[Hidden-tech] Mac tech advice sought

[Chris Hoogendyk]

Shel Horowitz wrote:
>   ** The author of this post was a Good Dobee.
>   ** You too can help the group
>   ** Fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>   ** If you did, we all thank you.
>
>
> At 3:23 PM -0400 9/25/07, Wendyfoxmy at aol.com wrote:
>>    ** The author of this post was a Good Dobee.
>>    ** You too can help the group
>>    ** Fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>>    ** If you did, we all thank you.
>>
>> I'm trying to upgrade my "home business" operation (Mac) to interface 
>> better with my clients.  I'm looking for advice with specific 
>> applications and some challenges with my current technology (hardware 
>> and software).
>> Thanks, in advance.
>> Wendy Foxmyn
>
> OS X 10.4 is superior in many ways to previous operating systems--but 
> it has a number of quirks. Among them: moving folders around doesn't 
> always work the way you think it will, and if you get it wrong, 
> unexpected things happen--like having a folder vanish from your tool 
> bar with a poof sound, or trying to copy a large folder to an external 
> drive only to have all 178 items open instead.
>
> I find that for most collaboration, Word and Excel are fine. They're 
> cross-platform. You have to warn your clients on Vista to save it in 
> the 1998-2004 format, however.
>
> Also, when you search in the inder with Spotlight, it defaults 
> stupidly to the very slow search for a text string within a document. 
> You have to change the first criterion to name and make sure you type 
> your filename search string in the correct place.
>
> Oh, and you may find you want something much more robust than AOL for 
> email. I love Eudora.


I think she's asking for a Mac consultant to look at her hardware and 
software setup and make recommendations?

Clearly the original message doesn't provide enough information about 
her setup or needs to do such consulting here on the list.

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Oh, and by the way, Eudora is end of life. You can still get the 
downloads online, but they haven't been updated in a year, and it 
doesn't appear they are going to be. Thunderbird would be the choice. 
And it is only a client, not a service. So, if AOL services provide 
pop/imap/smtp, then your mail client of choice should work with them. I 
don't think they've stuck with their many years ago proprietary protocol 
and client way of doing mail.

Also, there are lots of people who don't use, or even refuse to touch, 
Microsoft products. There are also many who do. To get along better with 
the whole range of applications and file formats, I recently bought 
MacLink Pro 16. It already has translation routines for the Microsoft 
Office 2007 XML file formats. So, I don't have to worry about Vista 
folks, even if they can't buy a clue about saving files in a format 
others can read.



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Chris Hoogendyk

-
  O__  ---- Systems Administrator
 c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geology Departments
(*) \(*) -- 140 Morrill Science Center
~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst
<hoogendyk at bio.umass.edu>

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Erdös 4