From: xxltony@crash.cts.com (Tony Lindsey) Subject: Mac*Chat#090/22-Sep-95 Mac*Chat#090/22-Sep-95 ====================== Welcome to Mac*Chat, the weekly electronic newsletter biased toward Mac users who are production-oriented professionals. Other Mac users may find many, many items of interest as well. I'd enjoy hearing your feedback and suggestions. Unfortunately, due to the massive numbers of messages I get every day, I can't guarantee a personal reply. Tony Lindsey, . Mac*Chat may be copied freely, provided that all copies are left intact and unedited. Financial donations are gratefully accepted, to help defray the costs of putting-out one of the fastest-growing newsletters within the Internet. For more information, send e-mail to the above address, with "Donations" in the Subject line. Mac*Chat back-issues may be found within any Info-Mac ftp archive at /info-mac/per/chat and read with any Web browser at See the end of this file for legalisms and info on how to get a free subscription. Any [comments in brackets] are by Tony Lindsey. Topics: Highlights Of This Issue The Curtain Lifts... Time To Talk About First Virtual First Virtual, Explained Tips For AOL Users - Installing Power-Tool "Grinders" Tips For AOL Users - Using The Web Browser Copland Web Site Consulting Tony's Consulting Tips New Jobs Technical Section Starts... Here ClayBasket - Wow! Netscape Palettes - The 256 Colors Of Netscape Legalisms Free Subscriptions To This Newsletter Highlights Of This Issue ------------------------ I (finally!) tell folks about my system for receiving donations to keep Mac*Chat growing, I open the topic of transferring funds safely across the Internet, David Cole explains about the First Virtual system for transferring funds, I explain a few things for America Online users who need better use of their Internet capabilities, we learn of a great web site for getting news about System 8, I explain my consulting techniques a little bit more clearly, we hear from two folks who are using their Macs to make money in ways they never expected, and I rave about a grrrreat program to help me manage all of my saved Internet locations within Netscape. The Curtain Lifts... -------------------- By Tony Lindsey After a long period of deep mystery concerning Mac*Chat's new status as a donations-requested (but not required) newsletter, I'm now beginning to activate the system. It's going to be a few weeks before the system is running smoothly. I would really, really appreciate suggestions and advice from everybody along the way! In case you missed what was discussed before in issues 81 through 85, I dislike the idea of any advertising in Mac*Chat. I also don't like to nag and make people wrong, (life's too short to rank on your friends) so I'm simply asking for a simple donation if you like the newsletter and want to keep it independent. For further details, check out those back-issues, or check out the new Web Page: - For those folks who want to get information through e-mail, they should contact me at , (America Online users: send e-mail to XXLTONY), hopefully with the word "donation" in the Subject line (but it's not required). These arrangements are definitely going to be adapted as time goes by! Either way, you'll receive the Register 1.1.6 program and an explanation of how the system works. Register will allow you to transfer funds from anywhere on the planet using a check, cash, invoice, VISA, Mastercard, American Express, NetCash, or First Virtual account. It has full Balloon Help. As I said back in Mac*Chat issue #85, I need to start soliciting donations to keep Mac*Chat thriving, since it has grown to be one of the Top Ten electronic newsletters on earth in less than a year's worth of frantic expansion. It's very-definitely taking time away from my Real Business, and I need some help justifying Mac*Chat from a practical standpoint. From an impractical standpoint, I'm thrilled that I get to do something so wonderful as editing Mac*Chat - I can't imagine why more people aren't doing this! I want to do it for many years to come, taking big, fat risks if I can make the newsletter better. Many, many thanks to the several hundred folks who have written to tell me how glad they will be to contribute to Mac*Chat - My faith in the basic goodness of humanity remains unblemished! Time To Talk About First Virtual -------------------------------- By Tony Lindsey Of the many, many methods of transferring finances over the Internet, I have to express my personal preference for First Virtual's system. I'm nervous about hackers making off with my credit-card numbers if they are transmitted over the