Quid Pro Quo 2.0 Processor: PowerPC And 68k Version: Beta 1 Release Date: Fall '97 Publisher: Social Engineering www.socialeng.com by: Oliver Dueck (odueck@webintosh.com) What we have here is an amazing piece of software. This powerful Web server, originally known as WebCenter, has already gotten rave reviews in its first version, and the second, now in beta, is even more impressive. Best of all, the basic version of Quid Pro Quo is free. Also available is Quid Pro Quo Plus ($295) and Quid Pro Quo Secure ($129), which offer a support for a variety of secure Web protocols. So what's new in version 2? QPQ now supports both multiple virtual hosts (requires the yet-to-be released Open Transport 1.3) and multihoming via the HTTP/1.1 Host header. This is set via the new Services function. Quid Pro Quo features support for a variety of plugins, including MOSAPI, W*API (WebSTAR), and POWSAPI (Purity Open Web Server). Of course, CGI applications are supported as well, and new in version 2.0 is support for server side Java applications (servlets). Quid Pro Quo 1.0 featured impressive built-in server side includes capabilities; those have been further improved in version 2.0. For example, it now supports hide and show commands, allowing users to customize the output of their pages based on such variables as the time and date. Also included in the package is the Quid Pro Quo Search server, a powerful search engine based on Apple's V-Twin technology. This add-on also works with other Web server software. Other significant changes include faster and more reliable file caching, Realm-based Allow/Deny handling, Mac OS file sharing permissions, file uploads, HTTP/1.0 Keep Alive support, and multiple-language Web site support. Even though it is free, Quid Pro Quo is a powerful solution for serving World Wide Web pages on your Macintosh. While we did find some minor problems in this beta release, it was surprisingly stable. Quid Pro Quo 1.0 was impressive; version 2 is outstanding. It is a viable alternative to commercial software such as WebSTAR.