WindoWatch (TM pending) The Preview Issue October 1, 1994 A Note about the Windows format for the Preview Issue: This Preview edition of WindoWatch is being published using the WordPerfect authoring tool Envoy, developed by Novell, Inc. Traditional on line publications for Windows platforms have been limited to the Windows help engine. Recently, the Windows help tool has been enhanced by a variety of add-ons including Help Magic, RoboHelp, and Doc2Help which are on our list for evaluation. Other authoring packages will include Common Ground by NoHands Software, Acrobat by Adobe Systems and Quarterdeck's HTML Authoring Tools. With due respect to those publishers and editors using the standard Microsoft help engine, we find it a limited tool in terms of publishing stand alone on line newsletters and magazines. This format has severe reading limitations giving documents a cluttered look. Further, the purpose of the help engine was for navigation from within a software application tieing together related items and topics to both clarify and teach. There have been few options available in terms of portability with reasonable file size and widely distributed user viewing tools. Whatever authoring tool we finally select for WW use, it must have the following characteristics: 1. The original document can be created in any text editor or any of the windows word processors which can then be ported to the authoring tool exactly as seen on the word processing screen. 2. Allow final publication in a read only mode. 3. Final output has a relatively small compiled size with all files included at no extra charge. 4. Internal document and viewing controls that are set by the editor are maintained when the document is opened for viewing. Should the developers insist upon tool and status bars, a well written and complete help file for those tool bars and navigation symbols should be incorporated within the compiled document. 5. The authoring tool's advertising logo either be non-existent or discreet. Paul Kinnaly of Channel One has been very constructive in his criticisms. We would welcome other comment as it relates to this issue's format and content. A note to the editor by email will be gratefully received.Envoy and WordPerfect are the registered trademark and property of Novell, Inc. WHAT'S INSIDE WINDOWATCH Electronic Magazine October 1994 Preview Edition YOU FORGOT THE DOT DUMMY by Lois B. Laulicht PROCOMM PLUS for WINDOWS A Review by Gregg Hommel THE INTERVIEW by Peter Neuendorffer SURFING the Internet CROSSTIES A Review by Angela Lillystone SMARTHOUSE by Derek Buchler EDUCATION TOOLS FOR KIDS by Jerry Laulicht SOFTWARE UPDATE: BUGS by Peter Neuendorffer ONE PERSON"S OPINION ! More on CD ROMS --for kids! NEXT ISSUE WindoWatch The Electronic Windows Magazine of the InternetPreview Issue October 1994 You forgot the dot....Dummy!Before everyone gets bent out of shape - the dummy is me! My home BBS has just become a full Internet access service and we can hardly wait to get on and go -- what's it called -- surfing? Very early in the AM, I finished my usual routine of bringing in mail and files, uploading messages and checking out some new bulletins. I promised myself that this morning was going to be different because I was prepared to give the expanded Internet service of Channel One in Cambridge, Massachusetts a test drive. I won't bore you with the lurid, and embarrassing details but try as I might I could not break through the syntax barrier to get onto an FTP site. To make it perfectly clear, and even more humiliating, I am a supporter of the Free Net server, Nyx10, at the University of Denver. I have been on that system numerous times, transferring files to the server from far away places, and have even done some browsing at the Library of Congress. Even so, I still couldn't break through! I did try several times. I knew it was a syntax error and brought up the on-line help. I tried several combinations of the command, deleted parts of the command, and finally, yelled at the blinking screen in front of me. It was all in vain because--in unison now- - she still couldn't break thru! I had decided some weeks back that I needed some very basic remediation in using the Internet and more specifically, using UNIX commands. I requested a sample copy from the Cobb Group's "Inside the Internet" carrying a subscription price of $39 per year. The sample copy arrived the very afternoon of the too frustrating morning, and in its own way, this quite small newsletter, is almost a roadmap. After looking through the nifty twelve page document which is written in un-Unix English.....I mailed off my check. I now understand that the WEB is "to combine all the diverse resources on the Internet". That's quite a goal to be articulated at all, but when it's said in plainEnglish, it becomes a goal I can relate to. Indeed, one can access it all from the WEB. There is also a file called FTP.FAQ -Frequently Asked Questions- originated by Tom Czarnik and now maintained by Perry Rovers (perry.rovers@kub.nl) This file contains a huge amount of general Internet information as well as current listings of anonymous FTP sites. continued EDITORIAL Editor Lois B. Laulicht Contributing Editor at Large Herb Chong Contributing Writers Derek Buchler, Gregg Hommel , John Jeddeloh, Paul Kinnaly, Jerry Laulicht, Angela Lillystone, Peter Neuendorffer, Paul Williamson. EDITORIAL BOARD Herb Chong, Gregg Hommel, Lois Laulicht, Paul Williamson. SUBMISSIONS Email using Internet lois.laulicht@channel1.com or windowatch@ins.infonet.net To: Editor WindoWatch Valley Head, WV 26294 Submissions remain the intellectual property of the author. Manuscripts will NOT be returned if not used. Electronic Access FTP>OPEN ftp.channel1.com WindoWatch is found on Channel One in several formats by calling 617-354-3230 (9600 and 14.400). We publish in a Windows compatible and soon in HTML formats. The DOS format uses ReadRoom (*.TOC) The Readroom format runs flawlessly under Windows for those with limited disk space and is a very much smaller file than the Windows format One can also read online from the Reader Room itself - Door 48. Non-members of Channel One can download the latestWindoWatch issue by typing J Free from the main board prompt. Beginning January 1, 1995, annual shareware subscriptions at $10 per year for electronic delivery and sponsorship and/or contributions at various levels. Comments, letters, and requests can be sent to us at various locations. Postlink to Lois Laulicht ->15 tagginthe message "receiver only" and on the Internet at Internet:lois.laulicht@channel1.com WindoWatch (c) 1994 all rights reserved, is the property of Lois B. Laulicht and CCC of WV A Review by Gregg Hommel (c. 1994) Procomm Plus for Windows, version 2.0 from Datastorm Technologies... I don't know about you, but I get tired of reading "reviews" that do nothing more than praise a product, no matter it's shortcomings, or those that "parrot the party line" according to the press packet included with the software. This one, hopefully, will not be like that... Before we look at what the new Procomm Plus