Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
TidBITS#232/27-Jun-94
0 views
Skip to first unread message
Adam C. Engst
Jun 28, 1994, 12:37:35 AM6/28/94
to
TidBITS#232/27-Jun-94
=====================
Communications dominates this issue with articles from Mark
Anbinder about the new Global Village PowerPort/Mercury modem
for the Duo and the Global Village OneWorld ARA and fax
server. We also muse about what might have caused Apple to
cancel the tablet-sized Newton and lay off many of the Newton
hardware engineers, and discuss the problem of information
piracy on the Internet.
This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 -- <7152...@compuserve.com>
Makers of hard drives, tape drives, memory, and accessories.
For APS price lists, email: <aps-p...@tidbits.com> <---- new
Copyright 1990-1994 Adam & Tonya Engst. Details at end of issue.
Automated info: <in...@tidbits.com> Comments: <a...@tidbits.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------
Topics:
MailBITS/27-Jun-94
Death of a Newton?
Duo Owners Get Modem Choice
Internet Information Piracy
One World, Two OneWorlds
Reviews/27-Jun-94
[Archived as /info-mac/per/tb/tidbits-232.etx; 30K]
MailBITS/27-Jun-94
------------------
If you regularly visit our FTP site at <ftp.tidbits.com> for
Macintosh Internet software, be aware that we're moving files and
directories around. Things may be rather difficult to find for the
next week or so. I'll write more about the reorganization once
it's complete. [ACE]
**eWorld Rate Correction** -- OK, so I blew the eWorld rates last
issue. Here's the scoop, straight from the horse's press release.
"The basic monthly subscription to the service is $8.95, which
includes two free hours of evening or weekend usage. Each
subsequent hour of usage is $4.95. In the U.S. and Canada only,
there is an hourly surcharge of $2.95 during business hours (6
a.m. to 6 p.m. local time). Access from outside the U.S. carries a
$7.95 per hour surcharge (24 hours per day), but no business hour
surcharge. There is no extra charge for the use of the Internet
mail gateway or for 9,600 bps access." [ACE]
**Scott Storkel** <ssto...@netcom.com> writes:
Whoops! As several people have already pointed out, my comments
about ETO pricing in TidBITS-231_ weren't complete. ETO is $1,295
per year for the first year and $395 for each additional year
rather than $1,295 every year as my comments implied.
**Phil Ryan** <rya...@ssmd.mrl.dsto.gov.au> writes in regard to
the new PC emulator for the Power Macs that we mentioned in
TidBITS-231_:
I have had some experience with Utilities Unlimited and their
product Emplant, a Mac emulator for the Amiga. Emplant has been in
"developmental release" for quite a while. Utilities Unlimited
(mainly in the person of Jim Drew, the chief
programmer/engineer/president) does support its product strongly
via the Internet and the various appropriate newsgroups.
Despite starting from behind in the Mac emulation game (behind
Redisoft's Amax Mac emulator) Emplant is clearly the better
product, having come out with a Mac-II class machine when Amax was
really a souped-up Mac Plus-class machine. Emplant works, in
colour, with System 7. It allows active switching between the
Amiga and the Mac environments and supports various Amiga screen
resolutions as well as standard Mac resolutions. It follows fairly
well the CPU power of the particular Amiga that it is on (so a 33
MHz 68040 Amiga performs almost as fast as a 33 MHz 68040 Mac),
while maintaining the multitasking of the Amiga.
However, Emplant was not supposed to be just a Mac emulator. It
was supposed to be a multi-operating system emulator providing for
easy addition of various modules for emulating other operating
systems, including DOS/Windows.
I would not be at all surprised if the PC emulator for the Power
Mac would be a very good product, be very cheap, and require less
of your Power Mac than SoftWindows. I would be surprised if the
first release was bug-free, but, like the Mac emulator for the PC
(Executor by ARDI) would probably settle down after a while.
**Ric Ford** <ric_...@macweek.ziff.com> writes:
It seemed odd to mention MacUser in TidBITS-231_ and ignore
MacWEEK, when MacWEEK has had Internet email addresses for a long
time. You can send email to MacWEEK via the Internet for letters
at <let...@macweek.ziff.com>, for Mac the Knife at
<mac_th...@macweek.ziff.com> and for individual staff members
at <any_staff_m...@macweek.ziff.com>, such as my address,
<mark...@macweek.ziff.com>, and <henry...@macweek.ziff.com>.
[No slight to MacWEEK was intended of course - we were simply
responding to the announcement of the MacUser address. To be fair,
then, if other Macintosh or Internet publications (since those are
our main topics) wish to send us Internet addresses where readers
can reach them, we'll be happy to compose a list for a future
issue. -Adam]
**Aldus ChartMaker** may not print, but that doesn't make it an
applet. Jason Stephenson <jjst...@ukcc.uky.edu> wrote in response
to the TidBITS-230_ mention of ChartMaker: "How can anyone call a
program that requires 8 MB of hard disk space and wants 4 MB of
RAM an 'applet?' Everyone complains about Word's disk requirements
but it is less bloated than this thing from Aldus. ChartMaker may
provide plenty of functionality in making charts but is not what I
consider an applet."
I had assumed that the full 8 MB disk requirement included a small
application and various extras (online help, templates, fonts,
clip art, and so on). Word requires more hard disk space to
install than it actually takes up, and I had assumed that
ChartMaker installs similarly. I called Aldus to find out if
ChartMaker consumes 8 MB of disk space for the typical user, and
found that if you tweak it a bit you can knock it down to 5 MB. I
also found that unless you have an installation problem, you must
pay $2 per minute for ChartMaker support. Ouch. Overall, I'm not
impressed. If we are going to have small, integrated applications,
they'd better start out smaller than ChartMaker, and such a goal
isn't unrealistic. [TJE]
Death of a Newton?
------------------
by Adam C. Engst <a...@tidbits.com>
Perhaps I overstate the Newton's status in the title of this
article, but it appears that the Newton is being, shall we say,
"de-emphasized" at Apple. Rumor has it that the Bic Newton, the
tablet-sized Newton device, has been cancelled, and Apple has laid
off a number of the Newton folks, mostly the hardware designers.
