OS/2 Shareware BBS: 32 Periodic/32-Periodic.zip/op104a.zip/OPNOV94.INF

OS/2 Help File | 1994-11-11 | 674KB | 2,487 lines

ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1. News ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.1. $30,000 reward on offer for software pirates. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Describe a reward for convicting software pirates - $30,000 do it?

DeScribe, a Naples, Florida based developer, has offered a $10,000 reward for
information that leads to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for
uploading copies of its OS/2 word processor, DeScribe version 5, to an Internet
FTP site at Florida State University (FSU). The company will pay a further
$10,000 following a successful prosecution. Archived copies of DeScribe's
distribution disks were uploaded to a mainframe situated in the National High
Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) at the university and could be accessed and
downloaded by anyone with a computer, a modem and a means of getting on to the Internet.


But, as OS/2 Personal has discovered, DeScribe is not the only company to have
suffered at the hands of the pirates. On the same site, we found evidence of
copies of the shipping version of Warp and the OS/2 BonusPak, the very latest
Windows '95 Beta (build 189, issued on 5th October), 3-D Studio v4, Microsoft's
Access Developer's Toolkit and Lotus AmН-Pro v3.10 for Windows, in addition to
the DeScribe files. In each case, the product was stored in a separate
directory, off the main hidden directory, as a series of archive files, one
file for each of the distribution disks.

The Windows '95 Beta is password-protected, yet, someone in the computer
underworld has taken the trouble to crack the encryption and provide the user
name and password necessary to install the product. Microsoft executive Rick
Segal has endorsed DeScribe's position and has posted a $10,000 reward.

James Lennane, DeScribe's President, was understandably very angry as he
described the chain of events. "A user, Jason Perlow, called me around the 20th
October and told me that, during an Internet relay chat session, he'd been
solicited and told where he could download copies of DeScribe. Perlow took a
look at the area and found that our program was indeed accessible". Lennane
immediately contacted FSU and spoke to the system administrator, Ray Curci.
With Curci's assistance, he deciphered the header of one of the program files
and was able to extract that copy's unique serial number.

Meanwhile Curci observed that more users than usual were accessing NHMFL's
computer and moving immediately into a recently created hidden directory. Curci
trashed all the files in that area and observed as people were logging-on and
downloading copies of these now useless archive files. From their Internet
Addresses, Curci deduced that most of the accesses were originating from
outside the USA.

"From the serial number, we were able to trace the DeScribe registered user and
it turns out that he's a student at FSU who claims to have given zipped-up
copies of the distribution disks to a friend", Lennane continued. "He [the
student] is not, I think, the culprit: when we talked to him about it, he
didn't seem to be sufficiently computer-savvy to have committed this crime."

The net widens

An IBM spokesperson told OS/2 Personal that the problem was much more
widespread. "Copies of our software were also found on other Internet sites -
two in the US and two outside", she said. When pressed, she did confirm that
the two non-US sites were situated in Europe but declined to identify any of
these four additional sites as "the investigation into this matter is on-going".


"We are taking this matter extremely seriously and are currently investigating
the matter thoroughly but we are not offering a reward at this time", the IBMer continued.

Given that the release versions of IBM's OS/2 Warp and BonusPak were uploaded
and made publicly available four days after the Warp Launch event and before
any masters were sent off for duplication, it seems natural to point the finger
of suspicion at the one group of people who would have ready access to the code
- namely IBMers. "Our investigations did bear that point in mind but we have
since eliminated those IBM employees with access to the code", replied the IBM
spokesperson . "There's a group of people who gets the code first - they are
able to download it via a secure network operated by IBM and which is not
connected to the Internet in any way. We don't think any of these people
uploaded our files but it is possible that someone working for one of them may
have made some copies", she added. IBM believes that the person responsible for
this "is a serious hacker with a lot of Internet experience".

"The potential for [the commercial use of] the Internet is so great, all this
does is discourage its use", she added.

According to security consultant Winn Schwartau, there are a large number of
people who justify such actions by saying, "all information should be free".
Lennane does not buy that argument, "if information should be free, then
everything we do should be free. That's all well and good but it doesn't incent
those who do the work or those who finance it. Let them - the free-loaders go
toil for free!" Lennane went on to describe a telephone conversation he'd just
completed with someone who gave his name as Andreas Stalzenberger and claimed
to be from a German magazine calling itself "Inside OS/2": "This guy phones me
up, he's got a beta copy of DeScribe installed on his LAN - which he got from
some bootleg outfit - and he tells me it's [DeScribe] date-expiring. He tells
me how he's going to use someone else's software and give me the bad publicity
unless I upgrade his copy free - he's got a pirated copy of my software and now
he's threatening me!"

According to Lennane, DeScribe's international distributor, which services the
German market, had not heard of either "Inside OS/2" or its Andreas
Stalzenberger. We were provided with the "magazine's" telephone number but we
could not verify its bona fides as we were unable to get through.

In Schwartau's view, Lennane's and Microsoft's money is safe, "no-one's going
to give-up the real culprits", he said; a view shared by Lennane. "Maybe if the
reward was $100,000, someone would come forward", he said philosophically."Mind
you, I have had one guy phone me up to claim the reward saying that he was the hacker."

Unlike the UK and other parts of the EC - where it is a criminal offence to
hack into any computer - there is no generalised anti-hacking computer crime
legislation in place in the US. However, certain computers - such as those
owned and operated by Federal or State agencies - are protected and this would
include Florida State University's. According to Lennane, the University
appears reluctant to take a pro-active role, preferring to keep a low profile
and avoid any adverse publicity.

He is saddened by this. He believes FSU - and other similar establishments -
should take an active part in ensuring their computers are safe from the
ravages of outside hackers. "You'd think that a place with the name National
High Magnetic Field Laboratory would be secure. I bet you if I walked into that
building with a sawn-off shotgun somebody would take notice. If they can be
physically secure, why not electronically secure too?"


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.2. IBM launches new Thinkpads ... ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Built-in CD-ROM and telephone - to go!

IBM's latest Thinkpad features a 10.4-inch active-matrix colour screen,
advanced audio processing features, infrared file transfer and a removable
double-spin CD-ROM drive. The Thinkpad 755CD is the most powerful and
feature-packed in the 755 range, which also includes the 755CE and 755CS. The
company also announced two premium-priced models, the 360CE and 360CSE.

The 755-series machines all have fully-functional and upgradeable Mwave Digital
Signal Processors which, the company says, provide built-in, high-speed
data/fax modem and telephony - including answering-machine, speakerphone and
message/document storing functions - as well as advanced digital stereo audio
to support a wide range of game and business software. There's a 10.4-inch
(diagonal) black-matrix colour screen which supports more than 65,500
simultaneous colours (at 640x480): the company claims its new active matrix
screen provides better viewability in a wide range of lighting conditions.

Their integral infrared communications support, which has a 1.2Mbits/second
bandwidth, allows users to exchange files, send files to a printer without
using cables and transfer application-level information to another,
similarly-equipped machine via the clipboard. IBM says its researchers are
working on additional features which, among others, may allow users to:

 - share disk drives and other data between PCs,
 - easily exchange information eg business cards,
 - interact with other users via groupware, and,
 - attach to additional peripherals such as modems and telephones.

IBM has upgraded its TrackPoint, keyboard-mounted pointing device. It now has a
non-slip cap and its click-buttons have been enhanced with the addition of
"drag and drop" capability.

The removeable, double-speed CD-ROM drive fits into the space occupied by a
removeable 3.5-inch diskette drive on the 755CD - the same bay can also
accommodate a PCMCIA card slot. This model is fully MPC2 compliant and comes
with a selection of multimedia entertainment, office automation and graphics
software. This Thinkpad also has a mini-port which allows for the attachment of
a joystick or MIDI device.

The 755CD has a 540MB hard drive (expandable to 810MB) while the 755CE and
755CSE models come with a 340MB hard drive which is expandable to 540 or 810MB.
They have a 486DX4 100/33MHz processor and come with 8MB of memory which can be
upgraded to a total of 40MB. A PCMCIA Type III slot - capable of housing one
Type III or two Type II cards is also fitted.

The premium-priced 360 series feature a 486DX2 50/25MHz processor, 4MB RAM and
either 170, 340, 540 or 810 megabyte hard drives. A range of display types is
available including active and passive matrix colour and monochrome LCD.

Both model ranges use a NiMH battery which, IBM claims, will keep a 755CD
Thinkpad powered between charges for between three and nine hours (depending on
usage) and for up to ten hours on a monochrome display Thinkpad 360.

The PC Company will announce prices and availability of its new Thinkpads shortly.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.3. ... a new PC Server with RAID technology ... ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Fast and Wide new server


"We're enhancing and expanding our PC server family with real solutions that
customers need - and can use today - to solve critical business problems",
announced Michael Coleman, general manager, PC Servers with the PC Company.
"These problems require solutions that combine hardware and software and IBM is
uniquely positioned to integrate the best of these technologies."

Coleman announced a 90MHz Pentium-based server to be known as PC Server 500.
This enterprise server is available in six array and non-array models and with
or without one or two gigabyte hard disk drives and SCSI-2 Fast/Wide
controller. It has a 256 KB Level-2 cache and 32 MB ECC memory and parity
memory on the bus for added data reliability. A SynchroStream controller
synchronises data flowing between sub-systems. It builds on the features
introduced with the PCI/EISA-based server the company introduced in May (PC
Server 300) with the provision of eight adaptor card slots and 22 drive bays
and improved hard disk and RAID sub-systems, Coleman claims.

PC Server 500 supports OS/2 for SMP, OS/2 2.11, OS/2 Warp, LAN Server 3.01,
NetWare 3.12, Banyan Vines 5.53, Windows NT, SCO Unix, DOS and Unixware.

As part of the same announcement, the PC Company also announced ServerGuide 2.0
and its Ethernet Quad PeerMaster Server Adaptors.

PC Server 500 is now available and sample prices include $9,739 - for a model
with a 1 GB drive - and $15,789 for a version with three 2 GB drives. An open
bay, non-array version costs $8,999.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.4. ... and a range of new desktops. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Selectabus for your new desktop

No, it's not a Virtual Reality public transportation system, rather a new bus
design that allows you to choose between mixing PCI and MCA or ISA and PCI
adaptor cards in the same machine and IBM has incorporated this technology in
its new PC 300 and PC 700 series models.

The PC 300 offers a variety of processors from the 486DX2 50MHz to 60MHz
Pentiums and come with 4 or 8 megabytes of memory (8 or 16 megabytes on the
Pentium-based systems) which is upgradeable to 128 megabytes on the motherboard.

It can support up to four IDE devices providing up to 4 gigabytes of storage. A
wide range of hard drives is available with 270 MB, 364 MB, 540 MB, 728 MB and
1 GB capacities.

IBM says that it intends both the PC 300 and PC 700 series machines will be
DMI-compliant by December of this year.

The PC 700 is Pentium 75MHz, 90MHz or 100MHz equipped with either 8 or 16 MB of
memory which is upgradeable to 192 megabytes. Like the PC 300 series, it can
support up to four IDE devices and the same range of drive capacities is
available. 16-bit business audio is provided as standard.

Features common to both models include a new functional design, with sliding
doors and single-lock protection for improved system security. The base units
are available in Space Saver (3 bays/3 slots) and Desktop (5 bays/5 slots) and
can operate in either horizontal or vertical positions.

The models, which are "Energy Star" compliant and "Plug and Play" ready, have
front access PCMCIA support. They come with a wide-range of preinstalled
software which includes NetFinity and FaxWorks.

To accompany its new desktop PCs, the PC Company has unveiled two new monitors.
It has enhanced its 15P which has a 13.7-inch (diagonal) viewable display size
and can display at resolutions of up to 1280x1024. The company's new 17S/S
Sight and Sound colour monitor has a maximum viewable display size of 15.9
inches, measured diagonally, on its .27 dot pitch Flat Square Tube. The monitor
incorporates stereo speakers and a unidirectional microphone.

Prices and availability will be announced shortly.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.5. X-Rays - the future of chip design. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

X-Ray lithography - the future for chip design?

AT&T, Loral Corporation, IBM and Motorola have formed the Proximity X-Ray
Lithography Collaborative Association to explore the use of X-Ray lithography
to create future generations of powerful new semiconductors such as
microprocessors and high-density memory. The four companies formed the
association to share technology, reduce development costs and encourage general
acceptance of this new technology.

X-Ray lithography is an advanced fabrication process that uses an X-Ray beam to
create extremely fine linewidths on silicon, perhaps between 400 and 500 times
thinner than the diameter of a human hair. Smaller linewidths allow more
circuits to be placed on individual chips, reducing size, cost and increasing
performance, says the Association. As X-Ray technology also uses shorter
wavelengths than the currently-used ultraviolet light technology, it is claimed
it represents a major advancement over conventional lithography processes.

