Cupertino, Calif. - Many of the concerns expressed by Mac buyers at this month's Macworld Expo were about the PowerPC transition plan for the AV Macs. Apple will reportedly allay those concerns next winter with a new AV architecture based on the PowerPC 601.
In addition to AV technology, sources said these new Macs will provide considerable performance improvements over Apple's initial PowerPC Macs, which are scheduled to be announced in March.
An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the specifics of this story but said, "We intend to offer AV technologies at the initial PowerPC introduction."
Code-named TNT, two machines were outlined to developers in private briefings held during the expo. Apple is said to have demonstrated how TNT would not only carry the AV gauntlet forward but would also extend the video and graphics capabilities considered standard throughout the Macintosh platform.
Apple will improve on the AV's video-management capabilities with a new independent video subsystem. For example, TNT can drive the Macintosh's monitor and an interlaced NTSC video monitor simultaneously. TNT will offer convolution for 32-bit video, while current AVs can do so only for eight-bit images.
The DAV (digital audio video) interface in current AV models will also be available in TNT. This slot can be used by third-party developers as a way to obtain high-speed, direct access to the Mac's video stream. Apple reportedly expects more developers to support DAV in the future with cards such as video compressors-decompressors.
In addition to improving the Mac's video handling, Apple is planning to improve the Mac's management of other graphic types with new hardware in TNT. A new QuickDraw accelerator will reportedly offer dramatic speed increases to all Mac graphics, and a QuickTime accelerator will do the same for digital movies. An optional card will accelerate graphics generated to Apple's upcoming QuickDraw 3D extension (see MacWEEK, Jan. 3, Page 1).
TNT will also mark the introduction of the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus on the Mac. PCI will perform the duties currently served by NuBus at a higher rate of speed. In addition, much of TNT's internal bus will conform to the PCI standard.
An additional proprietary bus will give the CPU rapid access to RAM and TNT's Level 2 cache. The bus, combined with a new RAM controller, will dramatically improve the Mac's overall performance, sources said.
According to sources, Apple is hoping to include in TNT an optional FireWire port via a PCI card, in addition to standard SCSI. FireWire is Apple's proposed high-speed sequel to SCSI. If FireWire catches on, it is expected to appear as an external port on all Mac models.
Sources said Apple has not yet decided which speed of PowerPC 601 to use in TNT. That decision will be made closer to introduction, based on which chips Apple can acquire in quantity at speeds of 80 MHz and above. The architecture has been designed to support the PowerPC 601, 603 and 604 at speeds of up to 150 MHz and can be upgraded from one processor to another - or even multiple processors - with a daughtercard swap.
While current AV Macs include a digital signal processor (DSP) chip, TNT will not. Instead, DSP-like duties will be handled by the CPU. Most software packages written for AV Macs will reportedly continue to work with TNT.
Two models of TNT - a full-featured configuration and an economy version - are reportedly in the works. Apple is likely to ship the lower-priced model first, largely because it will lack the advanced video technologies found in its sibling. Even with the video features missing, this model is expected to receive considerable support from developers, who are looking forward to the opportunity to take advantage of the PCI bus and accelerated subsystems.
TNT sports AV features
> PowerPC 601/603/604 support - up to 150 MHz
> Implements many current AV technologies, including DAV slot
> No DSP, but support for much existing DSP-dependent software
> Improved video in/out capabilities
> PCI expansion bus
> Faster internal bus
> Accelerated QuickDraw and QuickTime
MacWEEK 01.17.94
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: Phaser printer heats up thermal race
By David Morgenstern
Wilsonville, Ore. - Color output gets into sharper focus this week as Tektronix Inc. ships two letter-size, thermal-wax color printers with 600-by-300-dpi resolution on plain paper.
The Phaser 220i and Phaser 220e incorporate the company's new TekColor SuperCell 600 technology, improving halftone dithering patterns and utilizing half-stepping capabilities built into the printers' Sharp engine. Images possess detail equivalent to a 110-line screen, the company said.
"It's unique. It gives visibly better quality when you compare it to [Tektronix's] previous models," said Marco Boer, senior analyst at International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass. "It will push color to the next level. Tektronix is the professional market leader, and everyone will have to follow."
The Adobe PostScript Level 2 printers output CMY (cyan, magenta, yellow) color to plain paper using 214-page ColorCoat ribbons, which deposit a clear binding agent on the page before the colors are applied. The coating is placed only in areas destined to receive color and allows dual-sided printing (see MacWEEK, March 8, 1993, Page 47). In addition to the $126 ColorCoat ribbon, users can purchase a $165 CMY ribbon that can print 342 sheets on coated paper, or a $132 black ribbon with a life of 880 pages, the company said.
The $5,995 Phaser 220i runs on a 24-MHz AMD 29000 RISC processor and comes standard with 10 Mbytes of RAM, expandable to 14 Mbytes. It ships with 39 Adobe PostScript fonts, three HP PCL fonts and a SCSI port for an external hard drive.
The Phaser 220e, priced at $3,995, uses a 16-MHz AMD processor and has 8 Mbytes of RAM than cannot be expanded. The printer comes with 17 Adobe PostScript fonts. An additional 22-font memory module is available for $595.
Both models handle HP-GL and PCL 5 page description languages. They support auto-switching and simultaneously active AppleTalk, Centronics parallel and RS-232C serial interfaces. Options for the Phaser 220i include Novell NetWare and EtherTalk support for $695 and TCP/IP connections for an additional $295.
The 220 series' paper tray holds 100 sheets of paper or 50 transparencies. An optional second, software-selectable 100-page paper feeder costs $495.
With this announcement, Tektronix also reduced the price of its 300-dpi Phaser 200e thermal-wax printer to $2,995 from $3,695. The company offers two upgrade paths: a 200i-to-220i upgrade is priced at $1,595; a 200e-to-220i upgrade costs $3,000. Upgrade pricing includes on-site installation.
Tektronix Inc. is at 26600 S.W. Parkway, P.O. Box 1000, Wilsonville, Ore. 97070-1000. Phone (503) 682-7377 or (800) 835-6100; fax (503) 682-7450.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: Leaf Lumina camera doubles as scanner
By Bruce Fraser
Leaf Systems Inc., well-known for its transparency scanners and its high-end digital camera back, is putting the finishing touches on a new product that offers unparalleled flexibility as an image-capture device.
The Lumina is a digital still camera that can also serve as a transparency scanner and a reflective scanner. It is capable of generating a 2,700-by-3,400-pixel image with 12 bits each of red, green and blue. The image data can be either downsampled to 24 bits at scan time (via an Adobe Photoshop 2.5.1 plug-in) or transferred to the Macintosh using Leaf's HDR (high dynamic range) format.
The basic $6,900 camera unit connects to the Mac via a single actively terminated SCSI-2 interface that must go at the end of the SCSI chain.
The Lumina feels much more like a camera than a scanner. You compose a scene and adjust the focus while looking through a viewfinder.
External lighting is also a necessity. The Lumina can use any high-frequency light source; we obtained good results on our beta unit using inexpensive tungsten-halogen bulbs.
By mounting the Lumina on a tripod, you can use it for tabletop shots of 3-D objects, although it lacks the tilt and swing adjustments of the view cameras usually used for such work.
To scan reflective art, the camera mounts on any standard copy stand. Leaf plans to sell an optional slide attachment for scanning 35mm transparencies. You can scan larger-format transparencies by placing a light box on the copy stand.
Armed and dangerous
The camera accepts standard Nikon bayonet mount lenses - a Sigma 50mm f2.8 macro lens is supplied as standard, but a zoom lens in the 30mm-to-70mm range would be useful, particularly for copy-stand scanning of reflective art. The lens is usually stopped down to at least f11, so there's no need to pay a premium for a fast lens.
The supplied software is an Adobe Photoshop plug-in that bears a strong family resemblance to those for the Lumina's sibling products, the Leafscan 35 and Leafscan 45.
The first step in acquiring an image is to perform a prescan, which the Lumina does in about 20 seconds. The prescan provides a low-resolution image that lets you set the cropping rectangle and output resolution and apply any of several different methods of controlling tone reproduction.