It seems clear that there won't be much in the way of new Newton
devices from Apple in the near future, at least until the market
is ready for them again, at which point Apple will no doubt have
Microsoft to compete with in some form or fashion.
One possibility is that Apple is cutting back on its own hardware
efforts to bolster the efforts of third-party developers who have
licensed the Newton technologies. Sharp's ExpertPad was such a
close Newton clone that there wasn't much of a reason to buy it
over Apple's MessagePad, but if Sharp suddenly released a tablet-
sized Newton, it would be alone in the market and would help
legitimize the market. Apple hopes that strategy will work for the
Mac, since software developers are more likely to bet on a
platform if the health of the platform isn't tied to a single
company. Toward that end, Apple has licensed System 7 to Acer, a
Taiwanese PC-clone maker, and Acer is reportedly slated to release
the first official Macintosh clone by the end of the year.
All but two of the Newton software people remain and are
apparently hard at work on version 2.0 of the Newton operating
system which will be both a step forward and a step back.
Apparently, the Newton OS 2.0 adds a hierarchical filing structure
to replace the data soup that existed previously. This both makes
it easier for users to find their data (since files can be stored
in specific hierarchical folders, just as on the Mac) and more
difficult since every time you want a file you must navigate to
find it.
All is not entirely downbeat though, and Apple France just
released the Newton in France with a French operating system for
FF5,490. Apple France claims that the delay was due to problem in
translating the operating system into French, but by the end of
1994, there should be 50 French applications for the French
Newton.
Despite the problems that the Newton faces, postings in the
comp.sys.newton.misc newsgroup seem enthusiastic and upbeat about
the Newton. That's good because if the current Newton users and
developers can continue to support the product sufficiently,
perhaps it will only go into a dormancy at Apple, rather than
being completely killed.
It's possible that the Newton has some serious problems, or it may
be languishing in the "chasm," a marketing term I learned about in
The High-Tech Marketing Companion (ISBN #0-201-62666-7, Addison-
Wesley), an excellent book developed and edited by Dee Kiamy. In a
chapter entitled "Breaking into the Mainstream," Geoff Moore
outlines a more realistic technology adoption curve than the one
you might expect. Normally, you'd think that a product would start
slow with the innovators and the early adopters, then pick up
steam as the majority of the audience started buying it. The curve
drops back down toward the end as the laggards finally buy in.
However, Moore's revised curve puts technical enthusiasts and
visionaries at the early part of the curve since these are the
people who will buy anything new or who recognize greatness. But
before moving on to the next large part of the curve, which he
fills with pragmatists and conservatives, Moore chops a section
out of the curve entirely and calls this the chasm. During the
chasm phase of the curve, basically no one buys the product. All
the folks who buy things early already have one, and the people
who wait until the product can do something specific for them
haven't yet started to buy.
Getting through the chasm is the tough part, since there's no
money coming in, and the future looks bleak. Moore recommends
going vertical - that is, concentrating all resources on a very
specific market segment, and once success comes in that segment,
moving on to another. It strikes me that the Newton is deep in
this chasm phase right now, since everyone who wants one, has one,
and Apple wasn't able to prove that a $500+ pen-based PDA is
necessary for everyone. Thus, Apple's regrouping moves make a
certain amount of sense - they must sit tight on the Newton until
they can bring the price down and push it into specific markets
where it makes sense, such as for doctors or delivery people. Only
then can the Newton pull itself back out of the chasm.
I do feel that it's important for the Newton to hang on, not so
much for the sake of the Newton itself, but for the sake of the
technology embodied in it. I can do without handwriting
recognition, but some of the intelligent assistance capabilities
would be incredibly useful in the Macintosh environment as well.
If the Newton dies, I fear that those technologies would die with
it, and that would be a bad thing for us all.
Duo Owners Get Modem Choice
---------------------------
by Mark H. Anbinder, News Editor <m...@baka.ithaca.ny.us>
Director of Technical Services, Baka Industries Inc.
After waiting more than a year and a half, PowerBook Duo owners
now have a third-party modem option, the PowerPort/Mercury for the
PowerBook Duo from Global Village Communication. The new modem
fills in the top of Global Village's product lineup, offering
19,200 bps data communications and 14,400 bps send and receive fax
capabilities.
At a suggested retail price of $399, the PowerPort/Mercury for the
Duo will probably be a bit more expensive than Apple's Express
Modem, the only competing product available at this time. Early
reliability problems with the Duo Express Modem (most of which
have reportedly been fixed through software updates) and Apple's
less-functional fax software make the extra expense worthwhile for
serious telecommunicators.
Even though Apple's 1991 introduction of the original PowerBook
model was followed by a string of third-party modem offerings,
none of these developers stepped forward with a model for the Duo
210 and 230 when they arrived about a year later. Manufacturers
cited difficulties in getting hardware and software specifications
from Apple. Since the Duo design incorporated more circuitry in
less space, Apple was not able to use the same modem design they'd
created for the 100-series PowerBooks. Apple claimed delays in
producing appropriate developer documentation as the reason third
parties were not able to develop their own modems for the Duos.
In the meantime, Global Village offered a special version of its
GlobalFax software for use with the Duo Express Modem. This served
to tide over impatient Duo owners who really wanted a Global
Village modem. The company reportedly plans a special reduced-
price offer for owners of GlobalFax who wish to purchase a
PowerPort/Mercury for their Duo, but details were not available at
press time.
One important advance in Global Village's modem design is of
course the faster data throughput. The "v.32terbo" modem's 19,200
bps performance is one third faster in raw data speeds, and the
fact that many data transfer protocols have a finite overhead
means that for most users, the perceived increase in speed will be
even larger.
Like the other Mercury models in Global Village's TelePort and
PowerPort families, the new PowerPort/Mercury for the PowerBook
Duo includes the powerful and flexible GlobalFax software for
sending and receiving faxes, as well as GlobalFax OCR for
converting received faxes into editable text or word processor
files. The package also includes Dave Alverson's popular ZTerm
terminal emulation shareware program, which Global Village buyers
need not purchase separately.
Global Village says that industry estimates place the installed
base of modem-less PowerBook Duos at over 50,000 in the U.S.
alone, and thousands more Duos are sold each month. If this is
accurate, the first batch of new modems may vanish quickly, but
Global Village hopes production will catch up with demand before
too long.
