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More Worthwhile Mac Resources It seems that no matter what I write, people will write in both excoriating my views and denouncing my ignorance for omitting their favorite sites. All I can do is admit that I'm a bad person, and resolve to be all things to all people next month [Editor's Note: I've been asking him to do that since the first issue... but did he listen?]. However, for the time being before that happens, here are a few more. I've already mentioned DealMac: But there's a competitor, published by the folks at MacNN, and appropriately called DealNN. The two are similar in form, emphasizing the offerings of their respective advertisers. But they're surprisingly different in actual content. If you like the one, you'd do well to put the other on your list of daily visits as well. I've also mentioned a fair number of sites where the latest Mac shareware and freeware are available for download, but haven't yet mentioned one of the best. Just deliberately saving it for last, y'know. The Mac Orchard's main distinguishing feature is its multitude of readers' reviews of its listings. Some are kinda flaky, but taken as a whole they're certainly worthwhile. Reviews are perhaps a little less necessary for this form of software -- after all, you can get a good idea of what it does first, before you put good money down for it. But which of us hasn't downloaded an app, worked for hours with it, and then found either that it won't do what we need, or that it has flaws or omissions that rule it out for us. Other users' reviews can help us avoid wasting this kind of time. Finally in this section, a form of electronic publishing that's older than the Web itself, perhaps less glamorous, but nevertheless still very much thriving and extraordinary useful -- especially (for me at least) when there's a Mac problem that doesn't seem to be solvable any other way. Well, after such puffery, it had better be pretty good, right? Well, it is. The email list is a moderated forum for specialized interests, maybe transient ones. When I started to get into USB peripherals, I signed up to a list called MacUSB, which sent me several emails most days about particular peripherals, problems which people had and suggestions for solving them, and all kinds of USB-related topics. Now, when my USB experiences seem pretty uneventful, I'm thinking of signing off the list. Every now and then, though, a message or series of messages appear that makes me decide otherwise for the time being. Newsgroups do some of the same things. The difference is in the moderator. Good moderators don't necessarily clean up an author's copy like an editor would, or snuff out material not to their liking. They do, however, organize material into threads, keep out ads that purport to make you thousands a week for stuffing copies of Mac OS Journal into envelopes, come-ons for porn sites, and the like. It means more efficient use of time for the reader, and that's why the lists are worthwhile. The headquarters for some of the best of these lists are at these three places: For Apple Lists: http://lists.apple.com/ For Eric Prentice's lists: http://www.themacintoshguy.com/lists/ For Dan Knight's lists: http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/index.shtml
More International Newspaper Links Last issue, I looked at what I think are the most worthwhile of the online versions of what in England are called the "Quality Newspapers," or often just the "Qualities." In the issue before, I looked at some of the best-written and most complete and eclectic of the American and Canadian offerings. These newspapers have their counterparts all over the world, but of course many of them are incomprehensible to me and, I suspect, most readers, because of their unfortunate habit of being written day in, day out, in languages other than the one I was brought up with. How do those pesky foreigners do it, I wonder. (Many of them have a pretty functional grasp of English as well, but that's another story.) To return to the column [Editor's Note: I wondered when you'd get around to doing that.], there are other parts of the world where English is either a first language or a widely-used second one. Happily, there are some excellent newspapers produced in these places as well. Happily too, all have extensive coverage of both international news and domestic news from other countries such as the United States. And more happily still, they have online editions that include virtually all that's in the print editions, though with different ads. Here are some of these newspapers. Like the ones I've mentioned in previous months, they will surprise and delight you if you take the trouble to click on the links. First, a few from countries where English is the first language (at least, they call it English, but really... [Editor's Note: OK, stop it now before entire continents start boycotting us.] The Scotsman, Edinburgh: http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/ The Irish Independent, Dublin: http://www.independent.ie/ Australia's National newspaper: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/ ... and its competitor, The Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/ The New Zealand Herald, Auckland: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ Now three more papers from places where English is a widely-used language, The Straits Times, Singapore: http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/ The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong: http://www.scmp.com/ The Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/ This last paper is owned by none other than the ubiquitous Conrad Black, who really makes me sick every time I see a picture of his horrible face [Editor's Note: Yeah, this is what we need, a defamation of character lawsuit from someone with deep pockets.], but who I have to admit has some of the world's best papers and who insists on excellent writing as well as a preponderance of extremist right-wing editorial writing [Editor's Note: Well someone has to make up for the extreme left press that we have here in the States, right?][Uh, oh, not that argument again -- Dennis]. In the Middle East, there seems to be two antithetical sides to every question. I looked around the Net for something that could be painted as an Arab counterpart to the Post, but not only did almost all of what I found use foreign words, they also used script that mightily confused my Browser. I did, however, find an excellent site putting forward various Arab points of view, excellently articulated by some highly-respected and thoughtful writers, and either originally written in English or translated for our benefit. If you've always thought of Palestinian and other Arabs as an uneducated, aggressive and disorganized riffraff, you will be extremely surprised by what you see at this site. http://www.arab.net/arabview/welcome.html
That's it for newspapers. At least, that's it for all I know about them; I hope that readers will suggest a few more that I've missed. I already have a few suggestions, and I hope there will be more. Next month, I'll gather them all together and present them all at once. Also next month, watch out for sites presenting the work of individual newspaper and periodical columnists. Y'know, Dave Barry and the like. I'll be on the lookout for them, and if you have any suggestions, by all means send me email about them as well.
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