Thanks to all who have responded to any of the previous issues of The Disc! with questions, comments, complaints, and/or congrats. And for those of you who are new to CD-ROM Today and its companion Disc!, please note that we are eager to receive your feedback.
Please contact us at disctalk@aol.com (suggestions, questions) or discglitch@aol.com (bad discs, technical difficulties). We will try to help you out if we can.
In each Disc!, we'll address a number of general and individual issues that are raised by readers and users of the magazine and disc.
1. Why doesn't (fill in the blank) work on my system?
We receive many letters and messages complimenting us on the fact that everything on The Disc! works well, and yet others say that various demos or samples or our user interface on The Disc! fail to work at all -- or only with tweaking. With thousands of variations in memory configurations, sound cards, video cards, CD-ROM drives and drive speeds, and other variables, it's not surprising that our wide-ranging selection of demos, samples, and programs produce different results on different systems. These inconsistencies are a very real part of the world of multimedia computing right now.
We test the software on as many different hardware setups as possible to try to locate problems or special challenges that will confront our readers. And the software publishers also try to give us programs to run that are tested and tweaked so that users have a positive experience. However, while we want to provide readers with software samples that are as easy to use as possible, we also want to bring to you the best of what's being published. And some of that pushes the limits of hardware systems.
We'll try to provide as much information as possible via README files, information on the Disc! pages, and in every other way to give you as much troubleshooting advice as possible. And where we see potential problems, we'll signal our readers about them.
2. Could you put more information in the Disc! pages of the magazine about how to run particular programs?
You'll now find more detailed information in our Disc! pages about what the program is, how you use it, and how to have some fun with it. We also put as much troubleshooting material as possible into the READ ME files on The Disc! .
3. Could your Disc! have caused a virus on my computer?
Our discs are put through rigorous testing and are thoroughly checked for unwanted pests. We can guarantee that our discs are virus-free from any and all viruses known and readily detectable at the time of production.
4. Why does the magazine's outer card packaging occasionally say that a particular demo, program, or sample is on The Disc! when it isn't?
Software developers and publishers are always trying to push their products to be the most innovative, exciting, and compelling titles on the market. This inevitably leads to missed deadlines and late arrivals as they work to stay on the cutting edge while solving a host of new challenges and problems. And that also has an effect on when we can get demos, samples, limited-use versions, etc.
Our pledge to you, our readers, is to deliver far more on each issue of The Disc! than we promise! And if one or two programs or samples fall out of an issue, we'll make sure that we more than make up for it with even better items.
5. Why does the Macintosh side of The Disc! have programs that are different from the PC side?
Wherever possible, we like to use programs on The Disc! that are accessible by both Mac and PC users.
In many cases, however, programs and demos are not available for both systems at the same time. What we try to do is to provide readers with the most compelling material for each system -- and to offer as much of it as we can possibly squeeze onto each disc.
6. Occasionally, I get stuck inside a program or demo on The Disc! and can't find a way out. Are there any standard exit commands?
First try the escape key, or sometimes the ALT and ESC keys at the same time. For children's games, often the space bar will bring up an exit menu. There's also F4 and F5 that will sometimes work, and there's always good 'ol control-Q.
Different publishers approach this question in varying ways. There's no universal exit other than turning off your computer and turning it back on. Our goal is to provide quick exit commands on any program or demo on The Disc! that's not an clear menu choice or is not directly pointed out.
7. What causes the colors of some demos and programs to blur while in Windows?
Some programs customize your computers' color palette so their demo will look better. If your display looks strange after running a demo, just quit the disk and relaunch it. If that doesn't work, reboot your system and re-launch the front end...that should fix it.
