User group Newsletter Editors: Utilize this content in your newsletter -- PLEASE ... reference The User Group Network UG Network Channel _ / _ NEWS_/ _ The Rumor Manager is looking for your rumors and tidbits... give him a post! ...or subscribe to RUMORS@lists.User-Groups.net 9905 The Rumor Manager Smith Micro Acquires STF Technologies On April 12th, Smith Micro Software, Inc. today announced that it acquired STF Technologies, Inc. stfFax is the best Fax software with Global Village running a close second. Unfortunately, GV software runs on a limited number of modems. This doesn't at first glance appear to be a good thing for us Mac users. Smith Micro has written much of the communications software that come with modems for the Mac and their MacComm Center was poor at best. But the good news is that stf Inc. will be run as a separate division. So maybe now, they will have funds to get rid of some of those irritating bugs and glitches that show up from time to time in stfFAX Pro 5.0. New phone rates Also last month, the FCC announced that the minimal charge of $3.50 for the Subscriber Line Charge can only be place on the first line in a household. So for example, when I lived in Tulsa with a roommate, he would have received the $3.50 charge on his first line. His second line and BOTH my lines would have been charged at $6.07. So be prepared to see your bill go up a few dollars. CE Software Reported a loss for the first quarter of the year. Primarily because its Quickeys 4.0 was late in shipping. By the time you read this, it should be available. I HIGHLY recommend Quickeys for automating regular tasks. For example: Since installing a US Robotics modem, I have not been able to get connected to my ISP with the auto dial feature. (That is start Claris eMailer, tell it to connect and it would launch PPP Connection. So by having Quickeys select the PPP Connect menu item, it is already connected when eMailer does its thing. Thus I can once again have unattended message retrieval. There literally is an unlimited number of uses that Quickeys can be put to. CE Software ISDN Friday, April 16, 1999 will be a day I will remember for a long time. It is the day I received my ISDN line. I will let ya'll know more about it as I get more from it. I had tried to get ADSL which became available I Fort Worth at the end of March (available in Tulsa in the Fall). On March 31st, I got a voice mail from Southwestern Bell, informing me that my current apartment was just too far from my central station to work. So instead of getting an ADSL at about $40 per month, the ISDN will cost $54 for two 64K channels. There would be an additional $8 charge to my ISP per month as well. The recurring charges on ISDN are less expensive than I thought they would be. But the install charges cost me over $600 (including the "modem"). Fortunately, that can be spread out over 8 months and since I am not going to have a metro line, my monthly bill will only be a few dollars more than before until those 8 months are past. Then will actually be cheaper. REALBasic 2.0 <http://www.realsoftware.com/release.html> is available now in $99.95 Standard and $299.95 Professional versions from Real Software Inc. The upgrade to the object-oriented BASIC development tool features Appearance Manager-savvy interface controls; improved support for QuickTime, dial-up Internet access, AppleScript and double-byte characters; and new object-oriented commands. The Pro version also packs a Windows cross-compiler and a single-user database engine. MacOS for Intel? The Register <http://www.theregister.co.uk/990413-000018.html> is quoting a high Intel source, that Apple is working with Intel to port the OSX Server and Client to Merced chip. (It is Intel's 64 bit chip coming in about 2 years). I really can't see how this is going to happen. Jobs said he wanted to simplify Apple's production, not create more problems. Don't expect this to happen. MacOS 8.6 Should be shipping the first week of May. It may even be available for the next TUMS/Cowtown meetings. But it probably won't be out in time for us to get it on the Update CD until June. pau The Rumor 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. 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