[07/02/2001]
Microsoft Word issues update
Mike Breeden from xlr8yourmac.com had some more info on the issues I had. The issues are in fact two. One (the one I noticed negatively) is called "the Unwanted data issue" by Microsoft, aparently (or so they say) a bug in the saving system, as I suspected, only that it doesn't only include deleted files, but also absolutely non-deleted files, but I guess they couldn't admit that because that might have been their legal death, never mind. The second issue is about storing personal information in your docs, called the "Privacy issue", of course, that too is a "glitch". There are updates available to "fix" those issues, but still, I'm being hairy and say "FUCK you Microsoft!". This is the last time I ever wrote a file in Word.
Here's what Mike had to say:

I'm overloaded in over 3,000 emails in my inbox and
hundreds more a day but here are some quick comments

 - back in 1999 here at the main site and other sites
on the web there were notes on a privacy/security issue
with Word (PC and Mac) and I think there was some
issue about parts of other disk files being
included in some docs - can't remember the details now
but I just searched my site for what I do remember
about the issue (called a Unique Identifier,
there were patches for the PC and later for the
mac for this - and an explanation about the extranneous
info included in files as I remember)

here are some past links here on the issue

- back on March 8th 1999 I posted a story here on the issue of unique
identifiers in docs
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/MSprivacy.html
(links to news.com story on the first windows98 reports of it
as well as some mac owner comments). It and the 3/13/1999 news
page was updated to note:

"See the M
S Mac Office 98 updates page for patches that should address this issue
and others - especially see this
Office98 updater which removes the unique identifier and is said to
solve the "unwanted data" issue."

I'd apply all the (many) office98, etc. updates at the link above
and see if they solved the issue.


--

Best Regards,
Mike Breeden
mike@xlr8yourmac.com

[07/02/2001]
Usenet co-founder dies
MGL reports that Jim Ellis, pioneer and co-founder of the Usenet has died at the early age of 45 years after suffering from a rare (I think) disease.

[07/02/2001]
MOSR
MOSR has some interesting new stuff on upcoming OS releases (both 9.2 and 10.1) as well as some rumors about Wacom technology making it into the next major Apple hardware project?