washingtonapplepijournal1995v17no1

January/February 1995 $2.95 Volume 17, Number 1 : Updates from the : President & TCS Committee—5, 8 a Adobe Premiere 4.0 - —58 Passport Producer Pro 52 Elections are coming up in May. Be sure to get your nominations in to the WAP Secretary. YOU DON’T NEED MORE RAM. YOU NEED A NEW WORD PROCESSOR. INTRODUCING NISUS WRITER 4.0 Nowadays, if you're looking for a more powerful word processor, odds are you'll be needing more RAM ora bigger hard drive to run it. Maybe even a faster Mac. = Notso with new Nisus® Writer 4.0, the most powerful text and document processor you can use. While other “full-featured” word processors demand a ton of RAM just to launch, Nisus Writer runs comfortably with just three megabytes, and can even run with as little as two. That means you can run Nisus Writer on just about any Mac, What’s more, the complete Nisus Writer package occupies less than seven megabytes of hard disk space. Seven megabytes never packed so many powerful features. Availahle fom Unlimited undos, noncontiguous text selection, ten editable clipboards, and PowerFind’’ which lets you find anything, anywhere, even in files that aren’t open. Or how about a complete drawing package, in 256 colors? A full-featured math equation editor and table editor are built in too. Plus, the ability to write in as many as eighteen different languages, all in one document. No other word processor can do that with any amount of space. Then there’s Nisus Writer's multimedia power. Nisus Writer can actually speak your words back to you, even if you type in several languages. There’s also complete support for QuickTime”movies and sound annotation to make your documents more interactive. Loads of big features, three little megabytes of RAM. Now all you need to run the most powerful word processor is Nisus Writer 4.0. Software Inc. MacConnection’ TO RECEIVE A BROCHURE CALL 800-691-2033, OR FOR 24-HOUR IMMEDIATE FAX RESPONSE CALL 619-481-4366. Nisus and Nisus Writer are registered trademarks of Nisus Software Inc. All other product names are the registered trademarks of their respective holders. Nisus Software Inc. « 107 S, Cedros Ave. « Solana Beach, CA 92075 « (619) 481-1477, FAX (619) 481-6154 January / February 1995 Washington Apple Pi Journal 1 Volume 17 January / February 1995 Number 1 5 Arti Passport Producer Pro: Fast Club News Macintosh icles Multimedia Authoring .............62 WAP Hotline. Aldus DateBook & Touchbase Pro by Dennis R. Dimick WAP Calenda: 48,49 Bundle Mailing Lists: A Lazy Way onto the Index to Advertisers 66 by Walter Forlini Internet .. TCS Help Sheet 51 Living Album: Still Photos Via by Terry Wilson Classified Advertisements. 95 QuickTime Movies... ClarisDraw ec re ne 72 WAP Membership Form. by Dennis R. Dimick review by Bob Rockefeller The Official America Online® for Design eeeenels ae . Macintosh Membership Kit & review by Randy itman SIGs and Slices Tour Guide .. Cat and Mouse With Modem....76 Mac Programmers’ SIG............11 by David L. Harris by Dave Kramer by John Barnes American Heritage Dictionarys 30 . StOCKSIG ...escsscsneenennentee 12 __ by Emory Roth II Apple /I Articles by Morris Pelham Macintosh Tutorials . QuickTimeSIG....ninscuneense 12 Tutorial Form Novgmbay Meeting Artists on Exhi i by a paee by Blake Lange laying yunds on General Interest Sailing Master: So You Wanna Bea Your lleffle...... Map to Meeting Sailor by Geraldine Wright Report to the Git ee review by Glenn Paterson SCSI Interface and the by Lorin Evans >. Writing Coach .. Apple Ty ssssssssssesssessenssensensy 83 Fifteen Years in the Making: The review by Paul bydick Zeman TCS Goes Multimedia, Using oe Who Loves Ya, le Il Artic! Internet Protocols... 28 eee g App le icles by Jon C Thomason & the by Neil Shapiro Z TCS Committee ..-46 Procedure for Doing a Hard (or November Meeting........ review by Emory Roth II Deep) Format on a Profile Hard by Lawrence Charters Rediscovering an Old Friend....54 Disk Using an Apple ///.............81 Computer Assisted Literacy .....52 by Mark Osborne ; by Tom Linders by Phil Shapiro Quicken 5: Worth the Wait ......56 | Apple /// DISK.ON.OFF by Using i i by Gary Franz the Monitor... The Morino Institute .. - : A Patron’s Perspective: MacNovice—Take Advantage of by Tom Linders Public Library Reference those Fonts! 57 seas dietonmest 58 Phi 7 te) Temlere 4.0) ........c.ccesseee ry . . by Phil Shapiro as Disk Libraries Cheap Printing—ImageWriter II Macintosh Disk Library ........... 86 Newton Tips by Dave Weikert Letter Express ...... by Michael T. Porter Macintosh Disk Order Form ....94 review by Jeff Loving The Journal of Washington Apple Pi, Ltd. is an independent publication not affiliated or otherwise associated with or sponsored or sanctioned by Apple Computer, Inc. The opinions, statements, positions and views stated herein are those of the author(s) or publisher and are not intended to be the opinions, statements, positions or views of Apple Computer, Inc. 2 Washington Apple Pi Journal January / February 1995 Advertising in the Journal Some Orientation Possibilities Full Page i 755" x 10.0" ea Jape Cees) Sixth Page (hor.) 5.0" x 2.5" Third Page (hor.) 5.0" x 4.75" Half Page ‘Two-thirds Page (vert.) 7.5" x4.75" 5"x9.5" Sixth Page (vert.) ee i 2.5" x 4.75" No. of times ad runs 1-2 3-5 6-11 12+ Full Page $450 $383 $338 © $270 Covers $550 $468 $413 $330 Two-thirds Page $360 $306 $270 = $216 Half Page $300 $255 $225 $180 Third Page $225 $191 $169 = $135 Sixth Page $125 $106 $93 $75 Special guaranteed positions incur a 10% surcharge Ad Deadlines The Washington Apple Pi Journal is published monthly. The ad copy deadlines and ad space reserva- tions are listed below for your convenience. Copy may be received as traditional mechanicals, rc- paper, velox prints, or film negatives. Negatives will incur an additional $15.00 strip-in charge. Editorial Staff Deadlines ; Writers’ submissions soc ocean March/April Seth Mize (410) 766-1154 P Art Editors May/June ... ‘Anne Aiken 301) 530-1990 | Editors’ submissions Blake Lange G01) 942-9180 | March/April Calendar Editor May/ Bill Wydro (301) 299-5267 SpIBRE ees Mac Editorial Consultant Add. speceneser ations Melissa Sprott (703) 379-2972 | March/April Mac Softtrare Liaison May/June ... Lawrence Charters (410) 730-4658 Managing Editor Kathryn Murray (804) 472-4449 May/} june... Washingtonj|} pple Pi ‘This issue of the Washington Apple Pi Journal was created on a Mac SE/30, proofed on an Laser Writer IINT, and produced by electronic typesetting at The Publishers Service Bureau. The page layout program used was PageMaker 4,2a, the word processing program was Microsoft Word 5.1; the principal typeface is New Century Schoolbook (10/12) for the articles; and Helvetica for headlines, subheads, and emphasis. Cover Design: New WAP Journal cover design was created by Ann Aiken in collaboration with Nancy Seferian. The Capital artwork was illustrated by Carol O'Connor for One Mile Up, which donated it for use on our cover. Icon Guide (= Macintosh Calendar Pages rig Apple II, He, & IGS e Apple Disk Libraries G ? Apple IT(SARA) —\&# Macintosh Disketeria BP vosiineProne tist IU General Interest os TeleCommunications System (TCS) Postal Information Washington Apple Pi (ISSN 1056-7682) is pub- lished bi-monthly by Washington Apple Pi, Ltd., 12022 Parklawn Drive, Rockville, MD 20852. Second Class Postage paid at Rockville, MD. ‘Annual membership dues for Washington Apple Pi, Lid., are $32; of this amount $24 is for a subscription tothe Washington Apple Pi Journal. Subscriptionsare not available without membership. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Wash- ington Apple Pi, 12022 Parklawn Drive, Rockville, MD 20852. Change of Address should reach us 60 days in advance of the move to ensure that your Journals continue uninterrupted. January / February 1995 Washington Apple Pi Journal 3 Officers and Board of Directors Volunteers President LorinEvans (202) 543-1248 | Head Reading Lib. Brian Mason Vice President-Apple JoanJernigan (703) 822-5187 _—- Dealer Relations Comm. John Alden (202) 686-1656 Vice President-Mac Lawrence Charters (410) 730-4658 Harvey Kaye (301) 299-8994 Trossurer charles Frochlich ei B69 eye Tegal Counsel Richard Wohltman valle sad ecretal race Gallager 703) 222- lembership olunteer needet Directs Ken De Vito (03) 960-0786 SlGs&SlicesCoord. _ BobShaffer (301) 384-3724 Pat Faquet (703) 550-7423 Journal Store Distribution Volunteer Needed Glenda Finley Telecom SysOp Jon Thomasson (301) 951-9631 David Ottalin’ (301) 681-6136 Volunteer Coordinator ‘Tom Witte (703) 683-5871 Bob Shaffer (301) 384-3724 Dale Smith (301) 762-5158 Jon Thomason (801) 951-9631 SIG Chairs David Weikert (301) 963-0063 Annapolis Slice Tom Witte —_ (703) 683-5871 President Richard MacLean —(410) 280-8756 V-President Phil Scheel (410) 761-4260 Secretary JeffStraight (410) 643-0868 Treasurer Mel Benson (410) 647-6873 Membership Seth Mize (410) 766-1154 . Mac Programs Lloyd Olson (410) 544-1087 Office Staff Sandy Bozek (410) 849-5232 Office Manager Beth Medlin Apple ll Programs: Sen Miz = (210) 700 1154 AAS Membership InfoLine (410) 761-4260 Office Staff John Ruffatto (Saturday) Disk Lib., Apple Seth Mize (410) 766-1154 Disk Lib,, Mac Bill Derouin —_(410) 647-0802 CRABBS BBS (410) 315-8532 AppleWorks Gary Hayman (801) 345-3230 i Apple IGS Lorin Evans (202) 543-1248 Library Volunteers ansIG Joe Morey (708) 281-5885 Apple II Head Librarian John Ruffatto (301) 735-4259 | Columbia Slice . . Apple IIGS Librarians John Ruffatto (301) 735-4259 President Ellen Baniszewski (410) 730-4891 np Buttes ; Co-V. President, Mac Ramesh Sardana (410) 992-9884 Coe mine eee a0 CoV. President, Mae TimHelsing (410) 790-7272 Apple II Librarian Volunteer Needed ; Apple Ill Librarian David Ottalini (901) 681-6136 VFresident, Apple TT TomCook (410) 4065 0352 Macintosh Librarian David Weikert (301) 963-0063 Editor, ‘Apple IT ‘Andy Wakshul (410) 997-0156 Mac Library John DeMarco Ben Frank Treasurer Tom Cowley (410) 730-2319 William Jones Fred Rodgers BBS SysOp Henry Yee (410) 964-3706 Tony Salerno Joe Swick Disk Librarian, Apple _ Bill Campbell (410) 997-9817 Disk Librarian, Mac Tim Childers (410) 997-9317 CAD SIG Peter Danko (301) 868-5550 Datahere SIG Eric Gutsche (703) 379-1265 ledSIG Jay Thal (202) 244-3649 poe Publishing SIG Tom Piwowar Looarhen a Dick Byrd (703) 978-3440 . . ce Washington Apple Pi, Ltd. President Dick Grosbier (301) 898-5461 V.P/Newsletter Roger Musser (301) 898-7647 Sec./Treas. J. Russell Robinson (301) 739-6030 12022 Parklawn Drive Gants grader Barrel BBS Ds _ Leet _ Rockville, MD 20852 ByperTall David Mudd (703) 683-1746 Business Office: (301) 984-0300 Mac Programmers John Barnes (301) 652-0667 u 184-4 Greg Bartolett (801) 762-1311 TCS: 2400 bps (301) 984-4066 Music SIG ‘Ed Moser (301) 924-1573 14,400 bps (301) 984-4070 Newton SIG Andy Halls (301) 990-3725 NOVA Educators SIG Pat Fauguet (703) 550-7423 Office hours: Mon., Wed., Fri. 10 am—6pm" ae s1G Gerry Weght a feces _ _ ickTime brose Tues. 7—9 pm, Sat. 10 am —2 pm StockSIG Morris Pelt contact on TCS ¥ 2 Telecomm. SIG Allan Levy (301) 340-7839 The office will open at 1 p.m. on Three SIG Pevid tists (200) ea) 6186 i amp 13) 255-649" the day of the General Meeting UltraMacros SIG GaryHayman (801) 345-9230 Women’s SIG Ann Aiken (801) 530-1990 © COPYRIGHT 1995, by WAP, Washington Apple Pi, Ltd. User groups may reprint without prior permission any portion of the contents herein, provided proper author, title, and publication credits are given, except in cases where the author has reserved copyright permission. In these cases, the author should be contacted directly. Please send a copy of the article as printed to Washington Apple Pi; 12022 Parklawn Drivie, Rockville, MD 20852. 