Retro. The old brightblack

Shareware: 40 days free Sonosoft Requirements: OS: System 7 or later Extensions: MacTCP or OpenTransport RAM: Over 2MB This piece of shareware is from a Japanese outfit, Sonosoft. It’s an e-mail program, but it’s a little special in that it handles both English and double-byte Japanese very well indeed. I guess the question nowadays is, “Why pay for an e-mail client?”. Well, to be honest, because this is a good one, especially if, like me, you need a reliable multi-lingual client. I send and receive about 50% Japanese language e-mails, which rules out clients such as Claris Emailer, and Barebones’ Mailsmith. True, Outlook Express can handle double byte characters, but it can be a bit overly complex, and not very flexible. OK, then, let’s say that you’re looking for a piece of e-mail software, what does Musashi 3 have to offer? Even if you don’t use the Japanese language side of it, this is still a worth while investment. It offers multi-user support via password, and multiple accounts, making it ideal for a business or family PC. You can also set-up different colour schemes for each user too, hence the white on black in the screenshot below. Musashi supports all the features you would expect, as well as giving a few new and interesting ones - also, most features are quickly accessible. Seperate folders for mail can be assigned different icons, and those folders given seperate window settings, which can make access to mail much easier. ...

Shareware: 30 days free, $30 after; V2.2 Sonosoft This piece of shareware is from a Japanese outfit, Sonosoft. It’s an e-mail program, but it’s a little special in that it handles both English and double-byte Japanese very well indeed. If you need double-byte support and want something a bit friendlier, not to say smaller, faster and more stable than the browser-based e-mail clients, then I can heartily recommend this one. It has many great features, including comprehensive encoding choices, a clean interface. Upon opening, the user sees the folder index window, and double clicking a folder opens another window to show contents. When opening a mail, or writing a new one, the user can choose how much of the header and encoding boxes they can see, meaning that you can choose how clean or comprehensive the interface should look, and yet have quick access to additonal features. Nice. Even if you don’t use the Japanese language side of it, this is still a worth while investment. If you are looking for a ‘bilingual’ English/Japanese e-mail client, then this is the best I’ve seen, and it’s direct input. I found it far more reliable than Outlook Express, which sometimes ’lost’ kanji. It’s also available in a Japanese version, so if you’re Japanese, and you’re looking for a good e-mail package, try this! The filters are well implemented too, allowing the user to file things as they are delivered; you can also give each folder a different icon in the index window, helping to quickly identify a folder, and whether it has mail on it. The only bad point on the filter set up box, is that some of the options seem to be worded ‘backwards’. I’m assuming this has occurred in it’s translation from Japanese, but it in no way hinders their set-up. Search functions are also well supported, allowing the user to search folders or just messages for specific mails for pieces of text. Musashi also allows exports to text with the added bonus of being able to choose how much of a mail’s headers are exported to text. Useful. All of this is managed from a well thought out preferences panel. It can also handle multiple accounts at the click of a button. This also has one of the best address input systems I’ve seen in a long time. A bit like Eudora’s menu system, but much better implemented, it allows you to set user groups in the address book and just click a button on a new mail message to insert a group of addresses, or just a single name. I liked this feature a lot. ...

On this page, I’m just going to outline my basic computer set-up, both hardware and software, that I’m using right now. I’ve also put in a bit about previous computers I’ve owned. I hope this is at best a little interesting, and at worst, not a waste of time. Computer model Apple Macintosh Powerbook G3, aka “Wall Street”; 14"TFT screen, Millions of colours at 1024 by 768 233MHz G3 Motorola chip 2Gb Hard drive 32 Mb RAM Built in: ...

In Hindsight ‘Digital Life Update - February 1998’ in December 2020 Over 20 years on, and the idea of explaining a move to Mac might seem odd. In context, at the time, Apple was a basket case, Jobs barely back, the iMac wouldn’t be out for another six months and the company was almost bankrupt, so the idea of move to the Mac platform was a bit weird. Rhapsody? Wow, I’d forgotten about that. For those who don’t know, that was what would become OS X Server 1, when Apple bought NeXT with Steve Jobs, and a move to Intel would take another 8 years. Rhapsody would then further evolve into OS X. ...

We all know the web, don’t we. Hell, if we didn’t, then you wouldn’t be reading this now!! There are many issues relating to the web, from pornography to bandwidth. I can’t hope to even cover 1% of this in this page, but I just wanted to put on-line some of the things that can be a bit annoying when you’re on-line. This isn’t really a negative page; overall, I love the Web, and wouldn’t (couldn’t ?) be without it, but sometimes, well, it can get on your nerves. By the way, I’m sure that some of these things, I’ve been guilty of myself at some point, so apologies in advance. ...

In Hindsight - December 2020 I was a huge fan of free online texts, and I wrote this page against that backdrop in late 1997 when I was still teaching English on JET, Amazon was just getting somewhere and when buying an English language book meant a small selection in a larger city like Yokohama and paying a lot of money. Still, they were quaint and fun days perhaps. I still believe in open source e-texts, and still support Gutenberg, and they continue to upload more and more content each day. Interesting I mentioned the extension of copyright, something which rages on even to this day, but against a backdrop of more authors opening up some of their works to the marketplace to see how that model works. Surprisingly then, I think this page holds up, even in 2020. ...

Title: Mac Page 2001 Date: 2001-12-31 13:28 Slug: mac-page-2001 Category: technology December 2001 A sad day…last Friday my Mac refused to power up :-(( . I tried a shops power supply , ‘hoping’ that that was the problem, but alas, it still refused to work. It’s not quite a funeral yet! I’ve spoken to AppleCare Japan, and will be shipping it off to them this week to see if they can repair it within a reasonable cost. I’m amazed that it’s been trouble free up until now - coming up to it’s 3rd birthday of being dragged all over the planet, and being constantly abused in the process. OK, news as I get it. I’m looking forward to getting it fixed so I can put it on my router/ADSL system, and I’m sure I’ll love it even more…I wish I had the cash to go wireless now!! ...