MacAddict 026 199810

ace A DdIC TE e THE : pe ™ &) ©1998 4pde Comptes ne. Al igh served. The ple aoa reaeed demas ad Mac and Think ferent are nadamarks ple Compater The new iMac" Food for even more thought. With lots of cool software, built-in modem I think, therefore iMac. and fast internet access right out of the box. www.apple.com. @. Think different” Wa Wal : | © Blazing fast reads! The slower your drive, the greater ee) 2 Tunell the improvement. Ideal for Zip™, Jaz™, MO, SyQuest™ Drive fs and older hard drives Faster Bootups too! © More Reliable IDE & SCSI drive support ¢ Supports HFS and HFS+ formats ¢ “Smart drivers” automatically configure to optimize teads & writes for your specific drive! Just like an expert mechanic, Disk Drive TuneUp optimizes driver settings to get the most from your drive on your Mac system. Our exclusive “multi-level caching” architecture combines your Mac’s internal RAM memory with the speed of your internal hard disk to leverage multiple reads from slower removable media drives, older hard disks and most external disk drives. On line help guides you through the cache setup so you can optimize for the type of work you are doing. Save time, be more productive! TuneUp is: Now Faster ' Easier Affordable Oh 50% 100% ‘50% 200% ri e MacBench 3.0 Disk Mix Using Zip® Drive Work Faster Now! DVD-RAM TuneUp Get Disk Drive TuneUp & CD/DVD i He Drive TuneUp at: RESELLERS CALL: COMP USA: 800-COMPUSA INGRAM MAC ZONE: 800-248-0800 { Ji MAC WAREHOUSE: 800-255-6237 Ret aoe Software Architects Inc. MAC MALL: 800-222-2808 CD/DVD Drive TuneUp SKU: Aeaeen www.softarch.com Conrght © 199798 All ats reser. Disk rive TuneUp CD/DVD trve Tune and the SA ogo ae trademars of Software Architects In, Zp registered adem of Tomega Corporation, Mac OS is a trademark of Apple Computer Inc, All other trademarks are trademarks of registered trademarks of their respective commpante OCTOBER 1998 So scary, we went through a whole case of Depends while editing this fea- ture, We're talking about the five costumes you can wear as you prepare your Mac for Halloween. We give you the tools on The Disc and show you how fo use them. BY DAVID REYNOLDS ©8064 e ‘SPARE CHANGE, buddy? Hey! Don't walk away! { know you hear mel of showing up that snotty Spielberg or wowing the pants off that Lucas fellow? With this special effects article, a Mac, a garage bluescreen, and the right software, you too can make a hit blockbuster. BY RAF ANZOVIN een released to a resounding “Who cares?” but the famous hat-fanatic Mac alton Robin Williams tells why you should fear and loathe it. BY ROBIN WILLIAMS Now this is coo—using dynamic HTML for real interactivity, instead of just hyperlinks. Follow our how-to and you'll be slinging Web page elements around in no time. WATCH AS MARK does the amazing flaming FileMaker Pro databases can be published on the Web—we've been able to do this for some T-shirt trick without getting burned. time. Problem is, no one knew how. Until now. Step by step, we show you how to post your databases online. Web spelunker Joe Holmes dug deeply into the Amazon.com Web site to unearth some of the secrets Of its construction. We asked him to share his findings with you, and, nice guy that he is, he did. ATTENTION MACADDICT shop- pers! Our tricked-out Biue Light Special® pumpkin was Provided by Olivier Wolfson. ‘THE ONE GOOD USE for that particular box of software. Just mind the burning plastic. DARING DOODLER MARK SIMMONS quits cartooning, but not before giving you one last laugh. OCT98 MacADDICT 3 Editor’s Note ie Dave’s daydreams starring Dave's dad, Steven Spielberg, Kenneth Starr, and Steve Jobs. Letters Readers call it the best literary parody of all time. What are they raving about? Find out or miss out. Get Info Apple’s Q3 financials are out, and they look pretty damed good. We'll PF show you why. Plus, we deliver another installment of the Microsoft DUC Deathwatch. Cravings The hottest Mac products ever to instill desire in even the staunchest nofunnick. Reviews These things kick butt—or not. We rate and review Unreal, the high-end PowerBook G3, Fireworks, Director 6.5, and a slew of other products. Fun & Games She’s on the way! Lara Croft, everyone's favorite freakishly proportioned action heroine, is on the way to the Mac in Tomb Raider ll. We give you a sneak peek! Ask Us When you ask us, we fee! compelled to answer, That, and count the stairs we climb over and over. Find out if old-style L2 cache really helps G3 performance, and learn how to keep your Mac’s volume down. Shut Down You thought the !ast one was funny—you were right. It was. But this month is full of even more rib-ticklers. ZW wr We os we Mact mtosth oy Gaming * .. [ors 4 MacADDICT OCT/98 Advad/!Cc ™ e COREL, DRAW for Power Macintosh’ Draw different Wouldn't it be great if your graphics software was as friendly as your Macintosh®? Now it is! CorelDRAW™ 8 for Power Macintosh® makes it easy to create original artwork, apply incredible special effects and edit photographs with professional results. Plus, new compatibility features let you share files across platforms and between applications. Explore your creative ideas with software designed specifically for your Macintosh. An ideal complement to your new Macintosh” desktop, CorelDRAW 8 for Power Macintosh—awesome graphics software! PowerBook” G3 or iMac™ computer. neers WAREHOUSE” COREL ‘our nationwide Y-800-COMPUSA — isemee, 1-888-668-4867 “G0 further” www.corel.com ‘This advertisement was designed and created usiog award-winning Cowl graph software. Capit © 1998 Carl Corporation. ght ser, Cr, CarsORAW Draw cet and Go ute oz a adnars a opsted Yates of Com Capra ot Can Copco Ltd le, Macios), Powers, Por Macros Nuc an Mae OS ae aden ors acer of pl Corot, ne, ad ar unde ese. Al ter paul rand amar ames a gos a Vader eto Vaden fi eapcv cepa. 050.08 m i ANYONE CAN MAKE MOVIES in Premiere—even us! ® YOU WON'T FIND CUTE CURTAINS ) or doilies in these apartments. Mi WOW! THE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED REDESIGN of our MacAddict Tour is complete! Take the tour of this month’s goods. We glued it together with Realbasic. *| Fresh off the press... highlights Adobe Premiere 5.0 Lights! Camera! Action! if you've got stars in your eyes or excessively long home videos (you know who you are—we've all suffered watching them!), then here’s a program worth check- ing out. Capture video and audio directly into your computer via your video camera or VCR, then fully edit it into broadcast-quality movies. Manhattan Apartment Hunter What lies behind closed doors in this upcoming adventure game from IWS Interactive? Plenty of mystery and intrigue, as you venture through the Big Apple, looking for an apartment to Tent. This sneak peek at a much greater game-in-progress offers nice 3D rendered graphics and some chilling music. Realbasic F4 Okay kids, you asked for it—you got it! Check out our new MacAdbict Tour interface and this demo on the CD and see what Real Software's Realbasic can do. This object-oriented program makes it easy to create interactive applications without the hassle of learning complex language programming. Try it out for yourself. It also runs applications much faster and with less system Tequirements than that other program we used to use. Gridz 1.2 Die, Too!Bot! Die! This awesome arcade-style game pits brain (yours) against brawn (the opposing ToolBots) in your quest to take NetSpace away from the enemy ToolBots. Capture Qrid space and try to destroy the enemy with the help of your ToolBot Workers, Strikers, and Hackers. This great demo includes NetPlay, which enables you to challenge others in your quest for total domination. CONTROL YOUR ROBOT ARMY as you smash and hack the enemy to pieces! MAX AND DENNIS Escape From MacAddict.mo' GO POSTAL in Escape from MacAddict, this month’s staff video by Raf Anzovin. 6 MacADDICT OCT/98 Never again can anyone say the Mac user has to take a back seat to anyone on the Internet. MacLink is the Internet connection service created by Mac users for Mac users. Our service will lead the way for all ISPs, establishing new and innovative services, treating customers like they want to be treated. We believe Apple, Inc. makes the best computers and the best operating systems. And now with thousands of developers flocking with new appli- cations and programs developed for the Mac, what’s missing? The Internet! We are the ~ Cool te the Macs Mac OS Internet Features and Services: MacLink is available to over 4,000 cities and towns in the U.S. and Canada, with limited service in the U.K., Europe and Japan. We offer 33.6 to 56K consumer line connec- tions, and ISDN in most all cities. We are working to make service available to people everywhere in North America in the very near future. With our Premium service we include e-mail, news servers, free AbbottChat, a free subscription to The Mac Report, connections to Mac Central, AppleLinks, and all major national Mac magazines. MacLink offers our members ten megabytes of personal use web space, with free trial offers of the top HTML editors and a full graphics library. MacLink lets you set your own Internet pace. We don’t boot, bump or have busy sig- nals. We get you on fast and easy and you decide when you are ready to sign off. We don’t flash dozens of ads in your face or sell your address to anyone. We have strong spam restric- tive policies with adolescent protection software available for free. We have 24/7 Mac tech support available from a toll free number. Our information, billing, and sign-up are also accessible toll free. We offer expert assistance in switch-over and maintenance of your service. Best of all, we listen! We are adding new services and benefits for our customers everyday. We are the best Mac-centric Internet Service Provider. Soon we will be the best Internet Service Provider on the planet. Premium Unlimited Service $19.84/mth Call 1-877-MAC-1984 or sign up online at www.maclink.net Apple Apple Dreams Winners, Apple Spec Database 2-98, AppleShare IP 6.0b2, Applevision 1.6.1, Cocoa DR3, ColorSync 2.5, Disk Copy 6.3, HyperCard Player 2.4, MRJ 2.1 EarlyAccess 1, MRJ SDK 2.0.1, QuickTime 3.0 Audio Clixsounds, Radicalerts, Win95 Elvis Sound Communication AlwaysONline 1.7, Anarchie 2.0.1, Better- Telnet 1.2.2, Combadge 1.0.1, Easy Chat b1.0, FreePPP 2.6.2, GearBox 1.5, GPSy 3.15 demo, Hogwasher 1.0.2 demo, Hotline Client 1.2.3, Hotline FTP Server 1.0 demo, InCDius 1.1, Internet Explorer 4.0.1, IPNet- Monitor 2.1¢1, IPNetRouier 1.2.1, MacCD- DB 0.8.6, MacINIT Strings 2.1, MacTCP- Watcher 2.0, MacWaves 2.1.3, MT News- Watcher 2.4.4, Netscape Communicator 4.5, Netscape Navigator 4.05, NotifyMail 3.1, OT Advanced Tuner, OTSessionWatcher 1.0.1, PictureSnooper 1.5.1, PowerMail 2.0.2 demo, PPPremier Timer 2.0.1, URL Manager Pro, WhatRoute 1.5b15 Design & Graphics Acrobat Reader 3.0.1, Adobe Photoshop 5.0 demo, Animation Maker 3.1 demo, BeyondPress 4.0 demo, BladePro 2.09, BlueBox 1.0, Callisto 1.1, ColorBox, Cyber- Studio Pro 3.1 demo, DesignWorks 4.0.1 demo, DeskTop Zones, Dreamweaver 1.2 demo, FeatherGIF 1.9.6, Fractal Domains 1.2.3, FreeHand 8.0 demo, Get-a-Mac, GraphicConverter 3.3.1, Graphite 1.0.6, IconFactory Originals, India Ink 1.4.6, MacAddict Schemes, Made With Macintosh, PageMill 2.0 demo, Preflight Pro 2.0 demo, Propaganda, RenderBoy 2.0.1, smartGIF 1.0.2, Tesselation 1.25, The Mutatron 1.1, Windows 95 Crashes Development Adventure Creator 2.0, Director 6.0 demo, Jon’s Commands 2.0.5, Realbasic F4 demo, VSE RB Utilities Plugin 1.0.1 demo Fun & Games Burning Monkey Solitaire, Cave Fox 2001 1.1, Codebook 3.0.1, d-thing 1.0, Domain 1.0, Ebola Monkey Bingo 1.0.1, EV Overlord Suite, Farkle 2.5.1, Good Willie Hunting, 8 MacADDICT OCT/98 this month’s goods GopherGolf 3.1 demo, Gridz 1.2 demo, Haiku 0.2, idin 2.0, iMacGeddon, ISO Ani- mals, Jared, MacFolklore 2.0.1, Mad Cow Roulette 1.0, Manhattan Apartment Hunter demo, McPoet 4.5, MindThump 1.0, Myth—Behind the Scenes, NetherWorld 1.2.1, Nuts And Bolts 0.9.5, PixelToy 1.0, Realmz 5.1.5, Rock Scissors Paper, Shallow Grave 1.0, Sim Cinema Deluxe 2.1, Sim Tape Dispenser, simMir 1.0, Sim- Stapler, Smashing Windows II 1.0, Solitaire Till Dawn 3.3, Tarot Reader 1.0b1, Tempus Irae 1.11, Tomato Head, Win 95 Tester Interface CalcStrip 1.0.3, Designer's Studio 1.5, Desktopper 1.2, Kaleidoscope 2.0.1, PandoCalendar 