Copyright: © 1995 Ziff-Davis Interactive
Citation: © Copyright 1995 Ziff-Davis Interactive, All Rights Reserved


In this Issue
	March 1995 Issue Number 20 © Copyright 1993-95 Ziff-Davis Interactive, All Rights Reserved.
	Newest Titles What’s new and exciting this month.		How to Download from ZiffNet
	Reviews This month’s feature reviews.		About ZShare and ZiffNet
	Toolkit True Type Fonts and Utilities.
	Zips and Zaps Comments from Timothy Campbell.
	Author Spotlight: Gary Elfring The author of ESF’s TrueType Collection I


How To Download from ZiffNet

If you are a ZiffNet member on CompuServe or PRODIGY, you can easily download all of the programs mentioned in this publication. If you are not already a ZiffNet subscriber, you can find out how to join by selecting "Becoming a ZiffNet Subscriber" below:

Becoming a ZiffNet Subscriber

ZiffNet/CompuServe

All of the programs mentioned in ZShare are available directly from our Software Center (GO ZNT:SOFTLIB) or in one of the Public Brand Software Forums  (GO PBS). The correct forum is indicated in each program highlight, along with the specific library in which it can be found.

ZiffNet/PRODIGY

All of the programs can also be found on the ZiffNet for PRODIGY service. Simply [JUMP]: ZiffNet and select “Software Library” from the menu. Then perform a search--“Find a Specific Title”--for the program you are interested in.

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Become a ZiffNet Subscriber

Anyone with a modem and communications software can discover for themselves everything ZiffNet offers. It’s easy! CompuServe members can simply type GO ZIFFNET. If you are not currently a CompuServe member, just follow these easy steps:

1. Set your communications software to 7 data bits, even parity, one stop bit. Select a data transfer rate (bits per second) of 1,200, 2,400, 9,600 or 14,400 bps. Have your modem call the local ZiffNet number. (To find your local ZiffNet number: by modem, dial 800-346-3247 and at the User ID prompt type PHONES; by voice, dial 800-635-6225.)

2. Respond to the prompts by entering the information below:

When you connect: Press CTRL+C

Host Name: CIS
User ID: 177000,5555
Password: ZIFF*NET
Agreement Number: SREVIEW

3. Register your name and credit card number for billing.

You will receive your permanent User ID and temporary Password online. Write them down and use them to log on. You will receive your permanent Password within 10 days, as confirmation of your new ZiffNet membership.

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Newest Titles

Below are some of the newest additions to our libraries. These files are available for downloading on ZiffNet for CompuServe and ZiffNet for Prodigy.

Downloading from ZiffNet

Ziff-Davis Originals

ZDI’S STUPID STATS PACK 1.0

CompuServe: GO PBSUTIL, Library 8 (ZDI Exclusives), and search for ZSSTAT.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

This utility/screen saver chart such ‘vital’ information as mouse movement and mouse clicks.

ZDI’S PCWEEK KATT SCREEN SAVER v1.0

CompuServe: GO PBSUTIL, Library 8 (ZDI Exclusives), and search for ZKATSS.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

The sly wit of PCWeek’s Spencer the Katt cartoons comes to life on your screen.

ZDI’S FREEFORM LITE v1.1

CompuServe: GO PBSUTIL, Library 8 (ZDI Exclusives), and search for ZFFLIT.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

This development tool--for Liberty Basic users--makes writing Windows apps easier than ever.

DEFEDIT

CompuServe: GO TIPS, Library 2 (PC Mag Utilities), and search for DEFEDI.ZIP

Set a default editor for document files with extensions not associated with a particular program.

Utilities

FCALC

CompuServe: GO PBSPRO, Library 9 (Financial-Personal), and search for FCALC.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

This great menu-driven utility will meet all your financial calculation needs.

EXIT MANAGER

CompuServe: GO PBSUTIL, Library 4 (Windows), and search for EXITMN.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

Exit or restart Windows--or reboot your system--from a convenient icon or any menu.

IC2

CompuServe: GO PBSUTIL, Library 6 (Desktop Tools), and search for ICTWO.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

This contact manager is easy to learn, feature rich, and network ready.

Games

CANNON FODDER

CompuServe: GO PBSARC, Library 7 (War & Strategy Games), and search for CANNON.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

MVP Software’s hilariously addictive war simulation game.

PLAGUE OF THE MOON v3.5

CompuServe: GO PBSARC, Library 5 (Fantasy Games), and search for PLAGUE.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

This macabre 3-D adventure game is state-of-the-art RPG.

Recently Updated

WINZIP v5.6a

CompuServe: GO PBSUTIL, Library 4 (Windows), and search for WINZIP.EXEP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

Award-winning archive program adds support for Internet TAR, gzip formats--and more.

DOOM-IT

CompuServe: GO PBSARC, Library 12  (Game Adjuncts), and search for DOOMIT.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

Setup and run all your DOOM and DOOM II games--Heretic, too!--with frightening ease.

PAYROLL CALCULATOR v5.0

CompuServe: GO PBSPRO, Library 8 (Financial-Business), and search for PAICAL.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

This professionally prepared application now supports 1995 calculations.

Downloading from ZiffNet


Reviews Contents Page

Games

	Bible Baseball Biblical Batter Up!
	WinWar II Practice World Domination

Sports

	College Basketball Pool Manager Track the NCAA Tournament
	Sport Card Catalog for Windows More Than Just a Hobby

Consumer

	CarTest My Chevy Can Beat Your Ford

Professional

	BusinessCards Keep Track of Your Business Contacts

Graphics

	Illuminatus Multimedia Publishing Shines for Everyone
	NeoPaint Graphics Editing at a Great Bargain

Utilities

	DiskPie A Tasty Resource Utility
	New Menus for Windows Improve Windows’ Efficiency Now


Bible Baseball

Reviewed by Russ Lockwood

If your sense of biblical history comes from watching “The Ten Commandments” or “The Life of Brian,” you may want to download a copy of Barbor Software’s Bible Baseball. This Windows-based Bible trivia game uses a clever baseball metaphor to pose questions about the Old and New Testaments.

The game is between the Pharisees and Sadducees teams, although you may type in a different name. The Bible ballpark stretches across the screen, complete with what looks like the Phillies Phanatic mascot in the lower right corner and the inevitable “John 3:16” sign in the stands. Teams run on and off the field, but this isn’t a particularly sophisticated piece of animation, and you can turn it off.

