MacFormat 88 Mar. 00 0

Issue 88 March2000 £499 withCD-ROM £6.00 outside UK & Eire format Britain's best-selling Macintosh magazine Customise your Desktop and make the most of your time - we show you how Removable storage — 20 data storage options - from DVD-RAM to Zip Paper view Unreal How the Mac has Tournament — shaped the look of Multi-player magic! modern-day comics e-Services Ten ways the Net makes life a breeze On your Cover CD ~ CorelDraw 8 LE & PhotoPaint 8 LE complete “ ‘Canvas 7 trial -« Stephen King’s F13 preview Unreal Tournament playable demo | .© Tf your Cover CD is missing, ask your newsagent An all-new single- and multi-player tournament game, [Does not require Unreal to play). Learn team-based gameplay with and against virtual ‘bots’ — completely Cistomizanlewith superior A.J, Command your own ‘bots’ to defend, attack and coversyou in team play) Get online and frag on the server of your choice with a couple of clicks, All-new and enhanced weaponry — the redeemer, the IMPACT hammer and more, Plus more than 30 unique environments, y «\S Z We ‘ - ae ™ _“ : > \ uy ~ Se “yw —_— — aan =<, \ vy e so | L ee \ IN x . siets ies F < — i. 7 aye Digital Extremes ™ ™ Unreal™ Tournament ©1999 Epic Games, Inc, All Rights Reserved. Created : Epic A GT Interactive Software Company www.wizardworks.com/macsof/ GT Interactive Software Company. GT és a trademark and the GT logo is a Epic Games, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission. All other trademarks: Issue 88 4 March 2000 Subscribe & get 13 issues Contents [Ngai Removables page 56 Need to take your data on the move? We test your removable data storage options, from floppy disk and Zip to Jaz, magneto-optical, CD-recordable and DVD-RAM. DEATHMATCH SHOOT-’EM-UP Unreal . Tournament ¢ Win page 86 one of three ®€D Quite possibly the ultimate i copies of first-person-perspective jj I / Canvas Vi multi-player shoot-‘em-up. page 141 LIFE IN THE OLD MAC YET Still running page 30 ®€D That old Mac may not have reached the end of the road just yet. We explain what you can still do with any pre-PowerMac model. MACFORMAT COVER CD Your Cover CD page 136 CorelDraw 8LE & Corel Photo-Paint 8 LE full programs; Alpha Centauri & Unreal Tournament playable demos; Dreamweaver 3 & Fireworks 3 30-day trials; Madden NFL preview; 150MB of the latest share- | ware & more! ecp This logo in the magazine indicates Y | programs or support files on the CD «MUSICS SIMPLY SEARCHING FOR MUSIC Issue 88 # March 2000 ¢ Macformat CUSTOMISE THE FACE OF YOUR MAC Work faster, work smarter! page 36 Macformat 4 March 2000 4 Issue 88 MacFormat Contents Welcome Are Mac owners out in the cold? .... News Upgrades for iMacs, and AppleWorks 6 .... Apple Talk Your letters and more Silly Things .... FEATURES 22 Education BETT show report & the Minister speaks ..22 Comics Why the Mac is a real superhero Bers, Uses for old Macs ....... Personalise the Finder ... pose salads CD Corel graphics 8 LE Get- started guide AppleWorks Spreadsheets ... ©€d Internet Let the Web enhance your life . a ®CD MacAnswers Your Mac problems solved . ae 48 Why you can trust a MacFormat review .................... Hardware Group test: removable storage . AirPort Wireless networking ..... Farallon Skyline Wireless card ..... Microtech CameraMate Card reader. Creative & productivity software CD Canvas 7 Vector/bitmap art package .. KPT 6 The king of Photoshop filters ©CD Dreamweaver 3 Web page creator ...... CD Fireworks 3 Web graphics optimiser .. IMGA Tools Musical plug-its -.csc.ssssncesee Black & Whites Mammoth piano samples ... Multimedia & education software Star Wars: Yoda's Challenge World War Two History package. Stories from the Warsaw Ghetto Poetry For All Games O68 Unreal Tournament, 220.8 Civilisation Call To Power The Forgotten: and so it begins Rugrats Mystery Adventure ...... Shareware Central CD The best low-cost and no-cost software... 94 BUYER’S GUIDE 101 Buying advice, every current UK Mac, our top-rated products, guide to Photoshop plug-ins and QuarkXPress XTensions, plus the UK’s leading used Mac market: our free reader ads .............101 THE MAC STORE 117 Mac dealers plus specialist products & services .........117 Your Cover CD Full details of this issue’s spectacular Cover CD, with complete installation instructions ........ 16 Subscriptions Never miss a copy and save too! Online services MF via fax or Web .. Back issues Competition Win a copy of Canvas 7 .. Mac and Tosh One man and his Mac ... Next issue Coming in just four weeks’ time Viewpoint An industry insider's perspective .. A to Z index to products reviewed this issue ......... 144 TRAFFIC CIRCULATION INFRINGEMENT DAY MONTH | Year HOUR MINUTE ID oS 19 | 1121 So! | vewcve wee HYP DESIG N ET_ fi _scaseanion HPD ESIGNIET 10 VEHIGLE REGISTERED IN NAME OF HEW ‘ ones HEM ATV BU VEY DETAILS OF INFRINGEMENT STATIONARY VEHICLE: ‘One Month of infringement date We’re sorry, but our printers don’t understand speed Limits. SrUT HP DesignJet 3800CP HP DesignJet 2800CP HP DesignJet 1055CM HP DesignJet 488CA HP DesignJet ColorPro GA Sorry, but no one can stop our printers. They are now faster than ever so you can make better use of your time getting incredible results, fast. As HP DesignJets are able to achieve the same colour each time even when using different computers and programmes, each print is certified by Pantone. In addition to this, the HP ink systems and media are specially designed and engineered for use with HP DesignJet printers. So if you want it done well and fast, choose what's right for your needs — a HP DesignJet. For more information call 0990- 47 47 47 or visit our website: www.hp.com/go/designjet WA eackano Expanding Possibilities Ti Welco Out in the cold? About MF am Welcome to MacFormat, Britain’s best-selling Mac magazine - the magazine for everyone who uses a Mac at work, at home or in education. We cover the whole range of Mac uses, from graphics to games, DTP to databases, the Internet to education. We look at things from the hands-on user's point of view, so we review only the finished products you can actually buy, and we tell you straight what's worth your money and what isn't. (For more on our review policy, see page 55.) G Whether you're a Mac veteran or a novice, we'll help you get more from your Mac, whatever you use it for. Prices We quote prices including VAT (currently 17.5% in the UK). Adverts may not - check the fine print. We quote list prices (RRPs); street prices can vary widely, so check the adverts and shop around! (For more buying advice, see page 102.) Editorial enquiries MacFormat, Future Publishing Ltd., 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BAl 2BW G Phone 01225 442244 G Fax 01225 446019 (mark faxes clearly "To MacFormat") E-mail macformat@futurenet.co.uk Web site http://www.macformat.com/ AOL keyword MacFormat Cover CD and other reader queries: please call Wednesday afternoons 2pm - 6pm. Sorry, we can't give technical help or personal advice by mail, phone, fax or e-mail. If you have an urgent problem with a new Mac, call the Apple Assistance Centre on 0990 127753. Advertising enquiries Simon Lewis, Adam Portingale & Louise Auro, 01225 442244 Subscription enquiries Phone 01458 271120 Fax 01225 822523 E-mail subs@futurenet.co.uk Macformat ¢ March 2000 ¢ Issue 88 GEST If you've got a Mac, are you out on a limb, missing out on the latest developments in e-commerce as well as all that enticing PC-only software? It just isn’t so, says Alex Summersby. id you happen to see the article in The Guardian early this month about Macs and online banking? The gist of it was that “Macs are second-class citizens when it comes to financial services on the Internet.” It cited Smile.co.uk as “just the latest example” and gave the impression that banks had no interest in serving customers who happen to want to use Macs for online banking. We're currently preparing a feature on the whole online banking question (watch for it as soon as we manage to complete our practical trials), but you won't be sur- prised to hear that it’s more complicated than that. You see, Macs aren't excluded from online bank- ing. As our readers’ feedback has made clear, some banks’ online banking services can't talk to Macs, but many can — including Smile’s own parent the Co-op Bank, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide Building Soci- ety, Citibank, Halifax Bank and Egg, among others. Wake up and smell the Java So if there’s a problem, it can’t be just the fact that you use a Mac. Unless, of course, these banks are perhaps less fussy and are willing to tolerate the Mac despite its technical inferiority. That’s the impression you get from some Mac-unfriendly-banks. NatWest's Web site, for instance, sets out the minimum Mac system requirements for using its online banking service but then confusingly adds: “Unfortunately, Apple Mac browser technology is currently in- compatible with the leading security standards we have in place for NatWest OnLine Banking.” This, like so much that banks say, is not untrue, just misleading. The crucial thing, you see, does seem to be a “browser technology”: not the fact that it’s on a Mac, but which implementation of Java you use, and what a given bank's system expects you to use. That’s why some online banking services, such as Barclays, work perfectly on some Macs but not at all on others. Co-op Internet bank- ing, for example, works most reliably on a Mac using the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that comes Alex could barely afford his mortgage even if he could pay it online with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. It just won't work with version 4.5, because in IE 4.5 the Microsoft JVM was replaced by Apple’s JVM. If you manually reinstall the Microsoft JVM, however, it will work with JE 4.5. It works fine with any Java-capable version of Netscape, but Netscape's Java implementation is less stable than both JE 4's and Apple’s JVM. It is also slower. So the real issues, I think, are these three. First, yet again, “standards” aren't so standard — not because Apple diverges (though it has to be said that Apple’s JVMs have been of variable quality and robustness), but because just about everyone who implements a supposedly uniform standard such as Java attempts to build in some competitive advan- tage by “enhancing” the standard in some way, which just results in it not being standard any more. Second, many banks take the easy option and just blow with the wind, short-sightedly adopting what- ever they think the majority of their customers use — which is almost inevitably whatever Microsoft gives them. That's ironic in this case, because (1) iMacs in particular are capturing an ever bigger market share, (2) a vast percentage of iMac buyers are going on- line, and therefore (3) an ever growing proportion — the fastest growing proportion — of the banks’ poten- tial online customers will be Mac users, whom the banks are almost wilfully not catering for. Not smart business strategy, that. And third, even well-meant articles like The Guar- dian’s serve us ill with broad-brush soundbites like, “If you're using a Mac, you are using an industry pariah”, “The service is aimed at people with up-to- date equipment; it’s the Macs that need to be sorted out”, and “the Mac market is simply too small to be worth the development costs.” Like the myth that there’s little or no software for the Mac, such stereo- typing can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. For the Microsofts of this world to succeed in bullying everyone down the One True Path, for the bank- ers to remain free to take the road of easiest profit instead of serving their customers, for technical obfuscation and half- truth to triumph, all we have to do is say nothing and start believing that maybe it is our fault after all. (it ‘Start 9 iMac upgradable at last Apple is rolling init News compiled by Ed FreeHand 9 enero Llion Weller, Josse AppleWorks 6 Bilson, Robert Todd IBM ViaVoice and Alex Summersby. 