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Path: ryptyde!baron!nosc!vela!m.cs.uiuc.edu!wupost!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njitgw.njit.edu!tesla.njit.edu!erh0362 From: erh0362@tesla.njit.edu (Elliotte Rusty Harold) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: comp.sys.mac.faq Golden beta Message-ID: <1992Jun8.201640.1@tesla.njit.edu> Date: 9 Jun 92 01:16:40 GMT Sender: news@njit.edu Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology Lines: 1122 Nntp-Posting-Host: tesla The following is the fourth and hopefully final beta version of a FAQ for comp.sys.mac.apps, comp.sys.mac.system, and comp.sys.mac.misc. I believe that I've incorporated all technical corrections suggested by various people after previous releases. This version also contains a number of stylistic improvements not the least of which are question numbers and a completely rewritten section on translating files. Since this is possibly the final beta version before it starts being automatically posted if you spot any errors of fact please let me know immediately. Similarly if there are any stylistic issues, you'd like to comment on please do, especially things that are new with this release, question numbers and the table in the section on decoding and uncompressing files. I think I've responded to everyone who sent me E-mail about previous versions and to some of you more than once, but if you still feel that your concerns have not been addressed don't hesitate to write me again. There are three specific questions I'd like the net's input on before the first non-beta release. First, the index of help files at sumex: Should it remain in its present form, be deleted entirely, be moved to an appendix, or be replaced with brief descriptions of the more useful of those files? Second question: Should the FAQ be split up into more than one post? My mail has been running about 50-50 among those who commented on this issue so let your voice be heard too. A brief and unscientific sample of other newsgroups with long FAQ's showed about one third splitting it up and two thirds keeping it in one piece. Third question: I am considering posting comp.sys.mac.faq to the three newsgroups this FAQ list covers and to news.announce at staggered two week intervals (staggered so that people whose news servers have three day expirations can find it in one or the other of these newsgroups). Other people have suggested that it might be easier on their newservers if instead I cross-posted it to all three groups every couple of weeks. Another possibility is just posting the table of contents and making the file itself available via anonymous ftp as is done with the comp.sys.mac.programmer FAQ. Werner Uhrig even suggested the formation of a FAQ newsgroup for the Mac hierarchy which could hold this document and a number of the other FAQ and informational files that exist on the net. Please let me know your preferences. Please send all comments and criticisms to erh0362@tesla.njit.edu. I am of course especially interested in corrections of fact and suggestions for questions you think should be added or deleted. I've proofed comp.sys.mac.faq a number of times and run it through a spelling checker, but since this is a more permanent document than the average news post, I'd also like to hear everyone's quibbles about spelling, grammar, unclear sentences, unfunny jokes, and so on. I've been working on it for over a month, and I'm probably too close to it to spot some real bonehead mistakes. However to spare the net details of such a trivial nature and to spare me the personal embarrassment of public castigation of my grammatical faux pas, please send these sorts of corrections to me personally at erh0362@tesla.njit.edu. If you wish to discuss more substantive matters about this FAQ on the net rather than in private E-mail, feel free; but please make sure that you delete the irrelevant portions of the FAQ before reposting it. There's really no need to stuff the net with several copies of this 1000 line file just to say you think More Disk Space deserves better treatment than it gets. Changes in version 2: 0. The formatting has been much improved. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions about how to do this. One common suggestion, numbering of questions, will likely be implemented in a future version just as soon as I'm reasonably sure the ordering of the questions is stable. A second suggestion, moving the various legal notices to the end, may be implemented if I can determine that the position of these notices is legally irrelevant. 1. Several JPEG viewers are now mentioned. 2. LaserWriter Font Utility has replaced SendPS. 3. The FAQ's "What's a good text editor?" and "Where did my icons go?" have been added. 4. A very common misconception about printing PostScript files under early versions of the LaserWriter driver was corrected. 5. Some non-American archive sites have made their way into the FTP list. Rascal was removed because it seems to be slowly going off-line Changes in version 3: 0. Mostly minor improvements here and there. 1. The section on decoding and uncompressing downloaded files was substantially rewritten and moved to earlier in the file. It's now part of a new section on FTPing files. 2. "Can I get shareware by E-mail?" was added to the list. Changes in version 4: 1. Question Numbers!!!! 2. Rewrote and tablized the section on decoding and uncompressing downloaded files. 3. Adjusted the security section to reflect the improved performance of a newer version of MacPassword. 4. Corrected a mistaken identification of a null-modem cabe with an ImageWriter II cable. (That only applies to Mac-to-Mac transfers.) 5. At the suggestion of more than one person I added an injunction against cross-posting to the section on which newsgroup to post to. And finally much thanks to everyone who responded to the first two versions of the FAQ, and helped me improve it so much. I think you'll all agree that version three is much improved. If you don't see your suggestion here, despair not! I didn't have time to implement or properly consider every change that was suggested and there will certainly be more changes made before the final version is released. And without further ado here's the FAQ: comp.sys.mac.faq Table of Contents I. Introduction 1. What other information is available? 2. Posting Etiquette II. The Question of the Year: Why is my system using so much memory? III. FTP 1. Where can I FTP Macintosh software? 2. Can I get shareware by E-mail? 3. What is .bin? .hqx? .cpt? .image? .etc? IV. Viruses 1. Help! I have a virus! 2. Reporting new viruses V. Printing 1. How do I make a PostScript file? 2. How do I print a PostScript file? 3. Why won't my PostScript file print on my mainframe's printer? 