Between them, AT&T and IBM have more than 20 years of experience in X-Ray
lithography. At its East Fishkill, New York, plant, IBM operates the Western
hemisphere's only commercial synchrotron, which accelerates electrons in a
storage ring and throws off X-Rays for such uses as lithography. AT&T has the
only commercial point-source X-Ray stepper for advanced lithography. Loral
Federal Systems, of Manassas, Virginia, has one of the preeminent space
qualified radiation-hardened foundries in the United States. And, Motorola has
been actively exploring X-Ray lithography for four years, using synchrotron
sources at the University of Wisconsin and through an earlier activity at IBM.

The association will be headed by Dr Jeffrey Kristoff, technical staff of X-Ray
programs at Loral, and jointly staffed and managed by the four participating
companies. Funding will be comprised of individual member contributions as well
as Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) government contracts held by the participants.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.6. DoJ takes another look at Microsoft. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Federal legal eagles pore over Microsoft deal

The US Justice Department is, once again, taking an active interest in
Microsoft's business affairs. This time it is investigating the proposed $1.5
billion acquisition of Intuit. According to industry analysts, the merger
agreement has attracted much criticism because Intuit is the only company to
have been able to outsell Microsoft in a niche market: its Quicken outsells
Microsoft Money by as much as seven to one in the profitable personal finance arena.

This in spite of the fact that part of the deal involves Microsoft selling off
its ailing Money product to Novell - for an as yet undisclosed sum - thus
avoiding the anti-trust conflict of owning two leading and presently competing products.

Some industry watchers believe the Justice Department may be too blinkered in
its approach. "The determination that needs to be made is not whether Microsoft
buying Quicken will put Microsoft's Money out of business. What ought to be
looked at is, from a technology policy standpoint, is what role do we want
Microsoft to play. This deal gives one company incredible reach into the
marketplace", commented David Coursey, editor of PC Letter.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.7. Butterfly hatches late. ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Butterfly hatches late

IBM's new sub-notebook will not after all meet its November launch date and
will likely not appear until January or February next year. This news counters
recent reports in the trade press that IBM would introduce its new model at the
Las Vegas Comdex computer show this month.

The new model is code-named "Butterfly" after its innovative keyboard design.
The machine's keyboard is hidden from view when the machine is closed-up and
fans out, like butterfly wings, into a keyboard that is larger than those on
other computers of its size.

Any loss of revenue caused by Butterfly's late emergence is likely to be more
than compensated for by increased sales of the PC Company's notebook range
following the introduction of a new series of models and price restructuring of
the existing range.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.8. Microsoft's new online system set for '95 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Gates "Marvel" set for  95

At the annual shareholders' meeting in Bellevue, Washington, Bill Gates,
chairman and CEO of Microsoft, confirmed that his company would be launching an
online service, code-named "Marvel", early in the new year. This, Gates
claimed, would be like no other service currently available and would directly
compete with existing services such as America Online, CompuServe, Genie and Prodigy.

Gates told his shareholders that some of the features of the proposed online
service would be included in the next major Beta release of Microsoft's Windows
95 operating system due to roll-out in the middle of this month. But he
declined to provide any further details about "Marvel" or how it would differ
from other online services.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.9. Ziff sells the family jewels ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Ziff sells the family jewels

Forstmann Little & Co has paid $1.4 billion in cash for the chief assets of
Ziff-Davis Publishing Company in a deal that was concluded on 27th October. The
new owners, an investment firm, says it has no immediate plans to change the
magazines which include eight US trade magazine, three consumer titles and a
number of international versions. The privately-held company had been in a
state of limbo since co-founder Bill Ziff Jr's sons decided to put it up for
sale last June.

As part of the same deal, Forstmann Little also acquired the book publishers,
Ziff-Davis Press; the market research firm, Intelligence-InfoCorp; and, the
ZiffNet online service that is accessible to CompuServe and Prodigy
subscribers. But it did not acquire "Interchange", a new soon-to-be-launched
online service or other minor family assets which include ZD Expos, a trade
show operating company, or Ziff's information retrieval service for libraries
and commercial customers; these are for sale separately. Among the magazines
Ziff-Davis publishes are PC Magazine, Computer Shopper, Mac Week, Family PC and
Computer Life; among its international titles are PC Magazine and PC Direct,
both published in London, England.

The Ziff-Davis deal is the 20th in Forstmann Little's 16 year history which now
totals some $12 billion. The investment firm was formed in 1978 by brothers
Theodore and Nicholas Forstmann and Brian Little. Their first purchase, in
1980, was company that made early American wood furniture, for which it paid a
mere $21 million. It currently has investments in nine other companies which
include the corporate jet plane maker, Gulfstream Aerospace, Alida - which
makes golf club shafts - and General Instrument Corporation, a broadcast
equipment manufacturer. Its former investments include Dr Pepper, the drinks manufacturer.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.10. Win a Thinkpad and trip to Boca ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Let your PC talents shine - and Win!

Can you think of a new, imaginative and creative way to use a PC at home or at
work? If you can - and you live in Europe, there's a competition you should be
aware of.

Called the Leonardo da Vinci Award, the competition is structured in five
categories called Slogan, Essay, Multimedia, Creative Freestyle, and,
Programming. These encompass the purely hypothetical and the creative as well
as the highly technical, so as to facilitate entries from anyone who is
interested in computing, whether they own a computer or not.

In the UK, competition prizes will consist of 25 IBM Thinkpads which will be
awarded to the top five entrants in each category at a London awards ceremony
in February 1995. At each country's awards ceremony, an overall Grand Winner
will be selected and will join other European Grand Winners on a trip to IBM
Laboratories in Boca Raton, Florida. Whilst in Boca, each Grand Winner will be
presented with a personalised and framed original featuring OS/2 Personal's
popular anti-hero, Gill Bates.

The Grand Winners will also be awarded an IBM Leonardo Statuette and there is a
number of runner-up prizes on offer. The competition, which closes on 2nd
January 1995, will be judged by an international panel of celebrities.

Entry forms can be obtained from participating IBM dealerships or direct from
your nearest IBM office.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.11. Man bites dog?! ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Paperboy nips newshound

No journalist worth his salt can resist the temptation to publish a "man bites
dog" story; here's one that bounded through our Editor's door with a sting in
its tail.

In an attempt to improve its press relations, Microsoft has set up a special
CompuServe Forum specifically designed to service the needs of the busy
journalist. The new area, known as MSNEWS, is PIN number protected to prevent
access by non-journalists.

The idea is that the company will place its latest press releases, company news
and so on in an easy to find format. We journalists can log in at our
convenience and download items of interest. We can also order review copies of
the latest versions of Microsoft products and find out which trade shows it is supporting.

To promote this, the company mail-shotted all the journalists it knows about
and sent them a specially adapted version of CompuServe's interactive access
utility, WinCIM, together with their personalised PIN number. The Microsoft
News specific items are MS News, News Database, Hot News and Events Calendar.

On the surface, this seems like a good idea but Journalists who take advantage
are, effectively, paying Microsoft for the privilege: this Forum is part of
CompuServe's Extended Services which means that users pay an additional
time-based charge each time they access it, in addition to the $8.95 monthly
CompuServe basic fee. Microsoft, as the Forum's "owner" gets a percentage of
that time-charge.

If that wasn't enough, the news it contains isn't exactly timely: we accessed
the Forum just as we were closing this issue on 1st November. The last posted
news release is dated 17th October - there is no mention whatsoever of
Microsoft's $10,000 reward offer which was made well after that date (see our
related Page 2 story). And in the products-available-for-review section, whilst
Microsoft offers it's newly introduced "home" mouse, its
also-recently-introduced "natural" keyboard is a tad conspicuous by its absence.

For some months now, Microsoft personnel have been "unavailable" to journalists
- all press matters and questions are handled solely by Waggner-Edstrom, its
external media relations agency. OS/2 Personal wonders whether the introduction
of this service augers a further pulling-up of the draw-bridges to good press
relations by this seemingly increasingly-embattled company.

IBMers should not chuckle at this story: its press relations is far from
flawless. Those who work for its external agencies should look up the meaning
of the word "deadline" and note that a British first class postage stamp does
not guarantee airmail delivery.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.12. Online happenings ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Online Happenings
edited by Julia Hamilton

University bans cyber-porn
Carnegie Mellon University of Pittsburg has just announced that it will block
access on its campus computer system to sexually explicit material available on
the Internet. The university says it is doing this to prevent any likelihood of
prosecution under Pennsylvania's pornography and obscenity laws even though it
expects to be criticised for stifling the 2nd Amendment right of free
expression. It appears, though, that students look to the Internet as a source
of educational material: a United Press International report quotes Declan
McCullagh, president of the student body, as saying "the university is doing
the equivalent of banning books."

Online population grows
According to the recent studies, the number of U.S. consumer online subscribers
has reached 5.5 million. This is a growth of approximately six percent over the
last three months.

NEC launches new Internet service
In Japan, NEC has launched Internet support service for private enterprises and
public corporations which is designed to help clients design and build in-house
multimedia networks. It will also include an office security consulting service
and construction of a multimedia network for transmission of corporate
information, according to a company statement. From next March, NEC will market
new software to access to the Internet service.

California election returns available on Internet
California's acting secretary of state, Tony Miller, says returns for the
state's general election will be posted November 8 on the Internet's World Wide Web.

CivicLink provides government information
Operated jointly by the city of Indianapolis, Indiana and the Chicago-based
phone company Ameritech Corp., CivicLink is now offering access of local
government to business customers. The service now provides city and county
real-estate records and court cases but will be expanded to include other
records such as birth certificates - a single transaction costs between $2 and
$10. Though Indianapolis is the first city to use CivicLink, the company is
marketing its service to local governments throughout the U.S.

Online privacy standards sought
Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts is putting the pressure on
commercial online service providers to adopt industry-wide standards for
privacy. He and other advocates of privacy are concerned about the potential
for abuse in tracking consumers  interests, purchases and inquiries.

America Online suffers problems with its email service
America Online suffers problems with slow and lost e-mail, especially through
the Internet gateway. During peak periods, users may wait up to five hours for
e-mail deliveries. In October, a software glitch also caused some e-mail to be
lost. The company claims this glitch has been fixed.

PersonaLink provides electronic "Servants"
AT&T PersonaLink Services uses General Magic's Telescript technology to provide
"electronic servants." These so-called servants, or electronic agents, navigate
services and computer systems to perform a myriad of tasks, including sorting
and organizing correspondence for their owners, alerting their owners of a
stock's value, or buying concert tickets. In addition, Sony Corp. intends to
begin shipping a handheld communicator which can deploy agents on PersonaLink.

Shop for hotel rooms via the Internet
Homewood Suites, Hampton Inns, Embassy Suites, and Hyatt are now displaying
color pictures of their hotels and rate information. By year's  end, you will
be able to reserve a Hyatt room online; other hotels will soon follow this lead.

Internet Yellow Pages
MecklerWeb, produced by Mecklermedia Corp., is up and running as an electronic
yellow pages for the Internet. Chairman and CEO Alan Meckler has had to scale
back on original plans to charge companies $25,000 to be included. Instead,
customers will pay $5,000 for a three-month online advertisement.

Medicine on-line for doctors
Medline, run by the National Library of Medicine, has a database of more than
3,700 medical journals for doctors to access. Since medical textbooks are so
quickly outdated, Medline is gaining popularity among doctors, many of whom
believe that it has helped them to save lives and avoid unnecessary procedures.

Access Healthnet launches Remote Flash
Physicians may now link automatically via satellite cellular networks for
communication of medical procedures and results, medical commentary,
prescriptions, referrals, and other communications.

AT&T launches "Home Page"
Now information about AT&T's business units, joint ventures, global operations,
as historical and current financial information is accessible on the Internet.
The new site - www.att.com - is located on the Internet's World Wide Web.

AT&T provides listing of WATS (800) numbers on the Internet
AT&T recently announced its new AT&T 800 Directory is available on the
Internet. Information provided for each free inquiry will include the company
name and location in addition to the 800 number.

Bank online
Banks around the USA are hopping onto the information superhighway by offering
a variety of PC-based banking services. Prodigy Services and Chemical Bank have
teamed up to enable customers of both to access account information and pay
bills via a PC. Similarly, Chase Manhattan, First Chicago, Michigan National
and US Bancorp are linked with Microsoft.

MediaLinx launched in Canada
Nine of Canada's telephone companies have introduced MediaLinx, a national
multimedia service which offers Canadians video-on-demand, education courses,
home shopping, and some government services.

Phone help now available for the Internet
Callers can learn about the Internet and how it works by dialing into
Mecklermedia Corp's new phone help service. For 95 cents a minute, with a limit
of 15 minutes per call, American users can get answers to the most-asked
questions by calling 900-45-INTERNET.

