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Random thought:

"Because it feels so good when I stop"

You remember the antique joke, of course. The straight line is "Why do you keep hitting yourself on the head with a hammer?" Sometimes I feel that way when I'm using by Apple iBook. There's a lot to like about the computer, but I don't much care for the company's pig-headed attitude that nothing Microsoft invents can be used on a Mac. Starting programs is a pain in the fist. I have to take my hands off the keyboard, find the mouse (if one is attached) or use the touchpad, navigate through several clicks to find the program I want to start.

Or I have to create a folder with aliases (shortcuts) the the programs I use the most. Or I have to cover the desktop with icons.

Microsoft's Start Menu is the obvious, logical solution, but Apple stubbornly refuses to admit that the folks in Redmond might have gotten something right. On a Windows PC, I don't have to remove my hands from the keyboard to start an application. The Windows key opens the Start Menu and the up/down/left/right buttons quickly navigate the available applications.

This no longer matters. Apple may not be able to admit that starting programs is a real drag on the Mac, but the lack of a Start Menu is no longer a problem for me. Pick up a copy of Aladdin Systems' Ten for X utilities suite and you can stop hitting yourself on the head with a hammer, too.

Ten for X actually doesn't contain 10 utilities. It contains 12 utilities. (That would be "10" in a base-12 numbering system. Which reminds me: There are only "10" kinds of people in the world -- those who understand binary and those who don't.)

Among the Ten for X applications is one that I've found to be indispensable (not that the others are exactly chicken liver). The LaunchBar gives me something that's even better than the Start Menu. In fact, I'm hoping that somebody writes a program like this for the PC.

To start an applications (BBEdit, for example) when the LaunchBar is loaded requires nothing more than pressing "Command-Spacebar, BB, Return." And better still is this: LaunchBar finds all the applications on the disk drive and then tries to figure out what keys you might want to use to start them.

The first time I tried to start BBEdit, the LaunchBar suggested a website that deals with Bluetooth. BBEdit was on the list, though, so all I had to do was press the down arrow a couple of times to highlight BBEdit, and press Return. The next time I wanted BBEdit, LaunchBar remembered that "BB" is the abbreviation I preferred for this program.

This application alone will be worth the price of admission for a lot of people. That price is $50, by the way, but there's a coupon inside for a $10 rebate.

If you need other reasons to buy this collection of utility applications, here they are:

• Alarm Clock SE: Place a transparent or opaque digital clock on your desktop (with or without seconds, standard or military time) and use it to schedule alarms. There's also a transparent calendar. Both the clock and the calendar can be toggled on and off.
• FruitMenu: This is a further indication of just how lame Apple's system of starting applications is. It's another attempt to make the existing menu system better. FruitMenu makes adding items to standard menus and special menus easy, but its real strength is in allowing users to modify the "contextual menu". This is menu that's activated by a right-click (if you defy Steve Jobs' allegation that Apple users aren't smart enough to use a mouse with more than a single button) or a Ctrl-click.
• Iclean: If you're concerned about history information, cached data, and cookies, iClean will help. This application is also included in another Aladdin suite, Spring Cleaning.
• PiPop: Yep, another effort to fix Apple's lack of a Start Menu. This one provides hierarchical menu that pops up automatically when the mouse cursor hits the left edge or right edge of the desktop. If you don't mind using the mouse to do what you should be able to do with the keyboard, this is a good choice.
• WindowShade: Apple's OS9 (and possibly earlier) had a clever capability that allowed active applications to be rolled up. With a quick mouse click, the user could shrink an application to just the title bar. With OSX, that capability is lost. Applications minimize to the dock. Those who liked the old "window shade" function miss it. WindowShade brings it back.
• Xsounds: I was never able to figure out how to make this work. It's supposed to add extra sounds, so it's more of a fun application than a work application. I know from experience with Windows that adding sounds is tricky. The sound that's clever when you first hear it begins to wear when you hear it 300 times a day.
• Pseudo: OSX is based on Unix, an operating system that can be made quite secure. Some functions must be run only by an "administrator". Those who know how to use the Unix command line can use the "su" command to temporarily "become" the root user, but a lot of Apple users have probably never seen a command line, much less a Unix command line. Pseudo takes care of this problem. (Or you can do what I do, in violation of every security protocol known: Make your standard user account the admin account.)
• And still there is more. ExecutiveSync helps insure that critical files will be archived, IdeaSpiral gives users a way to capture ideas, LimeWire is a file-sharing client, and PrintMagic provides more printer controls that let users fine-tune their printers.

