Home Office Computing: letters

Defending the iMac

I am a Macintosh and PC user and I was disappointed to read John Godfrey's overtly misinformed and backward-looking article, "Check Under the Hood Before Buying These Macs," in October's Up Front (page 22).

In my experience, the PC has platform compatibility problems: It can only read a PC formatted disk; anything else will draw a blank, or worse, crash--unless you spend more cash in addition to Windows's original cost. On a Mac, it's simple to mount, read, format, and write to a PC disk, and connect a Mac to a PC network.

Who wants a whole multitude of troublesome ports when the iMac's USB is faster and easy to use? It's a cross-platform standard. As for the lack of a floppy drive, many businesses see that as a distinct advantage--the perfect network terminal. Nobody backs up a 4GB hard drive onto 2,800 floppy disks. Is Godfrey suggesting that a $1,299 machine that can outperform a 400MHz Pentium II, has 100BaseT Ethernet, a 56Kbps modem, 127-device USB expansion, a crystal clear 15-inch monitor, and much more is only a toy?

A balanced, informed article explaining the options available to those of us who work with technology would have been appreciated.

Eliot Lovell San Francisco

Admittedly, the iMac is not the machine of choice for every home office, but Godfrey's review seemed a bit closed-minded.

His insistence that a floppy drive is required for backups and file transfer is just laughable. Mac networking has never been easier, whether using LocalTalk or Ethernet, and Macs can share files with each other straight out of their boxes. Most out-of-office file transfers are by Zip disks or e-mail.

True, the iMac leaves earlier Macs's SCSI bus behind. Since the non-Apple world never embraced SCSI technology, Apple has chosen to focus on the many advantages of USB, none of which you bother to mention.

Dan Clifford Cynthiana, KY

I was surprised that John Godfrey so cavalierly dismissed Apple's iMac.

There was no mention of the timesaving advantages with Mac OS computers. With Windows 95/98 or NT, if you are not fighting bugs, you are fighting bloated applications that are clumsy and non-intuitive. Installing new programs does not typically destabilize the Mac OS, whereas installing programs in Windows is often like playing Russian roulette.

Moreover, USB is the wave of the future for both the Mac and PC. And with 600,000 iMacs sold in two months, the old questions about the availability of software and peripherals become moot.

It should give you pause that one of the first fans of the iMac was Intel chair man Andy Grove. He has referred to the iMac in interviews as the computer of the future.

The iMac signals a new era at Apple--one where the company has decided to forge ahead with bold, prophetic moves. When the first Macintosh was introduced, everyone thought Apple was crazy to use a strange, small 3.5-inch floppy drive. But the fragile 5.25-inch disk went the way of the dinosaur, and those weird little floppies became the norm. You should take a second look at the iMac.

Michelle Klein-Hass Van Nuys, CA

A Shareware Star

Your Software Buyer's Guide (October, page 99) on contact managers left out the program I use every day, Contact Plus (www.contactplus.com). I really think that for bang for the buck, this $89 shareware package beats all the others you have reviewed.

Paul Rothenberger Spearfish, SD

E-Mail Zncryption

In "Scrambling for Safety," (Communications, October, page 46) the author stated, "Most e-mail programs with built-in security use the S/MIME encryption protocol. This is a significant deterrent but is breakable by determined hackers. Third-party encryption programs typically use strong algorithms such as Triple DES and Blowfish."

This is not an accurate summary. S/MIME is a specification for adding security to e-mail messages in MIME format. It recommends three encryption algorithms: DES, Triple DES, and RC2.

Interested readers can see www.rsa.com/smime/ html/faq.html for more info.

Rich Casto via the Internet

Corrections

"Coming Attractions" (October, page 78) listed an incorrect Web address for Sharp Electronics. The right URL is www.sharp-usa.com.

The URL quoted for Microsoft PowerPoint enhancements in "101 Hot Tips" (October, page 63) has expired. Instead, please see officeupdate.microsoft.com/ index.htm.

In October's Sneak Peeks (page 27), we mentioned Gateway's Internet access service. The toll-free number cited is available in 80 percent of areas without a local number.

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