|
October 17, 1998
News
- I’ve got more goodies to give away this week courtesy of
AT&T’s WorldNet Internet Service, including a landscape designer program, a Tom
Clancy game, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and more.
- Apple was in the news this week for several reasons, not the
least of which was the fact that the company had their first profitable year since 1995.
They also apparently sold over 260,000 iMacs in August and September, making it the most
successful Mac product launch ever. But more important than all of that was the release of
MacOS 8.5, which is officially available today. To run OS 8.5, which costs $99,
you’ll need a PowerPC of any variety—either the old ones or the newer
G3s—but 68040-based systems that were upgraded via a PowerPC upgrade won’t work.
The new OS also doesn’t work with Apple DOS Compatibility Cards—you can install
it on those systems, but the PC cards will no longer be available, which is a drag. You
also need at least 16 MB of RAM, but preferably 24. What you’ll get for your hundred
bucks is a few big features and lots of neat little ones. The big ones include a new
expanded find feature called Sherlock that can find files on your hard drive, search
through the content of those files, and search the Internet. What’s neat about
Sherlock is that it automatically looks through most of the popular search
engines—including Yahoo, Excite, Altavista, Lycos and Infoseek—and returns
results based on relevance. In essence, it works kind of like web sites such as
Metacrawler that search through multiple search engines at once, but it does it as part of
the OS. Sherlock also has a summarizing feature that can summarize the content of a
document—although I’ll believe that when I see it. Other new features included
an expanded, all PowerPC-native version of AppleScript, and lots of user interface
niceties such as proportional scroll bars that always show you how far down you are in a
document and what percentage of the document you’re viewing. Finally, the retail
version of OS 8.5 includes QuickTime Pro 3.0, which normally costs $30 itself. Anyone
who’s bought a Mac since Sept. 17 is eligible for a special upgrade price of $19.99;
in addition, all iMac owners are eligible for the same upgrade price, regardless of when
they bought their machine.
- IBM unveiled a new line of consumer notebooks called the
ThinkPad I Series this week at prices starting under $1,500. The new $1,499 ThinkPad 1410
includes a 266 MHz Pentium MMX processor, 32 MB of RAM, 3.2 GB hard drive, a 12.1"
active-matrix screen, 56K modem and 20x CD-ROM. In addition, it’s bundled with a load
of software including Lotus’ SmartSuite Millenium, featuring Word Pro, Lotus 1-2-3
and more, as well as Symantec Anti-Virus, Quicken 99, a golf game, encyclopedia and
others. Another cool feature in the 7 ½-pound machine is that the floppy and CD-ROM are
available simultaneously, so you don’t have to swap them. Other niceties include
Altec-Lansing speakers, 128-bit accelerated 3-D graphics, four quick launch application
keys and the ability to play audio CDs without even turning the computer on. If you jump
up to the ThinkPad 1450 for $1,999 you get 64 MB of RAM, a 4.3 GB hard drive and a
13.3" screen. Finally, for $2,499 the 1470 features a 266 MHz Pentium II and an
UltraBay FX where you can add either a second hard drive or an additional battery (in
place of the CD-ROM/floppy combo).
- Microsoft made a big deal of their Windows CE Professional
launch a few weeks back, which was supposed to signify the release of lots of interesting
new sub-notebook-like products, code-named Jupiter, based on version 2.11 of the OS. At
first that didn’t seem to be true—in fact, Philips this week announced that they
wouldn’t be making a Jupiter device—but the Vadem Clio/Sharp TriPad device may
change all that. The $999 product, which was co-designed by Vadem and Sharp and will be
sold in two separately named but otherwise identical versions, offers most of the features
of a notebook, in a lightweight, inexpensive package. The two significant differences are
that, because it’s based on Windows CE, all the main applications are stored in ROM
and there is no hard drive. The benefits of this approach are that the
applications—which are cut-down versions of Microsoft Office apps and Internet
Explorer—are immediately available, and the battery life is much longer than
notebooks—they’re claiming 12 hours for this device. But the down side is that
it’s harder to add your own apps (and very few additional apps are available). The
screen on the 3-pound Vadem Clio/Sharp TriPad is different from most other Windows CE
devices in that it offers a full 640 x 280 resolution with 256 colors and, most
importantly, it can be folded over so that you can use the device as a tablet computer as
well. The unit comes with Paragraph’s Calligrapher handwriting recognition program
and reports I’ve read suggest that the recognition is quite good. The fold-over
screen also lets you set up the device on the table with the screen lifted into the air
and fold it over to give presentations. With 16 MB of memory standard and a 33.6 modem, as
well, this could be big hit. Now that full-fledged Windows 98 notebooks have gotten down
to this size and, in some cases, price, the big question is whether or not people want the
extra flexibility, but extra hassles a true Windows machines allows.
- And, in case you don’t believe me when I say that
full-fledged notebooks are also available at this price, then you have to check out the
new Tiny Note 200 from Mag Portables, a division of the company better known for computer
monitors. The $999 Tiny Note 200 features a 200 MHz Cyrix Media GX processor, 16 MB of
RAM, an 8" dual-scan screen, and a 2.1 GB hard drive, all in a 3 ½-pound package.
For $1,149, you can get a version with 32 MB of memory and a 56K modem.
- As I mentioned on last week’s show, the annual
Microprocessor Forum was held this week and lots of interesting news about forthcoming
processors was made public. Probably the most interesting development from the show was
the official announcement of AMD’s K7. Although it’s not expected until the
middle of next year, it looks to be quite an impressive chip, offering substantial
performance improvements over existing K6 processors, and bundling in 512K up to 8 MB L2
cache on the same card as the processor—a la the Pentium II. In fact, the K7 is
expected to be released on a processor card called Slot A that is described as
"mechanically compatible" with Intel’s Proprietary Slot One. It’s not,
however, "electrically compatible," which means it won’t work in existing
PII motherboards. To be honest, I’m not sure why AMD would do this, because I suspect
it will lead some people to trying to put a Pentium II into a Slot A slot, or a K7 into a
Slot One slot and potentially screwing up both in the process. Regardless, AMD plans to
offer chipsets and motherboards that support the new connector and has apparently already
gathered the support of BIOS manufacturers. So, it looks like Intel may finally have some
competition on the performance front come the middle of next year.
- The long-delayed and long-debated Microsoft vs. DOJ trial
finally begins on Monday. This could either lead to a significant re-alignment of the
computer industry, or turn out to be much ado about essentially nothing. We shall see.
- Speaking of Microsoft, the company has released yet another
patch for a security hole in its browser. This new hole, which Microsoft calls the
Untrusted Scripted Paste problem, affects Windows 98, 95, NT and 3.1 users of Internet
Explorer 4.0. It does not, however, affect the Mac version. I’ve got a link to the
patch on my This Week’s Links page.
- Since the company lost the right to distribute their Norton
Uninstaller product as the result of a lawsuit brought by Network Associates (the
Cybermedia division of that company, to be exact) Symantec has obviously been on the prowl
for another company’s uninstaller. This week the company announced that they were
buying QuarterDeck, which makes the Uninstall It and Partition It utilities among others.
Look for those product or technologies to be incorporated into future versions of Norton
Utilities as a result of this sale.
|
|