4 Washington Apple Pi Journal January / February 1995 Report to the Choir by Lorin Evans ELCOME TO the new year. Interesting times are in store for those of us who use computers for work and pleasure. We will discover whether true happiness can be found in a second generation Power PC. We may finally learn what Intel will do with all those arithmetically challenged Pentium chips. We may learn whether Steve Jobs and Bill Gates find harmony in their joint software venture. Nationally, for the first time in 40 years, we will watch both houses of Congress under the control of one party (of two minds). We will find more of the Congress available on line. Federal and Independent agencies will wrestle with whether to charge for the information they put on line. Promises, promises. Closer to home, we finally unloaded our exorbitant rent and moved into some neat new digs. Now we can concentrate on doing what user groups do best: helping people get the most out of their computer investment. Let me tell you what else is in store for us. Shaking the Legacy Unfortunately we still have some recovering to do from the years of debilitating rent payments we had to absorb. We want to do that. within our existing fee structure. Do you realize that basic WAP dues have not been increased since 1987? You ought to come and visit our new playhouse. We have one-third more room for two-thirds the rent. Thrown into this bargain are lots of parking spaces, ground floor access, I and control over the environmental system in our wing of the building. And, in the near future, our spaces will be remodeled and expanded. Needless to say, new environs have stimulated our thinking about our operations. Here are some of things we want to try. The Office We want you to take advantage of the free and abundant parking, to come and visit the office. To that end, we have changed our operating hours. Instead of being open for little units of time five days a week, we have shifted to being open three days a week for the whole day. You can now visit or call the office Monday, Wednesday or Friday between 10:00 AM and 6:00 PM. We continue to offer technical support Tuesday evenings from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM and Saturday from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM. We hope these hours will be more useful to you. We moved to more spacious quarters to accommodate the increased demand for a wider range of class offerings and meeting space. of tee “24-hour General Meeting Call (301) 984-0300 for registration, passwords 14+ lines, supporting 300 to 14,400 bps modems Co arsneninnaieae o ystem January / February 1995 Washington Apple Pi Journal 5 I This is an opportunity for YOU to get involved in YOUR user group. We have requests for a series of classes ranging from a general introduction to “works” style applications, to low cost desktop publishing, to classes that would help fledgling Internet surfers steady their boards. The old office layout did not allow for simultaneous classes and meetings. But here we can. And while on the subject of meetings, once a month your Board of Directors meets to discuss where we are headed, how we should get there, and who will help make it happen. I would love to have you, as a member of the Pi, come and participate. There is no monopoly on wisdom. We meet the second Wednesday of every month at 7:00 pm. Where? In the new offices, of course. The Journal Let’s look at the Journal. For the last two years, the Journal has won national recognition as the best magazine produced by a user group, and we want tokeep it that way. We spend almost $7000 per month producing the Journal. Members and advertisers help offset that cost; the later through advertising and the former through dues. Unfortunately, retail merchants in the Washington regional market have not done well against the stiff competition from the national mega- store chains that moved into this area. As a result, advertising revenues have declined. It is not fair for us to continue to shift funds to cover the cost of the Journal at the expense of the other member activities we operate. In addition to the continued disappearance of advertisers, we face a 14% increase in postage and expect another ofthe yearly increases in production cost from our printer which, historically, we absorb. 6 Washington Apple Pi Journal We could go for a dues increase. But instead, why not find a way to get you the information you want, but ina way which lowers the cost of production. Why not put more pages and content into each magazine and produce it on a bimonthly basis. That would allow us to continue to provide the same high quality material while eliminating the high cost components of monthly production. So, we are going to try a different “We want you to take advantage of the free and abundant parking, to come and visit the office. To that end, we have changed our operating hours. Instead of being open for little units of time five days a week, we have shifted to being open three days a week for the whole day. You can now visit or call the office Monday, Wednesday or Friday between 10:00 AM & 6:00 PM.” publication schedule. Beginning with this issue, we will increase the number of pages from 80 to 96, reduce the white space by a bunch, and give you more content per issue. We want to include more “how to” and “hands on” articles than before, while continuing the traditional material you have come to expect. Look at the first couple of new issues and let me know how you feel about them. To keep you posted on events during the intervening months, we are looking into a newsletter of some type which will update the calendar of events and schedule of classes. Special Disk Offers Another new area of support that the Pi is offering to members is special disk offers. Members with Macs should have received a flyer in the mail for disks from our shareware library. More often these days we are asked to produce special series of shareware: for teachers, for Internet surfers, or for games junkies. Other series are created to support the theme of a monthly meeting or a show to which we have been invited. In addition, the software industry provides us with updates to their commercial programs. We want all of this material to be available to those of you who do not live in the greater Washington area. Thus, the special mail offers. If you have a need fora group ofsoftware, please let us know and we will explore developing a set to incorporate your theme. The Bulletin Board (TCS) Electronic infobabble is where somuch of what we doishappening. There is thought to be an insatiable appetite for information services and we intend to do our best to satisfy some of it. We now give every renewing and all new members a password on the TCS. While the freebie is only 15 minutes per day, we find that members try it —and many get hooked. Over half of our members subscribe to either the TCS Standard or Premium Services. Many of these subscribers are using Standard Services (2 hours per day on line), but over 30 January / February 1995 percent of our TCS subscribers have Premium Service (2 1/2 hours per day and Internet E-mail). Five years ago our electronic bul- letin board consisted of eight 2400 baud lines run, via an assortment of software patches, ona CORVUS net- work. The TCS Committee could see that this electronic balancing act could not be sustained and offered little opportunity for growth. They decided to replace that collection of software with a complete rewrite of the operating system and, atthesame time, acquire more modern and reli- able hardware. They wanted to in- corporate high speed modems, bring inoutside sources ofinformation, and allow for a larger base of files from which you could draw. The Board of Directors approved the concept and fund raising plan drawn up by the TCS Committee. As a result, the Board—twoyearsago — askedmem- bers who use the electronic bulletin board to donate to an improvement fund which would purchase the equip- ment necessary to make that hap- pen. Many of you came through in a most generous fashion. We were able toacquire a large Macasafile server, high speed modems for our lines and Apple IIGS computers as inputs to thesystem. Wenowhave that equip- ment on line. When you call the high side, 10 lines with US Robotics Cou- rier 14.4 modems await you. On the low speed side, a similar compliment. of equipment awaits your call. The board can now store two gigabytes of files and downloads. For those with Premium Service, world-wide Internet E-mail service is available. Now What What is the role of a user group bulletin board in the larger world of AOL, CompuServe and eWorld? We are not in a position to compete with those providers, nor should we. Our electronic bulletin board is alow cost, user friendly, introduction to the world of electronic communications. It is designed to grow with the in- January / February 1995 Call 703-538-4990 to reserve your space Training for Service Courses every month: you... for your Macintosh o'reilly computer services Which Mac should I buy? Powerblacs, modems, printers, and more. (WAP Price: $25; 2 hours) Macintosh Orientation basic setup and maintenance. (WAP Price: $90; 6.0 hours; includes The Little Mac Book ) Telecommunications Lear to use the WAP TCS, America Online, eWorld, and get a teed ge aren Modem setup, telecomm, and lownloadit featured. (WAP Mabe oni, 537.50; includes Guide tothe TCS), All courses include take-home info and a disk with shareware files. A basic survey of the Mac product line. We cover new and used Designed for new Mac owners and users, this course teaches you to get the mast out ofthe flexible Macintosh system. Also covers Be sure to ask for your WAP Member Discount! O'Reilly Computer Services is located in Falls Church, Virginia, close to the Beltway and Route 50. Free parking available. Day and evening classes. Contact us via e-Mail at statFac@eWorld.com. creased confidence of our members. The first-time user and the experi- enced traveler find a uniformly high level of quality services at an afford- able price. We also know that there are some things we can do within the moderate price range to provide ad- ditional services. You often hear the linking of information sources and services de- scribed as an information superhigh- way. I would tell you that amore apt description would be a country road. Ifyou know the route, fine; ifnot, you are pretty much left to find your own way. Why not position ourselves as a low cost provider of, and educator about, world-wide information ser- vices? There is no reason why we cannot offer some form of access to the Internet so that you can browse world-wide without having to pay big time for the experience. Such a ser- vice would also allow members far removed from the greater Washing- ton area to sign-up for the TCS, ac- cess it through a local Internet ser- vice provider, and avail themselves of our files and technical assistance. We are also well placed to provide tutorials that can make the journey less arduous. Such an undertaking requires a mix of special pieces of software and is very hardware inten- sive; but it is achievable. We are exploring ways for the Pi to make this happen for you. Stay tuned. And in Conclusion ... Well, those aresome ofthe things we are going to do, or are exploring the possibility of doing, this year. I cannot promise that each will suc- ceed. A user group is a people inten- sive operation. More volunteers means more initiatives undertaken. The converse is also true. But the Pi has been known for its willingness to venture into the uncertain, and this year will beno exception. Besides, we can take some comfort in knowing that at least when we use our Macs, 1+1=2. @© Washington Apple Pi Journal 7 Fifteen Years in the Making: ae The TCS Goes Multimedia, Using Internet Protocols © 1994 by Jon C. Thomason and the TCS Committee SERS OF THE wap TCS bulletin board system already know that the TCS offers unbeatable value to every WAP member. It provides prompt answers to any question, the latest industry news and gossip, and cutting-edge software and updates at members’ fingertips. WAP’s long-time members also knowthatthe TCShasarichhistory, preceding Apple’s invention of the Macintosh by several years. WAP’s online history began with a one-line bulletin board system in amember’s basement, and covers that system’s growth, replacement, further growth and revision to become the fourteen-line, multi-gigabyte font of information it is today. The TCS’s steady improvements have all come from the hands of a changing team of volunteers as diverse and dynamic as the TCS itself. Together they’ve kept WAP alongside rapid telecommunications advancements for over a decade, and now they’ve begun implementing a_ series of enhancements that'll drastically alter the face of the group’s telecommunications offerings. Immediate advances will include the latest and greatest modems, the Internet, and the World Wide Web while maintaining