3.2.2, PandoMural 1.0, PandoStickers 2.0, Window Monkey 1.2.4 The Kitchen Sink Kant Generator Pro 1.3.1, Max Rates the World Multimedia Adobe After Effects 3.1 demo, Adobe Pre- miere 5.0 demo, Elastic Reality 3.1 demo, MovieUtilities CMM 1.4, Ultimate 2.0 demo Productivity Concordance 2.1.1, MacTravesty 1.1.1, Mariner Write Lite 1.0.3, TimeSlice 1.7.2 demo, WASTE 1.3, Reference Lotto Tracker I 1.5, LottoCale 1.0 Sponsor demos AbbottChat 2.0 demo, Action Files 1.0 Trial, Classroom Publisher demo, Creation Station Tutorial, FWB Software Offer, Myth Il Teaser, QuicKeys 3.5.2 Trial, RealPool 1.0 demo, The Village Post, TotalAccess 2.0 Trial Updates BBEdit 4.5.3, ClarisWorks 5.0v2, GraphicConverter 3.3.1, Installer VISE 5.5, Newton Press 1.1 Utilities ACE 1.3, DiskTracker 1.1.3, Drive Icon Reposition 1.2.3, GURU 2.7, Hyper-Stack Player Pro 2.4, Installer VISE 5.5 demo, My Tapeworm Is, PopChar Pro 1.1.1 demo, ShutdownESC 1.2.0, Volume Adjusters Our Disc Sponsors 10 find immediate information tion to the Mac Report; connec from our sponsors, click on tions upto 56K in aver 4,000 US. ‘and Canadian cities; and a mem- ‘Sponsors front the main window bloody combat, "using prod 5, and magic in for less than the price of onel For struggle against Soul- a limited time only, Blighter’s undead legions, is offering Toot F graphics, Personal Edition 25 and the ‘controls, and nevi features a5, 3D ‘fire, fortifications, and for only $2985! Simpity all your indoor environments, Features fares serine rarely; fot Cal your fate oma. 198 Soule ‘wll ship in 1998 for Nea awit. locate es by a ironraent, a to learn jlan- fia ror the ication pongo earere acta : 3 28 i 5 L 4 mercial on ‘groups! mix diferent audio sources? fee AbbotChat, a cha progam Newt done tha befor? Catch private of group chat your breath just fre Up ne Whose ‘email our application on The Disc and ‘address you know; free subscrip: be stunned! © the web highlights Seybold and the Beautiful The expo portion of Seybold San Francisco, Publishing '98 kicks off on Tuesday, September 1, with a keynote speech from His Interimness Steve Jobs. We'll bring you the latest proclamations from Apple's supreme leader with all deliberate haste. iMac Mania We've been biding our time waiting for the arrival of the new consumer Mac by posting a series of news items, product roundups, and reader reactions. See http://(www.macaddict.com/mailbag for reasons why your fellow readers are or aren't buying iMacs, and check out http://www.macaddict.com/news to find out why an iMac is like a bulletproof gumdrop. Market Forces in Action As we go to press, Apple has | made another round of multi- $100 price cuts on its desktop ‘may, Jaty 2.990: sDay saa 18) | Power Mac G3 line. See Brrr wet cig Saeas” | tlpy/Avww.macaddict Ra ee ae com/news for a before-and- ars: Forni, WES volen ign AD. Funiahait@etarsss =" | after price comparison for each ‘Sor oad dese petty at vase build-to-order option, from eenaneye se 300MHz processors to 128-bit Secpiecamees 18 yi f Sees ese | orahlos cards dans nek cand 94% owe 7) OUR AUGUST WEB SITE COLORS Sar aoe ota paid homage to the nascent iMac Roma SSeS ae with a Netscape-safe simulacrum Soe of Ice and Bondi Blue, plus teint Asean Oomortme en. | translucent HTML. every month www.macaddict.com http://www.macaddict.com/issues Links and extra resources to accompany the magazine you hald in your eager hands. http://www.macaddict.com/contact Yes, we want to hear from you! Here are email addresses and more. Join us! Here's our fabulous free trial issue subscription offer eg http://www.macaddict.com/subscribe ® http://www.macaddict.com/service Subscription problems? Missing issues? Vexing questions? Visit our customer service pages. @ hittp://www.macaddict.com/cdrom Liner notes on the MacAdgict CD-ROM, late-breaking info, and disc replacement forms. MacAddict NETWORK www.macaddictnetwork.com http:/wwnw.macaddict.com You know us, right? Well, this Is our funky Web site, updated daily with fresh fun and games. Come out and play! http://www.evangelist.macaddict.com EvangeList is the official home of Guy Kawasaki's ‘mailing list, bastion of Mac advocacy and scourge of the infidel. http://www.maccentral.com Every day, MacCentral stuffs you to the gills with hot news, product announcements, and nifty special reports. http:/www.macsurfer.com MacSurfer’s Headline News constantly scours the Web for all the news that's fit to link on Apple and the Mac universe. httpy/www.versiontracker.com Version Tracker’s up-to-the-minute listings keep tabs ‘on every Mac software product that’s new, improved, or in bleeding-edge beta form. hitp://www.maefixit.com MacFixit brings you all the latest news on bugs, con- flicts, and other Mac troubleshooting issues. http:/www.macresource.com Mac Resource Page provides timely news and reviews, special deals,.bug reports, how-to primers, and the famed MRP RAMWatch pricing guide. http://deal-mac.com Deal-mac finds hot offers on cool products, helping Mac shoppers stay informed and save money. hittp:/ogrady.com — Q'Grady’s PowerPage is the ultimate resource for PowerBook users, with notebook news and mobility message boards. http://www.imgmagazine.com Inside Mac Games is a monthly CD-ROM magazine devoted to Mac games, with its own news-packed Web site. hittp://www.infoxczar.com/atat As the Apple Turns tunes in every day for the latest twists and turns of the Apple Computer soap opera. http://www.everymac.com EveryMac’s exhaustive catalog of Macs and Mac- compatibles provides complete specs and techni- cal data (even on the semi-legendary Outbound notebooks). http://wew.iconfactory.com The Iconfactory turns your drab desktop into a pixe- lated paradise with its fabulous selection of hand- crafted icons, http://www.saracen.com/applejedi.htmt AppleJedi is the tub-thumping e-zine for evangelists, et solutions providers, and Defenders of the OS. OCT/98 MacADDICT 9 “Tm Sich OF having GO Settle For a sloWer Mac Just because my budget SUCKS.” Sometimes Newer Is Smarter Than New. Ina perfect world, we all would buy a new, more machines to the list with faster processor top-of-the-line Mac right now. Of course, there’s that speeds as you read this. With a MAXpowr G3 card, little thing called money, the stuff most of us don’t you'll have a faster processor with a much faster have coming out of our ears. That’s Mmmm cache. In fact, the MAXpowr G3 card why you need a Newer Technology —_} "wi naweres/s4o0 can make your old Mac one of the MAXpowr G3 processor upgrade “wie is = fastest desktop computers available card. They're easy to install and soi Oss Gee even compared to Apple's new with Newer 63/275 am 260% save you thousands of dollars screaming G3 machines. Thanks to compared to buying a whole new system. Newer Technology, your older, slower Power Mac has Newer Technology makes processor upgrade new life which makes waiting for a brand new cards for almost every Power Mac and are adding machine a lot less painful. n»> newertechnolagy: To find out how to make your old Mac newer visit www.newertech.com or call 1-316-943-0222 wr Love Steve or leave him, we wouldn't want to be him. | t's the favorite sport of those who write about Apple. After our morning Wheaties ® and stretches (and a nice big cuppa joe), we make the long climb to the top of our col- lective soapboxes and start in with our rants. Here's what Apple's next move should be. Here's the latest big mis- take Apple made. Here’s what Jobs should do with Apple. Although Apple would be long dead and buried if it followed all of the advice it gets (mainly because most of this advice is either conflicting or just plain bad), it's also a Jot of fun to play armchair CEO. I've certainly done it, as has every Mac journalist I know. It’s like daydreaming about winning the lot- tery, only replacing the money with Macs. Although it has been done over and over, 1am. proud to present an illuminating (and potentially time-killing) twist to the time- honored practice. — What if... my dad ran Apple? Under R.D. Reynolds, Apple would be a dif- ferent place. Imagine Mac hardware so tight and well integrated that hardware failure would be nearly impossible. Of course, the trade-off would be a complete change in industrial design policy—function would almost entirely replace form. Need to ship DVD-ROM upgrades on current Macs? Just weld them to the sides of existing cases. FireWire? No problem—bolt on a card. Sabbaticals would be replaced with fishing Although Apple would be long dead and buried if it followed all of the advice it gets (mainly because most of this advice is either conflicting or just plain bad), it’s also a lot of fun to play armchair CEO. 12 MacADDICT OCT/98 trips to Alaska and certain lakes in central Canada—fly in, hike out. Now that would build teamwork. Marketing would be replaced with a “buy it—it’s good for you” slogan and a hearty handshake. Tech sup- port would consist of some notes on note- book paper detailing the measurements of each and every part in a Mac. Fix it your- self—it would be part of the Apple experi- ence. Besides, everyone should know the Mac inside and out. What if... Steven Spielberg ran Apple? So here’s the situation—an embattled, beleagured computer manufacturer in California, forgotten by all except a loyal few. Opening scene—which starts in black-and-white then fades to brilliant color—shows Tom Hanks on the sidewalk looking up at the R&D 3 building. The shot is lit from underneath, with an emphasis on the gold and yellow tones to build a sense of hope. Hanks moves in and starts his day as interim CEO. Spielberg holes up in a basement office and writes scripts for the company’s new ad campaign on a PowerBook 3400, while Hanks han- dles the day-to-day operations at Apple. While everyone in the com- pany likes Hanks, they can’t help but notice that he has no experience running a Fortune 500 company, and he doesn’t quite seem to get the nuances of the technology. Not that anyone blames him. They're just feeling too darned good. What if... Kenneth Starr ran Apple? Bill Gates wouldn't stand a chance in his dealings with the Department of Justice— after all, his name is Bill. After handing out a few well-placed subpoenas and testing Windows code for traces of Mac DNA, that little legal battle would be over—or at least tied up in court for a lot of years, making headlines all the while. Since no one would really care, market share num- bers would stay largely where they are. After awhile, Starr would leapfrog from Our CD-ROM Revolution CEO to CEO via any number of anonymous engineers, marketing professionals, and leads provided by journalists, until he threatened to sue Willard Scott because he once mentioned Seattle during his morn- ing weather segment. Ultimately, the entire computer industry would be at risk of dying because people would go on to far more interesting pursuits, such as jigsaw puzzles and manila file folders. What if... David Reynolds ran Apple? He'd have the sense to call Steve Jobs and then get the hell out of the way—David Reynolds fter many rionths of wrangling ideas, code, and interface ele- ments, this montli we are proud to introduce. a new interface for our monthly CD-ROM. Kris Fong and Adam Vanderhoof (in corijunction with imagine: new media developer Dan Cats) have been working hard to make an easy-to- navigate tour of the goodies on The Disc. The new interlace is pretty damed cool, Navigating it is simplicity itself, but it still retaing almost everythitig'that the orig- inal interface had. {t takes a lot less RAM to use, but it requires a bigger monitor. We think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Either way, We expect fo hear from you aboutit The best thing about the new inter face is that it was compisted using a spitfy litle development environment called Realbasic. This stuff kicks butt: Realbasic lets you build genuine Mac applications without having to resort to learning C/C++ and investing a ton of time learning the 8,000 or so Mac toolbox calls, Besides being a great development environment, Realbasic may soon allow: folks to cross-compile thelr applications and get Windows-compaiible apps in the process: Oh, and need to tell you-—we goofed ‘on thé Infowave PowerPrint 98 review (see Jun/98, p49). A tine that should have: been removed before the review went to print was not, and as a result, we reported