Okay, we admit it. We dragged our feet on installing the Mac OS 8.1 upgrade. Basically, when you've got thousands of soap opera addicts who need their daily fix, it seems irresponsible to risk the possibility of rendering them soapless by recklessly upgrading the system software on the machine used to produce the show. What makes the situation even more ironic is that we rushed to download the update from Apple's servers the very instant it was posted a month ago; the self-mounting image has been sitting on a Zip disk at AtAT Central ever since.

What finally spurred us to action was the CNET review of Apple's update that we came across via MacSurfer this afternoon. After being reminded of 8.1's features, such as faster Finder screen draws when opening a folder, better stability, and improved virtual memory management (which reduces application launch times by 25-50%), we finally decided to back up our whole boot drive and install the thing. At first the update found hard disk corruption on the boot disk that it couldn't repair, since it was the startup volume, but it told us to boot from the emergency floppy and try again. We did, it repaired the damage, and now we're merrily chugging along with Mac OS 8.1 running under the hood.

We haven't been running it long enough to see any immediate benefits, but we may just take the big plunge and reformat our secondary hard drive (a 4.3 GB Seagate Barracuda) with the Mac OS Extended Format, otherwise known as HFS+. We'd like to reap the benefits of a less-wasteful block allocation scheme, but we've been waiting for a disk repair utility that actually understands HFS+ to emerge. Luckily for us, TechTool Pro 2.0 is due for release sometime in the next few weeks, and they're currently closing out copies of the 1.0 version for cheap-- including a free upgrade. The special offer hasn't appeared on the EvangeList web site yet, but it should pop up here very shortly. Ahhh, it feels good to be current...

Way back in October, we told you about Bill Vlahos, a Mac user who started a grass-roots advertising campaign called "Macintosh, It Just Works!" Basically Bill wanted to spread the word about the Mac's biggest advantage: that, most of the time, working and playing on a Mac is a lot more trouble-free than doing so on any other computer. Well, while it hasn't caught on as widely as we would have hoped, his slogan campaign may get a huge boost now that it has its own web site-- and the endorsement of all-around-Mac-prophet Don Crabb, who not only mentioned the campaign in his latest "Fresh Crabb" column, but also stamped it with the Don Crabb Seal of Approval.

It's a simple message, and an effective one, because it comes from Mac users instead of Mac makers. It's all fine and dandy if Apple wants to tell the world that Mac users think different and that the G3 is up to twice as fast as the Pentium II, but there's still a place for simple word-of-mouth advertising. Telling someone you're happy with your Mac purchase is poweful statement. If you'd like to join the campaign, just head over to <http://www.macitworks.com/> to download any of a number of free web badges. If you're bored and graphically inclined, I'm sure Bill and Don would love it if you choose to add to their collection.

As for Don Crabb being involved, stay tuned to AtAT for the real reason behind his superhuman level of activity. After all, could a mere mortal write as often for as many different publications as he does? Not bloody likely...

MacWorld Expo Tokyo just finished up, and a MacWEEK article has some sparse coverage of the event. Why so sparse? According to a Macintouch source, it's because the show was very disappointing.

Reportedly the keynote address was "thin," but apparently that wasn't necessarily a real problem, since the hall was only 2/3 full, even though the keynote was a free event this year. (Part of that may be due to the lack of a "big draw" speaker.) Much more disturbing, though, is hearing that the show floor was only half the size of last year's show. I suppose we should thank our lucky stars for the release of Office 98, or else there would have been next to no new software offerings unveiled.

Is it perhaps an omen that the keynote was delivered by a Microsoft manager? Granted, it was Ben Waldman, the general manager of their Macintosh business unit, but we still find it a little unsettling. Then again, we're still suffering post-traumatic stress from the sudden appearance of Bill Gates' enormously magnified face beaming down at us at last August's MacWorld Expo Boston. We may never sleep soundly again...