In the range
Auto-ranging automatically detects the lightest and darkest pixels in the image and distributes the intermediate values. You can define a rectangular selection that the software will use to determine these values, so you can eliminate specular highlights or solid shadows from the auto-ranging process. Separate white-point and black-point tools let you set white and black values in specific image areas. For even greater control, the Curves window lets you set separate tone curves for the red, green and blue channels; for all three channels; or for an average of the three.
As an alternative, Leaf's HDR format lets you postpone all toning decisions by simply grabbing all the data the device can capture and transferring it unchanged to Photoshop. Photoshop 2.5.1 lets you use the Levels and Curves controls to make fine adjustments to tone reproduction, working with the full 36-bit data the Lumina captures. The advantage is that whereas the plug-in's curves let you set only five data points, Photoshop's lets you set up to 14. This should be enough for even the most problematic image.
Who will buy?
Leaf is targeting the Lumina at graphic artists and designers. It's clear, however, that anyone without a basic knowledge of photography will be in for a long learning curve. Nevertheless, once you've learned the basic principles of lighting and exposure, the Lumina offers an extremely flexible imaging solution. The beta unit we looked at still has a few bugs, but we look forward to reviewing a production version in a future issue of MacWEEK.
Leaf Systems Inc. is at 250 Turnpike Road, Southborough, Mass. 01772. Phone (508) 460-8300; fax (508) 460-8304.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: Cheaper Apple CD-ROM drive this spring
By Carolyn Said
Cupertino, Calif. - Apple will spin out a new CD-ROM drive in the second quarter that should help the company build on its base of CD-ROM-equipped Macs.
The AppleCD 300 Plus, based on a dual-speed NEC mechanism, will cost about $370 street price for an external version, $60 less than Apple's current dual-speed external model, sources said.
However, in good news for purchasers of new CPUs, Apple will offer an internal version of the drive bundled with Macs for about $200, according to sources.
The new CD-ROM drive will reportedly be the first in the Mac market to use a tray and will support asynchronous data transfer.
Patty Chang, senior industry analyst at Dataquest Inc. in San Jose, Calif., said that the bundled internal drive "has a very competitive price. Apple's not making much money on that; they just want to seed the market with more CD-ROM drives." She said the price for the external version "is reasonable, but it's not the price leader."
Spin Peripherals of Newton Upper Falls, Mass., recently shipped a $299 external double-speed drive also based on an NEC mechanism.
Trays, already in use on many CD-ROM drives in the Intel market, eliminate the need to fumble with a separate caddy. Users simply press a button to eject the tray. They can then place a disc on it and press on the tray to insert the disc.
In combination with SCSI Manager 4.3, which comes with the AV Macs and will come with the PowerPC Macs, an asynchronous drive frees the computer to perform other tasks while it is seeking data. Asynchronous drives produce smoother video playback because the Mac can decompress and display images while the drive is seeking the next piece of data.
The new drive is expected in the spring. It reportedly offers performance comparable to that of the $429 AppleCD 300, which has an average access time of 295 milliseconds and a data transfer rate of 300 Kbytes per second. That model is slated to be discontinued, sources said.
In related news, Apple recently released a new version of the AppleCD Audio Player that has already won praise from users for its graphical interface. The software, which is bundled with Apple CD-ROM drives, displays each track on an audio CD, along with its length; users can enter song names and can simply click on a track to play it.
Apple declined to comment on the AppleCD 300 Plus.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: Native PowerPC apps on fast track
Users remain wary about compatibility
By Carolyn Said
A critical component of the PowerPC Macs' success will depend on third-party application developers. The new machines will need native-mode software to prove their worth. Without it, they won't be much better than fast 68030 or 68040 systems.
This month 61 developers, including many of the biggest names in the Mac market, publicly committed to writing RISC programs. Most are promising PowerPC Mac software within six months of the March launch; about 15 to 20 said they will have native applications ready at launch or within 30 days of launch.
Availability is good news, but users have another question foremost in their minds: Will there be compatibility problems?
"Apple has to make sure that this transition is as smooth and bug-free as possible. No one will pay $3,000 to beta test a PowerPC," said Robert Sadowski, systems administrator at Lochridge and Co. Inc. in Boston.
Apple and developers offer unanimous assurances that the application transition will not be rocky. "We're busting our butts on compatibility so we don't have the System 7 experience again," said Brian Mellea, Apple PowerPC evangelist.
Existing software will run on the PowerPC Macs in 680x0-emulation mode, delivering performance between that of a IIci and a Quadra 700, depending on the application and CPU clock speed. Apple said it has tested hundreds of programs; only a few don't run on the PowerPC, usually because they weren't written according to "the Ten Commandments of standard Mac programming," Mellea said.
But native applications are the big ticket. When it comes to features, PowerPC applications won't depart significantly from the past. Most will look, feel and act just like their 680x0 counterparts. In cases where vendors implement new features on the PowerPC, they said they will offer equivalent upgrades for 680x0 Macs.
The primary distinction between PowerPC and 680x0 versions of the same application will be speed. For many programs, this will make a significant difference.
"PowerPC will remove the waiting period, letting users interactively try out new ideas," said Gary Bringhurst, chief technical officer at Strata Inc., a 3-D modeling company based in St. George, Utah. He said he thinks the PowerPC Macs will enable high-end graphics applications to "go mainstream" and reach a wider audience. "It takes a devoted person to work at a slower Mac and accomplish high-end tasks," Bringhurst said. "With PowerPC, you can get people dabbling and accomplishing incredible stuff. They won't feel the pain that past users had."
Even for basic productivity applications, eliminating wait cycles may change users' work habits. "There are things, such as continuing to polish a document, that people avoid doing now because they take too long," said Peter Heller, ClarisWorks product manager at Claris Corp. in Santa Clara, Calif.
Users agreed that higher speeds will mean a qualitative change. "We could do much more exploratory data analysis and more-complex analyses if we could do them more rapidly," said Blake Sobiloff, network manager in the department of psychology at the University of Maryland in College Park.
Native applications on the first PowerPC Macs will run two to four times faster than their 680x0 counterparts on midrange Quadras, Apple said. In areas such as photorealistic graphics, 3-D, CAD, science and math, the speed-up will be even more striking. Some of these applications reportedly run 10 times faster on the PowerPC.
"Even if we do nothing special [with features] for PowerPC, it allows Mathematica to be used in a totally fluid manner," said Doug Stein, product manager at Wolfram Research Inc. in Champaign, Ill.
Marketing considerations may block radical changes in PowerPC programs, however. Almost all Mac software companies offer applications for Windows, and some do so for Unix; most are determined to maintain compatibility across platforms as well as between 680x0 and PowerPC Macs. That may limit the features tailored specifically for the PowerPC.
"I think it would be a bad idea to do features specific to the PowerPC chip," said Steve Guttman, senior product manager at Adobe Systems Inc. in Mountain View, Calif. "We'd get a lot of irate calls from [non-PowerPC] users. [But] as processors get faster, developers will naturally add features that take advantage of what you can do with more speed."
High-performance CPUs should allow developers to expand their applications in terms of human interface and interactivity. In the future, said Wolfram's Stein: "Instead of dragging outlines of objects around, you'll move the objects themselves. Instead of zooming rectangles, you'll actually see the view shrink; instead of dialog boxes, there will be more direct manipulation."
PowerPC "will allow us to make the computer work the way you do," said Dave Harding, director of Macintosh marketing at WordPerfect Corp. in Orem, Utah. He cited voice-to-text transcription (a top priority for some word processor users), text-to-voice, manipulation of 3-D objects, application interoperability, and a new look and feel as future directions opened by PowerPC.
Other developers and users pointed to handwriting recognition, intelligent agents and adaptive interfaces as technologies that the new processors could advance.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: When Articulate users talk, AVs listen
PowerSecretary lets users dictate text
By Nathalie Welch
Woburn, Mass. - Articulate Systems Inc. this month will ship its speech-processing software that lets users dictate text to their Mac and verbally control applications.
The $2,495 PowerSecretary requires a 68040-based Macintosh. Non-AV Macs must have a 16-bit sound card (available for about $300).
The product is geared toward professionals who need to dictate prewritten text and those who want to perform hands-free note-taking and application control, according to Articulate.
Beta-user Dr. Bruce Rogers, an internist and endocrinologist in Gainesville, Fla., said: "I am working on a database to handle all nonmedical patient information. The information is often in note form and must be transcribed. PowerSecretary allows me to bypass that link and enter it myself."
