bargains color - vintage apple...editor-in-chief maggie canon editorial editor james s. bradbury...

WOW!These Low-CostPrinters WillMake YourDocumentsSizzle

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JANUARY 95Low-Cost Color Printers / Personal Information M

anagers / ARA 2.0 Servers / Annual Product Index

Best EverPowerBookBattery SecretsThe Biggest Myths and Best Tips

Get It Organized!Software That Can Actually Run Your Life

Hands-on Reviews of Hot New ProgramsAdobe Photoshop 3.0, QuickMail 3.0, Now Utilities 5.0

P L U S

DAZZLINGCOLORNEWBARGAINSNEWBARGAINS

1,000+ PRODUCTS / MACUSER’S ANNUAL PRODUCT INDEX!1,000+ PRODUCTS / MACUSER’S ANNUAL PRODUCT INDEX!

ContentsJANUARY 1995 / VOLUME 11 NUMBER 1

Adobe Photoshop 3.0 The leading image-editing program adds more-precisecontrols and support for layers. / 43

Now Utilities 5.0 This collection of ten favorites offers everyday convenienceand excellent value. / 46

QuickMail 3.0 The latest version of this populare-mail package is a disappointment. / 48

Tektronix Phaser 440 Tektronix’s newest dye-sub printer features high-quality color printing ata price that’s right for workgroups. / 50

FirstClass 2.5 Tightly integrated e-mail and con-ferencing features take this bulletin-board system to the top of the line. / 51

White Knight 12.0 Advanced scripting sets this telecom program apart. / 52

SoundEdit 16 Now anyone can play and edit CD-quality sound. / 53

Alias Sketch! 2.0 New tools and interactive dialog boxes make Sketch! afront-runner in 3-D design. / 54

FastPace Instant Contact Despite the absence of links to calendar programs,this multiuser contact manager is worth a look. / 55

Digital Chisel Easy-to-use multimedia program lets teachers create specialinteractive tests. / 56

OmniPage Professional 5.0 Sporting an improved interface and batchingcapabilities, this optical-character-recognition program gets high marks foraccuracy. / 58

KPT Bryce Create exquisite 3-D background and landscape art. / 61

Nok Nok 2.0 Find out who’s been logging on to your machine. / 61

PageTools Finally, a collection of Additions for PageMaker users — andthey’re hot. / 61

AirNote Advanced pager system offers Internet access. / 62

StreetSmart This stock-trading program may not be a wiseinvestment. / 62

Power Translator for Macintosh and Spanish Assistant ProduceSpanish-to-English or English-to-Spanish translations. / 66

MicroSpeed Keyboard Deluxe Mac Extra ADB ports and a spill-resistantkeyboard make this Apple Extended Keyboard alternative a winner. / 67

Maxima 3.0 A RAM-doubling RAM-disk creator that can speed access. / 67

REV I EWS & Q UICK CLICKS

NEW ON THE MENU

Power Mac 8100/110 The fastest Macyet. / OpenDoc Major vendors offer theirsupport. / Houdini returns Run Windowsfast. / Remote Control Point and clickfrom 40 feet. / ZMac Utility of the Month3D Morphing Power Cube. / PlusMacintosh price index. / 31

COLUMNS

Letters MacUser picks and pans, acoustic-coupler fans, and Ask Dr. Power Mac. / 11

Maggie Canon Future specs. / 21

Andy Ihnatko The Andy awards. / 23

Michael Swaine Apple agents. / 27

John C. Dvorak Windows NT onPower Macs. / 196

Product Index / 159

Advertiser Index / 162

Marketplace / 169

31 / The new fastestbox on the block: the

Power Mac 8100/110.

WOW! These Low-Cost Printers Will Make Your Documents Sizzle

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995 /

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Best Ever PowerBook Battery SecretsThe Biggest Myths and Best Tips

Get It Organized!Software That Can Actually Run Your Life

Hands-on Reviews of Hot New ProgramsAdobe Photoshop 3.0, QuickMail 3.0, Now Utilities 5.0

P L U S

DAZZLINGCOLORNEWBARGAINSNEWBARGAINS

1,000+ PRODUCTS / MACUSER’S ANNUAL PRODUCT INDEX!1,000+ PRODUCTS / MACUSER’S ANNUAL PRODUCT INDEX! On the cover /The Apple ColorStyleWriter 2400prints an imagefrom PhotoDisc’sSignature Series.

Cover photo /Giampiero Benvenuti

HANDS ON

DESKTOP PUBLISHING / 101

Graphics Seven steps to superior scans./ 103

Expert Tips Automate repetitivepublishing tasks with AppleScript. / 109

NETWORKING / 113

Mac to PC Setting up a cross-platformnetwork? Here’s some advice. / 115

POWER TOOLS / 119

Techniques Accommodating people withdisabilities is easier — and less expensive— than you might think. / 119

Mobile Mac Charge! It’s our all-importantbattery rundown. / 123

Help Folder Andy and Bob answer allyour Macintoshquestions. Plustons of hot tips onall your favoriteprograms. / 125

FEATURES

Personal Information Managers: Electric AssistantsINSTANT ACCESS TO THE INFO that means the most to you — such as names,dates, places, phone numbers, and addresses — and the ability to connect it allare the promise of personal information managers. Here’s the lowdown on howseven top PIMs deliver on that promise. BY SHELLEY CRYAN / 82

Dial-in DynamosBUSINESSES ON THE GO need thesimplicity and security features of

the more advanced Apple Remote Access 2.0for connecting their mobile users to the officenetwork. Here are nine ARA server productsthat aim to help them get the most out of ARA.BY SHELLY BRISBIN / 94

L ABSZD

The 1994 Product IndexNO MORE SHUFFLING THROUGH BACK ISSUES.No more midnight calls to friends. It’s ourroundup of every product we reviewed andrated in 1994. BY GREGORY WASSON / 129

COVER STORY

Low-Cost-ColorShootoutThese are printers you canafford to bring home.

NOBODY WATCHES black-and-white TV anymore, and it’s only

a matter of time before we’ll be saying thatabout black-and-white printer output. Low-cost color printers have arrived — and thequality of their colorful output is guaranteedto make you — and the kids — happy. Ourtests found two models that stand out.BY CHERYL ENGLAND / 70

L ABSZD

4 MacUser / JANUARY 1995

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Editor-in-ChiefMaggie Canon

EditorialEditor James S. BradburyManaging Editor Nancy GrothTechnical Director Henry BortmanExecutive Editor Rik MyslewskiSenior Editors Cheryl England, Mark Frost, Susan Janus,Karen J. Ohlson, Pamela PfiffnerTechnical Editor John RizzoSenior Associate Managing Editor Claire H. BreenChief Copy Editor Eva LangfeldtAssociate Editors Carolyn Bickford, Shelly Brisbin,Nancy Peterson, Sean J. Safreed, Jim Shatz-AkinSenior Copy Editor Rhoda SimmonsCopy Editor Clifford ColbyAssistant Editors Patty Ames, Kristin M. Balleisen, Jason SnellContributing Editors Sharon Zardetto Aker, David Biedny,Christopher Breen, Don Crabb, Bruce Fraser, Andy Ihnatko,Ted Landau, Bob LeVitus, Stephan C. Somogyi,Michael Swaine, Gregory WassonContributing Anti-Editor John C. DvorakExecutive Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief Teresa Campbell

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Entire contents © 1995 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, L.P. All rightsreserved; reproduction in whole or in part without permission isprohibited. MacUser is a registered trademark of Ziff-Davis Publish-ing Company, L.P. MacUser is an independent journal, not affiliatedin any way with Apple Computer, Inc.

Printed in the USA

JANUARY 1995 / MacUser 11

LETTERS

OPEN FOLDER

Write to Lettersc/o MacUser

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To send your letter electronically via the

Internet, MCI Mail, CompuServe, or

ZiffNet/Mac (our on-line service), see

“How to Reach Us,” on page 4. All letters

become the property of MacUser, and we

reserve the right to edit any letters we

print. Include a return address and a

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your electronic address printed.

Good GigI APPRECIATED your timely article onhigh-capacity hard drives (October ’94,page 92). As is frequently the case, you’vebeaten your competition to the punch.Steve Breitervia the Internet

YOU MENTION that drive speed is to someextent a matter of driver software. Differentdrives come with different software, andyou test them (I presume) as they come outof the box.

However, given that many people consid-ering the purchase of a big drive would alsoprobably be willing to pop for formattingsoftware to eke out more performance fromthe drive, you might have reformatted somedrives that came with their own driver soft-ware, using a commercial utility such asFWB’s HDT or Casa Blanca Works’ Drive7. Ifwe can get a relatively cheap drive and soft-ware that, when combined, are cheap, fast,and reliable, we should know about it.Adam [email protected]

/ There are cases when a different driver can im-

prove drive performance. Although we can’t test ev-

ery drive with different drivers, most of our reports

include information on which driver comes with

each drive. In some cases, two drives with the same

mechanism perform differently, indicating that one

driver is indeed affecting performance. / MF

Mac DudsI DISAGREE with John C. Dvorak’sconclusions in “Home Phoneys” (Oc-tober ’94, page 212). Personally, Idon’t like to shop with lots of otherpeople. I don’t like having to wait inline and wade through crowds. It isnot just duds who will use interactiveservices.

But an even more important issueis going on here. Competition withelectronic services will force businesses tolower prices and/or improve services. Thisis already happening where I live. Thesmart businesses know that the people us-ing these services aren’t just duds. The fu-ture will show just which one of us is thedud.Christopher M. [email protected]

JOHN C. DVORAK’S COLUMN was righton target. The cable/phone/game provid-ers that are rushing to give it all to us whilewe vegetate on our couches just aren’t intune with society. The booming sales of ath-letic shoes; fitness-club memberships; andlow-fat, fiber-rich foods show that this isstill the age of physical fitness, not lounge-chair lizards. Have these people actuallypolled the public to see what we desire, orare they just going to introduce their prod-ucts and then try to create demand? If thelatter, their investors may be in for a rudeshock when the products are ignored by anuninterested public.Kurt [email protected]

I COULD NOT AGREE MORE with John C.Dvorak’s assessment of today’s social situa-tion. With all the interactive 3-D-renderedCD-ROM games, and the Internet espe-cially, people are more inclined to sit at acomputer than do sociable things. We are alldreaming about the “information super-highway” so we can indulge in all sorts ofconveniences. We all need to get out and en-joy ourselves. Life is too short.Ben [email protected]

The cult of personality has invadedour pages this month, thanks to several mis-sives received via the Internet. Slow process-ing of Adobe Photoshop filters has givenreader David Blum ample time to make somestrange observations. David notes thatMaggie Canon bears a striking resemblanceto that doyenne of baking, Betty Crocker,who was actually a composite crafted by acrack team of marketeers. “The thought thatMaggie does not actually exist frightens me,”he writes. David, you’ve obviously beenspending too much time manipulating real-ity in Photoshop. Maggie’s for real. And, hey,get a Power Mac.

As long as we’re allowing a peekinto the inner sanctum, we’ll answer thisquestion from Vincent M. DelGuercio: “Whatkind of Macs, if any, do the people at MacUseruse?” As much as we’d like to tell you we useOsborne, Kaypro, and Timex-Sinclair com-puters to prepare copy that is then set byhand, using a hot-metal Linotype machine,we’ll fess up: We do in fact use Macs of allshapes, sizes, and speeds. We’re always push-ing the envelope too. Technical directorHenry Bortman takes great pride in the factthat he’s running System 9 on his original128K Mac.

Recycling those old Macs inspiresgreat creativity. Andy Ihnatko makes aquari-ums out of old Pluses, SEs, and Classics, butthat solution doesn’t suggest what to dowith ancient peripherals. “Now what should Ido with my dead mouse?” writes Allan Crain.Well, if you can round up enough of themand hang them from a nearby tree limb, youcan have high-tech wind chimes.

Ingenious crafts may have made Andya minor cult figure, but he can’t competewith his boss. “The first thing I see when Iopen the magazine is Maggie Canon, who’scertainly easier on the eyes than Ihnatko,”writes George Mealor. So much for Andy’shopes of getting a recurring role as the poolguy on Melrose Place.IL

LUST

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Share and Share AlikeI’M JUST LEARNING to get around on thecomputer-connected phone lines of theworld and have been fascinated by all theinformation I hear is available if I get con-nected to the Internet. I was pleased to readthat there is a free Internet guide for peoplesuch as me, “Big Dummy’s Guide to theInternet” (“The 1994 MacUser SharewareAwards,” October ’94, page 133). How do Iget a copy of this information? On theInternet, of course! I don’t know how to getconnected to the Internet to get the infor-mation to get me connected to the Internetto get the information . . .Harold ShepperdPortland, OR

/ The Electronic Frontier Foundation says that “Big

Dummy’s Guide to the Internet” will be published

soon by MIT Press as Everybody’s Guide to the

Internet. A copy of the guide on floppy disk is also

available from the EFF (202-347-5400). / JS

I READ ABOUT your 1994 sharewareawards with interest and wanted to down-load GMS Calendar from ZiffNet/Mac’sDownload & Support Forum. But the fileisn’t there. Where is it? I’d love to try it out.Jerry [email protected]

/ It turns out that our shareware-awards judgment

was right on — GMS Calendar turned out to be so

good that Apple has picked up the distribution

rights and is bundling it with the new 500-series

PowerBooks. As a result, the program is no longer

available for shareware distribution. / JS

Stochastic RemarksYOUR ARTICLE ON stochastic screening(“Screening Schemes,” October ’94, page109) gives the impression that stochastic-screening technology is available only fromhardware vendors. You make no mentionthat such screening can be accomplished insoftware. Our LaserSeps Pro is an AdobePhotoshop filter that prepares images forfinal output, using stochastic-screeningtechnology. The processed images can thenbe included in a layout and output to anyimagesetter.Donald D. Toy, Director of MarketingSecond Glance Software, Laguna Hills, [email protected]

/ Thanks for the info. As we explained in the

“Highfalutin Dithering” sidebar to that story, it is

possible to achieve the effect of stochastic screening

ASK DR. POWER MAC

LETTERS

IF I BUY A POWER MAC with a PowerPC601 processor, will I be able to upgradeto the PowerPC 603, 604, or 615 chip?John Prattvia the Internet

/ Apple has not said publicly whether there willbe 604 upgrades for current machines. To set therecord straight, the PowerPC 603 is used primar-ily in low-power or portable systems and is notas fast as the 601. The 604 is the next generationof the PowerPC; it will offer as much as twice theperformance of the 601. The 615 is supposed tobe able to run RISC and x86 software, but thechip’s only a rumor right now; on the other hand,the PowerPC 620 processor, which should runthree times as fast as the 601, has been an-nounced. Just don’t count on seeing either ofthese new processors in a Mac any time soon.

I’M THINKING OF ADDING RAM to my LC575. I’d also like to acquire the PowerPCupgrade card that Apple has announcedfor the LC 575. If I add more RAM now,will I still be able to use these chips withthe PowerPC upgrade?Jerry [email protected]

/ Your RAM investment should be safe. TheMacintosh Processor Upgrade Card — whichworks in the LC 475, 575, and 630; the Performa470, 570, and 630 series; and the Quadra 605 and630 — fits into the socket used by the 68040 anduses RAM on the motherboard. But since mostapplications running on a Power Mac requiremore RAM than they do running on a 680x0 Mac,you should probably buy extra RAM when youget the upgrade.

YOUR REVIEW of the Quadra 630 (“Versa-tile Values,” September ’94, page 70)says that “you can even turn it into . . . aPower Mac that runs native PowerPC ap-plications as well as 68040 applicationswithout emulation.” That’s good news tome, because I’m seriously consideringgetting a Quadra 630. However, else-where I’ve read that the Power Mac-intosh Upgrade Card works with anyCentris or Quadra model except the 605,the 630, and the AV models. What’s thetruth?John Fieservia the Internet

/ You’re confusing two different upgrades,thanks to Apple’s obtuse naming conventions —the Power Macintosh Upgrade Card you refer tois the one meant for older models and goes in aslot, whereas the Macintosh Processor UpgradeCard (see above) replaces the 68040 chip in thatMac’s processor socket. (The 68040 is relocatedto the upgrade card itself.)


LETTERS

in Photoshop (without additional filters), but be-

cause of the intense calculations required, sophis-

ticated stochastic-screening algorithms generally

need the processing power of dedicated raster-

image processors. / PP

The Odd CouplerYOU GIVE SHORT SHRIFT to using anacoustic coupler to connect a modem to aphone line, calling it a “last-choice solution”(“Phone-Savvy Traveling,” October ’94, page137). But there’s a lot to be said for carryinga lightweight acoustic coupler instead of anarmload of adapters, tools, and telecommanuals.

Modern couplers are a far cry from the300-bps couplers of yesteryear. They arelightweight, battery-powered, fast, and reli-able and are the only universal solution toconnecting. I have been able to routinelyconnect at 9,600 bps or more from payphones, cellular phones, cordless phones,and international phones with my acousticcoupler, without having to become an ex-pert on phone systems.Brent Cochranvia the Internet

Not on My Street!YOU GAVE Street Atlas USA a four-mouserating (“The 50 Best CD-ROMs,” October’94, page 73) but didn’t mention some majorproblems.

You state, “You can create custom mapseasily — simply choose which streets andlandmarks you want to include.” But ver-sion 2.0 does not provide the ability to sup-press any features displayed at any level ofmagnification. What you see is what you get,like it or not.

The program has a tool that supposedlyallows you to label streets. Click on thestreet, and the name and the block numberappear to the right. It doesn’t work on allstreets and roads, though. And there’s anerase tool — but it is not a tool. It is a switchthat erases everything that is not part ofthe basic display. If you’ve labeled severalstreets, made a mistake, and wish to unlabelone, you must erase all the labels and startover.

Street Atlas is a useful product, but itdoesn’t warrant a four-mouse rating.Dick [email protected]

/ If you click correctly on a street, its name does


LETTERS

come up, but sometimes getting it just right can be

difficult. And yes, the erase tool’s limitations are

annoying. But being able to get a street map of any

place in the U.S. — even tiny places that don’t ap-

pear on regional maps — makes the program still

worthwhile. / CB

Handwriting AnalysisPLEASE TELL Joe Clark not to toss out hiskeyboard. The fact is that the MacHand-writer (Reviews, August ’94, page 43) is acomplement to the keyboard, not a replace-ment for it. We would never claim that theMacHandwriter reads cursive writing. Itdoesn’t. We do claim a very high recogni-tion rate for printed words and letters, al-though we realize that recognition variesfrom person to person.

The MacHandwriter is designed to re-place the mouse. It is a gangbuster editingtool, great for working with spreadsheetsand terrific as a graphics device — sinceit’s easier to draw with a pen than with amouse.

You also made some inaccurate technicalcomments. Multiple monitors can be usedwith the MacHandwriter. Your statementthat “you have to use a keyboard for com-mands that require use of the Shift, Option,and/or Control keys” is also incorrect.Dennis D. MaxwellVice President, Corporate DevelopmentCommunication IntelligenceRedwood Shores, CA

A Success StoryYOUR ITEM “PowerBook Secrets / WhenYou Blow a Fuse” (September ’94, page 149)could not have come at a better time.

Just after an electrical storm, I noticedthat my PowerBook 145 would not run offthe battery, just as described. Because ofthis item, I was able to identify, remove,and replace the blown fuse. For about $1, Inow have a fully operational PowerBook.Please keep up the good work with this typeof information!Nick [email protected]

Bo Knows Printers?PERHAPS I MISREAD the criteria for youroffice-printer report (“Powerful PrintingPartners,” September ’94, page 98). Itseems to me that you missed a viable con-tender in the Xanté Accel-a-Writer 8100. Itcomes stock with 12 MB of RAM; prints at


600 dpi (upgradable to 960 dpi), includingfull bleeds, on paper as large as 11 x 17inches; and has autoswitching LocalTalk,parallel, and serial ports. The Accel-a-Writer has a PostScript Level 2 interpreter, aRISC processor, and a SCSI port and sup-ports dual paper trays. The price for the ba-sic model is only $3,995.

Frankly, I don’t see how you could haveoverlooked this printer, and I hope thatpeople in the market for this level of printerwill actively seek out Xanté’s as a viableproduct.Chandler Briggsvia eWorld

/ Thanks for the input! Unfortunately, Xanté dis-

continued the Accel-a-Writer 8100 in August, and

the company was not shipping its replacement, the

Accel-a-Writer 8200, in time for it to be included in

our report. / CE

Gone Fishin’I GIVE DOUBLE THUMBS-UP to MaggieCanon’s great column (“Unplugged,” Octo-ber ’94, page 17) on vacationing sans Mac.And I thought I was the only one who facedthe dilemma of whether or not to take mytrusty PowerBook along on my annual re-treat to the outback!

During a business trip to Scotland, Ifaced three days of Mac-lessness as my harddrive took a dive. I found it a great break notto be able to read e-mail, finish that report,or work on the next newsletter. Instead, Iwas able to unwind, watch a few awesomesunsets, and even get in some special timewith the ones I really care about. Besides,aren’t Macs here to make our lives simpler?David [email protected]

LETTERS

CORRECTIONSThe list price for Tree Professional(Quick Clicks, October ’94, page 63) shouldhave been $695.

After we went to press with the Octo-ber ’94 issue, Sony shelved plans for a Macmodel of its CD-ROM Discman (New on theMenu, page 30).

The PowerBook features table inthe August ’94 issue (page 88) inaccuratelyreported that the PowerBook 145B hasvideo-out capability.

“Power Imaging for Power Publishers”(November ’94, page 72) incorrectly listedSilicon Graphics’ toll-free number. The cor-rect number is 800-800-7441.


MAGGIE CANON

Yin this issue of MacUser. If you are readingthis, congratulations on a wise choice. Ifyou’re itching to find out the latest onCharles and Di or Lyle and Julia, well . . .operators are standing by. But in the everengrossing digital world, here are my pre-dictions for the new year:

1995 will be The Year of the Clone forApple. The company is finally biting thebullet, and by the time you read this, itwill have inked a deal with IBM andMotorola to develop and manufacture aPower Macintosh clone for the U.S. big-business market, which has forever beenthe code Apple can’t seem to crack. Applewill sign similar agreements with severalinternational companies, finding a backdoor into less penetrable markets overseasvia regionally favored clone vendors. Theupshot of all this activity will be more Mac-everything: more Macs (in 31 flavors!),more third-party products, more advertis-ing, more price wars. It’s mostly good news,although we’ll see how we do with reliabilitywhen they send in the clones; AppleMacintosh will continue to be the RealThing, and you can expect Apple to amplifythis message.

1995 will be The Year of Compatibility.Sing hallelujah! Apple’s truly got religion ina big cross-platform way, and this is an-other offering at the altar of big-businessaccounts. Apple will introduce new 486hardware-compatibility boards and a new,faster version of SoftWindows will be wing-ing its way to market soon. If you’ve beenstruggling to get the Macintosh onto yourcorporation’s purchasing list or keep itthere, Apple’s cross-platform story and theexistence of second-source clones fromIBM and other vendors should put Macs

New Year’s Predictions

line for predictions on the comingyear’s news, or you can find them

OU CAN DIAL A PSYCHIC HOT

back on the list as a viable, rather than a ca-reer-limiting, option.

1995 will be The Year That Makes orBreaks OpenDoc. Although I’m intriguedby the notion of component software (as op-posed to today’s humongous, does-every-thing-except-floss-your-teeth apps), I wonder ifOpenDoc will really be-come the industry mantraApple intends it to be.Consider Microsoft’s arm-twisting licensing prac-tices that require applica-tions to do the OLE thingbefore donning the Win-dows logo, for one thing.And I’m not sure I under-stand what the businessmodel is for developersthat create OpenDoc tools.Developers readily agreethat OpenDoc is a superiortechnology — but will therevenues pay the rent?

1995 will be The YearThat Holds Microsoft and Intel’s Feet tothe Flame. (And in case you were wonder-ing, they’re size-22 Nikes). True, Microsofthas just sucked up Intuit — one of thecompany’s few successful foes — as if it werea plate of oysters on the half shell. But thecost and labor intensity of the Windows-3.1-to-Windows-95 transition will cause somewailing and gnashing of teeth. ExpectMicrosoft’s customer base to divide into twocamps: loyal 3.1 users and Win 95 userswho’ve ponied up big for Bill.

1995 will be The Year of the PowerPCPowerBooks. Apple will simplify thePowerBook line, focusing on three primary

1995 will be TheYear of the Clone.Apple’s finallybiting the bullet,and by the timeyou read this, itwill have inked adeal with IBMand Motorola.

areas: affordability, light weight, and highperformance. Rumors of the Duo’s deathwill prove to have been exaggerated: Duoswill be alive and well and packing PowerPCchips in their slender frames. Look to seecolor and wireless communications takecenter stage this year.

1995 will be The Year of 3-D. As devel-opers take advantage of the Power Macs’capabilities, 3-D will enter the mainstream

and the tools will becomeeasier to use — and youknow what that means:Friendly little cubes andspheres will work theirway into routine officememos like the riot offonts that characterizedthe early DTP days. 3-Dmay secure for Apple someof the limelight SiliconGraphics has enjoyed inthe areas of modelingand rendering and givethe company a wonkykind of Hollywood ca-chet. Rent Jurassic Park ifyou’re unclear on thatlast bit. Desktop publish-ing, multimedia apps,

and business-productivity apps will allbegin to incorporate 3-D in the year ahead.

1995 will be The Year of Living Danger-ously. Windows 95 will storm the marketwith a hurricane-force marketing pro-gram. Developers will continue to mergeand purge, and licensing and partnershipdeals will continue to be negotiated, keep-ing the high-tech community on perpetualstandby for the next big thing. But throughthe thickets of uncertainty that grow in ev-ery corner of the coming year, there’s onearea of clarity I’ll put my money on: 1995will be the year that Apple CEO MichaelSpindler finally gets some respect.


ANDY IHNATKO

Plaque Buildup

PROBLEM:

Although frequentlynominated, Andy neverwins any awards.

SOLUTION:

’Tis better to give thanto receive.

IT’S TIME TO HAND OUT A FEWawards, sensation-seekers. Yes, afteryears of being nominated for various

things and having nothing to show for it ex-cept a shelfful of creamers and tablewarestolen from some of our nation’s better ho-tel banquet rooms, I’ve decided to channelthat rage and tip my cap at those achieve-ments of this past year that, in my modestopinion, merit my hurling a hunk of chromeand wood in their progenitors’ direction.

Oh, I have nothing against our own EddyAwards. Well, granted, I’ve always won-dered why our chosen symbol for excellenceis a statue of someone heaving a Mac as faraway as he can, like Larry Bird trying toland a three-pointer in the closing secondsof a playoff game. Hardly symbolic of thehigh level of user satisfaction of whichApple is so justly proud. But that’s a minorpoint. No, I’m creating my own awards —awards I refuse to dignify with a name —solely because I unfortunately do not wieldsledgehammerlike totalitarian control overthe Eddies. I’m sure you can understand mypoint of view here: It just saves me from a lotof tiresome bickering with those who havethe temerity to defy my will.

Our (by which, of course, I mean my)first award goes to Berkeley Systems, forpicking up the banner so carelessly tossedaside by the giants of our industry long ago.I mean, the mid-’80s — that was a goldenage of litigation. Every day you’d get to seehordes of attorneys battling it out with allthe pageantry of a World Wrestling Fed-eration cage match. But lately, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, and Apple canhardly seem to motivate themselves to eventry to beat a speeding ticket. So BerkeleySystems’ spunky enthusiasm in the legalring is downright exhilarating. With a giddylack of mercy and to the appreciative cheersof delighted fans of corporate litigation

everywhere, Berkeley Systems has sued thepants off Opus ’n Bill for shotgunning flyingtoasters and defended its toasters’ trade-mark against the claims of aging down-on-their-luck rockers. Thenew “Flying ToastersAnthem” has a goodbeat too, and you candance to it.

Next, a tip of the fe-dora to Aladdin Sys-tems, for its spec-tacular freeware andshareware offerings,StuffIt Expander andDropStuff with Ex-pander Enhancer, re-spectively. Distribut-ing a free archive-expanding utility is justbusiness as usual for companies marketinga commercial archiving product, butAladdin takes the cake for aggressively cre-ating utilities of genuine commercial qualityand then trusting folks to pay for them onlyif they think they’re worth a modest fee.These two packages’ robustness and theirclose attention to users’ current needs —such as trivially easy one-step (or zero-step)decoding and expansion of files from Inter-net sources — demonstrate exactly howvastly this firm doesn’t suck. Downloadthese utilities, and I guarantee that you’ll besending these people homemade brownieswithin a week of installation.

Apple receives no fewer than three awardsthis year, starting with the PowerBook 540c.Much has been said of its features, power,and expandability, but I would rather honorApple for a larger reason: At long last, weMac devotees of limited income have just asgood a chance of owning the top-of-the-line

PowerBook as our trust-fund brethren.Whereas you once had to sheepishly admitthat you wanted a 180c but couldn’t possi-bly afford one, now you can boldly and bit-terly announce to your coworkers that ifthe 540c you’ve had back-ordered for fivemonths doesn’t show up soon, you’re goingto chuck it all and just buy a reconditioned

PowerBook 100. Onceagain, Apple reaffirmsits commitment to theproletariat.

In the Newton cat-egory, I’m singling outEidetic’s Notion listmanager. No other ap-plication so effectivelysums up the overallrightness of the New-ton. You demonstrateit to people, and theyinstantly understand

the power of carrying around a tiny littlemachine that stores all the informationyou need at your fingertips, with none ofthe baggage of a notebook computer. In thesame way as many sales of 128K Macs werebased on demos of MacWrite and Mac-Paint, Notion helps sell MessagePads.

With all the Microsoft-bashing you hearthese days, I’m delighted to honor Word6.0. I mean, the air has always been thickwith rumors of Microsoft not caring aboutthe Mac market or even of its taking activesteps to kill it off. Rubbish. With Word 6.0,Microsoft has proved itself to be the keybooster of cutting-edge Mac technologiesby having the Mac’s most popular word-processing application require a 100-MHzPowerPC processor for optimum perfor-mance. I understand that the president ofMotorola had a lovely assortment of exoticcheeses sent to Microsoft Galactic HQshortly after Word 6.0 shipped.

Next, kudos to Apple for eWorld. It’s


ANDY IHNATKO

taken eight years, but now there’s a graphi-cal on-line service that both looks and feelsgood. But the best thing about eWorld is itsrefreshing change of pace. Most servicesare bustling, noisy, crowded places, buteWorld is like a peaceful night in the forest.You can log on and then kick back in yourchair with a good book and enjoy the soli-tude, knowing there won’t be another soulto bother you for miles around.

Speaking of health, let’s applaud Keep ItSimple Systems’ SunRunner line of solarpanels. It’s not the first such product for thePowerBook but certainly the first I’ve seenthat is lightweight and durable enough toconsider taking outside. And think of thehealth benefits. “Hang on,” propellerheadswill interrupt, as you explain the product.“You’re saying that I’ll be able to use myPowerBook 540 as long as I want, without arecharge?” And out they’ll go, giving theirskin the first prolonged break from fluo-rescent lighting it’s had in nine years.

Of course, I kid Apple a lot, but the factremains that every time I turn around, it’sadding something so terribly cool to the

Mac operating system that I stay up an hourlater every night playing with my Mac. WithSystem 7.5’s scriptable Finder, Apple hasdumped another huge wheelbarrow ofpower into the laps of The Huddled Masses.Now Mac users with a modest knowledge ofAppleScript have the ability to create theirown solutions to their daily computingneeds, from the mundane to what wouldhave previously been absurdly complex.

My final award goes to the World WideWeb. I’m being quite sincere when I say thatthe Web is exactly the sort of thing you pointto when people ask whether computers arehaving a good influence on society. Using asimple page-markup script, almost anyonewith real Internet access can publish theirown information on the Net and present itin a highly graphical and interactive way. Italso encourages the free exchange of re-sources in a way I never thought I’d live tosee and puts a friendly face on Internet ser-vices. Think of it. Write movie reviews forfun, and just your friends and family canenjoy them. Create a Web page with them,and millions can. Create links to preexisting

Internet databases of films, directors, andactors; links to another person’s Web pageof movies on video; and links to public sitesfull of scripts, movie clips, and sound files— and you’ve created a killer graphical ser-vice all about your favorite hobby that couldarguably compete with the commercial ser-vices but that folks can access for free. Andword starts to spread, and people start put-ting links to your page into their pages, andso it goes. Thousands of people are doingthis every single day. All the minds and in-terests you can plug in to — it’s literally adizzyingly fine prospect. I can only hopethat the Web becomes strong enough thatthe increasingly rabid corporate interestscan’t wreck it for everyone.

So congratulations to this year’s manywinners; you should be receiving youraward statuettes shortly. Eventually. OK,there aren’t any statuettes. But by all means,feel free to bolt something onto a hardwoodbase and stick it on a shelf somewhere, andif you swing by my office with it, I’ll be onlytoo pleased to allow your PR flunkies tophotograph me forking it over to you.

MICHAEL SWAINE


Imagine that whenyou dial a long-distance telephonenumber, a softwareagent in yourtelephone broadcastsa request for bids.

TAgents of Change

HIS YEAR, APPLE IS SUPPOSEDto release the most significantupgrade to its operating system

since 1991. A key element of this release isa technology Apple calls agents. But areApple’s agents really agents?

Software agents are the focus of a lot ofcutting-edge research in computer sciencethese days, and there’s a fair consensus onwhat an agent is. An agent is a program thatcan carry out tasks for users, things such asfinding data remotely, interpreting and re-sponding to messages, and filtering data forcontent. An agent, as its name implies, rep-resents you and your interests to some sys-tem (or to other people), which (or who)may also have agents representing them.

What would it be like to have such soft-ware agents representing us?

Imagine that when you dial a long-dis-tance telephone number, a software agentin your telephone broadcasts a request forbids. Immediately, software agents forAT&T, MCI, and Sprint place bids based oncurrently available lines. Your agent awardsthe call to the lowest-bidding company, andthe whole operation takes place in an im-perceptibly brief time. Not only do you getthe lowest possible rate all the time but alsobillion-dollar companies are bidding foryour business as if you were the federal gov-ernment. It would be like that.

To pull this off, these agents would haveto be savvy negotiators. For example, youmight think that your telephone agentshould pay the lowest-bidding company thelow-bid price, but researchers say no, thebest strategy for minimizing cost turns outto be to contract to pay the lowest-biddingcompany the second-lowest-bid price. Thisgame-theoretic strategy ensures that bid-ders have no inducement to pad their bids.Agent research is filled with this sort ofstrategic analysis, more commonly found

in business and political-science researchthan in computer science.

Now imagine all transactions everywherebeing mediated by software agents. Everybook, speech, paint-ing, video, song, orpoem available elec-tronically includes achunk of code capableof negotiating publica-tion and reuse rights.Your meetings getscheduled painlesslyby the agent on yourPDA, negotiating overan infrared link to anetwork with agentson other PDAs andcomputers in and outof the office. Networkresources are allocated fairly through nego-tiations among agents representing the con-tending users and the resources themselves.

Or imagine a computer operating sys-tem designed as a collection of interactingagents.

Well, now we’ve gone too far. That’s notwhat Apple has in mind for this year, or any-time soon, as far as I can tell.

Here’s what Apple seems to mean by theword agent today, this year, and beyond:

Today: Agent means task-oriented, cannedscripts for synchronizing folders, alertingyou when a particular folder’s contentschange, and turning file sharing on or off, forexample.

This year: Agent means the ability tocreate such scripts yourself without anyprogramming.

Beyond: Agent means scripts that havethe ability to write themselves, based on

observations of your everyday work habits.In other words, AppleScript scripts and

easier AppleScript scripts. Apple calls themagents. They are not.

It doesn’t even seem likely that a tech-nology based on AppleScript scripts is everlikely to evolve into true agents. Successfulnegotiation requires a common language,

and it’s unrealistic tothink that agents onWindows and UNIXsystems are going totalk AppleScript.

It’d also be nice ifApple and computer-science researchers whoare working on agenttechnology would talka common language,so they would notuse agent to mean twocompletely differentthings. But I supposethat’s unrealistic too.

Well, does it matter? It does, becauseApple should be working on true agenttechnology. This stuff is not just blue-skyartificial-intelligence research that mightpossibly turn into something someday.Pieces of it exist right now, in GeneralMagic’s TeleScript, for example.

And there’s this: The fastest-growingsoftware market today is the informationsuperhighway or, rather, the closest thingto it in existence, the Internet. That is, ifsomeone can figure out how to turn theremarkable explosion in the number ofpeople using the Internet into an actualmarket for software. A growing contin-gent in the computer-science communitythinks agents are the key to doing this.

If they are right, Apple would be reallydumb not to be working on true agenttechnology. And I don’t think Apple isdumb.


NEW ON THE MENUNEW CPUS /

POWER MAC 8100 HITS TOP SPEEDNew PowerPC chip makes this Mac the fastest yet.HIGH PERFORMANCE is the name of thegame with Apple’s latest Power Macintosh— the 8100/110. Although it looks like itslower-powered sibling, the 80-MHz 8100,the new model sports a 110-MHz 601+ pro-cessor, making it the fastest Mac yet.

The 8100/110 comes in one configurationonly: 16 MB of RAM (expandable to 264MB), a whopping 2-GB internal hard drive,a CD-ROM drive, and Apple’s VRAM videocard (2 MB of VRAM) — no AV option isavailable. Like the 8100/80, it comes with astandard 256K Level 2 cache for improvingsystem speed across applications. Also, ithas System 7.5 preinstalled. That’s just aswell, since previous versions of system soft-ware, such as System 7.1.2, which ships withthe earlier Power Mac models, don’t run onthis machine.

Under the hood are several enhance-ments that help this Power Mac run at 110MHz. Between the PowerPC processor andthe heat sink, Apple installs a Peltier coolingdevice, which efficiently transfers heat away

from the processor by cre-ating a small charge be-tween two metallic plates.Because it is relativelycool, the 601+ is able torun at its optimum speed.Apple is the first companyto use a Peltier device in apersonal computer.

Apple has also im-proved the NuBus control-ler chip to support burst-mode transfers betweencards and to allow for aNuBus expansion chassis.The burst-mode supportfor NuBus cards should allow SCSI andvideo-capture cards to provide better per-formance on the 8100/110 than on earlierPower Macs. A NuBus expansion chassis,such as one sold by Second Wave, lets youinstall multiple cards in an external box.

Although we didn’t have a chance to testthe NuBus improvements on the 8100/110,

we did run a series ofspeed tests, includingZiff-Davis’ MacBench1.1 and a host of busi-ness- and graphics-application bench-mark tests. Overall,the 8100/110 wasabout 30 percentfaster than the 8100/80. Compared to ourbaseline machine, theQuadra 840AV, the8100/110 was aboutfour times as fast.Speed improvements

over the 8100/80 were incremental.Is it worth it? All this power comes at a

premium price. Apple expects the 8100/110to cost $6,379. That’s about $2,100 morethan the entry-level 8100/80 and $1,000more than the top-of-the-line 8100/80,which comes with a 1-GB hard drive. 800-776-2333 or 408-996-1010. / Sean J. Safreed

MacBench 1.1 tests

Video Mix Processor Disk Mix

VIDEO MIX INDEX

FASTER

0 20 40

36.8

35.7�

22.2

PROCESSOR INDEX

FASTER

0 150 300

278.7�

229.7

47.9�

DISK MIX INDEX

FASTER

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30.5

28.4

23.7�

�

Power Mac 8100/110

Power Mac 8100/80

Quadra 840AV

TIME IN SECONDS

Power Mac 8100/110

Power Mac 8100/80

Quadra 840AV

SLOWER

0 25 50

13.1�

17.4�

44.0

TIME IN SECONDS

SLOWER

0 75 150

30.6�

36.8�

144.6

TIME IN SECONDS

SLOWER

0 35 70

31.2�

42.6�

70.0

TIME IN SECONDS

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0 35 70

26.2�

31.4�

63.8

TIME IN SECONDS

SLOWER

0 225 450

114.2�

151.5�

447.7

These benchmark tests use the LC III as thereference platform, assigning it a score of 10 foreach test. They show the relative speed of the hard-drive and video-display subsystems and theprocessor of the platforms tested.

Specular’s Infini-D2.6Rendering ananimation on the8100/110 was morethan four times asfast as on theQuadra 840AV.

Microsoft Excel 5.0The 8100/110 wasnearly two and ahalf times as fastwhen running ourExcel macro ascompared to theQuadra 840AV.

Aldus PageMaker 5.0Changing a longdocument’s point sizetook less than half thetime on the 8100/110than it did on theQuadra 840AV.

Adobe Photoshop2.5.1The 8100/110applied GaussianBlur and UnsharpMask filters threetimes as fast as theQuadra 840AV.

Aldus FreeHand 4.0Rotating a graphic inthis illustrationprogram was nearlyfive times as fast onthe 8100/110 as itwas on the Quadra840AV.

L ABSZD

Application-based tests


NEW ON TH E MENU

MACUSER/ZMAC UTILITY OF THE MONTH

Make a 3-D Family AlbumTHOSE CLEAR PLASTIC CUBES that hold family photos aren’t

confined to your desk anymore. This month’s ZMac Utility, 3DMorphing Power Cube, is an application that displays pictures on thesides of a three-dimensional rotating cube. It’s a holiday-season di-version and a screen saver, all in one. You can paste your own picturesonto the sides and even display a QuickTime movie or — if you havean AV Mac — live video on the cube. In screen-saver mode, 3DMorphing Power Cube can bounce the cube against a colored back-drop or sail it back and forth across your desktop. This applicationincludes native code for high performance on Power Macs but canalso run on a 68030-based Mac (68040 recommended).

