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CD ROM Paradise Collection 4 1995 Nov.iso
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wwdos_02.zip
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WW2-15
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1995-01-15
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32 BIT Software for Windows NT
Ambrose Campbell uses NT v.3.5 client as his primary operating system.
He has been contributing his experiences to the various Windows
conferences around the nets. Other 32 bit software evaluation and
review articles will follow as they make their way to market and to
Ambrose's desktop.
TELECOM FAX PERSONAL..an evaluation (c)1995 by Ambrose Campbell
I had heard that there was a fax program for the NT Workstation and decided
to give it a try. The name of that fax program is Telcom Fax Personal
v2.0. Telecom Fax Personal comes on a single 1.4MB floppy diskette that
includes a small manual. Installation was a snap, with not much left
for the user to do. Even so, setup caused me to pause a bit. During the
Installing the Print-to-Fax driver portion there was an omission of a
step regarding setting up the printer. After staring at the manual for
a few moments, the infamous comic strip light bulb came alive.
Setting up the Print to Fax Driver
The following procedure is another variation of establishing a
specialized driver as the default printer on a computer system. After
the driver is installed it becomes one of several options in a drop
down box to be selected when printing to fax from a spreadsheet, a word
processor, etc. In this case, in the Print To box, at step 16, I
needed to install a port by selecting "other". This gave me a Print
Destinations box at which point I selected "other" and typed in the
path to the Telcom Fax Print to Fax Files (ptf) location in my case
c:\programs\tfp20\ptf. I was then given the option to select the new
port called "LTC Print-to-Fax". There is a note at the end of the
driver installation saying that some systems would not recognize the
printer until the system is restarted. Therefore I restarted the
printer, to be on the safe side, before I tried out the 32 bit faxing
software.
With a document in MS Word for NT, I selected the Fax Printer as my
printer and promptly received a message that said no printer was
installed. I then went into note pad and composed a test fax to my
office without any problems. I restarted the system, and Word NT several
times only to get the message that there was no printer installed when
trying to print from File/Print. With nothing else left to try, I hit
the print icon on the tool bar and was meet with the popup windows to
the fax program! You figure it! After that I was able to fax with no
problem. I restarted to system just to see if the fax program would work
in Word NT. Word NT handled the faxing task with no problems when
switching from the fax printer driver to the laser printer driver and
then back again. Had to have been a fluke. The program is a straight
forward fax program. You can print to the fax from a Windows application
or use the fax software to compose your own fax from within the fax
manager. There is also an address book that is of good quality, - a
feature I unfortunately don't need.
Quite frankly it is great having a FAX program for NT as this is one of
the few things I have sorely missed since going exclusively to NT.
One of the nagging problem that I will talk to the developers about is
the fax software releasing the modem for normal use without restarting
the system. The fax software doesnÆt disengage from the hardware when
it finishes sending. As a result I am running two modems to deal with
this problem because of our heavy message requirements. Not every one
will have this unusual need or would want to justify the cost. Or am I
happy with this flaw!
I have since found out that in order to reset the modem for normal use
with a communications program, the server function must be halted in
the fax administrator. It's not sufficient to close the fax
administrator as Telcom Fax is still running in memory. One must
actually shut off the modem. Talked to the lead development person and
he promises revision of the manual in reference to setting up the com
port. He will also add instructions of how to start the fax program
automatically by using the services icon in the NT control panel and
will add a button that stays on the active title bar that will allow
the fax program to be turned off/on.
I will be getting a demo of Executive Software Defrag program for
Windows NT Workstation 3.5. I have a data packet from them but wonÆt
comment on it until I actually get the software which I have ordered. I
understand part of the NT Kernel already has their software built in and
hope to talk about it soon.
I ordered Telecom Fax Personal direct from from:
Rainbow Technologies
142 Helfer Lane
Mineola, New York 13116
315-673-0122
Fax: 315-673-1820
The Personal version costs $129.00 + s/h
A Server version is available.
VISA or MasterCard
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