In MacWEEK, Henry Norr tested an early production unit of the NewerTECH G3 card for NuBus PowerMacs, the 6100, 7100 and

8100. The result? You're a lucky dog if you kept yours. They're nearly as fast as the new Apple PowerMac G3's for $500-700 in February.

Clifford Colby describes Mac OS 8.1 and reports in MacWEEK that Mac OS 8.1 will be available this week for download, minus Internet Explorer. CD ROMS will be available for $19.95 to $99 depending on what Mac OS you've already bought.

Reader Theodore Koniares writes that the game F/A-18 Hornet v3.01 has sound problems with Mac OS 8 and that Graphic Simulations has not yet planned to fix it. I don't play many games so this may be old news. However, a nice letter to Graphic Simulations asking them to support the Mac platform might help.

From Karen Cassel, "BeatWare, Inc. today released Mail-It 1.0, an email client application for the modern Be Operating System. Mail-It is the third essential productivity application developed by the Menlo Park, CA company. Mail-It was designed to provide BeOS users with the simple interface and critical features they need to send, receive and manage vast amounts of email. Mail-It features include a single-window interface, sophisticated filters for screening incoming messages, support for multiple accounts and a convenient, well-integrated address book for managing email contacts. Mail-it can be purchased via electronic download from Be Depot for $39.00."

Yesterday in three press releases, PowerLogix announced a new and more affordable suite of G3 CPU upgrade cards and two new partnerships. The cards are:

PowerForce G3 233/512K $799
PowerForce G3 250/125/1Mb $999
PowerForce G3 266/177/1Mb $1199
PowerForce G3 275/183/1Mb $1299
PowerForce G3 300/300/1Mb $TBA
All PowerForce G3 models work in the following computers: Apple PowerMac 7300, 7500, 7600, 8500, 8600, 9500, 9600; Power Computing PowerBase, PowerCurve, PowerWave, PowerCenter, PowerCenter Pro, PowerTower, and PowerTower Pro; UMAX/SuperMac S900, and C700.

Techworks will sell PowerLogix G3 CPU upgrade cards under its own brand, PowerCPU, and PowerLogix will provide the G3 cards for the $3,500 DayStar Millenium systems marketed by MacWorks.

In two other press releases yesterday from Mactell, Pat Berry announced (1) the availability of G3 PowerJolt 750 PowerPC cards that are compatible with Mactell's XB-PRO Series computers (The cards cost $899 to $2,795, depending on the model and processor speed.) and (2) that Mactell in partnership with Samsung will produce a Windows NT MediaServer based on the superfast Alpha CPU and with Mac connectivity.

With all these new CPU upgrades, reader Randy Maynard wonders why the 6200 and 6300 series with LC slots have been overlooked so far. What about the PCI Macs without removeable CPU daughtercards? I don't have an answer but since there is a big demand, if there's a way I'm sure it will be found.

From Marc Moini, version 1.1 of Startup Doubler is out. The name describes this helpful utility. It reduces my startup times by about 10 seconds.

From Mark Aiken, "PowerMenu v2.2.1 was released on Monday, January 5th, 1998. PowerMenu is the definitive, comprehensive Contextual Menu utility for MacOS. PowerMenu adds powerful commands to the Finder's Contextual Menu under MacOS 8, and provides its own Contextual Menu for System 7 users."

From Adam Karneboge, "Just a quick note to you that the January (#33) issue of My Mac Magazine is avaliable."