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TidBITS#189/16-Aug-93

This week we have information about free software that makes LaserWriter Pros snooze, more on mysterious Duo shutdowns, unfortunate news about attaching an AudioVision monitor to a Quadra 840AV, additional details on the Prodigy gateway, more on PageMaker 5.0 with a clarification of last week’s mention, news about a possible bug with overtraining the MessagePad’s handwriting recognition, and the start of a multi-part, technical look at the Newton.

Adam Engst No comments

Administrivia

Adam is in electronic hiding for a few weeks as he finishes writing The Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh. Although he claims he will read his email, please don't expect responses to anything but the most urgent messages

Adam Engst No comments

Newton’s Law

Newton's Law -- One's affinity to Newton is directly proportional to how well it recognizes one's handwriting. -Ross Scott Rubin. [However, it is fun to consult the Newton Oracle by drawing squiggles in the NotePad and seeing how it interprets them

Adam Engst No comments

Too much of a good thing

Too much of a good thing -- We've heard a number of complaints that indicate you can overtrain a MessagePad to your handwriting. Too much training may confuse the poor little thing, causing recognition to decrease after significant usage

Adam Engst No comments

The Quadra 840AV

The Quadra 840AV surprisingly does not come with a cable for Apple's new AudioVision Monitor. This in itself would be understandable if the monitor came with a working cable, but the cable doesn't plug into any of the 840's ports

Adam Engst No comments

Putting printers to sleep.

Putting printers to sleep. We've recently caught wind of a useful and politically correct freeware program released by Apple's Energy Star group. The program lets a LaserWriter Pro go to sleep after a specified amount of inactivity to save energy

Adam Engst No comments

Prodigy/Internet

Prodigy/Internet email details are still fuzzy, but Jeff Needleman said that the software for Macs to receive Internet email works fine, but the software for sending only works for DOS machines

Thomas A. Overfield No comments

PageMaker 5.0, Finally

Thankfully for Aldus and the many users of its PageMaker page layout software, one of the most eagerly awaited upgrades of the year is here. PageMaker was once the premiere package for creating publications, but years of stagnation on the feature front and cut-throat competition from arch-rival Quark XPress has steadily eroded Aldus's user base

Tom Thompson No comments

Using the Newton MessagePad

[This is the first of a several part series that we plan to run about the Newton. We'll have a look at the hardware, the operating system, some devil's advocacy, and third-party add-on information