RAndY's RumOR RaG November 1992 NEWS IN YER FACE In case you haven't heard, the contest within Intel for naming the upcoming 586 chip is "Pentium". As you recall, Intel wanted a name that could be trademarked, thus preventing cloners from using the P5 or 586 designation. --------------- RealWorld will be introducing a Mac version of their accounting software at Fall Comdex. In the beginning, they'll have Accounts Receivable and General Ledger. Due for release in December is Accounts Payable with Payroll following in January. --------------- Two new products are due soon from Media Vision. The CDPC+ will include the NEC CDR-84 drive in addition to the rest of the CDPC package. The Pro Movie Spectrum will be a video capture board capable of displaying an NTSC signal. Prices are unavailable, but these should both be on the shelves in time for Christmas. --------------- Grab your ankles again - our federal government is halting imports of DRAM again and you know what that will do to prices. By the time you read this, prices should have already taken a healthy hike. --------------- Windows for Workgroups is just Microsoft's opening salvo at grabbing some of Novell's huge network base. The next step will be converting existing NetWare servers to Windows NT. With built-in E-mail and scheduling in Windows for Workgroups, expect lagging sales for cc:Mail, WordPerfect Office, and OnTime for Windows. It's all part of Microsoft's plan to "wash that LAN right outta my hair". --------------- I hear that the beta version of Windows for Workgroups had problems running under Compaq DOS due to memory problems. They say it will be fixed by the time the product ships. --------------- Borland recently shut down their free BBS and switched to electronic support via CompuServe. --------------- Microsoft is giving away a free copy of Flight Simulator to all who register the new Works for DOS Version 3. New to this overdue for an upgrade product are WorksWizards, a personal calendar, toolbar, and larger database. --------------- NetWare 4.0 has been officially delayed until the first quarter of 1993. Novell claims the delay is due to work they're doing to strengthen their utilities. Industry analysts will be surprised if the product ships by March due to its complexity. After seven weeks of beta testing, Novell felt that administration utilities needed improvement, although the server component is stable. Software development kits have been shipped and that's a good sign. --------------- Hayes and Multi-Tech will meet in court on November 30th to hash out their rivalry. Hayes is sticking to their claim that the time independent escape sequence technology (TIES) used by Multi- Tech is faulty. --------------- Hewlett-Packard is now shipping version 4.1 of NewWave. They say it's twice as fast as version 4 and installs easier with better integration with DOS and Windows. Uh-huh, we'll see. --------------- Beta testers are less than enthusiastic about preliminary copies of MS-DOS 6. According to one, "It's DOS 5 with some window dressing." Included are Storage Dimension's SpeedStor 6.3.1 compression technology, Central Point's Anti-Virus, and DoubleDisk's "unerase" program and other utilities. In an amusing footnote, one tester said that the documentation included in an depth discussion on how to upgrade from OS/2 2.0. --------------- In the category of software that won't meet announced shipping dates, the nominees are: NetWare 4.0 (promised by year's end), dBase for Windows, FoxPro 2.5, and Notes 3.0. We all love to get anticipated shipping dates from companies, then shove it down their throats when they miss it. --------------- Due to huge sales of 486-based computers, CompuAdd and Leading Edge are discontinuing production of 386-based computers. --------------- It strikes me as amusing that Microsoft chose the name Access for their Windows database product (changed from Cirrus). I remember an old copy protected telecommunications product from Microsoft by the same name. The product is expected to ship about the time of Fall Comdex (November 16). The initial price will be $99, valid until January 31, 1993 when the price will jump to $695. Looks like Bill has been watching Philippe. --------------- By the time you read this, Hewlett-Packard should have released their new line of LaserJet printers. The company has vowed that HP will never again stand for "highest prices" with the Model 4 retailing for $2,199. The printer has 45 built-in fonts including 10 TrueType and prints with a standard resolution of 600x600 dpi. Also debuting are new color DeskJet models 550C (and one for the Mac). Instead of switching between a color cartridge and a black one, there is now a tandem carrier that switches between the two automatically. --------------- Borland