every bit of the character and spirit of the original TCS designed over a decade ago. 8 Washington Apple Pi Journal Eager Beginnings WAP’s first system operator was Tom Warrick, who programmed and ran a bulletin board system out of his home. This system, called ABBS, ran on a single Apple II with a single 1200 baud modem using four 5.25” floppy disk drives with a total storage capacity of halfa megabyte. [Note: ABBS is still available to historians through the Apple II Disk Library.] As WAP membership grew and modems became more affordable, the ABBS was soon too popular for its own capacity. Separate systems were added usinga commercial BBS package called UBBS, in order to address users’ needs for information on thenewly-announced Macintosh, and for the buying and selling of used equipment. WAP’s best and brightest programmers gathered together to adapt these separate systems into a collective new multi- line system with hard disk storage. The resulting system was named the TCS, and the crew which built it comprised a standing committee of the WAP Board of Directors. The committee chairman and project leader, Lee Raesly, was appointed TCS system operator, or TCSO. Growth and Change The TCS under Lee’s direction grew from four individual machines to a group of twelve Apple Ile’s ona Corvus Omninet network over six years. Programmers and other crazed individuals came and went during this period, and each lent his or her special talents to create or enhance a particular portion of the system. At the risk of my accidentally leaving someone out, Td like to call attention to the talented efforts of Barry Fox, Dave Harvey, Harvey Kaye, George Kinal, Bill Logan, Rich Mlodoch, David Page, Lou Pastura, Eric Rall, Paul Schlosser, Nancy Seferian, Dale Smith, Mike Ungerman, Tom Vier, Rick Zeman, and <sigh> any others Ive forgotten to mention besides myself. My involvement with the Crew began in 1986, when I wasinvited to aparty for being the 100,000thcaller logged to the TCS. A high school student at the time with a strong interest in programming, I gradually rewrote much of the software while other Crew members handled the responsibilities of backup, system operation, and maintaining lively and friendly discussion online. With Lee in charge, the rest of us were allowed to play, as it were, adding such things as Paul Schlosser’s popular Football Pool software and my Conference 5 Usenet feed. We were also looking at what we should do about the archaic and failing LAN hardware the TCS used at the time. A New Beginning Paul Schlosser was appointed thenext TCSO in March, 1991, when much of the responsibility of the position involved acting to preserve the TCS’s community spirit amid some controversy and turbulence. Paul handled this with grace, making the transition quickly and effectively from being able to just play with the machines and their programming, to holding the line so that others could have all the fun. January / February 1995 Andin that position, he orchestrated. arenovation project to create a New TCS. Paul, the rest of the Crew, and I had long held a grand vision for what the TCS would become some day, and we carefully planned out how we would get there. The first step in our plan involved simply replicating what the old TCS already did, plus a few basic enhancements, on a 1990’s hardware and software platform. That was the tricky part, as writing abulletin board system from scratch wasn’t anything any of us had done before. But the Crew, under Paul’s direction and with plenty of input from other TCS users, charted out how we wanted the TCS to act, and to the best I could achieve those goals I wrote the software. Everyone had different ideas about exactly how the TCS should work, but Paul moderated discussion and brought forth consensus with uncanny ability. New Committee members whocontributed their talents during Paul’s term as TCSO include Lawrence Charters, Ken De Vito, Lauri Rohn, Dave Weitzberg, and Geraldine Wright. This Crew, with Paul’s direction, kept the old TCS running while handling hardware acquisitions, software/service licenses, and a $10K fundraising drive tomake sure Thad all the equipment Ikept asking for. This was absolutely vital for me as I sat in my little room and played with my little toys, trying to implement a system that we could all proudly identify as a popular service of Washington Apple Pi. The rebuilt TCS went online in September, 1993, and hassince seen unprecedented use and popularity. By the following April, usage had grown and changed so much that TCS service was divided into three different options: free “Limited” service, familiar “Standard” service, and value-packed “Premium” January / February 1995 service including Internet electronic mail among othernew features. Checkpoint As you'll recall, now, what we've accomplished sofarisstep one of what we'd imagined years ago. We’ve made a successful transition from that TCS to one based on 90’s technology, retaining those features that users have always enjoyed while eliminating the 1981 software base that kept the TCS from really shining a decade or two later. And in the process, we just happened to throw in some extra goodies above what we had before: we went from 9600 bps to 14400 bps, from 140 megs of downloadable files totwoand a half gigabytes, to electronic mail via the Internet, and many more subtle advances. According to the TCS Committee calendar, then, this is nirvana. We're able to stand on firm ground and look into the future, rather thanjust keeping upour delicate juggling act ofseveral years ago. Andtheman who'slargely responsible for getting us here, has really earned himself a break. Paul joined the Crew for the same reason we all did: to play with toys, and he’s selflessly left that opportunity to the rest of the Crew and myself for nearly four years. Now it’s my turn, I guess, to take our vision and domy part of the overseeing in order to let the TCS reach fruition as a user group project. In the December 1994 meeting of the WAP Board of Directors, I was appointed the new TCSO, succeeding but not replacing Paul after his nearly four years of dedicated service with that title. Looking Ahead So where do we go from here? Well, the TCS Committee has MAC REPAIR CENTER Dupont Computed Ol: 1761 S Street, NW Washington, DC 202-232-6363 Computers ¢ Monitors ¢ Printers Mac Repairs Mac UpGrabES Mac Parts & ACCESSORIES On-Site and In-House Repairs Service Contracts Available Special Discounts for W.A.Pi Members outlined its goals for the next level of TCS service, and we presented those goals to the WAP Board of Directors in December. In brief, having accomplished the short-term goals that TCS members asked us for when we began the renovation, we are now ready to accomplish the long-term goals as well. These include a powerful, easy-to-use graphical user interface for browsing the TCS, participating in the message base and downloading files. Faster downloads, even downloading in the background while reading messages, and perhaps online chat. Robust and full-featured electronic mail with attachments, anda straightforward, mouse-driven message editor. You may be surprised to hear this, but all of those features are Washington Apple Pi Journal 9 I easily attainable with the TCS as it’s been written. The last major upgrade took us two years or so to implement; this current project will take only a fraction of that time. And most importantly for any self- respecting computer users group: it'll be a whole lot of fun! I’m the TCSO, now, and I have some very big shoes to fill. I also feel a responsibility to take a step back from my prior intimacy with the underlying software of the TCS. To properly oversee the next project I'll need toassumea perspective outside that of being the sole architect. I'll still be tightening up the existing software to be more solid and maintenance-free, but for the new project I intend to be one ofateam of people working to build the new additions. The Committee’s vision, as outlined together by the entire TCS Committee and several TCS members and members of the WAP Board of Directors, is clear. It provides for scalability to support the changing needs of our membership, and it offers anumber of new ways in which motivated members can become involved. It also contains several options and opportunities for more creativity down the road. The TCS was never intended to be the domain ofa small group of volunteers with one programmer—it was intended to be a lively and educational group project of Washington Apple Pi asa whole. For a while, the Crew needed to tighten up the TCS and be more deliberate about its direction, but now that it’s resurfaced as a stronger, more open and standards- based system, we should start playing with it again. How to Get There The new project is an addition to what we already offer, and will require additional funding to implement. It will include the 10 Washington Apple Pi Journal service in its present form and will add not only a graphical user interface but some manner of live- action access to Internet services suchas the World Wide Web, gopher, and FTP. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, however, the Committee’s first priority is to enhance our existing e-mail and Usenet service. For this we have an immediate need for a Quadra with NuBus slots which, if we can’t find one to be donated as a whole, we'll need to fund through donations. “The new project is an addition to what we already offer, and will require additional funding to implement. It will include the service in its present form and will add not only a graphical user interface but some manner of live- action access to Internet services such as the World Wide Web, gopher, and FTP.” If you'd like to help, you can mail a check in any amount to Washington Apple Pi, ATTN: TCS Improvement Fund, 12022 Parklawn Drive, Rockville, Maryland 20852. Or if you'd like to get involved in the project, you can contact me on the TCS. Ifyou aren’t able to help now, but you’re interested in the additional services, please let us know so that we can gauge the level of interest, which will help us to choose the most appropriate equipment for the demand placed on it. As should be apparent, I’m very enthusiastic about the opportunities available to WAP right now for its cutting-edge additions to the TCS. And again I feel that Paul Schlosser should be applauded for his phenomenal personal contributions to the TCS and to his friends on the Crew during his term as TCSO. ’'m encouraged by the fact that Paul isn’t going anywhere, that his wisdom and his guidance will be available when I so desperately need it. [hope that I can return the favor he’s given me, providing an environment in which he’s able to play with cool high-tech toys as much as he’d like. Most of all I intend to see our vision through to its goal: a stunning new graphics-based TCS with Internet access fora reasonable price. We’ve come this far, and with your help there’s noend to where we can go from here. Ml Jon C. Thomason was appointed WAP Tele- communications System Operator in December, while serving his second year on the board of directors. During the day Jon works as an undergraduate Computer Science student at the University of Maryland in College Park, and as an intern specializing in the Internet and the World Wide Web for the U.S. National Ocean Service. January / February 1995 by John Barnes N NOVEMBER 2ND 1994 Cal Simone of Main Event software took an enthusiastic group of SIG members and guests through the 65 new features in Macintosh System 7.5. Many of these have implications for programmers and other power users. The session lasted until nearly 11 pm. On December 7th we had an open forum that explored the various en- vironments for programming the Macintosh to produce “shrink- wrapable” applications. MPW, THINK, and Metrowerks were touched on briefly. The discussion was aimed at getting a handle on the things a person needs to doin order to get a start in serious programming. On January 4th Jon Thomason described the Metrowerks Code Warrior environment. This environ- ment offers opportunities for Power PC developers as well as 68k pro- grammers. At the end of the meeting Jon introduced some of the folks to some ofthe programming approaches that might be used in the future evo- lution of the Pi TCS. Pi members who are not yet