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BRMUG BRMUG April 1998 Newsletter This is the index of the April 1998 BRMUG Newsletter: Features: New Technologies New Machines Netscape Speculation Regular Columns: Front Page News April Meeting March Meeting Review Twins for John and Dianne Quebedeaux BRMUG Newsletter Changes Graphic Utility of the Month (MyVidCap 2.1 and MyVidEditor 2.1) by Glenn Matherne Nonessentials (Connectex Virtual PC and Insignia Software's Softwindows 5.0) by Glenn Matherne Essentials (Scroll2) by Isaac Traxler AAPL by Isaac Traxler From the Back Pages by Isaac Traxler Return to BRMUG Newsletter Index Front Page News The April meeting will be held at the BlueBonnet Library on April 16th, the 3rd Thursday of the month, at 6:30 P.M. This months meeting will feature a presentation on Macintosh Genealogy by one of our members. The BlueBonnet Library is one of the premiere places in the area to do genealogical research. This will be our first meeting at the new BlueBonnet Library location (making this month's presentation that much more appropriate). Please try to arrive on time. The library closes at 9:00 P.M. We will need to end the meeting at 8:30 P.M. to guarantee that we leave on time. Presentation will start at 6:30 P.M. followed by our usual Question and Answer session at 7:30 P.M. The March 1998 meeting discussed What's Inside Your System Folder. A brief handout accompanied the discussion. Based on feedback, many people enjoyed the meeting and thought it was helpful. Based on this feedback, I will plan to do some more meetings of this type in the future (if you have any ideas, let me know). Twins! John and Dianne Quebedeaux are now the very proud parents of twin boys (March 25, 1998). Alexander Brian Quebedeaux was born at 8:14 A.M. weighing 3 lbs, 8 oz. Kevin Nicholas Quebedeaux was born at 8:15 A.M. weighing 3 lbs, 12 oz, length 15 1/2". Both boys now weigh over 4 pounds. Things are looking good for them to be home before their original due date (5/6/98). John and Dianne are keeping their web page up to date with information about the boys (http://www.intersurf.com/~johnq). Drop them a congratulations note at johnq@brmug.org. The BRMUG Newsletter has been going through a series of changes over the last year or so. Many of these changes have been in response to user recommendations. Based on feedback, I believe that the membership is enjoying the newsletter. If you have any suggestions, please let us know (newsletter@brmug.org). Glenn Matherne has started writing a couple of monthly articles: Multimedia Product of the Month and Nonessentials. Multimedia Product of the Month is a short review of a product that is useful in multimedia work. Nonessentials is a short article about a system extension/control panel/or utility that is not essential to effective work. In spite of not being essential, these items may bring you enjoyment, amusement or a little peace. I am going to try to write a monthly Essentials column. This column will be just like Glenn's but will focus on extras that I believe are truly essential for surviving in the Macintosh world. Don Ballard and I will take turns trying to keep you up-to-date on Apple's constantly changing financial picture via AAPL (Apple's stock market identifier). Hopefully, From the Back Pages will start to reappear again. For newer members, From the Back Pages was a summary of the best prices I could find each month based on ads in the back of various magazines and on the web. Much of the usefulness of From the Back Pages has been obsoleted by the fantastic daily Deal-Mac web page (http://deal-mac.com). This site provides tips on the best prices anywhere on Macintosh-related items Monday through Friday. If you want to save some money, this is the place to visit. With a little luck, this month's newsletter should also be online (http://www.brmug.org/nl.html). Please check it out and let me know if you think it is useful. We have tried this before, but not continued with the extra effort because of lack of interest. Return to Top of Page Graphic Utility of the Month by Glenn Matherene Like many people this year, I saw the James Cameron film, Titanic. I kept trying to figure out how they did those neat effects on a computer. A few days later, I came across an article in the Rich Ford's Macintouch Home Page about a new video capture and a video editing program which work with Quicktime 3. The two programs are called MyVidCap 2.1 and MyVidEditor 2.1, and are available from ASC at www.cadvision.com for $25 each. MyVidCap works with most Macintosh AV cards from 1991 to the present. It has advanced features such as video and audio compression and screen sizing in several formats and works with Quicktime 2.0 and up. These features are similar to those found in Adobe Premiere. MyVIdEditor works best with the pro version of Quicktime 3.0, because it uses the special effects filters found in Quicktime 3. I found MyVidEditor to be less flexible than Avid VideoShop 3.0 (now Strata Vision Videoshop 4.0) and Adobe Premier, but for $25 it's impressive. Both products are much easier to use than any professional product on the market. However, neither program comes with notes from the Titanic production team. Somethings