Macworld Boston August 8-11, 1995

IT HAS BEEN CALLED "THE PAGEMAKER of the 90's" and was definitely the hot software product at Macworld. "It" is a duet of products from Ceneca Communications: PageMill and SiteMill. PageMill is an authoring tool for creating Web pages without the need to learn HTML. The program provides a WYSIWYG interface displaying how the page will appear when viewed using a web browser. Drag and drop technology makes it easy to add images to text. The program supports clickable image maps and fill-in forms. SiteMill includes the functions found in PageMill and adds a multitude of features to administer a complex web site, including an extraordinary ability to maintain complex links when items are moved or reorganized. The first release will be for Macintosh, with Windows and Unix versions to follow. PageMill is $195, SiteMill is $795. Contact: Ceneca Communications, Inc., 946 Colonial Lane, Palo Alto, CA 94303, 415 856-1139, 415-842-6810, Internet: info@ceneca.com, WWW: http://www.ceneca.com.

ONE OF THE MOST AWAITED pieces of Macintosh software has been released. Speed Doubler is a software accelerator for both the Power Macintosh and 68K Macintosh. It provides what it promises: up to double speed of 680x0 emulation on Power Macintosh. Contact: Connectix, Murphy Ave., Irvine, CA 92714, 714 476-0515, fax 714 476-0613.

OLYMPUS HAS THE FASTEST magneto-optical (MO) drive in the industry. The PowerMO provides 230 Mb of storage with a rotational speed of 4500 rpm. It is the only drive to offer 1 Mb of on-board cache memory for faster storage and retrieval. $599 Contact: Olympus Image Systems, Inc., Two Corporate Center Drive, Melville, NY 11747- 3157, 516 844-5000, 800 347-4027, fax 516 844-5339.

IT'S THE PRODUCT THAT KODAK should have released with the launch of their Photo- CD technology. FotoFUN! From Fargo is the low-cost dye-sub printer for producing the same standard large print formats available from a photo processor (up to 4" x 6"). The printer, which is available for Macintosh, Windows, and Amiga, can produce prints, photo postcards, and materials for producing photo-imaged mugs. The printer retails for $499.95 with an expected retail price of under $400. The Print Film Kit consisting of ribbon and paper is $34.95 for 36 prints. Contact: Fargo Electronics, Inc., 7901 Flying Cloud Dr., Eden Prairie, MN 55344, 612 941- 9470, fax 612 941-7836, Internet: mrfargo@aol.coom, WWW: http://www.fargo.com.

ANYONE WITH A NEED TO convert bitmap artwork into vector-based line art will marvel at the capabilities of Tracer. Tracer can automatically trace the outline of any black and white scanned or imported bitmap image, often with no manual intervention, correction, editing, or clean-up. Three tracing options are provided: Outline, Centerline, and Outline/Centerline Combination. The program does remarkably well with problem copy such as small sketches, low resolution scans, poor originals, and unique logo typefaces. A number of powerful tools are provided to edit converted line art to produce perfectly straight lines, smooth curves, angled corners and round circles. $795 Contact: Scanvec, 155 West St., Wilmington, MA 01887, 508 694-9488, 800 866-6227, fax: 508 694-9482, Internet: usasales@scanvec.com.

A NEW PRICE POINT HAS BEEN reached not just for 4X CD-ROM readers, but for multi- disc changers. The NEC MultiSpin 4Xc is a quad-speed, seven-disc changer featuring a tray- loading mechanism which eliminates the need for caddies and disc cartridges. The data transfer rate is 600Kb/sec. With a 350ms average access time. The unit works with either Macintosh or PC systems. $349 Contact: NEC Technologies, Inc., 1255 Michael Drive, Wood Dale, IL 60191, 708 860-9500, 800 NEC-INFO.

THE FIRST MACINTOSH CLONE manufacturer, Power Computing, was in evidence everywhere at Macworld. Dozens of software vendors were demonstrating their applications on Power Computing PowerPC-based Macintosh OS compatibles. The price of the Power 100, which consists of a PowerPC 601 running at 100Mhz, 8Mb RAM, a 365 Mb hard drive, 256K Level 2 Cache, 3 NuBus slots, built-in video support, built-in Ethernet, keyboard, mouse, and over $900 in bundled software, has been cut 30% to $1699. The company offers same day shipping and extended warranties with on-site service. Contact: Power Computing Corp., 1225 Barber Lane, Milpitas, CA 95035, 408 526-0500, fax: 408 526-0545, Internet: info@powercc.com, WWW: www.powercc.com.

SEAMLESS 2D AND 3D TEXTURES FOR print and multimedia use can be generated with ease using Alien Skin Textureshop, which was the first program of its kind in this category. Each 3D texture is the result of layering colors on top of 3D surfaces and then enhancing it, creating a texture using realistic lighting and shadows. The program supports the rapid generation of 15 mutations of a master texture. Textures can be saved as PICT, BMP, or TIFF formats (CMYK or RGB), and can also be dragged to an on-screen storage area for future use. Approximately 80 textures can be saved on one high-density disk. The software is supplied both as a standalone application and a plug-in. Versions are available for Macintosh and Windows. $99 Contact: Virtus Corp., 118 MacKenan Dr., Suite 250, Cary, NC 27511, 800 847-8871, fax: 919 460-4530.

THERE ARE A GROWING NUMBER of low-priced CD-R recorders, but what makes them useful is the software, which is the "music" that the recorder "dances" to. One powerful package, which has dropped in price from about $2500 to under $400, is QuickTOPiX 2.0 CD Publishing software for Macintosh. The software supports a wide range of CD recorders and has a straight-forward, easy-to-use interface. The software supports the ISO 9660 file system, allowing the production of CD-ROMs that can be read on any computer. The feature set is very complete. $349.95 Contact: Optical Media International, 180 Knowles Dr., Los Gatos, CA 95030, 408 376-3511, fax: 408 376-3519, Internet: optmedia.com.

PANTONE HAS A NEW SIX-COLOR PRINTING technology called Hexachrome. This technology has been incorporated into Adobe PageMaker 6.0, making it the first application to support the selection and separation of Hexachrome colors. Hexachrome technology is a fully integrated six-color process, which includes a new ink set, separations, proofing and Pantone Hexachrome Color Selector. The proprietary ink set, developed and patented by Pantone, consists of enhanced versions of the subtractive primaries yellow, magenta and cyan, along with black, vivid orange and intensified green. In a single pass on a six-color press, Hexachrome is capable of simulating over 90% of Pantone Color Matching System colors, more than twice the number that can be obtained using conventional four- color process printing. Photographs can be separated from RGB to Hexachrome directly in PageMaker 6.0. Hexachrome can be achieved with conventional or stochastic screening methods.

Epson's new large format color ink jet, the Stylus Pro XL, has been licensed to support the Pantone Matching System. The printer provides photo-quality output at up to 720 dpi in color, monochrome and grayscale. The Pantone-calibrated printer can accommodate paper up to 13" x 19" and can print images of 12.7" x 18.3", enabling full-bleed 11" x 17", plus crop and registration marks. The printer is expected to have a street price of under $2000. The Pantone Matching System will be available only with the PostScript option which will ship this fall. Contact: Pantone, Inc., 590 Commerce Blvd., Carlstadt, NJ 07072-3098, 201 935-5500, fax: 201 896-0242.

LETRASET HAS EXPANDED ITS LETRASET Envelopes collection to run as a Macromind FreeHand Xtra. Envelope technology, which was at the heart of Letraset's LetraStudio program, has already been released as a set of over 200 distortion envelopes for Adobe Illustrator. $199

In other news from Letraset, the Fontek display type library has been expanded with the introduction of 20 new typefaces. Letraset has also entered an agreement with Solana Beach Digital Stock Corp. To distribute the company's line of stock photography collections on CD-ROM. Contact: Letraset, 40 Eisenhower Drive, Paramus, NJ 07652, 201 845-6100, 800 343-TYPE, fax: 201 909-2451.

