New Handspring Visors Offer Color, Speed -- Handspring last week announced two new Palm-compatible models in its Visor handheld line. The $449 Visor Prism offers a 16-bit color display (65,536 colors, compared to Palm's Palm IIIc, which has 8-bit color) in a cobalt blue case, and the $299 Visor Platinum sports a new metallic silver case

Apple's September introduction of new iBook models brought the iBook's capabilities so much closer to those of the more-expensive PowerBook G3 that it became a difficult choice when I recently decided to replace my aging PowerBook 1400

Apple Computer last week announced its first-ever public beta of a version of the Mac OS, a $30 preview version of Mac OS X that's currently scheduled for a January 2001 release

At last week's Apple Expo 2000 in Paris, Apple introduced new iBook models sporting digital video features, plus two new case colors. The new entry-level iBook, available in Indigo (to match July's most popular iMac color) and a new Key Lime color for $1,500, offers a 366 MHz PowerPC G3 processor, 64 MB of RAM, and a 10 GB hard disk

Mac OS X Public Beta Set for 13-Sep-00 -- At last week's Seybold Seminars in San Francisco, Apple iCEO Steve Jobs announced the company would release its long-awaited public beta version of Mac OS X on 13-Sep-00

First Trojan Horse Hits Palm Platform -- According to McAfee Associates, a Trojan Horse has been discovered that affects users of Palm OS-based handheld devices, such as those from Palm, Handspring, IBM, TRG, and Sony

Colorful Handhelds Lead Palm's New Lineup -- Palm, Inc. revitalized its line of handhelds today by introducing three new models: the new consumer-oriented Palm m100, the updated wireless Palm VIIx, and two Limited Edition Palm Vx models with colorful metal casings

Clinton Signs Electronic Signature Bill -- Quoting James Madison, who called the contract clause of the U.S. Constitution "a constitutional bulwark in favor of personal security and private rights," President Clinton last week signed into law the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act

Dartmouth Spins Off Software -- Three popular network monitoring and troubleshooting tools developed and sold by Dartmouth College have been transferred to Dartware, LLC, a newly formed New Hampshire company

Amazon.com Awarded Affiliate Program Patent -- On 22-Feb-00, the United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded Amazon.com a patent (applied for in Jun-97) covering the concept of affiliate programs for merchant Web sites

During his keynote at Macworld Expo Tokyo, Apple CEO Steve Jobs rolled out enhanced versions of Apple's laptop and professional desktop products. The latest PowerBook G3 (known as the "PowerBook (FireWire)" in Apple's increasingly inane nomenclature) uses a case similar to the previous PowerBook G3 (Bronze Keyboard) and features speeds up to 500 MHz, up to ten hours of battery life with the dual-battery feature, room for an internal AirPort card, and two new FireWire ports supporting digital video, all for prices between $2,500 and $4,000

Power Mac G4 (PCI Graphics) ROM Update -- Apple has published a Mac OS ROM file update for users of Power Macintosh G4s (PCI Graphics) who are still running Mac OS 8.6

Free Stock Tool for Excel Users -- Jonathan Jackel wrote after reading our article on MacTicker in TidBITS-471 to let us know that he offers a free stock quote tool for Excel called Reval at his "Backtesting Page" Web site

If you're an investor with an Internet connection, you probably already know about the various free Web sites that offer stock quotes for free, or in exchange for eyeballing a couple of banner ads

A little over a month ago in "Closing the Book on Visual Page" in TidBITS-439, Adam speculated that Adobe's PageMill for Macintosh had quietly faded away, since there had been no sign Adobe would offer a companion to PageMill 3.0 for Windows

Dartmouth Picks iMac -- Dartmouth College, home of one of the largest academic, mostly Mac networks in the world, recently sent a letter to incoming freshmen recommending they purchase Apple's new iMac to fulfill the college's computer ownership requirement

Connectix Corporation's Virtual PC wasn't the first product that allowed Mac users to run Windows software, but much to the chagrin of Orange PC maker Orange Micro and SoftWindows publisher Insignia Solutions, Virtual PC's popularity skyrocketed thanks to a no-compromises feel

Dr Solomon's Software, the current publisher of Virex, an anti-virus utility, announced two Virex updates in quick succession last week. These new versions find and remove two newly discovered variants of the AutoStart 9805 worm, originally reported in "AutoStart Worm Breaks Mac Malware Silence" in TidBITS-428. Dr Solomon's says the variants replace previous versions of the worm, if found, and each uses different filenames from those used by the original AutoStart 9805 worm, making them harder to find

John Norstad Retires Disinfectant -- John Norstad announced last week that he has retired Disinfectant, his free anti-virus utility. John considered updating the utility to combat the recently discovered Autostart-9805 worm (see "Autostart Worm Breaks Malware Silence" in TidBITS-428) but decided to direct his software's loyal users to commercial utilities such as Dr

Nearly three years after the last Macintosh-specific virus appeared on the scene, a new piece of Macintosh malware (code designed with malicious intent) has appeared