4. Why are my PostScript files so big? 5. How do I make my ImageWriter II print in color? 6. Why doesn't Print Monitor work with the ImageWriter? 7. Why did my document change when I printed it? VI. System Software 1. What is System 7 Tuneup? Do I need it? 2. Do I need System 7.01? 3. How can I get System 7.01 on 800K disks? 4. Why do my DA's disappear when I turn on MultiFinder? VII. DOS and the Mac 1. How can I move files between a Mac and a PC? 2. How can I translate files to a DOS format? 3. Should I buy SoftPC or a real PC? VIII. Security 1. How can I prevent users changing the contents of a folder? 2. How can I password protect my Mac? IX. Hard Disks 1. Help! My folder disappeared! 2. Why can't I throw this folder away? X. Floppy Disks 1. Why can't my new Mac read my old Mac's floppy disks? 2. Can I turn a double-density disk into a high density disk by punching an extra hole in it? XI. Miscellaneous 1. How can I preview a PostScript file? 2. How do I edit a PostScript file? 3. What does System Error xxx mean? 4. What is AutoDoubler? Is it safe? 5. How does AutoDoubler compare to other compression products? 6. What's a good text editor for the Mac? 7. Where did my icons go? To jump to a particular question, search for section-number.question-number enclosed in parentheses. For example to find "How do I edit a PostScript file?" search for the string (11.2). To jump to a section instead of a question use a zero for the question number. comp.sys.mac.faq is copyright 1992 by Elliotte M. Harold Permission is hereby granted to distribute this unmodified document provided that no fee in excess of normal online charges is required for such distribution. Portions of this document may be extracted and quoted free of charge and without necessity of citation in normal online communication provided only that said quotes are not represented as the correspondent's original work. Permission for quotation of this document in printed material and edited online communication (such as the info-mac Digest and Tidbits) is given subject to normal citation procedures (i.e. you have to say where you got it). Disclaimer: I do my best to ensure that information contained in this FAQ is current and accurate, but I can accept no responsibility for actions resulting from information contained herein. This document is provided as is and with no warranty of any kind. Corrections and suggestions should be addressed to erh0362@tesla.njit.edu. Apple, Macintosh, LaserWriter, ImageWriter, Finder, and MultiFinder are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Linotronic is a registered trademark of Linotype-Hell AG, Inc. Quark XPress is a registered trademark of Quark. PostScript is a registered trademark and Illustrator and PhotoShop are trademarks of Adobe Systems, Inc. PageMaker is a registered trademark of Aldus Corp. All other tradenames are trademarks of their respective manufacturers. ==================== I HAVE A QUESTION... (1.0) ==================== Congratulations! You've come to the right place. The Usenet community is a wonderful resource for information ranging from basic questions (How do I lock a floppy disk?) to queries that would make Steve Jobs himself run screaming from the room in terror. (I used ResEdit to remove resources Init #11, WDEF 34, and nVIR 17 from my system file and used the Hex Editor to add code string #A67B45 as a patch to the SFGetFile routine so the Standard File Dialog Box would be a nice shade of mauve. Everything worked fine until I installed SuperCDevBlaster, and now when I use the Aldus driver to print from PageMaker 5.0d4 to a Linotronic 6000 my system hangs. P.S. I'm running System 6.02 on a PowerBook 170.) However, since the comp.sys.mac.* newsgroups are medium to high volume, we ask that you first peruse this FAQ file, check any other relevant online resources (listed below), and RTFM (Read the Friendly Manual) before posting your question. We realize that you are personally incensed that the System is taking up fourteen of your newly- installed twenty megs of RAM, but this question has already made its way around the world three hundred times before, and it's developing tired feet. WHAT OTHER INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE? (1.1) This FAQ list provides short answers to a number of frequently asked questions from the newsgroups comp.sys.mac.system, comp.sys.mac.misc, and comp.sys.mac.apps. Various Mac gurus have written other files of excellent quality that go into more detail about individual topics. Please check out any that seem relevant to your problem before posting a question. All of the following are available for anonymous FTP from sumex-aim.stanford.edu and its mirrors in the /info-mac/reports or /info-mac/tips directories. info-mac/reports info-mac/tips 800-phone-numbers.txt beginning-mac-programming.txt alysis-resource-compressor.hqx downloading-binary-files.txt at-connector-substitute.txt generating-postscript.txt backup-to-unix.txt high-speed-modem-use.txt color-monitor-survey.txt mailing-to-applelink.txt compression-util-table.txt mailing-to-compuserve.txt e-mail-gateways.txt mailing-to-macnet.txt fax-modems.txt mailing-to-mci.txt ftp-primer.txt modems-in-europe.txt ftp-sites.txt no-hard-disk-icon.txt hard-disk-formatting.hqx rebuilding-the-desktop.txt how-do-i-find.txt refill-hp-cartridge.txt human-interface-research.txt sys7-with-word-finder.txt iici-cache-cards.txt iisi-upgrade-options.txt internet-access-11.hqx large-color-monitors.txt mac-discussion-groups.txt mac-laser-jet-up-rev-11.txt mac-laser-jet-up-rev.txt mac-memory-guide.hqx mac-plus-accelerators.txt mac-plus-dead-screen.txt mac-se-accelerators.txt mac-secret-names.txt mac-secret-trick-list.txt mac-tcp-info.txt mac-to-workstation.txt maciisi-expandibility.hqx modem-guide-10.txt nisus-first-impressions.txt power-glove-to-mac.txt powerbook-170-tips.txt powerbook-faq.txt powerbook-solutions-guide.hqx printing-booklets.txt radius-rocket-upgrade.txt se30-external-video.txt se30-full-page-monitors.txt se30-monitor-options.txt sys7-compat-info.hqx sys7-emergency-disk.txt sys7-finder-command-keys.txt system-7-goodies.txt WHICH NEWSGROUP SHOULD I POST TO? (1.2) Posting questions to the proper newsgroup will fill your mailbox with pearls of wisdom (and maybe a few rotten oysters too :-) ). Posting to the wrong newsgroup often engenders a thundering silence. For instance the most common and glaring mispost, one that seems as incongruous to dwellers in the Macintosh regions of Usenet as would a purple elephant in Antarctica, asking a question about networking anywhere except comp.sys.mac.comm, normally produces no useful responses. Posting the same question to comp.sys.mac.comm ensures that your post is read and considered by dozens of experienced network administrators and not a few network software designers. Please post to exactly ONE newsgroup. Do not cross-post. If a question isn't important enough for you to spend the extra time to figure out where it properly belongs, it's not important enough for several thousand people to spend their time reading. Similarly comp.sys.mac.misc should not be used as a catch-all newsgroup. Questions about applications should go to comp.sys.mac.apps except for queries about communications programs, games, HyperCard, and databases all of which have their own comp.sys.mac.