6/10/95 CompuNotes Issue #12 Patrick Grote, Publisher and Editor CompuNotes is a weekly publication available through an email distribution list and many fine on-line networks! We feature reviews, interviews and commentary concerning the PC industry. +-----------------------------------------------------------+ |Hello! I am back from vacation! Very enjoyable! A couple | |of folks wrote to me needing some files. To them I say | |A) SAFPAK21.ZIP is now up on the FTP site and B) PKUNZIP | |and PKUNZIP.EXE are now up ont the FTP site. | | | |I am in desperate need of a LISTSERV or MAJORDOMO facility | |for the list! Can anyone help? Please let me know . . . | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ This Week's Contents: ===================== NEWS ==== *************************-=> IBM BUYS LOTUS <=-************************* -=> Web Crawler Sold <=- REVIEWS ======= -=> American Yellow Pages by Judy Litt <=- -=> On File! by Judy Litt <=- WEB SITE OF THE WEEK ==================== -=> You Can Author the US Budget <=- FTP FILE OF THE WEEK ==================== -=> Dragon's Bane <=- INTERVIEW ========= -=> Robert Vostreys, RNET Author <=- To subscribe, send a message to subscribe@supportu.com with subscribe in body. To unsubscribe, send a message to unsubscribe@supportu.com with unsubscribe in body. Comments should be sent to feedback@supportu.com. Voice: (314) 984-9691 BBS : (314) 984-8387 FAX : (314) 984-9981 All old copies available from anonymous FTP at ftp.uu.net:/published/compunotes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NEWS OF THE WEEK| This section is dedicated to verified news . . . All News (C)opyright Respective Owner - Will Only Reprint ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -=> IBM BUYS LOTUS <=- ARMONK, N.Y. and CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 11, 1995--IBM and Lotus Development Corp. today announced a definitive merger agreement under which IBM will pay $64 per Lotus share in cash for all of Lotus' outstanding shares and preferred share purchase rights. The transaction has a total equity value of approximately $3.5 billion. "We're delighted that Lotus and IBM have been able to reach an agreement so quickly," said IBM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. "This means we can begin moving ahead rapidly to bring our shared vision of team computing -- and its many powerful benefits -- to reality for our customers. I know I speak on behalf of all IBM employees when I say that we eagerly look forward to working with our future colleagues at Lotus and its industry partners. We have much to do, and we are anxious to get started." "We are excited about this opportunity to partner with IBM," said Jim Manzi, who will continue in his role as chairman and CEO of Lotus, reporting to Mr. Gerstner. "We intend to utilize our combined resources to expand our leadership position in communications software and advance our desktop software business. After careful consideration, Lotus' Board of Directors believes it has acted in the best interests of the company's employees, shareholders and customers. We now look forward to working with IBM to grow our customer base and set our collective sights on the market opportunities before us." Mr. Manzi will be named a senior vice president of IBM and will work hand in hand with John M. Thompson, senior vice president, IBM Software Group, to manage the transition and day-to-day interface between Lotus and IBM. Completion of the tender offer is conditioned on the tender of a majority of the outstanding Lotus shares and expiration of the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting periods. Additional details on today's announcement will be available on the IBM and Lotus Internet home pages (IBM: http://www.ibm.com. Lotus: http://www.lotus.com). -=> Web Crawler Sold <=- (Reuters) -- Envy isn't always a bad thing. It's making Brian Pinkerton rich. Two years ago, Pinkerton was a busy grad student who couldn't goof around on the World Wide Web like his friends. Pinkerton didn't have the time, but as a University of Washington computer sciences PhD. candidate he had the smarts and access to the department's Internet server. So he wrote a little program that probed the Web for new stuff and filed it away in a database that he could quickly search using simple keywords. Now it was his friends' turn to be envious. They pushed Pinkerton to put the program on the Web for everyone to use. He did, and Web Crawler was born. Last week Pinkerton gave his old buddies an even bigger reason to see green: he sold Web Crawler (http://webcrawler.com/) to America Online for more than $1 million. The deal is the latest match between creators of Web search tools and large, established online companies. On the same day America Online announced the Web Crawler deal, the company bought Global Network Navigator (http://gnn.com/gnn/gnn.html), a major Web information site, from O'Reilly & Associates for $11 million