Jaques Law Bits 9609 (© 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 and collecting those of others.

•Note about this issue
Sadly, it is more (MUCH!) than 32k. Consequently, it cannot be opened by SimpleText as an editable document. So I saved it as a read–only document. To copy stuff, you must change its file type to TTXT or some other text format which can be read by another text editor you may possess. BBEdit Lite is a good choice. Or, just open it with a more fancy word processor and the file type won't matter. ClarisWorks will suffice.

•Way Cool - The Brain Mouse!
New York --July 5, 1996 -- IBVA Technologies, Inc., maker of the 
Interactive Brainwave Visual Analyzer (IBVA) system, announced today a 
set of Expansion Paks for its innovative brainwave control system. The 
IBVA system is a Macintosh-based electroencephalograph (EEG) featuring a 
one- or two-channel headband, wireless transmitter, receiver and 
brainwave analysis software that provides a direct mind-to-computer link.

The new Expansion Paks are add-on applications and hardware that will 
enable IBVA users to use their brainwaves to wirelessly control industry 
standard video games, virtual reality applications, and common household 
devices including CD players, VCRs, cable boxes, light switches, security 
systems, etc.

The 1 channel IBVA retails for $1,295 and the 2 channel IBVA retails for 
$2,295. To kick off the announcement of the new Expansion Paks, the 1 
channel IBVA is being offered to Evangelist members for $995 and the 2 
channel for $1,995 through July 31, 1996.

•Netscape v. Interslip Timer
Nathan Williams <Dwalo@crs1.mddc.com> reported that his longstanding problems with Netscape 2.02 were solved when he closed InterSlipTimer and connected with InterSLIP 
directly (same NN prefs file).

•What can you trash from your system folder?
See Dan Frakes' Power Mac Pruning Page at:
<http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/DEF/>
He lists nearly everything that's in your system folder, what it does, and
whether you need it.  In general it's a bad idea to start throwing out
Apple extensions without prior knowledge of what they are (I learned this
from experience also).
Another (sometimes) good source of info is Conflict
Catcher.  If you click in the left margin of the list view a box comes up
with info about the extension or control panel of interest.
Another good resource is "The System Zoo II" a Filemaker 2.1 database (very
well done) of most known system stuff.
<http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive/Archive/cfg/system-zoo-ii-fm.hqx>

•NetDoubler
SAN JOSE, Calif., April 29, 1996 - Asante Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:
ASNT), today released NetDoubler(tm), a new network acceleration
software utility for Apple(r) Macintosh(r) power users that increases
Mac-based Ethernet and Fast Ethernet performance up to nine times.  Ideal
for accelerating copies, opens, and saves of large files over the
network, NetDoubler is compatible with any application running on a
Macintosh system using Open Transport (OT).
NetDoubler is available free with any Asante Fast 10/100 adapter card or for $99 list
as a standalone package for use with other Fast Ethernet and Ethernet
cards.
NetDoubler speeds up network performance using Apple's Open Transport
which enables Macintosh computers to connect to any popular network,
regardless of protocol. This extends the protocols available to Mac
clients beyond AppleTalk File Protocol (AFP) to include others, such as
TCP/IP.  NetDoubler leverages this protocol-independence of OT by
allowing AppleShare(tm) servers and/or Macintosh clients running Personal
File Sharing to use TCP/IP file transfer protocols.  Client Macs
typically communicate to the server via the AppleTalk(tm)  Transaction
Protocol (ATP), which is less efficient than TCP/IP. NetDoubler
transparently uses TCP/IP to transfer files at much higher speeds, yet
retains the normal Macintosh interface.
The demo only runs one hour after each start up.
For additional information, contact Asante Technologies at 800-662-9686
or browse the company's World Wide Web home page at http://www.asante.com.

•Another Summary of Internet File Translation
What is 'MacBinary'?
Unlike files on other computer platforms which are data only, Macintosh
files have a 'Resource fork' and a 'data fork'. If you take a Mac file and
put it on a non-Mac such as a PC or a UNIX machine, the resource fork will
be stripped off. In some situations, this is ok, but many Mac files will be
rendered unusable if they lose their resource fork. To prevent this from
happening, users can 'MacBinary encode' their files before posting to a
non-Mac. MacBinary encoding takes the resource and data forks of a Mac file
and attaches them together into a single data file. MacBinary encoded files
often have '.bin' at the end of the file name.

What is 'BinHex'?
The internet is a network that was originally designed for sending text
messages between computers. Text messages need only 7-bits of data, so many
internet gateways are 7-bits wide by default. Most non-text files that we
use are 8-bits wide. If 8-bit wide files are sent through the internet,
they can lose 1/8th of their content and be rendered unusable. It's a bit
like sending a big truck through a small tunnel. There are ways to perform
a 'binary' transfer via the internet which forces the file to be sent
through an 8-bit wide gateway (a bigger tunnel), but the most common way to
get around this bit-width problem is to encode the 8-bit wide file into a
7-bit wide format (actually a text format). This process will actually make
the file bigger in file-length. For Mac users, BinHex is the standard 7-bit
encoded format because it preserves that Mac resource fork, as well as the
data fork. BinHex files usually have a '.hqx' suffix. Note: UUencoding is
another 7-bit encoding method, but it only encodes the data fork of a Mac
file. UUencoding is common for files that are not platform-specific such as
GIFs. UUencoded files usually have a '.uu' or '.uue' suffix.

•FedEx admits software flawed, but ‘tough’
<carey@fedex.com> (Carey Tews)
The current version of FedEx Ship for Mac, I believe it's 1.3, is 
available for download the <http://www.fedex.com/>. This software is not 
native on Power Macintosh, and there are definitely some problems with 
it, but many people have been able to make it work. It is nearly 2 mb! There is also a Mac program to track your packages at the same address.

•What is Cyberdog anyway
From: "William Barthelmy" <barth008@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
First of all, Cyberdog is an integrated suite of OpenDoc parts (or
applications) designed to make life on the internet, well... , more like
working on a Mac, and depite the slowness of some of those parts (notably,
the webbrowser) have greatly simplified parts of my life.  I manage a
number of websites and the ability to drag-and-drop ftp and remotely
rearrange things on various servers (almost) as if they were on my hard
drive in folders is incredible!  

As a few people have already pointed out, the major innovation here is as
much (if not more) OpenDoc as Cyberdog.  OpenDoc is a way of thinking about
computing which is _document_ centered and not application centered like
most computing is today.  That is, the OpenDoc decides what applications
(or parts) are needed to run whatever it is that you are doing and turns
everything else off.  For example, if I were designing a document that was
nothing but text, only the text editor would be active.  If I later decided
to drag-and-drop some graphic files in my text,  OpenDoc checks the  format
and decides what part is necessary to display this type of graphic file.

As for the general problem with Cyberdog messages, it's because Cyberdog is
MIME 1.0 compatible.  This means that Cyberdog users can send messages
using different fonts, font sizes, colors and graphics.  The down side is
that very few of the rest of the internet community have email software
which is equally advanced. (This is quickly changing)  So, those Cyberdog
users who aren't used to what is and is not displayable by most email
software end up sending what looks like cyperpoop.

From: chuqui@plaidworks.com (Chuq Von Rospach)
It's an environment. Not a browser. There's a SIMPLE browser in there,
but the cyberdog browser is not cyberdog. It's a part of cyberdog --
and like opendoc parts, it can and will be replaced by other parts. And since Netscape's committed to an opendoc.... well, you get the idea.

From: "David McCusker" <david_mccusker@powertalk.apple.com>
[re it being so slow]
A lot of the OpenDoc work now being done is related directly or indirectly
to performance or memory footprint optimizations.  Of course, we are also
still fixing bugs with high enough priority and also tuning human interface
details.  The optimizations will trickle into releases over time, as
opposed to occuring in a big bang.  The easier ones go in right away and
the harder ones will take a little longer.
I'm not allowed to predict when most optimizations might be done; however,
it's going to take more than one release.  But each release you should see
noticeable improvements in different areas.  For example, we've already
made good advances in launch times, and times will improve even more as we
streamline the process of using all information necessary to bind parts.
Expect speed optimizations to appear sooner than footprint optimizations.

•Netscape tip
From: asg1@liii.com (Adam S. Goldstein)
To: Subscribers to <apple-internet-users@solutions.apple.com>
For those of you who suffered with very slow pulldown menus and slow typing
in Netscape 2.01 for the Mac, I finally found the solution.  For some
reason, if your bookmarks file is too big, it slows down the program.  What
I did was break up my bookmarks into groups and put them into folders.  No
more slow pulldown menus now.

•Free PPP rumours
Several users report hard drive corruption in association with FreePPP, probably taking place during the installation.

•Ram Doubler 1.6.2 rumours
Several users report conflicts with AppleScript applets and the script editor. Recompiling the scripts helped for some.

•Applescript - Creating & Writing to a File
Here's a simple script that creates a file and writes to it:

set thefile to "Cool Mac:testfile"    ---- Cool Mac is the name of my disk,
testfile is the name of the file
create file thefile
set refnum to open file thefile
write file refnum text "hello world"
close file refnum

Basically, you want to set 'theFile' variable to the Macintosh pathname to
where you want your file to be.

If you try to create a file and it doesn't work(probably because of faulty
syntax), Applescript doesn't return an error.  The error doesn't show up
until you try to do something with this file that doesn't exist(File not
found errors)

•Font History
In the late-80's, Microsoft
and Apple were both worried that Adobe had a lock on typographical and page
description technology with PostScript.
In a collaborative agreement, Microsoft and Apple agreed to attack this by
creating alternatives. Apple did the typographical part - TrueType.
Microsoft was supposed to deliver the page description - TrueImage. A
cross-licensing agreement was signed early on.
As it happened, Apple delivered TrueType. By the time Microsoft was to come
out with TrueImage, Adobe, Apple and Microsoft settled their differences
and licensed the PostScript technology. (Adobe made the licensing
agreements much less costly) TrueImage was no longer important, so
Microsoft quietly dropped it.
In a measure of true irony, Microsoft did deliver TrueType technology in
Windows 3.0. Early Windows adopters were quite excited by this technology,
which was really useful on the PC platform given the wide variety (and
display pitch) of PC displays. (Mac displays of the time were nearly all
roughly 72 dpi)
The ironic part is that Windows adopters credited Microsoft with inventing
TrueType technology.
Bill Coleman, AA4LR, AA96LR      Mail: aa4lr@radio.org

•Color QuickCam Software Update
Connectix has recently updated the Color QuickCam 
software to version 2.0.2
and the updater is available FREE online. See below for online locations.
Connectix Technical Support
www.connectix.com * AOL Keyword: Connectix * CompuServe: GO Connectix
* email: support@connectix.com * Tel: (800) 950-5880 or (415) 571-5100
* Fax: (415) 571-5195 * For automatic update announcements: 
www.connectix.com/connect/mail.upda.html or send email to: 
majordomo@connectix.com with 'subscribe updater-list' in the message 
body.

•MacUser Utility: Talking Mouse
  Veteran Mac users will remember the Talking Moose, an animated
  Bullwinkle clone that randomly provided sardonic commentary
  about what was on your Mac's mind. In this age of downsizing,
  we've revived the animated know-it-all -- not as a moose, but
  rather a mouse. MacUser's latest free utility is called Talking Mouse.
  You can edit Talking Mouse's phrases in any text editor -- it
  uses Speech Manager and MacinTalk (available in the System 7.5.3
  update) to create speech out of phonemes. Talking Mouse is also
  AppleScript-ready, so you can write scripts that make the Mouse
  say anything you want.
  And Talking Mouse includes several different "faces" and
  collections of phrases to choose from, so you can choose the
  personality that best suits you. With any luck, there will be
  several new face and phrase files for Talking Mouse in the
  future!
  <http://www.zdnet.com/macuser/software/>
[Jaques - Moose had a tiny RAM and disk footprint and spoke clearly, using the antique MacInTalk. However eventually it developed conflicts and Apple built in the Speech Manager (several mbs!). Progress!]

•Flash ROM update for Supra 28.8 modems released
From: Todd Somers <somers@BEST.COM>
To: apple-internet-users@solutions.apple.com
<http://www.supra.com/Support/flashers.html>

•Demo Java sites
<http://www.gamelan.com/>
<http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~mcrae/projects/macjava/>
<http://www.javaworld.com/common/jw-jumps.html>

These three top-down sites probably cover 95% of the java resources available.
Todd C. Somers, Ph.D.   somers@gene.com   and/or  somers@best.com
Note -From: maccafe@macatawa.org (Jarvis badgley)
To: apple-internet-users@solutions.apple.com
Netscape 2.02 doesn't support it, but 3.0 does [Jaques - the beta version, widely rumoured to be buggy]

•Internet Efficiency Tip for the Unix Skilled
[summary of several long postings]
A busy site can be hard to get onto, and slow to transmit. Therefore, get your ISP to transfer it (over the faster speeds it enjoys) to your account on your ISP. Then download to your machine from there, without all the competition. However, to direct your ISP to do this, it probably must be UNIX and you probably must Telnet to it. I’ve never tried either. However, here are some quotes:
[re necessity of using ftp to get it to ISP] - [try] lynx for http downloads.  Also, if your provider has perl
installed (almost certainly true) and libwww-perl-5 (more unlikely), you
can use the lwp-request perl script to download ftp, http, and gopher url's.
(It's usually linked to GET, so you can just type GET url > file on the
command line).
A benefit of using Unix FTP programs in this fashion is
} that most have "redial until connected" features, very useful when that new
} Netscape beta has just come out and the site is bogged down by its max
} number of users.
ncftp also has a "restart where you left off" (get -C), so if your
connection breaks in the middle of a gargantuan download, you can
restart without having to download the whole file (not all ftp servers
support the necessary ftp commands, though).

•Official Apple Sources of System 7.5.3 Revision 2.0
System 7.5.3 Revision 2 U.S. version can be downloaded from the following 
Internet sites free of charge:

ftp.info.apple.com
ftp.support.apple.com
http://www.info.apple.com
http://www.support.info.com

Customers in the United States may also order the update on two floppy 
disks for $13 by calling 800-293-6617, extension 1198. In Canada, 
customers may order the update on two floppy disks for $20 by calling 
800-361-6075, extension 1198. 

•Official Apple Sources for Cyperdog and its code
You can download free Cyberdog sample code from Apple's Cyberdog 
Developer web site, either as Metrowerks or Code Sampler projects. You'll 
also want to check out the site's list of third-party Cyberdog parts and 
containers, many of which can also be downloaded. 
For the Cyberdog Developers web site:
http://cyberdog.apple.com/developer.html
If you haven't yet started working with Cyberdog 1.0, you can download it 
from the Cyberdog web site:
http://cyberdog.apple.com/

•National Geographic Magazine site (produced on Macs)
<http://www.nationalgeographic.com/main.wd>

•Open Transport Frustration Fixed by User
When Open Transport 1.1 is installed, part of the installation replaces the
MacTCP/IP control panel in the Control Panels folder.  Further--at least on
my PM 6100/66--the new installation RESETS any preference you may have in
the "Configure" field for the MacTCP/IP control panel to "Using BootP
Server" rather than "Using PPP Server."  That allows the Mac to CONNECT to
my ISP provider's server, but all apps fail when run.  For instance, in
Netstape 2.02 a "failure to open a network socket connection" occurs
Similar failures occur with Eudora and other apps.
Reset the MacTCP/IP control panel to "Using PPP Server" solved the problem
and all apps work fine.

•Thunder 7’s replacement
Thunder 7 was recently acquired by Casady & Greene (makers of Conflict
Catcher) and C&G told me a month ago that their first release of the
revised product (to be called Spell Catcher) would be out right about now. No announcement yet.
http://205.179.133.2/C&G/Welcome.html

•More on catching Quits with Applescript
From: alldritt@wimsey.com (Mark Alldritt)
To: Subscribers to <applescript-users@solutions.apple.com>
Subject: Re: Stopping a script

>I'm running a script in my home-grown script runner application using
>OSALoadExecute.  How can I catch Quit apple events in my script runner and
>have them forwarded to either a quit handler in my script or a quit handler
>in my app?

You need to do two things:

1 - install an AppleEvent handler for the kAEQuitApplication event.  In
this event handler you use the OSADoEvent call to handle the event.  If you
get back errAEEventNotHandled, then there is no Quit handler in the script
and you should process the quit event yourself.