that PowerPrint was compatible with the Alps MD-1000, It is not. tapolo- gize for the mistake, HOW’S YOUR SEARCH FOR MAC ACCESSORIES GOING? Hey, we know the places you can buy Macs and Mac stuff aren’t exactly popping up like Starbucks these days. But we’ve got you covered. With high performance accessories like our TurhoMouse and Orbit” trackballs, easy-to-use Mouse-in-a-Box, and 2-and 4-button mice. And now there’s our hot new Keyboard-in-a-Box: You see, we’ve been making Apple products since 1981. And we’re going to keep right on making them, until the Feds shut down Microsoft and Apple regains apa aie its rightful place as the king, the sovereign monarch, the mighty potentate of the KENSINGTON, cyberuniverse. Until then, check out the Maccessories' at www.kensington.com. Smart design at work. * letters GET ON, GET ACTIVE. Talk to us and to other Mac addicts at the Web site, What happens when petal This Month WRITE TO US: MacAddict, 150 North ——~._ Hill Drive, Suite 40, Brisbane, CA 94005, or email to letters@macaddict.com. FOR CD PROBLEMS: Go to bttp:// imaginemedia.com. FOR SUBSCRIPTION QUERIES: alll (toll-free) 888-771-6222. Praise BE To Mark Normally, it would be fair to say that I devour each issue as soon as it arrives. But when the September ’98 issue arrived, there was a difference. When I got to Mark’s “MacAddict Bluffs Notes” (Sepv/98, p39), I laughed so hard I snorted the thing right out through my nose! The September issue obviously needs a warning label. This is the best literary parody I think I've ever seen. I bow and worship at the feet of the online editor—Ronalp Guzst I just wanted to let you know the only thing that tears me away from studying for my Ph.D. exams is your magazine, Having just read the latest issue, I’m forced to comment. In “MacAddict Bluffs Notes,” you write: “The removal of the fabled Icon Garden, chroni- cled in the August 1998 issue, marks the end of the second cycle of MacAddict and may foreshadow either Ragnarok or renewal.” Fear not, for Ragnarok is renewal. A quick rereading of the last 10 stanzas of the Eddic “Voluspa” that detail the renewal after the cataclysm will chase away any fears you may have. Well, there is that last stanza about the dragon Nidhogg flying overhead carrying corpses, but what that means depends on bow you read the poem.—Joun Warrer Cuicken Butt Out While reading the July 98 issue, I stumbled upon a huge error! On page 4 near the bot- tom right, in that little box thing, it says, “What's up, Chicken butt?” Everybody 14 MacADDICT OCT/98 ° sd Pena the intrepid voyages of Captain Zumba-Lakun into the heart of northern Micronesia, where he braved overwhelming odds to discover the true chicken butt—that the correct phrase is “Guess what? Chicken butt!” The confusion may have come from the fact that the good captain came from Ohio, and when he came back, his wife asked him, “What's up?” to which he responded only, “Chicken butt” before collapsing from exhaustion. —PuIL HAGELBERG We’re Here For You This is just a friendly little note to let you mow that there are going to be some changes in my house. I’m getting my very own iMac. Yes, it’s true. And I know what you're saying. “Wow, MacDaddy, that’s great! But an iMac is a far cry from your Performa 550...Are you sure you'll be able to adjust?” And to this I must reply. Yes, there will be a period of transition, as there is with every change. But I will overcome. And if you ever need a break from MacAddict, a chance to forget the pressure of real life, an opportu- nity to get away from it all, remember that I le gioh being Polite and start being weird. will always be available for a game of Unreal. And now I have said my piece. Thank you for your time. —Apam BAcksTROM IF You Can’t BE Hanpsome, BE Hanpy When I went from my > PowerBook 3400/200 to a PowerBook 63/250, one thing I missed was the pop-down rear feet. So I went to the hardware store to the section that sells furni- ture coasters and bumpers. I XN found some hard-rubber, crystal- clear bumpers that were self- adhesive and placed one next to each back foot of my Power- Book. While they do not fold away like the 3400's feet, they are quite ‘unobtrusive and put the keyboard at a better typing angle. They also improve air circulation under the "Book and make lift- ing it off a hard surface much easier (you .».you build your house without windows or gates.—MicuaeL Goush ..,.you say “eep!” instead ot “oops.” —Anpy SYBALSK! ...your baby starts crying and you look for the Sleep button. ...you use AppleScript to automate flushing your toilet. ..-you try to use Norton AntiVirus to scan your sick dog. .-.you mess up in life and then run to a keyboard pressing Command-Z over and over and over and...—Jason Waite ..,.you subconsciously insert an / before any abbreviation of the word Macintosh.—Atvaro HEIDEN Th B ° onsistency. It’s what every graphics professional wants, but seldom achieves. e biggest Uintiliner (The Specees Vieille olor eal tented disclamentee (net abet monitor-to-monitor color matching throughout the entire prepress pro Insurpassed color Difference See ee ee / needed to complete a job, which improves In The our productivity and more profit to your MULOR CALIBRATED DISPLAY SYSTEM be line. The SpectraView 1000 combines Mitsubishi’ award-winning 21" (19. onal viewable image) DIAMONDTRON™ CRT display with a precise, high-speed SpectraSensor™ colorimeter and custom s $ 9 Spectr aView ME to achieve accurate, reliable, repeatable and consistent color performance. Plus, it’s available for either PC or Mac, provid- Display System : ing a complete cross-platform display-matching solution. ’ To find out how the SpectraView 1000 can make a major i difference in your color-critical applications, contact Is There Is z Mitsubishi Electronics today. No Difference. 2. MITSUBISHI DISPLAY PRODUCTS Innovation On Display,, ©1998 Mitsubi America, Ine. D logo are rises AMAZING SOFTWARE! POSSIBLE CURE FOR, MOUSE SHOULDER, Get a life! Order your copy of QuicKeys* today, save over half off the regular price, plus we'll throw My Tooo 1¢ HOME in PowerPak absolutely FREE! FROM WORK! THANKS 70 QUICKEVS, HE GETS more botle DURING THE bay! QuicKeys is the biggest time-saver in Mac history! You can save millions of mouse clicks—reduce your most complicated routines down to a single keystroke! Over a lifetime, you could retrieve whole days lost to point- and-click time! So what are you gonna do? Cry over your misspent youth? Or add days to your Life for F under $70! Take a second now, and save lots of seconds down the road! c : ck SOFTWARE - 646.994- US. residents add $5 shipping/handling per order ee Mail: CE Software, I weeks for delivery, Iowa residents add 5% sales tax. fait: CE sortware, Inc. NoP.0.s accepted. Offer expires January 31, 1999, P.O, Box 65580 West Des Moines, IA 50265 USA Name Company Name es ee Address __ City __— State Zip/Postal Code Country 4 Qty@$69.95 Ci Check enclosed [] Amex (1) Visa LH MasterCard Card# _ Exp. Date Name on card Signature Daytime Phone #: 2253 ©1998 CE Sof trademark of CE Sof not guaranteed. Produ Inc. CE Software the CE nc. All rights reserve specifications, and prices are subject ta ehange without tware Logo are tradomarks and QuicKeys is a registered ur time-saving results may vary. Regaining youth is r I I I J I ! i] I I I 1 J ! ! l 1 J I I 1 can get your fingers firmly under the machine before lifting). While I would prefer the built-in ones, this was an inexpensive substitute and the clear rubber goes nicely with the crystal Apple loge.—B. Joun Swirr Onty Ir You Sugscrise Acain Wow! I was just preparing to send in my bill for my new subscrip- tion, and man, do you guys have the greatest envelope-flap glue I’ve ever tasted! Could you please send more with my next issue? —Pun Comparet Looxep Like A BooGer To Us T’'d just like to say that I second Fawzi Dormeyer’s motion to put more goo in with the poster. That stuff kicks @$$!—Curis Ruprst Don’t Feep Her CHOCOLATE took a break from playing Harry and decided to decorate my very fat black lab, Annie, using only the best 30-year-old white eyeshadow and the most expensive of my mother’s blush, and now Annie looks like an overweight Tammy Faye, Now I have nothing to do, ’cause the makeup won't show up on my other two labs (they're brown), so I am writing to you to say I have never missed an issue, nor will I—-Kruty Moors Wuat Asout SoyYLENT YELLow? J was finishing up my first reading of the August °98 issue and was reading Shutdown. I came across the “What he said/What he really meant” part, and I would have peed in my pants had I not already heen in the bathroom. The part about Windows being made of people was a great tribute to Phil Hartman and was extremely hysterical. “Soylent Windows! It’s made of people! People!” Ha—that’s comedy—TreY COLBERT Ger Over It OK. Right at the beginning of last month’s letters section, there was a Jeter from a certain Daniel Hamilton referring to the @#$%%! dots on the spine of the ’zine! I’m the dot addict; it’s my topic! I’m the dot addict. 'm so crazed I made a Web site about it! I’m serious! Go to http://pluto.njcc.com/~bananaj/dots/theredots.html—dot addiction lives! We will triumph!—Avex SaRETZKy He’Lt Give You THE FINGER How many fingers does Max have? J mean, you can’t even make up your mind about whether he should have four fingers or five fingers. Here is an example. Look in August 98, page 44—see the Freakin’ Awsome? Five fingers right? Now go to page 45, frame one—four fingers! Did I miss some- thing?—Cris Kognn Yes, THEY ARE Wow. G3s are fast —Han4son JrAne We Ate It I would like to inquire about the status of my free ham. I explicitly recall that part of the subscription agreement included delivery of a large, fully cooked, sticky, spiral-cut ham. I have not received it as of yet, and any information you can send me regarding my free ham would be greatly appreciated. After all, what good is MacAddict mag- azine without a juicy, mouthwatering ham?—Paut CARPENTER PHONG, TSCHUWAAONNG SCHMoNG! Your August ’98 issue incorrectly claims that Macs make a “phong” sound on startup. In fact, the sound Macs make on startup is more correctly described onomatopoeically as “tschuwaaonng.” I look forward to seeing a full retraction in the upcoming issue and for MacAddict staff to cease writing “phong” on the pages of your otherwise fine publication. —Farnanpo CoLINa We Don’t Do TYPOzE In reading “You’re Welcome, Bran4don” in the letters section of the August "98 issue of MacAddict, 1 knew there must be a log- ical explanation for the ever-so-excellent staff at MacAddict to make the typo in the spelling of Chris. After I hired numerous highly paid technical private dicks for sec- onds of intense investigation, my team could only come to this conclusion: The lightning speed data-entry expert at MacAddict hit the 4 key just before striking the R key, resulting in the unique and unin- tentional spelling of “Ch4ris.” If you will notice, the 4 key is directly above and slightly to the left of the R key on your key- board, making this a highly understand- able mistype in the profession of data entry. However, if you will also notice, there is no number key in the vicinity of either the N or the D keys, making the so-called defacing of Brandon’s name as “Bran4don” highly unlikely. In conclusion, the original mis- spelling of Brandon's name by MacAddict as “Brando” is much more likely to occur than the suggested “Branddon.” Besides, who finds it so humiliating to have a cool number stuck somewhere in your name? Tdamuch rather have that than have the last letter of my name left off altogether. Rich4rd is much cooler than Richar, and Brand9on is cooler than Brando any day of the week. —RicHA4rD Ki4rk Ha Ha Ha! I would like to make it public that I, too, am suing Microsoft on the grounds that I couldn’t sleep after the midnight release of Windows 98. All I could hear all night was the sound of Windows crashing! —Jurr STEIFER PLoTTiING Your PERSONAL DEMISE Hey, you guys! You know what? I was just kicking the crap out of Bill Gates on Celebrity Slugfest when I thought of some- thing. Do you think Steve visits that site and takes out nerd boy for warping part of the Mac OS into Winblows? I mean, what else could the guy be doing with all of that Internet equipment and 20-inch monitors out there on the Apple Campus in good ol’ Cupertino?