MacWorld9606June1996

he Most Mac Products Reviewed Anywhere JU WE TSE 16-PAGE SPECIAL REPORT in here YOU work miracles ©1995 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft Office, shown here, includes: Word, Microsoft Excel, the PowerPoint presentation graphics program and a workstation license for Microsoft Mail (server and software acquired separately) or StarNine Mail. For info. only: in the 50 United States and Canada, call (800) 531-6748. Outside the U.S. and Canada, call your local Microsoft subsidiary or (206) 936-8661. TT/TDD customers call (800) 892-5234 in the U.S. or (905) 568-9641 in Canada, Microsoft and PowerPoint are registered trademarks and Whore do you want to go todays a trademark of Microsoft Corp, Power Mac is a trademark of Apple Computer, In. rowa2zoqg In here You Your Power Mac™ And Microsoft® Office Become one. 2Pr maLY Ces <wouod0.8. xb T eth You assemble your thoughts Effortlessly. You drag Words tables Charts graphics From one program And drop them Into another Instantly. Ny T vou run "tal D E Microsoft Excel calculations A S_ In your Word document. B You turn E G Make something. G Your Word document O I A )\\_ Into a PowerPoint® H Make anything. T Presentation. . 0 D This is you. Working. You see everything F 0 Come together. Seamless! jy) Seamlessly. Micresoft [Detene 00 vou want 10 60 rope] “Considering the purchase of a PowerMac’?...We strongly recommend that you take a serious look at what Power Computing has to offer.” Maclser- Aug 95 “They might as well have come from Apple - the performance and compatibility are that good.” Macord- Aug 95 “..an excellent Mac P alternative, whether or not you are pinching your pennies.” PC Magacine- Aug 95 “Power Computing’s systems match their PowerMac counterparts for speed and compatibility and are every bit as good as a dyed-in-the-wool Macintosh.” Infoworld. June 95 @ ‘8MB RAM (256MB Max RAM) Optional Level 2 Cache (1MB Max) 850MB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAUI) Built-in Graphics w/1MB VRAM upgradeable to 4MB VRAM Extended Keyboard & Mouse el $1799 EdiopelG PowerCurve 601/120 Starter PowerCurve 601/120 Hot Pick [jl PowerWave 604/120 Base | ore ay 120MHz PowerPC™ 601+ 120MHz PowerPC™ 601+ 120MHz PowerPC™ 604 8MB RAM (256MB Max RAM) Optional Level 2 Cache (1MB Max) 850MB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive Quad-Speed (4X) CD-ROM Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAUI) Built-in Graphics w/1MB VRAM upgradeable to 4MB VRAM 14 inch .28 DP Monitor Extended Keyboard & Mouse $2297 8MB RAM (512MB Max RAM) Optional 256K, 512K, or 1MB Cache 850MB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive Quad-Speed (4X) CD-ROM Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAU!) 64-bit PCI Graphics w/2MB VRAM Desktop Computer Case Extended Keyboard & Mouse $2499 PowerWave 604/132 Hot Pick PowerWave 604/132 MultiMedia Jj PowerWave 604/150 Base 132 MHz PowerPC™ 604 132 MHz PowerPC™ 604 150 MHz PowerPC™ 604 16MB RAM (512MB Max RAM) 256K Level 2 Cache (1MB Max) 1.0GB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive Quad-Speed (4X) CD-ROM Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAU!) 64-bit PCI Graphics w/2MB VRAM. Extended Keyboard & Mouse $3499 “With an experienced staff 24MB RAM (512MB Max RAM) 256K Level 2 Cache (1MB Max) 1.0GB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive 14 inch .28 DP Monitor Quad-Speed (4X) CD-ROM Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAU!) 64-bit PCI Graphics w/2MB VRAM Tower Configuration Extended Keyboard & Mouse $4049 16MB RAM (512MB Max RAM) 512K Level 2 Cache (1MB Max) 1.0GB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive Quad-Speed (4X) CD-ROM Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAU!) 64-bit PCI Graphics w/2MB VRAM Tower Configuration Extended Keyboard & Mouse $3799 Check out Power's awesome website and register to win a PowerWave 604 MacOS system. http://www.powercc.com % recruited from Dell, APS, and Apple, * Power Computing has designed a robust support system... The support is excellent.” Macworld: Aug 95 2555 North IH 35, Austin, TX 78664-2015 tel. 512/388-6868 fax. 512/388-6799 ~ Internet: info@powercc.com = PowerWave 604/120 Home Office 120MHz PowerPC 604 16MB RAM (512MB Max RAM) Optional 256K, 512K, or 1MB Cache 1,0GB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive 14 inch .28 DP Monitor Quad-Speed (4X) CD-ROM Drive Internal lomega Zip™ Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAU!) 64-bit PCI Graphics w/2MB VRAM Extended Keyboard & Mouse $3257 PowerWave 604/150 MHz PowerP\ 4 32MB RAM (512MB Max RAM) 512K Level 2 Cache (1MB Max) 1.0GB 11ms SCSI Hard Drive 15 inch Sony Monitor Quad-Speed (4X) CD-ROM Drive Internal lomega Zip™ Drive 3 Fast PCI Expansion Slots Built-in Ethernet (10Base-T & AAUI) 64-bit PCI Graphics w/4MB VRAM. Extended Keyboard & Mouse $5100 ORDER DIRECT AND SAVE 1-800-410-7693 OVER $1200 OF FREE reves Chosen by Apple® to be the first Mac™0S licensee, we've made SUNCLED VAT NEA Sy Power Computing Apple to the core. Designed and built by Mac OS 7.52 briliant, trend-setting Mac engineers to feel like an Apple, run like Insignia's Soft Windows 2.0 60 day trial, an Apple, and love people like an Apple, Power Computing has Grolier's Multimedia Encyclopedia, taken something great, and made it even better. ‘Now Utilities, Now Up-to-Date, Now Contact, Intuit's Quicken, FWB HardDisk Toolkit PE, CD-ROM Toolkit, ClarisWorks, America Online, 250 Bitstream Fonts, . Launch CD, US CD Atlas, World CD Atlas, The Animals CD-ROM, Nisus Writer FREE Service & Support IW “A machine we love even more than the PowerMac 7500 - the PowerWave 6( MWR Macworld: Feb 96 30 day money back, Love-Me-Or-I'm-History guarantee. Toll-free lifetime technical support. 1, 2, or 3-year on-site service available, starting at $49. Go Configure! ‘Since Power Computing is the manufacturer, you can customize your RAM, hard drive, video and monitor options — just call. © PowerComputing MORE POWER TO Your Circle 161 on reader service card 106 112 4 Features The Right Stuff 98 The Macworld Office BY DAVID POGUE Assemble a software suite that works— because the programs work well together—with our top business application picks. Forget Microsoft Office—go with a real winner. The perfect software suite, page 98. The Right Stuff Office Essentials BY JOSEPH scHORR Round out your ideal office suite of soft- ware with these top add-ons and productivity boosters. The Right Stuff Office Secrets BY DAVID POGUE AND JOSEPH scHorr Forty expert tips and hidden features from the experts unlock the power and potential of the Maeworld Office. Heavy-Duty Printers ey cary tu Macworld Lab tackles 13 big and fast workgroup printers with a battery of real- world tests to separate the work- horses from the also-rans. June 1996 MACWORLD 4 37 Macworid THE MACINTOSH® AUTHORITY JUNE 1996 News Mac Clones’ New Design Apple gambles on a cost-saving design to entice clone makers. ‘Sneak Peek FoxPro Gets Some Polish A Mac interface, object-oriented programming for version 3.0. Hello, CorelDraw ‘The world’s best-selling illustra- tion program is finally on the Mac. Open Transport Done Right Faster connections and fewer bugs in version 1.1. SPECIAL REPORT 17 256 Ultimate Imaging 78 Ultimate Imaging BY DEKE MCCLELLAND software alternatives. 80 Essential Add-Ons Expand Photoshop's capabilities with these Opinion BY ADRIAN MELLO A new age of communications. The Desktop Critic By pavio poGue The life ofa professional product reviewer. Viewpoint BY |AN BROWN dying in cyberspace. Death and BY DEKE McCLELLAND Must-have plug-in packages and utilities take Photoshop to a whole new level. 82 Photoshop Secrets SY DEKE MccLELLAND Undocumented Photoshop tricks. 93 Maximum Display 87 Photoshop at Warp Speed y BY GALEN GRUMAN Macworld Lab examines 150MHz clones, the cutting edge in image-editing speed. vw BY GENE STEINBERG Macworld Lab tests six high-performance PCI video cards to uncover the real speed demons. 131 137 143 146 150 Special Report—The digital camera craze, in News, page 38. Secrets Matters of Preference BY JOSEPH SCHORR Thetricl web of preference fi Quick Tips BY LON POOLE and shortcuts. Tips, tricks, NetSmart BY SUZANNE STEFANAC Fair use on the Net: Is copyright law dead? Media Screen-Layout Secrets By Jim HEIO How to create screen graphics for best effect. Publishing Workshop BY DAVID BLATNER Composit- ing without halos in Photoshop. Graphics Workshop By CATHY Ages Work with color to increase image depth. ‘Macworld Lab tests the Zip drive's big brother—lomega’s Jaz— in Reviews, page 48. 153 165 169 12 Buyers’ Tools Gigabyte Hard Drives sy HOWARD BALOWIN Bigger is better—and not that expensive. Macworld Lab rates 21 hard drives over a gigabyte on perfor- mance and price. Consumer Advocate BY DON setters Sources and tips on finding the best in RSI care. Star Rat Macworld’s ratings for hundreds of hardware and software prod- ucts at a glance. How to Contact Macworld DG 301/404-1465. Subnrgton ae ae $90 fr 1 es. $4 or 24 ses, scons pote AS 98 pe yee pete for Canada aed Mens sree. Ad 69 pe ele postage oa other counties. Secon ON THE COVER Photograph by Stan Musilek 48 50 51 52 54 55 56 58 61 62 63 65 66 68 70 72 74 75 76 Reviews ***K/8.3 Jaz Drive Removable drive ***/5.1 Xdream 1.0; ****/7.1 XPert Tools 1.0 ‘QuarkXPress plug-in collections compared **%/5.1 HP Color Laserlet 5M; ***/7.9 Tektronix Phaser 550 Color laser printers compared eke #/7.1 Deck 112.5; *k**/7.0 SoundEdit 16 2.0 Audio production software compared *k*K/7.. OmniPage Professional 6.0; k*k/7.0 TextBridge Professional 3.0 OCR software compared 44/77 QuickBooks Pro 4.0 Accounting software 4% %/8.1 Alien Tales; #*/6.8 Amazing Writing Machine Kids' reading, writing programs ***/6.6 PageOffice Personal page scanner **/6.5 BBEdit 3.52 Web-authoring tool *#/3.8 CD AutoCache 1.1; *&*/5.4 CD-ROM ToolKit 2.0.1 CD-ROM acceleration software compared **/3.9 Rebel Assault Il; &*/8.3 X-Wing Collector's CD-ROM Star Wars combat simulators compared **x/6.9 Micro Planner Manager 1.4 5 Project-management software kw K/7.2 MiniTab 10 Xtra Statistical software ****/7.1 Panorama 3.0 RAM-based database **/5.2 Full Contact 3.0 Personal information manager *ek«/7.3 NetMeter 1.0 Network-monitoring tool *kK/S.7 Captivate 4.5 Screen-saver utility ‘**%/5.8 Life's Greatest Mysteries Educational medical CD-ROM */2.6 Smart One 2834VLXMac Fax modem with voice-mail software MACWORLD June 1996 5 AnthroCarts! Macworld PRESIOENT/PUBUSHER Colin Crawford ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT Sharon Sanderson ‘chiEE OPERATING OFFICER Stephen Daniels AUSINESS MANAGER Lisa Buckingham FINANCE ASSISTANT Eos de Feminis| DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES Shelly Ginenthal EMPLOYEE RELATIONS MANAGER Marisa Chow NETWORK MANAGER Walter J. Clegg Is TECHNICIANS Dave Johnson, Theodore Kim PROGRAMIMER/ANALYST Frederie Desbois ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT nger Von Wening CORPORATE BUSINESS MANAGER Christina W. Spence ACCOUNTING/OPERATIONS Pat Murphy ACCOUNTING/FACILITIES MANAGER Michelle Reyes Maceo pied by Hace Community whey ewe ah AnthroCarts are so flexible. You 7 Supcgume WCARK: Computciord Duana, NeworkwordBulpan, PC & have dozens of shapes and sizes & sda Network Word Canada Cue Cmputrwone Ce, ict Conan Cara Wo Cag, a (SLOVAK RUPUMLICS to choose, plus over 50 accessories to configure your cart exactly @ the way you want. And they have a Lifetime Warranty! Made of steel and high density particle board, these AnthroCarts are as tough as nails. a” See them all in our catalog, then call © -... us direct to order. We'll ship to j you the very next business day! Call for your free catalog: 800-325-3841 id 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM PST, M-F ‘utero mco: PC Word Puerto Ric ROMANGAComputerword Romana, PC ‘Word Romania, Telecom Romani: RUSSIA: Compulteraond Rusts, Mr PX, Sty Anthro Corporation® Technology Furniture® 10450 SW Manhasset Dr. Tualatin, OR 97062 vem Fax: 800-325-0045 ANTHRO E-mail: sales@anthro.com Since 1984. Prices from $299. For a lower cost line for the home, ask for our SOHO catalog. GSA contract. Available for OEM applications. Anthro, AnthroCart and Technology Furniture are registered trademarks of Anthro. mputerwodd Monts Macworld Tuy PC Games, PC World ine: Computerwotd Kev, Computers & Software, Mulimeda ‘rd Utrsie, UNTED Rincbom: Atom Use: Amiga Acton, puing. Applet, CD-ROM Now, Computing. Gamebro, Macaetio, A DuoScan? they tell you. A desktop scanner with two loading areas? A two-bed scanner? Yes, they say. So you can load transparencies while you scan reflective art. And with a dedicated bed for each, you can get better scans from both. Then you look at the dynamic range. And you look at the resolution. And the speed. And then you know exactly what itis. It's something that’s going to make your life a lot easier. ‘Agfa Division, Bayer Corporation, 100 Challenger Rd, Ridgefield Park, NY 07660. AGFA and the Agfa rhombus ae registered trademarks of Agta-Gevoert AG. DuoScan 91 ‘mark and TwinPlate Technology, FotoTune, FotoFlavor and AgfaType are trademarks of Agfa Photoshop isa trademark of Adobe Systems ine, which may be registered in some jurlitons Circle 158 on reader service card ‘Agta Duoscan with echnology, Exclusive ‘dual scanning bed design for increased accuracy and productivity 36-bit scanning of up to legal letter size for issive, Dynamic range: 3.30. ution: 2000 X 1000 ppi. Line time: 7.7 mslline, full color. Previews in under 10 seconds, Batch slide holders optional A Be Adobe Photoshop “3 . A Comes complete with full Adobe Photoshop" 3.0, Agfa FotoTune™ color management and FotoFlavor™ color correction software. In Canada, please call 1-800-268-1331, ext, 4032 w.agfahome.com AGFA & The complete picture. CF a ass socks x ® or sett eating Lox Oo on Not can drive it Here or There Sor © You can drive it Any © Whe %e The 1996 TOYOTA CD-ROM Think of it as a portable showroom. You provide the computer. It follows. Every Toyota Car, Truck, SUV, RAV4 or Van. Specifications. Dealer locations. It's got it. Virtually explore the models in any color, from any angle, inside and out. No hurry, No hassle, PC or Mac.