Today's News On One Page

September 24th, 1999

[4:00 PM] Apple Stock Watch: Apple Regains Almost 3% In Heavy Trading Apple recovered slightly from yesterday's 10% tumble in a market that seemed to be catching its breath. While both the Dow and the Nasdaq closed lower again today, the losses were small and their were many winners in the day's trading. Apple happens to be one of those winners as they closed at 64 15/16, a gain of 1 5/8 or 2.57%. Volume continues to be high with 10,534,300 shares trading hands, or about 3 times normal volume. Adobe also shared in the good news, wising more than 2 points, though Macromedia, Symantec, and Motorola all closed lower. On the Dark Side, Microsoft, Intel, and Compaq also closed lower, though Dell, Gateway 2000, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard closed higher. The Dow closed at 10279.33, a loss of 39.26 while the Nasdaq closed at 2740.41, a loss of 9.42. For full quotes for all the companies mentioned in this article, we have assembled this set of quotes at Yahoo! for your reference. We also have these same quotes reported live (20 minute delay) on our home page. For other stories regarding Apple's stock activity, visit our Apple Stock Watch Special Report. The Mac Observer Spin: After yesterday's crushing blow, an increase of any sort is welcome and shows that traders still have confidence in Apple. Apple

[3:35 PM] Ambrosia Releases Update For Cythera Ambrosia Software has issued a maintenance release of their role playing game Cythera 1.0.3. Version 1.0.3 adds some new features while addressing a number of known bugs. According to Ambrosia Software, some of the new features are: Starting the game, choosing Preferences, then choosing Save causes game to quit. Aethon will teach you how to use missiles Moving something doesn't clear the "OK to take" bit DisplayManagerAware bit set for 68K (so Fat version should have that) Entering Tavara Stronghold "shimmers and disappears" now works correctly. When you buy more than one non-counted object, it correctly creates the right number (instead of one too many) Replicate spell is a bit less powerful now (doesn't replicate _everything_ takable). Harpy corpses have too high a priority, and yet can't be moved. Seldane object stops working, turning all white (this only occurs if you have a corrupted persistence storage heap in 1.0.x that was fixed in 1.0.2, but only sometimes) Clears all "targets" and "modes" when you restore/open a game (though if you exploited this problem, there is a chance that random items will forever be missing from the game) Touched up the shadow on the Seldane device (so there is no white rim on it) Fixed problem with various "detect" spells/skills that had false positives. Fixed the buried treasure being "stealing" problem Cythera is available for US$25. You can find more information at the company's web site. Ambrosia Software

[3:25 PM] Give Yourself A Break With MacBreakZ! Frank Reiff has released a Macintosh usage reminder program, MacBreakZ!. MacBreakZ! reminds Observers when it is time to tear themselves away from their machines for a much need rest period. According to Mr. Reiff: MacBreakZ! is a utility which reminds Macintosh users to take regular breaks. Research has shown that taking regular breaks reduces the risk of computer related injuries, such as repetitive stress injuries, neck and back ache, eye strain, blurred vision, headaches, etc. MacBreakZ! is available for US$10. For more information, please visit the MacBreakZ! web site. MacBreakZ!

[3:15 PM] TextSpresso Text Cleaning App Receives Major Upgrade Taylor Design has released TextSpresso 1.5. The new version of the popular text editor includes several bug fixes and feature updates. According to Taylor Design: Version 1.5 includes several new commands such as Clear Characters and Paste Quote. Five new text filters are included with TextSpresso 1.5, bringing the total to over 100. Version 1.5 also includes more robust preference file checking and automatic filter updating, so upgrading users no longer have to import new and updated filters manually. Version 1.5 includes several new commands such as Clear Characters and Paste Quote. Five new text filters are included with TextSpresso 1.5, bringing the total to over 100. Version 1.5 also includes more robust preference file checking and automatic filter updating, so upgrading users no longer have to import new and updated filters manually. A single user licensee for TextSpresso is US$20, and multi-user pricing options are available. You can find more information at the company's web site. Taylor Design

[Special Series] How The Mac Changed The World: Telegraph Road by Del Miller

[Column] The Back Page - Apple Is Missing Out On A Powerful Weapon

iMac Specs Pulled 9-29-1999 (Was: We Have The Specs For The New iMac) We have decided to pull our story on iMac specs at Apple's request and in deference to protecting Apple's trade secrets and other marketing information. You can send your comments to [email protected]. Apple

[9:00 AM] N2MP3 Gets A Maintenance Release Proteron LLC has release an update of their MP3 encoder software, N2MP3. N2MP3 is a program allowing different types of audio files to be compressed into the popular MP3 format. Used along with any of the MP3 players, N2MP3 allows users to take full advantage of the growing MP3 phenomenon. According to Proteron LLC: Proteron, LLC today released an update to N2MP3, the popular Macintosh MP3 audio encoder. Recommended for all users and Mac audiophiles, the update is immediately available at www.n2mp3.com. Changes in version 1.02 Fixed a bug which could cause the system to freeze when inserting a CD after encoding Added proper support for CDDB supplied ISO-8859 characters (umlauts, accents, etc.) Improved handling of encoding from multiple CD drives Changed player name to MACCAST and MACCAST Lite to reflect the new product name Multiple minor optimizations of the N2MP3 engine N2MP3 is currently available for US$34.95. The update is free to registered users. Proteron - N2MP3

[8:30 AM] AuctionMac.com Moves To Flat Rate Pricing AuctionMac.com, the Mac-only auction web site, has updated their site, as well as introduced a new rate structure for auctioning items off. The new "flat rate structure" will make it less confusing, and more affordable, to auction off your Macintosh merchandise. According to AuctionMac: We said good-bye to percentages and tiered rates. We now have a simple, flat-fee rate plan that is extremely hard to beat. You can sell software for $0.50, hardware items for $1.00, and Mac systems for $2.00. It is that simple (and that low). Our goal is to provide a feature-packed, easy to use Macintosh auction service. This goal includes simple, inexpensive selling rates. We've always based selling rates only on the idea of supporting the service itself, thus we can offer these fabulous deals. And we have kept the 'no bids, no fees' rule that we have had since the beginning. Those rates make AuctionMac.com one of the least expensive places to auction your Mac related stuff. Head over to AuctionMac.com to find out more! AuctionMac.com