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'net resources II |
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The View From Here: Keeping my thumb on the pulse
May 1996
Writing about things Macintosh on a monthly basis can be quite exhausting, what with the rapid pace of software evolution, the huge number of commercial, shareware, and freeware titles out there, and with the ever-increasing number of Macintosh-related Web pages, some of which are even worth visiting. This month I'll provide a narrative to the pages I visit, the software I use, and other notes as they come to mind.
I write the disclaimer because it's been a hectic few weeks, from a Passover celebration with my family in New Jersey to ten days with clients in Minneapolis and now a week's vacation in Kaua'i, Hawai'i. (As is my tradition, I write these columns when I'm on the go: in jets, on trains, in taxis. I wrote this column while winging my way toward Honolulu.) The show goes on.
My daily net.gyrations include visits to the following sites:
MacSense HotBit for the day's late-breaking news. MacSense has a very aggressive staff and a steady stream of hints from readers and software authors. Check out also the MacSense software update page.
As a proud owner of an Apple PowerMacintosh PowerBook 5300c I make a daily pilgrimage to O'Grady's PowerPage, a great resource for all Macintosh owners (although the news is PowerBook-centric).
My daily rounds wouldn't be complete without a visit to the HyperArchive, a web-based entry into the Info-Mac software archives. The HyperArchive is updated daily by MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science. You have no chance of keeping up with the flow of Macintosh shareware and freeware without visiting this page. There is another Info-Mac mirror at TOCNET, but I find it much more difficult to use.)
There are other web-based software archives, most notably c|net's shareware.com, but I somehow prefer the HyperArchive.
Not all archives are run by big corporations or well-known universities. Many are run by individuals. These smaller archives are often designed to provide software that's usually on overburdened corporate servers. Matt's Pseudo-FTP Happy Server is one of these.
Not all sites merit a daily visit. Many of them publish on a weekly basis, or simply update their pages less frequently than the sites I mentioned in the previous section.
Adam (and Tonya) Engst have spent much of the last few years working towards the betterment of the Macintosh community. Besides the worthwhile Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh web site, Adam, Tonya, and Geoff each week release TidBITS, a magazine of reviews and hints for Macintosh users.
The Ziff-Davis publishing empire now has a web site with digital analogues to MacUser and MacWeek. At ZDNet you'll find the ZDNet shareware exclusives commissioned by Ziff-Davis, a news-magazine, and more.
C|net Central also puts out a news-magazine on a weekly basis.
Some smaller operations - and individuals - also put out worthwhile web pages, even if they're not updated as frequently as the bigger, for-profit operations do. The Well-Connected Mac, The Macintosh Page, M. PowerMac, Macintosh Evangelist Links, Cult of Macintosh, and MacintoshOS.com are among those who strive to maintain informative articles and links to other information.
Some software authors maintain their own web pages. When I'm interested in checking for recent upgrades I surf the web. Here are some sites I regularly visit:
Global Village: for the software that drives my Global Village PCMCIA modem/Ethernet card.
Symantec Technical Support: for Norton Disk Doctor, Symantec Anti-Virus for Macintosh (SAM), Symantec Utilities for Macintosh (SUM), etc.
Jeremy Kezer's Control Strip Modules beat the stuffing out of Apple's offerings. His other shareware applications are also worth trying out.
Connectix Technical Support for my QuickCam, RAM Doubler, Speed Doubler, etc.
ShrinkWrap is the premier disk-image utility and a must-have for anyone who makes backups of the software distribution floppies they purchase.
Maui Software: for TimeSlice, the application I use to keep track of time spent on different projects that clutter my plate.
Now Software: for Up-to-Date, Contact, Synchronize, Now Utilities, etc.
Adobe: for updates to Acrobat Reader, Adobe Type Manager (ATM), etc.
Gregory Landweber and Ed Voas are responsible for such jems as Aaron and DoubleScroll.
I connect to Sirius via FreePPP.
Netscape: for the Navigator browser and Navigator plug-ins.
Fetch: which I use to upload web pages from my PowerBook to the web server.
John Norstad's pages for NewsWatcher and pointers to Yet Another NewsWatcher.
Peter Lewis' body of work for the Mac includes Anarchie, a must-have FTP client.
If you're interested in writing Java applets then the Macintosh Java Developers Kit available from Sun Microsystems is of interest to you.
The MacPGP distribution at MIT.
The PGPfone distribution at MIT.
CryptDisk, the only serious Macintosh security application, is constantly running on my Mac (containing my entire Eudora folder, Newswatcher group files, etc.).
Apple Computer maintains some worthwhile web sites:
A technical information library, known as TIL, which contains documents of many frequently asked questions, problem work-arounds, etc.
Information about the new technologies you'll be using shortly, including QuickDraw 3D, QuickTime VR, OpenDoc, and Cyberdog.
Any listing of web sites is out of date by the time it sees daylight. I hope these links provide you with a leg up on keeping abreast of the rapid changes in the Macintosh universe. Know any other intersting links? Let the Sirius community know by posting to the USENET sirius.tech newsgroup. I look forward to hearing from you.
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