Info Manager

Info Manager for June 16, 2003

[*]   61% of US Internet Households Own Scanner

[*]   Aladdin ships Spring Cleaning 6

[*]   Some States Are Not Following Internet Tax Ban

[*]   Sun is pushing for more Java phone apps.

[*]   AOL 9.0 announced for Windows

[*]   Maryland Apple Corps 25th Anniversary Movie

[*]   Pink notebook computer?

[*]   "Can Apple Break the 5 Percent Barrier?"

[*]   PC Makers to have a bad year

[*]   AOL to have a music store by end of the year

[*]   SBC counters Verizon DSL

[*]   Quark CEO Apologizes for Delay

[*]   Microsoft to kill Linux antivirus product

[*]   SLOW .mac email service

[*]   Woz Interview

[*]   It appears to be official: No more updates to Internet Explorer

[*]   Quote: Elbert Hubbard
 

61% of US Internet Households Own Scanner

This is in a report by InfoTrends Research Group. (49% with flatbed and 18% with an all-in-one.) Personally I think that Mac Internet users with scanners would be even higher. To see a release on this report and others go to:
http://www.infotrends-rgi.com/press/index.html

Aladdin ships Spring Cleaning 6

Aladdin Systems Inc. has released Spring Cleaning 6.0. I have never been a supporter of Spring Cleaning. (You should see my closets.) But Aladdin keeps adding support for new ways to clean your hard drive. It seems to becoming more and more useful. Just be careful not to trash a file unless you know it is something you don't need. It is easy to mess things up otherwise. Besides its old functions of uninstalling software and removal of duplicate files, Spring Cleaning does much more. Including removal of Internet cookies, and history as well as cache file management. It can even remove cookies associated with Sherlock. (I didn't even know that Sherlock collected cookies.) It also can remove unneeded language files. It needs Mac OS 9.1 or Mac OS X 10.1. More details at Aladdin:
http://www.aladdinsys.com

Some States Are Not Following Internet Tax Ban

According to the Washington Post, some states are starting to tax companies that provide Internet service. We are not talking about collecting sales tax. That is permissible under the Federal ban. What we are talking about is the taxing of ISPs and those who provide cabling and connections. That is suppose to be a no-no. However, states are desperate for additional income. Full story at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33787-2003Jun9.html

Sun is pushing for more Java phone apps.

According to the Wall Street Journal, we will have more games and other apps, because Sun is getting more and more phones powered by Java. So it is now designing an "Java Inside" marketing campaign. We will have to see how it goes.

AOL 9.0 announced for Windows

AOL is starting to list some features of its version 9.0 software. Hopefully it won't take as long to get an OS X version as it did with 8. Features include: adaptive spam and URL-filtering, and even a feature to address instant messaging (IM) spam. Additionally, there will be enhanced parental control. For the full story:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/06/09/HNaolsafety_1.html

Maryland Apple Corps 25th Anniversary Movie

Steve Wozniak was the keynote speaker and UGN's own Fred Showker presented the club with a plaque certifying their 25 years of Apple and Mac user service. See part one at:
http://homepage.mac.com/>

Pink notebook computer?

Gateway has announced that they will be selling a pink notebook computer like the one used in Legally Blond 2 later this summer. Can you imagine what Devorak will say about this one? There is a picture with the story at:
http://news.com.com/2100-1042-1011525.html?tag=nl

"Can Apple Break the 5 Percent Barrier?"

E-Commerce quotes a number of people from the Mac web in an article with the above title. The quote I found most interesting was of Adam Engst, where they said "Adam Engst, publisher of the Mac community newsletter TidBits, told the E-Commerce Times that he believes the company is not concerned with breaking a certain percentage of market share.
      'Apple wouldn't complain if it happened, but they're not making the kind of marketing moves necessary to increase market share," he said, "probably because those moves generally hurt revenues, and revenues are what matter in the end.' "
      In some ways, what he says makes sense, but I can't help but feel that it was taken out of context and didn't convey the full meaning of his words. Read this story at:
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/21668.html

PC Makers to have a bad year

E-Commerce Times also reported on the IDC report that worldwide PC shipments are now forecast to grow 6.3 percent in 2003 and 10.3 percent in 2004. While that is a recovery, it is fall short of the growth rates of the 90s and actual sales dollars will decrease in 2003 from 2002 because of price reductions made to spur demand. These companies will be fighting over market share for sure. Full story at:
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/21675.html

