Jaques Law Bits 9602 (© Kevin Jaques 1996) ©(c)1996 Kevin Jaques. All rights reserved excepting that this file may be copied for non-commercial purposes, unchanged. No warranties apply. I am just a user volunteering my observations. Clippings from TidBits **Eudora Pro 3.0 Beta Available** -- Qualcomm has released a public beta of Eudora Pro 3.0 for owners of Eudora Pro 2.x. I've been using earlier test releases for a month or so now, and find the added features extremely welcome. My favorites include much- enhanced filters that can automatically forward or reply to email, a Reply With menu item that makes boilerplate replies easier, a completely new rich text editing environment that's not limited to 32K (and supports drag & drop), and the capability to launch URLs (which display in blue) by double-clicking them. Other features abound, including multiple signatures, an improved Address Book, an improved Find dialog, and a configurable toolbar. As usual, some of the best parts of Eudora are the little touches, such as the feature that lets you can Option-click any cell in a mailbox to select all messages matching the value of that cell (useful for selecting all message from a certain person or with a certain subject). I also like being able to set mailboxes to group subjects, which is essential for handling high-volume mailing lists. If you use Eudora Pro 2.x and don't mind using stable beta software, take a look. [ACE] **Apple Unveils Four New Power Macs, Upgrade Cards** -- Today Apple unveiled four new PowerPC 604-based Power Macs: the 9500/150, 8500/150, and 8500/132 (essentially faster versions of current 9500 and 8500 models), plus the Power Mac 7600/120. Apple is gearing the Power Mac 7600/120 at business and education users, and claims the machine runs up to twice as fast as the current 7500/100. All these new machines support processor speeds up to 200 MHz. Prices range from $4,800 for the 9500/150 down to $3,000 for the 7600/120. Apple also introduced a 120 MHz version of the Power Mac 7200 starting at $1,900. Apple announced it expects to have 120 MHz and 132 MHz PowerPC 604-based upgrade cards for the Power Mac 7500/100, as well as logic board upgrades for the Power Mac 8500 and 7200 by this May, although the logic board upgrades will not come with a processor card, which presumably must be purchased separately. [GD] **New All-In-One Macs for Education** -- Last week Apple announced the Power Macintosh 5260/100 and 5400/120, which are specifically targeted at the education market. Both systems are all-in-one designs with a built-in monitor, quad-speed CD-ROM drive, 16 MB of RAM, and a PowerPC 603e processor. The 5400/120 also features PCI slots, a video input card and video-out connector, and an expansion bay for an optional TV tuner. The 5260/100 is available now for $1,700; the 5400/120 should be available in mid-May for about $2,300. [GD] **Apple PC Compatibility Cards for Power Macs** -- Apple has officially announced its next generation of PC Compatibility cards, designed to provide Windows and MS-DOS capability to PCI Power Macs. Two versions will be available: the 12-inch card sports a 100 MHz Pentium, and the 7-inch version uses an "entry level" 100 MHz 586 chip (a third-party x86-compatible chip) that's roughly equivalent to a 75 MHz Pentium in performance. Both cards incorporate an ATI Mach64 video controller, game port, 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro support, and 8 MB RAM (upgradable to 72 MB). Prices for the stand-alone cards will range from $800 to $1,050; Apple is also introducing a Power Mac 7200/120 PC Compatible with either a 586 or Pentium card for $2,600 to $2,800 (a substantially better value). Both the cards and the 7200-based systems should be available in June. [GD] Connectix Ships Color QuickCam ------------------------------ by Mark H. Anbinder, News Editor Almost two years after bringing video input capability within financial reach of ordinary Mac users with its attractive, spherical QuickCam video camera, Connectix recently upped the ante with the new Color QuickCam, available shortly from dealers and mail-order firms for about $230. The new camera sports the familiar spherical eyeball form, and connects to a Macintosh via both a serial port and an ADB (keyboard and mouse) port. The ADB connection brings power to the camera; the connector has a pass- through port so users won't lose an ADB port. Connectix is offering a $30 rebate to anyone purchasing a QuickCam through 31-Jul-96 (the camera currently comes with a rebate form). The new unit's color CCD (charged couple device) array can take color still images as large as 640 by 480 pixels at up to 24-bit color depth and provides higher frame rates than the original QuickCam: up to 