User group Newsletter Editors: Utilize this content in your newsletter -- PLEASE ... reference The User Group Network _ / _ UG Network Channel _ / _ NEWS_/ _ Info Manager The Info Manager is looking for your rumors and tidbits... give him a post! ...or subscribe... see subscription notes below . Info Manager - 6/09/Y2K Palm; Nisus Email; Ambrosia CD; Adoption rate; Sealand; Gateway vs Apple **** Palm, on 5/31 has agreed to purchase the calendar service AnyDay.com. I guess they are looking at providing a service to their Palm owners. Hope it is worth the $80 million. AnyDay already was aimed at Palm users. Palm is looking at providing a service with a monthly or even perhaps an hourly rate via wireless connections. Currently AnyDay requires a computer for access and links to the Palm with the standard cradle connection. **** Nisus eMail MacCentral is reporting that Nisus is about to announce (presumably at MacWorld Expo) a new email program. The program really sounds cool and you probably ought to read the complete article. (Nisus does have a good word processing program. Can anyone say "MS Free"). One of the cool things is how well it will integrate with any application that supports drag and drop. See the article at: http://www.maccentral.com/news/0005/31.nisus.shtml or from the horses mouth at: http://www.nisus.com/products/nesy/.) **** Ambrosia Insanely Great Mac is reporting that Ambrosia is giving away its CD5 until the end of June or until they are all gone. Sounds like they have a new game to be announced at MacWorld. But this is a great game company. Grab them while you can. There is a limit of one per customer. See: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/news/promo/ **** Adoption Rate According to an IBM market study quoted in American Demographics magazine's June 2000 issue, The years that it took for 10 million Americans to use the following: Telephone .........38 years Cable TV ..........25 years Fax ...............22 years Personal Computer .7 years CD-ROM ............6 years Cable modem .......6 years (projected) Broadband access ..4.75 years (projected) So you see, progress is indeed speeding up! **** The Principality of Sealand Anyone ever hear of it? The British courts recognized it in 1968. It is owned by "Crown Prince" Roy Bates, a retired British army major who claimed the 10 x 25 yard platform in the North Sea in 1966. A cyber group called Havenco has stated that they will provide privacy to web surfers in this "country". Which is a World War II military fortress six miles off the coast of England. They are putting in high-speed microwave and satellite links. (Sealand has its own currency, stamps and a flag). In theory at least, it is beyond British law and might be attractive to a people who wish to operate beyond the reach of government regulations on e-commerce, banking and gambling and other legalities. It will be interesting to see how this progresses. (Kind of like the old outlaw towns we used to see in those old westerns). Wired has a more detailed story at: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,36749,00.html Of course sealand is on the net at http://www.sealandgov.com/index.html and the cyber group has info available at: http://www.havenco.com/ **** Gateway vs Apple This was forwarded to me by a friend: "When I read the link on CNET, I was drawn to the call out which had the vital stats on Gateway and I was quite surprised by some of the numbers. As an Apple employee, I know many of Apple stats but I got these off BigCharts to show some interesting contrast between our favorite company and Gateway that I think really shows how lean and mean AAPL is." Company .. P/E Employees . 1999-Sales . 1999-Income AAPL 21 . 9,600 .......... 6.134 Bil. .. 601 Mil. GTW 33 . 21,000 ......... 8.646 Bil. .. 428 Mil. What is amazing about this is that while Apple has to do a tremendous amount of R&D in both hardware and software, Gateway is the one that has so many more employees. I don't think that Gateway has that many retail stores to make a big difference, but perhaps. I wonder which company is valued more in capitalization. **** Education Sales International Data Corp said on 6/6 that Apple ranked number on in first quarter educational sales. It captured 26% of the US market and 14% of the world market. (Guess this fall we will get to see how the switch to direct sales for K-12 goes). **** AltaVista AltaVista Company announced on June 5th that it would expand its Free Internet Access program to include support for Macintosh computers. Macintosh users in the United States and Canada can save money with AltaVista's Free Access service, which currently has more than 2.5 million PC users. It is available for download in North America at: http://www.microav.com . It requires a modem and a PowerMac. (G3 recommended). Also requires MacOS 8.0 or higher. Also recommended: 32 MB of RAM, Apple Remote Access and QuickTime. **** Quote of the Week: "One difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't!" -- Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), U.S. clergyman, abolitionist **** Web site of the Week: This week's site is a book store. While it is the third busiest book site on the web, many people don't know of it. I first learned of it from Bob Levitus who, on his web site asks that his books be purchased from them. Apparently they pay better association fees to authors than the others. They also have a different way of organize their products. Check it out at: <http://www.fatbrain.com/> **** Shareware of the week: I picked this up from www.download.com but it is available at all the normal shareware sites. PrintToPDF (Now at version 1.5.4) is a shareware Macintosh printer driver that creates Adobe Acrobat PDF files. With it you can create PDF bookmarks for your section and subsection headings, and URLs can be converted into hot links. This version fixes bugs and adds enhancements to the interface. The shareware registration fee for PrintToPDF is $20. While not as full featured as Adobe Acrobat, it will create simpler files and allow you to create them at a pretty nice price. **** Speaking of Shareware: Rumor has it that the User Group Network is preparing a "Shareware Manager" department similar to the "Info Manager" with new and 'favorite' shareware programs for the Macintosh. It's scheduled to be launched at Macworld Expo New York. The column features news "bursts" sent in by volunteer editors as well as the UG population at large, about shareware programs. User group newsletter editors can reprint the 'bursts' in their local newsletters, and UG members can utilize the online resources to jump directly into the shareware site, unlike the URL-shrouded, ecommerce shareware resellers. Could be fun... more news later. pau **** Don't forget For User Group Newsletter Editors there's a TEXT version of this file available for use in your newletter. Any suggestions for topics and reports of rumors are always welcome. Please me know at the address below. Thanks ... the Info Manager invites you to use all or part of his column in your user group newsletter. Please let him know at rumormangr@aol.com and if possible send an electronic copy for the old scrapbook. Subscribe to Rumors@lists.user-groups.net DIGEST VERSION: rumors-digest@lists.user-groups.net (recommended) rumors-on@lists.user-groups.net for more information go to: http://www.user-groups.net/ugcommunity/subscribe.html 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. 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