Rogers said he thinks that PowerSecretary will help combat the expense and long turnaround time typical of transcribing services.
Developed with Dragon Systems Inc. of Newton, Mass., PowerSecretary is a speaker-adaptive, discrete-word system.
Users do not have to train the software but must pause slightly between words. The maximum dictation speed is 45 words a minute.
The system will come bundled with a copy of CE Software Inc.'s QuicKeys 3.0 macro software and a headset microphone. Using QuicKeys to create macros, large blocks of text can be entered into applications via voice commands.
For example, users could enter contact information by saying the person's name. Voice-activated macros can also be used to control most applications, replacing commands usually entered via mouse or keyboard.
PowerSecretary has a built-in 120,000-word dictionary, 30,000 of which are active and can be automatically converted to text. The remainder of the dictionary provides user-selectable alternatives to words not in the active list. Users can add words to the active vocabulary or create custom vocabularies for dictation.
"To handle more-obscure medical technology, you can add words to the dictionary on the fly," Rogers said. "It takes just a fraction of a second to get it in there, but it always will remember it."
PowerSecretary includes error-correction technology, so users can train the system not to misunderstand the same word twice.
Articulate Systems Inc. is at 600 W. Cummings Park, Suite 4500, Woburn, Mass. 01801. Phone (617) 935-5656; fax (617) 935-0490.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
News Page 3
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: Apple settles on PowerPC Mac naming
By Raines Cohen
Cupertino, Calif. - Talking about Macs may become as complicated as discussing PC clones after Apple rolls out its PowerPC Macs this March.
Apple reportedly has settled on a naming system for the PowerPC Macs that competes head to head with the most complex PC systems not just in price and performance but also in the complexity of their names.
Sources said the line, known as PowerMacs, will bear names derived from both the current Mac models on which they are based and the speed of their processors. Apple's initial PowerMac offerings will be (see MacWEEK, Nov. 29, 1993, Page 1):
> PowerMac 6100-60. Code-named PDM, this low-end system, which uses the same form factor as the Quadra 610, will include a 60-MHz processor and sell with monitor and keyboard for less than $2,000.
> PowerMac 7100-66. This 66-MHz system, now code-named BHA, will use the same case as the Quadra 650, feature two NuBus slots and one processor direct slot, and will sell for about $3,000.
> PowerMac 8100-80. This 80-MHz system is based on the Quadra 800 design; it is code-named Cold Fusion. It features a 256-Kbyte Level 2 cache and a price tag starting at less than $4,000.
Apple declined to comment.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
News Page 3
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: DayStar PPC Quadra upgrade in the cards
PowerPro 601 card to ship in March
By Matthew Rothenberg
Flowery Branch, Ga. - DayStar Digital Inc. this month announced a PowerPC upgrade card for Quadras.
DayStar said the card, dubbed the PowerPro 601, will ship simultaneously with the planned March introduction of Apple's PowerPC Macs. The upgrade will plug into the processor direct slot of the Quadra 650, 700, 800, 900 and 950. The card will include a PowerPC 601 RISC processor running at either 66 or 80 MHz. Street pricing will range from $1,200 to $1,700, depending on the speed of the configuration.
The PowerPro 601 will feature PowerPC Mac ROMs licensed from Apple and will include Apple's 680x0 emulator, DayStar said. The card can run on RAM already installed on the host Mac. In addition, users will be able to add up to 128 Mbytes of additional RAM in two 72-pin banks on the board itself (using 60-nanosecond SIMMs installed in pairs). This feature lets users of the Quadra 900 and 950 work with up to 384 Mbytes of RAM. RAM installed on the DayStar card can be accessed via the board's 64-bit-wide data path.
DayStar said it also will offer FastCache PowerPro 601, a 512-Kbyte cache card with a 64-bit data path. This daughtercard will speed access to the slower Quadra RAM, according to DayStar.
The company said a version of PowerPro 601 for Mac II-series machines is slated for summer. It also announced plans for a 100-MHz configuration by the end of the year and said a PowerPC 604 upgrade for the card is projected for 1995.
DayStar also announced a trade-in program for the PowerPro board. Through March 31, 1995, users who purchased a DayStar accelerator between Dec. 1, 1993, and March 31, 1994, will receive a trade-in value of 50 percent of the retail price of their current card. Other DayStar accelerator owners will be credited 25 percent and owners of non-DayStar 68030 and 68040 accelerators purchased before Dec. 31, 1993, will get a 15 percent trade-in value.
DayStar's current swap-up program, offering full retail trade-in value on DayStar cards exchanged for the company's '040 cards, does not apply to the PowerPro because of the company's aggressive pricing strategy, DayStar said.
DayStar Digital Inc. is at 5556 Atlanta Highway, Flowery Branch, Ga. 30542. Phone (404) 967-2077 or (800) 962-2077; fax (404) 967-3018.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
News Page 5
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: YARC board brings PowerPC to developers
By Matthew Rothenberg
Newbury Park, Calif. - Mac in-house developers can catch the PowerPC wave with a new coprocessor board from YARC Systems Corp.
The Zuma coprocessor, which runs on any NuBus-equipped Mac, includes a PowerPC 601 RISC chip running at 50, 66 or 80 MHz with a 32-Kbyte cache and a 64-bit data bus. It comes with 16 Mbytes of high-speed dynamic RAM and supports full 32-bit access to the Mac motherboard or other NuBus-based peripherals, YARC said. The company said users can install up to four Zumas in a single Mac.
The Zuma is available stand-alone or bundled with a suite of native PowerPC development tools.
Unlike a PowerPC accelerator, Zuma speeds only applications written to take advantage of it.
The 66-MHz Zuma is $3,595, or $4,495 with the developer tools. The 80-MHz is $4,995 and sold only with the developer bundle. Pricing for the 50-MHz version has not been set.
YARC Systems Corp. is at 975 Business Center Circle, Newbury Park, Calif. 91320. Phone (805) 499-9444; fax (805) 499-4048.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
News Page 5
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: Extension to forge faster folder access
PopupFolder offers navigation menu
By Robert Hess
Lakeville, Conn. - On-line discussions often center around users' "dream enhancements" to the Finder. One wish seems to be held by almost everyone: a faster way to navigate folders. Inline Software Inc. hopes to answer that desire next month when it ships PopupFolder, an extension for System 7.
PopupFolder translates a folder's contents into a menu, with contents of enclosed folders available as hierarchical menus. Instead of opening a folder's icon and navigating its contents graphically, users can move through it via the menu.
From the Finder, users can drag a document to a folder's icon and, after navigating within it via menus, deposit the document deep within the folder without ever opening the folder itself. Applications and documents can also be launched by simply clicking on a folder and selecting the desired item from a menu.
The $59.95 utility also provides similar functionality inside the applications' Open and Save dialog boxes, and it makes the Apple Menu hierarchical for quick access to items stored in locations such as the Control Panels folder.
Inline Software Inc. is at 308 Main St., Lakeville, Conn. 06039-1204. Phone (203) 435-4995 or (800) 453-7671; fax (203) 435-1091.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
News Page 6
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: Dayna simplifies file management
ProFiles performs tasks from 1 window
By Carolyn Said
Salt Lake City - Dayna Communications Inc. this month launched a new file-management application that it said would simplify navigating through masses of data stored on hard drives, network volumes and PowerBooks.
ProFiles, available now for $129, lets users work on files, folders, applications and other data stored in various locations from a single window called a Filelist. From this window, users can perform file-management tasks not available with the Finder, including synchronizing volumes, moving and copying in the background, aliasing to a destination, and compressing or expanding files.
ProFiles also lets users find files by multiple criteria, including content, creator, type and backup date. The program works over local networks or through Apple Remote Access. Dayna said it will release a native PowerPC Mac version of ProFiles at the hardware launch.
Dayna said Version 1.0 could cause corruption or loss of data if used with Symantec Corp's AutoDoubler or DiskDoubler; the company recommends using the provided StuffIt Engine instead. A temporary patch is available on on-line services. A new version that solves the problem is due in a couple of weeks.
In other news, Dayna this month announced:
> Price cuts. Dayna reduced its hardware and software prices by up to 40 percent. For example, its 10BASE T NuBus Ethernet card, formerly $229, is now $139. TokenPrint was reduced from $1,099 to $649, while DaynaSTAR Hub-24 went from $1,399 to $999. The DaynaSTAR Hub-8 price dropped from $389 to $299.
