Answers to some questions
January 20, 2008 21:41
We had a nice turnout for Kevin Shea's Leopard (I
can't believe I wrote "Panther" in the email)
demonstration last Monday night. Our thanks to
Kevin of MacSpecialist, and our congratulations
on the recent grand opening of their new store in
the River North area of Chicago. After the
meeting, I was approached by a few members with
some questions, the answers to which may interest
some of you.
The first had to do the presence or absence of a database program in iWork to take the place of Appleworks' database functionality. As you may or may not know, Apple has officially ended the life of Appleworks after letting it stagnate for years. With the release of iWork 08, Apple has yet to replace this database functionality, possibly with good reason. Apple also owns Filemaker, THE professional database app for the Mac. Filemaker has within the past week released version 1.0 of Bento, their new consumer-level database app. While in public beta, this was already being called the missing link of iWork. Find out more about Bento at: http://filemaker.com/products/bento/overview.html
Since the demise of Appleworks, Apple no longer includes a free productivity suite on any of their machines, opting to sell the iWork suite for $79. The included TextEdit app can do some basic word processing, and even open MS Office Word documents. The question was whether or not Appleworks will run on an Intel-powered machine? The answer is Yes, it will run in Rosetta mode as long as you have version 6 upgraded to run on OSX. Since the Intel machines no longer support Classic, older versions of Appleworks or Clarisworks will not run on Intel. NeoOffice, the OSX port of the free open-source OpenOffice suite, is an excellent choice for a productivity suite replacement on Intel machines: http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php
The final question had to do with the availability of a "modern" web browser for OS9. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 7-8 years, you know that the technology that runs the internet has evolved tremendously. Modern, standards-compliant web browsers like Firefox (Mozilla) and Safari have enabled this growth. If you are still using IE or Netscape 4 on OS9 or older, you've seen many web pages that just don't work anymore (especially if you do online banking or bill paying). Short of buying a new computer, what can you do? Here are two options:
1. iCab. iCab was, until about a week ago, the only browser developer that was still actively supporting the classic Mac OS as far back as version 8! iCab 3.x has many of the features you see in X-only browsers like tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, and the ability to identify itself to a web server as another browser, sometimes enabling a user to get around an IE-only requirement. In my experiences with iCab, it does a decent job on the modern web, it's just that it's v-e-r-y...s-l-o-w. Sadly, with version 4, the one-man development team made a decision to switch to the WebKit engine, the same engine that powers Safari, which means that unless he continues to maintain the version 3 branch, there will be no more updates for Classic OS users. More info can be found at: http://icab.de/
2. WaMCom - Web and Mail Communicator. Mozilla ended official support for OS9 with the release of version 1.3. However, the OSX-only features in Mozilla 1.3 were minimal, and did not prevent one developer from building an OS9-capable browser based on version 1.3 code. This hack of Mozilla 1.3 is called the Web and Mail Communicator, or WaMCom for short. Former Netscape users will find themselves right at home using WaMCom (the final OS9 version of Netscape, version 7.0.2, was based on Mozilla 1.0), as Netscape 6 and 7 were the result of the opening of the source code in 1998 and the resulting Mozilla project. I've actually got this running on a friend's old iMac, and she is very pleased with its performance, both as a web browser and as an Email Client (she's managing her Comcast account with the mail portion of Mozilla). Info on WaMCom is found: http://wamcom.org/
We'll meet again in February and March at the Panera Bread Store in Joliet, Rt. 59 and Caton Farm Rd. First Monday of each month at 6:30pm in the general dining area, probably in the cushy chairs straight inside the main entrance if they are available. Our next general meeting and presentation is tentatively scheduled for the second Monday in April. More info on that as time approaches. In the meantime, stay warm and stay safe.
