This might be the week the computer industry focuses on COMDEX in Las Vegas, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t happening everywhere else. We bring you news that OpenDoc 1.0 and new versions of BBEdit and Netscape Navigator are available, plus the latest on troubles at clone maker Radius and difficulties obtaining Adobe PageMill overseas. Also, read about a $10,000 Internet security challenge, and get Adam’s thoughts on both Apple’s and eWorld’s explicit shift toward the Internet.
OpenDoc 1.0 & SDK Available! Apple intends to include OpenDoc as part of the Mac OS with hardware bundles and as additional system software components throughout 1996 - but you can get it sooner than that, if you want
$10,000 Internet Security Challenge -- I wrote about the WebMaster Macintosh security challenge back in TidBITS-295 and, as expected, no one was able to break WebSTAR's security and claim the prize of free passes to the WebEdge conference
High-end DOS Cards at COMDEX -- Among the many things Apple will demonstrate at COMDEX in Las Vegas this week will be prototype "PC Compatibility Cards" based on both the Pentium and Cyrix 586 chips
Linux Clarification -- A MailBIT in TidBITS-302 regarding Novell's intention to sell WordPerfect and Quattro Pro implied Ray Noorda, former CEO of Novell, controlled commercial rights to Linux, Linus Torvald's popular Unix clone distributed under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL)
IKEA -- Sorry for not having tracked down a phone number for IKEA before for those of you who wanted to get a catalog and check out the Jerker desks I mentioned recently
To almost no one's surprise, signs began appearing last week that the beleaguered video and graphics company and Macintosh clone maker Radius might be on its last legs
BBEdit, a popular text editor and text-based HTML authoring tool, has matured greatly over the past years, and this most recent round of updates includes several valuable features and fixes.
http://www.tiac.net/biz/bbsw/news.html
The freeware BBEdit Lite, now at version 3.5, fixes bugs and offers several improvements including full-featured text wrapping, improved Find and Preferences dialog box, and fancier Get Info options (like character, word, line, and page counts)
With Novell placing WordPerfect and Quattro Pro up for sale, it may be time for people to put some pressure on Claris to make an offer - assuming Claris isn't already a serious bidder for the products
Although at least one Japanese reader of the PageMill mailing list reported successfully purchasing the electronic version of PageMill, the European purchasing situation appears to leave much to be desired
Netscape Communications recently made the second beta version of Netscape Navigator 2.0 available. This version has several enhancements, including fixes for some serious bugs in the first beta, improved versions of mail and newsreader windows, and preliminary support for LiveScript, Netscape's own scripting language
When Apple introduced its second-generation commercial information service, eWorld, the stated goal was to have eWorld eventually replace the expensive and aging AppleLink