PC Direct 1995 September

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============== PC DIRECT CD-ROM SEPTEMBER 1995 ============== (C)1995 Ziff-Davis UK Limited. All rights reserved. Welcome ======= This plain text document describes the programs and files on this CD-ROM as a guide for those who want to use the disk directly. A front-end/menu program is included which will introduce the disk in more depth and help you to learn about, setup and run the programs on it. To run this, choose File... Run in the Windows Program Manager and enter d:\PCDIRECT where d: is the letter of your CD-ROM drive. To use the menu program, your PC should have Windows 3.1, 4Mb or more RAM and a VGA or higher resolution screen. Note that it is a good idea to close other applications when running this program or other install and setup programs... this prevents possible conflicts between install and setup programs that need to update or modify files that may be in use by other applications and helps to ensure you have sufficient free memory. This document can be viewed using most text editing and file viewing programs, such as the Windows Notepad, the DOS EDIT command or any word processor that can open and read in a plain ASCII file. As it is a long document, you may want to print it out so that you can easily browse its content. Contents ======== Macromedia Showcase CD ---------------------- Macromedia's multimedia applications for the PC and Macintosh, including Director and Authorware, are leading products among multimedia authors, being used both by other software houses for commercial applications and by a growing number of companies for their own in-house work. The company's 'Showcase CD', included as part of this PC DIRECT CD, gives you the chance to meet the company and its products. Along with a presentation and useful background information are trial versions of Director, Authorware, Macromodel and Action! Dorling Kindersley samplers --------------------------- Dorling Kindersley has managed to bring the same high production standards achieved with its print books to a growing range of multimedia CD-ROM titles. This CD includes samplers of three of the company's latest products, narrated presentations that show some of the features and audio, video and graphics in the full programs. The samplers provided are for World Reference Atlas, Eyewitness History of the World and Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature. Windows 95 walkthrough ---------------------- The much heralded Microsoft Windows 95 is due for release as this CD-ROM is being prepared. PC DIRECT's own on-screen walkthrough provides an easy-to-run quick introduction to this major upgrade to Windows & DOS, showing how Windows 95 looks and describing some of its features and utilities. Even if you've already made the leap and got Windows 95 on your system, there's some useful tips you might like to take advantage of. Insignia MacDisk ---------------- Ever since the introduction of the 1.44Mb floppy 'Superdrive' on the Mac IIx, Macintoshes have been able to read and write PC floppies via Apple's File Exchange or other software. Programs that let you access Macintosh 1.44Mb disks on a PC may not be as common but are arguably just as valuable. MacDisk from Insignia, best known for its Macintosh-based PC emulation software, is an elegant answer. Once installed, Macintosh floppies can be used on a PC just as if they were DOS disks. A fully-working 10-day time-limited version of MacDisk is included on this PC DIRECT CD for you to try. Frax Smartbook -------------- Smartbook from UK software house Frax sets out to be one of the fastest and easiest to use authoring tools. Running under Windows, you can create 'electronic books' that include animations, video and other multimedia features with simple mouse selections. Your finished work can be then be compiled and distributed... the program's graphics compression lets you fit quite sophisticated books on a single floppy. This CD presents both the Smartbook demonstration (created with the program itself) and a trial version of the software itself... this is fully-working but limited to eight pages per book and does not include the ability to produce distribution versions of your books. Avery Label Wizard for Word for Windows --------------------------------------- A very practical and useful free program, the Avery Label Wizard bolts into Microsoft Word for Windows 6 to give you an easy way to create and print labels on a range of Avery stationery. You can print runs of individual or one- off labels or make a template that prints a set of labels based on a data file, such as a mailing list. Avery is offering sample labels to those who want to try the program for real as well... Anagram Genius -------------- A superb little program, Genius 2000's Anagram Genius generates anagrams from your chosen name or other text. Its clever dictionary and scoring system means that, with a little human guidance, you can quickly come up with remarkably fun, insulting or cryptic anagrams. It's a super tool for newsletter authors, puzzle setters and so on and plain fun for most people. Anagram Genius is a low-cost retail program... this CD includes a trial version which is limited to ten full runs or about one month's use. SmartSurf --------- From the prolific Oakley Data Services comes this new 'Smart' utility for Windows. SmartSurf monitors the time you spend on-line to various services such as CompuServe or an Internet account, building up a log that shows both the time and money you're spending. The program can even be setup to work completely automatically. Unlike most of the 'Smart' programs, SmartSurf is free rather than shareware... but it does run on 'software batteries' which you can pick up as necessary by visiting Oakley's site on the World Wide Web or its forum on CIX! Ultimate Soccer Manager ----------------------- On the entertainment side this month, we feature Impression's new Ultimate Soccer Manager. This DOS-based game demonstrates that running a football club is not as easy as it sometimes looks from the terraces and that there's still a lot of life in this popular game theme. A playable demonstration version of this DOS-based game is included on this CD. WinCIM v1.4 and NetLauncher --------------------------- As usual, your PC DIRECT CD-ROM carries a free copy of the WinCIM front-end to CompuServe along with a new member sign-up offer that lets you try out this huge on-line service for a month at little or no cost. We also include NetLauncher, CompuServe's new Internet access software. This lets you step right into the World Wide Web from your CompuServe account. Edison's Nightmare ------------------ Another new screensaver with the compliments of PC DIRECT to brighten your Windows desktop. Edison's Nightmare is fast, full-screen, if somewhat bizarre, animation. Using the CD