MacWorld0001January2000 201806

HOW TO BE A SAVVY WEB SHOPPER, PAGE 88 JAN UAR Y 2-0-0) 0 | n> q Mari \ The iMag Rebor 2 The New iMac + Fast and Affordable + Plays DVDs + Make Your Own Movies Is It Right for You? Nine new surfing hits. Introducing Mac’ OS 9: with nine new power tools designed to make web surfing quicker, safer and infinitely more rewarding. Each of Mac OS 9’s new Internet features would be a smash hit on its own, but now they're “Suggested etal price. Tc/sipping not included. ©1999 apple Computer, bic. Al rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, AppleScript, Mac and the Mac logo are Now available on CD. search lool is now your personal shopper as well. Sherlock" 2. can pinpoint products you want and let you compare prices, availability, even the time left for items on auction. It's also the easiest way to locale people, news and just about anything on the web. if Sherlock 2. 7he sllimate Internet Keychain, No need to keep track ofall those passwords and digital © certificates for e-mail and web servers. The personal keychain built into Mac 08 9 will keep track of them Soryou. Just speak or type jour password to unlock them all. Internet file sharing. Mac OS 9 built-in file sharing now works e over the Internet as easily as it works between two Macs in the same room. So you can sel up shared folders that can be quickly accessed by any Mac user you authorize, around the corner or thousands of miles away. Multiple users. No matler bow ) many people share your Mac, it e will always = F & te be your very own Mae. Just log inand a at all your proferences a are activated, from i iad your favorite browser to your choice of desktop patterns. Your private folder is easily accessible until you log out. your operating system up-lo- 'e dale is as easy as installing Mac OS 9. Automatically, over the Internet, it will download (and even install) the latest free 4) updates for your Mac. So you can gel the most out of your computer, without worrying about the chores, Internet AppleScript. Appleseript® 8 lets you automate your Mac 'e and your applications, from the simplest task to the most complex workflow, Now you can lap the power of AppleScript over the Internet. And harness the power of multiple Macs working together all over the world. 5 Automatic updating, Now keeping Voiceprint password. Your voice is your password. When you log in, 'e Mac OS 9 analyzes your voice fo make sure you're who you say you are. If it’s really you, you can get to work righ! away, with Jull access to your personal files. But if its someone pretending to be you, access is denied. Encryption. Now your private information can remain private, 'e cven when you transfer it over the Internet. Mac 08 9 offers built-in, industrial-strength encryption —so you can rest assured that your important files will remain secure, no matter where in the world you send them. Network browsing, With Mac OS 9's built-in Network Browser, you can ‘ navigate your way around your JAN, your intranet or the Internet with ease, Now you can find file servers, FIP serversandweb ‘ servers the same way you locale printers on your own local network. all available in one must-have collection. So if you’ re the type who loves to explore the Internet, now is the perfect time to install Mac OS 9. Surfing’s greatest hits, now only $99 wwwapple.com. @ Think different” restored racdemarks ara block and Think ciferent are racdemarksof Apple Computer ne Internet acces runes Internet service acount foes may apply True to the original. It serves up to ten color pages per minute of stunning realism. With printouts that are most like your original photos. The new HP DeskJet 970C. It’s fast, but it won't sacrifice razor-sharp text and graphics. And it’s PC/USB-connect Mac compatible. Invent, create and inspire for just $399: Achieve superior results with HP supplies. www.hp.com/go/original. invent Features Cover Story The iMac Is Back BY FRITH BREITZER An depth look at Apple’s latest line of iMacs. Plus: our review of the iMac DV Special Edition. 70 in- 78 QuarkXPress versus InDesign: The Great Debate BY DEKE McCLELLAND AND DAVID BLATNER The desktop- publishing battle is raging 2 and everyone’s got an opinion about which DTP powerhouse you'll be using in the n nium. Go behind the scene: the experts argue the strengths and weaknesses of each. gain, xt millen- 88 The Macworld Web Shopper's Companion BY ELLIOT zARET You don’t have to fight holiday traffic this ar. With our guide to the best places and ways to shop online, the stockings will be stuffed in no time. JANUARY Get to know Apple's new breed of iMacs, page 70. Learn smarter shopping online, page 88. ‘The DTP experts argue the merits of XPress January 2000 MACWORLD and InDesign, page 78. 2000 GWOr 103 Incorporating MacUser Create Print Setting Type with InDe: BY OLAV MARTIN KVERN Get a first look at Adobe's typography breakthrough. Web Low-Fat Graphics for the Web BY MIKE WooLDRIDGE Com- press graphics to create speedier, more elegant pages. Graphics Embracing Imperfection By CATHY Ages ‘Taking advan- tage of mistakes can lead to beautiful art. Explore InDesign's new approach to type, page 103. G5 promises super processing power, page 25. 25 26 28 28 30 News What's Ahead for PowerPC? Motorola reveals future direc- tions for the PowerPC chip, including the G5 with its pro- jected speeds of up to 2GHz. A Downgrade for the G4 Apple stirs up a hornet’s nest by lowering the processor speeds in its new Power Mac G4 line. Product Watch New products for your Mac, including a copyfitting tool for Adobe InDesign and a high- speed multifunction peripheral from Canon. Adobe's New Web Presence Adobe's new Web site lets you create Web banners and optimize graphics through your browser. Weaving Web Graphics Upgrades New versions of Macromedia’s Fireworks and Dreamweaver make nice with Adobe apps. 17 23 63 176 12 Opinion The Vision Thing BY ANDREW GORE Who pays for Apple’s G4 mix-up? The Game Room BY CHRISTOPHER BREEN Pre- senting the Top 10 Mac Gaming Thingies of the past 1,000 years. The Desktop Critic sy pavio pocue IfApplecan reinvent computers, think what it could do for diapers. How to Contact Macworld Unlock the potential of infrared, page 95. 95 99 Secrets Join the Infrared Revival BY JOSEPH SCHORR Gainnew appreciation—and user tips—for your IR-equipped Mac. Quick Tips BY LON POOLE and shortcuts. ‘Tips, tricks, ON THE COVER Photograph by Mark Jobann 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 44 46 49 51 52 54 56 58 60 61 www.macworld.com January 2000 5 Reviews $6% Apple iBook Consumer portable $8%% > MetaCreations Painter 6 Natural-media painting software $8%% AsantéFast 1000 GigaNIC; $88% Farallon PN9000-Sx; $6%% Team ASA Stallion GE-II Gigabit Ethernet cards $% Blue Label PowerEmulator 1.5; $668 Virtual PC 3.0 PC-emulation software $66%% HP Desklet 970 Ink-jet printer 864% Meeting Maker 6 Multiuser calendaring system $668 Palm lle Handheld organizer $8%% Adobe Photoshop 5.0 LE image-editing software $8%% Diamond HomeFree Phoneline USB Home networking system 886% Spark 1.01 Audio editor $8%% Internet Gateway 6.5; $86 IPNetRouter 1.4.2 Internet-sharing software $8%% Polaroid SprintScan 4000 Slide scanner $$%% BarbaBatch 3.0 Audio-conversion software $868 EtherPeek 4.0 Ethernet network analyzer $¥%% MarkzScout 1.0 Graphics workflow tool $$%% SimCity 3000 Simulation game 886% Fly 1.0 Flight simulator isit our crowded facility! Stand on lines! Interact with indifferent, under-trained clerks! And remember, with every purchase you help us pay our overhead!” No, we don’t blame stores for not being this, well, forth- coming. They have a business to run. But do you really want to help them run it? At the Virtual Printer Store, we bring you the printer without the inconvenience of the store. You shop at home or office, via phone or mouse. You don’t have to deal with traffic — street, store or otherwise. You only pay for what you need (the printer) instead of what you don’t (bricks, mortar and middlemen). And since you buy direct from the manufacturer, you deal with people who'll actually talk to you after the sale. We offer free technical support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — for the entirety of the one-year warranty. And if you run up against a problem we can’t solve, our Platinum Exchange Warranty Program guarantees you a replacement printer by the next business day. (All our printers come with a thirty-day, money-back guarantee as well.) Finally, we offer printers good enough to sell themselves — because they have to. Printers that turn out vivid halftones, poster-sized graphics, printshop-quality text, and perform various other noteworthy feats noted here. The Virtual Printer Store. Because the best place to shop for a printer isn’t a shop at all. ELITE 12N Series 2 pages per minute 6600 x 600 dpi resolution Maximum Print Area 8.5" x 14” Letter, legal, envelope 250-sheet Universal Tray PostScript Level 2 compatible, PCL S 35 PostScript fonts, 15 PCL fonts, 45 downloadable fonts RAM expandable to 64 MB Ist year Platinum Exchange EtherTalk? TCP/IP USB, Ethernet (10 BaseT), Bi-directional Paralle! 2nd Paper Feeder! Cinudes SO0-hect Univeral Tay) Add $290 2nd year Platinum Exchange? as $ 99 $849 $949 1200 dpi version en UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS Also available in LocalTalk® versions. ELITE XL 20 Series 20 pages per minute 600 x 600 dpi resolution Maximum Print Area 12.6" x 35.1" Letter, tabloid, legal, envelope, poster 500-sheet Universal Tray PostScript Level 2 compatible, PCLS 35 PostScript fonts, 15 PCL fonts, 250 downloadable fonts RAM expandable to 64 MB Ist year Platinum Exchange EtherTalk, LocalTalk, NetWare} TCP/IP Ethernet (10 BaseT. AAUD, Bi-directional Parallel 2nd or 3rd Paper Feeder (includes $00-shect Universal Tray) Add $329 2nd year Platinum Exchange" aus $179 $1599 Lease $56 Month/36 months* $1899 800 dpi version Lease $67 Month/36 months* $2199 1200 dpi version Lease $77 Month/36 months* ELITE 12/600 uss 12 pages per minute 600 x. 600 dpi resolution Maximum Print Area 8.5" x 14" Letter, legal, envelope 250-sheet Universal Tray PostScript Level 2 compatible, PCL 5 35 PostScript fonts, 15 PCL fonts, 45 downloadable fonts RAM expandable to 64 MB Ist year Platinum Exchange USB (cable included), Bi-directional Parallel 2nd Paper Feeder! (inctudes SODshect Univeral Tay) ABM S240 2nd year Platinum Exchange’ asi s $799 UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS ==. TECHNOLOGIES THE VIRTUAL -devaidebmst STORE. sederat oe ‘oda change thet ace Freee edn, Ds nt ad aes saa ed I densi den coentaoet ja ins Circle 43 on card or www. ens Conquer Disk Damage (amu Macworld EDITOR IN CHIEF Andrew Gore EDITORIAL OPERATIONS MANAGER Savraj Benedict Introducing Diskharrior: a revolutionary new way Dae marae to restore d d disks! ica nd Naney Pan ’ ie am _ 6 s | stwIoR eorton, now-to Scholle Sewyer DiskWarrior is a revolutionary new utility that combats ASSISTANT EDITORS Frith Breitzer, Kathryn Lunsford, disk damage. It quickly rebuilds, recovers and optimizes your HFS and HFS Plus disk directories, eliminating all directory errors and recovering lost files. Other Jonathan Seff utilities attempt to repair disks by patching the REVIEWS damage. Patching can result in more damage and permanent loss of files. SENIOR EDITOR, PRODUCTS Stephen Beale 007.8 fi SENIOR EDITOR, REVIEWS Linda Comer rile St010R KOTOR, MACBUY.COM Suzanne Courteau Only DiskWarrior builds a new optimized SitShen ‘nvheter ecteds directory using data recovered from the damaged directory. You have 100% assurance that DiskWarrior will always restore your disks and recover your files when directory damage is your enemy.