Radio buttons offer you multiple-choice questions with four levels of difficulty: Single, Double, Triple, and Home Run. The harder the question, the more you advance around the bases. A Single question would be something like, “What did God do on the 7th day?” while a Home Run question asks you to “name the beggar that sat at the rich man’s gate.” The program blasts WAV cheers from the speaker for correct answers and a consoling “Awwww” for incorrect ones. Unlike other trivia games, Bible Baseball does not provide the correct answer for missed questions. Instead, you pull down the help menu and select the reference option. This opens a dialog box that tells you where to find the answer in the Bible, e.g., Luke 16:20 for the beggar’s name.

Remember, this is a trivia game, not a baseball simulation. There’s no playing the infield in, outfielder shifts, bunting, or leading, and certainly no suicide squeezes or stealing. A game lasts the standard nine innings.

Bible Baseball 2.4 is a 665K download that takes up 900K of hard drive space. Registration is $5. Although the animation needs some refining, the program offers Bible trivia fun in a clever way. And directing you to the Bible for answers you missed is a nice educational touch.

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

Robert Barbor; Shareware, $0-$5; 2111 Carol Lane, Norristown, PA 19401

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSARC, Library 11 (Jokes & Trivia), and search for WINBB.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

Main Reviews Page


WinWar II

Reviewed by Susan Borden

World domination is an art form requiring patience and lots of practice. The patience part is up to you, but WinWar II is a Windows war game that can help you with the practice. Much in the style of games like Risk or Axis and Allies, WinWar II depicts the conflicts of the major powers of World War II. Each player represents one of the countries of that war. The Allies consist of the United Kingdom, United States, Russia, and France, and the Axis are Germany, Italy and Japan. In the unregistered version, there can be only one human player, but the registered version allows multiple human players.

The game is played on a world map divided into six tiles, two rows of three tiles each. You can only view one of these tiles at a time. To view a different one, you must click the area you want to see in the world map residing in the lower right of the screen. Each tile contains a grid of 10 by 10 squares, each square representing a portion of a country. Unit movement is measured in squares. Moving one square costs one movement point, and moving diagonally costs 1.5 movement points.

The objective of WinWar II is to accumulate victory points by conquering different cities--and each city is assigned a numeric value. The winning strategy is unique: If the Axis powers hold more than 140 points of city value at the end of a particular play, they win the game. If the Allies hold the Axis powers to lower than 50 points at the end of a turn, the Allies win.

Cities are conquered by moving land units into the square of the city. In order for land and naval units to move into squares containing the enemy, they must attack--the results of which can be unpredictable. The more cities one side owns, the closer they are to winning the game.

Since your strength lies in the number of units that you have, it’s important to know that there are two methods of building units in this game. One way is to select a city you own with a factory that hasn’t exceeded its build limit--a city’s build limit is equal to its numeric value. For example, since London has a numeric value of 6, the United Kingdom is allowed to build up to six units each turn.  If you build naval units, you must position these units in a sea square adjacent to the factory. You can also build units one at a time. The Build menu choice allows you to build infantry, armor, fighter, bomber, transport, submarine, carrier, or warship units if you have enough points.

There are two game options that greatly effect what strategies are used. You can choose to view the units that are adjacent to yours, allowing visual access to enemy locations. Or you can choose to not see the enemy, allowing for more surprises during the game. This option gives experienced players greater challenges after mastering the game.

The registration fee for WinWar II is $25. You can purchase network additions so you can play with friends and co-workers--as long as the boss doesn’t find out. This game requires the Visual Basic 3.0 runtime module, which you can obtain from the Software Library.

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

Silicon Commander Games; Shareware, $25; CompuServe# 71662,210

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSARC, Library 7 (War & Straegy Games), and search for WINWAR.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

Main Reviews Page


College Basketball Pool Manager

Reviewed by Ron Bel Bruno

Ask the co-worker who managed last season’s college basketball playoff pool if this dubious distinction was fulfilling. Chances are that person would rather sit on a bed of broken glass and nails before assuming this burden when it’s time for this year’s NCAA Division 1 tournament. And when you consider what kind of work must go into managing this venture, such masochism is hardly surprising.

College Basketball Pool Manager v1.2 might make the pool manager get up from that bed o’ nails and consider a second tour of duty. This slick and well-organized Windows pool management program provides everything you or some other lucky soul would need to manage the NCAA Division 1 men’s tournament pool. The software oversees all aspects of handling a pool, from creating and printing the initial tournament pick sheet to distributing the final standings to both elated and miserable participants alike.

You start the season by first downloading a pool template (from one of the several major local BBSs the author has uploaded the template to, or from the GO FANS forum on CompuServe). Onto this blank, reusable template, you enter your regional titles and team names. Using the Configuration menu, you can customize pool documents with the typeface, point size, and shading options of your liking. From this menu, desired point weights for each phase of the tournament are also set.

Once participants have written in their choices and returned their completed pick sheets, it’s time to type in their selections. The easy pull-down edit menu gives you a window for adding or deleting teams, participants, or regions. Once you’re done making these inputs and edits, the Freeze Edits option password-protects this information. Even with this option chosen, you can still add in your game-score data throughout the entire tournament.

As the tension mounts, you’ll want to print out Participant Standings Reports to mount over the water cooler--not a problem. In fact, with their attractive fonts and shading options, these attractive line charts could trick you into thinking you’ve booted up a project management application.

The program requires 2MB of RAM, (4MB recommended) and a mouse. And one more important installation instruction: You’ll need the venerable VBRUN300.DLL before you even dream of walking away with first-place accolades. This Visual Basic file is widely available most online services, if it’s not included with the software.

Variations of this software include a DOS version (upon request from the author), and an upcoming womens’ tournament tracker. The program is a boon to any sports enthusiast’s game-tracking efforts, and ensures that you’ll spend more time watching and enjoying the games and less time totaling up endless statistics.

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

Vitek Enterprises; Shareware, $15; (810) 471-5919

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSHOME, Library 8 (Sports & Nutrition), and search for CBP.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

Main Reviews Page


Sports Card Catalog for Windows

Sport Card Catalog for Windows

Reviewed by Ron Bel Bruno

Americans collect everything from stamps and coins to seemingly worthless matchbook covers. But of all the things to collect, sports cards are fast becoming the most popular and lucrative. Sport Card Catalog for Windows organizes your sports card collection and tracks its value.

Unlike many shareware programs, this isn’t simply a baseball card-collecting application. In the past 20 years or so, many other sports, including football, basketball, hockey, boxing and wrestling, have added their own cardboard contributions and have become extremely popular. Consequently, the software features a “Sport” data field into which you plug the sport of your choosing.