466MHz upgrade tor older iMacs ewer Technology has managed to produce a proces- sor upgrade for all iMacs except the current range. Compatible with the first four revisions of iMac, inclu- ding the original 233MHz and the first “fruit-flavoured" range, the new 466- MHz G3 upgrade has a 1MB backside cache running at 155MHz. Newer guarantees that the card is compatible with Mac OS 8.1 through to 9.0. The upgrade, which many believed wasn't seriously practicable, is a whole new core processor card. Although you can replace this yourself if you really want to, the procedure is fairly tricky and dealer fitting is the recommended approach. DIY-ers would have to ex- tract their iMac motherboard, then remove the existing processor card assembly. They would then have to move all existing RAM and VRAM DIMMs to the new processor card before fitting it to the motherboard. No software is required for the new card to work. You have to return the original core card to Newer in order to qualify Some said it couldn't be done, but it seems they were wrong. iMac wasn’t designed to be upgraded, but Newer now has a processor upgrade for iMac Revs A to D. for the published price. The upgrade card will be distributed in the UK by AM Micro, who expect it to become available at the beginning of March. AM Micro will be issuing a list of approved dealers to fit the upgrade when the card ships. This will include some mail order companies who have service facilities. The cost is expected to be around £410 (after the rebate once your original card is returned). For further information, call AM Micro on 01392 426473 or visit Newer’s Web site http://www.newertech.com/ Easier Web design Soon there may be no excuse for boring Web sites, thanks to Adobe. ColorSync splash The courts smile on Steve Jobs once again, but things get worse for EfI. pple has won the lawsuit filed against it by Imatec back in February 1998. The complaint was that Apple's ColorSync software infringed patents owned by Imatec, a company involved in colour matching technology. The judge dismissed the claim, saying that Imatec did not own the particular patents on which the case was based and that Color- Sync did not infringe them anyway. Imatec’s Dr Hanoch Shalit called the decision “mis- guided” and said he will appeal. The dispute was initially kept out of the courts, but when talks be- tween Apple and Imatec broke down, a US Federal Judge had to order Apple to stop requesting that trial dates be extended. Apple's reasons for delaying are unknown, but Steve Jobs was ColorSync’ pleased about the outcome of the case, calling it a “frivolous lawsuit”. Apple has been quite successful in court lately. It was awarded a patent on the iMac design and won an injunc- tion against Future Power and Daewoo preventing them from distributing the remarkably similar “ePower” PC. http://www.imatecltd.com/ http://www.apple.com/pr/ EfI has been somewhat less successful. Last issue we reported that Harlequin was filing a lawsuit against Efl about a letter that Efl sent to its customers. Now, Splash is suing Efl, claiming that its products infringe on patents held by Splash. The claim also refers to Harlequin's complaint, alleging that Efl has been anti-competitive in its business practices. dobe has announced a new package aimed at making life easier for ambitious Web de- signers wishing to incorporate anima- tion, Java applets, interactivity, high- | quality sound and video, and other advanced elements into their sites. Catching up with rival Macro- media, Adobe LiveMotion uses the standard Adobe interface and has an object-oriented, vector-based environment, and Adobe confidently claims that it will enable designers to “work with maximum efficiency while exercising unlimited creative freedom”. The program can be used to create anything from an individual, dynamic Web graphic to a complete page with sound, motion and interactivity. Features include auto-keyframing, auto-tweening and an animation Time- line. Visual elements can either be created directly within the program or imported from other Adobe programs, such as Photoshop and Ilustrator. They can then be enhanced using a number of design features. Combinations of creative effects can be saved as a Style and then applied to other ob- jects. Export options include the ability to divide com- positions into an HTML table, in which each cell contains a different format. The program will also export to the Macro- media Flash file format. LiveMotion can be used in conjunc- tion with Adobe's complete Web design package, Adobe GoLive, and should be available to buy in a few months' time. UK pricing has yet to be announced. For further information, visit Adobe at http://www.adobe.com/ Issue 88 # March 2000 # Macformat SUITE SUCCESS The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has never hidden its view of Microsoft, but its latest move couldn't have been more pointed. While the judge in the case that the DoJ brought against Microsoft, Thomas Penfield Jackson, is still to rule on a legal remedy, the DoJ has just bought Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 for its 55,000 employees. The deal is a three-year licensing agreement and includes WordPerfect Law Office 2000 - a package specifically suited to legal work. The DoJ hasn't completely spurned Microsoft, though - the software will be run on Windows. STAR QUALITY Sources report that Sun Micro- systems is working on a Mac version of its freely- available Star Office suite, but it’s not clear if the next version, 5.2, will be out for the Mac. Sun may choose to concentrate on a totally Java implemen- tation which could more easily be compiled to work on Mac OS X. The Star Office suite, like Corel WordPerfect Office, matches the Microsoft Office suite in features and can read MS Office files. COOL BRITANNIA If you don't like Aqua, the new interface for Mac OS X, you can blame a British firm! Last issue we mentioned that the interface of soon-to-be-released Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 had been revamped by London design company Nykris. Maf Vosburgh of Microsoft's Mac IE 5 team said on the Macintouch Web site (http:// www.macintouch.com/) that he, at least, is con- vinced that seeing the JE design in April last year is what prompted Apple to drop the brushed metal look and go for the iMac-like stripes in Aqua. HEN'S TEETH? A UK design house recently bought an Apple Cinema Display - the huge and hugely- expensive flat-panel - to establish whether or not they wanted to place a very large order for the company. After just two weeks the screen went blank. Apple has been unable to provide a replace- ment, and our source was told that the failure rate of these sexy displays is an alarming one in ten. Merging manoeuvres The 21st Century has already brought plenty of corporate changes. ill Gates has stepped down as Microsoft's Chief Executive Officer, handing over the reins to MS co-founder Steve Ballmer. Gates has created a new role for himself called “Chairman and Chief Software Architect”. He wants to use this new role to dedicate his time to “helping drive the next-generation Windows Internet platform". This is what Micro- soft is currently calling its NGWS (Next Generation Windows Services), which, with a new user interface, will be behind Microsoft's new products. Many key NGWS services will be hosted on the Internet and may well be derived from technologies like WinFrame. There is nothing new in hosted ser- vices - creativepro.com and Apple's iDisk personal Web storage area are examples of services provided over the Net. It seems Microsoft is keen that its software should be behind these sort of tools. Other pundits have suggested that, as well as reducing his managerial workload, Gates will also be out of the line of fire of the Department of Jus- tice, where he hasn't made any friends! http://www.microsoft.com/ Merger mania In announcing the changes at Micro- soft, new CEO Steve Ballmer mention- ed that he saw AOL and Time-Warner as potential competitors to Microsoft's business. AOL recently bought Time- Warner in a deal announced in January, to many people's surprise. It could be seen as one of the first big mergers of Internet company with media com- pany, though where exactly the synergy lies is difficult to say. AOL gets more Microsoft's Bill Gates has stepped down as CEO to fill a more strategic role. “content” out of this deal and Time- Warner gets a company with Internet experience. We'll see what emerges. http://www.timewarner.com/corp/ Mergers and takeovers seem to be the flavour of the month. Caere, maker of OCR package Omnipage, has been acquired by ScanSoft. ScanSoft already owns Pagis Pro and TextBridge Pro, leaving just one source for Mac users wanting OCR. ScanSoft also recently acquired a collection of photo editing software, including Kai's PhotoSoap2, SuperGoo and PowerShow. These three products have been merged into asingle suite called PhotoFactory. http://www.scansoft.com/ Apple is green The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), an organisation which seeks to promote good environmental practice in the electronics industry, has awarded Apple a rating of 4 out of 5 after online research into the policies of several large computer firms based in the US and Canada. None of the other firms scored as highly, apart from IBM. The SVTC's Clean Computer Campaign focussed on the use of hazardous materials, the use of recycled materials in new products, the ability to upgrade, disposal practices, “take-back" policies and company views on respon- sibilities. It found that Apple provides “the best consumer informa- tion on materials used” in its Product Environmental Specifications tables for each kind of Mac, along with extensive information on upgrades. It also noted the company’s Design for Environment programme, which aims to improve and conserve materials, and that it accepts used batteries and toner cartridges. http://www.svtc.org/ Apple makes money Things may have looked bleak a couple of years ago, but now the firm that likes to “think different” is raking it in. uch is Apple's continuing finan- cial health, we can't really talk about a “recovery” any longer - hefty profits are just business as usual... Apple Computer Inc has announced a profit of $183 million for its first finan- cial quarter-year of 2000 (which to anyone living in the real world was the last quarter of calendar 1999). Unit shipments were up 46% compared to the corresponding quarter a year ago, and the company sold nearly 1.4 million Macs in that period (including 700,000 iMacs and 235,000 iBooks). International sales accounted for 51% of the total, a big increase over the previous quarter, during which international sales made up only 35% of revenues — but that might have something to do with the much- Macformat 4 March 2000 4 Issue 88 publicised supply problems back then, and the possibility that Apple managed to catch up with a lot of back-orders this quarter. Storming sales of iBooks in Japan are helping as well - seems they just can’t get enough of ‘em. Sales as well as revenues have shot up again, following a relatively poor showing last quarter, when net profit was $111 million, of which only $90 million was operating profit and the rest was one-off income from restruc- turing and sales of shares in ARM Holdings. (Advanced RISC Machines was formed in 1990 out of a collabor- ation between Apple and Acorn, whose Archimedes computers used RISC processors as long ago as 1987; Apple went on to use ARM chips in the New- ton MessagePads and still owns a big shareholding in ARM Holdings, which was floated in April 1998). Apple officially attributed that previous quarter's poorer-than-expected results to “limited availability” of G4 proces- sors from Motorola, “costs associated with product transitions”, and buyers delaying their purchases because they'd heard there were new products due soon and wanted to wait and see. The figures for this quarter just announced included some one-off costs and gains as well: Apple sold a few million more shares in ARM, for a profit of $101 million, but spent $6 million on “restructuring charges” (a lot of sever- ance pay, maybe?). The Board also spent a total of $90 million on “execu- tive compensation" for Steve Jobs: ten million share options, plus his own Gulfstream V executive jet. His salary, however, remains $1 a year. Other financial ups and downs Macromedia, maker of Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks, has announced record revenues of $65.5 million and a net income of $8.2 million for the last quarter of 1999. The firm reached a total of 93 million downloads of Flash and Shockwave Player over the period. MetaCreations recorded a fourth quarter net loss of $39.5 million. The firm