for Windows v.2.0 is, let's look at what it isn't... It's not the answer to all your communications prayers. In fact, if you have a CAS modem (like the Intel Satisfaxion 400i), it's not even the answer to your fax needs, because Procomm Plus for Windows 2.0 does not support the CAS standard. If you are a power fax user, and send hundreds of those critters a day, there are applications, like WinFax Pro, which are far more suited to do that. However, if you are one of "us"... a small business owner, or a rabid BBSer, then perhaps, Procomm Plus is the answer to all your communications prayers. Procomm Plus for Windows 2.0 is a smoothly integrated combination of a fax application with a strong data communications program. All the power of Procomm Plus for Windows 1.0x and Procomm Plus for DOS 2.01 are here, with something missing in both of the earlier Datastorm applications... ease of set up and use. Installing Procomm Plus for Windows 2.0 is a relatively simple chore. As with most Windows applications of any importance today, the installation offers two options... Express or Custom. Express is just what it implies... a fast, no questions asked installation of the complete Procomm forWin 2.0 application, including all support and sample files. "Custom" offers the user a few choices in regard to those portions of the rather larger than Procomm for Windows 1.0x application he wants to install. Procomm Plus for Windows 2.0, in an "Express" installation will take up a trifle over 13 megs. of hard drive real estate. When using the Custom option, you can trim that a little, depending upon how you use Procomm for Windows. Custom will allow you to decide whether to install the sample script files, the Compuserve and MCI Mail managers, the tutorial (which is worth looking at to see what can be done with the script language, if nothing else ), the fax Cover Sheet Editor and sample cover sheets, and even the v.2.0 Host mode script files. On one test install, using the Custom option, and installing only the bare necessities, I was able to get the hard drive requirements down to 9 megs. This is still more than a full Procomm for Win 1.0x installation, but considering the improvements, not a bad trade-off ! Once the installation routines goes through installing all the files requested, with the now common "advertising" and user notes on the nicely drawn installation screen , we finally get to the fun part of the installation. Procomm for Win 2.0 will load itself, and begin walking you through the initial set up of the various parameters it needs to operate. One of the first things done, after getting your name, phone number, etc., is modem set up. Procomm for Win 2.0 shows a decided improvement in this respect over both Procomm for Win 1.0x, and most other Windows communications applications... an automatic modem detection/setup routine, that works! This is one area where Procomm for Win really shines. You'll be asked if you want Procomm for Win to determine the modem on your system for you. Tell it "yes", make sure your external modem is powered up and then sit back and wait for a minute. Procomm will check all of your installed comm ports, determine which, if any, have a 16550 UART installed, and then query your modem to determine what type (make and model) it is. TheProcomm for Win 2.0 WModems.Dat file contains data for several hundred different makes and models of modems. Procomm for Win 2.0 will make a valiant attempt to automatically determine the make and model of the modem connected to your system. If the software can't find an exact match, it will suggest the closest modem it can find in it's extensive list, and in 99% of cases, this will be all you will ever need. Converting files: During the installation, Procomm for Win 2.0 will also ask if you want it to"convert" your Procomm for Win 1.0x files. If you have that application previously installed, and are upgrading the dialing directory, metakey and keyboard files to the new Procomm for Win 2.0 format, along with converting your existing script files to the new Wasp 2.0 version of the language . I would suggest that you go ahead and allow Procomm for Win 2.0 to do this for you. The changes to some of these files are extensive, and the conversion utility does a good job of saving you the effort to recreate these files for use by Procomm for Win 2.0. The Dialing Directory: In particular, the dialing directory under Procomm for Win 2.0 is rather drastically changed - for the better - in most cases. It is now a "three part" dialing directory, with parts for each dialing directory entry which allow you to store data, fax, and voice information. You can also bundle entries under common headings, to be dealt with, and dialed as a "group". The editor for the dialing directory is now much more extensive, comprehensive, and better organized than under Procomm for Win 1.0x. Of course, most of us are never happy with pre-determined settings for anything, and we just simply have to "tweak" every application for what we consider the "best" operations. When it comes to "tweaking", Procomm for Win 2.0 leaves it's predecessors in the dust. The new setup functions allow you to "tweak" almost every aspect of Procomm for Win 2.0, from the fonts it uses, to WAV files to play when certain events occur. Unlike Procomm for Win 1.0x, it does this using a setup which no longer looks like a port from the DOS version of Procomm, but follows Windows standards to a large extent. There are still a few "unique" ways of setting up some of the defaults, but far less than there were in Procomm forWin 1.0x. With a little time and careful reading of the manuals , ( They are much improved over those for Procomm for Win 1.0x ) one actually finds readable and useful information not buried in communications "lingo". Stripped from the comm jargon which is impossible to find or understand, you end up with a single communications application which performs almost any function you might demand of it.... including both data and fax communications! To assist in making Procomm for Win 2.0 your only communications application, Datastorm has included two new script "applets" with this version. The CIS Manager allows you to log on to Compuserve, and manage your activities there, including downloading message headers and/or messages, and grabbing files, without using a third-party application, such as WinCIM or CSNav, if you wish. There's also an "applet" for MCI Mail, if you use that, which automates and simplifies the tasks of writing and sending that particular form of email. Remote Usage: Of course, Host is still included even though Host v.2.0 is not a great deal changed from the previous versions. It does, however, allow you to receive incoming fax calls while it is running, if your fax modem supports Adaptive Answer, and also includes a "fax back" feature which allows remote users to log in and request that the host computer send a fax back to the remote. But Host still contains the same rather dullscreens, and limited feature set of the earlier versions. There is no provision to shell to DOS from the remote, and