fa- miliar with the Mac Programmers’ SIG should be aware that it is a fine forum for sharing experiences about Mac Programming. Everyone is welcome, from novices to pros. The SIG’s theme is “Empowerment through Programming,” an allusion to the Holy Grail of Programming that holds that folks who know how to program their computers are the ones who are in the best position to use them effectively. Meetings are held on the first Wednesday ofeach andevery month in the Pi’s classroom space. Meet- ings start at 7:30 pm and usually run until around 10 pm. January / February 1995 Coming Events: PowerMac Programming Is- sues—February 1st—by Lan- guage Systems Corp. Come and see how their FORTRAN and Pascal language compilers work on Apple’s new generation ma- chines. Other topics that have been. suggested for the coming months include: @ SmallTalk @ AppleScript forthe Common Person @ Object-Oriented Program- ming Demystified ™@ MacConsulting for Funand Profit We need volunteers or com- mercial contacts who can make presentations on the above top- ies or any others that might be of interest. The group is also considering adding another session each month for “breakout” work on topics of current interest. We are thinking of small projects that might run for several months and that would require some homework and prepara- tion. Look for news of SIG activi- ties in Conference 3, Board 3 (Programming Languages) on the TCS. Notices are also posted to the Usenet comp.sys.mac.programmers news feed and to the Pi area on digitalNation. We are rebuilding our mail- ing list. People who want no- tices of SIG meetings sent to them on the infrequent occa- sions when these are mailed should contact John Barnes at 301-652-0667. A voice mail mes- sage is enough to get your name added to the list. Mf IT a — ee a to have Macintosh &' PC Windows skills! $$$$$$$9$$$$$$9$$$$$$9$99$ e are seeking highly-skilled WW vompute, graphic artists, desktop publishers, illustrators and presentation Specialists for temporary, temp-to- perm and permanent positions in the Metro area. You must have extensive knowledge and work experience in one or more of the following: + PAGE LAYOUT AND COMPOSITION + Propuction (SHORT & LONG DOCUMENTS) GRAPHIC DESIGN & CONCEPTION TECHNICAL OR CREATIVE ILLUSTRATION PRESENTATIONS! PROPOSALS TYPOGRAPHY, COLOR SEPARATIONS & OUTPUT DEVICES Applicants must be proficient on Macintosh and/or PC Windows and be an ADVANCED USER of two or more of the following programs: QuarkXPress ConecDRAW! PaGeMAkeR PowerPoint ILLUSTRATOR VENTURA INTERLEAF PERSUASION FRAMEMAKER, PHotosHop FreeHann Woro SSS$SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS$SSSHSS Desktop Personnel. Call 1-800-622-TEMP$ \ f Washington Apple Pi Journal 11 by Morris Pelham WELL, STOCKSIG has used our new office twice now and it’s getting better every time. This time there was a new floodlight outside the outside door with a motion sensor on it. When I drove up in my car a really bright light went on before I even stopped. Mine was the second car to arrive, but I drove right up to the door we use and so I was the one to discover the new light. Very nice. Including some late arrivals, there were about twice as many of us at the November meeting as there were in October so we had to empty and pull overa second table and some more chairs. There isa third table we can go and get if we have to. The best thing about our November meeting was that nearly everybody brought several copies ofa current project to pass around for everyone to see. This works really well right now because we don’t yet have the equipment set up to use orto demonstrate how we compute things. Even one of our newcomers brought an Excel printout and passed it around. It helped us to see what he was trying to do and several people offered some advice. Stan Larsen told us how he updates several portfolios using America Online for less than two minutes per day. I asked him to bring in his modem and hard drive and show us how it works, so we may have to put theclub’s MacIIcito work again soon. Of course we talked about our beating the Dow project, and we still are. Stan Larsen, Bob Pallaron, Mark Pankin and [all passed around copies to discuss. It’s eye-opening to see how many different ways we use the same ( Excel ) software to keep track ofhow we're doingon the same project. Obviously, there is no one and only 12 Washington Apple Pi Journal right way. Then talk turned to the Fidelity Select project. Peter Hui, Bob Pallaron and Mark Pankin passed around copies of their work. Mark’s most recent research looks into the question, “Whats the result of doing this for different periods of time and starting at different dates?” For example, suppose you had putmoney into this project just before the crash of 1987? If you had followed the strategy for only one year, you might have lost 30% to 40% of your investment. But, starting atthe same time, ifyou had followed the strategy for two years your loss would have been 10% or so. If you had followed the strategy for three years your losses would have turned to profits. Mark brought five different graphs to pass around showing all of this and we talked about it for quite some time. To me the most interesting graph showed that if you put your money in for just the minimum five weeks and then took it out, you lost money just about as often as you made any. One of the classic rules of successful investing has always been “Let your winners run” and it remains true today. One of the keys to Mark’s success with his strategy has been staying with a fund as long as it remains in the top half of the group. Finally, le-me repeat, it’sareally good idea to bring several copies of the project you are working on to StockSIG. You can show what you are trying to do, you can ask for advice, you can compare your results with someone else if you want. I find that it really helps me organize my thoughts and get myselfareallyclear idea of what I want to do if I task myself to show it to someone else. Just put your name on your printout, givemeonecopy, and tell meatthestart of the meeting if you want some time. StockSIG meets the 2nd Thursday of each month at 7:30 PM at the WAP office. StockSIG wishes everyone a profitable new year. Happy 1995! @ by Morris Pelham OOPS! Our December meeting was on the second Thursday, as usual. Unfortunately the Calendar in the December Journal showed it on the 15th, which is the third Thursday. We put notices on the TCS and at the office, but if you were waiting for us and cursing in the dark and cold of the parking lot on the 15th, we apologize. The good news is, our new office continues to improve. This time we had lights all the way from the outside door in to the meeting room and didn’t even need our flashlights. At the meeting Bob Pallaron, Mark Pankinand [all passed around copies of our current projects for everyone to see and comment on. We had a good discussion as usual. Wetalked about brokerages, trading techniques, and software packages as well as trading results so far this year. I think I'll write about our trading results next month. StockSIG meets the 2nd Thursday of each month at 7:30 PM Sulerimesie ss: A QUICKTIME | Special Interest Group (QT SIG) meeting was held at the new Washington Apple Pi office on Thursday evening, Oct. 27,1994. Stuart Bonwit showed his General Lavine animation in progress and demonstrated some animation applications. He also showed some video taped animations he made previously on an Atari computer. Tom Witte discussed using HyperCard for multimedia. Bruce O’Leary showed and discussed the making of his multimedia “portfolio,” (resume!). Dennis Dimick’s multimedia demo tape was shown and discussed. January / February 1995 Stuart first gave a brief run- through on his Quadra 660AV of Macromedia’s Swivel 3D modelling and animation software: how shapes are created from primitive forms and how models are manipulatedin three dimensional space. Key frames and_ in-betweening (tweening) were shown. Using a new segment not yet included in his General Lavine animation, he showed how the animation information is converted to a PICS file by Swivel 3D and then into a QuickTime movie by Movie Player. With the help of DigitTrax sound editing software and a printed score of Debussey’s General Lavine, Stuart showed how he times each note down to the frame. This timing is used to determine the number of frames for each movement in the animation. The editing of the animation was demonstrated using VideoVision’s QuickFlix. The software has three windows: 1) the movie Player; 2) the Storyboard; and 3) the picture and sound “tracks” Time View. The Storyboard looks like a slide editing tray. The first frame of each animation segment is shown. These segmentscan be moved around just like slides. When a new segment is loaded, it can be inserted into the Storyboard. Sound track segments can be loaded into the Time View and moved about to improve synch with the animation. The new animation and sound segments of General Lavine were added to the previously shown animation. Then, using the VCR and TV Tom Witte brought in, Stuart showed several animations he made in years past on an Atari computer. Dennis’s demo QuickTime videotape was shown and discussed. The VHS tape contained two short movies made from still photos and another from home video. Dennis previously showed these films at the September General Meeting at January / February 1995 Northern Virginia Community College. The films included “EnRoute,” an essay about the process of traveling, and “Peru: Voyage to a State of Mind,” an essay contrasting the beauty and poverty of Peru. Both used still photos originally taken on Kodachrome film and scanned to Kodak’s digital archiving system, PhotoCD. Dennis used Adobe Systems’ QuickTime editing program, Premiere, to produce the EnRoute segment. EnRoute included the special effects of pans and zooms across still photos to create the feeling of motion. He used Passport Producer, a multimedia integration program, to do the Peru film, which received a first place documentary award in April at the Sumeria QuickTime Festival in San Francisco. Music for both films came from compact disks. The audio files were converted to QuickTime format using an Apple CD300 drive and QuickTime 1.6.1. A third film, “Papou Boat Ride,” was a home movie of a family boat. rideontheChesapeakeBaylastsummer using original Hi-8 video source material. Heused Premiere tocapture segments from videotape, and editing included cross dissolves and titling. Dennis used SuperMac’s (now Radius) QuickTime digitizing board, Spigot II Tape, to capture video and print to videotape. He used his accelerated Mac IIci to produce these films at 15 frames per second (half ofnormal TV rates). Original screen size was 320x240 pixels (one-quarter the size of TV.) Spigot II Tape interpolates data and zooms the images to full TV screen size when printing to videotape. He reported that image quality from Spigot II Tape is good for presentations and multimedia production, but isn’t suited for broadcast. However, at street price of about $650, Spigot II Tape can be I areasonable QuickTime production solution for people with Mac-IIs or non-AV Quadras with fullsize NuBus slots. Tom gavea quick look at Apple’s QT and HyperCard (HC) stacks which let you use the power of QT within HC. This lets you compress pictures in various QT compressors and/or display them in HC. The HC stacks also provide xcmds (commands) to record and edit video input. If interest in HyperCard warrants, it could be the core of the next QT SIG meeting. Bruce showed a QuickTime movie called “All About Bruce”. It was an attempt to put together a jazzy resume using QuickTime as the medium, rather than paper. The programs he used to create it were: Adobe Premiere 2.0, Adobe Photoshop 2.5.1, Adobe Illustrator 5, and MacroMedia’s SoundEdit Pro. The movie runs about 1:36. Using CompactPro, the movie fits (segmented) on two High Density floppies. Bruce believes it is just under 4MB uncompressed. The movie was created on his Quadra 650, which has 16MB RAM, 2MB VRAM (for thousands of color), a 230MB hard drive, and the Apple 300i CD-ROM. The jazz track was captured from a CD direct to the hard drive. A clip from “Apocalypse Now’ at the very beginning of the movie came from a LaserDisc of the movie. The LaserDisk player was hooked up to