—JonarHaN CLAYDON STEP UP TO HARDWARE Windows® Compatibility Virtual™PC, SoftWindows™95, or Apple®/Reply Card* Upgrade to OrangePC: $399 OrangePC 620 Complete: $549 OrangePC Windows Compatibility Card Our new OrangePC 620 is the best priced Macintosh Windows? 95/98 compatibility card in history. Virtual PC™ and SoftWindows® users can upgrade to OrangePC for only $399, experienc- ing a giant step up in performance. In fact, the OrangePC benchmarks** four to twenty times faster than sleepy software emulators. The OrangePC 620 answers the “price/performance” question by offer- ing true hardware speed at a break- through price that every Mac user can afford! It actually has a Pentium® com- patible 200MHz processor (user upgradeable to 300MHz) with 16MB of oo¢ @ MaclWEEK real RAM (user upgradeable to 128MB) on Magazine May 1888 board. This means you can run any PC applica- tion on your Mac as fast as a real PC with the ulti- mate in compatibility. And the OrangePC’s Version 3 software has sig- nificant improvements as well. It sports 32-bit dri- vers facilitating CD-ROM long file names and NDIS3 networking. Our exclusive SnapShot™ feature allows a Windows screen to show the Mac environment inside a Win 95/98 window and, con- versely, the Mac screen to display the Windows environment. It’s like a “picture in picture” on your TV! So take a step in the right direction - upgrade your software emulator to real hardware for only $399, or buy the OrangePC outright for $549. “The Cross-Platform Connection” info@macph.com (800) 615-3183 *Must have OEM version of Windows 95. ‘otenchmark de: Business Winstone 98; Power Mac 3 with MB, Viewal FCM 20 vs Orange"PC 620, GXSGMPRIO0, 32MB. Virwal PC™, OrngePC, end “Window 9898 are uademarks or repstered wademurks of Coanctix Corporation, Orange Mire, ne, and MicrosoR. © Orage Mico, In, 1998, | | Z 2G Keeping all the news that’s printed fit, and all the fit news printed. Apple’s $100 Million Mark s the day drawing near when the novelty of Apple turning another quarterly profit wears off? We certainly hope so. In the meantime, it’s thrilling to check in every three months and find out that yup, Apple Computer is still a profit-making entity, At the close of its third fiscal quarter of 1998, which ended June 26, Apple reported a third con- secutive profitable quarter, netting a cool $101 million, a three-year high-water mark. ‘Thanks to ongoing positive cash flow, Apple's reserves are at an all-time high of $1.99 bil- lion, which should come in handy for the iMac marketing blitz. Byeballing the third-quarter numbers, we find that Apple's business remained stable, with G3-fueled profit margins compensating for lower average selling prices. The overall Picture is nearly identical to that of the sec- ond quarter (see “Apple’s Unit Sales Continue to Suck Less,” Jul/98, p17), with sales of $1.402 billion, a gross margin of 25.7 per- cent, and operating expenses stripped to just under the $300 million mark. Apple would have turned in a healthy $75 million profit, were it not for a $33 million post-tax windfall from the IPO of Newton processor—maker ARM Holdings, as well as a $7 million expen- diture for purchasing as-yet-unspecified tech- nology from Macromedia. While Apple hasn’t suffered as much from Asia's economic woes as other high-tech companies, its sales were down in Europe and Japan. U.S. sales typi- cally make up half of Apple's income, but this quarter they accounted for 57 percent. Now that Apple has mastered the art of liv- ing lean, it looks to the iMac to put it back o1 the growth track. Apple CFO Fred Anderson expects business to pick up in the fourth quarter, with serious growth kicking in dur- ing the first fiscal quarter of 1999. That’s the winter of 1998 to you and me, so you can be sure the Cupertino crew will have visions of gumdrop consumer Macs dancing in their heads this Christmas.—Ms 18 MacADDICT OCT/98 Apple sold 644,000 Macs in its third fiscal quarter. That sure sounds like a lot of Macs, but which models are flying off the shelves the fastest? Here’s how Apple's unit sales for the last quarter break down. Entry-Level Power Macs 28% Introduced at the beginning of April, the toothsome All-in-one ‘was the surprise hit of the season, making up 21 percent of unit sales (about 140,000 units). Though the compact GS is available only to education shoppers, it still accounted for one out of every five Mac sales; buoyed by the All-in-one's success, education unit sales were up 89 percent from the second quarter, Other entry-level Power Macs. Oncs the backbone of Apple's product line, last + quarter this category amounted to litle more then a Power Mac 6500 liquidation, make ing up only 7 percent of unit sales (about 40,000 to 50,000 units), Otherwise, i's Power Mac Gs for everyone—at least uni iMac numbers came in. 180,000 units High-End Power Macs 52% The one-size-fits-all Power Mac G3 continues to account for half of Apple's sales—an even 50 percent this quarter (about 320,000 units). From its Novernber 1997 introduction to the end of the third fiscal quarter, the Power Mac G3 has sold about 780,000 units, averaging a steady 100,000 a month. Despite its relatively low pricing, the G3 line's fat margins have kept Apple comfortably in the black. Other high-end Power Macs. This group amounts to a mere 2 percent of unit sales (about 10,000 units). Goodbye, full-size tower Macs; goodbye, six- slot cases. It's a G3 world now, and we just jive in it. PowerBooks 16% Though it only debuted in May, and availability was underwhelm- ing for the first few weeks, the new PowerBook G3 Series ultimately came through for Apple, accounting for 11 percent of unit sales {about 70,000 units). With manufacturing up to speed and iarge- screen models finally shipping, the PowerBook outlook should be bright from now on. Other PowerBooks. Add the older mobile model unit sales to the taly—S Percent {about 30,000 units)—and PowerBook sales came to a healthy 100,000- 100,000 units pplus—higher than the last couple of quarters for which we have unit sales figures. Everything Else: With round-off effects, the percentages sum to a bit less than 100. Servers and other miscellany account for the remaining couple of tens of thou- ‘sands of units. Redmond Requiem | Money no match for bad news an unrelenting death spiral. Each new problem for the beleaguered company seems to hammer another nail in the Redmond, Washington—based software manufacturer's cof- fin. Taking cues from past media coverage of Apple, MacAddict continues the Microsoft Death- watch, tracking the company’s slip toward certain collapse. It may seem that we take glee in the embattled Microsoft's misfortune, but in fact we are very concerned for what this will mean for Apple. Should the floundering company collapse and withdraw from the operating system market, the lack of competition could make Apple com- placent, and innovation would surely suffer Indeed, the hobbled Microsoft's now almost inescapable condemnation is bad for everyone. Here is what we're concerned about this month. |= troubled Microsoft continues to flail in a Delivering what could be described as a lethal blow to the company, a Utah judge ordered the recalcitrant Microsoft to hand over Windows 95 source code to operating system manufac- turer Caldera. The latter will use the code to con- tinve building its already almost insurmountable case against the besieged Microsoft, fingering Gates and friends for illegally tying MS-DOS and ‘Windows together—thus blocking DOS alterna- tives such as Caldera’s DR-DOS. a Windows NI’s myriad failures were high- lighted yet again, this time by a nearcatastrophic incident uncovered by Gov- emment Computing News. GCN reported that last fall NT systems running the Navy war- ship U.S.S. Yorktown brought the vessel to its knees when someone typed a zero into a data field. Unable to divide al zero, the ship came to a a Microsofi’s senescent vendor support con- tinues to deteriorate, as even former Microsoft executive and current business partner Rob Glaser, CEO of RealNetworks (makers of RealAu- dio), attested to the company’s evil ways. The Machiavellian Microsoft's $25 million investment in RealNetworks apparently couldn't keep Glaser from blabbing to Congress about how the two- faced company cheated RealNetworks. Glaser told a congressional panel that installing Microsoft's media player—which still competes with RealAudio, despite the fact that Microsoft owns 10 percent of RealNetworks—disables the newest RealAudio player. The friendless Micro- soft, eager to retain its remaining vendor sup- port, quickly issued a workaround to remedy the problem, but few insiders think the attempted kiss-up will change the sleazy impression left on. the computing industry. LPR TCP/IP Printing fy Dee ee oteionnd nection? Apple's Technical Information Library article 24409 documents it. Line Printer Remote ye printing lets you print to a Line Printer Daemon-cap- able printer over the Intemet, You need LaserWriter 8.5.1, Desktop Printing, and Mac OS 7.6, 7.6.1, or 8.1 (Mac OS 8 won't work). Here's how to set it up: § Assign an IP address to your laser printer. Con- sult your printer's documentation for specifics. ™ Open the Desktop Printer Utility and select Printer (LPR). Click OK. jicrosoft Deathwatch Sua tabs arene ee was just the most recent of many troubles plagu- ing Windows NT, which many in the industry now feel is dead in the water. BD siciuighting the tckess Microsoft's hopeless scramble to find some industry to call its own, the Wall Street Journal uncovered repeated instances in which the frantic software manufacturer begged Apple to stop competing in the multimedia software market. Apple subse- quently confirmed that the Department of Justice is now looking into an incident in which Microsoft pleaded with Apple not to release QuickTime for Windows in exchange for Microsoft promoting other Apple technologies. While Apple in the past has taken pity on the crip- pled company—highlighting several of its soft- ware solutions at key Macintosh conventions and offering it access to Apple patents for a pittance— the DOj will most likely force Apple to cooperate. a In a move widely seen as a sign that Bill Gates is distancing himself from Microsoft's day- to-day woes, the CEO promoted Steven Ballmer to president, Safely padded from the firestorm sur- rounding Microsoft, Gates had time to appear in a promotional video with Ballmer; the video, based on a popular Volkswagen commercial, sig- nified Ballmer’s new role. Industry onlookers, however, were quick to point out that the video underscored the ideologically bankrupt Microsoft's lack of creativity. See the video via CNN at http://cnnfn.com/hotstories/companies /9807/22/microsoft_pkg/gates3.mov.—RC New G3 366MHz §. 5w-6.50. 