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.
Last week we talked a bit about the good things Microsoft did with Excel 3.0 and whenever you think of Excel, Word inevitably surfaces as well. Little has come out of Microsoft about what Word 5.0 will look like or what new features will be included, but we can make some educated guesses about likely changes, and a recent discussion on Usenet indicated the places Word currently has trouble
Now Utilities 2.03
Now Software, Inc.
520 SW Harrison, Suite 435
Portland, OR 97201
503/274-2800
503/274-0670 (fax)
CPBaker on America Online
Rating:
8 Penguins out of a possible 10
Summary: -- Now Utilities combines a number of former shareware and freeware INITs, cdevs, and applications into a single coherent package of system enhancing utilities
The latest software to show up at TidBITS for review is Now Software's upgrade to the Now Utilities. This set of INITs and cdevs is unique in that it is comprised primarily of previously shareware and public domain programs, which have been cleaned up and given consistent interfaces.
I talked to a couple of the authors whose programs moved from shareware to commercial in the Now Utilities
The installation went smoothly - simply a matter of copying the appropriate files to the system folder. That's when the fun began, in part because the manual never talks about disabling shareware versions of the various utilities, a number of which I used
The next cdev was AlarmsClock. I use Remember?, so I didn't think I would use this one much. Then, when I looked up where SuperClock normally lives, SuperClock and AlarmsClock were alternating ticks, flashing back and forth
This program is obviously a take-off on Mike O'Conner's freeware Layout, not that that's a problem. The latest version I have of Layout is 1.9, and it suffers from not working on a Finder that is active under MultiFinder
Next up was DeskPicture. I had looked forward this because all I've found that randomizes the desktop picture is a shareware program, Backdrop, and Backdrop doesn't work quite right on the SE/30
Nice idea, mediocre implementation (though one user considers FinderKeys the second best utility in the entire package, which proves that the Now Utilities meets different needs for different people)
I've heard that MultiMaster was designed to compete with OnCue, but I've never seen OnCue. MultiMaster has two basic components - a pop-up window attached to a hot key and a drop-down menu that can be installed in either (or both) the upper right hand corner (on the right of the MultiFinder icons) or the upper left hand corner (on the left of the Apple icon)
Now Menus is another one of those programs that you wonder how you lived without. Its primary function is simple, yet elegant. It provides hierarchical submenus from the DAs in the Apple menu
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
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
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
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
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