EvangeList Digest Tuesday, May 12 1998 Volume 01 : Number 1180
In this issue:
Tidbit - This week's Farr Site is entitled "Strong and Simple" PR - Apple Licenses Symantec JIT Java Compiler PR - PrePress AutoTools 1.1 Job - In House Art Department (Oceanside, NY) Job - QA Specialist/Technical Support Representative (Bellevue, WA) PR - Stone Design Ships GIFfun for Rhapsody PR - VOODOO and PopChar Pro Demonstration at WWDC ?? - Top 10 Mac Software Programs Tidbit - Imation and Panasonic Announce Superdisk Drive For USB PR - Stone Design Ships C R E A T E 5.0 for Rhapsody Tidbit - Can Apple Sell To Corporate America? Job - Microcomputer/Audio Visual Equipment Technician (Anchorage, AK) PR -- FrameBlenderQT 1.0b1 Released Followup - Electronic Documentation
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Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 15:04:00 -0000 From: EvangeList <evangelist@apple.com> Subject: Tidbit - This week's Farr Site is entitled "Strong and Simple"
This tidbit is from:
Applelinks.com, <webmaster@applelinks.com>
This week's Farr Site is entitled "Strong and Simple" and features Shoes Make the Man, iMacs Rule, Bad Interface Blues, and How to Fix Just About Everything. Parable of simplicity reveals why peanut-butter and chocolate taste better on a Mac.
Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 15:05:28 -0000 From: EvangeList <evangelist@apple.com> Subject: PR - Apple Licenses Symantec JIT Java Compiler
This announcement is from:
Apple PR
At the Company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple Computer, Inc. today announced it has licensed the PowerPC version of Symantec Corporation's high-performance Just In Time (JIT) compiler for Java. Later this summer Apple intends to integrate the JIT compiler into Mac OS Runtime for Java (MRJ), delivering a significant performance enhancement to Apple's Java-compatible virtual machine (VM).
"Our customers want better Java performance in Mac OS and we're committed to giving it to them," said Steve Jobs, Apple's Interim CEO. "We are working hard to make our Java implementation second in speed to none other in the world."
With the JIT compiler Apple expects to significantly boost the performance of Java software running on Mac OS. Industry standard benchmarks on preliminary versions of MRJ combined with the JIT compiler show a 300 percent performance improvement over the current version of MRJ. This is competitive with results seen with Java VMs provided with web browsers for Windows-based computers.
PrePress AutoTools(tm) is a commercial Macintosh application for batch processing QuarkXPress(tm) files.
AutoTools is built on top of, and requires, UserLand Frontier(tm) 5, and has a pleasant, simple, and intuitive interface.
The central function of AutoTools is the conversion of QuarkXPress files to PostScript, but there are many other features too!
o Looks for, reports, and fixes problems with spot colors, according to your specifications.
o <NEW!> Fully Quark 4 compatible
o Extend AutoTools with your own custom written 'filter scripts' o <NEW> Now includes a "Filter Manager" panel in the preferences window, for installing your plug-in filters
o <NEW!> Watched folder support (hot folders) allows AutoTools to be run as a server on another machine on your network!
o Many other new features, performance improvements, and bug fixes in this major new release.
<http://www.macrobyteresources.com/autotools/>
Please note that the introductory pricing for PrePress AutoTools, first offered on February 14, 1998, will end on May 16, 1998.
If you have any questions or comments on AutoTools, please contact me directly. I'm always happy to answer any questions!
Sincerely,
Seth Dillingham Macrobyte Resources
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Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 15:04:39 -0000 From: EvangeList <evangelist@apple.com> Subject: Job - In House Art Department (Oceanside, NY)
This job announcement is from:
HighRez, <HighRez@aol.com>
Mac Pro Wanted for Marketing Company. Promotional marketing company in Oceanside, New York (that's Long Island, folks) is looking for a Mac person for its currently one-man (me) in-house art department. We design and produce really cool premiums for mostly Fortune 500 companies and major sports teams. We regularly deal with big ad agencies as well. The work is heavily Quark-Illustrator-Photoshop, with some 3D stuff in Adobe Dimensions and Ray Dream Designer. We also do our own in-house photography with a Leaf digital camera, and we produce our own film and color separations on a Lino 300 imagesetter. Don't worry if you don't know photography or film work. We can train you. The main thing is to be Mac competent and have expreience with the software. General knowledge of design and pre-press is certainly preferred, as is some troubleshooting experience. The job is 9-5, Monday through Friday. Salary is commensurate with experience. You can Email your resume or any questions to me at <HighRez@aol.com>.
