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A MacHack perspective

MacHack is not your typical conference. Aside from having the keynote address start at midnight of the opening day (as just mentioned), it features all the free Jolt and Surge you care to drink, plus free pizza every night. Then there's the Bash Apple session, which was held last night (and which I also sadly had to miss due to time constraints), where the developers get to ask the attending representatives from Apple how Apple managed to screw things up so badly - all in good fun of course. You also get to hear real "geek speak" … Read more

From MacHack:

More Buster updates coming Open Transport 1.2 fixes several long-standing bugs I attended the first day of the MacHack developers conference yesterday. Unfortunately, I missed the keynote with Steve Wozniak - as it started at midnight the night before. However, shortly after my arrival in the morning, I had the pleasure to meet and talk with a couple of well-known shareware developers: Greg Landweber (of Kaleidoscope fame) and Jon Gotow (creator of Sleeper). I also managed to attend several sessions over the course of the day. For end user troubleshooting (the focus of MacFixIt after all!), one particularly noteworthy … Read more

Odds & Ends

a. Retrospect 4.0 fixes Apex problem We have already mentioned that Retrospect 4.0 is out. However, I neglected to mention that this new version fixes the problem Retrospect 3.0 had with Pinnacle Micro Apex optical drives - as covered here previously.

b. Favorite news site poll The Unofficial Macintosh PR Department is running a contest to determine the Mac community's favorite Mac news related site. It's titled, "Vote For Your Favorite Mac News Site."

c. Connectix VirtualPC I have now worked with Connectix' VirtualPC for several days. While I have not pushed it … Read more

Drive Setup: what drives does it really work with?

Last week, we described users having problems with FWB's HDT 2.0.6 on Power Computing clones and solving the problem by reformatting their disk with Apple's Drive Setup. This raised the issue as to exactly what drives will work with Drive Setup. Traditionally, Apple's drivers have only recognized Apple drives. Drive Setup also will work with most removable cartridge systems. But what about internal drives in clones?

The reply from Apple on this question was: "Drive Setup is intended to initialize all Apple qualified internal drives and some removables. It is possible that other drives … Read more

Kaleidoscope 1.7 is out! Fixes bugs previously reported here.

Kaleidoscope 1.7 is out. According to the press release, it fixes bugs ( as previously reported here) with: Global Village's FAX software, Wunderbar, Church Windows Microsoft applications, and The American Heritage Dictionary (version 3.0). It also fixes a bug with irregularly shaped scroll bar thumbs that was introduced in 1.6. And it works with Mac OS 8!

Epson Stylus Color 800 driver and system crashes: a follow-up

Regarding system crash and related problems with the new driver for the Epson Stylus Color 800 ( as reported last time), users continue to confirm these problems. However, as is common in these situations, not everyone who has the driver is complaining. Exactly what other extension(s) may be involved is particularly unclear. Here's a summary of what readers are saying:

The problem confirmed - although not necessarily involving TFI - and some possible fixes

a. Mark Surloff had the same problem as reported last time: a crash at startup after installing the driver and associated with Aladdin's StuffIt … Read more

MacHack this week

MacHack conference is this week from June 26-28. Self described as "The Annual Conference for Leading Edge Developers," Steve Wozniak will be this year's keynote speaker. The conference takes place in my "backyard" in Dearborn, MI. I will be at the conference for at least some of the sessions and will post some comments and reactions on the Late-Breakers page on Friday.

Odds & Ends

Internal clock freeze Lee Riggs had a problem where the internal clock of his Mac simply stopped. It did not revert back to some prior time - as happens when a battery fails. It simply stopped at the current time and never changed again - even after a restart. He says he spoke to the makers of Power Key Pro (which he uses) and they told him that they have seen this happen (whether or not you are using Power Key Pro) on "some" models of Mac if you unplug the Mac from its power source (i.e., … Read more

New Epson 800 driver may cause crash at startup

John Lubetich confirms that the new driver for the Epson Stylus Color 800 does fix network printing bugs (such as previously described here). However, he also claims that it crashed his system, on both a 3400/200 and a PowerCenter Pro 210 running 7.6.1 - just as the Finder was loading - if the "True Finder Integration" extension that comes with Stuffit Deluxe is active.

Kevin Callahan reports he also had a problem with his PowerTower Pro200 crashed at startup after installing the new driver. I have not determined whether he was also using the TFI … Read more

Two utilities updated: OT/PPP Strip 1.0.1 and ScreenShot 2.5.3

OT/PPP Strip 1.0.1 is a "free Control Strip module that works with Apple's Open Transport/PPP software to allow you to quickly change PPP configurations, connect, and disconnect OT/PPP without going to the PPP Control Panel. In addition, it can display your current connect time, speed, or activity right in the Control Strip itself, also saving you a trip to the control panel." The update fixes several bugs, including the one noted here previously that had prevented hard drive spin downs and sleep.

ScreenShot, a screen capture utility from The Beale Street Group … Read more