______ _ __ __ / ____/___ ____ ___ ____ __ __/ | / /___ / /____ _____ / / / __ \/ __ `__ \/ __ \/ / / / |/ / __ \/ __/ _ \/ ___/ / /___/ /_/ / / / / / / /_/ / /_/ / /| / /_/ / /_/ __(__ ) \____/\____/_/ /_/ /_/ .___/\__,_/_/ |_/\____/\__/\___/____/ /_/ This Week's Contents: My Notes: 1) You Need This Mailing List! 2) The Winner of our CDROM this Issue is . . . Columnists' Corner: 1) Howard Carson's Big City Byte News: 1) Microsoft Sponsors Small Business Contest 2) O'Reilly Sponsors Desktop Contest Reviews: 1) The Comedy Collection CD-ROM By Activision Reviewed By: Richard T. Rushing <71154,1527@Compuserve.com> 2) Silent Hunter Reviewed By: Doug Reed, Associate Editor 3) Jixxa Jigsaw Puzzle Reviewed By: Richard Malinski 4) Quarterdeck InternetSuite Reviewed By: Judy Litt, Graphics Editor/Web Master Web Sites: 1) Anchor Desk from ZiffDavis! 2) NetGuide Live! Interview: 1) Novell Fights Piracy -- Tough . . . Interview with Ron Barker of Novell ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date : August 26, 1996 |CompuNotes is a weekly publication available Issue: 51 |through email and many fine on-line networks. ------------------------|We cover the IBM computing world with CompuNotes is published |software/hardware reviews, news, hot web B440, |sites, great columns and interviews. We also 1315 Woodgate Drive |give away one software package a week to a St. Louis, MO 63122 |lucky winner for just reading our fine (314) 909-1662 voice |publication! Never dull, sometimes tardy, we (314) 909-1662 fax |are here to bring you the way it is! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Backroom Workers: |We are always looking for Patrick Grote, Managing Editor |people to write us with |honest, constructive Doug Reed, Asst. Editor / Writer Liaison |feedback! We need to hear |from you! 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Join nearly 15,000 subscribers in 87 countries around the world who rely on the Brief for clear, unbiased daily news summaries. Subscribe by sending e- mail to incinc@tiac.net with "subscribe db" as the SUBJECT of your message. Sponsorship opportunities available. ____________________________________________________________________ The list owners are very responsive and willing to explain anything you need. Join today! ----------------------------- Free Software Raffle . . . | ----------------------------- We have raffled off our April 1995 ASP CDROM! This CDROM is full of ASP Approved shareware -- the complete collection! Our winner this week is: bg789@msn.com Send them a congrats letter! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Columnists' Corner - We bring you a different person each week! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Howard Carson's Big City Byte It was a peculiar sort of fight. No blows were exchanged. The people involved never met face to face. Nor did the individuals who attempted to mediate the dispute ever meet the warring factions. Everything took place electronically. No one actually had to dirty their hands. No one had to look anyone in the eye. No one had the benefit of being able to hear the nuance and inflection in anyone else's speech. The fight began when one individual accused another on-line, of associating with a crook. Picture this: Part 1: A customer purchases some software. The software subsequently requires updating. The customer brings his software to the distributor (who is appearing at a local computer show). The distributor takes the update money and says (to our customer and all those who have paid): ``we'll send the updates via floppy disk, in the mail. Soon.'' What the distributor hasn't told anybody is that he is actually closing his doors and has absolutely no intention of honoring the update fees being collected! That's illegal. Everywhere. Our customer never receives his update and is left dangling, without obvious recourse or means of recompense. Part 2: A Programmer, whose software was handled by the distributor now out of business (software our customer tried to update!), launches a new line of Shareware approximately two years after the demise of the distributor. The programmer solicits the help of another person to help him distribute and register the new shareware in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. Part 3: Our poor customer hears of this new partnership and proceeds to publicly accuse the programmer of stealing his master disks & update money ($200US). Our customer also publicly accuses the programmer's new shareware partner of associating with a crook! Oops. It is apparent that some people do not really understand the impact or nascent illegality inherent in some of the messages they send. They assume that `flaming' another person on-line, is no different from doing the same sort of thing during a private telephone call. Let there be no doubt: there is most definitely a difference. ``Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me!'' Absolutely. But refer to ``me'' in public as a thief, and you step over a line that is clearly and succinctly demarcated. Watch what you say for pete's sake, or the next time you look, a Bailiff might be standing in your doorway handing you a subpoena. Enduring the humiliation of court appearances and the expense of exorbitant legal fees, solely because of some casually stupid remark in a public message area, may seem like unreasonable or unjustifiable punishment. However, when the remark results in unwarranted loss of business for the person who was so casually insulted, your humiliation and expenses may be far more than justified. And in case you haven't yet clued in to the real mistake made here, it's this: Just because a software author's name appears on a piece of software, does not mean he has any control over companies which distribute his software. If a distributor goes out of business, you're stuck. Period. You can file for reimbursement (for deposits or upgrade/update fees, retail orders, etc.), but if a business closes with no liquidable assets, no cash in the bank and a pile of debts, attempting to pursue some means of compensation for your loss is generally futile and pointless. If you have a beef, take it up with the individual(s) you believe to be responsible, especially if they maintain well known e-mail or postal addresses. If you have nothing to say, or are too inherently lazy to deal with these problems at the time they occur, do not vent your frustrations two years later, at someone who had nothing to do with your original difficulties! If the distributor was incorporated, you have no choice but to file a claim as an unsecured Creditor with the Adjustor, Receiver, Trustee or Liquidator. Don't hold your breath waiting for a settlement however; the trustee(s) and the banks get first crack at everything. There's rarely anything left but a picked-over carcass. Controlling public expressions of outrage (in this situation), is not a matter of censorship or unreasonable control over free speech, ethics or decent conduct. It is only a matter of what you can and cannot say in western society, about another citizen's legal conduct. If you call someone an idiot, a jerk, a moron or a know-nothing, layabout deadbeat, it's likely you'll wind up in a serious argument. Call someone a thief, a liar or a cheat though, and it is increasingly likely you'll wind up in a legal battle that (in its most extreme and punitive form), will cause horrible difficulties for you. Such difficulties are not funny. There are many people nonetheless, who have forgotten that the forums to which they are posting messages, are actually read by people other than those to whom some bit of invective is being directed; people with legitimate reputations to uphold, businesses which depend on public goodwill, and so on. Deliberately or casually insulting those reputations is unacceptable, pointlessly vicious behavior. Such behavior will be challenged, and individuals subsequently accused libel or slander will find themselves entering a phase of life that resembles nothing so much as a living nightmare. There are no exceptions. Ignorance of the `real' facts at the time some horrible accusation is made (two years after the fact!), is not a legitimate defense. Making random, grossly inaccurate suggestions of criminal association, cannot be excused afterwards merely by saying, ``Oh gee, sorry.'' Our mores, folkways and laws often require that we think before we speak . . . . . . or before we type public messages. ISPs, Online Services and BBSs can also be held legally responsible for allowing