mac week v 10 n 43

In Fusion's SiteStructure Editor, users organize pages ofa Web site using a chart much like a family tree. NetObjects tool to fuse Web-site design, control By Joanna Pearistein Start-up NetObjects Inc. this week will preview the long-awaited Mac version of Fusion, the company’s Web-site creation tool. Aimed at expert Webmasters who are frustrated with current graphical tools, Fusion will com- bine high-end design tools with management capabilities. A public beta of the Mac ver- sion will be available this week, and NetObjects plans to ship the See Fusion, Page 103 HyperCard reshuffled for Web as Apple plots By Kelly Ryer Hoping to give a new meaning to “Home” on the Internet, Apple next week will begin shipping the HyperCard 23.5 Value Bundle. Meanwhile, Apple is of- fering some glimpses into Hyper- Card's future. The $99 bundle will update the company’s user programming More News Inside course for 3.0 environment and add a number of third-party applications aimed at the Web. According to Param Singh, manager of media authoring prod- ucts in the Apple Interactive Media Group, HyperCard 2.3.5 is a first step toward a dramatically differ- ent version, 3.0, due next summer. See HyperCard, Page 102 | The wsweekly for Macintosh Managers VoLUME 10 NUMBER 43 | System 7.5 apps in virtual machine | By Stephen Howard Users’ might have’ theirseake | and eat it, too: Sources said Apple is pledged to creating a System 75 compatibility box for its up- coming OS. The upshot is that the new OS will reportedly be more compatible with current software than the original design of Mac OS 8. Regardless of the outcome from negotiations with Be Inc., Apple is reportedly committed to making a Macintosh virtual ma- chine — software that will run the entire System 7.5 environ- ment within a different OS. Asa result, system extensions and dri- vers that would have broken See Compatibility, Page 100 Apple, vendors think Be ‘Future OStorun | Mac developers ready for change By MacWEEK staff The next chapter of the Mac OS may start with a Be, and develop- ers said they are eager to sce the story unfold. Mac vendors last week said they welcome reports that Apple Mac OS ted Protect memo! and Be Inc, are considering amalgamating their OS tech- nologies, even though it will mean a major transition for them and their customers. Under the plan, the hybrid | OS would reportedly bring pre- emptive multitasking, multiprocessing, multi- threading and protected memory to the Mac (sce 11.04.96, Page 1). Devel- opers said such a move would represent an excit- ing new era for the Mac. “We want mult- tasking, protected mem- ory and a fast file system, and we're willing to in- yest in a new yersion to get it,” said Craig Isaacs, vice president of sales and marketing at Dantz De- See Developers, Page 100 | By Sherry London | Quark Inc. has deliv- ered Version 1.0 of QuarkImmedia, its re- sponse to uncontrolled Web graphics and difficult multi- media authoring. This $995 Mac- only QuarkXTension, which re- quires the similarly _ priced QuarkXPress 3.32 or above, has mostly suc- Immedia’s XPress route: ‘Shortcut to multimedia Now SHIPPING properly or to view a project on the Web. With the shipping version we'ye done both; everything is now.working as expected. Immedia lets you create docu- ments that can play QuickTime Sce Immedia, Page 37 The Be community is concerned over possible OS deal, while niche programmers are wary of Apple and worry Be will lose focus See Page 100 All-NT networks are “not what the customer wants,” said Apple’s Marco Landi eee eR el 0 pI ClA Ls ceeded on both counts. When we reviewed the beta version of Im- media (see 07.22.96, Page 25) we found it easy to learn and to use. If you can create a basic layout in XPress, you | can easily turn it into an interactive project with Immedia, We were unable, however, | touse the beta to export Quarkimmedia lets you create “hot-text” links in your projects. You can send users to another page or URL or pop open a Glossary window. an Immedia project Apple retunes retail channels to boost VARs By Leander Kahney Apple last week shook up its sales channels to streamline operations and promote sales. Aimed at Apple's key markets and the resellers that supply them, the company dumped restrictive distribution practices and provided new incentives to sell the Mac. According to Apple, its previ- ous strategy provided a wide but shallow distribution of products with little advocacy. The new plan will encourage partners to focus on strong market segments. Greg Rhine, Apple senior di- rector of channel development and programs, said the company changed every channel except K-12 education, The biggest changes, Rhine said, were in the terms for large value-added re- See Channel, Page 102 GUESS WHICH ONE IS BACK ORDERED? POWER COMPUTING APPLE POWERCENTER™ 150 POWERMAC™ 8500/150 POWERPC™ 604 PROCESSOR POWERPC 604 PROCESSOR 150MHZ 150MHZ 512K LEVEL 2 CACHE 512K LEVEL 2 CACHE 2 MB VRAM ONBOARD VIDEO (UPGRADEABLE TO 4MB) 2 MB PCI VIDEO CARD 2 GB HARD DRIVE 1.2 GB HARD DRIVE 24 MB RAM 16 MB RAM 8X CD-ROM DRIVE 8X CD-ROM DRIVE 15” POWER COMPUTING MULTIMEDIA MONITOR W/SPEAKERS $ 2999 GLOBAL VILLAGE 28.8 PLATINUM MODEM MICROSOFT OFFICE 4.2.1 APPLE INTERNET CONNECTION KIT EXTENDED KEYBOARD & MOUSE 1200 IN ADDITIONAL BUNDLED SOFTWARE 30 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE $2995 WE’VE GOT GREAT REVIEWS, KILLER S AND A BONEHEAD IN Fd * Actually, we con't blame it all on the poor guy in forecasting. We never expected our growth to exceed Dell, Compaq and Gateway’s first year’s sales combined. We knew we made great [MW Eotesmosem products, but when we started getting the best reviews of any Mac”OS system in the industry and offered our systems at the lowest prices, our sales went through the roof. We've definitely had our share of growing pains, but we've worked hard to iron them out. And you'll see continued steady improvement over the next couple Mac is making a comeback). Our PowerCenter has everything you need in a mid-range system, including the upgradeability you need to ensure that it won't be sitting in a closet next to a IICK acting as a print server a year from now. rearrangy MV | The Powerlower Pro 225 is simply the most killer i machine on the market. It’s the fastest, most expandable and highest-overall performing Mac 0S system you can buy. That's probably why it received “Best of Show” at MacWorld Expo and was the first machine in over three years to receive the coveted Five Mice of months. For example, if you order a PowerCenter 150MHz or Powerlower™ from MacUser magazine. (FYI: Our PowerBase™ line was the second). 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ORDER DIRECT 800-404-7693 http://www.powercc.com 2555 North IH 35, Round Rock, TX 78¢ Tel. 512/388-6868 Fax. 512/388-6799 Internet: infe sla, acs ond Mat wrote waded, nd the NaS ge sweden of dy ote rogned danas of Pome Compe (operas AD was band ead/e pre sae (he prepay tha gan blr. Pic nd speci vw th US. sly ed we AT DEADLINE | | | Beta available for Apple's Mac OS Runtime for Java Apple last week released the beta version | cE NagOS Rance forjaval Theava virtual machine will let Mac developers create Sun Java applets and stand-alone programs. The runtime is available at hetp?/www.devtools.apple.com/mry/ The package includes JShell, a format for creating “double-clickable” Mac pro- grams from Java code; JBindery, a utility for converting .zip, JAR or .class packages to the JShell format; Apple Applet Run- ner, a player for viewing Java programs; JRI, an interface for calling Java code from C or C++ code; and JManager, an API for embedding Java code within exist ing applications. | Power Computing ready | to do executive shuffle According to a PC WEEK online story, Macintosh clone maker Power Computing Corp. of Round Rock, Texas, this week will shuffle its executive ranks. Sources said the company will name Joel Kocher as its new president and chief operating officer. Kocher is currently president and COO at Artisoft Inc. of Tucson, Ariz. Previ- ously, Kocher was president of global sales, marketing and services at Dell Computer | Corp. of Austin, Texas. | Stephen Kahng, Power's current presi dent and CEO, will remain at the com | pany as chairman, sources said | Power Computing declined tocomment. | Global Village releases free 33.6-Kbps update Global Village Communication Inc. re- its desktop modems. Global Village said the firmware update | works on TelePort Platinum 28.8-Kbps only; it will not work on the company’s modems for PowerBooks or Communica: tions Slot cards. According to Global Village, not all TelePort Platinum modems can be up graded. After the updater is run, some modems will return a failure message Users can also test their modems by typing “AI6” in a tclecommunications program and hitting return. If the modem's response ends with “04BC,” users can pay $50 and send their 28.8-Kbps | models to the company. The company said it will make hardware changes to the modems and test them before returning them to the customer; the offer runs through the end of January. The ex- change process will take seven to 10 days. Global Village Communication Inc, of Sunnyvale, Calif, can be reached at (408) 523-1000 or (800) 371-6006; fax (408) 523- 2407; sales@globalvillage.com; http://ww globalvillage.com.o cently released a free 33.6-Kbps update for | modems purchased in North America | Hey, you can’t do that on TV! HBO creates a channel for the Web, with an episodic show that features flirts and fetishists, See Surf Report, Page 104, Companies go cross-platform insearch of ‘ways to get the best of Windows. while keeping their Macs. See Solutions, Page 51. CorelDraw 6 goes up against the big illustration packages and offers a low-cost, workable alternative. See Reviews, Page 42. Photoshop 4.0, due to ship this week, features Adjustment Layers, which let users apply color-correction =. functions without altering the original image See GA, Page 10. 