Cream of the Crop 11

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Text File | 1995-12-30 | 30KB | 525 lines

______ _ __ __ / ____/___ ____ ___ ____ __ __/ | / /___ / /____ _____ / / / __ \/ __ `__ \/ __ \/ / / / |/ / __ \/ __/ _ \/ ___/ / /___/ /_/ / / / / / / /_/ / /_/ / /| / /_/ / /_/ __(__ ) \____/\____/_/ /_/ /_/ .___/\__,_/_/ |_/\____/\__/\___/____/ /_/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date : December 29, 1995 |CompuNotes is a weekly publication available Issue : 30 |through email and many fine on-line networks. --------------------------|We cover the IBM computing world with CompuNotes is published |software/hardware reviews, news, hot web 4Point, Inc., |sites, cool FTP files and interviews. We also 135 W. Adams, Suite G9 |give away one software package a week to a St. Louis, MO 63122 |lucky winner for just reading our fine (314) 984-9691 voice |publication! Never dull, sometimes tardy, we (314) 984-9981 fax |are here to bring you the way it is! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Backroom Workers: |We are always looking for Patrick Grote, Managing Editor |people to write honest, (pg@supportu.com) |concise reviews for us. Send Doug Reed, Games Editor |a message to the autobot at (dreed@panda.uchc.edu) |REVIEW_LIST@supportu.com. You Judy Litt, Graphics Editor/Web Master |will receive the latest (jlitt@aol.com) |writer's guidelines and a Raymond Hines, Web Rambler |list of available software (solari@gate.net) |to review. Follow the Paul Ferrill, Languages Editor |instructions for requesting (ferrill@teas.eglin.af.mil) |software to review. Dennis MacPherson, Utilities Editor |----------------------------- (pctc@infi.net) | Go Detroit Lions! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Every issue of CompuNotes ever published can be found at the following ftp site: ftp.uu.net:/published/compunotes. Thanks to UUNET! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our Web Site is at http://users.aol.com/CompNote/ Please Add Our Link to Your Homepage! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To subscribe, send a message to majordomo@rust.net with the command subscribe compunotes your email address. Example: subscribe compunotes you@you.com To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@rust.net with the command unsubscribe compunotes your email address Example: unsubscribe compunotes you@you.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This Week's Contents: My Notes: 1) New Year Reflections and Mailing List Issues! News: 1) CES Show in Vegas 2) Outsourcing is Here Reviews: 1) Descent Levels (dreed@panda.uchc.edu) 2) The Corner Drugstore (gray@internext.com) Web Sites: 1) Videos hit the Net (http://www.mw3.com/nams/) 2) Disgruntled Employee of the Year (http://www.disgruntled.com) FTP File: 1) SDRAW95 for Windows95. Like Visio. Interview: 1) OS/2 Warp or Windows95? A User's Perspective . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Patrick's News Being The Publisher and Managing Editor Has Its Perks! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Happy New Year . . . | ---------------------- Happy New Year to all of our readers! 1995 has been a trying year for me; I learned first hand many of life's lessons. 1996 look to be a more exciting, growing year. We look forward to bringing you the latest from the industry! -------------------- Mailing List . . . | -------------------- No word from the folks who handle the mailing list. I have no idea if new subscriptions are going through or not. More importantly, I am not sure if unsubscribes are working . . . Again, this will be sent in two parts! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NEWS OF THE WEEK| This section is dedicated to verified news . . . All News (C)opyright Respective Owner - Will Only Reprint ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CES SHOW . . . | ---------------- Jan. 5-8, Las Vegas Convention Center, 2nd Floor Exhibit Room N201-N214, Las Vegas, Nevada. Annual Showcase of Newest "Gee-Whiz" Products That Will Impact Our Lives Includes: -- DVD Player that delivers unsurpassed video quality and CD-quality sound for movies, music and multimedia, with hours of storage on a CD-SIZED DISC... -- Smart palmcorder that starts to videotape when it detects movement, and has a built-in light that turns on AUTOMATICALLY in poor lighting conditions... -- Televisions with remote controls that are programmed to command most brands of video AND AUDIO components, including tape decks and DSS receivers... -- "Shock Wave" personal stereos and portable CD players designed from the ground up to take bumps and bruises WITHOUT FALTERING... -- Color, plain-paper fax machine that also serves as a COMPUTER PRINTER, SCANNER, copier and telephone in one compact unit... -- Technics' THX-certified audio/video receiver with new DOLBY AC-3 SURROUND for ultimate in home theater sound... -- Technics' 110-DISC mega CD changer with disc title memory. Dozens of other exciting, cutting edge television, video, audio and home office products that set the standard in electronics will also be available for evaluation, photography. Panasonic, Technics and Quasar executives available for in-depth interviews on features, trends, state of the industry, etc. ---------------------------- Oustsourcing is Here . . . | ---------------------------- CHICAGO, Dec. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- The growth in corporate outsourcing will continue in 1996 and beyond, according to a year-long international study by Arthur Andersen and The Economist Intelligence Unit. The study, "New Directions in Finance: Strategic Outsourcing," is based on interviews with 50 global organizations plus a survey of 303 senior executives throughout North America and Europe and finds that 93 percent of the corporations plan to outsource in the next three years and that 9-out-of ten who now outsource are satisfied with the results. "The study documents a clear trend to the use of outsourcing as a competitive tool, rather than just a simple means of cost control," said Dennis E. Torkko, managing partner for Arthur Andersen's Contract Services Practice. "Especially relevant is the outsourcing of key business processes and financial functions." The document also includes outsourcing case studies with Microsoft, Zeneca Group Plc, Plastics MFG Inc., Mead Corp., Houghton Mifflin, Talegen Holdings Inc., Tektronix, Sybase Inc., Octel Communications Corp., Alcatel Italia and British Petroleum Co. 1996 TRENDS AND BEYOND: -- Eighty-five percent of the executives surveyed outsource all or part of at least one business function; the percentage is expected to rise to 93 percent within the next three years. -- The most widely outsourced activity is legal work (59 percent), followed by shipping (41 percent), computer information systems (36 percent) and production/manufacturing (31 percent). -- More than one-fourth (26 percent) of the executives interviewed currently outsource at least one financial function; 42 percent expect to outsource at least one financial function in the next three years. -- Size is not a major factor in the outstanding decision. Organizations responding to the survey have annual sales ranging from less than $100 million (24 percent) to more than $5 billion (17 percent). -- Pension management (42 percent), tax (40 percent), payroll (28 percent), and asset appraisal/valuation (24 percent) are the most widely outsourced financial functions -- in whole or in part. Other outsourced financial functions identified in the study include organizational training, leasing, internal audit, investment management, accounts payable/receivable, accounting and treasury management. Arthur Andersen provides creative solutions for its clients through audit, tax, business advisory and specialty consulting services. Its professionals combine extensive technical competence and industry experience with innovative and progressive thought, enabling Arthur Andersen to exceed client expectations. Arthur Andersen is a part of The Arthur Andersen WorldWide Organization (AAWO), the world's largest professional service provider. With more than 82,000 personnel in more than 72 countries, its global practice is conducted by member firms in 361 locations. Arthur Andersen & Co. SC is the coordinating entity of AAWO. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ REVIEWS OF THE WEEK | Interesting software/hardware you may need . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Product: Descent Levels of the World | Reviewed By: Doug Reed (dreed@panda.uchc.edu) | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Levels of the World is an add-on mission disk for the smash hit action game Descent. This new disk (CD-ROM only) gives the avid Material Defender 100 new missions to test their mettle. These missions were custom-designed by fans of the game and were tested and approved by judges from Computer Gaming World in August of 1995. For those who love the 'true-3D' environment of Descent, this is the ultimate Descent add-on. Be prepared, however, because these missions all share one thing in common: they are incredibly tough. If you have Windows 95, Levels of the World comes with a browser utility that allows you to select the mission you would like to play and then load Descent and play it, all without having to copy the mission to your Descent directory. If all you have is DOS, you can copy the mission to your Descent directory and then play it from there. The browser is really nice because it includes the text descriptions of the missions (you can read these from DOS, but it is much easier from the browser). One word of warning about using the browser to load Descent: the browser forces you to choose the Descent.bat file from your Descent directory and will not recognize any shortcuts you have set up for Descent. Why is this a problem? Because the shortcut contains any changes in the properties for running Descent (such as setting the idle position to low). Without these changes, Windows 95 may ocassionaly try to steal some processor time (especially if you run programs like Norton Utilities) and this will crash Descent (but not Windows 95, luckily). So inactivate any other programs that might be running before you load the browser. As I said before, all of the missions on the disk (or at least, all the ones I played) are tough. The top ten winners and especially the over-all winner are nearly impossible to complete. Many contain new 'bots or modifications of old ones. In addition, several contain some unique environments (including underwater!). While these new environments are wild, they are also processor-intensive; if you have less than a Pentium you'll have to turn some of the graphic detail down to play these levels. Some of my favorites that were not award winners included Abyss (an underwater mission) by Randy Maude, BRSpiral by Bret Russell, and Corkscrew by Mitch Eatough. Of the award winners, I really like the Catacombs by Chris Kotchey (the overall winner) and Alien Stronghold