is reported to be working on a Mac version of Quattro Pro, after abandoning the Mac market long ago. --------------- WINDOWS SOUND SYSTEM You probably saw the announcement in the newspaper like I did and wondered what kind of sound hardware Microsoft was selling. I've finally gotten some information, so here's what's happening. The package contains a 16-bit sound card, a microphone that looks like the Microsoft mouse with holes in it, headphones, and the necessary drivers. An application called ProofReader lets you highlight ranges of numbers or words in your spreadsheet and it will recite them back to you. The program is customizable and lets you add words to dictionaries or create your own dictionaries. You can choose whether numbers are read by rows or columns as well as have numbers called back to you when you enter them. Voice Pilot recognizes key words in application menus so that you can speak the commands into a microphone. For example, you can select an area of your spreadsheet to move and say "cut" into the microphone, select the area you want it moved to and say "paste". You can even create voice macros. Applications compatible with OLE let you add sound annotations. The annotation appears as an icon which the user double-clicks to hear the message. The icon is, of course, user selectable. The Quick Recorder takes the Windows 3.1 sound recorder a step further, allowing you to select the recording quality (I assume that's the sampling rate), and represents your recording as an icon which can be dragged-and-dropped into your document. Editing of previously recorded sounds is also possible. The Sound Finder is a browser which lets you find, preview, and edit any sound on the computer. You can convert sound files from Mac and NeXT and the package comes with some pre-packaged sounds. A Guided Tour of the Windows Sound System is also included in the form of an on-line tutorial. As best as I can discern, this is designed for voice only. There are no musical sounds in ROM as with other sound cards, nor are there joystick or SCSI ports. I guess if voice annotation is important, then you may want to check it out. I remember back in my old TI days when we had some games that used a special speech recognition thing. When you trained the software, you could say any word (like a cuss word) and it didn't know what you were really saying. Then when you'd go to play baseball, you'd yell at the guy to "swing" and have to remember which word you used for "swing". If other people were standing around talking or yelling, it would confuse the system greatly. I don't know what the suggested price is. I think I'll pass. --------------- NEW CD'S I recently purchased a few CD's, so here are some impressions of some old and new packages. If you look at companies selling CD-ROM packages, you frequently see The Bible Library either bundled or as an optional add-in piece of software. I thought it would be neat to have 9 Bibles and a bunch of reference works on a CD. Since I don't have the Bible memorized, it's often difficult for me to recall where I read something. You can search for a specific verse, or keyword or phrase. The search is quite fast considering you're going through 9 Bibles and 20 reference works. The results of your query can be saved to disk or printed via an included utility called ClipIt. The interface is non-intuitive, but on-line help is available. The amount of reference materials on this disk is impressive, but it takes too much work to get to it all. You can't read the books, only search for information. I guess it's not bad for what it costs, but the character-based interface just looks dated. Also, it won't work right unless you install a portion of it to your hard drive - it won't run stand-alone from the CD. The next CD is called The San Diego Zoo Presents The Animals. This is a multimedia experience that is certainly interesting. On one CD, you get over 2 1/2 hours of audio, over 200 animals in more than 350 exhibits, over 1300 color photographs and descriptions, over 123 video clips with synchronized sound totaling over 60 minutes of motion video, and much more. The main menu is actually a 3-D map of the zoo from which you can visit any area or take a tour of selected portions. It's quite impressive how well the program is done and it's definitely easy to use. The audio sounds like 8-bit 11k samples, but it sounds fine. The worst part is the video. Images are dithered and the motion video occupies a small windows in chunky, low-resolution. The motion is smooth, though - just rough in definition. Everything you ever wanted to know about a wide variety of animals and habitats is here. It seems directed more toward children, but adults should find it entertaining. It's definitely worth the $75 or so