Mac Expert 1995 Winter/Mac Expert - Winter 95.iso/Les fichiers/Tidbits/TidBits 101 à 200/TidBITS#188⁄09-Aug-93

Text File | 1993-08-09 | 27.5 KB | 599 lines | [TEXT/ttxt]

TidBITS#188/09-Aug-93
=====================

Macworld Boston news abounds this issue with an in-depth look at
   the concepts and analysis surrounding Apple's newest and coolest
   device, the Newton MessagePad. Mark Anbinder provides his annual
   Macworld superlatives article, and we look at a new company spun
   off from CE Software, PrairieSoft. Finally, although merely a
   MailBIT, it's important to note that the Newton MessagePad won't
   officially ship for several weeks so don't bug your dealer until
   then.

This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 -- [e-mail]
   Makers of hard drives, tape drives, memory, and accessories.
   For APS price lists, email: [e-mail]

Copyright 1990-1993 Adam & Tonya Engst. Details at end of issue.
   Automated info: <[e-mail]>. Comments: <[e-mail]>
   ---------------------------------------------------------------

Topics:
    MailBITS/09-Aug-93
    Oh Give Me A Home
    MacworldBITS/09-Aug-93
    Newton Arrives
    Reviews/09-Aug-93

[Archived as /info-mac/per/tb/tidbits-188.etx; 28K]


MailBITS/09-Aug-93
------------------
  Macworld Boston is over, and only two of the four days were
  utterly hot and uncomfortable. Boston drivers were, well,
  indescribable, and the city itself continues to bears less and
  less resemblance to the published maps. The netters' dinner was a
  success, as always, although several of us thought afterwards that
  we need to find a company to throw a stand-up party with food for
  Internet folks to facilitate mingling. My only regret is that I
  couldn't talk with more people at the netters' dinner - I enjoyed
  the company of those with whom I did spend time immensely. Several
  pictures were taken and I hope they appear on the nets in scanned
  form - pretty soon we'll tape the event and turn it into a
  QuickTime movie to waste even more net bandwidth than Apple's 1984
  commercial.


**Newton Rollout** -- One caveat to all the Newton comments you
  hear in TidBITS and other publications. It appears that although
  the Newton was introduced at Macworld Boston, the official rollout
  will take place in about two weeks. The practical upshot of this
  is that dealers won't have any Newton MessagePads for sale until
  that time.


Oh Give Me A Home
-----------------
  by Mark H. Anbinder, News Editor -- [e-mail]

  Working full-tilt on products like QuickAccess for Newton and a
  Casper-friendly version of QuicKeys, not to mention continuing
  development on QuickMail, means that CE Software has much less
  time to work on its other products, time which the company feels
  these products deserve. Therefore, CE has spun off its non-
  messaging, non-scripting products to a new company made up of
  former CE staffers and called PrairieSoft.

  Announced at Macworld Boston, PrairieSoft takes over support and
  development of In/Out, Amazing Paint, Alarming Events,
  MockPackage, MacBillBoard, and DiskTop for Macintosh. All of these
  products don't quite fit CE's newly-focused, streamlined approach
  to messaging, "personal agent," and scripting technologies.

  Among the CE veterans at the core of the new company are its
  president, Gil Beecher, along with John Kirk, Paul Miller, and
  Luke Lund. These and others were among CE's most senior staff
  members and were among the staff laid off in CE's downsizing a few
  months ago.

  PrairieSoft plans to announce itself to its already existing
  customer base via a newsletter in the near future. In the
  meantime, the company can be reached at:

    PrairieSoft, Inc.
    P.O. Box 65820
    West Des Moines, Iowa  50265
    515-225-3720
    515-225-4122 (technical support)
    515-225-2422 (fax)


MacworldBITS/09-Aug-93
----------------------
  by Mark H. Anbinder, News Editor -- [e-mail]

Turnabout is Fair Play
  There have been several products to let Mac users read DOS-
  formatted disks over the years, from the DaynaFile drives to the
  collection of software taking advantage of the SuperDrive. Rumor
  has it that there have been shareware solutions for DOS users who
  wish to read Mac disks, but finally there's a high-profile
  commercial product - from the DOS experts at Insignia Solutions.
  MacDisk, shipping soon, is a simple, straightforward product that
  allows Mac disks and their contents to be accessed within DOS and
  Windows; DOS 6.0 is supported (but its compression won't work on
  the Mac volumes), and the developers expect to be able to claim
  official support for OS/2 and DR-DOS after some extra tests are
  completed. Insignia Solutions -- 800/848-7677 -- 415/694-7600