* You'll also have 100% confidence that you're getting the desired results. DiskWarrior’s exclusive Preview ability lets you preview the restoration. You can examine your damaged disk in the Finder as it will appear after the CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Henry Bortman, Christopher Breen, Bruce Fraser, Ted Landau, Deke McClelland, Rik Myslewski, Tom Negrino, David Pogue, Lon Poole, Stephan Somogyi, Franklin N. Tessler LAB directory is restored but before any changes are made to your disk. as oiecron Kristina De Nike i i SEMOR LAB ANALYSTS Jefly K. Milstead, floutine Maintenance . aA Sp Kevin Mitchell DiskWarrior is your first line of defense : against unseen disk damage. Running SEU LR hetaira DiskWarrior regularly prevents small mivenToRY COORDINATOR Ulyssis Bravo unseen problems from becoming large ones by keeping your directories error ROEy ERT free. You'll also keep MANAGING £01TOR Claire H. Breen your directories optimized to speed up ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR Paul-Michael King overall disk performance. cory chit Jon Zobenica Bra Neale wo MeFi opi cory corroR Charles Purdy “Texas 77383-0927 USA. 281-353-4090 ex 28 332506, hk ai 4 trademark Inc. *Visit our ART AND DESIGN ia fae oct DesioN DIRECTOR Eleanor Leishman ART o1RECTOR Sylvia Chevrier ASSOCIATE DESIGNERS Martha Katt, Jonathan Woolson DESIGN ASSOCIATES Jackie Goodman, Sean MeDonald INTERNATIONAL EDITORS Steven Noble, Australia; Bernard Le Du, France; Andreas i Z Borchert, Germany; Enrico Lotti, Italy; Yoshio Mori . Japan; ‘Tomasz Bitner, Poland; Daniel de Blas, Spa ALS OFT B00-257-638 ibs hs i a ==) Simon Jary, United Kingdom Circle 140 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo 8 January 2000 MACWORLD We're Handspring. And this is Visor™, the first truly expandable handheld computer. It may look like an ordinary organizer, but it is infinitely more than that. The secret lies in its revolutionary Springboard expansion slot. By simply inserting a module, your Visor will convert into an MP3 Player, a pager, a Global Positioning System, a voice recorder, and soon, much more.* Plus, it downloads thousands of existing Palm applications and the USB connection makes syncing to your Mac easy. Starting at only $149, the price is just as revolutionary. Visit www.handspring.com today. And see how the future will soon be firmly within your grasp. handspring- www.handspring.com aoa se prego ns me morn prs Mein O Pam Compara ne. Soon Caperton "Modules sold separately, availability may vary Project Scheduling Made Easy! I'm not a project management expert, but everyone thinks | am. ‘Most of my time is spent completing tasks, so | need a scheduling tool that’s easy, fast, and flexible. FastTrack Schedule 6.03 fills the bill. It keeps me organized and in control displaying all my project details in rich, colorful timelines. FastTrack Schedule provides just the right amount of power because it's more sophisticated than day-planners, but easier to use and * half the price of $499 traditional, high-end project managers. The presentation-quality schedules clearly illustrate project objectives and deadlines keeping team members and clients informed and up-to-date. Ina single schedule, | can outline multiple projects, make assignments, track cash flows, set- up dependencies— even add graphics. Whether use it am) ‘once a week or every day, FastTrack Schedule makes project scheduling easy. For the free Demo CD, more info, or to place an order call 800-450-1 982. 2 Fastlrack Version 6.03 Schedul Schedule Tomorrow’s Success Today.” A iar EC q (199 AC ete eA se Cope nares ara ie Pepe dternoriacin ‘tonmicweneesiapenmy ayaa — [a tad. ar Se, es al 7 8 80 tte « Works best with Mac 0S 85 Circle 83 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo 10 January 2000 MACWORLD Macworlk PRESIDENT AND CO Colin Crawford ASSISTANT TO THE C£O Sharon Sanderson CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Stephen Daniels SUSINESS MANAGER Eos de Feminis ACCOUNTING COORDINATOR Ronda Bittner ILUING MANAGER Ricardo Sandoval DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES Sue Murphy HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGER Marisa Chow rr mance Michael Talbot DISPLAY ADVERTISING SALES VICE PRESIOENT, SALES, & PUBLISHER Steve Plevin (415/243-3509) ASSOCIATE PuBUsHER, EAST COAST Cynthia Ramsey (973/243-1197) SALES & MARKETING COORDINATOR Heather Kudria (415/278-8542) SALES ASSISTANT Katherine Lebioda (415/243-3577) SALES ASSISTANT Brock Keeling (415/243-3662) NATIONAL ACCOUNTS MANAGER Jessica Ross (415/243-3583) AccouNT extcurive etta Wright (415/243-3615) NATIONAL ACCOUNTS MANAGER Sara Culley (970/327-4499) Account executive Margaret Level Green (415/243-3582) NATIONAL ACCOUNTS MANAGER Paul Bonarrigo (508/533-4020) ACCOUNT ExECUTIVE Jo Zottarelli (516/277-4134) Strang (415/243-3664) SHOPPER ACCOUNT MANAGER Nil smorren account manacen Carol Johnstone (415/243-3691) 243-3628) SHOPPER ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Alissa Mach (41 RESEARCH SENIOR RESEARCH ANALYST Phillip Hibbert MARKETING SENIOR MARKETING MANAGER Francesca Koe ‘ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER Diane Powers MACWORLD GLOBAL PRODUCT SUPPORT CENTER COORDINATOR Sharon Sanderson ONLINE PRODUCTION ‘ONLINE PRODUCTION oiRECTOR Jeff Cheney We PRODUCTION MANAGER Ron Neal WED PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Jason Warner ‘ONLINE AD PRODUCTION MANAGER: Steve Spingola DIGITAL AD COORDINATOR M Matteoni PRINT PRODUCTION PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Cynthia Neustade MANUFACTURING TECHNICAL DIRECTOR yton Haberman DIGITAL AD COORDINATOR’ MANUFACTURING TECHNICAL COORDINATOR Mac Scott ‘Macworld is. puliation of Mac Pubihing. LLC. Macworld is an Independent journal not affiliated with Apple Computer, Ine Macworld, MacUser, MacWeek, Macworld Interactive, Macworld ‘Shopper, MW, MW Lab, MY Shopper, The Desktop Cute. Expert apie Quick Tis, Star Ratings, Buyers Tools, Seetwise Shopper, and Conspicuous Consumer ate registered trademarks of Mac Publishing. ULC. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac. and Macintosh are registered vademarts, and Macteter and Powerflook ate trademarts, of Apple Computer, Ine. Printed in the United States of Ameria Copyright © 1999 Mac Publahing, LLC. All rights reserve. Color excites. Stands out. Makes an impression. 7 You'll find no color richer, no color more true-to-life Aficio Color 6110 & AP3OS than Ricoh Aficio color. It sizes up to 13 x 19, and handles paper stock up to 140 Ib. index. And when your business can realize the most brilliant color. At the Well, isn’t it time to say “aloha”? = 800 63 RICOH ricoh-usa.com ROUCOL Image Communication Ideal for new G3 Power Macs MacWorld Magazine's Editor's Choice award went to Orange Micro's Grappler SCSI Card for three major reasons: 1. “fastest in its class” 2. “least expensive card in its category” 3. “and the only one that was bootable”. Available in Fast, Ultra, and Ultra GOrange Mice Wide. Make Grappler SCSI your choice! inc. * August, 1999 Macworld M © Orange Micro, Inc. 1999 WWW.Orangemicro.com Circle 60 on card or www.macworld.com/getinfo ACWOrld REPRINTS Printed reprints are highly effective marketing tools that will enhance your promotional efforts. Use reprints as: Trade show handouts Direct mail pieces Sales tools Presentation materials HTML / PDF files To order electronic or printed reprints contact Reprint Services 717-399-1900 info @reprintservices.com 12 January 2000 MACWORLD HOW TO CONTACT MACWORLD Subscription Services Phone 200/627-2247 oF 303/665-8930, North America only 303/604-7445, outside North America US. Mail cription Services PO. Box 54529, Boulder, CO 80322-4529 World Wide Web worw 2dnet.com/adsubs/macworld/service Subscription Rates sue) subscription rate is $34.97 in the United States and fr all other countries (send $104.97 for air mall). The rate for a ‘one-year (12-1ssue) subscription with the monthly CO-ROM is $49.97 in the United States and $69.97 forall other counties (aie mail not available ime), Checks must be made payable in U.S. curency to Macworld. Please allow 6 to 8 weeks to receive your fst issue Back Issues of Macworld Back issues (subject to availabilty) fe $8 per issue for U.S, debvery ($12 ‘outside the United States); prepayment in U.S. currency to Mac dis requited. Send check or money order to Back Issues Department, Zif Davis In., PO. Box 53131, Boulder, CO 80322-3131 Reprints and Permissions You must have permission before reproducing any material from Macy Wiite to Macworld, Reprints and Permissions, 301 Howard St., 16th FL San Francisco, include a phone number. To order reprints of your company Services at 717/399-1900; fax 19-8900; e-mail sales@rmsreprins.com Mailing Lists We periodically make lists of our customers available to mailers of goods and services that may interest you. if you do not wish to receive such mailings, please waite to us and include a copy of your mi ‘Macworld on Microfilm Macworld is available on microfilm and microfiche from UMI, 300 N. Zeed Rd, Ann Arbor, Mi 48106-1346; 734/761-4700. Macworld Editorial The editors of Id welcome your tips, compliments, oF com Stories and product 1 past Issues can be located a macworld ¢ ly unable to look up st from past your Macintosh problems by phone, e-m toll-free at 800/538-9696, ext, 500, for information on user groups in your area. located at 301 Howard St, 16th Fl, San Francisco, CA 3-0505, fax 415/442-0766, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Direct all comments and suggestions ding any aspect of the mag; tters@macworld.com, Due to the high volume of mail received, letter. We reserve the right to edit all submissions. Al ‘Macworld oF Macworld Online become the property QUICK TIPS Send your questions oF tips on how to use Mac comput. 1d, Quick Tips, 301 Howard St 115/482-0766; e-mail quicktips® ss, and telephone number. PerfectFlat® technology looks better with... le P d ViewSonic on top! (00) 888-8583 + Specifications subject to change without noice. « Copyright © trademarks stated herein ae the property of ther respective companies, « Aple and N “Stanford Resources, ln. Montrak US. Desktop PC Monitor Shioments 02 ‘29 and Ds Desitop Monitors 03 99. Al rights reserved. Selecting your Mac’ is only half the battle. Today, how you top it off is just as important. Innovations like multimedia monitors, flat panel displays and large screen CRTs are changing the old phrase “Monitor Sold Separately” to “Mac Sold Separately’: Take the new ViewSonic PF790 19" (18.0" viewable) monitor with a .25mm — .27mm super fine aperture grille pitch and a maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200. Or the PF775 17" (16.0" viewable) monitor with an ultra fine .25mm aperture grille pitch and 1600 x 1200 maximum resolution. Both monitors utilize PerfectFlat technology designed to provide your Visual Computing” experience with precise, clear images. At ViewSonic, we offer the #1 best selling monitors and flat panel displays in the USA* Buy with confidence from the company that’s won over 550 industry awards. Our warranty covers 3 years parts and labor. Plus 24-hour customer service, 7 days a week. For more information on the company that's won over 550 industry awards, visit our website at: www.ViewSonic.com/mac/ — onic on top www. ViewSonic.com YOU'VE GOT TO SEE IT IN She's incredibly well camouflaged, but you can spot her. Unmistakably. And the company responsible for this sales report knew you would. Because the printer they created it on in its entirety — text and all — was an Epson. One with such acute attention to detail that, even with images as challenging as this, absolutely nothing gets lost in translation. So always, just as you see here, every color and shade is realized. Every nuance is captured. And as you'll discover, when it comes to printers, every stripe is earned. THE ONLY PRINTERS WITH EVERYTHING YOU NEED FOR ALL THE DETAIL YOU WANT. co ‘exam To capture the world’s most brilliant images, only Epson® color ink jet printers have the PerfectPicture* Imaging System for: 1440 x 720 dpi * Micro Piezo” technology, for a cleaner, smaller droplet — as small as 3 picoliters + Fast print speeds — up to 12 PPM black/io PPM color * Quick-drying inks * PC/Mac/USB compatibility. And remember, only Epson supplies ; A A e Epson Stylus Color Ink Jet Printers. guarantee Epson quality. For more information, call -800-GO-EPSON or visit www.epson.com. Sheer brilliance starting at $129.