Apple Computer, the company well-known for making complex
technology easy to use has made a profit in their first fiscal quarter
of this year. The announcement was made at a recent MacWorld
expo. Steve Jobs, who has made some major positive changes to Apple
has also grown a beard. Also at the MacWorld Expo, Apple talked
about QuickTime 3.0, Mac OS 8.1 and some upcoming new G3
Macs. <www.apple.com>
 
The Microsoft Corporation which is well known for buying out companies with technology superior to their own has bought yet another competitor, Hotmail. Hotmail was a company that gave free World Wide Web-based e-mail to people who want it. The key advantage to web-based e-mail is that you can read messages from any computer connected to the Internet (all you need us a username and password), without going through the hassle of setting up an e-mail client. Hotmail will continue as a wholly-owned subsidary of MS.
<www.hotmail.com>
 
The final release version of Mac OS 8.1 has been publicly released to Apple's FTP servers. You can go to: http://www.info.apple.com/ for d/l information.
 
Starting February 1, all software Apple makes that has an Apple logo on it will be distributed by Apple Computer Inc., not the Claris Corporation that used to do it in the past. A key advantage to this deal which unfortunately left 300 Claris personnel looking for jobs is that Apple can cut more costs than ever by adding certain features to, and including with Mac OS systems, products such as ClarisWorks might have required the user to pay extra for, if things had been different.
 
 
The richest man in the world, Bill Gates
himself on February 4, 1998 was the victim of an attack in Belgium. The first attack ever on
such a prominent figure in modern-day society
took place in Belgium. After getting hit in the
face with a cream pie, Bill Gates remains in
critical condition. As this event occured, Mac
users all over the world laughed.
 
 Changes 3.1.1:
•change of resolution marks the picture as changed
•bug with export plug-ins in convert more fixed
•browser will ask before opening 10 or more files at the same time
•import of SKETCH added
•import of MSX2+ added (extension *.S12)
•crash during import of TIFFs with page tag fixed
•use of MacOS 8 tool windows added
•Gamma fade bug on fast machines fixed
•handle point display bug with zoomed images fixed
•qt movie export saves now the alpha channel
•performance of level dialog improved
•convert more: auto convert is now available without a selection
•eraser frame will be shown during erasing
•bug in saving of pictures with more than 256 colors fixed
•batch filters are now sorted alphabetical
•sharpen edges added to batch in convert more
•GraphicConverter will display a note for MBM export with depth that are not supported by the PSION 5
•memory leak during export of large animations as qt movie fixed
•CALS support added
•creation of IRB tag in JPEGs with IPTC record added
•option to set the file creator for saved files added to the prefs
•option for left handed person to the pen tool added
•MBM import bug (light & dark gray) fixed
•support for import of multipage MBMs added
•MBM export bug fixed (wrong header len)
•bug with alert message in JPEG options fixed
•"Don't show again" option to note alerts added
•fixed an error message during drag & drop on 68K machines
in addition, there were around 100 changes in the 3.1 version.
You can get this update at: http://www.lemkesoft.de/files/gc_311_us.hqx
 
ShadowIRC, a relatively new IRC client written by John Bafford <a.k.a. DShadow> was released on March 7, 1998. The readme file states:
Changes in 0.6.3 - 3/6/98
• Fixed a bug calling plugins for CTCP messages. (Wasn't setting the current connection.)
• Fixed a bug in displaying /whois idle times.
• Will now properly handle DCC chats from different connections with the same target nickname.
• ShadowIRC now saves its settings file as "ShadowIRC Preferences" in the Preferences folder.
• Added at least eight numeric commands for SuperChat.
• /ignore can take a list of comma separated ignore maks now.
• Added /notify list. /notify nickname adds someone to the notify list for the current connection, /notify -nickname removes them. /notify also takes a comma or space-delimited list of nicknames.
• Help window now always opens with a white background.
• Fixed a bug that could potentially cause crashes at startup and put garbage into the status line.
• Added two more Dalnet numeric replies.
• Preferences window remembers the active pane when you close and reopen it.
• Added Disconnect DCC Connection option for DCC chat windows. (Closes the DCC connection without closing the window.)
• More bug fixes dealing with situations where a plugin does something that causes a plugin to be called.
• Fixed a cosmetic bug where message windows opened while ShadowIRC was in the background would have their scroll bars active.
 
At the time of this writing, stats for Distributed.Net's 64-bit RC5 challenge were online. The main page, located at <http://www.distributed.net> provides very detailed information about distributed computing and what Team RealMac as well as other teams are trying to accomplish. The url for the stats, which is run on a different computer than that of the main page is located at <http://rc5stats.distributed.net>.
 
Apple Computer Inc., which has been "brutally" attacked by the press in the last few years is finally starting to show a real comeback. Over the weekend, the stock closed at over $22 per share. Within a week of this issue being released, Intel's stock price went down by about $10 on a single day. Maybe what Bob Dylan said ("the loser now will be later to win, because the times, they are changin'") may come true after all…
 
During the 1st week of March, Apple cancelled the Newton MessagePad 2001 and eMate 300 "hand-held devices" Since it's debut in 1995, the Newton MessagePad has received a relatively large people behind it. The eMate 300 which came out in 1997, received the most user interest in areas of education, but never really got off the ground. It is highly likely that a Mac OS version of the eMate will be released later this year, but for now, we can only speculate…