Most Worthwhile "Me Too"
  Usually the second company to market with a comparable product
  finds itself at a disadvantage. Not so with Stac Electronics,
  whose Stacker driver-level disk compression software goes up
  against Times Two from Golden Triangle (which we mentioned in last
  August's Macworld Superlatives list, in TidBITS #137_). Stacker
  uses the same compression engine as Times Two; Stac licensed their
  LZS engine, also used in their DOS version of Stacker, to Golden
  Triangle last year. The innards may be the same, but Stac points
  out a number of interface and implementation differences that they
  feel put them in the lead. Initial examination suggests there are
  plenty of differences; we'll examine them in depth at a later
  time. Stac Electronics -- 800/522-7822 -- 619/431-7474 -- 619/431-
  0880 (fax)


Welcome to the 1980s
  Aldus has finally shipped PageMaker 5.0, the long-awaited version
  that includes an ability perfected in most applications the better
  part of a decade ago: handling multiple open documents at once.
  Don't get the idea, though, that we don't applaud Aldus's
  achievement. We do! In the process of modifying this old
  application to handle multiple documents, Aldus software engineers
  played leapfrog with much of the rest of the market. PageMaker 5.0
  allows any object to be moved or copied from one document to
  another in the most intuitive way imaginable - by dragging. Kudos
  to PageMaker for extending the desktop metaphor. Aldus -- 206/622-
  5500 -- 206/233-7404 (fax)


2 + 2 = 4
  PSI Integration wins the award for most intelligent combination of
  existing technologies with the introduction of its FAXcilitate
  Broadcast product/service. PSI has combined its newly-revamped
  fax-sending software with US Sprint's fax broadcasting service to
  produce a product that makes it easy to send faxes to as many as
  thousands of fax recipients with a single toll-free call.
  According to literature distributed at the PSI booth, it would
  cost about $140 and take just a few minutes to send a two-page fax
  to 200 recipients through the FAXcilitate Broadcast service,
  whereas the same fax sent directly to each recipient would take
  hours. PSI Integration -- 800/622-1722 -- 408/559-8544 -- 408/559-
  8548 (fax)


Best Revival
  This close contender for Best PowerBook Product actually deserves
  its own category, since it's the best use of old technology in a
  new way. Back in 1985, I bought the first scanner available for
  Macintosh, and ThunderScan's creators, ThunderWare, have done it
  again with the first scanner (that I know of) designed
  specifically for PowerBook users. Their handheld, battery-powered
  scanner uses a similar design to the popular LightningScan, and
  since it sports a serial interface, it should work with literally
  any PowerBook (including the Duos) or, presumably, any other Mac.
  ThunderWare, Inc. -- 415/254-6581 -- 415/254-3047 (fax)


Best Battery
  There must have been a dozen vendors showing or selling
  replacement batteries or add-on batteries for PowerBooks, but the
  ThinPack from VST deserves special recognition. It's neither
  almost as big nor almost as heavy as your PowerBook (as some
  add-on batteries are), and you can put it under the PowerBook as
  you use it, or leave it connected via the included cord while it
  sits out of the way, perhaps in your briefcase or carry-on bag. If
  you want to use your PowerBook for several more hours than you
  dreamed possible, give these folks a call. (Note that there's no
  Duo battery yet, and color PowerBook owners can expect a less-
  dramatic extension on battery life.) VST -- 508/287-4600 --
  508/287-4068 (fax)


Worst Congestion
  After attending several Macworld Expos, I've grown accustomed to
  wending my way through crowds of impressed folks trying to look at
  the wares at one booth or another. Badly-designed booths can cause
  quite a bit of blockage in the aisles. The award goes to Adobe,
  though, since at several points when I tried to get by, their
  demonstrations were literally blocking the entire aisle. A novice
  could be excused for putting a visually-interesting display at the
  corner of a booth, with no place for onlookers to stand other than
  in the aisle, but veterans like Adobe should know better. Please,
  folks, when planning your next booth, if you want show attendees
  to be able to stand and watch, provide for some space within your
  booth. Don't use all the space out to the edge of the booth so
  there will be no place to stand other than the aisle. If you're
  hoping that the congestion will get more people to stop and see
  what you have, grow up and let your product stand on its own two
  feet. [I'd like to give Apple an honorable mention for this as
  well - I couldn't even get close the AV Macs every time I tried.
  -Adam]


