NIMUG: So..add this up...

[Johnston, Matthew [IRE07:GG23:EXCH]]

NIMUG - Northern Ireland Macintosh User Group.
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Welcome.......................................................

Welcome to Week 05 of the year 2000

<NO RANT>

This is another quick one due to time constraints.

Someone contacted me regarding videoconferencing software.

This is apparently all the rage these days.

So I suggested iVisit and CU-SeeMe as they are pretty reliable
cross-platform products and the person wanted to use them with
both Macs and PCs.

Imagine my surprise when I got a nasty email saying that the
best solution was NetMeeting and how the Macs were stupid
because NetMeeting didn't work on them.

NetMeeting is made by Microsoft.

NetMeeting is not available for the Macintosh.

Now add that up.

</NO RANT>

Hint'o'the Week...............................................

iBook owners should NOT install Quicktime 4.1.
Apparently they should downgrade to version 4.03 if they have
already upgraded. Version 4.03 is also the last version to
support the 68K Macs.
http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n60388

A version 4.1 installer can be found here:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/support/

A version 4.03 installer can be found here:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/support/68k/

Local News....................................................

According to UK sources, supply problems with G4s, iBooks and
iMacs should be sorted out very soon. The Powerbooks, however,
are in very short supply as stocks are being run down due to
the potential introduction of Pismo. Some people predict it
will be released at MacWorld-Tokyo on February 16th.

Other news has been pretty lean. I am, however, looking for
a few people who might be interested in another networked
games evening (Macs only...)

See the discussion boards for more...

Internet News.................................................

Macintosh Manager 1.2.4 fixes a number of bugs in the
application, as noted in a Read Me file.
http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n60675
http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n11567

Apple has posted Update Software 1.1.1, which is said to make
Mac OS software updates over the Internet "faster and more
efficient" than before.
http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n11554

Touchstone Picture's "Mission to Mars" movie doesn't open until
March 10, but film fans can check out the new "Mission" TV ad
this weekend during Super Bowl XXXIV. Just as sweet, you can
download the TV spot, which is hosted online by Apple, Jan. 30
through March 10. It can be downloaded -- exclusively in QuickTime
format, naturally -- at http://www.missiontomars.movies.com, the
official Web site of "Mission To Mars."

JavaScript is supported in QuickTime 4.1 as noted in Apple's
preliminary documentation [pdf]:
"Within this PDF is an entire chapter on JavaScript support. I
can't believe Apple didn't talk this new feature up more. This
is something a lot of web developers have been begging for
(Windows Media Player has had this for a while). Up to this
point the only way to control a movie embed in a web page was
through a wired QT movie. This required a program like Live Stage
and was not easily updatable. As a web developer this feature
alone is worth an upgrade to 4.1. I guess Apple has gotten so
consumer oriented that it has left it up to developers to find
out for themselves what new features Apple products have that
will benefit their development efforts."
http://www.apple.com/applescript/QuickTime41.pdf

Pangea Software's Nanosaur Extreme! "is a special version of
Nanosaur designed for people with really powerful Macs. To
make a long story short, it's a dinosaur kill-fest with 5x
the enemies and 5x the weaponry!." (Recommended system
configuration: 350MHz G3, an ATI Rage 128, and 96MB of RAM.)
It is a free download for registered users.
http://www.pangeasoft.net/nano/files.html

Cuzog is working on an homage to last fall's Tim Burton movie,
Sleepy Hollow. Entitled Sleepless Hollow, this Myth II
conversion picks up years after the story depicted in the movie
ends. A multiplayer map will soon be available for download,
and a solo campaign is also in development.
http://neptune.psn.net/~cuzog/sleepless/

Using Osato Utility Room's DoubleTouch Window Utility you can
shade an open window by keyboard operation -- pressing a
specified key to simulate a double mouse click.
http://www06.u-page.so-net.ne.jp/ga2/soft_osa/en/dt/index.html

Carl Manaster's Data Loom is a freeware application for displaying
multivariate data in a "parallel coordinates chart." (Carl also
provides links to information about parallel coordinates.)
http://www.concentric.net/%7Emanaster/software/dataloom/

Thursby Software plans to release on Monday MacNFS, a new version
of the Sun/Unix Network File System for the Mac OS. Priced at $149
for a single copy, MacNFS will available at reduced prices for
educational and volume purchases, as well as previous MacNFS
owners. A demo version is also to be posted Monday.
http://www.thursby.com/

