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September 19, 1998
News
- Lots of great prizes to give away today, including a copy of
Windows 98, Plus for 98 and a Microsoft Intellimouse
- I don’t know about you, but I love gadgets. The computer
industry obviously does as well, because they continue to introduce a ton of new takes on
small computing/information devices, especially now that 3Com’s PalmPilot has become
such as big hit. One of the most recent entrants into the market of handheld devices is
Royal’s DaVinci, which is expected to retail for around $100. The DaVinci is a
low-cost Pilot-like device that includes a built-in address book, calendar, and note taker
and supports pen-based input. In addition you can enter data via a screen-based keyboard,
an optional fold-up keyboard or via a PC running software that you can synchronize with
your DaVinci. To synchronize the DaVinci with other popular personal information manager,
or PIM, programs such as Microsoft’s Outlook and Lotus’ Organizer, you’ll
have to pay for a separate data translation filter—although the price and release
date for that software have not been announced. The standard DaVinci offers 256K of RAM
and the sub-$200 DaVinci Pro doubles that to 512 K. The DaVinci Pro also supports send fax
and Internet e-mail capability if you add a PC card-based modem to the device.
- If you’re looking for something even smaller, you might
want to check out the new Franklin Rex Pro, which is an updated version of the original
Rex. Like its predecessor, which is now reduced in price to $99, the $229 Rex Pro is
credit card-sized device that plugs directly into a notebook computer’s PC card slot,
or to a desktop PC via a serial port-based interface cradle. The Rex includes 512K of RAM,
which is twice as much as the original version, and features a display that lets you view
address book and calendar directly on it. In addition, the new version adds the ability to
input new entries or edit existing entries with just the Rex itself. In the first version,
all data input had to be done on the PC—the Rex was essentially a viewing device.
Even with the new Pro version, it’s primarily designed to look up names and numbers
or quickly glance at your calendar, because data entry is very slow and tedious, but at
least it gives you the option. You can use the Rex Pro in conjunction with several popular
PIM programs including Microsoft’s Outlook 97/98 or Schedule +, Starfish
Software’s Sidekick 98, Lotus’ Organizer 97/97GS, and Symantec’s ACT 3.0 or
4.0. In fact, to automatically synchronize with any of those products, all you have to do
is plug the Rex PRO into your notebook’s PC Card slot, or into the desktop cradle. In
addition, REX Pro comes with its own TrueSync Desktop software.
- In addition to offering access to lots of different
peripherals, the USB ports sitting on the back of most PCs also seemed like a great way to
create networks. A few companies, in fact, have developed products that let you link
together two PCs via USB ports. The most recent entrant is a company called ADS, which has
developed an $89 USB-Ethernet adapter cable that lets you connect PCs to an existing
Ethernet network without a network card and without having to turn the machine off. The
adapter takes advantage of the fact that USB’s maximum transfer rate is 12 Mbit/sec,
which is actually faster than the normal 10 Mbit/sec rate of standard Ethernet, and
delivers true 10 Mbit/sec throughput. You can connect the Ethernet USB adapter cable to
any 10Base-T PC-based Ethernet network.
- Symantec’s Norton Utilities and related line of products
were in the news quite a bit last week. First of all, the company released version 4.0 for
the Mac. Norton Utilities 4.0 for the Mac is entirely PowerPC native (finally) and adds
support for the HFS+ file system that Apple added to MacOS 8.1. In addition, the program
is apparently already compatible with MacOS 8.5, which is supposed to ship around October
9th. The new version includes all the familiar disk utilities, such as Disk
Doctor for preventing hard disk problems Speed Disk for defragmenting your hard drive, and
more. Since the MacOS doesn’t come with its own defragmenting utility—as Windows
does—Speed Disk is particularly important. In addition, the new version of Unerase
lets you recover files or entire folders and offers the ability to filter files so that
you can more quickly find the files you want to restore. Over on the PC side, Symantec was
forced to recall their Norton Uninstall product after the company lost a lawsuit brought
by competitor CyberMedia, which claimed that Norton’s product had code that was
copied from their own Uninstaller program. In addition, the company has had to release a
revised version of their SystemWorks utility package, which used to include Norton
Uninstall. Ouch.
- Several new drawing and graphics programs were in the news
last week. First off, Microsoft announced a new product called PhotoDraw 2000 which will
be sold separately for $149 starting this fall and may or may not be incorporated into the
forthcoming Office 2000 package for the Windows platform. As its name suggests, PhotoDraw
2000 is a drawing and photo editing program designed specifically for businesspeople who
want to easily add graphics to documents and web sites. The product will include a number
of wizards that can do things like automatically clean up images, including removing
red-eye and dust and scratches, as well as automatically save graphics in the best format,
depending on their intended use. PhotoDraw 2000 will also offer a number of features
specifically designed for creating images for web sites, will support 3D graphics and will
come with an enormous library of over 20,000 clip art images. Microsoft is making
PhotoDraw 2000 part of the recently announced Graphics Studio line of products, which also
includes Picture It!, Publisher, Home Publishing and Studio Greetings.
- Last week Adobe unveiled their new ImageStyler web graphics
program for Windows 95/98/NT and for the MacOS. ImageStyler, which is expected to retail
for $129, is similar to but different from their also new ImageReady package. While the
more expensive ImageReady is geared for web professionals, ImageStyler is geared for
businesspeople and consumers who want to easily add some graphics pizzazz to their web
sites. ImageStyler incorporates a number of features that make it very easy to do a
complete graphic makeover of your web site, as well as tools to easily create image maps,
and JavaScript-based rollover buttons. The program comes with a variety of predefined
styles and actions, so it’s pretty easy to create new interactive graphic elements
for your site. The final version is expected to be released around October 15, but you can
download a full-functioning beta of the program from the company’s web site right
now. I’ve got a link to it from my This Week’s Links page.
- HP introduced an interesting new device called the CapShare
910 last week. The $699 CapShare (short for Capture and Sharing) is kind of like a
combination hand-held scanner and image processing tool that HP is calling an information
appliance. What it lets you do is quickly scan up to 50 pages of black and white documents
without being attached to a PC and then automatically converts the documents into
Adobe’s PDF format, complete with accurate page layout, although without optical
character recognition. You can then print out the documents, fax them, or send them to a
PC for further editing via a built-in infrared port or serial port. In addition, the 12 ½
ounce unit—which is about the size of a portable CD player—features a built-in
LCD display that lets you view the results of your work before you send them over.
- Finally, Microsoft introduced a new set of bug fixes for
Office 97 called Service Pack 2, or SP2, this week. SP2 includes a ton of fixes for all
the Office applications, including some important Excel auto-calculation fixes. You need
to download and install Service Pack 1 before you can install SP2, but you can find out
how to do all of that by simply going to my web site and clicking on This Week’s
Links.
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