Budget DTP

I’m looking to move work from my old Acorn A3020, in particular running Impression Style for DTP, to my new, but fairly basic, iMac. Is there a comparable frame-based DTP application for the Mac, given that I think QuarkXPress is too complicated and expensive? Is there a drawing program which supports snapping to a triangular grid? How can I best transfer files using the iMac’s external floppy drive?

Wil Ransome

Adobe FrameMaker is likely to prove a bit expensive, although it’s a lovely publishing application which, as the name suggests, is built around the concept of frames. RagTime (go to www.besoftware.com) is considerably cheaper and has a clean interface, with which you may feel at home following your experience with Impression Style. Triangular grids are not well supported in ordinary drawing applications, or in the simple drawing module in AppleWorks. However, more sophisticated design applications such as FreeHand and Illustrator allow you to construct your own grid and snap to the points within it. Unfortunately, true CAD applications for the Mac, such as MiniCAD, are thin on the ground and start to get expensive. Finally, if you have to move files by floppy disk, then standardise on MS-DOS 1.44Mb format, and try initialising these in your USB floppy drive rather than the Acorn. If your Acorn can support Ethernet, you might find TCP/IP across a small network much simpler and certainly quicker than fiddling with floppies.

SCSI card

Which SCSI card should I buy for my new 400MHz Power Mac G4? My dealer has recommended an Orange Micro card, but I prefer Adaptec. Is there any reason that I should not get an Adaptec card?

Graham Gillott

In recent years, Adaptec cards have been among the most popular for Power Mac G3 and G4s, and have been Apple’s choice in certain optional configurations. Depending on the SCSI devices you intend to connect, your dealer should have no trouble locating a suitable Adaptec card, offering the appropriate speed and width of SCSI bus to get the best from your SCSI chain. However, it’s very important that the model chosen ­ regardless of manufacturer ­ is officially supported for use in current G4 models. This is because recent firmware upgrades (in particular, Apple G4 Firmware Update 2.4) may require updated firmware in the SCSI card, but not all cards can be so updated. Your dealer has access to information about this and you should check with them.

Performa upgrade

I recently upgraded my Performa 5400 with a 350MHz G3 card. Since then I’ve had several problems, the worst of which is that my monitor loses sync (flickers, and switches between resolutions) when woken from sleep. I can only get rid of this by zapping the PRAM. Is the card duff or is this a known issue?

Matt Clements

There are many potential causes for this, and you may find it easier to take your Mac back to the dealer who sold ­ and presumably installed ­ the G3 upgrade. Before doing that, though, you might like to check you have the latest firmware and any supporting software installed for the upgrade: many G3 upgrade cards have needed firmware upgrades to address issues such as this. Loss of video sync normally occurs because the video signal has drifted out of specification for the monitor settings, or because the monitor has a hardware problem. These could, in turn, stem from timing issues posed by the G3 upgrade, which could be the result of a duff card or an inherent design problem. It may come down to your dealer trying another upgrade card to see if that fixes the problem.

Remote Access

I’m having problems connecting two Macs, one at the home, the other at the office, over a phone line. I’ve configured TCP/IP, switched AppleTalk to Remote Only, and turned on file sharing. However, the 5400 at the office just doesn’t seem to respond when I dial it up from my iMac. Do I need additional software?

Alec MacLeod

You shouldn’t need to install any additional software, provided you have Remote Access properly installed and configured on each machine, and there are no quirks in the office phone system. Because this sort of problem can be quite fiddly and needs access to both ends of the connection, the best way to set it up is to get both machines side by side, using two different phone lines, if you can. You might find that someone in an adjacent business unit or office with another phone line can help, if you don’t have two lines available in your office. Then label each machine clearly as REMOTE CONNECTION (the office 5400) and HOME, open the Remote Access control panel on each, and step through Apple Help to configure them in turn. Typing ‘remote access’ into the search field in Apple Help will offer you two configuration options, among other material. Unless you are connecting the machines over an Internet connection (for example, the office machine sits permanently on the Internet, and your home machine then has to hitch up through your ISP), you shouldn’t choose TCP/IP protocols, but AppleTalk Remote Access (ARA). You’ll also need to check that the modem for your 5400 is set to auto-answer ­ and that, in turn, may be configured by its modem script.

Mac Slowdown

Since I connected a Pace 56K voice modem to my Power Mac 9600, I’ve been suffering from various incompatibilities. Scrolling through large windows is very slow, I can’t use my A3 Wacom tablet, and so on. Is it possible that Shared Library Manager PPC is at fault, and how can I fix this?

Chris Ison

Shared Library Manager PPC is a standard part of Mac OS, and ­ if you’re using Mac OS 8.5 or later ­ version 2.0.1 of the extension should be installed in your Extensions Folder. If you try disabling it using Extensions Manager, then your Mac will become severely dysfunctional. If the Pace modem software has overwritten that version with an earlier one, then that could easily be causing serious problems, and that’s best addressed by removing the Pace software and, if necessary, re-installing the Mac OS. You might be able to get your Wacom tablet, modem, and applications co-existing peacefully if you upgrade the tablet driver to the latest version. However, it might be best simply to abandon the modem and try a different product with better software support. Unfortunately, this may well mean giving up voice support.