Created by Roger Bauchspies, 3D Morphing Power Cube is avail-able exclusively from the ZiffNet/Mac service on CompuServe (GOZMC: MACUSER), ZiffNet Selections on AppleLink, and ZiffNet/Macservices on eWorld (Shortcut: MacUser). / Mark Simmons

IN ITS PITCHED BATTLE against Micro-soft’s OLE (Object Linking and Embedding)technology for industrywide support, theOpenDoc standard is steadily gainingground. Now CI Labs, the nonprofit organi-zation formed by Apple, IBM, and Novellto develop the standard,has found a key partner:Adobe Systems has com-mitted to providing ap-plications that supportthe OpenDoc standard.

Like OLE, OpenDocprovides a frameworkthat allows applicationsto work together seam-lessly, even across platforms. OpenDoc ap-plications can be parts or containers. Partsare small applications that add features orfunctionality to core applications calledcontainers. Adobe plans to make part appli-cations that work as companions to the cur-rent versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, andPremiere.

For example, Adobe’s part for Photoshopwill let you display and print Photoshop filesin a container. With the Photoshop part, itmay also be possible to run some Photoshopfilters on an image directly from within thecontainer. To select and edit it, though, you’llneed to open Photoshop. Adobe declined tostate when its parts will be available or

whether currently available programs willbecome container applications.

As Adobe joins WordPerfect as a key pro-vider of OpenDoc applications, other soft-ware developers have also expressed inter-est. Claris is working on extensions to

OpenDoc that may ben-efit all OpenDoc devel-opers. At a recent brief-ing, Claris demonstratedhow interface enhance-ments and new tools canbe added to a containerapplication via drag-and-drop. For instance, auser might give a draw

container an on-the-fly face-lift with a newinterface or specialty tools by dragging anextension onto the container software.Third-party developers can easily providespecialty tools for vertical markets withoutthe massive overhead of creating monolithicapplications. Users get the benefit of flexiblesoftware that can be custom-tailored for in-dividual needs.

That’s all well and good, but you needOpenDoc software to run OpenDoc applica-tions. When will OpenDoc itself be ready?Apple expects to be beta-testing OpenDocfor the Mac by the time you read this andhopes to ship the software in the first quar-ter of 1995. / Sean J. Safreed

CD-ROM /

Taking Up ResidentsNOT WEIRD ENOUGH FOR YOU? Hot on theheels of their critically acclaimed CD-ROMFreak Show is The Residents’ most recent forayinto the bizarre, Gingerbread Man. In this in-teractive album by the oddball rock band,the mystical Gingerbread Man maneuversinto the thoughts of some pretty strangecharacters and uncovers their eccentricpersonalities through each one’s “brainsong.” Sure to please fans of the groupare nine original songs and more than35 minutes of new music. Developedby ION and distributed by Navarre.$49.95. 800-728-4000 or 612-535-8333. / Kristin Balleisen

TECHNOLOGY TRENDS /

ADOBE COMMITS TO OPENDOCKey applications to serve as OpenDoc parts.

PRINTERS /

It Fits in the Palm ofYour HandTO BE TRULY PORTABLE, a printer shouldbe compact, lightweight, and cordless —like the new $429 Citizen PN60 for Mac-intosh. About the size of a flashlight, this360-dpi printer weighs just 1 pound (1.5pounds with its rechargeable batteryloaded). It ships with an internationalpower supply, and on-the-go types will alsolike its optional car adapter ($49).

The PN60 uses a friction-feed mecha-nism to move paper past its thermal printhead. The printer’s engine is rated to print 2pages per minute, but since you load papermanually, your mileage may vary. A fullycharged battery can print 50 pages. Expectto get as many as 30 pages of text from asingle monochrome ink ribbon ($8.99 fortwo) and as many as 5 transparencies froma single color ribbon ($13.99 for two).

The PN60 connects to PowerBooks andNewton MessagePads through its RS-422serial port. It ships with five fonts and canemulate Apple StyleWriter printers. 310-453-0614. / Pamela Pfiffner

2,453.56

Dic- tionary

Container


POWER MAC UPDATE


A DISAPPEARING ACTis great if you’re watchinga magician, but the dis-appearance of Apple’sDOS-compatible Quadra610 — formerly code-named Houdini — leftpeople scratching theirheads. But in January, theDOS Compatibility Cardis reappearing as a cardfor the Power Mac 6100,with cards for other Macmodels to follow in the first half of 1995.

The new DOS Compatibility Card, whichcomes stand-alone or as part of the PowerMac 6100 DOS Compatible system (a PowerMac 6100 with 16 MB of RAM and a 350-MBhard drive), sports several improvementshinted at in early technology demos, includ-ing networking and support for Creative So-lutions’ SoundBlaster. The original DOScard used an anemic 25-MHz 486SX proces-sor, but the new card uses Intel’s 66-MHz486DX2. A daughtercard provides 16-bitSoundBlaster support through the Mac’sstandard sound-out port, making the DOSCompatibility Card compliant with the MPCI standard. Bundled software provides thenecessary ODI drivers for NetWare and TCP/IP Ethernet connectivity, important in thecorporate world. Like its predecessor, thenew PDS card can share the Mac’s RAM torun DOS and Windows applications, butnow you can also add as much as 32 MB ofRAM in a single 72-pin SIMM slot.

Other PDS cards should be available,from Reply, in early 1995. Apple has licensedthe technology for future DOS cards to Re-ply, so you can expect the same features in aversion for Quadras with PDS slots, particu-larly the 650, 700, 800, 900, and 950.

We tested the DOS Compatibility Card byusing the Ziff-Davis Winstone ’94 bench-mark tests for Windows machines. Win-stone runs a series of application tests, using12 popular Windows applications, and re-turns a weighted score based on a baselinescore of 10 for a 386 PC running at 25 MHz.

All testing was in VGAmode. The Power Mac6100 DOS Compatiblewith 32 MB of RAM onthe card was more thanthree times as fast in VGAmode as the baseline sys-tem. However, when thecard was configured toshare 8 MB of the PowerMac’s RAM, it was barelyfaster than the baselinesystem. Compared to a

Dell Optiplex with a 486 DX2, local-busvideo, and a fast IDE drive, the Power Mac6100 DOS Compatible in the 32-MB con-figuration was 26 percent slower.

The Power Mac 6100 DOS Compatiblesystem sells for $2,999. The user-installablecard is available for $699. / Sean J. Safreed

HOUDINI WORKS NEW MAGICApple card brings DOS to Power Mac 6100.

Power MacintoshRevealedTHIRSTY FOR PowerMac knowledge? Mac-User contributing ed-itor Stephan “Obi-Wan”Somogyi has all the an-swers to your Power Mac questions in ThePowerPC Macintosh Book, from Addison-Wesley (1994). It explains the intricacies ofPower Mac hardware and software in lan-guage anyone can understand. $19.95. 617-944-3700. / SJS

Power Mac Time TrialsL ABS

ZD

25-MHz 386 PCWINSTONE SCORE

Power Mac 6100 DOS Compatible with 32 MB of RAM on the card Power Mac 6100 DOS Compatible using 8 MB of the Mac’s RAM

Dell Optiplex with 32 MB of RAM

FASTER

0 25 50

43.2�

31.8�

12.9

PowerPC Chip PricesGo Even LowerDRIVING DOWN THE PRICE of PowerPCprocessors once again, IBM and Motorolahave announced lower prices for thePowerPC 601 and 604 chips. Lower chipprices may make porting the Macintosh op-erating system more attractive to potentiallicensees.

In production as of December, the 604from IBM will be available to manufacturersfor $549. Motorola will be offering the samechip for $599 and a 90-MHz model for $499.Compared to the 100-MHz Pentium, whichcosts $935, the 100-MHz 604 provides 60percent greater integer performance andtwice the floating-point performance.

The 100-MHz 601+ began production inNovember. Priced at $399 from IBM and$439 from Motorola, the 601+ runs at thesame speed as Intel’s 100-MHz Pentium.

All price comparisons are for quantitiesof 1,000, and speed comparisons are basedon estimated SPECmarks. For more infor-mation, call IBM at 800-769-3772 andMotorola at 800-845-6686. / SJS

NEW ON TH E MENU

NATIVE POWER MAC APPLICATIONSTHE FOLLOWING IS a list of recently shipped native PowerMac applications.

BusinessACT 2.0 Symantec 503-335-3322

Groupwise 4.1 WordPerfect 801-225-5000

Persuasion 3.0 Adobe Systems 206-622-5500

GamesOut of the Sun Domark 415-513-8929

MultimediametaFlo Valis Group 415-435-5404

Networking and CommunicationsPageNOW! Mark/Space

Softworks 408-293-7299

White Knight 12.0 FreeSoft 412-846-2700

Publishing/GraphicsKoyn Fractal Studio Koyn Software 314-878-9125

Photoshop 3.0 Adobe Systems 415-961-4400

QuarkXPress 3.31 Quark 303-894-8888

Typestry 2.1.1 Pixar 510-236-4000

3-D/CADDesign Reality Ashlar 408-746-3900

UtilitiesAfter Dark 3.0 Berkeley Systems 510-540-5535

Now Utilities 5.0 Now Software 503-274-2800

OtherKaleidagraph 3.0.4 Synergy Software 610-779-0522

Print Shop Deluxe 1.1 Brøderbund 415-492-4400

VIP-BASIC Mainstay 805-484-9400


NEW ON TH E MENU

INFORMATION MANAGERS /

THE PERSONAL GOES PUBLICNow Contact teams with Up-to-Date.PERSONAL IS THE WORDthat puts the P in PIM. Butin workgroups, a lot of in-formation is meant to beshared, not hidden away inan inaccessible personaldata file. New versions ofthe components of NowSoftware’s PIM combina-tion, Now Up-to-Date and Now Contact, ad-dress that very need by offering improvednetwork information-sharing abilities.Now Contact. Skipping a version number tosynchronize releases with its partner, ver-sion 3.0 of Now Contact shares contacts overa network in much the same way Now Up-to-Date shares events. Users can groupcontacts by category and make categoriespublic or private. Subscribers to public cat-egories get automatic updates of changes.

Now Contact simplifies data entry by au-tomatically completing predictable contact

entries, automatically fill-ing in address fields aftera company’s address hasbeen entered once orcompleting entries afterthe first few keystrokes.

Other improvementsin Now Contact 3.0 in-clude contact searching

by keywords, better file and record syn-chronization, faster printing, and morecustomization options. Like its first itera-tion, Now Contact allows names to be at-tached to Now Up-to-Date events by use of asimplified process: Drag-ging a contact onto a NowUp-to-Date calendar au-tomatically attaches it orcreates a new calendarevent.Now Up-to-Date. Im-proved group scheduling

STORAGE SYSTEMS /

Micropolis Delivers Fast,Safe RAIDMIXING AND MATCHING is the name ofthe game with the RAIDION, Micropolis’RAID (Redundant Array of InexpensiveDisks) system. RAIDION offers RAID level0, 1, and 5 in the samedisk subsystem.

With the RAIDIONsystem, Micropolis istargeting off-line videoediting, imaging, andprepress for users whoneed serious data pro-tection. With fault tol-erance (RAID level 5)and striping (RAIDLevel 0) in the samesystem, you end up

with the best of both security and speed.The RAIDION centers on a hardware con-

troller called Gandiva, which contains aRISC processor, a proprietary ASIC, a PCIbus, and four Fast SCSI-2 channels designedto outperform single-channel systems. Gan-diva enables users to incorporate individualdrives into the array, thus allowing thedownloading of large files onto an individ-ual drive for easy transport to other RAID-ION systems. This is especially useful formoving the hundreds of megabytes of datatypical in video production from one ma-chine to another.

Micropolis offers Mac utili-ties for managing the RAIDIONsystem. The RAIDION is avail-able in three- and four-driveconfigurations with total ca-pacities of 3.5 and 5.2 GB, re-spectively. The 3.5-GB systemlists for $11,295, and the 5.2-GBsystem is $13,795. Users canadd as many as 28 drives to theRAIDION system, for a maxi-mum capacity of 245 GB in asingle array. / Sean J. Safreed

PRINTERS /

Print, Copy, FaxA TRIPLE THREAT for the home office isa single machine that combines printing,copying, and faxing. That describes Hew-lett-Packard’s new OfficeJet ($999). In its

monochrome-printer capac-ity, this 3-ppminkjet printeroffers a reso-lution of 600x 300 dpi onletter-sized pa-per. But it is

also a Group 3 (9,600 bps) plain-paper faxmachine with a 20-page automatic docu-ment feeder and speed-dialing functions.

And like many fax machines, the OfficeJetcan also be used as a low-volume photo-copier. The OfficeJet accepts paper sizes aslarge as 8.5 x 14 inches and can reduce im-ages as much as 70 percent while copying.

This triple threat does present a potentialAchilles’ heel for Macintosh users: It hasa Centronics serial interface. But GDT

Softworks (604-291-9121) has a solution:PowerPrint ($149), a software/cabling pack-age that lets Macs print to the OfficeJet. 800-852-0900 or 408-725-8900. / JS

highlights Now Up-to-Date 3.0. Users canhave Now Up-to-Date automatically findavailable meeting times for any combina-tion of individuals and meeting rooms bycomparing the free time on all participants’personal calendars.

An improved interface sports an icono-graphic tool bar that can be used to controlviewing options and navigation. Users canalso personalize their calendars with in-cluded graphics.

In addition, Now Software has fine-tunedsome old Now Up-to-Date features. Monthand multiday views can now scroll a week ora day at a time, and descriptions and agen-das can now be assigned to individualevents in a repeating-event series.

Both Now Contact and Now Up-to-Dateare individually priced at $65 (upgrade,

$39.95). A bundle of thetwo products sells for$99; introductory dealsand multiuser packsare additionally avail-able. 800-237-3611 or503-274-2800. / Karen J.

Ohlson and Jason Snell


THREE THINGS DISTINGUISH Tektronix’snew Phaser 540 from the other color laserprinters introduced recently: its continu-ous-tone print quality, its fast print speedsfor both monochrome and color, and itseasy-to-replace consumables. Plus, an op-tional duplication station allows for colorcopying.

The Phaser 540 is thefirst of the recent crop touse an engine by Mat-sushita that delivers con-tinuous-tone output thathas resolutions of 300-and 600-dpi color or mono-chrome output. Unlikeprinters that use dithering patterns to re-produce color gradation, the Phaser 540varies the color intensity at each pixel to cre-ate photo-realistic output. Print speeds for300-dpi output are as fast as 14 ppm formonochrome and 3.5 ppm for four-colorpages. The Phaser 540 is priced at $8,995,which makes it competitive with units fromQMS, Xerox, and Hewlett-Packard.

The engine uses monocomponent con-sumables — each color cartridge containsboth toner and developer — which simpli-fies toner replacement and reduces costs.Tektronix is developing a cartridge-recy-cling system through its dealers. Drum andfuser assemblies are easy to access as well.

COLOR PRINTERS /

TEKTRONIX TACKLES COLOR LASERSNew Phaser 540 offers photo-realistic printing,simple operation.

ON-LINE /

MacUser GoesNetsurfingTHE WORLD WIDE WEB just got alittle more crowded. Macintosh userson the Internet should soon be able toaccess information about MacUserwith their favorite Web browser. All youhave to do is point to the URL http://www.macuser.ziff.com/~macuser/.Files on the site will include importantMacUser stories such as this issue’s fea-ture on low-cost color printers and ourreview of Adobe Photoshop 3.0. Wantto get on the Net? Check out “Plug In tothe Internet” (September ’94, page 86)and “Shopping for Internet Access”(December ’94, page 133). / JS

Expect 30,000 pages per drum and 15,000per fuser.

The Phaser 540 printer is fueled by a 32-MHz AMD 29030 RISC chip with 20 MB ofRAM, expandable to as much as 52 MB. Itautomatically switches among the Post-Script Level 2, HP-GL, and HP PCL 5 lan-

guages. The unit in-cludes a parallel anda SCSI port. Cardsthat support Local-Talk ($245), Ethernet($595), and token ring($895) are sold sepa-rately. A 250-sheet let-ter-sized paper tray is

standard, and two additional trays of thesame capacity can be accommodated at thesame time.

Users can purchase the optional PhaserCopyStation, a flatbed photocopier that at-taches to the Phaser 540. Priced at $1,695,the CopyStation turns the Phaser 540 into adesktop duplicator.

Tektronix has also revealed its new entry-level PostScript inkjet printer, the Phaser140. Based on Canon’s A-161 BubbleJet en-gine, the 360-dpi Phaser 140 prints on plainpaper as well as coated stock. Priced at$1,695, it includes a 16-MHz RISC processorand 8 MB of RAM. 800-835-6100 or 503-682-7377. / Pamela Pfiffner

MONITORS /

Trinitron for LessSETTING NEW STANDARDS for low-costmonitors, Sony has released a 14-inch SonyTrinitron monitor — with extra goodiesApple’s Macintosh Color Display doesn’t of-fer — for less than $400.

The Sony CPD-1425 includes a 14-inchSuper Fine Pitch (.25-mm aperture-grillepitch) Trinitron tube that includes an anti-static, antiglare coating. Although not trulyautosynchronous, in that it doesn’t workover a broad range of frequencies, the moni-tor is compatible with Mac 640-x-480- and832-x-624-pixel resolutions, plus PC VGAresolutions as high as 1,024 x 768 pixels.

Priced at $399.95, the CPD-1425 featuresautoshutdown capability that conformswith Energy Star requirements and meetsSwedish MPR-II emissions standards. Sonydoesn’t provide a Macintosh cable with themonitor; you must purchase a MacViewadapter, for an additional $18.95. 800-352-7669. / Jeffrey S. Pittelkau

INPUT DEVICES /

Point and ClickA REMOTE CONTROL for your Mac? At firstglance, Interlink Electronics’ RemotePointsure looks like an oversimplified TV clicker

or maybe

a primitive Star Trek phaser. In reality, theRemotePoint ($199) is an infrared mousedesigned for use with multimedia CD-ROMs and in presentations — where noth-ing more than pointing and clicking is re-quired for operation.

Users move the cursor by pushing on theRemotePoint’s top button; a smaller buttonon the opposite side is for clicking. The

mouse’s infrared receiverplugs in to a Macintosh’sADB port and can receivesignals from as far as 40feet away. 805-484-1331.

/ Jason Snell


NEW ON TH E MENU

MACINTOSH PRICE INDEXTHE UNITED COMPUTER EXCHANGE indexreflects average sales prices of new andused Macs as of October 5, 1994. Prices(except those for compact models andPerformas) do not include a monitor or akeyboard. The United Computer Exchangeis a national clearinghouse of used micro-computer equipment.

Mac Model New Used

SE/30 (5/40) • $550

Classic II (4/40) • $500

Color Classic (4/80) • $700

LC II (4/40) • $425

LC III (4/80) • $500

Performa 475 (4/160) $1,299 $1,075

Performa 550 CD (5/160) $1,599 $1,425

Performa 575 CD (5/250) $1,849 $1,750

IIsi (5/40) • $425

IIci (5/80) • $650

IIfx (8/160) • $900

IIvx (4/80) • $850

Quadra 605 (4/80) • $650

Quadra 610 (8/160) • $1,050

Quadra 650 (8/230) • $1,475

Quadra 660AV CD (8/230) • $1,450

Quadra 700 (8/230) • $1,350

Quadra 800 (8/230) • $2,100

Quadra 840AV CD (8/230) • $2,325

Quadra 900 (8/230) • $1,700

Quadra 950 (8/230) $3,599 $2,500

Power Mac 6100 (8/250) $1,749 $1,550

Power Mac 7100 (8/250) $2,499 $2,250

Power Mac 8100CD (8/250) $3,899 $3,500

PowerBook 145 (4/40) • $825

PowerBook 145B (4/80) • $800

PowerBook 150 (4/120) $1,449 $1,400

PowerBook 160 (4/80) • $1,275

PowerBook 165 (4/80) • $1,350

PowerBook 165c (4/80) • $1,450

PowerBook 170 (4/40) • $1,325

PowerBook 180 (4/80) • $1,800

PowerBook 180c (4/80) • $2,100

PowerBook 520 (4/160) $2,099 $2,050

PowerBook 520c (4/160) $2,699 $2,600

PowerBook 540 (4/240) $3,099 $3,000

PowerBook 540c (4/320) $4,699 $4,625

Duo 210 (4/80) • $775

Duo 230 (4/120) • $950

Duo 250 (4/200) • $1,500

Duo 270c (4/240) • $2,050

Duo 280 (12/240) $3,099 $2,875

Duo 280c (4/320) $3,599 $3,150• = discontinued model

For more pricing information on these and othermodels, call 800-755-3033 or 404-955-0569, or find iton ZiffNet/Mac, in Library 1 (Special Reports) of theMacUser Forum (GO ZMC:MACUSER). On AppleLink,look for it in ZiffNet Selections:MacUser Software: Refer-ence. On eWorld, go to shortcut MACUSER, in MacUserSoftware Library:MacUser Special Files.

NEW & NOTABLEHARDWARE /Dataproducts Typhoon 20. Boasting a printspeed of 20 letter-sized pages per minute,this 800-dpi printer also accepts paper sizesas large as 11 x 17 inches. Powered by a 25-MHz RISC processor, the Typhoon 20 sup-ports Adobe PostScript Level 2, emulatesPCL 5+, and comes with 8 MB of RAM.LocalTalk and parallel ports are standard,with Ethernet available as an option. $5,095.818-887-8000 or 800-980-0374.▼ Tatung Audio 15. This 15-inch monitor

with a flat, squaretube sports built-instereo speakers andcan display resolu-tions as high as 1,024x 768 inches. A frontdigital control panellets you adjust themonitor’s brightness,

contrast, and so on. $499. 213-979-7055.U.S. Robotics Sportster V.34. One of thefirst V.34 modems, offering a top speed of28.8 kbps, the Sportster V.34 is addition-ally compatible with V.fast 28.8-kbps andV.32bis 14.4-kbps modems and is alsoGroup III (14.4 kbps) fax-compatible. $369.Owners of Sportster V.FC modems can up-grade for a $29 fee. 800-342-5877 or 708-982-5010.Elo IntelliTouch. With a connection to theMac’s ADB port and special MonitorMousesoftware, this 17-inch flat-square monitorbecomes a touch screen. The IntelliTouchoffers display resolutions as high as 1,280 x1,024 pixels. $2,070. 615-482-4100.Griffin Communications Composite SyncAdapter. This small adapter allows newer-model Macintoshes to use older monitorsthat employ the “sync on green” video stan-dard. The adapter works with PowerMacintoshes, the AV-model Quadras, theQuadra 605, the LCs, and the PowerBooksthat have video-out capability. $35. 615-256-6913.Epson ELP-3000. Weighing in at 17 pounds,this liquid-crystal projector can display thecontents of a computer screen at sizes aslarge as 300 inches. The ELP-3000’s maxi-mum resolution is 640 x 480 pixels, and theprojector can render images in 24-bit color.Because the Epson ELP-3000 includes stan-dard video inputs, no adapters or converters


are required. $8,999. 310-782-0770.SOFTWARE /Inspiration 4.1. The latest version of thisidea-development tool includes improvedoutline commands, a spelling checker, theability to import RTF files, and nearly 500symbols for use in creating flowcharts ofideas. $129; upgrade, $25. Inspiration Soft-ware. 503-245-9011.MapInfo 3.0. Improved data-display toolshighlight the new release of this mappingpackage. MapInfo 3.0 allows users to mixmaps with scanned images, create varioustypes of multiple-variable charts, and reor-der geographic territories as their datachanges. $1,295; upgrade, $299. MapInfo.518-285-6000.DecisionMaker. A tool to aid in the decision-making process, DecisionMaker helps userscreate “decision trees,” which help in weigh-ing different decisions and the probability ofpossible outcomes. Included with the pack-age is a guide to help users learn to use thisanalysis technique effectively. $150. PaloAlto Software. 503-683-6162.Koyn Fractal Studio 2.1. Now native on thePower Mac, this application allows users tocreate fractal-based images, whether theyare patterns or images resembling naturalobjects such as trees or snowflakes. Knowl-edge of fractal concepts is not required, butsavvy users can edit their fractals. Imagescan be created in up to 24-bit color withresolutions as high as 2,540 dpi. $119.95.Koyn Software. 314-878-9125.Christmas Lights. ▼ For the Mac user whocan’t get enoughof the holidayspirit, this collec-tion of animatedChristmas and Hannukah lights,ornaments, and nonreligioussymbols can be placed all over theMac desktop. Also included is asnowstorm screen saver. $20. Atticus Soft-ware. 203-348-6100.Opus ’n Bill on the Road Again. Ackpth!Opus the Penguin and Bill the Cat, the starsof Berkeley Breathed’s Outland comic strip,travel all around the world (and even ontothe Information Superhighway) in this se-quel to last year’s Opus ’n Bill Screen Saver.This package includes 16 animated modulesin addition to version 5.0 of the Intermis-sion screen-saver engine. $40. Delrina. 408-363-2345.


Reviews Rating Key

mmmmm Outstanding

mmmm Very Good

mmm Acceptable

mm Poor

m Seriously Flawed

b Dangerous

REVIEWS & Quick Clicks

channel masks that you can use.By applying a mode to a layer, you can

affect how the layer interacts with underly-ing pixels on other layers. For example,when you create a layer by using Darkenmode, only the pixels in the layer that aredarker than underlying pixels are blendedinto your image. Since you’re changing onlythe way the layer interacts with other layers,instead of changing the layer itself, applyingNormal mode removes the effect.

Customizable Palettes

Less obvious than the layers feature butmore important for everyday use arechanges to Photoshop’s interface. Groups ofpalettes float on your desktop, and each pal-ette has a tab. By default, the palettes appearin three groups: a Brushes and Optionsgroup; a Picker, Swatches, and Scratchgroup; and a Layers, Channels, and Pathsgroup. You can organize the palettes in anyway you wish: For instance, if you want toplace the Layers palette in your Brushes andOptions group, you can move it by draggingits palette tab into the Brushes and Optionsgroup.

Working with channels and layers inde-pendently of your image is easier with ver-sion 3.0. Both the Channels and the Layerspalettes have optional thumbnails thatshow you the contents of each channel orlayer, respectively. However, each time youopen or change a file, Photoshop also takestime to change your thumbnails, which cancause your pull-down menus to becomenoticeably sluggish.

Version 3.0’s layers also make it easier toapply drop shadows and smooth grada-tions. You can load a channel as a selectionby Option-clicking on it in the Channelspalette. You can also load the image ele-ments in a layer as a selection by choosingthe layer and pressing Command-Option-T.

Other features improve precision for de-tail work and simplify mundane tasks. Anew Preferences option makes your cursorthe same size as the paintbrush you’re us-ing, which is particularly practical whenyou’re using a pinpoint brush for detail

with large files. And color control, althoughsomewhat improved, is still not as exact aswe’d like for professional prepress work.

Layered Look

Version 3.0’s newly added support for mul-tiple layers lets you stack image elementsand move or delete them without affectingthe background. With earlier versions ofPhotoshop, once you placed an element, re-moving it removed the background as well.

You can also control the transparency ofthe image elements on each individual layerwith a slider in the Layers palette. You caneven apply a mask to a layer, rather than toan entire image. The layer mask is an 8-bitalpha channel, just like a traditional channelmask, and it appears in the Channels pal-ette. However, a layer mask affects only thelayer it’s associated with, and you can haveonly one layer mask per layer, whereas achannel mask has an effect on your entireimage and there is no limit to the number of

Adobe Photoshop 3.0 / Layer supportand precision design controls in oneRAM-hungry program.UNLEASH YOUR CREATIVITY and ex-plore the power of filters and effects moreeasily than before with the latest version ofAdobe Photoshop. Version 3.0 introducessupport for multiple layers, so you can ap-ply effects and move text and images with-out affecting backgrounds. A new palettedesign reduces screen clutter, filter pre-views save you time, and you can select andchange colors with greater precision.

But the creative flexibility you gain exactsa heavy price in RAM and hard-disk-spacerequirements, especially if you’re working

PH

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R EVIEWS Image Editing

work. You can drag a selection from onedocument directly into another withoutcutting and pasting. And although a fewtools had keyboard equivalents in Photo-shop 2.5.1, every tool has one now. Somekeyboard equivalents even let you togglebetween options by repeatedly invoking thecommand.

We also welcome Photoshop’s new filterpreview, which lets you view a filter’s effectsbefore the filter is applied. You can select thearea you want to preview simply by clickingon it.

Veteran Photoshop users know that us-ing the magic-wand tool to accurately selectan area you want to remove from an imagecan be time-consuming and frustrating.The new Color Range command helps byletting you select areas based on color, us-ing the eyedropper tool. The Fuzzinessslider controls the tolerance. The new Re-place Colors command also uses theeyedropper tool and the Fuzziness slider tolet you apply new hue, saturation, andbrightness levels to an area.

Other new, creative options include theLighting Effects filter, which allows you toapply multiple light sources to an image,and the Clouds filter, which renders realis-tic-looking clouds.

Color Control

A welcome and long-overdue feature in ver-sion 3.0 is selective color correction, whichlets you adjust the ink amounts for a givenplate. You can increase the amount of yellowink your printer uses to print greens, for

that Photoshop 3.0 is not muchfaster than Photoshop 2.5.1. Run-ning native on Power Macs, it’sabout 3 to 15 percent faster thanPhotoshop 2.5.1 with the PowerPCAccelerator plug-in. On 680x0Macs, it’s generally 5 to 10 percentfaster than Photoshop 2.5.1 formost operations, but for a few, suchas applying a Gaussian Blur with a2.1-pixel radius, it’s slightly slowerthan its predecessor.

The relationship between speed,RAM, and file size is still the same:You need at least three times thefile size in RAM for optimum per-formance. If you’re compositingthree 18-MB Photo CD files, for ex-ample, your file size balloons to 54

MB and you’ll need at least 170 MB each ofRAM and scratch disk space. That is be-cause the virtual-memory scheme ofPhotoshop has been revamped so that youmust now have as much scratch disk spaceas you have RAM allocated to Photoshop. Soif you’ve set Photoshop to use 250 MB ofRAM, you’ll need 250 MB of free disk spaceor else you’ll get messages telling you thatthe scratch disk is full, even if you’re justworking on a 10-MB file.

The Bottom Line

The user-interface improvements in Photo-shop 3.0 are, in themselves, sufficient rea-son to upgrade. But the demands the pro-gram places on RAM and disk space are areal concern. We welcome Photoshop 3.0’snew features, but they push the Mac to, andeven beyond, its limits: Suddenly a PowerMac with 128 MB of RAM doesn’t seem sopowerful any more. / Bruce Fraser

Preview the results of your effects beforeyou apply them in Photoshop 3.0.

example, or reduce the amount of cyanused for reds. A new CMYK Preview optionlets you see what your file will look like inCMYK mode without your putting your im-age through a mode change. Unfortunately,the CMYK preview is only as accurate asyour monitor.

An alternative to the clumsy way Photo-shop handles out-of-gamut colors (that is,simply clipping those colors into gamut in-stead of evenly scaling color throughout adocument) is the Gamut Warning, whichidentifies the out-of-gamut colors in an im-age for you. You can change the out-of-gamut colors or use the new sponge tool todesaturate them.

As useful as this may be, it’s a kludgeyworkaround, especially if you need satu-rated colors in your image; the color-sepa-ration engine is basically unchanged. If youhoped for features such as the ability to locka densitometer probe on an area while ad-justing curves and levels, you’ll have to keepwaiting.

Photoshop also doesn’t have global colorcorrection, which is particularly inconve-nient if you’re working with several layers:You can’t make a color correction on onelayer and apply that change to all layers inyour document unless you are willing tomerge your layers.

Ravenous for RAM

The RAM requirements for serious produc-tion work involving Photoshop 3.0’s newlayers are formidable if you want to work ata reasonable pace. Overall, our tests found

Support for multiple layers makes the creation ofdrop shadows and the positioning of text a cinch withPhotoshop 3.0.

Adobe Photoshop 3.0.1Rating: mmmmPrice: $895 (list).

Pros: Improved interface, including more-precise and more-flexible selection tools andnew creative features, such as lighting.Layers support.

Cons: Needs hefty amounts of RAM and diskspace for reasonable performance.No global color correction.

Company: Adobe Systems, Mountain View,CA; 800-833-6687 or 415-961-4400.

Reader Service: Circle #401.


REVIEWS Utilities

Now Utilities 5.0 / Now Software doesSystem 7.5 one better with thisupgrade to its utilities package.

IF WE COULD BUY only one utility pack-age, we’d make it Now Utilities 5.0. Some ofits classic features are now standard in Sys-tem 7.5, and some of its new ones were al-ready available in other utilities, but even ifyou upgrade your system and throw in sev-eral hundred dollars’ worth of add-onsfrom other vendors, you still won’t end upwith all the time-saving tools Now Softwaredelivers in one bargain-priced box.

Polished Favorites

Of the ten modules that make up the new re-lease, the flagship itemsremain Now Super Boo-merang and Now Menus.Super Boomerang puts asuperfast Find commandand menus of files andfolders you use frequentlyand have opened recentlywhere you need themmost: in Open and Savedialog boxes and insubmenus to the Opencommand in applications.Super Boomerang hasn’tchanged much in version5.0, but on Power Macs,native code speeds up searches for textwithin files. Now Menus, in addition to pro-viding hierarchical submenus for the Applemenu, lets you create custom launch menusand keyboard equivalents. New in version5.0 is an option to put custom menus, com-plete with their own icons, right on themenu bar.

System 7.5 comes with Apple Menu Op-tions, an extension that adds submenus tothe Apple menu, including menus of re-cently used documents, applications, andservers. It’s a useful enhancement to thestandard Mac interface, but it’s no match forthe more versatile Super Boomerang/NowMenus tag team.

The Extensions Manager in System 7.5competes with a third popular Now Utilitiesmodule, Now Startup Manager, and againNow Utilities wins hands down. Each letsyou turn extensions on and off and create

sets of extensions for specific tasks, butStartup Manager offers a variety of addi-tional options, including the ability to loadrelated extensions together and avoidknown extension conflicts. Version 5.0 addsa semiautomated testing procedure to helpyou diagnose extension-related problemsquickly — a valuable feature borrowedfrom Casady & Greene’s Conflict Catcher II.

Most of the other modules carried overfrom Now Utilities 4.0 show relatively mi-nor improvements in version 5.0. NowWYSIWYG Menus, which displays font

names in the matchingtypeface and puts mem-bers of the font family intosubmenus, lets you createdifferent font sets for dif-ferent applications. BothNow Scrapbook, an en-hanced alternative to thestandard Apple Scrap-book, and Now Profile, autility that collects sys-tem-configuration infor-mation, support Apple’sPowerTalk messaging sys-tem, so you can send a logoto a colleague or a system

profile to your administrator without open-ing a special mail program.

Now Save, an extension designed to saveyour work automatically, no longer has tobe completely on or off — you can set it towork with selected applications only andtell it to prompt you to save instead of doingso on its own. But some features still aren’tcompatible with Microsoft Word and Excel,and in our tests, KeyCapture — an optionthat is supposed to record, in the back-ground, all keystrokes to a text file —missed so many keystrokes that the files itcreated were gobbledygook (when theyweren’t completely empty!).

New Faces

Neither of the two modules new to NowMenus 5.0 is exactly original, but both canbe useful if you don’t already have othersoftware that does what they do. Now

QuickFiler, a direct descendant of the dis-continued Now Compress, is a file-com-pression utility that rivals Symantec’sNorton DiskDoubler Pro and Aladdin’sStuffIt Deluxe in performance and features— among other options, it can compressfiles automatically when your Mac is idle.

Now QuickFiler also offers a search fea-ture called Now Find, which can not onlylocate files by criteria such as name andtype but also search through files for spe-cific phrases. Unfortunately, it takes twiceas long to find a file as System 7.5’s Find Filefeature and five times as long as SuperBoomerang’s separate Find command.

The other new member of Now Utilities5.0, Now FolderMenus, is a stripped-downclone of Inline Software’s PopupFolders. Itcreates hierarchical pop-up menus showingthe contents of any folder or volume iconyou click on in the Finder; by navigating thesubmenus, you can dig down to a file orfolder as many as five levels deep withoutopening a single window.

The Bottom Line

Aside from the Now Save problems, NowSoftware has confirmed compatibilityproblems with Aldus’ DateBook Pro andwith Apple’s Control Strip for PowerBooks,and in some cases, Now Utilities 4.0 Prefer-ences files cause the new version to crash(so you need to delete them before install-ing version 5.0).

The glitches are relatively few and far be-tween, though, and for those who do runinto intractable problems, Now Software of-fers a 60-day money-back guarantee. Fewusers who have experienced the everydayconvenience and overall value these utilitiesdeliver are likely to go back willingly to lifewithout them. / Henry Norr

Now Utilities 5.0Rating: mmmmhPrice: $89.95 (estimated).

Pros: Numerous shortcuts. New versionadds key features of other utilities, includingcompression and conflict diagnosis, at abargain price.

Cons: Most new features unoriginal. NowFind is slow. Now Save’s KeyCapture isunreliable. Some incompatibilities.

Company: Now Software, Portland, OR;800-689-9427 or 503-274-2800.


The Now Menus module inNow Utilities 5.0 hascustomizable pull-down menus.


REVIEWS E-Mail

QuickMail 3.0 / CE Software enhancesits mail package, but the result is nospecial delivery.

AT FIRST GLANCE, CE Software’s Quick-Mail 3.0 appears to sport lots of flashy newfeatures — built-in spell checking, rules-based routing of messages, and a Searchcommand for finding messages. But dig alittle deeper, and you’ll find that not all ofQuickMail’s new features are everythingthey’re cracked up to be. What’s more, someold demons from QuickMail’s past hauntthis upgrade, which feels more like a ver-sion 2.7 than a 3.0.

Managing Mail

Anyone who’s ever been embarrassed byspelling errors in an important e-mail mes-sage will appreciate QuickMail’s new built-in spelling checker. You can add your ownwords to the dictionary and use the ReplaceAll and Ignore All commands to save time.

The spelling checker is the best new

feature in QuickMail 3.0. MailManager is afeature that sounds like it could be useful,but it falls flat. It can automatically replyto, forward, file, print, or delete incomingmessages by priority and by text in thesubject, date, sender, and to fields and inthe body of the message. Unfortunately,you can look for a single text string only.For instance, although you can file, for-ward, and reply to an urgent message thathas the word Mexico in it, you can’t set upa filter to print messages containingMexico but not Valdez account. You alsocan’t choose, for example, to filter mes-sages from different senders by assigningthem different priorities or deal differ-ently with messages on which you are cc’d.

You probably won’t use MailManageranyway, because it has a deleterious effecton performance if you leave it on. Because

MailManager processes every incomingmessage — including return receipts — itbrings your machine to a halt for severalseconds whenever you receive a message,even when you are working in anotherapplication.

The new Search command has the samecriteria limitations as MailManager. Also, itcan search through only filed messages thatreside on your Mac, not messages residingon the server. This means that you must fileall of your messages before you can use thefeature. As with previous versions of Quick-Mail, you can’t access filed messages re-motely or from another Mac, even if you useApple Remote Access to dial in to yourQuickMail account. Fortunately, the maxi-mum number of filed messages a folder cancontain has been increased from 100 to 250.

Falling Behind

The new features mean that QuickMailtakes up more hard-disk space (2 MB, twiceas much as version 2.6), and quite a fewold problems persist in QuickMail 3.0. Theclient software has been upgraded, but the


version 3.0 server software is unchangedfrom version 2.6.4 except for minor bugfixes. (The version 3.0 client softwareworks with servers that use version 2.5and later.)

This means that QuickMail servers stilldon’t automatically exchange directories(lists of users), so when you add a user toone QuickMail server, the other serverswon’t know about it. To send a message toan address not on their server, users mustsearch for it, using QuickMail’s Find but-ton, copy an address in the From field of anincoming message, or use the Special but-ton to manually create the address. How-ever, adding an address to a user’s addresslist is somewhat easier now, and you canalso print, import, and export addressbooks.

The old server software falls behindcompeting e-mail systems in other ways aswell. Unlike SoftArc’s FirstClass, whichstores forms on users’ hard disks, Quick-Mail sends entire graphical forms over thenetwork, which has the effect of increasingnetwork traffic — and slowing network

speed in the process.QuickMail Remote remains a separate

application, unlike FirstClass and NovellGroupWise, which each have client applica-tions that can be used both on a networkand for a direct dial-in connection. SinceQuickMail Remote has not changed withthis new version of QuickMail, users stillcan’t create mail off-line.

Even the newly revamped QuickMail cli-ent software contains old problems. In thisage of Apple-events-enabled applications,the QuickMail 3.0 client software stillmakes little use of background processing.You can’t send or open messages in thebackground or do background enclosuredownloading. You can’t even receive a mes-sage cleanly in the background: Whenyou’re typing a memo in QuickMail and amessage arrives, QuickMail loses your lastfew keystrokes. If a message arrives whileyou’re selecting messages to read, you losethe selection you’ve made. You also still can-not enclose folders, as you can with other e-mail packages, and you are still limited to16 enclosures.

QuickMail 3.0Rating: mmmPrice: 10-user pack, $649 (list).

Pros: Built-in spelling checker.

Cons: MailManager has limited usefulnessand takes over Mac when processingmessages. Can search through only filedmessages. Can’t exchange directories. Nobackground processing.

Company: CE Software, West Des Moines, IA;800-523-7638 or 515-221-1801.