this will sell for on the street. Another CD product you may wish to check out is a CD-based magazine called Nautilus. A yearly subscription is about $120 and each month you get a CD filled with tons of stuff. On the sample issue I received, there is information on what's happening in the computer industry, both MIDI and WAV files galore, sample software, games, Letters to the Editor in text and WAV formats, and much more. My concern if I subscribed would be how to digest that much information every month. There's a lot there and it seems to be worth the price. Aris Entertainment markets MPC Wizard, which has diagnostics for VGA and CD-ROM along with sound samples and digitized images and device drivers from a wide variety of manufacturers. Actually, the diagnostics only check to see if you're running in 256 colors and it will also test your CD's sustained transfer rate. Included on the CD are 50 BMP images and 50 sound samples representing a wide variety of subject matter. The idea is to give you a sample of some of their other CD products. The software did not recognize my audio card, so I could only get the slide show without sound (don't know why). The best part of the CD is the inclusion of Windows 3.1 device drivers for virtually every video and sound card available. Since the CD only costs $14.95, I think it's a decent buy. Now let me get up on the soapbox for a minute. Here's my complaint about computer CD's. Too often, the CD is shipped in a cheap cardboard container of some kind without a jewel case. Excuse me, but even the record companies that rip you off $15 for an audio CD give you a plastic case. I'd think that if I paid $50 or more for a piece of software, they could at least include a decent case for it. --------------- BAD NEWS I usually look forward to the mailman's visit. I get demo disks, offers for inexpensive software, news of what's happening - but the other day there was horror in the mailbox. I got an upgrade notice for PC Tools Version 8. A note within the flyer points out that this upgrade is for DOS only, that the Windows applications of Version 7 have not been updated, but it's in the works. So, what did they change this time around? How could there be room on the screen for anything else? A new Anti-Virus is included which works against the newest strains of viruses. RAMBoost is a memory optimizer apparently along the lines of QEMM and others. DriveMap is a utility for file management on a network. CPTask and Scheduler let you switch between DOS applications and schedule backups, virus scans, etc. They now support SCSI tape drives, Commute is supposedly faster, and FileFix has been improved. Remember, Central Point never gets it right the first time - wait for Version 8.1 (I can almost guarantee there will be one). In the meantime, I think I'll pass - I've only got about 30 megs left on my hard drive. Look for a review/roast next month. --------------- QUATTRO PRO FOR WINDOWS Many of you have been waiting for this latest entry into the Windows spreadsheet department. You can read the advertisements for all of the many features, but I want to give you my impressions and opinions rather than recite a feature list. The installation screen has a dashboard with a desert scene (mountains in the background) and the speedometer climbs as files are installed to the hard drive. Several billboards appear along the installation process which tell you about the product's features, registration information, training videos, etc.. The obvious comparison of this product will be to Excel, so here goes. Once installed, the program takes much longer than Excel to load. Even when working with spreadsheets and graphs the screen redraws seem longer than Excel's. I noticed that if I move a range with the mouse (equal ease of use between the two products), the screen flashes briefly while the screen is being redrawn. This could be quite annoying after a period of time. The SpeedFill feature requires you to highlight a range, then click a button on the SpeedBar; Excel lets you fill an area by grabbing a handle on the corner of your selected range - Excel wins for ease of use. The SpeedFormat feature uses the names of famous composers for the different formats available (Chopin, Beethoven, etc.). There seems to be more variety of pre-configured formats than Excel. Quattro Pro for Windows will import an Excel Version 4 file while other spreadsheets require that you save it in Excel Version 3 format. Borland has made quite a ballyhoo over their Property Inspector. Just click your right mouse button and you'll get a context sensitive menu based upon whatever you're doing. Excel 4 has this feature, but it is said they stole it from Borland after seeing a beta demo. Borland's implementation of the Property Inspector