As I discussed in my article about onscreen typography in TidBITS-403, the Web has sparked renewed interest in fonts that are easier to read onscreen. Most of the responses I received either concurred with using typefaces such as New York or Georgia in place of the standard Times, or suggested alternatives such as Utopia

When jet test pilots first sought to break the sound barrier, they did so without knowing exactly what was on the other side. Some believed the goal was impossible, that mankind had reached its speed limit

QuarkXPress 4.0 Released -- More than two years after the last release of QuarkXPress, Quark is shipping version 4.0 of the popular desktop publishing application

Connectix Updates Speed Doubler -- Connectix has posted an English updater for Speed Doubler that takes the recently released Speed Doubler 8.0 to 8.0.1A (see our MailBIT in TidBITS-402 for more Speed Doubler 8 information)

Despite the many advantages of electronic publishing - it's relatively cheap, the potential audience is vast, content delivery can happen instantaneously - I am continually surprised at how many people still print hard copies of their email and Web pages

I've been on the Internet for a while, so it didn't surprise me when I retrieved email for the webmaster address of one of my clients and had a message waiting with shouting, capital letters. "STOP ALL THE COOKIES!!! Email me when you take out some of them, and then I and everyone else I told not to got to this site might come back." If you're not familiar with the term, a "cookie" or "magic cookie" is a short stream of text that a Web server can send to your Web browser

Web Design -- NetBITS managing editor Jeff Carlson will be winging his way to Orlando, Florida, next week to provide on-site email reports from the Web Design '97 conference run by Thunder Lizard Productions

Clones Stood Up by Apple for "Date" -- Last week Apple restricted the terms of its Mac OS Up-to-Date program, offering discounted OS 8 upgrade paths only to people who purchase Apple Macintosh computers

Would I Belie to You? The number of wordsmiths among the TidBITS readership revealed itself in response to last week's Macworld Expo article (see TidBITS-392)

One of the most enjoyable aspects of Macworld Expo is looking for items, products, and events that draw attention for unusual reasons. My search this year was rewarded with several that were out of the ordinary. Most Creative Use of a Pickle -- David Pogue, hawking his book, The Weird Wide Web, made a pickle glow and flash using a contraption he made from a wood frame, two nails to skewer the pickle, and a power cord from an old lamp

As I sat in my Boston hotel room on the first night of Macworld Expo, the local public television station was running "Triumph of the Nerds," a somewhat silly documentary about the history of the personal computer industry. When asked by the interviewer about Apple's historical arch-rival, Steve Jobs replied, "Microsoft has no taste, and I don't mean that in a small way; I mean it in a big way." With Jobs's surprise keynote announcement of a broad deal with the software giant, his sentiment seems to have changed to, "Microsoft may have no taste, but it's got cash and clout." (See Adam's article in this issue for more on the Apple-Microsoft deal.) A Bombshell Keynote in Plain Brown Wrapping -- After enduring the celebrity-heavy, effects-laden, razzle-dazzle keynote of Gil Amelio's Macworld keynote last January, I was surprised by the lack of flash in Jobs's performance

Apple Posts Lower-than-Expected Q3 Loss -- After the drama surrounding the departures of Gil Amelio and Ellen Hancock (see TidBITS-388), Apple's third fiscal quarter report came and went quietly

Karen Nakamura, who wrote the GPS overview article in this issue, contacted TidBITS with an interesting proposition: Would we be interested in testing some GPS units in tandem with her software, GPSy? Although none of us on staff have a good reason to use a GPS unit in the near future, we were tantalized by three factors: the futuristic ability to pinpoint one's position on Earth using orbiting satellites, the fact that Karen offered to write an article about a subject that interested us, and the chance to play with cool toys. Preparing to Race Satellites -- Karen shipped us a copy of GPSy and DeLorme's Street Atlas 3.0, along with two GPS units, a Garmin GPS 12XL and a DeLorme TripMate

As the newest member of the TidBITS staff, I haven't yet adjusted to the increased load of email that arrives after an article or review appears in an issue

I'm surprised at how much I rely on electronic mail. What used to be just another method of communicating has become my main link to the outside world, my to-do list, and a searchable database of projects

For the last several years, for those with 800-number access, if you experienced problems with your Mac, you could call Apple toll-free at 800/SOS-APPL

A PowerBook for Tiny Fingers -- Apple and IBM officially introduced the PowerBook 2400c last week, filling the sub-notebook category left vacant by the discontinued Duo line

Feeling Pushy? PointCast, Inc. and Marimba, Inc. this week released new Mac versions of their much-hyped "push technology" receivers. PointCast's Network (PowerPC only) has been pushed up to version 1.0.1, offering six additional channels including the Wall Street Journal, TechWeb, and the Chicago Tribune

For years, one of the main laments about the Macintosh was Apple's failure early on to license the Macintosh and/or Mac OS to outside vendors. Now, Mac OS clone manufacturers like Power Computing and Motorola are prompting users to choose not only which model to buy, but from which vendor

Apple's Level 2 Cache Fix -- Last week, Apple released the 54xx/64xx L2 Cache Reset extension, fixing a bug that disabled the Level 2 processor cache in machines using Apple's "Alchemy" motherboard design