WHAT IS THE BEST-SELLING MACINTOSH word processor? According to Microsoft it is Microsoft Word which has shipped more than 3.6 million units. In order to grow that number even higher, Microsoft is offering a competitive upgrade for ClarisWorks customers to MS Office Version 4.2.1 for $299 ($499 list). Contact: Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399, 206 882- 8080, fax: 206 93MSFAX.

ACCURATE AND POWERFUL OCR software continues to fall in price. Xerox TextBridge 3.0 incorporates several technologies, including Xerox DocuRT (Document Recognition Technology) OCR engine, neural networks, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and document understanding. $99 Contact: Xerox Corporation, Desktop Document Systems, 3400 Hillview Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304, 415 813-6800, fax: 415 813-6967.

READ THIS CAREFULLY. You can now buy a NuBus or PCI card for your 68040 or greater Macintosh that contains 64 processors. Yes, 64 DSP-like processors that provide the first parallel processing solution for unprecedented image processing acceleration. PowerShop accelerates Adobe Photoshop functions by as much as 1000% over a PowerMac 8100. Pricing is expected to be about $3000 exclusive of necessary on-board memory. Contact: Adaptive Solutions, 1400 N.W. Compton Dr., Suite 340, Beaverton, OR 97006, 800 482-6277, WWW: http://www.asi.com/.

COMPUTER-TO-PRESS TECHNOLOGY has advanced with the introduction of Xanté's PlateMaker 8200, a true PostScript Level 2 platemaking system with 1200 x 1200 dpi. The platemaker uses the exclusive Myriad plate technology which is rated at 15,000 press impressions. The platemaker can also be used as a regular plain paper laser printer producing camera-ready copy and proofs at 600 x 600 dpi and is user-upgradable to 800 x 800 and 1200 x 1200 dpi. Plate and paper sizes as large as 11.8" x 25" can be imaged.

Xanté is also the first to introduce an 1800 x 1800 dpi Adobe PostScript laser printer. The LaserPress 1800 can image on page sizes as large as 12" x 19" with a RAM upgrade to 96 Mb. The 8 ppm printer ships with 48 Mb of RAM and simultaneously active serial, parallel, and LocalTalk interfaces. Ethernet is optional. $8495 Contact: Xanté Corp., 2559 Emogene St., Mobile, AL 36606, POB 1626, Mobile, AL 36616- 0526, 334 476-8189, 800 926-8839, fax: 334 476-9421.

THIS IS THE PROGRAM TO WATCH FOR. Deneba is crossing the line from a drawing and illustration program to an image editing and page layout program. Canvas 5.0 offers an incredible array of powerful tools and becomes the first program to package so many capabilities in a single application. Canvas 5 supports drawing, image editing, document design, presentations, and high-end PostScript output. More than 100 new features will be available along with a sleek new interface. This cross-platform program provides more than 30 file import and export filters. The software is bundled with two CD-ROMs containing a complete clip art collection of over 20,000 object-oriented images and a library of over 2000 TrueType and PostScript Type 1 format high-quality fonts. $599.95; free for those who purchase Canvas 3.5 after July 1, 1995; $149.95 for Canvas 3.5 owners or for competitive upgrades. Contact: Deneba Software, 7400 SW 87th Ave., Miami, FL 33173, 305 596-5644, fax: 305 273- 9069, Internet: deneba@aol.com.

SYQUEST'S NEW EZ135 USES SMALL 135Mb cartridges selling for under $20, in a drive selling for only $239. The drive is available for Macintosh and Windows. The Mac software bundle includes Silverlining Lite, a driver utility; DiskFit Direct, a back-up program; PowerMerge, a file synchronization utility; VirtualDisk Lite, a cataloging program; Paint Alchemy, a Photoshop plug-in; and two games. In a side-by-side comparison with the Iomega ZIP drive, the EZ135 has more capacity (135Mb vs. 100Mb); faster average access time (13.5ms vs. 29 ms); faster maximum transfer rate (2.4 Mb/sec vs. 1.25 Mb/sec); and a longer warranty ( 2 years vs. 1 year). Contact: SyQuest Technology, Inc., 47071 Bayside Parkway, Fremont, CA 94538, 510 226- 4000, 800 245-2278, fax: 510 226-4102.

COMPUTER GRAPHIC PAD TECHNOLOGY has been advanced with the introduction of the Wacom Erasing UltraPen which has a pressure- and tilt-sensitive eraser with 256 pressure levels and a pencil-like pressure-sensitive tip with 256 pressure levels. The cordless, batteryless UltraPen introduces the ability to work like a real eraser so that the harder the user presses, the more it erases. The programmable nature of the pen allows the user to use the pen tip to darken, for example, and the eraser to lighten. In word processing, databases, and spreadsheets it functions as a one-stroke eraser. Wacom tablet prices start at $179.99. Contact: Wacom Technology, 501 S.E. Columbia Shores Blvd., #300, Vancouver, WA 98661, 800 922-6613.

PAGEOFFICE, A NEW MULTIFUNCTIONAL scanner supports the input of any printed information into a Macintosh. PageOffice Mac combines the UMAX PageScan Device with intuitive software, the PageManager Interface. The 300 dpi scanner, with 256 steps of grayscale, incorporates a 5-10 page sheet-feeder with direct links to OCR, image editing, e-mail, printing and faxing. $499 Contact: UMAX Technologies, Inc., 3353 Gateway Blvd., Fremont, CA 94538, 510 651-4000, fax: 510 651-8834.

THE ULTIMATE CD-ROM NETWORK servers for AppleShare, Novell NetWare, Windows or Windows NT have been announced by Optical Access International. The CD/Maxtet 700-6X, composed of 7 CD-ROM drives, and CD/Maxtet 2100-6X, composed of 21 drives, provide data transfer rates more than six times those of standard drives. Both models incorporate a RISC processor (3 with the 2100) that puts seven drives on a single SCSI address, allowing up to 49 drives on a single server. The SuperCache control software allows multiple users to access the CD-ROMs with data speeds as high as 918 Kb/sec. Prices are $8,495 to $24,995. Contact: Optical Access International, 500 West Cummings Park, Woburn, MA 01801, 617 937-3910, fax: 617 937-3950, Internet: oai@oai.com.

A ZILLION KAJILLION CLICHÉS is a cliché, catch phrase and idiom thesaurus containing over 10,000 figures of speech. The program shares a common interface with A Zillion Kajillion Rhymes v 2.0. Together the two programs appear as one. $39.95 Contact: Eccentric Software, POB 2777, Seattle, WA 98111-2777, 206 628-2687, 800 436-6758, fax: 206 628-2681, Internet: xcentric@aol.com.

APPLE HAS RELEASED FOUR NEW PCI (industry standard expansion bus) Power Macintosh computers: the 7200/75, the 7200/90, the 7500/100, and the 8500/120. The PCI slots in each system allow faster peripherals (up to three times faster than the NuBus technology) and high-speed networking. The PowerMac 8500 and 7500 systems contain the main processor and clock chip on a daughter board, providing an upgrade path for future faster processors. An independent study found the new machines outperformed Windows- based Pentium machines by up to 44%. Prices start at $1699. Contact: Apple Computer, Inc., 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA 95014-2084, 408 996-1010.

TIFFEN, A FAMILIAR AND TRUSTED NAME in photography has introduced an extensive line of accessories for the Apple QuickTake 100 and 150 digital cameras. Among the more essential items are the UV Protector ($24.95), the Close-Up Lens Set (+1, +2, +4) ($69.95), the Super Wide Angle Conversion Lens ($99.95), the Wide Angle Conversion Lens ($89.95), the Telephoto Conversion Lens ($89.95), and the Apple Adapter ($19.95) which is necessary to mount any accessory on the QuickTake. Contact: DC-Pro, 9 Sammis St., St. James, NY 11780, 516 434-8800, 800 522-7835, fax: 516 434- 9238, Internet: deproacc@aol.com.