11.11.96 VoLUME 10 NuMBER 43 Contents 4 NEWS Iomega debuts 20-Mbyte minidisks ¢ US. Robotics ships Pilot utility for Mac ¢ Motorola announces 240- MH clone systems ® Panasonic preps 1,200-dpi color laser 10 GA Photoshop 4.0 beta testers laud new features © QMS, Tektronix think big with color printers * Quick Draw 3D turns 1.5 ¢ OpenDoc in graphics apps ¢ Wide-format color inkjets 22 GATEWAYS Internet Explorer 3.0 beta arrives ¢ PNG graphics format gaining Web support * POP-based Quick Mail Pro to ship ¢ Keeping Internet servers running from afar Online exclusives Commission? . Don Crabb says the big; last week was the move of Pieter Hartsook to Apple. Find out why in Steamed Crabb. ... In the Elec tric Knife, Mac the Knife sees an Exponential upgrade and a PPCP daughterboard in the works for desktop Macs. might come of Apple's tangle with the Federal Trade st news What The latest MacBench results, including scores for the SuperMac €600/240 and the PowerBook 1400, can be downloaded at http/www.maeweek.com/ results.html. MacWEEK Insider The Mac OS isn’t the only game in town, so while Apple rethinks its strategy, vendors may be rethinking the Mac, Senior Writer Kelly Ryer looks at the developer dilemma of waiting for Apple. Where to reach us online MacWEEK reports the news every day, and you can find the latest stories on the Web at www.macweek.com. On CompuServe, the news is free at go zme:mwnews, and you can visit the MacWEEK Forum to discuss the events of the day at go zme:macweek 37 REVIEWS Immedia offers XPress route to multimedia * Adobe PageMill 2.0 solid, stable HTML editor ¢ Fractal Detailer 1.0 ¢ CorelDraw 6.0 © Reviews Forum 51 SOLUTIONS Mac users in Windows environments are hanging on to their identities by using PC compatibility cards. DEPARTMENTS & OPINION Working the Net Editorial Second Decade Letters Mac Manager MacInTouch 103 StockWatch 104 Surf Report 106 Mac the Knife 23388R ALSO INSIDE 56 Mail Order 78 MarketPlace 105 Advertiser Index 105 Product Index MacWEEK (ISSN 0892-81 18) is published weekly, with the exception of Jan. 1, July 1, Sept 2, and Dec. 23 and 30, by Git-Davis Publishing Co, 1 Park Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. Single-copy price, including postage: $6. One-year subscrip- tion rate: US., $125; Canada/Mexico, U.S. $225, Intema- tional, US, $350 (airmail. All orders must be prepaid. 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Mac OS ® Productivity ¢ Peripherals 11.11.96 MACWEEK lomega to shrink disks for portable devices | Tries to displace flash memory By John Poultney | Iomega Corp. is spinning a new | scheme for portable storage: 20- Mbyte floppy disks roughly half the size of business cards. The company will show prototypes at Comdex/Fall "96 this month in Las Vegas. The new Nehand disks will | measure 1.875 inches square and will incorporate floating read- write heads, much like Iomega’s Zip drives. Positioning the prod- ucts as OEM devices for portable electronics, lomega of Roy, Utah, said it envisions Nehand compet- ing with flash-memory PC Cards, such as those used in digital cam- eras, The mechanisms should be available in products by the second half of 1997, accord- ing to the company. Tomega’s disks should cost less than $10 cach, or about 50 cents per Mbyte, it said. By contrast, the CompactFlash cards from SanDisk Corp. of Sunnyvale, Calif, range from $20 to $50 per Mbyte. Widespread implementation of Nehand disks will depend on adoption by third-party hard- ware vendors. In addition to cam- eras, lomega cited PDAs, cellular phones, game machines, Global Positioning System devices and “electronic books” as potential hosts for the drives. According to Iomega, disk-based storage will simplify the often-cumbersome process of downloading files from a portable device to a desk- top computer. Mopier: Print, copy, staple By Leander Kahney To aid and abet people making multiple copies on office printers rather than photocopiers, Hewlett-Packard Co. last week released a printer-cum-copier called the Mopier Essentially the company’s 600-dpi LaserJet 5Si under a different name, the $9,549 Mopier features beefed-up software and paper-handling capabilities. The 24-page-per-minute device includes a duplexing unit, five-bin output tray, auto- HP said its beefed-up network printer doesn’t just print, it makes mopies — multiple original prints — hence the new moniker. matic stapler, JetDirect card for EtherTalk and LocalTalk connectiv- ity, and a printer engine with a duty cyde of 100,000 pages per month. The Mopier can hold up to 3,100 pages for printing. New printer drivers allow users to control duplex printing, collating and stapling from the desktop. To prevent network bottlenecks while printing multi- ple copies, a Transmit Once fea- ture sends the print-job data a sin- gle time and then spools it onto the Mopier’s built-in 420-Mbyte hard drive, Hewlett-Packard Co, of Palo Alto, Calif., can be reached at (800) 527-3753; fax-back (800) 333-1917; https/www.hp.com. o “Economically, these seem to be very viable compared to flash-memory de- vices,” said storage analyst Ray Free- man, president of Freeman Associates Inc, a Santa Bar- bara, Calif.-based re- search company. “The possibility of compatibility among disparate devices captures the imagination.” Freeman noted that it is uncer- tain whether the new design will become a standard. “In some instances where you need to use a lot of media, it may not be preferable to carry a lot of disks,” he said. Tomega said it is also evaluating whether to introduce a branded, stand-alone Nehand reader that fits in the same space as a PC Card reader. New color laser from Panasonic to hit 1,200 dpi By Leander Kahney Panasonic Communications & Systems Co. is set to ship a high- speed, high-resolution color laser printer by the end of 1996 — eight months later than expected. The 600-by-600-dpi_ KX- P8475 will be slightly faster and less expensive than first an- nounced (see 12.04.95, Page 6). The $6,000 device will output letter-size pages at up to 5 color and 14 monochrome pages per minute. Panasonic said the color laser will print at 1,200 dpi if its base 8 Mbytes of RAM is ex- panded to 24 Mbytes. Based on a Matsushita Electric engine — the same engine used in Tektronix Inc.'s Phaser 540 — the KX-P8475 will handle Post- See Panasonic, Page 6 By John Poultney US. Robotics Corp. last week an- nounced Mac connectivity and synchronization software for its handheld Pilot PDA. The com- pany said it intends to ship the software by the end of November. The Pilot has been sold since April, but connection utilities were available only for Windows U.S. Robotics’ Pilot Mac Pac will let users match contact databases, sched- | ules and to-do lists between their desktop Macintosh and PDA. Pilot PDA cleared for Mac OS landing machines. The new $14.95 Pilot Mac Pac will have desktop ver- sions of the Pilor’s built-in contact database, calendar and scheduling utility, to-do list, and memo pad Users will be able to synchronize calendar and contact files, as well as import and export data in comma- or tab-delimited formats. See Pilot, Page6 By David Morgenstern Tracking the rising speeds of the PowerPC 603e processor, Mo- torola Computer Group will add three models to its StarMax 3000 series of Mac clones, including a 240-MHz version. The systems are expected to ship in December. The $2,795 StarMax 3000/240 will run a 240-MHz 603e in a minitower case. This model will come standard with 32 Mbytes of EDO (Extended Data Out) RAM, 512 Kbytes of Level 2 cache and 4 Mbytes of video RAM. The StarMax 3000/180 will use a 180-MHz 603¢ processor. Con- figurations with a desktop or minitower enclosure will cost $1,595 and $1,895, respectively. The 180-MHz minitower will ship with 32 Mbytes of EDO RAM, and the desktop version will sport 16 Mbytes. Both will Motorola StarMax 3000 joins 240-MHz clone club come with a 256-Kbyte Levelaaie cache and 1 Mbyte of VRAM. The new StarMax 3000 mini towers will ship with five PCI slots) and a 2.5-Gbyte hard drives thal three-slot desktop systems have) an 8x CD-ROM drive, a28.8- modem and a software bundle, Also, Motorola reduced price of its forthcoming Star} 3000/200 minitower (see 09. $2,395, the model will cost $2,195) when it debuts next week, The company said it expects {0 release next week all the previe | ous! nounced StarMax 3000 and StarMax 4000 models. Motorola Computer Group of | Tempe, Ariz., is at (512) 434-1526: or (800) 759-1107; fax-back (602)) 438-4636 or (800) 682-6128; httpi// | www.mot.com/GSS/MCG/. a Netopia ISDN Modem high-speed individual net access = Farallon Netopia” ISON Mode From *329 Netopia Internet Router high-speed access for your entire office POULULGGUueeune From #749 Certain moments in life are slow & painful. Surfing the web shouldn't be one of them. Don't put up with the World Wide Wait! Access and download files from the net nine times faster than regular modems with the Netopia family of ISDN route dd modems, Just one Netopia Internet Router re of ing your whole office to the Internet. The Netopia ISDN modem is ideal for individual use at home and an extra port lets you talk or fax the same line, Imagine, no more net slowdowns. Download large files in a blink You get everything you need for painless installation and easy Intemet ss. With our optional “Up and 2, Guarant "service, we'll handle everything for you from your ISDN line installation to your Internet account. For d call 1.800.613.4947 or www-farallon.com +1: Farallon’ PAGE 6 y 11.11.96 MAcWEE! IRS forms to ship with new basic, Deluxe editions By John Poultney There's no IS percent tax cut coming, so the old rules apply. And Intuit Inc. last week started shipping 1996's HeadStart edi- tion of MacInTax. The Head- Start version, Intuit said, gives users the opportunity to analyze and adjust their financials in time to affect the current year's return. The final versions of the basic | and Deluxe editions of MacIn- Tax are due in January and will include approved Internal Rey- enue Service forms that may be filed clectronically or through postal mail. Intuit will ship the final versions free to purchasers of HeadStart editions. The $34.95 basic MacInTax guides users through the process of preparing federal tax returns with a series of interview ques- tions that determine which forms to use and how to complete them. A new Final Review feature lets users compare their returns against other typical filers in the same tax bracket. A new Transfer Report feature lets users import information from 1995's return, deleting obsolete financial and employment information as needed. MaclnTax Deluxe, priced at $49.95, ships on a CD-ROM and contains full-text reference mate- rial from 30 IRS publications and other sources, as well as a Video Library with multimedia advice on difficult tax issues. The disc contains the latest editions of two books: Mary Sprouse’s “The For the record Clarifying statements in a 10.28.96 article (Page 1) on Microsoft Corp,’s decision to stop developing 680x0 and Windows 3.1 versions of its Office suite, a com- pany official said Microsoft will continue to sell and support the older versions. Further, in the statement “In the markets that we sell Of- fice, it’s very close to 100 percent