Despite the legal wranglings between Microsoft and Apple, Microsoft 
chairman Bill Gates has publicly pledged to continue to support and 
develop software for the Macintosh. The news sent Apple stock price 
climbing upwards by $1.75 (to $38). Microsoft’s Excel is the only 
major business-class spreadsheet program for the Macintosh, and 
according to the Software Publishers Association, 31% of Macintosh 
software bought in 1994 was from Microsoft. The legal tension between the two companies had given rise to speculation that Microsoft would stop publishing Macintosh software.

  
According to an article by David Morgenstern in the 
March 20 MacWEEK, DayStar Digital Inc. will announce 
at Seybold Seminars 95 in Boston that it will ship a Power Macintosh clone in August. The new clone (to be called Genesis MP) will be priced between $5000-10,000 US.

The entry level model will have a single PowerPC 604 chip running at 120 MHz. The high-end model will sport dual 604’s. Both models will utilize the PCI expansion bus and will ship with DayStar's own Photoshop extensions. MacSense will have more information on the DayStar clones as it becomes available.

  
Aladdin Systems is now shipping Aladdin Desktop Tools 1.0. The software 
is a set of seven System 7 utilities that accelerates and streamlines basic 
file management and Finder activities such as trashing, printing, copying, 
opening, and saving. Desktop SpeedBoost eliminates the long wait during the 
three most basic chores: copying, duplicating, and trashing items. Desktop Printer creates printer icons and allows users to switch printers instantly without the need to install the RAM hungry QuickDraw GX software. Other tools include Desktop Makeover, Desktop Magic Tools, Desktop Secure Delete, and more. Aladdin Desktop Tools runs on any Macintosh series computer with 2MB of RAM and System 7 or later and carries a suggested list price of $89.95 US. A Japanese version is promised later this month. Owners of Aladdin products (or of Victor Tan’s SpeedyFinder7 shareware) can get the special intro price of $49.95 until May 31. Aladdin Systems is at (408) 761-6200.

  
Quark Inc. has announced that it will team up with Victor 
Company of Japan to produce a new image editing product in the Fall. QuarkXPosure, as it is to be called, will compete head to head with Adobe’s PhotoShop. The programs’ claim to fame will be its ability to track and edit any operation at any time during the editing process. A new tool called a ‘lens’ will be like a floating selection that will allow grouping, rearranging, moving and modifying special effects. The initial release will be for the Power Macintosh platform (US. and Japanese versions), and it will have productivity features linking it to QuarkXPress.

 
Any long time user of Quark has probably experienced dead documents announced by the dreaded ‘Bad File Format’ dialog box. MarkzToolsII is a QuarkXPress XTension that actually opens ‘Bad File Format’ and corrupted documents, and also provide backwards compatibility for QuarkXPress documents—so that any version 3.3 document can be opened in 3.2 or even 3.1!  Furthermore, MarkzToolsII (together with the PM-QXP module) allows users to open PageMaker files directly into QuarkXPress. MarkzTools also has the ability to rapidly compress and decompress any QuarkXPress document and its images directly from within QuarkXPress. MarkzToolsII is available for direct from Markzware, in English, German or Kanji versions, at the price of $99 US. The PM-QXP module is available separately for $79 US. (or when purchased with MarkzToolsII, only $49 US.). Contact Markzware at 800-300-3532.

  
Dream Weaver Communications Inc., a company comprised of  three 
teenagers and a teacher (based in Kanata, Ontario), have announced 
the completion of a custom user interface for Apple Computer Inc. of
Cupertino, California. The intuitive user interface—a graphical meta- 
phor of a schoolhouse—is designed especially for kindergarten to grade 
twelve students for use with local area communications. The final result 
(to be shipped by Apple early in April) will be a key component of Apple’s 
Educational Communications Bundles and will consist of a high quality Apple fileserver bundled with FirstClass communications software from SoftArc. Information inquiries may be addressed to Kerry Chalmers at: info@dwc.com or by calling (613) 599-4428.

                                                                                                    Quickbits compiled by