MacWorld0104April2001

TAKE C0 OF YOUR Arm Yourself with This Year’s Best Mac Tax Software, page 78 acWOl CAN'T BEAT P THIS PRICE Use Your Mac to Plunder the Web for Freebies Great Software Useful Services Nifty Samples Excellent Advice REVIEWED New Power Mac G4s We Test 466MHz and 533MHz Macs Dreamweaver 4 Fireworks 4 Studio Macromedia Updates Web-Design Duo Big Monitors We Compare 9 Displays Font Reserve Server Teach Your Type to Behave Great InkJet COLOR Make Your Prints Look Right Every Time with Photoshop 6 Presenting the new Power Mac’ G4 —the first personal computer that creates custom DVDs playable in ordinary DVD players. This unprecedented feat is made possible by two Apple breakthroughs: the aptly named SuperDrive; an industry-first DVD-R+CD-RW drive that burns both DVDs and CDs. Plus iDVD; Apple’ revolutionary new software that lets you create DVD titles so simply it’s, well, revolutionary. Together with iMovie’ or Final Cut Pro’ (sold separately), you've got your own Hollywood production company, And to burn your own soundtrack CDs, there's Apple's new iTunes’— the world’s most advanced yet easiest-to- use digital music software. Of course, there are other significant changes on the Power Mac G4 to help you take advantage of this amazing technology. Like an NVIDIA GeForce2 graphics card} a dramatically faster system bus, five slots (one super-fast AGP 4x graphics and four high-performance PCI slots), built-in Gigabit Ethernet, plus AirPort;”' FireWire and USB ports. All this is combined with a phenomenally powerful G4 processor. With sustained speeds of up to 55 gigaflops (performing up to 57% faster than the new Pentium 4’), the new Power Mac G4 has more than enough power to burn CDs, DVDs and — oh, yeah — Pentiums. For more information, call 1-800-MY-APPLE or visit www.apple.com. to burn. Spin your own music: iTunes lets you create a digital music library right on your Mac: Rip audio CDs, create playlists of your favorite songs, copy them into your portable MP3 player — even burn your own custom CDs. And with iTunes’ amazingly easy-to-use interface, you can do it all without asking a teenager to show you how Your movies: Now on DVD. Apple's revolutionary SuperDrive and iDVD software {et you create and burn your own custom DVDs that play in ordinary DVD players. Simply assemble your content from iMovie, Final Cut Pro or any QuickTime’ source. Choose your own menu style, then click “Burn DVD” For even more fiull- featured, professional DVDs, use Apple’s DVD Studio Pro™ software (sold separately). material or materials theese egal Shas on Pbolosep lest on avaiable “DAD: confer Disturb the peace. Tranauility is highly overrated. Earsplitting high SoundSticks speaker system, is most definitely not. For more seismic details H a Harman international Company. ©2000 Harman Multimedia. Harman Kardon and SoundSticks are trademarks of Harman International Toll-free 877-266-6204 fidelity sound, like the kind you'll get from our new 40-watt, USB-enabled check out www.harman-multimedia.com. harman/kardon Circle 3 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo Opinion 11 The Vision Thing ANDREW GORE Novice users will lead the way to Mac OS X. 19 Feedback Readers respond. 89 The Game Room ANDY IHNATKO Some down- loadable games are just as good as the ones in shrink- wrapped packages. 144 The Desktop Critic DAVID POGUE Macworld's longtime columnist opens his secret notebook and bids us farewell Buzz 22 Sir Chris Bonington, Eudora 5.0’s MoodWatch feature, building a completely wireless Mac, and StraightDope.com. How-to 46 Show Your True Colors 52 Transform Tables in QuarkXPress DAVID BLATNER Customize XPress's Dashes & Stripes feature to put a pretty face on your table data. 56 BBEdit 6.0 Shortcuts JASON SNELL Cut down on repetitious coding tasks by turning them into Glossary items 60 Make Labels Effortlessly ROBERT CORREL Why slave over party invitations when Microsoft Office 2001 can do the hard work for you? 63 Mac 911 CHRISTOPHER BREEN Read the truth about USB, how to exorcise demons from your Mac, and other tips. My April 2001 www.macworld.com Incorporating MacUser The Great Giveaway CHRISTOPHER BREEN Using this comprehensive listing of swag, loot, and assorted free goodies on the Web, you and your Mac can satisfy your inner cheapskate. Find it all here, from free software and samples to frequent flier miles. 32 On the Cover Photograph by Stephen Sugg Quicken versus the Web JAMES BRADBURY In April, most Mac users’ minds turn to matters of money. finance tools proliferate on the Web, is buying Quicken still necessary? Buzz With all the great wireless add-ons for your Mac, the only cable you may need is the one you plug into an electrical outlet. 22 Now that personal- 40 Show Your True Colors BRUCE FRASER Don't know why the colors on your monitor don’t match your ink-jet printer's output? Learn how to resolve the differences with Adobe Photoshop 6 and our expert advice. 4G Macworld.com Get online-exclusive reviews and the latest news, and discuss them in our brand-new Macworld.com forums. Reviews 66 Web authoring and graphics software $6664. Dreamweaver 4 Fireworks 4 Studio $88%12 Dreamweaver 4 $896 Fireworks 4 70 Professional systems #988 Power Mac G4 466MHz $886 Power Mac G4 533MHz 72 Professional monitors $88 CTX Pro PureFlat PR1400F $¥¥% Eizo Nanao FlexScan F980 $8 jiyama Vision Master Pro 510 $¥4 LaCie electron22blve II $847 NEC MultiSync FP1350x $89% Philips Brilliance 201P $8642 Princeton EO 2005 #88 Sony Multiscon G520 $¥¥% ViewSonic P220f 74 Font-management utility $868 Font Reserve Server 77 Data-recovery utility $862 Rewind 1.1 78 Tax-preparation software $8884 Kiplinger ToxCut Home ond Business $888 Quicken TurboTax Home and Business 80 Project-management software $446 FastTrack Schedule 7.0 82 DNS server $8962 QuickDNS Pro 3.0 83 VR-production tool $8942 VR Worx 2.0 84 Photoshop-to-Web conversion tool $494 PhotoWebber 1.0 85 Software-updating utility $82 Update Agent 8.1 85 DJ software $888 GrooveMaker 2.0 86 Game $886 Links LS 2000 86 Reference software $88 Explore Parliament 86 More reviews online Macworld.com Reviews —_ oe SHE CLICKED WHICH SENT THE IMAGE & MHAT PRINTED WITH SUCH DEPTH AND CLARITY 7 THAT IT EXQUISITELY CAPTURED EVERY SINGLE SLIMY DETAIL. = oy _ e A . ? @ ae - >. » Sco Xerox Phaser* 790 Tabloid Color Laser $6199" XEROX PRINTERS MAKE IT HAPPEN. Photographic-quality color so realistic, it’s startling. Introducing the Xerox Phaser® 790 Tabloid Color Laser printer, the next generation in the award-winning Tektronix Phaser line. Built specifically for graphic designers, it has advanced color management tools and a broad range of colors for flawless continuous tones. Add auto duplexing, full color printing at 6 ppm, and paper handling up to 13 x 18, and you've got a printer as spectacular as its output. Xerox now has a full line of color and black and white printers for whatever your work demands. To see what a difference realistic color can make, call 1-877-362-6567 ext. 1788 or visit us at www.xerox.com/officeprinting/frog1788 THE DSCUMENT CoMPANY XEROX XEROX NETWORK PRINTERS epg © 2001 XEROX CORPORATION. Aces Je, he Dosnet Cony” Pate raemats XEROX CORPORATION Telos eaamat Teor leeds XEROX CORPORATION. “EssrancUUS rel seg pce ese rc yr m With ordinary printers, you see the trees. With our printers, you see the bonsai trees. YOU'VE GOT TO SEE IT IN The ladybugs are the clue. See all six? Of course you do. And once you have, you realize what you thought were giant trees are actually small bonsai. Thanks to a tiny detail, the whole picture changes. It's just one example of the extraordinary image quality you get from an Epson printer. With 2880 dpi, there's no color or nuance so subtle it goes unnoticed. And just as you see here, it's those quiet little things that often speak the loudest. Only Epson color ink jet printers have: 2880 x 720 dpi * Micro Piezo technology, for a cleaner, smaller droplet — as small as 3 picoliters + Fast print speeds — up to 13 PPM black/ 105 PPM color (with the Epson SC 980) * Quick-drying inks * PC/Mac/USB compatibility. And remember, only Epson supplies guarantee Epson quality. For more info, call -800-GO-EPSON or visit www.epson.com Epson Stylus Color Ink Jet Printers. Sheer brilliance starting at $99. COLOR / , www.nemetschek.net 1-888-646-4223 VectorWorks Object-Based CAD for Professionals a= Design is ever changing, dynamic. From initial concept, through production and revisions, the entire process becomes faster and easier with Vector Works. Productivity of Object-Based Design VectorWorks’ next-generation Object technology accelerates the design process. Now, creating common design elements is effortless. Objects such as doors, windows, nuts and bolts can be created and edited with a simplesmouse click. Strength and Proven CAD Technology ‘The Best Selling CAD software on the Mac and, an emerging standard on Windows, VectorWorks provides everything you need for 2D drafting and 3D modeling. But, that’s not all. An integrated database tracks costs and materials, and built-in presentation capabilities can literally help you sell the job. The VectorWorks Advantage With VectorWorks you get it all~The productivity of Object-Based Design combined with the flexibility and control of proven CAD technology. Giving you an extra edge, VectorWorks ships FREE solutions for Architecture, Landscape, DTM, Theatre Lighting and Mechanical Engineering among others. And, VectorWorks’ built-in scripting environment makes creating custom solutions, and automating routine tasks easy. No other CAD program offers so much for so little! Add-on Products Expand VectorWorks Core Capabilities “> RenderWorks—Bring you designs and animations to life with realistic 2G textures and dramatic lighting and shadowing effects. Integrate Design, Production and Project Management into a system delivering unparalleled productivity. rN WEMETSCHER NORTH AMERICA yi VectorWorks ARCHITECT-The ultimate in architectural CAD. Circle 46 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo e in the computer indus- try like to plan for the future by consulting the history books—not only because history is des- tined to repeat itself, but also because it will undoubtedly do so with clockwork precision. For example, we all agree that this year's transition to Mac OS X will be as big a change as Apple has ever seen. But which previous transi- tion will the conversion to Mac OS X most resemble? Some liken it to Apple's move from Motorola's 680X0 processor family to the PowerPC chip, because there will be software inside OS X that will allow your old software to continue to run (albeit at significantly lower performance lev- els than new “native” applications). Others compare the change to the one that happened between the Apple II and the Mac, because in fact we're talking about a fundamen- tal change in both the operating sys- tem and user experience (although in this case, the hardware isn't changing, just the software). l agree with the adage that those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet when it comes to Mac OS X, I find all of these historical examples lacking. I believe firmly that this transition will not be driven initially by the professionals, the experts, or even necessarily by hard- core Mac users. No, I believe that novices will initially drive the adop- tion of a modern Mac OS. The Meek Shall Inherit the Mac Since I'm discussing different classes of users, | should probably get my definitions straight up front. When I say “novices,” I refer to users who are likely struggling with the idiosyncrasies of an antiquated OS. Mac OS, for all its vaunted ease of use, is hard for first-time com- puter users to understand. It's also hard to diagnose and repair when it crashes, which it does an inordinate amount of the time. ANDREW GORE lest Cases IN THE TRANSITION TO