Editorial
...Stephen

Stephen Graham PO Box 8353 Largs Ayrshire Scotland KA30 8HG
Tel: (0468) 508 871 ** Mobile ** agraham@cs.strath.co.uk (Please Include 'FAO Stephen Graham' in the Subject Text Heading)

Doubleclick Issue 5 Editorial

Hello Readers,

Well, I hope that you found Doubleclick! Issue 4 to be well put together, informative, interesting, and most importantly, FUN! If it wasn't, and you didn't, then why are you bothering reading this then? It must have been good enough for you to buy it a second time.

Anyway (Sorry Mark), on with the show. Loads in the mag this time - maybe even a free game and / or Christmas Module - we will have to see how much disk space we have left. Look out for our regular slots, with the HTML Tutorial, and the excellent "How to write a Doom Clone (Sort of), as well as Pit Stop from me, and of course my monthly Public Domain Software List. All this and the usual Reviews, News, Jokes, Stories, Song Lyrics, you name it, we've got it (wasn't that a catchphrase from an advert? Answers on a postcard to the usual address.)

Still have not cracked this Lottery, so the MicroniK Infinitiv Tower will just have to wait for a while. Just have to do with what I have just now. Maybe buying a CD ROM soon, but I have been saying that for the last 6 months, so we shall wait and see. PowerPC card may also be on the cards, if it ever gets released! (See later in Editorial for answer).

Flicking through the latest issue of Amiga Format this month (September), I notice that in Net Corner (Page 10), a site devoted to the film The Full Monty. The film is all about some guys who try and raise money by stripping in Clubs etc up and down the country. I have not seen it, but I have seen clips on The Movie Show on Sky. Looks a bit of a laugh. Maybe some of the more talented of you readers could write in with Reviews of films, and we could have our own resident Barry Norman. And Why Not? Back to the website. It has full motion video clips, audio bites, as well as stills from the movie, although I do not know how clean (in a smutty sense) they are. Find out for yourself at http://www.fullmonty.co.uk where are will be revealed as it were! There is also a competition where you send in nude photos of yourself, uploaded to the site I would imagine. Don't ask me what the prize is though!

Big Bad Bold Bill strikes again. Not content with being the richest man in the world, he has now bought a 7% share in Apple, although it is non voting, and has dropped all his lawsuits against them, and conversely against him. How long will it be before he buys over Apple lock, stock & barrel. Then all he has to do is buy over IBM, which means he will effectively be richer than God! I actually watched the Mac Expo in question on a Computing show on Sky News, and yes, there jeers and boos a plenty, let me tell you. Steve Jobs, Co-founder of Apple, and thought by many to be a guiding light in their sucess, was heckled by most of the crowd when he annoced the Microsoft deal to the masses. I was waiting for tins of fruit to be thrown when Bill Gates appeared on the video screen behind, looking like the cat that had got the cream, as is his usual pose.

You may notice that I know have an E-Mail address. This is not mine personally, but you can still use it to send me stuff for the mag, or just to have a chat, but if it just for a chat, then please give me your snail mail address. You can send me Lha archives etc to this address, as long as they are not over 700K in size, as that is the biggest amount that the crappy CrossDOS can handle on an Amiga PC Formatted disk.

Not long before my brother goes to University, so maybe I will have an E-Mail address which you rich modem owning readers can use to send me articles for the mag (didn't I just say that!). Of course, all entries can still be sent to me via the post, and I will ensure that they receive the proper attention. (Afternote - I now have Internet access and an E-Mail, as you may notice from the heading at the top of the page, and the last paragraph!)

This month should see that start of my Personal Paint Tutorial. It should run for a few issues, with an ever expanding Amigaguide document, which will highlight lots of different qualities of PPaint. To start off, it will be very basic, but will get more involved as time goes on. If there are any points that people want me to explore fully, then please write to me, and I shall see what I can do.

Got the Xmas issue of AF today (Thursday, 20 November). Will have writers cramp entering all the competitions in this issue, and will probably run out postcards before I run out of money to post them! When AF100 ran all their compos, I spent about £3-£4 on postage, on second class stanps. This was offset by the amount I won on these competitions (absolutely sod all except loads of leaflets from companies which were along the line of "Sorry you did not win the recent giveaway, by never fear, you have been selected, as one of only a few to buy this product at the bargaini giveaway price of only £20 dearer than we are currently advertising it in the magazines!". Most of these letters are now festering in my bin, along with old apple cores, and sweetie wrappers. Highlights in the Xmas AF are the arrival of the PowerPC board (at last), the Power UP! from Phase 5 / Cyberstorm. I was actually talking to an IBM employee today, and he had not even heard of the Amiga, and did not have much idea what all this PowerPC stuff was all about. If he didn't know, what chance have we got! he probably just made tea or something - who knows?