Sport Card Catalog’s principal data screen appears as a 2-page spread of a spiral-bound notebook. Each 1-line entry includes the card’s year, number in its series, sport and brand. Using the sort button located at the screen bottom, you can rearrange the entries according to any of these criteria. Thus, you can put all of your hockey cards in 1 list, followed by baseball, football, and so on. However, you can’t sort by a second criteria within that list. So if you want to sort by sports categories first, then by years within each category, you’ll have to set up separate files for each sport.

Clicking on any individual entry will take you to another 2-page notebook spread, which gives you more detail about each card. You can additional information here including the type of card (is it a team, individual or action shot?), team member’s position, team name, team member, the price you paid for the card and the date your bought it and its current value. If you’ve sold the card, there are also entries for the sale price and date.

The above data-input screens leave you little to actually think about when entering card data. If, for instance, you’re logging in data for a Bob Griese football card, once you’ve selected “football” as the sport, the software loads possible options into each category. Consequently, you need only select “quarterback” from the positions list, “Miami Dolphins” from the team list and so on. And of course, if you’ve got a Jackie Robinson card from his Brooklyn Dodgers days, you can input his relocated team manually.

For the more business-minded collector, the program’s summary screen totals how much you’ve invested in card purchases against sale revenues. Furthermore, both expenses and income are subcategorized by card brand; the percentage of your total income/outgo each brand comprises is also tracked by the summary function.

Other features include a search function that can probe through all fields, or a selected year or brand. Though you can print an entire catalog, the program offers little flexibility in how you do this. It only prints all entries, and all categories for each entry. Furthermore, it does this in paper-wasting 1-column format. Despite this 1 drawback, Sport Card Catalog remains a valuable piece of software for card collectors.

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

PrimaSoft; Shareware, $15; (204)943-4020

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSHOME, Library 8 (Sports & Nutrition), and search for SPORT.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

Main Reviews Page


CarTest

Reviewed by Thom Foulks

While car-shopping in California, programmer Patrick Glenn realized he was unhappy reading the unequal standards used by automotive magazines in comparing automobiles. So, he wrote his own program to provide objective comparisons based on comparable data.

It’s called CarTest, and it can help you analyze your automobile--or one you may buy--and compare it against more than 600 other vehicles already in CarTest’s database (through late 1994). The testing is not just lists of abstract numbers, but well-designed DOS graphics (EGA/VGA) that can show you (among other things) up to six autos in a quarter-mile drag race.

It’s a fascinating graphic to watch, because CarTest expands time so that you can see what actually happens during such a race. There’s “clutch dump,” wheelspin, the brief pauses of shifting, even the potential stall as some economy models show they’re not built for such grueling action. (Expanded time is not real time; hence, the racers don’t dash across your screen too fast to see. An onscreen clock shows you the simulated time of the race, by factors you can revise.)

The speedster in the database is the McLaren F1 1994, screaming from 0 to 60 mph in 2.63 seconds. Hotrod fans can enjoy a competition against such a demon by entering specifications for their own “dream” car, and pitting it against such autos as the McLaren or the Jaguar XJ220. Dodge Caravan owners can feel better if they also include, uh, maybe the Volkswagen Eurovan into their onscreen competition. (Both at least make it to the finish line; we’ll not mention the 1987 Yugo GV in this context.)

Although the straight-line, maximum-acceleration computer simulation is CarTest’s most fascinating item, it has numerous other graphic displays. One is the standing-start-acceleration for a given car, which displays a tachometer and a speedometer so that you watch real-time action as the chosen vehicle lunges forward to its top speed. It even has simulated sound (quieter, thankfully, than the real sound of such action in some vehicles)! As the needles spin upward, a graph plots the vehicle’s acceleration in speed and G-forces (G’s).

There are also graphs of various performance factors, such as acceleration curves, standing vs. rolling start acceleration trials, fuel economy (for each transmission gear), and others. Some of them are intended for actual racing use--only a racer really needs to know if “clutch dump” or “brake torquing” is the fastest way off the starting line for a given vehicle, or what the vehicle’s estimated “skidpad” and “slalom” performance (in G’s) is.

If your comparison vehicle is not in CarTest’s database, you can enter it. The data you need includes engine, drivetrain, and chassis/body information, which most manufacturers publish with the technical documentation available from any dealer. For the engine, as an example, you need displacement, type (turbocharged?), horsepower, torque, compression ratio, maximum RPM, transmission type and other facts you likely already have in your owner’s manual. You can save input time by copying information from a similar vehicle, then personalizing it as necessary.

Programmer Glenn’s help screen information is superb, and F1-key help is present for nearly every menu (a utility function allows you to print all help screens). He explains the results shown by various comparisons and their significance to overall vehicle performance.

He also cautions, frequently, that such simulated testing cannot take into consideration real-world environmental factors such as altitude, road surface, and weather. But he also provides a menu where you can vary such data for your simulations.

There’s nothing special about installing CarTest. Even with data on 603 vehicles, you’ll need a little less than 1MB of hard drive space and a minimum of 462K of free memory, along with a EGA/VGA monitor. If you register this version for $20, you’ll be sent a disk (so you can be assured of the latest info), and you get the next version free, along with an updated data file of the latest model cars.

If you’ve ever been an auto enthusiast, you’ll enjoying just tinkering with CarTest. You can watch the Dodge Daytona Trans-Am Racer and Lamborghini Diablo SE take on the McLaren in a drag race. Then, put them through an acceleration test, revise the road conditions to a 7 percent hill, and see who wins...

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

Glenn Patrick; Shareware, $20; P.O. Box 4213, Palos Verdes Peninsula, CA 90274

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSEDU, Library 11 (Reference), and search for CARTST.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

Main Reviews Page


BusinessCards

Reviewed by Timothy Campbell

BusinessCards for Windows is a “free-form” database. Whereas most databases force you to fill in specific fields, a free-form database is more like a self-indexing notepad: It accepts each record’s data in whatever form you decide to use. As its name suggests, BusinessCards is useful for storing basic information about business contacts, but it can organize any type of textual information. Such information can in turn be associated with other types of information, including picture data.

In some ways, the program resembles the Cardfile application that comes with Windows. Indeed, it can read and write Cardfile databases. However, in lieu of Cardfile’s “Rolodex” format, BusinessCards presents you with a virtual three-ring binder, complete with alphabetic index tabs.

The pull-down menu provides the following options: File, Edit, Card, View, Format, Options and Help. As you might expect, “Help” calls up a Windows Help file that explains how to use BusinessCards, although you probably won’t need to refer to this very often.