THE BREAKTHROUGH PROGRAM from Macworld is OneClick, software that lets the user add customizable button bars to any Macintosh application. A button bar reduces commands, selection sequences, and other repetitive functions to a single mouse click, greatly reducing production and training time, and eliminating errors. The program includes button palettes for popular applications as well as a large library of pre-made buttons that can be added to any OneClick palette. The options available to desktop publishers, graphic designers, image manipulators, and others are truly awesome. This is one of those "must have" programs. The program contains its own scripting language and script recorder to record any action or series of steps and assign them to a button. $129 Contact: WestCode Software, 15050 Ave. Of Science, Suite 112, San Diego, CA 92128, 619 487-9200, fax: 619 487-9255.

TRUEBASIC HAS CREATED A SOFTWARE engine that processes information quickly and efficiently, and has released a series of information products that incorporate it. The QwikINFO series consists of three new releases: ZipZAPP, Congress, and ABBREV. All three are available for Macintosh and Windows. ZipZAPP ($29) contains zip codes, area codes, population, time zones and can calculate the distance between any two locations. ABBREV. ($29) contains over 34,000 abbreviations, acronyms, airport codes, and stock symbols, searchable by either the abbreviation or by any word. Congress ($29) contains current information on every member of the 104th U.S. Congress including name, state, district, address, number of terms served, birthday, committee assignments, e-mail, phone, and fax numbers.

QwikRAFFLE is a dedicated application for producing numbered raffle tickets. The interface is somewhat crude, requiring that the user prepare PICT images for the body, stub, and cover of the raffle tickets using a drawing or painting program. Basic though it may be, it performs a function that is missing from even the high-end publishing products. $29 Contact: TrueBASIC Inc., 12 Commerce Ave., West Lebanon, NH 03784-1669, 603 298-8517, 800 436-2111, fax: 603 298-7015.

PERSONAL MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATIONS, for a digital portfolio, catalog, newsletter, brochure, or family album, can be created with ProView. ProView lets the user combine video, photos, graphics, text and sound with hot links in a single, standalone application that can be distributed and played on any Macintosh. No programming is required. A free demo is available at the E-magine web site: http://www.panix.com/~e-magine. $69.95 Contact: E-magine, 345 West 58th St., Suite 10T, New York, NY 10019, 212 262-4394, 800 603- 1474.

THE FAX NUMBERS OF OVER 40,000 U.S. and 60,000 Canadian businesses are available on the Pro CD Fax Book, the first collection of its kind. Listings are searchable by name, street, city, state, zip, fax number, business heading or SIC code. A second new title, The Business Phone CD, lists more than 13 million business listings. $49 each. Contact: Pro CD, Inc., 222 Rosewood Dr., POB 2039, Danvers, MA 01923-5039, 508 750-0000, fax 508 750-0060.

THE XEROX REGAL 5790 COLOR Copier/Printer System produces high quality color documents at nine pages per minute. The new machine is 50% faster than the Xerox MajestiK series. Regal can be controlled by a variety of front-end RIPs including the Radius Splash Power Series, and the EFI Fiery XJ, and can be connected to Macintosh, PC and Unix networks. List price for the non-edit version is $44,500, and for the edit version, $47,500. Splash servers range in price from $23,000 to $35,000; Fiery servers range in price from $18,500 to $34,500. Contact: Xerox , 200 Canal View Blvd., Rochester, NY 14623, 716 427-4080.

THE INTERNET VALET IS A SET of Internet tools which can help put a new user on the net in less than 10 minutes. The package includes a free two-week Internet account. Applications include Enhanced Mosaic, Eudora, NewsWatcher, Fetch, TurboGopher, and MicroPhone Telnet. $49 Contact: Software Ventures Corp., 2907 Claremont Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705, 510 644-3232, fax: 510 848-0885.

THE USER GROUP CONNECTION (UGC), a spin-out of Apple Computer, is dedicated to helping user groups and vendors connect with each other. UGC makes money by holding a contact with Apple to maintain User Group relations, by selling refurbished hardware and other computer products, and by assisting vendors in developing user group relations. Their web site (http://www.ugconnection.org/) provides a directory of 4000 Mac and PC user groups, a free web page for each user group, resources for vendors working with user groups, and information about benefits of user group membership. Contact: User Group Connection, 231 Technology Circle, Scotts Valley, CA 95066, 408 461- 5700, fax: 408 461-5701, Internet: info@ugconnection.org.

THE SHARP ZAURUS PERSONAL DIGITAL Assistant is pocket-sized personal communications tool supporting, e-mail, faxes, access to on-line services, information exchange with local and remote PCs, notetaking, drawing, word processing, and time management. Although the unit is hand-held, the keyboard is sufficiently large, and responsive enough for touch-typing. The unit uses a pen for drawing and navigating, but does not support handwriting recognition. A PCMCIA Type II slot supports additional memory, cellular fax/modems and pager cards. This PDA is an excellent on-the-go office for desktop publishers who need to be productive no matter where they be. A PC and Macintosh transfer utility software package is included in the purchase price ($6.95 s&h required). $849 list, $499 street price. Contact: Sharp Electronics Corp., Sharp Plaza, Mahwah, NJ 07430-2135, 800-BE-SHARP.

TEKTRONIX HAS DEVELOPED THE most accurate and flexibly customizable color proofing system ever introduced in a desktop dye sublimation printer. The Tektronix PhaserMatch system is the first software calibration system that provides a feedback loop from the printing press to the desktop printer used for proofing. The system debuts in the Tektronix 480X, which uses an Adobe PostScript RIP with a 24Mhz AMD 29000 RISC processor and optimized image processing software, making the 480X the fastest PostScript printer on the market. Contact: Tektronix Inc., POB 1000, MS 63-583, Wilsonville, OR 97070, 503 682-7377, 800 835- 6100, WWW: http://www.tek.com/Color_Printers/.

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS HAS A VERY attractive printer promotion, available only over the Internet. A $100 rebate is offered on selected TI printers, plus purchasers of the 5 ppm microLaser 600 printer can receive a free toner cartridge, a $49 value. Purchases must be made before September 30, 1995. Purchasers can get a claim form at the TI home page: http://www.ti.com.printer. Contact: Texas Instruments, 800 TI-TEXAS.

THE SOFTBOARD PERSONAL SIZE electronic whiteboard offers data communications capabilities. The Softboard's laser scanning technology identifies and tracks encoded dry- erase markers to allow information drawn or written on the SoftBoard surface to be displayed simultaneously on a computer's monitor. The data can be saved, printed, or used in other applications or shared with others in real time, including those in remote locations. $2795 Contact: Microfield Graphics, Inc., 9825 SW Sunshine Ct., Beaverton, OR 97005, 503 626- 9393, fax: 503 641-9333, Internet: sb_info@mfg.com.

MONOTYPE TYPOGRAPHY HAS REDUCED the price of floppy disk packages by 25%, making their prices the lowest of many major foundry. A four-weight font package now retails for $95, a six-weight package for $145, and an eight-weight package for $195. Single fonts on disk are $25; two-font packages are $50, and three-font packages are $75. Contact: Monotype Typography Inc., Suite 2630, 150 So. Wacker Dr., Chicago, IL 60606, 312 855-1440, fax: 312 855-9475.

WEBSTAR (FORMERLY MACHTTP) VERSION 1.2 is the most widely used commercial Web server on the Internet. As many users already know, administering a Web site on a Macintosh is much easier and productive than the Unix alternative. This latest version is 30% faster and includes a new CGI (common gateway interface) for configuring the server remotely from any Web browser. The software can be administered from any Web browser, anywhere in the world. $795 Contact: StarNine, 2550 Ninth St., Suite 112, Berkeley, CA 94710, 800 525-2580, fax: 510 548-0393, Internet: info@starnine.com, WWW: http://www.starnine.com/.