have to remain secrets, I suppose. Although, I didn't recreate the sinking of the Titanic with either product, I plan to use both of them for all of my Quicktime movies. Return to Top of Page Nonessentials by Glenn Matherene Some readers may want to white-out the non in the title of the column this month. They actually do work on a Windows 95 computer at work. So we will pretend that that title is essentials (as Liquid Paper is not provided with each issue). From time to time, we sometimes have to bring our work home. Sometimes our work is on Windows 95 and we own a MACINTOSH. One solution is adding an expensive PC card to our Macintosh. Another solution is to purchase an inexpensive PC. The least expensive solution is using an emulator program. The two most commonly used programs are Connectex Virtual PC and Insignia Software's Softwindows 5.0. The one I chose was the lite version of Softwindows called Real PC. Real PC creates a Dos 6.22 environment on your Macintosh. You just add Windows 95 on top of it [all you need is Windows 95 installation disks and the knowhow :)]. I found that it works best with Mac Os 8, at least 48 megabytes of ram, 250 megabytes of hard disk space and a 180 megahertz processor. However, I was able to make it work on a 100 megahertz Macintosh. Real PC works well and provides a true Windows look and feel. The Turbostart option makes it start better than the real Windows. On a fast Macintosh, I couldn't notice that I wasn't really working in Windows 95. In fact, after I added two programs and restarted Windows 95, it told me I had deleted two EXE files. Now that's really amazing. The best thing about Real PC is its price $69. Return to Top of Page Essentials by Isaac Traxler Scroll2 is something I have found essential for years. It was written by Mayson Lancaster and is $15 Shareware. This Control Panel places up and down arrows or left and right arrows at the end of each scroll bar. This does not seem like a very big deal at first glance. Have you ever used a large monitor? Have you ever used a laptop? On machines with large monitors or slow scrolling, it can save enormous amounts of time if you can minimize cursor movement when scrolling. This control panel does it. I have used it for years and never found it to cause a conflict with anything. Several other Control Panels exist that also implement double scroll bars. Any of them are fine. Get one and try it for a while. You will never know how you lived without it? Return to Top of Page AAPL by Isaac Traxler In recent months Apple's stock price has been much better. It has peaked just short of $30 a share. In the last few days it has been fluctuating just above $25. Strangely enough, no apparent reason can be found for this $4 drop. On Wednesday (the day before our meeting) Apple is expected to announce its quarterly report. Analysts are expecting Apple to announce a $21 million profit. That may not seem like a lot of money, but you need to remember that this is always Apple's worst quarter. The fact that they are probably going to post a profit is phenominal. Apple has made a lot of tough decisions in the last several months. All indications are that they are on a path to long-term profitability. Apple is expected to announce better details about the future at the upcoming developers conference. Hopefully, Wall Street will embrace these announcements. Return to Top of Page From the Back Pages by Isaac Traxler The first thing you need to know if you want to save money is visit Deal-Mac (http://deal-mac.com) each weekday. They publish an amazing compilation of great prices and discounts each day. Need an OS? MacResQ has Mac OS 8 with a 10 pak of CDs for $59 (http://www.macresq.com - 1-888-4Rescue). Poweron has Mac OS 8 for $50 and 7.6 for $19 (http://www.poweron.net - 1-800-673-6227). ClubMac has internal Quantum 2.1 Gb SCSI for $219 (http://www.club-mac.com - 1-800-217-9208). They also having many other good prices on drives and systems. Refurbished 5300s are showing up all over the place. Prices range from $750 to $1200 depending on configuration. Check MacResQ and others. Return to Top of Page New Technologies on the Way by Isaac Traxler Removable media has been fairly stable for the last year or so with the only changes being in price of drive (normal decremental drops). Zip drives can be purchased for under $100 (with a lot of looking). Jaz drives are in the $150 range. Unfortunately, media has not dropped by the same percentages. Zip disks are still in the $10 range ($.10 a Mb). At first this seems like a great deal. As you begin to think of dropping $10 every time you need to store something, the cost starts to become an issue. New technology may help this situation. Two new products are on the horizon that may help: The Orb (http://www.castlewoodsystems.com) and the OROM (http://www.ioptics.com). The Orb is a product by Castlewood Systems Inc. Castlewood Systems is a company started by the man who started SyQuest. The Orb will be a 2 Gb removeable drive (IDE and SCSI) expected to cost $200. The disks are expected to sell for $30 ($.015 per Mb). Over the next several months various internal and external models will begin to ship. The Orb is not a revolutionary product, merely an evolutionary. The