in cash and stock. Earlier this year, the creators of Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com/) -- themselves graduate students at Stanford -- hooked up with Netscape Communications, then raised $3 million in venture funding to turn the popular Web searching service into a company. Microsoft Corp., which is expected to launch its online network Aug. 24, has negotiated the rights to use the Lycos (http://lycos.cs.cmu.edu/) search engine created at Carnegie Mellon University. What's going on here? Commercial online networks such as America Online and Microsoft are hot for services that will help customers make sense of the maelstrom of information on the Web, said Michael Rinzel, with Jupiter Communication, the New York interactive services market research firm. With the number of Web sites increasing daily, it's no small task. ``Their experience with the medium has given them a unique perspective of what's important to customers,'' Rinzel said, ''and what's important is providing an organized idea of where to go, a menu of things to choose from so users aren't lost in the wilderness.'' With the kind of money America Online and Microsoft have stuffed in the bank, it makes sense to buy something that's already out there and perfect it, rather than develop something from the group up, Rinzel said. For Pinkerton, 31, Web Crawler had gotten too big to handle alone. In November 1994, seven months after Pinkerton loaded Web Crawler onto the Internet, the service had received a total of a million queries. These days, Web Crawler answers two million queries a week. ``The whole thing has been amazing,'' Pinkerton said. Web Crawler was consuming about 75 percent of the University of Wisconsin's computer science network before Dealernet, an Internet-based car dealer, bailed Pinkerton out by buying him a 486 computer. Starwave, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's interactive services company, became Pinkerton's second underwriter, allowing him to work on Web Crawler virtually full time. But it wasn't enough. Pinkerton still couldn't update Web Crawler's index of 200,000 Web sites as often as he liked, and he wanted to make it even easier for people to perform searches. So he shopped around and soon was talking to a handful of companies about funding or buying his baby. He teamed up with America Online -- even though Internet hardliners accused him of selling out -- because the company earmarked money to improve Web Crawler, offered him the job of running the operation and paid $1 million-plus up front, Pinkerton said. ``I did what was best for me,'' he said. Pinkerton recently moved Web Crawler to a bank of file servers at America Online's WAIS Inc. division in San Francisco. Searches are already faster, he said. Yahoo founders Jerry Yang and David Filo have temporarily given up their studies, but Pinkerton claims he'll finish his PhD. sometime next year, even though he's now living in San Francisco. Meanwhile he's thinking of buying a house in the Bay Area. Call it his Web Crawler dividend. (Michelle V. Rafter writes about cyberspace and technology from Los Angeles. Reach her at mvrafter(at)deltanet.com or mvrafter(at)aol.com. Opinions expressed in this column are those of Ms. Rafter) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ REVIEWS OF THE WEEK | Interesting software/hardware you may need . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -=> American Yellow Pages <=- Review by Judy Litt The American Yellow Pages cd-rom 1995 is compiled from more than 5000 Yellow Pages Directories. To ensure the information you receive is accurate, American Business Information makes more than fourteen million phone calls. Within a twelve month period, you can download 5000 company profiles. If you need more, there is an option to pay for more. Installation The installation went smoothly, even though I did get what is termed a "severe error". I use Dashboard as my shell. When the installation procedure complained it didn't recognize my shell program I ignored the warning. I've installed a great deal of software with Dashboard running, and never had a problem. The next thing I saw was the message "severe error - could not open progman.exe." However, the installation finished and everything worked. I also normally ignore any installation instructions. I usually go into file manager, open up the floppy (or cd-rom in this case) drive, and doubleclick on setup.exe or install.exe. American Yellow Pages comes with a demo version of Sharkware (contact management software). When you open up American Yellow Pages in file manager, there are two setup.exes - one under the root directory, and one under a subdirectory called SW. Which one do you use? It turns out you use the one under the root directory; the other is the Sharkware demo program. My only problem with the installation was the amount of space occupied on my hard drive: almost 10 MB! I've never liked cd-roms that don't allow you