Internet, even if those numbers are encrypted. First Virtual appears to be the ONLY system that avoids this. First Virtual, Explained ------------------------ By David M. Cole, (see info below) [I've asked David for permission to re-post something he wrote for the apple-internet-users mailing list. I've edited it slightly for length...] Though I am in the employ of neither First Virtual nor Apple, I am familiar with the problems surrounding running a commerce Web server -- especially one on a Macintosh. You can get the whole schmere on First Virtual at its Web site Here is how the process works: *You fill out a form on the FV site with your name, address, phone number, e-mail. You send this form in. (You can also fill out an e-mail form or get one through telenet.) *FV e-mails you a one-time code number and an 800-phone number. You call the 800 number and an audiotext system walks you through punching in the code number and your Visa or MasterCard number (doesn't work with any others). You are charged $2 for a "buyer's" account. Though this represents a certain cash-flow, I'm certain it's mostly to discourage frivolous registrations. You are e-mailed a message stating your buyer's account is established and what it is. *You encounter a widget on the Web you want to buy and it can be paid for through FV. You put in your buyer account name and order. If this is a physical widget, the seller will probably wait for the whole process (see below) to conclude before shipping said physical widget. If the widget is software (content or programs), you're probably going to get the widget downloaded to your machine right then and there. *FV sends you e-mail asking if you bought the widget. You hit the "reply" button on your e-mail software and write one of these words, "Yes," "No" or "Fraud." If you type "fraud," the account is automatically terminated, thereby preventing any further fraud. If you type "No" too many times (they don't say what that is), your account is also terminated. *Your yes, no or fraud response is then sent to the seller. At FV's discretion, it bundles together all the sales accrued to the seller and immediately deducts $1 for the Federal Reserve to reimburse FV for the cost of transferring the funds to the seller's checking account. Also, a fee of 29 cents per transaction plus 20 percent of the seller price is deducted. For QuickTime downloads, Apple sees -- at the most -- $9.51 off the $10 transaction and if there are only a couple of transactions a day, maybe only sees $9.01. Further, sellers pay $12 ($2 to register as a buyer and then an additional $10 to convert the buyer account to a seller account). The only non-secure portion of the system is that someone could tap your phone while you're punching in that credit card number and translate the tones into the corresponding numbers. If I were attempting to steal your credit card number and was going to the trouble of tapping your phone, I'd probably wait until you called MacWarehouse and gave them your number verbally. If I *really* wanted your credit card, I'd probably just do some dumpster diving on your garbage can to get old credit card slips. Is it a hassle? Yes, especially for the seller. Does it work? Yes, the money does flow from one account to the other. FV may be the only present way to achieve a secure cash transaction. *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ David M. Cole dmc@colegroup.com Editor & Publisher, The Cole Papers cole@plink.geis.com Consultant, The Cole Group V: (415) 673-2424 Columnist, Presstime Magazine, TechNews Magazine F: (415) 673-2449 http://colegroup.com 2590 Greenwich, Ste 9 San Francisco 94123 *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ Tips For AOL Users - Installing Power-Tool "Grinders" ----------------------------------------------------- By Tony Lindsey I help many America Online users on a regular basis, and I've recently felt the need to write down the steps that I use to make life easier for others. If you follow through the steps I've given below, you'll be a lot better-equipped to deal with files you get from the Internet, even if they arrive in an odd file-format. A "Grinder" is a utility that sits out on your desktop, waiting for files to be dragged into it. Once that happens, the program processes the files and then spits out a result. There are a zillion grinders out there, but these are a few of my favorites... In my instructions, I'm assuming that you are using System 7.0 or later. I'll also assume that you have the habit of downloading your files onto your Desktop. First, let's do a minor bit of setup, allowing us to avoid