Networking Challenge
Mark Rothlisberger writes:
I'm a Mac user with not much money but quite a bit of old equipment.
I would like to network a couple of systems together, but my attempts
have been stymied so far. If you could point me in the right direction
or tell me if this is possible, I would be very thankful.
I have the following computers:
and the following equipment:
- 3Com Superstack II ethernet hub
- plenty of ethernet cords
- an external modem
Is it possible to get all of these computers on a little home LAN?
Can I somehow share a modem-based Internet connection between them?
Thanks for any help you can give me.
If you're running OS X on your iBook, you can use Internet Sharing to share your dialup
connection with the two other computers - once you've got that network
up and running.
It sounds like you have everything you need. It should be as simple as
running a standard ethernet cable from the hub to each computer and
then making sure each computer is using ethernet for both AppleTalk and
TCP/IP.
And if you're not using OS X yet, there are a couple of programs for
the classic Mac OS (SurfDoubler
and IPNetRouter)
that will let you do the same thing - but not for free.
Internet Sharing Questions
Max Troell wonders:
I read your article about sharing
an Internet connection. I have some questions that I would
appreciate if you could help me with.
I am connecting to the Internet using an analog modem, and I have
two Macs connected through ethernet. I tried to do as you did but
probably missed out something. I get from my Internet provider an IP
(10.0.3.39), and then I set the IPs in the ethernet configuration for
the two computers to 192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.3. They have the same
subnetmask. Their IPs are different from the one I get from connecting
using PPP - is this wrong ?
What am I doing wrong here? I have searched the net for information,
but I only get detailed information of how to set it up using a cable
modem or using AirPort.
First, you'll probably find it easiest not to manually assign the
address to your second computer. Use DHCP; the Mac connected to the
Internet and using Internet Sharing will provide the IP address and
other information that computer needs.
Likewise, you shouldn't need to manually assign an IP to the computer
doing the sharing.
In both cases, your local network will have IP addresses in the
192.168.x.x range, which is explicitly set aside for local networks.
Your Mac with the Internet connection will translate the local address
and use the IP address assigned by your ISP via PPP while connected to
the Internet.
Max Troell later wrote:
I managed to set up my computers successfully. The trick was to do
the setting in a specific order:
Two computers connected either with a twisted TP cable or connected
through a hub. One computer having a working modem connection to
Internet provider.
- Set up the built-in ethernet for the computer having the modem:
allocate an IP (e.g., 192.168.0.2) and a subnetmask
(255.255.255.0)
- Start Internet sharing under Sharing
- Set up the built-in ethernet for computer 2 - chose "using
DHCP"
That's it - now you can access the Internet on both computers.
I do not know if it matters if I have the modem connection up and
running while I do the settings 1-3. I did but It probably work
without.
Your article helped, but some information was left out that was
crucial for me to get it right.
Glad to hear it's working. We already had all of our computers set
up for a shared Internet connection using a cable modem, so I didn't
have to make any changes to the client computer.
You do have to have an Internet connection active before you can enable
Internet Sharing, but step 3 could go anywhere in the sequence.
Mac vs. PC Design
Randy Brutno writes:
Regarding PC design vs. Apple design. Your comment, "The Power Macs look far less
cool than most Windows PCs these days," is a view I don't share,
although everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. Design is
subjective.
However, at the CompUSA by me, I never see anyone ever actually
touching a PC - but most in the Mac section are constantly touching and
using them. Possibly these are potential switchers or Mac users trying
new things, but I feel it is because Macs invite use, and draw
customers in.
In the PC section, they talk to salesmen about specs - in the Mac
section they speak to the Apple rep and actually try the machine with
or without the rep. Buying a PC is a non-emotional purchase; the same
cannot be said for many Mac purchases.
The chairman of Audi once said, "People shop horsepower but buy
torque," meaning that the driving experience reigned supreme in selling
Audis, despite the perceived shortfall of horsepower Audi experienced
to its competitors at that time. In similar fashion, people shop
processor speed, but if they ever chance a visit to the Mac side of the
store, will soon learn about the Mac's advantages - by doing. Apple's
designs help draw them in.