Read with interest the review for the great!? game Nemeses which scored highly in the fact that there was some graphics, a bit of sound, not much addiction, but this was offset by the great (well not so great) playability. Overall it was "nothing to get worked up about", scoring a massive 35%! Must ask Santa for that one! Street Racer came a close second at 45%, which puzzled me, as the overall verdict said it had no gameplay, but one of the highest marks was for playability. Who writes these reviews? No we should not mock, as it is still the magazine everybody tries to beat (and fails).

Workbench 4 looks to be released next year, hopefully. Maybe they will think of some good thins to add like being able to read PNGS, JPEGS, GIFS etc as standard, without having to use datatypes, and special viewers, and the likes. I have had loads of trouble trying to get my copy of Dopus4 to read PNG's, which is what I use PPaint to save in. Cannot be done easily but I have found a temporary way around it, but all my PNG files must end in .PNG which is a pain if I download any from the 'Net, as I will have to rename them to look at them via Dopus4. I could use Dopus5, but I don't like it as much as Dopus4. I have spent ages getting my Config file just right, and I like it the way it is!

Well, must go and look at the Reader Ads section and see if there is any penpals that I will write to. Oops, only one listed, and I already write to him (Shane Hassam). If anyone wants to swap PD etc, then just drop me a letter, and a disk, and I shall send them my disk. I already have about 15 penpals all over the world - would you like to be added to the list?

I must remeber and send Xmas Greetings to all the following people, some of which will read this, some who won't, and some who may read this, but then how will I know!?

Here goes, in no particular order:

Mark Harman (of course - maybe we can meet up in 1998!), Andrew Whiteley, Ragnar Fyri, Jamie Percival, Ahmed H S, Suzi Henderson, Nikola Tomic, Paul Lathwell, Simon Brown, Roy Musson, Andrew Jackson, Ian Charles Fyvie, Geoff Aitken, Jock Ross, Andrew and Leeze MacGlauchlin, Monica Thirwell, Nick Abott, Jody Wilkes, Amicom Public Domain, Graham Sheilds, Barry Briceland, All At Pentrisoft, Genocide, Team 17 Software, S & S Computer Supplies, Paul Gribben (Mark will tell all about him! (IRC?)), Graeme Sandiford, All others at Amiga Format, Suzanne MacKirdy (about 22 now) who used live in Glenacre Drive, Largs, who moved to Milton Keynes when she was about 13 or 14, and is now of unknown whereabouts - (If you are reading this, or someone who knows her is reading this , then please get in touch!), All at CU Amiga, Santa, the tooth fairy, and Sasquatch, Paul Stevenson, Mervyn Weir, Julie Crawford, Graeme McKee, All at Lindsay's Newsagent, All my paper round customers (I hope the new paperboy next year is as good as I was over the last 8!), All the Doubleclick! Readers, old and new, for supporting us over the last 4 issues, and hope that the next 10 are as good, if not better, Minky the cat!, All the rest at Largs PO Sorting Office that know me (practically all of them!), Tara the dog!, David Csmoa, all my Garage customers, anyone that I have written to over the last year, and just about anyone else that know's me, and all the people that I would like to know, but don't (The man that writes the cheques at Camelot would be top of the list!) - A very Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to you, one and all! Hope that I hear from you all in 1998! I think that's about everybody covered!

One last thing before I go - can anyone help me with a copy of a JAVA compiler for the Amiga, so that I can use Java scripts written on a UNIX or IBM on my Amiga. I know that you can get them, as I have heard they are on the Aminet, but I have not used them for myself.

Thanks for watching. See you in Issue 6, sometime in 1998!

Just a small reminder - it is my 22nd Birthday on the 14th January, so any presents, disks, cards, date proposals (female only please!), chocolates, although none with rat poison, and just about anything else you want to send, will greatly be appreciated. I may be getting old now, but I still know what end of a CD Rom to plug into a computer (Hint for a present!).

Stephen Graham
August - December 1997
(That's the dates between when I wrote this Editorial and not how long I have lived!)