Mac OS X, Novices WILL LEAD THE WAY continues I spend an enormous amount of time on the phone helping friends through their Mac travails. For example, there's the one who has been using a Mac since the mid-]980s but doesn't have time to stay current on the latest ways to get his PowerBook off its knees. And there's the one who had never touched a computer before I put an iMac in her living room: she still has trouble getting her head around the idea that computing is not a linear experience. lI once spent two hours on the phone helping the latter friend click and drag. The conversation went like this: Me: Jenny, put the pointer so it's over the icon. OK? Jenny: OK. Me: Now, click and hold the mouse button down. Jenny: OK. Me: Did the icon tum black? Jenny: Yes. Me: OK. Now, don't let up on the mouse button, and move Buiy] uois the mouse. Jenny: OK. Me: Did the icon move? Jenny: No. Ah, the joys of phone support. To this day, I don't know if the prob- lem was with her Mac or our com- munication. She's a smart person, 86 I'm leaning toward the Mac. Certainly, this wouldn't be the first time I've seen a Mac do something bizarre at the hands of a novice. Expert users don't experience these kinds of problems. Why? Because, by definition, expert users have invested a tremendous amount of time figuring out how to get around (or even take advantage of) Mac OS's more neurotic behavior. Expert users are going to be the last people to risk the unexplored wildemess of a new OS. They've got too big an investment in processes, workflows, troubleshooting, www.macworld.com April 2001 11 out ISIA 2) t Buiy] u scripts, applications, and that spe- cial intuition that comes only from a decade of being in their studies at 3:00 a.m. and getting a cascad- ing Type 3 error message that brings their entire project down. It's moments like these that make very clear how truly alone we Mac users are in the world, and that truly test our ingenuity and fortitude. Yes, experts will go to Mac OS X—but only when they judge that leaving behind the frustrations of the devil they know is worth the risks of the devil they don't know, And those who do try out Mac OS X will proba- bly do it on a second hard drive so that they can always retum to Mac OS 9.1 when the going gets rough. Three Easy Pieces ‘You can distill it down to this: Novice users have nothing to lose. They also generally stick with what- ever operating system comes on their hard drive—and pretty soon Mac OS X will be on the hard drives of all new Mac systems. You can easily see how new users will be the first large section of the Mac community to deal with Mac OS X on a large scale. This will be a good thing for three reasons. First, as I said previously, novice users are the least-equipped to deal with a computer that crashes a lot. Therefore, they are the ones likeliest to benefit from a more stable, mod- em operating system, Mac OS X doesn't crash as much, and in the rare event that an application does crash, it doesn't go tearing through the rest of the OS like a crazed weasel locked in a china cabinet. That means fewer crashes and fewer two-hour conversations on the Zen of Clicking and Dragging. Second, the whole Finder-desk- top metaphor is baffling to new 12 April 2001 www.macworld.com users. An interface that they seem to understand almost immediately is the browser. Mac OS X's file browser should be a boon to beginners, and it's certainly better thought-out than the Windows Web-browser interface. Third, there's Cocoa, Mac OS X's framework-based development environment. Cocoa shaves hun- dreds of hours off of the effort required to take applications from one platform to another. Case in point: Developing the Mac OS X version of Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force took weeks, versus months for the Mac OS 9 version. The only difference was the use of Cocoa on Mac OS X. Cocoa looks to be a major boon for game developers wanting to offer their PC games on Mac OS X. And a slew of Mac OS X-only games, combined with other advantages of a modern OS for gaming, should drive enthusiasts and home users over to OS X rather quickly. In the end, we're all going to be using OS X, unless we're planning on abandoning the Mac platform altogether. But whether the transi- tion to the OS X goes quickly and relatively painlessly will depend on how easy Apple and the rest of the Mac community make it for novices and enthusiasts to jump aboard. A protracted transition will be good for no one. There's no way to tell just how everything will turn out, but one way or another, the Mac OS X transition is definitely history in the making.m ANDREW GORE is Macworld’s editor in chief. To comment on this column and interact with Gore, visit Macworld.com and type Vision Thing in the Find It Fast search box. Macworld VP OF CONTENT/EDITOR IN CHIEF Andrew Gore ECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE VP OF CONTENT. Shane Clork ITOK, MACWORID.COM Jaxon Snell exxcunve fo1roR Scholle Sawyer McFarland SenioR rorT0R, BUZZ AND EWS Philip Michaels seH08 DITOR, HOW-TO. Tor Stone stor worons, eeviews. Linda Comer, David Woiss stwioR f1TOR, MACWORLD.COM Lito Schmeisar associate ebiToRs Lotus Abroms, Jennifer Borger, Mothew Honan, Kelly Lunsford, Jonathan Seff assistant TORS Brett Larson, Adrienne Robillard prromiaL assistant Bonnie Hule CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Henry Bortman, Christopher Breen, Adam C. Engst, Bruce Fraser, Jim Heid, Ted Landou, Deke McClellond, Tom Negrino, Nancy Peterson, David Pogue, Stephon Somogyi, Franklin N, Tessler Lap DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT EVALUATION Kristina De Nike ‘rest manacer Jomes Golbroith stato Lan ANALYST Jefly K, Milsteod tan anawrst Gil Loyola ASSOCIATE TECHNICAL ANALYSTS. Ulyssis Bravo, Joson Cox copy epir manacine eoiton Jennifer Werner ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR Charles Purdy corr spiroRs Dione Allis, Sue Voelke! ART AND DESIGN ESION piREcToR Shoron Anderson ‘ant ointcron Marlene Sezni ASSOCIATE OESIONER Jockle Goodman DisION AssocIATES Amy Conger, Alisso Moch PREPRESS CONSULTANT Stephon Sugg contmsutne pxsiowex Jennifer Staole MACBUY.COM ASSISTANT PRODUCER CoJhy Begien INTERNATIONAL EDITORS Steven Noble, Austtalio; Bernard Le Du, Frances Andraot Borchert, Germanys Enrico Let aly; Yorhio Moriya, Jopan; Tomott Bitner, Poland; Doniel de Blas, Spain; Nils Holmley, Sweden; Anderton Huang, Toiwan: Bohattin Apak; Turkeys Simon Jory. United Kingdom PRINT 32 million colors on demand. COPY STORE rican a\cOn 4-300°° When it comes to dependable color output, depend on FAX DEPENDABLE DIGITAL” color printing. The Aficio Color® 6000 series delivers unsurpassed Ricoh color with sizes up to 13x19 and stock up to 140 Ib. index. Were in your corner. al G 0) [nl : Image Communication Think this is the only way to make project scheduling easy? |) vecre toh AL Schedule scree 50 maybe scheduling a project isi simple as pushing a button or turning a knob. But it's also not rocket science hen you use the right tool. FastTrack Schedule 7.0 m it easy to organize, track, and manage all your project details. In minutes, project plans come to life in rich colorful schedules that are sure to turn heads and get result: long project, FastTrack Schedule's thr tinct views display your information the way you want-as a schedule endar, or as a resource graph s the people, equip: ment, and materials essential to project success, And with our new compatible Palm OS version of FastTrack Schedule, you can between your desktop and handhel you're on the go, you're schedul right at your fingertips for editing. For a free demo version or to orde us today at 800.450.1982 or visit www.aecsoft.com. Easily the best in Project Scheduling! Circle 84 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo 14 April 2001. www.macworld.com PREsiDeNt AND ¢#0 Colin Crawford vo/enier ovtratine orricsn Stephen Doniels inecroR oF FINANCE. Eos de Feminis ACCOUNTING cooRDINATOR. Rondo Bitiner a1LuNo maNAoER Ricordo Sandoval ‘Por NUMAN REsouURcES. Sue Murphy ‘muman nesounce MaNaoER Su-Tsen Wo ‘mie INFORMATION OFFIcER_ Lynn Heiberger NETWORK SERVICES MANAOER Seon Greathouse ELF DESK MANAGER Jim Uomini Jennifer Torres Jose “Peps” Jora uctrtiontst Chery! Richardson ‘orice assistant Marvello Simpson DISPLAY ADVERTISING SALES Wr ov saues;unuisnee Stove Plevn (415/243-3509) AssociarePusushen east Cyothio Romsey (973/243-1197) sais ausinss manaote Gobriele Lindsley (415/243-3578) sauts & mancrrne coonomAton Kasey MocMullen (615/243-3642) NATIONAL ACCOUNTS MANAGER_ Pou! 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Joe Roffetto MARKETING COORDINATOR Bryon Irwin PRODUCTION PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Steve Spingolo prepatss MaNace® Alon Anzolone ‘AD CooRDINATOR Megan Matteoni ONLINE sewion TecHNOLOGY DIRECTOR Poul Forrester, semion wee pRopucER Christine Gonzales ‘ONLINE PRODUCTION MANAGER Ron Neol weemaster Michoel R. Evons Mocni ine pubzaton of Moc Pubting, LLC. Moc ion independent jue ra not ted wih Apple Compu, re Macworld MacUser, MocHetk, Macworld Interact, Macworld Shopper MW, MW Lab, MW Shoppe, The Desop Cite, Expert Grophice Quick Tip, Str Rong, Bre Tol, Seewine Shoppe, ond Contpcvous demas of Moc ubliahng, LLC. Apple the Ape 092, 3 Maceo nd PowerBook are trodemoss of ple Compe, ne. Pte inthe United Stes ol Ararico,Copygh 2001 Moc Pobhing, LLC Al ight reserve, DESIGNED FOR THE WAY YOU WORK My SmartDisk’s NEW yoy, hand VST Portable FireWire™ CD-R/W goes anywhere you go You don't even need an AC adapter because it's powered by your computer's FireWire bus. The VST FireWire CD-R/W is perfect for storing and sharing all the things you love: music, photos, movies, and much more. Whatever your pas- sion, SmartDisk has the solutions you need to get there -- fast. With SmartDisk's award- winning VST line of prod- ucts, you've got the reliability and speed to do what you want, where you want. So burn on over to www.smartdisk.com and see more products that simplify your digital lifestyle. Ultra-Thin FireWire™ and FireWire/USB Full Height FireWire™ Hard Hard Drives Drives and Zip*250 Drives SMART Sisk. VST FreRAID™ software Simplifying The Digital Lifestyle Circle 74 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo 16 April 2001 www.maecworld.com Macworld HOW TO CONTACT MACWORLD Subscription Information and Services Phone 800/288-6848 or 850/682-7624, rom the United States cond Coneda 303/604-7445, from all ther locations US. Mail ‘Macworld Subscription Services PO, Box $4529, Boulder, CO 80322-4529 (Include a mailing label wih correspondence.) 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We are unfortunately unable 10 look up sk lems by phone, e-mil, oF fox. Contact Apple toll-lree at 800/538- 9696, ext. 500, for information on user groups in your area. ‘Our offices ore located ot 301 Howard St, 16th F., San Francisco, CA 94105; phone, 418/243-0508; fox, 415/442-0766, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Direc all comments ond suggestions regording any espec ofthe mogorine to leters@mocworl.com. Due to ‘the high volume of mail received, we con't respond personally o each leter. We reserve the right to edt oll submissions. Al letters published in ‘Macworld or Macworld.com become the property of Mac Publishing, MAC 911 Send your questions or tips on how fo use Mac computers, peripherals, or software to Macworld, Mac 911, 301 Howord Street, 16th Floor, Son Froncsea, CA 94105; fax 415/442-0766; or e-mail mec¥1 1@mocword.com. Please include your nome, address, and tle- phone number. To share fips and discuss Moe problems with other Moc users, Vist the Mc 911 Forum (wirw.macword.com/subjact/mac?11). MAcwoRLD EXPO As the flogthip spontor of Macworld Conference ond Expo, Mocworld encourages cll subscribers to ottend this exiting biannval industry event. For more information abou! regis: tration, exhibitor lists, conference schedules, dates, and much more, please vist ww mocworldexpo.com. ‘Vera APC introduces the best protection available for your Mac. 8 million computer users can't be wrong f about APC power protection Z Don't let a lightning storm destroy your Mac system in the blink of an eye. Your hard drive, modem and RAM are all at risk, not to mention peripherals like your zip drive, scanner, monitor and printer. Rely on an APC Back-UPS Pro® to save your invest- ments from high voltage surges. 