Starting Things off with a Bang — Ted Landau

Hello, and welcome to Macintalk. This is the first in a series of monthly interviews. Each month, Apple Wizards will interview one significant person in the MacOS or Apple community. We are planning interviews with programmers, executives, and everyone in between.

This month, we start things off with a bang by interviewing none other than Ted Landau. Landau, author of Sad Macs, Bombs, and Other Disasters and Webmaster of MacFixIt http://www.macfixit.com/, has long been involved in the computer world and, specifically, in the Mac world.

Apple Wizards: Could you please describe who you are and explain your role in the Mac community?

Ted Landau: Most web-surfers will know me best as the Webmaster of MacFixIt. I am also the author of the Mac troubleshooting book, Sad Macs, Bombs, and Other Disasters, now in its third edition. Beyond that, I wrote the troubleshooting chapter for the latest (sixth) edition of the Macintosh Bible.

Finally, I had been a contributing editor for MacUser  for several years, writing numerous articles. When MacUser  merged with Macworld, I did not know what my status would be. I can now say (publicly for the first time!) that I will continue as a contributing editor for Macworld, writing a column every other month. Look for it starting in the March issue.

AW: What is your background in computers?

TL: I am completely self-taught. I think my first exposure to "computers" was a programmable HP calculator back in the late 1970’s. I was fascinated with how you could program it so simply to do (what seemed to me at the time) such incredible things. This fascination quickly spread to a more general interest in "real" computers. As I worked in a university (I was a psychology professor), I had ready access to the mainframe computers on campus. Back in the those years (late 70’s and early 80’s) I taught myself BASIC and Pascal, and wrote several programs for my own academic use.

As personal computers became more popular, I began visiting local computer stores, eyeing everything from the original Commodore PET to the Apple II. Our department soon purchased a few Apple II’s and this then became the new focus of my computer interest. It was finally when the Apple IIe came out (around 1983) that I decided I was ready to buy my first computer for my home. I never gave any serious thought to getting an IBM PC. I was an Apple fanatic from the very beginning and have never wavered. However, the computer magazines were buzzing with rumors of Apple’s forthcoming Macintosh. I decided to wait and see what this Mac was going to be like, before I plunked down my cash for the IIe.

AW: What is your history with MacOS computers?

TL: The day the Macintosh was released I ran to my local computer store to give it a look. It took all of about 10 seconds for me to decide that I wanted one. The mouse, the Finder, the bitmapped screen, the WYSIWYG text of MacWrite, and just about everything about MacPaint. I knew this was the future of computing. I didn’t care that it had almost no software and only a single floppy disk drive for storage. I had to have it. I bought one the next day.

I have worked with Macs ever since, and have never regretted it. Actually, saying that I "work" with computers is a bit inaccurate. While I use computers to get work done, I was always one of those people who enjoyed using the computer just for the fun of it. And the Mac has provided a great deal of fun!
 
As for my writing about Macintoshes, that started almost by chance. Years ago there was a magazine called MACazine  (Bob LeVitus was the editor). In one issue, they posted a request for readers to send in a "column" for the magazine. If they liked it, they would publish it. I sent one in on a lark (the subject was Andy Hertzfeld’s Switcher, if anyone cares). A few weeks later, Bob called to say they were going to publish it. In fact, they liked it so much that they wanted to know if I would write other articles for them. I said sure. This was back in 1987. I wound up writing several articles, mostly reviews, before MACazine  went out of business.

By now, I had the writing bug. I managed to convince the MacUser  people to let me write a review for them. One review led to another. And while I occasionally wrote for other magazines, my main commitment has always remained with MacUser. They eventually rewarded my commitment by making me a contributing editor. The staff kept changing over the years, but I was always on good terms with all of them. They were a great bunch of people. At one point, I almost wound up working for MacUser  full-time (but that’s another story). It was a sad day for me when the end of MacUser  was announced.

AW: How did you become involved in solving technical problems?