* PSON Stylus Color 61 10 are trademarks/regi Cirle 61 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo COLOR. pP*" -qmm ici gevelorer®s tists, O88 Know "age oe ats. WO OF Cold Fusion desig” progr? ers > \Nashinglo Wi ore look g for highly cient We? proaro™ TG plon, Seah na 4 deploy solutions 0 ox Wire pore yeu" Srexpeien’r SHTML: yA, wd Flash A'S require Grose progrart 0 DUS Desiane’ eh HONE ona PS groshoP 1, Wvsotoe 0 Fu sotk Ses Fy pantaios Should Sto falls 2 "9, ationtie Prdly. Y tree ste ccount curive 7 Boston sign firm ing for © jendly talented and hig) hy motivate ed Act coun Executt yoke \eadersniP sion 1 the come Can’ ndidotes should hove 258 years © e, son] © yorner Se° ice ON nd be proficient in managing pudge’s cre ce’ nd Hime! Knowl Hice ys Proies on maiekbooks Pre ‘5.0 Pl cross-P arfor™ nerwor aaminist™? pales: F¥8 gre 0 1008S aspect » feniost ess ier who 18 OP for YOu 0 ANindOME \earn ne ts is he rae ion iN ack Mics | (inc! fiw ind hor! rdware ind Famiion" wil packvP systems =e sol des n Chicog? sition unlien| ot proie re 5 ah NS. puree” jprelligen® 0 lead pre ramme prilodelehi®® mero ro has oe"0 ped \ nim atioN for kios" mr JANA pied 8 who is @ year Locati B ‘ Baltimere pirekt pled, aafou eae ({ Ne ie all ({ \te) ec heey voubleshoonn: netwo Phil York | self-starter any 2 years pro ladelphi. ect wrcess S085 mat Provid ia len: San F ce rah , Si louie. presentanie” sp we ashington DC / Franc!’ i f ower {| t clients pore signe" 0 X\ deosline pre’ gure OM oh \eost ON y' 1c of PFO yo! rents OTS" Krom Yorse* known \. peor Sexign "9 qnedio een orie® arn wwohi wre Circle 9: 7 an'card'or go'te www pmacwork ld.com/ igetinfo pave cunen Judging an iBook by Its Cover FTER READING “MEET THE iBook” (October 1999), ’m more convinced than ever that Apple’s barrel is filling with rotten fruit. Don’t get me wrong—as someone who's been a loyal Macintosh user since the 68020 days, ’'m all in favor of customer-focused innova- tion. But that Fisher-Price look has got to go. I simply can’t imagine walking into a business meeting carrying that thing. I can already hear them: “Where’s your real computer?” or “What a nice purse you have.” And another thing: at almost 7 pounds, the iBook is going to be a ball and chain to lug around. I wouldn't carry it to my car, much less across campus or around the world. Since it lacks a touch screen, you can’t even use it to copy your instructor's drawings or equations from the board. What good is that to a typical engineer- ing, science, or business student? What Apple needs to design is a 2.5-pound cor- dovan lightning bolt that reads my mind and feels my pain. Sherrece R. Gree Knoxville, Tennessee E H TEVE JOBS INTRODUCED the iMac, he called it “tomorrow's technology for $1,299.” The iBook is yes- terday’s technology for $1,599. True, the iBook features much of the same tech- nology as the iMac—but a year later, which makes it archaic by computing standards. The iBook falls behind cur- rent technology in terms of speed, weight, and graphics acceleration. Granted, these improved features could drive up the price and might be hard to add to a portable computer, but the ability to play video games and watch movies is more appropriate for a consumer-oriented sys- tem than for any other model. The one truly innovative feature of the iBook—the AirPort—really makes sense only in a classroom setting. Before the iMac, con- sumer model just meant “cheap.” Steve Jobs changed all that when he introduced the iMac, which was a consumer model actually designed with specific features appealing to consumers. Now, with the iBook, we are back to the “cheap” defini- tion of the term. JACOn SPINDEL Tualatin, Oregon N MY OPINION, ONE OF THE I biggest advantages Wintel machines have over Macs is they start up faster. Though the G3 processor has helped some, the Mac is still sluggish. In “Meet the iBook,” David Pogue discusses Apple’s new Energy Saver control panel and its option to save current RAM con- tents. He says that this feature allows for much faster start-up and eliminates the “Welcome to Macintosh” logo and the extensions parade. It seems to me that this would benefit all Mac users, not just iBook users. So, is there any way that I can obtain a copy of the new Energy Saver control panel? MICHAEL GNozzio Flanders, New Jersey Although we could debate which platform bas the speediest start-up (there’s no doubt that Windows-based machines take a lot longer than Macs to shut down), we agree wholebeartedly that the iBook’s “hibernation” feature (Apple hates this term, by the way) would be an excel- Jent addition to all Mac systems. Unfortunately, according to Apple, hibernation requires both special software and special hardware, and the hardware is currently available only on iBooks. So for now, we can only dream.—Ed. Forty Bits Bites PPLE’S NEW AIRPORT, WHICH received one of Macworld’s Best of Show awards at Maeworld Expo in New York, uses 40-bit RC4-40 encryption for the transmission of data. This concerns me, because if I were to use a 128-bit- encryption browser for, say, online bank- ing, the AirPort’s 40-bit transmission becomes the weak link in the security chain and defeats any efforts to ensure strong security. By today’s standards, 40-bit encryption is obsolete. It can be cracked by a good hacker in a matter of hours, or in seconds if intercepted by a more advanced organization. For my pur- poses, and for the purposes of anyone who wants to conduct truly secure online com- munications and commerce, this level of encryption is unacceptable. Jor Lewis Walnut Creek, California continues www.macworld.com January 2000 17 Oh es REMOVES SCRATCHES. | ‘One second your photo has scratch. The next, if doesn't. That's the power of Digital ICE” revolutionary technology that instantly removes scratches, dust and fingerprints from scans. If you're looking to save a great photograph, look no further than Nikon. Because no one else has Digital ICE, Call 1-800-52-NIKON or visit our Web site at www.nikonusa.com. | | | Nikon Coolscan” film scanners | with Digital ICE ©1999 Nikon ne. gil ICE a rodemark of Apple Science Peon Choose 59 on card or www.macworld.com/getinfo. 18 January 2000 MACWORLD LETTERS 19K A-OK N THE ARTICLE “01/01/00” (OCTO- ber 1999), Geoff Duncan says, “The original Mac development team chose midnight, January 1, 1904, as the start of the Mac calendar part because it’s mathematically convenient to have a cal- endar system start on a leap year, which 1900 was not.” Am I missing something here? I learned in school that leap years occur every four years. I wasn’t around in 1900, and maybe things were different back then, but if 1904 was a leap year, wasn’t 1900 also a leap year? Wintiam W. Lewes, Delaware BENNETT We received several letters about this. Because Earth takes a little less than 365.25 days to orbit the Sun, every fourth year is a leap year, except years ending centuries, which are leap years only if they are also evenly divisible by 400. There- ‘fore, 2000 will be a leap year, but 1900 wasn’t and 2100 won't be.—Ed. MIDI Me N HIS REVIEW OF QUICKTIME 4 Pro (Reviews, October 1999), Jim Heid left out any discussion of QuickTime musical instruments. If Apple wants QuickTime to be taken seriously as a MIDI program—and it should want that—it needs to release a version of QuickTime that won’t delay when used in a MIDI setup. QuickTime has always delayed when being used by MIDI con- trollers or programs. There are too many PCs that can be used as sound modules for Apple to ignore this problem. MicHaEt Dopp Cleveland, Tennessee UICKTIME 4 PRO IS A REAL WIN- Q ner that deserves more than the 3.5- mouse rating it received in Macworld. For example, in the File menu of QuickTime Pro is the Present Movie command, which gives you the option of displaying full- screen movies. Yes, some clips look a tad grainy, but the Star Wars trailer looks bril- liant in QuickTime Pro. And a two-minute trailer such as the one for Shakespeare in Lave is only 5.8MB. That means a single CD can hold 100 minutes of full-screen video. A. Bropy Laurel, Maryland | Want My ixTV! IM HEID ENDS HIS REVIEW OF XLR8‘°s InterView video-capture card (Reviews, October 1999) by saying, “There’s no cheaper way to get video into a USB-equipped Mac.” That isn’t totally true. L use IXMicro’s ixTV, which fits into a PCI slot, captures video, and costs only $69. It includes a TV tuner in addition to its S-Video and RCA inputs, so you can capture live broadcasts or just watch TV in a window on your screen. And whereas VideoShop’s Capture, bundled with the InterView, can capture video at a maximum resolution of only 320 by 240 pixels, the ixTV card can actually cap- ture 640-by-480 video—a feature that allows full-screen playback. In my opin- ion, it’s a much better product than the InterView, for a lower price. Brian E. HANNON Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Shot Misses Mark READ WITH DISGUST CHRISTO- pher Breen’s anti- NRA comments in October 1999's The Game Room. It is dis- appointing that a magazine that professes to “think different” is so quick to jump on the politically correct—but highly misguided—NRA-bashing bandwagon. I do not look to my computer magazines for social and political commentary, espe- cially when the commentary is so sadly lacking in thought and reason. Please cancel my subscription and refund the balance. I'll be contributing the money to the NRA. Rocky ANGELUCCI Plano, Texas Rock My World D YID POGUE OUTDID HIMSELF th his column “Steven Saves the Mac” (The Desktop Critic, October 1999). It’s a masterpiece! Mac users are a unique bunch, possessed of an idealistic devotion to a computing paradigm that seems to go beyond its inherent technological superiority. We hoped for years that someone at the head of Apple would finally get it and realize that our fortunes lie with those who dare to “think differ- ent.” Steve Jobs deserves all the credit he continues Before Columbus, sailors stuck pretty much to the same old standard routes, fearing they would fall off the edge of th " Fortunately, Christopher didn’t believe in “standards.” WHAT S Once you see everything Convas™ 7 offers, the old standards will begin to look merely standard. With its ingenious Sprite technology, vector illustration flows seamlessly into image editing and typography. So you can create brochures, diagrams, and YO U fe retouch photos within o single creative application. Or build a pixeLperfect web page with optimized web graphics, mouse-overs and onimated GIFs — no extra utilities required, and no limits to what your imagination can explore. It's time you experienced EXC us E? the thrill of discovery. Order Canvas 7 today at www.deneba.com/macworld. Or call 1.800.7DENEBA for the reseller nearest you. e With hundreds of other features, 30,000 clip art images, 2,450 fonts and a new, unbelievably low price, there is no excuse, ‘an bang, United tne we rad ey i Marth Anesca. Comrs, SprieMets and Sptelayr ae aera of Deeba Stems, he world and be eaten by sea monsters. “simply the Most complete solution for all your print and internet graphic design Get a whole new world of creativity for as low as $99.95" www.deneba.com/macworld CANVAS? 