* newsgroups. Post questions about non-communications hardware including questions about what software is necessary to make particular hardware work to comp.sys.mac.hardware. Questions about Mac OS System Software and extensions belong in comp.sys.mac.system. Questions about A/UX go to comp.unix.aux. Detailed questions about Appletalk belong in comp.protocols.appletalk. Direct questions about HyperCard including programming HyperCard to comp.sys.mac.hypercard. Non-HyperCard programming questions and questions about development environments should go to comp.sys.mac.programmer. ResEdit questions may alternately be posted either to comp.sys.mac.misc, comp.sys.mac.system, or comp.sys.mac.programmer, but generally the netters who inhabit the darker recesses of comp.sys.mac.programmer are considerably more practiced at the art of resource hacking. A general exception to the above rules is that any VERY technical question about an application that actually begins to delve into the hows of a program as well as the whats (Recent example: How does WriteNow which is written entirely in assembly compare to other word processors written in high level languages?) might be better addressed to the programmer newsgroup. For Sale and Want to Buy posts should go to comp.sys.mac.wanted ONLY. We know you're desperate to sell your upgraded 128K Mac to get the $$ for a PowerBook 170; but trust me, anyone who wants to buy it will be reading comp.sys.mac.wanted. Anything not specifically mentioned above, especially political and religious questions, (The Mac is better than Windows! Is not! Is too! Is not! Is too! Hey! How 'bout the Amiga! What about it? Is Not! Is too!) belongs in comp.sys.mac.misc. Finally don't be so provincial as to only consider the comp.sys.mac newsgroups the appropriate fora for your questions. A lot of modem questions in comp.sys.mac.comm are much more thoroughly discussed in comp.dcom.modems. Questions about Mac MIDI often might be better handled in comp.music even though these are not Mac specific newsgroups. Shop around. Usenet's a big place and not everything relevant to the Macintosh happens in comp.sys.mac.*. ================================================================ QUESTION OF THE YEAR: WHY IS MY SYSTEM TAKING UP SO MUCH MEMORY? (2.0) ================================================================ If today Apple changed About this Macintosh (About the Finder under System 6) to report unusable memory in its own bar rather than lumped together with the system, this would probably still be the most frequently asked question of the year. Under system versions earlier than 7.0 or under System 7.x without 32-bit addressing turned on the Mac cannot handle more than eight megabytes of real memory. If you have more physical RAM installed, the Mac knows it's there but can't do anything with it. When you select About the Finder from the Apple menu, the system takes all that extra memory that it can't access and reports it as part of the memory allocated to the system. To use the memory you need to get System 7 and turn on 32-bit addressing. If you have a Mac with dirty ROMs (a II, IIx, SE/30, or IIcx) you also need MODE32, free from ftp.apple.com or your local dealer. If you have an original Mac II you'll also need to add a PMMU chip. If you're staying with System 6, Maxima from Connectix ($45 street) will let you use the extra memory as a RAM disk. If you have an LC or an LC II with four megabytes of RAM soldered to the motherboard, you still need to add two four-megabyte SIMM's to reach the ten megabyte maximum imposed by the LC ROM. This means you'll always have two unused megabytes which About this Macintosh and About the Finder report as part of the system memory allocation. Unfortunately there is no current means of accessing this extra memory. === FTP (3.0) === WHERE CAN I FTP MAC SOFTWARE? (3.1) The three major American Internet archives of shareware, freeware, and demo software are sumex-aim.stanford.edu (36.44.0.6), mac.archive.umich.edu (141.211.164.153), and wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4) which mirrors the other two sites and is often easier to connect to. Wuarchive often holds on to files after other sites remove them for space concerns, and still has files that were recently deleted from the formerly important site, rascal.ics.utexas.edu. Rascal was noteable for storing its files in MacBinary format rather than the less efficient BinHex format common at the other archives. Unless otherwise noted shareware and freeware mentioned in this document should be available at the above sites. To keep traffic on the Internet manageable, European users should try connecting to ftp.funet.fi (128.214.6.100) or irisa.irisa.fr (131.254.2.3) instead. Australian users should try to find what they want at archie.au (139.130.4.6) which mirrors the info-mac archives at Stanford. Japanese users can find sumex mirrored at utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp (133.11.11.11). A fourth very important site is ftp.apple.com. This is Apple's semi-official repository for system software, developer tools, source code, technical notes, and other things that come more or less straight from Apple's mouth. Some material at this site may not be distributed outside the U.S. or by other sites that don't have an official license to distribute Apple system software. Please read the various README documents available at ftp.apple.com for the detailed info if you're connecting from outside the U.S. or if you wish to redistribute material you find here. Michael Gleason's mac.ftp.list, a more comprehensive list of FTP sites for Macintosh software, is available from sumex-aim in the info- mac/reports directory as ftp-sites.txt. This list catalogs dozens of sites and mirrors, both well-known and obscure. If you can't find what you're looking for at one of those sites, try telnetting to your nearest archie server or sending it an E-mail message addressed to archie with the subject "help." Addresses include archie.rutgers.edu (128.6.18.15, America), archie.mcgill.ca (132.206.2.3, the original archie server in Canada), archie.au (139.130.4.6, Australia), archie.funet.fi (128.214.6.100, the continent), or archie.doc.ic.ac.uk (146.169.3.7, the U.K.). These sites serve as indexes for the tens of thousands