The Bottom Line

QuickMail was innovative in its time buthas now fallen behind. Missing fromQuickMail 3.0 are many features found incompeting mail packages, such as the abil-ity to send and receive messages in thebackground and directory synchroniza-tion. For current users of QuickMail, thereisn’t much reason to upgrade to version 3.0,and people looking for their first mail sys-tem might do better to look elsewhere./ John Rizzo


REVIEWS Printers / Networking & Connectivity

Tektronix Phaser 440 / Faster, cheaperdye-sub printing for the rest of us.

equipped with 40 MB of RAM and built-inEthernet.

As we expected, the Phaser 440 outper-formed the Phaser IISDX in every one of ourtests. It shaved a full minute off the PhaserIISDX’s 5-minute print time for the Photo-shop document and almost 2 minutesapiece off the IISDX’s print times for the Il-lustrator and QuarkXPress documents. Butthe most noteworthy speed gain occurredin printing our five-page PowerPoint docu-

ment — the Phaser 440chopped a whopping 8minutes off the PhaserIISDX’s 22-minute printtime.

Not only does the Phas-er 440 print quickly for adye-sub printer but it alsodelivers superb outputquality. For continuous-tone images, the outputshows excellent color reg-istration, consistent to-nality, even skin tones,and crisp knockouts. Fortext and line art as well,traditionally the Achilles’heel of dye-sub printers,

the quality is pretty good. You won’t mistakeit for laser-printer output, but it’s amongthe best we’ve seen from dye-sub printers.

The Bottom Line

The Tektronix Phaser 440 is easy to set up,fast enough to satisfy the color-printingdemands of most workgroups, and inex-pensive enough to appeal to budget-minded business managers. Output qualityis excellent for continuous-tone images andquite acceptable for line art and text. Allthings considered, Tektronix has produceda winner. / Roman Victor Loyola

special modified version of the LaserWriter7.1.2 printer driver, which provides accessto paper sizes and color-correction modes,and a set of utilities for color correction.The printer offers several built-in color-correction modes for press matching —

commercial, SWOP, SNAP, and Euroscale— and two for photographic use — VividBlues and Simulate Display. Tektronix alsoprovides PostScript Printer Discriptions(PPDs) for use with the LaserWriter 8driver and supplies a Photoshop Export fil-ter that speeds printing by bypassing thePostScript interpreter and sending data di-rectly to the printer.

The Phaser 440 also comes with TekColorPhotofine, which improves the resolutionfor text and line art and enhances colorshading for continuous-tone images, whichhelps improve skin tones and the like.

Sibling Rivalry

To find out just how much faster the Phaser440 is than its predecessor, the Phaser IISDX,we used a variety of test documents — acomplex Adobe Illustrator document, a 7-MB Adobe Photoshop document contain-ing a photographic image with skin tones, aQuarkXPress document containing differ-ent types of files (such as TIFF and PICT),and a five-page Microsoft PowerPointdocument incorporating business graph-ics. Our test platform was a Quadra 650

Tektronix Phaser 440Rating: mmmmhPrice: $7,995 (list).

Pros: Plug-and-play setup. Impressive speedfor dye-sub printing. Excellent outputquality for continuous-tone images.

Cons: Extra RAM required for four-colorprinting.

Company: Tektronix Color Printing andImaging Division, Wilsonville, OR;800-835-6100 or 503-682-7377.


L ABSZD

Compact and fast for a dye-sub printer, the $7,995 Phaser440, from Tektronix, is a good choice for workgroups lookingfor affordably priced high-quality color printing.

BIGGER ISN’T ALWAYS BETTER, andthat’s especially true for printers when itcomes to form factor and price. The color-

printer experts at Tektronixhave designed a successorto their acclaimed Phaser

IISDX dye-sublimation printer that’s notonly cheaper and smaller but also faster.The new Phaser 440 is a great office printerfor workgroups that need near-photo-graphic quality for full-bleed letter-sizedoutput. And the best news of all is the cost— at a list price of $7,995, the Phaser 440 isseveral thousand dollars cheaper than thePhaser IISDX.

Speed Factor

The Phaser 440 comes equipped with aspeedy new two-page-per-minute Sharpengine, Adobe PostScript Level 2, and anAMD 29000 RISC processor. LocalTalk, RS-232, SCSI, and parallel ports are standard,and an EtherTalk option is available for$495. The printer’s universal paper tray ac-cepts letter- and A4-sized paper as well as anew size Tektronix calls letter extra. Severalinches wider and longer than letter-sizedpaper, letter-extra paper lets the Phaser 440print full-bleed 8.5-x-11-inch images. Forthose who need more than the single papertray, an assembly with a lower tray is avail-able for $495.

The Phaser 440 comes standard with 16MB of RAM — enough to support letter-and A4-sized images printed in three colors(cyan, magenta, and yellow). If you want toprint letter-sized images using four colors(cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), you’llneed 32 MB of RAM. Tektronix sells a 16-MB RAM-upgrade kit for $1,595.

The most intimidating aspect of usingdye-sub printers is setup, which may in-volve external RIP boxes, SCSI configura-tions, and maybe even a host Mac to run asoftware interpreter. The Phaser 440, how-ever, is one of the easiest dye-sub printers toset up. You simply install the ribbon in thetransfer roll tray, slide the tray into theprinter, load the paper, and select a protocoland network connection.

The Phaser 440 software comprises a


FirstClass 2.5 / SoftArc’s versatilesoftware wins high marks for e-mail,conferencing, and BBSs.

and routing information. With the excep-tion of a conflict with Apple’s ModernMemory Manager, our server installationworked flawlessly. Windows client softwareis available that allows seamless inter-operability among Mac and Windows us-ers, but we didn’t test it.

The administrator has full access to theFirstClass server and its Post Offices from

any Mac on the network. As the administra-tor, you can add or delete FirstClass usersand define their access privileges. You cre-ate and control the content of the BBSs (of-ten called public folders on e-mail sys-tems). You can also give individual users,such as BBS-forum sysops, full control overconferencing or live chat sessions. Becauseof all the setup and configuration options,we found it easy to misconfigure clients andconferences, even though the extensivedocumentation clearly explains featuresand options. For those who need it, Soft-Arc’s tech support is excellent.

Security is a problem, however. AlthoughFirstClass encrypts all data as it passesthrough the system, the files on the serverare not encrypted, so you have to keep theserver in a secure location where userswon’t have access to it. The administratorhas full access to all files. We’d like to seeconsistent encryption schemes that providedata security throughout the system.

The FirstClass server software costs only$95 and comes with licenses for two regularusers (that is, users who have access boththrough the network and via modem); eachadditional license costs $15 to $79, depend-ing on how many licenses you buy at once.

Licenses for dial-in access cost consider-ably less — only $2.50 to $8 per license. Youcan distribute the client software freely.

If your users are familiar with Macs, us-ing the client software should come natu-rally. It looks like the Finder, with a floatingtool palette for creating, reading, and send-ing mail. Files and folders can be viewed asicons or stacked according to name, size,kind, label, or date. FirstClass also comeswith a default help conference that installson the server: Users can enter this confer-ence and read topics about using FirstClass.Additionally, a modem script that comeswith the client software logs a user on to

SoftArc’s information-and-support BBS.The client software doesn’t have BalloonHelp for quick reference.

The Bottom Line

With the introduction of FirstClass 2.5,SoftArc has successfully created a compre-hensive e-mail system with direct and re-mote access, a practical live-conferencingtool, and a state-of-the-art BBS. Its excel-lent features and fantastic reliability makeFirstClass shine as the premier groupwareapplication. / Blake Roberts

FirstClass 2.5Rating: mmmmPrice: FirstClass server software, $95;5-user license, $395; 1,000-user license,$14,995 (list).

Pros: Tightly integrated e-mail,conferencing, and BBS capabilities.Wide variety of setup and user options.Cross-platform capability.

Cons: Incompatible with Apple’s ModernMemory Manager. No data encryptionon server.

Company: SoftArc, Markham, ON, Canada;905-415-7000.


Whether youuse it as a BBSor an e-mailsystem, filesand messagesare easy toaccess withSoftArc’sFirstClass.

FIRSTCLASS’ STELLAR ABILITIES as aBBS (bulletin-board system) are wellknown, but the program’s other groupwaretalents, such as e-mail and conferencing,have mostly been overlooked. In its latestversion, FirstClass fortifies its e-mail andconferencing abilities as well as its robustBBS architecture.

In-House BBS

To broaden FirstClass’ appeal, SoftArc hasadded e-mail features that make the pro-gram a feasible alternative to MicrosoftMail or CE Software’s QuickMail for manyusers. FirstClass users can now unsendmessages, automatically reply to or forwardreceived messages, tag messages for privatedelivery and route them over specific gate-ways, and create their own address books.The forms-generation tool lets an adminis-trator create personalized forms for anykind of communication. In our tests, allthese features worked flawlessly. SinceFirstClass works as a BBS as well, dialing infor e-mail messages was easier than withQuickMail Remote.

As a BBS, FirstClass offers many of thesame features that commercial on-line ser-vices such as America Online and Compu-Serve provide. FirstClass users have a pass-word and a personal mailbox and are able tosend and receive correspondence. They alsohave access to global information, such as adiscussion board, and are able to partici-pate in live chat sessions. Optional protocoltools enable users to send faxes, access SQLand DAL databases, and connect to theInternet. FirstClass comes with an exten-sive selection of files to facilitate modemconnections.

Groupware Deluxe

Whether you use FirstClass as an e-mailsystem, conferencing program, BBS, orcombination of any of these, you install it ona server and use the Tools application toconfigure it, setting, for instance, usernames and dial-in or network access. Afteryou’ve set up the FirstClass server, the PostOffice folder — or folders — holds all mail


REVIEWS Telecommunications / Sound-Editing Programs

White Knight 12.0 / Updatedtelecommunications program rideshigh in the saddle.

A LONGTIME FAVORITE of Mac enthusi-asts, White Knight was the first telecommu-nications program for the Mac. The latestversion boasts another distinction — it’sthe first full-featured telecommunicationsprogram available for the Power Mac. In

addition, White Knight 12.0 supports awider range of terminal emulations thanthe previous version, including VT200 andPC-ANSI color screens, and it offers sup-port for Apple’s Communications Toolbox,Apple events, publish-and-subscribe, andAppleScript. No matter where you want togo on the information superhighway you’veheard so much about, White Knight 12.0has the tools to get you there.

White Knight is quite serviceable forknowledgeable users and its scripting fa-cilities are among the most powerful we’veseen in a telecommunications program, butits interface, including double-key com-mand equivalents, remains a disappoint-ment. Marginal improvements aside, WhiteKnight still looks and feels much like it didwhen it was first released.

Scripting Prowess

White Knight’s best-known feature is itsbuilt-in scripting language, which is docu-mented superbly in the manual. The pro-gram calls scripts procedures, and when itcompiles them, it saves a source-code fileseparately from the object-code file. Thisapproach has advantages: Like a locked

White Knight 12.0Rating: mmmhPrice: $139 (list).

Pros: Advanced scripting capabilities.Well-written manual. New macro buttons.Encryption and password protection forphone books and scripts.

Cons: Clumsy interface. No navigation tools.

Company: The FreeSoft Company, BeaverFalls, PA; 412-846-2700.


template, the source-code file cannot bechanged unless you reprogram and re-compile it, but you can change the object-code file appropriately for different BBSs orcall-out locations. For further security, thesource-code files are encrypted and pass-

word-protected, soBBS-account infor-mation — your log-on password, forinstance — isn’teasily accessible.

For those whodo not find thescripting languagepowerful enough,White Knight nowincludes a BASIC-language exten-sion. A developer’stool kit is availableseparately for peo-

ple who want to create custom applications,new modem drivers, custom dialog boxes,and RCMDs (program extensions much likeHyperCard’s XCMDs) in C or Pascal.

Quick Access

When you use White Knight to sign on toyour favorite BBS for the first time, youbuild a Settings file containing the proto-cols and modem speeds — for example, 8data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, 9,600 bps —for each service. As you log on to a BBS, youcan use the Write for Me option, whichrecords actions such as typing your log-onpasswords and retrieving mail and savesthem as procedures.

White Knight supports as many as 30easy-to-program macro buttons, which youcan employ to execute a variety of proce-dures. For those who frequently capturetext, White Knight’s customizable text fil-ters are useful for editing out unwantedtext, such as UNIX line feeds. If you regu-larly engage in on-line conferences or livechat sessions, the Buffered Keyboard can bea face-saving assistant — when activated, itallows you to check spelling and grammarand quickly review what you’re about to say.

With FreeSoft’s White Knight 12.0, you can dial in to any BBS.With a phone book, you can also have the program dial several busyBBSs in succession and connect you via the first free line.

Automatic Dialing

White Knight’s phone books let you store allthe numbers to your BBSs in one place, withlinks to the correct settings and proceduresfor each one. Each entry also has a notesfield, in which you can keep your accountnumber, log-on password, and other notes,for future reference. You can password-protect and encrypt your phone books inorder to keep information away from pry-ing eyes.

You can set up phone books for varioussorts of BBS surfing — for instance, youmight have one phone book for work,containing procedures for checking a busi-ness BBS for news and downloading Tid-BITS from CompuServe, and another phonebook for home, for dialing in to chat onAmerica Online and downloading the eventsschedule from your Mac user group’s BBS. Ifyou tend to dial in to several BBSs that arefrequently busy, you can mark them andhave White Knight dial in to each, one afteranother in the background, until a lineopens up.

Although it can connect you quite well,White Knight doesn’t provide any specialtools for navigating the Internet; for that,you need to avail yourself of Eudora orMosaic.

The Bottom Line

From a purely interface perspective, WhiteKnight may not be the most attractive tele-communications program for the Mac, butit is functional and powerful. With the widerange of terminal emulations it supports,you can dial in to just about any BBS. Itsscripting facilities are particularly impres-sive, especially since it works so well withthe Macintosh operating system, whichmakes it an attractive choice for power us-ers and developers. / Mitzi Waltz


SoundEdit 16 / CD-quality audio on amonaural Mac.

WITH AV TECHNOLOGY and PowerPCsadvancing the art of noise on the Mac, ev-erything makes some kind of sound thesedays. Much of it is of the 16-bit, or audio-CD-quality, variety. As Sound Manager 3.0-aware software (Sound Manager is in-cluded), SoundEdit 16 lets you play and edit44.1-kHz, 16-bit sound files on your Maceven if it isn’t a 16-bit-capable AV Mac,Power Mac, or 500-series PowerBook andyou don’t have a 16-bit-sound card. You can

even use SoundEdit 16 to turn 16-bitsounds into 8-bit, 22-kHz sounds that canplay on any Mac with little loss in soundquality.

SoundEdit 16 still has the same Controlspalette — with Record, Stop, Pause, andPlay buttons — and waveform-editing win-dow as in previous versions of SoundEdit,but new features abound beneath the re-fined surface. Among the best is QuickTimesupport (including support for QuickTime2.0), which lets you record and edit soundand synchronize it with QuickTime movies,so you can add a sound track to your for-merly silent productions. Frames from aQuickTime movie appear directly over themain audio window, so even first-time mul-timedia artists can add sound to audio.Since it is a sound utility, not a MIDI pro-gram, SoundEdit cannot sync MIDI files toQuickTime 2.0.

SoundEdit 16 doesn’t directly supportaudio CDs, unlike the sound-editing pro-gram Audioshop 2.0, from Opcode. True,you can open audio tracks with QuickTime2.0 and convert them to audio-only Quick-Time movies, which SoundEdit can recog-nize. Alternatively, you can set your CD-

ROM player as your sound-in source; playan audio CD, using the AppleCD AudioPlayer; and record the audio, using Sound-Edit. But direct support would be muchmore convenient.

Widely Resounding

Welcome additions to SoundEdit are itsability to open, convert, and save files in 11formats, including Windows WAV; an ex-pandable control panel with buttons for

nine sound effects, includ-ing amplify, fade-in and-out, and equalize; and theability to export spectrumdata in tab-delimited for-mat for analysis in a data-analysis or spreadsheet pro-gram. The new effects toolsinclude Normalize, whichamplifies sound to its max-imum limit without dis-torting it; Delay, which re-

peats a selected sound once; Emphasize,which brings out high-frequency soundsfrom a noisy background; and Crop, whichlets you select a portion of a sound’s wave-form and delete everything except the sec-tion you’ve selected.

With all these new features, you mightexpect SoundEdit 16 to be slower thanSoundEdit Pro, but we found it faster —and even more stable. And the next versionof SoundEdit will be Power Mac-native, let-ting you apply sound effects even faster. Ifyou ever have to create or edit sounds, youwon’t do better than using SoundEdit 16./ Ken Gruberman

SoundEdit 16 1.0.1Rating: mmmmhPrice: $379 (list).

Company: Macromedia, San Francisco, CA;800-288-4797 or 415-252-2000.

Pros: Plays and edits 16-bit sound. SupportsQuickTime and multiple file formats.More sound effects than previous version.

Cons: Does not directly support audio-CDfiles.


Whether or not you have a 16-bit-capable Mac, you canplay and edit CD-quality sound with SoundEdit 16.


REVIEWS Graphics & Design / Personal Info Managers

Alias Sketch! 2.0 / New Illustrator-styletools make 3-D modeling easier.

you had to create an extrusion path by pull-ing out your shape freehand.

New floating palettes containing fre-quently used commands, such as Snap toGrid, also make working with Sketch!easier, even though they tend to cluttersmall screens.

You can change settings for any of the 3-Dtools (extrude, sweep, loft, and revolve) bydouble-clicking on the tool in the Toolbarpalette, just as you do in Illustrator. For ex-ample, you can set the extrusion tool to al-ways cap the ends of an extruded object.

Picking up an object and aligning it withanother is difficult; however, the new align-ment dialog box helps you get around theproblem — it gives you several options foraligning selected objects to a live surface,including aligning to the center or to theside of the surface. The Resize dialog boxgives you finer controls than the resize toolby letting you change the size of an object asa percentage or a multiple of its current size.Sadly, unlike most other 3-D packages,Sketch! doesn’t have similar dialog boxesfor letting you position or rotate objectswith numerical precision.

Bright Lights

Good lighting is an important part of a ren-derer, and the ability to preview the resultsof different lighting can save hours of ren-dering time. Hidden in the Object Info pal-ette, the new Light Settings dialog box gives

IMPROVED TOOLS and a better interfacethat includes new floating palettes, interac-tive dialog boxes, and lighting previewsmake the latest version of Alias Sketch! al-most as easy to use as Adobe Illustrator.New drawing and modeling tools give youthe ability to create just about any surface in

3-D. And running native on a Power Mac,Sketch! renders the 3-D models you createalmost five times as fast as the 680x0 ver-sion running on a Quadra 950.

3-D Illustrator

Replacing the previous version’s awkwardCurve-o-matic tool, Sketch! 2.0’s pen tool,which you use to draw Bézier curves, func-tions just like that in Illustrator. You caneven create 3-D Bézier curves by movingthe pen tool up or down the z-axis. Thesecurves can act as holes that will appearwhen you render your image, even thoughthey don’t trim (cut actual holes into) thesurface.

Sketch! has one of the nicest skinningimplementations we’ve seen. With the loft(skinning) tool, you can create curved orstraight connections among a series of ribs,such as a barrel around staves or a ridgedand curved bottle.

The new scissors tool can separate sur-faces, letting you apply different textures toeach surface. Sketch!’s extrusion tool canpull a shape along a path you’ve set with thepen tool. In previous versions of Sketch!,

Alias Sketch! 2.0Rating: mmmmPrice: $695 (list).

Pros: Powerful and easy-to-use skinning.Interactive lighting previews. New 2- and3-D pen tool.

Cons: No numerically precise positioning orrotation of objects. No multiple-isoparmmanipulation. Only single-texture maps.

Company: Alias Research, Toronto, ON,Canada; 800-447-2542 or 416-362-9181.


parameters for brightness, spotlight an-gling, color, decay, and drop-off. This dialogbox has a unique preview window thatshows how either one light or all lights, aswell as the shadows they cast, have an effecton a scene. This preview alone will save youcountless hours of tedious rendering andrerendering trying to get just the properlighting.

The native Power Mac version of Sketch!thunders through the rendering processfour to five times as fast as the 680x0 ver-sion on a Quadra 950. On a Power Mac, evenprint-resolution ray tracing takes less thantwo hours. You can also distribute render-ing over a bank of Macs. If you’re usingQuadras, this offers significant speed gains,but if you do this with Power Macs, youdon’t see much speed improvement. Aliashas promised a fix for this problem by theend of the year.

We have few things on our wish list forSketch! We would like to be able to manipu-late more than one isoparm at a time, so wecould more easily create symmetrical ef-fects. We would like to be able to controlBézier curves along several points, as withStrataVision 3d. And if Sketch! providedmultiple texture maps and procedural sur-faces, it would be easier to create the sort ofrendering effects you can get with RayDream Designer or Specular’s Infini-D.

The Bottom Line

Sketch!’s new tools and its interactive dialogboxes and previews as well as its speed onthe Power Macintosh make it one of thefront-runners in 3-D design. With its im-proved feature set and its ability to exportimages in a wide variety of formats, it’s anexcellent choice for still-image 3-D artistsor animators who are looking for an intui-tive modeler. / Sean J. Safreed

Convenient newfloating palettescontainingcommonly usedcommands makethe new versionof Alias Sketch!easier to use.


FastPace Instant Contact / Just anotherPIM? Not quite.

ELBOWING ITS WAY into the crowdedPIM arena, Foresight Technology’s FastPaceInstant Contact is a multiuser contact man-ager aimed at workgroups. FastPace is animble performer with a serviceable fea-ture set, but the initial release is missingseveral handy tools that competing prod-ucts provide.

Setting the Pace

A FastPace contacts database can hold asmany as 50,000 records. Each record comeswith the expected fields for notes, homeand work addresses, and phone numbers(automatic phone dialing is supported) andincludes 16 customizable fields. If you’reusing another contact manager and decideto switch to FastPace, intelligent file im-porting makes it easy to get your existingdata into FastPace.

FastPace gives you lots of options for con-figuring the program to work the way youdo. To categorize contacts, you can assignany number of tags to them. In addition, forany field, you can change the name, assign apop-up list of common values, and specifythe format.

The program also gives you plenty oftools for managing your contacts, includingfour types of searches (single-, multiple-,and complex-field and tag), highlyconfigurable list views, automatic dupli-cate-file detection, and file-merge. If you’rerunning System 7.5 or have the MacintoshDrag and Drop extension installed, you cancopy contacts from one database to anothersimply by dragging and dropping.

FastPace’s interface is logically organizedand well designed. List and detail windowsdisplay button bars that give you handy ac-cess to commonly used commands. Thewindows also use organizer tabs, similar tothose in Microsoft Word and Excel, that al-low the program to group several relatedselections within a single window, mini-mizing the number of windows that appearon-screen. To help you learn the functionsof buttons and tabs, the program displayshelpful context-sensitive tips on the rightside of the button bar.

For printing, FastPace supports all the

common label, contact-list, and address-book formats. An integrated word proces-sor provides mail-merge and template-based options.

Workgroups can share FastPace contactdatabases on AppleTalk networks — noserver is required.

Missing Links

Two important features are missing fromFastPace. There’s no easy access to fre-quently used contact information such aswhat Now Contact’s QuickContact or Dyno-dex’s DynoFind provides. And links to cal-endar programs are also absent. Accordingto the company, the latter will be availablein the version 1.1 upgrade, which should beavailable by the time you read this.

Another disappointment is the manual,which comes with a sparse index and a for-mat better suited to a tutorial than to a help-ful reference guide.

FastPace requires a Mac with at least 4MB of RAM, running System 7.0 or later. Anative Power Mac version ships in the box.

The Bottom Line

FastPace Instant Contact is a well-designedcontact manager with a strong feature setand peppy searching and sorting. But con-sidering its lack of a menu-bar icon for fastaccess to contacts and the absence of linksto calendar programs, we were hard-pressed to find a compelling reason to rec-ommend it over more-established contactmanagers such as Now Contact or Touch-Base Pro. / Jeffrey Sullivan

FastPace Instant Contact 1.0Rating: mmmhPrice: $79.95 (list).

Pros: Flexible, customizable fields. Fast.Multiuser capabilities. Built-in wordprocessor.

Cons: No links to calendar programs. Lacksmenu-bar icon for fast access to contacts.Poorly indexed manual.

Company: Foresight Technology, Fort Worth,TX; 800-701-9393 or 817-731-4444.



REVIEWS Multimedia

Digital Chisel / Pierian Spring’seducational-authoring tool passesthe test.

ARE YOU TOO BUSY TO MASTER the insand outs of a sophisticated multimediaauthoring tool? Pierian Spring Softwaremay have just the product for you, espe-cially if you’re an educator.

Its program Digital Chisel carves outnew territory in the field of multimediaauthoring, with sophisticated tools that aresurprisingly simple to learn and use. Noscripting is required, and special featuresenable you to create interactive lessons andexams, making Digital Chisel an easy andideal tool for teachers and training profes-sionals alike.

Media Maven

Digital Chisel lives up to its multimedia bill-ing — it supports just about any type of me-dia you can think of. The program comeswith a paint and a draw module, tools forboth path- and frame-based animation,and support for QuickTime movies and forsound (audio CD, record and play, and textto speech). You can even use it to controlvideodisc players.

The program’s real strength lies in theease with which you are able to combinevarious multimedia elements into a presen-tation (a presentation is called a project inDigital Chisel-speak). Every project com-prises a series of screens that you create.When users run a completed project, theprogram displays the screens in the orderyou have specified — you can either set thescreens to play automatically, with a speci-fied time interval between the screens, orusers can select the screens that they wantto view. In order to enhance your projects,Digital Chisel allows you to add transitioneffects, such as wipes and fades, betweenscreens.

For your interactive projects, any on-screen object can serve as a button that trig-gers one or more linked events when usersclick on it. For instance, if they click on apicture of an animal, they first hear the ani-mal’s sound and then view a separate textwindow that describes the animal’s habitat.If they click on a word in the text window,they will get a definition of the word. You

can also link events to screens; this meansthat when a user calls up a screen, it triggersan event. Although you are able to set upsimilar interactive projects with Hyper-Card, Digital Chisel simplifies the processconsiderably by employing pop-up dialogboxes and menus rather than a scriptinglanguage.

Pop Quiz

What makes Digital Chisel especially ap-pealing to educators is its ability to createinteractive examinations. The programprovides templates for true/false, multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, and matching-item questions. In addition, you can addsounds that indicate right or wrong an-swers, and you can even choose to programthe exam to branch to a tutorial screenwhenever a student supplies an incorrectanswer.

After a student has completed an exam,Digital Chisel records the test results in itsbuilt-in database. Unfortunately, with thecurrent version, you are able to view onlyone student record at a time — there’s noway to combine all the test results into aclass list, not even via a text file exported toanother database program. The companyplans to address this shortcoming in thenext release.

Digital Chisel is one of the simplest-to-use programs we have encountered for

combining sound, QuickTime movies, andother elements into interactive projects.The hard part for most users will be creat-ing their sound and movie files fromscratch. Digital Chisel helps by providing aCD-ROM chock-full of sounds, pictures,and movies that are organized into libraryfiles. You simply drag elements from a li-brary and drop them into your projectscreens.

Basic Tooling

Although Digital Chisel is hardly what youwould call a slouch in the features depart-ment, you shouldn’t expect its tools to beon the same level as those of advancedauthoring programs such as AuthorwareProfessional and CourseBuilder. Comparedto Digital Chisel, each of these programs of-fers more-powerful animation capabilities,more-sophisticated tools for tracking stu-dent performance, and more-robust fea-tures for creating projects with conditionalpathways. However, Authorware Profes-sional and CourseBuilder are also consider-ably more difficult to master, and they costhundreds of dollars more than DigitalChisel.

Overall, we were impressed with DigitalChisel’s design and ease of use; neverthe-less, we would like to see improvement insome areas. The program isn’t always asflexible as it should be — for instance,when we were designing projects, we dis-covered that we had to constantly shift be-tween the browse tool and the pointer tool,an annoying and inconvenient method.Similarly, dragging multiple objects fromlibraries to screens was tedious, because we

Its simple-to-use interfacemakes DigitalChisel a goodchoice if you’renot up to thedemands of amore sophisti-cated multimediaauthoring tool.


program wouldsometimes quit un-expectedly. PierianSpring Softwarewas unable to iden-tify the cause of thisproblem, but wesuspect that thereis an extensionconflict.

To achieve opti-mal performancewhen running Digi-tal Chisel, you willneed to use a 68040Macintosh such asan LC 475 or a

Quadra 630 and a minimum of 8 MB ofRAM. For distribution of your projects, theprogram comes bundled with a royalty-freerun-time player.

The Bottom Line

Digital Chisel gets high marks as a tool forcreating a variety of interactive presenta-tions. The program combines an easy-to-

use interface with surprisingly powerfulauthoring tools — all at an affordable price.Its templates for creating interactive examsmake Digital Chisel an especially attractivechoice for educators, although the pro-gram’s built-in database for recording examresults requires some improvement, espe-cially in the area of report generation.Nonetheless, if you’re a teacher who hasbeen thinking about taking the plunge intomultimedia authoring, Digital Chisel maybe the program that finally gets you in thewater. / Ted Landau

Digital Chisel 1.2Rating: mmmmPrice: Single copy, $159.95; 5-user pack,$399.95; site license, $995 (list).

Pros: Simple to learn and use.Interactive exam templates.

Cons: Some tools inconvenient to use.

Company: Pierian Spring Software,Portland, OR 97201; 800-472-8578 or503-222-2044.


couldn’t view the scrolling library list andan object preview simultaneously — wehad to select a name from the list, previewthe object in another window, drag theobject to a screen, and then start scrollingfrom the top of the list again to find anotherobject.

We also encountered a bug in DigitalChisel. When we created new projects, the

Interactive exams are easy to create with Digital Chisel.


OmniPage Professional 5.0 / Powerfuland faster, Caere’s OCR stalwart scoreshigh on accuracy.

PLAYING CATCH-UP with the competi-tion, the latest release of OmniPage Profes-sional features a much improved interfacethat makes it easier to use than earlier ver-sions. And even with new features designedto improve accuracy, the program is fasterthan before. It also runs native on the PowerMac.

Click and Read

OmniPage Professional’s newinterface lacks the elegance ofTypeReader’s, but it’s a majorimprovement over the previousversion’s. A new icon-basedtool bar gives you fast access toall of OmniPage Professional’ssettings and processing op-tions. Particularly convenient,the large Auto button lets youscan a page, automatically zonetext blocks, and recognize apage with one mouse click. Ifyou prefer to do your scanning,zoning, and recognizing sepa-rately, three other large buttons let you per-form the functions one at a time.

Underneath the revamped design, Omni-Page Professional — always a top per-former in its ability to accurately turnscanned type into editable text — has a fewnew additions that should improve its accu-racy even more. The new 3D OCR technol-ogy, unique to this program, recognizesgray parts of images and type, effectivelysharpening the ability to recognize poor-quality pages such as faxes. AnyPage isCaere’s version of Hewlett-Packard’s Accu-Page technology; both adjust contrast forOCR on every region of a page and are use-ful for scanning text that’s on shaded or col-ored backgrounds. AnyPage works with awide variety of scanners — if you have agray-scale Hewlett-Packard scanner, youcan use both AccuPage and AnyPage. Un-fortunately, if you choose to do so, you haveto switch between two Chooser drivers, onefor AccuPage and one for AnyPage. Omni-Page Professional also has a CompoundNeural System feature, which is supposed to

improve recognition of distorted or brokenletters.

OmniPage Professional 5.0 has severalfeatures that are particularly useful forhigh-end work. You can automatically pro-cess a multipage document fed throughyour scanner with an automatic document

feeder. OmniPage Professional can scandouble-sided pages — that is, one side,such as the odd pages, first and then theother side, such as the even pages — andrun the recognized text together correctly.You can also defer recognition of a scannedfile or a batch of scanned files. You can savea template with designated zones for textand graphics, a handy feature if you regu-larly need to scan a standard form. Best ofall, you can train the program by verifyingletters it recognizes and specifying the cor-rect letter for incorrectly recognized char-acters. You can then save the training filesso that OmniPage Professional will moreaccurately recognize characters on poor-quality pages. OmniPage Professional canscan both text and graphics during thesame pass and, of course, still has a supe-rior text editor for cleaning up recognizedpages before you save them in a word-processing format.

Caere’s Image Assistant, previously aseparate product, allows you to edit 24-bit-color images and replaces the old gray-scale

A new icon tool bar lets you scan, zone, and recognizea page with just the click of a mouse in OmniPageProfessional 5.0, but you still can’t retain the format ofthe original page in the Mac version.

REVIEWS OCR


Power Mac OCRA typist can’t retype a business letter in a minute, but running native ona Power Mac, OmniPage Professional 5.0 can — and accurately at that. In allcases, 3D OCR technology was used.

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Graphic Editor in version 2.0. Although ithas a more sophisticated palette of toolsthan Graphic Editor, Image Assistant is notas flexible or powerful as Photoshop.

Speed Reader

We tested OmniPage Professional with a va-riety of common document types: a busi-ness letter printed on cotton stock, a glossymagazine page, a poor-quality fax, and anewspaper article. When it came to accu-racy, OmniPage Professional did quite well,correctly recognizing more than 95 percentof the characters in almost all the tests.However, even new technologies such as 3DOCR and Compound Neural System im-proved accuracy only very slightly.

Our biggest surprise during testing wasthat the 3D OCR technology, which we ex-pected would slow down the recognitionprocess, was faster in recognition thanOmniPage without 3D OCR. On the PowerMac 8100, OmniPage Professional recog-nized characters up to twice as fast as on aQuadra 840AV.

OmniPage Professional still isn’t as flex-ible as its competitors. You cannot, forinstance, scan multiple pages, recognizethem, and then — once you’ve tweakedOmniPage Professional’s settings for betteraccuracy — return to selected pages, haveOmniPage Professional recognize themagain, and replace them in the final textdocument without quitting the session.

OmniPage Professional’s weakest area ispage-layout retention. The program wasunable to retain some basic page-layout for-matting, such as the relative position ofparagraphs on a page; in contrast, the $99Xerox Desktop Document Systems’ Text-Bridge (see review, September ’94, page 44)managed to retain page-layout formatting.The Windows version of OmniPage Pro-fessional has Caere’s True Page technology,

a scheme that lets you retain and edit thecontents and layout of a page, but when itcame to including the technology in theMac 5.0 version, a Caere representative saidthat the company had to choose, given itsresources, between making the productPower Mac-native or providing True Page.Caere says True Page will be incorporatedinto the Mac version in a future update.

The Bottom Line

Caere has done a fine job with OmniPageProfessional 5.0, adding powerful featuresthat make it the top program for high-endusers. The templates for zoning and the newtool bar were instant hits with us, althoughwe were disappointed about the delay inpage-layout format retention. The programalso has some high-end features few of itscompetitors have, such as the built-ingraphics editor and the ability to save train-ing files. However, if you have only modestOCR needs, there’s no reason to shell out theextra cash when you can get one of Caere’sother OCR programs, OmniPage 5.0, whichdoesn’t have the 3D OCR technology or zonetemplates, for $495, or TextBridge for $99./ Gregory Wasson

OmniPage Professional 5.0Rating: mmmmPrice: $695; upgrade from version 2.0,$129 (list).

Company: Caere, Los Gatos, CA;800-535-7226 or 408-395-7000.

Pros: Useful, well-designed tool bar. Newtechnologies for recognizing poor-qualitytext. Many high-end features such as zonetemplates, trainability, and editor for24-bit-color graphics.

Cons: No page-layout retention. Less flexiblethan competitors in handling changesduring scanning or recognition process.


0 10050 150

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Nok Nok 2.0 / Security andspeed in a file-sharing utilityIF SPEED AND SECURITY concerns have youshying away from file sharing, then look no fur-ther than Nok Nok 2.0, an ingenious utility that

gives you additional control over the way file sharing works.Monitor Your Mac. Nok Nok’s main control panel lets you monitorwho is logging on to your machine, set a maximum connect timefor registered users and guests, and even maintain a log of yourmachine’s file-sharing activity. Perhaps the most welcome securityfeature is the ability to display the names of the users or machinesthat log on to your Mac — even if they sign on as guests.Accelerated Connections. Normally, your Mac allots only about 50percent of its processor power to file sharing, resulting in ratherpoky network performance.With Nok Nok 2.0, you canmake your Mac devote asmuch as 100 percent of itsprocessing to file sharing, ef-fectively doubling the data-transfer rate. Since Nok Nokhas separate settings for theowner and for other users, you can get as much speed out of yourMac as possible when accessing it from a remote location while al-lowing guests as little as 10 percent total of your Mac’s processingpower, so they won’t slow down your Mac while you’re using it.

Bundled with Nok Nok 2.0 is the utility Lookout!, which allowsyou to see what version of AppleShare is running on the variousmachines on a network and whether they accept guests. However,Lookout! has trouble if your data-transfer rate with AppleTalk is tooslow (for instance, if you have a heavy data load on your network)and will disable itself. The AG Group plans to correct this problemin Lookout! 2.0, due by March. / Christopher Karas

Nok Nok 2.0 mmmm / Price: $50 (list). Company: The AG Group, Walnut Creek,CA; 800-466-2447 or 510-937-7900. Reader Service: Circle #413.

QUICK CLICKS

Once you start digging into KPT Bryce’s fertile soil, you’ll be im-pressed with the program’s finesse. For instance, the textures youapply to scene elements are more sophisticated than those of tradi-tional 3-D texture maps, responding to changes in the elements’

orientation, slope, and elevation.Slow but Superb. KPT Bryce’s ray tracing tradesspeed for quality; a complicated scene can take sev-eral hours to render. A native Power Mac version,which will cut down rendering time, should be avail-able by the time you read this.

We were disappointed that KPT Bryce is strictlystill-life (a version with animation capabilities is being planned).The program also has no trees, which might not be important toyou, except that it can’t import or export DXF files.

If you yearn to create your own 3-D landscapes, you can createimpressive computer-generated still-life landscapes with KPTBryce, whether or not you’re artistically gifted. / Jeffrey Sullivan

KPT Bryce 1.0 mmmm / Price: $199 (list). Company: HSC Software, Carpenteria,CA; 805-566-6200. Reader Service: Circle #412.

KPT Bryce / 3-D world building made easyALL YOU HAVE to do is choose your favorite combination of sky,ground, and mountains to create exquisite natural and supernatu-ral landscapes in KPT Bryce, an easy-to-use terrain-generationtool. With an interface long on high-quality picturesand short on traditional text-and-button layouts,KPT Bryce is a lot like Kai’s Power Tools, another HSCSoftware product (see review, August ’94, page 54).Both programs take some getting used to, but onceyou’re up to speed, they’re a joy to work with.A New Horizon. Starting from either a preset land-scape or a blank screen, you add typical landscape elements to cre-ate islands, mountains, and chasms. You can create terrains or im-port any PICT file and use its brightness as elevation data. You canalso add less natural geometric elements such as spheres, pyra-mids, squares, and infinite planes. Once you’ve created your ter-rain, you can smooth, sharpen, or randomize it; merge it withanother PICT file; apply filters to it; or even erode it according torealistic water-flow algorithms.

PageTools / Additions on a tool barFOR THOSE WHO HAVE TO hunt for commands in Aldus Page-Maker or wish for easier ways to align text and graphics or zoom in,PageTools, a set of ten Additions for PageMaker 5.0, revamps Page-Maker’s interface and adds some useful automatization.PageMaker Tool Bar. If you like the customizable tool bars inMicrosoft Word, PageBar will be your favorite Addition in this set.Hundreds of PageMakercommands have iconicequivalents. You can remove the ones you never use and group to-gether related or similar functions.

The nine other PageTools Additions, accessible either throughthe tool bar or on the Aldus Additions menu, simplify commondesktop-publishing tasks. Among the most notable: PageRulersbrings up floating rulers — horizontal and vertical — that you canmove around to measure design elements. PageAlign aligns textblocks and graphics to page edges or other objects. You can removeall the guides on a page simultaneously, automatically place guidesaround a graphic, or duplicate guides throughout your “publica-tion” with PageGuides. PageThumb shows each page in your publi-cation as a thumbnail so you can make sure it’s the page you wantbefore you move to it. Along similar lines, PagePreview shows youthumbnail views of the first five pages of an unopened publication.PagePrinter indicates which pages have been edited since the lasttime you printed your publication and lets you check off whichpages you want to print instead of making you enter page numbers.

You get down to details but still see your whole page withPageZoom, which lets you select and magnify a section of a page asmuch as 800 percent. PageColors finds and replaces colors through-out your publication.

Each of these Additions is worthwhile enough to be sold sepa-rately; priced reasonably as a set, they’re valuable for any Page-Maker 5.0 user. / Mitzi Waltz

PageTools mmmm / Price: $129 (list). Company: Extensis, Portland, OR; 800-796-9798 or 503-274-2020. Reader Service: Circle #414.


AirNote / Message centralUSING A PAGER is a great way to get mes-sages when you’re on the road. However,although many pagers have alphanumericcapabilities, many people use themonly to send and receive phone num-bers, since finding the right softwareor contracting with an operator ser-vice for messaging can be every bit ascomplicated as setting up a networkat your office. To remedy the confu-sion, the AirNote pager system haseverything you need — a text pager,modem software, and free activationof PageNet network services andSkyTel operator services.

Using the AirNote paging system makesit easy to send and receive messages. Bycalling a toll-free number, you or your cli-ents can speak to an operator and pagepeople by name or PIN (personal identifica-tion number). The basic AirNote service,which costs $20 a month, includes freeInternet access and a twice-a-day news ser-vice, which sends you news or businessarticles on your pager. You can also buy ad-ditional services, including United Statesand international coverage, a personal toll-

free number, and voice mail. Another toll-free number gives you 24-hour-a-day cus-tomer service, for checking your billing,recalling messages sent within the last 99

hours, and finding out whether an areacode is within your paging area.