very little in the way of user customization. You can now edit your user records from the Host utilities instead of having to use a text file editor, and decipher the cryptic entries in the user records. This Host holds more user information than previous versions but remains simply a rudimentary application to allow remote connections to Procomm for Windows. I must state that I am somewhat "biased" when it comes to discussing the Host included with Procomm for Win in any version, given that I wrote a replacement for it, called GHOST BBS. Even so, the comments above are based upon what users of Host have told me. Hopefully, they are somewhat objective. Host also has some problems making a clean connection with a remote. This occurs mostly with modems which respond somewhat slowly to AT commands, although, from messages on BBS nets, and the Datastorm forum on Compuserve, there just may be a lot of modems with this problem. If you try running Host, and you can't seem to get a clean "connect" from the remote, i.e. it doesn't always connect properly, or if it does connect, the remote gets on screen "garbage". Drop me a note, and I can tell you how to edit the scripts for Host, as recommended by Datastorm. It's not a guaranteed fix, but it does work for the majority of cases. Overall, for data communications, Procomm for Win 2.0 continues the traditions of Procomm Plus for DOS 2.01, and Procomm Plus for Windows 1.0x. It is solid, fast, and reliable, whether transferring compressed files, or just logging on to your local BBS to browse through the mail. Zmodem transfers seem slightly improved in speed over v.1.0x. Datastorm has finally fixed one of the bigger problems with v.10x, that being file renaming of duplicate downloaded files under Zmodem. Unlike v.1.0x, this now works as expected, which should help to ease the many problems users experienced under v.1.0x when downloading files, especially QWK packets. Although ANSI emulation is as good, and as fast or faster than it was under Procomm for Win 1.0x, the new font choices shipped with Procomm Plus 2.0 leave a fair bit to be desired according to a lot of users - including myself! . There is a fairly simple solution, however... If you still have Procomm forWin 1.0x installed on your system, you have a file there which contains the much preferred PCPlus SS fonts from that version, - Pwtrmnl.fon. If you don't have Procomm for Win 1.0x still installed, not to worry. The font is also available fro downloading from the Datastorm BBS, or their forum on Compuserve. Once you have the FON file, all you need to do is place it in your PROWIN directory, and restart Procomm forWin 2.0. The older v.1.0x PCPlus SS fonts will then be listed at the bottom of the font list, and you can select them for use under Procomm forWin 2.0. Perhaps the biggest "news" about Procomm forWin 2.0 is the integrated fax support. This side of Procomm for Win 2.0 is not up to the "power user" standards of something like WinFax Pro. However, for most home and small business users, it provides more than enough features to satisfy their needs. You can send multiple copies of the same fax to different receivers, schedule your fax messages to be sent at a pre-determined time, and poll remote units for faxes. There is a fairly decent collection of sample cover pages which you can include with your fax transmission, and a cover sheet editor so that you can modify those included, or create your own. Incoming fax calls are handled neatly and cleanly by Procomm/ for Win 2.0, without interfering with applications in the foreground, when Procomm forWin 2.0 is being run in the background for fax reception. Speaking of background operations... remember that annoying "feature"of Procomm forWin 1.0x which caused the it's minimized icon to "flash" when a file transfer was completed? You can configure that in Procomm for Win 2.0 to behave as in the previous version, or to simply behave itself, and stay still Along with fax support, Procomm for Win 2.0 also now supports Caller ID, Distinctive Ring, and Adaptive Answer, if the hardware on your modem handles these kinds of calls, and your local phone company offers the services. Caller ID allows you to see what phone number is originating a call when it is received while Distinctive Ring allows you to use two phone numbers, on a single phone line for different purposes. Each phone number results in a "distinctive ring" on the receiving end, when called, while Adaptive Answer lets the modem determine whether an incoming call is a fax call, or a data call and route the call to the appropriate "side" of Procomm for Win 2.0 . This can be quite nice when used in conjunction with a Host application which also supports it, such as the Datastorm Host, or the soon-to-be- released GHOST BBS 3.20. To match these many changes, the scripting language of Procomm for Windows, Windows Aspect (Wasp) has gone through extensive changes of it's own and now also includes a complete set of commands for the fax side of Procomm for Win. Regrettably, one of the side effects of these changes is that scripts written in Wasp 1.0 for Procomm for Win 1.0x are not compatible with Procomm for Win 2.0, and will not run under it without modification and recompiling. Datastorm has attempted to ease this transition, with a conversion utility which will convert your Procomm for Win 1.0x dialing directories, keyboard and metakey files. These are also are not compatible between the two versions, to the new format, and will also convert your Wasp 1.0 script files to a Wasp 2.0 compatible version. Script conversion is not perfect. The resulting Wasp 2.0 compatible file may be as much as two or three times as large as the original, Wasp 1.0 file. They can contain whole new routines added by the conversion utility to ensure compatibility with how commands, etc. functioned in Wasp 1.0. However, in the vast majority of cases, once you have "converted" your Wasp 1.0 scripts, and recompiled them under Wasp 2.0, they will run as they did under Procomm for Win 1.0x, and thus, allow you to keep your logon and other scripts, without too much difficulty. Depending upon the extent of your scripts, you way wish to later clean up this compatibility code, once you have learned how Wasp 2.0 operates. However, the script conversion utility will only convert source code files (with the WAS extension). If you have any third party script utilities, which ship only in compiled form, with the WAX extension, these will NOT be converted to run under Procomm for Win 2.0, and will NOT run without being converted. For these files, you will have to contact the author of the application regarding a Procomm for Win 2.0 version. Overall, Procomm for Win 2.0 is well worth looking at, especially if you have a need for fax and data communications, and would prefer them in a single application. It has some problems (some of which Datastorm is aware of, and is apparently working on), but in general, is solid, steady and a reliable performer, with a minimum of setup hassles, and good ease of use, especially for the beginner or novice in the realm