2 - you need to use OSASetResumeDispatchProc to install a resume event
handler.  This handler is called if the script does something like the
following:

on Quit
   display dialog "Quitting"
   continue quit   --> this is when your resume proc is called
end

You resume proc can then complete the quit processing.

•OpenDoc Part Handlers
Since OpenDoc uses different handlers for different parts of the same document, where do you get the handlers?
<http://www.partmerchant.com> [editor - this is the same as Part Bank]
Also check out the Kantara/PartMerchant folder(s) on the DR5 CD that just
arrived in the developer mailing. There is a shell plug-in called PMFinder
which finds and retrieves missing parts over the Internet using The Part
Merchant. It is a way cool, well-engineered and well-implemented solution.
<"Brad Hutchings" brad@hutchings-software.com>

•AppleScript Extensions
Having scripts that you get from the 'net cause you 
problems could be related to not having the right scripting extensions 
installed. Many of the scripts you will find use things like Jon's 
Commands, Acme Widgets, or GTQ Scripting Library. All are available on 
the 'net, at places like InfoMac and the gaea archives on ScriptWeb 
<http://www.scriptweb.com>
From: Andy Bachorski <andyb@adr.apple.com> - Apple Developer Tech Support

•Mac Trading Post
Special to Evangelist members. The Mac Trading Post is up and running! We 
would like to extend our introductory offer to all Evangelist Members for 
a FREE ad. The ad must be 80 characters in width and 8 lines or fewer in 
length. The ad can be for used Mac software or hardware that you wish to 
buy, sell, or trade. The regular price of an ad is US $5.00 and your ad 
remains until the item is sold, or traded. 
<http://www.en.com/users/william/mac/mactrade.html>

•Did you know?
A little known "trick" of these [web] search engines is that, once you've
crafted a particularly clever search, you can save the url just like any
other bookmark.

•FREE email/web based Mac programming course
<http://aimed.org/aimed/MOST/classes/macc-001/macc-001_menu.html>
There you can find information on those behind the MOST effort - MOST
stands for MacOS Students & Teachers - and how to join in. The current
course, which is now into its third week and has over 160 enrolled, is
based on K.J. Bricknell's "Macintosh C: A Hobbyist's Guide to Programming
the Macintosh in C" (which is superb). The method of delivery is
self-study, 2 weeks per chapter, with mailing lists provided for discussion
of the current chapter. A number of experienced Mac programmers act as
Mentors on the lists, answering queries raised by the class. Follow the
instructions at the page above to enroll.
Prerequisites are a knowledge of C (there are remedial materials available,
but this course is not intended to teach you C), a development environment
(demonstration programs are for Symantec's THINK C and CodeWarrior), and
access to KJ's book. This can be found at
<http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/alt.sources.mac/macintosh-c/>
in HTML, PDF and Word 5.1 formats for downloading or online browsing.

•Danger! Danger, Will Scott!
Copland does break all drivers.  However, as
noted in the white paper, if you design your driver to run according to the
specifications published for PCI compability you 'll automatically be able
to move to Copland w/o incident.
Scott D. Sauer                                  czar@fcs-net.com
[Editor - Copland will come with a driver updater. But I am skeptical. I have never had any success using Apple’s HD ToolKit to upgrade any non–apple drive, or even an apple drive on which a non–apple driver was installed.]
No, that is not the case.  I have run MacOS 8 off of an APS external drive
formated with APS drivers.
Mike Lockwood                                    lockwood@metrowerks.com

•Port Speed Tip
Lawson English - english@primenet.com reported at some length that where he brought the port speed down from the maximum to 19,200 for his 14.4 modem, it substantially increased the speed with Cyberdog and Netscape and reduced crashes.

•ICScriptor 1.0 is now available.
ICScriptor is a collection of pieces which allow one to access the 
Internet Config preferences from an OSA compliant scripting language.  If 
the previous sentence doesn't make any sense to you, then you do NOT need 
ICScriptor!
<ftp://rhino.harvard.edu//pub/dan/ICScriptor1.0.hqx>
<ftp://ftp.netreach.net/pub/mac/ldr/ICScriptor-10.hqx>
Dan Crevier <dan@rhino.harvard.edu>
<http://rhino.harvard.edu/dan/home.html>
[editor - I couldn't find it anywhere, 960821.]

•Supra working on problems with Flash ROM upgrade 33.6
So far it seems to be only a problem with certain
specifics in the connection but we are working on a fix already.  If you
want to go back to an earlier release, we have 1.300-13 posted on our ftp
site [<ftp://ftp.supra.com/pub/flashers_history/v34/1.300-13/mac/>].  I also have found that limiting your modem connection speeds using
the +MS command can help as a short term work around.
Look on our Web page for the next release.  I don't know when it will be
posted, but it will be once we identify, fix and test the solution.
Jim Hafner-Eaton                                 jimhe@supra.com

•Reminder of Hidden Feature on System Installs
command shift K in the install dialogue window will create a brand new system folder.

•Eudora 3 is final and available from
This is the commercial version. v.1.5.4 of the Lite version is out too.
http://www.software.net/prod.htm?SRKEY=eudora+pro+mac&FUZZY=N

•Converting HTML tables BACK to tab tables or spreadsheets
Formula One/Net by Visual Components found at
http://www.visualcomp.com/f1net/download.htm. Its an internet spreadsheet
program that may be of use to you (supports excel etc.)
[editor - I went there, and it appeared to be Windows only.]

•BBEdit upgrade out
<siegel@barebones.com> (Rich Siegel)
Bare Bones Software is pleased to announce the release of BBEdit 4.0.1.
This update to their popular and critically acclaimed text editor and
HTML authoring tool adds new capabilities to BBEdit's strong feature
set. Highlights of version the 4.0.1 update include:
-   multiple Undo
-  direct editing of files from FTP servers (new "Open from FTP
    Server" and "Save to FTP Server" commands)
- support for TeX (the typesetting language widely used in
    science and mathematics), in addition to
    syntax coloring and function navigation for C, C++, HTML, Java,
    Pascal, Fortran, Rez, ScriptX, GuideScript, assembly language, Perl,
    and Tcl.
-   version 2.1 of the BBEdit HTML tools; this new version of the tools
    fixes reported problems, and provides a variety of cosmetic and
    functional improvements.
All licensed owners of BBEdit 4.0 may download this update free of
charge from the Software Update page on Bare Bones Software's site. This
page is located at <http://www.barebones.com/updates.html>. In addition,
the update can be found on Bare Bones Software's public FTP site,
located at <ftp://ftp.barebones.com/pub/>.
Bare Bones Software invites anyone who wishes to learn more about BBEdit
to visit their Web site at <http://www.barebones.com/>, or to send mail
to <sales@barebones.com>.

•Intuit is sorry. Be a Beta–Tester for on–line payments
<BETA@intuit.com> (BETA)
We wanted to provide you with an update regarding the recent message 
submitted to EvangeList Digest regarding online payment with Quicken for 
Macintosh. Although online payment is not currently available for 
Macintosh, we are excited to let you know that it will be included with 
the next version of Quicken for Macintosh.
We are currently accepting applications for our Quicken for Macintosh 
online banking and online payment beta test. If you're interested in beta 
testing these services, please visit our web site at 
<http://www.intuitbeta.com> to submit an application and complete a 
testing agreement. If you would rather have these forms faxed to you, 
please send an email to <beta@intuitbeta.com> with the subject "FAX 
FORMS" and we will quickly get them to you. Please include your name, 
phone number and fax number in the body of the email.

•ForEver Mail
<roberta_millstein@mac.lover.org>
Our company, Digital Footprints International, provides subscribers with 
a personalized, permanent e-mail address (your ForeverMail address) that 
forwards your e-mail to your current address, no matter how many times 
you change jobs or e-mail providers. All you have to do is notify the 
ForeverMail service whenever you change your e-mail address, and 
ForeverMail will make sure that your e-mail always finds you at your new 
location.
We have set up the 'Mac.lover.org' domain name if you like.
Our regular price is $18 for one year of ForeverMail. However, as a 
*special offer* to Evangelistas, we will extend the service to 18 months 
for the price of 12. Just put the word MACWAY in the "Referred by" box on 
the form. This special offer is good through July 15, 1996, and only for 
the Mac.lover.org domain name.
Our website is at:
 <http://www.forevermail.com>
Or you can go directly to the sign-up form which includes the 
Mac.lover.org domain:
 <http://www.forevermail.com/forms/hobby-biglist-new.html>

•We’re so superior
Soquel, CA -- The results from a study of U.S. PC and Mac User Groups are 
in, and they show Mac User Group members differ from PC User Group 
members in demographics and computer usage. This was an independent 
disk-based survey by Para Technologies, sponsored by User Group 
Connection (UGC) and several vendors (see below). The full press release 
and key findings can be found at 
<http://www.ugconnection.com/vendors/ugstudy.html>.

Here are some of the most interesting statistical differences between Mac 
and PC User Group members...

1996 (vs. 1990 & 1992) 
UG Study Key Findings           MUG members  PCUG members 
---------------------------------------------------------------- 
Age (mean)                          49.2             55.3 
Household Income (mean)          $66,239          $59,725 
Gender (% male)                    77.9%            80.6% 
Education (% w/ college degree)    77.9%            52.5% 
Influence work computer purchases  87.5%            70.2% 
recommend/specify/approve (mean) $37,951          $52,499 
Access the Internet (%)            76.6%            63.1% 
Daily computer use (hours)           5.6              5.1

The study also disclosed the growth of User Group organizations. The 
average size of a PC User Group and a Mac User Group is 220 members and 
175 members, respectively. While this statistic was not measured in the 
past for PC User Groups, average Mac User Group membership has grown from 
162 members in 1990 and 157 in 1992. According to anecdotal data, the 
number of User Groups has increased steadily for several years, and today 
UGC tracks approximately 2,400 Mac User Groups and 1,600 PC User Groups 
in the U.S. and Canada. (Note: The study did not sample Canadian User 
Groups and computer-related associations registered as User Groups, which 
could increase the average size of a group).

The study was sponsored by User Group Connection. Contributing sponsors 
include Adobe, America Online, Aladdin Systems, Apple Computer, APS 
Technologies, Claris Corporation, Corel, Intuit, Macworld Communications, 
and Symantec. The 67-page study report is available for purchase from UGC 
by calling 408-477-4277 x239. This press release and key findings are 
available on UGC's web page at 
<http://www.ugconnection.com/vendors/ugstudy.html/>.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
User Group Connection (UGC), a privately-held California Corporation, was 
founded July 26, 1993, as a department spin-off of Apple Computer, Inc. 
UGC is dedicated to supporting User Group leaders and helping bridge 
relationships between User Groups and the computer industry. UGC provides 
marketing services to high-tech companies and operates the User Group 
Store, a mail-order catalog exclusively for Macintosh User Group members. 
Individual users can locate a PC or Macintosh User Group near them 
through an online locator at <http://www.ugconnection.com/>.

For further information, you can reach UGC and User Group Store at 2840 
Research Park Drive, Suite 100, Soquel, CA 95073, 408-477-4277, FAX 
408-477-4290, E-mail: <ugc@ugconnection.com>.

•More Info on souping up your Floating Point Math
LIBMOTO for Mac OS and Windows NT PowerPC users is available!
Motorola's LIBMOTO is a highly optimized memory, string, and math 
library. LIBMOTO replaces several commonly used functions provided by the 
standard C library. Many customers see tremendous performance gains for 
some operations when using this library.
LIBMOTO is available for Mac OS PowerPC end users, Mac OS PowerPC 
software developers and for Windows NT (PowerPC Edition). And it is FREE!!
Download it at:
<http://www.mot.com/SPS/PowerPC/library/fact_sheet/libmoto.html>
and check out the Motorola PowerPC home page at:
<http://www.mot.com/PowerPC/>

•Game Sprockets from Apple
CUPERTINO, California--July 2, 1996--Nine months from its inception, 
Apple Computer, Inc. today announced immediate availability of Game 
Sprockets Version 1.0--a new developer-driven software development kit 
(SDK) to create advanced multimedia and Internet-enabled games for MacOS 
computers. Using Sprockets, all games that run on Mac OS-based computers 
can feature real-time 3D graphics, 3D sound, Internet support, speech 
recognition, and input device/monitor control.

•Ram Shopping Tips
One says:
You can find the best prices on quality Mac RAM at RAM
Watch: http://www.cs.miami.edu/~stevent/macresource/ramwatch.html
Another says:
for the best in RAM prices check out RAM Tracker:
<http://home1.gte.net/mongo1/ramtracker.html>

•That sneaky Netscape!
[In the System folder, Netscape maintains a mysterious file called MagicCookie]
Magic Cookie writes info from the server that you have conectted to on the
www to so that the next time you connect to that same server the server can
obtain info off of your system.
Cookie monster removes this log from your hard drive every time you start
up. You need to place it in the startup folder. [It might conflict with ZTerm.]
Mike Kelly, mike@m-kelly.demon.co.uk

•Open Transport Speed
In a recent MacWorld article in the June issue titled the Open Transport 
advantage, Jim Heid says " In preliminary Macworld Lab tests, Netscape 
Navigator 2.0 was nearly twice as fast with Open Transport 1.1 as it was 
with MacTCP when downloading files from a remote Web site."

June 1996
Document ID: NW130614

•Named FTP Access Syntax
The URL syntax for named (vs. anonymous) ftp is 
ftp://username:password@host/
where username and password are replaced with your username and password and
host is the name of the computer you are connecting to (like 
zoomer.accounting.apple.com).
[or from another user: <protocol>://<username>:<password>@<hostname>/<path>]

•Magic Cookie - The Last Words
A few good articles that cut through the hype and horror of the magic cookie:
<http://www.cnet.com/Content/Voices/Barr/042996/index.html>
<http://www.jasmin.com/cook0696.html>

Other very good resources for info on the dreaded cookie:
Andy's Netscape HTTP cookie notes:
<http://www.illuminatus.com/cookie>

Malcolm's Guide to Persistent Cookies resources:
<http://www.emf.net/~mal/cookiesinfo.html>

Netscape's preliminary spec, Persistent Client State HTTP cookies:
<http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html>

If, after reading through the above, you're still paranoid, just delete the
magiccookie file in your Netscape folder (it's in the netscape folder
within your system preferences folder) or get the "cookie monster" which
will delete it automatically when you restart your mac:
<http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive/Archive/comm/inet/web/ntscp/cookie
-monster-15.hqx>

To see what's in it, drop the MagicCookie file into a netscape window.

•Speech and the WWW
The following two plug-ins
  require that you install PlainTalk, Apple's speech recognition
  technology, which comes with Apple's System 7.5 and can also be
  downloaded from various online venues.
<ftp://ftp.info.apple.com/Apple.Support.Area/Apple.Software.Updates/US/
Macintosh/System/PlainTalk_1.4.1/>

  Written by Bill Noon, ListenUp 1.41 enables you to follow links by
  speaking their names. There are a few catches: you must have a
  Power Mac equipped with a PlainTalk microphone, run System 7.5 or
  newer, and be following a link on a Web page specially coded to
  work with ListenUp. In addition, you must be lucky enough to have
  voice recognition usually work for you; I've only had moderate
  success in this department. Web authors who wish to support
  ListenUp must include a short bit of additional HTML on their
  pages (for those in the know, that short bit is an <EMBED> tag),
  and they must also place on their Web servers a text file that
  associates link text with URLs.
<http://snow.cit.cornell.edu/noon/ListenUp.html>

  In contrast to ListenUp, which helps Web browsers listen, Talker
  2.0 makes Web browsers talk. The free plug-in from MVP Solutions
  lets you hear the text displayed on Web page. A Talker-enabled Web
  page displays onscreen in the normal, visual fashion, but your Mac
  automatically speaks the words on the page. Web authors can even
  set up pages such that different bits of text are spoken, or even
  sung, in different voices. To use Talker, you must have the
  English Text-to-Speech component of PlainTalk installed. The
  Talker Read Me file helpfully discusses how to tell if you have
  the right software installed, and what to do if you don't.
<http://www.mvpsolutions.com/PlugInSite/Talker.html>

•A coherent explanation of FPU problems on Power PCs
 Both Apple's and Connectix's emulators imitate a 68LC040, which is
  a problem if you need to use a 68K program with a program that
  specifically requires a floating point unit (FPU). In the 68K
  family, FPUs were originally a separate chip devoted to floating
  point math operations. With the 68040, Motorola built most FPU
  functions directly into the processor, then (in a cost-cutting
  move) removed them in the 68LC040. Programs requiring an FPU won't
  run under emulation on a Power Mac because they correctly
  determine that an FPU isn't available.

