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This article first appeared in the September 1998 issue of the Louisville Computer News. It was written by Lee Larson.
One of the frustrating things about being an unWindowed person in a Windows-centric world is that we're always fighting the perception that there's little software available for the Mac. Actually, there's quite a bit, but you wouldn't know it by glancing at the shelves in local stores. But looks can be deceiving! If you take a closer look at many of the packages in the Windows section, you'll see that they're actually cross platform. Especially with games, there's a big sticker on the front of the box telling you it's compatible with Windows 95, and small print on the side telling you about Mac requirements.
Sometimes it's even more stealthy. For example, last Christmas when I went to buy Riven as a gift, the local computer megamart didn't have any Mac boxes left. I bought the Windows version because I knew the only difference between them was the box. It ran fine. I'm sure the store counted it as one more Windows sale, but I made sure the registration card said otherwise.
It is certainly true that there's more software available for Windows, but the question is whether this glut of Windows software is relevant.
Microsoft owns the market for "productivity software." Both Mac and Windows users choose Word more than three-fourths of the time when buying a new word processor. Excel owns an even higher percentage of the market for spreadsheets. The files, and even the macros, can be used on either platform. There are other word processors and spreadsheets for both the Mac and Windows, but they are all increasingly being extinguished or driven into niche markets by Microsoft's dominance. So, no matter which operating system you choose, it's likely you'll be using Word or Excel.
In the graphics and publishing area, the 800-pound gorilla is Adobe. Its suite of products, including Photoshop, Illustrator and PageMaker, are all cross-platform and all work pretty much the same in either operating system. The major competitors such as Macromedia Freehand, CorelDraw, Quark XPress and Deneba Canvas are all cross platform. However, there's no doubt that in this area the Mac is dominant. Polling the crowd at local Art Software Group meetings you quickly see that most attendees are Mac users.
In communications, Eudora is the fastest selling email client for both platforms, while Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer are the only relevant browsers, and they're all cross-platform.
The only major area where Windows users clearly have an advantage is in games. That's not to say there are no games for the Mac. There are many good games. But, the cutting edge of PC gaming is on Windows.
Apple is much to blame for this. Back in the early days of the Mac, Apple was heavily competing with the IBM PC for the hearts and minds of big business, and they wanted to remove any frivolous toy images from the Macintosh. To do this, they discouraged game developers. The gamers migrated over to MS-DOS, and they've been there ever since.
Because of the lack of local outlets, most long-time Mac users have grown used to buying from catalogs. The big mail order companies like MacWarehouse, MacZone and MacMall promise overnight shipping, discount prices and the latest versions of the most popular software. For many people, this is all that's needed.
This approach breaks down when you need something a little out of the ordinary. The mail order giants make much of their money by selling advertising in those glossy catalogs. That's why you see big ads for the products from deep pockets companies like Adobe and Apple, and nary a mention of quality products from smaller companies like Deneba, Nisus Software and Casady & Greene.
Apple is well aware of the perception that there's no software for Macs. Much of their advertising touts the "14,000 Macintosh software packages now available" and the "400 new software titles introduced for the iMac." Knowing this is small comfort for the Mac user in a Windows desert who wants to find some specialized software.
The Macintosh Products Guide (http://macsoftware.apple.com/) is a new web site from Apple designed to help solve such problems. It's a comprehensive database of over 12,000 Macintosh software and hardware products. Product developers can enter their wares into the Guide, and Apple has a team to search out other products and make sure the Guide is accurate. Many of the products have links to places where you can buy them immediately.
Miscellaneous Notes
There was a big to-do in the press recently about security holes found in some popular email programs. Windows versions of Outlook Express, Netscape Communicator and Eudora Pro have a possible hole caused by improper handling of email enclosures with long file names. Although it certainly wasn't clear from the press reports, apparently the Mac versions are immune. In fact, the problem with the Windows versions seemed more hypothetical than real because reports of someone actually exploiting the hole couldn't be found.
During the last month I've gotten questions from two people who are converting their home networks from LocalTalk to EtherTalk and are wondering how to keep using their older LocalTalk laser printers. There are both software and hardware solutions to this problem.
