HMS Newsletter 4.1-2

July 1994

In this newsletter your editor asks for your help in not letting HMS die,
offers several reviews of software which make your Macintosh easier to use,
and speculates about the forthcoming version 6 of Microsoft Word.

A plea from your editor

As all of you know, the incomparable Joe Coohill left for England
at the end of last summer. While the conversion to the format of an
electronic newsletter has taken place without problems, Joe's new
commitment to his Ph.D. program has made it very difficult for him to
continue the level of his past involvment. I continue to review utilities
and word processing software for the Macintosh (as well as being the HMS
representative to Apple) but because of my own professional commitments I
myself cannot do much more than that, which severely limits the scope and
usefulness of our newsletter. In addition, I will be leaving the U.S. in
early September to spend next year in France, which will probably reduce my
access to the latest software and news. If HMS is to survive, it is thus
crucial for the newsletter to become much more of a communal effort than it
has previously. It is not difficult or too time-consuming to assemble
individual articles into a newsletter, especially given our new format, but
anyone who has found interesting applications of the Macintosh to the
humanities and social sciences are encouraged to submit articles.

Macintosh Utilities

Redux 2.0.1 (current version is 2.5).

Although many of you have yet to lose precious information from
your hard disks, soon or later it will happen. The easiest and safest way
for you to protect yourself from this eventuality is to make copies of much
or all of the data which resides on your hard disk, a process called
"backing up." Floppies are unfortunately not very convenient, because they
are so slow and hold very little data compared to the capacities of today's
hard disks. It is best to use an external tape drive, SyQuest, Bernouilli,
optical, or external hard drive. Until fairly recently I used as a backup
unit an external 52 megabyte hard drive and copied more or less the entire
contents of my PowerBook's hard disk simply by dragging files from one
drive to the other. Not only is this slow, but it wastes time because it
replaces files whether they have been changed or not. A backup utility
program offers a much more convenient way to make copies of your important
files. Redux Deluxe, formerly marketed by Inline Software which has now
become part of Focus Enhancements, can simplify and automate this process.
Redux is much faster than the Finder at copying (furthermore, it can
compress files so that they occupy less space). You can schedule your
backups at a specific time or date, a very important feature. It allows you
to easily specify what you want backed up, can preserve old versions of a
file, and also preserve a copy of a file after it has been deleted from
your hard disk (this is called "anchoring," since backup programs generally
try to make one storage device a mirror of another). While Redux doesn't
have all of the sophistication of a professional backup utility such as
Retrospect, it is much less expensive and better-suited to our needs for
simplicity.

Street price: about $50

PopUpFolder 1.0.1

In the HMS newsletter 3.3 I reviewed two utilities which give Mac
users easier access to their files and programs by making the Apple Menu
hierarchical (NowMenus and Kiwi PowerMenus, the commercial successor to
BeHierarchic). Another such utility, much less invasive than NowMenus, yet
which allows the user to insert separator lines for greater readability and
rearrange the menu simply by dragging, is TheBigApple, only available as
"bookware" included with Sharon Zardetto Aker's Book, "Xtras for System 7."
However, PopUp Folder (also from Inline Software) completely changes the
manner in which we access files when in the Finder's folder view: the
folder icons are displayed with a small downward-pointed triangle in the
lower right-hand corner, and clicking and holding the cursor on this
triangle causes a hierarchical menu to appear, thus giving direct access to
all of a folder's contents without requiring the user to double-click
through different levels of windows. Files can be dragged over a folder and
"dropped" into folders appearing in the popup menu, but unfortunately not
onto applications. In addition, PopUp Folder makes navigating through
Open/Save dialog boxes much easier since folders appearing there also have
popup menus which allow you to go directly to where you want. Finally,
PopUpFolder offers a basic hierarchical Apple menu function. I highly
recommend this utility. (NB: CompuServe users can investigate the free
Dragondrop, which will be reborn as a module in the upcoming Now Utilities
5.0).

