LAUG 2.0 News

Yeah, Macs can be very, very annoying, sometimes. Especially when the annoying thing is a bug in Apple’s own Safari web browser. Even worse, when this bug occurs, the resulting error dialog is inaccurate, blames the user for the error, and is about as non-helpful as an error dialog could be. It is, to summarize, about as un-Mac-like as it could be.

This error is the result of a real situation that any web surfer runs into on ocassion: sometimes a server is just plain busy, and rather the rejecting the connection entirely, it sends partial data and then gives up. When this happens, you can usually just hit “reload” and the page will then load just fine.

Anyway, click here to view the offending error:

The worst Mac error

Let’s pick this horrid error message apart, a line at a time.

Safari can’t open the page “http://support.apple.com/batteryprogram”

This is the most accurate part of the error message.

The error was: “lost network connection” (NSURLErrorDomain:-1005)

An overly technical explaination that is meaningless to the average user and doesn’t really explain what happened. The error code only adds insult to injury.

Please choose Report Bug to Apple from the Safari menu

The user has just been told that an error occured. Rather then be given tips on solving the error or an explaination of what is going on, they are instructed to stop what they are doing and contact Apple to report the error. Very unfriendly, especailly given that this is not a bug in Safari, and reporting it to Apple is a waste of everyone’s time.

Of course, Safari’s inability to properly handle dropped HTTP server connections is indeed a bug. Maybe if everyone who saw this stupid error dialog reported it as such to Apple, they’d fix it, right? Or at least improve the error message…

“Note the error number and what you did before you saw this message.”

“Well, I jacked the flux capicitor up to 48 gigawatts and set the phase dilation matrix to 110% of nominal.”

Really, I clicked on a link on a web page. You know, like every user in the history of Safari who has stumbled across this dumb message.

I don’t want to be accused of simply whining, so in that spirit, here are two ways Apple could handle this common and predictable situation (dropped HTTP connection).

The easy way

Just change the error message to actually be informative and useful:

Safari can’t open the page http://support.apple.com/batteryprogram. This often happens when the web site you are trying to visit is very busy. Please click “Try again” to try to open the page again. If this problem still occurs you may wish to wait a few minutes and try the site later.

Follow by two buttons: “Try again” and “Back to previous page” (or something like that).

This error message clearly tells the user what happened in non techie detail, and gives two logical and helpful suggestions for what to do next.

The hard way

Considering that the usual reason for these errors is a busy or slow server on the other end, Apple should have Safari automatically retry the connection when this error is encountered, ideally without the user even seeing what is going on. They could provide a preference in Safari’s advanced settings to control this behavior, giving the user the option to turn on or off “automatic busy site reconnection” (or whatever Apple calls it) and setting the maximum number of retries before giving up (I would set a hard maximum of 5 or 10, to avoid turning Safari into a DoS tool.)

(this post cross-posted to my own blog at mikesilverman.com

by Chuck Toporek

This is not a beginners book. If you are looking for a book that explains how to double click or what an icon is, look elsewhere. The primary audience for this book is someone who is familiar with the Mac and wants to learn all the tips, tricks, and idiosyncricies of Tiger. This is the type of book someone working in a computer lab or at a help desk would turn to when you need a quick answer to a question. Every IT department should have a copy of this book available.

One of the greatest aspects of the book is Toporek’s tables of keyboard shortcuts in every section. I generally like keeping my hands on the keyboard and every time I move to the mouse, time is wasted. If there is a way to do something, anything on the keyboard in Tiger, Toporek tells you. I found myself writing little post-it notes of shortcuts I never knew and now can’t live without.

The book is extremely comprehensive, not just covering the Finder, but also applications and utilities, Unix, networking, and troubleshooting.

If I had to pick one book to be stranded on a dessert island with (of course that island would need wireless internet and electricity) it would be this book. I can’t think of a real world question this book couldn’t answer. Many of the sections were in a “How do I ” style like “Change password for User Account?” or “Share a USB Printer over an Ethernet Network.” Being a real world Tiger user, I can’t think of a single question this book doesn’t answer. I also found it handy when there were things I heard about in Tiger, but couldn’t remember where they were or how to use them. For example, I know there’s a program that will take pictures of the screen, but can’t remember where it is. I can’t search help if I don’t know what I’m looking for. A quick flip through the Applications and Utilities section in the book helped me find what I was looking for.

This is not a tutorial book. Toporek states the “how to” do something without actually walking you through it and doesn’t explain why he’s telling you to do something. I like to think of this as a recipe book for using Tiger. Follow the recipe exactly and you’ll be fine, but don’t expect to be told why you must preheat the oven or make sure to temper the eggs when making custard.

