mac week v 10 n 4

to newer monitors and vice versa 01.29.96 The Newsweekly for Macintosh Managers VOLUME 10 NUMBER 4 ‘PCI card to cut Fast Ethernet costs by half By Joanna Pearlstein A newcomer to the Mac market is preparing to pull the rug out from under networking prices. Lite-On Communications Inc. in April expects to release a Fast Ethernet card for PCI Macs with a street price of about $100. Lite-On will offer cards based on its own chipsand those from Digital Equipment Corp. It will ship two dual-speed 10/100BASE T cards, which will list for $129 and $169, and a pair of low-cost 1OBASE T PCI cards for $69 and $89. Lite-On’s cards will be about half the price of comparable cards from market leaders such as As- anté Technologies Inc. of San Jose, Calif; Inc. 0 Dayna Communications Salt Lake City; and Farallon Computing Inc. of Alameda, Calif. Farallon’s dual-speed PCI card lists for $249, and Dayna’s con- tender, the BlueStreak PCI, has a street price of $225. Asanté’s com- See PCI, Page 62 Relational ow | databases are hard, FileMaker Pra 3.0 is easy (es) Apple: Stay the course? Sun not set on acquisition; CEO hangs on By Jon Swartz Just a month ago, the prospects of Sun Microsystems Inc. buying Apple seemed as likely as Bill Walsh returning to the San Fran- cisco 49ers. According to sources, Apple has been in discussions with Sun since October, and representa- tives of the Mountain View, Calif.-based workstation maker were frequently seen visiting the executive wing of Apple’s Cuper- tino, Calif, headquarters. However, MacWEEK has learned that, as of press time, Apple and Sun are not close to signing a deal, much less setting a price for the stock. In fact, despite published reports, even relatively simple matters, such as which parts of Apple’s business Sun would be interested in acquiring, have not been settled. Sources close to the company said Apple is continuing discussions with D CALDWELL Apple shareholders filed out of last week's meeting in Cupertino, Calif., with few answers or reassurances from the company’s board. several suitors and_ potential strategic partners and that no op- tion, including remaining inde- pendent, has been excluded. A former Apple executive said top management had been overly confident that a deal with Sun was at hand and failed to develop a complete restructuring pro- gram in case the deal fell through by the end of 1995. Agfa scanning the low end By Kristin Balleisen A new scanner from Agfa will push the bottom of the company’s price envelope down may signal a new focus on the low end of the imaging market, sources said. A color flatbed device priced at $399 is planned for a spring roll- out. The new scanner, tentatively called SnapScan, will reportedly and NEWSPAPER S ECOND CLASS be based on a Microtek engine and accommodate both letter- and legal-size images. The Snap- Scan’s CCD (charge-coupled de- vice) array will scan images at an optical resolution of 300 by 600 dpi and capture eight bits each of RGB data per pixel. Sources said Agfa, a division of Bayer Corp., of Ridgefield Park, N.J., is considering delin- eating a separate segment of the company that will focus solely on marketing and sales to the entry- level market. The move would mirror an announcement from Agfa rival Linotype-Hell Co. of Hauppauge, N.Y., which this See Agfa, Page 62 Apple’s $69 million loss last quarter set back the Sun negotia- tions, and Apple had to scramble to restructure, sources said. The result was an incomplete plan. “[The restructuring] is simply a reiteration of strategies in place for See Apple, Page 64 System 7.5.3: Major update due by March Fix will be in for Open Transport By Clifford Colby Apple is expected to test its own unification theory in February or March by shipping an update to the Mac system software. System 7.5 Update 2.0 will re- portedly roll into one release everything offered in previous System 7.5 updates plus several new features, bug fixes and native parts. The update will change the version number of the OS to 7.5.3, according to sources. System 7.5.3 will reportedly ~ Investors are shaken, not stirred By Jon Swartz and Mark Hall Cupertino, Calif. — Shareholders trekked to Apple headquarters last week to discover whether the com- pany had a plan to deal with its re- cent problems or if there were a buyer waiting in the wings. They left disappointed on both counts. Apple Chairman A.C. Mike Markkula Jr. told a standing- room-only audience of more than 300 that he understood their frus- tration. But he and CEO Michael Spindler offered few specifics on how they intend to return Apple to profitability. In addition to 1,300 layoffs, which Spindler said would reduce overall administrative costs by 10 percent by the end of the fiscal year, other cost-cutting measures will See Shareholders, Page 64 rectify the disparity among Mac- intosh platforms, giving 680x0 machines and NuBus- and PCI- based Power Macintoshes the same system software. Among the expected additions to System 7.5.3 will be a new version of Open Transport, which was pre- viously available only for PCI- based Macintoshes. Open Trans- port 1.1 will run on 68030- and 68040-based Macintoshes and be tuned for faster networking links, including Fast Ethernet. Open Transport 1.1 will also be optimized for server applications. System 7.5.3 will reportedly in- clude an updated Finder that will See OS, Page 62 MAKE YOUR OWN CDs! #1 Selling Recordable CD system New 4X read, 2X write performance Make & distribute your own | audio, video, or data CDs New CD Burner 2.0 - Mac Archive all kinds of information: databases, company records, photos, charts, etc. Mix & master your own custom audio CDs. Digidesign approved Backup your data with Pinnacle's RCD backup utility Pinnacle’s new RCD 5040™ is a 2X CD Recorder and 4X CD-ROM player for only $1295. As a Recorder, it can create custom data, audio or video CDs up to 650 MB. As a Player it can read thousands of educational, multimedia and music CD-ROMs. Pinnacle’s new CD Burner 2.0 Mac creation software offers the best graphical user interface and the most comprehensive support for the Mac environment. And with Pinnacle’s RCD backup utility, CDs can easily replace magnetic tape for better reliability and fast random access to your data. Each CD is only $15 per disc or 3 cents per megabyte! xo The RCD 5040 is the easiest way to create your own CD of multimedia titles, interac- tive games, or even master : ii: aN your own audio CD of your Pinnacle CD Burner Mac Creation Software favorite tunes. You can backup All Trademarks and Registered Trademarks of Their Respective Owners. VALUE- PACKED COMPLETE SYSTEM . = Pinnacle 2X CD Recorder/4X Player * Extreme Software's UP!” * Pinnacle RCD Creation Software - 100 Digital Video Startup Clips © Pinnacle RCD Backup Utility © 2 Pieces of Recordable CD Media * Digidesign” MasterList CD Approved —_* Full One-year Limited Warranty accounting records, business plans, charts, graphs or confidential information on CDs_ for decades - safe and secure. The RCD 5040 system is simply the best way to store, archive, distribute and create information. Best of all, it's now affordable - it's “izssenue recordable. To order or for a %s#eerditle (co) local dealer call:800.553.7070 PINNACLE Dicro THE OPTICAL STORAGE COMPANY Tel: 714-789-3000 Fax: 714-789-3150 http://www.pinnaclemicro.com 01.29.96 VOLUME 10 NUMBER 4 4 UP FRONT VST offers PowerBook drives 6 NEWS Microtech storage smorgasbord 10 GA 16 GATEWAYS FAXcilitate update Fuji device prints color without inks or ribbons ¢ Epson scanner to face off against Visioneer ® Java for Mac due in February ¢ KISS’n’ tell: New spreadsheet ¢ Xerox printer sports workgroup options ¢ Microfield and | Smart Technologies update whiteboards ¢ Hash rehashes Animation: Master in free upgrade ¢ E-magine helps build multimedia portfolios * SmartSketch Animator draws on r Web ¢ miro PCI board cuts cost of digital video Asanté to accelerate Open Transport with new utility ¢ TeleFinder 5.0 brings BBSes to t the Internet ¢ Just the fax from Supra’s Table of Contents Nonprogrammers can create digital portfolios and presentations with E-magine’s ProView. See GA, Page 10. Integrated software may suit all your office needs. See Solutions, Page 31. What's the buzz on the Net? Internet Phone. See Gateways, Page 16. ALSO 20 Second Decade 21 = Letters 33 Mail Order 47 MarketPlace PAGE 3 25 REVIEWS Claris FileMaker Pro 3 relates well to users, developers * Sonic Systems’ QuickStream/3 lends PPP power to remote access * Forum * Miramar’s Personal Maclan Connect 5.51 31 SOLUTIONS In the small-office and home markets, integrated packages are enjoying a boom; users say these apps are all they'll ever need. DEPARTMENTS & OPINION 20 Editorial 31 MacInTouch 64 Stock Watch 66 Mac The Knife 21° Mac Manager INSIDE 65 Advertiser Index 65 Product Index If Apple could deposit rumors about its “imminent” sale in the bank, it wouldn’t have to worry about making money selling Macs. Its bottom line would balloon to gar- gantuan proportions, obviating the severe criticism the company’s management and board of directors endured at last week’s shareholders meeting. Alas, these kinds of rumors are, almost by definition, worthle: As James Staten wrote in this space last week, a combination of Sun Microsys Inc. and Apple ma Italso makes a lot of sense for Microsoft Corp. to buy Intel Corp., or vice versa. Is either deal likely to be com- pleted? Who knows? This much we do know: ecutives at Apple and Sun have had discussions that involve es- tablishing the value of all or kes a lot of sense. a ee Te ae part of Apple’s operations. Apple has had these discus- i sions before with other compa- i nies. Sun has had similar dis- cussions with other companies. MACWEEK INSIDER Hoping for a good rumor MARK HALL It happens all the time. It’s the way busi- ness is done these days. People buy. People sell. Companies come and go. But keep in mind that there are always far more dis- cus: What makes this round of “what-if” conversations ons than deals. ascinating to so many peo- ple is the sad state of Apple’s balance sheet. Had the company been able to show a de- cent profit last quarter, the brouhaha about (insert company name here) gobbling up Apple would not be so loud. Apple’s man- agement compounds the problem by offer- ing a less-than-comforting plan to rescue itself from, well, itself. Part of the problem is Apple’s so-called restructur- ing. Industry observers and shareholders alike say they be- lieve Apple’s latest plan is too little or at least too much of the old stuff that hasn't worked before. Worse, Apple’s top brass hint openly that more changes are in the offing. Well, what are they? same You get the idea they just don’t know. It’s no wonder that people pin their hopes on the arrival of a white knight that can truly shake up the compan: Whether Apple is finally sold to S anyone else is almost beside the point. The market is looking for a dramatic change at Apple, and it has not seen it. The layoffs don’t seem to go deep enough. Cutting the ad- mittedly huge panoply of Mac models doesn’t seem that significant. Shuttering eWorld is no real surprise. And when top execu- tives claim they can bring Apple out of its doldrums by making product planning more efficient, they begin to sound like politi- cians in an election year describing how they intend to balance the budget. None of it scems to ring true. The tragedy here is not about Apple going out of business. I assure you, that won't happen. Keep in mind the 22-plus million Macs out there. The $12 billion revenue stream. The No. 2 operating sys- tem in the world. The company’s top posi- tion in education and consumer markets. ‘There are too many fundamentally sound in or Apple hints openly ~ of more changes. : Well, what are they? Does Apple know? aspects of the Macintosh platform to make Apple a candidate for the corporate trash heap. The fact that it is so often the subject o ‘quisition rumors speaks volumes as to the value of the company. No, the tragedy is that Apple’s top management and board let rumors grip them by the throat. They hurt their own credibility and the company’s fortunes at every turn. Not only do. their plans for salvation seem half-baked, their public pronouncements contradictory. Everyone gets con- fused when the com- pany chairman “Apple is not for sale,” and