
watch the last three Voodoo5 5500 Mac cards and they sold for $31.00, $31.88 and
$76.00 which just goes to prove that you have to be careful on eBay whether you
are buying or selling.
I will expand on this point because I think you might be surprised by the results
of a little careful observation. Just in case you think that the price an item sells
for on eBay is any true indication of its street value, have a look at this: I watched
five identical 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 PCI Macintosh video cards sell within the same
two week period and the cards offered in auctions that ended at 9:00 and 10:00
A.M. and 9:30 P.M. PST (12 noon, 1:00 P.M. and 12:30 A.M. Ontario time) sold
for $34.51, $31.00 and $31.88. Identical items offered in auctions that ended at
3:00 P.M. and 8:00 P.M. PST (thats 6:00 and 11:00 in the evening Ontario time)
sold for $75.00 and $76.00 ! All figures quoted in US dollars. As you can see from
the auctions pictured on this page I managed to grab two of them cheaply for my
PowerMacintosh 9600 and the other PCI tower, a stock Daystar Genesis MP 800+
with four 200 MHz 604e Motorola processors in it. Since both of these two towers
are running pre-OSX systems (OS7.6.1, OS8.1, OS8.6 and OS9.1), they will be
greatly enhanced by the addition of a 64-meg PCI video card.
All of the auctions were seven days long so there was plenty of time to bid but if
the real action takes place in the last hour of an auction you might want to buy an
item that ends at an inconvenient time for other bidders. As an eBay Seller it makes
sense to be aware of this fact and schedule your auctions to end in the evening so
that potential bidders will be able to see it and bid against each other.
The Voodoo5 5500 PCI cards arrived and were installed easily. These cards require
extra power to run the two cooling fans on the processor chips and have an extra
power connector that accepts the same type of connector as a hard drive does so
I cabled them to the internal drive harnesses to ensure adequate cooling. I downloaded and installed the latest Voodoo drivers from the internet and the cards work
perfectly. The video is spectacular.
Back when most PowerMacs came equipped with two or four megs of VRAM and
only the most expensive high-end 8600 and 9600 models came with 8-meg video
cards these 64-meg cards made playing games on any PowerMacs a visual treat.
For those of us who still treasure our vintage PCI Macs the opportunity of getting
Voodoo5 5500 PCI Video cards off eBay for about a tenth of what they cost when
new is a wonderful bargain. They do not work under OSX but I am not running that
system on these models. I have enough Macs running Jaguar and Panther without
forcing OSX onto a PowerMacintosh 9600 and a 604e-powered Daystar Genesis
clone !
Apple Regional Liaisons
By Jim Foster
Quoting from the Apple web site, “Apple Regional Liaisons are user
group leaders who run successful user groups in their communities. As
volunteers, they have made themselves available to help groups in their
areas of responsibility thrive. They also network with groups in their
regions and keep Apple informed on local needs”
In late 2004, I was appointed to take on the role of Apple User Group
Regional Liaison for Canada. This followed discussions which I had
with the then Chairman of the Apple User Group Advisory Board,
Chuck Joiner, and Colya Kaminiarz of Vancouver, B.C., who had held
this position for the previous couple of years and was needing to step
down for personal reasons.
One of the reasons I felt I might be able to be helpful in this role was
that I felt I already had quite a bit of experience in working with other
User Groups through MaUsEʼs association with CCUG, the Canadian
Consortium of User Groups. Ever since a group of about five southern
Ontario Apple User Groups had banded together to organize NAUGSAW ʻ95 in Toronto under the CCUG banner, we had continued to
work together in the intervening years to host events which no single
User Group might have been able to do successfully.
I was also interested in helping to get a clearer picture of the Macintosh User Group community in Canada. Prior to my trip to the Boston
Macworld Expo in July of 2004, I had done some rush work aimed at
coming up with a handout CD which we could use at the Apple User
Group Booth on the show floor. The idea was to put together a CD
which contained information on as many Canadian MUGʼs as possible.