Unfair Competition
  It used to be that Global Village Communications offered one of
  the strongest fax/modem products, but at a premium price.
  Competitors could smugly say, "Yes, theirs is better, but ours is
  cheaper." No more, thanks to Global Village's introduction this
  week of the TelePort/Bronze II, a redesigned version of the
  company's low-end modem without some of the bells and whistles.
  Global Village's customer surveys concluded that most people never
  use many of the fancy features, so this new $109 modem leaves out
  the data compression and error correction from the 2400 bps data
  modem, draws power from the Mac's ADB instead of from an
  expensive, clumsy power adapter, has no voice/fax switch, and
  doesn't include the company's fancy OCR (optical character
  recognition) software for turning received faxes into editable
  documents. But with a basic product that does everything most
  people need, and does it with Global Village's award-winning fax
  software, other companies will find they can no longer compete on
  price alone. Global Village Communications -- 800/736-4821 --
  415/329-0700


Best Newton Vaporware
  While we're at it, there were lots of almost-ready add-on products
  for the Newton MessagePad being shown, both on the show floor and
  at the Newton Showcase at Boston's Symphonic Hall. The most
  impressive-looking (given our biases toward universal email
  access, of course) was CE Software's QuickAccess prototype.
  QuickAccess (invoked on the MessagePad through the use of the
  action word "qac," pronounced "quack") will enable roaming Newton
  users to access their QuickMail, Novell MHS, or PowerTalk (AOCE)
  compliant mail servers. To CE's credit, the prototype sported not
  a Newtonized QuickMail interface, but a new approach to mail
  access that seemed much better integrated with Newton's overall
  design. CE Software, Inc. -- 515/224-1995


Best Old Idea
  SuperMac did this years ago with their DataStream tape drive, and
  I've been wondering why no one else has. Optima Technology has
  just released a new version of its DeskTape software, which will
  now be available separately from the company's storage devices.
  DeskTape uses the familiar desktop interface for high-capacity
  tape storage, allowing DAT cartridges to appear on the Finder
  desktop. You can drag files to and from your tape drive, and even
  open and use applications or documents that are stored on tape.
  The advantages for graphic designers and service bureaus are
  obvious, even though the access time for such devices can be as
  long as 26 seconds. DeskTape can't work with tape archives created
  with backup software like Retrospect, but once you create a
  DeskTape volume on a DAT cartridge, you can use just about any
  backup software to back up or archive files to that volume. Optima
  Technology Corp. -- 714/476-0515 -- 714/476-0613 (fax)


Hungriest
  We mentioned Focus Enhancements as being "Most Evident" at last
  August's Macworld Expo. They had a slightly lower-key presence
  outside the World Trade Center this year (only a few local
  youngsters handing out bags and buttons) but an even bigger booth
  at Bayside Expo Center. Focus operates by finding good technology
  and acquiring it, then selling and supporting it directly. This
  month we learned that Focus has just acquired ETC, the mail-order
  company seen in the pages of many a Mac magazine. According to
  Focus, they're most excited about having acquired ETC's European
  distribution channel, since there's a large European market just
  waiting to buy high quality products at mail-order prices. Focus
  Enhancements -- 617/938-8088 -- 617/938-1098 (fax) --
  [e-mail]


Long-Lost Cousin Award
  While Apple introduced its Newton MessagePad with lots of noise
  and commotion, Apple's Newton manufacturing partner Sharp
  Electronics quietly released its own version, the Sharp Newton
  ExpertPad. The ExpertPad is identical to the MessagePad except for
  the name, a hinged door to cover the screen, and (as a result of
  the door) a slightly different pen-holder. Newton enhancements
  should work equally well on either unit. If past performance is
  any guide, Apple's version is likely to be hard to find for a few
  weeks (supplies were artificially abundant at Macworld) and the
  ExpertPad is likely to be available at just about any Sharp
  consumer electronics dealer. Sharp Electronics -- 800/237-4277 --
  201/529-8200