the next minute of- fers a standagd “no comment on rumors” statement. What is he saying? I asked those who should know inside Apple. They told me “No comment.” Gee, thanks. It’s no wonder the rumors spread. They seem to have more substance than what Apple management has to say. They also seem to offer the only hope. 3 are says, Mark Hall is MacWEEK editor in chief and can reached at mark_hall@macweek.com. RET ee MacWEEK (ISSN 0892-81 18) is published weekly, with the exception of Jan. 1, July 1, Sept. 2, and Dec. 23 and 30, by Ziff-Davis Publishing Co., 1 Park Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. Single-copy price, including postage: $6. One-year subscription rate: US., $125; Canada/Mexico, U.S. $225; International, U.S. $350 (airmail) All orders must be prepaid. Direct subscription inquiries to Customer Service Department, MacWEEK, /o JCI, P.O. Box 10634, Riverton, N.J. 08076-0634; (609) 786-8230. Changes of address require that a new application be filled out completely and include both new and old addresses. Allow four to six weeks for processing. We periodically make lists of our customers available to carefully screened mailers of quality goods and services, Ifyou do not wish to receive such mailings, please let us know by writing to us at Customer Service Department, MacWEEK, P.O. Box 10634, Riverton, N.J. 08076-0634. Postmaster: Send address changes to MacWEEK, P.O. Box 10634, Riverton, N.J. 08076- 0634. Second-class postage paid at New York and additional mailing offices. Printed in U.S.A. Canada Post International Publications Mail Product (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No. 410667. Canadian GST registration number is R140496720. PAGE 4 No ribbons, inks: | Multilayer paper creates images By Kristin Balleisen Employing a new imaging tech- nology that could give dye subli- mation a run for its money, Fuji Photo Film USA Inc. is readying an eco-friendly printer whose only consumable is special paper. NC-500 digital color printer, due by late spring, | will sell for an estimated $8,000 and will feature Fujifilm’s Thermo-Autochrome _ technol- ogy. According to Fuji, the new system uses heat and light from “an ultraviolet lamp and the com- pany’s multilayered paper to cre- ate a CMY image. Asa result, the dry-print device will not require ribbons, toner or chemicals. The 300-dpi device will output letter, A4-size and half-size prints in about two minutes and will | closely rival dye-sublimation qual- ity, Fuji said. The Fujix NC-500 may also edge out dye-sublimation prints in the cost arena; its consumables cost an estimated $2 per print, while dye-sublimation output av- erages between $2.25 and $2.50 per print. Fuji said that although final specifications have not yet been set, | the printer will likely ship with 24 Mbytes of RAM. The printer will Fuji eco printer is chemical-free How Fuji does color Base layer ship with an Adobe Photoshop plug-in; the initial release will not include PostScript, however. The NC-500 will ship with a sheet feeder that will accommo- date 50 sheets of the company’s A half-sheet tray will also be available. specialized mediz John McIntyre, the managing editor of Hard Copy Supplies Journal, based in Newtonville, | Mass., said, “If [the printer] has comparable or better technology than dye-sublimation printers, it is a direct threat to those [printers}.” However, he said, “It is really critical [for Fuji] to do Post- Script,” if it hopes to target the graphics market. Fuji Photo Film USA Inc. of Elmsford, N.Y.,can be reached at (508) 583-5239 or (800) 755-3854; fax (508) 583-9904. By Andrew Gore | Heidi Roizen, a longtime advo- cate of Macintosh developer is- sues, last week became vice presi- dent of Apple developer services. Roizen, who founded and served as CEO of T/Maker Co., will be in charge of Apple evan- gelism and developer support. “{Roizen] has been a successful chief executive in the software community we want to get closer to,” said David Nagel, senior vice president of Apple R&D. “She's extremely well-known and well- Roizen signs on with Apple respected among ... She’s well-connected and knows the players and will be able to get us the accurate feedback we need to make good decisions.” developers. Developers greeted Roizen’s appointment with enthusiasm. “[Something] missing at Apple has been a very pragmatic view- point of what it means to be a de- veloper,” said David Winer, a longtime Mac developer. “Apple needs more input from people who haven't been insulated [in- side the company].” 0 Java to spill onto Mac in February By James Staten JavaSoft, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s | newest division, said last week that Java for the Mac will ship in February; meanwhile, other com- panies plan to deliver Java solu- tions by March. > JavaSoft of Mountain View, Calif., said a public beta of Java 1.0 for the Mac will be available at http//java.sun.com. A final ver- sion is due in March. JavaSoft said the Mac version trails the Windows 95, Windows | NT and Solaris versions, released last week, because of staff short- ages, which have been resolved. Java 1.0, a software developers kit, will include the Virtual Ma- chine for the Mac OS, an applet viewer, a compiler and a debugger. JavaSoft said it is working on a version of HotJava Web browser that will run on the Mac, but has not scheduled a release date. > Netscape Communications Corp., also of Mountain View, an- nounced last week that Navigator 2.0 for the Mac, expected to ship in final form Jan. 30, will not provide Java support. Navigator 2.1, due later this quarter, will add Java. > Spyglass Inc. of Naperville, Ill, said last week that it has li- censed J forthcoming version of its En- hanced Mosaic browser due this quarter. Microsoft Corp.'s Inter- net Explorer is based on Spyglass’ browser. and will add it to a 01.29.96 MACWEEK By Matthew Rothenberg Epson America Inc. is preparing a challenger to Visioneer Inc.'s popular PaperPort document- scanning package. The Epson Personal Document Station, slated to ship in March for $449, will be based on a propri- etary scanner engine and OCR software for converting sheet-fed documents into editable text. The PDS’ CCD (charge- coupled device) array will capture eight-bit gray ages at a resolution of 300 dpi. The cale document im- sheet feeder will accommodate up to 10 legal- or letter-size pages. It will ship with an attachment that will let users scan up to three busi- ness cards at a time. According to Epson, the system will be able to process four pages per minute. The OCR software will auto- matically differentiate between text and images. Epson’s Text | Enhancement Technology will VST puts MO drive in PowerBooks By Joanna Pearlstein Adding removable storage to its PowerBook product line, VST Technologies has announced a magneto-optical drive for the PowerBook 5300 and 190 series. Based on the DynaMO mecha- nism from San Jose, Cal Fujitsu Computer Products of America Inc. (see 07.10.95, Page 4), the MO drive fits into the new PowerBooks’ expansion bays. The VST Magneto-Optical can read and write 230-Mbyte and 128-Mbyte 3.5-inch MO disks. Expected to ship in late February, the $449.95 drive boasts a transfer based Portable removable storage: VST Technologies’ MO drive fits into the PowerBooks’ expansion bays. rate of 1.6 Mbytes per second. It weighs 13 ounces and is 0.75 inches high. VST has added a $779.95, L-Gbyte hard drive to its storage lineup; the 10GB Hard Drive is set New Epson scanner to rival PaperPort Epson's diminutive Personal Doc- ument Station will combine scanning and OCR functions in one com- pact package. improve the accuracy of scans by climinating background col- ors and extraneous marks on a page. The scanner will be bun- dled with e-Paper, document- archiving and management soft- ware ‘ond Glance Software of Bremerton, Wash. The PDS will compete with PaperPort Vx, a $369, 400-dpi image-scanning device tha supports eight-bit gray PaperPort, from Visioneer of Palo Alto, Calif., comes bundled with OmniPage Lite OCR software from Caere Corp. Scan SE, business-card scanning software from Corex Technolo- gies Corp. (see 10.09.95, Page 4). Hewlett-Packard Co. of Palo Alto offers the $349 ScanJet 4s, which is based on the Visioneer | technology (see 11.06.95, Page 1). Epson America Inc. of Tor- rance, Calif., is at (310) 782-0770 or (800) 289-3776, Ext. 3000.3 from Si Iso he as well as Card- to ship March 1. Prices for VST"s other expansion-bay hard drives have dropped: The 810-Mbyte drive is now $699.95, down from $749.95, and the 1.2-Gbyte drive now sells for $879.95, down from $999.95. VST also offers a 540- Mbyte IDE hard drive for $549.95. | Allof VST's drives require the | company’s drivers, and all can be inserted and mounted while the PowerBook is running. VST Technologies, formerly known as VST Power Systems Inc., of Concord, Mass., can be reached at (508) 287-4600; fax (508) 287-4068. EtherWave® PowerBook PC Card Award winning daisy-chainable 10Base-T with dual RJ-45 connectors allows you to connect to the network even if the only 10Base-T connection is already in use. a PN361 $69 EtherMac™ PowerBook PC Card Get basic 10Base-T or combo with thinnet (PN595-C) for an easy Ethernet connection for PowerBooks with PC Card slots. a Inoustry: fastest Now your infrared-equipped PowerBook can connect to any Mac or the network over thin air at 230kbps—without cables! a PNS40ADB $288 Daisy Chainable PNS0Za $39 EtherMac™ Transceiver These small, low-cost transceivers offer Ethernet-equipped PowerBooks easy 10Base-T or thinnet network connections. a PNSSOC-ADB $229 EtherWave® PowerBook Adapter EtherMac™ PowerBook Adapter Use the DIN-8 serial port to connect PowerBooks without on-board Ethernet FtherWave® Transceiver to 10Base-T or Thin Ethernet. a a New PowerBooks with PC Card slot Choose daisy-chainable EtherWave for the most . flexible way to connect Ethernet-equipped PowerBook 100 series and Duos with serial port PowerBooks to a 10Base-T Ethernet network. (@\. a 5 PowerBook 500 series Whether you ve got a brand-new PowerBook (5300 or 190) or an older one, there’s a Farallon solution for you. For new PowerBooks with PC Card (PCMCIA) slots, PowerBooks with Ethernet installed, or even older PowerBooks without Ethernet, Farallon has the right connection that will put you on the network today. All Farallon PowerBook products come with top-rated technical support and a lifetime warranty to guarantee you reliable performance. So when you need any type of connection for your PowerBook, Farallon has an affordable plug-and-play solution for you. . Call now for your free consultation on the best way to hook your book. = 4-Ss Ask for your free copy of Farallon’s Network Selector Slide Rule! &; 7 ——s 1-800-049-7781 & MacOS ABSRANTY Netiire = oy ® Price listed are estimated U.S. street prices. America Online and AppleLink ID Farallon; eWorld ID: ae Faallon50; Internet ID: info farallon.com: All trademarks are the property oftheir respective ‘owners. © Copyright 1995 Farallon Computing, Inc. Ether Wave® technology is covered by US Patent No.5 424,708, Other US and international patents are pending. http://www.faralion.com/www/pbad.html / PAGE 6 01.29.96 MACWEEK Casady & Greene preps entry-level app By Jon Swartz iy Casady & Greene Inc. is readying a spread- sheet that it hopes will do for numeric cal- culations what the Macintosh did for hard- ware case of use. The company this month announced Keep It Simple Spreadsheet, object- oriented software with a drag-and-drop interface. Shown at the San Francisco Macworld Expo as Solutions!, the re- named application is scheduled to ship this, spring with a street price of about $129. Aimed at the small-business, home and education markets, the program will let users create a spreadsheet by dragging holders for numbers, mathematical opera- tors, charts and labels from tool bars and palettes. The elements can then be linked by drawing relationships between them; data, functions and relationships can be quickly changed at any time. According to Casady, KISS’ presenta- tion of formulas as objects can reduce the logical errors common. in traditional spreadsheets. The software will also let New spreadsheet keeps it simple users enter data into cells di- rectly instead of requiring a sep- arate entry field. “T really like the idea of not being confined to a