> New hub. DaynaSTAR MiniHub-5, slated to ship next month for $195, is a 10BASE T-only hub for twisted-pair Ethernet networks.
It offers five RJ-45 ports, including a crossover port that can be used for hub-to-hub connections without special reverse cabling, Dayna said. The device comes with a lifetime warranty and free technical support.
> DOS Mounter Plus 4.1. This utility that lets Mac users mount and access DOS-formatted media now supports Novell Inc.'s NetWare SFT (System Fault Tolerant) III servers, as well as WordPerfect Office 4.0. The price was reduced from $99 to $79; upgrades from Version 4.0 are free. Version 4.1 will ship next month.
> SafeDeposit 1.3. This upgrade to Dayna's backup software now operates completely in the background. It inserts a new icon in the Finder's menu for access to backup commands and now ships with Aladdin Systems Inc.'s StuffIt Engine as a compression option in addition to DiskDoubler. It also supports Casa Blanca Works Inc.'s DriveShare, which lets users share Bernoulli drives across the network. Previously $189, SafeDeposit 1.3 is available now for $129. Upgrades are free.
Dayna Communications Inc. is at Sorenson Research Park, 849 W. Levoy Drive, Salt Lake City, Utah 84123-2544. Phone (801) 269-7200; fax (801) 269-7363.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
News Page 6
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Gateways: Microsoft, Apple seal E-mail deal
Promise AOCE, MAPI collaboration
By Nathalie Welch
San Francisco - Microsoft Corp. and Apple are building electronic-mail empires on their respective operating systems, but this month each company agreed to open its messaging borders to the other.
The agreement, signed at Macworld Expo here this month, will bind the client and server components of AOCE (Apple Open Collaboration Environment) to Microsoft's forthcoming Enterprise Message Servers (EMSes) and to any Windows applications based on the company's MAPI (Messaging Application Programming Interface).
Specifically, the Apple-Microsoft agreement ensures the availability of a suite of messaging and directory gateways between PowerTalk clients and Microsoft's X.400-based Enterprise Messaging Server, between MAPI clients and PowerShare Collaboration Servers, and between both companies' servers (see MacWEEK, Jan. 3, Page 26). Microsoft also agreed to update its mainstream Mac business applications - Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Works - to include PowerTalk features.
"We view the agreement with Microsoft as an important first step toward cross-platform interoperability at the departmental workgroup level," said Andy Lauta, senior product manager of Apple's collaboration products group. "Our cross-platform strategy consists of a combination of the Microsoft agreement and a suite of gateway services provided by StarNine (Technologies Inc. of Berkeley, Calif.). There is nothing brewing about porting all of AOCE over to Windows."
The agreement should result in easier cross-platform development. Apple has agreed to support a subset of CMC (Common Mail Call) programming interfaces in PowerTalk, while Microsoft already provides a CMC layer atop MAPI. Developed by the X.400 Application Program Interface Association, CMC is an open standard intended to replace proprietary E-mail APIs.
"[Apple and Microsoft] have many, many mutual customers," said Tom Evslin, general manager of Microsoft's workgroup division. "We agree with Apple that messaging subsystems belong in the operating system, but there is a danger of noninteroperability. With this agreement, customers and developers can have their cake and eat it too - both interoperability and cross-platform APIs."
Pieter Hartsook, editor of The Hartsook Letter in Alameda, Calif., said: "It's a big win for Apple. It's very hard to establish a standard in the business market if Microsoft does not want to play with you."
Hartsook said the agreement will benefit customers in enterprise environments, as well as developers and system integrators trying to create cross-platform collaborative and messaging applications.
"The bottom line is that Apple will provide the APIs our customers require to deploy the solution that best fits their needs," Lauta said. "We are in no way detracting from our existing plans to support VIM [Vendor-Independent Messaging] and will supply a VIM developer kit sometime in the future. Availability will be driven by customer demand."
In the contract, Apple also said it will guarantee a PowerTalk gateway to Microsoft Mail for AppleTalk, in addition to migration tools for Microsoft Mail customers who wish to switch to PowerShare.
AOCE-MAPI accord signed at expo
The Apple-Microsoft agreement for E-mail interoperability will result in:
> Personal gateway linking Mac-based PowerTalk clients to Windows
NT-based EMS.
> Service provider to link Windows-based MAPI clients to Mac-based
PowerShare Collaboration Servers.
> Server-based gateways to exchange E-mail and directory information
between PowerShare and EMS.
> Common Mail Call API support in PowerTalk.
> Gateway linking PowerTalk clients to Microsoft Mail for AppleTalk.
> Migration tools to move users of Microsoft Mail for AppleTalk to
PowerShare and EMS.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
Gateways Page 12
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Gateways: Apple low-balls Ethernet cards
By April Streeter
Apple's not just lowering margins, it's vigorously re-entering the low-end networking market. Despite sagging sales of its little-promoted Ethernet cards, Apple has introduced a line of low-cost products that compete directly with third-party and mail-order offerings.
This month Apple will ship the Ethernet LC Twisted-Pair Card for $99. It will be Apple's first LC card to include a 10BASE T port and will be $80 cheaper than the previous model, which required a transceiver. Complementing the new card will be a redesigned EtherTalk driver that the company said will boost by about 25 percent the performance of any Apple-labeled card.
In October, Apple released a 10BASE T NuBus card for $179, and the company said it plans a full line of low-cost cards, cables and connectors. According to Product Manager Karen Quek, Apple's purchasing power, design skills and worldwide distribution should give it the best price-performance in the Mac networking market.
The new commodity products will be sold through Apple's current mail-order catalog and through an upcoming catalog aimed specifically at the education market.
Apple also plans cross-platform Peripheral Component Interconnect cards, including 7-inch-long dual-speed token-ring cards and multiport serial cards. Apple is considering which of the 100-Mbps standards to support; the company will decide based on customer demand and manufacturability, Quek said.
The leading vendors of Mac Ethernet adapters took Apple's news calmly. "From our point of view, Apple's re-entry only legitimizes Ethernet as the most viable network solution," said Bruce Stancombe, director of product marketing for Asante Technologies Inc. of San Jose, Calif.
"This is certainly going to intensify the competition in regular Ethernet cards," said Alan Lefkof, president of Farallon Computing Inc. of Alameda, Calif. "But a lot of [customers] want to purchase [network products] from a single vendor, so what Apple is doing is understandable."
In the most recent market data available from International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass., Apple trailed Farallon and Asante in adapters shipped during 1992 and sunk further in the first half of 1993, losing its slight lead over Dayna Communications Inc. of Salt Lake City. IDC's forecasts for the second half of 1993 did not account for Apple's renewed interest in this low-margin market, but vendors said that there is plenty of business for all. IDC estimated that more than 840,000 Mac Ethernet adapters shipped in 1993, a 40 percent increase over the previous year.
The good news for managers building Ethernet LANs is the possibility of further price drops. None of the leading vendors was ready to announce cuts, yet each admitted that Apple's $99 price tag on the LC adapter may cause them to lower prices and reduce margins.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
Gateways Page 12
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Mobile Computing: Future PBs to get Apple utility
Features innovative modular architecture
By MacWEEK staff
Cupertino, Calif. - In an effort to better fill the needs of its mainstream users, Apple will reportedly start bundling its own PowerBook utility this spring.
The unnamed Apple PowerBook utility will come bundled with the company's newest portable models: the 68040-based PowerBook 520 and 540 all-in-one systems, code-named Blackbird, and the new line of '040 Duos. The new PowerBooks, which are expected to debut in April, come in both gray-scale and color configurations and will reportedly replace the current lineup of high-end models (see MacWEEK, Nov. 15, 1993, Page 1).
The Apple utility features a floating status and icon bar that will allow users to view battery charge and access functions such as instant sleep, hard drive spin down and toggling AppleTalk on and off, sources said. It will display the status of both batteries in the 520 and 540, which sport two battery bays. But because it will be tuned to upcoming changes in Apple's power-management chips, the new utility will not work with older PowerBooks, sources said.
According to sources, the main innovation of the Apple utility is its modular architecture, which will allow users to create their own status bars.