next logical step at a reasonable price. I am hopeful that this will be a great product. Ioptics is a newer company that is not going to release their product in the next few months. Their product is not like anything we have seen recently. Ioptics will release a reader and a new "disk" technology. The reader (the OROM) is a small device (about the size of a PCMCIA card, but thicker). The disk is about the size of a business card. The OROM has a couple of revolutionary features: no moving parts and zero power user when accesses are not being done. The OROM disk has three parts: a top sheet, the data patches, and a bottom sheet. Light passes through the top filter, through the data patch and then through the bottom focusing sheet to a reader. Power is consumed when the light is on (when reads are being done). These disks hold about 128 Mb. The disks can be pressed like CDs in large volume (they do no have to be written, they can be molded). Write-once drives will also be produced for desktop use. OROM readers are expected to be about $200 and disks are expected to be less than $3. The OROM will be primarily planned for the palmtop environment. Laptop uses will follow. Return to Top of Page New Technologies on the Way by Isaac Traxler Apple has introduced a new series of machines. These machines are intended for education (although popular demand may change this). These systems are all-in-one machines with G3-based motherboards and 15" monitors. Below are the specifications: Built-in 15.1-inch (diagonal) multiple scan monitor. Dual front headphone jacks to allow two students to share a computer. Rounded corners on casing and monitor designed for safety. Tilt and swivel stand adjustable for students of all ages and heights. Desktop lockdown cable loops to provide simplified security. Lockable logic board tray that protects internal components while allowing easy access for expandability. Built-in 10Base-T Ethernet. Four drive bays. 233 or 266 G3 CPU, 512K backside cache, 32 MB SDRAM, 4 GB hard drive, 24xCD-ROM, and 16-bit audio in/out. 24-bit NTSC and composite video in/out in the 266 MHz model. Refer to http://www.apple.com/pr/library/1998/mar/31allinone.html for more information about these systems. Pricing is believed to be in the $1500 to $2000. Return to Top of Page Netscape by Isaac Traxler Netscape goes free again. A while back, Netscape's price was reduced to $0 - free. This put it in the same category as Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Now Netscape has moved ahead - they have released the source code to Netscape. It can be found at http://www.mozilla.org (Mozilla was the name of the dinosaur that was the Netscape mascot). Over the last several years, people have longed for the chance to add certain features to Netscape (some even developed patches for the executable). With the source code now available, some of these changes may now be made. Netscape may even get some of its major stability problems exorcised over time (for the short-term you may want to steer clear of the early Netscape variations that are released - there is a great likelihood that they will be even less stable than current versions of Netscape). Over time, parts of this source code may make their way into other products and wind up producing unexpected results. Some of these products may create new genres of software. Return to Top of Page Speculation by Isaac Traxler What will happen in the next six months? The next year? Nobody knows of course, but I will try to gove you some ideas of what to expect: Apple will release a more powerful Macintosh. No suprise, but new machines will include six PCI slots, faster busses, and more options (firewire will finally arrive). Apple will bend over backwards to be the home of DVD disks. The network will become a more important facet of Apple's future. Apple will release lower cost machines that will be able to be booted over a network (Rhapsody-based server). The machines will be able to run applications locally or merely display results from applications that are running on the server. The only real difference between these machines and normal Macintoshes will be the fact that hard drives will be optional. Apple will attempt to fill the gaping hole that the death of the Newton created with Mac OS lite based machines. Lower cost PPC machines in cases like the Emate 300 will run a slimmed version of the Mac OS. The next release of the Mac OS will have a lot more of Rhapsody than was planned. The next version will be almost completely PPC native. Future versions of the Mac OS will share the same kernel as Rhapsody. The Internet Revolution is over. The Internet is. Over the next couple of years we will wonder how we ever got along without it. Shopping and purchasing will become as natural on the Internet as looking for information or news is now. Any computer environment that does not work transparently on the net over the next several years will fade. PDAs will become much more common than they are now. The Newton created an industry. Palm Pilots took the short lead. Their limited functionality will leave them in a limited market. Windows CE stands to inhierit this market with the demise of the Newton. Mac OS lite? Return to Top of Page