Is there anything to talk to at 19,200 bps? You bet - starting
with Global Village's OneWorld Remote Access servers, which
incorporate internal PowerPort/Mercury modems to provide
performance that feels considerably faster than 14,400 bps ARA
service. No commercial online services like America Online and
eWorld have 19,200 bps access lines yet, but many local bulletin
boards do. SLIP and PPP protocols, providing dialup Internet
access, also feel much smoother at 19,200 bps than at 14,400.
Certainly Global Village's new modem makes the Duo itself a more
viable alternative to the all-in-one PowerBook 100 and 500
families. The much lighter Duo models are attractive to users who
want the lightest possible notebook computer, and who don't need a
floppy drive available at all times. (Many PowerBook owners find
the floppy drive less critical than they expected it to be.) Of
course, the new 500 series PowerBooks have their own advantages,
such as the Trackpad pointing device with no moving parts, and the
dual battery compartments.
Global Village -- 800/736-4821 -- 415/390-8200
415/390-8282 (fax) -- <sa...@globalvillag.com>
Information from:
Global Village propaganda
Internet Information Piracy
---------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <a...@tidbits.com>
If you've grown accustomed to reading Dave Barry's humor columns
in ClariNet, the fee-based news service that appears in the
clari.* Usenet hierarchy, you may have noticed that Dave Barry's
columns are no longer posted (apparently the same is true of Mike
Royko's columns).
Brad Templeton, who started both rec.humor.funny and ClariNet,
posted a message 17-Jun-94 saying, "We regret to announce that on
the orders of Knight-Ridder Tribune and its Tribune Media Services
Division, we will cease publishing the Dave Barry column and the
Mike Royko column effective June 23, 1994."
It appears that Knight-Ridder became concerned about the level of
information piracy on the Internet. Although the details remain
unknown, reportedly a subscriber to Dave Barry's columns over
ClariNet sent a copy of a column to a mailing list of people who
weren't ClariNet subscribers, thus breaking ClariNet's
distribution rules and basic copyright law. From that mailing
list, the pirated column made its way to a Knight-Ridder employee,
who reported it on up the line to the executives who made the
decision to remove the columns from ClariNet.
I question whether Knight-Ridder's move was in fact the correct
one to make if they wish to avoid pirated columns from flying
around the nets. When Dave Barry's columns were available via
ClariNet, at least there was a legitimate source for them for some
people (anyone actually, since you could subscribe via email as
well). I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised to see columns
being typed in and sent around in informal mailing lists, or even
posted, perhaps via an anonymous posting service, in groups like
alt.fan.dave_barry (where even Dave himself is rumored to hang
out)
The feel of the entire fiasco is one of grade school, when someone
breaks a rule and the teacher punishes the entire class. Knight-
Ridder presumably knew who had pirated the column and sent it to
the mailing list; why didn't they simply sue that person for
copyright violation? Or even easier, why didn't they let ClariNet
do it for them? Brad Templeton has set up a mailbox at
<rew...@clarinet.com> where ClariNet copyright violations may be
reported, although I've never heard if ClariNet has actually gone
after anyone legally. ClariNet has always pushed hard to encourage
people to respect copyright online, and it's a shame to see their
efforts wasted like this.
I wonder why Knight-Ridder hasn't removed Dave Barry's column from
all of the commercial online services as well. After all, it's no
more difficult to copy a column from an AOL text window and send
it to a mailing list on the Internet as it is to copy it from a
Usenet newsreader and send it to a mailing list. The conspiracy
theorist here would say that Knight-Ridder wasn't earning enough
from the ClariNet distribution of those columns and wanted an out
so that it could provide them over the Internet again later,
presumably in such a fashion as to make more money.
In any event, it's a shame that one person's disregard of
copyright law has led Knight-Ridder to ruin it for the thousands
of other people who played by the rules and paid ClariNet for the
Dave Barry columns in some form or fashion. I guess I'll have to
go back to getting my Dave Barry fix from clippings from my
mother, although I've started to wonder after reading in
alt.fan.dave_barry that some newspapers cut Dave Barry's columns,
presumably to make them fit, both in terms of space and
occasionally, subject matter. Humph.
One World, Two OneWorlds
-------------------------
by Mark H. Anbinder, News Editor <m...@baka.ithaca.ny.us>
The global village grows closer every day, and one of the
companies making it happen is Global Village Communications. The
company's new OneWorld server products, introduced earlier this
year, are perfectly suited to providing communications services on
small, medium, and large networks. Different versions offer
remote-access network dial-in, or outgoing network fax
capabilities, and prices vary based on hardware configurations and
number of network users.
**The hardware** -- Each OneWorld box is a small, stackable unit
with a design reminiscent of the company's angular TelePort
modems, but a bit bigger (the size of a hardcover novel) and
curved in front. A OneWorld box has room inside for up to two
PowerPort modems, the same ones used in 100-series PowerBooks. The
hardware supports any PowerPort model - past, present, or future -
to provide an easy upgrade path.
Different OneWorld versions offer either a lone LocalTalk port, or
both LocalTalk and 10baseT EtherTalk ports. You can't attach a
OneWorld server to both networks at once, so if the server has
both ports, it determines on power-up which network types to use.
If the server is on an Ethernet segment, you can also tell it
which AppleTalk zone to consider home. (LocalTalk doesn't
currently support zone selection.)
**Remote Access server** -- The internal modems are
PowerPort/Mercury modems, providing AppleTalk Remote Access (ARA)
users with connections to the network at up to 19,200 bps. The
server fully supports ARA client software versions 1.0 and 2.0;
there's no need to set the ARA 2.0 client in its less-functional
1.0-compatible mode.
Beyond that, there's not much to say. The OneWorld Remote Access
server acts just like ARA server software running on a Mac, as far
as the user can tell.
**Fax server** -- Have you ever used Global Village's GlobalFax
software on a TelePort or PowerPort modem? If so, you already know
how to send a fax using the OneWorld. An updated version of the
software lets you send faxes from either a OneWorld or your own
modem, a feature imperative for those roving PowerBook users.
Carried over from the previous GlobalFax versions are such
features as multiple address books (collections of recipients'
names and fax numbers), easily modifiable cover sheets, importing
and exporting of phone numbers, detailed activity logs, delayed
transmission, and fax recipient grouping.