Newton Arrives
--------------
  At every good Macworld Expo, people talk about the one hot
  arrival, an arrival that overshadows everything else, no matter
  how cool. This year the debutante was Apple's Newton MessagePad.
  Where to begin? A quick course in terminology. Newton is the
  machine type, whereas MessagePad is the specific model, much as
  Macintosh is the machine type, and Quadra 840AV is the specific
  model. So it's perfectly acceptable to talk about the Newton, much
  as you would talk about the Macintosh. The fact that only one
  model of the Newton exists right now is moot.

  For those of you with your heads firmly clamped underneath large
  geologic formations for the last two years, the Newton is Apple's
  personal digital assistant (PDA), a term for an electronic device
  that helps you do whatever it is that you do. I believe Douglas
  Adams might have called it "your plastic pal who's fun to be
  with." More Newton models will arrive in the future, presumably
  aimed at specific market segments, although the current MessagePad
  requires more work before we'll see other models. I think it's
  important to avoid the term "computer" when talking about the
  Newton, because even more so than the personal computers of today,
  the Newton does little numeric computing (other than at the lowest
  level, of course) and instead provides specific services.

  What does it do right now? The MessagePad lets you take notes,
  which can be graphics or text, and which in turn can remain
  digital ink (pixels) or turn into ASCII characters. You can file
  those notes in a single hierarchy of folders; duplicate or delete
  them; or fax, mail, or beam them to someone else. Faxing and
  emailing require an optional modem, whereas beaming uses the
  built-in infrared transmitter/receiver to move data over a short
  range (approximately one meter). Along with notes, the Newton
  contains an address book and a calendar, and all are integrated so
  you can easily snag information from one to use in another, or the
  Newton can do that for you. For instance, writing "lunch with Bob
  on Friday" and asking the Newton for assistance results in the
  Newton looking in your address book to figure out who Bob is
  (giving you a choice if several people are named Bob), then
  realizing that lunch is usually an hour at noon, and adding an
  event to your calendar for this Friday. It sounds hokey, but it
  works.

  All that functionality aside, I'm not buying one soon. Why not?
  Think for a moment about what I do. I sit around all day,
  absorbing large quantities of information and creating smaller
  quantities of information. I talk on the phone, and I can get 100
  email messages in a day, many of which require responses, some
  quite lengthy. I use a database for my addresses and a calendar
  program for my few appointments and my to do list, but both are
  accessible on my Mac at all times, and I seldom leave the house
  for anything business-related. So the current Newton MessagePad
  doesn't simplify any of my tasks. I don't pretend that I'm in any
  way typical though, so I think many people will find the
  MessagePad's feature set invaluable. The important thing to figure
  out is if you are the sort who communicates, facilitates,
  schedules, or manages, because that sort of person will have far
  more use for the Newton than someone who spends most of her time
  _creating_ information.

  If you try out a Newton at a store, keep in mind that the Newton
  performs poorly in demonstration mode. The Newton's handwriting
  recognition is adaptive, so it improves over time and learns how
  you write. In 15 minutes of playing with the Newton, you're
  unlikely to find it all that accurate, although your mileage will
  vary depending on how closely your handwriting matches one of the
  Newton's built-in letterform sets. The first time I tried the
  MessagePad it could hardly recognize a thing I wrote, but I only
  tried for five minutes. The next day I took Apple's Tips and
  Tricks for New Newton Owners class (they didn't check if you had
  bought one), and wrote on it for 45 minutes. The second test
  worked much better, because it had a chance to adjust to me, and I
  to it. [Please note that Adam has certifiably poor handwriting :-)
  -Tonya]

  The Newton _must_ succeed. Without its fresh view of how we can
  interact with electronic devices, the evolution of human-machine
  interaction will proceed far more slowly. Even people at the show
  who were openly dubious about the utility of the current
  MessagePad were thinking of uses by the end of the Expo.
  Possibilities like controlling VCRs and TVs and using VCR+ codes
  to program the VCR with an improved interface, walking into a
  trade show and having a map and directory beamed to your Newton on
  entrance, completely up to date and searchable. Someday soon you
  might interface a Newton with an ATM machine to get electronic
  money, or beam your Newton at a cash register, to pay for your
  purchase, complete with RSA encryption. We're talking about the
  future.

