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July 11, 1998
News
- I’ve got a ton of free stuff to give away today, including a set of Altec-Lansing
speakers, games and more
- The big news this week was the Macworld Expo show in New York. Apple interim CEO Steve
Jobs was pleased to announce that the company will have its third consecutive profitable
quarter for the first time since 1985, as well as the fact that the hotly anticipated iMac
computer will be shipping in quantity on August 15. The slick-looking $1,299 machine
incorporates a 233 MHz PowerPC processor, 32 MB of RAM, a 4 GB hard drive, a built-in
15" monitor and stereo speakers, and lots more. At the show the company also
announced that the iMac will also now apparently have a 56K modem instead of the
originally announced 33.6 version, which is definitely good news. However, the company has
not changed its mind about the lack of a floppy drive, so the machine will be the first
"floppy-less" computer since Jobs’ original NeXT cube. As I’ll detail
in just a bit, however, several companies plan to take advantage of this situation by
offering advanced floppy and removable drives that will plug into the iMac’s USB
ports. At MacWorld Apple officials also confirmed that the next version of the
company’s operating system, MacOS 8.5—which was code-named Allegro—will
ship sometime around the end of September. The new OS will incorporate a variety of
different updates, including the widely discussed Appearance Manager originally scheduled
for the ill-fated Copland operating system, as well as more native PowerPC code and a
greatly enhanced Find feature that even lets you do Internet searches without using a
browser. The Appearance Manager will let you completely change the look and feel of the
overall Mac interface, including changing menu fonts, colors, backgrounds and more.
- Among the many iMac peripherals announced at MacWorld, Imation said they would be
shipping a USB version of their SuperDisk floppy drive, which can read and write standard
1.4 MB floppies as well as special 120 MB rewritable floppies. The drive is expected to be
available for $189 on the day after the iMac ships, and five packs of the special 120 MB
disks will retail for $65.
- In similar news, Iomega said they would be shipping a USB version of their Zip Drive
specifically designed for the iMac sometime this fall and Syquest announced they would be
shipping a USB version of their SparQ 1 GB removable drive by the holiday shopping season.
- Another company planning to take advantage of the iMac’s USB port is Umax, which
will be offering a USB version of their Astra 1220 36-bit scanner. The Astra 1220U will
work with both Macs and PCs equipped with USB ports—let’s hope it’s among
the first of many cross-platform USB peripherals.
- HP introduced a new $69 HP Printer Cable Kit for iMac that includes a parallel-to-USB
convertor cable and driver softwrae that will allow the iMac’s USB ports to connect
to the company’s parallel port-based DeskJet 670- and 690-series color inkjets, which
were previously only available to the PC market.
- For those Mac users who don’t plan to buy iMacs but who would like to take
advantage of these and any future USB-based peripherals for the Mac, a company called
Keyspan has an answer for you. Keyspan plans to introduce a $100 Mac-based PCI card that
provides two USB ports to any Mac with PCI slots.
- One of the points Steve Jobs made during his MacWorld Expo keynote speech is that over
175 new applications or application updates for the Mac have been announced since Apple
first unveiled the iMac and sure enough, many of those companies had their goods on
display in New York this past week. For those interested in video editing on the Mac, Avid
introduced a software-only version of their Cinema video editing package. The $139 Cinema,
which is designed to work with G3 Macs that have built-in video inputs or outputs, offers
a simple interface for recording and editing videos directly on the Mac’s hard disk,
and then saving the results back out to videotape in standard VHS quality.
- Another video editing product came from Iomega, which introduced a Mac version for their
previously PC-only Buz multimedia product. The $299 Buz G3 consists of a PCI plug-in card
that incorporates both a UltraSCSI adapter and a video digitizer, as well as a small
external box that includes stereo audio and standard RCA and S-video inputs and outputs.
Buz G3 is bundled with Adobe Premiere LE 4.2 video editing software, as well as Apple
QuickTime Pro 3.0 and more.
- Connectix also introduced new versions of some of their popular Mac utilities, including
Virtual PC 2.1 and RAMDoubler 8.0. The $179 Virtual PC 2.1 is the latest update to this PC
emulation software, which tricks Windows and Windows applications into thinking that
they’re running on a real PC, even though they’re really running on a Macintosh.
The new version, which is scheduled to be available in August, will be bundled with
Windows 98. RAMDoubler 8.0, which will retail for $45, is an upgraded version of the
company’s popular RAM caching software that’s designed to work seamlessly with
MacOS 8.0 and later.
- In other computer industry news, Brother recently introduced several new black and white
and color printers. At the low-end of the spectrum, the company’s new $299, 600 dpi
HL-1040 black-and-white laser offers 10 pages per minute print speed. The $399 HL-1050
raises the resolution to 1,200 x 600 dpi and adds a USB port for easy connections to newer
PCs. At the high end, the company’s new networkable HS-5000 color printer offers 600
dpi resolution at speeds of up to four pages per minute. The printer, which is designed
primarily for businesses, features 24 MB of memory standard and can be upgraded to 72 MB.
- Looking for a simple way to set up a network in your home? How about a wireless network?
Then you may want to check into WebGear’s Aviator Wireless Networking Kit. Priced at
$299, the kit includes two parallel port adapters for networking two PCs (either desktops
or notebooks) using 900 MHz radio frequencies. The kit also includes an extra parallel
port card that you can install into your computer and use to attach your printer to.
WebGear claims the system has a range of about 75 feet and can transfer data at rates up
to 500 Kbps. As with other home networking products, you can use the Aviator system to
share files, printers and even modems and Internet accounts across two (or more) Windows
95 or Windows 98-based PCs.
- Finally, in yet another entry into the world of web site design products, Boomerang
Software has introduced Internet/Intranet Design Shop Gold 32. The $99 package
incorporates both page and site design features so that you can use it to either create
and/or edit individual pages or entire web sites. Design Shop Gold incorporates a WYSIWYG
HTML page editor, photo editor, clip art manager and more.
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