his stereo system. The stereo was then connected to his Quadra, using the microphone port, capturing the sound direct to disk. The movie runs at 20 frames per second. Well...multimedia fans: if you would like to have another QT SIG meeting scheduléd, please leave a message on the TCS Conference 3, Board 20 (C3.B20) Mac Multimedia. Mf Washington Apple Pi Journal 13 November Meeting by Lawrence I. Charters Y MOTHER hasa friend, a Texan, who has little tolerance for people who complain when they get what they request. He sums it up with dark East Texas humor: “They'd complain if they was hung with a new rope.” In November, we provided lots of new rope for a hanging, and got complaints, anyway. A long- anticipated Internet demonstration, by Internet Information Services, Inc. (IIS), didn’t meet with expectations. Some people wanted a “how to connect” session, some people wanted to buy a connection package, some people wanted to learn how to log on to public access Internet channels. On the bright side, we also had a demonstration of some inexpensive Casady & Greene software, by C&G president Terry Kunysz. Aside from some grumblings that he talks too fast, everyone seem to like his presentation. And yet — there were complaints that we gave away too many drawing prizes at the end of the meeting! Fun and Conflicts Terry’s chief goodie was Conflict Catcher II, a comprehensive utility for isolating and managing extension conflicts, with afew extras thrown in. Conflict Catcher uses a clever scheme to systematically disable extensions until it isolates likely suspects. While it still requires restarting, the process is considerably faster than the old manual “pull things out until the 14 Washington Apple Pi Journal problem goes away” or “add extensions until the problem crops up.” Conflict Catcher can also create links between known incompatible extensions, such as Adobe Type Reunion and Now’s WYSIWYG Menus. Conflict Catcher has a couple other neat tricks, too. Of most use is the ability to “turn off” fonts in System 7.1 and up, handy if you have software (meaning Microsoft Office) which objects to “too many fonts,” or if you want to maintain separate sets of TrueType and “Held December 10, the Garage Sale saw the triumph and the tragedy of grass-roots capitalism: joyous spouses and loved ones reclaiming their basements, closets and garages from the clutches of discarded technology; and depressed technophiles thwarted in their plans to pick up a Power Mac for $100 or so.” PostScript fonts, or everyday fonts and a more expansive desktop publishing set. Mac programmers will appreciate another neat trick: Conflict Catcher can tell you what programming calls are “trapped” by a program. This is particularly useful when you are trying to speed up a program to make it Power Macintosh compatible, or when you are trying to avoid using programming calls that are already in use. (Jon Thomason has an extensive review of Conflict Catcher II in the December 1994 Journal, “Trapped by Natives!” pp. 12-15.) Terry briefly mentioned Snap Mail, C&G’s clever and inexpensive peer to peer E-mail package, and did a mad dash through several games. He also distributed several hundred special offers, in several flavors, for virtually the entire line of Casady & Greene products, and gave away dozens of demo disks plus a large box full of complete packages. Crisis of Differing Expectations Chris Clark, of Internet Information Services (IIS), was not as polished in his presentation. In fact, the first 15 minutes of his demonstration was spent reading his notes out loud. One not terribly charitable wag said it looked like a “high school book report.” When he did get to his presentation, he did exactly as I asked: he demonstrated Mosaicand the World Wide Web using a fast modem andan ordinary voice phone line. Unfortunately, he used a seven year old Mac II rather than a more modern, faster Macintosh, and his configuration of the connection made it slower than it could have been. On the other hand, he was factual, he was accurate, and he knew what he was talking about — all of which are big pluses when you are January / February 1995 discussing something as" over-hyped as the @ File Edit View Go Bookmarks Options Directory Factbook on Intelligence = Internet. But some people z didn’t want to see Mosaic, they wanted tosee how to connect to a command line interface (something Thavenointention ofever doing at a General Meeting). Others didn’t want to see a demo, they wanted to buy something, like a subscription to an Internet service provider. Chris was _ selling something—custom- designed World Wide Web servers, company “Internet presence” and similar services — but what he was offering was either more, or less, than Factbook on Intelligence what most people [¢ wanted. By far the vast majority in the audience seemed to wanta tutorial. In fact, so many people wanted a tutorial that Washington Apple Pi is planning on offering Internet classes, though obviously not at General Meetings. One of the more interesting complaints about the meeting was that so many questions were being asked that “I really wasn’t certain what the presentation was about.” So, to review: Chris’ company will custom design a World Wide Web (Mosaic/Netscape/whatever) server for your company, organization, or agency, or set up a company E-mail system, or set upa company file transfer presence on the Internet, or — basically do anything you want for a corporate “presence” on the Internet. Based on what I saw, they are quite knowledgeable and capable and, unlike most such companies, seem to know how Macs work as well as January / February 1995 The World Wide Web Home Page of the Central Intelligence Agency, as viewed with Netscape. Netscape, Mosaic, MacWeb and similar HTML (HyperText Markup Language) “browsers” are the so-called “killer applications” of the Internet. They allow you to view and transfer information without knowing any complex commands, and allow the user to move from computer to computer without any knowledge of how the computer is set up, where it is located, or even what country it resides in. UNIX and Windows machines. For more information contact Chris at (301) 340-1761 or via E-mail at cje@iis.com. You can also check out. their Web page at http:// www.iis.com/. December Non-Meeting There was no meeting in December; instead, there was the mid-winter edition of the Pi’s Computer Garage Sale, featuring hundreds of people shopping for bargains, gossip and information. Held December 10, the Garage Sale saw the triumph and the tragedy of grass-roots capitalism: joyous spouses and loved ones reclaiming their basements, closets and garages from the clutches of discarded technology; and depressed technophiles thwarted in their plans to pick up a Power Mac for $100 or so. T’ve been to half a dozen garage sales now, and have always been impressed at the wide range of, ah, stuff? being offered for sale. But this time the contrast was exceptional: while there were dozens of Mac IIs and LCs and PowerBooks and such, there were also computers older than many of the shoppers. Not adolescent shoppers, either: computers older than some of the adult shoppers. And people bought them. New feature: a “computer checkup” table was inaugurated so that computer users could bring in their machines and see if they were in good working health. This proved more popular than expected; the Washington Apple Pi Journal 15 Arminius 8519 Orchard Avenue (609) 662-3420 'TREPAIRS!! Disk Drives, Monitors, Keyboards available for resale Warranties to one year on most repairs! Same day turnaround on most repairs! Merchantville NJ 08109 Medical Informatics) will demonstrate Medical House Call: Interactive Home Medical Guide and Apple/Mac/I*M Motherboard Repairs Symptom Analysis. from $45.00 + S&H After taking care of smear ony Supply Repairs your physical health, rom $45.00 + Had? Apple/Mac/I*M Drive Repairs Intuitswill take:care from $45.00 + S&H of your. financial Apple/Mac/I*M Monitor Repairs health with Quicken from $60.00 + S&H 5.0 and MacInTax Apple/Mac/I*M Keyboard Repairs 1994, [Note: at the from $12.50 + S&H time this was Apple/Mac/I*M Upgrades scheduled, Intuit was Available! one of the few Used Apple/Mac/I*M CPUs, companies not owned by Microsoft or Symantec.] Feb. 25, 1995: the incomparable Marc Canter will be showing “Meet MediaBand.” Marc Canter founded MacroMedia, the original “multimedia” table was busy from shortly before the official opening until 12:30 p.m., without a break, and a short recess to get something to drink resulted in a new line being formed — a line that didn’t disappear until the Garage Sale closed. Several people turned away rather than wait, so, next time, we'll try to have more computer gurus on hand to look at machines. There also seemed to be a fairly constant need for just general question and answer support, so we'll plan for that, too. 1995 Meeting Dates General Meetings for 1995 are scheduled for the following dates (all the fourth Saturday of the month). Mark your electric calendars. Jan. 28, 1995: Ami (Applied 16 Washington Apple Pi Journal computer company, and this latest venture is an “interactive music video,” a term which doesn’t do it justice. Inconjunction with the meeting, Pi members are invited to submit QuickTime clips and digital art to be shown at the start of the meeting. We don’t want people to think “multimedia” is strictly a West Coast phenomenon. Mar. 25, 1995: vendor to be named later. Apr. 22, 1995: vendor to be named later. May 27, 1995: vendor to be named later, plus three first-round draft picks (barring a strike, of course). Drawing winners PC World mouse pad: Gorman Microsoft Jamie Macintosh Applications ballcap: Reuel Cochrane NYMUG Mac Fair T-shirt: Robert Pagelsen MacWorld DC T-shirt: Joe Swick MacWorld Press T-shirt: Richard Edelson APS SCSI Sentry T-shirt: Robert Fetterolf Microsoft Office briefcase: John E. Christensen BMUG CD-ROM: Clark C. Snead, Robert L. Shaffer, Frank Potter La Cie SilverLining: Tom Bryan Casady & Greene T-shirt: Sara Torrence, Prince Williams, Larry Ichter Crystal Crazy (Casady & Greene): Clinton H. Schemmer, Glenda K. Finey Glider 4.0 (Casady & Greene): William R. Jensen, Sharron Cochran, William T. Wydro, Walter A. Romanek, David R.P. Gibson Glider 4.0, Glider Pro for Windows (Casady & Greene): David Waldman, Glider Pro (Casady & Greene): John J. Ruffolo, Joe Morey Conflict Catcher II (Casady & Greene): Russell H. Strange, John A. Fridinger Snap Mail 5-pack (Casady & Greene): Washington Apple Pi office Apple Macintosh Ici: courtesy Falcon Microsystems Apple Macintosh II: courtesy Internet Information Services, Inc. Proxima Ovation LCD projector: courtesy Proxima Corporation Setup and worrying: Chris Clark (IIS), Terry Kunysz (Casady & Greene), Tom Witte, Bill Wydro Question & Answer Help: Tom Witte Send meeting comments to: Icharters@tcs.wap.org. January / February 1995 Letter Express review by Jeff Loving O YOU HATE the process of writing letters or memos from start to finish? Letter Express, a Newton application from PenMagic, may be the answer to your problem. Since its introduction, handwriting recognition accuracy and speed have been a disappointment on the Newton. This weakness prevents users from being able to quickly create complete documents ready to fax or email. At least until Letter Express appeared on the scene. Letter Express relies upon the fact that many notes; especially those often used in the business world, follow well-defined formats. The typical “thank you’, “congratulations”, or “let’s meet again soon” type letters are a few examples. Letter Express provides templates called snippets and allows you to easily customize and personalize their use. SoftwareMedia and Packaging Pen Magic provides Letter Express on both Windows and Macintosh diskettes. As Newton packages go, Letter Express is downright massive. Letter Express consists of three components, LExpress, LESnips, and LEKeybrd. The LExpress and LEKeybrd applications require 199K and 74K respectively. LESnips is not an application but a package of snippets which can be edited. Its sizedepends January / February 1995 on how you customize the snippets, but expect to use about 75K, adding up toa total of nearly 350K of RAM! The disks also contain a Reg&Win app for registering a Letter Express user, along with several unrelated