certain individuals to continue their verbal depradations, particularly after complaints have been received. ISPs, Online Services and BBSs that resist dealing with such complaints, are not likely to last very long in a marketplace which will soon be demanding stricter standards. The standards are overdue of course. In the days when our primary means of electronic communication was the telephone, it was easy to shut out fools, charlatans, boors and the misinformed who attempted to shower us with invective: you simply hung up the receiver. With that action, the intruder no longer had a soap box from which to orate. Electronic forums present another problem altogether, because anyone can post any sort of message at any time. If a Sysop or Moderator does not have an eagle eye, some of the worst sorts of venal (and public) things can escape notice. The intrinsic problem is simply that sometimes the inaccurate information is accepted as supportable fact. Let me repeat that: ``Sometimes the inaccurate information is accepted as supportable fact.'' This affects you. This affects all of us. And as long as we continue to communicate via electronic means, sooner or later many of us are going to have to deal with some cat who is making horrible, baseless accusations. For some of us, the accusations will be an excuse for an electronic free for all. For others, business will be lost, emotional damage will ensue and other hardships will follow. Thankfully, we have laws that can bring the progenitors of such irresponsible activity to justice. Our secular and non-secular mores, folkways and traditions entrench the notion that in any free society, the right to speak freely goes hand in hand with the responsibility to speak accurately. Eructating poorly considered or otherwise laughably inaccurate opinion may be acceptable practice at small social gatherings, where inaccuracies can be quickly and easily corrected for the benefit of all concerned. The same behavior in publicly accessible electronic forums however, is inherently subversive. Such activity contravenes every tenet of free speech and civilized conduct. It can be likened to accusing a total stranger of child abuse, just to see what happens! For every person who participates on-line, there may be ten or twenty others who lurk in silence. Never forget the lurkers; they have every right to be there and their silence does not mean they can't read what you type. Until now, we've had some degree of control over who was listening to us. Social conventions dictated that we attend gatherings which (for the most part) included individuals with interests at least peripherally common to our own. Electronic social gatherings however, present us with a situation wherein we simply do not know who may be `listening' to our words. Often, those individuals can be people with whom we might never normally associate, or who might take extreme umbrage at such things as our mode of expression, the use of a particular phrases or an association with someone or something they have come to hate. If those individuals have little or no grasp of their basic responsibilities where free speech is concerned, chaos can result. In the `old' days, gate crashers could be thrown out of the building. In such a situation, the will of the (small) group held ultimate sway. People whose presence was undesirable to the group could be easily identified. People who were given to making wild accusations of illegal conduct, could be quickly (and properly) ostracized. Far too many sysops and moderators have no idea where their responsibilities in such matters begin. It is also patently obvious that many sysops and moderators are preternaturally alert to problems such as swearing, cross-posting and other somewhat fatuous concerns, but remain utterly vague when it comes to issues of libelous or slanderous language. They had better educate themselves. It is wisest then to inquire about an on-line company's policy regarding idiotic contraventions of the law *before* you shell out hard earned cash. Certainly, there is no need to pay money for the privilege(?) of being egregiously insulted. Do not accept answers which are vague, or which demonstrate a complete lack of understanding about the issues at hand. BBSs, Online Services and ISPs which give houseroom to characters prone to wild, unfounded, or casual criminal suggestions about others are definitely places you should avoid. Be aware that such characters are sometimes practiced, deliberate and deceitful. Be aware that such characters often live for the challenge of anyone who dares to question their conduct. Even the brightest and most quick witted among us can lose such a battle. It's not worth it. On the other hand, tolerating such an invasive twisted interpretation of our rights and freedoms is tantamount to destructive self-abuse. Far too often `free speech' is used as a protective battlement from which abuse and outright lies are hurled. It is quite possible that such tolerance, will result in a situation wherein our day to day lives become pathetic and embattled. Our own enthusiastic and careful participation in electronic discussion forums may serve as a guide or tutorial for novices (and regrettably, some `experienced' people as well), who are possessed of more opinion than good sense. The person publicly accused of associating with a crook by the way, was actually able to help our hapless customer. The programmer was contacted and managed to supply an updated version within about 10 days. It cost our customer nothing extra. Some might expect that, but it is correct to note that none of the people who scrambled around trying to appease the disgruntled customer, had ever received so much as a nickel from him or the distributor who absconded with update fees in the first place! Caveat Emptor. Have a nice day. Check every purchase in the store. Don't send update or shareware fees off into space; call, write or e-mail to ascertain current addresses. And never, ever, pay money to somebody at a computer show and walk away empty handed, unless you know the dude real well. Copyright 1996, Howard E. Carson. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the expressed permission of Howard E. Carson and CompuNotes. Contact: hcarson@io.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NEWS OF THE WEEK| This section is dedicated to verified news . . . All News (C)opyright Respective Owner - Will Only Reprint ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Microsoft Small Business Contest . . . | ---------------------------------------- REDMOND, Wash., Aug. 19 /PRNewswire/ - Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) today announced the launch of a contest for small businesses, the Small Business Triathlon, on its Web site. The contest, which begins today and runs through Sept. 20, 1996, will be on the Microsoft(R) Small Business Resource Web site, at http://microsoft.com/smallbiz/. Businesses with fewer than 10 employees are eligible to participate. Small businesses typically have fewer resources than larger companies and so face a tremendous battle to succeed in a tough market. The contest underscores Microsoft's commitment to helping small businesses succeed despite the challenges. To illustrate how technology can help small businesses level the playing field, the company chose a triathlon theme, which is reflected in the three entry categories. The categories are Running Ahead of the Pack, in which participants enter the business plan they used to launch their small business or help keep it a success; Swimming Against the Current, in which participants write an essay on a challenge or obstacle they overcame in starting their business; and The Big Finish, in which participants can show off the best marketing and promotional materials that were created in-house. The Microsoft Small Business Triathlon is easier than a real triathlon: Small businesses need enter only one category to win. The entries will be judged by members of the Microsoft Small Business Council based on original ideas, creative strategies and innovative solutions. Like Microsoft, NEC is committed to the small-business market and will contribute three NEC Ready PCs, monitors and printers that feature a Pentium(R) 166-based PC, a 17-inch NEC MultiSync monitor and a NEC SuperScript 860 laser printer. These complete systems and peripherals are ideally suited to meet the particular needs of small businesses. In addition, Microsoft will provide the winners with small-business software valued at over $850. The software will include Microsoft Office Professional for the Windows(R) 95 operating system, the best-selling office suite that combines Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, the PowerPoint(R) presentation graphics program, Microsoft Access and the Bookshelf(R) 96-97 CD- ROM reference library; Microsoft Publisher CD Deluxe, a desktop publishing product for creating brochures, fliers and newsletters; Small Business Pack, a collection of ready-to-use business templates, forms and reports for Microsoft Office Professional; and Small Business Financial Manager, financial-analysis tools that use accounting software data to help users make better business decisions. Mail Boxes Etc. will contribute the use of the postal box to which entries can be sent. Entries can be mailed to the Mail Boxes Etc. box number shown on the Web site, or e-mailed to msbcedelman.com by Sept. 20, 1996. Small-business owners and staffs of small businesses employing fewer than 10 people can enter. Official contest rules are posted on the Web site. Winners will be announced on the Web site on Oct. 1, 1996. All entries will be kept confidential with the exception of the winning entries. ----------------------------------------- O'Reilly Sponsors Desktop Contest . . . | ----------------------------------------- August 15, 1996, Sebastopol, CA--O'Reilly & Associates, leading developer of Internet software and publisher of technical books, has announced its First Application Development Contest. Designed for non- commercial developers using O'Reilly's award-winning WebSite (TM) or WebSite Professional(TM), the contest offers a chance for developers to win a grand prize of $2000, as well as publicity for their application. Contest judges are Robert Denny, WebSite developer, Andrew Schulman, O'Reilly Senior Editor and noted Windows programmer, and Larry Wall, developer of perl and author of "Programming Perl". In addition to the $2000 cash prize, first prize includes publicity on O'Reilly Software Online (http://software.ora.com). Second prize for the contest is $1000; third prize is $500. Developers are not restricted to any specific categories in the creation of their applications; they can use perl, WebSite Application Programming Interface (WSAPI), Common Gateway Interface (CGI), Visual Basic, Java, Delphi, or other development tools. "We're keeping this wide open," explains Kimberly Simoni, Software Product Manager. "We are simply looking for creativity, usability, and clever exploitation of WebSite features; in short, what it does for desktop productivity, and how well it does it!" Examples of winning applications might include applications which improve web site productivity, shopping cart applications, advanced text search mechanisms, HTML page-builders, facsimile interfaces, or integrated database applications. Deadline for submissions is October 18, 1996, with a brief written description of the application required by August 30, 1996. Winners will be announced O'Reilly Software Online. Interested individuals should write app-contest@ora.com for more information. Contest details are available online (http://software.ora.com/contests/dev_contest.html). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- REVIEWS OF THE WEEK | Interesting software/hardware you may need . . . ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: The Comedy Collection CD-ROM By Activision Reviewed By: Richard T. Rushing <71154,1527@Compuserve.com> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Comedy Collection is an Anthology from the InfoCom library of adventure games. The games in the collection include some of the funniest adventure games around. The games included Ballyhoo, Bureaucracy, Hollywood Hijinx, Nord and Bert and as a bonus you get Planetfall and the all time classic Zork. The installation is very easy for Windows 3.1X and Windows 95. DOS is a little more difficult since it requires copying the proper directories to install the adventures. These Adventures are all nearly 10 years old and are mostly text-base adventures. The files are installed to your hard drive, and take less than 4 megabytes. These applications run in a DOS window or DOS. Included in the package are maps of the adventures and hint items. This simplifies the adventures by allowing the player to know the entire map without ever mapping the virtual world. All adventures allow you to save your game in progress so you do not lose any headway that you have made. These are text based mostly adventures. The text allows your mind to paint the picture of the area, items are displayed as "Red Rod is against the wall" and you acquire an object by "Getting" it. Moving around the virtual world requires typing in a direction such as "North" or "South" or the abbreviated "N" or "S." No mouse or joystick required. The first adventure on the CD-ROM is Ballyhoo the adventure at the "Big Top." "Run away and join the circus," a line that all of us have heard many times. But what would it really be like? Is the glamour, excitement and mystery all that it is cracked up to be? In this game you decide to stay a little after the curtain falls at the big top. Perhaps you can find out what your favorite clown looks like without makeup or what the exotic animals eat for dinner. Overhearing that the circus owner's daughter has been kidnapped draws you into the middle of what you had viewed as a spectator before, and you must now rescue the damsel in distress. Where will you begin your search? Who could have done something so evil? All circuses have their trash under the grandstands and dark undersides, but few are this exciting and risky. Bureaucracy is something everyone has had to experience before and it is increasing at an astronomical rate. During the game you find out that changing something requires an act of a person that is not there or another form to be filled out. You begin the adventure in your new house, with you new job at Happitec Corporation, and a Paris vacation just wanting. You just need to get some money from the bank. So what if they sent you new charge card and checks to the old address. It should not be a problem, right? WRONG! You are sent through the run of forms and people. The game is controlled by your blood pressure- as you become annoyed with the bureaucracy your blood pressure rise becomes dangerous. When this occurs you should only do "safe" non-annoying activities until your blood pressure returns to normal. Bureaucracy's author is Douglas Adams who is famous author for bring us "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" series. His humor is relevant through- out the adventure. Richie Rich, or Really poor? This game could lead you in either direction, depending on how well you can find hidden clues in the mansion where you and your cousins spent much of your summers with your Aunt Hildegrade and Uncle Buddy. Your Aunt Hildegrade and Your Uncle Buddy work very hard in Hollywood to build their business so that they could create an inheritance for their beloved nieces and nephews. To prove your worthiness for this inheritance, you must be clever enough to find ten treasures. Clues are hidden in your Uncle Buddy's films. You have just one night to find the treasures, if not the inheritance might fall into one of your cousin's pocket. Nord and Bert- what a strange name for an adventure game! Well, not as strange as the game itself. A strange virus has affected the town of Punster and as a member of a Citizen Action Committee you job is to restore the town back too normal. You have eight locations to visit and solve the language problems. This requires you to use you Doctor of Punology degree. This adventure is great for those that like word games and or plays on common phrases. If you are not into the puns and word games this adventure can be quite difficult and boring. You also receive 2 Bonus programs with the Comedy Collection. Zork: The Great Underground Empire and PlanetFall. Zork (one of the all time classics) was one of the first adventure games. This is the first Zork. You start at the White house by a mail box. You are seeking fame, fortune and wealth. You are a dauntless treasure-hunter, having heard of a great underground empire with vast riches. Stories have been told of treasures, exotic creatures, and diabolical puzzles in the Underground Empire. Your job is to locate the treasures and deposit them in your trophy case. Be careful of creatures and ruthless people that will steal your treasures. This adventure is a great place to start for a