single grid,” said beta tester Dan Shafer, di- rector of technology at San Francisco-based Salon Internet Inc. Shafer said the program should appeal to “non-number crunchers.” A KISS document will start with a single master view or re- port. Users will be able to then add other views, which can show a subset of the data. KISS operators will allow users to compare results for different input values and speedily run what-if analyses. Results can be displayed in several graph formats, including pie and bar charts. The program will come with a variety of templates, including spreadsheets for com- paring auto buying or leasing, stock port- folio analysis, expense reports, and budget projections. In addition, the software will support Custom Operators that will provide a plug-in architecture for third-party devel- opers to beef up the program’s built-in op- WHO EVERYWHERE SAYS With PacerTerm, it’s as easy as pressing a button. Running on your Mac, PacerTerm connects you to a © world of network resources, with the most comprehensive multi-window, muli-session, multi-protocol terminal emulation in the industry (including VT420). It also comes ue with user-friendly features like keymapping and softkeys that make corporate connectivity as simple as clicking on an icon. So go ahead! Log on to a local host. Hook up with an online service. Download files from another department - all at the same time! With PacerTerm, the world’s at your command. Call us at 1-800-PICK-AGE to learn more. YOU CAN’T BE AT ONCE? NetManage, Inc. ‘thera The et 10725 North De Anza Bivd., Cupertino, CA 95014 Tel: 408.975.7171 Fax: 408.257.6405 a E-mail: sales@netmanage.com URL: http://www.netmanage.com PacerTerm and NetManage are repstered trademarks of NetManage, Inc. Apple, Mac and the Mac OS logo ™"=7™" fhe are trademarks of Apple Computer, In., used under license. All other trademarks are the property of thir respective owners. The Keep It Simple Spreadsheet will give a graphical object- oriented interface to data and calculations. eration set. The company said it plans to develop KISS into an OpenDoc container by the end of the year. Casady & Greene Inc. of Salinas, Calif, is at (408) 484-9228 or (800) 359-4920; fax (408) 484-9218; c&g@casadyg.com; http:// www.casadyg.com. 0 Vendors bolster whiteboard lines By Matthew Rothenberg Smart Technologies Inc. and Microfield Graphics Inc. chalked up new additions to their electronic whiteboard lines this month. Smart’s new Rear Projection Smart Board 420, available now for $18,000, fea- tures a 42-inch touch-sensitive screen with a touch resolution of 115 points per inch. The wood-and-metal cabinet includes a 640-by-480-pixel NEC MultiSync LCD projection panel. The device uses a serial interface and comes with styluses in red, green, black and blue, as well as an eraser. Microfield introduced new software for its three SoftBoard models: the $2,795 Soft- Board 205, $3,295 SoftBoard 201 and $3,995 SoftBoard 203. SBTemplate, available now for $350, lets users draw a template or underlay on the whiteboard’s surface, then display an iden- tical template on screen. Users can write and erase over the template without affect- ing it, Microfield said. According to the company, users can apply templates to the porcelain-coated steel surface of the white- board via silk screening and vinyl tape. Users can choose a PICT file for a template. SBProjection, also $350, lets owners of an LCD panel or projection system project any application onto the SoftBoard surface and then control the application via the Soft- Board’s stylus pen, which acts asa mouse. Smart Technologies Inc. of Calgary, Al- berta, can be reached at (403) 245-0333; fax (403) 245-0366; sales@smarttech.com. Microfield Graphics Inc. of Beaverton, Ore., is at (503) 626-9393 or (800) 334-4922; fax (503) 641-9333; sb_info@mfg.com. 0 Xerox printer offers raft of paper options By David Morgenstern Xerox Corp. this week will welcome a flexible new desktop laser printer to its DocuPrint product family. Aimed at workgroup printing, the $2,850 DocuPrint 4517mp draws on stan- dard copier features, including duplexing, collation and mailbox-style output trays. Based on a Fuji-Xerox engine, the legal- size printer provides 1,200-by-600-dpi res- olution at speeds up to 17 letter-size pages per minute, the company said. The model supports edge-to-edge printing, which lets images nearly cover a full sheet of paper. Users can add many input and output options to the printer. A $445 internal du- plexing assembly can handle print speeds up to 13 ppm. In addition to the built-in 250-sheet tray, the 4517mp supports up to two $300 500-sheet cassettes. The model comes standard with a 250-sheet output tray, and users can add a $445 500-sheet catch tray that offsets each print job. Slated for release in the second quarter is a $1,230 mailbox assembly with 10 letter- size slots. Each slot will hold up to 50 sheets and will be able to be locked and password- protected. The unit will also be able to be used asa collator for print jobs. The 4517mp uses a 25-MHz Intel i960 RISC processor and comes standard with 6 Mbytes of RAM, which can be expanded to 64 Mbytes. The printer offers PostScript Level 2 and HP PCL 5E emulation. It will come with 35 Type | and 45 PCL fonts anda pair of PCMCIA slots for fonts and forms. The printer will ship with bidirectional, parallel and Ethernet interfaces. Optional LocalTalk and token-ring interfaces are $560 and $100, respectively. A PCL 5E model without Ethernet or PostScript costs $2,070. Xerox Corp. of Rochester, N.Y., can be reached at (716) 442-4028 or (800) 349-3769, fax (716) 442-1339; http:// www.xerox.com. () The DocuPrint 4517mp model on the left sports an optional collating 10-slot mailbox output tray; the other has a catch tray that offsets each print job. j it us Aman hAture oe fark the roof of your ny with pizza. Ss. it is AuMaAhonature to live ever-so-slughtly tyond your means. 4 “ | ‘ ~ . . tas Us humaw nature to WANG BO MAVoLa Modem problems Ve Te b age ss Crp. ; tS Br help with some /7" of Wenner nate. 28.8 CRUISECARD™ Mopbem With XJACK: Designed. Books. ital Line Guard. vel Headache Nullifier: / human nature to think that using anything without a rainbow-hued means there are never any proprietary cables to carry (or lose) ever: Digital Line apple on it ts a good way to get a migraine. © Thats why weve created the 28.8 — Guard warns you f youre about to fry your modem by plugging into a digital CruiseCard PC Card Modem to be compatible with PowerBooks, life on the road PBX phone line. 2 The result? Youre in touch, no matter where business takes and, most important, you. © Our patented XJACK ‘connector pops out to connectto you. Of course, first youll need to get in touch with us. Call 1-800-LINKING, any standard phone jack, and hides itself neatly for travel. That “xt. 4515, Or find us on the Net at www.megahertz.com. Stratus Pyramid PAGE 8 01.29.96 MACWEEK ‘Microtech unveils new Mac drives By David Mo?genstern Microtech International Inc. in February will ship new storage devices for mobile, network server and desktop Mac models. Aimed at users of digital cameras, the company will Digital Photo Album.p, a smaller, lower-cost model in its release PC Card reader-writer line. The company said it expects a street price of about $385. Slightly less than an inch tall, the new drive has a footprint of 3 by 5 inches. It has a single slot that supports Type I, IT and III cards and comes with both SCSI and HDI-30 cables. Microtech’s original two-slot reader-writer costs $665. ‘The company will also ship RoadRunner MO 230, a 3.5-inch magneto-optical drive for the PowerBook 5300 and 190 models. It will have an estimated street price of $469. Based on a Fujitsu mechanism, the drive fits into the expansion bay and will come Ultrix HP/UX IBM AIX Solaris Auspex SunOS NetBSD Lin Unisys SCOUNIX Tan 50 MANY 3 y ONC/NFS ww interCon IN SO LITTLE NFS/snare Free Trial! Call 1-800-468-7266 dept. #130, or download it from our Web site at http://www.intercon.com/nfsshare/130/ InterCon Systems Corporation m Phone: 703.709.5500 = Email: nfsshare@intercon.com All brands and product names mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners. 4 dhl TIVE VERS with two blank 230-Mbyte cartridges. In other MO news, Microtech will un- crate Blue MO 2600, a high-capacity 5.25- inch MO drive. The new $2,875 drive is based on a Maxoptix mechanism and sup- ports media capacities of 2.6 Gbytes, 1.3 Gbytes and 650 Mbytes. The unit has a sustained data transfer rate of 3.3 Mbytes per second, Microtech said. It will come with a 2.6-Gbyte cartridge. Network managers with heav age needs can look to Microt Group AutoDAT 136 jukebox. The $6,995 autoloader holds up to 17 DAT cartridges and provides a maximum capacity of 136 and 272 Gbytes for 2-to-1 and 4-to-1 com- . It uses pression ratios, respectivel Sony Digital Data Storage-2 mechanism and will come with 16 tapes and Microtech this month rel ‘aning cartridge. ased Blue Storm LC drives, entry-level models of the com- pany’s Blue Storm line. The new enclosures | do not come with the front-panel LCD found with the usual Blue Storm drives. Based on Conner mechanisms, the $1,199 2-Gbyte model has a 5,400-rpm spindle speed; the $1,549 4-Gbyte drive of- fers 7,200-rpm spindle speed. Microtech International Inc. Haven, Conn., is at (203) 468-622. 626-4276; fax (203) 468-6466. Add-on helps Word do math Users of Mathematica, the math software from Wolfram Research Inc., can now em- brace the written word. The company this month released Mathematica Link for Word, an add-on that performs calcula- tions within Microsoft Word. Mathematica Link lets users edit calcula- of East 3 or (800) tions and flow text around existing calcula- tions. It can selectively hide elements and add text annotations to formulas and graphs. The $129 software requires Mathemat- ica 2.2.2 or higher and Microsoft Word Version 6.0 or later. Wolfram said the add-on uses MathLink, a proprietary communications protocol, to call Mathe word proc atica’s kernel from within the or. Word’s built-in spelling and grammar checkers will bypass the mathe- matical text when searching a document. Wolfram Research Inc. of Champaign, IIL, is at (217) 398-0700 or (800) 441-6284; fax (217) 398-0747; http//www.wri.com. 1a as Ts (Cala TGC Ce EEeS Il — Wolfram's Mathematica Link for Word places math features into Microsoft Word. The pen may bemightier than the sword, but the Scanner blows them both away. THE EPSON ES-1000C BUSINESS COLOR SCANNING SYSTEM. FOR UNDER $849. What is the most effective way to express yourself? With force? Or with artistry? How about both? The Epson ES-1000C scans text and graphics. It gives you 30-bit color and stiletto-sharp 3200 dpi resolu- tion (400 optical). And Epson’s Text Enhancement Technology improves your optical character recogni- tion accuracy. The result? Astonishing image detail and color reproduction. (In other words, designs and layouts that look like you never imagined they could.) Call 1-800-BUY-EPSON ext. 3200, or visit our Web site at http://www.epson.com, and commu- { nicate in a whole new way. (Powerfully.) 6 The ES-I000C comes complete Vy bs ith Xerox Tetridge OCR and YOU'VE GOT TO SEE IT IN | EPSON | COLOR: Adobe Photoshop LE software so you ib Seb Maia GGRIELE: MSRP. PC/Mac configurations. Epson is a registered trademark of Seiko Epson Corp. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the = i properties of their respective holders. Do not scan published material without permission of the copyright holder. ©1996 Epson America, Inc. Gi AGFA RIPS IT UP Agfa has a PostScript Level 2 RIP based on three PowerPC 604 chips for its ChromaPress digital printing system. Graphics Applications © Publishing * Multimedia Hash rehashing 3-D app, will offer free upgrade By Kelly Ryer In a peace offering to its Mac users, Hash Inc. is working on a major upgrade to Animation: Master. Version 4.0 will be free to current users of the character- animation program. Besides quashing a variety of bugs, Animation: Master 4.0 will include several new features that didn’t make it into the October 1995 release of Version 3.0. Version 4.0, which is in the works for this spring, will work only on Power Macs, the com- pany said. The new version will Fetail for $699, the Animation: Ma Version 4.0 of the platform program will be avail- able for Windows 95, Windows NT and Power Macs. According to the company, however, 680x0- based Macintoshes will not have the power to run Version 4.0. The Power Mac upgrade will also re- quire 16 Mbytes of RAM, accord- ing to Hash. cross- File Edit Segment _Windoi Version 4.0 of Animation: Master will add spline-modeling capabilities and particles to the character-animation package. Hash acknowledged that Mac- intosh users of Version 3.0 ex- perienced compatibility problems. “3.0 was a long, hard port,” said Steve Sappington, di- technical some rector of support. STiP Professional 2.2 to help Web multimedia interact By James Staten A free upgrade to MacVONK ‘TiP Professional multimedia-authoring _applica- tion promises to deliver interac- tive Web without requiring a Netscape vanada Inc.'s multimedia on the Navigator plug-in or a complex programming language Version 2.2 of STiP Profes- sional will let users save a file as a CGI (Common Gateway Inter- face) player application. See STiP, Page 12 STP Profes- sional 2.2 will let users save files as a CGI player applica- tion that will deliver inter- activity to Web users. | vector- “We've fixed a lot of bugs.” Besides bug fixes, the new ver- sion will include motion-capture input and output, support for par- ticle effects and physical dynamics, and spline modeling. It will fea- ture a distributed network ren- derer. In addition, a compositing module will let users lay effects, such as lens flare or explo- sions, with their animations. See Hash, Page 12 By Kelly Ryer E-magine this month released ProView, a $99 tool designed to help nonprogrammers create digi- tal portfolios and presentations. The corporate images, QuickTime movies and sounds into digital portfolios. Each page can include hot spots that can play sounds or direct movement to other pages. Image and movie sizes can be controlled using standard Quick- Time compression options. ProView then creates a run- time engine, called a ProViewer, ina proprieta decide whether to compile the media files within the viewer or access them externally; the run- time engine adds less than 100 software lets users in- y format. Users can 01.29.96 MACWEEK E-magine lets users enhance portfolios © Kbytes to the size of the media. According to the company, play- back is enhanced by RAM opti- mization, which closes windows automatically when they re not in use. E-magine said that the player requires 2.5 Mbytes of RAM for the application. The company said it plans an- other update in mid-February. Version 1.2 will incorporate fade transitions between pages as well as drag-and-drop support for all elements. The upgrade will also let users import JPEG-compressed | images, E-magine said E-magine of New York can be reached at (212) 262-4394 or (800) 603-1474; fax (212) 262-4394; http://www. panix.com/-~ e-magine/. © Fie Cait Contents Page Tent_Mowle ssrB Making quick work of creat- ing digital portfolios, ProView lets users embed graphics, sounds and QuickTime movies into aruntime engine. FutureWave to put vectors on-line By Kristin Balleisen Web designers will soon be able to move beyond bit maps with a ed animation package from FutureWave Software Inc. Due by midyear for $249, SmartSketch Animator will let users place moving or static vector-based drawings on Web pages. FutureWave said the new product will include drawing and painting functions from the com- pany’s SmartSketch drawing and illustration package (see 08.07.95, Page 87). The package will comprise an editor; a stand-alone viewer; and a 150-Kbyte, Java-based plug-in low-cost for Netscape Navigator Users will be able to create ani- mations and save them as Quick- Time videos or in the company’s FutureWave's SmartSketch Anima- tor will let designers add vector graphics and animations to the bit- mapped Web universe. proprietary vector-based file for- mat, SmartSketch Animator will also let users import PICT, GIF and JPEG files from other illus- tration programs. The application will include gradient and ring keyframe-animation functions, and a time line; users will be able to create motion paths. Accord- ing to FutureWave, the com- pany’s rendering engine will let users anti-alias pictures as they are being drawn. FutureWave Software Inc. of San Diego is at (619) 637-6190 or (800) 619-6193; fax (619) 637- 9032; futurewav@aol.com. tools, FOR A DESIGNER OR ILLUSTRATOR THE ONLY TOOL MORE IMPORTANT : oS THAN CANVAS” 5 - Bethea IS THE COFFEE MACHINE. THE BEST OF Meni FOR DESIGNERS standard illustration tools * precision to 0.5 micron * calligraphic pens » path-eitng shortcuts include punch, mix & transparency * on-screen rotation & skewing in 0.01 increments « direct selection & editing within groups * automatic object re-blending Meee ILLUSTRATORS controls apply colors, gradients, hatches, raster & vector textures to strokes, fills & text + warp objects with 20 pre-defined templates * create standard color tints (10%, 20%, etc.) and custom coloring tints from any base color * multi-color linear, radial & directional gradients © transfor 20 objects into 30 with light source control * calibrated CMYK colors * digital “swatch” book * gamut warning indicator » line joins & end caps + zoom from 3% to 3200% in 0.01% increments» drag-and-drop between documents + use vector-based objects {including Pewee IMAGE EDITORS arrowheads + interuptble screen redraws + autotrace scanned images + 38.57 by 38.5" pasteboard © unlimited undo & redo * font sizes from 2 to 720 points in 0.1-point increments keming & tracking + drop caps i 3s: '* paragraph-level formatting * indents, & PHOTOSH! : z WE AND DTP-ERS. ILLUSTRATOR™ QUARKXPRESS’ column quides text wraps + column-to-column text flows * lft, right, center, decimal & comma tabs + letter & word spacing, hyphenation, last line, ragged width, widow & orphan ‘controls * convert Type 1 & TrueType™ fonts to outlines * automatic font mapping + 100,000-word spell checker * floating Toolbox controls * TruMatch™ & PANTONE® ‘pot or process colors * color separate any graphic element, including CMYK TIFFS * specify, separate & print spat, process or color tints * color calibration * UCR & GCR * object-level overprinting * moiré elimination * transition effects between presentation slides * floating layers palette * edit bitmap, grayscale, duotone, indexed color, RGB & CMYK TIFF images * 24 alpha channels « feathered-edge selections * quick masks * magic wand * multiple rectangular & eliptcallassos * soft-edged brushes * pressure-sensitive tablet support » clone & rubber stamp * dodge & burn + selectively saturate & desaturate color * smudge, sharpen & blur * color balance, hue, saturation, brightness, contrast & gamma SAVE TIME. SAVE A We who put words and images on pap diting. Wrapped around a radically Sento age harpening, soning. simplified, intuitive interface. stylizing, distortion & noise filters * live LITTLE. MONEY, TOO. for a living have lots of reasons to be 2 previews + compatible with all Photoshop Canvas 5 will cost $599. But profoundly thankful for the new Canvas 5. It's quick. It's easy. It's complete. plugin fiters © TWAIN scanner support ‘ Convae nae . * device- independent CIE LAB color space if you buy Canvas 3.5 right Not only does Canvas 5 include all Now, for the first time you can stay with + 2000 typefaces (both TrueType” & now, you can get acquainted the features that have long made it the a single program from concept to comp to . Type 1) & 20,000 color clipart images on with the program and get a IOP EHOICE T 1 Nl rAtioRvall the wayAhiroudh: CD-ROM * extensive V/O support including: program and get a program of choice for technical illustrators, illustration all the way through to color prided a perliacatey free upgrade to Canvas 5 it now combines the major functions of separations and pre-press EPSF, XPress DCS, TIF (RGB & CMY when it comes out later this Illustrator”, FreeHand™, QuarkXPress” and Canvas 5 has the potential to turn our Soca rats CO Need acer PT ee TARGA, JPEG, GES, CGM, OXF fall. Want more info? Call Photoshop”. An awesome array of tools for 16 hour work days into 12 hour days (while QuickTime” HPGL, CorelDRAW" 5, 800-6-CANVAS illustration and page design. Typography making our stuff look better). Excellent. Pree recourse EXTENSION 2 and publishing. Photo design and image Now maybe we can have a life” (RTF) & MacWrite® Pro and more. I'S WHAT THEY'LL THINK OF NEXT. sg Systems, Inc. ustrator and Photoshop are trademarks of Adobe Systems, Inc. FreeHand is a trademark of Macromedia, Inc. QuarkXPress i a trademark of Quark, MacOS Ine. Al ther traders an repitred ademars are the property of ther respecive lds PAGE 12 GA- 01.29.96 MACWEEK miro delivers low-cost PCI video card By Carolyn’ Said Marking a new price-performance equa- tion for digital video, miro Computer Products Inc. this month rolled out a $1,199 PCI card at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Due by March 1, the mireMotion DC20 will digitize 60-frame-per-second video ina 640-by-480 pixel window, the company said. “This should broaden the market for digital video production at corporate qual- ity,” said Andy Fischer, editor of the PC Graphics Report in Tiburon, Calif. “They can reach more people at this price point than Truevision [Inc.] or Radius [Inc.] have been able to attract.” Using on-board Motion-JPEG com- pression, the card will achieve a maximum data transfer rate of 3.5 Mbytes per second and compression ratios ranging from 5-to- 1 to 100-to-1, the company said. Users will For Power Macintosh PCI Computers UltraSCSsi ta ProMax UltraSCSI Capable Disk Arrays * PowerDomain™ UltraSCSI Host Adapter * Adaptec's Remus Disk Array Software * 16-Bit Wide Hard Drives From 2 to 96 GB UltraSCSI Disk Arrays For Data Intensive Applications ProMax is now shipping Adaptec’s PowerDomain 2940UW™, an UltraSCSI capable PCI host adapter, with a series of hard disk drives and disk arrays fully tested for Power Macintosh PCI computers. This new UltraSCSI host adapter can double I/O data rates when combined with UltraSCSI drives. And is backwardly compatible with existing SCSI-2 disk drives. UltraSCSI connects using standard data cables making installation simple. You can avoid obsolescence by specifying Adaptec PowerDomain host adapters that are compatible with Fast/Wide SCSI-2 and UltraSCSI hard disk drives. At the core of this host adapter is the powerful Adaptec-designed PhaseEngine RISC processor. This processor minimizes time it takes to process SCSI commands allowing the CPU to perform other tasks improving overall performance. The PCI bus offers data rates to 133 MB/sec making these RISC based host adapters essential for top performance. A striped RAID-0 disk arrays using a PowerDomain host adapter and UltraSCSI drives can achieve data rates as high as 40 MB/sec. UltraSCSI is destined to be the choice storage technology for data intensive applications such as digital video and pre-press. Adaptec’s management made a strong commitment to support the Macintosh by acquiring Trillium Research, a seasoned Macintosh developer group and publisher of industry noted Remus utility software. Adaptec and ProMax are prepared to offer support “The Macintosh Way”. With a single call to ProMax users can obtain support for PowerDomain host adapters, Remus array software, and a family of high performance UltraSCSI PCI storage systems from 2 to 96 GB. Remus is noted for use in creating high performance RAID-0, -1, -4, and -5 disk arrays. PowerDomain host adapters are easy to install and to configure. There is no need to open your Power Macintosh computer to install jumpers or to add terminators. Adaptec cards self configure and they include programmable active termination allowing data transfers with multiple drives to 40 MB/sec. UltraSCSI is here — call ProMax at 1-800-977-6629 today for more information and name of a Reseller. ProMax systems are on the approved list of Media 100 and Targa2000. The suggested retail price of a PowerDomain 2940UW host adapter is $345 and Remus Lite is $295. ProMax disk arrays range from $1195 to $44,765 with capacities from 2 to 96 GB. For Additional Information Visit ProMax Web Page: http://www.scsidisk.com ProMax Technology roe MAX! 16 Technology Drive - #106 © Irvine, California 92718 TEL: 714-727-3977 * SALES: 1-800-977-6629 © FAX 714-727-3546 AOL: ProMax Tec # CIS: 72662,2673 + AppleLink: MeConathy.CF * Web Page: htp:/ww.sesidisk.com Trademarks are the property of their respective holders be able to output video to Super8, Hi-8, VHS and S-VHS video devices. Input and output will be in NTSC, PAL (European) or SECAM (French) video format. The device will come with a two-year warranty. It will be bundled with a full version of Adobe Premiere and Adobe Photoshop LE. Under the name miroVideo DC20, the board has been available for Intel-standard PCs since November, priced at $999 because it comes with a limited Premiere only. miro Computer Products Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., can be reached at (415) 855- 0940 or (800) 249-6476; fax (415) 855-9004; http://www.miro.com/. 