I highly recommend this book for a intermediate Mac user who would rather look something up in a book then search for the answers in Google or call their tech savvy friends. I went out and bought one personally for myself I liked it so much!

Pros: Efficient and straightforward guide on how to use Tiger efficiently and effectively.
Cons: Not for the intro user, if you are looking for a bunch of pretty pictures and hand-holding–go elsewhere.

5 out of 5 dogcows
5 out of 5 dog cows

Follow this link to purchase the book on Amazon:
Mac OS X Tiger Pocket Guide (Pocket References)

Pity the mighty dinosaur. You were there first, you are bigger, stronger and older then those pesky little mammals scuttling around your feet, but it seems like all anyone wants to talk about is how cool it is to give birth to live young and how exciting that new lactation feature is. The world of computer software is not quite as red in tooth and claw as the Jurassic, but software (no matter how “intelligently designed”) evolves as surely as does natural life, and many ancient dinosaurs of Mac-kind continue to plod on in a world that is several ice ages and a comet impact different from the world in which they were initially released a decade or more ago.

“Dinosaur” Mac applications are not “abandonware” or useless. All the applications I will discuss are professional applications that are still supported and developed, and have many thousands of loyal users. Each one of them is still a real-world solution. Still, they all have seen their moment in the sun pass, as the changing nature of the Mac market, new competitors, OS upgrades, and the cruel passage of time have knocked many of these grand old applications from their former pre-eminence. Among these grandfathers of Macdom are Qualcomm’s Eudora, Extensis’s Portfolio, Bare Bones’ BBEdit, Netopia’s Timbuktu, and EMC’s Retrospect.

Each of these products is still actively developed. All of them run on OS X, and several are already Universal Binaries, running natively on Intel Macs. They all have engineers fixing bugs and working on new versions, and each product can be purchased right now. Every one of these applications was once the undisputed champion (and in some cases founder) of entire Mac software genres with life-spans well over a decade and heritages dating back to the old “classic” MacOS days.

Although these Mac applications all do different tasks, ranging from remote control to data backup, they all share many features in common (scaly skin, anyone?) “Dinosaur” apps generally feature very “old-school” user interfaces that pre-date OS X, have very powerful but complex feature sets, can be intimidating for beginners, and enjoy a rabidly loyal (if declining) user base. These apps also tend to be priced somewhat higher then their competitors, often as a legacy of the “old days” when they could claim a premium price as the founder of a new market segment.

Qualcomm’s Eudora is one of the grandfathers of email on the Mac. The first version came out in the early 1990s and Eudora has evolved through many revisions since. Geeks love it for its very powerful customization features; you can literally tweak hundreds of obscure options. Eudora is also very fast and has a powerful filtering mechanism. Yet Eudora is missing many modern email features. It doesn’t handle HTML email, has poor built-in SPAM filtering, and doesn’t take advantage of any modern MacOS features such as Spotlight. In spite of these flaws, Eudora still has a loyal cadre of users who are sticking with this mature product in the hope of upgrades to come. In an era when the capable Mail.app is free with every copy of the OS, Eudora has some major work ahead of it in order to stay relevant in the modern age.

The Mac has always been the favorite of creative users such as photographers and designers. Extensis’s media asset application, Portfolio, was one of the first products of its type, allowing users to catalog their collection of digital assets such as photos, illustrations, and clip art. Stuffed with an amazing and powerful suite of image categorizations tools and output options, Portfolio has managed to maintain a loyal user base and continue with a steady upgrade cycle through the years. Extensis will have to maintain this innovation in the future, as (in a common scenario for all the applications covered here) Apple has muscled in on their user base, with programs like Aperture, designed specifically for pro photographers. Still, Extensis is fighting back, with new features and a Universal version that may keep this dinosaur alive even as the mammals take over.

BBEdit is a humble text editor, beloved by programmers, scripters, and HTML jockeys everywhere. It has the level of power you expect in professional application and a feature list to match. BBEdit is renown for its extensive library of text manipulation tools and support for many common scripting and programing languages, but it has faced some serious competition in recent years from both a new generation of powerful OS X shareware applications such as TextMate and free editors. In addition, like many of it dinosaur peers, BBEdit’s user interface is very “old school” and doesn’t take advantage of much of the modern look and feel of OS X. Still, BBEdit has fought back, with aggressive support for some new OS X technologies, and Bare Bones has created a stripped-down free version (called Text Wrangler) to both head off the more inexpensive competition and addict a new generation of text fiends. BBEdit’s future looks good, and its legion of fans will likely be happy for years to come.