attributed the result to its decision to focus exclusively. on developing e- commerce products through its sub- sidiar, MetaStream.com, which we reported on last issue. UK Internet giant Freeserve announ- ced mixed results for the 12 week period ending 13 November 1999. The company increased registered accounts by 12% and its average weekly turn- over by 49%, but made an operating loss of £3.6 million. If Britain's biggest ISP can't make any money, you've got to wonder if all the financial interest in Internet firms is really justified... Macromedia FreeHand 9 Macromedia’s famous vector illustration tool gets a Web-related makeover as well as other significant improvements. reeHand 9 includes a number of new features and enhancements, including closer integration with Macromedia's Flash, plus increased productivity features and new tools. Flash Player is widely recognised as the Web standard for vector graphics, so being able to export to it is key to persuading designers to use your soft- ware for creating Web site graphics. With the Flash file format support, you Besides the Web-related improve- ments, there are also a number of new illustration features (FreeHand is, after all, primarily a drawing package), such as 3D Perspective Grids and Live Enveloping. The Perspective Grid is one of those features you'd expect Macro- media to receive a number of requests for. It enables you to represent 3D graphics on a two-dimensional page, and includes snap-to-grid guides, cus- tomisable vanishing points, plus live grid manipulation. With the Live Enveloping tool you can warp and distort graphics in real time. There's also an Autotrace feature. You'll also find a customisable inter- face, multi-page documents, Website ra storyboards, new colour management options, and tweaks to blending, typo- graphic controls, transformations, and amore precise freehand tool. FreeHand 9 costs £328, or upgrade from older versions for £116. The FreeHand 9 Flash 4 Studio costs £469 and upgrades start at £163. More from http://www.macromedia.com can output small file-sized Web anima- tions and graphics directly. As well as Flash integration, Free- Hand 9 offers new features for Web graphics production, including Integ- rated HTML publishing with URLs, embedded Flash files, and Dream- weaver formatting for easier cross- media publishing - so, essentially, you can make a Web site within FreeHand. A new feature called Release To Layers is also included - for making animations effects without a timeline. Also introduced is the Macromedia Symbol Library, which can be used for placing master elements across multiple-page projects. SSE {075 7 ORIOS IWC TO} Cem Om aN ii GOO msesieen! jee sof ie inert Grid. This tool enables you to snap objects to it. ie = s 0 a i} Lig teiatia YEmO = omoco ES a == whore Sample files supplied with FreeHand 9 show just what is achievable with this remarkable graphics package. he Transmeta Corporation has ended speculation about what it's been up to for over four years with the release of the Crusoe family of processors. Targeted specific- ally at the mobile computing market, Transmeta‘s chips are designed to be ultra-efficient, resulting in long battery life for portable devices. Although the chips are x86 compatible - meaning ADOBE ANNOUNCEMENTS The Seybold graphics fair opened in Boston as we went to press. Adobe used the opportunity to announce its InProduction package. This is a set of five plug-ins for Acrobat designed to improve PDF workflow environments. The package includes a pre-flighter, a colour separator, colour converter and tagger, trim/bleed controls and Adobe in-RIP trapping functions. Many of these tools are available via third-party plug-ins (see our feature in MacFormat 87), but a single integrated package from the makers of Acrobat will be very attractive. InProduction will be available in the Spring for £704 (or £529 for registered users of Acrobat 4). http://www.adobe.co.uk/ FONTS ONLINE Bitstream has used Seybold to announce its online font source, MyFonts.com. Bitstream believes it to be the largest single collection of fonts ever assembled and has many they will run applications designed for Intel machines - they aren't actually using Intel instructions. Rather, the Transmeta technology uses “Code Morphing" to convert x86 instructions for the chip's own instruction set. The code morphing is done in soft- ware and is not too unlike the way that PowerPC chips can convert 680x0 (pre-PowerMac) code for use on that as their intention. Mac Arts foundries involved, including Agfa, ITC, Letraset and Monotype. The handy Identafont utility on the Web site enables users to upload a scanned sample of a font to the Web site for identifying a close match. Other facilities include TypeXplorer, enabling you to adjust typographic parameters online to find the font you like best. The site fits well into Apple's plans for Mac OS X’s ability to purchase fonts directly over the Internet. Try it out at http://www.myfonts.com/ PowerMacs. Since so much is done in software there has been speculation that Crusoe could be used to emulate a PowerPC processor as well as an Intel chip, but no party has yet announced Revealing the low-power chip, Trans- meta produced sample data comparing a Pentium III processor and Crusoe chip running a DVD movie without Friday chip Transmeta announces intelligent chip to revolutionise the mobile market. cooling. The Transmeta device was able to function happily at 48°C, whereas the P3 cooked at 105°C. The code- morphing software can also alter the chip's operating voltage, resulting in further savings of power. Transmeta expect the chips to begin appearing in portable devices by the middle of this year. More information from http://www.crusoe.com/ GETTING ANIMATED Beatware has announced a new version of its Web graphic animations pack- age e-Picture. e-Picture 2.0 can work with a huge variety of graphics formats, including some 3D ones. It can also export resultant animations as Flash files, animated GIFs or videos. e-Picture 2.0 is probably going to be one of the most com- prehensive animation packages available on the Mac. e-Picture can be ordered from http://www -beatware.com/ and is expected to ship by the end of March this year. SOLID VALUE Tektronix has upgraded its line of solid-ink colour printers. The Phaser 850 printer has PostScript level 3, Pantone certification and can manage 14 pages per minute. Using solid-ink sticks rather than toner, the printer can print ona variety of media including transparencies. Buyers of the Phaser 850 will even receive free black ink sticks for life. http://www.tek.com/ Issue 88 # March 2000 4 Macformat IBM ViaVoice IBM's industry-standard voice- recognition software appears on Mac. n yet another display of confid- ence in the Mac as a serious busi- ness tool, IBM will be launching the UK version of ViaVoice around the end of Spring this year. Expected to cost well under £100, ViaVoice has already established itself of the stan- dard voice-recognition package on the Wintel PC. Although the Mac has long enjoyed voice recognition, most recently in the guise of VoicePower Pro from GT Value, ViaVoice will be the first con- tinuous-speech package available on the Mac. This means that can under- stand your dictation at normal speak- ing speed. It can also understand con- text, for example distinguishing be- tween “their” and “there”. The hard- ware price for this power is that Via- an v cashbook for Mac OS ike to do the accounts for your small business in ten minutes a day? That's the promise of DO$H Cashbook, a new accounts program made in the UK and costing just £59. Its makers, Dosh Software, say that Voice requires a minimum of a G3. The US version is already available, and in our tests it looked extremely promising. The quality of recognition was better than any voice-recognition product that we've seen so far. The intelligent context recognition worked well, often successfully guessing the correct spelling. Longer use is supposed to improve quality even further, as it learns the speech patterns that you use most frequently. The UK version promises even better accent recognition, along with a greatly expanded built-in dictionary. It will also be primed with English phrases, names and a number of proper nouns, such as Tim Henman, Tony Blair and “England batting collapse.” For more details visit http://www.ibm.com/ Mac and DO$H UK-based small business cash- IBM's ViaVoice comes with a headset complete with interchangeable iMac- coloured bits to personalise it. book takes the pain out of book-keeping. unlike other financial programs, DO$H Cashbook assumes no prior accounting knowledge, and does away with com- plicated features that businesses with fewer than ten employees shouldn't need. It comes with a full tutorial and a comprehensive manual that, as well as explaining the program, provides more general advice on organising and run- ning your business (worth the price of the package on its own!). Users can create any number of cashbooks, access sets of transaction codes (designed for sole traders, partnerships and limited companies) and edit them to suit their needs. They can then enter receipts and payments to obtain cashflow summaries, VAT accounts, etc, which can be printed out or sent on to the firm's accountant. Dosh developed the original, PC version of Cashbook in conjunction with Lloyds Bank, which now says it will support the Mac version as well. Further information is available at http://www.dosh.co.uk/ Apple Certifiable? Distance-learning course for Mac techies, but not official status supplied. pple has begun opening up its Apple Certified Engineer status by selling an AppleCare Technical Training package on its US Web site. Until now, the only way to become an Apple Certified technician was to study under the umbrella of an Apple Authorised Service Organisation or Provider. The course is a three-part bundle which contains a CD of the self-paced course using HTML and PDF files. The second "Service Source” CD contains information from Apple's Technical Information Library as well as Macformat 4 March 2000 # Issue 88 resources such as troubleshooting flowcharts and exploded-view dia- grams of Macs. The final CD set is known as the MacTest Pro diagnostic CDs, which contain software tools to help diagnose problems with Macs and their peripherals. After completing the course, students are encouraged to take the AppleCare service certification exams (at extra cost). However, even on successful completion of these you are not allowed to set yourself up as an Apple Authorised Engineer, nor will you have access to Apple's Technical support CDs or Web site. The package, which costs $299, is currently only available to US resi- dents. We were unable to get infor- mation from Apple about European availability. Even Canadian residents appear to have been excluded for the time being. So, currently the benefit of the course is to individuals who wish to better their technical knowledge. We'd like to see Apple offer a more acces- sible course like Microsoft's MCSE which engineers find is often a require- ment for employment. Microtek £89 bargain Continuing the “more for less" trend, Microtek is asking just £89 for its new flatbed scanner, the ScanMaker 3600. The 600dpi, 42-bit scanner offers colour, greyscale and black-and-white single-pass scanning modes, with a maximum original size of 8.2 x 117 inches. Also included is a suitable soft- ware bundle: Microtek’s own Scan- Wizard, Adobe's PhotoDeluxe, and Caere OmniPage LE. Full specifications and further information can be found at http://www.microtekeurope.com and for sales, call Johnsons Photopia on 01782 753300. Getting Ticced off If you're bothered about your children spending too long on the Internet, British inventor Andrew Goodwill has come up with a new way of keeping control. His “Timed Interent Con- nection” (TIC) device replaces the modem to phone socket cable with a password-protected box with user- configurable timers. Once an Internet session starts, the timer commences countdown. After the preset time, the Internet surfer gets a few minutes’ warning before the connection is cut off. The “owner” can choose how long before the user re-connects. The device costs £47 and is available from Pulse Design Ltd 01243 827179. Hansol's budget 710D Hansol is now shipping its new budget 17-inch CRT monitor, the 