Jacquetta

My 26 July post was about my recent efforts to achieve HyperCard/SuperCard migration. The payoff was being ready to order a new Mac. My trusty Cube had been grinding slowly, overtaken by "progress", and my online publishing business needs five applications open just to process an order, up to ten if I'm editing, choosing images or reviewing page design. Since it's nearly seven years since my last upgrade, I jumped without hesitation to the best current iMac: gorgeous 24-inch screen with blistering fast (over 3GHz) dual processors and plenty of memory. Best of all, it took under five minutes to unpack, plug in its single power lead and get it surfing the web fast and gracefully. I enjoyed small details such as well-designed packaging, and the way the remote control works straight away and intuitively, just like an iPod. Here's hoping this will suffice for the next seven years!

And, had my Cube been unmodified, I expect that Apple's brilliant Migration Assistant – software that lets you transfer your data, preferences and settings from one Mac to another – would have made the next bit painless. Sadly, all attempts to get the Cube to start up in "target" mode failed, so Migration never began. Best friend and guru Bob Tennent managed to troubleshoot this: it's a side-effect of the Cube's retro-fitted non-Apple optical drive. We tried using Airport (wireless network) instead of Firewire, but that failed: you can't even instal Leopard (System 10.5) on a Cube so as to use its two-way Migration Assistant. Deep sigh, but there's no gain without pain, especially where computers are involved. I spent the next few hours reinstalling software, importing bookmarks and retrieving passwords, product keys and settings. Without my wonderful SuperCard project (which contains everything I needed, and much more) I couldn't have done it nearly so fast, and maybe I would have lost my reason ... so converting from HyperCard first was deffo the way to go!

All the data files from the external hard drive came across fine. I rejected Time Machine's kind invitation to back up automatically, fearing that this might have replaced all my precious ex-Cube data with the iMac's minimal data. Remembering the bad old days of MS-DOS (which expected you to know syntax in order to back files up in the intended direction) I'd rather make such decisions manually.

Right now, less than 24 hours after the box was delivered, nearly all applications have been reinstalled and nearly all peripherals are working fine. Downsides (so far) are that AppleWorks 6 won't run any more, and my 19-year old LaserWriter is unable to print: maybe the iMac thinks it's too last-century and won't talk to it? Or maybe guru Bob will talk me through the solution tonight. It was after midnight when I finally sorted the Entourage database and frankly, some Dutch courage had been taken in the meantime: sleep beckoned, so I left it overnight, downloading its updates.

Best of all, all orders have been handled and no customer (unless they happen to read this blog) will be aware of any disruption. And husband Keir, who was in Oban overnight (just as well, for all the attention I'd have paid him:), will return to find my 22-inch screen attached to his Cube, where it will give his PowerPoints more room to breathe.

I’m delighted to report that the dust has settled on my computer upgrade, and I’m back to using the machine as a tool rather than diverting energy into installing software, troubleshooting and choosing hardware. My SuperCard project is running sweetly on the new iMac and although it doesn’t try to exploit most of the new SC features, it does the job smoothly, and I can expand its functionality as I go along. And I have never seen photographs look as stunning as on its glossy 24-inch screen.

The problem with using my ancient laser printer was looking intractable with System 10.5 (Leopard), possibly related to its AppleTalk connection. Having swapped it with the new Epson printer (which I had given to husband Keir, see blog entry of 21.11.2007) for diagnostic purposes, I had the happy idea of making the swap permanent. Since husband Keir is not about to upgrade from 10.4 any time soon, Leopard gives me a good reason to retrieve the better printer! How ironic that a piece of machinery which has given 19 years' reliable service is now on borrowed time for reasons of software "progress"!

The AppleWorks problem has been solved, also in an unorthodox way. My own, legally purchased and upgraded AppleWorks CD had refused point-blank to instal under Leopard. Considering that all our invoices and many book manuscripts are in Appleworks, this was a major setback. The solution was a kind friend who emailed me his AppleWorks to try. Despite having the same version number (6.2.9) as mine, this one works a treat under Leopard. So all my recent concern about Microsoft Office 2008 and downloading a trial version of iWorks Pages was needless. I realise AppleWorks is no longer maintained, but feel I’ve done enough innovating recently and my motto remains “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.”. The time to change word processing systems is not now.

Back in August, I thought that the only casualty of my upgrade to the iMac was AppleWorks. Little did I realise that my occasional use of Acrobat Pro would also become an issue. Mostly I use Acrobat Reader, which is free to download, but occasionally I need a few Pro features – for example to be able to chop a book into sections for our "Look inside" feature on the Rucksack Readers website, so people can "try before they buy". Sadly, when I tried to instal an old version of Acrobat Pro from my CD yesterday, I was thwarted: it's an upgrade to an earlier version (also a legal CD) which runs under Classic. The iMac doesn't do Classic, so it had a hissy fit and spat out that CD.

So I looked around the web intending to buy an update, and was horrified to find that Acrobat Pro costs £413 on Amazon, and nearly as much from US sources with all the extra delay, carriage and duty. Since I seldom need Pro, it seemed an outrageous price, and Adobe don't even do a 30-day trial edition for Mac (as they do for Windows). So I tried a Google search including the word discount, and was surprised to find dozens of sites offering OEM download-only versions for $60 US. Surprised, intrigued, curious, ... indeed I was almost tempted, since I certainly don't need the manuals, CD or packaging.

But having had a lot of my own intellectual property ripped off over a long lifetime, I am very old-fashioned about software piracy and had read with scepticism the reasons stated why the software was so cheap (bankrupt stock, auctions, no delivery costs etc). I then noticed that although the sites in question had very different company names, URLs and general appearances, the FAQ wording was suspiciously identical (with the same tiny mistakes in spelling or grammar), they all offered the same vast range of popular software, and, most dubious of all, they all had the same "call centre" number, a UK number 0203 286 4046 that claims a link with 25 Vartry Road, London, N15 6PT. Phone it and you'll get an answering machine. Check the address online and you'll find it consists of flats. So with no intention of buying anything from this dodgy-seeming source, I clicked the Checkout button.

These sites are littered with plausible-looking bits and pieces, moneyback assurances, privacy and anti-spam policies. The shopping cart page has a security logo and the site claims to be designed by

© VK Software. Approved by Google Inc.
This information is provided by the customer and is entered into our certified secure network. Any information provided by our customers is never shared, sold, or released to any third party outside our network.

But the bogus padlock graphic is merely artwork, not in the browser, and the URL lacks the vital s in https:// ... The unwary might not notice these small details and may enter their card details into this totally insecure environment with disastrous results.

The conclusion seems inescapable that the very low software prices are purely an inducement to divulge your card details. Whether you then get a working and/or pirated download is not the point. Once your card has been compromised, it will be very clear that this was a poor bargain. But if Adobe's pricing weren't so high, there wouldn't be such a strong incentive for such websites to flourish, proliferate and doubtless take lots of money from unsuspecting customers. Is Adobe's greed fuelling this particular market?

Deep sigh! I run an online business and I want people to be able to trust this form of commerce. It's disappointing to find so much human ingenuity going into deceiving others, and the whole thing has been hugely time-wasting. It's similar to a Trojan horse: "Timeo Danaos et[iam] dona ferentes" ("Beware of Greeks even if they bring presents" – a caution that the citizens of Troy should have heeded).