I have a Apple IIGS computer, and I was wondering if there is any way I could get it connected to the Internet. Would you be able to give me any information on getting a server or something like that maybe?

—PlyrCool

Because of a screw up I had to recently reconstruct my user folder. I have managed to get almost everything working again except the AppleScript icon in the menu bar. Apple Help is of no help here; it only mentions the script folder. Can you please point me in the right direction?

—Martin Wain

Well said. Thanks for your thoughtful words on this unfortunate situation. Some people clearly need to wake up to reality and realize they shouldn’t do whatever they want. Apple is doing an incredible job trying to work with the music industry and at the same time guarding the user’s best interest. Is Apple perfect? Of course not. But whether you like it or not, the music industry is here to stay, at least for the time being, and Apple has little choice but to work with them. Can we at least respect Apple’s attempts at rectifying a situation far from ideal? It seems some people just can’t. I guess that’s just too much to expect.

—Erick

People steal music. That’s a fact. Apple knew that from the start. The entity that needs to get a rap on the head is Apple. As you point out, the security measures in place to protect purchases on the iTunes Music Store work quite well, so why couldn’t they have implemented something similar for the music streaming? This doesn’t seem like hard logic to follow and the bottleneck in performance should be the network connection and not the computer (concerning handling overhead for the security on streaming media). Doesn’t Apple have such technology with QuickTime Streaming?

—Jason M.

Evan did a fine job atomizing beefs many of us have in OS X.

Why is the Dock such an issue? Not because we’re luddites, but because many of us “veterans” feel forced to move forward into interface behaviors and mouse locations that are not a part of our hard-earned skill sets; forced to cope with this or that new feature, with imprinted body memories which simply don’t want “features” like the Dock in our faces when we try to get work done.

I work as a professional editor in Avid and Final Cut Pro and I max out my screen real estate for very practical reasons. My timeline runs edge-to-edge. Believe me when I tell you the exquisite annoyance I experience when the Dock makes its vaudevillian pop-up appearance from its hidden state—often with clients present (“Hey, what the hell was that?” “Nothing, just a feature.”)—when I least need entertaining distractions.

—Loren S. Miller

I’m gonna add another note of praise for Page Sender here, as well a tip for small office users. If you’re looking for a multi-user fax system, Page Sender is a godsend. They’ve got a bulk discount thing going on, so, the more copies you buy, the cheaper it gets. We bought seven copies for our office. That may seem like overkill, but there’s a good reason. OS X’s printer sharing lets us send faxes from any of our computers through the one old iMac that we’ve got plugged into a dedicated phone line. Compare the price of a bulk pack of Page Sender to any other networked fax solution, and you’ll be amazed.

—Matt Quirk

I’ll also endorse Page Sender. I struggled with FaxSTF for years, four different times, starting way back in System 7 and 8 days. I always hated it. Update to OS X, and it was the only game in town. Finally, I discovered Page Sender and achieved Satori. Page Sender is simple, inexpensive, and it just works! (Very well, too!) If you need fax software, give it a try. You’ll pay the shareware fee without hesitation. It’s worth every penny. Fair winds and happy bytes!

—David Flory