PowerPC,” the com~- pany was referring to sales of new software, not its in- stalled base. MacinTax time again 1995 Federal Income Tex Carryover Wis Tex History Report Tie Trenster Report show you ell the forms carried ‘over from your 1995 return. If eny form isn't needed for your 1996 return (perhops you changed jobs or no Jonger hold a particular investment), select it and then click “Remove Form.” Intuit’s 1996 MacinTax includes more-detailed features for deleting obsolete financial information when importing 1995's tax return into the 1996 return. Money Income Tax Handbook” and Jeff Schneppers’ “How To Pay Zero Taxes.” The Deluxe version also includes a Tax Plan- ner to start getting ready for 1997. The two MacInTax versions do not include all the features of TurboTax, Intuit’s Windows program. Specifically, TurboTax 1996 will include a method for navigating through the return process laterally, called Where Am I?; Netscape Navigator; and Atto intros Ultra SCSI3 adapters, RAID software By John Poultney ATTO Technology Inc. was busy at the end of October unyeil- ing high-speed cards aimed at the digital media marketplace and releasing a RAID software package for similarly data-inten- sive users. The ExpressPCI-Pro_ Series adapters are Wide Ultra SCSI-3 cards that provide up to 40 Mbytes per second throughput, according to the company. The $395 devices provide automatic termination and use ATTO's proprietary data-streaming tech- nology for performance boosts, the company said. The card uses a 25-MHz RISC processor and is optimized for video capture and playback, It also features a reworked data-interleaving architecture for use with striped-array configurations. a Refund Monitor, which will continually update the expected refund as changes occur. State-specific versions of Mac- InTax are available for the 45 states that collect income taxes. The state versions can be pur- chased for $24.95 each and must be ordered separately. Intuit Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif., is at (415) 944-6000 or (800) 446-8848; fax (415) 322-1013; hap//www.intuit.com, 0 The card includes ATTO's new ExpressPro-Tools software, its formatting utility that also benchmarks performance. ATTO shipped at the end of October ExpressRAID, a new software package incor- porating the features of Express- Pro-Tools plus support for RAID Level O arrays. The software, according to ATTO, provides a one-step method to create arrays and in- cludes a selectable interleaving function that can match disk /O rates with application-specific data transfer requirements. The $295 package does not support RAID Level | mirroring, but the company said later ver- sions may. ATTO Technology Inc, of Amberst, N.Y., can be reached at (716) 691-1999; fax (716) 691- 9353; htp-//www.attotech.com, 0 CFM adds tool bar, views to TeamFlow By John Poultney CFM Ine. last week shipped Version 4.6 of its TeamFlow workgroup package, a cross- platform scheduling, charting and document-management pro- gram. The product is designed to let networked Mac and Win- dows users share and edit work- flow plans. TeamFlow 4.6 has a revamped interface with resizable windows for organizational, process and Gantt charts. Also new is a tool bar that provides shortcuts to menu functions, a scalable de- | ployment flowchart, sticky-note comments, and the capability to drag and drop items from an or- ganizational chart to a process- flow worksheet. Other new features include print preview, header and footer controls, automatic page num: bering, font color and size cor trols, import and export of and schedules across platform: and a search function. In addition to tracking sche« ules and workgroup structures TeamFlow lets users attac documents to any step in a Wor flow chart. As with previous ver sions, double-clicking on icons will launch the associated applications. f! The stand-alone version o} TeamFlow 4.6 sells for $295; net work versions for five, 10 and 21 users cost $995, $1,800 and $3, respectively. An unlimited network license is $4,900. CFM Inc. of Bedford, can be reached at (617) 275-5258 (800) 647-1708; fax (617) 275 hup//www.teamflow.com. a Tie Tat view Project Team Process Schedule window a) Eieiel is) iw Product Model - New Product Development P : == at cena cutennff| |e | vm [sae [Fomor [> President CEO | Comge New! — peerrererenrts il | Heenan : =e ae Wine Mion femmes | Mee Ps ey Ae meee ee oon forese:} oar =a ‘Pranning De pt) Mew Puotuct Team Mineton | 4 peso r man Gaiam B: Tech Det ——— 2 Mis cuira cameos (| aie evi Assen y Lines capa FM's TeamFlow sports a new interface in Version 4.6; the tool bar! vides faster access to commands. Panasonic Script Level 2 and PCL 5, as well as ColorSync 2.0 and Pantone color-matching systems, The printer will be powered by a 32- MHz AMD 29040 RISC chip, The KX-P8475 will ship with SCSI-2 and Centronics parallel interfaces and will support op- tional EtherTalk and LocalTalk ports. Paper input and output will be handled by standard 250- sheet trays. Options include extra 250-page input cassettes, a 100- sheet transparency tray and a250- sheet output tray. Panasonic Communications & Systems Co, of Secaucus, N,J., can be reached at (201) 348- 7000 or (800) 742-8086; fax-back (800) 222-0584; hupy//www. Ppanasonic.com. From Page 4 Pilot Fr Pilot programs, such ; and utilities, will be al downloaded to the PD Mac Pac's Pilot Install Ts if they are saved in Int PC format, the compan} The Pilot includes handwriting-recogniti ware from U.S. Robot Computing Ine. divisi vice accepts input via an stylus or an on-screen k USS. Robotics said the devices will work for | weeks on two AAA cell A bundle of the Pil cradle and Mac Pac U.S, Robotics Corp. IIL, is at (415) 237. 881-7256; fax (415) http//www.usr.comyf ‘ir Hottest Mac YOUR #1 MAC SOURCE! 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This update will improve overall stability and performance and, if you use Virtual Memory on your PowerMac; launch your applications up before to four times faster than ever a If you are still running Word 6.0 you will definitely want to upgrade your software to this much improved version Word 6.01a update, intro duced last fall, will enhance and performance Stability, speed up your boot time and word counts, improve font handling and much more *Connoct lime charges may 2opty, © 1040 MicraxoM Corporation. AB sige reserved Miciosef\ and Where do you m Now you can download Microsoft's néw over your Mac's Internet Tools’ and dis Internet capébilitles. ee. Microsoft's commitment to the Mac means: you will be brows! creating, and accomplishing more nono time. To, obtain: Microsoft's: Internet a the System a Update 2 THEY’RE ALL FREE. j on the opposite page, please visit //www,microsoft.com/macoffice/ ) order a free Microsoft Empowerment Pack for the Mac, which includ the softwa above on a CD-ROM plus Spe ffer on RAM. from all 600-469 Dept. MCA Microsoft WHERE 00 YOU WANT TO GO TODAY?~ {0.60 Lousy? we ropysterod Yooemana of MicroaoN Corporation. Macintosh i 0 registered trademark ard Mac ared Pomethloc are vosierarka of Apple Comeaster, lnc rket heating up. See story, Page 16. Pace 10 Graphics Applications * Publishing © Multimedia Photoshop 4.0 | | | Beta testers laud | its flexible effects By Rebecca Gulick Adobe Systems Inc. this week is slated to ship the next major up- date to Photoshop. Version 4.0 of the $895 image-editing package of- fers uscrs greater flexibility when applying effects and lightens their production burdens, according to | Photoshop beta testers. Adjustment Layers make their debut in Version 4.0. These masks called to action let users apply color-correction functions, such as Levels, Curves, Color Balance, and Brightness and Contrast, to an image without permanently altering the original An Adjustment Layer can be stacked within Photoshop's Lay- ers palette, where it will affect the layers below it. Users can move Adjustment Layers up or down to alter different layers. Beta tester Jeff Schewe, pho- tographer and imaging artist for Chicago-based Schewe Photog- raphy, said Adjustment Layers See Photoshop, Page 12 Be QuickDraw 3D 1.5 revealed QuickDraw 3D 1.5 builds on extensible architecture | By Rebecca Gulick Two months later than expected, Quick Draw 3D 1.5is finally ready to make its debut. Held up in part by Apple's more rigorous quality- control standards, the 3-D exten. sion is now slated for release at Comdex/Fall "96, which will be held later this month in Las Vegas. In addition upport for Win- dows 95 and NT, Version 1.5 of QuickDraw 3D will offer an ex tensible object architecture, a more efficient geometry type, support for file references in 3DMF (3-D metafile format) and 3-D painting capabilities Sce QuickDraw 3D, Page 15 Tek warms up 'wide-format Phaser 600 By Matthew Rothenberg Tektronix Inc. this week will an- nounce plans to broaden its solid- ink color printer line with a new wide-format model The Phaser 600, slated to ship | in January for $11,995, will out- put prints measuring up to 34 by 44 inches. It will accommodate any paper stock measuring up to 36 inches wide and offer users the choice of manual- or roll-feed media, Tektronix said. Users will also be able to print to such sub- strates as vellum, canvas or vinyl. According to the company, the new printer will be twice as fast as competing E-size devices based on liquid-inkjet engines. The Phaser 600 will be able to print an E-size color image in less than 12 minutes ata resolution of 600 by 300 dpi with Mutoh Industries Ltd. of Tokyo, the Phaser 600 will draw on the same solid-ink chemistry as Tektronix's Phaser 340 and use the same print head as the com- pany’s Phaser 300. Like current models, the Phaser 600 will ac- commodate CMYK ink sticks | that can be reloaded on the fly. Unlike most competing wide- format printers, which come with See Tektronix, Page 12 | | Graphics vendors nix OpenDoc | By Ben Long While OpenDoc scems to be gaining momentum among developers of business productivity software, Apple's component technology has been spurned by many key developers of Mac graphics programs. Productivity software that subscribes to the OpenDoc model of container applications and component parts, or Live Objects, may let users add a spreadsheet to a presentation program, for example, or enhance their word processor with a spelling-checker component. Manufactured in cooperation | 11.11.96 MACWEEK QMS is diving into the dye- sub market, courtesy of Mitsubishi printer en- gines, When it ships by Janu- ary, the Color- Script 480 will mark the debut of anew mechanism. QMS aiming wide with new dye-subs Trains printers