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BRMUG

BRMUG January 1999 Newsletter

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Front Page News

January Meeting

The January meeting will return to the Bluebonnet Library for the meeting on January 21st, the 3rd Thursday of the month, at 6:30 P.M. This month's meeting will be MacOS 8.5 presented by Don Ballard. At about 7:30 P.M. we will do our Qustion and Answer session. Following the meeting we will adjourn to Brewbachers for food, fun and fellowship.

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December Party

I hope everyone enjoyed the December party at Brew-bachers. We had a lot of good conversation. I remember telling folks that Apple Stock was due to go up (most folks disagreed or said only a little). Since that time (stock was at just over $32), Apple stock has reached over $46 and is stable over $40 (30 days of investment could easily have netted 1/3 profit). Many people believe Apple is still truelu worth in excess of $50. I believe it will be a while before we see this level. I also believe Apple has some real surprises in the bag. Expect next December's stock price conversation to be much higher than 1998's. Happy New Year!

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iCEO Steve Jobs

iCEO Steve Jobs was referred to as iCEO at MacWorld in January (the i apparently referring to interim - does that mean the iMac is the interim Macintosh until the new Macintoshes arrive?).

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iMac is still news! The iMac has some big broothers (five of them) and a new price. The original iMac has had its list price dropped to $1049 (street price below $1000) with the price for the new iMacs being $1199. The new iMacs differ from the original in that the cpu is now 266 MHz (instead of 233 MHz), the hard drive is now 6 Gb (instead of 4 Gb) and the new Imacs come in five colors (blueberry, strawberry, tangerine, grape and lime). A great addition to the best selling desktop of 1998.

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Connectix announced Virtual Play-Station

Connectix announced Virtual Play-Station - a $49 software program (like Virtual PC) that emulates the Sony PlayStation on any G3 Macintosh. Watch for Sony controller adapters for the Macintosh.

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The Last Quarter

The Last Quarter was very successful for Apple. Apple announced its fifth consecutive profitable quarter (who would have believed this 13 months ago?). Here are some of the numbers Apple announced.

  • $152 million profit on $1.7 billion in revenue
  • Average system price this quarter was $1776 compared to $2400 in the same quarter last year.
  • About 1 million copies of MacOS 8.5 have been sold and another million shipped with new systems.
  • Apple has $2.6 billion in cash and short-term investments.
  • 1.6 million Power Mac G3s have been sold since their introduction.
  • 800,000 iMacs have been sold since their introduction.
  • 32% of iMac buyers were first-time computer buyers
  • 13% of iMac buyers were Windows converts.
  • 55% of iMac buyers already owned a Macintosh (about half were replacing - the other half getting another Macintosh).
  • 82% of iMac owners connected to the Internet and 42% made a purchase on the internet.

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MacOS X Server

MacOS X Server was also announced at MacWorld. This is not the consumer version of OS X. The server version is BSD Unix with a Macintosh Compatability Window, and all of the NextStep tools. The list price is $999 (a bargain considering that the NextStep software is included).

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Microsoft unveiled Interenet Explorer 4.5

Microsoft unveiled Interenet Explorer 4.5 for the Macintosh which absorbs Office 98's easy installation and self-healing technology.

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Graphic Utility of the Month

by Glenn Matherne

Like most people, after Christmas is the most financially frustrating time of the year. I dread the arrival of the credit card bill. So, buying a new graphic utility is out of the question. This means one can do without or look for free alternatives. One of the best alternatives are fonts. Yes, just changing your variety of texts can really spice up your graphics work. Most commercial fonts are included with graphics programs. Others are samplers included with printers or greeting card programs.

You can also get free fonts by cruising the internet. Many small companies that produce fonts give away free samples to get you to buy their software. Other companies create CD samplers of fonts created by freelance artists. Some websites are just archives of fonts either created or collected by the site owner.

An interesting place to start looking for collections of fonts is Free Fonts. This page is a link list of places to get free fonts. One of its more interesting links is Disturbed Fonts. The Chankstore is a cool font shop that gives away free samples. For those who like fonts with an attitude, Free Font Fiesta is for you.

Don't count on samples from the big guys like Adobe, Corel, Heidelberg or Microsoft. They no longer give away freebies. Although fonts are included with their commercial products. Deneba includes several hundred fonts with Canvas 6. Fonts are installed in two different ways depending upon the Mac OS one is using. In Mac Os 7, fonts are installed by dragging the suitcase to the system folder in side of the big system folder. You have to quit all applications to drag fonts to the folder. This created problems as sounds, keyboard layouts and foreign language modifications are also located here. Symantec once sold a product to manage your fonts called Suitcase. If you use a lot of fonts with Mac Os 7, I recommend looking for an old copy of it to manage your fonts.

Fortunately, Mac OS 8 has a font folder in the system folder, you simply drag the font suitcase to the font folder. You also have to quit all applications to drag fonts to the font folder. Sometimes the best way to quit all of your hidden applications is to start up with your extensions off. You do not need to have Symantec Suitcase to mange your fonts as they are in a convenient folder.

Fonts come in two popular forms, Adobe Postscript and Truetype. Postscript fonts are identified by having two suitcases, an odd looking Postscript suitcase and a bitmap suitcase. It needs both to work. Truetype is the familar single suitcase. Postscript works great for professionals who have the correct software to work with their laser printers, but can cause problems for us mortals. So stick with Truetype when possible to avoid translation problems with inkjets, dot matrix and some laser printers.

