News: Apple slow to go global with WorldScript tools
By Neil McManus
Cupertino, Calif. - The demolition of the Tower of Babel has been postponed.
WorldScript, a feature of System 7.1, promises to let users work with multiple writing systems without switching system software. But it requires extensions that are not included in U.S. versions of the new system release, as well as an Apple-developed software module for each supported language.
Although Apple is preparing for a March release of the Japanese WorldScript language module in the United States, it reportedly has no distribution plans for the files required to support other languages with its new multilingual system software.
CD-ROM discs Apple has released to developers include the two extensions as well as language modules for Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Hungarian and Czech. However, developers are not permitted to distribute the modules to end users.
Apple's Japanese WorldScript package reportedly will include the language module, the extensions, two Japanese TrueType fonts and documentation.
Programs have to be rewritten to support the new technology. WordPerfect Corp. of Orem, Utah and Nisus Software Inc. of Solana Beach, Calif. have announced WorldScript-ready word processors.
"There's a real pent-up demand for these modules, and we would love to distribute them to our customers," said Edwina Riblet, marketing director at Nisus. "It seems senseless for Apple to develop these tools and not make them available."
"Apple's approach to WorldScript is like selling us a record player with no needle," said Bill Griswold, Macintosh coordinator for the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Waxhaw, N.C. "I have a CD full of language modules, but I can't distribute them without going to jail."
Some corporate users said they have been looking forward to WorldScript because it will let them write in multiple languages within the same document, including vertical and right-to-left scripts and languages with two-byte character sets.
Rhone-Poulenc Ag Co., a chemical company in Research Triangle Park, N.C., has been using a beta version of WorldScript to produce warning labels in a variety of languages. Elizabeth Kahn, international communications coordinator for the company, said she used to write in foreign languages by switching among localized Hebrew, Arabic, Korean and Thai Mac systems on her hard disk. "It was very cumbersome and I crashed a lot. My hard drives were full of System [folders]," she said. "Now, with WorldScript, I can be typing along in English and just click on a menu to work in Hebrew or Arabic."
Ker Gibbs, Apple product manager for the Japanese module, said WorldScript will help Apple sell Macs to multinational corporations. "If you're buying computers for a global company, you'll want them to work in every country that you work in. WorldScript gives you that capability, so it makes your buying decision easy."
Nisus' Riblet said: "International businesses want to communicate with offices all over the world. The prospect of the desktop Mac as a worldwide communication instrument is very enticing."
WorldScript also promises to make upgrading system software easier for Apple. Previous versions of the system had to be localized in more than 30 languages. Individual versions had to be tailored with the alphabets and linguistic files that specify text direction, input methods and other language characteristics.
WorldScript will let Apple release and upgrade future systems all at once because the software will no longer be tied to individual languages.
MacWEEK 01.25.93
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1993 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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News: Express Modem lags in reaching Duo users
Apple says card ships in limited quantities
By Nathalie Welch
Cupertino, Calif. - Three months after the first PowerBook Duos shipped, early adopters of Apple's newest notebooks still find themselves up the creek without an internal modem.
When Apple introduced the modular notebook system in October, it said it would deliver a Duo version of the Express Modem, its new internal fax modem, in December. The company now claims the $319 card has been shipping in limited quantities for two weeks, but few if any units have reached dealers or users. And no third-party modem makers have released or even announced internal models for the Duos - in part, several developers said, because Apple has not provided the necessary documentation.
Dave Rothschild, PowerBook product-line manager, acknowledged that the communications cards are not readily available. "[Just] because we have officially shipped it does not mean you can find it," he said, noting that the distribution process takes time and that limited supplies have to be divided among retail, education, value-added reseller and developer channels.
An informal MacWEEK survey of dealers on both East and West Coasts turned up none who had the modem in stock last week. Rothschild said the backlog probably won't be eliminated until the end of March.
He blamed the delay in part on "miscommunication" between Apple and a contractor responsible for assembling all the components of the Express Modem package. Other sources said the mix-up specifically involved the product manual.
The version of the Express Modem for the PowerBook 160 and 180, originally scheduled to ship in limited quantities this month, has not been released. But the issue is less pressing for users of the "all-in-
one" models because they can choose from among a variety of third-party internal modem offerings originally designed for the PowerBook 140, 145 and 170.
The Duos, on the other hand, use a new design incompatible with previous modems. Duo owners who need to communicate have been forced to make do with external modems, which add more weight and bulk in travelers' briefcases and in most cases require AC power to operate.
"In general, [users] are being patient. They understand the problem," said Ken Krich, president of ComputerWare, a Palo Alto, Calif., reseller. "Most are buying third-party [external] devices."