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Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 23:25:22 -0700 From: Guy Kawasaki <Kawasaki@garage.com> Subject: Job - QA Specialist/Technical Support Representative (Bellevue, WA)
This job announcement is from:
Blue World Human Resources, <jobs@blueworld.com>
Primary Purpose of Position
Provide timely, accurate and comprehensive technical support while maintaining excellence in customer service. Strive for 0% product defect through attentive and intelligent product testing.
Responsibilities
Apply proven skills and techniques to ensure that quality processes are inherent in the development cycle of our products.
Develop and perform Acceptance Tests for all products prior to release to customers.
Work with engineers to ensure error-free products.
Participate in design reviews of new features and methodologies.
Propose and implement diagnostic and automation tools to enable more effective quality assurance.
Provide product and project technical support to customers and Blue World staff
Serve as the primary interface between Customer Support and Development in resolving escalated technical customer issues.
Assist with special projects as necessary.
In all aspects of job responsibilities, you will work with-in a team dedicated to meet the technical challenges of responding to real-world, mission-critical, application issues in web server environments.
Qualifications
Bachelor's degree in a technical or business discipline or equivalent experience.
Excellent communication skills and the ability to think logically and act decisively during critical situations.
Strong Macintosh and Windows 95/NT skills including:
Web Technologies (HTML, JavaScript, etc.) Web Servers (WebSTAR, IIS, Netscape Enterprise, etc.) Web Database Publishing Technologies (Previous experience with Blue World's Lasso product a plus)
2-5 years related experience
IMPORTANT: E-mail Your Resume and salary history and requirements to <jobs@blueworld.com>. Only resumes set in ASCII text format within the body of an email message will be considered.
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Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 23:25:23 -0700 From: Guy Kawasaki <Kawasaki@garage.com> Subject: PR - Stone Design Ships GIFfun for Rhapsody
This announcement is from:
Katie Graunke, <katie@stone.com>
Longtime OpenStep and now Rhapsody developers, Stone Design Corp, announced their new application, GIFfun today. GIFfun is a drag and drop GIF frame editor and creation tool for Animated GIFS for use in Web pages. The application, source code and instructional web tutorial are available totally free. GIFfun runs on Rhapsody, Yellow Box for Windows and OpenStep for MACH on all supported architectures, and is included in the latest distribution of Create Version 5.
GIFfun is easy to use. Simply drag a folder of images onto GIFfun's main window, and GIFfun will automatically create an animated GIF, and display it in your web browser to show you the default animation. You can change the order of the frames, add and delete image frames, alter the time delay between slides in your animation, and set the number of times the animation plays. An Options panel lets you select disposal method of previous frames as well as the index of the color to be made transparent.
Users can automatically create the GIF frames in Stone Design's Create(V5) by using the Animation tool's new Save As GIFs option, or by using the Create's unique "Image Well" to drag images directly into GIFfun.
GIFfun remembers the user's preferences, and also publishes itself as a Service for instant GIF animation directly from Create.
GIFfun is free and the source code is available. Visit the Stone Design web site to download your copy of GIFfun for Rhapsody, YellowBox for Windows and OpenStep for Mach:
<http://www.stone.com>
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Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 23:25:22 -0700 From: Guy Kawasaki <Kawasaki@garage.com> Subject: PR - VOODOO and PopChar Pro Demonstration at WWDC
Keyword: Becoming an AppleDeveloper
This announcement is from:
Christoph Reichenberger, <chrei@unisoft.co.at>
UNI SOFTWARE PLUS GmbH, announced today, that they will demonstrate the just released new version 1.8.1 of their award-winning version control tool VOODOO as well as their highly acclaimed Control Panel PopChar Pro at WWDC/Developer Central. Come and see at booth #43 how pleasant version control can be, regardless whether you use VOODOO as a stand-alone tool or smoothly integrated with CodeWarrior, BBEdit and other applications. Besides getting a thorough impression of our products, visitors can also benefit from a special offer for VOODOO that is available only during WWDC directly from the Developer Depot selling area.
Due to its ease of use VOODOO is not only useful for programming projects in a narrow sense, where you have to deal with hundreds of source files. VOODOO is as useful for web publishers, Filemaker developers, graphic designers and any other people who have to keep track of different revisions of their files. VOODOO's outstanding delta storing technique for files of arbitrary types makes you forget to worry about the storage needs of all these versions.