15 frames per second (fps) at 320 by 240 resolution and 24 fps at 160 by 120 resolution (even faster on high-end Power Macs). New video compression technology to enable up to 16:1 real-time compression of the video stream being sent through the serial connection to the computer, so even mid-range Macs can handle video streams containing three times the raw data of similarly sized greyscale video images. Still, Connectix recommends a 68040-based Macintosh or a Power Macintosh for use with the Color QuickCam, since a slower computer may have trouble handling a color video stream. Color-capable versions of the QuickPICT and QuickMovie utilities developed for the original QuickCam come with the Color QuickCam. The new QuickPICT, intended for taking still snapshots, includes a new Auto Capture feature that's useful for automatic updating of images on a Web page, security spot checks, or similar tasks. (Visit the Connectix Web site to see a color snapshot of the obligatory company fish tank, updated once a minute.) QuickPICT also has a timed snapshot feature with visual and audible countdowns, and the ability to expose a still image for a user-selectable number of seconds. [QuickPICT is also scriptable, but just barely. -Geoff] The QuickMovie utility, for recording video streams to disk, lets users set frame size and rates to optimize the video quality of the finished product. It stores video in QuickTime movie format, requiring between 1 and 2 MB of disk space for ten seconds of 160 by 120 video. The new version of QuickMovie offers digital effects such as image mirroring and flipping so users can change the video orientation while recording. [The new versions of QuickPICT and QuickMovie appear to work with the original QuickCam, but there's no word on when (or how) Connectix might make the software available to current QuickCam owners. -Geoff] Connectix says the new camera works well with their existing video software products, QuickCards and VideoPhone. QuickCards sells for around $30 and creates self-running multimedia presentations for use as floppy-based greeting cards. VideoPhone, about $60 by itself (also available as a bundle with an original QuickCam or a Color QuickCam), offers network videoconferencing for local network or Internet use. The software supports AppleTalk and TCP/IP protocols, and unlike Cornell University's free CU-SeeMe utility (or White Pine's new commercial version of the same program), has broadcast capability without the need for a Unix server. Both VideoPhone and White Pine's Enhanced CU-SeeMe have a white board feature for collaboration. The Color QuickCam lacks audio capture. Connectix included a microphone in the original QuickCam so even users of fairly low- end Macs could produce QuickTime movies complete with sound, but adding additional audio data to the Color QuickCam's serial stream impeded the smooth flow of video. Since most current Macintosh models have built-in or included microphones (or at least microphone ports), Connectix decided not to compromise video quality to provide separate audio input. As with the original QuickCam, the Color QuickCam is available for Macintosh first. A Windows version should be ready in about a month; happily we Mac users needn't wait. Connectix -- 800/950-5880 -- 415/571-5100 -- 415/571-5195 (fax) €If the 7.5.3 Update has become an important part of your life, and you want to stay abreast of each and every incompatibility, you might monitor Julian Daniel's 7.5.3 Tips site as well as Macworld News's running list of 7.5.3 incompatibilities, by Roxanne Gentile. **Holding Your Breath?** Apple is expected to announce this week that Copland (the codename for the next major version of the Mac OS) will not ship until mid-1997, some six months after the previous estimate. Apple also will not release Copland Developer Release 1 (DR1) to developers at the World Wide Developer's Conference (WWDC) next month. Although Copland DR0 has been available to selected developers since January, DR1 is to be a significantly wider release with a near-finalized API for managing backward compatibility with existing applications, a crucial component. Though this delay is not expected to impact third-party development significantly (it's too soon for products to be tied tightly to Copland), this is disappointing news. In the words of one Mac programmer, "Copland had better be cooler than hydrogen ice cubes if Apple expects me to wait any longer." For those keeping track, Apple originally announced plans in early 1994 to ship Copland at the end of 1995. [GD] **ShrinkWrap 2.0** -- Chad Magendanz has released a major upgrade to his popular disk image utility ShrinkWrap. ShrinkWrap 2.0 supports large volumes (such as CD-ROMs, hard disks, and removable