Welcome to the newest part of PRISM. This section was started up as a service to software developers everywhere. Here, you'll find some useful web links, as well as information about copyrights, install programs, and help files. If you find this section useful, please subscribe to the PRISM newsletter, as it always contains useful information pertinent to developers. Jump to the feedback page, check the "Please send me the PRISM newsletter" option, and send the form. On with the show...

Cool developers' links

Our collection is quite small at this moment; however the links featured here are very good programming / developing links. Our list will grow with time, and if you've got any suggestions, please send them to us.

• Developer Resources
• Professional Programmers' Pages

Copyrights

Note: the following should not be regarded as professional legal advice. Copyright laws change fairly frequently, so we cannot and do not garantee the correctness or accuracy of any of the information here. For the most accurate and up to date information, please contact the appropriate government agency. Here are some pointers on copyright law in the US and Canada.

• Anything you create, including computer programs, is automatically copyrighted, without registration of any sort. This copyright expires 50 years after the author's death.
• The benefit of registering your work with the government agency responsible for copyrights is that you have a better chance of winning a lawsuit against someone who infringes on your copyright.
• Copyright notices should be in the form: "Copyright © (ALT+0169) (year) (person or company) All rights reserved."
• Copyright notices should be displayed:
  • on startup screens
  • in About boxes
  • in Help files
  • on disk labels
  • in documentation

Installing Applications

At PRISM, we have faced a problem we know many other developers have faced before us. You're done coding the application, everything's nice, it's ready for distribution, right? Many of us overlook the fact that you can't just ask a person to unzip the archive and dump it in some directory. What about win.ini changes? Or adding program groups or icons? It's a pain to finally finish coding the application, then have to spend more time to design an installer. We've discovered many third-party install programs for Windows. After careful evaluation, we have a winner: Install Easy by Kurt Herzog. We have found Install Easy to be an excellent application that is easy to use, and yet provides amazing customizability. It's shareware, so give it a try! You'll probably agree with us that it is well worth the shareware fee the author requests.

Help Files

Making Windows help files for applications often require expensive word processors. It's obviously not worth it to buy one of these word processors for the sole purpose of writing a Help file for an application. PRISM is now offering a Help file authoring service for developers. Give us the text and pictures for the help files. Tell us where you want a popup box or hypertext jump. We will author a Help file for you with all those snazzy Search terms and other exciting things, like context-sensitive help. The cost is only $15US / $21 CDN per hour.

If you're interested in this service, please contact us at chengd@cia.com.