Issue No.3 August 1997
Issue No.3 August 1997
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Ok, you virtually grease monkeys, we're on a roll. Start your engines and scroll down the page for more multimedia online news (and opinion). If you're a first time visitor and want to know more about who we define as a digital mechanic we explained the nuts and bolts of it here. If you have suggestions or a press release and news items to share, email us. Iif you'd like to link to us, or include us in your site content, just ask. The more readers we get, the more content goes in. Fred Harden & Doug Bailey
The
Lubritorium
Apple Rumour # 346 The
coverage of the Microsoft buy in to Apple, the Larry
Ellison appointment etc. have made Apple management news
a bit ho-hum. But I liked the email that was passed on to
Computer
Reseller News,
that was sent to Pixar Inc. employees by Pixar Chief
Executive Steve Jobs who called the "rumors"
about his return to Apple as chairman or chief executive
"crazy." Jobs went on to say that Apple had
offered him both positions but he declined. Jobs said he
had agreed to "step up my involvement with Apple for
up to 90 days, helping them until they hire a new
CEO." But it was the next part I thought was sweet,
Jobs stated, "I love my job at Pixar. I cannot
imagine a cooler place to be. . .. So don't worry--the
crazy rumors are just that. I have no plans to leave
Pixar. You're stuck with me." Aaaw! ~ Mac vs. Windows #1,234 ~ Mac vs. Windows #1,235 Macromedia Stock went down with the news of a $1.7million shortfall on expected profit for the last quarter. The revenue from Director 6, Flash 2 etc. hadn't kicked in in the period so it's hardly a figure to worry about (unless you had stock that is), but the release also had the following (shadow) writing on the wall. Macromedia said it is continuing to shift away from the Macintosh platform and revenue from Windows and cross-platform products represented 51 percent of total revenue, compared with 44 percent last year. Mac-related revenue declined to 49 percent of total revenue, compared with 56 percent last year. It will take a long time to drop to the HotWired figure above, especially around the studio's we know, but I wonder at our continual Mac upgrade path sometimes.
Book me in
- Events
Web
Marketing Also on
the Netb2b.com site is the national Web Price
Index. Based on
bids every month from 24 Web developers around the
country, the Web Price Index gives marketers high, low
and median prices for all facets of business Web design. When two heads aren't better than one
Quo MSN? Why do the
closed 'value network' environments such as MSN and AOL
seem less and less relevant to me? I once extolled the
virtues of CompuServe for years. Maybe it's the audience
size? So on reflection, it was no surprise to hear that
Microsoft are developing a search engine (a beta version
of which will be ready in October, with a full launch
expected in January '98). It was also no surprise to hear
the news that the search engine is expected to be
launched on the Internet, rather than on Microsoft's MSN.
I did raise an eyebrow when I considered how much
Microsoft was spending on banner ads on other search
engines, and wondered how they will cope if they
lose Microsoft. If TV's just Radio with pictures...
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Sponsored by Digital Mechanics.
Web site overhauls a specialty
Even in
the digital age, vital parts can’t hum along forever
without a visit to the Lubritorium. That’s why
we’ve kept the lube bay out the back - it neatly
corrals all the indulgence sites we keep opening. When
the smoko horn blows, besides sticky pink buns and
pineapple donuts, cheek by jowl with instant, steaming
Java, we finely tune our palates at virtual wine and food
tastings. 
Heineken refreshes the parts of your browser that other browser
refreshes can't ..... 
If you get the Netscape Inbox
direct version of Hotwired's daily Homepage you'll have
noticed in the bottom corner the Browser stats for the
day. It's a dynamic and pretty accurate look at what the
bulk of your audience are viewing your pages on. Given
that the Wired reader is more likely to be a
'professional web surfer', the Mac figure is probably
higher than some other sites. I've seen it at 12% some
days. The last line changes, and it's something they have
fun with (eg Newton 0.00% and there was an Amiga figure a
few days ago). It all makes a difference when planning
your site (we did a rebuild on a site recently where the
graphics they had were posterized when displayed in 256
colours on a Windows palette, but looked fine on a 256
Mac. (Web palette? they said, What web palette?) The
client was also complaining that the centered text had
'orphan' words on some lines. We resized, changed
resolutions and couldn't duplicate the complaint on the
Mac. When we checked it on the PC, we asked, and she
confirmed, that she was looking at it in IE 3 with her
fonts set to the biggest setting. We now do a final
'Angela' run on all our pages with that large size font
before putting them up.)
If you didn't get to 
Keep your news stand browsing eyes open to see
what happens after Oct.1 when IDG combine CIO and
Webmaster magazines into a single print publication . The
magazine will apparently drop the Webmaster name and be
published twice monthly. There's a note on the 
I think I've just been
fed my first web commercial break. As mentioned above I
use Real Player Plus and I've set up one of the default
buttons to go to 