plugging-up our hard drives with unnecessary, extra copies of files we will download: - Start up the America Online program, but don't "Sign On" yet - Pull down the "Members" menu and choose "Preferences" - Scroll to "Downloading Preferences" and click on it - Make sure all three options have a checkmark next to them, by double-clicking on them if necessary - Close the Preferences window and Sign On Now, it's time to go get a few of my very-favorite power-tool programs: You need to go get Stuffit Expander. This is a copyrighted freeware software program from Aladdin Systems. It can convert many kinds of files stored in compressed or oddly-coded formats, such as binhexed files with names ending with ".hqx". It translates them to a better format for Mac users. Now that you're online within America Online, - Pull down the "Go To" menu and choose "Search Software Libraries" - Type "Expander" and hit Return. - Using the "Download Now" button, download "Stuffit Expander 3.5.2 Installer" and store it somewhere you can find it later (such as on your desktop) Stuffit Expander can convert MANY kinds of files, but it doesn't know how to deal with files that end with ".image", so you'll also need ShrinkWrap for those files: - Follow the above steps we used to look for software, and search for "shrinkwrap" - Download "ShrinkWrap 1.4.2" and store it in the same place as Stuffit Expander Installer. ShrinkWrap is copyrighted freeware software by Chad Magendanz . It was mentioned in Mac*Chat issue #78. It makes it very easy to archive diskettes, and it also makes it easier to access the contents of files you find online that end with ".image". - Quit from America Online. When you do, the files you downloaded will become decompressed. This is good. The old, compressed versions will be deleted, saving disk space. This is also good. Look for the files you downloaded, and you'll find a folder called "ShrinkWrap(tm) 1.4.2". Open it up, and drag "ShrinkWrap(tm)" out onto the desktop, right above your Trash Can. It stays there FOREVER. That's where it lives. It's a "Grinder," which means that it belongs out there on your Desktop. Trust me. It looks "messy" to folks who want everything tidy and empty-looking, but it's worth keeping there. You'll also see "StuffIt Expander(tm) 3.5.2 Install" sitting nearby, so double-click on it, and keep clicking "Continue" until it gets installed properly. After you quit, you'll see an alias (with italicized lettering) called "StuffIt Expander(tm) alias" sitting above your Trash can, too. It has found its perfect new home, too, so we'll leave it there. We need to do a minor bit of setup within Stuffit Expander, so please double-click on the alias file. - Under the "File" menu, choose "Preferences..." - You'll see two check-boxes that say "Delete after Expanding" Make sure they both are checked with an "x" - Close the window - Quit. Now, go read the "Read Me" files associated with those two utilities. It's worth doing, and there's not a lot of it. Next week, I'll be explaining how to use these files on a regular basis. You'll definitely want to! Tips For AOL Users - Using The Web Browser ------------------------------------------ By DShey@aol.com Thanks for the info on how to save a ton of money on AOL but now please address what to do with the web browser that makes finding info so easy. Great idea. A lot has changed recently. Here's how to check out my Grand Central page: - Fire up America Online version 2.6 or later - Go to the Internet Section, and click on WWW (World Wide Web) - It will start loading the browser and the images affiliated with America Online's main Web Page. At the top of the screen, notice that there's a line that starts with "http:" - Replace it with without the angle-brackets at the beginning and end. After a few moments (minutes?) you'll see the Mac*Chat graphics and the text below it. - Pull down the "Services" menu and choose "Add to Main Hot List". This makes it unnecessary to ever type that long Mac*Chat URL address ever again. - From now on, if you ever want to get back to my page, pull down the "Services" menu, pull down to "Hot Lists" and choose "Main Hot List". There's my web page waiting to be double-clicked-upon. Now that you're on my page, scroll down and click on the part that mentions "Tony's Grand Central Station." That's a list of all of my favorite places to visit from a few months back. I expect to be updating it soon. I haven't been in any great hurry, since I've been mentioning a lot of the newer sites in Mac*Chat. You should check out Mac*Chat's back-issues for more of such web addresses. By the way - AOL Version 2.61 