Netscape has made its second public release of the Atlas (or 
Netscape 3.0) browser. This new release offers many new 
features overall —but few for the Mac platform.

Here are some of the Mac OS changes since Atlas PR1:

  Netscape Navigator Gold updated for Mac —includes table editing.
  New Network Protocols and Network Languages preference panels to expand and 
     improve user preferences for security and privacy control.
  New Secure Network Protocol section in Security General Preferences to control 
     access to SSL v2 and SSL v3.
  Added General Appearance preference panel control for active window scrolling.
  Improved design in toolbar and preferences panels.
  Revamped General Helpers preference panels for management of plug-ins and 
     helper applications.

You can find Atlas at Netscape's Web site: http://home.netscape.com/ comprod/mirror/client_download.html  
And, with its version 3.0 Atlas software already in beta 2 and near release, Netscape has quietly zipped out yet another release version of Navigator 2.0.

The new version —2.02— has various security fixes for Java and JavaScript plus other fixes. (The release notes are at: http://home.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/ 2.02/relnotes/mac-2.02.html) 
If you haven't already moved on to Netscape Atlas (see our story from April 27: Netscape releases second Navigator 3.0 beta), you may want to get your own copy. Try: ftp://ftp8.netscape.com/pub/navigator/2.02/mac/
Netscape2.02Installer.hqx 
— Alex Narvey

  
Confused by all the Netscape Plug-ins you have been introduced to 
in our Plug-in Series? Now you can get control of your Plug-ins—
and your RAM requirements—with a Plug-in Manager from Mike 
Tilstra.

Tilstra's Plug-in Manager is an application that works like Apple's Extensions Manager to toggle Plug-ins on and off. It works by moving the plug-ins that have been marked off into a different folder.  Just look in your Netscape folder: there will be a "Plug-ins(disabled)" folder where the inactive plug-ins will be.

We've put it in our Shareware archive in case you're interested. (No express or implied warrantee is offered).

— Alex Narvey

  
Apple and Netscape have announced that QuickTime will be offered 
as a Plug-in with the upcoming Netscape Navigator 3.0.

To further enhance the use of QuickTime VR on the Internet, Apple 
has also created a QuickTime VR extension to enable the viewing of panoramic,360-degree virtual environments within Netscape Navigator. The extension will be available separately from the Apple QuickTime home page at http://quicktime.apple.com/

Not only will the plug-in allow QuickTime to be directly incorporated into the Navigator window (this feature is already available from various third party suppliers), but the QuickTime plug-in will incorporate a fast-start feature, allowing the user to experience QuickTime animations, audio, music and video in a Webpage during the download process.

Previously, multimedia files required special streaming software or had to be fully downloaded before viewing. Apple says that theQuickTime plug-in fast-start feature works seamlessly within firewall environments and requires no special server software.

A beta of Netscape Navigator 3.0—without the QuickTime Plug-in—is available at the Netscape home page: http://www.netscape.com  
— Alex Narvey

  
Mighty Microsoft has released the final release of its free 
Web browser—Internet Explorer 2.0 for Macintosh.

According to the Seattle company, IE 2.0 is "the best Internet 
client for the Macintosh," and "offers the most responsive 
Internet performance for the Mac platform".

"Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0 for Macintosh is a great browser for the Macintosh platform," said Joe Dunn, vice president of product management at Macromedia Inc. "It is fast, easy to use and full featured. We've worked closely with Microsoft to help ensure that Microsoft Internet Explorer takes full advantage of Macromedia Shockwave in order to provide users of Microsoft Internet Explorer a rich multimedia Internet experience."

Microsoft's IE 2.0 for the Mac provides high-speed Web performance with enhanced thread support, progressive rendering, HTTP Keep-Alive support, and a placeholder mode that loads text before slow-loading graphics.

The company claims that Internet Explorer 2.0 also has the smallest memory footprint of any commercial Macintosh Internet client.

The browser supports HTML 2.0 and 3.0 tags, Netscape plug-ins, and a variety of multimedia standards. And its FREE!

Download your own copy at Microsoft's Web site: 
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/  
— Alex Narvey

  
You can purge your new Internet Explorer 2.0 of its nasty Windows 
95 propaganda using Sanitizer—a patch tool by Mathew McRae.

Among other things, Sanitizer modifies Microsoft's Internet Explorer to 
remove the flying windows 95 logo and replace it with a Mac OS logo.

An animation called "homage to Windows 95 is replaced with a spinning Mac OS logo. Some users even claims it made their computers crash less.

You can find out more about Internet Explorer Sanitizer and download a copy from: http://homepage.seas.upenn.edu/~mcrae/macevan/nowin.html  
— Alex Narvey

 
Apple has renamed its "WebFinder" project "NetFinder."  NetFinder is a WebSTAR CGI script that makes the Macintosh Finder interface available over the Internet regardless of the browsing platform. 

Following is our report from April 8 with the appropriate name changes:

Apple has a new twist to web serving working at their high tech Cybertech web site. NetFinder helps build up a Web site (or part of a Web site) by sharing folders/files much like you would using Macintosh file sharing. 

NetFinder is a WebStar ACGI running on a Macintosh server that serves out selected directories and files from mounted volumes using a graphical interface similar to that of a Macintosh Finder window.

Like FTP, one folder's contents will be shown at a time. However, NetFinder displays also have sortable columns of data as on the Macintosh. These columns are Name, Size, Kind, and Last Modified. The number of items in the current directory (visible to the user) are also shown. Each file/folder shows the icon that you would see if viewing it on a Macintosh, helping the user differentiate between types of files and applications. 

Unlike FTP, NetFinder doesn't restrict the names of folders and files, seemlessly blending document display, directory content browsing, as well as file downloading. No more weird UNIX style file/folder names! 