  If you need to use programs requiring an FPU on a Power Macintosh,
  you have two choices: SoftwareFPU and PowerFPU, both from John
  Neil and Associates. These programs emulate a 68K FPU, allowing
  68K programs that require an FPU to function. SoftwareFPU, a $10
  shareware product, works fine, though it's not PowerPC native and
  must pump its math calls through the 68K emulator. PowerFPU is a
  $75 commercial product that provides PowerPC-native FPU emulation.
  Since native PowerPC floating point functions are speedy,
  PowerFPU's performance can be quite good.
<http://www.jna.com/>

•TidBits on Buses
* Bus Width: The bus width is literally how many bits can move
  across the bus at the same time. Power Macs have a 64-bit bus,
  meaning 64 bits can travel across the bus simultaneously. Previous
  Macs had a 32-bit bus, and early Macs had a 16-bit bus. As you
  might expect, a 64-bit bus is about twice as fast as a 32-bit bus,
  since it can move twice as much material in the same amount of
  time. However, a 64-bit bus is also more expensive to manufacture.

* Bus speed: The clock oscillator controls bus speed, as well as
  processor speed. Basically, a clock oscillator is a tiny quartz
  crystal that vibrates a certain number of times per second. It's
  like a metronome for a computer, controlling everything from disk
  access and screen redraws to memory access and networking, and
  making sure everything happens in sync.

* Hardware architecture: How traffic flows over the bus is a
  function of the computer's hardware and operating system design.
  For example, in older computers, writing data from RAM to a disk
  meant every piece of information in RAM had to go across the bus
  to the processor, then back across the bus to the disk system,
  which would write the information and report back when it
  finished. These days, it's more common for computers to have a
  "private road" between RAM and disks. There are numerous other
  instances of hardware and software engineering in all Macintosh
  models that strive to improve bus efficiency.

**Dishing Your Buses** -- The analogy above is a vast over-
  simplification - in reality, a Macintosh has a number of different
  buses, most of which exist in sub-systems. SCSI, Ethernet, serial
  ports, RAM, expansion slots (NuBus and PCI), and input devices all
  have separate buses, each of which has its own width and
  (sometimes) its own oscillator.

  Bus speed is an important factor when considering upgrades. Clock
  chipping, a popular, inexpensive method for upgrading Quadras and
  first-generation Power Macs, involves replacing the computer's
  clock oscillator with a faster one. Although it invalidates
  Apple's warranty and not all Macs can be clock chipped
  successfully (success rates are around 90 percent), replacing the
  clock chip speeds up the computer's processor and bus, often
  making for a good all-around performance improvement. For detailed
  information on clock-chipping, check out Marc Schrier's clock
  chipping FAQ.

<http://violet.berkeley.edu/~schrier/mhz.html>

  Many PCI Power Macs and clones have both their clock oscillators
  and processor chips on a removable CPU daughter card, providing a
  built-in upgrade path to faster clocks and processors. This design
  permits you to replace the processor and the clock oscillator at
  the same time. However, in many cases there's still a limit to how
  fast the main bus can go. In Apple's current models, the upper
  limit is 50 MHz; Power Computing's PowerTowers go to 60 MHz. This
  doesn't mean that daughter card upgrades won't be worthwhile for
  these machines, but rather that they won't improve the performance
  of every aspect of the system beyond a certain point.

  Similarly, upgrade cards for from vendors like Apple and DayStar
  for earlier Mac models (from the IIci through the Quadra series)
  should be evaluated not only on the basis of the promised clock
  speed of the PowerPC chip, but also in terms of the performance
  constraints imposed by other hardware. In many cases, these cards
  must traverse a comparatively slow, narrow bus to get data from
  disks, ports, other devices, and/or RAM, yielding real-world
  performance levels considerably lower than Power Macs with
  equivalent processor speeds. Though these upgrades might be
  adequate for being able to run PowerPC code, they're rarely
  equivalent to the performance of a used Power Mac and often cost
  just as much.

…Power Macs achieve their high processor speeds by
  using clock multipliers built into their PowerPC processors,
  allowing the chips to run faster than the machine's clock
  oscillator. There's no question this improves performance, but
  there are limits to how much bang-for-the-buck this technique will
  produce. There's a real performance difference between a 120 MHz
  machine using a 6x clock multiplier on 20 MHz bus and a 120 MHz
  machine using a 2x clock multiplier on a 60 MHz bus. Though both
  machines would function, the first machine will take much more
  time to access disks, networks, memory, and peripheral cards than
  the second machine. Even though they'd be roughly equivalent in
  terms of raw processor performance, the first machine is going to
  spend more of its processor cycles waiting for its hardware.

•new version of TypeIt4M
 <http://www.hebel.net/~rettore/>

•QuickTime 2.5 Out
[some time in July, that’s all I know]

•New Machines from Power Computing
In late July, Power Computing will release a trio of new Mac OS machines, including
     the PowerTower Pro 225, which will feature a 225-Mhz
     PowerPC 604e processor

•Plug-ins plug-ins everywhere!
Now that WebStar supports third party 
plug-ins, MacWEEK will maintain an index of all available (and soon to be 
available) Web server plug-ins. Just like our Netscape plug-ins page, the 
WebStar plug-ins page can be found at:
WWW: http://www.macweek.com/server_plugins.html

•Keep up with the Mac market
The MacWEEK index is updated each month with 
the best-selling Mac products. It can be found both on CIS and on the Web:
WWW: http://www.macweek.com/mw_1027/extra_top_sellers.html

•RAM Doubler 2 Coming
 Connectix has announced that it
  expects to ship RAM Doubler 2 in time for Macworld Boston this
  August. Among other changes, RAM Doubler 2 will offer a control
  panel interface, a faster compression engine, and allow users to
  triple the amount of memory your Macintosh thinks it has
  available. Rebates on RAM Doubler 2 will be available for current
  users; free upgrades will be available for very recent purchasers. Otherwise, registered users will get a $25.00 rebate coupon. [GD]
<http://www.connectix.com/connect/RPM.html>

•Retrospect 3.0A Updater
Dantz has finally released the 3.0A
  update to its popular backup program Retrospect. The new version
  adds support for Windows Remotes, using
  TCP/IP and Open Transport to communicate with them. Now supports Sony
  DAT drives with older firmware and the ability to format 8mm
  Exabyte tapes. Corrects problems including
  troubles relating to RAM; better support for Arabic, Hebrew, and
  Chinese characters; and a fix to seeing spurious volumes on Novell
  servers. RAM Doubler users should note that 3.0A improves
  compatibility with RAM Doubler, and that Dantz recommends that you
  use version 1.6.2 or later with System 7.5.3. You can download the
  1.6 MB updater file from Dantz's Web or FTP site, but be aware
  that both sites are pretty busy right now. [ACE]
<http://www.dantz.com/retro_30A_updater.html>
<ftp://ftp.dantz.com/pub/updates/Retrospect_30A_Updater.sit.hqx>

•MacHTTP ‘Mandatory Update’
 Chuck Shotton <cshotton@biap.com>, author of the shareware MacHTTP and its commercial version,
  WebSTAR, has released what he calls an "important, mandatory
  update" to correct a potential security problem with MacHTTP 2.2
  and earlier versions. In certain rare circumstances, this problem
  could allow unauthorized access to files on your server. You should
  download the complete MacHTTP 2.2 distribution from StarNine's Web
  site and then update it with the patch application.
<http://www.starnine.com/machttp/machttpsoft.html/>

•Microsoft MacIntosh Empowerment Pack
Registered users of Microsoft's Excel 5, PowerPoint 4, Word 6, or
  Office 4 should keep an eye on their mail for a free CD-ROM,
  called the Microsoft Empowerment Pack for the Macintosh. The CD
  includes both the System 7.5 Update 2.0 (which updates System 7.5,
  7.5.1, or 7.5.2 to version 7.5.3; see TidBITS-318_) and System
  7.5.3 Revision 2 (which should be used on some computers running
  System 7.5; see TidBITS-332_). According to Microsoft, System
  7.5.3 makes Office applications launch faster.
 The CD also offers the Word 6.0.1a update, Internet Explorer
  2.0.1, a collection of cached Web sites, Internet Assistant for
  Word and Excel, an offer for a discount on RAM from Kingston, and
  more.
 Registered Microsoft Office 3 users (or people owning individual
  applications that comprise Office 3) will receive a mail-in card
  that they can send in order to acquire the CD, or they can call
  800/469-6520, department MCA. Unfortunately, the CD only contains
  English language versions of Microsoft software, and Microsoft
  does not currently have plans to offer it outside the United
  States or to create non-English language versions.
The  Empowerment Pack uses Internet Explorer to run its installation
  system, so don't be startled!
If you are using Word 6.0, you almost certainly want to [also] run the
  updater in order to take advantage of the many fixes version 6.01
  offers. (<http://www.microsoft.com/kb/deskapps/word/q129242.htm>)
<http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/press/1996/jul96/macpckpr.htm>

•Claris OfficeMail Debuts
<http://www.claris.com/products/ClarisOfficeMail/>
 The $299 OfficeMail is a LAN email server that supports SMTP and
  POP, the main ways of sending and receiving Internet email, and
  claims to be easy to set up, with three steps for internal use and
  an additional three steps if you want to send and receive Internet
  email.
 OfficeMail requires a
  68020 or higher, with 4 MB of RAM for a 68K Mac and 8 MB for a
  Power Mac.
By using UUCP and tying OfficeMail to a specific Internet
  provider, Claris removed the complexity of dealing with TCP and
  potentially PPP, both of which can prove troublesome for novices
  to set up, particularly without sufficient documentation.
In the process, Claris also opted _against_ making OfficeMail a
  full SMTP server, something that's not clear from Claris's
  propaganda about the program.
But in
  an undocumented feature, you can use, or at least try to use, any
  UUCP account with any Internet provider. Claris doesn't advertise
  or document this feature because setting up a UUCP email
  connection isn't easy.

•Keeping Robots Out of Your Corner of the Net
Search engines on the web [like Yahoo, etc.] acquire much of their
  information through robots. Also known as spiders or crawlers,
  robots traverse the Web, looking for and recording information.
  Robots typically start with URLs that seem like a reasonable
  starting spot, such as a URL submitted by a user, a page having
  lots of links, or the top level of a site. A robot accesses the
  initial page and then recursively accesses all pages linked to
  from that page.
Conventions exist to keep robots out of specially-marked
  Web pages or news postings, though whether individual robots
  comply to these standards is purely voluntary. So far, mainstream
  searching engines appear to respect these conventions.
Using the Robots Exclusion
  Protocol, you can ask robots to ignore Web pages that you don't
  want indexed. You place a robots.txt file on the
  local root level of a Web site. Using a specific syntax, this file
  tells robots that they should keep out of certain (or all)
  sections of the server. [See]… the World Wide Web Robots, Wanderers, and
  Spiders page:
<http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/robots.html>
If you don't have enough control over your server to set up a
  robots.txt file, you can try adding a META tag to the head section
  of an HTML document. For instance, a tag like this:

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX">

  tells robots not to index that particular page. Or, a tag like
  this:

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOFOLLOW">

  tells robots not to follow links on the page. Support for the META
  tag among robots is more sporadic than the Robots Exclusion
  Protocol, although most of major Web indexes currently support it.
  Information on the robot META tag can be found in the Spidering
  BOF (Birds of a Feather) Report:
<http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Search/9605-Indexing-Workshop/
ReportOutcomes/Spidering.txt>
For your Usenet news postings, you can create an "X-no-archive" line
  in of your postings' headers: “X-no-archive: yes”. Some groups may 
 not allow this, but at least one engine, Deja News, will ignore your posting if
  you make the following text the first line of text in the body of
  your message: “X-no-archive: yes”. In addition, if you inquire personally,
 Deja News will remove your  posts from their archive; to ask, send email to
  <comment@dejanews.com>.
If you're highly concerned about the privacy of your email and
  Usenet postings, check out anonymous remailers and PGP, a
  controversial strong encryption program from Phil Zimmerman. Both
  topics are beyond the scope of this article.
<http://www.well.com/user/abacard/remail.html>
<http://www.io.com/~combs/htmls/crypto.html>
<http://world.std.com/~franl/pgp/>

•Apple Finances in Detail
CUPERTINO, California--July 17, 1996--Apple Computer, Inc. today 
announced financial results for the quarter ending June 28, 1996. The 
Company recorded a quarterly net loss of $32 million, or a loss of $.26 
per share, compared to net earnings of $103 million, or $.84 per share, 
in the prior year quarter. The quarterly loss represents a $708 million 
sequential improvement from the $740 million net loss incurred during the 
Company's second fiscal quarter ending March 29, 1996.

Included in the quarterly results was a one-time after-tax gain of 
approximately $39 million on the sale of the Company's investment in 
America Online.

Revenues for the quarter were $2.179 billion, a 15 percent decrease from 
the year ago quarter but approximately equal to the $2.185 billion 
reported in the March 1996 quarter. Gross margins were 18.5 percent, a 
sequential improvement from the -19.3 percent (or 9 percent before 
inventory valuation and related adjustments) gross margin reported in the 
March 1996 quarter.

The Company continues to execute its 12-month restructuring plan, first 
announced in the second fiscal quarter. During the third quarter, 
headcount decreased from 15,544 to 13,729, primarily in the areas of 
manufacturing and administration. Approximately 1,000 of the headcount 
reduction was related to the sale of the Company's Fountain, Colo. 
manufacturing site which was completed during the quarter. The Company 
also announced the closure of its printed circuit board assembly facility 
in Sacramento, Calif. Operating expenses for the quarter were reduced by 
$35 million to $519 million, or 23.8 percent of revenue, compared to $554 
million (excluding restructuring charges) or 25.4 percent of revenue in 
the March 1996 quarter.

Cash and short term investments at the end of the quarter were $1.359 
billion, a sequential increase of $767 million from the March quarter. 
The Company's cash position was strengthened by a number of factors, 
including the successful completion of long-term financing, sales of 
fixed assets and investments, and improved asset management.

Apple completed the redesign of its organizational structure during the 
quarter and established six new product divisions with full profit and 
loss responsibility. The Company also filled the remaining positions in 
its executive management team, naming Marco Landi Executive Vice 
President and Chief Operating Officer; and Ellen Hancock Executive Vice 
President, Research and Development and Chief Technology Officer.

•Do your own Bar Codes?
Enter a number, and this service will give you a bar code.
http://www.milk.com/barcode/

•Immense Modem Speeds Possible?
From: "Tom Harrington" <tharring@ford.com>
OK, here's my basic understanding of the technology.  One of the biggest
problems on a POTS (that's "Plain Old Telephone Service", for those who
don't know) is line noise.  That's the limiting factor on current modems.
The noise, however, doesn't affect all frequencies equally; some pass
through more or less unaffected, while others see the full effect.  If you
can modulate a signal on a frequency that's unaffected by the noise, you
can get a whole lot more bandwidth.  But, the noise doesn't affect the same
frequencies all the time; it's sort of a moving target.  With DSP analysis
at both ends of the line, though, it's possible to continuously monitor
the noise, and avoid it as it shifts.  This is ADSL.  I believe that
it works up to about 6Mbps over a POTS line.

From: Michael Newbery <Michael.Newbery@vuw.ac.nz>
Well, yes and no. If you buy an ADSL modem and I buy an ADSL modem, we won't be
able to connect any faster. Line noise is only a limiting factor on the tail
circuit from your line to the exchange. Once there, the analogue signal is
sampled by an A-to-D convertor and put onto a digital trunk, the bandwidth of
which is limited to 64kbps. No matter what you do, you can't extract more than
that bandwidth for long line connections. In fact, because of sampling 'noise',
the Shannon equation (which is closely tied to the Second Law of Thermodynamics)
says you can't get much better than about half that even on a line with an
infinite signal to noise ratio (i.e., 33.4kbps modems are where it stops on
current telephone circuits.)
If you throw out the modems and stick to digital all the way, you get ISDN,
which gives you access to the full 64kbps channel (and I won't go into 56kbps
ISDN here), or multiples of this, as multiple channels.
Current ISDN gets 2 x 64 channels, plus a 16kbps signaling channel, on current
copper tails---if they are good quality and not too long. If you hold your mouth
right and choose your pairs right you can get 1-2 Mbps over that same copper,
i.e. a T1 or E1 tail. If you try REALLY hard and use ADSL technology you can get
multiple Mbps over quite ordinary copper, but only as far as the exchange.
POTS has ZERO chance of going above 64kbps. ADSL and its competitors are new
services (unlike ISDN which is just customer access to out of band signalling)
and will no doubt be tariffed accordingly :-)

[Editor - Do I read it right? Newbery does not seem to dispute that ADSL is capable of carrying 6Mbps, but asserts that it is bottle–necked by the phone companies.]

