MacWEEK articles from April 1996

MacWEEK archives from April 1996

Chip makers, clones speeding to 200 MHz. (IBM and Motorola's PowerPC 603e and 604e processors) (Product Information)
April 1, 1996... Breaking a historic speed barrier, both IBM Corp. and Motorola Inc. are prepping PowerPC 603e and 604e processors in the 200-MHz range that will show up in systems from Apple and Mac clone vendors this year. Apple's first machines with the...

Eudora 3.0 will bulk up filters, nicknames, text. (Qualcomm's Internet mail client)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... Qualcomm Inc. is reportedly prepping a new version of its $89 Internet mail client for release this month. According to sources, Eudora Pro 3.0 will provide more-powerful address books, mail filtering and search capabilities. Users will also be...

Apple faces huge loss; CEO says worst is over. (Company Financial Information)
April 1, 1996... Coming to grips with harsh market realities, Apple took what was seen as its first major step toward recovery last week. Chairman and CEO Gilbert Amelio announced that the company expects to lose an estimated $700 million in its second quarter,...

Big sites turn backs on Mac. (large organizations abandoning Macintosh systems) (Industry Trend or Event)
April 1, 1996... Apple attempts to stem the tide The 30,000 Mac users at Northern Telecom Ltd. got a rude awakening last month when the Global Enterprise Services division circulated a memo announcing its intention to dump their computers. Employees at other...

Apple courts key developers at entry level. (Company Business and Marketing)
April 1, 1996... Rolling out the red carpet, Apple last week attempted to pacify developers concerned about reports it will abandon the home and education markets. Sources said the company told more than 100 developers at a meeting at its Cupertino, Calif.,...

Valis revs morphing apps. (Valis Group's Metaflo' 2.0 and Movieflo' 2.0 morphing programs for still images and movies)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... Metaflo' and Movieflo' turn 2 Metaflo' and Movieflo', the Valis Group's twin morphing programs for still images and movies, are about to reach Version 2.0. Both programs are slated to ship this month at the National Association of Broadcasters...

Datametrics printer speeds color output. (CYMax 3240 color printer)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... Datametrics Corp. in March picked up the pace of 24-bit-color with a 20-page-per-minute printer based on new technology. The CYMax 3240, which starts at $39,900, is built on a proprietary engine that combines four CMYK thermal heads to generate...

Symbolic Sound upgrades Kyma system with modules. (Kyma Sound Design Workstation 4.1 sound processing equipment)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... Symbolic Sound Corp. recently gave professional audio tweakers a powerful tuneup to Kyma Sound Design Workstation, the company's system for creating and processing sounds. Like earlier versions, Kyma 4.1 includes the software and a programming...

Virtus widens scope of Web pages with VRML. (Virtus' 3-D Website Builder virtual reality modeling language implementation of Virtus VR)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... Web designers can now add dimension to their pages, thanks to a new version of Virtus Corp.'s Virtus VR, due this week. 3-D Website Builder, priced at $99, is a Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) implementation of Virtus VR, the company's...

In Focus, Boxlight primp projectors. (In Focus Systems' LitePro 210 multimedia projector and PowerView 820 projection panel and Boxlight's Boxlight Revolution Personal Projector video unit)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... Two companies are training new lightweight LCD products on mobile presenters. In Focus Systems Inc. this week is slated to ship the LitePro 210 and PowerView 820, a new multimedia projector and projection panel. Meanwhile, Boxlight Corp. in...

Macromedia's Backstage act a Web builder. (Macromedia acquires iband Inc and its Backstage object-oriented Web development suite) (Company Business and Marketing)
April 1, 1996... Setting its sights on Adobe Systems Inc.'s SiteMill, Macromedia Inc. in March acquired an object-oriented Web development suite and the company that built it. San Francisco-based Macromedia laid out 860,000 shares of its stock, valued at about...

Excel tool produces HTML tables. (Microsoft's Internet Assistant for Microsoft Excel Web utility)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... Excel experts can now show off their talents on the Web, thanks to a new tool released this month by Microsoft Corp. Internet Assistant for Microsoft Excel is a free utility that walks users through the process of converting spreadsheets into...