NetFinder also relies on the easy-to-use Macintosh Users and Groups file-sharing privileges. The ACGI shares only those items that have the equivalent access privileges set up by the administrator. 

NetFinder also allows the creation of documents in Apple's SimpleText format that still display the various styles available to the SimpleText document, without writing any HTML. Text files can have various sizes of words, as well as bold and italic text and COLORS. (NetFinder will even translate those Macintosh specific characters to their Latin 1 equivalents for those browsers that don't support MacRoman). 

You can find out more about NetFinder at: http://17.255.33.104/NetFinder/NetFinder.acgi  
— Alex Narvey

  
Adobe Systems has announced the next version of its PageMill 
Web publishing software. 

Expected to ship in July, version 2.0 will include WYSIWYG table 
creation and editing, integrated viewing and editing of HTML source code, 
inline support for multimedia data types (PDF and QuickTime), and enhanced layout and editing features (including wraparound text, right alignment, "hidden" fields, and the Embed tag).

PageMill, originally developed for the Mac by Ceneca Communications, will now be available for Windows 95 and Windows NT as well.

The new PageMill will be offered at an estimated street price of $99.00. All registered customers that purchased Adobe PageMill 1.0 after April 22, 1996 are eligible to receive a free upgrade to Adobe PageMill 2.0. Upgrade pricing for all other registered PageMill customers will be announced when PageMill 2.0 ships.

You can find out more about Adobe's involvement with Web-based publishing in their new online rag—see our story below, "Extra! Read all about it in Adobe Mag."

— Alex Narvey

  
Adobe has released the second Alpha version of its Internet 
savvy Acrobat project.

The new Amber Acrobat is designed to allow downloading PDF's a 
page at a time (but this requires a Web server with byte server capability, either built-in (as with the Netscape and Open Market server products) or as a CGI script. Adobe plans to freely distribute the CGI script when it is finalized.

The Alpha version of Acrobat also has a plug-in for Netscape Navigator/Internet Explorer.

All unreleased Adobe software is unsupported but if you want to try out the latest Amber here is the URL: http://www.adobe.com/Amber/  
— Alex Narvey

 
Internet users no longer need a clear day to see forever.

Nor do they need to unwrap the whole package to see what is inside.  

The explosion of software and advancing technology has led to numerous programs allowing face-to-face interaction, with the participants blocks, miles and even continents apart. Other software allows  sneak peaks at downloads, giving the user a chance to judge the program by the first frame, possibly eliminating wasted time by getting something that isn't needed or wanted.

Either way, it adds up to instant  gratification. 

BeingThere 3.0 (http://www.beingthere.com/) allows video conferencing and exchanging of files over almost any kind of connections between two computers.  
With PreVU (http://www.intervu.com/prevu.html), a video preview appears immediately, while the file is downloading. That eliminates the need to download the entire video to find out if it's the one you want.  The Macintosh version is to be available this month.   
By copying TEC Player (http://www.tecs.com) plug-in to your Plug-Ins folder, Netscape will display QuickTime movies in-line.   
SmartDubbingA also allows video previews.  Demonstrations are available at http://www.xs4all.nl/~polder/.  
BeingThere 3.0 is the next generation video conference and collaboration software for the Macintosh.  If  you want more power, you can upgrade to BeingThere 3.0 PRO, adding collaboration tools for object-based whiteboarding and application window sharing.

BeingThere supports up to six simultaneous connections on  point-to-point and multi-point network calls. It  comes with the VideoLabs FlexCam.  BeingThree 3.0 PRO is BT-3 plus power collaboration features such as white boarding and live window sharing. PRO also includes H.320 compatibility.  

BeingThere 3.0 is $99 US with discounts for six- and 10-packs.  BeingThere 3.0 PRO is $199 with six- and 10-pack discounts.  Upgrades from 3.0 to PRO are $99.  

Details and system requirements are available on the company's web site.

A boon to designers of web pages and visitors to the sites, PreVu  provides first-frame preview of a video before download, streaming play  of the video while downloading and cached playback afterwards off the  hard drive.  It automatically loads a first-frame preview and it allows videos to be inserted and viewed directly on web pages without requiring the user to download the entire file and launch an external video player.

It plays any MPEG-compressed video.

Notes on the PreVU home page promise improvements this month: a stand-along MPEG player and video placement tool, Macintosh player,  faster video performance  and audio support. 

With TEC Player, Netscape will display QuickTime movies in-line.  The Macintosh version can be downloaded from the TEC Solutions Inc. web page. Bugs in the Windows version are being worked out.  Guidance to web masters in how to make movies available is also available at the company's home page.

Smart DubbingA, according toits developers, is better than a QuickTime plug-in which lets you stare at a blank screen while downloading a movie. Smart Dubbing uses existing animated GIF-technology, to show inline movies.

Using a fast connection you can look at the video in real-time. Slower connections make it appear as a slow-motion during the first download, but replaying the file you get a higher speed, as the file is then read from the hard drive of the computer and looped.

Check the web site to see if the  free 30-day demonstration is still available.

Like BeingThere, SmartDubbingA doesn't need special server software to put movement on a web page. 

— Elizabeth Martin

  
Adobe has a new publication on the World Wide Web. 
AdobeMag is the sister publication of Adobe Magazine, 
the print bimonthly that is distributed to registered 
owners of Adobe software (mostly in the United States).

According to the company, the new web-distributed publication's content does not overlap with that of Adobe Magazine. Its purpose is still to help Adobe software owners make better use of their software but AdobeMag leans toward online media.

AdobeMag is available biweekly rather than the print version's bimonthly status.

Check it out at http://www.adobemag.com  
— Alex Narvey