7-90 Pentium i! (Portable) © 233MHz (L2 cache) 7.5¥ 366MHZ (L2 cache) 8.6 Pentiurn It (Desktop) Old G3 300MHz '§ Select the proper PPD using the Change button in the upper half of the resulting dialog box. Using the Change button in the Internet Printer portion of the dialog box, enter the printer's IP address and queue name. Click Verify, then OK. @ From File, save the desktop printer and quit the utility. LPR printing works somewhat like sending a file, except that you're sending a print job—DR 300MHz 400MHZ a T’ve learned to deal with those stuck-up waiters in high falootin’ restaurants. I’ve even gotten to where I don’t make slurping sounds when I suck the soup out of my bowl. Experience has also taught me not to chew tobacco at big city social gatherings because they usually don’t have any (good) place to spit. Now lam §) ready to share my wealth of knowl- * Bedge with others. (Please read this ad to a redneck friend.) Armed with this great product, your favorite redneck will be able to whup out quick stationery based documents for Dear Jane letters, game warden appli- cations, requests for parole, and more. There’s calendars (for keeping track of hunting season), and lots of original redneck clipart. If you screw up, Sheriff Bubba tries to show you the light. Of course, if you cross the line one time too many, you’ll be back with your sister in the cross bar motel pressing license plates. * Free spit cup with the first 4 orders! Redneck: aculturally » dispossessed (culturally deprived) human animal (person) of non- color (Caucasian) that is an alterna- tively schooled, (illiterate) knowledge-base nonprocessor (stoopid). DVD Desktop | G8s get a DVD personality s commercial DVD movies muscle A= discs off the shelves and DVD-ROM drives supplant CD- ROM drives in the PC market, the time is right for the multimedia-savy Mac maven to hop on both bandwagons. A DVD-ROM drive alone, however, won't give you movie- watching capability. The DVD-Video format used for movies involves resource-intensive MPEG-2 compression, and modern Macs require a little help from a hardware MPEG decoder in order to bring the latest block- busters to your desktop. ‘The DVD-Video kit for the PowerBook G3—a combination of a DVD-ROM drive, a PC Card decoder, and a slick QuickTime- based software controller—was introduced at last July’s Macworld Expo in New York, and began shipping shortly thereafter. Apple will implement its DVD-Video support for the desktop Power Mac G3 this fall as a build-to- order “personality” card option. According to Apple, when you order a desktop Power Mac you'll be able to choose from the plain old audio 1/0 card, the fancier audio-video card, or an all-inclusive audio, video, and DVD-Video decoder card to accompany your DVD-ROM drive. Apple said pricing for the desktop DVD-Video solution will be similar to the cost for the PowerBook DVD, which cur- rently adds $400 to the price of a build-to- order PowerBook 63. While DVD-Video capability won't sacri- fice a precious PCI slot, Apple's system does Apple’s DVD software controller continues with Apple’s edgeless design theme. Rewind, fast forward, volume, and other standard con- trols are quickly accessible, while more- advanced controls such as audio track switch- ing, camera changing, and slow motion lie under a vittual panel at the bottom of the orb. rule out retrofitting an existing Power Mac G3 (even those which already have a DVD-ROM drive) with DVD-Video support. Fortunately for those folks and anyone who owns a Power Mac, there s a third-party solution, Elecede Technologies, which in May shipped a DVD- ROM and DVD-Video upgrade kit for the Power Mac G3, now has a SCSI version for other desktop Power Macs. The CoolDVD package includes a DVD-ROM drive (back- ward-compatible with CD-ROMs) and an accompanying PCI card that supports MPEG- 2 video and Dolby Digital surround sound. ‘The estimated price is $479—MS What cool PowerBook G3s become with an extended desktop. Ee Macworld Introducing Road Rocket S880) With an iXMICRO Road Rocket graphics accelerator, your nifty, new Mac PowerBook? G3 Series laptop will give you even more freedom to roam. Not just the highways, airports and coffee shops of this great land - the furthest reaches of your desktop back home, too. Because Road Rocket has first-time-ever Mac PowerBook G3 Series support for a second monitor extended desktop. More room to work, more room to play. Road Rocket also comes with $200 worth of software, which is pretty cool in itself. ABLE AT MeMall = MamAREHOUSE = A COMP USh cravings cravings Here, you never need to apologize for your Freudian slips. ES is a background music program that provides virtual “Ambionic” soundscapes and music. Call it an audio screen saver if you will, but use it while you perform everyday computing tasks. EarSaver’s unique software audio synthesizer works invisibly in the background without affecting other pro- grams or ty- IT’S BETTER THAN MUZAK FOR YOUR MAC. ing up your CD-ROM or hard drive. EarSaver uses less than 2MB of RAM to play a half hour of stereo CD-quality music and comes complete with two albums, nine tracks, and over four hours of Ambionic sound- scapes, which are a tapestry of natural sounds, synthesized timbres, and ambient musical textures. EarSaver works on all Power Macs, Mac compati- bles, PowerBooks, and 68040-based Macs. EarSaver is available for online purchase via down- load or snail mail delivery. A CD-ROM is also avail- able for purchase direct from Synthetic Productions for $29.95, which includes shipping in the United States. Call 201-568-8282 or visit http://www.earsaver.com to hear ambient tunes very soon.—JH M agg hat new PowerBook G3. can do everything a desktop or tower does, espe- cially with free expansion slots. The portable Power- Book PCI expansion sys- tem comes in two differ- ent configurations for your expansion needs. The basic chassis gives you three PCI slots and in- cludes a 120w power sup- ply, convenient power con- nectors, and mounting brackets for a maximum configuration of two peripheral devices, one 3.5-by-1-inch inter- nal and one 3.5-by-1.6-inch internal. Its expansion backplane sports three PCI slots: Two slots support full- or short-length PCI cards, and the third slot, smaller PCI cards. The second PCI expansion configuration is available with a 200w, 300w, or 400w power supply. tts expansion backplane sports seven PCI slots that support YOU'VE ONLY SEEN MORE SLOTS IN LAS VEGAS. — short-length or full-length PCI cards. Wow! You connect the PowerBook PCI expan- sion system to a G3-series PowerBook through an expansion bay module and a special expansion cable. Prices start at $1,050 and vary according to configurations. To find out about your options, visit http://www.magma.com or call 619-457-0750.—JH_ 22 MacADDICT OCT/98 FunStick and FunPad Macsense Connectivity if you thought game controllers were ugly black devices, look at these beige beau- | ities. The FunStick and FunPad from Macsense Connectivity match your Mac’s exterior and sport curvaceous bodies that make your joystick thrashing or gamepad Pounding easy. FunStick and FunPad plug into your ADB port and come with the appropriate software drivers, which are a snap to install. FunStick features a large base with suction cups that hold the stick steady as you push and pull it—'ve thrashed it already—four programmable keys on the stick, and four programmable action keys on the base. You can even ALL PLAY AND NO WORK MAKES JACK A FUN BOY. use the joystick’s pointer mode to emu- late mouse movement on screen. The FunPad is not only ergonomic like its FunStick homologue, but also features eight programmable buttons. MDK rocks with a FunPad! Plus, FunStick and FunPad offer a two-player switch, which allows you to invoke personal settings without interfering with another player's. Gamers need tools like the FunStick ($36.95) and FunPad ($24.95) to do their work because a keyboard just won't do. For more info, jump to http://www. masensetech.com or call Macsense at 408-745- 0955.—JH Photos by Aaron Lauer Hystereo Clixsounds FR 22 en you tn the c's ona system sounds are boring. Que! ennui! Should you desire more sounds, take a look at Hystereo, Clixsounds’ CD collec- tion of unique sound files for the Macintosh. It includes hundreds of cool files for use as startup sounds, shutdown sounds, alert sounds, email sounds, system clock sounds, : id Phone greetings, system function ACTUALIZE YOUR MAC'S SONIC PROWESS. Hi-Fidelity Audio Far the Maci sounds, and collectibles. Each sound is available in both high-fidelity 16-bit, 44kHz and 8-bit, 22kHz stereo versions. The collection contains a variety of styles, including Comical, Musical, Hi-Tech/SciFi, Vocal, Sound Effects, and more. My favorite system sound is the 16-bit Demon Growl. Put that on a 300MHz G3, and your friends will be in awe. The metaphor doesn’t end there, wut Down is though. Hystereo features rumbling engines, tire-screeching burmouts, 4 chimes, symphonic bursts, breathy male and female voices, and androgy- nous alien mumbiings. If you're not sure, download the demo and listen. You can order the $34.95 Hystereo CD directly from Clixsounds at http://www.clixsounds.com, or call 405-721-3283.—JH OCT/98 MacADDICT 23 tool treats QOL TREA yy BY DEVIL DAVID REYNOLDS TLEUSTRATIONS BY DAVID POVILAITIS 24 OCT/98 ‘MacADDICT hink of it. It's: late—the last tattered femnants of sunlight are fading in the West. You’re coming home from your spe- ciat Halloween Mac users’ group meeting, happily: whistling the theme from the “Andy Griffith Show” (which has been stuck in your head ever since your great-uncle blasted it in the living room this afternoon), when you get this odd feeling at the base of your neck. You know—it’s the kind of itching whine you feel when you’re swimming in a lake and a motorboat goes by in the distance, its sharpened pro- peller blades chopping through the water. It’s that kind of feeling. Is someone watching from that clump of bushes ahead? Or did that stranger in the stinky sweater turn around to follow you? Pulling your commemorative 25,000,000 Macintoshes Sold pen cut of your pocket—just in case—you cross the street and walk quickly toward home. Just when you think you’re safe, from nowhere a towering shadow looms in front of you. The light is behind him; you can’t see his face. But you can hear his rattling breath. “Have you seen the iMac?” he rasps. “It’s gonna kick PC butt. You gonna buy one? When? Wanna come over and see my G3?” You shriek, jump, and gesture wildly with your pen before realizing it’s your best friend, dressed in one of the scariest costumes ever— the Rabid Evangelist. The horror—it's five times more frightening than Marlon Brando in a G-string slathered in butter posing on a carved stone in Southeast Asia. Just think, with the tools on The Disc, you too can dress up in the guise of one of five different spocky Macophiles. You'll also get a chance to play with more than 30 of the hottest shareware utilities out there, plus some rockin’ demos. Go ahead, there’s nothing to be afraid of... THE STARVING ARTIST y day, she strives for digital perfec- tion, hunched over a mouse, equipped with nothing but an old copy of Mac- Paint. By night, she sleeps like every~ ‘one else. She is the Starving Artist, thirst- ing for truth and beavty, hungering for that half of a Big Mac she saw peeking out from behind a parked city bus on the way home from the canned-food outlet. She oozes raw tal- ent (don't worry, it's not lethal), but she struggles to turn it into inspiration—and income. To help the Starving Artist, umm, not starve, we rounded up a collection of tools ‘that might provide some inspiration—and help pay the bills. Toolbox List m Animation Maker 3.1 demo = ColorBox Fractal Domains 1.2.3 im GraphicConverter 3.3.1 w The Mutatron 1.1 ColorBox Developer: Mind's Eye Media Price: Free ColorBox helps the “aesthetically challenged make informed decisions” about Web page col- ors. While it doesn’t guarantee beautiful pages, it does generate tons of Web-safe color combinations. Fractal Domains 1.2.3 Developer: Dennis C. De Mars Price: $20 (shareware) Fractal Domains creates order from chaos— a laudable goal for any artist who looks for inspiration from the mathematics governing nature. Plus, the colors look really neat. You can create a Julia set from a point on a given fractal design, zoom in to look at that item in exquisite detail, and then select a color palette for that fractal from the available list. Fractal Domains creates colorful designs that inject vitality into even the most lifeless day. Trick Software PixelToy 1.0 Developer: Leon McNeill Price: Freeware If you're looking for inspiration, PixefToy will bring forth the very fire of the universe—or at least let you “stare bovinely slack-jawed at the purty moving pictures for hours,” as developer Leon MeNeiil says. PixelToy’s main menu shows the results of your setting in swirling, soothing colors— enough to quell those impulses that frighten even your therapist. $]2,4} 100} m Photoshop 5.0 demo The Mutatron 1.1 With the Colors m PixelToy 1.0 Developer: Dale M. Greer menu, you can Random eC w Eight Photoshop plug-ins Price: Free choose from seven Addthis set.. %M m RenderBoy 2.0.1 ‘The Mutatron lets users distort, spike, and | preset color paleties | Delete a color set... w TimeSlice 1.7.2 demo otherwise mutate rotating 3DMF objects (such | (ehaose System fora | Previous sf as beanoids and bananoids) to provide some | fast set) or create | Next %] of the most unusual shz ever to rotateina | your own palettes Grey Tool box Treats virtual environment. ack ol for thattorus— | Using the Random Rainbow Animation Maker 3.1 it has spikes! selection. Add that | Red & Yellow Stripes Developer: Voget Selbach Entertainment new color set to the | Blue-Green-Yellow Price: $20 (demo) RenderBoy 2.0.1 menu using the Add |~ Rainbow Stripes Even