  So again, the Newton _must_ succeed. Not only for Apple, but also
  for us. No other computer company has shown the guts necessary to
  introduce such a radically new technology in such a big way.
  Without Apple and the Newton we would be stuck with DOS-compatible
  palmtops, constantly shrinking in size and remaining as stupid as
  ever. I'm the last person to pretend that Apple has all the
  answers, but I've never seen another company willing to drop the
  old and the obsolete along the wayside to keep progress rolling.
  And all that even if it annoys some customers. I realize this
  sounds like the egomania of Steve Jobs, but some things must be
  done because they will change the world, because they are the
  right thing to do. Apple must now convince the world that the
  Newton is the right thing to do, that the Newton will change the
  world. So easy to say, so hard to do.

  And how will the Newton change the world? I can't say, and neither
  can Apple. Don Norman points out in his latest book, "Things That
  Make Us Smart," that in almost no case has a new technology been
  used in the manner in which it was conceived. The United States
  first thought it could cope nicely with only three or four
  computers, and that it would only need one telephone for each city
  because information would be broadcast from that point to
  surrounding areas. Those initial conceptions were so completely
  wrong as to be ludicrous. The PowerBook was a far smaller change
  in technology, but even still, the PowerBooks have changed the
  face of computing. People no longer must sit at a desk and work,
  and more so than preceding laptops, I think the PowerBook created
  the first class of users who regularly consider the computer a
  device to be used whenever and wherever - from the couch in the
  living room, to the waiting room as the car is repaired, to the
  airline seat. That's a smaller change, but Apple never suggested
  most of those uses in its advertising; instead people invented
  them. Similarly, we can only guess at the ways the Newton will be
  used and abused.

  I see two major hurdles for the Newton in the near future. First,
  as many have said, the pen is not the device of choice for
  entering large quantities of text (although it is often better for
  graphics than the clumsy mouse). Apple has to come up with a
  Newton device for creating and manipulating large quantities of
  information. The device itself is not so much the problem as the
  method of entering data. The keyboard has proved its danger in
  overuse and misuse, and voice input faces other problems now that
  it has arrived on the scene in prototype form. Perhaps one
  consideration is the translation of data from one format to
  another - is digital ink necessarily always worse than ASCII text?
  Is a digital voice recording worse than ASCII text? Should we pay
  increasingly more attention to transmission and manipulation of
  data in native formats rather than always translating down to the
  least common denominator? I'm certainly no example for this with
  TidBITS in the least common denominator setext format, but it is a
  valid question.

  The second hurdle the Newton faces is scalability of interface. In
  other words, the MessagePad interface works well with the amounts
  of data that I saw stuffed into it at the show. But will that
  interface, with its single level of folders and relatively small
  screen for scrolling lists, become overwhelmed with the amounts of
  data that users will want? Perhaps not, since the flash memory is
  limited to 1 MB and 2 MB cards at the moment, and someone said
  that Apple recommends you don't use a card larger than 4 MB
  because it would make too much data available at once. One way or
  another, this issue will come up, and I hope that Apple has kept
  it in mind while developing the Newton, in contrast to the way it
  didn't keep scalability in mind when designing the then-innovative
  MacOS.

  But despite all the negatives to the MessagePad, it is one slick
  item. It shows great promise, and I believe that in many ways the
  Newton is going to be important, not just important as a hyped
  technology, but important as a technology that truly changes our
  lives. For all the Mac's power and flexibility, little has changed
  since 1984. The Newton represents that next step for Apple and for
  us users as well. It's important to remember that the Newton isn't
  trying to be a computer as we understand the usual desktop Mac.
  The Newton is a Newton, and it needs to succeed on its own terms,
  not as a mini-Macintosh.