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All entrants will also receive an “Are You at Risk” Kit. (See APC’s Web site for complete promotion details) Enter now: Visit http://promo.apc.com Key Code y480z - Call 888-289-APCC x4021 - Fax 401-788-2797 (©2001 Ametican Power Conversion. All Trademarks are the property of their owners. APCIDQEF-USe * PowerFax< (B00}347-FAXX + E-mel: apcinfo@apcc.com * 132 Fairgrounds Rd., West Kingston, Rl 02892 USA Circle 73 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo Go Ahead. Host Your Web Site With Another Company. Its Your Money. Making Money On The Web Begins By Not Wasting Money On The Web. Unless you’ve got money to burn, Interland is the way to go. Our complete solutions include everything from shared hosting to dedicated and high-availability hosting to Web site design, all at an unbeatable value. That's why we're rated #1 by PC Magazine and Windows NT Magazine. So whether you’re already on the Web or ready to get started, call us to learn how we can make the Web work for you today, and grow with you well into the future. The Interland Standard ™ Unconditional 30-day, money-back guarantee — = E-mail accounts for your Web site = 150 MB starting at $19.95 he = 24/7 toll-free support ‘ = 99.9% uptime Call Today Toll rreo 877.472.7189 www. interland.com NASDAQ: ILND @ We make the Web work for you> [ace December 1, 1999 September, 1999 > © Copyright 2000 Interlandl, Ine. All rights reserved. Circle 11 on card or go to www.macworl APRIL 2001 Feedback OFFICE 2001 sECHETS All Apologies Tom Negrino sounds more like an apologist for Microsoft than someone giving an accurate assess- ment of Office 2001 ("Get It Together,” January 2001). Therefore, here are a few items your readers should consider before paying tribute to the Borg. When you install Office 2001, Microsoft dumps a load of its junk fonts into your Fonts folder. Does any- one really use Tahoma, Verdana, or Webdings? Then there's the vaunted project gallery. Who cares? This was the first thing I tumed off after remov- ing the junk fonts. Mr, Negrino seems to think that compatibility with Office 97 and Office 98 cross-platform applications is something to rave about. Quite frankly, these are table stakes. And while we're on the subject of com- patibility, it should be pointed out that Entourage is not compatible with Outlook Exchange Server. Quite simply, if you're using Out- look in a corporate environment, you're out of luck. William Schmidt Raleigh, North Carolina our review of Microsoft Office Y 2000 failed to note a serious drawback of the program for people who use handhelds: the conduits included in Microsoft's Value Pak are inadequate. The Entourage categories don't transfer between Entourage and handhelds. Categories created on a Palm device seem to multiply in Entourage every time you sync. There is no e-mail conduit, leaving myriad handheld users unable to transfer mail to and from Entourage. Further, the newsgroups are showing multiple instances of people having difficulty with crashes as they try to sync. Microsoft's tech support is not very knowledgeable or help- ful about this particular aspect of Entourage, and the company is not supporting handheld problems in Entourage. Stuart Scadron-Wattles Kitchener, Ontario, Canada Scrabbled hristopher Breen's review C of MacSoft's Scrabble ("The Maeworld 2000 Game Hall of Fame,” January 2001) fails to men- tion two very irritating features. The game has a pointless one- minute start-up video, and the disc must be in the CD-ROM drive before you can play the game. This means | cannot play it in planes without carting along my CD-ROM drive. Sharon Muir Rochester Hills, Michigan Lego of My Wallet! reg Knauss suggests that Mac users should purchase educational Mindstorms kits from Pitsco Lego Dacta ("Legos, Will Robinson! Legos!” Buzz, January 2001)—but if they did, they'd be laying out more cash than necessary. Mac-using Lego fans have been presented with a couple of roadblocks to Mindstorms heaven. First, Lego does not offer a Mac version of the programming soft- ware included with the Robotics continues www.maeworld.com April 2001 19 Invention System. Second, the cable included is a standard PC 9-pin serial of an unusual design that stymies attempts to use an adapter dongle with the IR tower used to communicate with the Mindstorms RCX (the “CPU" of the Mindstorms Robotics Invention System). There is, however, a “trés geek" solution: downloading Dave Baum's incredible MacNOQC (www.enteract.com/~dbaum) and learning to program the RCX using a C-like language (NQC stands for “Not Quite C"). This solution would require only the purchase of a Macintosh USB- serial cable. Brian Johnson Portland, Oregon Hard Jive oseph Schorr's article about adding a second ATA hard drive (“Starving for Storage,” How-to, January 2001) to first- generation G3s and G4s was very insightful, easy to under- stand, and alas, a complete let- down. After reading his simplistic instructions on how to go about adding a second drive, | instantly shopped for the best price on a The Feedbag Many readers were confused about Maeworld's dueling January covers. But reader Vince Campise caught on to our little scam: “Do | have some rare copy of Macworld that will be worth millions, like the ‘Revenge of the Jedi’ movie posters printed several months before Return of the Jedi was released?” Exactly. Here’s what to look for: If your January issue’s cover image is a gigantic fly or a rusted lock, your issue is worth approximately $8. But if you've got a copy of Macworld with a cover depicting a locked-up Bill Gates being devoured by a gigantic fly, then you've got a veritable gold mine on your hands! Reader Katy Huan also wanted to know what in the world led us to put out two covers. Was it “Personal preference? Fly exploitation?” No, Katy, it was actually just a sly shout- out to our main man, actor and Apple pitchmeister Jeff Goldblum. But then again, maybe we shouldn't be in the shout-out business in the first place. Cecily Wood thinks we’re trying too hard to be hip, informing us that “in general, the only adults who can achieve teen-speak are high- school and college teachers whose daily encounters with a large number of teens have an osmotic effect.” Word, Cecily. You da bomb. Speaking of bombs, Scott H. considered our “The Naked Sim City” piece (Buzz, January 2001) to be one, mostly because we failed to provide links to the patches mentioned in the article. (Try looking in Google.com’s Sims category.) “I have been looking specifically for the Nude patch,” says Scott, “which is something they should have built into the game itself.” Oh, to be a fly on the wall at Scott's house—or a rusty lock, for that matter. 20 April 2001 www.maeworld.com 40GB ATA drive. Upon its arrival, I opened the box and placed this gorgeous gigabyte bank next to my first-generation G3, careful not to cover up Schorr's “how could you possibly screw this up” article spread out on the floor next to me. What to my blundering eyes did not appear, but a drive bay able to accommodate a secondary ATA drive. And that wasn't all: the com- puter itself does not even accommo- date dual ATA drives! All it would have taken was a simple “First, check to see if your first-generation G3 has a mounting bracket for dual ATA drives. If not, you'll need to go to a secondary SCSI drive.” Jeff Calbom Phoenix, Arizona We stated that the configuration shown was present in most Power Mac G3s and Gs, not all of them—a fact several readers clis- covered the hard way. Apple manufactured these Power Macs with a number of differ- ent configurations. The first step in a project such as this should always be confirming that your Mac's configuration matches the one in the instructions.—Joseph Schorr Letters should be sent to Letters, Macworld, 301 Howard St., 16th Fl., San Francisco, CA 94108; via fax, 415/442-0766; or electronically, to letters@ 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 let- ter, We reserve the right to edit all letters, All pub- lished letters become the property of Macworld. ‘MacSoft (The Game Room, January 2001) is on independent company. The LCD screen of the Canon ZR10 (“DV ‘Comcorders,” Reviews, January 2001) meos- ures 2.5 inches. Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000 (Reviews, January 2001) requires validation via the Internet only once. ML The Simple Way to Access PC Networks woo ec08S WindowS * Networks from-your Mac i $ revolutionizes Mac-PC networking by enabling Power Mac users to connect to PC networks and printers from within the familiar Mac interface. DoubleTalk sets up quickly and easily in the Mac environment. It automatically configures its network settings, then lets you access network resources and services through the Chooser or Network Browser. DoubleTalk works automatically and transparently in the background, requiring little or no user intervention. Access file servers, transfer files from shared Windows workstations, print to networked Windows Postscript printers, and create a peer-to-peer network with Macs and PCs with little or no help from your IT department. Purchase Connectix DoubleTalk online from the Connectix eStore or from your favorite software retailer. For more information, go to www.connectix.com. ‘© Copyright Connectix Corporation. Connectix and Connectix Double Talk are trademarks of Connectix Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective holders. Us Connectix Circle 106 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo News, Views, and Chatter from the World of Macs 22 April 2001 www.maeworld.com ACCESS Sleek and self-contained, the iMac is very nearly the perfect Internet computer—62 percent of new users go online the day they set up the machine. But if they head for some sites, those new users might find the Internet a rather inhospitable place. One problem is apparent to the naked eye—some Web sites render differently depending on the OS used. Outside magazine's Web site (www .outsidemag.com), for example, has sharper-looking fonts when viewed on Win- dows browsers. And at some citysearch.com sites, text may appear in the wrong place on a Mac. Still. design problems are increas- ingly rare. Credit Netscape 6 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 5, says David Kerns, a former editorial designer at nashville.citysearch.com and the current creative director at Denmark's Metropol. “We develop for Mac and Windows boxes with the same end product and level of quality in mind” Kerns says. “We couldn't have done that three years ago, it was simply too expensive” But although designers are trying to accommodate the Mac, the same can't always be said for developers of Web-based applications. Some dot-coms that offer services over the Internet feature little or no pers Info: www.macworld.com/ MACS FREE YOU UP to surf the Web. So why do some Web sites seem to be holding Mac users back? DENIED? Mac support. Take Web storage sites such as Xdrive.com and FreeDrive .com, which provide free online stor- age but don't produce Mac versions of their desktop plug-in software. Livejam.com lets musicians from all around the world come together to play instruments—unless they're trying to log in from a Mac. But the worst slights come from Mac developers who give the plat- form short shrift online. The Palm