RADIUS HAS ANNOUNCED A NEW manufacturing partner to build its Mac OS systems: IBM. After an exhaustive search of possible partners, Radius chose IBM based on its ability to deliver high quality, highly reliable production volume.

Radius has introduced the second of its Mac OS-based computers, the Radius 81/110, which offers the power of the Power Macintosh 8100 at a lower cost. The base configuration includes a 2Gb hard drive, 16 Mb of DRAM, Ethernet, 4X CD-ROM, 3 NuBus slots, extended keyboard, mouse, and System 7.5.1. $4800. Contact: Radius, 215 Moffett Park Dr., Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1374, 408 541-6100, 800 227- 2795, fax: 408 541-6150, Internet: support@radius.com.

TRUEMOTION-S IS A SOFTWARE-ONLY video compressor for Macintosh and PC that provides superior video quality control through an intra-frame algorithm. The technology provides 200-400% faster compression on Power Macintosh and Pentium-based computers. The software is an essential tool for multimedia producers who would otherwise need to send their data out for compression, or else install expensive hardware-based MPEG and Motion-JPEG boards. The TrueMotion-S technology has been licensed for more than 100 CD titles. $499 Contact: Horizons Technology, Inc., 3990 Ruffin Rd., San Diego, CA 92123, 619 292-8331, 800 828-3808, fax: 619 292-7321.

MAINSTAY'S CAPTIVATE 4.5 IS A COLLECTION of graphic utilities for desktop publishing. Captivate Select is a screen capture program that can save an image of any Macintosh screen directly to the Clipboard or Scrapbook, or save as a PICT, TIFF 4.0, TIFF 5.0, GIF, or MacPaint file. Captivate View can view, scale, crop, print, and convert between graphic file formats. Captivate Store is a multimedia scrapbook and organizer for graphics, sounds, text, and QuickTime movies. $89.95

MacFlow 4.0 is the latest version of this acclaimed flowchart design and development tool. It offers a new interface, with toolbar and floating palettes and drag-and-drop functionality. The program is useful for flowcharts, organization charts, process flow diagrams, logic flow diagrams, schematic diagrams, or even web page layout design. A library of over 400 ANSI standard and custom symbols is included, and any PICT or bitmapped graphic can be converted into a MacFlow symbol. $345 Contact: Mainstay, 591-A Constitution Ave., Camarillo, CA 93012, 805 484-9400, fax: 805 484-9428.

INSIGNIA SOLUTIONS' PHENOMENAL SoftWindows for Power Macintosh has been upgraded to version 2.0. This Window's emulator runs all Windows (standard and enhanced mode) and DOS applications, emulating the Intel 80486 instruction set and other PC components. Users of previous versions will be delighted to see that the new version runs PC multimedia CD-ROM titles, with smooth audio and video clips. The emulator now supports Windows bi-directional sound (playback and sound annotation), advanced networking, and automation through AppleScript (the only PC application that is scriptable). The program represents a significant engineering feat since booting Windows in enhanced mode requires 35 million instructions. The ability to have Macintosh and Windows applications running side-by-side, with full support for Macintosh peripherals such as printers, CD-ROM, and hard drives, is now an affordable productivity opportunity not to be missed. Users can easily cut, copy and paste between the two operating systems, making use of text, arrays, and bitmap graphics. The standard Windows 3.1-to-Windows 95 upgrade can be used within SoftWindows 2.0. $299 Contact: Insignia Solutions, 1300 Charleston Rd., Mountain View, CA 94043, 415 335-7100, fax: 415 335-7105.

ADOBE PAGEMAKER 6.0 ADDS MORE THAN 50 new and enhanced features. Nearly a dozen new color features have been added, including the Kodak Precision Color Management System, complete Photo CD support, RGB-to-CMYK TIFF conversion, and the new PANTONE Hexachrome libraries. New page layout features include multiple master pages, grouping and ungrouping, a new Table Editor, position locking and unlocking of elements, polygon drawing, a zoom tool, the ability to mask text and graphics, automatic alignment and distribution of objects, user-defined grids, improved automatic kerning, and the ability to move selected elements forward or backward. New printing and prepress capabilities include integrated automatic color trapping, reader's spreads, and designation of nonprinting objects. Other new features are the acceptance of Adobe Photoshop plug-ins, and hot links to Photoshop. On-line document delivery is supported by the ability to print documents in Adobe's PDF or HTML format. $895

The Adobe ScreenReady graphic utility package speeds and simplifies the process of bringing files and designs from popular applications into multimedia authoring programs. It automatically rasterizes documents and EPS files. The software consists of two components: a QuickDraw-based driver and a PostScript language application. The QuickDraw component is a Chooser-based device that lets users "print" one or multiple pages from any application directly to a PICT format file. The PostScript component processes PostScript language text and graphics. $199

Adobe is offering a free CD-ROM Movie Maker plug-in for Adobe Premiere for Macintosh. The plug-in allows CD-ROM developers to make movies optimized for playback in low data rate environments. It is free for registered users at the Adobe Web site: http://www.adobe.com/.

Three new Adobe Photoshop plug-ins are available for Macintosh users. Two of the plug-ins take advantage of the Apple multiprocessor API and PowerPC microprocessor, providing significant speed enhancements. The third plug-in supports the latest specification for the GIF file format, the standard used for Internet Web page design. The plug-ins are available from the Adobe web site, the Adobe Bulletin Board Service (206 626-6984), CompuServe, America On-line, or for the price of shipping and handling, by calling 800 833-6687. Contact: Adobe Systems Inc., 1585 Charleston Road, Mountain View, CA 94039-7900, 415 961-4400, fax: 415 961-3769.

AGFA HAS A NEW PHOTOSHOP PLUG-IN called FotoFlavor, which lets the user apply one or more pre-defined color corrections. Corrections and changes to a digital scan can be saved as a customized color script.

The Agfa StudioScan II scanner has been replaced by the StudioScan IIsi, a low-cost flatbed scanner with increased speed and many new features. Among the specifications of the scanner are an optical resolution of 400 x 800 ppi, 2.4 D dynamic range, FotoSnap automated scanning software, Adobe Photoshop LE, Caere Omnipage Direct OCR, and FotoTune Light. Estimated street price is under $1000. Contact: Bayer Corp., Agfa Division, 200 Ballardvale St., Wilmington, MA 01887-1069, 508 658-5600, fax: 508 658-6285.

THE BERKELEY MACINTOSH USERS GROUP, BMUG, has several new releases including their bi-annual Newsletter with CD-ROM. This publication contains hundreds of articles of reviews, comment, troubleshooting, and product recommendations. The CD-ROM includes utilities and the entire printed issue in an Acrobat PDF. The BMUG Font Collection and Desktop Publisher's Toolkit ($26.67) has a new font browser and over 700 new fonts. Roadside Resources 2.0: The BMUG Internet Collection ($26.67) contains information for net "newbies" as well as useful utilities. The BMUG PD-ROM ($28.57) contains over 230 Mb of new Freeware and Shareware. Contact: BMUG, 510 549-2684, fax 510 849-9026, WWW: http://www.bmug.org/.

OCR USERS OF LOW-COST PROGRAMS can step up to the best, Caere OmniPage Pro 5.0 (Mac and Windows) and WordScan Plus 4.0 (Windows) are being offered for $149 each through an aggressive upgrade program. This price represents a discount of $200 - $350 off these top-of-the-line products. These packages are known for their highly accurate translation engines, viewers for the "zoning" and preprocessing of scanned images, verifiers for proofing, TruePage technology for maintaining page formatting, and other advanced features. This is really an outstanding value.