Upcoming Navigator to boost Java support. (updated Netscape Communications' Navigator Web browser, code-named Atlas) (Product Development)
April 1, 1996... Netscape to add Live3D muscle Netscape Communications Corp. is preparing to release a new beta version of Navigator that will improve the Web browser's Java and 3-D capabilities. Code-named Atlas, the new version is due this week for Power...

Cards on the table at Las Vegas show. (Networld+Interop 96 network trade show) (Industry Trend or Event)(Brief Article)
April 1, 1996... Switches, routers and hubs up ante Network companies will roll into Las Vegas this week and take the wraps off their latest wares at Networld+Interop 96. > Interphase Corp. of Dallas will unveil its upcoming 25-Mbps Asynchronous Transfer...

OpenDoc gains fans; Cyberdog goes abroad. (Apple's Cyberdog Internet access software) (Product Development)
April 1, 1996... Movie stars may have taken over the headlines at the end of March, but OpenDoc made several newsworthy cameo appearances that month. Apple released the second beta of Cyberdog. The update to Apple's OpenDoc-based suite of Internet tools adds...

QuickMail 3.6: it's native. (CE Software's e-mail software)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... CE also delivers new QM-Internet Gateway Bringing a Power Mac-native client to its e-mail package, CE Software Inc. shipped QuickMail 3.6 in March. In addition to a Power Mac-native client the new version adds Open Transport compatibility...

Cyberdog is not a strategy. (Apple's Internet strategy) (Company Business and Marketing)
April 1, 1996... Looking at the company's moves over the past year, we've found it difficult to determine Apple's commitment to the sprawling mess known as the Internet and the Web. Apple has done a few things right: It has come out with Internet servers,...

'A' for effort, not results, in System folder cleanup. (The Second Decade) (Software Review)(Column)(Evaluation)
April 1, 1996... Oddly enough, testing System 7.5 Update 2.0 over the past few weeks took me back across several careers to the early 1970s, when I worked as a machinist for General Electric Co. I'd lucked into a plum position - a job on the elite crew...

Amelio's New Deal. (Apple CEO Gilbert Amelio)(MacWEEK Insider) (Company Business and Marketing)(Column)
April 1, 1996... After 52 days in office, Gilbert Amelio finally shut down the banks. It's not his pronouncements last week of an anticipated $700 million quarterly loss that ties it in my mind to Franklin Roosevelt's actions 60 years ago. No, it's the fact...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 1996... Your Solutions article on small-business accounting software (02.26.96, Page 49) has done your readers a great disservice. Small businesses account primarily for tax purposes. Failure to do so may subject a small business to an audit, penalties...

Update logjam emphasizes Apple's need for Net savvy. (System 7.5 Update 2.0 operating system)(The Mac Manager) (Company Business and Marketing)(Column)
April 1, 1996... How many of you "stood in line" waiting to download Mac OS System 7.5 Update 2.0 the week of its release? Did you bang every FTP and mirror site to get it? Or on-line services? The Net? I was waiting with you. It was a royal pain. The FTP and...

Ten essential steps for maintaining a Web site. (MacWEEK Special Report: MacWEEK Guide to the Internet) (Internet
April 1, 1996... The currency of the Web - information - is fragile, and information spoilage is never more than a few weeks or months away. Keeping the cobwebs out of a site requires not only a source of fresh content, but the time, commitment and resources to...

Mu shu chicken, no MSG. (World Wide Web sites) (Internet
April 1, 1996... I don't remember the exact wording of a recent "Doonesbury" cartoon strip, but I do remember it went something like this: Poor Mike Doonesbury is in a frantic rush to get a Web site up and running within 24 hours (his boss's idea). After asking...

Good interactive sites take time, hard work. (creating and managing an interactive Web site) (MacWEEK Special Report: MacWEEK Guide to the Internet) (Internet
April 1, 1996... As your Web site grows, you'll most likely be adding multimedia and interactive components, two broad streams of Web page production that often get lumped together but are really like the right- and left-brained components of your Web...

It was 20 years ago today.... (Apple's 20th anniversary) (News Briefs)(Brief Article)
April 1, 1996... Apple won't take time out this week to celebrate its 20th birthday; it's delaying the official party until the presumably more pleasant business climate of January 1997. The spunky company born in a garage ended up a quite different creature...