“Options” lets you configure the program to suit your operating style. You can customize the toolbar, set the save and backup options, and adjust the parameters for importing and exporting databases (either Cardfile or comma-delimited format).

The “File” option opens, saves, or prints databases. (To get you started, two sample databases are provided.) It also lets you specify the sort order for the data. “Edit” provides the usual Undo, Copy, Paste, and Select features, and also lets you attach one or more files to a record (more on this feature later).

The “Card” option lets you Insert, Append, Duplicate, or Delete cards (i.e., records). “View” helps you navigate around the records. One helpful feature is “Contents,” which provides an overview of the data. The table of contents can be expanded and contracted in various ways so that important records are only a mouse-click away.

The “Format” option lets you choose the way the data is represented: font, alignment, centering and color.

The program is very attractive, with excellent visual cues, yet it does not overwhelm you with meaningless doodles. It is truly intuitive, making good use of the cards-in-a-binder paradigm. For example, when you attach one or more files to a record, the attachments are represented by a little paper clip affixed to the card. Click on the clip and you see a list of the files. Select one of the files, click on the Launch button, and the file is opened according to its type. This feature elevates BusinessCards from a simple database to a versatile organizational tool. In fact, since it is so easy to associate cards with files and programs, you could even use BusinessCards as a program manager!

BusinessCards 2.1 was written by Michael Dvorkin of San Bruno, Calif. The $29.95 registration fee brings you the latest version. You also get the next major upgrade free and receive discounts on subsequent versions. Registered users are entitled to 90 days of technical support and receive a complimentary copy of the game BrainCubes.

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

Michael Dvorkin; Shareware, $29.95; (415) 588-5877

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSAPP, Library 5 (Database), and search for BCARDW.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

Main Reviews Page


Illuminatus

Reviewed by David D. Busch

Illuminatus 2.0 is a versatile desktop presentation/multimedia publishing application for Microsoft Windows that lets you combine graphics, video, animation, text, sound, and other components to produce automatic, self-paced, or interactive productions of up to 500 separate frames.

You can play back your presentations using this version of the program or, if you purchase the full version for $149, productions can be compiled and published as standalone Windows applications that may be distributed freely. Illuminatus has enough bells and whistles to please intermediate multimedia producers, yet is simple enough to use that beginners can jump right in with no trepidation.

You’ll find this a great tool for building complete computer-based training programs, business presentations, or even something as novel as a personalized, animated greeting card. Mini-productions can be thrown together so quickly that you may find yourself in overkill mode, using Illuminatus to send colleagues multimedia memos.

The multimedia assembly process revolves around a Publication View window, which displays thumbnail images of every page in your production. You can insert new pages from those available (the full version includes hundreds of options), or create your own from scratch. Illuminatus uses Windows’ own Paintbrush and Write applications, so you can modify graphics or enter text quickly, without having to learn a new set of commands.

The thumbnails can be cut, copied, or moved as desired using Windows keyboard shortcuts or simple drag-and-drop techniques. Customized buttons can be inserted on any page to let the viewer jump to a specific page; launch an animation, video, or separate slideshow; play a sound; or even launch another program. Buttons can be made “invisible” so they’ll serve as “hot spots” on the screen (a great tool if you’re using Illuminatus to build a computer adventure game!).

Tabbed dialog boxes, a handy buttonbar with pull-down lists, and lots of online help make Illuminatus a snap to learn and use. For example, you can preview a presentation by clicking on a button with a projector screen icon, or move forward or backward one page at a time or in fast-forward/reverse mode by clicking on VCR-like arrow buttons.

It’s easy to build productions that branch from one page to another based on the user’s answer to on-screen questions, or through a browsing facility that you design. Publications can also be protected with a password, so you can leave a computer unattended in continuous display mode with fewer worries about accidental or intentional interference from viewers.

Although Illuminatus will run on any Windows-based PC, a 486DX2/66 or better is recommended for faster operation. If you like this program, you’ll want the full version for $149 plus $5 handling, which adds many backgrounds and templates, along with the compile and publish capabilities. If you’ve tried an earlier version, this latest release has some slick new tricks to produce faster running, more compact presentations. Pages are preloaded into memory as much as possible, and during compilation, Illuminatus looks for duplicate pages and stores only one copy of each in the final publication.

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

JASC; Shareware, $149; 10901 Red Circle Drive, Suite 340, Minnetonka, MN 55343

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSSTU, Library 3 (Media Tools), and search for ILLUME.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

Main Reviews Page


NeoPaint

Reviewed by David D. Busch

NeoPaint 3.0 is one image editor that doesn’t require a bleeding edge CPU or 16MB of RAM to manipulate 24-bit color files efficiently. If your IBM PC-compatible has a 286 or higher processor, a megabyte or two of RAM, VGA graphics, and a mouse, you already have everything you need to work with TIFF, PCX, GIF, or BMP files.

This latest version of NeoPaint offers high-end image-editing features, including multilevel zooming, natural media tools like Oil and Watercolor Brushes, cloning, and an astounding array of special effects. As DOS-based program with its own graphical user interface, NeoPaint is able to squeeze all these features into a lean application that occupies just one megabyte of your hard disk space and runs in 640K of RAM.

You can view and edit multiple images simultaneously, using a toolkit that overflows with useful brush, airbrush, gradient, smudging, and blending tools. A magic marker, charcoal pencil, quill pen, stamp pad, and crayon are available for cyberartists. There are also Bezier line and multiple polygon tools and clever 3-D cube and pyramid tools.

A row of tool icons just below NeoPaint’s Windows-like menu bar at the top of the screen provides access to most features. You can click on an icon to select that tool, or click a second time to summon a drop-down list of options. Pop-up palettes make it easy to select line width, colors, and other parameters.

When you select an area of the image to zoom in on, a smaller image of the whole picture appears for reference. Zoom ratio can be continuously adjusted by a handy slider control. Special effects that can be applied to selections include emboss, soften, screen, smear, pixelize, blur, fade, and nearly two dozen more. If you make a goof, just click the Undo button.

The 256-color and 16-million-color modes at resolutions up to 1,024 by 768 require a supported VGA card. (Most VESA-compatible chipsets--including ATI, Cirrus Logic, Oak, S3, Trident, Tseng, Video Seven, and Weitek boards--are included.) If you happen to have an extra megabyte or two of RAM, NeoPaint can even use your EMS or XMS to keep very large images in memory; otherwise, your hard disk is used as virtual memory for these files. Some 400K of NeoPaint’s program code can be accessed from EMS (rather than loaded from your hard disk when needed) to speed up execution even further.