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Circle 129 on card or www.macworld.com/getinfo January 2000 MACWORLD LETTERS gets, and so do you. Thank you for a witty rhyme that was straight from the heart. Your work has earned a place of honor framed on my wall! Joun Tuscu Shelton, Connecticut A Loan Survivor's Tale PPLE HAS A STUDENT-LOAN PRO- gram that supposedly makes it easy for students to get the Macintosh products they need. The problem is that I don’t know of any students who have actually qualified for these loans. I’m not saying that these loans are never approved, but maybe Apple’s stan- dards are too high. One person I know applied for an Apple loan to buy an iBook. The student's parent—who owns a home and makes well over the $15,000 minimum income —applied as a coborrower. The loan was rejected. My friend drove down to a local bank and applied for a bank loan with a slightly better interest rate. That loan was approved the next day. Maybe Apple’s loan program is more of a marketing scheme than an actual attempt to give poor students access to computers. ROB ALINDER Everett, Washington Letters should be sent to Letters, Macworld, 301 Howard St., 16th F fax, 415/442-0766; or electronically, to letters@ an Francisco, CA 94105; via macworld.com. Include a return address and day- time phone number, Due to the high volume of mail received, we can’t respond personally to each letter. We reserve the right to edit all letters. All published letters become the property of Macworld. ° The Mathematica Student Edition price ‘was listed incorrectly as $79, which is the upgrade price (Reviews, October 1999). The Student Edition is $139. And even though Mathematica can read MAT data files, it cannot convert MATLAB M-files to Mathematica notebooks as we stated. The update to Macl.inkPlus Deluxe 10.1 costs $40, contrary to our assertion in the sidebar “Proceed with Caution” in “01/01/00” (October 1999). The latest Y2K update for FileMaker Pro is 4.103, not 4.1v2. m VST has the FireWire solutions for you Whether you have a G4, a G3 or an iMac, VST has the e ' FireWire solutions for you. With VST's ultra slim or full height FireWire Hard Drives and Zip® Drives, you can add the ultimate in power and convenience to your Macintosh® computer. And for PowerBook® G3 Series users, VST's FireWire CardBus Card gives you the ability to take advantage of using any VST high-performance FireWire peripherals wherever you go. FireWire www.vsttech.com Pg Mac Circle 73 on card or www.macworld.com/getinfo www.diehlgraphsoft.com After 14 years of constant research and development, Diehl Graphsoft is proud to introduce Vector Works— the next generation of MiniCAD. VectorWorks improves MiniCAD’s proven CAD technology and merges new state of the art Object-Based design philosophy. This integration makes you more pro- ductive without sacrificing flexibility and control. Calo Coen, Cohen Designs Inc. Toronto, Canada: Rendered with Render Works Increased Productivity with Object-Based Design 3 Vector Works’ state of the art Object Technology helps streamline Trtroducimg. te een procs by tating tony tc comon dain elements. Now, Objects like doors, windows, nuts and bolts, can be created and edited with a click of the mouse, making it easy to explore design hi Bales ec O O S alternatives, consider "what if [ean = scenarios, and handle last- — i; =— : minute client changes. we _— ? A Better Way to Design *"" __— The Strength of a Proven il i—— CAD Technology — VectorWorks offers a solid foundation based on proven CAD technology—giving you the power —— and flexibility to tackle any design problem, —— one New features such as Workgroup Referencing, ea . Ss DWG (v.14), Round Walls, Multiple Undo/Redo and an improved scripting language, strengthen Vector Works’ core CAD capabilities. 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Diehl Graphsoft Inc Software for Today's Professional 1-888-646-4223 Visit us at booth #2139 at Macworld Expo sia: rele 46 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo JOHN airTER Shell Game The Vision Thing by Andrew Gore APPLE'S G4 CONFUSION HAS LEFT MAC BUYERS HOLDING THE BAG AD THINGS HAPPEN. And nowhere is that truer than in the com- puter business, where all it takes to derail a multimillion-dollar product launch are overly optimistic fore- casts about the produc- tion of PowerPC G4 chips. The thing is, if something unforeseen happens, who should be expected to pay the price—the company that made the overly optimistic forecasts, or the consumer? If knee-jerk responses are any indica~ tion, Apple believes the answer is the lat- ter—hidden in Apple’s reshuffling of the Power Mac Gé4 lineup is the fact that the company has failed to deliver the value it first promised (see “Fantastic Four,” November 1999). Three-Card Power Macs Here's how it works: if you'd been lucky enough to receive a 400 MHz Power Mac G4 before the G4 shell game, you would’ve gotten a machine with 64MB of RAM, a 10GB hard drive, and a 24x CD- ROM drive for $1,599 retail. After the shells got shifted around, that configura- tion was made available with a slower pro- cessor (350MHz, to be exact), but Apple still expects you to pay the same price— $1,599. So, if you purchased one of those first 400MHz Gas, you gota heck of a deal. The same is true for the two higher- end machines. Now, instead of getting a 450MHz or a 500MHz machine, you get a 400MHz or a 450MHz system with the same goodies as its speedier precursor, but with no change in the price tag. Then there were Apple’s manic vacil- lations over what would happen to the poor souls who'd ordered a G4 before the price shuffle but hadn't yet received their Power Macs. First they were told that they were out of luck; then their orders were canceled, and they were told to order one of the new configurations at the new price. But after Apple’s e-mail server was drowned in a tidal wave of customer complaints, the company modified this policy and said it would honor a limited number of original orders placed through the Apple online store, but none made through authorized resellers. This new plan was superseded a couple days later by Steve Jobs's public intervention: all G4 orders placed before the configu- ration changes would be honored—at some point in time. Overpromise, Underdeliver Now that the shells have stopped car- oming around the table like billiard balls, the question facing customers is, under which shell has Apple placed the pea? Financial issues aside, the G4 shuffle is confusing the heck out of Apple’s cus- tomers. We at Macworld know firsthand— they're sending us mail. In the original G4 lineup, the 400MHz machine was based on a logic- board design, appropriately code-named Yikes, that offered the same features as the blue-and-white Power Mac G3—except it came with a G4 processor. The 450MHz and 500MHz machines were based on a totally new design, code-named Saw- tooth. Unlike Yikes machines, Sawtooth- based G4 Power Macs offered such advances as a 2x AGP graphics slot, an AirPort slot, an internal FireWire port, and much faster bus speeds. Now the 350MHz machine has the Yikes logic board, with its slower PCI slots, while the 400MHz and 450MHz machines are Sawtooth-based, adding all those cool new features I listed above. Confused? I know Iam. T can understand Apple getting stuck and not being able to get enough 500MHz G4 Power Macs—Apple doesn’t control production of the chips. (They’ve now signed up IBM to produce G4 chips, in addition to Motorola, which should eventually help with supplies.) But having said that, I still don’t think Mac buyers should get stuck paying the same amount and getting less. It’s the 500MHz G4 chip Apple can’t get, not the 400MHz or the 450MHz. By delivering slower systems for the same price as faster ones, Apple seems to be attempting to prof- it from its supplier’s mistake, instead of just being its victim, Te would have been better if Apple had left the 4(00MHz and 450MHz configurations alone and downgraded the pro- cessor speed in the 500MHz configuration. That way, the majority of Mac buyers would have gotten the G4 machines Apple promised to deliver at the price Apple promised to deliver them at. Further, buyers wouldn’t have had to play yet another round in the ever changing features-and-megahertz match game. All this fast shifting around has only served to further confuse a community of Mac users that was already scratching its col- lective head. Where's the right G4 for you? Under one of these three shells. ... m Questions? Comments? E-mail them to Andy at visionthing@macworld.com. www.macworld.com January 2000 23 There’s only one utility in the world that does more for your Macintosh than TechTool Pro 2... .. Introducing TechTool Pro 2.5.2 MicroMat’s disk repair and Macintosh troubleshooting utility just became a whole lot better. Now loaded with new features like Check Drive, which allows you to preview drive repairs before committing changes to your disk. Or the new Rebuild Directory feature that lets you manually optimize and repair drive directories, which not only makes your Macintosh run smoother but makes drive access noticeably faster. TechTool Pro 2.5.2 also now supports new technologies like System 9, “Pure” HFS+, all of the latest Macs and much more. But the real power of TechTool Pro 2.5.2 isn’t in the MicroMat Inc. 800-829-6227 707-566-3831 FAX: 707-566-3871 info@micromat.com www.micromat.com 6666 ‘MacWorld ‘Aug. 1999 Fix different: features you can see, it’s in the features you can’t see. Like a multitude of new drive repair routines that can save data that other utilities would simply abandon. An improved recovery system that will find lost files in the darkest caverns of a damaged drive. You'll also find improved performance on key features like disk optimization. But maybe the feature you'll find most interesting about this version is the price: FREE*. If you own any prior version of TechTool Pro 2, just go to our web site and grab the updater**. You'll be glad you did. * Version 2.5.2 is available at no charge to registered TechTool Pro 2 users as an updater application directly from the MicroMat web site. If you do not wish to download the updater or would prefer a new CD, they can be purchased for $25 plus tax, shipping and handling by calling the phone number above. Please have your serial number ready when calling. Prices subject to change without notice. * Version 2.5.2 is scheduled to be released when Apple releases System 9. (©1999 MicroMat Inc.All rights reserved. TecliTool isa registered trademark of MicroMat Inc. Fix Different isa trademark of MicroMat Ine. Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. Circle 67 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo JANUARY 2000 Motorola and IBM Reveal PowerPC Plans MOTOROLA DISCUSSES FORTHCOMING POWERPC G5 PROCESSOR by Stephen Beale s Apple, IBM, and Motorola deal with the fallout Apple’s recent down- grade of its Powe Mac G4 systems (see Downgrade for the G4” in this section), the companies are already making plans for a new generation of PowerPC from processors that will blaze at speeds of up to 2GHz. Motorola revealed its strategy for future PowerPC processor development dur- ing October's Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, Califor- nia. The company says it is testing PowerPC currently sors with AltiVec running at up to a ntually, Motor- ys, the G4 design will hit speeds of up to 1GHz. Waiting in the wings is the PowerPC G5, a 64-bit chip that will also support 32- bit processing to ensure com- patibility with current appli- cations. The GS, likely to be available in one to two years at speeds of up to 2GHz, will feature an extensible archi- tecture, mal i i develop specialized versions of the chip. Motorola will also offer a G6 processor, but has given no details on planned features. Motorola plans to offe G3, G4, and G5 processors concurrently. In addition to developing the chips for Apple’s Power Macs, Motorola will also target the growing market for embedded proces- e used in a wide range of electronic devices. Damage Control While Motorola was busy laying out sors, which a its processor road map, the company found itself per- forming damage control when Apple cited a shortage of 500MHz, G4 processors main culprit behind the downgrade of its Power Mac G4 systems. In September, Apple predicted lower earn- ings due to an unexpected shortage of Motorola’s G4 ed a processors. Motorola statement that pointed the fin- ger back toward Cupertino, asserting that Motorola had regularly kept Apple apprised of G4 availability. www.macworld.com A month later, after Apple downgraded its systems and brought on IBM as an alter- native supplier of G4 proces- sors, Motorola appeared to eat some crow. In statement released to the press, the company said, “Motorola continues to ramp G4 production to a higher volume each week and we are steadfastly committed to meeting our production goals for Apple Computer, and for all of our customers using this a terse continues January 2000 25 exciting new product. We are disappointed that we have not been able to meet all of Apple’s demands to date, and are working diligently to rap- idly remedy the shortfall. As we have said before, this is a temporary situation.” Big Blue Meanwhile, IBM has its own plans for the PowerPC architecture. Al- though Motorola and IBM have both contributed to the PowerPC design, each is free to develop its own chip