Maria’s Guides

Busy, then sick, now no excuse.

I just want to take a minute to assure you that I haven’t abandoned Maria’s Guides. I was busy for a week with out-of-town company (my mother-in-law!), then took a 4-day trip to Alaska (long story), and spent the next four days in bed with a nasty case of the flu (which did wonders for my diet).

I’ve spent the past few days catching up with things and hope to start writing new how-to pieces for Maria’s Guides soon.

So accept my apologies for the dismal lack of fresh content here and bear with me while I get back up to speed.

Please don’t expect so much from me!

This morning, I received an e-mail message from a reader that evoked a number of emotions in me. I thought I’d share it with readers so they can get a better idea of what the Maria’s Guides Web site is all about.

The Message

Here’s the message. I’ve omitted the person’s name and other identifying information, because my purpose is not to put him or his organization in the spotlight.

Friday a week ago Apple sent down a miserably ill-detailed upgrade from OS 10.5.1 to OS 10.5.2.

It may prove to be one of the worst sends in recent Apple history.

Using a fairly new MacBook Pro loaded with Adobe CS3 and prepped to print to an Epson 9800 Pro — making us a member of that Apple/Adobe/Epson Big-Chunk-Of-Apple’s-Graphic-Base — it became apparent that much was lost.

I couldn’t print to the Epson. Printing would start but stop after a varying percentage of job completion and the system would start printing any file, small or large, one line at a time on five-minute intervals. Trust me on this.

All my communications were wiped out. No Airport and, when I got home, the Apple modem I have to use for dialup was not seen by the MacBook.

Though I have a three-year highest level available membership in Apple Care, nobody had the foggiest notion what to do about it. There was agreement in early going from four tech support folks that Time Machine would not be of help. A week later — Friday the 29th — a Peer Two support helper said of course and at least THOUGHT she put the system back as it was the day before the debacle.

Not the case. Still no communication. Printing remains a problem. Other small problems too subtle to classify at this early state.

When is Apple going to return to being a company we can trust? Clearly Leopard was released with scandalously ill-tested preparation for their partners — and Adobe and Epson weren’t the only ones on the tarmac. Apple needs to be taken to court to instill some responsibility for the serious monetary damage these inflicted problems bring to us small businessmen. Can’t even imagine what it would be on large companies.

Maria’s Guides may be one of the few consistent publications that will do something about this. David Pogue is too busy writing his New York Times Columns on the latest electronic gadgets for teenagers to care.

Help! And thank you for all you do.

I have to start out by saying that I really don’t like getting e-mail like this. While I understand the reader’s need to vent, he’s venting to the wrong person. There’s nothing I can personally do to help him. Nothing.

Why My Response is Here

I started writing a personal response, then realized that doing so would violate my own contact policy: that is, any requests for help must be on this site — not in e-mail. The reason I have this policy is so that when I answer a question, it goes into a place where other readers can find and read it. This way, I shouldn’t get identical questions submitted by numerous people.

The fact that this is getting any attention at all is a violation of my policy; requests for assistance received via e-mail are normally deleted without any response at all.

Before you get all hot and bothered by that idea, consider this: Over the past 18 years, I’ve written 70 books and literally hundreds of articles that have appeared in print and on a variety of Web sites. (That doesn’t count the articles written here or on An Eclectic Mind.) By now, my work has been read by millions of people worldwide. If a tiny fraction — say 0.01% — of those people decided to e-mail me with a question during that 18 year period, I’d be spending all of my time answering personal e-mail messages. I simply cannot do that. I need to work to earn a living. I can’t work if I’m spending all my time answering e-mail.

So why is this message getting an answer? Because it gives me a lot to say.

Mac OS X 10.5.2 Update

The author of the message characterizes the latest update as a “miserably ill-detailed upgrade.” That’s not exactly true. There was quite a bit of information about the update online. In fact, I linked to it from a post on this Web site.

While the information did not specifically address potential problems with Epson printers, in did describe, in a good amount of detail, what the update would change.

