When we accepted the offer to house sit in San Francisco again this summer, Barbara and I couldn’t know in advance the weather would be the coldest, foggiest, gloomiest in years. Coming from sunny Arizona to dismal SF was a shock, and we suffered from a sudden bout of seasonal affective disorder. Our part of the city, Outer Richmond, was especially dismal.
Remedies? Over the Golden Gate Bridge we did go, on day trips up to genuine summertime in Marin County. The traffic can be intense, but the “terrible heat” complained about by the locals felt warm and comfy to our bones and brains, and was much more temperate than the genuine hot weather we left behind in Tucson. Other outings took us into regions of San Francisco more blessed with sunshine than the Richmond area: Noe Valley, Mission, and Marina.
Let’s all sing together: “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear …” plenty of layers. Have a windbreaker with a hood, at the very least.
Berkeley and Oakland have better weather than the “city by the bay,” and Berkeley is home to the most important restaurant in the world, from my perspective, Chez Panisse http://www.chezpanisse.com. We made a phone reservation from Arizona, a month before our intended lunch. The meal and experience were up to our boundless expectations. If you are a foodie, put this pilgrimage high on your Bay Area wish list. Lunch runs to $30 – 40 per person, complete, and is worth it for special or once-in-a-lifetime occasions.
NEW STUFF FROM APPLE
Everywhere we drove in the Bay Area we noticed billboards, painted busses, and bus shelter advertisements for the new range of iMacs, the cube, and the optical mouse. Among Macintosh digerati, the consensus was things are going from splendid to superb. Apple has a disproportionally strong presence here in greater San Francisco / San Jose, which is refreshing to those of us from less-enlightened communities. (The only competitor with outdoor advertising, FWIW, is PeoplePC, which is an entirely different concept altogether.)
Jim Nemerovski, my Bay Area cousin, a Macintosh consultant for Mann Consulting LLC http://www.mann.com, thinks I’m a perfect candidate for a Cube plus small new Cinema Display. I’m not so sure. The new iMacs and FireWire PowerBooks are very tempting. While I was considering this extensive range of choices, the following email arrived from Tim Robertson, our intrepid publisher of My Mac Magazine:
John,
Hey, where are you? UPS is TRYING to make a delivery to your house. They will only try two more times. The tracking # is 1z2g2e36124k62095m5. Contact them ASAP!! Or let me know a phone number I can reach you at.
Tim
What was going on? Could it be an early surprise birthday present?! I called Tim, and YES, I was the fortunate fourth member of the My Mac staff to be receiving a free iMac from Small Dog, our generous sponsor. WOW.
Except for one thing: the computer was in Arizona and I was in California. Yikes. What next? Our house sitter was out of town, so I called our helpful neighbors, who agreed to accept delivery the following day. They are safely guarding my mystery iMac until I return home. Not even Tim knows which model or color it will be. Stay tuned for my report, in a future Nemo Memo.
For two nights afterward my dreams were filled with details of how I would set up and configure the iMac, complete with decisions on a new HP inkjet printer, plus a USB Zip drive. Am I hard core, or what?
LONG LIVE OUTPOST.COM
While in San Fran, my old SCSI Zip drive served as archive and backup vehicle, using two alternating Zip disks for all fresh My Mac writing and personal incoming email files. The new HDI-30/DB-25 adaptor for PowerBook 1400 SCSI/Dock didn’t work consistently, so Outpost.com agreed to replace it. They are easy to work with, and have a 24/7 toll free number for telephone orders, when needed. I recommend them.
My young friend Josh happened to purchase an iMac DV Special Edition from Costco during the week the new models were introduced. I suggested he return it for the latest and greatest version, but Costco wasn’t going to be carrying them soon, if ever. After spending hours configuring the first computer, Josh decided to order the newer graphite iMac from Outpost.com. He has transferred his data from DV#1 to DV#2, and is elated with the way Apple’s timing worked in his favor, in spite of his wanting to be loyal to Costco.
Speaking of warehouse clubs, both Costco and Sams Club offer very good deals on prepaid phone cards. For around $20, you get nearly SIX HOURS of calling, averaging under 6 cents per minute! The cards can be recharged using a credit card when the available time is running low. I am indebted to my friend Steve for introducing me to the wonders of Sams/Costco calling cards. I highly recommend them.
MACS AND MORE
An original bondi blue iMac happens to sit next to the space our PB1400 occupied in our temporary San Francisco home, courtesy of the homeowner. I used the iMac occasionally, but not as much as you would expect. It has Earthlink for ISP, with a very slow dialup login and frequent phone line cutoffs. Ironically, our ancient PowerBook worked adequately for limited vacation usage: email, some web research, and a bit of writing. I expect to use my new iMac a LOT more than any previous home/office computer!