If you want to use your modem, you cansend e-mail messages containing as manyas 120 characters apiece to an AirNotepager. Each pager has an Internet address,such as your [email protected]. But youmight prefer using the easy-to-use Send-Note software, which has several featuresfor efficient messaging. You can save PINnumbers and names into a SendNote data-base, so you don’t have to remember yourcolleague’s address each time you need to

send that person a message. You can alsocreate a group of addresses and send a mes-sage to several pagers at once. And you cansave messages into a pop-up menu. For in-

stance, if meetings often change,you can save the message “Meetingchanged to” into the pop-up menu,pull it down, and enter the new timeand date before you send the messageto a group.One World, One Pager. If you haveother types of pagers and are lookingto increase your team’s communica-tions capability, you’ll be disap-pointed that SendNote works only

with the AirNote pager.The AirNote system is fine if you are just

starting out with pagers in your business orfor personal use, since you can easily ex-pand it. Unfortunately, unless you like hav-ing your software and services selected foryou, the AirNote service can’t give you theflexibility your business might need, par-ticularly if you already use other pagers orservices. / Loretta Beavers

AirNote mmmh / Price: $349 (list). Company: No-table Technologies, Oakland, CA; 800-732-9900 or510-208-4422. Reader Service: Circle #415.

StreetSmart / Stock trading the hard wayUSING STREETSMART, all you need is a Mac and a modem totrack your investments, get quotes, trade securities, and receivenews stories and research from Dow Jones and Standard & Poor’s.But there’s a catch: You have to put up with StreetSmart’s poorlydesigned interface.

StreetSmart, which includes a $25 commission rebate, one freehour each on the Dow Jones Market Monitor and Standard & Poor’sMarketScope, and one free company report, is available exclusivelythrough Charles Schwab. That means you have to have aCharles Schwab account for any on-line trading. (Youcan enter trades through other brokerages manually.)Hunting for Symbols. When you access Schwab’s main-frame computer, you have to look up the symbols for thesecurities you want to trade or get quotes for in the S&PStock Guide, a 256-page newsprint booklet printed inminuscule type. Since the financial-planning program Wealth-Builder (see Quick Clicks, June ’94, page 79) and America Online’sstock-trading service each have a built-in database of securitiessymbols, we were baffled by StreetSmart’s lack of one.

Furthermore, StreetSmart’s interface seriously needs improve-ment. There are too many windows, each duplicating some datafound in the others but none providing the whole story. For in-stance, the Positions Download and Transactions Download win-dows are both used to download data from Schwab’s main com-puter and each displays security names, symbols, and the number

of shares. The Transactions Download window also displays pur-chase and commission data missing from the Positions Downloadwindow. Adding a single button to the Transactions Downloadwindow might have adapted it to serve both purposes.

The tool bar that indicates on-line access does not give you asmuch information as a good telecommunications program: Forinstance, when you are logging on to the Schwab mainframe, youget little more information than a blinking chevron symbol and ashort message. And if you’re unsuccessful in logging on, you have

to close all translation windows before quitting the program — oryou will get an error message. It’s a pity that you’ll need it, but on thepositive side, Schwab’s technical support is superb.

Although at only $59, StreetSmart may sound like a good deal,you pay a price in usability and practicality. You’re better off gettingquotes and news from an on-line service such as America Online orCompuServe, calling your broker for trades, and tracking yourportfolio with WealthBuilder. / Darryl Lewis

StreetSmart 1.0 mm / Price: $59 (list). Company: Charles Schwab & Co., SanFrancisco, CA; 800-334-4455 or 415-627-7000. Reader Service: Circle #416.

QUICK CLICKS


Power Translator for Macintosh andSpanish Assistant / Lost in translationTHE MOST EFFICIENT way to translate foreign-language docu-ments on the Mac, until recently, was to use the computer as a dic-tionary stand. Now, if you have a bit of Spanish knowledge and a lotof disk space, MicroTac’s Spanish Assistant and Globalink’s PowerTranslator allow you to produce draft-quality Spanish-to-English and English-to-Spanish translations of mostbusiness documents in less time than you wouldneed with the pen, paper, and dictionary approach.

The two programs are similar in translationquality but vary in features. Power Translator has aunique voice-output feature that allows you to hearyour Spanish-to-English translations in English asthey happen. On the other hand, Spanish Assistant’s grammar helpis a plus and the program’s interactive translating mode is morecomplete than Power Translator’s. Spanish Assistant lets you gothrough all the possible meanings in the program’s dictionary toselect the translation that best fits the flavor of the sentence. PowerTranslator lets you stop translations to edit any awkward sentences,but it doesn’t suggest alternative word meanings.Big Brains. Each program needs a lot of hard-disk space. PowerTranslator takes up 17.5 MB on your hard disk; Spanish Assistant, 5MB. Ironically, Spanish Assistant, which ideally needs 4 MB ofRAM, is slower than Power Translator, which needs only 2 MB.

For the most complete translations with Spanish Assistant and ILLU

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Power Translator, you must add words and phrases to each pro-gram’s dictionary. You need a working knowledge of the Spanishlanguage and English grammar, since you have to type in the wordand its translation, select its part of speech, and specify the gram-matical rules that govern its use by deciphering and selecting codesfor them. This process can be complicated at best and may bedaunting to the grammar-shy.

If you prefer to edit already translated text instead ofmaking changes in midtranslation, you’ll findPower Translator’s speed a definite advantage.

Spanish Assistant’s strength is in the interactive-translation mode and easily accessible grammar andinflection help, which enables those who are less pro-

ficient in Spanish to improve their translating skills.Since a basic knowledge of Spanish grammar is es-

sential to using either Power Translator or Spanish Assistant andbecause you must edit the translations to eliminate errors, theseprograms are not learning aids for foreign-language students. But ifyou have a general knowledge of Spanish and frequently need toproduce comprehensible translations, Power Translator and Span-ish Assistant will be valuable tools. / Marna Meltzer

Power Translator for Macintosh 2.0 mmmh / Price: $299 (list). Company:Globalink, Fairfax, VA; 800-255-5660 or 703-273-5600. Reader Service: Circle#417.

Spanish Assistant 1.0 mmmh / Price: $99.95 (list). Company: MicroTac Soft-ware, San Diego, CA; 800-366-4170 or 619-272-5700. Reader Service: C ircle#418.

QUICK CLICKS


Demo versions and QuickTime movies of selected programs mentionedhere are available in the MacUser and ZiffNet/Mac areas on CompuServeand eWorld. See page 4 for instructions regarding on-line access.

Maxima 3.0 / RAM-diskdoublerA RAM DISK lets you set aside a portion of yourMac’s RAM to be used as a virtual hard disk withincredibly fast access speed. Apple embraced the

RAM disk by including it in the Memory control panel of post-1992Macs. But the RAM disk, like memory, is fleeting: Once you shutdown your computer, your RAM disk disappears. Maxima lets youcreate a RAM disk on 68030 or more-powerful Macs (except LCs, LCIIs, and certain Performas — model 430 and below) with at least 8MB of RAM. It backs up your RAM disk to your hard disk and noweven compresses your RAM disk so it can be twice as large as thephysical RAM it takes up. Although the compression does slightlyincrease the time it takes to access the RAM disk, accessing a RAM-doubled RAM disk is still faster than accessing a hard disk.Maxed Out. Although we found Maxima stable in a standard sys-tem configuration, some cache cards and caching software are in-compatible with the program. If you have a Mac SE/30, II, IIx, orIIcx, you need to use Connectix’s MODE32 (included with Maxima)instead of Apple’s 32-bit enabler.

Despite these drawbacks, Maxima is easy to install, saves youfrom having to re-create a RAM disk every time you boot up, andmakes RAM disks a reality for those with older Macintoshes./ Christopher Breen

Maxima 3.0 mmmh / Price: $99 (list). Company: Connectix, San Mateo, CA; 800-950-5880 or 415-571-5100. Reader Service: Circle #420.

MicroSpeed Keyboard DeluxeMac / ADB-port heavenARTISTS AND GAME players who find them-selves precariously daisy-chaining their key-board, mouse, graphics tablet, joystick, and

copy-protection dongles from the Mac’s single ADB port will appre-ciate the four ADB ports — one on each side and two along theback, three of which can accommodate daisy chains of two devices— on the MicroSpeed Keyboard Deluxe Mac. The only limitationwith this 105-key extended keyboard is that the Macintosh’s ADBport can’t handle more than 500 milliamps of current. Even thoughthe keyboard uses less than 100 milliamps and most other standarddevices take considerably less, when you attach six devices to yourkeyboard, it’s a good idea to check their power requirements.Sticky, not Fried. The Keyboard Deluxe Mac has a membrane matunderneath the keys, which protects the contacts from liquid spills.We deliberately poured half a can of cola into the keyboard, and af-ter we shook the liquid out, the keyboard suffered only from thesticky residue on the keys.

For those who need the extra ADB ports and the spill-resistance,the Keyboard Deluxe Mac is a nice alternative to the Apple ExtendedKeyboard at about the same price. / Patty Ames

MicroSpeed Keyboard Deluxe Mac mmmh / Price: $125 (list). Company:MicroSpeed, Fremont, CA; 800-438-7733 or 510-490-1403. Reader Service:Circle #419.


COLOR PRINTERS

ShootoutColorLow-Cost

uying a low-cost color printer is like adopting a puppy.The initial cost is low (a color printer can be had for lessthan $500, and a puppy costs the price of a license and afew shots), and both can be a delight to own. But if youaren’t prepared to shell out for consumables (ink or rib-bons and paper for the printer; Alpo, newspapers, and

chew toys for Spot) and if you have no patience, then you may bebetter off without one.

That, at least, is the way we felt after spending many hours testingseven low-cost color printers. We experienced moments of sheer joywhen bright, sharp images popped out of a printer with little or noeffort on our part. But then again, we went through sheer agonywhen it took numerous calls to a company and a couple of hours oftinkering just to get usable output. And we always seemed to run outof ink or ribbons or paper at just the wrong instant.

All the printers we tested use QuickDraw, not PostScript, whichmeans they rely on your Mac for their image-processing power —so their speed depends on your Mac’s horsepower. Each of themconnects to your Mac via a serial cable (a few can also connect di-rectly to a LocalTalk network). Six of the printers — the Apple ColorStyleWriter Pro and Color StyleWriter 2400; the Hewlett-PackardDeskWriter 320, DeskWriter 540, and DeskWriter 560C; and theStar Micronics SJ-144MC — have an average list price of around$500. The seventh, the Fargo Electronics Primera, has a list price ofaround $1,200 for its basic configuration.

BBy Cheryl England

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COLOR PRINTERS

The Bottom LineALL THESE PRINTERS are reasonably affordable to buy,but the cost of using them — in both supply costs and

aggravation — differs widely. Our favorites offer ease of use, simple-to-set print options, clear error messages, and responsive customerservice. Not incidentally, they also excel at producing high-qualityoutput no matter whether you’re printing text, transparencies,photographs, or colored line art.

3 = OUTSTANDING

2 = ACCEPTABLE

1 = POOR

mmmm Apple ColorStyleWriter 2400 3 3 3 2

This diminutive sweetheart of a printer ($525 list,$505 street) produces rich, deep colors and crisp text. Ajoy to use, the StyleWriter 2400 offers fast print speeds,easy-to-understand settings, and a low cost per page forconsumables.

mmmm HP DeskWriter 560C 3 3 3 2

Bright, smooth colors with a hint of fluorescence char-acterize the output from this sturdy printer ($599 list,$565 street). HP’s ColorSmart technology is a real boon —it makes producing high-quality output as foolproof ascan be.

mmmm Apple Color StyleWriter Pro 3 3 3 2

mmmh HP DeskWriter 320 3 3 2 2

mmmh HP DeskWriter 540 3 3 2 2

mmm Fargo Primera (thermal-wax) 2 3 2 1

mmm Fargo Primera (dye-sub) 2 3 2 1

m Star SJ-144MC 1 1 2 1

Listing is alphabetical within groups of equal mouse ratings.

L ABSZD

EASE OF

USEPRICE/

PERFORMANCE

CUSTOMER

SERVICE

OUTPUT

QUALITY

To find out where each of the printers shines — and where eachfails — we used each one to create a multitude of documents rang-ing in complexity from simple text-only memos, to presentationsprinted on transparencies, to photographic images. In the end, wediscovered that none of these printers is foolproof or fast and thattheir output quality ranges from pretty darn crummy to pretty darnimpressive. But if you know what to expect and choose your printeraccordingly — and give it the care and attention it needs — a low-cost color printer can be a welcome, well-behaved addition to yourMac setup, even if it never does fetch your newspaper for you.

Surveying the PackFive of the printers we tested — the two Apple StyleWriters and thethree HP DeskWriters — use inkjet technology. Basically, they workby squirting microscopic drops of ink through tiny nozzles ontopaper. Images printed with the liquid inks these printers use tend tosmear when wet, although we found that Apple’s water-resistantStyleWriter inks are a bit less smear-prone than those used in HP’sDeskWriters.

The other two printers — the Star SJ-144MC and the FargoPrimera — use thermal-wax technology to place color on a page: Aribbon coated with cyan, magenta, yellow, and black pigments isheated by a tightly focused heat source that melts the ink and makes

it adhere to the page. The SJ-144MC uses proprietary ribbon car-tridges that resemble those for typewriters (remember them?). Theribbons print across the page in strips half an inch wide. ThePrimera’s ribbons are similar to those used in more-expensive ther-mal-wax printers. They consist of consecutive letter-paper-sizedpanels, one for each of the pigments used. The page is drawn intothe printer once for each color used — three times if the ribboncontains cyan, magenta, and yellow panels; four times if the ribbonalso contains black panels. A $250 upgrade kit from Fargo turns thePrimera into a dye-sublimation printer, which places color on thepage by vaporizing solid pigment, which then diffuses into the pa-per. The upgrade kit contains a dye-sub ribbon, replacement driversoftware, and special dye-sub “receiver” paper.

Overall, we were pleased with the sleek design and small foot-print of these printers. The four largest — the Color StyleWriter Pro,the DeskWriter 540 and 560C, and the Primera — are about the sizeof an 8-pound bag of kibble. They come with fixed sheet feeders andoutput trays and, aesthetically, will please those users who find bulka comforting indicator of sturdiness.

The other three — the Color StyleWriter 2400, the DeskWriter320, and the SJ-144MC — are more diminutive: Each weighs lessthan 8 pounds, and even the largest, the Color StyleWriter 2400,would fit inside a good-sized shoe box. The Color StyleWriter 2400’soutput holder is a simple plastic strip you can slide under theprinter when you don’t need to use it. Although the holder may lookflimsy compared to a conventional output tray, it works beautifully.The SJ-144MC, on the other hand, does not include any sort of out-put holder; printouts can easily fall or be blown off your desk.

The DeskWriter 320 is the only printer we reviewed that’s trulyportable. It weighs just 4.3 pounds without its optional sheet feeder,and it can run on a special Hewlett-Packard NiCd battery pack. (HPsells a rechargeable battery for $49 and a recharger for $99.) HP didan excellent job designing this printer’s sheet feeder ($76 if you pur-chase it with the printer, $99 if you purchase it later): It attaches tothe printer effortlessly, and the paper path is always aligned cor-rectly. If you plan to print from a desktop Mac, do yourself a favorand buy the sheet feeder — the convenience of automatic paperfeeding is well worth the price.

These low-cost color printers aren’t really designed for heavy-duty network use, and we don’t recommend them for high-volumeuse. Still, if you want to, you can set up the Apple Color StyleWritersand the HP DeskWriters as nodes on a LocalTalk network. To do so,the Color StyleWriter 2400 requires an optional LocalTalk module(about $100) and the DeskWriters each require a pair of LocalTalkconnectors (about $60 for the pair). The Color StyleWriters alsocome with ColorShare, Apple software that allows someone on yourLocalTalk or EtherTalk network to use a StyleWriter connected di-rectly to your Mac.

Improving the BreedOne fact became immediately clear to us — the output quality oflow-cost color printers has certainly advanced in the last few years.Overall, colors are brighter and problems with banding, paperjams, and poorly implemented dither patterns have nearly disap-peared (for more on dithering, see the “Follow the Dots” sidebar).But note — even though all the printers can print in color on “plain”


Apple Color StyleWriter Pro

✓Apple Color StyleWriter 2400

HP DeskWriter 540

Fargo Primera (thermal-wax)

Star SJ-144MC

*

✓HP DeskWriter 560C

HP DeskWriter 320

Fargo Primera (dye-sub)

0 2

0:35 1:40

0:37 0:39

0:37 2:02

0:47 0:57

0:29 1:51

0:37 1:44

9:02

1:12

2:08 4:04

3:15 5:05

2:14 7:04

4:41 4:22

4:01 6:49

4:47 8:41

12:12

3:48

3:07 4:30

3:12 4:59

3:04 7:41

5:36 5:05

5:07 8:11

4:43 8:35

13:17

4:18

6:37 10:36

7:30 15:01

10:01 16:49

14:22 18:52

14:31 26:59

13:16 21:49

43:16

8:41

10:34

20:58

16:49

15:45

27:06

21:53

8:46

9TIME IN MINUTES TIME IN MINUTES TIME IN MINUTES TIME IN MINUTES TIME IN MINUTES

*Can’t print transparencies.✓ MacUser RECOMMENDS

0 5 12 0 5 13 0 15 40 0 15 30

Best mode

Transparency mode

Normal mode

SLOWER SLOWER SLOWER SLOWER SLOWER

figure 1

From Slow to Slower / color printers are no speed demonsYou’ll love the output you get from these color printers, but you won’t love waiting for them. About the only document theseprinters were able to produce quickly in our tests was a monochrome text file. Fortunately, all the printers except the Star SJ-144MC

support background printing. You still have to wait, however, while the printer spools the image to your hard disk.For each test document, we timed how long it took to print at two levels of quality — best and normal. We didn’t test any of the printers in draft

mode, because this setting produced unacceptable output. Because the Fargo Primera has just two settings — High and Draft — we timed thisprinter at the High setting only.

Word (Color)We timed how longit took to print aone-page reportthat included blacktext, a color logo,and a color piechart.

MacDrawWe printed a one-page documentthat containedabout half apage of simplegraphics and aboutone-fifth text.

PowerPoint(Paper)We printed a two-page presentationthat contained agradated, colorbackground; a piechart; and text.

PowerPoint( Transparency)We printed a two-page presentationon transparenciesto see the effect ofa different mediumon printing speed.

Word (Black)We timed how longit took to print aone-page businessletter created inMicrosoft Word,including TrueTypeand Type 1 fonts.

bond or laser paper, you’ll get top-quality output only if you use thebest specially coated paper available for the printer. Plain-paperoutput from the inkjet printers is acceptable for many purposes, butwithout special paper, colors won’t be as bright, text won’t be assharp, and blacks won’t be as rich. Thermal-wax output on plainpaper suffers from dropouts, areas in which the pigment doesn’tstick to the uncoated page.

Our two most basic test images consisted of a monochrome letterand a report that contained black text; a colorful pie chart; and a red,white, and black company logo. For the black text, all the printersexcept the Primera produced sharp, unbroken letters when weprinted the documents on the best available paper at the highest-quality setting. The text printed by the Primera in its thermal-waxconfiguration showed noticeable breaks and jagged edges — a re-sult we anticipated, given the Primera’s low resolution, 203 dpi. Thethree DeskWriters each have a resolution of 300 dpi (although ifyou’re printing text only, the DeskWriters can print at 600 x 300 dpi).The SJ-144MC and the two StyleWriters each have a resolution of360 dpi. In the Primera’s dye-sub mode, text was smooth and un-broken but the edges weren’t crisply defined. (The vapor diffusionthat occurs in dye sublimation allows exceptional color blendingbut can result in blurriness.)

We noticed that the DeskWriter 320 and 540 and the dye-sub ver-sion of the Primera did not produce deep, rich blacks over large

areas. For instance, the black background of our company logo ap-peared slightly purple or green when printed by any of these threeunits. This oddity occurs because each of these three printers com-bines cyan, magenta, and yellow to create a composite black. Theother printers use true-black inks or ribbon panels.

This observation points out the main difference between theDeskWriter 540 and its more expensive counterpart, the Desk-Writer 560C. The DeskWriter 560C accommodates two ink car-tridges, one for black ink and one containing cyan, magenta, andyellow inks; the DeskWriter 540 (like the DeskWriter 320) usesidentical ink cartridges but only one at a time. Thus, the DeskWriter560C can use true-black ink in color output, whereas the Desk-Writer 540 must create composite black.

Printing the pie chart showed how well these printers handlelarge areas of basic, bright colors — red, yellow, blue, and green.The three DeskWriters produced extremely bright colors, whereasthe StyleWriters, the Primera (in both thermal-wax and dye-submode), and the SJ-144MC produced deeper, richer colors. Only theDeskWriters and the Primera in dye-sub mode also produced ex-tremely smooth colors. The other printers’ output lacked consis-tency: We noticed dither patterns in the colors produced by theStyleWriters and the Primera in thermal-wax mode, and the SJ-144MC’s colors were marred by distinct horizontal lines.

All the printers except the Primera in dye-sub mode can produce

L ABSZD


COLOR PRINTERS

TEST IMAGES

Seeing Is Believing / output quality varies among low-cost printersTHE SUITABILITY OF OUTPUT from the printers we testedfor this feature differs to some degree, depending on thetype of image you plan to print with it. To use in samplingeach printer’s relative merits, we created the windsurfer

image reproduced below. This challenging page in-cludes a photographic image with a wide range of col-ors, black and colored text, blocks of solid color, and agradated color background.

COLOR RANGE

Vivid hues are the hallmark ofthe Hewlett-Packard DeskWriterseries of printers. The vibrancy ofthe hot-pink sail and the surfer’shelmet show that the HP inkjetprinters can make bright, solidcolors leap off the page. Skintones and the surf are unnaturally“electric,” however.

Subtle tones, in contrast, arethe forte of the Apple ColorStyleWriters: The surfer’s skin andthe water’s surface are subduedand natural-looking, but the neonshades of the sail and board lackvividness.

Noticeable dots of ink, used bythe HP and Apple inkjet printersand the Star and Fargo Primera inthermal-wax mode, create theillusion of many colors but canmake photographic images lookgrainy; this is far less noticeablein printing solid, saturated colors.

Continuous color, achieved asthe page absorbs vaporizedink, is the greatest strengthof the Fargo Primera in dye-sublimation mode; however, thesame diffusion process has atendency to blur the edges oftype and fine-line illustrations.

IMAGE CONSISTENCY

Process black, which is a mixtureof cyan, magenta, and yellowinks, can have an unappealinggreenish or purplish cast.Process black is used by the HPDeskWriter 540 (shown here)and 320; the Apple ColorStyleWriter 2400 in color mode;and the Fargo and Star printers,when three-color ribbons areinstalled.

CONTRASTING BLACKS

True-black ink is darker andappears more vivid than processblack, especially in text. The Fargoand Star printers use true blackwhen four-color ribbons areinstalled; the Apple ColorStyleWriter Pro and the HPDeskWriter 560C use true-blackinks as well.

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transparencies. We included a color ramp in our test transparency,so we could find out how the printers handled blends. All the print-ers except the Star SJ-144MC performed acceptably on the trans-parency test; the horizontal lines it produced looked even worsewhen the output was projected from an overhead.

One of the toughest challenges we gave these printers was to printa photographic image of a windsurfer (see the “Seeing Is Believing”sidebar). Here, the DeskWriters’ bright colors became a mixedblessing: A neon-pink sail looked wonderfully vibrant, but thesurfer’s skin tones looked excessively “hot” and the surf itself was ashade brighter than you’d expect to see in nature. The StyleWritersproduced water and skin tones that were richer and more natural-looking, but the sail lost some of its vibrancy. The SJ-144MC’s hori-zontal-line problem continued, whereas the Primera bounced be-tween impressively smooth dye-sub printouts and rough-lookingthermal-wax output.

Paper Training RequiredAlthough these printers can produce high-quality output, coaxingit out is not always easy. During our testing, we were initially over-whelmed by the multitude of printing options each printer pre-sented: We found ourselves fussing with different software settings,papers, and inks or cartridges in order to figure out what would giveus the best printouts. And even though we spent a lot of timedouble-checking our various setups, we still managed to make sev-eral dumb errors (see the “10 Easy Ways to Screw Up” sidebar).Eventually, we grew comfortable with the Apple StyleWriters andthe HP DeskWriters; the Star SJ-144C and the Fargo Primera were a

different story. To give you an idea of what we mean, here’s a closerlook at what we went through.

The StyleWriters and the DeskWriters give you lots of choices ofpaper types and of print-quality settings, but fortunately, they alsogive you lots of helpful guidance. In fact, although Apple’s and HP’sdrivers offer “expert” adjustments for tweaking such factors as inkintensity and bleed control, we found that we got very good resultssimply by picking the settings for appropriate media (plain paper,glossy paper, transparency media, and so on) and choosing the“best” setting for print quality. When it came to choosing a color-dither setting, both Apple and HP kept it simple: With the Desk-Writers, choosing the ColorSmart option gave us outstanding re-sults for all kinds of images. ColorSmart analyzes a page, looking forvarious data types — for example, text, simple geometric graphics,and complex bit-mapped graphics such as color photos — and itthen applies appropriate dithers to each element of the page. Al-though the StyleWriters’ driver isn’t quite so sophisticated, itsdither-choosing options are straightforward, and Apple’s ColorSynccolor-matching system kept our output consistent with what we sawon our monitors.

We got truly abominable output from the Apple and HP printersonly when we overrode the recommended settings and adjusted thecolor controls by hand. Once we decided to stop fiddling and stickwith Apple’s and HP’s basic options, we found formulas that gave usconsistent success. For us, using best mode with coated paper andchoosing the scatter dither (with the StyleWriters) or ColorSmart(with the DeskWriters) yielded reliably good results. You should beable to figure out optimal settings for your documents as well.

Follow the Dots / understanding dithersFIDDLE ABOUT. That’s what you’ll need to do while you learn how to getthe best output from these printers. How good your final printout looksfrequently depends on what type of dither you choose. Dithering refersto the arrangement of cyan, magenta, yellow, and (sometimes) blackdots on a page to give the impression of a full spectrum of colors. Theoutput quality of different image types — photographs, solid-color

Pattern dithers are best suited touniform colors, as in charts and graphs.As you might guess, pattern dithers placedots in an orderly arrangement on the page.Solid colors are emphasized, and edgesare harder.

HP’s ColorSmart technology analyzes eachprinted page, looking for different objecttypes — for example, black text, simplegraphics, and complex bit maps such asscanned photographs. It then intelligentlyapplies appropriate dithers to each element.

Error-diffusion, or scatter, dithers arebest suited to photographic images. Asthe name implies, this dither scatters dotsirregularly, making edges and colors softer.These dithers typically take longer toprocess than pattern ones.

graphics, and line art, for example, can vary greatly with each dither.Most printers offer at least two types of dithers — error-diffusion and

pattern. You have to pick which one to use, and you must apply it to awhole page. HP’s ColorSmart technology is intelligent enough to applydifferent dither patterns to different elements on the page, therebymaking each element look its best.


COLOR PRINTERS

Here’s a helpful low-tech hint — learn to use your printer, and thentape a checklist to it. In the meantime, you can learn from our mistakes.Here are some of our better boners:1. Putting paper in the wrong way. All the special papers have a rightside and a wrong side for printing. HP denotes the back of its paper withdim arrows, Apple’s paper is whiter on the front, and Fargo’s thermal-wax paper is a bit shinier on the front. None of these distinctions areparticularly easy to see, especially in poor light.2. Choosing the wrong ribbon. With the Fargo Primera, if you choosethe wrong type of ribbon in software, you’ll completely confuse theprinter. The Star SJ-144MC has lights on the front control panel that tellyou what type of ribbon is installed.3. Spilling water on an inkjet printout. Water beads up and rolls offthermal-wax and dye-sub printouts, but it leaves smears and colorlessblotches on inkjet output.4. Ignoring HP’s suggestion about aligning the print heads. If youdon’t align the print heads when you install a new cartridge, you mayend up with misregistered colors.5. Running out of ink. There’s no way for a printer to detect when anink cartridge is empty. If you spool a bunch of images to print and leavethe printer unattended, you may come back to find that most of your

printouts are missing one or more ink colors. (At least the Color Style-Writer Pro has clear ink cartridges that you can check.)6. Forgetting to take the protective tape off an ink cartridge.You’ll still get a printout, but you’ll wonder why the colors are so lightand why not all of them are being used.7. Forgetting to have extra supplies on hand. If you’re in the middleof a project, there’s nothing more frustrating than running out of ink,ribbon, or paper — especially if local stores are out of stock and you’vegot to wait for delivery via the postal service.8. Printing to the wrong printer. If you’re on a network and normallyuse a laser printer, don’t forget to change your printer selection in theChooser.9. Combining the wrong ribbon with the wrong paper. If youchange the ribbon on the Primera but forget to change the paper, you’llend up with only the ghost of an image.10. Printing a batch job that contains a monochrome image. TheDeskWriter 320 and 540 can have either a black or a CMY cartridge in-stalled but not both. HP’s ColorSmart technology detects black-and-white-only images and, for these printers, displays a dialog box askingyou if you’re sure you want to print this image with a CMY cartridge.Unattended batch-print jobs sit idle, awaiting your return and response.

See if you can match these crummy printouts to the mistakes that caused them (answers below).

10 Easy Ways to Screw Up / can you match the output with the mistakes?IT’S BOUND TO HAPPEN — sooner or later, you’re going to make a mistake. And you’re going to get a pretty ugly printout because of it. It’s not thatwe think you’re stupid. (After all, we don’t think we’re stupid and we made a lot of mistakes during our testing.) It’s just that these color printers aren’tfoolproof.

Obedience ProblemsOur pleasant experiences with the printers from Apple and HP wereconsiderably different from those we had with the SJ-144MC andthe Primera, however. It’s bad enough that the setup options of thelatter are bewildering, but even worse is that changing many ofthem seemed to have no effect at all. Neither printer consistentlyproduced high-quality output.

The SJ-144MC’s range of settings is beyond confusing: six ditherpatterns, three resolutions, four color depths (16 colors to mil-lions), seven paper-feed adjustments, and two media options. Moreludicrous is the apparent uselessness of many of the settings: Wecouldn’t see any difference on our test output among the finest,finer, and fine dither patterns, nor could we detect a difference be-tween printing at thousands of colors or millions of them.

But the Primera wins the award as the clunkiest. To print in thebackground with the Primera, you must first open a separate appli-cation called Backgrounder. Although this application can be handyfor batch printing and although it gives you some nice options forhandling print jobs (such as the ability to move jobs around withina queue), we found it very un-Mac-like to have to open an applica-tion to print in the background.

Even worse, we found it easy to confuse the Primera. For ex-ample, after we added a three-color thermal-wax ribbon, theprinter defaulted to a four-color-ribbon setting in the active appli-cation. When we opened another application and tried to print, weended up with an all-yellow image after failing to notice that thedialog box was still set for printing from a previously installedmonochrome ribbon.

Answers: (a) 3, (b) 9, (c) 5, (d) 1.a b c d


After considerable frustration (and lots of botched printouts), weeventually grew familiar with the quirks of the SJ-144MC and thePrimera. Still, we were never able to consistently and easily achievethe high-quality results we could with the StyleWriters and theDeskWriters.

Greyhounds They Aren’tWe might not complain so heartily about ease of use if the printerswere faster. After all, if we could see our mistakes quickly — and fixthem quickly — trial and error wouldn’t be so painful. But some-times the several rounds of printing it took to achieve perfect print-outs took a couple of hours each.

These low-cost color printers are so slow that most vendorsspecify print speeds in minutes per page (mpp) rather than in thetraditional measurement of pages per minute (ppm). So, for ex-ample, HP claims a maximum print speed of 5 mpp for color imagesprinted in best mode on the DeskWriter 560C — that means a printspeed of .2 ppm. Watch specifications closely, and if you ever see alow-cost color printer rated at 5 ppm, you’ve probably found a typo-graphical error.

Our tests revealed that even print-speed claims of 5 mpp are op-timistic. Only when printing a black-and-white text file could all theprinters run that “fast,” and even on this simple document, the ex-tremely poky Primera dye-sub printer took 9 minutes. A few couldstay under the 5-minute mark when printing a color text file with asimple MacDraw graphic. None, however, could print a full-page,full-color PowerPoint transparency in less than 10 minutes.

Fortunately, all the printers except the SJ-144MC support back-ground printing. The printers first spool the image to your Mac’shard disk, a process that can take anywhere from a couple of sec-onds for a simple black-and-white text document to a couple ofminutes for something as complex as our windsurfer image. All ofthe printers’ software compresses the image data for temporarystorage on a hard disk, so if you’re printing two or three 10-MB im-ages, you won’t really need 20 or 30 MB of hard-disk space in orderto print in the background.

Care and FeedingIf you believe that wasting money is an even greater sin than wastingtime, pay close attention to the cost of the supplies required to runyour printer. Whether you pay a few cents or a few dollars per pagedepends on the output quality you need and the types of images youprint.

To get extremely high-quality printouts from inkjet printers, youmust use expensive, $1-per-page glossy paper. But for manyprojects (such as informal reports), you can use a slightly lowergrade of coated paper that costs only about 10 cents per page. Andfor some low-end chores, such as rough drafts or quick, colorfulnotes to friends, you can even get away with plain bond paper.

You’ll spend the most money on ink cartridges. Most of the print-ers combine cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY) inks in one car-tridge; only the Color StyleWriter Pro uses individual cartridges foreach ink color. Although you pay less up front for a cartridge thatcontains multiple ink colors, you must replace the cartridge as soonas any one color runs out. When printing multiple copies of ourwindsurfer image, for example, we ran out of yellow ink first. With

Trends / print quality is steadily improvingIT’S NOT EASY TO BEAT the best of today’s low-cost color printers, buttwo longtime printing leaders are about to try. One aims to offer no-compromise quality at a mainstream price; the other will provide colorPostScript at an as-yet-unheard-of price.The Epson Stylus Color may set a new inkjet-printing-qualitystandard. Although final driver software was not available in timefor our testing, the print samples we’ve seen are stunning. With astreet price of well under$600, the 720-dpi StylusColor provides near-pho-tographic-quality color im-ages that are of excep-tional vibrancy as well astext that’s indistinguish-able from that produced bya high-quality laser printer.305-265-0092.

That’s the good news.The catch is that it canachieve these results onlywhen printing at 720 dpi on special paper — and Epson estimates thatprinting at 720 dpi takes about twice as long as printing at 360 dpi.

At 360 dpi on plain paper, we expect output to be comparable incrispness and speed to that of the competition from Apple and HP,but our preliminary inspection gives the edge in color vibrancy to theStylus Color. The Mac version should be shipping by the time youread this.The Tektronix Phaser 140 aims to break the $1,500 color-PostScript barrier. You should be able to find Tektronix’s newPostScript Level 2 inkjet printer, which has a list price of $1,695, on thestreet for under $1,500 by the time this copy of MacUser hits your localnewsstand.

Most inkjet printers rely on QuickDraw and make the Mac do all theimage-processing work, but the Phaser 140 is a stand-alone, net-workable color business printer. Within the cozy confines of a Canon-developed 360-dpi inkjet engine and chassis, Tektronix has crammedits own controller, featuring a 16-MHz RISC processor, 8 MB of RAM(expandable to 24 MB), an Adobe PostScript Level 2 interpreter,Tektronix’s high-performance Finepoint image-rendering technol-ogy, 17 fonts, and simultaneously active parallel and LocalTalk ports.If the Phaser 140 works as advertised, it may be the fast, affordablecolor-PostScript printer business users have been hoping for. 503-682-7377. / Rik Myslewski

the Color StyleWriter Pro, we replaced only the yellow cartridge(about $10); with the DeskWriters, we had to replace the entire$34.95 CMY cartridge. The Apple Color StyleWriters’ print headsaren’t replaced with each ink container, but they do have tobe replaced periodically: the Color StyleWriter 2400 print head($52.95, including a three-color ink container) should be replacedroughly every 2,000 pages; the Color StyleWriter Pro print head(about $150) should be replaced every 10,000 to 12,000 pages.

How long an ink cartridge lasts also depends on what types ofimages you print. In our tests, the DeskWriter 560C’s CMY cartridgegave us 123 prints of our 5-x-7-inch windsurfer image. If we’d beenprinting a memo with a colorful border and logo or a graphic


COLOR PRINTERS

Apple Color ✓ Apple Color Fargo Fargo HP HP ✓ HP StarStyleWriter StyleWriter Primera Primera DeskWriter DeskWriter DeskWriter SJ-144MCPro 2400 (thermal-wax) (dye-sub) 320 540 560C

List price $629 $525 $1,194 $1,444 $428 $414 $599 $499

Street price $610 $505 $885 $1,040 $390 $395 $565 $480

Technology inkjet inkjet thermal-wax dye-sub inkjet inkjet inkjet thermal-wax

Maximum color resolution 360 dpi 360 dpi 203 dpi 203 dpi 300 dpi 300 dpi 300 dpi 360 dpi

Engine speed 2 mpp 3 mpp 2.5 mpp 2.5 mpp 4 mpp 4 mpp 4 mpp ◊

Weight 11 lb 7.9 lb 15 lb 15 lb 4.3 lb* 11.6 lb 14.5 lb 5.5 lb

Cost of paper/number of sheets Best quality $55/50 $55/50 $19.95/250 $279.95/100† $59.95/50 $59.95/50 $59.95/50 NA

Normal quality $14.95/200 $14.95/200 $14.95/250 NA $20.95/200 $20.95/200 $20.95/200 $4.50/500

Transparency $21.95/20 $21.95/20 $34.95/50 NA $55.95/50 $55.95/50 $55.95/50 $19.95/20

Cost of ink or ribbon Black $8.95 $7.95§ $39.95 NA $31.95 $31.95 $31.95 $29.95

Color $9.95 each $21.95§ $45 $279.95† $34.95 $34.95 $34.95 $22.50

Maximum paper capacity 100 sheets 100 sheets 50 sheets 30 sheets NA** 100 sheets 100 sheets 30 sheets

Uses 3-color inks or ribbons 2 2 2 2

Uses 4-color inks or ribbons 2 2 2 2 2

Supports background printing 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

TrueType fonts included 2 2 2 2 2 2

Provides color-matchingsoftware 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Output tray included 2 2 2 2 NA** 2 2

Starter pack of paperincluded 2 2 2 2 2

Prints on plain paper 2 2 2 2 2

Prints on legal-sized paper 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Prints on envelopes 2 2 2 2 2 2††

Prints on transparencies 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Prints on adhesive labels 2 2 2 2

Prints on iron-on transfers 2 2 2

Vendor offers discounts onbulk supplies 2 2

Consumables sold by vendor 2 2 2 2 2

Consumables sold by dealers 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Consumables sold byoffice-supply stores 2 2 2 2 2

Extended warranty 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

On-line support 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Toll-free tech support 2 2

Warranty 1 year 1 year 1 year 1 year 1 year 3 years 3 years 2 years

✓ MacUser RECOMMENDS*With sheet feeder, 7.5 lb.†Price includes ribbon and paper for 100 prints.§Price is for replacement ink tank. Cartridges (which also hold the print head) must be replaced after 2,000 pages and cost an additional $34.25 each.◊Star doesn’t supply mpp ratings for color output.**Optional 60-page sheet feeder/output holder costs $76 if purchased with the printer or $99 separately.††Hand-feed only.

Pick a feature —

any feature — and you’ll find a low-cost color

printer that provides it. For some users, speed is a major factor; for oth-ers, it’s getting the best output quality. Still others may just want aprinter that’s small enough to carry on the road.

Don’t overlook the importance of consumables. Ink and ribbons canbe costly, and if you want to produce high-quality output, you’ll need

to purchase special, high-priced paper. If, however, you can live withsolid, if unspectacular, output quality (for example, if all you want to dois print colorful letters to friends or crank out children’s artwork), thenconsider a printer that supports plain paper. Just be sure to keep extrasupplies on hand: Many stores do not stock the right consumables, andmost vendors charge extra for rush shipments.

figure 2

Color Printers Compared / finding the perfect match


COLOR PRINTERS

created in Kid Pix, we’d have been able to get many more prints fromthe cartridge.

When you print monochrome files, you use ink only from theblack cartridge in the StyleWriters and the DeskWriter 560C. Theother DeskWriters, the 320 and the 540, use either a CMY or a blackcartridge. If you have the CMY cartridge installed and ColorSmartdetects a black-and-white-only page, it will ask you if you want toinstall the black cartridge before printing — a nice, money-savingtouch.

Unlike inkjet printers, the Primera printer, in thermal-wax anddye-sub mode, has a steady cost per page. Each four-color printfrom the printer in thermal-wax mode costs 70 cents to $1; eachfrom the printer in dye-sub mode costs $2.80. Although the printerisn’t cost-effective in either mode for printing documents with onlyspots of color, using it can be reasonable if you need to print full-page, full-color images — for instance, large photographic imagesor transparencies that include solid color backgrounds. (Note, how-ever, that the Fargo printer in dye-sub mode does not supporttransparencies.)

Sniffing Out SuppliesIn case you’re wondering how much the consumables for the SJ-144MC cost, well, we wish we could tell you. The required paper isordinary laser bond, such as that made by Hammermill. You canfind it in almost any office-supply store. But the ribbons are anotherstory.

When we went shopping for supplies, we found inks and paperavailable for the StyleWriters and the DeskWriters at office-supplystores, computer superstores, and local dealers. In some cases, wehad to make quite a few phone calls to find them, but at least theywere available. In addition, you can order supplies for these printersand for the Primera directly from the vendors.

