mac-internet-faq-2002-12 ======================== Q: What to ask my ISP when getting an account? Q: How to set up MacTCP, MacPPP and TCP-apps? Q: What are the relevant mac's TCP-apps and where to get them? Q: Can users share one Macintosh for their mail with Eudora? Q: What are the relevant helper-apps and where to get them? Q: Where can I download mac software? Q: My Apple server is busy - are there any mirrors? Q: What is BinHex, BinHex 4.0, BinHex 5.0, MacBinary, raw binary, AppleDouble, AppleSingle, MIME, base64, CR/LF, ISO 8859-1, Latin-1, DOS-CP850, DOS-CP437, 7-bit Scandinavian, QP, uuencode, type/creator, .hqx, .bin, .sit, .cpt, .uu, .uue, .gz, .tar, .Z, .zip, .image, .smi etc and how to handle them on a mac? Q: How can I download mac files (via a PC) and then use them on my mac (given that I don't _already_ have mac decode/uncompress software)? Q: How to surf the net with 68000 macs like MacPlus? This text-file describes how to set up your mac for the Internet in practice. It also tells you what apps the author of this faq considers to be essential to all mac-surfers out there. Note that these are the author's experiences only and some topics (like configuring Open Transport or setting up a SLIP connection) aren't discussed in detail. This file is formatted as setext so you may use Easy View to browse it. The version numbers and directories in the URLs may have changed so look around. Use a local info-mac mirror, if possible: The latest version of this file is available at: There is also 68000-mac-faq at: Matti Haveri basic settings ============== questions to your ISP --------------------- Ask your Internet Service Provider: 1. How the connection is established; direct Ethernet / LocalTalk, PPP, SLIP, ARA etc? 2. Does your mac have a static ip-number or does the server give it whenever the connection is made? What is the ip-number of the possible gateway (i.e. router) ? 3. Modem connection (PPP, SLIP, terminal emulation) phone numbers? Does the PPP server support Password Authentication Protocol (PAP) (username & password?) or do you have to make a connect-script (what is the script; what command starts PPP etc)? What are the speeds the server modems support, does the modem connection require any special settings? 4. What are the ip-numbers of the domain name servers ? What is the recommended local domain (i.e. default domain or domain name) ? 5. What is your: login username & password. How often and how to change the password. What is the length and format of a valid password? POP/IMAP mail server (incoming) and SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol; outgoing) server ? email address ; is it different from your POP account ? Can you use an alias like as an email address? news server or NNTP (Net News Transport Protocol) server (does the news server require username and password)? www-, ftp- and other proxy servers and their port numbers. Recommended local www-homepage (if you want to use one)? 6. Who to contact when in trouble (phone, fax, email)? 7. ...does the ISP know the mac? Does it support MacTCP and Open Transport; does it understand what you're asking?? Does the ISP have support personnel (how many?) who specialize in the mac? What portion of ISP's customer base use macs? Can you leave voice/email and how quickly does the ISP respond; does the ISP maintain a local newsgroup for questions? Does the ISP have an automated status line and is it up-to-date? How does the ISP handle busies and are they a recurring problem (ask for their main modem number and call it in the evening between 19 and 22 to see if you get a busy signal; also call at a time you think will be typical for your use)? Does the ISP have a web server customers can use; what is the limit to how much material you can make available? minimum requirements -------------------- * MacPlus, (2.5-)4MB RAM, 20MB harddisk, (2400-)14400 modem, System 7.0* and MacTCP 2.0.6 are the practical minimum requirements for PPP connections. Only MacPPP 2.0.1, MacSLIP 3.0.3, InterSLIP 1.0.1 and FCRppp 1.6 currently work on 68000 macs. MacPPP 2.0.1cm4 and v2.1.2SD are enhanced versions of MacPPP 2.0.1; 2.0.1cm4 enables background dialing, for instance - MacPPP 2.1.2SD has enhancements like: fixes problem with Config PPP not being able to access it's prefs file if the Finder closed the control panel on a low memory error, terminal window is larger and scrolling of text off the top is a little cleaner, shows the 115K and 230K rates in the Port Speed popup (and has 4800 as a slowest port speed vs 1200 on v2.0.1). (Note that MacPPP 2.0.1 variations fail to redraw the PPP "up" symbols on screen (after the 1st connection; no reboot between connections) unless you cover and uncover them with other windows). On 68000 macs (Plus, SE, Portable, Classic, PB100) telnet-, ftp-, mail-, news- and tcp-apps like NCSA Telnet, Fetch, Anarchie 1.6.0, Eudora, NewsWatcher and MacTCP Watcher 1.1.2 work fine. With MacPlus you can't use control-keys in NCSA Telnet (in ZTerm you can use option or command instead of control). On 68000 macs NCSA Mosaic 1.0.3, MacWeb 1.00A3.2, v2.0 and MacLynx work for www; NCSA Mosaic can display in-line graphics but with MacWeb you must use an external helper like GIFConverter or GIFwatcher DA. Apps and extensions requiring color or better processor (Netscape Navigator, JPEGView, QuickTime etc) don't work on 68000 macs. With only 1MB RAM, floppy drive(s) and System 6 you can connect via a terminal emulator like ZTerm and use unix apps like pine, tin, ftp, ncftp, sz, rz, and lynx for mail, news, file transfer and www. With ZTerm you can use option or command instead of control when using MacPlus. To save disk space on those 800K floppies install the minimum System 6.0.x that ZTerm requires. You can trash all files except System and Finder, delete unnecessary fonts and DAs from the System file with Font/DA Mover and delete PPC code from ZTerm with Strip Fat to save even more disk space. If you want to use System 6 and connect via PPP, following software versions work even with 1MB RAM: System 6.0.5-6.0.8 (MacPPP 2.0.1 insists that System Folder's name must be "System Folder" so if you are using a localized System change the folder's name accordingly), MacTCP 2.0.6, MacPPP 2.0.1, NCSA Telnet 2.6, Fetch 3.0.3, Eudora 1.3.1 (install also Map control panel from the System disks and set your time zone), NewsWatcher 2.0d13m01, Internews 1.1, MacWWW 1.03 (Samba), MacTCP Watcher 1.1.2 (older versions of these apps may use less memory). MacWWW 1.03 (Samba) works on 68000 macs (at least on System 6.0.5 - it crashes on System 7.0.1*). It opens fine, loads the startup page fine (doesn't know how to read files from disk, text-only, no ISO 8859-1 translation, opens a new window for each link). Do not close any windows as this crashes the mac; also quitting MacWWW seems to cause a crash. Note that with System 6 MacTCP may crash when saving prefs for the first time so check that the prefs are actually saved. To save space on a floppy-only system, install a minimum System for your mac and delete all System Folder items except System, Finder, PPP, ConfigPPP, MacTCP, PPP Preferences, MacTCP DNR and MacTCP Prep; delete also unnecessary fonts and DAs from the System file with Font/DA Mover (keep Control Panel DA, though) - this leaves 322 K of free space on a DD floppy with System 6.0.5 US (MacPlus minimum install). Unfatten also "fat" tcp-apps. Turn RAM Cache off to leave maximum amount of RAM to the apps. software for TCP connection --------------------------- * You need MacTCP or Open Transport for TCP-connections like direct ethernet or PPP- and SLIP-connection via modem. Use Open Transport (TCP/IP) instead of MacTCP if your mac supports it (68030 processor or better). MacTCP and OpenTransport are included in System 7.5 and above. Apple dealers sell MacTCP but also "The Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh" (Adam Engst, Hayden Books) book includes it, among other utilities. MacTCP can also be found on the net: MacTCP 2.0.4: MacTCP 2.0.6 and some developer stuff: MacTCP 2.0.6: MacTCP 2.0.x to 2.0.6 updaters: ...once you are there you can also fetch the latest network software (ZM-NSI_1.5.1) although TCP-connection doesn't usually need it. With Network Access Disk it is possible to boot almost every mac and connect to AppleTalk network (this allows CD-ROMless macs to install system software from another mac's CD-ROM drive etc): * PPP and SLIP. Q: I'm using Open Transport - should I use OT/PPP or FreePPP? A: OT/PPP is native, a little faster and requires a modem script. FreePPP is more customizable. Try them both and see for yourself. You can have both in the System Folder simultaneously. MacPPP 2.1.2SD is recommended as a first choice for System 7.x 68000 macs. Only MacPPP 2.0.1, v2.0.1cm4, v2.1.1SD and v2.1.2SD, MacSLIP 3.0.3, InterSLIP 1.0.1 and FCRppp 1.6 currently work on 68000 macs (Plus, SE, Portable, Classic, PB100). OT/PPP or FreePPP are recommended for other macs as a first try. OT/PPP, FreePPP and MacPPP 2.5 work also with Open Transport which supercedes MacTCP on newer macs. You can also try SimplePPP, SonicPPP, NTS PPP, tcpCONNECT4 PPP, MacSLIP or LinkUPPP! for PPP connections. Overview of PPP software: MacPPP 2.0.1, v2.0.1cm4, v2.1.1SD and v2.1.2SD: MacPPP 2.1.2SD is recommended as a first choice for System 7.x 68000 macs. MacPPP 2.0.1cm4, v2.1.1SD and v2.1.2SD are enhanced versions of MacPPP 2.0.1; v2.0.1cm4 enables background dialing, for instance - MacPPP 2.1.2SD has enhancements like: fixes problem with Config PPP not being able to access it's prefs file if the Finder closed the control panel on a low memory error, terminal window is larger and scrolling of text off the top is a little cleaner, shows the 115K and 230K rates in the Port Speed popup (and has 4800 as a slowest port speed vs 1200 on v2.0.1). (Note that MacPPP 2.0.1 variations fail to redraw the PPP "up" symbols on screen (after the 1st connection; no reboot between connections) unless you cover and uncover them with other windows). If the "Open" button is grayed out in MacPPP make sure that PPP is selected in MacTCP. Note that there is a memory related bug in MacPPP 2.0.1: If applications have used all available memory, Config PPP is forced to close with an error message like: "The control panel "Config PPP" cannot be used now, because not enough memory is available." It is not possible to reopen the control panel because there is a message: "Config PPP Error! Opening Preferences". This prevents one from properly closing the internet connection. OT/PPP requires at least Open Transport 1.1.1, 68030 mac and System 7.5.3: FreePPP requires at least 68020 mac and System 7.1: FreePPP www-site and latest betas: MacPPP 2.5 requires at least 68030 mac and System 7.5: SimplePPP requires at least System 7.1 (v1.4.5 doesn't work on a PB100): Sonic PPP (on PB100 opens the connection OK but soon crashes the mac): NTS PPP requires at least 68020 mac: Commercial tcpCONNECT4 PPP (formerly InterPPP II) supports PPP and SLIP, it requires at least System 7 (v2.0.1 doesn't work on a PB100): Commercial MacSLIP supports PPP and SLIP (requires at least System 6.0.7): LinkUPPP! (formerly FCRppp) supports PPP and SLIP (v1.1r1 doesn't work on a PB100): InterSLIP: MacTCP settings --------------- * Turn AppleTalk ON (Leaving it OFF seems to provoke a crash when saving MacTCP prefs for the first time. With some Systems you may have to reboot to make AppleTalk active). Drag and drop "MacTCP" control panel on top of the system folder icon so it goes automatically to the control panels folder. In general, the "Hosts" file is not needed nor recommended to copy to the system folder. * If you use PPP drag and drop "PPP" extension and "Config PPP" control panel the same way on top of the system folder icon so they go to their right places in the extensions and control panels folder. * Restart the mac. * Choose "Ethernet" (direct ethernet) or "PPP" in MacTCP's first panel. Based on your connection method you may also have to choose "EtherTalk", "LocalTalk", ARA etc. (The Network control panel configures which lead the AppleTalk packets go (slow LocalTalk, fast EtherTalk, ARA); MacTCP control panel configures which lead the TCP packets go.) * Click More... and in the following panel choose "Obtain Address" "Manually" (direct connection) or "Server" (PPP). * In direct connection in the first MacTCP panel write _this mac's_ unique "IP-Address" like "123.123.123.123" and in the second MacTCP panel "Gateway Address" like "123.123.123.1" (ask the right ip-numbers from your ISP!!) * In PPP connection these "IP-Address" and "Gateway Address" fields are left blank (if the address is obtained from the server MacTCP fills them automatically whenever a connection is made). * Domain Name Server Information configures name servers which translate domain names like "ftp.funet.fi" to ip-numbers like "128.214.248.6" and vice versa. Note that the primary domain name server is also written to the second row (note also the dots in the in the following Domain columns!). In the following example "domain.com" in the first row means only that if you write in a TCP-app (telnet, ftp etc) an incomplete domain name without dots like "cc" MacTCP automatically appends your "domain.com" (i.e. your "local domain", "default domain" or "domain name") to it and the final result is "cc.domain.com". For example (ask the right local domain and ip-numbers from your ISP!!): domain.com 1.2.3.4 (x) default . 1.2.3.4 . 5.6.7.8 . 6.7.8.9 * MacTCP fills automagically the info in the second panel's upper right hand corner so you can just ignore them in most cases. * Restart the mac. * If you suspect that your MacTCP settings have been corrupted trash MacTCP control panel and the files "MacTCP DNR" (System folder) and "MacTCP Prep" (Preferences folder) shift-boot and set up MacTCP again from scratch. This may also be a good idea when upgrading to a new MacTCP version. Make sure you have the correct settings somewhere! * Open Transport (OT) is used instead of MacTCP in PCI macs. Macs with 68000 and 68020 processors cannot run OT at all, so they run what Apple calls "classic networking," with the MacTCP and Network control panels. Macs with 68030 and 68040 processors and non-PCI PowerMacs, have a choice of running classic or OT networking. All PCI-based PowerMacs require OT. Be sure to get at least OT v1.0.8! If necessary, MacTCP can be installed and used instead of OT by removing the following OT components from the System folder: Control Panels:TCP/IP, Extensions:OpenTptInternetLib and Open Tpt Internet Library. ...why would you want to switch between OT and classic networking? Some older programs may not work with OT. Also, OT requires more memory than classic networking (up to 1.5MB). MacTCP Switcher is a very simple little program that makes it easy to save and quickly restore multiple MacTCP configurations. This is especially useful for PowerBook users who carry their PowerBooks around and regularly use them with different network connections (e.g., SLIP at home and LocalTalk or Ethernet at work). Open Transport has its own built-in feature for saving and restoring multiple TCP/IP and AppleTalk configurations. You don't even have to restart. To use the Open Transport feature, open the TCP/IP or AppleTalk control panel, then select the "Configurations" command in the "File" menu. You can also try TCP/IP Switcher. TCP/IP (OpenTransport) settings ------------------------------- Connect via: PPP Configure: Using PPP Server Name Server addr.: 1.2.3.4 5.6.7.8 6.7.8.9 Search domains: domain.com Edit/User Mode/Advanced/Options/Make TCP/IP: Active & Load only when needed. In the version of Open Transport included in MacOS 8.6, the "Load only when needed" no longer applies when physically connected to a TCP/IP network via ARP-able media such as Ethernet." Only PPP connections "respect" this setting. ...more info about MacTCP and Open Transport settings: Q: How to get a mac's _hardware_ ethernet-address? A: In MacTCP, hold down option-key and click on MacTCP control panel's Built-in (or Alternate) Ethernet icon. In OpenTransport, expand TCP/IP control panel to Extended mode, press Info-button when Built-in (or Alternate) Ethernet/BootP server is selected. Apple LAN Utility, GetMyAddress etc can also show the address. MacTCP 2.0.6 gives an error message when you query for a name with an underscore <_> character because underscore is strictly an illegal character in Internet domain names. (MacTCP 2.0.4 accepted underscores in domain names). MacPPP settings --------------- The following advice applies also to other PPP clients. Please check to be sure you are using the most current version of MacPPP, version 2.01 for 68000 B&W macs (i.e. macs without color QuickDraw like Plus, SE, Portable, Classic, PB100) and FreePPP 1.0.5 or better for all other macs including PCI PowerMacs. You may also try OT/PPP which is included in System 8.0 and up. * Open the Config PPP control panel. * Select the port to which the modem is connected. A few PowerBook modems, including the Apple Express Modem, the Global Village PowerPort/Mercury for the PowerBook 500-series, and Duos, are bus modems, and show up in the menu as Internal Modem. Other internal PowerBook modems are non-bus modems and use an internal connection to the Modem port. For these, choose Modem port. Mac AV/PPC users may also have a GeoPort option. If you get an error message "PPP Error! Error initializing serial port. Possibly already in use." try to reselect the port you need (this error manifests itself at least when transferring Config PPP preference files between localized Systems with different port names). * The Idle Timeout pop-up enables you to set a time of inactivity, after which MacPPP will close the connection. MacPPP does a soft close in this idle timeout situation, which means that a MacTCP-based application can automatically re-open the connection by requesting MacTCP services. If MacPPP did a hard close, applications wouldn't be able to re-open the connection automatically; you would have to click the Open button to open a new connection. * If present, uncheck Allow applications to open connection. * for Echo Interval choose Off. The Echo Interval pop-up menu provides the opportunity to configure MacPPP to periodically query the line to see if your connection has dropped. If MacPPP receives no response after three successive requests, MacPPP assumes that the connection has gone dead. If you have trouble with your connection dropping frequently, using it may make life easier. When MacPPP detects a dead connection, it pops up a dialog box with three buttons for Close PPP, Ignore, or Restart, which in this case means restarting the PPP connection, not the Macintosh. Of course, if your connection drops, you must at least quit open MacTCP applications before trying to do anything else. You may have to restart to clear things up appropriately if the open applications have become sufficiently confused by the loss of the connection. Note: The Echo Interval feature continually sends packets to the server and waits for a response, but these packets don't count as traffic for the Idle Timeout feature. * Uncheck Terminal Window. If you check it, MacPPP ignores the Phone number and Modem init fields in the Configure Server and Connect Script dialog boxes. Instead, it makes you walk through the connection manually, starting with dialing the modem with an ATDT command. Note: In some situations, MacPPP's terminal window doesn't echo what you type back to the screen, but the characters will be sent when you press Return. You may never need to use MacPPP's terminal emulator, but if you have trouble logging on, it's much easier to have the terminal emulator built into MacPPP rather than be forced to use an external one. If you must use the terminal window, enter Modem init and Phone number manually, enter your username and password, and once you start seeing some gibberish characters that indicate the start of PPP data, click OK to start the PPP session. Write down which responses you get from the server and how you answer to them so you can write your login script based on this information. * Check Hangup on Close. Hangup on Close, if checked, sends the modem a hangup string (+++ ATH) when you close your PPP session. * Check Quiet Mode. If you have the Quiet Mode checkbox checked, MacPPP closes the connection after a preset time of inactivity (Idle Timeout) without warning; if not, then at the end of the idle time period MacPPP presents you with a dialog that enables you to either ignore the warning and leave the PPP connection active, or close PPP. * Click the New... * Create a new configuration. Name it, and it appears in the PPP Server pop-up menu. If you want to delete one, make sure it's showing in the menu and click the Delete button. * Click on Config... * Select the Port Speed. The Port Speed (DTE or data terminal equipment speed) is the speed at which the mac and the modem communicate, not the speed at which the two modems communicate i.e. "line speed", DCE or data circuit-terminating equipment speed (unless it happens to be slower than the fastest speed the modems have in common, at which point it forces the modems to communicate at that speed). Do not set the Port Speed menu to 14400 or 28800 even if you have a 14400 bps or 28800 bps modem. The reason is that some modems don't accept those as valid port speeds, and MacPPP won't talk to the modem properly. Note: Port speed is reportedly irrelevant if you use a bus modem, since it doesn't use the modem port. Set it to 57600 if you have one of these modems. If your modem supports data compression set the Port Speed so that it is 2-4x the highest DCE speed the modem supports, for example: 2400 for 2400 modem 38400 for 9600 modem 115200 for 28800 modem * For Flow Control, try one of the following settings (on a USR Sportster): 1. "CTS and RTS (DTR)" and init string AT F1 &D0. Works otherwise OK but occasionally the modem doesn't hang up properly because the mac has to hang up the modem using the "+++" escape sequence to put the modem in command mode followed by the "ATH" command. It's much more reliable (and faster) to hang up the modem by just dropping DTR. 2. "CTS only" and init string AT F1 &D0. The drawback is that your mac can't tell the modem to stop delivering data, and as a result it may lose some packets. In practice, most