At $45 plus $5 shipping (less than 10 percent what most high-end image editors go for), NeoPaint is an incredible bargain. The program comes with 15 fonts; three 720K disks with more typefaces are available for $20. It is also furnished with NeoGrab, a screen-capture utility that alone is probably worth the registration fee. (Using NeoGrab, we managed to grab some screen shots from “The 7th Guest” CD-ROM game after leading commercial utilities had tried and failed.)

NeoPaint makes a lot of sense for many different users. If you’re already running Windows but don’t have enough RAM, hard disk space, sufficient processor power, or a big enough budget for a high-end image editor, NeoPaint may be a good fit. DOS-only users, 286-system owners, or organizations with a mixture of older and newer PC platforms can standardize on one powerful program without sacrificing sophisticated features.

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

NeoSoft Corp.; Shareware, $45; (503) 389-5489

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSSTU, Library 3 (Media Tools), and search for NEOPNT.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

Main Reviews Page


DiskPie

Reviewed by Timothy Campbell

Disk space is a precious commodity, and since we never seem to have enough of it, we welcome any utility that helps us manage this important resource. DiskPie is an add-on to the Windows File Manager that shows you how your disk space is being used. The information is presented in the form of a pie chart, with each “slice” representing a directory. You can click on a slice and see a new pie chart for the files in the corresponding directory.

Installation is very easy. The installation program (SETUP.EXE) creates a program group for DiskPie’s READ.ME file, then displays a short introductory screen. If you like what you see, you click on the “Install” button, and DiskPie is added as a pull-down menu in the Windows File Manager.

The DiskPie menu provides the following options: New Pie Chart, Options, Help, About, Register, and Remove. The latter two options let you either purchase a fully registered copy or delete the utility from the File Manager. “Help” and “About” provide information about the product.

“Options” lets you determine how disk-space usage is displayed: as a percentage, in kilobytes (or megabytes, if appropriate), or with no explicit space information. The latter choice may sound odd, but since DiskPie is visually oriented, you can determine at a glance how much space a file or directory is using, relative to the other items. “Options” provides two other settings (“Show filenames” and “Enable delete”), which will be described later.

The best way to get familiar with DiskPie is to select the root directory of your hard disk, then select “New Pie Chart.” It takes a few seconds for the chart to appear, because DiskPie must scan the hard disk and perform many calculations. After this short delay, you see a multicolored pie chart depicting the entire hard disk, including free space. The main disk-space “hogs” are clearly labeled. You can click on one of these to take a closer look at the gluttonous directory.

As you experiment with DiskPie, you are bound to discover that several directories are taking up more room than they are worth. (In our evaluation run, we found many such directories, and a few huge files that we didn’t need.) If you select “Show filenames” in “Options,” you can use DiskPie to delete files--or entire directories. This is a powerful and potentially dangerous ability, so you cannot delete files or directories unless you have enabled this function via “Options.”

DiskPie 1.0a was created by Zorn Software of Amsterdam in The Netherlands. It can run in English, German, or Dutch. Registration is $15 (U.S. dollars). The program is both elegant and intuitive, making it an invaluable addition to your toolbox of system-management utilities.

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

Zorn Software; Shareware, $15; CompuServe# 73134,2177

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSUTIL, Library 4 (Windows), and search for DISKPI.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

Main Reviews Page


New Menus for Windows

Reviewed by J.W. Olsen

New Menus for Windows 1.41 is a Windows shell, somewhat similar to the window managers of X-Windows GUIs like Motif and OpenLook. It also provides a glimpse of some of the look and feel you’ll find in Microsoft Windows 95, the announced successor to Windows 3.1. The number of features will genuinely amaze you--particularly given the paltry $20 registration fee.

At its heart, New Menus is a replacement for Program Manager in pop-up form. You access it at any time with the right mouse button. Note that this means if you have other programs that rely upon the right mouse button--a growing trend, especially for context-sensitive help--you lose access to that functionality.

The program’s main menu can have unlimited submenus, with menu items that can be programs, documents, or function calls. Each menu item contains a text description and icon, as in Program Manager. Like almost everything else about New Menus, the icon and font of menu items are configurable. To make the transition to New Menus as painless as possible, during installation the contents of your Program Manager groups are added as New Menus menu items.

Submenus can be “torn off” the main menu and placed on your desktop to use as a button bar. These button bars are dynamic, supporting drag-and-drop from File Manager. With menu items, you can do more than launch a program or open a file. You can declare keyboard macros or call system functions of Windows or DLLs. Whole submenus can be executed as batches. From a Tasks submenu, you can switch between applications, hide them, or terminate them. Another submenu lets you switch between installed printers, and drag files to print to a specific printer. A History submenu lists previous commands, which you can execute again.

Other available function calls are restarting Windows, rebooting DOS, and quitting Windows to run a DOS app and automatically returning to Windows when done--great for temperamental DOS games! Still other function calls save all documents in all applications, close all apps, and provide additional services too extensive to list.

Apart from its menu system, New Menus also implements the popular virtual desktop concept. You can create up to a remarkable 64 desktops and quickly switch between them.

Another distinct area of New Menus functionality: When you click a program’s drop-down menu with the right mouse button, it can be torn off the application and placed where desired, ready for instant access.

New Menus supports different configurations for different users that are stored in separate INI files and loaded as Windows command-line arguments (e.g., WIN CHRIS.INI). Network system administrators can define and enforce configurations applicable for all users.

We’ve just tapped the strengths of New Menus here. The more you explore it, the more versatility you discover. If you’re interested in a fresh approach to Microsoft Windows, check out New Menus. Just proceed with care, as we encountered occasional oddities (such as failure to recognize one floppy drive on a test system). You may find New Menus for Windows just what you need--and for $20, you can’t go wrong. But even if it isn’t for you, the opportunity to explore this intriguing product can be worth the download.

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

BMT Micro; Shareware, $20; (910)791-7052

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSUTIL, Library 4 (Windows), and search for NWMENW.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

Main Reviews Page


Toolkit
TrueType Fonts

by Scott Arpajian

You know they’re bad for your system, but one more can’t hurt, right? Just this last one, and then you’ll stop. Hey, these things are safe. You can quit at any time. But soon enough, you’ve got to face the facts: You’re addicted to TrueType fonts, and you need help—fast.

In many ways, TrueType fonts are like a drug for your PC. Sure, they’re fun, and sometimes the good ones can give your documents and spreadsheets that winning edge. But if you use too many at once, your system gets overloaded and performance suffers tremendously. Soon, you’ll see Windows slow down to a painful crawl. It’s not pretty.

