For MacOS Users Only!

's new banner contest attracted more entries than I had expected. Many thanks to all of you creative folks out there for taking the time to prepare an entry to jazz up this site a bit. If you didn't receive a thank you note in reply, I may not have gotten your entry so please resend it. Somehow my email is not being relayed by my ISP. Surprisingly, no one entered a banner that played off the simple domain name "MacsOnly." Of all the entries, I have trouble picking between two as an alternative to the current one so I'd like your help. Please click here to see the top five entries and then vote for your favorite to help me make a decision.

Our vacation included a transfer at London's Heathrow Airport so I raided W. H. Smith's for a copy of each of their UK Mac- or internet-related computer magazines. [BTW, this part of our vacation included two flights from hell, virtually literally, on a well-known British airline. I now have a first-hand idea of what the ranking officer among the prisoners in the movie "Bridge Over the River Kwai" must have experienced while locked in that metal box in the sun, albeit for only hours.] Back on the subject, my purchases included MACFORMAT, Macworld (UK Edition) and .net.

• MACFORMAT is a very informative magazine, written in delightfully-English English with an average circulation of 43,680. Unfortunately, the annual subscription rate is about $98 but that includes a chock-full CD with each issue.
• Advertised prices of hardware (e.g. MacZone 6400/180 @ $1469 vs $999 in the U.S.), software and internet access seem to be higher in the UK. I "discovered" two Mac cloners, Computer Warehouse (UK) (also see Macworld article about U.S. marketing) and Pios (Germany), that sell 604e/200MHz computers for $1646 and $2138 respectively.
• Unlike all internet magazines in the U.S., .net has well-balanced coverage of Windows and Mac stuff and included a booklet on its 1997 UK Web Awards. To give you some idea of the mag's culture, the reader's choice awards went to Spice Girls @ Spice Net (1st), Liverpool -- The Mighty Reds (2nd), and The Internet Movies Database (3rd).