iPod Batteries

I recently replaced the battery in my granddaughter’s G3 iPod, and it was a simple process. (I’m not a computer or electronics tech by any imagination.) The hardest part was separating the case, but even that wasn’t difficult if you follow the instructions and use the tool that comes with most replacement batteries. If the original battery goes dead on you and you’re going to trash the iPod, why not give changing the battery a go?

—William Chenault

OmniGraffle Pro 4

I prefer version 2.1. It’s not as bloated with a bazillion floating windows, and it doesn’t put a lame outline around every export. JPEG export crashes under Tiger, so the simple workaround is export as PDF, then use Preview to convert to JPEG. Version 2.1 of OmniGraffle was the best they ever did.

—Matt S.

• • •

A very good review Eric. I’ve used OmniGraffle for some time now, and it just keeps getting better and better. I love the ease of use compared to programs such as Visio on the PC. I look forward to producing diagrams with it because it actually makes it fun.

The Omni Group always seem to turn out slick applications, and for me OmniGraffle is their best. I must admit that I’d tend to stick with Chartsmith for charting, but for diagrams I haven’t found any other software that comes close.

—Karen H.

• • •

If using PowerPoint is someone’s idea of “hard work” then I suspect breathing becomes an almost unbearable chore…

—Brent

FileMaking: Welcome to FileMaker 8!

Excellent continuation on the previous article. I especially liked the clear discussion of the Portal function. I’m looking forward to the discussion on Summary Fields. I’m trying to figure out how to get FileMaker to tell me how often a specific number is entered into a field in a database.

—John Endahl

• • •

In spite of the fact that the addition of $ and $$ variables is a good advance, you can’t use them on a layout or as keys to get related records from a table—or at least I didn’t find how to do that.

—Carlos Menem

• • •

FileMaker Pro is all you need if you wish to create databases.

Dopey. I wish to create databases, and I need something much more powerful than FileMaker Pro. 4th Dimension and I are doing thousands of things that FileMaker Pro cannot.

a debugger, which allows the developer to step through a script line-by-line to check for the location of a problem

I am sure you will find that useful. I have used the 4D debugger for the last 11 years and love it.

you declare a variable, give it either local (within a script) or global (throughout the solution) scope, and can later refer to that variable

Ditto my comment above, plus we have process variables—but I forgot, FileMaker does not support multiple processes, does it?

—Frank Martin

9 Ladybugs at the X Picnic

As a long-time Mac user, I despise OS X for many, many reasons—not the least of which is the much publicized “stability,” which for me, has been demonstrably awful on several different machines, from G3 to G5, from 10.1 to 10.4. (BTW, most of these machines were set up by vendors) I have literally lost weekends because of this.

I have found that OS 9 still kicks goals in terms of speed and intuitive interface features, and, frankly, all I have to worry about is getting on with my work. I’m a broadcast editor who has used Final Cut Pro from v1.2 to 5.0.2. with DV, Cinewave, Igniter, and Decklink. I still use v3.0.2 on OS 9 very productively and earlier this year I bought a Windows machine (something I thought I would never do) and found it to be quite stable and powerful. And usable.

I don’t get why we are forced to have such a radical change in interface from OS 9 to OS X (no Apple menu, the Dock, window buttons all together, Command-Shift-N for new folder, etc.) when many of these are clearly not an improvement. At least in Windows XP, you can go back to a previous Windows interface (if that is what you prefer), and switch off all of those “eye-candy” animations that look good in the store, but are annoying when you just want to work quickly.

Widgets? Oh please. I just want to have an uncluttered interface, and OS X breaks many of the foundational interface guidelines that made Macs great in the past. OS X is, for me, just another version of Windows. If something breaks in OS X, I have little chance of fixing it, which is just the same in Windows. At least in OS 9, I had a few things I could try, (trashing preferences, using just base level extensions that I can easily browse, reinstalling program, clean system installs, etc.) not the least of which was to have a backup boot partition that was literally just a two-minute drag and drop operation when I set the system up initially. But things have never been that bad that in four years I have had to use that last resort more than twice. Ghost? Don’t make me laugh.

I know plenty of other users with similar feelings.

—Mark Rabich

Axio Swift Backpack

I’m looking at buying a Swift early next month to put a 17" PowerBook in. I saw you said a sleeve was an absolute necessity.

Do you have any recommendation with regard to sleeves which will still fit inside the laptop compartment?

Thanks for your help,

—Marcel

Disk Catalogers

Aloha from Hawaii! Thank you, Michael! This is the first time I have run across ATPM, and I am very impressed by your excellent writing, supporting images, and thoughts comparing these two cataloging apps. Thank you for spending your time to bring us such a good unbiased review as this. It has been most helpful.

Now off to download CDFinder!…and check out more of ATPM!

—Kaliko Trapp

We’d love to hear your thoughts about our publication. We always welcome your comments, criticisms, suggestions, and praise. Or, if you have an opinion or announcement about the Macintosh platform in general, that’s OK too. Send your e-mail to editor@atpm.com. All mail becomes the property of ATPM.