sample of text-based adventures. Planetfall is a science-fiction adventure that takes place aboard the S.P.S. Feinstien and a small mysterious planet. Your family has a long lineage with the Stellar Patrol. Your great-great-grandfather was a High admiral and one of the founding officers of the patrol. Now after a year in the patrol you are still a lowly Ensign and your commanding officer is making your life a living hell. You question whether or not you made the right decision in enlisting. Suddenly with the destruction of the ship and landing on a planet you need all of the skill and training that the patrol has taught you to survive in the strange land. You think you are safe but after further inspection you find you must now fix the problems to survive. These adventures are good for someone that needs a challenged or always wanted to play a particular adventure. These adventures do not take weeks to play or solve. I remember a few sleepless nights working out scenarios and then trying them out, but the games are very playable and solvable. With the maps and added clues that are provided the adventures are fun to play and a challenge but are not impossible to complete. This is also a great CD-ROM for people that have also played InfoCom adventures before. Most of these games have hints or walk-through post on BBS's or on the Internet. Just remember to take the time and read, each description. They may contain a clue. These games may seem primitive to some and classics to others. I suggest everyone enter these virtual worlds and take a stroll, enjoying a simpler time. Activision P.O. Box 67713 Los Angeles, Ca 90067 (310) 479-5644 CompuServe: GO GAMEPUB in the Game Publishers Forum B Prodigy: ACTI10B Genie: ACTIVISION American OnLine: ACTIVISION Internet: www.activision.com support@activision.com Activision BBS: (310) 479-1335 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Silent Hunter Reviewed By: Doug Reed, Associate Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Silent Hunter Reviewed by: Doug Reed, Associate Editor Reviewed on: 486, 12 MB RAM, Windows 95, 2X CDROM Requires: 486/66, 8 MB RAM, MS-DOS, 2X CDROM Silent Hunter is the latest simulation of submarine warfare during World War II. People who have been playing computer games for a while probably know that while there has been a number of attempts at recreating sub warfare, only two to date have been truly great games - Silent Service II (Microprose), and Aces of the Deep (Dynamix). I'm a big fan of sub games - Silent Service II is one of my all time favorite games. With the exception of Microprose's simulator of modern sub warfare, Red Storm Rising, nothing to date has come close to simulating the tension and sweat of commanding a submarine in battle (I never played Aces of the Deep, but I have heard that it was also a good game). Several companies are in the process of developing new submarine games, but SSI has beaten the rest and released Silent Hunter. To put it succinctly, the SSI's competitors have their work cut out for them to compete with Silent Hunter. Installation of the game was, as expected, straight-forward and quickly accomplished. The data card included with the game warns that users of Windows 95 can run Silent Hunter in Windows 95 but the game runs slowly, can crash unexpectedly, and requires an additional 4 MB of RAM over running in DOS. Since creating a virtual DOS config is a snap in Windows 95, I chose to run the game in DOS mode. You are given several installation choices, based on how much of the game you want to install on the hard drive. The minimal install requires 30MB, however, I wouldn't recommend it unless you are really strapped for space. At the very least, choose to install the digital sounds to the hard drive. When running with the minimal installation, I noticed a slight hesitation in the sounds and music that wasn't there with a larger installation choice. Also, be prepared for the fact that your video card probably is not supported by Silent Hunter - add the /v command to the command line and use Silent Hunter's generic SVGA utility. The game itself is a joy to behold. The main menu gives you a number of choices, from playing a solo battle or a campaign to touring a Gato- class submarine and listening to an interview with Bill Gruner, the captain of the USS Skate during World War II. I chose to start with a solo battle, where you are given the option of fighting a historical battle or setting up a random one. Being experienced at computer sub warfare, I chose a random encounter with a convoy protected by a escort of destroyers. The random encounter really lets you set the options; I set the reality to maximum and chose to start the encounter at dawn. Once the encounter began, I quickly popped up to the bridge to see what the scenery around me looked like. I was stunned. To my port side, I could see the unmistakable outline of an island. Clouds hung in the same, framed in colors of purple and scarlet. I could see the moon, and opposing it, the sun was beginning to peek out over the edge of the horizon. Behind the sub trailed a wake of bubbles, showing where we had been. Wow. I had expected a graphically nice game, but this was beyond expectation - I mean, I really didn't expect it to look like dawn, or to be able to see my wake! It shows an incredible attention to detail. I decided to close in to my prey and see what additional details I could discern. I was in for a shock. I ordered the crew to submerge and proceed to periscope depth. From there we closed to within 4000 yards of the enemy convoy and I raised the periscope to see what we were up against. I quickly saw that the convoy was composed of two tankers, a merchant ship, a passenger ship, and 2 destroyers. It took me a second to realize that I didn't need to examine the manual or the ship identification book to discern what each ship was - it was automatically obvious. The destroyers had the prominent bridge structure of a warship, along with a single gun on the foredeck and the distinctive Japanese flag waving from the stern. Yes, the flag was flapping in the breeze. Wow. Okay, she looks pretty, but how does she play? Luckily, I can report that she plays great too. I quickly closed towards my prey, getting to within 1000 yards of the nearest tanker. Once in position, I quickly used the targeting computer and fired torpedoes at both tankers. Then I ordered a crash dive to 250 feet. Anyone who has played a sub game knows that this is where the sweating begins. As we descended, the sonar officer reported torpedo hits sinking both tankers. Then began the merciless pinging of the destroyers seeking revenge. I was lucky and managed to elude them, but it was a near thing. Overall, I give Silent Hunter very high marks in the area of graphics, sounds, and gameplay. If you really want it to play a realistic game, Silent Hunter also allows you to calculate the torpedo firing solution yourself (not for the mathematically challenged). I also tried the campaign game. You have the option of starting at anytime during the war, so I chose to start in December 1941 to see if I could last the whole war. Right away I noticed the first huge difference between Silent Hunter and Silent Service II. In Silent Service II you could only play in a Gato-class sub in a campaign game. But in December 1941 Gato-class subs were not available. Silent Hunter acknowledges this fact and gives you what was available - an S class sub. A very nice, realistic touch to the game. The campaign started in the Philippines, with Japanese forces on the move to conquer all of the South Pacific. It is here that I have my one gripe with Silent Hunter. The manual makes no mention of how campaigns are worked; you are simply given a patrol area and told to have at it. I sailed out from Manila and up and down the coast, hoping to just run in to an enemy ship. After some time had passed (several game days), I was exasperated- I had sighted nothing. I was about ready to quit when I popped down and consulted the charts one last time. Lo and behold, there was a suspicious red dot moving slowly off the coast to the far north. Right clicking on the dot revealed it to be a carrier group! Having finally spotted the enemy - I was off to do battle. My gripe here is simply that no where is any mention made that you should consult the chart to see estimated enemy positions that are beyond your sight. The rest of the campaign game is straight forward - you go and attack the enemy, retreating when necessary, and returning to base