modern Macintoshes are fast enough so that they rarely fall behind, and even if they do PPP and TCP/IP will make sure the data still gets there. Note that whatever &Dn you use, "CTS only" setting ignores it. 3. "CTS and RTS (DTR)" and init string AT F1 &D2 S25=250. It is often possible to get both CTS/RTS handshake AND hardware hangup via DTR (&D2 in the init string). The trick is to configure the modem to ignore DTR until it has been held down for some time. The DTR threshold is usually held in register S25, though the units vary from modem to modem: some use 1/10 sec, some 1/100 sec etc - you need to read the friendly manual. For example, for the USR Sportster use S25=250 and for the Multitech S25=25. In both cases, the modem will not hang up until DTR has been held down for at least 2.5 secs, which is far longer than the time DTR would be held down for CTS/DTR handshaking (or if the mac is taking longer than 2.5 secs to respond to CTS, chances are that it has died, and you want to hang up anyway). Note that with USR Sportster &F1 already includes &D2 so you may omit the latter and use just AT F1 S25=250. Q: Why isn't "CTS and RTS (DTR)" and init string AT F1 &D2 recommended? A: Hardware handshaking refers to the protocol used between Macintosh's serial port and the local modem to control data flow. If you enable CTS/RTS flow control in PPP client, you must also enable CTS/RTS flow control in your modem, and you must be using a modem cable that supports hardware handshaking. The CTS pin is how the modem signals the Macintosh that the modem's buffer is full and that the mac should stop sending data to the modem temporarily until the modem has had a chance to send some of its data. The RTS pin, conversely, is how the Macintosh signals the modem that the mac's serial buffer is full and the the modem should temporarily stop sending data to the mac. Unfortunately, due to a lack of pins on the mac's serial port, the RTS and DTR pins are wired together. This is why you see RTS flow control described as "RTS (DTR)", since they are the same pin on the mac. In other words, there is no way for the modem to distiguish between a signal on the RTS pin and a signal on the DTR pin. By default, some modems are configured to hang up when they see a signal on the DTR pin. This setting is controlled by the modem init string. If the modem is configured to hang up when DTR drops (&D2), and you enable "CTS and RTS (DTR)" flow control, then during high traffic periods when the mac's serial buffer fills up, it may signal the modem on the RTS pin, which will also cause the DTR signal to drop, making the modem hang up. No matter what handshaking setting you choose, the key is to make sure you are using the right modem init string to cause the modem to hang up on DTR dropping or ignore DTR as necessary. The most common mistake is where the modem is configured to hang up when DTR drops, and you're using full bidrectional flow control, causing the connection to drop at unexpected times. ...how does that CTS/RTS/DTR stuff relate to internal modems? Basically, the internal has all of these as they are typically supported right in the driver. In other words, they don't really exist at all, but the driver pretends they do. The effect of using CTS or RTS in these cases is rarely of any importance as the data is being moved over the bus and flow control is typically handled via software running the modem. However there are systems where this is not the case. Note: for the Global Village Bronze and PowerPort Mercury in the PowerBook 2xx or 5xx, choose None for Flow Control. Internal PowerBook bus modems like Express Modem and Geoport can have the Flow Control pop-up menu set to None. * Select Tone (unless you are using a rotary phone) * Enter phone number * For Modem Init see previous discussion under Flow Control. If in doubt, start with the factory default configuration for your modem (usually AT&F, AT&F1, or AT&F2, although the numbers change depending on the modem). Make sure that software flow control (XOFF/XOFF) is disabled. Display verbal result codes and enable additional result code subsets (protocol indicators added (LAPM/MNP/NONE (error control) and V42bis/MNP5 (data compression)), set so that CONNECT returns DCE speed. Set fixed serial port rate. Set transmit Data (TD) hardware flow control (Clear to Send (CTS)) as well as Receive Data (RD) hardware flow control (Request to Send (RTS)). Enable error control and data compression. Disable auto-answer. To silence the modem's speaker add M0 (that's a zero) to the string. To set speaker to lowest, low, medium, or high replace the M0 with L0, L1, L2, or L3. Init strings for a plethora of modems are listed at: Note: If you are having a problem with connections using the Silver, Gold or Mercury or Platinum modems, try using the predial init above and adding a %C0 (that's a zero) to the end of the init string. This is often needed when connecting to main frames and UNIX systems. This also increases transfer rates with PowerBook 100 & PowerPort/Gold. * Modem connect timeout field: 90 seconds. This offers you a chance to increase the amount of time MacPPP will wait for the connection to occur. If it takes MacPPP a long time to negotiate your connection, you may need to increase this value. * Click on Authentication... * Enter PPP-Authentication ID and -password to the Config/Authentication dialog box if your server supports Password Authentication Protocol (PAP) to negotiate your connection. If you're really paranoid about your password, you can leave that field blank and MacPPP will prompt you to enter it every time you connect. Leave Retries at 10, Timeout at 3 seconds. Retries specifies how many times MacPPP should attempt to resend your ID and/or password, if it is unable to establish a connection with the local terminal server. Timeout tells the number of seconds MacPPP should wait for the terminal server to respond to your ID and/or password authentication request. * Click on Connect Script... * If using the Authentication method of logging in to your PPP server machine doesn't work, you must instead use the Connect Script dialog to script your way in. If you leave the Connect Script blank or configure it incorrectly, and leave the Authentication dialog empty, MacPPP prompts you for your userid and password, just as you would have entered them in the Authentication dialog. Basically, all you do in the Connect Script dialog is replicate the process of logging in to your host manually (and the terminal window can be helpful in figuring out the connect script). You click an Out button to indicate that MacPPP should send the contents of the field to the left (and a carriage return if the checkbox is selected for that line), and you click a Wait button to indicate that MacPPP should wait for the string specified in the field to appear before moving on to the next line. Note: If you're unlucky, connecting to your PPP server will require more than the eight fields MacPPP provides here. In that case, if your server doesn't support authenticated logins (which is likely, if it requires more than four send/expect interactions), your only option may be to use the commercial tcpCONNECT4 PPP. Actually, that's not entirely true, since you can do some funky scripting within MacPPP by using special codes like \t (which drops you into the terminal window at that point in the script), \r (which sends a Return to the host), and \d (which forces a 1 s delay). The trick when creating such a hacked script is to use delays instead of the Wait buttons, thus enabling you to cram more functional script lines into the same space. Other codes are: \^ literal "^", \\ literal "\" and \nnn "8-bit octal value" - the following can be used only in Out strings: \b sends a break (100 ms). (x) Out ( ) Wait (cr) ( ) Out (x) Wait ogin: ( ) (x) Out ( ) Wait "username" (cr) ( ) Out (x) Wait word: ( ) (x) Out ( ) Wait "password" (cr) The previous example connect script says, when translated: "Send a carriage return as soon as you're connected. Then wait for the string "ogin:" to appear, and once you've seen it, send _your_ "username" and a carriage return. Wait for the string "word:" to appear, and then _your_ "password" and a carriage return. Once you're done scripting here, click OK to save your script. Note: The words "login" and "password" may have their first letter or letters removed in scripts like this, because you never know whether or not the first letter will be capitalized. "Wait timeout" is the number of seconds MacPPP will wait for each Wait string to be received from the local terminal server. By default, if more than 40 seconds elapse, MacPPP will abort the attempt to establish a connection. An alert box will appear, asking if you want to quit MacPPP or retry the connect script from the beginning. * Back in the Configure Server dialog, you've probably been wondering what's inside the LCP Options dialog and the IPCP Options dialog. You really don't want to know. No normal user should ever have to change any of those settings. (In some weird situations you may have to fiddle with these, however. IPCP Options: In the Local column's IP Address field, enter your assigned IP address. In the Remote column's IP Address field, enter your Gateway IP address.) * When you're done with your work and want to close your connection, first quit all of your MacTCP-based applications. Some of them dislike having the connection disappear from under their little electronic feet. To pull the plug on the PPP connection, you can do one of two things, depending on how you use MacPPP. First, you can click the Hard Close button, which hangs up the connection and "locks" MacPPP so that the only way to establish a new connection is to click the Open button. This prevents any applications from forcing MacPPP to open the connection automatically while, say, you're not present. Second, if it doesn't bother you to possibly have applications dialing your phone behind your back, you can click the Soft Close button to close a connection. That leaves open the auto-connect feature for the rest of that session, so launching an application makes MacPPP establish a new connection. There are some cases of MacPPP dialing for apparently no reason that are eliminated with Hard Close. * If your settings are correct and you continue to have problems with PPP, try trashing the PPP Preferences, found in the Preference folder in the System folder. Please also, try reselecting the PPP from within the MacTCP window. * When you have your MacPPP settings right it is a good idea to backup your "PPP Preferences" from the Preferences folder to a safe place. You can do the same for MacTCP prefs with MacTCP Switcher (see above). OpenTransport/Modem preferences ------------------------------- USR Sportster external as an example; you may have to use slightly different settings for other modems: Connect via: Modem port Modem: Select the appropriate modem script from a pop-up menu. The correct script should come with your modem or there may already be a script installed by the System. The scripts go to System Folder/Extensions/Modem Scripts/. You may search newer scripts from the modem manufacturer; the latest US Robotics script is at , for example. Note that on a mac, the modem script or init string must have &D0 (DTR override) active (if "CTS and RTS (DTR)" is used as Flow control). (Note also that MacPPP and FreePPP don't require modem scripts and you can easier experiment with various modem inits using them instead of OpenTransport/PPP and the Modem control panel). You can also make your own modem script with Modem Script Generator: Make sure you have a mac hardware handshaking modem cable! Sound: off (or on if troubleshooting) Dialing: Tone (or pulse if you use a rotary phone) Ignore dial tone: off (or on if you must prefix the number by "0" to dial the company's outside line and there is no dial tone, for example). OpenTransport/PPP settings -------------------------- If your ISP supports PAP, choose Registered User and enter your username and password. Otherwise you must use a connect script as follows: Connection: Guest Phone number: *Options/Redialing: Redial main number only Redial 100 times Time between retries: 5 seconds *Options/Connection: Connect automatically when starting TCP/IP applications: off (if you don't want the applications start a connection by themselves). Use verbose logging: off (if you aren't troubleshooting the connection). Flash icon in menu bar while connected: on Prompt every 5 minutes to maintain connection: off Disconnect if idle for 10 minutes *Options/Protocol: Allow error correction and compression in modem: on Use TCP header compression: on Connect to a command-line host: on Use connect script: Q: How do I create a connect script? 