World of Amiga '99 Report
with lots of evidence of tying in the networking support throughout. The AML, Amiga Messaging (Mail?) Library, one of a host of new libraries added, is a nice addition.
Security issues were raised by a few members of the audience though, but the official response was along the lines that security isn't much of an issue - if people are quite happily hacking programs like Miami, or inserting anti-Amiga mailer trojans in shareware, is it really going to make much difference if the AML is secure? Third party developers are encouraged to pick up the potential offered by the new OS tools to build in additional security. In fact, this appears to be a recurring feature of OS 3.5 - taking away the troublesome hacks and patches by providing the features desired by the community, then offering up more OS legal ways of building extra functionality in a cleaner, more efficient way.
Having immersed myself in the OS 3.5 experience, I headed off to meet Gary Storm and the rest of the SEAL crew for the first time beyond e-mail. Gary has been interviewing quite a few Amiga community notables for Clubbed! the official magazine of the SEAL user group and, surprisingly, I was deemed worthy of one such interview... Anyway, a great bunch of guys and a good example of the Amiga community in action - these people are passionate about Amiga. Clubbed!, of which I received my first copy at the show, is a lavishly covered 40 page magazine created entirely with Amigas. Well recommended.
I followed Gary on a quick circuit of the venue, ending up at Paul Nolan's Photogenics booth. Photogenics 4 is a major evolution of the previous incarnations of Photogenics, which I've long regarded as a benchmark for graphics packages on any platform. I was one of the first to buy it when it came out, then ended up as probably one of the laziest/worst beta-testers Paul has ever encountered! I felt it best not to introduce myself through embarrassment.
After a quick demonstration for Gary's benefit, Paul transferred to the seminar room and, despite some technical hitches, grabbed the attention of the audience. Even though I've been using it for a while, I must confess I obviously hadn't been using it to full potential - I feel some more creative efforts coming on very soon. 4.1 irons out the minor problems with the first release and is an impressive
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