Street price: about $35.

RAMDoubler 1.0.3a

This year's hottest utility has to be RAMDoubler from Connectix.
Once you install RAMDoubler, you will find that your machine offers twice
as much RAM-virtually speaking. This means that your RAMDoubler tricks your
Macintosh into thinking that it has more physical memory than it actually
has. While Macintoshes with 68030 processors or higher already offer
virtual memory, System 7's method of simulating more memory uses the hard
disk, which slows down the computer considerably. RAMDoubler uses a
combination of RAM compression and free space reallocation, only using the
hard disk as a last resort. There are a few catches: first, RAMDoubler will
only run on a Macintosh with a 68030 processor or higher (thus Classic IIs
and LC IIs are the least expensive Macs on which it will run). Second, it
runs best if you already have eigh megabytes of RAM, since this insures
that the hard disk will not be used (but four megabytes are possible).
Finally, RAMDoubler will not work if you try to launch a single program
which requires more RAM than you actually have- it is designed for
situations where you want to run several small- to medium-sized programs,
each of which fits alone in the physical memory available on your
Macintosh. RAMDoubler has surprisingly few conflicts with other extensions,
slows your computer by only 3-5%, and is essential for PowerBooks such as
the 140 and 170 which cannot accommodate more than eight megabytes of
physical RAM (it will not run on the PowerBook 100 which is 68000-based).

Street price: $55

Apple Personal Diagnostics 1.0

In the HMS Newsletter 3.3 I reviewed two diagnostic programs for
the Macintosh, MacEKG and Snooper (now discontinued). Readers may recall
that each program had a different approach to detecting problems. MacEKG is
installed as a control panel and can be set to run on startup or shutdown
daily, weekly, or monthly; it keeps track of different performance
parameters and sounds an alarm when any of them deviate significantly from
previous figures (the threshold can be set). Snooper is a stand-alone
program which can be set to run in "loops," thus repeating the same tests
many times in order to flush out intermittent problems. Apple's Personal
Diagnostics program began as a freeware program called MacCheck which was
available on ftp.apple.com. MacCheck performed basic hardware tests once
and some novel tests on the system file to detect some common problems
there; it was discontinued by Apple rather quickly because it caused too
many people to call Apple's customer support services with questions about
the information that it was providing. MacCheck has been reincarnated as
Apple Personal Diagnostics which bridges the gap between MacEKG and
Snooper: it can be set to run automatically, and can also repeat specific
or all tests as many times as necessary. APD will also compare the speed of
your Macintosh to certain models (the MacPlus II, IIfx, Quadra 700 and
950). Finally, it will give fairly detailed information about the files
installed in your system folder (although not as detailed as MacCheck) and
check the folder for its integrity.

Although Apple Personal Diagnostics is definitely a useful program,
it is a bit expensive (almost $100) for the moderately-experienced
Macintosh non-professional user- for whom it is obviously destined since
the information it provides is not as detailed as that of third-party
diagnostic programs. It does offer the security of being designed by Apple,
so that problems detected by APD could be provided as credible evidence to
Apple that one's Macintosh is indeed performing badly. I would recommend
purchasing APD if it is bundled with another program at an attractive
price. Strangely enough, the current version (1.0) of APD does not support
PowerMacs, although version 1.1 is supposed to.

Street price: $95-$100.