Functions, such as the ability to toggle AppleTalk, are added to the bar by dropping modules into a folder inside the System folder. Apple will reportedly supply additional modules for switching file sharing on and off, turning an internal modem on and off, controlling screen brightness and contrast, setting sound levels, and opening the PowerBook control panel.
Although the Apple utility duplicates some of the easy-access features of third-party programs such as Connectix PowerBook Utilities from Connectix Corp. or Power To Go from Claris Corp., it does not have the depth of those products, sources said. For example, the Apple utility does not support the creation of multiple settings files optimized for different usage situations.
In addition to its new utility, Apple will also bundle PowerBook File Assistant, its $79 file synchronization utility; Macintosh PC Exchange, a $79 DOS disk-mounting utility; and Apple Remote Access Client 2.0 with its new models, sources said.
PB utility modules
> Battery status
> Hard disk spin up/down
> Sleep
> Toggle AppleTalk
> Toggle file sharing
> Toggle modem
> Brightness/contrast control
> Sound control
> Access PB control panel
MacWEEK 01.17.94
Mobile Computing Page 16
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Mobile Computing: Mobile users not so far away
By Raines Cohen
Norwell, Mass. - You probably know the type: the high-flying road warriors who are out of the office more often than in and seem attached at the hip to their PowerBooks. All they talk about is wireless modems and battery life.
However, according to a user study released last year, this stereotypical user is far less common than you might think.
BIS Strategic Decisions, based here, last month showed some interesting data on mobile professionals from a study of 1,500 technical and nontechnical workers that spend 20 percent or more of their time away from their desks.
"A lot of people come in with this vision of the mobile professional as somebody being on a plane here, there and everywhere," said Jenni Ceurvels, market analyst for the mobile and personal computing market advisory service of BIS. "We were surprised how local mobility really was; people in a meeting in another building on the same campus."
According to the study, most mobile users don't stray far from their desks: 69 percent of their time is spent on their own corporate campuses; 55 percent of the time they are inside their own buildings. A mere 13 percent of mobile users' time is spent outside the metro area and just 1 percent out of the country.
And what brings these people out of the office? About 58 percent of trips are for in-person collaboration with co-workers. Sales calls and training sessions account for most of the rest of the journeys.
When they send or receive information, these mobile professionals often aren't in a big rush, but they can't afford to be out of touch all day. About 14 percent of messages sent or received require action within the hour and 24 percent within the day, but about 32 percent can wait, and about 26 percent require no action.
And how are these "important" messages sent? The "hurry up and wait" principle often comes into play. Most communication is by phone and some by fax, voice mail and paging, with the smallest percentages going via electronic mail and modem links.
Most mobile professionals surveyed, 83 percent to be exact, don't use a computer or personal digital assistant (PDA) at all while out of the office, compared to 25 percent that don't use computers in the office.
As to why so few mobile professionals are using notebooks and PDAs, BIS Vice President Bill Ablondi said, "The current tools are very difficult to use; most are not ready for prime time yet."
MacWEEK 01.17.94
Mobile Computing Page 16
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
GA: CoSA layers on animation controls
After Effects 2.0 offers spline paths
By Neil McManus
Providence, R.I. - The Company of Science & Art hopes to raise the high end of Mac video-production software with After Effects 2.0, an upgrade that adds greater control over layers and motion effects.
CoSA After Effects offers a variety of features for compositing, animation and special effects. Version 2.0 is now shipping for $1,995, $700 more than the previous version.
In the new version's Time Layout, users can explode a layer's listing to view keyframe positions of masks and effects, as well as properties such as opacity and scale. Users can copy and paste keyframes alone or in groups and move them in time.
In the Composition window, users can draw and edit motion-control paths using spline tools. "Splines give you the same control over animation that you have over drawing paths in [Adobe] Illustrator," said beta-user Tim Sassoon, principal of Sassoon Film Design in Venice, Calif. In addition, in and out keyframes for motion paths can be interpolated using different methods.
The entire program has been sped up and movie rendering is at least two times faster, the company said. The program now provides real-time wireframe motion preview of multiple layers in a composition, CoSA said.
Improved effects include true motion blur simulating camera shuttle duration and frame blending for smoother slow motion.
Version 2.0 can import as well as output sequenced PICT files. It also now imports and exports Electric Image Animation System files and sequenced Adobe Photoshop files. Users can also export and import keyframe animation to a spreadsheet.
The program now lets users work with low-resolution proxy images that are automatically replaced by high-resolution versions upon rendering.
After Effects users can upgrade to Version 2.0 for $395 before March 1 and $595 thereafter.
The Company of Science & Art is at 14 Imperial Place, Suite 203, Providence, R.I. 02903. Phone (401) 831-2672; fax (401) 831-2675.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
GA Page 22
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
GA: ColorPoint 2 does both dye-sub and wax
By David Morgenstern
San Jose, Calif. - Users can hedge their bets on color printing technology with Seiko Instruments USA Inc.'s new Professional ColorPoint 2 PSF, a $16,499 tabloid-size color printer that supports dye-sublimation and thermal-wax transfer output.
A proprietary print-head design accepts cassettes of either type of ink sheet, automatically configuring itself for the media and inks inserted in the printer. This offers users a choice between thermal-wax output at about $1 per page or dye-sublimation output at about $8 per sheet, the company said.
The printer provides full-bleed CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) or CMY (cyan, magenta, yellow) images to paper and transparencies (see MacWEEK, Oct. 18, 1993, Page 22). Dye-sublimation printing requires the use of a special chemically coated paper.
The Adobe PostScript Level 2 printer comes with 135 Adobe Type 1 fonts and Adobe Systems Inc.'s Super ATM software. The device supports ColorSync, Electronics for Imaging Inc.'s EfiColor and Eastman Kodak Co.'s ColorSense color models.
Using an Intel 33-MHz superscalar RISC processor, the printer can produce a tabloid-size image in 3 minutes, 22 seconds. It comes with 24 Mbytes of RAM and can be upgraded to 136 Mbytes. A 160-Mbyte hard disk, based on the Quantum mechanism, stores fonts and allows virtual memory for large images. The printer also includes an external SCSI port for additional hard drives.
The printer automatically switches among simultaneously active LocalTalk, Centronics parallel and RS-232C serial interfaces. Optional EtherTalk, NetWare and TCP/IP interfaces are available for $699 each.
The company also upgraded the $9,999 letter-size Professional Color-Point PSH dye-sublimation printer, increasing its standard RAM from 16 to 32 Mbytes and adding support for Agfa FotoTune color matching.
Seiko Instruments USA Inc. is at 1130 Ringwood Court, San Jose, Calif. 95131. Phone (408) 922-5835 or (800) 888-0817; fax (408) 922-5835.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
GA Page 22
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
BusinessWatch: On-line market welcomes eWorld
Apple's interface, cost may claim new users
By Kirsten L. Parkinson
San Francisco - Apple's new on-line service may still be vaporware, but industry observers have already said that eWorld will help boost the on-line market by drawing in new, inexperienced users.
While there is an installed base of about 25 million personal computers in U.S. homes, only 4 million of the households use an on-line service, according to Brian Ek, director of communications for Prodigy Services Co., an on-line service company in White Plains, N.Y.
"We think it's great [that Apple is] coming in because the marketplace needs another player that is going to put serious marketing dollars into building consumer awareness," Ek said. "Any advertisement that increases the number of on-line users helps everyone in the market."
Peter Friedman, director of Apple's Online Services, said eWorld is initially aimed at the "end-user professional," who will use the system both for business and personal reasons.
"We see this as a market in its infancy that is going to experience explosive growth," Friedman said. "Most of our customers will come from new growth, people who haven't used these services before."
Corporate system administrators agreed, saying that they view eWorld as a lower-cost alternative to AppleLink for nontechnical business users.
"One of the limiting factors in our using AppleLink is that you can run up a heck of an AppleLink bill," said an information center administrator at a Northeast pharmaceutical manufacturer. "If the cost for being on-line is reduced, it makes the information accessible to more people."
In addition, eWorld's graphical interface, which uses a town metaphor, will help new users navigate around the service, corporate systems administrators said.
"AppleLink is a viable system, but it's very text-based," said Troy Johnson, LAN administrator for Arthur Andersen & Co. in Chicago. "If [Apple] can make [eWorld] more graphical, it would be better for everyone."