Prodigy Announcements

Prodigy and America Online compete with lower fees
For a fee of $9.95 per month, both Prodigy and America Online (AOL) provide
users their first five hours on the service. On Prodigy, additional hours cost
the user $2.95; on AOL the current rate is $3.50 which will drop to $2.95
beginning January 1. Prodigy also intends to offer higher-speed modem service,
Internet access, and free e-mail after November 15.

Prodigy for OS/2 in the works
Prodigy has announced it is developing an OS/2 interface to be released in
1995.

The Internet's Usenet now on Prodigy
As of Monday, October 17, Prodigy Services now provides access to the huge
selection of bulletin boards on the Internet, known as Usenet.

Chat finally available on Prodigy
On Monday, October 24, Prodigy officially launched Chat for Windows and
Macintosh users. Both CompuServe and America Online already had this popular feature.

CompuServe Announcements

New historical film clippings Forum
The new Archive Films Forum (GO ARCFILM) offers full-motion video selections
from a collection of more than 9,000 hours of historical film footage,
including items from the 1894 World's Fair. These clippings are offered in the
.AVI file format for computers running Microsoft Windows. Viewer software,
which is already available on many personal computers, may also be downloaded
online, if needed.

Historical photos also available
The Bettmann Archive library of 16 million historical images, dating back to
the Civil War is also available on CompuServe (GO BETTMANN). The Bettmann
Archive was started in the 1930s by a German librarian who collected photos of
historical events such as wars, stunts, disasters, and sports.

CompuServe Hungary
CompuServe (CIS) has announced that Middle Europe Networks (MEN), of Budapest
will provide customer support to CIS members in Hungary. In affiliation with
CIS, MEN will furnish marketing resources, Hungarian-speaking customer support
representatives, and billing in local currency from their office in Budapest.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.13. PC Companies to preload OS/2 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

PC companies to preload OS/2

CompuAdd, Dell, Hewlett Packard and Toshiba have joined IBM's PC Company in
offering OS/2 Warp as a preload option. This will please a number of users who
have long bemoaned the fact that they have to order OS/2 separately when buying
new machines.

All companies say they are offering OS/2 with immediate effect although the PC
Company will not offer Warp on its consumer product range until 1995: the
operating system is, however, available as a preload option on its business ranges.

IBM hopes that more PC manufacturers will also offer Warp now that Microsoft's
grip on the operating system market was forceably relaxed and is no longer
entitled to receive a per-processor royalty which was lower if the manufacturer
preloaded its MS-DOS and Windows than if a competitor's product was offered.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.14. LANtastic for OS/2 ships ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

LANtastic for OS/2 ships

Artisoft released its first OS/2 port of its peer-to-peer networking system at
the end of October. This allows LANtastic network users to integrate OS/2
machines into their existing Dos and Windows networks. LANtastic for OS/2 users
will be able to connect to key SMB-based network operating system servers such
as IBM's LAN Server and Microsoft's LAN Manager, Windows for Workgroups and
Windows NTAS products. The OS/2 version is fully compatible with the company's
DOS/Windows versions 5 and 6: users with earlier versions will have to upgrade
in order to incorporate this version into their network.

In addition to Artisoft's own family of networking products and those from IBM
and Microsoft, LANtastic for OS/2 users will also have the benefit of
co-existing with Novell NetWare 3 and 4 and LAN Server network client software
on the same machine, thus allowing users to operate on multiple networks simultaneously.

The LANtastic for OS/2 network supports applications that use Named Pipes. This
means that users can take advantage of distributed client-server applications
as well as leading database systems that are based on Structured Query Language (SQL).

The street price ranges from $139 for a one-user kit to $5,009 for 100 users.
Available kit sizes will be one, five, 10, 25, 50 and 100 users. LANtastic for
OS/2 requires three megabytes of hard disk space, a 3.5-inch floppy drive, VGA
(or better) display and a network adaptor with OS/2 NDIS 2.0 driver -
Artisoft's own adaptors are internally supported.

OS/2 Personal will be reviewing LANtastic for OS/2 in a future edition.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2. Features ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.1. Editorial ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.2. Diary: the Warp launch ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

It's now time for

IBM is not a company noted for razzamataz or for hosting upbeat launches: in
its conservative corporate view, such is the stuff of upstart enterprises or
for cases when you've plenty to talk about but little or nothing new to show.
Companies like IBM don't go in for multi-million dollar media campaigns,
satellite hook-ups, the hiring of popular actors and the setting-off of
pyrotechnics, all for just one product - or do they? Well, you'd be surprised
because that is precisely what it instructed its PR and Advertising agencies to
organise in both London and, simultaneously, in New York. No doubt in Boca
Raton, the OS/2 development team were taking a well-deserved break.

London's Mayfair Intercontinental Hotel played host to some 500 invitees who
were greeted with an afternoon cup of coffee and biscuits in the ante-room to
its theatre. At the same time, over 1,500 were gathering the Playbill Theater,
New York. At the appointed hour we were ushered to our seats in the theatre
itself. As the lights dimmed, we were treated to a constantly changing display
of time-pieces on the video-wall at the back of the stage accompanied by upbeat
muzak. Laser projectors continued this theme on two screens on each side of the
stage. After several minutes, Leonard Nimoy - Star Trek's Mr Spock - gave a
short explanation of time and why time was precious to all mankind. I have to
say that he looked rather older than he did as his alter-ego - and badly in
need of a shave. But as an orator, he was masterful, his delivery was first
class. When he finished, a green circle of light shone on the stage floor out
of which Kate Mulgrew - the newest Star Fleet captain - appeared. Well, she did
in New York: in London, Ellen Hancock emerged. Hancock has no role in Star
Trek, alas, for she is a senior vice-president with IBM.

Hancock and Mulgrew's mission was to set the scene and introduce the principal
players to their respective audiences - Dan Lautenbach and David Barnes in
London whilst in New York, Lee Reiswig and Robert Labant would soon take centre
stage. "OS/2 is a cornerstone of our rapidly growing software business", said
Hancock, underlining that the company is deadly serious about this product. The
launch - the most ambitious in IBM's history - is being backed by a fifty
million dollar world wide advertising campaign handled by Ogilvy and Mather,
twenty million of which will be spent in Europe.

Lautenbach and Barnes then took the stage. These two are classic examples of
the new breed of IBM senior management who are not afraid to smile, laugh or
act as the foil for the other's jokes and together made for a great on-stage
double act. Barnes had probably the best job of all: he jetted-off to four
international destinations to make a film about how people are using and
relying on OS/2 in their everyday lives. Lautenbach's role was that of
"uninformed boss" - he pretended he knew little of Warp's features: this
allowed Barnes to demonstrate to him - and to us in the audience - Warp's key
points which he interspersed with portions of his film.

Barnes' first port of call was Kodiak Island in Alaska. Here just about
everyone who is anyone uses a PC as part of their daily life - of course, these
PCs just happen to run OS/2. The key point being made here was OS/2's inherent
reliability - something rather necessary when you're living in a community as
remote as this one. Then, still heading west, Barnes visited a hotel in Tokyo
where they're using a OS/2 machine to run an interactive multi-media
application which demonstrates the various wedding styles offered by the hotel.

Moscow's STB Bank is the first Russian Bank to introduce ATMs. The ATMs are,
naturally enough, supplied by IBM and the software is all running under OS/2.
After Moscow, Barnes visited SwissAir's headquarters where the crew scheduling
software - CPA2000 - is written as a native OS/2 application. In Austria, he
visited a small pharmacy which has completely computerised all its records. As
well as holding data on the various drugs and preparations in stock - together
with their expiration dates - the OS/2-based PC keeps tabs on all the
pharmacy's patients too. Barnes' final call was to London's Fleet Street where
the London Press Association uses an OS/2-based application to prepare news
pages which are subsequently broadcast as part of the IBA's Oracle Teletext service.

Don Haile, IBM's general manager for Network Software, joined Barnes on stage
briefly to introduce us to IBM's Internet services which went live that
morning. Unfortunately, the demonstration of Web Explorer - IBM's answer to
Mosaic - did not go quite as planned: it froze-up whilst trying to retrieve IBM
UK's newly-opened "home page". But this fact went unnoticed by those with less
than eagle eyes as Barnes and Haile demonstrated other parts of Warp's Internet offering.

Lautenbach rejoined Barnes on stage to summarise the new features in this new
version of OS/2. "I'd like to present you with a little memento of the
occasion", Lautenbach said as stage hands wheeled a huge hour-glass centre
stage. The symbolism was not lost on anyone - it bore a striking resemblance to
Window's hour-glass cursor. A further symbolic act was to follow minutes later.

We were treated to more flashing lasers, rapidly changing pictures of clocks
and upbeat music as Lautenbach and Barnes left the stage to an enthusiastic
applause. As the crescendo built to its climax, the hour glass exploded,
showering the audience with small, white polystyrene balls and glitter. The
noise was quite literally deafening: an over-enthusiastic stage hand had
triggered the hour-glass' main and standby charges: an act which caused a
number of people to scream and a rather well-known British journalist to storm
out of the building.

During the presentation, the ante-room had been transformed to something
resembling the Star Ship Enterprise's flight deck. Circular banks of PCs gave
attendees the opportunity to play with Warp and test out the latest PC games.
Waiters dressed-up in Star Trek T-shirts (specially imported from the US for
the occasion) bore trays of champagne and there was food a-plenty - in short,
something for most appetites.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.3. IBM's Workplace strategy ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

The IBM workplace strategy - continued
by Steve Walker


The Story So Far:

- Corporate IT Managers and Application Developers want to deliver programs to
their businesses and their users quickly
- ISVs want to deliver programs to the general marketplace quickly
- Users want to be able to benefit from the power of their computers
To solve these problems, we're looking at Object-Oriented, Human-Centred
technology running on the PowerPC, RISC-based hardware. ХIf this is RISC-BASED
technology in a PC package, how are we going to run our PC applications on it
to take advantage of all this extra processing power? As I said earlier,
today's OS/2 won't run on these RISC-based machines. Where is the software
going to come from to exploit all this brilliant Human-Centred capability?

So, broadly, we want to be able quickly to deliver software that exploits PC
technology properly. That's what Workplace is all about. Workplace starts with
OS/2. So we need to get OS/2 running on the PowerPC. And that is Workplace's
first task.

Let's have a look at the structure of an operating system designed to the
Workplace model. As we build this structure up, bear in mind the three key
attributes that IBM sees this operating system structure must have:

Portability. Today's tight bonds between software and hardware must be
shattered. No longer should we be compelled to write our applications dependent
upon which hardware we're using.

Scalability. The same basic environment must be valid from hand-held machines
right up to massively parallel supercomputers

Extensibility. As new technology and data types are introduced, they must
easily be assimilable to this model of operating system

It all starts with something called the Micro-Kernel. This is a slim layer of
software designed to do no more than breathe life into a piece of hardware. On
top of that we put software to do all the "shared stuff" , the general tasks
that all applications are likely to do - file access, program loading, and that
kind of thing. The marketing people are then called in to give this a name and
they call it "Personality-Neutral Services", because the tasks are independent
of any specific application or operating system.

Beside this we put Personalities, specifically one for OS/2. The Personality is
what the application "sees" when it runs. The Personality then drives the
hardware, via the Shared Stuff to do the work and then provides the application
with information in the form it expects to see it. So, we now have a package
that looks like this:

- A version of the Micro-Kernel that drives the 32-bit PowerPC processors
- Personality-Neutral Services
- An OS/2 Personality (which will, incidentally, run DOS and Windows
applications by emulation).

So, this is how we get our PC applications running on PowerPC, and offer the
marketplace the choice of benefiting from the extra processing power that the
new Power Personal machines will offer.

Now, I hope you can see the benefits of doing it this way. We have an
environment (in this case an OS/2 personality) running on the MicroKernel. If
we take the MicroKernel to a new hardware platform, then we cart all that
software environment along with it, thus taking away all the pain of porting
software from one type of hardware to another. And the MicroKernel can be
scaled easily, from Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) size right the way to
multi-way Symmetrical Multiprocessor (SMP) systems. And, by adding new
personalities, we can extend the capabilities of the final product.
Portability. Scalability. Extensibility. All derive from the MicroKernel approach.

So, in other words, we've taken OS/2 and broken the bonds that tie it to the
Intel platform today, to allow it to be migrated to the new PowerPC machines.
In doing so, we've kept to a minimum the fuss needed to take your applications
with you. Any 32-bit OS/2 applications will only need to be recompiled to work
on the PowerPC - pretty much a trouble-free migration.

This so-called Single Programming Model is a very, very important component in
the overall Workplace Strategy. The whole idea is that people should only have
to write their programs once. It's no good if a programmer has to write
different code depending upon what hardware platform the program is intended to
run upon. The 32-bit OS/2 Presentation Manager Application Programming
Interface (API) is a guaranteed migration path - write your programs to that
now, on today's Intel platform, and they will run on PowerPC with just a
recompile. OS/2 Object Technology will allow you, too, to start using Object
Compilers, like C++ and SmallTalk, to exploit OS/2's capabilities. Use of these
compilers, too, will mean that programmers will only have to write code once,
independent of the hardware.