is very nice and much more stable. The browser is nicely quick, even with a 14.4 modem, in my direct experience. It should be out to the general public soon. It's still in beta testing. I got a sneak peek at a friend's place. Copland Web Site ---------------- By F. L. Beaver A very good WWW page on Copland (System 8) that's maintained by Austin Shoemaker can be found at: The site has a Copland FAQ section, Copland clip-art, Copland resources, and links to other Copland-related sites among other things. It's well worth a look for anyone interested in the future of the MAC OS. Consulting ---------- By Randy Chevrier at PAINTMASTER, Tulsa, Oklahoma Have you ever heard of HOW TO BE A SUCCESSFUL COMPUTER CONSULTANT, 3RD EDITION by Alan R. Simon? It's published by McGraw-Hill (Feb 1994). If so, would you consider it helpful for someone getting into consulting part time? (I've been talking to trusted business associates about whether or not I would be a good consultant. I have a successful business now in a totally unrelated area and I think I would be much more happy working with computers full time. I have the luxury of leaving my current business most any time to do consulting.) [Sorry, I've never heard of this book before. Has anyone else read it?] Tony's Consulting Tips - ------------ By Tony Lindsey Randy (see above) also asked me about an apparent conflict between something I said in two different back-issues. In issue #63, I said that a bad consultant ignores how a client prefers to use their own computer and imposes their own preferences no matter what. In issue #88, I said something that sounded like I was imposing my own style on my clients. Here are my further thoughts: You're making an excellent point, and it's easily answered - I make sure the client is WATCHING me at all times, and give them a vote on what I will do as I'm doing it. For instance, I'm currently helping about a dozen Mac users in a big corporation. Several of the Macs I've worked on are quite different from each other - The difference is due to the learned habits of the user. If somebody LIKES their own way of doing things, I don't mess with it - I show them the alternative, and if they don't prefer it, we go back to Plan A. I'm not completely "on rails" with my personal preferences. The Bad Consultant comes in and forces change no matter what, and then insinuates the client is wrong for having preferences. Perhaps I didn't explain this before, but my techniques are RADICALLY better than most people's. When I'm done, you can get at any data file in one mouse-motion, fire-up any program in one mouse-motion, or get at any character in any font in one mouse-motion. There's nearly nothing in between somebody and the work they want to accomplish. Ninety-nine percent of my clients prefer my methods, or just want a few tweaks to adjust it. After I'm done working on their Mac, I also urge my clients to create a "Tony List." This is a collection of little, niggling irritations that they notice as time goes by - Maybe the mouse is too fast, the Trash Can isn't asking them for permission to empty, or whatever. I gladly work them through these things to their satisfaction, showing them how to make their own adjustments. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Someone will feel much better knowing that they're not being invalidated, and they are more likely to trust you (and refer you to people that they like) as the years go by. New Jobs -------- By Joel Chadwick, Fort Worth, Texas I would like to make a reply to your question of "good paying, New Jobs that people have found, using Macs as their main tool?". I actually have three answers to this question. First, information on me. I am a 24 year old male with a Bachelor degree in Business Administration/Computer Science from Abilene Christian University (ACU). Now, on to the answers. My first "Mac" job was at ACU I was a tutor and tutor supervisor for the Learning Enhancement Center (LEC) on campus. All of the stats and reports for the center were generated with Macs. The Mac was an everyday tool of use while in the position. We had e-mail, file sharing, and other office automation programs. This was my intro into the Mac environment and I loved it. Low pay, however, since this was a college work-study job. But all of my Mac experience came from this job, and for the future, it would be important. After graduation, I was planning on taking my business degree to a bank to become a financial officer of some sort. Unfortunately, nobody hired me right out of college in this kind of position even though I had a 3.75 GPA. This was sort of good