Apple Computer offers an Apple Support Area and the Tech Info Library. The support area provides current product information, software updates, the Top 20 Tech Info library articles, information about the Quicktime lawsuit, opendoc, and more. The Tech Info Library contains hundreds of documentation sheets on Apple hardware and software from the Apple II through Lisa to the Mac, including...

Copernic 2000 is a Macintosh- or Windows-based Internet searching tool. The free version allows searching of the Web, newsgroups, or email addresses while the Plus or Pro versions can search numerous other, more specific information sources (e.g., newspapers and humor). Copernic assimilates the results of a number of relevant search engines and presents them to the user in a compact format. These...

On March 16th, 1999, Apple computer made two announcements that indicate radical changes in the direction of its OS. One of these announcements was that Apple is releasing the source code to portions of Mac OS X server. The project, called Darwin, has not only released the foundation layers of the operating system, but established a system of user-contributed modifications to the source. Modeled...

This nifty shareware program from Sig Software places pull-out/ snap-shut "drawers" on the sides of users' screens, which can store items for easy access. In addition to storing text (which can be inserted into any program via keyboard shortcuts), users can store email addresses, URLs, thumbnails, sounds, movies, aliases to frequently used files, and more. The help documentation is easy to...

This site caters to those in search of an easier way to create tables, flow charts, maps, chemical structure diagrams, and the like. Email Effects can also add fun pictures to the signatures at the bottom of email messages for Macintosh owners who use Qualcomm's Eudora or Claris Emailer. This $10 shareware offers an easy-to-use interface with a drawing-like toolbar to create or convert the items...

Despite its curious name, Fast Fourier Transform in the West (FFTW) is a powerful, free "C subroutine library for computing the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) in one or more dimensions, of both real and complex data, and of arbitrary input size." Developed by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, FFTW purportedly has outstanding performance when compared with other DFT...

Version 4.0 of award-winning Fetch brings many new features to the Mac's most popular FTP client. Improved continuously since it was introduced at Dartmouth College in 1989, the program is now offered by creator Jim Matthews' Fetch Softworks. Version 4.0 sports a completely updated interface, borrowed largely from the Macintosh Finder, that Mac users will find intuitive from the first use. The...

The Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) is a method of compressing audio data. Whereas the widely known MP3 format sacrifices sound quality for a smaller compressed size, FLAC does not lose information in the encoding process. FLAC is an open source software project, and its homepage contains downloadable encoding utilities for most common operating systems. An excellent overview of the FLAC format...

The Gestalt Manager, part of the Mac OS since System 6.0.4, allows applications to know any number of details about the environment (software and hardware) in which they have been launched. The Gestalt Selectors List Overview provides an online list of all currently known selectors and includes a function for searching the database.

This new Web browser (designed by a German software team) is a welcome addition to the numerous alternative browsers available for the Mac. Some of the more notable features of iCab 2.9.5 include a download manager, a link manager, a kiosk mode (that effectively blocks all other applications), and a built-in pop-up ad blocker. The Web site for the application also includes a FAQ section, and...