Using the User Group Locator database on the Apple web site, and one
or two other listings of Canadian User Groups, I attempted to contact
each MUG to solicit things like current newsletters or brochures which
we could add to the CD.
One result of this admittedly hurried exercise was a realization that
there were quite a few MUGʼs listed in these databases which could
not in fact be located. This means that their web site URL did not work
and/or that their email address did not work.
Now that I have been officially appointed as the Regional Liaison for Canada, one of my goals is to do a much
more thorough audit of the information on Canadian
Mac User Groups and attempt to purify those databases
in order that people who rely on them will not get disappointing results. Of course, I am not only hoping to get
rid of the info on clubs which no longer exist but also
want to help any new Canadian MUGʼs get established
and properly recognized within the Apple community.
My progress in these past few months has been slow, due
in large part to the semi-chaotic state of my life since our
family move from Courtice to Solina. Hopefully things
will be settling down in the next couple of months.
Much of this has no direct or immediate impact on regular members of our club. On the other hand, the opportunity to work with Executives of other MUGʼs always
presents the chance to learn new things which, in turn,
may lead to improvements at MaUsE. At the very least,
it gives me the periodic opportunity to interact with other MUG Execs from around the world and reaffirm the
many issues and problems that we have in common.
Jim Foster
Michael: A problem solved.
Knowing that you like to highlight useful programmes
in ʻDouble Clickʼ I thought I would share the following
with your readers. Over the years I have saved and archived many thousands of word processing documents
that I had either received, written professionally in my
heyday before I retired, or have written since that time;
the problem? Many of them were written and saved in
word processing formats that I no longer use and which
are either difficult to open or unopenable in OSX; I perceived the situation getting worse as I and my files age.
Not being computer literate I looked for a simple solution to my problem, (yes, you CAN say I am simple
minded), and found one, or I should say that it found
me, in an e-mail offering me a DataViz program called
ʻMacLinkPlus Deluxe 15.ʼ The program is very simple
to use, I just drag the item I wish to translate into the
MacLinkPlus window, choose ʻTranslateʼ from the
available icons at the top of the window, this opens
a smaller window in which the program then asks me
what format I wish the document translated into and
the name and location of the destination folder into
which I want the translated item placed; (I have set up
a receiving folder called ʻTranslationsʼ to receive the
translated items), I then click on the translation button
at the bottom of the small window, and within seconds
the translation is completed and the translated item is
in my translations folder. One of the many beauties
of this program is that, when doing the translations, it
saves all of the original formatting including ʻheadersʼ,
ʻfootersʼ, ʻfoot notesʼ, page numbers, all in the original
type face. I open and check the files that I translate in
this manner, I can then replace the original item with
the duplicate that is basically identical except that it
is now in a format that I can easily read and use in
OSX. The MacLinkPlus program can perform similar
wonders on e-mail attachments and pictures that otherwise are unreadable, plus a variety of other wonders
that I have yet to experiment with; in my mind this is
a great little program and I recommend it to anyone
and everyone in the Mac community who has, or who
receives, word processed documents in formats (such
as Windows) that they have difficulty in opening.
Kindest regards
Stan Wild
MacLinkPlus 15 Deluxe
Thanks again to Stan Wild for bringing up an issue
that I have heard too, too frequently lately. Everyone gets things sent to them attached to their emails
from Windows users that their Mac simply cannot
open. In many cases it is no great loss, with the
puerile humour and unfunny gags that are doing
the rounds of mentally deficient Windows users.
Executables (.exe files) you can delete instantly
but there may come other files that just might be
useful. It rarely happens but sometimes the files
we receive from Windows users are important, and
then something has to be done with them. Files are
being sent to you every day from different people
in various formats. Sometimes they come on disks,
attached to emails or are created in applications
that you donʼt have. The problem is you canʼt open
them even if you want to. MacLinkPlus can help.
Files are being sent to you
every day from different people
in various formats. Sometimes
they come on disks, attached to
emails or are created in
applications you donʼt have.