though, because my first real job was working for an Apple Authorized Dealer here in Fort Worth selling, what else, Macintosh computers, peripherals, and complete Mac solutions for home, education, and corporations. Was I happy to get this job, and even happier that I did not work at a bank. Why? MONEY!!! The job paid straight commission. I sold $100,000 of Mac only products for 18 months, and made a commission of $3500 almost every month. My best offer at a bank was $1750 per month. I did not feel bad. The job selling Macs gave me the experience for the job I do now. I now work for Motorola as a Macintosh Network Administrator. I have touched and supported every Mac from the 128K to the 9500/132 which as a ThunderColor 1600 card and 98 MB of RAM. I set up MS Mail servers, run Retrospect backup scripts, control SMTP gateways for the internet, recommend new machines, and support all software that is installed on the Macs. This job is a dream come true for me as a Mac enthusiast. The pay is in the $30k range, which is slightly less than selling Macs but with much better benefits and a faster and easier way to climb the corporate ladder. This salary is still twice as much as any bank would be paying me. Just two years out of college makes me very proud to be doing this. My main objective in my jobs was to stay with Macs someway, somehow. I have achieved this objective so far. I plan on continuing. -------- By Kelly Clark For the past 10 years, Alden & Clark has been hiring out temporary freelance production artists. Originally they were mechanical artists; now they work on clients' Macs (or their own). Company data was stored, DOS style, on a PC. Every time I wanted a monumental change -- like inserting a comma in a sales letter -- we placed a call to our friendly programmer and in a day or two or seven, he'd show up, magically make the change before our very eyes and present us with a bill. Then we switched to Macs...and discovered FileMaker Pro. Within a week, Alden (my business partner) had managed to transfer all the hocus-pocus-whatever-do-those-symbols-mean data -- clients, artists, invoices, reports, everything -- into an easy-to-use, easy on the eyes format. Making a change is cake work. Like your clients, some of my freelance marketing accounts have Macs and want their data -- mailing lists, accounting, whatever -- easily accessible. I shamelessly recommend Alden who performs his FileMaker Pro magic! Speaking of marketing clients -- I've been using the Internet to do the research they pay me to do. Talk about time savings! And I don't need to crawl all over the web. Just a couple of bookmarks -- The Boston Public Library is my favorite little gem: I can find out just about anything about anything. I'm able to take on _more_ business and more _varied_ types of clients. Yes, Alden & Clark is still hiring out freelance Mac production artists. But a relatively small investment in a couple of Macs and some software resulted in making _more_ money -- and making it _easier_. Technical Section Starts... Here -------------------------------- ClayBasket - Wow! ----------------- By Tony Lindsey I pay a monthly bill to get pure, unfiltered access to the Internet. I use Netscape 1.1N all of the time. Being a real Web-Cruising Hipster, I tend to add a lot of bookmarks, and my list has become amazingly long and awkward. I recently found out about ClayBasket, by Dave Winer or It's a great outliner program for making all those bookmarks behave exactly the way you want them to. Instead of seeing a zillion bookmarks in one long list, I see eight categories that _I_ created, and sub-categories under those that pop off to the side. Perfection. Why the heck wasn't this built into Netscape in the first place? A caution: Since ClayBasket and Netscape arm-wrestle over who gets to modify the bookmarks file, I personally run them separately, using Netscape to Add a Bookmark, and then exiting later and running ClayBasket to tidy things up. Tedious? Why, yes it is! But, maybe Netscape 1.2 will have a decent outliner built-in. Oh, and for all of you Web-page designers- ClayBasket is a GREAT tool for creating indented lists for your pages! Netscape Palettes - The 256 Colors Of Netscape ---------------------------------------------- By Tom Lane, organizer, Independent JPEG Group The info quoted on Netscape palettes in issue #89 was correct as far as it went, yet it was almost wholly misleading. Here's a fuller picture. First, all versions of Netscape will convert images into a local palette for display; in no case is the image's own palette used. But the specific local palette varies. On Unix/X