of Windows communications. contact information : Internet - gregg.hommel@canrem.com FIDO - 1:229/15 Compuserve - 72537.552@compuserve.com Surfing the InternetSUBJECT:ANNOUNCE: Beginner's Italian lessons on the Web at Willamette.eduOrganization: The Lost Top Secret Cold Fusion Labratories of Al Capone. .......................................................................................................................................... Check out the new WWW server called Sell-it on the WWW. "Sell-it on the WWW" features a variety of different products for sale. You can find popular movies being sold on video cassette, computer hardware/software, baseball cards, gourmet coffee, publications, computer consulting, computer scanning services, and MUCH more! You can also shop for great gifts! Use your favorite WWW browser to go to: http://xmission.com/~wwwads. ......................................................................................................................................... Re: Internet Censorship -- Congress is adding some non-related stuff - See:Bills - Senate 1822 & House3626 "Any employer, service provider, or carrier of E-mail messages will be required to examine and manage (censor) the contents of communications or be liable for their failure to do so." Requires for service providers to set aside 5% of capacity to give to politically deserving (?) groups the cost to be paid by business. Says Tony J. Padrasky.. "It's going to be easy for the kids to learn the amendments - there won't be that many of them... The Interview (1994 by Peter Neuendorffer Boston October 1, 1994Dear Lois,Something's come up I think you should know about. I met our candidate through the Variety Personals. The ad reads "Middleaged person of the world wishes to correspond with guys about future issues and be my imagry friend... Alice" I met Alice at Planet Hollywood at Level -99 over at the local Institute. She turned out to be a spritely/if largish woman - - the kind of giant whose shoulders we often stand on. The first thing she said was to comment about my weight problem. I complimented her on her red dress. "Oh, this old thing. I whipped up the fabric over breakfast this morning." She also sported a Dick Tracy diamond wrist watch which gave various traffic and routing reports as she waved her wrist. As a fax started to wrap itself around her arm, I asked her what she meant by "future issues". Our water arrived! "Well," she said, "privatization is OK, but there should be more antitrust suits and actions. -- Stimulates competition." "What company do you work for", she asked and -- I mused. She proceeded to talk about her projects. including Genuine Intelligence, and a cardboard computer to insert in cereal boxes. She said that distribution, door to door in her neighborhood, was entirely too slow, and she now had to divest herself of a pack of lawyers, handlers, and personal trainers. Over our second glass of water, she turned to other matters. "Don't you think burnout is awful? The boxes should lock up from five past the hour to twenty of, if I had my way, which I don't. I'm currently toiling on a new front end that will look just like the gory video game Heck, except that the monsters will be OOPS objects representing accounting modules. Put a little action back into accounts receivable." As I pictured that, she announced: "I'm going to the Isles of Shoals next week. Want to come?" She then got up to leave on her bicycle, which had a small motor and jets. "Surely. Where can I reach you?" Taking out a small personal sized cereal box. "It's in there." A glow shifted from red to violet around the box. She autographed it, which she said switched it on. Please advise! Peter CROSSTIES by Crossties Software Corp.A Review (1994 by Angela LillystoneThe more time you spend at your computer, the more disparate pieces of information enter the day: there is the letter you wrote to your insurance company during lunch time, a note about a video you want to rent and an e-mail message that you want to save for future reference. If this sounds familiar, a look at CrossTies is worth your while. In the expanding PIM (personal information management) market CrossTies takes a novel approach. It offers a powerfully integrated environment that allows you to link, manage and view data of various sources. You start out by creating CrossTies objects. There are numerous default objects: Person, Project, Activity, Folder ( which can hold an assortment of unrelated objects), E-mail and Fax. Default objects also exist for Notepad, Write, Paintbrush, Sound Recorder and Media Player. At installation time CrossTies creates an additional category for Word for Windows or WordPerfect documents. Program objects can serve to launch other applications. CrossTies offers the Shelf as a place for your most frequently used objects and a Trail window holds the last 100 accessed objects. If you wish, you can create new documents without leaving CrossTies. They will then automatically become objects for which you can use long, descriptive file names. Allowing CrossTies to manage your documents greatly eases their integration with other data. For instance, once you have created a Person object and a letter you wrote to that person, you can then link those objects to each other. Linking is as easy as dragging an icon from the document object to the person. Also each object form has a link button that brings up a list of existing objects to choose from. Bringing up the Person object lets you see all items related to that person at the bottom of that window. When you double click on a related item that item's window opens in turn. To view related documents, faxes and spreadsheets you use one of the 50 built-in viewers. You create new objects by filling out a form.The form design is clear and uncluttered. A click of a button changes the view of each form to a window for taking notes. CrossTies relies heavily on the Multiple Document Interface (MDI). It will remember the arrangement of its windows from one session to the next. To effectively use CrossTies you will want to run the application full screen. The screen design is slick. With its ability to launch programs and documents associated with them, CrossTies can replace Program Manager as the shell. Additionally, CrossTies supports DDE and includes a simple macro recorder. When it comes to linking e-mail, faxes and phone logs you can let CrossTies do the work for you. CrossTies supports Vendor Independent Messaging (VIM) and Messaging Applications Program Interface (MAPI) compatible e-mail. In order to take advantage of automatic linking of faxes you need to run SofNet's FaxWorks or FaxWorks Pro. The included dialer creates phone logs (recorded in 15 minute intervals) that can automatically be linked to the person you called. Objects, including Program and Folder objects, can be sent to other CrossTies users. However, the database cannot be shared and CrossTies does not allow for group scheduling. The calendar offers a slick graphical view that color-codes your appointments by priority, but offers otherwise