to reload, repair, and refuel. The game also comes with a 'tour' of a Gato-class fleet submarine. You see a three-dimensional view of the sub; clicking on various areas of the sub will give you a short narration of the function of that component. You can also see into the submarine and get an indication of how the crew lived and fought. Finally, the game also includes an extensive interview with Bill Gruner about sub warfare in the South Pacific during World War II. The interviews are interesting and laden with anecdotes and details that are all to often left out in the glamorous Hollywood versions of the Silent Service. What these men were able to accomplish is nothing short of amazing. If you don't know much about the role of subs in the Pacific theater- it might be worth finding out. In short, the US submarine fleet managed to accomplish what Hitler's wolfpacks failed too - they managed to sink so many ships and supplies that they severely hampered the war effort of the Japanese. To sum it up, Silent Hunter is a tour de force of submarine warfare. Everything about this game appears to be well designed and thought out. Substantial attention was paid to the details of the look, feel, and realism of the game, but not so much so that it hampers the playability of the game. SSI has set the new standard in sub warfare. Strategic Simulations, Inc. 675 Almanor Avenue Suite 201 Sunnyvale CA 94086-2901 (408) 737-6800 (409) WWW: http://www.ssionline.com AOL: keyword SSI CompuServe: GOTOT GAMAPUB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Jixxa Jigsaw Puzzle Reviewed By: Richard Malinski ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tired of solitaire or all that shooting and kick-boxing? Want something different to start up or close down your computer day? Relax with a jigsaw puzzle! Really! Don't worry about losing pieces or having a place to put the puzzle once assembled. Choose a level of difficulty to suit your mood or time. Stop and start as much as you want without losing your place. If this sounds good, the Jixxa jigsaw puzzle has something for you! It can entice the novice and challenge the expert. The CD-ROM contains 12 different puzzles that can be tried at three different levels of difficulty. The puzzles range from flowers to buildings, from animals to boats and from mountain view to city scape. To the variety of pictures you can add sound. You can play midi files that are supplied on the CD- ROM or you can play your own favorite midi files. Installation of Jixxa is a breeze. In fact, it is one of the simplest setups I've had. The automated installation lets your pick the directory and the copy the necessary files quickly and easily. There is no need to make specific adjustments if you're already set for 256 colours or use a compatible sound card. The windows group and icons are set up so that you can access the 'readme' notes, full documentation and help file by clicking on their icons. These files describe all the functions and features of Jixxa in a clear and easily understood style. It is really a pleasure to work with a piece of software that has superb documentation. The people at Ocean Publishing have done an excellent job of writing the documentation. The clean installation and the thorough documentation make Jixxa easy to install, understand and play! If you've solved jigsaw puzzles you'll quickly understand how to use Jixxa. You select a puzzle from the list just as you'd select a file for you word processor. Up pops the working surface with the pieces scattered randomly over the screen. You can pick up and fit pieces together and when they lock correctly into place these two pieces become as one. You continue until you're finished just as you would if the pieces were cardboard and lying on your table. You can work as you usually do or you can develop new methods using the pickup features, holding boxes for pieces of similar characteristics, stabilizing pieces by nailing them to the surface so that they don't move or using the hints and auto-solve features. Three interesting features make this virtual jigsaw puzzle software challenging and novel. The use of the holding boxes permit you to assemble pieces of similar characteristics. You can have up to 9 holding boxes so that you can collect all left sided pieces in one, all blue sky pieces or all straight lines or whatever you feel is useful. These boxes are like your having a group of saucers arranged around your table as if you were working with your old cardboard jigsaw puzzles only here you don't have to be afraid of the cat jumping up and inadvertently scattering saucers and pieces! Another feature is the control that you have over the rotation of the pieces. Initially the pieces are scattered over the screen in random order but all falling so that the top of the pieces point to the top of the puzzle. To replicate the your old cardboard puzzle, you may change the default so that the pieces fall in random rotation. This means that you have to use the mouse and the space bar in combination to rotate the pieces to fit correctly. This certainly makes piecing the puzzle more like what you're used to! The third feature is the ability to change the default so that pieces which don't match images may match shapes. You've all had that situation where a piece will match another because the shapes fit but when you really take a close look the images don't match. This can really throw you off if you are working with 'tiny' puzzle pieces! So with these features you can modify the puzzles to give you more or fewer challenges. There are many other features which contribute to making this an excellent piece of software that both young and old will like to play. If you've a sound card you can have an audible 'snap' when one piece fits into another. If you must quit before you finish the puzzle, you can save it and return to the exact spot where you left off. The help has a graphical interface so that if you see a symbol on the screen that you want to read about, you bring up the help and click on the symbol displayed in the help box. If you want to listen to music other than that supplied, you just click on your own midi files and have them play will you work on the puzzle. These and others make Jixxa fun. Having worked with Jixxa at all three levels I find that the large and medium pieces don't present a problem, that is, until I start changing the defaults and allowing rotation and locking of non- matching pieces. What I did have problem with was working with the small pieces at the 'tiny' level. I found no way of zooming in to see the patterns on the pieces that I thought matched but couldn't really see clearly. I expect that my screen resolution may not be fine enough or more likely my eye glasses may need to be stronger. A zoom feature would be really beneficial. All in all, Jixxa is fun to play and well worth the price. In fact, there is a warning notice on the back of the CD-ROM that I'm beginning to understand. That warning says, 'Not responsible for loss of sleep or productivity due to addiction to Jixxa'. Hmmm? What puzzle should I complete now ... Ocean State Publishing Corp. P.O. Box 747, Woonsocket, RI 02895-0784 Http://www.risoftsystems.com Compuserve - GO RISS, Library/Section 5 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Quarterdeck InternetSuite Reviewed by: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Quarterdeck InternetSuite Reviewed by: Judy Litt, jlitt@qualitty.com Reviewed on: 486DX2/50, 24 MB RAM Requires: 386 or higher, 16+ MHz, 8 MB RAM (16 recommended), 256 Color Display, Windows 3.1 or higher, DOS 5 or higher Quarterdeck InternetSuite , version two, contains almost everything you need to explore the Information Superhighway: Quarterdeck Mosaic, a browser Quarterdeck Message Center, an e-mail & newsgroup reader QFTP, a file transfer program Global Chat, for online chat Location Manager, a utility you can use to automatically establish an Internet account Qwinsock, a winsock: software you need to make the connection to the Net What's New in Version 2 Finally, a spell checker! And it can be configured to run automatically when you click "send" in a message you're writing. You can use MIME encoding - some services, such as AOL, require it. Mosaic now supports tables & backgrounds. You can actually upload files with QFTP! Qwinsock now has an icon toolbar for most of its functions. You can empty the cache in Quarterdeck Mosaic from a menu option (rather than having to manually delete files in cache). The War of the Winsocks If