The first had to do the presence or absence of a database program in iWork to take the place of Appleworks' database functionality. As you may or may not know, Apple has officially ended the life of Appleworks after letting it stagnate for years. With the release of iWork 08, Apple has yet to replace this database functionality, possibly with good reason. Apple also owns Filemaker, THE professional database app for the Mac. Filemaker has within the past week released version 1.0 of Bento, their new consumer-level database app. While in public beta, this was already being called the missing link of iWork. Find out more about Bento at: http://filemaker.com/products/bento/overview.html
Since the demise of Appleworks, Apple no longer includes a free productivity suite on any of their machines, opting to sell the iWork suite for $79. The included TextEdit app can do some basic word processing, and even open MS Office Word documents. The question was whether or not Appleworks will run on an Intel-powered machine? The answer is Yes, it will run in Rosetta mode as long as you have version 6 upgraded to run on OSX. Since the Intel machines no longer support Classic, older versions of Appleworks or Clarisworks will not run on Intel. NeoOffice, the OSX port of the free open-source OpenOffice suite, is an excellent choice for a productivity suite replacement on Intel machines: http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php
The final question had to do with the availability of a "modern" web browser for OS9. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 7-8 years, you know that the technology that runs the internet has evolved tremendously. Modern, standards-compliant web browsers like Firefox (Mozilla) and Safari have enabled this growth. If you are still using IE or Netscape 4 on OS9 or older, you've seen many web pages that just don't work anymore (especially if you do online banking or bill paying). Short of buying a new computer, what can you do? Here are two options:
1. iCab. iCab was, until about a week ago, the only browser developer that was still actively supporting the classic Mac OS as far back as version 8! iCab 3.x has many of the features you see in X-only browsers like tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, and the ability to identify itself to a web server as another browser, sometimes enabling a user to get around an IE-only requirement. In my experiences with iCab, it does a decent job on the modern web, it's just that it's v-e-r-y...s-l-o-w. Sadly, with version 4, the one-man development team made a decision to switch to the WebKit engine, the same engine that powers Safari, which means that unless he continues to maintain the version 3 branch, there will be no more updates for Classic OS users. More info can be found at: http://icab.de/
2. WaMCom - Web and Mail Communicator. Mozilla ended official support for OS9 with the release of version 1.3. However, the OSX-only features in Mozilla 1.3 were minimal, and did not prevent one developer from building an OS9-capable browser based on version 1.3 code. This hack of Mozilla 1.3 is called the Web and Mail Communicator, or WaMCom for short. Former Netscape users will find themselves right at home using WaMCom (the final OS9 version of Netscape, version 7.0.2, was based on Mozilla 1.0), as Netscape 6 and 7 were the result of the opening of the source code in 1998 and the resulting Mozilla project. I've actually got this running on a friend's old iMac, and she is very pleased with its performance, both as a web browser and as an Email Client (she's managing her Comcast account with the mail portion of Mozilla). Info on WaMCom is found: http://wamcom.org/
We'll meet again in February and March at the Panera Bread Store in Joliet, Rt. 59 and Caton Farm Rd. First Monday of each month at 6:30pm in the general dining area, probably in the cushy chairs straight inside the main entrance if they are available. Our next general meeting and presentation is tentatively scheduled for the second Monday in April. More info on that as time approaches. In the meantime, stay warm and stay safe.
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Kishore does Macworld!
January 15, 2008 20:34
Our very own Kishore Rao was privileged to be in
attendance at this year's keynote address by
Steve Jobs at Macworld in San Francisco. Kishore
uploaded some pictures from the event to a Web
Gallery (a feature of .Mac) and has invited
everyone to take a peek. Here's the link:
http://gallery.mac.com/kcrao1#100067
http://gallery.mac.com/kcrao1#100067
The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry
January 11, 2008 23:45
Wired.com has an excellent article about the evolution of the iPhone, and the effect is has had on the wireless industry. A bit long (4 pages), but a very interesting read. Time well spent, I promise:
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/16-02/ff_iphone