starving artists have to eat. Animation Developer: Paul Rybarczyk, Vista Systems This Setcommand. | 5lue-Green Stripes Maker is a shareware application that lets you _ Price: $25 (shareware) |_System make animated GIFs (and other animation RenderBoy is a ray-trace 3D modeler that lets Blur types) that you can then contract out to you create photo-realistic 3D scenes (such as Blur/Sink When you have wealthy Web site owners so you don’t have to a still pool near the Acropolis after a summer Fecter selected your color set starve too much. : shower). But the ability to create 3D scenes creer and you've got your isn't RenderBoy’s only feature. It also lets you ‘Wind drawing methods down, create animations in which the objects and Fade apply an effect to the set- Oy eee point of view move. While this isn’t a high-end Spread/Fade | tings with the Effect implementation of inverse kinematics, it does Melt menu. Although they ali produce nifty animations. Watercolor | have a certain cham, Spread/Blur / Fester really gets under TimeSlice 1.7.2 Developer: Maui Software Price: $49 (demo) Shimmer our skin. Y Pixel Doubling 8D. Full Screen SF To go from Starving Artist to Pleasantly Plump Usethe Options |, pither Updates U Artist, you'll need to bill someone for all that art- | menu to control ImageEmboss 61 work you've been producing. TimeSlice is an | RowPixelfoydraws | SoundEffects #E ideal way to keep track of who owes you what. ‘TimeSlice tracks the amount of time spent working on an individual document, expenses associated with that document, hourly rate, client, breaks, and total charges, making it easy to submit an invoice and get paid for your labor. its colors. Choose Doodle to draw lines across the screen for added creativity. bles... 9V Bouncing lines #1 ¥ Walking Dots 2 InsectSwarm = #3 Raindrops 4 Sound Wave #5 Doodle #6. OCT/98 MacADDICT 25 Trick Software Sim Cinema Deluxe 2.1 Developer: Shannon Schroeder Price: $10 (shareware) In Hollywood terms, $10 would barely ‘buy you a puff of Leonardo DiCanrio's ciga- rette, but that's all you pay to enjoy Sim Cin- ema Deluxe. With it, you can pretend you've quit your day job and gone to work as a pro- ducer at a film company. The object is to make a lot of films that give you notoriety, respect, and most of all money. Here's an inside look at Sim Cinema DX. tool treats von tr 3 $107 main (neces) In the above screen, you follow the progress of your production company, examining the success or failure of past films, or you start rolling on new ones Price: ‘$ismition | ‘$7 milion fon Howard $7 million Stanley Kubrick ‘S1omition [Tom Shadyac ‘SSmitiion Barry Sonnenteld SSmiliion |Steven Spielberg, Peter weir if the same old names get stale—Kevin Costner just needs to step—you can edit them {and change their asking price) with the built-in editor. After you've finished production, it’s time to let the beast out onto the streets. Once you've released a film, all you can do is advertise or lay low, and hope no one is teading the reviews—that's what saved THE TORTURED TEMP avior or leper? Whatever the role, he's on the job making a stunning $8 an hour enduring the trials of work= ing at yet another company on yet another meaningless monkey-boy task: Transcribe the VP of marketing's spin control speech; make a database of 2,112 business cards; find the bathroom key that fell into the sewer grate. Even the strongest mental defenses can crumble under these pressures, which is why we put together this portable collection of meaningless, yet fun, sanity savers to take along on the job. Toolbox List m Burning Monkey Solitaire w Ebola Monkey Bingo 1.0.1 m Farkie 2.5.1 miMacGeddon w InCDius 1.1 m ISO Animals 1.0 m MacCDDB 0.8.6 m@ Mac¥olklore 2.0.1 m= MindThump 1.0 im My Tapeworm Is... 1.0.3 m Rock Scissors Paper 1.0 m Sim Cinema Deluxe 2.1 ‘@ Sim Tape Dispenser 1.0 m@ SimMir 1.0 m SimStapler 1.0 ‘w Tarot Reader 1.0b1 Toolbox Treats Burning Monkey Solitaire Developer: FreeVerse Software Price: $14.95 (shareware) The good folks at Freeverse Software (who brought us such time-wasters as SimStapler Oo Godzilla. | Dette eng Reviews: FV meres Toe lf cueage Sm Tae ] ove waters No. Feanneatentoet, Mapuche never ads $2 fon san reaciesOreice Pastrs Semin a ne es papacy fo 2 cre: “e's pe the mere ova bo doesnt read avis this wkend.” wast Port gave yor fn far review, Ke eaters repped yor fa) eur t's pope Feiy 2 Ne testers dropped yee nt ar hs ppearity Faby 5. suaresnice Corel gue your fl 2 9nd review he thers copped your fat 26 OCT/98 MacADDICT Ww itis and Jared) have taken on the time-honored tradition of employee revenge through soli- taire with their own version of the classic card game—Burning Monkey Solitaire. This implementation not only includes several hour-eating solitaire variations, it also features a theater full of simians. ‘To avoid early termi- nation, test out the Boss Coming menu selec- tion before using it. iMacGeddon Developer: Rudi Muiznieks Price: $5 (shareware) It's a Director program and runs slowly on a 6500/200, but hey, it features the iMac (per- haps the first shareware game to do so), the ability to squish Bill Gates, and a pickup truck—what more could you ask for? InCDius 1.1 Developer. Glenn Howes, Generally Helpful Software Price: Free ‘Try this for slacker irony—a practical use of Java that reduces work. Huh? InCDius is a Java program that looks at a currently mounted audio CD; asks an Internet CD database the title, author, and track names; and lets you save the results in your Apple CD Audio Player's prefer- enices so you can avoid at least one dull data entry task. 1SO Animals 1.0 Developer: Argus IG Price: $25 (shareware) ‘These four fine virtual animals couldn’t be easier to use—they require no user input and continue operating until you quit the program. Each animal has its own environ- ment in which it moves around, making cool animal noises. MacFolklore 2. Developer: Scott Kleper “Price: $5 (shareware) Think you're the keeper of all Macintosh trivia items? Mac- Folklore will push you to your ‘six-color limits with its fiendishly clever questions. When will the inquisition stop? Never. The secret behind this program’s amazing hold over those looking to waste time is Puffy But- ton Technology, or PBT. It’s what differentiates MacFolklore from its competitors, ometimes even putting on your favorite biack turtleneck and going down te Denny's for a cup of roofer's-tar coffee doesn't lift the fog of existential angst that's gath- ered in the late-postmodern era. Some- times all that's left to do is take up a pencil against a sea of troubles and sneer at those around you who just don't get it Maybe this time it will be an epic poem that leaves Ginsberg choking on your dust. Or perhaps it will be a stream-of -consciousness slam that puts a real hurt on Joyce. Either way, it's going to rock the world a lot harder than your zucchini manifesto. Toolbox List mw Concordance 2.1.4 w Haiku 0.2 Kant Generator Pro 1.3.1 m MacTravesty 1.1.1 mw McPoet 4.5 m Waste 1.3 Toolbox Treats Concordance 2.1.1 Developer: Giovanni Giusti Price: Free One of the best ways to learn to write is to analyze the work of those you admire. Concordance takes you inside the mind of these authors by processing a text file and displaying its size, the total number of words init, and the number of different words. Con- THE MISUNDERSTOOD POET cordance also generates a word list with a loose page-numbering scheme so you can go back through the file and see where certain words appeared. Trick Software Kant Generator Pro 1.3.1 Developer: Mark Pilgrim Price: $15 (shareware) What writer couldn't do with more of that light- » hearted philosopher, Immanuel Kant? Well, Kant may be dead, but thanks to Kant Genera- tor Pro, his verbal stylings live on. Just run Kant Generator Pro, and obscure and obtuse ram- $} 94} [00} take other text and warp it Haiku 0.2 blings inspired .by the master fill your Mac, Developer: Fuzzy Gerdes Here’s a look at how Kant Generator Pro works. Price: Free Open and edit Kant modules in the Editor— That wacky Basho: Using the a vital feature if 14-syllable haiku poetry | New module. you're creating your form to express Zen beliefs, | Open module... 88M | own spin on Kant he became a driving force | Opencurrentmodule —_%E_ | (nd who isn't these behind the preeminent | Newreference sey | days?) Poetry form of Japanese o- | New instantiation #1 ee gin. Oh, sure, the structure wa eo) Main-clause is simple, but actually cap- Egit instantiation oe turing the essence ofa great | Delete instantiation Np | haiku can be exceedingly |_Markreference “interesting” praia lis difficult. That is, its tough | Hide message box knowledge-tyne unless you use the Haiku | Hide toolbar cnecone: HyperCard stack, which philosopher generates a 14-syllable poem from a list of The Insert menu eaibee tion five- and seven-line phrases with the click ofa | @Ontains the main Con- | intro-clause button. You can even add your own phrases | Wels for Generating tnrevawey-sentence for a more personal touch. Kantlike rants. Select | preor any of the text objects | Vt McPoet 4.5 listed, and-Kant Gen- , vet i Developer: Chris Westhury erator Pro: generates a oly | Price: Free the appropriate text _ section No relation to McDonald's here—please put | and inserts it info the | trqye your attorneys down and step away from the | Main menu. question =a lawsuit. McPoet asks for a subject and gender, and writes a poem in one of several styles, including e.e. cummings, Dadaist, biblical, Below is a fine example of how Kant might have written if he were moonlighting as the Swedish Chef. Shakespearean, and even Alt.sex—use this one with caution (although it makes No sense, it sounds dirty somehow). McPoet can also into one of several forms, blurring text (with random replacements), deleting every other word, or randomly swapping vowels for fun. a Resolve references '/ Always resolve after insert v Show stages while resolving List “interesting” references only Under the Options menu, you can control which modules to use, whether to use music or speech, and how Kant Generator Pro han- dies references. Modules include Modules Generation speed Music Speech ‘Thank You (for thank-you notes); excuses, Excuses (fo help with ‘thOSe times when you just can't make it work); and Swedish Kant vvvy '~ Dynamic scrolling Use icons in menu bar (which adds @ Swedish Chef fa- vor to the Kant-onese produced). OCT/98 MacADDICT 27 tool treats Trick Software IPNetMonitor Developer: Sustainable Softworks Price: $20 (demo) For those who want a complete and uncen- sored set of TCP/IP networking utilities, IPNet- Monitor is the answer. This utility provides all kinds of useful—and fun—network tools. Here's a look at a few, Use Trace Route to follow a lowly set oi packets as they make their way from source to destination. See how many hops it takes to get from your Mac to http://www,apple.com. E [TEETER RLEENARENAESLAIAAEELEAUENAAT Trace Route ESSA ETNA T ELAS ONLETAETEL Te [ies em Pe 1 Monitor graphs the amount of traffic through your TCP/IP connections. Ever wanted to know if there was Usk | a pingable com- | puter at the IP f address 1.1.1.1? aK | Well, there's not— at least not when Bie we ran this test. ae S This utllity is fun 19'seoonds/division || for those who want to12aM7/22/98 |! 