of files available for anonymous ftp. Login as "archie" (no password is needed) and type "prog filename" to find what you're looking for or type "help" for more detailed instructions. For instance after connecting type "prog Disinfectant" to search for a convenient ftp site for Disinfectant. If the initial search fails to turn up your file, try variations on the name. For instance if you didn't find Disinfectant, you might try prog dis instead. Please check these archives and ARCHIE personally BEFORE asking where you can find a particular piece of shareware. If you follow the above advice, you should almost never have to ask the net where to find a particular piece of software. CAN I GET SHAREWARE BY E-MAIL? (3.2) The info-mac archives at sumex-aim are available by E-mail from LISTSERV@RICEVM1.bitnet (alternately listserv@ricevm1.rice.edu). The listserver responds to the commands $MACARCH HELP, $MACARCH INDEX, and $MACARCH GET filename. You can retrieve files from other sites by using the server at ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com. For details send it a message with just the text "help". WHAT IS .BIN? .HQX? .CPT? .ETC? (3.3) Most files available by FTP are modified twice to allow them to more easily pass through foreign computer systems. First they're compressed to make them faster to download, and then they're translated to either a binhex or MacBinary format that other computers can digest. (The Macintosh uses a special two-fork filing system that chokes most other computers.) Binhex files are 7-bit ASCII text files, while MacBinary files are pure 8-bit binary data that must always be transferred using a binary protocol. How a file has been translated and compressed for transmission is indicated by its suffix. Normally a file will have a name something like filename.xxx.yyy. .xxx indicates how it was compressed and .yyy indicates how it was translated. To use a file you've FTP'd and downloaded to your Mac you'll need to reverse the process. Most files you get from the net require a two-step decoding process. First change the binhex or MacBinary file to a double-clickable Macintosh file; then uncompress it. The details of decoding are covered in the table below. **************************************************************************** Suffix: .sit .cpt .hqx .bin .pit .Z .image .s .zip .uu .tar Extractors ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stuffit | X X X Compact Pro | X X Packit | X UUTool | X MacCompress | X SunTar | X X X X BinHex 5.0 | X BinHex 4.0 | X SuperDisk! | X UnZip | X DiskCopy | X **************************************************************************** A few notes on the uncompressors: Stuffit is a family of products that uses several different compression schemes. The recently released Stuffit Expander should unstuff all of them. Compact Pro is Bill Goodman's shareware file compression program available from all the usual suspects. Compact Pro makes smaller archives and works faster than any other archiving compression utility for the Mac. It's a shame more FTP sites haven't standardized on this format. UUTool, MacCompress, and SunTar handle the popular UNIX formats of uuencode, compress, and tar respectively. The UNIX versions are often more robust than the Mac products, so use them instead when that's an option. You may occasionally run across a file in Disk Doubler format. These files don't have any specific suffix, but the icons should have a small "DD" in the lower left-hand corner. The freeware DiskDoubler Expand will uncompress them. A few notes on the compression formats: bin: These are MacBinary files. Always use a binary file transfer protocol when transferring them; never use ASCII or text. Most files on the net are stored as .hqx instead. Only rascal stores most of its files in bin format. Most communications programs such as ZTerm and MacKermit are capable of translating MacBinary files on the fly as they download if they know in advance they'll be downloading MacBinary files. image: Typically this format is used only for system software, so that online users can download files that can easily be converted into exact copies of the installer floppies. Instead of using DiskCopy to restore the images to floppies, you can use Steve Christensen's freeware utility MountImage to treat the images on your hard disk as actual floppies inserted in a floppy drive. MountImage has a reputation for being buggy, so you should have some blank floppies and a copy of DiskCopy handy just in case. sea (.x, .X): .sea doesn't merit a position in the above table because these are self-extracting archives. They may have been created with Compact Pro, Stuffit, or even Disk Doubler; but all should be capable of uncompressing themselves when double-clicked. For some unknown reason Alysis has chosen not to use this industry standard designation for self-extracting archives created with its payware product SuperDisk!. Instead SuperDisk! appends either .x or .X to its self-extracting archives. ======== VIRUSES (4.0) ======== HELP! I HAVE A VIRUS. (4.1) 90% of all problems reportedly caused by viruses are actually due to mundane bugs in software (and 90% of all statistics are made up :-) ) Before reporting a virus infection make sure you check your system with the latest version of Disinfectant, 2.8 as of this writing, by the excellent John Norstad and friends from Northwestern University. Disinfectant is absolutely free and available from sumex-aim and all the other usual suspects. It's easy to use and can completely protect your system from currently knosystem or applications being used; and even if you really have found a new virus, there's nothing we can do about it anyway. You'll only succeed in generating a lot of follow-up panic reports from other people who'll blame every crash of Quark XPress on the new virus. If your system is protected against known viruses by Disinfectant or one of the other anti-virus packages and you suspect a new virus is causing you trouble, first consult with the most knowledgeable local guru about your problem. Nine times out of ten, he or she will identify it as a boring, ordinary, known bug in the software. If you are the local guru and still think it might be a new virus, and have thoroughly checked out all other possibilities, then, and only then, send a detailed description of your problem to j_norstad@nwu.edu. Check the appropriate sections of the Disinfectant manual for procedures to follow before reporting a new virus. ================= PRINTING PROBLEMS (5.0) ================= HOW DO I MAKE A POSTSCRIPT FILE? (5.1) First make sure a LaserWriter driver is in your System folder. It doesn't really matter which one although the latest from the System 7 Tuneup disk is the best. You don't need System 7 to use the System 7 