1. Choose Options/Protocol/Use terminal window, then press the Connect-button in PPP control panel's main window. 2. When the connection is established and the terminal window appears, choose Settings: Close Terminal when PPP is started: on Prompt to save Connect Script on close: on 3. After you have entered appropriate info to the nic login and password prompts, you are prompted to save the automatically generated Connect Script to disk. (At this phase you should also have a PPP connection established). 4. Choose Options/Protocol/Use connect script/Import Script and choose the script you saved to disk. Disconnect, close the PPP control panel and save the changes. From now on you should be able to connect using the script provided that your login username and password remain the same. Manual login using the terminal window can be useful for troubleshooting if the automatical script fails for some reason. what do I need to connect two macs? ----------------------------------- * AppleTalk is built-in so you may not need to buy anything to get things running via LocalTalk. Install System 7.0* or better from the installer disks making sure you also check the FileSharing option. Then you can mount shared volumes and folders between macs connected via a LocalTalk cable or a cheaper and better Farallon PhoneNet cable. Also a simple ImageWriter cable does just fine although you can connect only two macs using it. (EtherTalk is just a driver which allows AppleTalk protocol to be transported by Ethernet). * Macs using System 6 can access shared items on newer Systems but if you want to make them file-servers you have to buy AppleShare server software. * Public Folder 1.01 allows also System 6 macs to be one-way file-servers: Via Ethernet: You need an ethernet crossover cable for a simple mac-to-mac network. It has two of the pairs of wires interchanged at the ends, unlike a standard 10baseT-to-hub ethernet cable which allows more macs and printers to be connected. The maximum distance for 10baseT cabling is 100 meters. If your mac has a AAUI port (looks like a monitor port) you'll need a transceiver. Once you have the two computers hooked up and running, open the AppleTalk control panel and switch it to Ethernet (you may have to turn Ethernet Off/On on the machine that was powered up first), also switch AppleTalk active via the chooser on each mac. Then turn on File Sharing on one machine and use the chooser on the other and use AppleShare. The machine with File Sharing on should show up on the desktop of the other. troubleshooting --------------- If you have problems, try the following: 1) Read the manuals and FAQs and check if your mac is compatible with the software you are using. Verify from your ISP that you have the right TCP- and PPP/SLIP-settings. 2) Check which AT-commands, port (modem/printer) and port speed your modem requires. Make sure you have a mac hardware handshaking modem cable! If your PPP-connection requires a script, connect via Terminal Window to see what script you should enter for automatic connections. 3) Disable any fax software from loading; you may also try to switch AppleTalk off via the Chooser. 4) Delete MacTCP and PPP/SLIP software and their preferences (from the System-, Extensions-, Control Panels- and Preferences folders) and reinstall them from uncorrupted backups and build the preferences from scratch (for example, with MacTCP and MacPPP trash MacTCP DNR (System Folder), PPP (Extensions Folder), Config PPP and MacTCP (Control Panels Folder) and MacTCP Prep and PPP Preferences (Preferences Folder)). Verify that your username and password are valid (do not use Caps Lock key when typing them!). You may also rebuild the desktop (boot with Shift-key pressed down - when you see "Extensions disabled", immediately press Option-Command-keys until you get the choice to rebuild the desktop) and reset parameter RAM (boot with Option-Command-P-R-keys pressed down until the mac beeps two times). 5) If this fails, do a clean system install: open the existing System Folder and drag the System file into any other folder. This "de-blesses" the current System Folder. To complete the de-blessing, you must close the System Folder and verify that the Finder no longer displays the special System Folder icon. Finally, change the System Folder's name to something else like "old system". During the installation, the Installer will create a new System Folder. 6) If also this fails, backup, low-level reformat the drive (also install current disk drivers) and install everything from scratch. 7) Ask advice from comp.sys.mac.comm or/and comp.sys.mac.system. get StuffIt Expander! --------------------- To handle mac-specific files (*.hqx, *.bin, *.sit, *.cpt) you need StuffIt Expander. Most mac's communication programs (ZTerm, Fetch, Anarchie etc) decode MacBinary (*.bin) automatically; Fetch can also decode BinHex (*.hqx) - with these apps you can download and decode an encoded version of StuffIt Expander. StuffIt Expander is included at least with System 8.1 and up and should also be included with Netscape Navigator 3.0 and up. If you have Netscape Navigator 2.0, go into General Preferences / Helper Apps, change the preference for application/mac-binhex40 from "Launch Application StuffIt Expander" to "Use Netscape as Viewer", download the BinHex encoded version of StuffIt Expander; Netscape Navigator will automatically do the BinHex decoding. If these fail, your mac's email program may have the built-in capability to decode BinHex mail attachments like Eudora. Try the following: send an email to: , make the SUBJECT of the message "getexpander" (no quotes!), leave the BODY text areas of the email message empty. An email message will be automatically returned to you with StuffIt Expander included as a BinHex encoded mail attachment. (For advanced users it is also possible to let Eudora decode BinHex from sendmail-like-files already on your local HD). You can get a working copy of StuffIt Expander using a freebie AOL disk: install, and double-click on the AOL icon, when AOL offers to take you through the sign-on process click on cancel, select "Open" from the file menu and decode the stuffed version of StuffIt Expander. You can also copy StuffIt Expander from a friend, local user group, your friendly mac dealer etc; you can even download it via a PC (see below). If all else fails, you can order a copy on disk directly from Aladdin: Q: How can I download mac files via a PC and then use them on my mac (given that I don't _already_ have mac decode/uncompress software)? A: Sometimes mac-users are in a situation where their only connection is via PCs and they need to transfer files through them. They need to have StuffIt Expander (or some other utility) to convert BinHex (*.hqx) and MacBinary (*.bin) files. If they don't have a working copy of StuffIt Expander then Mac-ette (or MacSEE or TransMac) makes it possible to get it via a PC: 1. Get Mac-ette and StuffIt Expander (get the MacBinary version!) to the PC. Get also WinZip and Uucode if the PC doesn't already have similar apps. Use _binary_ transfer. 2. Uudecode, unzip and launch macette.exe on the PC. Put in a mac-formatted HD-diskette (or format it with Mac-ette) and open the desired folder/directory in it. 3. Copy exp_40_installer.bin to the mac-diskette using _MacBinary_ option in Mac-ette. With StuffIt Expander installed on a mac your next file-transfers are easier: 4. You can FTP and copy subsequent mac-files to PC-diskettes. Remember to use _binary_ transfer with MacBinary *.bin and compressed files such as *.sit and *.cpt! Mount PC-diskettes on a mac equipped with SuperDrive (using PC Exchange, Access PC or DOS Mounter; all macs excluding the Plus and some older SE's have SuperDrive) or copy them using Apple File Exchange (binary transfer with AFE) to the mac. Decode and expand them with StuffIt Expander. If the file is too big to fit on a floppy, use WinZip on the PC side to compress and segment/span it into smaller parts to PC-diskettes and extract the file using ZipIt on the mac. Another option is to split a BinHex file with a PC word processor or uuencode and segment the file on a PC and join them on the mac. ...you want also DropStuff with expander enhancer; together with StuffIt Expander it decodes and expands almost everything (bin, hqx, sit, cpt, uu, gz, tar, Z, arc, zip). ...MacSEE or TransMac can be used instead of Mac-ette to translate MacBinary and to write on mac disks on a PC: terminal emulators ================== ZkandiTerm is a ZTerm settings file and keyboard layout which adds 7 bit scandinavian character set (åäöÅÄÖ -> }{|][\) to ZTerm. Black Night handles also ISO 8859-1 character set: Q: How to download files via zmodem? A: sz file1 file2 tcp-apps ======== dns-lookup, ping etc -------------------- Get MacTCP Watcher 1.1.2 if you are using a 68000 mac. telnet ------ NCSA Telnet te has 7-bit scandinavian character set (åäöÅÄÖ -> }{|][\) in addition to the standard ISO 8859-1 char set: You can also try NiftyTelnet or dataComet (NiftyTelnet doesn't work on 68000 macs (Plus, SE, Portable, Classic, PB100): ftp clients ----------- Anarchie can handle multiple simultaneous downloads and has directories nicely in separate windows. Like many other tcp-apps Anarchie uses "Internet Config" to suffix mapping, i.e. how to download (binary vs. ascii) files with different suffixes (.txt, .sit, .jpg etc) and what type/creator (TEXT/R*ch) to give them on a mac. To move upwards in the directory tree command-click the directory's name or type command-arrow-up (just like in the Finder). Note that unlike v1.6.0 the latest v2.0.1 crashes on 68000 macs. Adding