by Bill Sechrist. Well, material defender, those are your orders. After these missions are completed you can consider yourself the PTMC's go-to man in case of trouble. Prepare for Descent! --- Sneak Peek! Descent 2 --- Okay, so you've mastered Descent and the add-on mission disk, Levels of the World. What's next? Well, in March of 1996 Interplay will be releasing Descent 2, the sequel! Descent 2 promises all kinds of new features, including new enemies, new weapons, and improved graphics. If you just can't wait until March, you are in luck. A 3 levels demo of Descent 2 is now available, as well as 17Mb movie showing you what the new game will look like (if you bought Levels of the World, the movie of Descent 2 is on the CD-ROM). To check it out, set your web browser for any of the following sites: http://www.happypuppy.com http://www.gamesdomain.com http://www.pht.com http://www.interplay.com If you don't have web access, try the following ftp sites: ftp.pht.com ftp.cdrom.com Interplay Productions 17922 Fitch Avenue Irvine, CA 92714 (714) 553-6655 http://www.interplay.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: The Corner Drug Store | Reviewed By: Russell G. Johnson (gray@internext.com) | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "The Corner Drugstore" is an encyclopedic look at prescription and over-the-counter drugs. The information is drawn from two drug handbooks, a drug-interaction software package, a medical glossary, and video clips from a syndicated TV series, "The Corner Drugstore." Sounds boring, huh? But the intuitive interface and the hypertext links help you through the arcana. Most of this could be replaced by four years at Harvard Med., but that would really be boring. Is this a useful thing? Let's contrast drug buying with and without the program. In the case of OTC drugs, like cold remedies, the label goes something like this. "Active ingredients: long, unpronounceable name, more of same. Inactive ingredients: something, something acetate. Precautions: Blah, blah, uninformative disclaimer, prepared by legal department." In the case of prescription drugs, the doctor's instructions are more to the point: "Take these." or "Take these until they're gone." If instead you load "The Corner Drugstore" into your CD, you are confronted with a well-organized interface much like that of Encarta. You can choose the source book (OTC or prescription), then select from a list of drugs to bring up a text window with a description. Since the list is long, a "quick scan" feature saves you digging through all the names. A "speaker" button pronounces the term. If there is a video concerning this type of drug is available, a "camera" button provides a link. Hypertext links in the drug descriptions reference the medical glossary and video library. At the bottom of the screen a feature bar includes an "interactions" button where the possible interactions among drugs in a list are enumerated. The program takes into account any allergies you might have, and dietary data (such as the beer you used to wash the stuff down). Over-the-counter medications for colds, hay fever, etc. are usually combinations of things. Herein lies a potential for side effects. Which cold remedies contain aspirin? This is useful information for the ulcer patient. How many sinus medications contain phenylpropanolamine? Patients with high blood pressure should avoid those that do. This kind of information is easy to find by reviewing various cold preparations. In this case a video on this general topic is available. The video library is a large collection of brief episodes of a syndicated TV series featuring Dr. Schueler himself discussing various types of drugs, and other drug-related topics. Dr. Schueler's style and delivery make often complex information accessible to the layman/laywoman/laybeast. Now a few words from my geek side. The program is variously described as "Windows 95 Ready" or "Windows 95 Compatible." Those of us who don't publish software needn't concern ourselves with exactly what that means. But on my computer, running Win95, the installation went flawlessly, partly because the installation program did not automatically install "Video for Windows." Windows 95 doesn't support the 3.1 application, and it can cause problems. If you are running 3.1 and don't have it, you can install "Video for Windows" separately. Changing screen resolutions didn't cause problems either. There is no uninstall program for the 1.5-meg hard disk footprint the installation leaves. No doubt this is part of the reason for the absence of the honest-to-gosh "Designed for Win95" imprimatur. Nevertheless the "The Corner Drugstore" didn't crash or lock up Win95, more than I can say for many other programs in y possession. Multimedia software with its video and sound files takes up a lot of space. In the case of "The Corner Drugstore," the program occupies 4 CD-ROM's. We're talking 2.4 gigabytes, roughly the size of the hard drive on Jerry Pournelle's PDA. The new CD formats now appearing will hold this much data on one disk. But for now the frequent disk switching will bring back memories for those of you who trace your computer careers to the days of the 360K floppy. At your age you should find a drug reference handy. Pixel Perfect Software 10460 S. Tropical Tr. Merritt Island, FL 32952 Voice: (407) 779-0310 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WEBSITES OF THE WEEK! | This section is devoted to cool WebSites . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Movie Videos Hit the Net!