So, we've worked to protect the investment that Corporates and ISVs have made
in OS/2 development by making it easy for them to take their programs on to the
PowerPC machines. In doing this, we've given them easy access to a new
generation of super-high-performance processors. As time goes by and more and
more emphasis is put upon having a powerful SuperClient environment on the
desktop in the Client/Server world, the PowerPC machines will have a higher and
higher presence. Being able to offer OS/2 on these machines is a significant
plus, since OS/2 will exploit their 32-bit and multimedia capabilities better
than anything else on the market.

So, that's got us OS/2 on the PowerPC. This is a great step forward, but it
still leaves us with the other challenge I threw out earlier: that of of
getting software to market that exploits all this great hardware technology on
the PowerPC hardware. Doesn't this mean that if we start developing now, we
have to wait several years for the applications?

Clearly, the answer to that has to be "no", or else I wouldn't have posed the
question. This is where Object Technology and the work that IBM has been doing
with the rest of the industry, in the shape of OpenDoc and Taligent. It is
these that build upon the solid foundation of IBM's Workplace that will allow
companies and ISVs to build and deliver a totally new style of application
software to make the lives of all users touched by this easier and more
productive more quickly.

Stepping aside from the gory details of MicroKernel-based operating systems,
let's look at Object Orientation in a bit more detail.

Object Orientation

Object Orientation is not a new concept. It goes back thirty or more years to
some work pioneered in Norway. It's also a concept of devastating simplicity.
Stated baldly, it's simply reuse of parts of programs to create other programs.
However, things are never that simple in reality. Let me try to explain further.

The idea of Object Technology is to take chunks of Program Code that do certain
tasks (e.g. open a Windows in a graphical desktop, select a file name, display
a menu of choices) and allow them to be reused elsewhere, because these are the
sort of tasks that many programs do. To do this, two things have to happen.
Firstly, the code has first to be separated from all the other bits of code
around it, so that we know where a certain function resides. Secondly, it must
be written in a way that allows its detailed purpose to be modified when it
gets reused, since it's very unlikely that a certain task needs to be done
exactly the same way every time. So, Object Technology is the technology needed
to create, isolate and reuse chunks of Program Code, which can then be called
Objects. It results in special programming languages to describe the creation
and reuse of Objects, and hence special Object-Oriented compilers, which
rejoice in such names as SmallTalk or C++.

So, by allowing for controlled reuse of programs, Object Technology can clearly
reduce the time it takes to create new programs - reuse, not reinvention.
Designing the programs is what takes the time in program development. Object
Orientation offers the possibility of reuse of design - that's why you can see
so many savings using it.

Here's an analogy: let's say you want to put up some shelves in a
curiously-shaped recess in your home. You measure up the recess and then go to
your local DIY shop, where you can take your pick of a bewildering variety of
components to make up your shelves. It's unlikely that the shop can sell you
exactly and precisely what you need; normally you'll have to make a few
modifications, like buying a shelf that's too long and shortening it. However,
doing that is a great deal quicker than growing your own trees and forging your
own brackets, and you get a satisfactory end product based upon a lot of
groundwork done by other people. And that's what Object Orientation is in a
programming sense.

Now, Object Oriented Programming has one major setback. The OO compilers don't
understand each other like traditional (PL/1, COBOL etc.) compilers did. They
produce output understood only to themselves. This is a bit of a farce if what
you're after is reuse of code written by a variety of programmers in a variety
of languages. It would be like getting your flat-packed assembly home only to
find that all the screws are the wrong type, and, in any case, all the holes
are in the wrong place. So, IBM developed technology called SO M, or System
Object Model. This technology has been in OS/2 since Version 2 was announced in
March 1992, i.e. over two years - further evidence of the technological
leadership IBM has in this part of the computing industry. The practical upshot
of the technology is that it can be used to force OO compilers to produce
mutually comprehensible output, thus restoring the sensible possibility of
reusing someone else's object oriented code. Sighs of relief all round and back
to the main plot.

Let's take the basic idea and take it to a logical extreme. That's what's been
done by an outfit called Taligent, originally a company formed by IBM and
Apple, and recently supported, to the tune of 15% of the action, by Hewlett-Packard.

Taligent was formed with the mission of developing an entire Object-Oriented
environment for a computer. So that's what they set out to do, only to run
smack into one of the problems that I've been talking about, viz. the appalling
speed at which hardware technology develops and changes. To get round this,
Taligent use things called 'Frameworks'. A Framework is a collection of Objects
that constitutes nearly all of an entire application. So a programmer can write
just the code he needs to solve his business problem and can inherit from a
Framework everything else he needs. This stops the need for dangerous mucking
about with file handlers, graphical user interfaces and the like, and frees the
programmer to concentrate on the essentials. It's this step forward that can
mean a gain in productivity of something like ten- or one-hundredfold. And the
business benefits of this are clear, since it means that an in-house
development department or an ISV now have the prospect of being able to develop
programs in weeks or months rather than years. To take the DIY analogy,
Taligent represents flat-packed furniture that you can use as is, or modify
slightly if you need to.

So, Object Orientation solves one problem and enables programs to be written
much more quickly.

The quickest way for users to get benefit from all this human-centred
technology is by using things called "Compound Documents". A compound document
is composed not just of text, but can have other types of data in it - audio,
video and image. In fact, you're beginning to see this kind of thing coming on
to the market already - word processors that draw graphs, presentation graphics
programs that check your spelling and so forth. So, we can expand this idea to
have voice-annotated spreadsheets, electronic brochures and so forth.

IBM has been working for a while with Apple, Taligent, Borland, Lotus,
WordPerfect and others to produce an Open Component Architecture that the whole
industry can use, and which delivers the necessary function without too much
complexity. The result of this work is called OpenDoc, and it's something
that's already starting to get major attention in the software world.

If anyone tells you that OpenDoc is a compound document architecture, they're
wrong. OpenDoc is a component architecture build upon the solid foundation of
proper Object Technology.

Yes, in the first instance, OpenDoc will support proper collaborative compound
documents. It offers a container and a way of embedding objects in it to make a
complete document. (By the way, the finished product is transmissible across a
network (or can have objects distributed around a network) - not a lot of
compound document architectures can say that.) So, you can use OpenDoc to build
the advanced documents incorporating the multimedia objects that will exploit
the PowerPC hardware best. OS/2 for the PowerPC will have the necessary support
for OpenDoc built in.

However, OpenDoc allows us to take this idea and develop it one stage further.
Think: if you have a container and some parts, why not use the container to
hold parts that make up an application - i.e. why not build your application
from a kit of parts? If you're writing a spreadsheet, why should you have to
worry about how to write a spell-checker? Find someone else who's writing a
word processor, and use the spell-check logic from that (and at the same time
offer the ability to embed your evaluation logic into the word processor....?).
Because Object Orientation means that you can modify function on the fly, you
can adjust parts to meet exact needs as you go along.

This is a very exciting prospect indeed for the software industry as a whole,
and one that will drag it out of the doldrums it's in today. Instead of waiting
years for the big names in software to bring out another release of their great
monoliths, I see a future where there are two new communities: on the one hand,
parts developers, real keen programmers with a detailed grasp of how to program
to solve specific problems; and on the other, parts assemblers - people with
technical skills, but also with a wider industry view, who can take these parts
and understand how to weave them together to make a bespoke application.

This paves the way for a great uplift in creativity and innovation in the
software industry as a whole, as well as that of getting software delivered
much more quickly. And these are the reasons why OpenDoc heralds a significant
change in the industry. Remember, OpenDoc is based on CORBA-compliant
technology from the Object Management Group, and so is an utterly open
architecture that brings these benefits to the whole of the software industry.

What we've established so far is the importance to IBM of the new PowerPC-based
machines that are being developed by the IBM Power Personal Division. These
will come with a lot of technology intended to facilitate Human-Centred
Computing - doing things your way, not the computer's.

Object Technology is of fundamental importance to the swift delivery of new
programmes. OpenDoc, a series of architectures shepherded along by CILabs, will
enable the swift development of component-based software and compound documents
to exploit the PowerPC machines' capabilities.

OpenDoc is a springboard to Taligent. Taligent have been working on various
application frameworks, like a multimedia framework and an advanced document
framework. We can expect to see these come to market reasonably soon now, and
certainly within the next months, to mid-year 1995, we'll see a whole range of
Taligent Application Frameworks come to the marketplace for people to use.

The vehicle for delivery is a matter of interest. Taligent are delivering in
three stages - the Taligent Application Environment (TalAE, application
frameworks), the Taligent Development Environment (TalDE, intended for
programmers to use in developing Frameworks) and the Taligent Object Services
(TalOS, effectively the Operating Environment) Each of these will be delivered
as basic technology that needs to be ported to various environments. For
example, the Taligent Application Environment was ported to the OS/2 platform
in September 1994.

Taligent's mission, if you recall, was to bring a new, object-oriented
environment to market, and this they will do in the shape of TalOS, alongside
the Application Frameworks I've already mentioned. So, how are Taligent going
to deliver their environment? This is the neat bit: as Frameworks, of course,
only System-Level Frameworks instead of Application Frameworks. So, eventually
(some time probably late in 1995) Taligent will deliver TalOS - an entire
Framework setup for those people that want to take up on it.

But hold on a minute, now: is this a totally new environment and one that will
require us to throw away what we have today and start again? If that's so, then
No Thanks - it's too costly in time and general brouhaha.

Well the answer is Yes and No. Yes, it's a totally new environment and No you
don't have to throw anything away. The really exciting part is that there's a
clear migration path to it that fully protects people's investment in what
they've done thus far. Let's look at this a bit more.

Firstly, Taligent have stated that they'll support the IBM MicroKernel, so
their vehicle for delivery of all this great new technology is bang in step
with IBM's. And the really neat thing is that the Taligent Object Services can
be delivered as a set of SOM-based extensions to OS/2. So Taligent will fit
alongside OS/2 on the PowerPC machines - you'll be able to exploit both on the
same hardware. Now that's what I call a migration path. Let's look at this
migration path in more detail and underline the great protection of investment
that it allows.

We start the journey today. SOM technology is already in OS/2. The first
Frameworks are delivered in the SOMObjects Toolkit for OS/2. The Workplace
Shell is already in place. And there are procedural and Object Oriented
compilers around today that will work with SOM.

So we need to take the journey from today's Intel machines to tomorrow's
PowerPC machines and then on to be able to exploit Taligent if we need to. How
do we do this?

Well, you write OS/2 applications today (for the Intel hardware) by using
OS/2's 32-bit API, sometimes called the Presentation Manager. Anybody doing
this has got a fully-protected investment, because all that's necessary to take
these applications to the PowerPC will be a recompilation, i.e. minimal fuss.

You can also start writing Object-Oriented applications today, using products
like IBM's Visual Age to increase your productivity. Doing this, you'll
eventually be able to produce OpenDoc parts and reuse other people's OpenDoc
parts, too (this requires work to be done on Visual Age, by the way). Then, as
time goes by, the increasing numbers of Taligent Frameworks will come into
play, and these can be exploited on an OS/2 base, either on Intel as native
OS/2 or on PowerPC. using the OS/2 Personality.

Then the Taligent Object Services come to market, and will fit alongside the
OS/2 Personality on PowerPC machines (and wherever else the MicroKernel works
by this stage). So, if you want to migrate to a Taligent-exploiting
environment, having used Object-Oriented techniques, then you can, all on the
base of the same PowerPC hardware. Isn't that beautiful?

Well, if it begins to look like technology for technology's sake, let's go all
the way back to the beginning, and see what problems, if any, we've solved.
Here are our original three problems:

The nightmare in program development is trying to deliver applications to users
in any kind of timely fashion.

PC applications from ISVs are developing a degree of complexity that is verging
upon the gothic. It takes ages to develop them, and even longer to update them
with new function in the next release.

Today, you are faced with the laughable situation of people using DOS and
Windows on today's PCs - they're simply not exploiting the possibilities of the hardware.

And here's how IBM's Workplace Strategy, working with the rest of the industry,
will bring solutions to these problems:
Taligent Frameworks to supercharge the speed of developing major corporate
applications

OpenDoc parts to accelerate delivery of a new generation of human-centred
products

MicroKernel technology to be able to exploit the new generations of hardware as
they're developed.

And all delivered with a faultless, seamless migration path that takes you with
a single programming model from today's DOS and Windows users on Intel hardware
(who can benefit from OS/2 now), right through to multiple personalities on the
exciting new hardware that continually comes to market as time goes by.

And it's this that IBM's Workplace Strategy delivers - the capability to start
today, using procedural or Object techniques with the confidence that the work
done now will still be valid in the future and that migration to new technology
can be taken at a pace that suits the user.

