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Who's in the corner?
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WTVN Radio • Columbus, Ohio • Sunday morning from 8 until 9 |
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| Sunday, March 16, 2003 |
Random thought:
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Is Word perfect? How about WordPerfect?Microsoft and Corel are racing to release the next versions of their office suites. Microsoft will probably be first, but Corel has some features that might be worth waiting for. The next version of Microsoft's Office suite (Office 11) is expected to begin shipping within the next few months. Things have been relatively quiet up north, but from Ottawa comes word that Corel's first beta of WordPerfect Office 11 is out. No expected shipping date has been announced, but it will probably be 3rd quarter. XML will be big players for both. Corel has put itself in a good position to pursue the XML market which, for one thing, will allow people to more easily move text between applications and to use it in print and on a website without the usual formatting headaches involved. One thing Corel has done that has made it popular with users it to maintain the same file format from version 6 through version 10. That will continue with version 11. A user will be able to write a document in version 11, hand it to someone who uses version 6 or 7, and expect it to work. Try that with Word! Microsoft is aiming Word at developers and promising them the ability to create XML templates in Word. In pricing WordPerfect Office has the advantage. The standard edition's suggested retail price is $300 and it will probably be available for far less. The upgrade from a previous version will be $150 and educational users (students and teachers) will have a $100 version. Microsoft hasn't released any prices yet. Microsoft Office 2003 will not run on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, or Windows 2000 if Service Pack 3 isn't installed. Some feel that this is an attempt to push them to newer operating systems (and it probably is) but anyone who is still running Windows 9x, Me, or a pre-SP3 version of Windows 2000 probably isn't too likely to upgrade the word processor anyway. A first look at Macromedia Studio MX Plus
As I wrote in the introduction to my "Dreamweaver Tips and Tricks" presentation that's scheduled for June in San Diego, one look at all the features in Macromedia's Studio MX reveals why it's the choice of website professionals worldwide, but it's also enough to make a person run screaming from the room. Dreamweaver is a tool kit with enough wrenches, hammers, saws, and drills to make anyone happy. With Flash, Contribute, Fireworks, HomeSite, extensions for all of those applications, and even Freehand in the box, it's hard to figure out what to use first. Or how. When should you drop back from Dreamweaver and use HomeSite -- or even a text editor like UltraEdit? When might Fireworks be a better choice than CorelDraw and PhotoPaint? What about Freehand? How does Contribute fit into your plans? Dreamweaver MX: This is the website design tool of professionals around the world and the reasons are as clear as they are voluminous. Just about everything you'd want is in there, you can see what you're going to get (more or less), and Dreamweaver writes clean code. Give me a couple of graphics, Dreamweaver, and about 60 seconds -- I'll give you a functioning "roll-over" graphic. At the office (where we have a paid version of the MX package from Macromedia) I've been working on a project that has a lot of Javascript and server-side includes mixed in with the HTML. I decided (gasp!) that Dreamweaver wasn't the best tool for this particular job and started working on the site in UltraEdit. As I've said a time or two, UltraEdit is my favorite Windows-based text editor. But then I thought about HomeSite+, the program that Macromedia got when Allaire became part of Macromedia. Fortunately, development work continues on HomeSite and it has turned out to be exactly the right tool for this task. Fireworks MX: Yes, I'm a fan of Corel Draw and Corel PhotoPaint. Yes, I start most of my website graphics in Draw. But Draw's output engine continues to make a mess of the output. No matter how many times people who use these products complain to Corel, the software engineers just shrug and say that it's working as designed. Well, the design is wrong; but I can still use my favorite graphics development tool, output the file as a PNG, and then use Fireworks to make beautiful graphics for the Web. And the more I use Fireworks, the more I like it. Fireworks will never replace Corel Draw for complex graphics and certainly won't replace Corel Draw for anything that will be output on paper. But I find myself using it more often. Macromedia Flash MX: Flash is the de facto standard for vector-based animations. I still have a little trouble getting my head around the tools, but I know that this is an application that makes lots of clever effects possible. FreeHand MX: I have to admit that I've never liked FreeHand because it doesn't look like Corel Draw. That's a little like saying I don't like paintings by one painter because they don't look like paintings by some other painter. If you're a FreeHand user, you'll like what Macromedia has done with it in this version. As for me -- well, I'll have to spend a little more time with it before I decide. Macromedia Contribute MX: I told you about this new application a few months ago when it was first released. This is an outstanding application for developers who would like to leave day-to-day updates to people who aren't website design experts -- and one copy is included in the MX Plus package. ColdFusion MX Developer Edition: If you want to learn ColdFusion, you can use the ColdFusion server that's included in the box. It's adequate for development and testing, but cannot be used on a commercial server. DevNet Resource Kit Special Edition: Macromedia includes a teaser version of DevNet, an on-line resource for developers. The CD-based version might be enough to convince you to try the on-line version. I'll have more later on these powerful tools from Macromedia, but a first look tells me that the company has nothing to fear from competitors. Nothing at all. How much? New users will pay $899 for the full set. Upgrades start at $199. For more information, see the Macromedia website. GoodbyeSpam continues to chug along,
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You may recall from my earlier description that GoodbyeSpam sends a challenge message to people who have send messages from addresses it doesn't recognize. These messages are placed in quarantine until the sender replies to the challenge or until I look into the quarantine area and either approve them or delete them. So far, two people have expressed a disinclination to respond to a challenge message out of fear that it might be a spammer looking for live addresses or a virus. You receive the challenge message just once and it arrives immediately after you've sent me a message. Some virus/worm writers do things like this and I know that some people are so paranoid that they won't click anything, but the default message explains the situation fairly well. Even so, I've replaced the message with one I wrote -- one that "sounds like me", which is one of the key tests against which any unexpected message should be judged. Those who don't click -- well, their message may be delayed for several hours. While I understand the concern, it doesn't bother me much because in the past two weeks, GoodbyeSpam has summarily killed more than 1300 messages, automatically approved 3400, and quarantined 604. I have set up 754 approved senders and 97 approved domains. There are 234 blocked domains and I have several dozen phrases or words that -- if they appear in the subject of a message from someone I don't know -- will cause the message to be blocked. GoodbyeSpam has saved me quite a bit of frustration and I'm grateful. For more information, see http://www.goodbyespam.com/. |
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Hewlett-Packard Company, the computer and printer manufacturer, said this week that fiscal second-quarter revenues were up 3 percent in the first month of the period and stressed that an accounting revision disclosed Wednesday had left its cash position "strong and unchanged."
ABC television (part of the Walt Disney Company) this week launched a 24-hour news service available only to broadband Internet users. At first, the online service will be available to subscribers to the existing ABC News On Demand broadband service. That $5/month service allows users to view news re-runs -- taped clips and programs.
The new service will be live and will also be carried on RealNetworks' "RealOne SuperPass" service at $10 per month.
EarthLink has launched EarthLink Unlimited Voice for its broadband subscribers nationwide. For $40 per month, you get high-speed Internet service Internet service along with unlimited local, regional, and long distance calling. The service also includes voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, call return, call forwarding, and more.
EarthLink cable and DSL subscribers are eligible and users can choose any of 115 area codes for their phone numbers. The EarthLink Unlimited Voice calling plan includes:
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Privacy Guarantee:I HATE SPAM and will not sell, rent, loan, auction, trade, or do anything else with your e-mail address. Period.
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As if you didn't already get enough weather on the radio! Annoying legal disclaimer
Sometimes there's something extra down here. This is one of those times.
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