Reviews/09-Aug-93
-----------------

* MacWEEK -- 02-Aug-93, Vol. 7, #31
    Apple Workgroup Server 95 -- pg. 95
    TCP/Connect II 1.1 -- pg. 108
    Alphatronix Inspire II F 1.16 -- pg. 112
    Coactive Connection 1.0 -- pg. 112
    BrushStrokes 1.0 -- pg. 116

* Macworld -- Sep-93
    Lotus Notes 3.0 -- pg. 50
    PowerBook 180c -- pg. 52
    PowerDraw 4.0 -- pg. 55
    DataPak 105; Infinity 105 -- pg. 57
    Icon 7; I Like Icon -- pg. 59
    Retrospect 2.0 and Retrospect Remote -- pg. 61
    SafeDeposit 1.2 -- pg. 61
    Mathematica 2.2 -- pg. 63
    EMBARC wireless service -- pg. 65
    Video Toolkit 2.0.1 -- pg. 67
    FontMonger 1.5.7 -- pg. 69
    MarcoPolo 2.0 -- pg. 71
    Chameleon 2.0.3 -- pg. 71
    CPU 2.0 -- pg. 73
    SmartStack -- pg. 83
    SoftPolish 1.1 -- pg. 83
    SourceSafe 2.1 -- pg. 85
    EasyFlow 1.1 -- pg. 85
    f(z) 6 -- pg. 87
    HiQ 2.0 -- pg. 87
    ScanPlus Color 6000 -- pg. 89
    Alchemy III -- pg. 91
    Spyglass Transform 3.0 -- pg. 91
    LabTutor 2.0 -- pg. 93
    Magic Typist 2.0 -- pg. 95
    Dycam Model 3 -- pg. 97
    The Journeyman Project -- pg. 98
    Star Wars VisualClips -- pg. 98
    Apple Newton MessagePad -- pg. 102
    Macintosh LC 520 -- pg. 108
    Personal Printers -- pg. 116
      (too many to list)
    Printing Utilities -- pg. 126
      (too many to list)
    Paint Programs -- pg. 154
      Expert Color Paint 1.0
      BrushStrokes 1.0
      Color It 2.0.1
      Fractal Design Painter 2.
      Adobe Photoshop 2.5.1
    Draw Programs -- pg. 162
      Expert Draw 1.0
      UltraPaint 1.05
      artWorks 1.0.1
      Aldus SuperPaint 3.5
      CA-Cricket Draw III 2.0
      Aldus IntelliDraw 1.0
      Canvas 3.5

* MacUser -- Sep-93
    Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4ML -- pg. 68
    MacWrite Pro -- pg. 70
    Tempo II Plus 3.0 -- pg. 76
    DeBabelizer -- pg. 77
    DayMaker 2.0 -- pg. 78
    Kodak PhotoEdge -- pg. 79
    DataDesk 4 -- pg. 81
    Aldus Gallery Effects; Kai's Power Tools -- pg. 84
    Synchronization Programs -- pg. 89
      FileRunner
      Shuttle Pilot
      Synchronize!
    Renaissance -- pg. 93
    Snooper 2.0 -- pg. 97
    A Hard Day's Night -- pg. 105
    Wacom ArtZ Tablet -- pg. 105
    ClickChange -- pg. 105
    How Computers Work -- pg. 106
    CD-ROM Toolkit -- pg. 107
    Read-It! Pro -- pg. 108
    Office Tracker -- pg. 109
    PixelPlay -- pg. 110
    DupLocator -- pg. 111
    InfoLog -- pg. 115
    Bestbooks -- pg. 117
    Flo' -- pg. 117
    Spelling Coach Professional -- pg. 119
    PostScript Laser Printers -- pg. 124
      (too many to list)
    Integrated Programs -- pg. 166
      ClarisWorks 2.0
      GreatWorks 2.03
      Microsoft Works 3.0
      WordPerfect Works 1.2
    Presentation Packages -- pg. 178
      Action! 1.01
      Cinemation 1.0
      MovieWorks 1.1
      Passport Producer 1.1
      Special Delivery 1.1
    Image Databases -- pg. 190
      Aldus Fetch 1.0
      CompassPoint 1.1.1
      Cumulus 1.1
      ImageAccess 1.0
      Kudo Image Browser 1.04
      Media Cataloger 1.1
      MediaTree 1.5
      Multi-Ad Search 2.0
    Network Backup Programs -- pg. 208
      Retrospect Remote 2.0
      NetStream 2.1.1
      QTBackup 3.02/QTShare 1.1
      Memorybank Software 4.2


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