® For your free disc, just call 1-800-GO-TOYOTA, or order on-line at hittp://www.toyota.com/horn/media. Go ahead — take it for a spin, TOYOTA 1 ove what you do for me ©1996 Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. Ine Buckle Up! Do it for those who lave you, éz Circle 39 on reader service card New! Expansion Bay 230MB Magneto-Optical D VST Technologies’ Expansion Bay Magneto- Optical Drive is the perfect portable boda Pe solution for PowerBook 190 & 5300 VST Technologies * 1620 Sudbury Road « Suite 3 Concord, MA 01742 (508) 287-4600 + (508) 287-4068 Fax Circle 73 on reader service card 8 June 1996 MACWORLD Macworld soITORAN-CHIEE Adrian Mello EDITORIAL eAECUTIVE EOITORS Galen Gruman, Carol Person orroniat prooucer Barbara Assadi DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL OPERATIONS Jane Lagos Seon EOITOR/FEATURES Charles Piller senor eorr0R Howard Baldwin SOR ASSOCIATE sOITOR/OEPARTHENTS Marjorie Baer Anita Epler, Dan Li ASSOCIATE ForrOR/REVIEWS Wendy Sharp ‘Abes, Linda Gomer, herty, Katherine L. Ulrich Suzanne Courteau, Jim ASSOCIATE FOITORS. Cathy E, Cameron Crotty, Elizabeth Dot ASSISTANT EOITORS ley Frick manacen Deborah Weinberger /AOMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Roxanne Gentile ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Patricia Carberry-Harris cowrnisurng torrors Mel Beckman, Robert C, Fekhardt, fert Fenton, Jim Hei Deke McClelland, ‘Tom Negrin Steve Roth, Joseph Schorr, Charles David Pogu INTERNATIONAL EDITORS Osmund Iversen, Australia; Marianne Fajstrup, Denmark; Jessica Monreal, Mexico; Oscar Ki reppers, Nether “Toralv Ostvang, Norway; Alvaro Ibariez, Nicklas Mattsson, Sweden; Schneeberger, Switret ey; Peter Worlock, United Kingdom Bahattin Apak, T as oinecton SEMOR TEOANICAL ANALYSTS Invewrony controLer Paul Brown COPY EDIT AND EDITORIAL PRODUCTION MANAGING éOITOR Ruth Henrich SENIOR PRODUCTION EDITOR cory eoitons Paul-Michael King, Elissa Rabellino [ASSISTANT PRODUCTION EOITOR Jackie Goodman ART AND DESIGN ACTING DESIGN DIRECTOR Leslie Barton Ar o1RecrOR ynne Hoffman ‘SEMIOR DESIGNER/INFORMATIONAL GRAPHICS Ame Hurty ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR. Sylvia Benvenuti ASSOCIATE DESIGNER. ‘Tim Johnson SENIOR DESIGN ASSOCIATE Martha Kate DESIGN ASSOCIATES Rachel Arnold, Belinda Chlouber ONLINE torron Suzanne Stefanac COMUNE SALES MANAGER Jeff Julian WEB ADMINISTRATOR Chip Carman, ‘ONLINE ADMINISTRATOR. Steve Costa Conrer ewcineeR Paul Devine ‘onune propucers/eorrors Matthew Hawn, Karen Liberatore PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Kristine Moss ] 1 i | SCANNER INTO A INTRODUCING OMNIPAGE PRO 6.0— IT’S FASTER, EASIER AND MUCH MORE ACCURATE. ‘Tired of retyping faxes, reports, articles, even letters into your Macintosh? With OmniPage® Pro 6.0 and your scanner, you can accurately enter thousands of words per minute with the simple push of a button. ten ti the fastest typist: Fs pinpoint accuracy. MW "Suede US espe can wate OmniPage Pro 6.0’s indus- try-leading Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software s your scanned pages to editable t tand graphics in seconds for us in popular Mac applications like Word, Word- Perfect, Quark and many others. So you get press, Excel to spend more time producing instead of manually typing. And OmniPage Pro 6.0’s blazing speed, which is even faster on Power Mac systems, is only outdone by its superior accuracy, It recognizes all Pan Ween Ta ilyouneed toknow RLD-CLASS fonts at virtually any size. It flags suspicious words, then corrects them for you. It accurately interprets hard-to- read faxes and copies using grayscale information. And it “Powerful and faster, Caere’s OCR stalwart scores high on accuracy.” MacUser January 1995 even reads unique characters and special symbols. Without doubt OmniPage Pro 6.0 is the smartest OCR software you can buy. So call and order a copy today or visit your local reseller. rept et atic Todaro Circle 69 on reader service card 70% OFF RETAIL PRICE Upgrade from OmniPage Limited Edition, Omni WordScan or other versions of OmniPage {including those bundled in your scanner) and get the best OCR! © 65% more accurate © 35% faster © Enhanced, easy-to- use AutoOCR Toolbar™ Retain original page layout with True Page® © 24-bit image editor * Accelerated for Power Macintosh Interactive Apple Guide assistance Call Ext. 80 today! Cas Cnet Ae snes te pepe aac aes. “The #1 Mac Desk.” 1.800.688.2446 SUPPORTS WINDOWS 95, Simply the fastest way to run DOS and Windows on your Run any Windows" 95, Windows" or DOS application on your Power Macintosh” 6100, 7100 or 8100 computer. Plugs into the PDS slot to deliver the fastest performa Processes instructions at up to 100MHz with dedicated 486 or 5x86 processors. Provides direct access to all your Mac peripherals including monitor, printer, hard drive, CD ROM drive, network, modem, and more. Copy and paste information between Macintosh and Windows applications. Dual-processing runs Mac and DOS/Windows applications at the same time. Optional Ethemet and Token Ring support with dual TCP/IP. Supports SoundBlaster” 16 with optional daughtercard. Reply’s original DOS on Mac card is also available for Macintosh Centrs 610 and 650 computers and Quadra 610, 650, 700, 800, 900 and 950 computers. PCI solutions available in the second quarter of 1996, ep and eRe ug aerate ct ey Capron 10 June 1996 MACWORLD CALL 1 800 801 6898 DISPLAY ADVERTISING SALES ASSOCIATE PURLSHER Mate Sweeney (415/978-3271) Steve Plevin (415/978-3138) Eva Bosch (415/974-7310) Suzanne Saluti (415/975-2624) Leste Black (415/978-3160) Lois Brennan (415/978-3262) Liz Pabon (415/978-3257) Karl Elken (415/978-3155) Christine Wong (415/978-3192) Sara Culley (310/545-0646) soministeavive assistant: Margaret Level Green (415/267-4577) Cynthia Ramsey (201/243-1197) Paul Bonarrigo (508/370-0832) Kelly Burke (415/978-3164) NATIONAL ACCOUNTS MANAGER Lisa Ladle (800/779-5622) Kathy Poppenhagen (847/827-4477) Kim Giovanni (847/827-4477) ‘SALES DEPARTMENT COORDINATOR ‘SALES DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR NATIONAL ACCOUNTS MANAGER ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS MANAGER ACCOUNT ExEcUTVE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS MANAGER ‘Account txtcurive ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT MAIL ORDER/CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING SALES account manactnsimatonotn Ed Ramirez (415/974-7413), Lisa Weisberg (415/978-3117) 800/888-8622 Niki Stranz (415/978-3105), Carol Johnstone (415/978-3152), Shannon Smith (415/974-7414) Bethany A. Baller (415/978-3276) “Toni May (415/975-2638) MACWORLD SHOPPER [ACCOUNT MANAGER/MMW DIRECTORY ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT MACWORLD GLOBAL PRODUCT SUPPORT CENTER DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Kimberlee A. Luedee Alisson Walsh ‘AND SUPPORT SURViCES MARKET RESEARCH Linda Lawrence Phillip Hibbert, Matt McAlister RESEARCH DIRECTOR USEARCH ANALYSTS MARKETING MARKETING DIRECTOR Cynthia Koral MARCOM MANAGER [TRADE SHOW/IVENTS MANAGER MARKETING ASSOCIATE Shannon McArdle CIRCULATION VICE PRESIOENT/DIRECTOR OF CIRCULATION Angelina Beitia SNCLE-COPY sates DIRECTOR George Clark SENIOR CIRCULATION MANAGER Lori Hitchcock Elizabeth Jensen Martin Garchar CIRCULATION MANAGER DIRECT-MARESTING MANAGER Kelvin Gee NEWSSTAND COORDINATOR. Dalia Schwartz SUBSCRIPTION COORDINATOR Peter Ho Geoffrey Walls 800/288-6848 NEW BUSINESS COORDINATOR reply tel 408 942 4804_fax 408 956 2793 hittp://wewvereply.com PRODUCTION VICE PRESIDENT/DIRECTOR OF MANUFACTURING ‘Anne Foley Cynthia Neustadt David W. MeAferty Clayton Haberman So Fong Yip Lily Cheung ASSISTANT PRODUCTION MANAGER DTP COORDINATOR SILUNG ASistANT Just what an in-box with a mind of its own. PaperPort Vx makes faxing, filing, or even ignoring memos easier than ever. —+ geet epiaskae Feed it a business card and it automatically goes into an electronic card file of contacts. TOP WINNER GOES To HAW: FORA WHOLE MONTH, _ . - - You see your name in a local news- paper, PaperPort it, then fax or ‘e-mail it to all your friends. (Works just as well on work-related stuff.) Get a close look at your favorite chart, or your favorite friend. PaperPort Vx scans up to a detailed 256 shades of gray. 7. te your need), — It’s time to put paper to work. Simply feed any document into PaperPort Vx" and in as little as 2 seconds it magically appears ‘on your screen. From there you can organize it or send it any way you please. File it in a folder: Or drag it to a word processing icon, where your application launches _$299* gets you gyytifaty the winner of and your text appears, ready to —the Macworld 1 Sa"% Five Sta id be edited. Drop it on the fax awardee “4 Buy awards. MWESieeey treat your printer like a copy machine, making multiple copies icon and out through your fax software it goes. You can even or putting several items on a single page. PaperPort Vx comes with $249 worth of free software, including OmniPage LITE™ OCR, CardScan SE* and PictureWorks Copier™No other scanner, or in-box, has more ways to make paper more productive. To see the whole picture, head to your favorite retailer or our web site at http:/www visioneer.com, or call us at 1-800-787-7007, ext.606. And put paper in its place. PAPERPORT Y visioneer “Estimated steot pice. ©1996 Vsionee In. Al igh reserved. Vsioneer and PaperPort Vx are trademarks of Visoneer. The Visonoer go sa registered trademark Other brands and product names are trademarks of thar respecive companies. Circle 18 on reader service card Techioo!l Pro} “If there is anything wrong with m) Mac, Reha. Thorp rk Coorainalor TechToo! Pro will find it. System bombs, freezes, sad Macs, crashes, SCSI problems and indecipherable error codes. Computer users face these and other potential hazards all of the time. Sometimes the source of the problem is Phone obvious, but most of the time it's not. That's why you ‘Al other locations 303/608-1465 need TechTool Pro, the new problem-solving utlity B.D erate from MicroMat Computer Systems. TechTool Pro coe Set Ge ce eG goes beyond cryptic diagnostic programs by providing tink saiekaewelase interactive help in finding the cause of the problem. And it doesn't just stop there! When TechTool Pro finds the problem, it will tell you (in plain English) how to eliminate the problem for good. in some cases it will even fix the problem for you If Macintosh troubles are gtechiool Ls | HOW TO CONTACT MACWORLD Subscription Questions ‘Mainland USA 800/288-6848 REPRINTS AND PERMISSIONS Address requests for reprint orders and for permissions to copy editorial for