0 s From Page 10 When users connect to a Web server with a STIP file, the CGI will convert the STiP file’s opening screen into a GIF with an image map and serve this to the user. When users click on a button within the file, they will enter an interactive session with the CGI that will return the appropriate screen. All branching will be determined by the CGI. Version 2.2 will support text and graph- ics in the CGI file. A later revision will add support for QuickTime, audio and Java applets, the company said. STiP Professional is a multimedia au- thoring environment developed by Grant Software Solutions of Groningen, Nether- lands (see 10.30.95, Page 12). While the soft- ware lists for $1,295, MacVONK said it will be available for $995 for the next 60 days. In related news, the company said it is also working on STiP Light, a limited ver- sion of its multimedia authoring environ- ment for the education market. It will lack the scripting language found in STiP, and it will not offer the CGI save option, MacVONK said. Pricing has not been set. MacVONK Canada Inc. of Calgary, Al- berta, can be reached at (403) 232-6545; fax (403) 232-6425; mvc@eworld.com; http:// www.ccinet.ab.ca/macvonk. 0 Hash Travis Banks, a free-lance animator from Discovery Bay, Calif., uses both the Mac and Windows 95 versions of Anima- tion: Master 3.0; he is currently beta testing the Windows version of 4.0. Banks’ most recent project involved animating charac- ters for an upcoming network TV show. “For character animation, there’s nothing this side of [Silicon Graphics Inc.| that does it this fast or as well,” Banks said. “Its controls have the artist in mind; I can model each in- dividual spline and putit where I want.” Mac users have criticized Animation: Master’s un-Mac-like interface, but Banks said he feels that’s not a serious issue. “If a program has good features, I use it,” h “I like [MetaTools Inc.’s KPT] Bryc that interface isn’t even computerlike. Users of Version 2.0 will be able to up- grade for $200. Hash Inc. of Vancouver, Wash., can be reached at (360) 750-0042; fax (360) 750- 0451; httpy/www.teleport.com/~hashine. © From Page 10 =a Supra has a better way to go SUPRA. The high-performance modem with the right price. The choice is clear—Supra offers a lot more modem a price you can afford. What's more, Supra offers for your money. The new SupraExpress” 288 delivers | dependable solutions designed exclusively for the Mac, all the performance you need to access the Internet, superior engineering, and top-rated software. # Included transfer large files and fax from your desktop—at with all Supra modems, FAXcilitate fax software makes Features & Price Comparison f 3 C faxing quick and easy. One-step access to a powerful fax menu makes FAXcilitate more intuitive than other fax software. Plus, FAXcilitate now offers PowerMac native operation and true gray- scale faxing. @ So, whether you want to send a fax around the world or explore the Internet, Supra has a better way to Estimated Retail Price 22' $169 *$209 4 MULTIMEDIA | go global. ‘SUPRA COMMUNICATIONS DIVISION For more information or the dealer nearest you, call 24-Hour Fax-Back: 541-967-0072 @ Internet: http://www.supra.com ower Computing Introducesass=™ Fastest MacOS:System Ever aUiiriaPowerPh 604 Fast PCL and NuBus Expansion Accelerated 64-bit PCI Video and Fast SCSI 3 Front Accessible Drives for optional Quad-Spin (4X) CD-ROM, lomega Zip, lomega Jaz, or SyQuest EZ-135 Easily upgradeable Plug & Play CPU daughtercards featuring the PowerPC 604 at 120, 132 and 150MHz Fast PCI 3-slot expansion Need NuBus? Get both PCI and NuBus with Power Computing’s STARGATE Choose either 3 PCI slots or 2 PCI and 2 NuBus slots - allows you to reconfigure at any time from NuBus to PCI Eight DIMM slots for up to 512MB of RAM using 64-bit DIMMS with fast interleave memory; Socketable High Performance L2 DIMM Cache Slot allows for either 256K, 512K or 1MB Internal Fast SCSI Bus (up to 10MBs/sec) and external SCSI Bus (up to 5MB/sec) as well as Internal Drive Bays for additional storage Accelerated 64-bit PCI VRAM video graphics card with both Mac 15-pin and SVGA connectors (2MB of VRAM upgradeable to 4MB) Love-Me-O0r-I’m-History, 30 day money back guarantee. Toll-free lifetime technical sup- support. 1, 2, or 3-year on-site service avail- able, starting at only $49. “adnate PowerComputing 12337 Technology Bivd., Austin, TX 78727-6104 tel. 512/258-1350 fax. 512/250-3390. Check out our Web site: http://www.powercc.com Internet: info@powercc.com ] Editor’s Rave “Considering the purchase of a PowerMac?...We strongly recommend that you take a serious look at what Power Computing has to offer.” Maclser- Aug 95 “They might as well have come from Apple - the performance and compatibility are that good.” Macworld: Aug 95. “an excellent Mac alternative, whether or not you are pinching your pennies.” PC Magazine- Aug 95 “Power Computing’s systems match their PowerMac counterparts for speed and compatibility and are every bit as good as a dyed-in-the-wool Macintosh.” Infoworld- June 96 “A machine we love even more than the PowerMac 7500 - the PowerWave 604” ‘Macworid- Feb 96 Ea MWe “The Power Computing PowerWave 604 is a very impressive Macintosh” New York Times, November 7, 1996 PowerWave 604/132 Hot Pick PowerWave 604/132 MultiMedia Jj PowerWave 604/150 Hot Pick 132 MHz PowerPC™ 604 132 MHz PowerPC™ 604 150 MHz PowerPC™ 604 16MB RAM (512MB Max RAM) 256K Level 2 Cache (1MB Max) 1,0GB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive Quad-Speed (4X) CD-ROM Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAUI) 64-bit PCI Graphics w/2MB VRAM Extended Keyboard & Mouse $3699 PowerCurve 601/120 Starter 120 MHz PowerPC™ 601+ 8MB RAM (256MB Max RAM) Upgradeable CPU daughtercard Optional Level 2 Cache (1MB Max) 850MB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAU!) Built-in Graphics w/1MB VRAM. upgradeable to 4MB VRAM Extended Keyboard & Mouse Bundled Software $1899 24MB RAM (512MB Max RAM) 256K Level 2 Cache (1MB Max) 1.0GB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive 14 inch .28 DP Monitor Quad-Speed (4X) CD-ROM Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAU!) 64-bit PCI Graphics w/2MB VRAM Tower Configuration Extended Keyboard & Mouse $4299 PowerWave 604/120 Starter 120MHz PowerPC™ 604 16MB RAM (512MB Max RAM) Optional 256K, 512K, or 1MB Cache 1.0GB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive Quad-Speed (4X) CD-ROM Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (1 0Base-T & AAU!) 64-bit PCI Graphics w/2MB VRAM Desktop Computer Case Extended Keyboard & Mouse $3199 16MB RAM (512MB Max RAM) 512K Level 2 Cache (1MB Max) 1.0GB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive 14 inch .28 DP Monitor Quad-Speed (4X) CD-ROM Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAU!) 64-bit PCI Graphics w/2MB VRAM Tower Configuration Extended Keyboard & Mouse $4799 ORDER DIRECT AND SAVE 1-800-404-7693 PowerWave 604/120 Home Office 120MHz PowerPC™ 604 16MB RAM (512MB Max RAM) Optional 256K, 512K, or 1MB Cache 1,0GB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive 14 inch .28 DP Monitor Quad-Speed (4X) CD-ROM Drive Internal lomega Zip™ Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAU!) 64-bit PCI Graphics w/2MB VRAM Extended Keyboard & Mouse $3599 PowerWave 604/150 XL 150MHz PowerPC™ 604 32MB RAM (512MB Max RAM) 512K Level 2 Cache (1MB Max) 1.0GB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive 15 inch Sony Monitor Quad-Speed (4X) CD-ROM Drive Internal lomega Zip™ Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAUI) 64-bit PCI Graphics w/4MB VRAM Extended Keyboard & Mouse $5899 Infor - JUNE 9S OVER $1200 OF FREE SOFTWARE *BUNDLED WITH EVERY SYSTEM Mac 0S 7.52 Insignia Soft Windows 2.0 60 day trial, Grolier’s Multimedia Encyclopedia, Now Utilities, Now Up-to-Date, Now Contact, Intuit’s Quicken, FWB HardDisk Toolkit PE, CD-ROM Toolkit, ClarisWorks, ‘America Online, 250 Bitstream Fonts, Launch CD, US CD Atlas, World CD Atlas, The Animals CD-ROM, Nisus Writer Service & Support 30 day money back, Love-Me-Or-I'm-History guarantee. Toll-free lifetime technical support. 1, 2, or 3-year on-site service available, starting at $49. * Since Power Computing is the manufacturer, you can customize your RAM, hard drive, video and monitor options — just call PowerComputing MORE POWER TO You: ma Gateways ACCESS FROM NET Sonic Systems’ QuickStream/3 provides PPP and AppleTalk connectivity. See Reviews, Page 25. PAGE 16 Networking © Operating Systems © Databases 01.29.96 MACWEEK Company ships Ethernet devices By Clifford Colby Asanté Technologies Inc. is off to a fast start this year, debuting sev- eral new Ethernet products, in- cluding a software utility that the company claims will significantly increase the performance of Open Transport-based networks. According to Asanté, Net- Doubler will direct the flow of data over protocol stacks and get around other bottlenecks through a caching scheme. The utility, which is due to ship in Februa will Ys work with Personal File By James Staten Even though the phone compa- nies continue to wage their long- distance wars, talking over the Internet may yet prove to be the | most affordable communications | option ofall. At least that’s what Vocal- Sharing- and AppleShare-based servers over both 10- and 100- Mbps networks. In preliminary tests, Asanté said, NetDoubler reduced the transfer time for a 20-Mbyte file from one minute to eight seconds. NetDoubler will be available for PCI and NuBus Macs and will require Open Transport 1.0.8 or higher. Asanté said it plans to bundle NetDoubler with its 10/100BASE T PCI cards and will offer it separately for $99 per machine; the utility must be in- stalled on both source and desti- nation systems. Asanté said its software is compatible with other companies’ Ethernet cards. On the hardware front, Asanté VocalTech to get people talking on Internet Phone Phone works over a LAN-based or dial-up connection to the Internet at speeds of 14.4 Kbps or faster. VocalTech Inc. of Northvale, NJJ., is at (201) 768-9400; fax (201) 768-8893; info@vocaltech.com; http://www.vocaltech.com. 0 Tech Inc. said when the com- pany debuted Internet Phone earlier this month. Priced at $99 and expected to ship by March, Internet Phone allows users to have telephone con- versations over a TCP/IP con- nection. The product sup- ports full- and half-duplex conversations (the latter of which requires users to take turns speaking). An address book can store users’ Internet Protocol ad- dresses, which Internet Phone will display for point-and- click calling and answering. The program can also be a helper application for most Web browsers. Supporting MacTCP 2.0.6 and Open Transport, Internet Animated characters representing both sides of a call are key parts of Internet Phone's interface. Asante utility to boost Open Transport tasks released this month the Asanté- Hub 1016-IQ. The $899 intelli- gent hub comes with 16 1OBASE T ports, one thin-net port and one AUI (attachment unit interface) port. The hub has built-in support for SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol). The com- pany also shipped its MacCon CS card for the Mac communications slot. The card is available in 10BASE T and thin-net flavors for $89 and $99, respectively. For Apple's latest PowerBooks, Asanté is now offering _ its FriendlyNet PC Card. The Type II card is available in two versions: One has a 1OBASE T connector for $189 while the other supports both LOBASE T and thin-net con- nections for $229. Asanté also re- cently shipped a $399 dual-speed 10/100BASE T NuBus card. A pack of five costs $1,750, and a 20- pack goes