MacWEEK articles from January 1998

MacWEEK archives from January 1998

Fujifilm readies DX-9 digital zoom camera. (Fuji Photo Film USA)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Fuji Photo Film USA Inc. will introduce the newest member of its digital camera family next week. The $599 Fujifilm DX-9 Digital Zoom Camera is due in March and will feature a 3x zoom lens, removable media and a burst mode. The camera's...

Digital watermarking tool no panacea for Web images. (DigiMarc) (Company Business and Marketing)
January 5, 1998... In the CyberTimes section of the Nov. 11 issue of The New York Times, Marty Katz pointed out that many Web images - despite the efforts of their creators to digitally protect them with DigiMarc watermarking software - don't have readable marks....

3-D upgrades due at Macworld Expo; packages get new features. (5 products debut)(Product Announcement)
January 5, 1998... Several 3-D software developers hope to dazzle Macworld Expo attendees this week with new versions of their packages. * NewTek Partners LP will introduce and ship Version 5.5 of LightWave 3D, the company's $1,995 broadcast animation, modeling...

New AE plug-ins add tools, formats. (MetaCreations Final Effects Complete, Adobe After Effects)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... MetaCreations Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc. will take the wraps off new plug-ins for Adobe After Effects at this week's Macworld Expo in San Francisco. MetaCreations is unveiling Final Effects Complete, a collection of special-effects utilities...

ATI to boost performance of Xclaim 3D. (ATI Technologies 3D graphics accelerator)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... ATI Technologies Inc. will announce a new version of its Xclaim 3D graphics accelerator this week at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The $219 PCI card, due in February, will feature ATI's third-generation 3D Rage Pro chip and will boost...

Octopos prepares DV Studio 1394; Pro suite edits in real time. (Octopos Systems GmbH video editing system)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... German developer Octopos Systems GmbH will enter the video editing fray this week when it ships DV Studio 1394 at Macworld Expo. Octopos said the QuickTime-based system is the first professional Digital Video (DV) product to provide real-time...

Macworld to host projectors. (Epson America's PowerLite 5000XB, 7000XB; In Focus Systems' In Focus LP225 LCD projectors)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Users looking for new projectors will find a range of offerings at this week's Macworld Expo. Epson America Inc. will roll out two new high-end LCD projectors, and In Focus Systems Inc. will debut a new device for the education and small-business...

Explorer 4 for Mac to ship next week. (Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 for Macintosh Web browser)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Microsoft Corp. will ship the long-awaited Mac version of Internet Explorer 4.0 at next week's Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Microsoft said Version 4.0 for the Mac, in beta since this summer (see 07.28.97, Page 1), will include a Java virtual...

StarNine unveils WebStar 3 beta; upgrade gets new FTP, proxy servers. (Web server software)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... StarNine will release the first public beta version of WebStar 3.0 this week. The new product will pack a host of new Web serving features (see 11.17.97, Page 1), including an FTP server, a proxy server, support for multiple domains, expanded...

HTML soars ahead with new features. (HTML. 4.0 standard) (Technology Information)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... The World Wide Web Consortium in December released its recommendation for HTML 4.0, the latest version of the markup language used to author content for the Web. HTML 4.0, which was first issued as a public working draft this summer, includes...

Symantec VisualPage moves to 1.1. (Web authoring tool)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Symantec Corp. this week will unveil an update to its Web authoring tool, Visual Page. Version 1.1 of the WYSIWYG editor will include a spelling checker and the capability to add borderless HTML frames to Web sites, according to the company....

Open Door fills out network offerings; ShareWay IP, Log Door 2.0 join lineup. (Open Door Networks Web site analysis software)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Open Door Networks Inc. this winter will expand its line of tools for Mac networks. The company is adding to its arsenal of utilities for AppleShare over TCP/IP networks, and it announced an upgrade for its Web site analysis package. ShareWay...

Authoring tool ditches HTML; NetPulser uses Java exclusively. (FFM Software)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... FFM Software Inc. in December unveiled NetPulser, a Web development tool that the company hopes will take the HTML out of Web authoring. The vector-based authoring tool creates Web sites entirely in Java, the company said. With NetPulser, users...

MS suite spurs users to compare; ClarisWorks, RagTime among suite alternatives. (Claris Corp and B&E Software GmbH's office application suites, Microsoft's Office 98 for Macintosh) (Product Information)
January 5, 1998... While it is yet to be released, Microsoft is promising a lot in the Mac version of Office 98: Not only is the package to be on a par with its Windows equivalent, it is also supposed to sport a truly Mac look and feel, for once giving Mac users...