TL: Solving puzzles has always been a "hobby" of mine. Whether it is the "brain teasers" in the back of some magazines, or strategy games such as bridge and Othello (did you know that I was once the national champion in Othello?) — I am interested. And computer troubleshooting is basically a form of puzzle-solving. So it seemed inevitable that I would head in this direction.

Actually, I was "involved" in Mac troubleshooting even before I started writing for MACazine. I believe the first time my name was in a Macintosh magazine was when MacUser  published a tip I submitted (it showed how to change the "Welcome to Macintosh" message to read whatever you wanted).

As you might imagine, I was soon getting requests from friends and colleagues seeking help with their Macs.

At some point, I decided that it would help advance my computer writing career (which at the time was mostly limited to writing product reviews) if I had a book to my credit. I decided to write about what I already knew best: troubleshooting. My goal was to write a book that people could use to solve the problems that they kept asking me about. This was the genesis of what eventually became Sad Macs. I had no idea whether anyone would ever agree to publish such a book. But, happily for me, Addison-Wesley did agree.

AW: What is the history behind the MacFixIt web site?

TL: Shortly after the second edition of Sad Macs was released, I was heading to the 1995 Boston Macworld Expo to do an author-signing. I wound up typing a two-page addendum to the book that included new information that had come to light since the book had been published. I gave it away with copies of the book sold at the Expo. After getting back from the Expo, I kept updating this document. My idea at first was that it would help when it came time to write the third edition. However, I eventually decided that it might also be useful to make it publicly available. So I "fancied it up" a bit and posted it online to CompuServe’s ZMAC forum and AOL’s Mac forum. I called it the "Sad Macs Update" and posted a revised version about once a month. It became surprisingly popular (it was often in ZMAC’s Top Ten Downloads of the week).

That might have been the end of it - except that I had just gotten bitten by the Internet bug. I was teaching myself HTML and was itching to try my hand at creating a web site. As to what the web site would be about, it seemed a natural to convert the Sad Macs Update file to a Web format. As a web site, I could update it whenever I wanted without having to "release a new version" of the update file. I also had a collection of troubleshooting utilities that people who bought Sad Macs could order on a floppy disk. With the web site, I could have these utilities (and more!) available online.

And so, in March of 1996, the Sad Macs Update Site was born.

At first, I gave little thought to how popular the site might be. I was just concerned that it be available as a resource to people who owned my book. But I guess my competitive nature eventually came into play and I started wondering what I could do to get increase the number of visits to the site. The two things that occurred to me were fairly obvious: update the home page more often and broaden the appeal of the site to include all Mac users interested in troubleshooting, not just those who owned my book. As I started making moves in that direction, I decided that the name "Sad Macs Update Site" was no longer appropriate. So in October of 1996, I changed the name to MacFixIt.

AW: What are some of the statistics for MacFixIt— i.e. hit count, etc.?

TL: That’s a bit hard to answer because there are different ways of calculating and interpreting these statistics. Here’s the best I can do:

According to my Analog stats, for the month of September (which was a fairly typical recent month), I received an average of 50,610 requests per day (this excludes loading of graphic images - which would otherwise unrealistically inflate the count to over 120,000 hits per day). However, I am not exactly sure what this 50,610 number means - because later on in the Analog report, where it lists the number of requests broken down by page, the numbers are significantly lower. Still, they average out to over 20,000 requests per day. The home page alone averaged about 14,000 requests per day (requests average almost twice as high on Mon-Fri as on weekends). Again, these requests are "page views," not the more inflated "hit" count.

By the way, the counter on the bottom of my home page is a definite underestimate in two ways: first, it only measures the home page, not the entire web site. Second, it does not register if its graphic does not load for any reason. Still, even this counter is picking up well over 10,000 home page requests per day. That would be a rock-bottom estimate.

When I see another site promoting how many hits they are getting, my problem is that I rarely know which one of the above numbers from my site is the one that I should use to compare against their numbers. In the end, I have stopped trying. Basically, I am getting a lot of hits - by almost anyone’s measure. That’s good enough for me.