Apple's tardiness in delivering the Duo modem might have created a window of opportunity for third-party modem manufacturers, but it's one they have found hard to open.
"We sat down with a number of companies that have expressed interest in developing a Duo modem," Apple's Rothschild said. "But [we] don't have any current plans to distribute a hardware guide, [other than] on a case-by-case basis."
Steve Cherry of PSI Integration Inc. of Campbell, Calif., said, "Apple is making it real difficult to get the specs." He said third-party developers would have a hard time making a profit on a Duo modem because of Apple's aggressive pricing and because of the difficulty involved in adding a modem in Duos.
Installing a modem requires a trained technician using special tools to disassemble almost the entire computer. Users would have to spend about $100 in service costs to have one installed.
For this reason, Apple is likely to offer a configuration of the Duo with the modem preinstalled at the factory, once the backlog is eliminated. "We have not announced any Duo modem configurations," Rothschild said, "but clearly that's something customers are going to want, and it's our business to give our customers what they want."
This would make it even harder for a third-party offering to succeed.
At least one third-party modem manufacturer reported more success in its Duo modem development efforts. "We had to work very, very hard to get those specs," said Rick Greene, vice president of Twincom USA in Wilmington, N.C. "But we got them, and based on the last conversation I had with my engineers, we may have a modem for the Duo in 60 to 90 days."
MacWEEK 01.25.93
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1993 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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News: PowerBook Duo review
By Rick LePage
Although Apple has been shipping the Macintosh PowerBook Duo 210 and 230 since late October, only recently has the Duos' key peripheral - the Macintosh Duo Dock - become available. Other docking mechanisms will be shipping in the coming months, but the Duo Dock is the one that gives the highly portable Duo all the characteristics of a desktop Mac.
The effectiveness of this duality will be critical for users comparing the Duos with all-in-one PowerBooks such as the PowerBook 160 and 180.
The Duo system represents a new approach to portable computing for Apple, one that promises to offer the ideal Macintosh: a lightweight, powerful mobile computer that can perform as a full-function machine on the desktop. While we can appreciate the innovation in the Duo and the Duo Dock, there are still a number of missing pieces and reliability questions that make us hesitate from qualifying the Duo a success.
The linchpins of the Duo line are the CPUs, the Duo 210 and 230. The two models generally share the same characteristics, differing only in the speed of the microprocessor on board. The Duo 210 has a 25-MHz 68030 inside, while the 230 has a 33-MHz model.
The attributes of the line include:
> A weight of 4.2 pounds, down from the 6.8-pound weight of the all-in-
one PowerBooks.
> A 9-inch (diagonal) supertwist LCD screen that provides 16 levels of gray at 640 by 400 pixels.
> 4 Mbytes of dynamic RAM on the motherboard, with a limit of 32 Mbytes (although current memory technology will limit the maximum to 24 Mbytes).
> An 80- or 120-Mbyte internal hard disk.
> A single RS-422 serial port that supports LocalTalk.
> A 152-pin expansion connector, used to attach docking peripherals to the Duo.
> A nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) battery that provides between two and four and a half hours of power, according to Apple.
> A 19mm trackball, significantly smaller than the 30mm model found in the all-in-one PowerBooks.
The Duos get their weight advantage from the omission of a floppy drive and the use of a lightweight magnesium subframe inside the case.
Performance. For our review we tested a Duo 230 with 12 Mbytes of memory and an internal 80-Mbyte drive. The overall performance of this machine alone and in conjunction with the Duo Dock was very good. Even with a number of extensions loaded the Duo was responsive and quick.
There is no 68882 math coprocessor in the Duos, which may be an issue to users of spreadsheets and math-intensive applications. We noticed some slowness when working with complex spreadsheet models in Microsoft Excel, but overall, it was not a big issue for us.
Our standard benchmarks showed the Duo 230 to be faster than the Mac IIci and Mac IIvx for most tasks. The Duo 210 is comparable in performance to the IIci and the IIvx.
The usability test. The lightness of the Duo 230 made it a joy to carry. We found that we would bring our Duo along much more than we ever did the 170.
We also warmed to the screen and the smaller trackball, although both required a significant adjustment period before we felt comfortable with them. In our opinion, the trackball is a much greater limiting factor than the screen; it requires more dexterity than the larger trackball on the other PowerBooks.
There are lots of other things to like with the Duos, and we had few problems going between the Duo Dock and the Duo 230 alone.