Apple has been using the same basic Power Mac design since January
1999. They've changed from blueberry to various shades of gray, added
strange little ports, and put mirrored drive doors on, but they're just
recycling the same old case.
That's no longer true in the PC world. Apple has inspired PC makers to
go beyond drab beige boxes, and the evidence surrounds you at CompUSA
or any other computer retailer. After the initial response to the iMac
- putting some brightly colored panels on bland PCs - the industry has
embraced visual design. For the first time in memory the HP boxes are
actually attractive. The Sony Vaios are also nice looking.
Granted, the PC boxes tend to be more utilitarian and
design-for-design's sake (who really needs a window that lets you see
dust accumulate inside your computer?), but there are some designs that
Apple could learn from.
Design is subjective. I think the eMac is ugly, but that wouldn't stop
me from buying one. I think the G4 iMac looks like a refugee from a bad
science fiction movie; I'm not surprised it has not shared the success
of the original "gumdrop" iMac design. The iBooks and PowerBooks are
great, and the Xserve is gorgeous.
But the Power Mac has become pedestrian. The Cube, although it was a
marketing flop, was a design masterpiece. If Apple could apply some
Cube, Xserve, and 'Book lessons to the next generation Power Mac, it
could become the kind of head turner it was four years ago.
I agree that buying Macs is more of an emotional experience. That's
part of the reason we're hesitant to part with our old ones. And it's
part of the reason we raved over the Cube and G4 iMac without buying
either in droves. The whole thing has to work, and when function is
compromised by form (the power switch on top of the Cube is a prime
example), we reject it.
And people do play with the Macs. They watch the movie trailers on the
Cinema Display. They interact with the demo machines. Nobody seems to
do that with the Windows PCs; they just watch the autorun demos.
Handling is probably the Mac's strong point. It invites
experimentation, while Windows tends to be intimidating. If only we
could get more Windows users to try it, I'm sure more would buy
it.
Low-income Macs
Ted Parks writes:
I belong to a couple of the Low End Mac discussion groups, Quadlist and 1st PowerMacs.
A Spanish professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., I am
getting ready to teach a basic computer literacy class at my son's
elementary school, which is about 80% Hispanic. Pepperdine donated some
Macs, mainly pre-PCI and later, but all pre-G3, and I have slowly added
other machines, mostly 68k, to my collection. I am going to give the
parents who complete the class one of the machines.
Because of your experience as publisher of Low End Mac, I wanted to
ask if you knew of other programs similar to the one I am involved in.
My dream (at this point, admittedly, only that) is to have a nonprofit
that would perhaps refurbish Macs for low-income parents, perhaps also
buying the licenses to assemble a software library for the
machines.
What is being done in this area? Is this kind of program common?
Thank you.
P.S. I have seen references in some of your postings to a Reformed web site. I am a Christian as well,
though from a different tradition, the churches of Christ. We have
Reformed roots, the founders having come from a Scotch-Irish
Presbyterian background. Our polity still reflects our roots, but our
theology, heavily influenced by Enlightenment pragmatism, contrasts
Reformed thought.
I don't know of any organization that does what you're discussing,
but I know a lot of teachers who collect, refurbish, and distribute
older Macs, sometimes as loaners and sometimes as gifts.
As for ReformedNet, that got started even before Low End Mac. I
enrolled part time in the M.A. program at Calvin Theological
Seminary hoping for a degree in missions and church growth. I
loved most of the coursework, shared some of my research on my personal
website, and eventually decided that I just don't have the temperament
for church work. I'm a geek. I'm great an number crunching and
analysis, but my people skills are unpolished and my desire to deal
with church politics is precisely zero.
I'm still Reformed in my convictions, but I no longer belong to a
church in that tradition (directly due to an encounter with church
politics at our last church in that tradition). I appreciate the
diversity within the various Christian traditions; all churches cannot
be alike because all people are not alike. There are some points that
cannot be negotiated without denying the gospel, but on most other
things there are honest disagreements that cannot be resolved by
quoting scripture - otherwise they would have been settled once and for
all ages ago.