An unexpected bonus from using an old computer is that it is slower than I am, allowing me actually to think while working on it. Try thinking some time while at your Macintosh. The experience can be enlightening, and is becoming rare as most of us upgrade to faster Macs.
My Bay Area uncle received a new IBM ThinkPad model A20m while I was visiting. For a Windows laptop, its features and speed are impressive. His Earthlink dialup connection is fast and firm, making web searching a breeze. I helped him configure the personal and work settings, including something called Citrix Network. In spite of an inexperienced consultant (me), we had him telecommuting in a few hours.
If this ThinkPad were the only computer available, the world would be better for it, but the elegance of Mac OS still beats Windoze on sophistication and design.
Speaking of Microsoft, I attempted to download, install, and run Windows Media Player 6.3 to use my PB1400 for listening to the radio (kdfc.com). Nothing whatsoever happened, so I quit trying. I had succeeded previously with WMPlayer at home in Tucson (audiohighway.com), but after fifteen minutes of wrestling with the software in SF, I called it quits. The only “benefit” is the permanent underlining of specific letters in every Menu item (very top of screen), thanks to the DOS legacy. I can ignore them, but I would be happy if they would go away.
MY SCREEN IS BRIGHTER THAN YOUR SCREEN, ORIZZIT?
Let’s admit it: the screen on our PowerBook 1400cs/133 is crummy. Doesn’t “cs” stand for “crummy screen”? The adjacent San Fran REV-C iMac has a very bright monitor, as does my uncle’s ThinkPad. Cousin Jim’s iBook screen, when compared to the ThinkPad, is dull and insipid. For maximum Macintosh flat-screen TFT visibility and clarity, get a FireWire PowerBook or a new Cinema Display.
DSL FOR DUMMIES
My uncle was frustrated with PacBell. They promised to install a DSL connection, and never showed up, but started billing him. He had no success dealing directly with PacBell, but a long-standing friend of his, who is a former officer of PacBell, interceded; and four PacBell senior executives diligently and courteously convinced PacBell to stop billing him. The experience, however, made him very wary of having his computer be hostage to a DSL connection; he knew that, if his DSL hookup went bad, he would grow even older than he now is, trying to reach someone to repair the problem!
He contacted Earthlink, who offers a do-it-yourself connection kit, but there were over 1,000 people ahead of him on the waiting list. Their phone rep explained it is faster and easier to have a tech come to the house (3 – 5 weeks backlog), with installation by the Covad company. My uncle said “no dice,” based on his experience with PacBell. He’ll continue with reliable dialup. What would you do in the situation?
YEAST AND CRABS
I subscribe to the Bread Bakers List, run by Reggie and Jeff Dwork reggie@reggie.com. This weekly email list is for serious bread bakers. You are welcome to subscribe. Send an email message to Reggie, telling her John Nemo sent you.
The Dworks reside near San Jose, and offered to drive up to the city to meet Barbara and me in person. We had Dungeness crab cooked in garlic, Vietnamese style, at Jasmine House on Clement Street. You can find ratings of this and many other fine restaurants worldwide at http://www.zagat.com.
Reggie and Jeff are the most recent in my ongoing series of people to meet in person after having extensive communication online. So far all the experiences have been positive. Have yours?
AOL EMAIL VIA WWW
America Online improved its web-based access to email, and now promotes it from their portals, including the AOL home page and http://aolmail.aol.com. I used it several times during our summer travels, and it works very well. If you keep a lot of messages active in your incoming email, as I do, here is a suggestion for managing a bunch of incoming mail:
1. Log into your AOL email account via the web.
2. Scroll down to where you want to begin.
3. Click on the first message in the series.
4. Read and reply to messages, just like usual.
5. Continue clicking on NEXT MESSAGE until you are finished with the last one.
6. Click on the OLD MAIL tab near the top of the window.
7. All the messages you just read will be displayed.
8. Click to select the entire group, or whichever ones you want to keep current.
9. Click on KEEP AS NEW.
10. You are all set for your next America Online email session, either via AOL software or via the web.
More good news from AOL. Without making a big deal of it, they have extended the time you can be online without an annoying message window to … forever, as long as you are actually doing something. Also, you won’t be cut off while typing an email message during an online session, as they did in the past. About time, right?
NEMO UPDATES
The iOpener is now more expensive, but has a few new features. See details at http://www.netpliance.com
FreeWWWeb appears to have gone out of existence, passing the torch to Juno. It was fun while it lasted.
Thanks for reading, friends. Bye until the next time.
John Nemerovski
nemo@mymac.com
Websites mentioned:
http://www.chezpanisse.com
http://www.kdfc.com
http://www.mann.com
http://www.outpost.com
http://www.zagat.com
http://aolmail.aol.com
http://www.netpliance.com
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