executive team, for example, has more years of combined experience at Apple than at Palm, but the com- pany limits Palm.net downloads to a Windows-only format. Intuit is a major Mac developer whose chairman, Bill Campbell, sits on Apple's board of directors—but Intuit's QuickBooks .com site won't work on a Mac and probably never will. As sites add Mac capability, the situation will improve. And the upcoming Mac OS X release gives Mac users a Unix-based operating system that should make it easier for programmers to develop Web- based services. In the meantime, though, Mac users will just have to surf different —MaTHEW HONAN subject/webdesign Before you build a Web page that spurns the Mac, consult Macworld.com for news, tips, and reviews. ROBERT WAGT COVERT OPERATIONS SPY FILES piskonkey, -_ BB) THE WIRELESS MAC Special advisory to all intelligence personnel beware of hard drives disguised as key chains ‘ond pens. They have been known to contain everything from government documents to MP3s of incendiary rap songs. Be on the look- out for DiskOnKey and Q USB storage devices. Produced by M-Systems (510/494-2090, woww.m-sys.com), the DiskOnKey is a pen-size Flash memory device that comes in 8MB, 16MB, and 32MB sizes. Upon closer exar nation, you may not believe the DiskOnKey is a drive at all; it has no moving parts, batter- ies, or power supply. But subversives can plug DiskOnKey into the USB port of any Mac, Windows, or Linux system—no software drivers No Strings Attached Tricking out your Mac with the latest in accessories is a blast; dealing with a rat's nest of USB and FireWire cables isn’t as fun. So why not cut the ties that bind? We set out to build the perfect wireless beast. For less than $600—not including the price of your Mac—you'll have no wires to hold you down. + IWEBKEY ($100; Mocolly, 626/338-8787, www macally.com): This wireless keyboord sends signals to an infrared transmitter Clockwise from top: Macally’s iWebKey, Apple's AirPort Base Station, Akoo's Kima, and MacSense’s AeroMouse attached to one of your USB ports, for those times when you absolutely need to be 12 feet oway from the monitor while typing, * AIRPORT BASE STATION AND CARD ($299, $99; Apple, 800/692-7753, www.apple.com): Sut the Web while lounging poolside. Apple's wire- less network technology lets you connect to the Intemet from os far oway as 150 feet. *AEROMOUSE (559; MacSense, 800/642- 8860, www.macsense.com): Mice were meant to room free on the open range. This toilless mouse can send a 90MHz radio- frequency signol 16 feet to a receiver attached to your computer. required. M-Systems hopes to license Disk- Onkey to the usual suspects—manufacturers such as IBM, which plans to sell a version of the device for $50 to $100. Also a Flash memory device, the Q from El Corporation (408/956-7950, www.eiware .com) often masquerades as a key chain, Like the DiskOnKey, the drive requires no external power supply or cables and provides 16MB, 32MB, and 64MB of storage, selling for $70, $130, and $200, respectively. Although the Q now works only with Windows machines, expect o Mac driver sometime in 2001. This message will self-destruct in five seconds.—ANTON LINECKER MATHEW HONAN *KIMA ($150; Ako, 708/ 583-9600, www.ckoo.com) Freedom to move is great, But freedom to dance— that’s the stuff of Kevin Bacon movies. These trans- AR; STEPHEN SUGG (TOP) mitters send an FM signal from your Mac, letting you ploy MP3s or Web radio stations on your stereo. Eupora’s DASH OF PEPPER I've Never Been So Insulted ... or Have I? “\ loathe you. You revolt me stewing in your consumption . . . you are a loath- some reptile—I hope you die.” —D. H. Lawrence, author MOODWATCH PEPPER RATING: 0 “Don’t be so humble, you're not that great.” —Golda Meir, Israeli prime minister MOODWATCH PEPPER RATING: 0 “What other problems do you have besides being unemployed, a moron, and a dork?"—John McEnroe, tennis player MOODWATCH PEPPER RATING: 0 “(am sitting in the smallest room of my house. | have your review before me. In a moment it shall be behind me.” —Max Reger, composer MOODWATCH PEPPER RATING: 0 Qualcomm's Eudora has added a new feature, MoodWatch, aimed at saving e-mailers from themselves. Mood- Watch gives each message a hot- pepper rating—as many as three peppers, which indicate a message's potential for causing offense—before you can hit Send. I tested MoodWatch by plumbing the depths of the 20th century—and my own in-box—for phrases ranging from insulting to out- right defamatory. But MoodWatch is no match for an older, more reliable tool: common sense.—t C “| got laid off after three months . . . you met my boyfriend (almost hubby), who is sill slaving on his Ph.D. at UCSE” —A friend of the author MOODWATCH PEPPER RATING: ¥§¥ Ciick HERE Ask a Silly Question... It used to take weeks for falsehoods to spread throughout the land. Now, with o few keystrokes and a good e-mail client, they can be circulated in a matter of minutes. But where can you turn to assure Uncle Walt that gangs of teens are not roaming the streets looking to swipe his kidneys? Try Straight Dope (www.straightdope.com), a site dedicated to enlightening the misinformed. The online home of Cecil Adams's syndicated column, Straight Dope tackles every- thing from misheard song lyrics to misunderstood scientific principles. Can you see an on-camera hanging during The Wizard of Oz? No. Did Neil Armstrong muff his “One small step for mon” speech? Probably not. What's the sound of one hand clapping? Um . . . it’s kind of complicated “Fighting ignorance since 1973,” proclaims Straight Dope. ‘"i’s taking longer than we thought.” Who knows? Maybe www.straightdope.com the Internet will speed things up.—Pi » & April 2001 www.macworld.com As HTML pages have become more com plex, designers have had to devote an ever larger chunk of brain space to the Web's lan guage. The details required to design and code a Web page could fill a phone book or a crowded cheat set. The $10 HTML Card, from VisiBone ww.visibone.com), includes everything you'd + want to know about HTML, CSS, and browser bugs. Com- pressed onto two 8.5-by-Il-inch, fold-open pages, HTML Card frees you from time- msuming searches and tedious refer- ences—from everything, in fact, except your reading gla CARLOS CASTELLANOS THIRTEEN DAYS TITLE SEQUENCE COURTESY OF VCE For the film Thirteen Days, VCE used ‘an army of Macs to make footage of a nuclear blast (lefi) look like new (right). At THE MOVIES MACS OF You can do a lot of things with a Mac—but can you push the planet to the brink of Armageddon? After all, isn’t that what Windows is for? The mad scientists at Visual Concept Entertainment (VCE) managed to bring about nuclear annihilation—or a reason- able facsimile of it. The Los Angeles-based visual-effects company used Macs to create a montage of atomic-bomb blasts for the ‘opening credits of Thirteen Days, a drama about the Cuban missile crisis. VCE had already produced the documentary Trinity and Beyond, about the early days of nuclear weapons, so it had plenty of atomic-explo- sion footage to bring to the project. Using Adobe After Effects 4.1.1, Pinnacle Systems’ Commotion 2 and 3, and Artel Software's Boris effects packages, VCE visual-effects artist Kurt Wiley removed scratches and dirt, performed color correc- tions, and tidied up the old footage to make it look more like sequences filmed expressly for Thirteen Days. Wiley, who also worked on the Amold Schworzenegger movie The Sixth Day, has been using Macs for film production since 1988. “The Mac is easier to set up than Windows machines, is easier to fix when something goes wrong, and has a more consistent interface,” he says. “We use three to five applications on any one project, and having that constant interface is important.” For Thirteen Days, Wiley worked on a half-dozen Macintosh 9600s with XLR8& accelerators, as well as four multiprocessor Power Mac Gs. While the 9600 may be a middle-aged machine, VCE uses the old- THE APOCALYPSE The G4 didn’t need any turbo boost. Although Wiley would like to see more timers because of their abundant expan- sion slots—a necessity for video editing sys- tems, which require a wide range of interface cards. Thanks to the giddy-up produced by the accelerators, the 9600s sprinted through the editing sessions with processor speeds matching those of a 400MHz machine. slots on the newer machine, he says the G4 is “the best Mac I’ve ever used. It’s very fast and I’m doing things on it that | could not do three years ago.” Like wiping out Earth in o borage of mushroom clouds, for instance.—GREGG WRENN GREAT PERFORMANCES Macs have plenty of behind-the-scenes movie experience. But Power Macs, iMacs, and PowerBooks also end up in front of the camera. While the Mac is usually confined to blink-and-you'll-miss-it bit parts, occasionally the com- puter lands a central role in which it outshines its human costars. Here are the Mac’s most memorable moments on the silver screen, along with a quick review of whether it gave an Oscar-caliber performance.—PHILIP MICHAELS @ STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME When the Enterprise crew journeys back to the 20th century, Scotty (James Doohan) can't believe the Mac SE doesn't have voice:recognition capo- bilities ("A keyboord . . . how quaint’). Buf that doesn't stop him from using it 1 concoct a for- mula for manufacturing transparent aluminum. IMAC RATING: 1/2 (While largely inanimate, the Mac still outacts William Shatner) FORREST GUMP Forrest (Tom Hanks) receives o letter with o vaguely familiar apple-shaped corporate logo ‘ond learns that his money has been invested “in some kind of fruit company.” MAC RATING: #1: (We hope he sold his shares before last fall, or i's back to the shrimp boats.) THE NET Sandra Bullock is an on-the-lam computer whiz who uses any Mac she'can get her hands on— as do her pursuers. Even better, the movie's denouement was filmed at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. MAC RATING: #3 (Never before hos the error message “TCP/IP link dropped” been used to such dramatic effect.) INDEPENDENCE DAY The PowerBook 5300 helps Jeff Goldblum with everything from decoding the aliens’ attack code to downloading a virus to the mother ship. MAC RATING: #444 (Who knew that a hostile alien life-form would be more Mac friendly than most software developers?) ¢ MISSION IMPOSSIBLE Here's an impossible mission: Explain why the PowerBook 5300c Tom Cruise uses to take down the bad guys displays a command- line interface. MAC RATING: + (You would need ot least 0 roomful of multiprocessor Gds just fo decode this movie's plot.) YOU'VE GOT MAIL Call it character exposition through computers. Meg Ryan, the cute-as-a-button owner of an independent bookstore, uses a PowerBook. ‘And the avaricious chgin-store operator played by Tom Hanks? An IBM ThinkPad. MAC RATING: 3% (At lost a movie that dares fo tell the truth: all Mac users are as cute 9s buttons.) www.macworld.com April 2001 25 If this is Norton™... Nothing can ruin your day faster than a broken computer. And while Macintosh is one of the most reliable computers in the world, sometimes things can go wrong. That's why we invented TechTool Pro. TechTool Pro is the super-utility that can find and isolate almost any problem on your computer. No other utility in the world comes even close to covering as many aspects of your Macintosh as TechTool Pro. But diagnosing computer problems is only half the battle. Besides repairing drives, recovering data and checking the health of your Macintosh components, TechTool Pro can now help protect you against virus problems and software conflicts. TechTool Pro can also keep your Mac running at its peak between problems. The program optimizes your disk drive to make your computer run faster and more efficiently. Our RAM panel even allows you to see 6006 MacWorld Aas MacHlome} 1999| eeee 3 