demonstration packages. LExpress should probably be installed on a Card. LESnips must be installed in the same place as LExpress. Ifyouhave multiplecards and want to use LEKeybrd with other applications, Pen Magic recommends that you install this app on Internal. Unfortunately, my humble MP100 contains only a modest IMB RAM card and I soon found myself removing books and applications to make room for Letter Express. I see a 2MB Flash card coming my way in the near future. Additionally, I experienced occasional restarts while using the program, possibly due to low heapspace. Ease of Use Like many Newton applications, most features of Letter Express can be learned simply by using the application. Other than some one page i pop-ups, there is no on-line help. Letter Express comes with an excellent 32 page user manual which explains all features. Software Review LExpress Application LExpress looks and acts like N the built-in notepad but with several enhancements. ‘Replaceholders’ are really nice and used extensively by the application. They allow you to reference fieldsin the Names [First], [Last], [Company], etc; Personal data [MyName], [MyCompany], etc; and Date/Time information. Using replaceholders results in easily personalized notes. Almost every LExpress document should take advantage of replaceholders. Replaceholders are limited to accessing fields in the Names and Personal soups. Why not extend this functionality to allow access to any field of any soup? I guess PenMagic figured this feature would not be needed by the average user. LExpress provides three buttons ‘New’, ‘Snippets’ and the ‘LE keyboard’ icon. Tapping the ‘New buttoncreates anew LExpress document. When creating a new document, you can tap ‘To’ to select anyone in the Names file. LExpress can use email or fax information once the note is ready to automatically create a formatted routing slip. Letter Express Snippets Tapping the ‘Snippets’ icon al- lows you to retrieve any of the nu- merous Pen Magic-provided snip- pets. They cover a wide range of topic categories—Private, Blank Documents, Openings, Closing, Acknowledgement, Apology, Com- plaints, Congratulations, Following up, Goodwill, Introduction, Invita- tion, Miscellaneous, Request, Sched- ule, and Thank you. You can create new or edit existing categories. In- dividual snippets are found within a category, some having more ex- ample snippets than others. You can write a LExpress note and save it as a snippet. Or the Washington Apple Pi Journal 17 N snippet can be written on a PC or Mac and transferred to the Newton (see below). Pen Magic provides a large number of categories and snippets. Traversing from one category to another can be slow. The LEKeybrd Application Tapping the ‘Keyboard’ icon brings up the main LE keyboard. This keyboard provides several features such as: @ Direct access to Styles, which can be applied to selected text @ Ability to select all text in the note ™@ Page break insertion ™ Bullet or Number selected paragraphs @ Cleanup text facility @ Access to Quick List ReplaceHolders or Favorite Phrases @ Tab all selected text @ Center all selected text @ Access to other specialized keyboards —Keyboard aligned in alpha- betic sequence —Special punctuation charac- ters —Numeric and monetary key- board On its own, LEKeybrd provides value because its keyboards can be used with any Newton application. The application provides a minimize button to turn the keyboard into a small floating window which remains visible regardless of what is running. This ‘floater’ can be enlarged back into a keyboard simply by tapping on it again. While the ‘minimize’ feature is nice, I found myself often enlarging and minimizing the keyboard just to 18 Washington Apple Pi Journal access a special character such as ‘; “’". A nice addition to the ‘floater’ would be a customizable popup to access frequently used special characters. The main LE Keyboard provides access to the Quick list. Favorite phrases can be added to the Quick list simply by selecting text from any application and then tapping the ‘Quick list’ icon to save the phrase. Quick list cannot save the following as favorite phrases —drawings, non- “Like many Newton applications, most features of Letter Express can be learned simply by using the application. Other than some one page i pop-ups, there is no on-line help. Letter Express comes with an excellent 32 page user manual which explains all features.” interpreted text, or more complex text containing several line returns. Quick list phrases are meant to be short, often accessed text. The Quick list also provides access to replaceholders. Note that replaceholders are only available when using the keyboard from the LExpress application. Filing and Other Miscellany LExpress documents canbe filed using the Newton folder system. Unfortunately LExpress documents are not visible to the built-in notepad nor vice versa. You can move back and forth between LExpress documents within a folder via scroll arrows. Normal functions such as Mail, Fax, Print, Beam, Delete, etc are found under the Action Button. One caveat - you cannot beama LExpress note to another Newton unless the receiver also has the Letter Express application resident. You can easily convert a LExpress note into a snippet by tapping the ‘Copy as Snippet’ selection under the Action button. One note about deleting Quick list Favorite Phrases—you do this by scrubbing them out of the scroll list. There is no Action delete function as with LExpress documents or snippets. LExpress is a big application and takes time to initialize whenever you need touse it. A ‘hide’ feature similar to ‘Notion’ would be a welcome addition. Using Letter Express via Assist Letter Express adds the key word ‘write’ to the verbs handled by the Assist function. Youcan initiate Letter Express simply by typing ‘write <name> <snippet>’ and then activating Assist. Letter Express will create a new document automatically addressing and inserting the snippet. PenMagic recommends that you keep the <snippet> name simple but unique so that it can be easily recalled when using Assist. I found that you also should keep snippets unique from the names in your names file. For example, let’s say you have a snippet called ‘Superstar’ and a person called ‘Jeff Superstar’ in your names file. If you execute ‘write jeffsuperstar’in Assist, January / February 1995 Letter Express will address a blank note to Jeff Superstar without inserting the ‘Superstar’ snippet. Write jeff superstar superstar’ will work but seems a little conceited. Newton Connectivity Kit NCK can be used to back up both LExpress documents and snippets to a Mac or Windows PC. Within NCK, Letter Express documents or snippets can be created or edited and then synced. back to the Newton. Although you can create your own full-fledged snippets directly on the Newton, I found the process too slow and frustrating. As you would expect, it’s much faster and easier to create or edit LExpress documents on a PC or Mac. NCK is mind numbingly slow synchronizing data but that’s not Letter Express’s fault. Letter Express Link Pen Magic also sells an optional package called Letter Express Link. This application provides an alternative to NCK for Mac/PC <-> LExpress connectivity. Letter Express Link consists of a Mac or Windows PC program anda Newton application. The PC portion can be used to maintain LExpress documents or snippets. Link on the Newton can connect via serial cable, Localtalk (Mac-only), or modem to either retrieve snippets or send documents up to the Mac/PC for archival. Transfer between the Mac/PC and Newton occurs much more quickly than using NCK. You cannot directly transfer a document from the Mac/PC -> Newton nor send a Newton snippet to the Mac/PC using Link. Link cannot be initiated from LExpress. You have to switch back and forth January / February 1995 between the two applications when doing transfers. Pen Magic provides a separate user manual for Letter Express Link. The application comes on either a Mac or Windows PC diskette. Summary An important point is that the application is expressly not a word processor for the Newton. In fact, the LE Keyboard and snippets not withstanding, Letter Express really is not much better than the built-in notepad for document creation. In other words, don’t plan on using it to write your thesis. LEKeybrd is valuable by itself and it would be nice if you could purchase it separately. Actually I wish that the built-in notepad could be completely swapped out in favor of LExpress, LESnips, and LEkeybrd. This would provide the Newton with a better notepad while saving RAM and heapspace in the bargain. For mobile users needing the ability to create polished notes quickly, Letter Express provides a nice solution. Simple and powerful at the same time, Letter Express is also Assist and NCK aware. Those users needing faster Mac/PC connectivity will want to look at getting Letter Express Link. Pros & Cons Letter Express Essentially a replacement for the built-in notepad. Pro: Nice use of [ReplaceHolders], access to LE keyboard and Snippets, NCK integration. Con: No hide option. RAM usage (about 200K). Slow to initialize and soup operations (snippet traversal) depending on the number of snippets. LEKeybd Provides alternative keyboards Pro: Direct access to styles, select all & Quicklists. Special character keyboards, draggable and can be minimized to floater, available with any application. Con: No popup available from minimized keyboard. LE Snippets Provides re-usable notes or even whole documents reducing handwriting needed to produce business-quality letters Pro: Letter Express comes with many pre-packaged snippets covering several areas of correspondence. User can create new or edit existing categories and snippets. Con: Only available to Letter Express application. LE Link Pro: Fast, easy way to edit/retrieve snippets or archive LExpress documents on Mac/Windows PC Con: Additional cost, Link use limited to LExpress documents but not integrated into the Letter Express application. Vendor and Product Information Letter Express PenMagic Software Inc Phone: (604) 988-9982 (604) 988-0035 Retail Price $69.95 Letter Express Link $29.95 Product also reviewed in IN Magazine Sept/Oct 94 p18,19 Pen Computing Nov 94 p40 Washington Apple Pi Journal 19 LY Aldus DateBook & TouchBase Pro Bundile— A Personal Information Management System by Walter Forlini HE ALDUS DateBook & TouchBase Pro Bundle is made up of two separate and distinct software packages that work well when used individually, but together form a nearly seamless personal information manager package. Installing is a simple process. The Bundle comes on two high den- sity diskettes (800K disks are avail- able via a toll free number). The installer creates two new folders on the hard drive taking up 3.2 MB of space. Also installed are three sys- tem extensions and a program in the Apple Menu folder. DateBook Pro The first application included is DateBook Pro. DateBook Pro is a business and personal time man- ager that allows one to keep track of appointments and dates; maintain To-Do lists; organize and track projects; generate reminder memos; and print schedules, reports, and calendars in a variety of formats. Starting DateBook brings up a full screen calendar page view of the current month with the current day highlighted (Figure 1). Days with events have a bit of the event de- scription displayed in them, much like one uses a regular calendar. To the right, appear two scrolling sec- tions, one for Events as well as one 20 Washington Apple Pi Journal for To-Dos and Memos. Along the bottom of the page is a (moveable) palette for selecting from the many different view options. DateBook Pro Events items are used for keeping track of anything that can be associated with a spe- cific start and end time such as meetings, appointments, classes, and sessions. They appear in the daily list with a small clock by them. To-Do items are used for keeping track of tasks or small projects that w List Tools can be associated with a given day, but aren’t assigned any specific times. To-Do items appear in the list with a check box in front of them that can be used to indicate the item’s current status such as pend- ing (blank box), in-progress (grey checkmark), and completed (black checkmark), Pending orin-progress To-Dos can be configured to carry forward to the next day until com- pleted. Memos can be used like Post- It notes to record general notes, ideas, or lists. Memos are not as- signed any specific time and are not carried forward to next day. They appear in the list with a “push pin” next to them. Creating a new item is a simple process. Just press NEW on the calendar palette (or select NEW EVENT from the Calendar Menu) to display an Item Detail dialog box (Figure 2). The dialog includes a pop-up menu for selecting the type of item (Event, To-Do, or Memo) to be entered and then adjusts its con- tents accordingly. Event items can be assigned start and end times by dragging the cursor or a time bar. Thursday Friday Seturday, January 2 5 4 SJ 8] ?