•GeoPort to reach 28.8 Kbps

By Joanna Pearlstein (joanna_pearlstein@macweek.com) (9607)
The GeoPort, Apple's beleaguered high-speed communications port, this fall
may achieve the 28.8-Kbps speeds its users have long sought.
Apple Telecom 3.0, which includes support for 28.8-Kbps connections through
the GeoPort Telecom Adapter, is finished and will ship early this fall as a
free download, Apple said.
However, 28.8-Kbps throughput will require a Power Mac, sources said, and
full 28.8-Kbps connections will be achieved only through clean phone lines.
A forthcoming GeoPort Telecom Adapter II will also add Caller ID support.

•Speed Doubler 1.3
Connectix has released Speed Doubler 1.3,
  a maintenance release containing fixes for Speed Emulator and
  (particularly) Speed Copy. Speed Copy now has improved overall
  performance, better response over slow connections (like ARA),
  compatibility with Asante's NetDoubler, and fixes for a number of
  other interface problems and bugs (such as a crash involving
  copying with an open control panel). Connectix recommends all
  Speed Doubler owners upgrade to version 1.3; updaters are
  available online for free, or registered users can receive the
  updater on a floppy for $10. Connectix -- 415/571-5195
  800/950-5880 [GD]
<http://www.connectix.com/connect/files/SD13U.sea.hqx>
<ftp://ftp.connectix.com/pub/SpeedDoubler/SD13U.sea.hqx>

•HyperCard 2.3.5 Updater
Apple has finally released an
  updater to version 2.3.5 of HyperCard, catching up with the
  previous releases of version 2.3.5 of some HyperCard stacks and
  the HyperCard Player. The update to HyperCard itself fixes
  cosmetic and performance problems, and a long-standing bug with
  saving some colorized stand-alone stacks. Two updaters are
  available: one just for HyperCard, and one for HyperCard and the
  updated stacks. The updated stacks and the HyperCard Player are
  also available separately; the following URL points to the
  directory where all these items can be found. [GD]
<ftp://ftp.support.apple.com/pub/apple_sw_updates/US/mac/utils/>

•Web Paging
Mark/Space Softworks released PageNOW/Web, a Web
  interface to alphanumeric pagers. The $695 PageNOW/Web requires a
  Web server and PageNOW Workgroup or Enterprise Edition, and
  enables anyone to visit a URL, pick a recipient, and type in a
  message to be sent to that recipient's pager. You probably
  wouldn't want to make the access page available to the world, but
  it's a great interface to pagers that users can access from
  anywhere on the Internet.
<http://www.markspace.com/pagenow_web.html>

•Compressing for PC Users
UUencode or some kind of zip compression program is the norm. But now you can use normally stuffit because "Stuffit Expander for Windows" is availiable free at <http://www.aladdinsys.com>
 but UNSTUFF-PC does not handle
password protected archives

•Apple Intranet Plan
Apple is
proposing a new Internet standard, the Meta Content Format (MCF); database and
Web site administrators will be able to describe their data--whether it's in
text files, Web pages, databases, or other forms--in MCF and automatically make
that data available for access through any compliant viewer. This means that
Internet users won't have to use special software to access the different types
of data.

•QuickTime 2.5 Out
Apple recently announced the availability of QuickTime 2.5 for Macintosh, the
newest version of the industry multiplatform standard multimedia software. The
release includes enhancements to the QuickTime Music Architecture (QTMA). In addition to playing music through the
computer's built-in speaker, QuickTime 2.5 can route musical information to
external MIDI devices, effects processors, and drum machines.
http://quicktime.apple.com/

•Developers Promotion Opportunity
Macworld magazine's new Web Explorer Virtual Expo CD, set to debut in the
magazine's December 1996 issue, provides a new way to market your products.
Cosponsored by Apple Developer Relations, the CD will include the Macintosh
Product Registry, a Web-based list maintained by Apple Computer.
http://devworld.apple.com/mkt/thirdparty.html

•Apple Video–Conferencing Bundles
Apple Computer said it will include Farallon's Timbuktu Pro
(Macintosh version 2.0) with the next release of the QuickTime Conferencing Kit
and bundle Farallon's Look@Me applet and Web browser plug-in with the next
version of Apple's Internet Connection Kit. 
You can download the Look@Me free stand-alone applet and plug-in from
Farallon's Web site:
http://www.farallon.com

•Motorola Offers PowerPC Performance Enhancement, Development Tools
The Motorola RISC Microprocessor Division recently posted the Motorola LIBMOTO
for Mac OS math library at its Web site, and you can download it for free.
LIBMOTO is a highly optimized memory, string, and math library that replaces
several commonly used functions provided by the standard C library. Many
PowerPC processor-based Mac OS systems experience significant performance gains
for some operations when using this library. Additionally, Motorola provides
its own PowerPC software development kit (SDK), which features native PowerPC
compilers for Metrowerks CodeWarrior, Symantec Project Manager, and MPW IDEs.
http://www.mot.com/SPS/PowerPC/library/fact_sheet/libmoto.html

•Checking Apple's Stock Price
<http://www.nasdaq.com/scripts/html3/FQuote.idc?symname=AAPL>
[presumably, you can substitute other ticker codes for AAPL]

•User Reports Problems with Netscape ToolVox plugin

•How to open a local HTML file in CyberDog?
Under the Cyberdog menu, go to "Connect To" and enter the URL
using the form: <file:///Macintosh HD/folder/sub-folder/file.html>,
noting the use of three slashes after the colon.
Aaron D. Ruiz,  <adruiz@indirect.com

•Microsoft's Java Plans
According to Microsoft's web site, all Java objects will become COM objects
whose methods can be invoked and that can be instantiated by any other
COM-compliant language.  Thus, you can instantiate a Java object within C++
and call its methods that way.

•Crossing Networks
The Apple LocalTalk Bridge software will allow the two networks to merge
into a single one. Run it on one Mac connected via Ethernet and LocalTalk
and that Mac will 'splice' the two networks into one, showing all AppleTalk
devices: printers, desktops, what have you, in the chooser window. It's
about a hundred bucks (or was, anyways).
http://product.info.apple.com/productinfo/datasheets/ss/localtalkbridge.html
http://www.support.apple.com/pub/apple_sw_updates/Worldwide/Macintosh/Unsupp
orted/ZM-LW-LocalTalk_Bridge2.1f2.hqx
Paul D.Fieber
Phone:  604.666.8176    Fax:  604.666.1140    eMail:  fieberp@norvan.bc.doe.ca

The free Laserwriter Bridge from Apple works if you just want to see the Laserwriters. However, we found that it disrupted the rest of the LocalTalk Network. As soon as it was on, the LocalTalk computers could no longer see each other.
Both Bridges are, as I understand it, software routers. I understand hardware routers are available, faster, more reliable, and more expensive.
However, I recently switched to OpenTransport. I was pleased to see that I could still communicate with the other computer (IIci) which was still on 'Classic Networking', and still see the Laserwriter, courtesy of Laserwriter Bridge. However, when I switched the IIci to OpenTransport, it could no longer see the Laserwriter, period. Surely no bridge should be required when it is connected to the printer port. Anyway, the Bridge was on!
Your Editor

Apple Sells the "Apple IP Gateway" to route an appletalk network to an tcp/ip ethernet
network.
Steve Wilson                    MBIM, College of Medicine
http://microvet.arizona.edu/instructors/wilson/wilsonIndex.html
AKA: Micro/VetSci NetManager    520-621-8941 phone

But [ "Apple IP Gateway" ] doesn't support *true* dyamic I.P. assignment, while the Windows NT
product we use does. We have approx. 20 Windoze machines running off of TWO of our meager 25
I.P. addresses -- all thru an NT gateway that assigns I.P.'s to the
machines only long enough to grab a Web page, download email, etc..
 Tim McLain
 Email: tmc@classroom.net
 URL: http://www.classroom.net

This [super dynamic addressing] is VERY dangerous when it comes to implementing tricks on the other end
of the network.  Many things in the world depend on the "static" nature of
addresses, and whilet his may not be perfect, it is the way it is done.
Honestly, the better
decision is DHCP (which NT can use, as can OpenTransport), which allows one
to "lease" an address for some pre-defined period of time.  This works well
overal.  The problem with redefining addresses all the time is that it
confuses the network and makes diagnostics nearly impossible (I've had to
deal with networks like this, esp. from as ecurity perspective).
| Christopher G. Petrilli
| petrilli@amber.org

Internet Gateway, from Vicom Technologies acts as a Proxy Server for your
internet network.  (So you can have whatever IP Addresses you want, so long
as you have one real one for the server)…They even have a DHCP version, which dynamically
allocates IP addresses to the computers on your network.
The demo version which you can download from their website is fully
functional for a couple of weeks.
http://www.vicomtech.com/
Todd K
tkennedy@ls.barrhead.ab.ca

Sonic Ethernet cards and Sonic's Open Transport updated control panel allowed us to daisy-chain up to 8 (I think) localtalk devices -- computers or printers -- off of the host Mac with the Sonic card.  But, I think their control panel only works with their card.  I think Sonic also sells software like this (it was about $50-$100), but we only needed to hook up localtalk printers so we used Apple's LaserwriterBridge software.  
http://www.fse-power.com         sales@fse-power.com         1-800-276-9378

PortShare Pro" by Stalker software allows any serial port, including additional ports such as Quadralink
AE or Hustler or Hurdler by Creative solutions, to be available to any Mac on
any network, zoned or not.  Works well for modem pool.  Some issues with
faxing is a concern though.
   Paul Galati
pgalati@mware.com
<http://www.stalker.com/>  from Fosh Australia, or you can order direct
from Stalker Software, +1-415-383-7164, fax +1-415-383-7461, e-mail:
sales@stalker.com. The US price is $499 for a site license, $149 for
10 users. Shipping to AU is $24 (EMS).

LineShare, also from Stalker, purports to distinguish and route incoming calls to the appropriate program for email, voice, fax, and ARA by setting up virtual modems that direct traffic to the 
actual hardware when requested. This allows one phone line to be used for all. [heavily edited]
For information, installation instructions and non-expiring demo,
please visit our Web site: <http://www.stalker.com/LineShare/LineShare.html>
Vladimir_Butenko@stalker.com (Vladimir Butenko, Stalker Software, Inc.)

There are some modems, such as Supra, that have a feature called Silent
Answer which allows your modem to automactically distinguish between voice,
fax and data. n
addition to Silent Answer there is Silent Answer Plus (optional feature
#154) and Adaptive Answer. To turn Silent Answer Plus on, give the command
AT+FAE=$ for Class 1 faxes or AT+FAA=4 for Class 2 faxes. To set up
Adaptive Answer for Class 1 faxes, use the command AT+FAE=1. For Class 2
faxes, use the command AT+FAA=1. To operate effectively, your modem needs
to be reset with ATZ between each call. A sample initialization string
might look like this:
ATZ
AT&F2+FAE=1
mcmeyer@tiac.net (Michael C. Meyer)

>Anyone know of a software solution that will permit Mac users to access
>files residing on a PC running Win95? All systems are running TCP/IP and
>connected via Ethernet 10base-T. Ideally we are looking for a solution that
>allows Mac users to mount the shared Win95 folders (achieving a Mac to
>Win95 peer-to peer networking connection), but will entertain other less
>elegant alternatives.
you want a program called MACLAN connect V5.5 (i believe is the latest). 
This is  a very good program I have seen it in use....
Joshua H. Hirschman MACnTAZ@aol.com

I have used Look@Me and found it's really cool.
I installed it in both Macintosh and Win95 PC, and I could see one's complete desktop from the other.
When I used MS-Word on PC, the PC desktop on Macintosh was redrew almost simultaneously.
It's a freeware, just try it:
        <http://collaborate.farallon.com/www/look/ldownload.html>
Wataru Kitayama E-mail: watz@tau.bekkoame.or.jp
 Homepage: http://www.bekkoame.or.jp/~watz

•Weird, perhaps useful Keyboard idea
Various users say they have hooked up multiple keyboards to a single mac. Uses might include collaboration, communication for the hearing impaired, multi–player games, etc.

•Chooser Trivia (?)
Whenever the Chooser is open, update packets 
are sent every 10 seconds.  This can create really large overhead in your 
IP packets and a bandwidth nightmare if you're not careful.
Grant Hartline
granth@tahc.state.tx.us

• FreePPP 2.5rf problem with verbose terminal servers including the Annex server.
The verbose-ness comes from how the
provider builds the menu that you see when first connecting to the terminal
server using something like ZTerm.  Of course you don't see this using PPP
because it is an automatic processes  -- but the extra characters sent out
seem to confuse PPP2.5rf in executing the login script and it just hangs and
then times out.   This only happenes on some providers  -- but it isn't their
fault.  There is a special Beta version later than 2.5rf that seems to fix this
problem in my brief test.   The best solution is to drop back to FreePPP 1.0.5
untill the new non-Beta version appears.
Wayne Yarnall, W7KRB                      yarnall@peak.org

•stand-alone PC Card reader?
Newer Technology manufactures PC Card readers for the PowerBook Duo in the 
form of a Mini-Dock.  Unknown if they have something that would connect to a desktop Mac 
(presumably thru SCSI). They're at http://www.newertech.com.

•Ad for CPU Doubler
CPU Doubler is a "software only" performance enhancement utility for the 
Macintosh. It will increase the performance and responsiveness of your 
computer by as much as 100%. This will result in a faster computer, 
making the computer more efficient in running all of your applications.

CPU Doubler achieves this performance enhancement by properly managing 
the computer's throughput. Throughput is defined by the amount of time 
the processor spends executing process instructions. Most Macintosh 
computers have multiple processes running most of the time. Even if the 
user starts up only one process, such as a word processor, there are 
other hidden processes running. Even the Finder takes up CPU cycles. All 
these CPU cycles add up and slow down the overall performance of the 
computer.

CPU Doubler increases the computer's throughput via a proprietary 
scheduling algorithm. System 7 has a fairly simple scheduling algorithm 
which gives equal time to each process. There is no sophisticated load 
management scheduling that tries to optimize system performance by 
adjusting the amount of time each process gets. CPU Doubler adds this 
feature.

CPU Doubler also lets users customize performance to fit their needs. By 
setting individual process priorities, users can perform their own load 
balancing, finally giving users the ability of "job control" found in 
other multitasking operating systems such as UNIX and OS/2. There is even 
a history feature with which to set priorities of non-running 
applications so that future use will yield the desired result.

CPU Doubler requires system 7 or higher to run, and works on either a 
Power PC or a 68K Macintosh, giving the same improved performance on 
both. It is available now from Orchard Software, Inc. for a special 
introductory price of $47.95, a 40% savings from its $79.95 retail price. 
An additional $3 shipping charge (overseas shipping is $7) must be added. 
MA residents must add 5% sales tax.

CPU Doubler also includes with it a free copy of Cron Manager, our 
chronological event management utility, which retails for $26.95.

For more information please contact us by email, via regular mail, or 
call us. To order CPU Doubler, please send a check or money order made 
payable to: Orchard Software, Inc.

Orchard Software, Inc.
P.O. Box 380814
Cambridge, MA 02238-0814

phone: (617) 876-4608
email: <102670.1653@compuserve.com>

•Thunder 7's New Identity as SpellCatcher
Spell Catcher The long-awaited update to former Thunder 7. This program 
is a spell-checker, thesaurus, glossary and work-saver in one. Spell 
Catcher works within all Macintosh programs, even e-mail and Netscape 
Navigator. (Casady & Greene)

•TidBits has a Daughter, DealBits
DealBITS is a twice-monthly electronic publication devoted to spreading 
the word about great deals on all sorts of hardware, software, books, 
etc. -- targeted at a general Macintosh audience. The only ads that run 
in DealBITS are geared directly toward Mac and Internet users. And not 
just anyone can get these deals.
<http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/>
To join the subscription list, so that twice each month the new issue of 
DealBITS will be e-mailed to you, send e-mail to 
<mailto:dealbits-on@tidbits.com>. You can receive just the current issue 
by sending e-mail to <mailto:dealbits@tidbits.com>.
You may already know TidBITS, a six-year-old, free, weekly, electronic 
publication that reports on the Macintosh and the Internet. DealBITS is 
its daughter publication, and is run and edited by the same people.
To find out more about TidBITS, see its home page at:
<http://www.tidbits.com/>
If you have any questions, or would like to find out about advertising in 
DealBITS, send e-mail to <dealbits-admin@tidbits.com>.

