Good News

from Jeff Leigh at my graduate school alma mater, "Along the same lines as the CompUSA/AppleStore, I just wanted your readers to know what difference a year makes. Apple has always attended the Computer Fair here at the University of Washington, but the last few years the number of people at the booth has been pretty small. This year the place was packed. They had at least as many people as Microsoft did, and probably more. Everytime I went by the place was just jammed with people checking out the 20th Anniversary Mac, the new G3s and the Rhapsody demo they had going on."

From Dana Baggett, CNET has an excellent review of web browsing accelerators--the Editor's Choice is Connectix's Surf Express.

From Sylvie Pelaprat, Be OS PR3 for the Intel CPU is out, making the Be OS a dual platform OS. PR3 for the PowerPC will be out April 20th and, hopefully, it will then support the G3 CPU. The cost is $69.95 for now but it will rise to $99.95 later. Those who purchased (the note doesn't say which plan) PR1 or PR2 for the PowerPC CPU will get PR3 free. I love this incredibly fast, now dual platform OS and look forward to its continued development. PR2 was reviewed by Macs Only! here.

From Rich Love, "Carnation Software is glad to announce the immediate availability of Email Checker 1.0. What Does It Do? Email Checker checks your email at specified time intervals using your email program, AppleScript and OpenTransport/PPP. Email programs supported are: Claris Emailer or Claris Emailer Lite, Eudora Pro, Eudora or Eudora Lite and Microsoft Outlook Express."

From Mihai Paparita, "GUI Central, a Mac customization resource, has moved to a new address. The new address is http://cafe.ambrosiasw.com/gui-central/."

MacInTouch 3/20 posted a review of the new Microsoft Office for the Mac.

Hewlett Packard released v9.4.1 of it Deskwriter 600 series print driver. "This driver should eliminate the error dialog "The printer is not responding. Make sure that the current port is selected in the Chooser and that the printer is properly connected and turned on. Click Cancel to terminate printing. " which occurs when trying to print from a G3 system over a serial connection using the existing driver."

Mike Breeden posted his trademark extensive review of Village Tronic's MacPicasso 540/3D Overdrive video card on his Accelerate Your Mac! site. Macs Only! reviewed the MP540/3DO last month but for those truly interested in 3D video cards, I highly recommend Mike's technically very thorough review.