Macintosh users can also buy OmniPage Direct 2.0 for as little as $69 street price, from its new retail price of $99. OmniPage 2.0 uses the same OCR technology found in OmniPage Pro 5.0, but is optimized to be used within any user application. By selecting the Scan Text menu item, OmniPage Direct 2.0 initiates the scan, performs the OCR on the document, and brings the text directly into the user's application for editing. If you have a scanner there is no longer any reason not to have these excellent OCR products. Contact: Caere Corp., 100 Cooper Ct., Los Gatos, CA 95030, 408 395-7000, fax: 408 354-2743.

DESKTOP PUBLISHERS THRIVE AND SURVIVE on good graphic utilities. Graphics Tools! is just such a package. It consists of a number of parts and functions, all of which, at one time or another can become essential. The Media Manager is a thumbnail catalog holding graphics, text, animation, QuickTime movies and sound files. The user can maintain several collections, search them, and then open the files from their originating application. The Screen Capture supports several capture variations and saves to any of eight different file formats. The Image Viewer supports the viewing of graphics and multimedia files directly. The Graphics File Converter supports several vector and bitmap formats for DOS, Windows, OS/2 and Macintosh. The Image Compression engine provides compressors/decompressors for JPEG, LZW, and Packbits. The Scanning and Special Effects modules support direct scanning into an image collection as well as the application of any Adobe Photoshop plug-in module. The package includes several plug-in filters from Kai's Power Tools. $169 Contact: DeltaPoint, 2 Harris Court, Suite B-1, Monterey, CA 03040, 408 648-4000, fax: 408 648-4020, WWW: http://www.deltapoint.com.

DATA BACKUP IS A VITALLY IMPORTANT housekeeping chore, unfortunately it is a chore and often goes undone. Retrospect 3.0 might change that. The program can perform the most common backup operation (an incremental backup), with a single mouse click and two confirming presses of the return key. Custom backup procedures can be saved as repeatable scripts using the new EasyScript function. The new Duplicates function makes it easy to maintain an exact copy of a folder or hard disk on a server or second disk drive. Several other key features have been added. $249 Contact: Dantz Development Corp., 4 Orinda Way, Bldg. C, Orinda, CA 94563, 510 253- 3000, fax: 510 253-9099.

PHOTOGRAPHS CAN BE ADDED TO documents using a free, easy-to-use application from Kodak Digital Science. Photo Insert helps to automate photo selection and insertion by providing ready-made layout templates with spaces for photos, managing color quality automatically, and selecting the image size and resolution appropriate for the job. A free copy of Photo Insert will be placed on all Photo CD discs.

As a way of encouraging the use of pictures in home and small business applications, Hewlett-Packard will be offering free Photo CD scans and Photo Insert software to buyers of their new DeskJet 855C color printer. Contact: Eastman Kodak Company, 901 Elmgrove Rd., Rochester, NY 14653-5200, 800-CD- KODAK.

POSER IS AN INNOVATIVE APPLICATION for incorporating the human form into graphic design, illustration, and 3D software. The software is a modeling and rendering program that lets users create an infinite variety of human figures which can be posed, rendered with surface textures and multiple lights, and easily incorporated into artwork. Poser provides male, female and stylized models that can be moved, modified and shaped into any pose and viewed from any angle. Body sizes from infant to adult to super hero can be derived. It is an amazing product. $199 Contact: Fractal Design Corp., 335 Spreckels Dr., Aptos, CA 95003, 408 688-5300, fax: 408 688-8836.

A NUMBER OF POWERFUL IMAGING TOOLS have been released by The Human Software Company. SQUIZZ! 1.0D ($129) is a Photoshop plug-in providing interactive distortion of text and images using virtual brushes or grid warping, with unlimited levels of undo. AutoMask ($295) is another plug-in that lets a user combine pictures, masks and stencils to create elaborate photo composites. Up to 64 layers of high-resolution digital photos can be maintained. The program works in RGB and real CMYK, leaving the original images untouched. Swap is a tone manipulation plug-in that makes fast work of producing ghost effects, duotones, tritones, four-color black-and-white, quadtones, sepia, etc. Select is a CMYK plug-in that offers high-end color retouching capability. Contact: The Human Software Company, Inc., POB 2280, Saratoga, CA 95070-0280, 408 399- 0057, fax: 408 399-0157.

MACROMEDIA HAS BRANCHED OUT into interactive multimedia training products. The company famous for its Director multimedia creation application has released Director Basics and Lingo Essentials, two new titles in their Macromedia Learn it All series. Both CD-ROMs use animated digital movies of instructors explaining Director software tools. A step-by-step lesson guide accompanies each title. $99.95 each or $149.95 for both. Contact: Macromedia, 600 Townsend, San Francisco, CA 94103, 415 252-2000, fax: 415 626- 0054.

ALADDIN SYSTEMS, FAMOUS FOR THEIR StuffIt compression products, has a new version of their InstallerMaker. The InstallerMaker makes software installers which set the installation destinations and conditions for the installation of new software. Although the product is used extensively by software publishers to ensure the correct installation of their software on end-users' machines, network administrators and others find it useful for distributing software to users in a multi-user environment. The software saves money by reducing the number of disks required for any installation, and in a network situation can be loaded on the server, eliminating disk distribution altogether. Contact: Aladdin Systems, 165 Westridge Dr., Watsonville, CA 95076-4159, 408 761-6200, fax: 408 761-6206, CompuServe: 75300, 1666.

THERE WAS CERTAINLY NO MORE popular hardware product at Macworld than the ZIP drive. The $199 drive with the $19.95 100 Mb cartridges reportedly sold out the first day of the show, with over 1000 units purchased. Not to rest for a moment, Iomega showed their Jaz drive, a $499 drive with a $99 1Gb cartridge. Each cartridge can store up to 8 hours of CD quality audio, or up to 8 minutes of broadcast quality video, or up to 2 hours of MPEG1 compressed DSS satellite quality video, or more than 20,000 scanned documents. Contact: Iomega Corp., 1821 West Iomega Way, Roy, UT 84067, 801 778-1000, 800 MY- STUFF.

MORE IMAGES FROM THE IMAGE company, HSC. The KPT Power Photos library of five volumes of high-resolution RGB TIFF photographs covers Natural Backgrounds and Textures; Food Basics; Urban Textures and Backgrounds; Sky, Water and Landscapes; and Sports and Recreation. These custom photographs are royalty-free and many include masking channels. $199 each

KPT Power Photos II is a set of five CD-ROMs containing a total of 375 quality, royalty-free objects with built-in channels, prepress-ready layouts and backgrounds. Kodak's Browser software is included for easy and quick image selection. The following themes are covered: Kids Toys and Backgrounds, Hot Rods, Bugs and Butterflies, Nostalgia, and Fall and Winter Holidays. $199 Contact: HSC Software, 6202 Carpinteria Ave., Carpinteria, CA 93013, 805 566-6200, fax: 805 566-6385, Internet: kptsupport@aol.com.

NOT JUST THE FASTEST PUBLISHING PLATFORM, but the fastest personal computer. It is the DayStar Digital Genesis MP. This high-end Power Macintosh clone is the first to use four PowerPC 604 processor chips at 132 Mhz. The basic system ships with 32 Mb of RAM, a 2 Gb hard drive, a 512K level 2 cache, a quad speed CD-ROM, Ethernet 10BASE-T and AAUI ports, and 16-bit stereo in and out. $14,999 Contact: DayStar Digital, 5556 Atlanta Hwy., Flowery Branch, GA 30542, 404 967-2077, fax: 404 967-3018, WWW: http://www.daystar.com.

THE COLORMARK PRO 1000 PRINT SERVER, a PostScript Level 2 RIP, is the first to offer a single RIP architecture to drive color copiers, wide-format digital color printers and chemical-free imagesetters simultaneously. The unit uses a 100 Mhz superscalar processor with 64 Mb of RAM. Up to seven LaserMaster output devices can be connected to the ColorMark Pro. $15,995 Contact: LaserMaster Corp., 6900 Shady Oak Rd., Eden Prairie, MN 55344, 612 944-9330, fax: 612 944-0522.