•Merchant Credit Card Processing
MacAuthorize, by Tellan software
http://www.tellan.com

•Internet Configuration Tip
If you use Internet Configuration System and an email client that 
supports it, you can command click on the email address of the originator 
and a new email is addressed to the orginator.

•Series of Macintosh keyboard overlays for:
   A-10 Attack!
   A-10 Weapons Load Chart
   Chuck Yeager's Air Combat
   Dogfight City
   Hellcats/Leyte Gulf
   F/A-18 Hornet 2.0
   Falcon MC
   Flight Simulator 4.0
   Flight Unlimited
   WarBirds
   WarBirds Maps
available free for downloading at:
http://www.fairmont.wvnet.edu/www/webteam/bob/overlays/overlays.html

•EMail to Fax Services
<http://www.visioneer.com> - Windows Only
<http://www.tpc.int>
<http://www.faxscape.com>)

And a variant. This one grabs your faxes and shunts them to your email:
The company is JFAX. You are issued a fax number in one of several major cities around the 
world, including London, New York, San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and 
faxes sent to that number are redirected to your email as a TIFF MIME 
enclosure within minutes
 http://www.jfax.co.uk

•Complete Conflict Compendium!
The address to this Vancouver database's search form is:
http://www.quillserv.com/www/c3/query.html

•Netscape News Tip
Netscape provides no way to change the order in which newsgroups 
are displayed within the program, there is still a way: edit their order in
your newsrc file.  I've used this method successfully in v1.1 on the Mac and v2.x on the PC.  
Katherine Greene                            kathg@netcom.com

•Canadian CA's Mac Accounting Page
http://www.mlink.net/~michelc/MACcounting/MACcounting.HTML>
This site is still under development so any info suggestion are welcome
Michel Contant chartered acountant Montreal, Quebec
michelc@mlink.net

•Obtaining Ethernet Address for/with Applescript
There is an XCMD on the OpenTransport CD that does this (sample
code), so you could use the XCMD->OSAX link from Ed Lai to run it.
Leonard Rosenthol                    Internet:       leonardr@aladdinsys.com

•Open Transport conflict with PPC603-based Macs
Apple has identified the problem with Open Transport on PPC603-based
Macs; you can have it fixed free as part of Apple's Repair Extension
Program. Thus, Open Transport 1.1.1, which will be released in a few
weeks, will now run on those 'repaired' Macs as well as fix other
underlying bugs
Aaron  Visit my web site at <http://www.indirect.com/www/adruiz/>.

•Competition for OpenDoc
PCWeek <http://www.pcweek.com> has an article about Microsoft making
ActiveX an open standard.
  "Microsoft Corp. announced today that it would turn over its ActiveX
   and COM technologies to an independent standards body consisting of
   customers, ISVs and platform vendors.
[...]
   The technology to be turned over to the group includes Microsoft's COM
   (Component Object Model) and DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model)
   architectures, which form the core of the Windows object architecture."

•Applescript for Clean Desktop Rebuild
set vols to list disks
repeat with v in vols
    -- ignore errors from CDs, Mail Enclosures and more
    try
        moveFile file (v & ":Desktop DB") to v & ":Trash"
        moveFile file (v & ":Desktop DF") to v & ":Trash"
    on error
    end try
    -- kill System 6 desktop files too
    try
        moveFile file (v & ":Desktop") to v & ":Trash"
    on error
    end try
end repeat
if (keys pressed) contains "option" then
    -- if you prefer to quit (with option key)
    tell application "Finder" to quit
else
    -- I prefer to restart (no option key)
    tell application "Finder" to restart
end if

•Source Code to MacApp
It'll be on the web, too, (free!) starting (hopefully!) next 
week. Check http://www.devtools.apple.com/frameworks/macapp.
Geoffrey Clapp          Apple Computer, Inc.
OpenDoc Engineering     geoff.clapp@apple.com

•Inside MacIntosh Now Available in HTML format (and how)
<http://devworld.apple.com/dev/insidemac.shtml>
Dan Peterson <danp@apple.com>
It was done with Harlequin's software "Webmaker". It converts Framemaker
source to such nice HTML documents. [That is why such a big project came out all at once. See
http://www.harlequin.com/

•CyberDog 1.1 Beta
Just in time to fuel the OpenDoc fires at
  Macworld Expo next week, Apple has released a beta of CyberDog
  1.1, this time for both 68K and PowerPC Macs. Apple is quick to
  point out that this is a beta with known problems, but the release
  also features AppleTalk browsing, numerous interface changes
  (including reverting OpenDoc's Document menu back to File),
  improvements to DocBuilder, and a unifying CyberDog application
  that launches all CyberDog documents in one session. The release
  weighs in at about 3.5 MB; please note CyberDog 1.1 requires
  OpenDoc 1.1 (which offers a number of speed improvements and
  weighs in at about 2.8 MB). [GD]
<http://www.cyberdog.apple.com/beta/index.html>
<ftp://cyberdog.apple.com/pub/beta/>

•Let People Run Your Hypercard Stack over the Internet
  LiveCard is a bidirectional gateway between a HyperCard stack and
  a Macintosh Web server. Largely the brain-child of Eric Oesterle,
  a long-time HyperCard and multimedia guru, LiveCard publishes
  HyperCard stacks directly on the Web, using the HyperCard
  application as a CGI (Common Gateway Interface) - just drop the
  stacks into your server folder, and LiveCard does the rest.
  LiveCard does _not_ require a browser plug-in - realistically, all
  a user needs is a browser that can display HTML forms and JPEG
  graphics.
  Using HyperCard or another Mac scripting system as a CGI engine is
  nothing new - HyperCard, Frontier, and AppleScript users and
  others have been doing it since the earliest days of Mac-based Web
  servers. What's new about LiveCard is its ability to put HyperCard
  content directly on the Web without modification.
http://www.heizer.com/livecard.html>

•Assistants in System 8
For Mac OS 8 we are planning to deliver an interview engine that will 
make it possible to build assistants using AppleScript. In the meantime, 
you are more than welcome (and even encouraged) to build assistants using 
such tools as FaceSpan, or any programming language of your choice. We 
felt it was important for us to deliver human interface guidelines early 
so that a consistent user experience could be implemented, and that's why 
we chose to publish the article before all the tools we want to make 
available are ready.
Arno                    arno@apple.com

•Shortcut in Netscape 3.0 (out in Beta only)
It can guess common style URLs. If you want to find Apple's web site
you do not have to type in http://www.apple.com. Instead, type in
"apple" and press return.

•Getting List of Running Processes in Applescript
"set process_list to every process"
process_list will now contain a list of all running processes in the format
{application "appname1", application "appname2"...}

To be more specific, indicate what you want to know about the process, as follows:
        set signature_list to creator type of every process
        set process_list to name of every process

If you just want to see if a particular application is running, the following will set the variable apprunning to true or false:
"set appRunning to ("FileMaker Pro" is in name of processes)"

•Writing Distribution Material For Windows
With ProView 2.0, one simple command allows you to create a ProViewer for 
Windows DIRECTLY ON YOUR MACINTOSH!
Robert Rosenbaum President, E-magine
Visit our site at: http://www.e-magine.com

•BatteryAmnesia 1.4.0b
BatteryAmnesia, formerly known as DeepDischarge, will safely and
  effectively run down the battery on any PowerBook that uses a
  NiCad or NiMH battery. It bypasses the normal warnings when the
  battery runs low and runs it until a hardware shutdown is forced
  because of low power. Apple recommends doing this once a month.
  Version 1.4.0b updates registration information. Shareware $10.
  127K.
Type its name in the search box at the top of the main MacUser Software
  Central Page: <http://www.zdnet.com/macuser/software/>.

•Sextuple Your Ram (if you dare!)
MaxRAM is a $5 shareware program that works in conjunction with Connectix RAM Doubler 1.6 on Macs and PowerMacs, allowing you to have SIX times as much memory.
To use MaxRAM, simply drop it in your System Folder (NOT the Extensions folder) and Restart your Macintosh. Please make sure 32-bit Addressing is turned on in the Memory control panel. Don’t forget to pay your shareware fee. :-)
Spencer Low
LowTek Creations
130 Windward Court
Vallejo, CA 94591
United States of America
http://www.crl.com/~spencerl/ 
[Editor - he says it was formerly configurable to various ram multiples up to 6. He removed that since the speed hit doesn't depend on the setting, only on the amount actually used. If you have the guts to try this, let me know the results!]

•RemoteMouse&Keys
This weird little utility permits you to use your mouse and keyboard on another computer, connected by AppleTalk, on whatever type of cabling. Evidently, you move the mouse off one side of your screen and it appears on the other. Select an insertion point and type. Since your monitor doesn't display the other computer's monitor (Timbuktu would do so), you would have to be physically near. However, if you are setting up a server, you can save the cost of a keyboard and mouse. Sorry, no URL.

•MacUser Utility of the Month (URL management)
SiteSeer plugs into Netscape or Mosaic or Explorer and keeps track of every site you visit, creating simple dragNDrop aware windows for your bookmarks. Can drag between windows, finder, clipboard or browser.
http://www.zdnet.com/macuser/ (search for siteseer)

•OpenDoc Word Processor Coming Soon
Digital Harbour, a start–up company founded by former WordPerfect employees plans to introduce Opal, an OpenDoc word processing editor, for about $100. It won't do styles, but will have rulers, headers, footers, RTF, and text–wrap around objects. Try the Internet, or 801-796-8213. This will be followed by Jade, a full–featured word processor, scheduled to come out in 1997, and presumably support openDoc.
•Sorry, that’s all the time I have.

•Web author utilities - SiteCheck
SiteCheck will verify all hypertext links on your web site remotely. $79.95.
SiteEdit is a server based utility to update information on your web–site without FTP.
Pacific Coast Software. 619-675-1106
http://www.pacific-coast.com/

•QuicKeys Upgrade to 3.5
Everybody loves this macro/scripting thing. 3.5 is out at $119US. CE Software - 800-523-7638
http://www.cesoft.com

•Web server utility from Apple - WebFinder
It is an Asynchronous Common Gateway Interface (ACGI), showing web pages in file directories much like the Finder. The user may click on files, and Web–Finder will convert it on the fly (e.g., text files to HTML, launching plug–ins if available), and permitting the server to set access privileges through Apple File Sharing. It is running on Apple's Cybertech web site (http://cybertech.apple.com) and will be supplied free. Eventually.

•MacPPP 2.5 is out
Yes, but Apple only supports it, like we care, if you buy it as part of the Internet Connection Kit ($49US).

•Patch for AppleSearch Server
Version 1.5.1 update is available for those using OpenTransport. It enables Wide Area Information Server functionality with OpenTransport, whatever that is.

•MacUser gives Iomega Jazz Drives 4.5 mice
Everybody loves Iomega Zip Drives. The Jazz drives are more than 3 times as fast, now the fastest in the removable media drives. Cartridges carry 1 Gb, and cost under $100 US. The cables are still queer.

•Now Utilities 6.0 out
Love it or hate it, v.6.0 is out, for $89US. It now offers Now Shortcuts, which supports some macro function, including macro plug–ins. It also offers Now Auto Type, which competes with Thunder 7, monitoring your typing to access a glossary. A nice feature is that it will suggest a glossary entry if you repeatedly type the same thing. It adds Now Tabs, which puts something like a control stip along the bottom of the window.
1-800-274-0670
http://www.nowsoft.com

•Your Beloved Editor finds Conflict
Using system 7.5.3, with Stuffit SpaceSaver and Now Utilities Super Boomerang, will result in frequent hangs when your computer is accessed over a network, especially when folders with lots of compressed files are accessed.

•Font Organizers updated.
Suitcase 3.0 is out (PPC native). It creates 'sets' of fonts and things, for various purposes/applications/users. It is now AppleScript aware.

•CGI explanation
Common Gateway Interface applications run on the web server. Then, the HTML commands in the web pages can instruct the web browser to send messages to the CGIAs which can then do calculations. For instance, a common use is image–map processing, so that a single web–page graphic element can contain multiple hot spots. A click anywhere on the graphic will tell the browser to send the click's location to the CGIA, which can then retrieve the appropriate HTML page. Another application for CGIAs is any sort of database access, especially searching. Every one is a potential security and stability risk. Several organizations offer tutorials and collections:
http://www.comvista.com/net - tutorials and links to mac tools
http://www.ape.com/webstar - mac evangelism site
http://arpp1.carleton.ca/mac/ - Comprehensive FAQs
http://www.webedge.com/resources/ - resource collection from semi–annual mac Web Development Conference.
http://web66.coled.umn.edu - resources and tutorials geared toward educators

•Web Browser Plug–Ins
You put these files in the same folder as your browser, and they let you view files within the browser window (as opposed to helper applications which the browser just starts up for you). For instance, there are  Adobe Acrobat PDF (Portable Document Format) readers such as Tumbleweed Software's Envoy (http://www.twcorp.com/plugin.htm) and Adobe's Acrobat Amber (http://www.adobe.com/Amber/), or video players like MacroMedia's Shockwave (http://www.macromedia.com/tools/Shockwave/sdc/Plugin/), or sound players like Networks' RealAudio (http://www.realaudio.com/products/ra2.0/) or MVP Solutions' Talker (http://www.mvpsolutions.com/PlugInSite/Talker.html).
An overall list is at:
http://www.browserwatch.com/plug–in.html
A Mac specific list is at:
http://www.zdnet.com/macweek/plugins.html

•OpenTransport Explanation
It is PowerPC native. It is essential on PCI macs, but not compatible on 68000 or 68020 Macs.
It replaces the weird Network and MacTCP control panels with a single, simple, TCP/IP control panel.
Whenever you install a network service, such as PPP or SLIP or Ethernet or AppleTalk (MacIP), it automatically appears as an option in the TCP/IP control panel pop–up menu.
You can change your configuration without restarting. For instance, my office uses Ethernet, but when I bring my PowerBook, it can only connect over LocalTalk cables, so I can switch on the fly.
It can cost a lot of RAM (1.5 mb on a PPC) though you can disable unused protocols to save memory (but defeat its purpose).
You can save/duplicate/export/import configurations.

•MacUser Floppy Tip
Look for brands that offer a protective resin layer such as Kodak and Mitsui/MTC.

•Control Stip Tip
Press option when you select the tab. Now you can move it vertically and/or to the other side of the screen.

•MacUser gives 5 mice to Microsoft Cinemania 96
This CDROM about movies gets 5 stars.

•Movie Database
http://www.msstate.edu/Movies/

•TVLand
http://www.tvland.com/
http://www.symantec.com
theFONDler 4.0 is out. It can diagnose font corruption and conflicts!
http://www.rascalsoft.com
FontBox collects, corrects, and organizes your fonts.
http://www.theinside.com

•MacUser prefers Microsoft Explorer to Netscape
In their July 1996 review, MacUser gave the edge to Explorer. It is the only other browser to support plug–ins. The differences were as follows: Explorer handles background sounds, colored cells in tables, has built–in quickTime & AVI and a VRML (virtual reality markup language) browser, dragNDrop Bookmarks, and supports Internet Config.
Netscape offers frames, javascript support, download status windows (permitting better work in the background), and email receiving. Neither displays FTP in a finder–like way, as Apple's CyberDog does. Both are annoyingly unstable, especially using plug–ins. Explorer 3.0 will support Microsoft's new plug–in standard, ActiveX.

•OpenDoc Java viewer
ResNova has demonstrated a prototype OpenDoc part that can view Java applets (thereby offering that capability to Cyberdog).

•MacUser reports on CyberDog
The July 1996 issue contains an interesting article on Cyberdog, the web–browsing demo of OpenDoc, the vaunted component–software standard. Oddly, launching OpenDoc and opening the CyberDog Starting Point document caused the system to grab 5 mb of RAM, and then another 1 mb to open a browser window, and another 500 kb to open CyberDog's Notebook.

•How many Newtons does it take to change a lightbulb?
Foux! There to eat lemons, axe gravy soup!