Solid Office 98 does the Mac proud. (business application suite from Microsoft) (Software Review)(Evaluation)
January 5, 1998... Microsoft Office 98 Beta Test To call Microsoft Office the corporate standard in business productivity software is an understatement. Like it or not, it's the only choice for Mac users who require a full-featured word processing, spreadsheet...

LibroSystems pencils in new Word editing tools. (PowerEditor Pro)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Aiming to make copy editors' lives a little more bearable, start-up LibroSystems Inc. in December released PowerEditor Pro, a plug-in for Microsoft Word for Macs and Intel-standard PCs. The software package, priced at $799 for a commercial user...

StatView to cross platforms. (version 5.0 of SAS Institute's statistical analysis software)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... SAS Institute Inc. said users can count on big things for the StatView statistical analysis package in February. SAS, which acquired StatView in September from Berkeley, Calif.-based Abacus Concepts, said it will release Version 5.0 of the...

Mac OS 8.1 arrives.(Product Announcement)
January 5, 1998... Following the success of Mac OS 8, Apple hopes to keep the focus on the operating system at this week's Macworld Expo with its next system update. The new Mac OS 8.1 features major revisions, new pieces of system software and bug fixes. The...

ISDN companies expand horizons. (Hermstedt Inc's Business+ ISDN 128, Business+ ISDN 256, PanPro, and LeoShare; FCR Software's MultiLink PPP, and Groupe Sagem's Sagem Point to Point Protocol 2.0)(Product Announcement)
January 5, 1998... Several connectivity companies intend to highlight new products for ISDN networks at this week's Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Hermstedt Inc. said it will ship its Business+ ISDN package this week. The hardware and software package comes in a...

PowerLogix touts speedy G3 upgrades. (PowerLogix R&D PowerForce G3 300/300/1MB upgrade card)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... PowerLogix R&D Inc. will unwrap a high-performance PowerForce G3 upgrade card this week at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The company also said it will give attendees a glimpse at future speed gains with a demonstration of a 400-MHz board....

Vendors speed up CD-R, CD-RW drives. (Optima Technology CDWriter, MicroNet Technology Master CD Plus 4x12)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Even the upsurge in El Nino can't slow progress on new storage devices. Two Southern California vendors recently took the wraps off new, high-speed CD-ReWritable and CD-Recordable drives. Optima Technology Corp. released CDWriter, a drive that...

FWB updates Hard Disk ToolKit. (version 2.5 of FWB Software LLC's storage utility)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... FWB Software LLC released an update to its Hard Disk ToolKit storage utility at the end of 1997. FWB said Version 2.5 beefs up security features and improves compatibility with Mac OS 8. The update to the formatting and driver software was...

Tracking G3 glitches while waiting for 1998's surprises. (MacInTouch) (News Briefs)
January 5, 1998... Time shifts around this time of year. I'm writing the column in the middle of December for publication the week of Macworld Expo in January. We might expect Mac changes to slow during the holidays, but a year ago at this time Apple was making a...

Mac-based sites with NT servers: Making the pieces fit. (includes related article on the power of perception) (Product Information)
January 5, 1998... "I feel like some sort of traitor when I bring up the server to other Mac users. Yet in PC circles they all act like it is the beginning of the end for the Macs at my site. They are both wrong." - Tom Davis, General Glyphics Inc. Many...

University's move to NT not without headaches. (University of Texas at Arlington) (Product Information)
January 5, 1998... Administrators at the University of Texas in Arlington knew it was time to make a change. The school had been running Novell NetWare 3.11 servers for some years, but its needs had outstripped the network operating system. The university was...

Mac pragmatists look to NT as a complement. (Vantage One Communications Group) (Product Information)
January 5, 1998... Ask people for the truest profile of a Macintosh loyalist, and the answer will probably be a graphic designer. Interestingly, a number of advertising and marketing communication firms are embracing Windows NT servers - not because of a religious...

Prepress shop keeps Macs alive. (Widen Enterprises Inc) (Company Operations)
January 5, 1998... For some companies, a move to NT means betting the business, at least to some extent. For prepress company Widen Enterprises Inc. of Madison, Wis., however, NT is just another server platform in an ambitiously eclectic mix - including Novell...

What about my needs? (Mac the Knife) (Humor)(Column)
January 5, 1998... Hiya! Brett here. As Mac the Knife's first-ever intern, I am pleased as punch to be filling in for kindly Mr. The Knife - especially during the auspicious Macworld Expo period - as he takes a well-deserved holiday in the sun. After a couple...