This is TechTool Pro... the inner configuration of your memory without Opening your computer case. Do all these features make TechTool Pro complicated to use? Not at all. The Multitester feature allows you to give your computer a full checkup with one click of your mouse. TechTool Pro even creates graphic, easy-to-read and understand reports. Now you can know the state of your computer without having a degree in computer science. Every day, more and more Macintosh professionals are choosing TechTool over other system utilities. In fact, even Apple Computer includes TechTool Deluxe with every copy of their AppleCare™ Protection Plan. Simply put, TechTool Pro 3 is the most complete and powerful troubleshooting utility available for your computer. Why would you settle for anything less? Micromat Inc. 800-829-6227 707-566-3831 FAX: 707-566-3871 info@micromat.com www.micromat.com “TechiTool is a regis of | Inc. (©2001 Micromat, Inc.All rights. intosh and AppleCare are of Apple Computer, Inc. Norton is a trademark of Symantec, Inc, Circle 37 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo Need someone to climb up Mount Everest? Q&A with SIR CHRIS BONINGTON Do you have any upcoming excursions? A: My expedition [this] year is to a completely unexplored group of peaks in Ladakh, in the northwest corner of India. The highest Q: You mentioned your Web site. What’s on it? A: I've got a whole load of stuff on it. There’s autobiographical details, @ picture library, a diary of my various expeditions, Sir Chris Bonington is your man. Or someone __ peak there is about 6,700 meters [almost 22,000 feet]. We'll be taking satellite communications stuff from the past that who will brave blizzards, broken ribs, and near people can use as refer- starvation? Bonington has you covered there, ence. And then, on any too. But don’t ask him to use a hang glider trip, | bring it up to date to escape from a remote mountaintop. “I think __ with us and running a Web every day or so with pic- it's terrifying,” says Bonington, who's been site from there. tures and stories. climbing mountains for 50 years but has yet —— jore Info: www.macworld.com/ A 2001/04/buzz/bonington. htm! to strap on a hang glider, The only thing more @: Is your Mac terrifying? Life without his Mac. 1 coming with you? Chris Bonington explains the lure of Oh, yes, | mountain climbing ond why the Mac interface towers miles above Windows. He Ain't Heavy—He’s My Laplander If you order the Laplander Classique from A Happy Medium (702/567-6842, www.ahappy medium.com), you could be in for a disap- pointing shock: this product has nothing to do with the hearty people who hail from Scandinavia's frozen recesses— and there’s not even a mention of their ever-present reind herds What get is a leather- you do bound carrying case to hold your PowerBook and organize CDs and DVDs while you're on the road. What's more, the $109 Laplander opens into a portable workstation with a sliding drawer for important papers. At 14 by 14 by 7 inches, the Laplander weighs a mere 6.5 pounds—considerably less than your average reindeer.—MATHEW HONAN never go without it Q: So what do you use your laptop for during excursions? A: It goes no further than base camp. If we've got satellite communication, we use it to run my Web site (www.bonington.com)— which means, of course, that you need a satellite phone, and you also need some means of powering up batteries. Sometimes | use just solar power. The problem with that is if you have a long period with very bad weather, you run out of power. Or you can take a small generator, but it’s taking that much more [equipment] into base camp. www-macworld.com : How do you use your Mac when giving motiva- tional speeches? A; | use my ascent of Everest in 1985 as a sort of model or metaphor to talk about leadership and teamwork. | tell the story with a combination of scanned slides, imported video, animated diagrams, and recordings taken during the expedition. Originally | did this all on slide projec- tors, which is bloody complicated, | just carry my PowerBook around with me, and I’ve got a video projector. But these days, with digital projectors, the PowerBook will talk to them with no problem at all April 2001 27 HRIS BONINGT é Vhats HOT ‘A QUICK LOOK AT THE WORLD OF TECH 1. For the first time since Steve Jobs retuned, Apple won't report a quarterly profit. Let’s address the prob- lem rationally—clearly, that damn G4 Cube is some sort of evil curse. 2. Regulators give the AOL and Time Wamer merger the go-ahead. As part of the merger, the Atlanta Braves will now do all their postseason choking online. 3. Intuit’s online version of QuickBooks isn’t compat- ible with the Mac. Helpful Intuit executives suggest Mac users try logging on to www.tough-luck-suckers.com. 4, Bill Gates asks the FCC to investigate America Online's dominance in instant messaging. “What kind of monstrous company gives away an application for free?” Gates demands. 5. Steve Jobs says Apple missed the boat on CD-RW drives. “And | shouldn’t have bought that Betamax VCR back in 1980,” he adds. @ © Product WATCH @ A portable CD-R/ @ Rewind, from Power RW drive from Sony ‘On Software (800/ (800/352-7669, www 344-9160, www.power .sony.com): Besides ‘onsoftware.com): Version backing up files and 1.0.3 of the file-recovery burning CDs, the utility extends compatibil- battery-powered, USB- _ity to Mac OS 8.1 and ready CRX10U-A2 later; eliminates compat- doubles as a stand- ibility issues with Graphic alone CD player. The Converter, Adobe Photo- drive, available in April shop, Netscape Navi- 2001, sells for $399. gator, and Microsoft @ An MP3 player from _Internet Explorer; ond Rio (800/468-5846, adds support for disks www.riohome.com): the and partitions as small Rio 800 offers up 64MB as 200MB. of storage, a voice @ A browser from iCob recorder, and remote (wwwicab.de): iCab control. It works with Pre2.3 lets users select other Rio accessories which JavaScript code such as on FM tuner, a iCab should execute, car cassette adapter, and improves cookie the Backpack expansion management, and product. The Rio 800 _pre-caches the HTML sells for $280. links on displayed pages. 28 April 2001 www.macworld.com PDAs—i1n Cotor! Black-and-White Blues Both Palm and Handspring are releasing PDAs with color displays in 2000, and handheld users might feel like Dorothy leaving behind the monochromatic world of Kansas for the Technicolor splendor of Oz. But history shows that the leap from black-and-white to color isn’t always 0 quick trip down the Yellow Brick Road.—PHILIP MICHAELS ‘1 FIRST FULL-LENGTH TECHNICOLOR MOVIE WHEN: 1935 WHAT: Becky Shorp COST: 24 cents (average ticket price that year) RESULT: A “witty but sometimes ponderous adaptation of Thackeray's Vanity Fair. 4% stors."—Leonard Maltin, film critic LeGAcr: Poved the way for Ted Turner to colorize Casablanca 53 yeors later. WIDELY ADOPTED: By the 1950s, in response to growing competition from television, Im FIRST REGULAR COLOR TV BROADCASTS: WHEN: 1953 @ A management WHAT: Dragnet change at Adobe cost: $1,175 (the price of a color-compotible Systems (800/833- ‘Admiral television set) RESULT: “You know, | never realized how $687, www.adobe.com): healthy and pink Jack Webb looks.” Company President LEGACY: Thot creepy NBC peacock. Bruce Chizen will serve WIDELY ADOPTED: By the mid-1960s, as ‘as CEO, succeeding networks storted broadcasting entirely in color. Donn Wamnioge Aa ll FIRST MACINTOSH DESIGNED FOR COLOR Adobe cofounder, wines 1987 Warnock assumes the WHAT: Mac II newly created position COST: $3,898 (for basic system) of chief technology RESULT: Hardware enthusiasts reduced to quivering masses of covetous lust. LEGACY: From his exile at a mountain outpost, Steve Jobs was heard to wonder, “Why can’t officer while remaining cochairman of the company. the outside of the computer come in color, too?” @ The sole of 3dfx’s WIDELY ADOPTED: By 1993, as Apple phased ‘ossets to Nvidia out production of monochrome desktop Macs. (408/615-2500, |W FIRST NEW YORK TIMES FRONT PAGE IN COLOR www.nvidia.com): 3dfx WHEN: 1997 makes the Voodoo4 WHAT: Color photos grace the October 16 and VoodooS graphics front page. processors and intro- COST: 60 cents (newsstand price in the New York duced its first Mac metropoliton area) products in 2000. But RESULT: Just before the down of the twenty-first century, the Times joins the twentieth. LEGACY: Color photos are nice and all, but where are the comics? to sell off core assets to WIDELY ADOPTED: A decade earlier. Nvidia, which plans to expand its GeForce2 MX poor financial results forced the company 1 FIRST COLOR PALM DEVICE WHEN: 2000 processor beyond the suis Polen a PC market.—Compiled by cost: $449 PHILIP MICHAELS RESULT: Users thrill to 256 colors and wonder why Palm OS applications can't support them very well. LEGACY: Competition for rival Handspring, which promptly releases a color PDA of its own—with 16-bit color, versus the 8-bit color in the Ille. WIDELY ADOPTED: In the future—once prices fall ond implementation improves. k More. Need more space? Get the OnStream Echo. A whopping 30GB of space in a wicked fast FireWire tape drive. Perfect for backup, Echo has endless storage space for your MP3s, digital photos, DV files, and all the other stuff that can’t fit on your Mac. And with our patented ADR technology, Echo is the most reliable tape technology on the market. Think more. Think Echo. THE ULTIMATE BACKUP SOLUTION FOR MACS we ’ b 9 Echo 30GB FireWire includes Dantz Retrospect” Desktop Software OnStream yailable in USB, SCSI, FireWire B Tape Cartridges $44.95 (sold separately OQnStream www.onstream.com/think for product reviews, comparisons & additional i le 139 on card or go to www.macworld.com/getinfo Office:mac 2001 Made easy. Made for Mac. (© 2001 Microsoft Corporation. Al gts reserved, Mrosft a reitered vademark of Mcesoft Corporation in th United States and/or ther counties. Appl, Mac, and Macintosh are regstared wademarks of Apple Compute, In. Rita | need to communicate. With my office, my boss, my customers. My kids. | need words, numbers and pictures to speak their language. And a way to use them that's fast and fun. Microsoft* Office 2001. Ali the essentials. TwGreat Giveaway BY CHRISTOPHER BREEN Where to Find the Best Free Stuff online, from Software to Soap ree. Our language is littered with high-flown testi- f monials to the word—the best things in life are free; free as a bird; get out of jail free—and it's no won- der. Who among us passes up an opportunity to get something for nothing? Getting goods for free has never been easier, thanks to the explosive growth of the World Wide Web. No longer must you wait by your mailbox for envelopes crammed with coupons; place your trust in complete strangers who call you during dinner with vague promises of exotic vacations and miraculous appliances; or hope against hope that Sunday's newspaper carries not only the day's news, sports, and weather, but also a tiny bottle of a popular beauty unguent. You can now go out and grab gobs of free goodies—including product samples, fre- quent flier miles, software, Web-based storage space, and advice—all from the comfort of your Mac. Is the utopian dream of a free lunch too good to be true? Were your parents correct when they sug- gested that rewards come most quickly to those who work for them? Find out for yourself by firing up Photography by your browser and joining us as we uncover the finest CHIP SIMON free treasures on the Web. 32 April 2001 www.macworld.com HL ve GREAT GIVEAWAY SOFTWARE FOR YOUR MAC You know there are scads of free- ware and shareware applications on the Web, but were you aware that some older—though still reasonably capable—commercial applications are free for the taking? Free Word Processors Looking at today’s software catalogs you wouldn't know it, but at one time Mac users had several