Lots of little bits this week, including comments, corrections, and tips about System 7. Mark Anbinder covers the malicious INIT-M virus along with an excellent offer for a MS Mail/Internet gateway that expires at the end of the week. On the lighter side we have Ian Feldman’s intriguing list of fiction set in computer or programming environments. Finally, a look into the future at the PowerBook 145B, the next cheap PowerBook, and what it means for Apple.
UnMountIt Availability -- George Headley writes to tell us that UnMountIt, the free utility from Apple that aids in unmounting shared removable volumes, is available on for anonymous FTP
Quadra 700 Comments -- Brian Hughes writes to tell us that Glenn Fleishman's editorial on the Quadra 700 had some incorrect information. The LC and LC II max out at 512K of VRAM, which is enough for 16-bit color on the 12" monitor only (8-bit color on the 13"/14" monitor), and the LC III tops out at 768K VRAM, which will handle 16-bit color on monitors up to 13"/14".
Michael Peirce , author of Smoothie, which smooths jaggies in on-screen presentations, comments that Apple might be throwing a bone to the video card manufacturers, who would otherwise lose customers who have 24-bit internal video
Damaged Fonts -- Lloyd Lim says that a good check for bad font files, along with other files with resource forks, is to run John Norstad's excellent virus fighter, Disinfectant (now at version 3.2, see below), which checks for and reports damaged resource forks
More System 7 Answers -- Brian Jewett adds another thing to check for when experiencing Bad F-line errors. After much trouble, he discovered the culprit was an old ROM in his RasterOps video board, which was apparently not 32-bit QuickDraw-friendly
HFS Clarification -- Dave Camp of Central Point Software and author of the Disk Bug Checker we mentioned last issue, wrote to clarify that Central Point Software wrote the free program as a service to their customers who may have experienced the problem
PowerPoint Problem -- We found out more details about what may have caused the problem Andrew Nielsen reported in TidBITS #169 with launching PowerPoint from his Duo
EndNote Upgrade -- Niles & Associates released new versions of the $149 EndNote and $249 EndNote Plus that work with Nisus and FrameMaker, should you need bibliographic features in either of those programs
America Online Cheapened -- America Online now boasts lower access rates of $9.95 per month, which includes the first five hours of usage at any time of day (starts 01-May-93) and $3.50 per hour for usage after those first five hours (starts 01-Jul-93)
Technical Support Coordinator, BAKA Computers
Gene Spafford of Purdue University yesterday released a joint announcement for the various antiviral utility publishers, describing a newly-discovered virus (dubbed INIT-M) and a suite of new versions of the popular antiviral utilities.
INIT-M is a MALICIOUS virus and can result in irreparable damage to your files, folders, and file systems
Technical Support Coordinator, BAKA Computers
Information Electronics announced that it is shipping its fifth gateway to the Internet, PostalUnion/SMTP for Microsoft Mail
Some time ago I asked in the rec.arts.books group on the Usenet about preferably-non-Science-Fiction books set in academic Computer Science or programming environments
After all my yammering about what a wonderful idea the PowerBook 100 suddenly became after Apple dropped the price, it looks like the powers-that-be at Apple listened