Are you one of those people who's just never satisfied? You know what we mean; like, you know you should be happy with that tricked-out icebox G3/400 with a full gigabyte of RAM, three 36 GB Ultra2 SCSI hard drives in a RAID array, DVD-RAM, and gigabit Ethernet (only $17,817 at the Apple Store with an Apple Studio Display 20" monitor! Isn't it fun maxing out all the options?), but somehow you still find yourself pining for the Next Big Thing™. Congratulations-- you're what keeps the tech world moving forward. If it weren't for people like you, we'd probably all still be using Mac II's, or even (shudder) DOS. So give yourself a big pat on the back as your reach for that overstressed credit card to make your next purchase.

As for what that next purchase is likely to be, well, the Next Big Thing™ in Macintosh computing promises to be the Power Mac G4. Yes, the G3 will get a speed bump, probably within the next few weeks, but besides faster processor speeds there won't be any real differences from the very first icebox G3's that shipped back in January. (Can you believe it's really been almost four months?) The G4, on the other hand, will be a whole new cup of noodles, according to Apple Insider. If you'd like to drool over the rumored specifics of the new machine due this fall; reportedly the new Sawtooth motherboard will finally gain a 4x AGP graphics slot, a 100-133 MHz system bus, and will debut pushing Altivec-enhanced G4 processors running at 450, 500, and 550 MHz Beyond that, it's far too early to tell whether Apple will change the plastics of the current El Capitan case when the G4 ships, but personally we don't expect much of a change beyond a big "G4" on the side and maybe a new color.

But wait! There's more. For those among you who aren't all that interested in speculation about a computer that won't see the light of day for at least another five months, Apple Insider includes some background on the project that should also appeal to drama fans who remember Apple's ill-fated Power Express project. Power Express, you may recall, was going to be the "pro" G3 Mac; the beige G3 we got back in November of 1997 was originally supposed to be a mid-range motherboard, but Apple was forced to re-cast it as a pro system when Power Express (a six-slot system, incidentally) went kaput after two years of work. Think of it as the Copland of Mac hardware-- except that Power Express was apparently pretty good and actually got Steved, prompting several of the engineers who had been working on the project to leave Apple and find work elsewhere. The Power Mac G4 is the project that fills Power Express' vacant shoes-- but that still doesn't mean it's going to have more than three slots.

Hmmm, is there trouble afoot for Apple Europe? We'd always had the vague sense that things were looking up on the other side of the Atlantic, what with iMacs providing a needed sales boost and all. Sure, we'd heard reports that Apple Germany had more than its share of problems, most notably its shaky standing with resellers which, if the rumors are true, makes Apple's relationship with Best Buy look like an evening at the carnival. Still, we thought things were better for Apple in Europe than at any point in the past-- so we're a little concerned to see MacWEEK reporting that Apple's European branch is "scaling back its 1999 trade-show plans."

Apple Germany reportedly sent a memo to several third-party developers explaining that, "based on [their] criteria for trade-show activities and after weighing several possibilities, [they] have decided to participate in no further trade shows in 1999." That's a pretty significant statement, given that we haven't even entered the fifth month of the year yet-- especially since, not two months ago, Apple Germany had proposed that they sponsor no fewer than four "large Mac-focused expos" in different major European countries. How they can go from planning to hold four big expos to attending zero trade shows in a scant two-month time frame is beyond us. Did someone at Apple Germany leave a faucet running, leading to a crippling water bill or something?

Of course, poor water conservation techniques are just one of dozens of possible explanations for the trade show back-out. There's unexpected car repair bills, an unforeseen rent increase, the electric company actually reading the meter after months of "estimated usage," etc. The sad truth is, we'll probably never know just why Mac fans in Europe will find themselves expo-less in 1999. We just hope Apple Germany suddenly inherits some cash from a rich uncle, or something...

Well, we'll be damned-- they just might make it after all. According to a CNET article, Microsoft is mere days away from shipping what they expect will be the final beta version of Windows 2000. Beta 3, which has been anxiously awaited by nervous Windows NT users everywhere, is reportedly "feature complete" and "tuned to approach performance Microsoft hopes to deliver with the final code." Microsoft's 650,000 (!) testers will receive CD-ROMs of the new version in two to four weeks, making Microsoft's internally-targeted October release date look less unlikely.

Shipping Windows 2000 before, say, 2000 is pretty important to Microsoft, who was originally expected to ship Windows NT 5 a couple of years ago. The current version, NT 4, is apparently still classified as not fully Y2K-compliant, and Microsoft's been saying for a long time that the way to get compliant is to upgrade to NT 5, now known as Windows 2000. Of course, that's wonderful advice (if you ignore the fact that it makes people pay lots of money to fix bugs that shouldn't have been there in the first place) provided that Windows 2000 is actually available before the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve. If beta 3 really turns out to be the final beta, that might come true after all. Of course, it would have been a lot nicer for people to have had a year or so to deploy and test rather than making everyone jump at the last minute, but life ain't perfect.

What kills us is that some PC manufacturers are reportedly going to sell computers pre-loaded with Windows 2000 beta 3. Call us overly cautious, but paying money for a computer running beta application software sounds risky enough; we can't imagine buying a machine running a beta operating system. Heck, from what we can tell, most 1.0 releases of Microsoft software are only beta quality anyway, so we'd be particularly leery of running a beta version of Windows, which seems to us to be tantamount to poking a hungry leopard with a stick after strapping two dead gazelles to one's person. Still, if we understood the purchasing choices of the average computer buyer, we wouldn't be shaking our heads befuddled at all the people buying Wintels instead of Macs.