AW: About how much time does MacFixIt require?

TL: As much time as I have and more. It takes up more of my time than any other single activity I do. Putting together the Late-Breakers page obviously takes up a good deal of time. But then there is also dealing with advertising issues (sending invoices, keeping track of when banners have to change etc.). But the most time-consuming activity of all is reading my email!

Suffice it to say that not a day goes by when I am not spending at least several hours on MacFixIt related activities. Sometimes, it is all I do for the entire day. Maybe that is why my wife refers to the computer as "the other woman."

AW: How has the success of MacFixIt influenced your life?

TL: The power of the internet is impressive. Despite all of the computer writing I had done for nearly a decade and despite the several years of success of Sad Macs, I suspect that more people recognize my name from MacFixIt than from any other source. At least within the Mac community, for the first time, I even feel "famous." This recognition serves to open doors to yet other opportunities.

Beyond that, the main influence of MacFixIt has been to eliminate the phrase "free time" from my vocabulary.

AW: Are you in contact with Apple at all?

TL: In the early days of doing MacFixIt, one of the more exciting events would be when I received an email from a representative of the company of a product I had written about. Sometimes it was critical, sometimes it was complimentary. Either way, it showed that someone besides me and a few users were paying attention to what I wrote. It was the first time that I started to realize that what I wrote carried some weight and could affect the livelihood of others. Frankly, it also made me a bit anxious. I was not sure I really wanted any such power. In any case, I have always tried to be respectful of this and not use MacFixIt as hammer to impress or intimidate anyone.

But to answer your question more specifically: Yes, Apple is one of many companies that I have been in contact with. Sometimes, someone from Apple will send me information that helps clarify an item on my site. Sometimes, I contact them to get a confirmation or explanation of some reported problem. A couple of times, Apple’s legal representatives have contacted me about items I have posted that they believed could represent a copyright infringement (these matters were always resolved amicably, at least from my point of view!).

More generally, Apple Tech Support has sometimes referred people to my site for help with problems that they could not answer.

Overall, Apple has been helpful - although these days there seems to be more and more pressure from higher-ups at Apple for their employees not to talk to any press at all.

AW: Where does the bulk of your information come from — emails from readers, I would imagine?

TL: Yes, definitely from readers. Originally this was not so. I did most of my own research. That was how it was when I wrote Sad Macs and did not have any readers sending me email! But now, readers send me so much useful information that there seems less and less need to do my own research (not to mention that keeping up with the email leaves me less and less time to do it). Surfing the web is my other main source of new information. I particularly like to check Apple’s site for new TIL files, Hot Topics and software updates. And, of course, I check all the popular Mac news sites.

AW: Has the success of MacFixIt resulted in more success for your Mac troubleshooting books? Or visa-versa?

TL: I mention MacFixIt in my books, so I suppose it may help generate new traffic. But I have never had a reader specifically say that they learned about my site from the book. It seems to have gone more the other way. The third edition of Sad Macs is selling significantly better than the previous two. While there are many possible reasons for this (including that Peachpit is now the publisher, instead of Addison-Wesley), I believe MacFixIt has played a role. Particularly so when the book first came out and I publicized it on my web site.

AW: What can we expect in the future from you and the MacFixIt site?

TL: I plan to continue MacFixIt indefinitely. I doubt you will see major changes in it anytime soon. I may occasionally add new features (such as the new one I just started on reviewing tech support web sites), and I expect to redesign the home page a bit, but that’s it. For MacFixIt to expand much further, I would need to either start taking on assistants to help with the workload or merge with another web site. I have contemplated both possibilities, but have made no firm decisions as yet.

As for other writing, I already mentioned that you can look for my articles to appear in Macworld  on a regular basis starting in 1998.