LaserWriter driver. If you're using System 6, you'll also need a Laser Prep file in your System Folder. Once you've verified that there is indeed a LaserWriter driver in your system folder, select LaserWriter in the Chooser. A dialog box will likely pop up informing you that the LaserWriter requires Appletalk and asking you if you want to turn Appletalk on. Whether or not you have AppleTalk click OK. Then select Page Setup from the File menu to format your document for the LaserWriter. Next select Print from the File menu. If you're using the System 7 LaserWriter driver, the Print dialog box that pops up will have a radio button for Destination near the bottom. Click on PostScript file. The Print button at the top should change to a Save button. Click it and you'll get a standard file dialog asking you what to name and where to save the PostScript file. If you're using the LaserWriter driver 6.0x or 5.2, the procedure is slightly more complicated. When the Print dialog box comes up, put one finger over the F key. If you'll eventually print the file on a non-Apple PostScript printer, especially one not designed with the Macintosh in mind, use K instead of F. Using K includes some Mac specific information non-Apple-oriented PostScript printers need to know about. Next hit return or click OK with the mouse and then IMMEDIATELY hit F or K with your other hand. Contrary to popular belief you do NOT need to hit the Command key as well as the F or K keys. You've got about one second to do this. If you see a message box that says "Creating PostScript file," you did it right. If you don't see that message, you weren't quick enough. Try again. Once you've gotten the message "Creating PostScript file" you should find a file called PostScript0 in the same folder as the application you were printing from. This is the file you just printed. Rename it before you forget what it is. If you print to disk (what this whole process is officially called) more than once, the second file will be called PostScript1, the third PostScript2, and so on. It really is much easier to use the System 7 LaserWriter driver. HOW DO I PRINT A POSTSCRIPT FILE? (5.2) On a Macintosh you'll need the LaserWriter Utility available on the TidBits disk from System 7 and from ftp.apple.com in /dts/mac/sys.soft/imaging. LaserWriter Utility allows you to send files to the LaserWriter in such a way that PostScript commands get interpreted as PostScript rather than as text to be printed. If you're printing to a PostScript printer connected to something other than a Macintosh, you'll need to consult your local system gurus. A simple "lpr filename.ps" works on my Sparc, but your mileage may vary. WHY WON'T MY POSTSCRIPT FILE PRINT ON MY MAINFRAME'S PRINTER? (5.3) Moving PostScript files between the Macintosh and other platforms is as dark an art as exists in the Macintosh universe. You'll have to experiment with your specific setup and see what works best for you. If you're using the System 6 LaserWriter driver, try using K instead of F to create the PostScript file so that the Laser Prep header is included. System 7 includes this automatically though you can use Hugo Ayala's shareware Control Panel device Trimmer to leave it out if you need to. More importantly Trimmer lets you select which fonts to include in your PostScript file. The upload to the mainframe from which the PostScript file will be printed may also make a difference. Normally you need to upload in pure Binary format, neither MacBinary nor ASCII. Try using only genuine PostScript fonts, no TrueType or bitmapped fonts. WHY ARE MY POSTSCRIPT FILES SO BIG? (5.4) The System 7 LaserWriter driver automatically includes all the fonts you use in your document plus the LaserPrep information plus the TrueType engine (if you're using any TrueType fonts) in the PostScript file. Thus a 3K document formatted in 90K worth of fonts can easily produce a 300K PostScript file. If these fonts are present on the system you'll be printing from, they don't need to be included in the document; and you can remove them with the shareware control panel Trimmer or the free utility StripFonts. HOW CAN I PRINT POSTSCRIPT ON A NON-POSTSCRIPT PRINTER? (5.6) You need one of the payware applications Freedom of the Press or TScript. For most users who only want to print to common printers like DeskWriters, StyleWriters, or Personal LaserWriter LS's, the Light version of Freedom of the Press or the Basic version of TScript will suffice. ($55 street for either). More expensive versions of both products are available that work with more esoteric printers, particularly color printers and very-high-end imagesetters. HOW DO I MAKE MY IMAGEWRITER II PRINT IN COLOR? (5.7) Applications such as SuperPaint 2.0 and MacWrite II that support the original eight-color model for QuickDraw graphics, can print in color with just a color ribbon and no additional software. The shareware GifConverter can open and print a variety of graphics file types in excellent dithered color. Jeff Skaitsis's $1 shareware CheapColor can also dither PixelPaint and PICT2 files to an ImageWriter II. For general purpose color printing from any application the only solution is the payware MacPalette. WHY WON'T PRINTMONITOR WORK WITH THE IMAGEWRITER? (5.8) Ask the Apple Customer Assistance Center (20525 Mariani Avenue, Cupertino, CA 95014, USA, 1-800-776-2333) this one. Meanwhile the only current way to print spool to an ImageWriter under System 7 is with SuperLaserSpool 3.0 from Fifth Generation Systems. This is a fully commercial product. There are NO freeware, shareware, or other FTPable solutions that work under System 7 so get out your credit cards. At $98 street price for SuperLaserSpool and only $300 for the vastly superior DeskWriter or StyleWriter you may want to forgo SuperLaserSpool and buy a better printer instead. If you're still using System 6 and have no plans to move to System 7, there is a shareware product called MultiSpool from Italy; but it is not System 7 compatible and prints only under MultiFinder. WHY DID MY PERFECTLY FORMATTED DOCUMENT LOOK LIKE GARBAGE WHEN I TOOK IT TO SOMEONE ELSE'S COMPUTER TO PRINT? (5.9) There are about a dozen different reasons this can happen. You normally need to take account of all of these when formatting files for someone else's printer. Far and away the most common problem is using the wrong printer driver. BEFORE you start formatting your document, make sure you have a printer driver for the printer you'll use for your final draft in your system folder and select that printer in the Chooser. Then do a Page Setup. This lets the application know what sort of output it should try to match the display to. The second most common problem is font confusion. Make sure you know exactly which fonts are in your document; and, if