| -------------------------- November 28, 1995, Binghamton, NY & Boston, MA - Today NAMS International, Inc. unveiled their World Wide Web site which allows users to access the Internet's first complete music videos to be available in their entirety. Released on-line by MobileVision Technology Inc. is a live performance of the song `Somebody To Love' by the British super group QUEEN from MobileVision's 1992 `We Will Rock You' in-concert feature film. Other digital music video selections include two complete remix versions of the song `If 60's were 90's' from the group BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE featuring JIMI HENDRIX vocal and guitar samples and the full-length music video of MICHAEL QUATRO's new `The Ocean Song' from his VISION CD and video tape. Saul Swimmer, president of Miami based MobileVision, was the co-producer of the Beatles' `Let It Be' movie and the director of George Harrison's `The Concert For Bangladesh' feature film, which also starred Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr. "NAMS is what the entertainment industry has been waiting for. It's only a short question of time before everybody realizes how fast the Internet and on-line entertainment delivery technologies such as this are going to make fabulous things happen in a big way.", says Swimmer. Michael Quatro's `The Ocean Song' sends a strong "call-to-action and environment awareness" message across the Internet via his digital music video and is dedicated towards saving the world's oceans and the creatures within. With his seven prior albums selling just under 10 million units worldwide, Quatro sees reaching vast entertainment audiences via new Internet video and audio technologies "as the future of media delivery." As a music agent, Quatro represented a wide range of artists that included Alice Cooper, Bob Seger, Iggy Pop and his sister Susie Quatro. Internet users can access and download the music videos as promotional shareware at no charge from the NAMS World Wide Web site, which is hosted by Boston based Baudway Communications, creators of Music World 3, one of the Internet's most visited music related web sites. NAMS video files use a non-standard MPEG compression and decompression format combined with secondary compression to pack video, audio, text and still image data into smaller files, which means transmission times are reduced substantially. Users first download the Interactive Multimedia Interface (NAMS-IMI) playback software and install it on any Windows 95 or 3.1 PC equipped with an audio playback adapter. NAMS videos can then be downloaded and played back from the PC's local hard drive in their entirety at twice the resolution of non-MPEG digital video clips now found on the Internet. At 28,800 modem speeds, downloading an entire music video with an average running length of four minutes takes about thirty to forty minutes. Digital videos of this running length and resolution currently found on the Internet would normally take three to four hours to download at these modem speeds. The videos are freely redistributable by users as shareware. "There are a number of exciting video technologies becoming available, some of which are attempting to deliver ten to fifteen frames per second of digital video through the Internet using standard modem connections.", says Greg Loveria, President and founder of NAMS, the National Association of Multimedia Shareware. "We applaud these efforts, however, users often just see a `slide-show' because the same video still image often remains on-screen for one to ten seconds before it updates to the next frame of video. This is because modems still have a very limited bandwidth for transmitting motion video in real-time and piping this much information through the Internet is even more difficult. We chose to release downloadable motion video files as shareware because they playback in real-time off a PC's hard disk." Steve Getman, NAMS General Manager and Vice President explains, "Because NAMS video files are shareware, they can be retransmitted freely and reach on-line users that may not yet have Internet access, such as with Bulletin Board System users. This means that NAMS promotional video files can also move beyond the Internet to reach millions of other on-line users not yet connected to the Internet. Additionally users that access the World Wide Web via commercial on-line services, such as CompuServe and America Online, don't have to worry about incompatibility with their web browser not supporting a real-time data stream that often cause server and socket errors. On the NAMS Web site you simple download the video file and play it back off-line." The NAMS world wide web site can be reached at http://www.mw3.com/nams/ or ftp users can access files at mw3.com in the pub/nams/video subdirectory. NAMS International, Inc. is a New York state corporation based in Binghamton, New York, USA and may be reached at: NAMS International, Inc. PO Box 2341 Binghamton, NY USA 13901 email: nams@mw3.com ----------------------- Disgruntled Man . . . | ----------------------- BERKELEY, Calif., Dec. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- DISGRUNTLED, "The Business Magazine For People Who Work For A Living" has named Mark Whitacre, former president of the bioproducts division of Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) and FBI informant, the 1995 DISGRUNTLED Employee of the Year. Whitacre is the first recipient of this honor, which is bestowed each year by DISGRUNTLED on the person who best inspires or embodies disgruntled employees everywhere. In making the announcement, Daniel S. Levine, editor of the on-line publication, said what's compelling about Whitacre is that he was not a low-level employee, but rather an heir-apparent to the presidency of one of the nation's largest corporations. "As we've said before, it is not just bike messengers, temps and mailroom clerks who are dissatisfied with the workplace and the way companies conduct themselves," said Levine. "Mr. Whitacre demonstrates that today disgruntled employees can be found not only wedged into office cubicles, but in executive suites as well." Whitacre made national news earlier this year when it became public that, for two-and-one-half years as head of the bioproducts division of the $8.3 billion agricultural giant, he secretly recorded colleagues as he assisted the federal government in a price-fixing investigation. For blowing the whistle, Whitacre found himself fired, threatened, and accused of stealing millions of dollars from ADM. Whitacre has acknowledged receipt of the funds, but said they were under-the-table payments ADM routinely made to top employees, like himself. "There are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered about the Whitacre case," said Levine. "If he says he didn't steal the money, that's good enough for us until proven otherwise. But if he did, all I'd say is it beats nickel and diming the boss by rounding up your car mileage on monthly expense reports." An article about the Employee of the Year will be featured in the next on-line issue of DISGRUNTLED, which will be available January 9. DISGRUNTLED is available only through the World Wide Web of the Internet. It can be found at http://www.disgruntled.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ COOL FTP FILE OF THE WEEK | You may need this file . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SmartDraw 95 Draw & Flowchart for Windows 95 WINNER BEST GRAPHICS PROGRAM 1995-Shareware Industry Awards. SmartDraw is the Windows program that lets anyone draw great looking flowcharts,diagrams and business graphics. Better value and easier to use than Visio, SmartDraw provides drag & drop drawing and lines between shapes that stay connected. Works with the Microsoft Office and other programs as a OLE Server, and much more! You can find this as SDRAW95.ZIP on the following FTP site: ftp.crl.com/users/su/supportu/sdraw95.zip ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK | Interesting people you should know about . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dave Smith (NRA4LBRTY@AOL.COM)| ------------------------------- After resisting the curiosity, I broke down and purchased Windows 95. For all those that are still wondering if you should upgrade, here is my assessment of the "Most Awaited for Operating System". After being disgusted with Windows 3.1, and tired of waiting for the retail release of Windows 95, I went out and purchased OS/2 Warp and installed it on my system. I am running a 75MHz Pentium with 16 mb ram with two 1.2 gig hard drives, one 3.5" floppy drive, TEAC 4x CDRom drive and a USRobotics 28.8k Sportster internal modem set up for com2. As is the case with many people, Warp was difficult to install. After a few phone calls and some system modifications and acquiring device drivers from IBM, I finally got the OS to install. Over the next six months, I was very happy using Warp with native OS/2 applications. The majority of my problems came from trying to run Windows or DOS applications, having to constantly search and retrieve fixes to get apps to run under OS/2. OS/2 apps ran with nice speed, while Windows apps ran a bit slower than I had hoped. Then about a month ago I decided to break down and purchase Windows 95 along with Microsoft Plus. I pulled OS/2 out of the picture and installed 95. To my great surprise, no problems! I was up and running in about 2 hours. The new OS migrated all my existing apps and set them up. I have run each and every one of my existing applications, (excluding the OS/2 native apps), and each of them performed quite well, and with the speed I had hoped for with Warp. I then decided to multitask with my 16 bit apps, since that had been the biggest thorn thrown at Windows 95 by the OS/2ers. All ran well. I was even more impressed when I started installing new 32 bit apps and running them. All said and done, I like Windows 95. As I do prefer Warp over Windows 95, there are pitiful few native OS/2 apps to choose from. OS/2 does a fair job running Windows apps, but not as near as fast as Windows 95 and there are a hundred times more apps for Windows than OS/2. Then, IBM let slip a rumor that it will drop OS/2 next year, which means even less software being written for the OS/2 environment. Windows 95 installed very easily as compared to the work it took to get Warp up and running. The last convincing feature is my wife. She runs a small business out of the house and uses the computer from customer contacts to creating brochures. While I was running Warp, she was always asking for help since most of her tools were Windows based. Since changing to Windows 95, she has not asked for help once. I think that speaks volumes as to the ease to use and the fast learning curve to be acquainted with Windows 95. So to all that are thinking about the big move, don't be shy. I believe you will enjoy this new Operating System. I hope this little evaluation has helped some of you out. --END OF ISSUE--