Star, however, doesn’t sell any ribbons for its printer directly; youhave to call a Star toll-free number, and an automated service pro-vides names of dealers in your area that stock supplies for theprinter as well as names of mail-order companies that can send yousupplies. This system is time-consuming and unwieldy, but the realsnag is that just one of the sources the Star hot line listed — a mail-order house called Midwest Micro — actually sold the ribbons. Weasked for local-dealer referrals for two geographic areas — one oneach coast — and found no dealers who had ever heard of the SJ-144MC. What’s more, in our tests, we got only nine prints of thewindsurfer image from the SJ-144MC’s color ribbon.

Pick of the LitterOver the years, vendors have made significant strides in bringinglow-cost, good-quality color printing to the desktop. The limits ofthe technology are still apparent in some cases — for example, theinkjet printers still can’t alert you when they are out of ink and thedye-sub printers still can’t print on anything but special photo-graphic paper. But the printers are no longer next to impossible toinstall, use, and maintain.

Apple’s StyleWriters produce deep, rich, natural-looking colors,and Apple’s software interface is the cleanest we’ve seen. Choosingbetween the Color StyleWriter Pro and the Color StyleWriter 2400 isreally a matter of taste. The Color StyleWriter Pro uses separate ink

cartridges for each color and black and includes a fixed output tray,but it can’t connect to a network. The Color StyleWriter 2400, on theother hand, is — we almost hate to say it — cute. And for the prac-tical among you, it also offers the advantage of a small footprint andthe ability to connect directly to a LocalTalk network.

The DeskWriters produce extremely bright colors, and they’resmart enough to adjust dithers and color matching. We got thebrightest colors, richest blacks, and sharpest text from the Desk-Writer 560C. But the DeskWriter 540 was no slouch either, and itcosts less than the DeskWriter 560C. The DeskWriter 320 is on tar-get for users who want true portability along with reliability andsolid output quality.

If you mostly need full-page, full-color output such as transpar-encies for presentations, you’re a candidate for buying a FargoPrimera and using it in thermal-wax mode. The cost per page forthis type of printout is the same as with an inkjet printer, and youdon’t have to worry about estimating how many prints you can getfrom a ribbon. In addition, the Primera’s software includes batch-printing options that can be handy for producing multiple sets ofpresentation transparencies.

Operating the Primera in dye-sub mode is slow and expensive,and its text output is unacceptably blurry, but for a sub-$1,000printer, it does deliver surprisingly good quality for photographicimages: Unlike high-end dye-sub printers, the Primera’s colors con-sist of dots that can be discerned under magnification; however, tothe unaided eye, the colors blend with admirable smoothness. Al-though it’s nowhere near good enough for professional publishingor printing use, this printer could be a good option for Photo CDenthusiasts.

We found no reasons to purchase the Star SJ-144MC, however.Star representatives say the company is going through a restructur-ing and that improvements are under way, but for the time being,confusing software, lack of background printing, noticeable band-ing in areas of continuous color, and overpriced and hard-to-findsupplies leave little to recommend the SJ-144MC.

We were glad to see that some of the printers really are suited tohome users. We were also sad to see that it was printers based onnewer technologies that failed to win our respect. Perhaps, overtime, these printers too will find a place on our desks.

Cheryl England is a MacUser senior editor. Kristina De Nike, of ZD Labs, andRoman Loyola, of MacUser Labs, managed the testing for this report.

Star Micronics AmericaPiscataway, NJ800-447-4700908-572-5550908-572-5693 (fax)

Fargo ElectronicsEden Prairie, MN800-327-4622612-941-9470800-327-7836 (fax)

Apple ComputerCupertino, CA800-538-9696408-996-1010408-974-2483 (fax)

Hewlett-PackardPalo Alto, CA800-752-0900 (U.S.)800-387-3867 (Canada)800-333-1917 (fax)

Directory / vendors of printers tested


PERSONAL INFORMATION MANAGERS

Can’t afford a personalsecretary? One ofthese seven low-costorganizers can manageyour appointments —and never calls in sick.By Shelley Cryan

Personal InformationManagersElectric

Assistants ou’re knee-deep in the quarterly budget, the phone won’t stop ringing, and you’vegot a nagging feeling that you’re supposed to meet someone for lunch — but youjust can’t remember who. Sound familiar? We all suffer from the effects of organi-zational entropy from time to time. But don’t worry, your Mac could be just the

thing to keep entropy at bay — your Mac and a PIM, that is.A PIM, or personal information manager, can rescue your phone numbers, addresses,

appointments, and to-do lists from cocktail-napkin oblivion and store them neatly inyour Mac. Even better, good PIMs let you slice and dice this information in virtually anyway you want. And if you own a PowerBook, you can take this personal database every-where you go; in case you don’t, most PIMs let you print your data in a variety of ways —including in standard Day-Timer-type formats — so you never have to be without yourpersonal data.

Listening to PIM makers, you’d think there were only two types of people in the world:Those who use a PIM and those who should. In reality, many folks can, and do, get alongjust fine without one. If you use your Mac only occasionally, a PIM’s scheduling featureswon’t be of much use, and if you just need to store a simple holiday-card list, theHyperCard address stack will do just fine.

In our informal survey of people who do use a PIM, we found three types of users: Thefirst are casual, relaxed folks who just want an electronic version of a Rolodex and don’treally have much time or inclination to keep it updated. The second are busy types whowant to maintain a list of contacts and a calendar and would like them as integrated —and as easy to use — as possible. The third are classic anal retentives who want to orga-nize absolutely everything in a desperate attempt to make order from the chaos of life —these workaholics want all the above and the flexibility to modify their PIM to match theirmethod of organization.

Our survey also revealed what we already knew in our hearts: Most people are lazy.Also, only a few need exceptionally powerful, highly configurable — and formidably

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The Bottom LineNO MORE EXCUSES: A good PIM will eliminate the last remainingwhen-I-get-around-to-it rationalizations you’ve been using to keepfrom getting organized. If you’re like most people, a personal infor-mation manager will do wonders for your productivity, promptness,and peace of mind — if only to remind you to program the VCR torecord your favorite show and set the timer on the Radar Range so theTV dinner’s ready when you get home. Our top pick offers featuresthat make getting organized — and staying organized — a breeze.

3 = OUTSTANDING

2 = ACCEPTABLE

1 = POOR

mmmm Claris Organizer 1.0 3 2 3 3

Simple, powerful, and inexpensive, Claris Organizer($99 list, $50 street) is tough to beat. This easy-to-use pro-gram will have you organized in no time. It packs manysophisticated features into a blissfully small package, animpressive achievement for a new product.

mmmh DateBook & TouchBasePro 4.0 Bundle 3 2 2 3

mmmh Now Up-To-Date 2.1.1 &Now Contact 1.1 2 2 2 3

mmmh Rae Assist 1.5.2 2 2 3 2

mmm Full Contact 2.02 2 2 1 3

mmh Ascend 3.0 1 2 3 1

mmh Shortlist 1.0.1 1 2 1 1


FEATURES

EASE

OF USE

PRICE/

PERFORMANCE

CUSTOMER

SERVICE

complex — personal information and organization systems. Be-cause of this, we focused on PIMs that meet the needs of our firsttwo groups of users. For information on super-PIMs, see the “High-End PIMs” sidebar.

Since the ideal PIM for the masses should include a range of capa-bilities at a low price, we further narrowed our focus to sub-$200PIMs with integrated calendars, planners, and lists of contacts. Thisroundup included Ascend 3.0, from Franklin Quest; Claris Orga-nizer 1.0; Full Contact 2.02, from FIT Software; Rae Assist 1.5.2; andShortlist 1.0.1, from Brainchild. Also qualifying were DateBook &TouchBase Pro 4.0 Bundle, from Aldus, and Now Up-to-Date 2.1.1 &Now Contact 1.1, from Now Software, which use System 7’s Appleevents to share data. ProVue’s Power Team and Portfolio’s Day-to-Day were being revised when we were preparing our report, so wedidn’t include them.

Narrowing Your ChoicesBefore you decide which features can best help you conquer yourinnate laziness, take stock of any system limitations. For instance, ifyou haven’t yet made the jump to System 7, you’ll have to pass onall but Ascend, Rae Assist, and Shortlist. DateBook & TouchBasePro can run under System 6, but their sharing capabilities requireSystem 7.

Short on RAM? Most PIMs need just 1 MB or less, but DateBook& TouchBase Pro and Now Up-to-Date & Now Contact eat up 2 MBeach. Rae Assist tops the list at 2.7 MB. Since many of these applica-tions can take considerable time to open, especially if you have a

large list of contacts or a full calendar, you may want to keep yourPIM open all the time — but remember that a memory-hungry PIMmay leave little space for other applications.

If you share information over a network, you’re limited to Date-Book & TouchBase Pro and Now Up-to-Date & Now Contact. ExpectNow Software to beef up Now Up-to-Date & Now Contact’s group-scheduling and group-contact-list capabilities in version 3.0, whichshould be available by the time you read this. Neither package, how-ever, currently offers group-scheduling features, such as the identi-fication of schedule conflicts across a network.

Once you’ve narrowed the field of PIMs to those that meet yourbasic needs, it’s time to look at specific features. The four key areaswe considered are contact management, scheduling, task/projectmanagement, and ease of use and maintainability.

How important these features are to you depends on your situa-tion. If your happy existence is threatened by an inability to remem-ber whom you need to see and what their telephone numbers andaddresses are, then examine a PIM’s contact-management capabili-ties. If you constantly juggle meetings, you’ll need a heavy-dutyscheduler or calendar. If your life is filled with a series of deadlinesand multistep projects, get a PIM with top-notch task- and project-management features. And no matter what your priorities are,make darned sure all these features — contact manager, scheduler,and task/project manager — are well linked so that your informa-tion is shared by the various components of the PIM, relieving youof the redundant, repetitive, reiterative burden of entering data overand over again.

Side o’ Hot LinksUntil recently, PIMs offered little more than electronic versions of abasic list of contacts and a calendar, and they didn’t talk to eachother. These days, linking is one of the hottest trends in the PIMarena — and one that makes PIMs worth another look if you’ve dis-missed them previously. Linking lets you associate, or link, onepiece of information, say an appointment with your accountant,with another piece of information already entered elsewhere, suchas your accountant’s name, address, and phone number. This way,you don’t have to retype contact information in your appointmentlist; the pertinent information is no more than a mouse click away.This linking not only helps keep you organized but also makes PIMmaintenance much less time-consuming.

Just as you can link contacts to appointments, you can also linkthem to notes, to-do items, and other contacts. Claris Organizeroffers a particularly intuitive way of showing links — it displays thesame icon, a paper clip, no matter which window is active. Click onthe paper clip to see a list of the linked items, and select any item tojump to it. Full Contact has the most linking options, but all thisflexibility can make it difficult to manage. Rae Assist provides pow-erful, intelligent linking tools — it often assists you by guessingwhat information you want to link.

Claris Organizer, DateBook & TouchBase Pro, Now Up-to-Date &Now Contact, and Rae Assist even let you link external documentsto contacts or appointments, so you can attach, say, a profit-and-loss spreadsheet to a scheduled financial-review meeting. Select theattached document, and RAM permitting, the source applicationwill launch and display it.


YOU CAN GET ONE HECK OF A PIM for around fifty bucks, so what couldpossess a PIM purchaser to invest upwards of $300? Power and flexibil-ity. More-expensive PIMs aren’t really geared to the average user;rather, they’re for managers, salespeople, and serious neat freaks withmoney to spend, time to invest, and a burning desire to make order outof the chaos that they see nibbling at the edges of their lives.ACT! 2.0 is an all-in-one PIM with a strong focus on communications.Its integrated e-mail works via PowerTalk. And ACT! can use FAXstfsoftware (not included) to mail-merge faxes. ACT! was originally a Win-dows product, and the interface shows its roots. To its credit, however,this cross-platform PIM is a mighty attractive tool for many businessenvironments.Arrange 2.0 is exceptionally flexible, allow-ing you to configure your information in anyway you see fit. Arrange treats each idea, per-son, appointment, or to-do item as a note, adata record that can be joined with othernotes in any combination, mimicking theway the user thinks. Although complex, Ar-range comes with some handy prebuilt tem-plates, so it’s ready to work right out of thebox. It also has autodialing and data-entry-aid plug-ins and templates for printing toAvery labels.CAT IV 1.0 aids businesses with heavy con-tact-management and office-automationneeds. Ideal for use in the field, CAT IV allowsmobile users to revise or add contact infor-mation and upload it to a central database viaApple Remote Access (ARA).

In a column alongside the contact names,

High-End PIMs / when a database is more than just a databasea check mark in the to-do box alerts the user to some action that mustbe taken pertaining to this contact. Double-click on the check mark toget to-do instructions — for example, doubling-clicking might takeyou to a letter that’s formatted, merged with contact info, and ready tobe printed for mailing to a customer.SuperOffice 2.5 has a clean, intuitive interface that’s easy for new usersto navigate, but it’s also powerful enough for more-sophisticated us-ers. SuperOffice files are cross-platform and can be shared via ARA.

This PIM is distinctive in that it takes over your desktop. Buttonslaunch your word processing, spreadsheet, e-mail, on-line service, orother application you’ve designated. When you quit those applica-tions, you’re returned to SuperOffice. If you have a problem figuring out

that difficult Mac interface or just like the goodol’ look and feel of a dedicated system, this mayjust be the interface for you. / Patty Ames

Looks like a Windows application? There’sa good reason: ACT! started there and isnow available on the Mac as well. ACT!offers several customizable fields to helpyou sort complex contact information, butits main strength is in communications,supporting both Mac and Windows clients.

Arrange offers phenomenal flexibility:All data types are considered notes that canbe linked and sorted in almost any way.

Managing Your Who InfoAll the linking in the world won’t help if your PIM’s contact managercan’t hold the kind of information you need to keep or if it’s too hardto retrieve your data when you need it. All the PIMs we looked at letyou store names, addresses, and phone numbers and use an entrywindow similar to a Rolodex card. Each piece of information, suchas last name, home phone number, and ZIP code, is stored on aseparate line, or field. The information becomes a database, whichyou can then search, sort, filter, and print.

Each PIM we reviewed has designated fields for entering basicpersonal information. Claris Organizer and Shortlist also providehandy fields for entering nicknames, prefixes (such as Dr. or Ms.),and suffixes (such as Jr. or III).

If a PIM doesn’t contain a predefined field for entering the infor-mation you have, don’t dismiss it. All except Ascend and Shortlistcontain fields you can define yourself. Usually, customizable fieldsare straight data-entry fields, but Claris Organizer, DateBook &TouchBase Pro, and Full Contact also let you set up menus so youcan enter frequently used information by simply selecting it from alist instead of entering it every time. DateBook & TouchBase Prooffers the most customizable fields, at 16.

One of the most useful contact-management features available inall PIMs is the ability to assign a category, or tag — such as friend,business, or family — to individual contacts. Tagging a contact

makes it easy to group similarly tagged contacts later. Surprisingly,the otherwise feature-rich DateBook & TouchBase Pro doesn’t pro-vide a predefined field specifically for tagging; you must use one ofits customizable fields. All the PIMs except Shortlist allow you todefine your own tag names.

Anyone who has contacts needs to enter company addresses andphone numbers. Most of the programs treat this information likeevery other piece of information: You enter it in fields in the contact-entry window. If you have 17 contacts at Acme Widget, you musttype Acme’s business address and main phone number 17 times or,at best, cut and paste it into each person’s entry window. If Acmemoves, you’ve got to update all 17 records.

Not so with Full Contact and Rae Assist — they store companyinformation separately from the contact itself. This way, Acme Wid-get is stored only once. Everyone listed in your database who worksat Acme Widget is linked to the company information, so when youpull up an employee’s contact information, that person’s companyinformation is just a mouse click away. The benefit: You enter or editthe company information only once, making database maintenanceeasy.

Full Contact and Rae Assist extend the convenience of auto-completing fields to when you enter a new contact. If Full Contactrecognizes the company name after you’ve typed just the first fewletters, it can optionally fill in the rest of the information for you.



PIM Personalities / a wide variety of interfaces to choose fromUNLIKE WORD PROCESSORS or spreadsheetprograms — where one application lookspretty much like another — each PIM has apersonality all its own. Although all PIMs havea basic calendar view and a basic contact-listwindow, that’s where the similarities end.Before deciding on a PIM, take a close look atits interface — after all, it’s your personalinformation and it ought to be accessible in away that matches your personality. And if yourpersonality is one of chaos and laziness, forgeta PIM and stick with plastering your monitorwith Post-it notes.

Note that files and calendaritems can be linked to thecontact areas for plenty ofcustomized fields.

Task management is the one area where Ascend, from FranklinQuest, truly shines. Icons that mark the status of tasks areborrowed from the popular Franklin Day Planner system andmay make sense only to those who are familiar with that system.

Rae Assist is one ofseveral PIMs thatconveniently offer aseparate projectsarea. Rae Assist usesa binder metaphor;click on the tabs onthe right to navigate tothe major areas.

Shortlist’s event-scheduling dialog boxis like most of the restof the application:dated and awkwardlystructured.

It’s easy to enter information inDateBook & TouchBase Pro’sfunctional and well-designedcontact detail screen.


You can fine-tune data searches using FITSoftware’s Full Contact, whose hallmarkis extreme flexibility. The program’sflexibility, however, can at times make itoverwhelmingly complex to use.

The new kid on the block, Claris Organizer,makes it easy to attach items to appointments.The Wednesday-morning meeting here hasassociated contact details and a related file, alleasily accessible.

The Now Up-to-Date & NowContact combination PIMconveniently offers access tosome of its data even when theprograms aren’t running. Pulldown either of the menuspermanently located in the upperright corner of your screen toaccess frequently used datawithout launching the application.



Rae Assist is only a bit less intelligent: You need to enter thecompany’s full name and then move to the next field before it willsearch for the company information. Autocompletion featuressuch as these also help make maintaining a PIM as hassle-free aspossible.

In addition to storing personal data, PIMs are great for massmailings. For instance, you can export a text file of names and

addresses contained in a PIM to your favorite word processor formail-merging. But for the ultimate in convenience, DateBook &TouchBase Pro, Full Contact, Now Up-to-Date & Now Contact, andShortlist provide built-in word processors that are adequate forsimple correspondence and have some mail-merge capabilities.You’ll still want to hang on to your stand-alone word processor fordocuments with more-complex formatting and text-handling

figure 1

Features of PIMs / linked PIMs under $200Ascend ✓ Claris DateBook & Full Contact Now Up-to-Date Rae Assist Shortlist3.0 Organizer TouchBase 2.02 2.1.1 & Now 1.5.2 1.0.1

1.0 Pro 4.0 Bundle Contact 1.1Requirements

System software 6.0.5 7 7 7 7 6.0.7 6.0.7

Hard-disk space 2 MB 2 MB 4 MB 2 MB 2 MB 6 MB 1 MB

Suggested RAM 900K 1.2 MB 2 MB 1 MB 2 MB 2.7 MB 1 MB

Power Mac version * * 2 2

External communication

Imports text files 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Exports text files 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Network support 2 2

Password protection 2 2 2

Autodialer 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Contact management

Customizable field types 4 16 10 † 9

Free-form general notes 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Custom groupings/tags 2 2 2 2 2 2

Word processor with mail-merge § 2 2 2 2

Links external files to contact 2 2 2

Scheduling

Conflict display 2 2 2 2 2

Allows for conflicts 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Recurring activities 2 2 2 2 2 2

Links contacts to appointments 2 2 2 2 2 2

Multiday events 2 2 2 2 2

Project/task management

To-do lists 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Alarms 2 2 2 2 2

Separate project area 2 2 2

Links contacts to tasks 2 2 2 2 2 2

Links external files to items 2 2

Billing time log 2

Interface

Smart data entry 2 2 2 2 2

Access without launching 2 2

Output

Prints in popular formats 2 2 2 2

Envelope printing 2 2 2 2 2 2

Label printing 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Print preview 2 2 2 2

Other

Automatic saves 2 2 2 2 2

✓ MacUser RECOMMENDS *Power Mac version scheduled for release in late 1994.†Eight field types are possible; as many as 250 categories.§No word processor, but built-in mail-merge feature works with external word processors.


Trends / colorized, customized, integratedPIM DEVELOPERS ARE WORKING feverishly to come up with the secretformula that will convert all of us into organized beings. Some up-coming products give us an idea of what lengths they’ll go to get youto use a PIM.Rae Technology will respond to customer demand and ship acolor version of Rae Assist. The color will boost its already high RAMrequirements.Personalized PIMs will provide personalized features. Rae willrelease two new versions of Rae Assist. One, called Student Assist, willbe sold in the education market and have fields for class-schedulinginformation, instructor, and course. The Performa version, called RaeAssist for Performa, will come preloaded with contact information formajor airlines, hotels, and rental-car companies.Dynodex will disappear and resurface as Day-To-Day Contacts,which will include an integrated calendar. All you Dynodex fans whofeel you’ve been left in the dust by the inexorable advance of inte-grated PIMs, fear not. Portfolio, maker of Dynodex and Dyno Notepad,has announced that in addition to Day-To-Day Contacts, it plans tointroduce Day-To-Day Calendar (a new application) and Day-To-DayNotes (which will replace Dyno Notepad). All three modules will belinked. / Patty Ames

needs, such as footnoting and indexing.And if you prefer to contact people via phone, no need to let your

fingers do the working. All these PIMs can dial the phone for you,either via modem or by generating tones with your Mac’s internalspeaker, or they can even dial your telephone by using a dialer suchas the TurboDialer, from MicroMachines, or the DeskTop Dialer,from Sophisticated Circuits.

No Missed MeetingsJust about all of us time-conscious folks have at least one calendarwe look at regularly. No matter if the most important item on yourweekly calendar of events is a meeting with the board of directors orthe time to set your VCR to record Beverly Hills 90210 or MelrosePlace, without a well-maintained calendar, you can lose track ofthose momentous events.

The breadth of scheduling, or calendar, features sets two PIMsapart from the others we looked at: Claris Organizer and DateBook& TouchBase Pro contain more scheduling capabilities than any ofthe others and implement them nicely. Ascend and Shortlist fallshort in several key scheduling areas, and Full Contact, Now Up-to-Date & Now Contact, and Rae Assist offer solid, but not stellar,scheduling features.

All the PIMs include daily, weekly, and monthly schedulingviews; scheduled events and to-do items are listed in each view, ex-cept for Ascend’s monthly view, which includes only scheduledevents.

Where Ascend really falls down, however, is in coordinating ap-pointments with contacts. All the other PIMs link meetings withthe people you’re meeting.

A good PIM lets you schedule events at conflicting times, givingyou a visual cue to that effect. Usually it accomplishes this by vary-ing coloring or shading in a daily-schedule view or by placing ap-pointments next to each other in the same time slot, as Claris Orga-nizer does. Ascend and Rae Assist offer no such indications, andFull Contact’s are difficult to see.

Shortlist lacks an easy way to enter recurring activities. You canschedule recurring activities in Full Contact, but it doesn’t let youchange individual instances. The rest offer a better approach: Forexample, Claris Organizer is flexible and allows you to make an ap-pointment at 4 P.M. on every third Tuesday for the next 17 months,if you like.

You’ll also appreciate a streamlined way to enter multiday events,such as vacations or seminars. Claris Organizer, DateBook & Touch-Base Pro, and Full Contact make the process simple, unlike Ascend,Rae Assist, and Shortlist. Now Up-to-Date & Now Contact lets youcreate multiday events and draw a descriptive banner across mul-tiple days in its monthly calendar view, but the event doesn’t showup in the daily and weekly views.

All the PIM programs except Rae Assist and Shortlist providealarms to remind you of important events. In Claris Organizer,DateBook & TouchBase Pro, Full Contact, and Now Up-to-Date &Now Contact, alarms are handled by system extensions and go offeven when the application isn’t running. You can even opt to hit asnooze button, which makes the alarm recur later. If you have ExMachina’s Notify!, DateBook & TouchBase Pro will even notify yourpager when an alarm goes off.

Get the Task/Project DoneAs if integrated lists of contacts and calendars weren’t enough, allthe PIMs we looked at offered some sort of task or project manageror to-do list. This is Ascend’s one shining area, letting you prioritizeand rank tasks as well as providing a set of visual cues borrowedfrom the Franklin Day Planner system to indicate the status of tasks.

None of the programs offers full-fledged project management —you’ll see no complex Gantt charts here. Shortlist is structured toorganize projects separately, so it is difficult to share data acrossprojects. Rae Assist does a better job, in that its separate Projectssection allows you to gather project-related items such as meetings,tasks, and contacts without restriction.

DateBook & TouchBase Pro expands on this concept to offer pow-erful project templates. Your projects may contain similar steps, soyou can create templates that store all the steps involved, leavingyou to simply fill in the details.

Look and FeelA PIM may have every feature you ever dreamed of, but it’s worth-less if it languishes on your hard disk. And that’s exactly what’ll hap-pen if you don’t like the way it feels.

Preference in interface design is largely a matter of taste, and theapproaches used in these PIMs vary widely. Rae Assist carries outall activities in a single window, which PowerBook users may preferand many people may find easy to learn and maintain. ClarisOrganizer’s simple yet effective navigational controls are easy to fig-ure out and will have you organized quickly.

Ascend delves into some areas uncommon for a PIM — no otherPIM asks you to enter your life values or personal goals. Designedas a companion to the popular Franklin Day Planner, Ascend prom-ises life management through time management, making setting alunch date an existential decision.

Shortlist’s windows are rather stark and have a low-tech feel.



You’ll juggle multiple windows if you work with DateBook &TouchBase Pro or Now Up-to-Date & Now Contact, but DateBook& TouchBase Pro does offer superior navigational controls. FullContact’s numerous windows can, at times, become overwhelming.

Although judging the usefulness of many interface elements issubjective, some things are universally appreciated. All the PIMsexcept Ascend and Shortlist speed data entry with smart features.Phone numbers are automatically formatted, and the first letters ofwords are automatically capitalized. Some PIMs, such as Full Con-tact and Rae Assist, even complete words or entire entries for you ifthey find a match elsewhere in the database. This saves time andcan eliminate unwanted record duplication. The champ in ease ofdata entry is Rae Assist. If a company’s fax number differs from itsvoice number by just the last four digits, just enter those digits andRae Assist does the rest.

Now Up-to-Date & Now Con-tact and DateBook & TouchBasePro provide a convenient way toaccess your data without evenrequiring the application to berunning. You just pull down amenu located permanently in theupper right corner of your screento gain instant, although limited,access to your database. With ei-ther package, you can use themenu to add events and to-doitems to your schedule, searchyour contact database, and getcore contact information. NowUp-to-Date & Now Contact’sQuick Contact menu also showsyou the current day’s events, ap-pointments, and to-do items.

Rae Assist 1.5.2Rating: mmmhList Price: $99.Street Price: $99 (direct).Pros: Powerful and easy-to-uselinking features. Handles companyinformation superbly. Streamlined, ifunconventional, interface. Strongcontact-management features. Well-implemented “smart” data entry.Cons: No alarms. Slow to launch.Relatively large RAM requirement.Weak scheduling and printingfeatures.Company: Rae Technology,Cupertino, CA; 408-725-2850;408-725-2855 (fax).

Now Up-to-Date 2.1.1 &Now Contact 1.1Rating: mmmhList Price: $149.Street Price: $95.Pros: Handles event categories well.Can assign tags and keywords, soyou can better define your contactlist. Parts of database can beaccessed when program isn’trunning.Cons: Poor navigational controls.Subpar control over multiday-eventcreation. Two-program scheme trickyto learn.Company: Now Software, Portland,OR; 800-237-3611 or 503-274-2800;503-274-0670 (fax).

Full Contact 2.02Rating: mmmList Price: $169.Street Price: $115.Pros: Flexible linking capabilitiesoffer good control over how data isorganized. Can create sophisticateddata filters for sorting. Full-featuredword processor.Cons: Program’s flexibility is oftenunwieldy to manage.Company: FIT Software, Santa Clara,CA; 800-725-3734 or 408-562-5990;408-562-5970 (fax).

Shortlist 1.0.1Rating: mmhList Price: $99.Street Price: $57.Pros: Small RAM and hard-disk-spacerequirements. Fast.Cons: Inflexible. Poor schedulingfeatures. No alarms. Stores only oneaddress per contact.Company: Brainchild, Cincinnati, OH;800-598-2597 or 513-831-8451;513-831-7804 (fax).

Ascend 3.0Rating: mmhList Price: $200.Street Price: $165.Pros: Good task-managementfeatures. Based on popular FranklinDay Planner system.Cons: No link between contacts andappointments. Poor schedulingfeatures. Alarms don’t go off ifprogram isn’t running.Company: Franklin Quest, Salt LakeCity, UT; 800-877-1814 or801-975-9992; 801-975-9995 (fax).

Claris Organizer 1.0Rating: mmmmList Price: $99.Street Price: $50.Pros: Easiest to learn and use.Speedy. Many sophisticated features,including document linking, butrequires little RAM.Cons: Incomplete printeddocumentation, although on-linehelp is excellent.Company: Claris, Santa Clara, CA;800-735-7393 or 408-987-7000;800-800-8954 (fax) or408-987-3932 (fax).

DateBook &TouchBase Pro 4.0 BundleRating: mmmhList Price: $149.Street Price: $90.Pros: Polished interface. Colorfulicons make it easy to spot specialevents. Great search facilities. Bestcontrol over customizable fields.Cons: Two-program scheme tricky tolearn. Higher-than-average RAMrequirement.Company: Aldus, Consumer Division,San Diego, CA; 619-558-6000;619-558-8723 (fax).

Complex ProductsWhatever your choice, a PIM can spell relief for even the most orga-nizationally challenged. Just don’t expect it to accomplish your to-do items for you.

Because PIMs come with so many features and such a variety ofinterfaces, finding the one that matches your needs may take time.Try to be realistic and identify your organizational needs. There’s nosense spending a lot of money on a complex PIM if you need onlyone or two of its features. And don’t think price is a good measure ofquality — some of the least expensive PIMs are the best. The bot-tom line is, get a handle on what you want to organize, but take aserious look at how you organize before making a decision.

Shelley Cryan would be obsessively organized if she ever got around to it.


ARA SERVER PRODUCTS

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The right ARA server canprovide your office network’sremote users with speed,convenience, and security.

ife used to be so simple. If you wanted to hook up to youroffice network while traveling, all you needed was one copyof AppleTalk Remote Access 1.0 on your PowerBook and an-other copy on a desktop Mac. You could then dial up youroffice network to download a crucial spreadsheet from

the server, keep current with your e-mail, print a report on yourboss’s LaserWriter, or drop a memo into your assistant’s sharedfolder. In short, anything you could do from your desktop Mac youcould also do remotely.

But then Apple changed all that. When the company designedApple Remote Access (ARA) 2.0, it added new security features andmore-intelligent phone dialing options — and it separated the cli-ent software from the server software. Now, if you want to use ARA2.0, you must buy ARA client software as well as create an ARAserver of some sort by running ARA server software on your desk-top Mac or on a dedicated piece of hardware.

There are reasons for buying an ARA server other than just toaccess the more-advanced features of ARA 2.0. For example, if youuse an ARA server, you won’t have to buy a costly top-of-the-linemodem for each and every ARA user and you can better monitorphone-line usage. An ARA server simplifies and centralizes remotenetwork access by managing ARA traffic through multiple modemsattached to it (remote users still need their own modems, however).

To help you find the right setup for your office, MacUser Labstested seven stand-alone ARA servers. In addition, we tested Apple’snow unbundled server software for single users, Apple RemoteAccess Personal Server, as well as the multiuser Apple RemoteAccess MultiPort Server, a 12-inch NuBus card that includes fourserial ports to which you attach modems; the MultiPort Server’s

management software lets you install as many as four MultiPortServers in a Mac that has sufficient NuBus slots, for a total of 16modem connections.

The seven stand-alone servers each connect directly to an Ether-net network; two — the Global Village OneWorld Remote AccessServer and the Webster MultiPort/LT — can also connect to a Local-Talk network. Inside each is a processor and RAM that togethermanage the system and perform the data-compression and error-correction chores that are usually performed by a modem. Many arerack-mountable, making them easy to install in a network closetalong with routers and hubs.

Unfortunately, while we were testing ARA servers, a major playerin the Mac networking arena, Asanté, was in the midst of overhaul-ing its Net RAS’ administration software. As a result, we were unableto fully evaluate the latest version of its server. Our preliminary lookat the hardware shows a promising product, however.

Likewise, we did not test the IBM 8235 ARA server. This productis a relabeled version of the Shiva LanRover/PLUS, though, so itshould work identically. Prices for the IBM 8235 range from $3,255for an eight-port Ethernet version without modems to $7,875 for aneight-port token-ring version with modems.

How Many, How Much?The first step in converting your office to an ARA-server setup is tofigure out how many ports you need. Each port accepts one modem,and each modem connects to one phone line. You can have as manysimultaneous users as the server has ports.

Like other networking products (hubs and routers, for example),ARA servers can be evaluated on a price-per-port basis. The per-

L

By Shelly Brisbin


ARA servers come in differentforms — some, such as the APTDial Server (left) and the ShivaLanRover/E (top), are big andbulky; others, such as the GlobalVillage OneWorld Remote AccessServer (right), are no larger thana hard drive. The DaynaDaynaLINK for ARA (bottom)comes in a large box but acceptsinternal PCMCIA modems.

ALL SHAPES AND SIZES


ARA SERVER PRODUCTS

The Bottom LineSPEEDY, FEATURE-RICH Apple Remote Access (ARA)server products can’t guarantee mobile productivity,

but they can make connecting to your office network easier. Choosea fast server product with a low cost per port and with well-designedmanagement software that makes server administration simple andsecure. If you plan to use a server for more than just ARA, look forrouting, fax, and multiprotocol support.

3 = OUTSTANDING

2 = ACCEPTABLE

1 = POOR

mmmm Apple ARA MultiPort Server 3 2 2 2

You’ll need to supply a Mac, but if you have a powerfulone to spare, you’ll find the ARA MultiPort Server ($1,299– $6,295 list, $1,290 – $4,665 street) fast, and it’s easy toinstall and manage. Documentation is good, and expan-sion is easy.

mmmm Apple ARA Personal Server3 2 2 1

If you need only single-port access and miss the sim-plicity of ARA 1.0, your best bet is Apple’s ARA PersonalServer ($250 list, $190 street). Like its multiport sibling,it’s easy to use and includes good documentation.

mmmm Shiva LanRover/PLUS 2 2 2 3

Cross-platform offices will find the LanRover/PLUS($6,499 – $8,499 list, $5,260 – $6,875 street) to be a wor-thy choice for busy ARA sites. You can administer theLanRover/PLUS from a Mac or a PC, and it provides sup-port for IP and IPX dial-in and dial-out as well as routingand IP gateway functions.

mmmm Dayna DaynaLINK for ARA 2 2 3 2

mmmh Shiva LanRover/E 2 2 2 3

mmm APT Dial Server 1 3 1 1

mmm Global Village OneWorldRemote Access Server 1 3 2 1

mmm Telebit NetBlazer ST 1 2 1 3

mmh Webster MultiPort/LT 1 2 1 2


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port price of the server products we tested ranges from a low of $190for Apple’s ARA Personal Server to a high of $650 for the Global Vil-lage OneWorld Remote Access Server. But the latter server comeswith two Global Village TelePort/Mercury modems, each capable ofhandling 19.2 kilobits per second (kbps), whereas Apple’s ARA Per-sonal Server is simply software — you need to supply a Mac to runit on and a modem.

At first glance, it seems that the least expensive multiport prod-uct, on a per-port basis, is the Apple ARA MultiPort Server. Thisserver product and the four-port expansion kit we tested sell for acombined street price of $2,415, or $300 per port — but you mustsupply a NuBus-equipped Mac to run it on. The three-port APT DialServer is the costliest server that doesn’t come with modems, at$1,695, or $565 per port.

Keep in mind too that some servers come bundled with ARA cli-ent software, which can also reduce the final price per port, becauseotherwise you would need to purchase the software from Apple.

Most ARA servers sold without modems support several third-party modems. Server vendors include an assortment of ARA CCLs,the connection control language files that ensure compatibility be-tween a server and the modems you use with it. Apple includes sev-eral CCLs with its ARA client software, and Mac-savvy modem ven-dors usually ship them with their products.

The two Shiva LanRovers, the Telebit NetBlazer ST, and the DaynaDaynaLINK for ARA don’t use ARA CCLs. The Shiva LanRovers relyon an internal database of modem parameters. As when choosing aCCL, you designate your modem via a pop-up menu. This approachworks well if your modem is supported; if it isn’t, you must find outyour modem’s initialization string — a call to the vendor’s tech-support service is a good idea — and enter it into the LanRover’sdatabase. The Telebit NetBlazer ST also stores modem initializationstrings internally, but it does not offer pop-up menu choices.

Instead of desktop modems, the Dayna DaynaLINK for ARA re-quires PCMCIA modems, modems that come on cards about thesize of a cigarette pack and that slide into slots in the back of theDaynaLINK. The server is set up to configure itself for all currentlyshipping PCMCIA modems. The PCMCIA modems can be more ex-pensive than conventional modems, but since they don’t each re-quire a power cord, using them keeps cable clutter to a minimum.

When you purchase modems for an ARA server, choose the fast-est you can afford. Like all other telecommunications schemes, ARAserves you best when benefiting from a high data-transfer rate. Atspeeds below the 9,600-bps rate of a V.32 modem, you’re going to bedissatisfied. And remember: A telecommunication connection isonly as fast as the slower modem in a client/server pair — if you gethigh-speed modems for your ARA server, make sure you get equallyfast ones for remote users.

If you choose a multiport ARA server, your investment in high-speed modems will be worthwhile only if the server scales well —that is, if it retains its speed when most or all of its ports are in use.We discovered some radical speed differences among servers andalso learned that the speed of both Apple server products is highlydependent on the host Mac’s power and whether or not the sameMac is also being used for other functions (for example, as anAppleShare server). For a detailed description of our testing and ananalysis of the results, see the “How We Tested” sidebar.

Administration, Security, and ConvenienceAlthough speed is likely to be the primary concern of ARA usersdialing in to a network, management and security features are moreimportant to the network administrator back at the office. User ac-counts need to be set up and maintained, and the security of thenetwork must be kept inviolable. In most cases, server manufactur-ers have made these chores easy by allowing management of theserver from any Mac on the network that’s loaded with the appropri-ate management software. The accounts and settings the adminis-trator specifies are downloaded to the ARA server and stored there.

Apple’s server products, however, don’t afford this convenience;they must be managed from the Mac on which they’re installed.Although this is only an annoyance at the office, it’s a real problemwhen you need to make a change from a remote location. UsingFarallon’s Timbuktu is a workaround — but an added cost.

The Telebit NetBlazer ST is the only server we tested that doesn’t

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DON’T BE SURPRISED if once you have an ARA server up and running,you get a lot of requests for access. The best management software

Creating User Accounts / good management software makes the differencemakes it easy to set up accounts and gives you numerous access andsecurity options. Here’s how ARA server software stacks up:

Apple’s ARA Personal Server looks and acts justlike the ARA 2.0 client software. But unlike theclient software, the server software can answerincoming ARA calls.

Shiva’s Net Manager software for the LanRoverscontains a wide variety of features and sports aclean, organized interface. For each user, you canspecify such items as the length of connectiontime, the type of dial-back, and which devices orzones should be hidden.

The Apple ARA MultiPort Server ’s softwareoffers the simplest interface of all the productswe tested. For example, all the new-usersetup options are contained in this window.Unfortunately, the software lacks advancedfeatures such as zone and device hiding.

come with management software that can be installed on a Mac;instead, the NetBlazer ST’s software is installed on the server itself.To access its UNIX-like interface from a Mac, your best bet is to useApple’s ADSP (AppleTalk Data Stream Protocol) Tool and a telecom-munications program such as Software Ventures’ MicroPhone Pro.But this is not a straightforward method. It’s much easier to managethe NetBlazer ST’s software from a Microsoft Windows-based PC onthe same network. Otherwise, be prepared for a trip back in time tothe dark days of the command-line interface.

No matter how you access an ARA server’s administrative capa-bilities, the bread-and-butter work of ARA management includesthe creation and maintenance of user accounts, the setting andmodification of passwords, and the designation of restrictions onthe amount of time each user can stay connected to the server. Al-though interfaces differ, creating user accounts is straightforwardon all the servers we looked at.

The Global Village OneWorld Remote Access Server and theDayna DaynaLINK for ARA go a step further than the others. Theirmanagement software lets you define master accounts — sets ofcommonly used privileges — that you can grant to one user or si-multaneously to more than one. Master accounts make it easy tomanage several sets of privileges and to quickly change the access

level of an entire group of users. Global Village calls these accountspassports; Dayna calls them key rings. You might, for example, cre-ate a master account that allows users to dial in only during eveninghours and limits access time to one hour per day and give this ac-count to travelers who dial in from their hotel rooms in the evening.

Apple comes closest to offering the convenience of the passportand key-ring systems. As with AppleShare and System 7’s personalfile sharing, the Users and Groups feature of the two Apple serverproducts lets you assign access privileges to users and to groups ofusers. AppleShare Users and Groups files can be imported into theGlobal Village OneWorld Remote Access Server — and the GlobalVillage server even allows you to import user information createdwith the Shiva LanRovers’ management software.

Seven of the nine products we tested allow remote clients usingARA 2.0 to change their own passwords, improving users’ controlover the security of their remote connection. ARA Personal Serverforces you to change passwords via the administration software in-stalled on the server. The Telebit NetBlazer ST does not supportARA 2.0. These two products also don’t support password aging, auseful security measure that forces users to change their passwordsat an administrator-specified interval. (We don’t find this to be a bighandicap for ARA Personal Server, however, since this product is

With Dayna’s key-ring metaphor for its server’ssoftware, you assign access privileges to a specificstyle of key. You then give that key to each userallowed to have those privileges. Users can buildup key rings full of keys. The DaynaLINK for ARA isthe only server that lets you limit access based onthe time of day a user calls.

