Obsolete favourites alive and well, and living in a new form
I live for the future of technology, but luxuriating in the potential of future empowerment ignores the thousands of abandoned orphans condemned to live with the curse of old technology.
This was driven home last week when all my e-mails looking for Mac assistance were from people still using OS9. Of course, they were all willing to upgrade to the latest and greatest technology, but they could not for many reasons. The fellow who wanted to get the new MacBook Pro simply could not get one yet, but he wanted to know if his favourite OS9 applications could run on the latest Intel Macs. I was certain that there were good replacements or workarounds for his needs, so I asked him to send a list.
I was a little embarrassed. Many of his favourite applications were the same as mine were years ago, but only two apps were directly replaceable with OSX versions and none were recompiled as Universal Binary applications to run native on the new MacBook Pro. Here is his list and the status of each application:
Managing Your Money, a delightfully usable personal finance application, was bought by Block Software and became a victim of the company's success. Block software (H&R Block) focused on developing consumer banking software for major international banks, and more recently has focused on franchising its tax accounting applications. The Mac and PC version of Managing Your Money disappeared in the process. The best replacement for feature parity is QuickBooks, but it is pretty lame. I use QuickBooks Pro (on Virtual PC) for my companies as it is difficult to get a book-keeper familiar with the Mac version.
Peachtree Insight Accounting, a reliable double-entry accounting package, was purchased by Sage Software, which focused on supporting old Microsoft OS editions. Sage has completely stopped supporting all other operating systems including Mac. I expect that the software will become Mac compatible when Microsoft releases its new Vista OS. The changes Sage will have to invest in to be Vista-compatible will also make its applications close to Mac-compatible, and the Mac market will be considered 'low hanging fruit' from a business perspective. This is one of the biggest benefits of the Mac's Intel transition.
AppleWorks is still available and has an OSX version, but iWork has replaced it for the most part. iWork is superior but does not have full feature parity yet.
Virtual PC, the Windows emulation software, does not work on the new Intel Macs yet. Aside from QuickBooks Pro and PatentPro, a superior patent development application, I rarely use Virtual PC. I expect that a working version will be available in two to three months. I suspect numerous hacks will allow Windows to run on the new Intel Macs in short order.
CopyPaste is a multiple clipboard tool that allows you to paste any of hundreds of pre-copied phrases into your work. One day I received more than 400 fan letters in one hour. Using CopyPaste, I answered them all that day by having answers to the eight common questions on my clipboard. If the letter asked question 4, 7 and 2, I simply hit reply, pasted answer 4, 7 & 2 and hit send. It is an awesome app. There is an OSX version, but it is not as nice as the OS9 one. Nonetheless, it works.
Aetiket Label Printer is still in business, but there is no OSX version. I use several applications for label printing including FileMaker, Word and the Dymo LabelWriter machine software.
FinderPop, a legendary interface performance utility, fell out of development when the designer got a job using PCs. He is back and appropriately remorseful. A beta is now available.
Presto! PageManager, is an optical character recognition application that converts typed documents into editable text. Presto no longer supports the Mac but several Mac developers have a better solution. ReadIris Pro (US$129) is the present champ.
PressWriter, a Broderbund application, was a simplistic art creation that included clipart and templates for most common print products such as greeting cards and calendars. The Mac version is no longer supported by Broderbund, but the latest version of Print Shop for Mac (US$59.95) is good. Mackiev licensed the rights to several Broderbund applications for the purpose of creating the Mac versions, and it has done a spectacular job. Print Shop has won every imaginable Mac award for innovation and quality.
The bottom line is that there is no longer any reason to be technologically abandoned. The tools you have come to depend on from antiquity are living in the 21st century, just under new names.
