The Devil in the Box

Open Transport and Netscape
Let's start with what seems to be the biggest and possibly most bug-prone Apple extension to come around. Don't get me wrong - I love the concept of Open Transport: unlimited, simultaneous connections to networks and the Internet. But I'm convinced that iteration 1.1, used with Netscape 3.0, is pure devil spawn.

Open Transport 1.1 had a conflict in code that Apple took its time in repairing, one that worked its mayhem on Netscape Navigator's inherent memory allocation to bring my computer crashing to a stop several times a day. In fact, I was often unable to launch Netscape more than once without a restart.

Thankfully, this has all changed with Open Transport 1.1.1 (that extra ".1" is essential), and crashes are a thing of the past. Users of Netscape's Japanese version 2.1 did not experience this conflict; it arose with the release of English Netscape 3.0. (With luck, the Japanese version of 3.0 should not be similarly plagued.)

Netscape gone postal
Netscape's appeal for me is its mail reader: a seamlessness of switching between browser and reader not yet touched by the competition. But you would be well advised to learn the application's hidden preferences. Some users (myself included) have found out the hard way that one option within the mail reader needs attention if you want to keep getting your mail.

Within the Options/Mail and News Preferences/Servers area is a "Messages are copied from the server to local disk, then:" option followed by two choices: "Removed from the server" or "Left on the server." Check "removed"; otherwise (since the default is "left on the server"), copies of all your delivered mail will pile up on your Internet Service Provider's (ISP's) hard disk and eventually reach your authorized maximum, at which time you stop receiving your e-mail. I have a friend - new to computers and still somewhat intimidated by them - who went for three months wondering why he no longer received any messages.

A call to your ISP when your mail stops may or may not solve the problem, depending on its tech support's knowledge. (GOL, my provider, knew the Mac setup and straightened me out in a few minutes; SuperWin, my friend's ISP, had absolutely no clue.) Adjust your preferences now to ensure continued, problem-free mail delivery.

Memory errors and performance
When your computer crashes and you lose 30 minutes of brilliant prose, the last hour of data you input in a spreadsheet, or an entire 4MB download that was "almost" finished, the last thing you want to be concerned with is a couple of numbers. Error numbers, I mean. When Macs crash, they usually issue an error code. Noting this code and consulting a diagnostics book (there should be one on everyone's shelf) will help you understand the crash and hopefully prevent its recurrence.

If you have a PowerMac, you almost certainly will have seen a rash of Type 11 errors. Technically, Type 11's are known as "hardware exception" errors. If they occur because of the software-based 68k emulator that allows your new PowerMac to use older, non-PowerPC software, though, then realistically they are memory errors.

The easiest (but not the cheapest) way to eliminate them is to buy more RAM and to upgrade all your applications to native PowerPC versions. Another solution is to check the memory allocation of your commonly used applications. (Highlight the application icon, and choose Get Info from the file menu.) The total allocated RAM must be less than the actual amount of RAM in your machine.

If you have 16MB of RAM in your computer, and you try to use Microsoft Word, Excel, and FileMaker Pro simultaneously, the sum of these three applications' allocated memory - plus your system's memory requirements - cannot be more than 16MB. If you allocate 5MB to each of these three, and your system requires 5MB, that's 20MB of allocated RAM when all three are running, so you can expect a system crash. Reduce each of the applications to 3MB, though, and you can run all of them simultaneously and still have room to breathe.

On Japanese OS machines, the memory required for the system itself is usually 50% to 100% greater than that for English systems, so budget accordingly.

There is a third method of improving memory performance on your PowerMac - one that would require an article unto itself: virtual memory. Suffice it to say that if you have a PowerMac, you should enable virtual memory (located in your Control Panels folder, under Memory). For more on this very technical topic, search the TechNotes section of Apple's site (http://www.apple.com).