Year: 2002

Electronics For Imaging today announced the availability of Fiery Spark Professional 2.0, a sophisticated color management system, for the new EPSON Stylus Pro 7600 and EPSON Stylus Pro 9600 wide format ink jet printers (see news item below). Fiery Spark Professional 2.0 features an easy-to-use “Command WorkStation” interface for centralized print job management, including instant reprint and full-page preview capabilities.

Hekkelman Programmatuur has released Pepper 4.0, an update to the powerful text editor for Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. Pepper supports 19 text encodings, including UTF8, offers unlimited undo/redo, mutli-file search, syntax styling, built in FTP, and more. Pepper is US$35 shareware.

XLR8 today introduced a 550MHz G4 upgrade for Apple’s “Sawtooth” Power Mac G4 systems. XLR8 is providing the upgrade to owners as part of its “Trade-In/Trade-Up” program; customers can send XLR8 their current processor and receive the 550MHz upgrade for US$299, or they can agree to a send in their current processor after they receive the upgrade. The latter option requires placing an extra $300 deposit that will be refunded when the original processor is received.

Troll Touch has begun shipping its TouchStar2 touch screen system for Apple’s new iMac. Both the protective screen overlay and USB touchscreen controller are internally integrated into the iMac so as not to detract from the unit’s appearance. The TouchStar2 sells for US$699; customers can either purchase it along with an iMac from Troll Touch, or they can send their unit in to be outfitted with the device. Turn around time is about 10 business days.

Microsoft’s MSN Internet Service is now available to Mac customers in 14 states who get their local phone service through Qwest, according to c|net. At this point in time the service is limited to an Internet dial-up application compatible only with Mac OS 9, unlike the Windows version that offers a customized Web browser with direct access to various MSN services. MSN is the third largest ISP, behind American Online and EarthLink.