choices in word proces- sors. While the ubiquitous Microsoft Word has driven most competitors out of the market, you can find free copies of two of these venerable word processors on the Web. Corel is giving away WordPerfect Enhancement Pack 3.5e, a word processor that still packs a punch even though it was last updated in 1997. You can find it at Version- Tracker.com (www.versiontracker com) by typing WordPerfect in the Search field. Nisus (www.nisus.com) offers Nisus Writer 4.1.6 for the price of your name, address, phone num- ber, and e-mail address. Though these programs look a bit long in the tooth, they should meet the needs of all but the most-demanding users. Free Graphics Applications Corel gives away CorelDraw 8 Limited Edition (www.corel.com/ draw8mac_le/eula.htm), a full- featured drawing application. A copy of Corel PhotoPaint 8 Limited Edition, a painting and photo- retouching application, is included Be warned that unless you have a broadband connection to the Web, you could end up waiting a long time for this 53.6MB file to make its way to your Mac. If you'd like to work in three dimensions rather than two, down- load a copy of Strata's Strata 3D 3.0.2 (ftp://cdrom.digitalriver.com/pub/ strata3/Strata3D_302_Installer.sit). As 34 April 2001 www.macworld.com with many free, formerly commercial applications, Strata 3D's documenta- tion is a little sparse. Free Fonts Nothing has the power to enhance or mangle the look of a document like its fonts. If you feel limited by the fonts that shipped with your Mac, check out Erik Carlson's Macintosh Font Vault (www.erik.co.uk/ font) and FontFreak (www.fontfreak .com). Both sites carry free and share- ware PostScript and TrueType fonts. WEB RESOURCES Look, the i in iMac and iBook stands for Intemet, so why not take advantage of some of the wonderful free tools and sites on the Web that can make your Mac more productive and Web savvy? Free E-mail Client Outlook Express, a free e-mail client, Microsoft comes bundled with your Mac, but if you'd like to try a different and very powerful tool, Qualcomm’s Eudora (www.eudora.com) is yours for the taking—if you're willing to put up with advertising. That's right, ads appear in the bottom corner of your Mac's screen in Eudore’s full free version. Free Chat Spend more thana couple of minutes around kids and their Macs, and you'll hear the dis- tinctive chime of Instant Messenger —the omnipresent computer chat client—which indicates that someone, some- where, would like to bend your electronic ear in a real-time chat session, Instant Messenger was once a utility solely for America Online users, but it now has spread to the Web, thanks to AOL subsidiary Netscape. If you're feeling chatty, download your copy of Instant Messenger at http://home.netscape .com/aim/index.html 2cp=hop | 2hb4. Free E-mail Addresses Have your friends and coworkers been avoiding you lately? Perhaps it's because you spam them every couple of months with yet another announcement that your e-mail address has changed. Why not get a permanent—and free —e-mail address that's not tied to a particular Internet service provider? Such e-mail accounts are widely available from Microsoft, Netscape, Yahoo, and of course, Apple. All four services are free, but they differ in the amount of storage space they offer: Microsoft's Hotmail offers 2MB of storage, both the Mac.com portion of Apple's iTools and Net- scape’s WebMail provide SMB, and Yahoo Mail gives you 6MB (which still isn’t all that generous for e-mail storage). Apple’s iTools offers free forwarding of your Mac.com e-mail to another POP address, whereas Yahoo provides this service only if you agree to receive unsolicited messages from Yahoo and its adver- tisers. iTools also lets you use a standard e-mail client such as Outlook Express or Eudora, while the other services require you to use a Web browser to get your e-mail messages. more tuneful—or create tunes on your Mac—try these resources. Free MP3 Player QuickTime Player is able to play MP3s, but it doesn't let you gather a bunch of MP3s in a playlist and play those tunes in order. For a true MP3 player, check out Apple's iTunes (www .apple.com/itunes/) or the free ver- sion of Casady & Greene's Soundjam Music Archive (www.iuma.com). This site distributes music in MP3 and RealPlayer formats and special- izes in bands that are unsigned or on independent labels. MP3.com (www.mp3.com), though a bit more ad laden, is also worth checking out. Those seeking classical MIDI files—electronic music files that you can play with QuickTime Player or The iin iMac and iBook stands for Internet, so why not take advantage of some of the wonderful free tools on the Weh? To sign up for these services, use these links: Hotmail: www.hotmail.com WebMail: http://home.netscape .com/webmail/index-f.html Yahoo Mail: http://mail.yahoo.com Mac.com: http://itools.mac.com/ Email_marketing. html Free Web Storage As broadband DSL and cable-modem connections become more common, the idea of storing dozens of megabytes of files on an Internet-based server isn't the laughable proposition it once was. The best deal among the available Internet-storage providers is Apple's free iDisk, part of iTools (http:// itools.mac.com/itoolsmain.html), which provides 20MB of storage. Just sign up for iTools, and the space is yours to use as you will. For additional space on Apple's servers, the company charges $100 annually per 100MB of storage. If you have concerns about privacy, make sure to read the membership agreement and privacy policy (www -mac.com/help/community/pgs/ emprivey.html). MUSIC Music makes the world go round, right? If you'd like to make your Mac MP (www.soundjam.com), The new iTunes can play and encode MP3s. Tf you have a brand-new Mac, it can also bum CDs. (Apple says iTunes may work with other drives in the future.) Soundjam MP Free allows you to encode up to 30 MP3 files and then reverts to a simple MP3 player. Free Music-Notation Software Coda Music Technology (www .codamusic.com), maker of the Mac music-notation application Finale 2001 (Reviews, January 2001), recently released Finale NotePad, a free, stripped-down nota- through a MIDI synthesizer—should make a beeline for the Classical Music Archives (www, prs.net/midi -html) for a dose of switched-on Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. ENTERTAINMENT Your Mac can entertain as well as educate, When you have a mind to unwind, give these sites a spin. Free Movies The days when short films were shown between features at the local movie house are long gone. continues tion program. Finale NotePad is more come-on than com- plete notation solution—the program includes a menu for upgrading to other Coda products, limits you to eight instrument parts per score, and lacks support for chord symbols—but it's not bad for whipping up a simple score. Free Tunes Think free music and your mind immedi- ee | tf | oof (6 iii AL Wl el HY) mes) on 8 ef me mgm ‘usb nonstate Ha Be sb eerere Bete areas (ort he ST ately turns to Napster (www .napster.com). But there are places other than Napster to get music that's not only free but also legal. One such spot is the Internet Underground Word to the Wise assistant, but Corel WordPerfect Enhancement Pack 3.5 is plenty powerful and free, free, free. It moy not offer an animated www.macworld.com April 2001 35 WE DMLAT GIVEAWAY Fortunately the descendants of such films thrive on the Internet. To view some of the best, worst, and oddest short subjects being made today, point your browser to iFilm (www ifilm.com) and Atom Films (www atomfilms,com). Both sites feature live action and animation, offer content that may not be suitable for all ages, and stream QuickTime as well as RealPlayer content. You have to register for each site—popcorn not included. Free Network Gaming Scott Keyill's GameRanger site (www -gameranger.com) is the place where Mac gamers gather to do battle, play Scrabble, or babble about their favorite pastime—net- worked Mac games. After you register, log on to GameRanger, find like-minded opponents, and get ready to rumble, (GameRanger is only a means for playing net- workable games; the client is free, but players must supply their own games.) More-traditional games such as backgammon and chess are also available on the Web. MacFIBS (www .fibs.com/macfibs) is a popular back- gammon server, and the Free Internet Chess Server (www.freechess.org) is well respected. Both sites provide downloadable clients. Free Games The Web is over- flowing with iree games—many of them Java based. A few sites worth visiting for such games are Thinks.com (www.thinks.com), pogo.com (www.pogo.com), and Yahoo Games (http://games -yahoo.com), The games found on these sites run the gamut but tend toward the traditional—crosswords, puzzles, and board and card games. Be warned, however, that some of these games were written with the 36 April 2001 www.macworld.com PC’s right mouse button in mind, and certain arcade games won't work properly with the Mac—no, not even with a Mac-compatible multibutton mouse or through control-clicks, Although you can find demos of many recent games on the Web sites of the games’ various publish- ers, you can save time by going to a single source: macgamefiles.com (www.macgamefiles.com), This comprehensive site carries game demos, shareware games, and patches and updates—as well as free games, to boot. STUFF Just because the main way you access the Web is through your Mac doesn't mean the free stuff found on the Web is meant only for computers. Free Samples If you rejoice when a tiny box of cereal or diminu- tive shampoo sample appears in your mailbox, you're going to love these Web sites. TheFreeSite.com (www.thefreesite .com) is a portal for freebies avail- able on the Web, In addition to providing links to computercentric items such as free clip art, stock quotes, and fonts, it includes links to sites that offer tangible merchandise. On a recent visit to TheFreeSite.com we found links to free offers of anal- gesic samples, a calendar featuring celebrities and their dogs, and a cosmetics collection. The site FreeSamples.com (www.freesamples.com) deals strictly with real goods—cleansers, candy, cosmetics, and other such products In contrast to TheFreeSite.com, FreeSamples.com's offers come from its advertising partners in exchange for passing along to them your personal information— your name, address, e-mail address, birth date and gender, the number of people in your household, and the age of those people (see "Free for the Asking?”). In addition, FreeSam- ples.com uses cookies to more carefully target the advertising you see on its Web site, Free (Almost) Film Processing The site Snaptish.com (www .snapfish.com) will develop and print your 35mm color- print film for next to nothing: $1.69 to cover shipping and handling of the prints and negatives. What's the catch? You must view electronic prints of your film—and the adver- tisements that accompany them on the Web—within 30 days of notifica- tion that your prints are online. Should you fail to do so, you pay an additional $3.99 per roll, To become a member of Snapfish.com, you must ClickRewards' currency— by shopping at sites such Free Play Why spend quarters at the arcade when you as Gap Online and Barnes & Noble.com. You can redeem ClickMiles for frequent flier miles on air- lines such as American, Continental, and United. You can also spend your ClickMiles on merchan- dise—electronics, CDs, and toys—or donate them to a charity. The site beenz (www can ploy arcade games for free on sites such as pogo.com? provide your name, address, e-mail address, and credit card number. The company uses this information to charge you for shipping and deliv- ering your prints. Free Shipping As the name implies, freeshipping.com (www .freeshipping.com) pays for your -beenz.com) operates a similar program. But unlike Click- Rewards, beenz rewards you solely with merchandise—no frequent flier miles. Service partners include FTD.com, SmartPortfolio.com, and Barnes & Noble.com: MyPoints (www.mypoints.com) is like beenz, but it lets you earn information you receive could tum out to be priceless. Free Translation InterTran (www .tranexp.com/intertran/) offers free translation from and to the world’s most-common languages—includ- ing English, French, Spanish, and German—as well as less-universal languages such as Welsh, Icelandic, and Romanian. This live translation service is provided largely as an opportunity to advertise InterTran’s commercial translation software, and the results of queries to the service are likely to be mixed. Babel Fish (http://babelfish .altavista.com/translate.dyn) does not support as many languages as InterTran does, but its work is much more accurate. For example, Babel Fish correctly translated the popular Spanish phrase "¢Albéndi- gas, no te dije?” into “Meatballs, Are some offers of free stuff too good to be true? The answer depends on the value you place on your time and privacy. shipping costs when you buy from select vendor sites. Although these sites include merchants that sell flowers, wine, apparel, and furniture, you won't find a lot of major-name stores featured here, and shipping is free only when you've exceeded a certain price level. But if you're in the market for items available through the site, using freeshipping.com may save you a few bucks, If you participate in a frequent flier program, rewards programs on the Web will be famil- iar. By shopping on the Web at Free Rewards particular partner sites, you earn points that can be applied toward goods and services. ClickRewards (www.clickrewards .com) allows you to earn ClickMiles— additional points by surrendering more of your personal information to the service. It then uses that informa- tion to send you tailored advertising. Milesource.com (www milesource.com) focuses on frequent flier miles and didn't I tell you?" whereas InterTran suggested the phrase meant “Meat- balls, not yourself trinket?” As you do with InterTran, you simply select continues travel rewards (car rentals and lodging), but you can also trade in your Award- Miles for magazine sub- scriptions, gift certificates, or merchandise. REFERENCE It's been said that free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it, but nt Wate rit there are spots on the Web where the free Click, There It ts allow you to earn points by shopping at partner sites. Online outfits such as ClickRewards www.macworld.com April 2001 37 HL GREAT GIVEAWAY BY THE TIME WE REACH THE AGE OF CONSENT, two complementary thoughts have been firmly planted in our consciousness: Milton Friedman's assertion that “there's no such thing as a free lunch” and our parents’ counsel that “you can’t get something for nothing.” Stir in PT. Barnum’s claim that “there’s a sucker born every minute” and you have to won- der whether these offers of free stuff on the Web ‘are too good to be true. The answer to that question depends on the value you place on your time and privacy. INFORMATION AS INCOME A new eco- nomic model has emerged on the Web, one in which information, rather than dollars, serves as the currency. Many of the Web sites we mention here demand a measure of information from you in exchange for the opportunity to utilize their ser- vice, At the very least, a site will ask for your name and an e-mail address for the purpose of identifi- cation. Sites that offer free goods and services may FREE FOR THE ASKING? tributed. Some sites let you opt out of receiv- ing unsolicited e-mail, either on the site’s reg- istration form or from a link found within the site's privacy policy. To learn whether a site has such an option and how your personal infor- mation is used, be sure to read the terms and conditions, as well as the privacy policy, before signing up. Look for the TRUSTe symbol (www.truste.com), which indicates that a site has agreed fo conform to an established set of privacy principles. DON’T BE A SUCKER While it may seem like a fair bargain to provide informa- tion for free swag, there's no need to go over- board, For example, if you don’t want your personal e-mail account to be flooded with unsolicited messages, use one of the free e-mail services we mention—Hotmail or Mac.com, for example—to create an account ask that you provide more-detailed information—your address, phone number, gender, age, and optionally, race and income— in order to tailor the advertising you see on associated sites. Most of these sites also demand that your browser accept cookies, and many keep a record of your IP address. Some sites gather even more information by offering better goodies if you fill out surveys. It's very unlikely that the information you provide will be used for nefarious purposes. The e-mail address you supply may be used to send you notices—but keep in mind that you have little control over how widely that e-mail address is dis- that you can use as the contact address for free sites. Knowing that the in-box is likely to be crammed only with spam means you don't have to check that account often. If you must pay for something, use a credit card so that you have some recourse if the transaction goes sour. And provide your credit card number only when it makes sense. For example, Snapfish.com requests your credit card number so it can easily charge you for the expense of shipping your photographic prints. Avoid any site that asks for a credit card number as a matter of record or identification, and never give your Social Security number to a Web site. the two languages, type in text, and click on the Translate button to view the results. Free Encyclopedia The days when Mom and Dad happily ponied up hundreds of dollars for a multi- volume encyclopedia are over—in the Information Age, events move too quickly for knowledge to be committed to such a static medium. But although hardbound encyclope- dias may be a rarity, their electronic equivalents aren't. Encyclopedia Britannica (www.britannica.com) offers such a resource. Though laced with advertisements, Britan- 38 April 2001 www.maeworld.com nica.com provides a free and easy-to-use source for all kinds of information, as well as an online version of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Free Tax Information and Forms This may just be the most helpful free site on the Web at this time of year: the Internal Revenue Service (www.irs.gov). Some folks will be gratified to know that a portion of their tax dollars goes toward main- taining a site that offers useful tax information, as well as download- able tax forms in Adobe Acrobat's PDF format. THE LAST WORD Finally, if your visit to the Internal Revenue Service's site has wiped the sunny smile from your face, restore your good mood by keep- ing this article in mind. It's nice to know that our Macs can help us do more than just work, play, and pay bills. They can also help us find some of the few things in life that are free. m Contributing Editor CHRISTOPHER BREEN pens Macworld’s Mac 911 column and coauthored My iMac, second edition (IDG Books Worldwide, 2000). Our family has expanded! We just added several innovative ways to upgrade your Macintosh°— even more are on the way! Try our Tempo” Ultra ATA66 PCI host adapter card, our new Tempo RAID66 ATA hardware RAID controller card and our Tango FireWire®/USB combo card. Don’t miss our latest additions — the Crescendo"/7200 G3 and G4 processor upgrades. Depend on Sonnet for simply fast Macintosh enhancement products. To learn more, call 1-800-786-6260 or visit our website at: www.sonnettech.com/mwus Cirdle 133 on card or go\to www.macworld.com/getinfo. Ve 7) available! Ww Crescendo/7200 G3 & G4 SONNSS SIMPLY FAST WHICH TOOL ve SHOULD MANAGE YOU YOUR TRUST TO MONEY 2 Quicken rsus the Web BY JAMES BRADBURY WHEN IT COMES TO personal- finance software that runs on the Mac, Intuit's Quicken Deluxe 2001 is first—in a field of one. Intuit finds itself alone in this category partly because the real action in personal- finance applications has moved to the Internet. That's not news to Intuit. Each new version of Quicken has shifted more of the program's functionality to the Web, where Quicken.com has become a leading site for people who want help manag- ing their money. But Quicken.com doesn't have a monopoly on useful finance tools, and for some pur- poses, those it offers aren't nec- essarily the best—which brings up questions: Are Mac users still best served by Quicken 2001? Or can you do the same things for free on the Web? And if you do purchase Quicken 2001 (which, atter all, is only a $60 investment, and a tax- deductible one at that), does it make sense to use that pro- gram and some of the goodies available on the Net? www.maeworld.com April 2001 4 ‘sting = [Dae AetitiePHadoe fs Sa, NE [rareas owo.co-0000ca iss1500 et em er leareAL o0-0004000CA 5 Meine ae gr SSW EARTHEN DEA | sg aes Cnt a ry (Od |PATLONT THANE mame Iso [reancisooca sei ~~ Saree Tt eae, [os Jormizoap novoxas snr man ‘eae ae Online Banking Convenience Financial portals can give you a consolidated view of your various bank accounts. Above, YahooFinance has grabbed information about a checking account and a credit card from Wells Fargo (some details are not shown here). Bills and More _Paytrust is a comprehensive bill-paying site that provides your online bank-account information through its SmartBalance feature. After all, it’s good to make sure you have money in your account before you at the end of the month is still the best way to monitor and control spending. It also can serve as the foundation for creating a budget (see “Digital Debt Reduction,” How-to, November 2000). Nevertheless, many people simply aren't willing to invest the necessary time. If all you want is an easy way to check account and credit card balances, talk to your local bank; most finan- cial institutions offer some form of online banking. Of course, if your credit card and checking accounts are with different banks, you may quickly tire of jumping around from site to site. If you use multiple financial institutions, con- sider signing up with a financial portal. The best of them connect to your banks, gather up- to-date informa- send off a poyment. To find out, we compared Quicken 2001 with the best tools the Web offers. We looked at five fundamental areas of personal finance: banking, bill paying, investing, retirement planning, and taxes. Banking Quicken started out 15 years ago as a banking tool for checkbook bal- ancing and other minor financial tasks, and it's still best known for its transaction-register interface, which has been polished to a user-friendly sheen over the years. There's really nothing comparable online. Entering every financial transaction in a reg- ister and then reconciling accounts 42 April 2001 www.macworld.com tion, and pres- ent everything in one neat package—usually for free, My favorite portal for viewing online account information is YahooFinance, which was able to show me specific details of checks that had cleared just days before, some- thing I could not get from Quicken.com. (MSN's Money- Central, at www.moneycentral .com, is also good but notoriously Mac-unfriendly. For other Web- site addresses, see “A Personal- Finance Web Tool Kit.") A bonus of using a personal-finance portal is that you are able to read the latest market news or perhaps check some stock quotes while you're there. The Bottom Line If you possess the discipline to track the details of your cash flow, Quicken 2001 is still the way to go. But if you just want to know how much money you've got in the bank or owe on plastic, the Web can tell you. Even if you have Quicken 2001, it's worthwhile to con- nect your accounts to a personal- finance portal for the convenience of being able to check them from any- where