PopChar Pro makes "typing" of unusual characters easy without having to remember keyboard combinations. It installs a menu that shows all characters available in the current font. Any character can be inserted in the current document by simply selecting it from the menu.
More info and the complete packages of VOODOO and PopChar Pro are available on the Virtual Developer Central CD you got with your WWDC Conference Guide as well as from our server at:
<http://www.unisoft.co.at>
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Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 02:06:53 -0000 From: John Halbig <john@garage.com> Subject: ?? - Top 10 Mac Software Programs
This request is from:
Maria Langer, <spot@gilesrd.com>
I'm writing an article for Computer User magazine about the top 10 Macintosh prgorams. I've already got quite a few ideas for candidates, but I'd like to hear from other users.
What's your favorite application? Please limit your choice to one or two current programs that would appeal to at least 80% of the Mac users out there. (No highly specialized vertical market programs, please!) Provide the program name and software publisher name. Reply before May 30. Your help would be GREATLY appreciated!
Important Note:
If you're a software publisher or marketing person, PLEASE do not add me to any mass mailing list. I will report such abuse to the folks that maintain EvangeList. Any mail sent to this address after May 30 will automatically be deleted.
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Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 02:06:54 -0000 From: John Halbig <john@garage.com> Subject: Tidbit - Imation and Panasonic Announce Superdisk Drive For USB
This tidbit is from:
George Wagner, <g.wagner@sylvania.sev.org>
For those of us concerned about the lack of a removable rewritable storage device for the iMac, check out:
<http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/980508/imation_2_1.html>
"Imation and Panasonic Announce Joint Development of Superdisk Drive For USB Interface Availability To Coincide With First Shipments Of New Apple iMac Computer"
"The USB SuperDisk drive, like other SuperDisk drives, will be fully read/write compatible with today's PC-formatted 120 MB SuperDisk diskettes, 1.44 MB diskettes and 720 KB diskettes. It will also read and write existing Mac-formatted diskettes and Mac-formatted SuperDisk diskettes."
George L. Wagner Jr. Computers, Support, & Consulting <g.wagner@sylvania.sev.org> <http://users.aol.com/aaprglw/csc.html>
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Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 02:06:59 -0000 From: John Halbig <john@garage.com> Subject: PR - Stone Design Ships C R E A T E 5.0 for Rhapsody
This announcement is from:
Katie Graunke, <katie@stone.com>
Longtime OpenStep and now Rhapsody developers, Stone Design, announced that Create 5, the powerful draw studio and web page maker has shipped for Rhapsody Developer Release 2 and OpenStep today. This release (B5) incorporates numerous new features and bug fixes.
Create is the all-in-one drawing and web page production application that has been shipping on NeXTSTEP for over 8 years. Create has the power and features that graphic designers need to make professional web pages, flyers, letterheads and much more.
Stone Design is offering a 5 month free trial period on this release (good through September 16th), beginning now. See <http://www.stone.com> to obtain the software and the trial license.
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Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 02:07:02 -0000 From: John Halbig <john@garage.com> Subject: Tidbit - Can Apple Sell To Corporate America?
This tidbit is from:
Applelinks.com, <webmaster@applelinks.com>
When Apple hit its low point two years ago, everyone in the IS world panicked, and probably justifiably so. There was a legitimate concern that Apple would not be able to continue to provide effective technologies and support. Application support was wavering, a new version of Office seemed remote, and other application vendors were focusing their efforts on Windows development.
Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 02:07:00 -0000 From: John Halbig <john@garage.com> Subject: Job - Microcomputer/Audio Visual Equipment Technician (Anchorage, AK)
This job announcement is from:
Buschur_Mike, <buschur_mike@msmail.asd.k12.ak.us>
The Anchorage School District, Anchorage AK, has a " Microcomputer/Audio Visual Equipment Technician" position available. Applicant must have a thorough knowledge of and current repair experience on Macintosh computers, Laserwriters, Scanners etc. PC experience is desirable, but we are primarily a Macintosh School District. Experience in repair of educational Audio Visual equipment is necessary. An AA in technology and A+ certification is desired. Starting wage of $17.90 with excellent benefits. For a complete description of the job and requirements, contact the Anchorage School District Personnel Dept at 907-269-2151 or visit our web site at:
<http://www.asd.k12.ak.us/Welcome.html>
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Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 02:07:05 -0000 From: John Halbig <john@garage.com> Subject: PR -- FrameBlenderQT 1.0b1 Released
This announcement is from:
Dave Rowe, <dave@dragonflydigital.com>
Dragonfly Digital Design today announced the release of FrameBlenderQT for the Macintosh. FrameBlender products use oversampling to increase the quality of still images captured with video equipment. A sequence of frames that has been captured with a video camera is blended together into a single image. This effectively removes noise from the image and dramatically improves image quality.