Now Up-to-Date 2.1.1, Now Contact 1.0.1, Dynodex 3.5

Until recently I thought that using an appointment book / events
calendar program on a computer was for people who sought the most
complicated solutions to simple problems. However, now that I have
discovered the power, simplicity, and flexibility of Now Up-to-Date, I
cannot go back to my agenda. NUD offers a variety of different views by
year, month, week, and "multi-day," and entering events is as easy as
typing in a chosen day on the calendar grid. These can be categorized and
given priorities at will, but specifying the event types "To-Do",
"Special," and "Appointment" suffices for me (there are also notes,
holidays, and banners). "To-Dos" advance automatically day by day until
completed (although this can be disabled), and events in general can be
made to repeat at chosen intervals (weekly, monthly, on every Tuesday,
etc.). NUD can be set to remind you of different events in advance and list
commitments in your menu bar, but this of course requires that your
computer also be running in advance! As is also the case for Dynodex and
Touchbase Pro, NUD can work in tandem with a complementary contacts
database, in this case NowContact, so that appointments can be tied to
contacts (both programs share information so that clicking on a contact in
NowContact brings up a list of events associated with that person, and
clicking on an event in NUD shows the people associated with that event).
NUD can print calendars in a variety of formats, and it is even networkable
so that calendars can be shared and reconciled amongst users on a network.

Now Contact is the full-featured cousin of Now Up-to-Date, although
it has only recently appeared on the market. It is a contact manager based
on the dual "list view" and "detail view" approach. Dynodex 3.0, reviewed
in the HMS newsletter 3.3, offer both views simultaneously. Just as is true
for NUD, the ability to customize both views in NowContact is nothing short
of amazing. Names, phone numbers, and addresses can be modified directly in
the list view, and sorted (using up to five columns) and rearranged by
dragging. Dynodex 3.5 also allows rearrangement by dragging, but it can
only sort on one column. In its detail view, NowContact offers fields for
two addresses, a capability sorely lacking in Dynodex. NowContact allows
documents to be "attached" to contacts; clicking on the document as listed
will open the document in the program that created it. Both NowContact and
Dynodex offer an extension which displays an always-accessible icon in the
menu bar; clicking on it will list chosen contacts. Both have incorporated
simple word-processors and mail-merge functions, as well as the ability to
print envelopes and address books. In general, NowContact is more flexible
and powerful, yet Dynodex offers one very convenient feature absent from
NowContact: allowing the user to type the first few letters of a contact's
name in order to scroll to locate him or her when in list view. Hopefully
this will be added in a future version of NowContact. Dynodex works with
Calendar and Notepad (not reviewed here). While I do remain fond of
Dynodex, NowContact/Now Up-to-Date is a stronger combination than Dynodex /
Calendar.

Now Contact / Now Up-to-Date bundle $90
Now Up-to-Date separately, $65
Now Contact separately, $65
Dynodex 3.5, $45

NB. The best contact manager / calendar / notes program is included with
the Apple Newton MessagePad 110 ($600).

High-end Word Processing on the Macintosh

In the HMS newsletter 3.4 I reviewed WordPerfect 3.0, and in spite
of some very nice features, I still preferred Microsoft Word 5.1a.
WordPerfect 3.0 was WordPerfect's rather late answer to Word 5.
Nevertheless, WordPerfect Corporation had the immense merit of releasing a
native version of WordPerfect 3.0 almost simultaneously with the new
PowerMacs. WordPerfect 3.1 has even been announced for late this summer or
early Fall, with support for new System 7.5 features such as Drag-and-drop,
AppleHelp, and QuickDraw GX. On the other hand, MacWeek has been filled
with reports and angry letters about the lack of native Microsoft software,
leading many to suppose that the delay was an effort on Microsoft's part to
sabotage the success of the PowerMacintosh (since some major corporations
refused to buy PowerMacs until Excel and Word were available in "native"
versions- of course, because of their particular design, they ran
particularly slowly in emulated mode on the PowerMacs). Regardless of the
reasons for the delay, Microsoft will soon be upping the ante with the
long-awaited Word 6, most probably due this August. MacWeek recently
reported that Word 6 will have heavy RAM and hardware requirements- nothing
less than a 68020-based Macintosh (Macintosh II or LC minimum), 20
megabytes of disk space for a full install (although 10 would probably
suffice for many cases), and 3 to 4 megabytes of free RAM just for Word. As
is already true for Excel 4.0, Word 6 will be based on a "core-code"
approach, meaning it shares much of its programming code with Word 6 for
Windows, which has been available for 6 months already. It is safe to say
that like Excel 4 for the Macintosh and Windows, Word 6 for the Mac will be
extremely similar to its Windows counterpart. A trip to your local computer
store to examine WinWord 6 will reveal a completely redesigned interface,
multiple customizable toolbars, macros, multiple "undos" (so that many
previous steps can be undone instead of just one), new support for large
files through "master documents," extensive cross-referencing, and
multiple-language spell-checking, zoom in and out, among other features.
The core-code approach currently excludes the support of Mac-specific
features such as Drag-and-Drop, although Word 6 will support Apple Events.