710D. With a 16-inch viewable area, maximum reso- lution of 1,600 x 1,200 (at 75Hz), a dot pitch of 0.25mm, and a “virtually flat” screen thanks to its Dynaflat tube, the 710D sounds good value at £210. For more information, visit Hansol's Web site at http://www.hansol-uk.com Adobe enables ASP Users of the Web authoring package Adobe GoLive will now be able to produce sites with Active Server Pages (ASP), thanks to the new Adobe GoLive Dynamic Link for ASP, available from http://www.adobe.com/products/ golive/ ASP technology is most often used to create e-commerce sites. Over the coming months, Adobe plans to add support for other server-side scripting languages, databases and e-commerce servers, including solutions from Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Mercantec and Open Market. New-look library Fairfield Language Technologies has announced a new 2000 interface for its Rosetta Stone Language Library, a series of programs which aim to re- create the natural process of learning language by using thousands of photo- graphs and the recorded voices of native speakers. Students can now log on under their own names, and their work is auto- matically bookmarked. Exercises are now organised around four key skills: listening comprehension, reading com- prehension, speaking and writing. More information is available from http://www.rosettastone.com/ ic Academic Mac | The latest in the world of education LAPTOPS FOR HEADS: Head teachers in England are to receive laptop computers under a new Department for Education and Employment initiative, but it seems that they may receive a computer of the Government's choosing rather than one tailored to their needs - or one that they want. BECTa, the DfEE’s ICT agency, concedes that heads can choose the machine they want, but this hasn't been made entirely clear to headteachers. Unless heads specify that they want a Mac or some other platform (and, what's more, do so by a deadline they hadn't even been told about), they will probably be given a Wintel por- table of the Government's choice. Commentators on IT education have stated that the DfEE’s bias towards Wintel is not a deliber- ately anti-Mac stance, but is more likely to be the by-product of lazy or uninformed thinking. At the eleventh hour, Tony Blair’s pro-Mac education ICT advisor, Professor Stephen Heppell, has become in- volved with the scheme, so the prospect of Wintel domination may not be quite so certain. MATHS HELP: Leading educational software supplier Logotron has launched BBC Maths Workshop CD-ROM Series for Key Stage 2. The set of three CD-ROMs is linked to the National Numeracy Strategy and is specifically aimed at helping teachers to plan and teach their lessons as well as keeping records of pupils’ achieve- ments. Subjects covered include number, money, measurement, calculation, problem solving and information handling. The cost per title is £58. Further details from Logotron on 01223 425558: http://www.logo.com/ GET UP TO DATE: The Learning Company has announced the release of Grolier 2000 Multimedia Encyclopedia. This latest version for the Mac is available as a Deluxe two-CD edition at £29.99, or asa Standard edition at £19.99. The Deluxe edition has 37,000 articles, including 6,000 new and updated entries. There are also 113 videos and 12 hours of sound. Details from The Learning Com- pany on 01239 651300 or http:// learning.co.uk Ta AppleWorks 6 Everyone's favourite Mac integrated application reaches version 6. y the time you read this, Apple- Works 6 should be shipping - at least in the US, where it retails for $79. This is the first full upgrade to come from Apple's stable, rather than the Claris home where the product grew up. Gone is the communications module from the integrated package, but a new presentations module has been added. The six components of the package are now: word processing, drawing, paint- ing, spreadsheet, database and presen- tations. Apple has started referring to the drawing module as a page layout tool as this is its most common use, and the integration of other parts of the product makes layouts particularly AppleWorks 6 sports a whole new user interface. The comms section has been replaced by a presentation package. easy. Tables can now be added to any document by dragging a table tool from the tool bar - a la Microsoft Word. Merging cells or editing the shape of the table is done as if you were using a pencil and ruler. Each table cell can contain all the usual ob- jects such as pictures, movies, sound and so on. Mail merge and spreadsheet facilities have been upgraded, and AppleWorks now includes an auto-save feature for all documents. A major addition to the suite has been the inclusion of the presentation module which enables “slides” to be projected on the screen (or via an out- put device) with up to 25 different transitions between them. The whole package has been made Mac OS X ready and sports a com- pletely revised user interface. However, The control palette lets you manage your slide-show presentation including up to 25 transitions. AppleWorks 6 perhaps the most noticeable addition is going to be the extensive use of tem- plates. Just like their iCards and Home- Page web sites, AppleWorks users now have a huge variety of templates to choose from to create birthday cards, invitations and the like. Some 30 templates and 100 clip art images come on the CD, and a further 150 templates and 25,000 clip art images are available online, accessible directly from AppleWorks via an Internet connection. The templates have been designed by professional graphics artists. As well as all this, Apple has licensed 50 fonts from ITC to be included in the package. We'll be looking at AppleWorks 6 as soon as it hits European shores. Watch this space! Apple: 0870 600 6100 http://www.apple.com/uk/ rvratheloniog f Lrcredeble buslding! Dest urteneedcor: teare ine Narbonne = . all ef. Fanon The new tables don't have to follow a basic grid pattern - cells can be any size and contain any type of object. Talking of DVDs EuroTalk announces DVD-ROM language programs to teach languages as they are really spoken. uroTalk Interactive has released anew way of learning lan- guages. Their new language courses come on DVD-ROM disks, and incorporate DVD Video with interactive sections. The idea is that you watch a movie in the language you want to learn, and then use the interactive parts to help learn the language. This is one of the first products to use DVD-ROM to its full potential. So far, most products on DVD have just treated the media as a bigger CD-ROM. EuroTalk mix both interactive sections and movies, to create a new way of learning languages. Because the pack- age isn't just a DVD movie, it needs a Mac or PC to run and is incompatible with stand-alone DVD players. The first to be released is Advanced English. This features an entire episode of Inspector Morse, specially licensed from Carlton International. The learner watches the movie, and can choose to have the script running in a window at the same time. Once they've watched the movie, the student can take part in activities which help teach the various words and sentences used. The various activities include games and quizzes, which are designed to help the user understand the language. There is even a section where the user can record their voice in place of the Various games and exercises help to reinforce the points being taught in EuroTalk's Advanced English. real actors’, so they can compare their intonation and pronunciation. The Advanced English DVD will soon be joined by Advanced French and Advanced Italian. Advanced English is available from EuroTalk directly, and costs £34.99. For more information or to order, give them a call on 0171 3717711 or http://www.eurotalk.co.uk/ 37 thd? par | { i er Caries Raere — jy i Choose to have text running alongside the scene you're watching - or just sit back and enjoy the show. Issue 88 4 March 2000 4 Macformat Think Faster ProG3 The Ultimate Processor Upgrade for your Mac can boost the processing power of any Macintosh G3 up to 500MHz - at a fraction of the cost of a new system. ProTV Turn your Mac into a full function TV/VCR that can capture still frames and full motion video. Think Formac! ProFormance 3 The Fastest Graphic Accelerator for your Mac will turn any PCI Mac into a lightning fast 2D and 3D graphics workstation. 1 Vag pon ening ed cn ery + hep one ProRAID This SCSI Accelerator Kit is the ultimate I/O solution to optimize high-speed data transfer between your Mac and SCSI peripherals up to 80MB/s data transfer rate. Designed specifically for the Mac, our products will turn your friendly Mac into a lightning fast, incredibly powerful media creation computer. Formac’s Performance Suite is the ultimate, cost-effective upgrade package. Don’t wait. With Formac you don't have to. Get your Mac to think as fast as you do, just visit www.formac.co.uk and learn how easy it can be. a= Formac Formac (UK) Ltd, 29 Bow Industrial Estate, 118 Carpenters Road, London Tel: 0181 533 4040 Fax: 0181 533 6121 MacGamer GOOD NEWS Summoner, a fantasy RPG, is coming to the Mac plat- form in the autumn. Apple's adop- tion of OpenGL is responsible for this encouraging development. This game is set to establish new stan- dards in RPG immersive environ- ments. The game will be published by THQ and developed by Volition, creators of the Descent series. More information from http:// www.summoner.com/ CHILLS WITH THRILLS The Call of Cthulu RPG-based title Dark Corners of the Earth will soon be unleashed on the world. There is some hope that this dark fantasy title will appear on the Mac as well as on PC and PSX II. Headfirst Productions, UK-based developers of Simon the Sorcerer, will be creating this game, an obvious competitorin the horror RPG genre to Gathering of Developers’ Noc- turne, which, alas, is not heading for the Mac. Screenshots and further information can be found at http://www.headfirst.co.uk/ mainframe.htm/ OUT OF DATE Logicware has stopped selling Shattered Steel, Redneck Rampage, and Tempest. The licence for these titles has now reverted to Interplay, so you might be seeing resellers heavily dis- counting these older titles in the coming months. Stephen King's F13 [TIT Prepare to be scared witless by the master of horror and his piranhas. ans of Stephen King should look out for a new multimedia package from the master of horror himself, calling itself F13. The main feature of the package is an unpublished novel by Stephen King. Called “Everything's Eventual”, it has never been published in book form. Featuring a character called Dink Earnshaw, it draws you into the story with impressive illustrations and music. Also included in the package are three mini games. Designed as time- killers, they feature such joys as blood- thirsty piranhas, breeding cockroaches and zombies trying to escape from their graves. In the first game, you must feed the zombies. In the other games, you must kill as many cock- roaches and zombies as possible. There are six horrific screensavers included in the package. You can watch the master of horror at work, or watch as terrible crimes take place in a villa. Alternatively, let a creature creep through a bedroom as its occupant sleeps unaware. A true test of Stephen King's fans Stephen King’s F13 brings fear and horror direct to your computer screen. comes in the form of Frightware Trivia, which tests the player on all aspect of King’s work. To turn your computer into a true house of horror, the package includes ten Desktop backgrounds and plenty of System sounds. Stephen King’s F13 is Mac- and PC- compatible and costs £19.99. It is available from computer game shops. Infogrames buys GT Interactive French software giant Infogrames has bought out a large part of GT Inter- active Software, giving it control of the company. Infogrames claims that the transaction has left it as one of the top entertainment companies worldwide. Meanwhile, GT Interactive will benefit from enhanced financial, distribution and managerial resources. GT Interactive will still be listed separate on NASDAQ. Infogrames has produced popular games such as Mission: Impossible and the popular Test Drive series (but not on the Mac). Its line-up will be com- bined with popular GT Interactive titles such as Unreal Tournament and Driver, which is due on the Mac in March. The news is positive