DV video editing

I’ve just bought a Canon XM1 DV camera, and want to set up my 333MHz PowerBook G3 to use it. I know that I’ll need a FireWire card and a big hard drive. Should the disk be FireWire or SCSI? Is Adobe Premiere best for DV editing?

Rupert Jordan

If you want to edit digital video with your PowerBook, you’ll need the FireWire support offered by the likes of Newer’s FireWire To Go card. By the time you’ve bought that and a large, fast hard disk, you may find it almost expensive as trading in your PowerBook for a new model with built-in FireWire support and a suitably capacious hard disk. Although in general FireWire is a good way to attach hard disks, you may not get such good performance from a FireWire disk when recording or playing digital video from and to a FireWire camera. This is because FireWire devices don’t yet achieve the full speed that the FireWire bus is designed for, and your digital video will be moving between camera, processor and disk, and not directly between camera and disk. If you need to use an external disk, then SCSI should be the better option. Adobe Premiere is an excellent tool for producing edited videos, but you should also explore the potential of more edit-oriented applications, such as the MotoDV/EditDV/RotoDV suite from Digital Origin (www.digitalorigin.com). EditDV Unplugged is a very cheap download, and slightly more expensive bundles can include Premiere LE, and more.

StyleWriter on PC

My Performa 5400 has an Apple Color StyleWriter 2500 printer. Can I also use the printer from a Windows laptop ­ after all, it’s only a rebadged Canon printer, isn’t it?

Neil Tayler

The Color StyleWriter 2500 has a standard serial interface (with AppleTalk and Ethernet as options) which could be connected to any computer with a serial interface. To use that, you should obtain and connect a standard serial printer cable for your laptop PC. However, that only provides the physical connection: potentially the biggest problem is obtaining and configuring a suitable Windows printer driver for it. This may require trial and error, and you should be prepared with an ample supply of paper and time. You may find it simpler to buy a basic colour printer for the laptop; if you choose one with a USB interface and Mac drivers, you should be able to use the printer when you come to upgrade your Mac.

MIDI on G4

I use my Power Mac 7200/90 for music publishing, using Finale, QuarkXPress, and so on, and work with music sequencers. Could I upgrade to a G4 model now, or should I expect compatibility problems? Could I still opt for a G3 instead?

Graham Lyons

Your key applications should run reasonably well on a G4 model, but choosing a newer G4 instead of a G3 inevitably takes you closer to the leading edge, and thus exposes you to more potential problems. In comparison with your existing machine, even a modest G3 should prove a substantial improvement in speed and facilities. You’ll need to swap your serial-based MIDI interface for a USB version, but those are now widely available and arguably an improvement. You could still experience problems with some copy-protected software on G4 systems, but again most manufacturers have solved those matters.

Also take a look at Igor Engraver Light, a new and very sophisticated notation package currently available for free download from www.noteheads.com. Although you may still find a dealer able to offer a new blue-and-white G3 from old stocks, if you did want to buy a G3, you’ll probably end up with a reconditioned example. Take a look through the adverts in MacUser for suppliers and prices.

Disk name

My desktop Mac has had weird problems installing or running 0various software, including ViaVoice Millennium, a freeware music system called CSound, and the Absoft Fortran Compiler. A friend has suggested it may be because the hard disk is named ‘Brian’s; Don’t Fiddle’. Is this possible?

Brian Smart

These strange glitches probably result from the name of your hard disk. Although Mac OS is remarkably tolerant of the names you can give to volumes, folders and files, not all software is as accommodating. Try selecting the volume, and editing its name to something more prosaic, such as ‘Storage’; basically, anything lacking in punctuation marks and other strange characters will be your best bet. Also try to keep its name, and folder names, reasonably short.

You should then find that these applications behave themselves rather better, although you may need to edit the path settings for key files, for instance in CSound. This is a known problem in ViaVoice, and many other applications are likely to trip up over volumes and folders with certain characters in their names.

USB problems

I have a blue-and-white G3 which doesn’t crash a lot, but when it gets into trouble, I lose control over the mouse pointer. I’m using a Kensington USB mouse, via a Belkin powered USB hub. I’ve also had more persistent crashes with my USB Zip drive. Is this a USB hardware problem, and how can I cure it?

Jill James

Welcome to the joys of USB (aka Unstable and Steadily Breaking!). Rumours abound as to why USB is proving to be something short of the simple and robust interface which was promised, but hardware timing glitches, lack of adherence to the standard, buggy software drivers, and driver conflicts are among the issues blamed. First of all, make sure the drivers for each USB device are the latest available, and that you are running Mac OS 8.6 or 9.0.4. You should next try to swap out each of your USB peripherals in turn, to see which is leading to this instability.

You should consider an alternative powered hub, such as one from Entrega or D-Link, and a mouse such as one of the Microsoft IntelliMouse range. When you install the replacement mouse, make sure you disable all the Kensington software. Those with unpowered hubs (or powered hubs running in unpowered mode) should try switching to a powered hub (or powered mode). USB management remains a black art, and trial and error is unfortunately the only approach at present.