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SMUG PICNIC
Well, I wasn't really sure you guys and gals out there got the message, and I suppose I should have walked down each row and whispered in your ears. Regular announcements don't seem to work. Even our new club president did not show up. WE had a great picnic, really good food, really good company, YOU didn't. So there! The weather was perfect, the coals were hot, the drinks were cold, the grass was green. We didn't even talk about Macs all that much. What more can I say?
I announce another picnic elsewhere
in the newsletter, and on the Web pages, I hope! (Ron dragooned me
into doing the newsletter this month. Ouch) 
Basic Black is a simple, incredibly efficient screen saver. It doesn't have whizbang graphics, and thus lets everything blast along at full speed. It's incredibly small - it takes up only four kilobytes of memory after it's loaded, or thereabouts.
If you have purchased system 7.5 and do not have the time or the desire to learn to script, this package provides you with useful utilities to help you take advantage of the power of Applescript. If you are a developer or a dabbler this package provides you with helpful examples that can be used on their own or in your own scripts.
GifBuilder is a scriptable utility for creating animated GIF files.
MacUser's Talking Mouse uses Apple's PlainTalk™text-to-speech synthesis technology to create an on-screen animated character who appears and talks to you throughout the day as you use your Mac. Talking Mouse watches you as you work, and when you pause for awhile (you control how long) pops up and offers a wise or witty comment. The animation of the character actually lip-syncs to the speech spoken by PlainTalk. You can also use AppleScript to tell Talking Mouse to say something specific.
The author designed this game with small children in mind. First it is very simple, one mouse control: move the mouse to move the robot along the ground and press the button to make him fly. When the ball and the Robot line up on top of each other the robot catches the ball and it can then take the ball back to the door of the house. No-one gets hurt and even the ball keeps escaping from the house.
Sleeper is a control panel for desktop Macs that spins down the
hard disk, dims the screen, and powers off Energy Star compliant
monitors after periods of inactivity. Separate "sleep" times can be
set for the different features. Setting up via the control panel is
straightforward, and there is help available by clicking the "Info"
icon.
-PPC Version of previous release
Game where you bet on the snails. Silly, colorful, intended for kids.
Futuristic Picture - Kinda pretty if you like magenta a lot.
Nothing so far.
The Recent Items feature of Apple Menu Options in System 7.5.3 is reportedly incompatible with such programs as Excel 5.0 and Final Draft 4.0. Disabling this option via the control panel's check box also improves performance. (MacInTouch) Personally, I find recent items almost totally useless: usually the application or document I want is not there. Murphy's Law.
Browse on over to http://www.ganson.com/jganson/performa.html to see a good discussion of the 5xxx/6xxx hardware problem.
Need two different ways to use Eudora, but hate to have to reset all your settings each time? Those settings are stored in a file called "Eudora Settings", oddly enough, in your Eudora folder in your System folder. So set it up the way you like for one task, rename Eudora Settings to "task number one" or something equally creative, then change all the settings to what you like for the other task, then rename Eudora Settings to "task number two" or as appropriate. Now put aliases to these two settings files in your Apple Menu, and just click on the one you want, and Eudora will start with that set of settings! NOTE: you will still have only one set of folders and all your mail will get all mixed in together.
System 7.5 allows you to avoid the Special
Menu when shutting down or restarting - just hit the power-on key
(upper right on extended keyboards) - the one you use to start. You
get a dialogue asking if you want to shutdown, restart, or cancel.
Hit Enter to shutdown, R to restart.
You have two choices common to most dialogues: OK and CANCEL. They have keyboard short-cuts: Return, and Command-. (period). The default button, usually OK, has a heavy double line around it. It is not always OK, but hitting Return will always trigger it. Sometimes the ESC key (upper left) will do the Cancel. Of course, every rule is violated by some developer. YMMV.