little more then basic functions. I liked being able to click on a particular day in the week or month view to see a list of appointments for that day. This eliminates the need to switch back to the daily view for details. The printouts resemble the screen design and allow you to print to a variety of popular paper formats. CrossTies does not provide for scheduling recurring appointments and does not notify you of scheduling conflicts. You can sort tasks by date, but not by priority. Sorting and searching capabilities are surprisingly weak for a package that treats each item of information as an individual object. You can, for instance, only search one object category at the time. CrossTies can import data from Commence, Packrat, Act!, Organizer and ECCO. Thanks to detailed instructions, importing my ECCO Pro address book was a breeze. To import from other applications CrossTies expects comma-delimited text (.CVS) or a dBASE file (.DBF) with the correct order of fields. With the exception of documents and Program Objects, you can export data one category at a time. CrossTies deserves kudos for being a good Windows neighbor. Other than the obligatory *.INI file, CrossTies places all of its files into its own directory. CrossTies adds an entry to your WIN.INI file -- something we would have liked to see documented in the Readme file. When I tried to install CrossTies under PC Tools for Windows a detailed message informed me why Program Manager is required for the install -- a thoughtful touch we would like to see more often. On my system CrossTies uses 12% of system resources. Consistent and intuitive design makes CrossTies easy to learn. The documentation is superb. The User Guide contains a tutorial that got me up and running in under an hour. Should you need it, CrossTies offers free technical support via phone, fax, BBS and CompuServe. CrossTies excels in integration and user friendliness. While those with sophisticated time or contact management needs will want to look elsewhere, CrossTies' powerful linking capability coupled with ease of use should appeal to a wide audience of Windows users. List price: $149.95 Requirements: 4 MB RAM, 11 MB hard disk space, MS Windows 3.1. ( CrossTies Software Corp. 2445 Midway Rd., #200 Carrollton, Texas 75006 (800) 955-8437 (214) 407-9996 fax: (214) 407-9215 CD Rom's For Kids......An opinion!When we decided to do a series on "Technology - Education - and Kids" WW decided to ask an online friend to tell us what her preferences were in in thechoice of CD ROMs for little children.It was Linda Rosenbaum who was polled for her opinion and was then asked if we could quote her. She is a very sophisticated Windows user and contributes regularly on Rime and Ilink conferences. Incidentally, she is the mother of two young children. WW>I want to buy some pre-school friends of mine some windows cd's...any ideas? LR> Sure! The Broderbund Living Books series is excellent. Just Grandma and Me was the first in the line and still considered very good. Arthur Teacher's Trouble is also quite good (this is my personal favorite). Some of the others include: The Tortoise and The Hare, Little Monster At School, Arthur's Birthday Party and Ruff's Bone. LR>Another excellent CD for youngsters is Tuneland. And one more suggestion is Lenny's Music Toons. This is geared to a somewhat older audience though. My son first got it when he was five and could do enough of what is in there to have made it a worthwhile purchase. SmartHouse (c.1994) by Derek Buchler As a forword, TCI, the nation's largest cable television Company, is in talks to launch a unique pilot project in conjunction with Pacific Gas & Electric Company. Microsoft Corporation is to design a "smart home". The home automation industry is expected to triple in size, from $1.7 billion this year to more than $5.1 billion by the year 2000. November 28, 1995 - Moved in at last. Finally, --we live in the smartest house in the neighborhood. Everything's networked. The cable TV is connected to our phone, which is connected to my PC, which is connected to the power lines, and all the appliances and the security system. Everything runs off a universal remote with the friendliest interface I've ever used. Programming is a snap. I'm, like, totally wired. November 30 - Hot stuff! Programmed my VCR from the office, turned up the thermostat and switched on the lights with the car phone, and remotely tweaked the oven a few degrees for my pizza. Everything nice and cozy when I arrived. Maybe I should have the universal remote surgically attached. December 3 - Yesterday, the kitchen crashed. Freak event. As I opened the refrigerator door, the light bulb blew. Immediately, everything else electrical shut down - lights, microwave, coffee maker - everything! Carefully, I unplugged and replugged all the appliances. Nothing. Called the cable company (but not from the kitchen phone). They refer me to the utility. The utility insists the problem was in the software. So the software company runs some remote tele-diagnostics via my house processor. Their expert system claims it has to be the utility's fault. I don't care, I just want my kitchen back. More phone calls. More remote diagnostics. Turns out the problem was "unanticipated failure mode" - the network had never seen a refrigerator bulb failure while the door was open. So the fuzzy logic interpreted the burnout as a power surge and shut down the entire kitchen. But because sensor memory confirmed that there hadn't actually been a power surge, the kitchen's logic sequence was confused so it couldn't do a standard restart. The utility guy swears this was the first time this has ever happened. Rebooting the kitchen took over an hour. December 7 - The police are not happy. Our house keeps calling them for help. We discover that whenever we play the TV or stereo above twenty-five decibels, it creates patterns of micro-vibrations that get amplified when they hit the window. When these vibrations mix with a gust of wind, the security sensors are actuated and the police computer concludes that someone is trying to break in. Go figure.... Another glitch: whenever the basement is in self-diagnostic mode, the universal remote won't let me change the channels on my TV. That means I actually have to get up off the couch and change the channels by hand. The software and the utility people say this flaw will be fixed in the next upgrade - SmartHouse v2.1, but it's not ready yet. December 12 - This is a nightmare. There's a virus in the house. My personal computer caught it while browsing on the public access network. I come home and the living room is a sauna, the bedroom windows are covered with ice, the refrigerator has defrosted, the washing machine has flooded the basement, the garage door is cycling up and down and the TV is stuck on the Home Shopping channel. Throughout the house, lights flicker like stroboscopes until they explode from the strain. Broken glass is everywhere. Of course, the security sensors detect nothing! I look at a message slowly throbbing on my PC screen: "Welcome to HomeWrecker!!! Now the fun begins.... Be