is superior to Excel's because Excel lets you make just one choice and the pop- up menu is gone. With Quattro Pro for Windows, you can make multiple selections before closing the dialog box. I did notice a problem when changing fonts through the Property Inspector. The font preview showed only the bottom half of the font being selected. Overall, they've done an excellent job. The notebook/tabs feature is very useful and easy to use. Graphing is excellent. For the first time out in the Windows spreadsheet market, Borland has done a superb job. I still don't like the "look" of most Borland products, but this one will give Excel a run. It's still better than 1-2-3/W (but then, what isn't). --------------- NETWARE LITE I recently had the experience of installing a small network. Since the customer was a church, I recommended going with a peer- to-peer network like NetWare Lite. (This was my first experience installing a network.) I got the NetWare Lite Starter Kit which includes two 16-bit Ethernet cards, two nodes of software, and the necessary cabling and connectors. Installation is quite simple. The documentation explains things well. Once the cards are installed and the cabling hooked up, you must decide which machines are to be clients and which are to be server/clients. Again, the documentation explains it in a manner that is easy to understand. Once the software is installed, you use the Net utility to create network drives, map the drive letters, and capture printer ports. It's all very simple. Since this is a peer-to-peer network, security is light. I was able to get DOS WordPerfect and other DOS applications running with no problems. Even getting Windows to run over the network was easy. So what are the drawbacks? As I mentioned, security is weak. Curiously, when you logout, your drive mappings and capture ports are lost. I would thing these would be saved in some type of configuration. Instead, you can enter the command Net Save to create a batch file with the necessary information which is then used for subsequent logons. I guess this system is more versatile if you have several people using the system with different configurations for each person. Either way, it's all very easy to automate and the speed of applications is very acceptable. --------------- WINDOWS FOR WORKGROUPS Also scheduled to be on the shelves as you read this is the much awaited Windows for Workgroups. It's expected to be priced at $249.95 with the upgrade price to be $99.95. The product will ship on 10 5.25" disks or 8 3.5" disks (high density, of course). This is not Windows 3.1 with networking features tacked on, but a network version of the Windows core technology. Novell refused to license or provide specs for their IPX.COM client software, so Microsoft reverse engineered it. Compatibility with the IPX specification ensured compatibility with NetWare. The File Manager and Print Managers have been changed with the addition of icon toolbars for assigning file access rights. Passwords can be set for read-only and full-access and for access to any printer connected to any PC running Windows for Workgroups. Print jobs are spooled onto the system connected to the printer. All of the networking software runs in memory above 1M, rather than in conventional memory. DDE has been enhanced by providing cut and paste capability as well as live links across the network with no modifications needed to existing applications. Included in the package are MS-Mail and Schedule+ products. Both are linked and include a common addressee list. The mail package allows you to create a local post office and personal address lists. Windows for Workgroups was designed to be "administratorless", but management utilities are included. NETWATCHER.EXE lists users on the network and lets users prevent others from accessing their machines. WINMETER.EXE is a performance monitor that measures whether CPU cycles on any computer are being devoted to an application running locally or to a task invoked by another network user. --------------- PERSONAL NOTE I understand that some of my readers have tried to contact me via one of the online services in recent months. Due to outrageous phone bills, I decided to remove the needle from my arm and lock out long distance service for a while. Our area does not have a Telenet node or local access to GEnie. If anyone out there can pull some strings regarding local access nodes for any of the pay services, I would be extremely grateful. Through the years, I have had conversations with both GTE and GEnie (they use different networks) with no luck. I don't understand why smaller communities than this one can have a node and we can't. HELP!! Finally, yes - that's my letter to the editor in the November issue of PC