THE NEW THING IN OCR IS INTELLIGENT BUSINESS card scanning. Cardiris, for Windows can scan, encode, and index business cards of almost any kind. The software works with hand-held, sheetfed, flatbed or dedicated scanners. The program also works with the innovative I.R.I.S. DataPen, a hand-held pen-like device. Pricing unannounced. Contact: Image Recognition Integrated Systems, 1600 NW Boca Raton Blvd., Suite #20, Boca Raton, FL 33432, 407 395-7831, fax: 407 347-6267.

ALL THOSE ADOBE PHOTOSHOP PLUG-INS, and no way to manage them...until now. PlugINFINITE is a plug-in manager which offers a number of features, such as selection of which plug-ins to load, the creation of plug-in sets, a means of attaching comments to each plug-in view, the means to rename and organize the menus and menu names of the plug-ins as they appear in the program. Contact: BeInfinite@aol.com, 800 554-6624.

THE QUARKXPRESS XTENSION TECHNOLOGY was designed for third parties to design useful and powerful capabilities that leverage the QuarkXPress program. Several new QuarkXtensions, from independent sources, do just that: BeyondPress is an Xtension that lets users convert the content of a QuarkXPress document into HTML code for publishing on the Internet World Wide Web. This capability is one of the hottest areas of publishing interest today. The software identifies all of the text chains and pictures in a document and displays them in the Document Content palette where their icons can be dragged to create separate articles. Established XPress style sheets can be linked to their HTML counterparts and converted automatically. Hypertext links can be established easily, either within a document or to other pages on the web. BeyondPress maintains much of the typographic formatting of the source XPress document, such as accented and special characters, paragraph alignments, and bold and italic fonts. The software also handles pictures easily, exporting them as either GIF or JPEG, in rescaled size, and with an applied level of image quality and transparency. Special text, such as logos or other typographic treatments can be converted to an image to retain their look. Custom elements can be added by dragging line breaks, spaces and horizontal rules into the Document List, or by typing text and HTML tags. The composed HTML document can be viewed in a web browser as a final check and then exported for immediate web publishing. Contact: Astrobyte, 303 534-6344, Internet: Info@astrobyte.com, WWW: http://www.astrobyte.com. Specialized applications were exactly what QuarkXTensions were intended to handle, and a perfect example of a well-implemented purpose is AdCreation Toolkit 1.0. The Toolkit actually performs 18 separate functions, all related to creating, automating, tracking and billing all sorts of advertising material. AdCreation ToolKit adds a menu to the QuarkXPress menu bar, and a new tool to the tool palette, the Starburst. The Starburst creates either a picture box or a text box in which copy can be added. Double-clicking on the Starburst box brings up the Polygon Creator, with options for creating starbursts, trapezoids, stars, arrows and triangles. Some of the other useful tools are: Create Matrix­generates a grid of text boxes appropriate for repetitive ad listings, catalog entries, or other similar formats. Setup Guides­generates an evenly-spaced grid of non-printing lines for visually placing and aligning elements. RefleXTion­converts a single item, a group of items, or an entire ad to its mirror image. Create Headline­provides the options that apply to a headline in a single dialog box for rapid headline composition. Create Shadows­automates the production of three-dimensional shadows with control over offset, color, shades and blend. Fit Text Block­automatically adjusts tracking, leading and inter-paragraph spacing to make a body of text fit within a given text block. AdTrax­a background utility that keeps track of the amount of time that a particular ad has been in production. This data is useful for billing, estimating, and employee productivity purposes. Job Slug­an identifying imprint that lists the client name, ad name, rundate, ad number, and optionally, the time data from AdTrax. New Layout­a dialog box in which commonly-used ad layouts can be stored, organized and recalled. Layouts can be identified by client, ad name, publication, and ad size. Format Prices­applies typographic formatting to prices, either individually or in a batch, with a single keyboard command. Copy & Apply­samples the typographic attributes of a text selection and lets the user apply them to another text block. Auto Save EPS­this feature saves an EPS version of the ad every time it is saved. The EPS version can contain slug line information which can be used by third party document management applications for pagination and automated composition. Class Act­a style sheet utility that can be used to apply a style sheet to a portion of a paragraph as well as the full paragraph. Fontasy­a floating palette that assists in the selection and insertion of special characters. Layer It! ­a utility that lets the user combine common elements, such as graphics, into groups which may be treated as layers. Layers can be selectively hidden from view so that particular elements of an ad can be isolated for proofing, composition, or to reuse a previous ad in a new layout. $295 Contact: Metro Creative Graphics, Inc., 33 West 34th St., New York, NY 10001, 212 947- 5100, fax: 212 967-4602, Internet: LaMonteF@AOL.com. In the world of desktop publishing the two major continents are PageMaker and QuarkXPress. Unfortunately the two don't co-exist very easily. Adobe has offered a free Quark-to-PageMaker converter, but there was no way to move the other way until Markzware introduced PM->QXP, an XTension that does a splendid job of converting PageMaker 4.2 and 5.0 files to QuarkXPress 3.3.1. The user simply uses the QuarkXPress Open command and selects a PageMaker file. The PageMaker file is converted as it is opened, and appears within the QuarkXPress environment ready to edit. $79 MarkzTools is a set of file management tools that accomplish three functions. In essence the Xtension provides backward compatibility, so that a job can be saved in an earlier version format and opened with an earlier version of the software. This capability is valuable in environments where users are not all using the same version of the software, or in Service Bureau environments where such variation is common. The software can also compress a document to as little as 50% of its original size, and can save documents as self-extracting files which can be uncompressed from the Finder. Perhaps most remarkably, and potentially most useful, MarkzTools can open and salvage "bad" documents that Quark itself can not open. $69 Markzware has recently introduced FlightCheck, an application that automates the preflight process for QuarkXPress, PageMaker and Illustrator jobs that are destined for output on film, direct-to-plate, or direct-to-press. The application works from the Macintosh Finder and does not require the originating application to be open. An incredible amount of information is provided during the preflight process, covering every production aspect of the document. After the document has been checked, FlightCheck collects all of the document elements, including the document itself, screen and printer fonts, images, XTensions, data and other necessary files and places them into a FlightCheck job folder which can be copied onto a disk and provided to the printer, Service Bureau, or in-house prepress personnel. $249 Contact: Markzware, 3337 S. Bristol, Suite 87, Santa Ana, CA 92704, 800 300-3532, fax> 714 241-3874, Internet: Markzware@aol.com.

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND ORNATE BORDERS and initial caps are available in a series of CD-ROMs from Aridi Computer Graphics. Their newest volumes, No. 6: Olde World Borders, and No. 7: Initial Caps III expand their offerings of exquisite editable EPS- format hand-drawn artwork in both black-and-white and full-process color. Each CD is both Macintosh and PC compatible. $149/Each. The first five volumes have been assembled into the Version 2.0 Ensemble for $399. They must be seen to be appreciated. Contact: Aridi Computer Graphics, Inc., POB 797702, Dallas, TX 75379, 214 404-9171, 800 755-6441, fax: 214 404-9172.

THE ULTIMATE TEXTURE GENERATOR FOR creating seamless 2-D and 3-D texture patterns for multimedia, print, and video presentations has been released by Virtus. Alien Skin Textureshop works at either a standalone application or a plug-in, working with Photoshop, Painter, or other compatible applications. Textures can be exported as PICT or TIFF files in the Macintosh version, or BMP and TIFF for Windows. The program uses a very simple interface, with no complicated menus, controls, or commands. The user simply selects a master texture and then chooses a rate of mutation. Clicking on the mutate button activates a process that produces 15 genetic mutations. Users can save textures by dragging and dropping them into storage bins where they can be displayed full-screen, or edited by changing the lighting, tile size and aspect ratio. $99 Contact: Virtus Corp., 118 MacKenan Dr., Suite 250, Cary, NC 27511, 800 847-8871, fax: 919 460-4530.