to run the program off the cd-rom. I realize that this slows down performance, but for little used programs the space freed is more important to me than how long it takes to retrieve information. Video American Yellow Pages does not come with a manual. There is a short video included. You can be up and running without viewing the video. I'd only open the video if you're confused; the majority of the video is a sales pitch. ABI sells several other products, and they're not shy about letting you know about them. Much of the video is actually a sales pitch for ABI's products. The video also claims that American Yellow Pages is "the single source of information on many businesses." I don't totally agree with that statement, as you'll see in the following. The Program American Yellow Pages has a very simple interface. There's a toolbar at the top of the screen that allows you to search, clear, change options, get industry counts, access American Business Lists Online, access Data Times Online, find out about other ABI products, exit or get help. The setup options show you how many inquiries you have left, and give you the option to add more inquiries. This is where you can turn hints and tool tips on or off. The Industry Counts is a very interesting feature. You can find out how many, say, graphic designers are in every state in the nation. You can begin searching either by choosing a yellow page heading or a company name. You can also narrow down the search by limiting it to a certain state, city, county, or zip code. It's really very simple. The program will then show you all the companies that match your criteria. With the matches, you have several options: you can view the records, check to print or download, print, download, or cancel. You get more than just an address and phone number with each match: SIC code, brand carried/specialty, size of ad in Yellow Pages, years listed, telephone number, and address. Let Your Fingers? I had several problems with the information on the disk. I did a search for my own business, which had its first yellow pages ad in this year's directory. Not only did it fail to find my business, but it didn't even have one of the yellow pages headings that my listing is under: desktop publishing. I was also hoping this cd would solve a problem I've had. I've been trying to return something to a company. I've e-mailed and written to them, but so far they've ignored all my efforts. I didn't have their phone number, and I was hoping I could get it from this cd. No such luck - it did not recognize this company. Conclusion It seems to me that the uses of this cd-rom are limited. When I do direct mail, I like to have a contact name, not just a company name. Also, the fact that I couldn't find a company or listing on the cd-rom that I know are listed in the Yellow Pages makes me wonder about its accuracy. The cd is easy to use, and has a simple interface. It also lets you try out contact management software that can be used in conjunction with the listings. I'm sure I'll find some uses for it. SRP: $149.00 Street Price: $49.00 System Requirements: DOS 5.0 or higher Widows 3.1 or higher 4 MB RAM 4 MB available disk space CD-ROM Drive MSCDEX 2.1 or higher American Business Information 5711 S. 86th Circle P.O. Box 27347 (402) 593-4595 FAX (402) 331-6681 CompuServe: None URL: None -=> Onfile <=- Review by Judy Litt It's everyone's recurring nightmare _ a client/boss/spouse wants the file you worked on a year ago revised. You know you dutifully backed it up - but where? And what did you name it? You've run into the PC 8.3 wall. How It Works OnFile uses a book metaphor. Files are arranged into books; the books are separated into chapters and topics. A book might represent a directory, while the chapters might be subdirectories. Topics are always files. You can choose to set up books manually, or let OnFile do it automatically with autobook. I tried the autobook feature, since I have all of my client files set up as subdirectories under one client directory. 137 MB of files took approximately ten minutes to catalog. After using autobook you can go in and change all of the chapters and topics. You can have each topic accompanied by a thumbnail of the file or the icon of the program it is associated with. There is even an option to include the beginning text from the file in the description automatically. OnFile did a good job with my files, with one exception: it didn't recognize either one of my page layout programs - PageMaker and Quark XPress. Both of these programs got classified as database programs. However, when I dragged and dropped a file from Quark, everything worked as it should. Which brings me to another point: OnFile supports OLE 2. You can drag individual files from file manager and drop them onto a chapter. You can even drag programs' executable files from file manager, and drop them into a new book. Then you can launch the program from within OnFile. Viewing OnFile allows