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August 15, 1998
News
- At long last, today marks the official launch of Apple’s
slick looking iMac. While I personally haven’t had a chance to try one yet, I’ve
read several reports by former MacWeek co-workers and it sounds like the company has a
winner on its hands. The system’s 233 MHz G3 Processor, 512 K of backside L2 cache,
32 MB of memory, 2 MB of SGRAM graphics memory and 4.3 GB Quantum hard drive apparently
offer performance that’s slightly better than some existing 233 MHz G3 Power Macs.
The screen resolution is also apparently quite good which is very important, since
you’re stuck with the 15" monitor built into the system. Also, final reviews
have confirmed that the iMac does feature a 56K hardware modem—not a software modem
that might have slowed the system down while you were online. Just to add a bit of spice
to the huge marketing campaign the company is planning for the iMac, they will also
apparently have five golden tickets—a la Willie Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory—personally signed by Steve Jobs buried in five iMac boxes that will be sold
around the world. Whoever gets those tickets will win a free Macintosh every year for five
years.
- The only big question is the availability of any USB
peripherals to use along with your new iMac. Despite initial hopes that more products
would be available at launch, just about all I could find were a few input devices and USB
hubs, which won’t do anybody any good until more real peripherals are available. No
printers or removable storage devices are ready yet which means that, unless your iMac is
attached to a network—it does have built-in 10/100 Mbit Ethernet after all—you
won’t be able to print anything or copy any files from your iMac for at least about a
month or so. Not an ideal scenario, to say the least….
- Microsoft has finally released complete fixes for the
long-file attachment e-mail security hole that was first reported on several weeks ago.
The company now has complete patches for both Outlook Express and Outlook 98 available for
downloading. If, as I did, you downloaded and installed the previous interim fixes,
you’re still going to have to download and install these new fixes. Unfortunately
Netscape apparently still doesn’t have a fix yet for its Messenger e-mail program.
- Of course, no sooner does Microsoft fix the e-mail problem
when news of another possibly even more insidious application called Back Orifice hits the
wires. Back Orifice—which is a play on Microsoft’s BackOffice suite of products,
but only affects Windows 95 or 98 users, not Windows NT—is a tiny, 120 KB application
that intentionally takes advantage of a number of security holes in Windows 95/98. What it
does is allows someone who sends you the application to potentially control your computer
remotely over the Internet and do things like add and remove applications, read your
passwords, edit your registry, copy files or do anything else that a remote control
application like Symantec’s PC Anywhere might do. Unlike PC Anywhere, however, Back
Orifice does its work silently in the background and you may not ever know it’s there
until it’s too late. Back Orifice is an application and it has to be run to get into
your system, but several variations that have already been made to the original can be
hidden amongst e-mail attachments or even built into certain web pages, so it’s
easier to acquire than it may first appear. Even though it’s technically not a virus,
several anti-virus companies are working on ways to remove it from your system. In
addition, Privacy Software has announced a $20 product called BOClean that can notify you
if Back Orifice is on your system and remove it if necessary. You can find a link to on
This Week’s Links.
- Just prior to the tumult of the iMac introduction, Apple
introduced some new configurations of their desktop G3 Macs. The new systems range in
price from about $1,600 for a 266 MHz G3 with 32 MB of RAM, a 4 GB IDE hard drive and 24x
CD up to $2,999 for a 333 MHz G3 with 128 MB of RAM, 1 MB of L2 cache, a 9 GB Wide Ultra
SCSI-3 hard drive, 24x CD and 6 MB of SGRAM video memory. In addition, all the new systems
feature built in ATI 2D and 3D hardware acceleration. Initial reports suggested that there
would also be a 366 MHz G3—and some online retailers are apparently taking orders for
such a system—but Apple has mysteriously dropped that model from its official launch.
- If you want to get a G3 that’s that fast than
you’ll have to go with one of several upgrade cards available from Sonnet
Technologies or MacTell. Sonnet’s Crescendo G3-360 will be available for $2,000 in
November and MacTell’s 360 MHz PowerJolt G3 will be available in September for
$1,449. Each of the boards will offer 1 MB of backside, or L2 cache.
- As nice as the $1,299 iMac may be, that’s still a lot of
money for some people. So, how does a $399 computer sound? Microcenter PC this week
announced a special on refurbished systems at this price called the PowerSpec 1661R that
include a 166 MHz MediaGX processor, 16 MB of RAM, a 1 GB hard drive, 12x CD-ROM, 33.6
modem, a sound card, speakers and Windows 98. As you might expect, a monitor is extra, but
at that price, who cares?
- Finally, Compaq this week unveiled a new line of Armada
notebooks based around the mobile Pentium II processor and thinner, more lightweight case.
The Armada 7400 line, which starts at a cool $4,000, includes a 266 MHz Pentium II,
13.3" active matrix screen, 4 GB hard drive, and 32 MB of memory. For those on a
tighter budget, two new member of the Armada SB series list for a more reasonable $2,000
to $2,500. For $1,999, the 5266/12S includes a 266 MHz Pentium MMX, 32 MB of RAM, 3.2 GB
hard drive and 12.1" dual-scan screen. For $2,499, the 6233/12T jumps up to a 233 MHz
Pentium II processor and an active matrix 12.1" screen.
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