[ooooan-11300m Apple Pi Meeting SL__MacWortd San Francisco J a 9 10 1 gs 12 Bhe 14 Staanivonry PayDay # das os 5 16 7? 18 19 20 2 teria on. Je 3022 eKer 3021 mew eS eu nna) Io] 2 2 24 25 26 2 aon ov eokscore Faydey 20 ant Arne ian ay chp niteing OR a C=) Figure 1 January / February 1995 Apple Pi Meeting Sa January 28,1995 + ‘Summary : Apple Pi Apple Pi Meeting Description: C) 9:30. ‘Washington Apple Pi General Meeting. At NVCC in Annandale, VA. Meeting starts at 9:00, demos around Keywords Project: Meeting ¥] [Rene zal Attach... Duration: me Yes Recurring: {New _] [TouchBase } [4]>] (_ Cancel ) Cae) Figure 2 € File Edit Contacts List_Tools (Asie Consumer Division | Ts |G Adam vinkbover G Heer Berger | Winkbover Compute! (708) 555-6000 | Ais Consuner Div| (619) 558-6000 [5120 Shoreham Place San Diego, CA ‘5350 Disaster Place Springfie) G Pasi Brainera ‘Neus Corporation | (206) 622-5500 hie ‘as Constner Biv (619) ‘Nas Consumer Biv, (619) 558-6000 15120 Shorehom Place San Diego, CA 92122 (619) $50} Chek. ‘Aldus Consumer Div] (619) 558-6000, ‘5120 Shoreham Place San Diego, CA 92122 (619) 556} Geese Coney ‘ds Cnnane iv (619) 558-6000 LQ Ketiey Fane ‘Aldus Consumer Div] (619) 588-6000 _ eens dccene re Reem G Tony Gentite | Aids Consumer Div] (619) 558-6000 G Chuck Geschke | (415) 961-4400 2 2 Sateen aoe, _G Bruce Macdonald [1 Anderton ‘Aldus Consumer Diy] (615) 558-6000 Richard Parker [ Aldus Consumer Div) (615) 558-6000 ‘Aides Consumer Diy) (618) 558-6000 “| Aidus Consumer Div, (619) 559-6000 24 contacts of 26 Figure 3 To-Do items can be assigned a pri- ority, status, and can be set to auto- matically carry forward. Memos have no unique fields to enter. All three item dialogs include a pop-up for selecting a calendar date for the item; a summary text field that is displayed in the various date views; a description field with optional date/time stamp that can hold up to 32,000 characters; a button for set- ting up a recurring item definition; and a button for defining an alarm January / February 1995 (the application does not have to be running for the alarm to go off) for the item (Events or To-Dos), pop- ups to assign keywords and project affiliation to the item, and a button for attaching a document to the item. DateBook Pro offers a variety of views that mimic what is found in many popular paper-based personal organizers. The Month view displays a complete month on screen much like a regular wall calendar. Icons can be placed on any day (an icon editor is included as well as several icons). Banners can be defined to spread across several days or months with colors and fonts that canbe customized. The Quarter view displays a quarter year showing up to thirteen weeks and spanning month breaks. Week view displays the seven days of a single week ina text format listing them in two col- umns; similar to a pocket planner. The starting day is user-definable. The Multi-Day view also displays one week, but shows it in a tradi- tional linear format, as if it were pulled straight from the monthly calendar. Items are listed below the day heading. The Day view displays all Events, To-Dos and Memos for a single day and includes a progress thermometer that displays the per- centage of completed To-Do items assigned to that day. List view dis- plays all the items in the calendar inalist that can be sorted. Sorts can be defined using up to three differ- ent fields. Items displayed in the lists are user selected. Not on the palette (but available from the View menu) is the Alarm view. This view displays all items with alarms at- tached to them. Within each view are options to alter the display to one’s liking such as in Gantt Chart or Time Bar format. Also available are “Busyness” Indicators which graphically dis- play how busy you are during differ- ent intervals of the day. These indi- cators appear as a three segment bar at the bottom ofa day block and depending on Events scheduled, will show white (no plans), grey (a little busy), dark grey (pretty busy), or black (booked solid). The intervals are user-defined as are the colors for the indicators. Searches can be performed on the calendar using any of the en- tered fields. The Full Search fea- tureallows searching through acom- bination of fields for selected items including date/time criteria (such Washington Apple Pi Journal 21 as start time, end time, duration, date, and overdue). The resulting list can be sorted by up to three fields in ascending or descending order (selected for each sort field). Searches can be saved as a custom- ized list available in the List menu. Several predefined lists are included such as Today’s appointments, To- Dosina specific Project, and To-Dos which occur in the next thirty days. DateBook Pro allows the user to access many of its features without actually running the full applica- tion. The DateBook Pro Extension adds a DateBook Pro menu to your menu bar (System 7 or System 6/ MultiFinder required). Using the menu bar, you can: set a free stand- ing alarm (independent of any cal- endar item); create a new Event, To-Do or Memo; set the Alarm Sta- tus; and launch DateBook Pro or Mini DateBook Pro. Mini DateBook Pro is an appli- cation that allows access to your calendar without launching DateBook Pro. This is useful for accessing your calendar while in another application or when low memory use is critical. Mini DateBook Pro allows creation ofnew Events and viewing of the calendar (a single day at a time). In addition to standard print- ing, calendars can also be printed in Adam Winkbower ‘Winkbower Computer Systems, Inc. 5330 Disaster Place Springfield, VA 22310 Vv g General Salutation Name Adam [Marked Winkbower Company Winkbower Computer Systems, Inc Title President For Life Vv o Addresses Work 5330 Disaster Place City Springfield State/ZIP VA Country USA &] 22310 State/ZIP VA Phone (703) 555-6000 Phone 1 (703) 555-6000 Phone 2 Unlisted FAX (703) 555-8774 ‘Work (703) 555-6000 Home Unlisted Fax (703) 555-8774 Home The Winkbower Estate 1234 Winkbower Terrace City Alexandria fe 22310 Country USA > © Custom Fields > [5] notes > BD Calendar Items Search not performed > documents No documents ‘Search Qy Figure 4 Addresses Ww 22 Washington Apple Pi Journal OKIE] Contact 3 of 24 “The best feature of TouchBase is its ability to search and/or sort a con- tact database using a variety of user defined criteria. Sorts can be per- formed on up to three fields.” a variety of user defined formats including Wall Charts. Printing op- tions are included for printing cal- endars in a form to fit most popular personal planners (i.e.: Day-Timer or Day Runner) using Avery or De- luxe pre-punched/pre-perforated paper. While using DateBook, I en- countered a minor problem dealing with events that take a full day (midnight to midnight), those that run overnight, and those that end at exactly midnight. Scheduling such. events returns an “Invalid Time Entered” error. The workaround is to schedule events to end at 11:59 pm. Nota big problem, but inconve- nient and not completely intuitive. Other than this, I found DateBook Pro a pleasure to use every day. TouchBase Pro The second program included in the bundle is TouchBase Pro. TouchBase Pro is more than just an electronic address book; it is a “con- tact database.” Nice featuresinclude a variety of search methods to find contacts, printing addresses on en- velopes or labels, creating fax cover sheets, and printing contact reports January / February 1995 or address books. The included FastLetter editor allows creation of personalized letters providing a preaddressed and dated shell of a letter with only the body needing to be filled in using the built-in text editor. When installed with DateBook Pro, the user can switch back and forth between the two ap- plications and move contact infor- mation into DateBook Pro to create calendar items. The first running of TouchBase Pro brings up a new file dialog box. ‘You can name your contact file and declare it as being a Single-User or Multi-User file. Multi-User files are sharable over a network and use less memory while Single-User files are smaller and can be accessed faster. Subsequent starting brings up a contact list. Alphabet Index Tabs allow jumping to any entries beginning with the selected letter. There is a pop-up for using other basic search criteria; a status list- ing the number of selected records and the total records in the data- base; and buttons for modifying ex- isting or adding new contacts (Fig- ure 3), Pressing the New button, brings up anew contact entry window. The standard data entry fields are in- cluded for name and address, as wellas, entry areas for custom items, notes, DateBook entries, and at- tached documents. Any or all ofthese areas can be collapsed to save screen space but remain available for view- ing with a single mouse click (Fig- ure 4). The best feature of TouchBase is its ability to search and/or sort a contact database using a variety of user-defined criteria. Sorts can be performed on up to three fields. All fields in the database are quickly selected using pop-up lists and two radio buttons for ascending or de- i = scending order. Different list views can be created once and named for quick use at any time using the Custom List Editor (Figure 5). A simple search can be easily made using pop-up lists for field name and operation (e.g., >, <, =). Acom- pound search can make use of “and” as well as “or” logic to create highly specialized lists of contacts. Each custom-defined list can include op- tions for sorting and viewing by checking the appropriate box. By defining several compound lists, a list based on any desired search, sort, and view criteria can be rap- idly accessed with a single menu selection. I found this a very power- ful and useful feature in that it allowed me to make a single contact database containing all my personal and business contacts. If I need to see a list of friends who own or use computers, I simply make a menu selection and a display containing Custom List Editor... >] Compound Search - Search for all Contacts whose Home State Equals “TX” Last Name Begins with “J” Or Last Name Equals “Smith” ootees Contains “Apple” And And Or Work Zip Code y] Lis Less Than y)} [22554 |LLDone ¥] & Sort Sort Setup... List List Setup... Sue Listas: [xatanelt——] eee] Figure 5 January / February 1995 Washington Apple Pi Journal 23 just the person’s name and Macintosh model appears. For the holiday season, I’ve created a cus- tom list to select and view just the names of those expecting greeting cards. For dealing with businesses, a custom list displays only perti- nent business address information. Another custom list displays just names and birthdays in date order. Using custom lists and views are great because you can select just those records pertaining to the in- formation you desire and then dis- play only the needed fields. No need to scroll past several fields of home address information when looking through a business listing, or trudg- ing through addresses and phone numbers while trying to find out who has a birthday in February. Although TouchBase Pro is a very capable contact manager, it has some minor inconveniences. I did not like the inability to fully customize the contact data entry screen (some may prefer not to have business information in their per- sonal contact file). TouchBase al- lows the user to create a preference to bypass that field when tabbing through the entry screen, but some may wish it not to be displayed at all. TouchBase also has a specific menu selection providing the abil- ity to export your contact list to a Sharp Wizard through a serial con- nection, but it does not support