flavors, which is why IBM only recent- ly signed on to manufacture G4 chips with Motorola’s AltiVec technology. IBM will begin supplying the chips in the first half of 2000. IBM manufactures its G3 —and now its G4—chips with copper wiring instead of the aluminum used in Motorola’s G3 and Intel's Pentium. Motorola has licensed IBM's copper tech- nology for use in the G4 and will apparently employ cop- per in its future chip designs. Copper-based chips have the potential to run faster than equivalent aluminum-based chips, with less power con- sumption and heat emission. (Some of Apple’s blue-and- white Power Mac G3 systems include copper-based chips from IBM, while others use Motorola’s aluminum-based chips, but there’s no perfor- mance difference because the chips all follow the same technical specifications.) IBM won't discuss its development plans publicly, but sources close to the com- pany told MacCentral that Big Blue still sees potential in the G3 processor and plans to offer versions running at up to 800MHz. These chips could find their way into future laptops; the current G4 design is too power hun- gry for use in portables, and Motorola has not said whether it plans to develop a low-power version of the 26 January 2000 processor. IBM sources also told MacCentral that the company is developing a low- cost version of the G3 that will sell for less than $100 in production quantities. Although there's no tell- ing when the new chips will find their way into Apple’s Power Mac systems, Apple generally offers a 100MHz speed bump every six months or so, assuming the proces- sors are available in suffi- cient quantities. A Downgrade for the G4 APPLE RECONFIGURES MAC SYSTEMS WITH SLOWER PROCESSORS by Stephen Beale pple Computer, which seemed to be leading a charmed life in recent months, found itself with egg on its face in October when the company announced it was reconfiguring its Power Mac G4 product line with lower- speed versions of the chips. Instead of offering systems MACWORLD with 400MHz, 450MHz, and 500MHz processors, as Apple had originally planned, the company will sell the systems with 350MHz, 400MHz, and 450MHz G4 processors at the same respective price points of $1,599, $2,499, and $3,499. Mea Culpa Apple blamed the bad news on Motorola’s inability to deliver sufficient quantities of SOOMHz G4 processors, and said it was signing on IBM as an alterna- tive supplier of the chips (see “Motorola and IBM Reveal PowerPC Plans” in this sec- tion). A chastened Motorola issued a mea culpa. The new configurations are as follows: The 350MHz_ system, selling for $1,599, includes 64MB of RAM, a 10GB Ultra ATA hard drive, and a 24x CD-ROM drive. Based on the same architecture as the blue- and-white G3 systems, this configuration was supposed to include a 400MHz. G4 chip. The 400MHz system, priced at $2,499, includes 128MB of RAM, a 20GB Ultra ATA hard drive, a DVD-ROM drive, and an Tomega Zip drive. This con- figuration uses a new architec- ture that includes a faster memory bus, support for up to 1.5GB of RAM, an internal FireWire connection, a high- speed AGP port for the dis- play adapter, and connections for Apples AirPort wireless- networking cards. Apple pre- viously announced that it would offer this configuration with a 450MHz Gé4 chip. The 450MHz system, selling for $3,499, includes 256MB of RAM, a 27GB Ultra ATA hard drive, and a DVD-RAM drive. Like the 400MHz system, it uses Apple’s new system architec- ture. Apple had planned to offer this configuration with a 500MHz G4. Systems featuring the new 500MHz G4 processor won't appear until early 2000, Apple says. Mixed Signals As Apple announced the downgrade, it also sent notices to inform customers who had _pre- ordered systems that it would cancel their orders. The fol- lowing day, October 14, the same customers received an apologetic follow-up notice saying that their orders would be fulfilled. However, Apple PR reps confused the matter by making contradictory state- ments about which, if any, orders would be honored. Finally, on October 18, Apple issued a definitive statement: if you ordered a 400MHz or 450MHz Power continues Ti m e m atters yourself the same competitive edge that’ e given leading companies like Apple Computer®, The fate of the company is in your hands. theglobe.com™ and Harbor Freight Tools™ Every second counts when you're competing at Download your Free Tango Demo today! Internet speed. And the faster your Web application is Grab the time-saving advantages of Tango 2000 developed, deployed and maintained, the faster your _—_ absolutely FREE. Visit our Web site and download competition will drop out of sight. The solution? Get to market faster and easier than US now to get your demo on CD. ever before with Pervasive Software's Tango 2000. Use www.pervasive.com/speed or 1-800-287-4383 Tango’ powerful, multi-platform environment to develop your ideas with double the speed of any other February 28, 2000. development software. Create applications that sizzle with sophisticated personalization capabilities. Give Apple Computer isa renistered wacemar of Apple Computer, Ine, theglobe.com is trademark cae Of heglobe com, Ine. Harbor Freight Tools isa trademark of Harbor Freight Tools. The Freedom to Create Applicatio TMAGWD0200 our FREE fully functional Tango 2000 demo. Or call Hurry! This offer ends for Everyone, Everywhere Circle 117 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo Product WATCH High-Speed MFP You've heard of workgroup printers; now Canon (800/652-2606, www.usa .canon.com) wants to sell you a workgroup multifunction periph- eral. The Class 3170 Facsimile Series offers a maximum print speed of 17 ppm, up to 1200-dpi resolution, and an optional dual- line feature for simultaneous fax receipt and transmission. Prices range from $3,195 to $4,000, depending on selected options. InDesign for Editors Taking advantage of the extensible archi- tecture of Adobe InDesign, Adobe Systems (800/833-6687, www .adobe.com) has announced InCopy 1.0, a stripped-down ver- sion of InDesign that allows writ- ers and editors to track editorial changes, fit copy, and collaborate with designers. The program, using a word processing interface, lets you work on documents in galley or layout mode. In the lat- ter, you can see text as it will appear in print, complete with column breaks, hyphenation, and Justification. Adobe won't sell the software directly; instead, it will be offered by Adobe InDesign sys- tem integrators, who will deter- mine pricing on asite-by-site basis. Get Reel Looking for a cheap, simple way to edit digital movies? Par Technologies (480/922-0044, wwwiirez.com) is shipping Reel- Eyes, a $35 video-editing pro- gram that lets you play feature- length movies, export video to DV streams, crop videos to fixed frame sizes, and save video clips continues Mac G4 before October 13, Apple will deliver the system at the original quoted price. If you ordered a 500MHz Power Mac G4, the company will provide a 450MHz system at the latter's original price. Lenticular Art Comes of Age DIGITAL FINE ARTISTS EXPERIMENT WITH OLD PRINTING TECHNIQUE by Stephen Beale ou sometimes found them in Cracker Jack boxes: small, plastic- covered wafers show- ing an image that appeared to change or move when viewed from different angles. They’re examples of lenticular printing, a technique undergoing a modest revival thanks to new digital-imaging capabilities, Using this tech- nology, you incorporate many versions of an image into a laminated print, creating artwork that simulates 2-D or 3-D animation. Interlaced Images Producing a lenticular print basically takes three steps. You create a series of images in Adobe Photoshop or any other painting program. Then you use lenticular-imag- ing software to cut each picture into thin vertical or horizontal slices that are interlaced to produce one image. After printing the interlaced image, you lami- nate it with a lenticular lens screen, a plastic covering embossed with tiny lenses set at different angles. The lenses force the eye to focus on only one of the interlaced images at any viewing angle. When | Mews you change the angle, the image changes, too. Although lenticular print- ing is often associated with cheap-looking novelties and marketing gimmicks, the tech- nology can be used to produce serious artwork. At the recent Seybold San Francisco elec- tronic publishing show, Digi- tal Atelier (www.digitalatelier .com)—a printmaking studio founded by artists Dorothy Simpson Krause, Bonny Lhotka, and Karin Schminke —sponsored a gallery of large- format lenticular prints. Mac Friendly? At pres- ent, lenticular-imaging soft- ware—which includes Flip, from Flip Signs (www flipsigns.com), and Lenticular FIX, from Lenticular Devel- opment (909/471-0468, www -lenticulardevelopment.com) —is available only for Micro- soft Windows. The Windows- only P-M1000 Motion Image Printer ($5,500), from Pana- sonic (800/742-8086, www _panasonic.com/alive), pro- duces 2-by-4-inch lenticular prints that can incorporate up to six images. Although these are cur- rently Windows-only prod- ucts, you can use your Mac to create the original images— the part of the process that in most cases will be the most time-consuming. A lenticular- imaging service bureau, such as 3D Sign & Design (909/ 471-0468, www.3dsign-design com) can produce lenticular prints from standard image files submitted by customers. Adobe Builds a New Web Presence WILL OFFER WEB-BASED GRAPHICS APPLICATIONS by Macworld Staff dobe Systems (800/ 833-6687, www .adobe.com), follow- ing in the footsteps of other graphics software vendors, has launched a new version of its Web site that provides a variety of ser- vices beyond simply inform- ing users about Adobe prod- ucts. The new site offers separate areas for Web, print, dynamic media, and portable document applications, each with user profiles, galleries, tips, forums, and product information. Through an en- hanced version of the Adobe store, you can order Adobe software as well as third- party products. You can also run free Web-based applica- tions to create a Web banner, optimize Web graphics, and create PDF files. “We see this as a real opportunity to help our cus- tomers find everything they need in one place and have a place for information ex- change,” says Gloria Chen, Adobe.com’s director of strat- egy and business development. Adobe is one of several graphics developers that have spruced up their Web pres- ence recently (see News, Sep- tember 1999). For example, Extensis (800/796-9798, www .creativepro.com) changed its name to Creativepro.com to reflect its new emphasis on providing Web-based. tools and services. And Tektronix continues Powerful, fast, smart- and bred for the unbridled imagination. (No, we're talking about the a) graphics tablet system.) S tt Give your imagination full rein with the award-winning Intuos™ graphic tablet system from Wacom. With Intuos, you can sketch, paint and retouch images with natural ease and zen-like control. Intuos, the #1 choice of illustrators, designers and photographers worldwide, features 1,024 levels of pen pressure-sensitivity. Its ergonomic design is unmatched and a pure joy for designers who demand top performance and productivity from all their graphic software. You can even add the cordless 4D Mouse or the new Intuos Airbrush for a truly customized digital toolkit. Or choose Graphire’; Wacom’s new pen and mouse set. Its small footprint, performance features and sub-$100 price make it a great choice for those just getting started in digital art. Intuos and Graphire... turn your imagination loose. WACOM — 800.922.2585 ox www.wacom.com/imaginations Technology Corporation. Wacom is a egistered trademark and Graphire and Intuos are trademarks of Wacom Company Ltd Allrights reserved. Artwork created by Pal Rowe Seat, WAvshs ios uz graphics tablet Wacom oducts re avalabe a waacom.com, CompUSA, Miocene and there etal nd ma oder resels nationwide. Includes kadai Painter Classic. Unbidled beast not included. Choose 84 at www.macworld.com/getinfo as self-contained AVI movies. The $99 Digital Photo Maker from Dazzle Multimedia (888/436- 4348, www.dazzle.com) is a small device that lets you capture and export