This is mostly good news for many of us who have been waiting for
such features since Word 4. The bad news is that WinWord 6 runs best on
fast 486-based machines; similarly, Word 6 for the Macintosh will probably
be slow on anything less than a Quadra. Of course, the least expensive
Quadra, the 605, costs half as much as the SE did, but for owners of older
Macs, Word 6 may require the purchase of a new Macintosh, preferably a
PowerMac on which it is rumored to run extremely well. You might also
invest in a good-sized monitor, since a PowerBook screen or 14" monitor is
a bare minimum for the new interface (owners of SE/30s with only a built-in
9" screen, forget it). One consolation is that if you purchase Word 5.1a
now, the upgrade to 6 is free, so that Word 4 owners could upgrade to Word
5 now, and eventually to Word 6 once you have acquired a new computer.

Word reading

For those who really want to use Word 5.1 to the fullest, Tonya
Engst's *The Word Book for Macintosh Users* (Hayden Books, $24.95) is
highly recommended. Until recently, Tonya worked for Microsoft as a Word
for the Macintosh technical support specialist, so she is highly qualified
to write such a book. *The Word Book,* while comprising 779 pages which
cover just about every conceivable application of Word, is made easily
readable by its well-spaced paragraphs, large print, and clear
explanations. A new edition for Word 6 is doubtless forthcoming.

A solution to bloated word processors?

WriteNow 4.0 occupies 350K of disk space and runs in as little as
400K of RAM. WriteNow will run on any Mac from the 512Ke or later and while
it is System 7-compatible, it only requires System 4.2 and Finder 6.0.
Lastly, WriteNow may be the last Mac word processor which can still run
from an 800K floppy disk!

In spite of these modest hardware requirements, version 4.0 of
WriteNow now even offers a table creator and editor (tables cannot exceed
one page in length, though), which has always been my primary reason for
remaining with Word. Creating or selecting a table brings up a convenient
floating tool palette to make all operations conveniently accessible.
Keeping the very well-designed paragraph and character styles of version
3.0, WriteNow 4 now has the ability to import EPS, PICT, or MacPaint files,
a color swatch palette to apply up to 88 colors and grays to a document,
PowerBook optimization (the program loads completely into RAM, offers a
battery life indicator, and can thicken the the cursor), and mail-merge
capabilities. WriteNow is very fast. Unlike Word 5, which gave up the
surprisingly rich, horizontally-laid-out WordFinder (tm) thesaurus for the
scant synonyms of the the current vertically-arranged Alki thesaurus,
WriteNow 4 still comes with a 1.4 million word Webster's thesaurus (and
includes a CorrectGrammar (tm) grammar checker). WriteNow may well offer
enough features for all but the most demanding users.

Street price: about $45

Late-breaking news: if you are looking for a database program for
note-taking or bibliographies, you might consider Panorama instead of
MacWrite Pro. Panorama has a current hot deal: you can buy it, normally
$245 from MacConnection, for $30 direct from ProVUE: (714) 892-8199 and
they'll accept a credit card. If you want to buy their Personal Information
Manager, called Power Team, that's another $20.

jmfarmer@students.wisc.edu

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Last Update: 9 April 95