And, for the record, I haven’t been able to associate any new problems on either of my computers running Leopard — a MacBook Pro and a 24-in iMac — with 10.5.2. I’m not saying there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m just saying that I haven’t had any problems with it. If I don’t have a problem, I can’t be expected to write about it here or anywhere else.

What Does He Want Me to Do?

I actually began writing a response in e-mail. If you recall from the original message above, it ended with “Help!”

Here’s as far as I got:

I’m sorry, but I really don’t know what it is that you want me to do.

Do you want me to tell you when Apple will “return to being a company we can trust”? I have no idea if that’ll ever happen. You’re certainly not the only one frustrated by the current situation. But with Apple’s market growing, can we honestly expect it to return to the friendly little company it once was?

Do you expect me to help you troubleshoot your printing problem? I have absolutely no way to do that. I don’t have an Epson printer and I have no experience with one. This is clearly an issue to take up with either Epson or Apple. The Apple support forums would be a good place to post the details of your problem. Perhaps another Epson user has already encountered and fixed the problem.

What I also want to add is that if the model of printer in question is older than 3 or 4 years, it’s an awful lot to expect anyone to support it. In this wasteful day and age, computer equipment is designed to be replaced every few years. Indeed, the printer I rely on every day — an HP LaserJet 2100 TN is considered ancient at almost 8 years old. If it were to stop functioning, I know for a fact that there’s no way I could get troubleshooting help or get it repaired. Although it cost me $1,000 when new, it’s now worthless and can easily be replaced by a better, faster, and more feature-packed machine for half the price. But I’ll continue to use it until it simply stops. (Its predecessor, an HP 4MP, continues to do duty as my husband’s desktop printer in his home office.)

Thoughts on AppleCare

I’m the kind of person who doesn’t believe in extended warranties. I never did — until the logic board on my old Dual G5 died when it was only 18 months old. That repair cost me about $700.

I’ve owned about 20 different Macs since 1989. Back in the early days, Macs were good, simple, durable machines. I used to teach a Mac troubleshooting course where we’d purposely break things in the hardware or software and teach students how to find and fix the problems. We never had one go permanently bad on us. We could always fix it with a system disk or a peek under the hood.

But somewhere along the way, the machines got a little less reliable. Things that never would break before, now occasionally went bad. The logic board is a perfect example. The CD/DVD drive on my little 12-inch PowerBook is another example, although I admit that machine has a lot more years and miles on it.

So I started buying AppleCare protection when I bought my MacBook Pro last year. And guess what? The CD/DVD drive in that went bad and needed to be replaced. This time I was covered and AppleCard paid for itself. You can bet the farm that I got AppleCare on my new iMac.

So yes, I recommend AppleCare.

But no, I don’t recommend letting the AppleCare service you paid for not solve your problem.

Now please understand that I can’t call some special contact at Apple and get them to pay better attention to this reader’s problem. I don’t have a special contact. I go through the same routine as everyone else when I have a problem.

The difference is, I don’t let them get away with not solving my problem when I paid for the service to solve it. What this guy needs to learn is to not take no for an answer and to keep calling them, repeatedly, if necessary, until they put on a support person who will solve the problem. (I’ve found that if you get a different person each time you call, you’ll eventually get one who knows what he’s doing. Unless, of course, he’s reading off a script in India.)

Be Careful of Comparisons

In his letter, the reader mentioned another author in a way that seemed to suggest he was comparing me to that other author.

Please don’t do that.

I am not a product (or byproduct) of the Dummies phenomena or an idolized user-turned-expert fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time. There’s no book series with my name as the brand. I don’t need an entourage to protect me from fans as I’m whisked from one location to another at Macworld Expo. And although people do occasionally ask for my autograph, they’re not willing to wait on line to get it.

I’m simply a long-time Macintosh user who has a knack for explaining things and the ability to produce a decent amount of fresh content about the things that interest me.

I don’t get hardware or software for free from companies that hope I’ll write nice things about it. Apparently no one seems to care what I write about the hardware or software I use, so I write what I really think from the perspective of a real user who has really paid, with hard-earned money, for what I’m using.

