February 1997 / Bits

MMX: Better in Fits and Starts Five-System Photoshop Face-Off	Tests of MMX systems and software reveal dramatic, but uneven, application performance improvements. - by G. Armour Van Horn
Geek Mystique	Internet by the Numbers More interesting numbers highlighting the Internet's popularity, as compiled by Win Treese (treese@OpenMarket.com): Number of e-mail address entries per person on the MIT alumni contribution form: 2 Number of U.S. states publishing wanted lists of child-support offenders on the Internet: 7 Percentage of comics in the Boston Globe with Internet addresses: 63 Percentage of the first 20 ads appearing in the October 1996 issue of Scientific American that contain Web addresses: 75 Percentage of the first 20 ads appearing in the October 1996 issue of Scientific American that contain toll-free phone numbers: 70 Wanted: Legacy Coders Legacy code returns as the latest fashion?
Office 97 Wins Best of Comdex Best Laptop Best Connectivity Hardware Best of Show	Office 97, the newest version of Microsoft's leading office suite for Windows 95, won BYTE's Best of Show award at the recent Fall Comdex '96 show.
Future Watch	The Easiest Network Connection You'll Ever Make - by Jason K. Krause
Bug of the Month Call the Chiropractor	Unhinged - by Selinda Chiquoine
Pricey Portable Repairs to Stay Parts Prices: Laptop vs.Desktop	Mobile computer users have always paid a premium for th e convenience of notebook computers, trading the benefits of mobility for an expensive technology that's usually one step behind the current generation of desktop computers in terms of features and performance. - by Rob Mitchell
Survey Will You....	Reluctant and Leery of Filing Electronically
57 Varieties of Internet Faxing	The total expenditure by Fortune 500 companies on international faxing is around $15 million per year, which accounts for 41 percent of those companies' telephone bills, according to a 1996 Gallup/Pitney Bowes survey. - by Tania Hershman
Datapro Report On-Line Service Charges	Better Backbones to Shoulder Bigger Network Burden - by Michael Smith
Book Review: Perls of Wisdom	Perl 5 Interactive Course by Jon Orwant; Waite Group Press; ISBN 1-57169-064-6; $49.99 Programming Perl -- 2nd Edition by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal L. Schwartz; O'Reilly & Associates; ISBN 1-56592-149-6; $39.95 Although Perl 5, the much-evolved version of the ubiquitous scripting language, has been available for over two years, books about it are scarce. - by Ben Smith
CD-ROM Review Odely Yours	Ode to a Grecian Disc - by Tom Thompson
Advances and Retreats in Computing	The Security of Imaginary Numbers The government's paranormal R&D efforts have resulted in a commercial spin-off. - by Marc Abrahams
Lessons Learned in the Data Mine Alan Paller, Data Warehousing Institute	Alan Paller, director of research at the Data Warehousing Institute, tells how to avoid the pits in your data-spelunking adventure. - by Dave Andrews

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