•From: "New Apple Software Updates" <swupdates@thing1.info.apple.com>
LaserWriter 8.4 
If you are using Adobe PageMaker 6.0.1 and you are printing to an Apple 
Color LaserWriter 12/600 PS, you may experience slower printing with 
LaserWriter 8.4. If this happens, Apple recommends using LaserWriter 
8.3.4. f
tp://ftp.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_SW_Updates/US/Macintosh/P
rinting/LaserWriter 

Desktop PrintMonitor Version 2.0
Desktop printer icons can be moved off the desktop and into folders. A 
printer menu located on the right-hand side of the menu bar provides a 
convenient means to switch the default printer (obtainable via a custom 
install). A control strip module with functionality identical to above. 
An enhanced user interface.
System Recommendations
An Apple Macintosh or PowerBook personal computer with either: - a 68020, 
68030, or 68040 processor - a PowerPC processor or another Mac OS-based 
personal computer. 5 megabytes of RAM Mac OS version 7.1 or later
ftp://ftp.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_SW_Updates/US/Macintosh/P
rinting/Other_Printing 

Name: Open Transport 1.1.1b6      
Path: Apple SW Updates-US-Macintosh-Unsupported 
You can use this pre-release version of Open Transport 1.1.1 to preview 
its features, enhancements, and updates. 
Pre-release versions of Open Transport 1.1.1 have been tested by 
progressively larger audiences and are now being used by hundreds of 
customers and Mac OS developers.
If you want to provide Apple with feedback about Open Transport 1.1.1b6, 
send electronic mail to the following address: OTBeta@seeding.apple.com.
System requirements Open Transport is designed to work on Mac 
OS-compatible computers with a Motorola 68030 or 68040 family 
microprocessor, or a PowerPC 601, 603(e), or 604 microprocessor. You 
should use system software version 7.5.3 with Open Transport, although 
the earlier system software versions 7.1, 7.1.1 and 7.1.2 releases are 
also compatible.
When you install OT1.1.1 on a 
52xx, 53xx, 62xx and 63xx machine you may get a dialog box indicating a 
hardware issue was detected. If this alert is displayed, Open Transport 
cannot be installed or loaded until the Cache/ROM DIMM is replaced. Your 
machine will continue to run classic networking. The required repairs are 
covered under the Apple repair extension program. Please contact an Apple 
Service Provider to have your machine repaired.
Open Transport requires a minimum of 5 MB of RAM (68030 or 68040 
computers) or 8 MB of RAM (PowerPC-based compters). Open Transport memory 
requirements are based on total system memory including virtual memory, 
minus the size of any RAM disk and disk cache you're using.
Network interface options - Open Transport 1.1.1b6 supports PCI bus, NuBus, 
communications slot, and PC Card network interface cards, as well as 
built-in LocalTalk, Ethernet, and Token Ring network adapters. For 
computers without expansion options, Open Transport 1.1.1b6 also supports 
a SCSI-attached network adapter. Third party network interface options 
available for Open Transport include Fast Ethernet, ATM, and FDDI.

Color SW 1500 2.2  
Color StyleWriter 1500 Version 2.2 is the most recent version of this 
software and replaces previous versions. 
This version offers improved compatibility with third party applications 
and fixes various bugs with printing fonts and WorldScript I/WorldScript 
II.
ftp://ftp.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_SW_Updates/US/Macintosh/P
rinting/Other_Printing 

 Color SW 2500 2.2 
Color StyleWriter 2500 Version 2.2 is the most recent version of this 
software and replaces previous versions. 
This version offers improved compatibility with third party applications 
and fixes various bugs with printing fonts and WorldScript I/WorldScript 
II.
ftp://ftp.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_SW_Updates/US/Macintosh/P
rinting/Other_Printing 

WorldScript Updater 1.1  
Provides improved stability and performance for 
Language Kits. ftp://ftp.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_SW_Updates/US/Macintosh/S
ystem/Language_Kits

Locating Apple Software Updates  
1) AppleLink path: AppleLink Services - Software Sampler - Apple SW 
Updates 
2) CompuServe: GO APLSUP 
3) America Online: Use the AOL keyword: applecomputer 
4) ftp: ftp://ftp.info.apple.com or ftp://ftp.support.apple.com 
5) Worldwide Web: http://www.info.apple.com/ or 
http://www.support.apple.com/

•Applescript - Restore Active Application
>I would like the script to make the application that was active when  it
>started active again.  This script will be launched from either the Finder,
>PhotoShop or QuickKeys and I want the user to be right where they started
>when it is done.
Try this
  tell application "Finder"
     set x to name of processes whose frontmost is true
  end tell
You must use the plural form of an object when using it in a whose clause.
Andy Bachorski - Apple Developer Tech Support

•Applescript - add an additional record correctly to a list of records.
You've got two choices:
1. Enclose the record in the first command in another set of braces:
copy {{theFiles:{"there.html", "you.html"}, links:{"which", "me"}}} to dList
*and*
change the second set command to: set theList to (theList & dList)
*or*
2. Change the second set command to: set theList to (theList & {dList})
Cal Simone, President          Voice: (202) 298-9595
Main Event Software, Inc.      Internet: mainevent@his.com

•Apple Introduces Dylan
From: Bill Cheng <bcheng@apple.com>
Apple Computer, Inc. is happy to announce the availability of the Power 
Macintosh version of the Apple Dylan Technology Release.
This is a "Technology Release" because the software is unfinished. It 
contains a number of bugs, and will not be supported or updated through 
Apple's standard technical support processes.
…Developers will be able to produce 
code targeting both the 680x0 and Power Macintosh systems.
…We are expecting to ship this release on August 7,1996.  The ADC order # 
for the package is M5466Z/A and is listed at $59.95. The ADC order # for 
the standalone CD is M5475Z/A and is listed at $39.95. 
      By PHONE United States 1-800-282-2732 (Toll-free)
          Canada 1-800-637-0029 (Toll-free)
          International 1-716-871-6555
       By FAX  APDA Fax number 1-716-871-6511
       By EMAIL  AppleLink................ORDER.ADC  
          Internet................... ORDER.ADC@applelink.apple.com 
          Web........................http://www.devcatalog.apple.com
The development environment lets you create projects with all the 
advantages of a rapid-prototyping environment. Your project is stored in 
a database rather than in text files. Customizable browsers let you 
explore and edit your program from a number of perspectives. For example, 
you can browse class hierarchies graphically, find all callers of a given 
function, or find all the objects which reference a given object.
 
The incremental compiler allows you to change code in a running program 
and see the results immediately. This gives you freedom as a programmer 
to explore various options and rapidly improve your software.
 
The Dylan language is thoroughly object-oriented and contains a number of 
features which encourage abstraction, leading to cleaner, more 
maintainable code. Automatic memory management frees you from the burden 
of manually allocating, tracking, and deallocating memory usage in your 
application, saving you both programming and debugging time. The 
language's consistency and
familiar syntax ensure that it is easy to learn.
[Editors Note - Online chatter from Dylan fans is sceptical Apple is whole–heartedly supporting Dylan]

• CI Labs offers Certification
CI Labs announced that OpenDoc parts that have been validated by CI
Labs can be identified with the trademarked name "Live Objects." 
To find out how to certify your OpenDoc software, see the CI Labs Web page:
 http://www.cilabs.org

•MacOS disproportionately high on Internet
According to a recent survey conducted by the Georgia Institute of Technology,
28 percent of Internet users access the Internet from a Mac OS computer.

•New Ways to get OpenDoc parts
BuyDirect.Com is a new Web-based software distribution service
that will offer customers the opportunity to purchase Macintosh Live Objects
and other component software, in addition to traditional software, starting in
fourth calendar quarter of 1996. BuyDirect.Com will list available software at
its Web site and handle transaction details, but customers will actually
purchase software directly from developers who included their software at the
site. BuyDirect.Com can be found at the following Web site:
 http://www.buydirect.com.
 
PartFinder is a Live Object that
automatically finds Live Objects components at PartBank, Kantara's component
software distribution Web site. In addition to software for downloading,
PartBank includes news about component software technologies, including OpenDoc
and Cyberdog, as well as resources for developers. So far, Kantara doesn't
provide an option for selling component software. You can find PartBank on the
Web at the following site:
 http://www.partmerchant.com/

•16 Certified Live Objects (OpenDoc parts)
Macintosh developers introduced 16 Live Objects--software based on OpenDoc
technology--at Macworld Boston and demonstrated many others throughout the
show.
* WAV, from Digital Harbor
* Virtual Field Trips in Geology, from Addison-Wesley New Media Products
Group/West
* GeoInsight, from ComGrafix
* C-Graph and C-Table, from Corda Technologies
* WorldWrite, from WorldSoft Corporation
* PageComposer!, from MetaMind
* LEXI, from SoftLinc
* PartFinder, from Kantara Development
* Outliner, from Eclipse Services
* dtF Database Toolkit, from theta group
* Sizzler, from Totally Hip Software
* Microbrew, from Network Multimedia
* WebBurst, from Power Productions
* Web Squirrel, from Eastgate Systems
* AppMaker, from Bowers Development
* StuffIt InstallerMaker 3.1, from Aladdin Systems

•Apple Kit for OpenDoc Part Creation
Apple announced the Live Objects Essentials Kit for Mac OS at
Macworld. Formerly released in alpha form under the code name "KickStart" on
the OpenDoc Developer Release 5 CD, the Live Objects Essentials Kit is a suite
of components to help you incorporate multimedia features in your OpenDoc
software. Currently available are 1.0 versions of the Apple QuickDraw 3DMF
Viewer and the Apple Button, which can embed sounds, speech, and Web site
addresses (URLs). Final 1.0 versions of other components are scheduled to be
available soon, including QuickTime and QuickTime VR components, viewers for
PICT, GIF, JPEG, and TIFF files, and editors for basic text processing,
drawing, sound, and text annotation. You can find the components at Apple's
OpenDoc Web site:
 http://www.opendoc.apple.com

•Apple's VRML standard is out
Apple has just posted the first draft of the
VRML (or Virtual Reality Mark-Up Language) 2.0 binary file format at its
QuickDraw 3D Web page. This binary format is a modified version of the
QuickDraw 3D Metafile (3DMF) format.
VRML 2.0 will be based on the Moving Worlds proposal originally created by Silicon
Graphics and supported by over 50 vendors, including Apple (which agreed to
modify the QuickDraw 3DMF format for VRML 2.0) as well as Netscape, IBM, Sony,
and Adobe. In making its decision, the group rejected Active VRML, Microsoft's
alternative proposal. Moving Worlds will enhance VRML so that it provides
object behavior, audio, Java links, and other types of multiuser interaction
and animation. The interactivity employed in Moving Worlds is based on Sun
Microsystems' Java and JavaScript programming languages. VRML 2.0 will be an
enabler for richer Internet-based multimedia plug-ins used for everything from
games to aerodynamics modeling. Netscape has already announced that Moving
Worlds will be the basis for its Live3D platform.
http://quickdraw3d.apple.com/

•Applescript - toggle the locked state of the selected items
tell application "Finder"
    repeat with f in selection
        set locked of f to not locked of f
    end repeat
end tell
jonpugh@netcom.com (Jon Pugh)

•Accessing Internet from other Network Nodes over AppleTalk (e.g. via ARA)
Your guest node (over ARA) needs to have its TCP/IP configured as if it were
physically plugged into the network jack your ARA server is presently
using. You should also select the "ARA Only" network connection in the
MacTCP or TCP/IP Control Panel - the ARA link makes these arrangements
a little weird. 
Your guest node must be configured with it's own unique IP address.  If you're using the
same IP address as your server node (actually connected to the Internet),
which is also up and running, that
will cause problems.  Contact your network coordinator to set up an
IP address specifically for your guest node and set it "Manually".
 The rest of the settings (Gateway and Name Servers)
can come straight off the server node's Control Panel.
From but edited: "John Rickard" <john_rickard@macmail.ucsc.edu>

TCP/IP does not directly flow over previous and current versions
of ARA.
…you must also
have an IP Gateway of some sort (Apple IP Gateway, KIP, GatorBox, etc..).
These products put AppleTalk around the  TCP/IP blocks, then the
blocks can be transmitted over ARA.
(Tunneling the TCP/IP thru AppleTalk.)
From: "Jeffrey L. Morris" <jmorris@netcom.com>

Check the TCP/IP control panel and make sure the settings are as follows:
Connect Via: AppleTalk (MacIP)
Configure: Using MacIP Server
From: Mark Miller <mmiller@nih.gov>

•Duh re TCP/IP control panel
Unlike most control panels, this one has meaningful menus. In fact, unless you know the key combinations, the menus are the only way to access certain things. For instance, you can make and save configurations and change the user level to normal/advanced/administration.

•Tips on Increasing Network Speed
We've got a network of around 100 Macs on 10BaseT accessing QuickMail,
MeetingMaker, IP-based services on the campus net, and AppleShare -
both locally and in other departments.  I can ALWAYS tell when just
one or two of our users have mounted AppleShare volumes AND their
"Views" control panels are calcing folder sizes - just by watching
the hub.  You're right - it IS a lowest priority process, and it so
far hasn't KILLED anything.  But idle cycles are GONE, GONE, GONE -
and network contention skyrockets.  This load increases depending
on the number of server folders the calcing user has open on their
desktop.  Any changes to those folders - by anyone on the net - puts
hits on both the calcing user AND the server and all its connected
clients.  This was proven one day when I started getting lots of
complaints about speed.  I visited each of the 32 sessions listed
at the server and found 3 to be calcing folder sizes (just 3!).  It
turns out their supervisor had told them to turn it on so he could
monitor their local disk usage just by walking up behind them.  The
minute they turned it off, speed increased by whole integer factors.
Since then, ANY slow down sends me down the hall with my "calcing
hit list" of currently connected AppleShare users.  Other pet peeves
include Netscape, FileMakerPro sorts on shared db's, QuickMailing
HUGE enclosures, and the infamous 'Chooser-left-open-and-listing-
file-servers' networked CPU polling soiree.  That last entry only
comes up once in a while, but since we've got 20 users who insist
on leaving Personal File Sharing turned on - it's felt immediately
and usually by folks trying to print.  Hope this helps.
From: "John Rickard" <john_rickard@macmail.ucsc.edu>

•RamDoubler still not quite right
More on the incompatibility between RamDoubler and System 7.5.3 which
causes random disconnects . . . [with geoports at least]
2) The second solution was sent to me by Kumud & Cecilia Ajmani
<ajmani@GWIS.COM>, who wrote "If you absolutely have to use RD, the
extension "Not Virtual" will let you work around the RD/Geoport
incompatibility." They were right.  Not Virtual fixes the incompatibility.  You still
get doubled RAM, but you do lose one benefit of RD: its effect on reducing
overall RAM requirements in many programs.  For example:
You can find Not Virtual at:
http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive/Archive/cfg/not-virtual.hqx

Connectix has told me, "We hope all outstanding bugs [will be] addressed in
the final free upgrade of version RAM Doubler 1.6.3."  This upgrade was not
yet available as of August 9th at the Connectix web site.
Reina Pennington <RPennington@InfoAve.net>
Dept. of History, University of South Carolina

•Doom Demo
Info Mac archive anywhere on path /game/arc/doom-i-101.hqx

•MacUser likes CorelDraw
This is a giant on the WinTel platform. It is from an Ottawa based firm, which also took over Word–Perfect. According to MacUser, CorelDraw 6.0 complies with Apple Human Interface Guidelines and supports the system extras well.

•Six Primary Colors?
Ink jets use three colors (cyan, magenta, yellow) plus black. You may recall different primary colors from kindergarten. Anyway, a new standard is developing called Hexachrome, which apparently makes brighter and more life–like colors. Pantone makes HexWrench, a Photoshop Plug–In to convert to Hex. Pantone also makes ColorDrive 1.5, a utility for color–consistency between applications. Adobe supports Hexachrome in Pagemaker 6.0. Quark promises to support it. Various hex printers are coming and there is already a prototype from Colossal Graphics. See
http://www.pantone.com/

•Apple's Internet Server Solution Bundle
Oh, it costs $2,299, $3,299, or $6,449, but the computer comes with software worth $4,000 list price. It is 300% faster than the prior version. It uses OpenTransport 1.1, WebSTAR 1.2.5, PageMill 1.0, Acrobat Pro 2.1, BBEdit 3.5.2, RealAudio Server 1.0, etc.