46 See if there is eerie pe ee | really someone Revd Bps: 11036 113 |) else out there. g | Ping away. tail Pin = Ping to IP Address: [RED Packet | Sent [Received | Seconds Hees he se lb 2 ” ae. 4 Min: 5.00 Ave: 0.00 100%) = Max: 0.00 Ge) Delay 28 OCT/98 MacADDICT W IREHEAD et's face it—Vitamin D is overrated, and sunlight causes skin cancer. Besides, with a Mac and the proper lInternet access, you don't even need to climb out of the basement to the out- side world, Telecommuting, online banking, shopping for books, CDs, and even pizza—you can get all of this through the end of a data line. Now your only concern is to make that data linkas useful—and fast—as possible. Toolbox List mAnarchie 2.0.1 m Combadge 1.0.1 mFreePPP 2.6.2 m GearBox 1,5 demo m Hotline 1.2.3 demo w IPNetMonitor 2.11 mw IPNetRouter 1.2.1 @ Mac Init Strings 2.1 m MacTCPWatcher 2.0 ™ Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0.1 m Netscape Communicator 4.5 mw NotifyMail 3.1 m OT Advanced Tuner 1.2.4 m OTSessionWatcher 1.0.1 Toolbox Treats Anarchie 2.0.1 Developer: Peter N. Lewis, Stairways Shareware Price: $10 (shareware) Where would any self-respecting wirehead be without a first-class FIP client? Anarchie fills that bill with a Finder-like interface, a cool jumping-kangaroo cursor, and Archie seatch functionality built right in. ” ‘ THE CELLAR-DWELLING Combadge 1.0.1 Developer: Andrew Tomazos, Stairways Shareware Price: $25 (shareware) Think of it—use Combadge to connect to a friend who is also using Combadge, and you can send messages back and forth as if you had a two-way chat channel all your own. If your friend doesn’t have Combadge, the soft- ware sends a standard email message instead. GearBox 1.5 Developer: Rockstar Studios Price: $25 (demo) GearBox makes managing multiple Internet configurations a dream by handling configu- rations for Internet-related system software, Internet applications (such as Netscape Navi- gator, Internet Explorer, and Eudora), and Web bookmarks for multiple browsers. Mac Init Strings 2.1 Developer: Mountain Ridge Dataworks Price: Free Modem initialization strings tell your modem how to behave, but they're almost impossible to understand. Mac Init Strings comes to the rescue with its database of modems and their init strings. Once you look up your modem string in Mac Init Strings, you can copy the string or test it out on your modem. OT Advanced Tuner 1.2.4 Developer: Sustainable Softworks Price: $25 (shareware) This one is for the hard-core Net user. OT Advanced Tuner can adjust TCP window size, maximum segment size, time-out intervals, and ‘lots of other parameters. Tweaking these “chelps you get the best performance out of your _- Hetwork—if you understand how TCP/IP works, “: OTSessionWatcher 1.0.1 Developer: Peter N. Lewis, Stairways Shareware Price: $35 (shareware) Curious about what data gets transferred via ") a TCPAP stream? Fire up OTSessionWatcher. This application reveals things you never knew about the information your Mac exchanges via your Internet connection. For example, running OTSessionWatcher shows an odd interaction between Internet Explorer 4.0 and a Microsoft server—even when you didn’t initiate a connection to a Microsoft site. Hmmmmm... + doesn't matter what the question is—the answer is Macintosh. What's the best Intemet client? Macintosh. What's the premier tool for graphic designers? Macintosh. What's the best fruit for a sky-high apple pie? Macintosh. Despite your best efforts, some stubborn PC-using masochists don't see the world through the same six=color glasses you do. That number seems to be shrinking (either you're con= verting the unwashed masses, or they're just getting better at avoiding you), but there's still work to be done, Toolbox List m IconFactory Originals m Billmo Comedy 4.0.4 m Get-a-Mac 1 Made with Macintosh graphics m Max Rates the World movie m Propaganda @ Smashing Windows I m Two MacAddict Kaleidoscope Schemes m Win95 Elvis sound w Win95 Tester m Windows 95 Crashes Toolbox Treats Billmo Comedy 4.0.4 Developer: MultiMediocrity Theater Price: Free (applauseware) Bilimo is good for hours of guflaws—or at least a chuckle or two. After running through the intro movie, you get to clickle the oddly disturbing Billmo doll—and find out why it’s a, good thing Microsoft isn’t in the toy business. IconFactory Originals | Developer: Corey Marion, Gedeon Maheux, Talos Tsui, Dave Brasgalla; The IconFactory Price: Free Make a statement using your Mac’s fative , icon ability by installing nearly 250 icons all -,’ over every Mac to which you have access.'+ = Icons include all of Apple's desktop and portable lines (including the iMac and the PowerBook 63 Series). Also included are the three World of Copland collections, with icons inspired by the never-released Copland OS. MacAddict Kaleidoscope Schemes Developer: Mark Simmons Price: Free - Hear that sound? No, that’s not Gabriel announcing the downing of some wall. It’s THE RABID EVANGELIST just us, with a little self-indulgent horn blow- ing—is there any other kind? With MacAddict Kaleidoscope Schemes, you, too, can bring the world of MacAddict onto your desktop. Choose either the classic purple-and-green scheme (with two flavors) or the up-to-date (and short-lived) MacAddict98 scheme. Made with Macintosh graphics Developer: Various Price: Free You labor Jong and hard on your Web site using nothing but a Macintosh, and at last you produce a thing of digital beauty. Use this col- lection of Made with Macintosh graphics to tell the wired world what tools you used to bring forth this masterpiece. Just drop an icon on your Web page, and—boom—you've got an instant pro-Mac message. Encourage your fellow Webmasters to do the same! Windows 95 Crashes Developer: William Mathieson Price: One Windows joke (jokeware) It’s just a joke—"Please wait while your Win- dows box crashes’”—but it makes a mighty fine desktop pattern on the ol’ Macintosh. The author of this pair of desktop patterns merely asks for a Windows or Microsoft joke in teturn for the file, and he'll even put you on his Windows Joke Mailing List (or not, if you think you get enough junk mail as it is). Editor David Reynolds hears all of these voices on clear, still, ate summer nights, and sometimes he gets really really upset because they just won't shut up, Aaaaaht Trick Software Smashing Windows II Developer: Richard Bannister Price: Free Getting the urge to smash a few windows? Well, after you come back from your riotous spree at the glass factory, sit down and relax with a couple of games of Smashing Win- dows II. This Space Invaders look-alike sub- stitutes well-known computer icons for both the aliens and the defenders of everything just and true. Here’s a peek. Although it looks hopeless, it’s not. Just keep blasting away and you'll get through. Re- member that you can shoot down the Win- doid’s ball bombs. @® © © © What do you want to shoot today? Pit the stalwart defender against the evil of your choice. Finally—you get a chance to shoot it out at the OK Corral. Choose Stonehenge or outer- space backgrounds as the scene of the fight. © fe) OCT/98 MacADDICT 29 ~ $ = ~ = ® » ~ @ " by Raf Anzovin We've created a QuickTime special effects epic called Escape from MacAddict. It stars Max, Dennis, and the MacAddict crew, and uses every effects technique we discuss here, from 3D. animation and morphing to bluescreen compositing and parti- ® pielberg? A has-been. Cameron? A piker. Your gle animation. You'll also find demos of many of the products eee mallee oe mins mentioned in this article on The Disc, should you be inspired QuickTime movie in the backyard with a camcorder to create your own epic adventures. and a Mac. But you want more—you want your actors to dangle from the Chrysler Building as they fend off waves of hungry bugblatter beasts from below and angry terrorists in helicopter gunships from above. And then there's that flaming comet that’s about to obliterate the Bronx... So what if they laugh. So what if they say it’s impossible. So what if they say your miniscule movie budget wouldn’t keep a Hollywood effects house supplied with Tums. Don't listen to them, because grandiose QuickTime visions are within your grasp. You can outfit your Mac with the latest movie magic gear——some of the same stuff used (secretly, because Silicon Graphics doesn’t want you to know) at Industrial Light and Magic and other legendary effects companies—for less cash than you'd spend on, say, a 1989 Corolla with a big ding in the door and 98,000 miles on the odometer, Of course, creating great movie special effects isn't exactly easy; people spend lifetimes studying and perfecting the craft. But read on if you want the inside secrets to the essential movie magic techniques. - Advanced effects. Alien environments, nuclear blasts, weird morphing creatures—all you need is Adobe Photoshop, Final Effects Complete, and Elastic Reality. Bluescreen and rotoscoping. Using Compositing. Assembie video, anima- —_Ultimatte and Commotion, put your actors (or tion, and still art into an impossible-to-shoot other real objects) into scenes where they've fantasy with Adobe After Effecis. never been. 30 MacADDICT OCT/98 Popcorn. Hot, with butter, please. 4 olna | Vo P XN QCT/98. MacADDICT 31 Every special effects job in the movies involves several elements that are composited together so that they Compositing hink of 2 composite as a stack of glass panes with artwork painted or pasted onto them. On each pane, you use a paper mask to paint only on a specific area of the glass; the unpainted part of each pane is transparent and shows what is below it. Sometimes you might use semitransparent paint to create a blending effect with what's underneath. The lowest pane contains a background image with no transparent areas, Now imagine that each pane has its own movement. A camera, which can itself move, is mounted above the panes and FILM AND VIDEO GRAIN gives reality to comps. At top, Max is too squeaky clean to have ever been shot with a real camera. Below, a noise filter blends him in with the grainy background, @ appear to share the same space. photographs them |ayering elements in a believable way is as they move. Assemble that in your mind, and you have a very good approximation of how a compositing sys- tem like Adobe After Effects works, A single composite can contain video footage of actors and environments, 2D painted elements created in a paint pro- gram, bluescreen or rotoscoped elements from video, 3D objects rendered in an ani- mation program, such layered details as fake shadows or reflections, particle and filter effects, and mattes to protect areas of the background image that must appear to be in front of the other elements. After Effects allows you to layer these effects, move them around, animate them, and tweak the way they fit together until they look seamless. Seamless and convincing are the oper- ative concepts here. Subtly wrong details of an edge, movement, color, or texture pro- duce a “pop-out” effect in which poorly composited elements look like paper cutouts. Here are some tricks you need to know to avoid these “pop-out” effects. Match video and film grain. One problem when compositing the syn- thetic with the real is the characteristic “graininess” of video or film imagery. Objects rendered on the computer do not have these imperfections. Luckily, it’s easy to add grain to an image after the fact with the Noise filter in After Effects or Premiere. Add motion blur, Motion biur is the natural blurring of the edges of fast-moving objects. When you're compositing anima- tion with live action, it’s essential to apply motion blur to any fast-moving animated object, After Effects can add motion blur to any layer, but you can also create motion more than half the work of creating any effect. focus. This depth-of-field effect contains visual cues that we use to judge distance. Likewise, the focus, or sharpness, of the layers in your composite must make visual sense in terms of the space you are trying to create. Objects that are supposed to be the same distance from the eye have to have the same depth of field. Use blur and sharpen filters to adjust the apparent depth of field of layers. A composite that has no depth of field will likely look too sharp to be real. Deal with fields. this is a problem when you’re compositing computer graph- ics with video in 640-by-480-pixel resolu- tion (smaller movies are exempt). Video is an interlaced format consisting of two video fields, each with half the lines necessary to make a whole image, shown in sequence. ‘The two fields mesh, or interlace, to create a whole video frame. You don’t notice the interlacing on a TV, because video is played back the same way it’s made—with alter- nating fields, But when you digitize the movie, the video field lines are visible and can be extremely distracting. Moreover, any computer-generated elements you add won't have those lines, and therefore won't match the video. You must make sure that the 2D and 3D animation you create has been “field rendered,” which simulates the look of fields. If your animation pro- gram can’t field render, After Effects can remove the lines in the video, albeit with a degradation of image quality. Video fields aren’t noticeable when played back on a TY, but they are very distracting when viewed on a computer screen. blur with the particle systems in Final Effects Complete (MetaCreations, http:// www.metacreations.com, $1,195 SRP). Adjust depth of ield. When a camera lens focuses on an object, it may leave other objects that are nearer or farther away out of MINI TIP: Want superprofessional film-grain quality? Get DigiEffects’ CineLook (http://www.digieffects.com, $695 SRP), an After Effects filter. It can match the film grain of any given film stock, MOTION BLUR occurs around the edges of fast-moving objects. It's essential for realistic movement. 