The Global Village OneWorld Remote AccessServer’s software relies on a passport metaphorfor assigning access privileges to users and groups.Once you’ve set up a passport, you can give it toany user or group of users. Passports can alsoinclude access privileges for Global Village’s fax ordial-out server software.

The software for the Telebit NetBlazer SThas a command-line interface that stronglyresembles that of UNIX. To performadministrative duties, you must use atelecommunications program and anextension such as Apple’s ADSP Tool tocommunicate with the server over a network.


ARA SERVER PRODUCTS

How We Tested / some ARA servers get stuck in heavy trafficTO KEEP EVERY DIAL-IN USER HAPPY, first estimate howmany simultaneous users you’ll have at any one time

and then choose an ARA server with at least that many ports — andone that performs well when all of its ports are busy. To find out justhow much traffic each server could bear, we put all of them throughfive rigorous tests.

First, we equipped most of the servers with as many 14.4-kbps mo-dems as they could handle, to a maximum of eight. We tested two ofthe server products in less than their maximum configuration. One ofthem was the Apple ARA MultiPort Server. This 12-inch NuBus card

supports 4 modems and comes with software that can manage asmany as four ARA MultiPort Server cards in one Mac, for a maximumof 16 modem connections. To find out how the ARA MultiPort Serverperforms in Macs with different processors, we installed two cards ina Mac IIci running AppleShare 3.0 and in a Quadra 950 runningAppleShare 4.0.

The Telebit NetBlazer ST, the other server we tested in less than itsmaximum configuration, can support as many as 26 modems, butTelebit recommends that you use only 24 ports for remote access. (Theremaining two ports are intended for use with other services, such asa leased T-1 line or another high-speed communications channel.)

The ARA MultiPort Server systems and the NetBlazer ST were eachtested with a maximum of eight modems connected, as were theeight-port Dayna DaynaLINK for ARA and the Shiva LanRover/E andLanRover/PLUS. The Webster MultiPort/LT supports a maximum offour modems; the APT Dial Server, three; the Global Village OneWorldRemote Access Server, two. The ARA Personal Server software canmanage one modem connected to the host Mac; we tested it on aQuadra 950 running AppleShare 4.0.

managing traffic between them and improving network speed.(The APT Dial Server has DIN-8 ports, but its software does notsupport routing.) Both Shiva LanRovers and the Telebit NetBlazerST also have Ethernet and serial ports, but their serial ports are notDIN-8 ones and therefore cannot be used as LocalTalk ports. Youcan, however, set these ARA servers up in their respective sites, havethem call each other, and route data between two remote networks.

With the right client software, users can send faxes or make callsto on-line services or bulletin boards from their office machineswith some of these products. Of course, if you want fax capability,the modems you connect to the Dial Server and the MultiPort/LTmust support fax transmission (as do the Global Village TelePort/Mercury modems that come with the OneWorld Remote AccessServer). APT provides the software you need — COM Dialout —and allows you to distribute it freely to all clients. Webster offers

designed for a single user who acts as both client and administra-tor.) Unfortunately for the security-conscious, the Dayna Dayna-LINK for ARA also doesn’t support password aging, despite its ARA2.0 compatibility.

All but ARA Personal Server let you hide selected network zonesfrom one or more ARA users, either for security or to limit networktraffic. (Again, because ARA Personal Server is designed for oneuser, the inability to hide zones is insignificant.) The APT DialServer and both Shiva LanRovers also let you hide network devices.

Beyond ARAMany ARA servers can also perform other duties. The WebsterMultiPort/LT has one Ethernet port and four DIN-8 serial ports; theserial ports can each support a modem or connect to LocalTalk.Thus the server can also act as a router between two networks,

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Small, highly compressible files such as memos, reports, and other text files make up the majority of data that remote users most often need to transfer.To find out how the ARA servers fared with these types of files, including how well their processors could perform ARA’s compression duties, we first reada 100K folder containing five uncompressed text files and then wrote the same folder to the AppleShare server. Note the increasing difference in speedbetween the ARA MultiPort Server cards in a Quadra 950 and in a IIci as loads increased.

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Stalker Software’s PortShare Pro for $89 (10 users) or $299 (unlim-ited users). Pricing for fax and dial-out software for the Global Vil-lage OneWorld Remote Access Server was not available at presstime.

Finally, some of the servers we reviewed can be accessed by meth-ods other than using ARA. If your office includes Macs, PCs, andUNIX workstations, it’s possible to give all of their users remoteaccess to your network if you choose a server that supports protocols— network languages — other than AppleTalk and ARA’s. The mostcommon protocols are Novell’s IPX, used for access to Novell Net-Ware servers, and IP, the standard for UNIX access, including accessto the Internet. Only the Shiva LanRovers and the Telebit NetBlazerST support IPX. If you need IP, your choices broaden to include theWebster MultiPort/LT. The LanRover/E and the LanRover/PLUSadd IP forwarding access for Mac users.

The Choice Is YoursIf the well-being and morale of your business would benefit from afast, seamless, and easily manageable remote-access system, thequestion is not whether or not you should equip your network withan ARA server but which one you should choose.

If you’re looking for a one-user, one-server setup, ARA PersonalServer running on a Mac more than fills the bill. A powerful Macrunning this software was the fastest server we tested, and evenwith a slower Mac, you get more-than-acceptable speed. It lackssophisticated administrative controls, but for the simplest of ARAenvironments, with only one phone line, it’s an elegant option.

If you have a busy, Mac-only office, the choice is a bit tougher. TheDayna DaynaLINK for ARA is attractive for offices in which fourports are sufficient, but the choice of high-speed PCMCIA modemsis limited. Its software has an attractive interface and includes most

If you’re transferring large graphics files, you can compress them before sending them or you can let the ARA server compress them for you. In ourtests, we transferred a 10-MB Adobe Photoshop file that we had first compressed to 416K, using Photoshop’s JPEG compression option. In the first test,clients read the file; in the second, the clients copied the file to the AppleShare server. Note that, unlike when transferring uncompressed text files, thespeed of most of the servers did not degrade until eight clients accessed them.

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To see how well the ARA servers handled QuickMail, we timed how longit took to retrieve a 993K Excel file enclosed within a QuickMail message. Evenwith eight clients, most of the servers were faster than when performingany other test, since QuickMail isn’t burdened by Finder overhead.

We then configured eight Mac IIci’s as ARA clients and equippedthem with 14.4-kbps modems from Practical Peripherals. Althoughthe Global Village OneWorld Remote Access Server comes bundledwith Global Village TelePort/Mercury 19.2-kbps modems, we did notexploit their additional speed, because of the 14.4-kbps limit of theclients’ modems.

We used the IIci’s to access a Quadra 950 running AppleShare 4.0.This AppleShare server was connected to an Ethernet network, as waseach ARA server. We then used the IIci’s to dial in to each ARA serverand copied two types of files to and from the AppleShare server. Westarted our testing gently, with only one client connected, and thenupped the load to two, four, and eight simultaneous clients, depend-ing on the number of modems connected.

The Telebit NetBlazer ST’s scheme of tapping the processing powerof the Telebit WorldBlazer modems attached to it meant that theNetBlazer ST suffered only a slight degradation in speed as clientswere added, even though its file-transfer rate was low at small clientloads. All the other servers slowed as more clients accessed them,except, in some cases, the ARA MultiPort Server installed in a Quadra950 running AppleShare 4.0 and the Global Village OneWorld RemoteAccess Server.


ARA SERVER PRODUCTS

Directory / vendors of ARA server products

important management features. The server itself is inexpensive,and the cost of PCMCIA modems should drop as they become morewidely used.

Our nod for the best ARA server product for Mac-only officesgoes to Apple’s ARA MultiPort Server, however. Install it in a power-ful Mac, and you get a server that is fast and convenient, performswell under heavy use, and can accommodate as many as 16 users.A drawback is that the software lacks some of the best server-man-agement, security, and networking features of its competitors. Andremember: To use one or more MultiPort Servers to their best ad-vantage, dedicate a powerful 68040 Mac as host.

Finally, if your business depends on a busy, ecumenical networkof Macs, PCs, and UNIX workstations, you’ll find a lot to like aboutthe Shiva LanRover/PLUS. With its cleanly designed, easy-to-usemanagement software, it’s more Mac-friendly than its closest rival,the Telebit NetBlazer ST. Also, its TCP/IP and IPX capabilities makethe LanRover/PLUS a versatile corporate citizen, although the Net-Blazer ST’s token-ring connection and support for as many as 26clients give it an edge in enterprise-scale installations.

Shelly Brisbin is a MacUser associate editor. ZD Labs’ senior project leaderAlex Ho managed the testing for this report.

Apple ComputerCupertino, CA800-233-4846408-862-3385408-767-2775 (fax)

APT CommunicationsIjamsville, MD800-842-0626301-874-3305301-874-5255 (fax)

Dayna CommunicationsSalt Lake City, UT800-531-0600801-269-7200801-269-7363 (fax)

Global Village CommunicationMountain View, CA800-736-4821415-390-8200415-390-8282 (fax)

IBMResearch Triangle Park, NC800-426-2255800-426-4329 (fax)

ShivaBurlington, MA800-458-3550508-788-3061508-788-1301

TelebitSunnyvale, CA800-835-3248408-734-4333408-734-3333 (fax)

Webster ComputerSan Jose, CA800-457-0903408-954-8054408-954-1832 (fax)

✓ Apple ✓ Apple APT Dayna Global Village Shiva ✓ Shiva Telebit WebsterARA MultiPort ARA Personal Dial DaynaLINK OneWorld Remote Lan- Lan- NetBlazer Multi-Server 2.0.1 Server 2.0.1 Server for ARA Access Server Rover/E Rover/PLUS ST Port/LT

List price (min. ports) $1,299 (4) $250 (1) $1,695 (3) $2,999 (8) $1,099 (1) $2,899 (4) $6,499 (4)* $3,199 (2)† $1,995 (4)List price (max. ports) $6,295 (16) NA NA NA $1,899 (2) $3,999 (8) $8,499 (8)* $5,895 (26) NAStreet price (min. ports) $1,290 (4) $190 (1) $1,695 (3) $2,180 (8) $975 (1) $2,555 (4) $5,260 (4)* $2,430 (2)† $1,790 (4)Street price (max. ports) $4,665 (16) NA NA NA $1,300 (2) $3,495 (8) $6,875 (8)* $4,705 (26) NAStandard RAM § § 512K 2 MB 1 MB 1 MB 1 MB 4 MB 1 MBMax. RAM § § 512K 32 MB 9 MB 3 MB 3 MB 4 MB 4 MBIncludes modems 2◊ 2 2◊

Supports internal modems 2** 2 2LocalTalk connection 2 2 2 2RJ-45 connection § § 2 2 2 2 2 2 2BNC and AUI connections § § 2 2 2 2 2 2Token-ring connection § § 2LAN routing 2 2 2 2ARA 1.0-compatible 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2ARA 2.0-compatible 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2TCP/IP-based dial-in 2 2 2 2IPX dial-in 2 2 2SLIP or PPP connections 2 2 2Supports SNMP 2 2 2 2 2Multiple-server administration 2 2 2 2 2 2PC-based administration available 2 2 2Group access privileges 2 2 2 2 2 2AppleShare Users and Groups import 2 2 2User-changeable password 2 2 2 2 2 2 2Password aging 2 2 2 2 2 2Zone hiding 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2Device hiding 2 2 2Dial-out 2 2◊ 2 2 2 2Faxing 2 2◊ 2Toll-free tech support 2 2 2 2 2Money-back guarantee 2 2 2 2 2Service contract available 2 2 2 2FCC Class B certification 2 NA 2 2Warranty 1 year NA 2 years 2 years 3 years 1 year 1 year 1 year 1 year

✓ MacUser RECOMMENDS*Price includes optional modems. †We tested the more cost-effective 10-port configuration, available for $4,099 list, $3,270 street.§Depends on the type of Mac used as the host. ◊Optional. **PCMCIA modems only.

figure 1

Features of ARA Server Products / what they can do


HANDS ON Desktop PublishingPAGE LAYOUT /

UNIQORN LOOKS TO GRAB DTP BY HORNPAGE-LAYOUT UPSTARTS that seek to dethrone the champs bor-row liberally from QuarkXPress or Aldus PageMaker. But a newprogram from England takes a fresh approach to page layout that, ifits developer, SoftPress Systems, can deliver, may provide an inter-esting alternative to the reigning products.

As we noted previously (see “Golly GX,” December ’94, page 119),UniQorn is one of the few programs that will fully support Quick-Draw GX features — for example, the appropriate slider bars popup for controlling the weight and width variations built in to GXfonts such as Skia.

By pinning its page-layout hopes on QuickDraw GX, SoftPressplans to make UniQorn the foundation of a high-end-publishingstrategy that includes not only paper-based documents but alsomultimedia projects. Many UniQorn features are geared to the re-purposing of information, so that, for example, a printed magazinecan be easily turned into an interactive movie. One example of thisstrategy is UniQorn’s Flexible Presentation feature, which lets youplace objects relative to page orientation and size. When changesare made to a document’s setup, the frames adapt accordingly.

UniQorn also takes a flexible approach to style sheets. Smart

Outliners create style sheetsfor text and graphics on the fly.The Outline palette reflects therelationships among hierar-chical styles and tracks docu-ment structure and content.You can tag text in the program’s Galley, or story-editing, view — aplus for on-line distribution.

Like QuarkXPress, UniQorn offers a frame-based metaphor forpage creation. But in UniQorn, frames can contain either text orgraphics and can be transformed into any quadratic-curve shape.The program’s Smart Outliners record the relationships betweenpages and nested frames. Layout, Galley, and Thumbnail views canbe on-screen simultaneously.

UniQorn boasts other features, such as object grouping and lock-ing, text wrap around overlapping objects, synthetic style varia-tions (weight, width, slant) for text, and trapping by object or color.

SoftPress doesn’t yet have a U.S. distributor, but expect UniQornto be available next spring for $695 to $895. 44-993-882588; 44-993-883970 (fax). / Pamela Pfiffner

COLOR PRINTERS /

More True Colors from KodakREALISTIC COLOR is something you wouldexpect from a Kodak color printer, and thenew 8600 PS dye-sublimation printer($9,995) delivers onthat promise, withbuilt-in color tech-nology and new inkribbons that lay downa protective coatingover the dyes.

Unlike the 8300,which it replaces, theKodak 8600 PS in-cludes a PostScriptLevel 2 interpreter.For fast printing ofraster files such as large TIFF images, the8600 PS comes with a plug-in that lets youexport images directly from Adobe Photo-shop. An 8-x-10-inch color image prints inabout 75 seconds, according to Kodak.

The 300-dpi 8600 PS printer incorporatesKodak’s UltraColor technology, which im-proves color fidelity. Moreover, the printers

employ Kodak XtraLife ribbons, availablein black ($175) and cyan, magenta, andyellow ($231). These ribbons laminate the

printout after layingdown inks, therebyimproving color per-manence (sublima-tion dyes are notori-ously light-fugitive).Also, the printer sup-ports oversized me-dia for image areasas large as 8.5 x 12inches.

The printer comeswith 32 MB of RAM,

expandable to 64 MB, and is powered by aMIPS RISC processor. The 8600 PS shipswith SCSI, parallel, and LocalTalk connec-tions; the 8600, a raster-only model avail-able for $8,995, lacks LocalTalk. Support forEtherTalk, NetWare, and TCP/IP is availablethrough an optional $995 interface card.800-235-6325. / PP©1994 STEPHEN JOHNSON

CLARIFICATIONS /

The Right StuffIN THE “GET INFO” supplement to our No-vember issue, Stephen Johnson’s photo-graph of Yosemite Falls was inadvertentlycropped. MacUser respects the rights ofphotographers to maintain the integrity oftheir images, and we regret the error. Hereis the image as it should have appeared.Enjoy. / PP


Seven Steps to Superior ScansWant the best results from your desktop color scanner? Follow these steps to get on theroad to better color images. BY BRUCE FRASER

DESKTOP PUBLISH ING Graphics

input size. For example, if you want to re-produce a 1-x-1.5-inch original such as a35mm slide at 6 x 9 inches, using a 150-linescreen, the formula would be line-screenfrequency x 2 x (output dimension/inputdimension), or 150 x 2 x (6/1) = 1,800. Itdoesn’t matter which dimension you plug in

to the formula, as long as it’s the same foroutput and input.

If you’re scanning for output on a con-tinuous-tone device such as a continuous-tone film recorder or a dye-sublimationprinter, you simply want your output reso-lution to correspond to the resolution ofthe scanning device. The formula for thescanning resolution then becomes (outputdimension/input dimension) x output-device resolution.

You should always get the tonal rangecorrect before fixing the color balance. Ifyou save your adjustments as settings files,you can go back and adjust the tone andthen apply all of your settings simulta-neously, if the scanning software allows youto, or if it doesn’t, then as a single operationin Photoshop. Once you have the tone andthe color right, you can apply sharpening tothe image. Got that?

Turn the page for seven steps to gettingsharp scans with good tonal range andproper color balance.

Contributing editor Bruce Fraser has beenreviewing scanners for years. He is coauthorof the upcoming Real World Photoshop, to bepublished by Peachpit Press.

command to toggle between the raw scanand the effect of your tweak, giving you animmediate before-and-after comparison.When you’ve figured out in Photoshopexactly what needed to be done to the scan,go back to the scanner software and rescanthe image, using settings that duplicate thetweaks you made in Photoshopas closely as possible. After awhile, you’ll discover that yourinitial scans are much closer tothe desired results as you ex-ploit the power of the scanner’scontrols.

Resolution SolutionWhen you scan an image, youhave four main concerns — theresolution, the tonal range, thecolor balance, and the sharpness. The first,resolution, is relatively easy to figure out.We’ll discuss the other three in the pagesthat follow.

The resolution you need depends on thesize of the original image, the size at whichyou want to reproduce it, and the outputmethod you want to use. For halftone out-put, whether from a laser, desktop inkjet, orthermal-wax-transfer printer or on image-setter film destined for press output, therule of thumb is simple: You want the num-ber of pixels per inch, at the output size, tobe between 1.5 and 2 times the line-screenfrequency you’ll use for output. For in-stance, if you’re scanning for a 133-linescreen, which is what’s used for the photo-graphs in this magazine, your output reso-lution needs to be between 200 and 266pixels per inch (ppi). The conservative ap-proach is simply to multiply the line-screenfrequency by 2 — you may be able to getaway with a lower resolution, but there’slittle or no reason to use a higher one.

To figure out your input, or scanning,resolution, multiply your output resolution(line screen times 2) by the scaling factoryou need — the output size divided by the

HE GOOD NEWS is that manylow-cost flatbed scanners to-day are capable of scanningmore colors than their 24-bitpredecessors, which capture

only 8 bits per color per pixel. Many scan-ners today read in 9, 10, and even 12 bits percolor per pixel. The bad news is that thesescanners must throw away those extra bitsto produce 8 bits per color per pixel as theiroutput. The trick, then, is to get the right 8bits coming in. Adjusting tone and color af-ter the fact in Adobe Photoshop doesn’t takeadvantage of the extra bits the scanner cap-tures. But if you make your adjustments inthe scanning software itself, you’ll be usingall the data the scanner can capture.

Four basic software tools are invaluablein getting good scans: the histogram (a barchart that graphs the number of pixelsagainst the number of gray levels), the on-screen densitometer (a numeric displaythat shows the gray-scale, RGB, or CMYKvalues of the pixel under the pointer); thelevels control (a dialog box that lets you setblack point, white point, and gamma); andthe curves control (a dialog box that lets youshape the tone curve of the image by placingpoints on the curve). Most scanner softwarehas at least three of these tools.

Because Photoshop is familiar to mostMac graphic artists, we’ll discuss how thesetools work in Photoshop, in which they’rerepresented by the Histogram command,the Info palette, the Levels command, andthe Curves command, respectively. Experi-menting in Photoshop is an excellent way toget a feel for how these controls work, andthe skills you learn in Photoshop are easilytransferable to your scanning software.

When you’re experimenting, save theLevels or Curves settings separately fromthe image so you can try different combina-tions on various images. As soon as youhave applied a Levels or Curves tweak to theimage, select the Undo command to getback to the raw scan. You can use the Undo

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figure 1a

DESKTOP PUBLISHING Graphics

highlight detail, but the shadow gradations are smoother and the high-lights have been spread over a greater range. When you’re moving a pointon the curve, it’s usually helpful to first anchor the curve with two points,one on either side of the point you’re moving. This localizes the effect ofthe move to a small part of the tonal range. If you don’t do this, youwill change the shape of the entire curve, and the results can be quitedramatic.

Everything you can do with the Levels command you can do with theCurves command, but Curves is much more powerful. When you adjustLevels (gamma is the middle value under Input Levels), what you’re actu-ally doing is bending the tone curve around a single point in the middle,as shown in figure 4a. But the Curves command allows you to make muchmore delicate adjustments to the tonal range. The curve in figure 4bopens up the extreme shadows a little and spreads the highlight detail

across a slightly widerrange. The resultinghistogram is shown infigure 4c. Compare itwith that shown in fig-ure 3c — it’s still hold-ing the shadow and

One of the most important tools for analyzing scans, this bar chart can tellyou a lot about scans at a single glance. A histogram that ends in a cliff atthe left (shadow) end of the scale, as shown in figure 1a, indicates a scanin which shadow detail is lost. If it ends in a cliff at the right (highlight) end

of the scale, as in figure 1b, you’ve blown out, or overexposed, the high-light detail. A correctly exposed scan produces a histogram like the one infigure 1c, with relatively few pixels at either the darkest value (0) or thelightest value (255).

1. UNDERSTAND THE HISTOGRAM.

Finish adjusting the tone and color balance before scanning. If you makethe adjustments postscan, you have only 8-bit data to start with, and eachtime you adjust the tone or the color balance, you’ll lose some image data.

A histogram of an image scanned with the scanner’s gamma set to 1.4(figure 2a) reveals that the scan containsinformation at each ofthe 256 gray levels 8-bitdata can represent. Gam-ma controls map inputlevels to output levels. Agamma value greater than

1.0 lightens the midtones, and a value less than 1.0 darkens the midtones.Figure 2b shows a histogram of the same image scanned with gammaset at 1.0 and then corrected postscan to a gamma of 1.4 in Photoshop.Notice that it has lost tonal information at the shadow end of the tone

scale, as indicated by thecomblike structure, andthat the information inthe midtones has be-come posterized, as in-dicated by the spikes inthe lighter range.

2. DO AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE IN THE SCANNING SOFTWARE ITSELF.

It’s tempting to brighten an image with controls called Brightness/Con-trast. But because doing so simply shifts the entire image up or down thebrightness range, you always end up blowing out the highlights or plug-ging up the shadows if you use Brightness/Contrast. Figure 3a shows thehistogram of a well-exposed but slightly dark scan. If you simply increasethe brightness, you’ll get something like figure 3b — all the highlightdetail has been lost, and you wind up with a lot of solid white pixels.

By using the Levels command, you can adjust the brightness of themidtones without sacrificing the detail in the shadows or highlights.Figure 3c shows the histogram that results from applying a gamma ad-justment of 1.2 to the image. If you do have to make adjustments inPhotoshop, this is the maximum amount of gamma adjustment we rec-ommend applying postscan — much more than that will produceposterization in the image.

3. USE LEVELS INSTEAD OF BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST.

figure 1b figure 1c

figure 2a figure 2b

figure 3a figure 3b figure 3c

4. FOR MORE-DELICATE ADJUSTMENTS, USE CURVES.

figure 4bfigure 4a figure 4c


Once the tonal range isright, adjust the individualcurves for the red, green,and blue channels to getgood neutral balance. If youbalance the neutrals prop-erly, the rest of the colorshould just fall into place.

Even if you have a well-calibrated monitor, colorcasts are not always easyto see. Photoshop’s Infopalette, or your scannersoftware’s info display (sometimescalled an on-screen densitometer),can help you identify and correct colorcasts. Look for areas in the image youknow should be neutral — ideally,you should find a neutral highlight, aneutral shadow, and a neutral area inthe midtones — and then look at theRGB values the Info palette displayswhen you move the pointer overthese areas. The values for all three channels should be about equal.

If one channel has a much lower or much higher value than the others,you need to adjust that channel’s curve to bring the neutrals into balance.While in Photoshop’s Curves dialog box, click the pointer on the image to

show you the location on the curve of the point on which you’re click-ing. Adjust the curve so that the output value matches those of theother channels for the point you’re adjusting. Figure 5a shows a scanthat’s a little dark in the midtones and has an overall red cast. Figure5b shows a curve that adjusts theoverall tonal range of the scan, andfigure 5c shows the curve needed toremove the red cast from the image.Figure 5d shows the corrected scan.

Once you’ve adjusted both theoverall curve and the individualcolor curves to your satisfaction,you can apply them to the image inPhotoshop. But if your scanner soft-

ware allows you to setcurves, you’ll get evenbetter results if you goback and rescan theimage, using curve set-tings as close as pos-sible to the ones you’vecreated in Photoshop— a few scannerseven allow you todownload Photoshopcurves directly to thescanner.

5. USE CURVES AND THE INFO PALETTE TO SET THE NEUTRAL BALANCE.

figure 5b

figure 5a

figure 5d

figure 5c

Although more and more desktop scanners offer some kind of built-insharpening, Photoshop’s Unsharp Mask filter generally offers more con-trol and, when properly used, yields higher-quality results — it’s one op-eration that’s best done postscan in Photoshop. But the controls aresomewhat puzzling, and the manual isn’t a great deal of help.

Unsharp masking works by increasing the contrast between adjacentpixels where they represent an edge. This increases the apparent sharp-ness of the image. The Unsharp Mask filter allows you to set three param-eters: Amount controls the intensity of the filter, Radius controls how farthe filter will look around each pixel as it evaluates it, and Threshold setsthe minimum degree of difference between pixels at which the filter willoperate. Essentially, Amount controls the amount of sharpness, Radiuscontrols the size of the contrast halo the filter creates around edges, and

Threshold lets you prevent noisy areas from being sharpened.The settings for Amount will vary depending on the content of the

original image and the kind of output you’re producing. For halftone out-put, settings somewhere between 100 and 250 percent usually producegood results. If you’re producing continuous-tone output from a dye-sub-limation printer or a film recorder, a more conservative number is usuallyin order, somewhere between 65 and 85 percent. For the Radius setting,a useful formula is 200 divided by (output size x output resolution). For a3-inch wide, 233-ppi image, for example, a radius of 0.3 pixels works well(200 / (3 x 233) = 0.29). The setting for Threshold depends on the amountof noise your scanner produces and the amount of film grain visible in thescan — settings of 0 through 5 are generally the most useful. If you set thethreshold much above 5, the filter’s effect is much less obvious.

6. SHARPEN IMAGES BY USING UNSHARP MASK IN PHOTOSHOP.

Unsharp Mask’s Threshold setting is quite effective for controlling noiseand film grain, but if you examine the individual channels of the image,you’ll find that very often noise or grain is much more prevalent in one(usually the blue channel) than in the others. The green channel containsthe most brightness information and also contains the least noise andgrain. You can often obtain good results by sharpening the green channel,using the settings given in step 6; sharpening the red channel, using thesame Radius and Thresh-old settings but a lowerAmount setting; and leav-ing the blue channel un-sharpened. If you findthat the blue channelis particularly noisy, youmay even want to applythe Despeckle filter to it.

But beware of creating color fringes along the edges. This tends to bemore of a problem with high-resolution images that demand a larger Ra-dius setting. In such cases, you may want to despeckle the noisy channel(more than once, if necessary) and then use a low Amount setting and thesame Radius and Threshold settings as on the other channels.

Here’s where it all comes together. Figures 7a, 7b, and 7c show whathappens when we put these lessons into practice. Figure 7a shows our

original scan — it’s toodark and too red. Figure7b shows the same imagerescanned with curvesthat correct the tone andthe color balance. Figure7c shows our correctedscan after application ofthe Unsharp Mask filter.

7. CONTROL SCANNER NOISE AND FILM GRAIN BY SHARPENING CHANNELS INDIVIDUALLY.

figure 7bfigure 7a figure 7c


DESKTOP PUBLISH ING Expert Tips

weeks to less than one week after writingscripts to automate placement of productpictures and descriptions on its pages.

AppleScript and Apple events (the en-abling system-level technology) act like aglue that binds various applications to-gether into mega-apps. A scriptable appli-cation, such as QuarkXPress, Claris’ File-Maker, and Novell’s WordPerfect, allows thescript-writing mechanism to delve insidethe program and operate it as though a userwere picking from menus and dialog boxeswith a mouse. This process sounds like asimple macro facility, but it’s much more.For instance, a script can send objects fromone application to other applications (evenones running on other Macs). These objectsinclude all the basic building blocks ofdocuments: characters, words, paragraphs,database fields and records, and pictureand text boxes.

How do you get started scripting?Look atscripts others have created. The DTP forumon CompuServe (GO DTPFORUM) is one of

the best places from which todownload graphic-arts scripts.Also, read The Complete Apple-Script Handbook, by DannyGoodman (Random House,1993), and The Tao of Apple-Script, by Derrick Schneider(Hayden Books, 1993).

A good collection of Quark-XPress scripts is Sal’s Apple-Script Snippets ($39), whichcan import images and thencrop and scale them instantly,among other tasks. ScriptIt($99) is a handy Quark XTen-sion that manages and runsscripts from a palette insideQuarkXPress. It allows you toname text and picture boxeswithin QuarkXPress — veryuseful for automatically flow-ing in copy. Both Snippets and

Publishing with AppleScriptStreamline production — and trim costs — by using AppleScript to automate repetitivepublishing tasks. BY BOB SCHAFFEL AND CHUCK WEGER

ppleScript, which has been calledthe “sleeper product of the year,”

has the potential to dramaticallyreduce the time and effort nec-

essary to prepare page-layoutand graphics files.

What can be done with scripting? Plenty.Any routines performed the same way eachtime, such as placing images into pictureboxes, checking for included fonts orgraphics, and copying finished files to anarchive — the kinds of tasks that depend onexplicit rules — can be scripted. Instead ofwriting a list of instructions on paper for acoworker to perform such tasks manually,you write an AppleScript script for the Mac.

Scripting can bring great rewards. TheGannett newspaper chain is building aneditorial-management system for news-rooms that uses AppleScript to help buildnewspaper pages by coordinating calendarprograms, databases, and word processors.A major office-products catalog companycut down its production cycle from six

ScriptIt are available from XChange (800-788-7557 or 303-229-0620).

But what about applications that aren’tscriptable or control panels (which gener-ally do not support scripting)? Check outPrefab Player, from Prefab Software (617-628-9025), a $99 utility that runs in thebackground and makes many applications,DAs, and control panels scriptable. Like aplayer piano, Player mimics user input,choosing menu items and other thingswithin a program, all while being driven byscripts.

Although Adobe Photoshop does notsupport scripting directly, DayStar Digital(404-967-2077) has a $199 product calledPhotoMatic that automates such Photo-shop functions as Crop, Image Size, ModeChange, and so on. PhotoMatic 1.0 providesAppleScript-like scripts for Photoshop,but the next version will fully supportAppleScript.

One of the neatest things about Apple-Script is its extensibility. Scripting Addi-tions (similar to HyperCard XCMDs andPhotoshop plug-ins) extend the language toallow control of the Chooser, networks, andother useful things. You can download Ad-ditions from most on-line services.

System 7.5 ships with AppleScript in-stalled and includes a collection of scriptsto help you get started. For those of us ingraphic arts, it’s useful right now.

Bob Schaffel is technology director of theProfessional Prepress Alliance, a tradeorganization of pioneering service providers.Chuck Weger is an independent consultant andpublisher of the Photoshop Monitor newsletter.

What AppleScript Can DoREMEMBER HOW ALL OF YOUR DOS friends used to kicksand in your face because you couldn’t create batch filesand use wildcard file-copying commands such as

COPY C:\LITHO*.* D:\ARCHIVEFor those who aren’t DOS-aware, this line says, “Copy

all the files on disk C whose names begin with LITHO intoa directory (folder) named ARCHIVE on disk D.” Well,brush that sand off, because with AppleScript we cando far-more-powerful things:

tell application "Finder" to du-plicate every file of folder "Aldusin Seattle" of disk "My first disk"whose name contains "Merger" andcreation date is less than currentdate to folder "Adobe in MountainView" of disk "My second disk"

This not only copies the specified files but it also per-mits multiple criteria for selecting them and allows real,human-readable folder and disk names. Yes, it’s moreverbose, but it does a lot more too.

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LOCALTALK CONNECTORS /

PhoneNET ShrinksEVEN SMALLER than earlier designs, the new

Farallon PhoneNET Pocket Connector($12.99; $19.99 for starter kit withtwo connectors and phone cable)hooks up any Mac, Newton, or Local-

Talk-capable printer to a Local-Talk network. With Farallon’sTwistFit technology, the PocketConnector’s DIN-8 plug canspin 90 degrees and fit easilyinto the ports of such prod-ucts as the HP DeskWriter, theIIsi, and the Newton. 510-

814-5000. / Nancy Peterson

HANDS ON NetworkingNETWORK MANAGEMENT /

MONITOR TRAFFIC BY SATELLITE

A SATELLITE THAT COLLECTS traffic dataon your Ethernet network and notifies youof problems? Sure! It’s Skyline/Satellite 1.0($795), from the AG Group (800-466-2447or 510-937-7900). Skyline/Satellite consistsof two tightly integrated pieces of software,one for archiving traffic data and the otherfor alarm triggering and traffic analysis.

The Satellite program, which runs in thebackground on any Mac, is a traffic-collec-tion engine that compresses, indexes, andstores data about passing network traffic.The Skyline/Satellite package includes onecopy of Satellite, which monitors one net-work segment and communicates with Sky-line via Apple events. Extra copies of Satel-lite for additional network segments are

available (5-pack, $1,195;10-pack, $1,995).

Skyline makes the trafficdata useful in two ways.First, it provides alert

mechanisms — via dialog box, sound, oralphanumeric pager — for both high- andlow-utilization threshold violations. Sec-ond, and more important, it lets you lookback in time to analyze what was happeningon your network both before and after a di-saster occurred. You can scroll through his-torical data (utilization, bytes/second, andpackets/second) to see what each node wasdoing at any time. You don’t even need tounderstand protocol decoders — Skylineprovides a graphical view of data.

Skyline/Satellite supports AppleTalk, IP,IPX, and NETBEUI/NETBIOS as well asother network protocols, making it wellsuited to use in mixed-platform, multipro-tocol environments. / Mark Bieler

POWERTALK’S ROLE as a universalmailbox gets a big boost with two productupgrades and one new product fromStarNine Technologies (510-649-4949).The three gateway-software products addnew links from the PowerTalk mailbox tothe Internet, Microsoft Mail, and stan-dard e-mail directories.

Version 1.5 of Mail*Link Internet forPowerTalk ($49) lets PowerTalk automati-cally or manually connect to the Internet(via direct dial-up SLIP and PPP connec-tions) and download Internet mail to auser’s PowerTalk mailbox. The softwareruns on individual users’ Macs and in-cludes Mail*Link Monitor, a new utilitythat lets users view the status of theInternet link. Users who want the upgrade(normally $15) can get it for free by down-loading it from ftp.starnine.com; the pathis /pub/updates/pt-inet.

StarNine has also released a personalPowerTalk gateway to Microsoft Mail:Mail*Link MS for PowerTalk ($49 beforeJanuary 1, $65 after; volume pricing alsoavailable). Similar to StarNine’s Quick-Mail PowerTalk gateway, the new productlinks PowerTalk and Microsoft Mail onAppleTalk networks.

Also new is version 2.0 of Mail*Link Di-rectory Services ($1,995 before January 1,$2,995 after; upgrade, $195), directoryserver software that links the address listsof various Mac, UNIX, and NetWare MHSmail systems. From within MicrosoftMail, QuickMail, and PowerTalk, userscan now look up names in PowerSharecatalogs and foreign directories, includ-ing X.500 directories. Version 2.0 alsosupports Apple’s Thread Manager, whichlets the server software process multipleclient queries simultaneously. / JR

E-MAIL /

PowerTalking to Foreign Mail Systems

WORKGROUP SOFTWARE /

Network Mind-MeldingLOTUS ISN’T THE ONLY vendor trying tobring users together. DCA (800-348-3221)has begun shipping its Mac client software($295) for OpenMind, a LAN bulletin boardwith similarities to PacerForum and LotusNotes. Built around a shared database,OpenMind lets users share files, send mes-sages, and hold electronic conferences. Un-fortunately, DCA isn’t all that open-mindedabout its server software ($995); it needs aPC running Microsoft Windows NT Server.

On the group-scheduling front, Mac-VONK (403-232-6545) has released a Sys-tem 7.5-savvy version of its TeamAgendagroup scheduler. Version 1.7 ($449 for 5users) uses System 7.5’s Drag and Droptechnology to enable PowerTalk users todrag e-mail appointment requests directlyinto their schedules. Other new features in-clude support for 120 users, QuickDraw GXprinting, and the ability to display multipleschedules. / John Rizzo


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NETWORKING Mac to PC

HERE ARE TWO WAYS to dojust about anything: Do ityourself, or get help from anexpert. Given the breadth ofknowledge required to mesh

Macs and PCs on a network, it’s often prac-tical to opt for consulting an expert. In thecase of a large organization, this expert isgenerally someone in the IS department.For a small business, it’s usually a privateconsultant.

An outside network specialist can mostlikely design and set up a smoothly func-tioning network much more quickly thanyou could. Some consultants also offer one-stop shopping, selling you all the hardware,software, and services you need. In addi-tion, you can choose someone well suitedto the task of creating a cross-platform net-work — an expert in both Mac and PCtechnology.

Be wary, however, of the consultant whoinsists you don’t need to know the nasty de-tails. You do need to know all the options,because what’s best for the consultant maynot necessarily be what’s best for your busi-ness. You don’t want to end up spendingmore than you need to for a network thatdoesn’t meet all of your needs.

Working with a consultant will go muchmore smoothly if you have a basic under-standing of the issues involved in the majordecisions you’ll need to make. This columnprovides tips to help you make these deci-sions wisely — and also tells you aboutsome money-saving products from smallcompanies that your consultant may notknow about.

In-Wall Versus Exterior WiresIf you’re starting your network fromscratch, the most basic decision you’ll needto make with your consultant is where toput the network cables — inside or outsidethe walls. The key to making this crucialdecision lies in the number of Macs and

Savvy Small-Office NetworkingWorking with consultants may be the best way to build a cross-platformnetwork for a small business — if you’re network-savvy enough to keepthem from selling you more than you need. BY JOHN RIZZO

PCs you want to connect.A good rule of thumb is to go

with interior wiring if you’reconnecting eight or more com-puters; it’s more expensive toinstall, but it will save you a lotof hassles. Exterior cables aren’tpractical for more than abouteight computers, because it’stoo easy to step on the cablesthat crisscross the floor andbreak the wires inside. And no,you shouldn’t try to get around this problemby running network cables above dropped-ceiling tiles — electromagnetic interfer-ence from fluorescent lights slows down anetwork.

LocalTalk Versus EthernetA trickier decision is whether to useLocalTalk or Ethernet as the transmissionprotocol and media (in simplified terms,the communications language and the as-sociated type of wiring) that connect yourcomputers.

For mixed Mac and PC networks, mostconsultants recommend Ethernet, whichruns about four to five times as fast asLocalTalk. If you expect to be frequentlytransferring large files over the network,Ethernet is definitely the way to go. If data-transfer speed isn’t crucial, though, youmay well want to base your decision on cost— which depends partly on which types ofconnectivity are already built in to yourcomputers.

Ethernet connectivity is built in to mostmodern Macs and PCs, and you can add itto older models for about $100 to $200 permachine. However, since LocalTalk hasbeen built in to all Macs since 1986, it’scheaper than Ethernet if you have a lot ofnon-Ethernet Macs and few PCs. LocalTalkis not such a good idea if you have a lot ofPCs, though, since you’ll need to getLocalTalk add-in cards or get LocalTalk

connectors for the PCs’ parallel ports. Theconnectors are easier to deal with; they’reavailable for less than $200 per node fromCoactive Computing (800-727-4273 or 408-774-3540) and Apexx Technology (800-767-4858 or 208-336-9400).

In considering the cost of LocalTalk ver-sus the cost of Ethernet, you should makesure your consultant knows about some ofthe less expensive ways to implement Ether-net wiring. True, LocalTalk cable, whichuses RJ-11 phone jacks and two pairs ofwire, generally costs less than in-wall10BASE-T Ethernet cable, which uses big-ger, RJ-44 jacks and four pairs of wire (twoother, sturdier, types of Ethernet cable,thinnet and thicknet, are even more expen-sive than 10BASE-T and are probably over-kill for a small business). However, thereare some alternatives to standard, in-wallEthernet wiring.

For instance, you may be able to savethousands of dollars in rewiring costs forin-wall Ethernet by making use of existingin-wall cables. Ask your consultant aboutalternatives to rewiring, such as using twosets of existing LocalTalk or phone cables(with two pairs of wires per cable) for asingle Ethernet line with four pairs of wires.Another alternative is to use Silver Streak($99 per node and up), from Tut Systems(800-998-4888 or 510-682-6510); it con-sists of a set of connectors and convertersfor Macs and PCs that lets you run EthernetIL

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NETWORKING Mac to PC

over in-wall LocalTalk cables and RJ-11jacks as well as over the flat silver-satinphone cord used for external LocalTalk (seereview, November ’94, page 51). SilverStreak can support as many as 30 comput-ers on a network segment. However, bewarned that Silver Streak networks are notautoterminated; when you disconnect twocomputers in a line of connected ones, theentire network goes down.