on graphics users By Matthew Rothenberg QMS Inc. last week charted a new course toward the graphics market when it launched a pair of full-bleed, tabloid-size dye- sublimation printers. The ColorScript 460 ColorScript 480 are the com- pany’s first entries into the dye- sub market and usher in a new business unit focused exclusively on high-end output for graphics professionals QMS said it has reorganized its and output lines into three business units: the Graphic Arts unit, which includes the two Color- Script models; a software-focused Image Management Solutions unit; and a Business Networks unit, which focuses on laser print ers, such as the new QMS 2060 Hammerhead series (see 10.21.96, Page 16) The ColorScript 460 shipped last week for $7,999; the Color- Script 480 will be priced at $9,999 when QMS delivers it by January. Both models are based on a Mitsubishi engine that offers a resolution of 300 by 600 dpi on See OMS, Page 12 | The concept of an extensible software architec — ture might sound familiar to graphics users accustomed to enhancing programs such as Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia FreeHand with special third-party plug-ins. But para- doxically, those same graphics users probably time soon, can’t expect to see many of their favorite appli- cations taking advantage of OpenDoc any According to key Mac graphics developers, in- — cluding Adobe Systems Inc,, Fractal Design Corp. See Focus On, ee | INTRANET RAPID WEB APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT, EASY-TO-USE INTERFACE AND NO PROGRAMMING! The power of Web/database connectivity at your fingertips Tango is an Intranet Rapid Application Development tool (IRAD) that allows you to quickly integrate your databases and Web servers through a visual drag and drop environment—without learning C/C++ or Perl. This opens up a world of opportunities: from on-line shopping systems, product catalogs and event registration, to telephone books, corporate manuals and training material. Go from dull to dynamic in minutes Why take days or even weeks creating Web applications? 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Troold/Watch ph mn nu © 100% (Levels, Levels Mask) Twas ea, i-— 3 a) On a » a a 72 The Navigator palette in Adobe Photoshop 4.0 lets users zoom in on an image with precision, saving them fr Photoshop take much of the pain out of cor- recting color, contrary to earlier versions of Photoshop, he said, where “every time you adjust the levels you drop data, and it’s basi- cally a one-way street. ... Also, with multilayered files you had to do this layer by layer.” To speed production tasks, Version 4.0 lets users create an Ac- ton list, a recording of a sequence of editing steps that can be applied to another image or a batch of files. Users can alter the order of Actions via drag-and-drop con- trols. Action lists can be used to batch-process images stored on a From Page 10 | hard disk or within a digital cam- era, Adobe said. However, Photo- shop 4.0 offers only limited sup- port for Apple-cvents scripting. The update also features Free Transform, a function that lets users apply multiple transforma- tions, such as scaling, rotation and skewing, to an image without re- drawing it. “This is a huge time saver,” Schewe said. “Free Transform al- lows me to transform more than one layer at a time. ... This means that several layers can be linked together and rotated or transformed in another manner together as a group. Ah, bliss!” The Navigator palette, which lets users zoom in on specific areas of an image, now offers broader zooming controls, ranging from 0.13 percent to 1,600 percent. Beta user Charles Wyke- Smith, a partner at Printz Elec- tronic Design of San Francisco, said he is a fan of the new palette, “Before, the limited views meant lots of zooming and moving the image,” Wyke-Smith said. Photoshop 4.0 can embed digital watermarks with artist and copy- right information. This capability is based on technology licensed from Digimarc Corp. of Portland, Ore. (see 10.21.96, Page 16), rom drifting in a sea of pixels. Other enhancements include custom grids and guides, an im- proved gradient tool, built-in support for multiprocessing, and 48 new filters. Schewe said he likes Version 4.0's support for “big data” — image information that extends beyond the visible canvas area. “In the past ... you were never sure what operations would crop the data. ... [Now] I can rotate and re- size and even runa filter ona layer with data that extends off the visi- ble canvas without worrying about [Photoshop] cropping it.” The update also offers faster scrolling and zooming, and it cases RAM requirements when opening large files, the company said, It will import and export Portable Network Graphics and progressive JPEG files and export Portable Document Format files. According to Wyke-Smith, “The biggest shortcoming is that there are still no text-layout tools — for example, no kerning, no way to retain text in a format where it can be re-edited later.” Upgrades will be $149. Adobe Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif, is at (408) 536-6000 or (800) 833-6687, fax (408) 537- 6000; http://www adobe.com. 5 QMS sheets ranging from A3 size to 13 by 19 inches. Besides CMYK, they output CMY with a pro- tective overcoat that shields im- ages from smudges and ultra- violet light. According to Charles Le- Compte, editor and publisher of the Newton, Mass,-based Hard Copy Observer, QMS is “effec- tively taking over Mitsubishi's distribution” of printers for the retail market. LeCompte said the ColorScript 460 is based on an older Mitsubishi engine and will be replaced by the From Page 10 Tektronix external RIPs, Tektronix’s model will include an on-board RIP. The Adobe PostScript Level 2 firm- ware will run on a32-MHz AMD 29040 processor; it will come with 39 Type | fonts and 8 Mbytes of RAM, expandable to 40 Mbytes. The Phaser 600 will ship with a bidirectional parallel portas well as a SCSI interface for a I-Gyte hard drive. Token-ring, Ethernet and LocalTalk options will cost $895, $595 and $245, respectively, Users will also be able to attach the Phaser 600 to Tektronix’s Phaser Copystation, a $1,695 scan- ning unit that will connect to the printer via the SCSI port and let the printer act as a color copier. According to Marco Boer, con- sulting partner with IT Strategies Inc.,a market research company in Hanover, Mass., the Phaser 600 will represent Tektronix’s incur- sion into a new market: wide- format output for business users. “While Tektronix is competing [in the] graphic arts industry,” Boer said, “they're also going to compete against HP’s DesignJet 755CM,” the $10,995 wide-format inkjet printer that Hewlett- Packard Co, of Palo Alto, Calif., is promoting to business users (see story, Page 16). Tektronix is “trying to take this technology into the office and print-provider market,” Boer said. “Their goal is to make itjustas easy to print onc of these oversize prints as it is to print a letter-size sheet.” According to Boer, Tektronix’s collaboration with Mutoh has al- lowed the company to couple its imaging engine with sheet-feeding. capabilities and a rugged chassis that will play well to business users. “Wide format is one of the bright spots in the printer mar- ket,” he said. Tektronix Inc. of Wilsonville, Ore., is at (503) 682-7377 or (800) 835-6100; fax (503) 682-2980; http//www.tck.com. From Page 10 ColorScript 480, which features a new mechanism that offers better color and more uniformity from the ribbon, The ColorScript 460 includes a 25-MHz AMD29000 processor and a 260-Mbyte hard drive. The forthcoming ColorScript 480 will run on a 33-MHz Intel 180960 RISC processor and come with a 540-Mbyte hard disk. Both printers will ship standard with Adobe PostScript Level 2 and 39 Type | fonts. Each printer will come with 24 Mbytes of RAM. Users will be able to expand the memory in the 480 to 136 Mbytes, but RAM FOCUS ON From Page 10 doesn’t provide them with a prac- tical approach to extensibility. “We've spent a lot of time looking at OpenDoc,” said Steve Guttman, vice president of mar- keting at Aptos, Calif.-based Fractal, “and right now we have ‘no plans for it” in the company’s flagship Painter package or other graphics applications, Joel Dreskin, senior product manager for FreeHand at San Francisco-based Macromedia, agreed. “There’s been a lot of discussion around here about OpenDoc,” Dreskin said. “The technology seems very interesting and has a lot of po- tential. But I hayen’t seen any vendors breaking their applications down into Open- Doc parts.” Parts won't fit Users hoping to drop Painter's tools into container appli- cations probably shouldn't hold their breath. “Painter is a huge application because its tools are very complex,” Guttman said. “To abstract those into parts means that instead of a mono- lithic app you'd haye a monolithic part. What's the advantage?” Guttman also questioned whether OpenDoc offers suffi- cient robustness to support the types of operations found in pro- grams such as Painter. According to Guttman, Open- Doc's word processing/spreadsheet model permits shared data types to interact ina limited way. Graphics applications, however, use more varied data types. “In Painter 4.0, we added the Shapes layer for mixing raster and vector data,” Guttman said. “That calls for different display cannot be upgraded in the 460, QMS said. Both the ColorScript 460 and 480 will include Local Talk, Cen- tronics parallel and RS-232C in- terfaces, QMS has not set pricing for a multiprotocol Ethernet interface, Each device will come with Pantone’s color-matching sys- tem, and each will support Apple's ColorSync 2.0, Agfa Fototune, EuroColor and SWOP (Specifications for Web Offset Publications), QMS said, According to the Hard Copy Observer's LeCompte, QMS’ re- newed interest in high-end color OpenDoc technologies, which is really diffs cult with OpenDoc’s ‘part’ model where a lot of stuff is opaque the container app.” Part-time, full-time work Even small developers — Op Doce’s traditional bastion — ex pressed mixed opinions about the | technology's potential in realm of graphics software. “There's so much technol now — AppleScript, Open! QuickDraw 3D — with thoi sands of pages of documenta= tion,” said Scott Burgess, pri dent and CEO of Francisco-based Electric Inc. “Just supporting one technol- ogy isa full-time job. i, At this point, I'm focusing stuff that really m, ters,” said Bur the author of Model fundamentally think my app scratch to implement OpenDoe and throw outeveryth and start over. It'st much work for small company.” Nevertheless, Burgess knowledged that his 3-D mi ing and visualization tool benefit from OpenDoc suppor “If you had something lik ModelShop embedded in a tainer, you could haye, for ex ple, real-estate guides with walk-throughs,” he said. Other small vendors are mors enthusiastic. MetaMind Soft Inc. of Mill Valley, Cali veloping Dock-Em, a cont application designed for si publishing and __ presen tasks. MetaMind President # McKinley said OpenDoc™ offer users capabilities not possible with tradi larger applications. “One really interesting W you can do in OpenDoc is to: See Focus On, SEAM MCDONALD. balances its focus on b chines in recent years. “They've been in the business a long time,” said. QMS was “one of th companies out there with th transfer color printers, Thet just walked away from it” Meanwhile, the sales to graphics users “ki kept on going,” he said,“ they changed their mi said, ‘We might as well goal and do this.’” QMS Ine. of Mobile, be reached at (334) 63. (800) 523-2696; fax (3: 4866; http//www.qms.c You want to do it all. Fly through mega Benefit from ultra high resolution displays of up to photoshop files. 