SPA survey: Mac app sales dropped in '95. (Software Publishers Assn) (Industry Trend or Event)(Brief Article)
April 1, 1996... Despite record shipments of 4.7 million Macs in 1995, Apple's software developers lost ground. According to a survey of U.S. and Canadian personal computer software sales conducted by the Software Publishers Association of Washington, D.C.,...

Aladdin uncorks sequel to compression utility; StuffIt Deluxe 4.0 improves on Finder integration. (Aladdin Systems' StuffIt Deluxe 4.0 compression utility)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... Aladdin Systems Inc. this month plans to polish up its StuffIt Deluxe compression utility. The upgrade to Version 4.0 will include better integration with the Finder as well as enhanced e-mail and Internet capabilities. Version 4.0 will let...

Fibre Channel and SSA speed up for NAB expo. (Transoft's FibreNet FC-AL cards and arrays and Pathlight Technology's StreamLine-PCI and High Speed SSA Data Pump PCI cards shown at National Assn of Broadcasters)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... Sneak previews from Transoft and PathLight High-speed storage for Macintosh digital video will shift into overdrive at the National Association of Broadcasters conference and expo in Las Vegas this month. Several vendors are expected to...

Style, simplicity give Salon reader appeal. (online magazine)(MacWEEK Special Report: MacWEEK Guide to the Internet) (Internet
April 1, 1996... There's a downside to being trendy, and San Francisco-based Salon, one of the Internet's most elegant new "magazines," is finding out the hard way. Thanks to a partnership with Apple, Salon, which offers a medley of stories and commentary about...

PCI cards provide fast acceleration for QuickDraw. (Number Nine Visual Technology's Imagine128 and Matrox Electronic Systems' MGA Millennium PCI-based graphics accelerators) (includes related article on testing graphics accelerator cards) (Hardware Review)(Evaluation)
April 1, 1996... Overall value: Imagine128 4 (Very good), MGA Millennium 3 (Good) One of the best things about the release of the PCI-based Power Macs last summer is that it has encouraged a number of card vendors from the Intel-standard world to develop Mac...

Lexmark to ship peppy printer. (Lexmark International's Optra N Model 245 high-speed laser printer)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... Lexmark International Inc. in May will release its Optra N Model 245, a new high-speed laser printer aimed at workgroups. Based on a tabloid-size 600-dpi Canon engine, the Optra N will support print speeds of 24 and 13 pages per minute with...

QuickDraw 3D satisfaction so far is not-so-immediate. (Apple's 3D technology) (Technology Information)
April 1, 1996... For high-end users, the crux of Apple's QuickDraw 3D technology is plug-and-play hardware acceleration. Here, Version 1.0 has so far proved a disappointment. Fortunately, a fix is in the works. When we tested the two QuickDraw 3-D accelerator...

Stylus Pro XL. (Epson America's tabloid inkjet printer) (Hardware Review)(Evaluation)
April 1, 1996... Gorgeous prints are worth the wait with Epson's inkjet Overall value: 4 (Very good) Epson America Inc. made an impact in the low-cost printer market 18 months ago with the Stylus Color, which offered 24-bit, 720-dpi printing (on coated...

SoundEdit 16 2.0. (Macromedia's sound-editing tool) (Software Review)(Evaluation)
April 1, 1996... Input level controls, stereo mixing make tool good buy Overall value: 4 (Very good) Listening carefully to the needs of multimedia developers for higher-quality audio, SoundEdit 16 Version 2.0 includes significant upgrades that enhance its...

System 7.5.3 brings memories, raises concerns. (MacInTouch) (Product Information)(Column)
April 1, 1996... Studying current reports about System 7.5.3 triggered a sense of deja vu and a subsequent search back through past columns. One year ago System 7.5.1 had just arrived, and the scene was not unlike today's. Many Macintosh users were rushing to...

Users take ISDN challenge: rewards worth the trouble. (includes related article on ISDN vendors) (Technology Information)
April 1, 1996... When Benjamin Trister, a partner in human resources law firm Greenberg, Trister, Turner of Toronto, opted for a Netopia router from Farallon Computing Inc. of Emeryville, Calif., he helped make ISDN access to the Internet a reality for his firm....