Migration to OS X
Responding to Thinking Too
Different: Why Mac Users Are Slow to Adopt OS X, John Konopka
writes:
I will agree in part, the open and save dialogs in OS X are
primitive. I miss the Action Files which was only for OS 9. Other
than that I am very happy with OS X. When I have to use a computer
running OS 9 I kind of stumble around, feeling my way. I'm glad to
leave it behind.
For me OS X offers a lot. Faster and more useful contextual menus,
much faster AppleScript, AppleScript Studio, faster networking,
connecting to a server is much easier now, you can move windows with
the content showing, you can move windows behind windows (hold down the
apple key and click and drag a window behind the front window), Mail
app, Safari, preemptive multitasking, rock solid stability, and I love
the Aqua appearance of OS X.
For me, OS X just works. I used to crash OS 9 a couple times of
week, and it took special care to do that. I knew not to do certain
things at the same time. If I was downloading a file or email, then I
didn't touch the keyboard. I didn't run more than a couple programs at
a time.
Now I freely burn discs, download files, and run other programs, and
it never crashes. On a Cinema Display I can have open windows for a
spreadsheet, a database, a text editor, and a word processor all at
once and drag data between them - and it just works. This is really
great. I could never go back to OS 9.
I don't know what the issues are. I guess you'd need an
anthropologist to work it out. In our little world we support about ten
Macs; the six newer ones all run OS X. The older ones we rarely
used. (I did manage to fire up my PB
140 the other day and get a file out from it!)
I'm kind of tired of the debate. If someone is running OS 9 and
is happy with it, I'm supportive of them. But to me it sure seems like
they are giving up a lot. I will concede that OS X is not as much
fun on older hardware. You really need a large display and fast GPU and
CPU and a broadband connection to get the full benefit.
I'm not trying to debate; I'm trying to understand (and help others
understand) why some people stick with Mac OS 9 even after they've
tried OS X. I dabbled in OS X for a year before I got a copy
of Jaguar. Then I switched for good.
"The good is the enemy of the better." The classic Mac OS was very
good, and it evolved over nearly 20 years. In many ways OS X is
better, but it's still growing to maturity. The Unix underneath may be
mature, but the interface - the way we interact with the operating
system - remains immature.
I'd never go back, but hearing my son gripe about Jaguar on his iMac
333 (192 MB RAM, fast Seagate Barracuda hard drive) and my wife on her
iBook 600 (256 MB RAM, stock hard drive) brings back memories. There
are real efficiencies in OS X - from the rare need to restart
(usually caused by an Apple update) to the fact that you can work in
one program while another is plugging away in the background - but the
first reaction of someone installing OS X is, "It's so
slow."
And then they discover the other differences. They trip them up. Or
make it difficult to be productive right away. Or they break something
that's worked for years, like the Sabon font on my wife's iBook (which
works fine on my TiBook).
I'll never go back. In the long run the trade offs are worth it, but I
can understand why the early frustrations keep some Mac users from
adopting OS X.
BSD and OS 9 better than OS X
After reading the same article, Dave Goodrich comments:
I read your recent article on Mac OS X with quite a bit of interest.
My last place of employment was all Macs (I'm been a Mac user a long
time, though I now use FreeBSD almost exclusively). I've caught a lot
of flak from friends on why I'm rolling our personal machines back to
OS 9.
I was very excited to see Mac switch to OS X, and I looked
forward to it. My beloved FBSD and my Mac UI all rolled into one. I use
almost no UI on Unix, staying mostly with the command line, as I just
can't see where Gnome or KDE are anything close to useful. If I can't
have a Mac UI I'd rather do without one completely.
I was quite disappointed once I got OS X installed. I've setup
more than my share of Unix servers and compiled and installed KDE,
Gnome, Afterstep from source. But finding out how to do things in
OS X was a lesson in frustration. While Apple has much text
telling you how easy things are to do in OS X, there is little
written on how to actually do it.
I have still not connected to my NFS share at home. Having had to
setup Netatalk access for my wife. My wife is a designer and has used
Macs since 1994. She tried OS X twice and has never booted back
into it since. She simply said, "If I want to learn Unix, I'll use your
machine." She has much money invested in Freehand, Illustrator,
Photoshop, Live Picture, and really doesn't want to have to repurchase
to run an OS she has to learn over again. Her biggest gripe is she
wants her desktop back and her Finder back.