Tenon to secure WebTen 2.0. (Tenon Intersystems Web server software)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Tenon Intersystems announced that Version 2.0 of its Mac Web server, WebTen, will be available by the end of January with enhanced security and multihoming features. WebTen 2.0 will support Secure Sockets Layer, which allows encrypted...

Utilities target new disk format. (format changes in Mac OS 8.1) (FWB Software's Hard Disk ToolKit 2.5) (Product Information)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Utilities vendors may need to revise their tools to take advantage of volume-format changes found in Mac OS 8.1. FWB Software LLC of Redwood City, Calif., said Hard Disk ToolKit 2.5 is compatible with Mac OS 8.1's standard Hierarchical File...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
January 5, 1998... What power? Apple has nearly built the PowerBook that I have wanted for years. Nearly, but not quite. As a graphic designer and content creator, I want a truly fast machine. Finally, Apple's new laptops qualify, thanks to the PowerPC G3...

Radius EditDV makes the cut. (digital video editing software) (Software Review)(Evaluation)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Following its MotoDV and PhotoDV FireWire acquisition products, Radius Inc. has introduced EditDV, a digital video, nonlinear editing package that offers single-channel real-time playback without the need for an expensive hardware compression...

New import tool for Flash, Director. (Macromedia's Flash Asset Xtra)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Macromedia Inc. is adding a new player to its Director multimedia-authoring tool. Flash Asset Xtra will enable users of Director 6 to import animations, vector-based graphics and text elements created in Macromedia's Flash, a vector-based Web...

Network traffic. (News Briefs)
January 5, 1998... Visual Cafe 2 arrives Home Page 3 ships Symantec Corp. of Cupertino, Calif., in December released the next generation of its visual Java development tools: The company's Visual Cafe for Java 2.0 supports Version 1.1 of Sun Microsystems...

Show picks. (MacWorld Expo highlights) (includes related articles on Mainstay's PageMover and Vivid Details' Test Strip 2.0) (Industry Trend or Event)
January 5, 1998... This week in San Francisco Macworld Expo makes its return to the common Mac user. The Macintosh clone controversy has faded into the background, there's no hint of a major acquisition or an earth-shaking alliance, and there won't be a new CEO...

FreeHand 8 draws near. (Macromedia Inc) (Product Development)
January 5, 1998... Macromedia Inc. this week at Macworld Expo in San Francisco will draw show goers' attention to a new version of its popular illustration application. FreeHand 8, due in March for a street price of $400, will pack an editable transparency...

WebDoubler to bring proxy serving to Mac. (from Maxum Development Corp and ClearWay Technologies Inc)(Product Announcement)
January 5, 1998... Two Internet vendors are teaming up to speed Web access with the Mac's first commercial caching proxy server. ClearWay Technologies Inc. and Maxum Development Corp. this week will introduce WebDoubler, a stand-alone application that will not...

G3 cards boost older Power Macs. (Newer Technology Inc's Maxpowr G3 upgrade boards) (Hardware Review)(Evaluation)
January 5, 1998... Don't give away those first-generation Power Macs just yet -- they have a lot more life left in them. For a relatively modest investment you might soon be able to make their performance at least competitive with that of the fastest Macs on the...

New York's Gray Lady takes to living color. (New York Times) (Company Operations)
January 5, 1998... When Tara House, manager of design technology at The New York Times, was given the edict to incorporate color photos on the front page of each section within a year, she was told that the color quality had to be as top-notch as the journalism....

ALSoft migrates data to HFS Plus. (PlusMaker, PlusMaximizer file format conversion utilities)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... ALSoft Inc. at this week's Macworld Expo is introducing several new utilities that the company said will help users with the transition to the file format introduced with Mac OS 8.1. PlusMaker, priced at $19.95, is a formatting utility for...

Vendors release G3 RAM upgrades. (Legacy Electronics, Peripheral Enhancements) (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... G3 owners have several more options for boosting the memory of their systems. Legacy Electronics Inc. plans to release this week a $725 128-Mbyte synchronous dynamic RAM module for Apple's Power Mac G3 machines. The company is also shipping a...

Apple faces a turning point for the Mac. (MacWorld Expo '98) (Industry Trend or Event)(Editorial)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... It may seem folly to proclaim that this week's Macworld Expo in San Francisco will mark a crucial moment for Apple and the Macintosh platform, especially after the seemingly endless trail of critical events in 1997. But for Apple to treat this...