video on a USB-equipped Mac. The package includes two simple editing applications, Dazzle PhotoStudio for still photos and Dazzle Videolmpression for video. Two for One Now you can have USB and FireWire and still keep a PCI slot free. The $159 OrangeLink FireWire/USB Board from Orange Micro (714/779- 2772, www.orangemicro.com) is a PCI card that includes two USB and two FireWire ports. Each FireWire port runs at 400 Mbps and provides 15 watts of power. The package includes Adobe Premiere LE. QuickTime Jazz Bitlazz (415/ 488-9626, www.bitjazz.com) is shipping PhotoJazz 2.0, a new version of its lossless image- compression software that adds QuickTime support. The company Says you can compress an image to less than half its original size with no loss of quality. The upgrade, which adds support for 16-bit image channels, includes an Adobe Photoshop plug-in, a QuarkxTension, and QuickTime components that let you embed PhotoJazz images in QuickTime movies. Three versions are avail- able: the $99 PhotoJazz Expert, which offers the full set of Photo- Jazz features; the $79 PhotoJazz Pro, which supports 8-bit channels only; and the $29 PhotoJazz Lite, which supports RGB only. (800/835-9433, www.tek.com) has launched a site called Creativesite.com where art- ists and photographers can post examples of their work. Macromedia Weaves Web Upgrades FIREWORKS MAKES NICE WITH ADOBE APPS by Frith Breitzer acromedia (415/ 252-2000, www -macromedia.com) may be learning that the best way to compete with Adobe is to beat it at its own game. With the release of Macromedia’s Dreamweaver 3 and Fire- works 3, Macromedia is try- ing to out-Adobe its rival by improving integration with popular Adobe products. When Adobe (800/833- 6687, www.adobe.com) bun- dled its ImageReady 2.0 with Adobe Photoshop 5.5— essentially making the Web image editor free to Photo- shop users—it was a clear challenge to Macromedia, which has focused on Web graphics. With their tight integration and similar inter- faces, ImageReady 2.0 and Photoshop 5.5 are designed to draw users away from Fireworks, a popular Macro- media program that lets you create Web graphics with a combination of vector and bitmap editing tools. Going Native Macro- media’s response is Fireworks 3, which will now edit native Adobe files. You can import Adobe Illustrator and Macro- media FreeHand files with full editability, and you can export | News Fireworks vector graphics as Illustrator files. You can import Adobe Photoshop files with layers and editable effects, and the program now works with third-party Photoshop plug-ins, such as Alien Skin’s Eye Candy. In addition to improving integration with Adobe prod- ucts, Fireworks 3 lets you export SWF files for use in Flash 4, Macromedia’s popu- lar vector animation soft- ware. You can also preview rollovers and gamma differ- ences between Macintosh and Windows displays. Weaving HTML The integration theme carries over to Dreamweaver 3, an upgrade to Macromedia’s HTML authoring program that works with native Fire- works and Flash 4 files. In addition to importing the files directly, you can launch Fire- works or Flash from within Dreamweaver to edit the files. When you quit Fireworks or Flash, the modified graphic gets placed in the Dream- weaver document. In this feature, Macromedia may be anticipating the next version of Adobe GoLive, which will likely boast improved synergy with Adobe's other products, including InDesign, Photoshop, ImageReady, and Illustrator. Other new Dreamweaver 3 features include local and remote file synchronization, the ability to define styles without using Cascading Style Sheets, and the ability to edit tags within the docu- ment window. Dreamweaver 3 and Fire- works 3 are expected to ship by the time you read this. SUZANNE ROADY You can’t put a price on having your own business because now IT’S FREE! Vstore.com GIVES YOU ALL the tools you need to instantly open your own online store, filled with your choice of great products! And we do mean ALL the tools for free: ® Asimple, customizable store-building system ® Over 1 million products for you to sell ® High-speed hosting ® Credit card transaction management ® Customer service support and order tracking No hassle. No overhead. No out-of-pocket. And it only takes 5 minutes. Vstore.com pays substantial commissions on every sale, because they’re your customers. Did we mention it doesn’t cost you a dime? Begin your personal Internet success story today. Go to Vstore.com or call toll-free 1-877-vstore5 (1-877-878-6735). yw vstore.com commerce for everyone Electronics Video Games Sporting Goods Books Movies Music and More TO OPEN YOUR STORE, CLICK HERE: iBook BIG, HEAVY PORTABLE OFFERS LOTS OF STYLE BUT LIMITED SUBSTANCE LTHOUGH APPLE’S NEW CON- sumer portable may be one of the company’s most hotly antici pated products ever, the iBoo! reality falls short of its media- generated hype. It’s not exactly a case of the emperor having no clothes—the iBook is a natty dresser-—but what's under that striking attire leaves something to be desired in terms of s ase of use, and flexibility. The iBook will have some appeal for students willing to work around its limitations, but novices may find their needs better served by one of the new iMacs—or future iBook revisions that address its current drawbacks. ize, e Dressed to Thrill The iBook’s ingenious industrial design, featuring a gently curved clamshell, white translucent plastics, and brightly colored rubber bumpers, makes the portable look small. However, it’s actually larger and heavier than a PowerBook G3, weighing 12 ounces more than Apple’s bronze laptops. Part of the reason for the iBook’s larger dimensions is its ragged construction—the shell and internal case are impact resistant. After a couple weeks of carting it around, we can attest to the portable’s overall solid- ity. However, it did suffer a loose metal shield around the Ethernet port, but only after several dozen cable insertions. Other nice touches include a sturdy handle that folds up from the back and a latchless clamshell that automatically wakes the iBook up when opened. We also like the way Apple designed the iBook’s ind: tor lights. Rather than flashing on and off, the sleep indicator throbs. And the light that rings the power plug glows orange when the battery is charging and green when it’s full. We hope Apple adds these design refine- ments to the next PowerBook. Although the laptop's low-profile key board is about the same size as the bronz PowerBook G3’, our informal iBook jury was split: some found it uncomfortable to type on, while others found its crisp action superior to the PowerBook keyboard’. Our jury agreed that the single speaker sounds tinny and the 12-inch active-matrix screen, while offering a crisp, bright dis- play, seems lost in the iBook’s large frame. The lack of a VGA connection precludes use of external monitors or multimedia pro- jectors. Also missing is a FireWire port, SNe §=Reviews you can trust: Macworld rates only final shipping products, not prototypes. What we review is what you can actually buy. REAL RATINGS OUTSTANDING: $$$$$ VERY Goop: $464 coop: $$¢ FLAWED: $§ UNACCEPTABLE: § 32 January 2000 MACWORLD which would allow connection of video and high-speed storage devices. cameras RAM Makes the iBook When we first booted up the iBook, we were shocked by its poky performance, especially considering that it uses a 300MHz G3 processor. Applications were slow to launch, and when switching between applications, we could see win- dows redraw themselves line by line. ‘Then we found that the test unit, which had the iBook’s standard 32MB of RAM (the lowest RAM allocation in any current Mac model), came preset with an addi- tional 32MB of virtual memory. Virtual memory has long been the bane of por- tables, whose slower, power-frugal hard drives are often asleep when an applic: tion wants something from the drive's virtual-memory partition. Although reducing virtual memory helped speed things up, the performance problems didn’t go away until we added 32MB of physical RAM. The added memory also fixed the iBook’ i tendency to crash, Our advice consider buying this cute and cuddly portable without add-on RAM. (Thanks to the iBook’s pop-up keyboard, RAM is easy to install.) Once we resolved the RAM issues, the iBook’s performance was about what you'd expect (see “iMac to Go eral, performance was a little slower than that of a 333MHz PowerBook G3, The built-in ATI Rage Mobility graphics accelerator and 4MB of video RAM offer fine display performance for standard operations, but the iBook is extremely sluggish when running such demanding 3-D games as MacSoft’s Unreal. The iBook’s 3GB hard drive was also slow, but no slower than many other portable drives. However, the 3GB car ity feels a bit tight compared with the min- imum 4GB in PowerBooks. The iBook has no modular bays, so you can increase stor- age only by adding an external USB drive or by replacing the internal drive. Apple estimates that the iBook can In gen- run for six hours on a single battery charge, but that proved to be optimistic. In three trials using the standard Energy Saver configuration, the iBook ran for an average of four hours before losing power—about half an hour longer than the best time for the PowerBook G3. Four hours on single battery is certainly impressive, but quick battery swapping— iMac to Go? Best results in red. Reference systems in italics, MacBench 5.0 scores are relative to those of a first-generation Power Mac G3/300, which is assigned a score of 1,000 for each test. Processor Apple iBook 300MH2 = 893 Apple iMac 333M —$— a 248 Apple Powerbook 63/33: 958 Loge a bate MACBENCH 5.0 Disk Graphics — 5 7,259 7506 7,426 =a 0 1,435 J Behind Our Tests We tested each system with Mac OS 8.6, 64MB of RAM, a 2MB system disk cache, and virtual memory disabled. —Macworld Lab testing supervised by Jeffy Milstead a viable option with the PowerBook G3— is not possible because you have to unscrew a cover on the iBook’s bottom to switch batteries. Plug and Pray The iBook features a single USB port for connecting keyboards, mice, serial adapt- ers, and other components. However, USB has proved to be unreliable in Apple’s portables; hed peripherals have been known to suddenly cease working, forcing you to unplug the USB connector, wait a few seconds, and plug it back in. Fortu- nately, most USB-hardware developers have updated their drivers to be Power- Book ducing, but not entirely elim- inating, vanishing-peripheral syndrome. We're sorry to report that the iBook to lose USB ras we can deter- mine, USB didn’t cause any. system crashes. However, both test units often Wy the same tendene . although as fi crashed when we attempted to wake them from sleep, a problem that disappeared when we added RAM. Making matters worse, when you use the hardware reset switch to restart the iBook, the system clock resets itself to 1/1/04, 12:01 a.m. Since there are no media bays or PC Card slots, all you can add to an iBook— aside from ernal USB devices—is physical RAM and an AirPort wireles: networking card, which had yet to ship we went to pre: So From a software perspective, using an iBook is exactly like using a Power- Book, involving such cumbersome util- ities as the Location Manager. Using portables is inherently more complex than using desktops, due to unpredict- able communications connections and the need for power management. Yet Apple has done nothing to make these portables easier for novices to use. Macworld's Buying Advice Apple clearly had to make some compro- mises to build a $1,599 portable Mac. Unfortunately, these compromises have produced a laptop that’s big, heavy, and lim- ited in its expansion options. While $1,599 breakthrough price for a Mac portable, the iBook is no PowerBook—and it wasn’t long ago that you could buy an original PowerBook G3 (one of the heavier, fatter ones) for $1,999. If you compare the iBook to an iMac—as Apple suggests—then it really becomes a challenge to defend the price, considering that a $1,299 iMac DV comes with FireWire, a DVD drive, 64MB of RAM, a 10GB hard drive, and an 8MB ATI Rage 128 graphics accelerator. We'd have a much easier time recommending an iBook if it included the 64MB of RAM needed for acceptable performance, The iBook’s industrial design is im- pressive, as are some refinements, such as the latchless case. For students on a tight budget who need a portable, the iBook might fit the bill, although you'll have to add at least 32MB of RAM—for an extra $100 or so—to get a usable configuration. But our guess is that many novices will be happier with the less expensive and more full-featured iMac.