you're a normal person, your hard drive probably isn't littered with winsocks (although if you have both MSN & CompuServe, or another online service, you just might have more than one). And that means that most normal people won't have any trouble with their installation of Quarterdeck InternetSuite. You guessed it: I'm not normal (something my husband's been trying to tell me for years). Since I design web pages for CompuServe, AOL, & the "regular" Internet, I actually have about three winsocks in addition to Qwinsock. Quarterdeck InternetSuite comes with plenty of instructions for installing - but no advice if you're upgrading, as I was. When you install, you have three choices: Install qwinsock as your main winsock Install qwinsock to work in tandem with your main winsock Don't install qwinsock at all I chose to install it to work in tandem with my other winsocks. However, apparently at some point I had copied the old qwinsock into my Win95 directory. When you start a program that looks for a winsock, the Win95 directory (or Windows - whatever you named it) is the first place it looks for the winsock. Anyway, after installation, Quarterdeck InternetSuite didn't work. It would say it was logged into my provider, but I couldn't actually do anything - I couldn't surf or worse - I couldn't read my e-mail. I finally called Tech Support, something I rarely stoop to. But I was clueless, & if I didn't get my e-mail I'd have some angry customers. After an hour & a half (on my dime), it turned out the old qwinsock in the Win95 directory was the culprit. Get rid of it, & I'm communicating with customers once again. Great, I think. I'm all set. NOT! Next morning I try to log onto MSN. I couldn't even bring up the connect dialog box. I figured it must have something to do with Quarterdeck InternetSuite, but this time around I call MSN tech support - an 800 number. Within 20 minutes, they have me back in business. Turns out Quarterdeck InternetSuite overwrote a file needed by MSN - but luckily it didn't destroy the old file. Quarterdeck: Are You Listening? Although in general I like Quarterdeck InternetSuite (we'll get to what I like about it next), there's still room for improvements. Let me quickly say that I've been using it to connect to the Internet since I received the first version to review: it's won a place on my ever- diminishing hard drive. Although Mosaic supports lots of things it didn't the first time around, it still doesn't support the latest and greatest: colored fonts, frames, java, server push. And it does not display layouts the same as Netscape - so if you really want to view your pages, look at them with Netscape or MS Internet Explorer. There's no button in Mosaic that lets you print the current page. You can do it by File|Print, but a button would make life so much simpler. You can get to all the programs in the suite from Mosaic. But if you start out in another program in the suite, you can't get to any of the other programs. Apparently, the folks at Quarterdeck think we're all just surfing along, & only occasionally ftp or read our e-mail. How hard would it have been to make all the programs available from any program within the suite? QFTP works in both directions - uploading & downloading - which is more than I can say for the first version. But it's not a Win95 program - your index.html will become indexhtm_.ml when you upload or download it. In fact, if you have several files name similarly - say company1.html, company2.html, & company3.html - you probably won't be able to figure out which is which. You can only rename your uploaded files one by one - there's no way to rename *.htm to *.html. You still can't reopen a message you've composed to edit it, which drives me nuts. This is usually a standard feature of mail programs. You can create folders for different sets of newsgroups, but you can't select only a few from one folder to download messages. Sometimes I just want to check a couple of newsgroups, not the whole group (you have a choice: you can read either all the newsgroups within a folder, or just one - nothing in between). When you update your newsgroup list, you're shown all the newsgroups. There's no markup for the new newsgroups - you have to go through the entire list & hope you can tell what's new out of the 10,000 newsgroups that are probably offered by your provider. The new qwinsock occasionally - but not as often as the old one - forgets to hang-up when you disconnect from your provider. The Quarterdeck Difference There are many things right with Quarterdeck InternetSuite. Quarterdeck Mosaic is a great browser to surf with, if you want graphics turned off. Its bookmark system is the best one I've seen. There's a little page icon next to the page title; just drag this icon over to the hotlist you want the page to go into, & drop it. Or just right click the page - which also give you the options to save the page, save images, etc. Hot lists can be turned on & off with the click of a button (which gives you a larger desktop to view pages in). The global history function is very handy. It allows you to track and save as hyperlinks all the sites you've visited within an amount of time you specify. How often have you visited a cool site & forgot to bookmark it? This function can be turned off if you wish Combining the newsgroup reader and mail program simplifies your life. You can choose to download all headers or only a specified number from your newsgroups (this comes in really handy after you've been on vacation). And you can even choose to override the options you've set - you can download more than the maximum you've set, or only the newest, etc. If you e-mail out to a large number of people, you can maintain mailing lists. You can carbon copy or blind carbon copy the recipients of the list. If you're uploading files with QFTP, bring up file manger. Then just select the files you want to upload, and drag & drop them onto the appropriate directory. The new qwinsock does work faster. Getting my e-mail was usually pretty fast with the old qwinsock, but sending e-mail used to take forever. Now it zips out as fast as it zips in. Quarterdeck Message Center allows you to uuencode/decode automatically, & does true file attachments (some programs seem to put their attachments within the message itself). Using Quarterdeck InternetSuite, it's easy to connect to an Internet Service Provider. There's no script. You don't have to configure dial-up networking. It took me just a few minutes to set up the connection to my provider. And you can easily configure it to connect to more than one provider (in fact, it comes preconfigured with dozens of ISPs - but don't expect to find you local ISP). Conclusion I use Quarterdeck InternetSuite as the software I most often access the Internet with. I like to use Quarterdeck Mosaic when I want to surf the web with graphics turned off. I like the convenience of checking my email and newsgroup with the same program. Most of my problems with the software are pretty minor - with the exception that it's not a Win95 compliant program. If it used a 32 bit winsock, had a true 32 bit ftp program, & fixed some of the other annoying features, they'd have a program that flies. For $39.95, this suite is a good solution to your internet needs. Quarterdeck InternetSuite 13160 Mindanao Way Marina del Rey, CA 90292-9705 310-309-3700 VOICE 310-309-4217 FAX E-mail: info@quarterdeck.com http://www.quarterdeck.com/ ____________________________________________________________________ THE DAILY BRIEF from INTELLIGENT NETWORK CONCEPTS, INC. Get national (U.S.), international, business, entertainment, and sports news sent to you in one concise e-mail every weekday, FREE! Join nearly 15,000 subscribers in 87 countries around the world who rely on the Brief for clear, unbiased daily news summaries. Subscribe by sending e- mail to incinc@tiac.net with "subscribe db" as the SUBJECT of your message. Sponsorship opportunities available. ____________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- WEBSITES OF THE WEEK! | This section is devoted to cool WebSites . . . ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anchor Desk Debuts!