and removing entries from Anarchie bookmark list: a) put all of the bookmarks you want to access in a folder b) drop that folder on to Anarchie, which creates a window containing all of the entries from all of the bookmarks c) select just the entries you want and choose Save Bookmark from the File menu Q: How to download files using wildcards? A: In Anarchie, after you have the directory listing, choose Find (cmd-F), type .gif and then click the "all at once" checkbox, then click Find and it will select all the entries with .gif in their name. Then you can double click/press return or drag them to the desktop to download them. You can also specify a wildcard when you do a directory listing (eg, instead of double-clicking a directory entry, hold the control key down and double click (or under MacOS 8, select the directory, hold the control key down and press return)), then add the pattern to the end of the directory (eg, "/home/peter/dir/*.gif"). Fetch permits a somewhat better control when uploading files; it also understands VAX systems unlike Anarchie. As in Anarchie text-transfers allow an option to also change mac character set to standard ISO 8859-1 and back. When uploading use the raw-option if the files are binary documents (gif, jpg, excel, word) meant to be used in other platforms like PCs. (Raw binary transfers only the data fork in binary mode). Fetch saves window positions when you quit, or (in the case of dialog boxes only) when you dismiss the dialog. If there are multiple windows of the same type (e.g. transfer windows) open when you quit, Fetch saves the position of the upper left-hand window. ftp servers ----------- NetPresenz (formerly FTPd) is a ftp-, www- and gopher-server. NetPresenz uses the Apple's standard file sharing permissions so it is easy to configure and very secure. NCSA Telnet offers a rudimentary ftp-server for occasional use. mail ---- Eudora Light 1.5.5 needs at least System 7; v1.3.1 works on System 6. v3.1.3 has many additional features like filters and it also no longer splits large messages; it is somewhat slower than v1.5.5. Q: Where can I find "@" key on my keyboard? A: Use the Key Caps desk accessory to find the key combination (plain-, shift-, option-keys) for "@". Q: The POP server refuses my post because the date field is missing!? A: Open the Map control panel and set your time zone. Q: What does error "we do not relay" mean? A: As an anti-spam measure, many ISPs don't allow you to send mail through their SMTP server unless you're logged onto them (via Ethernet, PPP etc). If this situation applies to you, you can enter the SMTP server address of the ISP you're logging onto into Eudora's settings. You may, however, use another POP server to check your mail. Q: Can I collect mail from multiple accounts? Can users share one Macintosh for their mail? A: First, run Eudora and allow it to create the "Eudora Folder" in the system folder. You can drag Eudora Folder anywhere you like (even on a floppy) and rename it anything you like. When you want to read your mail, start Eudora by DOUBLE-CLICKING the "Eudora Settings" document IN THE FOLDER. You can make copies of Eudora Settings file and edit each to suit particular need. Key point is to launch Eudora by opening appropriate settings file, not by dbl-clicking Eudora program. You can rename the settings or their aliases to point out particular setting or user. This will do it. If the settings files are in the same folder you can collect mail from multiple POP accounts into a single IN box (dbl-click each settings file and check mail from each account separately). It is also possible to redirect mail from other accounts by making (via a telnet session) the following .forward file on such accounts: host1> cd host1> cat >.forward user@host2 ^c If users want to collect mail from multiple POP accounts into separate mailboxes have each Eudora Settings file in a separate folder. This will cause Eudora to create a separate set of mailboxes in each folder. You can rename the settings or their aliases to point out particular user. If you double-click on Eudora itself, Eudora will create a new Eudora Folder in the system folder. If you want to disable that behavior, place a regular document (any kind of document) named "Eudora Folder" in your system folder. Eudora will then insist on being started from a Settings file. Q: I have two computers. I use the Powerbook when I go on the road. When I come home, I'd like to reconcile my two "In" files. How do I do this? A: 1. All Eudora mail files (In, Out etc) are just text files so you can move them between the mail folders which Eudora uses. 2. Eudora uses mail files (or their aliases) which are in the same mail folder as Eudora settings file when the settings file is double-clicked. 3. So to reconcile two "In" mail files just transfer (Transfer/New... in Eudora) the PowerBook's "In" mailbox to a new mailbox called "In PowerBook", for example, and copy it to the other mac's mail folder (via Finder). Then launch Eudora by the other mac's Eudora settings file and transfer "In PowerBook" to "In" mailbox. OR, it is strongly recommended to transfer all messages to other mailboxes organized by topics. Older versions of Eudora have *.toc files which accompany similarly named mailboxes and you should transfer them as well. ...Another option is to check "Leave on server" setting in the other mac and grab all mail to the other. Q: Is there a way of sending a letter to a prepared mailing list? A: You can type in how many e-mail adresses in the to (or cc or bcc) field as you want to. Separate the adresses with commas (,). You can make "nicknames" that refers to one or more adresses with the "Nickname" window. (Look in the "Window" menu in v1.5* or "Special" menu in v1.4*). Eudora has very good balloon help messages, turn it on for instructions on how to do it. If you want to reply to a message sent to several recipients, you may choose between "reply to sender" or "reply to all" by holding down the "option"-key when selecting "reply". Q: Is there an easy way to make a nickname of a bunch of nicknames? A: Just open up the address book, select the nicknames (shift / command-click), then choose Special/Make Nickname. Q: Is there a way of sending a note to multiple recipients without having all the addresses appear in the header? I have one nickname which includes over 100 addresses. A reader has to page through all those names and addresses to get the body of the text. A: Put the nickname in the Bcc: field. If your mail host chokes on not having anything in the To: field, put your own email address in the To: field. Q: How to "burst" mailing list digests into separate messages? A: With Eudora v3.1.3 and up use Burst. You can also try Cucumber or MailConverter. Q: How to respond to junk email? A: Examine the headers (select "blah, blah, blah" from the menu-bar to see all of them) of the message to determine the site where the message _originated_. (This information is usually in the bottommost "Received:" header line.) Although this information can be forged, it's usually more useful than the names of intervening sites. Write a mail message to the username "abuse" or "postmaster" at that site, with a brief, polite note, the _full_ headers of the message you received, and the message itself. Try to leave the subject line intact. This is the text I use to reply to junk email: "I received the following unsolicited bulk email ("spam"), which apparently originated from your site. Please take appropriate action to ensure this doesn't happen again." When attaching files to the messages the best setting seems to be "Always As Mac Documents" un-checked and "AppleDouble" checked. This way the resource- and data-forks of the attached file are sent separately (MIME/base64 encoded) and PC-users can ignore the resource-fork (subpart "Application/APPLEFILE") which is redundant to them and get the base64 encoded data-fork. BinHex can also be used if the receiver is known to use mac- or PC-Eudora. Do not BinHex attachments in advance; let Eudora do it while sending. When an attached text-file's type is changed to other than TEXT (for example type/creator changed from TEXT/R*ch to ????/R*ch with FileBuddy, ResEdit etc) then Eudora doesn't try to wrap the attachment even if wrapping is enabled; this seems to be the best way to attach text meant to be transferred binary. AppleSingle is a format to store both the resource & data forks of a mac file in a single file so it is similar to MacBinary but it is seldom used. If you receive a large message which includes, for example, an uuencoded file _inside_ the message text Eudora up to v1.5.5 splits it into several smaller 20-30k messages. You can extract the original file by selecting all the pieces and doing a Save as... with "Guess Paragraphs" and "Include Headers" _unchecked_. Decode the file with StuffIt Expander. Q: Is it possible to import a unix/PC mailbox as an Eudora mailbox? A: Eudora mailboxes are in the same sendmail format as that used by unix pine and elm and PC-Eudora. You must either transfer the file to mac using ascii ftp, or manually convert the linebreaks to MacOS standard (using BBEdit, Drop Text, Xlator etc). Ensure that the filename is 27 chars or less. If the mailbox has "large" >32k messages and you're not running Eudora 3.0, you need to manually split the message by inserting its header several times inside the message. Finally, although it's not necessary to do so, it's not a bad idea to set the file creator to Eudora's creator code (TEXT/CSOm). *.toc files aren't cross-platform so you can ignore them. It is also possible to let Eudora decode MIME, QP and attachments from sendmail-like-files on your local HD (ftpd from the POP spool or unix mail-directory, for example). To do that, you can suck the mail into Eudora as if the mbox file is a POP spool. Just set your POP account (Eudora 3.1.3 and earlier) or Username in Eudora's settings to: "!volume:directory:directory:filename" (replacing names appropriately according to your HD's and its directories names) and Eudora will receive the mail as if it came from a POP server (note that the input-file's linebreaks must be in mac format and that its contents are deleted in the process so make a copy of it before you try). This also automatically breaks >32k messages into smaller chunks. If you set the SMTP server to "!volume!volume:directory:directory:!filename!0000" you can also test-post to the local harddrive (every outgoing mail-file is stored in separate file with names such as D.*00001, D.*00002 etc with accompanying log files X.*00001, X.