Wow! What a bargain! The folks at Aladdin (best known for StuffIt) have put together a highly useful package. For more information, see http://www.aladdin.com/. My head feels better already!

"The problem is not in your set"

Ever get the feeling that some of the folks in tech support make things up as they go along? On Wednesday, when I had done absolutely nothing to change any hardware or software on the computer, one of my e-mail accounts at a high-speed on-line service named for a certain high-speed cartoon character stopped working. The error message I received indicated that the password had been rejected. I entered the password again and again it was rejected.

So I called support. "This call cannot be completed as dialed," the support number told me after I followed the path through the automated attendant. So I hung up and called the "special" number. Since I pay $70 per month for this service, I have better access to support. Within seconds, I had a technician.

"I can't send or receive e-mail on one of my Really Fast Cartoon Character e-mail accounts," I said, but I'm not having any trouble with the office e-mail account or with the accounts at my own domain. When I explained that I use a European e-mail program, the Really Fast Cartoon Character support person suggested that I try Outlook Express. I set up an account using Outlook Express and it got the same error message.

I have 3 e-mail accounts with the Really Fast Cartoon Character company and I was able to receive mail from 2 of the accounts, but I couldn't send mail because all 3 accounts use the company's SMTP server. I had already run a traceroute on both POP and SMTP servers, so I knew that connectivity was OK.

I explained that I use NOD32 antivirus software, which acts as a proxy server. "Disable that," he said.

"But," I protested, "nothing has changed and I'm able to receive mail from the office and from my own domain's mail server." I then disabled NOD32 and changed the my e-mail program to look at port 110 on the Really Fast Cartoon Character's POP server instead of another port on "localhost". No change. Password error.

"I'll reset the password," he said. "I keyed in the new password." Same thing. I could receive mail from two of the Really Fast Cartoon Character accounts and from the office and from my domain. The account I use to collect mail from a lot of sources just wasn't working.

"Bypass the router," he said, meaning that I would have to crawl behind the desk, unplug the modem cable from the router, and plug it into the computer. (I found a slightly better way to do that using a patch cable, but my office isn't set up to allow easy access to the backs of routers, hubs, and computers.) After rebooting the computer to obtain a new IP address, I tried retrieving mail again and received the same error message.

"Do you have any firewall software?" he asked. Of course I do. Every computer I've owned for the past several years has used Zone Alarm. "Nothing has changed," I said, "and keep in mind that I can retrieve mail from two other Really Fast Cartoon Character POP3 accounts. It's just this one account that I'm having trouble with."

"Well, you'll have to remove Zone Alarm," he said. "Microsoft doesn't recommend using that with Windows XP." (Of course Microsoft doesn't recommend it because Microsoft has its own lame attempt at a firewall built in. And we all know that Microsoft has an exemplary record when it comes to security.) I figured maybe I'd try that as a last resort. After dinner.

"And go to the Microsoft site," he said. "Get Internet Explorer 6 with Service Pack 1 and ..."

"I already have it," I interrupted. And with that, I was off to dinner. I planned to return and (grudgingly) remove Zone Alarm. My assumption was that I would still see the problem. Then I could call back and we could investigate wander down some other dead-end hallway and chase a few more wild geese. But that didn't happen.

When I returned, I decided to give it another try. The Bat's in-box began to fill. I tried sending a message and had no problem. So I restored the connection through the router and rebooted the computer. I let NOD32 start as usual. I let Zone Alarm start as usual. I returned to The Bat's setup page and restored the connection to "localhost" with an odd port number. I checked mail. It all worked again.

Like magic. Everything was back to normal. Trouble is, I don't believe in magic. At least, not when computers are involved.

The Really Fast Cartoon Character support person told me there had been no other calls about e-mail problems and I have no reason to doubt his word. But I also know that I didn't change anything on the computer before the problem started. And I certainly didn't change anything during dinner. I was eating and the cats don't have opposable thumbs (or the root password). And besides, they can't type very well. So the problem just "solved itself" during dinner. Even with today's smart computers, problems don't just solve themselves.

I have to think there was a problem of some sort with one of the Really Fast Cartoon Character's servers. At least that makes more sense than thinking the problem was my computer -- or the software on my computer -- or the TCPIP files on my computer -- or Zone Alarm -- or the antivirus program -- or the router. Particularly when only one account of the three on the same server had a problem. It's probably a good thing I didn't mention the cats during the support call, or that I use fluorescent lights in the fixtures. I'd probably now have a house full of dogs and candles.