If I like something enough to get really interested in it, I’ll write a bunch of how-tos to get my readers interested in it, too. And maybe — just maybe — I’ll have enough of an interest to write a book about it. (That’s how our WordPress book got started.)

I believe in supporting my readers by clarifying and expanding upon what I’ve written and by offering new, related content on this site. I’ll admit that my goal, like many other writers, is to impress readers enough for them to support my efforts by buying my books. (And, in case you’re wondering, I earn a whole 15¢ to $2 per book, depending on the title and how it is sold. I don’t sell millions of books.)

I’m not a “brand name” and never expect to be.

I’m just a writer — an honest, geek writer.

And Maria’s Guides is my outlet for some of the content I write.

Maria’s Guides is Not a Troubleshooting Site

Troubleshooting is frustrating and annoying and a huge waste of time. But it’s also the price we pay for allowing computers to become a big part of our lives. It’s a tradeoff.

Tired of troubleshooting your computer? Don’t change anything on it once it’s working right. Or just get rid of it. Is that practical? Probably not.

I don’t think Apple is any worse than the next big company at supporting users. At least we have the benefit of a relatively intuitive interface to work with and an operating system that doesn’t display an annoying security dialog every time we try to start a process. (Honestly, I can’t bear to use my Vista PC at all these days.)

But although you might find some articles here that’ll help you troubleshoot your computer problems — especially if I’ve had the same problem and have found a solution — Maria’s Guides is not a troubleshooting Web site. I really cannot be expected to solve reader problems here.

I hope the reader who e-mailed me is reading this, since it’s the only response he’ll get from me. And I hope he has a good idea of how to move forward to solve his problem: Apple, Adobe, and Epson support forums, troubleshooting Web sites, Google searches.

That’s how I’d handle it if it were my problem — although I’m more likely to try Google first.

A quick note about how you can conveniently get new content from this site.

I’m very pleased to see that this site, although less than 3 months old, has already attracted a large number of subscribers. Those of you who have subscribed obviously understand the convenience of using the RSS feed feature of blog-based sites to get new content delivered to your RSS reader, whether it’s a standalone reader like NetNewsWire or endo (my choice) or another Internet application like Apple Mail, Safari, or Firefox.

Subscribing by E-Mail

About 18% of you have chosen to receive new content by e-mail. This is especially easy for folks who don’t want to deal with RSS reader software. Articles are sent out once a day, by e-mail, and include all images and formatting you’d find in the original article on this site. A single e-mail message includes all articles for the day — although I usually have just one or two — and if there are no articles, there’s no e-mail. The e-mail list of subscribers is protected and not used for any other purpose, so you won’t get spammed by me, Feedburner (which provides the service), or anyone else.

I do want to remind people who are interested in using the e-mail subscription feature that it’s a two-step process to sign up. First, you enter your e-mail address in the Subscribe by E-Mail form at the top of the right column of any page of the site and click Subscribe. Second, you must click the link in the e-mail message that arrives almost immediately to confirm your subscription. If you use a spam filter, this e-mail message might end up in a junk mail or spam folder in your e-mail client. Look for it. If you don’t click the link, you will not be subscribed.

Unsubscribing is easy and it works. Just click the link at the bottom of any of the e-mail messages you receive. You’ll be removed from the list and will no longer get new content by e-mail.

Subscribing to the Feed

The remaining 82% of subscribers use some sort of RSS reader to subscribe to the feed. This is easy, too. Simply click the RSS link at the top of any page. Depending on your operating system and Web browser, you’ll be given some method to select the program you want to use to read the feed. Then, each time you open that program, the new content will be gathered for you to read.

Full Text Feed

Unlike many other sites, Maria’s Guides features a full text feed. That means the feed — whether it be by e-mail or by RSS reader — will contain all the text and images you’ll find on the site. I’ve done this purposely to make following the content on this site more convenient.