*00002 etc). Q: I received Quoted Printable characters (in listserv messages etc) - how can I decode them? A: See above how to let Eudora get mail from your local harddrive. Add the following headers (modified to your needs if necessary) to the QP-encoded message(s) and check mail: From CNV Fri Jan 10 17:49:19 1997 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable From: To: Subject: Date: =C4=E4kk=F6set. Q: What are *.toc files; do I have to archive them? A: They are the "Table Of Contents" files for each of your mailboxes. If you attempt to open a mailbox and Eudora can't find the .toc, it will offer to rebuild it for you. If you're running Eudora 3.x, it is no longer necessary to have these as separate files, as it gives you the option of storing the toc in the resource fork of the mailbox file itself. You don't really need to archive toc files. However, it is a good idea to keep them because they contain info about changed subject-lines and priorities of messages as well as which messages are deleted but not yet completely trashed via mailbox-compacting. MailConverter converts many mail-like formats to Eudora compatible sendmail mailboxes. For example, NewsWatcher save-files can be converted to Eudora mailboxes for later reading with Eudora or Easy View. MailConverter also filters out redundant headers from the messages. To compact just one particular mailbox command-click in the little box in the lower-left corner of that mailbox window (the one that tells you the number of messages, the active size and the total size). * Character Sets in Eudora * Traditionally, English and Finnish/Swedish e-mail messages used slightly different character sets. For example, the code for "{" (left curly bracket) in English 7-bit character set is used by letter "ä" (a with umlaut) in the Finnish/Swedish set. To show these characters correctly the program must know which set is in use. This problem is avoided by adopting an 8-bit standard for mail characters. One additional bit for each character doubles the number characters that can be shown at the same time. * ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) is one such 8-bit character standard. It is available (with some small differences) in most computer platforms. From 1st June 1994, ISO 8859-1 is the officially sanctioned mail character set in Finnish University Network (FUNET) which everyone should use. * Eudora Light 1.5.5 converts automatically Macintosh charset (MacRoman) to ISO 8859-1 using internal tables (Note that due to a bug if a transliteration is selected and de-selected Macintosh charset is used for outgoing mail. If a default transliteration is selected and de-selected the only way to use the internal tables again is to build Eudora prefs from scratch). You need plug-in tables only if you are using other character sets. To use other character sets than ISO 8859-1 you have to copy the needed plug-in tables into the Preferences folder in your System folder. Restart Eudora. When plug-in tables are installed Message / Change / Transliteration-menu shows a list of possible character translations. You can translate the characters before sending or after receiving a message. Try different settings for incoming messages that seem to use wrong characters. A given transliteration can be set as a default by keeping the shift-key down while selecting it. Do it for both outgoing and incoming messages; the permanent selection is shown in outlined text font. With text files you can also use BBEdit or Xlator to make these conversions (see below). * Up to Eudora 3.x, you could put the Eudora Tables into the Preferences folder inside your System Folder. With version 4.x, they must be put into the folder Eudora Stuff. * More info and more plug-in tables at: * Mail encodings: * MIME -- Yes or No. MIME is a way of giving information about the message in a set of headers; MIME itself does no encoding or similar, but tells the receiving email program what encoding if any has been used. A MIME message is one which has "MIME Version 1.0" in the header. * QP -- Yes or No. Quoted-Printables is a way to code 8bit "beyond Z" characters in hexadecimal codes. QP depends on MIME, but MIME does not have to use QP when sending. All MIME-capable programs will understand and decode QP-codes when receiving, but only in messages with a MIME header showing that QP has been used. * Bit-depth -- 7bit or 8bit. Not dependent on MIME. QP'ed messages are all 7bit (that is the purpose of the coding). Officially, 8bit-characters in email are not allowed, but some still use them, at their own risk. Some intermediary mail handlers may "strip" the 8th bit, leaving "i" for é, x for ø etc. * Character set -- Latin-1 (=ISO 8859-1); other ISO, Mac etc. MIME allows the insertion of a charset header on an outgoing messages, which indicates to a receiving MIME-capable program how to decode it. Independent on QP on or off. Any MIME-capable email program will understand Latin-1, but few will in practice understand other character sets. Without MIME, 8bit characters can mostly assumed to be Latin-1. * Eudora (version 1.4 and up) is set up with maximum flexibility. It is MIME capable, allows you to send with QP on or off (default is on), 7 or 8bit and any charset you like (Latin-1 is a built-in default). Thus, if you send a message with "beyond-z" (so-called high-ASCII) characters such as accents etc. from a plain-vanilla Eudora without changing anything, it will go in 7bit, QP on, ISO 8859-1 with full MIME headers. Any other Eudora will understand and decode correctly, and so will any other MIME-capable email program. Non-MIME programs will display =BF type QP-codes. * If you turn off "May use QP" for a single message, or in the Settings for all, the message is sent in 8bit and ISO 8859-1. Delivery of high-ascii characters are not guaranteed, but if they arrive, any MIME program will still decode them correctly. Non-MIME programs may decode correctly if they are set up with Latin-1 internally (unix programs e.g.) or as default encoding (as you could in older, pre-MIME versions of Eudora). * Thus, in communication Eudora-Eudora all this will done invisibly to the user. The problem is with listservs. Many listservs do not understand MIME. If so, and you send a QP'ed message to them, they will not decode them, and will send them out again without a MIME header. When a Eudora or other MIME program receive them, they will not see the QP header, and will thus not attempt any decoding of the text in the message, displaying them as =BF etc. * When a message is digested, even a MIME-capable server may go wrong. It may not be adapted for different messages in the digest having different encodings; thus while it has a MIME header, it will not indicate that one particular message in the digest is QP encoded; or it does in a way that the receiving mail program cannot understand it. This may be the reason why individual messages go through all right, while digested do not: A general header for the digest may have been applied that is not valid for all messages inside it. * More things may go wrong. If you send in 8bit (i.e. with QP off) the receiver may get it all right. However, the message may go out again with incorrect headers; typical is a MIME mailer which does not add any charset header. When Eudora sees such a message, it will assume it is in Latin-1, and decode accordingly, which may or may not be correct. Further, the other program may even stamp the message as "us-ascii", but still send it as it received it, with characters that "should not be there" according to us-ascii. In that case, Eudora will not attempt to decode it, which again may right or wrong, depending on what originally was there. In that case, one will often find the 8th bit stripped off by the sending list-server's post office (so you get a mangled message, while the one who sent it saw yours fine). * These are only a few of the things that may be screwed up. The problem is that there isn't really very much the receiver can do about them. Most of them result from the listserv or other sending program being set up incorrectly, or not being up to MIME standards; and then only correcting or upgrading the server is the solution (and of course, they are mostly in the US, where few people care about such matters). -- The following piece of advice has once saved my day: Eudora quits unexpectedly. Subsequent mail-checks result in the following error message: 8:0.9.10 PASS 8:0.9.10 -ERR Maildrop lock busy! Is another session active? When you have problems accessing your POP mail either due to timeouts or due to the lock box being busy, telnet to your host and try checking for the following file with the following command: ls -s /usr/spool/mail/.username.pop (or /var/mail/.username.pop or something like that...) where username is the name of your account. If the file has 0 size, then just remove it: rm /usr/spool/mail/.username.pop If it does have a size, then you will need to "reset" the lock on it before you can access it via email again. Try the following sequence: mv /usr/spool/mail/.username.pop popmail cp popmail /usr/spool/mail/.username.pop rm popmail Then try re-running Eudora. It is important that this exact sequence is followed, or else the lock may not be cleared. You may also want to see if popper is still running: ps -ef | grep username and terminate it: kill -9 process-id ...if this doesn't make it ask help from your ISP. mailing lists ------------- Macjordomo and Autoshare are free. You may also try StarNine's ListSTAR or Fog City's LetterRip: Microsoft Exchange client ------------------------- There is also an Outlook (not Outlook Express) client for PowerMacintosh. It comes on the Exchange Server 5.5 CD-ROM (you may have to mount the CD on a mac to see it), or you can order it separately: news ---- NewsWatcher can use the same ".newsrc" file than unix's "tin" so you can use both programs and still synchronize your reading habits. NewsWatcher 2.0d13m01 works under System 6. YA-NewsWatcher and MT-Newswatcher (i.e. MultiThreaded NW) have additional features like filters compared to the original NW (the latest version of YA-NW and MT-NW do not work on 68000 macs). YA-NW v4 requires Mac OS 8.5 - older v3 is also available for System 7.1-8.1. Crossposting to several newsgroups can simply be done by selecting the appropriate groups by command-clicking before composing a message. If you want to see already read articles Option-dbl-click the newsgroup (or select the newsgroup and search for a keyword). NewsWatcher can automatically decode binaries from the newsgroups (use uuUndo and StuffItExpander as helpers). In NewsWatcher you can conveniently command-click ftp-, www-, gopher- and mail-URLs and a proper helper-app is automatically opened with the right information filled for you. Also BBEdit and Easy View (with Get URL) have a similar function. You may also try Nuntius or an off-line newsreader MacSoup instead of NewsWatcher. * When you share a mac with other people or use NewsWatcher in a lab, each person using the mac needs to use their own personal preferences file rather than the one in the Preferences folder. To solve this problem, NewsWatcher lets you store your personal preferences file in the same folder as your user group list file. When you double-click your user group list file to run NewsWatcher, it uses the preferences file in the same folder instead of the one in the Preferences folder. On a shared mac, each person has his or her own personal NewsWatcher folder containing their user group list and prefs files. * With a shared mac or in a lab, it is a good idea to force people to use personal NewsWatcher folders or floppies, and prevent them from creating a NewsWatcher Prefs file in the Preferences folder. To do this, use TeachText to create an empty document and