other purposes to Reprints and Permissions, Edtoral Department. Permission wil be granted by the copyright owner for those reg: Istered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) to photocopy any article herein—for personal or internal reference use only—for the fat fee of $1.50 per copy of the article or any part thereof. Specify ISSN 0741 18647 and send payment directly to the CCC at 27 Congress St, Salem, aorg70, bringing you down, get TechTool Pro. Because you've got better things to do with your time than waste it on a broken computer. For more information by fax, call our fax-on-demand system at 707-838-4231 and order document #2009. Back Issues of Macworld Back sues are $7 per issue for US, delivery ($12 overseas; prepayment 00-829-6227 or 707-837-8012 FAX: 707-837-0209 email: micromat@nbn.com In US. funds & required, Make checks oF money orders payable to ‘Macworld Magazine and mall along with a written request to Macworld Back Issues, c/o Snyder Newell, RO, Box 7046, San Francisco, CA 94120-9727, ‘Macworld in Microfilm ‘Macworld is available on microfilm and microfiche trom UMI, 300 N. Zeeb Rd, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346; 313/761-4700, AMICROMAT COMPUTER SYSTEMS Macworld Editorial ‘Our oifices are located at 501 Second St, San Francisco, CA 94107 415/243-0605, fax 415/442-0766. internet: macworld@mseworld com; | 70370,702compuserve,com; macworld1 @applelink apple.com, The Monitor that — Shows You the Whole Enchilada. Readers can contact editors diecty via the Macworld forum on ‘America Online (keyword Macworld) or Macworld Online's Web site (htp//wnm macwortdcom). LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Diectall comments, questions, and suggestions regarding any aspect of the magazine to Letters to the Editor (ltters@macworldcom), All mails read by our editor. We reserve the right to edit al submissions letters must include your name, address, and telephone number. QUICK TIPS Send your questions oF tips on how to use Mac ‘computers, peripherals, or software tothe atention of Quick Tips. Please include your name, addres, and telephone number, CONSUMER ADVOCATE Been burned? Ripped off? Direct your coneeins (by mall only) to Consumer Advocate, Include yout Address and phone number as well as the address ofthe vendor. We alto encourage you to include copies of correspondence exchanged withthe vendor In question BUGS AND TURKEYS. Send us descriptions of turkeys (aws in conception or design) and bugs (detects or flaws in execution) with your | 94txi27 active display area, 69 diagonal. The Pivot 1700"has other 17" color monitors beat from top to bottom. It pivots from horizontal to vertical mode to give you the tallest, sharpest display you can get. Taller, even, than a 21" monitor! And much more affordable. So now you can read a full 85"x II"page without scrolling. Call us today or, if you prefer, e-mail us at pdlcalif@aol.com for the whole story. http://www. portrait.com 12 june 1996 MACWORLD Circle 89 on reader service card telephone number, malling address, and T-shit ste STREETWISE SHOPPER Vendors and resellers, fax requests to cbtain an application for inclusion of special produet promotions in Streetwise Shopper. WRITING FOR MACWORLD. If you't interested in wating for lus, send a selfaddressed, stamped envelope with a request for our writes guidelines, Oo not send unsolicited manuscripts David Bunnell Andrew Fluegelman 1943-1985 FOUNDING EDITOR MACINTOSH ate registered POWERBOOK ate traderarts of Apple Compute, Ic, Printed in the Vera, IDG PIPELINE MAKES USING THE INTERNET PRETTY DARNED EASY. THE CANDY: Easy to take, easy to use, not to information to get your doctorate; e-mail that virtually eliminates mention immediate access to the Internet; enough the need for the post office; as well as News Groups, Internet Relay Chat, FTP, Gopher and the opportunity to create your ‘own homepage on the World Wide Web. Our award-winning, Netscape. THE DEALS For only $19.95 a month you get |osober 0,00 unlimited local access to all the Internet has to offer and roumuss’| no sneaky additional hourly charges to make you cranky. easy interface is fully compatible with leading Web browsers, including | THE NUMBER: [f you're still not interested, go ahead and ring us anyway. The call’ free, the software's free and so are your first 14 days. You've got nothing to lose. a -800-379-8846 [SSINDOHS IPELINE WINDOWS" 85 Service fees apply beyond the first 14 free days. \\ Valid major credit card required. Phone charges may apply. A PSINet Company. © PSINet Inc. 1996. Circle 95 on reader service card Okay, so youre going to run Windows on your Power Mac. Here's why youre still a good person. You're Intelligent. You really need to run Windows. SoftWindows from Insignia Solutions is the only software that lets you do it on your Power Mac. Your keen mind instantly puts two and two together. You Know The Value Of A Dollar. SoftWindows 3.0 costs roughly $299, Apple’s DOS Compatibility Card, about $749. Plus another ten bucks or so for the screwdriver you'll need to install it. You're Loyal. Sure, you'll be running all those-applications from the other side of the tracks. But you'll be doing it on your own terms (i.e., on your Power Mac). You're Open-Minded. Zillions of people use Windows. You're probably even friends with a few. So, it can’t be all that bad. (Just in case, we promise not to release your name to the press.) Relax. Now you can get intimate with Windows without cheating on your Power Mac. New SoftWindows 3.0 runs 35% faster than before. And SoftWindows 95 comes with TurboStart, for faster booting. InfoWorld called SoftWindows “the perfect fit for the business professional who needs the versatility of both a Macintosh and a PC on the desktop?” Call 1-800-848-7677 for dealers Soft\i = é ais or to hear about our upgrade offer for current customers. is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Mac is a trademark, and Macintosh, Power Mac and Apple are registered trademarks of Apple InfoWorld ©1995 International Data Group. SoftWindows 95 costs roughly $349. Prices as published in MacWarehouse, Volume S0R3. ©1996 Insi Circle 68 on reader service card Color is color, until you print at full throttle. Power up a Phaser® 340 color printer. And all your work will be right on time, right on the money. It prints 4 color pages per minute at 11¢ per color page. So everyday reports, memos and overheads are all suddenly practical. g At 600 dpi. With PostScript™ And for any size workgroup. The Phaser 340 is reliable, affordable and Adobe PostScript Network manageable. It supports PCs, workstations and Macs. And it’s supported by Tektronix, a Fortune 500 manufacturer, who makes all the best solutions for color across the enterprise. Tektronix Phaser Printers Phaser 140 Phaser 240 NEW Phaser 340 Phaser 550 Phaser 440 Phaser 460X Phaser 3001 Tektronix Circle 143 on reader service card (© 1985 Teton, ne. lights eserves The Truth about Upgrades USE A QUADRA 800 AND LATELY HAVE been feeling Power Mac envy. I have been looking into my upgrade options and am a bit confused. Is it true that Apple will be coming out with an 8500 mother- board replacement for my present one? If so, when? I phoned Apple and was told it is notavailable and that there is no infor- mation on when (if ever) it will be. How- ever, in the back of your magazine, sever- al advertisers claim to have 8500 motherboards now. What's the story? BRIAN E. BOUGHTON via the Internet At press time, Apple bad not released an upgrade board for the 8500, though the mail-order com- panies we contacted are perfectly willing to take orders, Apple’s ability to provide logic-board upgrades has been hampered by a components shortage, first reported in News, October 1995. Whole systems are more profitable for Apple than upgrades, so expect these short-supply com- ponents to satisfy the CPU demand first. Perhaps as these shortages ease, the logic-board market will improve.—Ed. The Marginalized Mac [] ) HANK YOU FOR ADDRESSING A PROB- lem that is becoming a real burden to Mac Web publishers (“Descending into Babel, Web-style,” NetSmart, March 1996). Windows Web publishers have had a three-month head start with Netscape plug-ins like Macromedia’s Shockwave, though for the life of me I can’t figure out why, since Microsoft’s choice of AVI over MPEG or QuickTime only proves that when it comes to the Web, Microsoft still just doesn’t get it. Many Netscape plug- in developers don’t even plan on creating Lellers Mac versions of their plug-ins. While most Web surfers are probably using Windows, Netscape and those plug-in developers seem to have forgotten that a large percentage of the innovative pub- lishing going on is still done on Macs. Without innovative content, the Web is only a novelty. Davio Levinson via the Internet Keyboard Fixes In response to reader Steve Mankowski, who wondered how to fix a sticky PowerBook key- board (Letters, February 1996), we said we were stumped, and asked for readers’ sugges- tions. Here’s what we got.—Ed. HAD THE SAME PROBLEM WITH MY PowerBook 520: keys would not de- press smoothly, and sometimes the com- puter would register two keystrokes rather than just one. I noticed that the keyboard on my friend’s PowerBook 520 worked perfectly. So I hastened into my Apple-authorized repair center before the warranty expired. Within a week my PowerBook was back with a new key- board, free of charge. So, Steve, don’t waste time looking for a third-party solu- tion to Apple’s defective keyboard, get thee to a repair center on the double! Cnuuck HENEBRY ‘via the Internet F ALL ELSE FAILS, TRY DENTAL RUBBER bands. Any dentist who does braces has those little tiny rubber bands and should give or sell you enough to do the job for less than a dollar. Gently pry off each key, place a rubber band around the post, and replace the key. I don’t know if this will help with a PowerBook, but it used to be a great fix for the clackety and sometimes sticky key- boards on early portables like the Radio Shack Model 100. CATHARINE BUSHNELL via America Online 7 OU CAN MODIFY KEYBOARD RESPON- _ siveness by tightening or loosening the two keyboard screws on the bottom of the case. The tool for the job is a Torx T8 screwdriver. ALEX VIGDOR via the Internet WAS PLEASED TO READ DENISE CARU- so’s article in last month’s Macworld (“Civil Rights Activists Say, ‘Sniff This!’” Viewpoint, May 1996). Your readers might be interested to know about the legal continues MACWORLD June 1996 17 WHEN WHAT YOU WANTISN'T ON YOUR ILLUSTRATOR OR FREEHAND - » fector Effects filters bring key capabilities to both ilustrator and FreeHand. Lear to use them, and you'll wonder how you lived without these filters.” ghana “Deke McClelland, MacWorld, Find out more! Call us today. 1.800.472.9025 Mention Dept. VMO6 The Visual Computing Software Company 805.566.6220 fax: 805.566.6367 Contact us in cyberspace: metasales@aol.com '/www.metatools.com mei 2 rey. ara A ee ne arate edinde kee ctr peace seviseutecearese eer Circle 4 on reader service card 18 June 1996 MACWORLD LETTERS co © The correct phone number for P er Computing is 512/388-6868 (Reviews, April 1996) * Hewlett-Packard’s Scanger 4e, not | LaCie’s Silverscanner II, lacks a com- prebensive set of tonal-correction tools (“Scanner Solutions,” March 1996). challenges recently launched to oppose the Communications Decency Act. In passing the Communications winter, the current Con- gress and President Clinton ignored the principle of free speech set forth in these words of the First Amendment: “Con- gress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The new law prohibits the transmission of any material that is “indecent” or “patently offensive” and that might be available to anyone under 18 years old “through any telecommunications medium.” It’s worth noting that this provision of the more comprehensive Telecommunica- tions Reform Act was ratified despite Attorney General Reno’s insistence that existing laws provide ample means to prosecute obscenity law violations. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 imposes greater restrictions on the Internet than could possibly exist on speech or the press. It even adapted a dead-letter criminal statute that made ita felony to distribute any information about abortion procedures or providers, apply- ing the ban to Internet communications. On the day the law was signed, it was legally challenged by a coalition of civil libertarians who widely decried the CDA as an unconstitutional infringement of constitutionally protected rights to speak, listen, write, and read. The Associ- ation of Publishers, Editors, and Writ a West Coast-based organization, subse- quently filed a second challenge with the primary goal of establishing that the Inter- net is a “unique communications medi- um, deserving unique First Amendment protection . . . [that] unlike the broadcast media should receive at least the same broad protection afforded to the print media.” With regard to protecting chil- dren, coalition members believe that Internet blocking and filtering technolo- gies now available can protect children from inappropriate material online. “Par- ents, not the United States Government,” this coalition contends, “are the best and most appropriate judges of what material is appropriate for themselves and their children.” The two court challenges have been consolidated into a single case now before a three-judge panel in Philadelphia, The Justice Department has since agreed ritt to commence any prosecutions while the actis being challenged. A ruling is expect- ed by summer at the earliest. Should that ruling be appealed, it will be heard by the United States Supreme Court. For more information on the lawsuit, it bttp://www.horwired.com/special/ Jawsuit and hrtp://www.cdt.org/ciec/. James Wnkaton Senior Counsel, First Amendment Project Oakland, California Mr. Wheaton and the First Amendment Proj- ect, a nonprofit public interest law firm, are vep= resenting the Association of Publishers, Editors, and Writers in the lawsuit challenging the Com- munications Decency Act—Ed. The Smell of Success JUST HAD TO WRITE TO you how much fun I had reading “Confes: sions of a Macintosh Therapist” (The Desktop Critic, March 1996). After reading it myself, I felt inclined to read it aloud to my wife. She doesn’t even like computers that much but she too got a chuckle as I explained each story in great detail. Thanks for the info and the laughs. I love to read Macworld—I even like the way it smells, STEVE SCOVILLE via America Online You know, we've received several letters that mention the wonderful smell of Macworld, Is it, as one reader suggested, the smell of new tech- nology and power, or just the mundane but nev- ertheless still enticing aroma of paper, ink, and binding glue? Are these the same people who as children loved the smell of freshly mimeographed paper’ Where's the Trackball? OWN AN OLDER POWERBOOK. L. I’ve noticed its distinct lack of speed compared with my desktop Power Mac. I recently played around with a new Power- continues [LIME STORAGE y ] G red kz ~ Quench your thirst with Pinnacle’s new e Optical Drive... Onlyjees fr complete with one optical disk. Basedeon Pinnacle’s revolutionary optical technology, : the Vertex” boasts a 19 msec seek time, a maximum datagrate of 6 Megabytes per second, and spins at 3755 RPM. Making the Vertex the industegis highest 5.25” MODEL CAPACITY SRP 2.6 Gigabyte rewritable optical drive. Vertex utilizes Hitachi oni 26GB $5393.00 3 é 4 : Maxoptix 742600 16 GB $2525 ” 3000 ie le, high Gpaaty optical media for Olympus PowertO = 26GB $500 263800 cad SHO-FSAA 26 Gh 52695253600 | unlimited storage. Fill up a disk, just pop in “yea id Gy fo mwa I another. Data intensive applications such as digital video/audio, , color prepress, imaging, networking, and data archiving all require the optimum level of data integrity, portability, and fast - t random access to your information. The Vertex can hold up t 2.6 Gigabytes of mass storage on a single cartridge that complies with ‘| standards for data interchangeability. And now each disk has a shelf life up to 100 years! Your storage choice is dear. Call Pinnade Micro, the optical storage leader, today: 800-553-7070 Gi 8 Biternay Mac/pc PINNACLE Piven Tel: 714-789-3000 Fax: 714-789-3150» http://www.pinnaclemicro.com 1 Trademarks and Reptred Trademarks of Tei Resecve Over. Circle 115 ‘Don't yet-sacked by:typos:and ‘misspellings. Get Spelling Coach Profesional’ It works infaratvely and i-batch made with your favorite :mail el tors, word processors and al leading softwar’ piogcims to sg: ‘nal fumbles in spelling, punctuation and capitalization. Coach calls corrections fromm Merriam-Webster’ Wictianary of over 95,000:words ond 93,000 legl, medical and technical terms. Instantly look up definitions for over 85,000 words or consult its BigThesaurus of 1:4-millon combinaioas of yfonys, ‘antonyms, compared, contrasted and related terms. Put Spelling Coach Professional on your team-for just 49%! vN pax As sortwace ©eConnection ve ust item deneba,con/ SKUALTOS Masterful Artworks Hailed by Critics! tite) 7 — MacUser “artWORKS is the best valve you can find in an entry-level grophics program” — Mac User Acclaimed by reviewers and users alike, Denebo arlWORKS' puts crisp object-drawing and vivid 24-bit painting and image editing tools in one handy place. In short, everything you need to touch up family photos, create dazzling newsletter mastheads, schoo! reports, business graphics and more. It’s the perfect companion for any color ink jet printer. Use the cartWORKS 8,000 Clip Art Image Collection and 500 Fonts to get storied on your next work of art — included FREE on CD-ROM. And for just ‘49%, this masterpiece won't break your bank. DENEBA PCy “ssortware MacConmection (305)596-5644 800-998-0014 tue 1055 biip://ww denebo com/ LETTERS Book 5300c and loved the performance, but I hated the TrackPad. It’s simply not accurate enough to satisfy my mobile CAD needs. On the other hand, I love the trackball on my current PowerBook— I wish my desktop Power Mac had a little trackball in front of the spacebar. Sadly, after browsing Apple’s Web page, it was very clear to me that the TrackPad is here to stay. Tam going to have to upgrade my lap- top sometime soon, but the thought of paying a fortune for a PowerBook with an input device I hate simply horrifies me. Somebody please give me a portable laptop with a trackball! Davip M. Downey via the Internet Can't belp you get a 5300-series PowerBook ith a trackball, but you could try the Mini- Trackball from Fellowes Manufacturing (reviewed way back in the March 1992 issue). It's small enough to fit in the palm of your band, or you can use Velero to attach it to your Power- Book. Call Questec at 805/237- Web page at http://www.slonetorg/~hwright/ fellowes.html for more information. —Ed. |262 or visit its Can the Preachiness ‘You REVIEW OF BUNGIE’S MARA- thon 2 lists “Ultraviolent; promotes ‘every man for himself’ ideals in some multiple-player options” as cons (March 1996). Yes, you should warn parents that Marathon 2 may not be the right game for their children, but I see no reason for a reviewer to impose his morals and ideals on a product, or to assume that we in the Mac community don’t have enough moral fiber to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. Want a real con for Mara- thon 2? Even at the smallest screen size and lowest, most pixelated resolution, Marathon 2 on an 040 Mac such as my Quadra 660AV is barely playable over an AppleTalk network. ARAM CRETAN via America Online Py OR THE MOST PART, FRED DELISIO did a fair job evaluating Marathon 2. However, it was ridiculous for him to award it only four stars for the sole rea- son that it was too violent for his tastes. If Mr. DeLisio doesn’t like violent games he shouldn’t be reviewing them. Game makers have every right to make violent 20 June 1996 MACWORLD games, without being penalized for it, provided those games are aimed at mature audiences. Matt SeGuR via the Internet Multimedia Speakers WAS PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN your March 1996 Buyers’ Tools column, “Multimedia Speakers,” especially after reading, “And if you already have a high- quality stereo system in the same room as your computer . .. [jJust hook up an audio cable from your Mac to your system, pop in your favorite CD, relax, and enjoy.” I connected one end of an audio cable to my Quadra 605 sound-out port, and the other to my JVC stereo receiver. But now I find that every time I close or open folders, I hear a scratchy static sound from my stereo. My Sound control panel indicates only built-in sound in the Sound Out setting. Do I need software for a static-free connection? MEL BECKHAM via the Internet Check to make sure the audio cable is plugged in all the way, or try another audio cable, Also check the Volume settings in the Sound control panel to see if you're blasting out sound that way.—Ed. ) EGARDING MULTIMEDIA SPEAKERS, isn’t the suggestion that one use an audio cable to connect a high-quality stereo system to one’s Mac to play an audio CD just a little bit silly? Under what circumstances would someone want to play a CD on a Mac if there’s a high- quality stereo system sitting there? I’m as big a technophile as anyone else, but that seems to me to be taking things a bit far. SHARON GORDON via the Internet Sharon, meet Mel. Mel, Sharon.—Ed. Letters should be sent to Letters, Macworld, 501 Sec- ond St., San Francisco, CA 94107; via fax, 415/442- ‘0 CompuServe (70370,702), MCI Mail (294-8078), America Online (keyword Macworld), AppleLink (Macworld1), or via the Inter- net (letters@macworld.com). Include return address and 0766; or electronically daytime phone number. Due to the high volume of mail received, we can’t respond personally to each letter. We reserve the right to editall letters. All pub- lished letters become the property of Macworld. m MacOS "Canvas 5 adds a host of few capabilites that make It tar more than the solid IMstration player is today. Deneba’s far-reaching upgrade to Canvasis@ shrewd marketing move, For about $800, you get many of the functions that would ‘ost almost $2,000 i you stockpiled! Adobe Systems Inc's Photoshop, tMustator ‘and Pagemaker’ Mark Hal Edt in Chief Macweek July 24, 1985 “Canvas § sports @ sleak Interface that packs the power of numersus programs without confusing the vuser,.Canvay equals Adobe IMustrator and Macromedia Frootand «Although it doesnt offer all the belis And whistles of Adobe Photoshop, it does support a fairly complete array of tots for image editing, including masking?” Sean J, Satroed Senior braphics Edtor Maclser Magazine October, 1985 “Canvas 5, what a product! Image editing, page layout, presentation and tech ilus- tration wrapped into one ‘easy to use interface. This is the true Swiss Army knife of ‘any graphics applications ‘ut there, Deneba has dene everything the graphios ‘community has asked for? Keith Boncek Director of Computing ‘Cornell University August, 1995 “Canvas 3.5 SRP is $399, tut fora limited time, if you ready own a graphics program, you can trade tin for Canvas for only $149, and stil ually for a free upgrade to Canvas 5. Just cal 1.800.6.CANVAS to order. © 1996 Deneba Software, 7400 SW. 87th Avenue, Miami, FL 33173, Phone: (308) 596-5684, Fax: (305) 273-9069. Canvas isa trademark of Deneba Systems, Inc. ilusrator and Photoshop are trade marks of Adobe Systems, In. FreeHand is a trademark of Macromedia Inc. QuarkXPress isa trademark of Quark, Inc All athe trademarks and registered trademarks are the propery of ther respective holders, THIS SPRING WHEN CANVAS"5 SELLS FOR #599 YOULL FEEL LIKE A FOOL FOR NOT READING THIS AD. Tim's rnin out. The instant Canvas 5 starts shipping, this offer will be history, and you'll either be feeling very smug or very foolish, Right now, you can buy the most complete all -around graphies program (Canvas 3.5) for as little as $149" and get. a free upgrade to an even better one (Canvas 5) when it ships this spring. Already, Canvas 5 has received rave editorial coverage and awards including last year’s “COMDEX Fall/Byte Magazine Best of Show Award.” Canvas 5 combines all the major functions of Illustrator, QuarkXPress and Photo- shop. It gives you all the tools you need for illustration and page design, Rae eoITOAN typography and publishing, photo design and image editing. Canvas is the only program that takes you from rough layouts all the way through to illustration, retouching, color separations and pre-press. I'm so smart I... 1. Bought Netscape stock last year at $29 (now trading at $150). 2, Recognized that Picasso in the garage sale for $100 (it was last auctioned at $50 million). 