for $5,999. Asanté Technologies Inc. of San Jose, Calif., can be reached at (408) 435-8388 or (800) 662- 9686; fax (408) 432-7511; sales@ asante.com. 0 @ File Edit Special Mail fonts Siyles Chat Windows rrieazam @ web ~ Time Remining: Less than one minute, Thru-Put: 337 eps, Transfer Time: 00:04 Sent: 1,012 bytes. Size: 1722 bytes. Srey Fes 20m 920m save A: N Chat Ream abs ooae By James Staten Bulletin-board sysops who have | eyed their Internet-enabled breth- ren with envy can now bring their services to the Web with Spider Is- land Software’s TeleFinder. TeleFinder 5.0, due this week, doubles as. a BBS anda Web server. The new version supports HTTP. (Hypertext. Transport Protocol) and is compatible with all standard Spider Island's TeleFinder 5.0 doubles as a BBS and Web server, giving users access to Internet mail and their own Web sites. TeleFinder 5.0 server puts BBSes up on Web CGIs (Common Gateway Inter- faces) and asynchronous CGIs. The server also supports Apple’s Thread Manager and Open Transport, plus intelligent buffer- asynchronous I/O. der 5.0 can host personal Websites, and each site can have its own separate directory. Adminis- trators will be able to set user privi- See TeleFinder, Page 18 Supra delivers FAXcilitate 2.0 Update supports QuickDraw GX By Joanna Pearlstein Supra Corp. has released Version 2.0 of FAXcilitate, the company’s fax software. Last updated two years ago, FAXcilitate 2.0 adds support for QuickDraw GX, AppleScript and Open Transport. The new version, which isa native Power Mac appli- cation, also handles gray-scale faxes, multilingual cover pages and multiple location settings. The FAXcilitate update allows users to drag fax numbers from a phone directory onto a fax. Ver- sion 2.0 can also select areas of in- coming faxes and copy them into other documents. Users looking to send faxes from multiple appli- cations can use 2.0’s enclosure function to attach multiple de ments toa single cover sheet documents can then be faxed as contiguous document. Supra said an update to FAX- cilitate 2.0, expected in February, would add support for editing fax cover sheets. In other news, Supra announced price reductions on its 28.8-Kbps fax modems. The estimated selling price for the SupraFAXModem 288 is $229.95, down from $249.95; the SupraExpress 288 dropped to $169.95, down from $199.95, the company said. Supra is also shipping Supra Simple Internet, a $179 bundle that includes a 28.8-Kbps fax Faxing at your [c= | fingertips: Fax Set es | | neon FAXcilitate 2.0 a2 adds a fax = ——— menu to the Out Basket Bi Phonenooks > | S¥Stem 7.x @ Fan Log » | menu bar so cover Pages> | users can W ereterences | fexfrom BB tocations > | Within any |__| application. B Fanactivity RopidFax | | % turn Fax off modem, a Web browser, a CD- ROM tutorial and Internet con- nectivity software. Supra Corp. of Vancouver, Wash., is at (360) 604-1400 or (800) 727-8772; fax (360) 604- 1401; htep:/www.supra.com/. 5 ee ee a ee Oddly, mo Pc car o] INTRODUCING COMMUNICARDPLUS MULTI-FUNCTION PC CARD When you're spending money on a multi-function co-developed with Apple (you've heard of ‘em), so it PC card, remember this: Half-good is just plain rotten. works the way you expect Apple stuff to work. Because what most companies try to pass off Our full family of CommuniCard products also as a multi-function PC card for Macs is actually includes Ethernet Adapters that support both 10BASE-T and Thin Ethernet, and 144 and 28.8 Modem Cards. We also offer cellular-ready Modem Cards. And all Dayna CommuniCard products come with our 5-year warranty. one decent function, combined with a not-so-savory afterthought. At Dayna, we built both sides right. First of all, our Macintosh Ethernet products have always been second to none—halfway there Call for details about the CommuniCard. Because already. And the modem side of our multi-function card anything less doesn’t is standout, too. In fact, our integrated fax software was deserve half a chance. CALL 1.800.44.DAYNA TODAY FOR MORE INFORMATION © 1996 Dayna Communications, Inc. CommuniCard is a trademark of Dayna. All other product names are the trademarks of their respective holders. PAGE 18 Gateways 01.29.96 MACWE TeleFinder From Page 16 leges and control the size of Web sites. The update will include a Post Office Protocol 3 (POP 3) mail server that supports MIME (Multipurpose In- ternet Mail Extensions) enclosures. With POP 3, BBS members will be able to retrieve mail through the TeleFinder client or any Internet mail application. TeleFinder will also come with the Finger function for e-mail-address verification. Other new features include AppleScript and Apple-events support, a scheduled ex- ecution tool to launch utility and mainte- nance programs at set intervals, the ability to import Usenet news groups, and two- way forwarding of SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) mail. “Pretty much everything I’ve thrown at it it’s handled great,” said beta tester Steve Creel, director of new media at Communi- cation Arts Inc. of Birmingham, Ala. Creel currently runs three BBSes that he plans to upgrade to TeleFinder 5.0. eleFinder 5.0 costs $675 for an unlimited ilable for Mac and Windows. Upgrades will be fr 4.0 owners or $95 for V Spider Island Soft can be reached at (714) 453-8095; 453-8044; info@spiderisland.com; http:// www.spiderisland.com.5 aid he for Version ion 3.0 owners. When You Make It To The Big Screen Second Best Is Apple’s #1 Choice In Mac-To-TV Interfaces When Apple needed to ship the best portable Mac-To-TV interface with their Apple Presentation System, they cho LeTV Portable. Simply because presenters, educators and train- weight LeTV Portable into a Mac luding PowerBooks) and instantly ers can plug the small, li with video-out capability (i have a fast, powerful, big screen multimedia pi Duplicate the Mac screen on the TV or record elimination software, built-in RCA, cables are included. The FOCUS LeTV internal lets classroom trainers use the TV as LeTV Portable $229.99 LeTV Portable Pro $299.99 LeTV LC Card $299.99 LapisCol will make your Mac fly. Witl they are favorites with our customers who work with complex graphics or video editing and viewing, and who have no monitor to catch up with their mind. LapisColor cards are compatible with Apple, Sony, SuperMac, Radius and RasterOps ze “ mf . your network and display. = itors, to name a few. The complete line of a "api a 24-bit, 16-bit or B-bit cards work with LapisColor MV8-EN $249.00 = any LC-PDS slot-equipped Mac Color MV16 $299.00 COLOR From $339.00 LapisColor MV16-EN $399.00 Call for a free product guide INGRAM ‘ideo connectors and all second monitor. Our Customers’ Screen Color Cards performers, pure and simple. For Macs with an LC-PDS slot, the 64 Internal Bus Acceleration on LapisColor cards Call for more information or the reseller nearest you. ose the FOCUS resentation system. to a VCR. Flicker color card also Plug top or PowerBook Macs A Must For New #1 Choice In Big Owners! jor Cards from FOCUS are it h up to 3 megs of VRAM, patience to wait for their PowerBook 190/5300 Combo Video & Ethernet Cards For Macintosh PowerBook 190/5300 The new MV series, exclusively from FOCUS, gives your PowerBook fast 16-bit color for lange monitor support, and a permanent, built-in Ethernet connection that doesn’t use precious PCMCIA slots. The MV family of cards use dedicated video and ethernet controller chips to provide maximum performance. A dual purpose MicroLatch connector cable provides a solid cable link to “038-0000 Not Good Enough. Display up to 16.7 million colors on your TV, and record to videotape. FOCUS enhancements networking * graphics » software NETWORK TRAFFIC > Alantec readies PowerHubs > CNet ships Ethernet switches Alantec Corp. said it plans to ship this quarter its PowerHub 4100 series switches. According to the San Jose, Calif.-based company, all of the devices will connect 10- and 100-Mbps Ethernet segments and will route AppleTalk, TCP/IP and IPX. Prices on the 4100 series will range from $10,950 to $12,450, depending on the number of network segments the device can support. . Compatible Systems Inc. of Boulder, Colo,, recently shipped its RISC Router 2900i, $2,995 Internet router. The 12-port device routes Point-to-Point and Frame Relay protocols and TCP/IP. ... CNet Technologies Inc. recently rolled out several Ethernet switches. The San Jose developer shipped its $2,995 Power- Switch 80, an eight-port 10-Mbps Ether- net switch, and its $899 PowerSwitch SH- 40 switch, a four-port device with two ports for 1OBASE [ connections and two ports that can be configured for 10B/ T or thin-net links. ... Focus Enhance- ments Inc. of Woburn, Mass., is now of- fering two Ethernet hubs: a $419 device with 16 1OBASE T ports and a $700 hub with 32 10BASE T ports. Each device in- cludes one thin-net link and one AUI (at- tachment unit interface). ... Several com- panies finished 1995 by shipping Ethernet devices. Standard Microsystems Corp. of Hauppauge, N.Y., said its $1,595 eight- port 100BASE T repeater is now avail- able. Dayna Communications Inc. of Salt Lake City announced the shipment of its 12-port lOOBASE T hub, witha street price of $1,799, a Fast Ethernet PCI card for $225 and its Fast Ethernet NuBus card for $325. And Kingston Technology Corp. of Fountain Valley, Calif,, is now offering a $59 Apple AUI Ethernet transceiver for making 10BASE T and thin-net connections. 01 Accelerate your PCI Bus with SCSI. The Apple® Power Macintosh” is fast. And, the new PCI bus makes it even faster. But without Adaptec® PCI-to-SCSI accelera- tion, it may never reach full throttle. Introducing the hot new Adaptec PowerDomain™ 2940W SCSI era It ll make you feel like you turned a crop duster into a super-sonic jet. It’s the fastest PCI-to-SCSI card available. Watch your Adobe® PhotoShop” files fly at top speed How TO MAKE POWER MACINTOSH FILES FLY. — up to 40 MB per second. Plus, it’s also designed for Ultra peripherals today But, that’s the performance people expect from Adaptec. For over a d we've made SCSI the performance 1/0 of choice. In fact, after helping to develop the PCI standard, we've shipped over 1.2 milJion PCI-to-SCSI boards — more than all of our competitors combined. So the next time you're finger tapping while you wait to capture a digital file, call 1-800-804-8886 ext. 7636* We'll tell you how your Power Macintosh can really take off Gladaptec V/O, NOW MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER. OPINION ‘Editor in Chief Mark Hall Editor Rick LePage Managing Editor Brenda Benner Art Director Eleanor Leishman Director/Editorial Programs Anita Mainig NEWS Executive Editor Andrew Gore News Editor Carolyn Said Business Editor jon Swartz Senior Associate Editor/GA Matthew Rothenberg Associate Editor/News David Morgenstern Senior Writers Joanna Pearlstein, PaGE 20 01.29.96 MacWEEK i 4 Where’s Mike? | n the past year, we've seen three separate mar- Microsystems Inc. and Eckhard Pfeiffer at Compaq keting strategies from Apple, none of which Computer Corp. These are all companies with profiles ely Ryer have been given more than a few months to ger- and problems as great as Apple, and, if you read the pa- i in Ball ; i peed leon alsa minate. We've watched a constant stream of ex- pers regularly, chances are that you know where they REVIEWS AND FEATURES Executive Editor Stephen Howard Senior Editor/Features Catherine LaCroix Senior Editor/Reviews Missy Roback ‘Associate Editor/Reviews. Jeff Green Assistant Editor Maria Sample Editor at Large Dale Coleman Editor Emeritus Henty Nor Contributing Editors Don Crabb, Ric Ford, Bruce Fraser, Connie Guglielmo, Steve Hannaford, Jonathan Oski MACWEEK ONLINE Associate News Editor/On-line james Staten Senior Editor, ZD Net/Mac Mark Simmons Associate Editor, ZD Net/Mac Sasha Pave COPY DESK Assistant Managing Editor Marian Hansen Copy Chief Marty Cortinas ecutives shuffle out the door. We've seen product strat- stand on the issues that face their companies. egy failures because of hardware-design problems, In contrast, Markkula has been the great stone face on Apple’s board. Where has he been on such issues as software snags or inept forecasting. Given this, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Apple has a leadership problem. Even the most opti- mistic of Mac advocates can agree on this unassailable fact. And