The import/export feature allows easy transfer of names and fax
numbers to and from Address Book Plus, Dynodex, and TouchBase file
formats, as well as text files.
**Security** -- Global Village's OneWorld security features are
based on "passports," or privilege definitions for individual
users or groups of users. A group passport defined for multiple
users can mean a single change updates each user's access
capabilities. The passports apply to both fax and remote access
features, which means the security levels can be installed on both
types of devices today - and can apply to both features of a
hypothetical upcoming device that handles both fax and remote
access services. Users can have different levels of access to your
network with the remote access servers, and different faxing
capabilities with the fax servers.
Some corporate network administrators will be pleased that the
OneWorld Remote Access servers offer the hardware-based callback
capability their security policies demand. ARA's own callback
feature, which enables the server to call back a user only at a
pre-determined telephone number to make password theft
meaningless, is software-based and therefore not acceptable at
some companies where network security is a critical manner. (We
haven't heard of cases in which ARA's callback security was
compromised, but the software configuration might seem less
bulletproof.) Naturally, the OneWorld callback feature works
precisely the same way, but is based in hardware rather than
software.
**Management** -- A product family with such flexibility and
convenience at the user end must be a nightmare to administer,
right? No. Global Village's new OneWorld Manager software draws
interface elements from the Finder and the Chooser, and quite
cleanly enables the administrator to change the configuration of
any OneWorld device on the network.
If you already have an ARA server running, or even a Shiva
LanRover (another hardware ARA server device), you'll be thrilled
to hear the OneWorld Manager application will happily import your
existing user information either from AppleShare-style Users &
Groups files or from user lists exported from Shiva's Net Manager.
**Missing in action** -- Some features that would seem obvious
aren't here, at least not yet. For example, the OneWorld Remote
Access box doesn't double as a shared outgoing network modem, as
the competing LanRover from Shiva does. Shiva has virtually
cornered this market for years, but Global Village certainly has
the communications expertise to develop the necessary workstation
software that should be the biggest hurdle. Using the
Communications Toolbox (CTB) would be the easiest approach; the
software could register the network device as a CTB port, so it
would be unnecessary to fool the Mac into thinking it was talking
to the modem port or printer port. The drawback? Plenty of
software still lacks CTB-awareness, even the easy-to-implement CTB
port handling.
Also, the OneWorld Fax products won't be able to replace the
standard office fax machine until they can receive faxes as well
as send them. According to Nick Chinn, senior customer
satisfaction representative at Global Village, Global Village must
work out several technical and interface issues that before a
stand-alone network device could receive faxes. For example: Where
does it put them? Whom does it notify? There are solutions, of
course, but the company's engineers want to make sure the
solutions are palatable and intuitive before they ship a product
that incorporates them.
I'd also like to see the GlobalFax software better handle long
distance access numbers and credit card numbers. It's possible to
add these items, either to the prefix field that's dialed before
every call (usually used to dial a "9" to get an outside line), or
to each destination phone number, up to a total of 64 digits, but
this gets cumbersome. What's worse than cumbersome is that credit
card digits added at the end of the phone number show up on fax
cover sheets. You can avoid this by keeping the phone number field
on the cover page too small to show the extra digits, but we're
still not talking about a clean solution.
**OneWorld Future** -- The hypothetical future "combo" OneWorld
mentioned above, offering both Remote Access and Fax features
(both send and receive, naturally), is one product we're likely to
see. Even if the first version must have specific modems in the
device each dedicated to a specific task, it'll be a start, but we
expect somewhere down the line to see a OneWorld whose internal
modems can perform any or all OneWorld tasks when called upon.
That will provide the most network flexibility without wasting
hardware.
What else? I wouldn't be surprised to see a multi-protocol
OneWorld Remote Access at some point, offering not just ARA
protocols, but SLIP and PPP capability to provide TCP/IP
connectivity. (In fact, I'd be extremely pleased to see such a
product.)
Some first-generation products, such as the original Newton
MessagePad and the Macintosh Portable, and even the original
Macintosh, are more exciting for the promise they evidence for the
future than for what they provide right now. Global Village avoids
this trap by offering a suite of products that make us drool over
future possibilities while making us drool over the here-and-now
as well.
Global Village -- 800/736-4821 -- 415/390-8200
415/390-8282 (fax) -- <sa...@globalvillag.com>
Information from:
Global Village propaganda
Global Village tech support
Pythaeus
Reviews/27-Jun-94
-----------------
* MacWEEK -- 20-Jun-94, Vol. 8, #25
TextBridge 2.0 -- pg. 33
Maple V Release 3 -- pg. 34
TextureScape 1.0 -- pg. 36
Cron Manager 1.0.2 -- pg. 36
Desktop Projector 2800 -- pg. 38
MovieWorks 2.02 -- pg. 40
LogoCorrector 2.1 -- pg. 41
* InfoWorld -- 20-Jun-94, Vol. 16, #25
Image Editing Programs -- pg. 74
Photoshop 2.5.1
Painter/X2 2.0
Power Macintosh Upgrade Card -- pg. 112
Adobe Dimensions 2.0 -- pg. 113
$$
Non-profit, non-commercial publications may reprint articles if
full credit is given. Others please contact us. We don't guarantee
accuracy of articles. Caveat lector. Publication, product, and
company names may be registered trademarks of their companies.
This file is formatted as setext. For more information send email
with the single word "setext" (no quotes) in the Subject: line to
<files...@tidbits.com>. A file will be returned shortly.
For an APS price list, send email to: <aps-p...@tidbits.com>
For information on TidBITS: how to subscribe to our mailing list,
where to find back issues, how to search issues on the Internet's
WAIS, and other useful stuff, send email to: <in...@tidbits.com>
Otherwise, contact us at: a...@tidbits.com * CIS: 72511,306
AppleLink & BIX: TidBITS * AOL: Adam Engst * Delphi: Adam_Engst
TidBITS * 1106 North 31st Street * Renton, WA 98056 USA
Back issues available at ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/issues/
To search back issues with WAIS, use macintosh-tidbits.src
With MacWeb, use http://www.wais.com/wais-dbs/macintosh-tidbits.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
=====================
Communications dominates this issue with articles from Mark
Anbinder about the new Global Village PowerPort/Mercury modem
for the Duo and the Global Village OneWorld ARA and fax
server. We also muse about what might have caused Apple to
cancel the tablet-sized Newton and lay off many of the Newton
hardware engineers, and discuss the problem of information
piracy on the Internet.