Suppose you want to start normally but not launch the programs in your STARTUP folder. You can do this easily by holding down the SHIFT key after all the inits have loaded and the blank menu bar appears at the top of the screen (you have a second or two). Another way to have it pause every time before loading the startups, is to get an app you never use, put an alias to it in STARTUP folder, change the name to put it first (initial blanks work fine), then DELETE THE ORIGINAL (or move it off onto a floppy). After that the Mac will pause before loading startup programs, tell you it could not start blankety-blank, and would you like to continue.
(hot link on vendor name -> vendor home page,
hot link on product name -> product page, possible download)
I apologize that the SMUG newsletter editor is unable to fit all of New Releases into the newsletter due to space constraints. Please check the most recent shareware Web page.
APPLE UPDATES:
AppleVision and AtEase
Apple recently released LaserWriter 8.3.4, and now ships the LaserWriter 8.4 printer software with the LaserWriter 12/640 PS printer. It improves thru-put on both PowerPC Macs and 68K Macs.
AppleTalk Remote Access 2.1 is supposed to be out. For a new user, the client software costs $59. You can purchase a disk of the upgrade from 2.0 to 2.1 from Apple ($13), or get it online whenever Apple makes it available. Watch here for a link when I get it.
In a time when every developer releases endless alphas thinly disguised as beta releases (Netscape, Eudora, etc.), now we have endless betas thinly disguised as final releases. Case in point: QuickTime 2.5f12 VERSION 12??!!?!?! But then, we also got word that these are just for developers - that the real, public QuickTime 2.5 should be out Real Soon Now!
Bare Bones Software has updated the commercial version of their BBEdit to 4.0.1
The Claris Emailer 1.1v2 Updater is now available
FileMaker Pro 3.0v3 is now available
And Claris is readying its own Web editor called Home Page (beta), of which I finally obtained a copy. It is pretty spiffy, so far. It expires Oct 1st. Give it a try.
Connectix just announced RAM Doubler 2, which is supposed to ship by August 7 ($99). There's a FAQ with more details (including a reference to Speed Doubler 1.3, which is neither announced nor available as an updater). (MacInTouch)
We keep getting notices of new upgrades to FreePPP 2.5v2b4.
Norman Franke released a new SoundApp 2.1.1 - a Netscape helper.
Fractal Designs recently updated their newly acquired product Ray Dream Designer (and Studio) to version 4.1. They demoed last month.
FWB announced Hard Disk ToolKit 2.0 with IDE support
Gregory Landweber released Aaron 1.4
Microsoft has begun to bundle its Internet Explorer 2.0.1 for Macintosh with Eudora Light. But it is making loud noises about the cool features in version 3. Not to worry - Netscape, who is still beta-testing IT'S version 3b5, is threatening version 4 before year's end!
Microsoft released Word 6.0.1a which does very little beyond 6.0.1:
1.a fix to prevent hanging or type 11 errors when printing using QuickDraw GX.
2.a fix to prevent hanging or type 11 errors when booting a PPC app after launching and quitting out of Word.
If you do lots of math or graphic rendering on your PowerPC, you might benefit from Motorola's math library, LibMoto. Beware of possible conflicts, especially with fax software.
Now has released the July update to the Now Utilities 6.0.
Optima Systems released a new beta of PageSpinner 1.2b3 - with support for frames, QuickTime, and QuickTime VR. But the latest beta I could find was b2
Qualcomm has another Eudora 30b118. Expiration is 1 August
If you just HAVE to do Windoz, you should get updates for SoftWindows 3.0.2 and SoftWindows 95 1.0.2.
Tex-Edit Plus is now in version 1.8 - many, many enhancements.
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other sources credited where known. Trademark credits, where omitted, remain with their owners - updated 20 Jan 99 |
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Basic Black
Finder Scripts
GIF Builder
Talking mouse
RBH -Robot & Ball & House
Sleeper-2.03
Snail Race 1.0
Terra Sea