My complaint is I tried OS X; it had problems. They said 10.1 fixes
them! I had to purchase 10.1, then 10.1.x, now to really fix the
issues we have, I must purchase Jaguar. I'm not purchasing again until
it works; it seems Apple took a lesson from MS here.
I think they could get more users to switch if they,
- hide the Unix junk, just show the user what is in their
home directory. The rest is confusing to non-Unix users.
- make the save dialogs work like OS 9
- give back the desktop, it should be the top of the file hierarchy
"to the user...". the desktop should act exactly like OS 9.
Just my rants. Though I will say we have delayed making the purchase
of a new PowerBook and G4. I've discovered I cannot replace OS X
with OS 9, and until OS X works like a Mac, we will wait and
keep using our Beige G3
and 6100.
Thanks, and keep writing.
There's an incredibly powerful operating system beneath the Aqua
interface of Mac OS X, as you already know from your experience
with BSD. I once had BSD running on a Mac IIcx, so I know there's nothing in
the core OS that requires a G3 or even a PowerPC processor. It's the
interface that slows OS X to a crawl on older hardware, and the
only ways to improve it are switching to 16-bit color and reducing the
size of the screen. And these only help a bit.
The interface was what made the Mac. It was the one thing that
Microsoft really couldn't duplicate - nor could NeXT, nor the folks
behind KDE or Gnome, nor IBM with OS/2, nor BeOS. Unfortunately, the
same can be said for OS X. It pretends to be the offspring of the
classic Mac OS, but it's a stepchild. It's learned some things from its
new family, but it retains its genes.
Jaguar is a huge improvement over 10.1; I couldn't make OS X my
normal OS until I got Jaguar. And I suspect Panther will be an equally
big improvement. I sure hope so, because we all know that OS X has
some very rough edges.
That said, Apple has hidden all "the Unix junk." I've only used the
terminal once to type a single command. For the average user, it's
something they'll never have to deal with.
Giving us the option of making Save work like it did in the classic Mac
OS would be a big improvement, and there's no reason the desktop
shouldn't appear at the top of the file hierarchy - even if it resides
somewhere else in reality.
It's a shame that Apple has abandoned so many good parts of the classic
Mac OS as they attempted to turn NeXTstep into a Macintosh OS. They
still have a ways to go, and they don't seem to be content with what
they've done so far.
Oh Please
Dr. Joseph Ballo writes:
She knows how to use the Chooser, but where the heck do you choose
your printer in OS X? And how the heck do you connect to the file
server? Both are much harder to figure out in OS X - I've been
using X full time since January, and I still find it hard to remember
where some of these settings are. And I'm the family Mac geek.
I really try to be polite in these circumstances. I do! But this
tries my patience. How do you choose your printer? Is selecting the
printer of choice from the print dialog all that difficult. How do you
connect to the server? Is selecting Connect to server from the menu bar
all that difficult? Manners forbid me to make any further comments.
I have two adult daughters who use OS X with no problem,
and my experience is that virgin Mac users find OS X far easier to
use than they do OS 9.x. If you want to attribute difficulties with
OS X as due to inertia, stubbornness, or some other non-techy
motive, that is fine with me but I do bristle when non-issues such as
"How to you select the printer" are raised in these discussions.
I bristle when I read letter like yours. The point of the article
wasn't the experience of "virgin Mac users," but why seasoned Mac users
are slow to migrate to Mac OS X. I use my wife as an example,
because she has been using Macs for a decade.
While there's nothing intuitive about using something called the
Chooser under the Apple menu to choose a printer or server, it's
something Mac users know how to do. When my wife wanted to print
something, OS X hadn't automatically picked up the printer
configuration from OS 9. Instead she was told that no printer was
selected - and there was no simple "click here to set up or select a
printer" option displayed. So her question was how to set up the
printer, and then how to configure it so she could use the third
tray.
I'm shocked that you would call choosing a printer a non-issue; it's
something that most computer users do their first day. If that tries
your patience, imagine how not knowing where to choose a printer or
server must try the patience of seasoned Mac users who are trying to
see if OS X is for them.