TrueType addicts, fear not! We’ve assembled a toolkit of top-notch utilities and applications to aid you in avoiding the symptoms of TrueType font overdose. You’ll find programs to help you manage your font collections, print catalogs, and even edit font attributes and data. We’ve also thrown in a couple of our favorite fonts. We think you’ll like them, too. Be careful, though, and know when to say when.

Font Monster

CompuServe: GO PBSSTU, Library 5 (Font Tools), and search for FMONST.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

The font wizards who put this beast together weren’t joking when they named their behemoth of a program. Font Monster is a gargantuan collection of font utilities and tools, bundled together in a single package. Just about anything you need to do with your existing font collection can be accomplished with this program.

Here’s a quick list of just some of the features Font Monster provides:

•	Preview fonts before installing them.

•	Edit font data, right down to the nitty-gritty details, such as copyright notice.

•	Create and maintain font groups to minimize the number of fonts you have loaded at one time.

•	Print a catalog of installed fonts.

•	Print sample pages to display all of the available characters in a font.

•	View and edit the kerning pairs.

Like Frankenstein’s Monster, this program is a patchwork of parts. It’s not going to win any awards for User Interface Design, and at times the cutesy graphics seem overdone. Navigating your way through the program’s menus and dialogs is confusing, and you might find yourself wandering through the menus a little too often. The lack of an intuitive and clean interface is the only thing keeping Font Monster out of the Shareware Hall of Fame. That leaves this program in the “Once you get used it, you’ll love it” category.

Font Monster is a $25 shareware program from Leapin’ Lizards. It requires the Visual Basic 3.0 runtime module.

ZDI’s WinFont Pro

CompuServe: GO PBSUTIL, Library 8 (ZDI Exclusives), and search for ZWFONT.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

It always feels a little sleazy to push your own, but Ziff-Davis Interactive has an excellent font management utility. Although it’s not as comprehensive as Font Monster, it does one particular job well: organizing and maintaining your fonts.

Most people’s font troubles boil down to a simple problem: too many fonts. Because each font you install in Windows eats up a tiny bit of memory, having more fonts than you really need will quickly spell serious trouble. You can avoid this sinister fate by taking advantage of WinFont Pro’s Album feature.

By storing your fonts in albums, you can manage entire groups of fonts with mere mouse clicks, freeing up system resources when necessary. Are you doing some serious number crunching and don’t really need to have 10 different styles of “Futura Extra Condensed” loaded on your system? By setting up an album of the bare minimum Windows default fonts (Arial, Times New Roman, Symbol, and Courier), you can free up the memory you need. Want to work on a desktop publishing project? No problem; simply load your master album again, and all of the fonts on your system will be at your fingertips.

In addition to giving you the capability of managing your fonts in albums, WinFont Pro allows you to quickly and easily install new fonts, and even preview them beforehand.

FontShow

CompuServe: GO PBSSTU, Library 6 (Fonts), and search for FNTSHO.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

Having problems remembering the difference between Caslon and Cooper? Do you want a printed catalog of all the fonts you have installed on your system? If so, you need to get your hands on a copy of this utility. FontShow lets you print sample pages of all your Windows fonts (ATM, True Type, etc.) or view them on-screen. You can quickly produce index sheets to help you wade through even the largest collection of fonts. FontShow is a $15 shareware program and requires the Visual Basic 2.0 runtime module.

RISS Font Packs

CompuServe: GO PBSSTU, Library 6 (Fonts), and search for RISSF1.ZIP, RISSF2.ZIP, RISSF3.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

These three separate collections of TrueType fonts from Rhode Island Soft Systems will add punch to just about any document. Most of the fonts are of the decorative variety, meaning that they’re perfect for headlines, bulletins, or fliers. Included in the packs are fonts like Ice & Snow, which has capital letters covered in snow. Confetti is another festive font; it’s perfect for party invitations and announcements. If you want to give your documents a decidedly informal look, check out the HandPrinting font from Pack 3, which prints letters as though they were written in pen and ink.

Elfring Soft Fonts TrueType Collection

CompuServe: GO PBSSTU, Library 6 (Fonts), and search for ESFTT1.ZIP

Prodigy: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Find a Specific Title”

The unofficial master of shareware fonts is Gary Elfring. In this collection, Elfring Soft Fonts presents  12 quality TrueType fonts for Windows 3.1 and WordPerfect 6.0. Among the fonts included are Aapex, Century, Cursive Elegant, Fritz Quad, Old English, MicroStile, and Zap Chance. A setup program comes bundled with the fonts for easy installation. As an added bonus, Elfring Soft Fonts includes a brief tutorial on font terminology and history. It’s an entertaining and thoughtful touch to this excellent package of fonts.

Author Spotlight on Gary Elfring


Zips and Zaps

Zips and Zaps is a monthly news and opinion column by Timothy Campbell, who has been writing shareware since 1986. In this column, Mr. Campbell presents his observations on computing, with particular emphasis on shareware and the online community. The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of Zshare or Ziff-Davis Interactive.

It’s Big Out There

In the science fiction series “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” Douglas Adams proposed a fiendish device known as the “Total Perspective Vortex” that would enable you to visualize the vastness of the universe and at the same time achieve a full understanding of just how small you are. Mercifully, science has not yet produced such a devastatingly potent ego-smasher. However. . . have you been on the Internet, lately?

As I mentioned last month, I am now taking my first cautious steps along the information highway. It’s a humbling experience. Whereas television makes the world seem smaller, the Internet reinflates it. You can be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information and services.

Let me give you an example. I hooked up to a service known as RTFM.MIT.EDU. (EDU means that it’s an educational institution. MIT is the Massachussets Institute of Technology. RTFM stands for “Read The Furnished Manual” or something like that.) I was looking for a file about my favorite TV show (“The Simpsons”). After half an hour of searching, I decided to download the index. Now came the shocker: The index was 1.8 megabytes! Printed out, that would be over 800 pages. Remember: That’s just the index!

At every turn, you’re confronted with the massive scale of the Internet. There are directories of services, but they’re so huge that people are now compiling directories of directories. Before long, we’ll need directories of directories of directories of. . . well, you get the idea.

I now have a better understanding of the term “net surfing.” Just like somebody who’s shooting the curl on his surfboard, you’re riding atop an ocean of information so wide and deep that the experience is both terrifying and exhilarating.