Steve Walker has worked for IBM for just over 21 years and is currently
Personal Software Products' Strategic Advocate based in Basingstoke, England.
In essence, this means that he actually understands IBM's product philosophy
well enough to be able to speak and write about it in everyday English.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.4. It's the real McCoy! ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


It's the real McCoy!
by Jules Allen

Well, this is it. After much hype and hoopla, I've been living with Warp 3.0
for about a week and, unsurprisingly to most readers, I'm rather impressed.
It's leaner and faster than previous versions of OS/2 and is generally accepted
as IBM's last chance to get it right.

It seems the bugs and quirkiness of the beta have been ironed out and IBM
really was listening to what those who volunteered for the beta had to say.
This is quite a radical departure from IBM's old way of developing software.
Imagine, asking users what they want, letting them use the beta code and then
-- gasp -- listening and acting on those suggestions! Much talk has been banded
about in the media about the 'new' IBM and it is, for the most part, true.
They're not half as responsive as many other software companies but I have a
feeling that is going to change. In recent conversations with an IBMer at
Software Solutions, he expressed in no uncertain terms that they've all but
been threatened with a big stick if they don't return calls and be generally
accountable. Accountable! At IBM! We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

So what's really changed in Warp? "It doesn't look that much different from the
old one" commented our cleaning lady. Well, she's right -- it's what's under
the hood that really matters. If you remember back in the dark days of Windows
2.x what a radical change 3.0 was. For most computer literates, changing user
interfaces takes a week or so to really get comfortable and work out the
power-user advantages; for the mildly computer literate, it's a sometimes
unnerving process that can take months; and for the phobic, it's a frightening
terror-fest where one wrong click could mean untold productivity losses. The
Workplace shell is a great environment and thank God IBM didn't 'fix' it.

The changes that have happened are pleasing. Objects now have the option to
have an 'open' state image. When one opens, for instance, the Templates folder,
the icons change nicely to show the folder is open.

On the subject of icons, most of the objects in Warp have a three-dimensional
feel to them, the Shredder now actually looks like a shredder instead of some
kind of engineering symbol and the drives look like, well, disk drives.


They've moved Settings to a place that novices can understand -- probably to
quell the rioting IBM technical support people. If you've ever tried to talk a
non-techie through opening settings, you'll know what I mean.

Let's do launch.

There are two types of people in the world. Those who really use the right
mouse button and those that don't. For those that do, here's an interesting tip
and for those that don't, the LaunchPad is for you. Configuring it deliciously
easy: simply drag the item you want added to the 'pad. If your item is to be
added as an Object, drag it between or at the end of other objects.

Objects can be added to the LaunchPad's folders -- drag them to a push button
above the chosen object. Easy or what? One can also float the LaunchPad
perpetually on top of your screen, change orientation to vertical, etc. Right
clicking on the pad (not the objects on the pad -- that will alter their
settings and not the pad's) gains you access to settings.

The first four buttons on the pad are Shutdown, Lockup, Window List and Find.

A "Find" for real people! Yippee! The committee that designed 2.1's find must
have been assigned to other more pressing tasks and some people that actually
use the product must have came up with this one.

You type in what you want to look for and Warp does the rest. Cool.

System Settings new goodies

My favorite resolution is 800 x 600 x 256 and it looks great on a 17" monitor.
Those weirdoes that work at 1024 x Whatever can keep that eyeball displeasing
stuff to themselves. Should they wish to join us who want vision in five years
from now, they can do so painlessly by opening System Settings and picking
their chosen resolution. When the system is restarted, the change takes effect.
No fumbling for disks, no partial reinstall.

When navigating five folders deep in an GUI, the screen often looks like the
aftermath of an explosion. Closing down thirty open screens is also time
consuming, not to mention a drain on system resources. Under the second page of
the Window tab in System Settings, one can assign a folder automatic close.
Can't say I'd ever use "All Objects" myself but I'm sure somebody, somewhere
will find a use for it. To navigate in reverse, one can right click in a
folder's workspace and open the parent window. Nice.

Warp comes with a Create Utility Diskettes program so you don't have to bust
out the original program disks to boot from a floppy. It'll create bootable
diskettes and store a bootable system, chkdsk, backup and restore on them.

The Mouse and System Cursors can now be configured to your liking. One can
select a set of large black or inverse video cursors (very useful for low
lighting conditions with notebooks and laptops or high resolution screens). One
other road warrior friendly addition is Comet Cursor -- the mouse leaves a
dotted trail when you move it.

"What's going on in there?"

You can now tell at a glance. The System Information Tool is a sorely need
addition -- no doubt developed to quell even more threatened riots from IBM
tech support people. In the past, most MIS types would take a screwdriver to a
PC to see what's installed -- this tool should save a lot of time for many
corporate MIS mangers. On the systems we tested Warp on, it had a 100% hit rate
and correctly guessed everything.

Install and Uninstall

Gone are the propeller head days of 2.1's install routines. Warp's install has
an excellent array of driver support for CDROMs, PCMCIA cards, SCSI and sound
cards. It correctly identified my ProAudio Spectrum card and my Philips CD
drive. Interestingly, it fixed the fact I couldn't play audio CDs on my drive
-- a problem that had been without resolution for months. Mediavision, the
drive's suppliers, were as puzzled as I was. I'd sent them back three
drives/cards and we'd run just about every driver there was to be had.

Warp almost got the install right -- I left my original CD-ROM drivers in place
to see if the system would recognize them. It didn't and I had to manually
remove them on reboot.

The "one button" concept to install is a big improvement and should help the
Windows crowd in migrating to a real operating system.

So what goes in can also come out. One can uninstall just about all
non-essential files and reclaim that valuable disk space with the Selective
Uninstall object in the System Setup.

Screaming Windows

As much the purists hate it, the thing that is going to save OS/2 from oblivion
is good Windows support and Warp certainly has it. Warp gives you the ability
to pre-load Windows support so launching Windows sessions now take a fraction
of the time -- from launching the Program Manager to getting the desktop takes
about four seconds on a 486/50. When twiddling your DOS and Windows settings,
you'll find life much easier now as all the settings have been grouped up into
logical areas. I'm not 100% sure if I like this but I'm sure it will make life
easier for those who have to support novice users -- especially telephone support.

Gripe, gripe, gripe.

What, me? I have, of course, always got to find something wrong. It's my
nature. A minor annoyance but there is still no 'add font' button in the Font
Palette -- one has to Edit Font and then add. Slightly confusing to just about
everybody in my humble opinion.

The BonusPak

OS/2 2.1's 'Productivity Tools' were very close to being a waste of disk space.
They were, to be frank, not very well done but I suppose they were better than
nothing. Not this time.

The BonusPak is a collection of utilities from various software vendors which
functions much like one package. The most noteworthy is IBM Works, a full
featured Word Processor, PIM, spreadsheet, simple database, charting package
and report writer.

The install is mildly annoying. Needless animation and the thing actually tells
you how long it's taking to install. I don't care how long it takes to install
-- just get it over with and let me play with my toys. It is, thankfully,
hassle free and does the thinking for you. It also plays a tune which is quite
amusing until about the third you open the install.

IBM Works supports excellent drag and drop features. One can drag one or many
people from the Address Book and attach them to Works documents. If the
document, for instance, contains mail merge fields, those fields will be
automatically be filled in as the document is printed or faxed.

The document icon changes from  to  -- if you notice, in the lower right corner
a card has been attached to the document. To remove these additions to your
document, open the object's settings and click the Merge tab.

One could create a personalized sales letter and fax it to twenty clients
without ever opening a Printer Settings dialog box once!

So, is it for you?

It depends on what you want from your computer. Already running OS/2? You'd be
a fool not to upgrade. This release fixes so many problems and 'features' and
is worth the retail price for the BonusPak alone.

If you're waiting for Windows '95, Chicago or whatever they're calling it this
week, don't hold your breath -- it's been "eight months away from launch" for
the past couple of years. Microsoft has a strange habit of changing direction
at the last minute and a reputation for "dot-oh-itis". Whether they'd care to
admit it or not, the next revision of Windows is going to be 1.0.

If you're running Windows and want more from your computer, it's a good avenue
to explore. Warp runs Windows programs harmoniously and when one behaves badly
and causes a GPF, OS/2 Warp insulates the other processes from crashing. You
can have long file names native OS/2 programs have today, not in the middle of
next year. Sorry, make that "perhaps in the middle of next year".

If all you do - or want to do - is run one Windows or DOS program at a time and
don't feel like you could do with a boost in productivity, stay where you are.
There's no point in switching. After all, what would you do with the extra
time? There are only so many trains one can spot in a weekend, right?

Jules Allen is Publisher for OS/2 Personal and is working on getting a life.
When he's not lording it over everybody at OS/2 Personal, he busies himself
with hypermedia publishing and animation. He's been known to enjoy a good
argument and can be reached at [e-mail] on the Internet or 70750,1431 on CompuServe.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.5. The emperor's new clothes ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

The emperor's new clothes
by Mark Hamilton

In the course of preparing this article, I spoke with a number of developers
and Windows '95 beta testers. For obvious reasons, neither they nor their
products can be identified.

For Independent Software Vendors (ISV), 1994 has not been an easy year. The
burning question on all their lips has been, "do we develop for 32-bit Windows
or what?" They've witnessed Windows '95's release date slip not once, not twice
but three times and its name metamorphosise from Chicago to Windows 4 to
Windows '95 - and the year's not over yet. What should have been an easy
affirmative decision is steadily becoming increasingly more and more difficult
for them to make. That decision's difficulties are compounded by Microsoft's
lack-lustre track record in the 32-bit operating system market.

Windows NT can hardly be described as one of the decade's unqualified
successes, certainly not in marketing terms. Its reception by the user and
industry communities could best be described as lukewarm bordering on cold and
places tremendous pressure on its makers to ensure its other 32-bit platform is
at least as successful as the Windows 3.xx it is to replace. Not unnaturally, a
significant number of ISVs are sitting on the fence, waiting to see if Windows
'95 really is as robust as Redmond promises and as viable platform for hosting
32-bit applications as its proponents insist.

For Microsoft, the scenario it fears the most is, unless it can carry the ISVs
with it, Windows '95 will be dead in the water. Unless there are 32-bit
versions of all the popular applications and utilities, users will not beat a
path to Microsoft's 32-bit door. Microsoft can not afford fence-sitters.

Beta versions indicate that Windows '95 is a rather poor platform for running
32-bit Windows applications because Microsoft has paid more attention to
providing backwards compatibility with existing 16-bit applications than to
providing an industrial-strength, fully pre-emptive 32-bit platform.
Microsoft's decision is marketing-based: it is likely to be able to sell more
copies if it can convince the buyers that they won't need to upgrade their
hardware in order to be able to run it. But this decision is not met with much
favour by the ISVs who view the compromises such a decision inflicts as being
decidedly awkward.

Contrary to popular belief, Windows '95 has little in common with Windows NT.
They can not share device drivers, their 16-bit Windows application support is
implemented in completely different ways and each has API functions the other
doesn't. Some have described Windows '95 as "Windows 3.x on steroids": a
stretched version of the existing Windows 3.x architecture to accommodate
32-bit applications. As a direct consequence of this, much of Windows '95's
kernel operating system remains as 16-bit code. This would not be a problem in
itself if the code were re-entrant, but it is not. Approximately half the API
calls made to the Graphics Device Interface (GDI) and all the API calls to the
Window Management (USER) modules are serviced by 16-bit, non-re-entrant code
requiring serialised access. This means that once an API call is made to (say)
the USER module, that module can not process API calls from other threads
(processes or applications) until the module has completed processing the first
call. Such serialised mechanisms - and the bottlenecks they create - have no
place in properly-designed, truly multi-tasking operating systems such as OS/2,
Unix and Windows NT.

Such serialised access causes performance degradations. For example, a 32-bit
application will run faster under Windows NT - where there is no such
non-re-entrant code - than under Windows '95. The scale of the performance hit
depends on how the application is written and what it does. Factors such as
whether or not the application is multi-threaded and the amount of time it
spends within its own code versus making calls to the GDI or USER, are two
contributing variables.

Beta testers have expressed concern that there is a noticeable overhead in
switching the input focus between multi-threaded Win32 applications and other
applications or the shell components. Obviously Windows '95 is somewhat lacking
in its Win32 support. Its timer resolution appears to be less granular than
Windows NT's resulting in less than smooth multitasking support.

The way in which Windows '95 handles 16-bit Windows applications further
compromises its multitasking capabilities. At the very heart of the operating
system is what is known as the "System Virtual Machine" and two of its key
components are the GDI and USER modules I mentioned earlier. The term "System
Virtual Machine" may sound familiar to you - it is also the keystone of the
current version of Windows.