A noteworthy design feature in the Duo is the ease with which RAM can be added. Three Torx screws on the underside of the Duo allow you to lift up the keyboard. A RAM expansion connector sits directly under the keyboard, allowing you to easily snap in a new memory module.
Battery life. Another advantage of the Duos over the PowerBooks that preceded them is the NiMH battery. This battery doesn't have the "memory" and charging problems inherent in NiCads, and it stores a longer charge.
While we never approached the four and a half hours Apple claims for the battery life, we did get more than two and a half hours per charge several times in normal use and less than two hours in heavy use, with frequent accessing of the internal drive. All of these times were markedly better than with our PowerBook 170 and 180.
Apple included a backup battery in the Duos that provides four minutes of power when the Duo is in Sleep mode. This excellent feature allows you to switch batteries without having to shut down your Duo or find a power outlet.
Duo downers. While our experience with the Duo 230 was generally good, we ran into a number of limitations and problems that reminded us that we were on the cutting edge.
The chief problem is the unavailability of several of the components necessary to realize the potential of the Duo concept. In November, if you could find a Duo, it was most likely a 210. If you got one, you might have been able to get a PowerBook Duo Floppy Adapter and a floppy drive (for $334). The closest you could get to any dock was a waiting list for one.
The absence of the PowerBook Express Modem is the most acute issue. The Duos' portability is their greatest strength, but the delay in delivering the modem severely limits their usefulness as mobile systems. It also caused us grief to go back and forth between an external modem and a LocalTalk connection using the single serial port.
We feel similarly about the Duo MiniDock, Apple's alternative to the Duo Dock. The MiniDock is an attractive concept, offering SCSI, serial and external video access in a small footprint at half the cost of the Duo Dock, but Apple has yet to ship this component.
While the shortages will ease up and enterprising third parties will jump in soon with docks and related peripherals, there are also reliability concerns with the Duos. Our first review unit had to be replaced because of a screen problem, and the 120-Mbyte internal drive disappeared from the desktop after crashes in both our first and second Duo 230. Reports on-line indicate that other users have experienced similar problems.
Pricing quandary. With 4 Mbytes of RAM and an 80-Mbyte hard disk, the Duo 210 is $2,249, and the Duo 230 is $2,609. While these prices are reasonable for the performance you get, the additional cost of docks and peripherals can quickly get out of hand. The Duo Dock costs $1,079, Apple's Macintosh Color Display is $589, and the cheapest keyboard is $105. The Express Modem, when it ships, will be $319.
The best prices we have seen on any of the Apple products is Duo RAM, which is reasonable by Apple standards, but it is also scarce. We have seen slight discounting on the Duos but not enough to reduce the feeling that you are paying a high price for the Duo duality.
Conclusions. Both the Duo 210 and 230 have a feel that is entirely unlike the PowerBooks that came before them. Although they are lighter than a PowerBook 100, they can outrun a 170. There are a number of other advantages - fast processor, docking options, easy access for RAM expansion and improved battery life among them - that make both Duos good Macs for mobile users who want the full benefits of a desktop machine as well.
For many, the limitations and restrictions of the Duos will pale in comparison to the weight and performance of the units. If the Express Modem ships soon and is as good as it sounds, it will truly be possible to have a powerful, fast Mac that can be carried anywhere and be plugged into the global network.
However, there probably will be more users who will pass by the Duos in favor of another Mac. With the Duos, Apple has implemented a number of new technologies and design philosophies, a process that always seems to carry both promise and problems.
The shortages of Duo Docks and modems probably will be over soon, but there are still enough questions that we think a good-size group of users will wait for the next implementation of the Duos before buying.
Given the success of the second-generation PowerBook 160 and 180, we would imagine that Apple will get many of the problems worked out.
Score Card: Macintosh PowerBook Duo 230
Apple
List price: $2,609*
Overall value ***
The Duo 230 is a 4.2-pound notebook that sacrifices connectivity options in favor of weight. Its innovative design includes a 152-pin connector that lets you connect your Duo to a number of docking stations, of which Apple's Duo Dock is the first to ship. The problems in the Duo system are evident in the lack of availability of Apple's internal modem and MiniDock, and many users will not want to live with the passive-matrix screen, small trackball and single serial port. We also have concerns about the cost of configuring a Duo with a desktop base. That said, however, if you want a truly lightweight, high-performance mobile computer that has the potential to operate as a full-featured desktop Mac, the Duo 230 (or its lesser-powered sibling, the Duo 210) is a good machine.
Performance ****
Features ***
Configuration ***
Compatibility *****
Documentation/support ****
* With 4 Mbytes of RAM and an 80-Mbyte hard disk; similarly configured Duo 210: $2,249.