it ever so humble, there's no virus like HomeWrecker..... I get out of the house. Fast. December 18 - They think I've digitally disinfected the house but the place is a shambles. Pipes have burst and we're not completely sure we've got the part of the virus that attacks toilets. Nevertheless, The Exorcists, as the anti-virus SWAT members like to call themselves, are confident the worst is over. "HomeWrecker is pretty bad," one tells me, "but consider yourself lucky you didn't get Poltergeist. That one is really evil". December 19 - Apparently, our house isn't insured for viruses. "Fires and mud slides-- yes ," says the claims adjuster, "viruses-- no." My agreement with the SmartHouse people explicitly states that all claims and warranties are null and void if any appliance or computer in my house networks in any way, shape or form with a non-certified on-line service. Everybody's very, very sorry but they can't be expected to anticipate every virus that may be created. We call our lawyer. He laughs. He's excited. December 21 - I get a call from a SmartHouse sales rep. As a special holiday offer, we get the free opportunity to become a beta site for the company's new SmartHouse 2.1 upgrade. He says I'll be able to meet the programmers personally. "Sure, I tell him"... Editor's Note! It's called freedom of thought! When asked for a bio and operating system preference...this was Derek 's response: "I don't use all of them (operating systems) but I've had exposure to all of them except for NT. I've played with MACs and decided that I wanted to think a little more while using a computer ! As for Unix - I was a network administrator for almost two years at my previous place of employment. Windows is cute but just not for me. OS/2 is where I really want to be but I don't have the hardware to support it yet at home. Did I miss any. --Have you looked for the door? lbl EDUCATION TOOLS FOR KIDS ( 1994 by Jerry Laulicht The deluge of software meant to educate children has just begun. A prediction -- expect an avalanche of promotion and hype about software to educate everyone in sight. For openers, the biggest focus will probably be on preschoolers and kids up to about twelve. I have no real idea why except that this is the group with whom Sega and Nintendo have had so much of their success. Maybe it's because they're the cutest! Or perhaps the reason is more serious--that these little people are seen as crucial if we are to educate more of our people successfully. Parents and grand-parents will be a key target because they are the buyers. It's difficult to imagine many kids clamoring for one of the latest programs which teach them arithmetic even though many of them could be using a "games orientation" to do precisely this. Just imagine, however, learning algebra or vocabulary partly through playing Id's Doom or Epic's Jazz. The potential market for both home and school is being re-examined and tested with great interest by large companies like Novell, IBM, Microsoft and Apple. Alliances are being made with small pioneers and experts in the field. Novell, for example, has contracted with the Waterford Institute to "co-develop programs for children aged 3 to 14". IBM has been continuing a serious effort to retain the major share of purchases by schools of both hardware and software. Many developers and sellers are paying attention to the simple fact that home market sales of computers are about equal to sales to business...right now. Educational programs seem to be one of the fastest growing software categories with much, perhaps most, of it being created by small outfits with experience in the field. The breakthrough in CD-ROM drives with their multimedia capabilities is providing a key impetus for a rash of efforts to educate everybody. The hope is that our thirst for knowing will create as large a demand as our thirst for entertainment. We will be told that it's merely a matter of making the right choices. The whole effort will be stimulated by the fact that two major authoring tools for multimedia programs are just coming to market with those features required to create exciting and informative learning presentations. These may give a big boost to both the quality and quantity of education programs making it possible for non-programmers to participate heavily in the creation of such programs. Other important skills will be brought to bear to develop positive learning experiences for both children and adults. WW plans to evaluate these tools soon. We would include an evaluation of their ease of use by people who have not been creating tutorials or on-line "help" documents but rather bring creative insight to teaching and mentoring. This surge of educational materials is not simply the result of breakthroughs in hardware prices, development of faster CD-ROM drives, and the much lower prices for CD software. These facts have no doubt helped to increase purchases of computers for the home. A number of other developments have paved the way for the hopes for educational software. The huge popularity and payoff of video games and their hardware. We're all resigned to crazy looking creatures flitting across little screens making strange sounds. Perhaps we are also ready to accept and demand somewhat more fun and individuality in learning. Schooling does tend to be rather grim and to ignore individual differences. By now, the weaknesses of our educational system have been endlessly discussed and a volatile mix of positive and negative attitudes has developed. There is a wild mix of optimism and pessimism about our capability to teach children, but we do keep telling each other how important it is that they learn. Its no surprise that we are looking to computers and the "nerds" for input and for useful solutions to some of the big and insoluble problems of education. And then there is the information super-highway with its own mix of facts, uncertainties, hopes and fantasies. It has become quite clear that the educational payoffs of this invention are some years off and that, in the interim, software using CD-ROM's is a key bridge. No surprise then that responsible adults who have computers will look to what they can do at home about helping to educate their children. THE GOTCHA' DILEMMA We have come to a core issue about this category of software-- a real gotcha'. How does one make sensible choices? We want programs for our kids which are useful and, at a bare minimum, do not turn them off. How does one determine which is the best of several competing programs? What is the best way to get information about what is available to meet a specific need? Can you as a consumer try before you buy? Where and how can you do this? For example, when I wanted an algebra tutorial for a 12-year old, I simply checked the holdings of a large BBS like Channel One and went from there. Are there any broad guidelines for choices? Where can you turn to get some good advice and information without a big time investment? These ques-tions make sense whether you are a caring parent, buying a gift, or recommending software for a school. Is the safest