However, observers said the simple interface will have to be backed up by solid content to win over serious-minded business users.
"The look of [eWorld] is a little more consumer than business," said the pharmaceutical administrator. "Will [business users] be turned off by it being sort of cutesy? The benefit behind the pictures will determine who uses it."
Other users said the overload of information contained on services such as eWorld discourages beginning users.
"There's too much information on these services, and it's too hard to filter through the crud and find what's really useful," said Robert Ralston of the technology resources department at the University of California at Davis. "I'm looking for a system where it's easy to distinguish."
MacWEEK 01.17.94
BusinessWatch Page 28
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
BusinessWatch: Mirror abandons Mac market
By Jon Swartz
St. Paul, Minn. - Mirror Technologies Inc., hamstrung by mounting losses and intensifying competition, has exited the Mac market.
The 9-year-old peripherals manufacturer - best known for its Tornado 24-bit graphics board, Mirror Color Scanner and a stable of PowerBook display cards it acquired from Envisio Inc. in November 1992 (see MacWEEK, Nov. 23, 1992, Page 48) - sold its product line to MacUSA Inc. for an undisclosed amount.
The companies are also negotiating MacUSA's possible buyout of Mirror, according to Mirror CEO Stephen Schewe.
"We're pumped [about the deal]," Schewe said. "It's a great opportunity for both companies: We get to continue our product line and MacUSA grows its business."
MacUSA, based in nearby Edina, Minn., has taken over service and support for Mirror's and Envisio's products and has vowed to continue product development for both lines. MacUSA offers its products through 4,000 dealers nationwide and its DTP Direct catalog, said MacUSA CEO Joel Ronning.
As a result of the deal, Mirror this month transferred 11 employees from technical support and sales to MacUSA. An additional dozen administrative jobs were eliminated, leaving eight full-time employees at Mirror, Schewe said.
Plagued by delays in new product development and stiff market competition, Mirror lost $1.5 million on sales of $5 million for the first six months of its fiscal 1993 year ended Sept. 30.
Ronning said he expects the 63-person MacUSA to post a profit on sales of about $50 million this year.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
BusinessWatch Page 28
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Review: PIM lets you Arrange information
Program integrates many tools for organizing and linking data
By Ross Scott Rubin
Seeking to let users structure their own personal information managers, Common Knowledge Inc. last month released Arrange, a flexible and customizable organizational tool. The $229 PIM borrows elements from databases, spreadsheets, outliners and other information managers.
Taking note
The building blocks of Arrange documents are notes, which are groups of fields similar to records in databases. But unlike databases, which have the same number of fields in every record, Arrange lets you add or remove fields on a note-by-note or batch-style basis. For instance, if only a few of your contacts have fax numbers, you can insert a fax field in only those contacts and not waste space with a lot of empty fax fields.
Notes, which are placed into lists called topics, are based on note types. As a rule, note types should include only the fields you think will be common to all records. Arrange stores note types on a "shelf" in the lower left of its window for easy insertion into the document. You can also insert and edit note types and fields through the note and field catalogs, which are accessed from the program's tool bar. While helpful, these windows would be even more useful as floating palettes.
Aid to entry
Like many databases, Arrange includes field types for text, pictures, dates, times and even binary files. Fields can be listed in any order or moved into different notes or note types. Arrange comes with several predefined note types, such as contacts, appointments and to-dos, but you can customize the fields they contain or add new fields. You can even convert notes to different note types after you place data in them.
Arrange's most unusual field type is the note link. When you enter the partial contents of a note link field and press Return, Arrange searches the document for matches. If it finds a match in a note, it automatically attaches that note to the parent note. The change is reflected wherever either note is used in a document. For example, if you link a contact note to a to-do note, you can easily access or dynamically update one from the other. All appearances of either note will reflect the link, regardless of whether they appear in the same topic.
Data-entry aids are helpful but not comprehensive. Fields that regularly contain common information can be entered via a pop-up menu as in Claris Corp.'s FileMaker Pro, and most fields can have default values. Arrange lacks a clairvoyance feature to finish typing phrases that match those that have already been entered, although it uses this feature in other areas, such as searching for a particular field. Also absent are options for automatically capitalizing names or parsing phone numbers.
On the other hand, the program sports a slick means of entering dates and times. Clicking a date pop-up icon reveals a two-month calendar that lets you quickly select a date in the upcoming weeks. More imaginative is the time pop-up icon, which reveals a large dial dividing the day into a.m. and p.m. By dragging around the circle, you can quickly select a time of day in 15-minute intervals.
Summary judgment
When you create a note, certain fields can be used in a summary line that appears above the note. Summary lines can be automatically generated or manually constructed. Notes can be on the top level of the outline or inserted down a level, in which case they become subnotes that travel with the note. Arrange's outlines consist of hierarchical lists of summary lines. These outlines, in turn, are further organized into topics and folders that appear in a contents area in the upper left of the window.
You can define a default note type for any topic or insert any note type into any topic; for instance, a to-do into a list of contacts. Because clicking on a note's icon, outline arrow and summary line all have different effects, it takes some practice to remember which actions do what.
If you choose to view topics in a tabular list, Arrange's outlines resemble those in Attain Corp.'s In Control. Unlike rows in In Control, though, Arrange's summary lines cannot be edited directly nor can they wrap words to a given column width. Expanding a note with many fields can be annoying, as you have to scan the screen twice for the information you want to change.
Outlines can be collapsed, expanded, sorted up to four levels and filtered so that only notes that meet multiple criteria appear. The resulting outlines can be preserved as views, which can be dynamically or manually updated, or frozen altogether, as information in its notes is changed elsewhere in Arrange. You can also easily rename or access Views from a pop-up menu in the contents area.
The monthly menace
For nearly any kind of list-based data, such as contacts and to-dos, Arrange's outlines work very well. But the paradigm's usefulness breaks down slightly when it's applied toward managing a calendar. While Arrange's calendar interface provides good controls for selecting monthly and weekly views, its scheduling lacks important functionality, such as repeating events and reminder alarms, even when Arrange is open.
The summary lines that work well in daily and weekly views fall short in the monthly view. Multiday events appear only on the day they begin, and weekends cannot be excluded. Arrange does let you hide its interface amenities to provide maximum viewing area, but the lack of word wrap in the summary line greatly limits what Arrange can display in month view.
Performance
With slightly more than 100 notes in a contact topic, our test searches, sorts and look-ups caused a slight delay on a Quadra 800; speed could be an issue, but not a hindrance, on 68000-based Macs. Arrange's search methods are very versatile; there are at least six ways to search for information. Options include replacing found text or selecting all notes that meet a specific criteria.
Like other PIMs that incorporate smaller, more focused utilities, Arrange is fairly RAM-intensive, at a suggested partition of 2.5 Mbytes. PowerBook users will notice that Arrange is light on disk access; its automatic save feature can be adjusted or turned off. Password protection and file reconciliation features should also score points with nomadic users.
As a new entrant in the crowded PIM race, Arrange smartly supports importing from 13 other Mac PIMs. The Import feature lets you preview the first few records of a file and adjust your import template accordingly. Nevertheless, importing was predictably tricky from a free-form contact manager, and the tedious manual cleanup made us wish Arrange supported scripting languages such as AppleScript or UserLand Frontier.
A less conventional method of getting information into Arrange is through a system extension called the Grabber, similar to the Snap! control panel in Advanced Software Inc.'s InTouch. If you select text or graphics and then press a hot key, the selection is either brought into Arrange (if the application is open), or stored for later inclusion (if Arrange is closed). While the Grabber worked well, we'd like more control over where grabbed information appears and, more importantly, access to notes without having to open Arrange.
Documentation and support
Arrange comes with a getting started manual and a user's guide that should help with some of the program's more esoteric options. On-line help, provided in an Arrange document and as balloon help, provides useful tips.
Toll-free technical support is exemplary. Often, the first person who answered the phone could provide informed answers. In one instance, a representative immediately identified a bug that can prevent icons from appearing when the monitor depth is set to more than 256 colors and offered to send a fix as soon as it was available.
Conclusions
Arrange nicely balances the superior manipulation and sorting capabilities of a structured, fielded information manager such as Portfolio Software Inc.'s Dynodex with the flexibility and unfettered data entry of a nonstructured offering such as InTouch. Better still, it lets you combine these approaches within a single file, using whatever approach best suits the information management you need.
