MailBITS/08-Sep-97

TidBITS Subscription Drive -- Numerous people have told us they enjoy TidBITS and redistribute it to friends or colleagues each week. Passing occasional issues along is fine, but we'd prefer regular readers join our mailing list. That way, we can have a better idea of how many people read TidBITS and better manage the hundreds of email bounces we receive (many from addresses that aren't on our list). If you like TidBITS and want to share it with others (such as new or returning students), please tell them they can subscribe to TidBITS (for free, of course!) by sending email to <tidbits-on@tidbits.com> or by filling in the form on our home page. If they want to read an issue first, the current issue (and the last four issues) is available from our home page, and sending email to <tidbits@tidbits.com> always returns the current issue. Thanks for helping to spread the word about TidBITS! [ACE]

<http://www.tidbits.com/>

No More Newton, Inc.? The fledgling Newton, Inc. may not flutter away from the Apple nest. As we reported last Friday in TidBITS Updates, Apple now plans to retain its PDA unit, primarily because of the eMate 300. Different reports have Apple using the eMate 300 design at the core of a new series of computers for the education market or as the base for an inexpensive network computer (a system that uses the network for storage, both for applications and files). Steve Jobs has made comments about wanting to move the company in that direction, and now that Oracle CEO and network computer proponent Larry Ellison is on Apple's board of directors, an eMate-based network computer running Java isn't any stranger than the rest of the news coming out of Cupertino these days. [ACE]

<http://www.tidbits.com/macnews.html>
<http://www.newton.apple.com/>
<http://www.nc.com/>

CompuServe Split Between WorldCom and AOL -- H&R Block has agreed to sell its 80 percent share in CompuServe to telecommunications giant WorldCom in a stock swap worth roughly $1.2 billion. In a separate deal, WorldCom will trade CompuServe's consumer customers and $175 million to America Online for AOL's ANS Communications network services division. That dollar amount is about five times the $35 million AOL paid for ANS a few years ago, as we noted back in TidBITS-254. In essence, AOL takes over CompuServe's 2.6 million customers (AOL reportedly plans to keep the CompuServe name alive), and WorldCom adds both CompuServe's and ANS's networks to its existing UUNET network, creating a massive network of more than 500,000 dialup ports. AOL also signed a five-year deal making WorldCom AOL's largest network service provider in exchange for discounts worth several hundred million dollars. An acquisition of CompuServe was inevitable and these deals appear to give each company what it wants. The effect on CompuServe customers remains to be seen. [ACE]

<http://world.compuserve.com/news/19970905.asp>
<http://www.aol.com/corp/news/press/more/970908.html>

Aladdin Shrink-wraps ShrinkWrap 3.0 -- ShrinkWrap, the popular disk image utility from shareware author Chad Magendanz (see TidBITS-339) was recently purchased by Aladdin Systems, and Aladdin has released version 3.0 as a $29.95 commercial product (upgrades cost $15). The new version operates in the background, adds native support for Apple's DiskCopy 6.1, and improves its compression capabilities through the use of Aladdin's StuffIt technology. Others improvements include options for RSA 40-bit encryption and binhexing, as well as the ability to perform batch operations on folders or volumes containing disk images. ShrinkWrap works on any Macintosh running System 7 or later (including Mac OS 8), though some features don't work on the Plus. A 15-day trial version is available as a 600K download. Aladdin Systems -- 408/761-6200 -- 408/761-6206 (fax) -- <info@aladdinsys.com> [TJE]

<http://www.aladdinsys.com/dev/shrinkwrap/>

More Successful Shareware Coming Soon -- Thanks to all the news this week, we ran out of space in this issue to continue Rick Holzgrafe's Successful Shareware article series. Don't worry, though, it will pick up again soon. [ACE]