the biggest part of that problem is the silence at the top of the Apple food chain. We're not referring solely to Apple CEO Michael Spindler. We think that the man he reports to, Chair- man A.C. Mike Markkula Jr., deserves much of the licensing, product forecasting and Apple’s quixotic quest for market share? All we’ve heard is minuscule sound bites of his support for Spindler. We’re left to infer that his silence stands for acquiescence of the company’s policies, which is unfair to Apple’s share- holders and to the Mac community. We've criticized Apple in the past for not having a charismatic leader at the top; one who can effectively ‘ | | | | . Senior Copy Editor Patricia Orsini Copy Editor Rebecca Gulick ART AND DESIGN Associate Art Director Margaret Lee Graphic Designer ohn Famsworth i PRODUCTION Production Manager Steve Spingola blame for Apple’s indecisiveness over the past year, and we think it’s time he gave us some answers. Look at some of the other board chairmen in the in- dustry and study the role they play at their companies: Louis Gerstner Jr. at IBM Corp., Scott McNealy at Sun communicate within and outside the organization. | What Apple needs now is executive activism, not ab- senteeism. It’s time for the chairman and the CEO of Apple to step out and fight for their company or step aside and let someone else do it. 0 Assistant Production Manager Joy E. Krinsky : Production Coordinator Jose Urrutia Pre-press Manager Tim Manousos 4 THE SECOND DECADE HENRY NORR Hoping for a touch of cross-platform magic it can’t ship these cards with Windows 95, Windows 3.1 or even MS-DOS: Its old OEM licensing agreement with Microsoft Corp. has expired, and it’s refusing to ac- cept the new terms Gates et al. are offering, which require signatories to promise not to sue Microsoft for patent infringement. If this meant only that buyers of dual- Pre-press Manager Tamara Gargus, Pre-press Technician Michele Kellogg Group Publisher Chris Dobbrow Group Business Director Bret A. Violette Group Business Manager Mary . Colbert Group Marketing Director Laurel Clark Skillman Group Research Director Neil Karin Marketing Manager Renee Bula Sales Development Manager Cheri. McKeithan platform Macs had to purchase Windows 4 Marketing Coordinator Stephanie Arnold ately and install it th 7 es separately and install it themselves, it Controlled Circulation Justin Williams Whatever new strategy, struc- Performa 630/640 series. would be a significant annoyance. But the | ture and product mix emerge from the current crisis in Cu- pertino, Calif, I'm hoping ‘Apple’s new plans will include increased emph ‘on cross- platform compatibility = — products that let users run Win- dows software on the Mac. And I have my fingers crossed that Other solutions are, of course, available from third parties: Reply Corp., Orange Micro Inc. and Insignia Solu- tions Inc. Technically, one or another of their products fills the bill for most use: But in terms of market psychology — “removing com- Apple's managers will come up patibility as a barrier to moving with a solution for a little-noted but poten- to the Macintosh platform,” as Apple puts tially lethal threat to its goals in this area. it — after-market add-ons have only a lim- ited effect. To truly remove the barrier, Branding is everything what's needed are Apple-branded, Apple- The company has been proclaiming its marketed and Apple-supported (though not commitment to deliver cross-platform necessarily Apple-engineered) solutions, hardware solutions for the Mac for almost _ fully integrated with the Mac OS and avail- two years, ever since Houdini — its origi- able asa standard configuration option. nal, experimental DOS Compatibility Card — provided irrefutable proof of the ‘Apple Computer Inc. Apple and Macintosh are trademarks concept’s appeal. Unfortunately, progress of Apple Computer inc. Entre contents copyright 1996 Zif- Davis Publishing Co Alright reserved. Matera in this has been agonizingly slow: Currently publication may not be reproduced in anyfommwithoutpe- A pple offers DOS Compatible configura- mission. MacWEEK is a registered trademark of Ziff-Davis x ‘ ; sabi tions only on its aging Power Mac 6100 and Publishing Co. WBPA. reality is much worse: The full retail ver- sion of Windows 95 is available only on floppies, and the disks are in a special 1.7- Mbyte format — “distribution media for- mat” — that Mac SuperDrives can’t read! On the face of it, that would seem to mean that anyone buying a dual-platform Mac and wishing to run Windows 95 would need to buy and install a full version of MS- DOS, then Windows 3.11, then a Windows 95 upgrade kit. At retail prices, that adds up to almost $300 worth of software and more hours for installation than I care to count. Apple officials say they are working on alternatives that would at least alleviate the pain. Let's hope they succeed. Otherwise, what should be a landmark in Apple’s ef- forts to “stand out and fit in” could turn into a first-rate fiasco. 0 Assistant Circulation Manager Lorraine O'Shea Circulation Assistant Josephine Chang Assistant to Group Publisher Lola Tanouye Advertising Coordinators Elizabeth McGinnis, Jennifer Sanyer Administrative Assistants Colleen Dasher, Heather McKee, Gina Micheluci, Deborah Monaghan Editorial office: 301 Howard St., 15th Floor, San Francisco, Calif. 94105, Phone (415) 243-3500; fax (415) 243-3651; macweek@macweek.com MacWEEK Online: http://www.zdnet.com/~macweek/ CompuServe: gozmc:macweek, eWorld: shortcut: macweek ‘Advertising office: 950 Tower Lane, Foster City, Calif. ‘94404, Phone (415) 378-5600; fax (415) 378-6903. ‘Subscriptions: Customer Service Department, MacWEEK, c/o JCI, P.O. Box 10634, Riverton, N.J. 08076-0634. Phone (609) 786-8230. Permissions and Reprints: Requests for permission to Juote from an article should be directed to Chantal Tucker, iff-Davis Publishing Co., 1 Park Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016; fax (212) 503-5420. For: pie juotes on reprints, contact Ziff-Davis Reprints at (800) 825-4237. MacWEEK is an independent journal, not affiliated with Fly in the ointment The good news from this point of view is that Apple is nearly ready — at last — to deliver PCI cards with Intel Pentium or Cyrix 586 processors. The bad news is that Henry Nor, editor emeritus of MacWEEK, welcomes feedback in the MacWEEK forums on CompuServe or eWorld or at henry _norr@ macweek.com. MacWEEK 01.29.96 PAGE 21 LETTERS Educating Apple I certainly hope Apple will make sure not to leave the K-12 education market high and dry. We rely on low-end machines. In fact, we've invested many thousands of dollars in low-end Apple computers over the past few years. You might say I’ve staked my career on Apple’s remaining viable. I've done so because I think the Mac is great. T would certainly be willing to try out Mac clones (in fact I would welcome a chance to try them) if Apple wants them to take over the low end. I just hope the Mac doesn’t leave the low-end market altogether. Robert Moore, head of computing The Agnes Irwin School, Rosemont, Pa. Tale of two companies I'd like to draw a comparison between two | companies. Last year I bought a Connectix QuickCam and a Visioneer PaperPort. The QuickCam isa joy to use: Just plug it into the serial port — it doesn’teven need a power cable. Likewise, the PaperPort is a joy to use — just insert a sheet of paper and it starts scanning automatically. I was really happy to see these two com- panies supporting the Mac with neat new products. My PC-owning friends were jealous. Unfortunately, the PaperPort soft- ware was not Power Mac-native and ran very slowly on my Power Mac 6100. The magazine advertisements said the Paper- Port would scan a page in 6 seconds. It may scan it in 6 seconds, but on my Power Mac 6100 the time between inserting the sheet and actually being able to do anything with it in the PaperPort application was 45 sec- onds. Once in the PaperPort application, the performance was sluggish. Still, it was a great product. It just needed faster software. I called Visioneer and asked if they were going to produce a Power Mac-native version. They said yes, so I kept the PaperPort and waited for the | software update. And waited. And waited. After a year, Visioneer finally finished the native version of the PaperPort application. But wait! It’s not a free update. It costs $70, plus $13 for tax and shipping. I got the entire QuickCam, including the software and the manual, for not much more than that, and throughout the last year Connectix has regularly posted free software updates on its Web site. The latest update includes major new features, such as automatic brightness control, and it’s still free to QuickCam owners. I'm used to the fact that computer hard- ware always gets cheaper. If I'd waited until this year I could have gotten the new Paper- Port VX for less than I paid for the previous version. That's life. What hurts is that Vi- sioneer now expects me to pay an extra $83 for software that I expected to get when I boughtit a year ago. When I complained toa Visioneer salesman at this year’s Macworld Expo, he told me that the PaperPort box was clearly marked “not native.” When I got home, I took a look at the box. He was lying. So the lesson in this is that if you are thinking about buying a Connectix prod- uct, buy it now. RAM Doubler, Speed Doubler, QuickCam, whatever it is, you can buy it with the confidence that Con- nectix doesn’t penalize its early adopters. On the other hand, if you are thinking about buying a Visioneer product, put off the decision as long as possible because the moment you part with your cash Visioneer sees you as a revenue stream, even before the one-year warranty expires. Stuart Cheshire, Macintosh programmer Stanford, Calif, Staying in ‘toon In the midst of scrambling to identify which Macs we should invest in and which ones to avoid, seeking the lowdown on emerging technology before our users ask for it and pondering the latest reorganization at Apple, there is one consistent bright spot each week in MacWEEK —the Eli cartoon. Sure, I read MacWEEK for the cutting- edge news and commentary, but Eli’s slightly twisted humor and fresh, almost naive style makes me think about why I use a Macintosh in the first place. I’ve shown Eli ’toons to Wintel types, and they can’t see the humor (kudos for sure). Vir- tually everyone in our office has at least one Eli posted at their workstation. Thanks for brightening our week. Sven Brindley Manager, development group Norsk Technical Systems Ltd. Sechelt, British Columbia Ups and downs I was just looking over the 01.15.96 issue of MacWEEK and was puzzled by the caption on the photo in the lower right corner of the cover. Was this a comment on the attitude of those attending the expo? Or just on how fast they were moving up those stairs? Wes Rand, graphics editor Norwich Bulletin, Norwich, Conn. How to contact MacWEEK Send letters to MacWEEK, 301 Howard St., 15th Floor, San Francisco, Calif. 