3, Bought Canvas at $149 and got a free upgrade (saved thousands). Well, it’s too bad about 1 & 2, but it's not too late for 3. Just cal Surfing the Internet? Be sure to visit us at http://www.deneba.com. CANVAS 5 IT'S WHAT THEY'LL THINK OF NEXT Circle 57 on reader service card THE BEST OF ILLUSTRATOR™ FREEHAND™ ) QUARKXPRESS™ a DENEBA a A MiniCAb & A Competent: CAD Packact! MiniCad 6 has just what you're looking for: a complete 2D/3D drafting environment, powerful database and built-in macro language. A QuickTime™ 3D animation tool and QuickDraw"™ 3D file support to add sizzle to your presentatio Even digital terrain moueliny| All highly organized and very easy to use! Tits DESIGN AND DRAFTING TooLKri™ ~ Packed with thous symbols, tools, commands, templates, parametrics, formatted reports, worksheets and sample Specific industries. N ‘a symbol libraries to buy! ed feature sets are pc complete and already in MiniCad 6, giving you both design flexibility and targeted industry solutions INTERNABIONALLY Recoanizeo Now inits 10th year, iphsoft’s MiniCad is the best-selling CAD program for the Macintosh, utilized by design professionals in over 80 countries and 12 languages. TRY I? Risk-Paee ror 30 Days! When you buy MiniCad 6 from a participating dealer, you'll get Graphsoft’s no-hassle 30 day money back guarantee. You'll also get 18 months of free technical support, a 24 page quarterly newsletter and multi-media CD that provides both Quicktime movies on the operation of each too] and command, and real working sample files from around the world. se contact Graphsoft at 10270 Old Columbia Road, Columbia MD 21046 1-800-413-0935 or 410-29 Awww.graphsoft.com In Canada call Paxar at 1-800-260-0905 For Academic pricing call 1-800- (six Maciniosi are tatdemarks of Apple Comper, Windows isu trademark of Microsoft. MiniCad and Design and Drafting Toolkit are trademarks of Diehl Graphisoft nc, \ipeD Drsicx Circle 46 onreader service card State of the Mac Welcome to the Age of Digital Expression CREATIVE COMMUNICATIONS ARE REPLACING DATA CRUNCHING UST WHEN WE WERE GET- ting used to living in the In- formation Age, I’ve started noticing signs that it may only be a transitional pha a short-lived cocoon of from which we are beginning to emerge into an Age of Digital Commu- nications. And like the transformation from larva to butterfly, this change is something profound, not merely an accretion of processing power and speed. Personal computers are evolving rapidly into powerful media for expression, yet we still seem to value them largely for their ability to crunch data as if they wer small factories spitting out what-if sce narios and statistical reports. ‘he prom- ise of personal computing lies not in the ability of individuals to build isolated re- positories of data but in the way comput- ers empower people to communicate idea If you're skeptical that this transfor mation is under way, consider one way our computing habits are already chang- ing. We now routinely exchange E-mail addresses and Internet URLs—probably as often as we bers—not only schools in search of critical information or simply enjoy some recreational browsing, there’s little doubt that the Web has captured our imagination and set our creative juices flowing. The Internet enables us not only to send messages to members of our com- munity, it also lets us wander about and find or create new communities based on that which intrigues us: medieval mysti- cism, grunge rock, Civil War battle reen- actments—you name it. The Internet, and more particularly the World Wide Web, have truly brought about a sea change in the way people relate to their computers. Something in this new technology inspires us not only to glean information from the Net’s myr- iad sources but also to contribute some- an er S. xchange telephone num- in the office, but also in and homes. And whether we go thing of ourselves—to set up a Web site or post a home page that communicates to fellow netizens our ideas, our inter- ests, or just our quirky view of the world. Here’s the new formula as I see it: Creativity + Communications = Expression. In the past, computer communica- tions was mainly plumbing, simply pip- ing so many numbers and so much data from one computer to another. With dig- ital imaging, desktop publishing, MIDI, multimedia authoring, desktop video, and the like, personal computers have evolved into highly versatile creative tools, and along the way changed the nature of com- puter-based communications. Commu- nication is now a far more sophisticated function of computing than it was in the past, providing a means for interpersonal collaboration and individual expression. As the platform of choice for content cre- ators of all types and as a principal agent for bringing each of these technologies to the desktops of average users, the Mac has been at the center of this evolution. The Message Is the Medium Pundits who fantasize about how cyber- space will replace physical reality or who by Adrian Mello anticipate the dissolution of barriers to electronic commerce miss the Web’s real significance. The possibility of doing busin ys is indeed worth exploring, but what really captures the imagination of those who build and browse Web sites is the power of ex- pression. What the Web does is provide a platform, a virtual performance space, that is open to all comers. That is some- thing new under the sun, and what's astonishing is how eagerly the general computing public is flocking to this performance space, both as audience and as creators. In this regard, the Web echoes the Mac’ own early development. Its under- lying technology puts an inspiring, en- ticing, and usable set of tools within reach of the mass of computer users, empowering them to go beyond simply processing information to repurpose, design, publish, and express. The Revolution at Work and Home As a model for sharing idea: the Web is so compelling that many businesses and organiza tions are beginning to struc- ture internal networks, or intranets, based on the con- cept. This direction should help businesses continue the ongoing trend toward distrib- uted decision making. Most businesses are improved when manage- ment encourages creativity and involve- ment throughout the organization, and that depends on good communications. Changes in the way we communicate and create also touch our personal lives. This struck me recently during a con- versation with David Hindawi, former president of Software Ventures. Both longtime denizens of the Mac- continues MACWORLD June 1996 23 STATE OF THE MAC intosh universe, David and I both have kids, and as it happens, we’re both remod- cling our homes. We agreed that, for all the headaches of remodeling, we're both thrilled that opening up our walls to ready them for wire gives us an excuse to net- work our entire homes. Dyed-in-the- wool technophiles, we went on and on about category 5 wire and ISDN routers. But in truth, our excitement has less to do with wire than with the prospect of expanding our children’s horizons and enriching our family life. Connecting our households to the Net provides a way to show our kids how to interact with a big- ger world. We look forward to encourag- ing their curiosity and initiative by show- ing them how they can explore the Web and bring home treasure. The informa- tion they gather for homework or hob- bies, they can put to creative use, For example, my oldest son is an avid moun- tain biker; he'll be able to visit Web sites and get the latest on biking gear, race To design of not fo desiga? Find the long with ideo Order your 800.387.9193 reative inspiration y thousands of stock photos on CD RON 8 ond tips & Wicks om othr designors, Ne fax 1.403.261.7013 SHAKESPEARE om /imageclub, Circle 50 on reader service card 24 June 1996 MACWORLD courses, and the like, and even to create his own custom book. The Mac’s ease of use is generally considered a virtue in its own right, but it also plays an important role in the Mac’s success with creative people. It makes the Mac a great medium for expression par- tially because computing doesn’t get in the way of ideas. Authors, artists, design- ers, and other creative types can focus on their own vision, freed from the intrica- cies of their computers to explore and try things. This has been true since the Mac’s very introduction; witness the comment by Bill Atkinson, one of the Mac’s origi- nal creative geniuses, that the Undo com- mand was one of the Mac’ most impor- tant features because it gave users the freedom to experiment. The Mac was also designed for easy-to-use communica- tions, with Apple’Talk—by far the easiest networking protocol to use—built into every model, and AppleTalk Remote Access simplifying remote connections. Onward and Upward All this means the Mac is an ideal vehicle for the new age of communications. So what's the next step? Apple and other Mac developers should focus on advancing the standard for ease of use, integration, and flexibili- ty, removing any remaining barriers to inspiration and experimentation, Clearly some companies are already on this track. Adobe Systems’ PageMill and SiteMill, for example, make it easier to create new content for Web sites, Other companies are aiding the process by helping Net surfers organize and individualize the information they find. Expect to see changes in other products—spreadsheets, databases, statistics packages, and so on— that were originally conceived in the information age. These products are like- ly to evolve to let users share data more easily with colleagues and customers. Who can foresee what will emerge once we've all learned to use the interac- tive quality of the new digital media to the fullest advantage? One thing seems clear, though: by digitally sharing our creative processes we will collectively advance the technology and our expressive abilities, And that’s the difference I see between the Information Age and the Age of Digital Communications. m What's your view of the state of the Mac? Write to mello@maeworld.ci m. Import and render DXF models from 3D programs! STARRING: DXF MODEL IMPORT! - BOOLEAN RENDERING! FANTASTIC LANDSCAPES! * Multiple Light Sources! + Real-Time Terrain Editor! * Revolutionary Interface! Boolean rendering combines positive & negative objects! Start creating gorgeous BD landscapes in minutes! Mention Dept. ies ment 805.566.6220 fax: 805.566.6367 AOL: metasales@aol.com http://www.metatools.com ‘Ask about our hands-on Web training! 19 eso 9 Capt Coes CASH Be snd each re woe el aon he Huet eed emma taal deeded ey ye Circle 5 on reader service card Apparently, were not tl 56 million users consti information management software.” Larry Ellison, Chairman and CEO, Oracle Corp. a Bud Colligan, Chairman, President and CEO, Macromedia’ Ines Phi “Corel is excited about the business prospects wwe see for sup- ‘porting the Macintosh platform. Over the next few months, we will be releasing CorelDRAW for the Mac, as well as continuing 10 enbance OffceSuite and our many otber products for the | Mac, We think the Mac will play a major role in our future” Michael Cowpland, President and CEO, Corel Corp. — ee ‘views the Macintosh as a key platform for our. small business: ee illing Macintosh such as Quicken, Macinlax an uickBooks, Intuit is fully committed fo the Macintosh? ; Scott Cook, Chairman, Intuit iim sn. ‘Microsoft has just introduced the award-winning Microsoft’ Internet Explorer for the Macintosh, and is hard at work on 1984, Microsoft has been committed to its Macintosh customers and the Macintosh platform. We look forward to introducing a significant number of new and improved products as we continue our second decade on the Mac.’ Bill Gates, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft Corp. al, Quarkimmedia, users can capita the next revolution: interactive, publishing Macintosh is one of many important tools for our customers and Quark will continue to develop software for them: ‘Tim Gill, Chairman and Senior Vice President of Research and Development, Quark, Inc. Fis de Maced an important plasforns tanks 0 ibe Os rappin te 1 a ibe Hic clan ae) eels ana fal tse j ad new products. We look forward to its continued success?” i Sally Narodick, CEO, Edmark (©1996 pple Compute ne. 2 gs ered ple, the ple go and cn are eter rademark ple Cpr ne Ma a trademark of pl Computer, el te Prd mames are retraite rect companies A Mac 2 only ones who think jtes more than a niche. —er bas always been and will continue to bea critical mi of the Notes cross-platform strategy. We will continue to ‘eep it at full parity with our Windows client platforms’ Jeff Papows, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Lotus Development Corp. “Broderbund Software remains. sratey committed to the Macintosh platform. Over theyears, we have delivered many exciting and market-leading products for Macintosh, and it is an important component of our strategy today, The Macintosh provides a quality | experience that matches up well with the quality we always strive to deliver to our customers?” Doug Carlston, CEO, Broderbund Software, Inc. — = os “America Online got its start with Macintosh, and we continue to make significant investments to serve the 1 million Mac members we now have. When we release AOL 3.0 later this year, it will be clear to all that the ‘Mac is back’ at AOL!” ‘Steve Case, Chairman and CEO, America Online, Inc. = = “For all aspects of information publishing, Adobe and our customers prefer the Macintosh. The Mac's ease of setup and use distinguish it among personal computers, Adobe will enthusiastically support the ‘Mac with our applications now and in the future?” Dr. John E. Warnock, Chairman and CEO, Adobe Systems Inc, srs ar deed be ascesse tds at ear tS, cal 00-40-7908 or T7800 755.0808 They'te the people who create, and sell, software for a living. The people who know the difference between the hype of a headline and the realities of the market. So what have these and thou- sands of other developers been doing amid all the speculation and musings of late? Same thing they've been doing for years. Reading the market. Making smart business decisions. And writing new applications that will sell—applica- tions for a computer named Macintosh U http://always. apple.com 2. ae, fed performance { AG Trinitron’ Forget NEC and Sony. Your best value in hi-res color monitors with advanced Trinitron® CRT is Technitron from MAG InnoVision. MAG Sony NEC MAG Sony InnoVision Multiscan 17st SRP $459 iewabl. (Al Technion monitors include: EPA Energy Star Compliant power management: SWWEDAC MPR 1 complant low emissions: 3-year Limited Warranty: awarg. winning sevid (entendes service plan optional): recyclable packaping: and ne CFCS used In manufacturing.) VERTICALLY FLAT — superb image quality and reduced distortion. ULTRA FINE 0.25mm APERTURE GRILLE — super sharp focus and definition. The unique tech- nology enhances brilliance and contrast to levels other monitors can’t match. MICROPROCESSOR - based digital controls deliver unrivaled flexibility for Macintosh” and PowerMac™ compatibility.** NEC doesn’t have it. Sony’s is more expensive. For the best value in Trinitron®* color technology — buy Technitron from MAG InnoVision. Discover why monitor buyers across the country are switching to Technitron — The Other Trinitron™ from MAG InnoVision. Call 1-800-827-3998 ext.190 for the MAG Authorized Ultimate Reseller near you. Ze am The Other Trinitron* http:/www.maginnovision.com @ oe ECHNITRON MAG Innovision Co., Inc. * 2801 South Yale St., Santa Ana, CA 92704 TEL 800-827-3998 or 714-751-2008 » FAX 714-751-5522 » MAGic FAX-On-Demand: 714-751-0166, (©1996 MAG imovision Co, nc. A ight esred The folowing are ademas thei respective companies: Macilsh nd Pow: of Apple Computes, Inc; Clic of Soanelec, Lid; Tinton and Mutiscan of Sony, MultiSync of NEC Tecnologie, a Athr radars ae te propery ofthe respective owners. Asan Energy Star Parner, MAG los has determined ta these products me the Energy Siar Guidelines or energy ficiency. Prices and specications based on information published ty the mautactrers as of 2/256. Actual pice may vary. Speiiatins suet o change without nace. “A uses of Tiron rel to CRT ecology ony. The OKI7T and DX1ST useaTinroe® CRT. Fre Colrfc Color Maragement Software hough June 3, 1996 for end users ($49.95 rt vale ince wih manto purchase. Some mols reureopoal tape Fre universal Macitsh aftr wih purchase trough June 30,196. Circle 15 on reader service card The Desktop Critic by David Pogue The Desktop Critic Secret Reviewer's Notebook TALL BUT OH SO TRUE TALES FROM THE TRENCHES "VE WRITTEN HUNDREDS OF Mae product reviews. I’ve opened enough shrink-wrap to qualify for my own personal landfill, spilled enough Styro- foam peanuts to feed a herd of Styrofoam elephants, and doled out enough Macworld stars to populate a planetarium. About every third E-mail I get these days is from a reader inquiring about the re- viewing process. Does the reviewer get to keep the software? (Yes.) What about hard- ware? (No.) Do you Macworld people get free Macs? (No.) If you've worked for the company, can you write the review? (No.) Does advertising affect a review? (No.) Is getting free stuff, and getting paid to write about it, the cushiest job on Earth? (No—fourth-greatest, after Talk Show Host, Member of Congress, and Guy Who Wrote Netscape Navigator.) Clearly, few people know what really goes on behind the scenes in product reviewing. For example, you may not know about the highly developed life form known as Sapiens productis managerius— the product manager. The product man- ager’s duties generally include gauging the marketplace, guiding the product's devel- opment, and serving as the reviewer's con- tact. Since this lucky individual’s contin- ued employment often depends on the product's success in the marketplace, the product manager, or PM, may go to stun- ningly clever extremes in the effort to spin a review positive-ward. ‘The time has come to shed some light on the way reviews work, on the way PMs work, and on the way life works. Names have been changed just for fun. Software to Order We reviewers aren’t supposed to divulge our official opinions to anyone until the article appears in print. But years ago, Benjy, a PM, asked me what I thought of his product, a database, while the review was still in progress. After a moment of squirming, I said cautiously, “Well, I need to keep working with it.” But Benjy continued to prod. “Any ideas for our next version?” It seemed an innocent-enough ques- tion. “Well,” I shrugged, “a list view would be nice.” Forty-eight hours later, a Fed-Ex man appeared at the door, bearing a new copy of the program: version 1.1. It was iden- tical to the version I’d been testing— except now it had a list view. Some pro- grammer had had a very busy weekend. Benjy called. He thanked me for the list-view idea and asked if there was any- thing else I'd like to see in the program. I hedged; he prodded. “OK, well,” I managed, “it'd be nice if you could mark and print subsets of your cards.” : You guessed it: within two days, ver- sion 1.1.1 arrived, complete with mark- and-print features. This loony cycle went around a few more times, the little company writing the software to accommodate the review. I knew this wasn’t quite the way the review- er-vendor relationship was supposed to work—but I really thought the software was getting better. At last the review deadline came, and Benjy stopped adding new features. That program was proba- bly the only version 1.1.1.1.1 ever sold. Sealed for Freshness Another company fervently wanted our review to appear simultaneously with its new program's release. Of course, that’s impossible; because of editing and ship- ping, Mac-product magazine reviews are written weeks before the issue appears. But Sheila, the PM, had a great idea: she'd send me a late beta-test version of the program, and I could review that. I explained to Sheila that Macworld reviews only final, shipping software ver- sions. Too much (or everything) can change between the testing version and the final one. “If it isn’t shrink-wrapped,” goes our rule, “we don’t review it.” I didn’t hear from Sheila again until a week later. She said she was finally ready to send me a review version of the program, shrink- wrapped and everything. I eagerly opened the package, installed the soft- ware, and got to work. I was halfway through writing the review when I happened to glance at the program’s Get Info box. There it was, plain as day in 9-point Geneva type: Version 1.0b18. Sheila, clever woman, had sent me a beta-test copy of the software after all— and shrink-wrapped the box! Friends and Family One program I reviewed was awful. I found it difficult to believe that, as Frank the PM insisted, hundreds of companies were happily using this program every day. Finally, | asked Frank if he’d mind providing me with the names of a few of these happy users. “Not at all,” he said. continues MACWORLD June 1996 29 THE DESKTOP CRITIC Sure enough, he called back a few days later with three names and numbers. ‘The first user said he was thrilled with the program. Only one problem: he worked for the Canadian division of the same software company. Hardly impartial. The second guy, fortunately, didn’t work for the software company. He was, however, Frank the PM’s brother: The third guy had no such ties. He was wild about the product. On and on he raved: “It’s so neat, the way those menus When Software Dreams Come True uct and when, as in my April column, I'm describing products that don't exist. A parently, | need to do a better job indicating when I'm describing a real prod- Macworld has been deluged with calls for information on the fictional Exten- sionsWorld magazine and PriceDex Web page. Read my fonts: They don't exist. On the other hand, they may soon. One guy has already registered the name PriceDex.com and is pursuing the concept. I've also been alerted to two Exten- sionsWorld-type Web pages: http://www.gse.ucla.edu/staft/DEF/PCIpurge.html and http://www.webcom.com/level6. Finally, get this: In my January 1993 column, | longed for “a truly gorgeous, grace- ful, great [disk cataloger]. Something that reads your floppies fast, makes a search- able, collapsible disk list, and prints nice-looking labels. . Is that such a tall order?” Evidently not for MIT sophomore Mark N. Pirri. Inspired, he taught himself to program, and after three years came up with DiskTracker: gorgeous, powerful, and incredibly useful. (Available in the Macworld Online software libraries of America Online and the Web [http://www.macworld.com).) drop down... and I love the Apple menu, with that Calculator, and that devilish Puzzle . . . and that cute little Trash Can!” I didn’t have the heart to tell this new Macuser that he was crediting Frank’s pro- gram with every innovation of the Mac. Best Supporting Actor Good PMs, like good criminal lawyers, must sometimes be actors, making their case with conviction and passion when they’re representing a loser. T'll never forget the hardware gadget that instantly fried my Mac. Afterward, the computer wouldn’t even start. In hys- terics, I called the PM. He told me to calm down. Sure, a few of these units had caused this fiery sur- prise. But big deal—the design problem had been fixed. “It’s still the best product of its kind,” he insisted. And when my review appeared, he called up to chew me out, saying I’d been overaffected because my own personal Mac had been nuked. But the punch line came several years later. I ran into that PM at a Macworld Expo. Of course, his old company didn’t exist and he had moved on. He grinned continues OL AF Now you can take files to and from ClarisWorks 4,0 with MaclinkPlus. Ever try moving ClarisWorks 4.0 files into WordPerfect or Microsoft Works? How about the other way around? If you have, you know something generally gets lost along the way. Like formatting. And graphics. The latest version of MacLinkPlus, on the other hand, gets you there with everything intact—embedded graphics, spreadsheets, styles and more. So move files in and out of ClarisWorks 4.0. Or any of the other word processing, graphic, spreadsheet or database formats MacLinkPlus supports. Now the shortest distance between ClarisWorks 4.0 and other Mac or Windows applications is MacLinkPlus. For more information or to upgrade, call 1-800-780-1466 or visit our Web site at http://www.dataviz.com/maclink2. ‘i =| DATAVizZ" 30 June 1996 MACWORLD Circle 79 on reader service card YOU CAN’T RUSH GREAT DESIGN. ) BUT YOU CAN GIVE IT A SWIFT KICK IN THE BUTT. ‘ig httr www.extensis.com A great designer once said, “God is in the Whip Adobe Illustrator and FreeHand into shape. DrawTools’ functions give you faster, more precise control over color, moving and positioning objects, and converting tant, he or she’s in the corner office and flat, boring images into 3-D with