True to its name, Arrange's greatest strength is how easily it lets you view, find and link disparate kinds of information. To fully exploit Arrange you must invest some time studying its depth of features. And customizing it can be time-consuming, but the payoff is worth the effort. With improvements to its calendar and more flexible external access to its data, Arrange may convince you that the PIM that best suits your needs is the one you create yourself.
Common Knowledge Inc. is at 124 University Ave., Palo Alto, Calif. 94301. Phone (415) 325-9900; fax (415) 325-9600.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
Reviews Page 35
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Review: Apple image editor takes easy approach
PhotoFlash offers browsing, scripting
By Ben Long
Figuring that many users don't need the capabilities of a full-blown image-editing program such as Adobe Photoshop or Fractal Design Inc.'s ColorStudio, Apple has released PhotoFlash, a basic image editor and browser with extensive AppleScript support.
Designed to let you easily scan, touch up and place a photo in a page-layout application, PhotoFlash is targeted at users who want to get high-quality scans into their layouts without a lot of hassle.
The $279 program consists of two separate applications: the PhotoFlash Browser, developed by AXS Inc., and the main PhotoFlash application, co-developed by Apple and Storm Technology Inc.
No thanks, just browsing
The Browser lets you easily catalog and access a collection of images. You can create an image collection by dropping a folder, hard disk or even an entire CD-ROM onto the Browser icon in the Finder. The Browser automatically starts up, scans your selection for images and displays thumbnails of the images in the Browser's main window, the Collection window. PhotoFlash can read Desktop Color Separation, Encapsulated PostScript, JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), EPS-JPEG, PICT, PICT-JPEG, TIFF, TIFF-JPEG, Photo CD, Adobe Photoshop 2.0, Photoshop 2.5 and EPS line art file formats.
You can add images to the collection from within the Browser or by returning to the Finder and dragging more folders or volumes onto the Browser icon.
Browser trouble
Unfortunately, the Browser can have only one collection, so you can't save one collection and start a new one. Consequently, you can't categorize your photos by subject or topic; they all simply reside in the same collection.
Once your images are in the Collection window, you can view them by name or thumbnail. You can sort thumbnails by name or the date they were last saved, and you can attach captions to them.
Next to the Collection window is the Browser's Droplet palette, which holds AppleScript scripts called Droplets that automate Browser tasks. The Browser comes with droplets for opening the main PhotoFlash application, building thumbnails, printing an image and automatically placing an image in a QuarkXPress 3.2 or Aldus PageMaker 5.0 document. You can script and place additional droplets in empty slots in the Droplet palette. You can also add application icons to instantly launch other applications from the palette.
In a violation of the Macintosh interface, the Droplet palette does not work like a normal tool palette. Rather than clicking on a thumbnail and then clicking on the droplet of your choice, you must drag the thumbnail onto the appropriate droplet. Not only is this non-intuitive, but it forces you to engage in excessive dragging, rather than just pointing and clicking.
Once you've browsed your images and found one you want to use, you double-click on it to automatically open the document in the main PhotoFlash application. (In another odd deviation from the Mac interface, you select multiple objects by using the Option key or the Shift key, depending on whether the desired thumbnails are adjacent to one another.)
Image editing
Photoshop users may find PhotoFlash to be a rather wimpy program, but for quickly scanning an image and cleaning it up, PhotoFlash is a much simpler, faster solution than a more feature-laden image editor.
Because the program fully supports Photoshop plug-ins, you can easily scan images directly into PhotoFlash from any device with a Photoshop-compatible acquire filter. PhotoFlash supports all major Mac formats and has an excellent interface for opening Photo CD images.
Once your image is open in PhotoFlash, you can straighten it, rotate it, sharpen or blur it, remove scratches and dust, resize it, or change its resolution using the program's simple tools and commands.
PhotoFlash's tool palette lets you choose both a selection tool (marquee, lasso, magic wand or polygon) and an "action" tool at the same time. This single feature can save countless miles of extra mousing because you don't have to switch back and forth from selecting an area to performing an operation on it.
PhotoFlash's most impressive features are its scratch- and dust-removal tools. After selecting an area with a selection tool, a simple click on the DeDust or DeScratch tools will clean the area. You can set the tolerances for both tools easily by double-clicking on the tool and moving a slider.
Also of note is the program's Straighten tool, which is speedy and has the best interface for this type of rotation that we've ever seen. Other features include blur and sharpen tools, contrast adjustment, exposure balancing control and Photoshop filter compatibility. In addition, the program has an excellent JPEG compression feature that lets you use different JPEG settings for different parts of an image.
Constructive criticism
Although both the DeScratch and DeDust tools do an excellent job and operate very quickly, they still may not be able to remove all imperfections from an image. It would be nice if PhotoFlash had a simple smudge or clone tool, such as those in Photoshop, for removing the few glitches that the program's other tools can't deal with.
Another nice addition would be better color controls than the program's simple contrast and saturation controls. While most users will probably be satisfied with the existing color-adjustment features, PhotoFlash would be much more powerful if it included a method of adjusting individual RGB (red, green, blue) channels. Users who need this kind of color control will have to use another image-editing program.
Script, please
Both the Browser and the PhotoFlash application provide extensive AppleScript support. You can add AppleScript scripts to the Browser's Droplet palette simply by placing the scripts into the Droplet folder inside the Browser folder.
The PhotoFlash application provides complete AppleScript recordability through its Script Recorder, which you access from the Script menu. Just click the Record button, perform your actions and then save the script. Once you've created a script, you can run it on an individual document or entire batches, letting you easily process groups of images. For knowledgeable AppleScript programmers, PhotoFlash also includes a simple Script Editor for viewing and editing your scripts.
To use the program's pre-built scripts for placing an image in a PageMaker 5 or QuarkXPress 3.2 document, the layout program and document must be open in the background. By selecting the image - either in the Browser or in the main application - and executing the script, your image will automatically appear in your layout program. Whether this is any easier than just importing the image from your layout application is debatable, but novice users may find the PhotoFlash process simpler.
Documentation and support
Apple's documentation is short but comprehensive. Sample files and simple tutorials are presented to get you started quickly, but most users will probably fare well without looking at the documentation.
The manual does not go into detail about AppleScript (beyond the instructions for using the program's Script Recorder), so you will have to turn elsewhere if you intend to create complex AppleScript routines.
Conclusions
With its decent tool set, PhotoFlash lets you do most of the simple image retouchings that you can perform with more sophisticated programs such as Photoshop. Although the program's Browser is not very useful and has interface problems, PhotoFlash is a good solution for those who need a simple way to clean up scanned images and place them in layout programs.
Apple is at 20525 Mariani Ave., Cupertino, Calif. 95014. Phone (408) 996-1010 or (800) 776-2333; fax (408) 974-9974.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
Reviews Page 35
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
ProductWatch: Finding an OCR/scan package
Improved technology, lower prices make OCR a good buy for business users.
By Cliff Lehman
Lower prices in the past year have made optical character recognition a more affordable option for business users. In addition, Hewlett-Packard Co. and several OCR vendors have improved technology that cleans up and enhances images, making it easier for OCR programs to convert scans to text and to retain text formats, page formats and images of the original in a single digital document.
Making it easy
OCR scanning improves greatly with the addition of image-enhancement measures, such as HP's AccuPage. This technology, which is usually found on higher-end scanners dedicated to OCR or document-imaging tasks, relies on dynamic threshold adjustments to eliminate spots, shading, lines and other artifacts that hinder character recognition. Several leading OCR packages support AccuPage. Fujitsu Computer Products of America Inc., with its ScanPartner 10, is the only other scanner vendor that offers image enhancement at the desktop level.
Victor Salvucci, an associate in the Freelance Association, a cooperative of free-lance graphic artists in Boston, scans press releases with a ScanJet IIcx and converts them to digital text with Caere Corp.'s OmniPage.
"I've used several other scanners, and I've stuck with this one," Salvucci said. "HP's AccuPage was the best and AccuPage 2.0 is even better. It's fast and accurate."
