Jaques Law Bits 9610 (© 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. ÄFilemaker Announcements! Warning! Warning! New ObjectSupportLib 1.1.1 Breaks Apple Events Several new software packages, including America Online 3.0, are installing ObjectSupportLib 1.1.1 which causes FileMaker Pro 3.0 to stop handling Apple Events. This file is located in the System Folder:Extensions folder. If you are having this problem, you can download ObjectSupportLib 1.1 (ftp://ftp.claris.com/pub/USA- Macintosh/Updaters/ObjectSupportLib1.1.bin) which fixes the problem. IPX Networking with Open Transport 1.1.1 MacIPX 1.2.1 is not compatible with Open Transport 1.1.1 or later. If you are using Open Transport 1.1.1 or later, we recommend you download MacIPX 1.3.1 (ftp://ftp.claris.com/pub/USA- Macintosh/Updaters/MacIPX1.3.1.bin) for your FileMaker IPX/SPX networking support. The MacIPX client can only be downloaded for FileMaker networking purposes. MacIPX version 1.2.1 is still recommended for use on LocalTalk networks. Open FileMaker Pro 3.0 databases from Netscape! Yes, you can really do this! Click a link in Netscape and open up a FileMaker Pro 3.0 database using the new FMP3://domain.com/filename.fp3 scheme. (http://www.claris.com/support/products/filemakerpro/docs/netscape.html) ÄAnarchie 2.0 Released! [Anarchie is available from redback and ftp.amug.org, and will be available from our other mirrors and UMich and Info-Mac sites shortly] Anarchie is the preeminent Internet FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client for the Macintosh. It lets you browse Internet FTP sites, upload or download files, or find files using an Archie search, Mac Search or Site Indexing. Anarchie is a mature, robust and reliable program suitable for everyone from power users to Internet novices. Anarchie comes with bookmarks for dozens of UMich and Info-Mac mirror sites, and the new Mac Search engine (hosted by Ambrosia Software, Inc.) allows you to very rapidly find files on these sites and then download them from a local mirror. Anarchie is Apple Scriptable and Recordable, and the scripting allows you to fetch and store files to/from FTP sites, so you can automate all sorts of routine FTP tasks. If you have Frontier, it supports Menu Sharing as well as Frontier scripting. Changes since v1.6 are: + PowerPC native. + Upload and Download folders. + Mac Search file search engine. + Tips window. + Lots of User Interface enhancements. Anarchie requires System 7, MacTCP 1.1 or Open Transport 1.1, and is US$10 shareware. Version 2.0 is a free upgrade to registered users who registered after 1 Jan 1996. Users who registered prior to 1996 can upgrade and receive a 50% discount. Hope you like it, Peter. ÄNetscape 3.0 Ships (Old News) In what might be the most anticlimactic product release of the summer, Netscape shipped the "final" version Netscape Navigator 3.0 today, after about five months of beta releases. The download package is 3.5 (binary) to 5 MB (binhexed).... Navigator 3.0 includes Java capability, LiveAudio and QuickTime plug-ins, support for new Netscape-only HTML tags for multi-column text, and a host of other enhancements, partly at the cost of a 7 MB to 9 MB RAM allocation. Netscape is hyping its Live3D and CoolTalk Navigator plug-ins, but they don't appear to be available for the Macintosh. Also, the final 3.0 version of Navigator Gold (with HTML authoring tools) isn't out yet, but I expect Netscape will release it soon. [GD] TidBITS#341/19-Aug-96 ÄCorel Updates WordPerfect ...On 08-Aug-96, Corel announced Corel WordPerfect 3.5, an updated version of Novell WordPerfect 3.5. Current Novell WordPerfect users can download the 1.7 MB Corel WP 3.5 Updater, which updates Novell WordPerfect 3.5 to Corel WordPerfect 3.5 (the Get Info dialog labels it Corel WordPerfect 3.5.1, though other version checks show version 3.5). A few foreign language dictionaries and thesaurus files are also available. (Use the first URL from Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer, and the second one if you're using an FTP client like Anarchie.) ... In addition to fixing several crashing bugs, notable fixes include ruler bar display problems on PCI Power Macs, cleared tabs unexpectedly re-appearing, Font menus in Preferences and Print Envelopes not working on small monitors, and problems with envelope printing. The new version also improves table display and performance. New features include the ability to create HTML forms and to position a caption above a graphic or text box. Corel is also shipping Corel WordPerfect 3.5 on CD-ROM, and this version comes with not only WordPerfect but also with MasterJuggler Pro (see TidBITS-334_), Netscape 2.02, clip art images, background texture images, stock photography, sounds, 150 TrueType fonts, as well as spelling checkers and thesauruses for Spanish, French, and German. The CD-ROM lists