World. --------------- ENTERTAINMENT PACK #4 Microsoft finally sent me the Entertainment Pack #4 which contains seven new Windows games. Of course, some of the games are stupid, but there are some keepers. One of the dumb ones is called Go Figure! which makes you enter numbers and operators to create an equation which equals a number generated by the computer. That's too much work for me. There are two others I can do without. JezzBall is an arcade game which makes you trap moving balls into a portion of a large grid. Yeah, it's as stupid as it sounds. The other one I don't like is called Maxwell's Maniac. You maneuver a gate to swap bouncing balls from one side to the other. It's similar to JeezBall and deserves the same DEL command. There is a nice chess game included which keeps track of your moves and includes a clock - Well done. You can have the computer help you play blackjack with Dr. Black Jack. It's standard casino style play with strategy lessons from the computer. Tic Tac Drop is a Tic-Tac-Toe game where you drop balls into slots, they build up, and you try to get four in a row. There are several options for the grid, the number of balls that have to line up, etc. It's well done and entertaining. My favorite is Chip's Challenge. You run around a maze collecting computer chips while avoiding hazards and solving puzzles. The lower levels are relatively easy and will provide a challenge in a game that's a little different. There are no Idelwild screen savers included, and I assume the price is the same as the other game packs. All of the games use sound in some way and Chip's Challenge has a MIDI background track along with samples sounds. It's cool. --------------- MORE NEW CHIPS IBM is scheduled to demonstrate a new high-speed 486 processor at fall Comdex. IBM is developing several new chips, but this one will certainly be of interest. This new chip will feature a 99MHz internal speed and 33MHz internal clock speeds. Think of it as a "clock-tripler" with the equivalent power of a 100MHz processor. Also under development is a 33/66MHz 486SLC. This will be the first time that IBM will sell microprocessor chips on the open market in large volumes. These chips will be used in IBM products, but sales to the OEM market will be on module cards. A licensing agreement with Intel permits IBM to sell the chips only if they are module mounted. Other plans include selling 386 and 486 processor technology in combination with other chip technology such as ASICs, memory chips, and network components. Not to be left out, AMD is planning to demonstrate a 50MHz 486DX processor at Fall Comdex, but the chip won't be available until December or early 1993. Cyrix is expected to show a 25/50 486DX pin-compatible chip with 2K of cache. They're still working on a 33/66MHz pin- compatible 486 chip for release next year. Texas Instruments has an agreement with Cyrix to manufacture their microprocessors and is also working on a 486-compatible. --------------- WORDPERFECT NEWS There's lots happening at WordPerfect these days, but work is proceeding slowly. It will probably be third quarter of 1993 before you see WordPerfect 6 for DOS. WordPerfect Presents (the updated Drawperfect) will hopefully ship about the end of the year with the Windows version following by about 4 months. An update to Office is also in the works. And, there is an update to WordPerfect for Windows (Version 5.2) featuring numerous new macros. Among the enhancements are macros for smart quotes (typeset quality quotes) and a smarter search and replace for both text and formatting codes. One of the biggest features is that the product will be E-Mail enabled. --------------- NEXT MONTH Well, if Sierra ever gets their act together I'll be looking at Pinball for Windows and Leisure Suit Larry I (on CD), both now scheduled for shipment on November 10. But that's been known to change before. ================================= DISCLAIMER RAndY's RumOR RaG is published on a monthly basis by AINSWORTH COMPUTER SERVICES and is available on various local BBS's, GEnie, and America Online as well as in Modem News. In case anyone cares, RAndY's RumOR RaG is produced on a DTK 386-33 with 16 megs of memory, Cyrix Fasmath co-processor, ATI VGA Wonder+ card (1 MB), 105 MB Toshiba IDE hard drive, Teac 1.2 MB and 1.44 MB floppies, Hitachi 3750 CD ROM drive, Sceptre SVGA display, Microsoft mouse, WordPerfect for Windows and transmitted through a US Robotics HST Dual Standard modem. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Comments should be addressed to Ainsworth Computer Services on GEnie, America Online, phone, analog mail, or whatever method makes you feel good. AINSWORTH COMPUTER SERVICES 605 W. Wishkah Aberdeen, WA 98520-6031 (206) 533-6647 GEnie Address: RAG America Online: RumOR RaG