94105; fax (415) 243- 3651. We can be contacted on-line: CompuServe, 76077,1351; eworld, MacWE MCI, 323- 1203; Internet, letters@macweek.com. Include your name, address and phone number. We re serve the right to edit for clarity and length. | THE MAC MANAGER DON CRABB Focus on the Macintosh and give Apple a rest OH MY GOD, THE WORLD IS COM- ING TO AN END! Enough with the hysterics, people. So what if Apple stops selling bottom-feeder Macs? So what if Michael Spindler leaves as CEO and who knows who is in? So what if Apple is getting bids from every- one under the sun to buy it out? In short, so what to whatever happens to Apple. We've got some planning to do — strategic planning — and today’s lesson is simple: From whom and when do we buy our Mac OS machines during the coming year? 100 percent Mac If you're buying right this minute, your choices are sim- ple: Buy any Mac from anyone and you're getting a 100 per- cent Mac as defined by Apple. No matter if it wears a Power Computing Corp. Radius Inc., UMAX Technologies Inc. or DayStar Digital Inc. badge. It’s pure Mac, 100 per- cent certified by Apple. But if you're not buying right now, you've got some thinking to do. Do you wait until the PowerPC Platform (PPCP, formerly PowerPC Reference Platform) hits the streets midyear? And if you do wait, what can you expect? Or do you wait even longer to see if Apple’s licensing strat- egy works over time? These are nontrivial questions, ques- tions whose answers will either make youa success or its opposite in your job. Asked and answered Now, let’s get to the answers. > Apple’s not going out of business, so stop fretting. It may be bought, sold or merged, but it'll keep selling every Mac it makes. And sometime in 1996 it will start focusing on the ones it makes best: the middle and high end. Look for real perfor- mance upgrades to the 7500, 8500 and 9500 that swap out more than just the CPU. Also look for multiple versions of the Shiner server. And look for Apple to quit the 68040 and low-end PowerPC markets. I'll finally get us a competitively priced high-performance multimedia notebook by Macworld Expo in August. > Power Computing will be doing more business than it can handle, so expect cus- tomer service slip-ups. Expect Power to ship fast but inexpensive machines at the PPC 601, 120-MHz level; it will ratchet up its PPC 604 PowerWaves to 250 MHz and higher by year-end, and it'll also have a line of notebooks that will put serious pressure on Toshiba Corp. and Dell Com- puter Corp. Power will let the market drive its mix of 100 per- cent Mac and PPCP machines. > With UMAX selling clones under the SuperMac name, expect it to offer models in the same price/ performance range as Apple (giving you & second source for Apple-spec machines). > More cloners will sign on this year after PPCP ships. Look for biggies like Compaq Computer Corp., Dell, Gateway 2000 Inc. and Toshiba to join the Mac OS party, with more joining later. No kidding. Finally, this means that you can concen- trate on your specific software and net- working requirements. Mac managers will enjoy the same level of supplier indepen- dence that the Intel-standard PC manager has known for years — the heartaches, too, but that’s another column. 0 Don Crabb welcomes comments at his Internet address dece@cs.uchicago.edu. You can also check out his home page at hitp:/les-www. uchicago.edu/~deccl. “Oh come on, you could own one T- Comments? ideas? Contact El at eltoons@aolcom controls. And they researched street prices and warranties. After all the results were in the ViewSonic 17GA 17" (16.0" viewable) PerfectSound™ multimedia monitor was. singled out as the “Best Buy.” No wonder. An entirely new technology creates the ultimate screen image — maximum res- MacUser magazine recently put some of the leading multimedia monitors through their paces. They performed lab tests on image and sound quality. They stared at test documents, line art and scanned images. They played their favorite CD's at various levels. They fiddled with knobs and on-screen MacUser™ Rated, December 1995 And the 17GA is so attractively priced, it’ like getting the multimedia feature Jor free. Several becewsen iees COMpetitive models cost as much but are not olution of 1,280 x 1,024, refresh rates as high as 160Hz, and razor sharp screen definition. And listen to this. High Jidelity speakers are integrated into the monitor bezel so the full, rich stereo sound envelopes you. To quote a satisfied customer, “It rocks, man!” even multimedia monitors, Rather than toot our own horn, perhaps we should refer you to MacUser magazine: are nice but checks are better. +/OUTSTANDING © /ACCEPTABLE =/POOR RATING PRODUCT PRICE ‘SUPPORT IMAGE SOUND QUALITY ) ‘A real multimedia bargain,” Areal multimedia bargain, the ViewSonic 17GA (estimated street | _ with mice, but only the 3 eer a ie price, $850) offers solid image quality, warm colors, fine-sound- Seer eee they said, “the ViewSonic 17GA ‘rel ing audio, and a slew of easy-to-use on-sreen controls —all at a ViewSonic 17GA has been offers solid image quality, BUY compere brice. The stylish case will also make you the envy of | __ selected as MacUser magazines < 7 your office mates. % 7 warm colors, fine-sounding &4&4% Apple Apple Vision Best Buy. audio and a slew of easy- 1710AV a e + + rey fo-use on-screen controls.” an eee . : : * C, , r loKia - So when you're ready to buy, 444; Panasonic remember this: Many 17" Pana Media 17 = * . . iepanein ein ) ‘ 5 &&& Philips 17B e ° e - (v arious viewable) multimedia 44} Philips Briliance 15A © ‘ ‘ _ monitors come ViewSonic’ to i sit us on the Web at http://wwwiir The New, Enhanced Apple MessagePad 120. The new Apple’ MessagePad" 120 is powered by the just- released Newton’ 2.0 operating system, recent winner of “Best of COMDEX” in its category at COMDEX’95. ® Youre organized while youre mobilized. Weighing only 1 Ib., the MessagePad 120 has the functions of an electronic organizer, and more. It stores hundreds of names, phone and fax numbers, street and e-mail addresses. It keeps track of your schedule. You can write to-do lists, notes, memos, or even make sketches. Its handwriting recognition has been greatly improved. @ It not only organizes, it communicates. The MessagePad 120 works with the way you com- municate today. It can send and receive faxes. It also allows you to receive wireless paging messages and news bulletins. You can exchange e-mail via the Internet. It even has an optional keyboard so you don't have to carry a laptop. @ Aneasy connection to your PC. The new MessagePad 120 connects to both Windows and Mac” 0S-based computers. So you'll be able to create backup files, take your PC files with you, or access your PC from the road. That's because, with new connection software, you can easily down- load and upload data from your personal computer to your MessagePad 120. Check out the new Apple MessagePad 120. You'll soon discover how it can make you more efficient and productive when youre on the go. The New Apple MessagePad 120 4 A Newton wy. DATA TO GO FileMaker Pro 3.0 Companion for Newton 2.0 will let you work with FileMaker databases on the MessagePad 120. MacWEEK 01.29.96 FileMaker Pro 3.0 can relate to users By Jonathan A. Oski disastrous, v report that C re pleased to aris has met the challenge, adding a whole new dimension to the application without sacrificing any of its consummate ease of use. Current users, both novice and expert, will find the conversion | toarelational model mostly painless. Devel- opers will also be happy, as the $199 pro- FileMaker Pro 3.0 score card and developers With FileMaker Pro 3.0, Claris’ database | gtam’s enhanced scripting ris Corp. has delivered | capabilities greatly improve | the most significant up- | makes smooth | application-development grade yet to this venerable possibilities, while native Macintosh database appli | meve from Power Mac speed finally cation, successfully trans- makes FileMaker a more forming the program from | flat-file to able performer. a flat-file database model into a relational one. relational Going relational While such a fundamen- Until now, the only way you tal change could have been | {gundation. could integrate data from multiple files in FileMaker Pro was through look-ups, which merely copied data from one data- base to another. While useful, look-ups did nothing to climinate data redundancy Files were not actually linked, so if any data changed in one file, you'd have to manually update it in the other. With Version 3, you can now display data from another file in any layout without having to copy the data from one file toan- Claris Corp. List price: $199* Overall value other. Now the data ina file can change and the changes will be reflected in any other file with Macs, greatly improving performance. Performance ¢#¢¢ Features ©0¢¢@ Ease of use $9 ¢¢ Documentation/support ¢ @ @ *Upgrades from prior versions, $99. Claris’ latest release of FileMaker Pro is a major overhaul that is sure to please everyone from entry-level novices to advanced database develop- ers. Relational database capabilities, additional network-protocol support and enhanced scripting features highlight a long list of improvements, but perhaps the most remarkable achievement is that | Claris has extended the reach of this application while maintaining, or even improving upon, its characteristic ease of use. Databases from previous versions can easily be upgraded, and the addition of relational file handling is a relatively painless task. Claris has chosen not to release an upgrade for the Windows 3.x platform, which may be a problem for cross-platform FileMaker Pro shops. The program is also now finally native on Power which you've defined relations. To work with related ay FileMaker Pro 3 introduces the concept of portals, areas on a lay- out where you can view, add or edit records from another file. A typical use of portals would be for invoicing, where you have a one-to-many relationship be- tween the invoice and the items purchased. To do this in previ- ous versions you had to use re- peating fields, but portals offer a much more powerful way to view and edit one-to-many (or many-to-many) _ relationships. One shortcoming we hope Claris will fix soon is the inabil- : | ity to sort data in a portal; cur- rently, you can display data only in the order in which it was cre- ated in the related file. Jonverting —_repeated-row data from previous versions Key $0 O6@ Excellent 9% Very good OOO Good © Fair % Unsatisfactory PAGE 25 PurchOrd #3 Claris’ File- Maker Pro 3.0 uses a new ob- ‘Show records trom [Cieoms >) (Atow stein of portal records ject called a por- tal to display multiple rows from a related database file in a layout. Portals can include as Format into relational files and portals is not well- documented but is easy once you get the hang of it. Switching from look-ups to re- lated data is almost automatic. FileMaker creates the relationships for you; all you need to do is change your field definitions and edit your layouts. For backward compatibility with previ- ous releases Claris has preserved both the look-up and repeating fields, but Version 3's relati are so much more [stow vertcat zorot tar awrnernirend vin EIS) QuickStream/3 lends PPP power to remote access By Mark H. Anbinder With theexplosion of In- | Sonic Systems The QuickStream/3 is about ternet service providers, the size of a modem. Sonic Sys- it’s not surprising that | ramote-access | tems thoughtfully _ includes the equipment needed to | wports for both I0BASE T | provide remote access to | garyer delivers | (twisted-pair) and 10BASE 2 TCP/IP network ser- (thin-net) Ethernet connections. vices has become less ex- | competent Some similar products, such as pensive and easier to configure. Sonic Systems Inc.’s QuickStream/3 is a solid, well-packaged Point-to-Point Protocol server aimed at busi- nesses that need to provide remote access to AppleTalk and TCP/IP network resources on their company LANs and beyond. The $999 three-port with free client software and has also been enhanced rver come: with an optional dial-out feature from Stalker Software Inc. AppleTalk, TCP/IP support. many rows as space allows. Unfortunately, you cannot specify a sort order for the rows displayed ina portal; they can be listed only in the order they were created. powerful that you'll really want to learn how to use them, Fortunately, the new fe: tures have been so well-integrated that current FileMaker users will have no trou- ble adapting. New users, in turn, will be surprised at how easy Claris has made it to create relational database applications. Although experienced relational data- base geeks will complain that FileMaker Pro 3 lacks many features, such as two- See FileMaker, Page 27 Global Village Communication Inc.’s OneWorld servers, offer only 10BASE T ports. The unit also has three DB-9 serial ports (like those found on the original Macintosh) to which modems may be attached for both incoming and outgoing modem calls. The QuickStream box contains three cables appropriate to connect these ports to stan- dard modems with DB-25 ports, but | modems with different connectors may | See QuickStream, next page PAGE 26 01.29.95 MACWEEK Point-to-Point Protocol, or Configuring the === SonicPPP Client PPP, client software for other ee Sera ees ie eect QuickStream platforms will need to do a little server Name: server involves Name: [mba connection scripting.) afew well- : Setting up the QuickStream Ea. ¥ee Agpletolk trattic reduction methods organized Password: server is only slightly more com- Server Zone: panels of [2 Dial on Demand plicated because dealing with switches and TCPAP requires some familiar area irene: RERCTSAOT | other clearly “th