for $249, and upgrades are $89. You can sidegrade for $89 if you own a competitive product. It's pleasing to see Corel shipping WordPerfect on CD with a large complement of related files, but I think owners of Novell WordPerfect 3.5 should get the CD for $25 or less. TidBITS#341/19-Aug-96 ÄThat's what I've been calling for! The finder/system as Database! The BeOS file system is a relational database. You can use it as though it were a traditional file system or as a database, and an object in the database doesn't have be a file, nor does it even have to be on disk. There's no easy way the Mac OS could change in this fashion and maintain backward compatibility, but the fact that Be designed their file system in this way is telling. The question is, who will listen? TidBITS#341/19-Aug-96 ÄClaris Home Page 1.0 tip In fact, if you press Option and look in Home Page's File menu, a Remote hierarchical menu appears and offers options for opening and saving files located on a remote FTP server. Why the secrecy? According to Marianne at Claris Technical Support (who seemed quite knowledgeable about Web authoring and Home Page), the feature is undocumented and unsupported for two reasons. First, it's not implemented at all in the Windows version. Second, the feature "just doesn't work sometimes" in the Macintosh version. If the feature doesn't work, you'll know because the connection will fail. Marianne assured me that your Mac won't crash and your document will remain intact. [Editor - They have a nice article on all the features too] TidBITS#341/19-Aug-96 ÄMiracle Software has released World Wide Web Weaver 2.0 Also known as W4, the new version adds many new features, including a special version of Casady & Greene's new Spell Catcher (formerly Thunder 7) and multi-file search and replace (though the search and replace lacks a "whole word only" feature, wild cards, and grep). Additionally, the forms and table editors are more flexible and useful than those in earlier versions. W4 2.0 requires about 2.5 MB of both disk space and application RAM. The new version lists for $89, but with a $60 educational price and a $35 upgrade from version 1.x if you didn't buy an applicable subscription. Miracle Software has made a 1.2 MB demo available. Miracle Software -- 315/265-0930 -- 315/265-1162 -- [TJE] TidBITS#342/26-Aug-96 ÄMacintosh Software Update Report from LEVEL 6 Computing ...Formerly an electronic- and paper-based publication that succinctly listed information about recent Macintosh software updates....Its name has changed to the jazzier "Update Weekly.Mac.", ... now distributed solely via email. ...Update Weekly.Mac used to cost $150 per year. Now, LEVEL 6 offers two versions. One version is free to readers, but supported by sponsors. Sponsorship information appears at the top of each free issue, and software vendors with current major upgrades may also pay to insert copy about their products within the issue. A second version costs $49 per year, comes with additional services, and does not include sponsors. LEVEL 6 Computing -- 818/888-0675 -- 818/888-5635 (fax) [TJE] TidBITS#342/26-Aug-96 ÄMemory Bubble solves new problem on old Word programs [Recently, Word will occasionally fail to start up, complaining of fictitiously low memory.] ...the [3k] freeware extension FixWordSystemMemory 1.1, should correct the problem by, as Larry explains it, "allocating and immediately freeing a block of memory in the system heap when Word starts up (it does not do anything until you launch Word)."... [The technique ... commonly called a "memory bubble." ... creates a "bubble" of free memory for Word to use which otherwise may not have been free. Ironically, Microsoft has used the same technique in some of its other applications, and yes, it's common for programs to need a bit of memory in the system heap for their own use. -Geoff] TidBITS#342/26-Aug-96 ÄEgad! Windows already has a System level database!? There's the JET Engine shipped as part of Windows (ODBC interface, reasonable speed, full relational capability). When we wanted to build a prototype for a potential cross platform product recently, we built it on Windows because we could use the JET Engine for storage. This speeded our prototyping cycle, enabled us to ship to evaluators without licensing hassles, and enabled us to substitute other SQL-compliant databases for multi-user data sharing down the road. All of these are big wins. We spent zero time on reporting tools for it, zero time on storage-related optimizations, and had revision cycles of a few hours because we didn't need to rebuild our test data. (unattributed quotes from Tidbits) For instance, much as I say it through gritted teeth, Microsoft has a system level database of sorts in the Windows 95 Registry. It's rather like a collective preferences folder, so that applications can store their configurations