save it as the file named "NewsWatcher Prefs" in the Preferences folder inside the System Folder on the shared mac or lab mac. If you try to run NewsWatcher by double-clicking its icon, NewsWatcher assumes you are a new user and asks if you want to create a new personal NewsWatcher folder or personal NewsWatcher floppy disk. The Private button in the initial new user dialog is disabled in this case, and the only buttons you can select are Shared, Lab, and Quit. See the section titled Installing and Configuring NewsWatcher for a picture of this new user dialog. * If you use Internet Config on a shared mac, place your Internet Config preferences file "Internet Preferences" (or alias to this file) in your personal NewsWatcher folder, along with your NewsWatcher Prefs file. If you do the following, you truncate your .newsrc by deleting the unsubscribed groups. This is probably the easiest way to strip out unsubscribed lines from a UNIX .newsrc file, at least for mere mortals who haven't devoted their lives to mastering grep/awk/sed/gak/gasp/wheeze/etc. This also reduces the download-time of .newsrc-file on dialup-connections. a. Get a .newsrc file from the host. b. Save it to disk. c. Close the window. d. Reopen the saved disk file version. e. Send that back to the host. Q: Which newsreaders allow sending >32k messages? A: YA-NewsWatcher, MacSOUP, Microsoft Outlook Express, and InterNews. Q: Are there any useful extra news headers? A: The "mail-copies-to: user@host" or "mail-copies-to: never" indicates whether you do or do not appreciate "courtesy copies" of followups to your posts. "x-no-archive: yes" is a directive to archiving programs/services, such as Deja News not to keep (archive) a copy of a message. * Q: I'm using NewsWatcher but now The Full Group List of my ISP doesn't fit into NewsWatcher's memory anymore. A1: Turn disk cache to its minimum via Memory Control Panel (32K or something like that) and turn AppleTalk off via the Chooser. Reboot and set NewsWatcher's memory allocation bigger than the amount of free memory shown in the About this Mac in the AppleMenu. Now try to lauch NewsWatcher and see if the problem goes away. (You can't run other applications at the same time if NewsWatcher's memory allocation must be kept so high). If this doesn't help: A2: Install more physical memory and repeat A1. If you can't or don't want to do this: A3: Edit NewsWatcher's preference file by opening it with a text editor (BBEdit is best for this. You can also use word processors like Word but you may have to change the preference file's TYPE back to PREF and CREATOR to NNTP with FileBuddy, DropInfo or ResEdit if editing has changed them). Remove all but your favorite groups from the NewsWatcher prefs file. Solves your problem, saves hard disk space and makes the startup with the app a lot quicker. Of course you cannot browse all the 100 000+ groups anymore... Leave only the newsgroups you're interested in this format (NewsWatcher puts the list in alphabetical order automatically): comp.sys.mac.digest comp.sys.mac.system comp.sys.mac.portables [etc] Notice that if you paste the contents of the NewsWatcher's subscribed newsgroups list to the preference file, you have to edit it because the format is slightly different: comp.sys.mac.digest: 1-183 comp.sys.mac.system: 1-37479 comp.sys.mac.portables: 1-14047 [etc] Uncheck NewsWatcher's Miscellaneous Options preference "Check for new groups at startup" so NewsWatcher doesn't try to rebuild the Full Group List again. news server ----------- RumorMill: www --- Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator are recommended for non-68000 macs. On 68000 macs (Plus, SE, Portable, Classic, PB100) NCSA Mosaic 1.0.3, MacWeb 1.00A3.2, v2.0, MacLynx and MacWWW 1.03 (Samba) work. MacWeb 1.00A3.2 works better than v1.1.1 E which crashes when saving prefs. MacWeb 2.0 has more features and understands more HTML tags than v1.00A3.2 but it is also slower and buggier. NCSA Mosaic 1.0.3 can display in-line GIFs but with MacWeb you must use an external helper (click and hold on an image icon, choose "Retrieve to Disk" from the pop-up menu and view with GIFConverter or GIFwatcher DA). ...note that often GIFConverter, when trying to open JPEGs with "millions" of colors, gives an "out of memory" error on low-memory machines. A workround is to use JPEG Convert 1.0 to turn the JPEG into a GIF. GIFs are limited to 256 colours and need less memory to display. You can turn DAs like GIFwatcher DA into an app with DA Piggyback; this enables drag 'n drop and automatic launching when used as a (MacWeb 2.0) helper on System 7. Note that you can't change GIFwatcher's default settings (including the window size) once the DA has been converted into an app - you have to set it up the way you want first, then run it through DA PiggyBack. With RAM Charger it is possible to squeeze _both_ MacWeb 1.00A3.2 and GIFConverter to run simultaneously on a 4MB mac. If the default screen in MacLynx is too big it is possible to open lynx.cfg file by a text editor and set the lines on a screen from the default 35 to 24, for example (edit the line: TERM_LINES:35 to: TERM_LINES:24). The home page (or sometimes called the menu page) from Internet Config can be invoked with the 'm' key. The homepage can be set by editing the line: STARTFILE:file://localhost/~/index.html; change it to any valid URL. There are many more options in lynx.cfg file. MacWWW 1.03 (Samba) works on 68000 macs (at least on System 6.0.5 - it crashes on System 7.0.1*). It opens fine, loads the startup page fine (doesn't know how to read files from disk, text-only, no ISO 8859-1 translation, opens a new window for each link). Do not close any windows as this crashes the mac; also quitting MacWWW seems to cause a crash. ResEdit instructions for proxy support in MacWeb 1.00A3.2: Q: How do I cancel an action in MacWeb 1.00A3.2? A: Type command-period (many other programs use this as a standard, too). Q: Is it possible to use a www-browser to ftp to a site requiring login id? A: The syntax is , or if you want to be prompted for your password. www helpers for sound files: www helper for midi files (you need QuickTime also): www helper Sparkle opens and converts mpg- and QuickTime (.mov, .qt) files (you need QuickTime and in pre-7.5 Systems you also need ThreadManager. In PowerMacs you need to install AppleScript extension "ObjectSupportLib" which is included in the installation disks of your system). QTVRPlayer can also play QuickTime virtual reality files. ...QuickTime is also available for the PCs: Q: How can I view *.avi or convert it to QuickTime A: Open an *.avi file in Microsoft Internet Explorer and drag the movie box to the desktop. When you do so, the file is converted to a QuickTime movie clip. To complete the conversion, open the clip with MoviePlayer or SimplePlayer and save it as a self-contained movie. Q: How do I extract pictures from Internet Explorer & Navigator? A: Click and hold on the picture and choose Download Image to Disk. www helpers for the graphics. Graphic Converter opens most imaginable graphic formats: www helper for postscript (.ps) files: Drop*PS prints postscript files: www helper for Adobe Acrobat PDF files: www helper for DICOM files: www-server ---------- gopher ------ (www clients handle also gopher so you may not need this) mac's clock's adjustment ------------------------ wais ---- irc --- finger ------ talk ---- packing, file formats etc ========================= Q: What is "MacBinary" or "*.bin"? A: Unlike files on other computer platforms which are "data fork" only, Macintosh files can also have a "resource fork". Documents (.doc, .jpg etc) often have only the data fork and 68k (i.e. old non-PowerPC) apps often only the resource fork. If you take a mac file and put it on a PC or a UNIX machine, the resource fork can be stripped off. In some situations, this is OK, but some mac files (especially apps) will be rendered unusable if they lose their resource fork. To prevent this from happening, users can "MacBinary encode" their files before uploading to a non-mac. MacBinary encoding takes the resource and data forks of a mac file and attaches them together into a single _binary_ data file. MacBinary encoded files often have ".bin" at the end of the file name. Most mac's communications programs (ZTerm, Fetch, Anarchie etc) convert MacBinary automatically. Also StuffIt and MacBinary II+ handle MacBinary. (Another name for MacBinary is "BinHex 5.0" but this should be avoided as it only causes confusion with BinHex 4.0.) If a mac document is meant to be used on other platforms MacBinary encoding must be avoided. On a PC Mac-ette, MacSEE or TransMac can be used to strip off the redundant resource fork header from MacBinary files (you need a floppy to do this). "Raw binary" is different from MacBinary because it transfers only the data fork in binary mode and strips off the resource fork. Raw binary must be used if the files are binary documents (gif, jpg, excel, word) meant to be used in other platforms like PCs. Q: What is "BinHex", "BinHex 4.0" or "*.hqx"? A: Internet is a network that was originally designed for sending 7 bit text messages between computers. Most non-text files that we use are 8 bits wide. If 8 bit wide files are sent through a 7 bit channel (i.e. email), they are rendered unusable. It's a bit like sending a big truck through a small tunnel. The most common way to get around this bit-width problem is to encode the 8 bit wide file into a 7 bit wide format (actually a text format). This process will actually make the file 30-40% bigger in file-length. For mac users, BinHex is the standard 7 bit encoded format because it preserves the resource and data forks. BinHex files usually have a ".hqx" suffix. Note: uuencoding is another 7 bit encoding method, but it only encodes the data fork of a mac file. Uuencoding is common for files that are not platform-specific such as GIFs. Uuencoded files usually have a ".uu" or ".uue" suffix. Compact Pro and StuffIt (among others) encode and decode BinHex on the mac. Many UNIX systems have mcvert to handle BinHex. Also PC-programs like Aladdin Expander, StuffIt Expander-win, XferPro, WinZip and Eudora-win understand BinHex although it is not advisable to use them to decode mac-specific files on a PC because you may lose the resource fork. Compact Pro requires that the BinHex file is of type TEXT (pressing Option while choosing the file shows all files); Stuffit Expander accepts all files regardless of type via drag 'n drop. A BinHex file starts the following way - every line (except the last one which has a colon at the end) is 65 chars long: (This file must be converted with BinHex 4.0) :"e!JD@iJ8%-!9%9B9(4dH(3"!!!!!4i!!!&dXDBZ,LjYBAPLC5"dD'9j)'CPC@` JG'KKG#"dD'8J8#"TEL"33b"SC@a`Fb"YB@YP)'Pd)'0XC@&b)(4SBA3JH@pe*h* P)(*PCQ9bFQPZCb"dEb"K)("PFR0[EQ&X)'0[EA"eG'9b)'&ZC#"dD'&d)(GTG'K [GA3JG'KKG#"aG@&XD@CTBf&dD@pZ,#"jEh8JE@PRD(3JBA0V)(0[E@9[EQ8JGfK KG#"VD@jN)'pQ)'0[EA"eG'9b)(4SCANJGA0P)'&d)'K[E@8JB@jN)'GPG#"KEL" KER0hCA)JE'PVC5`J)N4[)(P[G5"YC@&Z)'ej)("PFR0[EQ&X)'0[EA"eG'9b)'p b)(4SC5"$FQ&j)'PZ)(4SC5"LBA0PE@9ZG$mLl38!!!%!!!!"3J!!!%)!!!!b!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(8#"TEL"33`)!!!"849K8G(4 iG!!!!!!!!!!!!!