—anorew Gore RATING: $69 PROS: Innovative industrial design. CONS: configuration and expansion options; too hard for novices to use; has stability problems with base RAM configuration. COMPANY: Apple Computer (800/795-1000, www.apple.com). COMPANY'S ESTIMATED PRICE: $1,599. ;, heavy; small screen; limited www.macworld.com January 2000 33 | Reviews MetaCreations Painter 6 NATURAL-MEDIA PROGRAM ACHIEVES NEW REALISM HEN YOU NEED A SET OF powerful, versatile painting tools, nothing comes close to MetaCreations Painter. Ver- sion 6 is the program’s most significant upgrade in years, offering important interface changes and a com- pletely rewritten brush engine that pro- vides an extraordinary new level of realism. The Big Squeeze Painter's infamous palette-heavy interface hasn’t become a model of spareness, but MetaCreations has streamlined and con- solidated the program’s vast number of options. It now divides the bulk of con- trols among the Objects, Brush Controls, and Art Materials palettes. Subcategories, stacked atop each other, expand to reveal each palette’s controls. For example, the Lay It On Thick Painter 6's new Impasto tools create thick, vis- cous 3-D ink you can push and smear around the canvas. Brush palette’s 14 subcategories include Size, Spacing, and Angle controls. This may sound complicated, but it’s much bet- ter than in previous versions, which con- tained separate palettes for many options. Other improvements include new Adobe Photoshop-like Layers. Painter has long let you maintain separate ele- ments as floaters but has never made it possible to organize a painting into dis- crete layers. Now you can rearrange, lock, hide, and group layers, as well as open and save layered Photoshop files. Painter's interface still has its cumber- some moments, however. For example, although the Brush Controls palette con- tains most of the controls for configuring 34 January 2000 MACWORLD a brush, a few options are hidden under a menu bar in the Brushes palette. We'd prefer to see them in the main menu bar. Painter doesn’t have a learning curve so much as an experience curve. To really understand and appreciate all the pro- gram offers, you'll need to use it—a lot. Strokes of Genius Painter's defining feature has always been its set of natural-media tools, mimicking real-world media, With the brushes in previous Painter versions, as in most paint programs, you applied dabs of colored pix- els to the online canvas. To get the appear- ance of paint strokes, you put dabs close together. Although this technique looks fine at a glance, it can present problems such as broken lines and repeating pat- terns. Moreover, this method cannot emu- late some real-world effects. Painter 6’s completely re- written brush engine uses new algorithms that eschew paint dabs for real, continuous lines. Although some brushes still use dabs of pixels, many new ones render separate lines for each brush hair. This technique re- duces the artifacts the previous brush method created, and produces smooth, antialiased strokes that rotate to follow the direction of your brush. Real-world painters accus- tomed to loading their brushes with paint (that is, letting their brush absorb colors already on the can- vas) will love the new Brush Loading fea- ture. With it, brushes can create smooth, realistic blends and smears that interact with underlying colors. Of course, such real-time calculations can tax your Mac. Painter 6 did a good job following our paint strokes; however, even our 350MHz Power Mac G3 turned rather sluggish with the large brushes. Ifyou hold Painter's airbrushes in one location, they now continue to deposit paint; if you’re using a tablet, the air- brushes respond more realistically to tilt and bearing. Where previous versions always applied paint in a circle, Painter 6's airbrushes understand that if you tilt your pen to the side, they should apply paint in a cone-shaped fashion with less-even dis- tribution. The effect is incredibly realistic. Painter 6 supports Wacom’s Intuos tablets, and more tools respond to tablet controls. The Image Hose, for example, lets you scale and orient nozzle images through pressure and tilt. Although Painter's brush control and variety are unsurpassed, we would like to see a few additions, such as Photoshop- like brushes for simple retouching and for quickly filling in areas with a solid color. And after six revisions, Painter still won't allow you to use the shift key to restrain your brushstroke to a straight line—a standard Mac convention that has been around since MacPaint. Tools and Tweaks ‘The Dynamic Text feature adds a com- plete text environment to Painter. Along with full scaling, shearing, tracking, and leading, it provides excellent text-on-a- path controls. Interactive Bézier handles bend and curve text easily. The various curvature styles let you choose whether to curve only the baseline or both the base- line and the tops of letters, for example. Automatic drop shadows and blurring are also available. Unfortunately, there’s no Undo in the Dynamic Text feature, nor can you kern individual letter pairs. Perhaps the program’s coolest—and funnest—new feature is the set of Impasto tools, brushes that lay down thick, viscous 3-D ink you can build up, push down, and mush around the canvas. Full specular highlights and visible brushstrokes create a realistic, dynamic image. Macworld's Buying Advice Painter's brushes and tools have always been startlingly realistic, but those in ver- sion 6 make you realize how much real- world functionality the program was missing. Along with the improved inter- face, they make Painter 6 a worthwhile upgrade. New users may find the tool set daunting, but the program’s output is worth the effort.—sen tone RATING: $§$# PROS: Much improved brush controls and brush performance; improved interface. CONS: Overwhelming number of control ; interface still somewhat disorganized. COMPANY: MetaCreations (800/846-0111, www.metacreations.com), LIST PRICE: $399. ; We move the information that moves your world~ GIGGGPIeG o ahead, upgrade to that new G3 without sacrificing the SCSI peripherals you depend on. And in you didn’t know, Adapte I cards support Apple's I Manager and newer I Manager 4.3 devices so you can connect to I significantly outperforms Apple’s previous built-in SCSI, enabling your Jaz, scanner, and other peripherals to operate at peak performance. So if you want to upgrade to a new blue G3 without sa ing anything, get an Adaptec SC card. For more information visit www.adaptec.com/mac. | Reviews Gigabit Ethernet Cards FAST NETWORK CARDS RUN INTO CPU BOTTLENECK OW THAT 100-MBPS DESKTOP Ethernet connections have become commonplace, network adminis- trators are looking for the next sil- ver bullet to improve network per- formance. Gigabit Ethernet, also known as 1000BaseT, running at ten times the speed of 100BaseT, promises to be that sil- ver bullet. Alas, today’s Mac CPUs can’t achieve Gigabit’s full potential. Even on a Power Mac G3, the fastest speed attainable with Gigabit Ethernet is barely twice the speed of 100-Mbps Ethernet. Still, as CPUs gain speed, they'll be able to take advantage of improved network performance. To that end, we checked out three Gigabit Ethernet PCI cards: Asanté Technologies’ AsantéFast 1000 GigaNIC, Farallon’s PN9000-SX, and ‘Team ASA‘ Stallion GE-II. All three products are easy to install: just plug in the card, load the drivers, and reboot. Hooking up the cards’ fiber-optic connections is as simple as with copper Ethernet, but you can run the wires much farther: up to 500 meters. The CPU speed limits Gigabit Ether- net performance because of the proces ing overhead. Standard Ethernet packets are a maximum of 1,500 bytes long, which means a computer must process more than 80,000 packets every second to achieve Gigabit Ethernet’s full through- put. It turns out that a Power Macintosh G3 can process only about a fifth of that, limiting performance to less than 100 Mbps. To circumvent this problem, Giga- bit Ethernet supports larger packets— called jumbo frames—of up to 9,000 bytes each. With these larger frames, theoreti- cally even a G3 Mac can move data at a gigabit per second. Unfortunately, the Mac OS doesn’t yet support jumbo frames, so this capability is largely unus- able. Team ASA bundles a utility that lets Team ASA‘s Stallion GE-II you transfer files using jumbo frames, but you can’t mount volumes or copy files through the Finder, and the program won’t run under Mac OS 8.6. All three products provide perfor- mance-boosting aids, including offloaded TCP/IP checksum generation and full- duplex communication. Asanté supports the Ethernet 802.3 p and 802.3 q quality- of-service standards, especially useful in multimedia networks. Team ASA’s card ships with Mac OS X drivers. On-board diagnostic aids are a big help in troubleshooting network woes. Asanté’s GigaNIC excels here, with six status indicators for power, link, trans- mit, receive, bus type, and flow control. The most common application for Faster, but Not by Much Best results in red. Reference configuration in italics. 4GB File Copy (in Mbps) ‘AsantéFast 1000 GigaNiC 89 Farallon PN9000-SX. “77 Team ASA Stallion GE-11 “91 Built-in 10/100BaseT Ethernet ———e 45 [ongrtarsae better fi Behind Our Tests For detailed information on our tests, see the review online at www.macworld.com/ 2000/01 /reviews/.—Macworld Lab testing supervised by Kevin Mitchell 36 January 2000 MACWORLD H H Gigabit Ethernet is in high-volume serv- ers; a single 1000BaseT card is easier to configure and manage than multiple 100BaseT cards and has the potential for better performance. With that in mind, we tested each card using a mix of client- server file transfers (see “Faster, but Not by Much”). Team ASA had the best show- ing, hitting 91 Mbps, with the Asanté card a close second. The Farallon card was somewhat slower. However, keep in mind that gigabit performance is largely a func- tion of overall system speed. On faster CPUs, you'll see better throughput. Macworld's Buying Advice If your servers are running rough at 100 Mbps, consider upgrading to Gigabit Ethernet. You'll have to invest in a giga- bit-capable Ethernet switch as well, so this won't be inexpensive. Team ASA’s Stallion GE-II card is zippy, and the only one in our roundup that supports OS X, but it suffers from weak documentation and online support. Mac users on a small budget are better off with Farallon’s PN9000-SX; the manufacturer’s excel- lent support more than compensates for the card’s slower speed. The AsantéFast 1000 GigaNIC, while the priciest card, is fast and well designed, and it includes advanced features that may be useful in a multimedia environment.