User group Newsletter Editors: Utilize this content in your newsletter -- PLEASE ... reference UG Network Channel ... Shareware Manager is coming: YUM! Show us the shareware! The Info Manager is looking for your rumors and tidbits... give him a post! ...or subscribe... see subscription notes below Info Manager - 10/13/Y2K Microsoft SPAM; VGS Demo; MS buys into Corel; MacOSX Beta review & OSX for Intel?; Windows for Autos; OneChannel remarks on Apple's "slow down"; John Dvorak aupports Apple; MUGStore iMac DVs for $1069; CueCAT; Lots More Making up for not being here last week, there is lots of stories in this column. . Microsoft SPAM Hiawatha Brady, a columnist for the Boston Globe is reporting that when a person signs up for the MSN Internet service, he/she is asked if he would like to notify friends of his new service. If he clicks yes then the software will use all the addresses in Outlook Express and will send out the message inviting them to join MSN as well. How is that for letting your users create spam and be their own virus! Full story at: <http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/272/business/Microsoft_serves_up_its_own_spam+.shtml> . Demo of VGS Now that the Playstation2 is almost here, Connectix has announced that it has a demo of their Virtual Game Station available on their web site. Lets both Mac & PC users try before buying. That way you can see if a favorite game is compatible. The full story is at: http://www.insanely-great.com/news/00/10/03-connectix.html> __ Meanwhile, The Register reported that the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case of the Sony lawsuit trying to ban the Connectix Product. That story is at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/13689.html . Microsoft invests in Corel The San Jose Mercury News reported that MS invested $135 million into Corel. The shares of Corel jumped 83% on the news. (Microsoft gets 24.6% of the stock.) The two have been bitter enemies in the past. Almost as much as Apple and Microsoft once were. But as in the case of Apple, money talks. Corel will now work on applications for Microsoft's .NET program. This agreement will also result in the cancellation of lawsuits. Full story at: http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/079825.htm . MacOSX The Mercury News also recommends a web site with a very extensive overview of Apple's Public Beta OS. It does look like a major undertaking. Check it out at: http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/4q00/macosx-pb1/macos-x-beta-1.html . MacOSX going to Intel??? Additionally, there is an is an online petition trying to get Mac OS X ported to the intel platform. If you are interested in seeing more competition for Microsoft, see it at: http://www.osxonintel.com Personally, I haven't decided where I stand on the issue. I can see pluses and minuses for Apple in this type of activity. . Windows for your car? Fox News is reporting that Microsoft is making plans to enter the automobile market. With its Windows CE for Automotive. They looking at creating a range of in-vehicle computing and wireless communication devices. It will be interesting to see how stable the system is and how well it does. As the person who sent me this item said: "Trust your car to Microsoft?" Full story at: http://www.foxnews.com/vtech/100100/winceauto.sml . OneChannel OneChannel is a marketing research firm on the Internet. It says it spotted Apple's sales problems back in April and could have said then that Apple would have to reduce its estimate for its fourth quarter. However The Register has a terrific article on why their analysis is pretty bogus. Showing that the sales figures OneChannel was using is greatly effected by the fact that people who buy on line are more knowledgeable and thus more likely to put off purchases in the weeks leading up to MacWorld Expo and then increase purchases after the Expo announcements. Which is exactly what happened. In August and September, Apple's sales on line actually was higher than the industry average. See the full story at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13807.html . John Dvorak Didn't think it would ever happen, but John Dvorak has written a column defending Apple. See it at: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,5859,2637586,00.html . MUGStore If you watched the Democratic Convention, you know that iMacs were used to do the balloting. Apple has now released those iMac DVs to the Mug Store as refurbished iMacs for $1069. Apple Corp is registered there and your user group should be as well. Check out the deals at www.mugstore.com You will need the passwords to get in. Ask your leadership for the passwords. . CueCat substitute The Langalist has been talking about privacy issues concerning the CueCat scanner. (Note: I work for RadioShack's HQ and feel that CueCat is a good device. Privacy issues are being addressed). But one of Fred Langa's readers made the following statement: "Hi Fred: Who needs CueCat when there is BarCode? If I ever want to find a company's web site, I just type in the UPC here and I find out if they do or don't have a web presence. No hardware, no privacy concerns. Just thought you might like to know." It looks like a good place to go for bar code information to me. However that only does part of what the CueCat does since it also gives more detail information about magazine and broadcast articles as well as link to all those nice products in the RadioShack calendar. ;-) In anycase, you can check it out yourself. Also to subscribe to the LangaList, got to: http://www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=143182 Give them my name (Lynn Wegley) as a reference. Maybe I will win something. . 32 GB Hard Drive for Notebooks Insanely Great Mac is reporting on a new 2.5 inch hard drive from Trans International that will have a capacity of 32 Gigabytes. This drive will greatly increase the storage capabilities of most notebooks. (Note, there maybe other 30+ 2.5" drives out there, but this is the first one I heard about). Full story at: http://www.insanely-great.com/news/00/10/09-transintl.html . Sensual computers Russell Kay on the Computer World web site has a good article about new devices being used to provide I/O for computers. He talks about a vibrating mouse (cousin to the vibrating joy stick no doubt) and a device that allows the user to "feel" objects on the screen. Some of the devices originally started to give Braille capabilities to computers for the blind. But have progressed beyond that. Check out the story at: http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=337297 . Motorola Announces 1-GHz CNET's News.com is saying that Motorola has announced that the G4 will now run at 1 GHz. However the article didn't state when the production would be up to quantity. They did report that Apple hasn't stated when or even if they will use the chip. Full story at: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-3154333.html?tag=st.ne.1006.saslnk.saseml (Thanks to David Wegley for passing on this link). . Mojo Nation MacWeek is reporting on a new peer to peer service developed by Jim McCoy (who managed Yahoo's e-mail program) called Mojo Nation. It "essentially takes the decentralized model of other Napster alternatives like Freenet and Gnutella and adds on a layer of laissez-faire experimentation," writes Damien Cave of Salon. Mojo Nation uses its own currency called Mojo. Members use that to pay for service and thus in some manner artists are paid for their efforts. The full Salon story is at: http://salon.com/tech/view/2000/10/09/mojo_nation/index.html . Quotes of the Week: "Anyone who puts stats together knows that most stats are bullshit ... 89.67 percent of them to be exact." - Billy Young National Joy Band San Francisco, Calif. . "We've got to make sure we don't create organizations with a CEO at the top, a computer in the middle, and lots of workers at the bottom," business-advice author Robert T. Tomasko said. (The above two quotes from the daily newsletter of Information Week.) . "I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me." - Fred Allen . Web site of the week: Time magazine has a good section on Napster and file sharing programs. As part of that they listed a web site with cartoons dealing with Napster and its legal issues. See it at: http://cagle.slate.msn.com/news/napster/ and... While still underdevelopment, here is a web site that will show you all the basics and the options when it comes to e-mail. It is called, appropriately: E-Mailman. See it at: http://www.emailman.com/ . pau **** Don't forget ... the Info Manager invites you to use all or part of his column in your user group newsletter. Please let him know, and if possible send an electronic copy for the old scrapbook. Any suggestions for topics and reports of rumors are always welcome. Please me know. Thanks 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 Rumor Manager should follow up on. 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