And finally, as for book writing, the situation is a bit complicated. I hope to start work on another book next year. The question is what will it be. A fourth edition of Sad Macs seems like a natural. But with a major upgrade to Mac OS 8 coming next summer, plus the release of Rhapsody, it is becoming nearly impossible to have all the relevant troubleshooting information — from System 7 onward — in just one book. I have thought about leaving the third edition of Sad Macs alone — as the System 7 book, and then come out with an entirely new book, with a new title (probably having "MacFixIt" in the name) for Mac OS 8 and Rhapsody. There is also some discussion of doing a brief Mac OS 8 appendix to the current Sad Macs.

Other ideas include a book specific to Internet troubleshooting. And if Apple should ever collapse, I suppose I can always write a book called "Windows for former Mac Users" - although I am hoping I never need to do this.

AW: What are your feelings on the recent changes in Apple?

TL: Mostly negative. I try to be fairly upbeat on MacFixIt. I figure that if readers really wanted to hear gloom-and-doom, they would not be coming to MacFixIt in the first place. Still, I think I made it clear that I was not happy with the decision to kill the clones. Nor do I really trust Apple’s explanation. The clone-makers were willing to pay much higher licensing fees than they had been — enough so that Apple ought to have been happy. At least it seemed that way to me.

Still, the most important thing that Apple has to do now is show a profit. Everything else is secondary. If they continue to show losses, the losses will only continue to mount - until their market share slides towards zero and they eventually die. So if, by some strange logic, it is true that killing the clones makes it more likely that Apple will survive, I support it.

The other thing I don’t like about the recent changes at Apple is how many recent changes there are. I would give a lot for a period of calm, with some reasonable certainty as to what Apple’s plans are for the next sixth months at least.

If nothing else, it would make my book-writing easier. Whatever I write won’t reach the shelves for months after I start writing it. It would be nice to know that Apple will not pull the rug out from under me during that time.

AW: How do you feel about Steve Jobs as the temporary CEO?

TL: Steve says he wants 90 days before we judge him. I am looking at Macworld Expo in January as the deadline. Originally, I was encouraged by his return to Apple. He certainly generates excitement. Who else could have gotten Time  and Newsweek  to place Apple on their covers in the same week? But since the business with killing the clones, and with the various rumors that continue to swirl, I have become considerably more anxious. For now, let’s just say I am waiting for January. Ask me again then.

AW: If you were CEO what would you do differently?

TL: If I were suddenly made CEO, I would immediately resign and take the golden parachute that was hopefully written into my contract.

Okay, seriously. I hesitate to say almost anything here because I imagine that, if I was really "inside" Apple, I might see things differently. But here’s what I will say:

Apple is in a tough position. Sometimes I wonder if there is any "right strategy" for Apple anymore (which may be why they seem to keep changing their strategy so often). 

A couple of years ago, I would have recommended an all-out assault to show the superiority of Mac OS over Windows. But I don’t think this can work anymore. People simply are no longer impressed by this. They see how small the Mac market share is, and they hear how good Windows 95 is, and they lose interest in whether or not the Mac OS is better than Windows.

I expect that the basic road to success is one that Apple nominally says it is already on: hold on to your core markets and try to get costs down enough so that sales to these markets will allow you to turn a profit. Then come out with some spectacular products, heavily market them, and get your market share growing again (Rhapsody may fit the bill here). Of course, this is easier said than done.

I also keep reminding myself that Apple’s ultimate goal is to turn a profit, not to help the MacOS survive. If Apple thought that it could somehow increase its revenues tenfold by killing the Mac OS and doing something else, the Mac OS would be gone by midnight tonight. As they said in The Godfather:  "It’s business; don’t take it so personal."

Apple Wizards would like to thank Ted Landau for spending some of his (free?) time to answer these questions. I personally recommend that you visit MacFixIt, again at http://www.macfixit.com/, because you WILL learn something!

Next month... let's just say we have another rather well-known individual for Macintalk. Until then, this is Alex Kushner, signing off.

        Alex Kushner
          hojo@pacificnet.net

   

                                          http://www.applewizards.net/