Do you want to save QuickTime movies via your Web browser but haven’t yet paid for the $30 QuickTime 3.0 Pro upgrade that makes this possible? If you use Netscape Navigator or Communicator and have QuickTime 3.0’s standard Web plug-in, you can use several workarounds. Some readers suggest scrounging for the movie files in the Netscape cache folder, but Tobias Lee of London has a more direct procedure for Navigator 4.0 and Communicator 4.0.
After watching a QuickTime movie in Navigator or Communicator, choose Page Info from the View menu. A split window appears. The top pane lists URLs for all the images and movies on the Web page, and the bottom pane displays details about the listed items one at a time as you click on the URLs. In the top pane, locate the URL for the movie you want to save (it’s labeled Embed, not Image) and click the adjacent URL to see details about the movie in the lower pane. In the lower pane, click the URL labeled Netsite to load the movie into the pane, and choose Save As from the File menu. Be sure to set the Format option to Source in the Save As dialog box. With default preference settings, Netscape saves the movie as a MoviePlayer file; you can then double-click the movie’s icon in the Finder to open it with MoviePlayer.
If you use Navigator 3.0, you can use a similar procedure sent in by Paul Burney of Framingham, Massachusetts. After watching a QuickTime movie in the browser, choose Document Info from the View menu. In the top of the split window that appears, click the link for the movie and hold down the mouse button until a contextual menu appears. Choose Save This Link As from the contextual menu, and be sure to set the Format option to Source in the Save dialog box.
Q. My G3 Mac scrolls too fast. When I drag my cursor past the bottom of a ClarisWorks 5.0 spreadsheet window, hoping to scroll to cell A35, my computer flies to cell A134 before I can stop it. This also happens when I try to highlight text in a word-processor document. Is there any way to control my G3’s scrolling speed?
Robert Trieff Massillon, Ohio
A. The free Scrolling control panel by Ken McLeod (found on Ted Landau’s MacFixIt Web site at https://www.macfixit.com/library/tul/scrolling.sit.hqx ) lets you adjust how fast windows scroll and how quickly scrolling accelerates to the speed limit. It doesn’t seem to affect scrolling in menus, however. Although this control panel has been around since 1991, it worked fine in my brief tests with Mac OS 8.1. It does not work in Mac OS 8.5, however.
Test Your Phone Line
Q. When my 56-Kbps modem connects to the Internet, the connection speed is only 24 Kbps. I would like to get at least 38.8 Kbps, but I’m not sure whether the problem is my Internet service provider or my telephone line. How can I test my phone line to find out if it’s the limiting factor?
Michael O’Laughlin Breckenridge, Minnesota
A. You can test your telephone line by having a terminal program such as the freeware ZTerm or the communications module of ClarisWorks call 3Com’s US Robotics BBS from your computer. You can find instructions for doing this on 3Com’s Web site at https://www.3com.com/56k/need4_56k/linetest.html. If your phone line passes the test, then make sure the correct modem script is selected in your Modem control panel. Or if your Mac uses FreePPP or MacPPP for Internet connections, make sure the FreePPP Setup control panel or ConfigPPP control panel is configured properly for your modem.
Print from an iMac via LocalTalk
Q. I want to connect a 68040 Macintosh to my iMac. Since the iMac has only an Ethernet connection, do I need to buy an Ethernet card for the 68040 Mac? And once I get these babies connected, can I print from the iMac over my spiffy new network to a laser printer connected to my old Mac?
Jim Lavrakas Anchorage, Alaska
A. You can connect the iMac and your old Mac via Ethernet (see Quick Tips, December 1998 ), but this network is separate from the LocalTalk network connection used by most laser printers. Although the Ethernet and LocalTalk networks both use the AppleTalk protocol, the Mac OS can connect via only one at a time.
Fortunately, you can interconnect the two different AppleTalk networks. One way is to install Apple’s free LaserWriter Bridge control panel on your old Mac. This allows the iMac and any other computers you might add to the Ethernet network to use the laser printer on the LocalTalk network, as long as the old Mac is turned on. But LaserWriter Bridge doesn’t enable any communication between Macs on the LocalTalk network and computers on the Ethernet network. Apple’s LocalTalk Bridge control panel enables computers on the two networks to share files and services, but it tends to sap the performance of the computer it’s installed on.
You can avoid all the shortcomings of the bridge software with a device such as Farallon’s $99 EtherMac iPrint Adapter LT. You simply connect the LocalTalk network and the Ethernet network to the iPrint, and then computers on either network can use printers, files, servers, and other services on the other network. The iPrint actually gives you a couple of network-connection options.
Achieve Orderly Start-Up
TIP In ” Work Less, Do More ” (Secrets, October 1998), Joseph Schorr mentions putting program aliases into your Startup Items folder. To take this a step further, add a z to the beginning of the alias’s name for the program you want to use first after start-up, so it will be the last item to open. For instance, I usually check my e-mail first, so I renamed Eudora’s alias zEudora.
Douglas Mehr Gurnee, Illinois
If the first program you want to use after start-up is one you expect to keep open longer than other start-up programs, put a second alias of it in the Startup Items folder. Name this alias 01, so your preferred program opens before the others. Then after all your start-up items open, the alias with the z should make your preferred program (already open) come to the front. If you leave this program open and quit others, you’re less likely to end up with fragmented memory (several small blocks of unused memory but no one block large enough to open another program).–L.P.
Track Installation with Labels
TIP To track the installation of control panels, extensions, and other items in the System Folder, I use the Finder’s Labels feature. First, I assign a label to all items installed in the Control Panels, Extensions, and other special folders as part of the Mac OS installation. Each time I install new software, I know that the unlabeled items in these folders have been added by that software’s installation. If no problem arises from the new items, I eventually give them a different label to distinguish them from newer items placed during the next installation.
Dieter Kerschbaumer Olten, Switzerland
Keep Your Lap Cool
TIP Does your PowerBook overheat your lap? Since the day I got my PowerBook 1400, I’ve used it on a lap desk. Lap desks typically have a ledge to keep pens from rolling into your lap, which helps your PowerBook stay put, and some have a beanbaglike bottom that conforms to your lap. The flat desk surface supports your PowerBook’s feet, ensuring an airspace underneath, and the beanbag bottom lets you position the desk comfortably.
Jon C. Haverstick Santa Ana, California
LON POOLE answers readers’ questions and selects reader-submitted tips for this monthly column. His latest book is Macworld Mac OS 8 Bible (IDG Books Worldwide, 1997). All shareware and freeware mentioned in Quick Tips is available from the Macworld Online software library ( https://www.macdownload.com ).We pay $25 to $100 for tips on how to use Macs, peripherals, or software. Please include your full name and address, so that we can send you your payment. Send questions or tips to quicktips@macworld.com or to Macworld Quick Tips, 301 Howard St., 16th Fl., San Francisco, CA 94105. All published submissions become the sole property of Macworld . Due to the high volume of mail received, we cannot provide personal responses.
January 1999 page: 97