This week brings both death and birth – we mourn the passing of our friend, colleague, and Macintosh luminary Cary Lu and then turn around to share the details of our new publication, NetBITS (think of it as TidBITS on Internet steroids). Tonya explores more contextual menu utilities and we note updates to LetterRip and ListSTAR, the acquisition of Dayna by Intel, the release of Internet Config 1.4, the move of Macworld Boston, and Virtual PC 1.0.1.
NetBITS Subscription Reminder -- We received a great response to the first issue of NetBITS, sent to all current TidBITS subscribers (our apologies for not explaining the unusual send within NetBITS - we incorrectly assumed TidBITS readers would have read last week's TidBITS issue before receiving NetBITS on Friday)
TidBITS in Italian -- We're happy to announce the Italian translation of TidBITS. The first few issues have been translated by coordinator Francesco Madeddu , and he's looking for volunteers to help out with translating
Intel to Acquire Dayna Communications -- Last week, Intel announced an agreement to acquire Dayna Communications, the Salt Lake City company that has produced popular networking and storage peripherals (remember the DaynaFile that read 5.25" DOS disks?) for Macintosh and Windows computers for over a decade
Easier Than Upgrading a PC -- Connectix has released the Virtual PC 1.0.1 Updater, which makes Virtual PC easier to use and fixes a number of small problems, including setting modem speeds incorrectly and many game-related issues
Internet Config 1.4 Released -- Peter N Lewis and Quinn have released version 1.4 of Internet Config, the public domain solution for centralizing Internet preferences such as email server, Web home page, download folder, and much more
Mailing List Managers Updated -- The two major commercial mailing list manager programs, StarNine's ListSTAR and FogCity's LetterRip, have both been updated recently
Macworld Big Apple -- IDG Expo Management, formed with the recent acquisition of MHA Event Management, has announced that future east coast Macworld Expos will be held in New York City rather than in Boston, as has happened since 1984
There is little more difficult than to write about a close friend who has died. The words come slowly, and in clumps, with little sense of the whole. And yet, memories and stories surge beneath the surface, along with all sorts of often conflicting feelings
Now that you've seen the first issue, I want to tell you more about NetBITS, our new publication. TidBITS began as a newsletter focusing primarily on Macintosh issues, and over the years, we began covering more Internet topics
In TidBITS-398, I wrote about how to use and customize contextual menus under Mac OS 8. This week, I want to follow up on that article by noting a utility that offers contextual menus under System 7 (and acts as a CM plug-in for Mac OS 8), look at a few additional CM plug-ins, and agree with readers who noted that one-handed use of CM menus is also possible with a multi-button mouse.
Most people writing in about multi-button mice noted their standard use under other operating systems (such as Windows) and their utility when running PC emulation software