The more obstacles Apple puts in the way of current Mac users, the less
likely they are to migrate. Apple should be doing everything they can
to ease the transition for Mac users. A simple tutorial that pops up
when you first run the computers - like the old Macintosh Basics -
would be a huge step in the right direction. But Apple is more
concerned with bouncing icons than easing the transition.
And that was another question my wife asked last night, "How do you
stop the icons from bouncing." Sorry, Apple won't let you turn that
off.
Is it any wonder so many who try OS X put it on the back burner and
switch back to what they know works?
Moving Mac users to OS X
Chris Kilner writes:
Many basic OS 9 users (AppleWorks, browsers, iApps) would switch if
Apple made a GUI mode that replicated OS 9 for OS X. For
example, provide all the corresponding functions in the same places -
like sleep, shutdown, and empty trash in a "Special" menu. Apple could
license all the haxies that do this stuff today and roll them into an
officially supported "Classic-GUI" mode. While they are at it, they
could do a "Windows-GUI" mode for switchers. Each of these modes would
also include the native OS X GUI elements so that users could
learn X over time (and reduce interface clutter).
I think that another issue holding people back is poor scanner,
printer, and USB driver (game pads, etc.) support from Apple. If
OS X had VueScan, GimpPrint, and USB Overdrive functionality built
into the OS, that would help many to switch.
The stability of Unix with the familiarity of OS 9? That's
exactly what most of us hoped OS X would offer; instead we got
Aqua. Other than being a bloated, slow GUI with excessive eye candy,
Aqua is a great interface, but between the slowness and the
differentness compared to OS 9 on the same hardware, Aqua has
become a stumbling block to adoption by Apple's core market - current
Mac users.
The biggest problem with your proposal is that Apple want everyone to
have the same interface and work the same way. (Remember when they were
the company for creative people, nonconformists, rebels?) Allowing
users to migrate while using an interface that they're already used to
apparently offends Apple. "My way or the highway" seems to be the
attitude.
I don't expect Apple to change their attitude there, but I do hope that
Panther will include more of the kind of support you mention.
Thinking Too Different
Mark Hooker writes:
This was a great piece. I hope that Apple is listening.
You hit the nail right on the head when you invoked Pournelle's
First Law of Computing (at least one CPU per user) and pointed to the
server mentality of Unix, which is the core of Mac OS X. My first
computer was a Unix machine as big as a house with a "bleeding edge" 64
KB of memory. I feel like, having taken 9.2 giant strides forward with
the old Mac OS, I suddenly have to take five giant strides back toward
the computer I first met and learned to hate for its rigid structure
and high maintenance overhead.
As you so insightfully point out, breaking many of the "Classic"
Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines was a big part of that. The dock
is one of my biggest complaints: I don't want to give up any of my
desktop real estate to it. It gets in my way.
You can class me as a "Hard-niner" (i.e., someone who is very
resistant to the idea of switching to OS X). I fall under your
first reason for not wanting to switch (I don't have any incentive to.
The classic Mac OS works just fine for me. Why mess with success?). It
is not only the investment I would have to make in dollars and cents to
buy new peripherals and software, but the investment that I would have
to make in time - which I have a better uses for - to learn the new
system.
Pay attention, Apple! Like the man said: "In short, if Apple wants
to gain converts, they need to make OS X as easy, as elegant, as
simple, as powerful, as friendly, and as comfortable as the best OS [I]
have ever used - the classic Mac OS."
I like the dock. I'd started using application launchers and
application switchers in OS 9, and it's nice to have a single
place for both. But that's a personal preference. For those who don't
like the dock, Apple gives you no option of turning it off. (You can
hide it, but it's always lurking there, waiting for your mouse to get
too close.)
I have no problem with those who don't need to switch or don't want to.
I do have a problem with those who would like to switch finding
OS X so opaque. My wife would really love to try iCal, and I think
she'd love using iTunes to make her own CDs for the car, but OS X
is so alien. That said, she's continuing to experiment with it. She's
switching her business font from Sabon to one that works on OS X
on her iBook. She'd like to switch.
I think what Apple needs to produce is an OS X Basics program that can
walk new users through OS X step-by-step. It could come in three
versions - one for newbies, one for Windows folk, and one for classic
Mac users. It could explain how to choose printers and actually walk
them through setting up their printer. It could explain how to connect
to a remote server. It could explain the whole multiple users
thing.
