After Dark Online 1.07 - Berkeley Systems' "counter-pre-emptive" answer to PointCast. This, the first net-based "info screen saver" for the Mac is somewhat lacking in style but worth a look, if you can get it to work. This is the seventh release, so they ought to have got it working by now.
	Apple Video Software 1.5.1 - Not sure what's new, but if you've got an AV Mac, get these disk images if you want the latest and greatest bug fixes. In the great Apple tradition, your new Apple Video Player will become version 1.4.2, not 1.5.1 as the package number may suggest.
	Connectix VideoPhone 2.0 Beta 9 - Yet another Internet video conferencing application. Public beta pre-release of a commercial product.
	Frontier 4.2 - UserLand have just released their latest incarnation of the Power Mac-native alternative to AppleScript. It seems they've been working hard to dominate the scripting front, especially in the Net arena, with version 5.0 expected to go cross-platform. AppleScript painfully awaits its fully-native upgrade to 2.0, but who knows when?
	FutureSplash Animator Trial - Although released back in September after some unstable Betas, FutureSplash vector-based animation could be about to take off in a big way. The technology and the company, FutureWave, were acquired a few weeks ago by Macromedia, so it is now part of the ubiquitous Shockwave family, renamed "Shockwave Flash". You can create FutureSplash animations with this 30-day fully-working trial. BTW, Microsoft Network uses the stuff too.
	GifBuilder 0.5 - An indispensable tool for anyone doing web work. It makes animated-GIFs. Drag-and-drop. It's free. It may only be inching towards "1.0", but it works and there's nothing else that comes close. What more do you want?
	Internet Phone 3.1 - Try to talk to (strange?) people around the world over the Internet. Like using the phone, only much worse.
	Location Manager 1.0 - Although my opinion is very biased, having personally worked on this product, let me recommend all PowerBook users download this latest set of software utilities from Apple. It allows you to configure many of your system software settings according to where you are, and then switch very easily between them. Requires Mac OS 7.6 (it's that new).
	Mac OS Runtime for Java 1.0 - The final release of Apple's Java implementation for the Power Mac (the 68K version is at Beta 4). You can run Java applets using the viewer included, or embed them in OpenDoc documents (including Apple's Cyberdog). However, don't use it to run your nuclear power station - Apple warns against it.
	Marionet Xtra for Director 5 Trial Version - Forget the pain of the Marionet XCMD. This Xtra for Director 5 does actually work. Access to FTP, HTTP, e-mail, news and other Internet protocols are yours, right within Lingo. Try it now.
	NetObjects Fusion 1.0 Trial - The Betas were enormous, and this final 30-day trial version is too. Heralded as the "next generation" of web site design software, this uses a DTP/frame metaphor, rather than the word-processor style of packages like Claris Home Page and Adobe PageMill. It is also site-design oriented, with a very corporate slant. Definitely worth looking at if you do web design. A preview version 2.0 for Windows has already been announced.
	PointCast 0.9 Beta 46 - News, info and those stock quotes scrolling across the bottom of your screen. You know you want to immerse yourself in this stuff. The Mac version is here, but still in Beta.
	QuickTime PNG Importer 1.0 Beta 5 - Supposedly the replacement for GIFs on the Internet, the PNG graphics format is on its way. With this extension any QuickTime-enabled application, like SimpleText, can open PNGs.
	QuickTime VR Xtra for Director Beta 1 - Apple has finally released a real QTVR tool for Director developers, though still in beta. Complete Lingo control over QTVR movies, with full documentation.
	Shockwave Universal Installer 11 - Now includes the recently acquired FutureSplash vector animation format, now called "Shockwave Flash". Also installs Shockwave for Director, FreeHand and Authorware.
	Updated February 11 - Welcome to the Summary. Rollover the links below to reveal my stunning comments of the moment (people with JavaScript-challenged browsers such as IE must click on them.) Clicking the "=" links take you to the source site. Clicking the ">" links download.