MacWEEK 01.25.93
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1993 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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News: General Magic to conjure partners in NY debut
MagicMail, Telescript in PDAs, AT&T net
By Mitch Ratcliffe
Mountain View, Calif. - General Magic Inc., one of Silicon Valley's best-kept secrets, will appear in a puff of partnerships during an off-
Broadway media event in New York next month. Sources said the company's technology promises a unified communications architecture for mobile computer users.
General Magic, based here, will be joined by AT&T Co., Motorola Inc., Sony Corp., Philips N.V. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. in announcing the outlines of two core technologies, an electronic-mail interface called MagicMail and a set of communications protocols known as Telescript. Apple also will participate in the announcement, despite recent friction between the two companies.
Due in 1994, these technologies will provide intelligent electronic messaging of multiple data types. Potential applications reportedly will include wireless E-mail and delivery of information services over telephone lines.
AT&T, an investor in General Magic, will support MagicMail clients and Telescript protocols through its EasyLink global E-mail service. The telephone company also plans to use Telescript as a foundation for information service providers who want to sell their wares over the phone network and as a basis for a future version of EasyLink.
EO reportedly will offer a MagicMail interface to the EasyLink client software built into its Personal Communicators, which are slated to ship this summer under both EO and AT&T labels. Eventually, some Newton devices also may come bundled with MagicMail.
MagicMail and Telescript also will drive a stand-alone communicator that does not have a third-party operating system. Sources said Motorola plans to build a cellular and paging-based handheld communicator that runs MagicMail as its interface.
Matsushita, a leading Japanese consumer-electronics company, also plans to use MagicMail and Telescript in an upcoming device, sources said.
General Magic is the brainchild of three former Apple executives, Marc Porat, Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld, who reportedly left the company after their project was nixed in favor of Newton, Apple's forthcoming line of personal digital assistants.
Apple was an early investor in General Magic, but the relationship between the two companies has grown stormy in the past year, sources said. Apple reportedly had nonexclusive rights to use Telescript to bolster Newton's messaging capabilities, though the company has denied it will do so. Those rights are rumored to be the subject of renegotiation.
Both General Magic and Apple will be entering an increasingly crowded market for handheld communicators: A variety of devices and communications protocols are due out by 1994.
Telescript, however, reportedly will resolve conflicts between communications schemes, which could otherwise prevent the exchange of messages between devices from different vendors. The General Magic protocol reportedly can send data encapsulated in executable instruction, which would, for instance, allow a fax to travel over a data network and print out on a laser printer. Telescript is also said to include a sophisticated directory-services scheme.
"Standards need to be set for the consumer messaging market," said Richard Shaffer, principal at Technologic Partners, a New York technology investment consulting company. "By definition, one company can't set standards. So the goal is to come up with a technology and get everyone to agree to it. General Magic needs to get a lot of people on stage with their arms around one another."
MacWEEK 01.25.93
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1993 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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News: Shiva's FastPath on course for future updates
By April Streeter
Cambridge, Mass. - Reports that Shiva Corp. is dropping its FastPath routers have been greatly exaggerated, the company said last week.
Rival Cayman Systems Inc. had indicated in advertisements in recent issues of MacWEEK that Shiva is planning to exit the router business.
Moving to counter the ad, Shiva spelled out plans for upgrades to the FastPath LocalTalk-to-Ethernet router, as well as for new servers that will support users dialing in over a variety of protocols, via high-
speed digital phone lines and/or from mobile devices.
The Cayman ad stated that Shiva's flagship router, the FastPath 5, would soon be "retired." In the ad, Cayman capitalized on Shiva President Dan Schwinn's recent statements that his company was focusing on remote-
access products, by offering a $1,500 trade-in to users ready to switch from a FastPath to a Cayman GatorBox or GatorStar.
But Schwinn said Cayman went too far in predicting FastPath's demise. "It simply isn't true. The FastPath was never for sale [to another manufacturer]. We've got a very aggressive new support plan, we've just released a FastPath upgrade in December and we're hard at work on a major upgrade for May," he said.
Schwinn said Shiva will not pursue legal recourse, but he will respond with a letter to Cayman detailing his objections to the ad's "disinformation."
Both companies are based here.
Ted Stabler, Cayman president, remained steadfast in his conviction that FastPath owners should make a switch. "We've done a tremendous amount of trade-ins - so far at least 100 FastPath sites - and it's not a new thing," Stabler said, adding that at least 100 FastPath sites have taken Cayman up on its offer.
"Shiva's got commitment, but it's not to routers, it's to remote access," he said. "They should be clear about saying that."