THE ONLY FULL PEER-TO-PEER FILE AND print sharing between Windows-based PCs and the Macintosh has been released by Miramar Systems. Personal MACLAN 5.0 Connect software, with the new Windows AppleShare client software, lets PC users mount local Macintosh drives as a logical drive letter. The Print Client component lets PC users print their documents to AppleTalk-based printers. Conversely, the software allows Macintosh users to mount local Windows drives on their desktops. This is accomplished using the standard Chooser interface. Macintosh users can also print to PC-based PostScript printers. In addition, users can share CD-ROM drives, tape back-up units, and other output devices. The software installs on the PC, not on the Macintosh, and runs over LocalTalk, Ethernet and Token-Ring. $199 per PC. Contact: Miramar Systems, 121 Gray Ave., Suite 200-B, Santa Barbara, CA 91301, 805 966- 2432, fax: 805 965-1824, Internet: miramar@pacrain.com.

CD-ROM-BASED TUTORIALS OFFER A reasonable alternative to classroom training, and a dimension that can't be provided by a book. In addition, they are readily available 24 hours a day, and can be viewed again and again. A particularly good series of training CDs are available from Quay2. Their series includes training for QuarkXPress, Photoshop 3, Illustrator 5.5, FreeHand 5, PageMaker 5, ClarisWorks 3, MS Office, Word 6, Excel 5, and Internet HTML, with several more titles currently under development. Each title includes a series of Master Classes which are QuickTime movies covering aspects of the subject. Certain titles also include Cool Stuff, which are either exercises, hints, tips or techniques for producing real world work. Each CD also includes both a reference section, detailing the menus, shortcuts, and other valuable information, and a Jargon section of technical words and phrases. $49 to $149. Contact: Quay2 Multimedia Ltd., 2328E Walsh Ave., Santa Clara, CA 95051, 408 492-1051, fax: 408 492-1851, WWW: http://www.maxis.co.uk.

AFTER MORE THAN TEN YEARS OF RELENTLESS work and hundreds of millions of dollars on R&D, engineering, and market studies, the Macintosh has secured its place as a legitimate tool of business, science, industry, education, and government. What better time than to publish, "New and Improved Stupid Mac Tricks," a collection of 17 software performers, some funny, some amusing, some kind of mean, and several that are certainly just plain stupid. These tricks can be installed on your computer, or that of an unsuspecting friend or co-worker. No matter how they are used, the book provides $19.95 worth of entertainment. Contact: AP Professional, 525 B St., Suite 1900, San Diego, CA 92101-4495, 619 699-6735, fax: 619 699-6380, Internet: app@acad.com.

THE BRIGHTEST AND LIGHTEST MULTIMEDIA projector is Epson's ELP-3000. The unit supports Macintosh and PCs providing screen images as small as 21 and as large as 300 inches. The 500 lux light source is up to two times as bright as conventional projectors. Computer resolutions up to 640 x 480 at 16.7 million colors is supported. $9599 Contact: Epson America, Inc., 20770 Madrona Ave., Torrance, CA 90503, 310 782-0770, 800 289-3776, x3000.

THE FASTEST PERSONAL DESKJET PRINTERS YET, the HP DeskJet 850C ($658 US list) and the HP Deskjet 855C ($663 US list), produce black text and color images that rival photographic printing. Both printers use a RISC processor, a new print-head design and firmware improvements to print black text at up to 6 ppm and color at up to 2 ppm. The DeskJet 855C features an Econofast mode which prints black at 7 ppm and color at 3 ppm. The printers incorporate HP's Resolution Enhancement technology (REt) to produce crisp edges and smooth curves for output that is as close to laser-print quality as any inkjet printer has come. The new Color Resolution Enhancement technology (C-REt) creates a smaller dot, allowing for the selection of up to four color-intensity levels per pixel to blend and layer color hues for clear, vivid output. The printers are compatible with Macintosh and PCs. The expected street price is under $550. Contact: Hewlett Packard, 3000 Hanover St., Palo Alto, CA 94304, 800 752-0900, WWW: http://www.hp.com.

ONE OF THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS WITH maintaining consistent color when using two or more applications is that most programs have their own way of working with color. Color Compass is a cross-application color tool, creating color palettes that work in all popular applications. The program provides a veritable color workshop in which the user can do such things as extract the 256 most-used colors in any PICT file and find their closest PANTONE colors, or make any color warmer, cooler, darker, or lighter using precision sliders. $129 Contact: Praxisoft, Inc., 44071 Tippecanoe Terrace, Ashburn, VA 22011, 703 729-3391, fax: 703 729-6877, Internet: praxiscorp@aol.com.

THE FIRST TRULY NEW AND INNOVATIVE drawing program in quite a while is now shipping from FutureWave Software. SmartSketch is a precision drawing program that provides tools that are typical of a painting program: pencil, brush, and eraser. But it is not a bitmap program...everything that is drawn or painted will print with sharp, crisp lines...no jaggies. Unlike other drawing programs, SmartSketch does not use control handles to reshape bezier curves, all that needs to be done is to point to the line or curve and grab it. Simple controls are provided for applying a high degree of control to such modifications. The intelligent pencil tool recognizes when a straight lines, rectangles, circles and arcs are drawn and it can automatically correct for flaws and automatically connect lines. Desktop publishers will appreciate the capability to break apart characters and treat each element as a graphic. The software supports importing and exporting PICT, Illustrator EPS, EPS (export only), and DXF formats. Although the software has many new and sophisticated features it is targeted at the home office, school, and casual user. The program is bundled with 500 pieces of clip art and a tutorial. $69.95 Contact: FutureWave Software, Inc., 8305 Vickers St., Suite 200, San Diego, CA 92111-2111, 619 637-6191, fax: 619 637-9032.

THE COMPLEXITY OF SOPHISTICATED graphic effects in Photoshop, and other image manipulation programs that accept plug-in filters (including the new Adobe PageMaker 6.0, and ColorIt! 3.X, but not yet in Fractal Painter, Pixel Paint Pro, or Paint Shop Pro), has been simplified with the introduction of The Black Box 2.0 for Macintosh and Windows. The Black Box 2.0 is a set of 10 filters that do not require any channel operations, and produce outstanding results in a fraction of the time necessary through traditional production steps, and with much less skill and much more control. The filter set includes drop shadow, inner bevel, glow, motion trail, cutout, glass, carve, swirl, outer bevel, and HSB noise. The filters can be used with the new layers feature of Photoshop, supporting a high degree of experimentation prior to positioning elements. $119 Contact: Alien Skin Software, LLC, 2522 Clark Ave., Raleigh, NC 27607, 919 832-4124, fax: 919 832-4065, Internet: alien@mercury.interpath.net.

POSTSCRIPT IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF THE electronic publishing environment, and Transverter Pro 3.0 is the digital hospital. This capable and skilled piece of software is a lifesaver for professionals in service bureaus, and prepress, graphics, and illustration departments. The program, in essence, is a soft RIP that can view, place, convert, proof, and preflight PostScript files. Among the program's many capabilities are: ­Conversion of PS images to PICT for placement in multimedia presentations. ­Conversion of a QuarkXPress or PageMaker page saved as EPS for editing, proofing, or trapping within Illustrator or FreeHand. ­Generation of editable paths, text, and bitmaps from PS and Acrobat PDF files. ­Rasterization of PS and PDF files to TIFF in antialiased form for import and editing in Photoshop. ­Output of color-separated PDF files from transverted PDFs that are composed in QuarkXPress or PageMaker. ­Marquee selection of any area of a PS file and output as either a vector or bitmap image. ­Add a preview to an EPS file so that it is viewable in page composition programs and other applications. ­Test, preflight, and inspect files without the need to send them to an output device. ­Diagnose PostScript errors, missing or incorrect fonts or misplaced link files. ­Consult the built-in Error Log to determine why a PS file fails to image. ­Use PS Type 1 DOS fonts on a Macintosh to image PC PS files in which the fonts haven't been embedded. ­Produce high quality fax pages from PS, PSF, and EPS files. $395 for the Macintosh or Windows version. Contact: TechPool Software, 1463 Warrensville Center Rd., Cleveland, OH 44121, 216 382- 1234, fax: 216 382-4825, Internet: info@techpool.com.