Meeting Maker XP updates over LAN. (ON Technology's Meeting Maker XP 3.5 scheduling software)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... ON Technology Corp. this week will update its cross-platform scheduling software at Networld+Interop in Las Vegas. Version 3.5 of Meeting Maker XP is easier to manage, ON said; the new server software can update clients to new versions...

Support hot topic for clone users. (Power Computing and Radius Inc's Macintosh support) (Company Business and Marketing)
April 1, 1996... Long accustomed to receiving a high level of customer service and technical support from Apple, Mac users with great expectations may go unfulfilled with clone vendors. Power Computing Corp. of Round Rock, Texas, this year was hard hit by...

UMAX forms subsidiary. (UMAX Data Systems creates NewSoft subsidiary) (Company Operations)(Brief Article)
April 1, 1996... Mac clone maker and scanner manufacturer UMAX Data Systems Inc. last week spun out its software efforts into a new U.S. subsidiary. NewSoft Inc., based in Fremont, Calif., will develop and market software for retail sales in the United States...

FWB rings out with Jaz. (hammerJaz Solo 1000 and hammerJaz Duo 2000PCI hard disk drives)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... Spinning a new tune for removable storage, FWB Inc. this month will release new drives and arrays based on Iomega Corp.'s Jaz mechanism. With an expected street price of $599, the hammerJaz Solo 1000 uses Jaz 1-Gbyte hard drive cartridges. The...

Vendors lower costs of CD-R. (CD-Recordable drives) (Product Information)(Brief Article)
April 1, 1996... A pair of storage vendors recently lowered the prices of their CD-Recordable packages. > Philips Electronics North America Corp. in March trimmed the price of its CDD2000 CD-R drive from $1,395 to $1,035. The drive records at double speed and...

Sony beefs up capacity for new MO jukeboxes. (Sony Electronics' OSL-2001 and OSL-6000 magneto-optical jukeboxes)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
April 1, 1996... With the addition of 2.6-Gbyte drives, Sony Electronics Inc. recently bumped up capacities for its magneto-optical jukeboxes. Based on the company's SMO-F541 mechanism, the new jukeboxes can read and write 2.6- and 1.3-Gbyte MO cartridges; they...

Taxing times for Mac accounting software. (Intuit's MacInTax ProSeries for Macintosh and Great Plains Software's Great Plains Accounting for Macintosh discontinued) (Product Information)(Brief Article)
April 1, 1996... Doing accounting on a Mac may soon become a lot tougher. Three developers have begun letting the air out of their offerings for the platform. Intuit Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif., said last week that it is considering ending development of...

StockWatch. (News Briefs)(Illustration)
April 1, 1996... 03.28.96 Weekly Close Change Apple 24.19 -0.94 MacWEEK Composite* 280.39 -15.55 Software developers...

Welcome back, Apple. (Mac the Knife) (News Briefs)(Column)
April 1, 1996... What were you doing in April 1976? As he muses on Apple's china anniversary, which catapults the company from awkward adolescence to midlife crisis in a single bound, the Knife is soothed by reveries of his own wasted youth during the Me Decade....

Speedy Reply boards put Pentiums on PCI. (Reply Corp's DOS on Power Mac PCI, Reply NetPack)(Product Announcement)
April 8, 1996... Reply Corp., for two years Apple's partner in marketing DOS compatibility cards, is about to step out on its own with a new series of Pentium models for PCI Macs. Called DOS on Power Mac PCI, the new cards will be offered with Pentium...

Mac quality concerns challenge new QA czar: longtime users angry at Apple. (Apple senior VP Frederick Forsyth) (includes related article on Apple's new Quality Council) (Company Business and Marketing)
April 8, 1996... As Apple struggles to heal its bruised image, the company is facing a battle on a long-stable front: retaining its loyal user base. A host of problems with recent Apple hardware and system software have led some longtime Mac users to question...