In essence, the "System Virtual Machine" is an 80x86 virtual machine and within
its address space run a virtualised copy of DOS, all the 16-bit Windows USER,
GDI and KERNEL components and all the 16-bit Windows applications. In Windows
'95, the "System Virtual Machine" is one virtual machine among many. Each Win32
application is given its own virtual machine and these execute alongside the
"System Virtual Machine" and other virtual machines that contain Windows 32-bit
support code, in the form of virtual device drivers. You can see that the only
difference between Windows 3.x and Windows '95 is the addition of additional
virtual machines for 32-bit Windows applications and device drivers. Unlike
OS/2 where the OS itself and each session - be it a DOS, Windows or native OS/2
program - runs in its own protected memory space, under Windows '95 there's no
memory protection between 16-bit Windows applications and their 16-bit
operating system counterparts because they're all running in exactly the same
memory space. As a consequence, the stability of the entire operating system is
inherently undermined. But this is only one of the down-sides to the "System
Virtual Machine" design.

Each time that a Win32 application calls the operating system - for example, to
draw a window or update the cursor position - the 32-bit API call is "thunked"
down to 16-bits and then processed by - in this case - the USER module. When
processing is complete, return values are "thunked" up to 32-bits ready to be
returned back to the calling application. This "double-thunking" causes a
performance penalty but performance itself is only a small part of the issue. A
more pressing question the Windows designers have to face is how do you mediate
access to 16-bit, non-re-entrant code that was never designed for pre-emptive operation?

If all the PC is only running 32-bit Windows applications, there's no real
problem because they can be pre-empted at any time by the Windows '95
scheduler. But if the PC is also running one or more 16-bit applications -
which were designed for co-operative multi-tasking - the situation is more
difficult. 16-bit applications can not be pre-empted by the scheduler and once
such a program has made an API call to the GDI or USER it would be disastrous
to interrupt it - both for the application and the 16-bit, non-re-entrant code
it was in the middle of executing.

Microsoft turned this problem into an "opportunity" by designing Windows '95
around this limitation and all applications - including 32-bit Windows ones -
run at the mercy of the 16-bit, non-re-entrant core code. For Microsoft's
marketeers, this is an ideal resolution because it keeps Windows '95's memory
footprint small and most, if not all, existing Windows 3.x applications and
device-drivers will run under Windows '95. The down-side is Windows '95 will
suffer all the disadvantages of Windows 3.x.

For openers, a poorly-written, 16-bit Windows application can severely impact
overall system integrity and performance. Suppose a user runs a Win32
application which splits its time between performing calculations within its
own code and part of the time updating an on-screen dialog box. Every so often
the application will need to call one or more functions within the USER module
to perform the screen update. Then the user decides to run his 16-bit Windows
accounts package, keeping his 32-bit application running in another window.
Each time the Win16 program calls USER, all other applications - including
Win32 applications - are blocked from accessing window management functions by
a mechanism known as Win16Lock. If the Win32 application needs to update its
dialog box at the same time the accounts package is updating its window, it
will have to wait for USER to complete servicing the Win16 application.
Performance will be further degraded for every 16-bit and 32-bit application
added to this running set.

If a Windows application locks-up while executing USER code under Windows 3.x,
the operating system grinds to a halt. Exactly the same thing will happen under
Windows '95. Or if a General Protection Fault (GPF) occurs in one of the 16-bit
operating system components, the entire operating system is set to become
rather unstable, to say the least.

Microsoft has told the development community that their current Windows
applications will not be able to flaunt the Windows Logo from next Spring and
has set out a list of conditions those applications must meet in order to
requalify. Apart from being Win32 applications, they must implement and support
OLE 2.0 - a condition many ISVs dread. And it's not as if Microsoft is setting
itself up as a good rУle model - the Windows '95 interface will not support OLE
2 apart from a limited ability to extract information from compound files. The
only way a developer will be able to manipulate the Windows '95 user interface
will be by means of Win32 API calls but these are currently not supported on
Windows NT. In fairness, Microsoft has promised to ship a set of DLLs to
provide this functionality under Daytona - Windows NT - but these won't be
ready until Windows '95 ships, meaning ISVs can not release their products early.

Even traditionally loyal ISVs are looking longingly at the OpenDoc
specification. Not only is it more powerful, it is much easier to program,
having an API with around one tenth the number of calls of OLE 2. in addition,
OpenDoc is fully OMG/CORBA compliant and has the backing of industry majors -
Apple, IBM and Novell/WordPerfect - two more compelling reasons why ISVs want
to adopt it.

So there we have it, Windows '95 is, at best, a compromise and not the true
32-bit, pre-emptively multitasking, successor to DOS/Windows of mass appeal
Microsoft would have us believe it is. It might sport a new, three-dimensional
look but, as we have seen, underneath it's good old Windows 3.xx with add-ons.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.6. Word Perfect's emerald necklace ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

The WordPerfect emerald necklace
- or -
A visit to my home town: Part I
by Herschel Chicowitz

Why are there so many songs about rainbows,
and what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions,
but only illusions;
And rainbows have nothing to hide.

All right, so it's not Charles Dickens or William Shakespeare; but what did you
expect?  At least Paul Williams knows how to avoid a run-on sentence! But
honestly, we looked like something out of The Muppet Movie as Mickey, Princess
and I drove up Interstate 75, over to the Blue Ridge Parkway, and on to my home
town. There was Princess, playing the part of Fozzie Bear; me assuming the role
of Kermit; and Mickey playing... well, playing Mickey, of course.  Of course,
The Muppet Movie didn't have a mouse... but then, we don't have a pig, either!

Everybody sing along:
Movin' right along in search of good times and good news;
with good friends you can't lose.
This could become a habit.
Opportunity knocks once - let's reach out and grab it.
Together well nab it.

Somewhere in the hills of West Virginia during a lunch break, Mickey borrowed
shamelessly from the movie. Speaking of Princess, he remarked, "A dog in his
natural habitat: a Toyota."

Homeward Bound

Of course, Kermit and his friends were heading to Hollywood; we were on our
way... to Cleveland. (Madam Red Dot couldn't make it this time.  But she and I
took a trip to Jacksonville earlier this year. And even she borrowed from the
movie. Just outside of Gainesville, as we prepared to head east, she advised
me, "When you get to the fork in the road - take it.")

I know, I know; a lot of crude and biting jokes have been made about the place
they call the "Great Mistake on the Lake" - heck, I told most of them myself -
with great enthusiasm. But this time, I look at my home town - at least my
former home town - from a different perspective. After you've been away for a
while, your old stomping ground takes on a different flavor; and after all, I
don't have to live here anymore; I just come back to visit. So what if I came
back exclusively for game seven of the World Series, featuring the hapless
Cleveland Indians, who haven't been in a playoff since 1954?  (Y'all remember
Bob Feller - star of the '54 series, don't ya'? Well, he's still here; I had
lunch with him just the other day at his home in nearby Chagrin Falls.)

Mickey, Princess and I spent a lovely afternoon at beautiful Jacobs Field, the
new home of the Cleveland Indians. We sat just off the third base foul line,
about six rows up. And yes, the Indians won.  At least, in our minds they did.
I'm sorry if you remember it differently.

If you should ever wake up some morning in a cold sweat, and find yourself in
Cleveland, don't make up your mind about the place until you have strolled
through the Cleveland Metropolitan Park system, which majestically surrounds
the city like... well, like an Emerald Necklace. And no, I didn't make up the
term; but then, neither did Paul Williams. The park system offers some of the
most beautiful hills, trees, clear water streams, and just plain old, open,
clear breathing space that you'll find in the entire country. Of course I
wouldn't advise it in the middle of February. Back when I was a kid, we used to
say that Cleveland had two seasons: Winter... and the fourth of July - and I
remember many a fourth of July that wasn't too pleasant, either. But
fortunately, we visited the park on a brisk and absolutely beautiful fall
weekend. Everyone should be so lucky!

I'll have a few more memories of my trip to Cleveland in a future article.
Meanwhile, I have some  business to conduct.

The WordPerfect Emerald Necklace

Last month I wrote about WordPerfect bookmarks, one of the small, but extremely
nice features of WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS. Two other such features are the
ribbon bar and the button bar, which make accessing certain WordPerfect
features easy. I'm not a big fan of the WordPerfect menu, or any such menu, for
that matter. First there's the menu; then the sub-menu, then the dialog box,
then the option - it's just too many keystrokes (or mouse-strokes, if you
will), too much bother.  (A simple macro command is so much easier.) But the
ribbon bar and button bar allow you to select a font, point size, text
justification, and other features easily without going through a series of
obstacle courses.  But to make use of the bars, you'll need some assistance
from Mickey, or your mouse, whatever name you choose to call him... or her.

The ribbon bar and button bar do not automatically appear on the edit screen.
Press <Ctrl>F3, <Shft>F1, to display the Screen Setup dialog box:

Click the button bar and ribbon bar in both the graphics and text modes to
display the bars as you edit text. Then click OK return to the edit screen.
In the text mode, the ribbon bar and button bar look like this:

Admittedly, not very impressive.  (But then, neither was the Clinton Health
Care Plan.)  But in the graphics mode, they look like this:

Remind you a little of the Windows environment?  My, what a coincidence.

The Ribbon Bar

The ribbon bar consists of six drop-down boxes. (Borrowing from a Windows
standard, the existence of a drop-down box is indicated by a down arrow in the
option box.) The drop-down boxes let you select (from left to right) 1: the
view size; 2: the paragraph style; 3: columns, 4: text justification; 5: font;
and 6: point size. (The view size drop-down box is grayed out, and thus is not
available in the text mode.)  Frankly, I only use the font and point size in
the text mode; but in the graphics mode, I also use the view size. As an
example, to change fonts, click anywhere in the font drop-down box.  A list
(called a drop-down list) of available fonts appears beneath the option box:

Only seven fonts show in the drop-down list, but you can use the scroll bar on
the right side of the list to scroll up and down in the alphabetical list of
fonts. Click the desired font, and bingo!  The desired font code appears in
your document. This has the same effect as if you pressed <Ctrl>F8, and then 1
to select a font. The ribbon bar just makes it easier.

In the graphics mode, you can use the view drop-down list to select a view or
zoom mode:

The view size allows you to change the size of text as it appears on the edit
screen. This is particularly helpful if you have selected a small font (or
narrow margins) that would not normally allow an entire line of text to display
on the screen at one time.

Double-click on 50% or 75% to make the display smaller.  The view size does not
affect the actual size of the text as it will print.

(Bonus tip: Click the view drop-down box, tap the delete key to erase the
current entry, and key in any percentage you want.  That way, you are not
limited to the percentages shown in the drop-down list.)

The same principle applies to the operation of other ribbon bar drop-down boxes.

The Button Bar

The button bar offers you the "express" route to various WordPerfect features.
For instance, if you want to print your document, you can press <Shft>F7, 1,
and ENTER. Or, you can use the menu: Click on File, Print, and then Print. Or,
using the button bar, you can simply click the Print button to display the
Print menu, and then click Print to print your document. (I know, I know: a
macro command to do the whole thing would be easier yet.  But we're not talking
about that this month.)

The button bar includes 13 "express" buttons. (In the text mode, it only
contains six. But the button bar in the text mode is so pathetic, it's not even
worth considering seriously - sort of like the Clinton... oh, never mind; no
need to rub it in). But look closely at the left side of the button bar: the up
and down arrows. Click the down arrow to display two more buttons:

Two more buttons, and a whole lot of wasted, empty space. Now click the up
arrow to return to the original 13 buttons. But that whole lot of empty space
actually presents an opportunity. You can fill up the empty space with buttons
corresponding to features or macros of your own choosing. Click that down arrow
to return to the second set of buttons; then click the "BB Sel" button to
display the Select Button Bar dialog box:

The dialog box includes a list of several button bar names.

Each name corresponds to a complete set of buttons.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  The currently selected button bar is WPMAIN.

Click option 3, Edit, to edit the WPMAIN button bar.

Options one through four on this dialog box allow you to add a button which
corresponds to one of four things: a feature that appears on the WordPerfect
menu, a feature which does not appear on the WordPerfect menu; an existing
macro command (one of WordPerfect's or one of your own); or another button bar.
(That way, you can have one button bar call up another button bar - the
opportunities simply boggle the mind!)

Options five and six allow you to delete a button from the button bar, or move
an existing button from one place to another on the button bar.

And if that isn't enough for you, you can use the Select Button Bar dialog box
to create your own button bar - you can customize the entire bar to suit your
needs. Admittedly you can do the same  kinds of things in the Windows version -
it's even a little smoother in the Windows version. But do you want something
that works, or do you want something that looks slick?  (You might ask yourself
that same question when you go to the polls this month, friends.)

The Last Word - The Rainbow Connection

All right, so I may have been a little hasty last month when I said the
Republicans would pick up only 3-4 seats in the senate. But as I write this,
it's still three weeks till the elections, and a lot of PAC money yet to be
spent. I'm running out of space here, so if you want the final Chicowitz'
election predictions, you'll have to send me CompuServe message. Meanwhile,
Mickey, Princess and I are, once again, movin' right along.