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(214) 069-6369 In Qucdec, cat ($14) 969-6329 Maclccn 1.0 patonng ascent gemma 29 Poet Mae WIC ach ADA ot HAY LYDD 4 13 181m eoeny wth Maton Mame PC Pons Ne,Gssmard nein AI Actes ant Ragu ere 31600, PAGE 14 GA- 11.11.96 MACWEEK FOcUS ON >| From Page 12 ate a very large and substantial document,” he said. “You can then pick that up and drop that into other documents. All of this information can be nested and navigated within the document “Vendors who are staying with mono- lithic applications just don’t understand all the power of OpenDoc,” McKinley said Developers also expressed concern about the logistics of marketing and distributing graphics parts. “From a prac- ical perspective, how are you going to sell a lot of $20 and $30 parts?” Fractal’s Guttman asked. “Shrink-wrapped boxes? That’s not viable.” McKinley said he believes there are other options. “I think it'll start with peo- ple shrink-wrapping parts at $50 or $60,” he said. “Then I think people will sell them on the Net and create bundles.” OpenDoc against the world Graphics developers also expressed hesi- tancy about hitching their software to Open- Doc at the expense of competing technolo- gies, such as OLE from Microsoft Corp. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to OpenDoc adoption is the proprietary component technologies that major graphics developers have already built into their applications. “Why is Apple making [OpenDoc] a cornerstone of their strategy?” asked Frac- tal’s Guttman. “Microsoft has incredible leverage, so Apple’s already starting witha deficit. Maybe OpenDoc is technically bet- ter than OLE, but it seems impossible that Apple could sway anyone on the Windows side to do OpenDoc development in pref- erence to OLE “The best they'll be able to say is that they've got a couple of dozen developers,” Gutman said. “That's not a big win.” Besides OLE, Electric Café’s Burgess said he thinks current Internet technologies are encroaching on OpenDoc’s territory. “I think the Web sort of usurped some of OpenDoc’s thunder,” Burgess said. "With the Web, you've already got graphics-viewer parts and graphics-editor parts, and they're all cross-platform. To tic them all together you've got Java, just like OpenDoc is held together with AppleScript.” Our way or the highway. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to OpenDoc adoption is the proprictary component technologies that major graphics de- yelopers have already built into their ap- plications. Macromedia has Xtras, Adobe has plug-ins, and many other vendors are implementing open architectures of their own. “We've had a few teams looking at different product extension mechanisms: ActiveX, OLE, OpenDoc,” Macromedia’s Dreskin said. “But ultimately, we've been doing a lot of things internally to tie our products together: open architectures for plug-ins and data-exchange mechanisms, portable players for Director movies and other file formats. After spending a lot of time looking at what we'd developed on our own, we decided that that was the route to take.” Time will tell When it comes to adoption of new technologies, some developers take a follow-the-leader approach. “It’s going to take a few Adobe parts or a collection of Macromedia parts before OpenDoc re- ally matters for graphics users,” Electric Cafés Burgess said. “Then it could add some value.” Will the big guns ever jump on the bandwagon? “We're still in the early days with OpenDoc and Live Objects,” said Russell Brady, Apple platforms and tech- nologies PR manager. “Once developers sec if they benefit or don’t benefit, they'll be able to make more-considered judg- Unlike most hard drives it’s removabl Unlike most MACWEEK 11.11.96 GA- PAGE 15 meats. It's for the market to decide.” For graphics users, however, OpenDoc may represent an attempt to fix something that isn't broken, developers said don’t think anyone's ever used it. I'm not sure that graphics users are looking for OpenDoc's functionality.” Burgess said: “It really boils down to tween moving data and moving parts? Macromedia's Dreskin agreed. “In the graphics realm you've got well-defined categories — vector, image, layout pro- grams,” he said. "So far, there hasn't been a compelling way of taking a piece of ich and combining them to achieve different things or to achieve something that couldn't be done before. Until that happens, the technology is not going to go anywhere." A lot of people have done OLE devel- opment,” Fractal’s Guttman said, “but who's using it? It’s just not the way people work in graphics. what the end user is trying to accomplish. For most people who are doing graphics, their end productis a static graphic. “When you have that kind of output, it doesn’t really matter how you got it,” he said. “You might move it from program to program, but what's the difference be {Apple's} publish and subscribe is an “We imple- mented itin Version | of Painter, and I still other example,” he said There seems to be an unwritten rule with computers. No matter how large the hard drive, you'll eventually | find a way to max it out. Unless, of course, you get one that never really fills up, right? For example, the EZFlyce” 230,the latest removable cartridge hard drive from SyQuest? Don't let the small 3.5 inch cartridge deceive you, this thing is huge. 230 megs that rip along at twice the speed of any removable in its class | The reason for our blistering performance is pretty simple. It works like a hard drive because it is one Sluggish technologies from tape drives to high-capacity floppics just can't keep up. Use the EZFlyer” 230 Don't worry, sf ont the same way you would with any hard drive, with a nice little bonus~it’s removable. So you can add on to your | @\syquest | { scaling door to protect cartridges from dust and other disturbing things. When you feel the urge to change cartridges, hit the ¢ject button | cartridge fills up there elas system limitlessly, 230 megs at a time, till the end of time Weighing a mere 1.6 pounds, the trimmed-up drive can hit the road as well and features a and you're out of here. Applicatior and files stored on your cartridges are ready to run instantly. Own the Internet, throw on large chunks of video, colossal scans, the meaning of life or maybe just a CD-ROM game. Keep things you don’t necd. Back up things you do. It even saves money, storing your world at 10 cents per megabyte, Hmm. When you think about it, the possibilities are as endless as its capacity Now available at Egghead" Software, electronics boutique® and a bunch of other places. 1-800-245-2278 or http://www.syquest.com | s a hard drive. 1996 SyQuest® Technolo QuickDraw 3D Several third-party vendors, including Radius Inc, Microspot USA Inc. and Strata Inc., are already in position to take advantage of those new features. One of the most important new features in QuickDraw 3D L5 will be trimesh geometry. This data type, based on tri- angles instead of quadrilateral polygons, is designed to give renderers a boost in performance. The trimesh feature will also allow third-party developers to go di- rectly toa renderer instead of converting their own geometry to QuickDraw 3D, Apple said Radius of Sunnyvale, Calif., is readying its Thunder 3D accelerator board, which is slated to ship this month for less than $4,000. According to the company, applications that use QuickDraw 3D 15's trimesh geometry will run 25 percent faster than normal when used with the board Version 1.5 of QuickDraw 3D will also feature a uv picking function within the API that will allow de- velopers to offer 3-D painting capabilities. | Microspot of Sara- toga, Calif,, is planning todevelop a plug-in for the company's 3D World application that takes advantage of the uv picking feature The plug-in, based on Microspor’s PhotoFix image editor, will let users spray- From Page 10 paint on 3-D objects and use other objects as stencils. QuickDraw 3D 1.5 will accept plug-in renderers to complement its built-in inter- active renderer, These renderers can be | created with an Apple-provided API. St. George, Utah-based Strata said it will ship a QuickDraw 3D 1.5-savvy version of StudioPro, its 3-D package, in January. In particular, Version 2.0 of StudioPro will benefit from the extensibility features. “It’s basically the foundation of our interactive renderers," said Brad Camp- bell, StudioPro product manager. “It was cither build our own or use theirs, and we've been comfortable enough with the progress they have made to commit to using Apple's technology,” Campbell said Strata said StudioPro will support plug- in renderers, such as those from Light- Work Design Ltd. of Sheffield, England (sce 10.28.96, Page 14). QuickDraw 3D 1.5 will support file ref erences in 3DMP, so one model can draw clements such as texture maps or colors from other files. It will also offer new primitives, including ellipsoid, cone, cylin- der and torus shapes, and will support multiprocessing CPUs. Version 1.5 will not include the Level of Detail plug-in Apple originally planned for this version. The plug-in, which will render distant objects faster by simplifying | their geometries, will come with a minor update slated for January, along with a plug-in for 3DMP animations The update will be available at the QuickDraw 3D Web site, hup/Avww quickdraw3d.apple.com PAGE 16 plotters entering print mainstream For short-run jobs it’s hard to beat wide- format inkjets, but GA. EXTRA speed still an issue. By Eric J. Adams When the