Jaz plays beautiful music in removable storage gig. (Iomega's 1GB removable-cartridge drive) (includes related article on product attributes) (Hardware Review)(Evaluation)
April 8, 1996... Score card: Jaz drive Iomega Corp. Estimated street price: $599* Overall value: 5 (Excellent) Believe the hype: Iomega's highly anticipated Jaz drive sets the standard for large-volume removable-cartridge products. It delivers...

The 'I' was for Internet at N+I network show. (1996 Network+Interop trade show) (includes related article on firms demonstrating products at show) (Industry Trend or Event)
April 8, 1996... Las Vegas - Although the buzzwords "Internet" and "intranet" seemed to pepper each presentation at last week's Networld+Interop 96, the show floor itself was salted with more down-to-earth networking and communications products. Bill Gates...

Insider memo stirs debate. (internal Apple memo reveals some of CEO Gilbert Amelio's new strategies) (Company Business and Marketing)
April 8, 1996... If there is such a thing as beta testing ideas in public, Apple has it down to a science. Both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times made news out of an anonymous internal message describing CEO Gilbert Amelio's musings on Mac...

Round 2 in the drive fight. (Iomega's new Jaz removable drive is an outstanding product, SyQuest Technology trying to compete with SyJet drive)(MacWEEK Insider) (Product Information)(Column)
April 8, 1996... Why not a gigabyte? Almost a year ago, I asked that question in a column criticizing SyQuest Technology Inc. for its too-little, too-late response to Iomega Corp.'s Zip drive. Instead of the EZ135, its Zip competitor, I suggested that SyQuest...

DayStar cuts clone staff: upgrade prices also slashed. (DayStar Digital has layoffs) (Company Operations)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Following on the heels of a March staff cut, DayStar Digital Inc. last week again announced layoffs, this time affecting the company's Mac clone operation. The company said it laid off 15 to 20 people, bringing the combined layoff to more than...

MovieStar Maker ready for close-up. (Intelligence at Large's MovieStar Maker puts QuickTime sequences on Web)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Seeking a role in the growing Internet animation market, Intelligence at Large Inc. this week will debut MovieStar Maker, a tool for putting QuickTime sequences on the Web. MovieStar Maker is a QuickTime authoring application that creates...

OS update free. (customers can update to Apple's System 7.5 Update 2.0 for free) (Product Information)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Modemless Mac owners can now update their system software without pulling out their credit cards. Apple announced last week that until May 31, it will mail free floppy disk or CD-ROM versions of System 7.5 Update 2.0 to anyone who requests it....

MetaTools stirs up editing with Goo. (Kai's Power Goo image-editing program) (Product Development)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... MetaTools Inc., developer of graphics-manipulations tools such as Kai's Power Tools and KPT Bryce, is preparing to do it again. According to sources, the Carpinteria, Calif.-based company is developing an image-editing program code-named Funny...

PowerMac 7200, 8500 now cost less: models' price tags plummet by $400. (Apple Power Mac 7200/75, 8500/120) (Product Information)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Apple recently cut dealer prices on two Power Mac models, a move sources said may pave the way for the faster models expected later this month. The prices on the Power Mac 7200/75 and 8500/120 dropped by about $400 each in late March,...

Education servers look WEST. (WEb Educational Support Tools' WEST Desktop Education Server 1.1)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Web Educational Support Tools Ltd. in May will update its Web server software aimed at the education and corporate training markets. The software will let teachers distribute HTML course materials and test students over a network. Version 1.1...

Pioneer player to speed into 10x territory. (Pioneer new Media Technologies' Super 10X CD-ROM drive)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Pioneer New Media Technologies Inc. last week took the wraps off Super 10X, a CD-ROM drive that is 10 times faster than a standard-speed player. Slated for release in the third quarter, the currently unpriced OEM mechanism will combine the...

ClarisWorks update adds file converter. (ClarisWorks 4.0x4)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Claris Corp. recently released an update to its ClarisWorks integrated package. Version 4.0v4 of the $129 program adds a file converter that lets users save Version 4.0 documents in the format used in versions 2.x and 3.0. It also includes...

QuicKeys revamped: batch processing tabs to star in version 3.5. (CE Software's macro utility) (Product Development)
April 8, 1996... Bringing its QuicKeys macro utility up-to-date, CE Software Inc. will add a new interface and batch processing this summer. Version 3.5 will introduce a tab interface to the $119 QuicKeys, which was last updated in 1993. Each tab will represent...