This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 -- <7152...@compuserve.com>
Makers of hard drives, tape drives, memory, and accessories.
For APS price lists, email: <aps-p...@tidbits.com> <---- new
Copyright 1990-1994 Adam & Tonya Engst. Details at end of issue.
Automated info: <in...@tidbits.com> Comments: <a...@tidbits.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------
Topics:
MailBITS/27-Jun-94
Death of a Newton?
Duo Owners Get Modem Choice
Internet Information Piracy
One World, Two OneWorlds
Reviews/27-Jun-94
[Archived as /info-mac/per/tb/tidbits-232.etx; 30K]
MailBITS/27-Jun-94
------------------
If you regularly visit our FTP site at <ftp.tidbits.com> for
Macintosh Internet software, be aware that we're moving files and
directories around. Things may be rather difficult to find for the
next week or so. I'll write more about the reorganization once
it's complete. [ACE]
**eWorld Rate Correction** -- OK, so I blew the eWorld rates last
issue. Here's the scoop, straight from the horse's press release.
"The basic monthly subscription to the service is $8.95, which
includes two free hours of evening or weekend usage. Each
subsequent hour of usage is $4.95. In the U.S. and Canada only,
there is an hourly surcharge of $2.95 during business hours (6
a.m. to 6 p.m. local time). Access from outside the U.S. carries a
$7.95 per hour surcharge (24 hours per day), but no business hour
surcharge. There is no extra charge for the use of the Internet
mail gateway or for 9,600 bps access." [ACE]
**Scott Storkel** <ssto...@netcom.com> writes:
Whoops! As several people have already pointed out, my comments
about ETO pricing in TidBITS-231_ weren't complete. ETO is $1,295
per year for the first year and $395 for each additional year
rather than $1,295 every year as my comments implied.
**Phil Ryan** <rya...@ssmd.mrl.dsto.gov.au> writes in regard to
the new PC emulator for the Power Macs that we mentioned in
TidBITS-231_:
I have had some experience with Utilities Unlimited and their
product Emplant, a Mac emulator for the Amiga. Emplant has been in
"developmental release" for quite a while. Utilities Unlimited
(mainly in the person of Jim Drew, the chief
programmer/engineer/president) does support its product strongly
via the Internet and the various appropriate newsgroups.
Despite starting from behind in the Mac emulation game (behind
Redisoft's Amax Mac emulator) Emplant is clearly the better
product, having come out with a Mac-II class machine when Amax was
really a souped-up Mac Plus-class machine. Emplant works, in
colour, with System 7. It allows active switching between the
Amiga and the Mac environments and supports various Amiga screen
resolutions as well as standard Mac resolutions. It follows fairly
well the CPU power of the particular Amiga that it is on (so a 33
MHz 68040 Amiga performs almost as fast as a 33 MHz 68040 Mac),
while maintaining the multitasking of the Amiga.
However, Emplant was not supposed to be just a Mac emulator. It
was supposed to be a multi-operating system emulator providing for
easy addition of various modules for emulating other operating
systems, including DOS/Windows.
I would not be at all surprised if the PC emulator for the Power
Mac would be a very good product, be very cheap, and require less
of your Power Mac than SoftWindows. I would be surprised if the
first release was bug-free, but, like the Mac emulator for the PC
(Executor by ARDI) would probably settle down after a while.
**Ric Ford** <ric_...@macweek.ziff.com> writes:
It seemed odd to mention MacUser in TidBITS-231_ and ignore
MacWEEK, when MacWEEK has had Internet email addresses for a long
time. You can send email to MacWEEK via the Internet for letters
at <let...@macweek.ziff.com>, for Mac the Knife at
<mac_th...@macweek.ziff.com> and for individual staff members
at <any_staff_m...@macweek.ziff.com>, such as my address,
<mark...@macweek.ziff.com>, and <henry...@macweek.ziff.com>.
[No slight to MacWEEK was intended of course - we were simply
responding to the announcement of the MacUser address. To be fair,
then, if other Macintosh or Internet publications (since those are
our main topics) wish to send us Internet addresses where readers
can reach them, we'll be happy to compose a list for a future
issue. -Adam]
**Aldus ChartMaker** may not print, but that doesn't make it an
applet. Jason Stephenson <jjst...@ukcc.uky.edu> wrote in response
to the TidBITS-230_ mention of ChartMaker: "How can anyone call a
program that requires 8 MB of hard disk space and wants 4 MB of
RAM an 'applet?' Everyone complains about Word's disk requirements
but it is less bloated than this thing from Aldus. ChartMaker may
provide plenty of functionality in making charts but is not what I
consider an applet."
I had assumed that the full 8 MB disk requirement included a small
application and various extras (online help, templates, fonts,
clip art, and so on). Word requires more hard disk space to
install than it actually takes up, and I had assumed that
ChartMaker installs similarly. I called Aldus to find out if
ChartMaker consumes 8 MB of disk space for the typical user, and
found that if you tweak it a bit you can knock it down to 5 MB. I
also found that unless you have an installation problem, you must
pay $2 per minute for ChartMaker support. Ouch. Overall, I'm not
impressed. If we are going to have small, integrated applications,
they'd better start out smaller than ChartMaker, and such a goal
isn't unrealistic. [TJE]
Death of a Newton?
------------------
by Adam C. Engst <a...@tidbits.com>
Perhaps I overstate the Newton's status in the title of this
article, but it appears that the Newton is being, shall we say,
"de-emphasized" at Apple. Rumor has it that the Bic Newton, the
tablet-sized Newton device, has been cancelled, and Apple has laid
off a number of the Newton folks, mostly the hardware designers.
It seems clear that there won't be much in the way of new Newton
devices from Apple in the near future, at least until the market
is ready for them again, at which point Apple will no doubt have
Microsoft to compete with in some form or fashion.