•Serial Storage Architecture (SSA)
MicroTech has come out with a line of products permitting up to 127 devices (drives and Macs with SSA PCI cards to connect in one file–sharing loop, with up to 20 meters of inexpensive serial cable, communicating at about 40 mb/sec (Ethernet is 500k/sec). Theoretically, it can reach 160 mb/sec. The modular 'CrossRoads' system is based on the Pathlight Technologies High Speed SSA Data Pump PCI card. MicroTech's version will be about $1KUS.
http://www.microtechint.com/

•Design interacting Database OpenDoc parts
dtF Americas offers a package. 1-800-383-1790.

•PC-Mac File exchanges
Windows utility to read most Mac media include:
   MacDrive 95 - Media4 Productions 515-225-7409
   MacOpener - DataViz 1-800-733-0030
   Here and Now - Software Architects (see below)
   Mac–In–Dos Plus – Pacific Micro 415-948-6200
   TransferPro - Digital Instrumentation Technology 1-800-467-1459 (also speaks 36 file formats)
Mac Utilities to read PC Media:
   All PCs, regardless of their system, use DOS formatting for the disks.
   The MacOS comes with EasyAccess, but it won't read DOS zip or magneto–optical.
   AccessPC - Insignia Solutions (800-848-7677)
   DOS Mounter 95 - Software Architects (206-487-0122) (permits you to put both Mac and DOS partitions on      a single disk.

File Format Converters
   Once the file is on your disk, you still want it to look meaningful when some application opens it.
   MacLinkPlus - DataViz (above) - also available for Windows, but called Conversions Plus. Several of its       translaters come with the MacOS
   DeBabelizer - Equilibrium Technologies 415-332-4343 knows 70 graphics type formats and supports       plug–ins for effects and editing.
   Transverter Pro 3.0 (Mac & Windows) - TechPool Software 1-800-925-6998 for vector file formats like       PostScript & EPS & PDF
   TransferPro (Windows) - see above

•PageMaker Tip to Recover Damaged Files
If you can open them, run these functions. Option–shift then Hyphenation (A beep means it is fine, two beeps means it is fixed, 3 beeps is bad). Shift then Go To Page, then let it run through each page, then press a key to stop it. Choose Links, and unlink anything with a question mark. Do a Save As. If these fail, export the text using the Story Import filter.

•Salvage SIMMs
DIMM Tree lets you insert 2 same–sized SIMMs into a DIMM slot to creat a pseudo–DIMM. Newer Technologies 800-678-3276. Or try SIMM Savers 800-636-7281.

•Font ID Conflicts
System 7 automatically renumbers fonts where there is a conflict. Does it work for those in suitcases? It certainly doesn't for those in resources, such as those in Hypercard or its stacks.

•Finding Pesky 68K system stuff
They slow you down. Conflict Catcher's report on Patched Traps indicates them with asterisks. PowerPCheck 2.0 does it for $5.
•May 1996 Apple Stats (Dataquest Survey)
Worldwide - Placed third, with 7.8%, down from 8.3% in 1994 despite record sales of 4.7 million macs. It lost especially in Japan to Fujitsu. 60 million PCs shipped. Compaq was 1st (10%) and IBM second (7.9%)
US - placed third, with 11%, down from 11.5% in 1994. Compaq was 1st (12.3%) and Packard–Bell (11.5%) was second.
Worldwide Laptop - Fifth, with 6.7%, way down. Toshiba was first (15%), then Compaq (11%), then NEC (10%), then IBM (9.9%), then Apple.
US Business - Slipped 7% from an already poor position. Overall, it grew 19.9%.
Education - first, rising 50%, almost all of the 36% growth overall.
Home - up 14% of overall 22% growth.
Government - up 2% of 17.9% overall growth.

•Rumours of LERP
Apple might offer its licensees the Low End Reference Platform standards, which will run only the MacOS.

•OLE news
Microsoft changed the name from OLE Controls to ActiveX Controls, which requires v.2.0 of OLE. Macromedia will help bring it to the Mac, in order to ensure that it interoperates with Macromedia's XTras (their new plug–in architecture). Like plug–ins or OpenDoc parts, it is a way to add functions to applications.

•MacUser Luke Warm of SoundEdit 2.0
It is now native PPC, but they think the improvement didn't warrant a full integer jump. New items are: batch conversion of file formats, cleaner interface, support for .au files, 4:1 IMA compression, and plug–ins. As before, you can edit, record and play 8 or 16 bit soundtracks in many formats and apply effects. The formats include System 7 sound, resource, Sound Designer II, AIFF, .wav, .au, SoundEdit, SoundEdit 16, QuickTime. MacUser says DigiTrax and Deck II are more powerful and the same or lower cost.
Also available is BIAS' Peak (offers non–destructive editing, unlimited undo, unlimited zoom, complete interactivity). It comes with accessory packs.

•MacUser loves One Click.
5 mice! You select/design icons to go on palettes you create for each application. The icons will run a macro. You can use AppleScript, or EasyScript (OneClick's own) or a combo. It helps you grabs existing icons. WestCode Software. $129 list.
www.westcodesoft.com

•Internet Picture Storage Service
Picture web stores your digitized pictures, and permitted password controlled access to them. $24/100/year.

•Digitized Pictures
Photo CD disks hold 100 photos, depending on the resolution, which ranges from 3,072 x 2,048 pixels (equal to 35 mm film) and down. Local Regina vendors charge 85¢/picture if you do it when you develop, or somewhere between $1 to $2.50 thereafter, depending on the number of photos in the order. The disk costs $12.

•Printing Terms
Direct To Plate - The plate is placed in the ImageSetter rather than the usual film. Can include laser ablation. Can produce lots of output types and eliminate both negatives and a dedicated platesetter. But the quality and duration of the special plates is reduced.
Computer To Plate - The computer drives a dedicated platemaker. It is Direct To Plate, but the plates are better quality.
Direct To Press - The computer 'burns' the plate which is already in place on the press.
Digital Press - The computer just prints, with super quality color laser printers.
In all cases, digital proofs are not as widely trusted as those made from the same film which will be used for the printing.

•Make Your Own Maps
MapQuest has maps of lots of places, especially in the US. You can add arrows, icons and legends, to suit your needs.
http://www.mapquest.com

•The 16 Live Objects Certified at the big Conference
         WAV, by Digital Harbor: a "work processor" that is designed to let users fully and
                     easily utilize the wealth of the Internet and can be embedded into other OpenDoc
                     containers.

                  Virtual Field Trips in Geology, by Addison Wesley New Media Products
                     Group/West: interactive, multi-media exploration of fundamental geologic concepts for
                     college students. 

                  GeoInsight, by ComGrafix, Inc.: map insert part supporting map analytical tools. 

                  C-Graph and C-Table, by Corda Technologies: data-graphing and table-editing
                     software components that will allow users to create charts and tables in Live Objects
                     documents. 

                  WorldWrite, from WorldSoft Corp.: a multilingual word processor enabling users
                     to add Live Objects to increase page layout, language writing, input capabilities and word
                     processing capabilities. 

                  PageComposer!, from MetaMind: combines drawing capability with Live Objects
                     embedding to let users construct live page layout documents. 

                  LEXI, from SoftLinc: a spelling checker, thesaurus, translation dictionary and verbal
                     conjugator in English and 12 other languages. 

                  PartFinder, from Kantara Development: automatically finds missing Live Objects
                     components at PartBank. 

                  Outliner, from Eclipse Services: goes beyond the standard outline capabilities by
                     organizing interactive views of text, video, graphics, database and Internet parts. 

                  dtF Database Toolkit, from theta group: creates dynamic, interactive documents
                     containing live data from relational databases. 

                  Sizzler from Totally Hip Software: a viewer part for streaming graphics
                     capabilities for Cyberdog. WebPainter, a painting and animation program, will include
                     exporting to a Sizzler OpenDoc part. 

                  Microbrew, from Network Multimedia: high-level graphical software development
                     tool. 

                  WebBurst, from Power Productions: Visual Java applet authoring tool. 

                  Web Squirrel, from Eastgate Systems, Inc.: a Cyberdog part that builds spatial
                     structures to keep track of Web pages, FTP sites and other network resources. 

                  AppMaker, from Bowers Development: programming tools to make it easy for
                     developers to use OpenDoc technology. 

                  StuffIt InstallerMaker 3.1 from Aladdin Systems: allows users and developers
                     to create installers that support the installation of Live Objects.

•RAID - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives
This approach combines multiple hard drives so they behave as a single unit. The benefit is speed and/or reliability. There are six level, zero through 5, with varying combinations. Raid 0 is the fastest, with no additional fault tolerance. Raid 1 is mirroring. It just writes the file on each of two drives. How senseless. Raid 5 stripes data across multiple drives. Striping means that some bits of the byte are put on one drive at the same time as other bits are put on another, and so forth. Normally it includes parity information so that a loss of 1 (or even more) drives does not damage your data. Only those levels are prevalent for the Mac.

You still must back up. Fire, flood, or even a failure of too many of the drives can destroy your data. But perhaps with RAID 5 you can dispense with daily backups.

They start at $2,799US for a 4 gb drive. Normal SCSI buses only handle about 5 mb/sec, so putting on a 20 mb/sec drive is senseless. I have written previously about other buses. Interestingly, the normal Apple 1080 matched or even outperformed some RAIDs on some seemingly disk intensive tasks, like saving a QuarkXPress file as an EPS file. Apparently, the time is spent in the CPU.

There are varying approaches on how to hook up all the drives. Some come in a single box, attached with a single cable. Some use removable drives. Some are modular, so more can be added. Some are daisy-chainable. Some use a dual-channel SCSI interface card. That handles up to 15 devices on each of two separate buses. Would you just add more drives as you chose, letting the card and software handle it? Cool. Some just bundle two cards, which is slightly cheaper. You just add drive and let the software handle it, I guess.

Daisy-chaining the drives is called a spanning configuration. However, the writes will occur sequentially, so the speed advantage is lost. Presumably the benefit is a big consolidated drive, plus the data integrity of striping. However, users of the MacOS normally partition big drives, to avoid the penalty of minimum file sizes about which I have written previously, so until Apple fixes that, this configuration is unattractive.

Some are optimized for a particular kind of disk work. e.g., DPT SmartRAID specializes in small files.

It seems the magic is in the software, and most let you pick levels 0 or 1.

•Monitor Pricing Insight
MacUser maintains that monitors with speakers cost on marginally more than those without. In short, if you want speakers, it is cheaper to bundle them. It will never be top quality, due to the necessarily small size and the conflict between the desire for big speaker magnets for sound, and small to avoid affecting the picture. MacUser managed to make some of these devices impair the picture at high volumes anyway.

•Collaborative Painting
Fractal Design's Painter 4 permits two users to work on the same piece of art, even over the Internet.

•Apple prefers NetWare System
I tend to forget that DOS and Windows are not the only competing systems. Novell's Netware is apparently a very small, very efficient piece of code, permitting the addition of Netware Loadable Modules. So it is great for reliability for servers. Apple plans to sell NetWare for PowerPC for such a purpose. The advantage will be speed. It will run 51% faster on a 120 mhz Power Mac than on a 120 mhz Pentium. Even more shocking, it will be administered by Novell's Windows based Netware Admin tool.

•Public Libraries on the Internet
Makulowich's Awesome List
http://www.clark.net/pub/journalism
LibWeb
http://www.lib.washington.edu/~tdowling/libweb.html
English Server (lots of downloadable books)
http://english-server.hss.cmu.edu/
Library of Congress (features a web-based card catalog)
http://lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/gateway.html

•Word 5.1 tip (Index All)
To index a word, you put, in hidden format, ".i.[word]" right before the word. So, to do all the occurences of a word at once, search and replace. Replace the word with "[word].i.[word]". Then do another search and replace, searching for ".i.[word]" and replacing with the same thing, but in hidden formatting.

•More ways to identify non-native PPC applications
If get Info shows anything about virtual memory (or Ram Doubler, if installed), it is native. Or select the icon, and press command-option-I. If it lists programmers which helped with the port, it must have been ported. Non-native ones will just show the regular GetInfo box.

•Weird finder bug
If you have chosen the smallest icon view in the Views Control Panel, and then set folders to view by name (View Menu in the finder), your desktop icons will/may turn generic.

•Why Normal Mikes won't work.
PlainTalk mikes are powered. They receive the power because their jack is extra long, to hit the contact. Preamplified normal mikes would work.

•Apple History
In 1989, Apple buried 2,700 Lisa computers in a landfill in Logan, Utah, evidently to obtain a tax write-off. That is just bad.

•Project X - Meta Content Format (MCF)
Among the new Internet technologies previewed by Apple at Macworld Boston last
week was Project X (http://www.atg.apple.com/go/projectx/), which will open a
variety of developer opportunities once it's commercially available. Before
then, Apple needs your feedback to be sure this technology is headed in a
direction that will be truly useful to both customers and developers.
 
Project X provides a new metaphor for navigating Internet-based content. The
Meta Content Format (MCF) on which it's based essentially does for Internet
content what the Dewey Decimal System did for books in a library, identifying
the content in such a way that it can be easily organized and found. There is
currently no standard to define how and where information is stored; Apple is
contributing MCF as a way of solving that problem. Project X is a 3D viewer
that lets users view Internet content that has been defined in MCF.
Essentially, users can fly through Web sites and other Internet content to
locate the information they need; they can also design their own ways of
organizing the content. Developers will have opportunities to provide their own
viewers for MCF-defined data, for providing tools to render and cluster the
data within viewers, and to provide interpreters for MCF. The technology
preview of the Macintosh Project X plug-in, as well as documentation about how
to use it and a white paper describing MCF, is now available at the Apple
Research Labs Technology Preview Web page
(http://www.atg.apple.com/go/projectx/ or http://mcf.research.apple.com/). We
urge you to download it, play with it, and then let Apple Internet Technologies
Evangelist Jeff Ganyard know what you think. He can be reached via e-mail at
ganyard@apple.com.

•Apple out of the LapTop Business?
960827 - your editor called Customer Relations at Apple, 1-800-263-3394. All the powerbooks are discontinued except the PB5300cs and the Duo 2300c, but they aren't in stock for the foreseeable future.

•OS8 in Trouble?
Apple announced that the plans to provide developers with a "Developer's Release" of OS8 was discontinued, after many delays. Developers are most jittery as a result. 

•Digital VideoDisc (DVD)
CDRom sized disks hold 4.7 gb on a single–sided, single–layer disc. Using MPEG–2 compression, that will hold a feature length full screen full motion picture including 3 channels of CD quality audio and 4 channels of sub–titles. Double–siding and double–layering will each, well, double the capacity. The drives will play normal CDROMs at 6x speed and audio CDs. The standard is supported by Apple, Toshiba, Sony, Philips, Time Warner, Pioneer, JVC, Hitachi and Mitsubishi. They are expected in 96.

•Web Arranger Demo
Our heroes at CE Software (QuicKeys) were briefly offering a free download of WebArranger, but now it is just a 30 day demo. It is apparently a version of the Personal Information Manager, Arrange. It handles URLs as if they were contacts. Also, it keeps a log of your internet activity, and its URL Agent will determine if a web page has changed since the last time you looked at it.
http://www.cesoft.com

•V.34 Plus
A new version of v.34 for modems is now offered, which will reach 31.2 and 33.6 kbps on high quality lines, nearly at the theoretical 35 kbps limit. It is still insignificant beside ISDN (64 kbps) or cable modems (100 kbps).

•Netware Client
Previously, for a mac to get on a PC network which was based on Netware, the server had to have the Macintosh Network Loadable Module (NLM). Now, this free software lets Macs on, in parity with PCs. And only 5 mbs!
http://netware.novell.com - the home page
http://support.novell.com/home/client/mac/updates.htm - the site

•Zip Drives have more vendors.
Epson is making them now, with a smaller power supply. The usual Iomega supply easily outweighs the whole drive. Fuji & Maxell are just putting their logos on Iomega drives. Megamedia of Taiwan is making the cartridges, and soon Sony, Epson, Fuji and Maxell will be.

•Atari 2600 Action Pack
These are packages of ported games from the old Atari 2600 Activision game players. $30 each.

•MacUser Web Tips
You can't travel to another page when you have started a file download from a page. But, when you're waiting, create a 'new browser' (file menu) and just start another.
Most companies just use their own name, prefixed by www. and suffixed by .com. e.g., www.apple.com
If you are trapped on a page with no buttons, or if there is something wrong with the path, delete the latter portions of the path (leaving a slash at the end of the address). Or, change the file name (the last item on the path) to "index.html".