Windows, Netscape will try to grab a 6x6x6 color cube, that is, all combinations of 6 equally spaced values of red, 6 equally spaced values of green, and 6 equally spaced values of blue --- 216 colors altogether. If Netscape can't do that (because other programs have grabbed too many colors), it tries for a 5x5x5 cube (125 colors), and failing that, a 4x4x4 cube (64 colors). Note that except for the corner colors, *none* of the colors in the 6x6x6 cube exactly match any of those in the 5x5x5 cube, nor is there any exact match between these and the 4x4x4 entries. So with the exception of the "pure" or corner colors, you can't hope to know just what colors Unix/X Netscape will be using. Windows Netscape uses a similar strategy, although I think it may always end up allocating a 6x6x6 cube on a 256-color display (haven't used it myself). On a 16-color display, the best it can do is 16 colors. Please note that Windows 3.x defaults to 16-color mode, and a large fraction of Windows users haven't figured out how to change this setting ;-) Mac Netscape uses the Mac system palette, which I think is not a color cube, but I can't find my reference just now. It probably *includes* a color cube of some size, but also other colors. Of course, if the user happens to be running with 15- to 24-bit color, palettes aren't an issue --- the exact requested colors are displayed, to within the display capabilities. Furthermore, NETSCAPE IS NOT THE UNIVERSE. (How I wish I could write that in 72-point blinking red type...) There are many other Web browsers, each with its own idiosyncrasies. Mosaic, for example, does use the exact colors requested by the loaded image(s), until it runs out of colors. Bottom line: you as an HTML author can't predict the exact colors with which an image will be displayed, and it's folly to try. What then should you do? Simple: describe the image you wish to portray, and let the browser render it as best it can. It's more profitable to worry about download speed (image file size), which is something that you *can* control effectively. The simplest rules of thumb are: 1. Use JPEG for photos and artwork containing smooth color gradients. 2. Use GIF (or soon, PNG) for icons, line drawings, and other material that requires only a few distinct colors. In choosing these colors, try to minimize the number of distinct colors you ask for on a page. Following these rules will give you best page downloading speed, and will also result in high-quality display on 15- to 24-bit displays. On 8-bit displays, you're at the mercy of the browser's rendering algorithms, but really that's true anyway. The above rules do give the browser a reasonable shot at displaying your page effectively. Current browsers don't optimize the JPEG-plus-GIF combination scenario as well as they might, but I hope to see this situation improve over time. Sorry to go on so long about this, but there's a lot of misinformation out there on this topic, much of it coming from individuals who think their particular platform/browser represents how the whole Web works, should work, and always will work... Legalisms --------- Copyright 1989-1995 Tony Lindsey. Nonprofit groups (such as Mac User Groups) or other non-commercial publications) are welcome to use any part of the Mac*Chat newsletters if full credit is given. All others will need to contact me. This newsletter is intended purely as entertainment and free information. No profit has been made from any of these opinions. Time passes, so accuracy may diminish. Publication, product, and company names may be registered trademarks of their companies. This file is formatted as setext, which can be read on any text reader. Tips from readers are gratefully accepted. Please write them in a user-friendly way, and if you are mentioning an Internet site, please include a paragraph explaining why others should visit it. Free Subscriptions To This Newsletter ------------------------------------- You may subscribe to Mac*Chat by sending e-mail to: The Subject line is ignored, so it can say anything. In the body of the message include the following line: SUBSCRIBE MACCHAT Your full name As an example: SUBSCRIBE MACCHAT Juliana Tarlton You will receive a nice long message explaining acceptance of your subscription, how to end it (if desired) and general listserv info. You will then automatically receive Mac*Chat in your e-mail box, for free, every week. ============== ____ ================================================== Tony Lindsey \ _/__ Free, weekly e-mailed Mac-oriented newsletter Mac*Chat Editor \X / ================= \/ =================================================