At the bottom of each feed item, you should see a link that you can click if you want to read a article’s comments or add your own. I urge you to do so if you find an article particularly interesting. Sometimes, there’s a lot more information shared in article comments than in the article itself. You can help share what you know with other readers by using the comments feature to add your input to the discussion.

Any Requests?

I’m open to requests for improving the site or its feed. Please use the Comments link for this article to share your thoughts or make requests.

A problem and a fix.

This morning, while experimenting with a Digg link on my personal blog, I got an unusual message from Digg saying:

This link does not appear to be a working link. Please check the URL and try again.

Huh?

The link, of course, was fine. It was a link to the home page of my site.

Why is this a big deal? Well, being “dugg” can increase the amount of attention your Web site gets among blog readers. A well-dugg post can attract many, many hits. Some of those people might turn into regular readers.

(You can read my experiences with being dugg here and here. Although things can get a bit out of control when you end up on Digg’s home page, I lived through it without any permanent damage.)

Since I was on Digg, I decided to do a Digg search for the error message. The article I found, “Bad Behavior 2.0.11 Wordpress Plugin Blocking Digg Submission” on GeekTeks.com answered my question and provided a fix.

Apparently, when the author of Bad Behavior updated his plugin and spam site references, Digg was blocked as a legitimate site. The solution is to add Digg’s IP address to Bad Behavior’s whitelist. I just did this on all sites running Bad Behavior and the problem has gone away.

Miraz and I highly recommend Bad Behavior in our WordPress book. It not only helps prevent spam comments from being posted to your WordPress blog, but it also reduces the amount of hits to your MySQL database, thus reducing site congestion and theoretically speeding up access to your site.

Do you use Bad Behavior 2.0.11? If so, read the above-referenced article and follow its instructions to fix the problem.

One drawback to a WordPress plugin.

Back in November, I wrote a post about a new plugin I’d installed on my two main blog-based sites: Maria’s Guides and An Eclectic Mind. The plugin is called CommentLuv and it automatically retrieves and displays a link for the last post a commenter added to his or her blog. Here are some examples from the post I wrote about CommentLuv, where I invited people to try it out.

The idea behind CommentLuv is to encourage people to comment by automatically linking back to their blog. I think it’s a great idea — when used by people who have real content to contribute in comments.

On the surface, CommentLuv is extremely attractive to spammers who keep blogs. Not only can they include a relatively normal looking comment with a link to their blog when they enter it in the Web site field of the comment form, but they also have an automatic link to their most recent work. Two links for the time it takes to post one, right? And that second link can give readers an idea of what their blog is all about by including the title of the most recent post.

What these people don’t seem to realize is that the CommentLuv link is created with a “nofollow” attribute. So if they think they can improve search engine optimization (SEO) by adding links to their sites on the sites they comment on, they’re wasting their time. The links are not recognized by Google or any other search engine or automated tool.

But what I’ve seen lately is a number of the same people coming back, again and again, to post comments like “Great post! I’ll keep checking in.” These comments usually appear on recent posts and, with some commenters, they appear several times a week. This gets past my spam prevention software and ends up on my blog.

While most people wouldn’t mind the added comments with their apparently complementary content, this isn’t content. It’s spam. There’s nothing being contributed to the site other than two free links for the commenter. So I delete these comments regularly.

Now I’m not suggesting that you avoid CommentLuv. I still think it’s a great plugin. But I do want users to be aware of its attraction for spammers. On a popular blog, installing CommentLuv could add about 10 minutes a week to your spam maintenance routine — after all, you have to manually decide whether a comment is legitimate or posted solely to attract hits for the commenter’s blog. Adding a regular abuser to your blacklist might be a good course of action.

Want to learn more about WordPress? Check out WordPress 2: Visual QuickStart Guide by Maria Langer and Miraz Jordan, published by Peachpit Press. It’s available from Amazon.com and in all major bookstores.

A Technorati technicality.

To attach your blog to your Technorati account, you need to prove it’s yours by claiming it. That’s what this link to my Technorati Profile does for me.