and best bet to buy a brand name? One can always check out the ads or ask friends who have already put their toes in the water. You can also turn to magazines which hopefully publish objective reviews (and carry ads!) on educational software, or even become part of the "bleeding edge" with the Internet. Lets save time by talking bluntly. Computer industry brand names have little meaning in choosing a reading readiness program for a little one or a math tutorial for your Nintendo expert. Their choice will always be one of their products. Producers of computers or network software may or may not be helpful in their choices for us. Advertising is ordinarily useful only as an indicator of the existence of a product and as a quick way to make choices. Asking someone you know is almost as time-saving. It also gives you someone to blame if the choice isn't so great or to promote to guru status if they smack it out of the ballpark. Software to learn by, however, is not cereal or soap. There is little reason to expect someone we know to have the knowledge about what to choose to meet a particular need. Unless they are near-experts, all they can do is tell us about the ones they chose or about a few options they happened to read about. We've all heard there are conferences about everything on the Internet. Good luck! I expect most of us who go to these newsgroups or conferences are in the same boat and needind some guidance. Among other things, you could well find yourself on a "home page" which enables you to quickly jump to mostly hype and more or less disguised ads. I have looked at a few magazines which focus on CD-ROM's and was not encouraged. The reviews tended to be trite and quite limited in scope, probably written directly from the fact sheets provided by the ad agency promoting the product. More puzzling is how to judge reviews from a magazine which depends upon these very companies for large parts of their revenue. Overall, it was more efficient to just scan the ads. I have not given up on all magazines, however, and hope to be able to provide some positive suggestions soon. So where else can one go for good advice which saves time. You enter somewhat into the realm of home schooling when you start guiding your children into using education software. You are liable to face the same problems again if you decide to take a more responsible and active role in their learning. Although teachers and schools would seem to be a logical source of advice, this is easier said than done unless you are very lucky. Few teachers have enough experience to provide useful help on software choices and few schools are even able to use software which demands more than conventional drives and limited memory. The hunt for anything close to expert guidance is not simple and straight-forward. You will have to sweat a bit with and for your kids. Like so much software, learning tools often do not come with lucid and easy instructions for installation and use. User friendly is a slogan, not always a reality. Its ironic but there it is as a fact--a good learning tool can come with mediocre instructions on its use. This merits some discussion since we do know that some computer tools are good enough to warrant the sweat of learning them. In many ways, the best bet of evaluating software for our own kids would be if we could rent them like video games--and buy those that will hold up with repeated use.... like a book. These programs open up the opportunity for individualized learning particularly if the author writes the software to meet the needs of various grade/age levels. Curious that you can rent films locally and nationally, or books on tape through an 800 number and perhaps through the Mall on the Internet --but not these--yet! Even though the costs are almost the same the newer technology product is only available the old-fashioned way. Many people might opt for a rental with an option to purchase. Would such an idea work for CD-ROM's? If it looked like there was enough demand for CD-ROM games and learning tools, some company might yet try this as a business. This is a less impractical and speculative idea than the wish that someone could invent the analogy to shareware for CD-ROM. Although this is much harder to envision, it reminds us that we have partially solved some knotty but analogous problems. We might be able to find ways of taking advantage of the new opportunities for the kids without having to rely primarily on advice and persuasion by sellers. This is, after all, rather new stuff and we should expect to have to devise appropriate ways to use and evaluate them. More than a little imagination has had to happen to make computers cheaper, to devise software learning tools and to make CD-ROM drives more affordable. Now we are ready for the next steps. We believe it important to examine the issue of the use of educational programs by schools and access to these tools for children who's parents cannot afford the rather powerful computers needed to use them. The potentials for use and impact have been barely touched upon by schools and libraries in many communities. Access is possible now without waiting for the information highway. Software aimed at teen-agers necessarily must deal with quite different challenges and problems. The use of computers in high schools also pose different questions to school boards, teachers and parents. Not the least of the problems is that so many high school youngsters have fallen too far behind many of their contemporaries. Finally, there are those adults who are no longer full-time students but often face huge demands for new learning--often self-imposed. There certainly is no dearth of tools being created for a very broad range of interests. Remediation software as well as skill training for adults is yet another fertile area to be filled by developers. We will put off further speculation along these lines until a later issue. A bit more about our intentions and some of our future plans, although this is still somewhat tentative. Feedback will influence us. As an aside, comments and advice on using the Internet to find good education software are welcome. Equally helpful would be suggestions about trade magazines which carry software reviews. It would be very useful if you could indicate your reasons. The questions we raise are but the tip of the iceberg because they speak to questions of a more universal use of computer technology by children while in school. It has been our observation, that hands on usage has been much more "show and tell" than ordinary and very normal daily contact . The EMail address is WindoWatch@ins.infonet.net and in the body of the message :attention Jerry Laulicht. We solicit your comments. Jerry Laulicht has a Phd in Sociology: Taught at the University of Pittsburgh until retirement. SOFTWARE UPDATE: BUGS (1994 by Peter Neuendorffer I got a large packet in the mail yesterday from Alice, the noted foreign correspondent, and my friend. It was waiting for me in my off-line mail reader --- more or less intact --but the lines were shortened. I pieced it together, and imbedded some multimedia sound effects like "Oh, baby" and "Now I am going to sleep" and video clips that were lying around -- scenes from Lawrence of Arabia, and the 1964 World's fair hit "To Be Alive". (These were shown on three screens in American parking lots and had three projectors.) "Dear Petsie [clip of sunset], I am working on a public service software program for the Feds. It is called - "Oh, baby! 