you're printing to a PostScript printer, make sure PostScript versions of these fonts are available to that printer. On newer printers you might also be able to use TrueType fonts; but PostScript is still the standard, especially if you're eventually going to Lino for camera ready output. The third most common source of trouble is poor formatting, especially in Microsoft Word. The Mac is not a typewriter, and you shouldn't use it as one. Don't use tabs as a substitute for indentation, and NEVER use spaces to position anything. If you're writing a resume (far and away the most common source of formatting problems for Word users), give serious thought to using the well- formatted resume template that comes with Word to help you avoid problems with your final printout. =============== SYSTEM SOFTWARE (6.0) =============== WHAT IS SYSTEM 7 TUNEUP? DO I NEED IT? (6.1) If you use System 7 or the System 7 printer drivers, you need System 7 Tuneup. The tuneup includes a number of fixes and enhancements to System 7, including substantially faster printer drivers, a StyleWriter driver that can be spooled, a fix that saves several hundred kilobytes of memory on non-networked Macs, and, most importantly, a vaccine for the disappearing folders bug. DO I NEED SYSTEM 7.01? (6.2) Officially if you don't have a Quadra or PowerBook, you don't need System 7.01. Unofficially some changes were made that speed up SANE (numerics) operations on 32-bit clean Macintoshes with a floating-point coprocessor. These include all IIci's and IIfx's plus LC's and IIsi's that have had a coprocessor specially installed. (Neither of the latter machines ships with a coprocessor.) HOW CAN I GET SYSTEM 7.01 ON 800K DISKS? (6.3) You can't because all machines that gain any benefits from 7.01 come equipped with high density floppy drives. You can however use the utility MountImage to mount the images of the 1400K System 7.01 disks (available from ftp.apple.com) on your hard drive and install from the image rather than a floppy. Be warned, however, that MountImage is notoriously unreliable when doing installs. Be sure you make a complete backup of your hard disk and have a set of System disks on genuine floppies before attempting to install from mounted images. WHY DO MY DA'S DISAPPEAR WHEN I TURN ON MULTIFINDER? (6.4) You need to put the file "DA Handler" in your System Folder. It should be on one of your System 6.0x disks. Under Finder the Desk Accessories load into the memory provided by your application. Under MultiFinder they load into their own memory space provided by DA Handler. =============== DOS AND THE MAC (7.0) =============== HOW CAN I MOVE FILES BETWEEN A MAC AND A PC? (7.1) The simplest way to move files between a PC and a Mac is with a null modem cable and a good communications program. You can get a null- modem cable from any good electronics store. Make sure the cable you buy has the appropriate connectors for the Mac and PC you'll be connecting. Hook one end of the cable to the printer or modem port on your Mac and the other to the serial port on the PC. This should work just like a very high speed (57,600 bps) modem connection except that you'll probably need to turn on local echo in your communications program. If the computers aren't within cabling distance, you can either upload the files to an intermediary mainframe or put them on a floppy disk. The Superdrive (see the section on floppy disks) sold since the introduction of the IIx is capable of formatting and writing to 3.5 inch PC floppies. Apple includes Apple File Exchange, a minimal program capable of doing this as part of the System Software. Apple File Exchange is complicated to use and violates at least half of Apple's user interface guidelines. (Can anyone explain why no other software company violates as many of Apple's user interface guidelines as Apple itself does?) For details on its use please Read the Friendly Manual. If you have a frequent need for using DOS floppies and you have a SuperDrive, you may want to invest in a more transparent solution. The three currently available are AccessPC from Insignia Solutions, DOS Mounter from Dayna, and Macintosh PC Exchange from Apple, all of which automatically mount and format 3.5 inch DOS floppies in a SuperDrive without requiring you to run a separate program before you insert the disk. MacPC File Exchange requires System 7. If you use DOS Mounter be sure to increase your RAM cache to at least 256K. This will substantially improve its performance. HOW CAN I TRANSLATE FILES TO A DIFFERENT PLATFORM? (7.2) With the increasing popularity of cross-platform development, many Macintosh programs like Adobe Illustrator 3.0, Adobe Photoshop, and Microsoft Word 5.0 are able to save directly to a format readable by DOS or Windows programs. You'll still need to mount the DOS floppies in the Mac drive using one of the products discussed above or do a default translation from within Apple File Exchange. Although translators for Apple File Exchange could theoretically be designed to translate files made by applications without these capabilities, AFE has never really caught on. The best solution is a payware product by DataViz called MacLink Plus. MacLink Plus, about $100 street price, can translate over 400 DOS, Windows, Macintosh, and NeXT formats back and forth. As an added bonus it comes bundled with a copy of DOS Mounter. SHOULD I BUY SOFTPC OR A REAL PC? (7.3) The various versions of SoftPC will run most PC software on a Macintosh as advertised; but even on the fastest Macs, SoftAT will be slower than an original AT. On any Mac slower than a IIci or with any version of SoftPC other than SoftAT, you'll likely get performance at best of twice the speed of an original XT. More likely you'll only have the speed of an original XT. For today's software like WordPerfect 5.1 that's S...L...O...W. Of course slow is relative. I've seen an AMIGA running a Mac emulator running SoftPC running a CP/M emulator. That's slow! As part of testing the 486 chip design, Intel ran DOS on a simulation of the 486 chip running on an IBM 3090 mainframe. It took them TWO WEEKS to get to the C> prompt. That's slow. SoftPC on a Classic is actually about as fast as the original IBM PC from ten years ago. Furthermore SoftPC is known to have problems with certain peripherals, both for the PC and the Mac. If you need to use any external peripherals besides a floppy drive, you should get a real PC. Moreover SoftPC's graphics are currently limited to at best EGA. If you need VGA you need a real PC. Considering that SoftAT has a street price only slightly less than a new AT clone complete with its own small hard disk, floppy drive, and monitor, you're almost certainly better off buying a real PC if you need to run any but the most trivial DOS software. ======== SECURITY (8.0) ======== HOW DO I PREVENT PEOPLE FROM CHANGING THE CONTENTS OF FOLDERS IN A PUBLIC MAC LAB? (8.1) A first line of defense would be to use ResEdit, Disktop, or a similar tool to set the invisible, locked, and nocopy (bozo) bits on the folders, applications, and documents you want to protect. This won't stop a knowledgeable or determined hacker, and protecting the system folder in this fashion may cause problems under System 7; but it will cure 90% of your random-user-moving-things-around problems. If you want to lock out more sophisticated users, a number of payware utilities are available that allow you to password protect individual folders. They include FileGuard from ASD Software ($140 street), FolderBolt from Kent Marsh ($75 street), and Empower II from Magna ($155 street). The registered version of Art A. Schumer's MacPassword ($35 shareware) is also capable of this, although the FTPable demo version is not. You might also consider Brian Bechtel's freeware LockDisk 1.0, a cdev that makes the boot disk read only. However this can cause problems with some applications that can't run from a read-only disk. HOW CAN I PASSWORD-PROTECT A MAC? (8.2) Dr. Ralph Martin's shareware Password 1.3 provides a minimal level of protection for your hard disk, but can be bypassed by the simple expedient of booting from an unprotected floppy. Art A. Schumer's shareware MacPassword cannot be bypassed that easily, but the demo version available by FTP expires after sixty days. Some hard disk formatters also offer optional password protection. Noteable in this category is FWB's Hard Disk Toolkit, about $125 mailorder. A number of more powerful payware utilities are capable of this and a lot more though with great security comes great danger. The more secure a product is the more chance you have of accidentally locking your hard disk so tight that you yourself can't recover your data. Notable commercial products in this category are DiskLock from Fifth Generation ($127 street), Empower I from Magna ($90 street), and NightWatch II from Kent Marsh ($95 street). Be especially wary of the last one. Recent discussions on the net indicate that NightWatch carries a certain risk of locking up your hard disk so tight, it can't even be reformatted, leaving you with a several hundred dollar paperweight. NightWatch II is known to be incompatible with Drive 7 and Hard Disk Toolkit formatting software and is likely incompatible with a number of other hard disk formatters as well. ================= HARD DISK PROBLEMS (9.0) ================= HELP! THE FOLDER CONTAINING ALL SOURCE CODE FOR MY COMPANY'S BIG PROJECT JUSTDISAPPEARED FROM OUR SERVER; WE HAVEN'T BACKED UP IN A WEEK; AND IF I CAN'T GET IT BACK I'LL BE FIRED AND MY COMPANY WILL GO BANKRUPT! (9.1) Try a Find File on the missing filenames; and, if they turn up, move those files to the desktop (Command-M). In the meantime have a friend call a good bankruptcy lawyer. There are no surefire solutions to this problem although at least one utilities vendor is rumored to be working on a fix. You can, however, prevent this from happening again. Run Disk First Aid, back up your disk (what's left of it), reformat it, reinstall System 7, and then install System 7 Tuneup 1.1.1 which fixes the disappearing folders bug. Apparently the larval form of this bug was gestating in several earlier versions of the Mac OS but didn't actually hatch and bite anyone until 7.0. WHY CAN'T I THROW AWAY THIS FOLDER? (9.2) Possibly the folder contains items that are locked or in use and can't be thrown away. Turn off file-sharing (if it's on) and quit all applications. Then try to throw the folder away. If that doesn't work, hold down the option-key and drag the folder into the trash. Holding the option key while you drag lets you throw away locked items. If that doesn't work restart the computer, hold down the option key, and then drag the folder to the trash. If you still can't throw away the folder, try throwing away the items in the folder (if any) one by one until you find the ones giving you trouble. Remove them from the folder, and then throw the folder away. If you still can't throw the folder away, you've discovered a "Folder from Hell." It can be fixed with John Jeppson's HellFolderFix utility, available from the usual FTP sites. ============ FLOPPY DISKS (10.0) ============ There have been three kinds of floppy disks in the history of the Macintosh. The original 128K Thin Mac (which used to be called a classic Mac before the advent of the much superior Mac Classic) and the subsequent 512K "Fat Mac" used 400K, single-sided double-density diskettes. These disks are outdated, and it's highly unlikely you'll actually see any. If you need to exchange data with an older Macintosh, you'll need to use disks formatted as one-sided. Since very few, if any, stores still sell one-sided 3.5 inch disks anymore, it's fortunate that all Macs deal quite happily with double-sided disks formatted as single-sided. Just click the button labeled "One-sided" after you select "Erase Disk" from the Special menu. ***Neat Trick alert*** Sometimes disks that fail formatting as double-sided can be formatted as single-sided. Even neater trick: Under System 6.0x the shareware init BAD can map out bad sectors on a floppy disk which lets about 70% of bad disks be formatted. (System 7 does this automatically.) Neatest trick of all: All name-brand diskettes (SONY, Maxell, etc.) come with lifetime warranties. A lot of offices keep a bad disk box for everyone to dump their bad disks in and send the disks in for replacement when they collect ten or so; but it's been my experience that if you return just a single bad disk these companies will send a whole ten pack as a replacement. With the introduction of the Mac Plus in 1986, Apple also introduced a larger disk drive capable of reading and writing 800K, "Double-Sided Double-Density" disks, DSDD for short. The only way to tell these disks from the earlier, one-sided diskettes, is by the label on the metal cover. Unformatted these are identical to the 720K disks common in the IBM world. With the Mac IIx Apple introduced what's alternately known as the Superdrive or "FDHD," short for "Floppy Drive, High Density." The FDHD (pronounced Fud-Hud) can read and write all of the previous kinds of diskettes plus double-sided high-density disks which are distinguished by two holes in the disk case rather than the normal one. The FDHD uses the extra hole to recognize a high-density disk. WHY DOESN'T MY MAC CLASSIC (SE/30, QUADRA, IIci, etc.) READ THE DISKS FROM MY OLD PLUS? (10.1) The Macintosh Plus and earlier machines along with most original Mac II's and some SE's do not have the high density FDHD drive necessary to properly read and format a high-density disk. If you insert a blank high-density