Free POP3 Email, Kanga vs. WallStreet, Bible Software, Usenet with OS X, and More

POP3 Access and Forwarding

From Adrian Membrez

Thank you for writing the article on the free POP3 email services. I have been using my yahoo's POP3 free access for a long time now - more then 3 years! And now they are going to end it.

I was wondering if you knew a way for me to be able to forward everything that is sent to my old email to my new email address? I was thinking about unsubscribing to all the mailing lists I am on and then turning on Yahoo's vacation feature and put a message saying please resend email to this address. Got any Ideas? Thanks for the great article

-Adrian Membrez

Hi Adrian,

Other than utilizing that vacation notification feature to notify your contacts of an email change, I don't think there is any way to forward mail from your Yahoo! address unless you pay the subscription fee. However, as I understand it, you will still have Web access to your incoming Yahoo! mail after the free POP3 service is discontinued.

Charles

Kanga vs. WallStreet

From: Dan

Hi Charles -

My daughter will be spending an extended period of time in China on a language-studies fellowship. We've decided that an early G3 PowerBook will fill her computing needs (word processing [in Chinese!], email, and light Web access) and her cost restrictions.

Our choice seems to have come down to either a Kanga or a WallStreet. I'm attracted to the Kanga but find they are not very available. I'm also a little concerned that it won't run OS X. On the other hand, the WallStreet seems to be a suitable 'Book, which could run OS X at some point in the future, but has a reputation for breaking hinges and having a troublesome display on the 13 inch version.

I'd appreciate your input toward our decision. We're going to buy from a dealer whom will give us at least a 30 day warranty.

Many Thanks!

Dan

Hi Dan,

I would suggest the WallStreet, both because of the OS X issue and because they're newer, and, I think, more robust. The WallStreet also supports processor upgrades, which the Kanga doesn't.

A 233 MHz WallStreet will prove about as real-world fast as the 250 MHz Kanga, due to its faster system bus.

Stay away from those 13.3" screens, though. As for the hinge issue, There have been three WallStreets in my family, all with 12.1" screens, and none have even exhibited any hinge problems. I'm guessing that the 12.1" screen, with its more rigid bezel, puts less strain on the hinges.

Another 'Book you might consider is a 333 MHz Lombard. Lombard prices have dropped quite sharply of late.

Charles

Mac OS 9.0+ Installers Hang

From Kevin DuArte

Charles,

I got your email address off of Low End Mac and thought you might be the right person to ask.

Have you ever heard of not being able to install OS 9.0 to a drive that OS 9.1 was installed to first? Even after reformatting the drive? I did an 8.6-9.0-9.1 upgrade on a 9600/G3-400, and all was well until I activated USB and FW support for the Keyspan and OrangeMicro cards and started capturing clips (uh, 2) and got a hang. Post this zap-pram, shift, etc., would not boot the system (Illegal Error on boot). The system hangs sometimes loading from CD-ROM as well unless the shift key is down.

100% of the time the installer hangs with the 9.1 update installer and 80% with the 9.0. It is as if the installer just goes to sleep at various stages in the process. Very weird. The only other odd thing about this 9600 is that one of the drives is SCSI-2 with a SCSI-SCSI-2 adapter on it.

Just wondering if I should crawl back to OS 8.6 and make up for abandoning her.

thx,
Kevin

Hi Kevin,

I have had problems with the OS 9 installer hanging up when installing to my Umax SuperMac S900. I'm not sure it will fix your problem, but if you have more than one partition, try downloading the installer files from the CD to the partition you're not trying to install OS 9 on (including the CD's boot system file) and installing from there.

If you only have one partition, you could try loading the installer files to the hard drive, then boot from the CD and run the installer on the HD instead of the one on the CD. I have a vague recollection that the OS 9 installer has issues with slower CD-ROM drives.

You could also try installing a system on another Mac, stuffing it, and transferring it to the 9600. I think my S900 at one time had a copy of OS 9.1 that was copied from my son's Lombard, and it worked fine.

Charles

Bible Software

From Tony Kan

Hi Charles

I have been searching for Bible software for a Newton MessagePad 2x00. While you were researching your article on Bible software, did you come across any? It seems strange that there was/is so little to be found?!

Thanks in advance
Tony

Hi Tony,

Try Servant Software's The Message for Newton.

The Message lets you read and search the Bible on any Newton device. The Message is free for personal use.

You can set preferences for display style of chapter, verse and footnote markers, as well as font and size. You can place bookmarks wherever you want, and a record is automatically kept of passages you've been reading recently. Searching allows you to find words or phrases in the current chapter or book, the entire Bible, or any of various sections of the Old and New Testaments.

The text of the entire Bible is broken down into eight sections, so that you can install just the parts that you want to have available. You need to install the main reader package ("The Message.pkg") and whichever modules you want to use. (See below.) Each package will take around 250 or 300k of storage space, and the entire Bible takes approximately 2 megabytes.

The Message requires Newton 2.0.

The Revised Standard Version (RSV) module for The Message is free and downloadable (should be registered).

The King James (KJV) module for The Message is free and requires no registration.

For more information, visit:
http://www.thefedors.com/themessage/

Hope this works for you.

Charles

Miscellaneous Ramblings: Healthcare

From Yoon Ha Lee

Dear Mr. Moore,

I wanted to express my sympathies for MD and MD's family's experiences with healthcare. :-( In an ideal world doctors *ought* to find ways to help if only by giving out honest information and educating their patients about what is known, even if they rarely have miracle cures.