| -------------------- CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug. 13 /PRNewswire/ - Ziff-Davis Publishing's ZD Net, the most trusted source of online computing information, today launches ZD Net AnchorDesk, a new Web site and companion e- mail alert hosted by Jesse Berst, one of the technology industry's foremost writers and analysts. ZD Net AnchorDesk was created to provide timely insider analysis of the most important technology news to today's busy computer enthusiasts. As ZD Net's news anchor, Jesse identifies and analyzes the day's top stories, and hosts guest commentary by editors at Ziff-Davis' PC Week, Interctive Week, MacWEEK, and PC Magazine. AnchorDesk can be found either on the ZD Net news page (http://www.zdnet.com/home/filters/news.html), or at http://www.anchordesk.com. The free companion e-mail alert is a concentrated, "60-second" briefing of the contents on the AnchorDesk site that enables users to quickly absorb the top news, and then turn to the AnchorDesk site for further detail. Users can subscribe to the free e-mail alert - which will be distributed several times each week - directly on the AnchorDesk Web site. "We are pleased to have an industry authority of Jesse's caliber as ZD Net's new anchor," said Dan Farber, vice president and editor- in-chief at ZD Net. "For 15 years, Jesse has earned the trust of industry insiders as founder of the award-winning Windows Watcher newsletter and as columnist for leading technology trade publications. Jesse is known for asking tough questions, backing his articles with thorough research, and presenting his views with humor and style. His knowledge spans all corners of the market, and his no-nonsense approach will give users an instant grasp of key industry developments." "AnchorDesk is the computer enthusiast's answer to the fire- hose of technology news that floods the Internet each day," said Jesse Berst. "My commentary highlights only the news you really need to know to keep pace with the high-tech industry. My mission is to keep AnchorDesk users ahead of the trends by giving the story behind the story, and by warding off the industry hype." AnchorDesk Overview Like other parts of the ZD Net Web site, AnchorDesk is one of the Web's most useful free resources. In addition to Jesse's commentary, which appears in the "Berst Alert" section of the site, ZD Net AnchorDesk includes: "This Just In," with important breaking news; "Need to Know," with the day's top technology news; "Eavesdropping," with the latest industry rumors; "Pick of the Day," with a stellar download or Web site; plus features highlighting other intriguing stories. A key benefit of ZD Net AnchorDesk is its carefully selected and organized network of links to ZD Net's 55,000 pages of online content, providing users with instant access to a wealth of additional resources on the stories that interest them most. ZD Net AnchorDesk was built using a sophisticated authoring database that enables users to "drill down" for more information as desired. It's easy to find related stories, research the companies or people involved, look up a product review, or join an online event or discussion on the topic. About Jesse Berst Jesse is known for his years as a columnist and writer in leading computer trade publications such as PC Week, Windows Sources, Information Week, Computerworld, and Computer Reseller News. He is author and co-author of a dozen books on computing. In 1991, Jesse founded the influential "Windows Watcher" newsletter, winner of multiple awards including this year's "Best Computer Newsletter" award from the Computer Press Association. Jesse is widely quoted for his industry expertise in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, New York Times and dozens more. He has appeared on Good Morning America, CNBC, CNN, CBS Radio News and numerous other television and radio programs. He is also a popular keynote speaker and moderator at computer conferences and expositions. --------------------- NetGuide Live . . . | --------------------- MANHASSET, N.Y., Aug. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- CMP's NetGuide Live, the first daily online guide to the Net, has been chosen by Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) as a Premier Site for Internet Explorer 3.0 - one of a handful of Internet Explorer-optimized sites to receive the honor. On August 12, the same day NetGuide Live (http://www.netguide.com) launched in public beta, the site was featured at a Microsoft event unveiling Internet Explorer 3.0. "We've optimized NetGuide Live for Microsoft(R) Internet Explorer 3.0 because of its flexibility and advanced features," said Newton Barrett, Publisher of NetGuide Live. "Since NetGuide Live will be a first stop for Web users, we wanted to make sure that we used the most cutting edge technology in its creation and design." NetGuide Live will be adding Internet Explorer 3.0 enhancements regularly between the site's beta debut on August 12 and its full- featured launch planned for September. Among the features NetGuide Live plans to employ are floating frames, extended font controls, HTML style sheets and advanced layout options. Through the use of ActiveX(TM) Controls, NetGuide Live will also be able to make the site easier to use and more intuitive. ActiveX will allow NetGuide Live to employ enhanced navigational controls, among other features. And in its unrivaled daily listing of online events, The Grid, ActiveX will allow users to dynamically sort event information by category of interest, online venue and type of event. "It's exciting to see Microsoft's latest technology exploited by leading sites such as NetGuide Live," said Bill Gates, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft. "When we saw what ActiveX could bring to The Grid, we knew that NetGuide Live had to be one of our premier sites." As part of NetGuide Live's alliance with Microsoft, the Web site will feature an "Optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0" message on its home page and in its advertising and collateral materials. Microsoft will provide a link to NetGuide Live from its Internet Explorer home page and feature the Web site in online advertising. NetGuide Live is designed to be a first point of access to get people exactly where they want to be on the Net - quickly and easily. It features an hour-by-hour guide to what's on the Web and commercial online services, comprehensive site profiles, leading-edge search and browse functions, daily updates about new sites, and breaking news, through an alliance with CNN Interactive. Syndicated studies and NetGuide Live's research both point to the powerful need for a quick and easy guide to the Net for a product that goes beyond the capability of a search engine. According to a recent IntelliQuest study, there are approximately 35 million adults in the U.S. now online, with nine million of those having just come online in the first quarter of 1996. Given that explosive rate of growth and the continued speed at which new Web sites are being posted, the need for a daily guide to help bring users, both new and experienced, to the online information they want is clear. NetGuide Live's comprehensive content and how-to areas bring to one site the disparate information Net users have had to look for in many places and in some instances couldn't find at all. The site, which will be fully operational in early September, is organized into four essential categories - Search + Browse, What's on the Net, News/Reference and Net Know-How. Search + Browse: Driven by cutting-edge search engine technology, Find it on the Net gives users easy access to results from specific queries of sites spanning the Web. For those looking for a more targeted approach, NetGuide Live has also leveraged CMP's editorial expertise to provide a browsable directory of the Best of the Web - profiles of the most active sites. Rated on content, personality, design and overall usefulness and organized into more than 2,000 categories of interest, the profiles will be updated on an ongoing basis, providing instant access to the Best of the Web at any given moment. The sites are also rated on the presence of sex and violence to help parents make informed decisions about where their children go online. What's on the Net: When is the Rolling Stones' next live Web concert? Who's on at 8:00 p.m. tonight on AOL? Before NetGuide Live, Net surfers had no single source to turn to for online event information. The Grid, a key component of NetGuide Live, details what's available at any given hour on all the major online venues, including the World Wide Web, America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy. The only truly comprehensive event list on the Web, The Grid is live 24 hours a day so that when a user logs on, he or she can see immediately where to turn for celebrity chat, expert advice and other live