•MacUser features Interesting Guy - Bill Duvall
In 1969, he wrote the software that "sent the first packet across the internet". He founded Consular, which brought out the first Mac development environment, MacC, in 1985. He was director of Hypercard Development at Claris. and then headed the software development team at 3D0. Now he has his own operation, SurfWatch, to permit personal censorship of his internet, to avoid public censorship. It is $50, plus $6 for each monthly update of bad sites.
Wow. But re Surfwatch, oddly, you can't edit the banned sites or filters, so that reduces the advantage over state censorship.

•MacUser Modem Purchasing Tip
They (Levitus & Breen) swear that PC and Mac modems are exactly the same except the cables and the software. So if you have, or can get, those, buy the cheaper PC version. Or be a hero, and pay extra to encourage the industries to make mac-centric products.

•Doom II Cheat codes
iddqd - full health & some protection from injury
idkfa - full ammo & keys
idbeholdi - invisibility
idbeholdv - invincibility
idclev n - where n is a number 1-32. Entry to level n. 31 & 32 may never otherwise be seen.

•Doom I now shareware
Well, Doom I is now shareware, called MacDoom. $9US.

•Doom II 1.02 updater out.
Well, Doom II 1.02 updater is out.

•More on ADSL
There are some down sides to ADSL that Roland has glossed over:  It is
range dependant;  The two DSL modems cannot be further than 18,000 feet
apart.  While there is a theoretical upstream data transfer rate of about
640kbps the protocol is very noise sensitive and practical implementations
have tended to been as low as 16kbps.  The technology is still in flux
there are two competing and non-compatible carrier schemes CAP (Carrierless
Amplitude Modulation - pretty poor acronym if you ask me) championed by
AT&T (who owns the chip set) and DMT (Discrete Multitone) pushed by a
consortium headed by Motorola.

Frankly, I find the technology scary for the very reason the large
telecommunication companies like it:  Because it provides an asymmetric
upload/download transfer rate it gives control of internet content to the
ADSL providers (servers) and diminishes the role the individual (client)
can play.
Kevin O'Boyle" <koboyle@telerama.lm.com>

The range limitation really only matters if you are more than 18,000 feet
away from the switch that you are talking to.  ADSL is not intended to be
used as the backbone connection between all of the switches.  It is
intended to solve the 'last mile' problem.
By the way, there are variants of the technology (HDSL, etc.) that are
symetrical with respect to their forward and backward data rates.  The best
technology will ultimately win in the marketplace.
bob piatek - bobtek@fishcamp.com

•Web via EMail, personalized news, and More
Send the web address in the subject line to FarCast and they will email you its text contents.
support@farcast.com.
Do single word searches by putting the word, then "in [server]" as the subject. The server can be altavista, yahoo, lycos, or Infoseek.
They have 70 newsletters. You can subscribe to any or all, and often even regulate the frequency at which they are sent.
They have 'droids'. They let you have 15 named droids. You fill in search criteria, and tell it how often you want it to report. It will then regularly mail you with hits matching your criteria.
Further, they subscribe and archive various news services, such as AP, UPI, Newsbytes, BusinessWire, and PR Newswire. You send email to newstand, archives, or library, with your search in the subject line. You can get titles, summaries, or full contents. You can get the full contents later if you choose.
info@farcast.com
support@farcast.com

•Applescript re Ircle
ircle will only alow one command at presant that is the "do" command... you can
use it for a few things like:…
do "/me grabs"&theName&" and throws him out of the channel
do "/kick "&theName&" Bye Bye lamer..."
kriptik@gim.net (Jotham Read)

•Now Mac File Names too short!
When you generate html documentation for your source code with "javadoc" it
produces file names that include the full package name in it.  For
instance, we have files like this generated:

    GOV.nasa.gsfc.workplace.ActionList.html

This is too long for the Mac!  On the Mac it's truncated to:

    GOV.nasa.gsfc.workplace.ActionL
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center    Email:   Stephen.Jonke@gsfc.nasa.gov

•BeOS
Be inc.  (http://www.be.com) has a version of their exciting new OS that
runs very nicely on power Macintosh computers. It will be availibvle for
purchase, I believe, in early 1997.

…They have a real-time OS that runs all native on PPC processors,
supporting true multitasking, multithreading, multiprocessing, and memory
protection (correct me if I'm wrong on any of this). These are all the big
items the Apple coders have had such a difficult time with. From what I
read, this is turning out to be a real power-user's OS.
Sean T. O'Connor
seano@netexpress.net

•Pretty Good Privacy News
On the Wed 31 July edition of PBS's "Life on the Internet" (all links 
related to this story can be found at <http://www.pbs.org/> ), they 
featured the creator of PGP, Phil Zimmerman, in a discussion about the 
government's role (or appropriate lack thereof) in public encryption.
Though it was never mentioned in the half-hour show, Phil Zimmerman 
utilizes two fine pieces of computing equipment: a PowerBook, and a 
Quadra 650, PM7100, PM7600 style desktop (impossible to tell on my TV). 
The PowerBook has a trackpad (most likely a 500-series Blackbird).
Zimmerman demoed the PGP Phone secured-channel phone system with a fellow 
at MIT. The screen close-up was of the Mac version.
PGP Phone and PGP public key encryption are available at MIT (see the PBS 
page, they should have the links). And if you are an EvangeLista from a 
country other than the US, you, too, can use PGP--the government dropped 
the suit against Zimmerman over this issue.
<Kevin_Kubarych@Brown.edu> (Kevin Kubarych)

•TidBits 9608 re New Models
Apple Announces New Macs
Apple has announced faster versions of the Power Mac 7600, 8500,
  and 9500, along with a new top-of-the-line 9500/180MP that
  features two PowerPC 604e processors running at 180 MHz. The new
  9500 and 8500 models are based on the PowerPC 604e, whereas the
  revamped 7600 sports a 132 MHz PowerPC 604 processor. All the new
  machines feature 8x CD-ROM drives and upgradable CPU daughter
  cards that should support speeds of up to 250 MHz. Prices range
  from about $3,000 for the Power Mac 7600/132 to $5,700 for the
  Power Mac 9500/180 MP. Also of interest to owners of recent Power
  Macs, Apple announced a 180 MHz PowerPC 604e-based CPU upgrade
  card for about $900. Availability of these systems varies; a few
  should appear in late August, others should arrive in September.

  Additionally, Apple officially announced the Performa 6400-series,
  sporting a mini-tower design and PowerPC 603e CPUs running at 180
  and 200 MHz, priced from about $2,400 to $3,000. I've heard
  reports that some dealers currently have these Performas in stock.
  Apple also announced Avid Cinema, a PCI-based digital video
  editing system available for $459 as an option for 6400 Performas.
  [GD]

<http://product.info.apple.com/pr/press.releases/1996/q4/
960802.pr.rel.pm604e.html>
<http://product.info.apple.com/pr/press.releases/1996/q4/
960802.pr.rel.perf6400.html>

In addition to its recently-introduced PowerTower Pro (see
  TidBITS-337_), Power Computing has announced a PowerBase line of
  consumer-oriented Mac-compatibles starting at about $1,500. Built
  around the PowerPC 603e, PowerBase systems range in speed from 180
  to 240 MHz, sport three PCI slots, 8x CD-ROM drives, and (gamers
  take note!) video acceleration that improves 3-D texture mapping
  and QuickTime performance.

DayStar is introducing the new Genesis MP 360+ (with
  two 180 MHz 604e CPUs, starting at $5,500), in addition to 180 and
  200 MHz versions of its four-processor offerings, starting at
  $8,500 and $10,000. These systems are targeted at high-end
  graphics and video professionals, and DayStar is reportedly
  shipping them with _no_ hard disks or RAM to let customers more
  easily customize the systems.

UMAX is expected to show a new spate of
  SuperMac-branded Mac-compatibles at Macworld, including revved-up
  versions of its S900L series and a set of 603e-based "SuperMac C"
  consumer machines due in September. The SuperMac C series
  reportedly range in speed from 140 to 200 MHz, sport 8x CD-ROM
  drives, and range in price from $1,600 to $2,600. As of this
  writing, DayStar's and UMAX's Web sites don't cover their new
  products, but they'll probably make information available soon.
  [GD]

<http://www.powercc.com/Product/CPUs/pbase.html>
<http://www.daystar.com/>
<http://www.supermac.com/>

•Disk Images
[Heavily borrowed from Chad Magendanz <chad@halcyon.com>, author of ShrinkWrap, as published in TidBits]
This is yet another example of faking your computer out. In this case, the computer thinks that information on a faster medium (ram or hard drive) is a floppy. What are the advantages? To the user, the advantage is mainly for installations. Most programs come as an installation package on floppies. It is slow and user–intensive to take the necessary floppies from machine to machine and feed them in, one at a time. Plainly, it would be better if the install programs simply used regular folders and file formats, even if compressed. But the publishers sometimes want the security of floppies or the extra compression that is available by putting everything in one big archive. Publishers may also wish to preserve window and icon placement

In this struggle between the desires of publishers and users, image mounting is a compromise. To install the latest, you can 'mount' all 17 floppies at once, fooling the installer into proceeding at a decent pace, and permitting network distribution. Of course, they waste great gobs of memory unless compressed, because they must include unused space as well as all the hidden desktop database files which come with any disk volume. But, compressed, they aren't too bad.

Microsoft installers don't check
  if the next disk is available before ejecting the current disk and
  prompting the user to insert a floppy. Of course, "reinserting" a
  mounted disk image from a modal dialog is practically impossible.

Connectix's installers, deliberately refuse to work with images. Of course, you can work around these installers by copying disk images to floppy disks and running the installer the
  old fashioned way, but that's not as convenient.

Ram based images take longer to mount, run faster, but are limited by your available RAM in how many can be mounted. Disk based drivers  typically use only about 1K of RAM per mounted
  image, but they're slower and can be confused by background
  compression utilities like AutoDoubler or StuffIt SpaceSaver. All utilities below use file–based images excepting MungeImage. ShrinkWrap makes both available.

Tag data is an extra 12 bytes of "scavenger" information for each
  block on 400K and 800K floppies. It was mainly used to embed copy
  protection information and data recovery hints back in the old
  days of half-tracking and other such whimsical annoyances. Since
  the 660AV and 840AV Macs can't even read tag data, many disk image
  utilities and disk image formats safely ignore it.

The Apple Disk Image format predominates, but the Apple has now come out with
New Disk Image Format (NDIF). It optimizes, according to whether it is to be read–only, write–only, or both. Sadly, it only uses Apple's proprietary compression codec, KenCode. So, third party mounter's must license it, but Apple hasn't met their promises to actually offer it for licensing.

Some of the utilities are listed here. I like ShrinkWrap best.
DiskCopy - Apple's original utility written by Steve Christensen
  at least seven years ago. There were no updates for a long time, till v.4.2.  24K. v.6.0.1 is in
  use at Apple but not yet released. It is a complete rewrite, supporting copying, creating,
  converting, and mounting DiskCopy 4.2 and NDIF disk images. It
  will also add support for AppleScript, log files, CRC-32
  checksums, DiskScripts, and digital signatures.
<ftp://ftp.support.apple.com/pub/apple_sw_updates/US/mac/utils/
Disk_Copy_4.2.hqx>

DART 1.5.3 by Ken McLeod from Apple but not supported by Apple. Better interface, supports RLE & LZH compression, but slower.
<ftp://ftp.support.apple.com/pub/apple_sw_updates/US/mac/utils/
DART_1.5.3.hqx>

DiskCopy 5.0d1-6.0 - beware, this is a hack of a beta version of DiskCopy. Lose it!

MountImage 1.2b2 - beware, this control panel has serious bugs.
<ftp://mirror.aol.com/pub/info-mac/disk/mount-image-12b2.hqx>

MungeImage 1.2 - Ram based. Source code in the public domain.
<ftp://mirror.aol.com/pub/info-mac/disk/munge-image-120.hqx>
<ftp://ftp.share.com/pub/peterlewis/source/mungeimage-120-source.sit.bin>

Norton Floppier 3.2. - Proprietary format.

MacTools FastCopy 4.0. - offers both Apple's and its own compressed image files
  (which use Stacker's proprietary compression algorithm).

DiskDup+ 2.7 - options to ignore unused or bad blocks and
  even copy 800K images onto 1.4 MB media with increased free space. Supports
  Apple DiskCopy images as well as its own DiskDup+ image file format.
  Must pay shareware fee before it will mount them.
<ftp://mirror.aol.com/pub/info-mac/disk/disk-dup-plus-27.hqx>

Disk Charmer -  $10 shareware. Uses asynchronous I/O and the
  Thread Manager to permit background operation.
<ftp://mirror.aol.com/pub/info-mac/disk/disk-charmer-302.hqx>

ShrinkWrap 2.0.1 -  freeware, but with a $20 shareware fee for commercial use.
Oops. I paid the $20! My favourite. Handles lots of formats. Does dragNDrop but also has an interface. Supports batching.
<http://www.halcyon.com/shrinkwrap/>
<ftp://mirror.aol.com/pub/info-mac/disk/shrink-wrap-201.hqx>

CryptDisk 1.2.1 - $20 shareware. Doesn't read or write image files to
  disk. Creates and mounts soft partitions of any size that
  are encrypted using IDEA (International Data Encryption Algorithm)
  encryption. IDEA uses 128-bit keys and is generally recognized as
  secure. The full version of CryptDisk is available for U.S. and
  Canadian citizens; a demo without encryption is available to
  anyone.
<http://www.primenet.com/~wprice/cdisk.html>

DropDisk 1.0b5 -  Originally
  released as Mount 'em. Has only a drag & drop interface and can't mount DiskCopy images
  unlocked.
<ftp://ftp.info.apple.com/Apple.Support.Area/Developer_Services/Utilities/
DropDisk.sit.hqx>

Disk Image Mounter 1.0.1 - by Apple but not supported. Direct descendent of
  DropDisk. Supports New
  Disk Image Format images and DiskScripts (batch
  files for mounting disk image sets). Won't mount as a locked disk.
<ftp://ftp.support.apple.com/pub/apple_sw_updates/US/mac/utils/
Disk_Image_Mounter_1.0.1.hqx>

•Mac OS Runtime for Java
Apple has posted a pre-release of Mac OS Runtime for Java, which is essentially designed to put a
  Java virtual machine into the Mac OS. Allows users to run Java applets in a stand-alone
  viewer and within an OpenDoc document. Works on Cyberdog 1.1, but not prior versions even 1.1 beta. Not particularly recommended.
<http://www.devtools.apple.com/mrj/>

•Next Year's Power PCs
With roughly twice the speed of a 604e,
     the "G3" processor should appear this time next year
     followed by the G4 and Project 2K line of processors.
http://www.macweek.com/mw_1030/news_g3.html

•Any truth to this?
>NEW YORK, Aug 12 (Reuter) - Microsoft Corp has launched a
>quiet but ambitious effort to help small software companies
>write Internet programs for its struggling rival, Apple Computer
>Inc, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
>          The unusual effort is designed to boost Apple's efforts in
>the Internet arena, an area Apple has said is crucial to its
>campaign to save itself.
>          Microsoft has also made the Internet a top priority. But
>Microsoft officials said it was helping Apple in part because of
>concerns that anti-trust challenges to Microsoft's dominant
>position in the computer industry might increase if Apple went
>out of business.
>          Microsoft set up a unit in San Jose, Calif., last year to
>direct the program, although it only came to light recently. The
>effort will cost Microsoft millions of dollars, the newspaper
>said.

>MICROSOFT BOOSTS APPLE SOFTWARE EFFORTS
>In an effort to boost Apple Computer's appeal to potential buyers, long-time
>rival Microsoft is setting up a separate unit that will focus on assisting
>small software companies to write Internet programs for Apple computers.
>The unusual move is motivated, in part, by Microsoft's worry that it would
>face serious antitrust problems if Apple were to go out of business.
>Microsoft's new strategy means that software writers are free to create
>programs just for Macs, a reversal of its previous policy that required
>independent developers to write software for Windows as well as Mac systems.
>The new unit may also make no-strings-attached cash grants of up to $100,000
>to small software developers to aid their efforts.  The goal is to "help
>make sure that Apple's market share stays between 8 and 11%," says the
>unit's director.  (Wall Street Journal 12 Aug 96 A3)

•Sorry, that’s 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: 525–4173
Regina, Saskatchewan	Home: 586–2234
email: jaques.law@dlcwest.com	Tel: 359–3041
visit our web page at http://www.dlcwest.com/~jaques.law/