you have access to the Web, Bill Paying A major chore, paying bills is also a potential financial minefield: a lost payment can cause you to bounce a check or damage your credit rating. That may be why most people stick with stamps and envelopes. Quicken 2001's online bill-paying capabilities are relatively simple and reliable; however, its new bill-reminder features are prob- ably more both- ersome than useful. And Quicken 2001 doesn't give you the option of having your bills presented to you electronically on the Web, rather than sent by mail Some banks let their customers pay bills through the institution's Web site. But if you want the most features possible, consider a dedicated online bill-paying service. Especially if you're out of town frequently, such a service might be worth- while just for the ability to review all your bills from one spot on the Web. (Imagine being able to see and pay your phone bill from an Internet café in Thailand.) Some merchants, particularly utilities and financial institutions, can already bill you completely electronically. For others, you can have the paper bill redirected to a service that will scan it for you to see, approve, and pay on the Web. Both Quicken.com and Paytrust offer this feature, and you can use it with any bank or brokerage account for which you have check- writing privileges. With Paytrust, you can also get your bills archived on a CD-ROM at the end of the year. Both Quicken.com and Paytrust charge between $6 and $10 a month, depending on which features you want. The Bottom Line If you're tired of writing checks, the best way to pay bills electronically is on the Web, through Quicken.com or Paytrust. Because merchants actually save money with electronic billing, you can count on having better online bill-paying options in the near future. Investing Quicken 2001's Portfolio feature will certainly keep close track of your investments—calculating daily values, preparing capital gains reports, and so on. Like tracking your checking and credit card trans- actions, though, using Quicken 2001's Portfolio requires a signifi- cant investment of time and energy. And the more investments you want to track, the more time you'll need to spend entering dividends, stock splits, and interest payments. If you do a lot of trading, the Quicken 2001 Portfolio feature can Quicken versus the Web A Personal-Finance Web Tool Kit Intuit is unlikely to release more than one version of Quicken software each year, but things change «a lot faster on the Web. For now, these are some of the best sites for Mac users with personal-finance needs of all kinds. Keep an eye out for new things to come. COMPANY WEB ADDRESS DESCRIPTION Bankrate.com vwoww-bankrate.com, ‘An excellent aggregator of financial rates from more than 4,000 institutions. BigCharts worw.bigcharis.com A good place to chart stock perf with on amazing number of interactive option: Dismal Scientist www.dismal.com Financial Engines FT MarketWatch FundAlorm ‘Market Guide ‘Morningstar The Motley Fool Quicken.com Realtor.com A firsi-rate summary of economic news from 106" in risk analysis of retiroment investments. | ToxPlanet.com www.taxplanet.com -—=—More than you probably want to know about toxes and tox low. TheStreet.com ‘wovwsthesireet.com ‘Offers stock-market news and commentory, and recently ditched its subscription fee. Worth reading for James Cramer's columns alone. TurboTax wnw.lurbotox.com The first stop for any Mac user who wants to do foxes on the Web. YahooFinance hitp://finance.yahoo.com A comprehensive financial portal with especially good online-banking features, Your bank varies Before you con access your accounts on the Web, you'll need fo sign up for online banking at your bank. If it’s not offered, switch banks. help you track capital gains and losses. But the statements sent by brokers provide all the investment information most people need. What if you want to know how your portfolio is doing on any given day? Or maybe you have investments with different brokers and would like to see everything in one report instead of on several statements. How about up-to-the- minute analysis of the funds and companies in your portfolio? The Web is an ideal source for this kind of timely data, and Quicken.com offers the best portfolio features for Mac users, With Quicken 2001, portfolio data you've entered into your Quicken files now can be instantly exported to Quicken.com. Disappointingly, Intuit’s recently introduced online Expanded Portfolio tool, which features even more-sophisticated interaction between Quicken 2001 and Quicken.com, is incompatible with Macs. continues www.macworld.com April 2001 43 jase Bisa EPEETIT ELT an AFull Portfolio Quicken.com includes a feature-rich portfolio-management site with customizable options. The Count of Monte Carlo Financial Engines was the first consumer Web site to use a Monte Carlo simulation to generate probabilities for your retirement—providing a more realistic view of your risks and needs. The Bottom Line Frequent traders and investors who relish financial details will find it worth- while to enter them in Quicken 2001's Portfolio feature. Everyone else can get by with Quicken.com's online portfolio. Retirement Planning For the majority of people, the most important investments are the ones they'll someday live off of, such as 401Ks and IRAs. Quicken has a long history of helping with retire- ment planning; in fact, its primitive Retirement Planning calculator (still there on the Activities menu) is the financial-software equivalent of the tiny, vestigial leg bones found in some whales. Quicken 2001's far 44 April 2001 www.macworld.com more sophisticated Retire- ment Planner debuted as a Quicken CD-ROM bonus feature and is now available for free at Quicken.com. The Retirement Planner feature has two limitations: It's really just a more compli- cated version of the Retire- ment Planning calculator— you enter your numbers once and push a button to see whether you're on track for retirement. And it does little to help you figure out exactly how to meet your goals more effectively. The trend in retirement- planning software—whether for a billionaire or a middle- class family with a couple of 401Ks—is to combine real- time tracking and analysis of retirement investments with personalized advice. The pioneer of this type of planning has been Financial Engines. Its site offers free retire- ment-portfolio analysis using a sophisticated real-life probability technique called a Monte Carlo sim- ulation. For $15 a financial quarter, Financial Engines also will provide specific advice on your portfolio (some companies offer the service to their employees | RU TH Intuit's partner, TeamVest, hopes to convert users to paying clients for automatic monitoring of their accounts. Quicken.com’s 401K Advisor was only a few weeks old when I tried it, and it was definitely rough around the edges. The Bottom Line Retirement planning has moved to the Web for good. Quicken.com's free advice is attractive, but Financial Engines’ interface is more mature. This field is changing fast, so check them both out while you can still try them for free. Taxes Tax preparation is no one’s favorite financial chore, but a computer at least makes it easier. While Quicken 2001 doesn't do taxes, it does inte- grate with TurboTax for Mac (formerly MaclnTax), That integration, however, will be of limited use for finding deductions unless you've entered transactions in excruciating detail. On the other hand, if you use Quicken 2001's Portiolio feature to track your stock transactions, it will handily calculate your capital gains and losses and export them to TurboTax. For tax year 2000, though, there's no reason to buy TurboTax for Mac ($30 to $40, depending on rebates) TurboTax as a benefit). Intuit responded by adding 401K Advisor to Quicken.com; this tool also uses a Monte Carlo simulation, but with the option of conferring with a human financial advisor (by phone or online) for specific portfolio advice. For now the advice is free, although April 15, Come She Will on TurboTax for the Web this year, but keep an eye on competing tax-tool sites for 2001. Mac users will want to rely if you have a fast connection to the Web. Quicken TurboTax for the Web offers the same functionality for free (there's a $10 charge if you decide to print out your retum or file it electronically). Intuit will likely have some com- petition for the lucrative tax-software market, but probably not in time to make a difference this year. Rivals such as H&R Block (www.hrblock .com) will need to offer strong incen- tives if they are to lure Mac users away from tried-and-true TurboTax, As tax deadlines approach, more Web sites should become available. Our advice is to choose TurboTax for the Web in 2000, and then check later this year to see how some of the other sites shaped up. The Bottom Line Tax tools are bound for the Web. You don't need Quicken 2001 or TurboTax to do your returns—unless you do a lot of securi- ties trading or want to keep close track of potentially deductible expenses. The Last Word Quicken 2001 isn't obsolete—espe- cially if you want finely tuned control over your finances and are willing to invest the time to keep your records current. On the other hand, tools for many essential personal-finance tasks—such as retirement planning, bill paying, and tax preparation— have moved to the Web, where new features and capabilities are emerg- ing all the time. Perhaps someday soon Intuit will move all of Quicken's features to the Web. If Intuit doesn't, you can bet someone else will. m ‘A former editor of MacUser and of Macworld Online, JAMES BRADBURY started using Quicken on a Mac SE back when Microsoft stock was considered a risky investment. Quicken versus the Web Keeping it Safe BANKING OR CONDUCTING other for the first $50 of fraud. Look for a financial transactions online is like guarantee that closes that gap for stepping out of your house: there’s no _-100-percent coverage. way to guarantee your safety (or pri- yacy). Pianos do fall from the sky, and @ Carefully examine all credit card banks do have their security breached. statements for unfamiliar transactions But both are rare occur- each month. If you don’t rences. Whether the con- recognize a transac- venience of online tion, call your bank. transactions outweighs the additional risk is something that Even better, record credit card pur- chases in Quicken each of us must decide as you make them, for ourselves. (See and then reconcile that “Macworld’s Internet Privacy Guide,” July 2000, for an in-depth discussion of online-privacy issues.) information with your state- ment each month. You can do a few simple things to © Atleast once a year, request a minimize risk: credit report on yourself. Both Quicken .com and Microsoft's MoneyCentral © Avoid giving out your social secu- _.com offer credit-report services that rity number (SSN). A thief who gets a hold of a SSN and name can get a consolidate information from the main credit-reporting agencies. credit card in that name within a mat- ter of minutes (thanks to the Internet) @ Go on record with a letter to and start spending right away, ruining your bank or other financial institution your credit rating in the process. stating that you do not want your per- sonal information shared or included © Don't use debit cards for online in marketing databases. You can also purchases—they don’t have the same _call a toll-free number set up by the protections against liability for fraud national credit bureaus—888/567- that credit cards do. You could lose 8688—to opt out of preapproved everything in your account. credit offers. Yes, the credit bureaus sell your information, too. © Ifyou spend a lot of money on the Web with credit cards, get a card @ If you want to leave minimal that offers a safe-shopping guarantee. t