It seems to me that if a customer can receive mail from 2 accounts on your server, can send and receive mail on an account that passes through a proxy-server antivirus program and uses port forwarding via SSH2, and can send and receive mail from another domain, that the problem would not reasonably be expected to be on the user's computer.

I sent an abbreviated summary of what happened to the Really Fast Cartoon Character support folks, who replied, "As you mentioned that it seems to work after dinner it suggests to me that it was anti-virus software. As some anti-virus programs reroute your messages through their servers to check for viruses, you can run into errors when their servers go down or experience glitches."

That explanation, unfortunately, overlooks two facts:

1. NOD32 never sends messages to its servers. Everything is handled internally on the computer.
2. The accounts that continued to work (including two at the Really Fast Cartoon Character) went through the same computer, the same antivirus software, the same firewall, the same cable, and the same router as the one that failed.

But what do I know? I'm just an end user? (Why I don't buy the explanation.)

PS ... Guess what!

Shortly after posting this page, I started to hear from other customers of the Really Fast Cartoon Character and they said they had similar problems on the same day. People with multiple accounts found that one or two of the accounts failed, while the others worked. One who got a little further up in the tech support food chain than I did was told that there was a problem and that the Really Fast Cartoon Character technicians were working on it.

The Really Fast Cartoon Character Company is part of the American Obnoxious Lunatics Company, associated with the Time of Your Life Publishing Company -- folks who are experts in communicating with the world. The first thing any company owes its customers is accuracy. I believe the technician I spoke to was not lying to me. He was probably telling me everything he knew. He said that he checked with a second-level technician, who reported "no problems", so the misinformation (disinformation?) may have started there.

Certainly the statement that "yours is the only call we've received on this problem" was incorrect. I'm reminded of an incident in 1969 or 1970. I was working for a radio station in Indiana. NASA was talking with astronauts who were walking on the moon. One of the radio station's engineers was trying (with little success) to install an intercom system between the newsroom and the air studio. The Really Fast Cartoon Character Company reminds me of that engineer.

Broads and computers?

"Everybody knows that women aren't very good when it comes to using technology." That's the way an interview with Tracy Wemett and Raychel Marcotte, the owners of Broad PR, started. Despite the name and the ownership, Broad PR does hire men, who are also known as "broads". And they use a lot of high-tech stuff. Successfully.

I wanted to chat with Tracy and Raychel about technology because public relations firms are much different than they used to be. Technology is an essential tool at most agencies. BroadPR was started by two "Broads" who wanted to offer their real-life corporate communications experience to companies. They also hoped to turn what was once a derogatory term into a positive one, with the idea that a broad range of services could be customized for a targeted group of clients.

Real Audio 3:54 q-beginning of next year.

Nerdly News

The browser wars may not be over just yet

It's still in (public) beta, but there's a new browser for the Mac. I'm looking at it and will have a more complete report for you next week, but I like what I've seen. If you have a Mac, but you're not yet running OS X, this is not the browser for you. If you are running OS X and you think that Internet Explorer for the Mac moves about as fast as a clump of sleeping cats on a cold winter night, stop by Apple's website (http://www.apple.com/) and download a copy of Safari.

This is the browser Netscape should have invented via its open-source Mozilla project. Safari is a product of KDE, one of the companies that makes graphical user interfaces for Linux computers. I've see KDE's Konqueror browser and usually felt that it was more victim than victor. Safari turns this around.

I downloaded a copy and hopped around from one site to another. The first thing I noticed was that that sites looked better in Safari than in any other browser on the Mac or PC. The next thing I noticed was how much faster Safari is than the Mac version of Internet Explorer. Javascript and other features seemed to work right. Safari interpreted cascading style sheets properly. While I need to spend more time with this browser to look for things that don't work, I think KDE has invented something quite remarkable.

In fact, I might start hoping that KDE would port this to Windows.

Copyright extended

The Supreme Court has upheld the 20-year extension that Congress granted to all existing copyrights in 1998. While the court said the law might be bad policy, Congress did not overstep its constitutional authority.

The 7-to-2 decision was exactly what publishers had hoped for. It's a huge victory for Hollywood studios that had lobbied for the extension.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion. Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen G. Breyer dissented.

Books, records, and films that would have become "public domain" materials had attracted the interest of companies that hoped to release many out-of-print items. Film studios have thousands of films that are not available anywhere because the studio believes there is no market for them. That would have changed if the copyrights had been allowed to expire as the original law specified.

The court noted that the extended term made the United States consistent with the copyright policy of the European Union.

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