32 MacADDICT OCT/98 curing around and engulfing the shirt, we added a flame element appearing around the edge of the obscuring section of the shirt. We also added this element to the background, THE COMPOSITION (Comp) window is where you do most of your work moving and compositing layers. Shot os Tstmoviel (oger in shot US) Layer 5: To show the fire | Layer 4: As Mark held up the shirt, the cloth briefly put one rippling corner in front of the fire. Using another traveling mask, we cut out the other areas of the image and exposed only the rip- pling corner on this layer, a fs at 05 nea ee... A eel Layer 3: We created the fire effect with stock footage from ArtBeats’ ReelFire 2 disks (http:/Awwwartbeats.com, $499 SRP), In After Effects, we applied the Add mode to this layer, which adds the RGB values of every pixel in the flame to the values of the other layers and strips away the black background, your project. "Effect Controls = Simoxte fiTRAESE: fF ne I oxooo¢ esi ys ff hy THE EFFECT CONTROLS win- dow allows you to layer After Effects’ filters. Anatomy oF A Composite Mark checks out a hot Microsoft shirt in this shot from Escape from MacAddict. The shot involved five layers of fire effects, animated char and burn marks, and shirt layers composited in After Effects to create the effect of the fire catching onto and wrapping around the shirt. Here’s how the layers fit together. Layer 2: We duplicated the background layer and used a traveling mask to mask off an area of the shirt from the rest of the image. To darken this area and make it look burned by the fire, we applied a Brightness/ Contrast filter. We ani- mated the mask to grow with the fire as the shirt burns up. Layer 4: The back- ground plate for this effects shot shows Mark from the original footage and the shirt without fire or burning cloth. THE PROJECT window shows every file and composition in INSIDE AFTER EFFECTS The de facto compositing program for the Mac is Adobe After Effects (Adobe, http://www.adobe.com, $995 SRP}. This program is the only one described in this article that you absolutely must have if you expect to do serious effects work. Using After Effects, you can take any kind of footage—QuickTime movies, Photoshop layers, even Illustrator files—and layer them in a composition window, You can also use one composition as a layer in another composition. After Effects features sophisticated, animat- able, Bézier-based masking tools, as well as Boolean THE LAYER window shows information on the current layer, such as masking and the layer’s center of rotation. THE TIME LAYOUT window shows the keyframes created for each layer and allows you to manipulate them. mod such as Add, Multiply, and Subtract—that allow a layer to affect the layers behind it. After Effects’ anima- tion controls are superb—you can animate almost any attribute of a layer, from position and rotation to opacity and mask feathering, with a wide variety of options avail- able for keyframe interpolation. After Effects also aliows you to do amazing things with filters and effects. For example, you can stack an unlim- ited number of effects together on the same layer, and the number of included and third-party filters is so vast it's impossible to describe them all here. (For a taste, check out the section on “Particle Animation and Filters.) Plus, with the more expensive Production Bundle version ($1,999 list), you get other nifty features such as motion tracking and stabilizing, advanced matte manipulation tools, and a complete scripting language. OCT/88 MacADDICT 33 the best bluescreen plug-in for After Effects and Premiere is Ultimatte (http://www ultimatte.com, $1,500 SRP). Ultimate can do superb mattes of such hard-to-matte things as smoke, hair, shadows, and pour- ing water, However, it ain't cheap, so you may want to iry the bluescreen filters in Premiere or After Effects, which produce passable results. Another possibility is a Photoshop plug-in called Primatte, which rivals Ultimatte quality for only $200. However, you have to turn every movie frame into a PICT and process it in Photoshop. (An After Effects version is promised soon.) No matter what bluescreen solution Bluescreening @) How do you put actors or other real objects into footage they never really were in? With bluescreening. Shoot your subject in front of a blue screen, then use you're using, the technique is pretty much the same. plug-in software to strip out the blue values from the resulting footage, leaving you with a Step 1: shoot a back- ground plate with the camera locked down. A moving camera will require extensive maich moving later, which you don't want to have to do. Step 2: Duplicate the camera angle and light sources on your bluescreen stage. You can also create blue objects to match spe- cific things your character may seem to touch or cast shadows onto. Then shoot your subject. (See “Raf’s Rules for Shooting clean image ready for compositing. Blue” for details.) If you're using Ultimatte, be sure to shoot a correction plate of just the blue background—you'll need it to do color corrections later. Step 3: digitize your footage, Video-in boards almost always shift the color of the video somewhat, so watch out for unnatu- ral red tints in your bluescreen (very bad) and correct them with your digitizing THIS IS THE ORIGINAL BLUESCREEN image, shot with a Hi-8 camcorder. We used the wooden shelf in the middle of the screen to approximate the position of an object Raf had to walk around. THE SCREEN CORRECTION FILTER in Ultimatte “flattens” blue tones in the back- ground to help the Ultimate filter create an accurate matte. Notice that shad- ‘ows remain darker than the rest of the screen even after screen correction, 34 MacADDICT OCT/98 a COLOR CORRECTION IN AFTER EFFECTS removed a red tint from the screen that was making it difficult to create the matte. A temporary rough matte protected the subject. HERE’S THE FINAL ULTIMATTE FIGURE composited over the background and shown in After Effects. LooKine For BLUE For bluescreening to work, you must have the right biue. Using a screen with too much of the wrong color can be dis- astrous, especially with Ultimatte. It actu- ally doesn't have to be blue; green and even red will work, although blue is tradi- tionally used and somewhat easier to find. Whatever color you use, it must be as close to the pure digital version (as seen on your Mac screen) as possible. The general mix for a bluescreen blue is half as much pure green as pure blue, and half as much pure red as pure green. You can’t buy that color paint at your local hardware store, but you can buy special digital Ultimatte paint (the ‘same stuff used by the pros) from Composite Components (213-257-1163, hittp:/Avww.digitalgreenscreen.com). At a mere $120 a gallon, it's even more expensive than a bucket of Martha Stewart Aegean White Latex. If that price seems steep, we found a near-perfect bluescreen fabric available at any decent dry-goods store for around $3.79 a yard. It's Skipper Biue 09025, a 65 percent polyester, 35 percent combed-cotton fabric made by Springs, Fort Mill, North Carolina 29715. If you buy awhole bolt, you get a discount. software prior to digitizing. Look out for com- pression artifacts introduced into the blue areas by JPEG compression. Only Ultimatte can easily deal with these artifacts. If you're using any other software, don’t use a JPEG compres- sion video board. Step 4: Bring the resulting clip and the back- ground plate into Premiere or After Effects. Then apply the bluescreen filter to the bluescreen clip. Chances are you'll have to do a lot of adjusting to make it look right. Premiere features sliders that allow you to adjust how many blue values to make transparent, how much softness to apply to the matte, and other effects. Play with the sliders until you’ve removed all blue tone from the blue- screen background without creating “holes” in the subject where blue color spilled onto it. After Effects has more controls, allowing you to “choke” a matte, or bring its edges in slightly, to create a more natural edge. With Ultimate, you can use the correction plate you shot to “flatten” all the blie tones in the background to one tone while preserving the Blue screen color @ 300% R tems [36] Gees [59] Ae ——— [SSRN THE BASIC FORMULA for bluescreen blue: half as much pure green as pure blue, half as much pure red as pure green. subject and its shadows. This, in conjunction with Ultimatte’s fine-grain and spill-removal tools, generates a near-perfect matte in a few minutes, assuming you shot the footage correctly. If you still can’t pull a good matte, you may have to call in some help. When a biuescreen background we used on Escape from MacAddict turned out to have too much red for Ultimate to handle, we did some hand rotoscop- ing in Commotion to create a rough matte to iso- late the subject, then used a Levels filter in After Effects to remove all the red values in the back- ground, This left the image ready for the Ultimate process, which was able to pull finer details such as hair and shadows. Step 5: now that your bluescreen composite is done, look at how well the elements fit together. If the foreground doesn’t seem to fit, try color correcting it to match the background better—use the colors of shadows and skin tones as a guide. Adjust the color balance, ley- els, and brightness and contrast until the two elements blend smoothly together. RAF’s RULES FOR Snootine BLue Rot scoping and Matte Painting In days of yore, busy colonies of Hollywood craftsmen toiled away in charming little animation sweatshops, creating all the film effects we know and love by {aboriously painting on every frame of the film—a process called rotoscoping. Other movie artists created matte paintings, meticulously painted backgrounds (usu- ally on glass) of places that could not be filmed. These were integrated with live-action elements using an expensive device called an optical printer. Now you can do these things too——without the sweatshops and the optical printer. Using RoTosPuines jotoscoping involves painting on every frame of your movie to create an effect. It’s laborious, but there are effects that can- not be achieved any other way, such as when particle effects or stock footage simply can’t create that particular lick of flame you need to come crawling around the door. While software can help, there’s no way around the fact that at some point you have to roll up your sleeves and start painting those frames. Even effects that you can mostly generate using other techniques benefit from enhancement with hand-painted work. Puffin Designs’ Commotion 1.5 (Puffin Designs, _ http://www.puffindesigns.com, $2,495 SRP) is the Mac app of choice for Firing Up RoToWAbE THE ORIGINAL SHOT OF WADE shows him trippi roto work. Commotion’s tool set, generally considered the best in the business, allows you to move back and forth in your clip frame by frame and use a full set of painting tools to add whatever details you like. Not only is this superfast painting program able to play back most clips at full speed as you work, it also has unique tools, such as roto- splines, that make roto much easier. Basically, rotosplines allow you to enclose an area of the frame with splines and then animate the splines across a range of frames. For example, you can use roto- splines to outline a moving object in your movie by outlining it in the first frame and in the last frame. Commotion will figure out the intermediate positions of the splines. A cer- tain amount of tweaking is usually needed, depending on how smooth the motion is, but it sure beats drawing the matte entirely by hand on every frame. Once the rotospline work is complete, you can use the splines to create a perfect moving matte. Here’s how we used rotosplines in one shot from Escape from MacAddict. We wanted Wade to be blown down by the shock wave