<b>Odds & Ends

FileMaker Pro Web Companion problem Jeff Keller writes: "After a set amount of activity (itvaries from one time to the next), FileMaker Pro's Web Companion stops accepting connections. The work-around is to quit FileMaker and relaunch it. This turns out to be a big inconvenience." Jeff said that other users on the FileMaker Pro mailing list report the same problem. He called Claris tech support and they acknowledged it.

Patch for problem with Dutch version of Illustrator Ernst Mulder writes that the Dutch version of Adobe Illustrator (7.0 and 7.01) has a problem "when files were saved as EPS files for further processing with Adobe Acrobat Distiller." Distiller could not use the files. Ernst and Jan Hurstjes identified the problem and created a patch that fixes it Essentially, there is a string in the code where the font name "Symbol" was incorrectly spelled "Symbool." The patch corrects the spelling.

Personal LaserWriter NTR glitch on a G3 Mac? Marty Rogers claims that Apple's Personal LaserWriter NTR has a problem with legal size documents when printing from a G3 266 Minitower. In order to print, you must use the manual feed option. This was confirmed by Apple.

MS Office 98 initial reaction I don't much like using betaware, so I never bothered with Microsoft Office 98 in its pre-release versions. I finally loaded the release version yesterday and was duly impressed. The drag-and-drop install should become a model for how all large installs are done. You simply drag a folder containing the main files to your hard drive and, when you launch the application for the first time, it installs whatever other files are needed. That's it. The Office Assistant is another great touch. Putting all the help options and alert messages in one location is convenient. And, unlike the help in many other applications, this one really is useful. I already used the "ask me a question" function to easily find the answer to two questions I had.