|
August 22, 1998
News
- Much to the delight of Macintosh fans everywhere, I’m sure, it appears that early
reports on the iMac’s sales are quite good. Many computer stores reported record
sales for the slick, new computer and, more importantly, Apple seems to be able to keep up
with the orders, which has been a big problem in the past. Not surprisingly, a few reports
of potential problems have cropped, including some with the only reasonable printing
solution currently available for stand-alone iMacs—the $49 Epson USB/Parallel Printer
Adapter kit, which works with the company’s Epson Stylus Color 600 printer. While
some people seem to be able to print without any problems, many others have complained of
banding and large white gaps in the middle of the pages. Epson apparently has a few
workarounds but some reports have suggested that the problem is actually in the MacOS. We
shall see. By the way, other possible printing solutions are Ethernet-to-LocalTalk
adapters from Farallon and Asante, which are $100 hardware adapters that take advantage of
the iMac’s built-in Ethernet port and let you attach certain older LocalTalk-based
Mac printers.
- In the PC world, the big news is Monday’s launch of the new Celeron A
processors—which include 128K of L2 cache built into the processor itself--and the
450 MHz Pentium IIs. The Celeron A processors, which are available in 300 and 333 MHz
versions, are the most important ones for Intel, who have been fighting a losing battle in
the red-hot sub-$1,000 computer market. Early versions of the Celeron, which didn’t
include any L2 cache, were widely panned for this limitation and its impact on their
performance, so Intel has an uphill battle to overcome the poor reputation of the Celeron
brand name. For all you bargain hunters out there, the good news is that all the existing
Celerons—the 266 and 300 MHz versions without the cache—will be blown out over
the next few weeks. I read reports that suggested we might see brand-new machines with
these processors for as low as $599. If you’d rather have the newer, faster versions,
numerous companies are planning to offers machines that incorporate the processor as of
Monday. One typical example is Compaq’s $1,299 Presario 5050, which will feature a
333 MHz Celeron, 96 MB of RAM, an 8 GB hard drive, CD-ROM and a 56K modem.
- Intel also recently unveiled their last OverDrive processor upgrade, which lets you
upgrade the speed and capabilities of your computer’s existing microprocessor by
simply plugging in a new chip. This one, called the Pentium II OverDrive, is for Pentium
Pro systems and uses the Socket 8 slot. If you install the $599 Pentium II OverDrive chip
into a 150 or 180 MHz Pentium Pro it will bring the computer up to the equivalent of a 300
MHz Pentium II, complete with support for MMX and 512K of onboard L2 cache. If you plug
the OverDrive chip into a 166 or 200 MHz Pentium Pro, you’ll end up with a 333 MHz
system.
- Well, Microsoft is sure taking advantage of the Windows Update feature that’s built
into Windows 98 recently. Not only did the company release its first update to the system
this week, they also used it to post the first official bug fix, which involves a very
obscure bug that can change the computer’s date if a machine is restarted right
around midnight. The update includes a variety of multimedia enhancements, such as DirectX
6.0 for games, the new Windows Media Player, and more. On top of that, Windows Update also
been used to offers upgrades to Outlook Express to fix the e-mail attachment security hole
that’s been discussed over the last few weeks. Finally, yet another security hole in
Internet Explorer 4.0 was announced this week and the company has made a patch to its
JScript engine available via Windows Update as well. So, if you’re running Windows 98
and you haven’t tried Windows Update, now is the time to do it!
- The JScript problem involves an obscure issue similar to other ones that have been
discussed in the past whereby a rogue Jscript applet on a web page could open a security
hole that could then be exploited by the applet itself or another program. It affects all
Windows 98 users and any Windows 95 user with Internet Explorer 4.0, including those with
4.01 SP1. You can get to more information and the patch file itself from my This
Week’s Links page. Once again, if you haven’t already upgraded to IE 4.01 SP1,
you have to do that first, which is a big, long download.
- And if that wasn’t enough, there were reports this week that there's a somewhat
obscure bug in Word 97 that affects Windows 98 users. This bug, which will apparently be
addressed in Office 97 Service Pack 2—which is due out in a few weeks—strikes if
you use the AutoText feature in Word 97 under Win98. If you select AutoText from the
AutoCorrect dialog box and then try to save your file, the program will crash.
- While we’re on the subject of bugs, Norton Utilities 3.07 apparently has problems
under Windows 98 as well. Despite the fact that Symantec specifically released an update
for Win98 users, the Norton SysDoc32 utility—which is at the core of the
application—regularly hangs under Win98, particularly on shutdown. The company has
said that another patch to fix the problem will be available on Monday.
- Speaking of Norton, this week the company announced that they will be combining five of
their most popular utilities into a single $99 product called Norton SystemWorks starting
next month. SystemWorks will incorporate Norton Utilities 3.0, the newly released Norton
Anti-Virus 5.0, Norton CrashGuard 3.0, Norton Uninstall and Norton Web Services (which can
theoretically keep all your software up-to-date for six months). Instead of merely
combining the products, the company says the programs will be integrated with a single
installation and a shared main interface. In addition, the utilities will point to one
another when appropriate, so that if Norton Utilities finds that you’re running low
on hard disk space, it can launch Norton Uninstall to remove an application. I just hope
they do a much better job of telling you what all the different pieces are actually
doing….
- Speaking of Norton Anti-Virus, the product is apparently one of the few that’s able
to notice and delete the Back Orifice application I discussed last week. Created by a
hacker group called Cult of the Dead Cow, Back Orifice—or BO, as it’s sometimes
known—can let someone remotely control your computer over the Internet, a la a remote
control program like PC Anywhere. Unlike PC Anywhere, however, it does it without your
consent or knowledge and could let someone completely trash your system. Interestingly,
Back Orifice does this by taking advantage of published APIs in Windows 95 and 98, which
means they’re doing things that Microsoft themselves have enabled. You can only get
Back Orifice on your system by running an application, but it’s small enough that it
could be embedded in something else. Bottom line if you want to avoid problems? Make sure
your anti-virus program is up-to-date and can handle Back Orifice.
- Netscape has finally fixed the long file name security flaw that first came to
everyone’s attention a few weeks back with Communicator 4.06. In addition to the
e-mail fix, the new version incorporates many of the most important Smart Browsing
features built into the current beta of Communicator 4.5, including Internet Keywords,
What’s Related, and NetWatch, which can do some basic content filtering. There are
some other updates as well, including built-in support Macromedia Flash. In fact, there
are so many updates, I have to wonder what the point of Communicator 4.5 is now.
- Finally, HP has an intriguing new entrant into the multi-function device world in the
form of the OfficeJet 700. What’s interesting about the $599 device is that in
addition to supporting color printing, it also supports color faxing. Of course, the
person on the receiving end has to be able to receive color faxes for this to be of much
help and since there are few other color fax machines, it’s a feature that will be
talked about more than used. Still, it is prepared for the future, when color faxes will
probably be more common. In addition to the color faxing, the OfficeJet 700 will offer
color printing and color scanning, although specs for these parts of the multi-function
device weren’t available yet.
|
|