Easy Once You Know How

Last month I mentioned that it was time-consuming to get the necessary communications tools to hook into the Internet. Two days after I wrote that, salvation came to me--via FedEx--in a plain brown carton labeled “Internet In A Box” (published by SPRY Inc., in Seattle, WA; phone, 206-447-0300; E-mail, iboxtech@spry.com). Internet In A Box gives you, in one fell swoop, everything you need to get up and running: TCP, Newsgroup reader, WWW browser and. . . well, if you already know what those things are, you don’t really need to be reading this.

I won’t claim that everything worked perfectly. Indeed, I encountered a few problems that encouraged me to use software modules from other sources for some functions. Nevertheless, it was a relief to get everything I needed without having to search all over. Moreover, the documentation is very detailed, taking time to explain the fine points to those of us who don’t know a TCP from a hole in the ground.

So now I’m plugged in and snazzy. I’ve travelled the world from the comfort of my living room. I even set up my own “Home Page” on the World Wide Web (http://www.cam.org/~pinnacl, if you care to look). What joy!

Now that I’ve clawed my way up the learning curve, I have some advice for those of you who are planning to hook up: Find somebody who already did it. Believe me, there’s just too much to figure out by yourself--even if you have a ready-made solution like Internet In A Box. For example, its TCP program (the thingy that makes the actual phone connection) didn’t work reliably with my local service provider. Fortunately, my friend Diane already knew of this problem and suggested an alternative, which worked liked a charm. You know, at first I was embarassed to ask for help, since I’m supposed to be a computer whiz. Diane doesn’t know how to program and isn’t too comfortable opening up her computer, but she’s my Internet guru. So before you go net-surfing, find somebody who has already been through the trials and tribulations. No, I won’t give you Diane’s phone number.

How Virtual Can You Get?

Back in 1971, when I was in high school, one clever fellow in our computer club announced that he was going to write a program that would allow you to enter and run BASIC programs. This came as somewhat of a surprise, since the only language available to us was BASIC. “What language are you going to write this in?” we asked. “BASIC,” he said.

I was reminded of this story when I read, on page 58 of the January 1995 issue of Connect magazine, that there is now a BBS game named Virtual Sysop, which lets you run a simulated BBS. Let’s go through that again: You dial up a BBS, start the game, and run a simulated BBS. Got it?

You can connect your simulated BBS to other simulated BBSs via a program called VS-Net. Now the simulated BBSs you hook up to are not simulated on the host BBS; they’re simulations on other BBSs. So you are actually networking with real simulated BBSs rather that virtual simulated BBSs. You with me so far?

If so, you can download a copy of Virtual Sysop from the TBBS support system at 303-699-0205. That’s a real phone number, by the way, so you’ll need a real modem.

More Power!

During World War II, my father worked in the airplane industry in England. He tells me that they had a saying: “Given a powerful enough engine, we can make even a tea-tray fly!” Indeed, throughout the war airplane engines evolved accordingly (from about 900 horsepower in 1938, to over 2,000 horsepower by 1945).

We find the same kind of thinking in the computer industry. Given enough power, we can make even Windows fly! (Or, as some people call it, WinDoze) “Work harder, not smarter” seems to be the philosophy.

On page 90 of the February 1995 issue of Scientific American there’s an informative article about how manufacturers are striving to make smaller microchips. Since electrical impulses dawdle along at about the speed of light, smaller means faster, and faster means more power to display those saucy JPEG pictures you downloaded.

As I’ve mentioned before, I get by with an old 33-Mhz 386 machine. As a result, I can’t run some of the new games, which frees up more time to watch TV or discover the meaning of life, depending on my mood. I sometimes wonder if our relentless quest for more power blinds us to other avenues of endeavor.

When the Berlin Wall came down, the United States eased up its restrictions on transfer of computer technology to the Soviets. One might think that all we’d get in return is vodka, woolly hats, and those cute nesting dolls. Not so. It turns out that because the Soviets were using computer technology that was--by our standards--out of date, they had developed mathematical tools that were far more efficient than those used here. Even our supercomputer jocks wanted a crack at the Russian algorithms. They wanted to work smarter, not harder.

I know all this. I’ve tried to take these lessons to heart. But I still want a 200-Mhz Pentium with laser bus video, 10 terabytes of RAM, and a modem so fast it can receive a file even before I know I want it. I think it’s a male thing.

Curl Up With 50,000 Volts

Do you remember when you were in school and the teacher would tell you, “Sit up straight and pay attention”? Well, I spend most of my day perched on the edge of my chair, bolt upright, staring at my computer screen. So at the end of the day, I like to relax in the bath with a nice book or magazine--not a cathode ray tube.

The most obvious reason for bathing with a book rather than the tube is that a CRT has a little transformer inside that builds up a rather horrendous voltage. Now, I’m the kind of guy who scoffs at those labels which read “Caution! No user serviceable parts inside!” and I have the broken radios to prove it. But one day, while I was adjusting the control yokes inside my video screen, my hand happened to brush against something chock full of electrons eager to find an easy path to mother earth. Let me tell you, the sensation was quite unusual. I couldn’t type for the next five minutes. I couldn’t even wave.

I’d hazard a guess that baths and high-voltage equipment are a poor combination. But even if you read in bed, where voltage isn’t as much of an issue, how do you hold a 30-pound CRT on your lap? Not much chance of drifting off into dreamland when your legs are pinned down like that. Moreover, there’s the question of the keyboard. I suppose you could perch it on your bedmate, but that might have negative repercussions.

I once designed a file viewer program that would let you “flip the page” by clicking a mouse button: left button for forward, right button for back. So, given a long extension cord for the rodent, we’ve got half the solution.

Fortunately, the other half of the solution is just around the corner. You can now buy a “virtual reality” headset that projects an image of the screen in front of you. At the moment, these headsets are a bit impractical; in terms of size and weight, it’s sort of like wearing a watermelon. But with computer stuff getting smaller all the time, it won’t be long before we will be able to peruse some text in a comfortable, recumbent position.

I’m looking forward to that. Among the many advantages is that you won’t have your ears shattered by your bed partner hollering, “Will you shut the #$%*! light off!” Of course, there’s always a chance you’ll fall asleep while connected to an expensive pay-by-the-minute data service. Whatever the scenario, somebody ends up happy.

Talk to Me!

If you have any comments about this column, or if there’s something more interesting that I should be writing about, drop me a line via E-mail. I’m at 72241,2052 on ZiffNet/CompuServe. All letters will be answered with a prompt and often courteous reply.