media), self-mounting disk images, and new image formats (including DiskDup+, Apple Drive Containers, and PC disk image files). Version 2.0 also offers improved scripting, a log, and native performance for both 68K and Power Mac users. ShrinkWrap should appear on Info-Mac and UMich sites shortly; for now it's at the URLs below. ShrinkWrap remains free for non-commercial individual use; commercial users can register through Kagi Shareware. [GD] Excel, HTML Tables, and You --------------------------- by Geoffrey V. Bronner One of the basic tools most HTML authors look for is a simple table editor to spare them the annoying task of constructing HTML tables by hand. Since I generally handle the data I use for HTML tables in Excel spreadsheets, I find an Excel add-in to be a great solution, and this article looks at two commonly available tools that work with any version of Microsoft Excel 5.0 (or Excel 7.0 for Windows 95). The first is the shareware eXcel Table Markup Language (XTML) 1.3 by Ken Sayward; the second is Internet Assistant for Microsoft Excel, a free add-in wizard from Microsoft. **IBM Gets Wide-Ranging Mac OS License** -- As noted in TidBITS-324_, IBM today announced an agreement with Apple allowing it to sell PowerPC processors along with a Mac OS sub-license to any manufacturer. As noted, IBM does not appear to plan to manufacture Mac clones, but instead to sell reference design specs, licenses, and logic components to other manufacturers who will make PowerPC Platform machines. Those manufacturers, in turn, can choose to develop Mac clones and license the Mac OS directly from IBM, without having to enter negotiations with Apple. Datatech (DTK) Enterprises and Tatung are expected to announce plans to sub-license the Mac OS from IBM; other manufacturers have already announced third-party products for the PowerPC platform that would help system manufacturers build Mac OS computers for the PowerPC Platform. Also, rumor has it that IBM plans to drop OS/2 in favor of the Mac OS. [GD] **PowerTower & PowerCenter** -- Power Computing announced two new lines of Mac clones last week, including a machine that qualifies as the fastest single-processor Mac available. The PowerTower line sports a PowerPC 604 processor running at a dizzying 166 or 180 MHz in a mini-tower case with three PCI slots, a minimum of 16 MB of RAM, and four drive bays. The PowerCenter line features a 120, 132, or 150 MHz PowerPC 604 in a low-profile (120 MHz) or desktop case, with three PCI slots and a minimum of 8 MB of RAM. Pricing for PowerTowers starts around $3,800, PowerCenters around $1,900. Tests so far show that the PowerTowers edge out Apple's high-end Power Mac 9500/150 by five to fifteen percent, even though they can't use memory interleaving, being based on the 7200 motherboard design (which is currently the only one that can crank a PowerPC 604 above 150 MHz). As with previous models, Power Computing machines ship with a keyboard, a significant software bundle (including Speed Doubler on the PowerTowers), and a 30-day, money- back guarantee. [GD] **Quicken 6 R7** -- Intuit has release R7 of Quicken 6.0 for Macintosh, which is supposed to address limitations of Quicken's online banking features and "a few" other problems reported by customers. The download ranges from 1.2 to 3.4 MB, depending which version you need. [GD] Apple Licenses Java ------------------- by Geoff Duncan Apple announced last week it has licensed Sun's Java programming environment, joining the massive list of current Java licensees. Apple says it plans to integrate Java into its operating systems (including the Mac OS, the Newton, and Pippin) as well as in media and Internet technologies, including Cyberdog. Apple is not alone in planning to put Java into its operating systems: Novell, Microsoft, SGI, IBM, and others have announced similar strategies. One has to wonder what impact this announcement might have on developers currently bringing Java to the Macintosh, considering how long it will be before Java support is available directly from Apple. **StuffIt Expander 4.0.1, DropStuff 4.0** -- Last week, Aladdin Systems released new versions of their popular utilities StuffIt Expander and DropStuff with Expander Enhancer. StuffIt Expander 4.0.1 - which decodes and decompresses a variety of online file formats - continues to be free, and now offers much better performance on Power Macs and better handling of split and segmented files. DropStuff with Expander Enhancer enables users to compress and BinHex files and significantly augments StuffIt Expander's decoding abilities (including handling most PC and Unix file formats). DropStuff 4.0 also offers improved performance on Power Macs and better handling of segmented files. DropStuff is $30 