Virtual PC 2.0 to boost emulation performance. (Connectix emulator)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Connectix Corp. will give Macworld Expo attendees a peek at a forthcoming update to its Virtual PC emulator software. According to Connectix, Version 2.0 will boost speed and improve usability. The company said it expects to demonstrate the new...

For the record.(Correction Notice)
January 5, 1998... Contrary to a Dec. 15 review of Polaroid Corp.'s SprintScan 45 Pro (Page 11), users cannot customize the separation tables included with the bundled PhotoPerfect Master software from Binuscan Inc.

PowerTools sues UMAX, Apple. (UMAX Data Systems) (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Mac cloner PowerTools Corp. in late December filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against UMAX Data Systems Inc., its OEM supplier of logic boards. Apple was also named in the legal action, the company said. PowerTools' lawsuit, filed with the...

National Instruments ships new data-acquisition cards. (PCI-6031E, PCI-DIO32HS, AI-16XE-50, DAQCard-516, PCI-FlexMotion-6C, PCI-Servo-2A/4A)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... National Instruments Corp. plans to ship at this week's Macworld Expo a variety of data-acquisition and motion-control cards for PCI Macs and PowerBooks equipped with PC Card slots. The cards are designed to analyze electrical signals such as...

Apple says 22 million Macs are still in use. (Product Information)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Nearly 22 million Macs are still in operation today, used by 70 million people worldwide, according to figures released by Apple just before the holidays. By the end of September 1997, Apple said, it had sold 27.6 million Macs worldwide since...

DeBabelizer to get interface overhaul. (version 3.0 of Equilibrium's file conversion utility)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Equilibrium is preparing a long-awaited update to DeBabelizer, its popular file-conversion utility. Version 3 of the package will be previewed at this week's Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The company said the package will ship in the first...

Linotype flatbed targets high end; new scanner designed for prepress users. (Linotype CPS LinoColor Circon)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Linotype CPS Co. will unveil a large-format, high-resolution flatbed scanner this week at Macworld Expo. Aimed at the prepress market, which is traditionally served by drum scanners, the LinoColor Circon will ship in March for about $15,000,...

Binuscan updates ColorPro. (version 4.1 of color management and transformation software)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Binuscan Inc. released an update to its ColorPro color management and transformation software suite in late December. The company said Version 4.1 beefs up server support, widens color conversion capabilities and has an easier-to-use interface....

Adobe takes stock of royalty-free library. (Adobe Systems Adobe Image Library)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Adobe Systems Inc. will make a foray into the royalty-free digital-image market this week at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The company said its Adobe Image Library comprises 30 titles of stock photography, three illustration collections and...

Plug-ins to add 3-D; Zaxwerks, Vertigo products to boost 2-D. (Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator, Vertigo Technology 3D PopArt)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 5, 1998... Zaxwerks Inc. and Vertigo Technology Inc. this week at Macworld Expo in San Francisco will introduce new plug-ins that add dimension to 2-D graphics. Zaxwerks' $249 3D Invigorator plug-in for Macromedia FreeHand and Adobe Illustrator, due...

The kids all love an LCD. (Graphic Systems Co Inc's LD50A)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... The kids all love an LCD. Princeton Graphic Systems Co. Inc. of Santa Ana, Calif., recently introduced the LD50A, a 13.8-inch TFT LCD monitor priced at $2,499. The display has a maximum resolution of 1,024 by 768 pixels and a 140-degree total...

Sharp adds to lineup. (Sharp Electronics' LL-T150A)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... Sharp adds to lineup. Sharp Electronics Corp. of Mahwah, N.J., added a 15-inch flat-panel display to its lineup of LCD monitors. The LL-T150A has a viewable area that Sharp said is equivalent to that of a 17-inch CRT display. The LL-T150A weighs...

Diamonds and more. (Mitsubishi Electronics America Inc's Diamond Plus 100e)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... Diamonds and more. Mitsubishi Electronics America Inc. of Cypress, Calif., added a new monitor to its Diamond Plus line. The 21-inch display, based on a Diamondtron CRT, has been dubbed the Diamond Plus 100e. The monitor, which includes a...

A whole new line. (KDS USA Inc's AV-5T, AV-7T, AV-9T)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... A whole new line. KDS USA in December launched its Avitron series of monitors based on Sony Corp.'s Trinitron CRT, which uses an aperture grille rather than the traditional shadow mask to direct electron beams, KDS said. The 15-inch AV-5T and...