for Mac users, since GT Interactive and MacSoft will now have access to Infogrames’ back catalogue. This will mean they will be able to port popular Infogrames titles. The two company Web sites can be found at http://www.infogrames.com/ and http://www.gtinteractive.com/ MacDiary MacWorld Tokyo What: Steve Jobs is giving the keynote at this major Asian Mac event. Everyone expects to see the new PowerBook unveiled. Look out for our report next issue! When: Wednesday 16 - Saturday 19 February Where: Tokyo, Japan Web: http://www.idgexpo.com/ macw/ Internet World What: A huge event dedicated to e-business and Internet technology. Keynote by Steve Jobs - at the expense of losing him from the now defunct Apple Expo UK. Where: Los Angeles When: Monday 3 - Friday 7 April Web: http://events.internet.com/ spring2000/index.html Digital Solutions What: A major trade show for designers, publishers and marketing professionals. Exhibitors include Kodak, Quark, Indigo, Stockbyte and many more and there will be seminars and masterclasses. When: Thursday 17 - Saturday 19 April Where: Olympia, London Contact: 0171 357 6161 Web: http://www.digital-solutions- show.com/ MacHack What: The year’s highlight for all budding Mac programmers. Cutting-edge software development with well-known names from the software industry as well as new programmers. Workshops, talks and live coding around the clock. When: Thurs 22 - Sat 24 June Where: Dearbourn, Detroit Web: http://www.machack.com/ MacSoft thrives hile Impressions games are having problems with the Mac market (see right), the picture is a lot rosier for leading Mac games publisher MacSoft. MacSoft returned triumphant from the Macworld Expo in San Francisco having broken all previous sales records. MacSoft sees this as proof that the Mac is still a worthy gaming machine. The Expo itself also broke records with 95,000 attendees. MacSoft sold out of many of its games, and had to reorder more copies of Unreal Tournament three times, during the four day show. Other titles also sold well, including Seventeen Style Studio and America’s Greatest Arcade Hits 3D. There was also a positive response to the games that MacSoft announced. Driver (GT Interactive), Worms Arma- geddon (Microprose), Monopoly and Scrabble (Hasbro Interactive) were all confirmed as being in the pipeline. Driver has been a tremendous suc- cess on both the PlayStation and the PC, and MacSoft is predicting it will be a big hit on the Mac too. Worms Arma- geddon was one of the most requested games of last year and should do well too. (We previewed both these games in our ECTS show report in © WMacFormat 83.) These four titles will be available by the end of spring, with four more games coming later in the year. For more information on MacSoft and its game titles, and other infor- mation, visit their Web site at http:// www.wizworks.com/macsoft/ haroah, the new strategy game from the creator of Caesar III, Impressions Software was disappoint- ed with sales of Caesar IIT on the Mac. By Christmas 1999, Caesar III on on the Mac sold only 12,000 copies, com- pared to the 600,000 on the PC. Impressions says that the difference in sales between the two platforms doesn’t match up to the number of home installed systems. Mac users make up 10% of the computer market, and the sales figures don't relate to this. Impressions says it’s confused about why this should happen, since Caesar III was welcomed by both players and reviewers. The result of all this is that Impressions has had to re- evaluate its commitment to the Mac platform,. The company has decided to | concentrate on products which will will not now appear on the Mac. Pharaoh deposed reach the largest audience - that is, games for the PC. Older Impressions games will re- main available, including the Caesar series, along with older games such as Lords of the Realm 2. Information about Impressions Software can be found at http://www .impressionsgames.com/. Impressions was disappointed with poor sales of Caesar IIT on the Mac. Issue 88 4 March 2000 4 Macformat Database Developers — seeking the ideal solution? You’ve found it! It’s tough being a professional. Customers are becoming more sophisticated every day. They demand faster and more user- cid friendly systems. They're not interested in yesterday's technologies. So they turn CSN GeuiG to you for immediate answers! What’s the answer? ACI have designed the ideal solution. Version 6.5 of our multi-award winning 4D database software is a real eye opener. Designed specifically for Software Developers like you, 4D’s powerful language reduces code changes to an absolute minimum so development time is drastically reduced and profits increased. 4 Dimension and more efficiently And 4D 6.5 is so fast!!! Your customers will be delighted too. 4D enables scalability from a stand-alone database to a 200+ client/server network in seconds, supporting both Macintosh and Windows computers. And nothing beats 4D for ease of web deployment. Extremely user-friendly. 4D 6.5 comes with over 100 brand new innovative features, each and every one specifically designed to benefit both you and your clients! So call us now on 01625 536178 and discover for yourself why tens of thousands of developers in over 50 countries have already seen the light! All trade marks are acknowledged nttp:// WWW.aci.co.uK/db4a “When Filemaker Pro runs out of steam and looks rather small for your business, 4D has power remaining.” MacFormat “these changes make 4D the top contender for the most capable cross-platform Aa development environment 7 around, especially compared with Microsoft Corp’s bulky Visual FoxPro.” MacWEEK “..impressive is the way in which you can publish such >) a database on the Internet ..you could probably do it in ten minutes.” Macworld “...powerful enough to go % where FileMaker Pro fears to tread...” Macuser US “el Te ACI UK Ltd, Barons Court Manchester Road, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 IBQ Tel: 01625 536178 Fax: 01625 536497 e-mail: 4d@aciuk.com Digital cameras Canon launches first digital camera to smash the 3.3-megapixel barrier. he start of the year 2000 has seen quite an upheaval in the digital camera market. Kodak has dropped the prices on all of its models, with the top-of-the-range DC290 now at a suggested retail price of £699, while the DC215 (reviewed in MacFormat 87) comes in at £249, Expect street prices to be even lower. The reduction is no doubt due to the pace of advancement in the digital camera world. http://www.kodak.com/ Canon has launched the PowerShot $20, claiming to be the first firm to market a 3.3-megapixel camera. The PowerShot accommodates IBM's Microdrive in its Compact Flash card slot and features new manual settings, including “slow shutter” and a black- and-white mode. The PowerShot S20 should be available now, but UK pricing had not been announced when we went to press. http://www.canon.co.uk/ Nikon's long-serving and well-respected CoolPix 950 is staying put, but Nikon is expanding the top end of its range with the CoolPix 990. It should be on the shelves by May, but pricing hasn't yet been set. Also a 3.3-megapixel model, the 990 incorporates many manual override features, including spot focussing, and boasts a battery life of 90 minutes. http://www.nikon.co.uk/ However, Fuji has surprised every- one by announcing a product that will be on the market by April with a 4.3- megapixel resolution. The FinePix 4700 What's New PRODUCT NEWS IN BRIEF Green printers Kyocera has re-committed to the Mac. Models in its EcoSys laser printer range have 10/100 Ethernet and come with PostScript level 2 emulation as stan- dard. The FS-1200, priced at £938, is aimed at small workgroups with a monthly duty cycle of 20,000 copies. The "1200" in the name is a bit con- fusing, as this is a 600dpi printer, but it has a PowerPC processor which gives it 12ppm performance and hence the number. Kyocera is proud of its environ- mentally-friendly range - they all use a permanent drum and developer, so you only change the toner cartridge and could potentially save a lot of money. All Kyocera printers come with a two year warranty as standard. http://www.kyocera.co.uk/ New HP models Hewlett Packard has simplified its product range to incorporate the PhotoREt III technology in most of its desktop printers. The inkjet system got a MacFormat Classic award a few months ago with the top-of-the-range HP 970 Cxi printer. HP has now added the 950 and 930 versions to the DeskJet range. The DeskJet 9500 still has the ability to aE)» The DeskJet 950C, one of two new additions to HP’s DeskJet range. use an optional duplexing unit, but is priced at £234 and has a slightly slower speed. The £175 DeskJet 930C has a stowaway paper tray to give it a smaller desk footprint. All new models come with a built-in 10 x 15cm paper tray for easily printing photos without having to remove the A4 paper first. The new printers work with USB- equipped Macs. http://www.pandi.hp.com/ Brother is back Brother has also re-entered the Mac market with its USB-equipped laser printers. The HL-1250 is a 12ppm, 1,200dpi monochrome laser printer priced at just £315. With optional Ethernet and extra paper tray, the laser can even print on Aé-sized paper. The HL-24000 is an A4, workgroup colour laser printer with prices starting at £2,115. The networked version uses a Web browser for configuration and set- up rather than the usual two buttons and an LCD display. http://www.brother-uk.com/ Combination hardware Epson has introduced two new products for the small office and home user that will save space. The “multi- function" Stylus Scan models combine Epson printers and scanners into one unit that works as a copier, printer, scanner and, with a modem, fax machine. The Stylus Scan 2000 is a printer with a bit more. For “ £279 you get the ability to copy at the touch of a ” button - your Mac doesn't : even have to be switched on. -— ~~ You can also scan with the 2000 when your Mac is on. It comes with interchangeable iMac-coloured lids. The Stylus Scan 2500 looks much more like a copier, and is derived from HU PAULTISCAN t "LAS One of Sony's four new monitors, which benefit from FD Trinitron technology. the GT-7000 scanner and the Stylus Color 740 printer. It will cost £399. Look out for a review of many of these multi-function devices in an upcoming MacFormat feature. http://www.epson.co.uk/ CTX 19-inch monitor CTX has just unveiled its latest addition to the ProFlat range, the 19-inch PR96O0F. It boasts a USB hub and has a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1,440 at 70Hz refresh, and a recommended resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 at 87Hz. This gives a viewable size of 18 inches, with a dot pitch of just 0.24mm. Using a Sony FD Trinitron tube, CTX's “perfect flat" CRT glass is exter- nally flat, but has a concave curve on the inside. While literally flat structure fails to counteract light refraction, which naturally occurs within the glass, this solution gives a visually flat image and minimises glare and reflection. For more information, visit http://www .ctxmonitors.com/ or call CTX on 01923 810800. Mitsubishi revamp Mitsubishi has announced its revamped desktop monitor portfolio, which sees existing models badged in four categ- ories “to help customers with their purchasing decision and provide a clear upgrade path for the future,” according to Mitsubishi Electric's Alistair Duthie. The entry-level Diamond Scan range includes 15-inch and 17-inch Diamond Scan 50 and 70 models, with prices ViewSonic's space-saving GS790, with its 18-inch viewable screen. starting at £139. The mid-range Dia- mond Plus models include Plus 91 and Plus 200 Diamondtron CRTs (from £405), while the “professional-level” Diamond Pro range includes the 710, the 900u and the mighty 2020u 22- inch model, listed at £880. Top of the pile is the LCD range, with its neat 15- inch and 18-inch flat screens. For more product details, visit http://www .mitsubishi-monitors.co.uk/ or call 01707 278684. Hitachi's 21-inchers Hitachi has introduced not one, but three new 21-inch monitors. The firm is aiming to combine high screen resolu- tion with efficiency of space, and claims that its new range of models are some 11% shorter than similarly- specced competitors. The CM811ETMPlus replaces the CM811ET and CM812ET models, has a 1,600 x 1,280 resolution at 75Hz with a 20-inch viewable