shareware, and (though the documentation doesn't seem to say anything about it) registered users of previous versions of DropStuff can apparently continue to use their registration numbers. Aladdin's sites have been hard to reach, but the following URLs should be accurate, and the software should appear on Info-Mac mirrors in the near future. [GD] €MAE comes with its own version of the sound manager that does not register itself as 3.1. The sound manager 3.1 extension does not support MAE. €Netscape does not recommend using Netscape Defrost with Navigater. Quite a few people complain about freeze problems when they have installed ND. Lots of users complain about Netscape. A few said they had better success running it from a RAM disk. €This tidbit is from: We recently launched a list server on the net called, simply enough, "The Macintosh Tip of the Day". You sign up, then each business day thereafter, you get a nifty Mac/System 7.5 tip delivered via email. It's cool and it's FREE... To subscribe to the Macintosh Tip of the Day, visit our website at http:// www.tipworld.com. Or, if you prefer just send email to listproc@pcworld.com and include SUBSCRIBE mactips@pcworld.com in the body of the message. (eg. SUBSCRIBE mactips@pcworld.com Guy Kawasaki) That's not a typo, the domain for the listproc is pcworld.com - not tipworld.com... for the time being at least. €Watsonville, CA (May 13, 1996) - Aladdin Systems, Inc. today announced StuffIt InstallerMaker(tm) 3.0, a major upgrade to the Macintosh benchmark installation product. Used by software developers, MIS directors, and network administrators to create custom installers, InstallerMaker reduces distribution costs and makes installation fast and easy for end users. StuffIt InstallerMaker 3.0 is easy-to-use because it is built on a point and click interface, which requires no programming time. Some of the significant enhancements of StuffIt InstallerMaker 3.0 include better compression, improved scripting and recording capabilities, built-in resource compression, built-in updater, and uninstall function, among other features. €BARE BONES SOFTWARE UPGRADES BBEDIT -- NOW WIRED FOR COLOR. Natick, MA -- Bare Bones Software, Inc. today announced the release of version 4.0 of "BBEdit," their popular and critically acclaimed text editor for Mac(TM) OS-compatible systems. This new version includes significant enhancements to its feature set and capabilities. *Syntax Coloring for Easier Reading for all of its supported languages, now including Java as well as C, C++, Object Pascal, Rez, 68K assembler, Fortran, Tcl, Perl, HTML, ScriptX, and GuideScript. *Java Support* *Full Integration with Frontier 4.0, for Even More Powerful Web Tools* - an extensible Glossary database -- any keyword typed in "double quotes" is expanded to its glossary definition automatically. - automatic substitution of HTML escape sequences - URL and e-mail link generation - one-key processing and previewing of pages. - even more Drag & Drop capabilities, enhanced AppleScript(R) features, and support for PowerTalk(R) 1.5. Additionally, BBEdit 4.0 is even faster than previous versions, thanks to several performance enhancements. €> On 96-06-13 at 1:41 CT, Scott Coats wrote... > > : Try a free utility called Mac OS Purge from E. Kenji Takeuchi. I forgot > : where I got it, but you can D/L it from www.metrolive.com, the version I > : have is 1.0.1 - Released September 21, 1995. It's a dubl-clik utility > : that I run once a day or so. Cleans up the system heap and appears to > : reallocate the memory partitions of any open programs. > > MAC OS PURGE (v1.0.1) can be downloaded via your web browser from... > > http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive/Archive/cfg/mac-os-purge-101.hqx > > MacUser Ram Handler, on the other hand, *does* operate on applications' > memory as well as on System memory and is therefore useful to clean up > Netscape's sloppy use of RAM when it gets full. An alternative is to quit > and restart NNav periodically when you're doing a lot of browsing. But the > real solution has to come from Netscape programmers. €ICHAT plugin for macintosh is now in beta 1.13. It allows IRC chatting right through your browser. It has a slick interface, however since it's in beta testing right now, not everything is working. Be sure to read the Readme, there are serveral things to avoid doing. You can download their plug in at http://www.ichat.com. €A user announced: FreePPP 1.0.5 doesn't work properly with OT 1.1. You need MacPPP 2.5. €From: stutsman@earthlink.net (Richard Stutsman) Thank goodness I'm not the only one having screen pointer problems since upgrading to System 7.5.3 and OT 1.1. I've been lurking for a long time waiting to see if anybody else suffered