directly ===================== You can access the CD directly using the Windows File Manager, Program Manager and other software if you do not want to use the menu program. For example, you can start one of the programs on the CD by choosing Run from the Program Manager File menu, clicking the Browse button and then finding the relevant program file. For example, you can install the Anagram Genius demo by starting the program file INSTALL.EXE in the \ANAGRAM directory on the CD. The following list summarises which files to start to run or install programs on the CD. Macromedia Showcase CD This contains several components. Run the program file SETUP.EXE in the root directory to install the opening presentation, a readme file and icons which will install the trial products. Dorling Kindersley samplers Run the program file SETUP.EXE in the DKSAMPS directory to install the samplers. Icons will be created which will run each of the presentations along with an icon providing setup instructions. Windows 95 walkthrough To run this direct from the CD, run the file GFI.EXE in the \W95WALK directory. The program can be installed to your hard disk by copying the files in W95WALK to a suitable directory if desired... create an icon that runs GFI.EXE if desired. Insignia MacDisk To install MacDisk, run the program INSTALL.EXE in the \MACDISK directory, either from Windows or from DOS. Frax Smartbook Both a demonstration program and an evaluation version of the software are included. To install the demonstration, run the file SETUP.EXE in the SMRTBOOK\DEMO directory from within Windows. To install the evaluation version of the software, run the file SMRTBOOK\EVAL. Avery Label Wizard The Avery Label Wizard installs into Word for Windows version 6 automatically... just start Word for Windows, choose File... Open and then select the document SETUP.DOC in the \AVERY directory on the CD. The setup procedure creates an icon for the Wizard on the Word toolbar. Anagram Genius Run INSTALL.EXE in the \ANAGRAM directory on the CD to install Anagram Genius. SmartSurf To install SmartSurf, copy the files in the \SMRTSURF directory to a suitable directory on your hard disk. If desired, create icons for the files SMARTSRF.EXE, SMARTSRF.HLP and README.TXT. SmartSurf uses a library file CTL3DV2.DLL which is normally installed to your main WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. If this file is not already present on your PC, you can copy it there from the SMRTSURF directory. After doing this, or if you already have CTL3DV2.DLL on your system, you can delete the two files CTL3DV2.DLL and CTL3DV2.XXX from the SmartSurf directory on your hard disk. Ultimate Soccer Manager This is a DOS-based game. To install it, simply copy the files in the \USM directory on the CD to a suitable directory on your hard disk. To play the game, first change to your USM directory and then enter SETUP to configure your soundcard. Next, enter USM to play the game. The game uses a mouse so you should ensure that your DOS mouse driver is loaded when your PC starts or at least before you start the game. WinCIM Run the program file SETUP.EXE in the WINCIM directory to install this software. NetLauncher Run the program file SETUP.EXE in the NETLNCHR directory to install this software. Note that you should have an existing CompuServe account and a copy of WinCIM or other CompuServe access software installed before you install NetLauncher. If you're a new user, start with the WinCIM package. Edison's Nightmare screensaver To install this manually, copy the file EDISON.SCR from SCRNSAVE directory on the CD-ROM to your main WINDOWS directory. This particular screensaver also uses the multimedia library file DISPDIB.DLL which should be installed in your main WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. You should check to see if your PC has this file already... it does not come with Windows as standard but may have been installed on your PC by one of your other programs. If you can't find DISPDIB.DLL in your WINDOWS or WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory, you can copy it across from the SCRNSAVE directory on the CD. After doing this, you can select 'Edison's Nightmare' from the Desktop options section of the Windows Control Panel in the normal way. Please see the 'Info' box in the screensaver's 'Setup' display for more information. Directory guide --------------- The following notes provide a quick guide to the important directories on the CD... \ Root directory The root directory contains the front-end program... PCDIRECT.EXE CD-ROM Menu program PCDIRECT.DAT Data file for above README.TXT This file and files from the Macromedia Showcase... ACROREAD.EXE FILEIO.DLL INSTALL.INS LINGO.INI QTSYS.LIB QTW.INI QTWIN.LIB README.WRI SETUP.EXE SETUP.LGO SHOWCASE.BMP SHOWCASE.EXE SHOWCASE.ICO SHOWCASE.INI SHOWCASE.LIS \ANAGRAM Anagram Genius \AVERY Avery Label Wizard \DKSAMPS Dorling Kindersley samplers \FRONTEND CD-ROM Menu install program and other supporting files \MACDISK MacDisk \MACROMED Macromedia Showcase CD \NETLNCHR NetLauncher software \SCRNSAVE Edison's Nightmare screensaver \SMRTBOOK\DEMO Smartbook demonstration \SMRTBOOK\EVAL Smartbook evaluation software \SMRTSURF SmartSurf \USM Ultimate Soccer Manager \W95WALK Windows 95 walkthrough \WINCIM WinCIM software \DATACONN These directories contain the remainder \FILES of the Macromedia Showcase CD \SAVE_DIS \WINLOGOS Notes about the CD-ROM menu program =================================== Memory limitations ------------------ If your PC has limited memory, you should avoid running other programs while you use the CD-ROM Menu program. If necessary, start programs directly using the filenames given above. Note that it is a good idea in any case to close other applications before running install and setup programs on your system. Display setup ------------- The menu program looks best if your PC is setup to display 256 or more colours. Most PCs can do this provided the relevant driver is selected in the Windows SETUP program. See the welcome message in the CD-ROM Menu program for more information. TOOLHELP.DLL ------------ The CD-ROM Menu program uses a library file called TOOLHELP.DLL that is supplied with Windows 3.1. If this file has been deleted from your main WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory, the CD-ROM program will not run. A copy of the file is provided in a directory called MININS on the CD. You can restore this to your WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory with the Windows File Manager or from DOS with a command such as: COPY d:\MININS\TOOLHELP.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM where 'C:' is the drive where WINDOWS is installed and d: is your CD drive. TOOLHELP.DLL is used by many Windows programs and should really be present in your WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory.