We’ve added a new Apple II Deals section to our web site! Edited by Sean Fahey, this portion of our site will keep you up to date on the latest great deals and hard-to-find items for the Apple II. If you find a great deal, let Sean know by sending email to deals@a2central.com..

We’ve added ShrinkIt disk archives of the two disks that comprise Apple IIgs System 5.0.4 to our public file library..

Mark Percival’s SyndiChat client has been bumped to version 1.2. New features include:

• Auto-login
  
• Virtually unlimited scrollback buffer
  
• Saves window positioning and size between sessions
  
• Status bar providing session information

We’re in the process of building a new public file download area for some of the most critical files we want everyone to have free access to. While the majority of our files will remain in our Syndicomm Online members-only library, system software and other key utilities will be provided for free. Click the Public File Library link to the left to visit our small but growing public library..

Syndicomm, the online service and parent to A2Central.com, has slashed its annual rate from $75/year to $35/year, and eliminated the monthly and quarterly plans. That’s less than $3 per month! The new pricing kicks in on January 1. An account lets you access the Apple II forums, Apple II chatroom, a bunch of other forums (including Mac and Palm users forums, the Gamebits video game forum, the Showbits TV/movie news forum, and much more) the vast Apple II file library, a POP3/IMAP email account with spam filters, a personal web site, and a host of other features. Please help support A2Central.com by signing up today..

Andy Molloy has joined the A2Central.com staff (now numbering a whopping two people!) as a co-editor. He will be helping to get stories, events, and links posted and updated as quickly as possible, and will also be helping to generally maintain the site. Welcome aboard, Andy!.

Mark Percival has released a freeware Syndicomm Online chat client for Windows 95 and later that provides a chat entry buffer to make your experience in our chat rooms more pleasant. Check it out!.

We now have the chat room user counter and a new KansasFest countdown clock in our sidebar to the left. Additionally, all the still-valid links from our old web site have been migrated to our links page. Work continues to bring the rest of our content over..

We’ve released an updated version of our MacReporter plugin that works with our new site layout. Download it now..

Today a2central.com launched a new site design, based on a database back-end that will enable us to very rapidly deploy news, files, and other content.In addition, the new package allows readers to submit articles, links, events for distribution on the site. Events can be scheduled months or even years in advance. The sidebar lists any events coming up in the next two weeks. User groups are invited to submit their events and meetings into our calendar.

We are still in the process of migrating our old content into the new system. For the time being, you can still access the old version of the site at http://www.a2central.com/indexold.html.

We also now have an on-side RSS feed, generated automatically each time news is posted to our site. It’s at http://www.a2central.com/backend/news.rdf — just feed that URL into your RSS reader, and you’ll have your Apple II headlines all the time!

Please feel free to provide feedback if you have comments by sending email to the editor at sheppy@syndicomm.com..