AOL to have a music store by end of the year

According to CBS Market Watch, Bill Wilson, general manager of AOL Music has announced their plans for a music story similar to the iTunes Music Store by the end of the year. Others looking at similar services are Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO), Amazon.com (AMZN) and Viacom's (VIA) MTV. For the Reuter's story on these new competitors see:
http://biz.yahoo.com/

SBC counters Verizon DSL

According to The Edge SBC has announced a promotional offer for SBC Yahoo DSL of $29.95 per month with a one-year term commitment. This price reduction follows a recent similar move by Verizon, which lowered its DSL price to $34.95 per month from $49.95 and upped the speed from 768K bit/sec to 1.5M bit/sec. This service is available at $29.95 in a bundle with Verizon local and long-distance services. This promotion is short lived and of course available only to new customers. Read about this reduction and other offers at:
http://www.nwfusion.com/cgi-bin/mailto/x.cgi

Quark CEO Apologizes for Delay

Quark's President and CEO Fred Ebrahimi apologized for the late arrival of QuarkXPress 6 ($995, $199 upgrade) for Mac OS X which should be shipping this week. He does say that the productivity increases will be well worth the upgrade price. The feeling is that with OS X providing greater stability and Quark providing new features, users will be much more out of their machines and it will help these commercial enterprises decide to upgrade their hardware and thus get OSX capable machines that work much faster. QuarkXPress 6 introduces a new concept called Projects, which can share text and graphics among up to 24 different Web and print document layouts. For a list of new capabilities and features see the MacAddict article at:
http://www.macaddict.com/news/EpVVkZAp.html

Microsoft to kill Linux antivirus product

According to IDG, Microsoft has announced plans to purchase RAV technology from Romania's GeCAD Software Srl. This will enable them to discontinue the software and they feel encourage people to switch to Windows from Linux. Microsoft is planning on doing the support for the software until current contracts expire. Thus giving them contact with those people to evangelize Windows.
      According to Microsoft, they are interested in the antivirus engine and will be using those programmers to produce a Windows product. Full story at:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/

SLOW .mac email service

According to MacFixIt.com, the BugBear.B virus on PCs has slowed Apple's .Mac e-mail service. I know that I have had a number of messages kicked back to my machine work last week. Apparently the email service was being swamped with messages from PC machines that had the virus. Guess it doesn't pay to have PC friends. This story has been moved to the paid archives, so I don't have a link.

Woz Interview

While the Woz was in Maryland for the Maryland Apple Corp anniversary party, he granted the local newspaper an interview. The Sun Spot News interview is at: (Two parts)
http://www.sunspot.net/

It appears to be official: No more updates to Internet Explorer

MacUser UK is quoting Roz Ho, the general manager of Microsoft's Mac Business Unit as saying that no future versions of Internet Explorer will be released for the Mac. This is because people are expecting browsers to work more tightly with the OS and only Apple can do that on the Mac. Full story at:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/

Quote: Elbert Hubbard

"The path of least resistance is what makes rivers run crooked."
      - Elbert Hubbard

pau

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Also see: MUG NEWS bursts from the AACUG Mac User Guide (MUG)

Note: Features schedule

The InfoManager invites user groups to use his column in full or in pieces in their newsletter. Or add a link to their web site. He would appreciate word that you are doing so however and if you can, please send a pdf version of the newsletter for his perusal. Or provide him with a link. The address is InfoManager@user-groups.net. You can also use that address for feed back.
Note: Features schedule
1st Monday Vendor of the Month; (VOM)
2nd Monday "InfoManager's Humble Opinion (IMHO);
3rd Monday TBA (What would you like to see?)
4th Monday: User Group Tips. (Send them in)
5th Monday: Nothing extra - my day of rest. ;-)
Of course I could make adjustments to this schedule as I see fit and will take suggestions. Have a great week! Note: In light of the new AACUG MUG tabloid publication, I may be changing the above schedule. Please send me your input.
Pau

The Info Manager is a veteran of the UGN (AOL User Groups Forum) and User Group Network. He's been a supporter and volunteer on many, many UGNet and User Group Academy projects. As a long time user group member, he's served as volunteer from Honolulu to Boston and many points in between. Currently working with the Apple Corp of Dallas, the Dallas Mac Pack, Cowtown MUG of Ft. Worth and TUMS (the Tulsa Users of Macintosh Society) doing newsletter articles and the monthly CD-ROM Update. Post a lead Info Manager should follow up on.

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