screen, and costs £704. The CM813ETMPlus replaces the CM813ET, boasts an 1,800 x 1,350 resolution, also at 75Hz, and weighs in at £821. Meanwhile, the flagship CM815ETMPlus model takes over from the CM814ET, delivers an impressive 2,048 x 1,536 resolution, and will set you back £1,115. http://www. hitachi-eu.com/ Four from ViewSonic... Two thoroughly affordable CRT monitors from ViewSonic are to be complemented by a space-saving 19- Issue 88 4 March 2000 4 Macformat Sito She =o) will cost £699 and is the first camera to use Fuji’s new "Super CCD”. Fuji has found that image quality can degrade as more and more pixel sensors are packed into a tiny space, due to “noise” - that is, interference The price of digital cameras is falling even further, now that improved, higher- resolution models are on the way. between pixels. The Super CCD therefore uses larger sensors in a honeycomb pattern. Fuji will also be launching a “pro” model with a stagger- ing 6.1-megapixel sensor that takes standard Nikon F-mount lenses in July. http://www. fujifilm.co.uk/ incher and an intriguing lightweight 21- inch LCD, The 19-inch PF97 and 17-inch PF77 CRTs both display a recommen- ded resolution of 1,280 x 1,024 at a refresh rate of 85Hz, with a 0.25mm aperture grille pitch. Prices are set at £410 and £293 respectively. Next up, ViewSonic’s space-saver. The GS790 is a 19-inch monitor (with an 18-inch viewable screen) designed with a footprint “similar to a conven- tional 15-inch monitor” to save your desk space. With resolutions of 1,600 x 1,200 maximum and 1,280 x 1,024 recommended, and a creditable 0.26mm dot pitch, the GS790 is ex- pected to cost £395. ViewSonic has also been busy with its LCD flat-panels. The new offering is the VP211hd, a high-density 20.8-inch TFL LCD unit. “The VP211hd offers a high degree of clarity and crispness,” said ViewSonic Europe's Aaron Fright, “and users can expect to suffer less eye fatigue than when using traditional displays.” The maximum resolution of 2,048 x 1,536, multiple swivel func- tions and integrated speakers should be worth keeping a fatigued eye out for in the second quarter of 2000. You can visit ViewSonic at http://www .viewsonic.com/europe/ or call them on 0800 833648. ..and four from Sony Not to be outdone by its rivals in the burgeoning monitor market, Sony has also taken the wraps off four new models - the Multiscan E400, E500, G400 and G500. Employing Sony's famous FD Trini- tron flat-screen technology, the "E” series is the entry-level price range, and these new offerings see that range extended to 19- and 21-inch models. The 19-incher has a maximum reso- lution of 1,600 x 1,200 at 76Hz refresh, while its 21-inch sibling employs “corner-landing technology” to ensure clarity at 1,600 x 1,200 at 88Hz. The "G" series is the professional range, with significantly higher specifi- cations and price tags to match. The 19-inch G400 returns 1,600 x 1,200 at 87Hz, while the G500 delivers up to Macformat ¢ March 2000 ¢ Issue 88 1,800 x 1,440 at 80Hz. Both benefit from Sony's MALS (Multi-Astigmatism Lens System) and EFEAL (Extended Field Elliptical Aperture Lens) focussing technology, designed to give the smallest possible (and most perfectly rounded) dot. The E400 has a recommended retail price of £469, the G400 costs £558, the G500 is £910, and the E500’s price is yet to be announced. You can find out more by calling 0900 424424 or visiting http://www.sony-cp.com/ Epson 1600 scanners Epson, meanwhile, has been busying itself further up scanning's evolutionary scale. Its two latest additions, the Expression 1600 and Expression 1600 Pro, feature four of Epson's latest scanning technologies: Micro Step, for higher resolution, Dynamic Range Control, for getting the most out of trannies, Simultaneous RGB Scanning, for gathering maximum colour info, and Precision Optical Lenses, for that added sharpness of edge. Each features 1,600 x 3,200 dpi scanning, 36-bit output, USB and SCSI interfaces as standard (plus optional IEEE1394 for G3s/G4s), and a raft of software including Photoshop LE and Epson Twain Pro. The prices are £750 for the 1600 and £985 for the Pro. For more information, visit http://www .epson.co.uk or call O800 220546. New ADI monitors A host of new MicroScan monitor models are coming your way soon from ADI: 15- to 19-inch CRTs using Sony Trinitron tubes, plus LCDs. The 15-inch G500 CRT costs £147, the 17-inch G700 CRT £234, the 17- inch G710 is £280, while its 19-inch G910 big brother is also £280. Also new are the 21-inch G1000 "short neck" CRT, with a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1,440 at £629, the A610 15- inch LCD flat-panel screen, priced at £833, and the delayed flagship LCD, the 18.1-inch MicroScan 9L, which costs £2,349. For further details, visit http:// www.adimicroscan.com/ or call 020 8327 1908 OUT NOW AppleWorks 6 This should be shipping by the time you read this. See our preview on page 12 to discover what extra features Apple has packed into this redesigned flagship product. COMING VERY SOON “Pismo” PowerBook As we go to press, most people are expecting the new Apple Power- Book to be revealed in Tokyo this month... but then, we expected to see it in San Francisco in January too! The new portable is certain to include AirPort and FireWire, but we can only speculate as to what else might be in store. IE5 Internet Explorer 5 is Mac OS X ready, as demonstrated by Steve Jobs at San Francisco. Its new Netscape-compatible rendering engine and British-designed inter- face will appear in February. A LITTLE LATER iSub Harman-Kardon’s new bass speaker system for the iMac DV has proved somewhat elusive. Tweaks to the sound system on Mac OS 9 have caused no end of trouble, so maybe it’s best to wait until the summer. OS X The first developer look at the Aqua interface on Mac OS X is due in February - then Apple will be working very hard to get it into our hands by the summer. Next issue we'll be having a closer look at what we're likely to see... Mac Treasures http://www.mactreasures.com/ If you've been hunting around for a rare piece of Mac software or an old piece of hardware without much success, then this is the place to go. Mac Treasures specialises in rare and unusual hardware and software. Its range extends from ancient Apple II software supplied on 5.25-inch disks right up to hard-to-get software for the latest iMac and G3 machines. The Mac Treasures site offers all kinds of software, including games, business programs, publishing, pro- gramming, and scientific utilities. Mac Treasures can also supply you with unusual hardware, such as a device which enables you to use a PC key- board on your ADB Mac or a touch- screen for your iMac. One of the more interesting items is the pre-made Macuarium kit, which includes just about everything you need to build your very own Mac-based aquarium - even a genuine all-in-one Macintosh shell, which saves you from having to gut your own old Classic or SE. (There's much better uses for it!) If you can't find the specific piece of software that you're looking for, you can even send Mac Treasures an e-mail so they can hunt for it on your behalf. You can also download a Sherlock plug- in to make searching Mac Treasures a part of your Sherlock setup. MacTreasurescom > New! Add MacTrearares com w your Sherlock Inwenet Search, download ons new Sherlock plee=in weer. New! Become « MacTrearures Affilinw, carn money by sdding our link to your ew, Anir Max! ‘What is MacTreareses? We ace your soca fx dati er yom hover tam po scar so art wa Taras WT Sd on mi sets, Wht Jon chig foe Oe fa Je it (09, Mac Tinarwes fo you! Can te Aggie sonra Tnarams you a Bohan fc? Sead os a ond we Become « hac an meri «Betag ef ow Hew Attitons Dont yous lea! Eetoot heme Mae's) Check owtow Bscumon Cn Carsteae Samat Amey 5.08. py Lid, —_ ee Dowss Shop 3.0 for Mac Bae Lig BO VAG ‘Peronal Pemras for Mac Demis oa Lime 3 VND bid cant Debary Macquarie Eratt ow Pachgaarten tax 8H A cat firm Machgoaceen tax HF bi cu ‘Visit Mec Treasures Often...Check out our new Treasures! rT ‘Raa fornt Sethe aces tea 5 Lat Seat a | Apple) fr" Share your views and win a MacFormat slipcase! Write to Alex Summersby, AppleTalk, MacFormat, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW, or e-mail macformat@futurenet.co.uk ave your Say, and get a Mac- Format binder to boot! Send us your thoughts on Apple, MacFormat or anything Mac-related, and if your letter is pub- lished here you win an exclusive MF slipcase to hold your copies of MF! The shock of the new I have never felt so disappointed in an Apple product! What product? The new Mac OS X Finder - it's hideous! I'm not going to upgrade to this ugly NeXT-ish thing. I hope this FileViewer isn't the standard and irreversible way of accessing things. I hope I still can use my Desktop as my workspace for my files, folders and disks. It’s very comfortable. If Apple are smart, they'll let us do things the old way. If not, I don't give a dime for Apple's future. They are busy killing the best interface in the world. That would be a shame - areal shame. I had to write you this letter to vent my anger and start dis- cussion. I hope they are willing to listen in Cupertino. Tom Van Caekenberghe, Belgium I confess I'm a bit disappointed by the Aqua interface myself especially the way there doesn't seem to be a Desk- top any more (not even a Trash can, except in that "Dock" thingie. Watch for more details of Mac OS X in Mac- Format soon - and comments and reactions are always welcome! It's a RAID I found your article on disk upgrades in MF87 very useful from the point of view of the performance of the various disk technologies available (SCSI, IDE, USB, FireWire, etc). However, your ex- planation of RAID levels was incorrect. You got RAID 0 and 1 the wrong way around. RAID 0 is striping and RAID 1 is mirroring. RAID 0 is not strictly speaking RAID (hence its designation (eg, for a server), your best bet is to invest in a hardware RAID 5 system. LaCie and BlueDisk both have excellent hardware RAID offerings for the Mac. Chris Upton, Technical Consultant Media Information Solutions Thanks for setting the record straight! Bigger than Y2K! I remember reading about how the Mac can deal with dates between 30,081BC and 29.940AD. As I use “The Mac OS X Finder is hideous and I’m not going to upgrade to it” as “O") because it provides no redun- dancy and as such is not a Redundant Array of Independent/Inexpensive Disks. In fact it has less redundancy than no array at all because if one disk ina RAID 0 array fails you lose all of the data on all of the disks in the array. I'd hate to think of a reader config- uring a RAID O array thinking they are setting-up mirroring, then have a disk go belly-up and wondering what happened to the data they were trying to safeguard. Of course, if you've got lots of money and you really want to get the best re- dundancy and have good performance ClarisWorks 4 for all my business let- ters, faxes, accounts, invoices, mailing lists, etc, I thought I'd better check its Y2K compatibility and I've found that it can only display dates from 1 Janu- ary 9999BC to 31 December 9.999AD. So we're heading for a Y10K problem. I suppose we need to read MacFormat nearer the time for updated reports. Lester Peters, High Wycombe More urgently, the current Date & Time Control Panel can handle dates only between 1920 and 2019. Apple's got only two decades to sort that out! (Apple’s tech info notes add that pro- # Alex loves reading your letters - he just has to find ‘em among all the e-mail press releases... grammers can set dates beyond 2019 by using a core Mac OS routine, but the Control Panel deliberately constrains dates for compatibility with System 6!) Forward delete In MacFormat 86, a reader asked how to “Forward Delete” on a PowerBook keyboard. I have a “solution”, knowing full well that it isn’t for everyone. After I bought my G3 Series PowerBook (what a beauty!), I sold my desktop Mac. I did not, however, sell the exten- ded keyboard that I used with it. I use it with my PowerBook. What a joy. I recommend this to anyone doing a fair bit of text work. Even if you have to go out and buy one, it’s worth it. Rama Prem, Germany Any bets that the new PowerBook, due any day now, won't have ADB? How could we!? Stunning graphics! Unbelievably addic- tive! Star Wars Racer is great! The kids are driving me crazy to buy it, pester- ing me to the point of getting my credit card out. But can I buy it? I can't! I searched the Web site, I enquired via the UK agent, I sent e-mails, all to no avail. Why did you bother putting the demo on your Cover CD? You've just inflicted untold heartache and grief in my direction and I’ve been sent to Coventry by my kids. Many before me SILLY THINGS YOUR MAC SAYS New Folder Open Move To Wastebasket Close Window Silly Things Your Mac Says, number 816. Left: you can say that again! Nathan Clark of Stanford in the Vale, Oxfordshire, Print =P reports: “After I quit Picture Shuttle - Fujifilm’s photo- , grabbing software - every item in the File menu was doubled!” The computer cannot shut down because Rast one of the running applications would not S| quit. Try switching to the remaining applications and choosing Quit from the File menu. Get Info Label Dupticate Make Alias Add To Favourites Put Away Right: "The Mac refused to shut down,” says Hoddy Hodson. "I tried to find out why...” but evidently ended up none the wiser! ~ [3] Applications GB} Find... on Show Originat g 0 DeezzeZZED Colorsynt Ca Page Setup... 