events. All Web listings on The Grid are hotlinked so that users can easily access their programs of choice. What's on the Net also includes The Daily Spotlight, a section with breaking news about the newest Web sites and site updates. News/Reference: News junkies looking for an up-to-the-minute fix will love NetGuide Live's News/Reference section. CNN's headline reports will be updated every 15 minutes, and technology news seekers can enjoy unrivaled high-tech coverage from CMP's TechWeb(R), the technology supersite. The Big Book, an online listing of U.S. business addresses and phone numbers, is available in the News/Reference section as well. Net Know-How: How-to information is key to getting the most out of the Net but, until NetGuide Live, it was neither centrally located nor easily accessible. Now this essential information is fingertip-close. Net Know-How includes comprehensive tutorials on topics ranging from the ins and outs of buying a car on the Web to a guided tour of the best shopping sites and a step-by-step explanation about making investments online. As with all content areas on NetGuide Live, updates and new "how- to" information will be available all the time. "One thing that really sets NetGuide Live apart from any other search- related product is that it's like a living, breathing organism," said Barrett. "We have a solid crew of professionals to ensure that NetGuide Live will be changing and evolving daily and bringing users and advertisers added value along the way." NetGuide Live is committed to continued enhancements and the move toward personalization, expected to be in place later this year, is at the heart of the team's current efforts. By filling out a form about their interests, NetGuide Live visitors will receive a personalized version of the product featuring content that matches their interests every time they log on. They will also be able to personalize The Grid so that, for example, if a particular user is a sports fanatic, he or she will be able to get an instant close- up of sports-related events taking place on the Net. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- INTERVIEW WITH ????? | Weekly Interviews with the Movers and Shakers! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Novell has been one of the stronger forces in the anti-piracy movement. Their primary seller, NetWare 4.1, is coming up on an upgrade. We take a few moments to talk with Ron Barker of Novell to find out the who, what, when, where, etc. concerning Novell and pirating. PG: Novell has been a leader in fighting piracy for a while. When and how did this effort begin? RB: Back in the late 1980's Novell received so many complaints about piracy that it was determined that something more needed to be done. Novell formed its own anti-piracy group in late 1989/early 1990 to assist resellers and customers in their fight against becoming victims of piracy. The first efforts were made to assist customers that were innocent victims of piracy and to assist Novell authorized resellers so that they could compete against the dishonest pirates. That is still the major goal of the program today. PG: What was the biggest piracy ring or bust Novell has been involved with? RB: The problem with answering this question is that many of our settlements are sealed by the courts meaning we can't talk about them. We have had several large cases in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The biggest problems we have seen are illegal upgrades, counterfeit, and resellers that make their own application software for a specific industry and bundle it with NetWare, but install the same copy of NetWare over and over. We have seen this in all types of industries from law enforcement to video stores and everything in between. PG: Is there a typical pirate of NetWare? RB: What I outlined above is the typical pirate, but we have seen all sorts of piracy. The two most typical pirates are those that sell illegal upgrades to unsuspecting end-users and those resellers that have developed their own application software for a specific industry and don't let the individual customers know that they are receiving pirated NetWare. We have had many large settlements in these types of cases and we always make the pirate replace the pirated NetWare for the customers. PG: What's the estimated loss in sales Novell attributes to piracy of its products. RB: This question is difficult because we have never undertaken a study to come up with figures. We use the figures supplied by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Software Publisher's Association (SPA) which is that the industry as a whole lost over $15 billion in 1994. The two organizations are getting set to release 1995 statistics as a joint effort for the first time which has caused a delay, but which will be more accurate we believe. PG: What are the more effective methods Novell has found to combat piracy? RB: Believe it or not, the best method is the old fashioned hotline, which for us is 1-800-PIRATES or 747-2837. We receive all types of calls from disgruntled former or current employees of a pirate to innocent victim customers that find out after the fact that they have pirated NetWare. We try to contact the customers to gather facts and to let them know we are trying to help them. We also maintain a sophisticated product tracking system that helps us pinpoint where the product came from and who sold it. That alone is very effective in locating pirates. PG: What is the procedure for reporting a pirate to Novell? Are there any rewards? RB: The usual procedure is to phone 1-800-PIRATES or to contact us at pirates@novell.com. All calls and messages are kept confidential. We have never and never will reveal a source even if it means dropping a case to protect the source, which we have done. We know how hard it is to make the decision to report acts of piracy. We try to let the caller know that we are here to help customers more than punish anyone. We do not give rewards for many reasons, the best of which is that the courts often frown on cases that are developed from paid sources. We do however try to assist the person or business that reports the piracy in any way we can. PG: When someone is reported what is the process of investigating them? RB: You must realize that many of the reports we receive are not true. We have to be very careful when investigating reports of piracy because that word "pirate" can harm a good business. We never call someone a pirate until we have hard evidence in front of us. When we receive calls we try to get as much information as possible and then verify that it is true. PG: Are resellers or end-users the larger pirates? RB: When it comes to NetWare, the resellers are the biggest pirates. That might not be true industry wide, but it is for NetWare. Not many companies have multiple networks in-house so they do not pirate the NetWare. NetWare, by its very nature, is a product that dishonest resellers would pirate and sell over and over. As I mentioned earlier, we have many cases where the reseller installed a legal copy of NetWare, but kept the disks and manuals for the customer. That reseller then goes out and installs the same package at another customer location and so on until, in some cases, over 200 customers are running the exact same package of NetWare without even knowing. PG: Do you work in conjunction with other software companies on piracy? RB: Yes very much so. We might be competitors in everything else, but we work very closely to fight piracy. We have worked with many companies such as Autodesk, Microsoft, Lotus, etc. Many of us belong to the same organizations that fight piracy (BSA, SPA) and are on committees that meet to discuss solutions. We have passed and received tips from the other companies and will continue to do so. We have also worked with several law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and Royal Canadian Mounted Police to combat piracy. We are currently working with customs officials worldwide. PG: What is your opinion the value of the SPA? RB: The SPA and BSA do a very valuable service of alerting the public about the dangers of pirated software. They have brought the issue to the mind of the public and helped our efforts tremendously. We investigate things a little differently, but we would not hesitate to pass information along to them. Our main goal is to help our customers and resellers. We would encourage callers to contact us at 1-800-PIRATES if they have information about Novell software. --END OF ISSUE--