AppleCORE: This Dog Just Won’t Die

This Dog Just Won’t Die

Mention the name "Cyberdog" in some Macintosh circles, and you’re likely to incite a round of smirks and chuckles. And why not? Apple’s OpenDoc-based Internet access suite never quite turned out to be the end-all, be-all wired solution that Apple had hoped it would be. When Apple shelved OpenDoc this past March, Cyberdog (placed in maintenance mode along with OpenDoc) was considered by most to be a dead-end alternative. However, as Apple’s only serious Internet access solution for the masses, many argued that Cyberdog deserved another chance. Some even suggested that it be uncoupled from its OpenDoc underpinnings and be given another shot at success, perhaps even a port to Rhapsody, but Apple wasn’t listening.

But Cyberdog didn’t just roll over and play dead; it has steadily gained a cult following among many Mac users in recent months. Even now, Cyberdog stands on the brink of widespread exposure, due to its (and OpenDoc’s) inclusion in the Mac OS 8 system upgrade. Why add Cyberdog to the Mac OS 8 brew? Was this an oversight on the part of Apple bigwigs and engineers? Was it sympathy, or even just sheer luck? Who cares? What matters is that you finally have a choice: you can succumb to using four or five behemoth applications to engage in your Internet business (including the several included with Mac OS 8), or you can get it all in one easy-to-use and powerful package — Cyberdog.

Oh, I can still hear giggling out there in the peanut gallery. When I recently told a fellow Mac user that I use Cyberdog exclusively for all my daily Internet needs, he told me to, "Get serious." Well, I am serious — Cyberdog does all I need it to do (e-mail from multiple accounts, Web surfing, ftp and gopher downloads, and even occasional telnet-ing) and at a snappy pace (at least in Mac OS 8). For most Mac users, who may only compose e-mail and engage in basic Web surfing daily, Cyberdog is the perfect option. I’ll admit, I keep a backup copy of Netscape Navigator 3.0 on my hard drive for those really "busy," multimedia-rich Web pages, but for 95% of my daily Web-based work, Cyberdog rocks.

Cyberdog was criticized in the past, and rightly so in many cases, for being such a sluggish performer in System 7.x. But times have changed — Cyberdog runs about two to three times faster in Mac OS 8, than it did on my System 7.5.5-based Mac. Some folks also argued that the program was too unstable and that its memory requirements were too outrageous to warrant serious consideration. Cyberdog 2.0, used in conjunction with the latest version of OpenDoc (1.2.1), has been primarily crash-free since I upgraded to Mac OS 8 several weeks ago, and uses (along with OpenDoc in the System partition) anywhere from three to six megabytes of RAM during a normal session. Use of Netscape-compatible plug-ins (yep, it’s possible) and Mac OS Runtime for Java will add to the RAM load, but not by much. In these days of Netscape and Microsoft browser bloat, Cyberdog is looking better and better.

No Cyberdog diatribe would be complete without making mention of the cool add-ons that developers have produced, and will be producing in future months. Additional upgrades, you ask? On a "dead end" product? You bet. A recent news item on Dave Garaffa’s BrowswerWatch Web site mentioned the "Son of Cyberdog." Steven Roussey, of Kantara Development, is currently working on a browser replacement for Cyberdog, under the code-name "Blake." It fixes a few cosmetic warts in the current Cyberdog browser, adds contextual menus and progressive display of text and graphics to pages, and other unknown features and upgrades. And that’s just the start — you can find a ton of additional information and links to other Cyberdog utilities, add-ons and scripts at Eric’s Cyberdog Page, as well as in the Apple-hosted cyberdog.general newsgroup, where you’ll find a handful of regulars who will be happy to help you get your ‘Dog trained and walking the way you want.

In fact, I grabbed the title of this week’s column from the tag line of a recent posting by Jim Hill, a regular in the cyberdog.general newsgroup. "The continuing support of Cyberdog by you newsgroup members — in spite of Apple’s complete neglect of the product — says volumes about its basic worth," Jim wrote. "This ‘Dog just won’t die." Jim hit the nail on the head. Just when Cyberdog hit its prime, Apple pulled the plug on the product (though we should be used to those kinds of shenanigans by now). I invite you to show Apple how wrong they were. Try Cyberdog for a day, or even a week. Stop in cyberdog.general and see what the buzz (or should I say barking?) is all about. Then, let the leash out a bit, and put the ‘Dog through its paces — I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.