Apple’s Newton MessagePad—a serious drawback for me. At the other end, Apple’s Newton Connec- tion Kit allows for import and ex- port of DateBook Pro calendars, but does not yet support TouchBase Pro contact lists, so the process of get- ting names to move between TouchBase and the Newton requires some special skill. Using TouchBase Pro and DateBook Pro Together TouchBase and DateBook make 24 Washington Apple Pi Journal use of“Drag and Drop” (the required system extension is included for those running System 7 versions prior to 7.5). Using Drag and Drop, one can drag a contact from a TouchBase Pro window and drop it onto a date in DateBook Pro. DateBook Pro will automatically create a new To-Do item containing information on the selected contact and Contact Pro will create a new entry in the DateBook area of the selected contact’s contact entry win- dow. Up to eight contacts can be attached to a single DateBook item. By creating calendar items in this way, information on all participants in a meeting is available without opening TouchBase. A combination User’s Guide is included containing both DateBook Pro and TouchBase Pro manuals. The manual is well organized and informative. Aldus maintains an 800 phone number for Customer Service to or- der upgrades and request informa- tion on other products. Technical Support Technicians are available for questions, as are an automated and fax support system; unfortu- nately, these calls require a toll call. Insummary, DateBook Pro and TouchBase Pro are both very nice products. DateBook is a very ca- pable personal calendar and scheduler. TouchBase Pro is a very good contact manager. The two pro- grams, working together, form a complete, easy-to-use, personal in- formation manager. Aldus Corporation Consumer Division 5120 Shoreham Drive San Diego, CA 92122-5926 Phone: (619) 558-6000 Pricing: Retail price: $129.95 (in Pro Bundle or $79.95 each for TouchBase Pro and DateBook Pro). Street price: $79.95 (in Pro Bundle or $49.95 each). System Requirements: DateBook Pro: Mac Plus or bet- ter with minimum 2 megabytes RAM, 2 MB free space on hard drive and system software 6.07 or later (System 7 required for integration with TouchBase Pro). TouchBase Pro: Mac Plus or better with minimum 2 megabytes RAM, 2 MB free space on hard drive and system software 6.07 or later (System 7 required for integration with DateBook Pro). Personal observation requirements: DateBook Pro requires at least 800K of free RAM and TouchBase Pro requires 1000K free RAM. Run- ning both together will require a system with a minimum 4 mega- bytes RAM installed. Larger calen- dars and contact databases will re- quire more available RAM. Perfor- mance was slow, but still useful on aClassicsystem; memory was tight. Testing Environment: The Aldus DateBook Pro and TouchBase Pro Bundle was tested ona Macintosh PowerBook Duo270c 12/240, in color, running System 7.5. Basic usability was also tested ona Macintosh Classic 4/40, in black and white, running System 7.0 and a PowerBook 100 8/40, in black and white, under System 7.1. Mf About the author: Walter Forliniis acivilian program- mer for the U.S. Army. Though he finds working in an MS-DOS only environment depressing, he survives by reminding his coworkers at every opportunity that Mac users are do- ing things Windows users only dream about. January / February 1995 Living Album: Still Photos Via QuickTime Movies By Dennis R. Dimick ©1994 for The Washington Apple Pi Journal IVING ALBUM creates electronic photo albums by using Apple’s QuickTime architecture, an extension to system software that allows you to combine photos, sound, animation, graphics and video into movies. This program from Quick Media Labs creates its movies using still photos you have already put into digital form. It also creates visual thumbnail and limited keyword indices of those movies so you can recall specific pictures. This multi- talented program also lets you record and play sound annotations for photos, and you can present slide shows of pictures archived on album pages. album.for.wap To generate content for Living Album, you need PhotoCD disks (and a compatible CD-ROM drive,) a flatbed or slide scanner, a still digital camera such as Apple’s QuickTake 100, or another source of PICT format graphics files like a clip-art collection. If you have none of these but do have a QuickTime video digitizing board such as a VideoSpigot, you can generate still video frames or movies that can be cataloged and shown by Living Album. With a retail price of $130, and a street price of about $80, Living Album is not expensive. But you will soon find the cost of creating digital image files and finding storage space for them quickly outweighing the price of the program. [living.album.forwap Description Claudia plays a flute on a sunny day in the living room. October1993 Kim's photo The Main Screen: Living Album greets with a “roll of film” metaphor, complete with film frames and sprocket holes. Navigational and help buttons abound. Living Album lets you store and index images already digitized, like those found on Photo CD’s. You can archive up to 36 images per album page. January / February 1995 Washington Apple Pi Journal 25 HH Fy a An Album Page: Ample white space can surround images on a Living Album page. Navigational controls for moving through album pages are in the lower corners. Living Album lets you share movies in QuickTime format on floppy disks. Greetings From a Roll of Film Living Album greets with an interface modeled after a roll of 35- mm film, replete with film frames and sprocket holes. Small thumbnail-sized images reside within each film frame, and each roll represents an album page. You can create many pages of 36-frames each as part of an album file. Screen icons and extensive on- screen and online help guide you through procedures. Icons include those for thumbnail or large size photo viewing, one for revealing information about a page of photos, and one for finding photos based on text attributes you've entered in a freeform database. You can view any page in your album file via an integral pop-up menu. A second set of icons displays textinformation about specific photos, shows or plays photos or QuickTime video files indexed to Living Album’s pages, or allows you to record or play sounds for an individual item on a page. Anon-screen help system shows each button’s function when the 26 Washington Apple Pi Journal mouse pointer passes over, and online help essentially duplicates the program manual. Once you've created an album page, it’s possible to print a single image or a whole page of images, complete with descriptions you’ve entered. You can also save individual images to disk, or export the text descriptions you've written for each photo. Living Album’s Workings By using QuickTime’s Photo- JPEG “codec” (compressor- decompressor,) Living Album uses compressed copies of image source files for each entry on an album page. Original files are untouched, and Living Album creates links to those pictures or movie files for viewing or when video is played. If you want to view the original photo or movie you will have to store it on your hard drive or make the PhotoCD or CD-ROM disk available online. Living Album requiresminimum 8MB installed RAM if you plan to import images and create your own albums, as it makes a QuickTime movie of a series of still photos while creating each new album page. Unfortunately an album page is limited to an arbitrary 36 images (same as ona roll of film,) and there’s noautomatic method of creating new album pages if you have more than 36 pictures to catalog. If you have a PhotoCD with 100 images onit, you'll have to create separate folders of no more than 36 pictures each. Since you can’t do this on a read-only Photo CD, you'll have to copy images to your hard drive before creating a catalog. This aside, disk storage requirements for source images indexed by Living Album can add up. The manual says Living Album needs 15MB space for each page of 36 images. It’s possible to create pages using a “compact” option, but I found space savings small. Also, it will take time to import a “roll” of images into Living Album—four minutes were required to create a 36-frame album page of 384 x 256 pixel (BASE/4) PhotoCD images using a fast (40MHz) 68040 processor. (Comparing CPU performance, for example, a Mac with 16MHz 68030 processor should take 15 to 20 minutes to import and create the same album page and its QuickTime movie of still photos.) The easiest method for storing photo files is by saving just the QuickTime movie of each album page on disk. This takes about 1MB peralbum page, but images are only screen (72dpi) resolution. It’s this QuickTime movie file of an album page that you can give to friends on floppy disk. A player program for Living Album comes with it, but it’s not really needed as long as your computer-owning friends have Apple’s Movie Player (or Simple Player) application installed. Rolling With The Interface The main interface, though cute at first meeting, doesn’t wear well for January / February 1995 me. My main complaint is fixed size thumbnail photos too small to see well. The cliché “roll of film” interface intrudes after while, and it would help if users could vary thumbnail size and how thumbnail photos are displayed on an album page. The background for slide show movies comes in two sizes, and this makes it hard to frame photos without creating randomly-sized white backgrounds. Living Album issupposed tobe a“photoscrapbook” metaphor, but if I’m creating a scrapbook page of several horizontal 384 x 256 pixel size photos from PhotoCD, I'd like to customize background size tocreate a balanced “frame” around pictures. A way to customize background color would also help, as not all photo scrapbooks need be on bright white paper. The two album page sizes for displaying photo movies are based on 13-or9-inch monitors. The larger size is 632 x 445 pixels, and the smaller (for computers such as the Color Classic or 12-inch monitors,) is based on 516 x 370 pixel size. Unless you presize and crop photos to fit these dimensions, your shows will have a rough look with random borders surrounding. Where Living Album Stands I found Living Album stable under System 7.5, and only once did a strange crash occur, an error message telling me Living Album quit because my Mac didn’t have a floating-point. math co-processor installed. (It does.) Living Album tries to doseveral things, some successfully. If you want to put still photos in sequential order in QuickTime movies, Living Album does the trick. Living Album. can also play QuickTime video, and also has some limited database abilities for creating photo captions. The program comes with a small manual, an ample supply of sample files, and electronic guidance at every turn to help you along. If you January / February 1995 need image editing, QuickTime editing, or sophisticated image database talents, these are all beyond Living Album’s reach. So you understand media costs required to feed Living Album, scanning 100 slides or negatives to a PhotoCD costs about $150-$200 these days, easily twice the street price of Living Album. This doesn’t include the original cost of buying or processing film. Allin all, Living Album is a good program if you’re just starting out with Mac graphics and want to share some photos in QuickTime format via floppy disk. Beware, storage requirements can grow fast if you choose tocreate albums and alsostore source images on your hard disk. If Quick Media Labs improves flexibility of Living Album by allowing greater variation in thumbnail photo size, display style, and album page size, the program would be easier to use and could also produce still-photo movies with more visual appeal. Version 1.0 is an inexpensive way to start managing, showing, andsharing your PhotoCD, PICT or QuickTime files. living Album Quick Media Labs 100 Saratoga Avenue, Suite 320 Santa Clara, CA 95051 Phone (408) 749-9200 Fax (408) 257-9554 System Requirements: QuickTime capable (68020 processor or greater) color Macintosh with System 7.0 or later, 5MB Ram installed to view photos, 8MB RAM installed to create album pages. Hi When not helping raise a family, Dennis Dimick tries to learn about theemerging field of digital imaging, QuickTime, and multimedia. He lives in Arlington, VA, and besides the