COMPLEX PROFESSIONAL DIGITAL VIDEO special effects in two channels and three dimensions can be produced using Boris Effects. Boris Effects, for use in Adobe Premiere or Media 100, provides 25 pre-built effects, including spins, tumbles, rotations, and re-sizing, although the package is fully customizable. Contact: Artel Software, POB 1877, Brookline, MA 02146, 671 566-0870, Internet: BYamnitsky@aol.com.

BLACK-AND-WHITE LINE ART CAN be filled-in with color, using an incredible prepress tool that incorporates an array of specialized tools. Although other programs can accomplish somewhat similar results, Colorize 2.0 is the best available tool for applying properly trapped color to TIFF line art, clip art, scans, cartoons, illustrations, logotypes, and other forms of art. The trapping, which takes the form of automatic spreads, is user- selectable and viewable on the screen. Precision paint and erase tools automatically keep within the lines without covering up the black edges; the Outline tool applies a uniform stroke around the lines of an image; the Transfer tool changes one color to another; and there are several others. Brush size is changed instantly by holding the Command key, pressing the mouse button and moving the mouse. This latest version also contains new tools for applying special artistic effects, such as blends, gradient fills, airbrushes, and vignettes. The program supports an excellent interface for defining, selecting, displaying, applying, and storing color. Images can be saved in either EPS or TIFF file formats, and output using either process color, spot color, or both. An EPS file created in Colorize can be as small as 2 percent of a similar file created in another program. $495 Contact: DS Design, 1157 Executive Circle, Suite D, Cary, NC 27511, 919 319-1770, 800 745- 4037, fax: 919 460-5983.

IF YOU RUN A COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARD, or just want to have a fantastic personal library of Macintosh software, then the AMUG (Arizona Macintosh User Group) BBS in a Box Volume 15, double CD-ROM collection is for you. More than 1.2 Gb consisting of over 10,000 compressed files in 27 categories makes this one of the most complete collections of Macintosh software available. The CDs are compatible with six different BBS systems. A picture preview mode has been added for on-line viewing of artwork, QuickTime and fonts. A database of the CD contents is searchable by file name, keyword, or other parameters. $119 Contact: AMUG CD, Inc., 4131 N. 24th St. #A-120, Phoenix, AZ 85016, 602 553-0066, fax: 602 553-0144, Internet: info@amug.org.

WINDOWS USERS CAN READ AND WRITE Macintosh disks, Bernoullis, SyQuest, hard drives and optical media (including magneto-optical and phase-change) using a new program called Here & Now. The program is similar in some respects to DOS Mounter 5.0, a Macintosh program that lets users read and write PC disks, from the same company. Here & Now can be customized to support up to 200 separate extensions. The program lets users view Macintosh files in their full 31-character naming convention, or in truncated DOS format. Users can also format high-density floppies in Macintosh format directly from Windows. $89.95 Contact: Software Architects, Inc., 19102 North Creek Parkway, Suite 101, Bothell, WA 98011-8005, 206 487-0122, fax: 206 487-0467, Internet: sales@softarch.com.

CHAGALL IS THE LEAN AND MEAN IMAGE editing and painting program which is often compared to Photoshop. It runs in as little as 750 Kb of memory, making it a logical choice for smaller Macintoshes and PowerBooks. Among its innovative features are: a vast set of tools, far greater in number than competing products; an independent Clipboard and Color Look-up Table for every image window; unlimited levels of undo; compatibility with Photoshop plug-ins; and more. $299 Contact: Technosystems USA, 1584 W. Lincoln Trail Blvd., Radcliff, KY 40160, 502 351- 0108, fax 502 352-2180.

IT WORKS THE WAY YOU WOULD WANT recordable CD-ROM to work. Optima's DisKovery 650CDR uses the Macintosh Finder to copy files to a mounted recordable CD, directly on the desktop! The accompanying CD-R Access software mounts recordable CDs on the Macintosh desktop just like a diskette. Users click-and-drag individual files, folders or entire volumes to the mounted CD-R disc icon. Additional data can be added at any time until the disc is full. Discs created in this way can be mounted on any Mac with a standard multi-session CD-ROM using the free CD-R Access for CD-ROM driver. $1850 Contact: Optima Technology Corp. USA, 17062 Murphy Ave., Irvine, CA 92714, 714 476- 0515.

PUZZLE POWER, FOR MACINTOSH OR WINDOWS, is a complete puzzle generation package featuring the following puzzle types: crosswords, word search, kriss kross, quote falls, and cryptos. The puzzles can be composed for on-screen or printed use, with a number of desktop publishing capabilities, such as support for all system fonts and a variety of sizes. The CD-ROM package includes Puzzle Master, over 600 pre-designed puzzles, including 500 from The New York Times. $59.95 Contact: Centron Software Technologies, Inc., 300 American Legion Lane, Suite #4, Pinehurst, NC 28374, 800 848-2424.

IF THE PROSPECT OF CREATING MULTIMEDIA presentations has caused you apprehension, take comfort in the release of Digital Chisel, a program that requires no scripting, programming, or advanced skills. The program is particularly good for creating interactive lessons and tests, and is therefore especially good for educators and training professionals. The program supports most forms of media, including QuickTime, sounds, animation, video disc, speech, and events. A set of templates makes it a snap to create all sorts of examinations, including multiple-choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank, and matching. The program has its own full-featured paint and draw components for creating new artwork or editing existing files. Both frame-by-frame and path animation are easily produced. Sound can be recorded and played, for voice annotation, instructions, etc. A user's progress and success can be recorded in a database and used for recordkeeping or assessment. A CD-ROM is included with libraries of graphics, sounds and movies. $159.95 Contact: Pierian Spring Software, 5200 SW Macadam Ave., Suite 250, Portland, OR 97201, 503 222-2044, 800 472-8578, fax: 503 222-0771.

THE NEW YORK MACINTOSH USER'S GROUP, over 5400 strong, has issued the CD5 CD- ROM of shareware. Categories include: games, communication, business/productivity, utilities, security, compression, system enhancements, antivirus, PowerBook utilities, Newton software, vendor updates, font utilities, Apple software, networking software, Internet tools, and more. Contact: New York MacUser's Group, Inc., 873 Broadway, New York, NY 10003, 212 473- 1600, fax: 212 473-1745, WWW: http://www.nymug.org.

YET ANOTHER COLLECTION OF SHAREWARE AND PUBLIC domain fonts and clip art for desktop publishers and other users of graphic- and font-intensive applications. The Desktop Publishing & Fonts CD-ROM contains over 1800 fonts and hundreds of pieces of clip art, all arranged for easy access. In addition the CD contains several demo versions of leading desktop publishing programs. Contact: The Boston Computer Society, 1972 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02140, 617 864-0275, fax: 617 864-3375.

THE INTERNET SOURCE FOR ALL MACINTOSH-RELATED freeware, shareware, and some vendor-released updates and demos, is Info-Mac Archive at Stanford University. Now Pacific HiTech, Inc. Has put over 15,000 files from this incredible resource onto a set of two CD-ROMs. The topics cover virtually every aspect of Macintosh computing, and are a bargain at only $39.95. Contact: Pacific HiTech, Inc., 3855 South 500 West, Suite B, Salt Lake City, UT 84115, 801 261-1024, 800 765-8369, fax: 801 261-0310, Internet: orders@pht.com.


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