Stabler said the FastPath has not received a major upgrade since the summer of 1991, when FastPath 5 was introduced, while Cayman this month introduced the Ethernet-only GatorBox EX.
A network manager at an aerospace company with more than 400 FastPaths and a large number of Cayman products said he's not particularly surprised by FastPath's possible demise.
"The FastPath is a stable platform, but it's true it hasn't changed in a long, long time," he said. "I think everyone, including Shiva, knows that LocalTalk is going away. So whether I replace my FastPaths with an intelligent hub or a workgroup router, it's going to have to be an Ethernet product anyway."
MacWEEK 01.25.93
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1993 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Gateways: Cisco 7000 to ride two speedy CPUs
New model includes two processor cards
By Mitch Ratcliffe
Menlo Park, Calif. - Cisco Systems Inc. last week adopted a divide-and-
conquer approach to enterprise networking when it introduced a router that will be the company's development platform for high-speed network services.
The new Cisco 7000 router is a $19,990 router chassis that ships with separate processor cards dedicated to switching and route management. The switching module includes support for AppleTalk Phase 1 and 2, Novell Inc.'s IPX (Internetwork Packet Exchange), and TCP/IP protocols, among others. The routing management card handles SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) and router-to-router communications.
The Cisco 7000 includes slots for five network interface cards. Ethernet, token ring, Fiber Distributed Data Interface and other cards are priced from $6,500 to $22,000. The company also said it will ship Asynchronous Transfer Mode and Primary Rate ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) cards in 1994.
The router includes redundant power supplies and the ability to upgrade router software in flash- memory chips. Also, Cisco said an upgrade due this summer will let managers perform upgrades and diagnostics on the 7000 using PCMCIA flash-memory cards.
The new multiprocessor architecture lets the 7000 handle 50 percent more packets each second than Cisco's former high-end device, the AGS+ router, according to tests conducted by the Harvard Network Device Performance Testing Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass.
Separating switching and router management functions will enable the next step in the evolution of Cisco's routers, the company said. During the next several years, the bandwidth-hungry switching algorithms now carried out in software running on a card will be hard-coded in a chip set, which Cisco said will double the 7000's routing throughput.
Cisco Systems Inc. is at 1525 O'Brien Drive, Menlo Park, Calif. 94026. Phone (415) 326-1941; fax (415) 326-1989.
MacWEEK 01.25.93
Gateways Page 18
(c) Copyright 1993 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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GA: DiVA spawns VideoShop siblings
Software potpourri spans high, low ends
By Neil McManus
Cambridge, Mass. - DiVA Corp. this spring will release a suite of video-
production tools ranging from a simple editing program to a package aimed at video professionals.
DiVA's new software, due in April, will include:
> VideoShop 2.0, an upgrade to the QuickTime movie-editing program that will add audio mixing, multitrack video effects, built-in titling, scrolling credits and motion control.
The new version will shed the program's dependency on HyperCard, allowing it to run in a 1.5-Mbyte RAM partition. It will take advantage of QuickTime 1.5 features to provide searchable text, Photo CD support and support for hardware compression boards.
> Sparrow, the code name for a low-end editing program aimed at home and education users. Designed to run on low-end color Macs, Sparrow will include features such as collapsible tracks and preset transitions.
> The Digital Delivery Kit, a new package that lets users create self-
running interactive QuickTime movies. It will come with a utility for dragging and dropping Micons (moving thumbnails of video clips) into HyperCard.
> The Analog Tool Kit, software for VideoShop 2.0 that adds timecode support, device control and support for edit-decision lists.
> Video Clip CD-ROMs, which will include hundreds of QuickTime movies created from videos licensed from The Image Bank, a New York stock photo and video agency.
Pricing has not been set, but VideoShop 2.0 likely will retain its $599 price tag, and Sparrow will retail for less than $300, DiVA said.
DiVA is at 222 Third St., Cambridge, Mass. 02142. Phone (617) 491-4147; fax (617) 491-2208.
MacWEEK 01.25.93
GA Page 28
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BusinessWatch: Mac crime wave hits Big Apple
By Phyllis Orrick
New York - Jonathan Reiser still can't shake the feeling he got when two gunmen herded him and two customers into a closet of the computer store here in which he worked. The robbery, which took place in March 1991, netted the bandits goods worth several thousand dollars - in the form of Macs.
He didn't know it at the time, but Reiser, who quit his sales job and is now a Mac consultant, was a firsthand witness to a growing phenomenon: Macs thefts.