One possibility is that Apple is cutting back on its own hardware
efforts to bolster the efforts of third-party developers who have
licensed the Newton technologies. Sharp's ExpertPad was such a
close Newton clone that there wasn't much of a reason to buy it
over Apple's MessagePad, but if Sharp suddenly released a tablet-
sized Newton, it would be alone in the market and would help
legitimize the market. Apple hopes that strategy will work for the
Mac, since software developers are more likely to bet on a
platform if the health of the platform isn't tied to a single
company. Toward that end, Apple has licensed System 7 to Acer, a
Taiwanese PC-clone maker, and Acer is reportedly slated to release
the first official Macintosh clone by the end of the year.
All but two of the Newton software people remain and are
apparently hard at work on version 2.0 of the Newton operating
system which will be both a step forward and a step back.
Apparently, the Newton OS 2.0 adds a hierarchical filing structure
to replace the data soup that existed previously. This both makes
it easier for users to find their data (since files can be stored
in specific hierarchical folders, just as on the Mac) and more
difficult since every time you want a file you must navigate to
find it.
All is not entirely downbeat though, and Apple France just
released the Newton in France with a French operating system for
FF5,490. Apple France claims that the delay was due to problem in
translating the operating system into French, but by the end of
1994, there should be 50 French applications for the French
Newton.
Despite the problems that the Newton faces, postings in the
comp.sys.newton.misc newsgroup seem enthusiastic and upbeat about
the Newton. That's good because if the current Newton users and
developers can continue to support the product sufficiently,
perhaps it will only go into a dormancy at Apple, rather than
being completely killed.
It's possible that the Newton has some serious problems, or it may
be languishing in the "chasm," a marketing term I learned about in
The High-Tech Marketing Companion (ISBN #0-201-62666-7, Addison-
Wesley), an excellent book developed and edited by Dee Kiamy. In a
chapter entitled "Breaking into the Mainstream," Geoff Moore
outlines a more realistic technology adoption curve than the one
you might expect. Normally, you'd think that a product would start
slow with the innovators and the early adopters, then pick up
steam as the majority of the audience started buying it. The curve
drops back down toward the end as the laggards finally buy in.
However, Moore's revised curve puts technical enthusiasts and
visionaries at the early part of the curve since these are the
people who will buy anything new or who recognize greatness. But
before moving on to the next large part of the curve, which he
fills with pragmatists and conservatives, Moore chops a section
out of the curve entirely and calls this the chasm. During the
chasm phase of the curve, basically no one buys the product. All
the folks who buy things early already have one, and the people
who wait until the product can do something specific for them
haven't yet started to buy.
Getting through the chasm is the tough part, since there's no
money coming in, and the future looks bleak. Moore recommends
going vertical - that is, concentrating all resources on a very
specific market segment, and once success comes in that segment,
moving on to another. It strikes me that the Newton is deep in
this chasm phase right now, since everyone who wants one, has one,
and Apple wasn't able to prove that a $500+ pen-based PDA is
necessary for everyone. Thus, Apple's regrouping moves make a
certain amount of sense - they must sit tight on the Newton until
they can bring the price down and push it into specific markets
where it makes sense, such as for doctors or delivery people. Only
then can the Newton pull itself back out of the chasm.
I do feel that it's important for the Newton to hang on, not so
much for the sake of the Newton itself, but for the sake of the
technology embodied in it. I can do without handwriting
recognition, but some of the intelligent assistance capabilities
would be incredibly useful in the Macintosh environment as well.
If the Newton dies, I fear that those technologies would die with
it, and that would be a bad thing for us all.
Duo Owners Get Modem Choice
---------------------------
by Mark H. Anbinder, News Editor <m...@baka.ithaca.ny.us>
Director of Technical Services, Baka Industries Inc.
After waiting more than a year and a half, PowerBook Duo owners
now have a third-party modem option, the PowerPort/Mercury for the
PowerBook Duo from Global Village Communication. The new modem
fills in the top of Global Village's product lineup, offering
19,200 bps data communications and 14,400 bps send and receive fax
capabilities.
At a suggested retail price of $399, the PowerPort/Mercury for the
Duo will probably be a bit more expensive than Apple's Express
Modem, the only competing product available at this time. Early
reliability problems with the Duo Express Modem (most of which
have reportedly been fixed through software updates) and Apple's
less-functional fax software make the extra expense worthwhile for
serious telecommunicators.
Even though Apple's 1991 introduction of the original PowerBook
model was followed by a string of third-party modem offerings,
none of these developers stepped forward with a model for the Duo
210 and 230 when they arrived about a year later. Manufacturers
cited difficulties in getting hardware and software specifications
from Apple. Since the Duo design incorporated more circuitry in
less space, Apple was not able to use the same modem design they'd
created for the 100-series PowerBooks. Apple claimed delays in
producing appropriate developer documentation as the reason third
parties were not able to develop their own modems for the Duos.
In the meantime, Global Village offered a special version of its
GlobalFax software for use with the Duo Express Modem. This served
to tide over impatient Duo owners who really wanted a Global
Village modem. The company reportedly plans a special reduced-
price offer for owners of GlobalFax who wish to purchase a
PowerPort/Mercury for their Duo, but details were not available at
press time.
One important advance in Global Village's modem design is of
course the faster data throughput. The "v.32terbo" modem's 19,200
bps performance is one third faster in raw data speeds, and the
fact that many data transfer protocols have a finite overhead
means that for most users, the perceived increase in speed will be
even larger.
Like the other Mercury models in Global Village's TelePort and
PowerPort families, the new PowerPort/Mercury for the PowerBook
Duo includes the powerful and flexible GlobalFax software for
sending and receiving faxes, as well as GlobalFax OCR for
converting received faxes into editable text or word processor
files. The package also includes Dave Alverson's popular ZTerm
terminal emulation shareware program, which Global Village buyers
need not purchase separately.
Global Village says that industry estimates place the installed
base of modem-less PowerBook Duos at over 50,000 in the U.S.
alone, and thousands more Duos are sold each month. If this is
accurate, the first batch of new modems may vanish quickly, but
Global Village hopes production will catch up with demand before
too long.
Is there anything to talk to at 19,200 bps? You bet - starting
with Global Village's OneWorld Remote Access servers, which
incorporate internal PowerPort/Mercury modems to provide
performance that feels considerably faster than 14,400 bps ARA
service. No commercial online services like America Online and
eWorld have 19,200 bps access lines yet, but many local bulletin
boards do. SLIP and PPP protocols, providing dialup Internet
access, also feel much smoother at 19,200 bps than at 14,400.