—met seckMaNn AsantéFast 1000 GigaNIC RATING: $$$% PROS: Excellent performance; helpful status lights. CONS: Expensive; no jumbo-frames utility. COMPANY: Asanté Tech- nologies (800/566-6680, www.asante.com). COMPANY'S ESTIMATED PRICE: $1,295. Farallon PN9000-SX RATING: §§§# PROS: Excellent documenta- tion. CONS: Slow performance; minimal status lights; no jumbo-frames utility. COMPANY: Farallon (800/613-4954, www.farallon.com). COMPANY'S ESTIMATED PRICE: $949. Team ASA Stallion GE-II RATING: $$$: PROS: Jumbo-frames utility; OS X driver support. CONS: Weak documen- tation; weak online support. COMPANY: Team ASA (619/279-2316, www.teamasa.com). COM- PANY'S ESTIMATED PRICE: $995. One click puts your business on the Web! Introducing Corel Print Office™ 2000 for Macintosh®—the easy way to give your business widespread exposure. Create professional-looking business material that will set your company apart, then publish it to the Web* with the click of a button! Easily create: « Web sites « Brochures « Business cards + Newsletters « Raffle tickets « Flyers ... and more! & Mac FREE!” Corel® Stock Photos Receive $50 US worth of Corel Stock Photos when you register online* through Corel Print Office 2000 for Macintosh. merit 2S COREL “etanetaceess requie. **You must purchase Corel Prt fice 2000 for Macintosh between Aug. 29 and Now, 1, 1999, and register by Nov. 15, 1999. You cannot register through Cores Web site CCopyight © 1999 Corl Corporation Al ighsrserved. Corl, Coe Print Otic and the Go further ogo ae rademars Frese trademarks of Corel Corporation or Corel Corporation Limited. Macintosh and the Mac logo are rademars or eistered trademark of Apple Computer, nc. Aloe product. fot and company names and logos are tademarks or registered vademark of ther especve companies. Circle 78 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo Go further™ ‘www.corel.com PC Emulators | Reviews VIRTUAL PC AND BLUE LABEL URE, PCS ARE DIRT CHEAP these days, but do you really need another computer? Even if you occasionally—or regularly—use PC applications, PC-emulation software for your Mac can save you from purchasing a beige box or Windows lap- top. Connectix’s Virtual PC 3.0 and Lis- more Software Systems’ Blue Label PowerEmulator 1.5 both run PC software on a Power Mac, but otherwise they are very different pieces of software. Both packages use software and the PowerPC’s processing muscle to create a fake PC, tricking Windows applications into thinking they’re running on a real 80X86 machine. However, the differences between the two packages are stark. You can buy Virtual PC 3.0 in versions that include either DOS only or Windows and DOS. Blue Label forces you to install your own copy of Windows. Virtual PC lets you run PC software inside a Mac window or full screen; Blue Label offers only the lat- ter option. If you’re running under Mac OS 9, Virtual PC lets you use PC USB devices, including those with no Mac driv- ers. Blue Label doesn’t support USB. Virtual PC has numerous functions for sharing data between Mac and PC environments, including shared folders, drag and drop, and—new in this ver- sion—the ability to use AppleScript to launch and interact with PC applica- tions. Blue Label offers only limited POWEREMULATOR Flexible Setup Connectix's Virtual PC 3.0 lets you set up multiple volumes, each running a different OS. provisions for accessing files on Mac hard drives. Blue Label’s configuration interface is also highly modal and nonintuitive. Virtual PC is much more flexible, mak- ing it easy to set up and use multiple independent boot “drives,” each with a different OS or application set. One of our test systems sports four configura- i s 98, Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, and Linux. Indeed, we were able to install and run Red Hat Linux 6.1 out of the box, as well as a beta version of Windows 2000. Virtual PC can also share the Mac’s Internet con- nection, precluding the need for a sepa- rate IP address. Although Virtual PC can run Win- dows NT 4 applications, the software’s Mac-integration features are available Windows on Your Mac Best results in red. Reference system in italics. WINSTONE 99, WINBENCH 99 i ! Business Business Disk Graphics CPUmark99——WinMark 99 WinMark 99 Connectix Virtual PC 3.0 — a - 38 = Bee 1,620.0 Ben 25.2 Lismore Blue Label PowerEmulator 1.5 » NAY 4s Bevvve 446.0 61 Windows PC 150 30. 2550, 908.6 Longe ars re etter. * Not applicable; Blue Label PowerEmulator was unable to simulate the minimum physical RAM required to run the test. cE Epememenneemneenemmeemememmeenmmememmmmmememmemmmesmesmseemeeeeesteeenee eed Behind Our Tests For detailed information on our tests, sée the full review online at www.macworld .com/2000/01 /reviews/,—Macworld Lab testing supervised by Kevin Mitchell 38 January 2000 MACWORLD only for Windows 95 and Windows 98. However, some applications, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0, ran faster under NT than under Windows 98. The bottom line, of course, is perfor- mance, and while neither program com- pares favorably with a real PC (see “Win- dows on Your Mac”), we found Virtual PC’s speed on 350MHz and 400MHz blue Power Mac G3s to be adequate for most applications we tested. The Blue Label software was much more sluggish, and also less stable: we experienced frequent crashes under PowerEmulator and hardly any under Virtual PC. However, neither program does a great job of running graphics- heavy applications, and while both sup- port Voodoo | and 2 graphics-accelera- tor cards, contemporary PC games are so CPU-intensive that we can’t recommend either product for serious gaming. Macworld's Buying Advice Blue Label PowerEmulator 1.5 provides good value, considering its low price, but its lackluster performance, cumbersome user interface, and inferior Macintosh integration make it difficult to recom- mend. Virtual PC 3.0 is a mature and fea- ture-rich product that meets the needs of anyone who wants to run typical PC- based productivity applications. Web developers who need to verify how pages render with various PC browsers and operating systems will especially like Vir- tual PC's flexible configuration options. Users who run PC applications under a single operating system will be equally happy with its improved network inte- gration.—stePHan somocy! Blue Label PowerEmutator 1.5 RATING: $$ PROS: Low cost. CONS: Cum- bersome interface; slow, unstable performance; takes over Mac screen. COMPANY: Lismore Soft- ware Systems (www.lismoresoft.com). DIRECT PRICE: $29.95. Virtual PC 3.0 RATING: $$$@ PROS: Multiple configurations; shares Mac's IP address. CONS: No Windows NT ‘or 2000 integration; slower than a real PC. COM- PANY: Connectix (800/950-5880, www.connectix com), COMPANY'S ESTIMATED PRICE: $179. for Macintosh” Creative Projects wi and Photo Editing ——_— Made Easy COREL Visit Www-corelprinthouse:com)formore information. Orcall 1-800-77-COREL. g Mac ‘www.corel.com Copyright © 1999 Corel Corporation. Alright served. Coe, Corel Pit Howse and te Corel talloon ogo ademas or repistered rademarts of Corel Corporation or Coe Corporation Limited HMachtosh, Mac, Me, Bock andthe Mac log ae Waders or registered trademarks of Apple Compal. Ie A lhe oduct, on and company names and logos are ademas of registred ademanks othe vespectve companies. Circle 124 on card or www.macworld.com/getinfo [ Reviews HP DeskJet 970 HP'S LATEST INK-JET PRINTER TRUMPS THE COMPETITION NTIL RECENTLY, BUYING AN ink-jet printer for the Mac meant checking the Epson catalog for the Stylus Color or Stylus Photo model that would best fit your needs. Hewlett-Packard and other ink-jet manu- facturers had largely abandoned the Mac market, and Epson’s high-quality color output was a good match for graphics- conscious Mac users. Now HP is back, and its latest model, the DeskJet 970, is likely to cause some sleepless nights for the folks at Epson. It’s not the cheapest printer you can buy, but it offers an unbeatable com- bination of speed, versatility, and output quality for an affordable $399. Specsmanship Given the latest advances in ink-jet tech- nology, most printers sold these days offer output quality that would have made jaws drop a few years ago. Nevertheless, this model raises the bar a notch or two, espe- cially considering that it uses four colors as opposed to six in Epson’s Stylus Photo models. If you print on glossy media in HP’s new enhanced photo mode— producing the equivalent of 2,400-by- 1,200-dpi ourput—images rival those you would get back from a photo lab, with crisp detail and vibrant but not oversaturated colors. Yet even when printed at 600 dpi, the images look great. As with most print- ers, however, to get the most accurate color you may need to tweak settings via the built-in color-management software. Although 2,400 by 1,200 dpi yields the best output quality, the DeskJet 970 isn’t too shabby at lower resolutions. Even images printed at 300 dpi on glossy paper looked surprisingly good, although we did notice minor banding in some areas. We were also pleasantly surprised by the printer's plain-paper output, especially at 600 dpi. We saw serious banding when printing photos on plain paper in the 300- dpi draft mode, but text quality, even at the lowest resolution, was excellent. The printer's technical specifications are similar to those of Epson’s Stylus Color 900 (see Reviews, June 1999), and compar- isons between the two models are in- evitable. Each is a four-color printer that’s capable of producing color pages at up to 40 January 2000 MACWORLD 10 ppm (12 ppm for black), and each is ver- satile, able to print text documents and full-color images at a high quality level. However, that impressive 10-ppm perfor- mance spec assumes you'll be printing at a low resolution, 180 or 360 dpi on the Sty- lus Color 900 and 300 dpi on the DeskJet 970. If you want the best-looking photos, you'll have to boost the resolution, and that slows the printing process considerably. ‘This is where the DeskJet 970 stands out. Both printers offer roughly the same output speed at their highest resolution— 2,400 by 1,200 dpi for the HP printer and 1,440 by 720 dpi for the Stylus Color 900—producing a full-page Adobe Photo- shop document in about 10 minutes. How- ever, the DeskJet 970 can match or exceed the Stylus Color 900’s maximum image quality even when printing at 600 dpi, and at this resolution, it took just 5 minutes to produce our Photoshop document on the HP printer. The bottom line is that the DeskJet 970 produces great-looking pho- tos about twice as fast as the Stylus Color 900, and even better-looking photos if you’re willing to wait a little longer, Attention to Detail The DeskJet 970 sports many other nice touches, including a print-cancel button and a low-ink indicator, both on the front panel, as well as a 150-sheet paper tray. It’s the first low-cost ink-jet model to provide automatic two-sided printing (also known as duplexing), although you'll need thick paper to avoid bleed- through when printing images. The DeskJet 970 is also one of the quietest printers we’ve ever tested. HP has largely avoided jumping on the iMac industrial-design bandwagon, but the DeskJet 970’s curved surfaces and elegant dark-gray color scheme certainly break the mold of boxy beige peripherals. The DeskJet 970’s printer software lacks the range of color and layout con- trols you'll find in Epson’s ink-jet print- ers, but it does provide access to all basic print features, including two-sided out- put. In addition to supporting Color- Sync, the printer software offers a simple built-in color-matching function that allows you to adjust saturation, bright- ness, and color tones. ‘The printer features built-in USB and parallel interfaces, but if you use an older Mac with a serial port, you're out of luck; HP has firmly com- mitted to USB as the interface of choice for the Mac. HP offers AppleTalk and Ethernet connectivity through the op- tional $259 JetDirect 300X External Print Server. At pres- ent, HP doesn’t offer a Post- Script option, but it’s likely that other companies will offer soft- ware that converts the DeskJet 970 into a PostScript printer. Macworld's Buying Advice After years of ceding the Macintosh ink-jet market to Epson, HP has roared back with a printer that sets new standards for quality and performance. Some users may find its speed makes it a suitable replace- ment for a color or monochrome laser printer, although you will pay more for ink-jet consumables. If you have an older Mac without USB, or if $400 is beyond your budget, consider one of Epson’s cur- rent models. But if you’re seeking a $400 ink-jet printer that works with USB- equipped Macs, this one’s a no-brainer: Buy the DeskJet 970.—stepnen eeace RATING: $$$$% PROS: Fast; quiet; versatile; prints great-looking text and images; has auto- matic duplexing mode. CONS: No serial port. COMPANY: Hewlett-Packard (800/552-8500, www.hp.com). COMPANY'S ESTIMATED PRICE: $399, | Reviews Meeting Maker 6 ACCESS YOUR CALENDAR EVERYWHERE—AT A PRICE ITH NETWORKED OFFICES becoming the norm these days, groupware applications, such as multiuser calendaring, have turned into big business. Unfortunately, market leaders Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange have left Mac clients out