Steve Jobs must be happy as a clam (that is, one of those happy clams that doesn't get eaten) over the initial success of the Apple Store. A story on News.com reports that the new online store racked up over 4 million hits and logged over $500 grand worth of orders in its first twelve hours on the 'net. That's a pretty nice chunk of change-- especially if they can sustain that kind of business. Yet despite the good news, we notice the reporter still refers to Apple as "troubled." Some things never change.

We took a little tour of the Apple Store today, just to test-drive the thing. We like what we see. Custom configurations were a snap, pricing was updated correctly, we didn't get incorrect error messages (like we did when we tried to configure a Pentium II system over on Dell's site), and response was zippy, despite the reported heavy traffic. (As opposed to AtAT's rather sluggish response yesterday, during the height of the Mac-news frenzy. You gossip hounds brought us to our virtual knees!)

So did any of those half a million dollars come from AtAT viewers? We're interested in hearing what you bought, how your ordering experience went, etc. If you get a chance, you can drop us a note via our Feedback page.

It's the same old story... Microsoft has issued a press release that clarifies their response to the Department of Justice's recent charges of anticompetitive practice. They are accused of using the predominance of Windows to "force" the dissemination and use of Internet Explorer. Their stance on the matter is that MSIE is part of the Windows operating system-- a "new feature" of Windows, and not an application. "For the Justice Department now to say that Internet Explorer and Windows are separate products is plain wrong," states William H. Neukom, Microsoft's senior vice president for law and corporate affairs, which is likely a fancy title meaning "lawyer." (We prefer the term "mouthpiece," because of its gritty 50's film noir feel.)

So evidently, Windows and MSIE are not separate products, because Microsoft certainly wouldn't lie. Which means that those of you reading these words in Internet Explorer on your Mac are running Windows, and you didn't even know it! And now that MSIE is also available for UNIX, it appears that Microsoft has been really busy porting Windows to other platforms... Seriously, is anyone going to buy this argument? Is Microsoft banking on no one at the DoJ knowing the difference between an operating system and an application? If it's part of the OS and not a separate product, why is it listed on Microsoft's "Online Products" page, along with FrontPage and Visual C++?

The legal eagles amongst you (or even the fantastically bored) might want to read Microsoft's complete brief You realize, of course, that if Microsoft makes this stick, they will have a precedent to require the inclusion of Office 99 with every future Wintel system built, saying it's simply the integration of new word-processing and spreadsheet features into the Windows operating system. Sheesh.

We certainly don't intend to make light of this occasion, on which we remember and honor the men and women who served our country. Yet we still feel that it's somewhat appropriate that on Veteran's Day we address the passing of a couple of battle-scarred veterans of the Mac software world. Claris has announced the retirement of MacWrite and MacPaint (and a few other products) as of January 1st, 1998.

While it's true that these products have been superceded by ClarisWorks, we are sad to see them go. Yours Truly spent many an after-school 1984 afternoon in the local computer store, doodling with MacPaint on an original Macintosh 128K display model. (My favorite pastime was filling the screen with the brick pattern, and then spray-painting graffiti on it.) The store owners let me, presumably because they figured I was doing their sales job for them.

Rest easy, MacWrite and MacPaint-- Clarisworks will carry the torch.