New Village Gate nightclub and restaurant in New York City decided to undergo a major renovation and name change recently, Michael A. Fink was just onc of many designers vying for the job. But Fink, principal of Magical Designs in Brooklyn, N.Y., had something the other designers didn’t a TechJET 175i wide- format inkjet printer from CalComp Inc. of Anaheim, Calif. Fink, who specializes in de- signing interiors for nightclubs, restaurants and public spaces, and his staff used the printer to pull together a full-color proposal just one day after the initial meeting. The proposal included poster-size 3-D mock-ups of several interior spaces, including the bar and dance floor. “Before I had the printer I would have wasted a full day ata service bureau, at least,” Fink said. “I can honestly say that having had the printer in-house has helped us get new clients and extend services to the clients we already have.” Once the domain of CAD users, wide- format plotters have been rechristened as “printers” (only Hewlett-Packard Co. retains the plotter moniker). With slashed prices, these printers have been recast to fit the needs of the Mac-based world of graphic designers; Big color, big profits, little problems If you think a service bureau needs all sorts of expen- sive equipment, think again. Ron Bettger, owner of Microcrafts in Colorado Springs, Colo., bought a LaserMaster Corp. Display- Maker Professional in 1993, placed two small ads in | the Yellow Pages and made the rounds of local busi- ness shows, promoting himself as a “big-color, short- run printer.” The first month he made a modest $1,000, but now he’s earning up to $35,000 a month, pumping out posters for automobile dealerships, churches, even the U.S. Olympic Committee, located in Colorado Springs. Bettger has since bought a second DisplayMaker Pro and has a LaserMaster DesignWinder on order. The secret to his success, he said, is knowing what he anand can’t do. “Color accuracy is, by far, my biggest problem,” he said. “People come in with Pantone colors and | tell them | can get dose, but not make an exact match.” His second problem is fading ink, a shortcoming of all inkjet printers. Consequently, he laminates every- thing he does, but he said the quality of large lamina- tors leaves much to be desired. Still, with a capital investment of less than $50,000, and the cost of consumables running about 10 per- cent to 20 percent of each job, Bettger said his success can serve as a wake-up call for service bureaus, “Once agencies and businesses see the possibilities, | they‘re hooked,” he said. Bettger’s main concern is that as the technology catches on, his larger clients will buy inexpensive, Ron Bettger bought a LaserMaster DisplayMaker Professional in 1993 and promoted himself as a “big-color, short-run printer.” wide-format printers of their own and no longer need his services. “But when that has happened in the past, | have enough room to drop my prices and make it worthwhile for them to stay with me,” he said, — By Eric J. Adams corporate marketing departments; and pay- for-print businesses such as service bureaus, screen printers, reprographics labs, photo shops and quick-print houses. According to Ron Gilboa, an analyst with CAP Ventures Inc. of Marshfield, Mass., a market research company specializing in dig- ital publishing, wide-format inkjet printers are being snapped up to create point-of-pur- chase displays, trade-show signs and posters, as well as position and pre-press proofing, packaging design, transportation advertising and even color separations. Fink, for example, relies on his printer to produce an unusually wide range of output, including mechanical drawings, 3-D ren- dered interiors, lightboard posters and restau- rant menus. Wide-format, short-run digital printing of- fers distinct advantages over traditional meth- ods, according to a study by I.T. Strategies Inc. a market research company in Hanover, Mass. Some advantages include variable in- formation on every print, local printing based on distant file transfer, true process-color ca- pability (beyond levels attainable by screen printers), elimination of manual and film- related pre-press processing, and relatively low costs for short-run printing Value-priced Inkjet is by no means the only wide-format color technology — clectrostatic, dye- sublimation and thermal-transfer printers are also available. But several features, including. color vibrancy, a wide range of available media and, above all, low cost, have made inkjet printers more attractive, according to Len Orsini, category manager for large- format printers at Eastman Kodak Co, of Rochester, N.Y. “We don't see a lot of growth or vendor in- vestment in the electrostatic market,” Orsini said. Electrostatic printers “may be faster, but they are inherently more expensive and don’t yield as good a quality as inkjets.” Brian Higgins, director of sales and marketing at Graphics Unlimited Inc, a 11.11.96 MACWEEK PAMELA HOBBS MacWEEK 11.11.96 GA- PAGE 17 Onte the domain of CAD users, wide-format printers are being snapped up to create point-of- purchase displays, trade-show signs and packaging design. or Minneapolis-based service bureau with 140 employees, said he liked the high-volume pos- sibilities of an electrostatic printer but ulti- mately he chose an inkjet. “The investment you have to make in elec- trostatic is so large, you really have to make a serious commitment to the market and be ready to provide ancillary services, like woodcutting and laminating,” Higgins said. “Tcan buy 10 inkjets for the price of one elec- trostatic printer.” Tn addition to wide-format jobs for cus- tomers, Higgins and staff use an HP Design- Jet 650¢ (replaced by the 750c) and Designjet 755c printer for internal composite proofs and to check for trapping on flexography jobs. “It’s cheap, and one of the fastest proofing devices we've come across,” Higgins said. Crowded field The new interest in wide-format inkjet tech- nology has some vendors scrambling for the upper hand, while other manufactur- €rs are just now en- tering the fray. Kodak, along with — Tektronix Inc. of Wilsonville, Ore.; Xerox Color- grafX Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif.; and Roland Digital Group of Irvine, Calif., have all re- cently introduced announced wide-format inkjet printers for the graphic arts market. Kodak’s device, the $11,995 Digital Science PS 1000, handles media 36 inches wide by 9 fect long, and it ships with a full complement of color calibra- tion and management tools. Tektronix is hyping the fast speeds of its Phaser 600, a 36-inch printer priced at $11,995 and due for release in January. Xerox's VivagrafX XL50, priced at $22,990, is a 50-inch inkjet that features five print modes, And Roland, known for its computer- aided sign-making products, will enter the market next month with its CammJET CJ-70, a $19,000 device that can handle media 50 inches wide. It uses the same cutting technol- ogy as the company’s professional vinyl cutters. The newest wide-format makers are com- peting with well-established vendors such as LaserMaster Corp. of Eden Prairie, Minn., which sells three wide-format devices: the top- ations for wide-format printing ‘Sign-making applications pot Source: CK Associates, Informational of-the-line $74,995 DisplayMaker Express, a 54-inch device that uses solid-pigmented inks and phase-change technology; the $9,995, 36- inch Display Maker Professional; and the new 36-inch DesignWinder, an inkjet drum printer that uses eight print heads to simulate 1,200 dpi (300 dpi for text). This $19,995 device can print a high-quality, E-size document in 15 minutes, butit requires cut sheets. Encad Inc. of San Diego offers two models: the 36-inch NovaJet Pro at $9,995, and the 50- inch NovaJet Pro 50 at $16,995. Next month Encad is expected to ship the NovaCut, a combination printer and cutter available in 54- and 24-inch sizes at prices in “the low teens and low 20s, respectively,” according to an Encad spokesperson. CalComp, which started making plotters in 1958, offers the TechJet 175i/MX, a $9,995 de- vice optimized for use on Mac networks, ac- cording to the company. Hewlett-Packard of Palo Alto, Calif., offers a wide range of devices, including the low- priced DesignJet 350C at $3,495; the Design- Jet 750 at $7,495; and the DesignJet 755CM, recently reduced to $10,995. “Large-format inkjet has really taken off,” said Kodak’s Orsini. “The price of the prod- uct for the service provider — whether it be a quick print or commercial lab — makes it very accessible. And it fits in well with the Mac or PC network already in place.” Versatility Among the recent conyerts to wide-format inkjet printing, count Drew Calman, presi- dent of Photographic Specialties Inc. of Min- neapolis, one of the largest service bureaus in the United States, The company specializes in large-format photo-realistic output for retail merchandising, murals, museums and corpo- rate sites. The company pumps out some 150,000 poster-size (and larger) pieces each year for clients such as Victoria’s Secret, Lane Bryantand Agfa. But even with millions of dollars of photo- graphic equipment, Calman found there were jobs he simply couldn't do. One potential job included murals with type, and Calman said film in that size just doesn’t have the capabil- ity to do fine detail. So, like many service bu- Installed base of wide-format printers reaus, Calman brought in a DisplayMaker Express from LaserMaster, “The client looked at our samples, and samples from our competition's electrostatic plotter, side-by-side,” Calman said, “And he decided on us.” Although he still uses traditional photo- graphic equipment for high-volume produc- tion, the DisplayMaker Express is picking up an increasing share of the company’s business. And Calman is hooked on the benefits of di- rect-to-digital printing. “We can doa composite in two to three hours. on the computer that used to take us two to three days,” he said. “Plus, there’s no more film, no more sending out for two or three test prints. It’s a great savings in terms of labor and time.” Indeed, the addition of a wide-format printer has opened up a whole new market for Calman. “Because of its excellent type ca- pabilities, we can get museum and signage work we had to pass on before,” he said. Mike Pittenger, president of Focus Digital Services Inc. in Nashville, Tenn., has also found new markets with his two HP Design- Jets and one Encad NovyaJet. “Here in Nashville, the country music business is big, and 60 percent of our work now comes from wide-format printing,” Pittenger said. Speed issues