COLE'S NEWSWIRE, March 19, 1997

March 19, 1997
Vol. 3, No. 11

The NEWSWIRE is a weekly distribution of information about the sales and installations of publishing technology and the latest news on new products developed by suppliers to the industry.

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DAVID R. LIGHTFOOT, LLC
David R. Lightfoot, LLC of Annapolis, Md., has announced that Homestead Publishing Co. of Bel Air, Md., is the first American customer for its SCOOP Editorial System.

In April, Homestead will install a 20-seat system, with PCs for reporters and Macintoshes for editors, and the SCOOP News Planner module for internal communications and editorial planning. The SCOOP system will be installed and supported by Publishing Partners International Inc. of Manchester, N.H., an authorized SCOOP reseller.

Homestead is a wholly owned subsidiary of Times Mirror's Baltimore SUN. Homestead publishes THE AEGIS (36k, weekly), which is circulated in Harford County, Md., and prints the Washington edition of the LOS ANGELES TIMES.

SCOOP, a family of shrink-wrapped editorial products developed by Wilkenson SCOOP AB of Stockholm, Sweden, have been installed in more than 100 newspapers worldwide. MacEdit and WinEdit are the Macintosh and Windows 95 and NT applications. Also in SCOOP is Shoot, an image database application. SCOOP is distributed in the United States by David R. Lightfoot, LLC (drlight@annap.infi.net).

GROUP LOGIC INC.
Group Logic, a graphic arts software supplier based in Arlington, Va., has announced the release of MassTransit, a high-speed job delivery and remote proofing software package that facilitates transfer of large digital graphic arts files and print jobs between printing and pre-press firms and their clients. When coupled with high-speed telecommunications hardware and service, MassTransit can send files at rates exceeding 10 megabytes per minute.

Group Logic developed MassTransit for Adobe Systems Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.; it was released under the name Adobe Virtual Network. The software is now available directly from Group Logic and from Group Logic's OEMs and distributors.

MassTransit's supports all open standard networking and telecommunications devices and protocols, including the Apple Communications Toolbox (CTB), TCP/IP networks, AppleTalk, ISDN, Frame Relay, SMDS, ATM and xDSL, as well as a wide range of telecommunications hardware.

Group Logic may be visited on the World-Wide Web at http://www.grouplogic.com/.

LEXIS-NEXIS
Lexis-Nexis, an on-line content provider based in Dayton, Ohio, has begun offering subscriptions to reQUESTer on the World-Wide Web, providing access to Lexis-Nexis archives through a web browser. Subscriptions start at $169 per month with unlimited searching and printing. There are no start-up or maintenance fees; the monthly fee is discounted as an organization adds more subscribers.

To learn more about reQUESTer, visit http://www.lexis-nexis.com/esp/.

M. E. ASLETT CORP. (MEAC)
MEAC, a software supplier based in Edison, N.J., has introduced SmartMove, data compression software for the Macintosh. SmartMove is an Adobe Photoshop plug-in and a Power Macintosh application that compresses continuous-tone color images at variable ratios, up to 10:1.

SmartMove allows image files to be converted to alternative formats -- such as CYMK TIFF to EPS DCS -- for efficient use in Quark XPress. Compressed images may be opened in Photoshop, manipulated and exported either as a TIFF or as a SmartMove compressed image. SmartMove also supports clipping paths created in Photoshop.

A single-seat copy of SmartMove is available directly from MEAC (908-225-1922) for $695.

MONOTYPE SYSTEMS INC.
Monotype Systems Inc., a pre-press systems supplier based in Rolling Meadows, Ill., and Cincinnati-based Gannett Media Technologies International have announced a marketing agreement under which Monotype will sell GMTI's Digital Collections archiving products in the U.S. newspaper market.

Digital Collections is a client/server application -- clients include Windows, Macintosh and Internet browsers -- for accessing multimedia objects including text, photos, graphics and paginated pages. Digital Collections has more than 85 installations worldwide.

Monotype will offer Digital Collections as a stand-alone or in an integrated configuration that could include Monotype Systems' PowerLink workflow management system.

GMTI can be accessed on the World-Wide Web at http://www.gmti.com/. Monotype is at http://www.monotype.com/.

PACIFIC COAST SOFTWARE
Pacific Coast, a software supplier based in Rancho Bernardo, Calif., has enhanced its WebCommerce Solution, an on-line commerce package for the Macintosh.

WebCommerce Solution Release 2.0 uses Pacific Coast Software's new WebDNA (Dynamic Naming Architecture), which combines the power of scripting with the familiarity of HTML. ClubMac, ClubPC and ClubPDA, on-line mail order catalog companies that sell computer hardware and software, use WebCommerce Release 2.0, which supports an unlimited number of shoppers and does not require a dedicated server. Release 2.0 is now available for both Macintosh and Windows NT web servers.

Pacific Coast Software may be visited on the Web at http://www.pacific-coast.com/.

PREFAB SOFTWARE, INC.
Acton, Mass.-based PreFab has begun shipping Version 1.1 of Player, software that adds verbs to AppleScript and Frontier to query and control nonscriptable applications and control panels. Release 1.1 offers new verbs, enhanced options, revised documentation and new example scripts.

PreFab Player 1.1 automates Adobe Photoshop by controlling Photoshop dialog items by name. Now, scripts can "check" or "uncheck" a checkbox and call Player's standard query verbs to perform such tasks as verifying that a certain item is enabled or executing a difference sequence.

Player retails for $95, which includes one license for Player Runtime. Additional Runtime licenses are $25 each, with volume discounts available. Free updates to Player 1.1 and Player Runtime 1.1 are available from PreFab's web site, http://www.prefab.com/.

ROASTER TECHNOLOGIES
Roaster Technologies, a software supplier based in Cambridge, Mass., which created Roaster, a Macintosh Integrated Development Environment for Java, has announced an agreement to license Type 3 100% Pure Java JDBC (Java Data Base Connectivity) drivers from OpenLink Software of Burlington, Mass., for inclusion in all versions of Roaster.

Roaster Release 3 will include OpenLink software, enabling Macintosh developers to start creating applets or applications that access ODBC-compliant databases.

Roaster will ship with a specially compiled Java class library (provided by OpenLink) for Netscape Navigator that will allow Navigator to become "JDBC aware," permitting users to run JDBC-compliant applets from within Navigator.

Roaster Technologies may be accessed at http://www.roaster.com/. OpenLink is at http://www.openlinksw.com/.

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COLE'S NEWSWIRE is compiled by Pete Wetmore and distributed by The Cole Group, publishers of THE COLE PAPERS, COLE'S GUIDE TO PUBLISHING SYSTEMS and consultants to newspapers and magazines worldwide. To receive more information about The Cole Group, send e-mail to: info@colegroup.com.

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