Apple unveils surprise profit, credits strong G3 system sales. (Power Mac G3 PowerPC-based system) (Company Financial Information)
January 12, 1998... San Francisco - With characteristic flair, interim Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the company's return to profitability during his keynote speech at last week's Macworld Expo here. At the close of his speech, Jobs casually mentioned that Apple...

Expo rings in new year; Office 98, QT 3 share limelight at Macworld. (Microsoft's OS for Macintosh) (Industry Trend or Event)
January 12, 1998... San Francisco - While Apple played up its financial news at last week's Macworld Expo here, third-party vendors kept the attendees busy perusing new products. "The thing I love about this show is I can walk around the hall and talk directly to...

NT draws strong reactions at show. (Microsoft's Windows NT OS, MacWorld Expo) (Industry Trend or Event)
January 12, 1998... San Francisco - While Intel-standard PC vendors such as Intergraph Computer Systems and Digital Equipment Corp. may not have made Windows NT believers out of everyone at last week's Macworld Expo, they did have people talking. Some attendees...

Rhapsody gains new developers. (next generation Apple OS) (Industry Trend or Event)
January 12, 1998... San Francisco - Despite the impending release of Rhapsody, Apple offered little news about its next-generation OS at last week's Macworld Expo. But while Apple focused its efforts on the Mac OS, a raft of small third-party developers talked up...

Power Express derailed, G3 speed bump ahead. (six-slot G3 workstation) (Product Development)
January 12, 1998... Apple apparently thinks three is enough - at least where PCI slots are concerned. Sources last week said the company pulled the plug on Power Express, a six-slot G3 workstation aimed at the professional digital video market. The company's...

La Cie unveils storage options. (La Cie Ltd's Jaz 2GB, Power Changer, AIT Tape Loader, Silverlining software)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... La Cie Ltd. last week at Macworld Expo took the wraps off new hard drives, removable-media mechanisms, tape libraries and a software package, all due by the end of the month. The company announced the Jaz 2GB, a new, $649 Jaz drive that will...

Taking care of business. (Apple posts profit for first fiscal quarter of 1998)(Editorial)
January 12, 1998... Last week, this publication joined the rest of the Mac-speaking world in speculating about the substance of interim CEO Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo keynote address. At that time, we argued that Apple's expo performance would set the tone for the...

Apple releases HyperCard beta. (Apple's HyperCard 2.4)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... In tandem with its QuickTime 3.0 announcements last week, Apple released a public beta of HyperCard 2.4 at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The beta, which can be downloaded at http://hypercard. apple.com, lets users hook into the upcoming...

DVDit! to print to DVD format. (from Sonic Solutions)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... Sonic Solutions announced at last week's Macworld Expo DVDit!, a utility that will let users print to the DVD format from several popular Mac applications. Set to ship in March as a plug-in, DVDit! will be activated from an application's File...

Imaging Tech buys Color Solutions. (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... Imaging Technologies Corp. announced last week that it has acquired Color Solutions Inc. of Cardiff by the Sea, Calif., maker of ColorBlind color-calibration software. Imaging Technologies, a San Diego-based manufacturer and developer of...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
January 12, 1998... Illustrator 7 flak Finally! After months of complaining to unsympathetic ears, which include those of Adobe's, Kathleen Tinkel concurs with my estimation of Adobe Illustrator 7 (12.15.97, Page 12). Although I've been a supporter and...

Conversion utility adds formats. (Handmade Software Inc's Image Alchemy 2.2)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... Handmade Software Inc. in February will add 11 file formats to Image Alchemy, the company's file-conversion and batch-processing utility. Version 2.2 of the package will handle prepress and multimedia files in several new formats, including...

Kodak weighs in with photo printer SP700 prints directly from video source.(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... Kodak Scientific Imaging Systems has become the latest vendor to introduce a digital photo printer. Digital photo printers are typically small - Kodak's SP700 weighs 8.8 pounds - and do not use a page description language to describe images,...

Microtek thinks big. (MicroTek Lab Inc's ScanMaker 9600XL and 6400XL)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... Microtek Lab Inc. unveiled a pair of large-format flatbed scanners last week at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Targeted at the prepress market, the $1,799 ScanMaker 9600XL and the $1,199 6400XL will ship late this month, Microtek said. The...

