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... see subscription notes below 8/27/99 **** Trip Lite has announce the iUPS colored ... Blueberry for the iMac users. It has 6 outlets and also a telephone port. So you are protected from surges as well as power failures. Trip Lite is one of the better UPS manufacturers. **** WordPerfect 3.5 Mac Corel announced at New York's Mac World Expo that it would post a free version of WordPerfect on its web site by August 16. As of August 19, it wasn't posted. Instead they have a request for an e-mail address so that you will be notified when it becomes available. MacWeek was reporting that Corel will continue to sell a CD-ROM version for $25 that will include clip art and other files not available as part of the download. I would think that for $25 it would be worthwhile to get the CD just for the convenience of installing the software and having a backup. It would appear to me that Corel is planning on having a completely new product for OSX next year. (Note: technical support for WP 3.5 will end in October.) More info http://www.corel.com/products/macintosh/wpmac35/index.htm **** Alpha & Windows 2000 According to the Boston Globe: Compaq is giving up on efforts to make its powerful Alpha processor chips compatible with Windows 2000. Compaq says it has disbanded the 100-person team working on the project and that some of them will likely be laid off. This doesn't bode well for the entire Alpha project. To bad, it left the Pentium chips eating dust. Although with the increased interest in Linux and Unix, perhaps those markets will be enough to support Alpha. **** CHRP System Recently, IBM announce free schematics to build a PowerPC based mother board. A company called Prophet Systems said on Aug 23 that it is going for it. Prophet announced it will deliver an under $1,000 desktop system in the first quarter of 2000 and plans to offer computers that use both the current G3 and the new G4 processors. They will offer open Oses like Linux and Darwin. But they have not obtained a license from Apple and therefore will not offer MacOS. There is some belief that OSX will run on these machines since it is designed to not require Apple ROMs. In any case, the greater the market for PPC chips the better because volume reduces costs. More info at www.macweek.com **** Akamais plans public offereing Akamai, the company into which Apple invested $12.5 million to insure a good "network" for its QuickTime TV is planning a public offereing to raise $86 million. The news stories are now saying that it has 900 servers when Steve Jobs made the announcement at Expo, the number was 200. Have the grown that fast? *** Nisus Moves Users Away from WordPerfect Since Corel has announced that they are discontinuing support (in October) and development of WordPerfect, Nisus Software has announced a competitive upgrade offer on Nisus Writer 5.1.3 for a $59.95 Of course the earlier version of 4.1.6 is still available as a free download. Now those people who don't want to use Microsoft products for any reason have several alternatives. For more info: <http://www.nisus.com/nw/comp_upgrade.asp> **** Motorola brings software modem Motorola announced on 8/24 that they had developed a software modem to be demonstrated on a PC motherboard at the Intel Corp. Developer's Forum in Palm Springs, Calif., the week of August 30. The motherboard-will included a hardware circuit for converting analog signals to digital signals but is otherwise software-based. ... This reminds me of the GeoPort modem that Apple successfully promoted and never successfully updated a few years ago. It was sold as being software upgradable. By the time Apple fulfilled that promise and upgraded it to 28.8, 56K modems were the norm. Hope Motorola is more successful. Although modems in general are giving away to high speed access. Soon the only people needing modems will be notebook users. **** Total Recall Software Suspends Mac sales MacFixIt is reporting that the following message appeared on the Total Recall Software page: "Total Recall Software Suspends Mac sales: Effective August 24 1999, Total Recall Software will discontinue sales of its Macintosh utility software to focus on other projects. Included are MacMedic, Help!, Help! Personal, Help! Network and SpaceMaker. All current subscribers to Total Recall Software products will continue to receive timely updates as agreed. Support and bug fixes will continue until further notice." This is to bad since there was no other product out there like Help! and I have heard nothing but good about it. Unfortunately it was never marketed well. MacMedic on the other hand, had a lot of bad publicity especially with respect to customer service, (earned or not) and that may be the origin of Total Recall's lack of Mac sales. That leaves us pretty much with Symantec's Norton Utilities and Micromat's TechTools Pro. Certainly good substitutes, but a bigger choice is always better. pau Subscribe to Rumors@lists.user-groups.net DIGEST VERSION: rumors-digest@lists.user-groups.net (recommended) rumors-on@lists.user-groups.net 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. 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