FrameBlenderQT is a QuickTime Movie Export component which can be used with Apple's MoviePlayer or any program that supports QuickTime export components.
FrameBlenderQT is primarily useful to remove random noise. Since the noise is different in every frame, blending many frames together acts to cancel out the noise. This is effective with video noise and certain compression artifacts. Alternative uses include simulating a time exposure by blending the frames of a time lapse movie and creating motion blur effects by blending frames with movement.
This is version 1.0b1, the first public beta. This version requires a Macintosh with Apple's QuickTime software. It works with MoviePlayer 2.5 and MoviePlayer 3.0 Pro. It can be downloaded, free of charge, from our web site at <http://msn.fullfeed.com/~drgnfly/devel/> .
About Dragonfly Digital Design: Dragonfly Digital Design creates web sites and develops multimedia content and tools.
For further information visit our web page at <http://msn.fullfeed.com/~drgnfly/devel/> or send email to <devel@dragonflydigital.com> .
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Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 02:07:09 -0000 From: John Halbig <john@garage.com> Subject: Followup - Electronic Documentation
This follow-up message is from:
Propp, Keith, <ProppK@jntf.osd.mil>
First, I apologize for the length of this submission. This is a follow-up to my request for information on Mac compatible document management systems. Specifically I was curious about the availability of software for managing documents (scanned or otherwise) such that the original image pages would be linked to the searchable OCR'ed text. Being able to do 'fuzzy' searches is another plus since the need to do error correction of the OCR text is minimized. The system should also be able to allow publishing of the material on a (one or more) self-contained CD complete with search engine and reader. The ability to hyperlink and network publishing are also nice to have.
The responses were immediate. The Evangelist works! I cannot thank each of you individually so please accept a blanket 'thank you' now. My purpose was to satisfy my curiosity and perhaps give me ammo to sway future projects in the 'proper direction'. Thus I was not able to research each and every suggestion at this time. The following is a list of the responses along with some of my comments and Web addresses. Also, I know that these products span a large range of prices. I have not researched the costs.
The two most often submitted suggestions were:
Adobe Acrobat 3.0 <http://www.adobe.com> (PC or Mac) - Adobe Exchange for indexing and linking - Adobe Capture for OCR Optix from Blueridge Technologies <http://www.blueridge.com> (PC or Mac) - looks like it has it all (a free one-user version is available)
Other suggestions included:
MarcoPolo from Mainstay <http://www.mstay.com/mp35_ab1.html> (Mac only - --- looks great for the price) Working Papers Pro from Dominion Software <http://www.dominionsw.com> <http://world.std.com/~dominion> (Mac only) Documentum <http://www.documentum.com> LiveLink from Open Text Corp. <http://www.livelink.com> DocuShare from Xerox <http://www.xerox.com/products/docushare> (not exactly what I asked for) <http://www.krt.com/mac/imageflow.html> (this will link you to several sites) <http://www.websonar.com> (like DocuShare) <http://www.virginiasystems.com> (looks good for Mac and PC)
MacTreasures <http://www.mactreasures.com> suggested I check with them and will help locate a solution. As expected, AppleScripting (yes it's an official verb now) a set of individual applications such as OmniPage Pro and AppleSearch was also suggested.
One respondent remembered reading a review of such systems in a past issue of either MacUser or MacWeek. I haven't looked for it. Perhaps someone who knows can point us to it. Another respondent suggested reading Imaging Magazine for info on products.
My experience is that the worst part of document scanning and storage is the actual scanning of the documents. For that, get the fastest scanner you can get. You will need only about 300 dpi. The time and labor saved is the big factor. Perhaps someone can compile a list of great scanner solutions. Next to scanning is storage. Check out <http://www.stortek.com> and <http://www.milesapart.com> for large scale storage and retrieval solutions. I have used magneto-optical cartridges successfully for small projects. Then be sure to get a search engine which can do "fuzzy" searches so you do not need to correct the OCR text. Also, if the OCR text is linked (at least by page) to the original image, then you can go read and print the original document page.
Well, that's about it. You'll have to poke thru the Web links yourselves. Thanks again Mac Evangelistas for all your help.
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End of EvangeList Digest V1 #1180 *********************************