you to view files, even when you no longer have that particular application loaded. The viewer program supports fifty different file formats, including the most popular word processing, spreadsheet, and graphic formats. This also allows you to print out files when you don't have the application the file was created in loaded! Updates OnFile will automatically update your books for you. Every time you open your book, it will ask if you want to update it (you can turn this feature off if you'd like). Conclusion OnFile is easy to learn and use. My only real complaint is that there is no way to create a new file with a long file name; you can only rename already existing files. OnFile could even work as a program manager replacement, although I find the interface a little awkward in that respect. I use Dashboard as my shell, and I will probably keep on using it. Windows 95 (affectionately known as Winever) may make OnFile obsolete, since it will support long file names. On the other hand, the ability to see and print your file without opening the corresponding application is truly unique. SRP: $49.95 System Requirements: 4 MB RAM 5 MB available disk space Widows 3.1 or higher VGA or higher display Software Publishing Corporation 3165 Kifer Road P.O. Box 54983 Santa Clara, CA 95056-0983 (408) 986--8600 Voice CompuServe: GO SPCFOR URL: None ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WEBSITE OF THE WEEK! | This section is devoted to a cool WebSite . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ For Release: May 30th, 1995 For more info, call: Nathan Newman (510) 452-1820 Anders Schneiderman (510) 643-8293 ccer@violet.berkeley.ed Center for Community Economic Research The Federal Budget Gets Wired: Citizens on the Internet Can Now Play Senator On Interactive Budget Simulation Berkeley, CA: Taking interactive civic education to a new level, UC-Berkeley's Center for Community Economic Research (CCER) today demonstrated a new on-line National Federal Budget Simulator that lets anyone on the World Wide Web try their hand at bala ncing the budget. The simulation is located at: http://garnet.berkeley.edu:3333/budget/budget.html Going beyond the rhetoric and headlines of budget choices, this simulation allows Internet users to control a whole range of budget choices, submit a budget, and interactively see the changes in the federal deficit. Internet "Senators" can get into the nitty-gritty of controlling mass transit spending, weapons procurement, national parks allocations, and social welfare spending and see results of cuts in all areas of the $1.5 trillion budget. Additionally, Internet "Senators" are given interactive control of the $455 billion in "tax expenditures" in the federal budget. Some have called these tax deductions the largest hidden entitlements of the federal budget and this simulation demonstrates how adding them into the budget debate opens up far wider possibilities for balancing the federal budget. Other features of the simulation include: Generating automatic bar charts that lets you see the results of your budget choices Line-by-line printouts of the results of specific categorical cuts or increases Links to analyses of the federal budget on the Internet from a variety of perspectives The ability to view an "Internet Budget"--the tabulation and averaging of all successfully balanced budgets on the simulation. The National Budget Simulator is part of the ongoing work of the Center for Community Economic Research to promote economic and civic literacy through interactive Internet tools. "The Internet has a lot of flash and glitz, but most of what is on the Wo rld Wide Web are cute toys," notes Dr. Anders Schneiderman, CCER's co-director. "This National Budget Simulator is one of the first tools on the Internet that really takes advantage of the interactive nature of the technology to enhance civic education." The Center's Economic Democracy Information Network (EDIN) project has supported and trained a whole range of community organizations in getting on-line and helped bring their voices to the Information Superhighway. The EDIN project has been cited in sou rces ranging from USA Today to The Nation. PC Computing declared the EDIN server (located at http://garnet.berkeley.edu:3333/) one of the 29 "Highlights of the Internet" in their September 1994 issue. The Center is also an ongoing consultant to the Association of Bay Area Governments in getting cities and government agencies in Northern California on-line "The next challenge for those dedicated to information access and democracy," said CCER co-director Nathan Newman, "is to create tools that make economic policy choices clear to the public. Numbers gets thrown around by politicians and we are working to create the tools and the links to background information that will allow citizens to 'get under the hood' of those numbers." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ COOL FTP FILE OF THE WEEK | You may need this file . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dragons Bane: Mah Jongg II Solitaire Game Addictive tile solitaire! Dragons Bane: Mah Jongg II is a second generation version of the popular tile solitaire game. It supports both SVGA and VGA graphics and SoundBlaster sound effects. A wide variety of tiles are available and an editor is included to make your own. The original "dragon" layout is just one of many arrangements possible and with the built-in layout editor there is no limit to the possibilities. Extensive record keeping is possible for those who like statistics. Requires VGA or SuperVGA (VESA 1.2 and others supported) and 1 meg expanded/extended memory. Mouse and SoundBlaster supported but optional. You can find this as DRGNBN10.ZIP on the following FTP site: WUARCHIVE.WUSTL.EDU:/pub/MSDOS_UPLOADS/misc/drgndn10.zip ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK | Interesting people you should know about . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This week we talk with Robert Vostreys. Never heard of him? That's ok. He is the reason that QWK based networks exist in the PCBoard world. With his program RNET, more than a thousand PCBoard sysops can share messages among themselves without worry of bugs, dupes or crashes. Robert also runs a very successful BBS, Father Than Light, and has brought some neat ideas on sysoping to the tables! PG: No one can just "do computers" all the time. Do you hit the golf course? Play a little ping pong? What? RV: Actually, I do "do computers" all the time. Ok, I do go out to the movies occasionally, I read science fiction when I make the time, and about once a month I drive a long haul truck route. I have a nice telescope, but haven't used it in years (sigh). I'm kinda like Scotty from Star Trek -- for a vacation I read technical manuals. PG: What other shareware products do you offer? Commercial programs? RV: While 90% of what I've put out for Sysops is in the public domain, there are two shareware programs (two that I ask for registrations for): RNET and TXT2MSG. As for commercial software, I have a number of serious utilities for PCBoard/Sysops including: UUFTL File Decoder, Email MX processor, Ping/Finger/Telnet/etc (TCP/IP service doors), NNTP Poller, WWW/FTP Server, AutoFTP, and SLIP/PPP doors. As you can see, the direction lately has been toward Internet TCP/IP and Usenet based packages. In the non-BBSing realm, I write commercial database applications (usually for mailorder and inventory systems) and finance company accounting/database software. Accounting software was the primary focus for several years but has given way to running the BBS full time for the past two years. PG: Do the words Pearl Jam mean anything to you? What type of music are you in to? RV: Er, is that anything like Grape Jam? I don't think grinding up pearls would be very tasty. Based on your second question, I'll assume it's a music group of some type. I like Classic Rock and usually loud when driving. Cream, Floyd, Zepplin, etc. I also like classical and folk music. I don't like anything with a 3/4 beat. PG: How is RNET selling? Well enough to live off of? If not, what do you do for a living? RV: It has been dropping off (as expected). It is a VERY limited market product -- only used by PCBoard/Prodoor Sysops who want to be part of a QWK based echo network. While it has many useful features beyond its echo abilities, nobody but that small market has any excuse to look at it. It was originally written to get around the problems with the only other existing tosser at the time. The author was very unresponsive to getting things fixed so I had to write something. Roger Sligar also had the same problems with his board so I gave it to him. He convinced me to put it out as shareware to provide Sysops with a solution to the problems they were facing. I expected to get maybe a dozen or so registrations in a year. However, it had a dozen registrations in the first week and went from there. All the registrations have gone directly into the board and its expansion. It was due mostly to RNET that the board remained a free access system for seven years. What do I do for a living? I "do computers" . I do contract programming / consulting, sell hardware, and drive the occasional long haul truck route to get away from it all. However, things are changing. I and several others are in the middle of putting together a corporation to act as an Internet Service Provider and software development company. And you can be assured that it'll be very "Sysop Friendly" since I, being a Sysop, have a good idea what pains Sysops have to go through. PG: Ok. Just like everyone asks a car reviewer or mechanic what kind of car they drive, what is the configuration and type of your primary PC? RV: My personal machine is a 386/40, 8mb RAM, 260mb HD, SVGA. If you are asking what the BBS runs on, it varies from a 286/12 that just won't die up to a pair of 486/100's running OS2 Warp. It