Newsweek High On New iMacs

in a short article in the October 18 edition. [Dana "Future Man" Baggett]

-- Columbus Day Weekend, Oct. 9-11, 1999 --

[1:00p EDT 10/11] Bugdom 1.0.2 Out: From Pangea's Brian Greenstone, "Just wanted to let you all know that a Bugdom 1.0.2 update and new Bugdom 1.0.2 Demo has been posted to the Pangea Software web site. Bugdom 1.0.2 now has better support for non-ATI 3D cards. Any card which supports RAVE 1.6 should work correctly with the game, however, 3Dfx cards which cannot display 2D and 3D simultaneously will still have the problem that the game's status bar is invisible. Also, as a side note, we have now given away about 100 free Bugdom site licenses through the Bugdom Scholastic Giveaway. We still have 100 site licenses remaining, but most schools seem to think that its too late and they dont have a chance. If you could help spread the word that we still have a lot of free Bugdom site licenses to give away, that would be great! Our Scholastic Giveaway page is here."

[11:00a EDT 10/11] More Mostly Positive Demo Days Reports: From Matt Fosberg at CompUSA in Anchorage, AK; Bob Patterson at CompUSA in West Palm Beach, FL; Anonymous at CompUSA in Rockville, MD; Greg Winters at CompUSA in Tuscon, AZ; plus another bummer at the Sears in Redmond, WA (no product, no knowlegeable managers and a bum's rush given to the assigned Apple Rep.). The biggest problem everywhere seems to be the lack of any products, iBooks and iMacs, to demo and what little was available sold out quickly. Sears seems to have uniformly handled things the poorest.

[11:00a EDT 10/11] Interesting Web Site: Check out Daimler-Chrysler's excellent Macromedia Shockwave/Flash Real Player site announcing its upcoming Chrysler PT Cruiser. One can even download desktop pictures (104 KB) under Fun Stuff-->Wallpaper. [Andrew Starr]

[11:00a EDT 10/11] Steve Jobs Interview On Time.Com is interesting reading. [Dana Baggett via MacNN]

[11:30p EDT 10/10] Current CompuServe Mac Service Not-So-Good as described by a current, very reliable Mac user who wishes to remain anonymous:

"1) Yes, there are a lot more 56K nodes for classic CompuServe now. You can find list here.
2) The CS2000 service associated with the computer giveaway is Windows 95/98 only. It doesn't exist for Mac or Win NT. No information available as to when or if it will. They keep saying better Mac software will happen. Hopefully there will be Mac customers left when they decide to care about us. And I hear AOL5 Mac has been delayed--along with IE5 Mac. (Since CS2000 is based on AOL software, you know what that means....)
3) The only changes in last few YEARS to the not so wonderful CS3 client for Macs has been some code tweeks in client and dialer. And to update icons for branding and upgrade the bundled version of IE. None of tweeks have been enough to rate upping version number from 3.0.3 to even 3.0.4. Some for OS9 being tested. Most sysops tell users to get rid of it and go back to MacCIM 2.4.4. MacNav is not at all happy under OS 8.6 and OS9 will likely make things worse.
4) Host software is being regularly updated for HTML view of forums which is used by latest Mac and Win software including CS2000. Meaning MacCIM 2.4.4 is having more problems. Mac users are prevented in html view from using Netscape to log in as a member but IE works--sort of. Macs can't do chat or upload files in HTML Windows can. Its Redmond-Java and directx stuff in forums. And this is the default mode. (or will be soon for all new members.)
5) Biggest overall upgrades are things they can't really block Macs from--56K, POP3 mail, Web mail, Instant Messanger (no CompuServe branded version for Macs, gotta use AOL branded version), fast download from HTML forums if you have a fast connection--like cable or DSL."

[Maybe Steve Jobs can get Steve Case to improve CompuServe's attention to Mac users.--Bill]

[11:30p EDT 10/10] MacLaunch, A Free Mac Portal With Email Opens Bill Jensen sent the following note he received: "Just wanted to let you know that MacLaunch is now unofficially open. We are still putting the finishing touches on a few features, but feel free to use all the services we currently have available. We will notify you when any new feature goes live. You may go immediately here to start using our FREE service." [I signed up.--Bill]

[11:30p EDT 10/10] New iMac FAQ: From Brock Kyle, "This month, EveryMac.com features complete specs on the new Apple iMac family and a major update to the iMac FAQ."

[11:30p EDT 10/10] More Demo Days Reports: There's the good from Ken Glinka in Chicago, "The Comp USA in Downers Grove IL was GREAT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They had a blueberry iBook, a G4, the new iMac DV playing Bugs Life and three Apple reps." And the not-so-good from Chris Turkel, "My stint as Apple rep is over for another two weeks and my observations mirror yours in regards to Sears; no stock, none that can be ordered on either iBook or iMac. The one iMac they had was in sad shape from customer neglect. The staff at my Sears was lukewarm to iMacs at best, with one individual outright hostile. This seems to stem from lack of knowledge about the iMac and lack of motivation to sell it due to the low comission. I sure could have used the new iMacs this weekend but alas no. May Demo Days part II be better!" And the okay from Atlanta's Ryan Hough, "I went to a Sears later that day and got to play with an iBook! It is so neat! They even had a couple in stock AND the salesman there actually was knowledgeable about it! Another guy was taking some sales classes on it too he said! It is SWEET! I still like my PB G3 a little better though. Nice for students though!"

[4:30p EDT 10/10] Demo Days A Bust? They sure are in the Northern Virginia stores I just visited. Despite Steve Jobs stating last Tuesday that new iMacs would be in stores this weekend, the Fairfax and Tysons Corner CompUSAs had only a blueberry iBook to show plus an Apple rep but no new iMacs nor PowerMac G4s nor fanfare nor crowds. The Fair Oaks Sears had only an iBook in a box that a customer was taking out to have a look at. The Fairfax Micro Center still had only a Yikes PowerMac G4/400 on display. All but the Sears had some 20 iMac 333s on sale for $899. However, this is not the case everywhere since Ryan Hough wrote that a new iMac DV SE was on display in the Atlanta-Cumberland CompUSA but turned off. "I got it running and got 'Bugs Life' playing. AWESOME computer! NO HELP WHATSOEVER to be found in the Mac dept. NONE. I was in there for at least an hour!"

[11:30p EDT] PowerCalc 4.0 is out (shareware). "John Mauro Software is proud to announce the release of PowerCalc 4.0, one of the most powerful and intuitive scientific calculators for Mac OS. It is available for download from the John Mauro Software web site.

[7:30p EDT] Voodoo3 1.0b3 Drivers Are Out and available from 3dfx for download. [VersionTracker] --Update: I installed the new drivers in my B&W G3 with a 3dfx Voodoo3 card and there's no improvement in playability of the games I tested. Quake FTM still doesn't work. Nanosaur is poorly rendered. Unreal has lousy, unreal colors. About half the time a startup resulted in a gray screen.--Bill