setting there, rather than having a large number of application-specific .INI files. There is a "standard" way to access these database entries, and there's an included program (RegEdit) so users can browse and edit the entries. Lawrence Conroy** Microsoft has been active in the ASID group, proposing that the existing LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) work be extended for dynamic databases using their User Location Service (ULS). This is, basically, an enhancement of their existing WINS directory that's at the heart of Windows Networks. Their Internet Draft is at: [unattributed] TidBITS#342/26-Aug-96 ÄInternet Starter Kit for Macintosh 4.0 (ISBN 1-56830-294-0, Hayden Books, $39.99) Or Internet Starter Kit CD-ROM (over 300 MB of Internet-related software) TidBITS#342/26-Aug-96 ÄInternet Config 1.3 Peter Lewis and Quinn have released Internet Config 1.3, their public domain Internet Configuration System that centralizes a number of your Internet preferences, such as your email address and preferred Web browser. New in Internet Config 1.3, along with a few bug fixes, are windows for the World Wide Web, where you can set your home page and background color, and for Firewalls, where you set all sorts of firewall and proxy settings. It's worth picking up a copy of Internet Config 1.3 at some point, but users of 1.2 aren't missing out on any amazing functionality. TidBITS#343/02-Sept/96 ÄOpenDoc 1.1 Available As of late last week, Apple has made the final version of OpenDoc 1.1 freely available. Unless you're a developer or one of the brave few already building your life around OpenDoc parts (now called Live Objects), version 1.1 is primarily useful for bug fixes and for running Cyberdog 1.1b3, also available for free from Apple. The download is about 3 MB. Please note that there's a special version for users of some older Mac models; see the Web page for details. [GD] TidBITS#343/02-Sept/96 ÄTidBits review of MacUser URL Utility Web Ninja ...I've looked at almost every bookmark manager available on the Web (see the four-part series of reviews beginning in TidBITS-323_) ...it watches where you go on the Web in the background ... faceless background application ...[you do nothing] ... It captures every Web and FTP URL you visit using a Web browser ... it can handle multiple concurrent browser windows, but not running concurrently ...If you visit the same URL more than once, Web Ninja merely increments a counter rather than recording the entire URL again. ...Web Ninja application, ... provides access to the collection of URLs... lists ... sort... by URL, by number of visits, by date of last visit, and by the amount of time you've spent at the site. ...Double-clicking on a URL (or dragging it to the browser window) sends it to your preferred Web browser and resolves it. ...can also export your list of URLs as an HTML file or as a tab-delimited data file ...you can drag URLs from Web Ninja's list to an Items to Download window, and when you click the Download button in that window, Web Ninja will try up to a user-specified number of times to retrieve those URLs. Web Ninja supports both Web and FTP URLs, so it could be a good way of breaking through a busy site, but since it only retrieves the HTML part of a Web page (not graphics), it doesn't compete with a utility like WebWhacker from the Forefront Group, which can download an entire Web page, complete with graphics and fixed links. ...the killer feature in Web Ninja is its filter field. Type a couple of characters in that field and Web Ninja quickly narrows the list of URLs to those that contain the characters you typed. ...Web Ninja holds a total of 4,096 URLs at a time) ...Web Ninja's response time to typing in the filter field is much slower if you have your list sorted by URL than if it's sorted by any of the other columns, like number of visits. Filter first, then sort by URL if you want. ...dead simple to use...comes with documentation...solves a specific problem...well. TidBITS#343/02-Sept/96 ÄNetlaunch introduced - A weird hack from the Mighty Peter Lewis (Anarchie, Internet Config) This is a new hack for the adventurous of you out there. It's a hack and will probably never be a full Stairways product. NetLaunch allows you to launch URLs (eg command-clicking with ICeTEe) and have them redirected to another machine on the Internet. You choose to do them locally or remotely by holding down the option key while launching the ones you want do remotely. For example, you cmd-option-click an FTP URL, and instead of Anarchie launching on your machine, Anarchie launches on a presepecified remote machine. It is ResEdit configured, and is only really useful if you have more than one machine. You have to have Internet Config since this is an Internet Config component. Ä ÄSorry, that¼s 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/