Movin' right along, footloose and fancy free;
You're ready for the big time, is it ready for me?

And as we head on down the road, back to our home in the south, in between the
clouds appears the illusive rainbow...

Rainbows are visions,
but only illusions;
And rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told, and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong; wait and see.
Some day I'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers... the dreamers... and me.

Hershel Chicowitz is the Director of Creative Services for Thornton &
Associates, a computer auditing and PC consulting firm in Tampa, Florida. The
firm offers a series of software training classes, and markets a complete macro
command library (WordPerfect: Perfectly Simple) for WordPerfect. You can reach
Hershel and his trainer by voice telephone at [phone], or on CompuServe
at 74473,3532.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.7. So you want to be an OS/2 programmer ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

So You Want to be an OS/2 Programmer?
by Gordon W Zeglinski

Back for more? I must be better at this than I thought! This article is
directed towards those with prior programming experience. We will look at
"porting our brain" from the murky world of DOS and Windows programming to that
of OS/2 programming.

Let's start at the beginning. First there was a large explosion. From this
explosion large chunks of matter spewed across the galaxy. Skipping billions of
years to the present, the first thing a programmer needs is information about
his/her programming environment. "The Developer Connection for OS/2" (DevCon
for short) is IBM's solution to getting information to the programmer. If you
are looking for a source of "how to" information, I suggest getting the
following books "The Art of OS/2 2.1 C Programming" ISBN 0-471-58802-4 and
"Real-World Programming for OS/2 2.1" ISBN 0-672-30300-0. Both of these books
are PM-centric although the later covers some non PM programming topics as
well. In addition to these sources of information, EDM/2 is a must have item.
EDM/2 is a free electronic magazine that deals exclusively with OS/2
programming related topics. It can most likely be downloaded from any site that
is carrying OS/2 Personal.

Wow talk about information overload! So now we are armed to the teeth with
programming information. The next logical addition to our arsenal is a
compiler. We can choose from a variety of vendors. Watcom C/C+ version 10,
CSet++ version 2.1, Borland C++ version 1.5 are just a few C/C++ compilers
available to us. I won't get into what I think about any of these compilers
specifically in this article. However, I strongly recommend that whatever
compiler you choose has a high degree of compatibility with CSet++ and has a
debugger with PM specific debugging support. The reason I recommend
compatibility with CSet++ is that all of the tool kits that IBM ships for OS/2
are written to be CSet++ compatible. From a practical point to view, you have
to decide whether or not you want to start editing header files to make them
work with your compiler or not.

Great so we have information and a compiler. Now what? The first thing I hear
from a programmer looking to move to OS/2 code is "I could do <fill in the
blank> under DOS/windows how can I do <blank> under OS/2". Here's a quick look
at some of the more common questions.

Q: How can I write a TSR for OS/2?

A: The concept of a TSR doesn't really exist in OS/2. After all, TSR stands for
Terminate Stay Resident. In OS/2 when a program terminates it is gone.. Hasta
la vista baby. What you need to do is determine how to duplicate the
functionality of the DOS TSR in OS/2. For instance a "hot key" program in DOS
would hook into the keyboard interrupts vector. Each time a key is pressed, it
would determine if that keystroke corresponds to a "hot key". In OS/2 there are
two ways of duplicating this. If the OS/2 program was a text mode application,
a "keyboard monitor" would be installed. If the application was PM based, a
message queue hook would be installed.

Q: How can I grab an interrupt vector in OS/2?

A: You need to write a device driver. Having done this myself, I can say it's
not really that hard. It is time consuming when debugging the device driver. If
you are going to do a device driver, you should think about getting the
following the Device Driver Source Kit from IBM call 1-800-633-8266 in the US
and 1-800-465-7999 in Canada. Also, I found the following book very useful,
"Writing OS/2 2.1 Device Drivers in C" by Steven J. Mastrianni.

Q: How can I do port IO in OS/2?

A: You need to use an IOPL segment. In OS/2, the kernel runs and ring 0, and
user code runs at ring 3. Ring 3 code cannot do port IO. However, you can have
code segment running in ring 2 and thus do port IO. Yes, I used the nasty word
"segment". This technique requires one to write a 16 bit code segment that will
do the port IO. This segment will be called by the 32 bit code in the rest of
the application. Warning there is a lot more overhead in OS/2 than in DOS when
doing port IO. Figure 1 illustrates the steps that go on behind the scenes.
First the 32 bit code is thunked to 16 bit code at the ring 3 level. This
thunking involves setting up the stack so when the 16 bit code is called, the
program doesn't go boom and die when accessing the 32 bit data "segments". The
interesting part here though, is that the ring 3 to ring 2 code also needs to
be thunked even though it's still 16 bit in both rings. In this thunk, the ring
3 stack is copied to a ring 2 stack. This, of course, is a time consuming
process so one must design their code to avoid as much thunking as possible.

Figure 1. Ring thunking

Q: How do I create a window in the PM?

A: There are several ways to create a window in the PM. The method you choose
will depend on what type of window you want to create. WinCreateStdWindow
creates a "standard window". A standard window consists of a Frame window, the
frame control windows (if any) and the client window. WinCreateWindow is used
to create a window of the specified class. In fact, the WinCreateStdWindow call
can be replaced by two calls to WinCreateWindow. The first call creates the
frame window and the second call creates the client window. The client window
is created as a child of the frame window.

Q: How is OS/2 PM programming different than Windows programming?

A: The biggest difference between OS/2 and windows programming involves
threading issues. Ignoring these for the time being, and PM program has to do
the following:

1 Initialize the PM interface for thread (create an anchor block). Recall that
all processes have at least 1 thread.

2 Create a PM message queue.

3 Register window classes it needs. The concept of a window class in the PM is
the same as it is in Windows.

4 Create the windows it needs.

5 Enter a message loop.

6 Loop until the message WM_QUIT is received.

7 Clean up the PM interface and terminate.

In Windows, one doesn't have initialize a windows interface or clean up the
windows interface. Conceptually there are a lot similarities between the two.

Before we wrap up this column, let's look at some thread specific issues.
Usually the main thread of an application is used as the primary PM thread.
This thread carries out steps 1 to 7 from above. A general rule is that this
thread should not perform any task that takes more than a tenth of a second to
complete. The reason for this rule is that the PM, like Windows, needs the
application to get and dispatch messages to maintain user responsiveness.
Unlike Windows, multi-tasking in OS/2 is independent of the message loop. In
OS/2, even though the user can't interact with an application when the system
message queue is hung, the application is still running. Obviously we don't
want this to happen. To prevent this, we use threads. Now this is were it often
gets fuzzy. All of the PM functions require an anchor block. Some of the PM
functions, like WinSendMsg, also require a message queue. What happens if we
create an anchor block/message queue in a sub thread? Do all threads in a PM
program need anchor blocks? Fortunately for us, the only time the 1/10th of a
second rule matters, is when the thread has created a window. Only after a
thread has created a window can it block the system message queue and thus
hamper the user's ability to interact with applications. Moving on to the
second question, a thread in a PM program only needs an anchor block when it
needs to call PM functions, like WinPostMsg.

We now conclude our fun filled look at OS/2 programming. We have looked at some
common questions and answers of the "can I" and "how to" type a programmer has
when moving into the OS/2 environment. In our next issue we will look at a
simple PM program.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.8. Ask Timmy ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


Ask Timmy
OS/2 Personal's child prodigy answers your technical questions
by Timmy Sipples


Dear Timmy:
I used the guidelines in the last OS/2 Personal to add an OS/2 window to my
Desktop menu. But, when I tried to add the font palette to the same menu, I get
a 'not allowed' icon when trying to drop the object on the menu page. Why isn't
this allowed?
Jan Erik Hoel


Dear Jan:
Only program objects or executable files (such as CMD.EXE) can be added to your
customized desktop menus. However, one way to solve the problem is to run a
REXX script which will then open another object (such as the Font Palette).
That REXX script would use the SysOpenObject function in the built-in REXXUTIL
function library. This function is not well documented in OS/2 itself, so I
recommend consulting a book such as 'OS/2 2.11 Unleashed' or one of the several
OS/2 REXX guides now published.


Dear Timmy:
Is there a way to define the working directory setting of a Workplace Shell
object on the fly, or perhaps at the time of startup? In the old DOS command
line days, we would CD to a directory, start up WordPerfect, and the current
directory would be the WordPerfect working directory. I could have a selection
of different WordPerfect objects with different working directories, but that's
clumsy (though I do it).
Jim Lattis


Dear Jim:
Yes, it's very easy to do, but it requires two parts. First, create an OS/2
batch file called WP.CMD -- let's say that it is located in your C:\PROG
directory. Let's also assume WordPerfect uses the WP.EXE file to start and is
located in the C:\WP directory. WP.CMD contains the following:

@echo off
c:
cd %1
start /dos /win c:\wp\wp.exe
exit

Now, create a program object for WP.CMD as follows:

1 Drag a program object template from your Templates folder to the desired
location (such as your desktop);

2 In the "path and file name" field type in:
C:\PROG\WP.CMD

3 In the "optional parameters" field type in:
 Which default directory?|

4 Leave the "working directory" field blank;

5 Click on the Session tab, and check both the "start minimized" and "close
window on exit" checkboxes.

Of course, you can name this program object anything you wish. Close up the
settings notebook, and double click on it to start. You should then be prompted
for the working directory. Try:

\DOCS

or whatever directory holds your documents.

You can get more sophisticated by using some REXX code in WP.CMD to extract the
drive letter, check to see whether the directory typed in is valid, or even to
create an entirely new front end for selecting the working directory before
starting WordPerfect.


Dear Timmy:
I see advertisements for CD-ROM drives and SCSI adapters that say that they
allow booting from CD-ROM. They say that 'OS/2 loves this.' Can I boot directly
from the CD-ROM? If so, how? And if so, and I do it, how does one tell OS/2
where all your tweaks and things reside.
Doug Perreault


Dear Doug:
To be blunt, there's a lot of dreck sold as working computer equipment, a lot
of intentional misrepresentation, and a lot of just plain ignorance among
salespeople about computers (especially PCs). I have never heard of any PC
booting any operating system (OS/2 included) off a CD-ROM drive without either
a very specialized, custom ROM chip (used only in very specific installations
or configurations) or the use of diskettes to start installation from the
CD-ROM. It would certainly be a nice feature (something the PowerPC systems are
bound to include), but I'd be skeptical of these claims for the time being.

Of course, I think it is extremely important that, if you are uncertain about a
claim made by a vendor, you get something in writing about the claim and, more
importantly, an unconditional money back guarantee. In most countries, OS/2
itself is covered by a no questions asked 30 day money back guarantee, which is
the way all software (and hardware) should be sold.


Dear Timmy:
Installing OS/2 2.x on a Gateway 2000 with an ATI Graphics Ultra Pro adapter
and the Gateway 15 inch monitor (1572FS) presents a problem. During the second
phase of the install the screen is completely useless; it just shows a few
black or blue bars. The fix to this is to boot DOS, invoke the Mach32 setup
program, and change the powerup default display type from '1572FS' to 'IBM PS/2
or VGA' before attempting to install OS/2. One can then switch back to '1572FS'
after the install is complete.
Two questions: (1) What is going on here?; (2) Why haven't those lunkheads in
Boca fixed this problem in Warp Beta II?
OK, Timmy. Let's see you gum your way through this one!
(Unknown)


Dear Unknown:
(2) is easy, namely that clearly there's no easy workaround. Contrary to
popular belief, the lunkheads in Boca do actually fix quirks when they can.
Eventually.

But let's tackle (1). Some of the ATI graphics cards, when set to an alternate
monitor type, "break" the VGA hardware standard in that mode. In other words,
they no longer appear to act VGA compatible in some ways. When OS/2 installs,
it is relying on the fact that standard VGA (or at least CGA or EGA) is
available. The DLLs used (including BVHVGA.DLL) have no idea, by and large, how
to deal with SuperVGA displays which don't understand VGA behavior.

There are some potential fixes which might be implemented, though. One would be
to give the VGA DLLs enough logic to deal with the special ATI cases. Another
would be to use SuperVGA support right off the bat with Phase II of the
installation (as was apparently done with OS/2 Warp Version 3).

As always, check the manual and README file(s) (if any) before installing any
piece of software, including OS/2. I also recommend fastening your seat belt
before starting your car, brushing and flossing your teeth between each meal
(at least twice a day), getting plenty of exercise, watching your intake of fat
and sodium, and, of course, contributing to organizations which purchase and
preserve tracts of rainforest. Everybody always does these things, right?