the click ofa single button details.” Whatever that means. More impor- thinks you're only as good as your last piece. GETYOUR FREE -nONch:t0b When it comes to great work, we Publish Impact Award winner QX-Tools gives you 10 believe the Mac is the tool, not you. What’s XTensions for QuarkXPress. You'll have single-click TODAY BY CALLING access to hundreds of commands allowing you to gain truly creative is what’s in your head control over layers, resizing, styles, and printing, just 800.796.9798 to name a few Our powerful line of solutions help kic your ideas out faster so you'll spend time creating, not Adler Poi nav vig applicator wale pushing around a stupid mouse ing an impact, this time on Adobe PageMaker. PageTools’ 18 plug-ins give you PageMaker’s most-requested features, including a character style palette, glossary function, honchos of Adobe, Quark and Macromedia. Not impresse: and word counting. Want proof? We’re considered a “must-have” by the k Well, judging from the 250,000 u we've sk ed so far, we're el UGE sronutle SRE VC STUPREC S0e Feel smarter than your computer. Boost the IQ of Adobe also endorsed by your fellow harried, cutting-edge designers. Photoshop, PageMaker and QuarkXPress with Intellihance. z Hal Our goal is to make great designers better. Tigs crrally-acalaimed: tool aioe your apie te ensis automatically and intelligently adjust the quality of indi: As for hacks, well, at least we'll make ’em faste vidual or multiple images with a single click 199 rs demarks of Ext Cargeraton latellibance hid 5; re hades Excensis Corp. 55 SW Yambill St, Portland, OR 2 274.0530. Circle 13 on reader service card THE DESKTOP CRITIC and threw his arm around my shoulders. “Wow, was that gizmo a turkey, or what?” he laughed. My jaw hit the floor. “Yeah,” he said, “I couldn’ tell you at the time, but your review was right on. I wouldn't have used one of those units on representing; that, in fact, is their job. This point was brought home to me in the early days of laser printers. I was supposed to review one—and wow, was it a dud: a multithousand-dollar laser print- er that, among other failings, could print only two fonts. Jenna, the PM, tried my own Ma if you paid me!” valiantly to explain the positive qualities of her product. But in essence, her mes- sage boiled down to, “Be gentle with us.” I panned the printer. Later, I called the company to arrange What Goes Around ... I don’t hold it against PMs for trying to paint a rosy picture of whatever they’re Imagine the meeting where you all have the same vision, the same objectives, and the same notes. Microrieto SoftBoard only looks and feels like an ordinary whiteboard. Whatever you create on a SoftBoard® appears instantly on your Macintosh® or Windows®-based PC. Once it’s there, you can save it, print it, cut and paste it, e-mail it, fax it, even network it to multiple sites. From personal to conference room sizes, wall or cubicle mount, table top, or mobile, there's a SoftBoard to fit your needs. For our brochure and information on all our SoftBoard models call today. 1-800-334-4922 | MICROFIELD | | Microfield Graphics, Inc. 9825 SW Sunshine Court Beaverton, OR 97005 503-626-9393, Fax 503-641-9333 (©1995 Microtield Grapes, nc All ights reserved Soltboard and Mictlield Graphics are registered Inademars, and the Softoord and Microtel ges fate trademarks of Nicoield Graphics, oc All other Specifications are subject te change without notice 32 June 1996 MACWORLD Circle 48 on reader service card the return of the printer. But Jenna, I was told, no longer worked there. The under- ling who answered the call implied that my review had had something to do with Jenna’ early retirement. I was sorry that Jenna had been made a scapegoat. And I hoped that, wherever she was, she was managing a gadget that was a little easier to love. The PM's Revenge On one memorable oc wrote angered the CEO of the company that made the product. And he, it turned out, was a Macworld advertiser. He demanded a retraction—or else he would cancel his ad contract. But he obviously didn’t know about Separation of Church and State. That's Macworld’s policy whereby, in the intere of impartiality, the magazine’s editorial and advertising departments are isolated from each other. To prevent bias, no reviewer knows whether or not the prod- uct’s maker advertises in these page: Therefore, the editors told this particuls advertiser, no retraction. Ismiled, gloating. So what, I thought, if the magazine lost a few ad bucks—a small price to pay for truth and justice! Long live Separation of Church and State! But imagine my shock when, one morning over a bowl of Cheerios, I opened a subsequent issue and found a full-page rebuttal advertisement from that same company. It began something like, “Our phones haven't stopped ringing since David Pogue’ led review of our product appeared...” I stared at the ad in disbelief. A single Cheerio fell off my spoon. I called my editor in a froth. “Why didn’t you protect me from this public attack? How could the magazine possibly let this happen?!” Naturally, my editor shrugged. “Hey—Separation of Church and State!” ion, a review I The Upshot Don’t get me wrong: 99 percent of the world’s PMs are up-front, helpful, with-it people. But even the zealous, sneaky, or vengeful ones get my salute—as long as they’re passionate. For it’s passion—pure, irrational, market-share-be-damned pas- sion—that makes the Mac great. m Contributing editor DAVID POGUE'S first novel, Hard Drive, is a Mac techno-thriller. It has just been rereleased as an Ace paperback. So, you think a color laser printer isn’t worth the price. (The alternatives are costing you more than you think.) Instead, you decide to stick with monochrome printing. And maybe buy a cheap color ink jet. Then try to get it to run on your network. It’s nothing but wait, wait, wait. And spend, spend, spend. Burning up consumables and wasting time. Meanwhile, your competition buys a new QMS magicolor® CX Laser Printer. With serverless printing. And microfine toner that sets a new standard in detail at 600dpi. Then they use the brilliant full-color output to show your customers and prospects why they deserve the business. And you don’t. Of course, the choice is yours Save a little money up front. Or make a lot more later. QMS) Call QMS° before your competition does. U.S.: 800 392-7559 dept. 5112 Canada: 800 268-0343 Internet: http://www.qms.com/ Circle 288 on reader service card JUNE 1996 {systems | Apple Unveils Its New Platform Design COST-EFFECTIVE ENTICEMENT FOR MAC CLONE MAKERS by Charles Piller ss the Mac-clone mak- ers begin shipping a broad variety of Mac OS systems, Apple is I A developing a new computer design based on the current Mac platform, but using a greater number of ng, off-the-shelf parts. It hopes to finish the new Mac-only platform ahead of the PowerPC Platform (PPCP)—which will be able to run several operating sys- tems (including Windows NT. and the AIX variant of Unix) and will form the basis of the next generation of Macs, due out at the end of this year, But the new architecture, called the Macintosh Licensing De- sign, could save Mac-clone buyers a lot of cash within the next few months. “We're working on this design to satisfy a lower price point that our licensees need,” says Lamar Potts, Apple’s licensing vice president. “It’s truly an interim solution until the PPCP is in place.” Potts 34 June 1996 MACWORLD The newest Mac-clone maker, Umax Computer, is set to ship its 150MHz screamer, the SuperMac $900, in May. says the PPCP will support igns, and therefore he does not expect a long-term future for the Mac- intosh Licensing Design. The design would “lever- age industry-standard ASICs specialty chips that manage functions such as SCSI or ser- ial ports], power supply, and the PCI bus that you need for the PPCP, but leave out the stuff that’s needed to run AIX, very low-cost de Solaris, and Windows NT,” says Pieter Hartsook, a lead- ing industry analyst. Hartsook says that Apple is tailoring the platform for the pric tive consumer, education, and overseas markets. Why a New Platform? Apple apparently hopes the new design will help pump up the clone market in the wake of IBM’s recent moves away from a full commitment to the ensi- PowerPC Platform. Big Blue hut down its Power Personal Systems division, the group responsible for PCs based on the PowerPC CPU. It also discontinued efforts to port OS/2 to the PowerPC, and ceased all development of its Power Personal Series desktop unit “As a corporation, IBM is still very committed to PowerPC,” says Rich Oehler, KEVIN CANDLAND/SCREEN IMAGE. U8 an IBM Fellow involved in the company’s strategic plan- ning. “We're very quickly moving all of our AS/400 [minicomputer] products to PowerPC,” and the IBM RS/6000 workstation-and- server family is based on the PowerPC 604 processor. Still, the IBM news hard- ly reads like a vote of confi- dence for the PPCP. Despite renewed rumors that a large computer maker—possibly Dell, Compaq, or Gateway 2000—is interested in licens- ing the Mac OS, Hartsook remains skeptical that a large company will jump in now. “(IBM clearly stated, weak~ ened support for the Power- PC Platform, with the deci- sion not to put OS/2 on PowerPC, and the dissolving of the Power Personal sys- tems—these have very nega tive implications for the Mac- clone market,” Hartsook says “If L was Compaq or another large company, and heard that the founder of the PowerPC chitecture [IBM] has decid- ed that it’s only appropriate for workstations, I'd have reservations about getting into that market.” And unless a big company signs on to the PPCP, Hart- sook adds, “at the end of the year [the PPCP] is going to look like a Mac-proprieta platform,” tantamount to the current Macintosh hardware design. This is because the workstation-and-server mar- continues on page 43 Find Your Friends Via the Web LET YOUR BROWSER DO THE WALKING by Cameron Crotty ost track of a pal in Peoria? Want to send E-mail to a girlfriend in Galveston? Online directories have been around awhile, but with the World Wide Web’s providing a cheap interface, this may be the year you let your fingers do the walking. Directory Differences So far, Internet directories fall into two categories: those that list physical addresses and those that don’t. An example of the former, Switchboard (bttp:// wi witchboard.com), has li- censed more than 90 million names and (mostly physical) addresses from Database America, Switchboard als provides Knock-Knock, a nifty privacy-enhancing fea- ture: registered users (at no charge) can request that Switchboard forward E-mail without revealing the sender's true E-mail address. Far more common are directories that focus on E-mail addresses. One such Mac Clones Lead Performance Race ‘With the three Mac clone makers all using PowerPC 604-based systems, you now have several choices for top speed. Umax’s 150MHz system should ship in May, while Power CComputing’s is available now. DayStar's Genesis should also be available in a 150MHz Version by the time you read this; the tested version runs at 132MHz. Apple should also have a 150MHz version of its Power Mac 8500 this spring; we tested the current 120MHz version. For details on Macworld Lab's system tests, see “How Each Mac Stacks Up.” page 110, February 1996—Macworld Lab testing supervised by Mark Hurlow am Best result in test. Longer bars are better. Results are times as fast as a Centtis 650 (Centris 650 = 7.0). Umax SuperMac $900 prototye¢ $5 | 9 a 7.5 Power Computing PowerWave 604/150 $F eT 74 TT DayStar Genesis MP 528 Overall Score CPU-Intensive 43 43 Apple Power Macintosh 8500/1200 $= — {2 —_ 4.3 directory, Bigfoot (brtp:// bigfoot.com), started up this spring and claims to have compiled a database of 3 mil- lion names. Other lists com- peting for space include WhoWhere (http://www -whowhere.com); LookUp (http: /www.lookup.com); Four\1 (bttp://www.four11.com); and Okra (http://www.okra.com), which began life arch project at the University of California, Riverside. How They Get Your Number I directories raise some interesting privacy issue: cluding how companies col- lect addresses. All the services practically beg visitors to reg- ister and add or update their personal information, but nearly all are also much more proactive—for instance, using the Unix Finger command to query servers over the Inter- net and combing names and addresses