It gets worse: I've heard numerous *anecdotes* of premeds at my undergraduate university who were sabotaging each other's genetics labs in order to get good grades. As someone in one of those labs commented to me, "And these people want to become future doctors? What's wrong with this picture?" (This person was a non-premed biology major. In some ways, it's a shame.)

Color me scared if the stories even true one time in ten.

(Ms.) Yoon Ha Lee (call me Yoon)

Hi Yoon,

Having been part of the environmentally ill community for 30 years and afflicted with some other (probably related) non-respectable health issues, I have no problem believing such anecdotes.

Charles

OS X Newsreader

From Jonathan Beck

Charles,

I use MT-Newswatcher for my newsgroup reading. It has the kill user feature that was mentioned in your article, and it's free.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/internet_utilities/mtnewswatcher.html

Thanks

Jon

Newsreaders

From Arno Wouters

Dear Charles,

In your More on Living Microsoft Free column, you quoted Matthew Chappell asking:

"The reason I am writing to you is to find out if you know of a decent newsgroup client for OS X, as I must use Outlook Express for that."

You answered:

"I don't use newsgroups myself, but I think that Mozilla/Netscape supports them, and Mozilla might be a partial answer to your browser dilemma as well. I really like it, especially the OS X version."

Actually, Outlook Express is the worst newsreader I can think of. It violates many Internet standards. Netscape is better - but not completely compliant to the Internet standards.

An overview of the newsreaders that passed the test for the Good Netkeeping Seal of Approval can be found at http://www.gnksa.org/gnksa-evaluations.html

An overview of newsreaders for the Mac OS can be found at http://www.newsreaders.com/mac/clients.html

Probably, the best newsreader for OS X is Toth: http://www.thothsw.com/thoth/

There is also an OS X version of MT Newswatcher http://www.smfr.org/mtnw/

Yours sincerely,

Arno Wouters.
Utrecht, The Netherlands
http://www.knoware.nl/users/arnow/

Usenet Programs for OS X

From Capt. James MacKenna

Greetings,

I saw your call for OS X compatible news reading programs. I've been using the venerable Newswatcher by John Norstad for years, ever since 7.1. It was left unsupported, but the code released. There are several variations, but the best for me was MTNewswatcher by Simon Fraser. It is now carbonized for OS X. It has excellent threading, a major reason for my using it, also had offline capability in previous versions. I've cable modem access now, so I'm not sure about that feature anymore, but support has been very good. And oh yeah, it's freeware! Check it out: http://www.smfr.org/mtnw/

Aloha,
James

PS: Almost forgot, I think you can set helper apps in preferences in Mozilla .9.9. Still has bugs, but is much faster than IE for me.

News Group software for X

From Lantz Newberry

Hi Charles,

Someone in your article asked for a X news group software. I've heard good things about this one.

MT NewsWatcher X 3.2
http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=13571&db=mac

Lantz Newberry

NMEA multiplexer

From: Meindert Sprang

Dear Mr. Moore,

I found your article about small vessel navigation on a Mac. It describes how to connect NMEA equipment through a multiplexer and a RS232 to USB converter. It might be of interest to know that our company just developed an NMEA multiplexer with a USB interface.

Take a look at http://www.shipmodul.com for more information.

Kind regards,
Meindert

Mozilla

From Matthew Chappell

Dear Charles,

G'day there and how are you? I've just logged off from using Mozilla, and it is, indeed, a very nice program to use and extremely convenient. I'm glad I threw away Outlook Express in indignant frustration!

I was really surprised that the pages came up so quickly. I had used Netscape 4.5 for a while, but it was too slow and could not save pages completely.

Thank you, Charles, for saving my sanity. No one else would have!

Take care of yourself,

Matthew

Re: PowerLogix Blue Chip 466 MHz Failures

From: OWC Larry

While I don't know all the specifics of the problem, I am in agreement that the problem cannot continue. I had a phone conference with Robert earlier this morning in which I specifically raised the issue of these outstanding warranty returns.

As a PowerLogix reseller, if PowerLogix has an inability to service their customer's warrantees, well this is a significant issue with me. I only learned of the situation last week when one of our customers brought it up with us as well as the online forum in which it was being further discussed.

To cut to the chase, the owner of PowerLogix has assured me that these replacements will be going out within the next 1-2 weeks.

Robert gave me the same explanation for the delay as he has given you concerning the G3 Processors. This probably why they also haven't shipped us any of the BlueChip G3 WallStreet upgrades we have had on order since the first week of December, the same reason why the warranty replacements couldn't ship. I don't agree that this was allowed to affect the warranty fulfillment. When we have a problem with a product, our problem is not our customer's problem. I feel a duty to do whatever we can to take care of our customer first and deal any other issue on our time.

Again, at this point, Robert has made it clear that the warranty returns will be replaced in the very near future. I think it would have been a good alternative to just give out the working G4 BlueChips in place, but it is not my decision to make. So long as they do make good in the time now committed to, I don't plan to make further issue of it. What's past can't be changed now. Their intentions are good, but the results skewed due to bad circumstance.

PowerLogix has a very good product line and we are proud to be a PowerLogix reseller. They should never have allowed this situation to occur and from the inside I have every reason to expect that they will not let this type of warranty replacement time problem occur again. In our contract with PowerLogix they have 10 days to replace any item that is returned defective. Typically they have been turning in about 3-4 days and very little has been defective, a good thing in itself.

I hope this helps. If this is not resolved in a positive way within no more than the next 20 calendar days, I can tell you it is likely our relationship with PowerLogix will significantly change. Users of their products are our customers, too.

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