Jan, Jim, and Doug will be receiving their "I Love OS/2" bumper stickers thanks
to their contributions to "Dear Timmy" this month. (Mr. Unknown's bumper
sticker was lost in the mail, obviously.) If your question is used by Timmy,
you will also receive a free bumper sticker (while supplies last). Mail your
questions to [e-mail], and please remember to include your return
mailing address. So far, we haven't found a way to send bumper stickers through
electronic mail.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.9. Gill Bates ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2.10. Reader registration and survey ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Take part in our Readership Survey and You could win a prize!

OS/2 Personal will soon become a Controlled-Circulation magazine: although
you'll still be able to read the magazine free, you do need to register. In
this and future months, we'll be providing you with a combined Readership
Survey and Reader Registration form which we'd appreciate you completing and
mailing back to us.

When you unpacked the archive file containing this edition, an additional file
was placed in the same directory called survey.txt. Load this file into your
favourite editor (OS/2's and PC-DOS's "E", MS-DOS' "EDIT" or Windows Notepad
are ideal) and fill in the blanks. When you've completed the form, simply email
it to us at [e-mail] to arrive by 20th November. After that date, a
response will be chosen at random and the sender of that response will receive
a copy of KopyKat with our compliments.

Do not send us the file as a MIME attachment -- due to the automated way we
process surveys, our Surveybot will return your message to you.

Although the Readership Survey does ask you to complete your name and street
address, this information is necessary for controlled circulation audit
purposes only (and, of course, we need to know where to send the prize!) The
information you provide in completing the Survey will not be divulged to any
third parties.

 Double click here to view and complete the Readership Survey

Already Registered?

Even if you've filled out the survey from a previous issue, you can still win
this month's prize -- email your name and address to [e-mail].


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Warp ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Press escape to return to the article.


-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1051971 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos20.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1166617 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos21.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1417480 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos22.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1417669 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos23.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1407734 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos24.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1407734 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos25.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1310616 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos26.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1416069 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos27.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1207543 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos28.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1005580 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos29.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1372548 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos2a.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1314281 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos2b.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1355767 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos2c.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1396992 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos2d.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1328036 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos2e.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1286041 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos2f.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1064286 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos2g.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10      20548 Oct 15 11:58 pnxos2h.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1328036 Oct 15 11:58 pnxst-1.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1409944 Oct 15 11:58 pnxst-2.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     922982 Oct 15 11:58 pnxst-3.zip


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> BonusPak ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Press escape to return to the article.

-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1074242 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx1.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1765098 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx10.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1637547 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx11.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1741478 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx12.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1744060 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx13.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1480483 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx14.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1456720 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx2.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     563999 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx3.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     295165 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx4.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1551705 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx5.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1812517 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx6.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1315804 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx7.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1641748 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx8.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10     1548066 Oct 15 11:58 bonpnx9.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 1059   10        0 Oct 15 11:58 how many files total?


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Windows '95 ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Press escape to return to the article.

ftp> dir Chicago_Oct_5_Beta
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest      0 Oct 18 02:21 ID=matsjX and PWD=ad1c2a4a1,
retail1.zip: Ann & retail2.zip: Hilton - Nameless
drwxrwxr-x  2 ftp    guest     512 Oct 18 03:03 Passwords_provided_by TnT\2
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest      0 Oct 12 00:38 Uploaded by TWO of NiCA
drwxrwxr-x  2 ftp    guest     512 Oct 15 23:54 WHAT_ABOUT_THE_PASSWORDS_AND _ID
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest     456 Oct 18 03:02 aaa
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest     455 Oct 18 03:02 chicpass.txt
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest      45 Oct 18 03:02 chicuser.txt
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1986876 Oct 12 00:30 nca!ch01.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest    723379 Oct 12 00:30 nca!ch02.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1456506 Oct 12 00:31 nca!ch03.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1455705 Oct 12 00:31 nca!ch04.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1456663 Oct 12 00:32 nca!ch05.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1453840 Oct 12 00:32 nca!ch06.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1456598 Oct 12 00:32 nca!ch07.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1456853 Oct 12 00:33 nca!ch08.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1457748 Oct 12 00:33 nca!ch09.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1456338 Oct 12 00:34 nca!ch10.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1456070 Oct 12 00:34 nca!ch11.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1456424 Oct 12 00:35 nca!ch12.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1445787 Oct 12 00:35 nca!ch13.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1453126 Oct 12 00:35 nca!ch14.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1451743 Oct 12 00:36 nca!ch15.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1456579 Oct 12 00:36 nca!ch16.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1456034 Oct 12 00:37 nca!ch17.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1457264 Oct 12 00:37 nca!ch18.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1331864 Oct 12 00:37 nca!ch19.zip


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> 3d Studio ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Press escape to return to the article.

ftp> dir 3DStudio4
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1142300 Oct 16 14:12 3DS4NTA1.ZIP
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1237707 Oct 16 14:12 3DS4NTA2.ZIP
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1078789 Oct 16 14:12 3DS4NTA3.ZIP
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1359159 Oct 16 14:12 3DS4NTA4.ZIP
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1322152 Oct 16 14:13 3DS4NTA5.ZIP
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1382389 Oct 16 14:13 3DS4NTA6.ZIP
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1375277 Oct 16 14:13 3DS4NTA7.ZIP
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1375840 Oct 16 14:13 3DS4NTA8.ZIP
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1239549 Oct 16 14:14 3DS4NTA9.ZIP
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1064109 Oct 16 14:14 3DS4NTAA.ZIP
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest    970137 Oct 16 14:14 3ds4crck.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest    15872 Oct 17 21:09 3ds4nta2.zip


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Access ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Press escape to return to the article.


ftp> dir MSAccess-Dev-Toolkits
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1298017 Oct 18 05:42 ADT1.ZIP
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1409163 Oct 18 05:43 ADT2.ZIP
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1365137 Oct 18 05:43 ADT3.ZIP
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1134494 Oct 18 05:44 ADT4.ZIP


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Lotus ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Press escape to return to the article.


ftp> dir AmiProv3.10_for_Win
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest     879 Oct 18 12:50 apro31-0.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest    819200 Oct 18 12:57 apro31-1.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest      0 Oct 18 12:57 apro31-2.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest      0 Oct 18 12:57 apro31-3.zip


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> DeScribe ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Press escape to return to the article.


ftp> dir Describe
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1315523 Oct 13 20:56 dscrbe1.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1356724 Oct 13 20:57 dscrbe2.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1223946 Oct 13 20:58 dscrbe3.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1417217 Oct 13 21:00 dscrbe4.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1458733 Oct 13 21:03 dscrbe5.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest   1458689 Oct 13 21:05 dscrbe6.zip
-rw-rw-r--  1 ftp    guest    79584 Oct 13 21:05 dscrbe7.zip


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

It is quite normal for software manufacturers to distribute beta-version
software that date-expires either just after a new beta version is scheduled
for release or following the release of the retail product. This ensures that
legitimate recipients of the beta code are using the latest version released
and is done to reduce wasted technical support queries.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

It is standard practice for journalists to be given copies of products to test
and it is implicit that these should not be used in a commercial environment.
There's a fine line dividing what could be justified as legitimate testing and
what is better described as basing one's business around the use of that
product. "Inside OS/2"'s use of DeScribe seems to fit the latter circumstance
better than the former.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Left ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ



Copyright (c) Allen-Hamilton Publishing Company, 1994.

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Publisher: Jules Allen

Editorial Department
Editor-in-Chief: Mark Hamilton, MCIOJ
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IBM, OS/2, OS/2 for Windows, OS/2 Warp, Person to Person, PS/1, PS/2,
PS/Valuepoint and Win-OS/2 are registered trade marks of IBM Corporation of
Armonk, New York.

Microsoft and Windows are trade marks of Microsoft Corporation, Bellevue, Washington.

Other products, goods and services are trade marks, registered trade marks or
service marks of their respective companies.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Right ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ



It's been a busy month at OS/2 Personal's offices: among other things, we've
been updating our network so that we can incorporate Artisoft's LANtastic for
OS/2. I'm really pleased Artisoft is working on this product because if there's
one thing OS/2 lacks, it's a decent peer-to-peer networking system.

When completed, our network will have a dedicated server running OS/2 - Warp,
of course - and a mixture of DOS/Windows and OS/2 workstations. We're looking
at incorporating dial-in facilities to the network which will connect editors
on the road via modems to a Central Station hub and thence to the network itself.

Your vote counts

Last month we invited you to vote on whether you approved of DeScribe's plans
to require users of its software to re-register their copies every six months
to prevent it time-expiring. Despite the fact the company has subsequently
modified its plans, an overwhelming 80% of you agreed with the company's
original proposal. Thank you for taking part in our on-line poll.

Talking of voting, America goes to the polls on the 8th November to elect
everybody from the State Governors down. I'll be glad when it's all over: I'm
sick and tired with the negative advertising campaigns politicians go in for here.

DeScribe is back in the news this month. Its President, James Lennane, has
pledged a total of $20,000 as a reward for information that leads to the
successful conviction of the person, or persons, who uploaded copies of his
company's product to the Internet. Lennane believes that this kind of crime is
symptomatic of our present day society. "Nobody wants to be accountable
anymore", he told me.

The threat from the east

Winn Schwartau, a Florida-based security consultant takes a far more pragmatic
view. He believes that software piracy costs the industry between $2-4 billion
a year. That sounds a huge amount, but when you consider the global software
market is currently worth around $400 billion a year, piracy losses are small
change. "The real threat to western software companies comes from China and
India. These nations are rapidly computerising and are growing tremendous
skills. If you can pay a programmer there $4 a week to write Windows code - and
you can - now, that's what I call a serious threat", he warns.

Trick or treat?

A minor Halloweenesque set-back aside, Warp is starting to appear in the
stores. Now, by the time Windows '95 actually does ship, IBM is likely to be
beta-testing the next OS/2. This is good news for those of us who have already
embraced true 32-bit computing: not such good news for those waiting for
whatever Redmond delivers. And, whether they like it or not, that will be a
"1.0" product. Ho hum. Happy Thanksgiving!


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Kate ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

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Kate Mulgrew on stage at the Playbill Theater, New York


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Ellen ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

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Ellen Hancock, senior vice-president responsible for IBM's Network Hardware,
Network Software and Software Solutions Divisions at IBM


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Dan ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

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Dan Lautenbach, assistant general manager, IBM Personal Software Products.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Dave ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

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David Barnes, senior product manager for OS/2.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Robert ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

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Robert Labant


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Interestingly, Ogilvy and Mather was, until earlier this year, Microsoft's
advertising agency. Earlier this summer, IBM appointed O&M to handle all IBM's advertising.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Excerpts from the film will be featured in television commercials from November.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Automated Teller Machines


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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Other personalities can be added, such as AIX, as shown in the figure.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

So what's the cleaning lady doing messing with our computers? Normally she
doesn't but I asked her to take a look at both interfaces. I thought she'd be a
great person to get an unbiased opinion from.

And she's pretty deft with a mouse, too.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Yes, I did indeed use it on a daily basis and was I pleased when I could
finally afford a Mac of my own. Until the arrival of OS/2 2.1, it was the best
game in town.


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When  is opened, it becomes


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> tip ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Press escape to return to the article.

I keep all my frequently accessed programs in the popup menu when one right
clicks on the desktop. Here's what works for me: In my system folder I have a
folder called "menu" and in there, I keep all the objects that I frequently
access. Being an text oriented type, I also keep the contents sorted alphabetically.

As I add or delete an item in this folder, I open desktop settings and click on
the Menu tab. The scroll area toward the bottom of the dialog box is receptive
to drag and drop, so after I've deleted what's in there, I drag and drop the
contents of my 'menu' folder. If you're not very concerned with sort order,
don't delete what's there as the system will just append what you've dropped to
the end of the list.

One thing you must add to any object that will sit in this menu is a % sign in
the object's Optional Parameters area. Open the object's Settings and this
field is under the Program tab. To assign hot keys to your items, add a ~
(tilde) before your chosen letter but be careful to to use OS/2 already
assigned hot keys -- the system will ignore yours.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

...like self assembly instructions for foreign furniture or model aircraft?
What the heck were they on when they came up with that?


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

It seems mainly to be C++ types. And the majority of them wear glasses!


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

HyperACCESS/Lite from Hillgraeve; CompuServe Information Manager from
CompuServe; IBM Works which is a rather well sewn together collection from
Footprint, Microburst, Arcadia, Halcyon and Mastersoft; Faxworks for OS/2 from
SoftNet; and Internet Connection, Multimedia Viewer, Video IN and Person to
Person from IBM.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

Personal Information Manager. Like an electronic filofax/dayrunner.


ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden>  ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ

DevCon is composed of one or more CDs and a news letter. It is jammed full of
useful information and programming tools. DevCon ships quarterly and can be
bought via a subscription or as single volumes. For pricing or to order the
latest volume, call 1-800-633-8266 in the US or 1-800-561-5293 in Canada.
DevCon volume 5, contains several programming tool kits, Correct Service Disks
for various IBM products, DataBase/2 (DB/2), tcp/ip, and many more useful