out of Usenet news- group posts. The information they gather is publicly avail- able, but many Internet users are not aware of this. in- FPU-Intensive —_Disk-Intensive es 2: 22 21 15 60 6.0 There also remains a question, given the lack of a central E-mail authority, about whether the directories can be up-to-date enough to be more than a novelty. Michael Griffith, a member of the computer science depart- ment at UC Riverside and a key player in the Okra project, thinks so. “I doubt that there will ever be a definitive solu- tion to this problem,” says Griffith, but he defends his service: “We [search] every- thing so that the user doesn’t have to. I think you will see the freshness of data to be one of the selling points of direc- tory services in the next year.” Apple Loses $700 Million AMELIO WRITES OFF UNSOLD MACS, PREPARES FOR RESTRUCTURING by Tova Fliegel pple Computer ex- pects to lose $700 million for the fiscal quarter that ended March 31—ten times the loss that caused a panic in January and led to Michael Spindler’s ouster as CEO, and about three times what indus- try analysts were expecting. Apple CEO Gil Amelio attributes half of the $700 million to write-offs for un- sold inventory and one-quar- ter to restructuring charges. The rest of the loss is for lower-than-expected earnings on the Maes that the company did sell. Amelio also says that the company’s problems are fixable and that he is prepared to take action. Industry sources say that Apple has in place a task force continues MACWORLD June 1996 35 36 Brutish FoxPro Gains Some Grace BY CHARLES SEITER From client/server developments in traditional Mac relational data- bases like ACI US's 4th Dimension, to introducing the Mac to multi- platform client/server powerhouses like JYACC’S JAM and Power- Soft’s PowerBuilder, the stakes have recently been raised in distributed database computing. Microsoft (800/426-9400) is trying to claim a commanding position in this new competition by introducing the all- ‘new Visual FoxPro 3.0, It features a real Mac interface and graphical, object-oriented programming, while retaining FoxPro's traditional brute-force speed advantages. I've used a prototype of the new Fox- Pro, and I'm impressed. FoxPro has long been a champion at index- ing and retrieval of data in large files; in some Mac- world Lab tests, the current version performed basic searching 50 times as fast as its closest rivals. But Fox- Pro's heritage as a product with roots in DOS-oriented dBase clearly shows—despite friendly menus and some graphical interface elements, a typical FoxPro program consists of hundreds or more of relatively short text program files defining the database ele- ments—a mind-numbing arrangement for most people The Visual FoxPro overhaul consists of three main elements: support for a class library (with proper inheritance, encapsulation, and context-specific polymorphism); a new Project Manager for class libraries and code (using Word 6,0-like tabbed panes); and graphical designers for database structures and form, in which dragging and dropping rather than typing code become the main activities in designing files, relational links, and user interfaces. When updating earlier FoxPro 2.6 projects, most develop- ers will find the graphical database designer to be a big help in quick- ly adjusting structures for database performance, and they will ind the forms designer comparable to the luxurious input/output design environment of 4D. Both these designers are in fact long-overdue, much-demanded features Visual FoxPro’s new drag-and- drop interface lets you link database elements easily. What takes a bit more familiarization is worthwhile use of the class libraries. A detailed examination of the relatively few classes provided by Microsoft helps you see how to set up some practical classes for structures that occur in almost every business database. Visual FoxPro also offers the first FoxPro support for Apple- Script, Apple Guide, QuickDraw GX, and QuickTime. However, if developers avoid using any of these Apple-specific riches except QuickTime, they will have a database that automatically works as is under Windows, as well as on the Mac. Visual FoxPro is scheduled for a May release, at a price of less than $200, June 1996 MACWORLD | Mews to handle the inventory back- log, and the company is inves- tigating such options as sell- ing off the inventory to for- eign markets or deeply dis- counting the Macintoshes within the United States. Although the $700 mil- lion loss is higher than ex- pected, industry observers were impressed with Apple's handling of the situation, saying that Apple has taken a direct approach in the announcement. “They seem to have their wits about them,” says Pieter Hartsook, who writes the re- spected Hartsook Letter. “They are much more organized than I’ve seen them in the past, and they are not acting like this is the end of world. Three months from now, who's gonna remember the $700 million number? It’s this kind of management that can marshal resources that has long-term implications for Apple’s overall success. That the most significant aspect of this situation.” Several developers and 's agree, saying that the announcement of the expect- ed loss indicates that Amelio is prepared to take real action, ra anal her than paper over prob- lems or stretch them out. The Monitor That Sees You BUILT-IN AUDIO, OPTIONAL CAMERA AIM AT CONFERENCING by Howard Baldwin ace it, you've already got enough stuff mess: ing up your desk. If you’re investing in multimedia or video- conferencing, that usually means you'll need a whole new range of peripherals, plus additional 5; them. But not if you get one of the MediaStation 17-inch monitors from Nokia Display Products (415/331-4244), which integrate speakers, a subwoofer, a microphone, and optionally a color video cam- all in one box. The 447Xav (shown be- low) incorporates a direction- al microphone (that tiny dot in the upper center of its bezel) and a subwoofer (those rectangular lines in its base). At $999, the 447Xav costs about the same as most 17- era CESAR RUBIO Nokia's 447Xav includes speakers and a mike. inch monitors. For $500 more, you get the 447K model, which adds a color video cam- era to the lower center section of the bezel. But with blac! and-white cameras selling for $100 to $150, this may be more integration than you're willing to pay for. You can adjust the camera up and down by 10 degre (but not side to side); Nokia claims that positioning the camera at the bottom of the monitor rather than on top of it provides a more natural view of videoconference par- ticipants, who tend to look down at the monitor regard- less of where the camera is located. Both monitors offer up to 1280-by-1024-pixel re olution (with the addition of a video card such as Radius ThunderColor 30/1600 or Number Nine’s Imagine 128) and were to be availa arly this month, CorelDraw Finally Comes to the Mac BUT WILL IT BE WORTH THE WAIT? by J. D. Lasica o Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia FreeHand have a hammerlock on top-end draw pro- grams for the Mac? Not in the view of Corel (613/728-8200), which is readying a Power Mac version of CorelDraw, the world’s best-selling illustration. pack- age. The company introduced CorelDraw for the PC in continues RAM Prices’ Sudden Drop EVEN 16MB CHIPS ARE NOW AFFORDABLE by Cary Lu ktop computer s decline, with two large Taiwanese RAM- chip plants nearly com- plete, and with many production lines upgrading to higher-capacity memory chips, the price of RAM has sudden- ly taken a sharp dive. Subject to real or perceived changes in de~ mand (resulting from such events as the introduction of Windows 95) and in produc- tion (a chemical-plant fire in 1993), dynamic RAM prices have been relatively stable since 1991, with demand out- stripping supply by 10 to 20 percent for the past five years. That's now changed. (Of course, if demand goes back up, so will RAM prices.) And Price of SMB SIMMs Source: Chip Merchant, a national RAM supplier. although the cost of specialty memory (such as that for PowerBooks) has eased some- what, its decline hasn’t kept pace with the lowered prices for dynamic RAM. Pruning Technologies at Apple something strange is going on at Apple: cost containment. The com- pany that made a habit of blindly throwing cash at proj- ects has spent the last nine months ridding itself of proj- ects that were sucking up resources without producing results: eWorld, Dylan, Taligent, and Kaleida are among the publicly known ones. According to sources within and outside Apple, even core technology groups are being forced to make compromises. (Apple declined to comment.) Cuts in Copland For Copland, Apple's next-gen- eration operating system, such compromises take the shape of features that may be dropped. The Copland file system will be written in native PowerPC code, unlike System 7.5—but early reports say that users will not notice any significant speed improvement as a result of the new file-system code. And Apple has killed a new disk- directory structure. Today's 2GB hard drives store small files inefficiently because the minimum block size—the smallest storage unit—is 32K, even if the file is only 10 bytes long. The canceled feature would have added addi- tional b-tree structures in the disk directory to support much smaller minimum block sizes on large drives. Apple also killed native support for the Windows NT file system. Firewire Plans Apple has canceled the Power- Surge2's—the revised Mac 7200, 7500/7600, 8500, and 9500 versions that were to ship this fall with Firewire, the very fast serial connection also called 1394, (The first PowerSurge systems, which are due this spring, are faster versions of the current 7200, 7500, 8500, and 9500.) Instead, Apple is concentrating on the PowerPC Plat- form (formerly known as CHRP) design for Mac systems. Firewire will be available on the PowerPC Platform-based Macs through an add-on PCI board. Claris Goes OpenDoc aster a year of playing Coy about its OpenDoc plans, Apple subsidiary Claris has finally said it will support OpenDoc, Apple's new compo- nent architecture for software development and interac- tion. The company is working on a version of ClarisWorks that will act as an OpenDoc container, letting you place OpenDoc-created elements inside ClarisWorks. But it may take until the end of the year to see the new Claris- Works in its final form. MACWORLD june 1996 37 Special REPORT digital came Digital Cameras on the Move BY CARY LU The trickle of low-cost color that began with the Apple QuickTake 100 camera in 1994 is turning into a flood, with a dozen new cameras planned for this year alone, The low-priced models have split into under- $1000 and $1000-to-$2000 segments. Unless otherwise described all capture standard-size im- ages—640 by 480 pixels to about 750 by 500 pixels—in 24-bit color. Options under $1000 The under-$1000 cameras all store captured images (typically about 30) in internal RAM; you move the photos to your computer through a serial cable, And most use a simple optical viewfinder, which makes it difficult for you to frame and focus close-up photos. * Casio’s (201/361-5400) new $999 QV-30 camera offers half-resolution (480 by 240 pixels), wide-angle, and tele photo settings, and a 2.5-inch LCD. display viewfinder that can show images ¢ four or nine tiny will sell for about $500. * Yashica’s (908/560-0060) $799 DA-L camera resurrects the 2-inch analog floppy—a medium used by early still- video cameras such as the Sony Mavica and Canon Xapshot. ‘The DA-I records and outputs NTSC analog video, but also includes a 640-by-480-pixel digitizer for a serial connection toa Mac. Yashica points to low media costs—50 images fit on a reusable $10 disk—as a major advantage for the DA-1. Middle Category Expands Most new models fall in the $1000-to-$2000 range; all have PC Card storage unless other- wise noted—a definite advan- tage over RAM-only models, since you can keep shooting if you change cards. They all have a small color LCD dis- play, either built-in or clipped on to the camera; if you leave the clip-on LCD behind to minimize weight and conserve power, you can use the built-in optical viewfinder, as long as you don’t n * A standard version of without PC C: should arrive in the fall. * The small Ricoh (702/ 352-1615) RDC-1, available now, offers the novel feature of brief full-motion capture