Apple used to provide Macintosh Basics with their computers as a way of
familiarizing people with the mouse, single clicks, double-clicking,
dragging, and so forth. Something similar for OS X adopters would
be a big step forward.
re: Thinking Too Different
Brian Marsh writes:
The early iMacs (233 to 333) and the beige G3s are all limited to
booting Mac OS from within the first 8 GB. Potentially you could
format a larger hard drive and install a fresh 8 or 9 onto it and not
having problems, but if you put a bunch of data on, then updated the
OS, if any of the core OS files ended up outside the initial 8 GB,
the iMac is rendered unbootable.
Mac OS X won't even let you try to install onto a partition
outside that initial 8 GB
It does take an adjustment time, and some things could probably be
easier still. Overall myself and many customers I deal with daily,
average computing is easier in Mac OS X.
Rant 1) Printing: Being able to switch printers on the fly once they
are setup in the print center most people find much easier and more
efficient. Most new USB printers automatically set themselves up in
print center when connected and powered on, again much easier than 9.
Some do require software to be installed, or updated.
AppleWorks: I have no idea why AppleWorks had this problem
(dictionary). I haven't seen this issue with any AppleWorks 6 I've
worked with when a user switches between 9 and X on the same machine.
I've run into that in Mac OS 9 before when ClarisWorks had it's
preferences corrupted. The starting points issue you need to go into
AppleWorks Preferences -> General then "on startup" switch to "Do
nothing" or another option if you want it.
Fonts: where are the fonts stored that she is attempting to use?
Rant 2) no comments on this one.
Rant 3) While many longtime Mac users do find the new open/save
dialogues more difficult, many first time Mac users find them easier to
figure out where they are compared with Mac OS 9. With a few tips
most are up and running quickly with the new style. (The Mac reseller I
work for includes training time with all new Macs because of the
differences.) Most people find the default setting of saving to the
documents folder very hand, and it's much easier to set favourite
folders, and then use those favourite folders from the open/save then
it was in 9 for most users (everyone uses computers differently).
I know a couple of longtime Mac users that seem to finally be
understanding where their files are located on the hard drive, compared
with 9, where they only knew where their files were when they were in
that specific program and easily lost files accidentally into the
System Folder.
I'm familiar with the need to partition drives over 8 GB on
tray-loading iMacs, beige G3s, and WallStreet PowerBooks. Been there.
Done that several times. I do find it frustrating that Disk Utility
will actually change the number you type in, so if you create a first
partition of 8.0 GB it ends up as 8.07 GB. That's inexcusable.
Mac OS X does take some adjustment time. It was a year from my first
installation until I got Jaguar and migrated from 9 to X. I think
Jaguar is good enough for most people with faster Macs to comfortably
make the switch - but with the warning that they'll probably feel quite
disoriented for a few days as the become accustomed to the OS X
way of doing things. Almost everything from OS 9 is there, but
finding it can take some doing.
We have a shared HP LaserJet 2100TN on our network, and it has the
optional third tray installed. Jaguar didn't automatically recognize
it, and we spent some time figuring out just where we could turn on the
first tray. I suspect Rendezvous will simplify a lot of this in the
future, for both printers and servers.
The fonts are where they've always been, in her OS 9 System Folder
: Fonts. Just like on my TiBook, which does recognize Sabon.
Weird.
My wife has developed a very straightforward filing system. At the root
level she has a folder called Family Matchmakers. Inside that she has a
folder for each client. I'll have to add that folder to her Favorites
and teach her how to use it, something I've just started using
myself.
Yes, it is nice that Apple is trying to prevent users from leaving
their files all over the place - in the System Folder, the application
folder, or whatever folder they saved the last document in. But I still
miss the elegant simplicity of navigating folders in the old Save
dialogue. OS X does the same thing, but it's much more
cluttered.
Apple has got to make it easier for OS 9 users to migrate. With so
many differences, it's too easy to become confused and frustrated and
simply go back to what they know. If Apple really wants this to be the
Mac experience for all of us, they've got to help old timers make the
transition.
Dan Knight has been publishing Low
End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.