from these problems. Not only do I often see copies of pointer images left behind, but quite often my pointer simply becomes invisible (sometimes but not always leaving behind a visible image of itself). I lose my pointer approximately once per hour of diddling on my Mac, but it's not always while using Internet or OT applications. I've discovered a sure way to make the pointer visible again when that happens: I force the invisible pointer to the far upper right corner of my screen, then move it a bit left and select either the application icon or my FreePPP Menu icon and select or launch a different application. The act of selecting or launching any new application (or simply of bringing FreePPP Menu to the foreground, even if it's already launched) makes my pointer visible again. Selecting a background application by clicking on its own window (or that of the Finder desktop) does NOT usually work, however. €A user got a Word 6 file, which when read in text, had a last line reading "Content-transfer-encoding" To decode it, he was told:zip on over to the hyper-infomac-archive-searcher http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/cgi-bin/NewSearch? and look for "base64". I found a freeware drag-n-drop convertor, YA-Base64, works like a charm for me. Summary: ... get the base64 encoder; it should handle any message part that says "Content-transfer-encoding: BASE64"; no promises that *this* file will be readable. Jesse the K -- 43:04N 89:24W Madison WI USA -- They told us "don't talk to strangers" -- and now we are. € I checked with the Mac people and was told LaserWriter Bridge does >not work well with the new Open_Transport which we've just installed on >everyone's machine. Although, they did say LWB is available for download >off the Web, and there is a unsupported patch that may work with OT. €http://www.software.hosting.ibm.com/clubopendoc/openwin.html That's the announcement for the Windows beta [including Apple¹s OpenDoc technology], which IBM says will ship this month and encapsulate OLE. There is also an AIX beta and the OS/2 version is shipping. €If you are a musician or just interested in music and if you want to improve you hearing skills check out "Eartraining 2.3" at . €> Another good resource is "The System Zoo II" a Filemaker 2.1 database (very > well done) of most known system stuff. > > > If you don't have Filemaker, you can get a freeware runtime version at > MacUser (bundled with the Macintosh Catalog): > > xclusives?macuser_utilities_of_the_month> €An unexpected bug solver if you lose preferences and PRAM settings: You might have a tired RAM battery in it. If it's old and drained, it can't remember the settings to put in PRAM at startup and you lose your control panel and some other settings. And here's what you need to replace the little bugger: Helvetica3.6V lithium ... straight outta the Apple Spec Database. Go forth and be fruitful. €AppleScript trick to use a variable name rather than an application name and still permit compilation: Here is a simple trick to obtain what you want : (1) create a empty script in a file, for example "Hard disk:withAESyntaxScri= pt" (2) create another script snippet that contains : -- Begin of script property withAESyntaxScriptFile : alias "Hard disk:withAESyntaxScript" tell application "TheRealApp" -- should be present at this time script scriptToStore tell application myapp -- a variable name NiftyCommand1 arg1 "green" arg2 "blue" -- ... end tell end script store script scriptToStore in withAESyntaxScriptFile replacing yes end tell -- -- This will open the script you want -- tell application "Finder" to open withAESyntaxScriptFile -- End of script (3) run this snippet, throw it away (4) and open the "Hard disk:withAESyntaxScriptFile" script. You'll get the =ABevent aevtNfty=BB in it :-) €Programmers looking for a class library that is scriptable, recordable, and attachable? All the major frameworks support some level of scriptability, and none of them is entirely complete. For scriptability: - PowerPlant and TCL contain skeletal base classes for implementing Apple events with some object model support. - I believe the same is true for MacApp. Last year, MAScript was folded into MacApp. - ODF, the OpenDoc Framework,supports some scriptability now, will support more aspects of scriptability, since the OSA will be an increasingly integral part of OpenDoc as time goes on. - Also Sprocket, the free framework from MacTech will be supporting the object model. For recordability, I believe some of the frameworks support factoring (possibly MacApp, ODF, and Sprocket will fully support it in the near future). For attachability, it's fairly easy to implement. The current issue of "develop" magazine covers the basics, and expect to see more in the next several issues. That's the basics; you can ask more about a specific framework; there are experts that work with each one lurking about. Hope this helps, Cal ------------------------------------------------------------------------- When responding directly to me, don't send mail to the "mainlist" address, please send to the address below instead. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cal Simone, President Voice: (202) 298-9595 Main Event Software, Inc. Internet: mainevent@his.com €Resorcerer makes it pretty easy to add Baloon help to dialog boxes. €In case you're unfamiliar with the "virus", periodically someone posts a warning that if you see a message with the subject "GOOD TIMES" it will erase your hard disk if you even read it. Everyone who sees that warning starts forwarding it and re-posting it, which makes the warning itself a virus as it starts wasting bandwidth and propogating itself. €There is a group of people working to correct the problem of educating programmers for Mac development. As you have pointed out, there is a need for it. Their efforts can be found at along with current courses. 'MOST' stands for 'MacOS Students and Teachers'. €Revision 2 for System 7.5.3. This adds stability with the PB 5300 series. You can download Revision 2 at: ftp://ftp.info.apple.com/Apple.Support.Area/Apple_SW_Updates/US/Macintosh/System/S ystem_7.5.3_Revision_2/ €Get free "fast start" QuickTime plug-ins for Netscape Navigator 2.0 or later, or the Microsoft Internet Explorer . . . See NEW examples of people adding QuickTime movies and QuickTime VR to Web pages . . . Learn how to add "fast start" QuickTime movies to *any* Web page . . . Join the QuickTime Web Challenge, and compete to win an Apple Internet Server and other cool prizes. Just head to Intelligence at Large: € ICHAT plugin for macintosh is now in beta 1.13. It allows IRC chatting right through your browser. It has a slick interface, however since it's in beta testing right now, not everything is working. Be sure to read the Readme, there are serveral things to avoid doing. You can download their plug in at http://www.ichat.com. €We have just made available a version of Spellswell 7 that "talks to" Eudora Light. In addition we have written an AppleScript that initiates this process from the Apple menu (or anywhere else you put the script.) It's at http://www.working.com, including a free demo version of Spellswell 7 2.0.3. €From: CDDvgt@mozcom.com (Victor Tobias) To: Subscribers to If you havent done so, check out http://www.ffg.com. Download a copy of WebWhacker which is available for the mac. It's a program that downloads entire web sites or web pages into your hard drive so you dont have to be connected all the time. A similar product can be found in http://www.milktruck.com called Milktruck Delivery.The Mac version would be out anytime. Got a 14.4kbps modem and disappointed with realaudio players' speech quality for real-time broadcasts? Use True Speech Internet from http://www.dspg.com or Toolvox for the Web from http://www.voxware.com. Both products excel in low-bandwidth real-time speech. Also test Streamworks, http://www.xingtech.com for high-bandwidth speech and video as well. RealAudio is the best in real-time music broadcasts if you have a 28.8 connection. Vocaltec mentioned a mac version of Internet Wave which would have good music quality in lower-bandwidth connection, but its still not available as of today. Impressed by Shockwave? Check out another ... Emblaze from http://www.geo.co.il/ A netscape plug-in for real-time animation and sound. Until next time. Victor Tobias CD Direct Manila, Philippines €While supplies last, Wells Fargo is offering free copies of Quicken 6 for the Mac to people signing up for their online banking service.I thought Evangelist readers would want to hear about this. The number to call is 1-800-956-4442. I think this is number is up around the clock. €The Court TV Law Center, Court TV's consumer law web site, uses a Performa 6200 with a Mac TV tuner board to grab a live frame from Court TV every minute, crop it, convert it to a .gif file, and send it to the Web server. You can see the page (which also provides a live audio feed) at: http://www.courttv.com/whatshot/live/ Also, Macs are used to produce all the content of the Court TV Law Center, and its sister site from Counsel Connect, Counsel Connect Web (www.counsel.com), a law-oriented site for legal professionals. €Sorry, that¹s all the time I have. This Jaques Law Bits was delivered by: Kevin Jaques, B.A. LL.B. of the Jaques Law Office #101 - 2515 Victoria Avenue Fax: 525­4173 Regina, Saskatchewan Home: 586­2234 email: jaques.law@dlcwest.com Tel: 359­3041 visit our web page at http://www.dlcwest.com/~jaques.law/