News

MetaCreations' Kai's Power Show problems

We've received two reports of problems with Kai's Power Show, both confirmed by MetaCreations.

Dan Holmes claims that Power Show conflicts with RAM Doubler 2, causingvarious freezes (he did not have any problem when using Apple's virtual memory). When he contacted MetaCreations about this, he was told not to use RAM Doubler or virtual memory. In addition, he was told that Speed Doubler 8 may also cause problems. No mention was made of when a fix might be forthcoming.

Christopher Beaver states that a feature described in the Power Show manual is not really in the program: … Read more

BBEdit 4.5.2 security problem with FTP option

Joe Clarke writes: "BBEdit 4.5.2 adds files opened via FTP to the Open Recent... menu. This is a cool feature, but if another user goes to your open recent menu, and selects that document, they can open and change it without entering a username or password. How can this happen? Well, BBEdit stores the password unencrypted in the Preferences file. It also tags the username there so the password is not hard to find. I wrote Bare Bones about this, and they said they'd work on it; but it's been a month now, and no … Read more

Odds & Ends

Quark patch coming Matthew Kelly was told by Quark that another patch for QuarkXPress will be released next month.

PalmPilot Conduit available for the Mac A prerelease version of the Macintosh Conduit Development Kit for the PalmPilot is now available for download. Developers can use it to write plug-ins for synchronizing data between the PalmPilot and a Mac. (Thanks, Omar Shahine).

Apple software in the pipeline Apple seeded developers are getting a look at pre-release versions of AppleShare IP 6.0 and LaserWriter 8.6.

Utilities updates

AbbottChat is free " AbbottChat is a new generation of Internet chat. It allows private chat with almost anyone on the Internet, without logging on to a central chat server. Users can chat 1-on-1, run their own private chat groups, send and broadcast instant messages, and transfer files. It shows who's online, and also has chatbot support, so users can also chat with our customer service robot! AbbottChat is completely free, and replaces our previous AtChat product. It is cross-platform, available for PowerMac and Win95/NT, so users can chat with friends on any computer!

Timbuktu goes cross-platform Netopia … Read more

Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh 5.0: public beta available

An on-line public beta for Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh 5.0 will be active by late today. From Symantec's John Harrison: "In 1998, Symantec AntiVirus for Macintosh (SAM) will join the Norton family of products, officially becoming Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh. Users who send feedback on the beta version will be eligible to win free copies of the release version."

A partial list of new features and fixes:

Auto-repair: Both the application and Auto-Protect can automatically repair viruses if detected LiveUpdate allows easy updates of virus definitions and engine files via the Internet or Modem (not available … Read more

Quicken on the Mac: It's not over yet?

The last chapter of the Quicken saga may still be unwritten. From a MacWEEK article on Steve Jobs speech at the Apple shareholders meeting: "We stumbled with Intuit," Jobs said, claiming it was Apple that had made the mistake by not briefing Intuit on the company's future consumer strategy. Jobs said Intuit was informed of Apple's plans last week, and he implied that Intuit's Mac development efforts are back on track. Jobs said he expected the companies to issue a joint news release sometime next week." MacInTouch has an article by Henry Norr with … Read more

Communicator email disappears: a follow-up

Regarding our item last time about email messages disappearing from Communicator's Inbox, we received numerous replies, mostly confirming the problem. Here are some highlights:

William Brunko suggests: "I made a new folder called Saved Mail in the Message Center, and file my mail there. All mail remains there without any problem."

Cody Charette suggests a possible work-around to get the messages to re-appear: "In Communicator, go to the Messenger Inbox. Then go to the View Menu. The fourth choice down is Messages with a cascading menu to the right. This menu is the key to the … Read more

Problems copying from/to PC formatted floppy disks: follow-up info galore

Many people reported having the problem with copying files to/from PC floppy disks, as covered here last time. Here are several of the comments and suggestions:

Regarding the problem with long file names, Jeff Chandler (from Microsoft) states: "I have seen this happen. Usually it is because the file has a character in the name that the other OS won't allow or can't recognize. Basically it happens because the two platforms use the same character sets for ASCII (roughly characters 0-127) but the upper (also called extended) characters are different. For example, if you name a … Read more

DOS Mounter icon glitch: the solution is coming

Previously, we noted a problem where PC disks mounted with DOS Mounter did not have a PC icon, making it hard to identify that this was a PC formatted disk. A reliable source notes that this is a more general "limitation of Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 8.1. Custom icons provided by device drivers are currently ignored." A solution to this problem will be introduced at Apple's Worldwide Developers' Conference in May.