The problem is you
canʼt open them.
MacLinkPlus can help.
MacLinkPlus Deluxe lets you open, view, decode,
decompress and translate files between different
programs and platforms, including word processors, spreadsheets, databases and graphics files. The
new MacLinkPlus does not, as far as I know, come
bundled on any recent Macs, but years ago it used
to, including versions that came free with Performa
computers running Mac OS 7.5, 8.0 and 8.1.
Features:
• New Translators: New translators have been added
for Word and Excel 2004; as well as WorldPerfect
12.
• Enhanced Graphic Translators: Now convert additional graphic formats such as Photoshop. Improved
translation for gif, jpg, bmp @ more.
• Carry Your Documents On Your iPod: Who better
to provide compatibility between your documents
and your iPod than DataViz! MacLinkPlus Deluxe
15 will convert your word processing and even PDF
files to text and send them to your ipod! (Works with
the iPod mini and iPods with the Dock Connector).
•Convert PDF Files: Easily extract the text from PDF
files and avoid retyping.
•New Decompression for Stuffit X: MacLinkPlus
Deluxe now supports the latest version of Stuffit,
making opening e-mail attachments a breeze.
MacLinkPlus Deluxe 15 is the latest release of the
program and therefore best for Panther but if you
are running an operating system previous to OSX its
worth your while to shop around for an older version
of MacLinkPlus. Look on eBay or ask on the SWAP
List and you might find a copy of MacLinkPlus 10,
11 or 12 for just a few dollars that will do everything
you want it to do with every file you receive.
Best get at lease version 13 if you are running Jaguar.
Feel free to drop the Double Click an email like Stan
Wild did if you pick up some software that solves a
problem for you. Feel free to drop the Double Click a
line to place a free ad if you have upgraded and have
something old to sell or if you are looking for some
specific piece of hardware or software.
Dear Michael Shaw,
Iʼm pleased to inform you and the members of Macintosh Users East (MaUsE) that Vertical Eye releases Document Palette.
Please find the press-release for our Document Palette below for
your information. I hope that you will inform other members of
Macintosh Users East (MaUsE) about our product and believe
that many of them will find it of great value.
Best regards,
Edward Hillenbrand
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PHOENIX, AZ-- March 22, 2005-- Vertical Eye today introduced Document Palette, an application that allows a user to create new documents directly in open folders. It holds document
types that a user frequently uses and allows them to create documents without launching an editor and without fumbling around
in awkward save panels.
Creating documents with Document Palette is simple and straight
forward. All a user must do is press Control-Option-CommandN while in an open folder and the palette will appear. The user
then selects the document type they wish to create and it will be
instantly created in the open folder.
The palette is completely customizable, any type of file can be
added to the palette. A user can add either empty files or files
with content to make document types that act like stationery
pads or templates.
Document Palette is free to download an try. The trial is fully
functional, but can only create 15 documents. Users that purchase Document Palette can create an unlimited number of
documents. Document Palette is $8 (US) and itʼs available now
for download from: www.verticaleye.net/dp/.
Document Palette requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later. Vertical Eye
is a small company run by one guy, dedicated to making useful
Mac OS X applications.
Edward Hillenbrand
[email protected]
www.verticaleye.net
P.O. Box 974
Laveen, AZ 85339
Document Palette et al.
by Vertical Eye
Edward has written some wonderful high-quality Macintosh shareware programs and
is selling them for next to nothing
on his website. Iʼm talking about
prices ranging from $6.00 to $10.00
for regular Cocoa applications that
donʼt modify any system files or
overwrite any system memory.
I get such interesting emails, like the one at the left from
Edward Hillenbrand, a young programmer with his own
fledgeling Macintosh software company in Arizona. I
donʼt know how he heard about us but Iʼm glad he did.