SoftLogik rounds out DTP app. (SoftLogik Publishing Corp's PageStream 3.3)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... SoftLogik Publishing Corp. brought its PageStream page-layout package up to speed with a new version in December. PageStream 3.3 represents the "final, full, complete" Macintosh debut of the package, which first shipped for Atari ST machines...

DenebaCAD: Draft still rough. (Deneba Software Inc's DenebaCAD 1.0.2) (Software Review)(Evaluation)
January 12, 1998... DenebaCAD 1.0.2 2 (Fair) Deneba Software Inc. positions its new integrated 2-D/3-D CAD entry, the $799.95 DenebaCAD, against the $795 MiniCAD 7, the bestseller in the midrange Mac CAD market. A glance at DenebaCAD's feature list gives you the...

AdCheck adds high-res output. (Total Integration Inc's AdCheck 1.5)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... Total Integration Inc. in December revised its AdCheck prepress software for viewing TIFF/IT files in a digital work flow. Version 1.5, a free upgrade to the $895 utility, features several new tools and functions for measuring, qualifying,...

EdgeWizard to blend masks in Photoshop. (graphics/imaging utility from Chroma Graphics Inc)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... Chroma Graphics Inc. last week announced EdgeWizard, a $99.95 edge-blending plug-in for Adobe Photoshop. Due by February, EdgeWizard allows users to customize and apply eight-bit edges to masks created with Photoshop or the company's MagicMask...

Extensis and Astrobyte plan to merge. (Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... Extensis Corp. and Astrobyte LLC last week announced a definitive merger agreement. Under the agreement, Denver-based Web developer Astrobyte will be absorbed into the Portland, Ore.-based Extensis. Astrobyte's BeyondPress Internet authoring...

CineLook gets feel for film. (DigiEffects ships CineLook FilmRes)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... DigiEffects last week released a new tool for video professionals seeking to simulate the look of film. CineLook FilmRes is a plug-in for Adobe After Effects that can make video clips look as though they were shot on celluloid, the company...

LogoMotion lines up Bezier spline tools. (LogoMotion 2.1 from MetaCreations Corp)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... MetaCreations Corp. in late December shipped an update to its LogoMotion software for creating animated 3-D logos. LogoMotion 2.1 features spline modeling, so users can draw objects with Bezier splines instead of working only with polygonal...

Digital video on move. (Avid Technology's AvidXpress 2.5, Media 100's improved Media 100 xe, xr, and xs systems)(Product Announcement)
January 12, 1998... Two of the biggest players in digital video showed off their pro-level offerings at last week's Macworld Expo in San Francisco. While Avid Technology Inc. updated its line of nonlinear digital video editing systems, Media 100 Inc. announced a...

Tiny MP-EG1A a peek into future. (Hitachi Corp's MP-EG1A) (Hardware Review)(Evaluation)
January 12, 1998... MP-EG1A 4 (Very good) While the term "desktop video" has been bandied about for years, the technology itself has remained too expensive to become as ubiquitous as desktop publishing. Hitachi Home Electronics (America) Inc.'s $2,399.95 MP-EG1A...

TransForMotion paints on video. (from ParisGrey)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... German software developer ParisGrey in December launched a low-cost package for painting special effects onto digital video. The $45 TransForMotion 1.0 lets users paint special effects onto real-time video using a palette of customizable...

Apple facing Wintel threat in higher-ed arena.(KeyFrame) (Company Business and Marketing)(Column)
January 12, 1998... To paraphrase Wordsworth, the child is father of the Mac. Since it first introduced creative professionals to the possibilities of desktop technology, Apple has banked on the importance of winning converts early with visual-media products aimed...

Deneba ups performance in Version 2.0 of Colada.(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... Deneba Software Inc. last week rolled out a public beta of Version 2.0 of Colada, a Web tool for publishing documents created in Canvas, the company's vector-based illustration software. The Java-based Colada 2.0 will convert documents created...

FCIS 5.5 supports FTP, CGIs. (First Class Internet Server 5.5 from SoftArc Inc)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... SoftArc Inc. announced an update to its First Class Intranet Server at last week's Macworld Expo in San Francisco. FCIS 5.5 promises improved administration and new Internet features, the company said. FCIS 5.5 will support dial-up Internet...

HelloWorld offers Web chat. (Le Midi's HelloWorld 2.0)(Product Announcement)(Brief Article)
January 12, 1998... Le Midi this month announced Version 2.0 of HelloWorld, an Internet chat server that works with servers that support StarNine WebStar plug-ins. HelloWorld 2.0 can report statistics, such as a list of current users, in real time, and it lets...