Author Spotlight

Gary Elfring

Author of ESF’s TrueType Collection I

Name

Gary Elfring

Computer System

I have an old 486/33 and a new Dell 90MHz Pentium, 16 megs of RAM, 1 gig hard drive, quad-speed CD-ROM, #9 128-bit video card, 17-inch monitor, 14.4 fax/modem, HP ScanJet, HP LaserJet 4M Plus, and an HP DeskJet 560C.

Programming Hours

9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. On a very few big projects, I have actually worked from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m., seven days a week, but that gets old fast. The whole point of working on your own is to enjoy life.

Favorite Programming Snack

I almost never eat while working. I do drink tea (both hot and iced). If pressed, I would opt for Cheddar Cheese Pretzel Combos, probably one of the worst nutritional things available on this planet.

Favorite Shareware Program (Excluding Own)

PixFolio

Favorite Shareware Font

David Rawokski’s Dragonwick

Marital Status

Married 15 years, three children. I’ve even made fonts out of my children’s handwriting.

Make and Model of Car

Saturn SC-2 sports coupe

Last Non-Computer Book Read

Taltos by Anne Rice

Favorite Vacation Spot

South Island, New Zealand

Favorite Movie of All Time

Treasure of Sierra Madre

Other Hobbies/Interests

Bicycling (I ride about 1,000 miles a year--a great deal of which is done during my lunch “hour”) and wood working.

Favorite Pizza Topping

A proper deep-dish Chicago-style pizza. In a deep pan, place in order: dough, solid sheet of cheese, solid sheet of sausage, and top with tomatoes and mushrooms.

Predicted Release Date of Microsoft’s “Windows 95”

September 21, 1995. First bug-fix release that offers a workable version: January 7, 1996

I approached a computer career in much the same backward manner so many other software authors have discovered. While working on a master’s degree in Medical Engineering, I was assigned to lab space that included a PDP-8 computer. One thing led to another and soon I was hooked on computers. After several years of applying computers and electronics to medicine, I moved on to consulting.

Elfring Consulting, Inc. was formed in 1979 and originally specialized in developing embedded systems (intelligent products with computers hidden in them). During my consulting career, I: wrote a book (“MicroComputer Assembly Language Programming”); wrote numerous magazine articles on software; taught a series of computer programming seminars for McGraw Hill throughout the United States, Canada , and Europe; and developed many different computer-based industrial and consumer products.

While performing this consulting work, I purchased my first laser printer. I needed the printer to produce those fancy reports that clients seem to judge by weight and not content. I was not satisfied with the available font and utility selection for this printer and went on to develop my own. At the same time it dawned on me that it might be much easier to keep selling the same software over and over again, rather than starting from scratch as you do for each new consulting customer.

In late 1985, I released my first shareware product, ProIndex. This program made indexes for books. It was a great failure, since most people only needed to use the program once. My next shareware package, The Date Utilities, also failed. After that, I started releasing shareware collections of fonts for laser printers. These collections eventually became quite popular. The company name changed when customers started calling for those “Elfring Soft Fonts.” I later expanded into TrueType scalable fonts and now also market several independent artists’ clip art. Numerous retail versions of Gary’s fonts and clip art are available. One retail package made it onto PC Magazine’s Best Selling Applications list three separate times last year.

I served three years on the ASP board of directors, and was chairman of the board of directors for one year. I have also served on STAR’s board of directors and ran the ASP’s trade-show booths for several years.

Elfring Soft Fonts

  	PixFolio

Dragonwick


Elfring Soft Fonts
ESF’s TrueType Collection I

Elfring Soft Fonts gives you a collection of 12 quality TrueType fonts for Windows 3.1 and WordPerfect 6.0. The fonts include: Aapex, Century, Cursive Elegant, Fritz Quad, Old English, MicroStile, and Zap Chance. You can easily install the fonts using program's setup function. In addition, Elfring Soft Fonts includes a brief tutorial on font terminology and history.

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

Elfring Soft Fonts; Shareware, $25; PO Box 61, Wasco, IL 60183

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSSTU, Library 6 (Fonts), and search for ESFTT1.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

ESF’s Holiday Clip Art

ESF's Holiday Clip Art is a collection of black-and-white, line-art cartoon images in PCX file format. The 300-dpi scans are for general holidays and include some all-purpose images suitable for parties, birthdays, and other occasions. Thirty images are included in this sampler, and you receive 50 additional ones upon registration. A thumbnail catalog of the PCX files can be sent to a laser printer during the installation process.

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

Elfring Soft Fonts; Shareware, $25; PO Box 61, Wasco, IL 60183

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSSTU, Library 6 (??), and search for HOLIDY.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

   Author Spotlight


Pixfolio
PixFolio Image Catalog System

PixFolio Image Catalog System lets you view a wide range of common graphic file formats to create and print your own catalogs. You can open 20 common file types to resize, crop, dither, rotate, and mirror an image and save it in nine different formats. Also, the program enables you to browse your catalogs to view thumbnails of each graphic and display slide shows. PixFolio is compatible with the Windows Clipboard, and convenient icon buttons are provided. Registration options include AVI and PhotoCD formats in addition to online help and a comprehensive user guide.

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

Allan C. Kempe; Shareware, $35-50; 502-543-3438

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSSTU, Library 4 (Graphics Tools), and search for PIXFOL.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

   Author Spotlight


Dragonwick TrueType Font

Dragonwick TrueType Font is an unusual and attractive font in the spirit of calligraphy. Wide, exaggerated upper case characters are offset by compact, neatly penned lowercase letters in medium bold. Dragonwick lacks some punctuation and extended characters; however, some additional, alternate characters are included. This very readable and eye-catching font will add a touch of drama and style to many of your projects.

CONTACT/DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

David Rakowski; Shareware, $4.99

COMPUSERVE: GO PBSSTU, Library 6 (Fonts), and search for DRAGON.ZIP

PRODIGY: [JUMP] ZIFFNET and Select Software Library, then “Search by Title”

   Author Spotlight


About ZShare

© Copyright 1993-95 Ziff-Davis Interactive, All Rights Reserved.

Editor: David Grober (ZiffNet/CIS ID: 72241,1766   ZiffNet/PRODIGY: PPKH92E   Internet: 72241.1766@compuserve.com)
ZDI Software Library Manager: Preston Gralla

Contributing Editors: Scott Arpajian, Susan Borden, David D. Busch, Timothy Campbell, Thom Foulks, Edward Hoffman, J.W. Olsen

Staff Reviewers: Dave Burton, Jim Edwards, Joyce Mosier, Brad Thompson

Help File Production: Bob Gollihur, Wordsmith (CIS ID: 71334,2065)

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