So a great many of us are looking at the Powermac G3 longingly, envious of the high MacBench scores but hesitant to buy because these are the "midrange" G3 systems. There are a slew of power users out there whose Photoshop fingers are twitching, but they're waiting for the new PowerExpress machines, due to ship in the Spring, that will fill in the high end of Apple's Macintosh line. Faster G3 processors, faster bus speeds, improved memory subsystems, faster backside cache, SCSI disks, etc. all make the PowerExpress worth waiting for.

That is, if the whole project hasn't been scrapped. Apple Recon's now saying that many reliable sources tell them the PowerExpress project is no more. Oops. If that's true, what will Apple use to fill the high-end gap? Here's hoping they don't just try to marketingspeak the current G3's into the high-end slot. The general assumption is that news to this effect will surface during this week's MacWorld Expo.

Personally, we think the PowerExpress project killed itself because it couldn't face Steve's proposed product name of "Powermac G3 Extreme." Really, what self-respecting high-end workstation wants a name better suited to a sport utility vehicle?

Spock, Bones, what do you make of this? Our buddies over at MacCentral report that MacTell, one of the last remaining Mac cloners (especially now that PowerTools is getting squeezed by Apple and UMAX), is jumping into the Wintel waters by shipping a new line of Alpha-based Windows NT servers, dubbed "MediaServer."

And as MacCentral kindly reminds us, remember when Power Computing announced it would sell Windows servers in order to "augment" their Mac OS sales? The outcry and backlash from the Mac faithful was dramatic. And while MacTell doesn't have the hardcore Mac following that Power Computing had inspired, we can only hope for their sake that history doesn't repeat itself.

Actually, to be honest, we're hoping for our sake, too. After all, MacTell was the first to ship a complete 200 MHz Mac OS system for under $1000 (including monitor). Given that Apple sure hasn't leapt into those shallow, low-margin consumer waters, MacTell's demise would be a sorry sight indeed. Here's to MacTell; if selling NT will help them sell more Macs, then more power to them. (Personally, we think theiy're probably just hedging their bets.)

By the time we broadcast yesterday's episode, in which we mentioned the blackmail drama between the spam-kings known as the National Organization of Internet Commerce and the big stinking bus puttering down the information superhighway known to all as AOL, it appears that the blackmail threat had already been rescinded. According to Techweb, NOIC withdrew its threat "out of respect" for the wishes of the 5 million AOL customers whose email addresses the NOIC planned to release to the world this Thursday.

Despite their feeling that AOL's spam-ban constitutes censorship on the part of the ISP (!), it's nevertheless good to hear that, collectively, the NOIC has at least the four functioning brain cells required to see that posting those addresses would have gained them nothing. Once the addresses were posted, would AOL change its mind about spam? No. Would the 5 million users who already receive more spam than anyone else on the net-- part of joining AOL is getting a big target painted on your butt and a note pinned to your back that says "SPAM ME"-- suddenly throw their full support behind the NOIC's cause? No. Would anyone be won over to the NOIC's side by such an act of blatant cyberterrorism? No. So bravo on their decision; now maybe they'll collectively sprout a fifth brain cell and stop trying to shove spam down people's throats in the first place.

And apparently the NOIC's change of heart happened several hours before the AtAT episode was broadcast. So never let it be said that AtAT lets a pesky thing like the truth (or being well-informed) get in the way of a good episode. ;-)