Certainly Global Village's new modem makes the Duo itself a more
viable alternative to the all-in-one PowerBook 100 and 500
families. The much lighter Duo models are attractive to users who
want the lightest possible notebook computer, and who don't need a
floppy drive available at all times. (Many PowerBook owners find
the floppy drive less critical than they expected it to be.) Of
course, the new 500 series PowerBooks have their own advantages,
such as the Trackpad pointing device with no moving parts, and the
dual battery compartments.
Global Village -- 800/736-4821 -- 415/390-8200
415/390-8282 (fax) -- <sa...@globalvillag.com>
Information from:
Global Village propaganda
Internet Information Piracy
---------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <a...@tidbits.com>
If you've grown accustomed to reading Dave Barry's humor columns
in ClariNet, the fee-based news service that appears in the
clari.* Usenet hierarchy, you may have noticed that Dave Barry's
columns are no longer posted (apparently the same is true of Mike
Royko's columns).
Brad Templeton, who started both rec.humor.funny and ClariNet,
posted a message 17-Jun-94 saying, "We regret to announce that on
the orders of Knight-Ridder Tribune and its Tribune Media Services
Division, we will cease publishing the Dave Barry column and the
Mike Royko column effective June 23, 1994."
It appears that Knight-Ridder became concerned about the level of
information piracy on the Internet. Although the details remain
unknown, reportedly a subscriber to Dave Barry's columns over
ClariNet sent a copy of a column to a mailing list of people who
weren't ClariNet subscribers, thus breaking ClariNet's
distribution rules and basic copyright law. From that mailing
list, the pirated column made its way to a Knight-Ridder employee,
who reported it on up the line to the executives who made the
decision to remove the columns from ClariNet.
I question whether Knight-Ridder's move was in fact the correct
one to make if they wish to avoid pirated columns from flying
around the nets. When Dave Barry's columns were available via
ClariNet, at least there was a legitimate source for them for some
people (anyone actually, since you could subscribe via email as
well). I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised to see columns
being typed in and sent around in informal mailing lists, or even
posted, perhaps via an anonymous posting service, in groups like
alt.fan.dave_barry (where even Dave himself is rumored to hang
out)
The feel of the entire fiasco is one of grade school, when someone
breaks a rule and the teacher punishes the entire class. Knight-
Ridder presumably knew who had pirated the column and sent it to
the mailing list; why didn't they simply sue that person for
copyright violation? Or even easier, why didn't they let ClariNet
do it for them? Brad Templeton has set up a mailbox at
<rew...@clarinet.com> where ClariNet copyright violations may be
reported, although I've never heard if ClariNet has actually gone
after anyone legally. ClariNet has always pushed hard to encourage
people to respect copyright online, and it's a shame to see their
efforts wasted like this.
I wonder why Knight-Ridder hasn't removed Dave Barry's column from
all of the commercial online services as well. After all, it's no
more difficult to copy a column from an AOL text window and send
it to a mailing list on the Internet as it is to copy it from a
Usenet newsreader and send it to a mailing list. The conspiracy
theorist here would say that Knight-Ridder wasn't earning enough
from the ClariNet distribution of those columns and wanted an out
so that it could provide them over the Internet again later,
presumably in such a fashion as to make more money.
In any event, it's a shame that one person's disregard of
copyright law has led Knight-Ridder to ruin it for the thousands
of other people who played by the rules and paid ClariNet for the
Dave Barry columns in some form or fashion. I guess I'll have to
go back to getting my Dave Barry fix from clippings from my
mother, although I've started to wonder after reading in
alt.fan.dave_barry that some newspapers cut Dave Barry's columns,
presumably to make them fit, both in terms of space and
occasionally, subject matter. Humph.
One World, Two OneWorlds
-------------------------
by Mark H. Anbinder, News Editor <m...@baka.ithaca.ny.us>
The global village grows closer every day, and one of the
companies making it happen is Global Village Communications. The
company's new OneWorld server products, introduced earlier this
year, are perfectly suited to providing communications services on
small, medium, and large networks. Different versions offer
remote-access network dial-in, or outgoing network fax
capabilities, and prices vary based on hardware configurations and
number of network users.
**The hardware** -- Each OneWorld box is a small, stackable unit
with a design reminiscent of the company's angular TelePort
modems, but a bit bigger (the size of a hardcover novel) and
curved in front. A OneWorld box has room inside for up to two
PowerPort modems, the same ones used in 100-series PowerBooks. The
hardware supports any PowerPort model - past, present, or future -
to provide an easy upgrade path.
Different OneWorld versions offer either a lone LocalTalk port, or
both LocalTalk and 10baseT EtherTalk ports. You can't attach a
OneWorld server to both networks at once, so if the server has
both ports, it determines on power-up which network types to use.
If the server is on an Ethernet segment, you can also tell it
which AppleTalk zone to consider home. (LocalTalk doesn't
currently support zone selection.)
**Remote Access server** -- The internal modems are
PowerPort/Mercury modems, providing AppleTalk Remote Access (ARA)
users with connections to the network at up to 19,200 bps. The
server fully supports ARA client software versions 1.0 and 2.0;
there's no need to set the ARA 2.0 client in its less-functional
1.0-compatible mode.
Beyond that, there's not much to say. The OneWorld Remote Access
server acts just like ARA server software running on a Mac, as far
as the user can tell.
**Fax server** -- Have you ever used Global Village's GlobalFax
software on a TelePort or PowerPort modem? If so, you already know
how to send a fax using the OneWorld. An updated version of the
software lets you send faxes from either a OneWorld or your own
modem, a feature imperative for those roving PowerBook users.
Carried over from the previous GlobalFax versions are such
features as multiple address books (collections of recipients'
names and fax numbers), easily modifiable cover sheets, importing
and exporting of phone numbers, detailed activity logs, delayed
transmission, and fax recipient grouping.
The import/export feature allows easy transfer of names and fax
numbers to and from Address Book Plus, Dynodex, and TouchBase file
formats, as well as text files.