Apple clips medical images. (DesAcc's Clipboard Access)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... DesAcc last week lengthened the reach of its medical-imaging software with ClipboardAccess, a new program that works with popular productivity applications. The $49 stand-alone program works with ImportAccess, DesAcc's $349 scanner plug-in for...

Territory Manager picks up the pace. (Software Solutions' Territory Manager 2.5 outside sales software)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Software Solutions recently shipped an update to its Territory Manager outside-sales software that boosts speed and improves usability. Version 2.5 of the $295 program has been rewritten in optimized 680x0 as well as PowerPC-native code. The...

Wired plugs into MPEG: Butane II board squeezes faster. (Wired's Butane II MPEG encoder card)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Fanning the flames of interest in MPEG video, Wired Inc. last week announced its second PCI-based MPEG encoder card. Slated to ship in early May, the $4,999 Butane II will capture and compress video and audio signals and create MPEG-1 or MPEG-2...

GX strikes Mac desktops with LightningDraw app. (Lari Software's LightningDraw GX graphics software first based on Apple's QuickDraw GX iamging architecture)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... It's been a long time coming, but the first graphics application based on Apple's QuickDraw GX imaging architecture has finally found its way to users. LightningDraw GX from Lari Software Inc. - first announced at San Francisco's Macworld Expo...

mbedlets hastens on-line animations. (mBED Software's object-oriented multimedia description language) (Technology Information)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Web designers can now add multimedia interactivity to their pages using the same skills they've honed learning HTML. mBED Software Inc. in March announced mbedlets, an object-oriented multimedia description language that lets designers create...

mFactory tools up mTropolis with QuickTime VR. (mTropolis 1.1 multimedia authoring system)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... mFactory Inc. is gearing up to announce a free upgrade to mTropolis, the company's multimedia authoring system. According to mFactory, Version 1.1, slated to ship later this quarter, will speed performance by 200 percent and implement QuickTime...

Specular revamps Infini-D, BackBurner. (Specular International's Infini-D 3.2 3-D modeling software, BackBurner 3.1 network rendering utility)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Specular International Ltd. this week is slated to release updates to Infini-D, the company's 3-D modeling, rendering and animation package, and BackBurner, its distributed-rendering add-on. Infini-D 3.2, a free update for users of versions 3.0...

Symantec C++ does 68K, Java: Release 5 packs Pascal compiler. (Symantec C++ 8.0 for Power Macintosh compiler)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Symantec Corp. plans to perk up its programming offerings this week with an upgrade to Symantec C++ 8.0 for Power Macintosh. Release 5 comes with a Pascal compiler, letting developers with code written for 680x0 Macs generate native Power Mac...

Newstand to serve news with a Mac. (Imagina's Newstand network news server) (Product Development)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Imagina Inc. will broaden the Mac's appeal as an Internet host this summer when it releases Newstand, the platform's first network news server. According to the company, Newstand will be a fully compliant RFC 977 Network News Transfer Protocol...

Statistics packages keep eye on Web server traffic. (Bien Logic's SurfReport 1.2.1, Kitchen Sink Software's ServerStat 1.2 statistics packages)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Monitoring site traffic is easier now thanks to new statistics packages that spin Web server log data into evaluative gold. SurfReport 1.2.1 from Bien Logic Inc. and ServerStat 1.2 from Kitchen Sink Software Inc. both can read Web server log...

Breeze bridge links wireless networks. (Breeze Wireless Communications' WB-10D wireless bridge)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Network administrators can now link their divisions and branch offices wirelessly with Breeze Wireless Communications Inc.'s new bridge and station adapters. The WB-10D, a $1,995 wireless bridge that shipped in March, connects as many as 256...

Here's how to avoid overtime with OT. (Apple's Open Transport 1.1 network software)(Working the Net) (Product Information)(Column)
April 8, 1996... The biggest news of late in the Mac-based Internet world is the release of Open Transport 1.1, provided with System 7.5 Update 2.0 (also known as System 7.5.3). Open Transport provides improved network performance, PowerPC-native code, on-line...