231 Print Window... New Folder Open Print Move To Wastebasket wr _ Close Window System Profile: [Apple Multiple Scan 15 3) RGB Default: — [Apple Multiple Scan 15 3) CMYK Default: [Generic OMYK Profile 3) Left: we've heard of RGB, CMYK and even HSB colour, but this is a new one on us! Tim Wyles says he was just “trying to modify the ColorSync settings, but I'm not sure what benefits this option will provide me with!" Issue 88 4 March 2000 4 Macformat Preferred CMM: |~ Automatic LinoColour COMM Prize letter: can you have too much power? h dear, oh dear. How regrettable to see you pour scorn on older Macs [in a recent Mac Answer and in the letters pages]. How un- wise. Yes, I know that new Macs are so many hundreds of times faster than old machines. But what you are really saying is: "Forget what you need, buy what we think you need.” Consider your requirements, and save yourself a packet. If you just want to do word processing, spreadsheets, Internet, DTP and light games, a 68K Mac will do. Buy one with monitor and war- ranty for much less than £200 including VAT from any second-hand Mac dealer. And if you want to play 3D games too then buy a PlayStation. There - acomplete setup for less than £300. What will you spend the £400 you've saved by not buying a iMac on? Aha, you say (realising that I will scorn your games-playing plea by recommending a Play- Station), but I want to work with Photoshop. Fine. Buy a second-hand NuBus or early PCI PowerMac for £400 including a monitor. The only reason to buy a brand new Mac is if you want to use the latest flight simulators, heavy emulation work, 3D modelling or film. Everything else can be catered for as capably and for much less money elsewhere. — Besides, as computers get more “~~ | Our prize letter wins a year’s Internet access powerful most programmers get more account with leading service provider Direct sloppy - so the power you pay for isn't the Oley Connection, worth over £160, plus a copy of power you get. Ambrosia are a case in - Dircon’s new Internet Introduced guide to point. Many years ago they released aa » help get the most from the Net. Your an excellent game called Bubble — Dircon account offers access speeds up to Trouble (download it now!). Currently they are promoting a game called S/ithereens. Slithereens doesn't do any more than Bubble Trouble graphically - actually, it does rather less. But the power of modern Macs allowed Ambrosia to program shoddily. So the inferior S/ithereens takes up more than three times the resources of Bubble Trouble. It's not that Ambrosia couldn't do the job. They just couldn't be bothered. My credentials for offering this advice? I'ma professional software developer. I have several Macs. But the one I use most is a friendly little PowerBook 180. It isn’t even PowerPC, but it runs Internet, e-mail, a suite of business applications, programming languages, SoftWindows and my favourite games - Civilization, Syndicate, Marathon and Populous II. Do you really do more 128Kbps ISDN or 56Kbps (V.90), 20MB of free Web space, unlimited e-mail addresses, global roaming, seven-day-a-week technical support and UK- wide Net access at local call rates. For more about Direct Connection services, call O800 072 0000. than me? I thought not. Pascal Harris, Cyberspace We certainly wouldn't scorn older Macs - our fea- ture on page 30 this issue spells out just how use- ful they can still be. But I make no apology for being enthusiastic about the latest Macs - their speed and power are just intoxicating. I'm a bit of a Luddite myself, but surely you can’t deny their appeal! Any more views on older Macs, or ideas for what you can do with them? have complained at the lack of soft- ware for the Mac in the High Street and even Mac-friendly outlets like John Lewis, but this one just slaps you in the face. I'm not impressed. Do Apple be- lieve this is in their best interest? Rob Hancox (in Coventry) It's not down to Apple, really: they're doing all they can to get Mac software widely available - and visible. Check with a specialist retailer like MacGold (01723 582100) or watch for news in MacFormat as soon as we have any. Bright lad required The reality of business is quite worry- ing when perfectly good equipment is made redundant for lack of a simple piece of software - an up-to-date driver! My Umax UC840 will not work with my newly acquired G4. While we are grateful for the way in which com- panies do keep writing free updates for recent OSs, the answer might be to i 8 The version of the ATI 3D Accelerator L extension you have installed is ancient. You need to run the latest ATI Driver Installer to update your drivers. ocd Right: terse, but to the point. Sam Bailey of make a commercially viable charge for long-term updates or for some private bright lad to write such drivers. Raymond F Smith Doncaster, Victoria, Australia Sure-fire business opportunity, anyone? Hidden talents T have just discovered that Apple's Net- work Browser can be used as a fully- functioning, Keychain-compatible FTP client. Simply type in the FTP address of the site in the Connect to others box (from the Finger pull-down menu) and away you go! You can upload too, and it hasn't even crashed yet! Steve Day, Watford I wonder if they meant to do that...? REALbasic: a correction In a MacAnswer in MacFormat 86, we said "REALbasic is a Macintosh version of Visual Basic, and is shareware.” We fully the first time. Ancient indeed!" Left: Luke Roberts of Liskeard, Cornwall, says: “I got this message trying to run the Bugdom LO demo for a second time - it worked very success- were wrong on both counts. Geoff Perl- man of REAL Software, Inc. writes: REALbasic is a commercial product, and a very powerful programming en- vironment for application development. To say it is “not as powerful as Code- Warrior” is not really fair since you haven't defined what “powerful” means. If your definition of powerful is "you can build System Extensions, plug-ins and applications with it” then you are correct. However, if your definition of powerful is "new or professional pro- grammers can build applications in one-tenth the time (or less) it takes with other environments” then you are incorrect. There are thousands of applications built with REALbasic that would not have existed without it. Now that's powerful. We apologise for the confusion. More information about REALbasic is avail- able at http//www.realsoftware.com/ realbasic.html. REAL Software's UK distributor is Nova International, Welcome Back to Typing Tutor 6! Wow! You have practiced 3035.4 hours in the last week. You have exceeded your weekly practice goal, and you are still going. You are the kind of student every instructor loves. You can change your goal by selecting ‘Practice Goal...’ on the Options menu. Since starting with “Typing Tutor 6” you have practiced a total of 198875545.8 hours. Your average speed is 32 WPM with an accuracy of 86%. http://www.novaint.com/, and REAL- basic can be purchased direct at http:// real.iworldstore.com/. MacSpotting! @ Did you notice that in Geri Halliwell's World Walkabout on BBC 1 she used a tangerine (or is that “Ginger”) iBook? Billy the Wonder Kid Q Thursday night on Sky 1 is prime MacSpotting territory. The Student Counsellor in Roswell High uses an iMac, Later that evening, in Veronica's Closet, Perry has an iMac in his office. In between there was an ad for the Aquafresh flex-tip toothbrush which clearly showed an iMac and its mouse, but a distinctly PC keyboard! In the same break there was a financial ser- vices ad with a whole bank of multi- coloured iMacs. So there you go, if you want to spot an iMac, get Sky 1! Tan Ellery, Wallington, Surrey iit Anyone spotted any more Macs? Bournemouth explains: “This friendly message appeared when I accidentally tried to save an AIFF file as an ‘Instrument' file in Macro- media SoundEdit 16 version 2.0.7. Needless to say, I 'Didn't’." Has your Mac given you a Silly Message? Grab it by hitting $6 < 3 and send it in to us on a floppy, or by e-mail with the word "Silly" in the Subject line. Macformat 4 March 2000 ¢ Issue 88 Above: Chris Gordon of Dundalk, Co. Louth, Ireland, got this message from his typing tutor software... which he’s apparently been using a lot - over 126 days last week. But then, it’s little wonder the program's not so good at counting any more: it must be tired. After all, Chris has been using it for about 22,687 years... Sa imac ‘ —-2BOMnz “679 , 400Mhz ‘849 \ 64/10Gb/DVD/CD/56k \400Mhz ‘1079 128/13Gb/DVD/CD/56k ey A~*% Ya | T wt GY G4 350Mhz £1099 64/10Gb/CD/56K/DVD G4 400Mhz £1699 128/20Gb/DVD/CD/Zip/56k G4 450Mhz £9399 256/27Gb/DVD/CD/Zip 17” studio display #325 217” studio display ‘GUD y aprec | —COF£LN yj), Zip drive Te —-—, / : J Mod em *69 rea. Pas ER SCS/ card £39 Floppy i Powerbook 333Mhz 1669 4O0Mhz £2349 Internal Zip P/pook Internal Modem All goo @® Carry case plus cables & (lifetime warranty) 4 aparTec 740 740i 750 760 860 900 EPSON 1200 ussiseriavPhoto/A3 ? UMAX Scanners WAC 2000U gu 4220S 2200 U/S inc. tranny a4 59 2#00 S Powerlook // UE EPSON Perfection 610 Perfection 12000 *4 Perfection 1200S *4 USB/Serial/A4 USB/Serial/A4 USB/Serial/Photo/A4 USB/A4 USB/A4 USB/Serial/A4 1520 seriavas = hits” : e 3000 seriavaz ormac eX, Software 7 t46 wire | Indesign £199 17/200 169 CDR pit 9 E66 17/250 *4 89 TOK Metattic ee £139 | 17/600 24 0 “ of 20°95 Nlustrator 229 ; eee 19/550 2 89 ia Quark Express £759. a 27 /650 B25 box box of 0°90 Freehand ‘279: | a Proformance |i aa 89 TDK CD 80 x Suitcase 55. £ Norton Utilities ‘75% F 3 wv tuner card 59 ten pack 49% ‘ | Norton Antivirus ‘55 i aad mee 8 i+sU iS 1 TDK CD-RW Shes Beas ae ig 4 rs Ub ISA oe each: ‘no : Sruttie sy f 17” Pro zoou 249 TDK COR Pens Pe Office *385 19” Pros “385 packofe Fo Appleworks 68 E+ h ern = 22” Pro 220 S85 lomega — au 225 | 8 port hub 10/100 “139 3 vear on-site warranty 2p toome4=” ri i eyes ae (band width of 1Gb across hub) 2 bie 4! mare 44 | Sport 10 baseThub “#8 Printers SSP RG. * (includes BNC port) = £ u Norton System Tools “PO 5 +10 b 1 Kab 35 Elite 12/600 YQ Upgrades po ase pi/12pp! Photoshop 5-5.5 £424 10/100 baseT card *39 Elite 12/600 “789 Elite 42/ 2ppm/8Mb oe y ine 20/600, £4099 Sutteete £9 9,95 Syke mo ems eria pi/20pp - Freehand ‘95 | MacSurfer 56k V90 “79 Etre 20/800, 1499 Mésteéter £79 5 year warranty includes FREE Webworks ies sean Se Office 98 “995 | MacSurfer 56k Pomc “89 Memory Call for prices Sate sales and information: tx 01442 OUI0T ve our Four web site oF the at One Churchgates, Church Lane, Berkhamsted, Herts. HP4 2UB ir eats tio iadeie ca once | BETT 2000 EDUCATION SH lOW REPOR ETT is the major education tech- @ nology show in Britain, with over § 20,000 visitors a year and 380 exhib- itors. With the demise of Apple xno in the UK, BETT has become a major opportunity for Mac users in education to see new products, seek advice from Apple experts and meet like-minded educators. It’s the show where the Government, computer companies and software houses like to make announcements, launch products and gener- ally show off their best products. This year’s show had its fair share of high- Ss profile visitors and speakers. Michael Wills er MP, the minister for ICT in schools, announ- a ced that teachers in England would be elig- ible for a 50% subsidy