'This is your computer on Bugs.'" It demonstrates what your computer does on Bugs. We hope to introduce it as a transient TSR in selected cities. Here are some of the 'funny' things it will do to a computer on Bugs: 1. Says it has three megs of free disk space when it really only has 200k. 2. Hogs OS memory after you run a program. 3. Creates "lost 45's" when the disk is full. 4. Leaves hidden files that you don't know about and are big. [ A clip of Lawrence of Arabia edited backwards] 5. You cannot install certain programs. 6. If you try Ctrl-Break, it will sometimes lock the system. 7. If you try Ctrl-C it will sometimes lock the system. 8. When the buffers get full, if you press a key, the computer goes nuts ["Now I'm going to sleep"] or locks. This happen after you have just written fifty pages and have not saved them. 9. You lose the cursor. 10. Informs you that a format is incorrect after formatting for fifteen minutes. Since all these things seldom happen on a normal computer, and never under Windows, 'Your Computer on Bugs' should be really fun. Thank God computers are reliable and easy to use. I keep an old 1994 Pentium around to test my work, because, if it works on an ancient clunker like that, it will run on anything. As always, Alice." goto table of contents (contuation ...) YOU FORGOT THE DOT...DUMMY!!Some have said that the death of the BBS is near at hand. If what I have observed over the last weeks is any clue to the future of BBSing, we may be seeing , an even larger segment of moxy computer users joining the Internet with their own style, values, and standards of excellence. At a minimum someone is sure to write a better off-line reader for old time Internet users connecting to VAX systems - poste haste -please! lbl Note: The Cobb Group is published monthly and is owned by the Ziff Communications Corp. go to table of contents STOLEN PHRASES and TAGS JM>I haven't really given PGP a good workout yet - I can't even vouch JM>that I extracted my key properly. And the PGP docs are heavy-reading JM>indeed - on a par with Forsburg's DSZ manual. Ever try that doc? It is JM>THE standard for cryptogook. anonymous And from Lars Svensen ------------------------------------ Earth is a beta site. ------------------------------------ N E X T I S S U E Vol 1 No.1 January 1995 Essays On Software Engineering:Software Bloat - Is It Here To Stay? ( 1994 By Herb Chong When I asked some months back if the very large sized Windows applications were a symptom of sloppy programming, Herb's response was - "Not entirely". Although quite surprised, my snappy comeback was "explain yourself" ! He did so, in one of the more literate documents I've ever read on the subject. "You should do an article on this subject", said I, with glowing after-the-fact wisdom, never suspecting it would be written for a not yet conceived WindoWatch. Herb sent me an electronic scrawl in response to my request for a paragraph or two on his "bloat" piece. His key headings More, Cheaper, Faster, and Sooner: Industry pressures to get "hot" software out the door as cheap and quickly as possible....and faster than the competition. RTFM (Read the Fine Manual) noting that few users do read the docs until forced into doing so. Imperatives like "I Want It Yesterday!" speak to ongoing industry pressures to stay several jumps ahead of the competition. Topics like "It Works. What More Do You Want? One really can't get the flavor of frustration on the part of users when encountering the various bugs produced by pressures of getting the product out the door without quite enough testing. We have all encountered sloppy setup.inf files wasting big amounts of time during the installation process that can drive one up a wall for too long a time. "We All Pay" in terms of software that doesn't quite accomplish what the PR hype purports it to do. Sometimes only a maintenance release many weeks later fixes the problems of buggy software. Herb queries "When Will It End?" No comment! The Future of DOS - What's in Store for DOS Users and Developers in the Coming Year..... (1994 By Paul WilliamsonSince the introduction of MS-DOS version 1.0 in 1981, DOS has gone through more than ten major changes. Version 1.0 was originally designed for the IBM PC and only supported single-sided diskettes. In 1983, version 2.0, the first major revision, was released which added support for a hierarchical directory structure and the implement-ation of fixed (hard) disks. 1984 brought versions 3.0, 3.1, 3.2 and the highly acclaimed version 3.3 to market, adding support for the 1.2Mb diskettes, Microsoft networking support, 3.5 inch floppy drives and disk partitioning. Probably the most powerful version of DOS came in 1991, with the introduction of MS-DOS 5.0. A few evangelists started proclaiming that the future of DOS is limited and that it will only be a matter of time before DOS is completely eliminated and replaced by Windows. Early in 1993, Microsoft announced their latest Disk Operating System, DOS 6.0. This version of DOS is very similar to DOS 5.0 simply because the base functionality of DOS 6.x is built on DOS 5.0, but that's where the similarity ends. DOS 6.0 became a full blown package of utilities and applications. It must be noted that most of the changes, at least the major changes, weren't made to the Operating System itself, but to the utilities and support modules for users to better use the existing operating system. Does this mean that DOS has reached the end of the line as far as core development goes? What more can be done? Inducing from the plans released by Microsoft, Novell and IBM for the software to be released within the next six to twelve months, it certainly doesn't appear that much serious development will be done on DOS as we know it. However, DOS isn't dead, and it won't die from lack of use either. According to published information from Microsoft, WINDOWS 95 will fully support the current implementation of the DOS and the DOS memory structure. WINDOWS 95 allows for an improved DOS VM as well as being able to create a stand-alone "real" DOS environment, which removes Windows completely - well, almost! "Support for MS-DOS based applications, device drivers, TSRs does not go away in Chicago. In fact, Chicago offers better compatibility for running MS-DOS based applications than Windows 3.1 does, including applications that are hardware-intensive, such as games. Microsoft ® Windows ™ "Chicago" Reviewer's Guide" In the premier edition of WindoWatch, we will briefly examine the details of the history of MS-DOS and what the future holds for DOS inside of WINDOWS 95. And......... Derek Buchler Paul Kinnaly Jerry Laulicht Angela Lillystone Peter Neuendorffer ww ww ww