Indeed, Mac banditry has New York police perplexed. Not only are they having trouble stopping the high-tech crime wave, but "most can't tell a Mac from an IBM clone," said one law-enforcement official who requested anonymity.
An informal survey of the city's largest Mac service bureaus, consultants and users reveals the widespread theft of Macs in the Big Apple.
A supervisor at a Manhattan computer dealer said that among her nine salespeople, "at least once a month I'll hear someone say a client's been robbed."
The numbers. At least $1.5 billion in Apple computers, printers and monitors was stolen in the United States last year, according to the Stolen Computer Registry, a nonprofit organization based here. In all, $10 billion in computer hardware was pilfered - a fourfold increase over 1991 (see MacWEEK, Nov. 23, 1992).
PowerBooks especially are coveted because of their portability, performance and high resale value, according to the organization. And once a site is hit, the thieves are likely to return in a few months to steal the new equipment.
One office employee said that on the advice of his insurance company, he has stored $20,000 worth of Mac equipment in a closet because he was told the thieves would be back. He hasn't used the equipment for several months.
Although industry observers are baffled as to where the stolen Macs and IBM PCs and compatibles end up, many could be landing in the loosely organized market for used equipment that has proliferated with electronic bulletin boards and ad hoc computer user groups.
There also may be a network of "secondary market" dealers and service bureaus trying to shave expenses on what can be costly maintenance contracts. Several low-budget computer stores that have popped up in the outer boroughs could be another hotbed of stolen equipment.
The law. Meanwhile, law-enforcement officials appear helpless to stop the epidemic.
"The FBI was no help. The National Crime Center (in Washington, D.C.) couldn't help us. The local police are in a quandary," said Robert Zises, president of New York-based National Computer Exchange, which tracks stolen computer equipment for resellers and law-enforcement officials nationwide.
It maintains a database of serial numbers, makes, models and configurations of stolen CPUs. "If a theft is reported in one precinct, the precinct next door doesn't know about it."
In New York, for example, there is no computer-theft unit; robberies are handled precinct by precinct. The thief would have to sell the computer in the same precinct he stole it in for the police to track down the CPU, according to a New York Police Department spokesman.
The victims. Zises said he hears mostly from large corporations, which lose computers from pilfering and fraud rather than from robbery and burglary. And with "something like 55 million microcomputers in the United States," he said, "there is plenty of cover for people peddling used machines of dubious legality." He said that 10 cities - in particular, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles - are choice territories for Mac bandits.
"Wherever you have Fortune 1,000 companies that absolutely eat up micros and laptops, you're going to find a ring [of Mac thieves]," Zises said.
Programmers and manufacturers have yet to devise any practical method of thwarting thieves, aside from bolting down their machines.
That's the route that Tim Hunter, owner of one of New York's oldest service bureau chains, ultimately chose. His two stores were robbed three times in 1991.
Hunter also moved one of his stores to a less vulnerable location, installed more elaborate alarm systems and trained his staff in anticrime techniques. He said the precautions paid off recently, when his employees spotted a pair of would-be thieves and ran them off.
"We have jewelry-store security," he said. "There are a few gimmicks on the market. You can actually jolt a person by remote [control]. And there's a thing where if you move [a Mac], a siren goes off."
That doesn't come as much consolation for Reiser. When he recently set up an office on West 22nd Street, he bought a new Mac LC. Shortly thereafter it was stolen.
MacWEEK 01.25.93
BusinessWatch Page 34
(c) Copyright 1993 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Review: Aldus teaches your Mac to Fetch
The program's support for workgroups and a wide variety of file formats makes it attractive to departments that need to control their media libraries.
By Michael Murie
As collections of computer-based art expand, computer artists and multimedia producers are faced with the recurring task of locating files. Aldus Corp.'s Fetch is the latest program to address this issue with a cataloging system that lets you search, view, copy or open files for editing.
And an important feature that separates the $295 Fetch from competitors is its support for workgroups (although Aldus does not have a group pricing structure).
Installation. Our introduction to Fetch was less than pleasant. To install the program you must use the Aldus Installer, software that resembles Apple's Installer, except that it has fewer options. While installing Fetch, the Aldus Installer replaced our Scrapbook application with an older version and installed a second copy of QuickTime into the System folder, an obvious glitch.
Once Fetch is installed, the instructions suggest you install the demo catalog (a folder of files and a catalog for those files) to learn how to set up your own catalog. But because the demo catalog was created on another drive, it must be updated, which involves refinding all the sample files. Of course, they are all in the same place, but a dialog box appeared for each file asking if we wanted to find it, which quickly became tedious. (Fortunately, for System 7 users, there is an easier method of updating.)