disk in a low density drive, the Mac, not knowing the difference between a double-density and a high-density floppy, will happily format your expensive 1.4 meg disk as a cheap 800K diskette. When you move this disk to a more advanced machine with a FDHD drive, the newer drive will recognize the disk as a high-density floppy by its extra hole. Since the disk has been formatted as 800K instead of as 1400K, the FDHD drive will misread it and ask you if you want to initialize it. As a temporary workaround place a small piece of scotch tape over both sides of the extra hole on the high-density disk to trick the Mac into treating the disk as a double-density disk. This is a temporary fix only, and the disk should be reformatted to the proper size as soon as possible. CAN I MAKE A HIGH-DENSITY DISK BY PUNCHING AN EXTRA HOLE IN A DOUBLE-DENSITY DISK? (10.2) Yes you can, but I certainly wouldn't trust any data I intended to keep for more than the next minute or two to such a diskette. The extra hole is not the only difference between a double-density and a high- density disk. The magnetic media on a high-density disk is a different type that is much more susceptible to formatting. Double-density diskettes should only be formatted as 800K. With the plummeting prices of real high-density disks, this really shouldn't be an issue anymore. ============= MISCELLANEOUS (11.0) ============= IS THERE A UTILITY TO VIEW POSTSCRIPT FILES ON THE MAC? (11.1) Net godhood awaits the first person to write a shareware or freeware solution to this problem. The payware products Canvas 3.0 and TScript allow viewing PostScript files on the Mac, but both are large packages with other purposes and cost over $50 each. IS THERE A UTILITY TO EDIT POSTSCRIPT FILES ON THE MAC? (11.2) In the most basic sense PostScript files are just ASCII text, so if you're familiar with the PostScript programming language you can edit PostScript in any good text editor. If you want to edit the PostScript files graphically, the only utility currently capable of that on some level is Canvas 3.0. WHAT DOES SYSTEM ERROR XXX MEAN? (11.3) Typically it means nothing at all of any use to you. Your time is much more usefully spent trying to figure out what actions in which application caused the crash so that you can avoid them in the future rather than deciphering system error numbers. After all, knowing that Error 16 means a math coprocessor is not installed doesn't help you much in fixing the problem. Knowing that this happens in Quark XPress 3.0 every time you try to link two text boxes on a master page when copies of those text boxes already contain text does. (And in this case the error message isn't even accurate.) If you really want to know what that number means, get Dr. Pete Corless's System Error 7.0.1 utility available in the usual places. HOW CAN I USE A PICTURE FOR MY DESKTOP? (11.4) You need to get the init DeskPict, available from the usual FTP sites. DeskPict works only on Macs with Color QuickDraw in ROM (Mac II and later machines). A slightly improved and less buggy version called DeskPicture is part of the payware Now Utilities. WHAT IS AUTODOUBLER? (11.5) Salient Software's AutoDoubler is a transparent file compression utility that compresses most files on your hard disk and uncompresses them automatically when you open them so that your hard disk appears to be a much larger disk. Ideally you won't know it's there once you've installed it. The net consensus seems to be that AutoDoubler is fast and safe. The only common known conflicts are with Norton Filesaver version 1.0 and 1.1, with the File Search function in Microsoft Word 5.0, and with Macintosh PC File Exchange. The first has been fixed by Symantec in the recent release of Norton Utilities for the Mac 2.0; the second is Microsoft's fault, not Salient's; and the third can avoided by turning off the "Show DD on Compressed Files" option in AutoDoubler's Control Panel. HOW DOES AUTODOUBLER COMPARE TO DISK DOUBLER? TO MORE DISK SPACE? TO STUFFIT SPACESAVER? (11.6) Disk Doubler, also from Salient Software, is a cross between AutoDoubler and Compact Pro. It can uncompress all AutoDoubler archives; (but so can AutoDoubler) and unlike AutoDoubler Disk Doubler compressed files aren't automatically uncompressed when copied to floppy or sent via modem. Like AutoDoubler DiskDoubler can automatically uncompress files when needed, but the decompression isn't nearly as transparent or fast as AutoDoubler's. More Disk Space is a competing product similar in functionality to AutoDoubler. The various comp.sys.mac newsgroups have heard quite a few more reported problems with More Disk Space than with AutoDoubler. It's also been argued that More Disk Space severely violates a certain programming edict from Apple which makes it very likely to break under future versions of the System. Stuffit Spacesaver from Aladdin Systems promises to be another competing automatic compression utility, but is not yet shipping. IS THERE A JPEG VIEWER FOR THE MAC? (11.7) Storm Technology's Picture Decompress shows JPEG's on all Macs with 32-bit Quickdraw. Aaron Giles' JPEGView previews JPEG files on System 7 Macs with Quicktime installed. PictPixie, a QuickTime development tool from Apple, also allows Macs with 32-bit QuickDraw and QuickTime to display JPEG's but requires enormous amounts of memory. All are free; the first two are available from the regular archive sites, the last from ftp.apple.com in /dts/mac/quicktime. JPEGView and PictPixie not only display JPEG's but can also convert them to QuickTime format. One more free product worthy of mention is Jeff Lewis's Imagery/JPEG which converts JPEG format files to GIF's albeit with some loss of resolution. They can then be viewed with any Gif viewer like QuickGif or GifConverter. WHAT'S A GOOD TEXT EDITOR FOR THE MAC? (11.8) Available shareware and freeware text editors include BBEdit, Edit II (with grep style searching), Alpha (particularly nice for use with TeX files), Stevie (for fans of vi), and microEmacs. The feature sets of these editors overlap somewhat but are not identical. Since all are available via anonymous FTP, there's no reason not to try them all and find the one you like best. Also worth noting for its search and replace features is the payware QUED/M from Paragon Concepts (the folks who brought you NISUS, the kitchen sink package for search and replace), about $85 street price. WHERE DID MY ICONS GO? (11.9) Your icons have passed on to a better place, but with a little magic it's normally possible to resurrect them. Several utilities including Norton Utilities for the Mac and the freeware drag-and-drop utility Save-A-BNDL should retrieve your icons. Rebuilding the desktop (Hold down the Command and option keys while starting up.) should also return your icons.