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September 27, 1997
News
Intuit has announced that new versions of Quicken are on their way. Quicken 98, as the
product is to be called, will be introduced on October 23 and come in a variety of
different types, including the Basic and Deluxe versions, which will retail for $39 and
$59, as well as the Quicken Suite and a new Quicken Home and Business version that looks
ideal for small home businesses. Quicken Suite and Quicken Home and Business will each
retail for $89. Mac and Windows versions of Quicken and Quicken Deluxe will be available,
but there are only Windows versions of Quicken Suite and Quicken Home and Business. New or
improved features to be included in all versions include easier data entry, automatic
credit card download for automatically entering card charges, easy 401K tracking and
improved graphing and reports. The Deluxe version adds Quicken Mortgage for comparing
mortgage options, Emergency Records Organizer for storing critical information, improved
investment tracking and more. The Quicken Suite includes Quicken Deluxe as well as updated
versions of Quicken Financial Planner, which is for planning your financial future, and
Quicken Family Lawyer which is for creating legal documents, such as wills and estate
plans. Quicken Home and Business includes all the features of Quicken Deluxe and adds the
ability to generate and track invoices and expenses, as well as offering more ways to
track your taxes.
Just a week after I just bought version 2.0—don’t you hate it when that
happens?—Symantec has announced version 4.0 of their Norton Anti-Virus app for
DOS/Windows 95 and Windows NT. The new version, which lists for $49.95 for the regular
version and $69.95 for the Deluxe version, adds a new Bloodhound heuristics feature that
can automatically detect most new computer file and macro viruses before they’re
officially blocked by the virus definition file. So, in other words, it should work even
against many brand new viruses that haven’t been formally identified [explain]
The Deluxe version adds automatic product upgrades for two years, e-mail encryption, and
automatic blocking of destructive ActiveX and Java applets off of the Web.
Mark your calendars: You’ll be able to start watching me on TV every week starting
in October on a new magazine style show geared for women called "Meeting the
Challenge." I’m the computer expert for the show and do a short tip every week
on interesting computer applications. You’ll be able to see it locally on KICU-TV,
Channel 36, on Sunday evenings at 6:30 p.m. starting October 19. You can also see it on
Knowledge TV at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoons starting October 11. Tune in and let me
know what you think.
Looking to speed up access to web pages? Who isn’t? Well, Intel’s new QuickWeb
technology, which they just introduced this week, may be an answer for you, if you’ve
got the right ISP that is. QuickWeb is a software product that sits on your ISPs
servers—there’s nothing that you need or even can install—that speeds up
download times by compressing image files and caching, or storing the most popularly
browsed pages on the ISPs local servers so that they load more quickly. You will need
Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator 3.0 or later to make it work, but if you do, and
your ISP offers it, QuickWeb can reduce download times by as much as 50%, according to
tests Intel claims to have run. The system, which is written in Java and runs across all
platforms, lets you know it’s in use by popping up a little Web-ometer on your screen
to show you how much faster the download is happening with QuickWeb. Right now Intel is
testing the product with only a few ISPs--NETCOM, Sprint, and GlobalCenter—but they
plan to make the product more generally available in the future.
Compaq has reduced prices on its DeskPro line of business computers, with price cuts
ranging from 5 to 15%. For example, the DeskPro 2000, with a 200-MHz Pentium MMX
processor, a 3.2GB hard drive, and 32MB of SDRAM, was reduced from $1,579 to $1,339.
Compaq also cut prices on its Armada 4100 series of notebook computers, up to nearly 17%
and introduced a new model, the 4160-T slimline which, at 5.2 pounds and 1 ½ inches thick
is the smallest member of the Armada family. The Armada 4160-T features a 166-MHz Pentium
MMX processor, 16MB of RAM, a 2GB hard drive, and a 12.1-inch active-matrix display for a
price of $3,599.
The Jaz2 is coming. Iomega announced this week that the company will be introducing a
new 2 GB removable drive called the Jaz2. The SCSI-based drive which will cost $649 for an
external unit and $549 for the internal, can read and write original 1 GB Jaz cartridges.
The original drive will also continue to be sold at the current $399 price. The new Jaz2
will apparently offer a 40% improvement in performance over the original.
Want a cell phone that can also browse the Web? Well, AT&T will have a product for
on you on Oct. 6 when they introduce their PocketNet service and $300 phones designed to
take advantage of it. Actually, you can’t really browse very much, initially only
about 30 special sites that use the HDML standard, which is a text-only system designed
for cel phones, pagers and other small electronic devices with tiny screens. You’ll
be able to get news headlines, sport scores, stock info and some other stuff, but not much
else. You will, however, be able to access contact and schedule information and other
personal data through personal web sites that you can create from a desktop PC. This
clearly isn’t for everyone, but if you travel a lot, depend on a cel phone and need
access to some simple data, it might just do the trick.
IBM has licensed the PalmPilot technology from USRobotics/3Com and will be introducing
their own device called the WorkPad. Priced at $399, the WorkPad, which will be targeted
toward the corporate environment, will include 1 MB of user memory and the same
applications as the PalmPilot professional.
Looking for the fastest desktop PC around, then you’ll want a system based around
the now somewhat affordable 300 MHz Pentium II processor from Intel. The latest vendor to
announce 300 MHz PII systems is HP. The new HP Vectra VL PC, priced at $2,517, includes a
4 GB drive, 32 MB of RAM and Windows NT 4.0. The company also announced price cuts of
around 10% on most of its existing Vectra business line effective October 1. The price
cuts will put a 233 MHz Pentium II system under $2,000. A company representative also said
that more price cuts are due to happen before the end of the year.
If you use Adobe Premiere to do video editing on your Mac or PC, but could use a little
training, check out Virtual Training Company’s Training for Premiere 4.2, a $99
cross-platform CD-ROM that was put together by my friend Mark Boscacci. The CD-ROM offers
between 6 to 12 hours of interactive training on Premiere, showing you the product basics,
as well as some clever tips, and does not require Premiere. So, if you’ve been
thinking about trying Premiere but weren’t sure what it could do, this CD will give
you a real handle on what the program can do and how it works. To find out more, check out
the company’s web site at www.vtco.com.
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