After reading about Edwardʼs company I visited the Vertical Eye website to find out more about his Document Installing Document Palette was
Palette for OSX and I downloaded a copy. Its terrific !
as easy as downloading the installer
from the Vertical Eye website and
Although Vertical Eye is a dragging the application to my Apyoung company, run by one plications Folder in the Hard Drive.
guy, I donʼt think you would be When I ran the application it inable to tell while running one of stalled a Document Palette StartUp
my applications. I believe I have Item. A Startup Item is a application
the talent and the commitment setup to launch when you login. This
to run an excellent software way the Document Palette applicabusiness and make great Mac tion will always be available to you.
OS X applications. As a Mac (You can add and remove Startup
user I understand that itʼs the little things that matter. Items in the Accounts System PrefThatʼs why I take my time to write polished applica- erences).
tion. I try to reply to every email, unless itʼs spam.
I often answer emails on the weekends or after
hours.
I will only write software for the best computers
in the world running the best operating system in
the world. In other words, I make Mac OS X software only. Designing great Mac software requires
a lot of time and attention to detail. I donʼt think I
could create software of the same caliber if I spent
my time writing software for other platforms too.
You might say Iʼm devoted to the Mac platform.
Iʼll never try to trick you by selling a product with
a price ending with 99¢. If I want to charge $20
for software Iʼm going to charge $20. Hey arenʼt
you charging me an extra penny? Well, yes, but
donʼt worry this penny goes to feed the hungry
and ask my mom Iʼm always hungry.
With Document Palette installed you can evoke
the pallete any time a window is open and selected by using the key combo pictured here. Its
as easy as Shift + Command + N to create a new
folder. You can add your own document types and
instantly chose which type of document you want
to create without looking for the application required. For more information about this program
go to the Vertical Eye website and download a
copy. These programs require OSX10.3
Juxtapose Folders is another of Edwardʼs useful Mac utilities available for download from the
Vertical Eye website. Juxtapose Folders simply
compares two folder for differences. With Juxtapose Folders you will quickly see which files
have changed and which files have been added
or removed. Therefore, saving you the time and
trouble of tediously hunting through two folders
for differences manually. Juxtapose Folders is
insanely easy to use and incredibly easy to understand. All with a polished interface that any
professional Mac user will
appreciate.
The other applications on Edwardʼs Vertical Eye website
are Watch It, a beautiful and fully featured stop watch
and timer application that you can place anywhere on
your Desktop and resize to suit your needs, and FileShaper, an application that gives you the ability to
quickly make changes in a fileʼs attributes and a great
deal more.
If any of this sounds like it might be useful to you make sure you check it out on
the internet. This is a set of well-written
new OSX utilities from a bright young
programmer. I hope these are just the first
of many excellent programs that Edward will write for
Vertical Eye.
April Meeting Report and
May Meeting Agenda
If
everything
went according
to plan Bruce
Cameron picked
up where Rennie
Barlow left off
with his introduction to iWork ʻ05
at the end of the
February MaUsE
Meeting.
Jim foster called up the MaUsE website and
showed us the procedure for updating a website and he also showed us more “Dot Mac”
training videos and gave us a quick overview
of Microsoft Office X 2005.
May Exec Meeting Report
The MaUsE Executive met at my house as we are wont to do. The Meeting was
attended by Jim, Jim, Bruce, Mike Helen, Chris, John and special guest Stan Wild. We heard the Treasurers Report and the Membership Report from John Kettle, discussed the possible purchase of a new Mini Mac or iBook for club presentations, and put the finishing touches on the May 25th meeting agenda. This is how it looks right now: Chris Greaves will show us a few things he has been
working on in Final Cut Express HD. Jim will show us some more
Mac Training from the Dot Mac website. There will be a review of
the latest new stuff from Apple, and if you are very good I may put
on a brief Gmail update presentation to show you all how you can use
Gmail to archive, backup, send and receive large files.
The MaUsE Meeting will take place at 7:30 P.M. and the pre-meeting
get-together over pizza will commence an hour sooner, at 6:30 P.M.
If you are a paid-up MaUsE member and have concerns or questions
about the behavior of your Mac hardware or software, feel free to attend the help session. Attendance is a privilege of membership.