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Adam Engst

Adam Engst

Adam C. Engst is the publisher of TidBITS. He has written numerous books, including the best-selling Internet Starter Kit series, and many magazine articles thanks to Contributing Editor positions at MacUser, MacWEEK, and now Macworld. His innovations include the creation of the first advertising program to support an Internet publication in 1992, the first flat-rate accounts for graphical Internet access in 1993, and the Take Control electronic book series now owned and operated by alt concepts. His awards include the MDJ Power 25 ranking as the most influential person in the Macintosh industry outside of Apple every year since 2000, inclusion on the MacTech 25 list of influential people in the Macintosh technical community, and being named one of MacDirectory's top ten visionaries. And yes, he has been turned into an action figure.

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Print Previewer

This is an odd one. It's a Chooser device that allows you to print to screen and see your document reduced to fit in the window or full size when you zoom in

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Profiler

This is a separate application, and to be honest, I'm not really sure why Now included it as such. I say this because the Startup Manager has a "Profile" button that does exactly the same thing, producing an extremely detailed report on your system configuration

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Screen Locker

This part of the Now Utilities suffers from the Claris syndrome, having been spun back into the Now Utilities, though Now still sells it as a separate product for $79 or so

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Super Boomerang

Crashed when I tried to configure it. Of course, you idiot, you forgot to remove the original files from Boomerang 2.0 from your System Folder. After I removed those (and reinstalled, just for the fun of it) Super Boomerang worked fine

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WYSIWYG Menus

This is another simple, but useful member of the Now Utilize. Its purpose in life (don't you wish your life was this simple sometimes?) is to display the font menu of your current application in the correct fonts

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Documentation

The documentation for the Now Utilities is decent, with a few typographical errors, including one mistake on page 1-1 (the punctuation gods will be unhappy with Now Software)

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Overall Evaluation

The Now Utilities needs more work, and I suspect it will continue to evolve, especially when System 7.0 makes FinderKeys and MultiMaster less useful by including some of their abilities

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Excel Turns Three

Microsoft has always led the Macintosh world by its spreadsheet nose, although other companies have come out with more powerful programs over the years

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Guerilla Marketing

No, I don't mean putting simians in your booth at Macworld Expo! I'm talking about the cut-rate offers that many software firms are using now that the economy is feeling blue

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Snazzier Graphics

I've put this article off for a little while because every time I think about it, something new happens. I'm talking about the epidemic of upgrades for major graphics programs that have swept the Macintosh world

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Lotus Tries Harder

I'll give Lotus a lot of credit, it takes a beating and keep coming back for more. Unfortunately, like baseball's New York Yankees, Lotus insists on trying to buy success, which works neither in baseball nor the computer industry

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Warranty Realities

This isn't exactly news, but I think all Mac owners should know this important information. You do know that Apple finally extended its warranty period from 90 days to one year, a move which we at TidBITS considered to be a case of "About time!" You may not know that it's easy to void that wonderful one year warranty, at which point your friendly local dealer will be more than happy to fix your broken machine and take your first-born as a down payment on the repair bill

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Correction Daemons

Whatever the excuse, our last issue was plagued by error daemons. Unlike our more staid, paper-based counterparts, when we make a mistake, we admit it freely and explain the problem

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The Latest in QuickMail

CE's popular electronic mail package will see some significant enhancements when version 2.5 ships this summer. Perhaps the most important change, at least for those of us who must deal with non-AppleTalk networks, is support for AppleTalk Filing Protocol (AFP) compatible networks, such as Novell Netware, 3Com's 3+ Open, Microsoft's LAN Manager, DEC's PCSA, and Banyan VINES

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Printer News

Back in November, we claimed that Apple was going to come out with a cheap ink-jet printer this spring, and it's looking more and more like we were right (in this business you have to take these minor victories where you can get them)