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Web Page of the Month

by Isaac Traxler

EveryMac (www.everymac.com) bills itself as a complete guide of every Macintosh, MacOS-Compatible, and processor upgrade card in the world, with detailed technical, configuration, and pricing information.

EveryMac tries to cover evrything Macintosh related from a system perspective. They provide a comprehensive list of every system that runs the MacOS. They have a special section restricted to currently shipping systems. They also cover upgrade cards.

They also do many special features. Their front page lists links to a special on Upgrade Cards, an iMac FAQ and the new Power Mac G3 FAQ.

EveryMac is a great resource for finding details about the various MacOS machines that have shipped (see the chart of information that EveryMac provides for the Macintosh 7100/80 - the machine being used to layout this newsletter).

Their Search facillity is very good. It is really easy to find information about a machine via their search command.

Their FAQs are really good. Lots of details about the machines.This is a page yopu want to check out. You definitely need to visit it if you have questions about specific machines.

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Feature - The G3 Pro Macintosh

by Isaac Traxler

At MacWorld, in just a few short moments, ended the life of the Power Macintosh G3 and unveiled the new G3 Pro Macintoshes.

These new machines clearly were designed by the same people who designed the iMac. They are in the Bondi Blue and White made famous by the original iMac. They don't look like any desktop you have ever seen before. They don't perform like nay desktop you have ever seen before (just about). And they are also very different under the hood.

The G3 Pro Macintoshes are available in 300 MHz, 350 MHz, and 400 MHz models. The entry-level mchine is available with 512k or 1 Mb cache at 150 MHz. The othe other models come with 1 Mb of cache at 175 MHz or 200 MHz. They all have a 100 MHz memory bus.

The G3 Pro Macintoshes have Ultra ATA hard drives and CD-ROMs (IDE). Available Zip Drives are also IDE. They also include 10/100 Ethernet. A 56k modem is also available.

They also include two 12 Mbps USB ports and one ADB port. The ADB port was a last minute add-on so that ADB-based dongles (security devices) could be used. It also allows exisiting users to take advantage of ADB-based tablets.

The G3 Pro Macintoshes also include two 400 Mbps firewire ports. Many new devices were announced for Firewire at MacWorld. This definitely seems to be the future.

The new G3 Pro Macintoshes include three 33 MHz 64-bit PCI slots. It also includes a fourth 66 MHz 32-bit PCI slot. This slot comes with a new ATI RAGE 128 video card with 16 Mb of video RAM. A MacWorld demonstration showed the G3 Pro with the ATI Rage 128 video card running a 3D game at the same time as a PC with a Voodoo card running the same game.

The next big item is what the new machines don't have built-in: SCSI. The new machines do not have SCSI built-in. Apple does have a low-end SCSI card (similar to the built-in SCSI on most previous Macintoshes) for $50. They also have a high-end Ultra-SCSI card. [In my opinion, Apple has done the right thing. People who are planning to buy the new G3s fall into three categories: first-time, home, and professional. First-time buyers will invest in USB and Firewire devices. The absence of SCSI will not matter to this consumer. The $50 SCSI card is very acceptable for the user who has some SCSI devices but cannot afford the high-end SCSI cards. Inclusion of a high-end SCSI card would have added a lot of cost to the new machines that these first two categories of consumers would not have needed. The professionals who have high-end needs for Ultra-SCSI have been ignoring the built-in SCSI on the Macintosh for years and buying third-party solutions. The G3 Pro allows everyone to not pay for something they do not want. These statements are my personal opinion - Isaac Traxler].

The G3 Pro Macintosh also does not have a floppy drive. Here is another device used by very few people. Those who desire one can get USB Imation SuperDrives (that only cost a little more than Apple's pricey auto-eject floppies). At least one vendor is promising a USB Apple floppy drive. These hot-swap drives can easily be shared for those rare times a floppy drive is needed to install a piece of software.

The new machines look really nice. The side is the translucent white with a large bondi-blue Apple in the center. The letters G 3 can be seen through the translucent case on each side of the bondi-blue Apple. [It looks really neat.] Check out Apple's web site for pictures of the new machine. The front and back of the machine are bondi-blue. Each corner of the machine has a handle that has been rated to support three times the weight of the system. The covers of the G3 Pro are held on with hex screws (making it appear that they could all be removed and replaced with others - look for some third-party vendor to offer wood-grain replacements).

The side of the G3 Pro that the mother-board is mounted on unlocks with a key and can be opened until it is flat (with the remainder of the case remaining vertical). The motherboard and all cards rotate down. You can now easily reach the motherboard (for RAM upgrades), reach the card slots and reach all the drive bays. The door can be opened and closed with the system RUNNING!

Apple has announced a powerful, attractive, functional, versatile, and expandable family of new machines. The G3 Pro shows a lot of promise. The starting price of $1599 does not hurt this system one bit.

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Feature - The New Macintosh Line

by Isaac Traxler

With the MacWorld announcements, Apple now has a complete line of machines from $1049 list to in excess of $3000 with speeds ranging from 233, 266, 300, 350 and 400 MHz.USB and Firewire are now centerstage technologies for the Macintosh. Expandability (always a cornerstone of the Macintosh) has never been stronger. New monitors complement the new systems. These changes have hurtled the Macintosh back into the limelight of the PC industry.

The PowerBook world did not see any official announcements at MacWorld. Rumor has it that Apple has a new consumer oriented laptop in the wings. This portable iMac (nicknamed P1) is expected to cost around $1500. Rumors also report upgrades in processor to the current powerbooks. The addition of USB and Firewire is expected.

A unified desktop product line...

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