drives some folks crasy that I have mostly 486's here and yet still use a 386/40 that doesn't even have a power switch (it has never been turned off since being put together). PG: Are you afraid that Clark Development will incorporate the functionality of RNET into PCB at any time? They have done that with Fido technology. RV: Nope, not at all. If PCBoard (or another product) did what RNET does, then RNET wouldn't be needed anymore. I didn't write it to sell, and I don't keep writing it to make anything. It continues to exist and expand soley for the benefit of the Sysops who need it. If it wasn't for habit and my liking to know folks are still getting use of it, it would be freeware. Clark Development has implemented many of RNET's features specifically because of RNET Sysops asking for them. A perfect example is the PCBPACK /THreashold command. PG: Your also a pretty insightful sysop, define the Information Superhighway in your own words. RV: It's a toll road that leads into a hay stack looking for a needle. RV: The problem is that there is no intelligent filtering of the vast amounts of information available. Information overload. The next big step in software technology will be the software ability to search, analyze, and filter information of any and all types to find what someone is looking for without swamping them. As binary indexed databases made a difference, followed by GUI interfaces and applications generators, the next leap will be filter technology. All this information is just great -- but it takes forever on to impossible to find the best answers to your questions. You may find an answer somewhere (manually searching), but is that the best answer? Is there a better, more complete, more up to date answer somewhere else you haven't looked? Software search and filtering technology will be required before the true value of the "Information Superhighway" is seen. I believe that with the development of the software technology to search and filter the information available, the "Information Superhighway" will change definition to mean those tools themselves. PG: The QWK format has undergone very little changes over the years. Do you think it is ready for an overhaul? If so, in what areas? If not, why not? RV: QWK not changing isn't for the lack of need. The only real reason QWK hasn't changed is due to the originator of the QWK format (which is simply the PCBoard 12 message base format with a few extra fields) dragging his heels and being unresponsive to suggested changes. QWK needs to die. It no longer suit the needs of Sysops nor of Users. However, it has mass and momentum. Various other formats and systems have come out, but none have taken hold as well as QWK. It's advantage was it's timing on the market. The BBS community (that which was not on Fido technology already) was ready for echonetworks. It provided the means of accomplishing that. That's where it stopped. While better mouse traps (including RNET) have come along, they're still mouse traps. As for reader technology, QWK is in even worse shape than network wise. PG: I'm a sysop of a BBS. What are the top five things I can do to attract paying callers? RV: I've run a free (donation) system for the last 8 years so I don't really know the answer to that one. I'll make some common sense guesses: 1. Support your customers (users). Use voice support lines, be professional, answer all questions in a timely manner. Listen very carefully to what your customers tell you. 2. Know your market. You need to know what the users in your area are in need/want of and try to provide it. If your users are mostly into games, provide games. If your users are mostly into files, get lots of files. 3. Advertize. Doesn't matter if you have the best system in the world if nobody knows about it. 4. Have a style or a primary purpose. A "general, do everything" system is undefined and just like any other. Have a unique system style or focus without losing compatibility with the general marketplace. 5. Price your services well. Pricing too low or too high will discourage users. If your system was $1/year, folks will not feel there is anything worthwhile or you are not serious. If you price at $500/year, you'll have very little in the way of customers and/or have a very limited nitch market. END OF INTERVIEW ---------------- This issue was brought to you by Readables, the publishing house that understands you! +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Tired of pumping money into your BBS? | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ |THE BBS CASH MACHINE is a book written by a sysop who has experience | |running a profitable BBS. With over 10 years sysoping experience, | |you'll gain the knowledge and know-how to attract .- ~ ~ -. | |and keep paying customers to your BBS! .~ ~. | | / \ | |Even if all you want is for your BBS to break | .o~o~o~o. | | |even, the author shows you how! 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