MailBITS/30-Jan-95

System 7.5 slowpokes have a little more time to act. Apple has extended from 31-Dec-94 to 17-Feb-95 the postmark deadline for those users who purchased a Mac without System 7.5 between 02-Aug-94 and 31-Dec-94 and who wish to upgrade to 7.5. The upgrade is available for a small shipping and handling charge. A request form is available within the U.S. by calling 800/871-6634. At this time Apple says there is no global upgrade program for users outside the U.S.; users can contact their local dealers for information on programs in specific countries. [MHA]

Robert Hess <robert_hess@macweek.ziff.com> wins the "I'll never think about it in quite the same way again" Quote of the Week award. In response to our comment about the little joystick device IBM uses in the ThinkPads and other PC manufacturers use in various other laptops, Robert noted, "It always makes me feel like I'm manipulating someone's nipple." Of course, this could turn into a major selling point for ThinkPads, and the PR folks could have a field day: "The IBM ThinkPad: Power and stimulation wherever you go." [ACE]

eWorld rate drop -- eWorld recently lowered its rates and eliminated its annoying business hours surcharge. eWorld still costs $8.95 per month for subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, but subscribers can log on for four free hours instead of two. After the first four hours, all additional hours cost $2.95 instead of $4.95. Subscribers from other countries are now charged $9.95 per month with one free hour, and then $9.95 per hour after that.

eWorld also announced that they are working on the next version of eWorld for Macintosh software (the first release of eWorld's Windows software is scheduled for release sometime in 1995). The software, called Golden Gate for now, is planned to have better Internet access, increased speed, improved email, plus new multimedia and text-to-speech features.

In additional eWorld-related news, last week eWorld announced that three additional news services have joined its line-up: U.K. News Today (news and business from the U.K.), Global Grandstand (international sports coverage), and World News Watch (reports of news events world-wide) as well as United Press International's consumer news service, called UPI News You Can Use. See TidBITS-237 for more eWorld information. [TJE]

ResNova Software <info@resnova.com> announced that the next version of their NovaLink Professional BBS software will support the World-Wide Web along with the already-supported (assuming a dedicated Internet connection) Internet email, Usenet news, and Telnet in and out of the BBS. NovaLink will provide not only a Mosaic-like interface for browsing the Web, but also the capability for users to create their own HTML documents. The addition of Web support is an interesting move on ResNova's part, because in combination with the Internet services already supported, the World-Wide Web provides access to most of the other standard Internet services like FTP, WAIS, and Gopher. There are a few NovaLink BBSes (<chrf.gdn.org>, <mpd.amaranth.com>, and <infoport.com>) already available on the Internet via Telnet or (with a MacTCP connection) via NovaTerm, the free client software available at: [ACE]

ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/bbs/nova-term-311.hqx