for buying their own computer, up to a maximum of £500. A simi- lar scheme has already been announced in Scotland. Apple Education (formerly Xem- plar) is one of the approved suppliers, with the iBook, iMac and iMac DV included in the list of approved computers. To comply with the rules of the scheme, Apple Education is marketing a special package including extra RAM, removable storage and anti-virus soft- ware. (Ask your education dealer for details.) Lord Dennis Stevenson, the chairman of the Government's ICT in Schools commiss- ion, announced a new and innovative awards scheme from BECTa to recognise good use of ICT in the classroom. He said, “The new ICT There were impressive demonstrations of the AirPort's abilities at BETT. Look carefully at the large screens and you can see the other wireless networks at BETT and just make out the photographer captured by the iBook. The Education Technology Show | The great and the good in education technology descended on London's Olympia for four days in January. Teacher David Baugh wandered among the stands and saw Macs all over the place... in Practice awards are aimed at rewarding quality practice. Technology needs teachers more than teachers need technology. To- gether they will transform the way learners are taught, and spearhead the UK’s ability to develop and thrive in the 21st century.” The awards scheme will be split into four categories: ICT in practice in school manage- ment (primary and secondary), ICT in prac- tice in special educational needs (primary and secondary), ICT in practice in subject teaching (primary and secondary), and advice and support for ICT in practice. Each winner will receive £2,500, with £2,500 going to their school or organisation. Lord Stevenson was positive about the state of ICT in schools, citing Internet con- nection rates in Britain and the fact that ICT in schools was now taken for granted. Look- ing to the future, he observed that the groundwork has been done and that schools are starting to take the initiative in ICT for themselves. He concluded, “I believe we are now at the point where you should see the baton being handed from the centre to the schools — with schools taking charge of their own destiny.” This will be welcome news to schools who feel that they are under pressure to comply with Wintel-biased initiatives from “the centre”. Award winners During BETT, awards were announced for ICT products and services. Nominations for these awards were selected by a committee and then voted for by teachers. Apple Educa- tion’s General Manager, Robbie Hanlon, was delighted with the iBook scooping the award for Best Secondary Hardware, and iBook was also in the running in the Primary category. Lego Mindstorm’s RoboLab for Schools won the Secondary Software category, and Neil Issue 88 4 March 2000 4 Macformat Neil Rhind of Lego Dacta proudly shows off the BETT award for RoboLab for Schools, and stresses the firm's continued support for the Mac platform. Rhind, Lego’s UK Education Division Mana- ger, said, “It was absolutely fantastic to re- ceive recognition for this highly educational product against about 350 rival products.” He went on to say that Lego Dacta would con- tinue to support the Mac platform in view of its strong showing in the education sector. In the Primary area, Sherston scored a success with its Rhyme and Analogy from Oxford Reading Tree Software. Russell Mabon, Sherston’s Managing Director, said, “We are very proud of this product; not only does it look great and provide fun activities, but it has a high educational pedigree.” Sherston has long been a supporter of the Mac platform, and Russell added, “The arrival of the iMac last year has made a big differ- ence to demand, and we make a lot of friends by supporting the Mac platform.” Crick Software picked up the Special Needs software award for its Clicker software. Clicker 4 is soon to be released on the Mac, shortly after the program's launch at BETT. This is a further indication of the Mac’s resur- gence in education, as developers see a point in developing software for the platform. One of the most commented-on aspects of the show was the sheer number of Macs on the exhibitors’ stands. Almost everywhere you went there seemed to be iMacs, iBooks and G4s. This was no accident — Apple Edu- cation had decided to aggressively encourage developers and software houses to have Macs on their stands. It advertised a loan scheme for BETT through the trade associ- ation BESA which resulted in huge demand. In fact, the plan proved to be so successful that most of the borrowers decided to buy the machines at the end of the show, with many asking for more! The impact of having Macs on stands other than Apple’s own cannot be underestimated, as it’s a clear indication that there is some- thing for Mac users on these stands to look at. One exhibitor complained to us about the lack of support they got from Apple, but they were very shamefaced when we asked why they hadn't taken up Apple's offer of a loan. (2 See Soren sO One of the finds of the show was the brain-storming software called Inspiration from TAG Development, which enables you to order your thoughts. Macformat ¢ March 2000 4 Issue 88 Jeff Orloff from Apple Education US (right) chats with John Rudkin of Apple Education UK. Jeff was surprised at the number of educational products available for the Mac in the UK. Apple Education's stand was very success- ful, showing off iBooks and AirPort wireless networking, and highlighting the educational uses of Mac OS 9. The stand also featured QuickTime in education, iMac’s video capa- bilities and the recently launched Apple train- ing for Scottish teachers, which utilises a localised version of the excellent Apple Staff Development Online (ASDO). Apple wasn’t the only company demonstrating wireless networking at BETT, however, and radio fre- quency conflicts in the confined area caused some friction on the first day. AirPort proved to be a success as its networking encryption was tested to the full. Other wireless net- works were clearly visible via the AirPort Control Panel, and the security of these other systems has to be questioned. One of the most impressive demonstrations of AirPort was when a Webcam was attached to an iBook outside the Apple stand and the pic- ture was projected via QuickTime onto a screen in the Apple theatre. AirPort’s other winning factor is cost. Many of the rival wire- less solutions cost up to four times more (see page 67 for more on AirPort). One high-profile visitor impressed by the show and the Mac presence was Jeff Orloff from Apple in the US. Jeff is Senior Manager of Worldwide Education Product Marketing. He was surprised at the size of the show and the number of developers producing educa- tional products for the Mac in the UK market. He believes that Apple in education stands for ease of use and creativity. He pointed out r Kenan | Ne eet aL: os - Qn = Bred The complete Eyewitness range of books is now available in digital form for free at http://www.dk .com/eyewitness/ that only a company like Apple could create a product like the iBook, and that this philo- sophy of creativity flows through everything the company does. He considers the aim of ICT in education to be to get children asking questions and trying things out. On show at BETT Inspiration Price: £70.44 Contact: TAG Development on 0800 591262 Web Site: http://www.inspiration.com/ Minimum Requirements: 68040 or any PowerMac, System 70 Looking around BETT, it’s possible to be- come a little blasé about new software for education. Then you see a product which jumps out at you with the educational possibilities it has to offer. Inspiration uses a technique all teachers use in the classroom every day. It’s “brainstorming” software that enables you to get your thoughts in order, quickly and simply, for use on the Web, in stories, articles, essays, presentations — you name it. Look out for a full review in Mac- Format soon. DK Eyewitness Online Price: Free Web Site: http://www.dk.com/eyewitness/ It's not often you get something for nothing, but Dorling Kindersley announced the D>] EuroTalk’s huge collection of Mac-friendly titles makes language learning fun and addictive. They cover languages as diverse as Arabic and Zulu. eo RR i RE TR Ne a A TA ES NOS EE ec An interview with the Minister for ICT Michael Wills MP is Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Learning and Technology. His areas of responsibility include ICT in education and em- ployment, the National Grid for Learning, and "Overcoming exclusion in the information age - the gap between the haves and have-nots.” Our education correspondent David Baugh asked him about ICT, NGfL and Macs... [Vf A projected £17 billion is being spent on the National Grid for Learning scheme up to 2002. Do you have an estimate of how much of this funding ends up in schools? His first computer was a Mac, he still uses one, and he insists that the government has no Wintel bias. MacFormat talks to Michael Wills MP. launch of its complete Eyewitness collection of books online. The collection can be downloaded in picture and text form for inclusion in work at school or as homework. Navigation is simple using the contents pages of all the available books in the series, and you can then zoom in on a page or simply go to a text page for cutting and pasting into a child’s document. EuroTalk Language Learning Contact: EuroTalk on 020 7371 7711 Web Site: http://www.eurotalk.co.uk/ EuroTalk has an impressive 90 language titles on offer, covering a diverse range of languages from Arabic to Zulu. All are Mac- compatible, and are in fact authored in the Mac-only package SuperCard (which we looked at in MacFormat 85). EuroTalk is just about to launch its first DVD title, which in- cludes a full-length movie to assist language learning (see our News pages this issue). Director Richard Howeson said, “We dis- covered that most people who started to learn a language the traditional way gave up very quickly, so we decided to make learn- ing fun and addictive to get quick results.” — = om. | ileal: ~ sie F Q ma 9/4 For the sights and sounds of each culture, click 4 on the country of your choice BETT veterans Softease unveiled three revamped products for the Mac at this year’s show. “The NGfL is a key element in a co-ordinated programme of £1,7 billion investment up until 2002 to realise the potential of educational ICT. As part of that, we are spending £657 million specifically in schools through the NGfL Standards Fund programme. This funding is made available to schools via their local education authority (LEA), which performs a management and evaluation role. LEAs must devolve at least 95% of the grant allocated to their schools. Other elements of this programme, such as the New Opportunities Fund's £230 million scheme to offer serving teachers training in the use of new technologies in the classroom, will not result in funding being directly made available to schools, but should see both teachers and their pupils being able to reap the benefits in terms of improved delivery of the National Curriculum.” [lf There are large variations around the United Kingdom for NGfL funding. Who has the final decision on how NGfL funds are spent: the schools, the LEAs or BECTa? “The amount of NGfL grant allocated to individual schools is made with reference to the terms of their LEA's ICT strategy, and to their own ICT development plans. It is then for schools to deter- mine how best to use their grants to implement their plans in the light of advice from their LEA, and from agencies such as the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTa). The differences in levels of funding around England Textease 2000 Price: Textease 2000, £99.85; Primary, £5756; Spreadsheet, £45.82 Contact: Softease on 01335 343421 Web Site: http://www.textease.com/ After its success in last year's BETT awards, Softease has been busy preparing three new products for the Mac. Textease 2000 is a development of Textease Multimedia, mak- ing it a fine program for word processing, desktop publishing and multimedia. The interface can be simplified to make it look like the cut-down version, Textease Primary, for younger children. The Textease spread- sheet can run on its own or integrate with Textease 2000, enabling the package to meet the requirements of the Numeracy Strategy. The language packs w