$Yj!!!9%9B9(4dH(3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!J!!!!!!!!!# X9"8#!!!!!!!!!A4PFJ!5#!%!!!Fq0!-!!!!!!8fB9"*19J!!%djH6R919K)!!%M R!J%)2Lje%LKZ!!LJN!!5,`a1Z[@JN!!5)&3[+%eqV%`4!%ac!4#!&2ri6Pj1G8j @*CY`6bB5,`X[$&!%!f*br,+!9m!6!N!!!8M!!4i!%9"2hbY3%J0U8%m"%!F561i !!!!q!!-!!!!!!"-!$J!8!!!!%J!!!!!!!!!!!1m!%`!1!"3%!!!5rrm!!!!!!!! !p`!6!!i!&!!!!")!!!!!!!!!!!%!!!!"3J!!!%)!!!!b!0XPH!pZ!!!!(!!b!!" cG(PX!!!!#J#!rrm!!!!!!0XS%#CU: *.bin- and *.hqx-files can be well downloaded via a PC. *.bin-files _must_ be transferred in binary mode. The files can then be transferred to a mac with Apple File Exchange or PC Exchange, one of which should be included in the System floppies. DON'T decode mac-specific files on a PC because you may lose the resource fork. Almost all macs (NOT Plus and some older SEs) have a SuperDrive which reads and writes PC-formatted floppies. Decode the files with StuffIt Expander on the mac. Q: What are the file's type and creator? A: Every mac file has type/creator information. For example, a text file is of type "TEXT". Creator info tells the mac which application to launch when the file is double-clicked ("R*ch" launches BBEdit, "ttxt" SimpleText etc). If the creator-app isn't available then the mac may refuse to open the file or may suggest an alternate app which is capable to open this kind of document. It is also possible to drag and drop the document on top of a suitable app for launching or open it within an app (File/Open...). Type/creator information can get messed up in ftp transfers via foreign systems. However, StuffIt Expander seems to handle encoded and compressed files just fine regardless of their suffix and type/creator. A great app for changing this kind of file attributes is File Buddy; it can among other things change visibility and suffixes of the files. Many tcp-apps like Anarchie and Fetch can use "Internet Config" to suffix mapping, i.e. what type/creator to give them on a mac. "IC to PC Exchange" synchronizes PC Exchange's suffix mappings to those of Internet Config's; with "IC Type" or "ICTypeChanger" you can also change HD file type and creator based on Internet Config's settings. Also "NameCleaner" provides cross-platform file naming and typing, with it you can give files suffixes based on their mac type etc. There is an excellent overview about file formats at TidBITS#445/31-Aug-98: StuffIt Expander combined with drop-stuff-with-ee can decode and expand almost everything (sit, cpt, hqx, uu, gz, tar, Z, arc, zip). CompactPro (.cpt files) can pack and segment large files to several floppies: uu-coder: gz-coder: Z-coder: zip-coder ZipIt can also segment large files. Note that if a mac document is meant to be used on other platforms MacBinary encoding must be disabled in ZipIt's prefs. tar-coders: Decoder and YA-Base64 (no longer distributed) decode MIME Base64 encoded files; Mpack also encodes them. It is also possible to let Eudora decode MIME and burst out attachments from raw mail-files (ftpd from the POP spool or unix mail-directory, for example). To do that, you can suck the mail into Eudora as if the mbox file is a POP spool. Just set your POP account in Eudora's settings to: "!volume:directory:directory:filename" (replacing names appropriately according to your HD's and its directories names) and Eudora will receive the mail as if it came from a POP server (note that the input-file's linebreaks must be in mac format and that its contents are deleted in the process so make a copy of it before you try). This also automatically breaks >32k messages into smaller chunks. If you set the SMTP server to "!volume!volume:directory:directory:!filename!0000" you can also test-post to the local harddrive (every outgoing mail-file is stored in separate file with names such as D.*00001, D.*00002 etc with accompanying log files X.*00001, X.*00002 etc). .image files are exact copies of floppies (DD, HD) and are generally used to store installer disks as files. Disks created from image files duplicate their originals exactly, including icon placement, window appearance and the disk name. DiskCopy encodes and decodes .image files and it is a good disk duplicator. ShrinkWrap is even better because it can also mount .image files as virtual disks on your desktop; this enables macs without SuperDrives to access HD floppies if you can transfer disk image to the mac. Disk Copy 6.1.3 supports the new NDIF format images. .smi means that the image file is self-mounting, i.e. you don't need any app to mount it. cross-platform issues --------------------- BinHex is also available for PC and unix. Aladdin Expander, StuffIt Expander-win and XferPro seem to be the best de-BinHexers for PC; also WinZip can decode BinHex. XferPro, Eudora-win and BinHex-pc can also encode BinHex. StuffIt Expander-win has a "feature" where it protects the resource fork of a mac file when you unstuff it by MacBinary encoding it (this means attaching the resource and data forks of a mac file into a single data file). This feature will render the file unusable on the PC. Generally PC users will want to disable this feature. In the Cross Platform Options, set "Save Macintosh files in MacBinary format" to "never"; this gives you just the data fork of the Macintosh file. Mac-ette for PC translates MacBinary; TransMac for PC can translate also BinHex but it seems that, for example, in order to de-MacBinarize (or de-BinHex) a file on a PC one must first copy it to a mac disk in MacBinary-mode, then back to PC in data-mode, resulting in a valid data fork-only binary file. TransMac's unregistered version is limited to 1.4M file-transfers (HD diskettes, SCSI devices and CD ROMs). MacSEE for PC handles also BinHex and MacBinary; the demo of v4.3 is limited to 16K file-transfers (HD diskettes and SCSI devices). Aladdin Expander for Windows 95/NT uncompresses and decodes a variety of formats, including StuffIt (.sit), Zip (.zip), uuencode (.uue), BinHex (.hqx), MacBinary (.bin), ARC (.arc), Arj (.arj), and gzip (.gz), plus self-extracting archives created by StuffIt, Zip, and Arj. It supports long file names, decodes MIME files, decrypts files encrypted with Aladdin's Private File encryption utility (also cross-platform), and joins StuffIt- segmented archives. Aladdin DropStuff ($20 shareware) creates *.sit and *.zip files on Windows 95/NT. Other *.sit and *.cpt-extractors for PC (you have to unpack some of these on a mac...): Q: Text is the lowest common denominator format between platforms, right? A: Even though ASCII text files are the lowest common denominator format for text, hence transferrable between different computers and systems, there are a couple "flies in the ointment": 1) The invisible ASCII code that denotes the end-of-line (EOL) differs between Mac, PC, and Unix. There used to be two codes to control the two actions of a typewriter. The LineFeed (causing the roller to advance) and the CarriageReturn (causing the printer to get to beginning of the line). Mac files use CR, Unix files LF, and PC files both CR & LF. Some software applications (esp. Internet apps) do conversions without you knowing it, but occassionally you pull up a file and see an extra "garbage" character at the beginning of each line. 2) Certain characters in a text file may be 8 bit (High-ASCII) characters which don't translate directly between platforms. Xlator converts the differences between mac-, UNIX- and PC end of line characters (CR/LF) _and_ character sets (Mac <-> ISO 8859-1 <-> DOS-CP850) in text files (although its transliteration tables may be a little nonstandard): Drop Text converts the differences between mac-, UNIX- and PC end of line characters (CR/LF): BBEdit is great for big text files (Teach Text can't open >32k files). BBEdit also converts the differences between mac-, UNIX- and PC end of line characters (CR/LF) and character sets (Mac <-> ISO 8859-1 <-> DOS-CP437 <-> 7-bit Scandinavian) with its plug-ins Change Charset and MIDex. You can copy additional tables to MIDex (from various Eudora Tables taBL-resources, for example) with ResEdit and paste them into MIDex's corresponding resource. Q: How can I open *.exe files on a mac? A1: You need an emulating software such as Virtual PC to use these PC applications. A2: Some *.exe files aren't actually applications but compressed and self-expanding files (known in the mac world as *.sea files). For these, you don't need an emulator; just decompress them with StuffIt Expander or ZipIt. virus prevention ================ Disinfectant is no longer supported so get a commercial anti-virus tool such as Virex. ftp- and www-sites ================== * Info-Mac Archive (here you find almost all relevant mac files!): info-mac mirror list (use a local mirror, if possible!) and file listing: * Current listing of "Apple SW Updates" mirror sites at: * Main Apple www-site: * The last freely distributed System 7.5.3 (this file includes System 7.5 Update 2.0 and System 7.5.3 Revision 2) and the updater to System 7.5.5: This software is available as 19 parts of a self-mounting Disk Copy image. Download all 19 parts to your hard drive and then double-click on the first part to mount the compressed disk image on your desktop. Note that System 7.5.3 installer's self-mounting disk images require System 7.0.1 or later. If you are using a version of Mac OS prior to this, you can download System 7.0.1's Disk Tools floppy or System 7.5 Network Access floppy disk and boot your Macintosh from them to use this software: * System 7.0* (DD floppies) and 7.0.1*; remember to also get the 7.0.x tune-up (it prevents data corruption!): * Systems 6.0.3-6.0.8: TrueType INIT and TT-compatible Font/DA Mover for Systems 6.0.5-6.0.8 (6.0.5 is enough although 6.0.7 is the first officially supported System). Note that if the fonts or DAs are "naked", i.e. outside their suitcases Font/DA Mover sees them if Option is pressed while Open... is clicked. * Systems 5.0-7.0.1* (7.0* on DD floppies) and some localized 7.0.1* systems: * misc: The Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh: newsgroups ========== comp.sys.mac.digest (announces new files in the Info-Mac archive!) comp.sys.mac.scitech comp.sys.mac.announce comp.sys.mac.comm comp.sys.mac.apps comp.sys.mac.system comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage comp.sys.mac.hardware.video comp.sys.powerpc comp.protocols.appletalk comp.sys.mac.advocacy etc... Mac FAQs ======== Info about mac models: acknowledgements ================ Following people have provided valuable tips and info for my mac pages: Christopher Adams (MacWeb and its external viewers) August Calhoun (additions to 68000 compatibility list) John Delacour (Eudora POP spool trick) Paul "neon" Gooch (best System for 68000 macs) Craig Laferriere (additions to 68000 compatibility list) Matti Lipponen (additions to 68000 compatibility list, NewsWatcher trick) Bob Nestor (additions to 68000 compatibility list) Fabrizio Oddone (additions to 68000 compatibility list) Andreas Prilop (Eudora Tables) Amitai Schlair (additions to 68000 compatibility list) Judy Trummer (additions to 68000 compatibility list) Knut Vikør (MIME and transliteration) Rick Zaccone (additions to 68000 compatibility list) ...and many more... -end-