**Security** -- Global Village's OneWorld security features are
based on "passports," or privilege definitions for individual
users or groups of users. A group passport defined for multiple
users can mean a single change updates each user's access
capabilities. The passports apply to both fax and remote access
features, which means the security levels can be installed on both
types of devices today - and can apply to both features of a
hypothetical upcoming device that handles both fax and remote
access services. Users can have different levels of access to your
network with the remote access servers, and different faxing
capabilities with the fax servers.
Some corporate network administrators will be pleased that the
OneWorld Remote Access servers offer the hardware-based callback
capability their security policies demand. ARA's own callback
feature, which enables the server to call back a user only at a
pre-determined telephone number to make password theft
meaningless, is software-based and therefore not acceptable at
some companies where network security is a critical manner. (We
haven't heard of cases in which ARA's callback security was
compromised, but the software configuration might seem less
bulletproof.) Naturally, the OneWorld callback feature works
precisely the same way, but is based in hardware rather than
software.
**Management** -- A product family with such flexibility and
convenience at the user end must be a nightmare to administer,
right? No. Global Village's new OneWorld Manager software draws
interface elements from the Finder and the Chooser, and quite
cleanly enables the administrator to change the configuration of
any OneWorld device on the network.
If you already have an ARA server running, or even a Shiva
LanRover (another hardware ARA server device), you'll be thrilled
to hear the OneWorld Manager application will happily import your
existing user information either from AppleShare-style Users &
Groups files or from user lists exported from Shiva's Net Manager.
**Missing in action** -- Some features that would seem obvious
aren't here, at least not yet. For example, the OneWorld Remote
Access box doesn't double as a shared outgoing network modem, as
the competing LanRover from Shiva does. Shiva has virtually
cornered this market for years, but Global Village certainly has
the communications expertise to develop the necessary workstation
software that should be the biggest hurdle. Using the
Communications Toolbox (CTB) would be the easiest approach; the
software could register the network device as a CTB port, so it
would be unnecessary to fool the Mac into thinking it was talking
to the modem port or printer port. The drawback? Plenty of
software still lacks CTB-awareness, even the easy-to-implement CTB
port handling.
Also, the OneWorld Fax products won't be able to replace the
standard office fax machine until they can receive faxes as well
as send them. According to Nick Chinn, senior customer
satisfaction representative at Global Village, Global Village must
work out several technical and interface issues that before a
stand-alone network device could receive faxes. For example: Where
does it put them? Whom does it notify? There are solutions, of
course, but the company's engineers want to make sure the
solutions are palatable and intuitive before they ship a product
that incorporates them.
I'd also like to see the GlobalFax software better handle long
distance access numbers and credit card numbers. It's possible to
add these items, either to the prefix field that's dialed before
every call (usually used to dial a "9" to get an outside line), or
to each destination phone number, up to a total of 64 digits, but
this gets cumbersome. What's worse than cumbersome is that credit
card digits added at the end of the phone number show up on fax
cover sheets. You can avoid this by keeping the phone number field
on the cover page too small to show the extra digits, but we're
still not talking about a clean solution.
**OneWorld Future** -- The hypothetical future "combo" OneWorld
mentioned above, offering both Remote Access and Fax features
(both send and receive, naturally), is one product we're likely to
see. Even if the first version must have specific modems in the
device each dedicated to a specific task, it'll be a start, but we
expect somewhere down the line to see a OneWorld whose internal
modems can perform any or all OneWorld tasks when called upon.
That will provide the most network flexibility without wasting
hardware.
What else? I wouldn't be surprised to see a multi-protocol
OneWorld Remote Access at some point, offering not just ARA
protocols, but SLIP and PPP capability to provide TCP/IP
connectivity. (In fact, I'd be extremely pleased to see such a
product.)
Some first-generation products, such as the original Newton
MessagePad and the Macintosh Portable, and even the original
Macintosh, are more exciting for the promise they evidence for the
future than for what they provide right now. Global Village avoids
this trap by offering a suite of products that make us drool over
future possibilities while making us drool over the here-and-now
as well.
Global Village -- 800/736-4821 -- 415/390-8200
415/390-8282 (fax) -- <sa...@globalvillag.com>
Information from:
Global Village propaganda
Global Village tech support
Pythaeus
Reviews/27-Jun-94
-----------------
* MacWEEK -- 20-Jun-94, Vol. 8, #25
TextBridge 2.0 -- pg. 33
Maple V Release 3 -- pg. 34
TextureScape 1.0 -- pg. 36
Cron Manager 1.0.2 -- pg. 36
Desktop Projector 2800 -- pg. 38
MovieWorks 2.02 -- pg. 40
LogoCorrector 2.1 -- pg. 41
* InfoWorld -- 20-Jun-94, Vol. 16, #25
Image Editing Programs -- pg. 74
Photoshop 2.5.1
Painter/X2 2.0
Power Macintosh Upgrade Card -- pg. 112
Adobe Dimensions 2.0 -- pg. 113
$$
Non-profit, non-commercial publications may reprint articles if
full credit is given. Others please contact us. We don't guarantee
accuracy of articles. Caveat lector. Publication, product, and
company names may be registered trademarks of their companies.
This file is formatted as setext. For more information send email
with the single word "setext" (no quotes) in the Subject: line to
<files...@tidbits.com>. A file will be returned shortly.
For an APS price list, send email to: <aps-p...@tidbits.com>
For information on TidBITS: how to subscribe to our mailing list,
where to find back issues, how to search issues on the Internet's
WAIS, and other useful stuff, send email to: <in...@tidbits.com>
Otherwise, contact us at: a...@tidbits.com * CIS: 72511,306
AppleLink & BIX: TidBITS * AOL: Adam Engst * Delphi: Adam_Engst
TidBITS * 1106 North 31st Street * Renton, WA 98056 USA
Back issues available at ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/issues/
To search back issues with WAIS, use macintosh-tidbits.src
With MacWeb, use http://www.wais.com/wais-dbs/macintosh-tidbits.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Adam C. Engst, TidBITS Editor -- a...@tidbits.com -- in...@tidbits.com
Author of Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh -- ti...@tidbits.com
Internet Explorer Kit for Macintosh -- i...@tidbits.com
Internet Starter Kit for Windows -- is...@tidbits.com
0 new messages