MacZ Software's TextWorks Office 2.0 is a shareware text editor
with email capabilities, offering an HTML editor, three built-in
accessories (note pad, calculator, and advanced calculator), and
the ability to export documents in HTML, RTF, Word, MacWrite II,
MacWrite Pro, ClarisWorks/AppleWorks and SimpleText formats, and
even in one totally new format, TextWorks Stand-Alone, which
saves the document into the form of a stand-alone application.
http://www.maczsoftware.com/textworks.html

James Walker's PrintToPDF 1.2 adds desktop printing support and
many bug fixes and optimizations to his $20 shareware printer
driver that creates PDF files (without requiring users to purchase
the full commercial Acrobat package).
http://www.jwwalker.com/pages/pdf.html

Prospective Mac programmers can sign up for a free 6 week online
class in C++ for the Mac at CodeWarriorU.com: "Once one is enrolled
in the class, one qualifies to purchase CodeWarrior 5.0 (Academic)
for $99. Metrowerks is also entering students into a drawing to win
a Sony AIBO robot dog. The special prices on CodeWarrior expire on
Monday, January 31. And classes begin in early/mid February."
http://www.codewarrioru.com/

Wrinkle 2000 is a collection of QuickTime VR panoramas shot around
the world on January 1, 2000 and due on the web February 1.
http://www.hotspots.hawaii.com/wrinkleintime/

Bill Patterson has posted File RoundUp 2.0b33, a new beta release
of his "Swiss army knife of disk utilities." The program features
disk catalogging, searching (with grep), a "changes processor",
image browser and batch processing.
http://members.aol.com/warp10sw/

Simon & Schuster Interactive has begun developing "Star Trek
Starship Creator: Warp 2" on a Mac/Windows hybrid CD, a $30
entertainment CD that allows users to create their own starships,
fly them simultaneously in one of 10 scenarios and create their
owns scenes. Users can also import their starships into "Star
Trek Deep Space Nine: Dominion Wars" and into their Palm Pilot
or Visor PDAs. The entertainment CD will ship in April.
http://www.simonsays.com/subs/category.cfm?areaid=58&ctgyid=60

Peter Sichel's OT Advanced Tuner 1.3.3 adds support for IP
forwarding to the application for optimizing TCP/IP network
performance.
http://www.sustworks.com/products/otat/demo/readme.html

The NY Times discusses Apple's proprietary iTools services,
noting the possibility that Microsoft may be preparing to
produce a similar "technical country club" in cyberspace with
Windows 2000.
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/01/circuits/articles/27pete.html

Raul Gutierrez, who recently released the updated QuickTime 4.1
Winfix that removes the metallic appearance in QuickTime, has
posted an Aqua Human Interface critique.
http://teamdraw.com/raul/stuff/quicktime.html
http://www.teamdraw.com/raul/rant/aqua/aqua.html

RE:Vision Effects has released ReelSmart Motion Blur 1.3, an
After Effects 4.0 Plug-in that applies more natural-looking
motion blur to a video sequence by automatically tracking every
pixel. Version 1.3 offers better tracking as well as new "draft"
quality and better overall rendering support. A demo is available
online.
http://www.macnn.com/mblur.htm

A $4 billion lawsuit has been filed against Yahoo!, charging
that it is violating an Texas' anti-stalking law by tracking
computer users using cookies.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/cth225.htm

Adobe Acrobat Business Tools 4.0 is a new PDF-based productivity
application designed to simplify the "transition of paper-based
processes to more efficient electronic workflows. The $80 package
is available via electronic download or through volume licensing
(with "significantly lower pricing").
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrbustools/main.html

Mozilla.org has posted Mozilla M13, the latest developmental
effort for Netscape's open-source browser project.
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/release-notes/

IBM has created a four-month ViaVoice evaluation program for
Mac owners interested in helping improve the product.
http://www-4.ibm.com/software/speech/mac/invitation.html

Reuters reports on 400-Mbps wireless FireWire technology from
NEC. Said to function at "seven meters through interior walls
and up to 12 meters by line-of-sight," it's due for
"commercialization" by the end of the year.
http://www.allnetdevices.com/news/0001/ooo126nec.htm

NOT QUITE RUMOURS.............................................

Apple registered the domain iPhone.org in mid-December. Could
this be a hint of a new hardware device or some streaming
videoconferencing software to be added to QuickTime. We've
seen that Apple loves to reuse system capabilities in an
internet slant and Sherlock and iDisk are just two examples.

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