We would have preferred that Fetch step us through the creation of a new catalog using the folder of samples.
In use. When a catalog is first opened, Fetch presents a Find window to search for items in the catalog. The Find window resembles the Find window in System 7, but it lets the user specify the search for file type, file name, keyword or volume. Alternately, clicking Find All displays everything in the catalog.
Once a search is performed, the Gallery window displays the located items in one of two modes: Thumbnail or Text List view. Clicking on an item in Text List mode displays the thumbnail representation for that item. An additional advantage is that Fetch switches quickly between the modes.
An Info window (accessed by selecting an item and pressing Command-I) displays additional information about a selected document, including location, size and date created. Both the Text List view and the Info window provide a list of keywords as well as a description of the file. Double-clicking an item in the catalog displays it in the Preview window. And if QuickTime is being used, QuickTime movies and sounds play in the Preview window.
Once a file has been found in a catalog, you can employ one of Fetch's several methods for accessing it.
The Edit Original command will open the file in an application you choose. The contents of the Preview window can be copied and pasted to the Clipboard. The Copy Reference command copies a pointer to the actual file into the Clipboard. This pointer is used by Fetch-aware applications to find the original document (currently only Aldus FreeHand, PageMaker and Persuasion, as well as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, support Fetch). The Send Reference command works in a similar way but uses an Apple event instead to transmit the pointer. Finally, the Copy Original and Move Original commands physically copy or move a file to another location.
Adding objects to a catalog is easy. Selecting the Add/Update Items command opens the Add/Update Options dialog. Here the file types to be imported, as well as the thumbnail bit depths for the catalog, are defined. Thumbnails are displayed in one, eight or 32 bits.
Thumbnail bit depth has a direct relation to the size of the catalog. Since Fetch uses compression to reduce the size of 32-bit thumbnails, but not eight-bit ones, a catalog with eight-bit thumbnails takes up almost twice the space of a 32-bit catalog.
From the Add/Update dialog you can select a single folder or volume to add to the catalog. We would prefer being able to select multiple folders, to automate updating. System 7 users can do this with the drag-
and-drop feature. Multiple items can be dragged onto Fetch's icon, and the program will ask if you want to add the items to the existing catalog or create a new one. The Add/Update dialog then appears, and Fetch adds all the items to the catalog.
If you select a folder that has already been cataloged, Fetch will update only those files that have changed. This is also the best way to update a folder that has been moved to another disk. An Exclusions file lets you create a list of files that Fetch should ignore while cataloging.
We subjected Fetch to our multimedia torture test: creating a catalog using several CD-ROM sources. This is a good test not just because it creates a catalog of more than 3,000 items; it also tests how successfully Fetch reads files from different sources. In this test, Fetch failed to read only one file. Unfortunately, it crashed when it couldn't read the file - one that Photoshop was able to read. However, the crash did not corrupt the catalog, and we were able to avoid the problem file and continue cataloging.
Every cataloger we have tested has failed to read at least one file (often different ones) and, considering the wide range of files Fetch successfully cataloged, we rate this performance as very good. Fetch supports a wide range of formats, including PICT, TIFF, QuickTime, Eastman Kodak Co.'s Photo CD, Radius Inc.'s ImpressIt JPEG and RIFF, as well as System 7's PICT and Text edition files.
Power users. Clicking More Choices in the Find window expands the window and lets you build complex searches. A specific search can be saved as an item in the Search window, then selected at any time from that menu.
In addition, Fetch is designed for workgroups. A catalog can be shared across the network and accessed simultaneously by different users, although only one user should try to update the catalog. A password feature can be used to prevent others from updating the catalog, while letting them edit keyword lists and file descriptions. Fetch will mount off-line volumes to find source material, as long as the user has the correct network access privileges. Users can create Projects, files that contain pointers to the original catalog. This lets one user send another user a list of specific files in the catalog.
To use a Project, the user must have access to the catalog; once the catalog is opened the project behaves like a minicatalog, showing only the files in the project. Alternately, thumbnails and pointers can be exported and imported between catalogs, but Fetch lets you open only one catalog at a time.
Documentation and support. The manual is very good, and Fetch fully implements balloon help. Aldus also has a Browser version of Fetch that it will license to developers that want to bundle Fetch with their media collections. The Browser version cannot update catalogs and will not read catalogs created with the retail version of Fetch.
Fetch requires System 6.0.7 or later, as well as a machine that runs Color QuickDraw if you want to see previews. And while Fetch should work well under System 6, there are a number of features available only with System 7.0.