Netopia’s Timbuktu was the very first application that let you take control of a faraway Mac from the comfort of your local desktop. Over the years, Timbuktu has gathered a loyal base of users including system administrators, consultants, and road warriors. Although Timbuktu has been kept up-to-date (the latest version is a universal binary and features optional integration with the popular Skype application) it has faced some new and stiff competition over the years, and its powerful features are wrapped in a somewhat dated user interface. In a familiar refrain, Apple itself has taken a bite out of Timbuktu by offering its own remote control program, and several smaller, more inexpensive competitors (including the free open-source VNC) are busy scurrying around Timbuktu’s large scaly feet. Timbuktu has kept fresh by adding new speed and security features that its competitors have not matched, and has hung on to a solid user base, but as Apple and others continue to make remote controlling another computer ubiquitous, Timbuktu will need to evolve right along with them.

Backing up has always been a necessity of computing, and EMC’s Retrospect is one of the longest-lived Mac backup applications. It remains the only enterprise-class Mac backup option, and its ability to do cumulative backups to a wide variety of media types is unparalleled. Still (and stop if this sounds familiar) they are threatened by both a slew of new OS X-only competitors, and Apple themselves has added backup to the MacOS, reducing Retrospect’s market even further. Retrospect also suffers from a very complex user interface, and has been somewhat slow to support new OS technology, such as modern file metadata. Nonetheless, Retrospect is pretty secure for a big old reptile, given that its enterprise-level support (such as being apple to back up to tape drives) is not matched by any other native Mac software. With a Universal version on its way, this dinosaur should be roaming the Earth for a while to come.

There are more dinosaur applications around then these five. Roxio’s Toast used to be the only way to burn optical media on a Mac, something that the Finder and most Apple applications can now do themselves. Extensis’s Fusion (previously Suitcase) was an essential font manager, until the OS began to come with built-in font management. Equilibrium’s DeBebelizer once was the only way to convert graphics between different formats, a function now handled by Preview. As we’ve seen, no matter what ecosystem a dino has evolved in, several things are working against it, including competition for mindshare and marketshare from Apple and others, as well as expensive price points and dated user interfaces. Nonetheless, all these dinosaurs, unlike their biological counterparts, are likely to survive. Loyal user bases and ongoing engineering efforts will likely keep all of these applications going for years to come as they hopefully find new users in the fast-changing world of the Macintosh.

I am here in San Francisco for Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. There are over 4800 Mac geeks stuffed into one building in downtown San Francisco to learn about the latest MacOS hardware and technology. The WWDC used to be aimed primarily at Mac programmers, but in recent years it has expanded to be a learning experience for IT administrators, scripters and other technically-inclined people. Apple made two majot announcements today: Steve Jobs, with his usual theatrical flair announced the new Mac Pro desktop system, which is basically a very fast Intel-based Mac in an old (but slightly re-jiggered) g5 enclosure. In addition to the new Mac Pro, Jobs introduced a new Intel-based xServe server, and he also took (partial) wraps off of the much-anticipated MacOS 10.5, Leopard.

I’ve learned a lot about the new OS which I cannot share with you, due to Apple’s legal requirements, but there is still plenty of new information on the OS which Apple has made public. You will definitely want to go to Apple’s web site to see the demoes and read about all the new features in detail, but I will share my initial thoughts on a few of the highlights.

The big “cool” new feature is built-in, automatic backup, called “Time Machine.” Time Machine lets you restore your entire system, or an individual file from any point in the past, through a really cool interface which looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. The only requirement is that you have an extra hard disk to back up to, such as an external firewire drive. If you went to the LAUG meeting last month, you learned about how important backing up is, but also how confusing it can be. If Time Machine works as advertised, backing up will be automatic and easy, and millions of Mac users will be able to rest a bit easier. And no, as hard as Apple engineers worked, Time Machine can only go into the past, you can’t yet travel into the future!

A couple other cool new features and improvements are a major upgrade to iChat which gives those with video cameras many new options to share presentations and videos, and a much faster and more advanced Spotlight. Apple also has built in virtual desktops, which will allow you to “switch” from one desktop to another as you move between applications. In effect this gives you a monitor that is four times bigger then its physical size!

However, in my opinion, some of Apple’s new stuff for Leopard isn’t quite as exciting as Time Machine. In fact, I was very disappointed that Apple made no improvements to the Finder, which is one of the weakest part of the Mac. Apple also added some fairly silly features to Mail without apparently fixing Mail’s many flaws. You can now have to do lists in Mail and send attractive HTML email messages easily, but there’s no sign that Mail’s horrible Spam filtering or clumsy user interface has seen any improvements.

Still, I am eagerly looking forward to seeing Leopard become more polished as it heads towards release. The new OS is certainly a step forward from Tiger in many areas and anyone using a Mac can look forward to it when it ships next Spring.