Another family of nontraditional Ether-net products is EtherWave ($129 per nodeand up), from Farallon (800-995-7760 or510-814-5000). Like Silver Streak, theEtherWave products let you string comput-ers together in a daisy-chaining manner;unlike Silver Streak, though, EtherWave

uses 10BASE-T wiring and autoterminateddevices, so a disconnection won’t bring thenetwork down. EtherWave is a good choicefor creating small, ad hoc networks (fewerthan eight computers and printers) and forextending existing 10BASE-T networks.

Which File-Sharing Method?Once you’ve got your basic cabling situationfigured out, it’s time to decide how you’llimplement the major cross-platform fea-ture of your network: file sharing. Justhooking your Macs and PCs togetherdoesn’t necessarily provide you with thefile-sharing capabilities you need. Basically,you have two main options: basing yournetwork on AppleTalk, so that Macs and

Most Macs have built-in

Ethernet?

Large-file transfer or

network speed important?

Large-file transfer

between Macs and PCs?

Low cost and ease of

maintenance more important

than speed?

PC-based server with software such as Windows NT Server.

AppleShare on Mac server; PC clients use Timbuktu, COPSTalk, or upcoming version of AppleTalk for PCs.

Add a gateway.

Add a server that Macs as well as PCs can access.

Large-file transfer

between Macs and PCs?

Use peer-to-peer system, such as System 7 file sharing

and Personal MACLAN Connect or Timbuktu.

A lot of PCs?

Ethernet.

Start

More than eight

computers?

Cabling

LocalTalk versus

Ethernet

File servers

LocalTalk.

Install in-wall wiring.

Use external wiring.

Existing separate

Mac and PC networks?

Existing in-wall

wiring?

yes

yes

yes yes

yes

yes yes

yes yes

nono

no

no

no

nono no

no

DECIDING WHAT YOUR NETWORK NEEDS


PCs communicate peer to peer as Macs dowith System 7 file sharing, or maintainingPC-based network software for your PCsand connecting the Mac and PC subnet-works with a gateway or a cross-platformfile server.

The advantage of basing your network onAppleTalk is that you can create simple,easy-to-maintain networks that don’t re-quire gateways. By the way, don’t be misledby consultants with PC backgrounds whothink AppleTalk and LocalTalk are one andthe same. AppleTalk is a set of networkingspecifications that prescribe how Macsshare information on a local-area networkover LocalTalk or Ethernet media; natu-rally, AppleTalk is built in to all Macs. Youcan add it to PCs with products such asthe Coactive Connector (which has built-inAppleTalk software); Personal MACLANConnect, from Miramar (800-862-2526 or805-966-2432); Farallon’s Timbuktu forWindows; and COPSTalk for Windows,from COPS (404-840-0810); each of theseproducts is in the range of $100 to $200 pernode. Apple is slated to release AppleTalksoftware for PCs by December 1994. Theseproducts enable PCs to use Mac printersand share files with Macs via System 7’sbuilt-in file sharing.

If, on the other hand, your PCs use non-AppleTalk, PC-based network software —such as Microsoft Windows for Workgroupsor Artisoft’s LANtastic — you may well re-quire a gateway. Either that or you can optfor a higher-performance alternative to agateway: a file server that can be accessedby Macs as well as PCs. The cheapest andeasiest-to-maintain file server is a Mac run-ning AppleShare, which should support PCsby December 1994. Using a PC runningWindows NT Server is another option; thesoftware requires a fast PC with lots of RAMand hard-disk space, but the server is fairlyeasy to maintain.

Consultants who also happen to be au-thorized NetWare dealers may be eager tosell you Novell NetWare, a high-end net-work operating system with file-server ca-pabilities that is used frequently on largenetworks. NetWare is a complicated systemthat requires a trained technician to main-tain. Unless you really need NetWare’s top-notch data protection, speed, and connec-tivity to other networks, you should looktoward other options for a small business.

Don’t Worry, Be ActiveIf you hired a contractor to remodel yourhouse, you’d give a lot more direction than“build me a new kitchen.” The same is truewhen it comes to building a new network.

Take an active role in the planning of youroffice network, from choosing a cabling set-up to selecting the best file-sharing systemfor your needs. You’ll sleep better knowing

what’s gone into the network, and you stillget to watch the consultant do the gruntwork: installing cables and setting up serv-ers. On top of all that, you may even savesome money!

MacUser technical editor John Rizzo is theauthor of MacUser Guide to Connectivity andHow Macs Work (Ziff-Davis Press).


HANDS ON Power Tools

Making the Macintosh accessible to people withdisabilities is easier — and less expensive — thanyou may think. BY JOE CLARK

URE, THE MACINTOSH IS easy touse and powerful, but some peoplewith disabilities can face barriers in

putting that power to use. How, for ex-ample, do blind people navigate theMacintosh’s graphical interface? How doquadriplegics create a spreadsheet? Howuseful are multimedia CD-ROMs to thosepeople who are hard of hearing?

Questions such as these are coming upmore and more in the U.S. in the wake ofthe passage of the Americans with Disabili-ties Act, which requires most employers to“accommodate” disabled employees. Withlimited exceptions, it is illegal to fire, refuseto hire or promote, or otherwise discrimi-nate against qualified employees because

they have disabilities. Instead — again withlimited exceptions — employers are re-quired to adapt the work environment, orthe job, to meet disabled employees’ needs.

The good news is that making the Mac-intosh accessible is relatively easy andinexpensive; in almost every case, you canemploy off-the-shelf Macs with a few spe-cialized accessories. Here’s a rundown onthe latest in adaptive technology as well aspointers to help you decide what productsyou need.

Talk It Over

By far the most important step is to talkwith the disabled employees about their re-quirements. What impact, if any, does a

S

particular disability have on using a com-puter? For example, single-leg amputeesmay require no computer modifications atall, whereas people with repetitive-stressinjuries (RSI), such as carpal-tunnel syn-drome, may need a new method of enteringtext. Paraplegics may simply need to raisetheir desk a bit farther off the floor so awheelchair can fit under it, and people withlow vision may need screen magnificationand speech output.

Once a disabled person’s needs have beenestablished, the next step is to find the rightproducts to fill those needs.

Mobility Impairment

Those whose disability affects their armsand hands — for instance, those with cere-bral palsy, muscular dystrophy, or RSI —probably need software or hardware that al-ters the way they can enter information intothe Macintosh.

The least expensive solution, although a

The Easy-Access Mac

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bare-bones one, is to use Easy Access, a con-trol panel that comes with the Mac. It letsyou lock down modifier keys (Shift, Con-trol, Option, and Command) on any key-board, so you can press keys in sequenceinstead of simultaneously — for example,to print you press the Command key, releaseit, and then press P.

A more extensive solution is to install anon-screen keyboard, such as ScreenDoors($395), from Madenta Communications(800-661-8406 or 403-450-8926), or Ke:nx(pronounced connects; $780), by Don John-ston (800-999-4660 or 708-526-2682). Any-one who can use a mouse or trackball canuse such a keyboard by pointing and click-ing. Typing via an on-screen keyboard isusually faster if you also use word-predic-tion software (see figure 1), such as Ma-denta’s Telepathic ($325).

One-handed typing is possible with Half-QWERTY ($139.95), from Matias (416-749-3124). This software maps half the keys on akeyboard to their mirror images on theother half when you hold down the spacebar.

For people with severely impaired mobil-ity, limited to, say, pressing a single switch,you can get software that sequentially high-lights on-screen elements, such as scrollbars, close boxes, icons, or keys of an on-screen keyboard. In order to perform anaction, such as closing a dialog box, all a

user has to do is acti-vate the switch whenthe desired item ishighlighted. Madenta’sRevolvingDoors ($395)and Ke:nx each per-form this highlightingaction.

Those who have nomotor use of theirhands or arms maybe able to make use ofa speech-input prod-uct, such as Power-Secretary ($2,495), fromArticulate Systems (617-935-5656). Thissoftware takes dictation; it enters the wordsyou speak into documents on the Mac.

If head movement is a better option thantalking, try a head-mounted device suchas the HeadMaster ($595), from PrentkeRomich (800-262-1984 or 216-262-1984),or the HeadMouse ($1,995), from OriginInstruments (214-606-8740). The Head-Master has a sensor you can mount any-where on your Mac that picks up the move-ment of light from a light pen strapped toyour head. It translates the movement of thelight into mouse movement. The Head-Mouse is a newer and much less intrusivedevice that requires you to wear a tiny re-flective dot on your forehead; twin infraredbeams from a sensor triangulate on the

figure 1 / Word-prediction software enhances and is usually soldwith on-screen keyboards. Here, Madenta’s software Telepathicpredicts the next word in the document and displays choices withinthe on-screen keyboard ScreenDoors.

dot’s motion and move the cursor accord-ingly (see figure 2).

With either product, consider addingMadenta’s Magic Cursor ($195), which letsyou click, double-click, and drag simply byholding the cursor still for a moment andflicking it slightly to signal the action youwant the Mac to take (see figure 3).

Visual Impairment

For people who have vision loss severeenough to make it difficult to see and navi-gate the Mac’s graphical interface, there areseveral aids, ranging from image enlarge-ment to Mac speech.

For people with moderate visual impair-ment, consider image-enlargement soft-ware, which magnifies the screen image to

Outstanding Stand-AlonesIN SOME INSTANCES, instead of buying hardware to outfit the Mac forthe disabled, the best measure is to buy a stand-alone product.

For the visually impaired, reading documents not already enteredinto the computer is tricky. You can use ascanner and OCR software to get many docu-ments’ text into readable electronic form, butfor documents that are hard to scan, such asexpense vouchers or spreadsheets, OCR mayfall short. It may be more practical to use astand-alone reader. Xerox/Kurzweil (800-421-7323 or 508-977-2000) and Arkenstone(800-444-4443 or 408-752-2200) make read-ers that can turn written text into spokenwords.

The telephone can be an obstacle for thedeaf and hard-of-hearing. Until recently, youcould get a special modem for the Mac thatlet users type back and forth in real time. Un-fortunately, the maker of that modem, DoveComputer, went out of business. If you need

such a product, you will have to turn to stand-alone modem/keyboard/display units known as TDDs (telephone devices for thedeaf), TTYs (teletypewriters), or TTs (text telephones). They cost $200

to $600 and are available from suchvendors as Ultratec (800-482-2424 or 608-238-5400), Harris Communications (800-825-6758 or 612-946-0921), and PhoneTTY(201-489-7889).

If your company makes instructional vid-eos for in-house use or distribution, considerhaving them captioned for the hearing-im-paired. The Caption Center (617-492-9225)does good work. Unless they have a MacTV,Quadra, Performa, or LC 630, those who viewcaptioned videos will need stand-alone de-coders to read them. They cost $100 to $200and are available from National CaptioningInstitute dealers (800-533-9673 or 703-998-2400) and Pacific Lotus Technology (800-243-2710 or 206-454-7374).

POWER TOOLS Techniques

The PortaView PV20 is a text telephone fromInternational Krown Technologies.


make it easier to read. CloseView, whichcomes with Mac system software, may dothe trick, and it’s worth trying first, since itis free. inLARGE ($195), from BerkeleySystems (510-540-5535), provides more-sophisticated features — for instance, itcan move a line of text across the screen foryou rather than requiring you to move thecursor or your eye.

A large-screen monitor may be a neces-sity, not a luxury, for visually impairedpeople who need to see enlarged images.But it might not be as expensive as youthink — since some visually impairedpeople find an enlarged black-and-whiteimage easier to read than a color one, youmay be able to opt for a relatively inexpen-sive, monochrome screen.

For those with total or near-total visionloss, you need speech output. Berkeley Sys-tems’ outSPOKEN ($495) provides spokendescriptions of icons, menus, windows, andother aspects of the Mac interface. out-SPOKEN can also help make printed docu-ments accessible to visually impaired users;if they scan the documents and use OCRto recognize the text, they can have out-SPOKEN read it aloud.

Users who read Braille can print anydocument if they use Braille-translationsoftware, such as Duxbury Braille Transla-tor ($495), from Duxbury Systems (508-486-9766), and a Braille printer, such asthe VersaPoint ($3,695), from TeleSensory(800-227-8418 or 415-960-0920).

Hearing Impairment

Some deaf and hard-of-hearing people maymiss the auditory information that’s part ofmany Macintosh applications, from errorbeeps to the sound track of a QuickTime

movie or a multimedia CD-ROM.To make error beeps visual rather than

auditory, simply open the Sound controlpanel and turn the speaker volume to zero.This causes the menu bar to flash, which isknown as a visible beep.

Using QuickTime is a more difficult mat-ter. Multimedia is such a new concept thataccessibility issues are not widely recog-nized. QuickTime does provide tracks inwhich you can store captions, but it’s upto QuickTime authors to learn the exactingart of captioning and actually include cap-tions. Few, if any, QuickTime movies arecaptioned.

Learning Disability

People who find it difficult to process writ-ten language and other visual informationcan use many of the same products used forother disabilities that make entering andinterpreting information easier.

Word-prediction software, such as Ma-denta’s Telepathic, and speech-input soft-ware, such as Articulate Systems’ Power-Secretary, can enable such users to entertext more easily. Speech output, of the sortavailable in AV Macs, can aid in proofread-ing. People with relatively severe learningdisabilities may find Berkeley Systems’outSPOKEN useful for navigating the Macinterface.

Getting More Information

Adaptive technology is improving andchanging as fast as other technologicalrealms. One way to keep up is to subscribeto the Co-Net CD-ROM series ($50), fromthe University of Wisconsin (608-263-2309). Twice a year, you get a disc contain-ing an immense database of adaptive-

technology products along with relevantdocuments, such as the full text of theAmericans with Disabilities Act.

Apple Computer’s Worldwide DisabilitySolutions Group (800-776-2333 or 408-996-1010) can offer advice, and Apple’s Aisle 17(800-600-7808) mail-order operation is aneasy way to order adaptive products (andentire computer systems to run them on) ifyou already know what you want.

With the products and sources men-tioned here, you can make Macs accessibleto everyone in your office, at a reasonablecost — especially compared to the cost ofnot hiring talented disabled people.

Toronto writer Joe Clark never unlawfullyparks in handicapped spots.

Single-click.

Double-click.

Return tonormal cursor.

Hold or dragcursor.

figure 3 / Clicking, double-clicking,and dragging are as easy as the flick of afinger or a small head movement withMadenta’s Magic Cursor. The normalcursor changes when you hold it still;to activate an action, you flick it in theappropriate direction.

figure 2 / Use yourhead to signal mousemovements if yourhands and arms can’tmanipulate a mouseor keyboard. TheHeadMouse, fromOrigin Instruments,uses infrared beamsto pick up the motionof a small dot madeof reflective material,which is placed onyour forehead.

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POWER TOOLS Mobile Mac

mentioned here, it’s likely there’snothing you can do but dispose of itproperly and then buy a new one.

Reconditioning NiCdsNiCd batteries — the ones used inall-in-one 100-series PowerBooks— need to be reconditioned regu-larly for best performance. Recon-ditioning means running down thecharge as far as is safely possiblebefore recharging it, instead of just toppingit off from a partially charged state. The bestway to discharge a battery is to use a batteryreconditioner/recharger such as the onesavailable from Lind Electronics (800-659-5956 or 612-927-6303; prices start at ap-proximately $60); they run the charge downto 1 volt in each battery cell, which is whatyou need for an ideal reconditioning. Yoursecond-best option is to use a utility such asPBTools ($99.95), from VST Systems (508-287-4600), or Jeremy Kezer’s $10 sharewareBatteryAmnesia (available on-line; see endof article); they perform a deep dischargethat depletes the battery beyond the point atwhich the PowerBook would normally shutdown due to a low charge but not as fardown as 1 volt. If you don’t have a battery-management utility, run the PowerBook

Rundown on BatteriesThink you’ve got this battery thing all figured out because you’re a greatpower conservationist? Think again. It’s time to get hip to the best strategiesfor maximizing your battery power. BY SHARON ZARDETTO AKER

YOU THINK SIZE is the biggestdifference between a desktop

Mac and a PowerBook? Wrong.The single most important

differentiating factor betweenthese two animals is the power source. For-tunately, you don’t have to know about voltsand ampere hours or carry around a volt-meter in order to get the most out of yourbattery. A few important tips about recharg-ing, reconditioning, buying, and maintain-ing batteries can take you a long way — justread on.

Is Your Battery Dying?Let’s start by dispelling the most subtlemyth of all: that rechargeable batteries areimmortal. They most definitely aren’t. A re-chargeable battery has a life span measuredin cycles: A 500-cycle battery, such as thosesold by Apple and some third parties, canbe used (depleted) and recharged about 500times before it no longer takes a charge. Ifyou recharge your battery about three timesa week, it will have a life span of about threeyears — which means that all those originalPowerBook batteries are about to hit theobit columns. If your battery’s not givingyou much in the way of run time even afteryou’ve tried all the “refreshing” techniques

POWERBOOK SECRETS / battery dos and don’ts

series PowerBook; the left battery invariably depletes first.✘ DON'T leave the 100’s lead-acid battery uncharged after a shutdown

due to battery draining. If you leave it uncharged for too long, you may notbe able to recharge it at all.✔ DO carry your battery in some sort of case — even a sock will do —

to prevent it from shorting. An errant paper clip or similar object may beenough to cause a short if it comes into contact with the exposed termi-nals of a loose internal battery.✘ DON'T assume that your battery is dead if it’s not charging. The prob-

lem may be the power adapter or even the outlet the adapter’s pluggedin to. Or — if the PowerBook runs only when it’s plugged in and the bat-tery refuses to charge while it’s in the PowerBook — you may have ablown fuse on the motherboard; check with your dealer.

BESIDES THE THREE KEY dos discussed in this column — reconditioningNiCd batteries regularly, charging internal as well as external batteriesfully, and resetting the Power Manager as needed — here are a few moredos and don’ts to follow if you want to make the best use of your batteries:✘ DON'T treat batteries carelessly; they’re made of toxic materials and

must be disposed of properly. Most batteries can be returned to themanufacturer; you can return Apple batteries to a dealer for recycling.✘ DON'T leave a battery charging for weeks at a time — that’s a sure

way to reduce its life. Unplug it once in a while, and exercise those cells!✘ DON'T panic right away if you can’t wake your PowerBook when it’s

plugged in. A drastically run-down battery may need to charge for 20minutes or so before your PowerBook comes back to life.✔ DO routinely exchange the positions of the batteries in a 500-

until it shuts itself off for lack of batterypower.

What difference does reconditioningmake? Here’s one quick example: My poorPowerBook 170 remained tethered to itsdesk for about two months, since I wassimilarly tethered finishing up a bookproject. It was unplugged for only a fewhours a day, when the adapter was charginganother PowerBook, but often the 170wasn’t in use even during that downtime.The battery was being treated in the worstway possible: depleted a little, recharged,depleted a little, recharged again — and of-ten the recharges weren’t complete. I finallycharged the battery completely overnightand tested how long it lasted the next day: 1hour, 40 minutes of battery-draining activ-ity. A few days later, I used PBTools to do a

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deep discharge of the battery and charged itovernight again. The next day, it lasted 2hours, 20 minutes through the same test —an extra 40 minutes!

But here’s an important note about dis-charging the battery: Don’t do it too often(Apple recommends once a month), and doit only when the battery charge is quite lowanyway. Why? Because if you take an 80-percent-charged battery and discharge it,you’re wasting all that power; it has a finitenumber of cycles, and you’re spendingpower on the discharge instead of on use.

Add-on PowerIf you’re looking for a few extra hours of bat-tery power, get a lightweight external bat-tery. The ground-breaking VST ThinPackwas the first in this field, and the highlysimilar Mini 3 offering from Technöggin(800-305-7936 or 513-321-1777) has mademajor inroads into the market; BTI (213-728-7874), the first third party to offer in-ternal batteries for PowerBooks, has alsojoined the fray. Which should you get? Talk-ing to these companies about their own andtheir competitors’ products is an adventurein technospeak; each representative is ab-solutely sincere and, no doubt, truthful, butabout the only thing they agree on is the

weight of each other’s batteries. Chargetime? Run time? Depends on whom you ask.And if you start talking about whose charg-ing circuitry is more sophisticated . . . .

But let’s face it: You don’t care about thecharging circuitry — you care about the re-sults as shown in charging and run times.Let’s take the best-case scenario based oneach manufacturer’s claims and, for com-parison purposes, take a look at the exter-nal batteries available for the 100-seriesPowerBooks (each also provides models for

the Duos and for 500-series PowerBooks).That leaves all the batteries charging in thesame amount of time and lasting just aboutequally long too. So, here’s what you’re leftwith: The BTI SlimPack weighs 2.5 poundsand comes with Connectix PowerBookUtilities (CPU), for about $170; Technög-gin’s Mini 3 weighs 1.7 pounds and comeswith CPU, also for about $170; VST’s Thin-Pack weighs 1.5 pounds and comes withPBTools, for about $130. Street pricing canvary, of course, but list price and weightseem like strong arguments for getting theThinPack, unless you’re hankering for CPU;personally, I prefer PBTools.

By the way, don’t be misled by the rumorthat a VST battery can overcharge if youleave it plugged in. That rumor got startedbecause of a misunderstanding about thebattery-cell manufacturer’s specificationsthat resulted in an incorrect warning inVST’s original documentation. VST andTechnöggin use the same cells from thesame manufacturer, and there’s no dangerof overcharging in either case.

In the slightly bigger category, there’sTechnöggin’s 3x external battery, whichweighs 2.5 pounds and delivers exactly thesame amount of power as the Mini 3. Whywould you carry the extra weight for no ex-

tra power? I wouldn’t. But fellowMacUser columnist Bob LeVitusdoes, because he likes the waythe 3x looks in its classy Power-Book-matching case, and lug-ging an extra pound doesn’tbother a big guy like him. In theeven-a-little-bigger category,there’s VST’s 3-pound ThinPackPlus at $259 versus Technög-gin’s 4-pound 5x model at $300;they deliver similar amounts ofpower, so again, your main con-cerns will be price and weight.

If weight isn’t an issue, you can get 5 to 6hours of use quite inexpensively with the 5-pound $99 Lind APP-2. For greater needsand bigger budgets, the new 6-pound En-ergy Power 220, from AER Energy Re-sources (800-769-3720 or 404-433-2127),uses zinc-air-cell technology to provide asmuch as 25 hours of power, for about $650.(These are manufacturers’ claims; yourmileage, of course, may vary.)

If you use any external battery with anyPowerBook model, remember this: You

have to fully charge the external and theinternal batteries to get the best run time.Running a PowerBook on two batteries isnot a simple additive process; the batterieslast longer when they are as full as possibleand are evenly depleted during use.

The Search for 100 BatteriesPity the poor PowerBook 100 users, whosacrifice speed, screen, and internal floppydrive for the pleasure of a truly lightweightlaptop. Through PowerBook revisions (andsome disdainful looks from the “power”PowerBook users), they’ve kept the faith.And then what? A few years into the life ofthe computer — less time even than theIRS’ allowable depreciation — no batteriesare available. The batteries that came withthe machine or that were purchased shortlythereafter have reached the end of their use-fulness; Apple-brand models, if you canfind any, may have been sitting on the shelffor years and can’t be expected to performdecently. Who ya gonna call? BTI has cre-ated a new 100 battery called the MC-100($59.95) by repackaging a subset of the cellsin its SlimPack external battery. The firm’stests show a run time of 1 to 1.25 hours(most people got 2.5 to 3 hours from Apple’soriginal batteries). The brand-new one wetested lasted only 30 minutes under heavyuse, however, as did the second one we or-dered to verify our results. Half an hour isn’tmuch — but it’s better than no battery atall, and you can use the MC-100 in tandemwith an external battery.

But maybe there’s life in that old graypack of cells yet. Rich Wolfson, who usuallywrites the sidebar for this column, had anold 100 battery that was giving him only 20minutes of power, no matter how well hetreated it. Then he reset the Power Managerchip (see the “PowerBook Secrets” sidebar,December ’94, page 147) by removing theinternal and the backup batteries and thenpressing the reset and the interrupt buttonssimultaneously for 10 seconds. Guess what?That battery now lasts 1.5 hours.

Sharon Zardetto Aker’s latest book, The MacAlmanac, was recently released by Ziff-DavisPress, even though she swore she’d never writeanother big book after The Macintosh Bible.

You can find BatteryAmnesia in the MacUserand ZiffNet/Mac areas on CompuServe andeWorld. See page 4 for details on how to access

ZiffNet/Mac.

POWER TOOLS Mobile Mac

figure 1 / VST Systems’ PBTools tracks battery usagegraphically, so you can see how far your battery chargesand how fast it discharges.


POWER TOOLS Help Folder

Write to Help Folder/Tips

c/o MacUser

950 Tower Lane

18th Floor

Foster City, CA 94404

Don’t want to wait for an answer? Post

your question on ZiffNet/Mac, MacUser’s

on-line service, and get a reply from

Bob (76004, 2076) or Andy

(72511,204). We pay $25 – $100 for any

undocumented tips we publish. Send them

to Christopher Breen (72241,1036).

Help FolderConquer the unbootable hard drive, get your Power Mac to run moresoftware, and waste no time getting on to the Internet. BY ANDY

IHNATKO AND BOB LEVITUS / TIPS COMPILED BY CHRISTOPH ER BREEN

Booting the UnbootableQ. I’m about ready to put a chair throughmy screen. I was installing System 7.5 whenmy dad cut off the power, looking for abusted fuse. Now, my Mac tries to start upbut crashes midway through. It won’t startup from either a floppy disk or from my ex-ternal drive. What should I do (to the Mac,not to my dad)?John St. VincentVancouver, BC, Canada

ANDY: Aw, ease up on your dad. The guybought you a whole Mac system and willprobably blow $100,000 on your education,and you’re on his case for performing main-tenance on the house that shelters you? Theyouth of today. It breaks my heart.

If the Mac can’t boot from its internaldrive, it’s supposed to lunge straight for thenext bootable device on the chain. In yourcase, the problem is that the installationgets far enough along that your Mac thinksthe drive is perfectly bootable, thank youvery much, so it ignores all other devices.Ignoring the floppy drive is exceedinglyrare but does happen. (It probably meansthere’s a hardware problem.)

Fortunately, there is an out for this situa-tion: Hold down the Command, Option,Shift, and Delete keys simultaneously whilebooting. That tells the Mac to ignore the

✽. . . BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASKQ. How do I put my own programs and documents into System7.5’s Launcher?Molly VolleySanta Rosa, CA

ANDY: Quite simple — just drag the desired application anddocument icons (or aliases) into the Launcher Items folder, in-side the System Folder.

“Hey,” you might exclaim, “that’s unnecessarily complicated. Why doesn’t the Launcher letyou just drag an icon from the Finder right into its window or at least give you a menu optionfor installing new apps and docs?” To that I say, “Pish-tosh!” After all, it’s not as if the Launcherwas designed to make the Mac easier for inexperienced people to use.

internal drive when booting and shouldsolve your problem.BOB: Here’s a handy acronym to remind youof that key sequence — just remember thatyour Mac needs a doctor or several DOCS(Delete-Option-Command-Shift).

Into the InternetQ. How do I get a subscription to theInternet? I’ve read enough articles on it towant to give it a try, but I don’t know how toget started.Joe Catlinvia CompuServe

ANDY: You’re in luck. MacUser just coveredthat very topic just last month (“Shoppingfor Internet Access,” December ’94, page133). Take a gander at that for the basics onhow to sign on to the Net.

To summarize and add my own twohumble cents, one of the first steps in get-ting on the Net is finding a service provider,an organization that, for a fee, lets you logon to its computers to access the Internet.To get a regularly updated list of Internetservice providers from coast to coast, sim-ply hop on to ZiffNet/Mac and downloadNIXPUB.SIT. Similar lists are availablefrom other on-line services as well as usergroups and bulletin boards.

It is possible to access the Internet via a

commercial service, such as AmericaOnline or CompuServe. But unless all youwant to do is exchange mail or receive elec-tronic magazines, it’s almost always a hor-rible deal. Why pay a wheelbarrow of doughto such an organization when others can of-fer you a broader range of services — ac-cess to remote bulletin boards and file li-braries, for example — for just a buck ortwo an hour? Be sure to get the lowdownfrom others in your area about what thevarious service providers offer, and thinktwice about using commercial services forsurfing the Net.BOB: My advice is to try the Internet viaAmerica Online first. Sure, it’s more expen-sive and AOL’s interface leaves a lot to bedesired, but if you’re among the many whohave discovered that the information super-highway is vastly overrated, you’ll savecountless hours of troubleshooting yourInternet connection and bypass dickeringwith a service provider who still thinks aMac is a hamburger.

Michael Fraase’s Internet Tour Guide(Chapel Hill, NC: Ventana Press, 1993) is agood resource if you decide you do want toset up a connection, but the simplestmethod is to take a test drive via AmericaOnline.ANDY: Another useful book with all of theIL

LUST

RAT

ION

/ J

AM

ES O

’BR

IEN


POWER TOOLS Help Folder

information and software you need in orderto get on the Net is Adam Engst’s InternetStarter Kit (Indianapolis: Hayden Books,1994).

Uncooperative CoprocessorQ. I need to use the math coprocessor onmy Power Mac 6100 to run certain software.But the Power Mac won’t run the copro-cessor in 680x0 emulation mode. Why not,and how can I get the software to work?Jordi FabaraGuayaquil, Ecuador

BOB: The reason the software won’t run isbecause the 680x0 emulator, the part ofyour Power Mac that lets it run non-nativeMac software, emulates the 68LC040 chip,which doesn’t have a math coprocessor.

There is a piece of software, SoftwareFPU, that might save your bacon. It emu-lates a math coprocessor, making your ap-plication think it has access to one. It’s re-ported to work with many, although notall, applications. To get a copy of the PowerMac version, send $20 to John Neil & Asso-ciates, P.O. Box 2156, Cupertino, CA 95015.The 680x0 version (for Macs that use the68LC040 chip) is shareware and can befound in all the usual on-line places.

Font ConflictsQ. When I loaded some new font collec-tions onto my Mac, the fonts in my copy ofReader Rabbit went out to lunch: The lettersa child enters into the program aren’t whatcomes out. For instance, a t might come outas an accented e. I could delete the font we’rehaving trouble with, but how do I know an-other font won’t just step in and steal thescene as well?John Seniuravia the Internet

BOB: Sounds like a font-ID conflict or a cor-rupted font to me. The cure is the same foreither problem.1. Remove all of your screen and TrueTypefonts. (If you’re running System 7.0, they’rein the System file; if you’re running System7.1 or later, they’re in the Fonts folder).2. Reinstall one font, by dragging it onto theSystem Folder’s icon.3. Enter words into Reader Rabbit.

Repeat steps 2 and 3 until Reader Rabbitfreaks out. Then remove the font you rein-stalled last, and your troubles will be gone.If throwing out fonts is not a satisfactory

TIPS / HardwareCD-ROM PROTECTIONHave you ever pushed the keyboard upagainst your Centris, Quadra, or PowerMac and accidentally pressed the Ejectbutton on your internal CD-ROM drive? Trythis low-tech solution to avoid these pre-mature ejections:

The majority of hardware and office-supply stores stock little adhesive rubberfeet for lamps or appliances. Place one just to the left of the paper-clip eject hole on the bezelfor the internal CD-ROM drive. The rubber foot should provide enough clearance that youwon’t accidentally hit the Eject button anymore. If you’re concerned about appearance, youcan place a rubber foot or two on the back of the keyboard instead.Eugene Pakvia CompuServe

USES FOR A SPARE DRIVEDon’t throw out that 20-MB PowerBook drive or any other internal drive you’ve replaced andwere ready to trash because it’s small. You can encase it in an external box, such as one fromAPS, and use it in a variety of ways. Here are a few uses, ranging from the common to theobscure:• Allocate the entire disk as a cache for CD-ROM directories, using a product such as FWB’s CD-

ROM ToolKit. That way you won’t have to rebuild directories each time you use your CD-ROMs.• Dedicate the disk to virtual memory so you can allocate more memory to big applications.• If you run Windows on your Mac, make it the C: drive.Matt FederoffTumacacori, AZ

do batch processing of feats such as paletteadjustment and conversion, dithering, andapplication of Photoshop plug-in filters.ANDY: Or you can save money and diskspace by doing the conversion with JeffLewis’ Imagery. It converts BMP; EPS; GIF;JPEG; PCX; Photoshop; PICT; TIFF; and abunch of other Mac, PC, UNIX, and Atari ST(A-a-i-i-e-e-e! Bad hardware flashback! I’m

TIPS / SystemSLIMMING FAT APPLICATIONSDid you install the latest bug-fix release of anapplication only to discover that the new ver-sion was twice the size of the previous one?Most likely, you stumbled upon the wondersof fat binary, which allows developers to stufftheir programs with code optimized forPower Macs along with separate code for tra-ditional 680x0 Macs. Fortunately, there’s away for users of PowerPC-less Macs to get ridof this deadweight.

Working on a copy of the pudgy applica-tion, use a program such as Anonymity (free-ware) or DFerase (shareware, $5) to delete

solution, you will need a font-managementutility, such as Suitcase ($79), from Syman-tec (800-441-7234 or 503-334-6054). Suit-case resolves font conflicts automaticallyand renumbers or renames conflictingfonts so you can use them again.

Converting PC GraphicsQ. Do you know of any programs that willlet me convert PC graphics so I can usethem on my Mac?Chris FariaAPO, USA

BOB: The readers asking questions thismonth must be mind readers — an in-depth answer to this question is in lastmonth’s Mac to PC section (“Finessing FileTranslation,” December ’94, page 139). Forthe long answer, check out that article.

The simple answer is that you should getDeBabelizer Toolbox ($399) or DeBabelizerLite ($129), from Equilibrium Technologies(800-524-8651 or 415-332-4343).

Both DeBabelizers — regular and lite —can convert files from and to more than 40formats, including EPS, Photoshop, PICT,and TIFF. The big guy is scriptable and can


tripping!) formats. Somehow Lewis paddedthe thing with converters for a pile of differ-ent animation- and sound-file formats andstill fit it into only 217K of disk space. Andhe has the gall to release this as freeware?Lose no time in rushing to ZiffNet/Mac orany other on-line service and grab it quickbefore he regains his senses!

Old Versions: Save or Toss?Q. When I upgrade a program, do I need tosave the old versions or can I use them ascoasters?Brian K. DonnellyManchester, NH

BOB: I save them for a while just in casesomething goes wrong with the new ver-sion. I’ve had a new version corrupt files it’sconverting, for instance.

Only when you’re positive the new ver-sion works as promised is it safe to use theold versions as coasters.ANDY: Don’t use them as coasters. Themoisture from drinks tends to drop downonto the metal shutter and leave hard-to-remove rust stains on your fine furniture.

Besides, there are some advantages tousing old software — it’s often faster anduses less space on your disk. My Power-Book, for instance, is loaded up with down-right ancient versions of Illustrator, Page-Maker, and Photoshop. Sure, they lack theadvanced features of the up-to-date ver-sions I’ve got running on my desktop Mac,but they’re 100 percent file-compatible,take up about 40 MB less space, and runnice and fast on my puny 68000-basedPowerBook 100.

figure 1 / Everything a new programmer needs in order to get started writing Mac software.

files simultaneously, even though somemay be hidden. Then you can click on anyone of them and drag it to the backup disk,and all the files will be copied to that disk.Carl SilvestriCoraopolis, PA

Programming Starter KitQ. What’s the best way for me to get startedwriting software for the Mac (and pleasedon’t say HyperCard)? Which volumes ofInside Macintosh should I buy?Mary LuebeckArlington, VA

ANDY: Seriously, using HyperCard wouldn’tbe a bad place to start. Perhaps a more use-ful introduction would be to try Apple-Script. It comes free with late-model Macs,and it lets you do some killer stuff rightaway.

The best development environments forbeginners are THINK C and C++, fromSymantec (see figure 1). Symantec’s prod-ucts are widely accepted, reliable, and easyto use. Don’t be fooled by the popularity ofthe CodeWarrior system, from Metrowerks.It’s been getting deep, passionate soul kiss-es from the developer community, but itspluses won’t pay off for a new programmer.

As far as reference guides go, InsideMacintosh is useful but not until you havethe basics down. Learn C on the Macintosh(Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1991) andLearn C++ on the Macintosh (Reading, MA:Addison-Wesley, 1993), both by Dave Mark,are your best bet. The Macintosh Program-ming Primer series, also from Addison-Wesley, covers the specifics of program-ming on the Macintosh and also focuses onSymantec’s THINK C and C++.

Finally, give some thought to learningLISP too. Most programmers are big fans,which means you can see echoes of it inmost of the newer languages coming out,such as the forthcoming Dylan languageand environment.

You can find the programs referenced in thisarticle in the MacUser and ZiffNet/Mac areason CompuServe and eWorld. See page 4 for

instructions on accessing ZiffNet/Mac.

the program’s data fork, which is where thePowerPC code is stored. Presto — you savehundreds of kilobytes in one easy step! [Ano-nymity and DFerase are available on-line. Seeend of article. — Ed.]Jamie CioccoCambridge, MA

BACKING UP SCATTERED FILESYou can use the Labels feature of System 7 ifyou often need to back up a specific set offiles to another disk.

Open the Labels control panel, andchange the name of one of your labels to

Backup. Now highlight eachfile you want to back up, andchoose the backup label fromthe Label menu in the Finder.

When you’re ready to backup the files, press Command-Fto bring up the Find dialog boxand then click on More Choicesand make the search criteria “label isBackup.” Before you perform the find, selectthe disk where the files reside and check theAll at Once box.

When you click on the Find button, theFinder will find and highlight all the backup


Accelerators — see Performance Enhancers

Accounting — see Financial Management

Animation — see 3-D Modeling & Animation Software

Apple CPUs

Desktop MacsLC 475 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 87LC 575 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 87LC 630 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 70Performa 550 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 87Performa 630 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 70Performa 635CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 70Performa 636 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 70Performa 638CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 70Power Mac 6100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 76, JUL P. 87Power Mac 7100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 76, JUL P. 87Power Mac 8100 . . . MAY P. 76, JUL P. 87, NOV P. 72Quadra 610 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 87Quadra 630 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 70Quadra 650 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 87Quadra 660AV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 87Quadra 950 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 72

PowerBooksPowerBook 145B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 81PowerBook 165 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 81PowerBook 520 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 78, AUG P. 81PowerBook 520c . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 78, AUG P. 81PowerBook 540 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 78, AUG P. 81PowerBook 540c . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 78, AUG P. 81PowerBook Duo 230 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 81PowerBook Duo 280 . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 78, AUG P. 81PowerBook Duo 280c . . . . . . . . JUL P. 78, AUG P. 81

ServersApple Workgroup Server 6150 . . . . . . . . DEC P. 110Apple Workgroup Server 8150 . . . . . . . . DEC P. 110Apple Workgroup Server 9150 . . . . . . . . DEC P. 110

Apple System Software

PowerBook File Assistant 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 77PowerTalk 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 100System 7.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 79

Business Graphics

ClarisImpact 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 52

CAD Software

Alias upFRONT 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 52AutoCAD Release 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 58DesignWorkshop 1.0.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 52

with Elektroson’s GEAR 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 100Sony CDW-900Ewith OMI’s QuickTOPiX II 1.02 . . . . . . . . JUN P. 100

Sony CDW-900E withSony’s Hybrid Formatter 1.1 . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 100

Sony CDW-900E withSony’s Multimedia Formatter 1.0 . . . . . JUN P. 100

Spin Double Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76Spin Triple Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76Toshiba XM-3401E1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76Toshiba XM-4101L1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76

Charting & Data Visualization Software (see alsoBusiness Graphics and Spreadsheets & Numerical Analysis)

DeltaGraph Pro 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 65Igor Pro 2.01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 72KaleidaGraph 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 87Spyglass Plot 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 49

Children’s Software (see also Clip ArtCollections, Education, Enter tainment,Programming & Systems, and Reference Sources)

Creative ToolsAmazing Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Animals with an Attitude . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Art Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97The Colorforms Computer Fun Set . . . . . DEC P. 97Creative Writer 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 69, DEC P. 97Davidson’s Kid Works 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Dinosaur Days . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Dinosaur Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Draw to Learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Easy Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Fine Artist 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 69The Flintstones Coloring Book . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Hello Kitty Big Fun Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Hello Kitty Big Fun Deluxe . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Hello Kitty Big Fun Piano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Hello Kitty Big Fun Shapes & Numbers . DEC P. 97Hello Kitty Big Fun Story Making . . . . . . DEC P. 97Kap’n Karaoke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Kid Cuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Kid McGee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Kid Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Kid Pix Fun Pack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Kid Pix 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Kid Rhymes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Kid’s Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97KidsWorld ScreensaverConstruction Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Macademic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Maps for Kids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97My First Colorforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97My Own Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Storybook Maker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Storybook Weaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Geography & Histor yThe Amazon Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Annabel’s Dream of Ancient Egypt . . . DEC P. 97T Annabel’s Dream ofMedieval England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Canada Geograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T China: Home of the Dragon . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Crosscountry USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Discovering America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Hawaii High: The Mystery of the Tiki . DEC P. 97Headline Harry and the GreatPaper Race . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

The Learning Discovery: Earth Treks . . . DEC P. 97The Learning Discovery: Time Treks . . . . DEC P. 97T Mario Is Missing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Moriarty ’s Return . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Nigel’s World Adventurein World Geography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T The Oregon Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Swamp Gas Visits Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Swamp Gas Visits the USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Time Traveler CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Travelrama USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

MacDraft 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 52

CD-ROM Drives

Apple PowerCD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 71AppleCD 300e Plus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76APS T 3401 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76APS T 4101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76CD Technology PortaDrive 3401 . . . . . . . DEC P. 76CD Technology PortaDrive 4100A . . . . . . DEC P. 76CD/Maxtet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 49Chinon CDA-535 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76ClubMac 2x CD-ROM Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76CMS Platinum II CD-ROM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76DGR Tornado CD-ROM Drive . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76FWB hammerCD 4X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76JVC Personal RomMakerwith JVC’s Personal Archiver 2.00 . . . . JUN P. 100

JVC Personal RomMakerwith JVC’s Personal RomMaker 2.01 . . JUN P. 100

Kintronics CDR 1950S Mac . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76Kodak PCD Writer 200with OMI’s QuickTOPiX II 1.02 . . . . . . . . JUN P. 100

Kodak PCD Writer 200with Optimage’s CD-It! 2.05 . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 100

Liberty 115 CD Portable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76MacConnection MDS Chinon 535 . . . . . . DEC P. 76MacConnection MDS Toshiba 3401 . . . . DEC P. 76MacProducts Magic CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76MacWarehouse PowerUser Pro 2x . . . . . DEC P. 76MacWarehouse PowerUser Pro 3x . . . . . DEC P. 76Microboards PlayWrite 1000 with DatawareTechnologies’ CD Record 2.0 . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 100

MicroNet Advantage CD 650 . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76Mirror Toshiba 4101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76NEC MultiSpin 3Xe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 54NEC MultiSpin 4x Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76Philips CDD 521 CDRwith CeQuadrat’s MacOnCD 2.0 . . . . . . JUN P. 100

Philips CDD 521 CDRwith Elektroson’s GEAR 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 100

Philips CDD 521 CDRwith incatsystems’ Easy-CD Pro 1.2 . . JUN P. 100

Pinnacle RCD-202with Pinnacle’s RCD 1.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 100

Plextor DM 5028 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76PLI CD-ROM MS Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 76Ricoh RS-9200CDwith Elektroson’s GEAR 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 100

Ricoh RS-9200CDwith OMI’s QuickTOPiX II 1.02 . . . . . . . . JUN P. 100

Sony CDW-900E

1994 Product IndexWe reviewed over 1,000 new products last year, sofinding the review you want could be tough — if notfor this handy index. Here you’ll find issue dates andpages for every product we reviewed, convenientlygrouped by category. Compiled by Gregory Wasson

T Available on CD-ROM; may also be available on floppy disks.