Conclusions. Catalogs are a necessary evil. To be useful they must be kept up to date and simple. With Fetch, Aldus provides a tool that allows both.
While we initially had a number of minor annoyances, the more we used the program, the more we liked it.
It is a pricey tool for the casual user, especially if you do not have a large library of media files, but Fetch's support for both workgroups and a wide variety of file formats makes it particularly attractive to departments that need to gain control of their media libraries.
Aldus Corp. is at 411 First Ave., Seattle, Wash. 98104-2871. Phone (206) 622-5500.
Score Card: Fetch
Aldus Corp.
Version tested: 1.0
List price: $295
Overall value ****
Fetch is a media cataloger designed for use in a workgroup environment. While cataloging media may seem like a simple task, Fetch offers some surprisingly powerful features that will be appreciated by users with many source files. Of particular interest is the capability to create sublists of a catalog (called Projects), the capability to perform complex Finds that can be saved and recalled from a menu, and support for a large number of file formats. Although the casual user will find Fetch's price prohibitive, if you work with many files and have difficulty finding them, this could be the application you have been waiting for.
Performance ****
Features ****
Ease of use ****
Documentation/support ****
System 7 Compatibility: Fetch 1.0
Balloon help Yes
TrueType n/a
Publish and subscribe Yes
Apple events Yes
32-bit addressing* Yes
*According to vendor.
MacWEEK 01.25.93
Reviews Page 41
(c) Copyright 1993 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Mac the Knife: Mystery of Microsoft's PDA
Marveling at the mystery of our democracy and the magic of our technology is all well and good, but for those of us in this industry, both the mystery and the magic often are found where you least expect them. At least, that's how the Knife internalizes one of the more bizarre discoveries of recent months.
You do remember Microsoft, right? That's the little software company that could and did, in the process making Chairman Bill wealthy enough to be the subject of two biographies, one authorized and one not. The company's motto seems to be "leave no microcomputer software market unmolested, or at least untouched." Microsoft has talked before about its interest in personal digital assistants. Now comes the Knife's report that the company has definite plans to enter the nascent PDA market with a hardware device bearing its own label.
You can't have a PDA without an operating system, and the Knife's sources claim that Microsoft has eschewed MS-DOS and its graphical derivatives in favor of developing something completely different. These same sources also say Microsoft will depend on the manufacturing capabilities of the far side of the Pacific Rim to produce the MS-
labeled product.
Apple apparently has very little reason yet to worry about Microsoft competition to the Newtons as Gates and company only caught on to the PDA market potential sometime after John Sculley started spreading the word.
Supply or demand? Apple has been the subject of more than a few casual cheap shots about its inability to meet demand for some of its more popular products. And at Apple, popularity equals PowerBooks.
Sources tell the Knife that one of the reasons that you can't get timely delivery of PowerBooks in any reasonable quantities is because demand is showing unpredictable strength and stamina. Although statistics can be manipulated to serve almost any purpose, the Knife was surprised to learn that demand is running at such a clip that by the end of the year, the installed base of PowerBooks should be more than 1 million.
The Knife points out that it would be a great deal more than an understatement to say that the lineup's two Duo sisters aren't contributing as much to this phenomenal success as some had projected.
Most blame this lackluster performance on the unavailability of an internal modem, a situation that was relieved only last week when the first Express Modems began to trickle out of Apple.
Since the first Apple MiniDocks also began to ship last week, Duo sales performance may improve soon. That assumes that the concept of docking is viable, which it probably is, Compaq's unfortunate experience notwithstanding. And remember, slow sales initially can be misleading. The LC family, for example, got off to a slow start but has now become one of the hottest selling members of the desktop Mac family.
Intelligent assistant. There's a long and proud history of Apple employees striking out on their own to establish a new venture based on a bright idea or two. One of the latest examples is RAE Technology Inc., which has what sounds like a bright idea indeed.
The Knife has heard that the new company is working on what you might think of as a software PIM for your PowerBook. According to the description, this "super PIM" is designed to help those legions of PowerBook road warriors manage those important pieces of information that are necessary to maintain a level of productivity sufficient to ensure the continuation of life as we know it. So, if you've been looking for a free-form object-based information manager handier than a couple of undocumented Peruvian aliens. ...
Those who live the dream of a personal MacWEEK mug know that there's no such thing as a honeymoon. You have to get right down to work by contacting the Knife at (415) 243-3544, fax (415) 243-3650, MCI (MactheKnife), AppleLink (MacWEEK) and CompuServe/ZiffNet/Mac.
MacWEEK 01.25.93
Mac the Knife Page 110
(c) Copyright 1993 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