OCR vendors are also implementing technology to improve accuracy and provide page-format retention and forms recognition. Caere's OmniPage Professional 5.0 uses 3-D OCR and True Page technology; CTA Inc.'s TextPert implements automatic forms detection, noise reduction and lines elimination; and ExperVision Inc.'s TypeReader uses fragment analysis and page-layout and type-format retention. Most OCR packages now have features that help eliminate user interaction with the software, such as the ReadASAP feature found in Olduvai Corp.'s Read-It! O.C.R. Pro, which lets users drag and drop files onto a special icon for automatic character recognition.
Choosing a scanner
The first step in choosing an OCR scanner depends on the tasks you need to accomplish. If you only occasionally scan text for either OCR purposes or graphics, your needs may be met by a handheld scanner.
When scanning becomes an everyday event, consider a flatbed scanner and assess the balance between art and OCR tasks as well as the nature of your end product. If you regularly scan batches of text documents, you must look at the availability and capacity of an automatic document feeder (ADF).
Finally, if you are creating a system for scanning and storing large numbers of documents, you may want to consider moving to higher-end desktop scanner alternatives and building a document-management system. Fujitsu, for instance, added SCSI support to its 20- and 39-page-per-minute scanners last February. In keeping with the company's belief that document-management capabilities drive scanner sales, Fujitsu also offers a bundle for its ScanPartner 10 that includes the 10-ppm machine, a 50-page ADF and Optix document-management software from Blueridge Technologies Inc. of Flint Hill, Va.
Gray scale
Gray-scale scanners are the least expensive route to OCR. The lowest-price gray-scale scanners, both of which come bundled with OCR software, are New DEST Corp.'s $799 Personal Scan, which includes a 10-sheet ADF, and Microtek Lab Inc.'s $1,148 ScanMaker IIG, with an optional 50-sheet ADF.
Businesses that mainly use a scanner for text recognition or document imaging may occasionally want to scan color images and opt for a color scanner to cover both areas. There are several color scanners with optional ADFs available for about $1,500, but they do not include OCR software.
A color scanner may make sense even if you won't be doing color scanning. HP's color ScanJet IIcx, for example, is faster than its gray-scale ScanJet IIp (8-ppm vs. 6-ppm) and its ADF option holds more paper (50 pages vs. 30 pages).
For Doug Roesener, a video specialist and informal OCR specialist at Communications World International Inc. in Englewood, Colo., the ScanJet IIc's speed, as well as the increased OCR accuracy he found with AccuPage, sold him on the recent predecessor to the ScanJet IIcx. He decided the scanner's one-pass color capability would best serve him for images.
Roesener's initial use for the scanner was to input and convert hard copies of scripts from free-lance writers as quickly as possible. For spreadsheets and other business documents, Roesener's priority is accuracy. "Some of the things I'm doing on the corporate level include a lot of numbers, and it's a matter of needing to be pretty [accurate] the first time," he said. Roesener credits HP's AccuPage and ExperVision's TypeReader OCR package for giving him both speed and accuracy.
Automatic document feeders
An ADF is essential in instances where large numbers of documents must be scanned and converted to text, and most flatbed scanner vendors offer an ADF as part of their lineup. ADFs in the Mac market can hold between 10 and 50 pages. There are two basic types of ADF - scroll feeders and whole-sheet feeders.
Normally a flatbed scanner moves the scanning head past the paper as it rests on the glass platen. Scroll feeders, such as Microtek's, lock the scanning head in place and move the paper past it. Whole-sheet ADFs, such as those from HP, move the entire sheet onto the platen and then move the scanning head past the page. Scroll feeders can be nominally faster than whole-sheet ADFs but can present their own problems.
One user of the Microtek ScanMaker IIXE scanner and ADF reported problems with decaying OCR accuracy when using its ADF. "The quality of OCR goes down using the sheet feeder because the ADF uses a scroll-type mechanism with a piece of plastic between the scrolling paper and the platen," said Harry Midgley, managing editor at the Hardcopy Observer, a computer printer industry newsletter in Newton Highlands, Mass. "With use, the plastic degrades and OCR becomes worse. I would have to have a stockpile of hundreds to [perform] OCR effectively."
Microtek said that it has not heard complaints from users over this issue and that the plastic part should be useful for thousands of scans. As insurance, Microtek provides spare plastic pieces with the ADF.
Other users are pleased with Microtek's scanners and ADF. "This is my second Microtek scanner and I couldn't be more pleased," said Terry Hall, a puzzle constructor, in Wheaton, Ill., who creates specialty crosswords. "I got the ScanMaker IIXE because it had an ADF, which is its biggest plus." Hall uses his ScanMaker to scan all or parts of books, magazine and journal articles and then builds databases of specialty words with which he creates his puzzles.
The paperless chase
Inexpensive laser printers made liars of the paperless office pundits, but inexpensive desktop scanners and OCR software may make it easier to manage at least some of that paper.
Prices for scanners seem destined to continue dropping, and, led by HP and Fujitsu, scanning technology will increasingly support and enhance improvements made by OCR software vendors. It adds up to an opportunity that increasing numbers of managers may want to explore: the capability to cheaply and quickly digitize paper documents, thus closing the gap between the paper and digital worlds.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
ProductWatch Page 41
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Mac the Knife: If IBM could make a PowerMac
With a fresh scandal brewing in Washington, it's good to know that, for the moment at least, Russia and the United States have agreed to aim their many nuclear weapons at the ocean rather than each other, while the mighty Ukraine arsenal is now slated for oblivion. Few would have dared to imagine such a turn of events just a few years ago.
But this might very well become known as the age when the unimagined became reality. This trend is afoot in our own industry as well. For example, last fall the Knife was inundated with rumors that IBM was negotiating with Apple to license AppleTalk for inclusion in at least some of its own PowerPC-based machines. All leads seemed to be dead, but for some reason, the Knife was reluctant to abandon the pursuit, even in the face of persistent denials.
Nothing is yet nailed down, but in the course of his investigation the Knife did discover a related rumor currently circulating among the hallways and cubicles of Apple. According to sources, Apple and IBM are engaged in discussions that could lead to IBM assuming responsibility for manufacturing PowerMacs sometime this fall.
While the irony of such an agreement is self-evident, the reasoning behind it is quite compelling. IBM is already one of the largest logic-board manufacturers and, as such, is better able than Apple to deliver with the short lead times that this year's avalanche of new product models will require. At the very least, such an arrangement could help Apple avoid repeating last year's excess inventory problems.
On the other hand, several observers pointed out to the Knife that IBM has not been without a few manufacturing snafus of its own. Its popular ThinkPad, for instance, proved to be a lot harder to manufacture in sufficient and reliable quantities than IBM had expected. On the other hand, there is no law that prevents a company from learning from its many, many mistakes.
Wild, wild life
As the April debut of the new '040 Duos approaches, Apple is well aware that any 680x0 machine will be less compelling with PowerMacs on the way, which is probably why it has been preparing the March introduction of the '040 Duos with such care. To avoid flat sales as buyers wait for RISC, Apple has decided to announce that these Duos will be upgradable with a PowerMac daughterboard. In fact, starting with the March announcements, all subsequent Duos and PowerBooks will be upgradable to PowerPC.
Emulate this
Last week the Knife reported that Bill Gates thinks that Chicago, the next version of Windows, will finally obviate the Mac advantage. Based on a version running on a Pentium hidden in the dark nether world of an Intel suite at the recent expo in San Francisco, part of his reasoning is based on the fact that Chicago looks more like the Finder than would have been prudent before the suit was settled. A head-to-head comparison running a knockoff of the familiar demo rendering application showed that a Pentium running Chicago was faster than a PowerMac running Windows 3.1.
Class reunion
If Apple hired you between 1976 and 1984, you will no doubt be interested to learn that your presence is requested at the 1994 Apple Reunion, an event not associated with Apple itself. It's to be held at a fancy San Jose, Calif., hotel in May, so call (510) 623-2056 soon to make your reservation, or you'll miss out on the fun. According to the brochure that fell into the Knife's hands, the 1989 model of this event was the talk of San Quentin.
Sharing with the Knife is usually a sight less dangerous than speculating in Arkansas real estate, and you earn a MacWEEK mug in the deal tax free. Start wheeling and dealing at (415) 243-3544, fax (415) 243-3650, Internet (mac_the_knife@macweek.ziff.com), AppleLink (MacWEEK) or CompuServe/ZiffNet/Mac.
MacWEEK 01.17.94
Mac the Knife Page 82
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