However, Pittenger said, the market did not materialize overnight. “We had to do a See Wide-format, next page Next time you purchase a piece of Proof positive for one pre- press shop to Truskier. “It’s not the cost as Apple equipment, take a look at the box it came in, Chances are the film for the graphics was processed by Star Graphics of Brisbane, Calif. The company handles pre-press work for packaging companies, in- cluding the company that handles the Apple account. Star Graphics has cut production time and cost by bringing in a NovaJet 50 from Encad Inc. for proofing at various stages, “One of the problems we face with packaging Is that our clients can rarely send us anything in the way of hard copy to represent their files, and even if they can, it’s usually black-and-white and 10 percent of the real size,” said Peter Truskier, technology manager. As soon as the technicians at Star Graphics receive a file, they output a copy on the Encad. “Ifa problem is evident, we automati- cally send a copy back to the client before proceeding,” Truskier said. After Star Graphics does its magic with added art, scans, trap- pings and corrections, the file is output once more on the Encad. That process used to be done on traditional laminate proofers at a cost of five to 10 times as much in consumables and labor, according much as the improved internal turnaround time that we appreci- ate,” he said. “We can pump out an Encad proof in half an hour to 45 minutes, while traditionally it would take us two and a half hours.” Once complete, the proofs are pasted onto boxes, particularly if ‘the boxes require complicated folds, to ensure proper alignment. Truskier praised the color con- sistency of the Novalet printer. He also said he hopes a new line of inks would improve color matching with printing inks. — By Eric J. Adams nnn ccccncc ccc cccccccccccrnrrr rrr ener PAGE 18 GA- 11.11.96 MACWEEK Wide-format tremendous amount of education, because most agencies didn't realize the possibili- From previous page | tics of short-run big color.” Now that they do, Pittenger’s biggest problem is speed, or rather, lack of it. Speed is, indeed, the Achilles’ heel of inkjet printers LaserMaster's DesignMaker Express is the fastest of the inkjet field, printing eight to 15 poster-size prints per hour (compared with 25 to 50 per hour on electrostatic printers). However, the DesignMaker Express costs about $75,000, a big jump. above the $10,000 price point of most other inkjet printers Liquid, or drop-on-demand, inkjets are slower, averaging about one to four poster- size prints per hour, which is why un- attended printing is so critical to Pittenger and others. “We had a recent job of 1,300 posters, and we ran our inkjets several nights to get itdone,” he said The slowdown is not caused by the RIP; it’s an imaging problem, mitigated some what by bidirectional printing and the ability to choose quality modes. Most vendors make the limitation livable With roll-to-roll paper feeding and large ink reservoirs that allow for overnight printing Calcomp’s 175-milliliter InkPacs provide The Witt itddis About to Begin. | Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing the best new performers for the Mac™OS—Hard Disk ToolKir™ 2.0 and the new Turbo Find out why more than 1.4 million loyal fans have switched to the ToolKit family of award- winning software. With Hard Disk 2.0, enjoy universal SCSI/IDE support, one-step disk configuration, and faster I/O INGRAM MICRO 1 1008. FW Settee, LLC. FO 6 8 segura radars of FW Sefer. LLC Mand Dah Tat ad Tost Ta ee racemes 0 FWD Stemre Mas and MacOS re racer of Apple Camp, ar peers fomctcamere Pay te regres 7 rar Mga nerd TOOLKIT: | ToolKic™. PERFORMANCE 5 for your Mac. FWB software “1 in Storage Management.” tence urge watt re Also starring in today’s performance is Turbo TTT Watch how this rising star optimizes disk performance, accelerates system startup and enhances your fayorite applications. It works behind the scenes to make your system faster and more efficient. So take your sear, sit back and enjoy a great S enough color to print up to 50 poster-size images before they need replacement. The DisplayMaker Express’ ink reser- voirs are refillable on the fly and hold up to 450 milliliters of ink — three solid-ink pucks per reservoir — enough to keep the Express printing overnight even at its higher speeds. The second shortcoming of inkjet print- ers large and small is ink fading and dete- rioration caused by poor UV resistance and susceptibility to water. These limitations often drive users to laminate posters, and the problem has limited the lucrative out- door signage market, though vendors are making great strides in providing fade- resistant inks. Encad, for example, earlier this year un- veiled its line of Graphic Outdoor inks. These pigment-based inks incorporate ultraviolet resistant colors manufactured by DuPont. Third-party inks provide varying de- grees of UV and water resistance, but Pit- tenger said using them can cause other problems. “We sce a big difference in out- put depending on the ink and brands of papers we use,” he said. “At firstit caused a lot of problems for us, but we learned how to adjust accordingly.” The cost of consumables is an inkjet issue as well. Ink and paper costs can be up to five times as expensive as comparable film costs, according to Kodak's Orsini. Competition from rival vendors and third-party manufacturers, however, has driven down the cost of inks, and labor savings and high margins minimize the cost of consumables even further, accord- ing to Higgins. “Everybody talks about cost of inks and supplies, but if you have to worry about cost of ink cartridges, you're probably doing something wrong,” he said. Vibrancy and media Despite shortcomings, inkjets offer un- matched color quality for the price. Most print at 300 dpi and higher for text and offer color vibrancy unmatched by electro- static printers, according to users. Colors from inkjet printers “are much more saturated and color-true than from electrostatic printers,” Calman said. “This is the real benefit,” Magical De~ signs’ Fink said. “The consistency of the fill and quality of the color does not vary from print to print. Electrostatic printers are more temperamental.” And when Fink prints, it’s not just on plain old paper. He has taken full advan- tage of the variety of media available for wide-format inkjets, such as vellum and economy bond or photo-glossy poster paper and film for backlit signs. Other media options include translucent, pre- mium opaque bond; clear and matte film; adhesive-backed vinyl; and high- resolution color bond. “Once you learn how cach medium affects the overall look, you can make the necessary adjustments very easily,” he said. Fink is now getting ready to try vinyl sheets to create custom wallpapers for his clients. “All this from a $10,000 device,” he said. 9 2 oan aces WHICH PICTURE'S PRETTIER? Created with ~ Created with Canvas™ § * Illustrator® “Canvas 5 adds Ust price $599 * Photoshop™ ahost of new q ” PageMaker capabilities that “Uist price make it far more $2,385 than the solid WANK illustration player it WAL WE is today. 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Canvas even supports all Photoshop compatible third true Swiss Army party plug-ins. | For publishing, you get the works: auto margins, multi-column guides, Knife of any left and right master pages (you can even fill text with gradients or textures and still edit oraphics applica it). 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MOTOROLA Computer Group ademarks and Star sexs Machines Corp w be What you never thought possible™ EV PLUG INTO THE WEB Apple’s QuickTime Web plug-in can be found at http:// www.quicktime.apple.com/sw/ mac_end_user_1.1.html. PAGE 22 Internet * Web Authoring * LAN Management 11.11.96 MACWEEK ~ Explorer 3 beta hits Net Tinetomy of on Eye | Mac browser gets | Java, style sheets By Joanna Pearlstein | Microsoft Corp. last week got one | step closer to bringing its Mac Web browser in line with its Windows-based offerings. The company released the first public beta of Internet Explorer 3.0, a new version that adds sev- eral features already presentin the Windows version of Microsoft's browser as well as the Mac version of Netscape Navigator. Available in both 680x0 and PowerPC incarnations, the new version supports Java applets via the use of Java virtual machines from cither Apple or Metrowerks Inc. of Austin, Texas. The Apple Java virtual machine is currently in public beta, and the Metro werks virtual machine is sched- uled to be available shortly, ac- cording to Internet Explorer Product Manager Kevin Unangst. yee rT) ys See eee 2a ic [2 Qaprereect corporation iiteee Sapert 77 In addition to frames and borderless frames, the public beta of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.0 supports Java and HTML 3.2's cascading style sheets. Unangst stressed that Explorer 3.0 is not a Windows port. “It’s a ground-up Mac product.” Microsoft chose not to include a Java virtual machine within the browser, as Netscape Communica- tions Corp. does with Navigator, because a separate one takes up less memory, he said. “This way, we dynamically load and unload Java. It takes up the memory it needs, See Explorer, Page 24 QuickMail Pro POP 3 client By Joanna Pearlstein CE Software Inc. this week plans to ship QuickMail Pro, the newest addition to the company’s e-mail lineup In a departure from the com- pany’s previous strategy, Quick- Mail Pro is based on Post Office Protocol 3, or POP 3 (sce 08.05.96, expected to ship this week Page 24). Priced at $69.95, it will be offered only as a client application and will work with any POP 3 e-mail server, the company said. The Pro version's Message- Peck View will let users look at the first few lines of a message be- fore opening it, and the software See QuickMail, Page 24 ~@ File Edit Moessoge format Configure Tools Window Scripts ry Fed rat Bfearss) 3 ? Bas Errrrrrreee CE Software's QuickMail Pro is scheduled to ship on Nov. 1. The product is ‘the company’s first POP-based e-mail client, and it will sell for $69.95. New domain, search utilities By Joanna Pearistein A pair of developers in October rolled out utilities that let Web- masters add searching functions and support for multiple domains to Web sites. » World Wide Power & Light’s $99 SpotLight CGI 1.0 is a search engine for Mac-based Web servers. The CGI comprises acollection of UserLand Frontier scripts and code resources that work with Claris FileMaker Pro 3.0, which is not included. The scripts index a site and then allow it to be searched via the CGI. SpotLight supports meta tag in- dexing, multiple search pages with unique directories, and the capabil- ity to extend the search engine yia scripts. The software provides a status window that tells adminis- trators which search criteria have been used, when the last file was indexed and the number of See Web tools, Page 24 FOCUS ON INTERNET royalty-free alternative to GIF By Jeff Eaton and overcome many of the ol The Portable Network Graph- ics format is gaining momen- tum as a free, Internet-based graphics standard. With a number of technical advantages over the aging GIF format and the recent endorse- ment of the World Wide Web Consortium, Portable Network Graphics, or PNG (pronounced “ping”), is poised to become the Web graphics format of choice. Making good on that promise, though, requires the support of of Internet and graphics experts: formed the PNG Group. a In recent months PNG has received a boost as a number off organizations and software d yelopers announced their sup> port. On Oct. 1 the Worl Wide Web Consortium gave its endorsement of the formal The PNG specification offers a number of features geared to= > ward graphics professionals, in=” browser vendors Netscape cluding built-in gamma an Communications Corp. and color correction, support for 48 Microsoft Corp. The PNG format was con- ceived in carly 1995, soon after Unisys Corp. announced that its patents on the LZW compres- sion method covered the popular — and previously free — GIF format. Hoping to design a channel, allowing designed blend images seamlessly in com: plex backgrounds. 