1994 PRODUCT INDEX


Where in the USA isCarmen Sandiego? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Where in the World isCarmen Sandiego? . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73, DEC P. 97

World Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Interactive Storybooks

T The Adventures of Pinocchio . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Aesopolis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Alice in Wonderland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Always Arthur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Amanda Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97The Amazing SpectacularOrdinary Bottle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Animal Tales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Beyond the Wall of Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Big Anthony’s Mixed-Up Magic . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Buster’s First Thunderstorm . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T The Cat Came Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T The Christmas CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Fatty Bear’s Birthday Surprise . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Favorite Fairy Tales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Gus Goes to CyberTown . . . . OCT P. 73, DEC P. 97T Hilary & the Beast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97I Saw a Strange Little Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Interactivity Pack: The City Mouse& the Country Mouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Interactivity Pack: Goldilocks& the Three Bears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Interactivity Pack: The Tortoise& The Hare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Jack & the Beanstalk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Kids Can Read: Aesop’s Fables . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Kids Can Read: Cinderella . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Kids Can Read: Heather Hits HerFirst Home Run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Kids Can Read: A Long Hard Dayon the Ranch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Kids Can Read: Moving Gives Mea Stomach Ache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Kids Can Read: Mud Puddle . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Kids Can Read: The Night BeforeChristmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Kids Can Read: The PaperBag Princess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Kids Can Read: Scary Poems forRotten Kids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Kids Can Read: Somebody Catchmy Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Kids Can Read: The Tale ofBenjamin Bunny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Kids Can Read: The Tale ofPeter Rabbit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Kids Can Read: Thomas’ Snowsuit . . . DEC P. 97T Living Books: Arthur’s Birthday . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Living Books: Arthur’sTeacher Troubles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Living Books: Harry and theHaunted House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Living Books: JustGrandma and Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Living Books: LittleMonster at School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Living Books: New Kid on the Block . . DEC P. 97T Living Books: Ruff’s Bone . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Living Books: The Tortoiseand the Hare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T The Manhole Masterpiece Edition . . . DEC P. 97McGee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97McGee at the Fun Fair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97McGee series: McGee, McGee at the Fun Fair, and Katie’s Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Peter Pan: A CreativeReader Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Shelly Duvall’s It’s a Bird’s Life . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T A Silly Noisy House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Sitting on the Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Slater and Charlie Go Camping . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T The Swiss Family Robinson . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T The Tell-Tale Heart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . . . . . . DEC P. 97T The Ugly Duckling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Victor Vector & Yondo:The Cyberplasm Formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Wallobee Jack: The Bingi Burra Stone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Wallobee Jack: The Thai Sun Adventure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T The Wanderoos Go Exploring . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T The Wanderoos Go to Town . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Whale of a Tale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Who Wants Arthur? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Willy Wabbit & His Magical Books . . . . . DEC P. 97T The Wind in the Willows . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Just for FunAlien Arcade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Cosmic Osmo and the WorldsBeyond the Mackerel . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73, DEC P. 97

Crossword Creator, Letter Drop,Wordsearch Creator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

DinoPark Tycoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Dinosaur Kids Game Pack . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Eagle Eye Mysteries in London . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Eagle Eye Mysteries: The Original . . . . DEC P. 97The Even More Incredible Machine . . . . DEC P. 97T Game Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Isaac Asimov’s The Ultimate Robot . . DEC P. 97T King Arthur’s Magic Castle . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97The Lost Tr ibe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97MacKids WordSearch Deluxe . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Rodney’s Wonder Window . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Scooter’s Magic Castle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Spelunx . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Super Munchers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Wacky Jacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Wacky Jack’s CD Game Show . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73

MathBatter Up! 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Castle of Dr. Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Countdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Decimal & Fraction Maze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Discover Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Early Math . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Fraction-oids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97KidsMath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97MacKids Coin Critters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97MacKids Turbo Math Facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Math Ace Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Math Arcade Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Math Dodger! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Math Rabbit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Math Team! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97MathKids Clock Shop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97MathTown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Mathville . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Mathville Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Mathville 1,2,3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Millie’s Math House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Money Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Monker’s Math Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Number Munchers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97NumberMaze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97123 with Hickory and Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97The Secret Island of Dr. Quandary . . . . . DEC P. 97Super Solvers OutNumbered! . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Touchdown Math series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Treasure MathStorm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Word Problem Square Off series . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

PreschoolT Allie’s Playhouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97The Backyard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T The Big Bug Alphabet Book . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Daisy’s Castle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Fatty Bear’s Fun Pack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Foo Castle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Kids Basics: My Silly CD of ABCs . . . . . DEC P. 97T Kids Basics: My Silly CD of Colors . . . . DEC P. 97T Kids Basics: My Silly CD of

Counting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Kids Basics: My Silly CD ofOpposites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

KidsTime Deluxe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Living Books Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Peter’s Alphabet Adventure . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Peter’s Magic Adventure . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Peter’s Numbers Adventure . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Ping and Kooky’s Cuckoo Zoo . . . . . . . DEC P. 97The Playroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Preschool Parade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Putt-Putt Joins the Parade . OCT P. 73, DEC P. 97T Putt-Putt’s Fun Pack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Reader Rabbit’s Ready for Letters . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Richard Scarry ’s Busy Town . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Stickybear’s Early Learning Activities . . DEC P. 97Thinkin’ Things 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 69, DEC P. 97T T.J. Finds a Friend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97The Treehouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T VroomBooks: Four-Footed Friends . . . DEC P. 97Yearn 2 Learn — Peanuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Yearn 2 Learn — Snoopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

ReadingABC with Hickory and Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Alfoobet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Alphabet Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Bailey’s Book House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Beginning Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Bookworm Electronic Books . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Community Exploration . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97DaisyQuest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Deluxe Reader Rabbit 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Home Sweet Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97MacReader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Me, Myself, and I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Mind Castle: The Spell of theWord Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Monker’s Spelling Submarine . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Reader Rabbit 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Reader Rabbit 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97ReadingMaze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Spell Dodger! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Spelling Blizzard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Spelling Jungle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Stickybear’s Reading Room . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Super Solvers Midnight Rescue! . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Super Solvers Spellbound! . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T WiggleWorks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Word Attack 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Word Munchers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Science & NatureT Adventures with Oslo:Tools and Gadgets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Archibald’s Guide to theMysteries of Ancient Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Butterflies/What Air Can Do . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T “Cell” Ebration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Coral Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Davidson’s Zoo Keeper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Dinosaur Adventure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Dinosaur Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Dinosaur Safari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Dinosaurs! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Earthcare Interactive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Forces and Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Forever Growing Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Fun Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97How Things Grow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Kid’s Zoo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97The Learning Discovery:Ecology Treks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Leonardo the Inventor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Life Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Morgan’s Trivia Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Multimedia Animals Encyclopedia . . . DEC P. 97T Multimedia Audubon’s Mammals . . . . DEC P. 97T Multimedia Birds of America . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T National Geographic Society:Dinosaurs/ Whales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97


T National Geographic Society:Farm Animals/Spiders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T National Geographic Society:A Tree Through the Seasons/Birdsand How They Grow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Odell Down Under . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Planetary Taxi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Prehistoria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73, DEC P. 97T The Rainforest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73Sammy’s Science House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T The San Diego Zoo Presents… The Animals! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73

T Scavenger Hunt AdventureSeries: Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Simple Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Smithsonian InstitutionDinosaur Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Space Adventure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Superstar Science CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Undersea Adventure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Where in Space is CarmenSandiego? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 63, DEC P. 97

T A World Alive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Zurk’s Learning Safari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

SpecializedAdventures in MusicLand . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Family Bible Rhymes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Kid Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Kid’s Typing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97La Guillotine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Mario Teaches Typing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T The Musical World ofProfessor Piccolo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Quick Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97UltraKey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T VroomBooks: Stradiwackius . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Clip Art Collections (see alsoChildren’s Software: Creative Tools)

Best of K–12 Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Graphics for Holidays & Seasons . . . . . . . DEC P. 97K–12 Graphics Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Compression Software

AutoDoubler 2.0.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 129eDisk 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 129More Disk Space 2.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 129Now Compress 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 129Stacker for Macintosh 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 136StuffIt Deluxe 3.0.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 129StuffIt SpaceSaver 1.0.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 129TimesTwo 1.03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 129

Connectivity (see also File Servers,Network Management Software, NetworkingHardware, Telecommunications Software,Windows Emulation, and Wireless Networking)

Mac-to-PC ConnectionsCoActive Connectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 73

Screen-Sharing SoftwareTimbuktu Pro for Macintosh 1.0 . . . . . . . . JUL P. 56

Contact Managers (see also Personal-Info Managers)

Dynodex 3.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 66Full Contact 2.01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 50Now Contact 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 57

Cooking Software

T Better Homes and GardensHealthy Cooking CD Cookbook . . . . . . . DEC P. 73

MasterCook Mac 1.0.6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 73

Database Management

Relational Databases4D First 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 45FoxPro 2.5 for Macintosh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 47

Desktop Publishing — seeFonts & Typography, Graphics, and Page Layout

Dictionaries — see Reference Sources

Digital Photography

Apple QuickTake 100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 63Kodak DCS 420 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 69

Display Systems — see Monitors and Video Cards & Adapters

Drawing Software (see also BusinessGraphics and Children’s Software: Creative Tools)

Adobe Dimensions 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 60Adobe Streamline 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 58Canvas 3.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 63, JUN P. 108FreeHand 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 39, JUN P. 108Illustrator 5.0.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 108IntelliDraw 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 52Linus M 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 58T Pow! Zap! Ker-Plunk:The Comic Book Maker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Strata StudioPro 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 73

Drawing/Digitizing Tablets

CalComp DrawingSlate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 68MacHandwriter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 43Summagraphics SummaSketchFX ADB Tablet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 65

Wacom UD-1212 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 68

Education (see also Children’s Software and Entertainment )

ArtT American Visions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Microsoft Art Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73

ComputersT How Computers Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73Professor MAC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Foreign LanguagesT Berlitz for Business Japanese . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Berlitz Think and Talk Series(French, German, Italian, Spanish) . . . . DEC P. 97

Chinese Writing Tutor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Japanese Easy Kana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Japanese Kanji Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Language Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Language Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Learn French with Asterix . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Learn to Speak Spanish/Learn to Speak French . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T The Rosetta Stone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73Spanish, French, German, Chinese,Russian Pronunciation Tutor . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Tense Tutor Series (French,German, Italian, Spanish) . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Word Torture Series (French, Spanish,German, Italian, Russian, Japanese) . . . DEC P. 97

Geography & Histor yT The Complete Maus . . . . . . . AUG P. 64, OCT P. 73T Exploring Ancient Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T The First Emperor of China . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T From Alice to Ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Seven Days in August . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Twelve Roads to Gettysburg . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Who Built America? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73

MusicT CD Companion Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73Claire 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 68T Microsoft Musical Instruments . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Peter and the Wolf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73

NatureT Ocean Life: Hawaiian Islands . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73

ScienceInteractive Physics II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Redshift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73

Teaching ToolsSTASH, the Study Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

TypingAll The Right Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Writing ToolsWriting Coach 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 69

Electronic Publishing

Replica 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 70

Encyclopedias — see Reference Sources

Entertainment (see also Children’sSoftware, Education, and Reference Sources)

DiversionsT Comic Book Confidential . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Freak Show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 69, OCT P. 73T Gadget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Vir tual Tarot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 75

GamesAstro Chase 3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 69Bridge Deluxe with Omar Sharif . . . . . . . DEC P. 70T The Chaos Continuum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97T Cosmology of Kyoto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73Crystal Caliburn 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 70Crystal Crazy 1.0.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 84Dark Seed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 72Glider 4.06 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 71T Hell Cab 1.0.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 86T Indiana Jones and theFate of Atlantis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73

T Iron Helix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Jump Raven 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 77, OCT P. 73T Myst 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 83, OCT P. 73PowerPOKER 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 70Prince of Persia 2:The Shadow and the Flame . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 63

T The 7th Guest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 63SimCity 2000 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 69, DEC P. 97Spaceway 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 69T Wrath of the Gods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73

MusicT A Hard Day’s Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Xplora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 77, OCT P. 73

SportsT Baseball’s Greatest Hits . . . . OCT P. 73, DEC P. 97T Greg LeMond’s Bicycle Adventure . . . APR P. 75PGA Tour Golf II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 66

Estate-Planning Software

WillMaker 5.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 63

Ethernet Cards & Adapters

E-Machines EtherDock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 62EtherWave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 57Silver Streak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 51

File Servers

AppleShare 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 102AppleShare Pro 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 102EasyServer 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 102Microsoft Windows NTAdvanced Server 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 102

NetWare 4.01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 102VINES 5.52 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 102

Financial Management

Andrew Tobias’ ManagingYour Money 5.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 109

Andrew Tobias’ TaxCut forMacintosh 1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 50

CheckWriter Pro 5.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 109CheckWriter Pro 6.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 69Dollars and Sense 5.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 109Hi! Finance 5.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 109MacInTax 1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 50MacMoney 3.53 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 109MyAdvancedInvoices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 72M.Y.O.B. 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 50Quicken 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 109WealthBuilder 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 79

Fonts & Typography

FontChameleon 1.0.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 55Fontographer 4.0.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 62Type-Twister for Macintosh 1.0 . . . . . . . . NOV P. 64


1994 PRODUCT INDEX


Foreign-Language Translation(see also Education: Foreign Languages)

LogoVista E to J 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 67

Games — see Children’s Software:Just for Fun and Entertainment

Graphics — see Business Graphics, CAD Software,Clip Art Collections, Digital Photography, DrawingSoftware, Drawing/Digitizing Tablets, Painting &Image Editing, and 3-D Modeling & Animation Software

Groupware — see Office Automation S oftware

Hard-Disk Drives — see Storage Systems

Hubs

Tribe TribeStar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 64

HyperCard Tools — see Programming & Systems

Image Editing — see Painting & Image Editing

Integrated-Software Packages

Microsoft Works 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 44

Internet Software

Anarchie 1.13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 86CrossTalk for Macintosh 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 64Eudora 2.03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 86Eudora Shareware 1.42 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 86InterNews 1.01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 86NCSA Mosaic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 86NewsWatcher 2.0d17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 86TCP/Connect II 1.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 86VersaTilities 1.13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 86WorldLink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 86

Kids’ Software — see Children’s Software

Macs — see A pple CPUs

Magneto-Optical Drives — see Storage Systems

Mapping Software

Automap Road Atlas 2.0.4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 69Geocart 1.3.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 88GeoQuery 4.01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 58

Mathematics — see Charting & DataVisualization Software, Children’s Software:Math, and Spreadsheets & Numerical Analysis

MIDI — see Music & Sound

Modems (see also Telecommunications Software)

Global Village OneWorld Fax . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 52PowerPort/Mercury for thePowerBook Duo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 45

Monitors

Color MonitorsAltima V-Scan 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Apple Color Plus Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 56Apple Macintosh 16-inchColor Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92

Apple Multiple Scan 17 Display . . . . . . . . OCT P. 56Apple Multiple Scan 20 Display . . . . . . . . AUG P. 56CTX 1760LR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92, JUN P. 82E-Machines E20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82E-Machines T16 II . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92, JUN P. 82E-Machines T20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82IBM 21P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Ikegami CN-20A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Ikegami CT-17A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Ikegami CT-20A Maxi-Sync . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Ikegami CT-20D Maxi-Sync . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Ikegami CT-20HB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Mag Innovision DX-17F . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82

Mag Innovision MX17S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92Mirror 16-inch Trinitron . . . . . . FEB P. 92, JUN P. 82Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 17 . . FEB P. 92, JUN P. 82Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 21T . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Mitsubishi Diamond Scan 16 . FEB P. 92, JUN P. 82Mitsubishi Diamond Scan 17FS . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Mitsubishi Diamond Scan 20 Plus . . . . . JUN P. 82Nanao FlexScan F550i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Nanao FlexScan F550i•w . . . . . FEB P. 92, JUN P. 82Nanao FlexScan F560iW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Nanao FlexScan F760iW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Nanao FlexScan F780iW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Nanao FlexScan T560i . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92, JUN P. 82Nanao FlexScan T660i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82NEC MultiSync 5FG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92NEC MultiSync 5FGe . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92, JUN P. 82NEC MultiSync 5FPg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 84NEC MultiSync 6FGp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Nokia Multigraph 445X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Nokia Multigraph 447B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Nokia Multigraph 447X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 56Orchestra Tuba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Philips Brilliance 1720 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Radius IntelliColor Display/20 . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Radius PrecisionColor Display/20v . . . . . JUN P. 82Radius PrecisionColor Pivot . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92RasterOps Sweet 16 . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92, JUN P. 82RasterOps 20/20 Multimode . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82RasterOps 20T Multiscan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82RasterOps 21-inch Color Display . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Relisys VividView 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Sampo AlphaScan LC 20-inch . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Sampo AlphaScan LE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Sampo AlphaScan 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92Sampo AlphaScan 17e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Samsung SyncMaster 5c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92Sceptre CL-617 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92Sceptre P766D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Sigma ErgoView 17 . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92, JUN P. 82Sigma ErgoView 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Sony CPD-1604S 17-inch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92Sony GDM-2036S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Sony GDM-2038 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Sony Multiscan CPD-1730 . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Sony Multiscan 17se . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82SuperMac SuperMatch PressView 21 . . JUN P. 82SuperMac SuperMatch 17•T . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82SuperMac SuperMatch 17T . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92SuperMac SuperMatch 20 Plus . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82SuperMac SuperMatch 20•T XL . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82Tatung CM-17MBD . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92, JUN P. 82ViewSonic 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 92, JUN P. 82ViewSonic 21 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 82

Multimedia — see Entertainment,Music & Sound, Presentations, and Video-Editing Software

Music & Sound (see also Education: Music)

Digital Audio RecordingDECK II 2.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 68DigiTrax 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 68Disc-To-Disk 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 66

MIDI InterfacesHello! Music! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 84SC-7 Sound Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 84SoundEngine Music Module . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 84

Notation & Publishing SoftwareMusicTime 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 67

Network Management Software (see also File Servers)

GraceLAN Network Manager 3.0 . . . . . . . APR P. 68LANsurveyor 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 50Radar 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 58

Network Operating Systems — see File Servers

Networking Hardware — see Apple CPUs:Servers, Ethernet Cards & Adapters, Hubs,Routers & Bridges, and Wireless Net working

Office Automation Software

Face to Face 1.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 47Informed Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 62Meeting Maker XP 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 42WordPerfect Office 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 47

Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

TextBridge 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 44

Page Layout

ClickBook 1.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 67FrameMaker 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 70PageMaker 5.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 108Print Shop Deluxe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97QuarkXPress 3.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 108Ready, Set, Go! 6.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 54

Painting & Image Editing(see also Children’s Software: Creative Tools,Drawing Software, and Drawing/Digitizing Tablets)

Collage 1.0.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 44Dabbler 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 52JAG II 1.02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 85Kai’s Power Tools 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 54Live Picture 1.5.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 64Paint Alchemy 1.0.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 85PhotoFlash 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 48PhotoMatic 1.01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 70PixelPaint Pro3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 50Specular TextureScape 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 63SuperPaint 3.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 53Tree Professional 1.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 63

Performance Enhancers(see also Utilities: Per formance Improvement)

AcceleratorsApplied Engineering TransWarp 6440 . . FEB P. 58DayStar Turbo 040 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 58Fusion Data TokaMac 40c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 58Mobius Speedster AC440f . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 58

Upgrade KitsSpectral NuMedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 64

Personal Info Managers (PIMs)(see also Contact Managers)

Arrange 1.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 56DateBook & TouchBasePro Bundle 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 62

DateView 1.0.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 59DayMaker Organizer 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 52First Things First Proactive 1.1 . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 47In Control 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 48Rae Assist 1.0.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 51TimeSquare 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 59

Photography — see Digital Photography

Plotters

CalComp DesignMate 3036M . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 54

PowerBooks — see Apple CPUs

Presentations (see also Business Graphics)

Presentation & Multimedia SoftwareApple Media Kit 1.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 82CA-Cricket Presents III 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 68Director 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 40, OCT P. 82Kodak Arrange-It 1.0.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 56Kodak Create-It 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 56Microsoft PowerPoint 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 43Passport Producer Pro 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 48Persuasion 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 44VideoDrome 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 64

Presentation-Projection HardwareIn Focus PanelBook 530LS . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 39Proxima Desktop Projector 2800 . . . . . . . SEP P. 39

Printer Connectivity & Control Software

PowerPrint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 66


Printers

Color Inkjet PrintersApple Color Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 100Apple Color StyleWriter Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 39Canon BJC-820 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 100Hewlett-Packard DesignJet 650C . . . . . . JAN P. 54Hewlett-Packard DeskJet1200C/PS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 100, APR P. 77

Hewlett-Packard DeskWriter 560C . . . . . . JUL P. 39Hewlett-Packard PostScriptPaintJet XL300 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 100

Lexmark IBM Color JetprinterPS 4079 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 100

Color Laser PrintersQMS ColorScript Laser 1000 . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 77QMS magicolor Laser Printer . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 39Xerox 4900 Color Laser Printer . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 39

Monochrome Laser PrintersALPS LSX-1000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98Apple LaserWriter Pro 630 . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98Apple LaserWriter Pro 810 . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98Apple LaserWriter Select 300 . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112Apple LaserWriterSelect 360 . . . . . . . APR P. 58, MAY P. 112, SEP P. 98

Apple Personal LaserWriter 300 . . . . . . . JAN P. 50Apple Personal LaserWriter 320 . . . . . . MAY P. 112Apple StyleWriter II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112Brother HJ-400 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112Dataproducts LZR 2080 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98Digital DEClaser 1152 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112Digital DEClaser 5100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98GCC BLP Eclipse 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112GCC BLP Eclipse 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112GCC BLP Elite 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112GCC BLP Elite 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112GCC PLP II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112GCC PLP IIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112GCC SelectPress 600 Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98Hewlett-Packard DeskWriter . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112Hewlett-Packard DeskWriter 520 . . . . . . . JUL P. 39Hewlett-Packard LaserJet4M Plus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 37, SEP P. 98

Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4ML . . . . . . . MAY P. 112Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4MP . . . . . . . . FEB P. 51Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4MV . . . . . . . . DEC P. 58Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4Si MX . . . . . . . SEP P. 98Kyocera Ecosys FS-1500A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98Lexmark IBM 4039-12R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98Lexmark IBM LaserPrinter 4039-10R . . . . SEP P. 98Lexmark IBM LaserPrinter 4039-16L . . . . SEP P. 98MacFriends QuickorTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112NEC Silentwriter 1097 . . . . . . MAY P. 112, SEP P. 98NEC Silentwriter Model 640 . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 54PrePress Solutions VT800 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98PrePress Solutions VT820 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98QMS 1725 SLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98QMS 860 Print System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98QMS 2025 Print System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98QMS 3225 Print System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98Sharp JX-9460PS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112TI microLaser Pro 600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 98TI microLaser Pro 600 PS23 . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112TI microWriter PS65 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 112

Phase-Change Color PrintersDataproducts Jolt PSe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 77Tektronix Phaser III PXi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 77Tektronix Phaser 300i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 46

Portable PrintersAtlantic Technologies SlimWriter . . . . . . NOV P. 54Citizen Notebook Printer II . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 58Hewlett-Packard PortableDeskWriter 310 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 61

Subliminal-Dye PrintersFargo Primera (withPhotoRealistic upgrade) . . . . MAR P. 56, APR P. 77

GCC ColorTone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 77Kodak ColorEase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 77RasterOps CorrectPrint 300i . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 77Sony UP-D7000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 77

SuperMac ProofPositive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 39SuperMac ProofPositiveFull-Page Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 77

Tektronix Phaser IIsdx . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 77Tektronix Phaser 480 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 39

Thermal-Wax PrintersCalComp ColorMaster Plus 6603 PS . . . JAN P. 100CalComp ColorMasterPlus 6603XF/PS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 77

CalComp ColorMasterPlus 6613XF/PS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 77

Fargo Primera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 56, APR P. 77General Parametrics SpectraStar GT . . . APR P. 77General Parametrics SpectraStar Q50 . . APR P. 77QMS ColorScript 210 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 77QMS ColorScript 230 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 77Seiko Personal ColorPoint PSE . . . . . . . . JAN P. 100Tektronix Phaser 200e . . . . . . JAN P. 100, APR P. 77Tektronix Phaser 220i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 46

Programming & Systems

HyperCard ToolsHands-on Multimedia for Kids . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97HyperCard 2.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 64HyperCard Projects for Kids . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Programming Languages/EnvironmentsSymantec C++ 6.0.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 58

Reference Sources

T AccuZip6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73The American HeritageTalking Dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

T Compton’s InteractiveEncyclopedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73

T Deluxe American HeritageDictionary, Third Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 58

T MarketPlace Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Mayo Clinic — The Total Heart . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Microsoft Bookshelf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Microsoft Cinemania ’94 . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T MovieSelect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T The New Grolier MultimediaEncyclopedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73

T Oxford English Dictionary(Second Edition) on CD-ROM . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 58

T PhoneDisk Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Random House UnabridgedDictionary, Second Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 62

T Street Atlas USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Time Almanac 1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 73T Total Baseball . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Removable Storage — see Storage Systems

Routers & Bridges

APT ComTalk HF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 106Compatible Ether•Route/TCP II . . . . . . . JUL P. 106Compatible RISC•Router 3000E . . . . . . . JUL P. 106Dayna PathFinder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 106Farallon InterRoute/5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 106Farallon StarRouter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 106NetSpan MultiRouter EN/LT . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 106Shiva FastPath 5R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 106Tigan MultiRoute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 106Transware EtherWay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 106Webster MultiPort/LT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 106

Scanners

DrumScanView ScanMate Magic . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 82Screen DT-S1015AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 82

FlatbedAgfa Horizon Plus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 82Agfa StudioScan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 54Apple Color OneScanner . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 129AVR 6600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 129Canon IX-4015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 48Epson ActionScanning System . . . . . . . FEB P. 129Epson ES-800C Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 129

Focus FocusScan 800 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 129La Cie Silverscanner II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 129Microtek ScanMaker III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 82Mirror 600 Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 129Mirror 800 Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 129Sharp JX-610 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 82Tamarack 12000C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 129UMAX PowerLook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 82XRS OmniMedia 12C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 129

HandheldCaere OmniScan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 60LightningScan Portable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 83

SlideKodak RFS 2035 Plus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 82Nikon LS-3510 AF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 82

Slide & TransparencyLeaf Leafscan 45 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 82Microtek ScanMaker 45t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 82PixelCraft Pro Imager 4520RS . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 82PixelCraft Pro Imager 8000 . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 82

Scanning Software

Cirrus 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 48

Screen-Sharing Software — see Connectivity

Servers — see Apple CPUs

Sound Manipulation — see Music & Sound

Spreadsheets & Numerical Analysis(see also Charting & Data Visualization Software )

The Cruncher 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 67, DEC P. 97Crystal Ball 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 64HiQ 2.0.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 69JMP 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 54Maple V Release 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 52Microsoft Excel 5.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 43

Statistics — see Charting & Data VisualizationSoftware and Spreadsheets & Numerical Analysis

Storage Systems (see also CD-ROM D rives)

CasesLa Cie Joule System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 70

Floptical DrivesIomega 21MB PowerBookFloptical Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 52

Hard-Disk DrivesAirbourne Conner 170 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97Airbourne Quantum 170 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97Airbourne Quantum 240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97Apple 1050 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92APS MS 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92APS MS 1.7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92APS MX 245 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97APS Q 170 ELS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97APS Q 240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97APS Q 340 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92APS Q 540 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92APS ST 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92APS ST 9.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92ClubMac Quantum 240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97CMS MightyLiteML 324 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92CMS Platinum 170 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97CMS Platinum 2450 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92CMS Platinum 2525 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92CMS Platinum Micropolis 1GB . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92CMS Platinum Quantum 1GB . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92CMS Platinum Seagate 2GB . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92CMS Platinum II 240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97CMS Platinum II DEC 2GB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92CMS Platinum II DEC 4GB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92CMS Platinum II Seagate 2.8GB . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92CORE 520 Fast-SCSI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92CORE SLM01000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92CORE SLM02000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92CORE SLM04001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Dynatek HDA 240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97


1994 PRODUCT INDEX


Optical Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 61PowerBook Hard-Disk Drives

APS Quantum GRS 160 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 114APS T 213 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 114APS T 340 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 114ClubMac Seagate 2.5-inch . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 114FWB hammerPB210 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 114MacFriends Quickor 213 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 114MacProducts Magic213MB Portable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 114

Microtech Roadrunner 200i . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 114Procom ATOM200-PB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 114Procom ATOM340-PB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 114

Removable Hard-Disk DrivesMegaDrive Mercury 240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97MegaDrive Mercury 340MB . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92MegaDrive Mercury 460MB . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92MegaDrive Mercury 535MB . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92

SyQuest DrivesPLI Infinity 270 Turbo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 46

SyQuest Drives — see Storage Systems

Tax Software — see Financial Management

Telecommunications Software(see also Internet Software and Modems)

Delrina Fax PRO for Macintosh 1.5 . . . . . . JUL P. 68FAXstf 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 68LineShare 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 77MicroPhone Pro II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 86SITcomm 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 70Smartcom II 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 45

3-D Modeling & Animation Software

Alias Sketch! 1.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 97Animation Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 72form•Z 2.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 97Infini-D 2.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 97LogoMotion 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 67MacroModel 1.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 97Presenter Professional 1.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 97Ray Dream Designer 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 97Sculpt 3D 3.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 97Sculpt 4D 3.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 97StrataVision 3d 2.6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 97StrataVision 3d 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 65StudioPro 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 97Typestry 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 67Virtus WalkThrough Pro 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 64Vistapro 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 63Zoom 4.0.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 48

Trackballs

Kensington Turbo Mouse 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 46Logitech TrackMan for Macintosh . . . . . . NOV P. 46

Translation Software — see Foreign-Language Translation

Typography — see Fonts & Typography

Upgrade Kits — see Performance Enhancers

Utilities (see also Compression Software)

CollectionsALLright Enhancements 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 55CDU (Connectix DesktopUtilities) 1.0.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 73

MacTools 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 47Super 7 Utilities 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 66Wiz Tools 1.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 89

Desktop EnhancementIcon Mania! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 67Now Fun! 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 86

DiagnosticApple Personal Diagnostics . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 49

Finder EnhancementAt Ease 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 53At Ease 2.0 for Workgroups . . . . . . . . . . . . MAY P. 53

CopyDoubler 2.0.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 71DiskTop 4.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 67KidDesk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Launch Pad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97PopupFolder 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 70PowerMerge 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 69

Performance ImprovementOptiMem 1.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 74RunWay Software for theMacintosh 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 54

Productivity EnhancementOpen Sesame! 1.0.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 73QuicKeys 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 60

PrintingPrintJuggler 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 75

Resource ManagementDriveShare 1.0.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 72RAM Doubler 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUN P. 78

Searching & CatalogingAtticus Vista 1.0.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 68DeskTape 1.6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 86ProFiles 1.0.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUL P. 71Shoebox 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 87

SecurityCryptoMactic 1.0.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 76cypherPAD 1.213 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 67DiskLock PB 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 73FoolProof Desktop Security . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

Startup ManagementConflict Catcher 2.0.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 73

Video Cards & Adapters

Data Translation Media 100 . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 56E-Machines PowerLink Presentor . . . . . . FEB P. 77Radius VideoVision Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 56RasterOps DuoMate 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 77RasterOps DuoMate 16sc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 77

Video-Digitizing Cards

Data Translation Media 100 . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 56Radius VideoVision Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 56SuperMac Spigot II Tape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 63

Video-Editing Software

After Effects 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 56CameraMan 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 64Gryphon Dynamic Effects, Volume 1 . . . . SEP P. 65Premiere 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAN P. 44Premiere 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 42QuickFLIX! 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 70Video Graffiti 1.0.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOV P. 56VideoDirector 1.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEP P. 67VideoShop 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APR P. 66

Will-Making — see Estate-Planning Software

Windows Emulation

OrangePC 2.01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 75SoftPC 3.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 75

Wireless Networking

Digital Ocean Grouper 100LT . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 59

Word Processing (see also OpticalCharacter Recognition and Education: Writing Tools)

Word ProcessorsCreative Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Final Draft 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 84Microsoft Word 6.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 43T The Multimedia Workshop . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97Word Weaver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97WordPerfect 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FEB P. 54WriteNow 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 45The Writing Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEC P. 97

You can find MacUser’s 1994 Product Index inthe MacUser and ZiffNet/Mac areas onCompuServe and eWorld. See page 4 for

instructions regarding on-line access.

Focus 1G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Focus 2G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Focus 210MB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97FWB PocketHammer 170 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97FWB PocketHammer 240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97FWB PocketHammer 530FMF . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92FWB PocketHammer 1760FMF . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92FWB PocketHammer 4100FMF . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92GCC UltraDrive 500S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92Glyph GHD-1200S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92HTF RealTech LPS240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97IMS Quantum ELS 170 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97IMS Quantum 240 LPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97La Cie Joule 1080 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92La Cie QDrive 170 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97La Cie Tsunami 170 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97La Cie Tsunami 240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97La Cie Tsunami 340Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92La Cie Tsunami 540Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92Liberty 50 Series 170 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97Liberty 50 Series 240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97Liberty 50 Series 1GB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Liberty 70 Series 2.1GB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Liberty 70 Series 4.2GB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Lovièl 170 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97Lovièl 240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97Lovièl Lightning 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92MacDirect Conner 170 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97MacProducts Magic 240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97MacProducts Magic 520F . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92MacProducts Seagate 2.1GB . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92MacProducts Seagate 2.8GB . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92MacProducts Spitfire 1GB . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92MacWarehouse PowerUser Pro 170 . . . . MAR P. 97MacWarehouse PowerUser Pro 240 . . . . MAR P. 97MacWarehouse PowerUser Pro 1070 . . . OCT P. 92MacWarehouse PowerUser Pro 1226 . . . OCT P. 92MacWarehouse PowerUser Pro 1801 . . . OCT P. 92MacWarehouse PowerUser Pro 2139 . . . OCT P. 92MacWarehouse PowerUser Pro 340M . . AUG P. 92MacWarehouse PowerUser Pro 540M . . AUG P. 92MASS DiamondDrive 320 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92MASS MASSterDrive 510 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92MicroNet SS-515 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92MicroNet SS-540 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92Microtech 320 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92Microtech 500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92Microtech P1000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Microtech P2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Microtech Polaris 230 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97Mirror 4G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Mirror 9G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Mirror 345 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92Mirror 520 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92Mirror Quantum 1800 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Mirror Seagate 1075 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Mirror Seagate 2400 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Mirror Seagate Barracuda 2.4 . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Mirror SmartStack 170MB . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97Mirror SmartStack 240MB . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97Optima Concorde 9000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Optima MiniPak 240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97Optima MiniPak 500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92Optima MiniPak 1000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Optima MiniPak 2100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92PLI 170 Turbo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97PLI 240 Turbo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97PowerCity PowerSTOR Quantum 1GB . . OCT P. 92Procom MD240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97Relax 525 Quantum Vista . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92Spin 1012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Spin 2149 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OCT P. 92Spin 340MB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92Spin Q240 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97Third Wave 525 Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92TMS ProDrive 525 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUG P. 92TMS ProDrive LPS 240 ExtMac . . . . . . . . . MAR P. 97

Magneto-Optical DrivesPinnacle Micro Tahoe-230

196 MacUser /JANUARY 1995

JOHN C. DVORAK

Welcome to WIMP

THIS IS THE YEARthat Apple turns into a real PCcompany. The new PCI bus

means that cheap PC peripherals can beadded to the Mac. Of course, because theirmakers don’t do anything more than designhardware, most of these cheap add-onswon’t work without a lot of agony. Nobodytold you that, did they?

Oh, and I suspect that Microsoft willmanage to shoehorn Windows NT into theMac too, where it will supplant the Mac OS.The long-predicted convergence of plat-forms is coming, and this is the weird formit appears to be taking: Apple Power Mac/PCI machines running Windows NT. And Isee some cloners out there too. What a messwe have coming our way.

The Mac users are clueless about a lot ofthings, not the least of which is the world ofWindows-Intel-Microsoft-PC, or the WIMPplatform.

The WIMP platform has one interestingfeature: It’s power-hungry. The vendorswho sell into this platform have developedmore bloated, inefficient code than anyonecould ever imagine. The software is so badthat tremendous hardware performanceboosts over the past few years have beennecessary to even get the crap to run. Andit’s still slow! Whenever it starts to speed up,Microsoft or someone else adds bags ofsand to the code to slow it down even more.

No matter — Intelwill save the day.

Software will runthree times as fast

on a processor thatruns three times asfast. More or less.

But Intel is run-ning out of gas,

and its chip tech-nology is in need

of revamping, hence its deal to work withHewlett-Packard on a new generation ofprocessors. The only hot technology al-ready out there that might save the day inthe never-ending search for more and morepower is the PowerPC (aptly named too!).

Although Intel will do its best to keep us-ers off the PowerPC scent, that won’t beenough. Users will still flock to PowerPCmachines — especially if they’re “kinda likePCs,” with that PCI bus and all.In this case, and all meansPC software. PC soft-ware means Windows.For the PowerPC ma-chines, that meansWindows NT. TheWIMP platform istransposed! It turnsfrom Windows-Intel-Microsoft-PC into Win-dows NT-IBM-Motorola-Power Mac. WIMPed again! Has anyone elsenoticed the recurrence of these four lettersin this industry?

Sure, I hope the Mac OS dominates thePowerPC scene, but I think we should atleast prepare for the worst. If the Power Macturns into a Windows NT platform, expectthe following to occur:Pay More. Forget free or inexpensive up-dates and bug fixes. In the world of the PC,you pay for everything. You get into theplatform cheap and spend the rest of yourlife paying for bug fixes. In fact, most PC-software companies consider updates ma-jor profit centers.Plug-and-Pray. Once the Mac turns into aPC, the idea of plug-and-play — the Mac’sreal advantage in the marketplace — isdead. The WIMP environment is hopeless.

Although they talk a good game about apotential or future or someday-soon imple-mentation of plug-and-play, forget it. Theycan’t do it! It’s impossible. This mess willcreep over into the Mac world.Conflicts Galore. Mac users have programand extension conflicts, sure. But few have aclue about what conflicts are all about untilthey enter the world of the WIMP machine.Doing the simplest system change such asadding a tape drive or a new SCSI device cancost a PC user a weekend. These lost week-ends result in support lines going into over-load on Monday morning.Difference Influence. The worst aspect to allthis is that once you’ve entered the PCworld, the major intellectual influences

change from Claris and Adobe and GlobalVillage to Microsoft and Lotus and Novell.The orientation is much less creative, muchmore bottom-line money, money, money.Creepier, actually.

Of course, anything is possible, and noneof this may happen if Apple gets its act to-gether. It has designed a new logo, and Ihope that’s an indication of some importantchanges in the company and its attitudetoward the market and Microsoft in par-ticular. Keeping in tight with IBM is a goodsign, because Apple finally recognizes thatMicrosoft, not IBM, is its real enemy.

By the end of 1995, the smoke obscuringthe future of computing will clear. When itdoes, let’s hope we see the new Apple OShappy face and not Windows NT as thestartup logo on our machines. IL

LUST

RAT

ION

/ R

OB

ERT

ZIM

MER

MA

N