The software solution is free. There's a small Control Panel from Apple called LaserWriter Bridge. The idea is that if you have a LaserWriter plugged into the LocalTalk port on a Mac which is connected to your EtherTalk network, the Mac will act as a bridge between the two networks. The LaserWriter will show up in the Chooser of all the Macs on the EtherTalk network. To get it, look for the file LT and LW Bridge 2.1.sea at Apple's software update site. Since it's a little hard to find, here's the the URL in its entire glory ftp://ftphqx.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/US/Macintosh/Networking-Communications/Other_N-C/LT_and_LW_Bridge_2.1.sea.hqx.
There are several companies which sell dedicated hardware to do the same thing. I use a device called the Shiva EtherPrint II to advertise my PhoneNet devices to the Ethernet side. It lets my LocalTalk laser printer and PowerBook 180 work on both networks from the PhoneNet side. In particular, it lets shared disks show up on either side of the EtherPrint, which LaserWriter Bridge does not.
The freeware program SoundApp 2.5.1 was recently released. SoundApp is the Swiss Army Knife of Macintosh sound programs. It can play back sound files in over three dozen different formats, including nearly every sound file found on the Web. It belongs in the arsenal of every serious websurfer. SoundApp can be found at http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~franke/SoundApp/.
Several interesting updates appeared recently at the Apple Software Updates site (http://swupdates.info.apple.com).
AppleShare/IP is a great advance for AppleShare because it is faster that traditional AppleTalk-based AppleShare and allows file sharing connections over the Internet. But, the AppleShare/IP compatible client had the annoying problem that aliases of volumes reverted to ordinary AppleShare connections instead of AppleShare/IP connections, if both types of connections were available. The new AppleShare Client 3.8 fixes this problem, as well as several other annoyances having to do with multiple monitors. This release works with Macintosh System 7.6 or later on both English and international systems. It also works well with the Netatalk freeware AppleShare/IP file server for Unix (ftp://ftp.u.washington.edu/public/asun/).
AppleShare Memory Manager INIT Extension 1.0 resolves a problem that causes an AppleShare IP server to freeze. This problem, which has been reported to occur most often when Retrospect is running on an AppleShare IP server, can affect any AppleShare IP 5.0.x or 6.0 server running Macintosh System 7.6, 7.6.1, 8.0, or 8.1.
QuickTime 3.0.2 is a maintenance release that addresses minor issues mainly related to third-party QuickTime applications. The changes include improvements to the AVI importer and text importer, and moderate playback performance enhancements.
From the tinkerers at Apple has come the third major release of MkLinux, a free Linux for PowerMacs. DR3 includes support for more PowerPC based Macintoshes than before. In addition to the early PowerMacs (6100, 7100, 8100) and first- generation PCI systems (7200, 7500, 7600, 8500, 9500), DR3 also runs on the second-generation PCI systems (7300, 8600, 9600), a few PowerBooks (3400, early G3), and even a few of the later Performas. It will even run, to a limited extent, on the latest G3 Desktops, Mini-towers, and PowerBooks. A more complete compatibility listing and the whole install set (178 megabytes!) are available at the official MkLinux site (http://www.mklinux.apple.com).
Louisville Computer Society
The topic of the September 28 meeting of the Louisville Computer Society was not available at the time this was written. However the October 26 meeting will have a demonstration by Apple of the new iMac and Mac OS 8.5.
The Louisville Computer Society meets on the fourth Monday evening of every month at 7:00 PM in the East Government Center on Juneau Drive in Middletown. For more information, see their web site at http://www.aye.net/~lcs, or e-mail lcs@aye.net.
Art Software Group
The Art Software Group is hosting a special presentation of the pending Mac OS 8.5 on September 26. Greg Wilmore of Apple Computer will have a late pre-release of the software to show off its new features. The Art Software Group meets at 1:00 PM in the Natural Science lecture hall at the University of Louisville. More information can be had from their web site at http://www.aol.nu or by calling Randy Jarnigan at (502)895-3811.
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