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GEEIETEIEGE - allows files 1o be copied from one computer fo another over the LAN or Internet. - offers 0 way for computers to get ‘their TCP/IP settings from a centralized server. [DNS Server] - matches o name, such os a Web site address, to the corresponding TCP/IP address. 7 - provides a graphical means to communicate information to customers and coworkers over the World Wide Web. the rs) Macintosh — i [OENT, SATION the Mac's Ease of Use!} Internet and Intranet. The Sonic Internet Servers are a family of high performance software Internet servers which make it easy and economical for businesses to establish a presence on the Internet as well as to provide Intranet solutions for intra-office communications. Performance and Integration. These servers are a complete, integrated solution which bypass the need to assemble an assortment of shareware and commercial applications from various vendors. This results in easy configuration and maintenance, and improved reliability. And because the Sonic Internet Servers are multi- threaded, performance is greatly enhanced too. Remote Management. All Sonic Internet Servers can be managed locally, remotely or even over the Internet using InterManage, the included management application. This gives the network manager the flexibility to perform configuration and maintenance from anywhere, at any time. Want to see for yourself? Need more information? Fully functional demos and detailed specifications are available on our Web site. www-.sonicsys.com 800-535-0725 Senic Systema, inc ¢ $75 .N. Pastona Avo ¢ Sunmvale, CA © 94086 © USA @ Tol (408) 736-1900 © Fax (408) 736-7228 Emal salerBroncrys com « Véeb hep // wore socsys.com @ JemertMonage Admunistratey, SemcMod Server, SocucFlP Server, SorecDHP Server, SonicONS Server, and SonicWéeb Sarver ane wademarks af Sonic Systoms, inc * Al ather nawras are tadeenacks © registered tademarhs of thes reizaciee owners. 2 1996 Sone Spams, inc ol igh rverved PAGE 24 \ Sere ee Gateways 11.11.96 MaACWEEK QuickMail will encode enclosures depending on the accompanying message’s destination. The software will also support mail rules, Quick- Send, and the transmission of stylized text and forms from one QuickMail Pro user to another. QuickMail Pro will also send and receive messages in the back- ground, which the company said would free memory. In addition to QuickMail Pro, From Page 22 CE is also preparing QuickMail Express, a free, slimmed-down version of QuickMail Pro that will also ship this month. CE said it plans to provide performance enhancements to the QuickMail LAN Mac client in a minor up- date that will be released by the end of the year. CE Software Inc. of West Des Moines, Iowa, can be reached at (515) 221-1801 or (800) 523-7638; fax (515) 221-1806; http//www. cesoft.com. 0 Engst Apple Internet Mail Server (AIMS), run log-analysis programs on my Web logs, and copy files back and forth using Timbuktu Pro’s drag-and-drop capabilities. Remote servers basically require Timbuktu Pro. More information is at http//www farallon.com/ producvtb2/tb2macover.huml. From Page 22 Trouble with a capital T Timbuktu Pro works great when the remote Mac is fully func- tional, but crashes can prevent you from connecting. Tuse two tools to provide differ- ent levels of crash recovery. Karl Pouie's shareware application Keep It Up watches a specified set of programs and, if one crashes, tries to launch it again. After a user-specified number of at- tempts, Keep It Up restarts the Mac. Keep It Up works surpris- ingly well, given that it operates ona Mac with crashing programs. You can find Keep It Up at http//www_.vl-brabant.be/mac/ kiu.hunl, Truly nasty crashes lock up the entire Mac, rendering Keep It Up helpless. For those, I rely on the PowerKey Pro hardware-software combination from Sophisticated Circuits Inc. of Bothell, Wash. PowerKey Pro continually asks the Mac (over ADB) if everything is OK. Ifthe Mac fails to answer via the PowerKey Pro extension, PowerKey Pro restarts the Mac. You can also attach PowerKey Pro to a phone line and have it restart after a certain number of rings. Since the latest version of the PowerKey Pro software added the capability to restart crashed servers, I haven't had to call once. More information is at http//www.sophisticated.com/ pages/pk_pro200.html, Keeping the watch Even with these excellent tools, a Mac server can get into trouble. Maybe a preferences file becomes corrupt, or AIMS receives a mes- sage that’s so hosed that the server crashes, PowerKey Pro can con- tinually restart the Mac, but that doesn’t alert you to the problem. or help you stop it. You could write an AppleScript that would notify you and have the PowerKey Pro software execute it during every start-up, but I don’t like using AppleScript on remote servers for fear of server-killing modal dialog boxes. For my main server, I used to look at the daily report from Mikael Hansen’s freeware Auto- Share (http//www.vl-brabantbe/ mac), which works with AIMS to provide autoreplies and simple mailing lists. AutoShare logs start- ups, so you can tell the next day if the server has been crashing. Buta day is along time to wait. ‘A better solution just arrived in the form of PageSentry Pro 2.0 from Maxum Development Corp. of Streamwood, Ill. Cur- rently available for $349, Page- Sentry Pro can check Web, SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), FTP, Telnet and do- main name servers at specified in- tervals and notify you of prob- lems via e-mail or by running an AppleScript. (Maxum includes one that can restart a Mac plugged into PowerKey Pro.) More information is available from hup//www.maxum.com/ PageSentry/. Setting up PageSentry took about 10 minutes for the seven servers I run on three Macs, and my only complaint so far is that — without a less-than-ideal_work- around — PageSentry can’t check on ListStar/SMTP from the Berkeley, Calif.-based StarNine division of Quarterdeck Corp. be- cause ListStar is a mailing list man- ager, nota full SMTP server. These tools are essential in any situation in which you must ad- minister a remote Mac Internet server. If you fall into this cate~ gory, you owe it to yourself to check them out. G Adam C, Engst is editor of TidBITS and author of “Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh.” He can be reached at interg @macweck.com or http /wuw, sidbits.com Explorer From Page 22 runs and then closes itself out.” The current beta version of Explorer 3.0 docs not support ActiveX controls; that support will arrive in an upcoming release. Ex- plorer 3.0 supports HTML 3.2's cascading style sheets, which the company said improve design and download speed. It will also let users personalize their Web browsers by placing links to Web sites in the Quick Links tool bar. In contrast to Navigator 3.0's 9-Mbyte RAM footprint, Ex- Web tools searches since the last index. It also offers scheduling features. > Highware Inc. released an update to its MultiHome software for StarNine WebStar servers that lets site managers control multiple domain names from a_ single server. The $189 stand-alone appli- cation observes page requests and redirects calls to alternate pages. Version 2.0 can now be activated from within any HTML file, Highware said. The update also improves compatibility with Web From Page 22 browsers, adds support for an un- limited number of home pages and lets managers rename log files. The update is free to users of pre- vious versions. Demo versions of SpotLight and MultiHome are available | from the companies’ Web sites. World Wide Power & Lightof Seattle can be reached at (206) 269-6505; wrldpwr@wrldpwr. | com; http//www.wrldpwr.com/, Highware Inc. of Brussels, Bel- gium, can be reached by fax at 32- 2537-5155; info@highware.com; http/www.highware.com. a plorer 3.0 requires 4 Mbytes of RAM. However, Usenet news and Internet e-mail functions are provided through a separate app- lication, which requires an addi- tional 2 Mbytes of RAM. The final version of Explorer 3.0 will ship by the end of the year. Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash., is at (206) 882-8080 or (800) 426-9400; fax (716) 873-0906; http//www.microsoft.com. 0. FOCUS ON From Page 22 tures and retain companbility with older image view- ers. For example, one proposed extension to the for- mat would embed multiple images in a single PNG file. A low-resolution image would be used for screen display, while a larger version would be used when printing toa high-resolution output device. Another proposed extension would allow vector images and text call outs to be laid atop the image's bit- mapped data. Viewers that did not support extensions to the standard PNG format would read the essential bit-map data and skip the extra information. For PNG to attain widespread use it must be sup- ported within Web browsers and applications — the former so that users can view the images without a plug-in, as is currently required, and the latter so that designers can save images in th