PCI speeds conferencing. (Sat-Sagem's Meet-Me PCI PCI card)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Sat-Sagem has extended videoconferencing options for Mac users through a new PCI card and a software-based conferencing package that shipped in March. The $1,850 Meet-Me PCI is a 7-inch PCI card that includes an H.320 video...

Open Channel splits up ODBC. (Visigenic Software's OpenChannel architecture divides up Open Database Connectivity technology) (Product Development)(Brief Article)
April 8, 1996... Visigenic Software Inc. hopes to make managing client-server connections easier when it debuts its OpenChannel architecture at this week's DB/Expo 96 in San Francisco. According to Visigenic, OpenChannel will take advantage of the company's...

Usability, loyalty go hand in hand. (Macintosh market no longer can take usability and customer loyalty for granted) (Company Business and Marketing)(Editorial)
April 8, 1996... The Macintosh market has long rested on the twin pillars of usability and customer loyalty. Today, neither can be taken for granted. Apple's management still wraps itself in these two tenets like a cloak of invincibility. What the company...

Clean installs for now, OS registry for the future. (installing System 7.5 Update 2.0 operating system update)(The Second Decade) (Product Information)(Column)
April 8, 1996... I'm convinced, belatedly, that there's only one sensible way to install System 7.5 Update 2.0: First perform a "clean install" of System 7.5.x (launch the system installer, press Command-Shift-K and select the Install New System Folder button),...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
April 8, 1996... Macs are for real world Don Crabb's comments concerning the Mac vs. Windows 95 test (03.18.96, Page 27) are out of line. Since when does copying 5,000 files become a simple task or even, for that matter, a task that anyone would care about?...

Sprockets could be the answer for Mac gamers. (Apple Game Sprockets software developers' kit)(The Mac Manager) (Technology Information)(Column)
April 8, 1996... Epiphanies. We seldom have them, but when we do, they can be awesome. I've just had an awesome one after seeing and reflecting more about Apple's new series of software APIs that enable all Mac OS games to include - with no royalties or licensing...

Mac Lotus cc:Mail finally reaches par with Intel PCs. (Lotus' cc:Mail 3.0 for Macintosh E-mail) (includes related article on product attributes) (Software Review)(Evaluation)
April 8, 1996... Score card: cc:Mail 3.0 Lotus Development Corp. List price: $95* Overall value: 3 (Good) cc:Mail 3.0 for the Macintosh adds a number of new features that help bring the client closer to parity with its Intel-side cousins. Although...

Amapi 1.0 gives modelers some reasons to be happy. (Yonowat's 3-D modeling application) (includes related product summary) (Software Review)(Evaluation)
April 8, 1996... Score card: Amapi 1.0 Yonowat S.A. Overall value: 3 (Good) List price: $300* Amapi is a strange-looking, un-Mac-like 3-D modeler with lots of annoying interface quirks and some difficult-to-use tools. The entire interface will be...

Reviews forum. (News Briefs)
April 8, 1996... Our review of Apple's System 7.5 Update 2.0 (see 03.25.96, Page 1) sparked a firestorm of letters; we received at least 100 replies (and counting), more than any other review has generated. Most of the responses concentrated on reviewer Henry...

TextureScape 2.0 (Specular International's draw software) (Software Review)(Evaluation)
April 8, 1996... Randomizing and animation controls add more power Overall value: 4 (Very good) Several programs let you create textures for use in illustration, multimedia, 3-D and video programs, but only TextureScape is equally capable of generating both...

When to take the low road in image-manipulation apps. (low-end image processing applications) (includes related article on image-editing programs) (Technology Information)
April 8, 1996... When you think of image processing on the Macintosh, the programs most likely to come to mind are Photoshop from Adobe Systems Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., and Live Picture from Live Picture Inc. of San Francisco. Both programs are complex;...

SCSI Manager, Installer, memory are 7.5.3 issues. (Apple's System 7.5.3 operating system update)(MacInTouch) (Product Support)(Column)
April 8, 1996... Two weeks after the release of System 7.5.3, we have numerous real-world experiences as a guide for managing the update. Unfortunately, as noted briefly last week, the experiences are wildly inconsistent. The update is painless and effective for...