There are a handful of Macintosh utilities without which we simply cannot function, and this week Aladdin Systems upgraded one of the most-used of the bunch: StuffIt Expander

Revenge of the Eight-Track Tape -- Several readers commented about the FAQtoid in NetBITS-013 regarding the lifetime of WebTV. In the FAQtoid, we said that WebTV used standard protocols and could, in fact, be configured to access any ISP using PPP

The advent of the World Wide Web was a landmark in the history of publishing, but the Web's basic components don't handle many of the subtleties of publishing very well

Question: How does a server know how fast you're connecting? Pete Mundy writes, "I am confused about how a server sending data to you knows what 'speed' (bps) to send the data

Question: Are LISTSERVs and mailing lists the same? Stephen Bunker writes, "I've seen the terms 'listserv' and 'mailing list' used synonymously. Do both terms mean the same thing?" Answer: Definitely not

Cleaning Windows -- Last issue in NetBITS Updates, we expressed confusion that no one writing about Microsoft's attempts to offer versions of its Windows 95 operating system without Internet Explorer mentioned that the original Windows 95 system was still in use on tens of millions of machines

X-Rated Placeholders -- A random and amusing anecdote arrived from Russell Aminzade : I had a job recently developing a Web site for an intranet for a division of a Fortune 100 computer company

Filename Extension -- Steve Peterson pointed out that Windows 95 is more clever than we gave it credit for when mapping its long filenames to short ones. On floppy disks it's a little more complicated

Long and Short of It -- James Weissman notes that many systems that can't support long filenames are able to use mapping - a table of the short names and the longer ones they correspond to - to provide nicer looking URLs. EnterpriseWeb/VM is a Web server that runs under the IBM VM/CMS mainframe operating system where file identifiers can have an 8 character name and 8 character type

Russell Tait of Compass Information Systems writes: "Thanks for the continued good work. However, in your 'Macworld SF 1998 Superlatives' article in TidBITS 412, under Best Performance, the robots were actually sponsored by both Ullanta and Compass Information Systems to feature our TIBET software as well as the robot performance

Do you have a great tip relating to the Macintosh? The people who create the Macintosh Bible want to know about it for possible inclusion in the seventh edition, and they'll give you a brush with fame by placing your name in the book's acknowledgments

Qualcomm has finalized Eudora Pro 4.0 for the Macintosh (see our review of Eudora Pro 3.0 in TidBITS 357). A demo (6 MB download) is available now, and the full product will be available for sale soon

StarNine Technologies has posted the public beta of WebSTAR 3.0, the latest version of their popular Macintosh Web server. Major new features include full support for the HTTP 1.1 protocol, support for single-link multihoming using Open Transport 1.3, an integrated FTP server, an integrated caching proxy server for increased security and performance, a built-in search engine based on Apple's V-Twin technology, and a new TCP/IP-based WebSTAR Admin application

Quarterdeck has finalized the sale of StarNine Technologies - a Quarterdeck subsidiary that sells WebSTAR, ListSTAR, WebCollage, and other Internet-related products - to Platinum Equity Holdings

Jobs Announces $45 Million Profit -- Although Steve Jobs's keynote address at San Francisco's Macworld Expo didn't include much of his trademark showmanship - or news on Apple's ongoing search for a new CEO - he did end the presentation with a surprise: Apple expects to post a quarterly profit of $45 million on a total revenue of $1.575 billion